New 49'er Newsletter

THIRD QUARTER, AUGUST 2024                            VOLUME 38, NUMBER 1

Dave McCracken

 

 

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

 

Longtime supportive member, Robin Burgen, is using a hand-operated dry-washer to mine gold along the banks of the Klamath River. And he is getting nice gold! He has taken the time to demonstrate his methods in a series of helpful videos.

gold-nuggets Robin Burgen

Like the rest of us, Robin begins with a gold pan to locate productive pay dirt:

Here is the rest of his story:

More Members are Returning to Happy Camp this Season!

More members and guests are returning during this 2024 season and we have also had somewhat of a surge in new members. There are so many people in the office some mornings that it reminds me of the good old days before we were reduced to mostly hand mining for gold. We attribute some of this to the excellent television coverage provided to us by a recent Discovery Channel Special. Gold has increased as much as $500 since last year at this time. This has also spurred interest. Imagine that just a pennyweight of gold is now worth around $122! One pennyweight is 1/20th of a troy ounce. Just a single grain of gold is worth around $5! It takes 24 grains of accumulated gold to make up a pennyweight. A grain of accumulated gold would be around the volume or size of a matchhead. In any good place along our properties, some members often recover a grain or more than a grain of gold in an average pan, and a pennyweight or more of gold in a day if you are working at it. Many members do better.

We now have a third permanent person in the office. Our normal business hours are 9 am until 2 pm on Mondays through Fridays. It is a good idea for you to call in advance if you plan to visit the office. There are occasional times when we close early or may not open because of any number of reasons. Namely wildfires, power outages or other emergencies. Mountain weather conditions and/or health issues occasionally will prompt us to close the doors for a day or more. We also have voicemail at 530 493-2012.

Even if our office is closed, our mining properties are always open to members for prospecting and camping.

Two More Potlucks are Scheduled in August of this Season

We scheduled two potlucks in July, which should have taken place by the time you read this newsletter. All of these events are being announced on our Facebook page. The two potlucks in August will take place at 6 pm on August 10 & 24. This is as long as wildfires don’t force us to cancel them. So far this season, we have not had any wildfires in our area and the skies have been clear and blue.

Turnouts at our Saturday evening potlucks this season have been pretty good. We are doing them at the Happy Camp Community Hall (used to be called the Happy Camp Lions Club) down towards the river in the middle of town. Just ask anyone for directions. Please bring something to add to the meal along with your preferred beverage.

Four dams Upstream on the Klamath River are Being Removed

All of the flood control along the Klamath River is actively being removed. Here is an updated article that provides some details and images. It is not a pretty sight! But it should get better in time.

As I write this, the Klamath is flowing at the normal summer flow rates that we have always seen. Therefore, there must still be some dam waters being held back and released further upstream. The US Forest Service has announced that this will be the final season for commercial rafting on the Klamath. That’s a signal that water levels should be dropping. The water is muddy, though there is now about a foot of visibility at the surface in Happy Camp and further downstream. Some members are working out in the river next to the banks and recovering good gold for their efforts. Most members, like Robin’s story above, are prospecting up off the river or along our creek properties. Once the excess water is allowed to flow away, there should be a dramatic drop in the water level along the Klamath River. This should help us get down into the deeper gold deposits, some which should be exposed and out of the water. Dam removal may turn out good for gold prospecting in the end.

Trimming the Fat

Last season, I announced that in a continuing effort to keep our costs in line with income, we had identified properties that we managed where members have never taken an interest. We let those go. As far as I know, nobody even noticed. Though there are several out-of-state companies that have filed claims directly over our traditional and popular properties and put them up for sale. This has happened numerous times over the years. Because I made that announcement last season, several members on our Facebook page assumed that we sold off our best properties and there was some alarm and disappointment until we straightened it out. First of all, we have not sold a single claim. If someone else files paper over our properties and tries to sell them, it does nothing to eliminate our control over the properties. Please have faith that I will never let any of our good properties go. We are not planning to let any other properties go at this time.

However, we have taken on several new properties in the Wingate area along the Klamath River – which filled in the last openings in our continuous stretch of the Klamath river from above Happy Camp downstream to just above Clear Creek (around nine or ten continuous miles). Most of it has never been mined due to the higher flows (because of flood control). This might be fantastic for gold recovery once the river drops, and it is only one of many long, continuous stretch open to our active members.

Our Facebook Presence

Our staff and others have been updating the Newfourtyniner Facebook page on a regular basis. Members come into our office every week and allow us to take images of the gold they are finding. Sometimes this can be very exciting! Sometimes we even go out and capture some images and video of where members are doing well. Therefore, the latest exciting news, images and video, in full color, can be found on our Facebook page. Especially since we are not sending out newsletters as often as before, our Facebook page is a good way to stay current and even actively participate.

New Email addresses

Because of ongoing Internet changes, we have decided to perform our email functions with a different provider. These changes will be reflected on our Contact web page. Please try and remember that our @goldgold addresses will only be active for a short time longer. As of now, we expect to be using the following addresses: Office: <49ersmemberservices@proton.me>; Billing & administration: <teyaw@proton.me> and <dickey49er@proton.me>; Internal Affairs: Rich Krimm: <rckrimm@att.net>; Dave McCracken: <davemack74@protonmail.com>

Member Accident Insurance

Our group insurance plan is great for those who do not have an insurance policy to cover you in case of a minor accident. All members are eligible to receive our low-cost group accident plan.

Our plan covers an individual for $15,000 in accident insurance, including dental, during any mining venture on New 49’er properties. It covers bodily injury caused by an accident and resulting directly and independently of any other cause. It is a supplemental policy, meaning that if you have some other form of insurance, this policy only covers you when the other runs out. It is also a $2,500 life insurance/dismemberment policy if your death or dismemberment is the result of a mining accident.

The policy costs $30 per person, per year—at this time. This covers from October 4th of the existing year through October 3rd of the following year. There is no rebate if you purchase the policy later in the year; the fee is still the same.

With insurance companies, you never know when rates are going to be increased; so we suggest you obtain your policy in early October by printing out this form, filling it out, and sending it to the office with your check for $30 per person.

Annual Dues is Billed This Month

We bill all Full Members $50 for annual dues in August.  September through the end of the year is when we must shoulder the load of increased property taxes and filing fees to the County and Bureau of Land Management. These are legal requirements which allow us to continue making a substantial number of federal mining claims available to our members.

In real terms, the true value of the gold along these extensive properties may be worth more than the net assets of any financial institution on the planet. Especially these days when the government is printing trillions upon trillions of Dollars out of thin air. The reason that prices are going up is not because goods and services are worth more than before. Prices are going up because the Dollar is not worth as much as it was before. This happens because too many Dollars have been printed and circulated. More or less, on the long term, increased gold values signal the reduced purchasing power of paper currencies.

I remind you every year that we should be calling our extensive properties the “Klamath First National Bank.” Ours is the only bank in the world where you can go out, set up your own camp, and make a draw anytime you wish. There are no interest, rent or bank fees to pay.  And you never have to pay the gold back! This is as close as it comes to an opportunity to maintain some degree of personal freedom during these ever-more difficult and troubling times. Not to mention that we are located smack in the middle of some of the best Pacific Northwest country you will ever see. As far as I know, we are the only organization in the world that makes a very large bank of pure wealth freely available to our members.

Having said that, governments (California, Oregon, Washington and others) have imposed unreasonable regulations upon our industry. Basically, we have lost the right to excavate or process minerals using motorized mining components within 100 yards of an active waterway. But all of our other traditional mining methods are still available to us. We have not given up hope that American policymakers will eventually wake up to the fact that our natural resources are what will fuel the economy of the future if we want to be prosperous. This goes for farming, ranching, timber, mineral, oil and natural gas development. Since this is an important election year, I urge you to vote for leaders that support natural resource development. You know, “Drill baby drill!”

As long as you guys continue to stand with us, we will continue the fight for our basic freedoms. There remains hope that America will wake up and realize that we need to produce value and wealth in excess of what we consume.

We all know that these are very troubled times for America. The whole world hangs in this balance. If conservatives win back control in the upcoming elections, it would not be unreasonable to hope that we can win our country back. Then we might be able to win our industry back. There remains some reason for hope.

I am willing to invest my personal resources to keep our program going as long as you guys, our members, are also willing to hang in there until we overcome what is destroying America, or it becomes clear that there is no longer any hope. My assessment of your support will be in what percentage of Full Members are willing to invest $50 a year to help keep our dream alive: The freedom for Americans to go out on the federal lands and invest your personal energy and resourcefulness in exchange for all the gold you can find.

We should do all we can to maintain our Klamath First National Bank. If lost, we will never get it back! We are enormously lucky to have access to it. Thank you very much for your continued support over the many years!

Dave McCracken, General Manager

 

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

THIRD QUARTER, AUGUST 2023                            VOLUME 37, NUMBER 1

Dave McCracken

 

 

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

 

 

Doyle

Doyle Hyde

Doyle Hyde has been bringing gold into the office that he has been hand-mining on properties upstream and downstream of Happy Camp. This gold was recovered towards the upper end of our property near Seattle Creek.

Three Employees Now Working in the Office

With more members and guests returning, we have added a third person to the office for the ongoing summer season.  Our normal business hours are 9 am until 2 pm on Mondays through Fridays, and 8 am until noon on most Saturdays through the busy season.

It is a good idea for you to call in advance if you plan to visit the office. There are occasional times when we close early or may not open because of any number of reasons. We have voicemail at 530 493-2012. Wildfires and other emergencies, mountain weather conditions and/or health issues occasionally will prompt us to close the doors for a day or more.

Even if our office is closed, our mining properties are always open to members for prospecting and camping.

Two More Potlucks Scheduled in August of this Season
gold for prizes

Gold nuggets set aside as drawing prizes during the potlucks.

Things along the Klamath River have pretty-much normalized. With more members around, we began doing potlucks again. Turnouts have been pretty good. Two remaining scheduled potlucks for this season will happen at 6 pm at the Happy Camp Community Hall (used to be called the Happy Camp Lions Club) on the following dates: August 5th and 19th. Please bring something to add to the meal along with your preferred beverage.

Weekend Group Prospecting Projects

We are trying a new idea this season as a substitute for our Organized Weekend Prospecting Projects.  We are meeting up on Sunday morning after the Saturday evening potlucks. Then we venture to a nearby location where we believe that prospects for finding gold are good. We will provide sampling and panning instruction. Participants can keep all the gold you find. This is a free program available to all members.

Since our normal schedule is still being worked out, if you want to participate in a sponsored prospecting adventure, please call our office and place yourself on the list.

Four dams Upstream on the Klamath River are Being Removed

All of the flood control along the Klamath River is being removed. Here is an article that provides some details and images.

My understanding is that the four dams will be completely drained next summer. Once the excess water is allowed to flow away, there should be a dramatic drop in the water level along the Klamath River. This should help us get down into the deeper gold deposits, some which should be exposed and out of the water.

Trimming the Fat

There was a time when it cost so little to file a mining claim that we would immediately pick up any gold property that was available along the Klamath and other gold-bearing tributaries in the area. But the cost of maintaining a mining claim, along with most other things, has gone up dramatically in recent years.

In a continuing effort to keep our costs in line with income, we have identified properties we manage where members have never taken an interest.  We will let those go, and add new properties where we believe the gold prospects are more encouraging. We have already taken on several new properties in the Wingate area along the Klamath River. Please stay tuned for more information as we make progress.

Television Show Coming Our Way!

I am not able to disclose very much about this without breaking an important trust. Nearly everyone is familiar with the several gold programs that have been playing on various television networks for many years. Some of them are very popular. I was involved several years ago with a 4-part series that involved finding the long-lost Golconda Diamond Mine. That was the richest diamond mine in the world, which is now completely flooded by a reservoir. Links to these episodes are on the left side of this page.

There is a lot of interest in these types of shows where normal folks can go out and find a fortune if fate is on their side. The challenge is that typical commercial mining requires substantial financial and other investment. Setting up a commercial program in India or Alaska is not something the average person can afford to do.

So more recently, the interest of these filming companies has evolved into finding more small-scale mining projects that an average person or family could afford to do. We get queries on a regular basis.

Several weeks ago, a filming company was here from the United Kingdom for a few weeks to capture just regular people using traditional methods to recover gold. They seemed happy with our program. I gather they are planning around eight episodes to capture the “Modern Gold Rush in America.” I’ll keep you posted.

Facebook/Forum
doyles gold

One member brought this gold into the office which he recovered using a gold pan along the edge of the river downstream of Happy Camp.

Some of you are aware that we have maintained our own Internet message Forum for quite some time. Our Forum was quite busy years ago when we were in a legal contest to maintain suction dredging in the western U.S. Activity on our forum since then has fallen off significantly.

Our Internet Forum was mostly created by founding member, Jim Foley. Jim has moderated our forum since it was started many years ago. However, I am sorry to report that Jim passed away just a few days ago (stroke). We are all going to miss him very much.

While Jim and a few others have moderated the forum, our office staff have been updating The New 49’er facebook Page on a daily basis. Members come into our office every week and allow us to take images of the gold they are finding. Sometimes, this can be very exciting! Therefore, the latest exciting news, in full color, can be found on our facebook page. Sometimes, we even go down and get some images and video of where members are doing well. Especially since we are not sending out newsletters as often as before, our facebook page is the best way to stay current and even actively participate.

We don’t need both an Internet Forum and a facebook page. They both pretty-much serve the same purpose. Since more creativity is going into the facebook page, we will make this announcement on the forum for a while before shutting off the forum page.

