Original subtitles

I mean, a great start to the season.

Two minutes to start first is very, very early. And that's paid off. If you look

at the gold price today, it is up almost another thousand bucks as well as it

was last year.

So that is very promising for this year.

In his race to 6 ,500 ounces, Klondike kingpin Tony Beefs is

off to a quick start.

His early bird cut at Indian River has already delivered 417 ounces,

worth $1 .5 million.

I want to have two sides running.

Mike is tripping Paradise Hill, so as long as Mike gets loose in June, I'll be

happy. And Cousin Mike is running Indian River, so there's more pressure on him

to keep the plants rolling, keep that gold flowing in.

I'm going to go get together with Cousin Mike.

Let's see what we're going to do this year.

Look at this. The high water and everything.

Hey, Cousin Mike. Go ahead.

I see nothing but water.

There's a lot of water coming into the cut.

Do not, do not want to put the cut. Shut off the plant. Shut off the...

Hey,

hey, hey, did you see that beaver there in the water?

That's the culprit.

We better check around there where we let the water out of the pond.

You see what's happening on that side of the pipe?

That beaver overnight, he plugged our culvert up.

So, we'll have to fix it.

Cousin Mike, do you copy?

Go ahead, Tony.

Keep him over there with an excavator, please.

We got a beaver plugged up culvert.

At Indian River.

The 13 -acre early bird cut sits next to two connected settling ponds.

These hold all the dirty sluice water from wash plant sluice a lot, discharged

at 3 ,300 gallons a minute.

But a beaver has plugged the culvert connecting the two ponds.

Unable to drain into the second pond, the first pond is quickly filled up and

burst its bank.

Water is now flooding into Tony's only gold -producing cut.

Be damned if you're going to get that bee with me around.

We'll take the excavator you were saying to the bucket, see if you can poke it

out. Okay.

Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

Doesn't make it gonna try with a stick, but they're plenty smart, them things.

That beaver knows what he's doing. He plucked up the culvert pretty

good.

Beaver?

Hurry the f*** up, get that water under control.

To access and clear the culvert, Tony will first need to get rid of the water.

So what we're going to do is I'm going to block this to hold it off.

Then what I'll do is I'll pick the water out, and then we're going to see what

the problem is.

Now I'm just scooping out some water just to speed things up a little bit.

Now we'll see what kind of sticks are in there and whatever.

Good enough.

We're lucky because sometimes they got logs in there, they got all kinds of

in there.

Let's scoop this up, get them sticks out.

Okay, I'm going to open it up.

There it is.

Okay, fire up the blends.

Bingo, we're back in business.

There he goes.

He just may move to a different pump.

Yeah, move to farther or something.

Anyway, for now we have that cured. All we got to do is keep running.

That's what makes the money.

First muggy of beer?

That's great.

This is an encouraging cleanup.

Just like his father, Tony, eldest son, Kevin B., is already turning dirt

into dollars.

Only one week into his second season as mine boss, he's already

banked 57 ounces of his new 2 ,000 -ounce target.

We started sleuthing so early because last year we left ourselves a good

piggy bank.

Because the gold price being as high as she is, now there's extra incentive to

have money coming in from the get -go. It is unfortunate that Brennan is gone.

We relied on him quite heavily for keeping the cut in line, but we will

work somehow.

All right, guys, we had a very good start, but as you know, Brennan is not

coming back this year, so I'll be down here in the cut a bit more often to

provide more guidance and direction.

So, Caden, you can be feeding the plant. Rick on tailings again.

Chelsea, Ayla, and Tyler will get the rock trucks going to get a bit of

stripping happening.

Any comments, questions, or concerns?

My only concern would be about wet paint and our potential jam up.

Well, we really don't have the time to let it dry right now. Have to try and

shove it through and see what it does.

Okay. So let us get to getting and get some gold.

Kate is concerned about the wet pay. Wait against getting going. I think it

worth rolling the dice and just dealing with any issues as they arise.

I think that Kevin's decision to run the wet pay is going to bite us in the ass

in the long run.

As spring temperatures begin to rise, Kevin's thawing pay pile is becoming

sloppy.

Wet pay.

Skipping belts.

And proving problematic for 23 -year -old local mechanic and operator, Caden

Foote.

The pay is so wet, the belt slips on it. It just doesn't pick it up.

I don't know why he's choosing to do this, but it's making my patience run

Poor planning causes piss -poor production, which leads to piss -poor

Oh.

What a mess.

hey kevin got a copy kevin go for kevin the roller on the

feeders the drive wheel was spinning but the belt wasn't it's soaking wet so i

shut everything down see that wet

mud can't run that jams up the feeder creates the drive belt to just spin

endless

Problems.

