by Thinus Ferreira
Fred Lewis of Gold Rush on the Discovery Channel (DStv 121) is going for gold - in the cold - with his "Misfits" crew and says that he's not just trying to create a business but a business family as they look for precious nuggets in tons of dirt.
The military veteran is a recent addition to Discovery Channel's long-running, iconic and hypnotic reality series that's been on TV for over a decade, in which cameras capture miners facing every single obstacle imaginable as they dig for gold in a very short window of time across Canada and the United States.
I sat down with Fred Lewis to find out what it takes - and the stakes - of digging for gold.
You're a military veteran, and also did some various different school jobs. How did you get involved with gold mining?
Fred Lewis: Oh, yeah. Well, it's been a
journey. I got out of the military in 2009. I served for 14 years - 7 years as a Korean linguist and 7 in Special Forces. When I got out, I went right
into college and started off with a degree plan for veterinary studies.
Then I
moved out to Kentucky and my father had been diagnosed with cancer. So I
changed my degree to agriculture. I got a degree in agriculture with an emphasis on livestock production; started some farming and was doing some small plot
intensive garden classes to teach veterans how to grow food in their gardens.
I did that for a few years, and then I got invited to work back at the medical
facility on Fort Bragg, where I learned all my medicine. I did that job for
several years, but I still didn't feel like it was what I wanted to do.
So, I started going to college, got
a degree in education. Then I got offered a job to teach high school biology. I
went and did that for a semester and I actually really liked the job.
It just
wasn't ... it wasn't enough for me. It didn't give me enough. I coached wrestling.
I coached high school volleyball. And then I ended up getting a teaching job, teaching middle school history. Meanwhile, I was trying to get a degree in web
design and got about three-quarters of the way through that degree. And it
wasn't what I wanted to do.
So I gave that up and I basically
stopped studying that. And that's when I got a spot on American Ninja Warrior,
I went and did that twice.
That kind of got me to realise that people were
interested in my story and my background and everything I'd been through.
So, I
started putting my name out there and was invited to go with Parker Schnabel to
Papua New Guinea as a security element, because of my military background and
that's where Gold Rush came in. And the rest everybody's been able to watch on the
show. I just got a good old case of gold fever and went with it. That's a long
story!
You've also been to Afghanistan and Iraq and Korea, and also even Africa. I'm wondering, where were you in Africa and what did those experiences in all of those countries instil in you and what did you learn?
Fred Lewis: Yeah, I think my travels both
as a civilian and in the military have absolutely shaped who I am.
I've been to
Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea. I spend a lot of time in Africa, up in the
north, in Niger, Algeria, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, some time in Mali.
All
those humanitarian missions and counter-terrorism missions got me living with the people. It wasn't just like going there for a few days. It was six,
seven, eight weeks living with villagers.
And that cultural experience kind of
just taught me that hard work is something that the rest of the world does a
lot more than we do. And you look at our history as a country and you're like,
man, we need to start working harder.
That kind of got me to want to do
something in life that was complicated and challenging because I see so many
people just swiping their card, checking in and checking out. And it just, I
don't know, it's not for me.
A lot of the guys on the team or your team are also former veterans. Why is that? And is that why they work so well together as a team, because of their previous training, do you think?
Fred Lewis: Yeah. When I started this
company, I wanted to give veterans a chance because I've worked closely with
veterans over the last 10 years of being a veteran and I've formed non-profits.
I've worked with non-profits, I've done classes to help veterans learn how to
do things.
The one thing that's in common with all of us is we all need a
purpose. And when we get out of the military, it doesn't just come to us. No
one delivers us a purpose. We have to find it and it takes a long time and a
lot of work to do that.
So, when I saw myself become so interested in gold
mining, I knew other veterans would have the same exact response. So, what I've
done is I put together a team and tried to recruit people I felt like, needed
it - people that were in a spot in their
life where they didn't quite know where they were going.
I know that the
military has already put a selection process through most of our special
operations. So, I focused on special operations knowing that the individuals
I'm hiring have already proven themselves, they don't have to prove themselves
to me. I know they can work.
When you put these people together and we're
all thinking the same, we're all from the same backgrounds, it's really amazing
what we can do. And I think that's what I want to showcase on Gold Rush.
Viewers see you doing conflict resolution and you seem to be really good at diffusing situations when people fight and are angry. Is that something that you learned or is it from having been a teacher or how did you develop that skill?
Fred Lewis: I think that's a result of
all the leadership I had throughout my military career and all the coaches and
all the ways that I've been taught to coach in the civilian world.
I am not the
kind of person that likes conflict. I've been through enough of it in my life. I've
seen what it does. So, when I see a problem, I think it's the best thing to do
to solve it quickly.
The biggest thing for me is I'm trying to create a
family. I'm not trying to just create a business, to make money, to find gold. I'm
trying to make Misfits Mining into a family that changes everybody's lives. And
I think that when conflict comes up, just like a family at home, you've got to
solve it and you've got to get through it.
The gold mining business seems like such a high-risk, high-reward business and I'm wondering, how difficult is it to maintain your distance emotionally while you're working? You're in a situation with limited time, limited resources and all of these dangers and breakdowns and costs mounting. How do you not get swept up in the stakes and emotions?
Fred Lewis: Yeah, that's the challenge
of gold mining. My method is to come into the beginning of the season, do all the
math, do all the analyses, do all the numbers, crunch everything so I know
what I'm looking at and then shut emotions off.
You have to run through the
entire season, being confident that you've set up your budget correctly,
confident that you have the supply system you need, and confident that your
tests are right - and that the goal is going to be where it's going to be. If
you let emotion get in, that's gold fever, it's emotion.
And if you let it get in, it's going
to make you make bad decisions.
So, you've just got to be confident and shut
those emotions off. And I think that's another thing being former military that
really benefits guys like us.
We can shut our motions off whenever we want, and
you've just got to lean forward and trust yourself. And that's why most gold
mining operations fail. They don't trust the system and they don't do their
homework.
And then once it starts, how many hours are you guys able to sleep? How much do you actually have to be awake for and work during the few days you have?
Fred Lewis: Well, we kept the mine
running 24 hours a day. So, it's never down.
For us, we're working probably
between 14, 16 to 18 hour days depending. And I try to give everybody a day off
every 12 days. I know it sounds horrible, but when you break down gold mining,
it's a numbers game and you can input the amount of fuel you're using.
You can
input the number of man-hours going into, versus the gold coming out. And you're
going to know how much you have to work to make money. So, it's not like a
choice of comfort. It's just the name of the game.
What would you say you've learnt from your Gold Rush experience so far?
Fred Lewis: Man, there are a few things
I've learned that was unexpected. I think one thing that was unexpected was
the number of haters I was going to get.
I figured coming on the show and being
the new guy, I'd get a little bit, and failing last season was a little rough,
but man, I'm almost to the point where I think I might have to start an
anti-bullying campaign or something.
Luckily, it doesn't bother me personally. It
just surprises me the number of people that don't give us a chance to prove
ourselves - that don't give us a chance to defend ourselves.
It just assumes
that we're over our heads when we – we are over our heads, but at the same
time, we're confident that we can do this. And it's just surprising, I don't
know, I get a lot of really good messages from veterans every day, flooding my
account, just like thanking me for giving them motivation and asking me for work,
which is great. But I get a heck of a lot of hate too.
Gold Rush is on the Discovery Channel (DStv 121) with double episodes of season 11 on weekdays at 10:30 and season 12 from 1 February as single episodes. The latest season 12 is available as a box set on DStv Catch Up.
