Original subtitles

When Tony Beach was denied a water license for his Indian River operation,

had to abandon his goal of a 9 ,000 ounce season.

But he's refusing to throw in the towel completely.

We had some decent prey coming out of the 80 -pop. Oh, he was leaving anything

behind.

His first move was to open the 80 -pop cut to Paradise Hill, where he's hoping

to grind out more than 1 ,000 ounces in just four weeks.

Mike's got to keep that plan set, you know, 24 hours a day.

That takes an awful lot of material.

3 ,000, 7 ,000, 8 ,000 yards a day through this thing.

So that's pretty much a full -time job.

They directed a team.

They rather pull up the socks a little bit.

Because otherwise, we're just quite simply won't be able to find enough

to keep on going.

It's very important that we get all of this out of here now while we still can.

Hopefully we can sleeve the gold mining dogs and it'll just be good to us. We

can just get this material run through without any major problems.

Operator Brendan Carr has just been promoted to feeding the plant.

This is my second season up here in the Yukon.

It is hard being.

across the country from your family.

But you gotta do what you gotta do to get by.

Tony's an awesome boss.

Put it this way, if you like it, you're treated awesome.

As long as you don't do no stupid mistake.

Tony, you got a copy, Tony?

Yeah,

we got a pretty big hole in the punch plate of the trommel.

The trommel sips out rock and sends gold -rich material into a distributor,

where six suits feed it evenly into the sleuth rooms.

But a hole in the punch plate is letting rocks fall into the chutes, disrupting

the water flow.

and causing gold to flow out of the spaces.

You can put every truck in the yard here. Yeah.

Use one for something.

Can't do much about it. We have to cut it down.

And as much as I don't want to lose anywhere up to eight shifts, there's

we can do about it. We have to fix it because otherwise we're going to end up

having more downtime.

Kevin is on the frozen pipe detail, so he has no time.

So I think we're going to put some pressure on Brandon, and we'll see if

can fix it. Last year, it took four days to fix the punch plate.

But with the poor start to his season, Tony wants Brandon to get it done in

that time.

Make sure it's the way you cut them that are easier to put back. Yep, that's all

we got to do.

First, Brandon had to remove the worn out 2 ,300 pound punch plate.

and replace it with fixed eight -foot sections.

Then weld the sections together and fix them to the trommel.

Can you whack it here from up there?

Yep. That's a lot of time down, a lot of ground that we could just loosen,

but... Victory!

We're going to try and get it done a little quicker than four days up here.

Just one more lap.

Just jammed in there.

Is this boom extended all the way?

I think so.

Can you grab it? See if you can get it by?

Yeah.

By the end of the day, Brandon has removed

the damaged plate.

Six hours into the fix, Tony's already down more than $10 ,000 in lost gold.

When you're down, I mean, you're still spending, you're not making, so it

much goes double up.

It adds up quickly.

The plant is finally up and running. We are sleuthing.

We're gold miners.

I don't feel like we're greenhorns anymore.

At California Creek, in the remote Yukon wilderness, Special Forces medic and

second -year mine boss, Fred Lewis, is finally watching rock.

Coming into the season, we had big high hopes, but I've got to tell these guys

that this season is going to be different than the last season.

You know, it's a little nerve -wracking, that being virgin ground. The ground is

good. I've tested it.

The test holes Fred dug at the start of the season contains just under two

ounces of gold.

It means this 92 -acre claim, far away from the easier ground in the Klondike,

could hold over 2 ,000 ounces.

This is the week Fred has to prove he has what it takes to find it.

At this point, I've got to give these guys a purpose, and so on, that I can be

the guy to turn them into gold miners.

I'm extremely tired right now. I've been working probably 35 days straight now,

and we could still potentially go home empty -handed.

Rookie Miner and Special Forces Sergeant Rick Douglas joined the team three

weeks ago, and he's already starting to run low on patience.

