[suspenseful music playing]
[bird cawing]
[Vaughn Riches] I'm definitely a rookie miner,
learning from my mistakes
and just trying to make a future with this.
I've got a great crew.
He's been the best boss I've ever had.
[Vaughn] And I've worked for a lot of different [bleep].
I promised him something
and it's not happening.
[suspenseful music playing]
I'm thinking I'm losing a half an ounce of gold a day.
When you pan, it's super hot,
and then we just don't see it in the sluices.
We're down to about $75,000 owing on the excavator.
We probably have about $40,000
owing on the trommel.
I'm $700,000 in the hole.
I borrowed money
from family, from friends,
leasing companies,
credit cards, on and on.
Yup. So it's, um...
I'm in deep.
Freddy and Juan are my best hope,
my last hope, the only hope I have.
[bird cawing]
[man] Let's make some gold, guys.
[narrator] Freddy Dodge...
There's no guarantees in gold, buddy.
[narrator] ...and Juan Ibarra...
All right. Well, let's do it, huh?
[narrator] ...have mastered the art
of getting gold out of the ground...
[Juan] Look at that.
[narrator] In the most rugged places on earth.
[Juan] I'm feeling a little sick, Freddy.
[narrator] Now, they rescue struggling miners...
Ooh. That's not good.
[narrator] Who've risked it all to be rich...
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Shut it down!
[narrator] ...but are about to lose everything.
Eyeballs.
[narrator] To revive these failing mines,
Freddy and Juan engineer the impossible...
[man] Well, I've never heard of an under-sluice before.
[narrator] ...deliver some hard truths...
This material you're digging now is totally worthless.
[narrator] ...and track down the gold.
That's what dreams are made of right there.
[narrator] But if they don't at least double
the miner's gold recovery,
they won't take a dime in return.
Put 10 times the amount of gold.
-That's awesome. -[cheers and laughter]
[dramatic music playing]
[truck horn blows]
So what do we know about these guys, Fred?
We know they're fairly new miners.
They've only been mining for around three years, so,
you know, they're just getting their feet on the ground.
You know, I kind of take it, Juan,
that these guys are in pretty deep.
[Juan] Yeah. 10-4.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan journey through British Columbia
on their way to the Riches placer mine,
10 miles from the historic mining town of Barkerville.
[Freddy] Some cool country, Juan.
Mining country and logging, huh?
[Freddy] Yeah, they pulled a lot of gold
out of this country back in the day.
[country music playing]
[narrator] Gold strikes here in the early 1860s
sparked the Cariboo Gold Rush.
One of the thousands of prospectors,
Englishman "Billy" Barker, struck it big,
finding a huge gold nugget deposit,
paving the way for a mass migration.
The town of Barkerville sprang up almost overnight
as miners descended on the region.
Over 38 million ounces of gold
has been mined here,
worth $72 billion
in today's money.
-Hey, guys. -How's it going today?
-I'm Vaughn. -Nice to meet you, Fred.
-Nice to meet you, Vaughn. -What's your name?
-Rick. -Nice to meet you, Rick.
-Yeah. -So how long have you guys
-been out here mining then? -We had half season here last year
and now this is our second season.
So, basically it's your mine site?
-That's right. -So what's your job out here?
I kind do a little bit of... A little bit of everything.
Kind of jump around and, you know, weld and fix.
[Juan] Wherever needed, huh?
[Rick] Figure out most problems, if they're small.
-[Juan] Okay. -Not too much we don't work our way through.
-[laughter] -[Freddy] All right.
Yeah. So you have a lot invested in it?
-Way too much. -Way too much?
Yeah. And then it just keeps getting deeper and deeper.
I've dumped everything,
life savings is on this property.
-[Juan] Really? Okay. -[Vaughn] Everything.
[Rick] Vaughn holds everything
as far as the financial pressure.
There's payments every month.
I'm not sure how much they are,
but I know they're between 10,000 and 14,000 a month.
And every month, whether we're mining or not,
whether we're bringing in gold or not,
those payments come out.
I worry about keeping the plant running,
but compared to what he's worried about,
there's a... There's a big difference in worry.
Mine's easy. [chuckles]
You have any gold we can look at?
[Vaughn] Yeah, I do. I happen to have a vial here.
Pretty fine, flowery.
Hard to catch.
This is all I have at this moment.
Every week I have to sell my gold to make bills.
-Yup. That's-- -Understood.
I'm at my wits' end and need gold...
-Need more gold. -...so bad.
-So bad. -Yeah.
[Freddy] What's your goal for the season?
200 ounces.
I've got 30. I need another 170 ounces.
