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June 1, 2009
During May of each year, northern lake ice softens enough so that a good wind will move it out of the smaller lakes. But in both the larger lakes in the valleys and higher mountain lakes, it's often June before the ice fully disappears for the year. The ice went out of Watson Lake pretty much on schedule this year - around the third week of May - but the the same process usually happens in the much larger Dease Lake a couple of weeks later, even though it's further south. The ice often goes out in stages and a large patch of open water soon appears giving floatplanes an opportunity to land. But as the melting ice is often moved around by the springtime winds, you might wake one morning to find your plane surrounded by ice. But the ice is soft and offers little resistance at this time of year, so planes can sometimes slowly taxi to an open water patch to take off and begin the short summer float-flying season.
This page was last updated June 29, 2009
June 8, 2009
Gold mining in particular and living out in the wilderness in general is a huge amount of work that begins when the snow melt starts in the spring and continues until freeze-up in the fall. As we saw this February when Christina and Scott took a trip to the mine to shovel snow, this was a big snow year in the North with mountains of snow covering the equipment and buildings. Shoveling things off this year took a couple of days and was a necessary task to try to eliminate (or this year, reduce) damage caused by the heavy snows. Some people in the area who didn't make the effort to reduce snow loads have returned to a collapsed roof. That didn't happen on Holloway Bar, but there was lots of little damaged spots that need to be repaired before mining can start. This piece of bent steel plate on the plant is just one example of the damage the snow can cause - this plate will hold a large man's weight, but couldn't handle the snow!
June 15, 2009
Once the spring chores and equipment repairs have been completed, it will be time to once again fire up Emma the Holloway Bar Pump Queen and The Wizard, Holloway Bar's gold plant, for another summer season of placer mining in the McDame Creek Valley. Gold miners have been coming here for over 135 years now, but the journey is a lot easier for the latecomers. Early miners packed their supplies over hundred of miles of trails and inland waterways to get here from the coast, many losing their life's savings hoping to strike it rich. They dug the rocks and dirt with hand tools and many hours of hard labour, and in exchange were the first to dig here in the virgin soil. Today's miners have the benefit of mechanical aids and modern conveniences like motorized gold extractors and heavy equipment to dig out the paydirt, but have to go the extra mile to reprocess hand-worked material or hope to stumble upon virgin ground of their own.
June 22, 2009
The black bears have been out in full force for a month or two now gorging themselves on the abundant spring growth after a long winter of hibernation. This bear is too busy eating the greenery in this spot north of Terrace to pay any attention to the photographer only a few feet away. Once the bears have packed as much of this "spring salad" away as they can stand, some of the plants will start burst out with berries, another favourite of the bear. Black bears don't eat only vegetation; the salmon will be back in the coastal creeks and rivers to provide the main course for the summer eating season. Miners out in the field often have to co-exist with bears always being in the area, but given the abundance of food in most areas in the summer, often don't have any problems with bears as long as they keep a clean camp - keeping garbage out of reach and just using common sense. Photo courtesy of Bob Wall.
June 29, 2009
In a couple of days, on July 1, 2009, Canada celebrates its 142nd birthday. On this day, most of us look forward to a bit of time off to spend with friends and family, whether it's a shopping trip to the West Edmonton Mall (seen here) or a trip to a placer claim for a family panning adventure to try to strike it rich.
Where ever you find yourself this week, Christina, Scott, Al and all of the critters at the Holloway Bar Placer Mine wish you a happy Canada Day!
