Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero,

Alaskans prepare for dark winter.

If you don't like winter, don't come to Alaska.

NARRATOR: Glenn braves thin ice for a new food source.

Whoa.

NARRATOR: Andy races to break a new trail.

Hey, hey, hey, hey!

Chip must build an essential tool

in time for dark winter.

CHIP: Basically armouring up a sled for heavy work.

And Sue tackles Alaska's deadliest road.

SUE: I've got mountain passes to go through

that are notorious killers.

ANDY: You guys wanna haul water today?

Who's gonna get water? Is Jack gonna get water?

Today's the day of getting a lot of chores done.

So, first thing's first, gotta go get some water

out of the river.

We've got a ton of water flowing by our house,

about a million gallons an hour flowing (CHUCKLES) by our house.

I'm just gonna push this sled down and let the dogs run around

-and hopefully I can call them all in, -(DOGS WHIMPERING)

hook them up, and bring the water back up.

Let's go.

Everybody come! Everybody come!

NARRATOR: Andy and Kate must get water every fifth day

for drinking and cleaning.

With no indoor plumbing, Andy must use the Yukon River

as his water source.

ANDY: Whoo!

By far this is the most dangerous time of year

for me to do this chore.

I'm always really nervous

any time I go near the edge of the river.

The ice is hollow, it doesn't take much

to collapse ice when it's hollow.

Yeah, I've gone swimming in the Yukon

a number of times in the winter.

It's not fun.

When it's slushy ice like this,

as soon as you go in it's like cement.

It just closes up around you

and there's not a damn thing you can do.

I understand how people drown on ice really quickly

now because of how cold it is

and how hard it is to get out once you're in

without some kind of assistance.

So I've learned through experience

that when you're on your own you're really on your own out on the ice.

And if it happens, kiss your ass goodbye.

It's a killer.

It's a killer out here.

Everybody come!

Attaboys! All right!

Hey, Coug, I'm gonna... Whoa, whoa. It's okay. I'm gonna put you in swing

so you don't have to get close to that ice.

-I know you don't like that. -(BARKING)

Everything I do

I try and do with my dogs around here.

They're my buddies, they're my tools, they're my machinery.

They pretty much do it all for me.

Most of all, they're my best friends.

I love these dogs.

Okay. Hup, hup, hup. Let's go!

Attaboys!

Up we go. Hup, hup, hup, hup, hup.

Yeah! Let's go, boys!

CHIP: It makes everything sweeter when you can just go out

and be reliant on yourself.

When you go out there, and you come back,

time after time and you make a living

and after a pile of years goes by, you're still here.

No plane yet.

CHIP: I've got some wood coming to make stuff for sleds

because my old one is beaten to death.

So if I'm gonna get ready for winter coming up here,

I'm gonna need a sled.

Well, now we're just waiting for the plane.

When the plane gets here we'll see what we got for wood.

NARRATOR: Chip and Agnes Hailstone await the arrival

of a daily freight plane.

It carries valuable goods from Kotzebue to Noorvik.

CHIP: Cargo planes are never on time.

Another thing, too, is that the weather

is just turning to garbage, total garbage.

So we're not quite sure

what we're gonna be doing here soon.

I didn't order any hickory

so we're not gonna have no basket sled.

The only wood that's coming off of this order that I paid for

is gonna be planks and more planks.

I didn't think it would come in this crappy weather.

Hey there, you got some wood for us?

Hey, Chip. Hey, Agnes. How are you guys doing?

Good. Well, we're just happy for the snow.

-Lucky we got in here when we did. -CHIP: Yep.

They're probably gonna shut down the pass today.

-Right on. -MAN: Here's some wood, guys.

-CHIP: Yep, thanks! -Take care, guys.

-Yep. -MAN: See you.

AGNES: (CHUCKLES) Bye.

CHIP: It's just so cold that I'm gonna call it a night.

I can't win the weather.

The wind's just too cold to drive a nail

through without cracking it up.

So there's tomorrow.

I do indeed have tomorrow.

(WHIRRING)

Well, the first thing I'm doing here is I am taking a board

and I'm going to make it into runners and I'm dividing it up.

