[narrator] This winter,
the fleet is caught in a nightmare
that's turned their world upside down.
The King of Nome loses his golden kingdom.
As the wily veteran sees his power,
the town outlaws forced to go it alone.
While the young gun makes a deadly gamble.
And the mad scientist faces a life changing creation.
There's no place like Nome, Alaska,
home of the largest offshore gold deposits in the world.
In the winter months, the ocean freezes over
and the miners endure sub-zero temperatures
as they cut holes in the ice.
And dive into frigid waters.
[man] Yeah!
[narrator] This winter, the stakes are raised
as gold prices have soared to record highs,
making their hunt more urgent than ever before.
But now...
[man] The ice looks really sketchy.
[narrator] The most severe El Nino in over a decade
is changing the ice field.
Warmer temperatures are disrupting the freeze,
covering the offshore gold grounds
with impenetrable icy barricades,
known as pressure ridges,
throwing every miner's plans out the window.
[man 1] Where's the gold?
[man 2] Come up, come up.
[woman speaking]
-All right, I'm telling you. Just listen! -Why are you [bleep] yelling?
[bleep] Idiot.
[bleep]
[woman] Whoa.
Damn, this ice is messing with me right now.
[man speaking]
Payday. That's what we call that.
Are you ready for a ride?
[Shawn] We're just getting going,
getting all the ice mining gear ready to rock and roll.
We're just heading out to check out
the conditions of the ice.
Little scouting mission.
Looking for big flat bands.
Something easy to move around on, easy to get through it,
and easy to get in the water.
Mr. Gold's gonna get some gold.
[narrator] He's known as Mr. Gold.
For years, mining on his offshore claim,
the legendary Tomcod grounds,
he set the standard in Nome.
[Mr. Gold] That's a big nugget there.
[narrator] Pulling in millions of dollars in gold.
[Mr. Gold] Three-seventy-six.
Oh, broke the scale.
We're gonna need a bigger scale.
[narrator] And unleashing groundbreaking innovations
that change the industry.
[Mr. Gold] I put an excavator on a barge.
This thing is awesome.
[narrator] Now, he's looking to conquer Nome by sea and by land,
as he sets his sights
on a legendary inland mine known as Arctic Gold.
Over 9,000 acres, the Shawn hopes
will eventually bring in more gold
than he or anyone has ever seen in Nome.
But with a price tag of over a million dollars,
Shawn's looking for a big haul from his Tomcod claim
to get the project started.
Want to get on some really good gold
and help offset some of the inland expenses.
I'll be burning a quarter million dollars a month
before we even start washing dirt,
I'll have 1.5 million into the inland mine.
We got the Tomcod.
Hopefully the ice is good down there.
That's where we're gonna be able to make
a big pile of gold.
That's gonna be the key.
[narrator] On the Bering Sea, the gold grounds are divided
into sections called leases or claims
that miners can buy exclusive rights to mine.
And for years, the area known as Tomcod
has been the most lucrative lease on the water
and the key to Shawn's Golden Empire.
Wow.
Ice is pretty messed up.
Lots of big pressure ridges.
Lots of big mounds of ice.
Big chunks up on top
means that there's big chunks underneath.
Yeah, El Nino really screwed the ice up this season.
Look at this.
There's ice jumbled up everywhere.
Pressure ridges are no joke.
You can't set up a mining operation
unless you have flat ice.
The way the pressure ridges jumble up the ice,
it makes cutting a hole almost impossible
and diving really sketchy.
I haven't seen it this bad before.
As of right now, the Tomcod's un-minable.
Now I don't know how I'm gonna fund
the startup of the inland mine.
This is not good.
This is exactly where I wanted to be,
but ice is just way too messed up.
Fight Mother Nature, Mother Nature is gonna win.
[narrator] As Mr. Gold's plans are shot down,
three miles east...
A young gun hopes his plane is ready
to fire on all cylinders.
[Chris] Beginning of the season,
I came here to check out my spot.
Just looking from the horizon
and the ice is not looking too good this year.
Wow.
[narrator] Always confident.
