[device beeping]
Hey, is it running?
[man] It's not working.
Let's kill the Thrustmaster.
Unwire it, and start from the beginning.
Start it back up and let's see what happens.
[device stops beeping]
We're dead in the water right now adrift.
Get out of my way.
-[device beeping] -Oh, you [bleep] piece of [bleep], start!
Where we're at,
we're still having problems with the Thrustmaster.
It won't engage into forward or reverse.
It's basically dead in the water.
We're, like, really close to those rocks
and like that close to losing my $2 million operation.
Basic control's pretty simple.
Running lights...
Those are the nav.
[narrator] It's the last day of summer mining.
Now switch to the right...
...Thrustmaster control on,
make sure this is out.
[narrator] And Kris Kelly's Reaper Nation is on life support.
[Kris] Okay, I got it.
We'll make it work.
Temperatures are falling. Everything's beginning to freeze.
It's almost certainly our last day of going out.
But of course, I still owe thousands on our $125,000 payment.
If we fall short, the Mistress will be repossessed
and Reaper Nation will go into the trash heap of history.
And today, of all days, my excavator operator, James,
tells me he's quitting.
I wanna stay,
but I have to go and take care of my family.
So, this is my goodbye.
I've gotta...
pick up the pieces and keep moving forward.
So now, I'm gonna be the engineer of the Mistress.
With ice in the harbor, very little time left in the season,
and let's be honest, I have no business doing this.
And if I don't do this right,
we lose everything.
Here we go.
Time to get on my big boy pants today.
[James] Everybody always says my job's easy.
It's supposed to be easy. Just jump on and pilot.
Well, here's the big test.
We're gonna see if they can do it.
[Kris] We're screwed.
Hey! Put oil in it.
Okay.
[Kris] So just after we leave, the Thrustmaster goes down.
That's the $750,000 outboard system
that runs the Mistress.
Let's do everything we can to make this work.
So it's no big deal. I just got a million-dollar operation
drifting towards the rocks right now
and I can't stop.
Okay! Start it!
[engine starting]
Come on. Come on.
Come on. Come on!
Is it working?
Yeah! Unstoppable!
This is nothing!
You know, James thinks this is all special.
You just gotta try.
Crisis averted.
I know it sounds stupid,
but it turns out it was just low on hydraulic fluid.
Hey, if it don't work, fix it.
If you can't fix it, rig it.
We're back on track. Smooth sailing all the way.
We hope to get to Tomcod within the hour
and start mining.
It's gonna be a long [bleep] day, that's for sure.
We're ready to make some gold today!
So the training wheels are off. We can do this.
I need at least 30 more ounces to make my payment
or I am screwed.
-I can? -Go!
Let's do it!
So the plan right now is to work as long as we can...
Everything's up and running.
...even if we go into tomorrow morning.
You know, that's the plan!
Ooh, nice bucket.
Okay, let's do the first test pan of the day.
Hey! Taylor!
Somebody took the gold pan off the boat.
That sucks.
Just keep going. Who gives a [bleep]?
[man yells indistinctly]
What's wrong is there's no gold pan on the [bleep] barge,
which we're supposed to have one that nobody's supposed to take off.
So, without a test pan,
I don't know if we're getting any gold.
So I don't know if we should move or keep digging here.
I can't catch a break. But you know what?
The material looks good to me.
So I'm gonna make the call.
We'll gonna stay here and we're gonna kill it.
I'm gonna use the force,
and the force is strong with me.
That's how I'm still alive.
Reaper Nation, ready to rock and roll.
Today's been a hard [bleep] day,
but I'm not gonna quit and I'm gonna make this work.
And I may stumble along the way a little bit,
but I'll get up and I'll bleed a little bit
but it'll be okay.
[narrator] Back in the harbor...
[Shawn Pomrenke] It's getting cold,
and now you gotta start worrying about everything freezing.
But we got one last good run here
that we're gonna get in.
And we're gonna go out
and pile a bunch of gold into this box...
and finish off this season strong.
It's time to get the hell out of here.
[narrator] As the summer season ticks down to its final hours...
We need to get out and get minin'.
...Nome's resident gold king has his back against the wall.
[Shawn] Okay, here we go.
This season's been one of the toughest,
no doubt about it.
The weather, the mechanical issues,
dealing with the idiots, the Kellys.
Come on, Andy! Get in there and rush him!
This season almost derailed me.
But I've kept my eye on the prize, 3,000 ounces.
And I'm close.
The inland mine's been turning and burning all season
and they made 2,000 ounces.
And that leaves me only 200 ounces shy.
We have a lot of cold weather comin'.
We got snow on the mountains.
It's just coming to an end.
We need to hit our goal
to pay for expansions for this season and beyond.
And this is our last chance to pull it off,
final run, no option.
And it's a pretty heavy remaining number.
It's either now or never.
So I gotta reach back for one of those vintage Mr. Gold hauls.
Here we go.
Well, it feels like good material.
Come on, baby. Come on.
What do ya got down here? You got the cheese?
Oh-ho-ho! Look at that!
[crew member] Is that what you were looking for?
Hell yeah.
Yeah!
We're in it.
We are good to go.
That's the kind.
Now it's just time to pile up the gold.
We're gonna make some big gold.
Easterly winds are supposed to start comin' in.
They're comin' tonight, so...
if something major breaks, we'll get screwed.
But if we can just plug along here
slow and steady, don't break anything,
just nice easy... bucket...
after bucket...
after bucket.
Steady as she goes, Captain!
[man] I think I got all the things.
We gotta go.
[narrator] On the last day of the season,
the ragtag crew of the Haviland
is looking to make every moment and every diver count.
Dude, it's slippery. Be careful. Be careful!
-[laughing] Whoa! -Aah!
[all laughing]
[Zeke Tenhoff] So this is it.
It's our last chance to get gold, no question about it.
I was aiming for 50 ounces this summer,
but it doesn't look like I'm gonna make it.
But I am getting more than I did last winter
and last summer as well.
The question is, how big are we gonna finish?
Well, we have an idea to make this last day
as impactful as possible
by doing something that I've never done before.
Look at these dogs.
[crew member] We're ready to roll.
There's four members of this crew,
and all four of us are gonna dive today.
[laughing heartily]
Uh, I've never seen anyone do it and it's ambitious,
but it's something that we need to do.
While the season has been decent to me so far,
I really wanna finish strong.
The plan is I'll dive first,
Nate second,
Gabe will put in some hours for the third,
and Sham will go down and clean it up.
If we do this right, it could be huge.
Yeah, boy!
[screaming] Whoo!
Drop it.
Now it is underwater.
I'm gonna have this hot water goin' in here
and fill the tub up,
a nice hot bath.
Little pleasures.
You can take 'em where you can get 'em.
It's cold out.
It's losing heat.
[Zeke] I feel like I really need to set the table for everyone on this dive.
[through speakers] Mic check.
Mic check, one, two.
Luckily, we know where to go.
I got into a hotspot out here before.