Can't run wet soup.

I just dumped a bucket in when installed.

Gotcha. But it was, like, stoking wet.

Yeah. If we spread the material, it would dry out within a day or two.

It's better than fighting constant shutdown.

Uh, no.

A lot of that is just feeding it in less quickly. And there will be less...

We just have to make it work.

Clean out the wheel.

And after that, we'll get back to flusing.

Your call, boss.

The wet pay is sloughing over the side of the hopper feeder's first conveyor

belt.

onto its drive wheel below, making it too slippery to grip and push the heavy

dirt up the conveyor belt, stopping it from feeding pay onto the second

and into the wash plant.

Kevin's quick fix? Use 4 ,000 pounds per square inch of high -pressure hot water

to blast away the mud.

Then fire up the plant and feed the pay.

at a slower rate.

I really meant working with Brennan.

He was my friend. He was super nice, supportive.

And with Kevin, I feel like I'm disrespected. Whenever I bring something

attention, nothing ever happens.

He hired me on as a mechanic and now I'm stuck doing this Like

why are we struggling like this?

Really pissing me off

It's been a tough start to the season.

The whole Duncan Creek water life thing, it's like beating a dead horse.

Gold prices are great right now, and I have to make a move on this Lightning

Creek option.

It's either, you know, move on or, you know, sit here and cry about it, which

we're not going to do.

44 -year -old mine boss Rick Ness is in survival mode.

With red tape preventing him from running a stockpile of gold on his own

he has just one choice, go back to leasing ground.

from his old landlord.

It's Troy Taylor's ground, so I'm going to talk to Troy right now and see if we

can come up with a deal.

Honestly, I need it. I can't afford to not get gold this year.

If Rick can cut a deal for the ground at Lightning Creek, he'll once again pay

Troy a percentage on any gold he mines.

Troy. Hey, Rick. How you doing, man?

Come on in.

What's happening out there?

Oh, no, no, no.

I'm here to make a deal. Yeah, let's talk. What are you thinking?

I guess we're going to talk about royalties.

I'm looking for 10%. Yeah, well, things have changed.

So what were you thinking?

The royalty is 20%, Rick.

I mean, that's a lot of money.

I'd be taking all the risk from you and you'd be making more.

What if we said 15?

I get that, but it's less royalty.

You know how it is with water licenses in demand.

There's a lot of people more than ever showing interest right now.

Yeah,

you're right about that, but how many of these people have you worked with?

These people can promise you 20%. Well, what are they going to actually put in

your hand?

We've been working together for, you know, six years now, and if I say I can

good gold in your hand, that's what you're going to get.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I know what you can do.

So I'm okay with 15%. Think we got a good deal?

All right, Troy.

Rick must pay Troy 5 % more royalty than he used to.

and owes him $350 ,000 no matter what kind of gold he finds.

But he finally has ground for the season.

We got a spot to go mining.

I didn't get the 20%, but I've got a minimum 100 ounces, and I'm going to be

involved on a regular basis up there, so it's good.

At the end of the day, is this the deal that I wanted to make? No. Of course I

wanted to be mining my own ground, but you know what?

We've got the deal made to be able to mine on Lightning Creek, so time to get

some gold.

100 miles away.

Your timing is perfect because I'm in the middle of going through hiring right

now.

having people that have some experience up here is a huge benefit.

Like, I have a spot for you 100%. All right, well,

welcome aboard.

Thank you very much. Look forward to working with you. Yeah, no, it'll be

When you get here, we'll take you on a tour and watch some rock.

Awesome. All right, thanks, man. Have a great day. See you soon.

Awesome.

Hired.

Parker Schnabel is at it again.

Having already poached Kevin's foreman, Brennan Rule, he's now hiring Kevin's

key operator and mechanic, Caden Foote.

Caden's going to be a great addition to the place.

When it comes to poaching people, everybody's trying to do it.

So I just don't know, am I the worst offender or am I just the most

at it?

Right?

Got the job.

Feels great.

In my eyes, he's the king of the Klondike.

But the most nerve -wracking part is going to be when I tell Kevin and Faith

leaving. That's the one thing I'm dreading is that conversation.

I want to talk to you in faith.

Okay. Really quick, because then I do have to run.

What's up?

So, I just, it's a sad, hard thing for me.

I mean, it's, I'm just trying to do what I think is right.

And so I got a job offer from Parker's that I couldn't turn down.

It's a thing.

It really is.

But I just, I have to live over.

It was definitely

a tense and stressful conversation.

