Travel Log to Alaska in 1993 (Coldfoot, Part 4)

07/09/93

There are no outstanding events to tell you about today. Tom E. came over to our trailer for an hour or so this morning for a chat before leaving for Fairbanks. There were a few drop in guests today including a couple from Bonn Germany. This evening the Greyline bus tour group was in town and came to the presentation. There were 5 tourists from the northern Virginia/D.C. area.
Tom brought us a sling to put on the rifle which will make it easier to carry when we take it with us on hiking trips. This required drilling a hole in the stock which I did very carefully.
Marian & I have been pigging out with our food replenishment. One of our favorite candy snacks is Caramello bars. We will have the bag emptied soon by the way we are eating them.

07/10/93

A beautiful day in Coldfoot! Mild temperature and sunny skies were the order of the day. Our daily drop in visitors has dropped off for the past few days however the ones that have been have been interesting to talk with. On couple we talked with today were from Russia then there were a couple of young fellows from Germany. This evening there were 20 in for the presentation. All on the small tourbus were men except for one lady.
We had a nice surprise today when the phone rang and it was Cheryl. It was great talking with her.
We had a nice evening picnic over at Sandy’s house (our evening dinner break). Marian took over a big pot of baked beans and Sandy had barbecued fish. One of the other persons that came over brought a nice birthday cake (Sandy’s birthday was July 4th).

07/11/93

The mosquitoes were not too bad today with the cool weather. Maybe the clouds and rain have gone away for a while. Our tourist trade was very slow with only a hand full of drop in’s during the day and about 20 for the evening presentation. We had the center to ourselves again today. The BLM and NPS folks will be back on duty tomorrow.
We may have a solution to our prior inconsistent “dump” schedule. Instead of us setting a time we now have an arrangement for Coldfoot Services to come over to the Center and let us know when they can be over. It seems that they can meet estimated times under this arrangement. At least it worked today. I couldn’t believe it when they showed up within 5 minutes of when they said they would be here.




07/12/93

This morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day with a temperature in the low 70’s. It looks like we are going to have a great summer day in the Arctic. At the Center we sometimes ask if the weather here is what they had expected of the Arctic. For instance last night it was hot in the presentation room and we had two fans going and the back door open. I think that most who are experiencing the Arctic for the first time have visions of a year around snow covered area. Where in fact the snow completely melts during the summer months except for the far north at the Arctic Ocean. We have summer temperatures in the 80’s on some days and there is only an occasional patch of snow at the very highest elevation (actually Ice covered snow). The small time slice of summer in the Arctic is totally different than the other 8 to 9 months of the year where there is sub-zero temperature and almost total snow cover. The snow cover becomes deep at times since once the snow starts it never melts. We actually don’t get too many inches of snow except for specific geographical areas. Such as last year in Coldfoot where there was 10 feet of snow. This was abnormal. It is interesting however that temperatures can take a sudden dip even in the summer months and snow can occur during any month of the year, yes even in July. We typically get our first snowfall in September so most likely we will have departed the area before the first snow. The time between fall and winter can be days or at the most a few weeks. During this transition period the tundra will turn many colors and the trees on the South Slope of the Brooks Range will follow suite. The next thing you know all will be brown and then snow covered. I may have mentioned it previously but there are NO trees at all once you pass over Atigun Pass to the North Slope of the Brooks Range.
The evening was enjoyable with our Greyline guests. There is always such a variety of individuals that it makes it interesting to talk with each. We are now back in our trailer and Marian is preparing our second dinner for the evening. It is a little after 11pm. I know that when we get back to Virginia we will have to learn to readjust our time schedule. Now we go to bed sometime after midnight to early morning and get up at about 9:30 or 10:00. It’s a hard life. Ha .

07/13/93

This morning we dressed out in our grebes for a day of labor at the Center. Marian & I painted over half of the Visitor Center today and will finish up tomorrow. Our bones are tired tonight from the exercise. We put a coat of clear rawhide on the wooden structure. It was painted when they put it up some five years ago and hadn’t had a brush or roller to it since. With the severe winters it was in bad need of the coating. Tomorrow is our last day of work on this ten day shift. We will be off for the next four days after tomorrow. Marian & I will take our gold pans and try our luck at finding our fortune here in Alaska. Don’t hold your breath.
The work brought about a big appetite so we have had two suppers so far tonight. The first one was at about 6 PM and our second one at ten thirty after we had a Corona.
I have really been enjoying the Peanuts that Cheryl sent in her care package and also the candy & toast pops. We have listened to Stefan on the tape recording and he is now saying new words like MINE. Cheryl also included a top 40 tape which was recorded in Germany about 20 years ago.
Marian is packing up a box of things to send to Debbie, Cheryl & Fred. It should get out on the Wednesday mail run.
I will have to drag my AM radio out of the truck and see if we can pick up any stations now that officially we are getting sunrises/sunsets. Maybe the ionosphere will be more cooperative at bouncing signals.
This is one of our hottest evenings since we have been here. We drug out the fan and have it going and it feels good. As the evening progresses it will turn cooler but now it is HOT in the Arctic. The temperature in the Center this evening was in the mid 80’s. For you folks in the DC area this probably doesn’t sound too hot for mid July.