You can rely on these to pull up

to a thousand pounds total.

They take quite a beating.

You're going through trails and places that have no roads.

They're not smooth.

They're just bump, after bump, after bump

for hundreds and hundreds of miles.

I'm working on cross pieces.

So as soon as I have my cross pieces done

and I've got seven of them,

I'll start to inlet them.

You go around on snow machines up here.

We go around on boats.

A lot of people seem to think that snow machining

and boating is recreational,

and for us it's not.

It's a machine that meets the conditions

that we have here to be a utility vehicle.

That's a pretty tight fit there.

So when it comes to stuff like this,

this here makes my ride

or my wife's ride or my daughter's ride into a pickup truck.

And nobody sells these kind.

I've got to build them myself.

And they're just a good way to go.

I'm getting close to being done.

The runners are done, the cross pieces are done.

I'm getting the top end done.

It's all good.

GLENN: A lot of my time out here is spent just looking

around the mountains, just watching

and then going up on the mountains

looking down at the valley, just seeing what's going on.

So often when I'm doing one thing

another opportunity presents itself.

NARRATOR: Glenn Villeneuve has lived off moose for the past month.

Needing to diversify his diet,

he heads out to the frozen lake

in search of fresh fish.

I can't see the ice under the snow.

I don't know exactly what it looks like,

-how thick it is. -(CREAKING)

Hear that?

Whoa.

It's deeper right there.

That ice is not very thick right there.

I have to be careful of thin ice,

and I have to watch out for overflow.

If I get my feet wet when it's this cold, I could freeze my feet.

It's seven below zero. That snow's insulating the ice

and the warmth of the water underneath of it

is keeping it from freezing very thick.

That's good for putting in holes.

Ice there is about five inches thick.

That's good.

It's easy to get through to put in the lines.

I can put in a lot of lines when the ice is thin,

have a better chance of catching fish.

This is the only time of year I fish through the ice, when the ice is thin.

I'm trying to catch burbot here.

Burbot are a fish that feeds on the bottom.

I'm trying to put the bait down

right next to a bank here where it drops off,

where the burbot may be swimming along the edge.

So that's on the bottom down there.

This cable is gonna get frozen right in.

I'll come over and chip it out tomorrow.

Got my first hole, I'd like to make a lot more.

The more holes I put in,

the better chance I got of catching some fish.

There, that's the last one.

That's good, I got a good chance

of catching something with all those holes out here.

I'm gonna leave them overnight,

come back tomorrow and check them.

Hopefully I'll have some fish.

SUE: A lot of people go remote and they just go crazy.

For me, that tends to happen more

if I go to town and I stay far longer than I had planned on,

or I can't get out.

I call it getting town flu.

SUE: All right. Well, thank you.

MAN: Take care, we'll see you, Susan.

NARRATOR: Sue Aikens has spent several days

in Fairbanks recovering from a foot procedure.

Fully healed, she plans to go home to Kavik

but a massive blizzard stands in her way.

SUE: Flight's been called.

Which means, cancelled for the day,

they're not even gonna keep trying.

My brain is going, "Get home, get home, get home."

I got the gen running, I got the fuel tanks.

I don't know if there's animals running around.

I don't know what's going on.

NARRATOR: With the possibility of being stranded in town

for another week,

Sue's arranged for a bush pilot

to fly her out of Prudhoe Bay.

All she has to do is get there.

SUE: I decided to get a vehicle

and drive the 500 miles up the haul road.

A lot of people call it the ice road.

Five hundred mile stretch of road

that is just nothing but ice, snow,

and some of the worst conditions you've got.

"This is the state of Alaska,

"travel advisory's been updated.

"Blizzard conditions, high winds, gusts up to 50.

"Blowing snow, drifting snow,

"poor visibility, less than 200 feet.

"Travel is not recommended."

Well, they don't live where I live, and I gotta get home.

Two days of dangerous driving, it's on the list.

I just gotta strap myself in a seat and get it though.

You know, that's just part of who I am.

I cannot justify staying another week or two

and just saying, "Wow, it's pretty bad.

"I guess I'm just gonna have to take it in the shorts."

My way of thinking is, "Wow, it's pretty bad.

