The Best of John Miller: March 12, 2004
[Music] next on the best of John Miller pack your bags and hold on tight we're going on the road for a wild ride as we look back at some of John's travels hang on the Gold Rush isn't over for one man in Alaska you know I'm a little older than you think also head to Salt Lake City for a spin on a bob sled plus we go whale watching in Washington state fins came out of the water a couple of times and probably saw about 20 or 30 blo holes then it's up to Canada where John tries to forget a trip to the past and live it up in high style that's all coming up next discover the lighter side of Northwest living as idah host news channel 7 presents the best of John Miller hello I'm Steve Lebenthal today we are taking a trip around the west and out of the country but you won't need an airplane ticket John will take us to some places he's traveled during his years of bringing us Idaho life the days of mining are long gone or are they John Unearthed a little nugget near hannes Alaska it's called the porcupine mine and the real treasure might just be the man doing the digging want to tag along with John Schnabel hang on you're in for a bumpy ride John is apparently too young to know the Gold Rush is over you know I'm a little older than you think so so with slers sling and rocks rumbling this 84-year-old prospector and a handful of assistants pick away at what could be the humblest Gold Mine in Alaska when I got out of the Sawmill business I retired and in a few years I had a triple bypass and the doctor said you better do something or you ain't going to live very long so I decided to come up here and go mining we've had days up as high as $115,000 and we've had days as low was $50 for John the most profitable days are simply the ones followed by a tomorrow that way they're all good days even if we don't get any gold the porcupine mine has in the past produced its share of precious metal and once a gem of a story about a previous owner 70 years ago he dug a hole called the glory hole and out of that hole he took four one qu jars of gold nuggets which is a tremendous amount of gold but he was so excited he had a heart attack and died that night John snobble hasn't Struck it that rich but then he hasn't died of a heart attack either I don't have a problem but he does have a grandson I think he got Gold Fever that's mine wow you did pretty good not as good as usual but it's better nothing in fact after so many tons of rock and Stones dumped and tumbled till Day end how did we do this Hall is pretty modest 3 o that is worth about $1,000 but John SCH knobbles never felt richer knowing there's always tomorrow so that's pretty good we can survive and John and his helpers say he they they find Prett near ,000 worth of gold every day perer well what would you do if you moov to the middle of no in Alaska you might have to find a hobby like Dave Paul did John pounds out that story when I told uh the folks around here that I was going to start a Hammer Museum well I got laughed at a little bit as you can imagine probably mostly behind my back they really shouldn't laugh at Dave Paul he does have more than 1200 ways of knocking him upside the head well certainly there's black smithing Hammers and cobblers hammers there's faers hammers for uh shoe horses snow knockers broom makers Coopers saddlers and spring loaders and this is the Banker's hammer for cancelling checks fancy hammers fencing hammers four rooms of hammers displaying Dave's driven determination sometimes pounding to the extent of a headache telling Dave Paul not to let them forget the hammer was Man's first tool from the time he picked up a rock and used it to smash open a nut or whatever this is one of the oldest hammers in the Hammer Museum at at uh 300 ad this is Roman Hammer this one's from the early settlers who wanted to travel light so they combined the function of a hammer with the hitch pin that connected the horses to the wagon one of the hundreds of unheralded unusual or unidentified historical hammers waiting to be identified I can't have enough hammers or enough reasons to travel the country collecting so many Dave Paul's always proud to say welcome to the Hammer Museum where you can as the T-shirt says get hammered in hannes Alaska I had a trip through the Museum will only cost you two bucks well back in 2001 John followed the road to Salt Lake to look at preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics and in Park City he got to be an Olympian for about a minute as he went screaming through 15 turns in about 53 seconds John filed this story at about 80 mil an hour right on the bob sled it seemed like a heavy proposition especially after I met the dudes I'd be riding with I'm going to really depend on your guidance because I'm fragile I'm good and who wouldn't be hurdling down a frozen shoot at 80 mph okay no need to get worried bob sled Guru Derk Hendrickson said it would look something like this it's exciting the g-forces are five or six times your body weight so what you're saying logistically and technically this is nuts yes y so there we were cramming ourselves in legs there all the way in yeah oh nice no uh cocktails and peanuts on this ride huh not here no time before you shove off on your 53 second death ride you cross one arm over the other let out a stupid little giggle and you're all set okay f are down oh thanks here it is we were gone a driver two other reporters and John the rest is something of a blur it must have looked something like this later I was asked about my death ride that was intense and you just kept thinking it was going to be over and then one more and then Wham one more I have no idea how that guy's steering that thing cuz I mean his heads in front of me just going like