June 18th 2012, A Day in the Goldfields of Dawson City

June 18^th 2012, A Day in the Goldfields of Dawson City

I stepped down into the water and regretted my decision. It was muddy and I hoped I wouldn’t get stuck. I dug my shovel into the sidewall of the hole and felt the clay and rock. I was able to gather some on the blade and scraped it into the bucket. I realized I now knew what the “muck” was referred to by the old time miners.

Arriving at Dawson we had decided that we wanted to spend a day in the goldfields of Bonanza Creek. There we would take the tour of the Dredge Number 4 and then drive further up the valley and do some panning at Claim Number Six,(Claim Six is owned by the Klondike Visitor Center and offers free panning for tourists).

Arriving just in time for the first tour we bought tickets and waited outside for the guide. She soon showed up and started off with a question, “How many miners did it take to run the dredge? “ Now it’s a huge dredge and so we all guessed too high a number so when she told us just four, it seemed to low.

There were others of course. A team would use steam to melt the permafrost and another team would drill test holes to plan the path the dredge would take. However it only took four people to actually operate the earth moving monstrosity.

The machine was really something akin to a monster that ate the earth and spilled out worm trails in its path. It actually worked its way up the valley and was finally abandoned where it now rests. It made millions of dollars for its investors, the Guggenheim's, and on a positive note it was one of the mining machines that kept Dawson City alive

After finishing the tour we talked with the park guide who said that going up to Claim Number Six was a good way to connect with the early miners. She told us that some of the mines had actually donated ore for the free panning area and suggested we work that material if we wanted to find some gold.

Of course we first heeded her suggestion and I found a small flake of gold in my second pan. We both panned the rest of the bucket, to no avail, and so I dug some new material from another hole.  No more gold and so I crossed the creek and dug in the large hole that had been worked by others.

It didn’t surprise me that I didn’t find any gold there, the tour had a picture of the pay zone and showed it below the permafrost. Still I had to try and so I returned to the original pile. Renita sat patiently in her spot working her pan and looking for nuggets. Unfortunately, nuggets were seldom found here as it was mostly fine gold. We certainly didn’t find any, but again that was no surprise.

Now the gold we found was barely visible but we were both happy we had found some. We really had no illusions but still we are the eternal optimists, and why not? Later we talked about our day and both of us agreed that we would find more gold, once we got to Chicken!  Clear skies