It’s been about one week since I arrived in Chandalar. I spent today alone collecting soil samples at a prospect called St. Mary’s pass. It is steep terrain, full of talus, and makes a pretty good amphitheater. Tomorrow Dick Walters arrives on a plane – the president of Goldrich (aka Little Squaw Mining Company). Also, it is raining! Just lightly at the moment, but at an important time as the wash plant is nearly ready and soon we’ll be operating. I guess it makes sense that the clouds have finally moved in, because in Fairbanks the Tanana Valley State Fair began a day ago, and everyone knows when the fair rolls into town, so does the rain! Tomorrow is also my 24th birthday. Yippee, hooray, done.
Over at the old Mikado mine, we’ve seen a single caribou, a single sheep, and one lone wolf. Jim proposed to name the area ‘Lonely Valley’. The caribou has stuck around a few days, and the sad look on its’ face reminds me that getting lost in the mountains really is a very dangerous situation. I also had the opportunity to visit Tobin creek, where the Mikado mine processed ore until the underground shaft caved in the 80’s and the man in charge accidentally crashed his plane and was killed. Down at Tobin is a bunch of old stuff – I like the fleet of old Toyota Landcruisers from the 70’s. There’s two planes which crashed there (it’s a problematic airstrip) and a mill. The mill is a great big building which had a ball mill, jig, floatation, and cyanide leach cells to extract the gold from the ore. There is a ghostly air to the facility now, as it looks like the entire crew disappeared mid-run. There are barrels of concentrate eroding, and various solutions and materials strewn about the place. It’s now an attraction for snowmachiners and the like during the winter, although the company has done a decent job of “recycling” old spare parts and other paraphernalia.
It’s really pouring outside now. Nice cool, clean air for once, and I hope the Little Squaw creek will be flowing enough to drink from again. We’ve had to haul water from 2 miles down, because the flow was so low that the creek nearby was full of arsenic and other crap.
I am looking forward to mining. I think we’ll be pushed until the middle of September at least, and possibly longer, weather dependent. After getting back to Fairbanks, I am planning some spearfishing on the Chatanika with friends, more work for a while with Metallogeny, and then we’ll see. I need to head to Florida sometime in the fall or early winter, and I don’t yet have the funding needed for a year-long Masters in Mine Management in Sydney. Deborah may take a teaching/pHd position in Zurich, Switzerland in January – so lots of questions with few answers at the moment. I’ll enjoy listening to the rain hit the tent as I fall asleep tonight.
All the best,
Dylan
9th August 2009
It was blowing 50mph at the mountaintops this morning. By the end of the day, snow began to fly. Happy Birthday! But everything cleared up too, just like that! From hot and smoky to cold and windy, the weather changed dramatically. I’d call it the official first day of Autumn: the alders have begun to dye yellow and there’s a special chill in the air. It is magical out here, seeing the edge of ANWR to the East, watching a pair of moose wind their way down Little MacLeelan Creek. It’s a joy and privilege to work here in Chandalar.
12th August 2009
We are nearly ready to sluice! Again, I tested the pit, but we're not ready to start production yet, and this afternoon I buzzed up to a prospect called Eneveloe. It's just below Little Squaw Peak (about 5,000ft. elevation - doesn't seem high, but in this country, that's pretty up there). Eneveloe is named after Frank Yasuda's eskimo wife, who discovered the giant gold bearing lode which has since eroded and formed very rich gold placers in Little Squaw and Big Squaw Creeks, which we are about to partially mine! Yesterday operators found an old shaft that the Manuel Mello sunk in the 1940's. He was portuguese, and with the Japanese Yasuda, this place has quite a worldly connection! The weather had become moderately better. Yesterday I went across the hillside to prospect an old shaft and windlass, but came up with dust, or fly shit gold, however you choose. I've been watching two of my favorite films: Hook and Hearts and Souls. The Peter Pan story is my favorite movie of all time, and sometimes I think of this place as Neverland. It's full of Lost Boys, you have to fly out into a faraway land to get here, and it's full of adventure. The only woman here, Marcie the cook, is a wonderful soul like Tinkerbell too. The days are still long, and I've yet to see darkness, although I hear it's creeping around 2am now. It is sheep hunting season, and somebody has spotted some sheep across the valley on Mount Contemplation, named that because the camp faces North directly towards the beautiful mountain, and the primary outhouse has a beautiful view of it, which is great when you don't want to be thinking about the cold seat or the nagging mosquitos! I am reading a "Bible in a Year" but Genesis decidely sucks for the most part in my opinion. The Geologist Jim leaves in a couple days, meaning just as the wash plant is pouring out loads of concentrate, I'll be inundated and probably start working 14hr days. Woof!
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