More than mere survival : placer gold and unemployment in 1930s British Columbia
Date
1995
Authors
Cooper, Lesley
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Abstract
A definite and permanent placer mining culture in British Columbia provided a popular alternative to unemployment during the Great Depression. The low cost of the game and an increase in gold value made small scale placer mining more attractive than it had been for decades. It was facilitated by government, which responded to pressures from grass roots for assistance and provided financial and training incentives in reaction.
Gold panning was a unique means of survival for many unemployed during the Depression, often meaning autonomy from wage paid labour, and a subsistence income. It was also unique, because it could be a positive Depression era experience.
The individual placer miner is constructed here as a small resource entrepreneur. This approach extends the frameworks of S.D. Clark and Wallace Clement, and accounts for the existence of a permanent placer mining culture in that period and throughout much of B.C. 's social and labour history.