Were there some frustrations as far as not having the plant here?

Absolutely.

Because that's what we came here to do and we weren't doing it.

But the good news is the plant is running.

We honestly believe we can still have a good year.

as long as we keep running.

This is definitely learning process for me, and most everybody.

We all have that military background, and we're all used to going wrong on us.

Like that rock that looked like a smaller rock, and now it's a

huge frickin' rock stuck in the damn top.

Will you jump over and shut the water off? I just had a huge rock drop down in

the hopper.

Roger.

Fred spent his last $25 ,000 fixing up this rented wash plant.

A boulder this size could destroy it and end Fred's season before it's even

begun.

We had to shut down. We had a big rock kind of go into the hopper.

Okay. Emergency shut off.

Every minute this plants down, it doesn't do us any good.

As I say, we don't get discouraged, but we'll just fix the problem, get back up

and running.

Yeah. Do what we got to do.

Let's do it. Time is money.

So I'm going to end up hooking a chain up to it.

Use the 220 to lift it up and put it down so that...

we don't cause any damage to the plant see if you can dig under right here or

even there yeah if we can get it under we can get chris to at least pull it out

Keep going.

All right, hold up for a second.

You've got space underneath.

Bring that over that.

Perfect.

So you're going to take it up and over.

Okay, now go.

Go, go, go.

You, sir, are the master of nozzle change.

That right there could have ended our thesis.

Very, very easily.

I'd be really surprised if that doesn't happen again.

Oh, yeah.

Finally, I can get back to work.

Fred's wife and mine manager, Cara, is due to start her shift.

I'm still learning the excavator. It's not perfect, but hopefully I can just

as much hay down that trommel as I possibly can.

If gold mining was easy, we'd all be millionaires.

A quarter of a mile west, the only other miners out on California Creek are the

Clayton brothers, 21 -year -old Brandon and 19 -year -old Brady.

Daddy started six years ago. He stayed home now. Brady and I have been up here

every year trying to make a go of it.

When they arrived here in 2016,

California Creek had barely been touched for over 100 years, as miners left the

area to chase the easier gold in the Klondike.

Grab that small pry bar. Where is it? Right there.

Last year, Brandon and Brady mined 226 ounces of gold with a small crew,

proving California Creek's potential.

The gold's in the ground. We know it's good.

We're young people in the game, you know, and trying to prove ourselves.

Now they've brought in a massive homemade trommel, hoping for an even

hole this year.

We've already been in tough times. We clawed ourselves out of it.

It's been hard. I won't lie.

I want to be able to do this for the rest of my life, like this in my

I love gold mining.

Absolutely love it.

With the aim of maximizing the trommel's potential, they've called in a favor.

Six weeks ago, they lent their neighbor Fred a dozer.

Brandon, this is Freddy Dodd. In return, they've asked for an introduction to

gold recovery expert Freddy Dodd and Wanabara.

You know, if Freddie and Juan give me advice, I take it. They've helped a lot

people. It's helped me every time. Our sluice plant there, we're really only

utilizing like a quarter of our sluice box.

The gold's coming down the two runs, and the other ones are whitewashing, and

it's packing.

Like, it's pretty tight. So you're making a right -hand corner. Yeah,

right. Yeah, we've tried multiple things. Trying to get an even feed?

get an even feed, and it just hasn't worked for us. Do you guys think you

come over and have a look?

No, this is Dirt Devil.

Dirt Devil. Dirt Devil, yeah.

My little sister came out with it.

She's a beast, don't want to? Yeah, I like it.

You built it yourself?

Ah, yeah, we built it at home there for three years.

It's all made out of scrap steel.

With an old propane tank, huh? That's what it is, yeah.

Hey, Brady. Hey, how's it going?

Not too bad, and you?

Everything that you guys have done out here, you know, this trommel that you

built. I'm impressed by all of it. Yeah? I really am.

