Original subtitles

dramatic chord strike]

Hi.

Hi.

How are you?

Oh.

Oh!

So, Tony, we lost seven good people.

Jacob, too.

All left in the middle of the night,

and they all went to Parker.

I guess so.

Yeah.

You know, it's not gonna stop us.

I mean, the core group of us is still here.

After losing seven crew members, King of the Klondike,

Tony Beets, is forced to get his hands dirty to keep

the gold flowing.

To date, Tony's put $16 million in gold in the box.

Just last week, he hit his biggest gold weigh

of the season, 672 ounces, and he wants another

mega payday by the end of the week.

Cousin Mike is running two washplants

in the 46-acre Corner Cut.

At the north end is Tony's heavy-hitter, Sluice-A-Lot.

1,500 feet south sits his new

million-dollar plant, Find-A-Lot.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

You're running right over the cone.

But after the defection, Cousin Mike's now left

with inexperienced crew.

It's not great.

You got to train people constantly.

So this means more work for me.

I just got on the excavator loading Sluice-A-Lot.

Enjoying myself.

Without a seasoned operator to feed washplant Sluice-A-Lot,

Cousin Mike's given the job to Darian Dennis,

who's been a gold miner for just one year.

I'm from Jamaica, originally.

I'm actually taking a pilot course.

Eventually, I want to fly for one of the big airlines.

This is, in my opinion, the dream team.

In the 350 loader, Meghan Roberts clears tailings.

We worked together last season.

Both of us have, like,

good attention to detail, hard workers.

Being up here is just, you know,

a lot of responsibility,

but like Spider Man said,

"With great responsibility comes great power,"

something like that, you know?

Darian, do you copy Darian?

Do you hear that?

There's something wrong with the plant.

There's a noise that normally isn't there.

It doesn't sound good.

Cousin Mike, do you copy Cousin Mike?

Something's really wrong with the plant.

We shut it down, but you need to get here as soon as you can.

Oh, it's pretty bad.

Pretty bad.

We've got the feeder here.

It pushes all the material onto the deck, and there's supposed

to be a whole chunk of metal here, an impact bed.

So not only is this piece broken off,

it's rattled through the plant.

So yeah, this is [bleep].

And he didn't hear it, eh?

Yeah, that's what he says.

Yeah.

You can't tell me you didn't hear that.

You're either not paying attention

or you're full of [bleep].

I'm gonna send the operator to his room.

A pretty big [bleep] up.

Yeah.

Sluice-A-Lot's impact bed has fallen into the plant,

smashing up the whole top shaker deck.

I'm moving, I'm moving.

Yeah, we can cuddle.

Oh!

On the call, Sluice-A-Lot's manufacturer,

Jeff Turnell.

Uh...

That sounds great.

I did, yeah.

To me, I think your best action is gonna be taking

that top deck out and replacing it.

I can have that ready to ship Friday.

Yeah, bye.

We'd have to take the whole top off, right?

OK.

It's the main part of your plant, really, here.

So it's basically like rebuilding

the whole [bleep] plant.

It's gonna be a big job.

With the people leaving

and now downtime sluicing,

we don't have time for that [bleep].

Tony has been punched in the gut.

They'll have to dismantle and rebuild the entire $21,000

top deck, with the downtime costing Tony over $190,000

a day in lost production.

I've been a lot more hands-off this year.

We've got four washplants running, which is crazy,

but we have a long ways to go.

31-year-old Parker Schnabel's season is in danger

of coming off track.

14 weeks in, he's banked over $22 million in gold.

But his numbers are slipping.

Last week, he had his worst gold weigh yet.

It's a little disheartening. It's a bit scary.

Parker's spending $100,000 a day running four washplants

in an ever-expanding operation.

At Ken and Stuart's,

Rocksand has nearly mined out Pit One.

Now, Parker wants a second pit, twice the size,

done by the end of the season.

At Dominion, washplant Bob has half

the massive Bridge Cut still to mine,

while Sluicifer and Big Red

are only a third of the way through the Golden Mile.

Priority now is just keeping those washplants running

at all costs, so we always need a lot more people.

We've been getting a lot of crew coming over from Tony's,

which is nice and helpful for us.

We treat them as good as we can.

We pay them as well as we can.

Wasn't very much fun working at Tony's, always worried about

what to do, what to say, all that, whether you're gonna

get yelled at or whether Tony was in a good mood or not.

Everyone's always in a good mood here.

