Back in 1974 I took my 8-year-old son David, bought a new truck and went to the Yukon to look for GOLD! Been in love with that search ever since, and have been teaching a Gold Panning Workshop for many years. AND made good money with it AND met a lot of really cool people.
See the detailed article in "The Cottage Magazine" http://www.cottagemagazine.com/ (Sept/Oct.2000 issue) by Shar Mitchell.
My workshop usually ran one evening, in a classroom situation, with all next day at the nearest creek. Whether or not there is gold on that creek is not important.
Workshops were arranged for almost any location; usually, municipal departments such as "Parks & Recreation" or schools, Universities or colleges and other groups arranged a workshop with me, and they did all the administration.
At my workshops I always gave out a handout. This covered all the important stuff.
There was so much useful information in it that I am making it available to you here; it was a huge amount of work but I finally have the booklet in PDF format. It is 33 pages. It even includes my private lecture notes and plans for building the Portasluice.
If you do not have the PDF reader, you can get it free from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html That's something every computer should have in it anyway!
So, if you want the entire 33-page handout, so you can start panning, here is what you do:
1. make a payment of $4.00 to me via Paypal: at http://www.paypal.com/ and you will need this info:
My name: Ken Laninga and my e-mail address:
2. email me at the above address and tell me. I'll email the PDF file (1.32Mb) to you. Sorry, I can't figure out how to do all that automatically. If you don't hear back from me for a few days, it means I've gone to the cabin to hunt for Diamond Willow sticks.
Happy Panning!
Gold pans were available (steel, flat-bottom, 14-inch) and a handout of some 25 pages was available as well. The evening session included lecture, show & tell, demos and video/slides. The all day session included panning, sluicing and explanation/demo of the recovery of extra-fine flour gold. THIS WORKSHOP WAS GREAT FUN and could be the start to a new career.......! If you are serious, the cost could even be tax-deductible!
At the end of the workshop I usually even had a FINAL EXAM! (a very UNusual exam!)
(these are actual comments from evaluations we did a few years)
For many many years I ran anywhere from one to seven Gold Panning workshops every summer. It was truly
great fun and I met some super people. AND made $$ doing it; does it get any better than that?! Now that
I am retired, YOU might like to take over.
Here is a little of the stuff I used to teach the workshops:
Besides that, of course, I have many gold pans (which I bought wholesale from the manufacturer) and sluice
boxes, and loads of books and pictures; a 35-year collection.
If you are seriously interested,
email me.
We could get together, with a group if you prefer (15 people maximum) and go to the nearest river
and I could go over the whole workshop to teach you what I learned over 35 years.
We can haggle over a
price for all my stuff and the day of teaching.
Yes, some of those nuggets you see there are REAL. The big
ones are NOT.
As for where and how to run the workshops, I contacted various educational organizations and they did all the advertising, registrations etc and provided a room. I only showed up to do the workshop and sent them a bill for my fee and all expenses. Organizations with which I worked included AVC or Adult Vocational Center, Parks & Recreation departments, the local College, and "Devonian Botanic Garden" which is part of the University of Alberta.
The price of gold has been rising; look at this chart:
and in late 2009, it rose above $1,000 per ounce!
Here is the class of 14 hard at work; WE FOUND GOLD too! This was on Saturday, June 1, 2002.
All that hard panning made us hungry so we swapped a few stories over lunch.
Here is a very interesting link to a site about GOLD: http://www.therockerbox.com
