Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero,

Mother Nature shows no mercy.

One mistake can kill you out here.

NARRATOR: An injury threatens Sue's independence.

SUE: Ouch.

I'm in pain. I need to get medicine.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones have a debt to pay.

He set us up good. We pay him back.

NARRATOR: Glenn Villeneuve returns to the unknown.

GLENN: Oh, grizzly bear hair!

NARRATOR: And Andy's apprentice

learns survival the hard way.

Negative 40 degrees, and I got no wood.

(AIR WHOOSHING)

(CRACKING)

SUE: Wind's been howling. I got a bit of snow.

I can't get at my food, 'cause it's all snowed in.

So, I can't get into the freezer right now until I can dig out the door,

but the body's hurting.

It's, the longer winter goes on, the more exhausted I get.

So I gotta be careful.

Out here it's not like you can take a sick day.

I don't get two week's vacation,

and a bunch of sick days to toss around.

You gotta get the work done when you gotta get it done.

NARRATOR: Isolated in a vast frozen tundra,

Sue's got only herself to deal with whatever Mother Nature throws at her.

This is really built up over the last few days.

The tip of that little tent right there, that's my freezer tent.

I need to, uh, dig out the door.

You know, it's where my food is for the winter.

(CLANGING)

I don't know what temperature it is. 30, 40 below.

Who in their right mind says, "Let's grab the shovel and dig."?

But if I wanna eat, probably a real good idea.

Shovelling is the one motion I gotta be careful of.

'Cause you twist,

(SPEAKING)

(GRUNTS)

Yes!

So I got caribou heart and bear back straps.

You know, and I can, uh, thaw that out,

and there's a couple of nice little meals for me.

But I gotta get this in my cubby.

Get this thawing out, and then get back to work.

Ouch!

Now that hurt.

As I get older, the body doesn't bend, it breaks.

I get hurt bad enough out here, that could be the end.

It's always good to work with your family and to work for yourself.

CHIP: Money really has no home.

It gets spent almost as fast as we make it.

(DOGS BARKING)

We got basically what we call grubstaked here in Alaska, by a fella,

friend of ours named Kevin.

And what he did was he provided us with equipment

so that we could go do some gathering.

-He traded to us a motor. -(GUN SHOT)

The boat motor got us some beavers.

-It's gotten us caribou. -(GUN SHOT)

It's gotten us moose.

And then my wife went out with the son and they got seals.

(GRUNTING)

(GROANS)

And my wife's making him a seal vest

that's going to help pay off the engine that we got.

He set us up good. We pay him back. We all benefit.

NARRATOR: Native villagers depend on a barter system to survive.

If the Hailstones don't honour this debt,

they risk losing the good faith of the community.

Right now my wife is probably scraping on the skin,

and what I'm gonna do is get her some alder bark.

And the alder bark makes a wonderful solution

that not only dyes the leather a beautiful red,

it also helps tan the skin and preserve it.

With the subsistence living that we do,

we're fortunate that the tanning solutions

for the skins that we need are right at hand,

and everything I need is out here.

Various willows have different textures.

Water willows have yellow.

Alder has red.

That's what we're looking for, red bark.

This is what the dye will be made out of.

That's the red underneath. That's where the tanning is.

It's the natural way.

Oh, sure smells, too.

(TWIG BREAKING)

I have, uh, four different types of skin scrapers.

Me, I prefer this one.

This was my mother's and we call them (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE),

which means skin scraper.

It's pretty much just go over it like this,

and take off all the extra,

um, membrane and stuff.

When I was growing up,

there was me and I had nine sisters.

So we'd always be around our mom,

and she'd always have all different kinds of skins,

and we'll all sit down, and we'd all learn how to do it.

-(SCRAPING) -It's hard work if you're not used to it,

but it keeps you in shape.

-Oh, yay! You found some? -Sure did.

-Look like that's gonna be enough. -CHIP: Yup.

CHIP: I'm gonna put all this in here.

These are the shavings from the alder.

Then I'm gonna put them in the water to simmer.

Let her rip.

CODY: It's colder than hell out here.

When you get cold in this country, you gotta get up and you gotta move.

That means you gotta put wood in the stove.

You gotta take care of yourself.

(SAWING)

Stupid fucking stick.

(GRUNTS)

I just woke up, (SNIFFS)

and I can see my own damn breath in my tent.

