The end of ice mining looms on the horizon.
And the fleet is at the end of their rope.
As the twisted whims of the Bering Sea tie the miners in knots...
...who can grab a lifeline and pull themselves to victory?
And who will lose their grip and come crashing down?
That's the agreement!
All right. [bleep] you.
Pick up on aisle five.
With the grind of the winter campaign wearing on her...
...Jane Kilcher's bringing in some much needed moral support.
Hello.
Hi. Hi!
Snow above.
I'm so excited!
- Whoo! - Kate.
This season's been tough all around,
I'm not gonna lie.
Uh-oh.
It's been a struggle getting the hang of ice mining.
...66.
At-- At least it's something.
We have virtually no gold
and with this team, the pressure, is like, breaking us down.
- Okay. - Whoo!
Okay. Got it.
So, I guess I'm gonna drive?
You're-- You're driving.
Because I've driven with you before.
It's been months since I've seen a friendly face
and right now I really need that.
So, I asked my cousin Kate from Texas to come up
and witness this madness that I'm going through.
And then which way are we going?
Um...
Go forward.
- We can decide-- - Well, obviously.
Now what would you do without me here?
Whoo-hoo!
Oh, my God.
Honestly, at this point, I'm hoping that this team can have, like, one day
without any fighting,
and we can actually have, like, at least one successful dive.
For once.
Kate, this is Jeff and Eddie.
Eddie, Jeff.
Kate. She's a hot mess.
Just like me.
- So, this is the shack. - Wow.
And I actually sit, like, right there.
If I wanna talk to the diver, I have to press this to talk.
I'm like, "Hello, see any gold?"
I'm like, "Whoo."
That's what happens there.
It's crazy that this is what I've been doing this winter.
I can't even write, I'm so cold.
I've never seen an ice mining operation before.
When Emily said she needed me to be her eyes and ears,
of course I said yes.
Oh, you're moving the whole shack?
Wow.
Uh...
Get the holes done.
- Yeah. - Okay.
I don't even think we're gonna get a dive in today.
That's the way things have been going.
So I'm gonna show Kate around Nome.
The boys will text me when they are ready to dive.
Fingers crossed.
All right. Well, we're gonna get out of your hair.
I'm gonna go get fried food at the Gold Dust.
Don't go through withdrawal for me.
Bye.
You guys ride safe!
Thank you.
Bye.
I got two weeks left in the season.
It's coming to an end.
As winter mining reaches the homestretch,
Nome's resident king has his back up against the wall.
We're getting our asses handed to us this year.
This season I took a chance. Left the Tomcod
and moved over to the East Tract.
We got to spend most of the season close to the town.
But I don't know the ground that well.
Honestly, that gamble is biting me in the ass right now.
If I'm gonna hit 100 ounces and stay on top,
I'm gonna need better ground.
I don't know how many holes we've done.
We always see gold but
when you're running to heat it, it's gotta be really good gold.
I sent Joe out ahead of me to check one last spot on the East Tract.
If he doesn't find anything worth staying there for,
I'm gonna admit defeat,
we're gonna move the whole operation to the Tomcod.
Huh.
Oh, where, oh, where did my Joe go?
One shack's still here.
Where in the hell did Joe go?
I see. Oh, look at that.
Thought this was gonna turn out to be a good spot but obviously not.
No gold.
Crap, he's already gone.
All the way down to the Tomcod, six miles down the coast.
Well, there's your answer.
I don't make many mistakes but East Tract was one of 'em.
So, it's time to head to the Tomcod.
I'm tracking Joe right now.
I'll find him. I got a trail.
He left me some bread crumbs.
Wish he would have left me some flakes of gold I can follow.
Here we go.
No gold?
Joe's already been working.
He said he found a potential hot spot.
I'm praying he's right 'cause moving this whole operation,
it's a big risk.
- Yeah. - Oh, thanks for the sign too.
Appreciate that.
Now it's gold time.
Let's get to work.
I'm gonna go see some of this gold that Joe's been talking about.
He's gonna suck some of it up. Oh, yeah!
You know I am.
Oh.
Oh, dang.
Loud and clear.
Wow.
Look at all of this stuff.
Look at all of it!
Let's get back in money-making.
Okay, good. Go.
- Up, up, up, up. Higher up. - Higher up.
In winter's waning days,
Chris McCully is looking to lasso the gold count title.
We still have two more weeks and we can't slow down.
It'd be really insane
to pull more gold than Shawn this winter.
At this point, it's looking like a very real possibility.
