Hi, as I mentioned in my intro' I'm mainly an armchair explorer and am enjoying my vicarious expeditions via this site. I thought it only fair to try to return some of the favour so here is a location I visited whilst working in Alaska.
This is the Chatanika gold dredge, please excuse the images, photo were taken on 35mm film using an Olympus 4ti (no tripod) and despite using the recomended negative sleeves the past 30 years have not been kind to them and some quality has deteriorated prior to them being scanned to digital. ps if you have negatives you value get them converted/scanned to digital format.
There is not much history available, the dredge was built in the 1920's and was abandoned in the late 1950's when it became uneconomical to operate. It is a ladder type dredge, scoops up gravel, sand etc from the river bed with the front bucket scoop, gold was seperated in the main centre section (over 70 million ounces of it during its life) and the detrius dumped astern. It currently sits in a 50 acre "lke" of its own making.
My visit was extremely brief as others in my group wanted to press on to the nearest "saloon" and the opportunity didn't arise for another visit.
The dredge was already very neglected in the early 90's although the lake and dredge were purchased by a proffesor at Fairbanks University who specialised in the history of gold mining. The dredge was eventually categorised as an historical landmark despite which some lttle twonks set fire to it in 2013 (I think) so only the metal structure remains.
Anyway, hope you enjoy something slightly different, it does qualify as the biggest abandoned vehicle I've ever seen.
If you're curious, that is a frozen lake and yes those are vehicle tracks on it
This is the Chatanika gold dredge, please excuse the images, photo were taken on 35mm film using an Olympus 4ti (no tripod) and despite using the recomended negative sleeves the past 30 years have not been kind to them and some quality has deteriorated prior to them being scanned to digital. ps if you have negatives you value get them converted/scanned to digital format.
There is not much history available, the dredge was built in the 1920's and was abandoned in the late 1950's when it became uneconomical to operate. It is a ladder type dredge, scoops up gravel, sand etc from the river bed with the front bucket scoop, gold was seperated in the main centre section (over 70 million ounces of it during its life) and the detrius dumped astern. It currently sits in a 50 acre "lke" of its own making.
My visit was extremely brief as others in my group wanted to press on to the nearest "saloon" and the opportunity didn't arise for another visit.
The dredge was already very neglected in the early 90's although the lake and dredge were purchased by a proffesor at Fairbanks University who specialised in the history of gold mining. The dredge was eventually categorised as an historical landmark despite which some lttle twonks set fire to it in 2013 (I think) so only the metal structure remains.
Anyway, hope you enjoy something slightly different, it does qualify as the biggest abandoned vehicle I've ever seen.
If you're curious, that is a frozen lake and yes those are vehicle tracks on it
