Gold Rush (2018) s05e12 Episode Script
Piles of Gold
1 NARRATOR: In the Yukon This gold is ours.
.
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Todd and Dave are at war over which ground to mine.
I think we ought to move this plant.
I'm not moving this plant until I know I got all the gold here.
But Dave finds new ground That's a great pan.
.
.
that gives the Hoffman crew Moment of truth.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) .
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their best gold of the season.
We're gonna go way past 1,000, Todd.
Tony Beets and family .
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struggle to install the heart of their gold-mining dredge Be careful in there, Daddy.
.
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a 9-tonne trommel.
TONY: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! And against all odds .
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breathe signs of life into their 75-year-old gold dredge.
Wow, look at that.
Is that good or what? And over at Scribner Creek We're gonna haul ass.
.
.
Tony lays down the law.
Either you guys take it all, or (BLEEP) take a hike.
Parker has to dig almost another metre of bedrock.
Every time we take more bedrock, we start losing money.
It takes a toll on his plant DOUMITT: That one's broken.
That one's broken.
.
.
and on his gold.
At Scribner Creek .
.
Parker Schnabel has 1,030oz of gold worth $1.
2 million.
With just seven weeks to reach his 2,000-ounce goal, he has his crew working on two cuts.
All right, Rick, you're gonna have to start hauling mud.
'All right, man.
I'll get on it.
' In the far cut, Gene and Greg are running pay from the bedrock.
We're just moving our way up the far cut here.
The far cut's almost done.
Across the creek in Fantasy Land .
.
the savvy 20-year-old is already a step ahead, as he strips ground for a new cut.
Rick's not hauling pay.
I'm not hauling pay.
We're both just hauling overburden, and it's just what we have to do.
I mean, there's some deep ground in here.
As claim owner Tony Beets gets 15% of Parker's gold .
.
he inspects the far cut to be sure Parker gets every last flake of gold before they fill it in.
How's it going, Tony? Yeah, we've been ploughing through it.
Wow.
Yeah.
We're taking a foot.
We panned some of it, trying to keep going.
I would really say take another 2ft of it (BLEEP).
We're out sluicing for the (BLEEP) day and let me know what you got out of it.
Of the bedrock? Yeah.
What (BLEEP) you got to lose? It's just a day (BLEEP) sluicing.
Well, a day's sluicing is 15 grand.
Yeah, well, so.
Whatever is sturdy there.
I don't think there is.
Well, then we know for sure, now, wouldn't we? Parker found gold in the top layer of fractured bedrock, and he's already run it.
Tony thinks the gold goes down almost another metre and demands that Parker digs deeper and runs it.
Yeah, and I'm the one that loses the (BLEEP) money, Tony.
Bye.
Catch you later, my man.
Parker has no choice but to go back and dig deeper into bedrock.
Tony's good at making it hard to make money on this ground.
Pretty soon, you're not running your own (BLEEP) business.
He told me that he's not too bothered by it.
You think I give a (BLEEP) what he's bothered by? It's not his (BLEEP) time to be bothered with.
It's my time.
I paid him for it.
8km west .
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at Eureka Creek, work on Tony Beets' 75-year-old dredge is at a standstill.
The Beets family are all needed at their gold mine, leaving machinist Mike Krisher and Jerry Rhodes with no crew to rebuild Tony's massive gold-catching machine.
It's frustrating.
Mm-hm.
We can only do as much as we can do.
You know, we're promised help and it's back to the same old (BLEEP).
It sucks.
I don't know if this is gonna get done this fall for Tony, to tell you the truth.
40km north at Paradise Hill .
.
Tony's mine is also shut down after three crew members left.
Tony's wife Minnie has pulled their kids Monica and Kevin off the dredge to restart their operation and get some gold.
I know the dredge is important to you, but this is priority.
I don't give a (BLEEP) for priority.
I'll have to get that dredge going as well as doing this over here.
That ain't working.
If I don't have them doing (BLEEP) dredge now, there's absolutely nothing happening there.
It isn't working.
You have to sluice it in order to work the dredge.
It's either, or.
You can't do both at the same time.
You don't have fricking people here.
Yeah, where? You know that's not happening.
I've been looking all over the place.
I can't find nobody.
You have to sluice.
You know I'm right.
Yeah, well, I gotta go and think about this cos I'll figure out something, OK? Tony must find a way to run the mine while rebuilding the dredge, or he'll be forced to abandon his dream of dredging for gold.
Tony's solution is simple - work harder.
Hey, Kevin, Monica? What's up? There's no way we're doing a week's worth in three days.
We wanna get there as much as you, but we'll have to go two shifts.
All right, we'll do what we can.
All righty.
To mine a week's worth of paydirt in just three days, Tony sets the pace, loading gold-rich, white-channel pay in his 25-year-old excavator.
Monica has to keep up, hauling dirt to the plant in a rock truck.
Holy (BLEEP).
Kevin runs their 20-year-old trommel hard, loading it to its max - 300 yards of paydirt an hour.
This is the hardest we've run the trommel up here at the hill.
We're going a little rough to get it in there.
Hey, Monica.
I can't keep to the plan if you don't give me no dirt.
Kevin, we're bringing this dirt to you as fast as we can.
Tony has the mine and his family running overtime.
But to get the dredge rebuilt this season, while they're gold mining, the Beets family will have to work 24/7.
South .
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at McKinnon Creek, the Hoffman crew is already two thirds of the way through the season.
But they have barely a quarter of the gold they need to reach their 1,000-ounce, $1.
2 million goal.
TODD: Todd to Jack.
Todd to Jack.
'Yeah.
' What bucket are you at? Right now, I'm at 54.
Knock on wood, right now, we're kicking some ass.
Just over 300 yards an hour.
They've struggled all season, but now they're running paydirt worth $11 per yard from their higher cut.
This gold is ours.
We claim it.
We're gonna dig it the frick up.
The pay should get even better once they hit the gold-rich layer on bedrock.
That's bedrock.
Where? Right there.
That's bedrock right there.
I don't know.
Look at That's all sand.
Right there where the bucket is, I hit bedrock.
But 2ft below that, I'm hitting rock.
It's not bedrock.
Why do we have bedrock sticking up right here and not right there? Where is it over here, Andy? See that right there you're standing on now? That's bedrock, isn't it? Or is that just sand layers? You think that's sand or bedrock? Hard to guess where this bedrock's going.
It popped up right here.
Right.
What's going on? In the higher cut, the bedrock is uneven.
If the Hoffmans can't find the gold-rich deposits that collect on bedrock, they could end up leaving the best gold behind.
Is this bedrock or not? What's going on? I think it's a false bedrock.
I think it's a silty maybe an old, ancient channel.
Sounds like a cop-out.
(LAUGHS) Yeah, this is a college education in gold mining, guys, and we're getting everything thrown at us.
The problem is we got the final exam right here, right now.
