A large gold mine you’ve probably never heard of is quietly preparing to start

This story was co-published with Grist.

A dusting of snow clings to the highway as Barbara Schuhmann drives around a hairpin curve near her home in Fairbanks. She slows for a patch of ice, explaining that the steep turn is just one of many concerns she has about a looming project that could radically transform Alaskan mining as the state begins looking beyond oil.

Roughly 250 miles to the southeast, plans are developing to dig an open-pit gold mine called Manh Choh, or “big lake” in Upper Tanana Athabascan. Kinross Alaska, the majority owner and operator, will haul the rock on the Alaska Highway and other roads to a processing mill just north of Fairbanks. The route follows the Tanana River across the Interior, where spruce-covered foothills knuckle below the stark peaks of the Alaska Range. Snowmelt feeds the creeks that form a mosaic of muskeg in nearby Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge, a migration corridor for hundreds of bird species. 

When Schuhmann first heard about the project about a year ago, she was surprised. Kinross’s contracted trucking company, Black Gold Transport, will use customized 95-foot tractor-trailers with 16 axles, which will weigh 80 tons apiece when fully loaded. These trucks will soon rumble by homes and businesses every 12 minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with trial runs starting this summer.

“It sounded pretty crazy at the time, moving a mountain from one area of Alaska to another,” she recalls. “It just seemed unbelievable that this would be allowed without special permitting and safety considerations.”

She doesn’t often bring it up, but Schuhmann knows just how dangerous the road can be. Her husband lost his mother, brother and sister on that highway when a truck crossed the centerline, hitting their car head-on.

“So, accidents happen,” she says.

The risks go beyond traffic. The mine and its tailings at Fort Knox, the state’s largest gold mine, have the potential to pollute the air and waterways. But unlike most other mines in the state, there has been no environmental impact statement prepared for Manh Choh. Residents in communities along the route worry about the increased violence and housing shortages that often follow the arrival of such projects. Others question the state’s ability to impartially oversee the permitting process when it has invested $10 million from a state fund in the mine. 

Kinross, which declined repeated interview requests and told others not to speak to Grist, says the project will create more than 400 jobs. Supporters point to the economic boost it could bring to the Native Village of Tetlin, which is leasing the land to Kinross, as well as to nearby Tok, home to 1,200 people. 

But Manh Choh is just the beginning of a surge in mining projects in the state. While gold is not a critical mineral, Alaska holds large reserves of cobalt, copper and rare earth minerals essential to the green transition. If Kinross is allowed to use public roads, it will set a precedent for other companies eager to expand — one in which significant health and safety risks are underwritten by taxpayers. Other looming projects, like the planned Ambler Road in the Brooks Range, are already quietly preparing to use the state’s highways. 

Alaska is at a pivotal moment: Oil and gas production, historically the most important driver of the state’s economy, has been declining for decades. Mining, meanwhile, saw a 23 percent increase in production value in 2021 alone. As the Biden administration pushes to shore up domestic supply chains, Alaskans like Schuhmann aren’t the only ones questioning the race for minerals. She worries the state hasn’t taken the time to make sure that Alaskans can benefit from this kind of development — or at the very least, won’t be harmed by it.

“They can’t answer the questions,” Schuhmann said. “And so we just keep trying to ask them.”

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Lynn Cornberg adjusts her skis, tucking her chin into the wind. She sets off on a historic trail, just north of where gold was first discovered in Fairbanks in 1902, earning it the nickname “The Golden Heart City.” Spindrifts kick up behind her, crystalline in the below-zero chill. The snow darkens with dust as she approaches Fort Knox, where the…