The Sunny Side Up #1–2

About These Claims

Alaska State Gold Claims for Sale — Inside the Tintina Gold Province

“Eighty contiguous acres of Alaska gold ground, sitting in the same world-class belt that produced Pogo, Fort Knox, and Manh Choh — with a brand-new set of government maps and airborne surveys covering it, free to whoever holds the ground. The floor doesn’t get much lower than this.”

Granite Mountains • Jarvis Creek • Delta River Mining District • Southeast Fairbanks, Alaska

Eighty Acres on the North Flank of the Alaska Range

The Sunny Side Up are two adjoining forty-acre Alaska state claims — the NE¼SE¼ of Section 28 and the NW¼SW¼ of Section 27 — that meet along a shared section line and form one solid, unbroken eighty-acre block. They lie in Township 12 South, Range 12 East of the Fairbanks Meridian, roughly thirteen miles southeast of Delta Junction, on the north-facing foothills of the eastern Alaska Range between Jarvis Creek and the Gerstle River. This is road country. The Richardson Highway and the Alaska Highway both serve the area, and Delta Junction — fuel, groceries, hardware, a hot meal and a bed — is a short drive away. No float plane. No helicopter budget.

The Richest Gold Belt Most People Have Never Heard Of

Interior Alaska sits on a great curving band of gold country called the Tintina Gold Province, which sweeps out of Alaska and across into Canada’s Yukon. The U.S. Geological Survey put the number plainly in 2007: more than fifty million ounces of lode gold had been defined in this belt in the previous fifteen years alone. Fort Knox, Pogo, Donlin Creek, Dublin Gulch, Brewery Creek — every one of them is a child of the same geologic event, a pulse of molten rock that shouldered up through this crust and drove hot, gold-bearing fluids into every crack it could find. These claims sit inside that belt.

The Neighborhood

Forty-five miles north-northeast, the Pogo mine has produced 5.5 million ounces of gold in its first twenty years and still holds a resource of roughly 6.7 million ounces grading better than ten grams per tonne — one of the highest-grade gold mines in North America. Pogo sits on State of Alaska ground, in the same Yukon-Tanana rocks, and it was found the old-fashioned way: a geologist followed gold traces in stream sediment back toward their source. The ground was staked in 1991 and drilled in 1994. Before that it was quiet country nobody had walked.

The gold history runs in every direction from here. Prospectors struck placer gold on Tenderfoot Creek in the Richardson district, northwest of these claims, in 1905, and that district has given up roughly 120,000 ounces since. Ninety miles east, near Tok, Kinross poured its first gold bar at the Manh Choh mine in July 2024 from a deposit carrying 1.3 million ounces at four grams per tonne. Gold has been found, mined, and shipped from all around this ground.

The Rocks Under Your Boots

Scrape off the moss and the bedrock here belongs to the Yukon-Tanana terrane — specifically a slice geologists call the Jarvis Creek Glacier subterrane. In plain language: about 380 million years ago this was a chain of volcanic islands, complete with hot springs venting metal-rich fluid onto the seafloor. It was later buried, cooked, folded, cooked a second time, and finally welded onto the edge of North America. That history is the same recipe that put gold into the schists of the Fairbanks district and the veins at Pogo.

Then came the granite. Cretaceous and early Tertiary molten rock punched up through that package all across this country, including the Granite Mountain pluton right on the doorstep and the tin-bearing Gerstle River granite a short distance south. Tin is a prospector’s friend in this belt, because tin-bearing “reduced” granites are the exact flavor of intrusion that built Pogo and Fort Knox. Where that kind of granite shoulders into older schist, gold has a habit of following.

Gold Already in the Pan

This is not theory. Federal records document real, measured placer gold in the Granite Mountains drainages nearby: Lower McCumber Creek carries some 580,000 cubic yards running 0.0079 ounces of gold per cubic yard, and lower Morningstar Creek holds 128,000 cubic yards at 0.019 ounces per yard. At today’s gold price that second figure works out to better than sixty dollars of gold sitting in every cubic yard of gravel. Nearby Pegmatite Creek carries placer gold too, and it does something a sharp prospector should notice — it follows the contact between a granite body and the older rock, which is exactly where an intrusion-related gold system leaks to surface.

The old-timers saw it as well. In 1942 the USGS geologist Fred Moffit published his survey of the Gerstle River district and reported that this country had been prospected in the early days by men searching for placer gold, and that the quartz sands scattered across it came from the weathering of quartz veins in the schist and from the granite intrusives. Moffit was pointing straight at the source rocks — and he was doing it with a hand lens, a notebook, and a pack horse.