Todd, Dave, and Andy are confused.
The only way to find out if they're running the gold-rich bedrock layer is to have a cleanup.
Jim Thurber is optimistic that it will bring a big payday.
Everyone's pins and needles.
They're anticipating a good cleanup, and if we hit triple digits on a cleanup, can't describe what that does for you.
JACK: OK, that's the last load in.
Should be the best gold we're gonna see out of that cut.
I hope it's good enough.
You never know until you weigh it up.
Well, guys, you know .
.
I don't know how to put this to you, but all we have are 29oz.
Not even $35,000.
Their paydirt is worth less than $4 a yard.
I mean, we did everything right.
That should have been three times that.
That should be the best stuff, but it's not.
What in the heck? How can the bedrock not have gold? It's got to.
Something's wrong.
DAVE: I just feel like I got kicked in the stomach.
We invested a ton of money in that cut, and we get 30oz out of it? Oh, I know.
Last time I felt like this was in the jungle.
I don't like that feeling.
I'm tired.
We've worked our butts off.
Our cut's a big pile of (BLEEP).
I won't get to 1,000oz at 30oz cleanups.
They gotta be big.
.
.
At Scribner Creek .
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Parker's crew is digging down further into bedrock in the far cut .
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and they're not happy.
GENE: It's frustrating, but there's gold.
It's if it's enough worth chasing.
At some point, you're not gonna get it all.
You gotta just figure out what's the most cost-effective thing to do.
Tony Beets insisted that Parker hunt for gold deep in the fractured bedrock .
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work that takes a toll on the machines and the wash plant.
PARKER: Giving me advice is one thing, but if he wants to tell somebody how to do every little thing, I don't know why he doesn't just mine this himself.
This isn't just amateur hour around here.
Parker's money is on the line.
He decides to run a test.
We're gonna run 1,500 yards of bedrock from below the level we normally take and see if it still pays the bills.
1,500 yards, we need at least 15oz out of the test.
Pretty simple math - an ounce every 100 yards.
For the next ten hours, Chris Doumitt runs the jagged bedrock through their wash plant, Big Red.
DOUMITT: I don't wanna run it.
I hate running bedrock.
It tears up belts.
It tears up screen material.
It's difficult to run.
So if the gold's not in it, then we're just running damage for no reason at all.
If it's rich, yeah, let's run it.
We all know "if" is a very big word.
But after just 50 minutes .
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they're forced to shut down.
The grizzly bars are blocked with huge chunks of bedrock.
These babies are jammed in here pretty good.
(PANTING) This is absolutely Tony Tony Beets' fault.
If he'd stop pushing Parker so much .
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we wouldn't have to be so hard on our equipment.
While Greg clears the grizzly bars, Chris spots a problem on the screen deck.
This is all broke in here.
I'm running jagged bedrock, just banging on this stuff, and it just took its toll.
How's it holding up? Looks bad.
That one's broken.
That one's broken.
We can't run like this.
We'll mess up that lower screen for sure.
Oh, yeah.
Sharp rocks have broken the first screen and fallen onto the lower screen.
If they break through the second screen, they'll end up in the sluice box .
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disrupt the flow of water .
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and cause precious gold to wash out into the tailings pond.
I know it's not gonna stay turned off, so we gotta figure out some way to make it run.
Yeah.
With no spare parts for the plant, Mitch has only one place to go - the bone yard.
We're just going through the scrap pile, trying to find something to patch that screen up with.
We know the right stuff.
This looks pretty gross here, but it might just work.
(ENGINE STARTS) So, what we're gonna do is try and patch up these holes where the screen's wore through.
A lot of guys would just turn it off and wait till they got the right parts, but if you do that, you're not gonna be getting no 2,000oz up here.
She's fixed.
Good enough for the Yukon.
Let's fire it up and get some gold.
After Mitch's bush fix, Parker's crew gets back to running the tough bedrock from the far cut.
DOUMITT: With the way this decking has worn out, it's kinda like the hare and tortoise.
Right now, we're the hare.
We go like crazy and stop, go like crazy and stop.
It did not work out for the hare, and it's not working out for us.
At McKinnon Creek .
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Todd is mystified by the higher cut bedrock and his disastrous cleanup.
Facing another season of failure, he is desperate for help.
TODD: We're heading down to Guy Favron's.
Probably one of the best miners over here in the Klondike, so, for the sake of us surviving as miners, getting advice from a local that knows what he's doing, has been here 20 or 30 years, is not a bad idea.
The Favrons have mined the Klondike for three generations and have one of the largest operations in the area.
If anyone can shed light on the mystery of the higher cut bedrock, it's the Favrons.
Hey Neil.
How's it going, Todd? Is Guy around? Uh, yeah.
He's a little busy at the moment.
How's things over your way? Well, I mean, it's kind of up and down.
We had a pretty bad cleanup.
It might be a long shot, but I was hoping to maybe have you and Guy come out, take a look at what we're doing.
You know what I mean? Man, we're going hard right now.
We're doing 24/7.
We got the plant running 200 yards an hour.
Wow.
Maybe I'm screwing something up.
I just need some advice.
You wanna talk to him right now? If possible.
I could give him a try on the radio.
That's the best I can do.
I appreciate it, man.
Yeah.
These guys have survived in gold mining when gold was at $300 an ounce.
Those are the guys that you wanna learn from - guys that have been there when everything was down.
Hey, Guy, I've got Todd Hoffman here right now.
He's looking for you.
Hopefully they can come out, take a look at what we're doing, and if they have some suggestions, you know what, we're open.
We're open to anything.
What did he say? He's busy right now, but he said he might have time for you.
If you want to head up to the house, he'll get a chance to talk to you.
Yeah, that would be great.
I'll go talk to Guy.
Have a good one.
How you doing, buddy? All right.
Doing a little wheeling, huh? Yeah, we're still scratching a living out of the dirt here.
Oh, my gosh.
It's all gold, huh, coming up? Yeah, it's just separating it.
Stays in the groove.
The reverse spiral wheel is what they call that.
It's the worst part of the job is cleaning gold.
Yeah, but it's kinda fun, isn't it? Had a horrible cleanup the other night.
Really? Yeah.
Well, that's never a good feeling.
I'm actually here to see if see if you might come out and take a look at what I got cooking, and maybe you could help.
Oh, really? We got bedrock going up and down.
Um, geez, we're trying to get every hour into the day right now, you know.
And this time of the year, we're running 24/7, so it's That's what I figured.
It's a little tricky, but maybe me and Neil could sneak out there.
Hey, that'd be great.
I'd sure appreciate it.
You betcha.
Awesome.
I'll keep going here, and we'll catch you later.
Take care.
You know what? I think he knows how serious this is for me and my guys.
If we don't get 1,000oz, I doubt we'll even be back, so it's important he's coming out, and let's hope this is where we turn it around.
