Barges on the Yukon

Day 9, Wednesday, July 3

Not a mammal all day. Ravens walked the shoreline and two Bohemian Waxwings flitted in the poplars, but the wind and smoke, possibly from the fire near Dawson City, seem to have kept the animals hunkered down. Winds of 15-20 mph nearly stall us. Looking for faster water, we stayed mid-channel. Today was work.

Barges were busy in this section of river. One passed us going downriver and two going upriver loaded with porta-potties, various containers, and a tracked MOG.

Our camping goal was a meadow near Coffee Creek. As we approached, a small cargo plane crossed over, banking hard for landing, just as a helicopter buzzed upriver with a sense of urgency. Ten minutes later the chopper returned and landed near the cargo plane. It appeared to us like a medivac operation was in progress, but the scene was obscured by trees.

Nearby, a gold dredge was tethered to the bank near a painted sign proclaiming KAMINAK GOLD MINE. We could hear a turbine-like whine of what Terry speculated was a gold centrifuge. Since the mining operation had taken over the meadow, we set up camp just past the creek and listened to the helicopters frequent excursions. Valuable cargo? The creek appeared to have been bombed, but it was just the work of gold hungry humans using the dredging tool. If you have never seen a modern one, they are basically a floating hoover sucking everything off the bottom. Rocks of a certain size are spit out into piles and smaller stuff is kept for the stamper (crusher). The final step is sorting out the gold from the paydirt. Dredges can wreak havoc on a river system, so this mining operation had been stalled for years.

Two fellows working on a dredge near Carmacks said five of them pull $100,000 per month from the river, of which 15% goes to the dredge owner, and they split the remainder. Everybody was making a lot of money for pulling 5 pounds of gold from the river bottom!