Gold Rush: Mine Rescue S06E08: The Fix That Almost Wasn't | Discovery Channel 2026 - video Dailymotion

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🏘️ Gold Rush: Mine Rescue with Freddy & Juan (2021) - Season 6 Episode 8  When time is gold, every second counts. In Episode 8 "The Fix That Almost Wasn't", Freddy & Juan arrive at a claim where a critical conveyor system has failed days before a major gold pour. With parts scarce, weather closing in, and the crew's morale at rock bottom, the duo must innovate under pressure. Will their expertise save the season... or will this fix become a costly lesson?  🔹 Episode Highlights: • Emergency assessment: Freddy & Juan diagnose a complex mechanical failure • Parts scramble: sourcing rare components across state lines under deadline • Weather wildcard: rain and mud complicate repairs and test team resilience • Crew dynamics: frustration, hope & the human side of mining rescue • Signature Mine Rescue grit: problem-solving, perseverance & payoff  🔹 Series Info: • Format: Reality Documentary / Mining Rescue / Expert Serial • Original Network: Discovery Channel (US) / Discovery+ / International Syndication • Series Launch: 2021 | Season: 6 | Episode: 8 | Title: "The Fix That Almost Wasn't" • Setting: North American Mining Claims (USA/Canada) | Language: English • Runtime: ~42-45 minutes (full) | Clip/Highlight version: ~10-15 min  🎧 Prefer audio? Listen to Gold Rush recaps & mining adventure podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts.  👉 Enjoying the series? Hit LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and comment: "Could you have fixed it faster? 👇" Turn on notifications 🔔 for Episode 9!  #ShowTVMovies #MineRescue #DiscoveryChannel #TheFix #S06E08 #FreddyDodge #JuanIbarra #GoldMining #RealityTV #BingeWatch  ⚠️ Copyright Disclaimer: This video is shared for promotional, review, and informational purposes only. All rights to "Gold Rush: Mine Rescue with Freddy & Juan" belong to Discovery Communications, Raw TV, and associated producers. This upload complies with Fair Use guidelines (Section 107, U.S. Copyright Act). No copyright infringement intended.

Transcript

00:00:02I drank way too much. I woke up in the morning. What'd you buy? It was a 40 acre claim.

00:00:08On this

00:00:09episode of Mine Rescue. We're trying to do two plants at the same time. It's going to be crazy.

00:00:16The fate of two failing operations on one Alaskan mega claim. We all work together to look out for

00:00:24each other. We'll rise and fall together. Depends on the first ever high stakes double rescue. Come on,

00:00:32big boy. Let's go. I'm losing my mind. Fire. Fire. It's blowing straight to our camp.

00:00:40This really may not happen for any of these guys next year. There's still more. Yeah.

00:00:57We're probably 30, 40 miles away from the Arctic Circle. Gold was discovered in this area in 1893.

00:01:03Over a million ounces of gold come out of this ground. That's a lot of stinking gold. Yeah, it is.

00:01:12We're here to help across two different mine sites. The leaseholders, the pod fins,

00:01:16they couldn't lose at all last year. And then on top of that, Fred Dickinson, well,

00:01:21he's struggling not being able to run as much as he wants. And he has royalty he has to pay.

00:01:27That's as ambitious as we've ever been. Winding their way through the central Alaskan tundra,

00:01:34Juan and Dave head to their first ever double rescue on 2,000 acres in Boulder Creek. With one miner,

00:01:42Juan knows well. So I met Fred Dickinson almost six years ago. It was one of the first rescues

00:01:49Freddie and I ever did. No way.

00:01:54Hey, gentlemen. Hey, guys. Good to see you. I'm Brian. Dave. Good to see you, man.

00:02:01Nice to meet you guys. Fred, good to see you, buddy. Yes, sir. It has been a minute. Everything's

00:02:07grown. The boys have grown. The equipment's grown. Plant's grown. I see that. The bills have grown. Oh,

00:02:17wow. After Freddy and Juan visited us, we were in a really good place. Hey, guys. Welcome. Six years

00:02:25ago, in their first televised rescue, Freddy and Juan found the Dickinson family's dreams of gold

00:02:32dying in the desert. Right now, my hobby has to feed my family. Let's get them some more gold.

00:02:37Right on. Let's do it, man. I'm a little awestruck by what these guys are able to do.

00:02:431.13. Woo! That's huge. I can't tell you how much we appreciate you guys coming out.

00:02:50Freddy and Juan took me from a hobby miner to a professional miner.

00:02:54The first couple of years, we were making money. Our decision to move from Arizona to Alaska was

00:03:01about expanding our operation, about me and the boys being able to do something that would support

00:03:08all of us. I'm not going to lie, we're struggling. The ground in Alaska is nothing like the ground in

00:03:14Arizona. Getting the material to the wash plant, getting the material run, has become a bit of a

00:03:20logistical nightmare. I'm out of my depth. I'm not here because this is fun and games for me. I enjoy

00:03:26mining, but I'm out here to build something for my family. What was your goal going into this season?

00:03:35Going into this season, our goal was 200 ounces originally. Now I'd be lucky if I can hit 100.

00:03:46So how are you doing this year then? 22 ounces so far halfway through the season.

00:03:51The people we lease from, the Podvins, they get a cut, which is always painful, but they support us.

00:03:56And since I've been here, every time we break down, they're over helping us, pulling us out.

00:04:01Okay. Well, you guys got some gold to show us? We don't have any of the gold. It's sold to

00:04:06the

00:04:06refinery. I went home last year very in debt. And this year, we're struggling to break even,

00:04:14much less pay off last year's debt. So I'm about $185,000 upside down. I'm going to go bankrupt here.

00:04:26And what we want to do is, uh, kind of get out there and do a test run with you

00:04:28guys. You kind

00:04:29of know the, what we do and how we do things. You know, Dave and I, we're going to kind

00:04:32of sit back

00:04:33and watch you guys and really see what we can do to help you guys out. Are you guys ready

00:04:37to run some

00:04:37dirt? Sure. Yeah. Let's show us that wash plant. Let's get it fired up. Let's go.

00:04:43Going from their humble little plant. Fred's grown. He's progressed,

00:04:47scaled up, but he's got a long ways to go to make it work out here.

00:04:50Fireing it up. We're going to do a four hour run. I love dirt moving. It makes it all the

00:05:07more fun

00:05:08when there's gold involved. Fred's son, Josh, loads pay into an eight foot hopper that washes down

00:05:17into a 12 foot shaker deck. Material is screened through a square hole punch plate and fed down

00:05:24into the sluice runs below where the gold should collect. Brother Brian in the D9 clears tailings

00:05:33to prevent them backing up. A lot of that material's getting stuck on that screen.

00:05:37That punch plate, their bottleneck there. Yeah, 100%. But I think it's about a bucket a minute,

00:05:43roughly. Might be a little less. One of the issues they've got is the way the material's coming down.

00:05:52It's really going down one sluice box about this wide. They're really utilizing about 30 to 40% of their

00:06:00sluice box. Look at the size of that. We must have somewhere else in the screen where this is coming

00:06:09through. Yeah, that's massive. There's no reason that should be in there at all.

00:06:17How's the hopper doing, buddy? Is it packed up or are you doing okay?

00:06:21Yeah, it's fine. All right, 10-4. Yeah, give her just a little bit more.

00:06:30I've ran a lot of gold mines and this one's just a little disorganized.

00:06:35How they get their pay out, you know, how they're delivering their pay,

00:06:39how they're dealing with the tailings.

00:06:45Is that the Podman's plant? We're just down creek from them a little bit.

00:06:49Yeah, literally. Stones throw away from them.

00:06:52The Podmans, they're my landlords. Right now our arrangement is I get the corners and crevices

00:06:59that his larger operation bypasses because they move in straight lines and the river doesn't.

00:07:05The truth is, is our destinies are tied together. We'll rise and fall together.

00:07:11Landlord, the Podvins, own the rights to over 2,000 acres.

00:07:16Daryl is the guy everybody goes to for help. He just goes, yeah, I'm in the middle of sluicing, but

00:07:20that's okay. I'll come help you. They've been instrumental in kind of helping us mine this creek.

00:07:26So I know this year they're having to run two years worth just to try to make enough to get

00:07:31by and,

00:07:32you know, start building a life for themselves.

00:07:35But after the Podvins failed to run last season,

00:07:38Fred is under pressure to deliver them a healthy royalty to stay in business.

00:07:44We've still got a lot to figure out with this wash plant.

00:07:47We are struggling to get enough volume on this ground to be able to go home with money.

00:07:59Holy .

00:08:03Stop working.

00:08:07Damn it.

00:08:12Brian's D9 prevents the wash plant from becoming overwhelmed by tailings.

00:08:17It started leaking coolant everywhere.

00:08:20So it might have had a cracked head gasket. So it's time to take the head off and check everything

00:08:26out.

00:08:31We're at the end of the four-hour run. So why don't we shut them down and see what we

00:08:34got in the box?

00:08:35All right, buddy. That's your last bucket. Let's shut her down.

00:08:45You can see on the flow on shutdown. How much water is on that side? How much material?

00:08:50Just watching it right now on shutdown, you can see what it's doing.

00:08:53Oh, yeah.

00:08:54Well, gentlemen, why don't you guys clean it all up and let's do a Goldway.

00:08:58Okay.

