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Right now, the spotlight is on gold, as the price of an ounce trades above $4,000, the highest level in history. Meanwhile, President Trump is unleashing a torrent of critical minerals mining projects (including gold) on federal and public lands, seizing the economic moment to excavate Earth’s supply of raw materials for renewable energy and wartime technologies. Environmental, health, and moral issues related to mining that were once the province of local grassroots groups and NGOs have been thrust into the wider public. There’s a thirst for information about what mining truly entails as we grapple with the reality that, to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels without changing consumption habits, demand for metals to power our lives will rise sharply. 

“Gold Fools” is part 1 in a 3-part series of short documentaries that examine the United States’ gold mining history and the present political landscape governing the modern mining bonanza from the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples, miners, recreators, environmentalists, and everyday people, to set the record straight on the yellow metal. It aims to foster understanding of the socio-political legacy of gold mining in particular, to build awareness about metals mining in general. The United States’ relationship with gold is veiled in myth. How many of us were taught that miners in Idaho blew up multiple precious and base-metals mines in the 1890s because their bosses wanted to lower their pay and were subsequently confined to concentration camps by the National Guard for months as punishment? Have we been taught the extent of the enslavement and land theft undertaken in the pursuit of gold? And, how many of us know that today, if the state of Nevada were a country, it would be the fourth-largest gold producer on the planet? Getting the facts right about gold mining’s past and present can help us make sense of debates and discussions at the government and social levels regarding mining expansion more broadly. 

“Gold Fools” starts out exploring the controversy surrounding Idaho’s Stibnite Gold Project. The proposed mine will excavate over 400 million tons of earth from public lands that are part of the Native American Nez Perce Tribe’s treaty-protected territory, in violation of their guaranteed access to fish and wildlife. John Paulson, a billionaire who profited from the U.S. Housing Bubble that led to the 2008 Financial Crisis, is the Stibnite Gold Project’s majority shareholder. “Gold Fools” is currently in pre-production. The sizzle reel shown here features brief interviews with participants in the documentary.