| David and his wife
Ren came to the Yukon in the 90's. David had been mining in New Zealand
where the land is not as rich as in the Klondike. As a consequence the
technology developed in New Zealand was more efficient at exctracting
gold. He brought this machinery over to Dawson which helped him get the
most from his mine on the Indian River, which runs parallel to the Klondike.
I asked him what had attracted him to mining.
'When I was young, the family
would go for trips and my Dad would take a shovel and pan. We would
check the rivers for bits of minerals and gold. I used to love doing
this, I still do it even now and have panned in Wales and Scotland.
I went to university because all my friends were going. I didn't really
know what to do but thought geology might be quite useful. When I had
my degree I went into mining and it helped having an understanding of
rocks. Its funny though because I have seen a painting of my German
great great grandfather on my mother's side and he is holding a geologists
hammer. He would have probably been an amateur geologist but for him
to have a painting done this way means it must have been really important
to him.'
Why did you come to the Klondike or
how did you hear about it?
'The mine in New Zealand was
becoming less and less economic to run. I had been to mines in Australia
but it was way too hot there. Working in 50°C was not fun. I had
a contact out here in Dawson who had a claim and didn't know anything
about mining and I had been out here a few times to check it out. So
the deal was going to be that I worked his claim. It was a bit of a
sham though. It turned out he did not own the claim but somebody else
did and m y contact wanted to be a miner but that wasn't going to happen.
I found a claim that was unstaked on Indian River which seemed to have
good prospects and I shipped over all my equipment from New Zealand
and started work.'
What were the major differences you
noticed between living and working in New Zealand and the Klondike?
'Vegemite ha ha! It seemed to
be much more consumer orientated here than in New Zealand aswell. The
main difference was in the way mining was carried out. There was a real
range of different mining operations from large scale companies to small
scale one man operations but the technology was really inefficient.
Having basic technology was fine initially when people had first extracted
from the area and taken the gold that was easy to get to and closer
to the surface in large quantities. Technology had changed over the
years with dredges which had initially been developed in New Zealand
for the poorer land. Some miners were still using bull dozers to strip
the land and then sluice boxes to wash out the gold and so there wasn't
as much being extracted as could have been. We used a screening plant
which consists of a rotating drum with screens in it to catch the gold
at its finest. It is an expensive bit of equipment but the cost of bringing
this to Dawson soon paid for itself and the recovery costs were much
better for the kind of land we were working.
There was also a major difference
in the reclamation work required to be completed by miners. Initially
there were few regulations concerning water and land disturbance. Coming
here was very different from New Zealand where there were many regulations
in place. Now though miners and companies have to post a big bond to
work the land which is returned once the land has been restored. There
is also regulations on how much dirty water can be returned to the creeks
after it has been used for mining.'
Read
interviews with
Mr Smith UK Ann Ledwidge Canada |
