Slumach’s Gold: In Search of a Legend – and a Curse

Review By Georgia Sitara

December 20, 2024

In 1890, Slumach, an Indigenous man of the Katzie (q̓ic̓əy̓) First Nation, was charged with murder for the killing of Louis Bee, a man of mixed Kanaka and French descent. Colonial authorities announced their arrival at Slumach’s home on Pitt Lake by shooting into his cabin. Then, they seized and destroyed his ample provisions before burning his house to the ground. Their hope to “starve him out” in the cold, winter months ahead was successful. Emaciated and worn out, Slumach was put on trial, swiftly convicted of murder, and hanged in January of 1891. His burial site was only located in 2008, 117 years later.

These are the concrete facts about Slumach — the rest of the history is speculation. The original history, and primary evidence, includes no reference to gold. Years after his death, the legend about Slumach’s gold grew and spread. That’s the history the book traces.

The book opens with two boys listening to a late-night campfire story about Slumach’s gold. It was formative. Years later, all grown up, the two boys and their friend Mary set out on a lifelong quest in search of (the legend about) Slumach’s gold. Over fifty years later, this book is their third and final iteration. The first was published in 1972, the second in 2007. This new edition is a large, coffee table book with gorgeous, full page pictures of breathtaking Katzie and Stó:lō territories, maps, reproductions of primary sources, newspaper accounts, key  persons and sites in the unfolding search for Slumach’s gold. It is a beautiful book.

More than that, the book provides up to date overviews of all pertinent materials and cultural productions on the legend, including films and television series, blogs, books, research by scholars and other enthusiasts. This book is a must for gold-seekers and for those enamored with those stories.

And the curse? This is a new addition. Neither the 1972 nor the 2007 book include reference to a curse in the title and the authors do not explain its inclusion fifty-two years later. In the 1950s, a “scurrilous” (61) writer of fiction circulated the story about Slumach cursing the gold on the scaffold and “it took hold as the truth.” (64) Or was it simply a joke? Oral family history has it that Peter Pierre, Slumach’s nephew, who talked Slumach into surrendering and was with him in his final hours, broke his hip attempting to cross a creek on a fallen tree and jokingly said his uncle must have placed a curse on the area. “Unverified” reports (53) of gold seekers meeting tragic ends in their quests for Slumach’s gold adds to the mystery.

Although the book corrects some of the brutal, explicit racism of texts produced in an earlier era, the imposition of colonial law and colonial jurisdiction are taken for granted, except by Slumach’s descendants. (113 & 118) The authors would support “any initiative [like a pardon, for instance, on the grounds of self-defense] that might be taken to rectify the supreme wrong that was perpetrated against Slumach on January 16, 1891,” but they believe “such moves are not for [them] to initiate.” (172)  Despite these changes, the rights of settler and tourist gold seekers to invade Katzie lands, staking claims, and aiming to extract wealth from Indigenous territories are never problematized.  After all these years, the way this history is told fuels the search for Slumach’s gold.