Negative 40 degrees.

I, uh, immediately checked my fire,

and it was out, and I got no wood.

You have to be in a certain mind-set out here.

You gotta think ahead, and I wasn't thinking ahead.

NARRATOR: New to life in the bush,

Cody Allen is learning survival skills from Andy and Kate Bassich.

When you come out into this environment with this kind of cold,

if you do the wrong thing it can take your life.

And actually I'm hoping he makes mistakes,

and I hope he has a little bit of a struggle.

'Cause that's when you learn about how to take care of yourself.

That's not gonna fucking cut it.

I gotta go back.

I gotta go get another tree.

And there's no way in hell I'm going out there without a damn gun.

Bears are probably hibernating, but we still got wolves, coyotes.

Whatever wants to get at you can if it's got the will and the means.

Trying to find a deadfall tree.

Anything that's still got green on it is gonna be wet,

and it's not gonna burn worth a damn.

If I can find something that's gonna be kind of easy to carry back to camp,

(SIGHING) that would be my best bet.

That might actually do.

I'd say right about now I'm kind of missing my thermostat.

You know, that's kind of a get out of bed and, "Oh, it's 65."

I want 70 degrees. I'm gonna go turn that thing a quarter inch.

And out here it's I wake up and, "Oh, I can see my breath and I can't feel my hands.

"I'm gonna get dressed, go spend 20 minutes walking through the forest,

"freezing cold, find a tree, drag it back to camp, cut it up,

"try and get my fire going again,

"and then hopefully get back into my sleeping bag and get warmed up again."

I'm freaking freezing.

It's definitely a different world,

and I'm, you know, kind of missing some of the amenities right now.

-It's just a dumb mistake. -(SAWING)

I don't need to be attempting to get frostbite at all.

Which can very easily happen in these temperatures.

(CLATTERING)

I'm gonna get my birch wood in there.

That'll start the fire up nicely.

Tonight could've gotten really bad.

You can't make big mistakes out here.

You make the wrong one and you could be dead in a heartbeat.

CODY: I don't ever wanna go through that again.

But I kind of realise my knowledge isn't where it needs to be out here.

I'm not set up in a way that I'm efficient.

I just don't exactly know what I need to do.

It's kind of scary.

CHANDALAR: A lot of people will find it frightening to be out

in the middle of the wilderness,

but I actually feel really comfortable there.

And that's why I keep going back out there.

-Andy, great. Thanks for the lift. -Okay.

-Great to be back. Okay. -We'll see you.

-See you Andy. -Stay warm!

-Have a good flight. -Thank you!

My name's Glenn Villeneuve, and I live here in Alaska.

I came up here in 1999.

I live a subsistence lifestyle in the Brooks Range, about 200 miles North of Fairbanks.

I got a really simple camp. I hunt and gather most of my food.

Live pretty close to the land.

I use mostly hand tools.

I cut all my wood with a axe or a hand saw.

Cook all my food on my wood stove. I don't have propane.

I've given up a lot of technology over the years,

and living with simpler technology today.

Days are still pretty short this time of year,

so I wanna go get moved in before it gets too late.

It's been seven months since I've been in my camp.

Normally I hunt in the fall get ready for winter,

but this year I decided to spend the fall with my family in town.

I don't like living in town, because I really miss being connected to nature.

Basically I have to hit the ground running, because I gotta get a fire going

in order to stay warm, and in order to get some water.

'Cause the way I'm gonna get water is by melting snow.

NARRATOR: 60 miles from the nearest point of civilisation,

Glenn faces every obstacle alone, and with no lifelines.

GLENN: I have grizzly bears that come out,

and sometimes cause problems with the camp.

One time I came in here, there was a big hole through the roof

where a bear went through.

The door was still closed,

but I still won't know until I walk up there exactly what's happened since I left.

I'm always concerned about that.

That maybe a bear's caused damage.

That's what I'm thinking about walking up to the cabin.

Just looking for what's been going on. I can see,

you know, just tracks.

I'm gonna walk over to the cabin now,

just take a closer look, walk around it.

See if anything happened.

Oh, something there isn't there?

Grizzly bear hair.

A grizzly has been here.

Those are all grizzly bear claw marks.

Grizzly bears, they come around here and they rub on this cabin

and scratch on it all the time.

But they only went inside one time.

I'm just gonna take my snowshoes off and walk around the cabin.