-That's a big jump. -It's big gold.
-[Juan] Yeah. -[Vaughn] It is.
Three months left in the mining season,
every day counts. Every day.
What have you been getting so far daily roughly?
-Well, an ounce and a half. -[Juan] Yeah.
Yup. And that's running 12 hours.
If I don't get the 200 ounces this year, it's bankruptcy.
Then what do you need to get...
To get through the season and make bills?
[Vaughn] Yup. Two ounces a day would just...
-2 ounces? -...do it.
That's where you guys come in.
[narrator] Half an ounce more gold a day
would get them an extra $88,000 needed
to pay investors and crew
through to the end of the season.
Without it, they will be forced
to shut the mine down.
[Vaughn] It's easy mining.
-Infrastructure is all here. -Yeah.
We just need recovery
and it's not happening. There's something...
There's something wrong and we need you guys.
-Well, let's watch you run. -Yup.
-Sounds great to me. -[Juan] Let's do it.
[Freddy] Let's fire it up.
[machine whirring]
Vaughn, you know... You know, he's got
his entire life savings invested into it.
It's a serious situation here.
You know, we're gonna have to be able to get them
up to 2 ounces a day in order to be able
to make this operation profitable for him.
[Vaughn] First bucket, Juan.
Step back. Start feeding the plant.
Right on.
[narrator] Juan's operator, Stephan,
feeds gold bearing pay dirt into the hopper,
which then travels up a conveyor
before dropping into a 21-foot rotating trommel.
A spray bar blasts the dirt,
washing small material and gold through the screen
and down into the 24-foot sluices
where gold is caught in the mats.
Once the system's up and running,
Rick will be feeding me in the rock truck
and I'll haul pay to that site and Steph will run it
into the grizzlies and we're rolling.
[narrator] Operator Stephan Gervais
has been working with Vaughn since day one.
[Stephan] This is my happy place here.
It's so peaceful.
A little noisy, but peaceful. [chuckles]
[narrator] Rick's buddy, Lenny, completes the crew.
Looks good. We're running.
Everything's turning.
Feeding it pay.
He said their best gold is right on the surface.
Right there, huh?
Lightly concentrated.
-[Freddy] Yeah. -Very lightly.
Yeah.
[narrator] With lightly concentrated gold
throughout Vaughn's claim,
it was left untouched by the old timers.
But with modern machinery,
the ground can still be profitable.
[Rick] I know there's lots of gold in this ground.
The roots and everything go between the boulders,
so it becomes really hard to separate.
Look at the organics sticking in the screen, huh, Juan?
[Juan] That's definitely gonna be an issue.
With all the organics that are stuck to the screen,
there's a real good chance
that we're losing material that should be sluiced.
[narrator] Roots and sticks from the shallow ground
called organics clog the screens,
meaning gold-rich material may be lost
out the end of the trommel.
I got a pan full,
I'm gonna get water in there, wash it up.
Well...
if you look here,
there's a few pieces of gold that should have made it down
to the sluice box that never had a chance to get recovered.
You work hard, you get all the material to the plant,
you wash it, and for you just to spit it out,
that's never a good way to do business,
so that's something we need to work on.
Holy [bleep].
Pretty violent, Juan.
Too violent.
A little excessive.
[narrator] The water at the top
of the sluice box is running too fast.
They're actually running light.
[narrator] And there is not enough pay dirt
running through the sluice box.
Right now, I think they're running about 40 to 45 yards
an hour counting buckets
and the sluices from what I feel right now
can handle, you know, double that.
[narrator] If the sluices run light on material,
finer gold may be washed
out of the mats and into the tailings below.
How come you aren't running more material per hour?
We've tried and it just seems to pack
our sluices right away.
Your sluices aren't packed though.
When we were down there earlier, we were kind of feeling around
and honestly they're running a little light.
They're a little lean? Yeah, they're running lean.
We just found that when we shut down,
the sluice box is... Was so full,
and that's why we tried to dial it back a bit.
You can never judge a sluice box when you shut it down.
You always have to judge a sluice box
while it's running because it's a whole
different environment when you shut down.
-Yeah. -You're actually lean on material...
-It's lean. -...on the sluice.
Yeah.
[water flowing]
[machine whirring]
One of the biggest problems I think we're seeing here,
Juan, we could have twice the amount
of material going down those sluice.
Yeah. You know, realistically,
we ought to be able to turn up the feed on this plant
-by double. -Double it.
Their hydraulic oil getting hot.
It will slow them down.
[Juan] That's an issue.
It's quite intimidating having experts
such as Juan and Freddy here looking at everything.