"I better go tame that tiger, get up the road and get out home."

I am responsible for camp.

Camp repre... If I have the camp

and I have a business, then I have a right to stay

and live my life where I wanna live it.

If I lose that camp, I can't afford to rebuild.

I will lose that lifestyle whether I want to or not.

Looking further north, as we approach,

we go further up the road

and we approach the brooks

and the foothills of the mountains.

The closer we get, you've got the fog

and the storm that's blasting the north slope,

hanging out there.

I mean, you're still hundreds of miles away

from where the real action is.

But the storm systems

fan out, filter out, and find their own boundaries.

-I'm going right into the thick of it. -(METAL CLANKS)

Are you fucking kidding me?

I was coming up the pass and... (IMITATES METAL CLANKING)

I mean, it sounded definitely metal

and boom, hit the undercarriage.

And, oh, here's one.

Let's see.

I don't know what it is.

That's got to be the other half.

Some kind of a...

...joint or a fastener, I don't know.

Brakes or whatever, I'm not quite sure.

Came tumbling off and busted.

So hopefully it ain't important.

We'll see.

So I'm 170 miles from the next destination

that might be able to help me out.

And still good to go. I'm gonna go slowly,

make sure I'm not gonna break down.

Go forward, make sure I got brakes.

Yep.

There's two theories, go fast, get there quick

before you have another problem.

Or go slow in case you drop your drive train

and have to make out with the trees

on the side of the road.

Now, if my wheel passes me on one of these sections

then I know it probably was a bad idea to progress.

We are about 50, 60 miles still from the storm.

I much, much, much wanted to be there in the daytime so I could see.

It enhances my comfort level.

You know, it's already darkening

towards night time.

And we're only 2:00-something in the afternoon.

So you've only, you know, tiny little window.

But the further north I go, the tinier that window gets.

You know, you're heading into the long night of winter.

Would have increased my comfort level

just to hit the creepy patch

during the light.

That way if I do miscalculate and end up in the tundra,

at least in my brain somebody might pass

and see me sitting there.

GLENN: I live simple and I live close to nature.

I love nature, I love the wilderness,

that's why I live in Alaska.

There's no place left where you can do this.

I got 15 hooks out on the lake,

good chance I caught something.

Here's the first hook, I'm gonna check it.

It's been in there since yesterday.

Hopefully I've got fish.

The water has refrozen overnight.

The hook's down there on the bottom with some bait on it.

I've got to chip it out, see if I got a fish.

Nothing.

Put it back down there.

It's only been one night. I'm just getting started.

Can't be discouraged just 'cause there's not a fish on it.

I'll put it back down in, come check it again tomorrow.

Onto the next hole.

Nothing.

That's the way it goes.

Sometimes the fish are here and sometimes they're not.

It requires patience, like a lot of things,

the way I live.

You have to be patient.

Nothing.

Nothing on that one.

I might catch fish and I might not.

But I won't know if I don't try.

I haven't gotten any fish yet, but that's not surprising.

It takes a lot of patience to find food out here,

it's really hungry country.

Nothing.

This is the last hole.

Nope, no fish.

I have caught fish here at this time of year before so I'm still optimistic.

I'll put it back in.

I'm gonna leave all of these in overnight.

Come back and check again tomorrow.

ANDY: I think everybody in this world

is just trying to make life a little better,

or a little easier for themselves,

a little more comfortable, and that's our goal too.

We just do it in a very different place than most people do.

Haw, haw.

Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa.

Good! All right! That was good.

KATE: Andy's harnessing up the dogs right now

and we're gonna take this boat that we left here this fall,

slap the motor in the boat, and get the dogs to pull it back up to high ground.

ANDY: My boat is in jeopardy right now.

Once the river level starts to come up,

if it overflows and locks that boat in

I'm pretty much gonna lose it.

This is a pretty valuable boat to me.

This is my running in the ice boat

and my real shallow water boat.

The idea is to hook these dogs up to this boat

and have them drag it up.

It's just another one of those things with the dogs,

the more exposure you give them

for doing different types of chores,

the more well-rounded they are,

the more well-rounded they are

the more things you can do with them.

