Gold Prospecting

Continuing on with our Alaskan excursion, we also tried gold panning. I guess there are still some gold in Alaska, but you better bring a magnifying glass to see them.

Here's where our excursion brought us. It's only a few miles from downtown Skagway. It's a little touristy, but it's a lot of fun if you never tried it before.

Visitors are seen here listening to our host on the technique to pan for gold. He called visitors who don't discover any gold..."Hopeless".

Here he is showing us what we can find at the bottom of our pans...if done correctly. Doesn't he look like a character just stepped out of the 1800's?

Each of the visitors are handed a pan filled with dirt, rocks, and gold which we had to use our skills to fish out.

After a 5 minute tutorial, I tried desperately to get the technique down, but I couldn't figure out when to shake or when to swish my pan. I was told that if you do it at the wrong time, you can end up washing away all your gold flakes. I'm what you call a "Hopeless" prospector. After 20 minutes of swishing when I should have been shaking and finding nothing, I asked for a personal tutorial. One of the hosts was able to separate the gold from the rocks and dirts in a few simple shakes & swishes.

Before I knew it, our excursion was over and we had to bring all our findings into the office to be weighed and priced. After combining hubby's findings and mine, the gemologists said our flakes netted out to $21.50. We weren't paid, but we got to keep our flakes. It was nice to know we found the 2nd highest amount of gold amongst the other visitor although I am sure the majority of the findings came from hubby and my personal tutor.

Have a nice week,
Karen