As one of the original stars of the show, the name Dave Turin is well-known by every keen fan of Discovery’s “Gold Rush”. As part of the Hoffman crew, Dozer Dave proved to be one of the most competent miners in the show before an ugly fight in the seventh season led him to part ways with his old crew.
While Dave made several cameos in “Gold Rush” throughout the following seasons, he eventually got his own show “Dave Turin’s Lost Mine” for a while, before it came to a surprising end in 2023.
Though a lot was speculated about Dave’s life after leaving TV, it didn’t take him long to return to the small screen with his new show “America’s Backyard Gold”.
So what’s going on with Dozer Dave these days? What happened to his other shows, and does he have any bad blood towards his former “Gold Rush” co-stars? What are his plans for the future? Keep watching to find out!
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What’s His New Show About?
We have seen Dave Turin following his gold mining call in many shows throughout the years, yet the concept of “America’s Backyard Gold” is different from that which we’ve seen him in before. This new TV project has Dozer Dave traveling around the country to help people find gold in less likely places.
Though Dave’s previous show “Dave Turin’s Lost Mine” had already explored his interest in traveling for gold, this new show’s focus is entirely on people’s stories, and also on North America’s centuries-old history with gold. This makes a good match for any long-time fan of “Gold Rush”, while also gaining a place in the watching schedule of new audiences.
As he revealed to TV Insider, Dave had been pitching the concept of “America’s Backyard Gold” to Discovery for two years before it became a reality in early 2024. Only one season of the show has been aired so far, but there’s little doubt that Dave’s new TV project is exciting, to say the least.
While it’s good to know what Dave has been up to professionally, not much else about his other endeavors is often revealed. However, Dave sometimes shares a thing or two about his life through his Instagram and Facebook official pages.
Why Did Dave Leave “Gold Rush”?
Even though “Gold Rush” is a show focused on the mining experiences of a variety of professional crews trying to make a living out of it, that doesn’t mean that there’s no drama involved in it. That has been made evident on several occasions throughout the show’s history, one of the most tense and shocking moments happened in the seventh season when Dave Turin and Trey Poulson got into a physical altercation.
This incident between the now-former members of the Hoffman crew resulted in the exit of Dave from the main show in 2016, but three years later he got his show “Dave Turin’s Lost Mine”.
That being said, Dave doesn’t have bad blood against his former co-workers. As he confessed in an interview with TV Insider, he worked on fixing the emotional consequences of that altercation, finding a way to make ‘amends’ and move on. Dave also admitted to having no ‘hard feelings’ about anybody who was involved in the incident, even though it was hard for him to deal with it. as it was his job and income which was put on the line back then.
All in all, it’s clear that fighting on TV wasn’t something anyone else would like to see themselves in, but in Dave’s case, he dealt well with the aftermath.
Why Did His Other Show End?
Given his sudden and troubled exit from “Gold Rush”, Dave’s next show “Dave Turin’s Lost Mine” was a breath of fresh air for his fans. This show premiered in 2019 and saw Dave traveling around the USA, turning forgotten mines into profitable, gold-rich land.
“Dave Turin’s Lost Mine” shared many of the overlooked realities of gold mining, as seen in the many difficult situations Dave dealt with in the show, which included getting permits and dealing with people from the oil industry who wanted a share in the modern gold rush, which has been going on in the country for a while.
“Dave Turin’s Lost Mine” aired for three years, when the time to say goodbye came in 2022. At the end of the fourth season, Dave revealed that he was retiring from mining altogether, though in an interview of early 2024, he affirmed that the show had been canceled due to the high levels of stress the team was undergoing. On top of that, Dave wanted to do something different with his career at that point, which eventually became a reality when his new show “America’s Backyard Gold” was greenlighted by Discovery the following year.
What Happened To “Gold Rush”?
There’s no doubt that “Gold Rush” is one of the most successful shows on Discovery. Regardless of how many seasons and years pass, there are no limits to the gold fever of the audience, who are always looking forward to seeing what the crews are up to.
Nevertheless, things have changed a lot since the show’s premiere in 2014. For one, from the eighth season the Hoffmans have no longer been in the show, while other things remain the same, such as Parker Schnabel keeping his place as the most profitable gold miner in the show.
Following the exit of Dave Turin from the Hoffman crew in 2016, he appeared in a couple of episodes in the eighth, tenth, and thirteenth seasons. He was also a constant presence in some “Gold Rush”s spin-offs such as “The Dirt”, “Winter’s Fortune” and more recently “Freddy Dodge’s Mine Rescue”.
That being said, Dave appears to be happy with the way things turned out with his own shows. As he revealed to TV Insider, one aspect of “Gold Rush” and its spin-offs that he didn’t like was the huge amounts of drama, on top of putting a lot of ‘high stakes’ in the operations. In his words, these weren’t abnormal aspects in the industry but were nonetheless hard to deal with, having TV cameras around.
In the end, Dave sorted out all these issues by finding a way to do things the way he wanted without leaving his mining adventures behind. A true star of all these series.
