Original subtitles

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

SUE AIKENS: There's the Kavik airstrip.

All right, there's home.

Roughly four months since the date of the injury.

Boneheaded myself on the snow machine.

Broke the collarbone, bad.

I've had some surgeries,

I'm still carrying a bunch of stitches,

but the doctor said, if you behave yourself,

I will trust you to go home.

It all looks, uh, slightly different than when I left.

It looks like it might be,

might not be quite as nice out at Kavik.

PILOT: Why don't we just go down here?

SUE AIKENS: Yeah.

This has been almost four months since anybody has set foot

in Kavik.

I don't know what I'm walking into.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Sue Aikens has spent the past four months

in Fairbanks recovering from surgery.

As Kavik River Camp's sole proprietor,

her absence has left the site uninhabited and unprotected.

SUE AIKENS: I have to visually check everything.

Behind any corner, any trailer,

it's the things you don't see that bite ya in the ass.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I got injured, in the winter,

and it was very cold and very snowy in winter.

I've been down through the flooding.

Four months have thawed out.

It has gone through the awakening of the bears.

There's 83 bears tagged within so many miles a camp

that can walk through.

I can't go in unarmed in case something decides

to take me out of the equation.

You got a scratch here.

That's been torn.

How do you know it's new? Well, it's a different color.

It's bright yellow.

All the other wood is weathered, this is yellowish.

Can't say if it's a bear, can't say what it is.

It's just that, I don't see where the building isn't,

it has been, uh, the integrity has not been compromised

on the building.

But you can see something pushed.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Okay, I don't see any breaks in the material.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Time to go in the Twinkie.

Dark in here, man.

The door back here is still shut.

So, that's good.

All's I'm looking for, did something open a door?

Is there a problem?

I don't care if the bears come scratch, scratch, scratch,

I care about open, open, open.

So, everything's looking pretty good.

And uh, silly as it seems, this right here.

The coffee grounds that I spread everywhere.

What it does, a bear's nose is so sensitive,

that mild acidic scent is just like an outhouse.

They don't like it.

It is a miracle that I was able to be gone and no bears came in.

They scratched and they didn't destroy it.

Um, that is, it's pretty amazing.

I feel proud of myself for that.

I'm one lucky bitch in camp.

Nothing ate it.

But I got a lotta cleanup to do.

CHIP HAILSTONE: To us, this is living rich.

This is adventure and time with my family.

Ain't no amount of money can ever get to hold that.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

AGNES HAILSTONE: My name is Agnes Hailstone.

I am married to Edward Hailstone.

We call him Chip.

CHIP HAILSTONE: I'm Edward Hailstone.

I'm a subsistence hunter.

I'm a subsistence gatherer, fisherman.

I'm married to Agnes, and I have five daughters.

I try to get 'em all involved in everything from caribou,

to seals in the ocean, to fish in the river,

to birds flying overhead, to digging stuff out of the ground.

We gotta be kind of nomadic, and change our camps,

and go where the animals are.

Or we have to go where the fish are,

or we have to go where the plants are blooming,

or the berries.

And sometimes we have to go where the weather tells us to.

So, we're spending the spring here in the Kiwalik.

'Cause this, to us, is the place to be.

IDI HAILSTONE: Hi, Dad.

CHIP HAILSTONE: Hello, Bun.

NARRATOR: Warm temperatures and long days allow the Hailstones

to live off the land in Kiwalik.

They'll spend the summer harvesting the area's vast

resources, in order to survive the harsh winter ahead.

CHIP HAILSTONE: We've got some important things to do.

We're gonna have to set up the tents,

we're gonna have to set up our kitchen.

Gonna have to go get some willows and grasses

to make our beds.

Just generally set things up the way we like 'em

in the summertime and be here 'til August.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Okay, we got to start moving before the weather

come.

Towards evening it's gonna get cold and start getting moist.

CHIP HAILSTONE: One, two, three, let's go.

Altogether.

TINMIAQ HAILSTONE: Should I push?

CHIP HAILSTONE: Uh, up to you.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Well, your back will get tired.

MARY HAILSTONE: I need like, uh.

CHIP: You need, you could. IDI: Hold onto the rope.