this somehow none of our heads fell off and we lived for another day probably not for another ride you know it looks fast when you watch it on TV but hey ain't nothing compar it ain't nothing compared to what it's like on the sled that was crazy and the track and park city is more than 4 fifths of a mile long and it takes 60 mil of refrigerator refrigerator tubing to keep the entire track covered in ice it's open in the summer and winter but it costs a bit more than the Hammer Museum a ride there cost you around 65 bucks this special edition of the best of John Miller continues next we head to Seattle in search of some four-legged residents at the Kingdom implosion also they threw him out last time but now the Canadians are welcoming John with a limo and luxury hotel find out why next back in 2000 it was doomsday for the Seattle Kingdom after 24 years the arena came crashing down in a cloud of dust thousands witnessed the incredible implosion but it's the tiny Witnesses you couldn't see who interrested John Miller so we sent him to Seattle to be on hand for the demolition it's the biggest show ever held at the Kingdom it's also the last and this time the best seats are on the Outside Inside 21 mies of cable connected to more than 4,000 lb of explosives ready to bring down the roof roof on the old home of baseball's Mariners football's Seahawks and who knows how many furry little residents that called the kingom home while thousands Lin the streets trees and rooftops poised and ready for what they were about to see Tamara fosnot was quietly considering what they could not rats I'm looking for some Mayhem actually and Tamara of XL Pest Control believed Mayhem might come when thousands of rats possibly living beneath the Doom Dome got the jolt of their lives I think that the rats will probably scatter I don't mind rats after all is one guy put it all the rats are in City Hall leaving this crowd not concerned nor it appeared where the [Music] rats what's happening right now underground um they're probably scrambling sort of like the street Crews as dust blotted out the sun insulation fell like rain and the masks came on and while the merchants Cafe readied another order of kingom on a shingle Underground Tour Guide Dana Cox surveyed the rat situation 14 ft below those that survived might be um rejoining us but it appears not yet so if they aren't running down Second Avenue when they aren't running through your tour underground where would they be in heaven yeah it was a pretty big building was it it was now a cement sule and if the King dome's Rats aren't dead or depleted perhaps they're still running for the safety of safe Co later John goes to Canada and takes the ride to the top of one of the world's tallest buildings of 553 M which is equivalent to 147 Building stories height first though he visits an island near Seattle looking for whales the best of John Miller continues after [Music] this welcome back before the break we showed you John's visit to Seattle for the kingom implosion on that same trip he went in search of other stories so he hopped into a car and got a whale of an idea here's something fun to do when you're visiting the Seattle area get on the muleo ferry drive carefully cuz you don't want to pull an Ashley jut that movie Double Jeopardy was filmed on Whidby Island just a 20-minute ride across fuget [Music] sound here you'll find this Tiny Town the thriving Metropolis of where all is Artistic and antique and you might catch Randy Woodward bagpiping smack in the middle of downtown and every Saturday at 3:30 the entire town eats ice cream why does everybody eat ice cream at 3:30 cuz it's yummy Oh yeah talk about happy hour ice cream hour and here everyone and their dog spend so much time leaning over this rail staring at the sound they even built a monument to to it what's everybody doing here they're watching for whales the spring migration of grey whales on their way from California to Alaska vs came out of the water a couple of times and probably saw about 20 or 30 blo holes in fact those divots in the sand were made by whales digging for shrimp during high tide but you should know that whale migrations are governed strictly by Murphy's Law And if you bring a video camera and wait for Langley's whales for two hours you're probably going to go home with 2 hours of ice cream ice cream con of course on Woodby Island a double scoop of butter pecan is a close second to a gray whale but he was beautiful just beautiful and I missed it certainly but if you stick around and your patient we may see it again still to come A Visit to Canada and a very wet trip on a river near Montreal first though John goes to Toronto where he discovers that maybe the Canadians don't hate him after all exit papers U let me help you with that well if you keep up to date with John Miller's travels you'll probably remember the time in 1999 when he tried to visit Canada but was turned away quite rudely at the border well the next year we sent him back with a passport as part of the 2000 River Festival this time he sailed through customs Bound for the Eastern provinces provinces here's how it all began in Toronto you know it is a long way from can a to can a we ought to know we tried to get here before remember this little episode when photographer Gary salsman and I tried to drive a large RV over the Canadian border we made it 24 ft into Canada before we were given out exit papers and kick straight out we left knowing there'd be a day when they'd beg us to come back they'd plead for our forgiveness and things would be different so now that we're here what are we supposed to do with these exit papers the exit papers uh let me help you with [Music] that this time limousines provided our rides worldclass restaurants