Bering Sea Gold

Evolution is as vital to miners as it is to every species.

Over a century ago, the first form of gold seekers

brought their primitive methods to the nome shores.

And while today's fleet has advanced far beyond their forefathers,

if they don't continue to evolve,

they'll be left out in the cold.

And on the icy Bering sea...

There's a storm coming up,

but, you know, I got to make money before that,

you know, because it's pretty much

gonna be for a while, you know.

Ain't no around today.

Into the face of adversity,

a young gun's looking for an edge to rise to the top of the gold chain.

This winter is all about letting

the mining community know that there's a new force in town.

I've always got to be thinking outside the box.

I need to use every edge that I can because I'm aiming

for a hundred-ounce season, and that's a Mr. Gold number.

I'm gonna prove that I'm as good as Mr. Gold or anyone in this fleet,

and I want no storm to slow me down.

Push it in there.

So I got a two-pronged plan to help me

stay ahead of the game before the storm hits.

First, I'm gonna send Yukon John down

and finish up the rest of this hole.

The guy is a killer. Total nome og.

I just want to make sure what happened last summer

didn't mess up his confidence.

A strong diver will fix that in a hurry.

Hey, Freddie.

Game time.

And I'm also gonna break out some new technology.

I have this cool underwater drone

that will help me scope out the sea floor.

I want to find some new ground to crush after the storm passes.

A lot of old-time miners shy away from the new technology,

but I think this is the key to progress.

I'm gonna send you the drone down there.

Let us know what you think from there.

Mic check. Mic check.

Loud and clear.

Diver down, baby. John is my gold dog.

I sent him down there and he gets it like a dog

looking for his bone.

We'll go idle up.

Hey, John. How's it going?

It's going pretty good.

Right on. Right on. Okay. Got it.

Whoo!

- My diver's happy... - Everything's running smooth.

We'll get it. No matter how hard it is, we'll get it.

As the youngest miner in the fleet forges a new path...

Nobody throw, cigarette butts in the tailings,

'cause they film it and make us look like white trash.

Good morning!

Today we're starting off, we're kicking ass.

The plan is simple.

I need a third of an ounce of gold an hour,

and I need less than a foot of overburden

for my crawler to work properly.

After a disastrous summer,

kris Kelly is looking to evolve his winter operation,

if he can just get out of his own way.

We're gonna get Andy in the water,

just because he doesn't trust my prospecting skills,

even though I'm always right.

So it's gonna be an exciting day.

Summer was junk.

We need to absolutely crush it this winter.

We're aiming for 50 ounces and I've got just the ticket

to upgrade reaper nation and pull it off.

Tomorrow at 2:00 P.M., my crawler gets here.

I am so pumped. I've been waiting for it.

My secret weapon is an underwater crawler.

Basically, it's like a vacuum cleaner on the ocean floor.

A robot vacuum cleaner.

It's strong, powerful, should be able to move

small rocks the size of a truck.

No more diving, just the robot getting our gold.

That's how we'll separate ourselves from everyone else and reach the next level.

So today, we've got to find a good pay streak

with flat ground and not a lot of overburden.

Then we'll dominate when the crawler gets here.

We're getting our sluice box in

I'm getting Andy to reserve his energy.

We're good to go.

He's gonna get down there and make our money today.

I'm expecting more gold and lots of work. So I expanded my team.

I added Daniel and Andrew, and they're both rookies.

So there's a lot of work to do to get them up to speed.

The foot valves and the high-pressure line's next.

- Come on, Andrew, get in there. - Let's do this.

Andrew, in particular, he has the reaction time of a sloth.

Okay. Let's do that right now. Let's do that right now.

Look, we don't need a sloth.

Getting everything set up, it's a little slow in the beginning.

We're like a pit crew.

Every single day we do it, we'll get faster.

Got it.

We're ready to go.

Water is flowing, everything's up and ready.

We're gonna start making some money.

Yep. Ready to dive, get it done.

We really need less than a foot of overburden

- from the crawler to making sure it works. - I know.

And it would be nice if we run better than a third of an ounce.

I'm not stopping at a third of an ounce.

- Well, that's nothing, you know... - Hey, I wanted...

If I get a third,

I want to keep going and see if I can find better.

- Okay. Check, check. - Yeah, I can hear you.

- Idle up. - Okay.

Idle up, Gabe you do it, do it slowly.

But I think it's cobble with a little bit of sand.

Okay. Let me figure out what's wrong.

Our engines are idled all the way up.

But for some reason, Andy has no suction under the water.

Now I have to put my mechanic's hat on,

which has never been my specialty.

We're good.

- You know how I fixed it? - With one nail.

So here's kris, the mechanic's solution.

I put a nail in the wall and hung the fuel line on it,

so gravity will feed the fuel to the engine.

This is not exactly the revolutionary new operation

that I envisioned, but, man, I can't wait till my crawler gets here.

- How's your suction? - Good.

Well, thank god. I think I took care of our problems up here,

and we're gonna start running smoother.

It wasn't getting fuel at all.

Man, when you were just giving me that little speech, dude,

I just found a crevice that was full of gold.

Well, good job.

Found great gold. I am so pumped.

Minor difficulties right now, nothing big. Nothing I can't handle.

But everything's fine. Everything's fine.

And at least we're getting a lot of gold.

In nome, if you ain't evolving, you ain't surviving.

And on the outskirts of town...

We got a big storm coming in.

Time is money.

Every hour you're not running, that's another

hour you ain't making an ounce of gold.

The king of nome is trying to adapt to stay ahead of the competition.

I've never been this excited about ice season.

Having the mini excavator changed the whole game

you're almost, even more efficient

in the winter than in the summer.

Every season on the Bering sea is different.

So my blueprint for mining has always got to be changing.

This winter, I developed a new approach.

I have the sherp now that'll maximize my mobility

and give me access to new areas.

And I have an excavator.

The ultimate tool for efficiency.

We'll be able to dig holes and pivot faster than anybody else.

Yeah.

And this year, I'm aiming at a big goal, 100 ounces.

But the biggest change of all is the spot that I picked,

the east tract claim, not where I'm used to mining,

but the drill hole, see, there's an ancient channel of gold.

Trick is, it's deep, real deep.

You're 36 feet deep.

I mean, a lot of guys won't go out that deep.

If something goes wrong, you better figure out

what the hell you need to do to get the hell

out of there and get out of there quick.

Otherwise, you're done.

A lot of guys wouldn't take a chance on ground this deep.

You get far away from the dive hole, chance of the bends,

ground freezing up.

But I have to take the risk.

There's guys like Chris mccully

just waiting for me to slow down so they can be the top dog.

I just can't stick to what's comfortable.

I always have to be pushing myself.

Yes, sir.

We're here, back in business.

We're on it.

Get that gold, Joe.

The second diver on the hole, I'm gonna get suited up,

get down, try to clean the hole up,

finish it up, it's 'cause we got a snow storm coming.

Get down there and pile up some gold.

He thinks he's ready.

We'll see when he gets to the bottom.

That gold, it might just shock him.

Sounds like he can see the bottom.

That's good.

If he can see the bottom, he'll see the gold.

Yeah.

There's some big chunks of ice up above us.

Right at this particular area, you can see the big,

huge chunks of ice coming down.

That's why we got the excavator.

He'll dig me a new hole and pull me out if he has to.

But we ain't down here to Google at the ice, we're here to make some money.

Yeah, go ahead. Throttle me up.

Dammit!