CHIP HAILSTONE: Yep, hold onto a rope babe,

that's all you gotta do.

Yep.

It's bulky is what it is, okay?

Okay, stop you guys.

QUTAN HAILSTONE: Oh wait, dad, you see that?

CHIP HAILSTONE: Oh, those are Caribou!

[Bleep], look at that. We missed 'em!

It's a pretty tough sell.

I think we probably should just stick with the job we're doing

and hope they come a little closer.

Let's keep going, one, two, three, go.

If I wanted to go after a caribou,

that would be a considerable effort and a considerable

amount of time.

And to go up there, to run something down,

carry it back here would be exhausting.

And then, to have to put up the teepee and the tent,

that'd be even worse. So,

the whole idea is that once we got the teepee and the tent up,

then I can run off.

I can go get firewood, I can go chase caribou.

I can go do all that stuff.

Keep going for it, love.

QUTAN HAILSTONE: Oh, it's far away.

CHIP HAILSTONE: Be careful, it's deep over here on this side.

CAROL HAILSTONE: Ah! CHIP HAILSTONE: I warned ya.

Getting our tents up is the number one thing.

If we have our tents up, then we're able to operate, stay dry.

Without a good place to stay, ain't no fun.

There we go right there.

Okay.

Well, it's gonna rain you guys.

Let's get this up and let's make a place to cover our stuffs.

CAROL HAILSTONE: Okay.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Underneath, Carol, grab a pole.

IDI HAILSTONE: Pull towards Mom.

CHIP HAILSTONE: I know we gotta, we gotta fix 'em.

It's important to have shelter, as fast as you can.

We've got rain coming.

And we have tons of work to do.

But what we do is we cover our bases first,

so that if anything happens, we got a home.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Pretty good job, girls.

Look like you all be, secure.

It's gonna hold for the rest of the summer.

CHIP HAILSTONE: So, we're gonna just, uh,

knock off for the night and we'll start out in the morning

and see what we come up with.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

JESSIE HOLMES: I can't live this lifestyle

if I don't work my butt off, to make it possible.

My name is Jessie Holmes.

And when I was young, things just weren't working for me.

I was a real rambler.

I couldn't stay still, I couldn't stay in one town.

I got myself into a lot of trouble, and

I realized I needed to turn that around quick and go back

to the genuine thing in me that was just like calling for like

quiet, peace, and wilderness.

So, like, I directed my life, to correcting that and going back

to what I knew I needed and wanted.

And, you know, now, I just strive to live

a simple lifestyle here on the Nenana River.

Running my dogs, trapping, hunting, fishing.

Doing whatever it takes to maintain this lifestyle.

I'm a lucky man to live the way I do,

and I thank God for it every day.

Polar Bear.

You ready for me to cook for you?

I'm gonna cook up some dog food for my dogs.

I'm gonna add a bunch of meat in here.

Now, I'll throw a couple of this fish in here,

just to give that good fish flavor.

This is the last of the dry fish that I had.

This was put away last fall.

Running out and, uh, it's time to start catching

some more fish.

NARRATOR: For Jessie Holmes,

getting his fish wheel in the water for the chum salmon run

is crucial.

If he's not able to catch fish,

he won't be able to feed his dog team.

JESSIE HOLMES: It's really critical that I do this,

because I can't afford to, like, feed these dogs

through the winter.

I have almost, close to 40 dogs.

If you were feeding them a dry commercial kibble,

it'd be, like, you know, 45, 50 dollars a day.

I'm gonna close this lid tight.

It'll all steam and cook together and make a nice meal

for the dogs.

Getting my protein, and my fat, and my water.

[BARKING DOGS]

How you doing, Randy?

Sled dogs are probably what held me to the land in Alaska.

I usually do about four to five races a year, with the dogs,

and, uh, that's one of the ways that I subsist up here

with my dog team.

Try to see my dogs make me as much money back that I spend

and put into them as they possibly can.

That's just to help me maintain this.

Tates, what you doing, huh?

Yeah.

You hungry?

Oh, yeah, look at that.

I try to kill two birds with one stone with everything I do.

So, when I'm feeding my dogs,

I want to give them that positive attention.

