Company still offering gold panning to visitors, but the theft ‘set us way behind,’ manager says; online plea asks culprit to return items to church parking lot

By Mark Sabbatini

Juneau Independent

A modern-day raid on a gold mining camp occurred overnight Thursday when 150 gold pans — and some bits of gold in them — along with other equipment used for a gold panning tour operation were stolen from a storage shed near Last Chance Basin, according to officials.

The theft took about two-thirds of the gold pans Alaska Travel Adventures has for its operations at the site along Gold Creek, said Ryan Rushton, the company’s vice president of operations, in an interview Monday. He said they’ve been continuing tours by using other pans, including some meant to be sold to visitors, and doing other workarounds for missing equipment.

"It basically set us way behind on Friday," he said. "A lot of the other equipment that we have out there for maintaining that site is stolen — things like wheelbarrows, cleaning materials, pumps, that sort of thing was stolen as well. And when they steal the pans they steal the gold that we salt into the dirt in those pans."

A burglary report filed with the Juneau Police Department put the total value of the storage shed theft at $2,800. Rushton said he estimates the theft includes about $1,000 in gold.

He said he’s not aware of a similar large-scale theft from the site before, but there have been break-ins and people panning out gold in the troughs used by his company.

The storage shed is near the Last Chance Mining Museum just past the end of Basin Road, where a mining camp was established in 1910. Alaska Travel Adventures operates its Gold Creek tours under a commercial permit with the City and Borough of Juneau.

A plea for the return of the stolen equipment was posted Monday on a community Facebook page by Stephen Byers, who is working his second season at the gold panning tour site. He asked the items — if not the gold found in the pans — be left at the back parking lot of Church of the Holy Trinity, which he attends.

"I just want the stuff back, I mean that's all I care about," he said in an interview Monday. "It's hurting the guides, it's hurting people there trying to put a roof over their heads."

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.