This past week gold crept over $2,000 an ounce for the third time since 2020. As commodity producers we're slaves to commodity prices. Traditional gold miners are killed by low gold prices or high fuel prices. Bering Sea dredgers aren't nearly as sensitive to the price of fuel since operating on the water means, pound-for-pound, we can move equipment and dirt from point A to point B very efficiently. But the gold price matters deeply to us all. I have no idea what the price of gold will be...
12 months ago • 3 min read
Got the Eroica stashed away and buttoned up, the compound turned over to a friend for the winter, and it's officially the off-season. goodnight sweet prince The Eroica sits like this in the boatyard all winter. Where you put the thing is always a gamble with the snowdrifts. If the wind is blowing the right way you might get a dusting of snow around your dredge and it's easy to work on right away in the spring. We've been losers in that sense two seasons in a row. The last two years the dredge...
12 months ago • 4 min read
7 days after getting materials for the diver shack and we are officially dried in. Got the floor done and insulated, exterior walls up with tyvek and sheeting. We cut in the rafters and sheeted the roof with plywood, tar paper and metal. Just got the windows and doors in yesterday along with sheeting the gable walls. It's all thanks to this guy Have to give a big thanks to Emily's brother Paul for the effort here - as he really made it happen along with his buddy Luca. Sometimes it pays to be...
12 months ago • 2 min read
It's a cold and clear week up here in Nome, and the snow hasn't fallen yet, so it's the perfect opportunity to get the diver cabin dried in. Now that the dredge is tucked away for the winter, and we sent the busted jetting system out for rebuilding, we've turned our focus to building the 16'x24' two bedroom "tiny house" on the compound that's going to serve as crew quarters in coming seasons. Going for a plane ride So far we've only been able to get the blocks up and ready for the beams to...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read
It's official - the summer 2023 season is a wrap. Yesterday we pulled the Eroica out of the water. We had hoped to take our time and do the final box clean before pulling the boat, but we caught wind that a barge was planning to nose up to the ramp and do welding projects all day, so we dropped everything in the middle of the box clean to get the dredge on the ramp to secure our slot. With up to 30 knot north winds today (making the pull-out even colder and more difficult), and Diver Dan...
about 1 year ago • 3 min read
All the signs of the end of the mining season are here. We're waking up to frost on windshield some mornings. Divers are getting cold as the temperatures in the Bering Sea plunge (I clocked 46.4 degrees yesterday). And dredgers are starting to let crazy ideas come out of their mouths like "we're going to mine until November." My best guess - which is always subject to change - is we got two days left in the water. We have a nice strong southern wind today. Tomorrow and Saturday look fairly...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read
Hard September wind out of the west was rough on our equipment today Hey y’all! It’s Emily here with this week’s newsletter. Amazingly, my thirteenth season of gold mining in Nome, Alaska, is about to come to an end. Our plan is to pull the boat out Oct 1st, barring an unexpectedly beautiful and calm dredging window around that time. (We can’t pull the boat out if there’s great dredging conditions. We’d never get over the shame.) The tundra has adopted a new wardrobe, and the morning frost is...
about 1 year ago • 3 min read
Throwback to the beginning of the season, which feels like a lifetime ago Just got in from a scrappy day on the water. It was rainy and swelly this morning, and the wind was forecast to blow from the south, which fuels the swell. Dan and I set anchor and hemmed and hawed for a half hour about whether we should even dive. Sometimes you rush to setup to beat the weather and you aren't paying close attention to conditions and you have to take a second before the diver goes underwater and ask,...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read
I love the smell of fresh gravel in the morning Yesterday was dirt day for the compound expansion I mentioned a few weeks ago. Building in Western Alaska presents some unique challenges. The tundra is soft and spongy at best, and completely swampy at worst, so you can't just plop a building down on it if you want it to last. And you can only dig for like a foot before hitting the permafrost - a living layer of ice - or flaky rock. So pouring a concrete foundation is a fool's errand. The only...
about 1 year ago • 5 min read