A Free Head Start

Between 2021 and 2025 the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys mapped roughly 3,100 square miles across the Big Delta, Mount Hayes, and Eagle quadrangles under its Mount Harper project, with the stated aim of promoting exploration for vein gold, placer gold, and granite-hosted tin. Over the same stretch, federally funded Earth MRI airborne surveys flew tens of thousands of line-miles of magnetic, radiometric, and electromagnetic data across the Delta Junction corridor. Every map, every rock assay, every flight line is published and free to download. A generation ago a junior company would have burned millions of dollars to generate that dataset. Today, whoever owns this ground simply downloads it and goes to work.

Why Now

Gold averaged $3,431 an ounce in 2025, a 43 percent jump over the year before. Alaska’s hardrock mines and its roughly 200 small placer operations turned out about 959,000 ounces in 2024, worth some $2.3 billion — nearly half the state’s entire mineral production value. Ground that looked marginal at $1,200 gold reads very differently today. And Alaska state claims remain among the cheapest gold ground in North America to simply hold on to: one hundred dollars a year in annual labor per forty-acre claim.

The Features of the “Sunny Side Up” at a Glance

• Eighty Contiguous Acres – Two adjoining forty-acre state claims that share a section line and form one solid, unbroken block. No gaps, no odd corners, nobody wedged in between you and your own ground.
• Inside the Tintina Gold Province – The same belt that hosts Fort Knox, Pogo, Donlin Creek, and Dublin Gulch, where the USGS counted more than 50 million ounces of lode gold defined in a fifteen-year span.
• Forty-Five Miles from Pogo – 5.5 million ounces produced in twenty years and roughly 6.7 million ounces still in the ground at better than 10 g/t — sitting on State of Alaska ground in the same Yukon-Tanana rocks as these claims.
• Documented District Placer Gold – Federal records for nearby Granite Mountains creeks show measured placer gravels running from 0.0079 to 0.019 ounces of gold per cubic yard. That is more than $60 a yard at today’s price.
• Granite on the Doorstep – The Granite Mountain pluton sits close by, and the tin-bearing Gerstle River granite ring dike lies just south. Tin-bearing reduced granites are the fingerprint of the intrusions that built Pogo and Fort Knox.
• Brand-New Government Data — Free – DGGS mapped ~3,100 square miles of this country between 2021 and 2025, and Earth MRI flew modern airborne magnetics, radiometrics, and EM over the corridor. All of it downloadable at no cost to the claim holder.
• Placer and Lode Potential – Ancient volcanic-arc schist, quartz veins, granite contacts, and gold-bearing Tertiary gravels all occur in this country. Two ways to look, on one block of ground.
• Road Country, Not Fly-In – Delta Junction is a short drive; the Richardson and Alaska Highways serve the area. You can work this ground out of a truck instead of a chartered aircraft.
• $100 a Year to Hold – Alaska state claims carry just $100 in annual labor per forty-acre claim, among the lowest holding costs on any gold ground in North America — and these are already paid through 2029.
• Held Since 2015, Paid Through 2029 – Located in 2015 and maintained ever since, with rental and annual labor already covered for years. You take over ground that is current and in good standing, with nothing due at the door.
• Permitted Cabin Included – A cabin sits on the ground with a wood stove, kitchen, storage, propane hook-ups, an access ramp, and an outhouse. It was permitted before construction and the permits transfer with the claims. Almost nothing at this price comes with a roof.
• Existing Shaft on the Property – A previous holder already sank a shaft here. In country buried under glacial gravel and silt, a hole that already reaches through the overburden is somewhere to sample from on day one.
• Room to Run – This is exploration ground in a proven belt. The maps are new, the airborne surveys are fresh, and the block is big enough to sample properly and chase whatever turns up.

If you’re interested in these Alaska state gold claims for sale, please email me here.

The Cabin, the Camp, and the Shaft

Very few gold claims at this price come with a roof over them. The Sunny Side Up does. A cabin sits on the ground — permitted before it was built, with those permits transferring to you along with the claims — and it is set up to actually be lived in. There is a wood stove for heat, a kitchen, storage and work space inside, propane hooked up outside, a ramp to the door, and an outhouse a few steps away. In interior Alaska that changes the arithmetic of prospecting entirely. A dry place to sleep, dry your boots, cook a hot meal, and sit out three days of rain is the difference between a weekend on the ground and a working season on it.

