WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.700 Picture this. You are standing in the middle 00:00:03.700 --> 00:00:08.160 of a brutal, unforgiving, completely frozen 19th 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.320 century wilderness. Oh wow, okay. Setting the 00:00:11.320 --> 00:00:13.580 scene. Yeah, I mean the biting wind is just howling, 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.320 the snow is blinding you, and you suddenly stumble 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:18.579 upon a deserted camp. Just out in the middle 00:00:18.579 --> 00:00:20.760 of nowhere. Exactly. You were out there looking 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:23.140 for a missing prospector, a guy who has just 00:00:23.140 --> 00:00:27.320 completely vanished into thin air, but he didn't 00:00:27.320 --> 00:00:30.239 leave completely empty -handed. Sitting right 00:00:30.239 --> 00:00:33.600 there in this freezing, empty camp is a glass 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:38.840 jar. And inside that jar, exactly 11 ounces of 00:00:38.840 --> 00:00:41.439 raw gold. Which is incredibly heavy, by the way. 00:00:41.500 --> 00:00:43.929 It is. Oh, and depending on who you ask, there's 00:00:43.929 --> 00:00:45.689 something else in there, too. A set of solid 00:00:45.689 --> 00:00:48.090 gold dentures. It is just the ultimate wilderness 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:49.770 mystery. I mean, it sounds like the opening scene 00:00:49.770 --> 00:00:51.670 is some blockbuster movie, right? Oh, totally. 00:00:51.850 --> 00:00:54.810 But this is a very real, tangible piece of North 00:00:54.810 --> 00:00:57.070 American history. And more importantly, it's 00:00:57.070 --> 00:00:59.530 the bizarre endpoint of a life that actually 00:00:59.530 --> 00:01:02.329 shaped the modern map. Welcome to the deep dive. 00:01:03.090 --> 00:01:05.510 Today, we have a really fascinating mission. 00:01:05.870 --> 00:01:08.010 We are taking the source material we've gathered 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:11.659 and we're using it to basically reconstruct the 00:01:11.659 --> 00:01:14.359 life of one of British Columbia's most flamboyant 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:16.400 historical figures. Flamboyant is definitely 00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:18.260 the right word for him. Yeah. His name was Robert 00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:21.719 Allen Brown. He lived from around 1849 to 1931. 00:01:22.060 --> 00:01:25.379 And we are going to unravel how a man who literally 00:01:25.379 --> 00:01:28.620 led the way in discovering major ore bodies across 00:01:28.620 --> 00:01:32.340 the Pacific Northwest ended up as, well, basically 00:01:32.340 --> 00:01:34.739 a ghost story in the frozen wilderness. Yeah. 00:01:34.739 --> 00:01:37.319 And to really understand how that glass jar ended 00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:39.989 up alone in the ice, we have to look past the 00:01:39.989 --> 00:01:42.189 spooky campfire tale of it all. Right, look at 00:01:42.189 --> 00:01:44.069 the facts. Exactly. We had to look at the psychology 00:01:44.069 --> 00:01:46.769 and really the economics of the people who built 00:01:46.769 --> 00:01:49.349 the Pacific Northwest mining industry. We're 00:01:49.349 --> 00:01:51.549 talking about that really rugged region spanning 00:01:51.549 --> 00:01:53.609 the border between British Columbia and the United 00:01:53.609 --> 00:01:56.810 States. That terrain is just brutal. It is. And 00:01:56.810 --> 00:01:58.930 that wilderness didn't just attract people who 00:01:58.930 --> 00:02:02.090 wanted to get rich. It attracted a very specific, 00:02:02.310 --> 00:02:05.319 deeply obsessive type of personality. Okay, let's 00:02:05.319 --> 00:02:08.099 unpack this. Because Robert Alan Brown was the 00:02:08.099 --> 00:02:11.500 absolute poster child for that exact personality. 