We know there's issues,
but we'll see what the pros think. [chuckles]
[Freddy] See, that's four hours right there.
You wanna call it?
[Stephan] Yes, sir. We'll do it.
-Yup. -This is the last bucket
of the day, boys.
Thank you, sir.
[machine whirring]
The good news is, we did notice a few things
that we can definitely improve on,
-so that's the problem. -We knew that was coming.
-[Juan] Yeah. -Let's pull the box
-and let's get it cleaned up. -Yeah.
And we'll see you in the morning.
Vaughn has everything on the line,
and he's got a lot of guys here that are depending on him
being profitable so they can get a paycheck.
His season goal is 200 ounces for the season.
Right now, he's barely got 30 ounces in.
We got our work cut out for us.
[dramatic music playing]
-[wind howling] -[bird cawing]
Here's our gold, guys.
[Len] It's good stuff.
-Just need more. [laughs] -Yeah.
[Rick] Just need more of that.
[narrator] On the Riches claim
in British Columbia...
-Good morning, guys. -Morning.
Hello, hello.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan arrive
for the results of the four-hour test run.
[Vaughn] Well, moment of truth, huh?
-Ready for this? -Yup.
Well, she's zeroed out.
You want me to pour it, Juano?
[Juan] Pour it, Fred.
See where we're at.
[suspenseful music playing]
-[man] Yeah. -0.47,
-close to half ounce. -[man] Yeah.
[Freddy] It's not good.
It's pretty standard for what we're doing here.
-It's just-- -Well, that's exact...
It's the numbers with what you said too.
-[Juan] Yeah. -[Vaughn] It is.
So for four hours, half an ounce.
-Yeah. -So you said you're doing
an ounce and a half and 12 hours, right?
Yeah. It's rare we get any big gold
as well, so it's all fine like that.
[Juan] And what were you saying?
You got to get 2 ounces a day
to be able to make this work, huh?
Yeah, one and a half isn't cutting it.
-More will be better. -We're always hoping for more, but...
-Yeah. -...it's just always been around this,
you know, five grams plus or minus.
-[Freddy] Out of this... Out of this cut? -Yup.
-Got a lot of it too, right? -We do.
Yeah. We've got 1,000 acres
of this material right there, so...
[Freddy] It's easy, at least. I mean...
-[Vaughn] It is. -you aren't taking... having to take
10 feet of over-burden off of it, it's the great thing about it.
I think what we need to do next is let Freddy and I
go back to the truck and kind of figure out a plan for you guys.
-Okay. -[Juan] And then we'll come back
and talk to you, see what you guys think.
-Here's your gold. -Thank you, sir.
[Freddy] Thank you.
-[Juan] Don't spend it all. -[laughter]
-It's already spent. -[laughter]
[suspenseful music playing]
[bird cawing]
Well, what do you think on the plant,
-Juan? -The plant that they have,
Freddy, is completely 100% driven by hydraulic.
The reason why they're not... They're not increasing
their production, they can't run it any faster
than it is because the hydraulics are heating up.
[Freddy] Yup.
If we put a liquid cooler or heat exchanger...
-Yup. -...it allows us to actually be able to run
that plant a little... A little harder.
-Yup. 'Cause it'll cool that... -[Juan] Yeah.
cool that hydraulic fluid down a lot more than it is now.
So, by cooling that hydraulic fluid, we actually
can run more material through it and get more gold.
Well, you know, you see how those organics are plugging up,
-you know, the screen part of their trommel, right? -[Juan] Yeah.
On the tailings on the trommel, Fred,
-I did find some gold. -Should have went through.
-Yeah. -You think about like a street sweeper brush.
-Okay. -So we mount it on the side,
the weight of it goes down
and while the trommel's turning,
it's free energy that'll help
pull those organics out of there.
-Yeah. -It may or may not work.
It's worth a shot because right now, it's absolutely clogged up.
And if we tried spraying water,
my worry is we'd make a mess.
-So we get the production up... -[Juan] Yeah.
...and get the sluices where they can handle
-the upped production. -Yeah. Yup. Yeah.
One doesn't go without the other.
So all those things together
means more gold in their pockets.
[narrator] The hydraulic system that powers the plant
overheat, restricting its speed.
Freddy and Juan will fix a heat exchanger
to keep the fluid cool and double the process speed.
Roots and vegetation clog the trommel screens,
reducing the ability to catch gold.
In a first for Mine Rescue ,
Juan will construct a line of brushes to sit on top
of the rotating drum,
freeing the screens
and allowing more gold
to wash into the sluice.
Finally, Freddy will modify Vaughn's sluice boxes,
recycling the existing riffle
and narrowing the bottom sluice
to recover more fine gold.
