Alaska's next & coming gold rush.

During the winter of 1896-97 vague reports came out from the Yukon that rich deposits of placer gold had been struck on the Klondike, a tributary entering from the east in British territory. A few venturesome men left from the States in February or March in time to get down to the river before the ice broke.

On July 17, glaring headlines in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer declared that the steamer Portland was coming in with a "Ton of Gold", a portion of the clean-up of the new gold field. This was wired over the world, and thousands of men from all lands turned their faces toward the new El Dorado. Men and women poured into Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver, clamoring for transportation to the new diggings.

A century later, "Klondikeitis" may not be at the same fever pitch it was then, but from many indications, digging for gold still continues to capture the hearts of many adventure seeking miners and businesses alike.

"Absolutely", says former State Representative Cynthia Toohey; when asked about the high level of interest in gold today. Toohey has operated the Crow Creek Mine in Girdwood. "We get between 35,000-40,000 folks through here each summer. Most are tourists, who are looking for a small piece of Alaskana to take back home with them. But we do see lots of people who are serious about the industry."

Today's gold prices hover around the $300-an-ounce mark.

"Of course, we would like it up around $700-an-ounce, as it was only a few years ago," says George Schmidt of the Alaska Miners Association. "So much of the interest in digging for gold depends to some extent on the stock market. For the most part, the casual tourist doesn't care about the price of gold. They're happy just to take home a flake or two of gold and tell friends of their "adventures."

Even the Division of Motor Vehicles has caught the "gold fever". Vehicles in Alaska are dorning the first new registration plate in 16 years, one with a design that honors the sourdoughs of the 1898 Gold Rush. The new design, picked by a subcommittee of the Gold Rush Centennial Task Force, features a group of miners climbing a snowy mountain slope, reminiscent of the eponymous image of a passel of sourdoughs on the high trail to Chilkoot Pass above Skagway. You'll have only a little while to enjoy these commemorative plates. The law authorizing the new plate requires returning to the current plate in 2004.

Twenty-five percent of all gold mined in the United States comes from Alaska. Ft. Knox, the large-scale hard-rock gold mine and mill nearly 20 miles northeast of Fairbanks produces 1,000-ounce gold dore' ingots, equal to a day's worth of work at the gargantuan mine.

The mine capacity is about 36,000 tons (of ore processed) a day. It is permitted to run up to 50,000 tons a day.

Each prospector, geologist and property owner can dream of hitting a mother lode, equal to or even surpassing in richness the 4.1 million ounce gold deposit at Ft. Knox - the State's current gem.

"I think the last three or four years have seen a resurgence of interest in gold mining in Alaska," says Jeff Reed of Alaska Mining and Diving. "Of course, much of that appeal is concentrated around the western part of the State, and then there's Ft. Knox in the Fairbanks area that's drawing the most attention today."

"From our business standpoint, interest in gold mining is about equal between residents and tourists. Your typical tourist isn't really interested in the price of gold. He or she just wants the satisfaction of telling their friends and family that they got to do what people a hundred years ago did for a living."

Depending on your "gold fever" thermometer, Reed can satisfy the weekend curiosity seeker or the larger companies. "We can outfit most anyone who wants to dig for gold as low as $30 on up to the more serious-minded and set them up with sluice boxes for $100 or if you want a dredge from $800-$1000."

Nome's story begins in the autumn of 1897 when a group of prospectors bound for the Klondike was caught by the freeze-up at St. Michael, the old Russian post on Norton Sound opening on the Bering Sea. Not wishing to stay idle all winter, a few men crossed the sound and found a little gold, enough to pique their interest and come back the following summer. Three men, John Brynteson, Jafet Lindeberg and Erik Lindblom, organized a mining district, and staked out 47 other claims in the names of everybody they knew. They returned to camp for the winter, swearing one another to secrecy. But such secrets do not keep.

Cape Nome had become a tent town of 250 people; by early summer the population had risen to 1,000. By the end of the century, Nome had 100 saloons (only of which 20 proprietors had paid their annual town license fees of $1,500), six bakeries and five laundries.

In the Alaska Gold Rush of 1898, those fortunate enough to be able to afford them, paid as much $350-a-head for dogs for their dog sleds to make the 2,000-mile trek from the Yukon to then Cape Nome. The first days saw many panners earn as much as $1,800 worth of the precious metal.

"Back then, gold mining was strictly a get-rich quick lifestyle for many people," says Schmidt. "It was their bread and butter. Today, there are three types of interests. You have your large companies; the family-run placer mines, maybe 150 families in Alaska, and the individual (recreational) miner."

"I never really thought of the gold rush of one hundred years ago being anything like the gold fever of today. It's a little difficult to think of the two as the same," continued Schmidt.

"Regulations haven't really put a damper on how much mining goes on in Alaska. Our State government is pretty cooperative with miners. And our Congressional delegation has been positive as far helping the mining industry. It's the Secretary of the Interior (of the U.S.) who we have the most problem with."

The Klondike, a region in the western Yukon Territory, Canada, was the site of the great gold rush in the late 1890s. The Klondike is in the vicinity of Dawson, where the Klondike and Yukon Rivers meet. On August 17, 1986, alluvial gold was discovered in Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River. When news of the discovery spread in mid-1897, the gold fever was on and by late 1898, about 30,000 prospectors had entered the area. In 1900, the year of peak production, more than $22 million worth of gold was recovered from the rivers and the creeks of the region. Gold production declined sharply thereafter, and many prospectors went to nearby Alaska. By 1966, when production ended, the area had yielded $250 million worth of gold. At the end of 1896, Dawson had 500 inhabitants; six months later the number had climbed to 5,000. Yet the real stampede was yet to come.

The Alaska-Treadwell Gold Mining Company (in Juneau) was the first large-scale mining operation in Alaska, and one of the most bountiful. Between 1882 and 1917 when a cave-in and flood finally put it out of business, the Treadwell alone produced gold worth nearly 10 times the $7.2 million purchase price of Alaska. Its stamp mills - which extracted gold particles from one brought up from depths of 2,000 feet and more - were the largest in the world.

Of treasure ships laden with gold and bearing the germs of an epidemic disease called "Klondikeitis", which drove a continent to madness. The discovery of gold and the influx of argonauts to the North spanned many decades. The quest never really ended and even today hopeful prospectors and weekend adventurers don rubber boots and wade into Alaska's icy streams anticipating the glimmer of gold in their pans. The decade that spanned 1894 and 1904 was the time in Alaska's history that was most full of the excitement, frenzy, passion, poignancy and dreams that characterize "Gold Fever."

Nobody can predict the future, but the prospects for mineral potential are great in Alaska, according to Ft. Knox General Manager Steve Lang. And with that potential, there are favorable conditions for the long-term. Given these positive conditions, the industry should grow, but nothing compared to the sea of humanity that stampeded through Alaska a century ago.