Annual Dues is Billed This Month

We bill all Full Members $50 for annual dues in August.  September through the end of the year is when we must shoulder the load of substantial property tax and filing fees to the County and Bureau of Land Management. These are legal requirements which allow us to continue making a very substantial number of federal mining claims available to our members.

In real terms, the true value of the gold along these extensive properties may be worth more than the net assets of any financial institution on the planet. Especially these days when the government is printing trillions upon trillions of Dollars out of thin air which is fueling inflation. The reason that prices are going up is not because goods and services are worth more than before. They are going up because the Dollar is not worth as much as before. This happens because too many Dollars have been printed and circulated.

I remind you every year that we should be calling our properties the “Klamath First National Bank.” Ours is the only bank in the world where you can go out and make a draw anytime you wish. There are no interest or bank fees to pay.  And you never have to pay the gold back! This is as close as it comes to an opportunity to maintain some degree of personal freedom during these ever-more difficult and troubling times.  As far as I know, we are the only organization in the world that makes a very large bank of pure wealth freely available to our members.

Having said that, governments (California, Oregon, Washington and others) have imposed unreasonable regulations upon our industry. Basically, we have lost the use of our mechanical mining components within 100 yards of an active waterway. But all of our traditional mining methods are still allowed.

As long as you guys continue to stand with us, we will continue the fight for our basic freedoms.  There remains hope that America will wake up and realize that we need to produce value and wealth in excess of what we consume.

We all know that these are very troubled times for America. The whole world hangs in this balance. If conservatives win back control in the upcoming elections, it would not be unreasonable to hope that we can win our country back. Then we might be able to win our industry back. There remains some reason for hope.

I am willing to invest my personal resources to keep our program going as long as you guys, our members, are also willing to hang in there until we overcome what is destroying America, or it becomes clear that there is no longer any hope. My assessment of your support will be in what percentage of Full Members are willing to invest $50 a year to help keep our dream alive: The freedom for Americans to go out on the federal lands and invest your personal energy and resourcefulness in exchange for all the gold you can find.

Thank you very much for your support over the many years!

Dave McCracken, General Manager

 

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

SECOND QUARTER, MAY 2022                            VOLUME 36, NUMBER 1

Dave McCracken

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

EricStory by Eric Spitler

Another summer season is upon us here in Happy Camp. The weather is beautiful along the Klamath River and surrounding area. The gold mining opportunities are endless! For us, summer isn’t the beginning of our mining season. We mine year-round. Warm weather just opens up other possibilities.

Betsy and I work the gravel bars during winter. Our careful choice of locations puts us in the sun. We worked a dark spot in a canyon during our first winter season in Happy Camp, and learned from that experience how cold it can be.

These days, during the winter, we pick the gravel bars that are graced with warmth, even on cloudy days. We just completed a winter season, and it went fine. But it is nice to have the summer weather settling in. A lot of our gold prospecting takes place in the water once it warms up; sometimes completely underwater.

Though there are other members who are already mining underwater on the Klamath. We will be out there soon enough!

Since the water is not quite warm enough for us to do that yet, we are using the warmer days to expand our gold projects to the lowering level of the river, where the cool water is now refreshing at leg level. Ourselves, and other members, have had good luck along the edge of the river where winter storms have swept gravel away, leaving a concentration of gold remaining in place.

We have been glad to have other members of the Club mining nearby during this past winter. A few hardy souls have made for a friendly outdoor community atmosphere. We all learn from each other.

This year, we adopted the use of a spiral gold wheel from some of our mining companions. Our friend offered to run our previously-processed concentrates that seemed to us to be depleted of gold values To be honest, we did not expect much.. Now, we’re not novices. We have been at this game for a long time. But a spiral wheel was never part of our arsenal. It is now!

Out of a nearly full bucket of concentrates, which represented weeks of mining, we had already removed an ounce of beautiful, small flakey gold through a concentrator sluice. The processed material was destined to get the heave-Ho.

Not so fast! One cycle through the spiral wheel, and we recovered just under another half-ounce of fine gold!

Oh oh! Well, we have chosen to look at the positive side rather than ponder over the tons of concentrates that we have discarded over the many years…

Many of us own a garage full of gold contraptions, as well as a truck full of equipment that rides around with us. So not to add to your ever-growing arsenal of gold-getting gadgets; but in case you are interested, give the gold wheel a try. We affectionately refer to ours as the “Wheel of Fortune.“

 Update from Dickey Melton, Internal Affairs

For those of you who have not met me, I pretty much manage ongoing affairs for The New 49’ers these days. I can be found at our office in Happy Camp, if I am not out helping members or keeping an eye on the mining properties which we manage. Stop in anytime for a cup of coffee and some spirited conversation about whatever is the passion of the moment. Our office is a very friendly place.

There is not much happening along our properties that I am not aware of. We have so much property available, and there is so much room for all our members, there is no need to keep secrets about where the latest gold hot spots are. Everybody is going to find out about it, anyway! Members have brought in some really nice gold over these past few years!

Momentum this season is picking up along the river. The phone is ringing, and more people are showing up nearly every day.

fine gold The boys

Longtime members, Jim and Cash, stopped at the office just a few days ago to show off some gold they have been recovering off the bottom of the Klamath River along our extensive Wingate property, simply by using their hands to sweep the light material off of bedrock. On that day, they had recovered 1.7 pennyweights (20 dwts = 1 ounce of gold) in around seven hours while taking turns in the river. At 75% of the spot price, that comes to $70 – or $10 an hour. While it does not sound as good as a regular job, they do get to experience the great outdoors, have very little overhead, don’t have to worry about losing their job – and the cool thing is that if they hold onto the gold, the return for their labor is going to go up with the price of gold once it finally begins following (or getting ahead of) the inflation that we are all experiencing.

On that note, one member recovered around 16 ounces of beautiful gold two seasons ago working the bottom of the river by hand just part time along our Mega Hole properties. That’s more than $22,000 at today’s market price. He was only out there during the low-water summer months. There is an amazing amount of opportunity in the shallow portions of our extensive river and creek properties.

Talking about adventure, one of our members, who usually spends a couple months every summer, came into the office with his wife and an interesting story. Their adult children were also in Happy Camp for a visit.

They had a raft and were floating the Klamath a few miles downstream from town, just below Rattlesnake Rapids. On the opposite side of the river, there is a cliff about 50 to 100 feet above the water. There is an old mining site on top that is flat for about 500 feet. They said they heard a noise over top of them. Looking up, they saw what looked like Bigfoot. They said there is no way that it was a bear or a dog. Walking upright, the creature followed them the length of the cliff, so they got a good look at it for several minutes. They said the encounter really shocked them. I know this member is not someone to just make up stories. In fact, they have kept it a secret because some people might think they are crazy. This was not the first Bigfoot encounter our members have experienced over the years.

Comments by Dave Mack

The way things are lining up, we expect to have a pretty good season. Gold aside, many members are very happy to get up here where the ongoing political turmoil and health issues in our country can largely be set aside for a while. It’s nice to get a break from all that. We are located in some of the best great outdoors that America has to offer.

Organized Events for the 2022 Season:  Quite a few members have called in to ask if and when our Weekend Organized Events will start up again this season. I’m sorry to say that mining events sponsored and managed by The New 49’ers will not be happening. I have devoted a lot of time mulling and worrying over the organized events, because they have been one of our most popular programs dating all the way back to 1986. Thousands of people have cycled through these events.

As a result of 10+ years of litigation with our adversaries all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, I have learned that it is unwise to discuss important legal matters on a public forum. Please trust me when I say that organized Group Projects, in the manner that we always enjoyed them, have a fair chance of getting us participants in legal trouble. We can have a private discussion (face to face) about this if you want to know the reasons why.  My reasons are grounded in the desire to have you enjoy all the opportunities we offer with as little risk as possible.

However, there is nothing in this that prevents members from teaming up to work together in any way that you desire. Members already get together on a regular basis to team up on mining projects, camp together along our properties, share meals and social time. Let’s please keep it this way for a while.

The reason you are not getting these newsletters as often as before is that it feels wise to keep our costs to a minimum until world events start leaning more in our direction. We should all hope that republicans win back at least one of the congressional legislative branches in November to at least slow down the ongoing destruction of the American Dream. There is plenty to be concerned about. It feels like a good idea to keep our heads down for the moment and quietly enjoy the blessings that remain available to us.

Free societies are largely made up of people who are allowed the freedom to create goods and services which can be exchanged with others. No country in history has ever survived by simply printing money to solve all its problems. Printing money alone just makes the problems bigger and more widespread, causing the need to print even more money. This goes on either until the course is reversed or the bottom is reached. This is the trend where we find ourselves today. You cannot change economic reality by wishful thinking.  Until we get back to this reality, my own prediction is that we will not see very much that will change our existing circumstances for the better. So, we wait.

Except for one important thing: There always comes a point where gold will establish the true value of paper money. So at least we are not completely trapped by the misguided policies of those who are in charge.

What I mean by this is that under the circumstances, we are lucky to still have plenty to be thankful for. We can still get gold along our properties if we are willing to work for it. We still have the right to freely occupy some of the most beautiful  public lands in America while pursuing our adventures. The left will take these rights away if given a chance. So, we can hope the results in November will lean our way.

I will follow up again later this season. Until then, my best wishes to everyone,

Dave McCracken, General Manager

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

THIRD QUARTER, AUGUST 2021                            VOLUME 35, NUMBER 2

Dave McCracken

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

I am honored to introduce Dennis Kim. Dennis has been a strong supporter of The New 49’ers for a long time. Some of you might remember him in earlier newsletters because he participated in many of our Weekend Group Mining Projects.

gold In bottles Dennis Kim

Dennis comes over from Hawaii to prospect for gold during our summer months. He has always had a natural ability to get onto the gold. This largely has to do with his work ethic and never-quit world view. Dennis really works hard. His kindness to others seems to have no bounds. The girls in our office call Dennis “Mr. Aloha” for the macadamia nuts and candy he brings them every year.

Dennis served two tours with the Army Rangers in Viet Nam during the 1960’s.

campSeveral years ago, Dennis lost a pretty serious contest with a large boulder that ultimately broke one of his legs in six different places. After surgery put his leg back together, Dennis returned to Hawaii to do some healing. He says he was a complete invalid for at least six months. I’ll bet! The following season, Dennis returned to Happy Camp on crutches, which he traded in for a walking stick; and he then resumed his gold mining program until the end of the season. How’s that for determination?

We have a bunch of members working the shallows of the Klamath and working all of our side tributary mining properties using masks and snorkels. Some are also using motorized dry washers up away from the waterways. Some of them are recovering impressive amounts of gold. I have seen some nice gold nuggets being brought into the office. Dickey (our Office Manager and Internal Affairs) has been telling me about members who are doing well up on Indian Creek.

Scott RiverI paid a visit to Dennis Kim several mornings ago, because I heard that he and his mining partner, Brent, also from Hawaii, have been recovering nice gold using hand methods inside the Scott River.

I found Dennis and Brent in their well-organized camp along the Scott River. My timing was good, because they were just getting ready to go out to their mining site for the day. I followed them by car up to S-3, a place where they have been mining in the river for at least two seasons.

The Scott River is running low and pretty warm at this time of the year. They are both working in the river without having to wear full wet-suits.  I captured the following video sequences which demonstrates the way they are recovering gold and nuggets out of the river:

alter

One of the interesting things about Dennis is that he brings an offering of food, incense and hand-picked flowers every day. He places these items and more on an alter which he has made from some rocks off the streambank. I have seen this practice many, many times in Thailand, Cambodia and elsewhere. I have been told that the gift to spiritual forces is for the hope of good luck and personal safety. It is a means to harmonize closer to the world around us. Dennis told me that the practice is a respectful gesture to communicate their intention to create no harm to the area where he and Brent are searching for gold in the river. I know from long experience that the Thai culture also takes these “giving’s” very seriously. Here is Dennis explaining his viewpoint:

The difference is that Dennis’ gifts are always gone the following morning. I’m sure there are very grateful local wildlife creatures that show up there for dinner or breakfast every day.

Brent

Brent is strong as an ox!

The mining program Dennis and Brent are doing is very simple. They both are working inside the river, using weight belts to get deeper into the water without floating away. As the younger person on the team, Brent is packing or rolling the larger rocks out of their excavation. The water is so clean and clear that he is not even using a mask and snorkel. Dennis is then using a modified shovel to excavate smaller-sized streambed from underwater into a #4 sized screen that is sitting on top of a 5-gallon bucket. The buckets of material are then fed into a hand sluice that is set up on the backside of their excavation. Here it is on video:

Shovel

Modified shovel for digging underwater.

 

 

They modified their shovel so that most of the material is not washed off as Dennis lifts and moves it underwater to the catch bucket.

The team switches places once Dennis has exposed more of the larger rocks along the bottom of where he is digging. This way, the excavation of pay-dirt is rather continuous.

Most of the gold they have recovered so far, including all or most of the gold nuggets, have come off the bedrock. They also recovered plenty of gold last season on the far side of the river, and never reached bedrock. So, the streambed itself is also rewarding them.

Boulders are clearly getting larger as they excavate deeper into the streambed; too large to roll out of the hole. Those boulders may, or may not, be sitting on bedrock. They may just have to juggle them around in the bottom of the hole in order to excavate underneath them.

