Alaska Gold Mining: Dredging In The Wilderness
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- Опубликовано: 23 ноя 2019
- The golden beaches of Nome get a lot of attention because that is where the majority of gold rush miners ended up. However, that gold had to get down to the beaches somehow and the delivery vehicles in this case were the streams and rivers carrying that fine placer gold down... And guess what? They still had a lot of gold inside of them!
Gold mining in Nome evolved quickly from pan to rocker to dredge. No one was able to work a gold dredge successfully on the beach, but the dredges were ideal for the creeks and rivers as well as new deposits of gold that were located inshore on land that in ages past had formed the beach. So, rails were laid across the tundra, channels were dug and great dredges were jockeyed into position. Then, scoops ate the hills and sluices washed the gravel.
Completely unrelated to gold, this was the first time that I had seen musk oxen before... They weren’t afraid of us, which gives one somewhat of an idea as to how little contact these musk oxen have had with humans (and, therefore, how remote of an area we were in). I always had the impression that they were quite large, comparable to bison or an animal like that, but they’re actually not much bigger than large domestic cattle.
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Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them - nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.
These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that colorful niche of our history is gone forever. But, you know what? We enjoy doing it! This is exploring history firsthand - bushwhacking down steep canyons and over rough mountains, figuring out the techniques the miners used and the equipment they worked with, seeing the innovations they came up with, discovering lost mines that no one has been in for a century, wandering through ghost towns where the only sound is the wind... These journeys allow a feeling of connection to a time when the world was a very different place. And I’d love to think that in some small way we are paying tribute to those hardy miners that worked these mines before we were even born.
So, yes, in short, we are adit addicts… I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!
#ExploringAbandonedMines
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#AbandonedMines
#UndergroundMineExploring
Thanks for sharing, great pics.
Cant believe I missed these ...Very cool man...Thank you
I love it when planks turn grey like driftwood. That building looks gorgeous.
I agree! I like that weathered look (which the Alaska winters certainly help with) too...
Good video you can see how nature proclaims everything
Eventually, yes, nature always wins...
Some very good steel in those dredging machine and the wood was good also
Yes, indeed!
Great area for pictures, those oxen are bloody fast lol have been chased by a imported version of those.
Hard to go wrong with pictures here... I would definitely not want to be chased by one of those.
nice looking cows
I saw no Musk Oxen today while I was Deer Hunting . You are sooo Lucky ,but they are probably hard to dress and Drag out . I saw 5 deer ( One Buck ) . My armed Geology recon turned up an out crop of Water lime higher up the Hill . I enjoyed this video and I am as always thankful to see a New TVR upload . I had wind fouling my video today , Kodak and Samsung were used . Stay safe pal .
No musk oxen? They were probably just over the next hill... I am glad you enjoyed this video. I've got a couple more Nome videos (including an abandoned placer mine) and then I'm back to the normal cycle.
Damn good to see that spraypaint must be as high priced as the rooms, no grafilthy on the dredges.
Haha, I like your positive outlook on things. That is indeed a silver lining...
I love that
Pretty cool, huh?
Nice video! Love the history! Thanks for sharing!
Check out the Sumpter OR dredge. I believe its restored and tourable. There is also a 11 mi steam narrow gauge line near it.
Thank you for the tip. That sounds like it would be interesting to see...
@@TVRExploring More or less a shot up US 395.
Another good one . Unless that river has flooded in the past , IDK how they got that beast that far off river !? Really great footage of the Musk Ox . That was the best look I have ever seen of them . Way sweet !! bg
Yes, someone else mentioned that about the dredges and I hadn't considered that before... I really have no idea. Those that are sitting in the ponds they created are easy because the owners just walked away. Those in the river though are beyond me. I was quite impressed by the musk oxen!
Those oxen are cool!
I thought so too!
Yes they are! They are actually closer related to goats and sheep than cows. The meat doesn't really taste that great though, a little bit like slightly fishy cow heart I think.
@@niskaa78 they look like something out of a Studio Ghibli movie
Lessons in History! Outstanding take on the first dredge. It won't be long and it will be unrecognizable. I love this stuff!
Me too! Glad I'm not the only one...
Musk ox and old mining equipment truly blasts from the past! Great narration, keep em coming
Ha, unusual mix for a mining video, no? Thanks for the comment...
I was In Colorado last month at a mine and a moose was happy to see me! Thankfully it was a doe as the rut was on!
i am enjoying these Nome videos- keep them coming
Glad to hear it... Thanks.
That ox was thinking " go away boy you'r bothering me " 😄👍👍🇺🇸
Yes, it probably was... I obliged shortly after.
... Or "You get any closer and I'll have to run you over.
At 6:45 that’s a td9 international
You Really know just how to find those Kodak and National Geographic moments.
The scenery definitely helps!
thanks for the ride
Thanks for coming along.
Love your channel keep it up
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing. Absolutely beautiful!
Thank you for watching.
Thought I'd let you know one guy from that show gold rush I told you about in the last video bought a couple old dredges and refurbished one so far and has it running. You can see it on the show. It's pretty interesting
I'll have to track down that show and actually watch some of it...
