It can be guaranteed that who ever is producing the show is pushing and setting up a lot of the "story." I wonder though how many professional miners, ie contracted by actual mining companies, still do gold leases like this. I have a feeling a lot of independent retards like these families make up the majority of people who work this type of claim. The real money is in the gold veins in solid mountains, which is only going to be done by big companies. Still if I had the resources and knowhow, both of which these people lack, traveling to Alaska do to this would be fucking amazing. Just seeing the wilderness in this show makes me jealous.
Well, in one episode, we see an old guy basically right next door to the retards, who ends up selling/loaning them a piece of equipment that they need. He had the same basic setup (that he's been perfecting for over 10 years), in similar ground/terrain, and he said that he pulls in about $30k an afternoon. I might have misheard him, and he might be exaggerating, but the show said he was loaded, and he seemed to have his shit together. That seems fairly substantial to me.
He also said two Dakota guys went broke digging a single hole on the same plot. If it really was that lucrative you'd see the huge mining companies buying up all that shit and bringing in their specialized machines. At least youd think so right?
In the first episode they said the plot of land they leased contained up to $15million in gold. So off that only it does suggest it is only viable for small operations.
So my power went out last night while the episode was taping. Can someone tell me what happened after the girl went to the hospital?
She had some sort of seizure but ended up being fine. They are trying to find a cause of it and think it might have something to do with the drinking water in the camp. They get their water unfiltered from a nearby waterfall and think some local animals might be contaminating it. A couple guys went and looked and found some animal waste near the water. I think his wife is going to take the kids out of the camp for the rest of the season.
I thought it was hysterical when the 15 year old grandson of the 90 year old miner came over to help them out. They're all flipping out over microscopic flecks of gold and the kid is basically laughing at them for having gold fever. He seems to have more sense and maturity than the whole camp full of grown men. As fucked up and desperate as the whole thing is, I'm rooting for them. It definitely takes BALLS to do what they did. Especially the "chief mechanic", James Harness. He seems like a decent guy, and he sure ain't a pussy. I'd like to see him get a win. Jimmy Dorsey (long beard guy) is a fucking douche and it pissed me off the way he was talking to his wife with that "what are you laughin at" bullshit right after she got there. Most of the other guys seem decent enough though.
100% agree on everything you said. Before that episode where Jimmy Doursey refused to use safety precautions and then berated his wife for smiling I thought he might have been an idiot who the others just liked to pick on for kicks, then he pulled that shit and I realized he is a fucking douche. The white bearded dad is probably the second most irking of the group. He's stubborn as fuck and really doesn't seem to know a fucking thing, he's running purely on gold fever and no reason. Like most reality shows I kind of tire of the super amped up drama. Teasing a confrontation multiple segments in advance and when it finally comes there really wasnt any drama to begin with (purchasing the diaphragm do-hickey from the lease owner, the wildlife officer, to name a few). Plus every little single thing is played as "a season ender." Our season is over if I can't get this mud off my boots! They better get to some real gold soon. I'm rooting for them too. That dude with the Wyatt Earp mustache, I think he's the "safety foreman" seems like a stand up dude as well. You can tell that guy they brought in for a few days is probably the smartest of the bunch. How you don't have a single fucking filtration system for your drinking water is beyond me.
When it comes to filtration systems, it's pretty easy these days to make ANY water pretty safe to drink. For hiking and camping, my wife and I use simple ceramic pump filters. If things are really nasty, we'll throw a tablet in. Hell, get a UV one in there too if you want to be super safe. Yeah, it would take awhile, but every one of them should be safe about that. Plus, there are large, multi-gallon gravity filters that can get you a decent amount that are pretty cheap. Plus, they could easily have some large pots going and boil a bunch of water to store in containers. They are only out there for a handful of months. This should be a small part of every person's chores and duty. Every day, boil a few pots of water to store, hang a few gravity bags. Hell, a quick search came up with a product called a Crown Berkey Water Filter. Filters up to 6.5 gallons an hour. Not that expensive considering what they've paid for everything else. I don't know about you, but a few days in the woods and I prepare very well for drinking water. A few months and it's at the top of the list.
I love how they give Jimmy all the crap jobs. Overnight pond watch, getting in the iceberg fed river to move rocks for the pump. I hate that guy... I swear not all Oregonians are as weird as these guys. Great Show though!
So out of boredom I decided to see how much gold they will need to find to just cover their costs. I rounded up to about 200k from the last figure I heard, which was 180k. With the price of gold today standing at 1374USD per ounce they will have to find over 9lbs of gold
Im just glad the shit is running. I was kind of getting tired of watching them fix the shit week in and week out. Hopefully they will have something to show for it before something else breaks down. I know the red headed dude is quite the bitch but I dont see why theyd be that pissed that he's off the job site once a week making money. The less that guys around the better, less chance of him fucking something up and you dont have to hear him whine like a bitch(how he scored a cute wife is beyond me). The guy building the palace of a home is much more important to the crew than Dorsey.
Such a shit move on Dorsey's part to drag his wife all the way up to fucking Alaska, then throw a temper tantrum and leave her behind with a bunch of angry rednecks. I don't get the water situation either. Did they start filtering the water? Are the families still living there with their children and just keeping their fingers crossed noone else has a fucking stroke? I think they were pissed that Dorsey left, because then they had to start doing the shit jobs themselves.
Wow. Dorsey is coming off like a fucktard. I can't believe he just bailed on everyone and left his wife to deal with his shit and let the rest of the miners know what's going on. Never mind the guy has no common sense... who the hell just cuts shit on equipment without talking to anyone first? The resentment is just oozing from him, and you can tell he's pissed at everyone telling him what to do. The miner moss thing is a prime example. Instead of taking ownership of the task at hand, he just did "exactly" what he was told and no more, leaving the job half done and having a negative impact on everything. But by the same token, it's a shit deal that he's being handed all the crap jobs that nobody else wants to do. I have no problems with him fucking off and doing work to get cash, and I'd never hold that against a guy who's providing for his family. The way he did it spoke volumes. Todd's whole "it's a team" thing was crap... he's a shit leader who has no concept of morale or self esteem. Basically, it's all about doing what Todd wants. As to the water filtration, I'd bet that they've looked into it and handled it, but it was edited out or just ignored. The show is all about these guys being morons and thrashing in their situation, and filtering water isn't that exciting.
He also has no sense of order or planing what so ever. So once the thing gets working non-stop do they just pan all the sludge that poops out the end?
He gets the shit jobs because he brings absolutely no other skill set to the table. It isn't like Todd is faced with a choice between having Dorsey repair a pump or stand in the creek digging a hole. As far as I can tell from day 1 it was pretty explicit he was there as team bitch, that's his role.
Agreed... didn't say he warranted any other position on the corporate org chart they've got going on, just that it sucks to be him. It's a shit deal, but a deal he made nonetheless. And his boneheaded manoeuvres aren't helping him at all.
Seconded on how the fuck Dorsey ended up with that wife. She must not be very bright. More than anything how he treats her pisses me off. L-O-S-E-R. He and Harness are polar opposites. I have so much respect for that guy. I wake up with a lower back ache almost every day and I can't imagine the pain that guy must be in, yet there he is in 20 foot pits losing the use of his legs and not really complaining about it. Tough. As. Nails. If I was a rich guy, I would pay for his surgery. As far as the guy building the home, its looks very well done, but yeah, I don't get why he's doing it either. It seems to me he's really just benefiting the next group of guys that go out there to mine the claim. I guess they really think they are going to hit a big load and stay a long time.