Documentaries

Mountain of Gold, an epic story of boom and bust of a small northern mining town, in one of the remote area’s of British Columbia. It’s the story of Stewart, B.C. and the people who came here trying to make it searching for a fabled mountain of gold. The quest sparked a gold fever that even today hasn’t been quenched.

The story follows the towns founders the Stewart brothers who gave the town it’s name and fame. Prospectors themselves they realized that there was just as much money in creating a town as well as creating a mine. In the end they had both. Then came men like railway magnet Donald Mann who’s mere presence and the fact that he intended to construct a railway from Stewart to Edmonton created a frenzy of wealth and speculation in the growing mining town. In the end the railway went only seventeen miles before it went broke.

The show deals with the town’s first collapse which was attributed to a depression and the outbreak of war. The town basically became a ghost town, home to only 20 hardened survivors. It is a desperate mining family that stays on during these bleak times to be a witness to the discovery of the mountain of gold.

The good times return in the twenties and everyone is working. Miners and prospectors become an everyday concern for the only police officer for hundreds of miles. He is a burly immigrant and a veteran of the BC police force named Corporal Lance Potterton. His job is to keep peace in the area as well as keep a watchful eye on the tolerated, yet not accepted ladies on the line.

Mountain of Gold depicts the last days of the town before the great depression in the thirties. It is not so much a story of a mining town but of the people who lived and worked there. Much of the story is in their own words extracted from diaries and journals.

*PRODUCER Ron Goetz *DIRECTOR Chris Triffo

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