![]() ![]() ![]() Most in Alaska were “bucket-line” dredges that used a continuous line of heavy steel buckets (the digging ladder) to scoop goldbearing gravel from the bottom of a man-made pond. ![]() With the opening of the Alaska Railroad in 1923 large gold dredges finally arrived in Fairbanks.ĭredges are essentially floating gold processing plants. Dredges on the Seward Peninsula were shipped the entire way via ocean-going vessels. The Klondike dredges came by ocean to Skagway, were shipped via the White Pass and Yukon Railroad to Whitehorse, and then transferred to steamboats for the final leg to Dawson City. These gold dredges were immense structures, and their use predicated the availability of relatively inexpensive and reliable means of freighting heavy equipment into the country. All told, there were about 50 dredges scattered across the territory before World War II. On the far western side of Alaska, ancient tundra-covered beaches containing rich gold deposits were discovered in the Nome area in 1905, and by the mid-1910s there were at least a dozen dredges in that area. Dredges were operating in the Canadian Klondike by 1900 - eventually about two dozen worked there. The Fairbanks dredges were not the first ones in the North. 7 (at Fish Creek) was demolished when Fort Knox gold mine was developed. 4 (operated on Pedro Creek) was dismantled in 1959 and moved to Chicken, and No. 3 can be seen at Chatanika.įour others are tucked away from sight: No. actually operated eight of these giants near town. 8 at Fox (shown in the drawing) is perhaps the most visible and well-known dredge in the Fairbanks area, but the FE Co. The Fairbanks Exploration Company’s Gold Dredge No. ![]()
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