Plus, it's good exercise.

And how many people get to pull boats out with dogs? (LAUGHS)

Get up here and hold the dogs

so that they don't take off, please.

Stay!

I'm pretty good with snow here

but as soon as I make the turn,

the wind's blown a lot of the snow off the trail.

When aluminium hits rocks, it just stops dead.

And it doesn't take much of a rock to stop a boat

or anything that's aluminium.

They... It's like glue.

Tighten up! Let's go!

Let's go! Hup, hup, hup, hup! Hup!

Twenty-eight paw power pulling the boat.

Hup, hup!

Hup, hup, hup, hup!

Come on! Hup, hup, hup.

Come on! Hup, hup, hup.

-KATE: Come on! Let's go! -(DOGS WHINING)

(ANDY CHUCKLES)

It's a wide boat, I had it tipped up.

It probably has ice under it, which doesn't slide good.

And we've got rock and sand here.

Not good combinations for sliding something over.

(BARKING)

Let's go! Good, tighten up. Hup, hup!

Attaboys! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go!

Hup, hup, hup.

Hup, hup, hup.

Attaboys! Attaboys! Let's go! Hup, hup, hup, hup.

Yeah! Good boys!

Whoo-hoo!

Bye!

Whoa! Whoa!

I had the option of using more dogs to begin with,

but there's no way once they got it going

I'd be able to keep up with them.

So it's kind of a balance between

having enough dog power and having control.

So, and this job's done for the day.

This job's done for the season, actually.

-Yay! Good boy, Cougy. -Hey, Briggus! Briggus!

Good boy, Cougy, you like pets, don't you?

SUE: Kavik, to everybody else maybe it's just a location,

it's a spot on the map, it's a GPS coordinate.

But I have an emotional, visceral

relationship with that place.

One of the benefits of driving this time of the day/night

is most people

would consider this foolhardy

because your vision is impaired,

but I am battling less oncoming traffic around me.

For somebody who doesn't drive but like once a decade,

that's important to me.

I kind of feel like I'm the only person on the planet.

But, yeah, I'm still a long ways away from the brunt of the storm

but visibility is impaired.

NARRATOR: With a blizzard grounding all flights out of Fairbanks,

Sue has 48 hours to drive up the deadly Dalton Highway

to make the only available flight back to Kavik.

SUE: Kind of shimmying a bit here.

So we are now approaching Coldfoot,

which is sort of the halfway mark up the haul road.

Maybe a little bit more than half.

I need to get fuel. It's the one gas station.

You don't really wanna park the car overnight

if the temps are gonna get real low

and let that condensation ice up in your tank.

I made more than 50% of the journey tonight.

And I think the wise course of action is fuel up,

kip out for a few hours

and then hit the road as soon as it's light.

There we go. The rust princess has food.

I still have no idea

what the part was that fell off of the vehicle.

But everything seems to be working all right

so I'm gonna keep risking it.

You know, until it goes tits up, you're doing good.

So that's where I'm at.

GLENN: In the modern world, people don't think about

being so patient to get what they want

because things come a lot easier.

Out here, things come with more effort.

(EXHALES)

It's 17 below zero. Typical for this time of the year.

I'm gonna go check my fish lines.

So far I haven't caught any fish.

I just have to keep looking.

One thing about the way I live out here is that

it requires a lot of patience. All of the hunting I do,

the fishing, trapping,

everything, requires a lot of patience.

It's not uncommon to expend a lot of effort

and not get any immediate result.

There have been years when I've had

lines out in this same area at this time of year,

same set up and caught fish. This year I might not.

You never know until you try.

(GLENN SPEAKING)

Yeah. Nothing.

The life out here's spread really thin over the land.

It's really harsh country and it can't support a lot of life.

It doesn't feel like there's one on there.

When I started I just had a few inches of ice,

now it's a foot thick.

That's a huge difference when I'm chiselling

with a hand chisel through that ice.

I'm expending way more calories

than I'm likely to gain out here.

This is the last hole.

My last chance to get a fish today.

My last hook.

Doesn't feel like anything's on it. Nothing.

I didn't catch a single fish.

