Just doing a little preventative maintenance
on the trucks, grease them up.
Kind of expected Ryan to show up any time now.
There you go.
It is ridiculous to be here without a mechanic.
Oh, look at that. There he is.
- Look at this guy. - My man.
- Fresh off the road? - Come on, buddy.
That drive never gets shorter.
What is that, 50?
It's about 56, 57 hours.
Jeez.
Rick Ness is ready to mine some gold and has called in
critical crew mechanic Ryan Kent.
So you're ready for work?
Yeah, yeah, let's go.
Sorry I'm late.
No, with all the unknowns up here, it didn't make any sense
for you to rush up here.
I think there's opportunities here.
There's a lot of ground to explore,
but we can check it out.
- Show me now. - Yep.
Rick spent 200 ounces of gold to buy a new opportunity,
Lightning Creek.
He paid half up front, but needs to pay the second
100 ounces to seller Troy Taylor in two weeks' time.
The claim covers more than 1,600 acres.
And after a quick prospect, Rick rolled the dice
and decided where to mine.
This is the Diamond Cut here.
So the good news is, it's already down to pay.
The bad news is, we're not sluicing.
- What's the season total? - 1,800.
Is that going to be a stretch down here?
I've been talking to Troy about it.
I think we can pull it off.
And I assume they gave you all the drill results
for everything that they've done here?
Yeah, yeah. There is some drilling.
It's not-- that had a ton of mining on it.
Are you happy with the test results?
If we could actually get the ground here to stay
consistent with the test that we got, it'd be good.
You know, an ounce per 100 yards
is what we're looking for.
And with gold prices the way they are,
like, holy [bleep], man!
To me, you're taking a pretty big gamble buying another piece
of ground that's, you know, only thing that's
been tested is by word of mouth from somebody else.
Yeah...
And you just spend a [bleep] ton of money to buy out
the ground that you're on. - It is... You're right.
It was the last thing I wanted to do.
And I don't know. I probably did jump the gun.
You know, my family relies heavily on how we do here.
You know, I'm nervous as hell.
The bottom line is, we've got ground.
We've got a water license.
We need to get the gold coming in now.
Looks like we need to get a plant ready then.
Yeah.
Hey, guys. Come on down to 750.
We got a visitor.
You finally show up.
And it's the Yukon's best dirt mover.
- Hey, buddy. - How you doing, man?
Yeah, looks like you've been busy.
Our new employee.
What's up, buddy? Hey, Kai, this is Ryan.
- Hey, Ryan, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you, man.
We tried to set the plant up, but there's just
not lot of room down here.
And I just, I didn't like the looks of it.
There wasn't enough space.
The bank was starting to erode right away.
Last week, Rick's crew fired up washplant Rocky
for the first time this season...
We got water. Woo! Woo!
...when disaster struck.
The bank's eroding way too fast.
Shut her off! It's already gone too [bleep] far.
[bleep] [bleep]!
Rick moved Rocky off the pad, rebuilt the foundation,
and is finally ready to run again.
Yep, I'm going to stand away.
Yeah.
Once that's in, then we'll get the water and the pumps
and the generator all hooked up.
I think that's good.
That's nuts on level.
Next!
That's the gen-shack right here, and that's what provides
the power for our plant.
Got the generator over here.
We're gonna get the water pump next.
Good?
Looks pretty level to me, don't you?
Yeah.
Very nice to see this come together.
By the end of the day, we might even see some gold.
Let me rephrase that.
By the end of the day, we better see some [bleep] gold.
Clear?
Whoo!
- Clear? - Yep.
Like we never shut it off.
- Makes the same noise. - There's nothing in it.
Get the water going.
There she goes.
I'm super excited to see my first bucket put
in the plant.
- A little shake, a little bang! - Whoo!
There we go.
First bucket, 2025.
Oh, listen to that.
I say it every year, it's just some dirt,
just some rocks, just some steel,
all rattling together.
But it sounds like gold to me.
You can see the excitement in every one of these guys
right now, finally getting to see some gold
go through the box.
1,800 ounces isn't going to come easy.
So we definitely got to stay at it, keep the equipment good,
and get to work.
It was always overwhelming amount of work to be done
to get to this point, and when you finally do,
you really got to take the time to celebrate it.
But there's going to be someone sitting in this seat now
every hour of every day for the next five months
until we get out of here.
