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  1. Alaska raised the annual state mining claim rental rates substantially in August, as people who got the billing know. The state website fact sheet still shows the old rates however and people who did not get the billing may be in for a unpleasant surprise. http://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/hottopics/pdf/new-rental-rates-for-mining-claims.pdf NEW RENTAL RATES FOR MINING CLAIMS, LEASEHOLD LOCATIONS, PROSPECTING SITES, AND LEASES On August 1st, the Office of the Lt. Governor approved a change to 11 AAC 86, setting forth new rental rates for mining claims, prospecting sites, and mining leases for the 2020 mining year that begins on September 1, 2019. These increases to mining rental rates were conducted in accordance with State of Alaska Law AS 38.05.211, which requires an adjustment to the rental rates based on the change on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Alaska every 10 years to account for the change in the cost of living over the 10 year period between adjustments. The last adjustment was completed in 2009. Table 1 list the new rental rates for different types, sizes, and ages of mining claims and leasehold locations. The rental requirement for prospecting sites is a one-time payment of $305.00 to be paid at the time the prospecting site is recorded. Prospecting sites are good for 2 years and may not be renewed. Below are Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Question? - How are the new rental rates calculated? Answer. - In 1989, the State of Alaska Legislature set the rental rates for mining claims, leasehold locations, and mining leases. In addition, the legislature directed the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to adjust the rental rates every 10 years based on a change in the CPI for Alaska using the following simple formula in which the denominator is the CPI for the first half of 1989 as determined by the Federal Government Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the nominator is the CPI for the first half of the year in which the adjustment was made. The formula resulted a correction factor. The correction factor is multiplied by the rental rates set in 1989 to produce the new rental rates. Question? - Why is the rental rate for Quarter Section mining claims not exactly 4 times the rate for the Quarter-Quarter Section mining claim? Answer. – The Legislature required DNR to round off the rental rate to the nearest $5.00. For example; the calculated rental rate for a 40 acre claim of less than 5 years is $41.27 and when rounded to the nearest $5.00 is $40.00. Multiplying $41.27 by 4 results in the actual rental rate for a 160 acre claim to be $165.08 and rounding off to the nearest $5.00 is $165.00. Question? – I have already paid my claim rental for the coming year at the previous year rate. Will I automatically lose my claim because I didn’t pay the total amount due for this year? Answer – No. By regulation, if it is determined that a miner fails to make a full payment for rent on a mining claim, DNR is required to notify the miner of the deficient payment by certified mail. The miner is then required to make full payment on or before December 2nd or 30 days after the receipt of the letter, whichever is later. Any additional questions not addressed above will be answered by contacting DNR representative Lora Eddy at (907) 269-8628 or Kristen Shake at (907) 269-8652, or by email at kristen.shake@alaska.gov.
  2. Is their gold to be found in the area of Clear Alaska and if so, what type of gold is their to be found. I have a friend who has a homestead in this area and want to visit them next year summer. Would appreciate any information of forum members who know the area and did gold prospecting over there.
  3. This gold prospecting and metal detecting story takes us all the way back to the beginning - my beginning that is. I was fortunate enough to be born in the Territory of Alaska in 1957. Alaska was still very much on the frontier back in those days. My father was a farm boy from the midwest who headed for Alaska in the early 50's with not much more than an old pickup truck. He worked as a longshoreman offloading ships in Seward, Alaska for a time. He decided to get some education, and earned his way through college in Fairbanks, Alaska, by driving steampipe for the fleet of gold dredges that were still working there. He spent some time in Seldovia, Alaska, working the "slime line" in a fish cannery. He met my mom in Seldovia, the two got married, and finally settled in Anchorage, Alaska. I came along in 1957. My father had taken a job as a surveyor but money was tight in the early years. I was raised on wild game and garden grown vegetables, and as soon as I was old enough to handle it, I was walking a trapline every winter with my father. Dad was a hard worker, and Alaska was having one of its many booms at the time - the construction of the oil and gas fields in Lower Cook Inlet. This was the Swanson River oilfield, discovered the year I was born. The state was prospering, and my father along with it as a surveyor on the new Swanson Field. He got the bug for flying early on, and by the time I became a teenager he finally got his dream plane at the time - a Piper Super Cub, the classic Alaska Bush airplane. Super Cubs equipped with oversize "tundra tires" can land just about anywhere you can find about 300 - 400 feet of open ground. A great little airplane and the one I ended up flying to get my own pilot's license. Super Cub N1769P parked on knoll