Bering Sea Gold

[Jim Wilke]

Let me start by saying I have spent a lot of time in Nome and know a bunch of the folks that appear on this show. I worked with Steve Pomrenke 25 years ago, Shawn Pomrenke raced for me a bit. They are good guys: Steve's a farmer and equipment operator from Minnesota who came to Alaska to make money in construction and stayed. Shawn is as tough a guy as you'll find but parties a bit too much and has trouble with the ladies - 4 kids by 3 different women, only one of whom he married. He left one at the altar a few years ago, taped a sign to the door that said, 'wedding cancelled'. The one on TV, the shy one who is quietly nursing him back to health? She chased him down the street a few months ago with a knife, almost caught him. She moved out but is still around so Shawn's afraid to date anyone else ....

The Tenhoff kid with the opera singer non-girl friend is also pretty damn tough. His dad got a state grant a few years ago to start a yurt factory, Mongolian tents, so now he lives in Homer making yurts while the kid mines in Nome in the summer and sews in the winter. The girl? Yes, she's his girl friend, just didn't want to look like a slut on TV.

The rest are a bunch of losers and dreamers, the kind of gamblers who have been coming to Nome for 125 years. I ran into a couple of guys from Nome this weekend and one of them told me, "All of these guys show up in Nome with a bunch of problems and they want to make them your problems....'if you can just help me a little, I know I can strike it rich and then pay you and all my back child support/bankruptcy/medical bills/sick mom/wife/father etc...' "

A very few make wages; almost all of them lose all their money and sell what they have to the next guy off the plane. They go out in the ocean on floating piles of junk and equipment that would scare you and me in a swimming pool. Anything more than 12 inch waves and they are in trouble.....and the wind blows all the time. That's what keeps them coming back; 'boy, if we could just catch a break with the weather, we can really make it.....'

There is gold on the floor of the ocean, washed down the rivers and creeks for millions of years. The gold is there. The trick is getting in enough hours of mining during the very short summer to make it pay; you have to stay off the beach and on the water. Go big or go home and none of these guys can afford to go big.

The second episode was #2 on Friday cable ratings, pulled a 1.6 18-49 which translates to 3.7 million viewers. I was in Nome last summer and there were probably 30 dredges in the harbor; on a day that wasn't too bad, the only craft on the water was the Pomrenke's.

There are already dredges and equipment being flown into Nome, guys who want to get ready and be in the water the day the ice goes out. Before the summer is over, there will be hundreds more. Most will go home broke, a couple will make some money, a few will die.

North to Alaska, go north, the rush is on!

[CrewChief]

Watched a few episodes of this and Gold Rush a couple weekends ago when the wife was away and felt like just vegitating on the sofa after the kids went to bed. I'm pretty certian my 14' Hobie Cat I had for a few years was more sea worthy then some of those "dredges". As for the non-girlfriend girlfriend, I wondered about living in a one room yurt and spending a lot of time in it given the weather how some sort of relations couldn't be taking place.

[Jim Wilke]

According to Diana Haecker of the Nome Nugget, the debut of the Discovery Channel’s “Bering Sea Gold” last month unleashed a torrent of phone calls to Nome city offices and other businesses. “Bering Sea Gold” is a popular reality TV show about miners who risk their lives to find ocean gold in the Bering Sea.

The Jan. 27 debut was watched by 3.6 million viewers, making it the highest-rated series launch in Discovery history. Next week, 3.73 million viewers tuned in.

As a result, Nome officials faced a deluge of similar questions: What permits do we need to dredge for gold? Is there a mining camp? Can I buy a dredge up there? Can just anybody go and mine the beaches of Nome?

Nome 
city manager Josie Bahnke has been besieged by calls and she’s not alone. Kerwin Krause with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources told the Nome Nugget his department got a call every five minutes, especially on Mondays following the Friday evening show. “That kind of call volume is not normal. So far we received about 300 phone calls,” he said. “We’re telling people that there are no leases available now.”

