ANCHORAGE, Alaska - When sports reporters think of Alaska Goldpanners, we think of the summer collegiate baseball team in Fairbanks. But just over 10 miles from Growden Park ballfield lies the former hub for real gold panners, brave souls who came to the Golden Heart City during the gold rush of the early 1900s.
”It is like gold mining, the pipeline is the lifeline of Alaska,” Gold Dredge 8 President Jayson Kowalchuk said. “We are happy to have it here as part of the story.”“In 1977, right off the pipeline, I started gold mining,” recalled Gold Dredge 8 tour guide Dexter Clark. “In one way or another, right up until 2015 when I retired off of Fox Creek, I’ve either had a toe or a finger in the mine.””On Sept.
”The Tanana Valley Railroad, the little train that we take you on, it actually used to run out through this valley here and that is how the gold dredge was actually brought into this valley,” Kowalchuk said. “There was 110 flat cars that came into this valley with Gold Dredge 8 on it in 1927 and they erected it and started it in ‘28.””We’re telling the story here of how the miners did it back in the ‘30s,” Kowalchuk added.