07/14/93

The Coldfoot Visitor Center now has a fresh coat of paint and probably will be the last one it receives for several years. It sure looks nice (we would say that since we did it). We had calls from both Debbie & Cheryl today and as always it was very nice to hear their voices and talk. Today Marian went for an extended ride in a Super Cub airplane through the courtesy of the National Park Service. If things go as planned I will take a ride tomorrow morning.
We received a couple of letters from Cheryl today and some RV information that Cheryl had ask the dealer to send to us. Mail day is one of the highlight days of the week for us.
Clayton, one of the BLM fellows, dropped by a few more tapes for me to dub. My only problem is that I didn’t bring any blanks so I just re-record over some of the old tapes that we have just about memorized (hate to do it but no other choice to get new music). He loaned us his two cassette machine which has fast dubbing capability..
Marian & I went over to the Coldfoot Cafe and had some pie and ice cream. Boy was it good. They cut the pie into quarters so you can pig out on a single piece of pie.
We are off for the next four days. So after my airplane ride tomorrow maybe we will go gold prospecting. Marian is still hoping to stump her toe on a 16 ounce nugget. A piece of info: There are 20 pennyweight to a Troy Ounce. You normally express gold in pennyweights unless you are rich then you can talk ounces. Gold nuggets go anywhere from 25 to 65 dollars a pennyweight depending on who you buy it from and under what circumstances. In the bar when a miner needs a drink you can get a gold nugget for 20 dollars a pennyweight otherwise it will be about 50 to 65 dollars a pennyweight. Certain nuggets have more Dollar value per pennyweight than processed gold (nuggets have character you see).

07/15/93

The NPS pilot was here at ten this morning and up we went into the skies over Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve. What a great trip! We cruised for close to three hours between mountains and skimmed the tops of the peaks where Dall Sheep were enjoying the Mineral Licks. Needless to say Marian & I very much appreciate the NPS for doing this for us. The little Super Cub is a perfect match for this type of flying. It is a small single engine highly maneuverable aircraft which only accommodates the pilot and one passenger. The NPS had this craft chucked full of fancy electronic equipment including of course a Satellite Global Positioning navigation system.
This afternoon Marian and I hopped into the truck and headed up the Dalton for Gold Creek. We panned for Gold for about three hours. Rather Marian panned for gold about 3 hours. I didn’t feel lucky so I just sat in a lawn chair along the creek bank and watched prospector Marian. Well we didn’t strike the mother load. Sorry folks you don’t have rich friend yet. Tomorrow we will try another creek.
What a hot day. The temperature has been in the mid to high 80’s since noon and it is near ten PM now. The good part about this weather is it will cool off nicely at night and a blanket will feel good. I probably won’t get any sympathy from you DC folks on the temperature since we hear it has been in the high 90’s back there.
A couple of days ago I mentioned that since we are now officially getting sunrise/sunset there might be a possibility of receiving something on the AM radio band (just over an hour difference between set & rise). Well last night I gave it a try and sure enough there are a few stations fading in and out however all of them came from Russia. We are just over the North Pole from Russia (or whatever you call Russia now). I was surprised that I couldn’t pick up any Canadian stations and was very hopeful to hear a voice from the lower 48. Well the recorder will have to do for now.

07/16/93

I bet you thought we struck it rich today when the fact is we didn’t get around to doing any gold panning today. First we didn’t get up too early then since it was mail day we waited around until 1 PM so that we could see what was in the mail. Jane Bixby and Cheryl sent so much good reading material that we decided to stay around the trailer and read. Also there was some problems with a hotel charge in Fairbanks which Marian had to clear up. For some reason the Westmark in Fairbanks put a $200 dollar charge on our Master Card which was inappropriate. I say inappropriate since we were charged for a room there on the 29th of June and we were in Coldfoot. While at the Center Marian fixed some chili for Rick & Sandy and I played around on the Computer. There are always new people coming into the trailer park and we usually chat with them. The lady next trailer down showed us some photos that she had taken with a special panorama camera. It takes very wide angle pictures which are printed on 10 (wide) by 2 1/2 inch paper. The little camera only costs $20.00 so we ordered one. It will be nice to take these wide angle shots as we go through Denali Park and other scenic places.
While at the Visitor Center tonight we talked with Dave the miner and his helper Mike. Dave is the fellow that Marian bought her nugget from in the bar. Dave is a slow talking care free fellow. After talking we found that he is a college graduate, an x-military black hawk helicopter pilot, and discharged from the special forces as a major after two service tours in Viet Nam. Who would have thought that from talking with him at the bar although he fits the pattern of what one might think of a special forces person.
We got word that our food replenishment should be coming in today with Clayton who is coming up from Fairbanks. Well its 11pm now and no Clayton. Guess he is running late or maybe got hungry on the trip up.
PS --- Shortly after midnight Clayton arrived with the groceries. We now have a lot of new good things to eat including some sweets. We invited Clayton in and Marian fixed him a sandwich and a big glass of orange juice. Clayton is a very nice young man. He is working as a seasonal employee during the summer to earn money for College where he is an honor student.



07/17/93

This morning we walked up Slate creek for about 4 miles. We had on our knee boots so that we could cross the creek in a shallow part. Good idea in principle but the water was over the boots so we walked with wet feet after crossing the creek. Previously we had driven to the creek crossing but decided not to risk it in the truck.
The NPS was nice enough to loan us their 4 X 4 van this afternoon and we drove down to the Wiseman turnoff and headed up the 4x4 (more or less) road which parallels the Hammond River. It was a beautiful & rough drive and we passed a number of fairly large gold mining operations. We knew that the mining operations were there from our prior days flight over the area.
We have a nice change planned for our next four day off period the end of this month. Marian & I will go up to Dave’s claim for a couple nights & days and do some gold mining. Dave is the miner I wrote about yesterday. His claim is up the Dalton a few miles then over the Koyukuk River and up a steep mountain past two rock slides. It will take three hours or more to reach his claim by truck and hiking. As it stands now we will go up after work on the 28th and come back to Coldfoot on the evening of the 30th. Maybe Marian will find her nugget! Dave has been pulling some pretty nice nuggets out of his claim.

