Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Nome
(Part 1)
Where the river is windin'
Big nuggets they're findin'.
North to Alaska,
They're goin' North, the rush is on.
—Johnny Horton, “North to Alaska”
IT STILL IS.
In the spring of 2003, a Nome miner found a nugget the size of a man's
clenched fist worth $75,000.
I'm not saying that I, with friends Sharyn Wilson and Rhonda Sleighter, went to Nome
this summer in hopes of finding nuggets of our own, but, admittedly, there was some spec-
ulation as to what use $75,000 could be put to, should it turn up in our gold pans (Sharyn is
building a house, Rhonda is paying off a condo, and I am a writer).
Nome sits on the southern coast of the Seward Peninsula, between 2,000 and 4,500
(amounts vary according to source), about sixty percent of whom are Alaska Native. A
granite seawall is the only thing between it and Norton Sound, which has made energetic
attempts at washing Nome into the Bering Sea in the past and will do so again, given half
the chance. The winds coming off the sound are what help keep Nome tree free, but don't
imagine the landscape to be barren. Think instead rolling green hills topped with rock
formations reminiscent of Monument Valley, creeks and streams and rivers winding
between, with always the bright blue Bering Sea on your peripheral vision.
You can tell a camp's development by the price of the drinks…five cent beer
means the stampede has started for the next diggings.
