Alaska Goldfield Magazine
Sample Stories

High Grading Rocks In Alaska
(Volume 2, No. 4)
By Ron Wendt

There is one thing that some old time prospectors and new time prospectors have in common; they have overlooked the obvious.

Many a rock has tumbled down the sluice box through time. And many a gold laced rock have tumbled down the sluice out into the tailings. One of the reasons why rock specimens with large pieces of gold end up in the tailings is because the rock will have a tendency to roll out with other rocks even though there is gold attached. The rock will outweigh the gold.

It is important to know an area you’re planning to prospect in. Know what the contents are going to be. Know what to expect in the way of geological structures.

If you’ve found out through resources that nuggets from certain creeks or mining districts have quartz mixed with gold, there’s a good chance you could find some nice specimens with your metal detector or by simply picking up rocks and looking at them.

In the Klondike goldfields on George Carmacks Discovery Claim, Bonanza Creek, a 60 pound piece of quartz was found with 20 ounces of gold mingled throughout the specimen.

On American Gulch, a tributary of Bonanza, a 450 ounce chunk of rock was found with about half the weight being gold.

Jack Wade Creek in Alaska’s 40 Mile region, has yielded a number of 30 to 50+ ounce nuggets, some found in tailings with quartz making up about half the size.

In the Kantishna goldfields a 28 ounce nugget resembling a potato was found with a metal detector shot full of gold and quartz. These are but a few examples of gold bearing quartz found in placer deposits.

Notably gold nuggets that have quartz in them, that are rounded or worn down, have traveled a distance from the source- whereas sharp, angular, coarse nuggets with quartz attached generally have not traveled far from the source. In Alaska and the Yukon it pays to research and keep an eye out for these golden rarities.

While in hardrock gold country I have spent many endless hours sitting in old hardrock dumps going through piles of discarded rock processed from ancient mill buildings, searching for gold in quartz specimens, usually, and always with good results.

Whether by metal detector or just eyeballing, it doesn’t matter. Though detecting will not detect everything in these piles, hand picking may be more thorough in your search. Nice quartz and granitic rocks laced with stringers of wire gold can be common finds. Some quartz specimens might have gold shot through them with spatters of gold.

So what do we look for when we’re out prospecting for some "golden quartz." Unless you have great eyes for up close viewing, a small magnifying glass will work good to look over specimens. I’ve been fortunate to have good eyes for close up work. It makes my work go quick to be able to glance over a piece of rock for gold content.

First off, if you have specifically researched a potential area knowing there is that gold/quartz potential, you are looking for several clues. If you’re in a creek bed, particularly one with jagged rocks and cliffs in a gold bearing region, first check creek debris with a gold pan looking for colors and "heavies" (what is left in the pan after panning it down). Observe what you have in the pan; are the small rocks sharp and angular or round? Most likely the stream rock will reflect what has broken off through the eons of time from nearby cliffs and outcrops.

Next closely examine nearby cliffs or gouged out bedrock gulches for any trace of quartz stringers, or odd hardrock layers. Where the hardrock has eroded out is sometimes a weak link where rotted mineral fissures have weathered out, eventually washing out into the creeks.

These are known as sulfides which can hold minerals and are well worth investigating. Next check out any solid rock formations for veins or stringers.

Always check bedrock in or along the creek where any water action has occurred. Bedrock samples in fact will hold some valuable keys to the contents of the area. Material packed in crevices are usually the higher quality mineral or metal content.

In Alaska’s Prince William Sound around 1915, prospector Ole Berg found a large rounded boulder near a glacier in Esther Passage. The boulder was full of gold stringers and the prospector was able to chip out rich pieces of gold bearing quartz.

He had a hunch the source could be somewhere in this glaciated valley. Unfortunately the boulder was well worn and could have tumbled miles down the valley or rolled and ground along by the glacier ice. It was Berg’s suspicion of a possible site a little ways up the valley and he tunneled 90 feet into an outcrop finding only small evidence of gold. One has to wonder what this gold infested boulder looked like when it first broke out of its source eons ago.

Northern glaciers are notorious for slicing through hardrock lodes and grinding them down to nothing. Some miners have had the joy of tunneling under portions of the glaciers to find suspected hardrock gold outcrops amid the groaning and screeching of the glacier ice as it eerily continues to move inch by inch either receding or advancing down a valley pursuing its natural course.

