Gold Rush (2018) s05e15 Episode Script
The Monster Lives
In the Klondike: We're getting pretty desperate for pay dirt.
Parker is forced to roll the dice.
We've got a whole new world but it's on an island on the other side of the creek.
But getting to his gold-rich island Come on, back up! .
.
proves tougher than he thought.
Now we're screwed! Then to make matters worse From now on, 20%.
.
.
Tony demands a bigger cut of his gold.
I guess that's the Tony way - work more for less.
And at Eureka Creek Tony's dredge is dead in the water.
You're trying to revive the dead.
His electrician declares it's all over.
Ooooh, (BLEEP).
This is all garbage.
But Tony ignores the risk of disaster What the (BLEEP) is going on, James? You could rip that whole thing apart.
.
.
and flips the switch.
(SHOUTS) .
.
to bring his 75-year-old gold-catching monster back to life.
Everybody stay the hell away from this thing.
At McKinnon Creek There's pay gravels right there.
.
.
The Hoffman crew hits a hot pay streak.
What did you find? The best pan I've ever had.
Holy cow.
But when they lose two rock trucks Something went clunk.
.
.
they have no choice Ah, man! .
.
but to abandon their most lucrative ground.
Come on! That's a fatal blow right there.
Scribner Creek, the Klondike.
Parker Schnabel has 1,402 ounces of gold worth over $1.
5 million.
But there's only four weeks left to reach his 2,000 ounce goal and he's out of pay dirt.
Chris Doumitt loads the last of the stockpile into their wash plant, Big Red.
We're desperate for pay dirt.
We're gonna be shutting down here in a bit.
You know, we're not gonna get 2,000 ounces if we start doing that.
Rick's just gotta get me some pay.
That's all there is to it.
Hey, Rick, you got a copy? Rick? ON RADIO: 'Yeah, go ahead, Chris.
' Just giving you a heads up, man.
We're making a long run to the end of the pay pile.
Rick Ness scrapes up any remaining pay dirt in the far cut.
There's not much ground left here.
I figure I can scratch up and build maybe enough pay to keep the plant going for one more day.
I mean, that's no kind of long-term plan but it's all I've got to work with right now so I'm doing it.
Hopefully, Parker can come up with a new plan.
But so far, any new ground that Parker has tried to mine has been frozen solid.
We're gonna need one more chunk after the far cut, huh? That's the way it's looking.
He's heading out to the far edge of the claim with foreman Gene Cheeseman to hunt for thawed ground.
There's some ground but it's on an island on the other side of the creek.
So it's hard to get to, it's the only problem.
Yeah, I understand.
But there's some ground over there for sure.
I mean, underneath that berm there's a lot of ground.
Yeah.
Well, as skinny as it is with water on both sides of it, it should be all thawed.
The berm that Parker plans to mine is a small island between two creeks.
He's hoping the water that flows around it will have drawn the cold out of the overburden, thawing the pay dirt beneath.
We gotta get pay to the plant and there's nothing here that's that difficult, other than getting across the creek.
All right, I can take care of that.
Really, to sluice through the end of the season, we needlike, ten more football fields.
That's a lot of ground.
And we're scrambling to get new ground open so we're going after the berm.
I figure this has a better chance of being thawed because of all the water around.
Come on, back up! You (BLEEP)! But getting through the creek to the island in an 85-tonne 'dozer isn't easy.
Everything over here is wet and muddy.
And I'm trying hard not to get stuck.
Just like that right there.
(BLEEP).
Now we're screwed! Hey, Gene? I got the dozer stuck trying to get up on the other side.
Do you need help pulling it up there? Yeah.
Gene to the rescue! Got to turn this way a little bit! OK! Just another few feet, turn that way a little bit.
Easy! OK.
Now we're getting somewhere! Right there! Right on! When you almost got stuck, the back of your counterweight was almost underwater.
It's saturated with water and you're getting those sandbars.
I really doubt we can just go back and forth through the creek.
They can't mine the island if they can't get their equipment onto it.
We need a good road to get over there.
Yep.
If it's a matter of getting a big culvert, then we can do that.
Oh, sounds good.
I'll just get the pipe right over there.
Than if we put the road across, we can just tie it right in.
All right.
Parker and Gene's plan is to place three large pipes, or culverts, into the creek.
Then build a new dirt road over the top.
Mechanic Mitch Blaschke brings in the culverts with the 220 loader.
You know, this is really important we get this in here and get this berm cut opened up here.
We're running low on pay around here and this is some good-looking ground.
Hey! Sit 'er down there, Mitch! We got that there in one piece! Gene adds a third pipe.
Wanna add some insurance, I guess.
Then we'll get the loader and just start packing this stuff down there.
Then Gene and Mitch construct a roadway to the berm island.
Oh, that's going good so far.
Put some more material on top of it, we'll be driving on 'er in no time.
Hey, Mitch.
Don't drive out on that yet.
OK.
Keep dumping there.
OK.
Hi! What do you think? I think it's working.
(CHUCKLES) Water's going through the pipe? Yep.
Nice job.
We've almost got all the way across the water.
This bucket here should get us all the way across the other side.
After five hours of moving dirt, the road to the island is complete.
Well, we've got a whole new world open to us.
Now Parker and crew can move equipment onto the berm island and find out if it's the answer to their 2,000 ounce goal.
It's nerve wracking because you're going into a whole new area and you have no idea what to expect because we don't have drill holes in this but it's the only thawed ground that we know of.
So we have no choice but to go after it.
And it needs to pay off good.
West, at McKinnon Creek .
.
the Hoffman crew is nearing the end of the season.
With only two thirds of the gold they need to hit their 1,000 ounce, $1.
2 million goal.
Dave Turin is extending the higher cut.
But the pay dirt is showing less and less gold.
This ground isn't the best.
It doesn't have a lot of gold, it turned out.
It's marginal.
But right now we have to rely on this, it's all we've got.
I don't know if it's enough to get our 1,000 ounces but we just gotta keep going.
If we run lots of it, it's gonna help.
So I'm just trying to keep as much dirt going to the plant as we can get.
That frees Todd up to go looking for some better ground.
And that's what he's good at.
Nearby, on the claim, Todd Hoffman and Andy Spinks are back at some of their most lucrative ground of the season the haul road cut.
We need another good cut like the haul road cut.
The crew hit a gold-rich pay channel here that led to one of their best cleanups over .
.
earning them 132 ounces, worth $158,000.
Now Todd's looking to mine the north side of the road.
If that pay channel is under the road and through that cut, not only will we hit 1,000, we'll go way beyond.
There's only one way to find out.
Just open the ground up.
Yeah.
Last week Todd and Dave were forced to stop stripping ground here Hey, Dave, I'm stuck over here too.
.
.
after both 'dozers got stranded in the mud.
This cut's gonna be a lot harder than we thought! Just trying to 'doze in here is not gonna work.
Let's get all this off with the excavator and tall trucks.
We'll haul out all the dirt, down to gravels, to our dump site and then we'll push that with the 'dozer.
