Outside Adventure to the Max: John Marshall

Gaily bedlight, A gallant knight, in sunshine and in shadows had journeyed long, singing a song, in search of Eldorado --- Edgar Allan Poe

The picturesque Coloma river valley is stunning with beauty and steep in history. It was there, not far from where I slid my kayak in the churning flow of the South Fork of the American River, it all happened.

The quirky and rather odd John Marshall had a scheme about getting a sawmill going on the banks of the river for the much-needed lumber for the influx of new settlers coming to California. Financially funded by John Sutter, Marshall was constructing the mill in the Coloma Valley. By January 1848, workers had erected a building, installed the machinery and a water wheel, and dug a ditch to divert water from the river. Inspecting the work, Marshall peered down into the trail trace through a foot of water. If there would have been a camera there to record it, this is what we would have done seen.

"My eye caught a glimpse of something shining in the bottom of the ditch," Marshall gave a historical account, "I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold."

Lake Jenkinson

And as the story goes, after he found those flakes precious metal of metal, it ushered in a wave of steely-eyed prospectors. Along with them came adventurous storytelling photographers ready to capture the historic frenzy around them. The Gold Rush was the first event in the country to be documented extensively through the then-new medium of photography.

Using daguerreotypes, an early photographic process employing an iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapor. Photographers would polish a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish, treat it with fumes that made its surface light-sensitive, and expose it in a camera for as long as it was judged to be necessary. It could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer for regarding the light; removed its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment; rinsed and dried, and then sealed the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure.

The photographers would travel about in wagons/studios, taking portraits of the miners young and old, holding the tools of their trade, a shovel, a pick, a pan. Some would even show off their precious nuggets or flakes of gold. They would show the men working as they dug away at the earth, searching for Mother Lode.

Lake Jenkinson & Sly Park Paddle Rentals

Their images were also the first to detail the environmental damage inflicted on the landscape.
Pictures show men digging away with shovels and building scaffolds in large mining operations that upheave the earth and ripped away hillsides.
The first prospectors worked their claims manually with pans and picks. But, as more arrived, the miners took to diverting entire rivers and using high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment to speed up their excavations. This caused a devastating effect on the riparian natural countryside. Long after the hype for gold subsided, much of the environmental damage of this form of mining still lasts to this day.

Lake Clementine & Robber's Roost

Their haunting images captured historic people and places I now call home. As I document my paddling adventures, it's a bit easier with our cell phone technology. I only hope that can create the same excitement of the Gold Rush. So as 2022 draws to a close, let's look back at some of my favorite images from this past year.