Krause has urged Nome city officials to prepare for a modern-day gold rush. Krause said that a DNR field office staffer is supposed to arrive this summer to guide new miners and make sure rules are obeyed. 
Krause and harbor master Joy Baker worry that berthing limitations for small dredges will cause headaches. Small dredges parked in the harbor need permits; even smaller dredges tied up at the east side of Snake River do not need permits for now.


Nome Gold Alaska Corporations business manager Mitch Erickson recommends newcomers visit Nome for a few weeks to see if they like the weather, the cost of living and the work. “Before you blow your wad, come here first and see if you like it,” Erickson told the Nome Nugget. “Don’t come here boom or bust.” Erickson also said successful miners should consider donating to the Food Bank or the Nome Volunteer Ambulance Department. “Give something back to the community,” he suggested.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/articl...aska-gold-rush

[Indy-hp]

Thanks for the insight, Jim. We watch the show and had pretty much nailed it.

I like the bits about Zeke and Emily alot, they seem like good, hardworking kids.

The guys with the big barge-mounted backhoe seem like the only ones who really know how to make it a commercially-viable enterprise.

All the rest come off as real losers and their dredges as unseaworthy.

[Doyouloveit?]

Thanks for the info Jim. I watch the show and like it better than Goldrush. The one guy in the wild something dredge is a stressed out SOB. Zeke's GF has a great rack

[Jim Wilke]

That Zeke Tenhoff kid is pretty tough. As I mentioned above, his dad got a state grant a few years ago and now lives in Homer, Alaska where he manufactures tents and other portable structures. Zeke mines in the summer, sews yurts all winter. I'm not sure where he met Emily, probably Homer as it is a pretty 'artsy' place. Jewel was raised near there, Tom "We'll leave the light on for you" Bodett lives there. I saw John Prine there one time, he has friends in Homer and Peter Graves has a daughter in Homer. Peter Graves and James Arness were brothers, they have a whole slew of relatives 80 miles away in Kenai.

I have a certain amount of respect for Zeke; he occasionally mentions that he is deep in debt. That's because he was hospitalized with an injury and racked up close to $100,000 in medical bills. Instead of dodging the bills or declaring bankruptcy, he's working to pay it off. Good for him.

The Pomrenkes are solid guys, hard working. I was in Nome last week and they were out of town, looking for investors. They will likely get financed and really make some money.

And there is money to be made. A friend of mine's father owns some of the offshore leases, he sub-lets them and doesn't mine at all himself. He takes a percentage of the gold and also buys gold from others. He brings it to Anchorage and sells it here to an assay firm and last summer, he was joking with friends that he was going to have to buy another briefcase. He was carrying some gold on the plane and the bag was so heavy, it ripped the handles off. How much was in it? "Oh, about 40 pounds..." Gold is measured in troy ounces, 12 to a pound for some reason so 40 pounds would be worth about $800,000. He spends the summer sleeping with a gun and big dogs, spends the winter in the Phillipines.

[Doyouloveit?]

How do off shore leases work? So the guys on bearing sea gold..,,do they have to pay something to mine to the state or can they just mind wherever?

[Jim Wilke]

The only place you can mine for free is between high tide and low tide lines; if your feet are wet, you're fine but no diving gear. Most of what is available has been mined many times over, no gold left. From low tide out to 12 miles is mostly state land and the State DNR leases it out the mineral rights if there is any interest. Nome and the Seward Peninsula has been actively mined for over 100 years so the state has been involved for a long time. Folks have known for a long time there was gold out there under the ocean but it didn't pay at $35/ounce or even $300. $1,700/ounce is a different story:

On September 28 the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (ADNR) held a competitive sale for offshore mineral leases at Nome. Eighty-four lease tracts covering 23,793 acres were offered for sale, and all tracts were sold. High bids for all lease tracts totaled $9.3 million. The sale was a combination of sealed bidding and outcry auction. Fifty-three smaller, near-shore tracts were offered for outcry bidding, and 31 larger tracts in deeper water were auctioned by sealed bid. There were 70 registered bidders participating in the outcry portion of the sale, and 111 sealed bids were submitted. The outcry portion of the auction was conducted first, followed by opening of the sealed bids.