You know, we'll push as hard as we can, maybe get 120 yards
an hour out of it, and we're going
to make it work.
You know, hopefully this right now is the start to one
hell of a season.
King of the Klondike Tony Beets has mined 1,400 ounces
of his 6,500 ounce target, all of it from his Early Bird Cut
using one washplant, Sluice-A-Lot.
Tony's doubling down on his fast start by opening
new ground he prospected last year.
A mile east of the Early Bird Cuts, the massive 46 acre
Corner Cut will be Tony's biggest cut to date.
He needs to strip a 10 acre section of overburden 10 feet
deep to reach pay, and he wants it done in just seven days.
So we got to strip like crazy,
so that means lots of new people.
Tony has a big plan.
Shut up and learn. That's how that works here.
But nearly a month on the job,
some of the greenhorns are still struggling.
I learned more in this last month than I feel that I've
known in my whole life, to be honest with you.
Tony, as a boss, is the most straightforward man
I've ever met.
He lets you know where you lie, for sure.
It can get a little crazy when Tony shows up.
We usually get a lot of stuff done, so that's...
always good.
Tony is a great boss.
He tells you what to do, and he's pretty hands-off
if you do it right.
Well, you know, if you do it wrong, then you're going
to hear about it.
Tony is keeping a close eye on his rookie crew.
Two greenhorns are driving through a waterlogged section
of the cut, taking unnecessary risks
with Tony's expensive rock trucks.
Tony spots another rookie mishandling his rock truck
across the cut at the dump site.
There are ten rock truck drivers now.
But soon, there might be eight...
At Indian River, Tony's on the hunt
for two rock truck drivers
who ignored his instruction to stop
and wait for him in the Corner Cut.
I'm back in the cut now.
I managed to make it up the hill and dump
the load I had.
Yes, sir.
I'm not sure who was behind me, sir.
The second driver has gotten away with disobeying Tony...
...for now.
Tony is driving around like a madman.
He scared me to death.
Tony has been on a bit of a firing spree.
I'm not gonna say anything.
Best I can do is just keep my head down
and hope everything else goes OK,
hope he forgot all about it.
We have a big goal this year, 2,000 ounces.
So the plant looks really nice sitting up on the waste site.
Pretty happy with our massive pay pile,
which is excellent.
Second-year mine boss, Kevin Beets, has banked
162 ounces of gold.
For the last week and a half, he's been stockpiling pay from
his newly opened Pyramid Cut and repairing his washplant.
We'll take our time, we're gonna do it right,
do it once, and then when we get
sluicing, we never have to turn the [bleep] off.
With Brennan gone, we're down a foreman, and with Kayden
leaving as well, I'm now down a mechanic.
Thankfully, Buzz has been able to take a lot
of the welding-related projects, which has been a great help.
Now, I don't think Tony would really take as much time to get
sluicing as we are.
He'd probably ram it through as quickly as [bleep] possible.
Well, first we have to find him.
While making his rounds, Tony brings wife Minnie
to check in on their eldest son's operation.
I see his plant.
What in the heck is he doing with it?
We have to park it before I can jump out.
Ooh.
Hello.
As you can see we got the plant moved.
- Yeah. - Nice and high.
No, I've been down for about a week and a half, I'd say so.
You have to make money.
- Yep. - You know?
Very much, very much.
Instead of spending all your savings.
Yeah, yeah.
But we're getting repairs done,
so hopefully we won't have to fix [bleep]
for a good [bleep] amount of time.
And get running next week.
No, you don't.
Get going.
Uh, we'll get going today, tomorrow.
We'll come and check out on our royalties.
Kevin always has been a bit of a perfectionist.
He was like that when he was young too.
Then it's like, you kind of go, "really, dude?"
So you think he'd be on it?
Yeah.
Still money going out.
To get his washplant running, Kevin has tasked expectant
father, Buzz Legault, with the repairs.
Buzz has been able to take a lot off my plate, but I know
he's going to have to head off.
I got to go talk to Buzz so we can get
sluicing again, so...
see what we can make [bleep] work.
Hey, Buzz.
Ready to [bleep] go?
OK, [bleep]...Uh...
So Tony and Minnie stopped by.
But they really, really do want to get sluicing ASAP.
OK.
I would like to get sluicing as soon as you [bleep] can.
Well, like you said, "make it [bleep] happen."
The pressure is on, but you got a couple of days.
Best of luck.
Buzz is on the plant, so we have a couple of days.
