[vernon] we got a blizzard blowing this morning.
It's just another hurdle. I mean, it's one thing after another.
[narrator] one storm is passing.
But another one, is set to roll in,
as captain vernon adkinson starts his ice-mining season.
Just about ready to get out on the ice.
I'm going down here to take a look
and see what the ice looks like,
to make sure that we'll be able to pull our gear out there.
We chose to start the season a couple of days late
because of the big storm that passed through.
Now there's already another one setting to strike.
The whole damn winter probably going to be this way.
But we can't wait any longer. I got big plans for this season,
so we need to get a move on.
[narrator] this summer, vernon's big gamble,
buying claim 56 paid off big.
[man] I'm seeing gold, ver.
That's the stuff of dreams, my friend.
[narrator] now, this winter, as he heads back to his cash cow,
he's aiming for the biggest season haul of his career.
We're basically using the same rig as we use last
winter, except we've made lot of improvements.
Every single beat we've set for an eight inch
versus what we were using last winter was a six inch.
We've put twice the material through the box.
I'm thinking based on the fact that our gear is so much better,
plus the fact that we know where the gold is,
there's a possibility that we could get up to 200 ounces.
The spot we were working the end of the summer is about a half a mile
out on the ice, to the south.
And it's a spot we were marked as super gold on our chart.
We got some really good gold there.
We have the coordinates where we found absolutely killer gold.
We're ready to go.
We got to pull these two units out first.
In winter, you can't go willy-nilly and mine anywhere.
You got to find a spot that's got the right ice conditions
and has gold underneath.
Right now, we're behind the curve.
Starting late with another storm on the way.
There's no room for error. We got to get on it.
We got to get on it, quick.
This is damn near perfect.
A wide, wide expanse of flat ice.
Right there, underneath that.
It's super gold.
Okay, let's drop that camera.
See if we can see any gold down there.
All right, we're coming into sight. Come up a little bit.
Back and forth. No, not down.
Little bit more down.
All right, hold it.
Take a look at this, gary.
What does that look like?
Cobble, there it is.
-[man] now, that looks good. -[man 2] it does, doesn't it?
-[man] look at how the rocks are laying. -[man 2] yeah.
We're right on top of it.
Looks good, man.
This is the sweet spot. Smooth ice. Good cobble.
And, right where we hit some major gold, last summer.
Even the thickness of the ice is perfect.
About three and a half feet.
I couldn't ask for anything better.
In addition to improving our setup, my ice team is second to none.
My top guy from last summer, gary is suiting up again.
I'll going into that hole, working the bottom.
That's where I prefer to be.
And then the ace up my sleeve, gary panos also is back.
He's been the rock star of the operation for years.
[gary] getting diver down.
I'm going to make some money today.
Well, that's the game plan, you know?
As long as we can stay ahead of mother nature,
everything ought to be coming up vernon.
All right, water is flowing.
[vernon] I've got to put going down first.
Ice mining is dangerous as hell.
So much can go wrong.
So, I want my best man, my strongest man, gary panos on top
keeping an eye on the operation.
[diver] first dive of the season, boys.
I'm glad to be back down here.
[gary] how's it going down there?
[diver] yeah, good, good.
I just want to look around a little bit.
Hey, gary, does it look like that ground has been mined already?
[diver] oh, definitely not. No.
[vernon] okay, does it remind you of where we were last summer?
You think it's the same type of material?
[diver] it looks like the same type of material.
When we were on super gold, right now, I'm just trying to get down to the clay.
Clay layer, then we go from there.
[vernon] yeah, okay.
[diver] boy, this stuff looks good down here.
Yeah, there's gold.
[vernon] I see it, I see it.
Yeah, yeah, that's nice.
[diver] there's more gold. Hey, baby.
[vernon] I want to get into what we were seeing last year
when it was just flowing into the nozzle.
[diver] I can see gold into the nozzle, so that is a good sign, right?
[vernon] it is.
[diver] feels great man. Warm down here, perfect.
I mean everything is good.
[vernon] all right, all right.
This is the way to start the season.
