Season 1
The show's storyline: Six men from Sandy, Oregon (a small town 30 miles southeast of Portland) who, due to the economic downturn, have lost their jobs. They decided on an all-stakes gamble – travel to Porcupine Creek, Alaska (59°24′35″N 136°14′23″W / 59.40972°N 136.23972°W) and prospect for gold. Most of the people on the show have little or no previous gold mining experience and must learn on the job.
Season 2
For season 2, Todd missed a lease payment, and "Dakota" Fred Hurt buys the claim out from owner Earl Foster, not needing to break the lease due to the missed payment.[6] The season will explore the Hoffman crew's new mine at Quartz Creek, in the Klondike region of the Yukon Territory Canada as well as "Dakota" Fred's operation at the site of the original Hoffman mine, the Jim Nail Placer Mine, and Parker Schnabel's attempts to mine his grandfather's property at Big Nugget Mine.Gold mining in Alaska, a state of the United States, has been a major industry and impetus for exploration and settlement since a few years after the United States acquired the territory from Russia. Russian explorers discovered placer gold in the Kenai River in 1848, but no gold was produced. Gold mining started in 1870 from places southeast of Juneau, Alaska.[1]
Gold is found and has been mined throughout Alaska; except in the vast swamps of the Yukon Flats, and along the North Slope between the Brooks Range and the Beaufort Sea. Areas near Fairbanks, Juneau, and Nome are responsible for most of Alaska's historical and current gold production. Nearly all of the large and many of the small placer gold mines currently operating in the US are in Alaska.[2] Six modern large-scale hard rock mines operate in Alaska in 2008; four of those are gold-producing mines (an additional gold mine suspended production in late 2007). There are also some small-scale hard rock gold-mining operations. Alaska currently produces more gold (in 2007: 673,274 troy oz from lode mines, and 53,848 troy oz from placer deposits) than any state except Nevada.[3] In 2007, gold accounted for 15% of the mining wealth produced in Alaska. Zinc and lead, mainly from the Red Dog mine, accounted for 73%; silver, mainly from the Greens Creek mine, accounted for 8%; coal and aggregates accounted for nearly 2% each. Alaska produced a total of 40.3 million troy ounces of gold from 1880 through the end of 2007.[4][5]
Active mines
The following are active gold-producing mines and advanced lode exploration or development projects.Kaspar er sejLode (hard rock) mines
Large-scale hard rock mines producing gold
- The Greens Creek mine, owned and operated by Hecla Mining, located on private patented claims and on federal land in the Admiralty mining district, is primarily a silver-lead-zinc mine, produced 73,000 troy ounces (2.3 tonnes) of gold in 2006 and a similar amount in 2007.[6]
- Fort Knox mine, owned and operated by Kinross Gold on State of Alaska-owned land in the Fairbanks mining district, produced 333,000 troy ounces (10.3 tonnes) of gold in 2006 and a similar amount in 2007.
- Pogo mine, owned and operated by Teck Cominco, on State of Alaska-owned land in the Goodpaster district, produced 260,000 troy ounces (8.1 tonnes) of gold in 2007, more than double production in 2006.[4]
- Kensington and Jualin; production re-commenced at the long-closed adjacent historical underground gold-in-quartz-veins mines in the Juneau mining district in June, 2010. Over $270 million of exploration and construction efforts from 2005 onward, and significant legal battles concerning disposal of mine tailings onto public land led to renewed production. Over 2 million troy ounces of gold resource in 8.8 million tons of ore are reported.[4][7]