It’s not recommended for one to go under glacier ice in pursuit of wealth. The experience might be unforgettable however.

The gold in quartz factor should also be pursued in dredge tailings. Once again, research to make sure the potential is there for "gold in quartz."

USGS Bulletins are great sources that will tell you what type of gold was found on placers creeks. Where large dredges mined on these creeks and spit out the big nuggets of gold bearing rocks. A metal detector is probably the best tool for dredge tailings.

For that matter any creek where tailings, dredge, or other methods made, are worthy of detecting. But make sure these creeks have a history of larger gold or quartz gold.

The key to success is patience and diligence. You may not get anything the first time out, or maybe the second or third. But keep looking and you’ll eventually come up with a prize.

VALDEZ CREEK PLACERS: OLD & NEW
(Volume 2, No.6)
By Ron Wendt

It was 1992 as I stared across the Big Susitna River and could see large floodlights up Valdez Creek where the largest gold mine in Alaska worked 24 hours a day. It was here, off the Denali Highway in the Alaska Range that gold was being extracted from the depths of the old Tammany Channel.

Low clouds moved across the valley bringing with it drizzle and cold air. Those who had seen the mine from a distance had described its resemblance to something from another planet.

Cambior Alaska was massive in size, a world class operation to say the least. Cambior mined over 35,000 yards of total every 24 hours, and burned about 2,000 gallons a fuel a day in relentless search for gold.

The large mine was located 150 miles northeast of Anchorage off the Denali Highway in the Alaska Range. Cambior owned a 100% undivided interest in the property.

When they were actively mining, probable mining reserves stood at 3,177,000 cubic yards of pay gravel grading at 0.09 raw ounces per yard. An estimated 425,000 ounces of gold have been mined since 1907. Cambior had recovered about 175,000 ounces.

The original discovery of placer gold in the area was made in the gravel bars bordering Valdez Creek. The gold found on these claims varies from flat and well worn, but some rough, showing very little evidence of wear. Gold found above the old Tammany Channel was finer and less worn than gold found below.

Some very large nuggets were taken from this creek. Valdez Creek is approximately 14 miles long. Some of the gold is flat and worn while other specimens are very coarse. Gold was first discovered on Valdez Creek in 1903. Other creeks located in the Valdez Creek district were Lucky Gulch, which boasted the largest nuggets ever found in the area. One found in 1910 weighed 32 ounces and a larger one weighed 52 ounces. A miner by the name of Pete Monohan produced $100,000 in gold on a single claim in a single season. Monohan was the discoverer in 1903. One miner named Dan Kain brought out a nugget that was worth $974; another sizeable nugget found was worth $552. At that time gold went for $17 an ounce. This would mean that at today's prices they would be worth $22,800 for the 52 ouncer and $13,200 for the 32 ounce nugget. This would be calculated at $400 an ounce. Actually, they would sell for higher due to the rare size and unusual formation.

In 1911 the old town of Denali located on Valdez Creek consisted of the Denali Post office which is located on the west bank of Valdez Creek where the creek takes a sharp bend to the south. Also, the Denali Hotel, a two story building that is also called the Denali Bunkhouse. The west building was used as the companies superintendent's office and a safe was located here in which the gold and cash was kept for miners wages. The west building was originally the cookhouse. The northwest, north and northeast buildings were used as married mens quarters. The northwest building was used as a carpenters shop. The north building located directly across from the bunkhouse was the Denali Store.

Twelve hundred feet northeast of the bunkhouse was the repair shop and the harness shop. The superintendent's house was situated one half mile or more past the Denali bunkhouse and only a few hundred feet from the west end of Tammany Channel. Ed Smith, a veteran miner on Grogg Creek, told the story one time of the $5,000 in gold dust that fell on the floor of the mess hall. According to Smith, most of the gold was recovered but some fell into the cracks of the floor boards. The group of miners who first discovered gold in the Valdez Creek District came out of the town of Valdez. Peter Monahan, J.C. Clarkson,

John M. Johnson and James Smith. Monahan was a veteran of the Klondike Rush of 1898 and a veteran of the Nome Rush in 1900. Monahan saw the possibilities of a strike in the territory west of McKinley. The party discovered traces of gold on various creeks. Gold was found on the Oshetna River but only in small traces. After prospecting in this area for a time they moved farther north in search of more productive ground.

