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Creator, Fred Braches
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We lost Fred Braches, the creator of Slumach.ca on February 1, 2024 at the age of 93.
Fred was born in Indonesia in 1930, and moved to the Netherlands where he received his advanced schooling. He represented a Dutch shipping line, from a base in South America, where he and his wife of almost 53 years, Helmi, met.
The Braches moved to beautiful acreage in Whonnock, BC in the mid-1980s. When Fred retired, he dedicated a great deal of time to researching Whonnock history, which spread to learning and publishing never ending information on Whonnock, Maple Ridge, and Langley. He was known throughout the Fraser Valley for his charm, his dedication to factual reporting of all information, and his several notable publications.
Fred's involvement in the Slumach legend came with his inherent desire to ensure the facts of the case dominated, rather than fanciful stories. He published two books on this legend, Fact and Fiction: Slumach and the Lost Creek Mine, and Searching for Pitt Lake Gold. He also created two Wikipedia sites on the legend. And he was involved in the Curse of the Frozen Gold and Deadman's Curse television series, sticking to his penchant for facts over fiction in his enduring role as a skeptic in all things.
Fred created slumach.ca as a 'library' of all printed material relevant to the Slumach story. And he created a companion site, slumach.blogspot.com, which he updated frequently with the latest information on activities surrounding the legend.
We are much the poorer for Fred's departure from this mortal coil. He invited we three co-authors to take over slumach.ca and keep it available for legions of Slumach researchers, and we enthusiastically agreed.
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