Original subtitles

So there goes the last bit of pay.

Easy Street is done.

That's it.

Big Red is done sluicing.

Hey, Mitchell.

What's happening, man?

I went back and checked through our records and stuff.

And if you can get Big Red moved and fired up before the end of the week,

we have a really good chance of breaking 50,000 ounces over Parker's mining career.

Man, that's crazy.

- What a milestone. - Ooh.

That's washing a whole bunch of rocks.

That's a whole bunch of rocks.

Yeah. That'd be a pretty sweet gold weigh,

50,000 ounces over the years.

We're so close, and hopefully this will be a surprise for him.

Well, man, that'd be really cool to hit.

- You got it, buddy. - Thanks a lot, man.

- See you later. - Cool, man.

27-year-old Parker Schnabel's drive for gold is unstoppable.

Now in his tenth season in the Klondike,

he's pushing his crew to mine more ground than ever before.

And the clock is ticking.

With the license expiring here,

for us, it's either mine it or lose it.

And Alaska is just icing on the cake

in terms of being spread too thin.

We have to start getting closer to Alaska.

We are a little bit closer, but not close enough.

Before he splits his forces and opens another claim in Alaska,

Parker wants all 90 acres of the airstrip down to pay dirt.

So far, the team has stripped 40 acres

and mined 1,500 ounces worth nearly three million dollars.

When you've got a lot of projects going on,

it all boils down to the people you've got.

And we've got really good people.

I think we're close.

Parker's wash plant, Big Red,

just knocked out the 11 acre Easy Street cut.

Now he needs the 50-ton beast moved 500 feet

to partner up with Slucifer,

and help tackle the 23-acre Bear Cut to stay on track.

It's good to see Slucifer for washing rocks,

but our whole season depends on two plants running.

Bear Cut, it's like a quarter of the area we have to mine this year.

So a lot hinges on our ability to get through it.

We need two plants in there.

As Tony would say, "ASP."

Slucifer's doing its thing,

but we're only halfway there.

Today, we just have to focus on getting Big Red set up.

And then in the Bear Cut, we need to get it down there,

and we need to start putting it back together.

We don't want to have a day of downtime.

First up...

You ready, Mitch?

Let's do it, man.

Mitch hauls Big Red onto the 15-foot-high pad.

Here we go!

Man, it'll be nice seeing both wash plants going.

Got her about right on the edge here.

You're happy?

That ought a work.

Next, the crew must line up the 100-foot long radial stacker

to feed pay to the plant.

This is probably the most technical part as far as no room for error,

where the conveyor drops into the free wash.

There's no side-to-side.

It's either there or it's not.

How do we look?

Gonne be pretty close by the time it unfolds.

Hopefully this wind doesn't blow it right over when it's unfolding.

So we just got to be real careful here.

Strong winds have risen.

One gust could send the radial stacker or Tyson

crashing 20 feet to the ground.

Looks like as we're going up, Alec, it's creeping forward.

Is that what you're seeing?

Oh, ****

We got one tire off the bead here,

so she's not going to want to walk.

We've got a flat on one of our power wheels here,

so we're going to have to get some air in it,

'cause with all this weight out there, it's not wanting to walk.

Oh, yeah.

Now as long as it'll bead back up.

- There we go. Good to go. - Awesome.

All right, Tyson, you ready?

Swaying around a lot up here, so be careful.

Man, these things are sketchy,

especially when there's about 50 mile an hour wind blowing.

All right, here we go.

Coming down.

So we just got to be nice and gentle.

Whoa! Whoa, whoa. Bring her up a bit.

You think she looks good there?

What do you think?

Looking like a wash plant.

It's starting to.

Well, man, I'm really glad they were able to get it right on the money.

Looking at where Big Red's sitting,

the conveyor going into it looks real nice.

- Let's do her. - One step at a time.

One of the last pieces for Big Red into place.

So this is the moment Big Red fires up.

Then things are going to get pretty chaotic around here pretty quick.

There she goes.

Oh, yeah, it's go time.

Then we'll be making some good money.

Here we are, two wash plants running,

and one hell of a lot of work that went into making it happen.

Just a matter of keeping everything running or working well right now.

And all we can do is hope days like that for the rest of the season.

King of the Klondike, Tony Beets,

is betting his season on two big cuts on Paradise Hill.

So far, they've delivered 828 ounces.

But now, there's a problem.

With the pay dirt from his two massive cuts too frozen to run,

his trommel is at a standstill.

But with Tony being Tony, there's always a backup plan.

Go ahead, Tony.

Cool.

Firing it up.

It's hot today. I'm grouchy.

