Original subtitles

[main theme playing]

[geese honking]

[music playing]

I'm just looking at resumes, because we're gonna do

10,000 ounces this year. We have a lot to do.

So, you need good people that you can count on.

The truth is, somebody can write a really good resume

and be terrible.

[narrator] 30-year-old Parker Schnabel is leaning

on his crew like never before.

After years of running the cuts himself,

he's testing his top lieutenant's ability to lead.

Mitch and Brennan are getting Sulphur ready to go.

We'll have their washplant firing up there very soon.

We have two washplants already running here on Dominion.

Bob, and Sluicifer.

Two weeks into the season, and with only 400 ounces,

Parker wants his 40-person crew firing on all cylinders

to bring in a big haul this week and put him on track for

his 10,000-ounce season goal.

We do have a big crew this year, you know,

a bunch of new people.

Tyson has a lot of training to do.

People need to understand what the expectations are and when

they're doing things wrong, and if they can't correct it,

then we just need to get rid of them, which is...

always a challenge.

[Tyson] Parker's given me more and more responsibility.

This year from last year, it's probably about

three times as much.

We have so many new people, and with Parker still expecting...

[man speaking indistinctly over radio]

...more than double productivity as last year,

that's a large ask from a lot of new people.

Parker's charged rising-star Tyson Lee with overseeing

the huge Dominion Creek operation, where two cuts

are already producing gold,

the Bridge Cut and the recently opened Golden Mile,

which Parker believes could deliver big numbers

if the crew keeps it running.

Hopefully the new people have an understanding of what

we expect we need out of them here as a mining outfit.

And we're figuring out their caliber.

Right now, we have Michael digging pay down by Bob in

the Bridge Cut. -The cut's looking hella nice.

Clearly Parker's not [bleep] around, he's going for

a big season this year.

The size of his operation, that's massive.

New recruit Mike Thompson is a veteran gold miner

with years of experience operating heavy machinery.

So I did five years at a neighbor mine.

Parker offered me this job

and it's very hard to say no to.

Tyson's also relying on another new hire to keep

the Bridge Cut gold coming in.

[Tyson] I have Amy learning how to run loader right now.

She's feeding Bob, and I wanna throw a bunch of stuff

at her with the washplant.

[Amy] I have zero, zero mining experience.

♪♪

So, for the last three days, I have been doing some training

and today is my first day on my own.

Going from being a teacher just half a month ago,

it's gonna be a big transition.

Greenhorn Amy Lee traded a career as a science teacher

to become a gold miner.

[Amy] Taylor and Tatiana are my besties.

Tatiana actually trained me in a rock truck,

which was amazing. We had such a good time.

And then on day two, they just let me loose

on my own, and that was that.

After proving herself, Tyson is putting Amy in charge

of one of the most important jobs,

feeding pay dirt into the washplant.

-[Tyson] How's it going, Amy? -Good, you?

-Pretty good. -Good.

How are you finding things?

Now that I've gotten over a little bit of the fear,

after a couple hours it's getting better.

-[Tyson] That's good. -Yeah, yeah.

I'd like to do a once-over the plant with you and just

kinda give you some things to look at.

Yeah, awesome.

[Tyson] So there's this tail drum up here, so you can see

how it's nice and clean. -[Amy] Yeah.

[Tyson] That's how it should always be.

-Yeah. -[Tyson] If the belt walks left

or right, that can be an issue.

When you're feeding the washplant, a rock gets stuck

on the belt and I've had it cut the belt clean in half like

a razor blade before. -Yeah.

[Tyson] If you think something is wrong...

-Yeah. -...just shut it down.

-OK. -[Tyson] Let's run up here.

-[Amy] Yeah. -Open this, rip on this.

That's the breaker.

Then run up there, open the bypass,

close the main.

Any questions?

-Not at this moment. -[Tyson] Just a sponge.

-Yeah, let me just absorb. -[Tyson] Yeah.

You absorbed it all.

Still a little bit like, holy [bleep].

Yeah. Oh, you'll get it.

All righty. Go make us some gold.

-[Amy] OK. -[Tyson] Have fun.

When you think of all the responsibility you have,

and you're the sole person watching the plant,

it plays on your mind a little bit.

[Tyson] I'm really happy with Amy.

Can't wait to see what she can do this season.

[Mike speaking]

Yep, go ahead.

I'm on my way.

