This Native Wisdom Should Have Stayed A Secret

today's story is about a rugged 86-year-old man who decides to head off into the Wilderness to try to do something that nobody else before him had ever been able to do in fact some had even died trying but before we get into that story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload once a week so if that's of interest to you please sneak into to the like button's house and replace all of their baby carrots

with regular siiz carrots also please subscribe to our Channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads okay let's get into today's [Music] story on an early morning in August of 1931 an 86-year-old man carrying a massive backpack limped into a supply store in the Tiny Town of Alvin British Columbia Canada this man's name was Robert Brown but everyone knew him as volcanic because decades earlier he had discovered a gold mine in volcanic City Canada volcanic had actually made his living as a gold prospector and he had been so

good at it that he had been able to retire early and so these days as an 86-year-old man he pretty much got to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and so inside of the supply store the young man at the cast register smiled at volcanic and offered to let him keep his backpack at the front of the store while volcanic shopped and Volcanic kind of scowled back at him I mean he took offense to this he knew how he must look to this clerk I mean volcanic was old short super skinny and he dragged

his left foot when he walked and so he figured you know this kid must think he's weak and Volcanic hated that he did not think he was weak and so he said to the guy no I can carry my bag myself thank you very much then to show the clerk there was more to him than met the eye volcanic flashed this big grin revealing this Gody enormous set of gold teeth that he had bought when he had struck at rich in volcanic City and after seeing these ridiculous gold teeth the clerk looked very taken aback

which was exactly what volcanic wanted satisfied volcanic limped past the cash register and the clerk towards the back of the store where he picked up some cooking supplies ammo for a shotgun and a pen to write in his journal and then he took everything up front to check out volcanic watched as the clerk furrowed his brow as he rang up the items clearly trying to make sense of what volcanic was up to he asked volcanic if he was going camping by the pit river that ran through town but volcanic said no he was going to

the pit River first but he was going to hike all the way along the pit River go through the mountains to another body of water called Stave Lake and before the clerk could ask any questions volcanic said he was going there because there was a hidden gold mine he was going to explore and at this volcanic watched with delight as the clerk's eyes got wide volcanic knew most people especially in this area thought this gold mine was a total myth and sure enough when the clerk recovered from his surprise he said to volcanic like hey

you really ought to reconsider going there the clerk said he had seen plenty of people come through his shop on the way out to go try to find this mine but nobody ever came back saying they had found it in fact he said that some of these people didn't come back at all at least two people had died because the hike to Stave Lake was Miles and Miles through extremely dangerous terrain volcanic waited until the clerk was done lecturing him and then he leaned over the counter and he whispered to the kid that he was

different he had a secret that would allow him and only him to find that mine successfully and when he did he would come back to the store and he would lay the gold down right on the counter just to prove it to him then volcanic left a handful of cash on the counter he gathered up his supplies flashed one more gold tooth smile and then made his way out the door a few hours later volcanic hiked uphill along the rocky banks of the pit River he'd only covered about 5 mil so far because after all

he was 86 with a bum left foot and so he moved pretty slowly these days but even still only 5 miles into the journey he already felt totally cut off from civilization the pit River was about 1,000 ft across and it was surrounded on either side by a thick forest volcanic was hiking parallel with the river with the water on his right and the trees on his left it was a stark and isolated setting that would make most people feel small and vulnerable but after so many years working as a gold prospector volcanic was very

accustomed to being out in the wilderness all by himself so this felt normal now of course decades had passed since the last time volcanic was a gold prospector but even now at his old age he still felt like he was the skilled Outdoorsman he once was volcanic kept on hiking uphill staying close to the Shore's Edge until the sun began to set and by that point the trees on the left had begun to thin out and Volcanic was finally able to see kind of far out Beyond in the direction he was going and he saw

off in the distance there were all these mountains and as soon as he could see these mountains he pulled out his journal and he flipped the last page and he studied the page and then looked at the mountains and he smiled it was going to take weeks to reach the gold mine but he knew he was going the right way because on that last page of his journal was a map this map was the secret that volcanic had told the store clerk about it was the thing that was going to allow volcanic to reach that

gold mine where so many others had not volcanic had actually drawn the map himself several years ago back then he'd been panning for gold in Northern British Columbia when he had run into this indigenous woman in the forest and this woman was deathly ill and so out of the kindness of his heart volcanic had given this woman some healing herbs and then stayed with her for days until she was nursed back to health and this woman had been so grateful to volcanic that she had told him a secret she told him that the legendary gold

mine out near Stave Lake was absolutely real and she said she knew this because her father was friends with the guy who discovered it the man's name name was slac and she said he would go into the Wilderness for days at a time and then when he came back home he'd come bearing these huge gold nuggets as big as chicken eggs and not only did this woman tell volcanic about this mine she gave him directions to it and so as she did volcanic took notes in his journal and then used those directions to construct the

