"I brought my guys back from the brink of bankruptcy." "We mined more gold than all of our previous seasons combined." "we finally got here early." "I've got my dad and my son Hunter with me." "And my crew of brothers." "This is gonna be our year." "Last season we dug over 3 million dollars worth of gold out of the ground." "But it came at a price." "I got so focused on the gold that I drove my guys in the ground." "that was my fault." "I have to do more than just get the gold." "I have to figure out how to truly lead a team." "a new gold mining season begins." "This is going to be the best year ever." "The Hoffman crew is set to have their best season yet." "Yeah." "Whoo." "They break ground before anyone else." "First cut of the season Andy." "And open up the biggest cut of their careers." "Let's make a super-cut." "On a mission to mine twice as much gold as ever before." "We're gonna conquer this thing." "2700 ounces." "Yeah." "Tony Beets kicks off his season with a fistful of gold." "ready for action." "And a family dead set on bringing history back to life." "Parker Schnabel is staring failure in the face." "I'm scared." "He loses the man responsible for his success." "I'm not coming back." "We're in trouble now." "And is forced to hire a bunch of rookies." "Not much mining experience standing here." "the battle with his landlord then tell me to take it or leave it again." "Escalates into a full scale war." "Alaska." "but already he's in trouble." "Gene Cheeseman." "Gene's working on a dock job that I can only get to by boat." "So" "I'm gonna go see him and get it straight from him what his plans are." "Good to see ya." "Yeah." "Gene's helped Parker get a staggering 4 million dollars worth of gold." "Thank you Gene." "Been a good year for us." "But by the end of last year." "Just gonna do it Gene." "That's the way it's gonna be." "A lack of respect from his young boss" "I'm not gonna take anymore shit from the little punk." "forced Gene to quit." "I'm done with Parker." "I'm not coming back next year." "I have no idea what I'm gonna do." "and make him wanna come back because" "He's been the key to our success." "you know." "looks like there's some sort of job site going on here." "Must be him." "Communication is neither Gene's nor I's strongest point." "So" "These kind of conversations are a little.." "tense at times." "Well I guess here goes nothing." "How's it going?" "How you doing?" "Good day." "How're .." "Good to see ya." "Yeah." "you" "Did a damn good job." "And it was impressive working with you and it's been a real pleasure." "um.." "I should have communicated better with you and there was tension and.." "but just gotta ask me." "We're looking at buying ground and.." "and" "I don't want to even think about trying to do it without you." "if you could come back up?" "You know I didn't particularly care for how things went down." "What was.." "What was the biggest issue last year?" "You and I have a different way of doing things." "You know." "and managing how we run a business." "and I don't know how to run a business." "Well I understand that." "I understand that Parker." "But it's "your" business." "I'd make suggestions to you and I'd say this is what I think we should do or what I would do." "And you were doing them a different way." "is there any way you can come up?" "Um uh." "Parker." "I'm not coming back." "I see." "That's gonna make my life pretty damn tough." "you've taught me a hell of a lot." "and I'll always be grateful for that." "Thanks for the opportunity." "and I wish you the best of luck." "You too." "We're in trouble now." "It was an accumulation of things." "just a lot of little things" "I have a different philosophy on how to do business and treat people than he does." "He'll figure it out." "Parker can't run a successful mine without a foreman." "Gene will be a tough act to follow." "I could do it." "Just a No." "That's kind of a closed door." "You can't do much with that." "It really screws up my entire mining season." "600 miles north." "In the Yukon." "The Hoffman crew is off to a head start." "Mining two full weeks before the start of the season." "First cut of the season Andy." "This early in the year the ground is still frozen." "Dave Turin and Andy Spinks are ripping the permafrost and stripping a new cut ahead of the spring thaw." "probably 500 feet." "Open up just as much as we can handle." "What do you think?" "You don't think being this early in the year that we could bite off a little bit more." "Let's go get another 500." "copy that." "Better safe than sorry." "Can't afford to do anything stupid this year." "and then we can bite off a bigger chunk." "Then we'll go from there." "Let's get both dozers on this." "This is the earliest we've ever been out here." "It's gonna be the best year ever." "First strip and everything's going good." "Only thing makes me mad is Todd took off." "It's pretty tough when he expects us just to stay here and keep plugging away." "Yeah." "He just can't stay focused and stay on the plan." "He always wants to chase the next best thing." "and his son Hunter." "are exploring new ground up the legendary Eldorado Creek." "My gawd guys." "This is it." "is that there's more gold here than anyplace else in the Yukon." "This place has got a lot of history." "I'll tell you that." "This is the richest documented creek in North America." "I want to do something." "Don't Hunter." "You hit your noggin on that and you'll be eating peaches and pears." "There's a bedframe over that window like bars." "What are those?" "Those are stamp mill parts right