SWIFT CREEK MINE

Barry Clay was raised in California but his family has a long history in Alaska. Barry's grandfather mined on Swift Creek in the early 1900's. When his grandfather found out Barry was going to Alaska to look for gold he told Barry to try Swift Creek. Barry staked a claim and his father joined him in mining the creek. The rest, as they say, is history. With a few other kinks and details you'll likely hear abut if you spend some time with Barry.

While Barry usually looks for gold with heavy equipment he also does some metal detecting. He owns a half a dozen detectors and has many different coils for them. His current favorite detector is the White's MXT. He has had it for a couple seasons and the summer of 2005 he finally got the hang of using it and made several nice finds. Barry says, "The iron probability percentage shown on the MXT is great! It keeps you from having to dig many of the garbage targets." Mining areas are often littered with everything from broken Cat track pieces to old tin cans and discarded equipment.

After removing overburden from the gold bearing gravel Barry will often take a metal detector into the cut to locate nuggets near the surface. After the pay dirt has been remove down to bedrock he again will use a detector to be sure he hasn't missed any gold.

Barry found the 294 ounce nugget while moving some dirt with a bulldozer. He caught a glimpse of it as the big nugget rolled off the side of the blade. For security he then reburied it while deciding what to do next. The nugget was eventually sold.

Mining is still his passion and he would love to do nothing else than spend his summers searching for another big nugget at Swift Creek but nuggets are elusive so to pay the bills he now works in the construction industry and mines for gold in his spare time.