Kenai Fjords A Stern and Rock-Bound Coast: Historic Resource Study

Nuka Bay Mining Sites: West Arm and Yalik Bay

Lang-Skinner Prospect

The Lang-Skinner Prospect is located on the west side of Nuka Bay's West Arm. The property is 1-1/2 miles due west of the southern end of Beautiful Island and just north of the mouth of a small stream that flows northeasterly into Nuka Bay. The site is relatively inaccessible; in the immediate vicinity, according to a 1931 report, "the shores are rocky and there is no beach suitable for landing a boat." [173]

Frank Lang located the site before Territorial Engineer Harry H. Townsend visited the area in the summer of 1924, but the only development to that point had been one or more open cuts on a single quartz vein that outcropped onto the beach. During the following year, Lang located a second vein, 14 feet above the beach, and drove 10-foot tunnels into both the upper and lower veins. Engineer J. G. Shepard sampled ore from both veins and declared that the showings were "worth further investigation." Lang was apparently so buoyed by the results of the ore samples that he remained at his property for most or all of the following winter. In 1927, he was still actively working his claim; that June, he noted that "his average assay runs around $90," a return so hopeful that he contemplated the purchase of a stamp mill. [174]

When Earl Pilgrim visited the area in 1931, the upper tunnel, 10 feet above the high tide line, was 88 feet long. Two buildings now existed on the property: a log cabin, situated on the hillside above the tunnel, and a frame house, on the leveled dump at the tunnel's portal. [175] Robert C. Heath, a 1932 visitor, noted that the tunnel was now caved near the entrance. The site was also practically abandoned, inasmuch as "very little work has been done on the property for the last two years." Neither Pilgrim nor Heath noted the existence of the lower tunnel, perhaps because the tailings pile outside the upper tunnel had covered it up. [176]

After 1932, Lang apparently abandoned his interest in the area. Then, in 1936, geologist Stephen Capps described the Gaylord Skinner prospect in or near the same area. No sources have provided a definite link between the two sites, but Capps's description of the prospect's location ("on the west shore of West Arm, 1_ miles south of the entrance to Beauty Bay") closely matches the one which Pilgrim and others assigned to the Lang prospect. Donald Richter, moreover, concluded that the two prospects "are probably the same, although discrepancies exist in regard to length of tunnels and orientation of the veins." Inasmuch as the Lang Prospect tunnel appears to also describe one of the Skinner Prospect tunnels (as noted below), logic suggests that the two properties are in the same location. [177]

In 1936, when Stephen Capps visited the property, the so-called Skinner Prospect contained three tunnels. One was a "50-foot tunnel at the cabin, just above high-tide level." This tunnel, which was probably the same as the tunnel on the old Lang prospect, had not been worked "for some years." Two newer tunnels were also on the property. One, 50 feet long, was located at an elevation of about 75 feet; a second, at an altitude of about 400 feet, was 300 feet long. Both of the new tunnels were driven to tap into the Golden Goose quartz vein, which "is said to have been traced on the surface for a distance of 2,600 feet." Interest in the vein was fostered because, as Capps noted, "it is said that assays showing as much as four ounces of gold to the ton have been obtained...." The 300-foot tunnel was begun in 1934 and was under current development when Capps visited the site; the 50-foot tunnel at elevation 75 feet was apparently dug earlier. The "cabin" which Capps refers to is apparently the same as the "frame house" which Pilgrim describes. Capps failed to mention either Pilgrim's "log cabin" or the cabin at Lang's Beach. [178]

Capps, in his site description, noted that the Golden Goose vein "ranges in thickness from 3 to 8 feet of quartz and carries abundant sulphides." He also noted, however, that "so far no high-grade shoots of free-milling ore have been found on it." Apparently little of economic value was found in later years, and by 1941, an engineer with the Territorial Bureau of Mines was unable to locate the tunnel associated with the "Lang gold prospect," perhaps because it was "located in a very thick alder slide along a steep slope." Donald Richter, who investigated Nuka Bay's mines in the summer of 1967, was also frustrated in his search, noting that "Diligent search along the coastline in this area during our visit ... failed to reveal any workings, buildings, or even significant mineralization." [179]

Blair-Sather Prospect

The Blair-Sather Prospect is located on the south shore of Yalik Bay, about two miles from its bay's mouth and near the mouth of a small stream. A quartz vein here runs parallel to the shoreline for some 1,500 feet; according to one report, the site was particularly favorable because "nowhere along the [vein] is it more than 300 feet distant from the beach."

It is not known who first established a mining claim in the area; most probably the discoverer was Al Blair, who later located the vein that would be developed into the Nukalaska Mine near Shelter Cove. He apparently began working the claim in 1924 or early 1925. By the summer of 1925, the so-called Blair Prospect–owned jointly by Blair, Pete Sather, and John Smith–had been "stripped at intervals for a distance of some 1,500 feet." Engineer J. G. Shepard sampled the vein. He found that the samples did not carry "bonanza values;" they were, however, "sufficiently encouraging ... to warrant a further examination." The ore samples revealed quantities of free gold, galena, zinc and pyrite, an analysis that was "quite pleasing to the partners." The three men located seven mining claims that August; the following April, Blair relinquished to Sather his interest in the property. [180]

Nothing more is known about development work at the site until 1931, when engineer Earl Pilgrim visited the area. By that time the property was known as the Sather Prospect; both Blair and Smith had relinquished their interest in it. The property that summer consisted of seven claims: Rolph No. 1 to Rolph No. 7. (Sather, as noted in Chapter 9, had owned several boats over the years, most of which he dubbed the Rolfh.) The claims paralleled the beach from east (No. 1) to west (No. 7). A 51-foot tunnel, just above the beach line, had been drilled on Rolph No. 1; 700 feet to the west, there was a 60-foot tunnel, at an elevation of 20 feet, on Rolph No. 3. A frame house was located just east of the mouth of a small, unnamed stream; the cabin was "at a point in the heavy timber" about 450 feet west of the 60-foot tunnel. Samples from both tunnels were not encouraging, assaying "a trace of gold and silver." [181]

After Pilgrim's visit, Sather abandoned the site, although he performed annual assessment work for another few years. Government engineers who periodically visited Nuka Bay (Capps in 1936, Roehm in 1941, and Richter in 1967) bypassed the site. [182] No known activity was associated with the property until May 1969, when J. L. Young, V. J. Wright and Ray Wells located the Determination No. 1 through No. 3 claims there. They retained the claims for another two years and then abandoned them. George Moerlein, who visited the site in July 1976, noted that site improvements consisted of a "one room cabin in fair to poor shape. The mining property, however, was described as "not reasonable to develop" and was assessed at a minimal value of $750. [183] The site has not been claimed since then.

In 1989, a team of NPS investigators from the Mining Inventory and Monitoring Program visited the site. In the inventory form that followed their visit, they noted a "milled lumber cabin in an active state of collapse," trenches dug on a nearby, quartz-veined dike, and two adits (in the locations noted above). The team made no attempt to nominate the property to the National Register of Historic Places.