On today’s Postcard from Alaska, we visit the gold rush era town of Hope.

Spend any time at all in Alaska and you quickly discover that a recurring theme runs through the history of America’s last frontier: Gold! Nearly all of the state’s railroads, ports, highways, cities and towns owe their existence to gold rush fever. Prospectors began pouring in to the region in the late 1800’s and gold continues to draw people to the state.

The tiny bayside village of Hope, Alaska lies 130 kilometers – and about a hundred years - south of the state’s largest city, Anchorage. The contrast between the two couldn’t be stronger. Anchorage is a modern city of more than 200,000. With a population of less than 200, Hope still looks much as it did a century ago.

"A fella named King found gold here in 1888/1889. Didn’t find very much," says long time Hope resident Diane Altice who recently published a book on her town’s history. "A few more people trickled in to the Resurrection Creek area and in 1895 a large stake was found. Next year, 1896, 3000 people poured into the area…ran up and down the creeks. There was a tent city here."

Log homes soon replaced the tents and a name for the community was chosen. Diane Altice says "Hope" suited the town since that’s about all the local miners had

"This was never a really wealthy strike," she explains. "It was a poor man’s gold rush. People got by on a bit of mining…a bit of gardening. Some of the people who came to Hope went on to other gold rushes; Klondike, Fairbanks, Iditarod, Nome."

Even though commercial mining quickly came to an end, the town remained. Ms. Altice says residents love the area so much, they look for a reason to stay.

"You have to be resourceful. But it’s worth it. It’s a very pretty area. Quite a few retired persons here in Hope. A few people even commute to Anchorage to work. Other job options are highway construction jobs, carpentry jobs, a few government jobs; the school, the post office…a little bit of tourism. During the summer we have three open cafes. There’s a lodge and a bed and breakfast. A number of crusty old bachelors who talk mining and do a little of it," Ms. Altice says.

One of those "crusty old bachelors" is a colorful character that everyone in town simply calls, Peck. Peck is a veteran hard rock miner forced into retirement by a stroke that left his gait unsteady and his speech a bit slurred. He keeps busy teaching summer tourists how to pan for gold along Resurrection Creek.

To this day, you can find a few small flakes of gold in nearly every pan of gravel that comes out of area streams. Not enough to support commercial mining, but more than enough to spark gold fever, and not just among the tourists. Peck recalls a Native Alaskan who panned a gold nugget the size of her fingernail.

"In fact she was standing right here, just pannin’ away," Peck remembers. "She started yellin’ and screamin’. And I come down ‘cause I thought somethin’ had got her. And she said, ‘Look at that! Look at that!’ And she’d actually reached down and picked up a piece about like that."

Several Hope residents still own and work gold claims in the surrounding mountains. Eighty-four year old Walter Wilkins works a ten hectare claim along Canyon Creek at the foot of Manitoba Mountain. He searches for gold in the gravel two meters below the river’s surface using a diver’s dry suit and a dredge.

"It’s just like a vacuum cleaner," Mr. Wilins explains. "You get down there with your dredge and your suction hose and just suck up the gravel. Then it goes up through the sluice box and the gold stays in the sluice box. There’s rifles you know…runs over the rifles and the gold lays in there."

Mr. Wilkins holds several small glass vials filled with the gold he’s collected. He pulls out a stopper and pours the tiny flakes out on the table.

"I’ve been in there in the winter time when it was froze over and just where the swift water run you know there’d be a little hole. And I’ve got down there with a seven-foot ladder with my dry suit and dredge and (laughs) found a little gold. But, thing of it is, I’d probably found more but I was just a little leery about getting’ back under that ice," Mr. Wilkins says.

That’s a considerable risk for the hundred or so grams of gold Mr. Wilkins manages to mine each year. He gives most of what he finds to family and friends as souvenirs. The rest he sells to jewelers like another of Hope’s better known characters.

Dru Sorenson, or Sourdough Dru as she prefers to be called, operates a jewelry store on Hope’s main street. She specializes in creating jewelry out of raw gold, an item as popular with Alaska residents as it is with the tourists.

"I tell yah my biggest gold customers are the Europeans, mostly Germans, they’re my biggest gold customer," Mrs. Sorenson says. "These are raw nugget earrings. They’re just little nugget rocks. Just think of rocks! Just think of rocks that are gold."

Those golden rocks have a surprising amount of character. Some are rough and dark, others look like they might have been polished. What makes the difference is how much time the gold spends bouncing along the riverbed. Experts like Sourdough Dru can often tell what stream the gold came from.

You can see the difference in the color and sometimes the texture," she says, holding the nuggets in her palm. "Like these here are real bumpy. Those are from Bear Creek. The gold is rougher cause it hasn’t gone as far – or it’s closer to the motherlode - so it’s rougher than say these nuggets. I think these are from Canyon. Canyon Creek the gold is not as close to the motherlode."

Talking about the creeks and the gold they carry puts Dru in mind of a poem she wrote years ago for a town gathering. She recites:

"A future held on bedrock deep,

the miners, the canyon, the creek.

A twinkle of gold in our eyes,

men from Sunrise to Nome drive us on

to the truth our seeking holds.

Not the struggle, nor the cold, nor the earth moved. No.

We honor…we honor the memory of those left behind.

So what drives us on as our ancestors were driven?

Hope!"