Yukon Gold

Coming up on Yukon Gold...

I'm probably two days behind where I wanted to be.

Yeah, pressure's on!

It's still cracking and moving.

We can't leave anything behind in the big-ass cut.

Whoa, is she ever soggy. That's it.

- Dammit. - Watch out, Rackla!

Let's get the other parts on and get on her!

We need to get this trommel turning, that is the bottom line.

Open her up!

You bet, man.

Morning on Indian River...

Hopefully we're going to find the big winner.

Big Al McGregor digs deep.

He's opening up a new pit right beside camp.

We identified a lot of virgin areas there that the old miners hadn't touched

for whatever reason.

We'll get this thing stripped up and see what we see.

Adventure begins anew.

You're probably getting a little more bedrock now.

That's why it's going to be a little thicker.

Bedrock is all good isn't it?

One would frigging hope.

Six weeks into the 16-week mining season,

Al has only pulled in 220 ounces of gold,

a far cry from his thousand-ounce season goal.

The first pit, it didn't turn out quite as good as we expected,

and we started the newer pit after extensive studying,

and found it to be quite a bit richer.

Al's testing showed this ground could produce up to seven ounces an hour.

I'm expecting big things out of this.

If it's there like I think it is, it will really add up in a hurry.

We're under the gun.

Before he can get to the virgin paydirt,

there's a lot of stripping to do...

Going to go fix the 750.

We haven't sluiced for about a month.

I'm anxious to get down and spend the rest of the day with the boys there

and get some frigging dirt moved and get at her.

Goddammit.

But Al's prized 750 excavator, Big Girl, is down for the count,

making progress slow.

Come on, you bitch.

Big Girl just gets temperamental occasionally and likes to blow hoses.

The dirty bugger.

Well, the 750 is absolutely critical.

She's so handy. She just moves so much dirt so quickly

and can get a lot done in a day.

Adding to his troubles,

Al's right-hand man and ace mechanic, Hiro, is away for the week.

Seems like there's always what I call the Hiro Curse.

As soon as he gets out of the valley, something breaks down, eh.

Hey, Freddy, can you come give me a hand?

Al pulls minehands Freddy and Scotty off stripping

to help spring Big Girl back to life.

I'm shitty as a mechanic.

I don't like it, but I'll get in there with the best of them.

We fix what we can, and unfortunately, I hate to admit,

the harder stuff we just wait till Hiro gets back.

Shit.

That's why we're not mechanics.

It should have just fallen straight down...

We can't do anything without that.

Oh, my... Can't start without her.

A missing bolt grinds the fix to a halt.

Either that or in the hole up here.

It's not down there.

Dirty bastard, eh?

I'm going to try walking away a bit,

I guess. I don't know.

It would be right there if it was there.

Hidden under the mud or anything?

No? That dirty is just nowhere to be found.

You know, when I started out, yeah, it used to get frustrating,

missing shit. Now...

No, I'm really working on not stressing this year,

just for my own personal health.

Al's still recovering from a two-year battle with cancer.

Stress is one thing I don't think I need in my life right now,

so why in the hell am I mining? I don't know, but...

If I could just see one on the frame we could use...

Hmm. Try it, anyway.

I don't know if it's going to be long enough.

Doesn't look like it.

Can you just drop that in the hole for me there?

Try it, anyway...

We'll see here.

Not much, eh?

-But enough? - Could be enough.

There it is.

We stole from Peter to pay Paul on that one.

Okay...

We're probably good to go.

This is where I belong, me and Big Girl.

With Big Girl up and running,

Al's stripping program is back on.

"Virgin" means un-mined,

and therefore there's some huge potential in there.

If we can get this ready to sluice in 10 days here,

I'll be pretty happy and we can sluice for the rest of the season.

We should be in production now.

How deep is this?

Southeast of Dawson City...

On Stowe Creek...

Are you okay to sluice for a bit more, David?

What did you say?

Are you okay to sluice for a little bit?

Did he shake his head? Yeah? No?

That kid, he's full of piss and vinegar.

Miner Chris St. Jean is in the home stretch.

He's just days away from finishing the big cut.

David, you've got to slow down.

That's really sandy.

The strategy that I came up with this year was just to get guys that can do the job.

I say, "This is what we need to get done," and they go do it,

It's actually working really well.

Six weeks into the season,

Chris has already scored 372 ounces of gold,

worth over half a million dollars.

For the third year in a row, just breaking even.

Not going to do it for me.

Not just about the gold.

It's about feeding our family. I want the thousand ounces.

To reach his thousand-ounce season goal,

Chris needs every last ounce out of the big cut...

It's still cracking and moving. Yep.

But days of rain have turned the overburden

covering the final section of paydirt into a soggy mess.

I don't think you can sit up there.

Yeah, it's really moving.

It could make the ground unstable

under the weight of the 35-ton excavator.

Shit.

The more you walk on that stuff, the more it turns to shit.

We'll have to do something. Got to get 20 feet out of there.

There's gold in there.

Could be upwards of 75 ounces sitting under there. I don't know.

I hate to leave a hundred thousand dollars behind.

No, we're not going to do that.

Too wet. Tons of rain the last two days,

so it's tough, it's not easy.

Poses lots of frustrations for an operator.

-Okay. -Do what you can do, I guess.

Give her a shot.

Minehand Lindsay braves the muddy overburden to get at the gold.

Gee, is she ever soggy.

Great big bowl of Jell-O.

We need to reach this goal of a thousand ounces, so

we can't leave anything behind.

It has to be mined completely.

God, I hate this slop.

That's it.

Lindsay calls it quits.

Goddammit.

The overburden is too soft to sit on.

The last little bit here has turned into a big battle, so

I'm just spinning my wheels.

We're not going to be able to touch it till it dries out. We'll have to wait.

We're going to pray for no more rain.

We can get this piece done and get out of here and get to our next cut.

Shit!

Northwest of Whitehorse, on Rabbit Creek...

Hey!

Prospectors-turned-miners Ed Long and Riley Gibson

are still setting up their mine.

They've been at it for six weeks.

This being our first season and we're not really miners...

It's definitely the biggest challenge that we've ever taken on.

Okay!

It's good enough here?

We're definitely behind schedule significantly.

Months and months now of just money leaving and nothing coming in.

Just make sure the cable's fine.

That's the biggest monkey on our back right now,

is just knowing that...

This isn't sustainable.

I see flowers.

Working, mining, living with my family. That's the dream.

That's what we're trying to do, is make a living out here mining.

Ah, shit!

Oh, holy fuck!

Oh, you're stuck?

Pretty close.

Try to reach up this way and spin this way a bit.

Prospecting is a whole different ballgame than mining.

No, he's stuck. He ain't getting out.

When we're dealing with dirt moving, it's a big huge learning curve.

I'll go get him out.

That's why Jarret is on our team and that's why he's part of the crew.