00:02:11.580 --> 00:02:13.919 He really was. Like, depending on where he was 00:02:13.919 --> 00:02:16.259 on the map, he was known by a totally different 00:02:16.259 --> 00:02:18.810 moniker. If you were in the Similkameen district, 00:02:18.949 --> 00:02:21.129 you called him Sunset Brown. Sunset Brown. But 00:02:21.129 --> 00:02:23.490 then if you were in the boundary country, the 00:02:23.490 --> 00:02:26.729 Kootenays, or over in eastern Washington, you 00:02:26.729 --> 00:02:29.530 knew him as Volcanic Brown. Which is such a great 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:32.870 name. It really is. And to plenty of other people 00:02:32.870 --> 00:02:34.930 out there, he was just simply known as Crazy 00:02:34.930 --> 00:02:38.909 Brown. I mean, having three... distinct, highly 00:02:38.909 --> 00:02:41.729 dramatic nicknames across multiple regions. That 00:02:41.729 --> 00:02:43.289 tells you a lot about the man right off the bat, 00:02:43.449 --> 00:02:45.389 doesn't it? It really paints a picture. You do 00:02:45.389 --> 00:02:48.590 not earn that kind of regional notoriety by just, 00:02:48.870 --> 00:02:51.199 you know... Being quiet, keeping your head down, 00:02:51.620 --> 00:02:53.659 and quietly panning for gold in some stream. 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:56.379 You really don't. And the sources describe him 00:02:56.379 --> 00:02:59.300 as having this incredibly enthusiastic nature 00:02:59.300 --> 00:03:01.680 and a really flamboyant personality. Right. He 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:04.219 was a constant fixture in the mining industry 00:03:04.219 --> 00:03:06.719 news. Like, he wasn't just a guy swinging a pickaxe. 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:09.599 He was a speculator. He was a promoter, an investor. 00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:12.800 A man of many hats. Yeah. He even went so far 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:15.319 as to found an actual place called Volcanic City. 00:03:15.439 --> 00:03:17.740 Just named it right after his own nickname. Naturally. 00:03:17.860 --> 00:03:19.699 But here's the detail. that really jumped out 00:03:19.699 --> 00:03:22.539 at me from the sources. Despite finding several 00:03:22.539 --> 00:03:24.979 important ore bodies, the guy never actually 00:03:24.979 --> 00:03:27.740 became wealthy. What's fascinating here is that 00:03:27.740 --> 00:03:29.500 it feels like a striking contradiction, right? 00:03:30.439 --> 00:03:32.439 You might be wondering, if he found all this 00:03:32.439 --> 00:03:34.639 ore, why didn't he just cash out and retire to 00:03:34.639 --> 00:03:36.560 a mansion somewhere? That's exactly what I was 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:39.039 wondering. But we need to define what finding 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:41.979 an ore body actually meant back then. It is not 00:03:41.979 --> 00:03:44.259 like finding a chest of buried treasure. Right, 00:03:44.340 --> 00:03:47.710 it's not pirate gold. No, an ore body is just 00:03:47.710 --> 00:03:51.430 a massive concentration of valuable minerals 00:03:51.430 --> 00:03:54.969 that are completely embedded in solid rock. So 00:03:54.969 --> 00:03:57.270 discovering it is really only step one. You still 00:03:57.270 --> 00:03:59.490 have to get it out. Exactly. Getting it out of 00:03:59.490 --> 00:04:01.449 the ground, processing it and getting it to market 00:04:01.449 --> 00:04:03.849 that requires an entirely different skill set 00:04:03.849 --> 00:04:07.490 and massive amounts of capital. Which brings 00:04:07.490 --> 00:04:10.460 us to Volcanic City. Because that wasn't just 00:04:10.460 --> 00:04:12.699 some rough campsite in the woods. No, not at 00:04:12.699 --> 00:04:15.479 all. The sources explicitly call it a smelting 00:04:15.479 --> 00:04:17.899 town, which means he wasn't just trying to dig 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:19.699 rock out of the ground. He was trying to build 00:04:19.699 --> 00:04:23.399 this huge industrial hub where they literally 00:04:23.399 --> 00:04:26.439 melted the ore down to extract the base metals. 