Gold-exploration filings cluster in a historic Interior district

A small rush of gold exploration is taking shape in one of Interior Alaska's historic mining districts. In the span of six days, the state received three separate applications to prospect for hardrock gold and other metals in the Valdez Creek Mining District, along the Denali Highway between Cantwell and Paxson.

The most recent, filed this week, covers the Golden Zone area near Cantwell — the district's biggest historic lode-gold producer, now held by Avidian Gold Corp., which has reported an indicated resource of about 267,400 ounces on the state-owned ground. The other two target land near Paxson, one of them called the Lichen application.

The district has a long gold history. Placer miners pulled more than 257,000 ounces from its creeks between 1903 and 1989, and a federal survey once catalogued 237 mineral occurrences across its 5.7 million acres.

The cluster fits a broader statewide pattern of companies seeking state permits to explore for gold and other metals near Alaska communities, rivers and recreation areas. Each application still needs a state land-use permit before work can begin, and the state is taking public comments. No decisions have been made.