So I'm gonna tap back into it
and try to keep that spigot going for the whole team.
You want me to fire up your pump?
-Yeah, fire up my pump. -Okay, sounds good.
Hell yeah!
You're doing nice. You found pickers, huh?
Mow through all of it.
That's a ringer!
...for the rest of the day.
It's looks like I'm probably gonna be diving until into the night.
Hopefully there'll be no problems.
Just rock it out for a while.
It's gonna be good, dude. It's gonna be hot.
[narrator] Back in the harbor...
Lovely day. A little on the cold side,
but that's okay.
It's a good day for getting gold.
[narrator] Jack Frost may be nipping at his heals,
but Vernon Adkison is determined to salvage his season
in summer's final hours.
[Vernon] Let's go down there and give it a shot.
A little chilly here in Nome.
Ice on the harbor already.
Won't be long.
[Vernon] Be careful on that. It's slick and [bleep].
[Gary Simpson] The way the weather's lookin',
it looks like it's gonna be our last dive for the year.
Everything's gonna be extra difficult.
The more ice we get around here, the colder it gets,
everything becomes exponentially more difficult.
I was aiming for 300 ounces this summer.
Truth is, we're not gonna get anywhere close to that.
After last summer and last winter of killing it on 56,
I'm in danger of not even turning a profit.
All right, throw it off, Bryan.
Let's get on out of here.
That would be humiliating,
not to mention financially devastating.
But there are some glimmers of hope.
The miners I had pay me royalties on 56
just finished up.
Got some royalties for ya.
All right. Damn. Pretty hefty.
And I managed to get 21 ounces out of that.
That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.
That puts me at 55 ounces total so far.
If I can get that up to 60,
then I'll be in the black.
That'll be a nice saving grace
and give me momentum into the winter.
All right, let's make our escape.
Let's go mining!
All right, here we go, boys.
Let's drop that camera and see what it looks like.
So, are you on the bottom?
[Vernon] Yup.
Seems like we're probably good a place as any to start out.
The way we are right now,
stressed for gold,
I wanna make this [bleep] happen.
The plan for today is simple,
get Gary and Bryan down for as long as possible,
get as much friggin' gold as you can
and call it a season.
The ice is forming all around. There's no more time left.
It all comes down to today.
There ain't gonna be no rematch.
My bank account and, honestly, my reputation
is on the line.
Yeah, roger.
Well, can you see the material you're working in?
I can see the material, um...
just enough to where I think I can get the job done.
I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to see very much gold, though.
If there is any gold.
Yeah, well, I'll tell you what,
as late as we are in the season,
as long as you've got some vis,
we gotta go for it.
Roger that.
I'm gonna stick it out and do what I can down here,
see if I can't put some gold in the box.
Yeah, time is getting short
and the gold is getting cold.
So now is the time to gun it.
[narrator] 11 miles west...
[Shawn] This sucks.
Flip the switch left!
I don't know what's wrong with the generator.
[narrator] ...it's one step forward,
and about a zillion steps back for Kris Kelly.
Ah, this piece of [bleep] generator behind me
keeps cutting off every 40 minutes. Uh...
it shuts the wash plant down, the ticker and...
That generator's pissing me off.
Every hour, we lose 10 minutes.
One [bleep] thing and then another
and then another.
Look, I don't wanna be the chief operator of this thing.
I'm a gold guy.
I don't wanna be a mechanic.
But with James gone,
I'm stuck dealing with this crap.
And it's one dumpster fire after another.
First, the Thrustmaster gives out,
then we lose the test pan,
now the generator keeps giving out.
And all I keep thinking about is the gold we're not getting
and the time we're wasting.
Man, everything is [bleep] going really bad for me right now.
And you know what, I'm so [bleep] right now,
you know, my head's spinning like a [bleep] top.
[growls]
The only way to get the generator working
is to let it cool down a bit and then restart it.
More time wasted. Great.
But right now, it gives me the chance to look in the box
and see if my hunch was right or wrong.
Holy [bleep]! That's the most gold I've ever seen in our sluice box.
[Andy] Look at the other side.
Oh, is there more on the other side?
Oh, yeah, look at that.
Oh, yeah, that looks nice. Cha-ching.
Oh, yeah, right on that side over there, dude.
[Kris] And that's not even where we kept all of our gold.
Our gold is on this lip over here.
[Andy] That looks really nice.
That's the best gold I've ever seen in this sluice box.
Yes! I was right.
No test pan, but I made the call
and the gold is amazing.
If we can just, you know, mine,
I know we can get the ounces we need.
Taylor! Okay, start it!
Okay, let's go!
We're getting a lot of hours
even though the generator keeps turning off on me
and pissing me off.
Right now, it's just everything's going to [bleep] on me.
But at least I'm getting gold.
[narrator] In Nome...
And, uh, early pregnancy, uh,
is really tough.
[narrator] While the fleet heads out
for one last chance on the water
in the final hours of summer,
Emily Riedel is forced to stay ashore.
I just can't really pull the same hours
and spend as much time on the boat.
I definitely wanna like step back a little bit.
Today is like, without a doubt, the last day of the season.
We're within striking-distance of 250 ounces,
and today, I wanna make that happen.
But, uh, fortunately,
a girl and a baby had another opinion about today,
morning sickness and all the fun stuff that comes with it.
I need a backup, uh, tender.
So, today, I'm tapping out and it's all up to Jane,
an awesome and creative tender,
all-star diver, Jeff,
and an awesome tender, Eddie.
I left them on good gold, so there shouldn't be any issues.
I have total confidence
that we're gonna, uh, reach our goal today.
Um, yeah, we've been on some good gold.
It'll be interesting to see what it turns into.
[narrator] Out on the Eroica...
[Jeff speaking]
[Eddie speaking]
[Jane speaking]
[narrator] Her team is tying themselves in knots
trying to do Emily proud.
[Eddie] Don't! Stop the motor.
What the [bleep]?
-[sighs] -[Eddie chuckling]
[Jane speaking]
[Eddie] All right, Jeff, let out.
Okay, crisis diverted.
I think we're on a really good set.
[sighs]
Jeff will be able to get right to it,
and we'll be on it like doggone it.
Let's just tighten up the anchors and [bleep] go in.
Let's try and get 10 hours and call her good.
[Jane speaking]
Fingers crossed, everything is gonna be okay.
You all right?
I think this is gonna be good. It's gonna pay off.
-Do you copy? -[Jeff on radio] Yeah, I gotcha.
[Jane on radio] How's it looking down there?
Sounds like he's doing well.
[Jeff on radio]
Whoo!
[Jeff] Let's start going to work.
I think this is really gonna pay off.
[Jeff on radio]
Ooh!
Here we go.
[Jane speaking]
[Eddie] Bomb Dot Com.
[laughs]
Yeah.
I, I'm an idiot.
-Why? It's funny. -[laughs]
At least you didn't name it G-Spot.
[Eddie] It's a good spot.
Dance party later?
Oh, I don't...
[Eddie cackles]
[both laughing]
Well, you're gonna be boogieing later!