07/18/93

Lets see what did we do today. Well one exciting happening was dumping the trailer. Since they are not on a definite time schedule they get it done sometime during the day and meet that time schedule very well.
Early evening we went out to dinner with our neighbors Jack & Judy. Out to dinner means we went over to the Coldfoot Services cafe (truck stop). There were 3 tour busses in this evening and Coldfoot Services puts on a pretty nice dinner spread for the tourists. We are stuffed with the good food. Afterwards Jack & Judy came over to our trailer for a few hours.
It is now 11pm and we are just sitting around writing & reading. Tomorrow is a work day for us after our 4 day off period. Marian & I will probably paint the Department of Interior sign in front of the Center. Other than that the day will be a normal “greet the tourist and are how you enjoying your vacation” day.

07/19/93

Our first day at the Center & the first effort this afternoon was to paint the signs in front of the Center. There were a number of drop in guests during the day and two bus tours in this evening.
The forest fires burning south of here are causing a general haze over the area. Earlier in the month we had rain most every day and now we have no rain and things are getting dry.
Today we talked with both Cheryl & Debbie on the telephone. Debbie told us that the insurance agency she is with in Fredericksburg is being sold so she is looking for a new job.
It was very nice to get a letter from John Tredwell today. News from back home is always welcomed!
The last two nights (well at least the hours you normally call nights) I have been able to pick up faint sounds of two broadcast stations on the AM band. One is coming from Fairbanks and I am not sure where the other originates (at least it is English not Russian). Maybe as the summer progresses we will start getting something on the AM band (at least I hope so). Sitting around with my ear close to the speaker and trying to make out a few words reminds me of the old movies where you see the folks with their ear glued to the big RCA golden throat radio horn. If one was looking for a good area to run tests that is free of electromagnetic radiation then Coldfoot is the place to do the research. F/Y/I Coldfoot is at 67 degrees 16 minutes North Latitude by 150 degrees 14 minutes West Longitude and an elevation of 1100 feet.

07/20/93

There were several BLM visitors in today including the Deputy Regional Chief from Fairbanks. Tomorrow some super chief from the NPS office in Washington will visit the Center. I guess that it is vacation time for the Chiefs and they are making inspection tours of the Arctic.
Not much out of the ordinary happened today. Mostly a “how are you” day with the tourists. After our work day we went over to the Cafe and had a big piece of cherry pie (remember the quarter pie size).
Sandy will be heading to Fairbanks tomorrow and on Thursday Rick will be off on a trip for the NPS. Marian & I will have the Center to ourselves until Monday or Tuesday next week.
Yesterday one of the ALESKA security officers was found shot along the Dalton Highway. We haven’t heard any details about the death other that it was likely a murder.

07/21/93

There must be some big fires burning in the Arctic. The air smells of smoke and there is a heavy haze where the distant mountains are hardly visible. The temperature is very pleasant and in the lower 70’s. What do you think about Washington fans?
We had a good mail day today with several letters and other things including an update to one of my computer programs. I think that I had mentioned earlier that the program I most frequently use had a bug and I wrote the company about it. Well they fixed the problem and forwarded a new version update. I guess that they let the customers do the debugging for them by comments & complaints.
Included in todays mail was some more information about RV’s which Cheryl had sent. Also we heard from Fred’s parents and got some good tips on RV purchases. It sounds like purchasing an RV will be like purchasing a home & car compounded into one.
There were no tour bus visitors tonight so we closed down early. Oh yes, I have now set up a database to keep track of our Coldfoot Library. We have a very limited library so most of the work involved setting up the database vs. inputting data.

07/22/93

A slow day but a busy evening at the Coldfoot Visitors Center. We had 3 busses in tonight and a very good attendance. Other than our “normal duties” we didn’t do much else of interest today. It is now near 11pm and Marian just took over a load of laundry to wash. There are a number of construction folks in town now and the machines are busy all of the time. We don’t really have any appointments nor do we have TV to occupy our time so when we do something doesn’t really make much difference. We did have a nice supper with our next door neighbors this evening. Now we are having our second supper after work. We both will have to get back on a normal diet and meal schedule when we return home else we will be blimps. Since there are no barbers here I may look different when we return home with a pot belly and long hair.

07/23/93

This morning we had 15 young college students in who wanted information on hiking in Gates of the Arctic National Park. They were from Florida and have been hiking in a number of areas on their way up to the Arctic. They will only be on a one overnight camp in the Gates so they should fair just fine. I am sure that with the noise they will make hiking no bears will come within 5 miles of them. Sometime I think that bears have a better philosophy than some people (you don’t bother me and I won’t bother you).
Another good mail day for us with several letters. As I have said before mail day is a highlight of the week. Today we heard from Cheryl, Bruce Bixby and Charlie Brown and some more info on RV’s.
Tomorrow there will be some BLM people up here to conduct an inspection on a mining claim that is interpreting the mining laws a little too liberally. That happens from time to time.
Cheryl called again today and has now used up her 30 minute free Safeway long distance calling gift. That was a very nice thing that Safeway did by giving their customers the free calls.
This evening we had two large tour groups in for the presentation. One group was heading South from Prudhoe and the other North to Prudhoe. Marian gave a nice presentation to the group who seemed to appreciate hearing about the Arctic North. Several lingered around for some time after the presentation to talk. Several were interested in how to become a volunteer with the USF&W.

07/24/93

There were no tour busses this evening and we thought that we would close early. At 2033 one lady walked in for the presentation. Well our policy is if even one person shows up we will give the presentation - so we did -. This has been and continues to be a rainy evening with the temperature in the low 60s. The heater here in the trailer feels good. Oh yes, after the presentation Marian & I went over to the cafe and had a big slice of blueberry pie with ice cream.

