Ken Foy, who lives in Port Moody, British Columbia, says that the reality series “Yukon Gold” does a great job at portraying his risky and challenging job of mining gold in the Yukon. As Season 2 gets underway tonight on History, Foy let Crave readers in on the true “reality” behind the reality show.
CraveOnline: The new season of “Yukon Gold” premieres tonight… what’s in store for this season?
Ken Foy: It’s never boring when it comes to mining out there – there are new problems, new fixes, and it’s never the same old boring summer. We have new challenges and come up with the fixes.
Can you tell us if you found it be a “successful” season?
We did alright – we had our challenges with the price of gold going down but we fared another decent season.
On every episode the miners seem to face a challenge – is it really as difficult as it appears on television?
Absolutely – they can’t even put all the challenges that we have in the 10 episodes. Last season was a bit of an extreme case for us but we’re faced with the elements of being far away from everything, we have to deal with older equipment, the weather. What you see is what you get.
What’s the most difficult thing about the job?
Mother Nature – we had a late spring this year and you can’t compensate for that. We have summers where we don’t have rain, which is important with what we do. We try to manage our breakdowns as best as we can. Our access is so bad that we’re down a day by the time we go to town and get parts and come back [if something breaks]. Being in the Yukon in these isolated places we can go weeks without getting parts. You have to get through it the best way you can. We’ve all become a bit of a maverick over the years.
Where do you currently live? Since appearing on television are you being recognized more?
I live in Port Moody and we’re all being recognized way more than we ever thought. At first it was kinda uncomfortable but the more it goes the more I enjoy it. I enjoy it more than my wife for sure – she doesn’t like the attention as much.
But the fans are awesome. I’ve had a great time with it.
What’s something that television doesn’t capture about your job and your lives?
They do a really good job of trying to capture it. You can’t get everything but they touch bases on all of the major things, like how hard it is on our relationships and the long hours. But it’s impossible to show everything that happens on a daily basis. The camera crews do a great job portraying us.
Now that you’ve seen yourself on the screen, any chance you might trade in mining for acting?
If I have to act I’m in big trouble (laughs). Absolutely not. It’s great to see yourself on TV but I’m not going to be an actor.
Photo: History/Yukon Gold