We just gotta close strong and I think we can pull this one off.
Luckily, we're on some real hot ground.
And we call it "Wall Street."
It's just where the money is.
The plan is we're gonna send me and John down there
so that we can reap some dividends.
- Power on? - Power's on.
Now I'm gonna send John first but I got this diver named Bo.
He's new but I'm gonna break him in up top first.
With so little time left into our season,
we need to keep our operation flawless.
Whoo!
Is it out?
Oh, [bleep]. Oh, God!
Oh, my God.
I started idling up, that thing gave up, like...
Almost killed my operation, dude.
My air compressor, the lights.
The intake, the generator.
Good thing they're still running though.
We got a giant leak in the hose, um...
We can't really mine like this.
We don't really have a backup for this
but hopefully it's an easy fix so that we can get back going.
It needs to be--
They fire it up, it's--
Water spraying over here.
It's like the water park down here.
Tape.
Tape! He's wrapping a high pressure hose with tape.
Dude, come on.
It's not gonna come close to cutting it.
I have to go to the store and, uh...
Uh, get a Band-Aid for that.
Like a real fix solution to it.
We need a proper sleeve to fix this.
So I got to run back to town and pick one up.
For now we're dead in the water until we get this thing fixed.
And that means we're losing money.
And we're losing it fast.
Yeah, I better go do that now
before I-- we waste time.
Let's just keep bringing it up,
and then when you think that's good enough to weld on and everything,
we'll put it to that level.
Right on.
With limited time left this season,
Kris Kelly's sea crawler dream
is hanging on by a thread.
That's good!
Okay.
Andy's cutting off one restrictor ring
for the swivel nozzle.
Mike's welding on the other side.
If you would have told me in the beginning that
winter would almost be over,
we have no gold, we'd be messing with this thing all day long,
I'd tell you, "Just kill me right now."
I never dreamed it would waste our whole season
just getting the gold trawl up and running.
It starts off on the right, now it's all the way on the left.
Do you think that's a problem?
Well, then why didn't you take care of that problem?
If we can ever get that thing working,
it would be a game changer.
But if it keeps needing to be fixed,
Reaper Nation is done for.
This will make sure that we don't get rock jams all day long.
I hope.
No, this will. This will make sure.
So, what I'm gonna do is,
I'm gonna take this reducer ring,
and we're just gonna hard weld it...
to this.
And then, uh,
we'll be able to blast the [bleep] out of everything.
You like that, huh?
A million things have gone wrong with this bad boy.
But the only thing that's holding us up right now
is the rock guard we've installed.
The crawler sucks up everything in its path.
Without a rock guard, it gets rock jammed easy.
With it fixed, that shouldn't be an issue.
We should just be sucking up gold nonstop.
I think we're gonna have
- the most amazing thing on the water. - Yeah.
And we're ready to go back in the water.
Coming down.
It's going down.
It's flat on the ground.
Okay, there we go.
- We're good to go. - Yeah.
Yeah, [bleep].
Oh, you see the sand over--
Ooh, I like it like that!
I like it like that.
That's my perfect material.
A little bit of sand over the cobble.
Yes! It's alive.
It's like a two-ton anchor's been lifted off my shoulders.
I was starting to lose hope.
I literally was not expecting it
to push everything around like a [bleep] plow.
I've already taken this whole stretch.
Look at Andy over there making more gold than he ever has.
Leave that rock alone.
Look at that.
You're a [bleep] child.
Now, we just have to push hard and mine as much material as we can
and pray, pray this crawler doesn't break down.
Now, get the material below it.
Yeah, look at that.
- Look at how much material. - Oh yeah, look at that material.
Nice and fine.
We're actually removing more material today,
we're probably getting more gold per hour than we ever have,
and we're not breaking a sweat doing it.
Look at how well that[bleep] thing works!
Across the ice...
So, it's like, we're pretty much set off to just cruise here.
Despite a close call last time out,
Zeke Tenhoff is pressing his luck yet again.
Just dialing these last, uh, minor details.
There's a bunch of good gold and, uh,
it's going out under the sand over that way.
So this season has been pretty good so far.
We set a minimum goal of 25 ounces
and we're most of the way to that number by now.
And that's because we found a pretty hot pastry.
But the thing is, is that it's under these crazy dangerous pressure ridges.
And these ice blocks are basically causing near-death experiences.
What's up?
Last time out, a really big chunk of ice broke off
and nearly plugged up the hole.
We moved to an area where the pressure ridge isn't quite as dangerous.