I'm feeling a little upset, but I'm also excited for my future.

It's a bit of a shock. I did not really expect him to have that much between

Brendan and Caden.

It's going to make the 2 ,000 -ounce goal a lot more work.

Things are going all right.

Gold prices are up a thousand bucks an ounce.

Dominion has a lot of sluicing that needs to get done.

It's time to make hay while the sun shines.

Gold mining mogul Parker Schnabel is gunning for a record -breaking season.

To cash in on the sky -high gold price, he's chasing a massive 10 ,000 -ounce,

$35 million prize.

A big key to hitting our goal this year is going to be just... getting plants

running early as we can and keeping them running.

People need to understand what the responsibilities and expectations are,

you know, they need to be met.

To hit his ambitious target, Parker's tasked his two lieutenants with loosing

more pagers than ever before.

At Sulphur Creek, Mitch Blaschke.

is stripping a two -acre cut, hunting pockets of gold left behind by old

-timers.

You know, this cut is almost half a mile long.

It's just a lot on everybody's plate each day.

But we're making good progress here at Sulphur.

At Parker's main operation on Dominion, Tyson Lee is in charge of two enormous

cuts.

The 114 -acre bridge cut, where wash plant Bob is already sluicing, and the

52 -acre Golden Mile, where drill results indicate the cut could hold up

to $12 million in gold.

We're going to run four plants this year. There's a lot of work to do to get

that point.

Last week, Tyson got Bob fired up in the bridge cut.

Now it's a matter of getting sluicever fed up in Golden Mile.

Alec and Liam have done the complete rebuild on the plant, so we'll see if we

can resurrect her.

Right now, I'm getting pulled in polar opposite directions with Bob and

Sluicifer.

Parker wants Sluicifer running by the end of the week.

There's a lot going on and not much time to do it.

To help Tyson get Sluicifer running, Parker's throwing him the newest

Hello. Hello.

Kevin Beats, former operator.

Caden. How's it going?

I'm good.

So, we've got to get Lucifer's water recirculation system going.

Okay. So, we need to have these culverts in, road activated by the end of the

day, so we can get Lucifer in, have two wash plants running on Dominion, and

keep Parker happy.

Absolutely. Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Tyson.

In the bridge cut, wash plant Bob has been running for a week.

bringing in 126 ounces in gold.

Now, one and a half miles north, Tyson must get the golden mile, producing

two. First, Tyson needs Caden to dig up the only access road to the cut

and install a set of culverts for sluice water to pass through.

Once complete, Tyson will move sluicever from Parker's yard.

three miles to the Golden Mile Cut, and fire up the plant for the first time in

two years.

Today's my first day working for Parker.

That's a pretty big responsibility that Tyson has given me. I just can't stop.

I'm working in this really fine wet material that's just like quicksand, so

you've just got to be very cautious or that will sink you.

A little love tap, get her level.

Gentle, gentle.

Oh, no.

I think I'm sinking.

No, she's in there.

I can't get out of that.

Hey Tyson, got a copy, Tyson?

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I f***ed up. I sunk the 480. I'm going to need your help with another hoe

to get this thing out.

It's buried in there like top of the track frame.

I'll be there as soon as possible.

Hopefully this excavator isn't very stuck, because I've got better to be

Never sunk a hoe before.

I'm sorry.

It's the first hoe I've ever sunk.

Let me just get in here for a second.

See what we can do.

Without this road being reactivated, we can't get Lucifer up and running, so

I've got to get this thing... Oh!

Sure did a number on that one.

I hope this isn't what gets me fired.

Right now, we're just seeing if it can lift itself.

Seems to be able to.

It's a good sign.

Looks like he bought her.

Everyone has first -day nerve.

But, you know, hopefully this is a lesson learned for Caden. You know?

All good.

Thank you so much. I'll get that culvert in. No worries, dude.

Tyson's a really great guy.

I'm happy that he got it out.

But at the same time, I'm annoyed that he was able to do it.

That definitely makes me feel like I always have more to learn.

I'm about to throw our culvert in.

Wow!

Just like that, baby.

Now, time to do a little bit of backfilling.

Clean up the road.

Good enough.

Tyson can now move Sluicifer into the Golden Mile, and we'll soon find out how

much his new cut will pay out.

One step in the right direction.

Now let's take her home. Let's try and get some dirt going through her by the

end of the week for Parker.

We've got a deal on Lightning Creek.

Troy drove a hard bargain.

Is it a risk? Absolutely. But with gold prices right now, now's the time to

strike. Time is of the essence.