in Talkeetna Mountains, Alaska It was in this same timeframe that dad got me hooked on gold prospecting. In 1972 I saw an ad in a magazine "Find Lost Treasure" and had acquired my first metal detector, a White's Coinmaster 4. This must have got discussions going about gold, and my father did have some knowledge on the subject having worked around the gold mines in Fairbanks. He took me to a little creek south of Anchorage, Bertha Creek, and I found my very first flakes of gold! By the ripe old age of 14 gold fever was in the air, I had my first metal detector, and already wanted a gold dredge. My first dredge, a 3" Keene with no floatation, was on the way to me in 1973. Keep in mind that the price of gold had only recently been deregulated from the old fixed price of $35 per ounce. In 1972 it was around $60 per ounce, and in 1973 made it to just over $100 per ounce. The money was not my motivation at all. I already just loved finding gold, and the connection to the prospectors of old and the historical quest for gold were more compelling than any dream of striking it rich. I just wanted to find gold! My first metal detector and first gold dredge (my 3502 had the older aluminum header box & a power jet) A young man with a new detector, new gold dredge, gold fever, and a father willing to fly him anywhere in Alaska on adventure. How great is that? Now there was only one problem - where to go? There was no internet then, so it boiled down to libraries and research. In short order I discovered the United States Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.) bulletin series and the number one Alaska title of the series, Placer Deposits of Alaska, U.S.G.S. Bulletin 1374 by Edward H. Cobb. This one book and the references contained in it became my prospecting guide to Alaska. My desired target? Remote locations with large gold nuggets! I read the book and certain places just jumped out at me. One was the Iditarod area and places like Ganes Creek and Moore Creek - tales told elsewhere. This paragraph of page 114 caught my eye: "Placer mining in the Chisana district, first of creek gravels and later of bench and old channel deposits of Bonanza and Little Eldorado Creeks, has always been on a small scale with simple equipment. The remoteness of the area, shortages of water on some streams, and the small extent of the deposits all prevented the development of large operations. There has been little activity since World War II; the last reported mining was a two-man nonfloat operation in 1965." Wow, that alone sounds pretty good. Nothing really about the gold however. The secret to the Placer Deposits series is not so much the books themselves, though they are great for getting ideas, like I did. The key is to use the references listed and in this case the main one is The Chisana-White River District, Alaska, U.S.G.S. Bulletin 630 (1916) by Stephen Reid Capps. It turns out I had stumbled over the location of the last actual gold rush in Alaska in 1913. It was a small rush and did not last long, but it did mark the end of an era. The world was on the brink of war and the age of gold rushes was soon to be history. The history of the area is covered in the report starting on page 89. It is fascinating reading, but it was this note on page 105 that really sealed the deal: "The gold is bright, coarse, and smoothly worn. The largest nugget found has a value of over $130, and pieces weighing a quarter of an ounce or over make up about 5 per cent of the total gold recovered. The gold is said to assay $16.67 an ounce." Gold nuggets a quarter ounce or larger make up five percent of the gold? And that $130 nugget at $16.67 an ounce? Somewhere over seven ounces. That's all I needed to know. Very remote, worked by simple means, and large gold - I wanted to go to Chisana in general and Bonanza Creek in particular. Even the creek names scream gold - Bonanza Creek, Big Eldorado Creek, Little Eldorado Creek, Coarse Money Creek, and Gold Run. Now all we had to do was get there. But when I said remote, I meant remote. Chisana is practically in Canada 250 air miles from Anchorage. To be continued..... Chisana, Alaska location map
  4. I finally did something with this ugly specimen that I found during a 2004 trip to Ganes Creek. Thought I would put a bail on it and sell cheap. Then I thought about my ultrasonic cleaner. WOW price just went up!! Been wearing it myself at times. Weight 18 dwt, can't find a before photo
  5. Not exactly gold, but needless to say the Gold Monster went crazy! No problem picking it up at 18" deep. 28 lbs. Neal
  6. For me this was a real opportunity to help my friends get their enterprise off of the ground. There was much work to be done and everyone pitched in and fixed everything..I have a few great stories from this adventure and one terrible happening for me... My mate of 44 yrs passed away and I was almost totally devastated by this. Fortunately I had Moore Creek to come too and this work helped me pass this rough time...One afternoon during this startup time I decided to give my Minelab PI a try..I wandered away from the main camp area and walked on a road above what would be the High banking area, I was testing the berm that a dozer had kicked up years ago... Holy Smokes. Weeeee Ooooop. I dug around a little and out popped a beautiful Slug.. Needless to say after putting the gold in my pouch I hunted around to see if there was Moore lol.... I walked back to the camp, everyone was still there chatting, so I put the nugget on the table for everyone to see... He he the conversations stopped......
