ODDS ‘N’ SODS — Night shift in Alaska

Long ago, I was a young member of a party of gold hunters in south-central Alaska’s Talkeetna Mountains, and the rush was on to come up with tangible evidence of high-grade gold before winter set in.

We were at the Independence prospect, where an ancient Sullivan compressor and a Buda gas engine to drive it were to be lifted, piece by piece, up our jig-back aerial tram to the portal of an old drift. Our goal was to dewater a winze inside for sampling.

As we waited at the portal, the engine block of the Buda came in slowly, barely clearing the edge of the waste dump. Loosening the lashings, we lowered the heavy block. But a hook from the trolley carriage, which was slowly pulling away for the return trip, caught the edge of the engine block and began to roll it over the edge of the dump.

One of the miners leapt to grab the engine block, but it was too late; our hearts sank as we stood and watched the thing gather speed, rolling down the steep face of the dump until, once at the bottom, it began to bounce like a billiard ball from boulder to boulder among the talus. Given the thin underpinnings of the venture, the accident might have been serious, but we were lucky; somehow the heavy steel casting didn’t break. Working like demons, we fought the block back up the slope.

It was soon in place at the top of the winze, ready for testing.

At first, the water level didn’t change; it then began to sink slowly. It was plain, however, that the system needed to be nursed. The pump’s exhaust would gradually frost up, causing it to slow down and stop. I “stayed put” to refuel the engine and prevent the pump from freezing up during the night.

Standing outside in the half-light of the summer night, I could see our tent camp in the valley far below. The rumble of the yellow Buda echoed off the steep walls of Carle Gulch; the sound was lost in the dead stillness inside the drift, except for the faint beat of the air-driven pump farther in at the winze.

Careful listening could gauge the slowing pump strokes, as the exhaust ports frosted over. The remedy, repeated hourly, was to sprinkle a handful of calcium carbide on the pump, now white with frost, then light the resultant acetylene gas with the flame of my cap lamp. Flickering blue flames soon enveloped the pump, thawing it out.

Water dripping into the winze echoed eerily in the tunnel as I waited to throw on more carbide. The water’s edge was receding, and by the light of the quivering flames it was possible to see a ledge of white quartz, shimmering beneath the ice-cold water at the bottom of the winze.

— The author, a retired mining engineer, resides in Ligonier, Pa.