map however before volcanic parted ways with this woman she gave him a warning right before he died she said slac put a curse on the mine and so now if anybody tried to reach the mine the forest itself would stop them before I became a professional strange dark and mysterious Storyteller I served in the military and during my time in the military I had some pretty wild experiences but what I remember most about my time and service was not my own stories but rather the stories I heard from other service members keep in mind service

members are sent to some of the most isolated and treacherous places in the world that very few people go to and so some of the stories that come out of those places are totally creepy and weird and even more than that a lot of these stories sort of stay in house they stay in the military just because it's kind of a cultural thing you know people don't necessarily want to go out and tell the world about the totally unsettling and inexplicable thing they saw while they were deployed it's like people might think they were crazy

but there's lots of stories like that and so if hearing some of those crazy military stories appeals to you well boy do I have a podcast for you it's called wartime stories and it's hosted by Luke lman who himself is a veteran he was a reconnaissance Marine which I can tell you is kind of a big deal and so because he has access and placement he's been able to extract some of these stories from the military and he shares them on the show and if you wanted to kind of generalize the types of stories you're

going to hear on this podcast it's like the strange dark and mysterious meets the battlefield and Beyond the wartime story podcast is free and it's available on any podcast platform so all you have to do is you know go to your favorite platform and look up wartime stories or you can search for Ballin Studios because it's produced under Ballin Studios you click on the show give it a follow and boom you can start your bench new episodes drop every Monday so if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious well you got yourself a

brand new weekly show [Music] and so now standing in a clearing beside the pit River volcanic thought back to that warning he wasn't afraid of what she said but just to be safe he figured he would spend as little time as possible in the forest and any time he needed to pitch his tent along this journey to the mine he would do so as far away from the tree line as he could this was actually volcanics second attempt at trying to reach this gold mine 5 years earlier he had attempted this exact same hike on

that attempt despite volcanic reaching the shores of Stave Lake which apparently was right near the entrance to this gold mine he had to stop because he got a severe case of frostbite on his left foot that frostbite had caused three of his toes to die and rot and so volcanic had to amputate all three of them with his pocket knife right there out in the wild no anesthetic nothing and so this is why volcanic had to turn around on that attempt and it's why he now walked with a limp and Volcanic had to admit that

the fact that had been forced to literally cut off his own toes did make it seem like he had become a victim of slac's curse but he also knew that it didn't take a curse to make the Canadian wilderness dangerous he just should have worn thicker socks just then volcanic heard a twig snap somewhere outside of his Campsite in the darkness and so instinctively he shot up he grabbed a shotgun and he turned towards the sound half expecting a bear to come charging out of the woods but after standing there for several minutes nothing came

out of the forest and eventually all volcanic could hear was was the gentle sound of his fire and the river the forest was totally still as his heartbeat slowed down volcanic told himself that you know the sound he heard must have just been a rabbit running through the forest you know nothing to worry about and so he lowered his gun and steadied his breathing and he looked at his fire and he gave half a thought to just leaving his campfire burning you know just in case he heard something else he'd have some light to go

out and see what it was but he thought he was being kind of paranoid and so he grabbed some water and put out the fire engulfing him in darkness and then he climbed into his tent and fell asleep the next morning volcanic got up at sunrise packed up his tent and his camping gear and then hiked all day long and he did this day in and day out dragging his left foot behind him for over a month volcanic knew he was moving much slower than a younger healthier man would some days he could barely travel

a mile before feeling so exhausted that he would have to stop but despite becoming skinnier and more ragged by the day volcanic kept on hiking and eventually after going all the way down the pit River and Crossing through the mountains he finally arrived at the the shore of Stave Lake the same place he'd been when he'd had to amputate his own toes but this time he was able to keep on going volcanic hiked all the way to the opposite side of Stave Lake and he came to a stop to take in the view surrounding the

lake were all these huge rolling mountains and in one spot volcanic noticed the mountains dipped down and formed a natural Bowl in the earth that was filled with this gorgeous bluish white ice now even though volcanic had never been to this place before he knew instinctively that that had to be Stave Glacier and this Glacier meant everything to volcanic because it was the last major landmark on his map on the way to this mine according to his map the entrance to the gold mine was located on the side of a mountain not far from the

glacier now volcanic wanted to keep pushing forward and try to get to this entrance as soon as possible I mean he was excited but the sun was starting to go down and he knew if he kept on going at night the risk of injury was quite high he could slip and fall and remember remember it had taken volcanic over a month to hike into this location he is way away from civilization and so if he gets hurt nobody's coming to help him and so he decided he would stop and make camp that night he pitched

his tent well away from the tree line he ate some beef jerky and biscuits and then he crawled into his sleeping bag to try to go to sleep but he couldn't he was too excited about this mine he was so close and so he laid there restlessly for hours listening to the sound of the wind pick up outside now normally the sound of the wind would help volcanic fall asleep but tonight it was not helping it was actually making him feel really uneasy the wind was loud and Fast howling across the lake and that's when