there." "That drill bit?" "that's an old drill bit." "prospectors found piles of gold nuggets." "News of their discovery triggered a stampede." "000 men from around the world headed north to seek their fortune." "Klondike gold miners have unearthed over 24 billion dollars worth of gold." "one of the region's foremost geologists." "Peter Tolman." "His company owns these historic claims." "Look at that hat." "It's awesome." "Come on in man." "Nice to see you Hunter." "And you too." "How do you like my camp?" "you know." "We've been hearing about this creek since we were kids." "How much gold do you think is really left up in this area?" "right there." "This is one of the oldest claims around." "Yep." "We've identified a whole series of bedrock faults." "I can point..." "Wait a minute." "What are you talking about?" "is coming from bedrock with a chunk of gold in it." "Are you friggen kidding me?" "The fault is providing a source for what's in these creeks." "And gold's sticking out of it." "This came from Rhino River." "Yeah." "Pretty cool." "creating a channel of superheated water and minerals." "which eventually cools into a quartz vein." "carrying millions of dollars in gold down into the valleys below." "Do you believe that there's a fault" "Up here?" "I think that's a certainty." "There's a million ounces in the rock somewhere." "There's been 20 million eroded out of the rock." "So somewhere there's gotta be some of that left." "It's one of the last areas on the planet where nobody's been able to find the bedrock source." "You think we could come to some kind of a deal on this place?" "I'd consider it." "and it's still available to be mined." "I'll take it." "oh my gawd." "This would be a treasure hunt of all treasure hunts." "I wanna do it." "And I'm trying to work it out so Hunter can be involved in this thing." "It'll be hard." "Hunters can be..pressed." "So" "I'm willing to just come back and me and grandpa can test." "This might be our future right here." "You really got him sold on this place." "and do some real work and get lots of gold there." "We're gonna do a lot of gold." "For us and you." "Right." "Well gentlemen." "I'm gonna get out of here." "Yeah." "(Chuckles) uh." "My dad loves this place." "He would love to come out here and" "He's not getting any younger." "Let's be honest." "So what a you think?" "that you can expand Mckinnon Creek." "And it's gotta be bigger than it was last year." "You'd be open to it?" "I'd be open to it." "Tell you what." "Ah." "Tell me you can double what you did last year." "Tah ha ha whoo." "make your right?" "And you" "That's 2700 ounces." "That's a lot of gold." "no problem." "I think I can do it." "We'll work something out." "man." "Thanks." "Right on." "Enjoy the rest of your stay." "To secure what could be one of the sources of all the gold in the Klondike." "317)}You ready?" "Todd's promised to double his gold total to 2700 ounces." "337)}Let's go." "Worth almost 3 million dollars." "I don't like flying." "Tony Beets has big plans for his season." "Tony spent a million dollars to bring his 75 year old gold mining dredge back to life." "Seriously it's good to be back." "It's nice to get back and get some gold out of the ground with it." "he owns the only working gold bucket dredge in North America." "But Tony isn't satisfied." "What happens with this summer." "No." "Seriously." "No." "really." "I cannot believe you're looking at another dredge." "hoping she'll agree to buy it." "337)}Well why do we need a second dredge?" "Why?" "This is becoming like an obsession for you." "we buy one today." "We buy one next year too?" "Cause three is better than two too?" "You keep this up we gonna be working for the rest of our lives to pay off of these suckers because.." "No no no no no no no no." "That is true." "I want to see something come out of one before I buy another one." "Pretty good." "And I hope I'll never have to say I told you so." "No no no no no." "Parker Schnabel is at a crossroads." "he's lost his secret weapon." "the man who made his 3 million dollar season possible." "slow down." "to discuss his plans for this season." "I need my corporal here." "(Laughter)" "Oh my." "This is nice." "Do you want some coffee?" "Yes please." "Roger." "Do you want coffee?" "Thanks." "So I wanted to give you guys a little update about what's going on with me and my mining season." "Um." "What's going on?" "he's done." "huh?" "I think that bridge has been burnt." "He's got the wisdom behind him." "Gene does that you don't have.." "And that's not.." "There's nothing you can do about that." "That's life." "Greg Remsberg's not coming back." "is leaving as well." "And Rick's mother has brain cancer." "Terrible." "I feel horrible about it." "You bet." "And um." "Because he's been there for me for three years now." "he could leave and have to be gone for the whole season." "And do you prepare that that might just happen." "it's just" "Gene and Rick and all those guys." "They were dang good at what they did." "one of the problems around there." "But one thing I did do was put together a good group of guys." "They knew how to move dirt." "I've been in the process of buying ground." "And I'm in a position where we can." "But I'm not gonna go into debt when I'm having crew issues and I'm having personal issues and what not." "It's just" "(takes deep breath) I'm scared." "I'd sort of backup even further to last season when you had Gene." "I don't think you were happy." "And what I saw last year was maybe not your best self." "Yeah." "what.." "mom." "Oh kay." "that's great." "Oh yeah." "But you