YUKON-CHARLEY RIVERS The World Turned Upside Down: A History of Mining on Coal Creek and Woodchopper Creek, Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska

1 A sluice box consists of a wooden flume with riffles across its bottom. Gravel and other gold bearing material is shoveled into the raised end of the sluice box and the action of water flowing over the riffles serves to separate the heavier gold from the lighter waste material. A rocker is a sluice box attached to rockers on either end, similar to a baby cradle. The miner "rocks" the device back and forth adding a horizontal component to the action of the water.

2 Some persons have suggested that in order to increase a dredge's digging capacity, adding extra buckets to the bucket chain would accomplish this. This would in fact create a larger "loop" at the bottom of the line, however it would also increase the likelihood of the chain rolling off the tumbler. Like a bicycle chain, there is normally some slack in a dredge's bucket line, too little and it causes excess wear on the components, too much and it will tend to roll off the lower tumbler. Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998.

3 Melody Webb, Yukon: The Last Frontier (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 278. Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998.

4 The Coal Creek and Woodchopper Creek dredges are essentially twins. The buckets on both dredges are capable of digging four cubic feet. The major differences between the two consisted of some minor modifications to the pumps and mechanical machinery and the Woodchopper Creek dredge has a longer digging ladder to enable it to reach bedrock. The stacker is ten feet longer at Woodchopper Creek.

5 For the purposes of this study, mining operations such as the Fort Knox project, north of Fairbanks, where placers are being worked with strip mining techniques using huge bulldozers to move material, are an exception to a discussion on Alaska placer mining. In the case of Fort Knox, the project represents the only instance of placer mining on such a grand scale. Only with modern techniques of capturing even the minutest amounts of flour gold is a project like Fort Knox viable. These techniques were not available to operators during the period before, or during the golden age of dredging.

6 Clark C. Spence, The Northern Gold Fleet: Twentieth-Century Gold Dredging in Alaska (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 13.

7 Rube Goldberg was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist and political satirist from 1915 through the 1950s. Among some of his best known works are his complex machines designed to accomplish simple every day tasks. He drew his "inventions" as contraptions satirizing new technology and gadgets. His drawings, using simple machines and household items already in use, were incredibly complex and wacky, but somehow (perhaps because Goldberg was an engineer by training) always had an ingenious, logical progression to accomplishing the task at hand. (See: www.rube-goldberg.com/about.htm)

8 Clark C. Spence, The Northern Gold Fleet: Twentieth-Century Gold Dredging in Alaska (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 8-9. See also: Harry A. Franck, The Lure of Alaska (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1939), 12; Many Lee Davis, Uncle Sam's Attic: the Intimate Story of Alaska (Boston: W.A. Wilde Co., 1930), 138.

9 "Flagships of the Gold Fleet," Popular Mechanics, 69 (May 1938), 730, 732; description of the "metal mastodons" is from R. H. Dunn, "Eight-cent Gold-Digger Earns Millions," Popular Mechanics, 49 (Jan. 1928), 75-76.

10 George E. Walsh, "Modern Gold Ship," Scientific American Supplement, 64 (July 6,1907), 3-4; "Flagships of the Gold Fleet," 730; Nome Gold Dredging and Power company, The Gold Ship (New York, c. 1907), 5. Quotations in this paragraph are from Anna Morrison Reid, "The Gold Dredging Era," Overland Monthly, 39 (June, 1902), 992; Thames Williamson, Far North Country (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1944) 89; and Alexander Del Mar, quoted in Franklin R. Carpenter, in Report of the Director of the Mint, 1904, House Document No. 19, 59 Cong., 1 Sess. (1905-6) 52, in that order.

11 Ernest Patty, "Gold Placers Inc. Annual Report, 1942," 6.

12 Merle Colby, A Guide to Alaska, Last American Frontier (New York: Macmillan Co., 1939), 308-9. Humphreys, Jr., MSS Box 45, Colorado Historical Society, Denver.

13 Charles Francis Herbert, "Gold Dredging in Alaska," (Bachelor of Science Thesis, Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, 1934), 6. Chuck Herbert was one of Ernest Patty's students who went on to work at Coal Creek and Woodchopper. He oversaw the drilling crews on Woodchopper and the upper Charley River during the first several years Alluvial Golds Inc. and Gold Placers Inc. were operating.

14 Herbert, 6-7.

15 Most dredges have a large, round cylinder inside them that rotates, tumbling the gravel, sand and dirt as water sprays onto it. These cylinders have perforations/holes along their sides, similar to a washing machine tub. These tumblers are either "screens" or "trommels" depending on who one talks with. For the most part, "Trommels" are associated with stationary placer mining where the pay dirt is brought to the processing point, "screens" are associated with dredging where the processing plant is moved from place to place on the dredge.