07/25/93

Last night I woke up cold. Our main propane tank had run out and the heater stopped running. We have two tanks so this morning I twisted the valve to the other tank and had the empty one filled. Coldfoot Services is back on their “Coldfoot Time Schedule”. Even when they have the say as to when they will dump this thing they get it wrong. After receiving a call at the Center today advising me that they would be right over to dump the trailer I waited for 45 minutes and still no Coldfoot Services. I had to go over to remind them that they had just previously called to tell me that they would be over. I am one for rather precise timing but I guess I should be getting use to “Coldfoot Time” by now.
It has been a beautiful day! This past week it didn’t seem like we had many visitors when in fact after totaling up the statistics it turns out that this has been our highest visitor density week since the center was opened. To date we have had 2003 visitors at the center and the average seems to be about 1000 per month.
Our next door trailer neighbor just brought over the weekend paper so Marian will be in news heaven tonight. I haven’t really paid any attention to what is happening however I suppose Clinton is still president and we still have taxes and the government ain’t broke yet. At least I am still getting a retirement check deposited every month and we are getting all we want to eat and a roof over our head. What else is needed?

07/26/93

The troops have returned to Coldfoot. Both Sandy and Joe came back to town today. We had a nice day at the Center with a number of drop in guest and three bus loads of tourists for the evening presentation. After work Marian and I went over and had a Corona and back to the Trailer for our second supper of potato salad and hot dogs. We are now settled in for the night with Marian reading every sentence in the newspaper and me pecking away on the Computer.
Carol sent us a bunch of tapes in the mail today and we sure are enjoying hearing some new music for a change. We really appreciated receiving them. Thanks Carol & Austin. Cheryl sent us two letters and some more RV information. Thanks Cheryl.
Tomorrow we will use the BLM truck and go up the Hammond river and visit with some miners we met today at the Center.

07/27/93

Although today was a work day we didn’t do much work. After opening up the Center at 1300, sweeping it down & talking with some guests we headed off for the Hammond River. We borrowed the BLM truck and went visiting some miners. We had previously met these folks at the visitor center while filing some environmental complaints. They have a pretty big operation on the Hammond however I don’t think that they are actually pulling out much gold. We visited with Jack Jiles & his wife for a couple of hours and had coffee with them. While there a couple miners from down the road came up and sat a spell (so to speak). Jiles has several claims totaling about 100 acres and the miner down the road (Dan) has claims that covered about 40 acres. Most of these miners are “summer miners” and have homes somewhere else where they spend the winter months. This place is really not fit to spend the winter with the temperature down to -60 or -80 degrees. After saying that, Dave & Mike the miners we are going to visit tomorrow, plans on spending the winter at their mining base camp.
Marian and I have packed our day packs and are ready for our hike up to Dave & Mike’s gold claim tomorrow night after work. Fortunately it doesn’t really get dark so we will still be hiking in the light at midnight. As I have previously said we will be there for a couple of nights. I will take my camera and take pictures of Marian as she pulls that 16 oz gold nugget out of Sawyers Creek.

07/28-30/93

We departed for the Claim prior to the evening presentation. The truck we went in reminds one of a “typical” backwoods truck (no muffler, things held together with wire, the truck bed full of various odds & ends truck parts and a hound dog). On his gun belt Mike carried a long barrel 44 magnum pistol. Our drive was only about 8 miles to reach the river which we crossed in a canoe. Tok, the old hound dog swam the river. On the other side of the river we walked a short distance to the base camp where they keep extra supplies. After picking up a few things we started our hike to the gold claim. Our walk took us through thick wooded areas, up rather steep terrain, over three rock slides on the side of a high mountain, then alongside the swiftly running Sawyers Creek. We stopped several times on our hike to rest since we were carrying rather heavy back packs (they didn’t feel quite a heavy when we packed them as they did hiking). This mine is located at an elevation of near 3000 feet so things started to cool off as we reached the mountain top and there were no mosquitoes as there were along the route up. The mining camp consisted of two tents made from some blue plastic stretched over poles and a cook shack also covered with plastic, tarps, and anything else they could come up with to keep the wind and rain out. There were various pieces of mining equipment all over the place including a very nice suction dredge in the creek. Our first order of business was to brew up a pot of coffee and rest for a while. Afterwards we went down to the creek and started dredging for Gold. Mike had previously picked away at the creek bedrock and filled in the stream with potential gold sediment. The procedure is to knock down dirt and rocks from the stream bed walls in hopes that there will be some gold which falls into the creek along with the rocks, gravel & dirt. Next one lets this all settle and the lighter weight rocks & dirt will wash on down stream. The theory is that the gold will settle to the bottom of the creek bed in deep spots where one then uses the suction dredge to pull up and sift through what remains on the creek bed. The dredge is powered by a 8 hp gas engine which powers a “so to speak vacuum cleaner and hose assembly”. The lighter weight materials and big rocks are ejected through the back of the dredge and the concentrate collects on three shoots specifically designed to capture the heavy sediment. After dredging for a couple of hours you now have collected all of the concentrate which may contain gold. Next you carefully remove the concentrate from the shoots and put it into buckets. Then comes the panning. You take some of this concentrate, put in the gold pan, and slosh it around to remove lighter weight materials while causing the heavier material to settle to the bottom of the pan. Panning is an art and it isn’t as easy to do as one might think if you haven’t actually done it. I will take up to 15 minutes to pan out the rocks and have your gold remaining in the pan. You repeat this process until all of the concentrate from the bucket has been panned out. Sometimes you only get ever so small flakes and if you are lucky you might get a nugget. I might mention while all of this dredging was going on Marian was carefully removing bedrock from the side of the stream and found a small nugget stuck to one of the rocks. It turns out that this was the largest piece of gold we found. I guess one might equate gold mining to fishing in that there is both skill and luck involved. We finished with our work at about 2230 and headed up to the cook shack where Marian made some beef gravy which we had over bread then went to bed.
The next day, Thursday, we got up at about eight am and had pancakes before starting our mining. We spent all of the morning with pry bars, picks, shovels, rakes & hoes knocking down the creek bed walls and removing large rocks which would fall into the stream. We knocked off for lunch and let the water settle and carry the excess rocks & dirt down stream. As you might have anticipated the next step was to dredge. After about an hour into the dredging I rammed a steel rod into my left hand. When rocks get stuck in the suction dredge hose you have to use a long ram rod to knock them out. Some way I ended up ramming the rod into my left hand and knocking a pretty nice hole in it. That ended my dredging for the day since my hand was bleeding pretty much and didn’t feel too good. Marian insisted on taking me to Fairbanks to have a butterfly put on the cut but I didn’t want to go. Marian continued to help while I mostly just sat around and watched. Well after all of that work (over 8 hours) we just found a few small pieces of gold.
Marian fixed an excellent supper this evening (Thursday). We had boneless chicken, rice and broccoli and spinach then peaches for desert. Oh yes to talk about our sleeping accommodations. Marian slept in one of the tents, Mike in the other tent and I slept on a cot in the cook shack. We were expecting Dave the other miner to come up this evening and he would sleep in the tent with Mike. Normally in bear country one sleeps as far away from where you cook as possible so when I would hear things rattle (wind) I would look up to see if a bear was coming in to visit me in the cook shack. It was very cold up there on the mountain. The sleeping bags wouldn’t zip so wind came in every time you moved. I put on two pairs of pants, two shirts, two pair of socks and left my shoes on, then a jean jacket and a raincoat. Also I slept with my hat on.
Friday morning was mostly cleanup & equipment maintenance day. That was accomplished by noon so we started for home shortly thereafter. The trip down sure was a lot easier than going up. In addition to the downward hike our back packs were lighter from the food we didn't have to pack back.
When we got across the river to the truck it wouldn’t start so Mike walked up the road and got one of his outlaw miner friends to come down and give us a jump. When we made it back into Coldfoot our first order of business was to take showers and get cleaned up.
This evening Marian & I went over to the Coldfoot Cafe and had dinner. USF&W permits us to charge one dinner per month so tonight was the night before the month of July ends. It is pretty cool in Coldfoot tonight, the clouds hanging very low and it is raining. It looks and feels like fall.