00:08:59We'll meet back up with you guys in the morning and see what we got.

00:09:01Sounds great.

00:09:01You good with that?

00:09:02Yes, sir.

00:09:03All right.

00:09:05I'm hoping that these guys can work some magic.

00:09:07We need to figure out how to run more dirt or to run longer.

00:09:14Let's go take a look at the Podvin plant.

00:09:17Yep, let's go.

00:09:20Located half a mile away, the Podvin operation is midway through a 100-hour run.

00:09:29Hey, how you doing?

00:09:30Good.

00:09:30Come on.

00:09:31Darryl.

00:09:31Good to meet you.

00:09:32Hi, I'm Dave.

00:09:33How you doing?

00:09:34Good, Darryl.

00:09:35Darryl.

00:09:35What a beautiful plant.

00:09:38It's awesome that you guys are here and we can check this thing out and see if you can help

00:09:42them.

00:09:42You built this whole thing?

00:09:44Yeah.

00:09:45Wow.

00:09:46The two boys and I.

00:09:47Darryl runs the operation with his partner, Leva, and two grown sons, Matthew and Eric.

00:09:54It is designed where we can flip the conveyor, flip the sluice box, change directions on the side of the

00:10:00creek.

00:10:00There's a lot of thought in this thing.

00:10:02Absolutely.

00:10:03We had a diesel repair shop in North Dakota in the oil field and we also had a gravel crushing

00:10:09business

00:10:09on the side.

00:10:10So we crushed gravel throughout the summers and wrenched year-round and oil kind of took a dive and we

00:10:17were

00:10:17trying to figure out what we were going to do.

00:10:20And we were drinking at the bar one day.

00:10:22I drank way too much and went to bed, woke up in the morning and Leva was like,

00:10:27what did you spend on PayPal for 800 bucks?

00:10:31I said, I don't know.

00:10:32What do you mean?

00:10:33She says, well, you bought something in Alaska for 800 bucks on PayPal.

00:10:37What did you buy?

00:10:38I said, well, let's check it out.

00:10:39Sure enough, it was a 40-acre claim.

00:10:43And I was like, holy .

00:10:45Dad called us the next morning and said, hey, you want to go prospect a gold claim in Alaska?

00:10:49And I thought he was out of his mind.

00:10:51And we came up here and spent the month up here and found like seven tiny little pieces of gold

00:10:56and been up here ever since.

00:10:5910 years later, here we are.

00:11:01I'm very proud of that wash plant.

00:11:02But the fact that we spent our retirement and then some on building it,

00:11:06nobody made any money last year, you know, including the boys.

00:11:10It was a killer.

00:11:12It's a hell of a design.

00:11:14It's like almost a dredge.

00:11:16It is a land dredge.

00:11:17It is.

00:11:18It's a dredge on wheels.

00:11:19I like it.

00:11:20On this rolling land dredge, known as a progressive plant,

00:11:25pay is fed into an eight-foot hopper and washed into a 40-foot-long trommel.

00:11:31A spray bar washes the pay down into the 16 by 10-foot wide sluice box.

00:11:37But after taking a full season off sluicing to build it, they now can't afford to shut it down.

00:11:44So Dave and Juan must assess the wash plant without waiting for a gold way.

00:11:51Once that wash plant's running, it's going to stay running.

00:11:53We ain't going to shut down.

00:11:55How many yards an hour are you running out of it?

00:11:58At about 100, 120 yards an hour.

00:12:00What were you wanting to do out of it?

00:12:02At 200.

00:12:03Yeah.

00:12:04210.

00:12:05We have to run more material.

00:12:07I spent way too much money building that wash plant to let it run 100 yards an hour.

00:12:12It has to be increased.

00:12:14It was an expensive girl to build.

00:12:16No kidding.

00:12:18Putting that kind of money out, not running all year long last year.

00:12:22Daryl's running on empty.

00:12:23That's a tough thing to do when you have an operation like this.

00:12:25And not only that, on the Dickinson's plant,

00:12:28there's a couple issues that I'm really worried about.

00:12:30This is going to be a tricky rescue.

00:12:32Trying to do two plants at the same time.

00:12:34It's going to be a tough few days.

00:12:38This is an adventure.

00:12:40Let's go see.

00:12:42Coming up.

00:12:43I'm very frustrated.

00:12:44I mean, they did look and they just didn't see .

00:12:47That sluice box is absolutely horrible.

00:12:49Be careful.

00:12:50We don't have a hell of a lot of time.

00:12:52Slow down.

00:12:53Honestly, really don't give two about the sluice box.

00:13:07You can feel it building here.

00:13:10In Boulder Creek, Alaska, Juan and Dave assess the largest of the two operations in their double rescue.

00:13:18You know, there's definitely a lot more flow on this side.

00:13:21Yeah, you can feel it.

00:13:22The distribution's an issue.

00:13:24You can feel the ripple, and they're pretty lean now.

00:13:27It is a little lean.

00:13:28So you can tell on that side it's going to be super lean.

00:13:31Yeah.

00:13:31You know, when you can actually see the gravel coming down.

00:13:34It doesn't have a chance to settle out in the map.

00:13:37We lose the gold out of that box.

00:13:41He has an issue up top as well on the hopper.

00:13:44I mean, that bucket is just about as big as the hopper.

00:13:47It is. It is.

00:13:48He's having to periodically go in there and push it.

00:13:51So he's got some hard angles in there that are impeding the rock, and then they get stacked up.

00:13:57Doug's definitely a bottleneck.

00:13:59They designed it to do 200 yards an hour, and right now he's just barely over 100.

00:14:10I guess what we need to do is figure out what we can do, because my concern is, if we

00:14:14tackle

00:14:14the big problem of the hopper, now we're going to create that problem further downstream in the

00:14:18sluice box, right? So it's going to be a multiple part fix. The one thing that does kind of make

00:14:24me

00:14:24feel a little bit better, we'll have Travis and Alex here.

00:14:26Yeah.

00:14:26So, you know, it'll be probably a balancing act, and really, I think we're going to have to divide and

00:14:30conquer.

00:14:33As Juan puzzles through the potential fixes, Dave gets to grips with the Podvins pay dirt.

00:14:39I'm just checking to see if there's much gold down here.

00:14:43I'm not finding much.

00:14:45There was two tiny little pieces of gold.

00:14:55That's pretty lean ground. I need a little bit more information.

00:15:07You guys getting ready to move?

00:15:09Yeah.

00:15:10To keep the plant loaded with pay in its 100-hour run, the plant moves 30 feet further into the

00:15:17cut

00:15:17every two hours.

00:15:20It's kind of a unique design. It's a progressive plant. It basically moves to the material instead

00:15:27of moving the material to it. It's as cheap as it gets to be able to process the ground.

00:15:31Here we go.

00:15:33Even though the plant's probably one of the nicer plants I've seen, that sluice box is a real issue.

00:15:37Distribution's an issue. The hopper's an issue. It's going to be tough, you know, because we're

00:15:41going to have to spread our resources over two mine sites. My issue is we don't have a hell of

00:15:47a lot of time.

00:15:48This might not work.

00:15:57This is it.

00:15:59Good to see you, Fred.

00:16:00Good to see you.

00:16:01Good to see you guys.

00:16:03Well, you guys got some gold to show us from that cleanup?

00:16:06We do.

00:16:07On the Dickinson mine, Fred has the results from yesterday's four-hour test run.

00:16:13That's not terrible. Four hours.

00:16:15Yeah, the little chunkers in there. We don't see those.

00:16:17Very clean gold. You've got some chunky stuff with quartz, and then there's a piece that's just

00:16:21flattened. Nice little pickers. You've got several different sources here.

00:16:26Yeah, we think so. I think there's at least three, but that's my best guess.

00:16:31All right, well, let's pour it out. Let's see what we got, huh?

00:16:33Yeah. To stay on track for their 200-ounce season target,

00:16:38this four-hour test needs to give Fred and his boys 1.4 ounces.

00:16:450.94, nearly an ounce. Just shy of an ounce.

00:16:503,000 bucks, roughly. Yeah. For four hours run? Yeah.

00:16:55It's a third short of their gold. You know, it's been getting us by,

00:17:00but getting by is not good enough. No, no. You're not paying off the debts.

00:17:03No, we're not paying off the debts. That's the challenge.

00:17:06You know, if this number doesn't come up, this may be the end of the line here.

00:17:09Yeah. I mean, it could be. I mean, we're going to fight it with everything we've got, though.

00:17:14Yeah. Fair enough. You know, I guess, you know, really when it comes down to it, you know,

00:17:18we don't have a whole lot of time left in the season. I think we're lacking in a couple different

00:17:21things, but really it's going to boil down to what Dave and I can do while the time we have

00:17:25here.

00:17:25So we're two mine sites. Yeah, absolutely. And any help makes a big difference.

00:17:30We'll go back and kind of come up with a game plan, see what we can do.

00:17:33All right. All right.

00:17:34You good with that? Let's go figure it out.

00:17:35All right. Here you go. Here's your gold.

00:17:37Thank you, sir. See you guys in a bit.

00:17:42That gold way is what we've been getting, but it's not enough.

00:17:46If we keep going the pace we're at, we're not even going to reach half our goal.

00:17:49We've got to change something. There's quite a bit going on there, Dave.

00:17:54Two big operations on the brink. Juan and Dave break down their task list.

