Gold in Trib 1

by Douglas Anderson

  Nighttime in the wilds was a time of deep contemplation for Hagen. It was icy cold, but with hot tasty food, endless hot drink, chocolate or coffee, and a bright fire, there was a certain excitement to it all. In Hagen’s mind—although he had a snow machine and other modern conveniences—he was following the early mountain men, prospectors, and trappers who preceded the settlers in the later part of the nineteenth century. All sorts of things went through his mind during the hours spent hunched in the small circle of warmth listening to the hissing and popping of the flames and watching sparks drift into the starlit sky. He was steeped in reverie and it would have detracted from the atmosphere if there had been anyone with him.

  A couple of times bright eyes sparkled outside the ring of firelight but they were small, possibly those of a fox. It had crossed his mind there might be wolves around, but he had his rifle nearby. He was also thinking of the energy expended on this trip. It seemed like so much work, not to mention danger, just to deposit a few tools and equipment on the claim. He knew it would pay dividends when we hiked in there next summer. With a good-sized, advanced air drop of food we should have an easy hike and a couple of productive weeks on the claim. We already invested quite a bit of effort, time, and money in this venture. Maybe this year we’d see a return on the investment. Later we would have to find a vehicle to make the journey. Backpacking was time consuming, and eventually, if the claim proved to be worth it, we would need mobility and more equipment to do the job right.

  Tomorrow was another day and Hagen was confident that it would not be too difficult. With a good start in the morning he should be at the Jeep before noon. Lunch would be at the restaurant in Tok. Perhaps he would invite Tony and he’d tell him how things turned out. He surely hoped they were serving something other than beef stew for lunch. In the afternoon he would be wheeling toward home in Wasilla.

  He spent the night quite comfortably and was up and about at first light. A hot cereal breakfast, a little while packing everything securely on the sled, and he was set to move out.

  Now to see if the return journey really would be better. He was under no illusions, even with the lightly loaded sled, it would still be challenging. He slipped his goggles down, fired up the snow machine, and hit the trail. He left Ladue Valley and headed into abrupt changes. The terrain rose gradually and it was heavily forested. At the lower level, trees were skinny, shallow rooted, arctic tamarack, and black spruce so prolific in wet tundra areas. At higher levels, trees were larger, and comprised of evergreens and deciduous. All of the evergreen trees were sagging under great weights of snow. The deciduous trees stood stark against the sky, their naked branches coated with frost. Occasional clearings were partly blocked by exposed upper branches of dwarf willows.

  He stuck to Tony’s blazed trapline trail as much as possible, noting, with some satisfaction, that his machine negotiated the trail much better with the lighter sled. Also, he supposed, he was a little more proficient too. He seemed to sail straight through some of his former trouble spots. Once he overshot a turn and the machine and the sled took a nose dive into deep snow. Oh well, back to the shoveling, heaving, and hauling. Thank goodness his sore back was feeling better and didn’t stop him from doing such things.

  He made it to the end of the trail and the waiting Jeep just as he had planned before noon. Loading the sled and snow machine on the trailer, he soon had the Jeep rolling along the AL-Can toward Tok. It had been tough but the mission was a success. Another determined stride in our mining ventures, and most importantly in his own mind, another challenge won.

  Chapter 20

  Working Gold Claim

  It was the last week of August. The aspen and silver birch trees in the Trib I Valley were in full color, contrasting sharply with the dark Sitka spruce and other conifers on the surrounding hills. At two o’clock in the afternoon it was mild with temperatures hovering around 65°, cooling off rapidly in the later hours.

  The valley was changed. Until lately, it had been a peaceful place with only the sounds of nature breaking the silence. Now, the silence was broken. Man and his technology intruded—the beat of a five-horsepower gasoline engine, the raucous sound reverberated off the hillsides. It was difficult to pinpoint the real source of the sound.