07/31/93

The morning wasn’t too exciting other than doing laundry. We did however have a very nice evening in Wiseman. This evening was the installation of officers and opening of the new Wiseman American Legion. We went down at about six PM and returned home after midnight. Since we have been in Coldfoot for some time now we have gotten to know quite a few people around here including Wiseman. With tonight being the initial meeting and swearing in of officers they haven’t yet received their liquor license. There was plenty of the liquid refreshment however and since they couldn’t sell it they accepted donations. You should have seen all of the good food that they had. Beside the normal meats such as barbecue chicken, pork, wieners, & etc. there was of course moose and caribou. A high percentage of the persons at the Legion were gold miners and their wives and/or girlfriends. There was gold everywhere. A woman wasn’t a woman if she didn’t have a big nugget hanging around her neck. If you got to talking gold with a miner he would pull out his snuff can full of nuggets to show you. There were some very interesting people there with quite different personalities than we are normally use to in the lower 48. All nice when you get to know them. I think that there was about 65 adults and at least 25 children at the Legion opening party. We were glad that we attended.

08/01/93

The first of August has been rainy and cool. It is seven PM now and there is a complete cloud cover with low hanging fog and a light mist. I hope that this doesn’t continue for the month. Summer is suppose to last 3 months here so hopefully this will pass and we will see sunshine again. Marian tried her hand at gold panning again this afternoon. Sorry fans we are looking not finding. This evening we went over to the Coldfoot cafe and had their buffet dinner and as usual we are now stuffed like toads. Tomorrow will start our 10 day work period. We now have another volunteer at the Center. Rick’s mother is here and is doing volunteer work. Tomorrow we will have 5 persons in the Center. I don’t know what we will all do to keep gainfully occupied.

08/02/93

It hasn’t stopped raining since yesterday and it is still overcast and looks like late fall. With all of this rain this place is like one massive mud puddle. There is no pavement or blacktop in the area, just dirt and slosh. We drive most anywhere we go else we would bog down in the mud while walking. We had the wood stove burning most of the day at the Center and it sure felt good. This was international day at the Center since most of our guests were from other Countries. It is always interesting talking with them and hearing about their home Country.
Today was mail day and we received several letters/magazines and a box from Cheryl. Cheryl knows how I like peanuts and included a bag in the package. We also enjoyed listening to the tape that she sent and the candy. We talked with Debbie on the phone today and she is still looking hard for a new job since her existing company will be sold within the next three months.
This evening we went over to the Coldfoot cafe and had a snack. They make a “Coldfoot Burger” which is a hamburger with a slice of cheese, a slice of ham and a slice of pineapple on it. They also give you a big plate full of tater tots. It sure beats Slim Fast.

08/03/93

News Flash: It’s still raining and foggy. Marian and I wore our knee high rubber boots all day today so when we were outside we could keep our feet and legs dry. This is a typical foot wear of the Alaska outback. Marian & Sandy were in Wiseman this afternoon putting up bulletins for issuing subsistence permits. As I have probably mentioned natives here in the far north are permitted to hunt caribou and moose for food at no hunting cost. You must prove that you are a resident of the far north to be issued a no cost subsistence permit. Everyone else must pay for a hunting permit. Many of the people rely heavily on subsistence hunting for their meat. In the winter months most of the local residents run trap lines and sell furs for $$ income.
This evening we had a Princess tour bus in and of course a bunch of tourists. This group was heading North towards Prudhoe Bay. We got out of the Center at about 2145 and went over and had a Corona and a beef jerky at the Coldfoot bar. There is a “standard” group of locals that seems to always be there. Very few tourists frequent the bar in the evening since they have to get up so early in the morning (0530).
The humidity inside the trailer is so high that we cannot see out of the fogged up windows. We also get some dripping from the skylights.