00:18:00Brad has a few issues. His throughput through the plant is not great.

00:18:04I agree. We can get his pay up quicker, get it piled up, and then I see several things that

00:18:11could be fixed.

00:18:12Right now we're doing about 45 yards an hour.

00:18:14Yeah.

00:18:14You know, and the reality is we've got to come up, you know,

00:18:1665 yards an hour is really where he needs to be.

00:18:19That screen deck that he has there, he's got square holes in it.

00:18:23They go corner to corner, almost inch and a half, right?

00:18:26Yeah.

00:18:26Now we're allowing material this big to go through that screen.

00:18:29It's huge.

00:18:29Which is taking up a lot of room in that sluice box.

00:18:32Yeah. So your suggestion is round, correct?

00:18:34Yeah. We'll cut a whole new plate, but do all round holes and make sure they're one inch.

00:18:39This eccentric's pretty easy.

00:18:41Yeah.

00:18:41So that thing is spinning, right?

00:18:43Mm-hmm.

00:18:44So you add more weight, it's going to make the throw a bigger stroke?

00:18:48Absolutely. What it's going to do is give us a little more violent of a shake.

00:18:51Yeah.

00:18:51But if we get more material through the plant, basically we're going to be running more material

00:18:56on that side of the sluice. So we're going to have to even that feed out and make it where

00:19:01it

00:19:01distributes equally across the two sluice boxes. You good with that?

00:19:04I'm good with that.

00:19:05What do you think about the Podvins?

00:19:08You know, the problem with this, we're having to do Fred's and the Podvins at the same time.

00:19:13So I know they don't want to shut the plant down.

00:19:15Yeah. That's going to be interesting.

00:19:18The biggest issue I saw with the Podvins plant, and you saw it too, was that sluice box.

00:19:23Yeah.

00:19:24We've got that distribution box coming off the bottom pan.

00:19:27It comes in, so that material's coming down.

00:19:29And again, it's hitting this side of the box.

00:19:31Yep.

00:19:31So what I would like to see here is try to get that material equally distributed across the

00:19:37whole box instead of just favoring that one side.

00:19:39Yeah.

00:19:40You have four runs.

00:19:41Four runs.

00:19:42We can get their production up, fixing their feeder. It was a little bit cumbersome.

00:19:47I mean, it was...

00:19:49Clogging up a little bit.

00:19:50Clogging up, going out the sides.

00:19:51Yeah.

00:19:51That feeder right now, it comes in and then actually has a hard angle where that material's

00:19:56coming in and it's getting stopped up and it's not allowing it to go into the trommel.

00:19:59Maybe cut some angles, some plates to be able to divert that material so it's not so drastic.

00:20:04So let's go chat with them and see what they say.

00:20:06Okay.

00:20:07All right.

00:20:07Sounds good.

00:20:07All right.

00:20:15Well, we kind of had a chance to talk about what we wanted to do with you guys.

00:20:18Okay.

00:20:19One of the issues Dave and I saw is your punch plate.

00:20:22Yeah.

00:20:22On the top.

00:20:23You know, having those square holes, it's a hard edge, right?

00:20:25So those rocks, they get stuck.

00:20:26So we'll cut a whole new one, put it on there and it's going to be round holes and make

00:20:30sure

00:20:30they're tapered the right way.

00:20:31Okay.

00:20:32Dave came up with the idea.

00:20:33We're going to add a little more weight to your eccentric as well.

00:20:35Yeah.

00:20:35I think if we put some more weight, you'll get a more violent shake.

00:20:40So it should kick those rocks up and you should get more through.

00:20:44Okay.

00:20:44We already have an issue with the distribution box.

00:20:46Right now, it's kind of favoring that one side.

00:20:49So we want to eliminate that.

00:20:50Oh, wow.

00:20:51So you will have a true distribution that'll actually feed 50-50 to the box.

00:20:56Okay.

00:20:57So, you know, with those three things that we're talking about, the punch plate,

00:21:01eccentric weight, and the distribution, we're probably looking at about $3,500 in material.

00:21:07You know, it's a little bit of a big nut to crack and I know right now things are kind

00:21:10of tight.

00:21:10So what Dave and I kind of came up with is we're willing to give you guys our labor for

00:21:14free.

00:21:14I appreciate that.

00:21:15That's amazing.

00:21:16I wouldn't even hesitate at that.

00:21:17So I appreciate that.

00:21:18Let's do it.

00:21:19If you guys are ready to do it, if you guys can help us be able to get some of

00:21:22this work done,

00:21:23that way we can get all of it done in the time we have.

00:21:24More than happy to.

00:21:26Absolutely done.

00:21:26Okay.

00:21:27Let's do it.

00:21:28Deal.

00:21:28Thanks, guys.

00:21:31Those are super critical fixes for us.

00:21:34If we can't get that yardage up, then we're not going to make enough gold to cover the season.

00:21:52Hello, Darryl.

00:21:53How's it going, guys?

00:21:54In Boulder Creek, Alaska, the livelihoods of two operations are at stake and Juan and Dave put an

00:22:03unprecedented second rescue deal on the table.

00:22:06You guys are tight crew, very well organized.

00:22:09We're impressed.

00:22:10So as far as efficiency, you guys are pretty damn efficient.

00:22:14Yeah.

00:22:14During the test run, we did see a few things.

00:22:16You know, you want to be able to get up to that 200 yard an hour.

00:22:19Right now, you're about what, 120?

00:22:20Yeah, at the top.

00:22:21The feed on the hopper is something that we need to address.

00:22:24Right now, the angle that you have is really abrupt.

00:22:26What we're going to do is we're going to actually make it a little longer.

00:22:28So that way, as the material hits, it's able to push in instead of getting stuck.

00:22:32I think that's awesome.

00:22:33Another thing that Dave and I saw is that you're losing gold.

00:22:37That sluice box is a real issue.

00:22:39So I was your box that you have now.

00:22:40Go up there and put dividing walls, build a distribution box to be able to distribute

00:22:44that material evenly across the four boxes instead of...

00:22:47I can tell Eric don't like it.

00:22:49I'm not convinced.

00:22:51I don't want to split it.

00:22:52I do not want to split that box.

00:22:53I mean, we clean up top eight feet.

00:22:55Two guys, you can be done in an hour and that thing's back running.

00:22:59Honestly, you know, I worked under Freddie for the last 11 years.

00:23:02And Freddie's made his career on fine gold, you know, and hundreds, you know,

00:23:07thousands and thousands of ounces.

00:23:08I don't know what the number, the real number is, the percentage of what you're losing,

00:23:12but I would guesstimate, you know, probably 10 to 15%.

00:23:15My concern is even if we go in there and we up your production,

00:23:20yeah, sure, we're going to catch a little bit more gold,

00:23:22but then also we're actually running the risk of losing more gold.

00:23:27Honestly, really don't give two about the sluice box.

00:23:30I really want the production up.

00:23:33I spend way too much money building that wash plant to let it run 100 yards an hour.

00:23:37The fine gold, who cares?

00:23:39I was the same. Production, keep that going.

00:23:42And I'd forget that the sluice box is your bank.

00:23:48That's where you're making your money.

00:23:49And I've had to learn that.

00:23:51As we run more material through that box running the way it is,

00:23:53I get it.

00:23:54You're going to see an increase in gold, yeah,

00:23:55but there's going to be a massive increase in lost gold as well.

00:23:58It's 16 feet long.

00:24:00You know, it's going to catch it.

00:24:02I really think that sluice box could stay.

00:24:06Agree to disagree, but I'm good with that.

00:24:10You know, ultimately, it's your guys' plant.

00:24:12I want you guys to be happy with what we're going to do.

00:24:14And if that's what you guys want, you know,

00:24:16we'll absolutely do the distribution and work on that hopper.

00:24:19I like it.

00:24:20That's awesome.

00:24:20We're going to up the production, which you're all about.

00:24:23I like it.

00:24:23You know, that being said, between the hopper fix

00:24:27and working on the distribution, it's probably going to be about $3,500 in material.

00:24:32And as far as labor, we're thinking about an ounce piece.

00:24:36You guys are good with it.

00:24:37You know, that's what we can offer.

00:24:41Do it. Make it happen.

00:24:42If it don't up the production, then it cuts in half.

00:24:45But the deal is, if we do up the production, we get the extra gold.

00:24:49There you go.

00:24:50I don't think that's going to happen.

00:24:54Sounds great.

00:24:55Bring it in.

00:24:55All right.

00:24:59When we decided to build that wash plant, I thought, well, we can build this thing

00:25:03in two months.

00:25:03No problem.

00:25:05We'll build it in two months.

00:25:06We'll still have a half a season.

00:25:07It'll be all fine.

00:25:08It'll pay for itself in a heartbeat.

00:25:11Yeah, no, it took five months to the day.

00:25:14There's five or six of us welding and working on that thing constantly.

00:25:19Every inch of weld on that thing, we welded it.

00:25:23It's not a little $50,000 wash plant and everything on that thing is hundreds of thousands of dollars

00:25:30worth of parts, you know, and now we're to the point where everything's due, past due.

00:25:35We need to have a successful season here to make this work because we can't keep going.

00:25:39We all really are feeling pressure.

00:25:41Dad definitely feels the pressure.

00:25:43We got to find the gold this year.

00:25:46The intention was to get 200 yards an hour out of it.

