29th August 2009

Things are getting colder, and darker. The mountains are frosted white. The plant is having hiccups, and I think we'll last only another two weeks. I hope, because I'd like to fly my girlfriend over from England in mid-September, before it's too late in the season and she'd freeze then. It's beautiful still, and I'm learning a lot about gold exploration and development, and it's mostly a people thing - Gold affects people in very strange ways. I am operating a small Jig for cleanups, and we're doing better, producing 30oz/day on average now. For a large, bulk placer mine like the development plan is pushing, this test is proving up the resource. I don't like the idea of a giant open pit out here in the future - it's beautiful - but it's a good prospect and I'd be happy to manage this mine operation in teh future. Miss everyone and hope to speak soon. The smell of propane lanterns at night has lost it's novelty.

There's Gold in an Old Tanzanian Lake

22nd August 2009

Today we cleaned up perhaps 11 ounces. Better, but still not great. There is a little too much invested into the overhead of this project, and not the gold mine itself, therefore this endeavor may be a failing enterprise. But today we did manage to expose over thirty feet of old shafts, drift mines into the rich placer which supposedly removed over 30,000 oz of gold! Cy also found an old rifle the other day dated 1894, and we had a nugget today weighing in at just under half an ounce, it’s about the size of a date.
My roommate Gerhart has gone home. He flew out on the flight that brought in investor David Atkinson, and tomorrow he’ll return in his own aircraft, a small 126 Cessna. He’s great, just like all the other men and woman working here at camp. We’re still hopeful that the gold will continue to accumulate in the riffles, and I’m anxious to know what tonights clean-up will actually weigh-up to.
After two freezing nights, the weather has warmed a little. Two mornings everyone worried, because once freeze up comes, the water disappears fast. I had to knock ice off everything, get pumps working, but I did have a little fun. In the large circular tubs that we use to pan inside, I took out large 2’ diameter circular sheets of ice, and placed them conspicuously around camp. They melted into things for about 2 hours, looking strange as though they had formed there, and then broke.
The hillsides are wonderful shades of yellow, orange, and red. They should have better adjectives, like Mojave, sepia, and maroon, because it’s really a very magical sight. I’ve seen the first glitter of starlight a few days ago with a pale showing of green aurora slowly waving down from above.
I’m gaining some weight and a little muscle back, which I tend to lose when I’m being all academic as Scotland the last few years. I still hope I can fly Deborah over to Alaska in the coming weeks. I’m sore (especially the back) when I go to bed, but that’s how work should be. The best part of my job is cleaning out the nugget box in the wash plant, which involves climbing up into the innards of the best, the trammel, a 40’ long mesh tunnel where tons of rock, water and mud come spinning down. A small gated box near the top end catches nuggets occasionally, so I clean it out, sort of like the city sewer – it’s a dirty, messy job. I wash my hands, and my face before dinner, because I predictably splatter mud all over my beard and forehead and cheeks.
The future is still uncertain for me, but I’ll be here for a little while yet, and I look forward to seeing family in Florida this Fall.

I met Bob Moriarty last night (24th). Cool, pony-tailed down-to-earth guy. I'm going to Tanzania in October to check out Douglas North's very large paleoplacer deposit for him and Jeff. Should have enough money then to complete a Masters in Mine Management in Sydney, Australia in February.

Aug. 8th thru 12th, 2009

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 24^th 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

9^th 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!

First three days at camp

4th August 2009
Hello everyone,

I have arrived safe to Chandalar and been pretty busy the last few days, although we are not yet mining. The man in charge of building the wash plant, an old placer miner from Alaska named Cy, probably won't be ready for a few days yet. Since freeze up comes in mid-September normally, we're getting tight for time. On top of that, it's been a very dry summer and the creek is almost all but dried up. No water, no sluicing, no ounces of gold. On the plus side, these down days have meant I've had the chance to head up on four-wheelers with Jim Barker, the head geologist here the last 6 or 7 years, and take some fun trips around different prospects in the mountains. Tomorrow I will be heading out to the mountains alone to take some soil samples.

The weather is still smoky and I guess the conditions in Fairbanks are even worse. We have about 1-2miles visibility which changes during the day. New fires have started around the interior, and we're somewhere between 2-3million acres burned this summer, and probably more still left. 2004 was the last time it was this bad, and around 7 million burned then. There's a subtle wheeze in the back of everyone's lungs, and it's irritating to the eyes, nose, ears - not to mention the brain! Spend a lifetime not smoking and inhale two summers of this atmosphere and you're at the same spot - whoopee!

The connection is fast enough here that skype will probably work. Unfortunately with the long hours, there will be little chance to arrange a suitable time to speak, as other workers here need to use the internet as well. Until next time, hope all is well wherever it is you are reading this from,
All the best,

Dylan

Sunday, 2^nd August 2009

I arrived into Chandalar this afternoon. It was a pleasure to leave the smoky skies of Fairbanks, and land in the idyllic setting here, 160 miles north. The temperature has noticeably taken a dip from the interior valley, and I can sense the weather which is soon to come. About nine or ten guys are working here – and the cook Marcy and her dog R.I.P. (yes, that’s the name of her retriever) together with Larry and his lab Clyde, are running a great camp. I ate two steaks for dinner tonight! We are not yet starting production, but the operation is very near. There are a few mechanics and one old placer miner working hard to get the large wash plant ready. There’s also three operators pushing overburden. I am working with Jim Barker, the head geologist. His wife Charlotte (also a geo) left on the plane I came on to return to their ranch in Eastern Oregon, where a fire has burned down fence line on their ranch. When Jim showed me the pit near to camp, my first instinct was a little horrid. All the secrets we were trying to discover about the true value of the gold here that the old timers thawed, picked, shoveled, sluiced, and panned are about to be extinguished. We are about 35ft down, and some test pits are at 50 or 55ft. My job will be to transport concentrate from the commercial wash plant to the Goldsaver, a smaller wash plant which will concentrate the gold. The concentrate will come in 55 gallon drums and I’ll be working nonstop to extract the gold. So far, the tests we’ve run indicate the exploration in 2007 we did was correct; and there’s significant grades to be mined the rest of the season. We hope to be seeing some rich cleanups! The median age of the crew here is 57 years. One operator is in his twenties, but then there’s a 35 year gap, and it’s interesting. It’s quiet and peaceful and incredibly beautiful. This week I’ll be prospecting some creeks nearby with Jim. His dog (the third and last here) is a fantastic sheep dog named “Chiga” and not long ago was nearly killed by a lone wolf at MacLeelan Ck. Also there is a bear’s den (we don’t know if it’s active) and in a couple days we’ll spend the night down in the creek to investigate another possible placer deposit. So it should be an exciting and interesting week before the grind really begins. The company president, Dick, comes out next week, so if we’re not producing I think he might shoot somebody. Everyone has been out here about 60 or 70 days now, and it’s a funny, awkward feeling coming into the camp as the “new guy” rather than the other way around. Nevertheless, everyone is in good rapport and I am doing well. I should be out mid-September, and if our work cleans up well, perhaps a wee bonus to go towards a new (used) vehicle in Fairbanks. There was a good looking ’85 Chevy with 80,000 miles at the Bakery restaurant, although the Bronco and Saab I borrowed from Jeff and Fred were great to have for a while! Miss you, and see you all soon,

Dylan Elek McFarlane