  The Glory Hole was the center of activity. Located at the narrowing head of the valley at a point referred to on maps and registered at the mining office in Anchorage, was shown as Trib 1, H and D Claim. Named after us, the owners, Hagen and me, Doug.

  We were busy on the claim but other things kept us busy too. Our claim area showed evidence of earlier development and activity. Carefully, we had not disrupted the land more than necessary. As we reconnoitered, it was obvious much of the natural landscape was disturbed.

  Hagen and I set up a substantial shelter, a twelve foot by twelve foot army tent, reinforced with a sturdy plastic tarpaulin fly-sheet. It stood on raised ground to the east of our claim. By the west side of the stream, some fifty yards from the “cabin,” was our large excavation. To the side of the excavation was an elaborate sluice box and a hopper system. The engine driven pumping unit, placed near the stream, was busy pushing quantities of water through a two-inch pipe connected to the upper end of the sluice box.

  Other equipment stood around our site, including a small portable electric generator, a gold panning machine which we used almost every evening, and a suction dredge nozzle. Our buckets, shovels, wheel barrow, and smaller tools were on site. Some comforts of home were hidden inside the shelter.

  We had ferried equipment to Trib 1 over the last two years. Our equipment was dropped from the plane, hauled in by snowmachine during the winter, and most recently by a sturdy six wheeled ATV nicknamed Herman. The camouflage painted vehicle presently stood alongside the cabin.

  Two years had passed since Hagen and I had made the initial exploratory hike into the Trib Valleys. After that hike, and another last year, we were convinced this particular site was worth developing. We purchased the ATV, as a stock vehicle, from a dealer in town. During the winter, we made extensive modifications and turned it into the kind of vehicle we could really use. An eighteen-inch extension was attached to the general length of the chassis. The box bed, a second twelve-volt battery, a fifteen-gallon reserve gas tank, an electric winch, a sturdy roll bar, front bumper, and finally a camo paint job rounded out the project. We added a powerful swivel light, and loops for lashing down cargo.

  We also purchased a second hand tandem-axle boat trailer and adapted it as a transporter for the ATV. It was stashed at the trail head along with the old Chevy Blazer.

  The trip to our claim was a breeze on the ATV, specially compared to the tough hiking we did in the past. Of course, it simplified the ferrying of supplies. It was impossible to do on foot, or by snowmachine, and sled as Hagen dared eighteen months ago. With help of the ATV, fresh food, not considered while hiking, was hauled in to camp. We gladly added, onions, potatoes, and carrots to the pot.

  With the big, six, nobby tires mounted on fifteen inch by twelve inch rims, the ATV had beaten a pretty well-defined trail from the main ridge trail down into the Trib 1 Valley. Still, we were protective of our claim and took pains to disguise the entrance from anyone passing the main trail. We had never yet met anyone on the trail but we now knew it was occasionally used by fall hunters.

  Our Trib I claim turned out to be a good producer and even more so since we constructed a larger capacity sluice box and hopper. It required a little adaptation, but thanks to innovative valving and pipe connections, the arrangement could be converted into a suction dredge able to vacuum fine materials from depths of our excavations. It had proven to be a big advantage when the material was suitable and the hole was filled with water. This year, by consolidating vacation time, we spent almost four weeks on the claim. Now, we were just starting the fourth week and would have to pack up in a few days.

  Throughout our trips to the valley, we had never seen a grizzly bear. Much of our trepidation disappeare
d. We did see an occasional black bear and even had one which regularly snooped camp during the night. We kept our guns handy. Hagen’s pump shotgun was propped against a nearby tree and I sported a 357 magnum in a shoulder holster. It was a bit awkward at times but I felt it was worthwhile to have it handy. The chattering noise of the small engine was something a bear, especially a hungry one, might get used to after a while.