Uh-huh.
[Jane] We're gonna mine into the night
and hopefully, we don't mess around
with the anchor lines too much.
[narrator] 12 miles west...
[Shawn] It's getting cold outside.
The season is at the end,
but I'm feeling really good.
We're hitting on all cylinders.
We're gonna smash it right out of the park.
[whistles]
[narrator] To hit his 3,000-ounce goal,
Shawn Pomrenke needs a major-league rally
in the final inning of summer.
[Shawn] There she blows!
[narrator] And he just might get one.
[Shawn] Once that flag starts blowing east,
we're gonna boogie.
We've been on a good run here.
We're gonna keep pushing it until it starts coming.
We're on the cheese.
High-paying dirt.
It's looking beautiful.
Lots of rock, lots of gold.
I need 200 ounces to meet my goal.
This dirt, it's looking really promising.
It better be, because at any point now,
I'm gonna have to call it a season.
This last stretch really separates the men from the boys.
We're gonna go ahead and check the box,
see what it looks like.
Make sure we're making money.
Oh, yeah.
Every ripple has gold behind it.
We're golden.
Man, that's a beautiful thing.
I need to be on hot ground,
and I definitely am.
And that box is packed.
Couldn't ask for more on the last run of the season.
But is it gonna be enough?
I'm gonna need a huge haul.
Only time will tell.
The wind's not picked up yet,
but there is a black line at the horizon.
That's the weather coming this way.
We got time for one more cut,
put a little more gold in the box.
We gotta make hay while the sun shines.
Let's get back on it, huh?
[narrator] One mile west...
[Zeke on radio]
Yeah, dude.
I'm telling you, man.
At this point in the season, it's like,
you've just gotta move all of the bits.
Yeah.
[narrator] To make the last day count,
the Havilah crew is in the first stages
of a marathon 4-man dive.
[Zeke speaking on radio]
[narrator] And Captain Zeke Tenhoff is leading the way.
[Zeke speaking on radio]
I don't wanna push it any further.
I'm gonna come up.
Okay, sweet.
[Zeke] That was awesome.
Not only did we get gold,
but that's been the best pile of pay
that we've been into all season.
So, the groundwork has already been laid,
and for the boys, it's just there for the taking.
Right now, the hose is, like, maxed out,
and it's right on the gravel bed, the red gravel.
Good gold on top of that red gravel
and I think down in the red gravel.
But the gravel bed goes like, way over there,
over to the right.
We need to harness this momentum
and keep it going.
Next up, my man, Nate.
Sweet deal.
Nate's got a total of one dive under his belt, so far.
[Nate speaking]
The boys are back in town!
[Zeke] But on that dive,
he showed me he was a natural.
He definitely crushed it.
Yeah, baby!
[laughs]
That was awesome.
-Found some gold? -Yeah.
Awesome.
And now, I'm hoping that lightning will strike twice.
But the Havilah's a totally different kind of monster,
and it's way tougher.
[Gabe speaking]
Don't, you know, don't feel any pressure, but...
You're just going right down onto a bed.
Good view.
Don't, man. You're gonna get me all worried.
Be so careful about getting your hand in between a [bleep] rock.
-Like, get an idea of what that suction can do. -Yeah.
Don't get your [bleep] hand
in between a rock and that nozzle.
Nate's first dive was on my little home-built, 6-inch dredge
The Havilah's a beast.
It's much bigger. It's a 10-inch.
If you're not used to a nozzle with that much power,
it can knock you around like a ragdoll.
[Nate] Yeah, bud. Yeah!
[Zeke] Remember, to get back to the down line,
always, uh, follow your tether.
[Nate on radio] Roger that.
Okay, grab onto your [bleep] holster, bud.
Here she comes.
-[chuckles] -Here we go.
[Nate speaking]
But it looks like you're running material right now and... [bleep]
How you feeling?
[Nate on radio]
[Zeke on radio] Focus on the areas with the red gravel.
[Nate speaking]
Yeah, get in there, boy!
Whoo!
Suck it up, dude. Sucky, sucky.
[Nate speaking]
[bleep]
Whoa!
Rock and roll, man.
[Zeke] Nate's taking to the 10-inch nozzle like a diving better.
The guy is good at this, no question.
We're on into our second dive,
and things couldn't be going any better.
Hopefully, it will continue,
and we hit the second half of the team.
[Gabe] Nate's doing a lot of fishing.
I know he's a hard worker.
I know he can handle it,
and he's gonna be able to actually do
some productive diving down there.
And then, once he is done diving,
I'm getting in the water,
and then it's gonna be Shem after me.
Yeah. I'm stoked.
-We're moving dirt. -Nice.
Whoo!
[Zeke laughs]
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] Yeah, it does look good.
Oh, you saw a little piece?
[Vernon on radio]
Maybe it's got some little brothers
hiding under one of those rocks.
[narrator] As the clock ticks toward the end of summer mining,
Vernon and the Goldship crew are pushing
with everything they've got.
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon on radio]
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] All right, all right!
[Gary on radio]
All right, Gary, the gold dog.
You sniffed it out.
[Gary on radio] Yeah.
[Bryan] We're right here,
brand-new spot we haven't worked yet.
So, could be a hot spot.
Could be a new hot spot.
[Vernon] We ought to maximize this day.
Get in until we can't stay in any longer.
I'm trying to salvage the season
and end on a good note,
and that's what we're doing so far.
We might've found ourselves a new hot spot
that we can pick up on this winter.
In the meantime,
we're gonna just keep going until we can't go anymore.
These are the last few rounds,
and hopefully, we can go the distance.
[Gary speaking]
[Bryan] Damn it.
Okay, we're gonna throw the valve up and down a couple of times.
[Gary on radio] Roger that.
[Vernon] The first thing we do when we get a clog
is work the diverter valve up and down a few times.
That'll usually clear the jam,
and, uh, we can get back in business.
But the clock is ticking.
Okay, are you still plugged?
[Gary on radio] Yes, I am.
[bleep] Damn it.
[bleep]
He's still plugged. Ram the jet.
For the more "son of a bitch" clogs,
we get a bar and ram it down the jet.
Takes a bit more time, but you do what you gotta do.
Okay, there's nothing in this jet.
[Vernon speaking]
Why don't you go ahead and make your way up the hose
and then spike it?
Nothing is working so far,
so the last-ditch effort is to try to get a visual on the clog.
Gary will have to ride that 50 feet of hose like a cowboy
and suss it out.
Are you seeing anything, Gary?
[Gary speaking]
[bleep]
[bleep] waste of time.
[Gary on radio]
All right, Gary.
We're just wasting a whole bunch of time here.
[on radio] We're just gonna have to pull the hose
out of the water, I guess.
Hook up the nozzle,
then come on up.
[Gary] All right, roger that. Coming up.
[Vernon] Well, I mean, we're dead in the water.
Right now, we're pretty much screwed.
But we gotta just keep working with this
until we get it unplugged
one way or another.
[narrator] 12 miles west...
