The Women of Nome’s Gold Rush: 1897-1906

By Priscilla Rhoades

At the height of the Klondike Gold Rush at the turn of the century, Nome was no place for a respectable woman. The congested Alaskan town was dirty, dangerous, and inhabited by hard-living men. Klondike “Klondy” Nelson saw Nome for the first time in 1902 as a curious five-year-old arriving with her mother, Alma. 
Alma Nelson had tired of waiting for her gold-fevered husband to come home to South Dakota and had determined that mother and daughter would join him in Nome. In her memoir, Daughter of the Gold Rush, Klondy described what they saw that October day after leaving their ship:
Nome in 1902 was a jumble of flimsy, false-fronted buildings, half of them saloons. There didn’t seem to be room on the boardwalk for another person. The men seemed to be of every nationality — Scandinavians, Russians, Greeks, Poles, Germans, French-Canadians, even Chinese.

Read more in the January/February Issue of Gold Prospectors Magazine.

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Panning for gold is easy! By Tom Massie GPAA CEO / Gold Fever host

I have seen it for myself — someone who has never held a gold pan in their hands entering into the panning contest at a GPAA gold show. They watch a few people ahead of them to see how it’s done and when it’s their turn, they swish the pan around, drop the gold to the bottom, use the riffle traps in the pan and pick out the nuggets with a respectable time and even — once in awhile, when the competition is not to stiff — win! For the most part, the vessels for use in gold panning and the methods of panning are unchanged over the years. The bevel-sided dish pan is the traditional utensil for panning for gold, but anything that will hold water and the dirt ’n gravel will do — such as a frying pan or a pie plate. But, if you expect to have...

Editor’s Note: What’s up on Wall Street?

By Tom Massie
GPAA CEO / Gold Fever host

Excuse me while I go  on a rant here, but  this whole Occupy Wall Street thing seems to me to be a bit silly. Now, I know we live in the land of the free and you have a right to free speech, but it kinda seems  to me some of these protesters are protesting for the mere sake of pro-testing. For lack of a better term, I think they find it fun.

A few months ago, we began hearing of “the one percent,” who are responsible for the current economic mess. This one percent apparently makes all their money at the expense of the other 99 percent. Who is this one percent? Is it the late Steve Jobs, who created a lot of really cool equipment that made people’s lives easier?

Read more in the January/February Issue of Gold Prospectors Magazine.

Join the GPAA and don't miss an issue!