They cannot go back to Alaska this year so they are hoping to get a claim in Yukon of Canada. The guy who helped them, Dakota Fred, wants to mine their spot in Alaska on his own. Since Fred knows the land owner he will get the claim. If they don’t get the Yukon claim then they are out of the gold mining business.
I’ve enjoyed the commentary provided by The Soup regarding the glory hole. 
yeah wth it was disturbing to hear the voiceover keep talking a bout the gloryhole.
in my opinion, this show was all about getting famous. it took them months before they were actually doing any major digging, and then they weren’t doing anything with what they dug up. like they were hoping to find some big million dollar nugget instead of actually sifting through the dirt for the specks. todd came off as really lazy and a horrible personnel manager
Yes…stupid a$$es had to go and shoot that bear when they basically lured him into their camp. Why do they have to have all these little kids wandering around there anyway…aren’t they supposed to be like working and not baby sitting..?
Anyway…I was just shocked as HE!! that frikken Todd forgot to pay the lease on the claim…how stupid can ya get man…? And then it never occurred to him when Fred called and said there’s something we gotta talk about..?
Where are Todd’s brains…???
Dumb as a box of rocks that dude. I hope they do well..but who knows where they’ll end up diggin now. lol
Todd and his father are both morons and assholes. They got people on your own team and people being paid by the show to come in and show them how things are done and instead they shoved their heads even further up their asses and refused to do what they were told.
And what did they come out of it with?
The money the Discovery Channel gave them, of course. And 15 minutes of fame.
But not much in the way of actual gold.
If you dropped those two clowns on top of Pre-Spanish Potosi, I doubt they’d be able to find the Silver.
Every time that old man shouts “I know what I’m doing!”, he doesn’t. The show is entertaining in the sense that a train wreck is. Last year you could tell they were a mob of selfish, disorganized, and somewhat lazy people counting their chickens before they hatched. This year they came back organized and motivated, but not detail oriented enough to take care of the most important factor in any potential success. And when the major snag arose, they reverted to their old ways. Still, I gotta keep watching those train cars piling up.
Wait, it’s a new season? I’d heard last year that the land owner decided not to allow them to come back because he wanted to work it himself. At that time, they were looking for other locations. I guess enough TDC money changed his mind, eh?
Bottom line is that those guys are making their money of TDC, not from the actual mining. As long as they continue to be a ratings grabbing train wreck of FAIL, TDC will keep paying them.
The land owner sold the land to Dakota Fred. He was the guy helping them last year. They forgot to make a lease payment so Fred was able to cancel their lease to mine. So now they are headed to Canada to see if they can mine there.
Now that all is hilariously funny. All the people on various forums calling him a claim jumper and a douchebag.
Well, according to the US Government, he is.
“Inspections by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration Aug. 4 to 8 (2011) resulted in a total of 13 citations and two compliance orders against John Schnabel’s Big Nugget Mine and the Jim Nail Placer Mine operated by “Dakota” Fred Hurt, according to a website maintained by the agency.”
In any event, the Hoffmans had a LEASE. They didn’t pay it. Gold mining is white hot due to the price of Gold. Not paying the lease is epic stupidity from people who have already demonstrated that they are Epically Stupid.
I love the comments “just as they were getting close”. My ass. They were just flushing rock and playing at being miners.
There going to mine in Alaska and Canada but they could not get the permit for Canada. They said the permit office was swamped due to the high cost of gold.
The old man thinks that having an old gray beard makes him intelligent, the son has inherited his clueless determination. It’s called getting a job, go home, find a job. Save up your money AFTER taking care of your children’s education and the house is paid off. THEN go to 2,000 miles away.
The old man is the problem. Period. He thinks he can point at the ground and tell there is gold there?? Did you see him grabbing a torch and cutting away an I-beam?? Someone tell these folks its not pie-in-the-sky, its absurd to think you can just go look at a map and find gold.
Where is the nearest store? How about gasoline and heating fuel for all those trucks, engines, and campers? And why are there children panning for gold? Child labor? Anyone else want their kids growing up in the middle of Alaska with no moms, no friends, no toys?
