Continuation of Juneau Visit

 

This is Jimmy our tour guide to gold panning in Juneau. He was a hoot.

Surprisingly we were the only two on this excursion so Jimmy gave us the royal treatment. 

He first took us on a tour of some of the city. We got to see the Capital Buildings and he told us about how the marble columns got to Juneau. Then it was on to the Governors mansion. Wow what a large building. 

We were then off to the gold panning area. At first he wanted us to try to find gold in this river/stream.

It was pretty muddy on the slope to get down, so taking pity on me had us work the troughs instead. 

He filled our pans with sand and showed us how to clear off the debris and reach the sands that contained the gold and gold dust. Then how to get rid of the sand and keep the gold in the pan. 

I mostly found small flakes of gold, but Harvey found a very small gold nugget. We got to keep all that we found, and managed to do many washings before it was time to leave.

We got back into the tour bus and Jimmy decided he would take us to his bosses Salmon Bake..... Not a part of the tour we signed up for. 

We traveled to the outskirts of Juneau and learned that his boss salted the areas with gold so that people could find something to remember their gold panning. 

At the Salmon Bake we had an adult beverage, some salmon, salad, and veggies. Then we walked around the area. It was right near an old abandoned underground gold mine.

There was also a lovely waterfall and stream on the property.

The stream was not quite as lovely as there were many salmon that had finished spawning and were dead or very close to being dead.

Then it was back to the ship with full bellies and the pure joy of having met Jimmy. He was a hoot.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.