Let 'em know I care about each one of 'em.

I don't wanna just do it like it's a job, you know?

It's like going to work and not getting an honest day in.

You know? Like,

if I'm here, I want 'em to know that it's for them.

Good boy, Copper.

If I'm having a bad day, I come out here and feed these dogs

in the evening and whenever it's done,

I feel like I just went to therapy.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I love seeing my dogs and I love feeding them the best food

that I possibly can.

I think when you got this many dogs,

your life needs to revolve around them.

They need constant care and attention, and they deserve it.

Labor of love, that's what this is.

GLENN VILLENEUVE: Different experience of time,

different experience of space.

It's a very different consciousness living out here

than it is living in town.

My name's Glenn Villeneuve.

I've always enjoyed living out in the wilderness,

so I moved up to Alaska 15 years ago to live out

in the Brooks Range.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I was looking all over the world for a place to live

close to nature like this, and I ended up up here.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

What a beautiful day.

Springtime.

Lake's already starting to thaw out.

I hear all the little songbirds out there singing this morning.

Heard some ducks quacking.

Birds flying into the valley.

The leaves are coming out,

what a great time of year it is out here.

A lot of the animals aren't available to me.

The caribou have headed further north.

I probably won't see any more caribou this year.

The only caribou meat I have, I had to dry.

So, I'm just eating dry caribou meat because I can't keep it

frozen anymore.

But at this time of year, I turn my attention to smaller animals.

Things that I can consume faster so that preservation

isn't such a problem.

And that's what I'm gonna be looking for today.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

In the spring, when the lake starts to melt,

the first ice to go is around the edge.

A moat opens up.

And that concentrates the ducks, 'cause the first ducks

coming in are gonna have to land in this narrow channel of water,

right along the edge of the lake.

That's where I'm gonna hunt today.

No ducks.

Just got to keep looking.

It's not uncommon for me to walk a couple of miles

and not see a duck.

So, it's nothing out of the ordinary.

It's the same with all the other game.

Way up here in the Arctic, there's less life that the land

can support, so you have to travel more country

in order to get it.

There's some ducks right there.

I stay behind this spruce tree and they won't see me, but

there's several ducks right up here.

About 75 yards from the ducks right now.

I got to get closer to 'em in order to get a shot.

If I just go straight over this hill I think they're gonna

see me really quickly and take off before I get close enough.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

[GUNSHOT]

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

[GUNSHOT]

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

[GUNSHOT]

GLENN VILLENEUVE: That duck's been hit.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I just got to kill him and get him back.

[GUNSHOT]

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

[GUNSHOT]

My strategy is to keep a very close eye on that duck.

Try and recover it.

Trick now is gonna be not to lose sight of it.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I got it!

Got the duck.

That one almost got away.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Nothing like sitting out here beside the lake,

plucking a duck.

It's more than just getting the ducks,

it's just being out here and enjoying this time of year.

Listening to all the new sounds.

Winter's very quiet.

The springtime it gets noisier, the birds come back,

the wind just rustling in the grass, and the vegetation,

that's different.

Everything's moving again.

Water's moving.

It's a different pace of life.

Oh!

There's some more shovelers right up here.

[GUNSHOT]

[GUNSHOT]

Three shovelers just came in.

I got one of the drakes right here.

It flew right in here in front of me.

Got another northern shoveler.

Turning out to be a good day of duck hunting out here.

SUE AIKENS: You have an opportunity to say,

this will define me or I will overcome it.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: For Sue Aikens, maintaining her food supply

in Kavik is critical to keeping her camp up and running.

Any loss of food stock or equipment will cost thousands

of dollars to replace and transport.

SUE AIKENS: For me, I look around camp.

And it's mind blowing the amount of work I have to do.

I'm back after four months in town.

The land was frozen when I left.

It has gone through the thaw.

I have nine freezers, four refrigerators that I should have

been there running electricity as it got warmer to keep it cold

and frozen.

I wasn't.

Uff. [bleep] hell.

Yeah, this is gonna be the travesty.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

We got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

eight freezers, three of the fridges are bad.

It's rotten, I want that food out, away from camp.

What the state wants me to do, take all the, um,

biodegradable products.