It's still gonna be dicey but the gold is so good
that we can't really just pass it up.
Especially this late in the season.
So bring it on!
All right.
Whoa!
Look at that!
It's so spooky.
This is one of the more dangerous holes.
Um, just the way the pressure ridges come down
make these really sharp snags, um,
that tangle the tether.
That's our lifeline, um...
When we're down there, if we don't have, uh,
a way to get back up and we're tangled up,
there's no other way than to make a mask off emergency ascent.
Which is pretty much every diver's worst nightmare.
Um, the saltwater has a lower point of freezing.
We're looking at 27 degree water.
Uh, you don't want that on your face.
Okey dokey. Roger that.
I've bumped it up a little bit after you said it was cold.
Okay. Well, I'm just going tiny increments so it doesn't go too hot or too cold.
I'm trying to just give tiny little things.
All right. What are we gonna find down here?
All right, try and plow it through. Let's see what's under there.
Oh!
Yeah!
Oh, look at all those pieces.
Hell, yeah. That's awesome.
It is.
Zeke is seeing some good gold.
Which is what we needed.
Hopefully, uh, we can
keep following the trail of crumbs.
Four miles east...
Jane's team is up and mining but without their captain-in-training.
No nap time.
Pull me-- Pull me up before you go to sleep.
- Cold gold. - Cold gold?
All right. Let's do it.
Thought you were gonna call, text.
Thought you were gonna text when you were gonna go diving.
- What? - I thought you were gonna text when you were gonna go diving.
I hadn't heard from the guys
and lo and behold,
they're already suited up and they're diving.
Like, what the hell?
Oh, you haven't been in yet?
Jeff, I'm just really feeling disrespected about communication.
I thought we had clear communication, when...
When it's time to dive,
- you guys would let me know, or give me, like, a notice. - Jane...
No, it's not this one incident!
It's a lot!
- Uh, what I'm saying-- - It does matter.
Emily told me when I came out here,
this operation would be ready to go.
I'm not here to be treated with disrespect.
The agreement was, when you're diving,
that I didn't need to stand around,
but you're still doing mechanical issues.
- Jane-- - Don't come down on me,
I'm the one that's disrespected, not you!
- Yes, you are, I'm telling you are... - Jane--
...because my feelings are hurt.
- That's-- - And also communicate with me.
And our agreement was, for when you dive...
You let me know, and you did not.
You just--
That's the agreement!
All right, [bleep] you.
You just--
That's the agreement.
All right, [bleep] you.
She is going to call you.
Well, you're gonna get that phone call.
Yeah, dive!
And then we'll have a talk, I'm not staying now!
Because you don't say you don't need me.
And then you're not doing anything till Emily talks to you.
Well, guess what, she's gonna talk to you.
And don't be bitching me out when I'm the one disrespected.
The things that are coming out of your mouth are so rude.
And I am here to be part of the tender.
But we agreed that there'll be a phone call for when you're ready to dive.
That was the agreement.
unacceptable.
Everything I said was right,
and everything he said was absolutely, 100% dead wrong.
Well, that was BS.
My job specifically out here for Emily
is to oversee the operation while she's gone.
For them to go and do a dive,
and not tell me, and then why'd you have to be like,
so condescending about it.
Ooh.
It's just not okay in any way.
The team is in tatters.
Hey!
So, I don't wanna stay out here, I feel like...
Like, I feel like he owes me an apology.
And I don't... I-I started by just saying
I feel disrespected,
and he just kinda got nasty with me.
And saying that you don't need me here to dive...
It would've been really nice to have you guys here earlier.
- I was waiting to come. - Right.
- Well, I'm happy that he's doing good. - I know, right?
All right, well, I'm gonna let you go,
I mean, I'm-I'm always willing to work things out.
Absolutely.
Well, all right, well, hope you guys get lots of gold.
Hey!
Look at that, that's beautiful, too.
- You can totally tell the place you could take it. - Yeah.
With the Crawler, working at full force,
Reaper Nation might finally have a line on success.
See that line you've just made,
you just clear-cut that whole area.
It worked better than I thought it was going to.
I think, in the last three hours,
we've done more ground than we have in a 12-hour shift.
Borderline home run.
Depends on how much gold I see in the box.
If I see a coat of gold, that's a homerun.
Finally, we actually got a couple great hours in with the Crawler,
no broken rock guard,
no getting stuck on the sea floor.
Now, it's working the way God intended,
or at least the way I intended.
The true test is if we have gold in there,
or are we just high on our own supplies.