The next day at McKinnon Creek .
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Guy Favron arrives with his foreman, Neil Loveless.
How's it going? I hate to see you suffer, Todd.
You see how this is going up and down? I mean, have you guys ever seen bedrock that looked quite like this? Yeah, we see that all the time.
I mean, there's gonna be highs.
There's gonna be lows.
TURIN: Is it that spotty? Is it good, bad? We've had ground that's spotty before, and it can happen like that.
Don't hit the panic button yet.
We are panicked.
Todd and I got everything in this.
Keep your head up and keep punching forward.
You would keep going? Oh, yeah.
You just gotta keep those trucks getting to the plant.
Your whole season could be in one truckload.
Right.
If you put the hours in, you'll get it.
You know, we're all here because we ain't all there.
That is true.
(LAUGHTER) That's true.
You guys wanna take a look at the wash plant? Yes, where the heck is that sucker? Way down that way.
Really? All right.
Let's go.
The Hoffman crew's wash plant, Monster Red, is almost a kilometre from the higher cut.
Each rock truck takes 12 minutes to do the round trip and burns through $500 of fuel a day.
Phew! What do you think? I think you got a kickass wash plant here.
You're up there with a lot of miners that have been at this all their lives.
Cool.
I appreciate that.
It's just in the wrong spot.
Hm.
I mean, the cost of running those trucks I don't know.
How far are you hauling it? A long ways.
It's a long ways.
Looks like a mile to me.
I mean, every ounce you save is another ounce you don't have to produce.
I agree with Guy.
I think we ought to move this plant down there cos the majority of our pay is down there, you know? I know, but there wasn't enough gold in the sluice box.
It's not even paying for the fuel to haul it.
And we stop everything while we move this plant.
Dave, I agree with these guys.
I think we ought to move this thing.
Sometimes partners don't see things eye-to-eye all the time.
I'm not moving this plant until I know I got all the gold here.
.
.
At McKinnon Creek .
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Todd Hoffman wants to move Monster Red closer to the higher cut.
But Dave Turin is ignoring his partner and searching for good paydirt 500m from the wash plant.
It'd just be foolish to move that wash plant if there's gold close by.
We've gotta find some more ground and open it up in a hurry.
So I'm gonna dig a couple of holes.
Hopefully we find some thawed ground, and we keep mining and we don't have to move the wash plant.
Right now, I got about 6ft down.
(GRINDING) Ooh, that sounds hard, though.
(BANGING) Dang it.
I'm hitting something solid already.
(BANGING CONTINUES) Yeah, that's definitely tight and solid.
It's just too frozen.
That ain't gonna work.
If Dave can't find thawed paydirt close to the plant .
.
Todd will move Monster Red to save fuel .
.
but it will cost them a week of valuable sluicing time.
Down about 6 or 8ft, and it's still digging.
That's a good sign.
So far, it's thawed out.
Yeah.
Mostly gravel.
It's critical we get a break, man.
We just need something good to happen.
(SCRAPING) Thawed gravel, and it's down to grey! I like it.
It's thawed gravel, just 500m from the wash plant.
This could be great.
But it has to contain good gold.
This would truly be a blessing if this pan's got any kind of gold in it.
Got black sand, lots of garnets.
Oh, there we go.
There we go.
There's the gold I'm looking for! Yeah! That's a nice one right there.
Probably 30 pieces.
That's a great pan.
Armed with proof that there's easy gold near the wash plant, Dave confronts Todd.
Well, looks like the plant's gonna stay where it is.
There's good gold right next to the wash plant.
Listen, we can't move the plant later.
This is our chance to move it if we're gonna move it.
I know.
It's good pay.
I just got a great pan of over 30 colours.
It's a risk.
This'll work.
At Paradise Hill .
.
Tony Beets and his kids have worked around the clock.
They've sluiced a week's worth of paydirt in just three days.
With a diminished crew, it was the only way they could get back to rebuilding their million-dollar dredge.
Hopefully there's enough in here to get my team back on the dredge.
We have invested so much money in the dredge, it would be nice to have that thing bring some gold home this year.
Hey, well, let's see what's in there.
Hopefully it's good.
Oh, that looks pretty promising.
That is if we can blow it in there.
There you go.
163.
9.
Not bad in three days.
Almost impresses me, so to speak.
In just three days, three members of the Beets family mined 163oz of gold worth nearly $200,000.
But only Minnie, Tony's wife, will decide if it's enough.
That looks pretty good, you know.
Pretty cool.
Then come back and do some more sluicing here.
Good enough.
OK, we'll see you later.
You bet.
Bye.
Hey, Kevin, Monica! Let's go! We're going to the dredge.
We're leaving.
Over at Scribner Creek, .
.
Parker's crew shuts down the plant after their 1,500-yard bedrock test.
I'm gonna turn the water on to that prewash up there.
PARKER: Go for it.
Tony Beets ordered Parker to dig 60cm deeper into bedrock.
For the test to be accurate, the crew needs to get every flake of gold out of the plant.
Get this thing washed out really good so we know is our gold really coming from the paydirt or is it coming from the bedrock? Hey, Doumitt, you know there's a problem when you show up to work cos you're gold mining with a spoon.
This isn't a spoon.
This is a fine gold recovery tool.
Went to school for four years to learn how to operate this.
That's why I have one and you don't, young Parker.
Gets down all those cracks and crannies.
I'm hoping to find nuttin', zero, zilch, period, cos I hate running bedrock.
You know, if there's no gold on the deck down there and on all this bedrock, that means we're doing it right.
We didn't make any mistakes.
Right? I'm not gonna say it's a good thing if we don't get gold because it's not.
More gold is never a bad thing.
Well, there's always gravel and dirt left in the distribution box.
We'll wash it out so we can see what we got.
Hell of a job for a man that's supposed to be emperor of the universe, you know that? Well, Tony's saying we need to go deeper.
Personally, I think we nailed it.
I don't think there's gonna be that much gold in here.
It's his claim, so you do what the claim owner says.
We'll find out who's right.
Either the old-time miner or the guy that's just starting, right? Tony's bedrock test cost Parker 10 hours of sluicing, which normally produces an ounce every 100 yards.
PARKER: How many yards did we run? GENE: It was 1,500, roughly.
I mean, we want 15oz.
Have a tossup, I think.
Right.
That's 7.
005.
Hm.
7oz of gold is less than half an ounce per 100 yards - half what Parker normally gets.
I mean, with that result, I think Tony's wrong.
I don't think we need to chase that deep.
He wouldn't run that stuff.
I don't think so, either.
Nobody really makes money on that.
No.
Parker has made a decision.
He's going to ignore Tony's order to dig deeper into the far cut bedrock.
Instead, Gene thinks there's a better way to recover the bedrock gold.
I think we're getting into the bedrock plenty deep enough.
It's just that the (BLEEP) is falling out between the teeth.