He's going to have his work cut out for him.
We've got a lot of hurdles here, and, you know, if this
one's going to be a success, it's going to be hard-fought,
but, [bleep] yeah, we're going to deserve it.
I gave Troy a down-payment, and I told him I'd have him
another 100 ounces.
You know, I'm betting our future on this.
Rick Ness is finally on the gold, with washplant Rocky
churning through 120 yards of pay an hour.
Now it's business as usual.
Now it's like, we keep that plant running
like it's our [bleep] job.
Right now, that's Kyle's job, so we're leaving him here
to do it.
By the end of the week, Rick and his crew will know
whether his $700,000 gamble on Lightning Creek will pay out.
We're not really going to know for sure what's in there.
It's going to be our second full day of running Rocky here.
[bleep] sakes!
That don't look good.
That end spray bar is not doing [bleep].
There's way too much water coming over the ass end of that.
We're losing material out the side, and there could be
gold in it.
I think the pump's just too high.
All right, I got a walkie now.
We're going to go there and check.
OK.
Yeah, that's as low as she goes.
I'm going to jump in up there and look real quick.
- That's as low as it goes? - That's it, man.
All the water pressure's getting backed up and going up
through the pre-wash instead.
Yeah, there's one up here and nothing's even
coming out of it.
We got to shut it down.
All right, let me go get the pump.
To shut down when we're trying
to get 1,800 ounces is not ideal.
No, Rick won't like that.
Right now, we're not really washing anything going across
that shaker deck.
Yeah, a bunch of [bleep] stuck in it.
We're sucking in a bunch of rocks.
And that's blocking the water flow back to, you know,
there's a lot of pressure left on it, so the pressure has
nowhere else to go but back up to the spray bars.
I mean, we cannot afford this downtime.
We're going to go widen out the nozzle tips a little bit.
That way, if we get any little bit of rock,
it still shoots through.
Water from the nearby creek is pumped to washplant Rocky
and fed into two spray bars that wash the pay.
But small rocks from the creek have blocked the plant's
nozzles on one side, raising the water pressure
in the pre-wash spray bars, blasting pay out of the plant.
Ryan's simple fix...
widen the shaker deck spray bar nozzles,
so the rocks can pass through and the gold-rich pay
can be cleaned properly.
Yeah, because there's some big ones in there.
There's our problem.
We got a pry bar stuck in there.
Hey, where'd that come from?
Yeah, that's better.
So we're going from that... to that.
Yeah.
I'll get them clipped on.
We'll fire up the water, but...
down time is kind of kicking our ass, but...
- We'll get her fixed... - We'll get her fixed up.
- All right! - I like it.
Well, I got a shaker deck...
Yeah, I'll go ahead and get the pump fired up when you give
a thumbs up. - Great.
After a 30-minute shutdown,
Rick's crew are back on the gold.
Now that we got those rocks cleared out of those spray bars,
the water pressure seems-- it's nice and even now,
looks better, it's running better.
Luckily, it wasn't for that long.
Success!
Yeah, no, the water looks a lot better.
It's not blasting over the backside anymore.
I don't want to shut down again.
Rick don't want us to shut down again.
We're moving a lot of dirt.
We're moving more dirt than we ever have before.
We got to stay ahead stripping-wise.
At Indian River, Tony is pushing foreman Cousin Mike
and his crew to open up a 10-acre section
of the Corner Cut by the end of the week.
Tony's watching his crew like a hawk after a rock truck
driver disobeyed him earlier in the week.
The [bleep] you doing?
Where's this truck going?
You having troubles?
No answer.
Ah, ah... Ah, for [bleep] sakes.
I've seen a couple weird behaviors from him.
Oh, I think he's drinking on the job.
I'm pretty sure Jarrod's [bleep] at work.
He can't be having that around here.
He's going to hurt himself or hurt somebody else.
[bleep] me.
Hey, I don't know what's going on with Jarrod, but I think
he's drunk or something.
There he is.
Jarrod.
You drunk or something?
Look at me.
You drunk?
I don't think you're fine.
Here, stop the truck. Stop the truck.
Yeah, stop it.
Park it. Get out.
You in the truck!
In the truck.
Jarrod, you drunk?
Hey, look at me.
You drunk?
You're being goofy all day.
Hey, look at me.
You can't even look at me straight.
You're driving like an idiot, honking like you're not right
in the head. You smell like alcohol, too.