-[dramatic music playing] -[dog barking]
[engine revs]
-How's it going, guys? -Good.
-How are you, guys? -Jeez. Good guys.
-[Juan] Good. -Doing all right.
So, watching the plant run, we actually saw that,
you know, you can actually run quite a bit more material.
Feeling the sluice boxes, Freddy was able to determine...
-[Freddy] Yeah. -...you know, the boxes,
they're starving for material.
You know, we're hoping we can get you up
by 50% more production.
What we wanna do is now that we're gonna be running more material,
it's gonna be... That means more organics.
You're gonna be going through the trommel drum.
-That's right. -So what we wanna do is build a scrubber
for the outside of the trommel
to be able to drag some of that out of it.
So, it's gonna allow more of your pay
with the gold in it to get to your sluice box
instead of puking gold out the end.
I went down on the end of the trommel,
-grabbed a pan of material... -Yes.
...and I did find a couple pieces of gold in it.
-Is that right? -No, off the trommel end.
Right now, it's an issue.
Once we start running more material,
-it's gonna be a real big issue. -[Vaughn] Mmm-hmm.
In order to be able to run more material,
we're gonna put a little more strain
on your hydraulic system.
-Yup. -And put a heat exchanger in there.
-[Juan] Yeah. -[Vaughn] Oh, okay.
And by putting that cooler in on the hydraulics,
you're gonna be able to run more material per hour.
-Yeah. -Without your system overheating.
Next to your ground, you know, your cut...
-[Vaughn] Yeah. -...the most valuable real estate is that sluice box.
-Yeah. -'Cause that's where all...
You know, all the recovery takes place.
By fixing the sluices, we're gonna catch probably
10% more gold in your sluices.
And then get the production of your plant up,
you know, 50%, you know, it could be more than 50%.
-Yeah. -It's gonna take about $6,000
in material to do it.
What we'd like to see is 4 ounces,
2 ounces a piece at the end of the season.
-Yep. -But if we don't double your recovery,
we won't take a cut, so double or nothing.
-So what are your guys' thoughts? -[exhales]
You feel, uh, feel good about that?
We... We're not in a position to say no and we...
-Okay. -...trust you guys 100%.
Yeah.
-Well, it just sounds great to me. You Rick? -Yeah. Yeah.
-No, I like it. I like it. -[Freddy] Well, deal then.
-[Vaughn] Whoa. -[Rick] Yeah.
Well, we better start making some phone lcalls, get al
-the material we need. -Thank you very much, gentlemen.
-Yup. -Thank you.
Sounds good.
[Vaughn] We have to trust them. We're trying our hardest,
but we're not the professionals.
I'm super stoked to run some more material
through the plant and the ground is consistent.
We're gonna get the gold.
[intense music playing]
It's a 48 by 35 and a half.
That's that.
We'll get rid of these riffles.
[narrator] Freddy and Rick begin by tackling the sluices.
You want me to cut these or you're gonna--
[Freddy] Oh, yeah, if you want to
and then, I'll cut other things.
[saw whirring]
[Freddy] Rick's over there. We're repurposing riffles.
While he's doing that, I'll get all these angle clips cut.
Talking to Rick, he's a mechanic.
He's welded. So, you know,
he's the perfect type of guy to help on a job like this.
So what I'm trying to do, Rick, we're gonna flatten
this one out, right, your top sluice.
[Rick] Yup.
And change the riffle system in it a little bit, right?
-[Rick] Yup. -[Freddy] This top box was way too violent.
That's 'cause of the pitch on it.
You know, for your gold, you aren't catching
1-ounce nuggets out here.
You're catching 20 mesh gold. It brings the chance
-of catching that fine gold way up. -[Rick] Yeah.
[Freddy] Well, the bottom sluice was plugging up.
So we didn't have enough water in that box
when we ran that test run.
It was starved for water, so I'm gonna put
new sides inside of it here.
We're gonna narrow it up by a couple feet.
It'll run better.
[narrator] Narrowing the bottom sluice run
should even out the flow of water.
-[dog whimpers] -[Freddy] Eyeballs.
[welding sparks]
What got you into gold mining?
Did a bunch of prospecting trips
and found some gold and got a...
-Got hooked? -[Rick] Yeah.
The thing I enjoy the most about being out here
is being in the mountains and just being away.
We're at the end of the road out here.
There's nobody around.
I was a tradesman
living in the city for a lot of years.
It's always been a dream to live out in the...
Out in the mountains and live out away from the rat race.
Gold mining is definitely one of the last ways
of being a pioneer in this day and age.