We just don't have a lot of money to buy things new, right?

Back in 2014, when the Alberta economy kind of crashed, our company ended up

going broke, and we have quite a bit of debt. You know, it didn't go away. We

still have it, and we're trying to make our way out of it. So what's your guys'

long -term goal?

I'd love to see it flourish and just help.

us and our family kind of get back on track and and just uh not have to like

wake up and worry every day how are we going to pay this or how are we going to

do this and it's tough to me that's that's huge man that's commendable that

guys are willing to take on that responsibility and do what you've done

you well guys let's get to work huh okay let's do it well let's run her for

eight hours and see what it does

Freddie and Juan start by running a test to see how the trommel performs in its

current state.

Look at the size of those rooster tails.

They're going to be losing gold for sure.

Bring your water down a little bit.

After eight hours, the test is complete.

You're making water and material make a 90 degree corner without controlling it,

right? Right. So that's why it's loose, loose, packed.

So you have to take control of your water and your material and you have to

it do what you want it to do.

So what we'd like to do is build a beef boot in there. And your riffles, they're

all built too tight.

So we've got to fix it.

The pay is being channeled to the left of the sluice box, where slow -moving

water is compacting the Hungarian riffles with fine material, so gold is

to settle.

And to the right, excess water is washing gold straight out of the

To create an even flow, Freddy and Juan will fit a V -shaped chute, dividing the

pay dirt and water equally across the two channels.

Then widen the riffles and add expanded metal below to catch even more gold.

They ran 720 yards of pay dirt in their eight -hour test.

We got a couple big days ahead of us here, but we're going to hammer it out

get it done and go from there.

You guys are great. You know what? I'm glad we're here. Thank you, Freddie.

Well, weigh her up. Okay.

That's four.

The total gold collected will help Freddie and Juan gauge how much they can

improve the trommel's performance.

4 .10 for eight hours.

half ounce an hour but yeah you know i figured we'd probably get you another 15

percent more goals on the recovery and on the recovery side yeah okay that's

what i think we can do should we go get to work or what do you think yeah let's

go get some steel let's do it

At Paradise Hill, Tony Beetz's operation has been shut down for 24 hours.

And he's pushing his team to get back to sluicing 80 puck pay dirt in record

time.

Just getting it ready and prepped so we can weld the new punch plate in.

Tony loses $40 ,000 every day they're down, and he wants them running again by

night shift.

They use a pipe ladder.

They're probably not smart enough, huh?

Drive that thing.

You mean the pipe ladder? Yeah, I mean the pipe ladder.

Park it over here, and then every time you let them in from the top, in from

top, in from the top.

Get it? That makes it so much simpler, gentlemen.

I'll go grab the pipe layer. You want to pull this out?

You can't put an old hat on young shoulders.

So first you let them figure it out, then you point out something, then you

them how to do it right, so the next time you won't have to do that.

And I'll bet you'll speed it up ten to one.

below it.

Unlike the crane, the pipe layer can pick up and plate material in a 360

circle.

So with the pipe layer we have a lot more reach when you just spin on the

and keep grabbing sheets and throwing them in.

In the middle of that they make life a lot easier and a lot quicker.

Pretty good that we got it done in two days instead of four days.

We can all get back to work and start boosting again.

Wow.

So you got it all whipped?

Yeah, we're finished.

Good.

Went quick too, huh?

Yeah, quicker than last year.

Two and a half days.

Awesome. I'm happy with that. So far, the thing up. I mean, downtime costs

too.

Brandon Carr has reskinned the trommel two days faster than last year, saving

Tony around $85 ,000 and putting his season back on track.

That's a good day.

Right now, the name of the game is just to keep this up, keep the plant moving.

At California Creek, Fred Lewis and his inexperienced crew are in the middle of

their first week of sluicing.

Keep putting pay through the sluice and getting gold out the other end.

To keep the operation running smoothly, Fred is leading from the front, digging

pay dirt from the cut.

