Part 2 of Sid Harris story:
First congratulations to those who found me out, but there is a story with that picture.
In my fourth year of high school I joined three others in a grub staking project to stake claims and prospect for gold during my summer holidays. In a large station wagon and a trailer we drove nonstop across the country to Alaska, Anchorage. From there we flew into an old almost deserted mining town, pop. 10 to 12, and located a truck to take us and our supplies into the hills to our destination.
Fortunately we found an abandoned miner’s cabin to call home instead of tenting. The days were filled with line cutting, drilling, ( we had a portable drill rig) chipping rock samples and crushing them for assay sampling, following quartz veins along creek beds. We built sluice boxes by small creeks and fed them with gravelly stream bank earth and collected some gold. We did lots of exploring; we carried side arms, lots of bears around. Found some old adits that previous miners had dug into the sides of hills following a quartz vein. Since I was the skinniest it was me who crawled on his stomach into these holes to see what I could find. A bit scary. In my spare time I panned for gold with some success.
To our great luck we found we had a neighbour a mile to two away. Jewel lived alone in another abandoned cabin with a vegetable garden. Now he was a real gold placer miner.
Jewel had a huge Cat9 with a blade and back hoe. He disturbed dry stream beds, diverted water streams over a large sluice box. Higher in the hills he laid tubing to collect water to his workings below. The water pressure you see in the picture is purely from gravity. He would pressure wash old stream beds and direct the flow over his sluice box. Jewel made his living mining for gold. He was very helpful to us as he had a truck to take our samples into town and for groceries etc. He gave us valuable insights into the geology of our area and helped me improve my panning technique. A social bond ensued with numerous invited meals. In Sept. I returned alone to school with a small plastic box of gold dust and nuggets and lots of memories.
After that summer things were pretty normal. Got through high school, university, married, a couple of kids, climbed the ladder and retired. For over 45 years after marriage that little plastic box remained in my top dresser drawer until I decided it should be made into a piece of jewelry for my wife. ( wanted to be sure I had the right gal). Maybe you have had occasion to see this adorn my bride.
So you may be asking why this outpouring now? Well I pay attention to the financial markets and came exposed to a junior mining exploration co. that was extolling the virtues of its property and prospects in Flat Alaska. It was Flat where we flew into and spent the summer of 57. Since our little group did not find the mother lode and the hundred or so miners from 50 years before us couldn’t find it I’m not giving the newcomers much of a chance.
For those interested I could pick out the runway in Google earth but couldn’t see any buildings. Here is a link that gives a short history of Flat, current pop. 0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat,_Alaska
Thanks for your patience,
Sid
Once a gold bug always a gold bug.