A previous holder also sank a shaft on the property. Its depth is not recorded and nothing significant was reported from it — but in country like this, where glacial gravel and windblown silt bury the bedrock across most of the map, an existing hole through the overburden is a genuine asset. It is somewhere to sample, log, and work outward from, rather than a hole you have to dig first. Treat it the way you would any old working of unknown depth and condition: look before you step, and rig properly before you go down.

• Cabin with wood stove, kitchen, and interior storage and work space
• Permitted prior to construction — permits transfer with the claims
• Propane hook-ups already in place
• Accessibility ramp to the cabin door
• Outhouse on site
• Existing shaft of unrecorded depth — bedrock access without the digging

The Sunny Side Up Main Features

Type of Claim	Alaska State MTRSC Claims (2 × 40-acre quarter-quarter)
Claim Numbers	ADL 620950 (Sunny Side Up #1) ADL 620951 (Sunny Side Up #2)
Originally Located	2015 — held continuously since
Fees Paid Through	2029
Legal Description	NE¼SE¼ Sec. 28 & NW¼SW¼ Sec. 27, T12S, R12E, Fairbanks Meridian
Size of Claim	80 ACRES (2 × 40)
Mining Commodities	Gold, Silver; district also Copper, Lead, Zinc, Tin, Tungsten
Accessibility	Highway corridor + secondary and trail access
Closest City	Delta Junction, Alaska (~13 mi)
USGS Quadrangle	Mount Hayes D-3
Recording District	Fairbanks Recording District
Camping	Yes — per State of Alaska land-use rules
Improvements	Permitted cabin, outhouse, propane hook-ups, access ramp — all convey with the claims
Prior Workings	Shaft of unrecorded depth
Cell Phone Reception	Good near the highway corridor, limited off it
Type of Deposit	Lode & placer potential
Best Season	June – September

Claim Boundaries, Location Map and GPS Coordinates

The Legal Description

Alaska state MTRSC claims are defined by aliquot part rather than by staked corners, which means the written description below is the boundary — clean, square, and unambiguous on every state plat.

Sunny Side Up — Aliquot Descriptions

Sunny Side Up #1 ADL 620950	NE¼SE¼, Sec. 28, T12S, R12E, F.M. — 40 acres
Sunny Side Up #2 ADL 620951	NW¼SW¼, Sec. 27, T12S, R12E, F.M. — 40 acres
Configuration	Contiguous, sharing the Sec. 27/28 line

Approximate Claim Centers

Sunny Side Up #1	63.8490°, -145.4321°
Sunny Side Up #2	63.8490°, -145.4239°

Coordinates above are approximate centers derived from the township, range and section description for map display. Surveyed corner coordinates and a Google Earth™ KMZ are supplied with the claim documents at transfer.

• View on Google Maps
• ↓ Google Earth KMZ of the “Sunny Side Up” Boundaries — COMING SOON!

Economic Information About the Deposit and Operations

Operation type	Lode & placer exploration
Development status	Exploration ground — undrilled
Commodity type	Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, Zinc, Tin, Tungsten
Deposit size	Undetermined

Mining District

District Name	Delta River Mining District, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area
Regional Deposits	Pogo Mine — ~45 mi NNE Richardson District — ~35 mi NW Delta VMS Belt — ~40 mi ESE Manh Choh Mine — ~90 mi ESE

Geologic Structures

Host Terrane	Yukon-Tanana Terrane — Jarvis Creek Glacier subterrane
Structure Description	(MAJOR) — Metamorphic Metamorphic > Schist > Metavolcanic (metaandesite, quartz keratophyre) Metamorphic > Schist > Metasedimentary (pelitic schist, quartzite, calc-schist, marble) Minor — Igneous & Surficial Igneous > Plutonic > Granodiorite / tonalite / granite (Cretaceous–early Tertiary) Surficial > Glacial drift, loess, outwash gravels

Mineralization & Commodities

The Sunny Side Up sit in the Delta River Mining District of Southeast Fairbanks, Alaska, inside the wider Tintina Gold Province — a belt with a documented history of lode and placer gold production stretching back to the first strikes of the early 1900s.

