A group of friends from Maple Ridge recently discovered the secret hideout of another group of friends from almost 30 years ago.
Callum Gow says that he was hiking with four friends in Golden Ears Provincial Park when they stumbled across a campsite that appeared as though it was “frozen in time.”
They found an untouched assortment of supplies, including cooking utensils, an old radio, a wood sign with an “R” burned into it and a WWII ammo case with medical supplies and a logbook inside.
The book was labelled “Retreat est. 1986,” and ended up being the biggest clue to who was behind the mysterious camp.
Inside were entries from five people made between 1986 and 1991.
“From what we’ve worked out by reading the book these five friends, Rick, Sam, Deek, Doug Aitken and Lesley, set up camp here in the 80s and visited it regularly (usually on New Year’s Day),” says Gow.
“More names in the log are mentioned but those are the five who usually made entries. In one entry it mentions that two of their friends died – Robbie Bailey, 27 years old, and Doug Zayence, 24 years old.”
“We weren’t sure [what the entries were about] because we were all reading through it and we thought they had been looking for something at first. It mentioned several times how ‘the site has potential’ so we weren't sure what they meant by that."
Gow explained that he knows there are people who go to that area looking for “Slumach’s gold,” which is rumoured to be near Pitt Lake.
Gow posted their discovery on social media with the intention of returning the book to its owners. His post ended up gaining a surprising amount of interest, with many people wanting to help solve the mystery.
“People on Facebook were just so invested in the story and they started digging for us, which was really cool. In a matter of 10 hours, we found [Bill] and then he tracked down Rick, who is the guy who started it,” he said.
Through talking to Bill, Gow found out that the group was in their 20s at the time, except for Sam, who turned out to be a dog.
They also contacted the sister of Robbie Bailey, and she explained that her brother and his friend Doug died in a car crash near Mount Vernon on his birthday.
“They were shocked because they never thought they would see that book again, and then to read through those pages, I thought it was pretty sentimental for them. It was probably really surreal," Gow says.
Despite the legend of Slumach's gold, after speaking with Bill, Gow is convinced the group behind the retreat were just a group of young adults who loved hiking, camping and exploring.
The plan is to mail the logbook to Bill so that the remaining members of the group can remember those times, but as for the rest of the camp – that’s staying right where it was found.
Gow says that they plan to keep the location as much of a secret as possible, as per the request of the founders. Gow did give a few hints, saying there was a cliffside and they had been hiking up Mount Nutt when they found it.
"We all took an oath to not tell anyone where it was," Gow said. "But that's also part of the fun of it, right? Because then if people want to go try and find it then they can."