00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:29.600 Yeah, and building a smelter requires blast furnaces, 00:04:30.019 --> 00:04:32.720 hundreds of workers, rail lines. Bragging heavy 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:35.379 machinery through unmapped wilderness? Precisely. 00:04:35.629 --> 00:04:38.129 The logistical nightmare of building a smelting 00:04:38.129 --> 00:04:41.470 town from scratch out there is staggering, and 00:04:41.470 --> 00:04:44.410 that is exactly why Brown died poor despite his 00:04:44.410 --> 00:04:47.110 discoveries. It just costs too much. Right. The 00:04:47.110 --> 00:04:49.310 people who got rich in the 19th century mining 00:04:49.310 --> 00:04:52.029 booms were rarely the actual prospectors who 00:04:52.029 --> 00:04:55.009 found the ore. Ah, I see. The wealth went to 00:04:55.009 --> 00:04:57.089 the pragmatic conservative investors sitting 00:04:57.089 --> 00:04:59.540 in comfortable offices in, you know... Vancouver, 00:04:59.879 --> 00:05:01.860 Seattle, or London. They're the ones who came 00:05:01.860 --> 00:05:04.060 in later to finance all that heavy infrastructure. 00:05:04.379 --> 00:05:06.079 You know, looking at how this all played out, 00:05:06.220 --> 00:05:08.399 I realize exactly who Robert Allen Brown reminds 00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:11.110 me of. Oh, yeah. He's basically the 19th century 00:05:11.110 --> 00:05:13.850 equivalent of a charismatic visionary tech startup 00:05:13.850 --> 00:05:16.529 founder. That's a really interesting way to look 00:05:16.529 --> 00:05:19.470 at it. Right. But he's functioning like a biological 00:05:19.470 --> 00:05:22.410 enzyme for the frontier economy. A biological 00:05:22.410 --> 00:05:25.269 enzyme? How so? Well, think about what an enzyme 00:05:25.269 --> 00:05:28.250 does in a chemical reaction. Its entire job is 00:05:28.250 --> 00:05:31.269 to lower the activation energy required for a 00:05:31.269 --> 00:05:33.370 massive reaction to take place. OK, I'm following 00:05:33.370 --> 00:05:36.779 you. By himself. Brown doesn't have the energy 00:05:36.779 --> 00:05:40.480 or the money to build the mines. And those safe, 00:05:40.839 --> 00:05:43.100 conceivative investors in the city, they are 00:05:43.100 --> 00:05:45.540 never going to just throw millions of dollars 00:05:45.540 --> 00:05:48.639 at a blank spot on a map. They are way too risk 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:51.060 averse. So the reaction won't happen. Exactly. 00:05:51.180 --> 00:05:53.259 The reaction stalls. They need a reason to believe. 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:55.399 They need the risk to be lowered before they 00:05:55.399 --> 00:05:58.569 jump in. Yes. So men like Brown, with their flamboyant 00:05:58.569 --> 00:06:01.029 personalities and endless promotion, they are 00:06:01.029 --> 00:06:03.629 the enzyme. They go out into the deadly wilderness, 00:06:04.110 --> 00:06:06.709 take on 100 % of the physical risk, and make 00:06:06.709 --> 00:06:08.689 those initial discoveries. And then they start 00:06:08.689 --> 00:06:10.910 talking? Exactly. They generate the hype. Their 00:06:10.910 --> 00:06:13.870 loud public personas act like a flare sent up 00:06:13.870 --> 00:06:16.189 in the wilderness. They lower the risk energy 00:06:16.189 --> 00:06:19.009 just enough for the massive banks to finally 00:06:19.009 --> 00:06:21.029 invest their capital. That makes perfect sense. 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:23.980 Brown built the hype. He launched the beta product. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:26.120 He got the railroads built. But he just couldn't 00:06:26.120 --> 00:06:28.540 monetize his own hype. So the investors reap 00:06:28.540 --> 00:06:30.279 the rewards while he went right back out into 00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:33.319 the woods. That is a phenomenal way to understand 00:06:33.319 --> 00:06:37.360 the ecosystem of frontier speculation. The market 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:41.019 actually required men like Brown. They were entirely 00:06:41.019 --> 00:06:43.639 necessary catalysts for the regional economy. 