I have just finished watching the second season of Gold Rush, a show from the Discovery channel. I admit that I went and bought Hulu so I could continue watching the third season of Highway Thru Hell which I was watching last week. After Wife told me that it was on there, it wasn't, I coughed up the money. She saw Highway To Hell, which was something different. Anyways, in my efforts to make lemonade out of lemons, I found this show and it is the same idea. A bunch of tough guys doing a job I would find hard getting excited to do out in the wilds of Alaska.
The Hoffman Family, after deciding they were not doing well financially, decided to sell what they owned, buy a bunch of mining equipment and go strike for gold in Alaska. In the first few episodes I couldn't believe they took their kids like it was a camping trip. They get on site and there are black and grizzly bears in the area, with a bear actually running through the campground. At a certain point they get tired of the bear messing around with them, that they go hunting for it, shoot it and then it eat. I am fine with them killing the bears, it just seemed savage to kill eat because it is a threat, then might as well eat you since you are made of meat and we are running low on food.
It seemed weird that the reason you go all the way to Alaska is to mine and you have all this equipment with you, and it was like three weeks before they finally started their machine to sift for the gold. Then there was another great gap in operations before they actually went after the gold. What was mind blowing to me was that they made it seem like it was a big deal when they would work an 18 hour day. Their normal workday was eight hours. I'm sorry, but that is shit. If you have a five month work period between freezing conditions, show up, work a minimum 12-15 hours and even 18 hours should be normal. What does a campsite with a bunch of men need 16 hours of downtime for? To get drunk? I thought this was a colossal waste of time.
The second season seemed like well, now they know what they are doing, they had finally dug deep to where there seemed to be more gold, but the idiot in charge forgot to make a monthly payment on the lease and so they lost the land they were working. The owner had brought in another guy to keep an eye on the Hoffman team, and in the second season pretty much stole the land from under them, which was a very shitty, and cowardly thing to do, I thought. He bought the lease and brought in his guys, and offered the original guys $80,000 for their equipment. Then he rips their separator out of the way, he wants to bring in his own. He was just a down and dirty cheat, I wanted to like the guy, but you don't step over a man who has risked all their savings and steal their land from under them.
At the end of the second season, the Hoffman group (about six guys) found a different piece of land to work and almost hit 100 ounces of gold, their goal, while the old cheater hit about 80 ounces, working with just two other guys.
There are five seasons total, and I can't stop watching, I want to see the guys strike it rich. I love the idea that from nothing but their ingenuity and some muscle, a group of men can go out and conquer.
No comments:
Post a Comment