55°

It was fall 2002 and Kralik was dowsing on a placer claim he holds along Gold Run Creek, some 50 miles northwest of Nome. He held a brass rod in each hand and walked around like a human metal detector until the rods moved sharply.

"At that point," he said, "I was thinking, 'Next year, first thing, I put in the dredge.' "

The hunk of gold Kralik turned up that June weighs almost 41 troy ounces, he said. By unofficial standards, his is the 22nd largest gold nugget known to have been found in Alaska.

Kralik said it's a nice nugget.

It's "very, very attractive and very high quality" in its degree of purity and luster.

The nugget, roughly the size and shape of a Palm Pilot and, according to Kralik, safely stored at a bank, would gross about $17,000 if melted down and sold at today's market prices.

But if it remained intact, a nugget that size would bring an additional 40 percent and most likely 60 percent more from a collector, said Kerwin Krause, a geologist for the state Division of Mining.

"There's a nugget factor," Krause said. Shape and color could boost value. So could the nugget's historical context.

A nugget only a few ounces heavier than Kralik's was found at Silverado's Nolan Creek mine near Wiseman in 1994. Four years ago it was sold to a collector for $50,000, Garry Anselmo, head of Silverado Gold Mines Ltd., said from his office in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Today the Nolan rock sits on a mantelpiece in a castle in Spain, Anselmo said.

Kralik, who was born in communist-run Czechoslovakia 51 years ago, is setting his sights quite a bit higher. He estimates that his nugget is worth at least $75,000.

He would like the city of Nome to buy it because "every gold-mining city should have a collection" of such nuggets to lure tourists and miners and encourage young boys to catch gold fever, he said.

No city official, however, has shown serious interest, and who can blame them, what with budget cutting all around, Kralik said.

"It's kind of back and forth," he said in his thickly accented English. "Even in Nome is not the best situation now."

Kralik and his family did not live badly in Czechoslovakia, in what is now Slovakia. But he wanted something he could not define at the time and defected alone to the United States in 1979, he said.

He tried mining on the West Coast, then came to Alaska in 1987 and gold-mined as a hobby. Hard times, however, brought him afoul of the law. In January 1992, he was busted for shoplifting in Anchorage and had to perform community service, according to court records.

"I'm not a perfect man," he said.

He eventually came to invest about $50,000 in mining operations, although his first year's gold, he said, netted him only $1,500.

Today he mines full time and makes his living at it.

"There is always something to do. There is no stop to mining. Now I'm restoring (gear) for the next season," he said.

He mines as a solo diver in Norton Sound, suction-dredging in up to 30 feet of water several hundred yards offshore from the city of Nome. If the water is too rough or unclear, he's dredging at Gold Run Creek.

"He has a reputation for being a real tough guy as far as being able to stay in that water," Krause said. "He'd do it all summer long."

"Even in this town, not many people make a living this way," Kralik said.