Bids were submitted by a range of individuals and companies, from small scale miners to larger, international corporations. Winning bids for the outcry lease tracts ranged from $10,000 to $90,000. The total sale amount for the outcry auction was $1.6 million. The total from the sealed bid tracts was $7.7 million. The highest bid single lease tract sold for $1.6 million.

Interest in offshore mining for gold at Nome has increased dramatically in recent years, largely driven by the price of gold. Gold is mined by suction dredging, which occurs during the summer months. Although there is a recreational mining area that allows dredging off shore of Nome, lease tracts have not been offered for this offshore area since 1999. Unlike uplands, miners cannot stake mining claims offshore. State law requires that offshore mineral rights be provided either through the issuance of prospecting permits which may be converted to leases, or through competitive lease sales. Approximately 50 small suction dredges have been active in Nome this summer prospecting the proposed lease area.

http://www.akbizmag.com/Alaska-Busin...ember-28-2011/

The party who bid the $1.6 million hasn't come up with the money, the state is trying to decide if they will take the second high bid or re-bid next fall.

[dog-ring]

If you want to see a goos show about your fellow human beings watch First 48...............Hi Jim !

[Jim Wilke]

[akh_v2.0]

Just curious Jim, what sort of permitting issues do these folks go through? This is an obvious "bottom-disturbing" activity, do they have to perform and EIS's? any sort of pre- or post- impact assessments? There must be some amount of gravel and sand brought up during the mining, what happens to it? Are there water clarity issues for them to obey? Their dredges look unbelievably unsafe, doesn't some agency have oversight?

I'm mostly curious because it seems from a glance that these folks are not having to meet the kind of criteria the O&G industry has to meet in State or Federal waters.

[Jim Wilke]

The State DNR leases offshore plots for 10 years at a time. The typical lease hold is 100 acres or so, they range from 30 to 160 acres. The lease holder either works it himself or subleases it to others for a percentage. Of course, cheating is rampant because 'the miner gets first count.'

As nearly as I can tell, there is no EIS involved because there is minimal impact; pick up dirt and water, slosh it around, 99% gets dumped rightit back in the ocean. I'm sure there are regs regarding dumping fuel but right now, it is the Wild, Wild West. Reportedly, dozens of new miners are on their way for this upcoming season and some equipment has already arrived by air and is being assembled. There are also 3 big barge-based operations that are being prepared and will arrive in early June.

One other note: BSG is reality TV so don't believe everything you see. I know several of these guys pretty well and some of them are fairly sharp and a couple are idiots. For example, Ian Foster, "captain of the Sluicey" had a job as a social worker for the State. He quit his job to go mining so his girlfriend dumped him and he had to move out of their nice apartment. Someone else lives there now with the girl. In order to finance his operation, he pulled all of his retirement money out of the state system so now he has no job, no retirement, what little he has left is tied up in a beat up riverboat with a pump on it. He lives here now:

[jschield]

Just to clear some things up....
1. Shawn has five, not four kids (4 mothers)
2. I (the "shy" one on the show) was the one he cancelled the wedding on.
3. I DID NOT chase him down the street with a knife.
4. He does have a girlfriend in Anchorage (the girls here know him too well).
5. I am so relieved to be out of that nightmare of a life, and would appreciate not being talked about. I never wanted to be involved with a "reality" show in the first place. They are not real. I am choosing to keep my mouth shut about the truth. Just please leave me out of it all.

This is all a response to what you wrote about Shawn Pomrenke at the top..

[BADGER]

Hey Jim, aren't you the same guy who complained about some writer violating someone else's privacy?

[Jim Wilke]

Just to clear some things up....
This is all a response to what you wrote about Shawn Pomrenke at the top..

