[mike rowe] location, location, location.
Ice mining is all about where you chose to mine.
As the season reaches the midway point,
the question is...
Stay the course,
or pack up camp in search of golden pastures?
But with an endless assault of blizzards,
an ever-present threat...
[shawn pomrenke] oh, baby!
...Will the decision be the best move...
Yeah! [yelling]
we got an open water lead out there.
...Or the worst move?
Uh-oh. You okay?
[zeke tenhoff over radio] it's terrifying.
They have to send the helicopter out to rescue 'em.
[mike] or the last move that each miner makes?
[zeke over radio] pay close attention to my air.
[vernon adkison] what's going on?
My light just went out.
[vernon] can you tell where you are from the hole?
No.
Well, another day in paradise.
Finishing out this hole,
pack everything up,
move the hell to a new location.
[mike] vernon adkison's looking to the future,
but there could be trouble up ahead.
We got an open water lead out there, a few hundred yards.
As the ice breaks off, it's gonna keep chipping away
until, eventually, it gets to where we are
and possibly behind us, between us and the beach.
That happens every year up here.
People get stranded on the ice, the ice goes out.
They have to send the helicopter out to rescue 'em.
The gold streak that we're on right now is headed
in that direction and we're gonna stay on it
till we can't stay on it anymore.
We got a good news-bad news scenario.
Good news, we're killing it.
Possibly on track to break my 200-ounce goal
and set a new record.
Bad news, we're coming to the end of our reach on this spot
and we're not sure which way the pay streak goes.
Looks like our pay streak is headed
straight towards that lead out there.
If that's the case,
it's going to be dangerous as hell.
Even a mild winter storm can break off the ice
and send us out to sea.
But if that's where the super gold goes,
we might not have a choice.
[machine whirring]
-all right, let's go. -All right, let's get it. Get it down there!
Can you hear me okay?
[gary simpson] yeah. Sounds good.
[vernon] okay, feels good.
Give me an update when you start getting into something.
Yeah, so, uh...
I'll find what's-- what's available to me.
Wow.
[vernon] well, that's what I like to hear.
Yeah, I'm actually seeing some pretty good,
decent gold coming out of this stuff.
Okay, real good, I think gary was telling me that was
the best area that we were working so far.
I'll stay out of your hair, get after it.
All right, sounds good.
Definitely there's gold here.
He's got an area left to work down there
that'll keep him busy probably for his entire dive.
-And then, uh-- -argh, damn it.
Oh, [bleep].
My light just went out, guys.
[vernon] uh, the power...
I don't know what's-- what's up with that.
Yeah, we got some kind of short here, guys.
The dab light is out.
[vernon speaking]
no.
[stammers] uh-- um...
Hold on.
[vernon speaking]
[gary] okay.
[vernon] people don't understand how crazy it is
down there, under the ice.
With all the snow we got this season,
the light is not coming through.
Because of the snow pack up top, it's pitch dark.
It gets dodgy in a hurry.
[vernon] that light's not coming on, huh?
[over radio] no, it's not.
Gary's got it fixed, it's a bad connection.
Anything that's got a cord on it,
people [bleep] yank on the cords and...
That's what tears 'em up.
This could be a waste of time
going down there without a light.
He might not be able to see enough to get on the gold
and let's be honest, it's dangerous.
If something goes wrong,
he could have trouble finding his way back to the hole.
Yeah, roger.
This is [bleep].
I'm trying to get 200 ounces this season.
Every day is precious.
With all these storms we've been having,
uh, we gotta take every opportunity.
And so if gary's up for it, we're going to go for it.
[vernon] all right, gary.
All right, go on back down.
All right, I'm headed back down.
[crew member] get it!
[gary] all right, let's go!
[vernon over radio] yo, gary. How's it looking under there?
It's actually not so bad.
I can see a little piece right there.
All right, all right, seein' gold.
[gary chuckles]
gonna be a little slower,
but I think we can get by.
I'll do what I can do.
[vernon] all right.