  At three o’clock, we started one of our regular cleanups of the sluice box. We raked out the larger rocks and gravel, lifted up the riffle assembly and removed a snug fitting strip of indoor-outdoor carpet from the bottom of the box. The carpet, along with its load of concentrate was rolled and carefully placed in a bucket of water. Later, we’d rinse it thoroughly in a larger galvanized tub.

  This was an exciting time. If we sluiced good sized nuggets, we’d see them in with any larger flakes as the riffles were lifted. Much of the finer gold remained hidden deep between the coarse fibers of the carpet rinsed out later. We usually idled the engine and worked on cleaning the sluice. It was a relief from the hard work we shared, but we also shared in the discovery gleanings from the earth. At afternoon tea break, we shut down the engine completely and let our ears rest too.

  Clean up took us about half an hour. There were no record breaking nuggets. After three weeks, we were past great excitement over small nuggets. We realized, however, every little nugget or flake helped to increase the total poke. In the evening we rinsed the fine gold from the pieces of carpet and set the panning machine going to separate the gold from the heavy black sand. Once the sluice was all set to go again, with clean carpet installed, we went across to the cabin and brewed tea.

  Breaks were much easier now. We had a single burner naphtha stove we used for boiling enough water for tea or coffee. Our main cooking was still done over a small fire. We occasionally heated a large galvanized tub of water for laundry or a hot shower. Yes, hot shower! Enough of cold water, hardy, frontiersmen nonsense. We had cleverly rigged garden hose so the water circulation pump of the panning machine would suck up the warm water and spray it from a shower head set above the tub. It was marvelous therapy after a hard day of grubbing in the Glory Hole.

  For rainy days, and there were a few, we had a small potbellied wood stove set up inside the cabin so we cooked using a combination of the naphtha and the wood stove.

  With the pump shut down, and the claim area quiet for the time being, we sat on a couple of aluminum garden chairs and waited for the water to boil. From this elevated vantage point, we surveyed our claim and the hills to the west. When we arrived three weeks earlier, the hills were brilliant scarlet with fireweed. In these three weeks we watched the blooms of the fireweed march progressively higher along their stems. When the flowers were at the very top of the stems, autumn began. Other flowers were now overwhelmed by Autumn yellow and orange colors of the deciduous trees.

  Last year we started digging and sluicing below the cabin on the west side of the stream. A narrow trench about twenty yards in length was left. Probing further with a long crowbar, we were extremely fortunate to identify a reef of bedrock about two feet below the surface. The material against this impermeable reef had been the most productive. With our improved machinery, we were exploiting this trench to the fullest, and consequently had branched out to follow the bedrock.

  This year, with the larger sluice box and suction dredge attachments, we continued on a broad front. We used the wheelbarrow to bring the overburden material to the hopper end of the sluice box. We now had a large excavation and allowed it to partially fill with water. It would then be suctioned using the dredging nozzle. Recently we began to back fill the hole with the tailings from the sluice so that it virtually remained a constant size more easily flooded with water when necessary.

  When we started the sluice the previous year, we used the tailings to form a settling pond so the fine sediment would not foul the stream. We were careful with the pond and regularly checked downstream to gauge its efficiency. Our pond worked well and our mining activity had negligible impact on the environment outside the immediate claim area.

  Getting to the sluice from the cabin involved crossing the stream, so we positioned sturdy tree trunks as a bridge. Our camp was well arranged and comfortable. There were times when we felt more like two of the seven dwarfs trudging off to work in the mine every day. Hi ho, hi ho.

  For rest and recuperation we found fishing in the Ladue River to be excellent. Occasionally, we would take a day off and ride the ATV three miles south to the river where we would fly fish for grayling. Hagen was not keen about fishing, but after a few trips, he was hooked and really enjoyed using a light fly rod.

  The Ladue River ran a dark tea color from peat leaching from the swampy areas of the wide valley. I heard there were medicinal benefits from swimming in such water. True or not, on the nicer days, to test the theory, we braved the cold water, and skinny dipped. We were never sick, so we figured the tale must be true.