I know Shawn fairly well but haven't seen him for a couple of year. He raced one of my sleds in Kotzebue in '05, I had 2 900 Fusions up there. Peter Schaeffer rode the other, finished 2nd. I worked with him and his dad some years back when we all worked for Marv Brisk, if I recall. The knife incident involved another gal, heard the story from Blanning or Evan. Maybe both.

[Jim Wilke]

Five-part series coming up starting August 24. Miners were filmed last winter going under the ice .....

[Indyknut]

......

There are already dredges and equipment being flown into Nome, guys who want to get ready and be in the water the day the ice goes out. Before the summer is over, there will be hundreds more. Most will go home broke, a couple will make some money, a few will die.
...

Isn't that how it is with most of these type "occupational" reality shows?

The storage unit auction business has boomed in the past couple years due to the success of shows like "Storage Wars" and "Auction Hunters" despite the fact what you see on TV is rarely the reality. Most storage unit auctioneers now have disclaimers on their websites specifically speaking to the fact that MOST storage units don't have any sort of hidden riches, most are nothing more than junk, trash, and stuff you'd have a hard time selling at a yard sale. Even the stars of Storage Wars admit that the units that actually pay out are only about 1 in 10 at best. Of course, you don't see that. Nor do they ever mention how much they're paid for their appearance (apparently around $10k per episode for each of the Storage Wars stars). Needless to say those actually in the business can't stand those shows. The crowds at storage auctions have tripled and the prices have been driven up.

"Gold Rush Alaska", now into season 3 or 4? Most of those guys were flat broke about to lose their homes. They've made virtually nothing off the Gold they've found yet they still keep at it. How are they still keeping their houses from the auctioneers gavel? I'm sure the money they're earning from the show is helping to defray their costs. Again, nobody mentions that and anyone foolish enough to go up their on the premises of the show will probably go broke quickly.

"American Pickers", Frank and Mike either fell into money via an inheritance or drug dealing. Driving across the country in that van and buying items that average around $20-200 profit on each? They'd need a semi just to justify their traveling expenses. Again, they're pocketing appearance money which is subsidizing their business. I've heard from real pickers that many of their so-called picks are set up way in advance, that their free-styling method is somewhat bogus, most real pickers find far fewer folks willing to let you just walk onto their properties and start picking.

"Deadliest Catch", one of the few shows I still watch. It always amazes me that these greenhorns show up and are completely clueless as to how hard the job really is. Don't you watch the show?

"Pawn Stars", despite how the show portrays it, if you show up at Gold and Silver in 'Vegas, you're odds of actually seeing or dealing with one of the shows stars is slim to none. The show has been caught as well by alert viewers with bogus pawn sales. One in particular was a seller bringing in a vintage Gibson guitar for sale, they brought in their "guitar expert" from a local guitar store to access the item. The viewer noticed that the guitar was the identical guitar that the same guitar store had had for sale on the internet many months before. For the "expert" to walk in and appear oblivious to ever seeing the guitar before was obviously disingenuous.

[Jim Wilke]

Lots of stories out there that 'Pawn Stars' and 'Storage Wars' are fixed. The expert who gives them an appraisal of some rare item is actually the owner, the whole thing is set up in advance.

This ice version of 'BSG' is just a stop gap - they're filming the longer version right now, it will air sometime after New Years. Expect loads more manufactured drama and fighting and near death experiences. Here's a preview: A kid was supposed to go to work on one of the dredges offshore but was late to show up and they went out without him .... so he decided to swim out to the dredge. Got lost in the fog, search and rescue had to go get him, haul him out of the water, take him to the hospital. How did they know to look for him? The camera guys ....

[Jim Wilke]

'Bering Sea Gold' is filming another 'ice mining' season right now. I ran into Shawn Pomrenke last month and asked him why he was doing it ..."Well, I have to, I signed a contract..."

See that shack out there? That's one of the others, Shawn is west of there.



Here's Shawn on a FB video going out to mining location with his dog:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=2&theater