Original subtitles

AGNES: Quite a few bunches of caribou.

There's caribou moving down here.

And when you got caribou sprinting, running,

being chased by something, it's usually fur.

It's something they're scared of.

Furbearers. Foxes, wolverines, wolves.

My wife will take the fur

and she makes customary traditional clothing for sales

and we'll take that money and we buy things

that we can't trade or make ourselves

like gasoline, ammunition, pay our bills, stuff like that.

It makes the circle that brings us back here again,

so we can keep on making this living.

There isn't much that scares a caribou

when they're running like that other than wolves.

I just don't see what's spooking them.

There it is!

CHIP: Wolf, wolf. Wolf running like hell.

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

There it is!

CHIP: It's a young grey. Look, it's just trotting.

No, he's not trotting. He's leaving the country.

He's... He's halfway up the little monument already.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

Yep.

He's going to go right over the top of the little monument.

We gotta get back up and around.

I'm going up this ridge and around him, I'm gonna outflank him.

CHIP: See, the important thing is time right now

'cause he's going over that hill at trot

and we need to go around at a neck-breaking kind of deal.

It's called the chase. The chase is the hunt.

And this is all just a big chase.

If I go burning up gas and bringing home nothing,

then I'm wasting my time and my trip and my effort.

Wolves are much harder to hunt than caribou 'cause they're wily.

They'll hear your machine and they'll start running.

They won't even wait till they see you

before they're trying to put country between you.

They'll also put obstacles between you. They go to rocky spots.

They go to deep ravines

where they know that they can basically lose something.

AGNES: I'm so shaken up.

I can't keep my goggles, binoculars still.

It's right there standing. He's not even very far.

-And he's probably gonna go... I know. -(CHIP SPEAKING)

CHIP: This is a tough one, though, man. AGNES: I know.

CHIP: If we go down in that creek, we're stuck.

(SIGHS)

CHIP: I don't really see getting this wolf. AGNES: I don't either.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

CHIP: We weren't able to intercept him. That's just the way it goes.

At this time of year there's going to be fur,

so it's kind of a patient wait, keep-on-looking thing.

As long as we're persistent, we're going to see something.

SUE: I'm fighting for my way of life.

I've been given the rules of the game.

Now, it's up to me to figure out how to play it.

This is my, uh, freezer room.

Most of my meat lockers are empty.

And all's I've got are a couple of packages of caribou.

That's it. I eat a pile of caribou meat in the morning

and a pile whenever I want to.

I eat a lot of protein, but I like my meat.

I'm anaemic and... (STUTTERS)

The red meat helps keep my iron up.

That's the importance for me.

Now, well, I'm down to three little packages of meat

and, uh, I need to fill my belly.

My intention is to go out and, hopefully, get a moose.

If I get it, it's gonna cost me a couple of bullets,

100 bucks, maybe 200, depends on how much gas I use.

But, $200 for 800 pounds of meat

is a pretty goddamn good price if you ask me.

As opposed to, you know, almost $100 or $200 a pound

for something I have to have flown in.

When I go, I'm by myself,

so, I need to, even though I'm not planning on doing an overnight,

I need to make sure that I have enough supplies

if the machine breaks down,

if a wind storm or a ground blizzard starts,

if the temps drop radically, or if I get injured,

I need a way to keep myself warm and safe.

Okay, so I'm not gonna talk them out of the tundra,

the last thing I need to have is the weapon.

What I'm going to be carrying on my back is the .30-06.

It's a nice high-powered bullet. It's got the scope.

Because I don't want frost, water, anything getting down the barrel,

I just take a little piece of electrical tape, put it over the top.

It's not going to stop the bullet,

but it's going to keep the snow and the moisture from getting down in it.

Time to do a moosey hunt.

A full-grown bull moose can weigh up to 1,500 pounds.

The only way I'm getting that home

is to put him on this sled.

But there are no guarantees implied, nor given, in a hunt.

All's I'm guaranteed is the opportunity to try.

The unit that I'm hunting in

is roughly 50 miles by 50 miles.

I mean, it's a huge amount of acreage

to find a bull moose.

Some people have to go to the corner grocery store.