You know, the best part about these guys is their experience is their hunger.

They want to learn. They want a purpose, and they want something in life to grab

onto. When you're trying to do something like this, you've just got to

understand you're starting to scratch, and people are going to make stupid

mistakes. You've just got to try to learn from them and move forward as a

Damn it.

Hey, guys, I just threw a track on this excavator, so I'm going to need some

help over here right away.

This is a big headache right here.

Fred turns to former U .S. Army mechanic J .B.

to manage the fix.

We have a tanker -worth nightmare in the military, and that's a throwing track.

Nothing broke. It just came off.

And the reason it came off here is we got fractured bedrock, heavy bedrock,

if you're on it at an angle, and you slide down, and it can grab the track,

then that's exactly what happened. It threw a track.

The pain on a bicycle, the best way to describe it, the tension is off, so now

it's just a matter of stretching a chain over the frocket, except this chain

weighs much, much more than a bicycle chain. That's the problem.

We're going to have to get Kara down here in the other excavator. Yeah, with

220? Check it out.

How's she going to get by?

You're going to have to come down the back. You're going to have to come

the back.

Hey, guys, we're going to have to shut the plant down.

Kara!

Kara Lewis is feeding the plant with the only other excavator.

Fred has no choice but to shut down while she helps with the track fix.

Now you're going to have to go through that water.

Well, freaking dandy.

We are so behind right now.

It'd be nice if I could come to work and just do my job.

All right. I feel like there's too many chefs in this kitchen. I got some work

to do.

Sorry. I take full responsibility.

Tracks pop off.

Plants go down all that happens is you just let it roll off your back and keep

moving But right now we're starting to get a little bit frustrated that plant

needs to be running

How

deep is that right there?

There we go.

Are you okay?

I was like, I better put my thing down because I feel like it's about to drop

off a ledge.

All right, now hook it on it too.

Curl up a little bit.

All right, let's get out of the way.

I knew that was going to happen.

Gains and tow ropes under pressure will snap, which is why we got these and

reflexes, I guess.

We're close as hell now, man.

I know we should be able to do it with just the bucket now.

It's sort of a weird, fun aspect to playing with big toys.

Solving problems with me.

Even though it sucks to be losing money while we're not working.

Yes! All right!

Are we on?

Yeah!

Bam!

All right. We got it. We got it. Think we're set? Yeah.

Heck yeah. Let's do this. Find some gold!

All right. I'm going to have to jump up there and...

Run as many buckets as possible, as quick as possible, without jamming stuff

You ready to roll?

Get this thing back up and running.

You know, it's great to have the watch plant up and running.

It's really good to be putting pay dirt through and getting gold out.

Next time you see us, we're going to have a handful of gold.

Just help us line it up, huh? Get her on there, get her tacked on. Yeah,

perfect.

Next door to Fred's operation, Freddy Dodge and Juan Ibarra are two days into

overhaul of the Clayton brothers' homemade water plant.

Bigger gap than I thought.

The V -suit's built.

We're going to back Juan's truck up over by the plant.

Then I'll back up the V -suit, take it in, and we'll start getting it in place.

Are we clear on your side?

Yeah, we're good, yeah.

My safe up one.

No, I won't this time, Freddie.

The truth is, if this trommel isn't running, they're not

catching gold in the sluice. If they're not catching gold in the sluice, they're

not making money.

We got to get this done as quick as possible, get them back up and running.

We're going to get this put in and welded up.

Words can't really describe how cool it is working with the great guys that I'm

here with and learning more.

From talking to them and just being around them.

Little to no time. We'll be flying through dirt, getting gold, and everyone

be happier than hell.

We're hoping to do 500 ounces this season, and that's a big number in gold.

Perfect. We'll close it in there. What do you think?

You betcha.

It's a good thing I'm so petite.

A little more.

Perfect. Not the tightest spot I've ever been in, but it's tight.