Take it to the end of the airstrip,

cut it out of the packaging and dump it.

Get it in the water, it'll dilute the scent.

Now that I've opened it, I have to, I must, priority,

keep going.

That scent is going to alert the animals in the area.

They can't help it, that's what they do.

They're animals, and, and this is a possible food source.

This is personally, the most heartbreaking area.

This is the food that I hunt for.

The total revenue probably,

probably lost around 18,000 in food.

This is all my, all my hunting from last year.

I'm gonna get up on the roof and just do a visual,

I wanna know if something's coming at me or it isn't.

That's where the scent is being blown,

so that's where I really wanna see.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

All right, I don't see any ominous threat.

AGNES HAILSTONE: We plan ahead, we think of the next season.

We think of the other opportunities

that are heading our way.

Ah,

hey. Look like a good day eh?

CHIP HAILSTONE: As long as the wind stays up

and keeps the mosquitoes away, it's a good day.

AGNES HAILSTONE: But we still got lots to do, eh?

CHIP HAILSTONE: We got to make this mess into a home.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones have arrived at their summer

hunting grounds in Kiwalik.

It is imperative that the family secures meat for the days ahead.

AGNES HAILSTONE: We just got here yesterday and, um,

there's a lot of action here.

There's caribous crossing the rivers,

there's birds flying over.

So, we just wanna keep building up camp, try to get done.

Get all our wood and our water and everything set up here,

so we can just go and do our hunt and go get some food.

Everybody's excited and wanting to hurry up and get done,

and just, go play.

TINMIAQ HAILSTONE: You too, Mary.

Grab that bucket over there.

We are getting water.

We call it Imatauk.

We go get our water.

Go get it from the river.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Here we don't have sinks, and a water system, and all that.

So, this is our water system, is this river.

We're gonna get water while it's early since we all just got up,

and then later on, like, when we're cooking,

or when we want to drink it later on, it'll all be settled,

and it'll all be crystal-clear.

MARY HAILSTONE: That's enough water, let's go.

CHIP HAILSTONE: They're getting water.

They're looking for firewood.

The girls are keeping their eyes open for, caribou,

for any other game animals around, and, um,

we just keep the day chugging along.

IDI HAILSTONE: Mom!

Mom!

See?

AGNES HAILSTONE: Mud creek side? IDI HAILSTONE: Yeah! They're,

they're on the other side of, right there.

They're like right where their backs meet the willow line

perfectly, you could just see their backs.

CHIP HAILSTONE: We're not shooting calves.

We're not shooting cows.

But the one in the back is a young bull.

The young bull is on this side.

But if you aim at him, you'll have to aim mid-stomach,

so the bullet drifts into his chest.

Oh, he's close, Ag.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Okay, goodie.

CHIP HAILSTONE: Just let out your breath and relax.

[GUNSHOT]

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

[GUNSHOT]

AGNES HAILSTONE: Ooh! CHIP HAILSTONE: Just over him.

Move aside.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Now? CHIP HAILSTONE: Down.

Down lower.

[GUNSHOT]

AGNES HAILSTONE: Yee! CHIP HAILSTONE: Dang.

AGNES HAILSTONE: I got it! This is a good first hunt.

We don't really have any meat in the camp right now, so, um,

we'll be able to haul this back to camp and have

some good dinner.

Heart and tongue, and some other good stuff.

IDI HAILSTONE: Tongue is the best part of,

or one of the best piece of a kid's choice piece,

as they call it.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Every day's a learning experience

for these girls.

Even me, I try to tell them even though I'm old I still learn

something new every day.

CHIP HAILSTONE: See the ribs where I'm getting 'em

on the knuckles? IDI HAILSTONE: Yeah.

CHIP HAILSTONE: Then I can open the chest up.

I can get to the heart and stuff easier.

It hinges right open. See that?

I want my kids to know how to take care of themselves.

It's more, and more, and more options actually for them,

through the education we give 'em.

It's all along the lines of not giving them the fish

but teaching them to fish.

IDI HAILSTONE: Yeah.

CHIP HAILSTONE: I got to catch up the girls,

looks like they're doing all the work.

You know, we've got our camp up, we've got our stuff out.