Way better place to work.

At Parker's, it's more relaxed, stress-free.

You know what you're doing.

It's a little weird to hear please and thank yous

all the time, rather than somebody that's just being called

a [bleep] at 7:30 in the morning.

When you compare to Tony Beets, that's like he's

on a very, very far, far end of a spectrum in terms

of how you treat people.

That's fine. That's Tony's style.

It's none of my business.

But, you know, early years, I was terrible.

I was a dick. But you live and learn, right?

It definitely annoys me hiring all these new people,

and they just come and get to run whatever piece

of equipment they want.

But the people that have been here a while are just kind

of stuck where they are.

It definitely, like, upsets people.

Like, poor Evan has been working here for [bleep] years.

And he knows how to run a hoe,

but yet they keep him still running a plant,

which I think is bull[bleep].

The new people come in and just get to do

whatever they want, really.

We've hired on quite a few new guys, and they

used to work for Tony.

The more help, the better over here.

I'm not too sure what's going on over there.

Foreman Tyson now has to get the new crew up to speed.

Just got hired on at Parker Schnabel's

mine site three days ago.

It's way better here, it's awesome.

Food's better, camp's better, people are nice.

You actually get appreciated for the work that you do.

Tyson's handed the crucial role of feeding Sluicifer,

one of two washplants running side by side

in the Golden Mile,

to Beets' defector, Rick Raymond.

I wouldn't say I'm a pro or anything, but I know

a certain amount, enough to get stuff done.

Rick loads pay into the hopper,

which travels up the 120-foot SuperStacker

into the washplant.

As long as you're doing your job and not screwing up,

I think you're pretty good.

[bleep] Yeah, go ahead.

- OK, sorry about that. - You're all good, man.

Oh, hey. She's [bleep] smoking.

SuperStacker's [bleep] jammed up.

Whoa!

[bleep].

Holy [bleep].

Stacker [bleep] stopped, started pouring dirt over.

I just seen it over there.

At Dominion Creek, Sluicifer's SuperStacker has

jammed, causing the generator to surge and smoke,

shutting down the plant on the watch of new hire Rick.

Rick, I guess he wasn't paying attention.

It looks like it was running for a while

and the kid didn't notice.

So now we got to go do a whole [bleep] pile of shoveling,

try and get this thing back up and washing rocks.

We don't have time to be [bleep] around

and wasting on, you know, stupid [bleep] like this.

I didn't see it happen.

Just happened to look up and it was plugged.

Ah, [bleep].

Looks like our SuperStacker quit.

There's smoke coming out of this box.

Parker bought the SuperStacker

earlier this season,

with 20,000 hours already on the clock.

She's got some

electric gremlins for sure.

We're gonna be down for an hour just shoveling,

it's a huge pain in the ass.

It's a good thing Sean spotted the pile over when he did,

because, [bleep], if he didn't,

we'd be here for way longer than an hour.

I'm sorry, I'm just [bleep] tired out.

Rick just isn't cutting it.

He's, uh...

I don't know what they did over at Beets' there,

but yeah, he's not really

getting the program here with sluicing, so I'm gonna have

to come up with something else.

Do you think you're good?

Yeah.

All right.

Good for a test?

Well, it looks like it's all there mechanically.

Our power supplies are working

and everything's moving as it should.

I think we're just gonna fire up.

- Hey, Sean, how's it going, man? - Good, buddy.

Gonna need to find something else for Rick to do.

So do you mind jumping in a loader for us

and feeding Sluicifer? - Yeah, yeah, no problem, man.

Looks like our SuperStacker is stacking for now.

Sluicifer's online and that means we're making money.

Really lucky I was here to see that and catch it

at the right time.

This isn't a little [bleep] show

like Tony's got going over there.

This is where the big boys play.

All right, let's take that steel out.

It's jammed.

Cousin Mike has the weight

of Tony's operation on his shoulders.

Shorthanded after a load of crew defected to Parker's.

Ah, [bleep].

He's battling to get Sluice-A-Lot

back washing rocks for Tony

after the catastrophic break of the top deck.

OK, one more like that.

Yeah.

[bleep] yeah.

Piece of [bleep].

It's a lot heavier than you think.

On the other side of the cut,

Find-A-Lot is now Tony's only working washplant.

Over millennia,

gold sinks through gravel until it hits solid bedrock.

Often, the richest paystreaks are found right above

this impenetrable surface.