We're going to stay on this spot as long as we can.
And get as much gold we possibly can, before the next storm hits.
Mother nature is going to have to drag us away, kicking and screaming.
[diver] couple little pieces, right there.
[vernon] all right. That's what I want to hear gary.
So, fingers crossed, knocking on wood,
we'll make a good a payday.
[narrator] seven-miles west...
[shawn] it is cold.
Whoo, it is 20 below...
[narrator] despite the arctic conditions...
Storm just blew through.
We're back on our way out.
[narrator] shawn pomrenke is back on his quest, to find a pot of gold
on an ancient river bed.
At 20 below just keeping things running is...
It's a struggle.
Hopefully, the generator fires right up.
Then we ought to get water flowing.
Pump running. Air compressor running.
I'm looking for something almost mythical.
I'm looking for that jackpot on that ancient riverbed on the tomcod.
There's hints of it, from the material I'm seeing.
Now, that it's winter, I can actually get down on the bottom
and put my eyes on the gold and follow it.
I'm going to find that motherlode, whether it's 20 below or not.
Today, we're going to get some gold.
I've a good feeling about this haul.
The harder it is to get, the better the gold is going to be.
I can feel it in my bones.
Need a 120 ounces to make my payments this season.
I have the tomcod payment. The upgrades to the myrtle. And the inland mine.
Just as soon as we got started ice-mining,
we got hit with the worst blizzard I've ever seen.
We got absolutely dumped on. And it's supposed to be like this all winter.
They're predicting this to be the worst winter of 100 years.
But that doesn't stop the bills from coming.
Everything came out.
Worked out perfect.
Nothing in the snow grips, anymore, till the next storm.
Last time on, I cleaned up this hole.
So, we're going to go ahead, cut a new whole and follow this pastry.
Hopefully, that's where the jackpot is.
I'm going to get changed outside, 20 below.
[bleep]
hot water is working great.
Get the air compressor fired up, then we're in business.
I'm going to go down lose, some of my covid weight.
[laughs]
all righty, how's it feeling?
Air is good, water is good?
Booyah.
[shawn] you know, it's good to be back under the ice.
Yeah, this cold is just another ten variables.
[man] how you doing down there shawn?
[shawn] doing good. Just making my way down to the bottom.
Pretty dark down here.
I'm at the nozzle now.
He's liking what he's seeing.
He likes it, I'm happy.
[shawn]
[laughs]
there's a lot of magnetite, lot of iron, iron is the horse the gold rode in on.
So, we found the horse, now we just need to find the rider.
[shawn speaking]
sounds like he's seeing a little gold down there.
[shawn speaking]
[narrator] one blizzard may have passed.
But just 30 miles outside of town,
another one is quickly gathering strength.
Chris, I'm going to follow you. Your trail is what I need.
[narrator] as more harsh weather looms.
Kris kelly, is racing to finally get on the ice.
We really try to do this professional.
You know, proper, commercial grade.
Now we have to do, what we have to do.
This is what we're good at though. Making it get done.
Plan is, chris is going to pull my sleuth box down.
I'm going to pull my sled.
I have made this speed before but not with this snow machine.
I hope it works out.
This summer was a disaster.
So, I'm placing this winter to make up for it.
I went into huge debt buying a top-of-the-line operation.
I have no time to wait around.
You know, I'm freezing right now.
I gotta put my damn snow pants on, cold.
Oh, it's really cold.
-[chris] get it done. -Okay buddy, come on. Let's rock and roll.
Yeah, baby. Yeah.
Oh, [bleep].
[screams]
[bleep]
[screams]
[scream]
[kris] this snow machine I have, has no business
towing anything out on the ice.
But, I'm a little desperate.
I'll try anything right now cause I'm feeling the pressure.
I owe $15,000 and I'm not even on the ice yet.
Everything is going to [bleep] today.
[narrator] two-miles west...
The snow looks like it's setting up nicely,
[narrator] the brothers tenhoff are hoping to stay, one step ahead
of mother nature.
The blizzard started. We were unable to actually pull anything to shore at all.
