Penny Schwegel: Fort Knox Gold Miner: operating Alaska's largest hydraulic excavator.

• Author: Storm, Joette
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: MINING

Mining is a big part of Alaska's history. The miner with a pick axe and shovel is still an iconic image often adorning logos and brochures--despite the fact the labor of the majority of people working in modern-day mining is highly mechanized. Today's miner also wields a shovel, but it is more often a giant vehicle with computerized controls. Penny Schwegel, one of the 533 employees at Fort Knox Gold Mine northeast of Fairbanks, operates the largest hydraulic excavator in Alaska. She is one of the many women who have found their place in mining over the last 20 to 30 years, according to Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association. Only a few others operate the big shovels, however.

As a utility operator, Schwegel's tools are mechanized vehicles. She currently drives a Hitachi 5500, a 1.1 million-pound-behemoth, moving thousands of tons of rock and dirt scoop after scoop into a continuing lineup of trucks that transport the material for processing. Like those early day miners who worked long, hard days to make the most of summer's extra hours of daylight, Schwegel and her colleagues work long hours too, and not just in the summer. Fort Knox operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a day to make the most of the low-grade ore at the mine, says Lorna Shaw, spokesperson for Kinross Gold Company, the Canadian firm that owns Fort Knox.

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JUST ANOTHER DAY

Round-the-clock rotations are at least 12.5 hours long.

"My typical day begins at 4:30, either in the morning or afternoon depending upon which shift I am working," says Schwegel, whose husband, Dave, also works at the mine. With nearly 16 years at Fort Knox, both Schwegels have worked in a variety of jobs. She had experience as a truck driver at a family owned mine, started driving trucks at Fort Knox and literally worked her way up to the heavy equipment she now operates or directs as a dispatcher.

It's a 25-mile commute from their homestead to the mine where "line out" begins at 6:45 a.m. That's when the "shifter" or shift supervisor assigns each operator to equipment.

"It is an opportunity for the operators to share with their relief what is going on with the equipment and any concerns they have about conditions at the mine face," Schwegel says.

"During line out, the shifter and others will remind one another about safety measures such as using blinkers, wearing vests and who gets the right-of-way in the mine."

This time is one of the few when an operator...