But water can seep into hairline cracks and over time

freeze and expand, causing fractures

that fill with gold.

Tony believes there's a bumper payday in the jagged bedrock,

and is willing to risk the sharp rocks damaging

his washplant to get more ounces.

Overseeing Find-A-Lot are Beets' veterans Eric Morel

and his girlfriend, Agnes Viger.

Oh, [bleep].

At Indian River, Tony's only working washplant, Find-A-Lot,

is jammed with jagged bedrock.

For [bleep] sakes.

This is what happens when you wash bedrock.

As you can see, it's sharp. It doesn't roll.

When two big pieces meet each other, they don't slide past

each other, so that's what you get.

Then the other rocks come in

and it'll spill all over the place.

Sluice-A-Lot's not running,

And now Find-A-Lot is down as well.

So at the moment, the company is making no money.

Both plants down means Tony's losing $16,000 an hour.

We better get these rocks out of here

and get at least these plants on the go.

Good thing our operator was paying attention.

The girl on the tailings paid attention.

They shut the plant off quick.

We really got to get her going.

I'd say that's all right, or what?

Yeah, good enough.

Looking good, rocks are gone. Let's fire it back up.

Because the crew spotted the jam quickly, Find-A-Lot

was down less than an hour.

And Tony will soon find out if his gamble to run bedrock will

deliver him a big payday.

Washing rocks again!

Making some money again, at least with this plant.

We'll move on, we'll go to Sluice-A-Lot

and start getting that thing on the go, too.

Well, Chris, how's the last run looking here?

- Oh, it's chunky. - Nice.

At Parker's Indian River claim, foreman Mitch Blaschke

is making a pit stop as he transitions from Pit One

to Pit Two.

We're just running out of days here, so my big concern is,

is there actually any gold in it?

There might be more,

but that one just stuck out to me.

A nugget for good luck.

Pit One has delivered just 500 ounces in four weeks.

Now, Mitch is in a race to get sluicing at Pit Two,

and increase Parker's weekly gold total.

This washplant move needs to be the fastest one

that we've done this season.

All righty, time for moving Rocksand.

So, Sean, you can have that road done and ready by the time

we get there with the washplant parts.

We need to have this thing back up and running by the end

of the day for night shift.

So it's a lot to do, but I think we can make

it happen. - All right, let's do it.

All right.

At the Indian River, Mitch and his crew spent

four weeks mining out the eight-acre Pit One.

Now Mitch needs to break up Rocksand,

ready to move to a new pad

three quarters of a mile away

in the new 15-acre Pit Two.

But first, Sean needs to finish building the road

that connects the two paths.

Once he's done, Mitch can haul Rocksand to its new home

and get sluicing by the end of the day.

Normally this is all stuff we'd have done,

have it ready and prepped.

Just being short-handed is kind of a pain in the ass.

So just try and pull it out

and towards me a little bit here.

First time I've ever

done anything like this.

I feel like it's putting some trust on me to be able

to do this. It's nice to see.

After four years running truck and loader, Parker's trialing

Evan Kurtz on excavator.

His first task-- drag Sluicifer's twin sluice runs

onto the lowboy.

I kind of know what I'm doing, but I also don't really know

what the [bleep] I'm doing.

Oh, that's close!

- So I'm a little nervous. - That's real easy.

We couldn't have cut that any tighter.

Yeah, buddy, nice and easy.

The 20-foot runs must be dead center on the trailer bed,

or they risk tipping off the side.

Ah! Going pretty smoothly here.

Keep going. Keep going.

Yep. Twist it.

One more of that.

Perfect, stop. Nice job, man!

Look at you go!

That's so much just anxiety.

Alrighty, let's get rolling.

So we got everything loaded up, chained down.

Oh, man.

Hm... that's not good.

We're not gonna be making it down.

So you can see here just how soft this is.

We get this truck on here with all the weight

of the washplant,

I think we're gonna get ourselves hung up.

I got a giant roadblock from where I'm at

to where I gotta be.

Oh, man...

At Ken and Stuart's, Sean's unfinished road has

thrown a curveball at Mitch's plan to be up and running

by nightshift.

I was hoping we'd be a bit further along than this.

She's gone to the other end there.

I just had to give it a quick back drag back, smooth it out.

After you get over 100,000 pounds up on this,

then we're just gonna be sinking right up to the axles.

We got to try and get this compacted.

Like, not just do we need it flat, but it's got to be

firm, you know? - Yeah.