[Chris] From my perspective,
you can tell who's professional
and who's not, you know what I mean?
[narrator] Second generation miner Chris McCully
made a splash last winter.
[Chris] We killed it. Whoo-hoo.
[narrator] When he topped the leaderboard
with nearly 300 grand worth of gold
on his very first campaign.
I'm a little shaky, but...
[whistles]
Good feeling.
[narrator] But Mother Nature may have thrown
a wrench in his plan to repeat.
This year's ice is not that great,
and there's not a lot of good ice to poke around.
If you look that way,
where you see all that pressure ridges,
that's where I want to mine this year.
Damn it.
I have to crush it this winter.
Because last year, I just got married
and we just had a baby boy.
So to support my family,
I'm building the biggest crawler in Nome.
It could double or triple my goal.
But I got to mine this winter so that I can pay the bill.
I'm going to find a way, one way or the other.
I'm going to cut that dive hole
and I'm going to get that gold
and no one's going to stop me.
Most miners wouldn't even try to work on this kind of ice.
Okay, you're ready to go.
But I ain't most miners.
Whoa!
Damn it.
God.
God, what a mess that was.
Watch out.
[man] There we go.
Wow, you see what we have to go through?
That was a lot of pressure ridge.
And it's just the beginning of the season.
I'm hoping over here is where I'm going to make my money
and going towards to the north right there.
I've already got my spot picked out.
Same coordinates from last summer.
There's a great paste rig here,
but I have to get through all those pressure ridges first.
First one out here
and everybody's still building their shack.
Getting their crews lined up.
Well, we're already out here
and we're going to do our first dive of the year, man.
[narrator] Ice mining in the Bering Sea
is a difficult and dangerous endeavor
and it takes a host of equipment to make it all happen.
So let's now get
a BSG schoolroom lesson
in Gold Mining Below The Ice.
Salt water can fall as low as 28 degrees.
[man] Lot of water.
[narrator] To keep warm, hot water is pumped into the dive suit.
[man] I got good air.
[narrator] While another line provides air.
[Chris] Coming down, coming down.
[narrator] Once on the bottom...
[Chris] Come on, man, suck it up.
[narrator] ...another pump provides suction to the hose
that allows the diver to gobble up material.
[man speaking]
[narrator] It's all sent topside through a sluice box
that filters out heavy minerals.
Most importantly, gold.
[Jack] Good visibility.
[narrator] To keep in contact with the crew on the surface.
-[Jack] Try talking. -[Chris] Everything good, Jack?
[narrator] A communication line is wired into the diver's mask.
[Chris] Everything looks good.
[narrator] But dangers lurk everywhere.
If any of the systems fail...
[Chris] I'm freezing up.
[narrator] ...the diver could suffer hypothermia
within minutes without heat.
[Chris] I'm out of air, pull me up!
[narrator] Drown without air.
[Jack] Could you tell where you are from the hole?
[Chris] No.
[narrator] Get trapped under the ice if the hole gets blocked.
[Chris] Yeah, we got some kind of short here, guys.
[narrator] And if the communication fails...
I don't hear breathing. I don't hear anything.
[narrator] ...no one will be there to help.
All right, that's good.
It feels good to be back in the water.
[Jack speaking]
[Chris speaking]
[Jack speaking]
All right, here we go.
Kick some ass.
[Chris] Whoo-hoo!
This is my time to shine.
[Cam] Everything good?
[Chris speaking]
[narrator] On their hunt for gold, miners look for rocky areas
with cobble and signs of heavy minerals.
[Chris speaking]
[Cam speaking]
Roger that.
There she blows.
[Chris speaking]
[laughs]
We're making money, boy...
[Chris speaking]
[Cam] Heck yeah, dude, that sounds badass.
[Chris speaking]
[narrator] While one miner defies Mother Nature...
Another member of the fleet
hopes to flip a script of his own.
[Kris] Here we are ready for another season.
I've got a ballsy layered plan of [bleep]
and are you ready for a ride?
[narrator] A pirate?
We're going to war it looks like.
[Kris] Battle stations!
[narrator] An outlaw?
