The Day Engineering Met the Creek
Why We Chose to Make Prospecting Simple
Every revolution starts with a little frustration. For us at Prospectors Dream, it started back in 2011 when we realized that prospecting technology was stuck in the past and far too complicated for the everyday gold seeker. Our mission was born from a simple desire: to ignite a new generation of gold seekers by making gravity gold recovery simple and accessible.
The story begins with a living room, a TV show, and my wife's Uncle Dave. Uncle Dave was recovering from throat cancer and watching the season finale of the first season of Gold Rush, frustrated that he hadn't been out prospecting all year. I told him, "Buddy, I’ll carry all your stuff down to the creek, dig your hole, and carry it all back up. Let’s go do this".
Once we got it running, things only got worse. When it was time to clean up, the box's screen jammed, popped free, and washed downstream, spilling half of our hard-earned concentrates in the process. I was frustrated and embarrassed. I looked at Uncle Dave and told him the traditional equipment was "hokey" and that the word "engineering" needed to be taken off the box.
Uncle Dave argued that it was the best box out there, sparking a heated debate on our hour-long drive home. I was convinced that traditional sluices were unnecessarily difficult to use and were losing gold. That frustration sparked a two-and-a-half-year quest to find a better way.
The Wood Stove Prototypes
We spent countless winter evenings in Uncle Dave's shop, building our arsenal and testing early prototypes. In the beginning, we were working with materials like cream cheese cups, plywood, duct tape, and cardboard—throwing many of our failed versions straight into the wood stove so no one would see them! I relentlessly tinkered until discovering how to apply the 1891 principles of a hydro-cyclone to our design, creating cells that naturally snag heavier materials without any moving parts.
The ultimate result was the Dream Mat, the first significant leap in prospecting technology in over a century. Deciding to challenge the traditional ways of prospecting to help prospectors find more gold with less work. We built this for the weekend warriors and the everyday seekers, ensuring that you never have to wrestle with a "hokey" sluice box again.