Original subtitles

[man] Let's mine some gold.

[narrator] Over six short months

from spring to fall,

-the Klondike's toughest gold miners... - [grunts]

...battle Mother Nature.

[man on radio] I need help now.

I broke through the ice.

[narrator] From violent storms...

[man 1] What [bleep] do we do here?

Somebody give me a [bleep] radio.

-[narrator] ...to floods... -Please don't sink, please don't sink.

Oh, I'm goin', I'm goin', I'm goin'.

[narrator] ...and summer wildfires...

[man] [bleep] It's coming this way now.

[Tony speaking]

-[narrator] ...in their quest... - [men screaming]

Plant's on fire!

[narrator] ...to bring in as much gold

as possible before winter

-shuts them down. -[man 1] Wholly Moses!

[both] Yeah!

[man 2] You guys, you just broke another record.

[narrator] The Klondike,

one hundred and fifty miles south of the Arctic Circle,

in winter, temperatures drop to minus 50 degree Fahrenheit,

blanketing the landscape with upwards of six feet of snow

and freezing everything.

So when the miners want to get a jump on the season...

So much snow

we have.

Oh, jeez.

[narrator] ...they have to battle these frigid conditions.

[Tony] Come on in.

[narrator] And fire up machines that have been frozen solid for six months.

[Tony speaking]

[narrator] March 2021,

king of the Klondike, Tony Beets,

is determined to start his season early

and needs his D10 dozer

to clear hundreds of tons of snow and ice from his claim.

[engine misfiring]

[woman] Well, they're frozen.

[Tony] [bleep]

At minus 30 nothing wants to work with you.

[narrator] The engine oil is frozen,

but Tony has a plan.

[Tony speaking]

[narrator] The bush fix warms the air above freezing

to thaw out the fuel.

Okay, I'm ready.

[Tony speaking]

[engine ignites]

[engine revving]

[engine sputtering]

[Michael speaking]

[Tony speaking]

[narrator] The D10 back in action,

Tony opens up his Paradise Hill mine site.

[narrator] And gets his season underway.

[Tony speaking]

[Kevin] We're in a big push right now to expose the cuts.

Get them all ready to go.

Gold is high right now.

So strike while the iron is hot.

[narrator] In April 2022,

rookie miner, Fred Lewis,

is waiting for the breakup of the mighty Yukon River.

-[man] You guys, watch out! -Oh, yeah. Back, back, back.

[narrator] So he can get to his California Creek claim

and start his season.

-[snaps] -[all exclaiming]

[men laughing]

-[Fred] Listen. -[engine blaring]

-[laughs] -[camera shutter clicks]

it is official. It's go time.

[narrator] Once the ice clears completely,

Fred ferries across

and heads 40 miles to his mine site.

Only for Mother Nature to punch him in the gut.

What the [bleep] is that?

Holy crap.

-[man] That's-- -[Fred] Oh, my [bleep].

Wow.

Our entire claim is under ice.

[narrator] A quarter-mile long,

thirty-foot thick sheet of ice covers his entire claim.

Making his gold rich pay dirt inaccessible.

Our entire infrastructure is gone.

If we don't break this ice up, we're gonna be sitting here losing money.

This ice has to go.

It's stealing our gold, guys.

[narrator] Fred can't afford to wait

for Mother Nature's thaw,

so he goes to war on the giant block of ice.

[Fred] I'll try and break the ice with the bucket.

Oh, [bleep].

-Oh! -[man laughs]

[Fred] Fire it up.

[Stuart] We've got water.

That should facilitate this [bleep] to melt faster.

[whirring]

[Stuart] [bleep] crazy.

Really gonna treat a poor chainsaw like this?

It's ice.

[narrator] But all Fred's attempts failed to clear the ice.

[Fred] This ice is really [bleep] everything.

It feels like we're coming here

with our hands tied behind 100 backs

and just getting punched in the face.

It's not the way to start a season.

[Stuart] We are so far behind schedule at this moment in time,

so we have to take action and take control of the creek.

We don't have any other way to do it, I think, but to go up there

and, uh, and try and make the creek go back where it belongs somehow.

And that should facilitate melting the ice on the right side.