Little specks of gold, pie in the sky, why are you so bold, here’s mud in your eye. I could write a song about this disaster called Gold Rush. But, I am hooked on it.
They say they have to get $100k gold to break even. I think they make that much from TV . Or maybe they mean $100k on top of TV money. Also they got $80k from selling stuff to Dakota Fred in Alaska.
It would have to be on top of the TV money, but that may well be sheer drama, since I’m quite certain they have a really good deal with TDC.
And hell, if the kid can re-wash stuff his grandpa went through 20 years ago and find an ounce on the first day, then if the Hoffman Crew has any brains at all, they should be able to find as much re-washing all the crap that dredge went through 50 years ago.
But I don’t have any faith in them as long as Jack “I know what I’m doing!” Hoffman is there. You could stick that guy in the middle of the Fort Knox gold vaults and he wouldn’t find the gold.
Looks like “Clueless Jack” Hoffman is at his worst in the new season.
Runs away like a petulant child because his son “disrespects” him when he’s fucking around instead of doing the actual job.
Then threatens to run away again if anyone argues with him again. :rolleyes:
Gets lucky in dragging the wash plant through the mud.
But then starts cutting into the structural beam of the wash plant and refusing to stop until someone came up with a different solution. Dumbass.
Still all the endless “oh my, we are so in trouble, we’re struggling, it’s make or break time” blah blah blah, while they FUCKING WASTE THEIR TIME NOT MINING. :rolleyes:
This isn’t “drama”, this is pure stupid.
The Hoffmans are definitely hitting “Whale Wars” levels of incompetence now. I feel bad for the new guy, who left a successful excavation business to work with them (though presumably Discovery is paying them all). They spend 5 days clearing land that they previously had been told was already mined based on a few large trees, only to be told once again that the land had already been mined?
And the manufactured drama with the other 2 mines is wearing thin. Oh no, a hydraulic hose broke! Fred has to take a piece of equipment off a trailer! I did like the teenager’s plan to flip the Hoffman’s generator for a quick $3k profit though.
I like the kid. He has a solid, if temporary, plan to get gold this year, and he’s getting it.
That’s what enticed me to take a second look at it yesterday, because otherwise I’ve been avoiding it like the plague. I was channel surfing, hit the repeat of last week’s show, watched a bit with the kid, checked the guide and saw the new episode was after it, so went back to surfing the minute the Hoffmans came on the screen and then came back and forced myself to watch the new episode.
Yeah, Parker seems to be on top of things. But that’s the problem - a well run, established gold mine appears to be pretty damn boring, unless he starts finding chunks of gold the size of his fist or something. This week’s drama with Parker was (a) delivery of a new dump truck that got hung up for 30 seconds or so (b) a broken hydraulic hose, and ordering of a replacement, © buying the Hoffman’s generator plant and planning to resell it at a profit. It’s a lot more entertaining (though frustrating) to watch the Hoffmans make poor decisions and the rest of their crew follow along. Especially if you start mentally connecting them to the Three Stooges - Todd is Moe, Jack is Curley, and the rest of them are interchangeable Larrys.
It’s a train wreck, but a strangely addicting one.
One has to wonder why, if you think there is gold in the gravel under the permafrost, you don’t dig a small test hole and do some panning instead of spending five days clearing an area the size of a football field.
And I’m assuming that Dakota Fred is just being set up by the Discovery Channel as the mustache twirling bad guy, because it’s hard to believe he could be as much of a screw up as he’s appearing right now. Why would he spend $70K on a wash plant and then just dismantle it?
If this was a scripted show, I’d say that wager Jack made with Fred is a bit of foreshadowing. So we’ll have to see if our boys get themselves a big payday later in the season.
They’d better start moving some dirt fast. I’m getting really tired of hearing over and over and OVER from the narrator: “If person X can’t do thing Y / if part Z doesn’t hold up / if piece of equipment F doesn’t work, then their mining season is over!” Yeah, because they’ll just close up shop because of one damn hose, rather than find another truck. All the “potentially season-ending” BS is wearing thin.
I’ll be very surprised if Fred finds much by digging sideways. That derocker thing is pretty cool, though.
Parker rocks. I’ve never see such maturity in person that young.