  7. Version 1973

    89 downloads

    Placer Deposits of Alaska by Edward H. Cobb (USGS) 1973 USGS Bulletin 1374, 14.97 MB pdf file, 219 pages An inventory of the placer mines and prospects of Alaska, their history and geologic setting. Gold Panning, Sluicing, Dredging, Drywashing Forum
  8. The two prominent Trails into the Klondike interior were originated thru Skagway and Valdez Alaska, I guess I had been inadvertently studying these trails for many years, as I was very interested in this Gold Rush, the antics of some of the characters involved and of course the many waypoints they established...After some thought I decided the Chilcoot trail was to far away for me to ever spend much time looking, but the Valdez trail basically came thru my own back yard...I poured over books written by these characters and it was quite an interesting education....I'm not going to get into that part too much as it is a lot to talk about so I will confine this into the area that is close to my home in Copper Center.. The trail came up the Valdez Glacier then turned and followed the Klutina Glacier to the beginnings of the river it formed.. At the bottom of the Glacier was Boulder Camp not much left of that area because the Glacier had receded a lot but you could see why it was called that it truly is a boulder patch. The other camps leading to the main stopping point were pretty insignificant but Sawmill camp, the place where boats were constructed to float the Roiling Klutina River to the Copper was really a relic hunters paradise. However, it is a look and don't touch now as it is part of the massive Wrangel Park.. it took a Super Cub with large tires to fly myself and companions there but we explored took photos and really enjoyed looking at the piles of gear those old timers had packed over the Glacier and left Behind.. Whomwver is interested in knowing more can find a copy of Basil Austins "Diary of. 98er" this particular book has hand drawn maps of campsites etc all the way to the Klondike. I found Basil Austins personal copy in Powells bookstore in Portland Oregon in the 70s ..I almost choked when I picked this book up and started looking thru it..lol I couldn't get to the Check stand quickly enough... Very interesting reading, however keep in mind that most of these sites are off limits as they run smack dab thru this massive park system. I just wanted to point out a few important things about history. If you want to find Things of Old, choose something and research, research, research, it carefully...for myself I spent years doing just that and unexpectedly I found a treasure map in an old bookstore.....the one site I will talk about is very close to my home in Copper Center.. Stampeders walked all over my land, some paid the ultimate price and are resting in the cemetery constructed by their mates very close to the Copper River...Lots of relics I have found are in the little museum on the bypass road in Copper Center, it is a very nice place to visit if you are ever there.. I've spent hours scouring that area listening for a golden whisper that so far has eluded me, I did find 5 coins at one of the sites all dated before 98, I'm happy with that as the Quarter, dime, nickel, and Indian heads hold a special place for me.. Hope you enjoyed my true story.....
  9. This is a cool book I stumbled across years ago while doing some research looking for old places to hunt. You cannot believe how many of these places existed all over the State. I managed to find a few that weren't to far from me and there are old coins there and a lot of trash, which led me to make a magnetic rake tool that was very helpful....Books are very important in your research and reading the bibliographies in them will lead you to additional material....
  10. I was really heavy into very late fall and very early spring dredging in the late 90's time frame. This photo is from 1996 and was taken by my friend Rich Lampright. I worked a lot at Crow Creek Mine, which is glacial fed. It runs very high and fast in the summer when the glacier is melting. The best time to dredge is in the winter months when freezing temps bring the water levels down by over 50% and the water starts running crystal clear. It also made for some very cold dredging at times, but properly outfitted with a good drysuit you can stay surprisingly comfortable. Usually. Funny how some days I really was cozy and others it was just plain cold. I could operate well down to about 15 degrees. Below that, and the water literally froze in the sluice box while it was running. I resorted to subsurface dredges for the coldest spells as the box being underwater did not freeze up. But even then you see weird stuff. Ice crystals floating in the water build like snow drifts of slush behind rocks on the bottom, and giant balls of slush form on the pump intakes, eventually plugging them. Why suffer this you ask? I was seeing multi-ounce days working by myself. I took a lot of gold out of Crow Creek; even after paying a percentage to the owners it was good. In fact the best dredging I ever did. My best day in there working a 6" by myself was over 8 ounces of gold. This was my favorite dredge, my old Keene 6" with twin Honda 6HP pumps. This model was made with a molded marlex powerjet in two pieces - the jet and the flare. The jet and flare assembled was about six feet long but I could just toss it over my shoulder and carry it in one piece it was so light. The dredge had a stout frame with a lever handle leveling system, far superior to the later slide the box back and forth nonsense. The box was a well built single run sluice that I preferred over later double-decker designs. I never should have sold it. I did however, to Brian Berkhahn, and he also got a lot of gold with it. And I know he now also regrets selling it. It was the best Keene dredge I ever owned. Mark Keene told me they stopped making the marlex jets due to a high failure rate with the process but they should have either fixed the process or just charged more to make up for the failures. It was an incredible advance in the technology, and amazingly after all the years of use the inside of that jet never showed more than light scuffing. I think it was actually more durable than steel jets. This photo is first thing in the morning, breaking away all the ice that has formed around the dredge overnight.
