Over eighteen unencumbered, well-drained acres of south-facing, three-tiered, commercial, or residential view property with highway frontage twenty-six miles from Haines, Alaska.
This offering presents an opportunity to own an excellent business site in one of the world’s most scenic areas supported by year-round tourism and a developing, well-funded, underground, poly-metallic mine known as “The Palmer Project.”
The land in this offer overlooks the newly reconstructed “Porcupine Crossing” bridge and the Haines Highway. The bridge provides the only wheeled access to the south side of the Klehini River, where all significant growth in the highway region is located. The highway was recently re-aligned and upgraded to the highest federal standards.
Many homes, the 6-mile-long Chilkat Lake subdivision, extensive and undeveloped tracks of private property, old-growth forests, miles of logging roads, several tour operations, a rock quarry, and the soon-to-be-operational Palmer Mine are all accessed from Porcupine Crossing.
The Palmer Mine Project pays exceptionally well. The developing year-round underground mine will soon employ many who would patronize a local, high-quality restaurant, bar, service station, and store, making this property a premier business site. When the mine becomes fully operational, local property values will soar.
The bridge also provides access to the private gold mines and claims in the Porcupine Mining District, where the Discovery Channel’s hit TV series, “Gold Rush,” was originally filmed. It also affords road access to Chilkat Lake and the Tsirku River and its airboat launch site, leading to the remote tributary, Nugget Creek, where the acclaimed “White Water Gold” TV series is now filmed.
Owner of this land offer, retired big game hunting guide, tour operator, and prospector Al Gilliam and his sister, Pam, sold their two Nugget Creek suction dredge gold claims to “Whitewater Gold” creator and star Dustin Hurt in early 2022.
Pam and Al retained two adjacent, far more valuable, 160-acre, virgin, placer gold claims. They span the elevated, deeply incised benches where Nugget Creek ran in ancient times before eroding its modern chasm through hundreds of feet of bedrock slate. Al and Pam hope to develop those bench claims, starting with constructing an airstrip on them in the spring of 2024; age and health have become factors.
Anyone interested in owning two remote, never-before-commercially mined gold claims, including an on-site associated track loader, excavator, and mine camp, can contact Al. He has test-mined four-ounce nuggets from that same system, historically producing high-grade gold nuggets weighing up to seven ounces.
Keep watching the White Water Gold TV series. If Dustin and his crew can survive the rock falls, snow avalanches, raging water of the Nugget Creek chasm, and each other, they will find many large nuggets on the bedrock surface.
Imagine flying to a remote, south-facing gold source like that without dealing with the Nugget Creek chasm or its raging water. That is what our two adjacent bench claims offer while boasting a ready-made mine camp.
Mountain-side artesian groundwater fills a large, ancient waterfall plunge basin to overflowing, providing ample water to support a processing plant for a six-month mining season uninterrupted by the Tsirku River conditions and Nugget Creek, viewed below. If you are young enough to enjoy working hard, life can’t get more exciting than that!
Back to the 26-Mile land:
This offering embraces over eighteen acres of triple-terraced and roaded property with an unobstructed 60-mile view over much of the world-famous Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve and the associated Klehini, Tsirku, and Chilkat watersheds. Framed by lofty glacier-clad mountains, ridges, and fluted spires rising nearly 7,000 feet above the braided rivers, the striking scene boasts telescopic views of brown bears, mountain goats, and black bears grazing in alpine meadows. Many bears and hundreds of bald eagles feed on salmon spawning in the Klehini River right before this property each fall. The numbers of eagles fluctuate yearly, but we once counted over eight hundred in less than 30 minutes while looking through our cabin window. The topography supports rising thermal currents, and dozens of eagles often leave the valley floor, circling and soaring to high elevations over our cabins without flapping their wings. The Eagle Preserve supports a returning client base of international photographers.
This unique property would support a combination general store, fuel station, mechanic shop, and additional guest cabins. A lodge and restaurant would cater to the tourists traveling the highway, flying from Juneau and Skagway to the Haines airport, or an under-construction, private airstrip a short distance from this property. It would also attract an abundance of international heli-skiers annually frequenting the area from mid-February through March and April. No public lodging or dining facilities currently exist between Haines and the Porcupine Crossing Bridge or on the south side of the Klehini River Valley.
Present features:
- Zoned for residential and commercial development.
- Haines Borough tax mill rate, 7.82.
- Fire Department is approximately two miles away.
- South-facing, with year-round direct sunlight.
- Highway frontage.
- The tiered land makes snow removal quick and easy with the included bulldozer and its 12-foot semi-U blade, leaving no unsightly, lingering snow piles.
- Geographically well protected from forest fires.
- Two driveways.
- One framed cabin and four log cabins, including one historic log cabin dating to 1923.
- A 100-yard “grandfathered” rifle range with a roomy shooting shed and a solid, ambidextrous shooting bench.
- Proven, recently upgraded, deep water well and insulated, subterranean well-house.
