Gold panning in Alaska is a fun thing to do that still has sparkling results today!

For the longest time, mining has been a huge part of Alaska’s history. The first spotting of gold in Alaska occurred in Southeast Alaska in 1872 near the city of Sitka.

The second discovery was made in Windham Bay in 1876. The largest primary discovery of gold was in the 1880’s in Juneau by a man with the name Richard Harris and Joseph Juneau.

Harris and Juneau ended up finding 1000 pounds of ore on their initial trip. This discovery was made on a small river that now coincidently has the name of Gold River- catchy, isn’t it? Kind of makes you want to hop on a plane right now, doesn’t it!

With the discovery of gold in Juneau, gold panning in many undeveloped cities began to thrive, which gave many of the cities their “big break”. With cities thriving, Alaska in itself was thriving. In the 1890’s a gold strike in the Klondike caused chaos and huge developments in the city. In 1898 a gold rush occurred in Nome bringing thousands of fortune seekers to the Last Frontier.

With all of these new inhabitants, Alaska needed more than just a bunch of gold to keep them there. Before long, Fairbanks was a very established trading post and also the center of mining activity in 1902.

In 1917 Wasilla was established as a gold town due the fact that it was extremely close to an export dock of the Alaskan Railroad, which would make gold exports for money very easy. Although this was very popular back in the days of the gold panning, now its not such a hit and the population sits at a low 200 people. Believe it or not, people are still mining there.

Just recently an underground mine, Independence Mine, in the Talkeetna Mountains was renovated for historical purposes. Now, people can walk, or even wheel, their way through the amazing mines and have a feel for what the miners must have felt like when they were working such long days.

Today mining isn’t as crucial for survival as it was back in the early 1900’s. Now gold panning is mainly a fun thing to do for families, vacationers, children, and just for a feel of what it must have been like to be a part of gold panning in Alaska. You can almost see the glint of gold panning in the Alaskan hills.