00:06:43.740 --> 00:06:46.800 Even if they died broke. Right. Because without 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:49.160 their absolute willingness to risk their lives 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:51.720 and their sanity for the pitch. The infrastructure 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:54.899 would never have followed them. But this raises 00:06:54.899 --> 00:06:57.040 the question of what was actually fueling Brown. 00:06:57.259 --> 00:06:59.579 Right. Why keep doing it? Because he wasn't just 00:06:59.579 --> 00:07:01.680 throwing darts at a map to generate hype. He 00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:05.069 had a real plan. He had a very specific. deeply 00:07:05.069 --> 00:07:07.810 -held geological theory. And this brings us to 00:07:07.810 --> 00:07:10.990 the logic behind his most famous nickname, Volcanic 00:07:10.990 --> 00:07:13.009 Brown. Yeah, this is where it gets really scientific. 00:07:13.129 --> 00:07:15.050 He wasn't just wandering aimlessly around the 00:07:15.050 --> 00:07:17.689 woods. He was hunting for a specific geological 00:07:17.689 --> 00:07:19.990 signature. He was entirely focused on copper, 00:07:20.290 --> 00:07:22.670 actually. And his theory was that the absolute 00:07:22.670 --> 00:07:25.170 richest copper deposits in the Pacific Northwest 00:07:25.170 --> 00:07:27.730 hadn't even been located yet. The Big Mother 00:07:27.730 --> 00:07:30.529 Load? Exactly. He was convinced that these massive 00:07:30.529 --> 00:07:33.529 copper mother loads would exclusively be found 00:07:33.529 --> 00:07:35.829 in areas where there was evidence of past volcanic 00:07:35.829 --> 00:07:38.529 activity. So he spent a massive chunk of his 00:07:38.529 --> 00:07:41.449 life obsessively scouring the boundary country, 00:07:41.649 --> 00:07:44.490 specifically searching for this volcanic evidence. 00:07:45.050 --> 00:07:47.670 But I have to ask about the science here. Why 00:07:47.670 --> 00:07:51.850 would someone link ancient volcanoes to undiscovered 00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:54.550 copper? Well, the geology behind it is actually 00:07:54.550 --> 00:07:57.089 entirely sound. Oh, really? Yeah. Why do volcanoes 00:07:57.089 --> 00:08:00.180 mean copper? When magma pushes up from deep within 00:08:00.180 --> 00:08:02.819 the Earth's crust, it superheats the surrounding 00:08:02.819 --> 00:08:05.579 rock and the groundwater. This creates these 00:08:05.579 --> 00:08:08.300 intensely hot, pressurized hydrothermal fluids 00:08:08.300 --> 00:08:10.540 that are incredibly rich in dissolved metals, 00:08:11.019 --> 00:08:13.449 including copper. Wow, like an underground pressure 00:08:13.449 --> 00:08:15.269 cooker. That's exactly it. And when that fluid 00:08:15.269 --> 00:08:17.449 eventually cools down and solidifies in the cracks 00:08:17.449 --> 00:08:20.769 of the surrounding rock, it leaves behind massive, 00:08:21.350 --> 00:08:23.930 concentrated copper veins. So he's out there 00:08:23.930 --> 00:08:26.889 looking for the physical footprint of these ancient 00:08:26.889 --> 00:08:29.930 hydrothermal vents. Exactly. He's looking for 00:08:29.930 --> 00:08:33.070 the rust -colored staining on rocks, what geologists 00:08:33.070 --> 00:08:35.809 call gossens. Gossens, right. They indicate those 00:08:35.809 --> 00:08:38.830 ancient, cooled hydrothermal systems. But hold 00:08:38.830 --> 00:08:41.240 on a second. If that is true, I have to push 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:43.600 back on the whole crazy Brown narrative. How 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:45.720 do you mean? Well, you're telling me he has a 00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:49.179 logical hypothesis driven approach to finding 00:08:49.179 --> 00:08:52.259 copper. He understands the geological mechanisms. 