This earthcache was placed with permission from Voyageurs National Park. No physical cache has been placed. Please stay on the trails.
Note: A boat is needed to get to this cache. There is a tour available out of the Rainy Lake Visitor Center that will take you to this island. Reservations are often needed.
When you think of a gold rush, you probably think of California, but in the 1890’s there was a bit of a gold rush on Rainy Lake.
What would you do if you found a rich deposit of gold? It seems like a fairy tale, but since before the United States became a country people have looked and mined for gold on this continent hoping to get rich.
While it is nice to think that where you find gold, you will find a lot more gold that is not always the case. Gold is an interesting element and mineral and how and where it gets deposited has been driving gold prospectors for centuries.
Voyageurs National Park is unique because of its geological makeup. Some of the exposed stone around this park is billions of years old. That helps us understand a bit about why gold was found on Little American Island. Voyageurs National Park, and Rainy Lake specifically, is located in a wedge zone between the Quetico Fault and the Rainy Lake-Seine River Fault. Where these two faults come together at the wedge is an unusual assortment of metamorphic, sedimentary and volcanic rock.
It is believed that when the earth formed billions of years ago some of that old rock eventually made its way to the surface where these faults meet. A lot of that old rock was warn away by the work of erosion and glaciers over time leaving rock that is 2.7 billion years old. Some of that old rock had gold veins.
At the earth’s core the rock is molten. As the earth was forming some of that molten rock moved closer to the surface and eventually cooled and hardened. When it hardened it had other minerals present in it, gold was one of those minerals. While we would like to think that gold would be deposited in a predictable pattern that is simply not the case. This is why the gold mine at Little American Island was modestly profitable, while all the other islands where it was mined, were not. Gold veins are not predictable and they are hard to mine. The gold rush in California was driven by gold nuggets being found in rivers(below right), whereas the gold at Rainy Lake was found in veins through quartz (below left).
In order to log this Earthcache...
Please read the following questions and send me your answers.
- Looking at the mines at Stage 1(posted coords) and Stage 2, is there any indication that gold would be found here?
- Compare the mines at Stage 1 and Stage 2. How are they similar? How are they different?
- Using the map above and standing at Stage 3, look out to the east. Do you notice a pattern with the location of the mine sites on Rainy Lake? What is it?
- Do you think there is more gold to be mined on Little American Island? Why or why not?
- Post a picture of yourself or a signature item on the island.
Sources:
A Story Written in the Rocks by Chris. B Hemstad
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1986tegb.work..177P
http://www.prospectorsparadise.com/about-gold/geology-of-gold/
www.geology.com