The Alaska Miner Spring 2025 12 smoke the small ones and eat them like candy when out in the field.” The brown bears who also came to fish provided adventures as well. “I had a couple of close calls when working around brown bears. “When I came to Alaska I couldn’t afford a modern pistol, but I felt better packing a pistol, so I had an old Civil War cap-and-ball revolver that I had gotten from my stepfather.” For clarification, a cap-and-ball pistol uses black powder and when fired, produces lots of white smoke. “I was going upstream and had seen lots of bears but every time they took off. Then this one bear was fishing, and I had lots of fun watching him. Then he saw me and started walking toward me. Every step I took backward he took one forward. I jumped up on a big snag washed down in the creek and he came at me. I tried to hit on the nose with my salmon snagging stick, but he swatted it away. “I had not had a chance to pull out the revolver, and he came again, and he hit me across legs. I went up in air but was able to pull the revolver. Now he was probably a foot from me. I fired and hit him in the head, but the bullet ricocheted off his skull. “And right then I couldn’t help but laugh! Here’s this bear with a huge ring of smoke around his head. I cocked it again, but he just turned and took off!” Another time on a foggy day, he heard a caught a group of fishermen about to net a stream. They fled when he approached, so he followed in the fog in his small boat. “I could hear whales in distance sounding. Sitting there in the fog, it was an eerie situation. All of a sudden, the water next to the boat exploded and a whale came up for air. All I could see was straight into his eyeball. I always wondered what he thought but luckily, he wasn’t upset!” “Experiences like that leave everlasting impressions.” Roger switched his college major to wildlife management and graduated from Cornell with that and a minor in geology. Roger had served in the Naval Reserve at 17, wanting to be a pilot but was color blind. After college, he received a commission in the U.S. Army Artillery and served on active duty from 1957 to 1959. “I got a commission and went to Army Ranger School. I really enjoyed the service but came straight back to Alaska as soon as I got out in 1959.” As now a captain in the Alaska National Guard, he was the first commander of the new National Guard Armory in Fairbanks. After his military service, he worked in banking for 14 years and enjoyed the banking business until entering the mining industry in 1972. Roger had had a love of sled dogs going back to college and now had the place and time to develop that into a full-time hobby. He purchased an Army sled dog pup from Carl Heinmiller of Haines, Alaska. That pup later lost his left leg after being hit by a car and forever more was known as “Tripod.” “Tripod used to follow me to class at Cornell. When I went into the service, I left him with my fraternity. He became a famous dog on campus, after during the big rivalry game with Syracuse, he ran the full length of the field and disrupted the kickoff!” Fairbanks has been home to Roger since 1959. “I’ve had a lot of good years here. I drove dogs for years, made quite a few big expeditions. I had big malamutes, freight dogs, so we did lots of cross-country stuff. I worked as a VIP helping the park service train its dogs for freighting. It was a lot of fun. I always had Alaska malamutes. I stuck with purebreds and showed them too.” It was another family friend who whetted his appetite for mining in 1945. His stepfather often brough home military veterans, as commander of the local American Legion Post, and one was a former member of the famous Black Sheep Squadron from the Pacific War, a medal of honor winner. “He was a geologist, working in South America, and he came back with a mineral set, which got my curiosity up. I’d done a little prospecting in Southeast Alaska and always had that interest in mining and minerals. So, it whetted my whistle.” It was the wild people of Alaska as much as the wildlife that he came to love. He befriended a homesteader in Icy Strait who sparked his interest in mining. “Joe Ibach had been a fox farmer, guide, entertained famous people who wanted to come and hunt. He was also interested in mining. He’d built his fireplace with gold and copper ore which he’d mined.” He had also befriended another older timer who died, leaving a poke of gold. “He gave me a nugget that I kept until I gave it to girl from college that I married.” “I worked on the pipeline, was a laborer, had a lot of crazy experiences. They were a rough and tumble group but since I’d left home, I’d been able to take care of myself. Roger worked the pipeline, made good money, and bought the old Grant Mine, on Esther Dome near Fairbanks. He has been working that property for close to 48 years. He enjoyed hardrock underground mining and worked for Silverado Gold Mine at Nolan Creek. “We had some good years and some tough years.” Nolan Creek is legendary for the large gold nuggets it has produced. “We did quite well, but of course when we did well, the price of gold dropped to $260 an ounce. We had some of the finest placer gold in Alaska but no market at that time.” The largest nugget Silverado mined was 43.75 ounces, and many others of 18 to 20 ounces. For decades, he has served Alaska, advising, and advocating for resource development efforts and organizations. “While I was mining and developing the mine, I became active in the Miners Association. I was the statewide president back in 1983-1984 and am a director emeritus. “I got involved in different organizations and advisory groups, because I’ve always be interested in people and politics.” His banking background also proved invaluable on boards where financial expertise was often lacking. He is an Alaska pioneer and also remains active in Fairbanks civic events and the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce. In 2014, the Alaska Chamber of Commerce named him the William Egan Outstanding Alaskan of the Year, in recognition of his many years advocating for resource development and education. “I had no inkling,” he said at the time. “I still am sort of shocked. I’ve just sort of done things as they’ve come along. “It’s been a good life.” BURGGRAF, CONTINUED from PAGE 10
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