"For six rookie miners{\alphaHFF} the pressure is mounting to get gold in the Alaskan wilderness.." "294)} Let's go." "For six rookie miners the pressure is mounting to get gold in the Alaskan wilderness.." "Shut it down." "254)}Eight weeks into the mining season" "Come down for a bit." "Watchout." "294)}It's all falling apart." "Good Lord." "This isn't good." "294)}Todd pushes men and machines to their limits." "Help him." "294)}And for one member of the team" "The disrespect has to end today." "294)}It may all prove too much." "There's a chance that I'll never go back to Porcupine Creek." "southeast Alaska." "who had a seizure." "then I'm done mining." "he's back and ready to hit pay dirt." "I can't do it anymore." "We're gonna run." "We're gonna get some gold." "We could run for 24/7 if we need to." "Jack started finding gold." "Hey uh." "Look at this." "right now." "Holy crap Dad." "I don't know what's gonna." "that much dirt." "That was all that was left." "No kidding." "That was it." "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha" "Is there any doubters now." "they're dead or they don't have any blood in 'em." "It's awesome." "They found about twenty dollars worth of gold." "But they're going to need a whole lot more." "they'll need around 250 thousand dollars." "About 200 ounces of gold." "And they have less than three months until the Alaskan winter closes them down." "every day." "24 - 7" "But running the equipment this intensively will push it to it's limits." "is overseeing final preparations." "We're almost ready to make some more noise." "Some big noise." "The most important thing is that we don't get down for any period of time by something breaking that we could have avoided." "Ready to run?" "Yeah." "Let's go." "The team has only ever run the wash plant for an hour at a time." "Today they want to keep it running all day." "Ready for water Thurb?" "Thurber pumps water from the holding pond up to the wash plant." "where it's washed and sifted by powerful vibrations and jets of water." "All the gold and material smaller than an inch across fall through the punch plate." "Then passes into a trough." "Larger pieces of gold are caught in the nugget trap." "While everything else is washed into the trommel." "The trommel spins the material." "Anything smaller than half an inch falls through the mesh into the sluice box." "This is where the team hopes to catch the finer gold flakes." "heavy duty plastic carpet." "But someone's made a big mistake." "We don't have our miner's moss in." "Where's Dorsey?" "Where's dingbat?" "but he hasn't put it back." "Todd will get it back in there." "put it back in." "No." "Go put it in yourself." "You took it out." "Yeah I took it out." "Your dad asked me to." "Well put it back." "We're gonna run." "You saw us getting.." "You didn't do anything anyway." "We've been getting ready for 3 hours." "Miner's moss." "It's a common sense thing." "just went up in smoke." "so the team needs to catch every grain of gold they run." "274)} Hurry up." "Let's go." "{\alphaHFF}they're back in business." "294)} Here comes the water." "294)} Here we get gold." "they're back in business." "Ah." "Looking good." "when Greg notices a major problem." "294)} (sharp whistle) 294)} What are you worried about?" "A lot of water coming out of here." "Water is gushing out of the bottom of the shaker." "294)} I'm not seeing it." "They have to shut down to find the problem." "294)} Not much else we can do." "This water." "It's going everywhere now." "Where's all that water coming from?" "I can hear it rattling." "I can hear something rattling right there." "We got something right in this area." "Just pouring out a sea." "This isn't moving." "Right back in there." "It's not moving dirt like it should be." "It's just sitting there." "I smell the belts too." "Yeah." "It's working extra hard." "There's a hole." "Really." "Yeah." "The shaker is over 20 years old and was designed for rock quarrying." "Harness and the team customized it for gold mining by fitting a lower deck to catch gold bearing material." "The lower deck is made of 1/8 inch steel plate and it's not thick enough to cope with the violent movement of the shaker." "It's vibrating against the bottom of the machine." "Several of the bolts have sheared off. and it's cracked." "are leaking into the ground." "I'm pissed." "This is (bleeeep) one thing after another." "Tired of it." "Tired of crap breaking." "they'll get back." "Harness crawls into the shaker to see the extent of the damage." "it shut us down completely for this thing to break down like it has." "and it's cracked underneath." "These bolts have actually pulled themselves right through the bottom." "It's the movement that's killing us." "then they wear out." "Harness will have