Then, on August 15, 1903, Monahan, Johnson, Clarkson and Smith discovered gold just below the mouth of a narrow rock wall canyon of Galina Creek in only four feet of gravel. After 15 days of work they had panned and sluiced more than 100 ounces of gold worth $1,100. In celebration of their discovery they named their claim "Discovery" and named the creek Valdez Creek in honor of the town of Valdez. After returning to Valdez, Monahan and his partners brought back $18,000 in coarse gold from the summers work. In 1904, claims were staked up and down Valdez Creek. The best deposits of gold extended just below the twenty foot falls. Monahan and his partners recovered $30,000 in gold in 1904. From 1905 through 1907 many miners came into Valdez Creek. The Monahan party continued in their success and worked the benches above the creek on No. 2 on the Tammany Claims. Tunneling soon began in 1907 on Tammany. In one month $15,000 was recovered which had an assay quality of 17.60 per ounce. There were several trails into this area, one of which was a winter trail on the ice which extended down the west Fork of the Gulkana River northwesterly from the Sourdough Roadhouse, then up Keg Creek and down Portage Creek, and then to the Maclaren River. From there the trail extended down the Maclaren into the Susitna River and up the Susitna to Valdez Creek.

A shorter trail from the Valdez Trail in 1908 was established from Paxsons Roadhouse. This was a 65 mile overland route which followed the foothills of the Alaska Range past Coal Creek and across the Maclaren River at its source just below the glacier. The shortest summer trail was established in 1910 starting from the Yosts Roadhouse via Eureka Creek crossing the Maclaren River and there by Roosevelt Lake and into Valdez Creek.

From the first discovery in 1903 until 1908, Valdez Creek produced $175,000. By 1910, the production rose to $275,000 and by 1913 the total was $300,000. The main producing claims in this district were the Five Creek claims, Discovery No. 1, Below No. 2, Above, No. 3 Above and 2 bench claims _Tammany Bench and the claim on the left limit of No. I Below.

The Tammany Bench Claim on the buried channel became the richest claim on Valdez Creek and was worked until Cambior stopped mining.

Over $60,000 was taken out in 1908 and $35,000 in 1909. The Tammany Bench Tunnel had a length of 700 feet by 1910. From 1903 to 1912 over $160,000 total was taken from the Tammany Tunnel.

Lucky Gulch was the creek where the largest nuggets in the district were. John E. Carlson discovered gold on Lucky Gulch in 1904. At the end of the 1908 season, over $40,000 in gold was recovered from the Carlson Claim. The Gulch was mined with a boomer dam, which would expose the gold bearing gravels just above the bedrock. Carlson recovered many coarse nuggets from this creek simply by booming it with water and then picking the nuggets f rorn on top of the bedrock. This was the same creek where the 52 ounce and the 32 ounce nuggets were recovered. In 1908, Bill Smith, while working for Carlson, discovered a quartz ledge at the head of Lucky Gulch which measured ten feet across the face.

A gold robbery occurred on Valdez Creek on August 20, 1909. Eight thousand dollars in gold was stolen during the night from Dan Kains tent cabin, headquarters of the Oregon and Susitna Mining Company. There was a meeting of all the miners on Valdez Creek. A total of seventy_three attended. A six man committee was appointed to every miner's quarters and belongings. The gold was never found and there were no suspects. So no one was ever charged with the crime.

Valdez Creek contains many diorite boulders with rounded edges, rounded slate and schist fragments, and fine black clay. The chief accumulation of gold is in the lower five feet of gravel above bedrock, although fine gold occurs throughout the fill above. Most of the pay is found in hard black clay and the fine gravel composed of rounded fragments of slate.

Cambior's wash plant where the golden pay gravels are washed and separated, used the standard riffle system used to catch nuggets and fine gold. Different spacing was used in the riffles depending on what type of pay gravel the mine runs through it.