Yeah.
Let's do it.
If the gold-rich pay channel continues north of the road, they may still make this a 1,000 ounce season.
We gotta push through the night, we gotta keep strippin'! Dave's at the other cut right now.
He's actually able to keep the plant running.
And I'm looking for higher-grade pay.
We're both just kind of working together, trying to find the best pay we can.
After a tough night in the cut This had better work.
.
.
Todd finally sees what he's been looking for.
There's (BLEEP) pay gravels right there.
Todd to Thurber.
ON RADIO: 'Yeah, go ahead, Todd.
' Hey, I need you to come down here real quick.
What have you got, Todd? This is it right here.
I just hit pay gravel.
You see it right here? Yeah, see it.
Can you take a section of that and pan it real quick? OK.
Right now we spent a lot of time and money to get to this point so obviously we hope that it pays off.
There's no flippin' way.
Oh, my word.
That is over the top - insane amount of gold.
You know, you keep goin', eventually you're gonna win.
This looks like a win.
I gotta show Todd.
What did you find? The best pan I've ever had out here.
Look at that.
Holy cow! Isn't that nice? We're onto something good here.
That channel must come through here so if we stick right here, we'll be fine.
Wow.
That's incredible, dude.
Yeah! (CHUCKLES) That is awesome! Todd's perseverance has paid off.
If this ain't the channel coming through here, I don't know what is.
You never know but this may just save our ass.
At Eureka Creek Tony Beets and his crew have been rebuilding their 75-year-old gold dredge for five weeks.
With most of the large pieces in place, they now face their toughest challenge - getting the dredge to actually run.
Dredges across the Yukon operated on complicated mechanical and electrical systems, controlled from the wheelhouse.
The dredge master ran the bucket lines and winches that pulled millions of dollars in gold out of the ground.
Now Tony needs to install the dredge's control systems and there's no instruction manual.
He turns to machinists Mike Krisher What's up, Tony? .
.
and Jerry Roads.
Hey, Tony.
How you doin'? So, you think we got everything to make it work? What do you think? Well, I think we've got everything as far as the mechanical linkage here to hook everything up.
We can work on the linkage, we're pretty good on the linkage, but the electric, we're kind of at a dead end on.
So, we don't know what to do with that yet, huh? No.
The electrical stuff, that was old, antiquated stuff and I don't think we can make that work any more.
No, we have to find somebody that knows something about the old electric motors so we can find some way to get them running.
The antique motors haven't turned in nearly 30 years.
And without them, the dredge can't function.
Tony drives south to Alaska, in search of help.
It's pretty complicated (BLEEP), if you ask me.
So I'm gonna go run up to Skagway.
There is a dredge there also so I'm just gonna go down there, have a good look at it and see what we can do.
The Skagway dredge is the same size as Tony's and runs on an identical control system.
It tore through the Klondike between 1947 and 1954, pulling over 8,000 ounces of gold out of the ground - equivalent to $10 million today.
Tony has come to meet Tom Hall, the man who restored the dredge.
Hey, Tom.
Hey! How's it going, man? Good, how are you? What's happening? Not so good, not so good.
I'm putting a dredge together, as you know, so I thought I'd come and have a look for some advice or maybe see if you had some leftovers.
Yeah, well, we'll have a look around here, Tony.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Bucket lines are right here.
It took Tom two years to bring the dilapidated dredge back to its former glory - salvaging parts from all over the Klondike.
How many buckets have you got on your line? Well, I've got 70 buckets in my line and 10 extras around here that we've picked up for spares.
Really, huh? But Tony's here to see how the electrical control systems work in the wheelhouse - the nerve centre of the dredge.
Well, this is it right here.
Wow.
All the whole dredge runs off these controls right here.
All the front runs off these, which are a complete system.
The back runs off these.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Our particular one is in working order.
I'm missing a whole bunch of (BLEEP) by the looks of it.
Yeah? I mean, I don't even have these things over here.
These are the electric controls, forward and reverse and digging ladder and the winch line and digging motor so they're what really makes the dredge work.
They run the whole thing.
Well, you're not getting them, that's for damn sure! (LAUGHS) No.
They're one-of-a-kind and we look for another one too and they're not out there.
You aren't gonna find two of them, that I know of.
I have a serious problem because I got none of that.
Tony is missing the two control units that run the electric motors.
Without them, it's impossible to operate the winches and bucket lines from the wheelhouse.
Nobody I know of.
Yep.
Finding the people that know anything about 'em, they're few and far between.
Not many around.
Now I fully realise the size of the problem I've got.
I don't know of anybody that they can find alive today that can still make or put this (BLEEP) together but this old technology, in order to make this work, I have no clue this time how the hell I'm gonna pull that off.
So do I have a serious problem? (BLEEP) rights I got a problem! I gotta get frickin' sluicing this year.
Tony drives north to Whitehorse, back in Canada, to track down the last electrician that worked on his dredge.
He rewired this dredge 30 years ago and he may still know something about it.
I hope he's here and I hope he's (BLEEP) up for the job.
I'm sure he can (BLEEP) do it.
How's it going, man? Good, you? Oh, not so (BLEEP) good.
You heard about the dredge of course.
did.
And all this (BLEEP) electrical crap in there that's 50 years old? I'm missing pieces, I need somebody that knows about that so I figured I'd come to see you guys so we can make that thing turn.
I've never worked on a dredge before.
My dad was the last guy to wire that in 1981.
He was the last man to wire a dredge in the Yukon.
Whoa! Tony was hoping to find the last living electrician that wired his dredge.
But insteadhe's found his son.
OK, well, be kind of like father like son - I'm sure you can do the same.
I don't know, we'll have to see.
What's your timeframe? I guess I can jump in a plane and meet you out there tomorrow? Back at McKinnon Creek .
.
the Hoffman crew is split in two.
Dave excavates low-grade pay dirt from the higher cut to keep the wash plant fed.
On the north side of the haul run, Todd strips overburden in their new cut.
With time running out, Todd and crew are under pressure to get down to gold-rich pay.
We're working it pretty good here.
We're actually opening up quite a bit of ground with just two trucks.
And so far, knock on wood, we're running into a lot of thawed ground.
This late in the season, that means a lot right now.
Hopefully, we're gonna be in great shape.
Tyson Moore, a rookie crew member, hauls overburden for Todd.
Yeah, I'm new to the team.
You know, I was excited to take the opportunity to come up here.
I just gotta prove myself to the guys, show 'em that I wanna be here.
Logan Pierce, Todd's nephew, drives the other truck.
What was that? (BLEEP).
Hey, Steve.
Steve, you got a copy? 'Go ahead.
' I think something really just went wrong with my truck.
All right, Logan, I'll come take a look at it.
Right now we can't afford to have any of these rock trucks go down.
Hopefully it's nothing too major.
Steve, it's not looking good, man.
What happened? I was just rolling along and something went clunk.
Oh, man.
Let's take a look.
Ah, shoot.
Here it is, man.
Yeah, dude.
I think we lost that bearing in there.