I wanna get it all, I wanna-- I wanna mop this hole up.
[mike] eleven miles west...
Getting ready to do a move, I'm pretty excited
to see what's over here in this next hole.
Going to be good.
...Shawn pomrenke is on the move.
Looking for that big layer of cheese
in that yellow slab of gold.
That's every gold miner's dream.
I'm on the cusp of finding that jackpot.
Last time out, I followed that paystreak
as far as I could north.
And it's clear that the gold's getting better
the further we go north.
I've picked out a spot 75 feet from where I left off.
We're seeing some really good gold over this way,
we're going to go ahead and get the sluice box moved over,
get some holes cut. Get the shacks moved over.
Moving's always a risk.
It's going to take us a half a day to move camp
and set up a new hole.
And then the rest of the day we'll use for prospecting.
If I'm wrong, we've wasted a whole day
and with the way the weather's been,
we can't afford that this winter.
Today's the day.
We're going to find something big.
I'm not even half way to the 120 ounces
that I need to make all my payments.
But I'm absolutely convinced this is where the gold is.
It's time to roll the dice.
There it is.
All right, we can go that way with that one.
Nice and easy, nice and easy.
Easy. There you go.
Good move, good move.
Got a good feeling about this spot.
[dramatic music]
we got hot water going, air compressor's going.
We got water running in the sluice box.
Only thing now is for me to get down there
and suck up some gold.
[machine whirring]
[intense music playing]
how's the ground look down there?
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh-ho-ho!
The gold.
Oh, baby!
Sounds like he's following a trail of gold somewhere.
I'm going to find it.
[mike] ten miles east...
[kris] andy.
Come on, let's get ready to go to work.
Oh, man, this season's kicking my ass already.
[phone ringing]
hey, pat, how are you today?
[pat] I'm doing fine.
So, uh, how's my payment going?
I bought all this brand-new equipment from pat keene.
Now the bill is due and I have no gold at all.
This situation sucks.
[pat] you know, I kind of went out on a limb
and I kind of expected you to take care of things.
Pat, I swear to you, I'm taking care of things.
Uh, it was a hard start,
everything's been a real bitch to try to get this gold.
[pat] do me a favor,
just keep to your word, and, uh,
send the money like you promised me, okay?
Yes, sir, we're going to work right away,
and we're gonna make you that money right away.
I know-- but, hey, I wouldn't do this for anyone else.
-We're on a lot of gold! -That's fine but--
I'll have your money and you're going to be very happy.
-Okay. -Thank you, pat.
I'll call you later.
-Okay. -Okay, bye, pat.
Well, I didn't need that.
It's probably not the most honest thing
to tell him we're on gold when we're not.
So what am I supposed to tell him, the truth?
The only way this is going to work,
if I get on a lot of gold and I get it now.
So, we really gotta get out there,
we gotta work as hard as we can.
Let's go.
This is what you call a crisis point.
After a season and a half of crisis points,
this one could end us.
Not to mention, I'm about to be a father any day now.
Now we're ready to rock and roll, let's get this going.
[engine revving]
everything is riding on today.
Come on! Yalla, yalla, empty.
Okay, it's moving day,
we're gonna chip everything out,
get everything up broken free out of the snow
because we gotta go find our new spot right now.
[mike] the kellys are on life support
as their life line may soon be pulling the plug.
We're going to start to get our luck back
because this is a bunch of bull [bleep].
I admit, I painted us into a corner.
I owe a lot of money right now.
I need at least 25 ounces to come out a winner this season
and I need to pay off this equipment asap.
But right now, we're having the worst winter we've ever had.
I gotta get us on the gold today or our season's over.
We're gonna go closer to shore,
around this 15 to 17-foot depth range.
Um, we're going to drill holes, look for cobble
and then that's where we're gonna move to.
Okay, should we go look for another spot?
Let's go figure out a spot to go mine.
A little secret about ice mining.
Picking a place to mine is an imperfect science.
Everyone's just taking their best guess.
First hole, chris mccully told me
there was going to be lots of gold,
it turned out to be garbage.