I mean, I'm going to go 30, 40 miles by snow machine

to have a chance to go to the grocery store.

I don't give away the exact location of the valley of the moose,

but, uh, I'm a good three hours or so away from getting home.

As I get closer and closer, you're going to see more dense populations of willow.

It's the stuff they like to eat.

That's why I call it the Valley of the Moose.

Holy cow!

Holy bull!

There's a bear den.

Oh!

Okay. I, uh...

Saw an opening over here.

This time of year, I got bears walking around and everything.

I mean, this is exactly how a bear's den is gonna look.

From a distance there, uh, when they get up and out of bed,

they knock the snow out and they go in and out,

but what this is is an open spring.

This is just another sign that winter is on the way out.

I mean, that's quite a bit of running water,

it's not deep, but it is moving.

It's not maybe the most stable spot for me to be standing in,

I better get my snow machine and, uh, get going.

I got a little bit more time.

I wanna at least cycle through this little beginning part.

I'm in the right place.

Hopefully, I'm in the right time.

I'll go through this little patch of willow.

I want to see, are there any droppings,

is the willow intact, have they been eating anywhere?

Is there any sign?

There's a bunch of predator tracks.

Predators are doing the same thing,

they know that their prey is going to be found near the willows.

This shows me that they're looking for food, they're finding food,

so I'm on the right track.

I have not seen moose sign, but I'm very pleased with what I'm seeing,

it's all good signs.

KATE: We'll die on the river.

The river almost took us in 2009.

She didn't win, but I think it was a warning.

I got a new update for this spring break-up.

ANDY: Let's hear it.

What's going to happen this spring that we don't know? (LAUGHS)

As the spring thaw comes, all this snow on the ground,

up in the high country around here, that begins to melt.

That goes into the Yukon.

As water continues to build,

eventually, the river ice actually begins to move.

And that's what we call break-up.

"Based on the current snow conditions

"and expected cooler-than-normal temperatures,

"the likelihood of break-up flooding is increased."

(SIGHS)

(WHISPERS) Fuck it.

This spring is giving us a lot of, uh, anxiety.

The water's going to come over land.

We witnessed what that force is like in 2009,

when we lost almost everything we owned.

ANDY: My God. I've never seen anything like this.

The ice crushed everything.

Big pieces of ice the size of city blocks.

It decimated the native village of Eagle.

We had a tsunami of water and ice come down on us.

Trees were getting ripped out,

the log cabins went floating by,

it was like flushing a toilet.

We were really afraid we were just going to get swept out into the ice.

The ice wiped out our entire homestead here.

All that's doing is confirming

what we already know, you know.

We just have to spend some time and get prepped

for what potentially is going to happen here.

We've been through a flood

like nobody's ever seen before on the Yukon.

And we learned a lot from it

and we're going to, uh, do the best we can

to minimise the impacts to us,

if and when we do flood this spring.

I've got two goals today and they're both crucial

for protecting our property here

during this year's break-up.

It's a pretty ambitious plan.

I need to drag my fish rack up to higher ground so that it won't flood.

But the first thing I need to do is go out in the woods,

knock down some large dead trees...

And build a large raft that'll be able to take a lot of our belongings

and put that on the raft.

And then if the water does come up to the level of our home here,

hopefully, all of that will stay dry.

Here we go. (GRUNTS)

The reason why I'm not going to go to Eagle

is I want to see the worst of what Mother Nature is going to throw at us here.

Because I need to know,

is it something I'm willing to put up with in future years?

Or is it something that is an end for us at this place?

I've invested 25 years of my life here,

and this is a place that I have a really strong spiritual connection to,

and it's not going to be easy to get me to leave here.

Right now, I'm feeling pretty good, the doomsday raft got done.

On the raft will go tools, equipment, generators,

and it will be safe if the water comes up here.

We're planning for the worst right now.

ERIK: I got a lot of respect for these animals.

But I absolutely will kill them

when I get the opportunity at the appropriate time of year.

Everything in Alaska is dictated by the weather,

and when the conditions are right

and the season is open, I head out to get my meat.

Sort of a in-between time of year,

trapping season is almost done.

Spring bear season isn't gone yet.