know I'm serious." "I know." "And I'm not.." "This isn't for the camera." "I know." "Do you want to mine?" "I love it." "And you want to go back to the Klondike and you want to mine this year?" "Yeah." "what are you gonna do?" "What's the plan?" "we have two options." "buy ground and take that on." "I don't think I'm in a position to start a season off just pouring myself into debt." "go back and mine with Tony Beets." "it might be the lesser of two evils." "that's all." "He thinks he's the king of the Klondike." "I guess he does." "So what do you want to do next?" "What do you want to do this season?" "I don't know." "I don't know." "Parker has to tell us what he wants." "Then we can all be supportive." "Exactly." "I." "I agree." "Go for it." "I don't know." "Don't forget you always got support here." "I know that." "And you can always come home." "Ha ha ha ha." "Thank you mom." "(more laughter)" "This meeting right here has given me some insight." "taking big risks and." "um" "Yeah." "It's a" "It's gonna be a fight." "Parker has rented a claim from Tony Beets." "But their relationship has deteriorated to the point where they haven't spoken in 5 months." "Can't believe I'm about to do this." "The last phone call I want to make in the world right now is to Tony Beets." "and I'm having a lot of issues this winter and um" "I um" "I'd really like to just come back." "Right now that ground's all I've got to go to so." "Tony Beets controls gold claims across the Klondike." "Parker Schnabel told his landlord that he was buying his own ground." "forcing him to backtrack and ask Tony to renew his lease at Scribner Creek." "what's up?" "as in Parker?" "Yeah." "What's he want?" "Really?" "Yup." "He did pull a decent amount out last year too." "Okay." "See you later dear." "Tony has run a successful mining operation at Paradise Hill for a quarter of a century." "his son Kevin feeds the spiral wheel with gold concentrate." "Wasn't missed stuff." "It can clean gold perfectly." "But you gotta have the patience." "It takes a long friggen time." "doesn't fall down as quickly as everything else." "So it makes it up to the top hole." "There's a little basket in the back." "Everything else gets washed down." "This is nice and boring." "Don't get gold fever." "Don't get excited till you got it." "Don't pour it in." "You'll mess it up for me." "Don't move it." "It's so pretty when the gold gets to the top." "you could stare at it all day." "it's nice to see the gold." "But it's also nice to see the whole family doing it together." "Give me some better ground Tony." "Ha ha ha ha." "Ha ha ha ha." "And then you're away from us for a month and you go "When are you coming to visit?" "then she booked.." "You're full of shit." "Pretty amazing." "I think if some families had to spend this much time with each other in such close" "Environment." "environment" "They'd probably kill each other." "right" "Yeah right." "Wow." "That's not bad." "awesome." "(laughter)" "How much do you think there is?" "000 dollars." "the Beets family needs every cent." "There." "That's nice." "The Beets and the Hoffmans are already mining." "But Parker Schnabel is still at home." "and reluctantly decided to return to Scribner Creek." "Tony Beets." "So I just got the new contract from Tony." "none of them good." "But" "What can you do?" "He's just a power hungry asshole." "So" "That's alright." "nor the crew he wants." "But at least now he has a claim." "get the job done." "He can finally set out for the Yukon." "that's what counts." "don't really need this many clothes." "Yes or no." "Yes." "How cold is it up there?" "I'm not gonna wear my hat." "That a no?" "Less than that." "Look at that." "Who's this?" "huh." "That was eighth grade." "Don't even know why I still have that." "Yes I do." "I'm still in love with her." "I should have some gold pens." "I'm just trying to pretend he's not really leaving." "It is the most tumultuous start to his season ever." "And" "That worries me." "I think Gene's always been a big key to his season." "something he'll need to overcome." "It just seems like everything is in question." "but they don't like me leaving." "Oh." "I've got to look at the bright side." "laughter) baby?" "Are you nervous?" "You get to go." "I'm with you all the time." "I know." "Thank you." "Take care." "grandpa." "(Quavering)" "You okay Dad?" "Pardon?" "You okay?" "good." "I am really glad he's underway." "Yeah." "And so we'll never gonna win." "he's on the way." "Grandpa." "Huh?" "I love you." "I know you do and I love you too." "Bye." "Take care." "Love you mom." "Love you dad." "Take care of yourself." "Thanks Dad." "I know you'll be fine." "It's times like these where I really depend on" "My mom and dad and grandpa for the support they give me." "I think." "the 20 year old reaches his Klondike claim." "Hello Scribner Creek." "it's good to be back here." "For sure." "Now it's like home." "In the last 2 years we've pulled over 4 million dollars out of this hole." "having not seen anything for 5 months so." "we've still got a mine site." "a lotta iron here." "Oh yeah." "all of Parker's heavy equipment has endured temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees." "He needs to fuel up before he can find out if they survived the brutal Klondike winter." "because the fuel trucks can't get out this early." "000 liters of fuel in this tank." "That's 40 thousand dollars worth of fuel." "hopefully it's still here." "It's a 40 thousand dollar question." "Two hundred and twenty" "Five." "Good news." "We needed some good news." "Huh." "Huh." "Good to be