Gold Rush’s Parker Schnabel on the ‘Fork in the Road’ That Forced Him to Face His ‘Biggest Fear’ (Exclusive)

In the 10 years Parker Schnabel has mined Canada’s Yukon territory, the Gold Rush veteran has never made a gamble as big as the one in last week’s episode.

In the final moments of the reality show’s season premiere, Schnabel, 29, handed over a check for $15 million to acquire Dominion Creek, a large stretch of untouched land that could potentially yield 80,000 ounces of gold worth $160 million. But the gold in Dominion Creek is buried 40 feet underground, which would require that he spend millions of dollars more to unearth it all.

For Schnabel, making the decision to spend $15 million upfront was a challenging process.

“We were at a real fork in the road in terms of taking on way bigger risks … spending a pile of money on new ground or downsizing,” he tells PEOPLE during a recent interview. “We had this really big choice to make early on in the season, and those big decisions matter quite a bit.”

Making the wrong decision would have gutted the Gold Rush star, whose business operation has grown significantly over the last decade to include a crew who depends on him for their livelihood.

“I probably would’ve rather lost money and kept the team as whole than downsized, honestly,” he admits, adding that even “getting out of business entirely” seemed a more appealing option than “getting smaller.”

But keeping his business afloat requires “a lot of revenue,” Schnabel concedes.

“We’re not a lean and mean little nimble crew or anything like that,” he continues. “We need a lot of ground, and we need a lot of ounces out of the ground to stay afloat, because we’re a big operation. And my number one concern was, we built this really good crew and I didn’t want to have to break that up. That was my biggest fear.”