I'm gearing up for guiding, and being as frozen up as everything still is,

I'm gonna do a little ice fishing.

Well, we're down to the ice here.

I have no idea how thick it is.

Probably pretty thick,

but I'll try with a mechanical advantage to start.

(WHIRRING)

This could be three feet thick or it could be five feet thick.

It's gonna be a sort of a challenge here

to get through this ice.

I hope I catch a fish, or this is kind of a big waste of time.

I've been digging away at this hole here for...

I'm not sure how long now. (CHUCKLES)

(GRUNTS)

Look at that piece.

About three feet down to the ice.

I'm hoping it's, uh, close to the end.

So, I'm going to keep at it here and, hopefully, catch a couple of pike.

What the fuck!

Look, there's a muskrat right there.

Muskrat is a fur animal.

Muskrat hide, this year, is worth $5 to $15.

I was working on digging a hole in the ice here

and doing a little bit of pike fishing,

and I looked over and noticed a muskrat here

on the ice that came up out of a push-up.

So, I tried to sneak over.

I got fairly close to the rat but, uh, if you do a body shot on the rat,

they don't pay you a full market value for the fur,

so you need to shoot them in the head.

All I had was my .22 pistol, so I needed to get pretty close,

and I didn't get quite close enough.

Jesus. (SIGHS)

I'm gonna keep working on my hole here trying to catch a pike,

and, uh, keep my eyes out.

If he comes back out, I'll try to sneak over and shoot him.

Otherwise, I'll come over and set a trap here this evening or tomorrow.

(WHIRRING)

What the fuck!

I'm fucked now.

Why is that water so muddy?

I was trying to dig a hole here in the ice

to do a little bit of fishing,

and I guess I got down about five, six feet in the hole

and I finally broke through,

but it was right at the bottom, the muck.

Whole bunch of muck water came up in my hole here.

Not very encouraging.

The only good thing that happened out here

was we saw a muskrat come up on the ice.

At least I know where a couple of active push-ups are,

and we'll have to, uh, work our way back for those.

This was a waste of time and energy.

I guess the ice fishing is out.

It's getting kind of late in the day.

I'm going to go set up a camp here somewhere in the trees

and see if we can have any luck with those muskrats tomorrow, eh?

Oh, well, that sucks. (SCOFFS)

CHIP: I don't feel bad when I'm killing a wolf.

It's part of the circle of life.

Because I'm the apex predator. Nature says I'm gonna kill it.

We're on the lookout for fur today.

Definitely a... (CHUCKLES) A wolf kill.

Boy, those guys can eat, huh?

There's some real big tracks here.

That's a wolf, right there.

He might keep going that way and come down to Theresa Creek,

so if we head down and around,

we might meet her on the next mountain over.

You have to think like a wolf when you're pursuing wolves.

Figure out which way they're going to go so you can position yourself.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

AGNES: They're real fast animals and so, when you get an opportunity,

you have to just take the shot and try to make my shots count.

(GUNSHOT)

Oh, what the heck.

(GUNSHOT)

I think I got it.

Just went over the ridge.

The wolf turned towards me, so I took a couple of shots

right as it was going over the hill.

I think those couple of shots touched him.

CHIP: (LAUGHS) Whoa!

CHIP: Well, I must compliment you. AGNES: Yeah.

CHIP: You've chosen a fine wolf. Poke its eyeball.

It's dead.

Oh, look at the hackles on that one.

CHIP: Man, look at the hackles!

AGNES: Wow, I'm glad for a grey one.

CHIP: Yep, this is a beautiful animal.

There's no mange, there's no lice. This is a good one.

Yeah, I'm happy for you.

This made the day.

It's actually just, uh...

If you had to think of expenses,

this just made us break even.

We thank the animal very much, we'll use him to his fullest.

But, he'll be sure that, uh, we get gasoline to be able to do this again.

This guy's already stiffening up, quite a little bit.

We gotta get out of here before the sun goes down too much.

What we're going to do is go take him back to where we dropped the sleds

and we'll skin the wolf out.

AGNES: I feel pretty good.

I feel like we've, uh, actually gotten somewhere today,

and not as much stress on us.

Um, you know, with trying to get even with this hunt,

and I know I'm not going home empty-handed.