We should go dig out a hole and dig out all that stuff and open the hole back up.
Let's good to dig them out.
Stormy.
[stormy barking]
[zeke] this last storm really worked us over.
We were off to a good start, but we had to bail because of the blizzard.
Now, we have to dig a whole operation out of the snow.
And we got to do it fast
because there is another storm right around the corner.
This winter is going to be brutal. I can tell.
And I need to be up to the challenge.
[zeke] well,
dive pool's there.
This is one night's worth of snow.
[gabe] well, nothing blew away.
That's a good sign.
We have to move this entire snow drift.
-[zeke] earning my money today. -Yeah.
[zeke] gotta get after it, you know.
[gabe] I'll start on this side, I guess.
Okay.
Glad the ice didn't go out.
Because we didn't lose any gear. It's all still here.
If I get everything running today, I'm going to go under water and...
I just want to go and smash out a bunch of more hours.
Move as much ground as I can
before we move.
Dig stormy, dig.
Last summer, I spent the whole season building a sailboat, right?
It was cool but I didn't get a whole lot of gold.
This winter isn't going a whole lot better.
Realistically, I need at least eight ounces out of this winter,
just to keep my summer time operation going forward.
I'm beginning to wonder if getting back into
ice-dredging was the right call.
That's the question that I've got to answer this season.
I think, we still got to clear more snow.
[gabe] sometimes, that's what you got to do.
Pizza delivery.
-[stormy howling happily] -[steve] hey.
[zeke] hi, steve, how's it going?
I'm hungry too.
[zeke] here you go, man. Thanks for the pizza.
Yeah man, oranges too.
Oh, baby.
Oh, my god, shrimp.
You know, I was thinking of you guys out here,
and I'm thinking, "maybe they don't have food."
and they're burning energy because the big snow storm left a ton of snow everywhere.
So, I came out with pizza.
-[zeke] this is so good. -Yes. This is amazing.
The deal with zeke is, I get a slice of every gold he gets.
I don't know how to put this.
So far he's got diddly squat.
But I'm a team player.
I have faith that this will way off,
eventually.
The price of pizza in nome, was not cheap.
I got a receipt here.
[gabe] we'll pay you back.
Oh no no, this is part of being on the crew here.
[steve] a large pizza in nome is $38.
Plus tip. I counted up the slices.
I paid five bucks a slice for this pizza.
If I can clean up some gold, then we'll have money.
We can go from there.
I appreciate you bringing it up for us.
[chuckles] this'll keep us going.
Super cool that steve showed up with some pizza for us.
We were hungry.
I hope that we can get enough gold to justify keeping steve around.
For now, if he is going to bring pizza out here, I'll take it.
Made me thirsty, too.
Stormy!
You are so busted.
He got into the box of pizza.
-Oh, he was go for it. -[gabe] oh yeah, he got all of it.
Come here, stormy.
[zeke] stormy!
[narrator] another blizzard creeps ever closer to nome.
But just outside of town...
[narrator] the kellys are determined to get to the promised land.
We get her from the icy grave, go beyond the ice today.
[narrator] so, they turn to their pal, diesel don
and his track truck.
[kris] so, right now the plan's simple.
We'll take this out.
And hopefully, we'll get this dealt today pull my sleds to the water.
Because I got to get it in the water, man.
I got to get there.
We're going to use diesel don's track truck.
The problem is, it's under, like, seven-feet of snow.
This is a huge pain the ass, waste of time,
but if this is what I have to do to make it work,
then this is what we're going to do.
[kris] push it.
Come on, baby.
Yeah!
Yeah! Ha!
Oh man, I feel much better. I was a little whiny, five minutes ago, but I'm back.
You said, the shows about to begin.
[kris] let's get going.
The day is not over yet.
And we're not done yet.
Dad, you take the suction nozzle.
I'll take the pump shack.
Whatever happens, let's just keep going until we make this work.
[kris] right now, I've got too much crap for don to take out.
I'm going to have to all haul something.
It just has to get out there in one piece,
which I think we'll be able to handle.
