And when it comes hand-in-hand with a tourism boom, a treeless, windswept frontier community can begin to feel almost crowded at times. That might not seem like all that many, but a summer population jump of more than 10 percent in an isolated, rural community is obvious. She and Mayor Denise Michels estimate 400 to 500 people came north to chase gold. "We had probably expected more people than showed up,'' said city manager Josie Bahnke, but what they got was more than enough. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources capped the number of permits available for offshore dredging.
Nome officials were in a bit of a panic at the start of the summer, fearing an influx of thousands of miners, but that never happened thanks in large part to the red tape of the modern day. There's no doubt the City of the Golden Beaches is witnessing a modern-day gold rush. With the yellow metal now fetching close to $1,800 an ounce, the reality television show " Bering Sea Gold'' fuels the idea it's possible for anyone with basic diving skills and a boat to vacuum a fortune from the floor of the ocean not far from this community of 3,695 some 540 miles northwest of Anchorage. Sanders said the men hoped to find "a shit load.'' Some mark the final resting places of unlucky adventurers who came north planning to get rich quick before returning home at the start of the 20th century. Across Seppala Drive from the dock on a rise above a bog, the headstones at the old graveyard on Cemetery Hill loomed white in the sun. White caps littered the surface of the ocean as far as the eye could see. Outside the harbor, the wind kicked up past 20 knots from the north.
Decked out head to toe in dark neoprene suits, the two pudgy, middle-aged Californians looked a little like big black bears scrambling onto the planked float. Lucky to find a spot in the inner harbor, where most dredges were rafted together three or four deep, they tied up and jumped off their makeshift watercraft. NOME - The small boat harbor here was already clogged with gold dredges in late August when Brian Sanders and Forrest Fisher motored in, out of yet another Bering Sea storm. Updated: SeptemPublished: September 21, 2012
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