08/04/93

Another News Flash: It is still raining and foggy. This evening we had “The Northern Most Girl Scout” troop at the presentation. This troop is staying in tents at Marion Creek and mapping out hiking trails. We loaned the troop leader our Global Positioning Receiver (GPS) to take AZ/EL readings for their mapping. As you probably know the GPS system consists of a group of satellites which emit signals used to triangulate and plot very accurate terrestrial positions. I think that the main reason they decided to attend the presentation was to get out of the rain and be in a warm building. I don’t blame them. It was nice having the troop at the presentation and trying to answer all of their many and varied questions. Jim gave the presentation tonight.

08/05/93

There were a large number of visitors sloshing up to the Center today including several from other parts of the world. Marian gave the presentation to 31 guests this evening.
Normally while sitting here at the kitchen table I can see the mountains which are no more than a mile away. Tonight all I see is a silhouette behind a white haze.
We have the Center to ourselves tomorrow. Both BLM and NPS have four days off. If we are lucky maybe Clayton will be here tomorrow with our food replenishment. We are eating odds & ends now. We ran out of oleo/butter so this morning we used olive oil in a pan to toast our bread. We have quite a bit of food ordered so what we don’t eat will go with us on our way back home. Our plans are to camp out as much as we can on the return trip. Hopefully the weather will be warmer with less rain as we head south.
This evening after the presentation we went over for a social hour at the Coldfoot bar. Dave, the miner, and several persons we have gotten to know were there and we enjoyed talking with them. Jim, the outlaw miner, was also there.

08/06/93

Another busy day with drop in guests and two busloads for the evening presentation. Finally a day of sunshine. Last month I was complaining about sunlight all day and night then this past week I was complaining about it being overcast. You just can’t make some people happy. Well we were glad to have the rain stop. We have now accumulated over 10 inches of rain over the past two and a three quarter months.
The presentation this evening ran a little longer because one elderly gentleman kept asking questions throughout the presentation.
We received a care package from Jane & Bruce today and sure have been enjoying all of the goodies. You don’t know how you miss the simple pleasure of life until you don’t have them.
We talked with Cheryl & Debbie on the telephone today. Debbie has found a new job and has a buyer for her house. Cheryl is still hoping that she will find a buyer for her Condo.
This evening we have been going through a Disney World vacation book that Cheryl sent. Sometime in the October/November time frame we are planning a trip to Disney World and take our Grandson Ryan to see Micky and friends.

08/07/93

As usual we got up at about ten this morning. Today we had pancakes with cherry topping for breakfast. Tomorrow our food replenishment should arrive by some BLM person who is coming up to Coldfoot from Fairbanks.
The young lady who works in the Fairbanks Public Lands Information Office came through Coldfoot today and brought us our Denali entrance & camping permits. We got to know Debbie while we were in Fairbanks prior to coming to Coldfoot. So it looks like we are all set for our Denali stop on the way home. Also we have our tickets for the narrow gauge train ride to the summit in Skagway all arranged.
Clayton was in today and I used his pressure washer to give the truck a good washing including the underside. It needed it with all of the mud we have around here. He has a pressure washer just like the one we have back in VA. His job is to go up and down the Dalton picking up trash and cleaning outhouses. Not a great job but it pays pretty good. I have talked about Clayton in previous log entries.
This evening Marian gave the presentation to 9 persons who are staying at a B&B in Wiseman. I am not sure that I would want to stay there since they don’t have running water or indoor plumbing at the Bed & Breakfast place. Not many people in Wiseman have these facilities in their homes. Also not all have electricity..
It is now ten thirty and we are waiting for Alice to come over and go to the Coldfoot cafe for a Coldfoot burger. You may remember Alice is Rick’s mother (one of the NPS persons here).
Tomorrow Alice and Marian are going fishing & gold panning (I think). Maybe they will end up sightseeing and berry picking or something. I will keep the Center and entertain tourists while they are gone.

08/08/93

Last evening we changed our plans somewhat and went to the American Legion in Wiseman at about 2300 and returned back to Coldfoot at about 0100. It was an enjoyable evening with the miners and local Wiseman folks. This time we drove right into Wiseman instead of parking and walking across the foot bridge. The creek was running pretty swiftly however with our high body 4 wheel drive truck we got across it OK. After returning to Coldfoot, Marian & I stopped by the Coldfoot Cafe and had our Coldfoot burger. I guess we finally got to bed somewhere after 0200.
It is 1500 and I am at the Center while Marian & Alice are off in search of wealth on Gold Creek. Manned (or womaned) with their gold pans, shovels and bug dope they took off shortly after noon. Last night while talking with some of the miners in Wiseman they may learned of some secret place to do their panning.
There has been a lot of air traffic into the Coldfoot airstrip today. We monitor the local air traffic channel (the one where pilots announce on the radio “I am going to land -look out-”). Also a number of the persons who landed here have been over to the Center to look around. Most are just out for their Sunday flight (a high percentage of persons here in Alaska have airplanes).
At about 2130 this evening our food replenishment arrived and in quantity. We are now in great shape for food. I can see the pounds adding up and the belt buckle slipping a notch during the next three weeks. We have a big pizza in the oven right now and will eat our midnight snack shortly.
We didn’t get to the trailer this evening until about ten thirty. Just as we were getting ready to close a couple came in who were planning a trip into the Gates tomorrow. We spent some time helping them find the maps needed and charting out their trip.
Well it’s time to quit using my fingers on the keyboard and start using them to eat pizza.
Oh Yes I must tell you that the Sohn family isn’t rich yet. Marian & Alice came back with empty gold pans. They did enjoy their trip however.