[narrator] The clock ticking on his season,

Fred throws a Hail Mary.

He deploys an excavator to create an ice bed,

redirect the creek over the top of the ice sheet.

And speed up the melt.

[Fred] All right, ice.

You may be winning this battle,

but we're gonna win this war.

It's a little bit risky.

If we sink this 220, we're freaking done.

[man speaking]

[Fred] Oh!

Wow.

That's like 20,000 pounds of ice you just broke.

Yeah!

That was massive.

Whoo!

-[man] Go get that. -[Fred] Here we go.

We've got a little bit of ice that's holding.

Fingers crossed it works.

Wow.

[Fred] Just be really careful.

[Fred exclaiming]

[Fred] [bleep]!

Well, there goes the ice dam.

This is definitely not gonna work.

[bleep]

[narrator] Forced to wait for the ice to thaw,

Fred loses months of his season

and his battle with Mother Nature.

[Fred] I'm just at the end of my rope, man.

[Parker] All right, here's the first push.

[narrator] When the Yukon spring's rising temperatures

melt the snow and ice...

[man speaking]

-[narrator] ...the miners rush to start sluicing. -[man] Fire it up.

[narrator] And put gold in the box.

[man] Here we go.

[narrator] But the big thaw brings its own problems.

When the frozen ground turns into a sloppy sludge.

The [bleep] killing us.

The trucks are wallowing in the mud,

dozers getting stuck everywhere.

It's a mess.

Oh, [bleep].

Come on!

[bleep] slimy as [bleep] hell.

[bleep]

[Parker] Damn it!

[narrator] In 2016,

twenty-one-year-old Parker Schnabel

is under pressure to get on the gold

when disaster strikes.

[man speaking]

[bleep]

-[bleep] -[engine revving]

[Parker] Why around here does it always have to be a worst-case scenario?

That is monumental [bleep].

Why around here does it always have to be a worst-case scenario?

[narrator] Parker Schnabel is battling Mother Nature's spring thaw.

That is monumental [bleep].

[narrator] His vital 46-ton excavator is stuck in the mud.

[Parker] What'd you do?

[Gerald] Backed in a little and then it's just a little too far.

The next thing you know, it's sunk.

[Parker] You couldn't walk across that, like, with your legs.

Let alone a [bleep] excavator.

[Gerald] It really wasn't that bad when I got in there.

[Parker] There's nothing to even say about this

because it's how big of a [bleep] it is.

-[Gerald] I agree. -[Parker] Yeah, so just...

let's just keep our [bleep] mouths shut.

Mitch, Brennan,

grab a couple hose and help pull me out of here.

You ready?

[Mitch] We can get it.

[Parker] Come on.

[bleep]

[Mitch] Oh, man. It's really leaning now.

[Brennan] Stop! Sinks.

It's suctioned into the bottom with all that mud.

It's like quicksand, so you [bleep] sink instantly.

[Parker] We just got to get the mud out so we can break the suction.

It's gonna be messy.

Maybe we can just pull out some of this soft stuff here,

-and then we kind of work this down a little bit. -Yeah.

[narrator] To help release this stricken excavator from the mud's vice-like grip,

Mitch and Brennan dig a trench alongside it.

[Mitch] It's movin'.

[Mitch] The machine's sinking as we speak.

Come on! Go, go, go!

[Brennan] Get in there, Parker.

Come on, baby.

[all] Come on!

Come on.

[Brennan] Come on.

[Parker] I should be able to make it.

[Mitch] Whoo!

[Brennan] Slick, Mitch.

[Mitch] Giving.

-[Parker] I'm glad that worked. -[Brennan] Yeah.

[all cheering, laughing]

[Mitch] Back open for business.

-That's awesome. -[Parker] Let's get back to work.

[narrator] Along with the mud,

spring's warm temperatures bring another threat...

[man 1] Oh. All right, look at this.

[narrator] ...that halts miners in their tracks.

[man 1] Oh, this thing is raging right now.

[narrator] Snowmelt high up in the mountains...

[man 2] You're about ready to tip over.

I wanna go. I'm goin', I'm goin', I'm goin',

with the throttle on.

[narrator] ...floods the valleys down below.

[man 3] Oh!

[narrator] Wreaking havoc.