This was pretty close to my own plans for doing some mining this season inside Indian Creek. That is, until I realized how cold the water is that is flowing down the creeks! This is just me. I have suffered in my life with enough cold water running into my wet-suit.  I have explored the area along Indian Creek where last year’s Slater Fire removed all or most of the underbrush. There is a lot of fresh opportunity there for hand mining inside the creek.  We do have members that are not being discouraged by the colder water.

sluice

Pay dirt is processed through a sluice set up at the backside of the excavation.

Dennis explained to me that the gold they are recovering is just icing on the cake. He said the outdoor experience and challenge of finding and recovering the gold provides adventure that brings internal rewards which exceed the value of the gold. The place they are mining along the Scott River is an outdoor paradise.

Annual Dues are More Important These Days

We bill all Full Members $50 for annual dues in August.  September through the end of the year is when we must shoulder the load of substantial property tax and filing fees to the County and Bureau of Land Management. These are legal requirements which allow us to continue making a very substantial number of federal mining claims (60+ miles of gold-rich river and creek properties) available to our members.

In real terms, the true value of the gold along these extensive properties is probably more than the net assets of any financial institution on the planet. Especially these days when the government is printing trillions upon trillions of Dollars out of thin air which is fueling inflation. Prices are not going up because goods and services are worth more than before. They are going up because the Dollar is not worth as much as before. This happens because too many Dollars are being printed and circulated.

We should be calling our properties the “Klamath First National Bank.” Ours is the only bank in the world where you can go out and make a draw anytime you wish. There are no interest or bank fees to pay.  And you never have to pay the gold back!

This is as close as it comes to an opportunity to maintain some degree of personal freedom during these ever-more difficult and troubling times.  As far as I know, we are the only organization in the world that makes a very large bank of pure wealth freely available to our members.

Having said that, governments (California, Oregon, Washington and others) have imposed very unreasonable regulations upon our industry. As long as you guys continue to stand with us, we will continue the fight for our basic freedoms.

There remains hope that America will wake up and realize that we need to produce value and wealth in excess of what we consume. We all know that these are very troubled times for America. The whole world hangs in this balance.

I believe personal integrity and pursuit of the truth are the only road towards enlightenment. The guidance I receive on that level is that we should stay the course for a while longer and see how these larger forces play out. I am willing to invest my personal resources to keep our program going as long as you guys, our members, are also willing to hang in there until we overcome what is destroying America, or it becomes clear that there is no longer any hope. My assessment of your support will be in what percentage of Full Members are willing to invest $50 a year to help keep our dream alive: The freedom for Americans to go out on the federal lands and invest your personal energy and resourcefulness in exchange for all the gold you can find.

This is not the first time I have made this commitment to you in August. We are still here thanks to you guys!

Comments by Dave Mack

We are having a pretty good season. Many members have been along our extensive mining properties and have visited us in the office. Most are very happy to get up here where the ongoing political turmoil and health issues in our country are not really visible.

We will continue to try to keep our costs from exceeding income while we wait for the political leanings to swing back in the direction of reducing regulatory burdens which create more harm than good. Things appear to be coming to a head. The hard reality is that a free society cannot just print money forever to keep the private economy going. Free societies are largely made up of people who are allowed the freedom to create goods and services which can be exchanged with others. Until we get back to this reality, my own outlook is that we will not see very much that will change our existing circumstances for the better. So, we wait.

Having said that, we still have plenty to be thankful for.

My best wishes to everyone,

Dave McCracken,

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

FIRST QUARTER, APRIL 2021                            VOLUME 35, NUMBER 1

Dave McCracken

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

Gold imageStory and images by Betsy Anderson & Eric Spitler 

That’s what I kept saying to Betsy: “The more years you mine for gold, the more knowledge you gain, and you structure your operation around that. In the pursuit of gold, techniques must be formed, based upon a good understanding of gold deposits and how they were formed. The behavior of the noble metal, as it travels from its source to the place it enriches, is a detectives’ hunt on the order of Columbo.  The greater your skills, the greater your success on a more regular basis. This also means not chasing down false leads or questioning your intuition. being able at a glance to dismiss unlikely possibilities… Right?”

Ah, but there she was, my wife, test panning, and showing me good golden color that she supposedly recovered in the upper layers of sandy silt. We were working a clay layer that paid well. But we had to dig three feet through the sandy silt to reach the clay. I was so certain there was no gold in the sandy silt from my years of suction dredging, that I didn’t even bother testing it.

But, as Betsy reminded me, suction dredges have much faster recovery systems that don’t catch fine gold very well out of sand. Now we are sluicing. Much slower water flow through the sluice. This is a whole new reality for gold recovery!

Eric feeding sluice Betsy shoveling sand

So, for weeks, off went the top layer, with the rocks and sticker bushes. Every once in a while, Betsy would test to see if we were down to the pay. Sampling high in the deposit, she would often come over and show me another gleaming pan. I would congratulate her and say something like, “Our shovels are covered in clay and muck from the pay layer…” I was certain that’s where the gold had come from. It seems like the lessons in gold mining never stop!

One day, Betsy convinced me to test the top sandy material myself. I went over to the river and carefully rinsed the shovel and pan of any gold from the pay layer. Then I returned to dig out a sample from the silty area she suggested. I thought it would be a wasted effort. Then I saw the yellow flecks appearing in the bottom of my pan. It wasn’t as rich as the pay layer, but it was certainly worthwhile enough to run through the sluice.

I looked back at all the hard work we had devoted to restoring the area we had already dug.

“Don’t worry,” Betsy said, “There’s lots more of that sand anyway!”

Thoughts from Dickey
office staff

Dickey, Teyaw and Christina in our administrative office.

Here I am at 6 am on March 30 2021, sitting in my cabin in Happy Camp, sipping on my first cup of coffee. Light from the glass door of my wood stove is flickering on my three dogs laying on the floor in front of me, a hint of daylight to the east over China grade. My rooster is crowing, exclaiming that another day is upon me.

My thoughts continue to flash back to the morning of September 8th of last year. Things are not much different on this early morning. But that was the first day of the Slater fire that raced down Indian creek destroying the homes and property of people I know and love. I still feel a little anxiety from the experience of living through the fire. But the sadness is tapering off as each day goes by and things are picking up as we head into spring and the new mining season.

road view burned sticks

One thing the fire did was open parts of Indian Creek that were too over grown with underbrush to access before. Some members have expressed interest in prospecting up Indian Creek this coming season. While they have been kind of quiet about it, I know members who were already getting nice gold up there. Indian Creek gives up some beautiful gold nuggets!

Last year, some of our members were prospecting in stream in both the creeks and the river with quite a bit of success. They were using using masks and snorkel, rolling small boulders and cleaning cracks in the bedrock.

I now have a new Minelab Excalibur II 1000, excellent for gold detecting underwater and on land. I am going to spend some time in the water this season, I’m anxious to see how it is going to work out.

Well, it’s time for my second cup of coffee. As I look out the window, I see the plum tree is in full bloom, the grass is in need of mowing, the daffodils are in full bloom, spring has arrived in Happy Camp! Time to get my mining equipment together and head for the river.

It’s about time to open the New 49’rs office so people can come in, get some coffee, buy mining supplies and spin a few yarns before heading out gold prospecting.

We hope to see you all on the river this season! 

From our Girls in the Office

The sun is out, the snow is gone and the flowers are in bloom.  Cool!

In spite of the challenges we have faced with the Slater Fire and COVID-19, we are still open and are gearing up for another great season of prospecting.

It’s nice to see our members trickling in from all over the globe, watching their smiling faces as they grab sluice boxes, tools, buckets and pans, eager to get out on the river and creeks. Some items such as our pyramid pans, sluice boxes and crevice suckers have become so popular we can barely keep them in stock!

Our claims along Indian Creek are open for prospecting. If you are a metal detector enthusiast, these claims might just be the adventure you are looking for.

Please call us any time: 530 493-2012. 

Final Comments by Dave Mack

A lot has happened since I last sounded in. It is too much to talk about in a newsletter. The best strategy under the ever-evolving circumstances has seemed to be to just remain silent, and continue to provide service to our members. The purpose here is basically to let you guys know that we are still open and our mining properties are freely available to all members and guests. We are expecting a pretty busy season.

Because of ongoing legal and political circumstances, I’m sorry to announce we will not be supervising organized weekend mining projects or potluck gatherings this season. I don’t want to risk getting a hundred or so members in trouble for not following the proper social distancing guidelines in California. But we will be out and about providing assistance to members as we can. Otherwise, things are about the same as they are laid out in our Operation Guidelines. Please bring your gold finds into the office to show them off. We always get an emotional boost from that!

Just so you know, all or most of the areas along our extensive Indian Creek properties were cleared to the ground by the Slater fire of poison oak, blackberry bushes and other undergrowth. The fire did not reach our property on Thompson Creek.

Just to weigh in on something that is not being hotly debated in the national dialog, I am going to link you here to a recently-done documentary that is a thorough education on what is fast becoming the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the entire world. And I am not talking about COVID or the vaccines — though they will certainly originate out of this much more serious situation. This documentary lays it all out very clearly. It is worth every minute of the time to sit down and watch it.

Bit by bit, the ever-decreasing value of currencies, coupled with the need to print vastly increasing volumes of currency, is putting stress on nearly everyone, though the reasons for the stress are not broadly understood.

If you want to inch closer to the source point of what is really wrong in the world, and perhaps prepare for worse times which may not be far off, I strongly suggest you watch this documentary while it remains available. It says a lot for owning or being able to find your own gold:

End of the Road: How Money Became Worthless – Full Documentary – Text Link: https://youtu.be/r_ichZ0Ji0M

My best wishes to everyone,

Dave McCracken,

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

FOURTH QUARTER, OCTOBER 2020                              VOLUME 34, NUMBER 5

Dave McCracken

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

As most of you know, a lightning storm on September 8th, or the early morning of the 9th, sparked numerous wild fires, one in particular, called The Slater Fire, which turned into a very powerful monster and raced down Indian Creek, taking out everything in its path. The headwaters of Indian Creek start up near the Oregon border. Then the gold-rich creek winds itself down the mountain and meets with the Klamath River in our town of Happy Camp. Here we are a month later, and the fire is still only 72% contained.

It was the original gold prospectors that began down where the Klamath River meets the Pacific Ocean that gave Happy Camp its name because they found so much gold on Indian Creek. A lot of the gold still remains there today.

I am estimating that the length of Indian Creek, not counting its various branches, is about 30 miles. A lot of the upper portion of the creek has been rather inaccessible because of the thick underbrush (which might not be there anymore). New 49’er members have free access to Indian Creek starting upstream from the West Branch Campground (which is probably gone) and most or all of the portions of the creek that are not private property all the way down to the mouth where it reaches the Klamath River.

The creek eventually meets a beautiful valley which extends for several miles. There were some stunning horse ranches and homestead properties along this stretch, many or all which may now be gone. There are a number of Happy Camp families who have ties back to the original gold rush. Later generations of the very same families were present all through the extensive logging industry which supported as many as 5 operating mills, most which were still in operation when we started The New 49’ers in 1986. Some of those family homes have existed up Indian Creek for 150 years.

I cannot get an exact number yet; but am told that as many as 150 homes were lost to the fire with two people found dead so far.

Rather than repeat what I wrote to you several weeks ago, I will provide this link to the initial Action Alert that we sent out on the 9th of September. That was followed by a GoFundMe link on the 18th.

One might ask why it took 9 days after the fire started for us to send out a fund-raiser on behalf of our two administrative staff who lost their homes. The answer is that this juggernaut of a fire raced down Indian Creek with such force and speed with blistering heat that was generating thundering explosions. Dickey says there was so much noise from the crashing down of trees and homes, it felt like there was also an earthquake! The smoke was so thick that you could not see across the road. With so many local residents not knowing what to do, it took several days for second responders to set up places for people to go for safe support and shelter.

By “second responders,” I mean the US Forest Service fire-fighting teams, Cal Fire, the American First Cross, and so many more State and federal agencies to arrive on the scene from other places. Ours was not the only fire in California. That lightning storm also sparked other fires.

It was the Happy Camp Volunteer Fire Department, Karuk fire crews and local volunteers using heavy equipment that had the foresight to put up barriers and initiate back-burns that saved Happy Camp. These were the first responders. Local law enforcement and other volunteers, aware of the fire, went from house to house all the way down Indian Creek, and then all through the town of Happy Camp, warning people they had to evacuate.

This part of the Slater fire was stopped just on the edge of Happy Camp.

If it were not for our local first responders, all of Happy Camp might have burned to the ground.

Dickey does a good job down below explaining how shocking and horrendous the situation was once the community realized an angry monster was already upon the town.

Mostly thanks to Dickey, working closely with local law enforcement and other officials, it took several days to locate our office staff, our local members and close supporters and visiting members who had signed into our log book in the office (so we have the ability to reach out to them). In doing this, we discovered that everyone was safe, but two of our very loyal office girls had lost their homes to the fire.

Dickey chose to not evacuate. He said as the fire came close to Happy Camp, he could feel the searing heat of the fire. He was telling me today that it was the screeching noise and volcanic explosions, maybe large propane tanks exploding, that prompted him to put his dogs in the car and motor over to the other side of the river. From a vantage point over there, He watched the fire burn into the night. He says this was an angry mother earth on the level of typhoons, earthquakes and tornadoes.