00:25:50Got better than a half a million bucks invested in this wash plant one whole entire summer,

00:25:55not sluicing.

00:25:56It was a lot of pressure.

00:26:00That's our baby.

00:26:01I mean, we spent a lot of money and a lot of downtime and lost money.

00:26:05Not only is it cash out of pocket to build it, but we didn't mine either.

00:26:08So we might have lost $2 million last year and spent to half a million.

00:26:13It's tough to let go and let someone else do this, that, or the other with it.

00:26:17But at the same time, them guys know what they're doing.

00:26:20I trust they're going to do good work on it.

00:26:28Set up in the Podvin's yard, Juan begins the first of the fixes for the Dickinson's operation.

00:26:35It's going to be difficult because Fred's plant and the Podvin's plant,

00:26:39they're two of the bigger plants that we've done on our rescue.

00:26:43Right now we're cutting out the punch plate.

00:26:45This is going to go on Fred's deck.

00:26:49Larger material slips through the Dickinson's shaker deck and clogs the sluice.

00:26:55Juan and Dave will replace the square holed punch plate and add a new one with custom one-inch round

00:27:02holes.

00:27:05To keep material flowing through the plant, they will install a jet into the back of the hopper

00:27:11and add weights to the eccentric shaker system.

00:27:16Finally, to ensure the plant catches gold efficiently,

00:27:21Juan will build a distribution chute to create an even flow of material into the sluice box.

00:27:28We're going to be about 2,000 holes in this plate, so there's going to be substantial cut time.

00:27:34Once it's done, I'm going to get it out, clean it up, get it down there, and install it.

00:27:43Over at the Dickinson's wash plant...

00:27:45Travis hasn't cut loose, so it's ready to come out.

00:27:49Assisted by Travis, Fred and Josh make room for Juan's new punch plate.

00:27:56We believed somebody who said, oh, square holes are better.

00:28:00They're not.

00:28:02Lift up on it a little bit and then drag it out of there.

00:28:22I don't want to break anything.

00:28:27Josh is my oldest, and he's a hell of an operator.

00:28:30He's a wizard in that excavator.

00:28:31He likes to say he's as good as me, but I think the jury's still out.

00:28:42It's stuck.

00:28:44It's not completely off.

00:28:46Yeah, just pop it off.

00:28:47Just try not to hit the spray bars.

00:28:50All right.

00:28:55Oh.

00:29:09Oh, yeah.

00:29:13Thank God that punch plate's gone.

00:29:18Good riddance.

00:29:19This was a failed experiment.

00:29:21We're glad to move on.

00:29:34Next process of this is getting the heads down onto the studs.

00:29:39In central Alaska, at the Dickinson mine.

00:29:43This is Daryl's crane.

00:29:45This is his service truck.

00:29:47I've used it countless times this season.

00:29:50Budding mechanic, Brian, tries to bring the broken D9 back online,

00:29:56with equipment loaned from the Podvin operation.

00:29:59We all work together to look out for each other.

00:30:01The miners, myself, Fred and his guys, other people on the creek.

00:30:05Everyone wants to look out for everyone.

00:30:07We're like a small community.

00:30:09So this is the top.

00:30:11Oh, okay.

00:30:12Looks good.

00:30:14You got the other half, though?

00:30:15Yeah, I got those.

00:30:16Awesome.

00:30:17All right, bud.

00:30:18All right, cool.

00:30:19Have fun.

00:30:20Once you're done with the truck, bring it back up.

00:30:21All right, I will.

00:30:23Get some.

00:30:24Yep.

00:30:25I'll help Fred and his boys out.

00:30:27He was in Arizona, in the sand, in the desert, and whatnot.

00:30:30So we give him a little guidance here and there.

00:30:34Brian is very mechanical.

00:30:36He's torn into engines, rebuilt engines, rebuilt transmissions.

00:30:40This is his first trip into a large diesel.

00:30:44I was about 14 years old when my dad brought home a car for me and him to work on

00:30:51blown up engine.

00:30:53Doing this with the boys, with my family, that's beautiful.

00:30:58It's fair to say they've grown up as miners.

00:31:00It's just fun to take things apart and put them all back together in the same order.

00:31:04It's like a very greasy, big Lego.

00:31:08Me and my dad work very well together.

00:31:11We don't really have to say much to understand each other.

00:31:15Right now, there is a little bit of a worry that we financially might not be able to do this

00:31:19next year.

00:31:20I worry about my dad and all the pressure that's on him because he's working his ass off

00:31:26and he's trying to make this all work and he's struggling a little bit.

00:31:33Get her running.

00:31:35I want to see it blowing smoke tonight.

00:31:38I got to get these two heads on, start torquing it all down and put it all back together again.

00:31:58A lot of times when you're in an area like this and you want to figure out where the gold

00:32:03is

00:32:04and where it came from, looking at the archives is helpful.

00:32:08To dig deeper into the lean ground he discovered on the Potman's claim,

00:32:13Dave takes a field trip to the Circle District Museum.

00:32:16I'm looking to gain some clues to how much gold is in Boulder Creek.

00:32:22Central area maps.

00:32:24Take a look at these.

00:32:26Oh boy, these are old, old maps.

00:32:35Wow.

00:32:37Well, here we are.

00:32:38Here's Central House, Miller House, and here's Boulder Creek.

00:32:45Very, very interesting.

00:32:47The X means gold placer.

00:32:51So this is from geologic reconnaissance math surveyed in 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906.

00:33:02And here on Boulder Creek there's three red X's.

00:33:07That's interesting.

00:33:08He's got the X's way at the headwaters of Boulder Creek

00:33:11and we're mining way down at the bottom of the stream, which is kind of encouraging.

00:33:17The old maps may point to better gold upstream on Boulder Creek.

00:33:23Dave calls a local contact to investigate.

00:33:27Yeah, hi.

00:33:28Is this Cody?

00:33:29Hey, Cody, this is David Turn.

00:33:39It's my least favorite place.

00:33:40I try and stay out of that place.

00:33:43Back at the Podvin Claim, Juan takes a short break from the cut table to check out the gold room.

00:33:50Our cleanup process is not efficient.

00:33:53That's your table there, huh?

00:33:54That's our little table.

00:33:55So basically, what are you doing? You get your concentrates out of the sluice box. Are you

00:33:59running them through like a long comet?

00:34:01Yeah, a long comet.

00:34:02This reduces the fines down and everything gets run all over the table.

00:34:06Yeah.

00:34:06We probably average four days.

00:34:08Yeah, four days that you're not doing something else, right?

00:34:10Right. Nothing quick about it.

00:34:12And it looks like Leva really loves it too.

00:34:17It's not bad, but it's very time consuming.

00:34:22I take care of all the books and make sure all the finances are in line.

00:34:27I'm very calculated. I have spreadsheets for almost every aspect of this operation.

00:34:35The books are not going to balance if we can't get that plant up to 200 yards an hour.

00:34:41Last year, we spent every penny of our retirement.

00:34:45It's very scary to have this large of an investment. Gold is not guaranteed. So there's always the risk

00:34:52factor. There's an old joke. If you want to make a million gold mining, you have to start with two

00:34:57million. Sometimes it feels like that's what we're doing. We're constantly chasing that million dollars.

00:35:07That's definitely a bottleneck. Well, let me think about it and see what we can't do here.

00:35:12Awesome. Perfect. Thank you much. Thank you.

00:35:14Thank you, sir.

00:35:23Hello. What's going on, Juan?

00:35:25This turned out to be a little more work than what I anticipated.

00:35:28Okay.

00:35:29One of the big issues that we have, right, is the cleanup process. Right now,

00:35:32it takes them four days to do a cleanup.

00:35:34Ooh.

00:35:35Yeah, it's pretty bad.

00:35:36Okay.

00:35:37Well, I wanted to see if you had a table, a used table or something that we could get in

00:35:40here to be able

00:35:41to help them out. Well, I'm just going to have to make some calls and see what's going on, Juan.

00:35:46I know you're going to have to have it quick, so.

00:35:48Yeah, you know, we're not looking for a freebie, but they have some money to throw at it.

00:35:52If I can get a hold of one, Juan, I'll make you a heck of a deal on it.

00:35:55Okay. Yeah, if you can make that work, that'll help us out tremendously. Just let me know as soon

00:35:59as you know, and then I'll send somebody that way if we can.

00:36:01You got it.

00:36:02Okay. Sounds good.

00:36:03Well, I'm going to get back to doing dirt work here.

00:36:05All right, buddy. Thanks, Fred. Talk to you soon.

00:36:08Bye for now.

00:36:09Bye.

00:36:10Efficiency is key, and right now they're taking four days to do a cleanup, and that's not acceptable at all.

00:36:14You know, with a good table in here, it should take that from four days to, let's call it, four

00:36:19hours.

00:36:25Hey, Juan.

00:36:28Coming over to the top of you, Dave.

00:36:30Next, on the long list of fixes for Dave and Juan is to install the Dickinson's newly cut punch plate.

00:36:41A punch plate is basically a wear item. You don't want to fully weld it. That way you can go

00:36:46in there

00:36:46and cut those welds out, replace the top deck. I like it. That'll work.

00:36:51I like it too. That'll work good, Dave.

00:37:04Let's try it right here, Dave. Yeah.