[brad] what the [bleep].
Hey!
Dad just snapped off about eight feet of my suction hose.
Not only did that cost me a lot of money.
But I really needed those eight extra feet.
It could get us through the router and get us more gold.
This is only going to make things harder. And everything sucks already.
Thanks, dad.
We broke the suction hose.
But, you know what, I just have to get there.
And hope to god, everything is going to be fine.
I just hope my machine makes it there.
And we're out here. Whoa! We're here.
[kris] hey, it wasn't the prettiest job. But our stuff's on the ice.
Are we behind? Yes.
Is that bad? Yes.
Did we need that hose? Hell, yes.
But right now, I just got to focus on the task at hand.
Setting up our operation and getting some gold.
You know, the beauty about being me,
is I don't remember all the bad [bleep] that happens to me.
You know, that's why I'm always in a good mood.
[bleep]
[kris] you know, I don't know what else to say.
Ignorance is bliss.
[narrator] one mile west...
How's everything going?
[shawn speaking]
oh, yeah.
[narrator] in sub-zero conditions,
shawn pomrenke's hot on the trail of a golden jackpot.
[shawn speaking]
[narrator] he's leaving no stone unturned.
[shawn speaking]
it's likely that the gold is around those bigger rocks.
[shawn speaking]
be right back.
[joe] all right, how's that, shawn?
[shawn speaking]
[joe] hell, yeah.
[shawn speaking]
on to the next hole, eh?
[shawn speaking]
with all these winter storms coming in on top of each other,
we got to move fast to stay ahead of them.
You never know when the next one's going to hit.
Maybe we clean up this area.
-See what's here? -Maybe I got old eyes, joe.
My eyes getting old. Maybe I just can't see the gold anymore.
-I think so. -The cleanup will...
-Clean up will save everything. -[chuckling] yeah.
I'm going to wrap up this and wait for the storm to pass
because I don't want everything to get buried again.
But I'm feeling good about it.
I feel like, we're right on track to get that jackpot.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
[narrator] six miles east...
[zeke] it needs to warm up.
Trying to get this tether blown out.
All the air... All the water blown out, before it freezes off.
It turns out when it's this cold,
really hard to make a lot of hot water.
It's a cold winter.
[narrator] despite early signs of the coming blizzard...
[zeke] we got a big storm coming in.
So, I'm going to dive for as long as I have energy to do it today.
[narrator] zeke tenhoff's making the call to push ahead with the dive.
It's just one thing after another, this cold weather.
It's not ideal to be exhausting yourself,
moving giant piles of snow by hand.
And then to have to dive just right before another big storm is supposed to hit...
But you know, I don't really have a choice here.
At least that's how I see it.
I'm a gold miner. That's who I am.
And I need gold. And I need badly.
[gabe] we're going to tie zeke off a safety line
that he can see, it's bright red.
If anything happens, he's got a line right through the hole.
So I'm going to dive. That's what's going to happen today.
[steve] it's pretty nasty.
But we're going for it.
[zeke] here we go. Here we go!
All right, it's beautiful down here today.
Wonderful, I'm so happy to be home.
It's all clear.
[steve] what you got going there, zeke?
[zeke] there's no stress out here at all.
Everything's perfect down here.
I like the ground.
Just any cobble...
That I'm seeing, uh...
Yeah, money!
[screams excitedly]
[zeke] I really appreciate you guys sticking with me.
It makes me so happy that we were able to accomplish this today.
Yeah, there was grind getting him down there.
I just wanna, like, put in a bunch of hours
and just move all of this stuff that's mounted up.
There's a big storm coming in so we got to get some gold
and get out of here before the storm comes.
Yeah.
[zeke] just do a hole right there.
All right.
[narrator] the next storm is looming.
[kris] it was really rough getting out here.
But you know what, that's why we had to push through.
So, we can get out here today and kill it.
Fingers crossed.
[narrator] and kris is rushing to set up camp before it strikes.
Get our ice box, we dunk it under the water and push it under the ice.
[kris] we're behind.
The very least, we need the operation set up, a dive pool ready
and everything tied down.
