Pitt Lake's Lost Gold Mine - Slumach

Slumach

Slumach was an elderly Katzie First Nation man who lived where the Pitt River flows out of Pitt Lake. Convicted of the murder of a “half-breed” know as Louis or Louie Bee on the shore of the Pitt River. Slumach died on the gallows in New Westminster in 1891. Baptized moments before his death he was given the first name "Peter", a name never used in his lifetime. His unmarked grave is in St. Peter's Cemetery in Sapperton. Slumach is mentioned for the first time as the first discoverer of the legendary gold of Pitt Lake by Wilbur Armstrong, a Washington prospector, in an interview in 1915 article in a Wisconsin newspaper reprinted in the US by other newspapers. In Canada the first mention of Slumach in association with Pitt Lake gold was in a 1926 article saying: “Slumach died and with him died the secret of a great gold mine somewhere up in that wild Pitt Lake country.” Evidently the story of Slumach and Pitt Lake gold was circulating among prospectors at that time. Only in 1939 did Slumach become a permanent part of the Pitt Lake Gold legend when Jack Mahony interviewed pioneer Hugh Murray. Although the article contains mostly “romantic fiction” it became the source of many stories about Slumach and the treasure at Pitt Lake.The imaginary “Slummock” in this article is a middle-aged “half-breed Red River Indian” hanged for murdering another “half-breed” prospector by drowning. Hugh Murray would have known the real facts. He grew up in Port Moody, not far from New Westminster and he was in his thirties when Slumach died.