Prospecting Heads Across The Pond

As the price of gold has risen, traditional placer-gold areas like Alaska and British Columbia have seen an influx of new prospectors; there've even been hopefuls in Alberta, a province more known for oil and gas. Gold fever has spread so far, it's now taking hold amongst hopeful prospectors across the Atlantic in the U.K.

As the price of gold continues to hit record highs, interest in finding it has grown despite the area's most experienced prospector admitting his biggest haul is a mere 11 pieces the size of a grain of sand....

Alf Henderson, 80, of Bowness-on-Windermere, has been hunting for gold for 40 years.

Now instead of just a handful of hardy hopefuls spending their spare time knee-deep in cold streams, he now finds himself joined by up to 40 people at a time....

He does pass along the same caution that experienced prospectors usually give to cool off gold fever: the chances of making money off the hobby are slim. Best to do it for the fun.

The article includes this informative graph that compares gold to silver and the U.S. dollar index:



Also included is a map of the hot spots for panned gold in the U.K.