Nomadic Gold Panner Sifts Rivers Across America—Here’s His Secret to Living as a Prospector

Justin Denig pans for gold in a stream in South Carolina. Courtesy of Justin Denig

Barefooted, alone, and standing in a creek in South Carolina, Justin Denig is scouring for a resource this secluded and beautiful landscape is famous for in abundance—gold.

For most of his life, Denig, 42, has earned a living by extracting and then selling precious metals and minerals he has found from the ground or in riverbeds. He uses little more than a shovel, a pan, and a sorting device of primordial simplicity known as a sluice box.