Mountain goldmine sighs

Press, 19 May 1989, Page 9

Mountain goldmine sighs

Howard Keene, geologist and journalist, inspects the diggings of hardy souls who strove but lost in the Southern Alps

Encircled at right in the Upper Wilberforce gold workings at about 1500 m is the Mount Harman 1904 upper-mine entrance of a quartz reef, Wilson’s Reward, which outcrops above it. Wilson’s Reward was the only quartz reef in the area to hold sustained interest; it was discovered in 1882, and a low-level tunnel was driven into the mountainside in 1885. The heavy dots in the map above indicate the Main Divide of the Southern Alps. Approached on foot by the author’s party was the lower-tunnel entrance photographed at the bottom of the page.

THE UPPER Wilberforce River, a tributary of the Rakaia, is a remote area of the Canterbury high country mostly visited by trampers. From the 1860 s, however, to the turn of the century a constant procession of workers headed for the upper reaches of the Wilberforce, initially to construct a route to the West Coast over Browning Pass — a route to drive stock to the Hokitika goldfields and later for gold prospectors going to the upper Wilberforce.

On a clear, still morning in early April, this year, four of us set off by helicopter from Harper Village, Lake Coleridge, with the intention of recording what remains of the upper Wilberforce gold workings. The party consists of Poma Palmer and lan Hill, Department of Conservation, Christchurch; Robin Smith, the manager of Craigieburn Forest Park; and myself. The Canterbury Regional Committee of the Historic Places Trust paid for the helicopter.

The area we are to look at, although just inside Canterbury, became known as the Westland Reefs. Tracing quartz with signs of gold mineralisation in the gravels of the Wilberforce led the early prospectors to the discovery of a number of quartz reefs, which were given names like Wilson’s Reward, Fiddes Reward and Pfahlerts Reefs. These mostly occur high in the ranges in very difficult and broken country. ' \ Of the quartz reefs in the area the Wilson’s Reward Reef was the only one to sustain- interest over a period of time. In “Geological Survey Bulletin No. 1” by J. M. Bell and C. Fraser in 1906, they record that Wilson’s Reward was discovered in 1882 by Charles Stuart MacGregor, a West Coast prospector. A prospecting company was formed in Christchurch to exploit the find. Three tons of ore was selected and sent to Auckland for assay from which a very high 13 ounces of gold to the ton was recorded.

A claim was later surveyed, the title granted, and the Wilberforce Gold-Mining Company was formed. In 1885 a low-level tunnel Was driven into the mountainside near the Wilberforce River, supposedly in an attempt to intersect Wilson’s Reward Reef which outcrops about 300 metres above and to the northwest of the tunnel entrance. The tunnel reached an amazing 300 m in length, but was abandoned without reaching Wilson’s Reward. It was this extraordinary tunnel which was to be the focus of our attention.

In 1902, James Darward, of Christchurch, who had been a shareholder in the original company, visited Wilson’s Reward with a well-known Westland prospector, Mr R. Hyndman. They did some surface prospecting but were stopped by bad weather.

Hyndman returned in January, 1904, and took surface samples which were assayed for gold. In November of the same year a tunnel was cut high on the mountainside, 50m below Wilson’s Reward. This tunnel was 55m in length and did actually get to the reef, but after going four metres into the reef and putting in a transverse cut, operations were abandoned, presumably because of low gold values.

According to Mona Anderson, in "The Good Logs of Algidus,” the area again received attention during the Depression when a relief scheme was created to look for gold in the Wilberforce. But it seems that nothing was found and the scheme was abandoned.

The Hughes helicopter seems heavily loaded with five people and gear as it j makes its way slowly up the wide expanses of the Wilberforce. A 10-minute trip, however, takes us to our camping site — a journey which' would probably < have taken the prospectors and their packhorses several days. OUr camping gear is unloaded and we take off again for a point about 2km further up the rocky river bed — the site of the tunnel cut deep into the mountainside.

