Alaska P 16

Yesterday, I had detected a strange noise in the drive system while driving and feared that the transmission, overdrive or differential might not be fully lubricated. When you drive an old car, strange noises, smells and feelings prompt your innermost apprehensions, suspicion and paranoia. Therefore, last night before going to bed, I had searched the local phone directory to find a nearby place where a lube might be accomplished and noted those with early opening hours. The nearest and earliest was the local Ford dealer. Shunning breakfast to save time, I fired up “Clara” and we were at the agency when they first opened. I was put on a rack in the Lube Shop and noted for the first time since the auxiliary gas tank had been installed, that it is now impossible to access the differential filler because the tank is too close!

This perplexed me and the young man assigned to help me. While I toyed with the idea of trying to use a pair of “vice grips” on the plug, my helper ran for a wiser head. He looked the situation over and soon appeared with a “high Jack” which raised the body above the rear axel and exposed the filler plug. The differential was full, as was the overdrive. It turned out that it was the transmission that was low. I easily filled it with “600W” lubricant furnished last night by Dennis. The Mitchell filler tube and dip stick helped considerably. I only had to borrow a funnel. After a handsome tip to my helpers, I was away to the hotel and arrived long before the others were assembling for a nine o’clock departure.

Before our slightly more than 100-mile trip today, we all scurried to the Eldorado Gold Mine about 10 miles north of town. There we boarded a little train which not only took us to the mining activity, but stopped along the way for reinactors dressed as miners who showed us how mining was conducted in the late 1800’s. It was well presented and we saw what went on in the underground mines and along the sluice claims on the river. We got an appreciation of how hard it was physically and why so many gold seekers were disappointed.

At the mine, which is currently producing gold (both of the mineral type and in the clink of tourist dollars), we were treated to how modern sluice operations are conducted. A long, shallow trench lined with AstroTurf over which a varying grid of steel bars and then expanded metal is used to capture gold bearing ore. (See the picture of the trench) The trench is on a slight grade and at the top is a large box into which gold bearing material (rocks, gravel, sand and gold) is dribbled (using a large backhoe), while a large volume of water is mixed with it very rapidly. This makes a slurry similar to very wet cement and it rushes down the sluice trench depositing gold in all the barriers formed by the metal and the AstroTurf. This provides a “concentrated” ore from which gold can more easily be extracted. The hardest work is done by machinery leaving manpower to pick up the gold from the concentrated ore. Young summer hires from the high school, showed how easy it was when you knew how. In a matter of minutes four people had panned several hundreds of dollars worth of gold! (See the gold pan picture.)

As we filed through a Disneyland-like mine, we were each handed a poke of concentrated ore and taken to troughs of water with benches where we were allowed to try our hands at panning gold. Then we e were taken to a nearby building where more high schoolers were waiting to weigh our dust, make a souvenir, or sell us some mementos to take home with us. They also provided delicious cookies and copious quantities of coffee. My poke yielded a few little specks of gold which weighed out at about $3-worth. Some of the group got much more, $20—$30 worth! They guaranteed “color” in each poke of ore. If not, they would give you more pokes until you did find gold. It was certainly a very educational morning.

Leaving there, Olsons and Smiths turned off to see an historic Gold Dredge. Since the tours were one-hour long, we skipped that but purchased a “miner’s lunch” consisting of beef stew (served family style in an iron kettle), biscuits and a muffin. It was very good, the meat was tender and the vegetables and gravy quite flavorful. Then we were on our way to Denali through Fairbanks to the south.

Broken clouds obscured the view of distant mountains, but we kept looking hopefully for a glimpse of Denali (Mt. McKinley). We had no idea where it was relative to our route. I had seen it many time when flying in Alaska in the early 50’s, but didn’t have any concept of where the road was. Needless to say, we didn’t see it! I wasn’t sure where our lodging was, so we entered the park and went to the Visitor’s Center and found out that it was outside the park about 10 miles south. We also learned where the Denali viewing location was and that it had been reported as being visible, even with all the clouds!

We checked in at our lodgings, the Denali Cabins, where we found many of our companions already checked in. My concern was, would I find an Internet connection? I did and you have seen the results. I was in a hurry to go to eat as we had a meeting at 8:00 PM, hopefully — if all had arrived by then. We drove north to the next group of cabins, as our place only serves breakfast, only to find a half-hour wait to be seated. We had noticed a place nearer our cabins on the way north, so we turned around. We were seated right away in a very new restaurant with an interesting menu. After we had placed our order and had been served our drinks, we were told that the food service would be delayed be 30 minutes due to a large party. I was an hour late for the 8 o’clock meeting, much to my dismay!

The weather was quite warm — in the 70’s or even more at times, so our cabins were warm when we went to bed. Therefore most of us opened the windows wide to cool down — which it did during the night!