In the mountains above Keno, Rick Ness is back in the game, having secured a

lead on Lightning Creek.

Now we just got to get the gold.

Today we're going to start moving the gear down there, get our excavators down

there, our trucks, and hopefully by the end of the day we're breaking dirt at

Lightning Creek, and that's all that matters.

Come on, man.

What do we got here?

Who's that?

Rick's best friend.

Oh, Z!

Z Zaremba and a new recruit have arrived.

How you doing? I'm Rick. Hey, I'm Kai. Kai. This is the one I was telling you

about.

To bolster Rick's skeleton crew, Z has brought along new recruit Kai Shalkross.

Have you ever run a six -wheel drive off -road truck? No, I haven't.

Um, I think the biggest.

piece of equipment I've driven is probably like a mini excavator.

Let's start.

Good kid?

Yeah, good kid.

I say let's get to Lightning Creek and get to mining.

All right, I'm ready. All right, let's go.

Let's go!

Do that.

To get on the gold, Rick needs to move his fleet of big iron from Duncan Creek,

eight miles northwest, to his new, leafed 1 ,600 -acre claim at Lightning

Creek, where he hopes to pick up the trail of gold near its source at Mount

Hinton.

Finally going to be able to go move some dirt, eh?

Yeah. We'll get some gold in the box.

It's good to see Rick

going gung -ho as always. I mean, every season it seems like there's a new

hurdle for him, but he overcomes it.

Either he's really good at what he does or a luck or a little bit of both.

Four hours later.

Hey, Rick, are we there yet?

Yeah, we're here.

Huh?

Well, we're at Lightning Creek.

Let's talk about a plan here.

So we've got, yeah, a lot to figure out, but I don't think it's going to be that

technically difficult. It's supposed to be 12 to 15 feet of pay.

I'm with five feet of overburden on top of it, but I think that we're up for it.

Yeah. I don't know what you guys think. Yeah, absolutely.

You got a name picked out for this spot yet?

Well, from above, it actually looked a bit like a diamond because it was a

diamond cut.

There's some stuff to figure out yet, I'm not going to lie, but this is the

to cling to the fences.

So I'd say let's get down here and start slinging dirt. Great. All right, sounds

good.

Rick's first targeting, a two -acre area Troy began stripping last season.

Everyone's been sitting around, and this is what they've been waiting for. Time

to go.

And he'll have to navigate Keno's notoriously spotty ground on a new

We don't have the best situation to deal with here. We've got a short season to

kind of figure out where the gold is.

We need to get over 100 hours a week. Can we pull it from this valley?

It could be spotty, and if we dig the wrong spot, we may not find gold at all.

And if we dig the right spot, we might hit it. So it's exciting and nauseating

at the same time.

It's a monumental day out here. We're going to get Lucifer set up on Dominion

for the first time.

It's about time we knock the rust off her and get her back to work.

At Parker's Schnabel.

Want to jump in the loader and eye up?

Tyson and his crew are ready to move wash plant Lucifer to the Golden Mile.

This plant was the plant I learned on, and it's the plant that's going to make

us a lot of money this year.

Is everyone clear?

Yeah?

Hey, you know, Sluice refers to my baby girl, and I'm dragging her home.

Let's go.

We've got some work to do, girl.

You there?

Tailings conveyor.

Yeah, Tyson, walk forward.

And Sluice runs mounted.

There we go.

All right, we're going to pull Sluicifer up the hill.

Tyson pulls the fully assembled 45 -ton beast 100 feet onto

the pad.

I just got to spin Sluicifer into place.

Come on. Let's go.

You got about five feet now.

That's pretty much there.

Guys, we really killed it here. We got Lucifer up to the Golden Mile. Let's get

her done.

Definitely. Nice work.

And stop there.

Two years since she last washed rocks, Lucifer is ready to catch an estimated 3

,500 ounces buried.

in the Golden Mile.

This is the first time that Lucifer's fired up on Dominion, so that's cool.

Some of that ground is looking really good.

Let's hope it mines that way.

Who wants to do the honors?

You press the compare, you press the shaker.

Ready?

Let's go.

Hey, Sandy, start feeding.

Make this one count.

This is a moment I never thought would happen.

Lucifer's firing back up on Dominion.

First time of the season.

How's she running?

Pretty darn smooth.

Well, hopefully it stays that way.

Good job with the setup, dude. Thanks, man.

I gotta go.

See you guys. Good job.

Thank you. You guys are killing it.

Nice work, guys.

Watch plant number two up and running.

Two down, two to go.

We got the two main ones running, that's what matters.

Hopefully we find some gold.

of gold in the runs, but we're about to find out.