[Kris] We'd like to say thank you to whoever marked this spot
because without your belief we wouldn't have found it.
[narrator] Kris Kelly's been called it all
since hitting the known shores in search of gold
a decade ago.
It's gonna be a good day, though.
We're gonna get some gold.
The A-Team's going out.
[narrator] And while the journey's been filled
with plenty of potholes along the way.
-[screams] -[bleep]
[narrator] In this upside down world,
Kris Kelly's now called one of Nome's premier gold miners.
It only took years of my life to make it to this point
and here I am.
[narrator] As his budding year round operation
known as Reaper Nation boasts an excavator dredge.
[Kris speaking]
[man laughing]
[narrator] An underwater crawler...
[man 1] It runs great, Jay.
We're mining, baby.
[man 2] 900.
[narrator] ...and has finally started amassing ounces on the scale.
That's a big ass pile of gold.
This year I really need to make at least 50 ounces
to upgrade my crawler.
You know, like I'm gonna take my 8 inch crawler and turn it
into a 10 or a 12 inch crawler.
I don't know which yet.
Depends on how much money I have.
I'm gonna concentrate on keeping it cheap,
making our dollar hauler, you know?
Like I'm not spending any money
and I don't want to hear any [bleep] complaints.
I'm not having coffee hour.
Nobody's gonna be laughing and singing and side smiling.
There's gonna be no smiles on anyone's faces this year.
So there's gonna be a bunch of pissed off, cold people,
hungry for gold and that's how I like them.
I like Napoleon's strategy where I look at the ocean
and I say, "There's your meal there."
You know, if you want gold, go get it.
We've been mining on Tomcod, but that claim is a disaster.
The ice is bad everywhere.
But I have a plan up my sleeve
that will lead us to greatness.
Thank you everybody for coming.
Okay, beginning of the ice mining season.
We have kind of like a complicated plan
and let's just get with it.
So this is the team I've assembled this season
for ice domination.
Yukon John.
Two years ago, John's boat was sinking in the ocean
and John wouldn't leave it and had to be rescued.
John! Abandon ship!
[Kris] Anyone willing to go down with his ship
is a perfect fit for Reaper Nation.
PJ. The guy's a bodybuilder
and he really wants to try diving in the Bering Sea.
So he's in.
Shawn. He's a top mechanic.
And of course, my brother Andy. He's a diver.
-[grunts] -That's good.
[Kris] We need to get a super-sized wetsuit.
He's an enforcer.
Payback's a bitch.
[Andy] What are you gonna do?
[bleep]
[Kris] And my trusted advisor.
[Andy] Man, you yell in my ear one more time
-[yells indistinctly] -and I'll [bleep] you up.
[Kris] I wasn't yelling!
This is yelling!
This is a team that will take us to the Promised Land.
Here's the plan. We're gonna stay away from the west.
And we're gonna hopefully make some big money.
We're going to 17 to start,
which is right next to the wreck area.
Hopefully we see a lot of gold.
So this season I'm gonna be going to claim 17 and claim 23.
The ice is better there,
but 17 and 23 don't have as much runoff,
which is how gold usually accumulates.
So basically no one pays attention to them.
But I know something I think
a lot of other people have forgotten.
So this is where the Bima worked in right in here.
The Bima was an enormous dredge in the '90s
that just got thousands of ounces. It's a [bleep] legend.
A lot of gold came out of this area.
-[Andy] Oh, yeah. -We just gotta find our spot.
[Kris] A buddy of mine got me access to these claims,
and I'm convinced we're gonna crush it there.
It's my own secret plan.
Screw you, El Nino. We're still gonna get rich.
We got a big day.
We're gonna be starting off drilling some holes,
moving the operation over, and seeing what we find.
[Andy] Well, we have a good plan. Everything's gonna work.
Yeah, let's just make it happen. Okay, let's go.
[narrator] Across town...
I hear that the ice is just a mess out there
It's really difficult.
[narrator] A known legend readies to face the ice.
Right out here is my claim.
56 is like my retirement plan.