[Nate on radio]
[narrator] The number-two hitter is knocking it out of the park
as Nate delivers big for the Havilah gang.
[Nate speaking]
[Gabe] If you flip a big rock over,
definitely suck out the dirt that's underneath it.
[Nate on radio] Yeah.
Whoa!
[Zeke] Yeah, you've been down for 2.5 hours.
[Nate speaking]
Yeah, just head on back up.
[Nate on radio] All right, roger that.
[Zeke] Nate totally crushed it,
even though it was on a 10-inch dredge
and was only his second dive ever.
He totally killed it.
[Nate speaking]
[burps]
[Gabe] He did good.
I could see he was moving a lot of dirt,
and I could hear him working down there.
[Zeke] So, that's it for diver number two.
It's time to really step it up and put my brother Gabe down.
[Gabe exclaiming]
Get down there! Get!
-Get down there, boy! -[Gabe shouting]
Gabe and Shem are animals.
With those guys going back-to-back,
this should be the most action that the Havilah's ever seen.
[Gabe speaking]
Diver number three, and we're keeping the good times coming.
Things couldn't be going better.
He said he's seeing great gold right now,
so he's gonna keep slamming it.
[Gabe speaking]
Copy. [chuckles]
[narrator] While Team Tenhoff keeps it rolling,
one mile east...
Looks good.
I'm seeing the best gold this sluice box has ever seen.
Okay, start it.
Let's keep going.
Okay, idle off!
Go to work!
[narrator] Kris Kelly has the Mistress firing on all cylinders,
and the captain just might be finishing the season on a hot streak.
Right, we're getting everything back up and running.
Can't stop making that gold!
[shouts] You guys have really tipped the scale!
All the way around, Taylor. You're killing it!
[Kris] Suddenly, I had to be the captain
and the engineer of the Mistress.
Everything kept going wrong.
And you know what? I don't care.
I fought through all the problems,
and my last day might be my best day.
Yeah! Killing it.
Nothing is gonna stop us. I guarantee it.
I could cut my hand off,
and it still wouldn't stop me.
I could [bleep] cripple my leg,
and I would just be the best "limping-est" [bleeping] worker
you've ever seen in your life.
[machinery stalls]
[bleep]
Kris!
[whistles softly]
Okay, bring it over here.
Let's take a look at it.
Oh, we're [bleep], dude.
Uh, I don't know what the [bleep] this is called,
but it's supposed to be here.
So this steel ripped off and pulled it.
That thing is stopping me.
So, the hydraulic ram broke on the bucket.
Now, the bucket can't open and close all the way.
Everything is going wrong today!
I swear, every time I think things are going right,
I turn around, there's a new catastrophe.
Can you close it real quick
and see if you can make it close?
Close it.
So, what should we do?
I don't know.
[Kris] No, I don't know. You tell me.
Is it stopping you from digging?
Yes or no?
'Cause this is a big decision.
'Cause you know what this is?
This is the end of my season.
I don't even know how to fix that. Let's be honest.
The only thing that we can do,
it's either A, we stay mining,
or B, we go home right now.
Is it stopping you from digging?
Yes or no?
I can't.
-[Kris] You can't? -No.
[Kris] Okay, well, let's go if we're going.
Let's go.
Andy, stand by with the spud.
Extremely bitter decision right now.
We're on hot gold. I know we would make a lot.
What a kick in the nuts.
I'm doing the best I can.
I'm giving it everything I have.
But I'm not a mechanic.
I'm not an excavator technician.
I don't know how to fix this stuff.
Without James on board, I'm screwed.
The last day of the season.
The whole thing is just brutal.
You know what?
When I woke up this morning,
I didn't think I'd be running this operation.
That guy [bleep] me.
We got a lot of gold in the box.
That's about the only good news I have.
[narrator] The end of summer mining dawns on the fleets.
And on Claim 56...
[Vernon] Okay, let's go.
We wanna get that blue part up on deck, if possible.
It's looking like, to me, there's rocks right in there.
All right.
[narrator] Vernon and crew are on an urgent mission...
Get a hammer, bang on that [bleep],
and see if you can bust all that [bleep] loose.
[narrator] ...to clear a jam and get rocking and rolling.
[Vernon speaking]
Last day, we're on hot gold,
and now we're dealing with this nonsense.
All right, good plug.
It just got lighter.
Yeah. I think it's clear now.
I think we got our plug out.
And you know what, I'll tell you what.
Let's take that [bleep] out, call it good.
The coupler between the two sections of the hoses was the culprit.
It was falling apart,
so the rocks were getting jammed in there.
We're gonna dump it and its section of hose
and get back to work.
[man] It's no bueno.
The good news is the suction will be much more powerful.
The bad news is, shorter hose, less room to move around.
Hopefully, Bryan can get back on the gold ASAP,
and we can come out ahead.
We just had about a 3-hour delay
because of having to operate on this frigging hose and whatnot.
But, uh, you know, the beat goes on.
Now Bryan will go down for another couple of hours,
make this a productive day.
Right now, I'll tell you what.
Everybody's hungry for gold.
[Bryan on radio]
Comm check, one, two. You're coming in loud and clear.
[Bryan speaking]
[Vernon speaking]
[man] How's your suction now?
[Brian speaking]
I mean, that [bleep] moving now.
[Brian speaking]
[Vernon] That might be a good thing,
we shortened the hose, now it's 40 feet.
We're moving a hell of a lot more material.
That's now gonna suck the grime off the bumper here,
so we'll make up for that lost link.
just by the fact that we're moving more material.
Might be a double good thing getting rid of that extra length.
[Brian speaking]
Oh, yeah, it's skipping out.
[narrator] 11 miles west...
[Shawn] We're piling up the gold,
we're gonna dig all around these big rocks,
there's gonna be a huge pile of gold right here.
[narrator] In the final minutes of summer, Shawn Pomrenke
is putting the pedal to the metal
with his sights set on 3,000 ounces.
[Shawn] We've been on a good run here,
but easterly winds are supposed to start coming in
and as soon as that flag starts going east,
we're gonna go west.
Just let me get this last cut done.
As soon as the wind starts whipping,
we've pushed it as far as we can.
But I'm gonna go up till the absolute last moment.
You can count on that.
Here comes the wind.
The wind gets shifted
for the worst, it's coming out of the east now.
If it was a high west, I'd wait.
'Cause the west will blow me home.
East would blow me away from home, so.
That's it, we're gonna boogie.
Let's get ahead a bit right now.
I wish we could stay out here and dig, but...
...I spent the last 20-some years
coming out to this spot.
We know what to do and what not to do.
We're gonna go ahead and get all this pile of gold
safe in the Nome Harbor.
Let's go ahead and walk the spuds in and spot up.
Like the man says, you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.
And it's finally time to walk away.
But, we killed it today.
Are we gonna hit our 3,000-ounce goal?
Only time will tell.
We're heading home.
It's been a long season.
[narrator] While Shawn heads in...
...12 miles east...
[Jeff speaking] You know, I got, like...
