Fairbanks adventures day 2.

We are off and running again this morning with our first stop is at Dredge No.8. This old piece of mining equipment was the ultimate mining tool of a long time ago. But before starting the tour we got a brief presentation about the Alaskan Pipeline. The forty-eight-inch diameter double wall pipeline carries crude oil all the way from Prudhoe Bay to Homer where it is loaded onto ships. This pipeline runs underground where possible and above the ground where the permafrost. which wrecked so much havoc on the roads also controls where the pipe can or cannot be buried. If the ground never thaws out, then the line has to go above ground. The line is raised high enough that even the largest wild animal can walk under it.

One unique bit of information was that the crude oil has so much paraffin wax that clings to the inside of the pipe that if allowed to build up it would shut the pipeline down in a very short time. The answer to the problem was a device called “A Pig”. On a regular schedule one of these devices is placed in the pipe at Prudhoe Bay, the pipe is turned back on where the oil being pumped pushes the pig through the pipe all the way to Homer where it is removed along with all of the debris it has scrubbed off the inside of the pipe.

Finally, we boarded a narrow-gauge train that took us back to the dredge and some real gold mining history. In its simplest form one can mine for gold with just a shovel, a pan and some water. But if you want to find a lot of gold you have to go big or go bust. Dredge No.8 is an example of what going big was like way back when. This behemoth piece of machinery could chew up tons of rock and load it into a shaker box which separated the gold from the debris. This machine was huge, and it took a crew of several men to operate it. It took two men to control it, a man to monitor the sluice box and an oiler who kept everything lubricated. The machine ran twenty-four hours seven days a week.

The buckets that hauled the raw ore into the dredge are about the size of a bushel basket and the fact that you can see them all over the Fairbanks area being used for planters or yard art is a testimony to just how many of these machines were operating during the gold rush. I believe somebody said that one bucket could sell for $500.00 or more!

While we were exploring the dredge, we were given the opportunity to do some gold panning ourselves! We were given a bag of “Paydirt” and shown how to use water and a pan to separate the gold dust from the rest. It was wet, the water was cold and to be honest the return on investment of effort was less than overwhelming. The photo below shows the paydirt I started with and in about ten minutes I had my resulting gold. My efforts resulted in me getting $12.00 worth of gold. Back during the actual gold rush it may have been just a few pennies worth.

Of course, not all of the gold that was mined came out in the form of gold dust there were much larger pieces to be found. Pictured below is a 19 Ounce nugget that in today’s market it would be worth a little over $31, 700! Now that would be a good payday.

Several times during this trip I have talked to locals that still prospect for gold on a regular basis. In fact, one man I talked to said that guiding hunting parties and gold mining were his primary sources of income.

We did all of that before lunch and after lunch was almost as busy! We drove to the University of Alaska Museum where we presented with a planetarium show about the Araura Borealis, also known as Northern Lights. It was very interesting and afterward we had an even stronger desire to witness them.

The museum has so much to see and sometimes one can get overloaded with information, but it was still fantastic. However, like most of the other museums I have been in the displays are jammed close together, behind glass that reflects so badly, or the lighting is usually subdued enough that it is difficult to take good photos with most cell phones.

A while back I remember seeing a move titled “Into the Wild” which was made from a young man’s journal that ended with him living and dying in an abandoned Fairbanks City Bus. After the movie came out the bus became some sort of an attraction and almost each year the state of Alaska would have to rescue people who got into peril while trying to get to or back from the bus. Recently the state actually removed the bus from where it was and moved it to Fairbanks. Although there is not a firm idea what to do with it the University of Alaska has taken possession of the bus and currently has it stored on campus in Fairbanks.

Well, that is all that we did on day two! I’ll try to put a couple of days in the next post!