See if I see anything.

Back's all good. Sides all good.

Sometimes I've come up here and the place is just all ripped up.

I've found this canvas just in shreds.

The bears are usually hibernating this time of year,

but occasionally one will come out.

Bears can be very destructive, there's no question about it.

A lot of the things that I own have been chewed on by bears.

There's been a bear standing right on my bed.

Awesome!

It's nice all the way around.

Nothing ripped it up.

I'm not sure what to expect.

It can get wet and then it can get really mouldy.

I think it'll be dry. We'll see.

Looks good.

Everything looks the way I left it.

I just gotta go get all my stuff and bring it over here.

It's gonna probably take a couple more trips.

Living in the Brooks Range the way I do, it requires a lot of physical work.

But psychologically, I actually find it easier than living in modern society.

I just feel really comfortable living close to nature,

and I miss that a lot when I live in town.

The final load. Try to get moved in before it gets dark.

AGNES: We try our best to teach our girls what we do.

With all the fishing, and the wood gathering, and the harvesting of meat.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones are working hard to finish a sealskin vest,

to honour their debt in a trade.

At the end, before I do all my alder dye,

I just sand it up and get all the rough stuff off.

And usually with all the other skins,

Chip, and the boys, and the other girls do them.

But, uh, since my husband's non-native,

I have to work on the sea mammal.

My wife and my kids can all do this stuff, but legally I can't.

She just carries on with what her ancestors have always done.

Hi girls, sweetie pies.

Why don't you come sit down and check out what your mom's up to.

I'm just in the final stages of sanding.

I just have this little section left.

-How to do... -See all these fuzzies?

That's all that needs to come off

and we'll be done with the sanding part.

And then we'll move on to dying it.

Most of our traditions around here are like, um, subsistence things are for survival.

For me, it's real important that the girls,

all five girls, uh,

get to know all the traditional things I do.

Sometimes this environment is real harsh,

and the more the girls get involved and hands on, the more they'll know.

-I have the dye! -AGNES: Yay. Turned out good?

It turned out like it should.

Oh, like those willows you always used, Daddy?

-Yeah, these are alders. -Alders.

Yep, those are the willows I used.

I put these in, then I brought the water to a boil, and then I set it to simmer.

You use this and keep them back.

I gotta see what I'm doing though.

You don't want to make it too wet,

and you don't want to try to get the dye on this side.

You just wanna try to put it all over the top here.

And you don't wanna leave stuff pooling like that.

-Make sure you stop. -Whoa.

There's all kinds of different things

that they need to learn to survive

and to pass down to their kids and try to keep it in our Inupiat traditional manner.

It's something that you have to be involved in because

it's always doing something. (CHUCKLES)

-It's living. -Yeah, it's living.

There you go. That's how you do it.

CHIP: If we don't teach our kids how to utilise the materials, the animals,

and the other things around here to heat themselves, shelter themselves,

clothe themselves, and make money,

they're not gonna survive very well.

Looks like it's got an even coat all over

and you got the majority of the little pools picked up.

Good job, girls.

You girls did real good.

SUE: If I can't get my body to work,

the whole structure of my life is gonna fall apart.

My life is absolutely dependent on my ability to get my chores done.

NARRATOR: Sue threw her back out shovelling snow,

and every moment she's laid up puts her very survival in the arctic at risk.

SUE: I need my mobility back and right now I don't have it.

It's working against my

bull in a china shop nature

to lay there and be docile.

I need to clear my runway. I need to move a bunch of snow.

I have to get that done. There's nobody here to help me.

I don't appreciate weakness,

and when I find it in myself it's abhorrent to me.

(CLEARS THROAT)

It is important to me to know that I can rely on myself.

Something I can do to help myself is go and get some willow,

mack it up, and make some tea.

Willow has Salic acid, which is a pain reliever.

So, what I'm gonna do is look for a bush I can get to...

(PANTING)

...that's fairly close that I don't have to go surfing in the deep snow.

I think that's my target over there.

You have your vertebrae, there's little cushions called discs

that do just that, they cushion.

So mine are, were injured previously, spit out.

Where instead of being in between, (IMITATES SPITTING)

they're spit out to the side.

Is surgery gonna be in my future?

I don't know, I hope not.

Um, I just need to be...

I need to be more resilient to the pain,

then the pain stops me.

