Mining was not her career of choice
Born in 1988 in California, Riedel is a third-generation Alaskan. Her father is miner Steve Riedel, although not much is known about her mother. She also has two other siblings. Riedel displayed a keen interest in music and studied opera.
However, in 2012, she decided to try her hand at mining, to help fund her education, seeing that she needed the cash to study abroad in Vienna, Austria. She started as a deckhand on The Clark, alongside her childhood friend, Ezekiel Zeke Tenhoff.
It wasn t long before she realized that she had developed a passion for the same and that mining in Nome is where the money is at, literally. In a conversation with Medium, Riedel explained that there was never a boring moment at work. One of the benefits of this career is that there is no shortage of interesting stories, she added.