Gold Dredge

Golden ships of the north reaped the treasures of the earth and paved the way for a thriving modern community.

The history of dredges predates the gold rush era of the Klondike. The first dredges ever used were called spoon and bag type dredges. They were used the by ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians and Sumerians. They were used to keep rivers and waterways open and were very simply a leather bag on the end of a long pole. Soft soil on the waterway bed was scooped up in the bag and deposited on a boat to be taken out to deeper water and dumped. Later boats with plows on the bottom scraped the soil and allowed natural flow to move the mud to deeper areas. These methods were often slow, laborious and difficult work. Next came flat bottom wooden scows with buckets and chain on an incline that brought up the soft soil to be dropped onto the scow.

The first steam engine was developed and added to the first suction pump in 1874 and the forerunner of today's dredges went into operation. The first project to utilize these new machines was the construction of the Suez Canal followed by the Panama Canal. The first use of the machine for mining was in Australia where the stacker type bucket ladder dredges were developed.

When gold was discovered in California, an American who had been in the Australian gold fields found that the old type of mining was being used - pans, sluice boxes and rocker boxes - all called for hard labor. He ordered one of the Australian dredges brought over to California, but it didn't work very well because in Australia, the dredge operated in soft soil - in California they were working in gravel. So the dredge was redesigned. When they redesigned it, they renamed it - the stacker type bucket ladder dredge of the California type.

When gold was discovered in Alaska, the California type dredges were hauled north where once again they ran into difficulty. They ran into frozen ground and huge boulders. Once again it was back to the drawing boards. Originally the dredges had wooden hulls, but in Alaska they spent the winter in frozen ponds and that damaged the wooden hulls, so they were rebuilt with steel hulls. Working in the frozen ground and digging up huge boulders wore out the lips of the buckets. Six cubic foot dredge buckets weighed about 1,583 pounds. When a lip wore out to the point that the bucket had to be changed out, the dredge was shut down for several days while men removed the bucket and replaced it. Time consuming, costly shutdowns were not conducive to making money when the dredging season in the north was so short. In order to keep from long shut downs, a lip was designed to add to the bucket - replacing a lip took less time because the heavy bucket did not have to be removed. Even with all of these redesigns, the dredges of Alaska and the Yukon remained - Stacker Type Bucket Ladder Dredges of the California Type.

When the water from the Davidson Ditch arrived in the Gold Stream Valley north of Fairbanks, the way was opened for the operation of dredges. Most of the dredges that operated in the Fairbanks area were built by Bethlehem Steel Corporation in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They were prefabricated and disassembled for shipment. Each section was numbered for easy reassembly. Before they arrived on the designated site, a large hole was dug in the ground - large enough to accommodate the ship which was first shipped by rail, then barge, then rail and finally truck. The hull was laid in first, then each section was set in place until the ship was complete. Water from the Davidson ditch was diverted to the location and pumped into the hole. When the dredge was finally floating, it cold be started up. The buckets began to dig in front and material was dropped off the conveyor belt behind and the dredge moved forward, taking its own pond with it as it moved.

The first dredge in the Fairbanks area actually arrived before the Davidson Ditch. Brought over from the Stewart River in Canada, it was set up on Fairbanks Creek about 28 miles north of Fairbanks. Gold Dredge #1 operated from 1917 until 1929 when it was shut down because it was tired and worn out. Another dredge was made from parts of this one and designated as Gold Dredge #7. It operated on Fairbanks Creek for awhile and then was moved over to Fish Creek where it eventually shut down and was abandoned. What was left of Gold Dredge #7 was plowed under during the construction phase of Fort Knox Gold Mine in 1995.

Gold dredges are fascinating pieces of machinery and I was captivated by them I had to explore and learn. Sadly and unfortunately for these lonely relics; souvenir hunters, scavengers and vandals have plundered, pillaged and destroyed parts, pieces and structures.

Gold Dredge #2 operated on Fairbanks Creek and remains there in fairly good shape. Shut down at the end of a season, hoses lay in neat lines inside on the upper deck. She looked as if she awaited the return of her crew to begin yet another season of activity.

Gold Dredge #3 is also known as the Chatanika Dredge. Located in a pond alongside the highway to Circle at Chatanika, she was one of the two largest dredges operated in the Fairbanks Mining District.

Gold Dredge # 4, also known as the Pedro Dredge was the smallest dredge operated in Fairbanks. It was moved to Chicken, Alaska in 1958 and then moved again on Thanksgiving Day 1998 into the community of Chicken where it is now a tourist attraction.

Gold Dredge #5 was abandoned north of Fairbanks and Fox off the Elliott Highway. When I saw her, her decks were level with the ground as sand and silt had accumulated around her over the years. She was pretty well stripped and destroyed.

Gold Dredge # 6 is in nearly pristine condition in a small hidden valley near Fairbanks. She is visible by air, but on private and well controlled property.

Gold Dredge #8 was the second smallest dredge operated in the Fairbanks area. Abandoned and left, she was stumbled upon by a young man who had come to Alaska to work on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. He saw potential in the relic among the tailing piles and talked Alaska Gold into selling her. They were only too happy to oblige since these aging relics represent a liability they would just as soon be freed from. Big John worked hard on his idea until he opened the dredge up as a major tour attraction and it remains so though now owned by another major corporation.

Gold Dredge #9 was moved up to the Hogatsa Country in the 60's and presumably is still there.

Gold Dredge #10 is also known as the Ester Dredge. It was designed by the Fairbanks Exploration Company engineers - designed and built specifically to operate in the Fairbanks area where it was encountering frozen ground and huge boulders. It was built by the Yuba Manufacturing Company in Yuba, California. Both #3 and #10 went to work with 110 ten cubic foot buckets. The other dredges had either 4 or 6 cubic foot buckets in lesser number.

Gold Dredge #10 sits at Ester, Alaska near the Parks Highway. When I first arrived in Fairbanks in 1969, this dredge was still fired up for a short time every year. She could be heard for miles as could all of the dredges when they operated. Those in the Gold Stream Valley could be heard in Fairbanks - over the hill and eight miles distant.

Until the onset of World War II, 52 dredges operated throughout the territory of Alaska. When the war broke out, the Federal Government decided that gold mining was a non essential industry and shut it down. Fairbanks faced the idea of becoming a ghost town as people left to find jobs in other areas. After the war, the dredges would begin operation again, but the gold mining boom had essentially ended with the war.

Gold dredges operated in the Fairbanks district and throughout Alaska until 1959 - the year the territory became a state and everything fell under federal regulation. Some continued to operate offshore in the Nome area until more recent years, but eventually the huge outdated and obsolete machinery fell silent across the land. Environmental concerns, OASHA concerns and health concerns all played a part in bringing to an end the era of the gold dredges.