2 NEW positions open with PALMEROSA MINING 2026 Season

 We are searching for the right people to join our mining crew for the 2026 Mining Season in Nome, Alaska.  If you or someone you know may be interested, call one of the TOMs
for more details.  We need a:

1) Ship Captain

2) Maintenance and Mining Crew Member

Please call Thomas Palmer II 502-419-0796, tpalmer2nd@msn.com OR

                   Tommy Palmer 502-655-6226, tpalmer3rd@gmail.com

Thank you.

Two NEW positions with Palmerosa Mining SEASON 2026!

 We are searching for the right people to join our mining crew for the 2026 Mining Season in Nome, Alaska.  If you or someone you know may be interested, call TOM for more details.  We need a:

1) Ship Captain

2) Maintenance and Mining Crew Member

Please call Thomas Palmer II 502-419-0796, tpalmer2nd@msn.com

Thank you. 

There's No Place Like NOME

Thomas O. Palmer II, and Tom Palmer III

Author, Wendy D. Palmer 

Two open positions with Palmerosa Mining! 2025 SEASON

 Palmerosa Mining has two positions to be filled for the 2025 mining season in Nome, Alaska.  

1)  Ship Captain

2) Maintenance Crew Member

Work hard for 6 months, then relax and enjoy for 6 months! 

If you are interested or know someone who may be interested, CALL TOM!

Call Thomas Palmer for more information.  502-419-0796. tpalmer2nd@msn.com.

ISO Maintenance and Welding Crew and Mining Member for Summer 2024 season

 Palmerosa Mining is looking to hire two exceptional team members.  No diving necessary.  Our operation is deep water mining using a ROV. 

Six (6) months on, six (6) months off.  Transportation and private living quarters provided. Earn a year's compensation in six (6) months!

Serious inquiries only!  Work is in Nome, AK. April - October 2024.  

Contact Thomas O. Palmer II 502-419-0796  tpalmer2nd@msn.com

              Tom Palmer III  502-655-6226  topalmer3rd@gmail.com

Has it Really Been a Decade?

Palmerosa Mining is back in Nome, Alaska for our 10th season!  Again, like usual, the two Toms and Melva (Mom) made that long flight to their summer abode to embark on yet another season of mining for gold in the Bering Sea.  Like a poker game, when you are all in there is just no backing out in the rush to get the gold that still remains settled in the sea floor offshore Nome.   

Many changes have taken place over the ten long years at this job. Stay tuned for more about our season on Dredging Nome Man's Land, the blog.   

JAG indeed floats!

Here is a photo that Tommy sent to me several days ago.

Back in Nome for Season 6

Yes, it is true, we are now in our sixth year in Nome!  It has been an excruciatingly physically and emotionally exhaustive couple of years for the Palmerosa Mining crew.  So much has happened and yet also been accomplished!  We are only in Nome, Alaska during the Summer months, but the work doesn't end there.  Back at home in Kentucky tireless, all-consuming-man-hours (12 hour days every day of the week) and immense mental fortitude were spent from late Fall 2015 through all of the 2016 mining season working on JAG and the ROV (remotely operated vehicle); our new mining vessel we call SAM (which we had to 'reinvent the wheel' in regards to).  JAG is the 64.7' x 29' x 7.1 massive structure that the ROV rests upon until lowered to the sea floor for mining remotely (atop JAG as opposed to having a diver manually mining the sea floor).  It is not only MUCH safer (underwater man-hours are ultimately not necessary) but also potentially more lucrative, as reaching greater depths is possible by mining with the ROV.  She's on land in this photo and is currently in transit to the water via the sizable airbags; a very tricky 24 hour-long task.  The BIG question...will she float?  We'll know soon enough!

NOME again NOME again Jiggidy Jig

 Yes, the Kentucky Goldenrod crew is back for the 4th season of dredging for gold in the Bering Sea offshore Nome Alaska. Tom, Tom and Melva arrived late last night and are looking forward to an exciting season of dredging on 'the sea'. 

This year the two Toms (Father and Son) will have a boat to trasnport them to and fro the dredge, which will save a great deal of time.  The plan is to continue dredging around the clock on dredgeable days.  There will be two full crews manning the Kentucky Goldenrod at all times.

Our crew is definatley looking for HELP this summer.  If you are an experienced Bering Sea gold diver, leave a message.

HELP NEEDED SUMMER 2014 IN NOME

Seeking Experienced Bering Sea Gold Divers
If you have experience dredging for gold in the Bering Sea and are looking for work this upcoming Summer 2014, please send your information my way.  Come work with the Kentucky Goldenrod Crew! EXPERIENCED BERING SEA DREDGERS ONLY!
Please leave us your email and one of us will be in touch soon.  
1wendypalmer3@gmail.com    Thank you.

Seeking Experienced Bering Sea Gold Divers

If you have experience dredging for gold in the Bering Sea and are looking for work this upcoming Summer 2014, please send your information my way.  Come work with the Kentucky Goldenrod Crew! EXPERIENCED BERING SEA DREDGERS ONLY!