There's... You know, there's not many things you can do
where you can be off by yourself doing your thing
and be, you know, sustaining an income.
And that's exactly why I love it.
You got kids?
Just the one, four-and-a-half-months-old.
-[Freddy] That's pretty young. -[Rick] 21 pounds.
[laughs] He's a... He's a big boy.
-[Freddy] Yeah. -[Rick] Yeah.
[Freddy] Yeah.
So, you got a lot of responsibility on your shoulders?
It has to work.
-Yeah. -[Rick] It has to.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Rick] That sluice is warped.
-[Freddy] What a mess, huh? -[Rick] Yeah.
[Freddy] We'd have to start over, build a whole new sluice box.
-We don't have time for that. -Yeah.
[narrator] The bottom sluice box is bent.
Meaning the new sides of the box won't sit flush.
The gap must be filled.
I mean, it's still gonna catch gold,
but it's gonna take twice as long to fix.
[whimpers]
[country music playing]
[Leanne] I have a little list here of all our bills
and our monthly payments we make.
[narrator] On the Riches claim in British Columbia...
How we looking here?
We owe 25,000 to 30,000 a month with everything.
Well, our bills are adding up again.
We're looking at fuel is 10 grand.
We've got parts for five grand.
They're coming in like no tomorrow.
The guys are behind on their wages.
So, they're gonna be wanting some cash soon.
-They're gonna be screaming, yep. -Yup.
This is his dream out here.
He will make it successful. It will be...
It will be full of gold.
We don't like to have any down moments
because it does bring the whole operation down.
It's good to have good spirits
and just stay positive and it'll work.
It's gonna work.
And we'll have a good life.
We'll have a bright future is what we always say.
This is for our future.
[machine whirring]
If it doesn't work this season, it's done.
It's done.
The dream is over.
[upbeat music playing]
You wanna mark that and get that drill down.
Take measurements.
[narrator] Juan and Vaughn begin surgery
on the hydraulic system.
[Juan] Perfect. Thank you.
[narrator] The goal, increase the wash plant's ability
to run pay quicker.
So this is the heat exchanger and what it has,
has the inlet and outlet.
The hydraulic oil's gonna come in here,
get cooled off by the water that's flowing
inside this canister.
And what it does is it actually cools down that hydraulic oil
when it comes out on the outlet,
it should be cooler.
What that's gonna do is gonna allow them to be able
to run this a little higher and a little harder
and get more through the plant.
[upbeat music playing]
We could actually run fresh water to this
and have nice hot water coming up for a shower.
-Hey. -See?
-Gotta think about everything. -[chuckles] That's right.
There we are.
Good. Perfect.
All right. Well, let's put these hydraulic lines on.
Sounds good.
[machine whirring]
[Vaughn] The plumbing skills coming in, eh?
[Juan] Revert back to my roots.
-[Vaughn] There it is. -Yeah.
All we gotta do is put it up on top,
zip tie it up to that hose and call it good.
Pretty simple fix. Looks good.
[narrator] The heat exchanger will cool the hydraulics
that power Vaughn's wash plant.
Now we'll be able to run the trommel faster,
put more material through without heating up.
It's, uh, it's perfect.
"High ho. High ho..."
Well, this angle should fill these gaps in.
[narrator] In the cut to plug the gaps caused by the warped base,
lengths of flexible angle iron will be welded
to the bottom of the sluice.
This'll work. We didn't have time
to build a whole new sluice.
The welds look good.
[Rick] Are they all right?
[Freddy] Yeah, they look good.
Weld it for strength
and then seal it with silicone.
[Rick] Yeah. That sounds good, Freddy.
[narrator] The silicone makes the box water-tight,
and the new sides have narrowed the sluice to 5 feet
to keep a consistent flow of water.
[Freddy] One down.
[narrator] Next job, adjust the angle of the top sluice.
This box was just way too steep
-and too violent before. -[Rick] Yeah.
[Rick] More.
I think we'll try her there.
[Rick] Yeah.
So basically, what we got left here on the sluice
is, uh, get 'em cleaned out first
and then start putting our carpets and riffles in.
We'll get her done.
[Rick] I'm just throwing the knots in here.
-[Freddy] Good. -[Rick] Yup.
Hand over a hair a bit.
[Rick] Bit by bit.
[Freddy] I'll always put a different gap.
Like, I'll leave a, say an inch and a half on one,
then a 2-inch gap between my riffles.
It's a change.
If you look where you have those changes,
there's always some gold that likes that change.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we've got a 3-foot wide sluice box,
a 4-foot wide,
-and over 5 feet here. -[Rick] Yup.
