Abstract:
Every time I woke up in my tent exhausted, hurt, hungry, broke and ready to abandon the dream, my gold fever flared up. The only cure was to suit up, drop into the icy river, move hundreds of tons of rock and find another cache of gold nuggets. In my fevered delirium, I’d forget about the cave-ins, rattlesnakes, mountain lions and how often my own inexperience and stupidity nearly killed me. Once I Was a Gold Miner tells about the three years I spent dredging for gold in Cali-fornia and Arizona rivers along with my favorite memories from the times before and since.