[man] [bleep]!

[woman laughs] Uh-oh.

[Tony speaking]

[narrator] In 2020,

melt waters raging down Honker Creek

smash a hole in the berm protecting Tony Beats' hunker cut.

Submerging the gold-rich pay dirt

under 2.5 million gallons of water.

[Tony speaking]

[narrator] Tony first repairs the gap in the berm.

[man] What?

Watch the track.

Oh, [bleep]!

The actual [bleep].

He has no [bleep] track.

[narrator] Despite a crippled machine,

one track and almost no maneuverability,

there's no stopping the king of the Klondike.

[Ruby] He's having to use his boom and arm to lift himself up.

And walk the strong track.

I mean, it's Tony Beets

who'll probably do it like it's just another day.

[intense music playing]

[narrator] 38 tonnes of mud and rock plug the berm.

Sealing off the cut from the creek.

Once he drains a cut,

Tony will be back on track.

[Tony speaking]

[narrator] The Yukon summer...

[man] Here comes the cavalry.

Break some pay in here. Let's go!

[narrator] ...the halfway point of the season.

[Parker] We have to hammer down like never before.

[narrator] Dried out, easy to dig pay

makes it peak time for catching gold.

-[all cheering] -[bleep] yeah!

[man speaking]

[narrator] But temperatures soar to 90 degree...

-[Mitch] Once again, we've got a sunny day. -[Brennan] It's hot.

[narrator] ...turning the land into a tinderbox.

[Brennan] This is hotter than the gates of hell.

[narrator] Sparking wildfires that rage through the region.

[Tony speaking]

[narrator] On average, 100 wildfires

blaze across the Yukon every fire season.

In 2017,

wildfires larger than the state of Rhode Island

were visible from space.

And a 350-acre inferno

head straight for Parker's claim.

[Parker] I don't know how hot it is, but it's hot.

There's something burning over there.

[Parker] Yeah. Forest fire. Yep.

-Lightning or... -[Parker] Probably from the lightning.

[Brennan] Yeah, that wind keeps blowing at us.

[bleep] The fire's movin' fast.

I don't wanna see my trailer go up the flames.

[man speaking]

All right, I'll be right down.

[narrator] The local fire marshal has arrived

to discuss evacuation plans.

[officer speaking]

[woman speaking]

[officer speaking]

[Parker speaking]

[officer speaking]

[Parker] That's closed the distance.

It went from 20K away to seven.

Holy [bleep].

[Parker] Yeah, she's [bleep] coming.

[bleep]. It could be here tonight.

-We need a Cat out there. -Okay.

Fire lines like try to get a barrier, so it don't burn us out.

So who's the man for that?

Um, it doesn't really matter to me.

I thought Al's done this before.

We could send him out there.

I was not very worried about this until now.

It's all going to depend on the wind direction.

What the [bleep]? That mountain just went out of view.

All right. The dozer is just up here.

If you could take it up that ridge up there

and start cutting fire lines.

And they need to be at least 30 feet wide

so the fire doesn't jump over to our side.

And we're [bleep].

[Al] Sweet.

-Yeah, we're good. -All right. Sounds good.

[Al] We're gonna go build a fire line

to protect everybody so everybody can keep mining.

If it gets any closer, it could be the end of our season.

[narrator] Parker's crew member, Al Salewski,

uses a dozer to rip out a fire line,

a 30-foot-wide gap between the trees.

When the wildfire hits, the break in foliage

should starve the flames of fuel,

preventing it

from reaching Parker's claim.

[Parker speaking]

[Al] Yeah, that looks pretty apocalyptic.

[narrator] A massive 350-acre forest fire

is raging towards Parker's claim,

threatening to wipe out his season.

Their only hope,

a fire line cut by dozer operator Al.

[Parker] What a [bleep] in the balls!

[narrator] But the next day,

with the fire still approaching,

Al and other crew have cleared out.

Well, there's the hole that you used to have

Al and old Frenchy's trailers.

Obviously, the fire is pretty damn close.

It's basically one valley away.

If the wind starts blowing this way

at 20-mile an hour, it'll be here tonight.

I'll stay, as long as we can still see,

you know, I'm willing to stick it out.