The last thing I wanna do is tell Parker that

the cut's flooded and we gotta shut Bob down.

Man, that's a lot of melt water.

That's not what I needed, man.

[Tyson] We have a [bleep] lake in here.

We spent so much time getting the Bridge Cut drained.

It's getting flooded out again.

The water's backing up the ditch line of the cut.

[Mike] I'm thinking that 8-inch culvert's not big enough.

[Tyson] Oh, yeah.

You'll need to rattle this hoe over and dig up this road.

We got that big old culvert up there.

So let's throw that puppy in.

Let's get this water out of here.

[tense music playing]

So we gotta get this water out 'cause right now the only

pay we can truck to Bob is in this square.

If it's flooding out, Bob's gonna shut down.

As the 114-acre Bridge Cut thaws, melt water seeps into

its drainage ditches, where it is then channeled through

an eight-inch culvert under Bob's only access road.

But the narrow culvert is overwhelmed by the volume of

meltwater, causing the ditches to overflow and flood the cut.

To stop the flood, Mike must dig up the access road

and replace the small culvert with a much larger

36-inch culvert, then rebuild the road to washplant Bob.

[Mike] I'm gonna take the small little 8-inch culvert up

and let the water go.

If I don't hurry up and get this water figured out,

Bob's gonna run out of pay. That's bad news.

You ain't sluicing, you ain't producing.

♪♪

Here comes some water, boys.

♪♪

Go get this culvert.

But it's the only thing I got kicking around here,

so hopefully I can do the job. Throw her in.

Right about...

there. Send it.

There's one way to put a culvert in.

See if this bank falls out on me.

That could suck, eh?

[suspenseful music playing]

Oh, [bleep] me.

This is sketchy, man.

Anybody bring some extra undies?

[dramatic chord plays]

I can safely say that culvert's in place.

I'm pretty proud of this. I feel pretty good.

-[Tyson] Mike saved the day! -[Mike] That was fun.

-That was exciting. -Nice work, Mike!

[Mike] [bleep], yeah.

[Tyson] She's working.

-Right on! -[Mike] See you.

We got that done. Tyson's happy.

[bleep] pretty proud of myself. Pretty happy.

It was like, what, an hour? Hour and five minutes?

We got her done.

[Tyson] Well, you know, Michael sure stepped up to the plate

and saved the day.

He got that culvert in, got all the water leaving us.

He executed it perfectly.

We just gotta keep the gold coming in.

[soft, eerie music playing]

[moose grunts]

[Tony speaking]

Ten miles southwest, King of the Klondike Tony Beets

has already mined out his first cut, hauling in 632 ounces

of his 6,500-ounce target.

[Tony speaking]

After a hot start on his Indian River claim,

Tony's nearly out of pay dirt, and he needs to open more

ground at the Early Bird Cut, fast.

Just like Parker,

Tony's also relying on a crew of new recruits

to get the job done.

[Tony speaking]

Well, this is my first year here.

Who wouldn't wanna come to the Yukon to work?

I love it here. I love the chaos.

We've got a lot of equipment packed in here,

weaving together.

Rock truck drivers Tyler Swan and Sam Moore are part of

an all-new crew tasked with getting the Early Bird

extension down to pay in just one week.

[Sam] I'm pretty new to gold mining.

I've only been at this for a little over a month now,

and there's very rarely a dull moment.

Tony's approach?

Throw the newbies in at the deep end and hope

they can swim.

[Sam speaking]

[Sam] It was pretty sparse on training here.

And then off into the deep end

can be a little bit stressful. -[truck honking]

Back it up a bit, back it up a bit.

[dramatic chord plays]

[Sam] Pretty tight spot we're working in.

We've got a bit of a bend to turn around here.

Now, we're all in this together

and you have eyes on everything.

[loud crash]

[bleeps]

[bleep]

Sam has just toppled one of Tony's essential

$300,000 rock trucks.

[Sam] Jacob, I'm gonna need some help.

Jacob, do you copy? Jacob?

[dark music playing]

[bleep]

[bleep]

[suspenseful music playing]

[Sam] Jacob, do you copy, Jacob?

[Jacob speaking over radio]

[Sam] My truck sort of tipped over here.

My box gave way under the bank.

Uh, we're gonna need some help.

[Jacob speaking]

[Tony speaking]

At Indian River, Tony's racing to extend his cut down to pay

before washplant Sluice-A-Lot's pay pile runs out.

