Aug 5

Written by:
8/5/2005 12:00 AM 

Greetings from the Cripple River Gold Camp! The weather today is partly cloudy with intermittent sunshine. Last night we had a brief rain that settled the dust in camp, and chased the mosquitoes away. This year we really haven’t had many mosquitoes, and that has been very nice. As I sit here writing I hear the large ATV convoy to the Trommel Camp roaring out of camp with the Massies; Perry, Sandy, and Georgia leading the way. These lucky people who are going on this trip are off on a twenty-five mile (or so) round trip trail ride, with a break midpoint to run high bankers at the trommel. Also, we are in the height of berry season, with blueberries, crowberries, lingonberries, raspberries, and salmonberries (the last are called cloudberries in other parts of Alaska) all ripening nicely; the ATVer’s will take a berry picking break. Sandy Massie knows where the very best tasting blueberries grow on the mining claim, and she is willing to share her knowledge. Georgia Massie (a young berry picker of great skill), is able to pick and eat more fresh blueberries than anyone else in camp. The evidence of this is often apparent by just looking at her light purple-blue fingers and lips. After the berry picking (or berry eating) stop it’s on over the mountain, past the dredge camp and on to the trommel. Here’s hoping that this group finds really good gold today. Many of the prospectors who ran the high bankers yesterday did very, very well. We’re into week six of our trip, and soon our fun filled summer will be coming to a close---until next year!

For all of you who knew Henry Henry, 1922 to 2005, he was a sweet gentle man who was a true friend to all of us as well as to our gold camp. Henry Henry met George Massie at a gold show and came to Alaska with George in 1982. During his summers in Alaska even though he was in charge of the Supply Section, he was always willing to help out wherever he was needed, and he always had a smile and a kind word for everyone. This kind and loving man was not afraid to show his gentle side. Many people learned a lot from him, about prospecting---about life. He especially loved his lovely niece Lindsey, his summers in Alaska, and fishing in that order. Henry, in his trademark blue hat, will be sorely missed. You are in our hearts forever, goodbye dear friend.

On a lighter note: As you may have figured out, we have many colorful and unusual ‘prospector-people’ in our camp. So many in fact, that it would be hard to name just one or two as local characters (downright impossible). Maybe we could name twenty or so as colorful characters, but not just one or two. However, if I had to pick a name out of a hat, or gold pan, Donald Carr from Moss Bluff La, could be the one. This man has the soul of an artist married to the eye of a taxidermist. In the 1880’s in the old west, he would have scoured the prairies for old buffalo bones, and filling up his Conestoga wagon, carry the bones to town where they would be sold to be ground up and used for fertilizer. The other day in camp, Don heard a rumor that a real baby sea monster had washed up on the beach a few miles from camp. Now Don doesn’t believe in sea monsters, but you just never can tell, so he asked our trusty camp doctor, Ron McKee from Cheyenne Wyoming to accompany him. Doc McKee, an ER doctor and a good man with a scalpel as well as the common cold, (here it’s called the Cripple River Crud!) went along to assist Don, or provide first aid. If this really was a live sea monster, Don might get too close and need stitches himself. As this daring duo rode out of camp on their trusty ATV steeds to investigate this unknown life form, people guessed what the “creature” would be. (If this was a new scientific discovery would it have been named a Carrus Creatureus, or a McKeeus Monstorus after its discoverers?) After riding a few miles and scanning the shore line there it was! It was a giant Wolf Eel lying dead on the beach. These eels from the deeper sea have enormous round needle sharp pointed teeth that protrude in every direction for biting and holding, and row after row of very hard and knobby bony plates in their huge mouths for crushing and grinding. These are very alien looking fish and with their large heads, big eyes and enormous teeth they command an instant respect. An interesting note here is every native fishing village has a legend/story about one of these scary looking Wolf Eels being thrown dead into the bottom of a fishing boat fish, and later coming back to life attacking the fisherman and biting off his testicles! Doc Ron enjoyed this short trip out of camp, and a chance to see new scenery. Ron McKee and his lovely lady-wife Carol Wolfe have been rock hounds since childhood. They joined the GPAA just five or six years ago, to learn to prospect for gold. Donald Carr, our local ‘artist’ uses old things like driftwood, rocks and bones to make artistic ‘folk art’ animal sculptures. He also enjoys prospecting for gold as well as turning old things into artwork.

This year in camp we have had several loving grandfather’s who brought their granddaughter’s with them to this gold camp. And these girls had a great time! We also had several grandparents who brought their grandsons. And most of these young people were a joy to be around! In return these teenagers had a blast prospecting, rock hounding, fishing, riding an ATV, visiting outer camps, you name it! Now you need to realize this is not an adventure/theme park. Cripple River is a primitive gold mining camp, and is not a good place to bring young people unless they are well behaved, willing to listen and mind their parents, FOLLOW THE CAMP’S RULES, have basic common sense, and YOU are willing to closely supervise them. Young people over the age of 12 can be fun to have in camp, and can have a fun time here, but if your child has behavior problems, or doesn’t mind you or you don’t want the responsibility of watching out for them, this is probably not a good place to bring them. Our gold prospecting heritage is a fantastic gift to pass on to our young people. And what is a better place to do this than at gold camps and outings? As parents and grandparents we are responsible to raise our children in ways that allow them to grow and mature, and experience life while teaching them what they need to know to be a good and happy adult. Being an individual does not mean having no self- discipline or values. Gold prospecting can teach many worthwhile life-skill lessons, and the best gift you can give your child is the gift of yourself and your time. Here at Cripple River Gold Camp, we have beautiful scenery, fresh air, and a chance to get good gold as well as learn valuable prospecting skills. More than one grandparent remarked how great it was to spend real quality time with their grandchild and be able to pass on their love of this hobby as well as their own values, and they were excited at how close the two of them became. They also were making memories that will last the young person’s lifetime. Hat’s off to all the great kids in camp this year and to our future generation of prospectors who will keep our heritage intact!