  11. There are few places left where you can dredge legally in the United States, especially with larger suction dredges. Alaska however is very dredging friendly. I have been updating the Alaska Mining Claims For Sale page and there are several decent dredging claim packages available now at some good prices. If you are looking for a summer long dredging adventure, this is the place to start so check it out.
  12. Steve, I bought the F19 thinking I could hunt around Anchorage for silver coins. Did you have any luck in that area? Interestingly, I found four rings, two necklaces, several ear rings and pendants, few hundred in clad and lots of cash. And not one silver coin. Not sure if I should be disappointed by that?
  13. I am planning on bringing my SDC 2300 or my gold bug pro with 5” coil to one of these places. I am looking for any kind of info or tips on the likelihood of finding anything in each of these places since I’m pretty well new to detecting and have had no luck in past outings. Never been to crow creek before and spent only a little time in Hatcher Pass. Every time I’ve gone out with the GBP I was overwhelmed with hotrocks, which made me purchase the 2300 in hopes of seeing through them without trouble. I still find hotrocks with the 2300 but not as bad as the GBP.
  14. Hello, has anybody done detecting in the valley that the Little Susitna river passes through? I am thinking of the valley and slopes to the north and south of the river along the Gold Mint trail.
  15. This is the latest version of the 1997 Gold Panning: A Guide to Recreational Gold Panning on the Kenai Peninsula, Chugach National Forest, Alaska The guide has been newly updated for 2018 and can be downloaded here for free
  16. Had fun flown 38 minutes out of bethel alaska and detected for 2 hours
  17. For those Alaskans unaware, DNR has been trying to revise certain sections of the Alaska mining statutes. Our Alaska legislature is no better than the DC circus! DNR said the hell with them (my words) and has switched gears toward regulation change. I just received this notice. "Dear Recipient, The Department of Natural Resources proposes to change regulations on mining. The Department of Natural Resources proposes to adopt regulation changes in Title 11 of the Alaska Administrative Code, dealing with mining, including the following: (1) 11 AAC 86.215 is proposed to be amended to address requirements for mining locations on state-owned land. (2) 11 AAC 86.216 is proposed to be added to address overlapping and conflicting mining locations on state-owned lands. (3) 11 AAC 86.220 is proposed to be amended to address annual labor, recording and amending affidavits of annual labor, essential facts required for affidavits of annual labor, and cash payments made instead of performing annual labor. (4) 11 AAC 86.224 is proposed to be added to address penalties and eligibility to cure an abandonment of a claim or location under AS 38.05.265. (5) 11 AAC 86.541 is proposed to be amended to address conditions for termination of a tide or submerged land mining lease and to address default cures in lease contracts. (6) 11 AAC 86.590 is proposed to be added to provide definitions. Attached please find copies of the proposed regulations, the public notice and the Dear Alaskan Letter which goes into more detail regarding the Department’s proposed actions. You may comment on the proposed regulation changes, including the potential costs to private persons of complying with the proposed changes, by submitting written comments to the Department of Natural Resources, 550 W. 7th Avenue, Suite 1070, Anchorage, AK 99501-3579 or by e-mail to dnr.mining.regulation@alaska.gov or by fax to 907-269-8904. The comments must be received by the department no later than 5:00 p.m. on Monday, June 4, 2018. You may submit written questions relevant to the proposed action to: Joseph Joyner, Department of Natural Resources, 550 W 7th Ave., Suite 1070, Anchorage, Alaska 99501-3579 Fax: (907) 269-8904, E-Mail: dnr.mining.regulation@alaska.gov. The questions must be received at least 10 days before the end of the public comment period. The Department of Natural Resources will aggregate its response to substantially similar questions and make the questions and responses available on the Alaska Online Public Notice System https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Login.aspx and agency website at http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/mlw/hottopics. For more information, a copy of the proposed regulation changes, or if you have any questions regarding the proposed regulations, go to http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/mlw/hottopics, or write to the Department of Natural Resources, Attention Joseph Joyner, 550 W. 7th Avenue, Suite 1070, Anchorage, Alaska 99501-3579; or call 907-269-8511. After the public comment period ends, the Department of Natural Resources will either adopt these or other provisions dealing with the same subject, without further notice, or decide to take no action on them. The language of the final regulations may be different from that of the proposed regulations. You should comment during the time allowed if your interests could be affected. Sincerely Joseph Joyner, Chief, Program Support Section, DMLW, DNR"