I'm shocked.
You know, I knew it was gonna work,
but I didn't think it was gonna work this good.
Now we're gonna actually see if there's any gold in the box.
Mike... both engine's down!
Let's just see, whatever we get is what we get.
Hey, look at that big piece of gold.
Holy mother look right there, dude.
Yeah, dude, this feels nice.
Gold there,
- gold... - Buddy, we got gold all through those.
Oh, look at that little tinker right there.
Boom, it's real life gold, it's all coming together.
We got a half a day in today.
Now we just need to put the peddle to the metal.
Full days, no problems for the rest of the way.
Let's just pile up the gold, and save our season.
Huh, we did good.
- Yay yay yay yay! - Wait for me, buddy.
Good job, everybody.
- I don't know who I'm talking to. - Me.
- You, good job, Andy. - ...your old age.
- Well, Andy, you know what, you're a genius... - You wanna kiss my boots?
...you put all this together, and make everything happen.
Kiss my toes.
No need to even work hard anymore.
Across the ice...
Yeah!
And I'm a little over yonder a little bit.
In the home stretch of winter,
Zeke Tenhoff's under pressure...
Ridges.
Zeke's, uh, been down there for about five hours today,
so we got a good chunk done.
Well, that's good, at least there's a bunch of gold down there.
All right, I'm gonna run the pumps down and pull that tether in.
Roger.
The gold is looking hot! That's good news.
You gotta work for a lot of thunder, a lot of sand.
What the
- Is it completely stuck? - Yeah.
It's a serious safety issue, uh...
If that tether is snagged, there's no way for the diver to come up,
other than de-mask and come up.
That sucks!
So, we gotta disconnect that mask and pull it through?
Can you still make it up?
Super sketchy.
Tether snag.
Pretty much, that's like, the diver's worst nightmare right there.
No, I mean it's...
- It's trapped in there. - Yeah.
The ground under these pressure ridges
has been such a double-edged sword.
The gold is very good and consistent,
but it's just the third time that it's
almost killed one of us.
I seriously thought I was about to have to ditch my mask.
I know it's super risky to keep diving under these pressure ridges,
but gold mining is supposed to be crazy.
Words don't do it justice.
Not really any way to explain how dramatic that is.
There's a giant iceberg...
and he's like, actively lassoing,
and he's like, lassoing torture ice ball, and it's
Jams your [bleep] tether above... against the ceiling,
and it's like, "Oh, no!"
I replay a mask-off and set it in my head all the time,
just because that's uh,
pretty much worst case scenario, you know?
The good news is that the gold is really good.
I realize that it may be crazy
to keep diving under these pressure ridges,
but bring on the crazy.
It was a good day, I got a bunch of hours in diving,
I put a bunch of gold in the box.
Across the ice...
Man, this is a beautiful ground, Joe.
She is, isn't she?
Aw!
Mr. Gold's efforts to pull ahead of Chris McCully
are currently on ice.
This ground will make us millionaires,
if we just figure out how to suck it up.
Yup.
Oh!
I say, uh,
we know what's here.
It's a frozen ground, it ain't going nowhere.
10-4.
Yes, sir.
All right, coming on up.
Yes sir, yes sir.
I guess the good news is-is
we got a great spot to come to,
after the thaw happens in the summer.
But, the bad news is,
we're trying to hit a 100 ounces,
and get in front of McCully,
and we came up completely empty.
And the time's running out on the season.
It's not good.
The pressure's gonna be on big time the rest of the way.
Yeah, we're moving tomorrow.
This ground is frozen, we can't move it fast enough.
Yeah.
Let's just keep moving.
As Shawn packs it in...
I got the parts to fix it, for sure.
Things get off-track one in a while, so I had to be out here,
getting things straightened up,
making sure the operation keeps running.
Back from town,
Chris McCully's hoping his late season push
isn't about to get hosed.
All right, I got the sleeve for this hose,
so, hopefully, we can get this thing patched up,
and we're on our way ASAP.
I'm always the last person to find out, you know?
Someone [bleep] up, and didn't wanna tell me,
and then just try to fix it.
And then I find out later.
So, it turns out it wasn't just a leak,
it's got cracks everywhere.
Someone in the team didn't tell me and tried to hide it.
Ah!
So now, I really gotta scramble.
There we go.
It's like ripping up a, a phone book.
We're gonna splice it in the middle, that's the trick.
Bend it over.
Yeah, there we have it.
Prime her up.
Let's see how this thing goes.
Go ahead.
More.
