Alaska Gold Rush Diary

Before going to bed at night, Zhou Xin prepared the bird porridge and placed it next to the fire.

After a few hours of baking, Edward and Alo should be able to have a soft, mushy porridge for breakfast.

After instructing Alo, who was taking over the shift, to be careful not to burn the porridge, he then crawled into the hammock tent to rest.

He slept until nine o'clock in the morning before waking up.

Before he even opened his eyes, the roar of the mining machine reached his ears.

He didn't find it noisy; on the contrary, he thought the sound was very beautiful.

Edward and Alo started their gold panning work early in the morning, and knowing that Zhou Xin would be on night duty very late, they did not wake him.

Zhou Xin felt refreshed and in a very good mood.

After finishing the remaining porridge, he decided to start a new job: building a treehouse.

Although the hammock tent looked nice, it wasn't actually very comfortable to sleep in.

Especially after sleeping for a long time, it is very difficult to turn over. Sometimes it takes a long time to adjust to a relatively comfortable position.

However, if a treehouse is built off the ground, and the three people live directly inside, the living experience will be greatly improved.

Only when you are well-rested can you have more energy to continue your gold mining work.

Without further ado, Zhou Xin immediately began searching for a suitable location near the camp to build a treehouse.

The biggest advantage of the primeval forest is that there is no shortage of trees. Before long, he found a suitable spot.

These are three trees, about four or five meters apart, at the same height and each has a branch.

By simply placing three logs at the forks of three trees and using them as a base, you can easily build a platform of about ten square meters off the ground.

This platform can serve as the ground for a treehouse. By building a frame and using grass or palm leaves to make the walls and roof, a simple wooden house can be constructed.

He then transformed into a tree-cutting expert, searching the surrounding area for suitable trees to use as building materials.

This was no easy task; it took him half a day to prepare all the materials.

In the afternoon, we can begin building the treehouse.

But before that, Zhou Xin decided to build something else first: a livestock shed.

If it rains, it's not good for the two mules to stay in the rain all the time. As cold-blooded animals, they can also catch a cold and get sick.

Building a livestock shed is much easier. You just need to tie a sloping surface to a tree next to the river with sticks, and then cover it with layers of palm leaves to make a rain shelter.

He set up the livestock shed in just one afternoon.

For the next few days, Zhou Xin did not go out, but devoted himself to building the wooden house.

It took him three whole days to finally build the treehouse.

Looking at the treehouse, which was completely covered by palm leaves and more than two meters above the ground, Zhou Xin was very satisfied.

In this way, they finally had a somewhat decent shelter.

Inside the treehouse, he also built two wooden beds using sticks.

From now on, they can live in wooden houses and no longer have to sleep in hammocks or tents.

Edward was very satisfied with the wooden house that Zhou Xin had built.

He was especially overjoyed when he crawled into the cabin and lay down on the flat bed.

"Thank you for your hard work, I can finally roll over in my sleep again." He said, and started rolling around on the wooden bed.

"You're welcome. You work very hard panning for gold, and I must make sure your living conditions are better," Zhou Xin said.

Now the gold mining operation is fully underway, and Edward starts the washing machine and sand suction machine every morning and works until nightfall.

Zhou Xin collected various foods while trying to improve their living conditions.

After finishing the treehouse, he made a few chairs and a table.

During this period, life was very peaceful, and almost nothing major happened.

Perhaps it was the noise from the mining machine and generator that had an effect, because the crocodiles they had been worried about did not appear.

The jaguar that Zhou Xin had been worried about never appeared again, perhaps because this place was not within its territory.

But Zhou Xin still dared not be careless. He would rather work the night shift and suffer the hardship than have any accidents happen.

During this time, he found several sago palm trees and harvested a lot of white starch from them.

The gold mining work was progressing well, and the harvest was increasing accordingly.

After a week of panning for gold, they weighed their total catch, which came to 88.7 ounces.

At this point, less than one-third of the mine has been mined.

Zhou Xin estimated that once the entire mine is fully mined, they will be able to harvest at least 300 to 400 ounces of gold.

This harvest is almost equal to the total harvest of the gold rush trip to Western Australia.

With such lucrative returns, he was unwilling to take any risks that might put the gold mining operation on hold.

Now, he can vaguely see the hope of establishing a formal gold mining team.

He had previously calculated that opening a mine in Alaska would require at least $300 to $400 million, a figure that was still quite far off for him at the moment.

However, once he gets his hands on all the gold here, he'll be able to get his hands on the threshold.

Although with his current abilities, he could already live a very comfortable life by panning for gold like this, his dream has always been to open a large mine in Alaska.

The previous Levengood, Western Australia, and now the South American rainforest are all efforts and preparations he made to realize this dream.

That night, as usual, he sat by the fire looking at his phone.

Suddenly, he felt a pang of anxiety and abruptly turned off his phone.

Just now, he vaguely heard a mournful howl coming from the depths of the jungle.

Because of the distance, the sound was very faint; if it weren't for the complete silence at that moment, he wouldn't have heard it at all.

Zhou Xin was able to confirm that it was the sound of a wild boar.

He listened intently, and the wild boar's voice gradually faded, eventually becoming intermittent and then disappearing altogether.

Clearly, the wild boar had been attacked.

In the primeval forests of South America, there are only a few species of animals that can hunt wild boars.

If we eliminate the option in the water, there is only one answer left.

Jaguar!

The jaguar is still in the area; it hasn't gone far. That sound must have been from it hunting wild boar.

Zhou Xin's previously relaxed nerves tightened again.

He was quite certain that they were still within the jaguar's territory.

Perhaps because this jaguar has a large territory, it has been staying in an area relatively far away from them, and therefore has not appeared.

But now, it was clearly not far from them. Judging from the fact that the sound could reach his ears, it was definitely within a kilometer, or even possibly within 500 meters.

Zhou Xin frowned and began to think of a solution.

Because they are panning for gold, they will definitely have to stay in this place for a while.

Jaguars are not only active at night; they may also come out to hunt during the day.

You can scare it away at night with firelight, but what about during the day?

If it were to sneak up during the day and suddenly attack the three of them, they would likely find it very difficult to fight back.

Even with a gun in hand, Zhou Xin wasn't particularly confident he could deal with it.

Zhou Xin looked serious as he pondered deeply, the firelight casting flickering shadows on his face.