CHIP: I thank you very much, Mr Wolf. I thank you very, very much.

KATE: We'll push every day, until we can't push any further.

Until the time runs out and that's all we can do.

This is the beginning of getting ready

for the Yukon River to break free of its icy hood.

I've got to dig out this bulldozer

so that it can get ready for Andy to start moving things to higher ground,

so that they will not get just washed away.

We don't have time to sit around and procrastinate.

We've gotta get this stuff done.

We're not going to be caught with our pants down, so to speak.

We're going to be ready this year.

Ice is still about five feet thick

and way too much snow.

High country should be bare right now

and it is just feet of snow.

Now, I don't know what's going to happen,

but it's making my spring miserable.

Making my hopes and dreams fade a little too.

My worst fear of when the Yukon River breaks,

is that we get a lot of ice and water again on our property.

In 2009, we were wiped out.

I'm telling you, it's breaking my heart

to see the ice similar in condition this year.

'Cause if this goes this year, I don't know if I can do it again.

Don't know if I can rebuild again.

The mind frame I'm in right now

is if that river takes everything,

it might as well take me with it 'cause I think

it will just break my heart, I'll die anyway.

It's weighing heavy on our minds.

I sometimes find it hard not to cry

but, um, you know, I'm scared,

and I'm hopeful that this won't happen to us.

ANDY: I'm praying that I'm so wrong right now

on what's gonna happen at break-up.

But, one thing I've lived my life by, and I know Kate has too,

and that's living by your gut instincts.

And our gut instincts are telling us

this is not going to be good.

What I'm gonna try and do here is distribute the fish a little bit more evenly

so it's balanced a little better.

And then I'm going to bring the bulldozer down here

and then pull it up the hill to where our house and dogs are at.

Kinda thinking we're gonna get water up there,

but if the ice doesn't come in there,

the fish rack will survive.

You know, people in the lower 48

think of insurance as a safety net for them.

Out here, it has nothing to do with monetary insurance.

It's all about the resource.

So, when I put this fish up, this is total insurance for me

for the whole year for my dogs.

As long as I got that, my dogs are in good shape for the year.

We're not governed by other people very much in our life.

We're not governed much by the government or society in general.

We're pretty much governed by what Mother Nature does for us

or doesn't do for us.

That's what our world revolves around.

I'm feeling right now like we have all the conditions

for a perfect storm here.

And, uh, we better use our previous knowledge of what can happen here

to mitigate the damage.

'Cause I don't want to leave here.

SUE: You don't choose this lifestyle by accident.

You're either born into it or you make it.

If you're not made of steel, then you probably don't belong out here.

Still looking for the moosey.

It's a lot colder today. 30 below, maybe even dropping.

Yeah, it's a damn cold day,

but, uh, they're not gonna jump into my freezer.

I've got to go get them.

(ENGINE REVVING)

I need to ramp it up some.

You know, going 60 mile round trip or so.

I mean, anybody can do that.

I'm gonna go maybe 50, 70 miles out.

I'm going to push this as hard as I can.

It's time to take off the pink and get this job done.

Mr Moose is waiting out there somewhere.

And, uh, he must have forgot we had a date.

-All right, hot damn! -(ENGINE STOPS)

This is exciting. I've got, uh, moose tracks.

This is what a moose track looks like.

Your toe and your heel. Toes and your heel.

And he's quartering this way.

Looks like a decent bull and not the biggest guy on the planet

but, you know, probably around 800 pounds.

It's a nice, sharp track,

but there's fresh snow built up.

Now, we did have some wind this morning,

but, uh, I'm not saying that's this morning's track.

I think it's, maybe, yesterday's but, uh, it's a good sign,

busting out further than I have been.

Um, getting out of the box, getting out of the comfort zone

and finally seeing some track.

What this is, here,

is a moose coming and chewing.

That tells me that they're coming here to eat.

It's a little comfy zone for them.

I can see more chewed spots inside.

I mean, it just shows me I'm on the right track.

And, uh, it's just the matter of being in the right place at the right time.

This moose hunt's real important.

If I am able to get that moose, by the time

I bone him out and package him down,

that's a year's worth of food for me.

