Chapter 3

Tuesday: The next few days were very busy. My cousins tried to call me and left messages for me at several places. Art and Rob Oomailiq agreed in principle to working with me to build my cabin. So I decided to remain in Fairbanks to take care of some other business, rather than return in a week's time.

Friday: We stopped by the First National Bank of Alaska at Tommy's suggestion. Tommy introduced me to Jorge Jorgensen who was a vice president of the bank. Jorge told me he was very sorry to hear about my uncle. Jorge went on to say that Uncle Howard had obtained a safety deposit box in my name. I was shocked and asked him what was in it. Jorge smiled and said "That is between you and your Uncle. Would you like the key?"

"Of course, I am interested in finding out what is in it."

It took Jorge about five minutes to return with the key, and then he led me towards the vault. Tommy started to take a seat but I said, "Come on Tommy, I may need your advice."

The safety deposit box was not large. In fact, it was the smallest size box in the bank vault. There was three tables divided by partitions at one end of the room. By common consent, we chose the largest table that allowed Tommy and me to sit on the same side of the table and view the contents of the box. What I found were six legal documents.

Four were deeds for property. Tommy made sense of them faster than I did. He then explained them to me. One was for the actual mine site on the north side of the river. The second one was for 150 acres that surrounded the mine site on all sides. Tommy explained that Uncle Howard suspected that the old streambed or riverbed ran back up through the property and it should be included as part of the mine site. Two other deeds were for the property on the south side of the river and encompassed about 205 acres as far as we could tell. It looked to have about 20 acres of river front with the rest extending back to the south about 10 acres. Tommy explained that these were old deeds and did not have the normal right-of-ways and restrictions that the state included on properties that sold now.

One of the documents was from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and was a permit for two septic fields and wells to be installed on the south side of the river. The last document allowed mining of the north side for gold and had a list of restrictions and described methods that could be used.

After a little discussion, Tommy and I decided the best place for these documents, was exactly where they were presently located. When we left the bank vault, Jorge was there with a signature card for my bank accounts, which I needed to have on file. I had Tommy also sign the cards, so that he could access money as needed, if I was not in town.

Saturday: Art, Rob and I flew out to the mining site with Tommy. Both Art and Rob were excited with the system Uncle Howard had set up to recover the gold. Most gold found in Alaska is not found in large nugget form. Some will be found in pea size or slightly larger nuggets, but most is flake or granular. Uncle Howard had set up a rocker type separator, until the last step, which used a sluice.

The first section of the process, was a hopper where a load of sand and gravel was deposited using the front-end loader. The output (discard) from each of these rocker sections formed separate piles. The first pile was the largest rocks. The next piles graduated down to the gravel that could be used in the making of concrete.

The last portion, which was made up last three sections, was the water sluice to wash off the unwanted material, leaving the gold. The water for this was from a separate settling pond, which was recycled. Tommy said that the pond needed to be cleaned out regularly or it would fill in with settlement. This is where we would obtain the sand needed to make concrete.

The tailings were then dumped back into the section they were originally removed from, starting with the smallest, working up to the largest. Tommy showed me where he and Uncle Howard had worked previously and it was hard to tell a difference from where they had dug and what had not been disturbed.

During the early afternoon, we rowed across the river and went to look at the site Tommy recommended for my cabin. I was impressed with its location and the fact it would not be overlooking the mining site directly but was further east of it, almost to the edge of my property on the south side of the river. Art and Rob both agreed it was a good place to build; protected from the wind and high enough above the river to be out of danger from flooding. Art offered a couple changes to what Tommy and I had drawn up, which we gladly incorporated.

Later, as Tommy and I poked around the area, I noticed that Art and Rob had disappeared. When I asked Tommy about this, he said that both men liked the area and were checking out the idea of moving up here. I figured they were looking further up along the river. Boy was I wrong!