Going for the Gold

AN OUNCE OF GOLD brings about $1,600 days. That doesn't impress manager of Crow Creek Gold Mine. "If I wanted to rich," he tells me, "I wouldn't running a gold mine."

Late in the 19th , when Crow Creek was one of Alaska's richest mines, men built dams upstream and piped water , using the built-up pressure to blast hills and banks in their hunt for precious metal. They pumped and dug and sifted. They built long wooden sluice boxes in the bed the creek. They erected buildings—a blacksmith , a bunk house, a cook house—some of still stand.

But they did not get the gold. The miners missed some spots altogether. Gold sneaked their sluice boxes and returned to the creek bed.

The leftovers are part of draws modern visitors to Crow Creek, an off-the-beaten-path attraction in southern Alaska anyone can crouch on a sand bar a gold pan, surrounded by spruce and the willow thickets grow just below tree line. They can keep an out for bears while looking gold using tools and methods that would make sense to the miners who flocked to Alaska California's gold fields of yore lost their luster.

The odds don't too high in their favor. Visitors might imagine finding a multi-ounce lump of gold a rock or pulling a handful of nuggets of a pan. reality, in a full season, an experienced miner might pull several pounds of gold from the creek, a load tens of thousands of dollars. Or he might find several pennyweight, worth only hundreds. Beginners can expect retrieve a few flakes to show friends home.

But that's OK. People dig in part the thrill of the chase, to feel their muscles work and to fool with mining equipment—pans and shovels, but also specialized pumps and motors and hoses mounted floats, the toys of the trade.

all of those reasons, I join two experienced amateurs for a day the mine. Friends of a friend, they are passionate the search for gold and eager share the experience. Gold fever taken them beyond panning; they have invested in own suction dredge and sluice box.

Summer is the best to wade into an Alaskan creek. I visit in October. Frost covers ground, and in places puddles have turned ice. We zip ourselves dry suits and walk into shadows cast by spruce boughs. I grip a muddy, knotted rope and scamper backward down 75 feet of nearly vertical bluff knee-deep water. I wade 50 feet upstream white water and strap on a diving mask and snorkel. Then, face down the current, I manhandle the business end of suction dredge, digging a hole the streambed in search the metal that made this waterway famous.

It's not the glamorous pursuit I've undertaken. The dredge hose sucks up sand and gravel and small rocks in swirling vortex. I pick out and toss the rocks big enough to clog the hose. Some are two-handers. The biggest rocks require all of my strength.

Gold tends to settle the bottom of the creek, resting on bedrock or banks of clay. The idea is to move away the surface rocks and sand reach it. With my head underwater, I the gasoline motor that drives the dredge the noise of flowing water. I hear rocks banging the steel end of my suction hose.

The hole is now 3 feet deep. I a breath and submerge, nose against the streambed, hoping to see yellow. I see gray and black sand and a lot of rocks. The pay zone, if there is one, will be deeper.

"Gold is funny," one of the miners tells me. "There may be here, but two feet over it could be thick."


Adapted and abridged from: The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2012.