It all depended on the size of the gold. Paydirt with bigger gold requires a faster flow of water, while paydirt with finer gold has a slower washing process. The final gold separation process ended up on a vibrating Gemini table used to separate the finer gold. Cambior used no chemicals or mercury in the final processes.

Old timer Jake Tanzy who worked on Valdez Creek in the 1930s, has revisited the large gold mine and stared down into the big money pit and wondered why Cambior didn't tunnel 3,000 feet, 200 feet down, like he did in the old days.

Cambior Alaska Inc. was searching for better ways to achieve efficient gold production. In 1992, the Valdez Creek Mining Company produced 101,000 ounces of gold.

Cambior's General Manager Robert Walish said the main objective of production is keeping costs down.

"The general cost of doing business has gone up," says Walish. "Our stripping level has gone up. We have to be very efficient at moving equipment around. To sum it up is we're trying to keep our production cost per ounce at a minimum level."

Cambior worked in a large pit sifting through gold laden gravels. The pit measured 4,400 feet long by 600 feet across the pay area, 200 feet deep, and 1,300 feet across the top.

Walish said that working in the pit has advantages and disadvantages. "During the summer months water can be a problem," Walish says. The water can slow down equipment making the operation work harder rolling through the muddy pit. Winter mining sometimes has more advantages. "Winter roads are better to work with but then again the cold weather can have a detrimental effect on equipment."

Cambior boasts an environmentally conscious operation. As the operation finished mining a certain portion of ground, they performed reclamation work, restoring hillsides and old creek bottoms with a refertilization program.

Cambior’s goal was always more volume, more gold. Geologist Dean Yongue spent about six years working as a party chief/geologist/surveyor. Yongue saw improvements through the years and cites increased efficiencies. "Basically our big thing is volume," Yongue says.

Cambior mined with a small fleet of Cat 777 units which could haul 40 yards of paydirt each. Each 777 has a price tag of $650,000. Along with two Hitachi shovels, one large loader with a 13 yard bucket, valued at just under 4,000 ounces of gold, or 1.3 million dollars, and a small one with an 11 yard bucket, which could produce 5,000 yards of paydirt a day, compared to a past production of 3,000 yards per day.

Improvements allowing better production included an apron feeder, rotating conveyor, which increases production and is better than dumping into a grizzly, a slower process. "We were working on a new plant for increased production," said Yongue. "We had a shaker table that we use to feed the gravel on. The coarse material we ran was six inch plus. The middle material was 3/4 inch screen."

Valdez Creek is not the only big project Cambior had. Based in Montreal, the company branched out into various parts of the world.

Cambior's Omai Mine in Guyana is located on the northeastern coast of South America and produces hardrock gold. The Doyon Mine 25 miles east of Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, has been in production since 1980 and was one of Canada's largest gold mines. The Doyon Mine produced 252,000 ounces of gold in 1992.

The Val d'Or Division consisted of the Chimo and Beliveau mines, and both are located near Val d'Or, Quebec. Mines in Cambior's Noranda Division consisted of the Beauchemin, Silidor, and Mouska mines.

The Niobec Division in Quebec, is the only niobium mine in North America, and produces an estimated 7,275,200 pounds a year. Niobium an alloy element of steel, and is used to strengthen carbon steel, and used in pipeline steel for transporting oil and gas, and also used in the aerospace industry. It substitutes as a hardener and toughener in steel, and can withstand extreme heat exposure, but yet is flexible.

Cambior is developing other mines in Quebec like the Sleeping Giant Mine, the 1100 Lens Project, and the Grevet Project, a polymetallic deposit.

Cambior is also developing the Carlota Copper Project located in the Globe-Miami region of east-central Arizona, with other exploratory projects near Kingman, and Tucson. Their exploration and development has also taken them into Nevada, and down into Mexico.

In the past three years, Cambior has worked on over 450 exploratory projects in Chile in search of copper and gold. Working with many operations and techniques in Cambior's worldwide operations allows them to try out new innovative devices or ideas.

The company's Valdez Creek operation sought new directions toward development and improvement. Back in 1993 production had been lower than 1992 because of the development of the new pit the mine works. "We had to divert the creek that year and develop new paydirt says Walish. "That capital project slowed down production. We lined the diversion ditch with a plastic liner to keep the creek water from soaking into the ground and from soaking through the pit walls, and it benefitted environmentally. The liner is a geo fabric and plastic 100 mill membrane."