But rookie driver Sam has flipped his rock truck,

bringing the operation to a halt.

[bleep]

[bleep]

[Jacob] The game plan is go up,

use the 480 if it'll pull it and hook on to the high point

of the box and pull it back over on the right side up.

All right, let's go flip this truck over.

[Jacob sniffs]

Rushing to the rescue

is heavy equipment operator Jacob Moore.

Hopefully it comes over nicely.

All right, sounds good.

Whoa.

Nice and easy.

Drive ahead very slowly.

All right, everything went smooth and properly done.

We're back on the road now, so hopefully we didn't lose

too much time.

I'm feeling a little bit...

stressed about what Tony will think.

[somber chord plays]

[Tony speaking]

[Sam] Copy that.

[somber music continues]

[moose grunts]

[Rick] I'm definitely backed into corner at this point.

I've got all this ground that I just finished paying off

and no water license to be able to mine it, and it's just like

it's there taunting me.

Really, this has left me with no other choices

but to move on.

One hundred miles east of Tony,

Rick Ness hasn't mined a single ounce of gold.

Forced to abandon a pile of pay and the richest ground

he's ever mined at his Duncan Creek Claim,

Rick's committed his entire operation

to gamble on new land.

[Rick] At the end of the day, I had to make a deal with Troy

in Lightning Creek.

You know, I have to do something before we lose out on

that even, and there's people snooping around for ground with

licenses on everywhere, and I can't afford

to wait any longer.

-Last week... -I'm here to make a deal.

...Rick met with landowner Troy Taylor...

[Rick] 15% royalty payment.

Um, we're gonna do a 100-ounce payment,

and we can get started on there right away.

...made a handshake deal to lease Lightning Creek

and moved his entire mining operation

eight miles northwest.

[Rick] Well, we're at Lightning Creek.

[Bailey] We're gonna go and hit this as hard as we can.

[Rick] This year, you know, gold price is once again record high.

So we got about 100 ounces a week to get by the end of

the year if we're gonna get to 1800 ounces.

So we really gotta get a [bleep] move on.

We've broken ground down at Lightning Creek.

Plenty of challenges ahead of us.

It's a new ground we gotta learn.

Time to get on some gold.

Rick's opened the Diamond Cut and is depending on his crew to

locate the pockets of gold-rich pay dirt in this notoriously

unpredictable area.

[Bailey] The Diamond Cut is definitely going at a good speed.

But at the start of any cut, it takes some time

to get prepped up.

[Zee] This ain't bad.

It may seem frivolous that we're just moving dirt from

point A to point B, but this is what we need to do.

Efficiency is key.

Not gonna lie, this is a good day.

[Kai] I just wanna make sure I'm keeping up with the pace,

'cause at the end of the season, I want a big gold bonus.

So, you know, whatever it takes to get down to pay and start

moving it is what I'll do.

[Bailey] What the [bleep]?

[Bailey & Rick speaking]

♪♪

[Rick speaking]

[Rick] Look at that.

-You ever seen pay dirt? -[Kai] Pay dirt?

That's what it is, right there. Boulders and gravels.

Pay dirt is gravelly and rocky,

gold-bearing material that lies beneath the waste topsoil

known as overburden.

[Rick] That's the [bleep] with the gold in it.

[Bailey] [bleep] right. Yeah.

-[Rick] Just look at it. -[Kai] That looks good.

That whole floor down there, that's the payday

we're looking for and that [bleep] came quick when we don't

have to go down 150 feet, eh?

Just even this area right here is bigger than

[indistinct] -[Rick] I know, I know.

That's exciting.

And that should make for quick stripping.

And then we've got below that, according to Troy,

anywhere that's 12 to 15 feet of pay.

-[Bailey] Yeah. -So put the overburden

where it wants to go, and we'll have a good

amount of pay dirt exposed here in no time.

-Let's get back on the gold. -[Bailey] Let's [bleep] do it.

-[Rick] Let's go. -[Kai] We're already down to pay.

You know, I'm not used to that. We're used to going 100 some

feet through overburden just to

get to it, and it's nice that it's so shallow here.

Bailey's doing a great job. Trucks are moving dirt.

Sun's out, [bleep] good day.

[upbeat music playing]

With the team on the pay layer, Rick tasks the crew with

stripping the entire Diamond Cut.

