Working at the Lost Packer Mine 1979 to 1988
James Ivers III ("Iron Ass Ivers") was my grandfather and in a way a surrogate father after my parents divorce. I spent much of my life from age 7 through 17 with him, including working at the Lost Packer Mine...
History of the Lost Packer Mine: https://www.idahogeology.org/pub/Staff_Reports/1997/S-97-11.pdf
I had many different jobs while working at the mine, ranging from go-fer, dishwasher, and woodchopper when I started around 8-9 years old, to:
- Survey Crew: including using the surveying equipment, as well as clearing branches for line of sight measurements (thus the hatchet), tagging spots, driving marker stakes, etc.
- Surface Work Crew (light duty): ...
- Surface Construction Crew (heavy duty): ...
- Surface Crew Explosives Crew: ...
- Ore Cart Pusher/Dumper (under and above ground): ...
- Full underground miner: including mucking, picking, diamond driller, filling the blast hols with prill and dynamite (Power Max, etc.), preparing dynamite, lighting and verifying cord ignition, etc.
- ...
- ...
I even talked the miners in later years into playing role-playing games like Middle-earth Role-Playing set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth during our down hours or when out camping in the Tango Lakes region. It became a recurring thing that was fun for all.
Here is a photo from when I was working with the Survey Crew, we were up on the "back side of the pinnacles" working on making sure the mining claim surveys were updates since the EPA and others were trying to gobble up everything in the area.
I am wearing the sailors hat holding the hatchet, and I think I was around 13 or 14.