...five inches of material right over some hard clay.
I mean, I'm seeing color.
I mean, this should be every bit of,
you know, at least an ounce an hour, ounce and a half.
But, yeah, we're having a really good evening, which is nice.
We didn't have such a hot morning,
but we're having a really hot evening,
as far as we're getting the gold!
Which is cool.
'Cause I was getting homesick, but now I'm not homesick.
You can't be homesick when you're, like, on this kind of gold.
[narrator] The fierce winds have yet to reach Claim 14.
And that's music to the ears
of the Eroica crew.
[Jeff speaking] But, uh,
[snorts and laughs]
[Jane on radio]
[Jeff speaking]
[laughs]
Will you come sing to him?
-[Eddie] No. -[laughs]
[Jane on radio]
Getting [bleep] bored.
What a [bleep] snob!
[bleep] all the gold, he's like, "I'm so bored!"
[Eddie] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, get back to work.
[Jane on radio]
Wants us to [bleep] sing to him.
-[Eddie] Yeah, yeah, yeah. -[bleep].
Eddie says "Yeah, yeah, yeah, get back to work."
Putting me in the middle, Eddie.
[narrator] Back in the harbor...
[car honks]
[honks]
-[Kris] Here he is! -[Kevin] What up, boys?
-[Kris] Back from California? -Back from Cali, baby!
-What's up, Taylor? -[Taylor] You're all so clean.
How are you, buddy?
[Kris] You gotta take the tags off your boots.
-[Kevin] Brand new boots. -[Kris] I, I noticed.
-[bleep] brand new boots. -[Kris laughs] We can tell.
And hey, they're [bleep] warm, dog, these boots are warm.
Let's go see, Andy. We got gold in the box?
[Kris] We got lots of gold in the box.
Kevin flew in all the way from California for this gold cleanup,
partially to be supportive,
but mostly because we still owe a lot of money on the Mistress.
It could get repo'd.
[man] It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good.
So it's just more pressure to add to the cooker right now.
All I've told Kevin all season long is excuses.
Excuses. The beginning of the season,
we didn't really get a lot of really good weather.
We finally get everything going, and then James [bleep] me hard.
[Diesel Don] Fixed.
So I had Diesel Don fix the bucket,
so I'm leaving the Mistress in better shape than James did.
And I don't want Kevin to think that I'm just gonna
leave it like a hunk of junk through the winter.
So we're gonna do a cleanup, and hope to God it's a lot.
[Kevin] Obviously I would like to see 30, 35 ounces.
We need the money, man. We got some bills to pay.
Let's go.
[Kris] Uh, we've had a really hard run generator problem,
James took off on us.
At the end of the day, everything is going great
when you're starting to see gold like this.
[man] Yeah, baby! What?
Best cleanup of the year, no matter what happens.
I'm hoping it's 30 ounces.
-[Kevin] That sure looks like a lot, man. -[Kris] Are you ready?
Here we go.
Now, we need to see...
-[Kevin] Drumroll. -[Kris] ...30 ounces.
Come on, baby. Three and a half, four...
five, six, seven...
...8, 9, 10, 11, 12...
13, come on, baby, 14...
14.26.
That's what we got.
[narrator] 14.26 ounces
is worth a little over 25 grand.
A nice chunk of change,
but still shy of what Kris and Kevin need
to make their payments on the Mistress.
[Kevin] How many hours was that for?
I don't know how many actual hours,
because the [bleep] generator turned off every 40 minutes
and we had to let it run down.
You know what? I'm sorry I got you into this, Kevin.
I swear to God I thought we were gonna
-kill it this year, buddy. -Yeah.
[Kevin] 14... you know, at the end of the day
we learned a lot, and we gotta take this experience
and use it to our knowledge, and knowledge is gold.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I learned so much over the last ten [bleep] years
-I should be a billionaire. -Yeah.
-I'm bummed. -[man speaking]
God, but you know what?
[bleep], those are [bleep], losers get nothing.
Losers get nothing. I want my million [bleep] dollars.
Look, the truth is, everybody, season's coming to an end,
but you know what? It's not over for me yet.
I am desperate, I need that money,
and we're gonna make it happen.
-We're going. I'm desperate. -I hear you.
[Kris] The harbor's icing, it's supposed to be 18 degrees.
I don't really give a [bleep], I need to push it one more to make this work.
You know? Like, uh, let's not give up right now.
We still have a little time to make this work.
So here's the insane headline.
We're going back out, in 13-degree temperatures.
Diesel Don got the excavator fixed, so we can do it.
The Mistress will likely struggle in these conditions.
It could be an absolute disaster trying to get out of the icy harbor.
Bottom line, I need the gold.
So this could be the dumbest thing I've ever done, or genius.
But one thing I know, Reaper Nation lives.
Okay, I'll see everybody later.
[Gabe laughing on radio]
[man speaking]
[Gabe speaking]
[Zeke] You've been down about four hours at this point.
-You did good! -[Gabe on radio]
[narrator] Third time's the charm for the team,
as Gabe Tenhoff completes leg number three
of the diving marathon.
Fore!
That's a hole in one. [laughs]
[narrator] And despite increasing winds...
...the team prepares for diver number four.
[Zeke] Oh, yeah, we're ready to roll.
This day has been going phenomenal.
We've got three solid dives in,
tons of material through the box.
Now, even though the winds are coming up,
Shem's gonna get down there,
bring the hammer down onto that bottom and clean it all up.
-[Shem] Whoo! -[Zeke] Yeah.
[Zeke] Towards the left is where the meat of all the ground I moved was,
there should be some interesting material there.
[Shem on radio] Whoo!
Whoo!
[Zeke] All right, buddy, you're at four hours right now.
[Shem speaking]
[Zeke] We're pretty much calling it now. We gave her hell.
[Shem speaking]
[screaming]
[Zeke] All right, yeah, um, let's get out of here.
Good to go.
[Shem imitating Porky Pig] [stammers] That's all, folks!
[Zeke speaking]
Putting the gold in the box. [bleep] awesome.
How's your boo? How's your boo-boo?
[narrator] While Zeke closes up shop,
13 miles east...
[Jane speaking]
[narrator] After seven hours under the water,
another crew is calling it a wrap on the season.
[Jeff speaking]
-[Jane laughs] -It's so good.
[Jeff] Oh, my God.
Oh, [bleep].
It feels real good to get a dive like that in.
-[Jane] Aw. -Yeah, that's money in the box.
-[Jeff] It's gonna look good. -[Jane] I'm really excited to see it.
[narrator] As waters calm in the darkness,
there's still one rig left on the water.
[Vernon] Hey, Brian?
[Brian on radio]
[Vernon] You've been down for four hours. How you feeling?
[Brian on radio]
[Vernon] Roger that. We're gonna pull you.
Hook up the line to the nozzle
and we will pull it up, okay?
[Brian speaking]
[narrator] After pushing his crew well into the night,
the captain's finally ready to throw in the towel on summer.
[Vernon] I'm proud of our team.