Compared to, like, Rick's claims, it's a huge

difference because we're moving about 160 feet worth of

overburden and over here it's, you know, five feet.

[Kai] It's my first time seeing pay.

Once we get that through the sluice box and through

the plant, it'll be good to see the actual gold.

While the team works, Rick takes a moment to make

his handshake-deal with Troy official and sign the lease.

[Rick] Ridiculous.

Kinda reading through it, and I just don't like some of

the stuff I'm seeing.

Oh, yeah. Hey, Zee, you got a copy?

[Zee speaking]

Why don't you come over here and I'll show you something?

♪♪

What's up, buddy? You gonna make me read?

No, I've got an updated agreement with Troy.

He's given himself an awful lot of power, I think.

Well, how it works is that I have to submit my mining plan

to him, and then he decides how it works, right?

It says that he shall have access to the equipment

and or personnel at his discretion.

Well, that means, to me, that means, yeah, on a Tuesday,

he'd come and shut down the sluice box.

I think it's a bit of an overreach.

I just -- I -- Don't you?

I always assumed when you leased the ground,

then you get to do with it what you want,

like how your mining plan is.

And this sounds like you signed a lease,

and then he has all the power.

[Rick] I don't know what the angle is there.

I don't know if there is an angle.

At this point, I'm waiting to stumble around a corner

and find him like this, like, "Whoa, I pulled the --"

You know what I mean?

Stupid [bleep] like that gets your wheels turning, right?

Let's just read over the contract a little bit more.

We're down here. We'll keep plugging away.

Yeah, yeah, no, like I said, I appreciate it.

Screw my head on straight. Make sure that this deal is in

our favor and keep on trucking.

-[Zee] Keeps everyone here. -[Rick] Thanks, buddy.

-All right. -We'll talk to ya.

-See you at dinner. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What the [bleep] is this?

If I fail to make a payment, a minimum of $20,000

every month, it may terminate this agreement

within three business days.

Even when I'm not producing gold now, I'm on the hook

for 20 grand a month.

The more I look at this, the more I'm saying

it's not a [bleep] chance in hell I'm signing this.

I don't know why he's putting all this [bleep] extra here.

It's just not sitting right with me.

I've worked with Troy for a while, and I trust the guy.

But it's fishy that I just paid him off,

and now we're going back, and...

Suddenly he's got more ground for us

and we're not paying him again.

You know, I'm kinda thinking he might be using my lack

of options to...

turn things in his favor.

Rick has already spent over $40,000 in fuel and wages

mining Lightning Creek.

But it could be all for nothing.

[Rick] I'm trying to stay calm, but I'm getting pretty [bleep] riled up

about it 'cause I'm already [bleep] down there working.

I've got money into this. I've got guys down there.

I've got equipment down there,

and I'm not [bleep] stopping, but I'm not signing this,

so he's gonna have to change his way of thinking,

'cause that's [bleep].

[soft music playing]

[Tyson] Right now, we have two washplants running.

I have a little bit of time to do a lap of going into

the Bridge Cut, checking on Bob, making sure everyone's

doing all right.

At Dominion, Tyson Lee is maxing out Sluicifer

on the Golden Mile.

And in the Bridge Cut, he has new operator Mike

digging out pay dirt.

[Mike] I wanna prove to this crew that I'm capable

and I can do the job.

Like, whatever they throw at me, I definitely have the taste

of that gold fever.

While Greenhorn Amy, in charge of running washplant, Bob,

feeds 250 yards of pay an hour,

I am making sure that I am keeping a constant flow of

pay dirt going up the conveyors and also making sure they're

not getting clogged up or many other things that I'm sure...

[washplant crashes]

[bleeps]

[tense music playing]

[Amy] Gotta shut off the generator.

[Tyson] Oh, this doesn't look good. What happened?

It's all clogged up at the top.

I just saw rocks shooting from the side.

Must be a rock jammed in somewhere, like up against

our chain drive that caused it to not wanna spin,

but first things first... -Yeah.

...get all the dirt off the belts.

Tyson suspects washplant Bob has rocks lodged in its hopper

feeder's internal conveyor chains, stopping the mechanism

from moving pay dirt toward the shaker deck

leading to it piling up.

The solution?

Dig out the hopper feeder, removing all rocks lodged in

the chain conveyor.

Then, clear any rocks from the super stacker's belt

rollers and start the plant up again.