What if the [bleep] thing jumps overnight when we're sleeping?

We can't get out of here.

-You're gonna stick it out? -[Parker] Yeah.

I'm not going anywhere.

But I wouldn't blame any of you if you want to go.

-Um... -Well, I was planning on taking off.

Get out of here before the fire blocks our road and so.

Get out of here.

I hope my trailer is still here when I get back.

I don't want to see a big charred pile on my belongings.

I'll have a [bleep] end of my season.

[narrator] It is now Code Red.

Wildland firefighters install a sprinkler system

capable of delivering over 100 gallons of water a minute.

I think maybe I'll just hook my truck up to my trailer

before I go to sleep tonight in case I got to evac.

[Parker] I've never been so happy to see paddles in our yard.

[Al] Dude, you know, I heard it started hitting last night

as I was going to bed, and I just went to sleep with a smile.

[all laughing]

That was a hard rain, huh?

I'd say that took care of the fire.

[Parker] I would think so.

-It sure looks like it anyways. -[Parker] Yeah.

[narrator] The rain has stopped the wildfire

just three miles from Parker's claim.

But it's decimated over 400 acres.

[Parker] Hopefully now with that fire behind us,

we can get back to focusing on

getting gold out of the ground.

[narrator] Summer's torrential downpours

can be a blessing and a curse.

[thunderclap]

In 2016, Parker plans to move his wash plants,

Slucifer, to a new cut.

[Rick] They naming this thing Slucifer was the best idea.

Both times. First time we set it up

it started pouring rain, and now we're trying to move it

and it's thunder and lightning.

Good?

So far so good. She's rolling.

[narrator] While lightning strikes carry a low threat

to heavy equipment operators,

they can take out the machine's electronics.

Parker risks dragging his $600,000 washplant...

Seems to be pulling along just fine.

[narrator] ...up to a giant 60-foot high pad.

[Parker] That's probably pretty damn close.

-That's [bleep] close there. -[man] Good?

[thunder rumbling]

[shouts] Slucifer!

[rain pattering]

[narrator] When the rains finally stopped,

Parker fires up Slucifer at its new home.

[Parker] All right, let's get everything rolling and shaking.

[Rick] Okay?

Gonna get everything moving.

[engine whirring]

Hey!

[Rick] 1st scoop into Slucifer.

Sluicifer is hungry

and this cut's big, so it's all up to us to keep her fed.

[Parker] For [bleep] sake.

[shouts] Rick!

Put this hole on the other side,

[Rick] Get out of the way, fellas.

Well, Rick's trying to save our [bleep] plant here.

Look down there.

[narrator] The heavy rainfall

has saturated the wash plant pad,

destabilizing its foundations.

[bleep] this.

[narrator] Now, Slucifer is pumping out

3300 gallons of water a minute.

Undermining the pad even more.

[Parker] Once the pads starts to wash away like that,

only thing it's gonna do is work itself back underneath the plant.

And the plants gonna take a dive off the pad.

Obviously, we can't have that happen.

[narrator] Rick attempts to break the force of water

pummeling the burn.

[Rick speaking]

Somebody get me a [bleep] radio.

[over radio] Shut down.

Don't step [bleep]

Stop it, just shut down.

[Parker] We've got to shut it down and reevaluate.

We're about to lose everything here.

[thunderclap]

[narrator] Despite shutting down

torrential rain, continues to erode the ground.

Threatening to swallow Slucifer holes.

[Parker on radio] Hey, Rick, can you hear me?

[Rick] Got you.

I got this coarser stuff,

maybe you can shove that up and around the top part.

Pulling coarse tailings this way is probably the best bet we can

in a few hours, we'll be able to build

a pad up in front.

[metal clanging]

The loader is gonna dump some tailings over the edge.

Parker's gonna pack it up against the plant.

And then we'll just keep on doing that

until it decides to stay.

[engine whirring]

[Parker] Let's fire back up.

Hey.

Second time's a charm.

[engine sputtering]

All right, just add water.

It ain't looking too bad.

If we can get the bigger rock to hold up,

we're gonna be all right.

Anyway, Slucifer's making money.

-There you go. -Good job, man.

I got you.

[thunder rumbling]

[crackling]

[man 1] The trees going down.

