Gold!

Judith at 3000 feet on the Dawson Dome with the mountains  near the North West  Territory in the background.

My pay dirt did not pay.

Finally Judith gets to pan for gold. Quite a tricky technique, but her pan produced two gold flakes.

Thisis the real stuff. Grandma found one nugget in the nineties and the other was found in 2004. The nuggets are worth about $50.000. He wouldn't let us handle them. Some body had tried to steal one by jumping into his pick-up and running for it.

This is the cleaned gold. Several thousand dollars of gold. Probably three since it was about two ounces.

The woman is grandma. This archimedean spiral is very clever. It rotates while water acts on the dirt to hold it in place. the heavy gold resists the water and moves up the spiral to the drain.

The gold still mixed with dirt.

Same miner but showing how they separate the magnetite powder from the gold.
He has a powerful magnet that is applied to the concentrate many times. Judith was enthralled.

This is our third generation gold miner. HIs grandfather struck it rich but blew all the money.
The machine is a `slicer' that concentrates the pay dirt and filters out the gold--mostly flakes or dust.

This is a side of the hill that they have to remove to uncover  the gravel and pay dirt below.
After six or seven feet there is only permafrost. This is removed by sluicing or mechanically.
`The gold is in the gravel.'

It appears that when the top soil and the perma frost is excavated one finds Mammoth bones and tusks.
The tusks are the only ivory that is legal for  commerce. It seems that the species is already extinct. 

This is a view of the interior of the stage house. Very cozy.

We went up hunker creek with a third generation gold miner.
A young man and his fiancee. this was our arrival at the beginning of their claim.

This is the house that the gold mining family live in. It was one of a series of `stage houses' that were at one day's walk from one another. It is an original.