08/09/93

It’s ten thirty AM now and we have had our showers and a good breakfast. Since we are going to dump the trailer today we took showers here vs. going over to the Arctic Acres Inn. We had a Bacon, Lettuce, & Tomato sandwich for breakfast which was very good for a change in menu. In two more days we will have a four day off period. During that time we will sort out things here at the trailer and in the back of the truck. We will try to get things organized for our return home. Since we plan on camping out on the way back we have to get things layered in the truck so that we don’t have to dig to the back of the truck bed for a needed item.
This was a pretty busy day for us and a very busy night with two large tour busses and a large attendance. Our southbound tourists are telling us that there has been quite a bit of snow up on Atigun Pass which is about 70 miles north of here. We have had the wood stove burning most of the day at the Center since it is rather cool here too.
At about 1800 Alice came over with a large dish of pasta and Marian fixed a salad and some desert. We enjoyed having dinner together. When we got into the trailer this evening we fixed ham and cheese sandwiches and enjoyed some chocolate chip cookies for desert. This heavy eating could possibly account for the tight feeling of my cloths.
Coldfoot Services was suppose to dump the trailer today but didn’t. We had to dump some of the grey tank on the ground since we have been taking showers here at the trailer and filled the tank. Most folks around here don’t seen to hesitate about dumping the grey water on the campgrounds. Anywhere else one would probably be shot.
One of the tourists tonight told us that tomorrow night we are suppose to have a lot of shooting stars. I will have to drag out the AM radio and see if I can pick up some stations since this type of condition could cause some signal bouncing. About the only news we get around here is by word of mouth. We have no idea of what's going on in the world beyond Wiseman and Coldfoot.




08/10/93

At the moment I am sitting on the porch here at the Center enjoying the sunshine. It has been a beautiful day. In the sun it is warm but cool otherwise. We have had a very slow day with hardly any visitors and no tour busses scheduled tonight. The District BLM manager was in today for a visit and an inspection tour of the new BLM campgrounds at Marion creek. Actually it was just a good reason to be out of the Fairbanks office.
Marian & Alice are over at the trailer hard at work cooking up a nice dinner for us this evening. Rick & Sandy are still out somewhere and Joe the other NPS fellow is in and out.
Well we did in fact have a nice dinner and I would say that we wouldn’t have any more to eat for the rest of the day but knowing us we will.
I gave the presentation to two people this evening. We thought that we would close early but as luck goes in strolls two people just as we were about to close up. You know our policy. If anyone shows we give it. The day sure goes by slowly when we don’t have guests to talk with during the day.
Marian & I just returned from the Coldfoot bar and now are in the process of fixing pizza for our midnight snack.
Something is radiating a broadband signal on all radio frequencies from AM up through VHF. If it doesn’t quit I will have no chance of seeing if I can pick up any bounce signals tonight. It must be something running inside one of these RV’s parked here in the parking lot that’s causing all of the interference.

08/11/93

There was a full house of Coldfoot Staff today. Sandy & Rick who were hiking in the Gates had a good bear story to tell. Their camp was visited by a bear who ripped their tent to shreds, bent the poles, slashed a backpack and took big bites out of their thermarest mattresses. This occurred while they were out on a hike and the bear was still there when they returned. They had more guts than I in that they stayed at the same site that night after the bear visit. Since the tent was ripped up they had to just sleep in their sleeping bags. Well at least they didn’t get hurt and have a good story to tell and some photos. I think that is one photo I could do without.
Our day was fairly busy and we had a large crowd over for the presentation which Rick gave (and he told his bear story). During the day one of the Communications persons was over from Beetles and he & I did some work on the hand held commo units. We now can talk through a repeater about 50 miles away into Fairbanks. We are getting pretty hi-tech for an out of the way place (Computers, FAX, telephone, a radio base station & several hand held units, and soon a modem link into the Fairbanks BLM computer network).
This evening Marian & I went blueberry picking. We picked enough berries for two days of cereal & blueberries for breakfast. They are abundant and very close to our trailer. We may pick some more in a couple of days. You can tell that it is getting fall time here by all of the small trees changing their color from green to orange, red, and shades in between. The grass is dying and it is getting pretty cool at night. It is freezing weather at the higher elevations such as Atigun Pass about 70 miles north of here.

08/12/93

This is the first of our four day off duty period. So far today we have taken everything out of the truck bed and cleaned all of the dust out of it. Next we packed up the cloths and other things that we don’t anticipate needing between now and returning home. The two suitcases with all of that stuff is now pretty inaccessible at the front part of the truck bed. I hope that we didn’t miscalculate since it would require moving everything out to get to them. The truck is packed as well as we can at this point in time. We are anticipating warmer weather down south so we have our shorts and short sleeve shirts out for the trip. Since we will still be in Alaska for some time after leaving Coldfoot we made sure that we could get to our coats if needed. It sure is cool here with the temperature today in the upper 40’s and low 50’s. Marian has been cleaning the trailer this afternoon. After while we will take a walk down the Slate Creek trail for an outing.
It is now 1930 and we returned from our walk just in time to miss the rain which just started. It looks like the rain has set in for the night. This evening we had cabbage with apples and ham. It was very good. Marian made a fruit salad and I went over to the Coldfoot cafe and bought a pint of hand packed ice cream to go with the salad.