Tony Beets
Super history lesson.Great job as always.
Thank you.
Again another great video! What they went thru, ... I recall that gold was like $32. An oz. Should of bought gold.. they use to say save $5 bucks a week... I wish i would of saved a once of gold a month.. had a chance to by a hot rod in 71. But $4700 would of bought a lot of gold....
There are a lot of investments that I wish I had made. Hindsight is very wise!
TVR Exploring but I keep buying or collecting things where I see now if only would saved.. I'm glad for you, being able to travel anround
and entertain so many of us.. THANKS! Be safe..
Tony Beets has got a lot of spare parts to choose from!😝
what a vast open land. it would be totally vacant if not for the musk oxen.
Nice to still have places like this in the world...
Thanks for the video, it has given me a whole different perspective of Alaska. God Bless the U.S.A. and California too.
Yes, it's hard not to fall in love with a place like Alaska!
Those oxen didn't seem too concerned with you. I wouldn't want to get between a mother and it's calf though. Cool to see so many mining artifacts that aren't destroyed and tagged by tweaks and thieves. I've always had the feeling if I were to ever make it to Alaska I would just stay there. I've wanted to go up there ever since the 1964 Anchorage earthquake. My grandfather was a civil engineer and went up there to rebuild the railroads.
Yes, be careful going to a place like that because, as you said, you might just choose not to leave... There is a lot of freedom in Alaska still. And, yes, it is very nice to see places like this that haven't been ransacked by tweaks and tagged by vandals.
I hadn't thought about the scenario of getting between a musk oxen mother and her calf, but I think I'd try to avoid that too!
Photogenic dredge is right! The wood color/texture is amazing. And what cool animals musk oxen are.
Yes, everything worked with the dredge (photogenically speaking) - the light, the surrounding vegetation, the textures you mentioned, etc. And, yes, I thought the musk oxen were really cool too!
I was hoping to see inside the dredges
Well, I'm not swimming out through the freezing water to reach them...
@@TVRExploring kayak
Those are baby tailings piles compared to what you and I are used to out in the yuba goldfields.
You're right about that! They take things to another level in the Yuba Goldfields...
Awesome vlog
Love ur content man
Thank you!
Thought you had hip waiter's
More fantastic history
& liked your friend at the end
Nome and its surroundings are an interesting area, to be sure... My friend wasn't much of a talker, but that's fine.
You should have just ridden out the road with a local. We drive across rivers like that one routinely. ;)
If we're talking about the same site, the water was about 8-10' deep in that section of the river. Even with a snorkel I doubt many locals would have been keen to tackle that...
@@TVRExploring When you were talking about not being able to cross the river any more to get to the site on the other side, the spot that was on screen during that bit looked to be a non-remarkable spot that I would have put at about 3-4 feet deep. Of course you gotta to be careful evaluating anything based on video images. ;)
Haha, yes, we're talking about the same spot... At 3-4 feet, I'd have given it a shot in our rig. At 8-10 feet, the locals can take a crack at that one all they'd like and I'll stay on shore to film the attempt!
Amazing to see thoughs dredges!!
I wish it hadn't been freezing so that I could have swam out to one to see more of the inside...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuba_Goldfields
Yuba gold fields. It's of note that the left over aggregate might be worth 3 times what the AU was worth. River gravel is becoming a scarce commodity. Who'd have thought?
Pretty crazy, huh?
I like the "Heading out into the wild", as if the wild didn't start ten feet past the last building in town. The musk ox were very cool.
LOL!
amazing ! the bravery of dealing with the cold and wilderness...I never knew musk ox could deal with cold, but from the looks of their long hair.. they seem well protected from the cold...I love these documentary style of your adventures ! I had to laugh when you said heading out to the wilderness.. I thought Dude you already there ! thanks for another great and educational vid! looking forward to more !
Thank you. I'm glad you like the documentary style... Haha, and, yes, that's a fair point about the "wilderness." Yes, I was pretty impressed by the musk oxen too. They seemed completely unconcerned about the cold...
It would be soo neat to rummage around on that Lee Dredge! Also would love a jacket and boots made from those Oxen.
I'd love to have looked around inside. Too cold to swim out to it though!
Been watching your stuff today very interesting keeping up dude.really enjoying these video's
Thank you very much.
I was like you on the musk ox, thought they were bigger until my brother in law showed me a picture of him standing beside one, and he was not a big man !
I envy you being there!
Was renting a vehicle very much trouble there and was it like everything else, very expensive ?
Thanks for sharing and take care. 👍
Ha, yes, they look big in all of the pictures you see where there is nothing to compare their size too.
Yes, naturally, renting a vehicle is difficult too... LOL. Unless you wish to pay in excess of $300 a day, you must rent it from the inn where we stayed (the one I showed in the first video) and then you get the discounted price of $100 a day. Of course, you have to stay at the inn in order to get the discount.
@@TVRExploring
DAAAAMM !!
Yep... Not a cheap trip, to be sure!
That last Dredge with the piece of machinery out to the right appears to be a steam engine. The first Dredge, however, has an internal combustion engine visible, so must be a much later one.
