Gold mining in Alaska, a state of the United States, has been a major industry and impetus for exploration and settlement since a few years after the United States acquired the territory in 1867 from the Russian Empire. Russian explorers discovered placer gold in the Kenai River in 1848, but no gold was produced. Gold mining started in 1870 from placers southeast of Juneau, Alaska.A.H. Koschman and M.H. Bergendahl (1968) Principal Gold-Producing Districts of the United States, U.S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper 610, p.8.
Gold occurs and has been mined throughout Alaska, except in the vast swamps of the Yukon Flats, and along the North Slope between the Brooks Range and the Beaufort Sea. Areas near Fairbanks and Juneau, and Nome have produced most of Alaska's historical output and provide all current gold production . Nearly all of the large and many of the small placer-gold mines currently operating in the US are in Alaska. Seven modern large-scale hard-rock mines operated in Alaska ; five were gold-producing mines. There are also small-scale hard-rock gold-mining operations. In 2019, Alaska produced , 8.4% of the total national production, second only to Nevada (76%). This total was in steady decline from a peak of in 2013, which had been the highest since 1906. 2019 production was from five major mines: Fort Knox, Pogo, Kensington, Greens Creek and Dawson.
For 2018, gold worth $888,302,130 accounted for 28% of the mining wealth produced in Alaska. In comparison, zinc and lead, mainly from the Red Dog mine, accounted for 66%; silver, mainly from the Greens Creek mine, accounted for 6.6%, and coal accounted for 1.1%. Alaska produced a total of of gold from 1880 through the end of 2018.
Active mines The following are active gold-producing mines and advanced lode exploration or development projects.
Lode (hard rock) mines The Fort Knox mine is located within the Fairbanks North Star Borough, northeast of Fairbanks. The mine site is located primarily on State of Alaska and the Mental Health Trust lands. The mine is wholly owned by Kinross Gold Corporation. The mine opened in 1996 and in 2019 produced of gold. Fort Knox is an open-pit operation using carbon-in-pulp, heap leach, and gravity processes to recover gold. At the end of 2015 there were reserves of 162.4 million tons at 0.012 ounce of gold per ton (0.37 g/t), sufficient to carry the mine plan into year 2020, within a total identified resource of 284.4 million tons at 0.013 ounce per ton (0.40 g/t), containing of gold. Total 2015 employment at Fort Knox was 657 full-time-equivalent positions. The underground Pogo gold mine is owned and operated by Northern Star Resources, on State of Alaska-owned land northeast of Delta Junction in the Goodpaster district. In 2019 it produced of gold from stacked, shallow-dipping quartz veins up to . Pogo had 640 employees on site in 2018. The underground Kensington gold mine, owned by Coeur Mining, is located 45 air miles north of Juneau and south of Haines, located in the Berners Bay mining district. Access to the mine is by air or sea. The ore deposit consists of multiple mesothermal quartz, carbonate, and pyrite vein swarms and discrete quartz–pyrite veins hosted in Cretaceous diorite. Ore is processed in a flotation mill that produces a gold-bearing concentrate. In 2019 of gold were produced from 21,829 tons of concentrate that were shipped to an off-site refinery. The December 2015 Proven and Probable Reserve was 2.8 million tons of ore at 0.198 ounces of gold per ton (6.16 g/t) with of contained gold out of a total identified resource, inclusive of the Proven and Probable Reserve, of 6.7 million tons at 0.263 ounces of gold per ton (8.18 g/t). There were 332 full-time-equivalent employees at Kensington at the end of 2015. The Greens Creek mine is a silver-lead-zinc-gold mine owned and operated by Hecla Mining, located on private and federal land in the Admiralty mining district, southwest of Juneau. The Greens Creek deposit is a polymetallic, stratiform, volcanogenic massive-sulfide deposit that opened in 1989. In 2019, Greens Creek produced of gold. The mine also produced of silver, 51,532 tonnes of zinc and 18,245 tonnes of lead. As of December 31, 2019 Hecla reported a proven and probable reserve of 10.72 million tons of ore at 12.2 ounces of silver per ton, 2.80 g/t (0.09 oz/t) of gold, 2.8 percent lead, and 7.3 percent zinc. The estimated measured and indicated mineral resource was 8.645 million tons at 11.7 ounces of silver per ton, 0.1 ounce of gold per ton, 2.8 percent lead, and 8.1 percent zinc. In 2017 there were 414 local direct full-time-equivalent employees, part of a total of 975 direct, indirect, and induced employees. The Manh Choh gold mine is located near Tok that began operation in September 2023. It is jointly operated by a subsidiary of Kinross Gold Corporation and Contango Ore. It is expected to produce of gold over 4.5 years. The first gold bar was produced in July 2024 at the Fort Knox gold mine, where the ore is shipped via highway haul trucks.
