Independence or Bust

Now that it’s been cold and snowy for a while, and we’re in the midst of the darkest part of the year, I’ve gotten a bit nostalgic for sunshine and short sleeves.  But describing a trip that Jay and I took in late August to the Independence Gold Mine can definitely put me in a summer frame of mind.

The same day Jay, one of my friends from work (who had also just moved up to Alaska to work at the university), and I went to the Alaska State Fair, we stopped off at Independence Gold Mine, located in Hatcher Pass.  The pass is about 20 minutes past the state fairgrounds in Palmer, so it’s about an hour north of Anchorage, give or take.  We couldn’t have picked a more gorgeous day for the trip.  The sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the deep blue sky, and the temperature was warm enough to warrant short sleeves and lounging in the sunshine.

The gold mine is perched near the top of Hatcher Pass, and from there, visitors are greeted with a stunning vista of mountains, glacial streams, and valleys.  The pass is definitely one of the prettiest places we’ve been so far, and it offers wild berry picking, hiking trails, and even a trail to Mint Glacier (which we’ll hike in the future).

View from Hatcher Pass

Though there were a good number of people at the mine and the surrounding mountainside, I think Jay and I saw more wildlife there than any other place so far.  As we walked from our car up the trails to the mine, we saw a prairie dog.  He sat up and chirped at us – what a cute little guy!

Prairie Dog - they chirp like birds. This one was about 3 feet from us, on a little hillside next to the trail

And as we were leaving the mine to go back to the car, we saw a hoary marmot.  Having never seen a hoary marmot before, all three of us were a little puzzled by the furry animal we saw, especially since we didn’t get a great look at it.  There was a flash of fur, and something big and pudgy scurried under some old wood into a burrow.  I peered into the hole and saw a groundhog-like animal staring back at me.  He was fat, but kind of cute.  We figured out what he was by the signs posted for tourists with pictures of the local wildlife on it.  Hoary mormots look like a cross between a groundhog, beaver, and squirrel (at least I think so).  They’re a little bigger than groundhogs, but just as roly-poly.  They’re light tan in the front, darker brown in the back, and they have long beaver-like tail, only the tail is furry.  They also have a little white patch on their noses, and badger-like claws.  Funny-looking but still kind of cute.  And for such a pudgy animal, they sure can move fast.

Hoary Marmot - not the one we saw. This picture comes from the Nature Works website (http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/hoarymarmot.htm).

As for the mine itself, it’s basically a functional ruin.  The mine was built in the early 1900s during the Alaska gold rush, and it reached its peak in about 1940-41.  The mine consisted of several buildings, including a “boom town,” school, mess hall, gold processing buildings, etc.  And of course, there were mine shafts and sluice boxes.  When the U.S. entered World War II in 1942, the federal government deemed gold mining a non-essential activity and shut down most of the gold mines in the country so that their manpower and energies could be directed toward the war effort.  Independence, however, continued to operate because there was a substance called sheelite in the quartz in which the gold veins were found.  Sheelite can be used to make tungsten, which was an essential wartime material.  Unfortunately, the mine couldn’t produce enough sheelite to make it worth keeping open, and the government closed the mine in 1943.  After the war ended, the mine tried to reopen, but market conditions in the U.S. had changed, making gold mining unprofitable (imagine that!).  The mine eventually closed permanently in 1951.

What’s left of the mine is mostly tumble-down wooden ruins and a few ramshackle buildings that aren’t safe to enter.  There is one building that’s maintained enough for tourists to enter, and you can also go up the hill to see the entrance to a shaft, as well as a mining car on tracks.  It’s incredible how fast things decay – you’d think the mine closed over 150 years ago, when it was only about 60.  It’s an interesting place, though, and the view from the mine across the valley alone is worth the trip.  When the weather gets warmer, it would be great to go back there to do some hiking.  The trails are supposed to be great, and the Mint Glacier hike sounds really cool.  I’m already dreaming of the sunshine on the mountaintops…

Please enjoy the slideshow of some of the photos we took.

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