-Come on! -[man 1] Come back. Come back, guys.

[narrator] Gold miners, battle Mother Nature's,

fast changing extreme weather.

[man] We're going in the fall, and the conditions

are getting pretty brutal.

[narrator] When summer ends, temperatures cool

and heavy rainfall returns.

It's been puking rain for three days straight

and just making an absolute mess of the cut.

[in English]

[narrator] And the miners have also learned

to expect the unexpected.

[dramatic music playing]

[bleep] my--

Hey, Kevin.

Shut it down.

All we're pumping is freaking mud.

-10-4. -[Freddy] Shut the pump down.

We don't have any fresh water. [bleep] fresh water's off.

We're sluicing out of a mud hole.

[narrator] Fall 2016 Colorado.

Mother Nature throws Freddy Dodge a curveball.

[Todd] Hey, what's going on?

[bleep] Waters off.

Look at my mud puddles.

[Todd] Tell me you're freaking kidding.

[bleep]

[narrator] The intake pond that feeds the wash plant

is almost dry.

We have no water coming into the pond.

So the water is getting lost

somewhere up above us.

Got to figure out what the hell is going on.

[narrator] Freddy checks the intake ponds, water source.

A creek that lies on higher ground.

[Freddy] Yeah, it's dry.

That creek should be about a foot deep right now.

And there's nothing coming down.

It's not good.

There's a big ass problem up here somewhere.

[Freddy] Hey, Todd,

meet me a quarter of a mile west of double trouble.

I found the real problem.

[Todd] What's going on here?

The reason we're out of water,

the freaking Beaver's got this culvert plugged up.

Diverted the water.

[Todd] Really?

[Freddy] It's plugged solid.

[Todd] Now then what do we do?

[Freddy] We got a backhoe here.

I'm gonna weigh up it.

-You feed me the chain. -[Todd] Okay?

And it'll drag it out.

[narrator] The beavers have built a dam inside the culvert,

which channels clean water to the intake pond,

stopping water flowing from the creek.

to the wash plant.

[chain clanging]

Kinda had the flu.

Kind of need water to mine gold, so.

Let's get the son of a gun unplugged.

[Todd] Are you sure you want to do this?

[Freddy] This is freaking cold, boy.

[narrator] Freddy's plan...

Clear the end.

[narrator] Use a grappling hook

attached to an excavator to haul out the debris.

I don't wanna go back in that [bleep] again.

Give her hell, Todd.

Everybody clear.

Go ahead and pull it through.

[bleep]

Jumped up over the top.

We'll have to do it again.

We have to go underwater on this, Todd

[splashing]

[Todd] Freddy.

Freddy.

You good?

[bubbling]

[whooping]

[Freddy] I'm okay.

-[Freddy speaking] -[bleep]

[bleep]

[bleep]

Pull.

[engine whirring]

God, keep going.

God, keep going.

God, keep going.

Fine. Is the water coming through?

[Todd] Good job, Freddy.

I win, beaver.

We'll have water now.

us one, beaver zero.

[dramatic music playing]

[Freddy] Plant's coming hot.

-[alarm buzzing] -Everybody clear.

Fire it up.

[engine clanging]

Let's make some gold.

[narrator] As fall turns to winter.

Only weeks of the mining season remain.

It's cold in here. My feet are freezing.

[narrator] Days shorten

and temperatures dive below zero.

[in English]

[narrator] And the miners

face the renewed challenge of frozen ground.

[Brian] It really hurts when you can

stare at your pay

and you can't get it because it's frozen solid.

It's like a block of concrete.

If we don't get some pay in, we're gonna be screwed.

[narrator] Eureka Creek, 2023,

Brian McCaughan needs nearly 200 oz of gold

to hit his 1500 oz target.

But his pay is locked in ice.

[Brian] We need some kind of a Hail Mary.

So I had to come up with a plan,

and the plan is on this trailer.

[Wayne] What do we have here?

[Brian] What do you think?

What in W. T. F. is this thing?

[Brian chuckles]

Well, it's a drum cutter.

They use them for ripping rock.

You'll go through this frost like nothing.

I'm thinking we can tunnel under the sides

somewhere around 20 ft.

