Could gold rush fever be resurfacing in California?
Steve Gaetske has it.
The Bonita resident put his construction trucking business on hold and recently relocated to Big Bar in Northern California, where he is dredging for gold.
Gaetske, 54, is a veteran prospector. He tried it in the early '70s, then again in the early '80s when gold topped $500 an ounce. He returned to the hunt in 1990-91 during a construction slowdown when gold was selling for close to $400 an ounce.
Now, with gold prices ricocheting between $800 and $1,000 per ounce, Gaetske decided to head for the hills.
He hopes to mine 2 ounces of gold a day, one each for him and his mining partner, Mickey Rees. He sells the gold to a dealer for 85 percent of face value and pays a campground operator on the Trinity River a small fee for the use of his land and mineral rights.
Despite the lore, gold mining is far from romantic. Dredging is grueling work and about as inviting as swimming off the Alaskan coast in winter. Gaetske and his pal wear wet suits rigged with flowing warm water from a hose attached to their equipment on shore. They do three-to four-hour shifts in the water vacuuming up gold flecks and nuggets with a hose. Their work starts at 8 a.m. and ends at dinner time.
Until this week, though, wildfires that came dangerously close to Rees's nearby home soured the air and sidelined the miners. On Thursday, they recovered a half-ounce of gold from the same spot Gaetske had mined several pounds of gold in the 1990s.
“This site has been pretty well cleaned out,” he says. They'll check out another part of the river next week.
As for gold fever, Gaetske says he hasn't seen quite as many prospectors as in the '80s and early '90s, but several more dredges have been set up in the past month.
Under the tent
Sadie Rose Bakery in East Village received an order for 180 loaves of preservative-free bread to be delivered to the San Diego Sports Arena and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus this week. Turns out, the bread wasn't for the human performers but for the elephants.
“Their favorite food is bread – not peanuts,” Ringling Bros. spokeswoman Joice Truban Curry said.
The circus opened Wednesday with an unexpected attraction. Retired Marine officer and author Jay Kopelman of La Jolla appeared as a guest with Lava, a traumatized puppy he rescued from the war zone in Iraq and brought home.
Around town
OMBAC's Phil Herr reports that a beach wheelchair was never returned to Fiesta Island where it had been lent to an Over-the-Line tournament spectator.
After learning of its disappearance, however, bail bondsman King Stahlman and the Miss Mission Beach Pageant donated enough money to replace it and build two additional beach wheelchairs. The wheelchairs, custom-made with wide rubber wheels by the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club, are at various lifeguard towers. They are lent out for free.
Grand opening
Actor Cristián de la Fuente will help open Legoland's new Sea Life Aquarium on Monday morning. De la Fuente, star of the USA Network's “In Plain Sight” and a “Dancing with the Stars” finalist, is not doing a traditional ribbon cutting but, rather, a “kelp” cutting.
Making (air) waves
After nearly 27 years with the California Highway Patrol, Officer Alicia Contreras, the voice of Channel 10's midday traffic reports, retired in June from the CHP and put away her microphone. Her absence didn't last long, however.
Channel 10 has just brought Contreras back. Instead of driving county roads, however, she'll fly above them in the Sky 10 helicopter, describing the early morning commute.
Although Contreras answers to the name, “Big Al,” she is only 5 feet 1 and, unseen to viewers, stood on a box to deliver her news reports.
Diane Bell's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Fax items to (619) 260-5009, call (619) 293-1518 or e-mail to diane.bell@uniontrib.com.