volcanic noticed that despite all the noise outside when he looked at the fabric of his tent it wasn't moving with the wind it was totally stationary and so volcanic sat up and he opened up the flap of his tent and looked outside and the second he did it got even louder you know the howling wind but he couldn't feel any wind blowing and so he struck a match and he held it out in front of his tent and the flame didn't even flicker again despite all this crazy howling sounds and that's when he realized there

was no wind and so feeling totally unsettled volcanic closed the flap of his tent got back in his sleeping bag clutching his gun you know listening to this horrifying Sound Outside that he couldn't make any sense of and then by the morning when the sun came up the sound just went away by this point volcanic was so anxious just to leave and go go to this mine that he didn't eat any breakfast he just grabbed his journal tore the map out of the last page tucked it in his back pocket and he started hiking he

still felt very uneasy about the Phantom wind he had heard all night long but now his sole Focus was on this mine he knew that if he could find it he would not only have infinite riches but he would also go down in history as like the greatest gold prospector ever and on top of that on the way back out again he could stop at that supply store and drop some gold on the counter and rub in that Clerk's face just like he said he would volcanic made his way first towards the glacier and then

up the side of a mountain he dodged tree limbs and climbed over Boulders all the while dragging his left foot on the ground and then finally up ahead he saw this dark hole on the side of a mountain and it looked like the entrance to a cave now volcanic could not see very far into that cave but he was certain the gold mine had to be inside of there and so with a rush of excitement he made his way up to the dark entryway and he stepped inside 2 months later on November 2nd 1931 that

store clerk back in Alvin looked out the front window of his store and watched the snow Begin to Fall a blizzard was coming in and all this clerk could think about was that strange old man with the gold teeth who had wandered off into the Wilderness 3 months earlier now the old man had told the clerk that he would stop by the store on his way out to prove he had found the gold however the man had not returned and so the clerk wasn't sure if that was because you know he was too embarrassed because

he hadn't found the mine or if maybe he had got gotten stuck out in the wilderness but either way the clerk just had a bad feeling that you know something bad could have happened to that guy and so just to play it safe the clerk grabbed his jacket he left the store and he went to go find the local game warden to tell him what was going on 3 weeks later that same game warden trudged through knee high snow at the edge of Stave Lake even though he and his search party were much younger and

healthier than volcanic it had still taken them weeks to arrive here mostly because of the blizzard but in all the time it took hiking to this location they had not found a single trace of volcanic the warden was beginning to wonder if this was pointless if they should just turn around and head back and that's when he looked up and he noticed the glacier on the far end of the lake and in the snow near that Glacier was this little pop of color the warden pointed it out to his men and they all began running

towards it and as they got closer they realized what this thing was was a tent that had collapsed under the snow and then once they actually reached the tent they shoveled off all the snow and sort of popped it back up and they looked inside but volcanic was not in there instead they found an empty sleeping bag they found some cooking supplies a shotgun some ammo and a journal that's last page was missing but there was also one more thing that was inside of this tent on the floor right near the opening flap of this

tent was a glass jar the warden picked it up and he looked inside and he gasped volcanic Brown was never seen again and no explanation for what happened happened to him was ever uncovered his body was never found and there were no signs of struggle anywhere in or near his campsite but the contents of that glass jar that was found inside of the tent proved that either slax gold mine or slax curse was real there are two slightly different versions of what people believe was found inside of that jar the first is that the jar

was filled with huge nuggets of raw gold if this is true it means the gold mine did exist and Volcanic must have found it before before he disappeared but the second version of what people say was found in that jar has a much darker meaning in that version when the warden held up that jar he did see gold inside but it was not gold from the mine instead it was volcanics solid gold teeth almost a 100 years have passed since volcanic went missing and still to this day no one has ever successfully found the mine

and lived to tell the Tale But to this day people still keep looking for it and so far at least 33 people have either died or disappeared in search of it and now a clip from the newest episode of wartime stories enjoy terrified for his own life young Jose Korea fled from the area remembering what Diego Moreno had said about his terrible dream for some 25 years Jose resisted the urge to return to find the buried treasure himself the passage of time however eventually dissipated Korea's fear after a long and wearisome career as a police

officer he would do anything to secure an early retirement and the Temptation was too much to resist after learning from major Bell that only one parcel had been uncovered by The Basque Shepherd who had then returned home to Spain unharmed koreo reasoned that he could safely return to the location and find the remaining five the Fresno tree had long since been cut down but karea suggested that he and his friend major Bell go out and acquire a lease for the land where the tree Once stood under the pretense of farming they could then plow the

area and turn up the remaining Parcels without arousing any curiosity at First Belle said he wholeheartedly agreed to the idea however their plans would quickly go arai so that's going to do it if you want more strange dark and mysterious content remember we have a whole slew of podcasts under the Ballin Studios umbrella they are the Mr Ballin podcast Mr ballin's medical Mysteries run full Bedtime Stories and wartime stories all of them are free there are loads of episodes and they are all of the strange dark and mysterious variety all you have to do is

go to any podcast platform look up ball and Studios and boom there are all of our podcasts for you to go binge thank you very much until next time see you