When it became clear that we were not going to lose our building, and our staff had lost homes, I put out a request to our long subscriber list for anyone who was willing and able to create a GoFundMe link on the Internet. We simply cannot keep The New 49’ers functioning without our administrative staff.  The number of details they take care of in our office are so many, it boggles the mind. I am very serious about this!  In fact, they were working on the September billing on the 9th of September when an officer came into the building and ordered them to evacuate.  Christina and Victoria took off immediately. They both had homes up Indian Creek.

Dickey and Teyaw delayed long enough to shut things down as best they could. The power was already out (when the power is out, you cannot remember all the things that were turned on). They locked up the building.

Teyaw’s home is down by the river, Dickey’s is in the middle of town, two blocks away from our building. He says that after closing up our building, he walked out front and the entire area from the grocery store to Highway 96, and all the upper Happy Camp parking lots, were full of people and vehicles and total confusion. Panic was everywhere. He said there was an enclosed horse trailer that was banging and smashing around like there was some kind of wild beast inside. The owner finally opened the doors and let his horses out.

Dickey says the horses were so upset that they were screaming wild noises that were like out of a horror movie.

Other horses were running around in the parking lots, adding to the confusion. Maybe the ranch owners just had to open the gates to their pastures and let them run for it. People did not know which way to go. Most were watching the overwhelming flames of the fire just on the edge of town. The magnitude of the force was absolutely shocking! Dickey says the whole nightmare was something that will haunt him for a long time to come.

In any event, I made it my personal mission to raise enough money to get our staff members back in comfortable homes once the emergency was over, so we could get back up into action as soon as the authorities would allow people back into town.

From the notice we put out to our long list of subscribers and members over the Internet 9th of September, I was immediately contacted by Paula and Curtis ‘Oro’. They are longtime, supportive New 49’er members who have had previous experience in setting up these GoFundMe sites.  It took several days; because a lot of the information had to come from the girls who were being moved around in Yreka. I gather that all the hotels were full. The American Red Cross was setting up rooms for those in need. But they had to check out every day; go back to the Red Cross, and submit another application.

Whatever! It’s better than sleeping in a car!

Banking information was needed. Some back history on both girls was needed, images, etc. To my surprise, most of this was accomplished in short order by the girls and Paula, with Dickey overseeing the progress in Happy Camp where the smoke was so thick, he was having trouble breathing. I called Dickey several times to check on how he was doing. His voice sounded very odd. He explained that if he laid down on the floor and put his mouth right on the floor, he could get a better breath of air.

Dickey is very close to his dogs. I could hear them also breathing into the phone. What a guy!

The thing that delayed the GoFundMe site the longest was in capturing images of what was remaining of the girl’s homes. This proved difficult; because a substantial security force was now in place all over the Happy Camp area. I gather that during disasters like this, officials are charged with making sure there is no looting. They are also looking for the remains of those who did not survive. They were making sure it would be safe to allow residents back in. Indian Creek Road was barricaded shut!

It took a while, but Dickey finally got hold of Gabe Garrison. Gabe is a local Sheriff’s’ deputy who has always been cooperative and supportive of our program. I know of at least one local member who has gone way out in the wildlands with Gabe in search of Bigfoot. He is a cool guy that also takes his job seriously.

Dickey asked Gabe if he would please go up Indian Creek and get some images of the girl’s burned out homes.

Once we had those images, Paula activated the GoFundMe site, and I believe it was she and Curtis that put up the first contribution. Dickey put up the second. Then I added in my contribution. There was further delay; because once that first money was directed into the GoFundMe site, I wanted to be absolutely certain that our girls were going to be able to collect all of the money. What is it? ” Trust but verify!” I needed to be certain before I sent the link out to you guys. That took a few days.

As soon as Victoria confirmed they had access to the money, I sent out notice to our Internet subscriber list. The contributions started flowing in immediately.

It was really heart wrenching to watch how many supporters we have that are willing to reach into your pockets in our time of need.

Our girls have good jobs. But nearly everyone has costs that take up most or all of the money we make. This is true for nearly everyone; it is difficult to build up savings when you have children to take care of, a car to keep running, a home to keep comfortable during the summer and winter, telephone, electricity, insurance, and the list goes on and on. We all know how this is.

My realistic task was to raise enough money to get both our girls back into comfortable homes, and back to work. Paula came up with the goal of raising $20,000 to split between the girls. This sounded right with everyone who was on the program. So, we went for it!

This is to announce that in 3 weeks to the day, I was informed this morning that we brought in $16,455 through the GoFundMe site, and $3,600 in the mail. Every dollar went to the girls, who split it evenly.  That adds up to $20, 055 on my calculator.

So, I am hereby announcing that this fund-raiser was a complete success!

I have asked Paula to de-activate the GoFundMe Site and am suggesting the fund-raiser is finished.

Both girls are now living comfortably in Happy Camp and back at their jobs. The September newsletter and billing went out late. It was mostly completed by Dickey while the girls were getting settled back into town and Teyaw was answering a thousand phone calls from our concerned supporters. This newsletter will go out a week earlier, and we will work our way back towards the beginning of the month, which is normal.

This is my personal heart-felt thank you to everyone who helped in our time of need. I love that we have so many friends and supporters out there. We are truly lucky!

Members have already begun prospecting and mining again along our extensive properties. New members are arriving and going out with some of our more experienced members. Our doors are back open between 9 AM and 2 PM, Monday through Friday. Our phone (530 493-2012) is being answered until about 4 PM. There is an answering service if nobody picks up.

All or most of the normal business establishments in Happy Camp have reopened and will be happy to greet visitors.

While it will take some time for our support team in Happy Camp to fully recover from this terrible experience, they are in good spirits and feeling lucky to belong to this magic collection of wonderful people we have gathered together that are associated with our gold prospecting association in one way or another. The girls will be fine.

The purpose of this newsletter is to put an end to the emergency for you guys.

We asked for help. You provided it. Thank you so very much! So now let’s get back to gold prospecting!

I will end this newsletter with short messages of thanks from Christina and Victoria, and some very meaningful expressions coming from Dickey who is only in the beginning of unwinding from two weeks of absolute hell on earth. When I heard Dickey coughing for air on the floor of his home, I encouraged him to go take some shelter in my office inside our building. By then, the power had been turned back on. There is an air conditioner. Certainly, the air quality would have been better in there.

We have a security system on the building that notifies me over the Internet every time the alarm is turned on or off, or is (god forbid) set off by a burglar or fire inside the building. So, I saw exactly when Dickey took me up on my suggestion. Then 45 minutes later, I saw that he departed the building. So, I called him back. His answer was that he just needed to catch his breath for a while. He felt like he needed to be out in the disaster zone in case there was anyone else that he could help. Dickey is a very special guy!

Before I close my own comments about this fire misadventure we have been through, I must acknowledge the extremely valuable work that Curtis ‘Oro’ & Paula Hutson contributed to the fund-raising effort. They are the ones who volunteered to set up the GoFunMe site. I’m certain that they invested a lot of effort to gather the necessary information in the middle of all that confusion. They set it up so that every single dollar that was contributed went directly to our girls.

Nobody knew how effective the site was going to be until I sent out the email with the link to our list of supporters.

When our fund-raising site had already taken in $6,755 within 4 hours of sending out my email, I knew we were going to meet our objective.

What a relief in my world! If you want to see the list of contributors, you can find it by clicking on the green “See all” link on the bottom-right side of the page.

office-staff

This image was captured in the office yesterday. I asked our crew to kind of give me a smile, but don’t cover up the way you are really feeling. The image about sums it up! From left to right: Victoria, Teyaw, Dickey and Christina. Stop in and see them. They will be happy to visit with you!

Let me please wrap this up with a few messages from our staff:

From Christina: As we were driving into Happy Camp, I felt a Bone Crushing Sadness over the loss of not only my home but the home of my Best friend and Coworker Victoria. We were escorted to our house via police escort due to hazardous material all up and down Indian creek. I don’t know what I was hoping to find…Possibly any one of the 3 Dogs we lost to the fire. I had been shown the pictures but nothing compared to driving up our driveway…walking through what used to our front gate and staring in a daze at what is now the remnants of what used to be our Home.  My knees buckled and I cried. There was nothing of value remaining! The hopeful beginnings of our young Family Dream were now Gone.

Now we are taking it day by day. Gathering much needed items such as blankets, clothing, and food.  What we have to do is becoming clearer every day; and due to the very generous donations that we have received from who I call my “New 49er Family.” My Fiancé Brandon, my two Daughters and their new Puppy Bear and I are now living in a travel trailer. It is located on the property of some very dear friends of ours, right along the Klamath River.

My sincerest thank you to all of you. I am now able to go back to doing what I love here at the Office of The New 49ers. My Daughter Lileigh can go to her school and see her friends. Violet gets to be at her home away from home, playing with her new playmate Bear on the river without a care in the world… Without The New 49’ers, none of these things would be possible. You have given us not just a helping hand but hope of rebuilding what was lost and starting over here in Happy Camp where it all seemed to end, only to begin again. Thank you so much!

Sincerely, Christina Johnson

From Victoria: Please accept our sincere thank you to everyone for your donations to our GoFundMe, and also for your caring and thoughtful prayers.

The last few weeks have been very tough for us as we try to gain back some normalcy as a family.  As everyone knows, we lost everything in the Slater fire. Your donations have eased the pain and stress for us financially at this time.

It is not easy for us to ask for help. If it were not for The New 49’ers and Paula & Curtis, not only would we not have done it, but we would not have had the emotional wherewithal to pull something together. This has been a mind-numbing experience.

Just know that even the smallest donation has helped us in such a big way. It’s not only about money. It’s the realization that there are so many of you out there who care about us!

We cannot thank everyone enough. Please keep us in your thoughts as we navigate through this difficult time.  I hope to meet you when you visit our office, or when you call on the phone.

Thank you,  Victoria & our entire McAbier family 

From Dickey: It was 5 am on Sept 8 2020, just another normal morning for me. I was sitting in my cabin drinking coffee, looking at my dog Silvie on the couch, and Loki on the floor in front of me. They are Karelian Bear dogs, around 85 lbs., and a handful of energy. We love each other dearly. They are much more than dogs to me. 

I finish my coffee, feed the dogs and chickens, and then see my neighbor in the street looking up towards Slater Butte. He says, “There’s a fire up there.” You can see the lookout from my house, and we could just make out a little column of smoke towards the lookout.  I heard sirens and saw some fire trucks heading up Highway 96. 

So, I am at the New 49er office a while later at 9 am. Our very capable office manager, Teyaw, has everything up and running, Christina is on the phone with a customer and I notice some commotion outside. As I open the door and look around, there is a strange feeling as I see cars going faster than normal. People are yelling back and forth in an excited fashion. I see them pointing towards the north. 

So, I step out away from the building and see a massive column of smoke rising as high as I could see. Holy cow! 

I tell the girls and we are now all standing in the parking lot looking at huge columns of massive black and gray smoke billowing high over the trees up Indian Creek and behind the 49er building. The power goes out as we are taking all this in. At that point we are told, “No one can go up Indian Creek,” and we now can see vehicles blocking the road. 

Christina looks at me and says, “My dogs!”  I see in her face the reality of what is happening and what they are about to lose. That is a moment in time I will never forget. 

Christina gets information that her fiancé Brandon is helping his sister get out of her house as the fire is already upon them. It is an intense few minutes until Christina sees Brandon pull into the store parking lot. She runs to him then says to me, “I have to go get my kids.” (Lileigh at school, violet at sitters.) Christina gives me a hug, I say “love you” she says, ” love you too.” I don’t see her again for two weeks. 

At 10 am, Victoria pulls in next to where I’m standing. I walk over to the passenger door. Her three kids are in the back. Her youngest, Lance, leans forward and says, “What about our cat and our chickens?” Victoria has both hands on the wheel intently looking in the direction of her home. Victoria looks at me and says she has got to go. I say “love you,” she says “love you too.” Again, a moment in time I will never forget. I don’t see her for two weeks. 

I go back into the office. Teyaw and I are closing up when we are told that everyone must evacuate Happy Camp. As I say goodbye to Teyaw, she gives me a tight hug. I say “love you,” she says “love you too.” I don’t see her again for eight days. 

As I’m going to my jeep, I see cars rapidly driving around much too fast for the circumstances. A truck pulling a large horse trailer pulls into the parking lot. The horses are noticeably agitated, sounding more like screams than normal horse sounds. People were loudly shouting directions and information back and forth. The, fire department was rolling out hoses, shouting directions to each other.  Official-looking vehicles were going house to house telling everyone to evacuate. 

As I’m going to my house, I get a call from my wife from our other home in Depoe Bay Oregon informing me that I can’t get there as they are in danger of being overrun by fire and they are evacuating Lincoln city. She tells me all routes there are closed. 

It was just unbelievable that both of our homes, three hundred & sixty miles apart, were in danger of burning down at the same time!

 I decided to stay in Happy Camp. My dogs don’t do well around other dogs, and I really had nowhere to go.  I knew if I had to, I could cross the Klamath River and go up China Grade Road towards Yreka. 

That night around 12:30 am, the house felt like it was vibrating.  It was actually shaking like in a mild earthquake!  I ran to the door and saw what seemed to be right close to me were flames as high as I could see. There were huge explosions from propane tanks with roaring jet sounds! It was like jets were dropping bombs; it was a complete war zone!! 

I grabbed the dogs, drove to the other side of the river and went up China Grade. Looking at the scene from over there was equal to any pictures I have seen from when Mount Saint Helens blew its top. Huge flames lit up the night. There was just a dark spot where Happy camp was. 