to replace the damaged lower deck with new steel that's twice as thick." "Trying to crawl around in here isn't too much fun." "is taking it's toll on Harness's damaged body." "from a car wreck." "I have an implant in my ankle." "My ankle was completely taken off my body." "impossible to deal with." "he's taken the last dose of morphine he brought with him." "or you're gonna get sick." "if you don't have it you're gonna be in pain." "Or you're gonna be in a position where you wish you were dead." "this is the wrong place to play with that kind of deal." "I got two 5 x 8 sheets coming" "Ah good." "I can just yank it out with the excavator on the end." "Okay." "Harness has completed the acetylene cutting." "But the rusty steel plate is still wedged in the shaker." "We're gonna shake it up a little bit." "And then we'll pull it out of there." "That's not gonna be easy to get out." "I got to pull this outta here." "There's what?" "There's fire on the rubber." "Underneath." "Me and James have got to get this steel out of here." "The steel will be here in the morning and we need to start fabricating." "Can you see at all?"" "A little bit." "Looks good." "Okay." "Stand clear." "Okay." "That's better." "Just a little bit at a time." "I'll get it." "Hang on." "Okay." "I'm just gonna have to persuade it." "(scraping sound)" "Okay." "Hold on." "clang) clang) down." "(tearing sound)" "I don't know." "get to the stage where we actually can call our self miners." "Before I go completely broke." "Todd and Harness try again." "with a stronger chain." "It's gonna bang." "A little bit." "Was it loud." "He he he." "How's the rubber look in there." "they get a nasty shock." "It's not looking good." "The main supports that hold this thing together across are cracked." "that this narrow rubber's on are broken." "The damage to the shaker is much worse than anyone expected." "their mining season will end in failure." "That ain't funny." "Up ahead." "Harness has to choose between the mine and his family." "It's pretty hard to make a decision here." "Dorsey and Todd go head to head." "I've been helping you for 5 months." "The disrespect has to end today." "as the team hits pay dirt." "Too much ad." "I'll mine till the sun comes up." "(whistle)" "Todd Hoffman and his team are ripping the broken deck out of their shaker." "They're discovering a far bigger problem." "The entire structure below needs fixing." "It broke off." "The main supports that hold this thing together across are cracked." "How many of them are broke?" "four" "That support where Jim is." "Yeah." "See that?" "See that crack all the way through it?" "The supports themselves are broken?" "Yeah." "They're trash." "Busted all the way through." "It's not looking good." "and spans the whole shaker." "Yeah." "This isn't good." "We're using used equipment where somebody put band-aids on stuff a long time ago." "in the Alaskan wilderness." "Our fix just turned into a lot more time." "by the time I get that thing beefed up." "he's still looking at four days of repairs." "apparently." "is off logging." "I don't have the money to go out and build materials." "he gets one milled for free." "294)\fs26}Perfect." "his family cabin is turning into a palace." "Hey I'll be right back." "I'm pissed off dude." "About what?" "Just a second." "I'm pissed off because we're up there mining and everything." "I appreciate it." "you know." "It's taking a lot longer." "I get that." "It's taking a lot longer." "three friggen weeks later." "All kinds of delays." "I can give you a line of excuses." "Who's the dude on the roof?" "to help him finish his house." "This is not okay with me." "And it's not okay with the rest of the guys either." "with the rest of the mine." "Uh!" "Duh!" "so Todd can't force him back to the mine." "he can be pissed off." "those other guys can be pissed off." "I've gotta get my stuff done." "is looking more and more remote." "Things are going from bad to worse." "Harness is suffering withdrawal." "a kind of a strange request." "trying to get a prescription sent 2500 miles away." "And that's not a normal request." "because I can't do it myself." "I'm too far away." "so that I can...be partly normal anyway." "But there is some good news." "Canada." "for the shaker." "a little bit." "Good job Mike." "Taking a job" "You must know this road really well." "with the 270 excavator." "with that excavator." "it'll be useless." "And mean even longer delays to the shaker repair." "They're about ready to make a major F up." "The only way Todd can stop his dad is to pull out the pin on the chain Jack's using." "He screwed up our minds by grabbing it with a crooked excavator." "lower the shades." "Let me try that." "I will." "I'll pull him right the frig out." "Okay." "You got enough guys to