provided our food five-star hotels provid Ed our lodging last time wi aago provided all three you want these back no not really in fact it's hard to compare boisey the biggest city in Idaho to Toronto the biggest city in Canada the help of our guides we thought we'd give it a shot we saw all the big buildings got the big CN Tower up there too we're the world's tallest freest starting structure in the world it takes nearly a full minute to ride to the top with a total height of 1,815 Ft or 553 M which is equivalent to 147 Building stories high have you heard of the building we have in Boise it's called the US Bank building no I'm afraid I haven't it's a whopping 19 stories is that right but if you did want to compare Idaho's tallest building to Canada's you'd have to stack it and to end almost 10 times no wonder this is the tallest building in the world here's the view from the world's highest observation deck occasionally we do uh see people who are a little nervous of the height especially here on the glass floor level where most people choose to look rather than leap onto the seethrough surface a third of a mile above the city and the Sky Dome Toronto's Mammoth baseball building which by comparison could hold the boy Seahawks Memorial Stadium 11 times over we've got people here from from a from a 100 different countries who speak over a 100 different languages in the city and Gary and I decided there's a hundred reasons to visit because some things just don't compare good night night quite a change there here's one more comparison the population of Toronto and its surrounding communities are six times the population of the entire state of Idaho next on the Travel edition of the best of John Miller it's on to Montreal where John visits a church that is truly a religious experience for many Believers the interior is stunning it's all handcarved in wood and took about 40 years to do welcome back everyone let's go back to the summer of 2000 when John visited Canada he said enough of the old buildings culture and history the folks in Montreal have other plans for their tourists when they talk about their past they don't sit you on a tour bus they strap you in a jetboat John never expected Canadian life could get so wild and so wet when you visit a big city like Montreal it's good to have the lovely Fiona ma driving you around so uh you're our guide for today huh right welcome to Montreal Fiona showed us the view from Mount Royal which gave Montreal its name we saw the Notre Dame Basilica it was built uh in the 1820s but actually the interior is stunning it's all handcarved in wood and took about 40 years to do so tell me Fiona is there anything else tourists like to do in this town oh yes now we have a very popular activity on the river and that's going jet boating jet boating mhm my fellow Americans welcome to Montreal now we're going to drown you however this trip is always fun always exciting the loud guy is jet booat Jack who takes great pleasure in sending as many IBM employees out to drink as much of the St Lawrence River as humanly possible how you go Chief thank you thank you very much and after we're all decked out like giant yellow Teletubbies groy me our captain in and crew lovely Fiona and a boatload of computer geeks are off to learn why early explorers looking for China had to settle for Montreal how high are the waves going to get they're get like 6 to 12 ft 6 to 12 ft High far too much for early settlers and it would appear some of IBM's finest you know I bet this is much more exciting than the IBM company picnic must be and for someone dressed in yellow the lovely Fiona was looking a little green but apparently feeling much better than our computer friends learning the French Canadian translation of [Music] brainwash a good time in any language though back at at the dock you'll never see so many IBM employees so happy to see jet boat Jack again P chosen life jacket move it let's go never to forget getting soaked to the circuit boards in [Music] Montreal and the Jet Boats also run in Ottawa and near Niagara Falls a ride will cost you about $54 Canadian well you've probably seen it on a postcard on TV or in a magazine Nova SC 's Lighthouse at Peggy's Cove has likely been photographed a million times now it's a million in one as John continues his look at Canadian life the population of Peggy's Cove is 62 people it's little more than a lighthouse and a post office in fact during the summer months the lighthouse is the post office so how many people stop by every every day oh my God go there's thousands that's why Elaine hland and Shauna C Hamilton spend less time sorting mail than answering questions it's 64 ft high I can tell you that built in 1914 it still burns brighter than ever beckoning a steady stream of photographers to this edge of the Atlantic Ocean which would also technically technically make you the most photographed post office in the world technically yes Toby Hilton found his way here all the way from North Carolina it's in a great location from a photographic point of view it's wonderful how many years do you have to work here before you get to go upstairs probably forever really yeah the door is kept locked and the Coast Guard holds the key Toby is content to soak up all that surrounds the Peggy's Cove Lighthouse the Sun the see smell the history yeah just a little bit of everything takes you back and makes you remember things uhhuh what's it make you remember how hard it used to be for people to come across the ocean to get in to going by a compass how really difficult it was and how one single Shining Light can be such a savior very simple and very direct find that Lighthouse and I know where I'm at and we'll see you next week for the best of John Miller
2025-02-27 05:16