"The present creek diversion allowed us to mine about a quarter million ounces of gold," he said. "At a cost of 5 million dollars this took 2 1/2 years to mine."

One new development in the operation is Cambior's sand screw in which tailings are run through. It separates water from tailings. The apron feeder coupled with the sand screw will greatly speed up production.

In later years the ground mined was been of a lower grade and Cambior's wash plant was moved up to the third tier making the haulage closer. Most of the time Cambior could mine the pit in stages. "There was a channel discovered in the early 80s with the successful use of geophysics," Walish stated. Cambior is always exploring and looking at new submittals for future prospects.

Party Chief Dean Yongue emphasized an improvement in the exploration is reverse circled drilling. Cuttings come up through a sleeve rather than on the outside of the drill. "The reverse circulation is very fast and leaves a clean hole," Yougue explained. "It's helps as far as exploration. In 1910 on Valdez Creek, miners used a churn drill for exploration. Through reverse circle drilling, Cambior could project how many yards they could get. After drilling, once we designed a pit, we could hardly change it," said Yongue.

For Cambior, it all hinged on how fast they get to the gold. With new equipment and processes it would become faster.

PROSPECTING UP THE GULCH
Vol. 3, No. 1
By Ron Wendt

Cold, clear water flowed around my neck as I sat in a water hole on Discovery Gulch in Interior Alaska. I squinted up at the hot interior sun, as it seemed to be trying to mock me, fry me in it’s 88 degree rays.

What better way to relax after a hot, boiling day of prospecting then to strip down and immerse myself in clean, icy, permafrost water.

Bits of gold could be seen in the bedrock nearby and I had already removed some of the cold, gold nuggets in the past week.

In previous years, I had once encountered a grizzly sow and her two cubs along the Discovery trail, and pondered what a dilemma I might be in, should another bruin wander down to the creek where I cooled off, my shotgun still standing upright against a rock at my campsite nearby.

Occasionally I dunked underwater when a couple horseflies attempted their persistent attack on my head.

I realized how fortunate I was to be sitting in this flowing stream bed, perhaps like some old timers might have done during the Alaska gold rush at the turn of the century when they bought up gallons of champagne and poured it into a bath tub to bathe in. It was only the rich ones who took champagne baths, those who struck it rich. I would settle for the clear flowing tundra brew, a rich reward for a meager poke of gold.

In the nearby mining community of Central the temperatures were closing in on 90 degrees, thus causing a meltdown of permafrost, and like a sponge, squeezing more water out into the streams of the Circle goldfields.

In first prospecting Discovery Gulch, no trail had been established and I made my way up the creek which made for a soggy trail, but nevertheless it was a way to prospect as I went upstream and got the general feel for the stream bed. I have always been a big proponent of walking up streams for this purpose. There's nothing wrong with getting your feet a little wet for some potential gold.

About halfway up the gulch I encountered what I later found out was an ancient horse stable and cabin where a freighter from the gold rush era in the latter 1890s would run supplies to the various mining camps in the nearby hills over to creeks like Mastodon, Mammoth, Independence, then around to Hog ‘em Junction and onto Circle City.

A cabin was built from logs near Deadwood Creek down the gulch. The logs were skidded up no doubt by the same horse team that freighted in the area. Remnants of horse harnesses, a horseshoe, and bits and pieces of leather told the tale of a once active cabin along Discovery Gulch.

A couple caribou horns, bleached by the sun, stuck out of the spongy moss where stunted black spruce and aspens dotted the landscape. I found a rusted Fresno scraper once used to scoop up dirt along the creek, perhaps to open up a pay streak.

I had first heard stories, then found in research some of the mining activities that had occurred up the gulch and as I went upstream I would come across caved-in shafts where the old timers had burned their way to bedrock. On other portions of the creek they heated stones and placed them on patches of ground and melted about a foot a day of permafrost with their final goal being bedrock. The placed shafts intermittently on either side of the creek in search of a paylayer. The tailings once dug up, barely distinguishable only to the trained eye, were now buried under a foot of moss. Thus the old myth the doomsayers who say that the miners scarred up the country with their wicked diggings. It is a proven fact in Alaska that many streams were without fish until the miners began digging up the ground and releasing nutrients into the stream beds creating a large abundance of fish.

