INTERVIEW: In a place called ‘Devil’s Canyon,’ no wonder the conditions are rough

Devil’s Canyon sounds like the name of a new horror film, something from the mind of Eli Roth or Stephen King. Turns out this canyon is a real place and the location of the newest Discovery Channel reality series.

The canyon is deep in the bush of British Columbia, Canada, and its geographical secret is a golden one. This unforgiving slice of wilderness, which is subject to some difficult weather elements, has some gold ripe for mining, and on the new series, a trio of adventurers head into the bush to find their payday.

The prospectors traveled separately into the canyon, only with camera equipment to keep them company. Discovery Channel, which will premiere the show Tuesday, June 6 at 10 p.m., describes their adventure as “no roads, no trails, no camera crew, no help.”

One of the miners is Ben van der Valk, who pits himself against the forces of nature to find that gold. “Anytime you’re out alone in the wilderness, it can be very dangerous,” van der Valk said recently in a phone interview. “There’s no calls for help in most places if you’re out there and your trouble happens, so you got to really be able to take care of yourself when you’re out in a place like that.”

The prospector has been interested in gold for approximately 12 years. After reading about gold-panning, he headed to the kitchen sink with his brother and found some old pans. They went out to start prospecting and found a few flakes of gold on that first trip, and van der Valk was hooked.

“Gold fever took over from there, and [I] gradually started doing it more and more every year,” he said. “Yeah, decided a few years ago that I was going to try and make a go at it full time.”

When van der Valk hits on gold, he makes sure not to get too excited. He said that’s the time to be “very, very careful” because too many prospectors dump an entire investment into their operation over a few flakes, and the good luck eventually dries up.

“You have to be very, very careful because some of the places you look are spotty, so if you find a lot of gold, it doesn’t necessarily mean the whole area is full of gold,” he said. “It could just be one small deposit, so you’ve got to really prospect and test the ground properly because a lot of people will go broke like that. … So it’s all about testing when you get out there, and make sure the ground is worth investing your money and time because most people that gold mine go broke.”

The dangers in Devil’s Canyon are real. British Columbia is home to bears and mountain lions, but both of these animals didn’t bother van der Valk too much. His fear was more vertical in nature.

“The biggest thing out there for me was the all the dead-fall trees and the wind — very, very dangerous,” he said. “All these trees would fall, and it was windy on a daily basis. These trees were coming down left, right and center all over the place. You get one of those trees to fall on your head, you’re done.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Devil’s Canyon premieres Tuesday, June 6 at 10 p.m. on Discovery Channel. Click here for more information.