Bering Sea Gold

They called it the wild west.

When the first big gold rush busted out in Nome,

people flooded to these shores,

willing to do anything for the chance to get rich.

Die for it,

they'd even kill for it.

Now that fever's hitting Nome all over again.

For the first time in decades,

the richest claims in town are back on the market

and all of that gold is suddenly up for grabs.

With gold prices

the highest they've ever been in history.

There's a rush of miners everywhere you turn

looking to get in on that turf war.

No doubt, the wild west is back.

Nome, Alaska,

the largest offshore gold deposits in the world.

For over a century, miners have battled

for fortune using custom-built contraptions,

diving for hidden gold on the Bering sea floor.

But this summer, a rare opportunity

has opened up the richest grounds in Nome

that were previously off limits.

Leases had either returned to the state

or remained unsold prompting the dnr

to offer new leases for sale this year.

For the first time in years,

contracts on prime ocean claims are set to expire,

freeing them up for sale on the open market.

The state has been accepting bids

on those parcels for the last two months.

Now, miners of all stripes

suddenly have a chance to buy their own piece of the pie.

Those, as offshore mining ground,

are available for the first time in a decade.

Okay.

Seasoned miners and average Joes

all jockey for position,

sparking a claim war on the golden battlegrounds.

Price of gold hits an all-time high topping

$2,000 an ounce.

And with gold prices the highest

they've been in history, staking a claim

could make outlaws multimillionaires overnight.

Two miles from shore.

Big season this year, a lot's going on.

The man they call "mr. Gold",

captain Shawn pomrenke is looking to take over Nome.

This winter was really good.

I bought the tomcod

and I have a huge payment on that.

If I don't make the payment

and it goes back to the owner

and then he can resell it,

but I'm not gonna let that happen.

This past winter, Shawn secured

the most lucrative claim in the game,

the 1,000 acre, 1.6-million-dollar tomcod,

and now he's aiming to lasso the most gold

anyone's ever seen in a single season.

We need to get on it

because there is a mountain of work.

I'm gonna make sure I keep the tomcod.

I'm not letting it get thrown to the wolves.

The prices of gold are outrageous,

so I have a three-prong plan of attack

to capitalize on it.

First I'm gonna get the cr and the gold,

grind around on the clock to secure the tomcod claim.

Either it's gonna make me or break me.

Second, I'm gonna buy out the old man.

I wanna own the inland mine outright.

And the third is the big one.

I'm gonna take out the competition

by taking over the competition.

I'm gonna try and convince Dave young to partner up,

let me redesign the myrtle and run it.

That thing has so much untapped potential.

I can make a killing with Dave if I pull this off.

Taking over the myrtle

would eliminate shawn's biggest competitor,

giving him control of the largest dredge

on the Bering sea

and making him the undisputed king of Nome.

But only if he can close the deal.

If we can do 300,000 in a week

with the Christine rose,

we should be able to do

close to a million in a week with the myrtle Irene.

I think with that dredge set up the right way

and with the right modifications,

I'll be crushing the competition.

Now I just gotta convince Dave

and that will be the trifactor.

Hey, Dave.

What's up?

I got a few ideas.

Just kind of wanted to run them by you.

I see the myrtle sitting there

I've been driving by at all winter

looking at it and I think

I'd be interested in running it.

I know I can handle it, I just

I think that there's a quite a few improvements

I'd like to do to it to get it up the snuff

to where it needs to be, at least to my standards,

I think we could produce a lot more.

We put a ton of money in it last year,

I think it's running fine the way it is.

Yeah, well I think it could run way better.

Need to sell Dave on this.

I get hooked up with the myrtle,

it's gonna be a game-changer.

I'll be like king Kong on top of the empire state building,

nothing will stop me.

I'll tell you what, why don't you draw

something up and give me a proposal

and I'll look at it.

I'm not saying we're gonna do it.

But if you draw something up, we'll definitely look at it.

You know, I don't know if we can afford you.

Well, you can't afford to lose me.

I have the richest claim in Nome

and I also built one of the best dredges in Nome.

I'm gonna draw up some plans

that will knock Dave on his ass.

This thing will work,

- well, it's... Man... - I'll make it work.

I'mma get you a set of drawings,

see what you think,

then we can talk again.

I'll consider it.

Okay. Sounds good.

- Yeah, thanks. - Yeah.

Dave didn't say no.

I wanna take this company to the next level.

Yeah.

Six miles outside of town,

far off the beaten path.

You can take the man out of Nome.

I had a bunch of saw dust up my nose.

But there is no taking Nome out of the man.

One at a time.

That'll work.

After years away, the lure of nome's land grab

has proven too tempting to resist

for mining legend Zeke tenhoff.

I traveled around the world a bunch,

that was fun.

I also tried over the last of years

to do a little bit of a career change

and live in some other places and, I don't know,

it wasn't for me.

It's kind of hilarious to think

that I can live any more but here in Nome

and to think that I could do anything

but, gold mining.

The price of gold is at an all-time high.

Claims that were not very valuable a few years ago

are gonna be insanely valuable

as the price of gold goes up.

But at present, I need to get back in the water.

Gold mining is in my blood,

it's the only thing that I've found

that I felt that I was good at.

I love dreaming about equipment

and dreaming about different machines

and different boats that I could put together

and I'm like fairly mechanically inclined.

Let's fire it up.

Zeke's mining roots began over a decade ago,

on the humble suction dredge, the Clark,

along with childhood friend Emily riedel.

Let's do this.

Over the years.

It's being our first time

running two sluices at the same time.

So we're gonna have double gold today.

Zeke grew his operation

through innovation,

thinking outside of the box.

Laying down glow sticks on the trajectory

that I know the gold to be going.

And emerging

as nome's resident mad scientist.

Boom, right there.

Copper hole melting device.

I think we'll be in business.

And now, amidst the frenzy

of nome's claim war

and world record gold prices,

he attempts his most ambitious creation to date.

My endgame has been for a long time

to get this sailboat in the water

and turn it into a gold-mining sailboat.

Having a gold-mining sailboat is a huge, huge venture.

Nobody else has done that, nobody's ever done that.

It's gonna be super awesome.

I've had the sailboat in my yard

for, like, seven years now.