Like this stuff here.
Yeah.
It's loose, like trying to eat soup with a fork.
It'll gonna run between the spines.
I wanna make sure we get all the gold.
Right.
Parker's crew is scraping the bedrock with a bucket that has teeth with 20cm gaps.
Every bucket they dig leaves behind lines of gold-rich pay.
If they switch to a smooth-edged bucket, they'll clean up all the gold on top of the bedrock with no need to go deeper.
Hey, Rick! When you get a chance, can you swap buckets? Yeah.
There's only one problem.
The smooth-edge bucket is 30% smaller.
The only disadvantage is that that's a smaller bucket.
Yeah, it's just two or three buckets a load slower.
It's not quite as fast, but sometimes slower is faster.
It's the best dirt.
Go to all this trouble to get there, we should get it all.
With a smooth-edged bucket, Rick can scrape up the best far cut paydirt and get it over to the plant.
Tony's solution for everything is to go deeper in the bedrock.
Like you said, I think we are getting it all.
I don't wanna leave anything behind.
He may not like it, but that's just what we're gonna do.
Are you all right with that, using that bucket? Bit slower, but it's definitely cleaner, that's for sure.
Right.
I think if you wanna get it all, that's the way to go.
All right, thanks, Rick.
Yeah, no problem.
We're gonna get things rolling again, get this plant up and running and get some dirt processed.
Parker now plans to run the rest of the week his way to find out who's right - him or Tony.
Tony may not like it, but screw it.
You know, I can't do it.
I've gotta pay the bills, and that means I've gotta make money.
After a $200,000 cleanup at Paradise Hill .
.
Tony, Kevin, and Monica finally arrive back at Eureka Creek.
They're ready to rebuild their million-dollar gold dredge.
We're about ready whenever you are.
Mike and I can't do it by ourselves.
We were promised help and never got any.
Let's do it.
Once the dredge is operational, the bucket line will feed paydirt into the trommel.
As the trommel rotates, it separates out worthless rocks and washes gold-rich concentrate down into the sluice box.
Now the crew has to lift the huge 10-tonne trommel into a narrow gap in the centre of the super structure.
KRISHER: Just give me some cable down.
Dad, I've got nowhere to go.
That's not good! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! It's jammed.
When the dredge was first built, the trommel would lift in and out easily.
75 years later, parts have been bent out of shape, and the gap is now too small for the trommel to fit through.
Trommel's stuck in one of the cross beams.
(BLEEP) thing.
Never seen such a commotion.
Big silver bar, Monica, can you pass it? Oh.
It's jammed and we need the pinch bar.
That ain't gonna work.
You think, down? Tony resorts to brute force.
Be careful in there, Daddy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Up, more.
(METAL SCRAPING) This sucks.
Cable down.
Don't hit the gears.
It looks good to me.
Yep.
Awesome, it's done.
This 75-year-old dredge was left to rust in the Yukon for a quarter of a century.
Finally, Tony attempts to fire up the gold-catching juggernaut.
(GEARS CRANKING) The trommel is the first part of Tony's dredge to move in 27 years.
Awesome.
And it's the first indication that he might actually be able to pull gold from the ground before winter.
MONICA: That's (BLEEP) great.
Huh? I think it'll work.
It needs a little water, though.
Yeah, that too.
.
.
Parker Schnabel is on his way to meet Tony Beets after defying his order to dig deeper into bedrock.
I mean, Tony might have a lot of control over me, but on something like this, he can't tell me how to mine.
He can't tell me what dirt to sluice and what dirt not to sluice.
So, he's just gonna have to deal with it.
So, how did you do, Parker? Pretty good.
OK, let's weight that.
See what it looks like, Parker.
The first 7oz is from deep in the bedrock that Tony made him run.
70.
80.
The rest is from Gene's technique, scraping the surface with a smooth-edged bucket.
140, you make 150? Yeah, pretty close, huh? 154, 55? 156.
20.
156oz of gold is worth $180,000, one of Parker's biggest cleanouts of the season.
His total is now 1,186oz, worth $1.
4 million.
I mean Well, no, we didn't really take a whole lot more bedrock.
We just cleaned it up better.
We stopped using teeth, and we scraped the bedrock nice and clean.
Every time we take more bedrock we start losing money, Tony.
That's your problem, not mine.
I have to make money, too.
Look, Tony, that's just the (BLEEP) way we're gonna do it.
No.
If you're not happy with it, then kick us off the (BLEEP).
I might as well take a hike, then, cos I have to make (BLEEP) money, too, Tony.
If Tony had it his way, he'd drive my business in the ground to put a few bucks in his pocket.
(ENGINE TURNS OVER) I don't know who started calling him a Klondike legend, but it's more like a (BLEEP) Klondike (BLEEP).
At McKinnon Creek .
.
Dave Turin refused to move the plant to the higher cut.
He's now excavating paydirt from a new cut close to the wash plant.
Kind of do-or-die now.
Scrambling to open up ground and keep that monster fed.
Instead of a 12-minute round trip from the higher cut, the rock trucks now take just four minutes, cutting their fuel costs by two thirds.
It's much easier to haul it form here.
We're so much closer than the higher cut.
Happy days are here again But saving fuel is pointless if the crew is not running good paydirt.
They're trying to open up new ground.
We just don't know how good a ground it is.
After a three-day run TODD: We're shut down.
.
.
Todd calls for a cleanup to find out.
The crew has run 10,000 yards.
If Dave's cut is going to turn their season around, it needs to pay at least $10 a yard, which means they need at least 83oz of gold.
DAVE: Here comes Jack.
Well What do you got? .
.
I'd like to say we're in the money, but it wasn't as good as I thought.
You're kidding.
That's it? MAN: Kidding me.
TODD: That ain't gonna cut it.
What's in there? JACK: 16.
Ugh.
But with this, makes it 116.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) 116oz of gold is worth almost $140,000.
It's by far the Hoffman crew's biggest cleanup this season.
It takes their total to 412oz, close to half a million dollars, and proves that Dave's new cut is full of gold.
We can get over 1,000oz this season.
I think we can do it.
It's possible, and I think we're gonna do it.
100%.
Whoo! It's not only just about the gold.
After last year, it's about what we're made of.
Huh, guys? On the next Gold Rush MAN: Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! .
.
Parker is back mining Fantasy Land .
.
but it's frozen solid.
It's all frozen.
I think it's done.
He's forced to hunt for thawed ground We need to find a lot of gold here in a short amount of time.
.
.
to put his season back on track.
That's a pretty damn good pan right there.
The Hoffman crew's winning streak runs out.
Dave, I'm just about out of dirt.
But a smart move from Dave Turin I think we ought to look at those drill maps again.
.
.
pays off What do you got, Jack? .
.
big time.
(CHEERING) Tony Beets fights to position the nerve centre of his dredge.
Watch out, Kevin! And is one step closer to dredging for gold.