I'll, uh...
get you to camp.
Grab your [bleep].
At Indian River, Beets foreman cousin Mike has pulled rock
truck driver Jarrod off the job.
I think this guy is drunk.
You going to be a lippy with me?
Because then you're gone, guaranteed.
I don't give a [bleep].
Yeah.
Oh, I... We gotta see
Because I think you're drunk right now.
Take your bag.
Tony, do you copy?
I have someone here. I think he's drunk.
Jarrod, smell the alcohol here.
OK.
You stay here.
You're drunk? You have been drinking?
So you were lying, too? You're drunk and lying?
No, you told me you were hungover from last night.
No, no, no, no. That's not how that works.
You don't make the call.
You [bleep] up, well, you got fired.
You got 30 minutes to get the [bleep] out of here.
You're trying to work with me being drunk?
You're running a piece of heavy equipment,
people around, and you're being drunk.
Like, give your head a shake.
I don't know how old you are.
We'll go to your room.
No, 30 minutes, you're out.
Yeah, 30 minutes.
I really, really do want to get sluicing ASAP.
The pressure is on to try and get as much as possible
this year, as fast as possible.
Perfectionist Kevin Beets is under pressure
from his landlord parents, Tony and Minnie,
to get sluicing and deliver their royalties.
With the plant, there's a lot
of just maintenance that we need to do.
Buzz has a whole [bleep] list that we just need to do so it
doesn't become big [bleep] off projects.
Buzz is trying to complete Kevin's maintenance repairs.
- That's ready to rumble. - Yeah.
All righty. Loader's on the way.
It's been a couple of weeks since we had gold coming in.
- Be nice to start paying bills. - That would be nice, yes.
Yes.
Hey, Buzz.
- Hey, Buzz. - There she goes.
Oh, Garry's here. Well, let's get her fired up.
Let's do it!
Kevin is finally ready to start running his stockpile
of Pyramid Cut pay dirt.
Beauty. All right, now on switches.
First things first, discharge conveyor!
On.
There we go!
Huh, screen deck.
We are shaking.
OK, everybody's ready.
First bucket is on its [bleep] way.
First bucket in.
Faith! Faith!
Kill the feeder!
Kill the feeder.
Kill the feeder?
Thank you.
How did I kill the feeder again? I forgot.
There was a pile of dirt left in the prewash from the--
when we shut down.
That is forming a pile, so it's not able to flow.
Can I get you to bring me one of those long shovels?
Failure to clean out the prewash
has left concrete-like dirt
that can't be broken down by the spray bars,
creating a blockage and causing the new pay to pile up.
So, fix this for good.
We're gonna have to shut down to clean out the pre-wash
and have somebody in here for the shovel
cleaning out the rocks.
But we need to get sluicing again, so we just need to do
Tony's, "ah, [bleep] it, run it," mentality.
Fighting his perfectionist need to shut down,
Kevin's opting for a temporary fix.
So, rather than pile this dirt up 60 feet,
I have to shovel it.
Can someone go turn up the pump, please?
Can you get it up to 1600, please?
We're getting it!
Just a few minor adjustments.
Gah!
There we go.
Get this at least [bleep] moving.
Ah, that's looking way [bleep] better!
Perfect!
OK, now we can turn on the feeder, but set it
at three, please.
Kevin's efforts clear the blockage.
Well, good to be sluicing, guys.
Looks good, Buzz.
I think you did a good job getting it ready to run.
That's all we can do.
- Yeah. - Looking good.
All the repairs seem to be holding, so yeah,
it looks good.
Alright, gotta rip.
So I am well aware of this tendency.
I like to get everything just right.
And I guess Tony is right.
I've had to learn to be "good enough is good enough."
You know what I mean?
Instead of just, "it has to be right."
It's the first mat pull of the season.
Moment of truth, we'll pull the mats, and I'm gonna
actually finally see if Diamond Cut's got any gold.
What's going on?
First clean up, I figured it's your first time, so
I might as well jump in the rock truck, give you a chance
to get over there, kind of see what it's like.
All right.
Is it everything you imagined, Kai?
It's glamour... and more.
These clean ups are on my shoulders,
you know what I mean?
I'm always worried about letting them down.
It's one of the nice things about having a small crew.
It makes me feel like we're all in it together.
In my eyes, the absolute perfect team.
You guys are the real gold.
Did you hear that, Kai? You're the real gold.