home?" "That's pretty far from glamorous." "uh yeah." "This has been my home for a couple years you know." "Dozer. (whistles)" "He gets that half." "I get this half." "I never cleaned up his side of the building." "Parker's quarter million dollar D-10 dozer is the linchpin of his operation." "I've missed this old girl." "It's really weird that this is like a normal thing for me." "this is" "The most important thing on the site you know." "Paid a lot of money for it last year." "Want to make sure it made it through the winter well." "Now the biggest risk is in the winter here it's like minus 50." "that's no good." "Well see if something will start." "(engine fires up) Like it shut down yesterday." "I have pretty much a love/hate relationship with the Klondike." "It's like a girl that just keeps rejecting you." "But you know it's worth it." "We stripped a big cut here last year and didn't get to sluice it." "And now it froze over the winter so we need to get the snow off of it and get a few rips in it if we can." "Just get the place opened up you know." "nor Mike nor Greg." "Probably not Rick." "This could all be for nothing." "Spring finally arrives in the Yukon." "the snow melts and the river ice begins to break up." "new blood arrives." "Parker lost some of his best men over the winter." "Look at this." "How ya doing?" "But he's managed to scrape together a bunch of rookies." "You must be Emily." "Yeah." "How's it going?" "Oh doing dandy." "How was the trip up?" "Oh it was long." "You must be Carl." "Betcha." "Nice to meet you Parker." "You look like a mechanic." "Dirt on yours hands" "Already dirty." "But there's one veteran that Parker didn't think would show up." "Didn't expect to see you right now." "Ha ha ha ha." "You knew I couldn't stay away." "Never been so happy to see you man." "How you doing?" "Good man." "Good." "That's good." "How's your mom?" "She's good." "She's good." "We left in a good spot." "And she knows that I gotta be up here and." "I'm ready to be up here." "Good." "Good." "I'm glad." "We've got a bunch of greenies here." "What's up fellas?" "You guys all met each other?" "Carl here." "How ya doing guys." "a bunch of young un's." "Are you younger than Rick?" "I think so." "Thirty." "Yeah." "You're the oldest one here." "Not much mining experience standing here." "One year." "Five?" "four." "None." "Zero." "I'm one." "One." "Well I'm the most experienced one around and Rick is the second most experienced one around." "That's gonna be a challenge." "but." "you know that." "Rick?" "Your attitude controls this whole place." "That's it." "By 100%." "It all starts there." "and I take that way more personally than I should." "I'm gonna try to step back and let you guys do your jobs." "do it." "Sound good?" "Rick." "Can I talk to you?" "Yeah." "So what I'm thinking we should do is try to get the rest of that berm all the way back to that back creek." "right?" "I hope that these guys can handle it." "it was rough." "Yeah." "I" "I learned a lot from that." "I apologize." "Appreciate that." "you know how and it's not gonna be a walk in the park." "No." "But I'm up for it." "I'm glad." "Welcome back." "Thanks brother." "Let's do it." "Parker relied on Gene Cheeseman." "Now he'll have to step up and make all the mining decisions on his own." "His first move." "Send the young guns out to the berm cut where he mined 478 ounces of gold." "Worth half a million dollars at the end of last season." "and it's gonna be a lot of training." "I'm actually happy to do the training because I like to think I've got quite a bit more patience than Parker." "I think we got a better chance of keeping some of these guys." "he could lose it all if he and Rick can't whip their rookie crew into shape." "but hey." "What's easy?" "Especially around here." "ready to start mining." "We got to double up the gold." "and the work load doubles." "Yup." "And I will not let them down on the gold room." "that's where I need your help." "I'm willing to help out with whatever they need me to do." "Let me talk to Dave first before we do anything." "(Beep beep)" "Hey." "Ah." "I'm glad that's over." "Hey Todd." "Four of ya." "Randy." "how are you?" "My goodness." "First day of Andy's." "We're out on the cut." "Will he cut?" "Okay." "Here Randy." "Gonna run down there and see him real quick." "I'll be right back guys." "Oh." "Alright." "We'll see what you been doing." "Dave and Andy have worked for 3 straight weeks." "They've stripped the first four feet of overburden from their new 225 thousand square foot cut." "the warm sunshine and everything else very day." "At night it's frozen up again and we can push all night long." "Once we get this mud off we're good to go." "Drainage is looking good." "We're starting to dry up on the gravel already." "We got most of the mud off." "We're safe." "We're gonna be sluicing early this year." "Hey Dave." "You got a copy?" "Hey Todd." "How ya doing man?" "Doing good." "You got a sec?" "What's up man?" "How are you." "Doing good." "Go up and look at this thing." "Yeah." "Things are going good." "Look at that." "How much we got to gravel." "Wow." "that's pretty good progress in that amount of time." "I'm gonna tell you something as a friend and I don't want you to punch me in the face." "Okay?" "I committed with Peter for 2700 ounces." "I'm gonna throw it out there on the table." "You did not." "Why didn't you consult us?" "It's too late." "didn't ya." "I might have screwed up." "But I shook hands on it." "I can't get out now." "You're asking an awful lot." "I'm looking at this cut." "It seems