-[Tyson] Yeah, we just wanna... -[Amy] Clear it out?

[Tyson] Yeah, 'Cause if we fire the super stacker up,

they'd be flying around like popcorn. -[Amy] OK.

[Tyson] They'll get sucked down into the tail drum

and slice the belt. -[Amy] OK.

[Tyson] You did a great job, though, Amy.

[Amy] Thanks. [laughs]

[dark chord plays]

[Parker] What happened?

This chain bind up on something?

[Tyson] Like a rock got stuck in the chain drive.

[Parker] OK. Did we [bleep] anything up?

[Tyson] I don't know.

We're just tryna shovel it out and make sure that

the belt's all good.

You can see there's a lot of big rocks

on the conveyor belt itself.

[Parker] Give me that shovel.

-Watch out. -[Amy] OK.

[gentle music playing]

[bleep]

[Parker] Look at the bottom of that belt.

[Tyson] You know it's serious when Parker shows up

and jumps into action.

Tail drum's packed full of [bleep].

Oh, let's just get the big ones out of there.

Let's climb down once Parker's done doing Parker things.

[Parker] I think we're good to go.

[Tyson] Nice work.

I'm climbing down. You're still up there.

Generator's getting fired up.

[Parker] Whoo!

Yeah, looks good!

You want some dirt?

Hey, Parker, you want some dirt?

[Parker] Yeah.

[Tyson] I'm so out of shape.

[Parker] Fire it up.

[Tyson] We're ready to sluice.

♪♪

I'm so happy

that I was able to spot it right away

and shut it down because there were so many rocks that were

jammed up in the belt.

How's Amy doing? She dealt with that well.

Yeah, definitely.

She did it exactly how we showed her.

[Parker] Yeah.

All right, see you on the flip side.

[Tyson] See ya. Amy's doing wonderful.

Couldn't have done anything better, really.

The bar is set high.

[Tony speaking]

At the Early Bird extension, Tony is battling to open

his new ground before his only running washplant,

Sluice-A-Lot, runs out of pay.

[Tony speaking]

But he's dealing with a batch of rookies who are struggling.

[somber music playing]

I'm back here today, and I am really glad

Tony didn't fire me.

Tony has his eye on Greenhorn Sam,

who flipped his rock truck earlier in the week.

I'm still on pretty thin ice.

You feel like anything could get you fired

if you're not careful.

With the clock ticking, Tony has brought in experienced

truck driver Mason MacIntyre to help out.

The conditions down here are pretty sloppy right now.

It's causing like a lot of big ruts, which is hard to drive in

sometimes, for some people.

You gotta adjust to the conditions.

And some people catch on really quick and are used to it.

And some people just don't catch on at all.

And that's how mistakes happen.

That can be quite dangerous, honestly, if you can't run

something like this, which is not simple, but a lot more

simple than another piece of equipment.

[truck crashes]

Oh, [bleeps] somebody dumped her.

[Tony speaking]

[Tony speaking]

At Tony Beets Early Bird cut, another $300,000 rock truck

has flipped.

[Tony speaking]

[man] Yeah.

[Tony laughs]

[Mason] A little soft.

[Tony speaking]

[Mason] Yeah, a little bit.

Experienced driver Mason MacIntyre has flipped

his first truck.

[Mason] OK.

[Tony speaking]

Tony uses the 480 excavator to empty the rock truck's box of

dirt and push it upright.

Part of me is happy to see that it happens to other people

besides me, but I mean, I feel for the guy.

It's pretty unpleasant when the box flips over

on your rock truck.

[Mason] Thank you, Tony.

That's my first truck I tipped over.

It was a little scary. Tony was pretty relaxed.

I think I had the luck, 'cause I'm here

in my second season.

Tony's crew are back in the rigs to get down to pay

before Sluice-A-Lot runs out.

[sighs] I asked Troy to come down and meet me here.

Um...

I'm basically gonna tell him that

his contract is bull[bleep].

I mean, I don't know what he wants me to do with this.

I'm not budging off that ground, and I'm not signing

this, so we need to come to some kind of compromise.

[tense music playing]

After moving his crew to a new claim on Lightning Creek,

Rick Ness has called a meeting with landlord Troy Taylor

to negotiate the terms of the lease.

-Hey, Troy. -Hey, Rick.

-How you doing? -Good.

[Troy] Good to see you.