(EXHALES)

(GROANING)

(SNIFFLING)

(SOBBING)

(PANTING)

Yay.

Score one for Sue.

(SNIFFLING)

I gotta get better. There's a whole world of stuff I need to get doing.

SUE: These cells of this plant are gonna leech into that water.

So, when I drink it like you would tea,

I will get the benefit of a natural aspirin, a natural pain reliever.

My great grandma from Scotland

had a million and one natural cures.

And she'd always say,

(IN SCOTTISH ACCENT) "You're not a woman if you cannot do it by hand."

If you can't do it yourself, if you can't make it, then you're not... You're shit.

So I got my drink. I'll help myself with the pain with that, hopefully.

And it's hurry up and wait.

It's frustrating.

The colder temperatures are on their way back.

So, I need to get as much work done as I can

before the next snow and windstorm sets in.

Uh! Son of a bitch.

This is not fucking working.

I'm in pain. I tried the willow,

and it's just not...

It's not working.

I need to get medicine.

Real medicine.

Feeling pain is a good boundary for me.

By the time I'm in tears and I'm needing the help,

by God I probably really need the help.

(LINE RINGING)

My flying conditions are great,

but looks like there's a little fog over Deadhorse.

I'm trying to call Bob to see

whether or not he can get in the air and get the medicine to me.

(LINE RINGING)

NARRATOR: Getting medicine to her remote location is going to cost Sue $1000.

-BOB: Sue. -Bob. How's your weather doing today?

When are you thinking you might try to fly my direction?

BOB: Um, probably within an hour.

Okay.

-All right, Bob. Well, you fly safe. -Okay.

-See you in an hour. -Okay.

SUE: It is absolutely my choice to live this way.

Like I say, I wanna be a lighthouse keeper,

and I got my lighthouse and it's all groovy 99% of the time,

and then there's that one percent where I have to rely on society.

But it reinforces how grateful I am to be able to catch Bob,

and say, "Hey man, I'm, I'm hurting.

"Help me out." And I can count on it.

CODY: Number one danger up here is the cold.

When you get cold, you get hypothermic.

The first that shuts down is your ability to think properly and to reason.

One mistake can kill you out here.

(SAWING)

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if woodchuck could chuck wood?

-(LAUGHING) -KATE: Good morning.

Probably a lot if you want to stay warm. (SIGHING)

What happened to you?

Oh, I, uh, kinda ran out of wood last night.

-Friggin... -Ooh, big mistake.

-And if you don't have it, you're not going to survive. -Yeah.

And you're spending a lot of time cutting wood on the ground, right?

-We're gonna try and fix that today, okay? -Okay.

What I wanna do, is I want to get you started on using some hand tools.

And your first project is gonna be to build a sawhorse.

ANDY: It'd be good to try and find one

without a lot of branches for the main piece.

There's a ton of dead stuff here from the flood.

If they feel kind of punkie, don't take them.

Why don't you just track me down when you

start getting your pile together?

Sounds good.

NARRATOR: With temperatures plummeting to 40 below at night,

Cody's survival depends on being able to stock pile wood.

Right now Andy's having me build

basically a cutting station.

The main thing it's gonna do is bring me up off the ground at a level angle with the wood

where I can actually cut it easily,

and not be down on my knees,

sitting here and freezing my knees up.

NARRATOR: Every bit of the cutting station will have to be assembled by hand.

Okay, it looks like you got a good pile of raw material.

Yeah.

Um, this is basically called a shaving horse.

But it's basically just a clamp that allows you to use two hands.

(SCRAPING WOOD)

Using this to shape, we're gonna be using this to shape the pegs.

So you'll, if you want a peg that's like this long, you will be...

-CODY: Shaving it down, then cutting it off? -Shaving it down here.

This is probably one of the better tools to master,

the drawknife and the shaving horse.

Let's get it working so where tonight you don't have to be on your knees cutting wood.

-Yeah. -That's kind of the goal for today.

(SAWING)

ANDY: This'll make cutting firewood for Cody

probably go more than twice as fast.

He's gonna be able to just lay a piece on... (IMITATES WHACKING)

Whack it off,

move it over, whack it off.

ANDY: Feel pretty tight?

That looks good.

CODY: I'm gonna be happy to get this built up

so I'm not waking up freezing in the middle of the night.