00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:55.720 He has a theory and he's out in the field rigorously 00:08:55.720 --> 00:08:58.519 testing it. That's all true. Why on earth did 00:08:58.519 --> 00:09:01.320 his peers label him crazy? That sounds like a 00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:04.039 dedicated field scientist, not a madman. If we 00:09:04.039 --> 00:09:06.340 connect this to the bigger picture, you have 00:09:06.340 --> 00:09:08.299 to view this through the lens of the average 00:09:08.299 --> 00:09:11.399 19th century miner. to understand why they thought 00:09:11.399 --> 00:09:13.620 he was losing his mind. Okay, fair enough. The 00:09:13.620 --> 00:09:16.200 line between a visionary and a crazy person is 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:18.200 very often just a matter of social perception 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:21.340 and frankly timelines. Put yourself in the boots 00:09:21.340 --> 00:09:23.360 of the average guy with a pickaxe at that time. 00:09:23.659 --> 00:09:27.059 I imagine I'm pretty tired, cold, and I just 00:09:27.059 --> 00:09:30.519 want to get paid. Right. Most miners were intensely 00:09:30.519 --> 00:09:32.679 pragmatic. They were playing a very short game. 00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:34.799 Just trying to survive. Their goal was to find 00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:37.879 a decent vein of gold or silver, dig it out, 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:40.919 cash it in and hopefully buy a saloon or warm 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:42.879 house in the city before the winter killed them. 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:45.419 Yeah, that sounds reasonable. They wanted a guaranteed 00:09:45.419 --> 00:09:48.950 immediate payday. Brown, on the other hand, was 00:09:48.950 --> 00:09:51.330 playing an infinitely long game. He wasn't looking 00:09:51.330 --> 00:09:53.289 for a quick paycheck at all. He was looking for 00:09:53.289 --> 00:09:56.129 the ultimate geological master key. Exactly. 00:09:56.190 --> 00:09:59.129 To spend decades of your life engaging in back 00:09:59.129 --> 00:10:01.549 -breaking labor, completely ignoring smaller 00:10:01.549 --> 00:10:04.509 profitable strikes, because you are single -mindedly 00:10:04.509 --> 00:10:07.509 searching for a theoretical copper motherlode 00:10:07.509 --> 00:10:10.429 based on a personal volcanic hypothesis. That 00:10:10.429 --> 00:10:12.070 would definitely look weird to the other guys. 00:10:12.289 --> 00:10:14.750 That level of obsession completely alienates 00:10:14.750 --> 00:10:17.830 you from everyday people. To the pragmatic minor, 00:10:18.190 --> 00:10:21.929 passing up a sure thing to chase a grand, unproven 00:10:21.929 --> 00:10:25.049 theory just looks like madness. Because he refused 00:10:25.049 --> 00:10:26.929 to play by their rules. He wasn't functioning 00:10:26.929 --> 00:10:29.950 on their economic timeline. Right. When your 00:10:29.950 --> 00:10:33.330 hypothesis becomes your entire identity, society 00:10:33.330 --> 00:10:36.590 tends to view that singular focus as a kind of 00:10:36.590 --> 00:10:39.490 insanity, regardless of whether the underlying 00:10:39.490 --> 00:10:42.230 science is perfectly sound. That's so true. It 00:10:42.230 --> 00:10:44.529 really highlights just how intense and consuming 00:10:44.529 --> 00:10:47.090 the prospector's life could be. That completely 00:10:47.090 --> 00:10:49.389 reframes his whole identity for me. He wasn't 00:10:49.389 --> 00:10:51.950 crazy. He was just completely consumed by the 00:10:51.950 --> 00:10:54.190 grand theory. Yeah, absolutely consumed. But 00:10:54.190 --> 00:10:57.129 that kind of absolute uncompromising obsession 00:10:57.129 --> 00:11:00.230 has a terrifying downside. When your entire identity 00:11:00.230 --> 00:11:03.029 is tied to finding the next big strike, you lose 00:11:03.029 --> 00:11:05.490 the ability to stop. You don't know when to quit. 00:11:06.210 --> 00:11:08.710 Exactly. And for Brown, that inability to turn 00:11:08.710 --> 00:11:10.889 back is what eventually marched him right up 00:11:10.889 --> 00:11:12.970 into the ice. Which brings us to the shift from 00:11:12.970 --> 00:11:16.090 copper to gold. Right. In his later years, Brown 00:11:16.090 --> 00:11:18.710 actually shifted his focus away from his volcanic 00:11:18.710 --> 00:11:21.789 copper theory. He started chasing a very specific, 00:11:22.049 --> 00:11:24.950 almost mythological target. The fabled lost gold 00:11:24.950 --> 00:11:27.490 mine near Pitt Lake. Yes. And this is where his 00:11:27.490 --> 00:11:30.169 timeline abruptly ends. He vanished into the 00:11:30.169 --> 00:11:32.470 country beyond the upper valley of the Pitt River. 