As a small child spending my childhood roaming across tailing piles, I can go back to those same tailings and not find many of them because mother nature has swallowed them up with new forests, creating better moose territory. Ponds once made by miners have become sanctuaries for the duck populations and in some cases dubbed as "wetlands".

Many government regulators cannot distinguish between man made or the real thing and become more confused than they are already.

On the gulch I panned out tailings and found fine colors, a sign that might indicate further prospecting.

At the mouth of the gulch where it enters Deadwood Creek I had once found several nuggets worth a couple hundred dollars along with small bits of gold, primarily with a metal detector.

Once starting up the gulch, the bedrock disappeared under 15 feet of overburden, but quickly decreased by the time I was halfway up the gulch. Here the bedrock was nearly at the surface and was mostly exposed in the stream bed and up the banks a few feet. The creek narrows down and becomes deeper, forming pools of water, creating natural bath tubs or nice soaking ponds.

One might wonder where mosquitoes are on the gulch. There are millions for sure, but they are the worst in the brushy areas and decrease once in the open creek area and once you get above treeline or when the bushes thin out, then its not so bad.

The bedrock along Discovery Gulch is a blocky, jagged bedrock and the gold is coarse when found, and a rather chunky character to the surface.

Looking upstream, after the first half mile, the right limit turns into steep, jagged hardrock outcrops with small trees barely clinging to crevices and growing on large, sharp rocks. These cliffs are unstable and large rocks occasionally tumble down into the valley. A mining road has been punched up to this point and the creek bottom was mined in the past.

Pay layers are exposed off and on on both sides of the creek going upstream but the best pay lies on the left limit. On my first day digging along the creek I recovered a two pennyweight nugget, and a few pennyweights of fine and match head gold.

The creek flowed well enough to hand sluice and was enough to support a suction dredge operation by setting up a visqueen pond.

The sluicing was ideal here, the pay sporadic at times. But shoveling into the pay layer which was frozen half the time proved to be well worth the effort. I noticed on the right limit off the creek bed, a wide bench was obvious but covered over with thick, deep moss, several feet in depth. The moss actually insulated the permafrost below. The only way this area could be worked on a large scale was by stripping off the moss and trees and allowing the sun to melt the surface at the rate of about a foot a day. Only a bulldozer could open up vast amounts of ancient, frozen pay.

As for my prospecting or sniping, working the thawed, creek side pay layers and crow barring the crevices were the best methods and the only methods available to me here.

The pay layer could be easily shoveled into the box. Once in awhile a bowling ball sized rock tumbled out into the creek, but most of the rocks were small fist size to cobble. The procedure was to start removing chunks of blocky bedrock while sorting the loose dirt into the cracks, either by putting the creviced dirt into a bucket or directly into a pay pile to be sluiced later.

So, once I opened up the bedrock and started removing the fractured bedrock I could also remove pay gravel that was thawed from under the moss. At times the holes resembled small tunnels. I tried not to tunnel and would cut or tear away the moss on the surface. This also let the hot blast furnace of interior summer air to melt any exposed pay layer. This can turn into a detailed operation and might take several days before any real rewards are recovered. Plan to camp out. Observe all that’s around you. A lot of people would give their right arm to mine in a setting as beautiful as this.

As a boy, in the early 1960s, my recollection of roaming these same hills with my father on hunting and prospecting trips were quite fond. Not far over the ridge I witnessed my first large caribou herd which covered the valley floor and ridges. My father had to point them out to me by explaining that the mountain was moving. By golly it was. I was witnessing the Porcupine caribou herd, the largest herd in the world, numbering 90,000 to 120,000. They were tightly packed together and moved together creating the illusion the whole mountain was moving. Never have I seen such a herd as that one. They have changed their migration routes since than but now and then a few caribou will wander into the gulches, either chased by bears, in search of a lost herd or just looking for greener pastures.

So what better way than to prospect for gold in paradise. No wonder many of the old sourdoughs lived out in these hills for many years. It wasn’t only the gold but the peace and solitude that attracted them, and the way of life. A week on the gulch, tearing open bedrock was worth the effort and the fond memories of the atmosphere.

