Alex and Julie's Travels: 2015 Summer Journey Crossing Alaska, part 22

2015 Summer Journey

Alaskan Crossing, part 22

McCarthy/ Kennecott Mill

July 27, 2015

Today Julie and I will explore the famous Kennecott Mill and wander around, aimlessly in the quite town of McCarthy. For those who haven’t been here on their own travels into Alaska, this is a must see place, put it on your bucket list.

Overnight parking was five bucks, night was more of a shadowy dulling of the day light, in Alaska it’s important to block out your windows if you want to sleep.

It was about 10:30 am and time to get going for our day’s adventure, we decide to make the walk into McCarthy it wasn’t that far. Passing by the pizza bus, thoughts of that great pizza made my mouth water. (Unfortunately I found out recently that they had gone out of business.)

The base camp was full this morning, looks as though a lot more visitors had arrived during the “night.”

From the bridge that spanned the Kennecott River I was able to get some great photos of the Kennecott Glacier from there, the morning cloud covering cut down on the glare off the ice.

Even a few Soapberries were hanging around to be eaten.(not really they taste just like soap)

It seems no matter how small a town is there is always a church.

Several other people had the same idea as to walking into McCarthy, but one had to watch out for landing aircraft.

Remains of a old pulley system was still in place, somewhat.

Shuttle service was available for 5 dollars, each way. One had passed us and turn at the museum up ahead, we would take a look inside the museum.

McCarthy Museum was on the small side but held a lot of local interesting items.

McCarthy was of no exception as far as old equipment just laying about as we have seen throughout Alaska.

Main Street McCarthy contained few building in a old town style but yet were too new to be that old. From Wrangell Mountain Air Julie and I could see most of the township. A little note, McCarthy and the Kennecott Mill are completely inside the Wrangell- St Elias National Park.

From here we paid our shuttle fee for a round trip to the Kennecott Mills, a five mile taxi ride.

Kennecott Mill is run by the National Park and the private sector, each benefit from this arrangement. After we bought out tour ticket we were off with our tour guide.

At its time the Kennecott Mill owners boasted of a community center where dances, watching movies and other activities were held. The only problem was that most of the production employees were working 16 hours a day/6 day a week which was the majority of the work force at the mill.

Our guide led us on to the school house and housing for all of the single men, each building was near each other, families had their own separate housing. On the other side of the men’s dorm was the refrigerated building where all the meat and produce was stored.

There was a lot to see, a lot to take in. From in front of the post office our group got a good look at the upcoming mill and the climb that’s goes with it.

Passing by a couple of building being restored, the one on the left is the hospital, the only building painted white, all other building are paint red due to that was the cheapest paint one could buy at that era.

Our next place to scope out was the powerhouse, getting there we had to walk through the train ore loading dock.

Our group was guide through a side door for a view inside. We saw steam piping and electric generators. Kennecott Mill generated all its own power.

Leaving this area and re-entering in another door we were able to get up close to the steam boilers that was the heart of Kennecott Mill. All the boilers were sealed due to the high cost of asbestos abatement; one could still smell the strong odor of fuel oil that was used to power these behemoths.

Heading to the main course of this tour and a 14 story climb.

Hard hats are required and now the climb with several stops, some people had to drop out, just couldn’t make the climb.

Making the to the top of the mill, the cables above us led to the mines up the mountain and ore hoppers were sent down to the mill.

The upper deck was under construction, this is where the ore cars came in for processing and begins our journey into the bowls of this mining operation.

From up here there is a great view of the power plant, the town below and the Kennecott Glacier.

The first flight of stairs give you reason for the wearing the hard hats. Stair was steep with many cross beams to hit one's head on.

Ore separation starts with these hopper shoots.

Kennecott Mill was built for production, not employee comfort, the steam pipe bend the ore crusher was for production use only.

With each floor below us more ore was process to extract more copper with different mechanical methods.

On this floor an operator would have to take care of as many as ten separating tables on different floors. The diamond shape wedges would control the water flow, plus the table would vibrate and tilt.

The floor below us has more separating table and one can see the motors that vibrate and tilt those tables. Image running between two floors, up and down for up to 16 hours a day.

Some areas where very dark and one had to be careful. We exited a door and went to the final processing area where chemical extraction was use to achieve over 99 % removal of copper out of the ore making Kennecott Mill one of the most efficient mills of it’s time as well as the most profitable.