At 25, Tyler Mahoney can’t escape the thrill of finding gold, and she’s not letting anyone get in her way

At an age when other kids were playing with toy animals and playdough, Tyler Mahoney was cradling a metal detector.

As a kid, she spent days and days in the scorching sun of the Western Australian desert searching for gold.

School holidays were spent in the outback, in places like Leonora and Laverton in the goldfields of Western Australia.

“We’d just prospect for gold and run amok out there,” she tells ABC RN’s Life Matters.

She’d ride quad bikes, play in mineshafts, chase animals and generally get gloriously grubby in the red dirt.

So, it’s little surprise that Mahoney, who today lives in Kalgoorlie, WA, grew up to become a full-time goldminer, the fourth generation in her family to do so.

“I’ve always had that gold fever since I was a little girl,” she says.

The hunt is addictive.

“When you find a gold nugget, it’s that little dopamine hit. Like when you win a scratchy or you win on the lotto. You get that rush.

“I just (can’t) escape it.”

Not that Mahoney wants to. Despite a dark side to the world of mining that she’s had to navigate - and that she is still pushing back against - she loves what she does.

“I love being in the outback. I love the red dirt [and] I love finding gold,” she says.

“And I think I’m pretty lucky that I get to do it for a job.”

No day is typical

Twenty-five-year-old Mahoney, who also stars on the Discovery Channel’s reality TV show Gold Rush, says every day is different in the world of gold mining.

She might be driving an excavator, separating gold from dirt with a dry blower (an alternative method to using water, which is “just not available where we are”), using metal detectors out in the field, researching in the office or exploring new areas of land to acquire.

Growing up, Tyler Mahoney spent her days searching for gold in the WA desert. She still loves the “dopamine hit” of finding it. Mahoney’s biggest gold find is a five-ounce nugget - but she’s aiming for bigger, to beat her parents’ records.

But the biggest part of the job is “reading the ground”.

“Being a prospector is all about … knowing how the gold’s moving in the area and looking at indicators,” Mahoney says.

“So yesterday, for example, we knew that where we were, the gold was travelling in laterite [a particular layer of soil], and especially in laterite domes, so it’s just about going out there and reading that.

“Then when you are finding the gold, it’s about knowing how to follow it and the best way to get it out of the ground.”

So far, her biggest find is a fiveounce gold nugget. That’s about the weight of an apple.

“It’s not the biggest nugget ever,” she says.

Her dad’s biggest find, by contrast, is 12 ounces, and her mum’s is 11.

But Mahoney is determined to eclipse them.

“I definitely want to … make sure I’m winning in the family race,” she says.

Respecting the original owners Mahoney says the effect of mining on the land is an important consideration, and describes her family’s mining operation as “very low impact”.

“We don’t use harsh chemicals like the big mines. We’re all just water, air and gravity,” she says.

“We’re definitely very low scale, very low impact. There’s only four of us and we’re only going about six feet deep into the ground.”

Twentyfive-yearold Tyler Mahoney says the hunt for gold is addictive.

There’s also the impact on the area’s traditional owners to consider. There are strict native title laws operating in the area she mines in, and Mahoney says “we work with the local Indigenous group to make sure they’re being compensated”.

In her new book, Gold Digger: Chasing the Motherlode in a Man’s World, she points out that her family’s success comes from working on stolen land.

“It’s something that is very important to us, respecting the owners of the land. And for us, that’s the Wangkatha people. We’re on Wangkatha land,” she says.

“If it wasn’t for the Wangkatha people … we wouldn’t be here.

“They actually, in the original gold rush, helped the first prospectors a lot. They showed them water, helped them with food, and Indigenous people have been finding gold here for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.

“They were some of the first people to show the prospectors what gold is and where they can find it. So we have a lot to thank them for.”

‘He’s given respect. I have to earn it’ Mahoney’s book also delves into cultural problems that exist in the mining industry.

In recent years, sexual assaults and harassment of women on mining sites have been exposed.

Mahoney has experienced the challenges of being a woman in mining firsthand.

“It’s been hard,” she says.

“I first noticed it with my mum coming through and the sexism that she experienced. And now that I’m older, I can definitely see it.”

She points to a recent media interview with a well-known WA mining figure who Mahoney says has done a lot to support women in the industry.

“She basically said that there’s good pockets in mining and there’s bad pockets, and you just have to find those good pockets. And that’s what she’s had to do to survive.”

But Mahoney wants to aim higher.

“I think we should be changing those bad pockets, and I think women should be able to step into any pocket in mining and it be a safe place.”

Mahoney, who has worked in different mining environments around the world, says the industry’s sexism is “pretty much the same, no matter which country”.

“Mining is a male-dominated industry. I travel with a male colleague, and when he enters a room, he’s given respect. And I have to earn it. It just adds another layer of difficulty.”

Things have improved, “but we’re not there yet”, Mahoney says.

However she’s optimistic about continuing change, and she wouldn’t dissuade anyone who is seeking to get into mining. “I would say please don’t get your hopes up, it is bloody hard work … and there’s a lot of rubbish in between those gold finds.

“But give it a go. It is so much fun and I absolutely love it … Just make sure you keep realistic. You’re not going to find the million-dollar nugget the first day.”