- Who? - You.
What, I'm the real gold?
You guys, you guys are the real gold out here.
For me.
Oh, don't break my new expensive buckets!
Are we buying buckets? We got that bucket money now?
It's looking pretty good.
Water's doing what it's supposed to.
I'm just nice and consistent.
I'm pretty happy that we got the plant going.
Takes a lot of stress off my mind.
It has a whole different kind, but at least this stress
makes money.
So it is a step in the right direction.
Kevin's washplant is up and running.
But he's losing another valuable crew member.
Hey, Buzz. How's it going?
So, yeah, it must be about time for you to get going, eh?
Yep, the real one.
Yeah, I just want to say thanks, Buzz, for all you've done.
This thing has worked out, honestly, so...
We have a little bit of luck on our side.
Found a bit of gold when we fired up runs.
Right?
You're coming back after, I assume, right?
Safe travels.
And best of luck.
Hope it all goes smooth for you.
Hi, guys.
No, we're just here to see you because we missed you
so much, Dad.
How is it in the Indian?
So now you stole my people
and you've been [bleep] hiring a lot.
How's it going with all of them?
We got some characters in the crowd, but you gotta
go through them.
We had one driving around drunk, so that is...
- What? - What?
And then you got a drunk idiot driving,
with people walking around, and it's just...
It's the people more so than anything else,
because they hurt other people, right?
Yeah, and it won't bother them, because they're
in a rock truck. - Yeah.
- That's scary. - It is.
Yeah, you gotta go. It's serious stuff.
Hey, Monica, how's things going in the gold room?
- Good. - Keeping busy?
Please, Mike, you count, because I can't see.
So far, the Early Bird Cut has produced a weekly average
of 250 ounces of gold.
Are you ready, Michael?
60...
70...
100, 110, 120, 130,
40, 50, 60, 70...
190, 200, 220, 230, 240...
250, 70, 80, 90, 300...
310, 320, 330, 340, 350, 360.
4, 410, 420, 430, 440, 450, 460...
467.8...
467.8!
Sluice-A-Lot's record-breaking weekly haul is worth over
one and a half million dollars.
- Yeah. - It's huge.
OK, where are we going?
- I'll book it right now. - No! Ho-ho-ho.
Yeah, yeah! Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick!
Oh, look at him.
The Ness crew are waiting for their first gold weigh
of the season to see if Rick's Diamond Cut will pay out.
This is a weird one,
starting on new ground again.
Yeah, yeah.
We can't come on new ground and expect to hit
Raleigh Valley, Vegas Valley kind of [bleep].
I mean, I know it's going to be a learning deal, but...
Yeah, it's definitely still a risk.
Speaking of that, shall we grab the gold and weigh it up?
Let's see it.
To be successful, Rick's crew need one ounce per 100 yards,
so at least 40 ounces of gold.
Four days running 100 yards an hour.
- You want to count the numbers? - Sure.
First one? We got it.
Let's go.
One, two...
- Three, four, five, six, seven. - [bleep].
7.35.
Worth just $25,000.
I think that's a big waste of time, is what that is.
That's... [bleep] terrible.
Man... yep.
Yeah, that's not, uh...
Not even quite two ounces a day.
[bleep]!
That's a big waste of time right there, yep.
Does that even pay for...?
No, it doesn't even start--
Doesn't even start the list...
of things that it has to pay for.
I can't afford to be up here and not bring anything home.
You know, part of me is, "yeah, that's some new ground,"
but the other part's like, "[bleep], dude, I hope you can
figure it out, because if you go broke, I go broke."
It hasn't happened yet.
I don't intend it to happen this year.
But, yeah, I mean, right now it's, yeah, I'm wondering,
"Did I make the right decision, you know?"
We've got over 100 claims on this bunch here, so,
you know, that was obviously the wrong spot to start,
but we can move on from that.
OK, [bleep] it first gold weigh.
We're done. [bleep] it.
Yeah, let's go home.
Woo!
Lightning Creek was definitely a gamble.
Seven ounces, that's not going to pay my bills nor his bills.
So, hopefully...
Rick finding a new spot, that will be the answer.
So, unfortunately, the Diamond Cut, that's a fail.
We'll see what happens next.
We just got to find the gold because the Diamond Cut
did not have it.
We're running out of time to get 100 ounces for Troy.
So we got to be ready to pivot.
We got to go up the valley. We got to look for better gold.