'Pirate Gold Of Adak Island' Netflix Review: Stream It Or Skip It?

Pirate Gold Of Adak Island is a reality series that documents an attempt by an elite treasure hunting team to find approximately $365 million of gold buried around Adak Island, which is so remote that it's closer to Japan than it is to the U.S. west coast. The gold was buried in 1882 by a Russian seal poacher named Gregory Dwargstof, who took the gold in his ship when U.S. naval forces raided his fleet. A few tins of coins have been found in the 140 years since, but now an effort is underway to find the rest — that are potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Opening Shot: A camera pushes in over the water to a small island. "Adak, Alaska, rising up from the middle of the Bering Sea," says narrator Jeff Wilburn.

The Gist: In 1943, Adak was a key military base in World War II, and a soldier found one of the tins full of gold coins as he dug a path to the Quonset huts that dotted the base. Another tin was found in 1959, but there are over 180 cans still out there, potentially worth over $365 million. Since the base closed in 1996, which released the restrictions on digging in the area, people have dug countless holes and found nothing.

Thom Spitler, mayor of the town of Adak, is counting on finding this treasure as a way of lifting the flagging fortunes of his town, which only has 45 residents. It took him a number of years to assemble what he feels is an expert treasure hunting team that will be able to find the rest of Dwargstof's treasure. Brian Weed is a technologist that finds treasure using state-of-the-art gadgets; Adak natives Burke Mitchell and Jay Toomoth can fabricate tools from found materials; Dr. M Jackson is a geographer who knows the history of what the island's topography was like before the military took over. Spitler himself is an expert in ordinance disposal, which comes in handy on an island full of unexploded and neglected bombs buried underground.

The team will split 5% of whatever they find, which could potentially mean a multimillion-dollar payday for each of them, and Adak will get the rest.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Pirate Gold of Adak Island is along the lines of Gold Rush, but a lot calmer and without all the talk of glory holes.

Our Take: One of the things that surprised us about Pirate Gold Of Adak Island is just how calm it is. The narration isn't what we’d call relaxed, but it doesn't have the urgent tone of other series of this ilk. And it seems that the producers, Will Ehbrecht and Mark Kadin, are OK with showing just how slow of a go this hunt is going to be.

By the end of the first episode, the team has identified where the paths the military dug were, what they were made of, and Dr. Jackson used some logic to figure out that Dwargstof likely buried the treasure on a hill that ended up being near the military base. But it's still a painstaking process, because Spitler had to go around finding possible locations where there might be bombs, and when Mitchell and Toomoth find something, Spitler has to advise them through digging carefully in that spot. First, though, he brings out a ground-penetrating radar device to discern the shape.

Even after all that, it's still unclear whether it's a bomb or a big canister full of gold coins, but at least the group has a bit more information in order to make educated decisions. That's something that you just don't see during reality shows like this; usually, producers count more on the personalities of the people working this dig than the procedural aspect. It's almost refreshing that the producers are able to take some time and show how detailed this search really is.

Sex and Skin: None, unless you get all hot and bothered over the sight of a muddy tin can full of gold coins.

Parting Shot: After the GPM identifies the shape, the team thinks they may have found the first of what will be many tins of gold.

Sleeper Star: The scenes of the rough terrain on Adak Island are gorgeous, so we’ll give this to the show's cinematographers.

Most Pilot-y Line: A scene where Mitchell and Toomoth go into the abandoned Hall of Records on the military base and run into overgrown and moldy conditions seems set up. One of them opens a map drawer, sees the murky water in it and says, "There's a lake in this drawer." Yeesh.

Will you stream or skip the reality series #PirateGoldOfAdakIsland on @netflix? #SIOSI

— Decider (@decider) June 30, 2022

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you’re turned off by the "tough guy" energy of shows like Gold Rush, you’ll enjoy the relatively laid back pace of Pirate Gold Of Adak Island.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn't kid himself: he's a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.