  Time on the claim each year was a premium, but a month was a long time to spend processing dirt through the sluice box. We fell into a pattern of spending every fourth or fifth day relaxing. We sometimes hiked a little way up the hillside and picnicked at a higher elevation and enjoyed the good view of the surrounding countryside. This served as a great escape from the claustrophobic confines of the narrow valley, and gave us a different kind of activity.

  Last year, during one such hike, we discovered something strange. About half way up the wooded slope behind our camp, we came upon three large circular holes. Each was about forty feet across and filled with water within a couple of feet of the rim. There was no telling how deep they were. Part way up a thirty-degree slope was a strange place to find such ponds. The only thing we could think was that they were bomb craters. Perhaps in earlier years the military had used the area for bombing practice. Anyway, if that’s what they were, it was a long time ago because the holes were now surrounded by mature trees.

  Blueberries were in abundance at the higher elevations and we sometimes picked a pint or two for dessert. An occasional grayling and the blueberries were easy variety to our diet.

  Well, tea break was over, so it was time to get back to our mining job. We crossed the bridge, pulled the engine back to life, and started sluicing. Hagen was whistling, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.”

  It was my turn to bring dirt to the hopper and Hagen’s to feed it bit by bit into the sluice. We rigged the hopper so that a quantity of material could be dumped in and then metered into the rush of the pumped water. Everything cascaded over a half inch mesh screen and then over the series of twelve riffles in the long sluice box. It was important not to feed the material too fast or the riffles could clog. It was equally important to make sure each rock was carefully washed because fine gold tends to stick to the clay on rock surfaces. It was a combination of water force and gravity. Water, to wash the material and separate grains of clay, sand, gravel, and gold, and sweep them down the sluice. Gravity, to cause the heavier elements, called concentrate, including gold, to fall to the lowest point between the riffles where it could not be washed away by the force of the water. We always used sturdy rubber gloves when tending the sluice because there was a lot of hand work and the water was icy cold.

  Suction dredging the depths of the excavation was, in its way, a little easier for us. The size of the nozzle ensured only smaller gravel and fines were sucked up and there was little washing necessary. We proved the greater percentage of gold was found at bedrock and suction dredging was the most efficient method of recovery.

  Our sluice box spillway carried tailings away from the sluice itself. Occasionally, it was necessary to truck these tailings away and backfill the hole. Thus, the material was moved twice and the excavation never really got any larger.

  Experience proved that a piece of carpet under the riffles would last about three hours. Any longer and it would choke with heavy black sand and be less effective in snaring fine particles of gold. Sinc
e we didn’t want to lose any gold, we usually worked three or four carpet shifts during a mining day. Counting cleanup time, it was almost a fourteen-hour day.

  That was the hard work. Our day didn’t end there. Every evening we had half a bucket of heavy concentrate which had to be passed through the panning machine. The panning machine was a clever device with an eighteen-inch diameter rotating disc set at forty five degree angle. The disc features a three-inch rim and has a spiral groove formed on its flat inner surface. A little pump delivers water through a nozzle which keeps the disc irrigated. As the disc rotates, there is a panning action which causes heavy gold to settle to the bottom where it is picked up by the spiral groove and transported upward to a hole in the center of the disc. A tube leads from the hole to a container under the machine. The water pump and disc are driven by a small gasoline engine.

  The little engine was noisy but we often troweled in concentrate while we were preparing the evening meal, and even little by little while we ate. While we fed it, the machine did the rest and it was fun to watch a procession of gold marching up the spiral and into the container. It was even more exciting when there was a nugget heavy enough to make an audible klunk as it hit the container.

  After panning was finished and the gold was dry, we shook it through a special sieve which graded the gold by size into four categories. The gold was then placed in screw-top plastic bottles. The bottles were placed in a metal box, and with typical care, hidden where only we could reach. The box was satisfyingly heavy with results of our three weeks of hard labor.