The next few days were bad with smoke. No wind and so thick you couldn’t see the road even in the daytime. My carbon monoxide alarm was going off in the house.  I already took the battery out of the smoke alarm. I went to the 49rs office several times to catch my breath as the smoke wasn’t in there, yet. The next week was like being in an apocalyptic movie. No one allowed to go anywhere. Still, dead quiet, dark at mid-day, and no one around. 

Fortunately, our cell phone service was still working. I kept in contact with the girls, and it was a big help to me when they would call to check on me.  You really realize the value of close friends during times like that. 

Fast forward to Sunday October 4th. Christina and Brandon lost three dogs in the fire. That was really hard on them, and especially their kids. So, they decided to get a seven-week-old German shepherd puppy. I volunteered to pick it up all the way over on the coast. The drive did me a lot of good. I was driving the three-hour trip home with this beautiful puppy in my lap, loving on me, thinking of the new normal in all our lives. 

I’m very sad that the old normal is gone, maybe never to return. 

But I have been able to witness the most awesome outpouring of human compassion anyone could ever hope for. I am really glad for that. 

Now back in the office, things are getting caught up, again. Miners are coming in showing off the beautiful gold they are getting, and even some new people are coming in. Some didn’t even know we had a fire. Isn’t that something? 

I’m feeling a little better, but it’s going to be a while before my sleep returns to normal. 

Dickey 

This hopefully is the last of our wild ride on the fire monster as far as these newsletters are concerned. Let’s put this behind us and get back to prospecting!

Several groups of very experienced members have worked out two new ways of prospecting this season that I am eager to tell you guys about. I know of several who were/are recovering $100 in just a few hours of work. The gold nuggets are quite exciting. This is all happening in places all along our properties where we never thought to prospect before, both inside and out of the water.

On top of that, once all the smoke clears, we are going to want to go up and see if there is now better access to the upper portions of Indian Creek. The loss of ground vegetation will create a lot of erosion if we get some strong rain this winter (likely). That will replenish hot spots that we already know about.

So, we will move forward and try to find the new opportunities!

My best wishes to everyone,

Dave McCracken,

Founder and General Manager of The New 49’ers

  

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

Dave McCracken

Third Quarter, August, 2020
Volume 34 – No. 4

Newsletter By Dave McCracken
General Manager

Papa Bear

Papa Bear showing off the results of several hours of work in his “secret spot.” He shows off his gold mining adventures and friends on a YouTube channel up on the Internet.

Because of the COVID situation and predictable economic downturn, we were expecting a rather slow mining season this year. But we have a surprising number of members arriving along the Klamath River and tributaries, and there is quite a lot of excitement around Happy Camp about the gold that some members are recovering.

We even considered putting a commercial toilet out at K-15A last week because of the number of members camping up there. But when we took a closer look, we realized that nearly all of them already had closed black water systems and had arranged for the local service provider to stop once a week to pump them out.

There is a lot of gold, and some really nice nuggets being recovered from K-15A!

You know; we have some really cool members!

 

Sluice in rapids

I think everyone is feeling really lucky to be out in some of America’s greatest outdoors, and being free to search for gold and other adventure with no hassles or bad news.

Quite a few members are bringing the gold they are finding into the office to show off. I am impressed! Some members are sniping shallow cracks in the river, and in the creeks and prying nice gold nuggets out of the cracks. There are two members up on Indian Creek that really struck it rich. We agreed to not publish images of their gold so as to not start a stampede up there. I’m not kidding!

Our property holdings are so extensive, we have been walking or boating right past these gold rich areas for the past 35 years and never even took a look!

Longtime member, Adam Myers and his dad, fabricated a rather ingenious sluice box on stilts that they set up right out in the middle of the Klamath River at Savage rapids. They are recovering some nice gold. Their history with us extends way back to the 1990’s. I remember they were working a commercial dredge on the Klamath just below Seattle Creek. That was after myself and half dozen other commercial miners recovered nearly a thousand ounces of gold. They still did well! And the truth is that most of that upper stretch of K-17 has yet to be mined. But I believe we will need suction dredges to get at it.

Dickey Melton showed me an image of a bunch of chunky gold nuggets that were recovered at the mouth of Indian Creek just in a single day. He said those were recovered by digging up out of the water.

Here is a pennyweight of beautiful nuggets that Scott Bagley recovered during just part of a single day!

Other members are actually swimming across to the far side of the Klamath River and recovering gold right out of the shallow water with masks, snorkels, fins and a gold pan. Others are using small boats and kayaks.

We have signed up a fair number of new members this season already.

It’s possible that the 3+ months of COVID lockdown is motivating people to get out in the great outdoors and experience some adventure. The near-record high value of gold may also have something to do with the increased interest. I added it up the other day, and a pennyweight of gold (20th of an ounce) at today’s price is worth $75 even when discounted to 75% of the spot price value. You can always get at least 75% of spot, or more, for the gold you find in the river.

I know one member who has recovered nearly an ounce of gold just prospecting part time during the month of July. Others are doing just as well. All of this without the use of any mechanized assistance!

Office Doors Now Open Between 9 AM and 4 PM, Mondays Through Fridays

To make life easier on everyone concerned, we will immediately begin opening the front door of our office and store between 9 AM and 4 PM, Mondays through Fridays.

There is a free Internet connection around our building for members. The girls in our office can provide details.

Our phone number is 530 493-2012. There is a voice mail system. We will return your calls.

In the case of an emergency, Our Director of Internal Affairs, Rich Krimm, can be reached at (510) 681-8066.

Annual Dues Are More Important These Days

We bill all Full Members $50 for annual dues in August.  September through the end of the year is when we must shoulder the load of substantial property tax and filing fees to the County and Bureau of Land Management. These are legal requirements which allow us to continue making a very substantial number of federal mining claims (60+ miles of gold-rich river and creek properties) available to our members.

In real terms, the true value of the gold along these extensive properties is probably more valuable than the net assets of any financial institution on the planet. Especially these days when the government is printing trillions upon trillions of Dollars out of thin air (as necessary as that might be under the circumstances). We should be calling our properties the “Klamath First National Bank.” Ours is the only bank in the world where you can go out and make a draw anytime you wish. There are no interest or bank fees to pay.  And you never have to pay the gold back!

This is as close as it comes to an opportunity to maintain some degree of personal freedom during these ever-more difficult and troubling times.  As far as I know, we are the only organization in the world that makes a very large bank of pure wealth freely available to our members.

Having said that, in case you have not heard, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined for a second time to review our legal complaints that leftist State governments (California, Oregon, Washington and others) are imposing very unreasonable regulations upon our industry. As long as you guys continue to stand with us, we will continue the fight for our basic freedoms.

There remains hope that America will wake up and realize that we need to produce value and wealth in excess of what we consume. Mr. Trump and his team appear to be leading the charge on this, though he is not getting as much support from congress and the mainstream press that he deserves. We all know that these are very troubled times for America. The whole world hangs in this balance. We are all going to have a better idea the way things are going to go once the November elections are settled.

I believe personal integrity and pursuit of the truth are the only road towards enlightenment. The guidance I receive on that level is that we should bite the bullet and stay the course for a while longer and see how these larger forces play out. I am willing to invest my personal resources to keep the program going as long as you guys, our members, are also willing to hang in there until we overcome what is destroying America, or it becomes clear that there is no longer any hope. My assessment of your support will be in what percentage of Full Members are willing to invest $50 a year to help keep our dream alive. The freedom for Americans to go out on the federal lands and invest their personal resources to keep all the gold you find is what settled the west!

This is not the first time I have made this commitment to you guys in August. We are still here thanks to you guys!

Kitco’s one year chart confirms that gold was in the mid $1,400’s just a year ago. Now it is trading just under $2,000. This is quite a jump considering the existing state of the economy! One day, our leaders may realize that it would be a good idea to allow us modern methods to recover it?

I am eternally grateful to those of you who stick it out alongside me and our loyal staff.

 

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

THIRD QUARTER, JUNE 2020                              VOLUME 34, NUMBER 3

Dave McCracken

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

Montine Blevins R.I.P.I am very saddened to announce that Montine Blevins has passed on from a long battle with Colon Cancer. She was originally diagnosed in 2015. But she stayed at her desk and on the New 49’er phone for more than three years afterwards, always insisting that she was most happy there.

Nearly everyone associated with our program knew and loved Montine. She was the most helpful person we ever had at the counter and over the phone. Montine would go out of her way to help anyone who needed it.

A healthy portion of Montine’s time was donated to our organization. Like so many other members along our long path, Montine just loved to be involved. She took charge of making sure everyone who arrived for our weekend mining projects was signed up, had a place to stay, and had gear they would need for the program.

She would cook all afternoon in preparation of our Saturday evening potlucks. I don’t think she ever missed a potluck, or any other event that was sponsored by The New 49’ers. In fact, I once got a little too much sun on a Saturday afternoon. When I did not arrive at the potluck, Montine immediately dispatched our Internal Affairs to make sure I was alright, and she took charge of the potluck!

I have owned and operated my own businesses since departing the navy in 1977. There have been many friends, supporters and employees along my path. With the help of many volunteers along my way, we were able to claw out a small-scale mining empire along the Klamath River and its tributaries in northern California.

I can tell you from a lifetime of experience that, other than very productive commercial mining which can happen on occasion, profit margins are very thin in the businesses associated with small-scale gold mining programs. There were times when lack of adequate cash flow required me to cede most of my responsibilities over to the staff, and put one of my dredges back to work in the river. I could always generate income from the river. But building something great for thousands of people to enjoy was worth more than money or gold!

With these things always on my mind (meeting this week’s payroll), every minute of every day was important to the bottom line. While we had some fun with mining and other adventure, and sometimes after hour relaxing times, there was never any time for goofing off during the normal work day. People who knew me well sometimes called me a slave monger. I don’t like to micro manage others. In my world, it was just a matter of making sure we could pay our bills. We never missed a payroll.

So there was no place for employees to be spending hours upon hours on the phone, just gabbing away. There was no time for it. It was like, “Please just answer the phone, get an address so we can send a promotional packet, and move onto the other things we need to finish today!”

Montine joined our staff in the year 2002.

During the 38 years since we began The New 49’ers, Montine was the only person ever on our staff who would win my smile every time I saw her just gabbing away on the phone – just like she had all the time in the world to visit with her mother or sister.  Of course, it was always with a member or someone calling for more information. Montine always made time for everyone who needed or wanted it.

Many evenings after everyone else went home, long after she punched out for the day, I could hear her laughing and locked into meaningful phone discussions out at her desk. She was calling back people who had left messages on our answering service. She was never in a hurry to leave the building. Then she would place orders to restock her shop. Then she would straighten up her work place and let herself quietly out of the building. She never needed any acknowledgment for all the extra things she did. She was happy to have found her calling in life.

Years ago, when there was a fracking boom back east, Montine’s husband, Rusty, landed a good job somewhere in a place where they could not find enough qualified workers. Before moving to Happy Camp, Montine devoted 18 years as a police despatcher. She was a heck of a good organizer and could have been with her husband and earned perhaps three or four times what we could pay. I asked her one day why she did not follow the oil rush? She stopped right in her tracks; turned around and looked me straight in the eye; and said, “Young man; life is about a lot more than money! This is my home! And this is where I am staying.”

As I remain locked down in the Philippines for about another month, I called Montine at a prearranged time a few weeks ago and we shared some caring moments on the phone. I admit that I am not very good at saying farewell to my closest friends. I get all squishy and usually say the wrong thing. Montine made it easy on me. My perception was that this wonderful person had made peace with her time on this earth, and was completely ready to move onto the next adventure, whatever that might be. Rusty told me she was in that same peaceful place all the way to her final breath.

Assuming she would lead the way to our next adventure ahead of me, I asked her to please watch for me. Because if there is another chapter after this one, I want Montine to be an important part of the story.

Pot Luck in Montine’s memory

Saturday June 27th @ 2:00 pm

Happy Camp River Park Pavilion

 

Office Doors Now Open Between 9 AM and 1 PM, Mondays Through Fridays

To make life easier on everyone concerned, we will immediately begin opening the front door of our office and store between 9 AM and 1 PM, Mondays through Fridays.

If you need to reach our office outside of these hours, we have administrative staff at work inside the building during normal workdays from 9 AM until 4 PM.

There is a free Internet connection around our building for members. The girls in our office can provide details.

Our phone number is 530 493-2012. There is a voice mail system. We will return your calls.

In the case of an emergency, Our Director of Internal Affairs, Rich Krimm, can be reached at (510) 681-8066.

Unless things change, I should be returning to the U.S. in mid-July.

Thank you very much for your kind support, and I hope to cross paths with you out on the river later this summer.

Dave McCracken, General Manager

 

 

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

FIRST QUARTER, JANUARY 2020                              VOLUME 34, NUMBER 1

Dave McCracken

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

 

When I made the statement in last month’s newsletter that we would be making another attempt at having our situation heard in the U.S. Supreme Court, I did not know it would happen so soon. Gold miners tend to be a hard-headed bunch of good natured people. We do not give up easily. Not giving up when times are difficult, aside from an occasional surprise, is the only way we ultimately find the rewarding gold deposits. Sometimes very rewarding!

For those of you that have been following along, you know that State agencies in Oregon and California have been attempting to eliminate small-scale gold mining on the federal lands all the way back since 1993 or before. Our industry, more or less, overcame these attempts over the many years until 2007 when California passed a law which put an end to suction dredging. Their reasons claimed to be for the protection of fish. Though, honestly, there is not a single documented instance where underwater mining, in accordance with reasonable regulations, has ever harmed a single fish. Not one! At the same time, both States sell fish-kill licenses to millions of fishermen. What?

