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New reality show "Gold Rush"

Started by KellyH, December 14, 2010, 11:54:36 AM

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KellyH

Did anyone catch the new show "Gold Rush"?  Said to have the highest premier since "Deadlest Catch".  I think it pales in comparison but time will eventually tell.  I know they better take the threat of bears seriously.  Spring time in Alaska and these guys are waking up hungry!  :D
"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is who you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

fishpharmer

Jury still out for me.  I thought it ridiculous the guy driving an expensive John Deere Gator in the river when unnecessary.  Overall I admire those taking the risk to better their situation.
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SwampDonkey

There was a show back a few years ago that had a story teller and a whack of old photos and such of the Gold Rush era of the late 19th Century and prospecting in the early 20th. It was produced in British Columbia, but covered some areas of California up to Alaska. Mainly it focused on BC and the Yukon. Dad ordered some of the tapings of the show. That is more like what I like to see on TV. I can't get interested in reality shows and people's dramas on there. Bleck. ;)

Anyway, that show was "Gold Trails and Ghost Towns" I believe, or similar.

It was interesting. Some fella would get rich over night selling his claim and the guy that bought it might go broke mining it. Then, the rich guy would gamble and drink his wealth away. :D

Had relatives that spent one winter up there on the rush.
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Brad_bb

The father is out of control.  I'd fire him for not sticking to the agreed plan and haphazardly digging at random.  He's probably invested so the son can't fire him.  I sure wouldn't want to work with someone like that.  The father is clearly a safety hazard too.  Hit his own truck.  Would not listen to instruction when unloading that shaker.  He's going to get someone killed.
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KellyH

Being so cranky he'll out live all of 'em! :o :D
"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is who you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

beenthere

One thing is for sure....it is not real, nor reality.

Not that anyone is thinking it is supposed to be "real".   ;D ;D ;D
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stumpy

I'm all for raising kids with outdoors experience and hard work, but they seem to be a bit young to be there when the camp isn't set up yet and they don't seem to have a good plan to deal with the bears.  Just going out and shooting one when it gets close doesn't seem to be a good long term solution.  Nor does telling the kids to stay in the shed when a bear is spotted.
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SwampDonkey

Burn all scraps in a pit and bears only get one chance to live. I've stayed in remote tent camps and that's the way of the woods. ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

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Busy Beaver Lumber

Thus far I have found the show boring and the people on it are nothing short of unprofessional bunglers. I agree, the father needs to go home before he kills someone with his reckless attitude towards safety. Then there is his know it all son, who thinks the way to solve every problem is to threaten to punch someone in the mouth, evn if him or one of his kids was the source of the problem to begin with. Wonderful display of management skills and compassion for your fellow man. The un-employed realtor is about as big a wussy as you will ever find and is like a fish in the water in the wilderness. We will be lucky if he does not accidentally shoot one of the other people at camp thinking they were a bear.

They keep saying that they only have enough money to keep the operation going for a few months, but here they are two weeks into things and only found a speck of gold equal in size to a mouse turd. When they divide that baby up ten ways, they should each come out with about 25 cents a piece.

At the beginning of the first show,the old man said he thought there was a good quantity of gold on this property based on the test bore results. Would it not make best sense to start mining in the location that had the best test bore yield, rather than just digging holes at random?
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Magicman

If it's about Alaska, I'm gonna watch.  The scenery makes it worthwhile.  They all seem to play to the camera on all of the "reality" shows.
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Warbird

Quote from: beenthere on December 14, 2010, 03:08:16 PM
One thing is for sure....it is not real, nor reality.

Yup.  It's probably best if I don't say anything else.  I'll just agree with BT and move on.  ;)

timberfaller390

I've wanted to see the show but have missed it thus far. I have done some prospecting around here and it makes for a fun weekend but you ain't gonna get rich. I live about an hour from the location of the countries first gold rush. Dahlonega, Ga. even had a U.S. mint for awhile. The hardrock mines of north Ga. have some of the richest ore in the country but due to some of the geology, iron ore being one problem, causes  the cost of mining to be so high that it is not profitable to extract the gold, even at today's high price. Placer mining like what they are doing in the show is a completely different ballgame. It is pretty much hit and miss because you aren't following an ore vein just ancient riverbeds. They will have to move so much material to find one ounce that It will be pure luck if they don't go broke.
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KellyH

It wasn't a gold mine but a diamond field and other gem stone things that my stepmother made my dad take her too in Arkansas.  Darned if she didn't find a couple stones that more than paid for their trip.  I knew better than to even ask or worse yet make a comment within earshot of my dad at the time. :D  I went thru there on other business and the only thing I remember it is close to where Glen Campbell was born.  ;D
"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is who you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

fuzzybear

   I havent seen the show yet, but based on what I have read it sound like they have a show about cheechakos.  Believe it or not there is a new "gold rush" happening here in the north.  These people have never read the history books about the Klondike and Alaska Gold rushes, so they are doomed like the original "miners".
   They leave their homes and head north to Alaska where the nuggets are "as big as your fist" and laying everywhere.  They have no sense of how dangerous the bush can be let alone what it takes to mine gold properly.
   Most people think you dig in the dirt and remove the gold. This is only true in a sense, you have to dig down deep, you have to hit bed rock. The pay dirt is the bottom layer of dirt.
   Most of these new breed of miners will never be back for a second year, let alone make it for a winter. 
   As someone who lives and raises his children in the bush I would say that they are doomed if they do not come up with a plan.
   As far as the "reality" of this show I cannot verify but I can say that there have been a few here that sound just like these people.... very lost and very confused. They should go home now and live off of their memories. It will be more than the gold they take out of the ground.
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Magicman

But, just look at all of that neat machinery that they will leave behind because they can't afford to transport it back home.

