Nome Gold Mines, Alaska

Nome is an historic gold mining town on the western edge of Alaska, notable especially due to its remote location on the extreme northwest edge of the North American continent. The area inland from town is churned up by historic dredging operations. Current gold mining activities are relatively minimal. In the 1990's, the Alaska Gold company operated an open pit and surface gold mine with about 100 employees, a mine that had been active since 1924 (the gold rush began in Nome around 1900). The ground is perpetually frozen at the mining site, so the modern mining practice at this mine was to pump water through the ground in a network of pipes to thaw it before the big bucket dredges scooped it up. Alaska Gold largely abandoned this dredging process in 1993, though some gravel is still mined from the open pit (the excavation of which takes place in the winter, when the ground is frozen, as the mud conditions are too severe in the warmer months). In 2012, Alaska Gold became a subsidiary of Bering Straits Native Corporation.