[Rick groans]

We gotta put some signatures on paper and make it legal.

[Rick] There's no way.

I have gone over the contract and a lot of things that

I don't like.

It says that you have the right to change the mining plan

at any time.

You can pull my equipment and my personnel when

you see fit.

There's an awful lot of power going in your hands here.

I mean, I would like to think that our last contract

went pretty smooth.

I think it's coming down to a trust thing.

And, you know, for me right here in this contract,

it looks like you don't trust me at all.

And so, I'm kinda wondering why I trust this, you know?

Yeah, I get that. It's nothing personal.

It's just since the last agreement,

things have changed so much.

With the water licenses these days, if there's any blemish,

if you are doing anything wrong, maybe you weren't here

on a day that something's going sideways,

it will be reflected on me.

It could result in getting my water license revoked.

I wanna keep mining, so I have to...

I have to have some teeth in this agreement.

I kinda see where you're coming from, Troy, but I don't

believe that this level of supervision is necessary.

I mean, I don't wanna feel like I'm looking over

my shoulder all the time, and that's why I brought this,

um...

you know, off the bat.

That's 100 ounces that I owe you as the minimum royalty

on this deal.

And I'd be willing to give that to you upfront right now today

and get rid of this.

[dramatic chord plays]

Oh boy, from my perspective, if I don't have some control in

the agreement, that's all I've got.

I can't back up on that. I just can't.

I understand it's gotta be a tough one to --

tough pill to swallow.

Um.

[exhales heavily]

What if I buy it?

[intriguing music playing]

That's um -- that's a big one for me.

I would need another, another 200 ounces

on top of this. -So 300 ounces total?

Yes.

Ah.

It's just, it's just too much.

You know, I get that ground is at a premium with

a water license right now, but it's a lot of [bleep] money

on the line and I won't be squeezed.

It's just not gonna happen.

How about I get you another hundred ounces?

That's 200 ounces total, and then we call that good.

[intriguing music continues]

I'm still responsible for the water license until

I get paid.

As you know, I'm still on the hook.

How about...

by the end of the month, and then we part ways?

This is gone. Your name's off it.

-I take over the ground. -In a month?

[Rick] In a month. Your liability's gone.

You're paid.

Rick, that's a lot of gold to produce in a month.

You've got a lot of stuff to do still.

If that's what it's gonna take to mine this ground

my way, that's -- that's what we're gonna do.

I'll make it happen.

Well, I like your determination.

Let's do it.

-Call it good? -Yeah.

-[chuckles] -All right.

[chuckles]

-[Rick] All right. -Deal done.

Well, we don't need this anymore.

-[Rick exhales] -[Troy chuckles]

Rick Ness has just purchased another 1,600 acres of land

for $700,000 in gold.

I'm not sure what I just did.

I think I came out on top.

Gold prices are higher than ever, but right now it seems

that a ground with a water license on it is even harder

to find. -He owns it.

It's all his.

So, I hope it's good ground, and I wish him the best.

The guys are probably gonna question this.

This ground is...

We haven't even sluiced it yet, but we did test it.

We know there's gold, so I need to get this ground.

I need to just get this going.

This was the only way I saw how to do it.

Whoo!

We've hired a lot of people this year.

-I'm Ethan. -I'm Raya.

I'm Jordan.

[Tyson] They've come with a range of skills.

I've milked cows my whole life.

-Demolition side of things. -I was a line cook before this.

The revolving door of new people is not gonna stop this year.

New recruits have come from far and wide.

I went for a motorcycle ride 3,500 kilometers from home to

find Parker. -[Parker] Hello.

-Hey, Parker. -You're Steve, right?

[Steve] Yes, yes. Good to meet you.

[Parker] I heard that you just showed up on a motorcycle.

[Steve] Yeah. It's sitting at your office.

I saw it there, and I was like, "[bleep] that."

And then today is not the day for tourists.

And then Nona found me and was like, "Oh, he's in the loader."

[Tyson laughs]

You know, I've been running equipment for 30 years,

and I've always dreamed of coming up here doing this.

Do you have, like, work clothes and stuff?

This is it.

[Parker] He's, like, literally in his riding clothes.

-[Tyson laughs] -[Parker] Glad to have you on board.

Can you take a picture?

[Tyson] Here you go, Steve.

♪♪

At the Early Bird extension, Tony is panning

to see if his crew has hit pay.