08/13/93

This is one of our favorite days - mail day -. We received a letter from Cheryl and from Doug Faith. Also we received the little panorama camera which we had ordered several weeks ago. This camera has a panoramic lens and produces 3.5 by 10 inch prints. For breakfast this morning we had a big skillet full of home fried potatoes with ham and English muffins. Jane & Bruce sent us a couple cans of the International Coffees so had French Vanilla Coffee with our breakfast. It is 1500 now and we will fix a can of chunky New England Clam chowder for our afternoon snack.
Tomorrow we plan on taking the BLM truck and drive up to Atigun pass to look at the terrain now that it’s fall. There will be snow on the mountains up north and we will get a chance to take some pictures with the panorama camera. We may stop by Wiseman on the way back and visit with the folks there.
While at the Cafe this morning we talked with Mike and Dave (the miners). Mike showed us a 13 pennyweight nugget that he pulled out of the creek wall yesterday. Again this is the same spot where we were working when we were at the mine. Like I have said before gold mining is like fishing (sometimes you get a nugget and sometimes you don’t).
This morning we took inventory of things in the trailer. We now have the inventory list on the Computer. This will be useful for the next years occupants.
Marian is packing up some “T” shirts to send out in todays mail to Patty & family. Not too many folks have a shirt that says “Coldfoot” on it. Since I like hats I got me a “Coldfoot” baseball type hat.
At about 1800 we each had a BLT sandwich and it tasted so good that we fixed two more. We will go over to the Center and give Debbie a call at 1900. Debbie called yesterday and today while we were out. We know that one thing that she wanted to tell us was that Cindy had a baby boy.
We talked with Debbie, Kyle & Ryan on the phone. Debbie has a housefull of boys tonight including the neighbor boy Mattie. Afterwards we walked Alice down to her National Parks cabin which is in the woods about a half mile from our trailer. We got caught in the rain on our way back to the trailer. I guess we have completed our outdoor activities for the day and will now settle in for the evening.

08/14/93

This has and continues to be a very rainy and overcast day. We didn’t get up until after ten this morning. With the rain we had about decided against the drive up the Dalton but since we didn’t have anything better to do we did it anyway. We drove up past Atigun pass and enjoyed the trip. There was fresh snow on the mountains and just a few flakes hit the windshield as we went over the pass. We saw Dall Sheep fairly near the road as we headed down the north slope of the pass.
On our way back we stopped by Wiseman and went to the trading post and visited with Sherry (the owner) and got some hot seasoned potato chips to tide us over until supper.
Marian invited Sandy over to have supper with us this evening. We had ham with sweet & sour sauce, baked potatoes with sour cream and butter, and cream style corn.
We now have a new part time person at the Center. Cary, the young girl who works at the Arctic Acres gift shop, got into some type of trouble in Fairbanks and the judge there gave her 20 hour of community service as her penalty. The Judge will permit Cary to help us out at the Center to work off her time. I had not previously thought of the work at the Center as “working off time” to repay a debt to society. Cary said, “well I didn’t really do anything awful”.
It is now 2030 and we are pretty well settled in for the evening, doing what I don’t know.

08/15/93

Last night we went to bed at about 2130 which is the earliest for us in a long time. Consequently we awoke early today and now have the entire day to try and figure out what to do. This morning we had biscuits, gravy, ham & eggs and coffee for breakfast. I made the biscuits and they were more akin to rocks vs. biscuits. We ate all of them we could stand and fed the rest to the ravens. It is rainy and cool here with mud and slush everywhere you step. We just returned from a walk over to the Coldfoot cafe where we visited with some of the hand-arounds. The knee high rubber boots are an essential here for sloshing in the muck and mud.
Tomorrow will start our last work period here at the Coldfoot Visitor Center. I think that Rick’s Mother, Alice will leave sometime next week and Rick will probably leave shortly after our departure on the 25th. The Center will close down for the winter in early September.
The rain let up in late afternoon so Marian & I put on our boots and went for a walk. Afterwards we dropped by the Center for a visit then back to the trailer. With all of that walking and talking we were hungry so off to the Coldfoot cafe for their tourist buffet. I think that I have explained in the past all of the good things there to eat so I won’t repeat myself. Anyway we are as full as ticks on a hound dog and are settled in for the evening. Tomorrow is a work day for us and we are actually looking forward to work since just hanging around gets tiresome.


08/16/93

This was an enjoyable day at work. Also this was a great day for correspondence. When we arrived at the Center there was a FAX awaiting us from Cheryl. Also we received letters from Cheryl, John Tredwell, & Sue Troyer.
Today you can see a light coating of snow on one of the mountains here in Coldfoot. For sure summer has ended. If one is impatient to see the seasons then they should come to Coldfoot. Within less than three months you can see spring, summer, fall and winter.
Marian & I worked together at the evening presentation. Marian gave the introduction, welcome and area history followed by me presenting the slide show. We had a Princess tourbus and some dropin’s tonight.
After the presentation we stayed at the Center for an hour or so talking with Don Keill who is the mining engineer for the Arctic District. He answered a number of questions we had concerning gold mining activities. He is a very knowledgeable and interesting person to talk with. He told us how Clinton’s new mining laws has disturbed & affected many the small claim owners. Any person in a uniform up here is not immediately accepted by the locals. If you rank the Dept of Interior organizations, the National Park Service (NPS) ranks first, followed by BLM and the USF&W. That is ranked in terms of distrust and threat. I guess since we are JAV’s (Just A Volunteer) we are given special consideration and not looked upon as a real threat. We have gotten to know a lot of folks here and appreciate their viewpoints and concerns.
We went by the Coldfoot Cafe and had cheesecake and coffee. It is now midnight and we are brewing a pot of coffee. The heater is on here in the trailer and we are comfortably settled in for the winters night. Yes it is actually dark outside with the heavy cloud cover.