Bering Sea Gold

Nome, alaska.

In the winter,

It's already one of the coldest places to find gold.

And today...

The temperatures have plummeted

To the lowest reading of the season,

Bringing even more challenges onto the ice-mining battlefield.

Captions paid for by discovery communications

So for captain shawn pomrenke...

You have to improvise.

You have to be a macgyver out here.

Sometimes you don't have all the stuff you need,

So you improvise.

...That means before donning his wetsuit,

It's time to put on his thinking cap

And put together something he hopes will defeat mother nature.

Built a home-built steamer.

We're definitely gonna make some steam here today.

Very hot on the end here.

But we got ourselves a little problem.

We're following a really nice vein of gold

Into the frozen dirt.

It's frozen, and you can't get the gold out from underneath it.

So right now, I'm gonna get the steam going.

We're gonna try thawing the ground to get to the gold.

Last time I tapped into the hottest pay streak

I found all winter.

Problem is it ran straight into the frozen ground.

It can happen up here in nome. It gets that cold.

So I had to get a little creative.

Got the steam hose here.

Need special hose for steaming.

I built a steam gun.

I had a dive heater that makes hot water for a diver.

I figured, hell, this should work

For thawing ground with steam.

Yeah, I think that's a good plan,

A good idea, you know?

I've never tried it before.

I know steam's kind of like a big bomb.

If you get it plugged and don't have a place

For it to go, it'll go boom.

It may or may not work.

Still short the ounces he needs

For the down payment on the tomcod claim,

Shawn's rolling the dice to tap into

What he believes is a path to riches.

Gold mining's a risk.

When it's this cold out, it makes the job even tougher.

I mean, the risks get greater and greater,

But you're not gonna get rich by playing it safe.

Okay, got water.

I got power. Let's make some steam,

It's gonna get crazy...

If it works.

It could go boom.

Hopefully it just goes "wssshkkkk!"

To make steam, shawn's using a gas-fired furnace

To boil water inside a tank.

But to keep the steam from turning back into water

On its journey to the sea floor,

The temperature must be raised substantially,

Heightening the chance for the system to,

As shawn put it, go boom.

Here you go. Let's see.

Come on, girl.

Ah-ha-ha-ha!

Seems to be working just fine.

Let's get diving.

The steam gun's working on top of the ice,

But now the real test will be if it works under water.

This works, we're gonna be in the gold.

Will the steam gun thaw the ground,

Or am I just a crazy person

Running around with a dangerous machine?

We'll see.

Go down and check out that steam and see what it'll do.

Okay.

On the bottom.

All right, we're gonna fire it up.

Give us just a second.

If this thing here works the way we think it's gonna work,

Oh, man, this is big.

Uh-oh.

I don't have nothing coming out down here.

Houston, we have a problem.

It's already falling apart.

Okay, give me just a second.

30 feet down, the cold ocean is turning

Shawn's steam back into water,

Forcing his team to turn up the heat even more.

How's that working for you, shawn?

Yeah!

Yes.

Yeah.

So is that steam able to melt

That gold out of the ground or what?

-Finally. -Yee-haw!

As shawn works to melt away

The frozen sea floor,

15 miles east...

Minus-20 right now. Bloody cold out.

...The kellys are struggling just to get started

In the frigid conditions.

Our ice hole froze up closed so much

That I've lost half my hole.

If I have an emergency ascent, I'm

'cause I'm not getting out of that hole.

Not fast, anyways.

It's gonna be a great day today.

I know we're gonna get a lot of gold today.

We just got to get in the water.

But kris has, you guessed it,

A plan to beat the cold.

It's the coldest day of the year.

Humans shouldn't be in conditions like this.

Seals maybe, but not humans.

Each diver's gonna risk freezing his ass off

If it takes too long.

So my plan is for three of us andy, myself, and shaunna

To have short dives today.

Even though that they're short dives,

We're still gonna make a lot of gold today.

The quick dives should get the kellys closer

To the ounces they need

To rent the boat of their dreams this summer.

But...

It's gonna suck.

...Not everyone is warming up to the idea.

It's negative-20. You got to have tough skin.

We got to press hard right now and make this happen.

-Hotter water. -Turtle!

Turn it up a little bit then.

You like that?

Okay.

With temperatures getting this low,

Things can get pretty crazy.

So turtle's gonna be watching the temperature

And watching the dive hole.

It's so cold out right now, the dive hole's already

Beginning to freeze over, and none of these machines

Are built for this kind of temperature.

It's a show.

Okay, no matter what, just keep your eye on your exit.

You know the rules.

For a couple of minutes there, I didn't think

He was gonna get underneath the water.

You okay?

Are you seeing any gold at all?

I haven't seen any yet.

I'm still moving around, though.

Just keep going I go.

Any day could be our last, you know,

'cause we're getting to the end of the season now.

Hopefully andy puts us on big gold right now.

Right there at the end of my finger.

Looks nice, doesn't it?

Really good gold.

-Okay, go to work. -Okay.

Finally everything's running smooth again.

Just got to put some more hours in,

And this could turn out to be a pretty good season.

How much gold do you think you got?

That's why you get paid the big bucks.

Yeah, we're gonna look into that.

I don't know what the is wrong with the hot water.

I'm sick of that hot water.

The hot water's on right now. It's working.

How would you know?

I can see the steam coming out of there, the smoke,

That doesn't that just means the exhaust is working.

Yeah, it means the heater's going.

Turtle!

Andy's working hard down there. We really got to

Pull him in! Pull him in!

God!

God!

pull him in! Pull him in!

Are you okay?

I just lost all air on my way back to

Well, try not to die, but I'm glad you had

Your escape route planned.

Don't take your mask off when you're near the hole.

Yeah, I had no breath,

See how small this hole is? You can crawl back in.

My fat ass can't get I got my arms on the thing.

The what happens if you fall in, though?

Well, stop pulling me, ass

I'm glad you're okay.

I lost air pressure.

And then I'm trying to shimmy through this

How far were you from the hole?

20 feet.

Yeah, when the water doesn't go hot,

It freezes the reg.

Oh, man.

The hot-water system not only pumps hot water

To andy's suit, it also keeps the whole system from freezing.

No, the mask is not okay.

When the hot water stops,