00:11:32.690 --> 00:11:35.279 To understand this you really have to picture 00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:38.399 the geography of the upper valley of the Pitt 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:40.779 River and the Stave Glacier. This rough, right. 00:11:40.860 --> 00:11:43.620 That is an understatement. This is not a place 00:11:43.620 --> 00:11:47.220 you just take a casual walk in. It is a notoriously 00:11:47.220 --> 00:11:50.759 rugged, incredibly dangerous area. Like vertical 00:11:50.759 --> 00:11:54.039 drops and stuff. Oh, yeah. It's a maze of vertical 00:11:54.039 --> 00:11:57.440 granite walls, unpredictable violent weather 00:11:57.440 --> 00:12:01.580 systems, and deep fatal crevasses that are just 00:12:01.580 --> 00:12:04.240 hidden under fragile snow bridges. Wow. So it's 00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:06.240 an environment that actively wants to kill you. 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:08.970 Pretty much. And eventually, searchers did actually 00:12:08.970 --> 00:12:10.990 find his camp. It was located at the foot of 00:12:10.990 --> 00:12:13.370 the Stave Glacier, at the head of the Stave River, 00:12:13.549 --> 00:12:16.210 which is the next basin east of the pit's upper 00:12:16.210 --> 00:12:18.470 course. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:12:19.070 --> 00:12:21.610 This is the locker room wilderness mystery. They 00:12:21.610 --> 00:12:24.309 find the camp, but there is absolutely no trace 00:12:24.309 --> 00:12:26.889 of Robert Alan Brown. Nothing at all. No human 00:12:26.889 --> 00:12:30.009 remains, no torn clothing, nothing. But sitting 00:12:30.009 --> 00:12:33.090 right there in the camp is a glass jar containing 00:12:33.090 --> 00:12:36.289 exactly 11 ounces of raw gold. Let's put that 00:12:36.289 --> 00:12:39.769 into perspective for a second. 11 ounces of gold 00:12:39.769 --> 00:12:42.129 is a significant amount of physical weight to 00:12:42.129 --> 00:12:44.389 carry in your pack. Yeah, that's heavy. And it 00:12:44.389 --> 00:12:46.889 represented a massive amount of wealth. I mean, 00:12:46.889 --> 00:12:49.169 think about it. It's the combination of months, 00:12:49.289 --> 00:12:52.529 maybe years, of freezing, backbreaking labor. 00:12:52.610 --> 00:12:54.850 Just sitting there. For a prospector to just 00:12:54.850 --> 00:12:57.529 leave it sitting in a glass jar in an empty camp. 00:12:58.259 --> 00:13:00.679 defies all logic. Which is exactly why the mind 00:13:00.679 --> 00:13:03.320 races. I mean, if he was attacked by a bear or 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:05.600 a mountain lion, where are the remains? Animals 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:08.379 don't neatly set aside a glass jar of gold before 00:13:08.379 --> 00:13:10.720 dragging off a body. No, they definitely don't. 00:13:10.860 --> 00:13:13.419 And if he was robbed and murdered by other prospectors, 00:13:13.620 --> 00:13:16.059 why on earth would the killers leave behind the 00:13:16.059 --> 00:13:18.279 heavy, valuable gold they presumably murdered 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:21.600 him for? It makes no sense. It is a perfect void 00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:25.080 of information. And nature hates a void, so human 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:27.690 nature steps in to fill it. Naturally. Which 00:13:27.690 --> 00:13:29.730 brings us to the most bizarre detail of the entire 00:13:29.730 --> 00:13:33.009 story. The denture paradox. The denture paradox. 