impossible." "Okay." "I'm gonna give you that." "You got your range finder?" "I do." "What do you need?" "Tell me where that corner is." "Where's the bucket?" "Yeah." "Can you shoot that in there with your scope?" "It's 500 feet to that bucket." "Okay." "Now shoot that tree line down there." "The tree line?" "Yeah." "That's 1500 feet." "We need the biggest cut we've ever seen." "That's three times Todd." "If we could pull this off." "This'll be the most gold we've ever seen." "This is our one chance." "Let's take it to 1500." "Let's make a super-cut." "It could be incredible man." "the Hoffmans opened up the higher cut." "As big as 3 football fields." "The biggest cut they'd ever mined." "Dave and Andy are opening up an even bigger cut." "The size of 4 football fields." "Now Todd wants to triple that." "And open a super-cut." "As big as 12 football fields." "we lose the season." "they'll mine more gold than ever before." "the entire cut will turn into an un-mineable sea of mud." "Todd Hoffman." "We've got a good plan going." "He comes back." "And says let's go three times bigger." "It's ridiculous." "Dave moves the boundary marker 1000 feet further down valley." "I think he's crazy." "That's three times the cut that we had already planned." "That's triple the risk." "Everything from this point on has to go perfect." "and we go home a failure." "it's the moment of truth." "Oh yeah." "After spending all that time on every single bolt and nut." "Tony Beets is about to find out if his gold dredge has survived the bitter Yukon winter." "Kapitaine." "It actually looks about the same." "give or take." "Yeah." "Tony bought the dredge for a million dollars." "He ripped it apart." "Dragged it 150 miles." "put it back together." "On the last night of the season." "He brought the 75 year old monster back to life." "And got his hands on the first gold mined by a dredge in the Klondike for over 30 years." "That's pretty cool Tony." "Just like we never left it." "Hi." "What?" "Is this Monica's." "I know." "You're not running this sucker are you?" "You need to shut this down before you run this." "You cannot run it the way it is." "you cannot." "You need safety stand on first." "and I didn't realize how unsafe this actually is." "Some of these things should be marked so people can see them." "You should have fences around so people cannot fall off." "You should have railings on the ladders." "Tony." "How much do you think it's gonna cost when somebody slips or falls or gets killed?" "It's scary." "There's no one more anxious to see gold in the box than me." "right." "run over there." "Off you go." "Okay." "I'll see you at home." "Tony will have to wait a little longer for his dredge to catch gold." "But this time it's not winter." "It's his wife Minnie that shut him down." "and Tony wants to make money as soon as possible." "But safety first." "Please." "It's just the way it's gonna be." "Todd Hoffman has made a promise his crew is struggling to keep." "he told his landlord that he will mine twice the gold he got last year." "His crew is opening up a super-cut." "But the ground is thawing fast." "Well." "We're fighting the permafrost that's melting." "So stinking wet." "It's slippery." "This dozer just can't hardly seem to get traction." "Klondike miners rip through the frozen overburden with dozers." "the overburden starts to thaw." "Enough for them to doze it out of the way." "they'll lose control of the melt." "And the overburden will turn into deep sludge." "That will sink the dozers before they can clear it." "Dave and Andy are in a race to remove the melting overburden before the entire cut floods." "and that's a lot of water." "we're gonna lose this cut." "Simple as that." "Dave calls an emergency meeting in the cook shack." "Hey guys." "Tell me what's been going on out there." "It's not going well." "It's saturated with water and it squirts everywhere and you just can't handle it." "I think the weather turned on us guys." "60 degrees today." "Last year we stripped the higher cut with trucks." "Can we haul it out?" "Have you seen what's going on?" "Logan." "It's melt now." "How you gonna get the trucks up there?" "we don't have a friggen handle on it." "It's not working." "You doubled up the cut." "You doubled up the gold." "And that was your choice." "That's right." "I'm telling you right now." "We don't have a chance." "And here's another thing." "it's gonna be off this gold." "It's a dream that Jack has." "And what we.." "None of us would be here without Jack." "let's be honest." "My dad wants to go up there and prospect that." "I'm not going to abandon our team or our family." "I will not go anywhere unless you give us the go-ahead." "And it'll have to be when we have a handle on that big friggen muddy mess." "Right down here." "Right now." "Dad." "And I gotta be honest with you." "Okay?" "Yup." "It doesn't look good at Eldorado." "it doesn't." "I know that." "I'll figure something out." "So we gotta go out there and kick ass on this cut." "We got water everywhere." "we're in deep trouble." "Dave brings in their largest pump." "It can move 4000 gallons of water a minute." "Okay." "Just keep it low and drag it over here." "Come in Logan." "Todd to Logan." "I need you to run down that excavator quick." "Get around the back." "Get rid of that water now." "Quick." "Todd has Logan dig a channel to prevent anymore water from entering the super-cut." "You guys stay back." "Get back." "Stay back." "we're good." "Get one and a nut." "Here's a nut." "This is the biggest pump we got." "We got no other option but this right here." "I don't