So, hopefully,
when we get running here,
hopefully it kicks ass.
I'm sure it will, Freddy.
[chuckles]
[country music playing]
[Juan] We'll do 160.
-[Vaughn] Okay. -[Juan] Yeah. On the shaft.
[narrator] On the trommel,
Juan's prototype brush fix
to clear trapped vegetation from the screens is underway.
-So it'll be one big roller. -Oh, okay. Yup.
Arm that comes across here...
-Yeah. -...and hold the brush assembly.
As the trommel turns, it's gonna use the brushes
to be able to clean out the screens.
Let me go down to the trailer. I'm gonna start getting
everything figured out on the computer.
We'll start cutting out all the pieces
and if you wanna come down and give me a hand,
we can start welding it together.
-You good with that? -Awesome.
-All right. -Sounds good, buddy.
The rotating brush assembly
is something we've never done before,
but what we're gonna do is we're gonna repurpose brushes,
rotary brushes for like a street sweeper.
We're gonna build a new drum for it
and put 'em on top of the trommel
to be able to help it clean that organic material
that's getting caught on the screens on the trommel.
So these are the pieces and the spacers
that we're gonna put on the shaft
to be able to hold the brushes in center.
[machine whirring]
-[Juan] There it goes. -[Vaughn] Boom.
[Juan] Let's see what this looks like real quick.
-[Vaughn] There it is. -[Juan] Perfect.
[Vaughn] Super happy with everything
that's happening here.
Do some welding on some mounts
and I'm looking forward to it.
[soft music playing]
[Candice clicking tongue]
Right. I'll make some coffee.
[narrator] 10 miles from the mine site
in British Columbia.
Just trying to... Trying to make things work.
Oh, [bleep].
could you grab me a cleaner?
[Candice laughs]
[Rick] Hmm.
It's always been our dream to get away from the city.
We just didn't think we'd actually be able
to ever make it happen
and, well, now we're here
and now things are,
you know, not really working
as well as they need to be
in order for us to stay here, so...
We wanna stay in Wells.
I want him to keep mining.
That's what he loves to do.
And, yeah, I don't know.
[Rick] And I'm... And I'm glad
that she puts enough faith in me.
You know, there's also a breaking point
where, uh, it doesn't work anymore.
So it's, uh...
It's pretty, uh, pretty anxious days here.
I know they can do it. They just need a little bit of help.
[dramatic music playing]
Good start to the morning.
[narrator] At the Riches mine, the central core,
which will hold the 24 mounted brushes,
takes shape.
Oh, I'm just getting rid of the extra slag on these parts.
My pay has a lot of organics,
so these scrubber brushes
are gonna take care of it.
So Vaughn, you told us in the beginning that there...
You got quite a bit of money invested into this operation.
You know, I came in with the basic equipment
and just to get going
and as it progressed,
um, I just needed more, more money.
So I kept borrowing and borrowing
from family and friends
just to keep this running.
There has been no paying back of anybody.
It's all sitting in the ground here
and I need it.
I worked overseas for seven years in Africa,
built two gold mines there, hard rock, ended that career
and went full force
into placer mining when I got back.
And I have to stop borrowing.
I see the end.
It's not pretty.
Yeah, it's not pretty at all.
[Juan] Nice.
We're sliding the bristles on right now.
They're tight, which is good.
It's perfect.
And, you know, these are just common street sweeper brushes,
so you'll be able to grab these
at any rental yard and put 'em back on.
[Vaughn] Huh. Amazing.
[Juan] Yeah. Yeah.
We're plugging away here and it's almost done.
And, uh, yeah, we're...
We can't wait to see that trommel fire up again,
start running some dirt through
and, uh, make some money.
[Juan] I'm just hoping that it works properly.
We told him double or nothing,
so if we don't get that double mark,
you know, we don't get paid for our labor,
which I'm okay with, you know, either way.
Honestly, I'm just happy to be here
to help Vaughn and his crew
because genuinely these guys need the help.
[rock music playing]
Let's get it up there and get it on, huh Juan?
[Juan] Sounds good. I'll drive the truck up
and if you wanna bring that up,
I'll pick it up off you.
-[Freddy] Yup. See you in a second. -All right.
[narrator] The innovative trommel brush
that will clear the clogged screen
is ready to install onto Vaughn's wash plant.
I'm really excited to put this brush assembly together,
this is something new that we haven't done before.
Um, if it works, this could be a game changer.
-[Juan] Got her, Fred. -[Freddy] Got her.
[narrator] Once held in place,
Juan will weld arms to the side of the trommel.
Okay. I'll get up there.
Thank you.
