Soaring precious metal prices, accompanied by a national economy that is suddenly on the skids, is spurring a modern-day gold rush across northern California, and other sections of the western United States and Canada, that veterans of panning and sluicing have not seen in many a decade. It is not quite the stampede of 1849, the year that marked the beginning of the first Gold Rush, when some 300,000 adventurers rushed to California in covered wagons and by sea.

Read Full Story