Chinook
by George Hosier  - July 20

Pan Fever

One of the ways to distinguish a true Alaskan from a cheechako is by examining the bed of their pickup. If they don’t have a pickup, check their hatchback or at least their glove compartment. An Alaskan’s vehicle will always carry evidence of their participation in the lifestyle of the Last Frontier, while a cheechako’s will carry evidence of their futile attempts to keep the Last Frontier at bay.

For instance, an Alaskan’s pickup bed might contain a scuffed ice chest plastered with fish scales; a double handful of spent shotgun shells imbedded in a chainsawdust and two-cycle oil glop; and a frayed black trash bag containing a Wiggy’s sleeping bag, a couple of MRE’s, a blue tarp and a bottle of Muskol. The non-Alaskan’s vehicle, on the other hand, will contain things like a GPS device, a Milepost travel guide, a coconut shell bikini, and an inflatable palm tree. It will also probably contain one of those worthless little travel first aid kits with 42 Band-Aids, a tube of insect bite lotion, and a foil packet of Midol.

None of these items alone, however, are sufficient to confirm Alaskan or cheechako status. An Alaskan could carry a GPS unit, for instance, or a cheechako’s vehicle could feasibly contain a blue tarp. After careful thought on the matter, I have determined that there is only one item that can be exclusively found in a true Alaskan’s rig. That item is a gold pan.

Let me clarify that. I don’t mean just any gold pan. Anyone bold enough to claim the venerable title of “Alaskan” had jolly well better have a rusty, dented, steel gold pan rattling around somewhere in their rig to back up their claims. I must stress that it is crucial that the pan possess all three characteristics: steel, dented and rusty.

Here’s why. It is not uncommon for a touron or cheechako to acquire a black plastic gold pan or one of those weird-looking rectangular green ones for their souvenir value. It’s also possible to find an actual steel gold pan in a non-Alaskan’s vehicle, which either still retains its price tag and protective layer of grease, or has a picture of a cache and northern lights painted on it. Therefore, a gold pan alone is not sufficient evidence that the owner is Alaskan.

While, the dented part clearly indicates that the gold pan has been used, and isn’t going to wind up as a novelty candy dish in Duluth or a wall hanger in Chicago, a plastic gold pan can also show scratches and discoloration with use. That is why the rusty steel part of the equation confirms a well-used gold pan as forensic evidence of a true Alaskan. A battered steel gold pan is an indispensable component of the experienced Alaskan’s gear because there are certain functions of a steel gold pan that simply cannot be imitated with a plastic one. Here are a few of the most common:

Wok. Trust me; it’s impossible to whip up an improvised ptarmigan and morel mushroom stir fry in a plastic gold pan.

Signal Mirror. You can polish a plastic gold pan until your fingers are worn down to the first knuckle and it is still worthless for an emergency signal mirror.

Protective Headgear. Not a few intrepid Alaskans have bungeed a steel gold pan to their head when unexpectedly encountering a situation which required them to rappel, spelunk or wrestle a grizzly bear.

Shovel. Plastic gold pans bend too easily when trying to dig the bog slime or snow away from your back tires after you swerve into the ditch to avoid hitting a moose.

Dinner Gong. Hanging a steel gold pan from a spruce limb with a piece of parachute cord and whacking it with the back of a hatchet is an excellent way to inform the rest of your fishing party that a mess of fresh-grilled grayling are ready to serve.

Wash Basin. Whether you’re washing your camp dishes or shaving, once again, plastic gold pans and fire don’t mix.

Camp Fire. When it’s dry as tinder out there, you can never be too safe with your cooking fires. A gold pan makes a beautiful fire pit. Even a liquid fueled camp stove is safer and more stable when supported on a steel gold pan.

Bed Pan. A severe wilderness case of Giardia is never pleasant, but the discomfort is complicated by a plastic gold pan that does not remain rigid enough for your hunting partner to remove it safely from your sleeping bag.

Those are a few of the more mundane uses for gold pans. But there are many other more creative ones.

I have even been known to use my gold pan for gold panning! Whether he will admit it or not, I suspect every Alaskan at some time or other has succumbed to the impulse to park beside a bridge on a deserted stretch of highway, furtively slip his gold pan out from behind his spare tire, and scurry down to hunker at creek’s edge in the distinctive prospector’s squat.