Clinker, clunker, picker, chunkers, nugglets, growlers, nuggets, colors, fine gold, flour gold, coarse gold---the list goes on and on! For the past ten years I have heard many different, and often contradictory terms that are used to define the gold that is found, and each of these terms has a myriad of different definitions! I have become slightly confused, and from the questions I’m often asked, I’m not the only one. This week I finally asked the Man Who Knows these questions. Here are the answers straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak! Perry Massie, a man who really and truly knows gold, gave me the abbreviated version of Perry’s Golden Dictionary of Gold Terms! The answers were a little tricky so let me try to explain. There is a material usually made of a metal that is manufactured (woven or welded) in little squares, and is called screen or ‘mesh’ or possibly ‘hardware cloth’. This material is graded as to the number of little squares per inch in the mesh, i.e.: 10 mesh, 20 mesh, 30 mesh etc. The higher the number the more squares per inch and the finer the mesh. While this material has many uses, prospectors use it to screen or classify gold bearing material to make panning easier. Now Perry defines gold sizes in ‘standardized terms’, as well as mesh size. Flour gold is the size of powdered sugar or even smaller, and will pass through 30 mesh or less. Fine gold is smaller than a match head, fits up the snuffer bottle tube, and passes through a 20-30 mesh screen. Coarse gold is match head size, will fit up the snuffer bottle with the tube removed, and passes through a 10-20 mesh. A Picker is somewhat bigger, easy to pick up with your fingers and will not go into the snuffer bottle unless the cap is removed first. A Clinker is a small nugget that makes a clinking sound in your gold pan, will pass through a 6-10 mesh, and is approximately .5 to .9 pennyweight. (A pennyweight is about the weight of the older copper pennies and twenty pennyweight makes one troy ounce.) A Clunker is a nugget that weighs over one pennyweight and makes a nice solid clunk when it lands in your gold pan. Let me throw in some more useful information: all precious metals--- gold, silver and platinum are weighed in troy ounces, not in the more common avoirdupois ounces, and there are only twelve troy ounces to the pound not sixteen. So which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers? Feathers! Gold is weighed in troy ounces. To take this information a step further gold is usually measured in pennyweight---20 pennyweight to the ounce, or in grams---31.103 to the ounce, or more rarely in grains 480---to the ounce! Had I known mathematics could actually be useful for something, I would have paid more attention in school. Why don’t math teachers use bars of gold in math problems instead of apples and oranges? I digress, back to the issue at hand. The word “color” in prospector parlance means gold (other than nuggets) in the bottom of a gold pan. Now color is nice, pickers are good, but clunkers and nuggets really ROCK!!! Whatever you call this most beautiful of all metals, or however you weigh it, gold is exciting to have and down right exhilarating to find! Good luck on your next prospecting adventure!!!

From time to time people (both men and women, not just the ladies), request one of our great camp cook Chip Yorde’s recipes. Here’s another one:

CHIP’S CHERRY FLUFF
1 eight ounce cool whip (thawed) 20 ounces crushed pineapple (drained)
21 ounces Cherry Pie filling
½ cup shredded coconut ¼ cup chopped pecans

Mix thoroughly in a large bowl and chill overnight---serves 12

The other night (or morning), about 1 a.m. the sun was shining in the sky when a fluffy cloud floated across the center of the sun. I am panning for gold outside my hooch when I look up and see a sight that so surprised me I stood there in awe and stared. The round sun was shining above the cloudbank; the clouds crossed the sun in a horizontal band, with sun rays or streamers shining in lines from below the cloud down towards the ground. It looked like a giant gold and white angel floating in the sky with the golden skirt of her robe flaring out above our camp. She was just floating there all golden and shining! Finally I came to my senses and excitedly called my neighbors Judy Powers from Anaconda Mt, and John Hagen from Stanton Az. They came around their individual hooches to see what I was so excited about. Judy exclaimed, “That looks exactly like an angel! It is so beautiful.” Jon Hagen, more reserved, just stared in wonder at our angel floating in the sky! All three of us stood for a while and just admired the angel that was watching over our gold camp! Finally the clouds slowly drifted away, and the sun was left smiling down at us. The wonders of Alaska continue to surprise and delight me!

Well, time to go and pan out some dirt and get the gold. Until next time, may your life and your gold pan turn golden!

Your friend, Arctic Annie.

HOLD THE PRESSES, NEWS ALERT!!!!! This is a last minute news flash! Straight from Perry Massie! This week number one draw weighs 31 PENNYWEIGHT!!!!!! This is the largest nugget EVER found in this gold camp. Slightly over 1 ½ ounces! Everyone in camp is ooohing and aaahing, and the lucky person to pick number one at the gold draw tonight gets it! Hopes and wishes and dreams are sky high! May the best woman (or man) win!

Arctic Annie