It better be my retirement plan
because I blew... [laughs]
I blew my retirement funds a long time ago.
Get off the friggin boat. I'm sick of your [bleep]
[narrator] Vernon Adkison's time in Nome...
Upset about it?
I'm more than [bleep] upset about it.
[narrator] ...has been a series of ups...
That's our best cleanout yet.
[bleep]
[narrator] ...and more than a few downs.
Going in.
No!
[narrator] But three years ago...
Right out there is my claim, 56.
[narrator] ...Vernon bought the claim that turned it all around.
Thirty-point-two.
Holy moly.
[narrator] And his fortunes have been on the upswing ever since.
But this winter, El Nino could shut down
his ATM on the ice.
[Vernon] It's all gonna boil down to what kind of ice we've got.
If we've got good ice, then we'll be able to do very well.
Uh, but if we get out there
and we can't get on where we know the gold is,
then that's gonna have a serious impact on what we do.
We're gonna need some flat spots to set up our operation.
Bigger is better,
but it's gotta be pretty flat for us to set up.
-[engine revs] -Fingers crossed.
I got a big plan this winter.
Trying to get enough gold
to pay off a Nitrox dive system.
Deep ground on 56 is where the best gold is.
But the deeper you go,
the less time the divers can spend on the bottom.
A Nitrox system will change all that.
It will allow them to go down deeper and stay longer.
But it's expensive, so I need ice that we can work.
I'm gunning for a huge haul.
This is 56.
Goes about half mile that way, half mile that way,
and a mile this way.
375 acres.
This is a nice, big expanse of flat ice.
Hallelujah.
The Bering Sea gold gods have spared me.
That ice looks absolutely beautiful.
I've got myself a season.
56 might be in better shape
than any other claim out here this winter.
I guarantee you, underneath this ice right now,
at least a billion dollars worth of gold.
I think 56 is gonna be good to me.
[Shawn] Gotta go check out the mine.
[narrator] Shawn Pomrenke is feeling the pressure mount,
as unworkable ice shut down his ocean plans,
putting the brakes on his inland project.
There's a lot of dirt to move here.
We gotta get snow moved.
We gotta get water pump set up.
I need two dozers up and running, nonstop.
and start working.
And start working our way down to the pater,
and then hopefully there's two to four million dollars down there.
But right now, nothing's going on.
[narrator] Shawn's vision for his new inland mine
could be a game changer.
A treasure hunt near Anvil Creek,
site of the original gold find that set off Nome's great
gold rush over a century ago.
With modern mining methods and his own golden intuition,
Shawn's looking to dig 80 feet below the surface
to locate that legendary lost pay streak and recover gold
the old timers could never reach.
But just starting the massive project
comes with equally massive expenses.
[Shawn] I gotta get $1.3 million into this inland mine.
I gotta get pumps coming. I gotta get motors rebuilt.
And fuel is a big expense.
I'll eat an ounce of gold every shift.
So a day shift, a night shift,
that's two ounces, just in fuel.
It's never ending.
So basically, I gotta have a huge pile of gold
by the end of this ice season.
The inland mine project's my entire future in Nome,
and it's not cheap.
I was planning on using the gold from the Tomcod
to jump start my inland mine.
But with this bad ice, I'm dead in the water.
Without the Tomcod, I don't have any place
to get on the ice to get gold.
And with no gold, I can't start the inland mine project.
So right now, I'm kind of screwed.
Everything's upside down. I'm gonna need some help.
[narrator] Back out on the ice...
[Kris] Okay, we made it.
[Andy speaking]
[Kris] Let's get the auger and our little camera.
Get out there, drill three or four holes.
Look for some really good cobble,
and just get to work.
Let's do this.
I'm sure everyone on my team thinks I'm crazy
going to these claims nobody else wants to go to.
But I think the gold that dredge was on decades ago
is still down there, waiting to be uncovered.
But if it isn't, then I've led us to our downfall.
Where do you want it, Andy?
[Andy speaking]
It's great to be a great gold miner, you know?
But I find with gold mining,
luck plays a huge part sometimes.
So you know what? Andy's a lucky [bleep]
You know, he really is.