00:37:06Four more build days left to complete an epic double rescue. It's an early start for Dave and Juan

00:37:13in the Podvins Hopper. So right there, Dave, would give us the angle we need. What we're going to do

00:37:19is we're going to make this a less of an abrupt angle, so the material has a better way of

00:37:23coming

00:37:23to the trommel, so it's not getting stuck on this hard angle.

00:37:28Hey gets trapped on the edges of the hopper, restricting the flow of material through the

00:37:33Podvins plant. Juan and Dave will create a large funnel using three-quarter-inch steel plates,

00:37:41allowing more pay to flow into the trommel. We don't have a lot of shots at this because

00:37:46three-quarter-inch steel up here is expensive. Oh, yeah. And if we screw one of these up and don't

00:37:52get the cut right, we're kind of screwed. That's to say the least. All right. Okay. Got it. Let's do

00:38:00it.

00:38:06Now that I got the pattern laid out the way I want, I'm going to put the torch on there

00:38:09and then the torch will do the rest.

00:38:16It allows me to keep on working, getting other things done and built. We haven't had a rescue

00:38:19where we've had to do so much cutting and fabricate so many things at one time. We're burning on the

00:38:24CNC table. Now we're going to be cutting with this arm as well. We're pulling everything that we have

00:38:28in our arsenal to get it done in time and hopefully it's enough.

00:38:46You Cody? Yeah. I'm Dave. Hey Dave. Good to meet you. Thanks for coming out. We'll take a look. All

00:38:52right.

00:38:52Follow me up. Will do. Back on the hunt for better ground on the Podvin's 2,000-acre claim,

00:38:59Dave brings in local dirt detective Cody Pink. I called in a geologist. The more information I have

00:39:07of what's underneath and the rock composition and how this was all formed will help me get these

00:39:14guys on better gold. I think to get to better gold concentrations, we need to get as close to the

00:39:21bedrock. Yeah. And that's up in the canyon. Both the Dickinson's and the Podvin's mine the lower

00:39:27reaches of Boulder Creek where bedrock is far below the surface. Boulder Creek is underexplored.

00:39:35The potential is high. This is the unicorn that everybody's looking for. Did the old timers find it

00:39:44all? Certainly not. This is an adventure. Go upstream and do some prospecting. Try to figure out

00:39:52if there's viable gold. Let's go see. All we got to worry about is the bears.

00:40:07We need to go upstream to find better gold. On a mission to rescue two operations in central

00:40:14Alaska. I think we should do a couple of pans here. We're not quite to the bedrock yet,

00:40:19but I believe true bedrock is below us here. Dave Turin and geologist Cody Pink head up Boulder Creek

00:40:28on the hunt for better gold. I'll take one side of the stream, you take the other. Okay.

00:40:39Now that we've gone upstream, I'm hoping to see more color.

00:40:46You find anything in the first pan? Nope.

00:40:52Nothing to get too excited about. We're not at the bedrock interface. So the fact that we're not

00:41:00seeing nuggets of gold in every pan isn't necessarily discouraging.

00:41:08I'm going to have to go further upstream. Okay. Do you want to just hop on back? Yeah.

00:41:16Bedrock forms an impenetrable layer, which should capture heavy gold particles,

00:41:21but not all ground is gold bearing.

00:41:28We've definitely got bedrock coming down to the creek, and it looks like there's a little bench

00:41:34right up in there where the slow moving water is. Okay. Let's go investigate that.

00:41:39I love this stuff. Brings me back to the old timers. Comes down to a pan and a man in

00:41:46a creek.

00:41:46I just love it. I absolutely love it.

00:41:54I think I had one piece. One right at the head there?

00:41:59A little bit. Way up. Not really. Do you see anything in yours? No. Nothing?

00:42:23It's the last piece I got to cut. As Dave scrambles for better ground, Juan cuts to the chase on

00:42:30the

00:42:30Podvin's hopper fix. We were able to get all those plates cut there in a matter of maybe 45 minutes.

00:42:36You know, that would have taken somebody by hand, you know, half a day to cut that.

00:42:40We just got to prep them a little bit, and then they're ready to go onto the plant. So,

00:42:43it does save a lot of time. These are three-quarter inch plates. This one right here probably weighs,

00:42:48I don't know, 125, 130 pounds. They're not light, but it's the type of material you need for

00:42:54these bigger plants. That's definitely 130 pounds.

00:43:02Podvin's steel cut, next one moves to the Dickinson's job.

00:43:08So, we're cutting out the pieces for the distribution box on Fred's plant.

00:43:14The chute will rest under the shaker deck to give an even feed of material into the sluices.

00:43:22We're going to get all that material, and we're going to concentrate it, and then we're going to

00:43:25distribute it where we want it. This is going to be the bottom pan of it. We're going to put

00:43:30sides,

00:43:31and those two downspouts, that'll be the center of both sluices.

00:43:37Ready to do a little work? Yes, sir.

00:43:39All right. So, what we're going to do is we're going to start welding this out. This is going to

00:43:42be

00:43:42your distribution box. So, what we'll do is we'll get going on it. I'll help you kind of get started

00:43:46on

00:43:47welding it. I don't have anything this fancy.

00:43:52You're pushing uphill. Right about this angle, push uphill, right, slowly. You make sure that

00:43:58you get both sides, let it get wet, and you travel up. There you go. Move a little quicker.

00:44:07It actually is really cool for me to come in here and see you guys, you know, from where you

00:44:11guys

00:44:11started with that little plant in Arizona to where you're at now. You know, you guys got a full-size

00:44:14plant. You got more equipment. You're actually running some decent yardage. And it's got to be

00:44:19fun to be able to be out here with your dad and your brother to work and be able to

00:44:22kind of spend

00:44:22the summer together. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. A lot of hard work. My first gold claim was when

00:44:28I was 12

00:44:29years old. It was Dickinson 1. Are we going to find some gold? Yeah! This season has been really hard

00:44:35out

00:44:36here. It's been really difficult for us, but just trying to push forward. I really want to stay out

00:44:43here doing this. I want to come out here every summer and hopefully have a family and bring them

00:44:49up here too. That's my goal. Find a girl who can move some dirt. All right, let's see it.

00:45:07That's pretty good, man. Oh, this is very useful. I need to know this stuff. You know, you saw how

00:45:12quick

00:45:13that was, right? Yeah. Just little things like that are going to help you along your career. It

00:45:17sounds like you want to keep on doing this for a while, right? I do. I really do.

00:45:24It's awesome to see Josh in there working with Juan, teaching him some different tips and tricks on

00:45:29welding. It looks like he's having fun and learning things. That's always great. Sweet, man.

00:45:36I'm looking forward to seeing this on the plant.

00:45:43Well, I'm not giving up yet. Let's try one more time. Let's do one more where the bedrock

00:45:50dips in. Maybe we can find a trap.

00:45:56Two miles upstream on Boulder Creek, Cody and Dave are yet to find any

00:46:03indications of higher value ground.

00:46:12We're beating at that horse. We hit it hard. What did we pull? How many pans did we all pull?

00:46:1816, 18 pans today. Yeah. To find two little specks of gold, I'm not real encouraged.

00:46:24Yeah. Probably what the old timers did. Could be why this was overlooked. I think they did the same

00:46:30thing we did. Yeah. I think they panned it and we're like. Yeah. Dave's research shows gold deposits,

00:46:37but his test on a two-mile stretch of Boulder Creek uncovers no signs of concentrated gold.

00:46:44The guys that are mining here, there's gold in the sluice box, but it's very lean.

00:46:50Yeah. I mean, they're not going to have expectations that if they go up further,

00:46:55they're going to find better gold. Even that information is good information. Yeah.

00:47:04When I set out on this prospecting journey, you know, my goal was to find better gold. Cody thought

00:47:11there was better gold upstream. What we found is there really isn't. So now plan B is to up the

00:47:18production to get them mining as efficiently as we can. They're on lean ground, but I think they can

00:47:26make money here. Coming up, we got to shut it off or it's going to keep burning. We're getting ready

00:47:36to flare back up over here. This is ice. You're running 110 yards an hour. Won't do it.

00:47:46I've been losing my mind. Whoa. That doesn't look terrible for four hours. Wow.

00:47:52You're awesome.

00:48:05I've got a huge fuel bill to pay. That's almost 28 grand. We owe them fuel right now. They won't

00:48:11deliver until I get caught up. I paid the 90 day past due, but we're still 60 days past due.

00:48:18In the Dickinson's camp, central Alaska with seven weeks till the end of season, Fred and his boys

00:48:25take stock. Josh, I know you've got your credit card payment due. Is there anything else?

00:48:30Just a regular amount of 250. Okay. Pay my car insurance off.

00:48:36I get them on payment. Keeps it going up. Yeah, we can't pay it off right now, but I can

00:48:42get you the

00:48:42minimum payment. That's most of the next two cleanups is going to fuel. So we're going to

00:48:47just have to kind of be snug until we can get those in there.

00:48:52Those boys are making big sacrifices to be out here and to build this as a family. We're miles from

00:48:59the

00:48:59Arctic Circle and hours away from the nearest town. You know, they're 20 and 22 years old. Most people are

00:49:06out

00:49:06with their friends doing fun things. I know it's hard for me to be away from my wife, but I'm

00:49:11in my 50s.

00:49:12I hadn't really considered how difficult this really could be for them.

00:49:25Hey, Fred. Hey, Dave. How you doing? Doing good, man. How are you?