So today the kellys are picking the spot.
Hey, what do you think we should do?
Where do you wanna go, andy?
Okay.
So, my dad picked out one spot,
my brother picked out another.
This is where I have to take all the knowledge
that I've acquired as a captain
and make an informed decision.
Andy picked this spot,
but andy's pretty lucky when it comes to picking spots,
so, you know, I always say go with what works.
My brother is a lot luckier than my dad.
Have you checked out my dad's life? It's a mess.
So I'm not listening to him.
[brad] what's it feel like?
-Hear that? -[andy] could be rocks.
[kris] oh, that's rocks.
[kris] yah-ha!
-Okay, let's go, this is it. -[brad] let's go.
Let's go get our stuff moved.
Okay, there.
This season's been a complete bust so far,
but now we're on a new spot.
This looks like promising ground.
This is a new beginning for us.
So we're going to put up the irish flag.
Now our luck will change, everything will be great,
we're standing on gold.
So, today, we have something else motivating us.
It's called fear.
Don't underestimate fear as a motivator.
If we don't get gold today, we're in a lot of trouble.
Today we desperately need everything to fall into place.
[intense music playing]
idle up.
[dramatic music playing]
[machine whirring]
[brad over radio] how's it looking, kris?
Are you seeing any gold?
I don't know right now,
it's still too early to tell.
Here we go.
Well, we're already on gold the first hole I make.
All right, that's a positive note.
Wow, hey. Finally.
All right, good job, kris.
Andy's a lucky [bleep]!
I knew there was going to be gold here.
Oh, yeah!
Pow!
[chuckles] yes.
The morale gets high when we're on big gold.
We are going to kill it!
[mike] eight miles east...
[zeke speaking]
I've got a pretty long piece of hose.
It's about 65 feet.
So the hose has to go down but then I can go out
probably about 35 feet
away from the hole. If I'm gonna pace it out,
I got one, two...
[mike] today for zeke tenhoff...
Go probably about this far out.
So I have a pretty good amount of range.
...Bigger is better.
[zeke] I final got gold on our last trip out,
and it was super validating.
But the fact remains I'm still way behind where I need to be.
I still need at least six more ounces just to keep afloat.
I need to know if the gold that I'm on is the real deal
or if it's just a fluke and I need to move.
The gold that I can reach nearby the hole,
I already pretty much got it all.
So today, I'm gonna be dredging out of the end of my hose.
So, can you just make sure that
-we don't lose the air compressor. -Yeah. Oh, [bleep].
If I don't lose air, I'll be fine.
You'll be right on top of that.
And if I have any sign of any freeze up,
I'm going to come up right away and dry out the line.
It's extremely dangerous to put on a hose extension
and go that far out from the dive hole.
If anything goes wrong, it's a much longer path to safety.
But it's a risk that I'm willing to take
to find out if this gold is going to lead to more gold
or if I'm going to have to find a completely new spot.
If-- if I don't love it, I wanna move down to tomcod.
'cause I suspect there's a lot more gold out at tomcod.
Shawn apparently has some spots
that he's interested in having somebody check out.
We could set up and go dive there.
Yeah, I hear ya.
Moving down to tomcod would be a huge decision
because it would take tons of time to move the operation,
set it back up
and then locate a totally new pay streak.
I just don't really have that kind of time
to spare at this point.
That's why I'm going to give this spot
one more chance to prove itself.
[intense music playing]
all right.
Hey, how you doing there?
If I can't make ends meet this winter,
then I'm going to have serious doubt
about my future as a gold dredger.
[suspenseful music playing]
you're getting a case of the dark and scaries,
you have to soldier through.
Okay.
Yeah, he's stretched all the way out to the south east,
that direction and it's more dangerous
the further out you go, you know?
[intense music playing]
[zeke groans]
uh-oh. How you doing?
You okay?
I had some water in my mask,
I'm trying to get it out.
Oh, wow!
You seeing gold?
Awesome! That's great to hear. Making money. I love it.
