Panning for Gold in Juneau, Alaska

I recently took a trip to Alaska. For those who don't know, Juneau is named after Joe Juneau. He was a Canadian prospector who found gold there in 1880 thanks to Chief Cowee of the Auk Tlingit tribe. I'm a silver and gold stacker, so following in the paths of miners from hundreds of years ago was a no-brainer for me. (Source)

My wife and I booked an excursion to Gold Creek, where it all started. Yes, you can still find gold here. From what I've heard, there's likely still plenty left to be found.

Unlike modern pans, we were using rusted metal pans that were only about 6.5 inches in diameter. The supplies were actually stored in a couple of salvaged mine carts from the original days of mining.

There were no special ridges like the modern pans have, so the technique was a bit different. The first step was to slightly submerge your pan and clear out the light layer of dirt until the water in your pan was clear. Then, we tilted our pans at about a 35-degree angle and vibrated them side to side, until the dirt came to the edge of the pan. We then moved the pan forward and back in a long stroke, which caused the water to slowly pull the rocks and lighter materials out of the pan. After a few sweeps, we'd bring the pan horizontal again, submerge it slightly, then use a finger to stir the dirt up.

We'd repeat this process until we were left with small traces of dirt and gold flakes. Once we saw gold, we would hold the pan at a 90-degree angle above the water, and lightly tap the side with our palm. The gold was wet and still stuck to the pan, but all of the dirt fell to the bottom. We then dunked the bottom half of the pan into the water to wash the dirt out, then proceeded to the next station to collect our gold flakes.

Modern equipment has made this process much less time consuming. There may be hope for me, though, because in three pans I was able to find a few gold flakes in about 30 minutes.

Not bad without modern technology! I can only imagine the nuggets and larger flakes they were originally pulling out of the creek when the first gold rush started!

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