Another piece of the puzzle.
.
.
Todd and Dave are at war over which ground to mine.
I think we ought to move this plant.
I'm not moving this plant until I know I got all the gold here.
But Dave finds new ground That's a great pan.
.
.
that gives the Hoffman crew Moment of truth.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) .
.
their best gold of the season.
We're gonna go way past 1,000, Todd.
Tony Beets and family .
.
struggle to install the heart of their gold-mining dredge Be careful in there, Daddy.
.
.
a 9-tonne trommel.
TONY: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! And against all odds .
.
breathe signs of life into their 75-year-old gold dredge.
Wow, look at that.
Is that good or what? And over at Scribner Creek We're gonna haul ass.
.
.
Tony lays down the law.
Either you guys take it all, or (BLEEP) take a hike.
Parker has to dig almost another metre of bedrock.
Every time we take more bedrock, we start losing money.
It takes a toll on his plant DOUMITT: That one's broken.
That one's broken.
.
.
and on his gold.
At Scribner Creek .
.
Parker Schnabel has 1,030oz of gold worth $1.
2 million.
With just seven weeks to reach his 2,000-ounce goal, he has his crew working on two cuts.
All right, Rick, you're gonna have to start hauling mud.
'All right, man.
I'll get on it.
' In the far cut, Gene and Greg are running pay from the bedrock.
We're just moving our way up the far cut here.
The far cut's almost done.
Across the creek in Fantasy Land .
.
the savvy 20-year-old is already a step ahead, as he strips ground for a new cut.
Rick's not hauling pay.
I'm not hauling pay.
We're both just hauling overburden, and it's just what we have to do.
I mean, there's some deep ground in here.
As claim owner Tony Beets gets 15% of Parker's gold .
.
he inspects the far cut to be sure Parker gets every last flake of gold before they fill it in.
How's it going, Tony? Yeah, we've been ploughing through it.
Wow.
Yeah.
We're taking a foot.
We panned some of it, trying to keep going.
I would really say take another 2ft of it (BLEEP).
We're out sluicing for the (BLEEP) day and let me know what you got out of it.
Of the bedrock? Yeah.
What (BLEEP) you got to lose? It's just a day (BLEEP) sluicing.
Well, a day's sluicing is 15 grand.
Yeah, well, so.
Whatever is sturdy there.
I don't think there is.
Well, then we know for sure, now, wouldn't we? Parker found gold in the top layer of fractured bedrock, and he's already run it.
Tony thinks the gold goes down almost another metre and demands that Parker digs deeper and runs it.
Yeah, and I'm the one that loses the (BLEEP) money, Tony.
Bye.
Catch you later, my man.
Parker has no choice but to go back and dig deeper into bedrock.
Tony's good at making it hard to make money on this ground.
Pretty soon, you're not running your own (BLEEP) business.
He told me that he's not too bothered by it.
You think I give a (BLEEP) what he's bothered by? It's not his (BLEEP) time to be bothered with.
It's my time.
I paid him for it.
8km west .
.
at Eureka Creek, work on Tony Beets' 75-year-old dredge is at a standstill.
The Beets family are all needed at their gold mine, leaving machinist Mike Krisher and Jerry Rhodes with no crew to rebuild Tony's massive gold-catching machine.
It's frustrating.
Mm-hm.
We can only do as much as we can do.
You know, we're promised help and it's back to the same old (BLEEP).
It sucks.
I don't know if this is gonna get done this fall for Tony, to tell you the truth.
40km north at Paradise Hill .
.
Tony's mine is also shut down after three crew members left.
Tony's wife Minnie has pulled their kids Monica and Kevin off the dredge to restart their operation and get some gold.
I know the dredge is important to you, but this is priority.
I don't give a (BLEEP) for priority.
I'll have to get that dredge going as well as doing this over here.
That ain't working.
If I don't have them doing (BLEEP) dredge now, there's absolutely nothing happening there.
It isn't working.
You have to sluice it in order to work the dredge.
It's either, or.
You can't do both at the same time.
You don't have fricking people here.
Yeah, where? You know that's not happening.
I've been looking all over the place.
I can't find nobody.
You have to sluice.
You know I'm right.
Yeah, well, I gotta go and think about this cos I'll figure out something, OK? Tony must find a way to run the mine while rebuilding the dredge, or he'll be forced to abandon his dream of dredging for gold.
Tony's solution is simple - work harder.
Hey, Kevin, Monica? What's up? There's no way we're doing a week's worth in three days.
We wanna get there as much as you, but we'll have to go two shifts.
All right, we'll do what we can.
All righty.
To mine a week's worth of paydirt in just three days, Tony sets the pace, loading gold-rich, white-channel pay in his 25-year-old excavator.
Monica has to keep up, hauling dirt to the plant in a rock truck.
Holy (BLEEP).
Kevin runs their 20-year-old trommel hard, loading it to its max - 300 yards of paydirt an hour.
This is the hardest we've run the trommel up here at the hill.
We're going a little rough to get it in there.
Hey, Monica.
I can't keep to the plan if you don't give me no dirt.
Kevin, we're bringing this dirt to you as fast as we can.
Tony has the mine and his family running overtime.
But to get the dredge rebuilt this season, while they're gold mining, the Beets family will have to work 24/7.
South .
.
at McKinnon Creek, the Hoffman crew is already two thirds of the way through the season.
But they have barely a quarter of the gold they need to reach their 1,000-ounce, $1.
2 million goal.
TODD: Todd to Jack.
Todd to Jack.
'Yeah.
' What bucket are you at? Right now, I'm at 54.
Knock on wood, right now, we're kicking some ass.
Just over 300 yards an hour.
They've struggled all season, but now they're running paydirt worth $11 per yard from their higher cut.
This gold is ours.
We claim it.
We're gonna dig it the frick up.
The pay should get even better once they hit the gold-rich layer on bedrock.
That's bedrock.
Where? Right there.
That's bedrock right there.
I don't know.
Look at That's all sand.
Right there where the bucket is, I hit bedrock.
But 2ft below that, I'm hitting rock.
It's not bedrock.
Why do we have bedrock sticking up right here and not right there? Where is it over here, Andy? See that right there you're standing on now? That's bedrock, isn't it? Or is that just sand layers? You think that's sand or bedrock? Hard to guess where this bedrock's going.
It popped up right here.
Right.
What's going on? In the higher cut, the bedrock is uneven.
If the Hoffmans can't find the gold-rich deposits that collect on bedrock, they could end up leaving the best gold behind.
Is this bedrock or not? What's going on? I think it's a false bedrock.
I think it's a silty maybe an old, ancient channel.
Sounds like a cop-out.
(LAUGHS) Yeah, this is a college education in gold mining, guys, and we're getting everything thrown at us.
The problem is we got the final exam right here, right now.
Todd, Dave, and Andy are confused.
