00:00But it doesn't sound too bad, so we're going to dig it.
00:06Tourists and hobbyists are rediscovering gold panning in rivers and old mining sites in California amid a surge in gold prices.
00:15Several of them are visiting the Maitlot Gulch Mining Company in Northern California, where the gold rush occurred in the mid-1800s.
00:25The value of gold has effectively doubled in the last two years, reaching an all-time high of more than $4,380 an ounce in October.
00:35The gold rush transformed California known as the Golden State and many towns in Sierra Nevada are working to keep that moment in history alive.
00:46Columbia State Historic Park is a preserved gold rush settlement that allows local and foreign tourists to try and strike it rich
00:54at the Maitlot Gulch Mining Company.
00:57Nikaila DeLorenzi, whose family has operated the attraction within the park for more than 60 years,
01:03says there has been an uptick in both visitors and equipment sales in recent weeks.
01:09I think there's a gold rush in the aspect that people are now investing in gold.
01:14We have a lot of people that are buying a lot of our nuggets that just want, even if it's just a fraction of it, they want it.
01:21So there's a gold rush in the fact that people are hearing about it and they want to get into it.
01:27We have sold more painting equipment than we have in the past.
01:30There's a lot of burn scar areas from our local fires and surrounding areas which are good for erosion.
01:37There's a lot of sediment that is falling down.
01:39A lot of our rivers have been ripped apart over the mass amounts of water we've gotten over the last couple of years.
01:44So all good opportunities to pan for gold.
01:48Cody Blanchard is hoping his heritage gold rush can serve the niche market and help him turn a hobby into a thriving business.
01:58With the price of gold going up tremendously over the last year or two,
02:03I've definitely seen an increase in people that maybe used to engage in the activity of gold prospecting
02:09or are already doing it but they'd like to take it to maybe another level via getting a metal detector.
02:16Blanchard's store offers everything from basic tools to pan for gold in the river, such as pickaxes and scoops,
02:23to pinpointers and high-tech metal detectors that can cost thousands of dollars.
02:28The 35-year-old sanitation worker who organizes paid gold digging tours says he had tripled his yearly average fine
02:37from one ounce a year to three using the gadgets.
02:42So I would say the bulk of the revenue that I generate from my business probably comes from the detector sales.
02:48But in terms of total number of sales of different products and items like that, it's a pretty wide array.
02:53I mean, I sell a lot of accessories, basic tools.
02:57There's people who give me percentage of a commission on sales that go to their website.
03:02There are people who give me a percentage of their commissions to products and apps that they provide that are focused on gold prospecting.
03:10So I'm not getting rich from it by any means but I'm certainly paying for myself to maintain my hobby and my passion and pay for the equipment.
03:21Charlene Hernandez, who was panning for gold with her family, says she hopes California is on the cusp of a modern-day gold rush.
03:30We've been debating purchasing gold.
03:33It just seems with all the money changing and the currency changing, it seems like the gold is really something you can count on that's been kind of solid.
03:44We say cash is king but, you know, it looks like that's not really the case.
03:48So we're going to look into something like that, security.
03:51For thousands of years, gold has been used as a store of wealth and a medium of exchange.
03:56Its value tends to remain stable over long periods, making it an excellent way to preserve purchasing power against the long-term devaluation of currencies.
04:06Chances are so low of it being gold that I'm not even going to try and dig it.
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