[Jacob speaking]

♪♪

-Good morning. -[Sam] Good morning.

[Tony speaking]

-Not exactly. -[Tony speaking]

OK, I see that.

[Tony laughs softly]

There's lots of colors in there.

It looks good.

You know, sparkles up at the top.

-[Mason] Yeah. -[Tony speaking]

[Jacob] Oh for sure.

[Jacob] Yeah.

[Sam] Yes, sir.

Yeah, seeing that pan of gold with some gold in it was nice.

I've had a few mistakes coming in here, but, you know,

seeing the gold makes it worth it.

Hello, family.

[Tony speaking]

-Good, how are you? -[Minnie] How are you?

Bring it over here, Michael.

After a turbulent week at Indian River, Tony is ready to

weigh the gold from the Early Bird cut.

How's your new crew doing?

[indistinct]

[Michael] Most mine are returnees, so...

Yeah.

Do you wanna see the fruits of your labors?

Last week, the Early Bird cut delivered 214 ounces.

[bright music builds]

-[Minnie] You ready, Mike? -[Michael] Yep.

Ten, 20, 30,

60, 70, 80.

Hundred, 110, 120, 130,

hundred...forty.

142.14.

Worth nearly half a million dollars, bringing Tony's total

to 774 ounces.

But it's a drop in production.

If Tony is going to hit his 6,500-ounce goal,

his extension of the Early Bird cut will have to deliver

a big improvement.

So we're still a little ways off from our goal.

It's still pretty early.

But I think everybody should go back to work.

[Monica] Sounds good.

[Monica] Bye.

Love you.

♪♪

-Where's Chris? -[laughs] He didn't hear us.

[Parker] Chris?

[Brennan] Oh, his new hearing aids really don't work.

[Tyson laughs]

-[Chris] Sorry, I'm late. -No, you're fine.

[Tyson] Anything crazy happen down on your end?

-It's just lots of dirt. -[Tyson] Yeah.

Just trying to stack everything up.

[Tyson] Yeah, we're really limited on space.

It's very tight up there.

Mitch and Brennan have been stripping ground

at Sulphur Creek.

While at Dominion, Tyson's kept two washplants sluicing

with new crew.

[Chris] You got a new plant operator, Amy?

-Yep. -[Chris] How's she doing?

-She's doing really good, yeah. -Is she?

[Tyson] Going from being a school teacher to a loader operator,

so that's definitely the change of pace for her.

But yeah, she's doing really good.

Is it though?

If she was like a kindergarten to fifth grade,

it's probably not that much different.

[laughs]

I have to talk really slow to these guys,

so they understand me. Don't eat the crayons.

Two plants running, though, all week?

-Yeah, two plants. -You got two plants, man.

You're responsible for both of 'em.

Here we go, Sluicifer.

Washplant Sluicifer's been running in the Golden Mile

all week, and Parker's hoping to see an uptick

from last week's 112 ounces.

[Tyson] Let's see how the Golden Mile did.

Ten, 30, 40, 70,

80, a hundred ounces.

There's 120, 130, 150, 152 even.

Worth over $530,000, a 35% increase from last week.

-Perfect. -[Chris] That's a lot better.

[Parker] A lot better.

[Chris] Picked up a few ounces over last week.

-[Tyson] Definitely. -Working some kinks out.

[Tyson] Yeah.

Next up, Bob at the Bridge Cut,

which is averaging 143 ounces a week.

We got 30, 50, 80, 100,

120, 140, 150, 156.2.

Worth almost $550,000.

[Mitch] Wow, that was close, eh?

Yeah.

-Those two plants are... -Four ounces off each other?

[Chris] Just a couple ounces off of each other.

-That's weird. -[Tyson] Yeah, that's crazy.

This week, we got 308.2 ounces,

which gives us a season total of 707.9.

Tyson has nearly doubled their season total.

[Tyson] You know, last year at this time, we were talking about

10,000 ounces, and we were all thinking it was pretty doable.

Are we thinking we're gonna do it this year?

You're too early to ask that question.

[all laugh gently]

[Parker] You guys need to get on the board now.

-[Mitch] Yeah. -Oh, dear.

Hopefully next week, there'll be three pans lined

up there. -[Parker] There will be.

-Right? -Yeah.

[all laugh]

[Mitch] Sounds like we don't got a choice.

All right. Have a good one.

Thanks, Chris.