We're sorting through things, we're putting camp together and

making it a better place every day, and this is part of it,

is having fresh food on hand.

JESSIE HOLMES: And you pretty much just have to pay attention

all the time, 'cause it's always the unforeseen

that's gonna catch you off guard.

Just getting my morning started here with a cup of coffee.

Gonna get out here, start working on this boat.

I got some holes in it I need to repair.

Gonna try to get it in the water here in next couple days,

so I can get out, and to build a new fish wheel.

So I can start putting away some fish for my dogs this fall.

I try to live very simple, that way I can afford to put most

of my money into my dogs and racing sled dogs in the winter.

Hi Tobias.

What you doing?

Ready to go to work?

This is my boat, it's a twenty-four-foot long,

four-foot wide, narrow riverboat.

If I don't get this boat fixed and in the water,

there's like no way that I'm gonna be able to afford

to have these sled dogs this winter.

The goal is to catch about 3,500 to 4,000 fish.

I'd have to like sell at least half of my dogs if I had to just

afford to do this without fish.

So I have a hole here and a hole on the side.

So I had to patch those holes,

get this thing ready to get on the river.

One thing that's important to me about living out here,

fixing my own boat and building my own boat and my own sleds,

it's just my belief system and like being self-sufficient.

I learned carpentry skills when I came up to Alaska.

Just started taking every job I could and dove right into it.

Making progress.

I need to flip this boat up on the other side so I can start

working on patching my hull.

This is kind of a challenging thing,

'cause I don't have help and I gotta figure out how to do it

by myself. So,

I'm really hoping this will work pretty quick.

The main thing you want to do is not get hurt.

And the other main thing I wanna do is not break my boat.

I mean, if I were to buy a boat that was built,

it'd be like 3,000 dollars, 4,000 dollars.

Built this one out of a thousand dollars' worth of material.

It's a subsistence boat for me.

I use it to get logs, build fish wheels with it,

I fish for my dogs with it.

It's very important for me to be able to put away food

for the winter for my dogs and myself.

I don't necessarily know how to do this.

I don't necessarily know how to do a lot of things. But

I'll feel pretty proud of myself if it works out

and be pretty frustrated if it doesn't.

My idea is to just keep tightening this up as I lift up,

so it can't come back down too far on me and crush me.

Oh [bleep].

I can't afford to get the materials to build a new one,

or to buy one.

Sometimes you're just against it and you got to figure it out.

I'm just gonna have to pick this thing up.

I think I got it.

I hope this rope's gonna catch it so it doesn't go over.

Ugh!

Sometimes you just got to go for it. [Bleep].

Hope it works out.

Okay.

Holy Mother.

Oh.

It's holding, it seems like it's holding.

Oh, [bleep].

JESSIE HOLMES: Oh, [bleep]!

Yeah!

Worked!

Whew.

That was scary.

Now that I've got the boat flipped up on this side,

I'm gonna get to patching these holes.

Just gonna be in the water soon, I hope.

NARRATOR: Jessie relies on the returns from his fish wheel

to feed his team of sled dogs.

With the summer chum salmon run approaching,

it's crucial for Jessie to get his boat into working condition

and into the river.

JESSIE HOLMES: So what I'm gonna do is,

I would like to haul my boat down with my truck,

but I don't have a ball hitch on my truck.

I'm thinking I'm gonna attach this bicycle to it,

so I give myself a front-wheel steering system.

It's pretty much the best option I got at this moment.

I don't quite know how I'm gonna do this yet but,

this is the challenge about doing things by yourself.

It's somewhat dangerous.

I gotta get this boat down on the Nenana River to launch it,

and it's only about a hundred and fifty yards from here, so

I just have to make this work to there.

All right. Here goes nothing.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Ugh!

Ugh!

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Oh! Whoa!

Ah, [bleep]!

All right.

Whew, this poor bike.

Okay. It feels like I'm going kind of.

The best feeling for me at the end of the day is, you know,

knowing that I worked hard, feel tired enough to go to sleep,

you know.

It took me three days of work to finish up this boat,

and now the reward is a couple summers on the river

doing what I love.

All right, that worked just good.

Actually turned out to be perfect 'cause I had brakes,

I had steering.

