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thanks for the story steve ....what i remember of that area to the south is where it all started in chititu and rex creek those giant copper nuggets then the mine at mccarthy ......the only mining town with alcohol during the dry period thanks to walter of may creek  ... i guess maybe that rex creek mountain named after him after all .....

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9 hours ago, Glenn in CO said:

their neighbor across the street was a person named Dave Olsen. Dave's stories and gold he and his partners found dredging in the Bering Sea and inland around the Nome area was incredible

I am glad to hear Dave is still at it! I shipped him a lot of gear over the years. If anyone can get your son-in-law onto decent gold it’s Dave. I hope they do well.

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5 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I am glad to hear Dave is still at it! I shipped him a lot of gear over the years. If anyone can get your son-in-law onto decent gold it’s Dave. I hope they do well.

Yep! Dave is still at it. He goes every summer and stays about three months. This will be the fourth season my son-in-law has been mining with Dave and I think the gold fever is starting to set in. If I were twenty years younger I'd consider a go at it, but nuggethunting with a metal detector is a hell of lot easier than dredging.

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Beautiful area, sure isn't drywashing country......Ha!  "Booming", man never seen placer workings like that before, very cool stuff Steve . Bet your glad you (or your Dad ) took those pics back then. A shame much has been carried off or burned.... too bad about that.  Thanks for the history lesson in Alaska mining. You need to write a book,  perhaps already in the works? Anyway, thanks for sharing..........Rob

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Great story Steve. Those fish packing plants were a great place to meet girls. Is that were dad met mom? When I used to fish on a gill netter for sockeye during the summers there where college girls all over the packing plants lol My dad also was a pilot and I think his favorite plane to fly was the super cub. Looking forward to more...seems to be gold everywhere!

strick

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Love the photos & story Steve, I guess you could say Stetson Creek now has a Booming situation going on, they have built a dam on upper Stetson and open a gate once a week to flush gravels out from behind dam, which in turn flush gravels down. stream. And like the old timers I also would be picking and hand stacking any large rocks. ( Big part of my decision to sell my claim & all gas powered equipment to retool for a detectors life now. ) Can't wait to read what you have on Stetson, use to see your equipment, on Stetson back in the day on my hiking trips.

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On 8/31/2018 at 5:25 PM, Bob(AK) said:

Very good Steve, I remember the party line. Also started with a 3” dredge bought from your store around ‘79 or ‘80, was on an inner tube.

This post brought back memories. It was probably around the same time frame, maybe a bit earlier in 1978. I bought my first dredge, a Keene 2 1/2" on an inner tube from Steve's store.

Wanna hear something crazy? I still have that dredge and it is not because it was little used, I have used it to death and everything is still original, with the exception of the inner tube.

I have used it as a dredge and also made temporary conversions to be used as a high banker. The old engine still runs strong.

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