What do you think?

[Wayne] I've never seen anything like this.

By any chance you've ever seen this done in the frost.

I've never seen nothing like this ever.

I'm anxious as hell to give it a spin.

I can't think of any reason it won't work.

[narrator] Brian plans to use the drum cutter.

armed with a 100 tungsten carbide teeth

attached to a spinning drum.

To churn through the frozen gold rich pay layer

trapped in the wall of the cut.

He'll then be able to run the pulverized

pay dirt through the trommel.

[clanging]

[Brian] If we don't do it, we're shut down by the cold.

This keeps you up.

Okay, let's go.

I'm gonna have that frickin grinding rock in no time.

[Wayne] Here we go.

[Brian laughs]

[Wayne] Okay, so bring her down. We'll hook her up.

Fire it up.

[motor whirring]

This thing works. Unbelievable.

[Brian] Okay, I'm off to the cut.

[engine whirring]

Man, I'm so stoked.

This is like your first day of school right now.

I'm just looking at this frozen wall

and I'm coming hard.

I'm gonna tear this [bleep] up.

[clanging]

Here we go.

Yeah, baby! She's going. [chuckles]

I'm going dead straight into some solid frozen ground.

This thing is awesome.

I'm like, [chuckles]

I'm trying to hold back my giddiness.

It's really mulched up to a nice size.

I believe we'll be able to run this right through the plant,

frozen right now, right through

Get the rock trucks down here and start hauling.

I'm gonna run up there and watch the first few loads go through.

[narrator] If the frozen chunks of pay clump together,

it could clog the wash plant.

[Brian] I'm watching for anything that's not rock.

Basically, any piece of the clay

that might still be frozen together.

Everything's coming through,

thawed and clean, like spotless.

Yeah, there's no big chunks in it at all.

[over radio] It's beautiful.

[Brian] So it's a 100% success.

Holy [bleep]

I'm getting down there. I'm just hammering out

as much as I can because this is incredible.

I've never been able to stay late in the season

like we're going to be able to do this year.

Like this is a complete game changer for us.

[narrator] Thinking outside the box,

Brian has found a way to overcome the big freeze.

Yep, 1500 here we come.

[whirring]

[man] We gotta dig up a lot of ground to get gold.

But that doesn't mean we've got to leave it,

you know, a mess.

[narrator] It's not always a constant battle against the elements.

[Parker] We're just trying to make sure

that we do things right here.

You know, I want to have a future up here,

and that means doing things the right way.

[narrator] Once a claim is mined out,

miners are required to restore the land to its natural state.

[Parker] Good job, man.

Thanks, buddy. [chuckles]

It looks good.

Yeah, it looks good.

[Parker] I feel proud of what we've done here.

It's an area that we've mined and reclaimed.

We've spent a lot of time building a whole new creek bed

and putting in frisk structures

and building the banks right and all the slopes, right?

And it's a complicated thing.

And it looks good.

Not only does it look good, but it's good habitat too.

You know, we've done a good job

of... of putting things the way they should be.

[shouts] You're welcome, otters!

They love it here.

[Brian] We're into the minuses.

Everything's got to keep moving.

Even us.

[Rick] We've got to get it all through tonight,

because at this point, we shut down we're frozen out.

[narrator] By October,

miners have stripped and prepared all their ground,

and a final bounty in gold is just waiting to be sluiced.

But winter threatens to shut down mining at any time.

[Tony speaking]

[narrator] Miners must fight frozen ground and equipment.

[clangs]

[man] Solid as [bleep] rock.

[narrator] Snowstorms.

[Parker] This is next level.

[engine whirring]

[man shouting]

[narrator] And subarctic temperatures...

[crashing]

...as low as -18 degrees.

Everything's going to keep freezing.

Everything's going to keep breaking.

[man shouts]

[narrator] As they face a desperate battle

to get as much gold as possible.

-[engine spluttering] -[man shouting] It's alive!

[Fred] If Mother Nature's gonna stop us,

it's gonna take a lot more than this.

[Parker] We aren't leaving this piece of ground

until we've got all the gold out of it.

But we're running out of time.

[narrator] 2018...

7 degrees below on Indian River.

