Gold Rush’s Parker Schnabel on the ‘Fork in the Road’ That Forced Him to Face His ‘Biggest Fear’ (Exclusive)

Within the 10 years Parker Schnabel has mined Canada’s Yukon territory, the Gold Rushveteranhas by no means made of venture as huge because the one in final week’s episode.

Within the remaining moments of the truth present’s season premiere, Schnabel, 29, handed over a test for $15 million to accumulate Dominion Creek, a big stretch of untouched land that would probably yield 80,000 ounces of gold price $160 million. However the gold in Dominion Creek is buried 40 ft underground, which might require that he spend tens of millions of {dollars} extra to unearth all of it.

For Schnabel, making the choice to spend $15 million upfront was a difficult course of.

“We have been at an actual fork within the highway by way of taking over means larger dangers … spending a pile of cash on new floor or downsizing,” he tells PEOPLE throughout a current interview. “We had this actually huge option to make early on within the season, and people huge choices matter fairly a bit.”

Making the incorrect resolution would have gutted the Gold Rush star, whose enterprise operation has grown considerably over the past decade to incorporate a crew who relies on him for his or her livelihood.

“I most likely would’ve quite misplaced cash and stored the group as entire than downsized, truthfully,” he admits, including that even “getting out of enterprise fully” appeared a extra interesting choice than “getting smaller.”

However protecting his enterprise afloat requires “a number of income,” Schnabel concedes.

“We’re not a lean and imply little nimble crew or something like that,” he continues. “We want a number of floor, and we’d like a number of ounces out of the bottom to remain afloat, as a result of we’re an enormous operation. And my primary concern was, we constructed this actually good crew and I did not need to have to interrupt that up. That was my greatest concern.”

When requested whether or not buying Dominion Creek was well worth the $15 million he spent, Schnabel says he takes a wait-and-see angle.

“So far as if it was price it, we’ll see,” he says, including that Dominion Creek is a “long-term funding.” “We received’t actually know if it’s price it from a revenue standpoint for a couple of years.”

Gold Rush airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on the Discovery Channel, with the complete collection streaming on Max.