Gold Rush

I am not mining with the Hoffmans any more.

It was a tough decision.

I love Todd.

But I can't spend another year of my life working for him.

I need to be with a crew who can get some serious gold.

This is my chance at a new beginning.

Right here under this glacier

is a great big pile of gold.

All we got to do is dig it up.

I had a dream of going to the jungle.

And what that dream brought was a lot of pain and heartbreak.

The amount of money we lost, and what we went through,

that damn near destroyed me.

It was embarrassing and demoralising.

I never ever want to be a part of something like that again.

And I won't. I won't do it.

Last season was a huge success.

We found a lot of gold. We made a lot of money.

A thousand ounces in our first year in the Klondike

is a damn good achievement.

Last year was the training year.

It's time to take the training wheels off.

This season, everything has changed.

We're not miners any more.

Let's tear this thing up.

New claims.

Carmacks is open for business.

New miners.

And new ways to pull gold out of the ground.

Bigger, badder machines.

Big dreams.

I'm setting a 2,000 ounce goal.

Big decisions. I'm out, Todd.

Dude, I'm out.

I do not want to do this, Dad. Just don't quit!

And the biggest gold they've ever mined.

It's the biggest nugget I've ever dug up.

In a high mountain pass just west of Carmacks in the Yukon,

a new gold mining crew kicks off their season.

Dave Turin has left his old friend Todd Hoffman

to mine with two legends.

Freddy and Derek Dodge.

Their ground, an extraordinary nugget-rich valley.

Glad you're here with us, Dave. It's nice to have you on the team.

Hopefully we can come together as a team and kick some ass.

I would suggest we get in our machines and rip and tear.

All right, let's rip the hell out of this thing.

The Dodge brothers' Carmacks claim

is just 3km from the top of the mountain.

Close to the source of the gold.

In an area that was missed during the gold rush.

It's thought to contain some of the best gold deposits in the Yukon.

Last year, the Hoffmans considered mining Carmacks.

You guys are after some big nuggets, huh?

Like how big? How big? About that big.

Oh! That's what I call a big nugget.

But when Todd decided to head to South America instead,

the Dodge brothers mined the claim.

Look at that one! Some beautiful gold here.

The results were remarkable.

This is just some of the big stuff.

Dave jumped at the chance to get a piece of the Carmacks action.

I can't wait till I see gold.

Freddy and Derek have been doing this creek.

They are getting big gold and a lot of it.

I'm kind of known as the gold guy.

Derek has been a prospector for many, many years.

Dave, he's one of the best people I've ever seen on heavy equipment.

We put together one hell of a team.

If the gold's in the ground, we will succeed.

The nuggets at Carmacks are buried beneath the ice.

Dave and the Dodge brothers could wait for the frozen river to thaw.

But they have a plan that should put them weeks ahead of the game.

They'll build an ice dam upstream

to create a massive build-up of water.

When the dam is full,

Derek will release 900,000 litres of water

into the valley below.

The surge should clear enough snow and ice for the crew to start mining.

But Dave has to build the dam from below.

Manoeuvring his excavator on ice.

I've never worked on ice before.

Makes me a little nervous.

This is a 105,000lb machine.

And it's not designed to be run on snow and ice.

Come on, get up. There we go.

There we go. Oh, that's good.

After half an hour, the dam starts to take shape.

I got a lot of ice sitting in here right now.

The pond's filling up faster than I thought.

We're going to have to hurry.

I'm going to cut it loose. It's going to go big.

Hang on. Let me get out of here.

Whoa!

900,000 litres of water threaten to breach the dam

with Dave directly in its path.

Whoa!

Easy there!

We're about to lose it. Come on, baby. Get up the hill.

I can't be waiting.

Got to hurry. This dam is going to break on its own.

That ought to be enough.

With Dave out of harm's way,

Derek now needs to get over the ice wall

to push it from behind.

OK, I'm going to back up here and break this thing loose.

Ready.

Guys, this dam is full. It can break any minute.

Watch out, Derek! You're slipping!

Derek is stuck.

If the dam blows before the D8 gets over the wall,

the dozer and Derek will be swept along with 900,000 litres of water,

down the mountain and over the waterfall.

Whoa! (BLEEP)!

Whoa!

Come on, girl. Get it up here!

It's going to go any second, guys. I can't stop it.

We got to go.

Come on, you old cow. Get the heck up the hill here!

Derek, it's going to go any time. Careful.

There we go.

Whoo!

Derek breaks through the five-metre wall.

Let's give it hell.

There it goes!

Look at that stuff go down the creek, man!

Got ice flowing now!

Nice! That'll clear it out!

All the water and ice from above

cleared down to the bottom of the mountain.

It's exactly what we want.

It's working perfect.

In just a morning's work,

the water has cleared most of the ice covering their Carmacks gold.

Tore the heck out of it!

We're good, huh? Down to the gravel.

There's gold right where we're standing here now.

There's pockets in here that are going to be amazing.

It's going to be a great season. Carmacks is open for business.

Last year, in his first Klondike season,

19-year-old Parker Schnabel

mined a staggering 1,029 ounces of gold.

Worth $1.4 million.

Last season, by every measure that I know,

it was a huge success for us.

We did over 1,000 ounces on low-grade ground.

Tony told me that if I did well last year,

he'd give me a better ground.

I'm here to get it.

Parker has travelled almost 5,000km to Arizona

for a face to face meeting with his claim owner Tony Beets

at his winter home.

Hey, Tony. Long time, no see.

Like we said last year,

that was a bit of a training ground.

But this season,

I'm prepared to throw everything we made last year into it.

But that means, obviously, we need better ground.

No, no, no.

I thought I could expect it because -

No.

This last season, I thought that we showed

you can give me ground that is economical to mine.

No.

I expected this to go differently.

It's quite obvious to me

you're leasing me ground that you would never touch.

Obviously there's no negotiating here.

You make it hard to be happy.

!

! If Tony wants me to mine his (BLEEP) ground,

then I don't even know if I want to go back to the Klondike.

Sandy, Oregon.

After epic failure in the jungles of Guyana,

the Hoffman crew has disbanded.

The guys have had no choice but to do what they can to make ends meet.

Since I've been home, I'm trying to get any odd job I can find.

I got bills to pay.

Andy Spinks has resorted to working at his family's nursery.

I've spent a lot of years trying to help Todd.

It's a big commitment. It hasn't really paid off.

And the future is no brighter for Kevin Hiatt.

Now I'm dealing with other people's garbage.

But it's a paying job.

At least I'm going to make some money.

That's what I have to do.

But Todd refuses to let the Hoffmans' dream die.

He calls his crew together for the first time since South America.

I'm nervous. I've got all my guys coming over.

We're going to have a frank talk.

I'm going to ask my team to go north one more time.

Will they come with me?

I don't know.

Hey, guys. Come on in. Have a seat.

Thanks for coming. I appreciate it.

I'm not happy that you guys are struggling

because of my decisions.

That's not funny to me.

What the hell were we doing in Guyana?

We knew nothing about diamonds.