-That looks pretty good. -[Vaughn] Yeah, [bleep].
I like it.
It's definitely not the most convenient workspace,
but we're so close right now,
I just gotta deal with it and get it put together
and get this on the trommel
so that way we can get going on our test run.
[narrator] The arms are fabricated to hold the weight
of the 400-pound brush assembly.
These arms, they're on bearings,
and that way the weight of the brush
and gravity will do its thing
and push down on the screens and clean 'em out.
Are you ready for these or no?
[Juan] Yeah, let's do it.
[narrator] The arms are braced to strengthen the build.
[Freddy] Almost there.
Almost ready to run.
-Mucho grande. Way better, huh, Juan? -Mucho...
[Juan] Way better.
Can't wait to see some gold in the sluices.
-Last weld, Juano? -Last one, Freddy.
Done.
Let's run a plant, catch some gold.
[Juan] Let's do it.
Well, it looks good, Juan.
[Juan] Hopefully it works as good as it looks.
So we saw nearly half an ounce on the last test run.
I'd like to see an ounce of gold this time.
An ounce of gold would be fantastic.
[Juan] There's only one way to find out.
Let's run it. We gotta run.
[Vaughn] All right. Let's do it.
[dramatic music playing]
I think all the improvements are where they should be
and, uh, we're gonna up the volume
and rate, speed rate,
so it's gonna be a...
super amazing time.
The next four hours is gonna be hectic, hectic.
[narrator] To hit their double-or-nothing target,
Juan's plant must recover over an ounce of gold.
All in all, I'm really happy with what we were able to do.
I'm just not 100% sure
that we're gonna be able to get as much material
through the plant that we wanted,
but really, yeah, tomorrow we'll find out.
We'll find out what we were able to accomplish here.
-First bucket, Juan. -Perfect.
[Freddy] Well, let's see how the hydraulics are doing.
[Juan] Staying cool.
Right now, that's extremely cool.
[Freddy] It is.
[narrator] Juan's heat exchanger
keeps the hydraulic oil that powers the plant cool,
allowing the wash plant to be dialed up.
That's pretty neat, Freddy, you can actually see
-the bristles come through. -Yeah.
[narrator] The trommel brush is a game changer.
By keeping the screens free of debris,
more gold can pass into the sluices.
They're a lot cleaner than they were, a lot.
And we're running more material.
-Yeah. -So we've got more organics coming through.
Exactly right. Nope, they're doing their job, bud.
Yup. Good job, brother.
-We did okay. -[Freddy] We did all right.
[Juan] Freddy and I have built a lot of things over the years.
We had an idea this would work,
but you really don't know
until you actually put it in and run it.
And right now it's doing great.
So I'm extremely happy with it.
Juan's build with the brush,
it's, uh, it's a work of art.
It's working flawlessly.
Definitely the pressure's on.
We're sending a lot more material.
Brand-new problem for us.
We're really having to rush the pay in
and it's a good problem to have.
It seems like it's moving in the right direction
all of a sudden.
Vaughn definitely looks a lot happier
with the way that things are running now.
I mean, we're getting more yardage in
and that in turn should mean more gold.
[horn honking]
[Rick] First time out to the mine.
Figure what a bit... Why not a better time
than when Freddy and Juan are here.
[Candice] He's definitely interested in it, though.
[Rick] Candice was out here helping me a bit,
but last year she's run rock truck a bit
on a few different sites and that.
So, once he's old enough,
he'll probably run something like that, too.
[Candice] A couple years or so.
[laughs] Two or three more years.
[Candice] Yeah.
Hey, Stephan, you got a copy?
[Stephan] Copy.
[Freddy] Last bucket.
[Stephan] Done, last bucket of the day.
[Vaughn] Oh, yeah. Holy.
These are working way better. You can tell.
Well, we're seeing some gold anyway.
-[Juan] That's promising. -[Freddy] Yeah.
[Juan] Well, what do you guys say? You guys wanna clean it up
and we'll come back in the morning and see what it is?
[Rick] That sounds great.
-That sounds great guys. -[Freddy] Great.
-Sounds good guys. -[Vaughn] Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
These guys are gonna win
because better production,
better running sluices,
plants not plugged up with organics.
Uh, so all in all, it's a win for all of us,
but pretty sure it's gonna be a really big win for them.
[Juan] Want a drink, Fred?
Yeah.
[Juan] Yeah. It's kind of nice, Freddy.
Beautiful scenery.
Pretty lucky, Fred.
Pretty lucky.
[Freddy] Brought pocket oysters again, huh?
[Juan] Yeah, these are pretty fancy, too.
Nice to relax for a minute.
