The Chisana Story

[jrbeatty]

Steve- - a late starter to detecting but sure making up for lost time! 

Out of curiosity, In the last image, what's that in your pocket? I'll refrain from quoting Mae West - -  ?

[mn90403]

6 hours ago, kiwijw said:

I will be brave & say it is a plastic scoop like the one below.

Cheers

Good luck out there

JW 

JW,

It is amazing all of the videos I watch from Oz and none of them has a scoop.  (I want to shout 'Get a scoop!')

I recon that the gold they expect to find is too big for it.  I wonder if Paul has gotten them in the habit of using one now or if he has been forced to use his hands.

Mitchel

[hawkeye]

7 hours ago, jrbeatty said:

Steve- - a late starter to detecting but sure making up for lost time! 

Out of curiosity, In the last image, what's that in your pocket? I'll refrain from quoting Mae West - -  ?

I didn't notice the object in the pocket, but it looked to me like Steve may have been sporting a "mullet" in those days. 

[Steve Herschbach]

It is indeed a scoop in my pocket, and yes, I have been known to grow my hair quite long back in the day. 

1980 on old U.S. Army "mechanized mule" with 4" subsurface dredge hauling into Franklin Creek in the Fortymile - more hair- less belly!

[fredmason]

Wow, Steve...very nice gold!!!

Mitchel;

with respect to all my Oz friends...they are generally very thrifty and prefer doing things the Hard Way...I don't think I ever seen anyone using any kind of scoop when I was there... except me. 

Not all the gold is big but a scoop is convenient even on bigger stuff...and you can easily pull loose dirt out with my coil-cover scoop....

fred

[jrbeatty]

4 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

1980 on old U.S. Army "mechanized mule" with 4" subsurface dredge hauling into Franklin Creek in the Fortymile -

Steve: Handy looking vehicle, but never saw those over here. We farmers used Willys Jeeps as runabouts, also Sherman and Stuart tanks converted to bulldozers for clearing bush - you could buy them cheaply at military auctions.

- - - of course - - a scoop!

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi JR,

Your comment made me learn more about this - here is the Wikipedia entry for the M274 "mechanical mule". Interesting rig.

M274 ½-ton 4×4 utility platform truck

[snakejim]

Here's one I used about 10 years ago when I was working/sampling some old mine dumps.

[Steve Herschbach]

The 80s and 90s were a time of great change in Alaska. One issue was the integration of a number of large new National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, etc. created in the 1970's that lead to a lot of conflict with land owners either near or suddenly inside of a park or refuge. These people became known as "inholders" and it took quite some time for all the conflict to settle down (some remains to this day) but everyone slowly adjusted to the new situation.

The mines at Chisana were now inside the Preserve (Refuge) portion of Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The Preserve is different than the Park in that activities like hunting are allowable. Mining claims was an issue that took a lot of time to sort. In order to mine at all any claim has to pass a validity exam (not required on most "normal" mining claims) and then have a fully approved plan of operations. All the new requirements lead to a severe reduction in the number of claims. The claims at Chisana are some of the only active claims left, having fully passed the validity exam stage and permitting process. I was involved in this process and will mention some more about it later. In the meantime however operations were quite limited on the claims, with only small scale dredging, highbanking, and metal detecting permitted on at least some of the ground.

One thing I was discovering was that although the old records made it sound like multi-ounce nuggets might be possible in the area, the reality is the gold is generally smaller, with quarter to half ounce nuggets being the normal "large nugget" finds. Most of the nuggets found metal detecting, as can be seen in the photos earlier, are smaller in size. There is ample smaller gold, such that if a location is found metal detecting that reveals a lot of small gold, then there is almost for sure going to be more there to be found with a gold pan or sluice box.

Here is a location along a trail in the bench workings where we found gold right along the trail itself with metal detectors. The gold was small and lots of it, so the solution was to fill five gallon buckets. These were loaded into an ATV trailer borrowed from the claim owner at the time.

Filling buckets with gold bearing material

The trailer was then pulled down to the creek and the buckets dumped into as Keene sluice box.

Unloading the buckets

Sluice box set up and ready to feed

I had finally graduated to pulse induction metal detectors, and brought my Minelab SD 2200D up to the ground for a go at the gold. The SD of course worked well, but as I had discovered already it does not really shine in low mineral ground with small gold. Hot VLF detectors run well in this ground, and so they leave very little for a PI to find, primarily because there is a lack of really large, deep gold. I know of only a few nuggets found at Gold Hill that weigh over an ounce in the last few decades and unfortunately I did not find them. Most were found by dredging operations, with one nugget of about three ounces found by another claim owner with a metal detector. The SD 2200D did find a nice nugget of about 8 pennyweight, which is the largest I have found on this ground.

Steve with Minelab SD 2200D pointing at spot 8 dwt nugget was found

This was another short three day weekend trip. The problem being a working stiff is getting time during the short but busy Alaska summer to do things like this. Since I was an airplane bum relying on my father for trips, we often hooked up for Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day three day weekend expeditions. Still, in  addition to nuggets found while detecting, a couple ounces of nice gold were recovered with the sluice box operation.

Steve with a couple ounces gold - photo courtesy Jeff Reed

Gold is not the only thing you can find with a metal detector at Chisana. There are a few copper nuggets in the area and I would find a small one now and then. However, this rock gave a great signal with almost no metal showing. The copper staining is obvious however.

Copper nodule - see the thin line?

I have a small rock saw just for jobs like this, and so I cut the nodule in half when I got home (see the cut line in photo above).

Solid copper core revealed

Well, I kind of rushed this last bit. The fact is I have covered this in more detail before at Steve's Mining Journal in an entry. Plus, I want to get more up to the present where I have lots more tales and photos to show and tell! Here is the story at the Journal:

Metal Detecting for Gold at Chisana, Alaska - 7/21/00

To be continued...

[jrbeatty]

10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Hi JR,

Your comment made me learn more about this - here is the Wikipedia entry for the M274 "mechanical mule". Interesting rig.

Indeed it is - and high clearance portal axles are always superb for off road work.

Reading all this makes me nostalgic for my old vibrating sluice box. In the 90's they, along with dredges, were banned in Australian waterways.