know." "Well we got the big pump set." "We'll be pumping here shortly." "I think we might be out of the water." "Fire it up." "what's going on?" "Let's go." "Come on." "We got a serious issue." "We got an excavator almost under water." "Grab the Polaris." "Get out of my way." "Logan broke through some ice on the excavator." "And put the excavator under water and he can't do anything." "We gotta get him out." "Holy crap." "What the frig." "Logan Pierce has fallen through the ice." "Holy crap." "000 dollar machine from sinking into the pond." "And they have no idea how deep it is." "You okay Logan." "No." "It's really cold." "Water was halfway up the cab." "I'm propping myself up right now." "You're friggen kidding me." "I was walking out on the ice and it might have broke free and it's really deep." "Hang on." "We'll get you out." "Don't move." "It's bad." "It's deep." "Hey." "Calm down." "We're gonna get it out." "Okay." "Todd." "It's cracking on this side." "Water's coming up." "I don't know..." "This ice ain't gonna hold me up any longer." "We need to hurry up and get this thing out." "You want to come in behind and kinda dig him out." "See if he'll crawl out." "Okay guys." "Clear out." "He's coming through here." "Logan." "He's gonna dig you out." "And then you'll back yourself up." "Okay?" "Ten four." "Dave's gonna dig out the back end." "Hopefully Logan can push off on the ice." "And track backwards to get out." "Logan's got one job and that's to jump out of that cab." "Take your seat belt off." "It's off." "Dave must dig Logan free without breaking the ice under his bucket." "The only think keeping his 48 ton excavator from sinking into the pond." "Be ready to jump out of there." "I know." "Rev it up." "Rev it and push your thumb down." "Now straight down." "down." "stop." "Now push." "Then back up." "Nice and easy." "Don't just hammer it." "Nice and easy." "Okay. stop stop stop stop." "Fuck fuck." "Logan can't get any traction." "He's only digging himself deeper into the pond." "How about if I try to get some of the water out of there." "Yeah maybe." "We're gonna go ahead and dig a trench and see if we can drain some of this out." "We'll see what happens." "Dave's new plan:" "Drain enough water out of the pond for Logan to drive straight out without submerging the engine." "I think I'm getting frostbite." "My feet have been in ice for about an hour now." "Not feeling too hot." "A little touch and go right now." "he could have an escape route straight ahead." "Logan." "Are you on the ground." "I think so." "Okay." "Okay." "Reach out." "Hook your bucket right here on the bank." "Hook it." "Bring yourself right towards it." "Clear." "Everybody clear out." "Reach out again." "Come on." "Come on." "Up." "Up." "Up." "You got 'er buddy." "Turn around." "Whoo." "I gotta get these boots off." "What'd you learn from that one." "Thick ice might not always be so thick." "Never take an excavator on ice." "We got lucky this time." "Next time we might not be so lucky." "Thought she was a little dirty." "Gave it a wash." "Hey." "Get in there and warm your feet up. 'kay." "it could cost somebody their life." "Thank God." "He's alright." "We got him out." "Parker Schnabel is on his way to Paradise Hill." "He's been spending ten thousand dollars a day for 2 weeks mining Scribner Creek." "Tony Beets." "he scares me a little." "Tony has the worst driveway in the world." "You know that?" "Fuck off me." "How ya doing?" "Good to see ya." "Hey." "You got me by the fingers." "Ah." "It was alright I guess." "2 months ago." "Yeah." "Anyway." "Gene's not coming back." "so." "Don't feel bad." "yeah." "yeah." "So I'm not gonna be buying ground." "So that's why I asked for another contract cause when we left in the fall it didn't seem like you had any problem with us." "337)}Well that's the only thing I'm curious about." "Did I do something wrong last year?" "337)}I'm just confused why there's so many more restrictions in this year's contract." "if I did something.." "No." "so you can keep power over me." "no." "I mean.." "I put myself in a position where I don't have much of a choice at this point." "So what's what?" "I have to show you something." "you need to read that." "Neither Parker Schnabel nor any other companies of which he is a share holder shall mine any other claims during the term of this agreement." "Other than that you read the whole thing." "I'm not signing that." "Okay." "Good enough." "I already signed a contract and sent it to you guys." "It's not send it to you you're out of luck." "I've already got" "Parker." "This is not us." "I'm not signing." "O.K." "That is entrapment." "That is the definition of entrapment." "337)}You sent me a contract." "You told me to sign it." "They came up.." "you told me to sign a contract." "I signed it." "I sent it to you." "And now you're changing it?" "right?" "okay." "A judge can tell me to stop mining then." "You can't tell somebody to sign a contract." "307)}You can't tell somebody to sign a contract and then not sign it after they're at work." "I've already gotten money in the ground." "Tony won't talk to me." "Tony." "Why would you change the contract after I signed it." "It's just a clause." "It basically says the same thing." "You cannot mine two properties at the same time because" "I can't even go back home and mine Big Nugget mine." "and then tell me to take it or leave it again." "But you sent me it to sign." "And I went to work." "What is so important for that claim." "Because." "I want to go home and mine with my grandpa if I want to." "307)} You can't tell me to take it