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| A Jobe highbanker similar to the one Nancy bought. |
After she had gone with me on several gold panning trips it became apparent to Nancy
she needed some way to speed up the gold recovery. We already owned a sluicebox,
but Nancy wanted to have something different. It should be pointed out that the Internet
didn’t exist for us common folk in the early 1980s, so Nancy took up reading some back
issues of the Northern Miner that I had, a Canadian publication about the mining scene
that is still published in Toronto.
There was an advertisement for a highbanker in the Northern Miner, so Nancy sent
away for some information about this piece of gear. In essence, a highbanker is nothing
more then a sluice box that stands on stilts, and is on steroids because of the addition of a
grizzly on its business end. Some highbankers also include a pump to supply water to its
sluice. Nancy sent away for the whole works pump and all.
A couple of week’s later Nancy called me to come over to her house as quick as I could
she needed some help. I went right over, and the first inkling I had something was up
was when I saw a trailer truck parked in front of her house. Nancy was there talking
to the truck driver about several large cartons that had to be unloaded containing the
highbanker along with all its attachments including the pump and 200 feet of plastic hose
that was three inches in diameter. It took both the truck driver and me to manhandle
these cartons from the truck, and get then into Nancy’s house.
Then the unpacking began, and the first thing that became apparent was a sign at the
top of the carton advising us that some assembly was required. Now that was a sign I
had seen before much to my regret because in past experiences this had always required
several trips to my local friendly hardware store for missing nuts, bolts and washers. To
my surprise the maker of the highbanker had included all the bells and whistles, so no
trips to the hardware store.
Once the highbanker was set up it proved to be a formidable beast standing on four
metal legs just high enough so you could shovel stream gravel into its grizzly with the
oversized stones falling off the back end. Once the hoses and pump were attached water
went into a manifold below the rear of the grizzly that was distributed in a stream the
width of the highbanker.
Once we had put Nancy’s highbanker together we sat down to read the directions about
how to use the beast. After reading those directions we had to wait for the following
weekend to give it a try.