Gold!

Monday was orientation at the Fairbanks Visitor and Convention Center, another good stop for travelers. They have room of interpretation that go through the seasons of Alaska as well as short videos of the pipeline. Not your typical VC with just flyers of info. This day allowed us time to meet and talk with other volunteers from the entire district.

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day with no wind (yea!) and a day for seeing the rest of the best of Fairbanks, gratis the State Park system. First stop was the #8 Goldstream Dredge which began in 1905 and ran until 1959. The dredge was built in the stream and moved 4-1/2 miles taking out about 350 million ounces of gold over the years. The buckets in the picture scooped up the gravel which then went through a very large rotating cylinder, sorting out the rocks and ultimately capturing the gold. 750 men worked there in the 40s-50s on 24 hour shifts. It stopped not because the gold ran out but because in '59 AK became a state which meant regulations that the dredge would not have met!

The tour included a typical miners lunch of meat and potato stew and biscuits which was delicious.

Next stop, the El Dorado Gold Mine where we got to pan for gold. The adventure here began with a train ride through a tunnel showing how gold was extracted and out past a cabin and mine operation. The tour guide on the train was a professional musician who used to play with Don Ho and who also played at least once with Johnny Cash. He did many guitar and fiddle tunes and was wonderful. On to the main attraction though, we were shown the entire process of using the sluice and then panning and then each person got a poke (a bag) from which you were guaranteed to find gold flakes. What fun! Here's my pan in the process of weeding out gravel from gold.We didn't get rich, but my pan ended up with $13 and Tom's with $15 which you cannot exchange for cash, but who wants to do that anyway!

We then drove to Chena Hot Springs where we enjoyed soaking in the springs with another volunteer we'd met, followed by dinner there, excellent salads and creme brulee for dessert. We camped out in a nearby Granite Tors state park that came complete with the most mosquitoes we've seen this trip. Next morning we hiked up about 4-5 miles of the Tors Trail in a drizzle of rain. Nice views but nothing spectacular.

Back into Fairbanks we headed to the Alaska Prospector. We've caught the gold bug and plan to have some fun panning some of the creeks that we pass by on the road from Donnelly to Fielding Lake. The Prospector though is gem of a stop that the typical tourist would definitely miss. The proprietor is a retired geology prof from the University who is another grand AK character. His shop is part museum with a 1937 working juke box, old cash resigster and penny slot machines, 1929 and'31 Fords outside one of which he says still runs (although the last time he started it was 20 years ago) and many, many rocks and gemstones. Time spent talking to these guys are becoming the best part of the summer.

Shopping for staples for the next month would up this trip and we are now back in Delta Junction and headed for Donnelly.