If I got into any more of a desperate situation,

I probably would've ended up freezing to death out here.

And that's freaking scary.

So far building this, it's, uh, definitely a challenge.

I feel kinda like I skipped back in time a bit.

Trees here are two by fours.

You gotta shave everything down

and there definitely ain't a Home Depot around to go

and pick up any supplies you need.

Kinda taking a little bit of time to make sure I don't screw anything up.

Fuck. I just broke it.

(STUTTERING)

I've been notching this guy out and trying to be careful,

but I just fucking broke this off of there,

and I don't know if it's gonna work any more.

Hey, Andy, I got a question for you.

When you were talking about that punkie wood,

the softer stuff, is that it?

Yeah. It's all right.

It's cold now, too, so things get brittle

and they tend to crack and break easier when it's cold.

Uh, that's not gonna matter.

What's important is you have a shoulder here and you have a shoulder here

-that's still gonna lock the joint. -CODY: Okay.

(TAPPING)

Working outside in zero degrees or below zero temperatures

is never easy to begin with right?

It's kind of frustrating when you...

Well, hey, this is the best way to learn though.

I mean, you're, you're doing this in some of the tougher conditions right?

Yeah.

(CLANKING)

(GRUNTING)

(SAWING)

(GRUNTING)

(SIGHING)

That's a rewarding feeling. (CHUCKLES)

You know, I kinda cracked it right here, but for the most part,

that's something pretty damn stable

that I just built on my own.

(WOOD SQUEAKING)

I like it. (SIGHS)

Pretty soon I'll be chopping wood like a mad man.

(SNIFFS)

The thing I always try to keep in mind

-is that if I do a good job on this... -(SAWING)

...it's probably gonna last me the rest of my life out here.

Yeah.

Often times it seems quite, uh, futile at times.

You know, you start feeling like, "God, am I ever gonna finish this." You know?

-Yeah. -But really...

Well, I think that may, it feels like it's...

It's probably not taking as long as I think it is.

-It's just the fact we don't have that much daylight. -Right.

And it just seems like burning a lot of daylight sometimes.

Yeah.

Safer.

Somewhat close. Oh, look at that. I like that so far.

ANDY: Cody's completed his project to learn how to use some basic hand tools.

What he needs to work on is developing the finesse with the tools.

It's just gonna take a little bit of time.

It's the rule of 10,000.

You gotta do it 10,000 times to be really good at it.

But, uh, for his first project

I think he did a pretty good job.

Give yourself plenty of room around it.

Hell, yeah!

What do you think?

-I like it. (PANTING) -High five, dude.

-Good job. -My happy dance.

Yeah.

-Yeah. -All right. I like it.

CHIP: Every animal basically has enough sinew to stitch itself up.

It has enough brains to tan its own hide.

It has enough guts to make sausages out of all the meat.

Kind of a crazy thing.

(DOGS BARKING)

-This is the one you want right? -AGNES: Yeah.

That's the one.

NARRATOR: In keeping with Inupiat tradition,

Agnes uses only natural materials to make the seal vest.

CHIP: Now here's where we get the sinews from.

It's these back straps right here.

Sinew is the tendons.

And, um, they're nice and long, make excellent thread.

And, uh, my wife will do her skin sewing with that.

What I do is I just go along the edge like this

and just free the edge of the meat.

Trying to get my sinew out of there so it will be nice and clean

and I won't have no meat hanging on.

-Lay it out flat... -(DOG BARKING)

...so it'll dry real straight,

and I can be able to use it later.

Or maybe I'll just cut it out. Just to cut it out.

That's where the back of the neck is.

Ready, Qutan? I'm just gonna cut it out now and you can hold one side.

Just so I make sure it's tight.

And there we have the back.

Well, I've learnt how to do my skinning, and sewing, and making the patterns,

and stuff just the way Qutan is.

Pretty soon she'll end up

being the one to cut the pattern up

and make sure it's correct. Right, Qutan?

This is what we got

from the caribou earlier.

When you peel the membrane, and extra fats, and stuff off

it just starts to separate by itself.

Break it down, make it into thin strips,

-spin it, spin it, wet it. -Wet.

And then it becomes a thread like that.

And you go a few stitches and then you put a knot there

so in case it rips, the whole thing won't just come apart.

This is pretty much almost done.

And the dude is pretty much my size.

So this will fit him perfect I think.

Right on.