Tony has tasked Eric Ejolia

with clearing waist tailings to stop them building up at the end of the trommel.

Uh...

Yeah.

Oh, ****, it looks like there's a **** of hydraulic oil

pissing out of the 460.

I shut down the plant.

Yeah, go ahead.

Our excavator broke down.

I'm at the plant. We have a problem.

I'm dealing with it.

He said it wouldn't move when he shut it down,

so I assumed it wouldn't move.

Do me a favor.

Get out of my face and leave this... Leave.

At Paradise Hill, Mike Beets has shut down the trommel.

No, I do not!

Yes!

Why bother? I get **** cussed at every time.

Every single time!

I do.

Yeah.

Where are you off to?

Okay.

Okay.

Well, you should be in a good mood.

Like I like to say, one little thing can bring down an entire machine.

And, like, if it's in the bad spot,

it can take down the entire operation.

With the 460 down the way it's down,

there is currently the trommel, two excavators,

and the rock truck, all held up cause of the leak.

So... Okay, where are you all coming from?

Oh, possibly this one right here.

It looks to be an O-ring,

so I got to pull this line off and investigate.

Something's missing.

Not a O-ring. In the ****...

Measuring just one-and-a-half inches in diameter,

the O-ring seals the pipe feeding hydraulic fluid to the excavator arm.

Let's see.

If this tiny rubber ring is broken,

hydraulic fluid leaks, causing a loss in pressure, paralyzing the boom.

Fire it up. Let's see what she does.

Oh, she lives!

Beautiful!

Okay, Ms. Megan. Firing up.

Folks might think, "what, it's just a bit of oil,"

but one little O-ring probably cost us a couple grand.

I've put a lot into this season.

I've refinanced our family home.

It's all on the line.

We have to make this work.

Deep in the wilds of the Yukon,

and eight weeks into his season,

green beret veteran, Fred Lewis,

hasn't mined an ounce of gold.

But that's about to change.

We set ourselves with a real aggressive 500 ounces gold this season.

But right now, we are behind our schedule.

We've exposed some pay up here in the front

that we hadn't pulled last season,

and the wash plant's complete.

With his wash plant from last season unavailable...

Will that thing even run?

It's gonna be the cat's meow.

Fred and crew member Buzz Legault

rebuilt an old 90-yard-an-hour plant.

I want to be running, I want to be sluicing,

I want to be weighing gold.

Now I've got to focus my team on getting that wash plant put into place.

Anytime soon, we're gonna be mining gold.

Fred's freshly painted wash plant, Sergeant Sluice,

is his third in just three years of mining.

All right, big girl.

Before they can start running pay dirt,

they first need to move the plant onto the pad.

- Hey, Buzz, you nervous at all? - Huh?

It's just, everyone's livelihood is just kind of sitting right in front of us.

Pretty confident.

But this is our baby.

Here we go.

It's a slow process.

You think we got enough room?

We're getting close to the edge there.

We're getting there, buddy.

Well, that's perfect.

- Sergeant Sluice. - Sergeant Sluice.

Sergeant Sluice.

- That looks great, doesn't it? - Yeah.

No, it's really, really good.

We're so close right now.

We've got to build the ramp to feed the wash plant.

So you drive the rock truck, I'll get in the 220.

- We just got to be moving, 'cause right now... - Yeah.

...time is money, literally.

Sounds good, bro.

On the brink of tasting his first gold of the season,

Fred first needs to truck in tailings from a thousand feet away

to build a ramp for the excavator that'll feed Sergeant Sluice.

All right, if we can get the rest of these tasks done,

and we could be mining before we know it.

Oh, come on, baby.

She's heavy.

At California Creek...

...a grounded rock truck has put the brakes

on building a ramp to feed the wash plant.

Hey, JB.

The rock truck is stuck. I need your help.

- Oh, man. Let's go. - Yeah.

I need you guys jumping in the 220.

So you're going to reach over behind,

and then you're going to basically just drive.

Yeah.

The fully-loaded rock truck weighs 66 tons.

The 220 is designed to lift around ten.

Let's do it, let's do it.

**** Be careful!

Stop, stop, stop, stop.

I can't... it won't go.

Not long enough?

How's that?

I think this is probably the best it's working.

Try to just drive, like use the pedals and just drive out.

Hell, yeah!

All right! All right!

One load down, four more to go.

I know when he comes back, he's going to sink.

This is bad.

A full-weighted rock truck is pretty doggone heavy.

All I'm doing right now is putting a band-aid on.

There's no way in hell he's going to make it.

Not with a full load.

I'm going to go ahead and give it the old college try.

He's not making it back through there again.

Yeah, and this is a heavy, heavy-ass load.

