Contango Ore
MINING
Upper Tanana Bonanza
The glitter of Manh Choh gold By Isaac Stone Simonelli
92 | May 2022
T
etlin Lake in Alaska’s eastern interior is situated in the Tetlin Passage, a corridor through the upper Tanana River valley where the Alaska Range and Wrangell Mountains create a funnel for migratory birds. Tetlin Lake also feeds the Tetlin River, a short tributary of the Tanana. Both are named for the Athabascan village of Tetlin, located along the riverbank within hiking distance of both the Tanana and the lake. The Upper Tanana Athabascan language gives the lake a different name: Manh Choh, which simply means “big lake.” Manh Choh is also the name of a nearby gold mining development. Until last year, it had been called the Peak project, and the developer is still known as Peak Gold, a joint venture of Texas-based Contango ORE and
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