I've come down another several miles in the little valley.

Found some fresh track.

He's headed that way towards that pass.

So I'm going to see if I can't cut him off.

I'm hoping to see his body.

See a tell-tale sign that I can lock in on.

You know, how the hell a eight-foot-tall at-the-shoulders moose

hides in a field of white, I'm not sure.

I know he's here somewhere.

Oh, shit.

Yeah. Fuck.

Way out by the ridge, I can see something, it's pretty big.

See if it's moving. Is it a rock? Fuck!

(SIGHS)

Oh, it's moving, It's moving. I gotta go.

There's something big over there.

This could be the guy I've been waiting for.

Hang on to your seats, ladies and gents,

we're going to go get us some moose.

I gotta get this show on the road and get myself a moose.

Need to fill that freezer. I've got very little meat left.

I need to eat meat. I need to eat food to survive.

So, what does this moose mean to me?

It's a year's worth of meat. One solid year's worth of meat.

There it is.

He's going up and over. I've gotta go down, around

and try and figure out how to cut him off.

I'm not sure how to do that.

That's a steep, steep hill.

I don't know that I can climb with this thing.

Fuck!

I'm trying to figure out how I can get to him but I don't know that I can.

He's a mile or so out.

And headed over that pass.

I think I'm going to watch my dinner walk away.

That's the way it goes, that's a fucking bummer.

Part of me wants to, uh, push it, push it, push it,

but I got a long ways to go home.

You know, I got three, four hours of riding to do to get home.

The fog's coming in. Ice, fog and storm.

Dropping temperatures. It's gonna get dark.

Gonna have to turn it around

and hard to do when you see what you're after

and you work so hard to try and at least get a glimpse and get a shot.

I mean, I was right on it, but, uh, I gotta think safety

and it's calling it a little too close.

If I could, uh, plan it out, you know,

the guy'd just jump in the freezer of his own free will.

But, uh, that's not what hunting is about.

Unfortunately, it is the one that will get away.

ERIK: I'm a killer. I'm a trapper.

I'm a subsistence hunter.

This is the Arctic and you need to kill or be killed.

Doing a little bit of scouting for spring water trapping season.

It's a bit early, the ice is real thick.

Scouting for beaver, muskrat, and otter.

So, we're out here on a pond

where there's a lot of muskrat push-ups.

The muskrat push-up is sort of like a beaver lodge,

except it's where muskrats live.

And I noticed this disturbance here,

and I see where a fox came off the hill here

and then dug around in the push-up.

And I'm not sure if he got the muskrat or not.

But, just kind of checking it out here.

There we go, now we're getting down into his little house.

This was a tough year on muskrats, uh,

not a lot of snow and it was a cold winter.

A lot of them froze out.

It might have been dead in there and the fox actually came and got him,

so, there might be a muskrat in here.

There may not be.

Got him.

Another muskrat ate it.

This one obviously was cannibalised by another muskrat.

It's, uh, absolutely worthless.

Muskrat is not at the top of the list of animals

I would want to be reincarnated as. (LAUGHS)

Sit in a hole in the darkness, eating your house... (CHUCKLES)

And then the ice freezes and you can't get back in the water

and you freeze to death and then your buddy eats you. (SNIGGERS)

ANDY: Our lives are dictated by Mother Nature

and what she throws at us.

And this year she is threatening to take our home and our property.

That's life in the Alaska bush.

KATE: We need to move the fish rack because once this river breaks,

we're expecting really high water and possibly ice.

And we don't want to lose about 1,500 fish that are on the rack

that's imperative to feeding our dogs.

Andy figures if the dogs go I have to go, to look after them.

They're my kids, they're my children,

they're my... I adore every one of them.

We lost a dog last time and that's not going to happen in my watch.

The big boat that the dogs were in,

that flipped on its side and the dogs were all drowning.

And the ones on the top when the boat was on its side,

they were holding onto the metal gunnels with their teeth...

And screaming.

That's when we lost Skipper.

We didn't know it until after.

It was so fast.

It's just been a big shock for me.

The last three or four days

knowing that this is going to be the way it's going to be.

Everything we love is at risk, once more.

I thought once was enough, but I don't know.

