Interesting story…sold this lightly used 6″ Keene dredge to a guy in Wisconsin. He paid for it and said he would drive out here to the Sacramento area and pick up it. He did. He was a wirey character, long  blond hair, blonde mustache and beard, older fellow maybe in his 70’s. Looked like a miner, told me he was going to Nome Alaska to dredge. Was hoping to pick up a claim on one of the rivers and needed to get this dredge up to Seattle to get it on a barge. So we disassembled it and literally stuffed all the pieces and parts into the back of his old chevy pick up. He already had all of his gear in the truck so space was tough to come by. He said the truck, gear, and dredge were all going on the barge in Seattle and should be in Nome in about 30 days. Off he went headed to Seattle, from there he was going to fly back to Wisconsin and hang out until the 30 days was up, and then fly to Nome.

We kept in touch during the 30 days, then it was time for him to fly to Nome. He called me from Nome and told me he was there but the barge had not arrived. I asked when it was due, and the barge company said they did not know for sure. So, there he was in Nome, in the spring, with only the clothes on his back, good thing he wore a coat on the flight! We talked everyday for 5 days until the barge arrived. Mind you he had no change of clothes, no place to stay, and really only his coat. He stayed in a hotel for a night, $300/night and decided he couldn’t afford that for any longer than the one night. Mind you now, he headed up there, not knowing a soul, and by himself, no transportation, (truck was on the barge). He said he walked everywhere he went, ate cold food, and slept on the beach. This is in the spring in Nome. He had mentioned while he was here in Sac that he wanted to lose some weight, well he did, said he could tighten up his belt 4 notches by the time the 5 days went by.

Finally the barge arrived, change of socks, etc, truck, warm clothes, sleeping bag. He applied for a dredge permit, but authorities could not tell him when it would be approved. Tired of waiting  he started asking locals, and scrounging the makings for a ‘boat/small barge’ or something to float his dredge on as by now he was convinced the permit thing wasn’t going to happen any time soon. He found what he was looking for and actually ran in Vern Atkinson and purchased some necessities from him, and Vern said he would let him dredge on one of his ocean claims for a per centage, which he did. He dredged for about 10 days and recovered nearly 2 lbs of gold, not sure what he had to pay Vern, but – not bad right? After the 10 day period he had to return to Wisconsin to take care of some family matters, back home he went. He called me last week, told me family stuff was taken care of and back to Nome this week to do some ice dredge diving. Told him to keep in contact with me, he said he would. When I hear from him I’ll repost…