Today we're visiting Mining Valley at Pioneer Park. Here you'll find some old equipment used by early gold miners. Gold was discovered near Fairbanks in 1902 and the town grew rapidly with miners coming from other areas in Alaska where the gold was petering out. Fairbanks has operated as a supply area for gold mining since then, but the big rush only lasted a few years. Larger companies moved in and operated large gold dredges, and today there is a huge commercial operation at Fort Knox. There are still many independent miners with paying claims around the area. Of course, if you ask them how the mining is going, they will always say not too well, no matter that they may have been doing quite well. And, no, my husband and I have not been bit by the gold bug. 
Here is a setup demonstrating the operation of a sluice box.
This piece of equipment is called a giant and was used to wash dirt off of a hillside. It is basically a water cannon that shot water under high pressure at the hillside to wash away the rocks. It was an effective mining tool, but not very good for the environment.
These are dredge buckets that were used on the large dredges to scoop up ground, supplying the sluice boxes as the dredge moved forward. 
This may be the most interesting piece of equipment in Mining Valley. This steam-operated shovel helped build the Panama Canal, worked in Hawaii, and dug sections of the Davidson Ditch. The Davidson Ditch brought water from Chatanika to float and operate the huge hydraulic dredges. It was a true engineering marvel, stretching for 90 miles across the hills and valleys north of Fairbanks, and using gravity to transport 875 gallons of water per second. It used inverted syphons that transported the water down a hillside into a valley and up and over the other side of the valley. The water was used to create ponds where the huge dredges floated. It was completed in 1928. Given the technology of the day, I think this is a more remarkable enginneering accomplishment than the Trans Alaska Oil Pipeline.
If you thought the cabins you saw in the Gold Rush Town were small, imagine spending the winter in the tiny cabin below on your mining claim somewhere in the wilderness. The door is probably about 4 feet high! Most of the early mining around Fairbanks required digging shafts and tunnels, and the miners would go down in the shafts and work during the winter. Their cabins were kept small so that it was easier to keep them warm. After all, you were only using them to eat and sleep, and the rest of your time was spent down in your mine. It was an incredibly hard life and very few of the miners actually made their fortunes, and many of them died reaching for their dream. There is a huge mystique about the gold rush, but to my way of thinking there is very little romance in the incredible hardships endured to strike it rich. I can only admire the fortitude and determination that these people exhibited, but the price they paid was horrific.
I went on a day-long hike about 35 years ago back into an area where a lot of miners had claims. There was one of the old dredges, but evidence of lots of different mining operations. What appeared to be untouched wilderness was littered with remnants of the gold rush. All through the brush was debris that had been abandoned when the miners moved on. I wish I had a picture of the old truck that had a large tree growing up through it. We went into one of these little cabins, and I just can't imagine actually living in one. I'll leave you with a quote from The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service. If you want to read the whole poem, do a Google search for The Cremation of Sam McGee.
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
The mine is an open pit mine. 
The gold-bearing rock is scooped out of the ground by large equipment.
It is dumped into trucks that carry a load of 150 tons.
The trucks carry the rock into the mill and dump the rock to be crushed. 
Large rock crushers break the rock down into fine pieces.
This is a washing solution that is used to separate the gold.
The gold is melted and poured into bars. The first bar at Fort Knox was poured in December of 1996. The mine produces about 333,000 ounces of gold annually. It employs around 400 people in two shifts, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The early miners left behind abandoned machinery and huge areas of rock piles. When Fort Knox is done mining in the area they will be required to do land reclamation. They did fish studies in the area prior to mine construction and they have built a fresh water reservoir that will eventually support fish and game and be operated as a recreational area.
