Gold Panning in Alaska
Alaska offers unique contrast to other states. You have these colossal mountains, glaciers, wildlife, fishing and a boatload of other fun activities. Alaska also holds a history fairly new when compared to the lower 48 states. Few states or territories can claim they were attacked, invaded and occupied during World War II.
Alaska is one of the largest territories of the United States that still has areas never touched or seen by very few if any visitors over the last 100 years. Many areas outside of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Palmer and a handful of other cities have a population less than 10,000.
In many ways Alaska holds that ruggedness and charm experienced by explorers of the turn of the century. And this is what I feel invites so many people to come and visit Alaska’s vast beauty.
Alaska Rafting Adventure
When exploring, hiking, canoeing or rafting down a stream or river it’s very easy to imagine what it looked like to those early pioneers, adventurers and prospectors who made their way to Alaska in search of adventure and riches. Alaska’s gold rush was late in life compared to other famous areas in California, South Dakota, and Nevada.
When you visit Alaska you can relive the excitement and experience of bygone days also by trying your hand at gold panning just like the early settlers and prospectors did.
Gold Panning in Alaska Kenai Area
Prospector John’s offers a fun, safe, entertaining and very rewarding environment for you to learn the art of gold panning. Young or old you can enjoy the experience our gold panning camps offer.
You have two choices and methods for gold panning. The first is an all day event sure to raise the adrenaline of the outdoor enthusiast. Prospector John offers Gold –N – Paddle which is our all day rafting trip lasting 7 – 8 hours of rafting, prospecting, gold panning and wildlife adventure. As you raft gold pan and float your way through the Wildlife Refuge and streams of the Kenai Peninsula area. More information on the Gold-N-Paddle rafting trip can be found here.
The second choice offers you similar experience of early prospectors. You pick up a bucket and shovel and load as much of Prospector John’s rich pay dirt into your bucket as possible. Make sure it’s full!
If you were a pioneer or early prospector in Alaska Kenai area you would be working in a stream or along the banks. You would first pan a few areas along the bank till you found the glimmer of gold in your pan.
When satisfied you will be finding gold nuggets and flakes. Next you would put down your gold pans and pick up your axe and saw and start working to build a long sluice box.
How to Use a Sluice Box
A sluice box was often used right along side the stream as prospectors would shovel loads of gravel into the top of the sluice box and let the streams current wash and tumble all the lighter materials leaving the gold in riffles. This action simulated what occurred naturally in the streams.
Gold is heavier than most all other minerals found, so the early prospectors would simulate natural obstacles in a stream that would catch the gold by using blocks of wood, tree limbs turned on end and other items scrounged from the area to create these riffles. The water flow was stopped and then the black sands, gold flakes and any nuggets found were collected.
Early prospectors would then use their gold pan to pan out these concentrates of black sands and gold; gold panning over a trough or small pond they had created along the side of a stream.
By using a trough or the small pond if they happened to spill while panning they would not lose their precious gold finds to the fast moving water. Later all the gold finds and heavy concentrates they wanted to keep and have assayed would be kept in a heavy leather or seal skin pouch often called a poke until they got to town.
Today some things are much improved. Sluice boxes are small, lightweight and easily affordable for backpacking into the rough country. Riffles are made from aluminum and plastic.
Gold moving through your sluice box is now trapped in a synthetic mold free material called miner's moss. You no longer have to build your sluice box from felled trees, split timbers and tree limbs and branches turned on end to catch the gold traveling downstream through your sluice.
How to Choose a Gold Pan
The gold panning is easier too. You have a vast selection of types and styles of gold pans to choose from and each different design is built for a purpose. Once you gain practice skills and experience you will probably want to try several different kinds of pans till you find one that feels comfortable for the way you work while panning gold.
As John often tells our guests---- There are 256 different ways to pan for gold but there’s only 1 wrong way to pan for gold in Alaska. Dropping your gold pan or spilling all your gold after you find it is that one wrong way when panning for gold.
Baking Your Metal Gold Pan
John prefers a big metal 14 or 15 inch pan to do his gold panning. By cooking it over a camp fire it burns off any residue oils that may be on the gold pan.
It also turns the gold pan black so it’s easier to see your gold against the metal. John then uses an old metal pan filled with bullet holes as a sieve or classifier. What this does is get rid of any bigger rocks, stones, sticks and leaves that may be in your shovel full of dirt.
The smaller holes allow the pay dirt to easily sift down into your gold pan. This makes gold panning out your concentrates and pay dirt that much quicker by eliminating stuff you would have thrown out anyway.
John usually picks out any stones sitting on top and makes sure no bigger nuggets are found in the sieve. He then sloughs off the loose gravel a few times and transfers what is left over to a black plastic gold pan to finish panning everything out and see if there’s any gold in his gold pan.
At Prospector John's we have created everything down to the bubbling stream you would find in nature. As a recreational gold panning enthusiast or even first time novice you will have a blast panning out the pay dirt you selected.