If this break-up happens the way I think it might happen,

where I'm standing might be covered with 10 or 15 feet of ice,

which will totally destroy this fish rack.

Is it underneath the skid right now?

Yeah.

I want to slide this fish rack off my lower terrace here

up to the high ground, which means

that it's gonna have a better chance of surviving.

Moving this fish rack is a bit precarious.

It's not designed to really move very far,

and certainly not with fish on it.

I've got, uh, probably close to 1,600 fish on the rack right now,

and that's our summer's dog food.

And that's worth a couple of thousand dollars to us.

Without the fish, I couldn't afford to have these dogs.

ANDY: We're gonna come in kind of tight, Kate.

KATE: Put them on tight?

No, I'm going to come in kind of tight so that I can get out.

The bulldozer is so powerful, I can't feel when things are starting to break.

Usually what happens is, it just breaks,

and before I can feel that something is beginning to bite.

So it's going to be critical for her to really listen well.

KATE: Your tooth is on it.

ANDY: It's not gonna slide under there

and I'm not gonna hit this upper post, am I?

KATE: I don't know.

ANDY: If that goes into my bucket, I'm going to hit the top post

and it's going to crack the fuck out of that!

So, it has to be set up so that it's not gonna slip out of there!

KATE: You be good.

-(KATE GASPS) -Jesus Christ, man!

Fuck. You gotta tell me when I'm too close, babe!

-Do you understand what I'm saying? -I do.

-Okay. -But I'm just trying to tell you what it is.

-All right. -It's only under one half of one tooth.

All right, so if that slipped in there, I'm going to hit this,

and that's what I can't have happen. Okay?

KATE: Poor Andy gets so frustrated.

He likes to just get things done.

And he works alone very well and then when he needs a hand, I'm there.

He'll blow up. He can't help it.

It's just a scraper.

ANDY: There's a lot on my mind right now.

When I look around, I know how much work is ahead of me.

Sometimes I get pretty frustrated when things aren't going real well.

But I'm not good at holding my emotions back.

Get out of there!

I know it's kind of hard on Kate to have to put up with that.

Yay!

All right, I think that's good enough. I think that will work.

We accomplished a lot today, but we're not out of the woods yet.

The fish rack is in as safe a place as I can put it right now.

Just because everything is up on this upper terrace

doesn't mean that it's damage-free.

It just means that it's going to have a better chance of surviving,

and that's the best I can do.

And then after that, it's just a matter of what Mother Nature decides to do to us.

And that's what we have to live with.

ERIK: The reality of subsistence living in rural Alaska

is that I kill a lot of animals.

But I try to do so as humanely as possible and with the utmost respect.

Notice this muskrat out on the ice here.

I got a .22 pistol, I could shoot it,

but the fur is more valuable if I can trap it.

So, uh, I'm going to slip over there and see if I can put this over his hole.

I have a one-ten count up there.

He'll probably go back down underwater and when he comes up, snap.

Hopefully, we'll, uh, catch the first rat of the spring water season.

Got him.

I looked down this rat hole, I saw his tail there.

If they bite real hard, they'll rip your hand right open.

I just grabbed him, I threw him away from the hole.

Now I just stepped on him to asphyxiate him here quickly.

First rat of the spring.

Nice muskrat.

Beautiful, real full fur here.

That's a good one.

There's another one!

There he is. Perfect fur, no bullet holes.

Nice rat.

Rats command a good price this year, $5 to $15.

These are my first two rats of the season,

so, you know, if I come in, uh...

In the late spring, early summer,

go into town and sell some fur,

you know, I might make a couple of hundred bucks in rats,

but, uh, I just like being out here and catching rats.

That's kind of the neat thing about living out here.

I get to just kind of be like a grown-up boy that plays in the woods all day.

SUE: I'm the only one that I can guarantee

who's going to be there the day I pass away.

So, I better be goddamn comfortable in my own skin.

It's okay if you think I'm psycho, cause I don't.

I've been out hunting all day long

and I got a moose in my sights, but he got away.

Now, it's getting dark and I have to get home before my fuel runs out.

Oh, that's a little bit of an overflow.

This is a major problem.

I crossed over this section of the river coming in.

