[1] Mons Petter was a Sami farmer from the Skognes farm in Lakså along the shore of Øvervatnet (lit.
[2][3][4] In the summers, he used to haul timber out from the pine forests of the area around the lake Langvatnet (lit.
He took his find to the merchant Bernhard Koch in Venset, who determined that it was not gold based on its weight.
[5] In fact, he had found chalcopyrite (a golden yellow copper ore) and pyrite (fool's gold).
The Mons Petter Festival is held annually in Sulitjelma in late June to celebrate the area's mining history.