Earl Jay Buckley is a man who spent a decade or so living in an exploratory mine in Las Flores Canyon from around 2007 to 2017. Some of you may have referred to him as, “Christmas Man” since he decorated the entrance of his mine with Christmas tinsels and ornaments. I feel like others have passed by his mine and recalled him to be just another homeless man and did not bother to investigate or ask too many questions due to the setting in which he was living. For me, I met a true San Gabriel Mountains hermit with a good soul and lots of genuine care for others.
Before I got on Eispiraten, I was intrigued to learn more about the mining history above Altadena after my Uncle John took me to the Dawn Mine for the second time of my life. The first trip to Dawn Mine was with my Dad many years earlier and was not as impactful as the second. Uncle John told me stories of him and his brothers exploring all the old mines in Altadena during his youth and mentioned some mines in las flores canyon, in which he’d put candles on pieces of wood and scoot them down the flooded tunnels to illuminate his explorations. I quickly found Hugh Blanchard’s website LA Gold Mines and learned of the mine excavations and discoveries in Las Flores Canyon. I learned of this map from 1906 that Hugh got a hold of which showed the locations of many of the mines, some buried and some exposed. I was stunned to find little to no mention of these mines on the internet at the time, except for BrotherBVideos on youtube and viewtopic.php?p=52688#p52688. On that thread, I saw this mysterious user named Dima with his confusing and hard to figure out avatar image, along with Sean scrambling up something. I made an account shortly after and wrote my first post ever on the forum later.
In 2015, my dad, my brother, and I checked out Las Flores Canyon for the first time to look for the mines. As we followed the trail, we bumped into a man living in an exploratory mine which was situated 30 feet above the riverbed. He introduced himself as Earl and quickly got our names locked in his head. To be honest, we were pretty sketched out and spooked when he jumped out of the mine greeting us but were quickly brought into good conversation. He told us he was living in the mine for many years at that point after living on the streets for decades prior. I can’t quite remember how he found the mine in the first place but he established it as home and organized it as such. He told us that every day he’d walk down Lake avenue to beg for money to buy food and supplies to take back to his mine. We would come back to the canyon every few weeks to explore more mines and would consistently bring him food or supplies and always be greeted with an excited, “Is that Matthew I hear?!” as I’d call out his name.
After those first few visits, I stopped going to Las Flores Canyon so regularly for explorations. On Thanksgiving of 2015, my dad suggested we buy Earl a full Thanksgiving dinner and deliver it to him. When we approached the mine that day, Earl could hear our small talk before we were in front of the mine and got excited and called us out by name again! We were definitely considered good memorable friends to him since he could hear our faint voices while he was inside the mine and knew exactly who we were even after months of no visits. His excitement and true gratitude when we delivered that meal on Thanksgiving really did inspire us and warmed our hearts to the fullest. We ended up delivering Thanksgiving to him the following year as well. At the time, my brother and I were boy scouts and my Dad would share with others how much we set an example to others to help the homeless and needy. The gesture seemed like textbook outreach but I didn’t quite see this like that. I felt like we were spending time with a friend and making his day with us being present with him and sharing our lives in the moment. I never bragged about us giving him Thanksgiving dinner or giving him supplies since I saw our interactions as just purely hanging out with a distant friend.
So in 2015 we delivered thanksgiving dinner to him, followed by delivering again in 2016. In 2017, we attempted to deliver to him but when we approached the mine, the entire mine was cleared out and completely clean with no Earl in sight. My dad, brother, and I thought the worst may have happened and were deeply saddened by the situation. We had no contact information for him so figuring out what happened would be challenging, especially since he was in a homeless position. Honestly, I didn’t think he passed away but didn’t have a way to figure it out.
At some point in 2018, Earl popped into my head and I did some research on him. I found that he created a facebook account in 2015 and I never would have thought that he’d have a facebook account but he did and had 10 friends. He had a post with a gent named Ryan Clausen in which he was surrounded by a group of people making some sort of documentary. This was so fucking cool to see and he seemed alive and well so naturally, I messaged Ryan Clausen the following message on facebook.
“Good Afternoon. My name is Matthew Jackson. I used to hike in the mountains in Pasadena, California. One day I was hiking through a canyon with my Father and my Brother, when I came across a man living in an old mine named Earl Buckley. We struck up a conversation with him and found out he was living in this mine for 2 and a half years. A couple of months later, I visited the canyon again and met with Earl again. I called him from the entrance of the mine and he said, “Matthew? Matthew Jackson?” He remembered my name 3 months later! Later that year, My dad and brother brought him a full thanksgiving meal and he was extremely thankful for it. A year went by and my dad, my brother, and I decided to bring him thanksgiving dinner again. We visited the mine and couldn’t find him. So I am reaching out to his friends on facebook to see if he is ok. His story was incredible from living in that mine for 2 and a half years. I just wanted to reach out. Thanks!”
Ryan then responded no later than 8 minutes later with the following.
“What a blessing you are.
I met Earl, my wife and I became best friends with him, and we made a film about his life and helped him move to El Monte, CA where he is in Veterans Housing (he was in the navy) and has a balcony that looks at the mountain with the cave.”
And boom! A new decade-long friendship was established between Ryan and I. Ryan told me how he met Earl while he was living in the Pasadena area and became inspired by his story so much that he and his brother Sean started shooting a documentary about his life. At the time I was hustling to become a filmmaker so I asked to be a part of the project and I was welcomed.
I decided to go visit Earl in his veterans housing and coordinated with the wonderful people working there for a visit with a camera. When the day came and I showed up, Earl was ecstatic and overjoyed to reunite with me! He welcomed me into his apartment and we caught up for a long time. Right off the bat, his place was very disorganized and had a lot of clutter. Earl kept telling me how much he missed his mine and was in a constant battle with accepting his current housing situation over the mine. He showed me that his apartment was laid out in the exact way as mine which became super clear since all his belongings were placed in a line from the door and on the floor all the way to his bed. He did show off a nice fish tank with some fish in it that he liked to tend to. The visit became hard after a while because of the reality of the situation. He kept bringing up the mine and depression he has where he doesn’t feel at home there but society considers it better than being on the streets or the mine. These were thoughts I couldn’t relate with but fully understood.
I had an hour or so of footage that I sent over to Ryan and Sean. As I looked at it and listened to my interview questions, many realizations and thoughts came to mind about homelessness, mental health, homeless outreach, society etc. Ryan’s still working on the documentary and I’ve seen a few cuts and it's pretty solid stuff. Ryan texted me that Earl got evicted from veterans housing a month ago since he stopped letting the VA inspect his place. Knowing he’s back on the streets hurts me in lots of ways and I'm trying to understand those feelings and figure out what to do. Ryan and I are currently talking about getting him resources and shelter but he lives on the East Coast and I have a very complicated life at the moment. I wanted to write all this out to both reflect and share this story. I think Earl has inspired me positively in my life and I hope you enjoyed my writing.