Recreational miners do it for fun, not profit

Anyone who owns mining claims - from grizzled old prospectors to multinational companies - struggles to make a profit. So one particular kind of prospect may be particularly attractive to them: having people pay for the privilege of mining on the claims, with the search itself often turning out to be more rewarding than the discovery of a tiny gold nugget or a pinch of fines. Recreational miners come in all shapes and sizes, and they're bringing new life to land that might otherwise have been abandoned.

To make the most of the growing interest in the sport of fishing for minerals, Steve Herschbach persuaded the Alaska Miners Association to establish a recreational mining committee, with himself as chairman. Herschbach is vice president of Anchorage-based Alaska Mining & Diving Supply, a business that caters to recreational miners that he has run for 28 years, and he is also a keen recreational miner himself.

"I know very intimately what that market is all about," Herschbach told Mining News. "I want to develop mining as a tourism and recreational opportunity in Alaska." The key is to generate revenues while not breaking any laws, he added. That means jumping through various bureaucratic hoops to get the proper permits. "A lot of people on mining claims can generate more money by bringing visitors than by actually mining. Fun and adventure is what they're looking for. For most of them, making money would not even be an expectation. They want to experience what the old-timers experienced, the thrill of finding gold."

Opportunity for family operators

A typical recreational miner might spend $200 to find gold worth $1, Herschbach said.

But like slot machines and lottery tickets, there's always the tantalizing hope that you'll strike it big.

Herschbach took a metal detector to long-time Alaska miner Doug Clark's claims at Ganes Creek, near McGrath, and found 14 ounces of gold nuggets in three days.

Clark charges visitors $2,500 a week for room, board and permission to search the tailings piles on his claims.

By spring this year he was already almost completely booked up for the season, accommodating more than 100 people.

The largest nugget found on the claims so far was 122 ounces, and a 62.5-ounce nugget was found in the tailings pile.

"For small, family Alaska gold mining operators it's a real opportunity," Herschbach said.

"I want to make Alaska the place where people come to look for gold." To create state recreational mining areas at Petersville, Little Susitna River and Caribou Creek, it was necessary to go through the Alaska Legislature.

Chugach and Kenai Peninsula state parks are the only state parks that are presently open to recreational mining activity.

To ensure that the mining really is recreational, each person is limited to one gold pan, one shovel and one sluice box three feet or less in length and up to 15 inches wide.

In national parks and preserves, only surface sampling with a hand-held gold pan is permitted - no digging tools.

Suction dredges may be used under certain conditions, again strictly regulated by size.

Gold panning in the Chugach

The Forest Service describes recreational mining in the Chugach National Forest as "gold panning," Herschbach said, because they don't believe that mining can be recreational. "Our fear is that people will think gold panning is all it is. What recreational miners want is anything that doesn't require special permits: hand mining, gold pans, sluice boxes, suction dredges ... Any suction dredge with a six-inch nozzle opening or larger is automatically commercial mining in Alaska. We would like to get some agreement on those guidelines."

Interest in mining on public lands has languished, Herschbach said, and it needs to be marketed better. Every day people come into the Alaska Mining & Diving Supply store and ask Herschbach where they need to go to look for gold. "There's a lot more of them than real miners," he said. Permitting for recreational mining in Alaska is stuck in a muddy area between tourism and mining. "They've been making it up as they go at the state," Herschbach said. "Nobody thought people would look for gold for fun. There are a lot of questions legally that need to be worked out. What do we need to do to make it legitimate?"

Recreational Mining Association

The Gold Prospectors Association of America has more than 33,000 members. Since 1982 it has been organizing trips for its members to mining camps on the Cripple River near Nome. According to the association Web site, intrepid miners who sign up stay in cabins and subsist on clam chowder, beef stew, corned beef hash, pork and beans, tuna fish, pudding, apple sauce, pilot bread and peanut butter. "Alaska's got great potential because of our mystique and mining history," Herschbach said. "Surprisingly, a hotbed of this (recreational mining) right now is California. Washington and Oregon are doing everything they can to shut it down. You have to pan into a tub instead of in the creek."

As part of his campaign to promote recreational mining in Alaska, Herschbach has set up a Recreational Mining Association and a website at http://www.recminer.com, with links to all the U.S. recreational mining sites he could find. Alaska has the longest list. Besides selling all the equipment that recreational miners could possibly need, Alaska Mining & Diving also sells old mining records. "Areas that have produced gold for the past 100 years are still the best places today," Herschbach said. He should know: he has a safe deposit box stuffed full of gold nuggets.