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GOOLD'S GOLD is a documentary-in-progress.  The high-definition feature-length film follows maverick geophysicist Jonathan Goold as he hunts for rich veins of gold where no Alaskan prospector has ever set foot: on ground newly exposed by global warming. 

Growing up in Valdez and working there as a geophysicist and government surveyor, Goold noticed that the area's many glaciers are receding at an alarming rate, exposing gravel, soil and cliff faces never seen by human eyes.  It struck him that Valdez's rich history of gold mining ended with World War II only because the land had already been explored.  Why not, he figured, search where previous generations couldn't – namely, under the glaciers? 

Goold kept his idea secret until the spring of 2007, when he invited three local friends on an expedition: Ryan Compehos, a Native American who works as an engineer for the Alaska Oil Pipeline; Tim Hale, a younger geological surveyor who has looked up to Goold since high school; and Dan Gilson, a professional watch-dog environmentalist whose family has been influential in Valdez since the days of the Yukon Gold Rush, when his great grandfather started a prosperous mine next to Valdez Glacier. 

Shooting began in April of 2007 and will continue this August, when snow and ice have melted, floods have cleared and acres of virgin earth and rock have been exposed.  Goold and his team will explore dozens of valleys at the foot of the Chugach Mountain Range, scouring cliffs and glacial moraine for gold-bearing quartz veins.  When they find "color" -- a high density of the gold flakes that can be found all over the hills near Valdez -- they will stake a claim and begin excavation: with rock hammers, gold pans and a gas-powered sluice box. 

Will Jonathan Goold find gold?  The question is not whether he will find gold -- local hobbyists find gold every weekend -- but whether he will find a rich vein like the ones that produced literally tons of gold ore in the years following the Yukon Gold Rush.  Valdezians say that if anyone would find such a vein, it would be Jonathan Goold.     

The completed feature will explore Goold's background and the small-town community that produced this environmental iconoclast -- a community that suffered the worst earthquake in American history and benefited financially from the world's most infamous oil spill (the Exxon-Valdez went aground on its way out of Valdez Harbor). 

Broadening the film's perspective to include global situations, the production will travel this fall to South America, where a Toronto-based mining firm recently announced plans to demolish part of a glacier in order to access the more than 17 million ounces of gold underneath (one ounce of gold is currently worth over $500 USD).  Outcry from locals and international environmentalists has forced the company to conduct the mining without disturbing glacial ice. 

Set against a historical backdrop of ecological disaster and gold rush frenzy, GOOLD'S GOLD is an adventure film with a comic, unexpected approach to Alaska's inconvenient truth: global warming is in everyone's backyard.

 

PAN PRODUCTIONS
8008 BLACKBURN AVE., #1
LOS ANGELES, CA 90048

 

GOULD'S GOLD

GOOLD'S GOLD