Parker Schnabel has spent the season

stripping ground and stockpiling pay.

Now he's determined to catch every last flake of gold

through Slucifer,

before the big freeze ends his season.

[Tyson] Okay, fire up.

[engine starts]

[engine squealing]

[Parker] Whoa, whoa!

This thing is probably frozen up solid.

-It's kind of a disaster, isn't it? -Yeah.

The belt stopped and just [bleep] everything.

[man] This belts frozen into the rollers.

Oh, for [bleep] sake.

[narrator] Parker's crew try to free the belt

by cranking the frozen head roller.

[muffled grunt]

[metal creaking]

[man 1] Sounds like you need some lube?

[man 2] Or somebody with some muscles

that ain't old like mine.

Send me up.

[Parker] You got muscles high here.

[man 2] Go one more time.

-[cracking] -[grunts]

Oh, lovely.

Blow the breaker.

[engine starts]

[man 1] Oh, there she goes.

Yep. Looks good.

[man 2] Good work, everybody.

When it ices up, it's always this belt

that gets it.

We got to do something about it.

[Parker] Yeah, go get one of the big old tanks

and plummet in here

and keep her hot as we can.

Hopefully, a little heat will delay the end for us a little bit.

[narrator] Parker's plan:

Use a tiger torch to heat the head drum.

This should keep the tailings belt

moving in subzero temperatures.

Let's go ahead and fire this thing up.

The first shot over the bow for the winner.

Right, and we've got to keep sluicing.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] As night falls,

the crew keep running in temperatures 10 below to stops.

to stop Slucifer from freezing solid.

[Parker] This pay is starting to get quite chunky.

It's freezing up on us a bit.

But they usually break up pretty good.

[clanking]

[Tyson] Oh! [bleep]

[bleep] There's no [bleep] on the belt.

[huffing]

[Parker] What's going on?

[Tyson] Go to jam in the hopper.

Just--

-[panting] -[bleep]

[bleep]

[Parker] Must be a chunk in the feeder.

[Tyson] It's not good, man.

Oh! [groans]

Big [bleep] chunk [bleep] in here.

We better hurry because the plant's gonna freeze up if we don't.

[cracking]

[narrator] Tyson Lee attacks the block of frozen pay

with a sledgehammer.

[crackling]

-Here you go. -[Tyson] Oh, yeah.

[Parker] Yeah, Buddy.

[cracking]

It's gonna go through now?

[Tyson] Give her a try.

[sighs]

[Tyson] Holy, look at that!

Oh! [bleep]

[bleep]

[bleep]

[Parker] Flaps on fire!

[narrator] When Parker shut down Slucifer

to free the hopper, the tailings conveyor stopped.

The Tiger torch left heating the stationary rubber belt

has set it on fire.

We'll meet another one. Go get another one.

[Tyson] That's the only one we got.

Should I turn on the water?

[Parker] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[blazing]

[fizzing]

Oh [bleep]

We're gonna do something else.

[Tyson] Yeah. I'm gonna turn on the water.

[fizzing]

[coughing]

[spitting]

[bleep]

[Tyson] All happened so fast, man.

Did you get a look at any damage?

[Parker] There's a lot of it, I'm [bleep] sure.

We just need to make sure it's out

and come back in the morning and assess.

[Tyson] Fine.

[Parker] Honestly, right now, I'm tired.

[narrator] At first light, Parker arrives to see if they can fight on.

[intense music playing]

[Parker] Oh, man.

[sighs wearily]

The belt smoke, now it's got four inches of ice on top of it

[Parker] Well, I think she's fried, Dean.

[Dean] Pretty much.

[Parker] Fire and ice.

It's been a hell of a season.

[narrator] No matter how hard miners push in the Yukon...

Mother Nature eventually wins out.

But the spoils of this hard fought war are extraordinary.

We have 8309.75 oz.

[all cheering]

[narrator] Battling the elements

one season after another.

Wow, that's a good [bleep] pour, isn't it?

[bleep] Yeah.

[narrator] Gold Rush miners have hauled

in more than 101,000 oz of gold.

[man] This represents you guys bonuses.

[all laughing]

[narrator] Today worth more than $230,000,000.

[whooping triumphantly]

[man] You guys are the best.