Cos it's sheared all the bolts off.
Aw.
So this driveline right now is just gonna be flopping around.
So that'd be the noise I heard.
Yeah, that's probably your noise.
It's plain and simple, man.
That bearing's out.
It's gonna be heck to get the parts here.
This truck's down.
This thing, literally, will knock the wind right out of our sails.
We were gonna have a hard enough time meeting our goals with four trucks.
Now we're gonna be down to three trucks - it's not good.
Back at the haul road cut, Todd now has only one rock truck to haul overburden.
You know, if one goes down, it's devastating to our little operation so I'm frustrated.
Totally frustrated right now.
I mean, we're running the plant still but we're down a truck.
This is not good.
You know, things are tough but we gotta get that gold, we gotta make our goal.
We're gonna make it happen.
By running as fast and as hard and as long as you can.
That's how we're gonna do it.
Urrrrgh, man! Tyson's driven his truck over the edge of the vertical drop.
This is bad.
He attempts to pull himself to safety.
Come on! At McKinnon Creek rookie crew member Tyson Moore has backed his rock truck off an enormous pile of overburden.
Urrrrgh, man! Come on! He needs help.
Listen, I am stuck bad.
This thing is not moving.
It's not good.
When you get in a spot that's like that, just stop and ask for help.
So you don't do any more damage.
Sometimes, like, if it gets that far off You know, the minute that it doesn't go into gears, just stop.
We can't afford to lose that truck now.
Dave brings in the 700 excavator.
Well, we're trying to grab the back corner and lift and pull at the same time.
Keep it from rolling over.
Steve has almost 20 years experience with heavy equipment.
As soon as Dave gets on me, I'm gonna hopefully drive it out of here.
OK, go ahead.
Nice and easy.
First, Dave supports the weight of the truck so Steve can dump the 40-tonne load.
Easy.
One false move could send Steve and the rock truck off the edge.
Good.
And he's out! Got it! That was a close call.
I don't know if the truck's OK or not - let's see.
Something's come apart in this front disc.
Got the housing busted.
(BLEEP).
Big crack in the housing.
Uh, you can't ride it like that.
This truck's down.
It's a major repair.
There's a lot of things I can fix but this, I can't do it.
I'm not a miracle worker.
There's no way.
It means we are down to two trucks now and we can't run with two trucks.
Dave needs two working trucks to keep Monster Red running with pay dirt from the higher cut.
The crew has no choice but to abandon stripping the gold-rich ground in the haul road cut.
There will be no stripping and no hauling pay at the same time.
It can't be done.
East, at Scribner Creek Parker and crew have been stripping their new berm island cut for the last 24 hours.
So, this is our first bit of gravel on the berm cut.
And the good news is it's thawed.
We're still a ways off bedrock so we won't really know what's in it yet but um .
.
it's a good sign that it's thawed.
Over at Big Red Chris Doumitt runs the last pay dirt Rick has scraped up from the old far cut.
Hey, Rick.
You got a copy? Rick? 'Yeah, go ahead, Chris.
' Hey, I'm down to about an hour, maybe an hour and a half of pay left up here.
How you looking over there? Yeah, I'm really not liking what I'm seeing here.
Well, I know Chris is worried about us running out of pay and I don't blame him because we are.
There's, like, nothing here.
The bedrock is almost undiggable.
There's just trash in my bucket and there's barely any gravel on it so I don't know, this is frustrating.
Back on the berm island, Parker is determined to get down to pay dirt to keep Big Red running.
We do need this ground to be good and we do need a lot of ground to be thawed if we're gonna get to 2,000 so I'm actually really excited to see what's underneath here because to me it looks like there's a big old area here that is gonna be pay.
Hey, Gene? I've got some bad news.
It's frozen pretty good.
I'm amazed at the amount of groundwater in here that is frozen.
I didn't think that it'd be frozen at the pay level.
Their worst nightmare has come true.
The river water hasn't thawed the pay dirt.
We're in trouble.
And I don't know what to do.
We're screwed.
West, at Eureka Creek .
.
Tony's electrician James McCrell arrives.
He needs to get the motors running on the dredge, after they've sat idle in the Yukon for 27 years.
This is the first time James has laid eyes on the antique gold machine his father once repaired.
Oh, it looks like a big project.
It looks like you're trying to revive the dead but I think it'll be something to behold once all the wheels are turning on it.
Tony, how the hell are ya? Old stuff.
Doesn't look like nothing's happened to it since.
Tony, that's a wound-rotor motor.
There should have been a big resister grid that went with this.
Yeah, definitely.
Oooooh, (BLEEP).
This is the heart of it all.
This is what makes those motors spin at different speeds.
Tony, this looks like it's been dropped.
If you got broken resisters and stuff, this is all garbage.
Holy (BLEEP).
Ugh! Is there any which way we can make that (BLEEP) thing turn this fall? I can make 'em turn but I can only make 'em turn at one speed.
I don't know how that's gonna work.
Running the old motor at only one speed will give Tony minimal control of the dredge's winches and bucket line.
A list of things.
If those motors haven't been run since the '80s and they're half seized up, you can burn out the motors, you can burn out your generator and you could rip that whole thing apart.
No big (BLEEP) deal, guess.
All righty.
James gets to work.
It's up to him to bring the old winch motor back to life.
I don't know about this.
This motor hasn't run in decades so I mean, any number of things can go wrong here.
Hey, James.
How's it coming, man? Oh, I dunno about this, Tony.
What do you mean, you don't know? It's not the way I do things but everything checks out electrically as far as the metre goes.
Perfect.
So let's just fire the thing up and .
.
see what the (BLEEP) happens.
All right.
Let's do it, then, I guess.
Get back, guys! Everybody stay the hell away from this thing.
If the antique motor seizes up, there's no way the dredge will run this season.
Ready! (LAUGHTER) Pretty good, huh? For the first time in 27 years, the winches turn.
That's what we want.
It's running.
So, think we got it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's pretty impressive to see that thing running finally.
Put a little electricity to it and everything seemed to take right off so it's a good sign.
We're getting closer.
Yeah, this went really well.
Surprisingly really well.
I'm glad to see this thing turn that easily.
I wasn't that it was gonna work.
It's running! In less than a day, James has given life to the million-dollar machine.
Thanks, man.
That's cool to see that (BLEEP) thing turn around finally, you know that? It turns at one speed but I hope it does the job for ya.
At least we can make it happen and that's awesome.
Well, let's hope the rest of it goes like this.
See you, Tony! For the first time this century, the Viking Ship has the power it needs to catch gold.
See that old motor turn, running smooth as could be? Ran like a dream.
That's one more step closer to making that dredge work this fall.
East, at Scribner Creek .
.
Parker's desperate attempt to mine the island failed when he hit frozen ground.
Chris Doumitt loads the last buckets of stockpiled pay dirt from the far cut.
It's a pretty big disappointment about the berm cut, which was supposed to carry us over for the rest of the season but I guess it's frozen solid.
You can see how far I gotta go to get pay.
The half acre is just about empty so we're getting pretty desperate.
I've got about an hour's worth of pay left and that's it.
Finally, he's forced to shut down.
That is gonna be painful.
And it's time to clean up the mats.
There.
Last mat of the cleanup.
We're gonna take this down to the gold room and see what we wind up with.
Parker is 598 ounces short of his season goal.
He has no thawed ground and no pay dirt left to run.
It's depressing, you know? We can kiss all this goodbye and go home early.
With the gold cleaned up, Parker heads north to see his claim owner.
I'm just heading to Tony's to weigh up this week's gold.
(EXHALES) I mean, it's been a rough week.
2,000 sure seems like a hell of a long ways away.
Hey, Tony.
Hey, Parker! How you doin'? Oh, pretty good.
What do you want to do? Weigh it up? Yeah, I'll meet you up in your shop? Yeah.
To hit his 2,000 ounce goal in the last few weeks of the season, Parker needs at least 150 ounces in every cleanup.
So, we're at 1,402, starting.
30.
40.
50, 60.
Better than I thought it was gonna be.
80, 90.
Make 100? Yeah.
Yeah.
106.
15.
There you go.
106 ounces of gold is worth $127,000.
But it's 44 ounces short of Parker's target for the week.
All right.
Good.
We've got your cut on that, that brings us to 1,508.
That'll be good.
So, 1,508.
So, count it out to 15 because after 15 it's 20%, right? Oh, yeah.
Thanks for reminding me (!) Parker's Scribner Creek contract stipulates that Tony's cut increases from 15% to 20% once Parker hits 1,500 ounces.
So, why don't you figure out the 1,500 and then I'll get 20 on the last eight ounces? Isn't that how it's supposed to go? Yeah.
forgot.
There you go.
Good thing I didn't.
I'm not surprised.
You know what? You gotta look at it like (BLEEP) taxes - the more you make the more you pay.
The government of Tony Beets.
Hey? Nothing.
(CHUCKLES) Parker's at 1,508 ounces There's 14.
7.
.
.
but with Tony taking a bigger cut 1.
6.
.
.
Parker has to give up nearly $20,000 worth of gold.
That's 16.
3 total.
Anyway, Parker.
Thanks, my man.
From now on, 20%.
That's good.
For you? Yep.
Too bad for you, guess, but nothing we can do about it, huh? Well, you could.
Yeah, but it's not happening, though.
Screw it.
(CHUCKLES) He's got an issue with (BLEEP) royalties.
When you sign the deal in the spring, you know exactly what's gonna to happen.
So, then, don't come at the end of the season to me and (BLEEP) whine.
If you didn't like it to start with, you shouldn't have signed it.
Yeah, I mean, not only is all the ground we've got frozen, but now I get to give Tony Beets an extra cut for nothing, really.
You know, I guess that's the Tony way - work more for less.
Huh, Dozer? Life just got a little bit harder.
We can go and see if Tony will buy you a bag of dog food.
I'm sick of this (BLEEP).
At McKinnon Creek two of the Hoffman crew's four rock trucks are out of action.
The crew can no longer haul pay dirt and strip overburden at the same time.
Dave can keep Monster Red running with the two working rock trucks.
But Todd's forced to abandon the gold-rich haul road cut.
We're going for 1,000 ounces but if we don't have enough ground opening up, you know, you can't get gold without stripping.
Somaybe if we get that third truck running Todd needs his mechanic Steve to come up with a solution fast.
I don't care if you've gotta Mad Max it, you need to get this thing going.
The driveline is broken.
I don't see any way we're gonna be able just to patch this one.
What if we just did this? We've got six-wheel drive here, what about pulling that back driveline and just running on the front wheels? The 830 rock truck is a six-wheel drive vehicle.
Todd suggests removing the driveline that powers the four real wheels .
.
leaving the 25-tonne rock truck with only a third of its pulling power.
Do you think that there is a possibility that this thing will move without the back? I think it's possible.
All right.
Let's try it.
OK? I'll get on it.
Steve removes the damaged parts .
.
and disconnects the driveline.
So, right now, yeah, it's definitely not fixed but technically we can get this thing out there and start hauling pay dirt.
He then pulls the two-wheel drive rock truck out of the yard and back onto the claim.
Well, so far so good.
It's gonna be a whole different story when I get this thing loaded.
Logan loads 20 tonnes of pay dirt.
Thanks, man.
The two-wheel drive rock truck now weighs 45 tonnes.
Steve, you got a copy? Yeah, go ahead, Todd.
Let's see if it'll come out.
We got about three-quarters of a load on this thing so it's about three-quarters of its capacity.
See how she pulls up out of the higher cut.
Here we go.
If she does OK, we got her made, I think.
Damn! Well, I lost traction.
I'm gonna have to get a little more speed on it and see what happens here.
I don't know if this is gonna make it but it's got to.
We need that truck.
Dave, try it again! I'll do it one more time before we give up on it.
Go! ON RADIO: 'Give 'er hell, Steve.
Give 'er hell!' Yeah.
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go! Yeah! (CHUCKLES) All right! We're up out of the cut.
This is a good thing here.
Yessir! Happy with that.
Hey, it worked! Yeah, it works! We don't need drivelines! Drivelines are overrated.
We don't need 'em, man! Good job, keep the pay goin'.
OK.
Todd's radical plan has worked.
Now he can get back to rich ground in the haul road cut.
It's done better than I thought.
Keep us hauling pay dirt.
You know what? Sometimes you gotta do things a little unorthodox.
And that's just the way it is.
Back at camp, Jack Hoffman is cleaning up the concentrate from the higher cut.
It's gonna be a real nail-biter.
To hit 1,000 ounces, the Hoffmans need at least 82 ounces every week.
Hey, how's it looking? Guys, it's 98.
98?! Wow! (LAUGHTER) Whoo! Yay.
Dude, that was way bigger than we thought! I mean, it's not the best pay in the world .
.
but it's not bad for that higher cut.
98 ounces is worth almost $118,000.
That brings us to a grand total of 780.
All right! We're close.
220! 220, we're there.
Now, that's what I'm talking about.
Whoo! Nice! Pretty good, solid.
Better than I thought! Solid! 98 ounces is great cleanup so we got a chance here at 1,000 ounces and you know what? One more chance to redeem ourselves.
Not gonna fail at this.
I that serious.
On the next Gold Rush: It's a horse race right now.
The Hoffmans move up a gear.
So, we're gonna push the crew as hard as they can go.
But when Jack makes mistake I didn't drop that! Didn't go through the bar.
Their operation is crippled.
That's a bunch of (BLEEP).
Come on! Pull! Tony puts in the huge stacker I mean, that's one of the single biggest piece on this whole dredge.
.
.
but his crew gets careless No! I said stop! .
.
and his season is left hanging by a thread.
Stop (BLEEP) around.
And with nowhere else to turn We're running out of time.
.
.
Parker's foreman diverts a river From the looks of the creek, it hasn't been mined or anything.
.
.
that leads to buried treasure Could be the best gold on the claim.
.
.
and one of Parker's best cleanups ever.
Can you manage one like that every week?
Parker is forced to roll the dice.
We've got a whole new world but it's on an island on the other side of the creek.
But getting to his gold-rich island Come on, back up! .
.
proves tougher than he thought.
Now we're screwed! Then to make matters worse From now on, 20%.
.
.
Tony demands a bigger cut of his gold.
I guess that's the Tony way - work more for less.
And at Eureka Creek Tony's dredge is dead in the water.
You're trying to revive the dead.
His electrician declares it's all over.
Ooooh, (BLEEP).
This is all garbage.
But Tony ignores the risk of disaster What the (BLEEP) is going on, James? You could rip that whole thing apart.
.
.
and flips the switch.
(SHOUTS) .
.
to bring his 75-year-old gold-catching monster back to life.
Everybody stay the hell away from this thing.
At McKinnon Creek There's pay gravels right there.
.
.
The Hoffman crew hits a hot pay streak.
What did you find? The best pan I've ever had.
Holy cow.
But when they lose two rock trucks Something went clunk.
.
.
they have no choice Ah, man! .
.
but to abandon their most lucrative ground.
Come on! That's a fatal blow right there.
Scribner Creek, the Klondike.
Parker Schnabel has 1,402 ounces of gold worth over $1.
5 million.
But there's only four weeks left to reach his 2,000 ounce goal and he's out of pay dirt.
Chris Doumitt loads the last of the stockpile into their wash plant, Big Red.
We're desperate for pay dirt.
We're gonna be shutting down here in a bit.
You know, we're not gonna get 2,000 ounces if we start doing that.
Rick's just gotta get me some pay.
That's all there is to it.
Hey, Rick, you got a copy? Rick? ON RADIO: 'Yeah, go ahead, Chris.
' Just giving you a heads up, man.
We're making a long run to the end of the pay pile.
Rick Ness scrapes up any remaining pay dirt in the far cut.
There's not much ground left here.
I figure I can scratch up and build maybe enough pay to keep the plant going for one more day.
I mean, that's no kind of long-term plan but it's all I've got to work with right now so I'm doing it.
Hopefully, Parker can come up with a new plan.
But so far, any new ground that Parker has tried to mine has been frozen solid.
We're gonna need one more chunk after the far cut, huh? That's the way it's looking.
He's heading out to the far edge of the claim with foreman Gene Cheeseman to hunt for thawed ground.
There's some ground but it's on an island on the other side of the creek.
So it's hard to get to, it's the only problem.
Yeah, I understand.
But there's some ground over there for sure.
I mean, underneath that berm there's a lot of ground.
Yeah.
Well, as skinny as it is with water on both sides of it, it should be all thawed.
The berm that Parker plans to mine is a small island between two creeks.
He's hoping the water that flows around it will have drawn the cold out of the overburden, thawing the pay dirt beneath.
We gotta get pay to the plant and there's nothing here that's that difficult, other than getting across the creek.
All right, I can take care of that.
Really, to sluice through the end of the season, we needlike, ten more football fields.
That's a lot of ground.
And we're scrambling to get new ground open so we're going after the berm.
I figure this has a better chance of being thawed because of all the water around.
Come on, back up! You (BLEEP)! But getting through the creek to the island in an 85-tonne 'dozer isn't easy.
Everything over here is wet and muddy.
And I'm trying hard not to get stuck.
Just like that right there.
(BLEEP).
Now we're screwed! Hey, Gene? I got the dozer stuck trying to get up on the other side.
Do you need help pulling it up there? Yeah.
Gene to the rescue! Got to turn this way a little bit! OK! Just another few feet, turn that way a little bit.
Easy! OK.
Now we're getting somewhere! Right there! Right on! When you almost got stuck, the back of your counterweight was almost underwater.
It's saturated with water and you're getting those sandbars.
I really doubt we can just go back and forth through the creek.
They can't mine the island if they can't get their equipment onto it.
We need a good road to get over there.
Yep.
If it's a matter of getting a big culvert, then we can do that.
Oh, sounds good.
I'll just get the pipe right over there.
Than if we put the road across, we can just tie it right in.
All right.
Parker and Gene's plan is to place three large pipes, or culverts, into the creek.
Then build a new dirt road over the top.
Mechanic Mitch Blaschke brings in the culverts with the 220 loader.
You know, this is really important we get this in here and get this berm cut opened up here.
We're running low on pay around here and this is some good-looking ground.
Hey! Sit 'er down there, Mitch! We got that there in one piece! Gene adds a third pipe.
Wanna add some insurance, I guess.
Then we'll get the loader and just start packing this stuff down there.
Then Gene and Mitch construct a roadway to the berm island.
Oh, that's going good so far.
Put some more material on top of it, we'll be driving on 'er in no time.
Hey, Mitch.
Don't drive out on that yet.
OK.
Keep dumping there.
OK.
Hi! What do you think? I think it's working.
(CHUCKLES) Water's going through the pipe? Yep.
Nice job.
We've almost got all the way across the water.
This bucket here should get us all the way across the other side.
After five hours of moving dirt, the road to the island is complete.
Well, we've got a whole new world open to us.
Now Parker and crew can move equipment onto the berm island and find out if it's the answer to their 2,000 ounce goal.
It's nerve wracking because you're going into a whole new area and you have no idea what to expect because we don't have drill holes in this but it's the only thawed ground that we know of.
So we have no choice but to go after it.
And it needs to pay off good.
West, at McKinnon Creek .
.
the Hoffman crew is nearing the end of the season.
With only two thirds of the gold they need to hit their 1,000 ounce, $1.
2 million goal.
Dave Turin is extending the higher cut.
But the pay dirt is showing less and less gold.
This ground isn't the best.
It doesn't have a lot of gold, it turned out.
It's marginal.
But right now we have to rely on this, it's all we've got.
I don't know if it's enough to get our 1,000 ounces but we just gotta keep going.
If we run lots of it, it's gonna help.
So I'm just trying to keep as much dirt going to the plant as we can get.
That frees Todd up to go looking for some better ground.
And that's what he's good at.
Nearby, on the claim, Todd Hoffman and Andy Spinks are back at some of their most lucrative ground of the season the haul road cut.
We need another good cut like the haul road cut.
The crew hit a gold-rich pay channel here that led to one of their best cleanups over .
.
earning them 132 ounces, worth $158,000.
Now Todd's looking to mine the north side of the road.
If that pay channel is under the road and through that cut, not only will we hit 1,000, we'll go way beyond.
There's only one way to find out.
Just open the ground up.
Yeah.
Last week Todd and Dave were forced to stop stripping ground here Hey, Dave, I'm stuck over here too.
.
.
after both 'dozers got stranded in the mud.
This cut's gonna be a lot harder than we thought! Just trying to 'doze in here is not gonna work.
Let's get all this off with the excavator and tall trucks.
We'll haul out all the dirt, down to gravels, to our dump site and then we'll push that with the 'dozer.
Yeah.
Let's do it.
