Abandoned Gold Mine

 Alaska is a pretty new place in terms of colonisation. The big thrust of Europeans came with the gold rush, which happened at the same time as New Zealand's gold rush: in both cases people came from California when numbers meant the claims there were all taken. Their historic places are the same age as ours.

 

 Heather and I didn't go to the tourist gold mine (I can do that in New Zealand if I want) and instead went exploring to find an abandoned mine some one had told her about. It's a huge, rusting dredge, abandoned to rot. In one way it is a blot on the landscape, but it also made me hope that mankind will one day abandon all such foolish enterprises: gold, in those days was purely about money and adornment - it had no real use.

  

 It also gave me hope to see how hard nature works to slowly recover land exploited by man.