It's embarrassing we're only at this stage.
But at this point, we just need to hustle and get this done.
So, this is like an ice-cube in a drink, except it's really big.
We, all together, need to push it
underneath the shack, that way.
-You guys got it? -[man] got it, yeah.
[kris] four corners, four people, let's go.
Oh come on. Don't come back up.
Well, I don't like that.
I don't know where it went to.
Did it already go?
I don't know. That was the easiest chunk I've ever done.
Hey, one chunk down.
This is done. That's done.
[man] careful, get--
-come on. -[bleep] my foot's wedged, too.
-Hold on. I got find the [bleep] before... -How did he find the hole?
Stupid is. Stupid does.
-[brad] I knew you were going to fall. -[bleep] you.
-[bleep] -[brad] you followed me here. Come on.
[bleep] you again.
As you can see, it's slightly dangerous.
Tip of the week, don't fall in the hole.
Just in case, you don't know that.
Maybe we should have a "kris' guide to mining" right now.
[all laugh]
always bring extra socks for kris.
Because he'll find the hole, no matter what.
[laughs]
[kris] good job, everybody.
I wish I could get a dive in today.
But there's no way we're going to pull that off before this storm hits.
But we're set to hit the ground running with this killer gear.
So I'm going to call today a victory.
Now, we're back on track.
[narrator] as the kellys head in...
The storm has reached nome's coastline.
Two miles west...
Hey, bud. I heard we're onto something good. Tell me about it.
[zeke] the gold here is looking really consistent.
I'm stoked.
[narrator] zeke tenhoff, is still under the ice.
I want to try to like, ridge it for a while,
before the storm hits.
[steve] you might as well pound it as hard as possible, until we got to leave.
[zeke] that I can do.
It's what god put me here for.
It's [bleep] now. It's just going to get worse here soon.
-It's getting nasty out here. -[zeke] yeah, I'm...
Well, yeah. [bleep].
Get your little ass up top.
Back into the cold.
Zeke put in a few hours. He's coming up. We're getting out of here.
I'm proud of us for pushing as hard as we did today.
It's horrible up here.
We got a few hours of diving in, before the storm rolled in.
But, honestly, like, this is not going to cut it.
We need a major sea change. And we need it to happen soon.
I'm ready to go home.
-It's cold. -Yeah, let's get out of here. Let's go home.
[narrator] four miles east...
One team has yet to call it quits.
[vernon] okay. Gary, everything working down there? You seeing some good pieces?
[diver] yeah, there's about 12 of them right here.
Look there's a bunch more, right there.
Hell, we might be on, better than super gold, you never know.
All right, buddy.
We were hoping to start the season out right.
And hell, yeah.
The gold is rolling in.
[diver] look at that gold, look at it. Whoo!
I think, we're going to do really good here.
I want 200 ounces this winter, and I'm pushing as hard as I can.
When we're on gold like this, come to daddy.
Gold daddy.
What the hell is it doing?
[bleep]. It's storming.
We got to go.
We got to go. We go to go.
Gary, I'm calling it. We're going to pull you.
We got a big blow coming in. The weather just changed.
All of a sudden we got a damn mini blizzard blowing out there.
[gary] coming up.
We need to get everything shut down,
blown out for good.
And get on shore while we still can.
Definitely nasty out. Here comes the big storm.
It is what it is.
We're able to see may be 30-yards.
And that's about it.
Hey, guys, time to shut it down.
Better safe than sorry.
It's terrible.
Sun was shining earlier, wasn't it?
An hour ago?
You want it right here? Right here?
-Which exact point-- -[producer] right over the hole there.
And hood up or down?
-[cameraman] already on a roll. -Okay, whatever.
Bam! Let's do it.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of "kris kelly secret guide to successful mining."
today, we're going to be talking about blizzards.
And how much of a pain in the ass they are.
We're not snow removal professionals, but in this industry, yes you are.
Today, I'm going to bring in my sexy assistant, andy.
And he's going to be taking care of all the snow removal,
while I stand there and "supervise" the situation.