Two of the party and surveying gear are briefly unloaded near the tunnel entrance while two of us get the pilot, Alan

Bond; to ascend vertically 300 m to try and find the outcrop of Wilson’s Reward and any evidence of the high 1904 mine. It does not take long to spot the quartz reef, a white Z-shaped body of rock outcropping across a steep ridge, standing out clearly against the brown, fractured country rocks. A few seconds later Poma Palmer lets out an exclamation: he has spotted two vertical posts of dressed timber marking the 1904 mine entrance. We photograph the features and note that the approaches to the mine look ominously steep.

The entrance to the lower tunnel is almost filled with debris which has to be shovelled away. Rocks above the tunnel are extremely fractured and friable sandstones and mudstones, riddled with small quartz veins. Fairly soon after the tunnel was abandoned in the 1880 s, an avalanche allegedly totally buried the tunnel entrance and it was lost for many years until rediscovered about 20 years ago after being re-exposed by stream erosion.

This tunnel is in very unstable rock. The roofing timbers are starting to sag and there are a number of rock falls. We have two people outside the tunnel at all times for safety reasons. Trampers and other people visiting the area should not venture

into the mine, which is unsafe and is a protected historic site from which nothing should be removed.

The tunnel is supported by timbers for the first 22m, but after that, except at one vulnerable point, there is no support. The timbers are dressed and sturdy; like everything else associated with the tunnel they must have been brought in by packhorse by the long route up the Wilberforce.

Rails run the full length of the tunnel, and the waggon is still there near the entrance, abandoned with its last load, and wheels now rusted to the rails.

An air ventilation system, still largely intact, runs the whole length of the tunnel. The ducting, 125 mm-diameter zinc pipe, goes along the top of the tunnel wall, and the sections are joined together by pieces of canvas. A hand-operated pump was used to pump fresh air to the working face. The pump is an ingenious home-made device of boxwood and tin, operated by a handle which lies on the ground beneath it.

On ledges near the tunnel entrance are an assortment of tins, an old lantern, bits of cordite, bolts and other discarded items, just as we might abandon things in our workplace if it were suddenly closed down.

Venturing further into the tunnel is not a comfortable proposition, and one begins to get a feel for the conditions under which the miners worked, far from daylight in the damp, with poor air and the threat always of a rockfall.

Alignment poles are found, placed horizontally at intervals near the roof so that they could be sure that the tunnel was heading in the right direction. On the ground beneath one alignment pole is a lead plumb bob, resting where it had fallen after the string had rotted through.

Interesting signs of the sweating workers are found along the tunnel: an area of hobnail boot prints; a workman’s leather eyepatch. According to Mona Anderson, the men put in 12-hour shifts in harsh and gruelling conditions, and she mentions two deaths from the diggings. A man called Fuller, who was leader of the party and subject to heart attacks, died one night after he came off duty. Charlie Lockwood, the owner of the Windwhistle accommodation house, lived in a small hut of his

own. After a couple of days absence he was found in his bunk — wrists slashed. The two men were buried- in a tributary of the Wilberforce, which has since been known as Grave Stream.

There has been one major rockfall in the tunnel, which was obviously causing trouble at the time of construction because extensive timbering had been used at this point. It is a heavily quartz-veined section of the tunnel, and may be the quartz reef referred to in the “Geological Bulletin” at 200 m, which was assayed and yielded very low gold values.

The rockfall almost blocks the tunnel, but we are able to climb through a small gap and venture to the end of the tunnel, one at a time for safety reasons. Beyond the fall one has the distinctly uncomfortable feeling of being a long way into the Earth with little communication to the outside world; I am aware of my pace increasing markedly to get the ordeal over as quickly as possible. Again there are discarded bits and pieces right to the end of the tunnel — tool handles, a blade off a pair of sheep shears, and then suddenly a blind end with the next section of rail on the ground ready to lay.

What happened that day 300 metres into the mountain? Per-

haps the men walked dejectedly off the job, dreams shattered after the word came that funds had dried up. More likely they got word from the company not to continue. We will never know for sure.

