Roadtrippin’: Panning for gold in Fairbanks

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU) - For this leg of Roadtrippin’, the Alaska’s News Source crew headed up to Fairbanks for some good old fashion gold panning.

Austin Sjong and Marlise Irby were determined to strike it rich.

Daughters Gold, a gold panning site, was started eight years ago by Ilaura Reeves and her sister. Reeves said she and her family have been gold panning for years, so it seemed right to open the business.

“Gold panning is just something that I think is universally fun. It’s fun to make a discovery, and it’s fun to feel like you are an explorer,” Reeves said. “It’s very relaxing too, so, there’s just so much bonding that happens out here and it’s an intimate experience with our guests.”

And without wasting any time, Reeves handed visitors a gold pan and gave a quick demonstration of how it works.

She gave each person a bag filled with pay dirt, and possibly gold, purchased at the gift store. These bags can range anywhere from $20 to $1,000.

The next step is to dump the paydirt into the provided pans and get to work.

“Shaky, shaky, dippy, dippy,” Reeves said.

This was a little trick she taught to slowly break up the paydirt in the water and get the gold to sink to the bottom of the pans.

Slowly but surely, tiny pieces of gold became visible. After finding the gold, Reeves gave participants little vials to put the gold in, as a nice keepsake to remember the trip.

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