My Adventure - Gold Panning in Alaska - by Nicholas

(Note: this is a journal Nicholas wrote on 9/13/2009. It was lightly edited by his mom. Pictures were taken by his mom as well, he was too excited to take pictures:))


On August 4th, 2009, after taking some pictures at Mendenhall Glacier my mom and I went to gold panning near a very murky river. Our guide taught us how to pan for gold. He said: “Put some water in your pan, swirl the sand around, then tilt the pan to let the water out. After that, remove the top layer of sand. Then add more water and keep doing it.” He gave us each a pan of dirt and told us that gold is heavy and will end up at the bottom of the pan, the rusty pan is easier for the gold to hang on.

I held on my heavy pan and gingerly tried to swirl it. But on the third tap I dumped all the sand out into the creek. Our guide gave me another pan. This time I asked my mom to help me. As she removed the dirt layer by layer, I saw something glittering at the bottom of the pan. I was very excited, it was real gold! Later our guide gave us a vial to put our gold in. I held on tightly to my vial of treasure. It was awesome.







Travel note: young kids, and apparently old people, like gold panning. For Nicholas, gold panning was more exciting than looking at glaciers. - Allan