Eric Deleel. Photo by Tara Lagree.

By ANDY GARDNER

A Massena Central graduate will be featured on an upcoming History Channel documentary show about a search for a historically famous lost gold mine.

Eric Deleel will be featured on “Legend of Superstition Mountains,” in which he and five others look for the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine in the Superstition Mountain range in Arizona.

“It’s said to be … one of the richest, if not the richest, lost gold mine in history,” he said.

Deleel said he is a lifelong “rock hound,” meaning a person who looks for gemstones and other precious metals, and started making how-to YouTube videos on the subject. This drew the eye of a Los Angeles-based production company and they recruited him for the show.

“I had known about the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, it’s kind of well-known in the treasure hunting community,” he said. “It’s always been in the back of my mind, that it would be cool to go out there and see if I could find something someone else hadn’t or had overlooked.

“The fact that I got this show was one in a million.”

He wouldn’t reveal if the team finds the treasure.

“If I did find it, I wouldn’t tell the media,” Deleel said, chuckling.

Deleel said he went to California about eight years ago to snowboard, found a job a couple of days later and made a career. He doesn’t mine as a main source of income, but does it on weekends and most of his free time.

“Gold fever is very real and it’s not something you shake,” he said. “It’s in my blood.”

He said if he ever found a substantial amount of precious metals or gemstones, he would probably use the money to finance more digs.

“It would be nice to be comfortable and all that, but I’d just put the money into another treasure hunt,” he said. “I’m going to keep going until my body says ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ It’s all about that next [treasure hunt].”

He said he got his start rock hounding around age 12 here in northern New York. He started looking for gold on his first trip to California and thought he had made a good find, but later found out he was fooled by Mother Nature.

“When I moved to California, I got tricked by fool’s gold,” he said. “I brought home about two grams of pyrite. It goes to show you how little I knew.”

He said he started immersing himself in literature about digging for gold and later linked up with like-minded people via a Facebook group.

He said a group called Mother Lode Prospectors gave him some much-needed guidance in the field.

“I’m a combination of self-taught and getting help from old-timers. The help I got from the old-timers is invaluable,” Deleel said.

He said it took four years of digging before finding his first gold nugget, which he said is average.

“Legend of Superstition Mountains” airs Sunday at 10 p.m. on the History Channel.

“I appreciate all the support I’ve gotten, especially up in northern New York,” Deleel said. “I hope everyone watches.”