Brian kept going into the night,
hell, he could barely see anything.
When you're on gold and it's the last day of the season,
you give it everything you've got,
and that's exactly what these guys did.
hey, you know, that's all right, I mean,
[Vernon] Today went really well.
We had one snafu with the, uh, the hose,
and ended up wrestling with that son of a bitch for about two hours.
But the net result was positive.
We ended up with a better rig.
[man] That should be it.
[Vernon] This summer has been just, um, I mean,
it's been a constant blow.
We've been beat down to the point where we're numb,
but I'm predicting, uh,
we'll come out of this season with smiles on our faces.
All right. Good day.
Tomorrow we'll do a cleanup
and then, you know,
hopefully, um, we did good.
It's all over but the cleaning of the gold.
Hopefully it'll be the biggest of the year and we can end strong.
Getting at least 60 ounces, scoring a profit,
and chapping a good pay streak to start the winter.
It's been a tough season, but that would certainly redeem it.
Oh, yeah. That's checking out.
[narrator] As a new day dawns on the Bering Sea...
[Kris] The harbor is freezing over, let's check how thick the ice is.
Bam, there we go, that's easy.
we'll break right through that. [laughs]
I'll cut through that like nothing.
[narrator] The harbor is iced in
as temperatures plummet.
And the miners have all shut down for the season
except for one.
We're gonna keep pushing on until the bitter end,
but the [bleep] bitter end's knocking on the door, man.
I can't believe we're getting back on the Mistress, baby!
Yeah! One last chance.
[Kris] Say, 27 degrees, 15 degrees at night,
the old Kris would've said we're done.
But this is the new Kris we're looking at.
We're not [bleep] done until I get my gold out of this ocean.
Yes, the harbor's filled with ice.
Yes, we're the only boat out here in the Bering Sea.
Yes, I'm out of my mind pushing it one more day.
But I don't have enough gold.
If I gave up now, I won't be able to make my payment.
That would mean the end of the Mistress
and the end of the Reaper Nation.
I refuse, with every ounce of my body, to let that happen.
Okay, let's go!
Nice and smooth, baby, nice and smooth.
A storm is supposed to come in tomorrow,
this is, without question, my last chance.
I need a flawless day out on the Mistress
and that just hasn't happened.
But there is a first for everything, it just needs to be today.
-Okay, start it! -[motor starting]
[Kris] Okay, let's go.
Okay, let's do the first temp pan of the day.
This, right here, this is how cold it is.
Ahhh!
I didn't expect that.
Wow. It's so cold, it's brittle.
Well, that sucks. There goes my bin.
Go get me another bin.
Now that's a good temp pan for the day.
We're gonna make gold, baby!
[Kris] Literally, we're gonna stay here till we get pushed off.
2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning.
We have no choice, unfortunately, this year.
I mean, we spent so much [bleep] money on this boat this year.
We haven't made, we're not even trying to make a dollar,
we're trying to finish off the season paying our bills.
[Kris] We'll push hard,
and we'll make the, we'll make close to 20 ounce, like 20 grand.
[Kevin] Let us make no mistake,
we are digging for our lives right now.
[Kris] We'll get 20 ounces. We'll get 20 ounces.
[Kevin] We're digging for the future of the operation.
Gonna make us or break us.
[Zeke speaking]
[man] For sure.
[growling]
[Zeke speaking]
[narrator] After a legendary four-diver day,
Zeke Tenoff's hoping for a legendary number on the scale.
[laughs]
[Zeke] It's great to see this much gold.
I haven't seen this much gold in a long time.
It's so much that we asked Shawn to borrow his gold root.
They have all the rocks, and all around, the team totally crushed it.
Doing four dives in a day
was a pretty crazy proposition, but we did it.
And we're ready to reap the rewards.
So I kinda have a good idea for, like, how much ground we've moved in that area.
And I'm excited to see what that equates to.
All right, boys, are you ready?
Ready? We're ready, Freddy.
14.95.
[narrator] 14.95 ounces
is worth over $26,000,
bringing the Mad Scientist's season haul
to nearly 42 ounces, worth over 70 grand.
And while not hitting his 50-ounce goal,
it is his highest total in over five years.
[Zeke speaking]
That's what we wanna be doing.
Kinda feel like I uncovered the secret of gold mining.
Four dives in one day.
If you just do that every time,
you'll make a fortune.
But seriously, this has been a great way to end the season.
I'm really proud of what we've accomplished.
[howling]
[Zeke] And I think we're on a really good spot setting us forward for next season.
Yeah.
Yeah, [bleep].
[bleep] off, go kiss my ass.
[laughs]
[narrator] Back at the dock...
We're about to do the cleaning part of the gold,
and I've had a really good time working with Jeff and Eddie,
so it'll be fun to, like, see, like, um,
the results of it all.
[narrator] After an Emily-less day on the water,
it's time to find out if Captain Jane
goes strong for the Eroica team.
Yeah, I mean, we've been on some good gold,
be interesting to see what it turns into.
I'm bummed I wasn't out there on the last run, but,
hopefully Jane and the crew crushed it.
It's a weird way to cap off a strong season,
by not being out there, but...
Uh, hey, if there's gold in the box, that's all that matters.
[Jane speaking]
-Aww, there you go, yeah. -[Emily laughs]
Yeah, the weird thing is she's leaving.
-[Eddie] Jane. -[Jane] Eddie.
[Eddie speaking]
-[Emily and Jeff in pirate accent] R! -No, it's the C.
[Jane] I'll remember that one.
You know what, Jeff is hilarious.
You and Eddie are just frickin' hilarious.
I don't think I've laughed this much in a long time.
It's definitely been an adventure,
but winter's coming.
[Emily] I mean, there's a lot of signals here.
The harvest freezing, snowing,
wind is blowing, wind chill's pretty serious.
The end is nigh here.
[Jeff] Oh, I see some gold.
Oh, my gosh.
[Emily] Sweet!
I smell gold from miles away.
and so I just [sniffs]... There was a clean-up going on,
so I hunted around and end up at Emmy's.
So I'm here crashing the gold weighing party.
-How's the coffee? -[Jane] Sweet.
-Is it? Can I have some? -Mmm-hmm.
-Dad, you can't just drink somebody's coffee. -It's all right.
Oh, that's good.
-Yeah, mmm! -Vanilla latte, extra shot.
-You can actually finish it. -Mmm.
[Emily] All right, Dad. We're weighing the gold, everybody.
Four, five, six,
seven, come on! Emmy needs a new shirt.
-Seventeen, nineteen. -[Jeff] Come on!
-[Emily groans] Twe... -[pan clinking]
19.4, we got.
[narrator] 19.4 ounces
banks the expecting mom $35,000,
and brings her season total to 254 ounces.
Worth over $458,000.
Surpassing her goal and then some.
All right, sweet, that's awesome, guys.
-High fives all around. -Yeah.
-Good job. -Good, good.
I don't know Dad's high-fiving us.
-I'm here for moral support. -Cheer up, cheerleader.