There's gold here.
You can just sit back, read some fiction,
listen to some breathing noises
and just let the gold roll in, you know?
Just let it roll in.
[sighs]
[upbeat music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
-still on big gold? -[kris over radio] yep.
Well, the good thing is we're gonna take it all.
[mike] for kris kelly, a midseason move
looks to be paying off in spades...
...And just in the nick of time.
Are you getting tired yet?
You've been down there like three hours.
Yeah, okay, come on up.
You've been down there a long time.
Coming up.
[kris] holy crap, it's not a christmas miracle,
it's a kelly miracle.
So, bam! We couldn't have asked for a better spot.
We needed gold today or we were toast.
But the luck of the irish is finally coming through.
Now, we're on gold, big gold.
It's lucky andy's turn to give this a try.
You look good. Are you good?
Okay, well, go.
Make that money.
Andy's down, I've got him on gold.
All he's got to do is just move material and make money.
It doesn't get any easier than that.
If he [bleep] gets in the water...
[humming]
[intense music playing]
what, andy?
[chuckles]
yeah! [yelling]
good, man.
Isn't it amazing how easy and quickly
your life can turn around in a matter of an hour?
You know, this morning, we were going,
thinking we were in a [bleep] situation.
I've got bills coming out of my ass,
we're not making any gold.
And then, bam, I go down, got us on the hot [bleep].
Yeah!
That's what I'm talking about.
Keene is definitely getting his money.
Maybe not all of it right now, but he's going to get it.
We're not working for free today.
I love it when we know that.
[mike] ten miles east...
Yo, gary, how's it looking under there?
[gary] it's looking good. I'm seeing some gold.
There's a lot of gold in this.
Seeing little pieces of gold right now.
All right, gary!
[mike] a shot in the dark has turned into a ray of sunshine
as diver gary simpson has persevered
without the benefit of illumination.
I can continue working without it.
[vernon] okay.
Yeah, I tell you, gary simpson's got some cahonies.
No light, no problem.
He wants to get on down there and sniff it out.
We didn't have the other gary, we leave him.
We didn't wanna risk losing the set
under these circumstances.
Dude, is that all the test mat material?
Yeah, that's pretty much it right there.
Uh, gary can't really tell how good the gold is,
so we're pulling a test pan to check that out.
Okay, all right.
Not too shabby.
It looks pretty good
for a test pan.
You know? It looks really good.
[vernon] pretty damn good.
Unbelievable, I mean,
he's still pulling good gold,
even though he can't see.
That's just veteran instincts, right there.
You can't teach that. What a lifesaver.
[gary speaking]
[vernon] all right, gary, uh, so you got it mopped up?
You got, uh, every last little speck, right?
Okay, good show, gary. I mean, I think that's all.
It's gotta be a juicy one for us.
The test mats are looking really, really good.
All right.
[vernon] I gotta say, gary's the stud hog today.
I got a damn good team.
And we're bringing home the gold
and that's a lethal combination.
All right, he's back.
All right, good. Good.
The only downside to the day is the streak is headed
straight out towards that open lead out there.
That's where we're going to be headed,
but what's life without a little excitement?
[exhales sharply] oh!
[dramatic music playing]
hey, so how's that gold holding up, man?
All right.
I don't wanna have to move to tomcod if we don't have to.
[mike] with the aid of an extra 40 feet,
zeke tenhoff's west beach claim
just might be proving its worth.
[gabe] 40 feet out in the dark, it's dangerous.
If you're not making money, it's not worth the risk.
We wouldn't be out here.
We're out here to make money.
What was that that shawn said years ago? He was like,
"if there were chicks down there, I'd mine them, too."
[laughs]
[gabe] all right, roger.
[zeke] yeah, I think I'm probably
going to wrap this up
and I definitely dredged what I could reach with the hose
um, from this-- uh, this hole.
Okay, I'm going to come on up.
[gabe] he's coming down the trail,
the cavalry has arrived.
All right, man, there's food showing up right now, if you want it.