Let me make it clear that we do not have a problem with fishing. Our problem is with State officials who just make up the rules as they go along, regardless of the factual situation. Not just State officials, but also a majority portion of our elected officials, and a fair portion of today’s judges – whose sworn duty actually is to protect us from overbearing and unreasonable State officials.

But most judges these days just act as a rubber stamp on the dictates of overbearing government, and deliberately turn America’s productive citizens into criminals. I have watched this play out in the courts for the past ten years as our industry has attempted to bring sanity back into the management of small-scale mining. We have raised and wasted over a million dollars in legal fees and attempts to lobby legislatures, only to have elected officials, State employees and judges ultimately turn their backs on the truth and take away our freedoms. I have been caught by complete surprise by the way America’s leaders have turned their backs on our founding principles!

We have fought two cases all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, only to have them rejected. This is not a slam on the high court. That body receives so many appeals, it only accepts around five percent. As important as our situation is, whoever advises the high court determined that other cases were more important to America as a whole. We pray this third attempt to reach the highest court in the land will succeed.

Our case is extremely important, because it strikes directly at the heart of socialism in America, where government officials have the power to ignore the truth and do as they please with impunity because they are acting on behalf of “the State.” No; I am not exaggerating!

If you have any doubts about whether socialism is a good idea for America, all you need to do is take an honest look at what the House of Representatives have put President Trump through during their impeachment proceeding. All or most of America’s historical and iron clad jurisprudence, and the concepts of honesty and fairness, were swept aside because the majority in the House wants to get rid of Mr. Trump at any cost, even if it means the end of honesty and fairness for themselves and all Americans forever: “Shut up! We are the State. We can do anything we want to. If you disagree, you are an enemy. If you object out loud, you are treasonous!” This is socialism. Is that really what we want to pass off on our kids and grandkids?

Like him or not, Donald Trump is the duly elected leader of the free world. Watching what the democrats have put him through over the past 3+ years is not only appalling; it is the realization that socialism has already, to a dangerous extent, taken over America’s leadership, its government institutions, educational institutions at all levels, nearly all of our mainstream press, and the thinking of maybe as much as half of America!

America is in an internal war; the battle between people who want to control everything we think and do, and those of us who want to live productive, honest lives and be left alone. We do not want to be ruled by others who have no idea how to produce wealth and safe neighborhoods.

The truth is that the socialists pretty much had America all wrapped up until Donald Trump was elected. Just one man! He was elected because half of America was feeling that the country’s direction was going down the wrong path. This is why our enemies hate him so much! One guy came along at just the right time; at the tipping point of no return from total government control over America, forever. They had it all tied up. Now we are watching their disappointment play out through the worst of socialism. I predict that the left will generate widespread violence when America turns back towards our founding principles. Hope for the best. Plan for the worst!

In any event, the big realization I have had in watching the impeachment process play out is that if the left in America can do that to the President of the United States, we as small-scale miners never had a reasonable chance of winning our industry back. Even now, our only chance of a long term fix will be through the U.S. Supreme Court. This is because, even if Mr. Trump or his team enact new administrative rules that free us to do motorized gold mining on the federal lands, America’s enemies (within) will file lawsuits in front of left-leaning judges and have us stopped again. We will need the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately vindicate our rights and freedoms.

The good news is that, because of Mr. Trump’s two appointments to the high court so far, the high court is no longer left-leaning. Our case is so straightforward, there is more than a reasonable chance we can win our industry back in full, if we can just get the court to review it. We can do that if we don’t give up. We just have to keep trying!

Our industry has just hired (this week) a prestigious law firm: They are called, “FISHERBROYALS.” They have a presence in ATLANTA • AUSTIN • BOSTON • CHARLOTTE • CHICAGO • CINCINNATI • CLEVELAND • COLUMBUS • DALLAS • DENVER • DETROIT • HOUSTON • LONDON • LOS ANGELES • MIAMI • NAPLES • NEW YORK • PALO ALTO • PHILADELPHIA • PRINCETON • SALT LAKE CITY • SEATTLE • and WASHINGTON, D.C. They will compose and submit an Amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of THOMAS A. KITCHAR, et al., Petitioners, v. OREGON DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY, et al. The Supreme Court allows “Friend of the Court” briefings to hear what other legal scholars have to say about the legalities in important cases.

Rather than go into the particulars of this case, I will link you to the Petition for Writ of Certiorari which our longstanding attorney wrote last month in conjunction with Pacific Legal Foundation. Mr. Buchal has been our steadfast, loyal advocate for the past 10 years. He was originally hired back in 2005 by mining associations in Oregon on this very case which is being directed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  That’s 15+ years in court to try and regain their livelihoods! Who can stay in a fight for that long? Only Americans that are determined to hold onto freedom!

Tom Kitchar did a wonderful job in putting together a Summary which outlines the history of this 15-year battle, and how difficult our enemies and the lower courts have made it for us to obtain justice. You can find Tom’s Summary right here.

The New 49’ers hired Mr. Buchal upon strong recommendations from the miners in Oregon when the State of California secretly conspired with environmentalists to eliminate our suction dredge regulations. That was more than ten years ago. He has been a brilliant and tough fighter on our behalf, but has unfortunately been up against a stacked deck. The lower courts in both Oregon and California, with perhaps a few exceptions, have been co-opted by the socialists.

Frankly, underwater and motorized mining have been forbidden in Oregon and California for so long, that many longtime supporters have either gotten too old, gave up or passed away. Some remain dedicated to the fight, but it has not been enough to keep up with legal costs. That’s what this Action Alert is about. Our industry needs a boost in our legal defense resources. More on how you can help down below.

Just to demonstrate how tight this is, any amicus brief (friend of the court) to the U.S. Supreme Court concerning our case must be filed by the 3rd of February!

We have already lost in the Oregon and California supreme courts. Fortunately, this Oregon case has been ongoing since before those decisions were made. Therefore, the original case remains alive.

Note that those who are named in the Petition are not allowed to support an Amicus brief. Mostly through tireless effort by Tom Kitchar of the Waldo Mining District in southern Oregon, initial support for the Amicus has been pledged by THE NEW 49ERS LEGAL FUND, PUBLIC LANDS FOR THE PEOPLE (PLP), WILLAMETTE VALLEY MINERS (WVM), TOM QUINTAL in Oregon, AMERICAN MINING RIGHTS ASSOCIATION (AMRA), BOHEMIA MINE OWNERS ASSOCIATION (BMOA), NORTHWEST MINERAL PROSPECTING CLUB (NWMPC), COUER D’ALENE MINING DISTRICT (CDAMD), GALICE MINING DISTRCIT (GMD), JOSEPHINE COUNTY in Oregon, and SISKIYOU COUNTY in California.

We have not yet raised enough money to fully pay for the services of FISHERBROYALS. There will also be more legal and political challenges as we, the Trump Team and all or most freedom-loving Americans attempt to free up productive activity for Americans again. I’m sure your financial contributions to any of the prospecting organizations listed above will be going to the right places. As to our Legal Fund, there is still time to buy tickets for our ongoing fund-raiser that will come to an end on February 14, just a few weeks from now (please see just below).

All I can do is give a deeply felt thank you to everyone who continues to support the cause for freedom!

The New 49’ers Legal Fund-raiser!

There will be 26 prizes in all:
Two Grand Prizes: 1/2-ounce American Gold Eagles
Four ¼-ounce American Gold Eagles
Ten 1/10th-ounce American Gold Eagles
Ten 1-ounce American Silver Eagles

Our office will automatically generate a ticket in your name for every $10 legal contribution we receive ($100 would generate 10 tickets).

This drawing will take place at 2 pm on Friday, 14 February 2020, at our headquarters in Happy Camp. You do not need to be a member of our organization to participate. You do not need to be present to win.  There is no limit to the size or frequency of your contributions, or to the number of prizes you can win.

Legal contributions can be arranged by calling (530) 493-2012, by mailing to The New 49’ers Legal Fund, P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, CA 96039, or online:



$10.00 each – Enter the number of tickets you wish to purchase into the quantity field then click “Update” before checking out. Your contribution to The New 49’er Legal Fund is tax-deductible.

The New 49’ers Legal Fund

2020 Schedule of Events 

There is a learning curve to successful gold prospecting. One of the most effective methods of progressing through the learning curve is to go on prospecting adventures with others who more experienced than you are.

Our 2-day Group Mining Projects are one of the primary benefits of New 49’er membership which set us apart from other mining associations.  All weekend events are free to Full & Associate Members. All participants share equally in the gold we recover.

Group projects are limited to a certain number of participants. Scheduling in advance is strongly advised to ensure a position on any specific weekend project: 530 493-2012  

2020 Schedule of Events: June 20 & 21; July 18 & 19; August 22 & 23. 

Planned Office Hours for the Time Being

The upcoming holidays will have our offices closed on December 23, 24 & 25 for Christmas, and January 1 for New Year’s Day.

Until further notice, we will continue opening the doors between 9 AM and 4 PM on weekdays.  The office will be closed on weekends, except for the morning hours during the Saturdays when we are sponsoring the coming season’s Weekend Group Projects.

Members are invited to sign in your whereabouts on our properties over the phone in case there is some reason we need to find you.

Our mining properties are freely available to all members in good standing 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, unless the Klamath National Forest is closed due to wildfires.

For any problems, our Internal Affairs is available over the phone: Richard Krimm is our Director of Internal Affairs, email or call (510) 681 8066 (also available after hours and on weekends). 

 

 

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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New 49'er Newsletter

FOURTH QUARTER, DECEMBER 2019                              VOLUME 33, NUMBER 7

Dave McCracken

 

Newsletter By Dave McCracken General Manager

 

We organize weekend group gold prospecting adventures during the summer months. All active members are encouraged to participate. There is no charge for active members. We appreciate it if you call ahead with your plans so we can plan in advance for how many people will attend.

The initial purpose of these projects is to provide hands-on learning experience under the guidance of multiple experienced members in hopes that it will improve your own ability to go out and find high-grade gold. This has been an important part of our successful operating basis for more than 30 years.

Opening image gold Nuggets on a scale

More recently, because the State of California has forbidden small-scale gold miners the use of motorized systems within 100 yards of a waterway, The New 49’ers, with our substantial resources, have the capability to increase gold recovery because we can fabricate specialized gear, we have intimate knowledge of where the gold is traveling in, and to the sides of the river, and because we are fortunate to have a dozen or so very experienced members who come out and help manage the program. Everyone who participates on Sunday receives an equal share of the gold that we recover.

This was the final weekend project of last season. About 70 members participated, including at least ten experienced helpers. We used my jet boat to ferry participants almost directly across from a primitive river access downstream from the very large parking and camping area on our very popular Wingate property.

Normally, myself with several helpers, verify in advance that the gold deposit we will work is going to produce well for the group project. Once we are sure about the area, a day or two before the project, we pull a larger group of members together and move all our gear to the site. If the area is somewhat difficult, or if it is on the far side of the river, we drop the gear off at an easier access point and use my boat to move the gear to the site. If the floating sluice is being moved, we can transfer everything to a new location in three boat loads.

The gold is plentiful all along the extensive Klamath River properties and side tributaries which we make available to our members. High-grade gold it is generally, but not always, more plentiful and easier to find if you can get across the river. This is, in part, because fewer people have prospected on the other side. There is also something mysterious about the nature of raw gold in that the best deposits usually are located in the places that are more difficult to reach.

This prompted us many years ago to buy a variety of different kinds of watercraft to help us move people and gear across the river; or sometimes, to places along the river that you cannot reach without a boat. Diane Helgesen captured Craig Colt and I hot-dogging it a bit on the river. This is extreme adventure at its best. Though we normally do not run around like this when we have project participants in the boat:

In addition to the increased access which the boat makes possible, adding some boat voyages along the river adds more substance to the outdoor adventure for everyone involved. We also use the boat to help disabled members gain easier access by picking them up and dropping them off at the closest developed river access where vehicles are able to reach the river. In this case, there is a semi-developed campground and river access about a quarter mile upriver from our project site.

Having fun Having fun
Exposed bedrock

This rich gold discovery turns out to be a massive area of exposed and shallow bedrock on the far side of the river.

Special mention should go to the dozen or so very dedicated helpers who contribute their valuable time to devote an occasional weekend helping less-experienced prospectors learn, and to help me make sure that the projects come out well on Sunday afternoon. This means minimizing any accidents (once in a while, someone will take a fall on the rocks), making sure participants are digging the best pay-dirt we have discovered at the site, and watching closely to make sure we are not feeding the recovery system too fast or losing gold in some other way.  We could not put on these weekend projects without our volunteer helpers.

We did not need to sample this site in advance of this particular project. This is because we were out on the same site with a group earlier in the season. Once again, Dr. Gold made the discovery by bringing down a bunch of beautiful gold nuggets that he was picking right off the bedrock. I wrote that story up in our August newsletter.

While expanding on Dr. Gold’s discovery, we realized that there appears to be a vast area of exposed bedrock which has gold lying all over it. Some areas have some shallow streambed on top of the bedrock which is also producing gold. The area is perfect for crevicing and non-motorized mining. Most importantly, we discovered on this project that it appears the historical miners decided to work the gold deposits on an upper plateau and throw their tailing cobbles down the hillside on top of virgin, shallow bedrock Virgin streambed” is stream bottom that has never been mined before. This is a very important development, because we seldom find virgin streambed up out of the water where the historical miners were able to reach. Check this out; you can see it for yourself:

sample

Some of the sample pans were looking like this or better!

