INTERVIEW: Josh Feldman heads back to Greenland on ‘Ice Cold Gold’

Greenland, much like Alaska, is considered international frontier land. Explorations into the deep recesses of this tucked-away country have produced encouraging results, especially in the gold trade.

That’s where Josh Feldman enters. The entrepreneur who continues to mine gold in his family’s business looks at Greenland and sees, well, lots of green. His journeys to mine the untapped gold in this expansive country is the subject of Ice Cold Gold, Animal Planet’s reality series that airs Thursdays at 10 p.m.

“This season was much bigger than our first season,” Feldman said recently in a phone interview. “We obtained so much information in the first season that we were able to put together one hell of a list of where we needed to go and what we needed to do, of course, the main focus being on the ruby deposit that we found. The work up there was crucial for us, and getting those rubies out of those mountains and to an area that we can actually do something with them, that was our main goal this year.”

Although Feldman remained tight-lipped about what the crew found in Greenland, he said the “results were fantastic,” and there were finds that beat their expectations.

Gold mining runs in Feldman’s blood. His father has always been involved in the business, and the family cut its gold teeth in Arizona. “That’s where I got my experience in learning how to gold mine and prospect,” he said. “Greenland was a very rare opportunity. There’s not too many places left on earth that a man can go and find something that is completely untouched, find a deposit that nobody else has ever discovered or developed. And when you learn that about Greenland, for a guy like me, that’s a dream.”

Although Greenland’s potential as a gold-mining country is fairly new, the secret has been unleashed. Next to Feldman’s crew is a rising tide of competition. Feldman characterized his explorations as a “race.”

“It’s literally get in as fast as you possibly can, find what you can and stake your claim before somebody else does. And it’s a big deal for us. We are trying to get to as many spots as we possibly can, to find what we can before somebody gets in front of us because that window is going to close. Eventually all the good land is going to be claimed up in Greenland, and if you don’t get out there right now and do it, you’re going to lose your chance.”

Finding these spots and setting up profitable operations are challenges for a number of reasons. One of the toughest obstacles is the weather, which Feldman called “absolutely ridiculous.” The crew, including Animal Planet camera operators, have trouble getting into the country and getting around. There are times when they need to hunker down, cross their fingers and hope for the best, Feldman said.

Somehow the team is able to overcome the odds, but that doesn’t make it easy on this motley crew.

“There’s huge personalities within our team, and I’ll tell you something, you know, we’re all away from our businesses. We’re away from home. We’re away from family. That, coupled with the hardships of Greenland, it manifests itself sometimes into explosive levels between us. The stress is something each of us carry every day, but, in the end, we’re really each other’s family in Greenland. And family fights because they care.”

Feldman has accomplished a lot in his gold-mining years. The money still matters, but the thrill of the hunt and independence from a corporate structure are also key. “I have to get out there and do it on my own, even if it’s at my own detriment,” he said. “I might have an easier life and be better off just kind of working for somebody else, but, you know, you got to take that risk. I’m still young yet, and it’s kind of one of those things. I don’t want to be older and look back, and wish that I had done more, wish that I had tried to find my fortune on my own.”

That fierce tenacity also has consequences. Flying to Greenland to mine gold is not exactly a 9-to-5 job in the local neighborhood. Hours spent near the Arctic are hours spent away from family and friends.

“Most of the time, we basically can’t communicate back home, and whenever we can, if there’s any information that comes through, it’s not necessarily always good news,” Feldman said. “So when you’ve got somebody out there, a member of our team, and they receive bad news from home, it really wears on that person. And we all experience that together. We’re all living very close to one another, and whenever you have somebody that gets upset, losing their temper, any of those sort of things happen, you do have to stop to remind yourself what we’re all going through and what each of us is experiencing.”

What keeps Feldman and the crew going is the childlike wonder when they see gold in the pan. That feeling of exhilaration, that potential for something unexpected to come from the ground, never loses its novelty.

“When we make a discovery, man, there’s nothing better,” he said. “I’ve discovered a lot of amazing things throughout my career. And every single time, there’s no greater feeling. There really isn’t. It just makes me want to keep doing it, and doing it and doing it. In a way, it’s like a drug.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Ice Cold Gold airs on Animal Planet Thursdays at 10 p.m.