A group of would-be miners being filmed for a Discovery Channel reality TV show have been the talk of the town since arriving in May, but they’re not saying much.

The group of about two dozen – which includes seven or eight out-of-town miners and their families – is working the Jim Nail claim in the historic Porcupine mining district, next door to a claim worked for years by John Schnabel.

Although their cameras have shown up around town for events like the Fourth of July festivities in Tlingit Park, cameramen and actors refuse to talk to reporters or residents about the premise of the show or how the town will be portrayed on film.

Matthew Testa, a Discovery representative who shepherded camera crews on the Fourth, referred questions to company representative Katherine Nelson. Nelson has not returned a phone call or e-mail to newspaper reporters since miners got here in May.

Interviews with cast members, crew, town officials and residents who are making money on the shoot — by renting homes or equipment to producers or serving restaurant meals – provide a partial picture of what’s going on.

It goes like this: Jack Hoffman, who runs an air service in Sandy, Ore., and his 40-year-old son Todd got the idea of coming to Alaska to mine. They leased a claim from Earl Foster of Anchorage and contacted Discovery about making their venture a reality TV show, featuring families from the Lower 48 hacking out a new life at a gold camp in the Alaska wilderness.

Unanswered questions include whether families are competing against each other in an Alaska family version of “Survivor,” to what extent Discovery has committed to airing the show, and whether the Hoffmans’ operation will continue when the cameras stop rolling.

The miners have brought in heavy equipment and a trailer to serve as cook shed, and built structures on the property, while borrowing expertise from neighboring prospectors.

Anney Shuder, who calls herself the Porcupine’s only year-round resident, said she’s been impressed with the group whose camp a mile from her place she visits for coffee. “The whole operation is family-oriented. They’re really fine people. They’re people of values. If I don’t make it to church, they come by and pick me up. They seem like people you’d trust in a handshake situation.”

Shuder, who has worked on small placer claims, said the group isn’t running a shoestring operation like some mine camps. “Apparently they’re well-funded enough that they keep everything moving. When something goes wrong they fix it. The area’s clean.”

The people at the camp may not all be miners, but some of them are skilled equipment operators and they’ve built a couple good-looking structures, Shuder said. The investment there looks like more than would go into a set for a TV show, she said.

Mark Sebens, a 30-year Haines resident, also has a placer operation in the Porcupine. He and as many as 100 residents – including Haines Borough mayor Jan Hill and manager Mark Earnest – attended a barbecue John Schnabel hosted for the TV miners at his claim Saturday. Real miners and a Canadian mine exploration company working near the U.S. border were invited as well.

“They’re digging around there,” Sebens said. “The film crew is filming the whole thing, including the breakdowns and frustrations of trying to find gold. It’s a story line of people busting loose from down south trying to make a go of it up here with their families and a mine operation.”

The miners are “great guys” and it sounds like they’re getting some gold, but supporting seven families with a Porcupine claim would be stretch, Sebens said. He characterized mining in Porcupine as more pastime than profession.

“That’s a big crew for a mine to support, even with gold at $1,200 an ounce. If I was going to make it with a family up there, I’d be thinking of supplementing my income with an excavator or firewood cutting,” he said.

Sebens said he got the impression the mining TV show would be more authentic than some reality shows where crises are contrived to build drama. On the other hand, modern placer mining – like day-to-day life — isn’t that exciting, he said. “After you run your first bucket, it’s just one damn bucket after another until the end of the day when you find out if you got anything.”

Some apparent scripting was evidenced at Saturday’s party when residents were asked on camera what they thought of a green crew arriving in Alaska to make it in gold mining.

When the question was put to borough facilities director Brad Maynard, he was enthusiastic. “I said, ‘I think it’s great.’ I kind of came up here on a pig in a poke. A lot of people came up here like that,” Maynard recounted.

Crew members then told Maynard that’s not what they wanted to hear and the interview was re-shot. “So I told them, ‘I think their chances at success are miserable and I think they’ll fail,’” Maynard said. “They had their own lines they wanted me to say… They pretty much had it scripted.”

The miners have been more muted in recent weeks than when they got here, residents say. Lumberyard worker J.J.Lende recounted when bearded, burly, tattooed Todd Hoffman walked into her family’s store in May.

“He said, ‘I’m Todd Hoffman. I’m here with Discovery and I’m going to be on TV. I’m going to be famous, so it would be good to know me,’” Lende said.

Unlike movies for which advance publicity helps sell tickets, the making of reality TV shows is often kept under wraps until the last minute, said Erik Pedersen, news editor for the Hollywood Reporter.

“They don’t want anything leaked out over the Internet while they’re filming. That can ruin a reality show when it’s a competition. It would kill the show,” Pedersen said.

Also, if the factual context of a show doesn’t match what’s presented on a “reality” TV show, such advance publicity also can be a problem, he said.

“They don’t want all the facts out there. It may not be as interesting a show” if the audience knows compromising information, he said.

Networks have made a lot of money on reality TV shows and northern themed-ones like “The Deadliest Catch,” “Icefield Truckers” and “Axmen,” (about loggers in the Pacific Northwest) have done well in recent years.

“The way these shows work is they make stars out of nobodies. It makes the show that much more of a splash if no one’s ever heard of them before. The more they can keep to themselves, the bigger splash they can make,” Pedersen said.

Author