00:13:33.169 --> 00:13:35.750 I love this part. The historical sources actually 00:13:35.750 --> 00:13:37.850 give us completely conflicting accounts of what 00:13:37.850 --> 00:13:40.669 happened to his solid gold dentures. It's so 00:13:40.669 --> 00:13:43.129 strange. One version of history says that there 00:13:43.129 --> 00:13:45.570 were absolutely no remains found, not even his 00:13:45.570 --> 00:13:48.149 gold teeth, meaning he completely vanished under 00:13:48.149 --> 00:13:51.049 the ice and his teeth vanished with him. Right. 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:54.379 But another version of the exact same story insists 00:13:54.379 --> 00:13:57.000 that his solid gold dentures were the only remains 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:00.159 ever found. Just sitting there. Yes, sitting 00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:03.259 right there inside the glass jar, resting on 00:14:03.259 --> 00:14:06.200 top of the raw gold. This raises an important 00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:09.220 question, though. How does history get so tangled 00:14:09.220 --> 00:14:12.080 up that we don't even know if a man's solid gold 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:15.159 teeth were sitting in a jar or lost to the glacier? 00:14:15.259 --> 00:14:18.539 It's wild. It raises a profound point about the 00:14:18.539 --> 00:14:20.919 exact place where history and myth intersect. 00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:23.379 Because when you think about it, the contradictory 00:14:23.379 --> 00:14:26.360 stories about those cool dentures perfectly encapsulate 00:14:26.360 --> 00:14:28.720 Robert Allen Brown's entire life. You mean because 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:30.899 his life was already more fiction than fact to 00:14:30.899 --> 00:14:33.440 the people around him. Precisely. Think about 00:14:33.440 --> 00:14:35.970 the enzyme analogy you brought up earlier. Here 00:14:35.970 --> 00:14:38.350 was a man who spent his entire life surrounded 00:14:38.350 --> 00:14:40.629 by flamboyant rumors. He lived for the hype. 00:14:40.889 --> 00:14:43.429 He was a promoter who generated massive hype 00:14:43.429 --> 00:14:46.049 to summon whole towns like volcanic city out 00:14:46.049 --> 00:14:49.549 of the dirt. His entire existence was this loud 00:14:49.549 --> 00:14:52.370 public performance meant to blur the lines between 00:14:52.370 --> 00:14:55.330 what was real and what was merely possible. He 00:14:55.330 --> 00:14:57.889 basically trained the entire region to view him 00:14:57.889 --> 00:15:00.429 as a larger -than -life character. So is it any 00:15:00.429 --> 00:15:02.470 surprise that his death immediately became a 00:15:02.470 --> 00:15:05.350 local legend? Not at all. The mundane, likely 00:15:05.350 --> 00:15:08.289 freezing, and brutal reality of dying alone in 00:15:08.289 --> 00:15:11.470 a glacier basin just wasn't a good enough story 00:15:11.470 --> 00:15:14.110 for a man named Volcanic Brown. It's too boring. 00:15:14.429 --> 00:15:17.110 Right. The flamboyant rumors he cultivated in 00:15:17.110 --> 00:15:19.610 life completely obscured the actual facts of 00:15:19.610 --> 00:15:22.149 his tragic end. He hyped the Pacific Northwest 00:15:22.149 --> 00:15:24.919 so effectively that the Pacific North last hyped 00:15:24.919 --> 00:15:27.139 his death. That's exactly it. The collective 00:15:27.139 --> 00:15:29.360 memory of the region just did what he had taught 00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:31.679 it to do. It promoted him. It turned a missing 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:34.240 person into a towering tall tale about a jar 00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:36.740 of gold and a set of solid gold teeth. It is 00:15:36.740 --> 00:15:39.320 the ultimate enduring legacy of a 19th century 00:15:39.320 --> 00:15:42.120 promoter. So what does this all mean for us today? 