The ice fishing is never spectacular out here

but I have caught fish at this time of year

with the same technique in the same area.

Right now they're not biting for whatever reason.

I wouldn't know until I tried.

But now that I've tried for a couple of days

and checked the lines and got nothing,

I'm not gonna keep working at it

because it's just a waste of energy.

I'm disappointed I didn't catch any fish

but that just goes with the territory out here. It's hungry country.

Things don't always pay off.

You gotta know when it's time to cut your losses

and move on to the next project.

CHIP: You're gonna work.

You can do it smiling or crying but you're gonna work.

So we put the fun factor into it all and I think it really helps.

(WHIRRING)

Well, what I've got here are a couple sheets of plywood.

The plywood is gonna get nailed on the outside

of this right here.

NARRATOR: With winter bearing down,

Chip scrambles to finish his freight sled.

Basically armouring up a sled for heavy work.

Giving this thing some protection because

your sled, especially if a real heavy weight,

and we don't really have a road up here that's clear...

You're always hitting ice and logs,

and snow banks and all kinds of crazy stuff.

Just plain old, frozen concrete hard ground.

And this sheet of plywood gives it some integrity on the outside.

A lot of times I get a couple of years out of a sled.

It will be good for one year and then I'll have a year where it's repaired

and then I'll just have a year where I walk away from it.

There's a division of labour between men and women.

I'm taking care of the new freight sled

and my wife is making a sled bag out of caribou skins.

It will be windproof, it will be warm

and it will fit, because she will make it custom fit.

So right now we're just threading all the needles

that we're going to be using since we have two thimbles

and the girls are looking for theirs.

This is going to be the back.

And it will hang over like this.

But it will be the other way. The hair will be towards us.

The more girls that sew the faster we get done.

It's kind of a large project.

But it's a big skin so it's not too many stitches.

Carolyn, you know to tie your knots

every eight to twelve stitches?

No, but I'm checking it on Qutan's.

TING: There you go, Mary.

-Oh, you can't thread it? -MARY: Yeah, yeah. It, um...

AGNES: It's real important for these girls

to learn how to sew.

It was real important that I learned to sew

that I can pass this on to my girls.

And hopefully they'll be able

to pass it on to their daughters.

I always sew from the top to the bottom.

You always sew from the bottom.

-That's how I always sew. -Like this, this, yeah?

From the top to the bottom. From the top to the bottom.

-IDI: You guys go to your hand? -I always go like this.

Yeah, I always go to my hand.

It's good to know that these girls can easily know

what I'm trying to do and then just jump right in

and help me work on a project and just get it done.

SUE: You're getting by in life or you're living your life.

I mean, what are you going to be proactive about?

A couch potato doesn't take a lot of proactive energy

but surviving in 100 degrees below zero does.

Day two on the road. Kipped out overnight.

You know, I just... The conditions on the road

were such that going up the pass and hitting that

bad storm, no road maintenance. I wasn't into it.

It was late. I needed to get fuel, get a little rest.

I've got some mountain passes to go through

that are just notorious killers.

NARRATOR: Sue is halfway to Prudhoe Bay.

Once there, she'll hook up with a bush pilot and fly to Kavik.

But first, she must navigate the deadliest section of the Dalton Highway.

Looks like he's gonna take your freakin' head off.

I'm looking at the road and I'm thinking,

"How the hell am I supposed to tell what my side is

"without getting sucked off in the ditch?" Hey, buddy.

The road, it's theoretically two semi loads wide.

I can't see that.

There's a tendency just to drive in the centre.

So, like you see that dude doing.

He's driving down the centre of the road.

So you end up with like one semi load and a bit wide.

So when another truck's coming,

I've got to pull off into the snowfield.

And I know there's a ditch there

and I don't want to get sucked into it.

'Cause that's what happens, is you go off,

you hit the soft, and you're just sucked right in.

We are now officially on the north slope of Alaska.

This road way up ahead, that's Atigun Pass.

And it is one mean,

dicey little section of road.

It's just a thin road chopped into the hill.

But on one side or the other, generally you've got a lot of

thousand-foot drops.

So, you know, they try to plough it, but for me

it's a little intimidating. Yeah, it's a little sketchy.

It's a little icy through this portion.

Is Susie scared of much in life? This is a little spooky.

This is a serious stretch of road, man.

Yeah, you're not making me go too far over the edge, pal,

-we've got to share the road. Are you fucking kidding me? -(TRUCK HORN HONKING)

Okay. What happened, I tried pulling over

and that soft shoulder sucked me in.

It's not very far over on that shoulder and you get sucked in.

I know they have the right of way

but do they have to be so big about it?

You know, the trucks passing do make me nervous.

At Kavik, there's nothing out there charging at me

except things that aren't very good. So...

It's kind of nerve racking having people come at you.

Okay, if you didn't have those reflectors there,

you tell me how you're finding the road.

Fuck. Seriously?

I can't tell where the edge of the fucking road is.

Talk about your comfort zone going down to zero.

Would be a hell of a time for whatever part

it was that fell off to become necessary.

(SUE SPEAKING)

So I made my destina... Well, I'm not at my final destination yet.

But I made it to Prudhoe.

Um...

Plan of action is to...

Ermie hasn't pottied in the last 150 miles

so she needs to do her business.

Come on, Erms.

My goal's been achieved this far.

I'm here. I'm safe. I'm tired.

Come on, get in.

And it's time to get to bed.

Kavik, next stop.

CHIP: A long time ago, possessions were a burden, literally,

because you carried everything you owned.

And if those folks could live with everything they owned

able to be on their back, so can we.

You can do so well with so little, it's crazy.

Right here I'm putting on screws to tack this down.

NARRATOR: Chip puts the finishing touches

on his new freight sled.

Soon, the Hailstones will use their sled to travel

to distant places to hunt, fish, and trade.

We waited about three weeks for the lumber.

We ordered it and then it got stored while we waited for

availability in a cargo plane for it to come.

And then it finally did show up after a couple of days and we were pretty happy.

Well, my runners are on straight.

My wife and me have been working on the sleds,

getting ready for dark winter to come.

And she's made a caribou skin bag that is specifically made

for our basket sled for the girls to travel in safely and warmly.

AGNES: Watch out, Qutan, Irene, while we put this.

QUTAN: That's for loads, that.

AGNES: Ah, it almost dried too much.

TING: I sewed this side so I get to sit in it.

Wow, I really like it. It's just right sled.

It's not too big and not too small.

It's the exact same type of sled I've built

-for about 20 years in a row now. -(CHUCKLES)

So, yeah. Same measurement, same look.

Same height. Same parts. Same pattern. Same design.

CAROL: Dad? CHIP: I think I've accomplished it

one more time. If you want it, you make it yourself

or you wait a long time to get it, or you just do without.

AGNES: It feels real good to have the caribou pad on the sled

and the kids riding in it.

Now they understand what it was all about

and what process we take to make it.

CHIP: Well, this has been a pretty good fall. It's a pretty normal fall.

We got the projects we usually take care of

at this time of year taken care of.

Now, freeze up is almost over, the ice is a foot thick

and people can make it to Kotzebue

and make it to Selawik, and make it to Kiana.

We can go places. So it's time to bust loose,

we're not stuck at home any more.

Freeze up's just about done.

ANDY: Everybody does it different out here.

Everybody's got to find their own methodology,

their own equilibrium, and their own bush economics.

(DOG BARKING)

Hey, hey, hey. Come on. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Come on. Come on. Who's gonna go for a run?

Hey, buddy, do you wanna go for a run?

Let's go break some trail.

The challenge for me this time of year

is getting the miles on the dogs early in the season.

My rule of thumb is dogs aren't really in shape

until you get to about 1,000 miles on them.

I need to be able to run 15 or 20 miles a day

to really start getting the dogs in shape.

Okay, let's go!

Given the current condition of the Yukon River,

it's gonna be even more important for me to get trails

in new places where I can run.

Nice and easy down the hill, guys. Nice and easy.

Nice and easy. Nice and easy.

Attaboys. Nice and easy. Good boys.

This is kind of an exploratory trip. I have no idea how...

What I'm gonna run up against here.

Oh, shit.

Ah! Okay. Straight ahead, boys.

