Denaliguide Summit

It’s Friday afternoon. I’m sitting here with Denali Guide Nick. He’s my husband, my life partner, and my best friend. We want to share a little story from our trip this past week. We spent some time at the

Duttona Family Campground, our current favorite getaway spot, but before we arrived we went to Port Glasgow.

I asked Nick, “What’s the one thing you remember most about that trip?”

He replied immediately, “I had my gold pan with me.” A young man spotted it right away.

The Boy on the Bridge

The boy was about eleven or twelve years old. He stood on a small footbridge near the beach. He was finishing up a fishing session. The moment he saw Nick’s gold pan, his eyes lit up.
He told Nick he had just gotten himself a gold panning kit but didn’t really know how to use it. Naturally, Nick invited him down to the water’s edge to show him the basics.

I checked with his family first. I wanted to let them know that Nick wasn’t just some random stranger. He was not merely trying to strike up a conversation with their son. His dad smiled and said, “He’s been dying to try that kit. Go ahead!”

A Lesson in Gold Panning

The beach wasn’t the easiest terrain. It was rugged, with a bank too hard to dig. Nick opted to work with sand right along the shoreline. He explained how black sand often signals heavier minerals. Then he showed the boy how to swirl the pan. This lets the lighter materials wash away, leaving the denser particles behind.

The boy was full of questions. “What if you actually found a flake of gold but didn’t have one of those little sniffer bottles?”
Nick grinned. “Then I’d grab a Q-tip, wet it just a little, and pick it up that way.”
“And if you didn’t have a Q-tip?” the boy challenged.
“I’d find a leaf with a stem. I would use it like you’d pick up a tiny scrap of paper you can’t quite pinch.”

That boy hung on every word. Even though the beach didn’t give up much black sand, his excitement never dimmed. He wasn’t the only one watching. Soon, other beachgoers were calling out, “Hey, there’s some black sand down here!” Gold fever, it seems, is contagious.

The Reality of Gold Panning

Port Glasgow has its quirks. There are big rocks you have to navigate before hitting smooth sand. The water forces you to wade in past your knees. There is also plenty of shoulder strain from swirling a heavy pan. Still, Nick says it was worth every ache just to see that boy’s enthusiasm.

It reminded him of other adventures. He panned garnets at Pedro Creek. He and a friend once spent $200 to get to Bachelor Creek. They only came back with $7.82 worth of gold. As Nick likes to say, “It’s an adventure — you classify it that way, or you’ll go broke.”

More Than Gold

In the end, there was no treasure in the pan that day. There was something better: a shared moment between a seasoned prospector and a curious young mind. That boy will very well grab his gold pan the next time his family heads to the beach. Years from now, he’ll remember the man who took the time to teach him.

As Nick puts it, “In Alaska, they say miners usually put more money into the ground than they take out. But you can’t put more good into the world than you’ll get back. That boy made us happy that day, and I think we made him happy, too.”

So, from Denali Guide and Denali Guide Plus — signing off for now.
Take care, God bless, and remember: sometimes the short answer is the best.

Watch the video here: