Gold Rush (2018) s05e04 Episode Script
Viking Ship
Up in the Klondike, Todd Hoffman is attempting to rise from the ashes.
I would never sell gold, but I have no choice.
He's desperate for cash.
You have gold fever.
Desperate to keep his wash plant running.
Cut the water.
And desperately in need of his old crew.
I need you back over here.
'Can't do it, I'm committed here.
' Parker Schnabel's 2000 ounce, 2.
4 million dollar season Up, up, up.
.
.
is fast becoming a pipe dream.
You can say goodbye to making any money doing that.
To save his season, he redesigns his operation.
A radical decision to move his seven-ton wash plant.
If we drop something on that wash plant, I'm screwed.
Puts Parker and his foreman Gene at loggerheads.
That's not good enough.
If it wasn't fast enough then maybe you can get somebody else to do it.
And as Tony Beets falls further behind bringing his 75-year-old gold-catching dredge back to life I can't pull money out of my ass.
Well, try your pockets, it may work better.
His only hope We don't have really much time to waste.
.
.
to make up for lost time .
.
is to take to the skies.
I can get there in 20 minutes, so that should speed it up a little bit.
In the Klondike, Todd Hoffman heads into Dawson City to sell every ounce of gold he's mined this season.
Normally, I would never sell gold this early in the season, but I have no choice.
We're basically living pay check to pay check, and this right here, is our first pay check.
With this, I got to get us running again.
This right here represents survival of our mining operation.
I've got to get a little bit newer equipment.
At least something that runs and hopefully we can just keep it rolling.
Ok! Get out of the way.
Easy! Easy! For nearly a month, a crew of just three, Todd, Jack and Thurber have rebuilt from the ground up, mining with beat-up old machines.
We've got a couple of pieces of equipment and they were new a long time ago.
When their 20-year-old excavator suddenly bit the dust Oh, crap.
It's seized up.
Ugh! .
.
they had no choice but to shut down their operation.
To stay in the game, Todd hopes to scrape together enough cash from his one and only gold clean-up, to replace his excavator.
How you doing, man? Good, you? Doing good man, yeah! Well, I've got a little gold here to sell.
OK.
Simon Mason-Wood buys and smelts gold.
There you are, 34 ounces.
So we can go and put that on the furnace.
This is where you smelt it, huh? Yeah.
This is where it all happens.
The value of Todd's 34 ounces of gold dust will depend on how pure it is, once the slag, or impurities, are burnt off.
How hot do you have to get this to get a really good pure gold bar? Well, this furnace goes to about 2000 degrees.
I wait until everything is cherry red, before I'll pull it out of there.
That's for real.
Once it cools, Simon separates the slag from the bar of pure gold.
We'll clean it up and you'll have a nice little bar.
You can hold it before I take it back.
There you are.
It has a pretty colour to it.
I hate selling gold, but I have to this year.
You have gold fever then, I guess.
I do.
Hopefully I'll be back and sell you a whole bunch more of this.
OK, let's get the paper work done, get your money and away you go.
All right.
Todd now finds out exactly how much of his 34 ounces was pure.
We have a melt loss of course.
So you'll have 27 ounces.
With seven ounces lost to impurities, Todd's first clean-up is worth less than he hoped.
You'll have approximately $33,000 get transferred to your account.
When can we get it transferred? It'll be done tomorrow morning.
No kidding? That fast? Yeah.
OK.
Well, all right, let's do it.
OK.
I don't know if it's enough, but 33 grand it should keep us in the game.
I've got to go lease some equipment and hopefully we can keep digging, and hopefully we'll be back here again.
Over at Scribner Creek, Parker has been firing on all cylinders for well over a month.
Their goal for the season is 2000 ounces of gold worth $2.
4 million.
But so far, they've only produced 171 ounces worth $205,000.
Their biggest problem, keeping Big Red, their massive wash plant, fed.
The way it's set up now with the distance to the haul, there's no way that we can do that.
It's definitely not the lead to a 2000-ounce season, that's for sure.
They're running dirt from their second cut of the season, the swamp cut.
It's almost a kilometre haul back to the plant for every rock truck.
What's going on? She's pretty thirsty.
I'm running on fumes.
All right, well it's a long haul, huh? Yeah.
(BLEEP) Where did all our (BLEEP) fuel go? Those trucks and that long of a haul, we're probably burning almost $500 of fuel just to get pay to our plant an hour.
And that's over five grand a day, six grand a day, just for the trucks.
You can say goodbye to making any money doing that.
The 19-year-old mine boss has no chance of hitting millions in gold, unless he makes a radical change.
How's it going? It's going all right.
So, I'm not sure what to do.
It's just a long way to the plant.
Yeah.
I was thinking about, you know how to fix the problem and I just think we need to move the plant closer to the pay.
This is where the pay is, then it's a short haul and we can Yeah, but you know how big of a job that is? It's not as big a job as hauling pay to the plant and keeping up.
You might not sluice for two days, but we can do it.
That's a lot of time spent not sluicing.
Well, what's the other option? Then let's do it.
It's just too far to haul.
It's a hell of a lot more efficient to move the plant closer to the pay than truck the pay to the plant.
It's justit's just how it is, simple fact.
It's not like we're moving the Brooklyn Bridge or something.
Just a little wash plant.
If gene says moving this wash plant is going to take two days, it had better take two days, cos otherwise we're screwed.
Just laying out where the plant is gonna sit here.
This has to come up two feet.
Besides a raised platform, the plant will need a supply of clean water.
Try to get this channel dug so we can get water.
Here we go.
Come on, river.
Flow this way.
Come on.
We should have all the water we need.
Bingo.
The end is near.
It's time to replant.
Every day Parker doesn't run paydirt, he's losing over $15,000.
Speed is the name of the game.
Gene and Parker are over there like a couple of vultures just waiting for the last buckets to go through the wash plant.
Then they're going to start tearing things down.
That's it, hopper's empty, conveyor's empty, that's getting shut down.
Work our way through shutting things down.
Gene's made Parker a promise.
He'll take apart one of the biggest wash plants in the Klondike, move it almost a kilometre and reassemble it all in just two days.
No more water! Go straight back out of the way.
Whoa! What the (BLEEP)! .
.
Whoa! I don't need two people telling me what to do and him hitting the thing.
(BLEEP) At Scribner Creek, Gene Cheeseman races to move Parker's wash plant.
In the mad scramble, he's just backed his truck into the sluice box.
Luckily, it looks like it's undamaged.
They can now move the 7-ton structure, piece by piece, to its new home, almost a kilometre away.
Do you want to drop that down? Gene promised to complete the move in just two days.
By the end of day one, the crew's already dragged Big Red over to the swamp cut and it's ready for reassembly.
How did that go, Parker? It actually went quite, quite beautifully.
Everything we've had planned is coming together.
Once we get those riffles dialled in, we're gonna be unstoppable.
I think this plant is just going to go and go and go.
80 kilometres miles away at Clear Creek.
Tony Beets preps for the removal of the next section of his 75-year-old dredge.
The million-dollar vessel is a self contained gold mining machine, designed to float in its own pond, dig and process paydirt.
Tony and his two machinists, Gerry and Mike, have already taken out the walls and the stacker.
It's time to remove the roof.
That would be the best thing.
Cut the heads of the bolts off and then the roof comes off in one chunk, instead of tearing the (BLEEP) out of it.
Taking it apart board by board is going to take a while.
If this roof comes off in one whole piece, it will make life a whole lot easier.
Tony's ambitious plan is to take the dredge apart, transport it 240 kilometres to his claim then restore and rebuild it, so it can mine gold before the end of the season.
(PHONE RINGS) Bleep.
Yeah, hello? 'Hey, it's me.
' Hey, Minnie, how's it going? 'Everything is down.
Nothing is working.
We're not sluicing.
' What do you mean, you're not sluicing? 'It ain't working, you have to get back.
' I just can't leave here, either.
'Just get your ass back here.
' All right, bye.
When he's not rebuilding the dredge, Tony runs one of the biggest gold mines in the Klondike, Paradise Hill.
With that operation at a standstill Tony has to drop everything and drive three and a half hours to Paradise Hill.
Ain't not too happy.
Because that's a long drive/ No sooner I get down here than I got to turn around and right back all the way.
That's a seven-hour drive.
Anyway, we'll find out what's happening here to get this thing back up and going because if the sluice box don't run we're not making any money of course.
South at McKinnon Creek, Todd, Jack and Thurber have been at a standstill since their old excavator died three days ago.
Todd either comes up with something or we go home.
I don't want to go home.
It's all kind of hanging in the balance right now.
He's still got his shirt on, so he didn't bet that.
How did it go? Wellget in the truck, I've got something to show you guys.
Look at this.
Are you kidding me? Oh! (BLEEP).
There you go.
Oh, man.
Dude, look! Dad I got you a 460.
I got you a new bucket on it.
A 110 loader.
I took the clean-up money, and I got them rented.
Dude, that is amazing.
We still got the old loader, now we don't have any excuse.
You hear me? We can kick some ass now, Thurbs! All right! Good job.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to jump in this excavator and get going.
All right man, let's go.
Let's run some frickin' dirt, OK? Let's go.
The dream's still alive, we're still going.
This is what we came here to do.
It always feels good to fire everything up.
Last week we thought we were going home but we're up and running again, so it's great.
It's the best feeling knowing that you can run.
And after it quit, I thought it was over.
When Todd showed up with this 460, it changed everything.
One of those cards when people are on vacation Says that, "Wish you were here.
" I'm glad you're not.
But I really enjoy this.
I think my dad and Thurber are pretty excited.
I think it was a good move.
I hope we can turn it into some big money.
Let's hope, man.
We need it.
We need some good news.
It goes without saying, we're mining better.
More efficient, you know, I'm able to do tailings.
Todd's able to keep Jack in pay.
We're keeping Little Red full of pay.
So, it's all working right.
It's what we came here to do.
It's a good day.
Wooh! This is a rock-eating son of a gun, I'll tell ya.
Holy smokes.
We're back in business.
.
.
At Scribner Creek, Gene Cheeseman has guaranteed Parker that he'd have their huge wash plant running beside the swamp cut in just two days and he's right on schedule.
The wash plant's pretty much assembled.
The last thing, the tailings conveyor, we've just got to get the legs levelled out, hook the water up, fire it up.
Hey, Gene.
So that went pretty well, huh? Yeah, pretty good.
I have a bunch of stuff to do back in Haines.
Bunch of bills to pay and business to take care of, so I'm going to head out for three or four days, if you think that's an all-right time? Yeah, it's fine.
Everything should just go fine.
I think we can handle it.
All right, take care of the sandbox.
See you in a couple of days.
# I haven't got a pick-up truck to take me into town # I don't have the ways and means to lay my money down # Lay it down.
# But I got gold underneath the ground Beginning of the season is tough moneywise, because you're spending a lot stripping and getting set up and paying guys for a month before we have one ounce of gold.
And it's damn tough to get through the first couple of months.
I've got to figure out how to shuffle some money around and get all that stuff paid and it's just .
.
headaches, growing pains really.
It's what it is.
I'm leaving it in good hands.
Gene and mitch are both on it.
They should be up and running tomorrow morning.
So that's a pretty big success really.
That's the water for the plant.
We're all hooked up, ready to go.
We're getting ready to fire this thing off.
Do a quick shake down.
If everything runs fine, we'll be sluicing here in a few minutes.
About time.
Are you ready, Mike? Yeah, go ahead and turn it on.
There you go, Gene.
It's good to be back running again.
It's fine so far, we just got to get all the nozzles cleaned out and make sure everything's running smooth.
Look at the flow in that first run.
We've got too much material in this side and too much water on that side.
Gene's keen eye spots a water-flow problem in the sluice box.
Do you want to look at that pre-wash and make sure it's even up there? It's uneven down here.
Looks good up here, Gene.
We just have uneven water into the sluices.
I don't know what the answer is.
I've got to figure it out.
I don't know what Gene's talking about, it looks fine to me, the water looks even.
We're going to have to deal with this, because the water's not flowing right.
It all starts up there, (BLEEP) it up all the way to the end.
We've got to just stop and fix it.
The dirt is all backed up on the side.
There's got to be something slowing the water down inside there.
Hey mitch, what do you see? The whole bottom of the distribution box is shot.
It's full of holes.
No wonder the dirt's backing up Three seasons of washing paydirt through Big Red has worn holes in the chute that runs into the sluice box.
Water that should be washing paydirt into the sluice is now leaking out of the holes.
And paydirt is backing up into the plant.
It's not an easy fix.
(BLEEP) We've got the two days' worth of welding to do on that plant, it's all wore out.
We're gonna have to cut it out and weld some new stuff in.
Better to fix it right now, than try to just bubble-gum it together.
Gene promised Parker he'd have the plant running in just two days.
Now, it's looking more like four.
Everything was working fine.
Now we've moved everything, everything's different, it's just how it goes when you reset up.
It was a good idea to move the plant closer to the pay because it's going to save us a lot of time, but now we're losing time because the thing's not running.
So is it going to offset itself in the end? I sure hope so, because we've got 2,000 ounces to find.
16 kilometres away at McKinnon Creek.
Jack, Todd and Thurber have been working 16-hour days to make up for lost time.
But running a mine with just three men is taking its toll.
This is not an easy game and it's not for the faint of heart.
But this is hard doing it by ourselves.
You know, we get tired, let's face it, this is hard work.
After 16 hours, we can barely think right, let alone run the plant right.
So, this is a machine that can run 24 hours a day, it doesn't get tired, we do.
What the (BLEEP)? What's going on with the wash plant? Jack, Thurber, get over here quick, let's shut everything down.
Yeah, I'm coming.
Cut the water.
Dad, cut the shaker, cut the trommel.
What the (BLEEP)? This whole bottom end is just clogged with dirt, I can't even believe it's still turning.
We're feeding it too fast, there's something wrong.
I guarantee you that this right here, we've got gold, and it's coming right out of the trommel.
They have no-one to watch the plant and Jack's been over-feeding it.
Dad, when you're feeding, you've got to watch some of this stuff, Thurber, you too, man.
I can hear something every now and then.
If you're hearing something with your hearing, it must be pretty serious.
The thing is we can't have water running out the end of the trommel.
I'll crawl in there and see what I can do (BLEEP) To get the trommel spinning again, Thurber clears the blockage.
There's too many things to do.
Thurber's doing this, Jack's feeding the plant.
I'm over here running around with the loader.
We never used to have this kind of problem, because we had our whole team here.
We would catch things early.
Hey, Todd to Jack.
Yeah, this is Jack.
You think if I called the guys, that they would maybe come on out? We're in good ground.
Just telling, man.
See how it goes.
All right, I'm going to give them a call.
I want to see some chunky gold, Fred.
After the Hoffman crew's disastrous season in the jungle, this season, Dave Turin decided to mine with Freddy Dodge.
The rest of Todd's crew found paying jobs back in Oregon.
(RINGING TONE) 'Hello?' Hey, Dave, it's Todd.
Can you hear me? 'Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
How's it going up there?' Good.
I pulled 34 ounces out of the ground.
If we can take this up another level, it would be unbelievable.
Hey listen, I need you.
I need you back over here.
I need you up here in Dawson.
'I can't do it, man.
I've committed to Fred, I've committed to Derek.
You're asking a lot and quite honestly, I'm not interested, I'm happy here.
' For sure.
'This is a good fit for me.
I'm finally gold mining, and we're getting a lot of gold.
Things are going well.
' All right.
Best of luck to you.
'All right.
See you, man.
' See you.
That's a downer, a real downer.
Tony's driven three and a half hours from the dredge to his mine to find out why the wash plant isn't running.
Hey, Kevin.
Yo.
I don't know what's up.
Checked the cables are fine, generator's fine.
Tony's wash plant was brought to a grinding halt by a tiny glass fuse.
He replaces it in seconds.
Yeah, she's going! After a three-day trip to Haines, Parker is back at Scribner Creek Looks like things are going all right.
I've also got a new member of the team to introduce.
Dozer! Come on, buddy.
Don't run away.
(DOG WHIMPERS) Do you not like gold mining? Come on, buddy, come on.
This is home He's brought a 12-week-old Labrador puppy, named Dozer.
Come on, buddy, come on.
Gene promised Parker he'd have Big Red running in just two days.
It's now day four.
It's good to see you! Yeah? So, how many hours are on the box? Have you got a couple of days running? We didn't really get started going good until Tuesday afternoon and run probably about two hours on there now.
What happened? The distribution was worn out.
Oh, that's all new steel? We had to replace all that.
It's a couple of days of welding.
A couple of days of welding? That's a lot of time to lose.
It's not getting us to where we need to be.
I understand that.
But we had to do what we had to do to fix it right.
No sense in bubble-gumming it together, in my mind, and having to re-do it again.
Yeah, but two days? You weren't around and I had to make the call, had to make something happen.
Well, I mean, that's just, that's not good enough.
We just paid $150,000 in bills, and in that time period we didn't sluice but four hours today, in four days.
So it's just, not really working.
It took what it took.
Nobody was screwing off, nobody was not showing up for work.
It took what it took to get the plant fixed.
If it wasn't fast enough, then maybe he should get somebody else to do it.
I don't know.
Tony Beets is just outside Dawson.
The seven-hour round trip between the dredge and the mine is preventing him working at either location.
He owns a plane, but it's been grounded for maintenance.
I need my plane in the air.
I'm sick of this back and forth.
I mean, normally, I wouldn't use that plane, costwise, but in this case, time is more important, because I can get there in 20 minutes instead of three and a half hours.
I want to get that dredge producing this fall, because I'd sure like to get some of my money back yet.
So at the end of the day, get the plane in the air, get things on a roll.
Tony's plane and pilot are based at Dawson Airport.
What's up, Ryan? It's not good, man.
What is not good? The oil cooler is cracked, leaking all over the place.
How long do you figure that's going to take? We got to order one in.
The O ring has gone, too.
I mean, (BLEEP)! OK.
OK.
See you.
Paying for repairs and a pilot won't be cheap.
Tony needs to speak to his banker, his wife Minnie.
Hey, Minnie! What's up? There you are.
(BLEEP) I can't do this (BLEEP) driving back and forth.
I need that plane up in the air.
And you know what I need? I need money.
We need insurance, we need a pilot, we need maintenance.
It'll cost you $10,000 before you even get the stupid plane in the air.
Well, that is OK.
I mean, I lost that 10 grand not being here today.
When I'm not there, nothing seems to (BLEEP) happen in either place.
So we don't have much (BLEEP) choice.
It's like I said.
I can't pull money out of my ass either so Try your pockets, it may work better.
We're going to have to do something.
You better do a clean-up first, because I otherwise cannot afford it.
All right.
I'll go have a look with Kevin.
See you.
He's pretty pissed off actually, because the plane is not going but he's got to realise I have bills to pay and I don't have money and you need money to do that stuff.
How's it going, Kevin? Not too bad, nice and slow.
What do you mean nice and slow? Why don't you just (BLEEP) hurry it up? To get his plane back in the air and his dredge project back on track, Tony needs a good gold clean-up.
That is the gold wheel.
Basically all it does is gravity.
The heaviest climb up and the sand and little rocks just stay behind.
Then you get clean gold up on top.
The gold collects in the back here.
It crawls up the wheel and goes through that little hole.
And it all gathers in this little jar over there.
By the time it comes off the wheel, it's clean enough to be sold.
They just burn the last little bit off.
It's pretty simple.
Works easy.
It would be nice if this clean-up was half decent.
Make Minnie a bit happier, I suppose.
Get the plane in the air.
Pay some bills.
We haven't ran all that much material this year, so hopefully it will turn out OK.
The Beets' operation is one of the most successful in the Klondike.
But Tony is convinced that if he can get the dredge running, it can be far more efficient than a modern mine.
If I can get that dredge to run 24 hours a day, seven days a frickin' week.
You get about two to three people, day and night so you got five, six people on there, your fuel cost, you got one frickin' engine running.
I'd be awfully surprised if it wouldn't cut my cost by 75%.
I bet she's going to do that (BLEEP) good.
I mean, it worked perfectly in the olden days and there's absolutely no reason why it wouldn't work today.
What do you think, Kev? Oh, it'll work.
We don't have much of a choice, we're going to make it work.
Let's go.
There you are.
Said you had no frickin' money.
I didn't.
Here you got some frickin' gold! That's it? That's all? What do you mean, (BLEEP) that's it? This should cut it.
OK, you've got yourself a plane.
Sounds good.
See you in a bit.
Well, we're finally getting the plane so that's great.
Because the season is halfway gone.
We need to take that thing apart.
You know, I've got to be able to get there quicker.
Get out of there quicker and make (BLEEP) happen.
Because otherwise, that ain't going to happen this year.
.
.
At Clear Creek, Tony Beets flies back to take the roof off of his dredge.
Tony's journey to Clear Creek has been slashed by over three hours.
He's gonna buzz that thing all the way down the canyon.
He now has a fighting chance of getting his dredge mining before the end of the season.
Coffee time.
His trip to Paradise Hill cost him precious time.
He's back to get the roof off by any means necessary.
Here we go, hoist it up.
Keep it up, keep it up.
Keep it up.
There you go, this is how you tear a (BLEEP) roof down, I guess.
Over at McKinnon Creek, Jack, Todd and Thurber are still putting in long days just to keep their mine afloat.
It's better to go out in flames than just to sit here and dwindle away.
We're not going to do that.
Hey, Dad, we've got company.
Well, I'll be damned.
Yahoo! Dad, Thurber, kill the plant.
Come on down here, we've got visitors.
Oh, my gosh! Andy.
Welcome, buddy.
Logan, oh, man.
What's up, cousin? Good to see you again.
How are you? Big Steve.
No way! Yeah.
Todd's new mechanic, Steve Pasley, has come from Oregon with the old crew.
Guys, I'm really surprised that you came, man.
What changed your mind? When I heard you were getting gold, it was kind of a no-brainer for me.
We all feel we had something to finish, we've got something to prove.
Let's prove it and let's finish it.
We really appreciate you guys coming.
I know that we're starting small again.
If we put our minds together, and everybody puts their back into it, we'll come out of here with a hell of a lot of gold.
A ton of gold.
Come over and take a look at the sluice box.
Look, what do you see here in the box? ALL: Gold.
And I see it in there.
I see a lot of it in there.
Exactly.
If a fat kid, an old guy and a guy with a great moustache did this, what can we do all together? I want to just apologise for everything that happened last year.
This year you're going to get some of that.
Right there.
This year, let's redeem ourselves, man.
Huh? We can do this.
I believe in this dream.
That's why we're here.
Heavenly father, we ask that the gold will just pop out of the ground.
Lord that you would show us the good spots and bless us, and we pray it in your name.
Amen.
ALL: Amen.
Bring it in.
Let's get some gold.
Now we have the people, crap, sky's the limit.
It'll be awesome.
Regardless of what happened in the past, they've got something good going.
With all of us working together, we're going to do some amazing stuff here this season.
I'm here to fix whatever breaks down.
Hop on some equipment.
Whatever it takes to get gold in that sluice box.
It's a team and you can't break the team up.
We've got a lot to prove.
We've got a lot of work to do.
And I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else.
JACK: Thurber, Todd and I, we couldn't make it by ourselves.
Now they are here, the team's back together.
We're whole.
The sky is the limit for us.
You know, it's a little humbling right now that these guys would take one more risk with us.
And when your family comes back, it feels good.
We're going to kick some ass this year.
On the next Gold Rush Parker Schnabel's out of paydirt.
Get that (BLEEP) truck back here.
He makes the controversial decision I think it's a waste of our time.
.
.
to mine untested ground You don't want to waste your (BLEEP) time.
It's my (BLEEP) time to waste.
For Tony Beets, it's crunch time.
Are you ready? But moving the heaviest part of his dredge proves too much for his crane to handle Watch the ladder! And even though they've just come back Well, that's horse (BLEEP).
.
.
the Hoffman's crew threatens to walk There is no mining plan.
.
.
unless Todd convinces Dave Turin to return.
Why is Dave not here? But there's only one way I need your help.
.
.
Todd can get his right-hand man back.
I'll do it if I'm a partner
I would never sell gold, but I have no choice.
He's desperate for cash.
You have gold fever.
Desperate to keep his wash plant running.
Cut the water.
And desperately in need of his old crew.
I need you back over here.
'Can't do it, I'm committed here.
' Parker Schnabel's 2000 ounce, 2.
4 million dollar season Up, up, up.
.
.
is fast becoming a pipe dream.
You can say goodbye to making any money doing that.
To save his season, he redesigns his operation.
A radical decision to move his seven-ton wash plant.
If we drop something on that wash plant, I'm screwed.
Puts Parker and his foreman Gene at loggerheads.
That's not good enough.
If it wasn't fast enough then maybe you can get somebody else to do it.
And as Tony Beets falls further behind bringing his 75-year-old gold-catching dredge back to life I can't pull money out of my ass.
Well, try your pockets, it may work better.
His only hope We don't have really much time to waste.
.
.
to make up for lost time .
.
is to take to the skies.
I can get there in 20 minutes, so that should speed it up a little bit.
In the Klondike, Todd Hoffman heads into Dawson City to sell every ounce of gold he's mined this season.
Normally, I would never sell gold this early in the season, but I have no choice.
We're basically living pay check to pay check, and this right here, is our first pay check.
With this, I got to get us running again.
This right here represents survival of our mining operation.
I've got to get a little bit newer equipment.
At least something that runs and hopefully we can just keep it rolling.
Ok! Get out of the way.
Easy! Easy! For nearly a month, a crew of just three, Todd, Jack and Thurber have rebuilt from the ground up, mining with beat-up old machines.
We've got a couple of pieces of equipment and they were new a long time ago.
When their 20-year-old excavator suddenly bit the dust Oh, crap.
It's seized up.
Ugh! .
.
they had no choice but to shut down their operation.
To stay in the game, Todd hopes to scrape together enough cash from his one and only gold clean-up, to replace his excavator.
How you doing, man? Good, you? Doing good man, yeah! Well, I've got a little gold here to sell.
OK.
Simon Mason-Wood buys and smelts gold.
There you are, 34 ounces.
So we can go and put that on the furnace.
This is where you smelt it, huh? Yeah.
This is where it all happens.
The value of Todd's 34 ounces of gold dust will depend on how pure it is, once the slag, or impurities, are burnt off.
How hot do you have to get this to get a really good pure gold bar? Well, this furnace goes to about 2000 degrees.
I wait until everything is cherry red, before I'll pull it out of there.
That's for real.
Once it cools, Simon separates the slag from the bar of pure gold.
We'll clean it up and you'll have a nice little bar.
You can hold it before I take it back.
There you are.
It has a pretty colour to it.
I hate selling gold, but I have to this year.
You have gold fever then, I guess.
I do.
Hopefully I'll be back and sell you a whole bunch more of this.
OK, let's get the paper work done, get your money and away you go.
All right.
Todd now finds out exactly how much of his 34 ounces was pure.
We have a melt loss of course.
So you'll have 27 ounces.
With seven ounces lost to impurities, Todd's first clean-up is worth less than he hoped.
You'll have approximately $33,000 get transferred to your account.
When can we get it transferred? It'll be done tomorrow morning.
No kidding? That fast? Yeah.
OK.
Well, all right, let's do it.
OK.
I don't know if it's enough, but 33 grand it should keep us in the game.
I've got to go lease some equipment and hopefully we can keep digging, and hopefully we'll be back here again.
Over at Scribner Creek, Parker has been firing on all cylinders for well over a month.
Their goal for the season is 2000 ounces of gold worth $2.
4 million.
But so far, they've only produced 171 ounces worth $205,000.
Their biggest problem, keeping Big Red, their massive wash plant, fed.
The way it's set up now with the distance to the haul, there's no way that we can do that.
It's definitely not the lead to a 2000-ounce season, that's for sure.
They're running dirt from their second cut of the season, the swamp cut.
It's almost a kilometre haul back to the plant for every rock truck.
What's going on? She's pretty thirsty.
I'm running on fumes.
All right, well it's a long haul, huh? Yeah.
(BLEEP) Where did all our (BLEEP) fuel go? Those trucks and that long of a haul, we're probably burning almost $500 of fuel just to get pay to our plant an hour.
And that's over five grand a day, six grand a day, just for the trucks.
You can say goodbye to making any money doing that.
The 19-year-old mine boss has no chance of hitting millions in gold, unless he makes a radical change.
How's it going? It's going all right.
So, I'm not sure what to do.
It's just a long way to the plant.
Yeah.
I was thinking about, you know how to fix the problem and I just think we need to move the plant closer to the pay.
This is where the pay is, then it's a short haul and we can Yeah, but you know how big of a job that is? It's not as big a job as hauling pay to the plant and keeping up.
You might not sluice for two days, but we can do it.
That's a lot of time spent not sluicing.
Well, what's the other option? Then let's do it.
It's just too far to haul.
It's a hell of a lot more efficient to move the plant closer to the pay than truck the pay to the plant.
It's justit's just how it is, simple fact.
It's not like we're moving the Brooklyn Bridge or something.
Just a little wash plant.
If gene says moving this wash plant is going to take two days, it had better take two days, cos otherwise we're screwed.
Just laying out where the plant is gonna sit here.
This has to come up two feet.
Besides a raised platform, the plant will need a supply of clean water.
Try to get this channel dug so we can get water.
Here we go.
Come on, river.
Flow this way.
Come on.
We should have all the water we need.
Bingo.
The end is near.
It's time to replant.
Every day Parker doesn't run paydirt, he's losing over $15,000.
Speed is the name of the game.
Gene and Parker are over there like a couple of vultures just waiting for the last buckets to go through the wash plant.
Then they're going to start tearing things down.
That's it, hopper's empty, conveyor's empty, that's getting shut down.
Work our way through shutting things down.
Gene's made Parker a promise.
He'll take apart one of the biggest wash plants in the Klondike, move it almost a kilometre and reassemble it all in just two days.
No more water! Go straight back out of the way.
Whoa! What the (BLEEP)! .
.
Whoa! I don't need two people telling me what to do and him hitting the thing.
(BLEEP) At Scribner Creek, Gene Cheeseman races to move Parker's wash plant.
In the mad scramble, he's just backed his truck into the sluice box.
Luckily, it looks like it's undamaged.
They can now move the 7-ton structure, piece by piece, to its new home, almost a kilometre away.
Do you want to drop that down? Gene promised to complete the move in just two days.
By the end of day one, the crew's already dragged Big Red over to the swamp cut and it's ready for reassembly.
How did that go, Parker? It actually went quite, quite beautifully.
Everything we've had planned is coming together.
Once we get those riffles dialled in, we're gonna be unstoppable.
I think this plant is just going to go and go and go.
80 kilometres miles away at Clear Creek.
Tony Beets preps for the removal of the next section of his 75-year-old dredge.
The million-dollar vessel is a self contained gold mining machine, designed to float in its own pond, dig and process paydirt.
Tony and his two machinists, Gerry and Mike, have already taken out the walls and the stacker.
It's time to remove the roof.
That would be the best thing.
Cut the heads of the bolts off and then the roof comes off in one chunk, instead of tearing the (BLEEP) out of it.
Taking it apart board by board is going to take a while.
If this roof comes off in one whole piece, it will make life a whole lot easier.
Tony's ambitious plan is to take the dredge apart, transport it 240 kilometres to his claim then restore and rebuild it, so it can mine gold before the end of the season.
(PHONE RINGS) Bleep.
Yeah, hello? 'Hey, it's me.
' Hey, Minnie, how's it going? 'Everything is down.
Nothing is working.
We're not sluicing.
' What do you mean, you're not sluicing? 'It ain't working, you have to get back.
' I just can't leave here, either.
'Just get your ass back here.
' All right, bye.
When he's not rebuilding the dredge, Tony runs one of the biggest gold mines in the Klondike, Paradise Hill.
With that operation at a standstill Tony has to drop everything and drive three and a half hours to Paradise Hill.
Ain't not too happy.
Because that's a long drive/ No sooner I get down here than I got to turn around and right back all the way.
That's a seven-hour drive.
Anyway, we'll find out what's happening here to get this thing back up and going because if the sluice box don't run we're not making any money of course.
South at McKinnon Creek, Todd, Jack and Thurber have been at a standstill since their old excavator died three days ago.
Todd either comes up with something or we go home.
I don't want to go home.
It's all kind of hanging in the balance right now.
He's still got his shirt on, so he didn't bet that.
How did it go? Wellget in the truck, I've got something to show you guys.
Look at this.
Are you kidding me? Oh! (BLEEP).
There you go.
Oh, man.
Dude, look! Dad I got you a 460.
I got you a new bucket on it.
A 110 loader.
I took the clean-up money, and I got them rented.
Dude, that is amazing.
We still got the old loader, now we don't have any excuse.
You hear me? We can kick some ass now, Thurbs! All right! Good job.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to jump in this excavator and get going.
All right man, let's go.
Let's run some frickin' dirt, OK? Let's go.
The dream's still alive, we're still going.
This is what we came here to do.
It always feels good to fire everything up.
Last week we thought we were going home but we're up and running again, so it's great.
It's the best feeling knowing that you can run.
And after it quit, I thought it was over.
When Todd showed up with this 460, it changed everything.
One of those cards when people are on vacation Says that, "Wish you were here.
" I'm glad you're not.
But I really enjoy this.
I think my dad and Thurber are pretty excited.
I think it was a good move.
I hope we can turn it into some big money.
Let's hope, man.
We need it.
We need some good news.
It goes without saying, we're mining better.
More efficient, you know, I'm able to do tailings.
Todd's able to keep Jack in pay.
We're keeping Little Red full of pay.
So, it's all working right.
It's what we came here to do.
It's a good day.
Wooh! This is a rock-eating son of a gun, I'll tell ya.
Holy smokes.
We're back in business.
.
.
At Scribner Creek, Gene Cheeseman has guaranteed Parker that he'd have their huge wash plant running beside the swamp cut in just two days and he's right on schedule.
The wash plant's pretty much assembled.
The last thing, the tailings conveyor, we've just got to get the legs levelled out, hook the water up, fire it up.
Hey, Gene.
So that went pretty well, huh? Yeah, pretty good.
I have a bunch of stuff to do back in Haines.
Bunch of bills to pay and business to take care of, so I'm going to head out for three or four days, if you think that's an all-right time? Yeah, it's fine.
Everything should just go fine.
I think we can handle it.
All right, take care of the sandbox.
See you in a couple of days.
# I haven't got a pick-up truck to take me into town # I don't have the ways and means to lay my money down # Lay it down.
# But I got gold underneath the ground Beginning of the season is tough moneywise, because you're spending a lot stripping and getting set up and paying guys for a month before we have one ounce of gold.
And it's damn tough to get through the first couple of months.
I've got to figure out how to shuffle some money around and get all that stuff paid and it's just .
.
headaches, growing pains really.
It's what it is.
I'm leaving it in good hands.
Gene and mitch are both on it.
They should be up and running tomorrow morning.
So that's a pretty big success really.
That's the water for the plant.
We're all hooked up, ready to go.
We're getting ready to fire this thing off.
Do a quick shake down.
If everything runs fine, we'll be sluicing here in a few minutes.
About time.
Are you ready, Mike? Yeah, go ahead and turn it on.
There you go, Gene.
It's good to be back running again.
It's fine so far, we just got to get all the nozzles cleaned out and make sure everything's running smooth.
Look at the flow in that first run.
We've got too much material in this side and too much water on that side.
Gene's keen eye spots a water-flow problem in the sluice box.
Do you want to look at that pre-wash and make sure it's even up there? It's uneven down here.
Looks good up here, Gene.
We just have uneven water into the sluices.
I don't know what the answer is.
I've got to figure it out.
I don't know what Gene's talking about, it looks fine to me, the water looks even.
We're going to have to deal with this, because the water's not flowing right.
It all starts up there, (BLEEP) it up all the way to the end.
We've got to just stop and fix it.
The dirt is all backed up on the side.
There's got to be something slowing the water down inside there.
Hey mitch, what do you see? The whole bottom of the distribution box is shot.
It's full of holes.
No wonder the dirt's backing up Three seasons of washing paydirt through Big Red has worn holes in the chute that runs into the sluice box.
Water that should be washing paydirt into the sluice is now leaking out of the holes.
And paydirt is backing up into the plant.
It's not an easy fix.
(BLEEP) We've got the two days' worth of welding to do on that plant, it's all wore out.
We're gonna have to cut it out and weld some new stuff in.
Better to fix it right now, than try to just bubble-gum it together.
Gene promised Parker he'd have the plant running in just two days.
Now, it's looking more like four.
Everything was working fine.
Now we've moved everything, everything's different, it's just how it goes when you reset up.
It was a good idea to move the plant closer to the pay because it's going to save us a lot of time, but now we're losing time because the thing's not running.
So is it going to offset itself in the end? I sure hope so, because we've got 2,000 ounces to find.
16 kilometres away at McKinnon Creek.
Jack, Todd and Thurber have been working 16-hour days to make up for lost time.
But running a mine with just three men is taking its toll.
This is not an easy game and it's not for the faint of heart.
But this is hard doing it by ourselves.
You know, we get tired, let's face it, this is hard work.
After 16 hours, we can barely think right, let alone run the plant right.
So, this is a machine that can run 24 hours a day, it doesn't get tired, we do.
What the (BLEEP)? What's going on with the wash plant? Jack, Thurber, get over here quick, let's shut everything down.
Yeah, I'm coming.
Cut the water.
Dad, cut the shaker, cut the trommel.
What the (BLEEP)? This whole bottom end is just clogged with dirt, I can't even believe it's still turning.
We're feeding it too fast, there's something wrong.
I guarantee you that this right here, we've got gold, and it's coming right out of the trommel.
They have no-one to watch the plant and Jack's been over-feeding it.
Dad, when you're feeding, you've got to watch some of this stuff, Thurber, you too, man.
I can hear something every now and then.
If you're hearing something with your hearing, it must be pretty serious.
The thing is we can't have water running out the end of the trommel.
I'll crawl in there and see what I can do (BLEEP) To get the trommel spinning again, Thurber clears the blockage.
There's too many things to do.
Thurber's doing this, Jack's feeding the plant.
I'm over here running around with the loader.
We never used to have this kind of problem, because we had our whole team here.
We would catch things early.
Hey, Todd to Jack.
Yeah, this is Jack.
You think if I called the guys, that they would maybe come on out? We're in good ground.
Just telling, man.
See how it goes.
All right, I'm going to give them a call.
I want to see some chunky gold, Fred.
After the Hoffman crew's disastrous season in the jungle, this season, Dave Turin decided to mine with Freddy Dodge.
The rest of Todd's crew found paying jobs back in Oregon.
(RINGING TONE) 'Hello?' Hey, Dave, it's Todd.
Can you hear me? 'Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
How's it going up there?' Good.
I pulled 34 ounces out of the ground.
If we can take this up another level, it would be unbelievable.
Hey listen, I need you.
I need you back over here.
I need you up here in Dawson.
'I can't do it, man.
I've committed to Fred, I've committed to Derek.
You're asking a lot and quite honestly, I'm not interested, I'm happy here.
' For sure.
'This is a good fit for me.
I'm finally gold mining, and we're getting a lot of gold.
Things are going well.
' All right.
Best of luck to you.
'All right.
See you, man.
' See you.
That's a downer, a real downer.
Tony's driven three and a half hours from the dredge to his mine to find out why the wash plant isn't running.
Hey, Kevin.
Yo.
I don't know what's up.
Checked the cables are fine, generator's fine.
Tony's wash plant was brought to a grinding halt by a tiny glass fuse.
He replaces it in seconds.
Yeah, she's going! After a three-day trip to Haines, Parker is back at Scribner Creek Looks like things are going all right.
I've also got a new member of the team to introduce.
Dozer! Come on, buddy.
Don't run away.
(DOG WHIMPERS) Do you not like gold mining? Come on, buddy, come on.
This is home He's brought a 12-week-old Labrador puppy, named Dozer.
Come on, buddy, come on.
Gene promised Parker he'd have Big Red running in just two days.
It's now day four.
It's good to see you! Yeah? So, how many hours are on the box? Have you got a couple of days running? We didn't really get started going good until Tuesday afternoon and run probably about two hours on there now.
What happened? The distribution was worn out.
Oh, that's all new steel? We had to replace all that.
It's a couple of days of welding.
A couple of days of welding? That's a lot of time to lose.
It's not getting us to where we need to be.
I understand that.
But we had to do what we had to do to fix it right.
No sense in bubble-gumming it together, in my mind, and having to re-do it again.
Yeah, but two days? You weren't around and I had to make the call, had to make something happen.
Well, I mean, that's just, that's not good enough.
We just paid $150,000 in bills, and in that time period we didn't sluice but four hours today, in four days.
So it's just, not really working.
It took what it took.
Nobody was screwing off, nobody was not showing up for work.
It took what it took to get the plant fixed.
If it wasn't fast enough, then maybe he should get somebody else to do it.
I don't know.
Tony Beets is just outside Dawson.
The seven-hour round trip between the dredge and the mine is preventing him working at either location.
He owns a plane, but it's been grounded for maintenance.
I need my plane in the air.
I'm sick of this back and forth.
I mean, normally, I wouldn't use that plane, costwise, but in this case, time is more important, because I can get there in 20 minutes instead of three and a half hours.
I want to get that dredge producing this fall, because I'd sure like to get some of my money back yet.
So at the end of the day, get the plane in the air, get things on a roll.
Tony's plane and pilot are based at Dawson Airport.
What's up, Ryan? It's not good, man.
What is not good? The oil cooler is cracked, leaking all over the place.
How long do you figure that's going to take? We got to order one in.
The O ring has gone, too.
I mean, (BLEEP)! OK.
OK.
See you.
Paying for repairs and a pilot won't be cheap.
Tony needs to speak to his banker, his wife Minnie.
Hey, Minnie! What's up? There you are.
(BLEEP) I can't do this (BLEEP) driving back and forth.
I need that plane up in the air.
And you know what I need? I need money.
We need insurance, we need a pilot, we need maintenance.
It'll cost you $10,000 before you even get the stupid plane in the air.
Well, that is OK.
I mean, I lost that 10 grand not being here today.
When I'm not there, nothing seems to (BLEEP) happen in either place.
So we don't have much (BLEEP) choice.
It's like I said.
I can't pull money out of my ass either so Try your pockets, it may work better.
We're going to have to do something.
You better do a clean-up first, because I otherwise cannot afford it.
All right.
I'll go have a look with Kevin.
See you.
He's pretty pissed off actually, because the plane is not going but he's got to realise I have bills to pay and I don't have money and you need money to do that stuff.
How's it going, Kevin? Not too bad, nice and slow.
What do you mean nice and slow? Why don't you just (BLEEP) hurry it up? To get his plane back in the air and his dredge project back on track, Tony needs a good gold clean-up.
That is the gold wheel.
Basically all it does is gravity.
The heaviest climb up and the sand and little rocks just stay behind.
Then you get clean gold up on top.
The gold collects in the back here.
It crawls up the wheel and goes through that little hole.
And it all gathers in this little jar over there.
By the time it comes off the wheel, it's clean enough to be sold.
They just burn the last little bit off.
It's pretty simple.
Works easy.
It would be nice if this clean-up was half decent.
Make Minnie a bit happier, I suppose.
Get the plane in the air.
Pay some bills.
We haven't ran all that much material this year, so hopefully it will turn out OK.
The Beets' operation is one of the most successful in the Klondike.
But Tony is convinced that if he can get the dredge running, it can be far more efficient than a modern mine.
If I can get that dredge to run 24 hours a day, seven days a frickin' week.
You get about two to three people, day and night so you got five, six people on there, your fuel cost, you got one frickin' engine running.
I'd be awfully surprised if it wouldn't cut my cost by 75%.
I bet she's going to do that (BLEEP) good.
I mean, it worked perfectly in the olden days and there's absolutely no reason why it wouldn't work today.
What do you think, Kev? Oh, it'll work.
We don't have much of a choice, we're going to make it work.
Let's go.
There you are.
Said you had no frickin' money.
I didn't.
Here you got some frickin' gold! That's it? That's all? What do you mean, (BLEEP) that's it? This should cut it.
OK, you've got yourself a plane.
Sounds good.
See you in a bit.
Well, we're finally getting the plane so that's great.
Because the season is halfway gone.
We need to take that thing apart.
You know, I've got to be able to get there quicker.
Get out of there quicker and make (BLEEP) happen.
Because otherwise, that ain't going to happen this year.
.
.
At Clear Creek, Tony Beets flies back to take the roof off of his dredge.
Tony's journey to Clear Creek has been slashed by over three hours.
He's gonna buzz that thing all the way down the canyon.
He now has a fighting chance of getting his dredge mining before the end of the season.
Coffee time.
His trip to Paradise Hill cost him precious time.
He's back to get the roof off by any means necessary.
Here we go, hoist it up.
Keep it up, keep it up.
Keep it up.
There you go, this is how you tear a (BLEEP) roof down, I guess.
Over at McKinnon Creek, Jack, Todd and Thurber are still putting in long days just to keep their mine afloat.
It's better to go out in flames than just to sit here and dwindle away.
We're not going to do that.
Hey, Dad, we've got company.
Well, I'll be damned.
Yahoo! Dad, Thurber, kill the plant.
Come on down here, we've got visitors.
Oh, my gosh! Andy.
Welcome, buddy.
Logan, oh, man.
What's up, cousin? Good to see you again.
How are you? Big Steve.
No way! Yeah.
Todd's new mechanic, Steve Pasley, has come from Oregon with the old crew.
Guys, I'm really surprised that you came, man.
What changed your mind? When I heard you were getting gold, it was kind of a no-brainer for me.
We all feel we had something to finish, we've got something to prove.
Let's prove it and let's finish it.
We really appreciate you guys coming.
I know that we're starting small again.
If we put our minds together, and everybody puts their back into it, we'll come out of here with a hell of a lot of gold.
A ton of gold.
Come over and take a look at the sluice box.
Look, what do you see here in the box? ALL: Gold.
And I see it in there.
I see a lot of it in there.
Exactly.
If a fat kid, an old guy and a guy with a great moustache did this, what can we do all together? I want to just apologise for everything that happened last year.
This year you're going to get some of that.
Right there.
This year, let's redeem ourselves, man.
Huh? We can do this.
I believe in this dream.
That's why we're here.
Heavenly father, we ask that the gold will just pop out of the ground.
Lord that you would show us the good spots and bless us, and we pray it in your name.
Amen.
ALL: Amen.
Bring it in.
Let's get some gold.
Now we have the people, crap, sky's the limit.
It'll be awesome.
Regardless of what happened in the past, they've got something good going.
With all of us working together, we're going to do some amazing stuff here this season.
I'm here to fix whatever breaks down.
Hop on some equipment.
Whatever it takes to get gold in that sluice box.
It's a team and you can't break the team up.
We've got a lot to prove.
We've got a lot of work to do.
And I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else.
JACK: Thurber, Todd and I, we couldn't make it by ourselves.
Now they are here, the team's back together.
We're whole.
The sky is the limit for us.
You know, it's a little humbling right now that these guys would take one more risk with us.
And when your family comes back, it feels good.
We're going to kick some ass this year.
On the next Gold Rush Parker Schnabel's out of paydirt.
Get that (BLEEP) truck back here.
He makes the controversial decision I think it's a waste of our time.
.
.
to mine untested ground You don't want to waste your (BLEEP) time.
It's my (BLEEP) time to waste.
For Tony Beets, it's crunch time.
Are you ready? But moving the heaviest part of his dredge proves too much for his crane to handle Watch the ladder! And even though they've just come back Well, that's horse (BLEEP).
.
.
the Hoffman's crew threatens to walk There is no mining plan.
.
.
unless Todd convinces Dave Turin to return.
Why is Dave not here? But there's only one way I need your help.
.
.
Todd can get his right-hand man back.
I'll do it if I'm a partner