John or one of his helpful staff will show you how to use a sluice box which is setup as you would set yours in a river or stream. You can use the sluice box to sluice out your bucket of Prospector John's rich pay dirt down to the concentrates of heavy black sands.
Finding a picker, clinker or larger flake you can pick up with tweezers happens often. You can control the amount of water flow and pressure your stream has.
You can shut the stream off to clean out your gold seen on top in the sluice riffles at any time.
At the end when your bucket of pay dirt is empty, the sluice box is taken apart and miners moss washed out in a bucket so you can pan out the remaining heavy concentrates and gold.
A gold panning trough is provided that is very similar to the same types of operations the early prospectors of Alaska built.
Prospector John’s Gold Panning Tips
John or one of his helpful staff will guide you offering helpful tips and hints if you do not have experience. Once your pan is down to where you can see all your gold you’re given a glass vial to keep all the gold you found. Just like in the old days when prospectors kept their gold finds in a skin or leather pouch called a poke.
Take your gold home with you and don’t be shocked if friends and family ask you to explain “Where’d you get all that gold?”
If you’ve ever been to a state fair, or tourist town such as Nevada City In California or Virginia City in Nevada you may have tried your hand at gold panning.
What you may have experienced at other gold panning operations
There are a number of gold panning operations in other areas of Alaska and other lower 48 states. I used to visit several types of gold panning camps myself when first learning to gold pan, but was often disappointed.
You were often presented with a plastic black gold pan and a gently flowing water trough. There was small grain sand in the bottom of the trough very similar to what you might find at the beach or in the bottom of a fish tank.
You’re told to reach into the water in the trough and scoop up some sand in your gold pan. Then the staff member helping would reach into his pocket pulling out a glass vial of gold. The staff member would then either use tweezers to pick out a flake or two or if the flakes were very small would sprinkle a flake or two into the pile of sand.
You’re then asked to get some water in the pan and start panning it out. The staff member depending upon experience would give a tip or two on how to pan.
This overall experience to me was more like tossing coins into a cup at a carnival. The attendant walked away to go talk with others and answer his cell phone. If it wasn’t for family being a part of the experience it would have been a waste of time and very boring.
You’re given a vial to keep the one or two microscopic flakes of gold, but you could have found more in nature with a little luck or by scraping it from a ring or jewelery.
While talking with one attendant at this type of operation in my early days he called this operation salting. You take ordinary ocean or playground sand and salt it with a little gold to simulate what might be found along a stream.
I’ve enjoyed going out with my family and gold panning now for many years. I’m not sure if it’s that I haven’t traveled enough or that I just wasn’t paying close enough attention but I’ve yet to see any stream beds made up of playground sand.
Prospector John gets his material from an area of Kenai Peninsula that has a working gold mine. And by using this material you are assured as close to nature and the experience you would get by going out to any of Alaska’s vast majority of streams and creeks in the peninsula area.
Gold is where you find it
Prospectors had an old saying “Gold is Where You Find It” and in reality this means you and your buddy could be working the banks of a stream just a few feet apart while gold panning.
Your buddy strikes it rich and offers to buy you lunch that day with all the gold flakes in the bottom of his gold pan, while you get one to two flakes only or sometimes nothing at all.
While we don’t need to “Salt our dirt” as the material has a fair amount of gold in it and comes from an area of known gold discovery you have the same chances of finding a lot of gold or a little as in nature.
We don’t control how many flakes you find in your pan by sprinkling vials of flakes over your pan just before you start gold panning.
You choose where to dig, you shovel all the dirt in your bucket and bring the luck of the draw in nature.
Whether on our gold prospecting raft trip or at one of our two locations at Cooper Landing or Sterling in the Kenai area “Gold is where you find it”
The Brochure
On our rafting trips we can’t guarantee you’ll find any gold but we’ve had a lot of successful clients who are now our friends.
Friends share stories and have so much fun--- several new friends suggested a “Trailblazer Members Club” to share stories, experience, trail locations, maps of other areas for gold panning and sluicing in Alaska and more.
Members requested an area of the website to share these tips and other information. So we’re working on creating a Trailblazers Membership Club” on this website.
Trailblazers Club will be for “Members” who have gone on at least one river raft prospecting trip and want to share tips, pictures and friendship with others who went on their trip or other additional rafting gold prospecting trips.
Your fun and exciting gold panning experience in Alaska is assured at either of our store locations in Cooper Landing and Sterling Alaska where you will experience the most closely simulated environment to that of nature.
Your gold panning experience at our stores is guaranteed by this statement in our brochures. We guarantee you will find some gold and if not we’ll get you another bucket until you do.
So far we’ve only had to do that once but as in nature it does happen.
Gold Panning Maps of Alaska
Prospector John’s carries a supply of local area maps and locations where you can pan on your own if so inclined; most Alaska State and Federal Parks are allowed.
Please follow rules and regulations of the area. Don’t dig up plant life along the banks of streams.