Looking sexy.

Huh? Looking sexy. Way sexier, huh? Yeah.

I feel like a piece of meat at times.

A sexy piece of meat, huh?

We still have a lot of work to do in our sluice box.

There's some worrying going on. We're not making any money right now. Bills

don't go on pause, so definitely worrying about it for sure.

So these are kind of like a Hungarian ripple.

We spaced them out a bit more, made them a bit longer.

I think they'll be very efficient, very easy to clean.

And just, it'll help paint our boxes yellow.

Oh, go this way.

There you go.

So we got our nugget riffles up top that are going to catch most of your gold,

but they're going to let a lot of that fine stuff go by.

So these guys, these lighter riffles, these are good at catching that fine

You got a different height to it.

So we're going to put one section, just one, in across here. Okay.

There you go.

Quick and easy.

Yeah.

Well,

let's run her for eight hours and see what it does.

Yeah, let's get this dirt devil fired up, huh?

Yeah, let's do it.

Fire up the pump, man. I'm going.

how much better that water is.

We don't have those roots or tails anymore.

The next eight hours will show if Freddie and Juan's fixes have worked and

the Claytons are on track for a record season.

I'm stoked right now, man.

The first couple of buckets are going through the trouble.

We're going to head over to the box and see what it looks like, but it's looking

good so far.

Perfect, Lotto!

I can feel it. It's perfect.

Well, look how even the boxes are running, guys.

Yeah, very nice.

I mean, it's pretty even all the way across.

Well, keep running it. Okay. All right.

Well, I tell you what, so no.

Long few days.

And I honor myself. We're both flat fired.

But at the same time, watching that thing run, it's running even.

It's running good. The ripples look great.

So we'll find out if Gale doesn't lie.

All right, guys.

I think it's time to christen the plant. All right.

Do we even have a name for it yet? It's got to mean a lot. It's got to have

something to do with overcoming adversity.

What's the synonym for redemption?

Vindication.

Vindication sounds good. Vindicator.

The Vindicator.

Nope.

I dub thee the M .M.

Vindication.

Indicate my checkbook.

I'll get back to work.

At

California

Creek, Brandon and Brady Clayton are eager to see the results of the new test

their trommel.

That ought to be enough.

Let's puke, guys.

Let's lance in the sluices, huh? Okay.

All downstream here.

So these are working. You see the change, right? So it caught most of it

first part of the change.

You seeing gold over there too?

Yeah, you betcha.

Right through here.

Even in this one.

Every box has gold now.

My food looks good, huh?

Delicious, huh?

Are we eating good tonight or steak? We're eating steak tonight.

But he's buying.

Again? Again.

I can't really wipe a smile off my face right now.

Bueno.

Bueno. Good job.

Well. Like Juan and myself always say, you see it in the box, but the scale

doesn't lie, right? Let's clean it up. See what we got?

Yep.

Microwave there, Juan. Let me get it going, Brady.

The first test produced 4 .1 ounces of gold.

Well, you guys do the honors. Weigh your gold. Brady, give her a go. I'll count.

All right.

Come on, Brady. Pour it just right. Come on.

Two.

Three.

Four. Just passed the old one.

Five.

There you go. Six.

6 .73.

6 .73. Nice.

Great on.

That's a good guy. That's very good. That's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's almost an ounce an hour.

$12 ,000 worth of gold from an eight -hour run.

Altogether, you know, we're from 4 .10 to 6 .73.

So that's 65 % total increase.

Those numbers are huge for us. That helps us and the family just catching up

bills and making payroll, buying food, fuel, park.

No,

I don't know. I don't know.

I'm excited for you guys.

Over the course of a season, the changes made by Freddie Dodge and Wanabara

could get them a quarter of a million dollars more in gold.

Yeah, I can't thank you guys enough. I really appreciate it. Not a problem. You

guys are great. Love working with you guys. Having you guys out here was

unbelievable. Unbelievable.