Advanced gold-bearing hard rock exploration projects of note The Donlin Gold project, in the Kuskokwim Gold Belt, contains a Proven and Probable Reserve of 33.8 million ounces at a grade of 2.09 g/t (using a gold price of US$975/oz), within a Measured and Indicated Resource of 39 million ounces of gold at 2.03 g/t. Donlin is one of the largest known undeveloped gold deposits in the world. If developed according to plans published in spring 2009 it will be one of the largest gold mines in the world. A large and robust series of felsic sills and dikes host the gold in association with small-scale quartz (and lesser quartz and/or carbonate) veinlets. The sills intrude a thick sequence (5000+ feet) of non-metamorphosed, folded, graywacke, sandstone, and shale. The deposit occurs on private land owned by native corporations Calista Corporation and The Kuskokwim Corp. Donlin Creek LLC, equally owned by Barrick Gold and NovaGold Resources, holds a lease on the land and operates the project. Donlin Gold is expected to be a conventional open pit, truck-and-shovel operation. Production is expected to occur over 27 years. Pebble Copper, discovered in 1987, is one of the largest known copper-gold porphyry deposits in the world. It is located on State of Alaska-owned land. The deposit contains a measured and indicated resource of 6.46 billion tonnes of ore grading 0.34 g/t gold, 0.40% copper, and 0.024% molybdenum, for 70.6 million ounces of gold, 56.9 billion pounds of copper, and 3.42 billion pounds of molybdenum (at a 0.3% copper-equivalent cutoff grade). The Niblack prospect, a copper-gold-zinc-silver VMS deposit on southeastern Prince of Wales Island, in the Ketchikan Mining District. Mineralization occurs as massive sulfide bodies hosted within a local rhyolite belt within a package of deeply deformed and metamorphosed volcanic and sedimentary rocks. In the last ten years, significant underground and surface exploration occurred at this early-1900s mine site. At November 2011, an Indicated Resource estimate was 3.4 million tonnes of ore grading 0.81% copper, 1.32 g/t gold, 1.29% zinc and 20.10 g/t silver, containing 118.1 million pounds of copper, 317,220 troy ounces of gold, 215.0 million pounds of zinc, and 5.35 million troy ounces of silver.
Placer mining Placer mining continues throughout Alaska. Placer mine production during the 5 years to 2014 has averaged 74,360 ounces of gold or 8 percent of the total gold produced in Alaska annually. All of these operations are seasonal, none employ more than a few dozen people. Many are family operations with roots reaching back several generations. The 2015 estimate of 120 full-time-equivalent jobs attributed to placer gold mining as reported by the Mine Safety and Health Administration is underreported and is considered a minimum estimate.
Historical lode and placer gold mines Southeast Alaska Porcupine district Over of placer gold came from the Porcupine district near Haines. Porcupine Creek, about north of Haines, is the site of an 1898 gold discovery; the creek has been intermittently placer mined ever since. Outside of the Porcupine basin only a few other creeks – Glacier, Nugget and Cottonwood – produced significant gold. The area around Reid Inlet, in modern Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, hosted several hard rock gold prospects, including the LeRoy mine, which exploited quartz veins for about 10,000 ounces of gold production. The district, which includes Skagway and Haines, is bordered to the north and east by Canada. To the west is the Pacific Ocean and the Chichagof District lies to the south. The Discovery Channel series Gold Rush Alaska takes place in this region.
Juneau district
In 1880 a local inhabitant, Chief Kowee, revealed to prospectors Joe Juneau and Richard Harris the presence of gold in what is now named Gold Creek in Silver Bow Basin. The city of Juneau was founded there that year. The strike sparked the Juneau gold rush, which resulted in the development of many placer and lode mines including the largest, at the time, gold mines in the world – the Treadwell complex of lode mines on Douglas Island (across a narrow sea channel from Juneau) and the AJ lode mine, in Juneau itself.
Over 7 million ounces of lode gold and of placer gold have been recovered from the Juneau district.
Admiralty district
Most of the gold recovered from the Admiralty mining district (which consists of Admiralty Island) is a by product of silver and base metal mining. The Alaska Empire underground lode mine recovered gold from quartz veins in metamorphic rocks. Discovered and staked in the 1920s, production of about 20,000 tonnes of 0.25 ounce-per-ton gold ore occurred in the mid-1930s. The Funter Bay underground lode mine produced about 500 thousand tonnes of copper-nickel-cobalt ore, without gold, from a Mesozoic gabbro-norite pipe. No significant placer mining was done on Admiralty. About 500,000 ounces of gold, almost all from the currently operating Greens Creek lode silver mine, have been recovered from the Admiralty district.
Chichagof district
Approximately 800,000 ounces of gold have come from the Chichagof district. Chichagof, Yakobi, Baranof and smaller islands comprise the district.Alaskas Mineral Industry 2006, Alaska DGGS Special Report 61, 2006 Numerous lode and placer prospects and mines exist in the district. Major production came from underground lode mines exploiting gold-in-quartz veins.
Apex-El Nido mine The Apex-El Nido produced perhaps 50,000 ounces of gold from a mile of underground workings exploiting polymetallic quartz veins.Sitka quadrangle usgs.gov Retrieved July 29, 2023
Hirst-Chichagof mine From 1922 to 1933 the Hirst-Chichagof produced 133,000 ounces of gold and 33,000 ounces of silver from polymetallic quartz veins assaying nearly 1 ounce of gold per ton. There are over a mile of underground workings, reaching below the surface. Significant reserves remain, which have attracted exploration efforts in the 1980s and 1990s.
Chichagof mine The Chichagof mine opened in 1905 and by 1942 had yielded 660,000 ounces of gold and 195,000 ounces of silver from quartz veins assaying over 1 oz gold per ton. There were several miles of workings on 5 levels. Six shafts reached a maximum of below sea level. Between 1981 and 1988 several thousand feet of new workings were dug, and engineering and environmental studies were done, but the project was abandoned.
Petersburg-Sumdum district