Beach Mining at Nome

[Leonard]

2008 my prospecting pal and I met at Nome. I flew in from near Eureka and he came from Denver. We met at the airport in Nome. That was about all that worked as planned. We were to meet a friend and go inland to his claim. Long story short was he didn't make it. This left Dave and I on our own in Nome. Luckily I had bought a small tent in Fairbanks because I wanted to sleep 1 night on the "golden beaches of Nome". We ended up asking a taxi driver where we could camp and he drove us to the east beach across the road from the Swanberg dredge. This was mid July. On July 4th the weather had been in the 80's and people swimming in the ocean. Not while we were there.

Check out the video on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qYB679h9Nk for further information on the trip.

[Jim_Alaska]

Thanks for posting that Leonard. Well I remember your experiences at Nome when you posted about it on your forum. I'll have to check out the video.

[lat 59]

Thanks for posting the video. An adventure for sure.

[guest]

Hi Leonard,this is the first time I saw the video though I was there when you were. This is Peluk. Let me bring you up to date on that almost exact location of your tent. For the past week it has been a busy place. Atv's and pickups have been hitting that place hard and hauling away pay material before another surf burries it. A surf a while back,maybe a week ago,hit and removed the top layer of sand leaving the underlying clay bank exposed. On it were many remnants of what must have been a small schooner. I found boom tackle such as bails,a large oarlock and other hardware. My arrival was just after a discovery was made. On the clay was a large deposit of gold which continues to be excavated even today though in lesser quantities. One of the miners speculated an iceberg might have scoured up the bottom from just offshore and deposited it on the beach sometime recently. It could be but that clay bank hasn't been visible for years. Who knows or cares now. It paid about $500 a day as reported by those involved. I've heard from others you could just see gold in pockets when rocks were peeled back.

It's still out there just offshore too but rough weather is keeping dredgers on the beach for now. Good to hear you're still up and about. Gold should work its way up to $1400 here before too long then it may take off. Don't throw your shovel away.
…..Peluk

[Jim_Alaska]

Peluk, I remember you from the old forum. Glad to have you back, we hope to hear more from you.

[Leonard]

Peluk:
I remember you. When we left, we dropped off our shovels and buckets at your place as they wouldn't fit on the plane. We didn't find a lot of gold but we had a great time. I'll post some pictures taken at the Nome power plant. We got a tour of it. It had generators from historical Nome up to the new modern ones they put in to support the gold mine.

I'll post another link to a beach video we made in a day or so.

[Leonard]

I placed the pictures in the soapbox forum at

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=37

to kind of keeping things on topic.
Leonard

[dragline]

Greetings, Leonard, Jim_Alaska and Peluk!

I just got around to registering on our new Alaska Gold Forum and enjoyed looking at the photos of Nome's diesel power generator! That's a huge gen set for sure.

Say, Peluk, please consider registering on the forum here! Thanks.

I've been working on a new mining engineering project lately and will hopefully be posting a thread or two in the coming weeks.

Take care,

dragline

[Leonard]

I was fortunate to be given a tour of some of Nome's infrastructure. When we were there the weather pretty much prevented much gold prospecting so we did quite a bit of touring. I'll post a picture of the water system in a few days. I have to find them.
Leonard

[Johnedoe]

Hi guys...
I was in Nome in the early 80's met a buddy who was also from Eugene, OR. and we built a little cabin about a mile out on the west beach did a little digging there but we were too green and needed to find gainful employment .
Will went to work for Norm at the Polaris hotel and I got work at the Nome nugget for a while then with AK. Com. Co.
Also I was still young enough that I didn't have the good sense to stay out of the bars instead of spending the time on the beach when not working at AC.

If I knew then what I know now I would very possibly still be in Nome. Oh well.....
Non the less it was an experience I will fondly remember the rest of my life.

Hey Peluk... Glad to see you back here. It has been A while since we talked.

Best regards from.
William on the Oregon coast.