pull it right out." "He's gonna bend up one corner of this and we're screwed." "You get that excavator outta here." "He insists they lift the 500 lb." "steel sheets by hand." "Todd." "Put the chain on both sheets." "I can slide it out." "It'll come right out." "like this." "No you won't." "Why don't we slide one sheet out at a time." "It won't do that." "Yes we will." "Umph" "I'd like to see this." "Be interesting." "lay it on the end." "You gotta kind of hold it." "Everybody's gotta get a corner." "Right now." "Don't get your finger cut off." "Gosh." "Put your end down to the hip." "This is the steel Mike picked up in Whitehorse." "We can't bend it." "That's why we did it by hand." "Without that we're dead in the water." "So." "I won." "and with the steel on site the next stage of the shaker repair should be underway." "But the only man who can fix it could be about to leave." "I'm in a tough place right now." "(sniffles) it's kinda hard to talk." "Um." "My mom's sick." "And things aren't going well." "And I can't seem to get a hold of her." "Harness's mother is critically ill in the hospital in Oregon." "and it's screwed up right now." "If I go to be with my mom uh." "Who knows what'll happen here." "the shaker is useless." "I was at a very low point." "and uh gave me renewal." "but my mom's probably the most important person in the world." "you know." "the team's not mining until James Harness fixes the shaker." "and he was about to leave." "But he's finally gotten through to her on his Sat phone." "I'm thinking I can put it off a little bit." "She seems to be reasonable at the moment." "but" "So far they been breaking stuff faster than I can fix it." "Greg's also put his loyalty to the mining to do first." "but it's good for the mine." "I'm mining." "And we're getting some modifications done." "Could be midnight madness around here." "Greg's help at the mine couldn't have come at a better time." "Harness's body is close to collapse." "This is the third day in a row that I've had to deal with that I've been taking for 7 years." "It's a hard road." "I was in the bathroom all day." "and that's one of the lighter things to say." "Sounds like you been through the wringer." "You know he's gotta crawl into that friggen hole he does it." "I'm suffering for everything I do." "Or if I'm working and trying to turn a wrench." "It hurts." "Harness needs a break." "They lift the 22.000 lb shaker onto wooden blocks." "Greg takes over the welding." "something will stick together today." "Dorsey's been making unauthorized improvements to the duplex jig." "Friggen plugged up." "He's cut the top off the outflow pipe to fit it under the jig." "Now there's nothing to stop the gold bearing liquid spilling out of the hole and escaping." "Mechanic James Harness designed the system that Realtor Dorsey has adapted." "This is just common sense." "this is the same as we got." "We ran this on the table." "There was no gold." "This is basic plumbing." "Okay" "Okay." "You should have asked before you cut the pipe." "You know it's hard getting that stuff." "The outflow from the jig is where the team expects to get most of their gold." "It's the most important part of the whole wash plant." "instead of being by her side." "And you put the pet monkey for the (bleep) camp on the most important part." "He" "I cannot do.." "He's not capable of that." "Dude." "He needs to be.." "whatever it takes." "That's the most important part of all of this." "or it's worthless being here." "Well here's what I want you to do." "Cause I want you and me have to take over that too." "No one knows what they're doing." "Everyone has an opinion." "and Dorsey cut the pipe." "I don't know why he did that. but and gone down our sluice boxes but.." "A lot of extra work." "He's probably gonna try to figure it out." "Just let him do it." "I should have winched this jig up higher" "Don't talk." "Okay." "Harness climbs 20 feet down into the pit." "I want to fix this drain pipe so we don't lose anything." "Aah." "Get that black piece of plastic and fix this tube." "Whew!" "Get in a certain position or work too many hours and I get screwed up." "James." "How long till you have 'er fixed." "Harness is pushing himself to the limit." "Easy." "Easy." "Watch it." "Gotta have help." "Cause my legs went out again." "You okay?" "I might need help getting outta here." "Are you okay?" "Help him." "Get me over to there." "Easy." "Oo ah." "Gasp." "James is fallen." "Are you okay?" "My legs are shot." "Ah." "His legs are bad." "Yeah." "My legs are shot." "James Harness has a chronic back condition." "and he's just lost the use of his legs at the bottom of a 20 foot pit." "Todd and his team are trying to pull him out." "Yikes." "Just hold on." "I'll pull you up." "You got tether line." "I