High fives are cheerleader, that's what I do.
-Yeah. -That's what Steve was really working back here.
-Just... -All right.
[Emily] Hey, it's a great season.
I have an awesome husband, a baby on the way,
and, uh, Jane came in.
She's making the team much better.
And we hit our goal.
These are the ounces I need for me and my family.
Not just about me anymore and it never will be again.
This is the perfect foundation to start with.
Gotta teach that baby how to dive.
Put on a wetsuit and go to work.
So this, what we're doing, what we're mining,
it's, it's more valuable than ever.
And it's going to a really good place, you know?
It's great to be able to support a family like this.
-[Jeff speaking] -Cocaine and hookers.
This isn't just or cocaine and hookers anymore.
Maybe just a little bit.
[narrator] Back out on the water...
[Andy]
[Kevin] Yeah, nice buckets.
[narrator] Kris Kelly and the crew of the Mistress
have the Bering Sea all to themselves,
and so far, they're making a gallon.
So everything's going good, everything's good.
This is what I was hoping for.
Already six hours straight of mining
nothing breaking, no limp mode,
no half-closed buckets,
no generator shutting down.
Just work, professional mining, boo-yah, baby.
[bangs]
[screams]
[Kris] I don't know how that happened.
Don't worry, it'll be fine.
So a spray bar's busted, who cares?
We have a bunch that still work.
More than enough to keep going.
If the Bering Sea gods want to shut my season down,
they have to bring it harder than that.
Piss off.
Um, whatever.
It is what it is.
We're gonna keep out here unless something bigger breaks.
Can't stop making that gold.
[Bryan] Blues box was frozen and we couldn't even get the carpets out
we had to run hot water through it.
Done freeze all the carpets.
When it's time to go, it's time to go.
Yeah, this carpet's still kinda frozen.
[narrator] After maximizing every minute on hot gold...
-[Bryan] Look at it go! -[Vernon] Hell yeah.
[narrator] ...Captain Vernon Adkinson is eager to see
summer's last payday hit the scale.
[Vernon] Looking pretty damn good.
This season was not what I envisioned.
It was a struggle, no doubt about it.
But today, my crew came up to the plate,
and crushed the snot out of the ball.
If we can get at least five ounces today,
break 60 total, it'll be a profitable season.
-[Bryan] Oh, hell no. Look at that-- -Look at that right there.
-[Bryan] That one's big, man. -[Gary] Yep.
And it'll mean despite everything, we've persevered,
and Claim 56 is still moneymaker.
Nice and hot.
-There we go. -Let's weigh it up and see what it came out to.
[Bryan] Yeah, ready?
Here we go.
One, two.
-Seven, still going. -[Bryan] Eight.
Eight.
Nine.
-10.1. Woo! -10.1.
-[Gary] 10.1. Wow. -All right.
That's the kind of day I like.
[narrator] 10.1 ounces is worth over $18,000.
Bringing the salty skipper's final summer tally
to 65 ounces
worth over $117,000.
It's not how you start, it's how you finish,
and we ended on a hot streak.
Did we hit 300 ounces?
Did we threaten Shawn's regime as king of Nome?
Not this time.
-All right. -[Bryan] Bottle this up?
[Vernon] But all the ingredients are there for a huge future run,
and we're primed perfectly for winter.
It's gonna be lit.
You guys did a hella good job just in the little time we had.
It's about the best you can ask for.
That's like Claim 56
-blowing us a farewell kiss for the season. -[Gary] There you go.
-Teaser for next year. -Yo.
-Yeah, we know where to go and get the rest of that. -[Bryan] Yeah.
We got it, we got it marked.
Come winter time I know right where I'm going.
Bag it and tag it.
[Bryan] Bag it and tag it.
-Good job, guys. -[Bryan] All right.
[narrator] As the Mistress makes it past midnight...
[Kris] We are on some hot [bleep] right now.
Gold is stacking up.
[narrator] Captain Kris Kelly's got one eye on the box...
Just checking everything over.
Anything out of the ordinary that's obvious.
Then it becomes a concern.
[narrator] ...and one eye on his ship.
[Kris] I'm pushing myself hard.
I'm pushing the crew hard. I'm pushing the Mistress hard.
Just to get these last few ounces we need.
Just going around double checking things to make sure we're okay.
Everything's okay.
With James gone,
ultimately the seaworthiness of the Mistress falls on me,
and we're the only nutbags on the water right now.
If something goes wrong, there's no one that can help us.
That means right now I have to be extra careful with this barge.
Otherwise, I could risk the lives of my crew.
It's a fine line.
[Kevin] We're excited, we're making gold.
We're the only ones out here making gold, baby, in the cold.
Making gold in the cold.
Uh, nice going, great.
Uh, we're past midnight now. So we're on the...
-[metal rippling] -Oh, God.
[bleep]
-Oh, that shouldn't be like that. -That's not good.
[metal rattling]
[Kris] Be careful.
[Kris] We broke off one of the seals on the excavator.
Our guard, we just welded that guard on today,
we did it kind of quick.
We didn't really do a good job welding it.
We barely tapped it with a bucket and it came off.
Sign of Daniel getting a little tired.
[Kris] Everybody's tired.
We've had a really long stressful day.
Okay, the truth is, this is the truth.
Um, we're the last boat on the Bering Sea.
I'm not taking any more risks.
So that's it.
Losing the guard rail won't keep me from mining,
but my crew is exhausted.
They should be. We've been out 12 hours and it's a bitch out here.
If I keep pushing this any longer,
I run the risk of getting into real trouble.
We had a great day, let's end on a high note.
As captain, I have to shut it down.
Call it a season.
And I hope to God we have enough gold to make it.
All in all,
put aside a couple problems today,
we had a great day, everybody worked well together.
And we killed it, we got a lot of gold in the box.
That's all that [bleep] matters.
I think we did well,
but I am beat, I'm tired, I'm gonna sleep good tonight.
[Kris] It was a tough year, I'm glad it's over.
[Emily] Been messaging Jane Kilcher, she's a classical pianist,
and I'm a classical singer, and so I've been trying to get her to jam with me.
Like I've been like seeing her out at the bar and I was like, "Hey, Jane,
let's jam, let's hang out."
So like I kinda like had like a friend crush
on Jane and I was gonna like make the friendship happen,
and eventually I got to her.
[muffled] Uh-oh, what's this part?
-Will you die? -No, that's fine, that's fine.
-Oh, it's so great to jam with you, finally. -It's my favorite "Ave."
How many years? I think I went up to you in the bar
like years ago and I'm like,
And you're like, "Oh, another fan."
No! I wasn't like that.
I just, we didn't see each other for a while.
No, I'm just giving you a hard time.
[Jane] Ready.
'Kay.
[Emily singing "Ave Maria"]
-[continues singing] -[wind blowing]
[Shawn] Last run of the season, we need to make this one count.
[narrator] The Myrtle may be docked in the harbor,
but the gold dust has yet to settle on the season.
As Mr. Gold uncovers his final bounty.