But as you can see,

that ain't ice and that ain't snow, that's water.

My weather's coming in, the wind's picking up,

but I gotta go across that.

And, uh, you know...

This is just at the shore, it gets deeper out there, even though it's about...

I don't know, it's gotta be at least 30 below zero.

The river has other ideas.

The water thinks spring is coming and, uh, that's that.

I'm gonna do my best to try and get across it and get home

without plunging through the river.

-(CRACKING) -And who knows... It's starting to crack.

Oh, my God.

It's a very uncomfortable feeling.

I mean, I have my thumb all the way on the throttle,

and I'm slowing down and sinking a little bit.

It's real possible I may drop into a 20-foot puddle.

Whoo!

Goddamn! Thank you, little baby Jesus.

Oh, holy shit! I can't believe I made that.

Well, that's one trip I'm not going to make again.

That was uncomfortable for me, and I don't think, safe.

I gotta get home, get myself warmed up and calmed down.

Yeah, I don't wanna...

I definitely don't wanna be running over that stuff on the river.

Do I need some food in my freezer? Absolutely.

But, uh, it's not a problem.

It's just a solution I haven't found yet.

CHIP: We don't actually target any one animal or any one thing.

We have an idea what we want to go do and what we want to get.

But we're opportunists, and when an animal pops up

out of the nowhere, bam, we got it!

(AGNES SPEAKING)

Yeah. (SIGHS)

This guy, he's been dead for over an hour or so now

and, um, that's what happens with dead meat.

It freezes. (LAUGHS)

AGNES: I'm just gonna end up cutting the, um, joints.

CHIP: Oh, doing the feets later. AGNES: Yeah.

CHIP: Good idea. Do the tail later too.

I wouldn't want to ruin the tail just 'cause it's starting to freeze.

I'm taking the paws,

the legs off, seeing how the paws are frozen, freezing up here.

That way, I can just take care of this and do it real nice and the way I want it.

Now, I'm gonna cut it the way I want it

for mukluks and ruffs, the traditional style.

So that's like a $600 pair of mukluks.

A couple $100 pair of mittens.

The teeth and stuff, they make pretty charms.

CHIP: The Inupiaq figured out 10,000 years ago

just what materials are best for what particular use

at what particular time of year, and we just follow that pattern.

My mom taught me how to free the souls of hunters, animals that hunt.

You have to free their soul and just pretty much cut their throat,

so their spirit can be lifted and go try again.

Pretty much respect for the animal.

Me and the wolf. We know what's up.

He's a hunter. I'm a hunter.

I don't have a bad feeling about it.

We thanked the wolf for the kindness of taking his skin.

We live in nature and this is part of nature.

Everything dies. Everything.

And the fact is, is that, um,

I'm going to make use of what this guy is.

The fur is a necessary survival item and that's really important up here.

Especially like 40, 50 below.

AGNES: I feel real good today. It's been a good trip.

Excited to get back home.

ERIK: There's a lot of freedom associated with living here.

A lot of people come to Alaska, you know.

It attracts a lot of people that are running from something.

I'm 29 years old.

I came to Alaska 10 years ago, soon as I got out of school.

I guess people back there would say that I was a crazy fuck. (LAUGHS)

People ask me if I'm lonely.

And there are certain disadvantages of living in bush Alaska,

I mean, I go quite a while sometimes without having anybody around.

But I miss out on a lot of social things

that other people my age are doing, you know.

But I can follow my passion for a living and hunt and trap and fish.

Life is good.

We'll use this handy tree here as a skinning surface.

(SNIFFLING)

These rats have been dead a couple of hours now

and they were just about to freeze.

I'm expecting it to be about zero tonight.

And, uh...

They'd be frozen solid in the morning

and then they'd be real hard to skin.

So, best take care of these before I go to bed.

You know, a lot of people ask me why I live out here,

and I just, still... Every time I walk out of the cabin sometimes,

I just look around at these mountains here

and I'm just like, "Wow!"

It's beautiful.

For the most part, I think a lot of the opportunities

that I've had here,

my guiding business...

I've been very fortunate. Alaska has treated me really well.

Well, I do appreciate it.

Nice rat hide. Beautiful spring rat.