16 Charles Janin, "Gold Dredging in the United States," US Bureau of Mines Bulletin No. 127. Cold weather was always the nemesis of dredging. Once temperatures dropped the dredge pond and everything on the dredge began icing over. Dale Patty tells of an experiment involving the Consolidated (Canadian) dredges in the Yukon where one dredge ran over the winter. Although they succeeded in operating for the entire winter, it was the last time any company attempted to do so. (Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998).

17 Herbert, 8.

18 Herbert, 9.

19 Herbert, 11.

20 The Coal Creek dredge operated for 80 days during 1936 and 124-1/2 days in 1937. The crew replaced the bucket lips before beginning the 1938 season. The Woodchopper dredge went into production in 1937. The crew replaced these bucket lips for the first time before starting the 1939 season. This means that unlike the F.E. Company dredges, the lips lasted for approximately 200 days or 20% as long. The reason for such a marked difference is unclear at this point. Data is derived from "Gold Placers, Inc., Operating Reports," (1936 and 1938) and "Alluvial Golds, Inc., Operating Reports," (1937 and 1939).

21 Patty, "Gold Placers Incorporated, Operating Report, 1947," 1 and Patty, "Gold Placers Inc., Operating Report, 1950," 2.

22 Herbert, 10.

23 "Specifications for 4 Cubic Foot Dredge to Dig 14 Feet Below Water Level, Diesel Driven for General A.C. McRae of Vancouver, B.C.," Walter W. Johnson Company, San Francisco, California, Specification No. 43, Dated April 1935, pg. 5. Janin MSS collection. Hereafter: "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," with appropriate page numbers.

24 Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998.

25 Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998.

26 "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," pg. 5.

27 Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998.

28 Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998.

29 "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," pp. 5-6.

30 Due to the intense pounding from the rocks discharging from the buckets into the hopper, the hoppers on both Coal Creek and Woodchopper Creek dredges were re-enforced with one and one-half inch thick manganese steel bars in the bottom. "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," pg. 8.

31 Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998.

32 Jim Hallaron, placer geologist with the National Park Service, Alaska Region. Personal communication, n.d.

33 A grizzly consists of parallel bars, often angle iron with the apex pointing toward the top, running parallel with the axis of the dredge. Their purpose is to stop large rocks, branches, or in the case of many areas worked by Alaskan dredges, mammoth and mastodon tusks and bones from going through the dredge workings. In the case of the Coal Creek dredge, the grizzly at the top of the screen, above the hopper, proved to be the source of many problems until the crew fabricated a new design on-site.

34 Herbert, 13.

35 General A.D. McRae chaired the board of directors from 1935 to 1946 when, upon McRae's death, Bull occupied the chair. Dale Patty, personal communication, September 24, 1999.

36 Dale Patty, interview at Coal Creek, July 19, 1998.

37 "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," pg. 9.

38 Gold, when exposed to mercury, forms an amalgam. Mercury acts, for lack of a better term, like a "gold magnet" capturing the fine gold as it falls over the riffles. This in turn increases the efficiency of the sluices. The amalgam is heated in a retort process to drive off the mercury in the form of mercury vapor that then distills for reuse.

39 Dale Patty, interview at Coal Creek, July 19, 1998.

40 Ernest N. Patty to Charles B. Ulrich Sr., letter dated March 30, 1944. Located in the Patty Collection.

41 Dale Patty, interview at Coal Creek, July 19, 1998.

42 "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," pg. 11. Also, Ira B. Joralemon to Ernest Patty, letter dated September 16, 1936, Joralemon MSS.

43 "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," pg. 10.

44 Herbert, 14.

45 Lewis Green, The Gold Hustlers: Dredging the Klondike, 1898-1966 (Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Publishing Company, 1977), 160-61.

46 "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," pg. 10.

47 Dale Patty, interview at Coal Creek, July 19, 1998.

48 Dale Patty, interview at Coal Creek, July 19, 1998.

49 In the case of the Coal Creek dredge, there is a position available for an eighth winch, however it is not in place at this time. It may have been there at an earlier date, however many changes have taken place by owners after the Gold Placers Inc. era. The winch lever is located in the winchroom for the extra winch, the connecting rods all lead to the empty position. (See Dale Patty, interview at Coal Creek, July 19, 1998).

50 "Specifications, Coal Creek Dredge," pg. 7.

51 The bull gear on the Coal Creek dredge measures nearly 14 feet in diameter. It provides mechanical force to the upper tumbler, which in turn rotates the bucket line.

52 Dale Patty, personal communication, June 25, 1998.

53 Initially recalling that the Coal Creek dredge did not have a spare winch, while visiting the dredge in July 1998, the author and Dale Patty discovered that the starboard-most set of levers are connected to linkage above the winch mechanism. They do not however extend down to the winches themselves. Therefore, we decided these must be for a spare winch if the operators found it necessary to put one on the dredge.

54 Dale Patty, interview at Coal Creek, July 19, 1998.