Yeah, come on! Go!

Go!

It's slipping right back into the hole.

Come on. ****

The Lewis crew's mission to get sluicing is once again at a standstill.

I got an idea here.

Hey Stu, dump a load of rocks.

All right, so you want me to drop a load right where that rut is then.

JB's plan,

reinforce the road with the tailings they need for the excavator ramp.

There we go.

Trying to fill this hole right here and see if we got a little bit more luck.

Hey, JB, how's it going down there?

I'm not an expert road builder,

but I think we got the hole filled anyway.

I really hope this works.

Look at that, man!

Look at that baby. That's what we needed.

That was a good call.

I think this is the last load.

The Sergeant's hungry.

I want to get set.

At Paradise Hill,

Tony Beets is waiting for frozen pay dirt in his two main cuts to thaw.

To keep the gold coming in,

he's making a smash-and-grab in one of his piggy banks, the Swallow Cut.

The trommel is being loaded with 300 yards of pay

from the Swallow Cut every hour.

That's not a good noise.

Man, turn that this off. That is loud.

Ugh, that sounds horrible.

Hey, Tony. You copy, Tony.

I think the gearbox and the conveyor is on the way out.

The gearbox turns the conveyor belt

which delivers the pay into the wash plant.

You got a spare? We can swap it out.

For the second time in a week,

Tony's only moneymaker is shut down.

I mean, it kind of sucks that we're gonna have to change that gearbox out.

But if we don't do it now, it's going to grenade.

I mean, it's the height of summer.

Let's not **** around.

The Beets have a spare gearbox.

It should be an easy swap.

This gearbox doesn't work.

I mean, like anything with the trommel,

I don't want to have to come back and do it twice.

So, that's why we gotta replace it with a new one that we know is good.

To fit the new gearbox,

Kevin needs to reuse the old bushing.

Let's see if she fits.

****

Yeah, that's not gonna work.

Ain't no way that's gonna work.

Not a chance.

We can't put the gearbox in until we have this piece.

Without it, everything's down.

We're not getting any gold.

So that means it'll be a couple days,

we lose a lot of sluicing hours that way.

Tony Beets' operation is at a standstill, thanks to a broken gearbox.

Where the **** is it?

But the replacement is missing the right sized bushing.

It's all the way down here.

Looks like S-O-****-L, **** out of luck.

Hey, Tony, got a copy? Tony.

Well, I'm about to put the new gearbox on,

and I can't find spare pieces.

Every hour the trommel is down, costs Tony $3,000.

**** Not having the thing is the usual big problem.

With no spares in his boneyard...

...Tony must now make an overnight trip to Whitehorse

to pick up the new bushings.

Okay.

Kev!

Somebody calling Kevin?

We may have found the pieces you need.

What's the inner diameter of it?

Cool. Make sure Tony doesn't leave.

I'm coming to the yard.

Tony. Copy, Tony.

We might be lucky.

Faith catches Tony just in time for Kevin to retrieve the gearbox.

Get it? Let's see...

Yeah, those look right.

Sweet, okay.

**** Perfect.

So, when I went through my containers,

all of a sudden, there's this box.

Oh, my **** This is somethings that Kevin needs.

**** Excellent. Okay.

Beautiful.

Now that we have all the right ****,

we just putting the new gearbox on.

Roughly there.

There we go. beautiful.

So, the trommel's been down for about seven hours now.

It's a lot of money not to be making.

So let's get this **** on.

Up we go.

Perfect.

Once everything's on the shaft,

I got to tighten everything up,

make sure everything lines up.

Then I think we just got to fill it with oil.

And we're **** giggling.

Trying, and we fire it right back up.

We gotta have this thing rolling.

Now that we have both plants up and going,

it's just all about keeping up with them.

Parker Schnabel's crew finally have Big Red and Slucifer

running side by side in the Bear Cut.

Those plants together make a lot of gold.

We got a really good shot of hitting 50,000 ounces,

something I never could have imagined when I started mining.

But really cool.

This season so far, it's been bit busy.

The busiest season that, for sure, I've been in.

Tatiana Costa is loading 200-yards-an-hour

of gold-rich pay dirt into Big Red.

Now we have both plants running,

it's been pretty hectic the last couple of days.

While Tyson Lee loads 220-yards-an-hour into Slucifer.

This is the whole thing we've been fighting for and striving for

since we started mining.

The challenges of having two plants side-by-side, working in one cut,

there's a lot more equipment in that cut.

And the operators just have to keep their eyes more.

Oh, ****. The grizzly bars won't go down.

Hey, Mitch. You got a copy, Mitch?

