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Airdate: Yukon Gold

This week Nat Geo screens Yukon Gold, profiling gold mining crews in the USA.

2013-11-30_2358This week Nat Geo screens Yukon Gold, profiling  gold mining crews in the USA.

It is a job few would want: 18-hour work days. Unforgiving landscapes. Mechanical struggles. All risk, and sometimes no reward. On the surface, it might look like the famous Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1800s. But this is a modern-day take on the quest for the ultimate dream — to strike it rich with one lucky strike. In National Geographic Channel’s new series Yukon Gold, follow four family-run mining camps as they risk everything in the hope of hitting the pay streak. Working gruelling days under the midnight sun, the crews give it their all to battle the elements … and each other.

Premiering Wednesdays at 8.30pm AEDT from December 4 on National Geographic Channel, Yukon Gold delves into the real lives of these mining crews and the uncompromising challenges facing them. These miners lay everything on the line — their relationships, bank accounts, reputations and lives — to get their next gold fix, worth potentially millions of U.S. dollars. It is genuine gold fever.

Even though the price of gold hit an all-time high in 2011, these days it takes mining even more gold just to break even. But there are still riches to be won through hard work … and sometimes sheer luck. The determined, die-hard men of the Yukon are banking on finding 28,000 or more grams of gold this season, and with good reason. The costs of wages, fuel, food and equipment are as high as ever. But these resilient miners never give up. Over the past two years, they have spent close to half a billion U.S. dollars exploring gold, silver, copper, zinc and other minerals in the Yukon.

The four gold mining crews profiled in Yukon Gold are novice “Big Al” McGregor; ornery Bernie Kreft and his two sons, Justin and Jarrett; best friends Ken Foy and Guillaume Brodeur; and Karl Knutson and his demanding father, Marty. From spring thaw to the mid-October freeze-up, the miners have only four short months to strike it big. The days are long, the work is exhausting, and anything that can go wrong usually does. Add to this the stunning but dangerous Yukon landscape and harsh living conditions, and you’ve got high stakes in the exotic Northern wilderness.

Big Al McGregor cannot wait to start mining, but a broken excavator could cut his season short. After years of prospecting, Bernie Kreft is trying his hand at mining, but the lack of experience on his crew might be their downfall. Despite nearly going broke last year, Ken Foy and Guillaume Brodeur are starting their second season at Moose Creek and they’ve got a new machine that they built from scratch to help them with the job.

Wednesday December 4 at 8.30pm AEDT.

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