Alaska Gold Rush Diary

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, more than half a month has passed.

As the weather warms up day by day, the ice in the river has completely melted.

Except for areas where the sun doesn't reach, the snow has completely melted.

The waterfall crashed against the lakebed with a deafening roar, but fortunately the cabins were far enough away that sleeping wasn't greatly affected.

Logan the wolf cub quickly adapted to his new home and seemed to truly regard Zhou Xin as his master.

At first, Zhou Xin was afraid it would run away, so he tied it with a rope, but later he found that even without the rope, it had no intention of running away.

When Zhou Xin was panning for gold, it was frolicking around nearby.

Zhou Xin was quite satisfied as he watched the little tundra wolf gradually turn into a dog.

Moreover, feeding rodents is very simple; just grill any fish and they'll eat it with great pleasure.

During this period, Zhou Xin panned for gold day after day without interruption. The several piles of mud and sand he had dug up before had long been exhausted, and he dug up several even larger piles of mud and sand in the meantime.

The gold harvest has now reached nearly thirty ounces.

Every night before going to bed, he would take out the glass bottle containing the gold, shake it a few times, and enjoy the sweet smell.

But he was determined to buy a few wooden boxes when he got back, feeling that putting the gleaming gold in glass bottles was too conspicuous.

As the weather warms up, gold panning becomes easier.

It's a pity I didn't bring enough tools this time, otherwise I could have made a simple gold washing tank, which would have greatly improved the gold panning efficiency.

Now, we use a gold pan and operate it entirely by hand. Although we have become quite skilled, it is still relatively slow and very laborious.

It was already late May, and Livinggood had entered the period of midnight sun, when it was never dark.

This gave him more time to pan for gold, and the real gold rush season had finally arrived.

Fortunately, the cabin provided good shade; once the door was closed, the cabin was almost completely dark, so the midnight sun did not affect his sleep.

At seven o'clock in the morning, he vaguely felt a tongue licking his face.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Logan running around happily on the mattress, occasionally coming over to lick his face with his tongue.

It has grown quite a bit in size during this time, but it still doesn't seem to exhibit the characteristics of a wolf.

"Looks like I named you the wrong person. I should have called you Wangcai!"

It has to be said that Logan the wolf is indeed becoming more and more like a dog.

He lit a fire in the stove and placed the two silver carp he had caught a few days ago on it to roast.

Logan wagged his tail and excitedly circled the fireplace, looking rather impatient.

Since being fed by Zhou Xin, it has been eating cooked food every day and has grown to love the taste of cooked food.

Sometimes when Zhou Xin was too lazy to grill fish, he would throw it a raw fish, and it would just sniff it and walk away.

After the fish were cooked, he tossed one to Logan and ate the other with a little salt.

During this time, the food he brought had been almost completely used up, and his staple food had become fish.

This makes him feel nauseous whenever he sees fish, but there's nothing he can do about it; all he has left is the fish, except for the last bit of seasoning.

"I need to take some time to go up the mountain and find some other food."

The weather has only just started to warm up, so all we can do is dig up some plant roots and stems.

By July and August, there will be plenty of food on the mountain; there will be more than enough blueberries and other berries to eat.

I plan to rest today and go for a walk in the mountains to look for food and other resources.

Wearing a windbreaker and carrying a hunting rifle and knife, Zhou Xin walked up the mountain from the ridge beside the waterfall.

Logan wagged its tail, wanting to join him, but considering it was too small, Zhou Xin kept it in the cabin.

Stepping on the newly sprouted grass, bathed in sunlight, he walked along, searching for familiar plants.

Not long after he left, he discovered a tender shoot of fire grass.

The new shoots grow from the dead stems, indicating that there are roots and stems that have been growing for more than a year.

He took out a shovel and started digging down the surrounding area.

The thawed soil was easy to dig through, and in no time, a tuber shaped like a potato was unearthed.

Zhou Xin's eyes lit up after not consuming carbohydrates for several days; it seemed like today's harvest would be quite good.

Along the way, he dug up more than a dozen fire grass roots and picked some familiar, non-toxic tender shoots that could be eaten as wild vegetables.

After climbing for quite a while, he finally reached the top of the waterfall.

Standing atop the cliff, watching the water cascade down, I was deeply moved.

He continued walking upstream along the river, gathering food as he went, hoping to find a gold deposit upstream.

Since a large amount of gold was deposited at the bottom of the waterfall, and this gold was washed down from the upper reaches of the river.

That means there might be a gold-rich deposit upstream, which is the source of the gold at the bottom of the waterfall.

Of course, that's not necessarily true; he was just trying his luck.

Since I have a day off today, I'll treat it as a spring outing.

The higher you go, the fewer tall trees there are, and even fewer shrubs; it's all grassland.

He discovered a large patch of blueberries growing close to the ground, covering the entire hillside.

With these blueberry bushes, we'll be able to enjoy fruit freely.

Carefully searching for the roots of the fire grass, they unknowingly walked quite far.

When he reached a rock face with a protruding top, he discovered signs of human activity.

The upper part of the rock wall protrudes, forming a cave that shelters from the wind and rain.

The bottom is concave, and there is a wide, flat open space of several hundred square meters on the ground, where rain and snow cannot get in.

The flat ground is covered with dry sand and lots of animal droppings, so many animals must come here to take shelter during rainy or snowy weather.

What surprised Zhou Xin the most was that at the innermost part of the cave, there were some dilapidated tables, chairs, cabinets, beds and other items scattered haphazardly.

These items are clearly made directly from spruce trees grown at the foot of the mountain; they are very crudely made.

Although many of the items were decayed, they were relatively well preserved because they were in a dry place.

Zhou Xin estimated that these items are at least a hundred years old.

This was during the Alaskan Gold Rush, and these items were likely left behind by gold prospectors from that time.

He went into the cave and examined the traces left by gold prospectors more than a century ago.

He was quickly startled.

Because he saw many white bones scattered throughout the cave.

Human bones.

Most of these skeletons were scattered and broken, with heads and limbs strewn about, suggesting that the bodies were eaten by wild animals in the vicinity after death.

The wooden objects inside the cave and the cave walls are riddled with bullet holes, clearly indicating that a fierce battle took place here in the past.

Could it be that the gold prospectors' camp was attacked by wild animals?

But he quickly dismissed the idea.

There are about a dozen corpses here, and there are many old-fashioned firearms and other firearms scattered around, showing that the gold miners back then had considerable firepower.

No beast here can withstand this level of firepower.

It seems that the gold prospectors had a falling out, and it is very likely that the dispute was caused by a conflict over the distribution of gold.

After all, human nature is always vulnerable to temptation when faced with gold.

Zhou Xin boldly stepped over the bones and searched the cave, discovering various pots, pans, and other household utensils, as well as many gold panning tools.

Unfortunately, due to their age, these items are severely decayed and unusable.

Finally, he found a well-preserved diary in a cabinet.