Yeah, Tat. What's up?

The grizzly bars on Big Red won't come down.

The grizzlies are stuck up?

It's just not responding to the remote.

Yeah, I'll be right there.

The grizzly bars prevent large rocks and debris

from getting into the wash plant and causing damage.

The loader operators use a small remote to activate the bars,

raising them up to clear the collected material,

and down again to protect the hopper feeder.

Hey, Tatiana, I'm gonna shut it down here,

and we'll have to see what's going on.

Well, right now our grizzly bars are stuck in the open position.

They should cycle and come back down,

and for some reason they're not here.

Well, that's not good.

What do you figure might be in the box here, Mitch?

This is all the timer and controller and everything for our grizzlies.

Let's take that connection off there,

and just see what it looks like.

First, Mitch and Alec test the electrical signal

that controls the grizzly bars.

Got anything? You should.

No.

- Nothing? - Nothing.

We're just not getting the signal to the downside.

So it's got an electrical problem.

Just got to figure out what and why.

How's things looking?

It's not happy.

What's wrong with it?

Seems that this controller here for our grizzlies has failed.

When it gets the signal,

it provides the power to the downside of that and the upside.

This isn't outputting, which more than likely is our problem.

The controller relays the signal

between the loader operator's remote and the grizzly bars.

If the controller isn't outputting that signal, the bars will remain stuck.

- But we just used this too, didn't we? - Yeah.

Parked it. Now it's not happy.

What do we do if we can't fix it?

Ah, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

That would be a **** disaster.

We don't have the resources here.

We might have a spare one of these.

I just can't remember if we ordered two or not.

You want to go look?

Okay. I'll go see what I can find.

If Parker doesn't have the spare remote in storage,

the worldwide supply-chain crisis

means it could be weeks before a new one arrives.

Is that a new one?

- Well... - Does it look new?

Looks different.

It looks expensive.

That's why I keep spare parts around.

We'll hook all this up and we'll cross our fingers here,

and hopefully it fixes it,

'cause if not, we're going to be in trouble.

Hmm. It has to fix it.

I'm really hopeful that this is gonna be the answer.

But we don't know until we put power to it and try it out.

Almost there.

So I put in the new controller,

just turned the power on, time to see if it works.

Is it gonna lower?

Come on, baby.

Yeah! There we go. That's awesome.

That's what we were looking for there.

You know, this big machine, even though it might look real robust,

just takes the smallest part to bring it to a stop.

And having this here has just saved us thousands and thousands of dollars.

So now that we got the feeder up and going,

it's about time to start this wash plant up.

This is my tenth year working with Parker,

and it's been fun to watch him grow up, mature,

both from a boy to a man,

and from a rookie miner to probably one of the best miners in the Yukon.

The kid knows his stuff.

Kind of proud of the kid.

Kinda.

Kid wonders why I drink all day long.

You work for him and see how long you'd go without a drink.

As I recall, Parker was maybe 20.

He said, over his life, he wants to recover 250,000 ounces of gold.

He's possibly a fifth of the way there.

Ooh, a fifth.

That's a good idea.

Well, the day is finally here.

We've got pay piled up from last year's cut,

and we are ready to sluice.

But it's a really big day for our team.

At California Creek,

nearly nine weeks into his season,

Fred and his crew are finally ready to fire up Sergeant Sluice,

and run pay dirt for the first time this season.

Here it **** is. Spent a lot of time building this wash plant.

Now we get to **** run it, It's gonna be, it's freaking awesome.

Last season, this pay dirt delivered over a 100 ounces of gold.

- You guys ready? - I'm ready.

- I'm giddy right now. - Oh, yeah.

So not only do we want to see our pay,

but we're going to see Sergeant Sluice in action for the first time.

Buzz, it's your baby.

You're going to show us how to feed it.

So you hop up in the excavator...

...fluff your pay, let's do this.

I think right now, I'm on like a probably eleven out of ten

for the excitement level,

knowing we have pay behind us and a wash plant with water, ready to roll.

I mean, we're going to be mining right now.

Can't get any better than that.

I'm excited.

Here we go. Firing up the generator.

All right. The genny's running.

All right. The wash plant's good.

Bypass is open.

Water's coming?

All right. Oh, yeah. Water's there, brother.

Let's power it up.

All right, we're shaking.

Kill the genny.

No power to the genny.

Gosh darn it.

How come?

I don't know.

That thing kicked so hard.

When that motor first starts, man, it pulls hard.

I'll probably have to just let that warm up a little bit longer.

You know, there's a lot of little bugs

we got to work out on the plant still,

and this is just one of them.

We got to figure out how much this has to be warmed up before we run the plant,

because it takes a lot of power to get it started.