Yes, I believe you are absolutely right about that.
Thanks for sharing this adventure! Someday I hope to visit some of these places (the ones above ground) and see them before they vanish.
Thank you. I really hope you get a chance to see these in person as well...
Amazing...Greetings to you from Africa..Need your help I'm building a 15inch suction dredge...wanted to findout what size pump I need to run a 15 inch JET suction nozzle?Will be greatful for your assitance
so cool
Very interesting stuff there. You`re lucky ;)
Hey donkay
I would love to metal detect those tailing piles, the big nuggets went right out the back in the tailings.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family and friends
Thank you very much.
Just watched dances with wolves again. Gives you an idea of what used to be around back then before the gold.
Cool stuff I hope y'all are having fun, we are certainly enjoying it. I guess those dredges were steam powered.
The first dredge was gas or diesel powered. When he zooms in the engine is directly in the middle, you can see the exhaust pipe sticking out above it.
@@ADITADDICTS Thanks I thought that was a petroleum engine.
@@ericcorse I've been on a few dredges around here ( three times the size of the one in the video ) so I had a little insider info. 😁
Nice
I just found this channel yesterday I love it there are a lot of mine shafts near me but to afraid to go down them mainly because there extremely steep and need a harness but there cool keep up the good work and stay safe
Thank you.
Dredging up the past!... I couldn’t resist.
Cool 👍
Wow, after 60 years in those conditions, would have thought it would have completely collapsed, but looks like internal machinery might be supporting it.
Can i tell ya something my friend.....where you are in Alaska there, looks exactly like the lowlands of Scotland.....minus the Oxen, and the Gold (unfortunately). What you call Photogenic...i would call a "bangin place to take a Pic"..........peace to ya my friend.
I'm embarrassed to say that I've never been to Scotland despite the fact that I am a British citizen and lived in the UK for several years. It is very high on my list of places to visit though...
@@TVRExploring My only experience with UK is at Heathrow. Got my rear handed to me by a young lady security officer for leaving my blade in my little box cutter knife. I had it at the security check point in Malpensa airport in Italy. Didn't see the hollow end of their machine guns...they must have missed it! (2016 trip)
The Italians are much more relaxed about such things. I've had a number of unpleasant experiences with officials at Heathrow.
@@randyhager2054 I have been in similar situation at Glasgow airport. I had been camping for a week and looked like Grizzly Adams on a bad day. I made the mistake of wrapping smoked fish i bought in a plastic bag and then tapping it tight in what i now know looked like a kilo of cocaine...my ass was also handed to me on a plate, followed by desert by an over enthusiastic female security person..
No Problem Justin we can rebuild the Dredge, We have the tech. NA forget it. Thanks again for the show, really enjoyed it.
them musk oxen are weird looking creatures, sort of like giant rams on steroids lol
Ha, that's a good description.
I wonder, if one could domesticide these Oxen, they seem to be quite the good cettle for a place like this, so one would not have to relie entierly on food imports.
I would assume not otherwise I would imagine that somebody already would have done it.
great if you like the smelly "gamey" tasting meat...probably as tough as nails too
Im sorry but I do have to say that these people in the corporations did bring the dredge in, have to take it out. That should be enforced, no trash left behind.TH
Different era... That sort of thing has to be removed now.
Can you explore the abandoned Big Horn Mine in Wrightwood california? "If you haven't explored it yet?"
If you use Google Earth to examine the area around Nome or Scribner Creek the evidence of unrestricted placer mining is covers the landscape. Alaska didn't implement any reclamation requirements until the Alaska Surface Coal Mining Control and Reclamation Act in 1983. While the public interest focuses on the more romantic gold mining operations coal mining was actually doing more of the damage. Reclamation authorities are pretty strict about active mines returning the land to its natural state and to help defray costs active mines pay a $.28 per ton tax. If the authorities are too successful your videos could be the only evidence of the history of this region but it's going to be a while. They have 340 sites to deal with. While the focus is on dredge sites there are a lot of hard rock mines in Alaska that are just up your alley. They follow ancient stream beds so they are incredibly sketchy with rotten timbers driven through crumbling material with collapsing backs and ribs so close to collapsing that bats won't even stay in them. We'll see the video soon, yes? There is still gold to be found in Alaska but rather than a rush its more a gold mosey or a gold leisure.
Maybe those musk ox are bothered by the cold but there's no one for them to whine too and if there was what good would it do? Thanks for sharing a cool site.
All good reasons why I am documenting these places while they are still here... The underground placer mines are very sketchy. That is particularly the case in Alaska where the permafrost is the only thing holding the material together.
Ah.. The 1 place in the world that was quickly colonized, only to be completely turned back over to the natives, with almost all remnants of the colony wiped away. I guess musk ox and lowbush blueberries just aren't quite as appealing as gold! The natives will probably be able to keep the land, assuming that no kimberlite pipes are discovered nearby!
Well said... Yes, they may actually get to hang on to this part of the world.
I'm surprised they call that a river. It looks more like a creek to me.
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