Soaring Prices Fuel Alaska's Mining Renaissance – Gold Hits $4,500/oz

Everything's coming together for mining in Alaska.

If you've been reading my work for any length of time, you'll be aware of how much I love Alaska. I am in the habit of describing the Great Land with four words: Vast, clean, wild, and free. But Alaska is also loaded with resources, and what's more, Alaska is big enough that we can have our cake and eat it, too; the amount of land taken up by mining and oil/gas development is tiny set against the vastness of this great state.

And now, in part due to the Trump administration's push to open up this treasure chest, mining is poised to make a big comeback up here. And it's already happening.

While the total value of Alaska's 2025 mineral production is still being tallied, it is expected that mines across the state produced more than $5 billion worth of gold, zinc, silver, lead, germanium, and industrial minerals last year.
From Teck Resources Ltd.'s world-class Red Dog zinc mine in the far Northwest to Hecla Mining Company's 9-million-ounce-per-year Greens Creek silver mine on the Southeast Alaska Panhandle, these operations serve as economic hubs in remote regions where few alternatives exist.
Key economic contributions from Alaska's mining sector include:
$1.8 billion spent on goods and services to support Alaska's mines, with $1.1 billion directly to Alaska businesses.
$145 million in local and state government revenues.
$240 million in royalty payments to Alaska Native corporations, bringing the cumulative total to $3.6 billion since 1989.
12,400 total direct, indirect, and induced jobs by the mining sector, paying an average wage of $123,000 – twice the state average.

Gold prices alone are driving a lot of interest; on January 15th, 2025, gold's spot price was at $2,717.00 per troy ounce. As of this writing, on January 15, 2026, that price has gone up to $4,612.25 per troy ounce. Note also that, while gold is nice, much of the boodle consists of other strategic metals, including rare-earth elements. And the Great Land is already reaping the economic benefits. The Trump administration has streamlined permitting, opened up lease bidding for oil and gas extraction, and started planning new infrastructure, like the Ambler Road.

More importantly, this is a national security issue.

In addition to being an important and growing sector of the state's economy, Alaska mines currently provide significant domestic supplies of five of the commodities on the 2025 list of minerals critical to the U.S. – antimony, germanium, lead, silver, and zinc. (The Greens Creek mine also produces a modest copper byproduct.) That list is poised to grow as exploration companies advance projects enriched with cobalt, copper, gallium, graphite, nickel, niobium, PGMs, rare earth elements, and tin.

Many of these materials, mind, we've been getting from places that aren't very friendly to the United States, like China and Russia.

It's a new day - and it will only last as long as the GOP holds Congress and the White House. We can never emphasize the importance of this; an incoming Democratic administration and Congress would reverse all of this as fast as they could fire up the autopen.

Alaska is also America's foothold on the Arctic; Russia and Canada have a far greater Arctic Ocean coastline, but Alaska's position is fortuitous; we look across the Bering Strait to Russia, and as long as Alaska is in American hands, it gives us a springboard into not only the Arctic but the north Pacific. And this is a region that is sure to be contested for in the near future.

It's a new day for mining in Alaska. There's a lot more out there if we go looking for it. But we have to remember the other side of this issue; we must be ready not only to take advantage of America's treasure chest, but to defend it as well.

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