Fast forward to the present day and, once again, it seems there’s gold in them there hills. Scenes like this were first witnessed in California 175 years ago, after the heady discovery of shimmering flakes attracted a stampede of 300,000 fortune-seekers who ended up reshaping the landscape of the American West. Nearby, his ponytailed father, who goes by the name of Nugget Nick, swirls a murky pan of sediment, locked into the eternal quest for a eureka moment. “We’ve had historic rains recently and all the gushing water has brought gold down from the hillside,” Nate says in a honeyed, Californian drawl, zipping his wetsuit up to his neck and wading into the cascading stream with a miner’s shovel in his hand. He’s a thoroughly modern gold digger - a smiling twentysomething who uploads his gilded finds to Instagram - and he has a ready explanation for why Tuolumne County in eastern California is, once again, in the grip of a gold rush. While this may sound like a sepia-tinged snapshot from another century, it’s anything but - as I discover when I meet Nate on a grassy riverbank one spring morning. ![]() ![]() ![]() As a third-generation prospector, he was raised amid the sparkling streams of California’s Gold Country, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, getting to know its watery veins as well as the life lines of his own hands. This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).Īt an age when most schoolkids are still learning to tie their shoelaces, Nathaniel Prebalick - AKA Gold Plate Nate - was teaching budding treasure hunters how to pan for gold.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |