Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero...

Alaskans prepare to battle the darkness.

GLENN: The darkest, coldest part of the winter is just ahead.

NARRATOR: Glenn's quest for heat leads him down a treacherous path.

Whoa!

NARRATOR: A wandering cub puts Andy and Kate on high alert.

No sign of mother or anything.

NARRATOR: The bitter cold threatens the Hailstone's survival.

With cold days like this, things break.

NARRATOR: And a winter punch knocks Sue's lights out.

SUE: My generator just went down.

Other than the light on my head, there's no lights in camp.

Gee! Good girl.

Straight ahead. Whoa.

Good. Good girl, Topaz.

Hello. Have I got a surprise for you.

-What's up? -There's a bear in the fish rack.

I don't think it's very big, but I saw the tail end of it.

So we might want to go check it...

Is the, is the fish rack ripped apart anywhere?

-No. I don't think it's big. -Okay.

I think it's quite small.

So I think we should just go take a look.

All right, let's get these dogs put up and then I'll, I'll go check it out.

NARRATOR: As a predator of the arctic,

a bear in camp poses a threat not only to the dog team,

but to their vital supply of fish.

Kate told me there's a little bear hanging out under our fish rack.

So I'm gonna go down and assess the situation.

Oh, there he is.

What are you doing?

You look way too young to be hanging out by yourself.

I've never heard of bears being out this time of year

except for maybe a grizzly bear.

Black bears, they're usually well in their dens by now.

So this is a first for Calico.

But a young bear like this would never survive a winter on his own.

There's no way he can hunt anything on his own.

That's why he's under the fish rack.

His nose picked up the scent of all this warm weather fish.

I think if mom was around, she'd already have been around here.

And there's no tracks around here.

If he was worried about mom, he'd be bawling like a baby.

They sound like a lamb bawling when they're distressed.

I don't want him under the rack.

I have to get in and out of this rack to get dog food.

I don't want dogs coming in and trying to kill him.

Or, worse yet, getting bit up or chewed up by him.

If I can get a tranquiliser into him,

we can put him into a secured box and feed him,

and he'll be just as content in that as he is under the fish rack.

All right, thank you. Bye-bye.

I was calling the Department of Fish and Game

to see if we can get a rescue for this little critter.

CHIP: We don't like doing things at last minute.

We don't like having a last chance at anything.

We're pretty well prepared for this time of year.

We know when to utilise our time and take the best advantage of it.

We make a living at this.

We do it at the appropriate time.

Yee! Deep enough?

The took weighs as heavy as I do probably.

It's like 40 pounds.

I'm getting tired enough.

Before it starts storming this winter, we need to make a shop.

So I got a shop planned out here

I left before the snow came.

I got wood right here.

I got holes I've been working on for digging.

And now I've got some more time.

NARRATOR: Chip and Agnes Hailstone are using their harvested wood supply

to construct a tented workshop,

which will shield them as they toil in the harsh conditions of dark winter.

The time to do outside work is now.

So that's what we do this time of the year.

CHIP: Now I'm up to needing a shop for the winter.

I need a place to work and I need a place out of the weather.

And we're about to go into darkness anyway.

Wood is a really excellent material.

It's a renewable resource, it grows all around us around here,

and you can make almost anything out of wood.

And if I can't make it, then I probably don't need it.

We're about half done.

We've got some more tarps to put up.

You got the front, front cut up?

It's looking like it's going to work out.

It turned out really well.

-You like it? -I like it.

This is awesome.

Yep.

Perfect size.

I think we could drive a snow machine right in there.

Yeah, you can drive right in here, we can service our rides right here.

This will be a good place to hang out. We can put the fireplace right here.

So as my woodpile is getting a little smaller

and I've got my scraps to burn here,

I probably have about a week's worth of wood sitting around.

I'll probably first go out and get me a load of wood.

Keeping up ahead of myself that way.

GLENN: I didn't just read a couple books and then say,

"Oh, I'm just gonna walk out in the middle of the

"wilderness and figure out how to live."

I took the time to learn what I needed to learn and it took years.

I took my time about it. That's why I survived.

There's the sun just barely over the horizon.

It won't be there tomorrow.

The sun is just about to set for the last time

here at my camp for over 100 days.

It will shine on the highest mountains for a while longer.

Eventually, in the deepest, darkest part of winter,

it will disappear even from the highest peak.

This is a time when things start to change

and it goes into dark winter and it gets very cold.

So the darkest, coldest part of the winter is just ahead.

More than 100 days from now

the sun will rise right there.

Until then, I won't see it down here in the valley.

This time of year, one of the most important things for me

is to keep my camp heated.

And to have enough wood to do that,

I have to work at it almost continuously.

I go through a cord of wood in one month during this dark

period of the winter that's coming up.

So I have to be cutting wood, bringing it home, splitting it all the time.

This is a pile of wood that I stacked up here before it snowed.

At that time of year, it's harder to move the wood around.

So I left it here,

came back for it now with my sled.

It's easier to drag it in the snow.

This is the last pile of wood that I have stacked up out here.

Firewood is my only fuel out here.

I don't have any other source of fuel than this wood.

This is what I heat my cabin with.

It's what I cook all my food on.

It's how I heat hot water if I want to take a bath

or do some laundry.

Without firewood, I couldn't live out here.

Firewood also warms me up just processing it.

It's cold out, but doing this kind of work,

I really can't even wear that parka.

In really cold weather,

I could burn up this whole sled load in just 24 hours.

There. I got a load of wood.

I'm gonna head home.

Whoa!

Yeah, you've got to be careful going down hills.

This is a heavy pile of wood.

It can get out of control and it goes fast.

One last hill and then I'm home free.

Once I get to the lake, it gets a lot easier.

I really enjoy firewood because firewood gets me out,

I get a lot of exercise.

I always have fun working on firewood.

Got it back to camp.

I've gotta go cut some more wood so I have plenty of wood.

It's a long, cold, dark winter out here

and I do go through a lot of firewood.

SUE: There's life lessons in every single waking moment of the day

if you pay attention.

If I don't risk my beak today, I'll be here tomorrow.

I was only expecting to be gone under a week.

But I ended up being gone 15, 16 days.

NARRATOR: After undergoing a crucial foot procedure in Fairbanks

and struggling to return home due to a massive blizzard,

Sue Aikens has just reached Kavik.

SUE: Getting home, finding out that, you know,

I'm just that far enough off the coast, I didn't get hit with the storm.

I got some drifts. I got some stuff going on.

But that's a huge relief to me.

I feel just waves of relief.

I just wanna relax, drink my tea, and get some sleep.

Sleep where for the first time

in over two weeks I'm not worried and stressing about camp.

Now that I'm back, I do have a lot of snow places

that just shouldn't be for camp to be effective.

I've got to move that. I need to do a search around camp.

I saw, flying in, I saw some bigger tracks.

Saw an animal. Looked to me like maybe wolf-ish,

but you know, curled up out about a mile, half a mile off the end of the runway.

Are you kidding me? That's not good.

All right. That's not good.

That means my generator just went down.

So the first thing I've got to do is just get out there.

Other than the light on my head, there's no lights in camp.

And I can't hear the sound of the generator.

Shit.

Okay.

That's my switch. It's in the down position, so it was delivering.

This didn't get slapped up.

I don't see anything real obvious.

I need to check the fuel.

Fucking oil change.

Fucking A.

It takes almost a full gallon for an oil change.

Got the new oil filter in. I know I have fuel.

What does a gen need?

Fuel, oil, air, spark.

(ENGINE RUNNING)

The generator runs.

It's sending power here.

It's being created,

but is it being delivered?

Please say it's fucking on.

Ah! My kitchen lights aren't on.

Fuck.

I'm gonna go to the dining hall,

look at the breakers, try and figure it out.

So goes the calm evening.

No rhyme. No reason.

I didn't add to the load, take away from the load, it just quit working.

Aha!

I do have it now in the kitchen.

If I have it in the kitchen, I have it in the dining hall,

which means I have it on my spotlights.

If people are in trouble and they need to land,

that means they're gonna see that spotlight and land.

Bam. Lights on. Bam, lights on.

Bam, Susie did good.

Not what you plan on when it's real cold and real dark,

but you know, when do you even plan a disaster?

AGNES: Once you leave here, the plan changes.

You just have to take it as it comes.

There's all kinds of difficulties and stuff.

You never know what can happen.

For the last couple weeks it's been real cold.

Last week it was minus 40 for a week straight.

And everybody's been burning double the amount of stove oil,

double the amount of wood.

And usually we have a stack of wood

and we don't have to worry about heating,

but this is getting kind of critical.

-Are you ready? -Yep.

This is subsistence.

This is going out and getting what's at hand and using it here to make a living.

And what we have at hand along these rivers here, in the arctic, is trees.

So we've got lots of firewood.

Firewood's a really, really important commodity up here.

It's energy. And the more firewood I can burn,

the less stove oil I have to buy. It's just economy.

I'd rather buy ten gallons of gas, and go out,

and go get a whole bunch of firewood than I'd want

to spend for just two days of heat in my house.

They ask people, especially if they have snow machines,

to go at least five miles out.

We go ten about miles, cause we know some really good wooded spots.

In any direction that you go around here where there's the delta and

where there's the river, there's definitely trees.

And they just don't want to over impact the area.

AGNES: Not too far away, huh?

CHIP: No.

Gathering firewood is a continuous and a thankless job.

It takes a lot of physical stamina.

It takes a lot of work outside in the cold weather.

It doesn't take eight bucks a gallon like it does for stove oil.

So it's better to get gasoline to spend the gas with the chainsaw.

I can heat this house with an axe,

but then it's just a constant chore that I'm not up to that.

I'd rather have a mechanical advantage and I like my chainsaw.

(GRUNTING)

Okay, let's just leave it there for five minutes, have a cup of coffee.

It should start after that.

Yeah, let's hope so.

ANDY: It's a very physical life, living out here.

I don't do a 9 to 5.

It doesn't mean that we're not working.

If you like getting out, and working,

and doing things for yourself it's a great lifestyle.

Kate found a little baby cub in our fish rack.

I don't see any big bear prints.

I don't see any mama prints around or anything like that.

It's time to do a little construction,

a little modification of a dog box.

And we'll try and tranquilise him or whatever,

get him into that box.

And then at least everything's under control.

Hopefully have a happy ending for the little guy.

NARRATOR: After discovering the bear cub,

Kate immediately contacted the Department of Fish and Game

for guidance in handling orphaned wildlife.

While waiting on a possible rescue,

getting the bear out from under the fish rack is their priority.

That looks like a good size for him.

Every day is inventing something new out here.

It's a land of extremes

that every day you have to adapt.

Well, I didn't think I'd be doing this when I woke up this morning.

I like inventing stuff.

That's a big part of my life out here.

I like the challenge of waking up everyday, and creating new things,

and seeing if ideas work.

If you look around, everything I have is modified.

You know what you could do?

Go over by the guest cabin and get that long,

aluminium pole so I can set up a syringe.

Well, the idea is just to mount the syringe with the sedative on a pole,

then reach in from a distance and poke him.

I don't think he's gonna let me get close to him without freaking out

and wanting to run. So if I can get

eight feet away from him and just take the syringe

and poke him with it and get the sedative,

it goes into the muscle.

It doesn't have to go into a vein.

This is just tranquiliser that we use for our dogs when we get porcupine

quills in the dogs.

It's a half a millimetre for about a 60-pound dog.

I'm just gonna put just a small amount.

Hi little guy. We're not gonna hurt you.

We're gonna just help you a little bit okay?

It's okay, you smell that. It's okay.

Don't eat it.

It's okay.

Yep, bent the needle.

Yeah, well, I don't think anything went in him.

I think the syringe is broke.

Sometimes you gotta be a little bit cruel to be kind.

So we'll get him relaxed and then we can pick him up,

put him in the box, and feed him,

and water him, and make sure he's really warm and comfortable,

and wait for the Department of Fish and Game

to get someone in to rescue it.

He's coming back this way.

There you go. Why don't you just settle down there?

Let's try again.

Got a little bit in him, I think.

You know where I keep my skis and everything?

I have a wooden pole there that has a snare wire on it

that I use when I trap things that are alive.

If you go grab that I can maybe just grab him around the body with that,

then we can get him.

Here he is, this is where I want him.

Good boy. Good boy.

Gotta get it done before

the last little bit of sunlight goes.

Hard enough job in the daylight, let alone the dark.

It looks like he's starting to go down right now.

Got it, Andy.

Got you. Got you, got you, got you. Good boy.

It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.

Here we go.

It's okay.

It's coming off. It's coming off. It's coming off.

There you go. Where's the lid?

I've got the lid.

Flip that thing, man. All right.

We kill things to eat it and we don't have a problem

with killing things that we're gonna eat.

But I'm not gonna kill a ten-pound cub for five pounds of meat.

But we can certainly take care of him until someone can come and pick him up.

AGNES: Even though it's day, after day, after day,

after day of extreme hard work, bad weather, rough conditions,

we still love it.

We're proud of what we do.

I'll try. I'll just have to use my foot.

I think it's just extremely cold.

Good summer saw. It's another good winter saw.

Cold days like this, things break.

Things don't start. We have trouble.

You have to just keep trying and eventually it will either start or you have

to run home, get a new chainsaw,

or a different chainsaw, or just start chopping wood.

Let's check it out one more time.

Throttle or no throttle?

No throttle.

Oh, yay!

CHIP: You don't count on things until you've got them in your hands.

And even then, it's still maybe.

There's a lot of things that can happen out there.

Your chainsaw could quit.

But we stuck with it.

We kept pulling on that thing and it finally fired up for us.

Pretty much he cuts them down and I limb them.

CHIP: Firewood is fuel. And you need it to stay warm,

and being the arctic, and seeing how we're at 30 below zero,

it's a pretty important commodity to have.

Probably a sled load.

Daylight's burning. I'm almost done.

(SIGHING)

That's all for this sled.

Yep. That's all it can carry.

CHIP: We've got about 15 minutes of daylight left, so for us right now,

it's time to tie down and get ourselves on the trail.

When darkness comes, we just, this isn't the job, work to do.

-Wanna go home? -Go home.

By then it should be dark, yeah?

It will be dark by then.

There's more logs to be had, all right.

But time's ticking and the sun's going down.

We have like 15, 20 minutes left.

We need to have a couple week's worth of wood because we have children

and they all need heat. And it's the warmest heat,

it's probably the one where it could be 40 below and people in the house

are complaining that it's too hot. So,

that's all right with me too.

SUE: I've learned to give the weather in Alaska the highest form of respect.

It will kill you if it has a chance.

You don't know, but you better be checking for it.

I'm about ready to go through the worst three months of my season.

Conditions can be quite brutal.

It's just constant upkeep.

Keep the paths clear.

Check the buildings as you go.

Keep an eye out and see if something's coming at you.

And you never know. Opportunity knocks on your door sometimes.

You're doing one thing and then all of a sudden, you know,

some freaking lost caribou runs across your vision and if you need the meat,

you have an opportunity.

My meat supply is a little bit low. I wanna fill it up.

Hold on. Hold on.

I got ptarmigan.

Awesome. Find my .22.

This time of year, you know,

fresh meat is good for me to get.

They're around here somewhere.

Where are they at?

There they are.

And they're really hard to see.

They just look like little white balls,

but they're on a white background.

Oh, oh, oh. There he goes, he's flying to the branch.

(SHOT FIRED)

Nailed that one. Don't you get my bird!

That's my bird! No, that's mine!

You naughty fox.

Whenever I'm shooting I've got to be careful.

A, I gotta know where my foxies are.

But B, I've got to get to it before they do.

It's their food source too.

Well, looks like I got one,

but little Slinky made off with one too.

I got two, but you've gotta be faster than your hunting partner.

There's the gizzard. A little bit of liver.

What is he eating? Willows.

Willow buds, willow branches.

So by looking at that, what does it tell me?

It tells me where to keep looking if I wanna find the birdies.

I get a couple more like this and I'll have a nice, little meal.

Thank you, little birdie.

It was a nice little diversion,

nice little snack for me, but I've got to get back to work.

GLENN: This lifestyle, it's just basic,

fundamental processes of nature.

It's direct contact with reality. It's unmediated.

That's what I like.

I've got enough wood here for four or five days of really cold weather.

That's not very long.

Time to go cut some more wood.

That's the last of the wood that I've already got cut.

These are the sized trees that I'm normally cutting for my firewood now.

And the reason I'm cutting those sized trees,

in part, is because I'm using an axe

and cutting larger trees is inefficient with that axe.

What I want to do is try this saw out and see

if this is efficient to cut larger wood.

This is a new tool I picked up the last time I was down in Fairbanks.

It's a crosscut timber saw.

And I've never used it.

I'm gonna try it out and see if this might make it a little bit easier for me

to get my firewood.

There's a lot of time spent handling small pieces of wood.

So I'm looking for a big tree.

With this saw that I've got,

I can process possibly a bigger tree than I used to more efficiently.

Wow, there is a tree right there.

That is a big tree with a lot of firewood in it.

Way bigger than I'd normally cut.

But with this saw, it might be feasible.

There's a pretty dense forest here.

It's a big tree. If it gets hung up,

I won't be able to use it. I won't be able to get it down out of these

trees with the tools I have on hand.

So I'm gonna have to be very careful

and see if I can get it to fall

straight down that way.

I used to pass trees this size up because they were too much to handle.

But with that big saw maybe I can process a tree this size.

Think of the firewood! Just in that little section that's a whole day's firewood

in real cold weather.

I'm used to having to cut a few trees to get a day's firewood in cold weather.

This is a whole different ball game here.

(HOLLOW THUNK)

Ooh, that doesn't sound very good.

This tree is very hollow sounding.

I'll see what's in there when I cut into it.

Okay, this is all rotten. This is not good.

Hopefully the rot doesn't go up very far,

so it's still worth cutting down to get the firewood out of the upper part.

But it makes it a lot more dangerous cutting it.

Because that's not strong wood in the middle.

So it might break in an unpredictable way.

Okay, I'm gonna put in a wedge now.

Try to get the tree to tip over the way I want it to.

Okay.

Look out! It's going! It's going!

Yeah!

All right!

Right where I wanted it.

Perfect.

Couldn't have been better. That was a little scary. Woo!

That's a big one.

Oh, that feels good.

Look at that thing cut through there.

That's frozen wood, 18 below zero, cutting right through it.

Yes! Made it through!

That is one awesome saw right there.

Look at that. The rot doesn't go too far, that's great.

I was afraid that the whole tree might have rot up through it.

I never tackled trees this big before.

I just didn't have the tool for the job.

Four, six. That tree's about 160 years old.

That tree lived longer than I will.

I just got to get it home.

I got my work cut out for me getting it back up to the top here.

CHIP: There's trading and then there's selling stuff and there's giving.

You don't do it with an expectation of return.

But such a small society here,

it comes back at you. It's a big karma thing.

I think we got a lot of wood.

Yeah, I think we have enough too.

We probably could give away a couple.

-A few sticks? -Yeah.

I was gonna go see Erika pretty soon.

-There you go. -She's pregnant and her honey's at work

so I was thinking since she's moving over to the house where I grew up in,

I figured I'd just go help out and go throw them a few logs.

-Oh, yeah. -We managed to bring a couple loads home

and since we have enough wood,

I'm just gonna go give a load to my friend, Erika.

You know, it's good to share the wealth,

maybe I'll take Ting to help me, yeah?

Oh, good idea.

When I can give stuff away, I freely give.

My neighbours give to me.

My wife's family gives to us.

I give back. And there's no charity involved. It's just sharing.

It's a big circle, it will come around.

You know, it's not like they need it, or they're begging for it,

or they even asked for it. It's just

like maybe we can just go fork over

a couple logs and help them out.

And they should like that. I'm sure they will.

They've done it for me in other ways.

Yee!

Hi!

How are you doing?

How's baby?

We notice somebody needs help somewhere,

we try to help and then later on if I need help,

somebody will notice that I probably need firewood

or a little short of something and they'll say,

"Hey, I got this, I got that."

Yeah. There's lots more out there.

We found a good pile where there's lots of dead wood.

Yeah. Around here, it's a real good thing to give what you can

and share with other people and friends and they'll help you out in the long run.

It's good karma.

Yeah.

-Yeah. -Thank you again.

Yeah, right on.

-We'll see you again. -Okay.

Later!

SUE: My Honey Do List is more like a Honey Sue List.

Sue's the only one working on it.

I'm not on anybody's time clock.

I just chip away at it.

I'm just keeping on doing my chores.

You know, real limited daylight.

And one of the things that I wanna check out

is some of my ice on the river

is not as thick as it usually is.

And any chance I have to resupply myself with fresh water

is a good opportunity to take.

Yeah, I go through about 310 days without running water here.

And I give myself a little under a gallon a day for all of my needs.

If I can bump it up, I have a little bit of extra to play with.

To me it's not just 30 gallons of water,

it's a month of life giving water.

I'm looking at this spot right here,

you've got the river and you've got the ice.

You've got a four to six foot drop.

That might not be too cool.

A bunch of this river is gonna be a little unsafe for travel for me for a bit.

I don't wanna drop this thing that far down a hole,

but I am willing to walk out there maybe and see if I can't poke a little hole.

I know the river pretty well.

I just can't see.

It's all covered in snow. I don't know where the rotten spots are.

Trying to see if I can get past this chunky layer.

Where's my water?

Yeah. I mean, I'm getting rock

and I'm not getting any water.

Going out a bit further, see what I find.

Hopefully I don't find a hole that I fall into.

The ice is a little on the thin side.

If I hit a really deep spot, Little Red's just gonna sink to the bottom

and I'll fish it out in the spring if I can.

I see liquid water.

I have no idea what's going on with my crazy river.

I don't know why there's so little water running underneath,

but I'll take what I can get.

You know, it's like liquid gold to me.

Right there. Liquid water.

You can see, just from me pouring, it's already freezing.

This time of year, this is a pretty good find.

Had to go a little further away from camp than I'd intended.

But now I wanna get it home before it freezes.

I don't have running water for 300 to 310 days a year.

You gotta ration the water that you do have,

but when you have a little bit of excess,

maybe I'll get clean socks out of the bargain.

Getting cold fast. Easy breezy.

I won't lose my water,

but I've got to get it home as quick as I can.

Right now to get fresh river water

that I can drink, drink, drink,

that's a big find.

Instead of rationing it down this tight,

I can ration it down that tight.

A couple of hours' worth of roaming around,

having fun, checking out the sights,

there's a couple of months' worth of good product for me.

Hi there. You were no help.

You were no help at all there, little Slinks.

I know. You wanna say hi?

Did mom go and get water?

Yeah. Yeah.

(LAUGHING)

KATE: You can't live in the wilderness without having a connection to these animals,

and a love for them, and a respect for them.

I've never been afraid of them,

and I've come pretty damn close to a lot of them.

Hi, Baba. Hi, Baba.

Today's day is all about saying goodbye.

Fish and Game is bringing out an aeroplane, landing on our lake,

and he's flying to Fairbanks where he'll be

under their care from this point on.

I am totally in love with this little guy.

Hoping we can save this bear, but at this point in time we have to turn

it over because of state law we're not allowed to hold onto the bear.

Still a lot of work to do before this becomes a happy ending.

But we've done our part

to try and save him.

And now it's gonna be up to the Department of Fish and Game

to help us place this bear.

-How's it going, Jeff? -How's it going, Andy?

-How are you? -I'm doing good!

-Good flight in? -Good to see you.

My name is Jeff Gross. I'm the

area wildlife biologist and I've come up today to retrieve

a bear cub that wandered into Andy Bassich's smoke house

and bring him back up to Fairbanks.

I'm thinking what we ought to do is we'll just bring the kennel inside

there so it's close by.

Get it all set up, get some straw in it,

see if he'll come out on his own.

If he does, I think it's gonna be pretty easy to just put him in.

I'm gonna do my best to keep him happy

-and comfortable while I have him. So... -Well...

I'll just have him for a little bit.

There's so many of them that die in the wild.

-Mmm-hmm. -And

there's nothing you can do about it.

But this little guy came to us.

You know, he had the strength, courage,

and fortitude to find a place that was suitable.

So he's a smart little bear.

It's not incredibly rare that a cub would be abandoned,

or have a mother killed, or die from other natural causes.

Mortality of cubs is pretty high in the first year of life.

Good boy. You're a good, cooperative little guy.

When we get the cub back to Fairbanks,

it'll be placed into a permitted holding facility to see

if we can find a place to permanently house the bear.

Hopefully it will work out really well and fairly quickly.

-Take care. -Fly safe.

Keep my Baba safe.

I think he's a survivor.

I think he's got some good instincts and I think both of us

feel like he did his part,

now we humans need to do our part to try and give him a chance

and to find this bear the best opportunity for a long life.

GLENN: I really like all the natural sounds around here.

-I like to listen to the wolves howling. -(HOWLING)

I listen to the music the loons make.

-(LOON CALLING) -I like to listen to the bull moose grunting.

That's the music for me out here.

22 below Fahrenheit right now. That's pretty cold.

That just helps stabilise it.

Hold it in place.

Ah. Look at this chunk of firewood.

Cut it one more time.

I'm out here because I like the peace and quiet.

I'm out here because I like the fresh air.

I don't want to have the noise.

I don't want to have the exhaust of a modern chainsaw

running out here if I can avoid it.

I enjoy this experience.

Yeah!

Okay. Time to split them.

This is a big piece of wood to split,

but I've got the temperature on my side.

It's about 20 below zero.

The wood just becomes easier to split the colder it gets.

Look at that. It went.

Beautiful.

This saw really paid off.

I got all this wood.

A few days just in one sled load there.

I couldn't be happier. This is awesome.

Time to go stoke the fire.

I've been wearing the same clothes for more than a week.

It's time to do some laundry.

That's gonna heat up my water right here.

Boy, is it ever gonna be nice to clean these clothes up.

Okay.

I watched that sun disappear over the mountain

for the last time this morning.

It will be more than 100 days before it comes back

and shines on this camp again.

The moon's coming up now.

And in the wintertime, that's what I depend on.

I cycle a lot of my activities around the moon.

You can do a lot more outside in the cold weather than people realise.

The sun's gone now, but I got the moon up all winter long.

And that moonlight's what I rely on.

There.

It's all set. Good thing,

cause my hands are getting cold.