Parker's trusted wash plant, Lucifer, has been running Golden Mile pay for 24

hours. Hey there, young man.

Hey, Chris. How's it going?

A lot of good memories right here. Yeah. We had that 400 -ouncer in here. That

was awesome.

That was so fun.

I was talking to my dad yesterday. I was telling him everything that we've got

going on, and he's like, Hi, is Chris going to be able to keep up in that gold

room of his?

And I'm like, I hope not.

Yeah. No, I'm going to fight you tooth and nail. I'm going to push you guys

hard.

Hi, guys.

Hello.

So how are you doing on the hill, Mike? I have a cut. I got a strip.

So I've got a lot to do.

How's it going out here?

Pretty good.

I hear you guys are having a little bit of trouble with the beavers.

Well, yeah.

Beaver cured, water cured, so it's good.

Yeah. So what do you think? Should we weigh some gold?

Sure, let's weigh it out.

Despite the beavers shutting down their only working wash plant for half a day,

Tony expects the Indian River's early bird cut to deliver around 250 ounces.

5, 10, 15, 20.

30, 50, 80, 120, 150, 180,

190, 200,

214

.6.

It's below target, but still worth almost three -quarters of a million

and brings the beet's total to 632 ounces, nearly a tenth.

of Tony's seasoned goal.

That's not bad. No, it's not very good.

Keep it up.

I kind of like that. Don't come back with anything less.

Not bad haul this early in the season, right?

Not bad at all.

And at this price, I mean, what does it take to make a million bucks? Nothing.

Okay, you guys all should go back to work. See you.

See you later.

At Scribner, Kevin Beats has visitors for his second Gold Way of the season.

Hi, family. Hi.

How's your season going so far, guys?

Long. Tired.

Having lost two key crew members in two weeks, Kevin's about to find out if it's

damaged his chances of hitting his 2 ,000 -ounce target.

Well, we drove by and you guys are sleuths in. Yeah. We unfortunately lost

Caden. Yeah. Really? That kind of sucks.

I thought he was quite happy here.

Some things didn't quite work out, so he moved over to Parker's. You know how I

look at that, right?

There's always other people. Nobody cares. Get the next one, right?

Such a caring man.

Well, I thought so.

At least on the bright side, we have some gold.

Would you weigh up?

Let's weigh it up. Let's find out.

Kevin spent a week sluicing wet pay from his stockpiled piggy bank. To stay on

target, he needs 88 ounces a week.

1, 5, 10, 24, 34,

44, 46, 48 .46.

Worth $170 ,000.

Just over 100 ounces for the season so far. I mean, obviously, we'd like to see

some bigger numbers, so we'll do what we can.

Plenty of time left to make up. Yeah. So, yes, sirree.

All right, we should all get back to work.

You sound like my wife.

She does that all the time, too. You know what, Faith?

It works really well. Bye, guys.

See you.

Later.

It was lovely to see everyone.

It was great.

It'd be nice to have a bit more on the scale next time, but it'll come with

time. We'll get there.

Are you going to behave?

Looks like he's in a behaving mood.

What's up, buddy?

After getting Sluicifer up and running, Parker's hoping for a big uptick in

gold. You had quite a week, it sounds like. Yeah.

Yeah, well, you hired on Caden.

Yeah. One of Kevin's old employees, right?

So is Kevin even going to have a crew left by the time we're done here?

I worked with him last year. He's a good kid.

He's a hard worker.

So we've got two plants going. You want to see how we're doing?

Yeah. You want to read this one out?

Here we go. This one's Bob.

Last week, Bob delivered 126 ounces.

Parker's hoping it's picked up pace.

We've got 10, 20, 40, 60.

80, 100, 120, 140, 150, 161

.8. You're not really racing out of the starting gate.

But it puts us in a lot better shape than where we were last year.

I got sluice. Finally got sluice up and running. Yeah, first time on Dominion.

Let's see how it did.

Running the Golden Mile for three days.

This. is Parker's first chance to see how the new cut will pay out. So there's

definitely some rich ground over there. I'm excited for that.

Here we go.

10, 20, 50, 70, 100, 110,

112 .1.

Nice. Not bad. Not bad at all. For the week, we got 273 .9 ounces.

Worth?

Just under a million dollars.

For the season, it's $399 .7.

Still a long ways to go.

And you guys will have a third one fired up this week probably, huh?

Maybe two weeks.

You better get on and find some more gold tape.

Yeah,

you guys better start pulling your weight around here.

It's great to have two wash plants running on Dominion, but we really need

third. Then we can really start getting some good numbers coming in.