Jun 30

Written by:
6/30/2006 12:00 AM 

Greetings from the Cripple River Gold Camp! The first crew into camp this year, (also called the early crew) arrived in Nome the sixth of June. As they made their way out to the Cripple River camp on the seventh of June these intrepid and hardy spirits had a big surprise waiting for them. Ice and snow! Deep ice and snow everywhere. Unbeknownst to them this year Mother Nature decided to let her favorite daughter Spring, tired from all the great work she did the last few years, sleep in late. Winter, jealous of his sister Spring and angry at having to work overtime, wrapped his cold and icy arms and fingers around the camp and blew deep snow all over the tundra covered hills and sea in a cold weather temper tantrum. The frozen spirits of all the Alaska plants, bushes, flowers and herbs met with the spirits of all the young birds and animals wanting a safer world to bring their young into, and complained to Mother Nature about her errant son Winter. Mother Nature sent Summer, her second beloved daughter, to this land, and she scolded Winter as she sent him scuttling away further north. Now Summer has taken over and is busy shining her golden warm sun rays over us, melting the last of the snow and ice and making the Cripple River Gold Camp and surrounding area a glorious wonderland for the summer.

This close to the Arctic Circle there are two events of great importance each year, freeze-up, when all water freezes (even the oceans and the Bering Sea), and break-up when the ice and snow breaks up and floats away in massive icebergs. This year, break up was several months late.

Chip Yorde, who is celebrating her tenth season at Cripple River as well as being our famous camp cook, described the once in a lifetime (we hope) experience, “The snow just inside the doors of the chow hall was above my head, and the snow by the counter top was over three feet deep. I had to climb over snow banks just to get into my kitchen. To get to camp we had to ride our ATV’s across the frozen tundra for about six or seven miles. I saw small frozen lakes on the tundra, and scenery like I had never before seen. Crew had to shovel deep snow and ice just to get to their hooch’s. The second day here my husband Laverne “Yorde”, Jack Swick, and Joey Eyler started plowing snow at 8 a.m. and worked until 2 a.m. the next morning trying to open the road to camp, and get some of the smaller roads in camp passable. Until then the camp trucks and supplies had to stay in town. The Bering Sea was frozen solid up to the beach, and it was so quiet without the waves lapping on the beach, and the birds calling that it felt very strange. Once the ice started floating out, there were icebergs sixteen feet high floating by. And the ice wasn’t white; it was the most beautiful blue color.” Chip feels that while this year started out cold, snowy and difficult, just being here to see it all was GREAT!!!

Alma and Harvey Comer from Dos Palos Ca. came into Nome on the ninth of June, but due to the snow in camp had to stay in town two extra nights. This is Harvey’s sixth year at Cripple River, but only Alma’s first. Alma was amazed by the salty Bering Sea being frozen solid. She enjoyed her ride across the frozen tundra, escorted by Donna and Richard Fairless also from Ca. Rough introduction to Cripple River Camp aside, Alma is enjoying every second of her time in camp and plans to come back again next year.

The crew really had to work hard and fast this year, as they not only had to do the normal activities that get this camp ready to open, but also repair roofs and hooch’s damaged by excessive ice and snow. Our volunteer crew is made of resourceful and hard working men and women from all over the United States and with the exception of milking a wild musk ox, or giving a bull moose a bubble bath, there isn’t much they can’t do. (Now I know this crew and I believe that if push came to shove and they really HAD to, we could have musk ox milk in the chow hall and all the Bull Moose in the area would have clean, sweet smelling hair! Our crew IS that good.) They share a love of prospecting and a love of this camp! There is a special bond these adventurers share, and each year as they greet each other with smiles, jokes, and stories of back home doings they are really saying “Hi there special friend, I am so happy to see you up here again for another year!” This camp truly is a wonderful place to be.

Camp Manager Ken Rucker is predicting good things this year! Due to the severe winter storms the beach has been thoroughly re-worked by Mother Nature, and with all the new deposits of gold bearing black and ruby sands this year should be a good one for the beach miners. There are also several outlying camps where panning, metal detecting, and high banking can get you some nice gold. Sluicing is another popular activity, and with the smaller handy sluices you can work in even small amounts of running water. You can prospect anywhere on the 2500 acre claim, except other people’s workings, and where the common operations are located--- (the eight inch dredge and the trommel), so this should be a fun and exciting year!”

Bonnie and John Ofchar of Hanover Michigan came into camp yesterday, Bonnie is now retired and her husband will retire in August. This trip is to celebrate! They are here for two weeks and are totally new to prospecting being bitten by the gold bug while watching prospecting on T.V. John found a nice piece of coarse gold and some fine gold in the first twenty minutes of working their beach claim. Bonnie, who already loves this place said, “this is our first trip to Cripple River, but it won’t be our last!”

Lindsey Rudolph, Phelan Ca., our hard working Beach-master; was in camp early enough to take many pictures of the ice and snow. She thoughtfully posted eight pictures on the chow hall door, kind of a small one-woman artistic photo show, so those of us who are later arrivals can see what we missed. Lindsey reports that the beach gold looks real good!

Yesterday our weather started clearing up so off Jim and I rode out of camp and on the trail again, to check on what flowers were blooming, and what birds were nesting. Yellow buttercups were scattered everywhere, and the bluebells were in bloom, some almost a deep amethyst. There were little flowers of white, purple, and blue scattered on the tundra like a carpet of color. The closer we got towards the dredge camp the warmer the temperature became. The birds were busy, their mating calls seemed to come from every clump of scrub willows, and we stopped to watch several males dancing and chirping trying to catch the eyes and heart of a likely girl. As we reached the top of one small mountain we could see the sun shining on the part of the valley in the distance we knew was Arctic Creek and the dredge camp! The rays of the sun lighting up the greens of the ground cover had the area looking like a giant rectangular emerald just glowing in the distance. As I turned and looked the other way I could see the Cripple River Gold Camp sitting on a finger of land just above the Bering Sea. I felt an excited shiver go through my body, all stress and problems drifted away in the peace and beauty of the moment. We rode slowly back to camp refreshed and renewed, ready for a summer of fun and gold prospecting! Jim looked at me, smiled and said, “We’re home.” And in so many ways we are!

It has been cold and foggy with some light rain for the past few days, but this afternoon the sun came out and it warmed up nicely. The one nice thing is no mosquitoes are out yet.

Fishing is very good with large schools of Dolly Varden (a type of trout) in the Cripple River hitting flies and lures that look like small smelt (fish), and these fish can fight. The record Dolly caught in Alaska (not at our camp unfortunately) was 19 pounds 12.5 ounces in 1991. The largest fish caught by a person at the Cripple River Gold Camp was a 35 pound King Salmon. This camp record fish was caught by Ken Barber in 2005.

Perry Massie, our favorite person in camp and leader of this expedition is excited about (no pun intended) camp prospects this year, “We are starting the season right where we left off on the trommel last year where we found the largest nugget ever on the Alaska trip. A 1½ ounce beauty! Reports on the beach are great as expected after the big storm last fall. I'm looking forward to this year's discoveries.”

Until next time, may your life and the bottom of your gold pan be golden!

Your friend, Arctic Annie