Drift mining help

[Flintgreasewood]

My partner's health is keeping him from working in the drift this winter so I’m looking for someone to help me mine. At this moment I’m not able to pay wages but I’m just about to enter the old drift that most likely wasn’t mined out. There was very rich gravel brought out 100 yrs ago (we processed the tailings). If you are retired and or are looking for an adventure here in interior Alaska, pm me and I’ll fill you in on the particulars.

[waveaction]

What your doing is pretty darn exciting. I'm sure there are folks out there that have just recently retired and in good shape/health that would love to help you out just for the experience. Thanks for posting and keep the Forum updated on your progress.

[Mythicalminer]

Curious as to your drift mining. I'm assuming this is placer...
How deep, and how solid is the OB... sandy gravel? large rocks or boulders? Is it hard-pack? cemented or loose?
Do you have powered equipment or are you doing this by hand?

I have some experience with ground support in solid rock and in 100 feet of back-filled "muck", (I worked 4 years at the Homestake Mine in SD and have experience drifting through "anything")

I wish I could come to Alaska, but that's not possible... but willing to help?

If interested email me (Tom) at: mythicalmining@cavenet.com

[Flintgreasewood]

Hey, Mythical, I have 57' of frozen muck on top of 33' of frozen placer gravel. The only power equipment down shaft is a 32lb electric jack hammer. Of course my hoisting apparatus is run by an electric motor as is the elevator I use to get up and down.

[Jim_Alaska]

I don't want to hijack this topic, but thought that some may find this story interesting, I have been reminded of it by reading this thread about drift mining.

When I lived in Alaska I had an opportunity to possibly buy the Chatanika Gold Camp. I'll make the purchase part short. ( yeah right, fat chance) Suffice to say that the owner and I could not come to terms after much time consuming negotiations, so it didn't happen.

But in the course of doing my "due diligence" I found out some intriguing information. I'll tell you the drift mining part first. The camp was originally built to support the Chatanika Dredge, which is a tourist attraction even today. That whole area was rich in gold, but it was deep as evidenced by the bucket line dredge.

The property that the camp sits on was never mined by the company because the camp was more valuable as support for the miners and the fact that the camp is on a hill, so the dredge couldn't work it. But I saw the original drift mining logs that were kept by the company when they let out private permits to individual miners that wanted to recover what they could by drift mining on company property. Those logs were mind boggling. I don't remember the exact totals of gold recovered by these guys, but it was almost unbelievable given the work they had to put in and the depth they had to go to to get it. I guess the company required the logs so that they could charge miners by what they took out and also have a record, as most companies do; probably had to do with investors.

My interest in the camp was as a business that I intended to run as a tourist attraction, pay to mine operation and fine dining restaurant, whose clientele would be people from the Fairbanks area, tourists, local, as well as vacation miners from other states, and Princess Tour busses.

My late wife, Marcie and I worked up a killer business plan that would make use of and remodel the infrastructure that was already there, while adding other infrastructure that we dreamed up. It was to be a grand undertaking that would include, the existing restaurant and bar; staff would be attired in period dress; the bunkhouses that would be remodeled; a gift shop; mining rental equipment; an all glass existing Aurorium; Four rental log cabins; a modern owners residence; a cat 988 loader and two work trucks.

We envisioned the "pay to mine" operation situated near the bottom of the property, so that we could bring paying material up with the loader without having to go too deep. People would pay to do whatever kind of recovery of the stockpiled material they wanted. Sluice, Highbank, Metal Detect. The camp was on the Steese Highway, which is paved and Princess Tours runs busses out to the Chatanika Gold Dredge, so the camp would be a natural added attraction for tourists by the busload. We also planned on two other winter enterprises for the facility. One was a snowmobile rental and the other was a dog sled ride concession, both would be an added attraction for guests that may not be interested in mining themselves.

Well, there I went and wrote a whole story when all I intended to do was tell about the drift mining part. Now let's get back to Flint's operation, hope I didn't pull the thread too far off topic.

[gabbie]

the gold camp has been closed now for about 4 years some pos burnt the dredge 9 years ago we go past the camp every summer going to our claims on the steese hwy we always stop at the lodge for lunch great food
doug

[Jim_Alaska]

Yes gabbie, I heard some time ago that the owner of the camp sold it to some single woman, but she mismanaged it and couldn't make it work, so I guess it just sat empty. I agree about the Chatanika Lodge being a good place to eat, it has always had a good reputation for that, just like The Turtle Club in Fox. I have eaten in both places numerous times when I was in the area.

[Mythicalminer]

Hey, Mythical, I have 57' of frozen muck on top of 33' of frozen placer gravel. The only power equipment down shaft is a 32lb electric jack hammer. Of course my hoisting apparatus is run by an electric motor as is the elevator I use to get up and down.

While at Homestake I was on a special crew (me and 2 bosses) on the 800 ft. level of the mine... we were the first in that area for over 100 years! Our job was to run a drift under the giant "Open Cut" from one side to the other looking for the pillars of rock they left to keep the original shafts open - as the shafts were sunk in paying rock! We had to go through whatever we ran into... from solid rock to back-filled (with muck) stopes. At one point we had 117 sets of solid timber (wide enough for our diesel loader). Of course, this was Homestake and they had the $$ to pay for all this.

Even though we had huge teeth welded to the bucket on the loader we still could not dig the muck.... our solution was drill 3-4 ft. holes in it, pound in some steel slip-bolts, then load the hollow bolts with Tovex and blast the muck loose. For ground support we used "spieling"... we would pound old mining rails (about 12 ft. long and 1 ft. apart) up into the muck and dig out underneath them for about 6 ft. or so relying on the rails to hold everything in place until we got timber in. Very dangerous job. Timbers were all green 12X12.

[Geowizard]

Working underground;

The NICE thing about working underground is no Mosquitoes!

- Geowizard

[Flintgreasewood]

And it's relatively warm in the winter.