just felt it snap in my lower back." "It's been holding for so long now." "Aaah." "Something popped." "Yeah uh." "Hold on.?" "Aah." "I don't normally grab a man's boobs." "Get him." "Start it up." "Hunter." "Viens cit." "you hurt and you want to find a spot where it doesn't hurt." "So you try to move around and" "(Sighs) My problem is I get muscle spasms so bad that I can hardly breathe when this happens." "It's trying to protect my back." "So everything starts getting weird." "Ah." "it's up and down." "Todd must rely on Greg to get the shaker fixed." "And he wants a word with Dorsey." "I was helping you out wasn't I." "No." "274)}Like I haven't been helping you out for 5 months." "You were not 274)}Look at me Todd." "Look at me." "274)} I've been helping you for 5 months." "The disrespect has to end today." "you can say "Hey Todd." "Do you mind if I come in and help you on that." That's fine." "Don't just come in." "274)}That thing you're doing it again." "I don't wanna or do you want me to go home." "Yeah." "you." "You'll be going home." "You'll all be going home." "Go home." "Okay." "I'm going home." "it's all too much." "as a man." "I should probably get to doing some other type of a job." "Todd seeks out his father's advice about how to deal with Dorsey." "you know." "and" "But I'm finding myself" "Well I'm gonna tell you being the kind of guy that I don't wanna be." "He pushes all the wrong buttons." "Dorsey's not at the mine." "at the mine." "that's it." "I'll come back with something." "At least with this I'll know what I'm getting." "He's managed to line up some paid work on a salmon fishing boat." "just tell them Jimmy needed a guaranteed amount of money." "I just don't want to have to answer questions." "You know." "Especially about you going off and making money." "I love you." "I do too." "I was just pissed." "You know." "and be the outsider." "Dorsey's departure hasn't gone unnoticed." "Dorsey should be right here helping us." "If he wants to" "Yeah." "Go be a sissy." "But do it someplace else." "He's wasting my time." "Yoo hoo hoo." "We gotta catch as many fish as we can." "till we're done." "There's a hit." "There we go." "isn't it?" "Jimmy." "You grab the buoy." "Are we gonna pitch the nets now?" "Don't pick the fish up by the tail." "Always pick him up by the head." "Alright." "Yeah. a little high." "20 bucks." "Another one." "Money pit." "Whoo hoo." "How am I doing?" "You're doing great." "Ha ha ha ha." "Doug." "I'm living my dream." "I'm in Alaska." "You know." "This guy's great." "you know." "He's told me three times today." "That he thought I was doing a great job." "It's just really good to hear it." "It's really good for the soul." "this pays cash in hand." "Over 600 dollars." "50" "That's about as good as I've ever done in one day." "Good job Jimmy." "Alright." "I hope you come out with me again next week." "Dorsey's examining his options." "Did pretty good." "Could' of lost our net." "I'm elated to have a job opportunity." "I don't know what I'm gonna do." "This is the biggest decision I have ever made in my entire life." "And there's a chance that I'll never go back to Porcupine Creek." "The largest gold nugget ever found in Alaska was the size of a softball.." "it was discovered in 1998 by a miner on the blade of his bulldozer." "Six hundred and thirty bucks." "Good job." "and been working as a deckhand on a fishing boat." "but we all do." "We need a team player right now." "He should know that." "He's heading back to the mine to talk to Todd about his future." "when it's not agreeable." "but you don't get the gold that way." "Todd wants Dorsey to make a commitment to the rest of team." "Dorsey." "you know." "when you get up." "What would Todd do?" "Ha ha ha ha." "Are you serious?" "You should." "Todd wouldn't leave his team." "Todd would leave a note." "WWTD man." "There you go." "What would Todd do?" "For two days we started relying on you." "I did." "It's hard to be a team player when you're a self starter." "what's team Dorsey all about?" "Good meeting you." "I guess." "Alright now." "I can't leave home without Daddy's permission." "So I got that." "and he's come through for Harness as well." "He's managed to get him his morphine prescription." "okay." "You are the friggen best mechanic in the world." "and I don't want to let you down." "and you never have." "and calls a meeting to find out what needs to be done." "What we got left?" "and a tailing tray." "Well let me know whoever's available." "Number one priority is to keep James flowing." "Let's get on it." "We got a job." "The first step is to put the steel plates into the shaker to form the bottom deck." "Yeah." "if you could a" "I'm gonna run the rope through." "Yeah." "Run the rope through then we'll clip on when I get up