The goldmine problem (3)

We had arrived at claim 127, the gold claim we had inherited from our uncle, just in time for the start of summer, the brief period when the ice-hard ground of Klondike Mountain thawed sufficiently to be mined for gold.

 

We were greeted by Hudson, who led our uncle’s team of gold-diggers. We explained that we were keen to sell our inheritance as soon as possible, but could only do so if we could demonstrate its profitability. 

 

“Does it make any money?” Alun asked.

 

“Well that’s a good question,” Hudson replied. “To date we haven’t made more than a few mainland pounds, but we’ve relied on mostly on panning the river, which has only raised the occasional fragment of gold-dust.”

 

“That’s no good,” said Alun, who is something of an expert on goldmining due to a GCSE project he undertook. “You need to dig shafts, so that you can sift the very rock of the mountain in search for veins of gold.”

 

“I know that,” said Hudson. “We’d just finished digging the shafts when your uncle died. We’ve not had a chance to mine them for gold yet.”

 

We tasked Hudson with hiring a team of workers. This was easily done, as the thousands of migrants who had made their way to Klondike Island in search of their fortune were impoverished, destitute and desperate for work at any wage. It was, as the mainland council would say, an environment in which business and enterprise could thrive.

 

Alun and Hudson worked hard all summer, leading the team of minimum wage workers in mining and sifting the very rock of the mountain for gold. It was long arduous work, and there were no great million pound nuggets of gold, but there was a steady stream of gold-dust amongst the rock, enough to create a small profit, meaning that come the end of the summer we would be able to sell the claim for a ridiculous fee to one of the offshore goldmining trusts on the mainland (well, just offshore from the mainland to be precise).

 

While Alun and Hudson worked on extracting gold, I was engaged with the important task of writing up the first two chapters of this story. “Do tell people that I’m available for hire as a character,” Hudson said. “I don’t just do goldminers, I do mountain climbers, Antarctic explorers and general adventurers. I even once played a transvestite pirate, though that was in my student days.”

 

By the beginning of August we had collected enough gold to make a profit of thousands of mainland pounds, which in turn would mean we could sell our claim and return to Happy Island rich men.

 

However, it was not to be.

 

That night, we were woken early, by a terrible noise, a thunderous explosion that sounded as if the very Earth itself were being ripped apart. Grabbing our lanterns we rushed outside, where we could just about make out that the very Earth itself was being ripped apart.

 

“There’s an earthquake Jed. Run.”

 

Below us a great cavern had opened up in the earth. There was no way down, our only escape route involved climbing higher up the mountain.

 

As we climbed to safety we heard a great roar below us. From nowhere an immense river appeared, gushing through the newly created ravine.

 

“The quake must have caused a chasm all the way to the sea,” Hudson explained. “The whole area is being subsumed.”

 

I made a note that Hudson was also available for narrator-style plot summary, what a versatile character he was proving.

 

By the time the sun rose the next morning the tirade of water had settled. Our claim was now several hundred feet below us at the bottom of a lake.

 

Flooded under a veritable sea of water, there was no way now we could ever mine our claim. Such gold as we’d collected was washed away. Somewhere in that new-formed lake are the richest fish you’ll ever see, though what good that gold will do for them I can’t begin to imagine.

 

With no claim left, we had no choice, but to begin the arduous trek back to Happy Island. We had made just about enough from the sale of our first haul of gold to pay for our return trip, though all hope of riches were lost, and we would never be able to sell our worthless inheritance.

 

As we climbed on board the Happy Island hovercraft to begin our journey home we were much poorer and only slightly wiser than when we’d begun our journey.

 

There was just one decision to make. Should Alun become depressed, desolate and dejected at his brief taste of golden riches, all his rigour and passion lost in the woe of a soul soured by greed, as in the Jules Verne original, or would his return be happier, optimistic, untainted by his sad experience, as in the rewritten version of the story published by Jules’ son shortly after Jules' death.  

 

Alun made his decision quickly. With a carefree bounced he leapt onto the hovercraft. “Oh well,” he said brightly, “at least we’ll be home in plenty of time to begin our next venture. I wonder what’s for tea.”