Come on. It's your [bleep] cue.
Thank god, we can edit this.
[cameraman] is there any, like, special technique to removing snow around?
No.
So, as you can tell, andy moves a lot of snow very fast.
Andy understands that we don't make any money moving snow.
I'm almost done.
[cameraman] so, what else can you say about...
Not a [bleep] thing. Can't say [bleep] more about snow removal.
Everybody has done it at home. If you haven't seen it at home you've seen it in the movies.
There you go. Come on.
And there you go with another episode
of "kris kelly's secret guide to successful mining."
I'm going to get out there and kick his [bleep] ass right now.
Get working.
Just get to work.
-[andy] we are. -[kris] get to work.
[narrator] in nome, alaska,...
[vernon] how we doing?
[gary] getting little chunks.
Oh, yeah. Look at that one right there.
[vernon] yeah, that's some gold there.
[narrator] for vernon adkinson, it's time to see
if his super gold spot is still super.
[vernon] down to the bottom, huh?
[gary] I'm liking it.
[vernon] so far, we've definitely got gold in the gold cube.
I wish the storm didn't kick us out.
But gary put in some serious hours on the box.
[gary] yeah, not too bad, not too bad.
Here.
There does seem quiet a bit in the top.
I'm anxious to see how well we do on this clean up.
I'm looking to set a personal record.
I'm thinking it's going to be loaded with a capital l.
[gary] well, yeah, what do you think?
-I'm going to go with nine. Nine ounces. Yeah. -Nine?
-[vernon] oh, there's one. -[gary] one.
[both] two.
Come on baby.
Three.
Four, five.
Six, seven.
Eight.
Eight point nine five.
[narrator] 8.95 ounces
is worth over $17,000.
[gary] nice.
We're getting our bearings, we're getting things dialed in.
And, hey, we're on the gold.
Yup.
How sweet it is. First hole. First dive.
And, in the money already.
As long as, mother nature stays off my back,
we got a good shot at getting our 200 ounces of gold.
Yeah, let's get back out there and get some more.
Let's get it all.
Remember, we leave no gold behind.
[narrator] on the other side of town...
Nothing easy about mining in this winter.
Get everything out, get ready to mine, next day, storm.
If it was easy, the gold would be gone a long time ago.
[narrator] as the snow piles up outside...
We're definitely on the trail.
Definitely close to something big.
It's just a matter of, if we can get enough time at the bottom
to suck it up.
[narrator] the gold is piling up.
Inside.
We haven't hit the jackpot yet.
But so far, we've been doing pretty good.
Ohh!
Still warm, still warm.
Let's see what we got here, joe.
[joe] she's looking good.
[shawn] seven, eight, nine,
ten.
12.
13.40.
We're on the trail of something.
Oh, yeah.
[narrator] 13.4 ounces is worth over 25 grand.
And shawn is right on pace, to hit his 120 ounce goal for winter.
It wasn't showing but it was worth it.
Yeah, I mean, we're seeing it.
Seeing it, but I think, we can get on something better.
Yeah, I think so too.
With these numbers and this type of material,
we're right on the cusp of something amazing.
I can feel it.
Got to find it. And find it fast.
So, I can rock it this summer.
We need to fill up this jar.
-[joe] hell yeah. -[shawn] not this one.
[joe] mmm-hmm.
[shawn] we're on the trail now.
We need to keep it up.
[narrator] next time, on bering sea gold...
[man] first tide of the season.
My chance to go make the gold and see what we're standing on right now.
[shawn] gonna be a beautiful day for diving.
[bleep]
[vernon] we're getting michael suited up
it'll be his first dive with us.
We'll see how he does.
[michael speaking]
I think I heard him say, "pay day."
[zeke] everything's set up for a long, awesome dive day today.
Couldn't be happier.
Okay, this won't do.
He just needs a longer hose.
I'm sure his girlfriend's told that lots of times.
[diver speaking]
oh, [bleep] dammit.
[diver] yeah, man, I'm seeing good gold.
[bleep] dang.
[screams]
are you okay?
It's me.
[gasping]