[Shawn] I had a lot of little gremlins that kind of plagued us
at the beginning of the season.
But towards the end, we got her dialed in.
Pretty damn good.
All we needed was time on the box,
got it all chewed up.
Regardless of how it pans out,
I know I did everything I could this season.
Pushed it and pushed it.
Now it's up to the Bering Sea gods.
Hopefully the final layout will be what I need.
Finish strong.
Make a bunch, pile it up.
Here we go, boys.
Let's see what we got.
Hooey.
There's 20, 30.
Seventy, 80, 90, there's a 100.
There we go, come on.
Two-hundred.
Two-twenty.
[bowl clinks]
[whistles]
Two-twenty-seven.
Nice job, guys.
[narrator] Two hundred twenty seven ounces
rings in at over 400 grand
and brings Shawn's season haul to 3,018.5 ounces.
Worth a staggering $5.4 million.
Time to put it in the pickle jar.
Overall...
I'm happy.
We're sitting really good for next year.
Now this is a good feeling.
Despite all the crap that went on this season,
and there was a lot of it, we pulled it off.
There's 20,000.
Twenty-thousand.
Ching, ching, ching.
It's summers like these that boost your confidence.
And I'm rearing to go for winter.
Here we go, woo-woo!
All right, let's wrap. Let's get the hell out of here.
No more gold until this winter.
Getting there, you get everything out of here into my igloo
so we can start really getting the gold out of here.
[narrator] After braving the icy sea an extra day,
and pushing into the night,
it's judgement day for Kris Kelly.
Look at that, buddy.
Wow.
Look at the gold.
Look at that. Yeah, baby!
The magic's here.
Look at Christmas time, baby.
That's one present, that's one car.
That's a house bay, man.
-That's some gas. Gold! -Yeah, that is a lot of gold.
That is a lot of gold, Kris.
[Kris] Yeah, okay, good.
[Kevin] Holy moly! All the way through, look!
-Look at this find. -At least Kevin's happy.
You know, it's always nice when
the guy that puts up the money for the whole adventure is smiling.
[Kevin] Wow.
Come to Papa.
[Kris] So, it's pretty simple.
We need at least 30 ounces to make our payment
and keep Reaper Nation afloat.
We got a little over 14 ounces last time,
and that didn't cut it.
So when everybody else pulled their boats out for this season,
we went back out one last time.
It wasn't easy, but hopefully we got enough gold
to survive and keep the dream alive.
[Kevin] Oh, my God.
Look at how much gold is in this track.
Boo!
[Kris] Kevin is already celebrating like we got this in the bag.
I'm superstitious, I think that's bad luck.
[Kevin] Boo!
That is awesome.
At least we go clean when smelting when we get home.
[Kris] The gold looks pretty good.
But never count your chickens before they're hatched.
That looks, wow, Kristopher!
Told you we were on point.
I've never seen a mountain poured on a piece of paper like that before.
-[Andy] It changed his attitude. -[Kevin] Oh, dude.
[Kris] Okay, here we go, people, we need 20 ounces to make this.
[Kevin] Okay, we got one, two.
Three, four, five.
We're at 12.
-[Andy] Twelve? -Thirteen, fourteen.
-Fourteen, 15, 16, 17. -There's got to be 20 ounces.
-Eighteen, 19, keep going, 20. -[Andy] Going past 20.
-Twenty-one, 25, Kris. -[scale beeps rapidly]
[Kevin screams]
-Overload, overload! -[scale continues beeping]
-Overload, we tipped the scales. -[Kris exclaiming]
[Kevin] At 25, it shut off so we don't know what we got.
So the scale only went to 25 ounces
which is a [bleep] amazing problem which means that we have more than 25 ounces.
Pour it out and then we'll do it again.
Okay, here we go.
So I'm gonna put 20 in this jar right here.
And then we'll weigh whatever's left after 20 ounces.
And that'll tell me...
-What we got. -[Andy] That's what needs getting.
[Kris] 'Kay, here we go.
[Kevin] That's it.
-[Kris] There you go, 20. -[Kevin] On the money.
-Let me change the cup, Kris, yeah? -[Kris] Change cups.
[Kevin] Here we go, let's see what we got.
Okay.
[Kevin] One.
Three.
Four, five, six.
-Seven. -Come on, come on.
-Thirty, 30, 30! -Come on, come on!
Come on!
-Oh, 28. -[Kevin] 28.06.
[narrator] 28.06 ounces is worth over $50,000.
Bringing their season total to 87.73 ounces.
Kris and Kevin will meet their payment,
and Reaper Nation will live to fight another day.
-Oh, Kristopher. -Oh, it was a bad year.
[all yelling]
Yay, we did it, Kris!
At the end of the year, we did it, bro.
-We have a gold mine. -[Kevin] Oh, yes, baby.
So was it the 500 ounce season I envisioned?
Did we threaten Shawn for top spot in Nome?
No, not even close.
In the end, we did what we had to do.
We dug deep and despite everything being brought at us,
we cannot be killed.
Reaper Nation will live forever.
[Kevin] I'm ready to call it a season
-and I'm ready to hit it hard next year. -Yeah.
You know, it didn't come through like he said it was gonna come through.
-I'm sorry. -[Kevin] But at the end of the day,
it wasn't a lack of effort from Kris's part.
-Next year, it'll be 1,000 ounces. -[Kris] Yeah.
It will!
[narrator] And just like that, another summer is in the books.
Here come the big one.
[narrator] Sure, we had our challenges.
Come on!
We're not moving.
[narrator] But we had some fun too.
Yeah!
[narrator] We made some new friends...
Show off my gold spandex.
What do you say, Bertie?
[narrator] ...and caught up with a few old ones.
I literally had to [bleep] in a plastic bag this morning.
[narrator] Yes, things got a little dicey at times.
We need to abandon ship.
-Let's go! -I don't give a--
[narrator] Even a little rowdy.
But in the end,
it was still a summer filled with gold.
All right, sweet, that was awesome, guys. High-fives.
A lot of work goes into that pile of gold, right there.
It's like...
[Zeke laughs]
[Andy yells]
Overload! Overload!
Yeah, yeah!
-[Kris] We have a gold mine. -[Kevin] Oh, yes, baby!
[Vernon] All right, guys, we'll have enough to go home with.
I wish it'd have been more.
We have a pile of gold.
[narrator] Next season on Bering Sea Gold ...
The ice is screwed up this year.
It jumbled all to hell and back.
That's the worst I've seen of it.
[man] We're on the ice!
Good to go.
It's time to mine.
Go, team, go.
There's machines ready to go in the water.
Okay, let's see this work.
Looks good.
How's the light under there?
I want to prove to my Dad I can do this by myself.
Wow.
Look at this.
[exclaims] Yeah!
Let's go, man.
-Go! -Woo! [bleep]!
Big huge chunks of ice coming down.
No, no, no. This is very bad.
Very bad, very bad.
[Vernon] Yes.
I think a heart doctor's what I need.
[Vernon pants]