00:15:42.539 --> 00:15:45.980 Let's bring this back to the present. Robert 00:15:45.980 --> 00:15:49.120 Alan Brown, for all his eccentricities, his brilliant 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:51.700 geological theories, and his failures to capitalize 00:15:51.700 --> 00:15:54.809 on his own discoveries. He actually left a physical 00:15:54.809 --> 00:15:57.690 legacy on the modern map. He did. If you look 00:15:57.690 --> 00:16:00.129 at British Columbia today, there are places permanently 00:16:00.129 --> 00:16:02.389 named for him. Right. You have Volcanic Creek 00:16:02.389 --> 00:16:05.419 and you have Brown Creek. Yes, and both of those 00:16:05.419 --> 00:16:08.539 creeks feed into the Granby River, about 15 kilometers 00:16:08.539 --> 00:16:10.919 upstream from the town of Grand Forks, right 00:16:10.919 --> 00:16:13.179 near the site where his phantom volcanic city 00:16:13.179 --> 00:16:16.320 once stood. He quite literally etched his nicknames 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:18.700 into the geography of the Earth. He really did. 00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:21.600 But beyond the map, there's a deeper psychological 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:24.320 takeaway here for you, the listener. There really 00:16:24.320 --> 00:16:27.159 is. Because while you are likely not out wandering 00:16:27.159 --> 00:16:29.419 the Stave Glacier looking for a lost gold mine, 00:16:29.740 --> 00:16:32.240 we all struggle with the exact same balance that 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:34.740 Brown did. Oh, for sure. We all face that tension 00:16:34.740 --> 00:16:38.220 between chasing our grand theories, our own personal 00:16:38.220 --> 00:16:40.679 mother loads, so to speak, and knowing when it 00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:42.960 is time to pack up camp and go home. It's the 00:16:42.960 --> 00:16:46.679 danger of the endless chase. Knowledge, ambition, 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:49.399 and a hypothesis -driven mind are incredibly 00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:51.639 powerful tools. I mean, they can literally build 00:16:51.639 --> 00:16:54.600 cities. But they require grounding. Yes, exactly. 00:16:54.740 --> 00:16:56.840 If your ambition becomes your sole obsession, 00:16:57.320 --> 00:16:59.720 you run the risk of alienating the people around 00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:02.539 you. When the chase becomes the destination, 00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:05.660 You lose your survival instincts. You forget 00:17:05.660 --> 00:17:09.720 how to stop. You lose the ability to pivot. Brown 00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:12.180 successfully pivoted his interest from copper 00:17:12.180 --> 00:17:14.779 to gold, but he could never pivot away from the 00:17:14.779 --> 00:17:17.619 physical chase itself. The chase was everything. 00:17:17.779 --> 00:17:20.900 And eventually that uncompromising drive marched 00:17:20.900 --> 00:17:23.259 him out onto the ice alone where he couldn't 00:17:23.259 --> 00:17:26.200 turn back. Which leaves us with a final lingering 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:28.680 thought for you to mull over today. Think about 00:17:28.680 --> 00:17:30.440 that freezing camp at the foot of the glacier. 00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:32.740 Make sure it. If a man spends his entire life 00:17:32.740 --> 00:17:35.299 aggressively promoting his own name, his own 00:17:35.299 --> 00:17:37.400 theories, and his own image across the Pacific 00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:40.099 Northwest, only to completely vanish without 00:17:40.099 --> 00:17:42.740 a trace, leaving behind nothing but a jar of 00:17:42.740 --> 00:17:45.299 gold and a confusing legend. Did the wilderness 00:17:45.299 --> 00:17:47.720 finally defeat the ultimate promoter? Or did 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:49.660 the wilderness actually give him exactly what 00:17:49.660 --> 00:17:52.539 he always wanted? Eternal immortality as a local 00:17:52.539 --> 00:17:55.559 legend, a ghost story with gold teeth. See you 00:17:55.559 --> 00:17:57.019 next time on The Deep Dive.