If the gold-rich pay channel continues north of the road, they may still make this a 1,000 ounce season.
We gotta push through the night, we gotta keep strippin'! Dave's at the other cut right now.
He's actually able to keep the plant running.
And I'm looking for higher-grade pay.
We're both just kind of working together, trying to find the best pay we can.
After a tough night in the cut This had better work.
.
.
Todd finally sees what he's been looking for.
There's (BLEEP) pay gravels right there.
Todd to Thurber.
ON RADIO: 'Yeah, go ahead, Todd.
' Hey, I need you to come down here real quick.
What have you got, Todd? This is it right here.
I just hit pay gravel.
You see it right here? Yeah, see it.
Can you take a section of that and pan it real quick? OK.
Right now we spent a lot of time and money to get to this point so obviously we hope that it pays off.
There's no flippin' way.
Oh, my word.
That is over the top - insane amount of gold.
You know, you keep goin', eventually you're gonna win.
This looks like a win.
I gotta show Todd.
What did you find? The best pan I've ever had out here.
Look at that.
Holy cow! Isn't that nice? We're onto something good here.
That channel must come through here so if we stick right here, we'll be fine.
Wow.
That's incredible, dude.
Yeah! (CHUCKLES) That is awesome! Todd's perseverance has paid off.
If this ain't the channel coming through here, I don't know what is.
You never know but this may just save our ass.
At Eureka Creek Tony Beets and his crew have been rebuilding their 75-year-old gold dredge for five weeks.
With most of the large pieces in place, they now face their toughest challenge - getting the dredge to actually run.
Dredges across the Yukon operated on complicated mechanical and electrical systems, controlled from the wheelhouse.
The dredge master ran the bucket lines and winches that pulled millions of dollars in gold out of the ground.
Now Tony needs to install the dredge's control systems and there's no instruction manual.
He turns to machinists Mike Krisher What's up, Tony? .
.
and Jerry Roads.
Hey, Tony.
How you doin'? So, you think we got everything to make it work? What do you think? Well, I think we've got everything as far as the mechanical linkage here to hook everything up.
We can work on the linkage, we're pretty good on the linkage, but the electric, we're kind of at a dead end on.
So, we don't know what to do with that yet, huh? No.
The electrical stuff, that was old, antiquated stuff and I don't think we can make that work any more.
No, we have to find somebody that knows something about the old electric motors so we can find some way to get them running.
The antique motors haven't turned in nearly 30 years.
And without them, the dredge can't function.
Tony drives south to Alaska, in search of help.
It's pretty complicated (BLEEP), if you ask me.
So I'm gonna go run up to Skagway.
There is a dredge there also so I'm just gonna go down there, have a good look at it and see what we can do.
The Skagway dredge is the same size as Tony's and runs on an identical control system.
It tore through the Klondike between 1947 and 1954, pulling over 8,000 ounces of gold out of the ground - equivalent to $10 million today.
Tony has come to meet Tom Hall, the man who restored the dredge.
Hey, Tom.
Hey! How's it going, man? Good, how are you? What's happening? Not so good, not so good.
I'm putting a dredge together, as you know, so I thought I'd come and have a look for some advice or maybe see if you had some leftovers.
Yeah, well, we'll have a look around here, Tony.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Bucket lines are right here.
It took Tom two years to bring the dilapidated dredge back to its former glory - salvaging parts from all over the Klondike.
How many buckets have you got on your line? Well, I've got 70 buckets in my line and 10 extras around here that we've picked up for spares.
Really, huh? But Tony's here to see how the electrical control systems work in the wheelhouse - the nerve centre of the dredge.
Well, this is it right here.
Wow.
All the whole dredge runs off these controls right here.
All the front runs off these, which are a complete system.
The back runs off these.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Our particular one is in working order.
I'm missing a whole bunch of (BLEEP) by the looks of it.
Yeah? I mean, I don't even have these things over here.
These are the electric controls, forward and reverse and digging ladder and the winch line and digging motor so they're what really makes the dredge work.
They run the whole thing.
Well, you're not getting them, that's for damn sure! (LAUGHS) No.
They're one-of-a-kind and we look for another one too and they're not out there.
You aren't gonna find two of them, that I know of.
I have a serious problem because I got none of that.
Tony is missing the two control units that run the electric motors.
Without them, it's impossible to operate the winches and bucket lines from the wheelhouse.
Nobody I know of.
Yep.
Finding the people that know anything about 'em, they're few and far between.
Not many around.
Now I fully realise the size of the problem I've got.
I don't know of anybody that they can find alive today that can still make or put this (BLEEP) together but this old technology, in order to make this work, I have no clue this time how the hell I'm gonna pull that off.
So do I have a serious problem? (BLEEP) rights I got a problem! I gotta get frickin' sluicing this year.
Tony drives north to Whitehorse, back in Canada, to track down the last electrician that worked on his dredge.
He rewired this dredge 30 years ago and he may still know something about it.
I hope he's here and I hope he's (BLEEP) up for the job.
I'm sure he can (BLEEP) do it.
How's it going, man? Good, you? Oh, not so (BLEEP) good.
You heard about the dredge of course.
did.
And all this (BLEEP) electrical crap in there that's 50 years old? I'm missing pieces, I need somebody that knows about that so I figured I'd come to see you guys so we can make that thing turn.
I've never worked on a dredge before.
My dad was the last guy to wire that in 1981.
He was the last man to wire a dredge in the Yukon.
Whoa! Tony was hoping to find the last living electrician that wired his dredge.
But insteadhe's found his son.
OK, well, be kind of like father like son - I'm sure you can do the same.
I don't know, we'll have to see.
What's your timeframe? I guess I can jump in a plane and meet you out there tomorrow? Back at McKinnon Creek .
.
the Hoffman crew is split in two.
Dave excavates low-grade pay dirt from the higher cut to keep the wash plant fed.
On the north side of the haul run, Todd strips overburden in their new cut.
With time running out, Todd and crew are under pressure to get down to gold-rich pay.
We're working it pretty good here.
We're actually opening up quite a bit of ground with just two trucks.
And so far, knock on wood, we're running into a lot of thawed ground.
This late in the season, that means a lot right now.
Hopefully, we're gonna be in great shape.
Tyson Moore, a rookie crew member, hauls overburden for Todd.
Yeah, I'm new to the team.
You know, I was excited to take the opportunity to come up here.
I just gotta prove myself to the guys, show 'em that I wanna be here.
Logan Pierce, Todd's nephew, drives the other truck.
What was that? (BLEEP).
Hey, Steve.
Steve, you got a copy? 'Go ahead.
' I think something really just went wrong with my truck.
All right, Logan, I'll come take a look at it.
Right now we can't afford to have any of these rock trucks go down.
Hopefully it's nothing too major.
Steve, it's not looking good, man.
What happened? I was just rolling along and something went clunk.
Oh, man.
Let's take a look.
Ah, shoot.
Here it is, man.
Yeah, dude.
I think we lost that bearing in there.
Cos it's sheared all the bolts off.
Aw.
So this driveline right now is just gonna be flopping around.