00:49:30Hey, I wanted to kind of look at your pit. After his pay prospecting mission fails to find higher

00:49:36grade pay, Dave sets his sights on the production side of Fred's operation.

00:49:42This is all overburdened that we flipped back to here. Okay.

00:49:46There's some logistical things that I think I can help them with. I took a quick look at his pit.

00:49:52It looks pretty unorganized. You know, they shut down. Oh gosh, we're out of pay. So they go down and

00:49:57dig

00:49:58pay. And then they're like, all right, we got pay. Let's run. So I want to get them more efficient.

00:50:04Let me ask you something. How do you get your pay out of there to your wash plant?

00:50:09Um, so right now we ride, we ride an excavator. So we-

00:50:14It's almost three times. From pay to there, you'd swing it to there, swing it maybe four times?

00:50:21It's four. Yeah, probably four flips. The idea originally was to push it with the dozer. I haven't

00:50:26been able to build a road and run it. Why not right on here? This is really soft. I can

00:50:32make a road

00:50:33here. Just push this out of the way and get you a pretty decent road in here. Down into the

00:50:37cut,

00:50:38you mean? Yeah, to the cut. Oh wow. I love it. Yeah, that would be good. If you flip pay

00:50:45four times,

00:50:46it's a waste of fuel and it's a waste of, you know, sunshine. If I have a dozer, I think

00:50:52I could get a

00:50:53road to the wash plant that you can continually get pay from and then he's good to go. So give

00:51:00me a

00:51:00day and I think I can get it done. Dave's plan? Use a bulldozer to build a road from the

00:51:06wash plant

00:51:07to Fred's cut. This will allow Fred and the boys to push pay seamlessly at 300 yards from cut to

00:51:15plant

00:51:16in one move, eliminating the need for the excavator. But Fred's D9 is still out of commission. Dave's plan's

00:51:26exciting. It's good. I like it. You know, he's got a whole lot more experience than I do. The dozer

00:51:30breaks constantly is really the problem. I think we're on day three or four. I don't even remember

00:51:37right now. How's it going, kid? We've got a leak right on this third gasket. Isn't that one we

00:51:44just replaced? Yeah. Wait, is it leaking from here or is it leaking from here? That one. Oh shoot.

00:51:51Oh well, pull it back apart. There's nothing else we can do. It's important that we have this thing.

00:51:56Dave's got a new plan to push pay to the plant with it. But without this dozer, that plan can't

00:52:00happen.

00:52:08What we're going to do is we're going to take the crane truck over there, get these lifted up where

00:52:11we need them and get them in place. Dozer's still down. Dave helps Juan transport the finished plates

00:52:17for the podvins hopper. It's all hands on deck. We got to get these plates down there to the podvins.

00:52:23We got to get this in.

00:52:39The hopper is built originally too sharp. So the hopper basically will hang a rock up and then it

00:52:45gets a big mound in there and plugs it. So by doing this, it doesn't allow rocks to hang up

00:52:50in there.

00:52:51It's going to be awesome. Joining the fight is the podvins welder, Casey Stagno.

00:52:57Coming over you guys. Good. Coming down.

00:53:06We raised it about this high and then it gives him this much more room for material to sit in

00:53:13here.

00:53:14This is going to help keep rocks off the spray bar.

00:53:17Juan thought of that, protecting the spray bars. That's awesome because it's something we didn't

00:53:22even think of. It's better than I could imagine. They should fix the hopper pretty much 100%.

00:53:30Looks great, man. Thank you. You got a lot of welding to do, buddy. A lot of welding to do.

00:53:36Yep.

00:53:53Starting all the cuts on the podvins distribution chute. It's going to be a v-splitter. We're actually

00:53:58going to do four runs. There's only two days to go before the final test runs. In the race to

00:54:05fix two

00:54:05plants, Juan and the crew are hot on the build of the podvins large 10-foot distribution box. Right now,

00:54:13the way the plant's running, there's a big chance that they're losing a lot of the fine gold. Having

00:54:17more even feed across the whole box is going to help that. Material enters the 10-foot wide sluice at

00:54:27one

00:54:28point, flowing down the edge of the box. With no place to settle, gold is being lost out the end.

00:54:37To cope with the extra material through the plant and to recover more gold, Juan is building a

00:54:43distribution box with four down spouts, spreading the flow of material across the entire width of the

00:54:51sluice. Taking on two big builds in the same time that we normally do one build is hard enough,

00:54:57but we're coming out swinging. Ultimately, I know their plant's going to be better for what we're doing

00:55:02to it. Between the hopper and the distribution, it's going to be a whole other machine.

00:55:14Fire? Fire? What the ? There's a fire? Fire. Uh-oh. It is fire at the camp. At our camp?

00:55:23Do they need help?

00:55:25Come on, Zena. I got the water truck. In the arctic tundra summer, high winds plus dry brush creates a

00:55:34highly flammable mixture. Apparently, there's fire they had to race off right now. You know, these high winds with a

00:55:39fire,

00:55:40it's not good. We don't know how big this fire is. Let me. It's my machine.

00:55:52We got to snuff this all out. Yes, sir. Put dirt on top. Got it.

00:56:08There's a patch right there. There's patches right there. Alex.

00:56:16We're getting ready to flare back up over here.

00:56:27We got to shut it off or it's going to keep burning. In the Alaska double rescue, wildfire

00:56:33breaks out, threatening the miners' camps. When the wind's like this, I mean, if it were to get

00:56:38roaring, there'd be no stopping it. So they're going to come with the cat and spread all this

00:56:43dirt on top there to shut the air off because the wind is just firing the members right back up.

00:56:47Chuck, he's going to take the dozer and push all this dirt right over top.

00:56:52So it should smother it. Okay.

00:56:59Nice work, dude. Good job.

00:57:02This could have been catastrophic. It's blowing straight to our camp.

00:57:06We could have had a really bad situation. So we'll throw dirt over it. We should suffocate it.

00:57:12Good work, gentlemen. Go team. Absolutely. Teamwork makes the dream work.

00:57:15You got to come together under pressure. You got to do it. You know, we're a team, all of us.

00:57:20So

00:57:20it has to be that way or you don't make it out here. You did a great job, Matt. You

00:57:24went in there

00:57:24with the excavator. You're actually ripping it up, getting it all put out. Good work.

00:57:28Pretty good work, Matt. Nice work, boys. Good job.

00:57:32All right. Good job.

00:57:32Well, that was pretty scary. With community help, everybody jumping in, helping out, we got it out.

00:57:39Good job, bud. Thank you. All right.

00:57:41You can get a jump for you, too. You can get in that water pump.

00:57:43Yeah, we got that foot out, huh? All right. A little bit of everybody, I think. Oh, definitely.

00:57:57What's going on? A little surprise from Freddy just showed up.

00:58:00Really? Brand new table.

00:58:03Freddy came through. Sweet.

00:58:04Here you did. Here's the baby. Wow, nice.

00:58:08Could make life a little bit easier for you. Definitely.

00:58:11No more brushing. No more brushing. And your gold is at this end. You can look at it. It's bright

00:58:16and

00:58:17shiny. It's nice. Perfect. I'm excited to see it working.

00:58:22Okay. I'm clear. All right.

00:58:25Good, Dave. I like it. I think it's going to be a game changer. That's for sure.

00:58:31Since this thing's very heavy, I cut some inch and a half, two inch pipe. We put it on the

00:58:36ground,

00:58:36and we're going to use that as rollers, and we get it to roll in.

00:58:42You happy with it here? Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's a good place. Awesome.

00:58:52Full throttle.

00:58:56After days of blood, sweat, and oil. Come on, baby. You can do it.

00:59:04Bryan's hard work has paid off.

00:59:09Good job, Bryan. Thank you.

00:59:14That D9 is kind of a really important piece of equipment. It was definitely crucial to get that up

00:59:18and running. Bryan knocked it out of the park. You know, for a 20-year-old man to take that

00:59:22on and take

00:59:23it apart himself and put it back together, it's impressive.

00:59:26Feeling pretty good. The dozer's warming up. So far, no leaks.

00:59:35Nicely done, kid. Thanks. Nicely done. Very pleased.

00:59:42Couldn't be prouder of Bryan pulling this thing apart and putting it back together. He did a good job.

00:59:50We get Dave behind the controls, and we'll be able to see what old girl can do.

00:59:55D9 back in action. Dave begins his plan to maximize the Dickinson's production.

01:00:01So if I get him that road where he can push with the dozer, it's way more efficient than flipping

01:00:06his

01:00:06pay. Once he builds this road and starts ramping it up, it's going to be pretty easy for us to

01:00:11just push

01:00:12push from where the pay is over to the wash plant. It's going to be a whole lot faster than

01:00:17doing it

01:00:17with this excavator. So we're happy about it.

01:00:36Frozen ground. I'm sliding.

01:00:45I'm sliding.

01:00:53I mean, this is ice. It's permafrost, and I can't get up on here. I just slide off.

01:01:09It's his dozer. I don't want to break it.

01:01:13It's just solid ice, and sometimes it's like concrete.

01:01:23Permafrost, permanently frozen ground, blocks the path of Dave's new road.

01:01:28Well, good news and bad news.

01:01:30OK.

01:01:32Good news, Bryan, the engine's running good.

01:01:34Oh, good.

01:01:35So the bad news is that ground's frozen.

