“Still Gold in Them Thar Hills” (NFB, 1951)

View Eye Witness No. 30 at the NFB.ca site

This 1951 NFB newsreel is entitled Eye Witness No. 30.  The first item on the reel, “Still Gold in Them Thar Hills,” shows how—90 years after the Cariboo Gold Rush—the precious metal is still being extracted from historic gold fields in and around Williams Creek, B.C.  The item highlights the tools and techniques of mechanized and hydraulic placer mining. (Duration: 2:17.)

Here’s the NFB description of the complete newsreel:  “These vignettes from 1951 covered various aspects of life in Canada and were shown in theatres across the country. Subjects included here are British Columbia’s Cariboo Trail, once the scene of a great gold rush and which still pays off for the placer miner and occasional prospector; Canada’s new state residence at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, a redesigned old stone mansion destined to become Canada’s No. 10 Downing Street; a unique ceremony in remote Chesterfield Inlet as an Inuit girl receives the veil of the Grey Nuns; Great Lakes conservationists outsmart the eel-like bloodsucker that preys on fish; and the new blue model uniforms designed for the Women’s Division of the Air Force.”