I really didn't think it'd go that good.

Today's been a long day.

It's already late in the day.

It's been a lot of work getting this boat flipped over.

I had to do it all by hand.

Once this boat's in the water,

this is really the start of summer for me.

It's time to really get a lot done out on the river and,

hopefully put up a lot of food for me and the dogs.

Still got to get this boat in the water.

AGNES HAILSTONE: We're able to live together, work together,

and it just makes us even stronger.

Take a shovel, Mary.

Let's go, Qutan Irene.

CHIP HAILSTONE: The ladies here are gonna go pick some of

a root called mashua.

And they grow all over through here.

A little bit of something sweet, like,

kind of like a sweet potato.

I think they call 'em Eskimo potatoes.

NARRATOR: After harvesting a caribou for camp meat,

the Hailstones turn their attention to gathering

another Kiwalik resource: mashua root.

CHIP HAILSTONE: The time to do it is now.

If we don't get 'em now, all that good nutrients and stuff

that's in the root, or that's inside these little branches

are gonna go into building the plant,

'cause it's starting to grow.

And then it'll be really chewy and it'll taste terrible.

And what we need is Vitamin C,

and we need to have a change of diet.

We need to have some starches and we need to have some fiber

in our diet.

And that's exactly what this stuff will provide.

AGNES HAILSTONE: There should be mashua above the sandbar,

so we're gonna go target that area first.

The mashua is gonna be all along these edges,

right along the edges.

If you start to see like, you see the light, brownish peeled,

um, roots, then those would be mashua.

Okay, kids, go on ahead and start looking

for roots and stuff. QUTAN: What's this stuff Mom?

AGNES HAILSTONE: Let me see, did you find some already, Qutan?

AGNES HAILSTONE: Let me get out.

MARY HAILSTONE: It's not.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Yup, that is.

See, you'll find them like this.

This is what we're looking for.

They have a plant like this, and this is why we come here.

This is, uh, mashua tuk, and this is why we come to go pick

these mashuas here.

It's because this bank is full of 'em.

Right now they're, um, real good, they're like, uh,

potato and they're really good to eat, and they're sweet. So,

this is why we're here.

QUTAN HAILSTONE: Oh, my God. Mashua.

AGNES HAILSTONE: It takes some effort but once you hit a real,

um, big patch, usually it's easier to start picking

a whole bunch after but you just gotta...

AGNES HAILSTONE: Oh, that's all right.

Oh, that's yummy, that's a good one.

Look how big.

You got bigger than mine.

Right now, uh, Qutan's just learning.

So she's just getting familiarized with the plant.

We've pointed them out for her, but this year she's actually,

um, looking for the plants to know where to dig so

it's kind of fun watching her.

CAROL HAILSTONE: Move your butt.

QUTAN HAILSTONE: Oh look, I just chopped it off.

Oops.

TINMIAQ HAILSTONE: Keep going, I see it still.

AGNES HAILSTONE: The days like this are why I love being

out here. Just getting family time.

Looking for food that we can, you know, thrive on and just,

it's good to get out of camp for a little bit and go do something

different.

This is awesome, just being out here watching the girls find

this root and knowing the difference between one root

from another and, um, just playing in the mud.

Okay, girls we've got quite a bit actually,

and this is probably what we need.

Let's get back to camp and go have some dinner

and show your guys' Dad what we found.

TINMIAQ HAILSTONE: Yeah.

SUE AIKENS: You don't prepare for your best day in life,

you got to prepare for the worst.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

NARRATOR: Without electricity in Kavik for the past four months,

Sue's food supply has turned inedible.

To keep predators away from her camp,

Sue has been advised by the state to dispose of the spoiled

food down river.

SUE AIKENS: The visual says it all.

That's not a healthy freaking product.

But the quality of what I buy,

is just outstanding.

So it just hurts, hurts, hurts, financially. But,

you know I put a lot of me. Kavik is me.

You know, I am Kavik.

Synonymous.

But I take a lot of pride in offering people the best

of the best when they're out here.

But I mean every single little bit of this is loss, loss, loss.

I mean, besides the disgusto factor, um,

I mean it's an incredible amount of revenue.

How do you put a price tag on the caribou?