Truth be told, I once assumed that position for so long that my back went out. That experience weaned me of my initial reticence toward admitting to playing prospector. You see, when you have to walk around like a frog for three weeks until your lumbar spasms subside, the news of your mechanism of injury tends to become a matter of public knowledge.

So I don’t mind talking openly about it now. The first thing anyone usually snickers at me when I admit to being a gold panner is “Did you ever find anything?” That’s an insulting question. It suggests that gold panning is a fantasy-drenched obsession with no practical benefit. It implies that I, like the “gold fever” crazed Forty-Niners of yore, would squander my time and resources on a get-rich-quick dream.

Nothing could be further from the truth. My little sideline hobby has actually proven quite lucrative for me as I am quick to tell such naysayers. I have accumulated an impressive collection of nuggets over the years. Some of them are even made out of gold.

The next question out of the skeptic’s mouth will be: “So what’s the biggest nugget you’ve ever panned?” Without bragging, I would have to say that probably the biggest nugget I ever found was approximately the size of a clenched fist. If my wife is around when I say that, she inevitably feels compelled to interject the technical and completely irrelevant observation that mosquitoes don’t have fists. Whatever! That doesn’t change the fact that the biggest nugget I have ever found is approximately the size of the portion of a mosquito’s front leg that would be equivalent to a clenched fist if he had a fist.

I’ve also found hundreds of smaller nuggets. At the rate the spot price of gold is skyrocketing, I fully expect my gold nugget collection to be worth three dollars and forty seven cents in fifteen to twenty years. That’s not bad for thirty odd hours of playing in the water every weekend.

Even if you aren’t as successful as me, there are a lot of fringe benefits to gold panning. For one thing, it’s relaxing. There’s no feeling quite as great as finally being able to straighten up after the prospector’s squat has tied your hamstrings and lower back into one giant charlie horse. For another thing, the liquid nitrogen of glacier fed streams soothingly numbs the pain from any cuts and abrasions you may have acquired on your hands and forearms while flailing about for a handhold to arrest your plunge down a talus slope to reach an ideal panning spot.

I’ve noticed that panning tends to sharpen the reflexes, too. It takes flawless hand-eye coordination to successfully rescue your favorite hat that the wind has just whisked off and tossed into a rushing mountain torrent. Through countless experiences of crossing creeks on slippery fallen logs, I’ve also perfected a few tap dancing moves that would have turned Fred Astaire green with envy.

Without doubt the most thrilling experience of all is that moment of indescribable euphoria when you see color in your pan for the first time. I remember when it happened to me. To be honest about it, I had momentarily allowed my focus to drift to the excruciating pain in my knees, shoulders and neck, so I really wasn’t expecting it. I had been going through the hypnotic motions for three hours: scoop, swirl, swirl, tip, swirl, swirl, vibrate, vibrate, tip...suddenly, there it was--a fragment of a rock with the unmistakable glassy golden sheen! A flake of it had broken off and was floating on top of the water in my pan!

I went nearly delirious with excitement. I tried to pick it out of my pan, but my hypothermic, silt encrusted fingers would not cooperate, and I only succeeded in crushing the large flake of gold into smaller specks. Unwilling to lose it, I poured the whole pan full of water, gravel, sand and gold into my canteen. When I walked through the door, my wife could tell by the grin on my face that something wonderful had happened.

“Eureka!” I whooped.

“Oh, yeah?” She rejoiced with me, “Well you don’t exactly smell like a peppermint patty yourself! You go straight to the shower and take those muddy boots off before you walk on my carpet.”

I took my gold to several appraisers before I found one I could trust. The first three or four had some kind of attitude problem. Shockingly they all used foul language on me for no apparent reason. They tried to do it obliquely by saying my gold belonged to a fool, but I knew what they were saying. At last I found a guy who assured me that I had some of the highest quality iron pyrite he had ever seen.

He explained that iron pyrite is a very rare form of gold and that he would be happy to complete all the paperwork necessary for me to file a claim on the creek where I found it. Normally it would cost about a half of a million dollars to do that, but he was willing to take care of it all for a mere ten grand. As soon as I’ve collected enough, I’m going to pay him in iron pyrite.

All in all, gold panning provides a unique and rewarding Alaskan experience that cannot be matched by any other activity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, and neither would any other true Alaskan, I’m sure.

 

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