So that'd be the noise I heard.
Yeah, that's probably your noise.
It's plain and simple, man.
That bearing's out.
It's gonna be heck to get the parts here.
This truck's down.
This thing, literally, will knock the wind right out of our sails.
We were gonna have a hard enough time meeting our goals with four trucks.
Now we're gonna be down to three trucks - it's not good.
Back at the haul road cut, Todd now has only one rock truck to haul overburden.
You know, if one goes down, it's devastating to our little operation so I'm frustrated.
Totally frustrated right now.
I mean, we're running the plant still but we're down a truck.
This is not good.
You know, things are tough but we gotta get that gold, we gotta make our goal.
We're gonna make it happen.
By running as fast and as hard and as long as you can.
That's how we're gonna do it.
Urrrrgh, man! Tyson's driven his truck over the edge of the vertical drop.
This is bad.
He attempts to pull himself to safety.
Come on! At McKinnon Creek rookie crew member Tyson Moore has backed his rock truck off an enormous pile of overburden.
Urrrrgh, man! Come on! He needs help.
Listen, I am stuck bad.
This thing is not moving.
It's not good.
When you get in a spot that's like that, just stop and ask for help.
So you don't do any more damage.
Sometimes, like, if it gets that far off You know, the minute that it doesn't go into gears, just stop.
We can't afford to lose that truck now.
Dave brings in the 700 excavator.
Well, we're trying to grab the back corner and lift and pull at the same time.
Keep it from rolling over.
Steve has almost 20 years experience with heavy equipment.
As soon as Dave gets on me, I'm gonna hopefully drive it out of here.
OK, go ahead.
Nice and easy.
First, Dave supports the weight of the truck so Steve can dump the 40-tonne load.
Easy.
One false move could send Steve and the rock truck off the edge.
Good.
And he's out! Got it! That was a close call.
I don't know if the truck's OK or not - let's see.
Something's come apart in this front disc.
Got the housing busted.
(BLEEP).
Big crack in the housing.
Uh, you can't ride it like that.
This truck's down.
It's a major repair.
There's a lot of things I can fix but this, I can't do it.
I'm not a miracle worker.
There's no way.
It means we are down to two trucks now and we can't run with two trucks.
Dave needs two working trucks to keep Monster Red running with pay dirt from the higher cut.
The crew has no choice but to abandon stripping the gold-rich ground in the haul road cut.
There will be no stripping and no hauling pay at the same time.
It can't be done.
East, at Scribner Creek Parker and crew have been stripping their new berm island cut for the last 24 hours.
So, this is our first bit of gravel on the berm cut.
And the good news is it's thawed.
We're still a ways off bedrock so we won't really know what's in it yet but um .
.
it's a good sign that it's thawed.
Over at Big Red Chris Doumitt runs the last pay dirt Rick has scraped up from the old far cut.
Hey, Rick.
You got a copy? Rick? 'Yeah, go ahead, Chris.
' Hey, I'm down to about an hour, maybe an hour and a half of pay left up here.
How you looking over there? Yeah, I'm really not liking what I'm seeing here.
Well, I know Chris is worried about us running out of pay and I don't blame him because we are.
There's, like, nothing here.
The bedrock is almost undiggable.
There's just trash in my bucket and there's barely any gravel on it so I don't know, this is frustrating.
Back on the berm island, Parker is determined to get down to pay dirt to keep Big Red running.
We do need this ground to be good and we do need a lot of ground to be thawed if we're gonna get to 2,000 so I'm actually really excited to see what's underneath here because to me it looks like there's a big old area here that is gonna be pay.
Hey, Gene? I've got some bad news.
It's frozen pretty good.
I'm amazed at the amount of groundwater in here that is frozen.
I didn't think that it'd be frozen at the pay level.
Their worst nightmare has come true.
The river water hasn't thawed the pay dirt.
We're in trouble.
And I don't know what to do.
We're screwed.
West, at Eureka Creek .
.
Tony's electrician James McCrell arrives.
He needs to get the motors running on the dredge, after they've sat idle in the Yukon for 27 years.
This is the first time James has laid eyes on the antique gold machine his father once repaired.
Oh, it looks like a big project.
It looks like you're trying to revive the dead but I think it'll be something to behold once all the wheels are turning on it.
Tony, how the hell are ya? Old stuff.
Doesn't look like nothing's happened to it since.
Tony, that's a wound-rotor motor.
There should have been a big resister grid that went with this.
Yeah, definitely.
Oooooh, (BLEEP).
This is the heart of it all.
This is what makes those motors spin at different speeds.
Tony, this looks like it's been dropped.
If you got broken resisters and stuff, this is all garbage.
Holy (BLEEP).
Ugh! Is there any which way we can make that (BLEEP) thing turn this fall? I can make 'em turn but I can only make 'em turn at one speed.
I don't know how that's gonna work.
Running the old motor at only one speed will give Tony minimal control of the dredge's winches and bucket line.
A list of things.
If those motors haven't been run since the '80s and they're half seized up, you can burn out the motors, you can burn out your generator and you could rip that whole thing apart.
No big (BLEEP) deal, guess.
All righty.
James gets to work.
It's up to him to bring the old winch motor back to life.
I don't know about this.
This motor hasn't run in decades so I mean, any number of things can go wrong here.
Hey, James.
How's it coming, man? Oh, I dunno about this, Tony.
What do you mean, you don't know? It's not the way I do things but everything checks out electrically as far as the metre goes.
Perfect.
So let's just fire the thing up and .
.
see what the (BLEEP) happens.
All right.
Let's do it, then, I guess.
Get back, guys! Everybody stay the hell away from this thing.
If the antique motor seizes up, there's no way the dredge will run this season.
Ready! (LAUGHTER) Pretty good, huh? For the first time in 27 years, the winches turn.
That's what we want.
It's running.
So, think we got it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's pretty impressive to see that thing running finally.
Put a little electricity to it and everything seemed to take right off so it's a good sign.
We're getting closer.
Yeah, this went really well.
Surprisingly really well.
I'm glad to see this thing turn that easily.
I wasn't that it was gonna work.
It's running! In less than a day, James has given life to the million-dollar machine.
Thanks, man.
That's cool to see that (BLEEP) thing turn around finally, you know that? It turns at one speed but I hope it does the job for ya.
At least we can make it happen and that's awesome.
Well, let's hope the rest of it goes like this.
See you, Tony! For the first time this century, the Viking Ship has the power it needs to catch gold.
See that old motor turn, running smooth as could be? Ran like a dream.
That's one more step closer to making that dredge work this fall.
East, at Scribner Creek .
.
Parker's desperate attempt to mine the island failed when he hit frozen ground.
Chris Doumitt loads the last buckets of stockpiled pay dirt from the far cut.
It's a pretty big disappointment about the berm cut, which was supposed to carry us over for the rest of the season but I guess it's frozen solid.
You can see how far I gotta go to get pay.
The half acre is just about empty so we're getting pretty desperate.
I've got about an hour's worth of pay left and that's it.