Or the fish that I bartered for.

Hard to put a value on that.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

You know, if there's anything close,

it's gonna start getting interested.

Bears, wolves, they don't mind eating rotten food.

And I just put up the dinner bell.

Just gonna be continuing the process of getting

all of the rotten goods.

Even though we're getting it in the water so it distills

the scent, it's gonna go downstream.

There's no way they won't smell it.

That's why once I start this I gotta,

the fact that I opened 'em up and looked at it today,

I got to finish it today.

Boom.

Boom.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I'm gonna get up on top.

It was a little chilly, so I threw on my sweatshirt.

And we've got a wolf on the runway. [Bleep]!

SUE AIKENS: And we've got a wolf on the runway.

That's the area I got to go to, that's the area the wolf is at.

Looks to me maybe a juvenile female wolf, on the runway,

headed towards where I had to dump all that food.

Little wolfie on the spot there.

Wolves are a pack animal.

They don't generally travel alone.

Doesn't mean they're not there.

Not even 30 minutes from when I tossed the last rotten biscuit

out, and here's a wolf. Boom!

On it.

And that's exactly what we were hoping,

is get everything away from camp.

Now imagine if I had families here with little kids

and your predator-human interaction is, is right there.

That's how quick it can happen.

Nine times out of ten the interaction with a wolf,

I'll go out there and he'll, it'll get skid away

and then come back in.

If it were a whole pack, I'd,

I'd probably just hold off on my activities now.

The sun doesn't set so that works in my favor.

I'll just be tired and sore.

CHIP HAILSTONE: You know I want to show my kids every season.

And there's a different skill and a different way

of doing things each time.

Just making heart and tongue soup.

This is the first meal usually off of an animal.

The tongue and the heart, are organs that are small,

full of fat, really good tasting,

different kind of quality of meat.

Throw some potatoes and an onion in there.

Now we can let this all cook for quite a while.

And then for dessert my wife and my daughters picked a bunch

of mashua.

We've had an all-around profitable day I'd say.

Ladies really socked it in with the food and it's gonna be

a big, hearty meal.

And it's by their own hands.

The girls may not have shot the caribou but they helped

work him, and drag him, and participated in everything

but pulling the trigger.

This is like food of the season to us.

This is kind of like having turkey for Thanksgiving,

or having a ham at Christmas.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Pretty good, eh?

TINMIAQ HAILSTONE: Pretty good. CHIP HAILSTONE: Yup.

We've got firewood, so we've got heat.

We got our tents up.

We got, uh, meat.

Now we're secure.

We've got all the basic things we need.

The best thing is that some day when me and your mom

aren't here, you girls know how to do all of this,

no matter what the job is.

And the best part of that is that you get

all hands-on experience.

We don't just sit there and tell 'em what we've done,

we talk about what we've all done, and done together.

It's adventure, it's family time, it's just, uh,

being together.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

We're in the right spot.

We're at this spot for a reason.

This is a, this is home to us.

We keep coming back here.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Nothing like Kiwalik, yeah?

CHIP HAILSTONE: Nothing like Kiwalik.

GLENN VILLENEUVE: You have to learn the cycles and the times

where things are happening so that you can take advantage

of the opportunities.

In the spring when the lake starts to melt,

it's the time of year when the ducks are gonna be concentrated

along the shoreline because they got nowheres else to go.

Ducks need water, and this is where it is.

Right in this moat along the shoreline.

But conditions are changing fast.

With that sun beating down on the ice today,

it'll get up into the 70s.

And the lake ice right along the edge, the moat's getting wider,

it's starting to break up.

Little pieces are breaking off when the breeze blows.

It's gonna change real fast.

If a breeze comes up, this can all disappear in one day.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I see four so far.

Let's see if I can get close enough to get a shot.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

[GUNSHOT]

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

[GUNSHOT]

I hit one.

I shot, it took off, and I kept shooting when they were

in the air and got one of 'em.

Thankfully, a breeze blew the duck back in,

but it got hung up in some grass out here off the shore.

The bottom here is really soft and muddy,

so I'm gonna make something to throw out there and retrieve

the duck.

I don't wanna walk out there and get stuck in the mud.

