Aug 10

Written by:
8/10/2001 12:00 AM 

Greetings from Temecula California. The 2001 gold prospecting season at The Cripple River Gold Camp is over. This season was a real success, with many people learning new skills, making new friends, and seeing and living in what may be the last unspoiled frontier—living the adventure of a lifetime, and also getting GOLD! People at the camp were very active until the last minute, with some people panning out their concentrates at midnight, with their plane leaving at 6:30 the next morning. Other people were exchanging addresses up until the time the giant trucks left camp for the airport. This is probably cutting it a little close. People seemed reluctant to end the good times. The crew, some of whom had been in Alaska since the second week in June, (and would be staying for some days yet to do the closing of the camp) were getting tired, but spirits and morale were still high. As the trucks on Saturday headed to the airport with the final weeks participants, they were followed by crew members riding the fleet of rental ATV’s into town for service and winter storage. The empty trucks hauled the riders back to camp to finish boarding up the hooches and closing down the camp. There are primarily two groups of people at the camp. The crew, who keep the camp running day to day, and assist those needing advice or help, and the miners (also called the participants) who come up to the camp for between one and six weeks, and primarily are into gold getting. Most miners work the beach and the beach boxes getting flour gold, some coarse gold, and an occasional beach nugget. Most crew also prospect for gold when not working for the camp, and in their off duty time. Whenever the sea was calm, Tom Massie, Jim Boatman, Frank Mayse and Jim Fennel ran a 5” dredge off shore with reportedly good results. As this is a real mining camp, and not a tourist attraction, everyone ultimately works together with the more experienced giving assistance to the less experienced. And while help and advice is always available, you do the work yourself. This allows the new miner to develop the knowledge and skills needed to become a more experienced miner. For the more experienced miner it allows the fine tuning of their current skills, as well as trying new methods to increase their gold recovery.

The new Cripple River Chapel was busy right up to the end. On Saturday they had the dedication ceremony. On Sunday a renewal of wedding vows celebrating 25 years of marriage for Tera and Danny Bailey. The chapel was standing room only. After the service, which included the presentation by Danny of a gold ring made mostly from previous years Cripple River Gold, everyone adjourned to the chow hall to consume a beautiful tiered wedding cake and hors d’oeuvres (a surprise created by the fabulous Chip Yorde). Then on Tuesday at 7:00 PM two employees from the local National Park Service office gave a well attended presentation in the chapel on Artic Flora and Fauna complete with a video.

Lavern Schildberg welded up a steel box from ¾” pieces which was lowered over the George Massie monument to thwart “off Season” vandalism. On Wednesday Ken McPherson and Bill Thomas drove to town and gave the Nome “Junior Park Rangers” a panning demonstration. All 14 of the youngsters got to keep the small nuggets they panned out (a generous personal gift from Ken).

I spent some time asking both the miners and the crew how things were going. The answers were overwhelmingly positive. Some minor (or maybe miner) suggestions were to get a Native American Medicine man to perform a NO RAIN dance in 2002. The second suggestion was that even though the gold was good this year, we might try to bribe mother nature into putting even more gold in the new black sands she throws up on the beach each year. (Bribe her with what?) No matter how much gold is prospected it never is enough, everyone including me wants MORE of this elusive and most beautiful heavy metal.

Each new year sees changes to the Cripple River Camp with operations being fine tuned, and improved. This camp isn’t just getting older it is getting better. My husband noted that this year while many miners were content to stay in the main camp and work the beach, others “Spread their wings and visited the more primitive outer camps, where different golden opportunities abound.” All in all it was a great year.

Baring a few minor accidents and some colds, everyone stayed healthy. Everyone got gold, saw new sights, and had new experiences. Most people, felt they needed to be able to stay longer to see and do all there was to see and do. The Salmon season did finally open, and fishing was good! All in all a great summer. Hope to see you next year at Cripple River. And may the bottom of your pan turn golden!