The only way to find out if they're running the gold-rich bedrock layer is to have a cleanup.
Jim Thurber is optimistic that it will bring a big payday.
Everyone's pins and needles.
They're anticipating a good cleanup, and if we hit triple digits on a cleanup, can't describe what that does for you.
JACK: OK, that's the last load in.
Should be the best gold we're gonna see out of that cut.
I hope it's good enough.
You never know until you weigh it up.
Well, guys, you know .
.
I don't know how to put this to you, but all we have are 29oz.
Not even $35,000.
Their paydirt is worth less than $4 a yard.
I mean, we did everything right.
That should have been three times that.
That should be the best stuff, but it's not.
What in the heck? How can the bedrock not have gold? It's got to.
Something's wrong.
DAVE: I just feel like I got kicked in the stomach.
We invested a ton of money in that cut, and we get 30oz out of it? Oh, I know.
Last time I felt like this was in the jungle.
I don't like that feeling.
I'm tired.
We've worked our butts off.
Our cut's a big pile of (BLEEP).
I won't get to 1,000oz at 30oz cleanups.
They gotta be big.
.
.
At Scribner Creek .
.
Parker's crew is digging down further into bedrock in the far cut .
.
and they're not happy.
GENE: It's frustrating, but there's gold.
It's if it's enough worth chasing.
At some point, you're not gonna get it all.
You gotta just figure out what's the most cost-effective thing to do.
Tony Beets insisted that Parker hunt for gold deep in the fractured bedrock .
.
work that takes a toll on the machines and the wash plant.
PARKER: Giving me advice is one thing, but if he wants to tell somebody how to do every little thing, I don't know why he doesn't just mine this himself.
This isn't just amateur hour around here.
Parker's money is on the line.
He decides to run a test.
We're gonna run 1,500 yards of bedrock from below the level we normally take and see if it still pays the bills.
1,500 yards, we need at least 15oz out of the test.
Pretty simple math - an ounce every 100 yards.
For the next ten hours, Chris Doumitt runs the jagged bedrock through their wash plant, Big Red.
DOUMITT: I don't wanna run it.
I hate running bedrock.
It tears up belts.
It tears up screen material.
It's difficult to run.
So if the gold's not in it, then we're just running damage for no reason at all.
If it's rich, yeah, let's run it.
We all know "if" is a very big word.
But after just 50 minutes .
.
they're forced to shut down.
The grizzly bars are blocked with huge chunks of bedrock.
These babies are jammed in here pretty good.
(PANTING) This is absolutely Tony Tony Beets' fault.
If he'd stop pushing Parker so much .
.
we wouldn't have to be so hard on our equipment.
While Greg clears the grizzly bars, Chris spots a problem on the screen deck.
This is all broke in here.
I'm running jagged bedrock, just banging on this stuff, and it just took its toll.
How's it holding up? Looks bad.
That one's broken.
That one's broken.
We can't run like this.
We'll mess up that lower screen for sure.
Oh, yeah.
Sharp rocks have broken the first screen and fallen onto the lower screen.
If they break through the second screen, they'll end up in the sluice box .
.
disrupt the flow of water .
.
and cause precious gold to wash out into the tailings pond.
I know it's not gonna stay turned off, so we gotta figure out some way to make it run.
Yeah.
With no spare parts for the plant, Mitch has only one place to go - the bone yard.
We're just going through the scrap pile, trying to find something to patch that screen up with.
We know the right stuff.
This looks pretty gross here, but it might just work.
(ENGINE STARTS) So, what we're gonna do is try and patch up these holes where the screen's wore through.
A lot of guys would just turn it off and wait till they got the right parts, but if you do that, you're not gonna be getting no 2,000oz up here.
She's fixed.
Good enough for the Yukon.
Let's fire it up and get some gold.
After Mitch's bush fix, Parker's crew gets back to running the tough bedrock from the far cut.
DOUMITT: With the way this decking has worn out, it's kinda like the hare and tortoise.
Right now, we're the hare.
We go like crazy and stop, go like crazy and stop.
It did not work out for the hare, and it's not working out for us.
At McKinnon Creek .
.
Todd is mystified by the higher cut bedrock and his disastrous cleanup.
Facing another season of failure, he is desperate for help.
TODD: We're heading down to Guy Favron's.
Probably one of the best miners over here in the Klondike, so, for the sake of us surviving as miners, getting advice from a local that knows what he's doing, has been here 20 or 30 years, is not a bad idea.
The Favrons have mined the Klondike for three generations and have one of the largest operations in the area.
If anyone can shed light on the mystery of the higher cut bedrock, it's the Favrons.
Hey Neil.
How's it going, Todd? Is Guy around? Uh, yeah.
He's a little busy at the moment.
How's things over your way? Well, I mean, it's kind of up and down.
We had a pretty bad cleanup.
It might be a long shot, but I was hoping to maybe have you and Guy come out, take a look at what we're doing.
You know what I mean? Man, we're going hard right now.
We're doing 24/7.
We got the plant running 200 yards an hour.
Wow.
Maybe I'm screwing something up.
I just need some advice.
You wanna talk to him right now? If possible.
I could give him a try on the radio.
That's the best I can do.
I appreciate it, man.
Yeah.
These guys have survived in gold mining when gold was at $300 an ounce.
Those are the guys that you wanna learn from - guys that have been there when everything was down.
Hey, Guy, I've got Todd Hoffman here right now.
He's looking for you.
Hopefully they can come out, take a look at what we're doing, and if they have some suggestions, you know what, we're open.
We're open to anything.
What did he say? He's busy right now, but he said he might have time for you.
If you want to head up to the house, he'll get a chance to talk to you.
Yeah, that would be great.
I'll go talk to Guy.
Have a good one.
How you doing, buddy? All right.
Doing a little wheeling, huh? Yeah, we're still scratching a living out of the dirt here.
Oh, my gosh.
It's all gold, huh, coming up? Yeah, it's just separating it.
Stays in the groove.
The reverse spiral wheel is what they call that.
It's the worst part of the job is cleaning gold.
Yeah, but it's kinda fun, isn't it? Had a horrible cleanup the other night.
Really? Yeah.
Well, that's never a good feeling.
I'm actually here to see if see if you might come out and take a look at what I got cooking, and maybe you could help.
Oh, really? We got bedrock going up and down.
Um, geez, we're trying to get every hour into the day right now, you know.
And this time of the year, we're running 24/7, so it's That's what I figured.
It's a little tricky, but maybe me and Neil could sneak out there.
Hey, that'd be great.
I'd sure appreciate it.
You betcha.
Awesome.
I'll keep going here, and we'll catch you later.
Take care.
You know what? I think he knows how serious this is for me and my guys.
If we don't get 1,000oz, I doubt we'll even be back, so it's important he's coming out, and let's hope this is where we turn it around.
The next day at McKinnon Creek .
.
