A campfire story told nearly seven decades ago about an alleged treasure of gold buried an hour east of Vancouver has been, well, gold for a Vernon author.

Rick Antonson and his year-older brother Brian, who lives in Mission, were huddled around a campfire with four other fellows on the shores of Hatzic Lake, near Mission, in the summer of 1957. The boys had been at a week-long camp with time spent swimming, boating, fishing, and "learning how to make one's own decisions about what matters most in life."

The boys were enthralled by the camp's cook, an elderly lady, who joined them around the campfire and, one night, told the story of Slumach, an Indigenous Katzie man whose traditional territory lies in the Lower Fraser Valley. He was hunting deer in the rough mountain terrain around Pitt Lake in 1890, said the cook, when he came upon a creek filled with gold nuggets.

The cook told the lads that "there's a curse that protects his mine from discovery by anybody else."

The Antonson boys were hooked.

The pair, along with fellow writing partner Mary Trainer of Summerland, have produced three books on the legend. Slumach's Gold was first introduced in 1972, and was only 56 pages. The second edition, a 35th anniversary special in 2007, produced 160 pages. Both were bestsellers.

The third book 91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ“ Slumach's Gold - In Search of a Legend...And A Curse 91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ“ was released in November, is more than 200 pages, and contains fabulous black-and-white and colour photos. 

It currently sits at No. 4 on the B.C. Bestsellers Top 10.

"So one of the things about this book, it's a brand new book, even though it's sort of the third edition of an evolving story, evolving research," said Antonson, 74, the former CEO of Tourism Vancouver who had a big hand in bringing the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics to Vancouver/Whistler, and who turned to writing travel books upon retirement (along with the Slumach collection).

"Where this is so different, is we tell it in chronological order with the characters. The first people that went looking for the gold in the late 1800s early 1900s, then into the 1920s and then into the 1930s."

Slumach was arrested for the death of a man named Louis Bee, and the lore goes as he was prepared to be hanged, and just before the trap door opened,  Slumach uttered a curse in the Salish language, meaning 'when I die, the mine dies.' Hence the subtitle to the new book.

Antonson and his co-authors strive to try and say if the legend of the curse and the gold is true.

"Among the theories are that he may have had gold, if he did have gold, from Cariboo Gold Rush miners," said Antonson. "Or even from those up in the Klondike who made their way back down to the head of Harrison Lake so they could get down to the Fraser River so they could get to New Westminster and cash in their gold, be it dust or nuggets, whatever he had. That's one of the theories."

Another theory is that while the Pitt Lake area is not known for gold, Slumach could have found someone else's cache or been given some gold from the Bralorne area in a potlatch ceremony.

"Or he may have actually stumbled across gold," smiled Antonson. "He would have been out hunting in an area where there was logging, or there was some fishing activity. He may have been hunting for provisions for some of the logging camps or some of the construction camps.

"So he was in the wilderness, the core. And the best part of the legend is that he did, in fact, stumble across a creek that had gold nuggets that you could pick up and they were the size of walnuts. That became the most popular version of the legend."

What the Antonsons and Trainer have done with their latest version is add new riveting details to the legend of Slumach and his gold, weaving in stories of intrigue, adventure, greed, and tragedy.

Vernon author, historian, and former Morning Star columnist Ken Mather had the chance to read an advance copy of Slumach's Gold 91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ“ In Search of a Legend...And A Curse, and was suitably impressed. His review is found within the first few pages of the book.

"What makes this book stand out is the painstaking research that has gone into separating the truth from the fiction," said Mather, author of Stagecoach North: A History of Barnard's Express. "The authors have put together a well-researched, well-written book that is rich with illustrations."

For more than 130 years, people have been captivated by the story of the secret cache of gold allegedly buried near Pitt Lake. Countless prospectors, adventurers, amateur sleuths, and history buffs have attempted to find it. 

To no avail.

The book can be purchased at select Okanagan book stores or through .