Primary and secondary commodities in this district include:

The district is underlain by ancient volcanic and sedimentary rocks that were metamorphosed into schist and then intruded by younger granite bodies — a pairing that produces gold three proven ways here: quartz veins carrying free gold, metal-rich sulfide lenses formed on an ancient seafloor, and placer gold concentrated in the gravels below.

Geology & Setting

These claims lie within the Tintina Gold Province, the metallogenic belt responsible for the largest gold discoveries in interior Alaska and the Yukon. The claim area is characterized by:

• Yukon-Tanana terrane schist — the host rock at Pogo and throughout the Fairbanks district
• Devonian metavolcanic rocks of the kind that host the gold-bearing Delta sulfide belt to the east
• Cretaceous and early Tertiary granitic intrusions, including the nearby Granite Mountain pluton
• Tin-bearing granite in the Gerstle River ring dike to the south — a strong fertility indicator for intrusion-related gold
• Documented placer gold in Granite Mountains drainages, including gold-bearing Tertiary gravels
• Modern DGGS geologic mapping and Earth MRI airborne geophysics covering the corridor
• Highway-corridor access from Delta Junction
• An eighty-acre contiguous footprint — working room to run a real sampling program and chase an anomaly

How to Prospect This Ground

You do not need a drill rig to start. Gold gets found in this country the way it always has: you follow it upstream. Pan the creek gravels, save the black sand, and count your colors — then look hard at the gold itself. Flat, worn, rounded flakes have traveled a long way from home. Sharp, ragged, crystalline pieces with quartz still clinging to them have not, and they are telling you the source is close.

1. Start at the desk. Download the free ARDF mineral occurrence files for the Mount Hayes quadrangle, the DGGS Mount Harper mapping, and the Earth MRI airborne magnetics. Plot what is already known before you spend a dollar on gas.
2. Pan every drainage. Sample each creek that crosses or drains the block. Log gold grain counts and grain shape at every station.
3. Watch for the company gold keeps. Scheelite glows bright under a UV lamp. Cassiterite, arsenopyrite, and bismuth minerals in your concentrate all point toward an intrusion-related gold system.
4. Walk the contacts. Where granite meets schist is where the fluids went. Follow those contacts on the ground with a hand lens and a rock hammer.
5. Grid the anomaly. Once a drainage lights up, run soil lines across the ridges and spurs above it. A handheld XRF gives you results the same afternoon.
6. Test the benches. Placer gold hides on old terraces and false bedrock as often as in the live channel. Dig, don’t assume.
7. Bring the detector. Coarse gold and nuggets show up on shallow bedrock, gravel bars, and old tailings piles.

Field season runs June through September. Come with a pan and a classifier, a shovel, a good GPS, a UV lamp, sample bags, bear spray, and a notebook you actually write in. Verify current land status on Alaska Mapper before you plan any work — it is free, it takes ten minutes, and it is simply good practice on any claim anywhere.

The Sunny Side Up Mineral Rights Transfer Process

An Alaska state mining claim gives the holder the exclusive right to explore for and mine minerals on state land. Like a federal claim, it is a tangible property interest: it can be bought, sold, leased, gifted, willed, used as collateral, or transferred in whole or in part by recordable quitclaim deed. Transfers are recorded through the Alaska Department of Natural Resources Recorder’s Office, and the claims are maintained by paying annual rental to the State of Alaska and performing (or paying cash in lieu of) $100 in annual labor per forty-acre claim. The Sunny Side Up claims were originally located in 2015 and have been held continuously ever since, and all rental and annual labor obligations are paid through 2029 — so the ground comes to you current, with nothing due for years. Questions about the transfer process can be answered by contacting us anytime.

Purchasing “The Sunny Side Up”

• Full mineral rights transfer for the “Sunny Side Up” 80-acre Alaska state mining claims.
• Official location certificates, claim locations and digital maps.
• Email-based support for claim maintenance and questions.

• You fill out our new claim owner form with your name and address, or add any additional claimants you want on the claims.
• Digital copies of your location certificates and maps of location arrive by email in PDF format.
• We handle the filing and transfer work on your behalf.
• Stamped, recorded copies come back to you from the Alaska DNR Recorder’s Office naming you as the new claimant.

Why Buy Through Mountain Man Mining?

• 7+ years in business with hundreds of successful claim transfers
• Verified listings — every claim is confirmed active with the State of Alaska before listing
• All paperwork handled — no guesswork, no missed deadlines
• Free consultations — talk through the claims, the process, and your goals before you buy
• Post-sale support — we're available to answer questions even after you own it