So, trial and error here, learning as we go.

We'll figure it out.

You guys ready?

All right. Powering up.

We got power.

All right. Stuart, you ready?

Oh, my!

Sarge is purring.

Oh, yeah.

Here we go. Here we go.

Start! Start!

Come on.

Whoo!

Keep going.

Going down the sluice.

Whoo!

Yeah, it's great.

We'll check the tailings.

It looks clean. Really well separated, too.

Real clean.

Congratulations, guys. We're **** vibing.

Two months into the season,

Fred and his crew have finally taken the first steps to their 500-ounce goal.

Couldn't ask for anything better.

Sergeant Sluice is sluicing.

Hi, guys.

- Hey, everybody. - Hey!

After a week of frozen ground and shutdowns in the Swallow Cut,

Tony Beets is eager to see if his piggy bank will pay out.

Right?

A little aggressive, unnecessary, but okay.

I feel that.

Yes.

So I'm sure you noticed there's not a lot of gold.

I mean, we were down for a bit this week.

How much is a bit?

We sluiced about four, four-and-a-half days.

Yeah. The gearbox of the conveyor going down

kind of took a full day and then some.

Especially with Tony, basically off to Whitehorse at that moment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At least.

We should weigh that **** thing and see what we got.

To stay on course for their 5,000-ounce goal,

Tony needs his piggy bank to provide 260 ounces.

Ready?

Let's do this thing.

Ten, 40, 60, 70.

78.7.

No.

Yeah.

You now what, you can't appreciate the good days unless you have a bad day too.

A lot of folks would be really happy to have that amount.

This is not gonna do it.

- Bye, guys. - Bye.

Now only 4,100 or so to go.

Sure.

Bye!

Two wash plants!

- Whoo! - Yay! Whoo!

Now I remember why it's been so long

since we had them set up like that.

It works awesome.

But, man, there's a lot to it.

So, did we make 50,000?

- I wish. - Yeah.

You wish or we did?

Well, we got some gold, to put it that way.

Hey there, youngster.

Have some excitement today?

- There's always excitement, Chris. - Yeah.

Well, the grizzly bars decided to go up and not come back down.

It was one of those things.

If the grizzly bars stay up for longer than four hours,

you're supposed to call a mechanic.

It is nice seeing those two plants running though.

Side by side, yeah. It's game on now, though.

That's a lot of work that two plants have together.

Yeah, definitely.

They'll be able to move some ground.

The thing is, will we be able to keep up to them?

Yeah. Or is there gonna be any gold in it?

So what do you think? Is there any gold in it?

Well, yeah, there's a little bit.

We had, what, about five days on Big Red?

Yeah. Want to take a look?

This week, Parker's crew have been working

to hit a 50,000-ounce career milestone,

but haven't told him how close they are.

To hit it, they need to bring in 290 ounces.

All right. 30, 40, 50. Keep her going.

- It's going. - 70, 80. Did you break a hundred?

- There's still more. - Hundred.

124.30.

That used to be a season.

Yeah. We also spend a season's worth of money in a week.

In a week, right?

That good old sluice, it had a full week's run.

Here we go.

Oh, there's 40, 80,

a hundred, 130, 150...

174.9.

So what do we got for the week, then?

All right. It's 299.2.

Worth $539,000.

It gives us a season total of 1805.8.

And I've got something going on, you guys.

If I could get you out on the porch.

- All right, you guys... - What have you got, Chris?

This is for everybody, but mostly Parker,

because, Parker, with this week's gold weigh,

collectively in your career, you have now exceeded 50,000 ounces of gold.

Wow.

Fifty thousand?

- Fifty thousand ounces of gold. - Wow.

And you guys have been a big part of that.

Where the **** did it all go?

Do you love it? Do you love it?

- What the ****... - So Parker, if you want to open that.

Ready? Let her pop, man.

Whoo!

You noticed we have one extra glass.

Honestly, I think one should be for your grandpa.

He's the one who got you started,

and I think we should pour one out for Grandpa John.

That's a good call.

- Oh, yeah. - Right?

To Grandpa John.

Thanks, Chris.

Oh, my pleasure, young man.

- You've cleaned a lot of gold down here. - No kidding.

Here's to 50,000 you guys.

And 50,000 more.

And to the next 50.

Thank you, guys.

You're... you're... You're out there killing it.

Wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, man.

Definitely an impressive amount of rocks washed and gold found.

You know?

I think we figured it was like 3,400 pounds of gold we found.

Pretty impressive.

Yeah, very cool.

Yes.

A lot of good people are here that makes it happen.

So, for that I'm thankful.