INTERVIEW: Emily Riedel braves Alaska’s harshness in ‘Bering Sea Gold’
Emily Riedel, the star of Discovery Channel’s Bering Sea Gold, lives an adventurous life in Nome, Alaska. As the captain of a gold-mining dredge, Riedel braves the harshness of the northern climate and the many complications of the industry to bring home a satisfying financial tally. Her triumphs and setbacks provide the reality series with much of its narrative storytelling, and she has quickly become a fan favorite.
On the new season of Bering Sea Gold, which airs 9 p.m. on Fridays, Riedel employs an all-female crew to test her skills, find some gold and make some money.
“This was probably my most challenging season I think in terms of who I was working with,” Riedel said recently during a phone interview. “The best of me is not always portrayed in working with the people I’m working with this season. It was a lot of unforeseen challenges for sure.”
The new crew members were diver-certified and familiar with the difficulty of diving in cold water. “I wasn’t going to, you know, subject diving in 25-degree water under 4 feet of ice to people who had never dove before,” she said. “That happened to me, and that was a bad idea. Only one of them was a girl that I knew. The rest of them I found through a network of female divers. … And my motivation was … I was the sole woman working in an industry dominated by men, and I just sort of fundamentally disagreed with that. I thought that maybe the reason why more women weren’t up in Nome working was just, you know, of being underexposed to gold mining in the North. I don’t think a lot of people know that it’s happening. … There’s always a way in. You just kind of have to be ushered in.”
Riedel said it’s tough for her to take the trailblazer mantle because she is “very critical” of herself and the progress she has made in Nome. “I realize there’s a lot I have to learn about being a leader, and that makes me hesitant to call myself one I suppose, especially in terms of being called a trailblazer and a symbol for women wanting to break into a men’s world,” she said. “I’m a person trying to do a job, and I am a woman. And there are sort of the challenges that go along with that, but I certainly think it takes women a couple steps back if we’re simply rewarded for showing up as opposed to being rewarded for showing good merit.”
The dredger now has the chance to look back at her earlier days in the gold business with some nostalgia. She has been able to overcome many obstacles, both personal and professional, and she has learned a lot about this unique industry.
“I look back at myself in those early days, and I feel like I was a complete idiot,” she said. “I realize I plunged into something where I was way over my head and, you know, made a lot of big mistakes along the way. But, yeah, I find myself looking back a lot and wishing that I had done things differently. But, you know, this happened the way it happened. Certainly I wish that I had been more brave and more decisive. … But when you’re young and stupid, you’re young and stupid.”
The world of dredging for gold is “very dangerous, unpredictable and chaotic.” That was true on Riedel’s first day, and it continues to be so in 2015. However, today she has adapted to the hardships and overcome many difficulties.
The star of Bering Sea Gold, who is an aspiring opera singer, doesn’t watch the reality series, preferring to keep her memories and perception of her progress intact. “I like to keep my reality in my own head and not watch it in a television format,” she said. “I just want to focus on what I’m doing and who I am. I don’t want who I am to be portrayed other than what I know. … Honestly I think it makes better television if I don’t watch the show. I just try to remain as unaware as possible.”
The one time she’s definitely aware of being on a reality series is when the camera operators are recording her crew’s every move. Sometimes, when she’s trying to do her job and they’re trying to do theirs, there can be some disagreements.
“We’ve been doing it for so long that we have no air of politeness with each other,” she said. “It’s a big long battle for them to get what they need out of me and for me to do my job. … My first priority is gold mining, so naturally there’s a bit of conflict there.”
The allure of mining for gold is less about the money for Riedel and more about the captivating nature of the discoveries. She predicted that if the crews were mining for dollar bills, there would be less competition. But shiny gold, that’s particularly addictive. “It’s just the hunt for something that the earth produces that’s just sitting there being all pretty and gold-like,” she said. “The money is a necessity. It’s what you need to stay alive in mining.”
Gold mining in Nome necessitates living in Nome as well, and this far-off locale, with its accompanying tundra, can be barren. “I would not choose to have that location for gold mining personally,” Riedel said. “I wish there were trees and warmth and life there, but, you know, I think that it’s just strange irony that gold would be in such great quantity in such a desolate place. It’s almost some poetic justice there. We always say when the conditions get really bad, when we’re having breakdowns, when we’re miserable and cold, and the waves are getting really bad, or something like that … we start to think that we must be on some great gold because everything is going wrong.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
