Gold Rush

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Feels good coming back, Dad.

This is our home field and this is where I think we belong.

I hope you're right.

Up in the Klondike, Todd and Jack Hoffman are on their own.

Just me and you: one fat kid and an old guy with a bad back.

They have no crew...

Come on! ..and just one last shot at mining for gold.

What if we could come back from the ashes and kick some ass, this year?

Against the odds, they've secured ground.

You know, Todd, we've never had stripped ground waiting for us.

But without a wash plant...

I don't have enough horsepower.

..they're dead in the water.

Whoa! Are you (BLEEP) me?

Parker Schnabel is mining good gold.

We'll find the gold. It's here.

But when Rick discovers that their gold is locked...

Oh, you're (BLEEP) kidding me.

This is frozen.

..n a layer of ancient permafrost...

I don't really have anywhere else to go.

..Parker is forced to revamp his mining plan.

There's a (BLEEP) foot of water in the cut, Rick.

Moving to risky new ground...

Why would they just walk away from it?

..to find big gold.

That wasn't a big run, but there's a hell of a lot riding on it.

Tony Beets is in the market for a crane

big enough to dismantle his 75-year-old dredge.

A 75-tonner.

It definitely will do the (BLEEP) job.

But when his wife Minnie lays down the law...

No?

You are done.

..Tony ends up with an undersized crane...

That's only a 50-tonner? So?

Which is all that stands between his son, Kevin...

OK, let her down. ..and annihilation.

Get out!

At Scribner Creek in the Klondike,

just one week into the season,

Parker Schnabel has already mined 73 ounces of gold - worth $88,000.

But, even at this rate,

he won't reach his 2,000-ounce,

$2.4 million target for this year.

The 73 ounces is good to start with.

I know Parker wants 100 ounces a week.

If we're gonna get 2,000 ounces,

100 ounces a week is... is what we need, so hopefully,

we can amp up production a little bit.

At the end of last season,

Parker and Rick dug $200,000 of gold from this ground

in just four days.

We'll find the gold. It's here.

It wants to be saved.

We'll rescue it.

Rick is in the far cut,

digging pay dirt for the rock trucks to take to the plant.

That's a load.

What the (BLEEP)?

Oh, you're (BLEEP) kidding me.

What the (BLEEP) is going on here?

Parker, you copy?

You OK?

Can you come out to the far cut? I think we got some issues.

I hit frost, man. This is frozen.

That's not good.

What it... That's never been thawed

in the last however many thousands of years.

If this is all frozen,

then it's not getting sluiced next week,

or in two weeks.

This just turned into a (BLEEP).

Yeah, to put it lightly.

Parker heads out in the D10 to find out

if the rest of the cut is frozen.

If this is frozen,

I honestly do not know what we're gonna do.

There goes our month of May.

Can't sluice frozen gravel.

I don't really have anywhere else to go.

To keep running pay dirt,

Parker has to quickly find some thawed ground.

Gene, his right-hand man, has an old drill map of the Scribner claim.

I wonder if we can find anything on here that might look promising.

So, uh, what about this abandoned cut here?

You know, I mean, it's...

Why they abandoned it, I don't know.

All right. They've done something there. They've done something.

And if they started stripping some of it, it might be thawed?

Yeah, it's worth looking at, I think.

The far cut is frozen solid.

The abandoned cut is over a kilometre southwest,

near the edge of Parker's claim.

Parker and Gene head over in their all-terrain vehicle,

the workhorse of the operation.

Well, this must be it, huh? Yeah, looks like it.

It's a big lake.

Well, it shouldn't be permafrost.

It's, uh, been underwater for 20-plus years.

So...

Right, but why would they just walk away from it?

There's a ton of reasons why they could have walked away from it.

They could've got froze out, broke down, you know, whatever.

It looks like it's thawed pay in there,

and we can be mining or sluicing in 24 hours.

The worst right now we've got to do

is run a pump for overnight and get the water out

and see what it looks like.

Let's do it. OK.

Less than a month into the season,

work on Tony Beets' million-dollar dredge has ground to a halt.

Tony is 760kms away in...

..at an auction with his wife Minnie.

Well, I hope you brought your cheque book. Let's get that crane.

They are on the hunt for a crane strong enough

to move massive sections of his gold-mining dredge.

We're gonna need something big and ugly.

I mean, that's not gonna move itself.

That is a (BLEEP) crane. That's the one we need. That's the one I want.

That's a big crane. That thing is huge.

It's a 75-tonner.

This is what we (BLEEP) need to lift that thing outta there.

But do we need a big one like this? Yes.

This is what I (BLEEP) want to move that with,

so we'll just have to make it happen.

I mean, whatever it takes, right?

Whatever it takes so...

Pretty nice. Pretty nice.

A lot of money, sure, it definitely will do the (BLEEP) job.

Yeah, well, we have a budget, and you're sticking to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That we budget.

I don't have a (BLEEP) budget.

I really don't kind of trust him,

because I think he'll go over budget on it.

I'm gonna be right beside him.

I don't know how much closer I can get.

You can go $150,000. $150,000?

Yeah. That's it? Yeah.

I mean, 150 grand for that thing?

If we don't realise this thing, we're gonna (BLEEP).

I know that, but I mean, you've got to realise,

if you buy it for more than 150, you're not gonna get it,

because you don't have the money anyway.

Lot number here... Lot number is 2,000.

It's a 2009 link-belt, 75-ton, hydraulic crane here.

Let's take a go now.

You all set? All right.

One-and-a-half.

$110,000.

We can't. We can't.

165? What do you think?

No? No.

You are done.

165?

Sold at $155,000.

I think we can get a crane at a better deal

that will do the job.

I don't think you have to necessarily spend

that much money on it.

I needed that (BLEEP) crane.

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Back in the Yukon,

Minnie Beets has found a smaller crane for her husband Tony -

one that fits their budget.

That's only a 50-tonner. So?

Well, I wanted a 75. Well, too bad, really.

We've gotta have something that lifts - Why don't you try it out?

See what it does.

Well...at least the thing is running.

What do you think? Like everybody else's (BLEEP) crane, I guess.

Seems to operate, seems to do fine, seems to run good.

Well, this is the one you own.

What do you mean, it's the one we own?

Well, I bought it.

We own it lock, stock, and barrel.

It's yours.

We'll give it a try, I guess, huh?

cold or something?

It's raining here.

You're dry.

Look at that old girl out in the rain.

There is no room for two people in there. (LAUGHS)

Todd and Jack Hoffman have clawed their way back

to the gold fields of the Klondike.

They have little but the shirt on their backs,

but they've secured one of the last claims around.

McKinnon Creek, 350 acres of ground

that was abandoned by the previous miners.

It's a little bit like a ghost town, Dad.

Let's go look round.

This was a big operation.

When they pulled out, they left a mess.

What do you think, Dad?

I don't think it matters what I think.

If there's gold here...

..that's what I'm looking at.