Ernie's Gold: A Prospector’s Tale
This is a true story with many trappings of a best-selling novel. It is the rags-to-riches-to-almost-rags-again tale of Ernie Martin, set in the first half of the twentieth century in Canada and the United States. There is a personal connection here: Ernie was a flamboyant older brother of my grandfather, Sidney, a modest preacher.
Ernie’s story features gold prospectors, dreamers and schemers, along with colourful characters who endured primitive living and working conditions in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, and then graduated to opulent lifestyles worlds away. Ernie prospected with Harry Oakes and helped discover the gold that led to the richest gold mine in Canada..
Included is the unsolved murder of Sir Harry Oakes, as he had become known, in the Bahamas. This was dubbed the “greatest murder mystery of all time” by Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of Perry Mason. A dash of British royalty is featured along with a whiff of the Mafia and Nazis as among those suspected in Sir Harry’s grisly demise.
In the life story of Ernie, romance and generosity are accompanied by deceit and treachery. This is an engrossing tale about gold and how it changed lives. Reader feedback has been very positive.
The cost of this recently reprinted book is $35 plus postage. Contact the author, or Burnstown Press to acquire a copy.
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Whether it was the pretty young girl at the grocery store counter back in Hanley, the independent-minded claims recorder in Swastika, the beauty in the shop window in Florida, the well-heeled ladies encountered on cattle-buying trips around the U.S., or the waitress he admired from his restaurant stool in Goshen, it was always the same. Ernie liked the ladies and the ladies seemed to like him.
Ernie Martin had a good time with his money. His meteoric rise and subsequent fall were largely his own doing. It was a wild ride.
He probably wouldn’t have had it any other way.
It was, after all, Ernie’s gold.