Believe It Or Not, People Are Still Mining For Gold In America

After having a hard time losing her mother, photographer Sarina Finkelstein decided to head out to California to clear her head. With an eye towards a project that she could focus her energy on, she stumbled across a blurb in a newspaper mentioning a new gold rush in Southern California.

Finkelstein decided to check it out.

What she found was an odd assortment of characters, including a former farmer from Missouri, an out-of-work Hollywood lighting technician, and a retired construction worker, among others.

While all were united by the belief that they could change their fortunes with an ounce of gold (approximately the size of a half-dollar coin and currently worth around $1,245), Finkelstein found that the lifestyle was as much about self-reliance as anything else.

Finkelstein has collected the photos from four years following the miners in a book, "The New Forty-Niners." She's shared some of the photos with us here, but check out the rest in the book.