We always begin these projects on Saturday morning in a classroom setting in Happy Camp where we can do introductions and start building the team spirit which will flourish as soon as we begin recovering gold out of the ground. Then I take until lunch to present a simple talk on how to follow an organized sample plan, step by step, into high-grade gold deposits.  Other than relying upon luck alone, the sample plan is a proven method of following the positive signs to discover the path that gold is following down the river and its banks, and what particular layer in the streambed contains the concentrations of gold. This information becomes more meaningful when we get out in the field and begin sampling.

Saturday afternoon is meant to be light duty. Mainly, we are trying to pinpoint the places where we will dig on Sunday. We also want to make sure everyone knows how to effectively manage a gold pan. Learning to pan for gold is the first important step in the learning curve. Said another way, if you cannot pan streambed material without losing gold, you cannot do a proper job of sampling. Sampling is the whole key to finding rich gold deposits.

We were getting some of our best samples by digging the gold right out of the bedrock
person digging close up of digging

There was already a member out there who had set up his own hand-sluice in the shallower water near the edge of the river. He showed us the gold he had recovered on the day before.  It looked really good! Here it is on video:

gold in pan

Gold one member recovered with his hand-sluice!

We don’t like to push it too hard on Saturday. This is because some people will not be used to this sort of physical activity during the hottest part of the day. But when you start uncovering gold in your pan, it’s a real challenge to not turn up the steam! Often, the ones who overdo it on Saturday don’t show up on early Sunday morning. Sunday is when we all pull together as a team to recover as much gold as we can in several hours of steady work. Everyone who is out there helping on Sunday is entitled to an equal share of the gold we recover.

Nearly every pan was producing a good showing of gold. There were only a few people on this project that needed some help with their panning. So we were only on the far side of the river for less than two hours. I was seeing some nice gold, including nuggets.

To get a head start on Sunday morning, my helpers and I carefully moved our floating sluice out into the river and set the water flow for optimum gold recovery. This is a larger sluice recovery system that we float right at the water’s surface. We can adjust how deep the front of the sluice dips into the moving water to set how fast our pay-dirt will be washed through the recovery system. Here was some of the action on video:

Fortunately, the boat landing was almost directly across the river from where we would be prospecting. Participants were following a primitive path to and from their cars.

I started bringing people back across the river at around 4 PM on Saturday afternoon. It took maybe ten trips to move about 70 people across the river. It all happens pretty fast because my helpers fit everyone into a life preserver before I return for the next load. There was plenty of time remaining for everyone to freshen up and pull something together for our Saturday evening potluck in Happy Camp.

Potluck was more than a full house of enthusiastic members. There was a large variety of food; plenty for everyone. I guess because I was so pleased during the previous potluck because someone brought a full plate of nicely-cooked beef, someone brought me a fat, juicy steak that was cooked rare, just the way I like it.  I ate the whole darn thing!

We try to keep these potlucks short so people can get plenty of rest and sleep to be ready for the real action that will take place on Sunday morning. We start early so we can finish the physical work before the heat of the day reaches the project site.

Cooking for potluck Senior Citizens Hall

I arrived down at the landing at 6 AM exactly on Sunday morning. This turned out to be a mistake; something I don’t remember that we ever encountered before. Because we were in the later part of August, it was still nearly pitch dark out on the river. I have been driving boats on the Klamath River for so long, I can do it in the dark! But that’s when there is enough water in the river to float the boat.

Sometimes late in the summer, the authorities fluctuate the amount of water discharging from the first dam upriver. These important changes either increase or decrease the speed and depth of the river.  Out there in the dark, I did not see that the river had dropped by four or five inches overnight.

Oh Oh!

I didn’t realize the danger until we encountered the first of several aggressive sets of rapids. Late in the summer when the water in the river is low, there often is just one way through the shallow rapids. My challenge is to speed through the deeper water that lies between the shallow bar (all rocks) on the road side of the river and the truly dangerous fast water that is flowing over and around huge boulders on the far side. The margin for error is very close. Going downstream, I doubt that the boat will survive getting caught up in the boulders on the far side.

It is pretty easy for me to power the boat down the safe path when I can see where it is.

It was impossible to determine the safe path through the rapids because the river had dropped and changed all the flow dynamics. In the dark, the river was taking us downstream too fast to figure out the safest path. I knew we were in trouble. There is no changing your mind once a powerful river is washing you down through angry water. You just have to make the best of it – which means being prepared to abandon ship if the boat gets flipped over.

I will trade a few more dents on the bottom of my boat any day rather than take a chance on sinking it with a full boat of disabled passengers! I think my passengers believed that this was just a normal part of the adventure – until we started bouncing over rocks…

With five disabled people in the boat, since I could not see the slightly deeper slot out in the middle, I decided it was better to err on the shallow side of the river where the rocks are smaller.

Boom! Slam! Smash!

I cut the corner too close; and the boat was slamming over the rocks as we were swept downriver by the extremely fast, shallow water. Even though we were bumping rocks in the shallow water, I used the powerful motor to keep the boat pointed down river and away from the dragon tooth boulders that were looking to eat us for breakfast. Luckily, we made it through without doing any serious damage to the boat. By “serious,” I mean the engine will not run, or the boat is sinking. Serious damage would put an end to the Sunday program on the far side of the river. Fortunately, none of my passengers were hurt, though they were shaken up a bit. So was I!

Work partyWe rounded the next bend to find the entire landing site crowded with people out there standing in the dark. Talking about dedication; everyone showed up early! The landing site was not in direct view of where the boat stumbled over the rocks. So they did not see our rocky ride. But they heard the noise of our collisions from about a quarter mile away. They said it was quite loud and sounded like we met our end. But that was not enough to keep the first bunch from putting their life preservers on and being ready to board the boat!

Thirty minutes later, we had the entire crew over on the other side of the river. Our project helpers organized everyone into teams, working several different locations that produced nice gold nuggets on Saturday afternoon. Some people were digging. Others were carrying half-filled buckets down to a large classification screen which is designed to split the pay-dirt into two sizes: (1) the material passing through a quarter-inch mesh screen, and (2) the larger sized material. Everyone was busy. Enthusiasm was everywhere. That’s saying a lot for first light on a Sunday morning! It was a cold August morning out there!

View of screenAs the pay-dirt was run over the screen, others were filling buckets with the screened material. That’s the normal material that we feed into our recovery system. We usually don’t do anything with the oversized material that does not pass through the screen. But in the previous project we did in this location, we recovered dozens of nuggets – some which appeared too large to pass through a quarter-inch screen. We are not accustomed to digging in places which have so many gold nuggets.

When we were doing that earlier final clean-up, it occurred to me we should be panning the oversized material. So we started doing that on this project. One helper recovered four nice gold nuggets in just the first two buckets of oversize that he panned! Diane captured some video of my explanation and demonstration about the importance of processing larger-sized material when you are digging in a gold deposit that is producing nuggets. As long as things are going smooth, we do joke around a little bit to keep the mood upbeat and fun:

Another problem we have been struggling with as these projects are becoming more popular is that the participants can dig more pay-dirt than our recovery system can process. I’ll bet we left 25% of the pay-dirt we dug just sitting there on the bank during the previous project. Some participants were so jacked up to process the pay-dirt we left behind that they skipped the gold split altogether and swam over there with their gold pans!

Separating  Separating closeup

We reduced the volume of pay-dirt by allowing the river’s flow to wash away most of the lighter fine particles.

This time, we tried something different. The dry, screened material was put into buckets which were submerged in shallow water. Swirling the material around caused the lightest material in the bucket to wash out. Gold is far too heavy to wash out of a bucket in this way. This method reduced the ultimate volume of pay-dirt to less than half. In this way, we were able to process all the heavier pay-dirt that we dug. Here we caught this on video:

Diane

Diane Helgesen

Diane Helgesen is one of our most loyal and supportive members. She never misses a New 49’er event. She is designated as the “Gold Girl” during these projects. The Gold Girl keeps a plastic bucket with locking lid. Every time someone comes up with a nugget, or a handful of nuggets, or a good gold pan, Diane is right there on Sunday making sure all the gold ends up in the bucket. She also takes over the camera when I am going to give an explanation or demonstration.  We have a lot of fun with the camera. Some of our fun usually is not appropriate for these newsletters. If you believe I went too far this time, drop me an email and let me know.

During the summer months, there is usually a steady stream of rafters floating down the river. These days, they are all mostly friendly. It didn’t always used to be like that. When we first began on the Klamath River in 1984, we were pretty-much the first modern day gold miners along the river. We were newcomers to long-established rafting companies who were not accustomed to sharing their river experience with us. But that was so long ago, we have now been on the river longer than most of today’s rafters. If we have gold to show, we always invite them over to have a look. Most of the rafting guides these days appreciate that our gold mining activity creates more interesting things for their customers to see. Here is some of that on video:

In fact, just in the last two years, I have noticed that there appears to be some kind of Renaissance happening that is lightening up the mood of our members, and even the people outside of our association. I say this because I have devoted nearly my entire adult life to helping others find gold – which is a very emotional activity. Especially when someone is not finding any! Diane captured the following video as I summarized what was happening further up the hillside and then got off on a sidetrack about how much more friendly people seem to be getting. We decided to not edit out my joking around to demonstrate that I have a lighter side even though it is not always visible:

Craig Colt is a longtime loyal friend and helper who is perhaps the best prospector I know (except for Dr. Gold).  He was up the hillside near where the handfuls of nuggets were recovered on the previous project. And sure enough, several guys who were following Craig’s direction were recovering nuggets off the bedrock one right after the other. I snapped off one image of a bunch of nuggets in one person’s hand!

Craig led a team to the pay-dirt where one guy was recovering nuggets that could be picked off the bedrock!

Hand full of nuggets Craig having fun

We have been doing these group projects every season since 1987, so we have the program dialed in pretty well. Though we continue to learn more each time we do it. As overall project leader, I am down to two nagging worries that are not entirely under my control. The first is the possibility of someone getting hurt out there.  We are walking around on uneven ground with loose rocks. There have been some falls over the years; none worse than the falls I have taken. Still, the possibility of someone slamming his or her head into the rocks is an ever-present concern. We insist that all participants wear shoes or sneakers to try and avoid as much of this as possible.

With more than 70 miles of gold properties available to our members, there are no shortage of places where we can find plenty of gold.

My second worry is that we will not recover enough gold to split amongst all the participants. This happened several times during our early years when we were not as familiar with our mining properties. These days, we have year-around members present that do nothing but prospect on our properties. In turn, they whisper to me about the hot spots they have found that can be worked on these projects.

While individual prospectors only need a small pull-off on the side of the road to park their car, and can dangle a rope to get up and down a steep embankment; these projects require lots of parking area, a rather easy trail down to the river, a toilet that is not far away; and using the boat if necessary to get back and forth to a river access where we can launch gear and recover it later.

Numerous members have made good discoveries along our Wingate property. With only one or two exceptions, our members have access to the entire Klamath River from below Wingate to well above Happy Camp. This is about 15 miles. That’s 30 miles if you count both sides of the river, just in this single stretch! The area is so vast, just this one stretch will not be adequately prospected during our lifetimes. There is a perfect landing site for the boat, lots of camping and parking, and plenty of room for participants to process pay-dirt.

Work site Here is some video we captured of how participants were doing out there on an early Sunday morning:

When I saw the nuggets being recovered, and the gold in the sample pans, my worries about not finding enough gold were nothing to be concerned about on this day. Here is what we were recovering from the average bucket of screened material:

This was the average amount of gold we were recovering out of a bucket a screened pay-dirt!

Once I was certain the program was completely under control, I took the boat back upstream to make certain I was going to be able to get through the rapids that surely added a few dents on the bottom of my boat that morning. Besides the darkness, we were also going through a period where the river level was dropping. There comes a point where it is too shallow to drive the boat through. Before driving several disabled members through that danger zone, I wanted to be sure we could make it with minimal risk. In the daylight, it was no problem to drive the boat through there. Whew!

Still, when it was time to go, I noticed there were two missing from the group of disabled persons. They likely decided their chances of staying alive were better by getting some help climbing the path to where the cars were parked. I can’t say that I blame them! But I will say that it turned out to be a piece of cake to drive the boat up to the developed river access.

On this note; because the river is shallow, I must go up through a set of rapids at full power. This keeps the boat shallower in the river. Here; Diane positioned herself on the side of the river and captured us as we flew by:

Boat in fast water

If I can make the time, I also like to step up the adventures for some of our younger members by allowing them (closely supervised) to drive the jet boat up and down through a set of rapids. Here we caught some of the fun on video:

We called it quits at around noon. By this, I mean it was time to stop digging for the project so we could finish processing all the pay-dirt. Holes needed to be filled in, and tools all placed in a single location so I could boat them up to the landing once all the members were transferred across the river. We made plans to meet at our facility in Happy Camp later in the afternoon to do the final clean-up.

Adventure for all ages Landing boat

Something important to know about operating motor boats on a river is that the motor must be kept out in the deeper water. Therefore, when launching, you have to push the boat backwards out into the river so the motor does not get caught up in rocks, sand or gravel closer to the edge of the river. Otherwise, the river’s current will push the back of the boat into shallow water and the jet boat will suck in rocks or vegetation and cause the motor to stall. It is not good when this happens, especially when just up river from shallow rapids! Here is some video showing us recover from one of these very situations:

After all the pay-dirt had been processed, we pulled our floating sluice up into a calm, shallow area, disassembled the recovery system, and washed our final product into a large tub. There was a lot of gold visible in the sluice box. Cool!