[zeke] all right.
Putting on this hose extension and going way out
from my hole, it's a super risky move,
but after a season and a half
with these little boulders I have,
I think it was the right call.
Now I know there's traces of pretty decent gold
even further out.
Oh, so the gold's keepin' up.
Out that way.
Instead of moving to tomcod right away,
which would definitely burn a lot of time,
we're going to put a new dive hole right over here.
Hopefully this is the kind of spot we're looking for
otherwise, we're going to be in trouble.
[man] I brought three bacon cheeseburgers
and extra order fries, too.
I got an extra order of fries.
Thank you so much.
I was getting hungry.
[gabe] workin' up an appetite down there, zeke?
-[stormy crying] -[zeke] stormy, come here.
[whistles] come on.
[mike] eight miles west...
Okay, man, you gotta be getting tired,
you've been down there forever.
[andy over radio]
are you still seeing a lot of gold, though?
[mike] andy's lucky streak continues.
I'm only in a good mood 'cause we're making money, by the way.
[brad speaking]
mccully's here, don't say anything.
Dude, it's not looking good here.
-Told you. -Yeah.
Man, you were right. This place sucks.
Pound town, [bleep].
[brad] now we're worried about
we might have to move again. You know?
[kris] yeah.
Right now, we're coming off a bad spot
that chris suggested. It was just sand, terrible.
No, I'm not the type--
yes, I am the type to hold a grudge.
So now that we're on gold, we don't want anybody around us.
He cost us part of the season, so screw him.
[chris speaking]
yeah. We can tell down there, trust me. We can tell.
Okay, okay, well, it's time to go anyways.
Andy's tired. He said his arms are like pudding.
Hey are you almost ready to go?
-[andy] yeah. -Okay.
Okay, come up, you did a great job.
-[brad] see you, chris. -[chris] all right, yeah. Grand. Thanks, kris.
-Okay, no problem, man. -[chris] yeah.
-Okay, later, guys. -[brad] see you later.
[laughing]
[kris] I mean, really.
With how crappy this season's going, the last thing
I need to do is share gold with somebody else.
Sorry, chris, you're on your own.
-Hey, my favorite brother. -...It stopped running.
[kris] the only time we make money
is when we start sucking up gold.
So we're not in a good mood 90% of the [bleep] time.
But you start throwing some $100 bills at me, and bam!
I'd make a good stripper.
I'd be so happy just to strip-- like, throwin' money at me.
Come on, I'm ready.
[laughs]
[kris] hey, we're on gold. We needed it.
Thank god it's happening.
[mike] while kris' move is paying off big...
...A few miles west...
[shawn speaking]
[mike] despite promising ground,
shawn has yet to hit pay dirt.
But, no, no...
Oh.
Yes, sir.
Sometimes you win big, sometimes you lose.
That's the risk you take when you move camp
and try a new hole.
This time, we struck out.
Shut her down, blow her out, make a move.
Again.
But my conviction that there's a jackpot in this hole
hasn't wavered a bit.
I'm sure of it.
The material I saw today makes me even more convinced.
[intense music playing]
hello, and welcome to another episode of
kris kelly's secret guide to successful mining.
Today we're gonna be going through the cleanout process.
How to take your concentrates,
put them through the super concentrator
and you wind up with gold.
First step in the process is trying to take out
all the big rocks and just be left with the sand.
Everything that's left over, we're going to run through
the super classifier called the gold cube.
We put that in the gold pan, we pan for a couple hours.
After that stage, we have to dry it
because no gold buyer will buy wet gold.
Anyway, the next step is panning.
Panning, nightmare.
You know, it's like, gold pan, get punched in the face.
I know there's people out there that say they love panning.
But they're lying to themselves.
Have you ever [bleep] panned for 10 hours?
Tell me how much you love panning
after panning for 10 hours.
So this is what you do.
They get the gold up to the top,
and then slowly rocking,
rocking, rocking some more, watching the black sands
and material move down while the gold stays up.
So you're rocking.
You're rocking.