I sat up on a boulder next to my bath hole in the creek and brushed my teeth. I glanced up the creek to my diggings, my sluice box, and tools propped against the bank, and grabbed a cup nearby and drank from the icy creek. It was some of the finest water I’d tasted.

GREAT ALASKAN NUGGET FINDS

In each issue The Alaska Goldfield will feature best found nugget stories.

Miner Finds 17-ounce Nugget
(Vol. 3, No.1)
By Ron Wendt

Judd Edgerton has been mining gold in the Fortymile Mining District for nearly ten years. Edgerton his wife Gail and 2 children live year round on a remote creek where they have a radio telephone to communicate to the outside world. They also have a radio to pick up the nearest radio station in Glennallen, about 150 miles away as the crow flies. So to get a message to them or any other miners in the area, one can send them a message via Caribou Clatters. You can either email the radio station or call in your message which is played three times a day at certain times.

Their claims can either be accessed by boat or a terrible muddy 11 mile trail into the claims. Edgerton and his family are in the heart of the oldest actively mined mining district in Alaska since 1886.

One day, Edgerton began stripping ground for mining in April. It was twelve below zero and he was ripping up frozen pay layers and slate about 30 feet down in a cut he had worked at in previous mining seasons.

The process as it goes has the miner bulldozing down through tundra and permafrost exposing ground daily for the sun to melt bog or black top soil. In the old days miners would drift mine on these claims that date back to 1894. Miners would sink shafts to bedrock, then tunnel along the prospective paystreak, hoping to make a meager living.

Through the years technology replaced the pick and shovel. Some of the ground was hydraulicked and bull dozed.

Edgerton uses the D-8 method to dig down to bedrock. After he gets down to bedrock, Edgerton, using a Fisher Gold Bug, always detects the ground he is about to begin working, once spring and summer comes.

The snow was still covering the tundra and wrapped around the stunted black spruce and aspen trees which don’t grow to well on permafrost, or are the only kind of trees that will grown on permafrost and don’t require much of a root system.

Not far over the hill, miners have uncovered piles of prehistoric bones throughout the years along with golden paystreaks. The bones were mysteriously frozen quickly, or swirled into the mix of rock, top soil (also known to some miners as mastodon dung) and gravel. Bison skulls, mammoth ivory, sabre tooth tiger skulls, bones and small prehistoric ponies have been unearthed by miners and studied by scientists from around the world.

On this chilly April day, Edgerton doesn’t worry about mosquitoes just yet, but it’s the gnawing cold that forces him to keep gloves on and long johns under his insulated coveralls.

The detector works fine in the cold and Edgerton gets an immediate response on small nuggets here and there scattered through frozen chunks of dirt.

But there’s one area that puzzles him. Like an archaeologist he chips away at frozen paydirt and slate, wondering what the loud signal could be his detector has found.

"It sounded like I had found a bull dozer the signal was so large," said Edgerton.

He began picking away at the frozen dirt. It was detect, then chip, detect and chip. The signal got louder. Well over a foot down the signal kept getting stronger. He got on the dozer and ripped up a little more dirt. Climbing down off the bull dozer he began detecting again. He found more little nuggets in frozen pieces of dirt.

By this time Edgerton was oblivious to the cold that surrounded him. Gold fever was warming him up fast.

Time went by. The chipping continued. The signal was really strong now. Edgerton had many thoughts going through his head; perhaps it was an old piece of rusted iron, or an old wagon wheel. It could be anything.

Then his eye caught the glint of yellow as the April sun was high in the sky above him. Moisture from the condensation from his breath, streamed out around him as he waved his hand across the frozen hole so he could see what was down there.

It was a gold nugget alright. But how big it was, he had no idea.

He chipped and chipped and it seemed to get bigger. A bowling ball sized nugget would be fine with him. Finally he was able to chip around the perimeter of the chunk of gold. It resembled a chicken drumstick and was lying length wise in the ground.

After much scraping and picking and making sure not to damage the nugget, Edgerton finally had his prize. It was a 17 ounce nugget and had a smooth surface with no quartz attached. His wife had been in town near Anchorage and would be back soon.

Did he have a surprise for her!