  18. Ha!Ha! You row in it's 1900 you gotta row out!!
  19. Looking for information on the 345 trail from Fairbanks Alaska towards Mcgrath Alaska. Supposedly it is also referred to as the Kobi-Mcgrath trail. Have a D9 cat in Fairbanks I am thinking of moving to Mcgrath next winter and was wondering if anyone has some useful insight into this undertaking. Thanks everyone!!
  20. Forum member East Texas Chris came to Alaska last summer to do a little fishing and hunt for gold. I let him prospect on my claim at Canyon Creek in the Kenai Peninsula while he was here, even let him use a dredge to work with. Chris did a great job dredging by the bank with the 2 inch dredge I believe he ended up with about an 1/8th oz. of gold for the effort. Been really busy the last few months, but Saturday I got some free time. I decided to dredge the spot Chris worked last summer to make sure the area was clear of gold. Well about the area he had been standing wile dredging I found a crack in the bedrock, after busting it open and cleaning it up I was surprised to find about 10 G. of fine flakes and a really pretty 4 G. nugget. Really nice to see nuggets. Hope you enjoy the gold.
  21. End of the dredge season is coming! Temps are dropping and the river will freeze in the next few week, thought I would take a moment to share my gold take so far. Seems like a lot of work but I did manage to get about six ounces, mostly fine stuff but a few nice nuggets in the mix Hope where ever you guys are dredging the water is a hell of a lot warmer.
  22. I have just been notified by Jim Foley that that the Alaska Gold Forum is down. He is working hard on a solution but it does not sound very hopeful at the moment. The AGF is one of the older forums and has a lot of Alaska information in particular that it would be a shame to lose. Good luck Jim, hopefully something works out.
  23. Just a heads up concerning the Alaska Gold Forum and The New 49'ers forum for those who may be wondering why they can't access these forums. The main servers went down last week. No one knows why and the board providers cannot be reached to fix the problem. At this time it is unknown if or when these forums will come back online. There is a very real chance that they will not come back and I am now looking at different options for bringing them back under a different message board provider. The worst part of this is not just losing the forums for the mining community and loyal contributors and readers, it is also the loss of many years of valuable information. I just wanted to let people know why they cannot access these forums any more. Many times things like this happen and no one ever knows why. What has happened is beyond my ability to remedy as the forums administrator because the board format owners and servers belong to their owners. I have no way to fix the problem.
  24. This is an interesting dredge. I was really into subsurface dredges for portability. Keene for a brief time sold a set of inflatable pontoons, so I got a pair and in 1999 put this 5" subsurface dredge together. The frame was homemade out of stock aluminum, and the pontoons were held in place with plastic drums I split in half length-wise. The tube was a standard Keene 5" subsurface dredge tube of the time. The old black marlex version was a pain because the tray clipped on at the forward end. I had to reach into the middle of the assembly to release the clips, and then the tray would drop down in front. In current this was a problem for sure as the current would want to grab the tray and knock it down. The later granite gray marlex tubes were improved with the release clips at the rear, which were easy to grab from the back of the dredge. The rear of the tray would drop down and was easily slid out to the rear. Much better. 5.5HP Honda powered Keene P-180 pump with 5" suction nozzle. Nice dredge, very compact and light-weight. This was on the Mills Creek Cooperative claims on upper Mills Creek on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. We got a lot of nice gold in the stretch in the picture as a narrow canyon widened out at this point. Bob(AK) is a member of the forum, and he also did very well here. Another couple photos of the dredge taken with the crappy digital cameras of the day while being built in my back yard.
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