Candle Creek facts for kids

Candle Creek is a small river in Alaska, a state in the United States. It flows into the Kiwalik River. Candle Creek is found on the Seward Peninsula, a large piece of land that sticks out into the Bering Sea.

The small town of Candle is less than a mile from the creek. The village of Kiwalik is about 13 miles away. The creek got its name because the snow-covered trees along its banks look like candles. In 1901, gold was found here, making Candle Creek famous for its gold.

Where is Candle Creek?

Candle Creek is located in a special spot where water flows either north or south on the Seward Peninsula. The creek flows towards the north-northeast. It joins the Kiwalik River near the town of Candle. This meeting point is about 6 miles from the top of Spafarief Bay.

The creek is also about 9 miles south of a sand area where the village of Kiwalik is located. Candle Creek flows through a wide, shallow valley. The sides of the valley are not very steep. Besides gold, other minerals like pyrite (also called "fool's gold") and garnet can be found here. Many smaller streams flow into Candle Creek. Some come from the east, like Bean and Blank creeks. Others come from the west, such as Jump, Patterson, Potato, Ptarmigan, Thomas, and Willow creeks.

How Gold Was Found Here

In 1901, people found gold in Candle Creek. This gold was found both in the riverbed and in the valley. The rocks in the valley formed a very long time ago, during the late Precambrian and early Paleozoic eras. You can find rocks like quartz and mica here.

The bottom of the river is made of a type of rock called schist. This bedrock is covered by a thick layer of gravel, about 12 to 18 feet deep. This gravel is where the gold was found. The valley itself is covered with 10 to 20 feet of ice, dirt, fallen rocks, and tundra plants. The gold found here is often covered in a dark, rusty layer. Sometimes, gold was also found inside hard, round rocks called ironstone concretions.

Other minerals found with the gold include arsenopyrite, lots of pyrite, galena, chalcopyrite, ilmenite, rutile, garnet, and cerussite. Sometimes, magnetite (a magnetic mineral) is also present.

Gold Mining History

After gold was discovered in Nome, many gold seekers, called prospectors, started looking in other nearby rivers on the Seward Peninsula. Candle Creek was claimed for mining in July 1901. Four men named Enos Thomas, Alexander Patterson, Robert W. Snyder, and James Blankenship were among the first to claim land here.

Blankenship might have been the very first to claim land on Candle Creek. However, the other three men were the first to explore the area. They are known for finding gold on Jump Creek, a small stream that flows into Candle Creek. These four men claimed the best parts of Candle Creek and its smaller streams. This gave them rights to a lot of land.

More miners arrived within a few months. In the summer of 1902, a lot of gold that was easy to get was dug up between Potato Creek and the Kiwalik River. The next year, fewer people were looking for gold. Around 1916–1917, about twelve small mining operations were working on Candle Creek and its smaller streams.

Placer mining, which includes using large machines called dredges, was very popular until the 1950s. Records show that more than 600,000 ounces of gold were mined from Candle Creek. The creek's name comes from how the snow-covered branches on its banks look like candles in the spring.