- Over 600- feet of buried, one-inch water line to support constructing many additional cabins and potentially drilling a second water well on a backup manifold system.
- Public internet service. (soon to be upgraded to high-speed broadband.)
- Underground electricity and phone lines.
History:
The historic log cabin on this property was constructed in 1923 during the early settlement of the Kleheni River valley. It quickly became a social center for locals riding a nearby cable car over the river to access the Porcupine Gold Mine, one of the largest and richest mines in Territorial Alaska. That same cabin is the oldest continually lived-in residential structure between Tidewater in Southeast Alaska and Fairbanks, qualifying it for Federal Restoration Funds.
The State of Alaska, Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation, and Office of History and Archaeology researched, obtained, and provided all original filing records for proving the homestead, including dates, correspondence, type of highway easement, and the chain of title for ownership. They also conducted archeological digs on the land and published their findings in an official booklet titled EVALUATION OF HISTORIC CABINS AT MILES 26 AND 32, HAINES HIGHWAY, ALASKA (PROJECT NO68800). A copy of that document, including historical black and white photos, is available online.
This rustic, historic cabin with its iconic stilted trapper’s cache is viewed from the Haines Highway and the Porcupine Crossing Bridge, regularly attracting visiting photographers. It has been featured in several publications and two international TV programs: “Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet” and “White Water Gold.”
Tourism:
Haines is a year-round recreation destination for residents of Juneau, the capital of Alaska. Residents of Whitehorse, the capital of the nearby Yukon Territory, also shop fish and recreate in Haines. Those communities are roughly one hundred miles away, in opposite directions, with no road south to Juneau and a closed nighttime international border to the north, usually necessitating overnight stays. Visitors from both places commonly frequent Haines’s stores, motels, bars, and restaurants.
Outside Magazine twice-listed the Haines, Alaska area as a world-class recreation destination.
Each winter, a section of the Haines Highway is closed to traffic to support the Alcan 200, the only snow-machine road race on the continent. Each June, 1,200 participants enter the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay from the Klondike’s Haines Junction to historic Fort Seward in Haines.
Four heliskiing companies are permitted in the Haines Borough, providing service to high-end international clients from mid-February through March and April. Most supporting helicopters operate far out the Highway from Haines while avoiding overflying populated areas. Still, heli-skiers require suitable lodging and dining facilities without commuting daily to and from Haines. Presently, few “out the highway” accommodations exist. A full-service lodge, private cabins, and general store at this location would attract and book clients utilizing all local heliski companies, as well as a growing population of locals.
Film director Steve Kroschel’s world-famous Kroschel Wildlife Sanctuary is two miles beyond this property. It is annually voted the best tour in Alaska.
Commercial river rafting occurs in front of this land, and ATV tours are just across the river. Those locally operated tours originate from some of the largest cruise ships in the industry, which dock in Haines and nearby Skagway, with fast-ferry service between ports only 14 miles apart but 350 miles away via a road! Haines is a dynamic, incredibly rugged place!
Anyone owning a full-service lodge and restaurant at this offering could sell highway and dining tours directly through the cruise ship’s shore excursion officers.
Extensive land clearing, brush removal, roading, and landscaping will occur on this property in the summer of 2023. After completed, photographs and an aerial drone will record the property and its panoramic view, available on my writer’s website, www.storiesofthenorth.com.
Our two Nugget Creek Gold claims will soon be documented using an aerial, drone-mounted LIDAR system that strips away all vegetation to reveal and map the precise topography, including all abandoned creek channels. GPS simultaneously pinpoints all relevant features on a map targeting the most profitable mining locations. From there, you can log the data into a Bluetooth-supported electronic gold detector and walk directly to the point of interest.
Long-time property owner, Al Gilliam, will price this land and his family’s two 160-acre Nugget Creek placer-gold claims once all described upgrades become completed but will also consider all prior offers.
Supporting links
Haines Chamber of Commerce, www.visithaines.com. Helli-skiing, mountaineering, river rafting, jet boating, and ATV tours, www.alaskamountainguides.com. Helli-skiing, www.alaskahelisking.com. www.seaba.com. www.stellaradventuretravel.com. Wildlife park, www.kroschelfilms.com.
My new, developing writer’s website is www.storiesofthenorth.com. Interested people can learn my background and read exciting excerpts from my developing stories, soon to appear on Kindle.
Serious inquiries should be emailed to me, Al Gilliam, @ al.gilliam@hotmail.com. Please use the descriptive phrase “Your 26-mile property” or “Your Nugget Creek gold claims” to avoid being undetected in my junk file.
The cell number for contacting me (preferably via email but possibly text) until mid-May 2023 is 360-302-6334, Pacific time. After mid-May 2023, my Alaska home number is 907-767-5522, Alaska time. I am hearing impaired. If there is no answer on my home phone, please speak slowly, leaving a brief, concise message and a contact number—no texting to the 907 prefix number.
Thank you for your time.
Al Gilliam