[horn honks]
You know what that means, Juan?
Yup. Probably time to get back at it, huh?
Time to get back to work. Yup.
Lunch is over, Fred.
[dramatic music playing]
-Morning. -[Leanne] Good morning.
-[Freddy] Good morning. -Okay.
-Ready to weight some gold up? -[Vaughn] You betcha.
[narrator] On the Riches mine in British Columbia...
[Juan] We should probably do it inside, huh?
[Freddy] Yeah, it's raining while we're out here.
[narrator] Success or failure
after a week of resourceful upgrades
all comes down to the final gold weigh.
-[Juan] You got the gold? -[Vaughn] I do.
-[Juan] Oh, shoot. -[man] Yeah.
-Holy cow. -[Freddy] Really?
-[Vaughn] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. -[Freddy] Really?
[Juan] Really? Yeah. [laughs]
-[Freddy] Yeah. Yeah. -[Vaughn] Feeling good.
-[Freddy] Yeah. Yeah. -[man] Mmm-hmm.
-[Freddy] You guys ready? -[man] I think so.
-[Freddy] Let's do this. -[man chuckles]
[narrator] To prove the mine's viability,
the result of the second test must deliver
at least 1 ounce of gold.
-Well, there's 0.47, right? -[Vaughn] Oh, yeah.
That was the first cleanup.
[Juan] Look how much more is left.
We're a third of the way
through what's in that jar, right?
-Yeah. -[laughing]
[Juan] That's awesome.
-There's an ounce. -[Juan] Yeah.
-An even ounce right there. -[man] Oh.
Holy [bleep].
There's still gold in the jar, guys.
-[man 1] Oh, that's awesome. -[man 2] That's awesome.
No [bleep].
-What? -[laughter]
1.58 for four freaking hours.
-[cheering and laughing] -Hey!
So that's four and a half ounces a day
if it stays at that rate, right?
-Nice! -It's a 12-hour day.
[Juan] And that's the same exact pay
you guys were running before, right?
And that's... There's a huge improvement there.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan's fixes
have tripled Vaughn's gold count.
It turns your dream out here into a reality.
-It does. -[Juan] It really does.
It completes... It changes everything, right?
You know, from just barely scraping
by having the money to be able to make,
you know, repairs and everything else.
Now that actually puts a little bit of cushion
in, you know, in the bank.
It certainly does, Juan. Yeah.
-Freddy, amazing. -[man chuckles]
Look at all the fines in there.
There's a lot more fines in there
-than we have before. -Oh, that's the difference.
[Juan] Yeah, there's a lot more fines in there.
-I still don't believe that. -[Juan] That's huge.
-That's awesome. -[laughter]
[Rick] It's amazing. No, it's...
We definitely knew we had losses,
-but not like that. -Not like that. No.
You know, I haven't seen you smile this much.
I know.
Or Rick.
-Especially me. -I know. Yeah.
It's been a... It's been a struggle for a while
and it, uh, it means a lot to Vaughn,
I know that for sure.
And it means a lot to everybody. It's...
It means everything. And I really, really,
really wanna thank you, gentlemen,
-like sincerely. -You're welcome. Yup.
You're welcome. All you guys.
Oh, you're not getting away with a handshake.
[laughter]
-[Vaughn] Thanks, big man. -You're welcome,
very welcome, buddy.
-[Freddy] That's awesome. -Woo!
Holy [bleep].
-Truly blessed. -[man] That's awesome.
[Rick] Yeah.
Changes everything.
Yup. Yup.
There's a huge relief off these shoulders
and everybody that believed in me,
that feels nice. Yeah.
Ah, yeah.
Yeah, it's good.
Oh, jeez. Means, uh...
the dream moves forward
and, uh, in a healthy way.
So, uh, I can...
move forward.
Sorry.
They have a real possibility with their dream.
You know, before they were, you know, week to week
selling every bit of gold that they had
to try to pay bills,
uh, without really, you know,
any reassurance or any future out here.
But now, they have a solid plan.
They have a solid plan and a real future
to be able to make their dreams come true.
It's gonna be life changing for him.
We're leaving on a high.
[Rick] Juan and Freddy have truly, truly turned
everything around for us.
And so now, there is a future
for my family and me and everybody else here.
[horn honking]
Hi, Freddy. Hi, Juan.
Just a little update from our mine.
We've been doubling our gold tallies every day.
And I'm actually starting to pay off investors
and my family members
that have helped all the way through.
Woo!
The scrubber on the trommel
is still working amazing.
The organics are not a problem anymore.
The sluice boxes are still catching everything.
It's looking good, so it's good times here still,
thanks to you guys.