Yeah, we got to do something about this.

We're just burning time.

I was trying my best to get it done as soon as I could,

but obviously it wasn't quick enough.

Let's go get her.

There is no [bleep] way

that semi would make it through this road right now.

Alongside Sean's D10 dozer, Mitch brings in the loader,

rock truck, and 480 excavator

using the weight of the machines

to compact the top layer of sand.

We got all hands on deck trying to get this road

finished so we can get this plant where it needs

to go and assembled.

It's all about getting that plant shaking

and getting that gold.

So you can see here from running the trucks on it,

just the difference this has made, how much compaction

there is now.

So we should be good to go here.

We're gonna try and roll across it.

All right, here we go.

We're going to take it right down the middle here.

Come on, baby!

We got some sluicing to do.

Yeah, buddy.

All right, buddy. Go for it.

You're gonna go all the way to the edge.

Keep going. Keep going.

That'll do it.

We got our sluice runs where we want them.

It's time to grab the shaker deck.

It's gonna run out of real estate.

That might be good there.

Right on, buddy.

We're gonna go back, get the feeder, hook up

the water line, and this baby should be running by the end

of the day.

Keep coming. Keep coming.

Keep coming. Keep coming.

- You're good there. - Yeah, there we go.

Ha-ha!

- Nice job, buddy. - Thank you, sir.

You know, you're really, really stepping up.

Sweet.

We got a pile of pay over there.

It's time to turn it into some gold.

All right, here we go. There we go.

Hey, Sean, send me some water, buddy.

What do you think, Evan?

You ready to put some dirt in this thing?

Here we go.

Ha! We are back sluicing!

Just in time for night shift, Mitch and the crew are sluicing

Pit Two with all eyes on the new pit to pay out.

How's it going, man?

- Good, how are you? - Not too bad.

You guys got her moved in a hurry.

Mainly just the two of you and Sean?

- Yeah. - Pretty much.

Dude, you guys are smashing it.

Yeah.

Tony's plans for another monster week on the gold

are falling apart.

He's lost crew to Parker.

His main plant at Indian River is down.

Now he's checking in with son Mike, who's been trying to get

the trommel running all season.

It's right over there.

Last week, Mike dug a feeder pond and installed a pump,

but despite his best efforts,

the trommel still isn't turning.

He's got problems with his water pipes.

Yeah.

40 miles away...

Sluice-A-Lot's been out of action for five days,

but the new top deck has finally arrived.

Now Cousin Mike must remove the old one

before installing the new frame.

An epic task, which will cost him

another whole day of sluicing.

Keith is gonna cut the deck in half.

Then we'll give it a pull with a crane, yank it out.

Yeah.

The longer we take,

the more money it costs. So we better hurry up.

Oh, yeah. There's a lot of torque.

Whoo!

Nice.

Oh, yeah!

That's what we were looking for.

Hopefully, our new deck goes in as easy as this one come out.

We'll take these side plates out,

and then we'll put the new deck in from the top.

Almost broke in half.

We should do it a little more gentle.

- Let's all hold it. - Yeah.

Whoa!

OK.

- Right there? - A little bit more.

It's gonna be [bleep] close.

Yeah, I think more my way.

OK, we're on the frame over here.

Oh, [bleep].

Yeah, [bleep].

I didn't think of that one.

OK, come-alongs.

Come-alongs.

If it doesn't fit, we got the manifold in the way.

So now we gotta let one side down to get underneath

the frame there.

But at the same time, we gotta get underneath

the spray bars on the side.

So we're gonna have to have one corner up

and three corners down.

So that's where the come-alongs come in.

Cousin Mike uses hand-operated winches, or "come-alongs,"

positioned to allow the crew

to precisely raise or lower each corner.

Whoo!

Oh, yeah.

- OK. - There we go.

We're [bleep] in there now.

It feels good, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does.

OK, so it's gonna come my way and down.

OK, whoa.

- That's it. - It looks good.

Yay!

Last job, secure the deck and put new screens in.

There we go.

The new shaker deck is in.

So we better get this plant fired up and back to sluicing.

It's cost them six days of sluicing and over

a million dollars in lost gold production.

Hit it! Off we go.

But Tony's Indian River washplants

are back on the gold.

I'm glad I'm still in the excavator feeding the plant

because people have been fired for less, you know.

Let's get that gold, man.

Finally, we're sluicing.

That went all right.