or leave it and then change it after I signed it." "I'm gonna hold off on this." "then.." "Get a judge to tell me to stop." "Okay." "Yeah." "Okay." "I don't have an opinion in the company?" "back up." "um" "A judge needs to tell me that." "Yup." "Okay." "That's a whole new level of bullshit from Tony." "the Hoffman crew finally has a handle on their water problem." "000 yards of overburden from the super-cut." "We're getting close to the gravel." "Another week or two." "And we're gonna be able to sluice." "Andy digs a drainage ditch to prevent any more flooding." "so we can keep drying out our cut." "I notice that I'm getting into a lot more gravel which is kind of exciting because that means that we're getting closer to the gold." "When you find quartz" "That's where gold comes out of." "Quartz veins." "And that's a big chunk of quartz right there." "you got a copy?" "Yeah." "I got a copy." "What's going on?" "I was just cleaning out this ditch for our drainage and uh" "I just dug up some big chunks of quartz." "We may be closer to pay dirt than what we thought." "I'll be right down there." "I got to take a look at this." "10-4" "Look at this Todd." "Are you friggen kidding me?" "how deep are we right here?" "It's probably only 2 or 3 feet deeper than the cut." "We better test it." "See if we can get a sample." "Try it." "Look at it." "There's garnet." "(laughter)" "There's some chunky gold in there." "Dude." "That's a good pay out." "Let's start hauling pay." "Dude." "Last year we did the same thing and we almost lost our ass." "Remember?" "That's a lot of friggen gold right there." "What do you think?" "I think we made the mistake last year of running too many top gravels." "I think we can go a little bit deeper." "We cannot afford to throw gold away." "I say we start running it right here." "I'd rather run the good stuff and get what we need to get." "Dave." "Time and money." "I'm with Andy." "I think we're starting too early." "I really do." "You're the one that said 2700 ounces." "It wasn't me." "We need to start running." "Give me a test run." "on this stuff." "I tell you what." "Let's just do a one day run." "If it's good we'll keep rolling." "Alright." "I'm good with that." "You okay with that?" "and starts hauling pay dirt to the wash plant." "I think it's a good idea to test this." "I'd hate to throw anything away that does have gold in it." "That's for sure." "I understand what Dave's thinking." "But you know what." "There's some of those top gravels with half gold in it." "You just get rid of it." "You get down to the good stuff." "run what you need to to make money." "This is our bulk test." "I gotta prove that there's good gold in that cut." "and how much gold comes out of it." "Then we make a decision." "We got a monster cut." "We don't want to have a monster mistake." "Screens coming on." "Feed conveyor." "They fire up monster red for the first time this season." "Okay Jack." "We're good to go." "First bucket." "Here it goes." "Running the operation costs thousands of dollars a day." "the Hoffmans will be losing money." "I was the only one that said to run a test." "I hope I'm right." "I'd hate to run this and not have much gold." "Tony's crew works overtime to make their dredge safe before they can start her up." "who worked for Parker last year." "he's young guy starting out." "And he doesn't have quite the leadership experience it's made things sometimes difficult at work." "One end of the trommel screen is damaged." "Big Mike's first job is to weld in replacement panels." "Jerry helps turn the trommel with the forklift." "We've wrapped this cable around the trommel so we can rotate it real slow and safe so they can weld up those plates in there." "Good." "Mike Krisher takes the forklift to move some lumber." "You good?" "No." "What the fuck?" "Been setting up for this all day and as soon as we're welding on it the bobcat fucks right off." "Right when we needed it most." "Yeah." "We're fuckin welding." "Well I thought we talked about it at coffee." "I thought we were ready to go around and around till we're done." "A twenty fuckin minute job and it takes 2 fuckin hours now." "We need to use that too." "It's not his." "you know." "Trying to get this thing done." "Lack of communication." "Nobody's the fuckin boss around here." "and his crew is in chaos." "And you wonder why Tony yells at people." "Tony heads out on a mission to Whitehorse." "to fix his personnel problems once and for all." "367)}Aha." "Good." "How are you doing Tony." "Um huh." "Is it dry now?" "you know." "I'm gonna need a crew and then have all the resources to do the job." "and tools and that's gonna be one of my concerns." "there's not... something new." "if it doesn't make dollars it doesn't make cents." "I'm on board." "Thanks." "Tony Beets has just received news that could ruin his season." "but Gene worked for Parker last year." "And his old contract had a non compete clause that's still binding." "it sort of pisses me off." "they're gonna screw me over." "why don't you tell him to hang on for a bit and then we'll sort it out and we'll call him as soon as we figured it out." "Well I can hang on for a little bit." "I guess I'll be waiting to hear from you Tony." "Bye." "so." "so." "Yeah." "Yeah." "See you dear." "apparently Parker has a non-compete with meaning Gene wouldn't be able to work for us." "Parker is not releasing him." "for Gene." "then he's gonna get treated accordingly." "that have already been worked over by two other mining operations." "But Tony has plenty of other land." "they have virgin ground that's