[PJ] We'll just let Andy do everything, then.
[Kris] I don't know about that,
because he's definitely not a hard worker.
Come on, Andy. Find us a good spot with gold.
[motor whirring]
[Kris] There we go. Oh [bleep] me.
-Cobbles. -[Andy] Oh, you like that.
[Kris] Yeah, cobble for days.
See that yellow stuff? That's the sponge on a rock.
That's a good sign. That means nobody's been here.
Let's start bringing our stuff over.
[engine revving]
[Kris] Ready to rock and roll.
I'll go down and punch a couple holes
and see what the bottom looks like.
Yep, okay. I expect a lot of gold.
All right.
-You ready? Good luck. -Yeah.
[Kris speaking]
It has begun.
[laughs]
Idle up!
[Kris speaking]
So we're going to see starting
right below our hole, very first hole.
[Yukon] Uh...
No gold. It's going to take him a little while.
[Yukon speaking]
Oh...
So right now, he's not seeing any gold at all
because we should be seeing residual gold
if there's gold in the area.
This is not the way I hoped we'd start off.
I made this call as a captain, and now I'm starting to wonder
if this was the right move.
Did I steer us wrong?
If you see zero gold, that's not a good sign.
It'll get better, hopefully.
How is everything?
Is everything good, Chris?
[Chris speaking]
[narrator] After four hours,
last winter's Gold Count Champ is starting off hot.
[Chris speaking]
[Chris grunts]
[grunts]
[Cam] Yeah, I'm here, Chris.
[Chris grunts]
[Cam] You okay?
[Chris speaking]
I'm done with my dive, so...
I'm gonna come up.
[Cam] Roger that.
[Chris groans]
All that I got toward the gold
all I gotta do now is chase it down, dude.
I'm exhausted.
It was a long day for my first dive of the winter,
but it was all worth it.
Thank God I made the call to mine on this ice.
It's holding up really good,
and the gold underneath us is awesome.
This hole is the start of our season right here.
This is gonna pay off.
[narrator] While one miner's gamble comes up big...
...across the ice...
[Kris] How are things?
Are you seeing any gold at all?
[Yukon speaking]
No gold.
[bleep]
[narrator] ...Kris's roll of the dice might be a bust.
[Yukon speaking]
Come on.
[Yukon speaking]
[Kris] Okay, tell me when you're on gold.
Come on, baby, find gold.
[Yukon speaking]
That sucks.
-[Andy] Yeah. -[Yukon speaking]
[bleep] zero gold, not even flakes.
[indistinct]
[Kris] No, he's not seeing any gold at all.
He goes around in a big circle,
and then if he doesn't find anything in that circle,
that's like a 100-foot radius.
So, you know, like, yeah, like the whole host.
So if we don't see any gold in a 100-foot radius,
uh, we're in trouble.
[Yukon speaking]
[Kris] Hey, what's up?
[Yukon] I think this hole...
[Kris] Okay, come on up.
Let's, uh, we'll start packing up.
[Yukon] All right, I'm coming up.
[Kris] Yukon John put in enough hours
and punched enough holes in the claim
to know that this claim is useless.
There's not gonna be anything here.
I thought I was a genius coming out here,
but it's pretty clear it's not the case.
Uh, John was down there prospecting,
found zero flakes of gold, zero.
Problem with that, you need a couple thousand flakes
to make an ounce.
Now we go to claim 23.
It's not just our next shot, it's our final shot.
If we strike out there, our season is a bust.
We're outta here.
And if we do fail, it's on my shoulders.
I'm the one leading us down this path.
This is definitely not the way I want to start the season.
[narrator] In a world of cold and ice,
he came from a yurt...
[man laughing] Yeah!
[narrator] ...on a quest for gold.
Now, as El Nino wreaks havoc on the mining grounds...
The ice looks really sketchy.
[narrator] ...hold on tight...
Now is not the time to take my foot off the gas.
[narrator] ...because he is on his way.
Zeke, coming soon to a Bering Sea near you.
[man laughing]
[Chris] Let's see how much we did in our dive?
