Historic Drifts and Shafts Uncovered!

We're close now....
Here are two photos. One looks down into a collapsed room, at the bottom is an incline tunnel from the turn of the previous century. Dirt is piled on the roof but the walls are exposed, indicating that the miners were rooming out from the protection of their tunnel. That is, they must have been digging into the unsupported gravels to get as much pay as possible for as little timbering as they could get away with!
The other photo shows the junction of the Jimmy Allen incline with the Heron Lead itself, and a cross tunnel heading off in search of other underground treasure. The sheer volume of wood under here is amazing. It is perfectly preserved from being flooded for 100 years!

Here is a portion of a press release I wrote on the subject: "This week a local, private mining company, Devlin's Bench Mining, did what no-one has been able to do in the last 100 years. They have reached to the center of this historic ground and are beginning to excavate the remaining channel. In an intense 6 week period they have dug into the hillside and removed 250 thousand cubic metres of overburden to expose the historic shafts to the atmosphere, rather than trying to enter them from underground.

Their work has revealed a honeycomb of old shafts and drifts from turn of the century miners struggling underground in wet dangerous conditions. Pumps hoses, shovels and ore-carts have emerged from the mud and debris which has slumped into parts of the old workings. One of the partners, Rick Mason, says, “This is an incredibly exciting project. The historical connection alone is worth it, but, of course, we're here to discover gold!”

As winter closes in on the Cariboo, this mine, which is already being dusted with snow, is racing the clock to clear out the slum at the old drifts and follow the bedrock to the unexplored sections of the Heron Channel. Although this channel was sometimes as narrow as 8 feet wide it was documented to have produced over 100 ounces of gold to the lineal foot! This makes it one of the richest finds in North America, and this small company is on the verge of uncovering the remaining portions."