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Most people believe that gold mining in the Yukon and Alaska was primarily done with gold pans, or possibly sluice boxes. In fact, those methods were only used for testing streams, and in the early stages of mining in some areas such as the Klondike. Relatively little gold was recovered, and it wasn't until the arrival of huge dredges that gold production soared.
With buckets that gouged out several cubic yards of gravel on each pass, enormous amounts of material could be processed by a dredge, so even fairly poor ground could be profitably mined.
The bucket-line dredges that changed the character of gold mining in Alaska and the Yukon were invented in New Zealand. Many changes and additions were made to make them suitable for working frozen ground, but the technology changed little for the 80 years they were in use. Although they look complex, the basic concept is very simple - the buckets scoop up the gravel and dump it into sluice boxes inside the dredge, water is pumped in to separate the gold from the gravel, and the worthless gravel is then dumped out the back.
Most modern dredges are much smaller, and use suction to bring up the gold-bearing gravel from river bottoms. Many are used by "recreational" miners due to their relatively low cost and ease of use.
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