Friday, October 2, 2009

Alaska Bits -- 14 -- with a Weekend Reflection


When we went gold panning, we did not find this huge gold nugget worth about $40,000 which reflects quite a bit of light. At least, we did not find it when we were panning. We found it in the gift shop--I wonder if they would sell it, or is it the bait that gets you in  there. No, actually the free coffee and cookies and the fact that the only way to get back to the bus was through the shop....
Well, I digress.


The gold panning was the end activity (before the gift shop) of our visit to the El Dorado Gold Mine, reflecting an abstract of the surroundings over the few little flecks of gold in the pan.

(It's Weekend Reflections time and you can find
 other bloggers posting interesting reflections at the link.)






A "mine train" took us through a tableau renactment of a activities at a typical early mining claim.











Alaska mystery writer Dana Stabenow seems to have a character in each of her books that she calls the "Alaska Old F**t". Can you tell which is the Alaska Old F**t and which are the tourists?







The Alaska Old F**t and Yukon Yonda and their helpers demonstrated the process of mining for gold. Yonda sports a necklace of gold nuggets.







And finally we had a little bit of gold.


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for stopping by my playground. Oh my goodness I love this. It's been forever since I've seen any gold mining. What a fantastic set of pictures. Well done my friend :) Aloha

James said...

Thank you for joining Weekend Reflections. I really enjoyed this post. Gold panning has always been interesting to me. I used to try to imagine what it was like many years ago in places like Nome, San Francisco area, Yukon etc.
Great pictures!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Rune Eide said...

I hope you found some gold - at least the pictures were great!

Crafty Green Poet said...

very interesting post and lovely series of photos.

Thérèse said...

Cool reflections all along!
We use to gold pan on the banks of the American River in Ca, did not found much but still got the pan...
Thks for visiting Chandler Addendum.

Lew said...

You have some great shots of life in Alaska on these posts! Mom and Dad took a similar trip about 30 years ago. Beautiful country and certainly a different life style than here in the east.

Dimple said...

There is a gold mining tourist attraction near where I grew up, Columbia, California. When our kids were young we took them there once and panned for gold. It was fun; I think I still have the (very small) flakes we found in our pans.
Great reflections!

Anonymous said...

This is a fun collection. Alaska is a beautiful place. I was there for a year in 1963 - 1964. Nice shots.

PERBS said...

I bet that was fun! It reminded me of the days when I taught 4th grade and we panned for gold in the classroom. I had wter and sand and "pans" and the nuggets were gold bee bees I bought at a rifle store. I think I still have them somewhere. . .

Malyss said...

Very interesting story around a reflection! looking for gold , that's makes me think about yukon, old movies, great adventures, Jack London's books..So many stories behind a picture!

VP said...

I didn't expect to find this interesting post about gold panning, with many beautiful photos, and sparkled by a... reflection!

Liz Hinds said...

He is definitely an original!