You're rocking, you're rocking,
then you're rocking some more.
You're going to do that for about five [bleep] hours.
All day long.
Rocking, rocking, rocking.
Rocking, rocking, rocking,
rocking, rocking, rocking...
That's some nice clean gold right there.
[mike] after gary simpson's miracle dive...
-It's got some serious weight to it. -Yeah.
...It's time to shed a little light on the results.
The further we go following this streak,
the better the gold gets, but the closer
we're getting to that open water out there.
-Yeah. -Um...
So, um, I don't know.
Well, let's see what we got.
[vernon] two, four,
five, six...
Seven...
...Nine, come on, baby.
Thirteen. Oh, wow.
14.73.
-Awesome. -14.73, I'll take it.
-Yeah. -I'll take it.
[mike] 14.73 ounces.
That's worth over $27,000.
And despite the malfunction with the equipment,
vernon adkison's future on claim 56
continues to look bright.
[vernon] there's definitely more gold than that.
We're definitely heading in the right direction.
The only thing about it is, I mean,
with that open water out there,
we can only go so much further.
We continue to be on super gold
but we've gone as far as we can on this hole.
We've reached the end of our hose,
so that means we're going to have to move straight
towards that open water out there. It's risky.
One storm could break off the ice and do us in.
But by definition, if you're an ice miner,
you're a risk-taker. It's a risky business.
Hopefully the ice holds up for us.
The rest of the winter's gonna be interesting,
that's for damn sure.
All right, so, we're in the money.
-Yeah. We're in the money. -All right, man.
[mike] across town...
[kris] get the last bucket, we're almost done.
The moment of truth is upon us.
-[andy] let's weigh that [bleep]. -Let's see what we got.
Andy said this was the spot and that was the spot.
Yeah, dad picked the spot.
-No, I'm glad you picked it. -Dad goes, "no, right here."
dad picked the spot, but what made me go there was
when you said it was the spot.
You know, 'cause you're a lucky [bleep].
[mike] it may be the middle of the season,
but it's time for the kellys'
first clean out of winter.
I just jumped down there and I find gold
in two inches of over burden.
-I know, isn't that nice? -You know, like, yeah.
This winter's been horrible,
but it's never too late to turn it around.
Well, actually, we were like one second away from being too late.
Right now, we owe pat keene a lot of money,
but, hopefully, if we get five ounces,
that'll be enough to keep him off my back
and to make a dent in the 25 ounces that I want to get.
Okay, let's see what we got.
[intense music playing]
there's one ounce.
Two ounces and some more chunky stuff.
Chunky stuff just raining out.
Now we're getting five. There's seven...
Oh, my god.
7.7 ounces.
[mike] 7.7 ounces is worth over 14 grand,
finally putting the kellys on the board
and at least temporarily
keeping the grim reaper at bay.
All right, that's really good money, jake.
[kris] that is [bleep] awesome money.
It sucks a lot of this is going
straight into someone else's pocket.
But we're back baby, we're back in the game.
It's a great clean up, we're on gold.
Don't worry future little kelly,
daddy's going to make it rain the rest of the season.
That's perfect. It was easy to get,
there's a lot of gold, now we just need more time.
We just got a lot of work ahead of us.
We really got to grind it out.
[andy] yeah, it's time to put the hammer down
and really rip the [bleep] out of the area.
[mike] next time on bering sea gold.
First dive ever, what could go wrong?
[kris] you can do it, dave!
[shawn] we're close to something big
and we're not going to quit until we find it.
Holy [bleep]!
Got everything moved over here to the new area
and we're on that pay streak.
This might end up being an extremely good hole.
It's sketch. It's super not ideal.
[gary over radio]
this might be that primo ground we've been looking for.
[kris] [bleep] let's go. Wind.
[dave] hey, is water supposed to come
at the bottom of my mask?
[kris] don't worry, as long as you're getting gold,
that's all that matters.
Okay.
You know what makes the best miners?
When you're too stupid to [bleep] know
you're in trouble.