While half of the party spends two days in the cold and damp of the tunnel accurately recording the features, Robin Smith and I have two days in the sun looking at the geology in the area and trying to find a way to Wilson’s Reward Reef and the upper mine, which we had seen from the helicopter at about 15001600 m on the slopes of Mt Harman.

Everywhere the landscape is rugged and the rock is fractured and crumbly, making each foot or handhold a risk to the person below. Climbing the first section of scree reminds me painfully that an office job is not the ideal preparation for this type of work. Following a steep, rocky gully we eventually reach a ridge above and overlooking Wilson’s Reward and the upper mine, but separated from it by another steep, rocky gully giving no obvious access. We abandon that route and realise on the way down that the safe-looking places to ascend are much more difficult to descend.

The next day we take the more direct approach — up the creek coming down from Wil-

son’s Reward. We soon find that both branches of this creek have high waterfalls, preventing any access beyond, and the intervening ridge which would lead up to the reef is uncomfortably rugged. We did not attempt to go that way. How did the determined prospectors get to the reef? It has to be assumed that packhorses were taken up there to carry in the sizeable mine timbers and equipment, and to pack out the reported three tons of ore taken for assay. • Either there is a relatively easy route which we do not find or else the landscape has changed drastically in the last 80 years or so. We managed to collect some samples of the milky quartz coming down the creek from Wilson’s Reward, which show evidence of mineralisation — small patches of pyrite (iron sulphide) and chalcopyrite (ironcopper sulphide) — but no visible gold.

Wilson’s Reward and other quartz reefs in the area appear to be formed along shears or zones of weakness in the enclosing Torlesse sandstones and mudstones. It is probable that as the original sands and muds became deeply buried, perhaps to several kilometres, water enclosed in the sediments became chemically active under increasing temperature and pressure and dissolved large amounts of silica (the commonest element in the Earth’s crust) together with small amounts of metallic elements and sulphur. These mobilised elements were then redeposited along weaknesses in the crust as bodies of quartz with minor amounts of metallic sulphides, gold, and other trace elements.

The quartz reefs in the area seem to be bodies of rock which thin towards the edges. Wilson’s Reward is steeply tilted, but is a mere 20-30 m long at outcrop. To envisage it being continuous for 300 m or more down into the crust so that it could be intersected by the near horizontal lower tunnel was a great act of faith by the prospectors, and it seems they had negligible chance of success.

Where the prospectors lived is not clear. A small settlement did exist several kilometres downstream where Hyndman Creek flows into the Wilberforce. There is a photograph in the 1906 “Geological Bulletin” showing three cottages, and there were other buildings associated with the Browning Pass Road. The prospectors may have made the hour-long trudge down the bouldery upper Wilberforce, because the valley near the tunnel entrance is narrow, shady and eroding rapidly — not a suitable camping site. We briefly examine the Hyndman Creek cottage site and find only remains of the larger cottage in the photograph. Here dressed timber, iron, nails and wire are eroding out of the bank of Hyndman Creek. It seems that the dwelling had been destroyed at some time by a change in the course of the creek which poured water over the terrace edge behind the cottage. Bottles and tins are scattered in the scrub behind the cottage, and downstream we find an axehead with broken shaft, a padlock, and a bullet casing.

A reward of £lOOO had been offered by the Provincial Council in 1861 to anyone finding payable gold in Canterbury. However, the Upper Wilberforce quartz reefs were the only gold lodes to be discovered in the province, and they proved too difficult to work.

The road builders and prospectors have long gone, and this part of the high country has returned to the keas and trampers. Making a quick buck has been a dream of individuals and a driving force in our culture from the days of gold fever to the sharemarket speculation of recent times. But for those who looked for gold in the Canterbury high country and attempted overly ambitious projects the remoteness and ruggedness meant extreme hardships and no fortunes.

• Colour photographs by Howard Keene except the aerial one of Mount Harman and Wilson’s Reward (by Poma Palmer).