This image is of our concentrates as we cleaned them out of the recovery system. If you look close, you can see the gold.

These gold recovery systems are designed to trap the heaviest material that is washed through them. Gold is the heaviest stuff out there, it being about 19 times heavier than water. Iron is around eight times heavier than water, but it is much heavier than the average material found in most streambeds. The weight of average material differs from one location to the next; but on the Klamath, average gravel weight is around four times heavier than water.  So a typical recovery system will recover all or most of the gold, along with a bunch of iron sand – called “black sand.”

We could see a lot of gold in the recovery system. The entire contents went into the Gold Girl’s bucket and Diane asked me to put it safely away in the boat. I took careful control of the gold bucket through the remainder of the day.

We all met at our facility later in the afternoon to do the final clean-up and gold split. We do this in the shade of a tree that adjoins our picnic area. By “final clean-up,” I mean separating all of the gold from all of the black sand and other impurities. Over the many years, we have developed a process to accomplish this without the use of any chemicals.

This is accomplished by classifying the concentrates into several specific sizes and passing each size over ever-slower, more refined recovery systems. We begin by screening the concentrates through an 8-mesh screen. This is usually done out on the river after we have removed the concentrates from the recovery system.  Gold nuggets are picked off the screen and put inside our gold bucket. These gold nuggets a are cause for a lot of excitement!

When we meet later in the day, the first thing we do is classify our concentrates through a 10-mesh screen (close to window screen). The material which stays on top of the screen is spread out in a gold pan and the nuggets are picked out with tweezers. This is fun, because the pieces of gold are also rather large and exciting.

Feeding LeTrap Concentrates in Le Trap

The material that passes through the 10-screen is slowly fed through a Le Trap gold sluice. This is a very well-engineered plastic sluice box which provides nearly perfect gold recovery while reducing the volume of concentrates to about a handful. Craig Colt, then pans the tailings from the Le Trap so all the participants can see how effective the recovery system is. If we find one or two flecks of gold, they are added to our remaining batch of concentrates.

Gold in Le Trap Group watching

After a while, my assistant, John Rose and helpers came out with all the nuggets we recovered in a small, metal finishing pan. It was a lot of nuggets! All of the participants were excited about that!  Participant excitement is like the sound of beautiful music in my world!

 Pan full of gold nuggetsThe remaining concentrates are then washed over a smaller, more refined recovery system called a “Gold Extractor.” This is a small sluice with very low profile riffles. If not fed too fast, the Gold Extractor will reduce the volume of concentrates down to about the volume of a tablespoon or two – with zero loss of gold. Craig also pans the tailings from the Gold Extractor to demonstrate to the group how effective this recovery system is. Craig did not find a single speck of gold in the tailings. The following video captured most important parts of the final clean-up:

We transfer the final concentrates into the small, steel finishing pan with the nuggets, and then I dry the final concentrates over a butane stove. Note that anytime gold is heated up, the process should be done outside in a well ventilated area. We are only heating the concentrates enough to dry them out.

Then the dry concentrates are passed through several different mesh-size screens. Each size is placed on clean sheets of paper inside on a secure table (no chance of it falling down or getting knocked over), away from the wind, dogs, and especially kids that are horsing around. This includes grown up kids!  I’m serious about having tight control over the final clean-up steps; because this is the time when some participants really start getting wound up. Sometimes we all get wound up!

We use a magnet to remove perhaps half the remaining concentrates (magnetic iron sand). Then, light blowing over each size easily separates the gold from the remaining impurities. We invite participants to join in this final process.

All of this part is done in the shop-portion of our facility with the large outside doors open so people can come and go as they please. There was a lot of excited chatter as most people gathered around to watch us turn the remaining concentrates into raw gold.

I was really hoping we were going to meet our goal of recovering more than an ounce of gold. But as the blowing process was finishing up, I could see we were not going to make it.  It is easy to be fooled into predicting a higher end result when the black sand is adding to the volume.

Final goldIn the end, to my surprise, we recovered a little less than 3/4 of an ounce. It should have been more. The reason I say this is that I watch all or most of the sampling that happens on Sunday morning. We take occasional samples out of the buckets being directed to the floating sluice. We take samples of the raw material people are putting into buckets up on the hillside. The sample results on this project were as good as I can remember. Plus, there were the nuggets.

We are very careful to capture all the gold and keep it secured in our gold bucket – which remains under very tight control throughout the project.

So are we just over-estimating how much gold we are recovering because we are getting more larger-sized flakes and nuggets? Or are we losing gold in some part of our process? The only place this could have happened in our process is when we were removing fine material from our buckets out in the river or when we washed the pay-dirt over our floating sluice.

As I ponder over this, it occurs to me it is very possible that we fed the sluice too fast. We removed most of the fine sand before processing the pay-dirt. Therefore, the material would have been quite a bit heavier than normal. In some cases, so much fine sand was removed that the pay-dirt was reduced by about 80%. As I think back on it, the final pay-dirt was mostly black-colored like a set of concentrates. We could see gold in with the dark sand.

If you feed a sluice too fast, especially with heavy material, you can overload the riffles to the point where there is no recovery system at all, and the pay-dirt will wash right through into tailings, gold and all.

For example, we could never feed the floating sluice as fast as we do with concentrates out of a recovery system. The riffles in the sluice would become overwhelmed with black sand almost immediately. Perhaps this new method of removing lighter material from our pay-dirt will require us to slow down how fast we are feeding the floating sluice. We will need to be more mindful of this in the coming season.

In the end, there were enough nuggets that everyone ended up with at least one. Some got two. In addition, everyone received a portion of the remaining gold. The shares looked good. Everyone expressed gratitude to me and my helpers. I think most people were happy that the weekend project was finally over. Most people, including me, are not used to the physical activity required in gold mining.  Bur if the State would allow us to suction dredge again, I would be back in shape in a matter of weeks!

Recovering gold is very satisfying. But there are other benefits to going out with us on these weekend prospecting adventures. Happy Camp and the Klamath River provide some of the most spectacular Pacific Northwest scenery and wildlife that you will find anywhere.  Something about the golden adventure pulls participants together in friendships that will last a lifetime. I caught some of the feelings that members take away with them in the following videos:

But the day was not yet over. Since this was our final weekend project of the season, we pulled all of our gear and the boat off the river after we ferried all the participants across. All that gear had been backed to the rear door of our facility. We were asking for help packing it up the stairs where we have safe, dry storage.  There were so many helpers, most people did not need to pack gear upstairs more than once.

Then, with lots of thankyou’s and hugs, everyone went away and left me to enjoy a quiet Sunday evening. This was another very productive mining season for me, and I was thanking my lucky stars for the way I make my living. I consider myself to be very lucky! 

2020 Schedule of Events 

There is a learning curve to successful gold prospecting. One of the most effective methods of progressing through the learning curve is to go on prospecting adventures with others who more experienced than you are.

Our 2-day Group Mining Projects are one of the primary benefits of New 49’er membership which set us apart from other mining associations.  All weekend events are free to Full & Associate Members. All participants share equally in the gold we recover.

Group projects are limited to a certain number of participants. Scheduling in advance is strongly advised to ensure a position on any specific weekend project: 530 493-2012  

2020 Schedule of Events: June 20 & 21; July 18 & 19; August 22 & 23. 

Planned Office Hours for the Time Being

The upcoming holidays will have our offices closed on December 23, 24 & 25 for Christmas, and January 1 for New Year’s Day.

Until further notice, we will continue opening the doors between 9 AM and 4 PM on weekdays.  The office will be closed on weekends, except for the morning hours during the Saturdays when we are sponsoring the coming season’s Weekend Group Projects.

Members are invited to sign in your whereabouts on our properties over the phone in case there is some reason we need to find you.

Our mining properties are freely available to all members in good standing 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, unless the Klamath National Forest is closed due to wildfires.

For any problems, our Internal Affairs is available over the phone: Richard Krimm is our Director of Internal Affairs, email or call (510) 681 8066 (also available after hours and on weekends).  

Industry Legal Situation 

As many of you know, we have been fighting for more than ten years to overturn the California and Oregon moratoriums on suction dredging. We struggled all the way up through the California Supreme Court – and lost there by a unanimous decision – even when all of the existing law is on our side. Sadly, a substantial portion of America’s judicial system favors the progressive agenda (socialism).

We have struggled to petition the U.S. Supreme Court twice to settle mining right differences on the federal lands between the federal and State governments. The problem is that the Supreme Court only agrees to take up around 5% of the cases requesting a final Decision. In today’s troubled politics, the Court chose other cases which it deemed more important to all of America.

Therefore, until the laws or regulations are changed to our favor, we are not allowed to use any mechanized system to extract or process minerals within 100 yards of any waterway in California and most of Oregon.

We will have another opportunity to obtain a hearing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is just a matter of when.  Think of it: The bottom of (many) California and Oregon waterways are loaded with gold. Gold is raw wealth. It is the world’s most important and longstanding financial currency. The gold is there for the taking.

We proved in every study (many) over 40 years that when suction dredging is done according to reasonable regulations, we have never harmed a single fish. But those who have the power to regulate us at the State level do not care. They just want to put an end to us. Truth and justice have nothing to do with it.

For a while, I had strong hopes that the Trump Administration would adopt federal rules which would shield us from the anti-mining interests that are controlling State governments. But “the swamp” may have turned out to be more prevalent and invasive than even Mr. Trump anticipated – and they have, to a large degree, kept him bogged down and distracted by baseless (but serious) accusations during his first three years in office.

At the moment, it is looking hopeful that Mr. Trump and his team could turn the tide on the swamp creatures who have been attacking him. Their addenda is to turn America into a socialist country. We can forget prospecting for gold and most of the other personal freedoms that made America great if the democrats succeed in winning the presidency in the upcoming election. If Mr. Trump holds office for another term, I predict there is a reasonable chance that we will see mining reforms which will limit State authority over federal mining projects (prospecting and mining on the federal lands).

I personally thank all members who have been supporting us with dues payments. The New 49’ers Prospecting Association is doing just fine.

But Legal Fund contributions have dropped off dramatically this past year. We need to encourage more participation if we want to maintain the non-profit status of The New 49’ers Legal Fund. This is important, because the non-profit is basically the only way to raise money for legal matters. Trying to do this through a for profit private company will get us in bigger trouble than we are trying to resolve in the first place!

In case you did not see this, the winners of our October 18 legal drawing are as follows:

Ten 1-Ounce American Silver Eagles: Carol Hatley, Scott McGrosso, Robert Maytum, Bill Jarrell, William White, Stephen Keenan, Brent Harshbarger, Patrick O’Brien, Phillip F. Myska and Robert Rackley.

Ten 1/10th-Ounce American Gold Eagles:  Phillip F. Myska, Matt Cottrell, Robert Maytum, Larry Sharpe, William White, Richard Culley, Patrick Matheny, Paul Fender, Walt Morrison and Tom Chambers.

Four 1/4th – Ounce American Gold Eagles:  Lenny Rock, David Barna, Joseph Sawyer and Phil Robinson

The Grand Prize: 1-Ounce American Gold Eagle:  Christopher Newman

If your name is on the list above and you have not heard from our office, please give our girls a call: 530 493-2012.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this legal drawing!

The problem is that we are only attracting enough contributions to equal the value of the prizes.

Here is my sincere request for you to continue supporting our political and legal efforts at least until we see what the national political landscape is after the elections this November. I am talking about only three more legal fund-raisers: 14 February and 19 June and 16 October, 2020.

All of America will be substantially affected by the results of the coming election. 

Thank you for sticking with us by helping as you are able! 

Note: This is not about The New 49’er Mining Association which has thousands of members and makes more than 70 miles of gold-bearing mining properties available to our members.  This is about the non-profit fund-raising apparatus that is fighting for reasonable regulations that will allow us the use of mechanized gear and suction dredges so we can regain access to the richest gold deposits – which are mostly at the bottom of existing waterways.

 The New 49’ers Legal Fund-raiser!

There will be 26 prizes in all:
Two Grand Prizes: 1/2-ounce American Gold Eagles
Four ¼-ounce American Gold Eagles
Ten 1/10th-ounce American Gold Eagles
Ten 1-ounce American Silver Eagles

Our office will automatically generate a ticket in your name for every $10 legal contribution we receive ($100 would generate 10 tickets).

This drawing will take place at 2 pm on Friday, 14 February 2020, at our headquarters in Happy Camp. You do not need to be a member of our organization to participate. You do not need to be present to win.  There is no limit to the size or frequency of your contributions, or to the number of prizes you can win.

Legal contributions can be arranged by calling (530) 493-2012, by mailing to The New 49’ers Legal Fund, P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, CA 96039, or online:


  $10.00 each – Enter the number of tickets you wish to purchase into the quantity field then click “Update” before checking out. Our office will automatically generate a ticket in your name for every $10 legal contribution we receive There is no limit to the size or frequency of your contributions, or to the number of prizes you can win. Your contribution to The New 49’er Legal Fund is tax-deductible.

The New 49’ers Legal Fund,

Happy Holidays to all you guys out there!

Dave McCracken

President, The New 49’ers, Inc.

 

 

New 49’er Gold Prospecting Association
27 Davis Road P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012
www.goldgold.com

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