Here we go.

We'll see what happens.

It might work.

I might be able to throw it that far, I'll see. I don't know.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

GLENN VILLENEUVE: No.

Didn't make it.

Give it another shot.

I just missed it.

Broke a few more braches off.

Lighten it up a little bit.

See if I can get it out over the duck.

Yes!

I'm gonna get it this time.

There it goes.

Snagged it.

Got my duck.

Another shoveler.

A male.

That's what I wanted.

Duck hunting's good today.

Couldn't ask for a better day.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Got my three ducks.

Looks all right for now.

Cook 'em kind of long and slow.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Look at those beautiful ducks.

Oh, yeah, those are done.

The only meat I've had for a while has been

dried caribou meat.

This is the first fresh meat I've eaten in some time.

Mmm.

I mean what better place to have dinner,

than right beside the lake that I walked around

to find these ducks?

Mmm, it was a beautiful day.

SUE AIKENS: The world is a circle and it turns around

and round.

Things change, things evolve, things rotate.

The journey of getting Kavik back up and running.

I want to get the mass done rather than all the tiny

little chores.

Finished getting all the freezers out.

But now, I've got a whole winter's worth of garbage

to burn.

This is, uh, this is just another chore on the list.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I mean it's like anywhere, you know,

sweetie baby honey do-list.

Take out the garbage.

Only problem is I'm my own sweetie baby honey do.

This is the Sue-do list.

The honey-Sue list.

So these are the cigarettes.

Um, to do the work the doctor did, I had to quit smoking.

So, and he told me the gravity of the situation.

And that it was a, the necessity of the surgery

was life or death. He wouldn't do it if I smoked.

Put out the cigarette before I walked into his office,

haven't had one since.

C'mon.

I'm serious about quitting.

So I'm burning all the cigarettes that I had.

Bye cigarettes.

You're gonna have to smoke without me.

Oh, the foxy.

Who's my little foxy.

Who is that? Is that Slinky?

It took Slinky a day to figure out that I was here.

C'mon. Slinky and Ermie were best buddies.

Um, they would, Slinky would beak on the side of the tent

every morning. And Ermie would beak back on the window.

And they'd come out and play.

Because of Ermie's health conditions, um,

she's got to stay in town.

And is now living in town permanently.

So, I don't have a little friend here anymore.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Don't wanna get emotional, but

it means a lot to me to have the foxes.

Yuck. C'mon dummy, c'mon.

C'mon.

C'mon.

It's good to be back.

I mean, that, the amount of work I have to do is astounding.

Um, I'm gonna have to be creative.

Uh, I have a ten-pound weight restriction,

for the foreseeable future.

Honestly, I need to take this entire summer,

and assess how well I can do my job.

Am I done?

And the answer is, I don't know.

JESSIE HOLMES: When you're in Alaska,

you work until the sun goes down.

NARRATOR: After repairing his boat and successfully getting it

to shore, Jessie must launch his vessel into the water

and test its durability

before he can begin his summer fishing season.

JESSIE HOLMES: Ow-ooh! Yeah!

Time to get the summer started!

Yeah, we really got it easy you know?

These old timers, they just figured everything out.

Poling up rivers, pulling their dogs, boats out with dogs.

When I do this kind of stuff,

it's like I'm living in the past.

I think I was born a hundred years too late.

I hadn't been out on the river since the ice flowed, you know?

So, I'd been out with other people in their boats,

but this is my boat. And

now I can go take care of my jobs I gotta do out here.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I'm gonna start putting up some food for my dogs and myself.

I miss that taste of that fresh fish.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

I guess this is the bonus of living right next to the river.

All my stuff's close for getting down here.

Get to take the pleasure of doing a lot of this stuff

by hand.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

The motor's running. That's a good sign.

Go upriver, see how the boat's running.

Woo!

Wow, it's absolutely beautiful out here.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪

Getting on the river is pretty much the peak point of happiness

for me in the summer.

You just feel so free when you're out on the river.

It's an indescribable feeling.

Words don't really do justice to it.

Now I got a lot of work to do, but it's all work I wanna do.

If you're out here,

it's hard for it to seem like hard work.

♪ [MUSIC] ♪