We just can't thank you guys enough. We have a Freddie Dodge signature loose

box. I'm going to take this before you drive away with it. We're not keeping

that? No.

Okay, thank you guys.

Take care, guys.

These

guys

really deserve it. This family deserves it.

Their family's gone through some tough times financially.

So us coming in here and really helping them out, that's more money in their

pocket.

Freddie and Juan's work they just did is absolutely amazing.

By the end of the season, we're going to have about 30 % more gold.

That's huge for us.

A paradise hill.

It's time for Tony Beach to find out if the 80 popcorn is paying out.

Now that punch plate was toast, man.

We were actually very lucky to have a new punch plate in the yard because

months to get the next set.

So what did it take us? Two days to fix it for the boys to live it out? Yeah,

basically two days.

You know, all these little, like, two days here, one day there, half a day

Those have been adding up, hey?

But at least the pond supply is in, right? But not having any in the river,

course. We better keep this crumple dry, you know.

And we better start looking at opening up some new ground, because I don't

that 80 puppers are going to carry us through the season.

Especially if we have to keep ripping it all.

But we did manage to get some gold again, didn't we? A little bit.

To hit his 4 ,500 ounce season goal, Tony needs 237

ounces a week.

50, 150, 70,

178 .38.

Worth $320 ,000.

but over 60 ounces short of his weekly target.

It'd be nice to break 200 in one of these days.

What happened to the good old days? You get 500 or something.

You dug all those holes up?

Oh, that's what happened. Always coming back to your next best hole.

I guess.

Anyway. Yeah, I'm going to go back out there and see what's happening.

Someone around here has to.

What the hell do you think we had you for?

It's not the good looks, Mike.

I thought I was an accident.

Bye,

guys.

I'm carrying out the most present cargo.

We were down for a good two days.

So then it goes where he wasn't too, too bad. No, but I mean... Because you did

lose 48 hours.

I know. But still, it would be nice if it's a little bit better because it's

like...

It covers the cost right now. That's about it.

Yeah.

Is it light?

It was, Steve.

How many green berets does it take to start a fire?

After 11 weeks of sweat and sacrifice, Fred Lewis gathers his rookie crew for

their first official gold wave of the season.

You know, it's been a pretty tough week.

I kind of look back at this week as really being a bad week, but we've

a lot.

Breakdowns and wash plant going down, and we're still pulling gold in.

The hard work we put in, the hard work we're going to put in, is for this gold

that we're about to see. And I know Stuart and Kara, you guys, I don't even

what we're going to call it. We dragged ourselves through last season.

But I think that's behind us. I think we've seen gold on this ground.

And the numbers weren't high as far as the yardage we ran last week.

But we ran.

We did. We ran. Compared to last season, we ran a lot.

And we're going to keep running until the pay is gone.

I don't feel like we're greenhorns anymore.

I feel like we're mining. And I feel like we're overcoming obstacles every

freaking day. Oh, yeah.

I just want to go see how much it is.

Yeah, let's do it.

I know I'm going to need a drink after.

I'm ready to see this.

All right, guys.

We got six ounces last season.

That's it. Yeah. We worked our asses off with six ounces. And I'm really hoping

this is 5 .5 ounces or higher. Okay.

Otherwise, we're losing money.

Great.

Are you guys ready? Oh, hell yeah.

I'm nervous.

All right. One.

Six. Come on, baby.

Keep going. Keep going.

Seven. Seven. Eight.

Come on, keep going.

That's awesome.

8 .4 ounces.

Worth $15 ,000.

Fred's first significant haul as a mine boy.

Holy crap. I think my pulse just went up like a million.

What we just did.

Was we put a relatively crappy week, turn it into more than last season.

What a week.

We made money this week. I don't even have to say anything else. I'm so

So this is the beginning of our future.

Cheers, everybody.