Jul 18

Written by: alaska
7/18/2008 12:00 AM 

Greetings from the Cripple River Gold Camp! Today is cold and cloudy, with a light mist falling, and everyone in camp is hoping for a few bright warm sunny days. Tempers are a little shorter on cloudy days and after several rainy days without prospecting some people seem to be susceptible to infection by the scientifically proven, but little known, grumpius monsterious thingium. Or in layman’s terms the grumpy monster. Once infected, the infectee gets a case of the grumps that can be cured by hot sunny weather, good chocolate raspberry candy, lots of hugs, finding large gold in your gold pan or other good things. Once attacked by the grump monster you can be contagious and spread a case of the grumps, so please be careful because we really don’t need a grumps outbreak in our camp!!!!

A good cure for the grumps is a talk with a cheerful participant or crew member. Elaine Watson from Hill New Mexico has been a member of GPAA for over six years and has been interested in prospecting for over fifteen years. This is her and her husband Johnny’s third year at the Cripple River Gold Camp. While they come to get some of our beautiful gold, they also come to fill their hearts and souls with beauty and adventure. One of Elaine’s favorite things to do is for her and Johnny to take small “day trips” on an ATV. She especially likes to ride to the Sinuk River (pronounced Sen-ick). She enjoys seeing different groups of animals, beautiful scenery, different places, or the same places at different times, or even just hunting for colored beach glass, old glass from Nome’s past that has been tumbled and smoothed by the waves of the Bering Sea before being cast back onto the shore to be picked up by treasure hunters. Yesterday she saw three herds of Musk Ox an Arctic Fox, and some Willow Ptarmigan or “Tundra Chickens” Alaska’s State Bird. (And NO! The state bird is NOT the mosquito!!!)

On the decidedly weird front, Stan Simons from Wasilla Alaska has been coming to Cripple River for four years, the first year as a participant and three years now as a crew member, as one of our truck drivers at the Cripple River Gold Camp. Yesterday he was sitting at the airport in one of our beautiful, high off the ground so we can cross the Penny River trucks, with a supply of 50 dozen eggs in boxes in the back along with many boxes of miscellaneous items. Inside the terminal Johnny Jacks from Daphne Alabama, was making a phone call and watching the truck, when a huge raven flew to the back of the truck and ignoring all the boxes except one, started attacking that one box! As he or she ripped at the paper shreds like confetti flew everywhere. Once the box was opened to the bird’s satisfaction, a single egg was removed unbroken and the robber baron bird flew off with the oh-so delicious morsel held tightly in its beak. Stan was shocked to find out he had been the victim of a successful un-armed truck robbery. Worse still, he feels it cost him the amount of $10,000.00. Had Johnny had a camera, the video would have won top money on America’s Funniest Video’s. Actually guys, the top money can be $100,000! Divided by three it comes out to $33,000 and change each for Stan, Johnny, and the Raven! And that’s not chicken seed, guys! But, no video, no money! Better luck next time!

One of our more successful participants is Donovan Carper who is 11 years old and is from Coruna Indiana and is here with his grandfather Ed. Donovan, who is called Dink, is here to find gold, beach glass, and garnets, and just have a good time. Dink has some good advice about traveling “Check the weather report to see if it is going to be a good day before you go anywhere.” About fishing, “If you don’t like Pink Salmon use a silver lure, any other lure will get you Pink Salmon, I had very good luck fishing!” Mr. Donovan has caused quite a stir in camp with the amount of beach glass he is finding in camp, currently the count is up to 21 pieces many in shades of green and olive green, and on the beach down by the Cripple River. So, many people, ladies and gentlemen alike, on this he is willing to share some of his secrets and as a beach glass hunter myself, his secrets are valuable tips, so from Dink himself, “Check between the road and the water but not in the waves, and walk slowly and always keep your eyes on the ground. Brown glass looks like small brown rocks with frost on them.” On garnet hunting he gets his material from the tailings pile from the gold room, and he likes his garnet bearing material wet for beast hunting! Dink also advises not to leave valuable items in plain sight on your ATV. Mr. Donovan will be here through Saturday, the end of his two weeks. If possible he will come back if he can another year.

Beach-master Jon Hagen reports that today the gold recovery on the beach boxes seems to be good to excellent! This is really great news, as for the past several days the beach boxes have not been able to be run on the beach by the Bering Sea. The rain storm brought high, rough tides which prevented the foot valves being placed out into the surf, so no beach boxes could be used. Instead material had to be brought into camp and ran on the foul weather boxes on the edge of camp set up for just this contingency. With the beach back running camp is getting back to ‘normal’? what ever that is here!

Crabby Wednesday’s continue to be a big hit! Last night you could enjoy the camp potluck of hot savory beef stew, bean salad, and strawberry shortcake, or pay $10.00 and get ½ of a fresh caught Alaskan King Crab with drawn butter! Some people had BOTH! What a deal! The quietest night in the chow hall is Wednesday night, with everyone eating their crab. The subdued conversation was barely interrupted---except for the cracking of crab and the surreptitious slurping and lip smacking and the ‘mmmmm’ sounds of contented diners replete with King Crab. It was all over much too fast, but cheer up next week has a Wednesday in it too!

The weather may be a little off color this year, but our camp is still running as much on schedule as possible! There is still lots to do here, and exciting things going on! Twice a week, if possible we have the truck trips to the trommel, where you can run high-bankers for a good chance to get coarse gold and small nuggets and pickers. We also have ATV trips to the trommel to run the high-bankers, different days than the truck trips, of course. The camp offers ATV trips to the Sinuk River, about once a week, as well as the occasional ATV trip to Nome to shop, or to gather beach glass or whatever. In the camp itself, we have the following weekly classes for people who want to pick up a new skill or two: by Sam Rua---Geology (rocks and minerals), fine gold recovery, beach box class, mining equipment class, beach walk for jade and other rocks. Bob Fredlund: metal detecting class, and dowsing class. Arctic Annie: flowers and plants walk (replaced this year by jewelry design class), garnet picking with Annie, an occasional beach glass picking trip to Nome, and an Artifacts talk. Ralph Rogers has five popular classes on gold-smithing. After evening chow there are various games for those who are not too tired to play them. We have many fun games, everything from Bingo and Yahtzee to Poker and Cribbage. There is a lot to do here, and for those who just want to read and go to sleep Cripple River has a small but nice lending library.

I truly am getting cabin fever from being inside too long. I have been talking to my gold pan for a day or so, but today it started answering, so I’m ‘outa’ here! I’m out to dip that fool pan in the water and see if it can find me some gold! So until next week, may your life and the bottom of your pan turn golden!

Your Friend Arctic Annie

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