See if I can get a hefty clean out.
[narrator] It's time for the first gold clean outs of winter.
There's a lot of risk, you know,
that I took over there, you know.
The ice was all pressure ridges around it,
and I had to get through all that,
risking my operation onto that unstable ice.
But I'm really glad that I got on
the really good ground right now
because I really need that gold to build my crawler.
And it looks like the risk has been rewarded so far.
Okay, here we go.
See what I did in one dive.
Four, four, four.
What do we have? What do we have?
327 grams?
What does that translate into?
Ten and a half ounces.
Wow.
[narrator] At current record prices,
10.5 ounces of gold is worth over $24,000,
and Chris McCully has started off winter with a bang.
All day long, I can take 10 ounce clean outs.
Just like that, all day long, you know?
Just like that, it paid my bills.
That means, all the risk in this challenge that I had taken
is now paying off, so I'm happy.
And all I gotta do is go out and get it.
Job well done, Chris. Job well done. [claps]
Job well done.
[narrator] While the young gun banks his first big haul
of winter, down the road...
By the time I get to springtime,
I'm going to have 1.2, 1.3 million into this inland mine,
but the ice is all screwed up down towards Tomcod.
[narrator] The king of Nome is still desperate for a place to mine.
[Shawn] The rumor has it that there's
pretty good ice conditions on Vern's claim.
I'll go mine Vern's gold off of his claim if he lets me.
I've never been in this position before.
Usually I'm the guy everybody comes to for help.
If I'm going to make this inland mine work this winter,
I'm going to have to make a deal with another miner.
And that miner is Vern.
Vern has 56, which supposedly has pretty good gold on it.
Hopefully I can make something work.
Otherwise, my inland mine might stall out.
[Vernon] Hey.
-[Shawn] How's it going, Vern? -Hey, Shawn.
-The golden one. -Ah.
How you doing?
[Shawn] Looking for a little ground offshore.
The ice is kind of messed up down at the Tomcod.
[Vernon] Wow. To see Mr. Gold looking for a place to mine,
that just shows how bad the ice is out here this winter.
And how lucky I am to be sitting where I'm sitting.
It's weird this year. Blame it on El Nino.
It's almost impossible to get through that jumbled ice
with a snow machine.
And to get your gear through it, um,
pulling your shack, whatnot.
Uh, It's jagged. It's like [bleep]
ice teeth sticking up there.
But towards the eastern end of 56,
there's a lot of flat areas that go all the way from,
you know, from the wreck area
all the way to the southern border.
-So that's 56? -Yeah.
What kind of percentage are you looking for?
[Vernon] This is something I wasn't planning on.
I've got a huge goal for myself this year.
And if I can get Shawn out here working
and paying me royalties,
so much the better.
But I don't want to be greedy.
I've got to make a deal that's fair to both of us.
So how about this.
You go out there and get set up,
and then from the day you start,
I'll give you two weeks, no royalties,
and then after that 15 percent.
First man in the water, that's when the clock starts.
[Shawn] Sounds like a deal, that's fair.
Always a pleasure, man.
It was starting to look like I wasn't going to have a place to mine.
But now I'm back in business.
The number one goal is to crush it over the next two weeks
while there's no royalties to be paid.
Hopefully, Vernon's not just blowing smoke
about all the gold on 56.
I need every ounce I can get.
Well, good luck up there on that inland thing,
-and good luck out there on the ice. -Yeah.
It's always good to have the big dog in your corner.
[Shawn laughs]
[narrator] Chris McCulley strikes first in his bid
to repeat as winter's top gold miner.
Next time on Bering Sea Gold...
[Zeke] The price of gold's at an all-time high.
This is my shot to have prosperity.
Now is not the time to take my foot off the gas.
If there's gold, I'll find it.
[Kris] Let's get this going.
Right now it's time to get in water.
Yeah, there's some gold down there.
[man] The gold's good down here.
Who put the flux straight in there?
I didn't use the flux.
Then who's the idiot...
There's gold.
We're on the trail.
[Kris] Nothing's gonna stop us.
[bleep]