Wait, wait.
This hose is fried, it's cracked all over the place.
So, I'm gonna have to run back to town,
and grab another section.
We're done for the day,
and that means no gold.
I can't really think of a worse outcome,
especially this late in the season.
We gotta get as much as we can get.
I'm getting the sense, the end is near.
And now, another episode of Social Hour with Vernon.
All right.
Let's see what's happening out there on the internet.
Everything in Nome is expensive.
Fuel is like, 50% higher than...
Than it is in the Lower 48.
Food is off the charts.
We're paying down Manhattan prices,
right here in this little place of Nome, Alaska.
Well, I've got my eye on
a, uh, little bottom crawler.
It's about a $5 million project,
and then I would go out there and I would ravage number 56.
Which is what I do with all my money anyway.
I mean, what's to say it would be different if I won the lottery?
I'd just buy more equipment
This has been another episode of Social Hour with Vernon.
Gather it all in here.
He's gotta clean up the whole box again,
and it's gonna take forever, but there is some gold in it.
Zeke Tenhoff is hoping he roped in enough gold
to take some of the pressure off.
I'm pleasantly surprised.
Anytime you're ice-diving,
you're putting your life on the line.
But diving under these big pressure ridges,
I feel like I'm putting my life
a lot more on the line than usual.
Hopefully, the results in this sluice box
will prove that it's worth it.
Oh, pretty.
Pan it up, see what we got.
Come on, get in there.
We've hit the big one.
- Right. - Up, up...
1.3.
Yeah, there we go.
1.42.
1.42 ounces,
is worth about $2,700.
Helping Zeke and the boys
creep ever close to 25 ounces.
That's about what is to be expected.
1.4 ounces more gold, which is almost $3,000 extra that we now have.
- So, great. - Sick.
Honestly, I would like to see a little bit more.
These are not exactly easy ounces that we're getting.
There's a lot of blood, and sweat,
and terrifying moments along the way.
But the good news is that we're still on course
to wind up to where we wanna be by the end of the season.
I'm happy with where we're at.
Dude, I think the results that we had
over the past, like, three-four weeks, are very repeatable.
Yeah.
We done.
Across the ice...
Wash it good, no leftover rocks.
We're expecting a different number
than the last couple of weeks now.
Diving has concluded for the day.
I think we're seeing it already.
Fingers crossed.
And on the frozen Bering Sea,
Captain Jane is returning to tie up some loose ends.
You know, it's the end of the season.
We don't have any gold.
Tensions are high.
I've calmed down.
It's been a rough season, no gold,
lots of breakdowns,
we're at the end of our ropes.
I'm like, over being disrespected,
and it's been a long time coming that I stand up for myself.
If we're gonna salvage any of this season,
it's not gonna be fighting each other.
Hey, bring it in.
- Oh, bring it in. - Bring, bring it in.
Yeah.
Uh, the box looks good,
I thought you guys had a good dive.
If we get to see gold, it'll boost our morale.
Oh, well.
Mmm-hmm.
Okay, let's put all the bad behind us,
and let's get some freaking gold.
Most of the gold is in this.
Like, black sand.
Most of it's gonna get trapped in the first one.
I'm already... Oh, yeah, can you see it, Kate?
Oh, I see it!
- Good spot. - I know.
Definitely a good spot.
Moment of truth.
Bum-bum-bum.
Yeah!
One three five.
It's not going up.
Oh!
4.3.
Which is good.
4.3 ounces is worth over $8,000.
And while, not breaking the bank,
it's easily the best clean out out of the season,
for Team Riedel.
We got the band back together and had a really good day.
- Had a good set, guys, good set. - Yeah.
It's been a rocky road,
but now we're all gonna be on the same page.
The gold is starting to come in.
And we have really good mojo.
So, let's finish strong.
- It was a great day, and... - Awesome.
- Tomorrow's gonna be a good day and-- - Encore!
- Tomorrow's gonna be even better. - Oh, yeah.
It was a great dive.
Awesome.
The front-runners both stall out.
While Team Emily and Zeke
shake up the board.
Next time, on Bering Sea Gold...
We gotta find some gold, and we gotta get on it now.
It's time to go to work.
Good to go!
You're just one lazy
You need to do that... yourself.
Damn it!
Hit the pipe underneath.
Get in the water.
Get wet.
Get your hose.
I'm about ready to pass out.
Whoa, yeah!
Hi!
He's loving it down there.
Gold. Let it rain.
Oh, oh my gosh, Emily's in labor!
Come on, baby.