Golden couple Marty Yanishewski and Renee White, captured on one of their many panning expeditions. (Submitted by Marty Yanishewski and Renee White)
Marty Yanishewski has an unusual passion: panning for gold.
“You get the fever,” said the 55-year-old Edmonton man, laughing. “I’ve been doing this for 22 years now and you just keep learning everyday and keep going.”
For most of those 22 years, Yanishewski was panning alone.
But that changed a few years ago, when he met his girlfriend and future prospecting partner, Renee White, at a local dance hall.
My mom was so independent and then she met Marty and became a gold digger!– Renee White’s son, on his mom’s romance
“At that point he was the president of the gold prospecting club that he was part of,” said White.
“When I had mentioned to my son about the gold panning, his little joke was, ‘My mom was so independent and then she met Marty and became a gold digger!'”
Marty Yanishewski stands in the North Saskatchewan River, panning for gold. (Tanara McLean/CBC)
‘The romance of gold panning’
Yanishewski stands a few meters from shore on the North Saskatchewan River, just blocks from downtown Edmonton. He shovels sand and gravel into a large, flat, black plastic dish.
“I love the romance of gold panning,” he says, not missing a beat from what he’s doing.
His pan is piled about 10 inches high with grit and large stones. He slowly lowers it into the water, and little by little he washes it all away until there’s only a couple of teaspoons of fine sand.
“You’ve just got to slowly, meticulously make the water dance kind of up and down the pan,” Yanishewski says as he shakes the pan.
“If you go too hard with the water you’ll wash all the gold away.”
And, like magic, within view of the Edmonton skyline — right there at the top of the pan, a layer of gold dust starts to emerge as the last of the sand and silt washes away.
The secret to striking gold? “You’ve just got to slowly, meticulously make the water dance, kind of up and down the pan,” says Yanishewski. (Submitted by Marty Yanishewski and Renee White)
Gold fever lives on
Between 1896 and 1899, about 100,000 people came from all over North America to Dawson City, Yukon, when settlers realized there was gold along the Klondike River.
Prospectors from west and south of Alberta plotted a course through Edmonton on their way to imagined riches.
A lot of them lost everything they had, but a handful made a fortune.
Yanishewski first learned about gold panning at the annual Klondike Days festival in Edmonton during the early 90s.
It was an all-out period festival. People dressed up in late 19th century outfits, with a portion of downtown closed off to create a western promenade.
Yanishewski enjoyed the festival, but it was gold panning that won his heart.
Marty and Renee, decked out in their finest period panning outfits. (Submitted by Marty Yanishewski and Renee White)
Two hearts, one pan
Yanishewski soon found there are a couple of main panning methods.
The traditional pan is a basic method, but Yanishewski said the options for the device you use are endless.
“There’s hundreds of different kinds of pans. I’ve actually panned gold out of a coffee cup, so you can use almost anything that’s pan shaped,” he said.
The second method is something called a sluice box. It’s a technology that hasn’t changed in hundreds of years, which lets prospectors use gravity and water to wash away larger amounts of gravel.
Marty and Renee using a sluice box, a gold panning technology that works best with two people. Marty was stuck using the traditional pan method until he met his prospecting partner, Renee. (Submitted by Marty Yanishewski and Renee White)
Sluicing for love
But this device usually works best with two people, something that became a possibility when Yanishewski met White.
“One person shovels the gravel, the other pours the water,” said Yanishewski.
At first White was happy going with Yanishewski to different gold panning competitions in Canada and the United States. Once she built up her own skills, she also took the plunge into competing.
You have to be like a partner and hold each other… and try to pan out gold.– Marty Yanishewski
“When I actually got to stick a shovel in the dirt, and throw it into a pan, and there was actually gold in the dirt that I had shovelled in there, it kind of sparked that interest of, ‘Oh my god, look at what’s right underneath our feet’,” said White.
The pair have even competed together, at the same time with the same pan.
“You have to be like a partner and hold each other… and try to pan out gold,” said Yanishewski. “Neither one could actually try to take the lead. We had to learn a lot of partner [skills.]”
Before meeting Marty, Renee had never panned for gold. Now she’s a talented prospector – or “gold digger”, as her son jokes – in her own right. (Submitted by Marty Yanishewski and Renee White)
The couple’s shared love for panning has taken them far. Long drives in the summer to rivers in B.C. have become cherished memories they believe brought them closer.
The pair remember their first ever such trip well. They’d been together for less than a year, and White had never panned before.
“He took me down to B.C. and he set everything up, and then he handed me a shovel,” White laughed,
“He said, ‘Here you go.'”
“But she’s a tough farm girl so she’s used to hard work,” added Yanishewski.
“I think that was part of his checking to see whether or not I would actually make the grade or not.”
Several years and countless gold panning excursions later, it’s clear that she did.
“We just enjoy spending time together and this is just one thing that we both enjoy with the fresh air,” said White.
Renee White and Marty Yanishewski found romance through gold panning. (Submitted by Marty Yanishewski and Renee White )
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About the Producer
Tanara McLean has been a journalist in Alberta since 2007, working as a TV reporter, print journalist, and TV morning show host. She enjoys telling stories through her journalism, and believes fully that people’s personal stories are the heart of great journalism.
Tanara is currently an associate radio producer at CBC Edmonton. Her first story with The Doc Project was ‘I’ve been dealing with Megans my whole life‘ — real talk on being a young black woman in Canada.
This documentary was edited by Veronica Simmonds.