drilled and real good." "Real productive ground." "And...they're offering it to everybody except me." "Tony owns a large tract of gold rich virgin ground." "That Parker has wanted to mine ever since he arrived in the Klondike." "Gene and Tony both want Gene working on the dredge." "And the dredge needs it by the sounds of it." "Gene and I have a non compete that prevents him from working at certain operations in the Klondike." "I've got some leverage with Tony." "we'll try to cash Gene in for some ground." "before he makes his demand." "A lot of ground down here." "Just a matter of figuring out what's what." "Oh yeah." "So we're at 138 right now." "And I want 1000 feet that way." "So I want 124 up." "that's fourteen claims." "cause that's" "Two more miles of ground than we've got right now." "We'll see." "you just have to fight for what you want." "Wrote up." "Parker heads to Paradise Hill to try to persuade Tony to make a deal." "I'm trying to be careful because it's a fine line between a" "grenade and leverage with Tony." "I think." "But." "That's the risk you take I guess." "Knock knock." "Knock knock knock." "Yeah I was wondering how we're gonna get this done." "Um." "I need ground." "That's all I need." "I want to pull out 124 to 135." "I went across the creek and walked that stretch of that diversion." "is that ground in there." "144 to 165 what I want in now." "that's not really binding." "Right." "337)}Like last fall I didn't think there was gonna be any changes." "So I don't have a signed contract." "But it's just like is what it is." "every year we get to change the lease." "Right." "Okay." "Right then." "and Parker is feeling optimistic." "Bath!" "Now I don't know how to get off." "I need an oar." "Not that I could steer this thing." "I don't know." "I'm going crazy." "I'm just gonna pull you in." "Should I do it." "So now I've got to get back across." "I'm tired of stripping ground." "It's nice to be sluicing again." "Let's see what the gold looks like." "What do you think?" "I just don't friggen know." "The Hoffman crew is about to find out if Dave Turin was right." "That there's gold in the top gravels of their new super-cut." "I'm nervous." "I want to see some gold." "Ooh ooh." "I don't know Todd." "That looks pretty good." "See gold." "but not much." "We're not seeing a lot down here." "Let's start pulling these mats and see what we really got in here." "but that's why you do test runs." "So." "This is it." "So this is just a test run." "For that we'll be running a lot of yards and I'm gonna have to do cleanups." "so this is gonna be my job all summer." "just roll it up." "Little tiny burritos and leave 'em." "Don't just throw 'em in the back of the truck." "Now." "We just do it the same old boring way." "Do it that way because it works." "Be nice if we had music to listen to." "what's it called?" "Crap or rap or" "It's one letter from crap so I know." "What would you guys listen to?" "(Sniffs) Oh." "Classical stuff like the Carpenters." "Yeah." "Air supply They're pretty cool." "Okay." "Sara Brightman." "Just amazing." "It's gonna be a long summer." "It's already long enough." "er" "Yeah." "Ooh." "which generally contains little gold." "this pay dirt has to deliver at least $10 dollars a yard." "000 dollars." "Anything under 20 ounces that means we're in trouble in this cut." "Yup." "we have too much higher gravel on it." "Yeah." "Like we gotta stick right down on the bedrock." "See if it was a good idea to run that top layer?" "We'll find out." "what do we get though." "Our first cleanup of the year." "It's never good." "It's usually less" "Five ounces." "I know it" "We even had one." "There he is" "Okay guys." "Did you get it finished?" "guy or slower?" "Okay." "There we go." "4" "Yes!" "that's 29" "That's what we need." "Awesome." "Dave." "I think we got to run the pay right where we're at." "Yup." "We got a lot of work." "hide the gold and let's go." "Yeah." "Where?" "Ha ha ha Nice." "Yup." "Okay." "Well I'm ecstatic." "That's the first time in five years that we've had a good first cleanup." "and it actually mined better than the drill holes showed." "we're gonna kick some ass." "Parker is back at Paradise Hill." "He's prepared to release his Ex foreman Gene Cheeseman." "But only if Tony will lease him new virgin claims." "It's not a ransom." "It's business." "Just like them putting me on ground that's been mined twice and right?" "Has nothing to do with anything personal." "I have a plan for next year." "Right." "The revised contract arrives from Tony's lawyer." "We're gonna work these claims." "We're gonna be able to get into them." "Do a little chunk if we want to." "That works for me." "So when's Gene coming up." "Right." "No." "I'm happy." "you've got the right man for the job." "He's great to work with." "Alright." "I'm gonna hit the road." "You'll see some e-mails from me." "Thank you Tony." "Two for you." "One for me." "They're initialed." "You're happy." "I'm happy." "I'm happy." "Yup." "337)}We got Gene and that's good too." "I'm kinda looking forward to having him on the dredge." "Yup." "I think so too." "Parker wanted to start his own Klondike empire." "he was forced to abandon his dream." "the 20 year old just secured himself 12 virgin gold claims." "It went great." "I've got ground." "Tony's got a dredge captain." "Everybody's happy." "Shouldn't take this?" "I've given them damn near a million dollars in royalties." "You'd think they'd be happy to lease this ground but." "That's what it took." "So" "Got the job done." "303)\fnLucida Calligraphy} Subs by {\fs36.727\b1\i1} Jack T"