Yukon Gold

Coming up on Yukon Gold...

Get them up! Get them up!

I've decided if there's not 600 ounces in here, your life is forfeit.

Good to know what your life's worth.

We need a rock truck. 130 grand, eh? And all smashed up.

If it turns out to be like that feeder, I'll come unglued.

We should be sluicing by 9:00.

Rob can't be worrying about what's going on with the crew.

Amateur hour going on.

I'd like to see this mine run efficient.

In 50 Mile valley...

-Out of here, Turbs. -What? You're leaving us already?

Well, I'll see you in a few days.

Yeah. Drive safe, eh?

-May your cleanups be strong. -Always.

Peace out. Don't miss me too much.

After a grueling first half of the season,

miner Andy Tai is taking a week off before the big fall push.

My time off for the year that I do every year in August.

I go see my family. It's important to me to get away, for sure.

My time away. It's something I've done with my family for 22 years in a row.

Andy's business partner PJ is on holiday too.

With both bosses away, that leaves minority partner Turbo in charge.

All right, back to work.

It's nice to be a minority partner in the company 50 Mile.

I just have that stake in it because I believe in the ground.

I believe in the partners.

Pepper! Come on!

Let's go!

It's the first-time Turbo's run the mine on his own.

I'm a little nervous.

I'm ready to tackle it and prove to them that I can run this mine.

Ten weeks into the season, Turbo and the boys are under the gun.

They've only bagged 250 ounces of gold.

It's important that we hit at that goal of 600 ounces.

We're going paycheck to paycheck right now.

We're just squeaking by, paying our guys, paying our bills.

But with a busted drive train on the dozer,

sluicing is at a dead stop.

First things first... You had my gun back, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, you did.

Until mechanic Rob and mine hand Samson can get it up and running,

there's no pay dirt to run through the sluice box.

Rob? How's it going? What do we got to do?

I'll show you the ways of the Jedi Master here, big guy.

The boss here is Turbo.

But Turbo has known that when it comes to the equipment side, I'm in charge.

The more you force it to turn it,

it's not correct because I have to align it with the crane.

I'm trying to keep it straight.

Yeah, I agree.

Rob's a good mechanic. He's a great mechanic.

He'll be the first one to tell you that.

Samson, you're going to come and operate this.

So pull down on this bar?

-Yeah, when I say. -Okay.

Push, boys.

- Did it go in at all there? - There we go! There we go.

-Okay. -Shack-a-boo-boo.

I never heard that before.

-Could mean whatever you want it to mean. - Yeah?

Is it spinning?

Yeah, it's fixed. Yeah! Yee-hoo!

With mechanic Rob's help, Turbo passes his first hurdle as mine boss.

I'm ready to party.

Drivetrain party!

The D8's back pushing pay to the plant.

Come on, baby.

Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Boo-ya!

We're sluicing!

With PJ and Andy being away and me having to handle everything,

I'm going to do my best I can in order to keep sluicing, getting some gold.

- Shack-a-boo-boo. - Shack-a-boo-boo!

-Okay. - Morning, boys!

Hey Allen.

Moving day on Indian River.

Hopefully, she'll be a grand day in the neighborhood.

Big Al McGregor's been pushing his crew hard for the last four weeks,

stripping virgin ground to open the new camp cut.

We haven't sluiced for about a month, so it'll be good to get going now.

There's always the stress of time up here because the season is short.

-Oh, you bastard. -It's not going to fit.

Now with just six weeks left in the mining season,

Al's finally ready to start sluicing his new pit.

We're going to move that sluice plant eight kilometers,

and we're skidding it.

The nightmare of tipping it over or cracking one of those big columns,

that concerns me a lot.

Yeah, it's good. Awesome, Todd.

The plant's heavy.

It'll lift the front of the D9 we're using off the ground.

We've got a D8 that'll be rigged onto the front of the D9 to hold the front down

while it pulls on the plant.

The worst that can happen, uh...

You're the boss.

Today, Hiro's the big boss on the big move.

He's going to direct everything.

- Ready to roll, eh? - Yeah.

Just slow and easy.

Opening a new pit has put Al way behind.

So far, he's only pulled in 220 ounces

towards his thousand-ounce season goal.

This plant has to arrive alive.

The sluice is the lifeblood of this whole operation...

To replace it...

Yeah, well, I wouldn't be able to do it.

Shaking quite a bit too so...

Don't want nothing to happen.

Yeah, I hope the rain didn't make the river too high.

To reach the new cut, the plant has to be towed

across the swollen Indian River.

That's the only spot...

We're going to have to really worry about.

Get her up, get her up!

Right there, boys!

How's that, Hiro?

-That's good! -Good!

- Down? -Yeah.

Down easy!

Not quite like that.

Finally! Oh, this is really great.

That's a sweet sound. The old girl's purring along.

After a long month stripping virgin ground,

Al's finally sluicing the camp cut.

Oh, that's a whole lot of stress off, Hiro.

Yeah.

That's a big job, but it's done and should be easy from now on, right?

It was so frustrating though, Allen. Just so

slow going.

I was like just so tired

I can imagine, but it is what it is.

It's been, like, lately, like, I'm trying to keep it up,

but I can't really even keep it up right.

-It's done. -Yeah, it's done.

It's been a long season.

Hiro's been pretty overworked lately.

I've got to try to get him a few days off if I can here,

but I've been down now most of the summer.

Time to really get serious.

It's going to get tougher as it gets cooler.

It's nothing we can't handle, but it just gets tough.

Well, thanks, man. I know it was a pain in the ass.

No, it's a pretty easy go, I think.

Southeast of Dawson City, on Stowe Creek...

-We'll clean up this edge too... -Yeah.

There'll be pay along here.

A whole pile of pay along here, two, three, four feet of pay.

-Right along this edge. -OK.

Chris St. Jean is on the hunt for gold.

Might be a little pay down in there too.

After the failure of his last cut,

Chris has only pulled in 430 ounces of gold,

and with just six weeks left to mine,

he's abandoned his thousand-ounce season goal.

The feeling of seeing something not work out for you,

it's a pretty sinking feeling

because now you've gone from this thousand-ounce goal to going,

"Uh-oh, am I going to make anything?"

But you've got to pull your shorts up,

keep trucking on, and move on to the next cut.

That next cut is the bench,

where Chris has set a new season target of 800 ounces.

That leaves him with just six weeks to dig 370 ounces of gold out of this ground.

We originally wanted 150 ounces out of our bench cut,

but now we hope for more than that just to make up for our previous mistakes.

Adding to the pressure, he's losing a veteran mine hand.

The last push for me.

I'm out in about three days.

My business is calling me, so I have to head home.

Got to make the time count while I'm here,

and he's going to work the living heck out of me before I leave.

so get as much ground as I can uncovered for them

so they can just basically sluice after I leave.

Holy shit.

Ah, shit.

Lindsay gets stopped cold.

-On air, Chris? -Go for Chris.

We've got a problem.

I hit frozen. Jesus.

Frozen ground is posing a problem.

It's really important that we get this stripped and get it through the plant

if we're going to meet our goal.

It's a miner's worst enemy. Permafrost,

ground deep beneath the earth's surface that stays frozen all year long.

That's frozen?

-It's digging, but it's not easy. -Yeah.

We get down to pay level, and we get down to our bedrock,

and it's just frozen solid.

Chris moved his entire operation to the bench cut

to salvage his season,

but if the pay dirt's frozen, it will shut him down.

There's nobody to blame but myself for all. I'm the one that's managing it.

If there's any big mistake, it's mine.