Whoa! All right, time for some chain sawing.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

The last thing I want to do is get slapped in the face or bust my sled.

So I'm gonna do a little bit of cutting here and clear

some of this brush out of the trail.

A never-ending job out here.

I like taking the time to cut trails out and make them good.

Everybody tries to do their part

locally to maintain trails.

And this is close to home and I'm gonna use it

so I'm the one who's got to cut it out.

I think we're good for a little bit here.

(DOGS WHIMPERING)

(BARKING)

Hey! Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!

Hey, hey, hey! Hey!

Hey!

All right, enough of that.

I just had a little bit of a tussle between Cougaran and Shilling here.

They're both brothers but sometimes they just kind of

bump into each other, the other one gets pissed off

and they get into a little bit of a thing.

Just a little bit of a tussle between two brothers.

They don't wanna stand around in harness. They wanna work.

There's no better match in this country than getting out

and living out in the bush and having good dogs with you.

They're great companions.

They just lift my heart whenever I'm around them.

They're always wagging their tail

and they're happy to see you.

That just puts a smile on my face.

Attaboy. Straight ahead. Good.

Straight ahead. Straight across.

Haw, haw. Haw, haw.

Haw, haw.

Good.

Whoa. Whoa.

Well, I think I'm at a dead end here.

I'm really, really nervous when I get on these rivers

and I see this open water like this.

That's why I don't wanna go here.

This is dangerous stuff. Some of this water is deep,

some of it shallow, but it's all fast.

I'm out there by myself, so something happens,

I'm pretty much toast.

There's nobody to come out and help me out there.

I don't think I wanna continue on here.

I think this is a... It's not worth the risk.

I don't wanna go here with the dogs,

I don't wanna come this way with the snow machine later.

I'm gonna have to wait for some 20, 30 below temperatures

to start getting this all to freeze up

before I think it's safe to go in this area.

Got a dead end, boys.

You guys are all good dogs, that was good trail-breaking.

Hit a dead end, but it's a good day's adventure.

Dogs had a ball breaking the trail out.

It was good training for them.

Hey! Let's go! Let's go!

Any day you come back from a good, fun dog mushing trip

and all the dogs are wagging their tails, it's been a good day.

SUE: I try to be a good person every single day,

I try to giggle more than I cry

and I have the inquisitiveness of a 5-year-old.

I see no reason to graduate kindergarten. I get snacks and naps.

It's the last little leg. It's the last leg and you get

to go home and see your little Slinky friend.

The winds have died down considerably

so we're gonna go ahead and make a stab at it,

try to get into Kavik,

see what is or isn't happening out there,

how it rode the storm. If it's there.

Hopefully I've got a camp standing

and there's just a few erroneous things that happened.

You know, small problems.

But I won't know until I get there.

NARRATOR: Treacherous flying conditions in Fairbanks

forced Sue to drive 500 miles to Prudhoe Bay.

From here, she'll embark on the

last leg of the journey to Kavik.

Okay.

SUE: A storm like this, I mean,

I could have all my buildings gone, they're tents.

The trailers will be there but my tents, my shop, my storage closet,

the Twinkie, the dining hall, that may be compromised.

And landing is kind of a goofy deal.

I'm not there maintaining the runway.

When I can't maintain it, I can't tell you how it is for landing.

(SUE SPEAKING)

(BOB SPEAKING)

(SUE SPEAKING)

(SUE SPEAKING)

SUE: Here, little Ermie.

I think I lucked the hell out.

I do have some drifting and a lot of snow piled up,

but my buildings are up and that is first and foremost.

Come on, Ermie! Where are you?

It's your home! You are home!

It's good to be home.

Just a lot of hecticness that I'm not used to,

just trying to get in. It feels like I've been...

Well, I have been trying for the last friggin' week to get in here.

Definitely a stress ball.

Way better here than I thought.

It must have just been at that 30-mile point right there.

Just like it was driving up.

I mean, it was beautiful until you hit that 30-mile wall

and then it was all hell.

-Well, I'm going back into it. -Well, fly safe.

-See you later. -All right, you big...

Feels good to be home and now I can get back to the business

of being Kavik.