eman whose two gold claims on famous Anvil Creek made him one of
the richest men in Alaska.

So it was settled. Claim number nine, Anvil, was about seven miles from
Nome, and one of the most noted claims in the district. Mr. A., a former
Swedish missionary at Golovin Bay, had, with his doctor brother, voyaged
to Nome on the "St. Paul" when we did, so we already had a slight
acquaintance with both gentlemen and were pleased to get the work.

Anvil Creek claims had been worked the summer before. Gold had first
been discovered in the fall of 1898 by Mr. Hultberg, a Swedish
missionary, who learned of the precious metal around Nome from the
Eskimos. His mission was stationed at Golovin Bay, and he notified the
Swedes, Brynteson, Hagalin, Lindbloom and Linderberg, who in turn saw G.
W. Price and induced him to go with them, as he was the only one there
experienced in mining. Price was on his way to Kodiak over the ice by
dog-team en route to California, as the representative of C. D. Lane,
the San Francisco mining man and millionaire.

The most of Anvil Creek was staked by this party before they returned to
the mines at Council City, fifty miles up Fish River from Golovin Bay.

"On July second, 1899, a second cleanup was made on number one above
Discovery Claim, Anvil Creek, the property of J. Linderberg. The result
of four men shovelling out of the creek bed from a cut five feet to
bedrock for twenty hours amounted to fourteen thousand dollars in gold
dust. The men shovelled all the gravel from the moss down to bedrock
into the sluice box as it was all pay gravel. The owner refused five
hundred thousand dollars for the property without considering the
offer."

Tierney is authority for the statement that this claim produced four
hundred thousand dollars that season.

From this time the discoverers were known by the sobriquet of the "Lucky
Swedes," for Anvil Creek was all good, there being no really "poor dirt"
in it, and number nine, above Discovery Claim, proved itself, the first
summer, also a banner winner.

It was here that we expected to work, as soon as supplies could be
hauled to the claim, the monotony of bread making and dish washing to be
varied by the new and strange sights on an enormously rich gold claim
not far from the Arctic Circle.

Everywhere around us were carpenter's hammers in operation, and tents
were rapidly going up. We found great difficulty in reserving ground
space enough for another tent,