Finally, he's forced to shut down.
That is gonna be painful.
And it's time to clean up the mats.
There.
Last mat of the cleanup.
We're gonna take this down to the gold room and see what we wind up with.
Parker is 598 ounces short of his season goal.
He has no thawed ground and no pay dirt left to run.
It's depressing, you know? We can kiss all this goodbye and go home early.
With the gold cleaned up, Parker heads north to see his claim owner.
I'm just heading to Tony's to weigh up this week's gold.
(EXHALES) I mean, it's been a rough week.
2,000 sure seems like a hell of a long ways away.
Hey, Tony.
Hey, Parker! How you doin'? Oh, pretty good.
What do you want to do? Weigh it up? Yeah, I'll meet you up in your shop? Yeah.
To hit his 2,000 ounce goal in the last few weeks of the season, Parker needs at least 150 ounces in every cleanup.
So, we're at 1,402, starting.
30.
40.
50, 60.
Better than I thought it was gonna be.
80, 90.
Make 100? Yeah.
Yeah.
106.
15.
There you go.
106 ounces of gold is worth $127,000.
But it's 44 ounces short of Parker's target for the week.
All right.
Good.
We've got your cut on that, that brings us to 1,508.
That'll be good.
So, 1,508.
So, count it out to 15 because after 15 it's 20%, right? Oh, yeah.
Thanks for reminding me (!) Parker's Scribner Creek contract stipulates that Tony's cut increases from 15% to 20% once Parker hits 1,500 ounces.
So, why don't you figure out the 1,500 and then I'll get 20 on the last eight ounces? Isn't that how it's supposed to go? Yeah.
forgot.
There you go.
Good thing I didn't.
I'm not surprised.
You know what? You gotta look at it like (BLEEP) taxes - the more you make the more you pay.
The government of Tony Beets.
Hey? Nothing.
(CHUCKLES) Parker's at 1,508 ounces There's 14.
7.
.
.
but with Tony taking a bigger cut 1.
6.
.
.
Parker has to give up nearly $20,000 worth of gold.
That's 16.
3 total.
Anyway, Parker.
Thanks, my man.
From now on, 20%.
That's good.
For you? Yep.
Too bad for you, guess, but nothing we can do about it, huh? Well, you could.
Yeah, but it's not happening, though.
Screw it.
(CHUCKLES) He's got an issue with (BLEEP) royalties.
When you sign the deal in the spring, you know exactly what's gonna to happen.
So, then, don't come at the end of the season to me and (BLEEP) whine.
If you didn't like it to start with, you shouldn't have signed it.
Yeah, I mean, not only is all the ground we've got frozen, but now I get to give Tony Beets an extra cut for nothing, really.
You know, I guess that's the Tony way - work more for less.
Huh, Dozer? Life just got a little bit harder.
We can go and see if Tony will buy you a bag of dog food.
I'm sick of this (BLEEP).
At McKinnon Creek two of the Hoffman crew's four rock trucks are out of action.
The crew can no longer haul pay dirt and strip overburden at the same time.
Dave can keep Monster Red running with the two working rock trucks.
But Todd's forced to abandon the gold-rich haul road cut.
We're going for 1,000 ounces but if we don't have enough ground opening up, you know, you can't get gold without stripping.
Somaybe if we get that third truck running Todd needs his mechanic Steve to come up with a solution fast.
I don't care if you've gotta Mad Max it, you need to get this thing going.
The driveline is broken.
I don't see any way we're gonna be able just to patch this one.
What if we just did this? We've got six-wheel drive here, what about pulling that back driveline and just running on the front wheels? The 830 rock truck is a six-wheel drive vehicle.
Todd suggests removing the driveline that powers the four real wheels .
.
leaving the 25-tonne rock truck with only a third of its pulling power.
Do you think that there is a possibility that this thing will move without the back? I think it's possible.
All right.
Let's try it.
OK? I'll get on it.
Steve removes the damaged parts .
.
and disconnects the driveline.
So, right now, yeah, it's definitely not fixed but technically we can get this thing out there and start hauling pay dirt.
He then pulls the two-wheel drive rock truck out of the yard and back onto the claim.
Well, so far so good.
It's gonna be a whole different story when I get this thing loaded.
Logan loads 20 tonnes of pay dirt.
Thanks, man.
The two-wheel drive rock truck now weighs 45 tonnes.
Steve, you got a copy? Yeah, go ahead, Todd.
Let's see if it'll come out.
We got about three-quarters of a load on this thing so it's about three-quarters of its capacity.
See how she pulls up out of the higher cut.
Here we go.
If she does OK, we got her made, I think.
Damn! Well, I lost traction.
I'm gonna have to get a little more speed on it and see what happens here.
I don't know if this is gonna make it but it's got to.
We need that truck.
Dave, try it again! I'll do it one more time before we give up on it.
Go! ON RADIO: 'Give 'er hell, Steve.
Give 'er hell!' Yeah.
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go! Yeah! (CHUCKLES) All right! We're up out of the cut.
This is a good thing here.
Yessir! Happy with that.
Hey, it worked! Yeah, it works! We don't need drivelines! Drivelines are overrated.
We don't need 'em, man! Good job, keep the pay goin'.
OK.
Todd's radical plan has worked.
Now he can get back to rich ground in the haul road cut.
It's done better than I thought.
Keep us hauling pay dirt.
You know what? Sometimes you gotta do things a little unorthodox.
And that's just the way it is.
Back at camp, Jack Hoffman is cleaning up the concentrate from the higher cut.
It's gonna be a real nail-biter.
To hit 1,000 ounces, the Hoffmans need at least 82 ounces every week.
Hey, how's it looking? Guys, it's 98.
98?! Wow! (LAUGHTER) Whoo! Yay.
Dude, that was way bigger than we thought! I mean, it's not the best pay in the world .
.
but it's not bad for that higher cut.
98 ounces is worth almost $118,000.
That brings us to a grand total of 780.
All right! We're close.
220! 220, we're there.
Now, that's what I'm talking about.
Whoo! Nice! Pretty good, solid.
Better than I thought! Solid! 98 ounces is great cleanup so we got a chance here at 1,000 ounces and you know what? One more chance to redeem ourselves.
Not gonna fail at this.
I that serious.
On the next Gold Rush: It's a horse race right now.
The Hoffmans move up a gear.
So, we're gonna push the crew as hard as they can go.
But when Jack makes mistake I didn't drop that! Didn't go through the bar.
Their operation is crippled.
That's a bunch of (BLEEP).
Come on! Pull! Tony puts in the huge stacker I mean, that's one of the single biggest piece on this whole dredge.
.
.
but his crew gets careless No! I said stop! .
.
and his season is left hanging by a thread.
Stop (BLEEP) around.
And with nowhere else to turn We're running out of time.
.
.
Parker's foreman diverts a river From the looks of the creek, it hasn't been mined or anything.
.
.
that leads to buried treasure Could be the best gold on the claim.
.
.
and one of Parker's best cleanups ever.
Can you manage one like that every week?