I would say so.

No problem.

- Hi, guys. - Hello.

- Hello. - Hi.

He didn't bring a big tray. Oh, there it is.

You guys need a fly light in here, because holy [bleep].

- Yeah, it's pretty bad. - Bzz, bzz, bzz!

Yeah, look at that.

Maybe we should have a shower.

So, I hear you need new employees.

Yeah.

Some actually last a little longer, which is kind of nice

because it's a lot less paperwork.

Now we at least know where the rejects go, right?

Yeah. To Parker's.

Anyways, it's all good.

I don't give a rat's ass.

Next.

I heard Sluice-A-Lot was down for a big part of the week.

Yeah. A big chunk out of the

top deck broke off.

It's not too bad. Got it fixed, right?

How's the trommel doing?

OK, anyways, you guys only ran for about 24 hours

after you fixed it? - 24 hours for this week.

Yeah, OK. Let's see what we got.

From its seven day run last week, Sluice-A-Lot scored

over 330 ounces.

But this week, the plant ran for just 24 hours.

5, 10, 15...

20, 25, 30, 35...

45.48.

Worth $159,000.

That kind of hurts a little.

Well, this one's very full.

Who wants to count?

Michael, Miguel, brother of mine.

I don't have my glasses with me.

Keep forgetting that you have glasses now.

You have glasses?

He's looking very sophisticated.

Are you ready?

10, 20...

All week, washplant Find-A-Lot ran bedrock,

which Tony's gambling will deliver over 200 ounces.

...140, 150, 160, 170, 180.

237.68.

Worth over $830,000.

Perfect.

True that.

This week's gold takes Tony to a season total

of 4,894 ounces,

worth over $17 million.

Why don't you guys bring all this stuff away,

and then you and I can go back to the Hill?

Are you talking to me?

Bye, children.

- Bye. - Goodbye.

Hi.

What?

Any single person,

like not even on this mine site, anybody could like give

him a treat, let him in their vehicle, and he would

just become their dog. - Got food?

- OK. - Yeah.

Let's do it.

Come on, lay down.

He's like, "I don't wanna do that."

Gotta be on his timeline.

Yeah.

So you've got a bunch of like new Tony guys.

Yeah.

Some of them are hella nervous.

They are like beaten dogs.

They're all doing really good, but...

we had Rick running Sluicifer there and he didn't notice

a pile up in Sluicifer and luckily Sean was there

and jumped into action and... - Who's Rick?

He's gone.

He don't work here no more.

Well, Doumitt, shall we see what we did?

Yeah, we could do that.

Recent gold weighs from all four plants

totaled in the 400s.

Now, Parker's looking to get back to 550 ounces or more.

Mitch, we're gonna start with Rocksand, because you guys had

a plant move. Last of the old cut.

All right, let's see what Rocksand did here.

We got 20...

Last week, Ken and Stuart's Pit One

got 100 ounces.

70...

76.3.

Worth over $260,000.

That's the last of Cut One.

That's the end of it.

OK, Tyson, we got Big Bob here.

Alrighty, let's see how Bob did in the Bridge Cut.

Ten...

This season, in Dominion Creek's Bridge Cut,

Bob has averaged nearly 160 ounces a week.

100, 110...

120.7.

Worth $422,000.

- It's not bad. - Not bad.

You're in three digits, can't argue.

Yeah.

- And then the Golden Mile. - All righty.

Let's see how two washplants did together.

Last week, Sluicifer and Big Red

delivered 247 ounces.

20, 40...

80...

160...

200...

236.4.

Worth over $820,000.

- Nice. - Yeah, it's not bad.

Last week, we had 453 ounces on the nose.

This week, it's 433.4.

Parker's numbers have dropped now for the second week in

a row, and with Parker spending close to a million dollars

a week, he can't afford for it to slide anymore.

Things have definitely slowed down

since the beginning of the season.

We started really good, and we're kinda...

going downhill.

We need somehow to pick that back up...

- Yeah. - ...and get back on schedule.

He's telling you guys to find better ground.

Well, I'm trying to do it nicely.

It's too late for that.

OK.

Our season total, 6,742.3.

All right, thanks, guys.

- All right, gentlemen. - Later, have a good one.

- Thanks, Chris. - You bet.

Come on, Bosco! It's dinner time.

This week, numbers have gone down again,

and we really need to step it up.

Good plants, good people, hopefully some good ground,

then we'll make it.