The Gold Diaries It takes serious work to find serious gold, especially in the wilds of Alaska. It also takes an appreciation of the land and beauty experienced along the way. It takes a special breed. Join us for this day-by-day account of one such person. Originally Published in Vol 8, Issue 5 Click here to order single issues. 8-15-10 Sunday Don Sublett came up last Monday and he will be here for a couple of weeks. The waves have been up and we only dredged one hour all week. Now a storm is here and high winds up to 40 MPH. Don and I redid the antenna system for our cell phones and now we get much better reception. I hope the wind doesn’t blow down the antenna. We also wired all the windows on the cabin so the solar powered fence charger will work and deter bears from breaking into my cabin as they did last year. Spencer (my son) is arriving this morning if the plane can land. I’ll leave and go to the airport in a few minutes. I hope to be able to get by all the driftwood on the beach that has been moved around by the waves last night. 8-16-10 Monday Spence is here now and we eat lots. Breakfast was sausage gravy, biscuits, and eggs. Lunch was a sandwich. Silver salmon cooked on the grill for a snack, then BBQ ribs for supper. For dessert I cooked brownies. Spence caught two big Silver (Coho) salmon in about five minutes at the Penny River. The wind and waves have been really big since yesterday. We have hauled all the dredges off the beach and up to the cabin area. Winds last night were about 50 MPH. Today we went to town, and it was difficult because the waves were over most of the beach and we had nowhere to drive except over all the logs. We finally made it to town and went out on Glacier Creek Road about 30
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2012 American Digger Magazine Sampler ®
By Steve Phillips miles. We saw a herd of musk ox. We also checked out some of the old mining sites of a hundred years ago. 8-19-10 Thursday Yesterday Don, Spence, and I went out to the Sinuk (Senic) River. We saw a herd of musk ox, one caribou, and a seal on the beach. Spence caught about six or seven Silvers, and we kept one and cooked it on the beach. The waves have calmed down now and we tried dredging today, but the visibility is terrible, so we found almost no gold. I dredged
Spence with “silvers.”