there." "kinda." "Don't let that baby come down on ya." "The plate weighs 500 lbs." "Todd's gotta lift each one 12 feet in the air." "A little dangerous." "That's why I keep everybody clear." "Do not get under that thing." "Oh no." "Oh no." "I don't trust it at all." "Getting out." "Right now." "Chris." "Get on the inside." "We're on the inside." "I got it." "Stay right there Todd." "Yeah Here we go." "It's coming down." "That's good." "but yeah." "It's going in good." "they need to make the whole structure rock solid." "because the vibrating shaker would crack the welds." "in two layers of 1/4 inch steel." "that drill will grab." "And the power of the drill just flings it out of your hands and... just" "It's no fun." "Harness can now start on the final stage." "Strengthening the inside of the shaker." "we don't have two pieces (clap clap) destroying each other." "It's a tough and painful grind for him." "I'm hoping that the end is near." "I can't take much more of this crap." "on a beach somewhere." "But I don't think that's gonna happen right away." "Harness makes the last weld." "I got lots of burns." "I caught on fire twice." "Eh um." "My hair started smoking in my helmet." "But I don't care how bad I hurt." "I'm glad to have this done." "We're really close to running now." "Come on up." "Let's help James get out of here." "I think he's done." "Uhh." "man." "You're scraped off." "I need you to go get the oil." "He needs a rubdown." "(laughter)" "James." "You can have the rest of the night off." "Thurber." "Carry him to his camper." "We're gonna do it." "Mining day." "But Todd's only got one thing on his mind." "Are we mining?" "I want to." "Good." "We are mining." "there's still a couple of hours of daylight left in the Alaska summer." "The shaker." "I thought it'd take us 3 days." "It took us a week." "I'm just tired." "I'm ready to run." "You know." "Run or break it." "I don't care." "and the shaker is finally fixed and ready to run." "Been down a week." "Tempers have flared." "People have threatened to leave." "So." "As I start putting gold down here in these sluice boxes." "Oh man." "This is why we are here." "Dad." "You got the dirt?" "We got dirt?" "Yeah." "I got dirt." "Yeah." "Pails." "Everything?" "Let's go!" "Fire it up." "I'm just gonna pack my crap and go home." "Tom loads in the first bucket of rocks." "It's a lot quieter." "Nothing split apart." "And the deck's now watertight." "It's looking good." "Todd spots yet another problem." "Guys." "Generator." "Push the shaker off button." "Todd." "It's not even close to blowing oil." "It's puking." "Aaaah." "The shaker works great." "But." "The generator's blowing oil out of it." "So.." "I don't know." "We need to get a bunch of guys with shovels and some dirt and throw it on the oil." "nothing can run." "The generator's just puking oil out at the front." "Yeah." "I hope you didn't go (bleep) and shut it off." "Whatever." "Think it blew an O-ring here." "Jack replaced a rubber washer." "My dad went in there and fixed it so we'll find out what happened." "to stop the oil dripping." "Now we got a flood." "it cut it because of that ridge right there." "is I load 'em up with vaseline" "Yeah." "Its got a chance." "Harness has fixed the seal and they're back in business." "Stand clear now." "and everyone's exhausted." "But nothing's gonna stop Todd from running dirt." "I'm just tired of stuff breaking." "so I don't overload it." "You know." "So it just kinda drips a little bit." "I can look down the shaker and see the rocks coming off." "so" "Kinda gotta go by feel." "their wash plant is running like a dream." "It sounds so good I can barely hear it." "I walked through there I couldn't even see it moving." "Yeah." "It feels like a.." "It sounds like a Cadillac." "How's the generator." "Purring like a kitten." "Good." "and very stable." "so it's a piece of crap." "the plant is finally processing dirt." "But is there any gold in the material coming out of the jig." "Dorsey's panning to find out." "eight" "Bunch of gold." "Ten those are.." "Wow." "there's gold in there." "Yeah." "There is." "Ha ha ha ha." "This'll turn our sluice box yellow." "This is absolutely the best dirt we've received." "Yeeah. (Tap Tap)" "How is Jimmy." "so I can't even see all the gold that's in there." "Yeah." "There's money there." "More Tenners." "I mean." "We might have a ten ounce day or something." "ten thousand dollar day." "the shaker's fixed." "The plant's working." "And the miners are getting gold." "Todd's been." "You know." "He's been a little bummed out and he's been walking around a little mopey and uh good to see him back." "We need to mine." "These guys were losing heart." "We needed a win." "Too much ad." "I'll mine till the sun comes up." "Look out." "294)}Subs by JackT"