PROSPECTING FOR GOLD IN ALASKA

You’d never guess where we started our prospecting for Gold in Alaska. Back in 1979 my friend Carl and I started our search for placer Gold at the state library archives at the Federal Bldg. in downtown Anchorage. Carl already had negotiated purchase of an old placer mine set of claims with an old timer named Jasper Heath. We were doing our due diligence kind of after the fact. We were researching the locations of the claims and checking them against historical records on file with the USGS (United States Geological Survey).

We discovered many entries for the area we were working in, The Camp Creek area of the Interior of Alaska, in the Kaiyuh District 35 miles south of the Yukon River. This was an adventure in itself, reading about times long past and miners long gone. A literal history of the State as seen through the lens of the Gold Rush. We researched the whole area of the state and stored a lot of information for later times.

After researching all we could stand we went back in the field. In the mine we were working we had learned a lot from just talking to Jasper, the old timer, and exploring the area on foot and by CAT. We discovered an old wood burning U.S. Army cook stove in a derelict bldg. north of camp, an Indian village long ago abandoned by its inhabitants just the other side of the creek where we chose to establish our campsite. We did locate the site of the original mining camp from the 20’s and 30’s and excavated the area and found all kinds of old discarded trash. I found a Log Cabin Syrup tin circa 1930 that was in incredible condition. Old glass bottles, old boots and miscellaneous items from the past. Almost as much fun as finding a very old peat moss pit that was frozen solid and as we thawed it out to get to the bedrock below it, it revealed a treasure trove of old bones and teeth. But the best part was the complete skeleton of a Wooly Mammoth with a complete set of tusks! We thawed that ice lens with what is known in the mining business as a “Giant”. A large water canon the washed the frozen ground away and revealed all the fossils and detritus as it melted. But no gold yet. We were just getting started.

We had walked the claims and Panned the area looking for a pattern of where the gold lay. The gold bearing ground followed the ancient creek bed that had since moved down the hillside to where it was now, maybe 200 yards. We dug many test trenches with the backhoe trying to narrow the trail of the gold. As we went along you started to get a feel for the locations of the gold. In the swift water of the creek you cold see where the gold would lie. The natural eddies and rapids that acted like riffles in a sluice box would trap the heavier minerals like garnet, magnetite, pyrites and of course Gold. There is an old adage in the miners lore, “the bigger the stones, the bigger the nuggets”. And true it was. The larger rocks would create whirl pools and eddies that gave a pause to the current and allowed the heavy material to drop or get trapped between stones. There were many natural traps that we explored and found traces of ‘color’, small flecks of gold that were good indicators of more to come.

I was the head prospector in the camp and with Carl the owner we established the patterns with our gold panning to plan the mining of the property. The first spot we chose to test with the full sluice operation ran parallel to the landing strip we built and almost covered. We found a lens of grey mud that was saturated with crystals of arsenopyrites a decomposed schist of white quartz. There was so much arsenopyrite in the ground it jammed the sluice box within minutes of starting. Most of us are familiar with iron pyrite (fools gold) but I had never seen such concentrations of arsenopyrite, consisting of a combined sulfide and arsenide of iron that occurs in prismatic orthorhombic crystals and is the prime source of arsenic.

We estimated that we ran the box for an hour and then cleaned it up and had 4 ounces of gold in there. We then ran the box for 4 hours and had the same results. Then we ran it for 10 minutes and still had the same results. The riffles in the sluice box would fill almost immediately and cause the material to just run out the bottom because there was so much arsenopyrite getting trapped that there was no more room to catch the gold! This was incredible to us, what to do? We pondered this question for days because we figured there was over 10 ounces of gold per yard of material run through the box and that was a fortune, we normally were happy to get 1/2 an ounce to the yard. But testing at the bottom of the box showed over 90% of the gold was running right out the bottom. The material was sticky and difficult to breakdown, and no matter how you washed it we always got the same results. Our final solution was to put all the material back in the hole until we got a “jig” that would break down the mud and put it into solution. The sluice box just wouldn’t work for this stuff. So I know where it is and my partner Carl. Carl has passed on and now it’s just me. I’ll never tell.

We continued on there for three years and Carl continued till he passed away 10 years more. It is still all there and Carl eventually made a “jig” and did his assay work every year and pulled out some gold. His son owns the land now and I’ve stayed in touch over the years but not consistently. Up the valley from where we mined Anaconda opened a mine and sold it to a Native corporation and it was developed as “The Illinois Creek Gold and Silver Mine”. It went broke in a few years and sits empty, just like our Camp Creek Mine.

The first step to look for Gold is to research where you want to start and then make a plan. You can even pick up old claims for nothing, you just need to find out if they are still good or not. Then restake them and your in business.

So no matter how you do it prospecting for gold in Alaska is a necessary part of the mining process. Some guys do it for fun but at today’s gold prices ($1,498.30), It could be a real fun hobby!