Home to the largest offshore placer gold deposit in the world, Nome, Alaska, attracts adventure seekers, tinkerers, makers, and anyone who has ever dreamed of uncovering treasure. Their stories are fun, exciting, and inspiring. Our goal is to capture the sense of excitement and wonder, the never say die spirit, and the highs and lows that come with the struggle of this treasure hunt unlike any other on earth.
Where else can you wake up one morning, decide you need $2000, and just dive into the ocean to get it? There’s something about gold that makes people do crazy things. They call it gold fever. And for over a century, miners have built every conceivable contraption to get that gold off of the sea floor. From homemade diving rigs barely held together with plywood and duct tape to multimillion dollar barges with scoops big enough to lift boulders the size of cars. There’s always a dreamer with a new idea willing to risk everything for a chance to strike it rich.
Nome, Alaska is a remote community with no road access. During summer mining, there are days where the sun never sets, spent on small homemade dredges sometimes described as “barely seaworthy” by their creators. In the winter, temperatures can drop to -50, some days the sun never rises, and getting the gold means cutting a hole in a sheet of ice on the Bering Sea and diving in. Despite the challenges of this unusual and extreme setting, the amazing crew of Bering Sea Gold is dedicated to capturing these stories. It’s that commitment and fortitude that has kept the show as compelling as ever even after a decade on the air.