Guy Favron arrives with his foreman, Neil Loveless.
How's it going? I hate to see you suffer, Todd.
You see how this is going up and down? I mean, have you guys ever seen bedrock that looked quite like this? Yeah, we see that all the time.
I mean, there's gonna be highs.
There's gonna be lows.
TURIN: Is it that spotty? Is it good, bad? We've had ground that's spotty before, and it can happen like that.
Don't hit the panic button yet.
We are panicked.
Todd and I got everything in this.
Keep your head up and keep punching forward.
You would keep going? Oh, yeah.
You just gotta keep those trucks getting to the plant.
Your whole season could be in one truckload.
Right.
If you put the hours in, you'll get it.
You know, we're all here because we ain't all there.
That is true.
(LAUGHTER) That's true.
You guys wanna take a look at the wash plant? Yes, where the heck is that sucker? Way down that way.
Really? All right.
Let's go.
The Hoffman crew's wash plant, Monster Red, is almost a kilometre from the higher cut.
Each rock truck takes 12 minutes to do the round trip and burns through $500 of fuel a day.
Phew! What do you think? I think you got a kickass wash plant here.
You're up there with a lot of miners that have been at this all their lives.
Cool.
I appreciate that.
It's just in the wrong spot.
Hm.
I mean, the cost of running those trucks I don't know.
How far are you hauling it? A long ways.
It's a long ways.
Looks like a mile to me.
I mean, every ounce you save is another ounce you don't have to produce.
I agree with Guy.
I think we ought to move this plant down there cos the majority of our pay is down there, you know? I know, but there wasn't enough gold in the sluice box.
It's not even paying for the fuel to haul it.
And we stop everything while we move this plant.
Dave, I agree with these guys.
I think we ought to move this thing.
Sometimes partners don't see things eye-to-eye all the time.
I'm not moving this plant until I know I got all the gold here.
.
.
At McKinnon Creek .
.
Todd Hoffman wants to move Monster Red closer to the higher cut.
But Dave Turin is ignoring his partner and searching for good paydirt 500m from the wash plant.
It'd just be foolish to move that wash plant if there's gold close by.
We've gotta find some more ground and open it up in a hurry.
So I'm gonna dig a couple of holes.
Hopefully we find some thawed ground, and we keep mining and we don't have to move the wash plant.
Right now, I got about 6ft down.
(GRINDING) Ooh, that sounds hard, though.
(BANGING) Dang it.
I'm hitting something solid already.
(BANGING CONTINUES) Yeah, that's definitely tight and solid.
It's just too frozen.
That ain't gonna work.
If Dave can't find thawed paydirt close to the plant .
.
Todd will move Monster Red to save fuel .
.
but it will cost them a week of valuable sluicing time.
Down about 6 or 8ft, and it's still digging.
That's a good sign.
So far, it's thawed out.
Yeah.
Mostly gravel.
It's critical we get a break, man.
We just need something good to happen.
(SCRAPING) Thawed gravel, and it's down to grey! I like it.
It's thawed gravel, just 500m from the wash plant.
This could be great.
But it has to contain good gold.
This would truly be a blessing if this pan's got any kind of gold in it.
Got black sand, lots of garnets.
Oh, there we go.
There we go.
There's the gold I'm looking for! Yeah! That's a nice one right there.
Probably 30 pieces.
That's a great pan.
Armed with proof that there's easy gold near the wash plant, Dave confronts Todd.
Well, looks like the plant's gonna stay where it is.
There's good gold right next to the wash plant.
Listen, we can't move the plant later.
This is our chance to move it if we're gonna move it.
I know.
It's good pay.
I just got a great pan of over 30 colours.
It's a risk.
This'll work.
At Paradise Hill .
.
Tony Beets and his kids have worked around the clock.
They've sluiced a week's worth of paydirt in just three days.
With a diminished crew, it was the only way they could get back to rebuilding their million-dollar dredge.
Hopefully there's enough in here to get my team back on the dredge.
We have invested so much money in the dredge, it would be nice to have that thing bring some gold home this year.
Hey, well, let's see what's in there.
Hopefully it's good.
Oh, that looks pretty promising.
That is if we can blow it in there.
There you go.
163.
9.
Not bad in three days.
Almost impresses me, so to speak.
In just three days, three members of the Beets family mined 163oz of gold worth nearly $200,000.
But only Minnie, Tony's wife, will decide if it's enough.
That looks pretty good, you know.
Pretty cool.
Then come back and do some more sluicing here.
Good enough.
OK, we'll see you later.
You bet.
Bye.
Hey, Kevin, Monica! Let's go! We're going to the dredge.
We're leaving.
Over at Scribner Creek, .
.
Parker's crew shuts down the plant after their 1,500-yard bedrock test.
I'm gonna turn the water on to that prewash up there.
PARKER: Go for it.
Tony Beets ordered Parker to dig 60cm deeper into bedrock.
For the test to be accurate, the crew needs to get every flake of gold out of the plant.
Get this thing washed out really good so we know is our gold really coming from the paydirt or is it coming from the bedrock? Hey, Doumitt, you know there's a problem when you show up to work cos you're gold mining with a spoon.
This isn't a spoon.
This is a fine gold recovery tool.
Went to school for four years to learn how to operate this.
That's why I have one and you don't, young Parker.
Gets down all those cracks and crannies.
I'm hoping to find nuttin', zero, zilch, period, cos I hate running bedrock.
You know, if there's no gold on the deck down there and on all this bedrock, that means we're doing it right.
We didn't make any mistakes.
Right? I'm not gonna say it's a good thing if we don't get gold because it's not.
More gold is never a bad thing.
Well, there's always gravel and dirt left in the distribution box.
We'll wash it out so we can see what we got.
Hell of a job for a man that's supposed to be emperor of the universe, you know that? Well, Tony's saying we need to go deeper.
Personally, I think we nailed it.
I don't think there's gonna be that much gold in here.
It's his claim, so you do what the claim owner says.
We'll find out who's right.
Either the old-time miner or the guy that's just starting, right? Tony's bedrock test cost Parker 10 hours of sluicing, which normally produces an ounce every 100 yards.
PARKER: How many yards did we run? GENE: It was 1,500, roughly.
I mean, we want 15oz.
Have a tossup, I think.
Right.
That's 7.
005.
Hm.
7oz of gold is less than half an ounce per 100 yards - half what Parker normally gets.
I mean, with that result, I think Tony's wrong.
I don't think we need to chase that deep.
He wouldn't run that stuff.
I don't think so, either.
Nobody really makes money on that.
No.
Parker has made a decision.
He's going to ignore Tony's order to dig deeper into the far cut bedrock.
Instead, Gene thinks there's a better way to recover the bedrock gold.
I think we're getting into the bedrock plenty deep enough.
It's just that the (BLEEP) is falling out between the teeth.
Like this stuff here.
Yeah.