I suspect that their operation will be kinda like farming.  Start with a million dollars and mine for gold until it is all gone.   :o
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It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

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Busy Beaver Lumber

Magicman

The machinery moving made me laugh all on its own. Don't you think if you were going to take a 100,000 pound excavator into some remote section of the country that has very minimal traffic and more bears than residents, that you would think to check out the weight capacity of any bridges you had to cross before you got to the bridge only to find out you machine is way overweight for its capacity? ::)
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Peter Drouin

There all city people going in the bush, have no clue,   :D :D :D
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ScottAR

These guys give fools a bad name... I only watched a couple minutes, I saw enough  :-\
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Magicman

They went to a real secret place too, because there was a road all of the way to it.   :-\  Most assuredly, all of that gravel has been dug up and panned before. 
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It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

Gilman

I was watching the first show and suddenly it hit me that I knew the father and son.  I had built some equipment for them about 10 years ago and had some prospects of going into business with them.  They are both nice people and I'm not surprised at all to see Todd, the son, doing something like this.  Jack apprehended a robber of a convenience store once with his 45.

The best I can tell, this is the bridge they crossed. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=59.412525,-135.999949&spn=0.002582,0.009645&t=h&z=17

And this is the parcel that they are mining on. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=59.419933,-136.227551&spn=0.041308,0.154324&z=13

I look forward to see what happens.  :)

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KellyH

So the persona that Todd is putting out there as a tough guy "Mr Shut Up or I'm gonna punch your face" is a little bit of a put on?  Hope so or the rest of the crew may bury him with one of those track hoes. :D  Nice to hear these guys may not be such cranks afterall but the show sure seems to put them all in a bad light. ::)
"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is who you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

gunman63

was it  just me, or when they went to town the other nite, i think when the guy was sick, did the one bridge have new planks on it, they looked fresh, compared to when they took the  backhoe across, or could be another  bridge, looked like the same one.

whiskers

saw just a few minutes of it and wondered where their dog might be. they can use the tiny little bells and pepper spray method for bear protection. 
many irons in the fire.........

fuzzybear

Quote from: whiskers on December 19, 2010, 02:52:14 PM
saw just a few minutes of it and wondered where their dog might be. they can use the tiny little bells and pepper spray method for bear protection. 
reminds me off the joke... how can you tell if it's grizzly poop.....it smells like pepper and has little bells in it ::)
   Dogs are a must for anyone working in a noisy bush environment. My dogs have saved my life on many occasion.  Bears have a way of sneaking up on you when it's quiet, add equipment and you will NEVER hear it coming.
  Several years ago we had a mom with 3 cubs come around, she was immune to pepper spray. I hit her square in the face and she never flinched. Again thank god the dogs where there, cause she was peed right off at me.
   I've been mining here in the north for a little over 20 years and have seen all sorts of characters show up here and go home broke.  I've seen people strike it rich one year, spend all the money on new equipment, only to find out there is no more gold on their claims.
   Here in the north gold is different than else where on the planet. Most people think of gold as being in large veins, here in the north it's not like that.  It is literally every where. You can stick a shovel in the ground and find some color. The gold here collects in large and small pockets. these pockets are harder to find now but are still out there.
   The largest yielding claim in history was Claim # 17 on Bonanza Creek.  The miners where panning gold at the rate of 3oz per pan. In todays market thats a little over $3500 per pan.  But these were the large nuggets of lore. Today they find mostly rice and gold dust



This is less than 3 grams of gold, so you can imagine 3oz in each pan.
  I had an old miner tell me one time to keep it simple, other wise you will spend $1million to make $.5 million
   Most mining operations here do not begin to make a profit until the last 30 days of operation.  But there are a few that make a modest living off of their gold claims. They stick to the traditional ways of mining.
   These people work in their spare time using simple hand tools. And in a land where the sun literally never sets, you have a lot of spare time. They work as a family . Dad,Mom, and children. 
   On good ground it is very possible to pull out 50-100 oz of gold in a season. Their profit is a lot higher than the bigger mining companies, because their expenses are sweat equity.
  Mining has always been a hobby of mine. I never really got bit with gold bug, but I know many people that have been. It's a game of chance when you go gold mining. you either make it or you don't, there's no grey area.
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redbeard

I just started watching this weekend and kept my eye on the log piles, Some of the previews show some rough sawn structures, wonder if they brought a mill up there or found someone local to do it. I would pay alot more attention if they brought a mill into the mix! Sitka spruce is a real challenge to mill.
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