How A Missed Flight Caused A Fight On Dave Turin's Lost Mine
One of the first things fans learn when watching Discovery's "Gold Rush" is that gold mining is tough and one of the most stressful jobs imaginable. The chance of actually succeeding in this industry is slim and requires extreme hours, significant resources, and cooperation at every level of the mining operation.
Compounding these high stakes with the innate difficulty of the job, it's no wonder that fights break out very often on "Gold Rush." Some of these quarrels are worse than others. One of the biggest fights in "Gold Rush" history was between series staple Dave Turin and fellow Hoffman crew member Trey Poulson. Their fight — which began over a spare loader and ended with a physical altercation — was so horrible it led Dave Turin to exit the series after seven years with the Hoffmans.
From there he moved to his own spinoff series, titled "Gold Rush: Dave Turin's Lost Mine." Although he managed to get some distance from his rival back at the Hoffman camp, fights still broke out on his new series as well.
Turin wasn't upset about the flight, but about the lack of a phone call
Early on in "Gold Rush: Dave Turin's Lost Mine," Turin got into a heated exchange with a member of his crew named Clarke James, who set the entire operation back by missing his flight. James originally planned to arrive at the airport an hour early, but the clock in his car was set incorrectly, meaning he arrived at the airport five minutes early instead, thus missed his flight completely.
Once he finally arrived at the mine, Turin chewed James out for setting back their work. Oddly, Turin wasn't upset about James' negligence in missing the flight. He was upset that he failed to report the incident to Turin, who had no idea why James was not working. Things got ugly when Turin stormed away and James yelled after him to criticize his leadership. Their fight continued until James yelled at Turin that his "integrity" was garbage, which led Turin to storm off bitterly.
Although things eventually smoothed over between the two, this fight is representative of just how tense gold mining can become, where two men can start shouting at each other because of something as small and inconsequential as a lack of a phone call.