01:01:43And I did a couple slides on it.

01:01:45Oh, OK.

01:01:46And I just don't want to get on that ice and throw a track.

01:01:51OK.

01:01:51That's what scares me.

01:01:54Fred doesn't have a lot of options, and it's kind of desperate times.

01:02:10There's hundreds, hundreds of weld.

01:02:14While Dave devises a plan to overcome the ice, on the Podvin mine, Casey is 11 hours into welding

01:02:22hopper plates with no end in sight.

01:02:25This needs to be able to handle the rocks that are falling in, plus the excavator touching it.

01:02:30It's this three-quarter inch plate, so you're trying to get the weld all the way through.

01:02:34If you just put a little bit of weld on the outside, it'll snap.

01:02:38You know, through there, I had to go over it 10, 15 times.

01:02:41There's a lot of welding.

01:02:42Still going to be maybe three more passes here.

01:02:53I'm just trying to figure out a plan here.

01:02:56My dozer keeps slipping on that ice, but it's going to be difficult.

01:03:00In the Dickinson's Cut, Dave puzzles through his permafrost roadblock.

01:03:06If you could clean that up, pitch it up and back, I could probably get it.

01:03:11See if we can build a road around the ice, maybe.

01:03:13Yeah.

01:03:13You want me to try that?

01:03:14Yeah.

01:03:15All right, I think we've got a plan.

01:03:17The problem is, in the middle of my road is a big chunk of ice.

01:03:21With Fred's help on the excavator, I think I can maneuver around it.

01:03:27Let's go.

01:03:35Dave's plan is to use an excavator to reclaim the low area beside the frozen ground,

01:03:42using tailings and overburden, then build the road around the ice.

01:03:52Oh, , it's very frozen cellar.

01:03:57Mother Nature's trying to say she's mine.

01:04:02I'm going to politely disagree.

01:04:13Coming up.

01:04:15As Dave and Fred battle the ice, Juan presses ahead with the installation of Fred's new distribution box.

01:04:24So we've got the splitter chute all built.

01:04:26What we're going to do, we already cut that existing chute off.

01:04:29We're going to make this up to that base right there and get it welded in.

01:04:33Lower that down a little bit, Alex.

01:04:36That box isn't square.

01:04:39They look right on edge there.

01:04:41If I push down on mine, I might be able to get it.

01:04:44I wonder if we can suck this in.

01:04:46Probably not.

01:04:46So I've got a full quarter-inch to three-eighths gap on the top.

01:04:56It's in.

01:04:56It's just, we've got a big-ass gap now.

01:04:59I'm terrible.

01:05:02losing my mind.

01:05:17Go get me some mild steel trap from up top.

01:05:20A couple of scraps so we can cut some of these angles out, please.

01:05:23Okay.

01:05:25On the final day of fixes in Boulder Creek, Juan hits a snag on the Dickinson's wash plant,

01:05:31just hours out from the second test runs.

01:05:36We're going to have to make some adjustment over here.

01:05:39You know, it fit really good, but I didn't realize that that chute as it went further in,

01:05:44it wasn't square, so now we're going to have to make a little bit of a filler piece,

01:05:48which is not the end of the world, but we'll get it.

01:05:50It just takes a little longer.

01:05:56This is not exactly how we wanted it, but it's what we got to do to make it work.

01:06:03Travi, can you give me more 60-10?

01:06:05You know, it's something we have to do in the field.

01:06:06We just have to adapt, make a little filler plate, but it's just part of it.

01:06:10It's just part of it.

01:06:11While Juan finishes the distribution chute installed.

01:06:16Despite a few obstacles, this plan's coming together.

01:06:19Fred and Dave make inroads in the cut.

01:06:25It's starting to come together with him flipping overburden.

01:06:29If we get that dozer in here, I think I can get it done.

01:06:34If we get that dozer in here, I think I can get it done.

01:06:35Low ground, now packed with overburden.

01:06:38Dave attempts to push past the ice.

01:06:53Dave attempts to push past the ice.

01:07:01It's working.

01:07:10Ice bypass, Dave completes his new pay highway.

01:07:19So I'm about ready to turn around and start pushing pay.

01:07:27It's starting to get up to a lot of plants, so we can start to look up.

01:07:40Yeah, so it's looking good right now.

01:07:51It's a lot more organized.

01:07:52You got an excavator feeding?

01:07:54Dozer feeding the excavator.

01:07:57They're in business.

01:08:08All major fixes now complete at the Dickensons.

01:08:12We're just finishing up the splitter.

01:08:14Juan turns his attention to the Podvin's larger chute.

01:08:19We're actually going to split it four ways.

01:08:21The material coming off the bottom of the trommel is going to hit this.

01:08:25It'll split twice, and then once it comes down each side, it'll split again.

01:08:30So that way it actually evenly splits to four different parts.

01:08:34They'll be able to run more material, and they'll be able to sluice it more efficiently.

01:08:38Done?

01:08:40I think it's great.

01:08:41I'm excited to see it finished up.

01:08:43I think it's going to be awesome.

01:08:45Coming up!

01:08:47Final welds made, Juan races to get the splitter installed.

01:08:52Trying to do two plants at the same time with the same amount of time is really difficult.

01:08:57It's been a long build, but it's getting there.

01:09:00Up above, welder Casey works on the final beads on the hopper.

01:09:05About two days and about 22 hours worth of welding.

01:09:09This is the last weld.

01:09:15All right, that's done.

01:09:17They're in.

01:09:23It's done.

01:09:25Good job.

01:09:25Thanks, buddy.

01:09:26It should be good.

01:09:27You know, in that hopper, it really should be able to get that material flowing the way

01:09:31they want it.

01:09:31I agree.

01:09:32Instead of getting stuck, you know, it should flow on its own.

01:09:35They get up to 200 yards an hour.

01:09:36Now I think the sluice blocks is going to accept it.

01:09:39Oh yeah, yeah.

01:09:40It looks good.

01:09:40I'm happy with it.

01:09:50Perfect.

01:09:51Let's flip it on and just see if everything's working.

01:09:54Back at the Podvin workshop, Dave gives a crash course for the new gold table.

01:09:59Pump's working.

01:10:00Got a nice bump to it.

01:10:03Hi, guys.

01:10:04Hi, you guys.

01:10:05Eric.

01:10:06Look at that.

01:10:07There's your new table.

01:10:09Do you guys have any cons or something that we could run across this table?

01:10:13We've got our tailings off of what we used to do, off our old table.

01:10:17Let's give it a try.

01:10:18Yeah.

01:10:21Now you're cleaning up, though.

01:10:23Crazy.

01:10:24Sure beats painting the table with a paintbrush.

01:10:27I know, right?

01:10:28That's impressive.

01:10:30That is very impressive.

01:10:31So you're just really walking around in circles and adjusting instead of brushing for three,

01:10:35four days.

01:10:36Maybe an hour.

01:10:37Oh.

01:10:40I am impressed with that.

01:10:42A lot more time for Eric and Liva and everyone else to spend more time doing other things around

01:10:48the mine.

01:10:49Wow.

01:10:49It was really fun to see Darryl, Liva, and Eric see what that gold table can do.

01:10:55And it's kind of a game changer because it takes so much less time to do your cleanups.

01:11:02And Darryl gets it because now his time can be better spent doing something else.

01:11:10It's down to the wire on both operations.

01:11:15And at the Dickinson's wash plant, Juan races to build the plumbing system for the new hopper jet.

01:11:23All they had for water was this little spray bar.

01:11:26So by adding that jet, we're going to introduce more water, but also be able to control the feed.

01:11:32The team had a new six-inch pipe diverting water from the existing system up to the hopper jet.

01:11:40That's the final wall for the tube.

01:11:42We're going to move as quick as we can right now.

01:11:44We still got miles to go, but hopefully we can start a test run soon.

01:11:51There's never enough hours in a day.

01:11:53There really isn't.

01:11:55Josh, you're going to get burnt a little bit.

01:11:56You're going to be OK, though.

01:11:57You'll survive.

01:11:58Yeah, right.

01:12:05I'm laying out the deflector for the back of the hopper.

01:12:09This is going to deflect the water from going straight out to down and actually hit the pan,

01:12:12so that way you push the material in.

01:12:14As Juan wraps up the water fix.

01:12:17Come on, big boy.

01:12:18Let's go.

01:12:19Dave and Josh install the finishing touches to the shaker system.

01:12:24These are the counterweights.

01:12:26We're going to put these on to give more violent shake so that it actually throws the rock up.

01:12:36I do not want these to come off, trust me.

01:12:39All right.

01:12:40Everybody's working hard now.

01:12:41We got Alex and Travis and Juan's up above.

01:12:44We've got Brian, me.

01:12:47Fred's going to set a pump.

01:12:49Juan's just about got the water jet in the back and the feeder.

01:12:52That way we can run the test run.

01:12:54I think we're very close.

01:12:55What this does, when the water hits the back of this, it'll push it forward.

01:12:59It's going to actually wash down this plate.

01:13:02We're going to call that good.

01:13:03It's done.

01:13:04It's in.

01:13:05It's all welded in.

01:13:06All plumbed in.

01:13:07We're ready to go.

01:13:10Both plants are now finished.

01:13:12With daylight fading, Juan and Dave must complete two test runs to be sure their fixes are working.

01:13:21It's been a long haul.