A Long Time Has Passed

I regret that I haven't been keeping up with my blog.  After all, it is my business to do so.  Please forgive me.  There have been legitimate reasons for me not write and keep you up to speed on the goings on in Nome.  I loved being able to research and report about the dredging business in Nome!  It's exciting stuff...  There are a LOT of ups and downs in the business, and there have been many realizations on my behalf during my time researching it.

Last summer (2013) The Kentucky Boys, on their dredge Goldenrod, actually reaped reward.  I won't say how much, but that they didn't go home empty handed.  They plan to be back this coming summer and are looking forward to getting on the gold again!

The Discovery Channel's Bering Sea Gold is always so awesome to watch and so real in it's depiction of the business of dredging for gold off the coast of Nome.  Congratulations to the Pomrenke's for the incredible year they had in 2013!  From what I surmise, their payoff has been a long time coming, as they've lived and breathed the business for many years.

Not many people have what it takes to be in this business...

Beast of the Bering Sea, The Movie

Do NOT watch this movie unless you are a SYFY junkie (which I vehemently am not)  You will not appreciate it.

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Aji7WhbNzkONnEIUuEMyV8mbvZx4?p=bering+sea+gold+movie+syfy&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-900

Bering Sea Gold is Back UNDER THE ICE

Yep, the Bering Sea Gold guys are back in action!  Oh what fun it is to snuggle under a blanket while watching these courageous individuals freeze their buns off in pursuit of Bering Sea gold.  Catch the action and the fever!

Do you think Zeke and Ian should have allowed Emily back to work with them this season?

As much as I am pro-women (I am a woman too), I totally agree with Ian and Zeke.  Emily gets anxious under the water. Period.    You cannot do that there.  It is way too dangerous, not to mention counterproductive.  Sorry Emily.  The guys are right.

http://www.zap2it.com/videogallery/78108898/Entertainment/Bering-Sea-Gold-Under-the-Ice-Exclusive-Season-3-promo

Recent West Beach Activity off Nome Coast

A recent sunny day in Nome reveals many dredge boats out searching for gold off West Beach.  Notice the similar jack-up rigs.

Political Garbage in Nome

Gold mining in Nome has more than it's share of challenges (as if the technicalities of dredging and Mother Nature aren't enough)!  Our claims are many miles West of the Nome harbor.  Getting out and back is challenging and time consuming when the weather can change at the drop of a hat.  By the time you realize the seas are starting to become rough, if you aren't ready to pack up and turn back for harbor then it is often down right dangerous getting back.  

Therefore, the KY Goldenrod crew arranged to mine in the East on one of the local miner's claims, as the claim is much closer to the Nome harbor, and has a great deal of gold potential.  Anything our crew mines, an arranged percentage goes to the claim owner (very common arrangement in Nome).  We have a very powerful 10' suction dredge that could really get some gold!  And, there in lies the problem. Seems a handful of greedy locals don't want outsiders (lower 48ers) to prospect promising land.  It's becoming a political mess.  It started with the underwater lease auction date fiasco (we were given a date in December 2011 and the actual date was in September 2011 which we luckily found out about in the nick of time), and it just keeps getting messier!  It has political garbage written all over it. Do you smell a rat?

 

Nome Offshore Gold Placer Area

Nome is one of the top 100 placer fields in the world.  There are literally millions of ounces of gold all over the area and even under the town itself.  Onshore placer gold production from the Nome area between 1897 and 1964 was about 5,000,000 ounces of gold, the greater part of which was derived from placers on the coastal plain.  

Profitable gold placers are rarely found more than 6 to 12 miles (10-20 km) from bedrock sources.  The Nome Offshore placer area extends from the current offshore beach for 2 miles to water depths of about 60 feet. It extends about 10 miles parallel to the modern strand-line, commencing west of the the mouth of Nome River and continuing westward to the vicinity of Penny River.

Nome Gas Prices Summer 2013

In the Nome Harbor this Summer 2013

 
A message from the Captain of KY GoldenRod...The unusual trawler (Espirit) was a French group.  They were traveling with their families.  They had 2 boats on deck. One was a small sail boat that they are going to ice sail to the North Pole.  The other is a row boat that two of them are going to row from Northern Alaska to Greenland via the NW passage. I found one of them that could speak English and wished them luck.

There are several boats here waiting to hear if the NW passage is open to Greenland.  More Ice this year than usual and they are fearful it may not open.

Celebrating Aviation in Nome

A message from the Captain of the KY GoldenRod (Thomas O.)...

We have made it in the water and been out several days mining (working out the bugs).
We have been fighting with lots of icebergs until last week. They are all gone now.
One day there were dozens around the boat.  Some the size of a train car, most the size of a car.
You have to be careful with the big ones.  We don't want to be another titanic.

 
A couple of weeks ago they had a city BBQ and 100 years of avaition in Alaska celebration you will see some of the planes featured. The big red bird I had never seen before.  It was used as an airliner here in Alaska in the 30's, 40's, and early  50's.  The museum in Anchorage refurbished it and it is beautiful!