It's loose, like trying to eat soup with a fork.
It'll gonna run between the spines.
I wanna make sure we get all the gold.
Right.
Parker's crew is scraping the bedrock with a bucket that has teeth with 20cm gaps.
Every bucket they dig leaves behind lines of gold-rich pay.
If they switch to a smooth-edged bucket, they'll clean up all the gold on top of the bedrock with no need to go deeper.
Hey, Rick! When you get a chance, can you swap buckets? Yeah.
There's only one problem.
The smooth-edge bucket is 30% smaller.
The only disadvantage is that that's a smaller bucket.
Yeah, it's just two or three buckets a load slower.
It's not quite as fast, but sometimes slower is faster.
It's the best dirt.
Go to all this trouble to get there, we should get it all.
With a smooth-edged bucket, Rick can scrape up the best far cut paydirt and get it over to the plant.
Tony's solution for everything is to go deeper in the bedrock.
Like you said, I think we are getting it all.
I don't wanna leave anything behind.
He may not like it, but that's just what we're gonna do.
Are you all right with that, using that bucket? Bit slower, but it's definitely cleaner, that's for sure.
Right.
I think if you wanna get it all, that's the way to go.
All right, thanks, Rick.
Yeah, no problem.
We're gonna get things rolling again, get this plant up and running and get some dirt processed.
Parker now plans to run the rest of the week his way to find out who's right - him or Tony.
Tony may not like it, but screw it.
You know, I can't do it.
I've gotta pay the bills, and that means I've gotta make money.
After a $200,000 cleanup at Paradise Hill .
.
Tony, Kevin, and Monica finally arrive back at Eureka Creek.
They're ready to rebuild their million-dollar gold dredge.
We're about ready whenever you are.
Mike and I can't do it by ourselves.
We were promised help and never got any.
Let's do it.
Once the dredge is operational, the bucket line will feed paydirt into the trommel.
As the trommel rotates, it separates out worthless rocks and washes gold-rich concentrate down into the sluice box.
Now the crew has to lift the huge 10-tonne trommel into a narrow gap in the centre of the super structure.
KRISHER: Just give me some cable down.
Dad, I've got nowhere to go.
That's not good! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! It's jammed.
When the dredge was first built, the trommel would lift in and out easily.
75 years later, parts have been bent out of shape, and the gap is now too small for the trommel to fit through.
Trommel's stuck in one of the cross beams.
(BLEEP) thing.
Never seen such a commotion.
Big silver bar, Monica, can you pass it? Oh.
It's jammed and we need the pinch bar.
That ain't gonna work.
You think, down? Tony resorts to brute force.
Be careful in there, Daddy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Up, more.
(METAL SCRAPING) This sucks.
Cable down.
Don't hit the gears.
It looks good to me.
Yep.
Awesome, it's done.
This 75-year-old dredge was left to rust in the Yukon for a quarter of a century.
Finally, Tony attempts to fire up the gold-catching juggernaut.
(GEARS CRANKING) The trommel is the first part of Tony's dredge to move in 27 years.
Awesome.
And it's the first indication that he might actually be able to pull gold from the ground before winter.
MONICA: That's (BLEEP) great.
Huh? I think it'll work.
It needs a little water, though.
Yeah, that too.
.
.
Parker Schnabel is on his way to meet Tony Beets after defying his order to dig deeper into bedrock.
I mean, Tony might have a lot of control over me, but on something like this, he can't tell me how to mine.
He can't tell me what dirt to sluice and what dirt not to sluice.
So, he's just gonna have to deal with it.
So, how did you do, Parker? Pretty good.
OK, let's weight that.
See what it looks like, Parker.
The first 7oz is from deep in the bedrock that Tony made him run.
70.
80.
The rest is from Gene's technique, scraping the surface with a smooth-edged bucket.
140, you make 150? Yeah, pretty close, huh? 154, 55? 156.
20.
156oz of gold is worth $180,000, one of Parker's biggest cleanouts of the season.
His total is now 1,186oz, worth $1.
4 million.
I mean Well, no, we didn't really take a whole lot more bedrock.
We just cleaned it up better.
We stopped using teeth, and we scraped the bedrock nice and clean.
Every time we take more bedrock we start losing money, Tony.
That's your problem, not mine.
I have to make money, too.
Look, Tony, that's just the (BLEEP) way we're gonna do it.
No.
If you're not happy with it, then kick us off the (BLEEP).
I might as well take a hike, then, cos I have to make (BLEEP) money, too, Tony.
If Tony had it his way, he'd drive my business in the ground to put a few bucks in his pocket.
(ENGINE TURNS OVER) I don't know who started calling him a Klondike legend, but it's more like a (BLEEP) Klondike (BLEEP).
At McKinnon Creek .
.
Dave Turin refused to move the plant to the higher cut.
He's now excavating paydirt from a new cut close to the wash plant.
Kind of do-or-die now.
Scrambling to open up ground and keep that monster fed.
Instead of a 12-minute round trip from the higher cut, the rock trucks now take just four minutes, cutting their fuel costs by two thirds.
It's much easier to haul it form here.
We're so much closer than the higher cut.
Happy days are here again But saving fuel is pointless if the crew is not running good paydirt.
They're trying to open up new ground.
We just don't know how good a ground it is.
After a three-day run TODD: We're shut down.
.
.
Todd calls for a cleanup to find out.
The crew has run 10,000 yards.
If Dave's cut is going to turn their season around, it needs to pay at least $10 a yard, which means they need at least 83oz of gold.
DAVE: Here comes Jack.
Well What do you got? .
.
I'd like to say we're in the money, but it wasn't as good as I thought.
You're kidding.
That's it? MAN: Kidding me.
TODD: That ain't gonna cut it.
What's in there? JACK: 16.
Ugh.
But with this, makes it 116.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) 116oz of gold is worth almost $140,000.
It's by far the Hoffman crew's biggest cleanup this season.
It takes their total to 412oz, close to half a million dollars, and proves that Dave's new cut is full of gold.
We can get over 1,000oz this season.
I think we can do it.
It's possible, and I think we're gonna do it.
100%.
Whoo! It's not only just about the gold.
After last year, it's about what we're made of.
Huh, guys? On the next Gold Rush MAN: Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! .
.
Parker is back mining Fantasy Land .
.
but it's frozen solid.
It's all frozen.
I think it's done.
He's forced to hunt for thawed ground We need to find a lot of gold here in a short amount of time.
.
.
to put his season back on track.
That's a pretty damn good pan right there.
The Hoffman crew's winning streak runs out.
Dave, I'm just about out of dirt.
But a smart move from Dave Turin I think we ought to look at those drill maps again.
.
.
pays off What do you got, Jack? .
.
big time.
(CHEERING) Tony Beets fights to position the nerve centre of his dredge.
Watch out, Kevin! And is one step closer to dredging for gold.
Another piece of the puzzle.