01:13:22You know, trying to take on two plants of this size with the same time, it's tough.

01:13:26And we're running out of daylight.

01:13:27Oh, I know.

01:13:27And his season's getting close to the end.

01:13:29Yeah.

01:13:30Well, hopefully these fixes are going to be a big enough improvement for him so he can make up the

01:13:33time.

01:13:35Fire it up, kid.

01:13:45We ready?

01:13:49First bucket.

01:13:50All right.

01:13:51We're starting the timer right now.

01:14:01Take a look at the box.

01:14:03Oh, it's flowing way better.

01:14:07I like that vibration.

01:14:08I think you sped it up, plus your water jet.

01:14:11Not only that, now with that punch plate not being square, it's not getting hung up.

01:14:16Plus we're smaller openings.

01:14:18They're going to add more yards per hour.

01:14:21Yeah, they're going to be rocking and rolling more than they think.

01:14:26Looks good.

01:14:27Looks real good.

01:14:28I like that flow.

01:14:30Pretty evenly matched, Juan.

01:14:32They really are.

01:14:34That distribution actually looks pretty darn good.

01:14:37With the Dickinson's second test underway, Juan and Dave head to fire up the Podvins operation.

01:14:46That doesn't look good, Dave.

01:14:48What's that about?

01:14:49I don't know.

01:14:50Look.

01:14:51Chain drives down.

01:14:55What's going on, guys?

01:14:56What's happening here?

01:14:58We moved the motor.

01:15:14So you pulled it down?

01:15:16Pulled it down from underneath it, put it up on the side.

01:15:19Worried about their drive system, the Podvins have pulled the plug on their second test run.

01:15:25We had a legit concern that with their fixes up there, I really think they're going to push 200

01:15:31yards an hour of material in that drum. On the flip side of that, it might work too good for

01:15:36our

01:15:36drive system. So someone's got to do the next step. Get a little more chain wrapped around it.

01:15:41Yeah, a little more traction on the drive sprocket.

01:15:43Yeah.

01:15:44Once it's getting more material fed into it and up in that production, that's going to be our next

01:15:49spot.

01:15:52You know, it's a little tough. You know, we did a lot of work on this plant. We wanted to

01:15:55see it run.

01:15:56Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to stay here to watch it run. The truth is,

01:15:59I have to be another mine in a couple of days. So I got to get going. There's always a

01:16:05little bit of

01:16:05a worry, even with my calculations and everything else and the yardage they're going to be running

01:16:09and the water flows. But until you actually see it run, sometimes you don't know. You know,

01:16:15so I am a little nervous about that. But regardless, I know what we did here is going to help

01:16:18them

01:16:25tremendously. Slow down. Slow down. Two hours into the test run at the Dickinson mine.

01:16:33You're running over 110 yards an hour right now. Won't do it.

01:16:38Josh runs double the yardage from the first test.

01:16:42All I see is that deck and that deck is empty.

01:16:47He's overfeeding it. We're running over 100 yards an hour right now.

01:16:50There's nothing on that deck right now.

01:16:53He's doing a bucket every 28 seconds.

01:16:57Taking it though. Here, we're good. Settling out down here is good.

01:17:02Pick it up. Pick up the pace, man. I would. Run it.

01:17:08All right, Josh. See what you'll take.

01:17:16It's crazy.

01:17:18They're running out of pay. Dave jumps back in the dozer to keep the plant fed from his pay highway.

01:17:25The dozer Dave on my dozer is pretty awesome.

01:17:32More yardage, more gold. So we're going to have to kind of feel it out and see. It's kind of

01:17:37like going

01:17:38from a V6 to a Ferrari. We can do 10 hours of work in five hours. That's insanity.

01:17:47That doubles our profit. This is really fantastic.

01:17:52Hey, Fred. Hey, that's four hours. Let's shut it down.

01:17:56All right, let's do it.

01:17:58All right, Josh. Last bucket, kiddo. Last bucket.

01:18:03All right, shut her down, buddy.

01:18:16There you go. Yeah, there's a little gold in there. Look at that one.

01:18:20They're deep in the mats. They're right there. There's some big pieces. Check this one out.

01:18:24You're on some gold. Oh, yeah. Contrary to popular belief,

01:18:27there is some gold in Boulder Creek. It's looking pretty good, you guys.

01:18:31It's kind of late now. Why don't we clean it up in the morning and see what we got?

01:18:34Let's do a Goldway. Yeah, let's do it.

01:18:38Damn. He ran what we'd normally run in about eight hours in four hours.

01:18:43So I couldn't be happier. It means a lot. It's going to be good.

01:18:59Hey, everyone. It's a good run. Hey. How are we doing?

01:19:02We got the whole crew here. Everyone's here. Perfect.

01:19:05Six days of hardcore effort across two claims,

01:19:09the families come together to see the results on the Dickensons' operation.

01:19:14Oh, it's the moment of truth. You got the gold?

01:19:18I do, and it looks pretty substantial, dude. Whoa.

01:19:21That doesn't look terrible for four hours. No.

01:19:23Well, you know, it really looks like, you know,

01:19:26we're catching a lot of that fine gold. But honestly,

01:19:28we ran a lot more material during that test run.

01:19:31It was huge, yeah. Closer to 100 yards an hour on average.

01:19:34Well, let's weigh it up, huh? You know, during the first test run,

01:19:37we were .94. Let's see what this is.

01:19:43There's .93. 1.96. A little over what you did last time.

01:19:49There's still more. Yeah.

01:19:51A little more. Oh, . Tap, tap, tap.

01:19:562.64. Huge increase.

01:19:59That's almost two and a half times. Yeah, nearly two and a half times.

01:20:012.64 ounces. A 180% increase on their first run.

01:20:10That is really good. That's dang good.

01:20:12That's over half an ounce an hour, which is what we're looking for right there.

01:20:15Absolutely. You know, if this isn't a motivator, I don't know what's going to be.

01:20:19Oh, no. You know, this should be a motivator to say,

01:20:20hey, you know what? This is what we really can produce. Let's rock and roll.

01:20:23That's a game changer for us. We really appreciate it. Oh, gosh, yeah.

01:20:25Well, you know, it's a shame that we weren't able to watch you guys' plant run.

01:20:29But when you guys get running, please let us know how that goes.

01:20:32Absolutely. I really think it's going to make a huge improvement.

01:20:34Send us a video. Let us know how it's going.

01:20:36We will do that. We'll do it.

01:20:37Please. We'll do it. We'll do it.

01:20:39We don't see any reason that ain't going to get us screaming material through that.

01:20:43Thank you so much for everything you've done.

01:20:45Both of you guys. Likewise. Thank you.

01:20:46Appreciate it. Thanks for the opportunity.

01:20:49Yeah, appreciate you guys. Yeah.

01:20:51Here's your gold, Fred. Thank you, sir.

01:20:53Right on. Nice work.

01:20:54Thank you, everyone. You know, honestly, it was a pleasure working with you guys.

01:20:58We better get on the road. Thank you guys all.

01:20:59Hey, great working with you. Likewise.

01:21:01Thank you. Hey, thank you.

01:21:02Appreciate it, man. Good to see you, Vaughn.

01:21:05This is huge.

01:21:06I knew they would increase our production, but I had no idea it was going to be that profound.

01:21:11When Juan and Dave got here, it wasn't looking very good for us.

01:21:14But seeing this the way that it is, and if we can finish this season the way I think we

01:21:19can,

01:21:20the boys have a future here on this mine. We can keep going.

01:21:22And when I get tired of mining, I want to be able to turn the keys over to them and

01:21:26say,

01:21:26hey, you guys, just keep doing what you're doing. Now we can do that. Honestly, I feel like we've got

01:21:31this.

01:21:32I'm very excited about the fixes they've made. I think it's going to be absolutely awesome.

01:21:38When they brought up the idea of changing the sluice box, I wasn't too keen on it.

01:21:43Hey, I'm allowed to be wrong once a year.

01:21:47I'm excited for these guys. It really does warm the heart because we all work together,

01:21:51and that's what it's all about. It's community and miners helping each other out.

01:22:05Hi, Juan and Dave. This is Darrell. We'll see if the wind good.

01:22:08We sluiced through, I don't even know how many acres, but we did it in a hurry. That wash plant's

01:22:13doing

01:22:13over 200 yards an hour exactly how we wanted it to. And thank you guys for all your help with

01:22:18it.

01:22:20Everything on the hopper is phenomenal. It's working great. Matthew can stuff a full bucket in

01:22:25and it just eats it. Our first thing up was 95 ounces. That was the best that we've ever had.

01:22:33We just got just over 500 ounces. That's huge.

01:22:37We're very excited for years to come and what that thing's going to do.

01:22:41It's awesome. It's awesome to have this dream come true.

01:22:49Hey, Juan and Dave. Fred Dickinson here. Just wanted to let you know that we're doing great.

01:22:55We're getting to the end of the season. As you can see, there's snow up on the mountain.

01:22:59We're doing pretty well out here. A little late in the season, but we're going to keep mining.

01:23:07There's our road up to the wash plant. There's our cut. You can see quite a bit of it's missing

01:23:12now.

01:23:21Sorry about the noise in the background. Brian's ready to run.

01:23:24All right. Thanks again, guys. We'll see you later.

Gold Rush: Mine Rescue S06E08: The Fix That Almost Wasn't | Discovery Channel 2026

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