CHANDALAR: The last places where there's real wilderness left

tend to be the harsher climates.

But I adapted and that suits my nature pretty well.

Now it's getting dark again.

I'm gonna be up most of the night tonight I think,

just to get really moved in here.

I don't think in hours.

So, I go for months without using a watch out here, or even a calendar.

NARRATOR: As darkness falls, the temperatures plummet.

Glenn must get a fire going if he's going to survive the night.

I have to get the stovepipe.

(RUSTLING)

(SPEAKING)

(CLATTERING)

Okay.

Um, now I need to get some materials to start a fire.

Here's my woodpile.

The wood around here is not good quality firewood.

And the other thing is, up here a lot of the wood is twisted.

A lot of the trees are starting to rot once they get to be pretty big.

So, I'm looking for a good piece to split into kindling

that's straight grained and solid.

It's getting cold.

(SPEAKING)

Fire's essential to me living out here.

I do all my cooking on a wood stove, heat my water on a wood stove,

heat the camp with a wood stove.

Can't live without fire out here.

I go through about four cubic feet a day when it's this cold weather.

(WIND HOWLING)

Right now it's 13 below outside, it's 13 below inside.

And what I wanna do now is get it warmed up in here.

'Cause I'd rather not sleep in 13 below.

(CLATTERING)

This is a system that arctic people always use to start fire,

because you can actually do it with mittens, even if it's 40 below zero.

I'm just gonna put this mouthpiece in.

It's made out of caribou antler.

And that's gonna support it.

Right there.

(GRINDING)

-(BREAKING) -(GRUNTS)

Problem.

I got a coal, I got an ember but I knocked everything.

I'm gonna have to pick it up off the floor.

I don't know if I can do that without destroying it.

(GRUNTING)

It's definitely going.

It's just a question of it slid off of my bark, and I gotta get it.

Save it without putting it out.

There. Come on.

Yeah. It's gonna go.

(BLOWING)

Having a little blowpipe is so helpful.

It's almost like an axe, or a rifle.

My blowpipe is just something that I can't get by without.

-It's just a shaft of a feather. -(FIRE CRACKLING)

Any tube will do about that size.

You can take a ballpoint pen apart and use that.

When I first started living out here, I didn't know how to do this.

I was completely dependent on matches.

If something happened to those matches, what would happen to me?

I don't have to rely on anything from town to start a fire.

100% I can start a fire with stuff out here.

The most important things, I need to have shelter.

I need to have heat. I need to have water.

I haven't had anything to drink yet today since... I don't know when.

This morning. I gotta go out and get some snow.

I'm starting to get a little dehydrated.

The way I live is a mental comfort to me.

It's comforting to be close to nature,

and to be really connected to all the resources I use.

I don't wanna just turn on a faucet to get my water.

Okay. That snow's just about melted.

Get about a third of a pan of water

for each full pan of snow.

Had a good day. Got back to camp.

Got moved in. Got a fire going.

Got myself some water.

That's everything I need today.

(FLOOR CREAKING)

CHIP: Up here rich is being able to provide,

and being rich is being able to share.

I get what I can, and I keep what I must, and I give what I can.

AGNES: Well, I'm here at Chuck's shop here.

He's making me some ivory seal buttons,

and, uh, I'll be able to finish the vest

and then get that sent off.

-Hey, what's going on? -Hey, Chuck.

Not too much.

I just finally got done with my vest,

-and I hope you got done with the buttons. -Oh, wow!

-Absolutely. -Yay!

I brought this over in for trade,

-and I also brought a few pieces of... -Oh, wow!

That is just awesome.

-A few pieces of wood, and... -Oh, you know I need the heat.

Looks like I'm gonna make out real nice on this trade.

-Yup, you sure are. -Awesome.

Well, this is what I have.

-I hope it's acceptable. -Seal?

-AGNES: Yay! -Ivory seals with inlayed baleen eyes.

AGNES: Wow, that looks cool.

CHUCK: Oh, wow, that's just beautiful.

AGNES: Wow!

I want to grubstake you now. (LAUGHING)

Yay! I'm on the last button.

Feels pretty good that I'm almost done.

I've been working at this project for a few days,

and it's been kind of exciting.

We caught this sealskin, we tanned it.

Um, we ate the meat,

and, uh, now here we have it turned into a seal skin vest.

CHIP: For us it's like a way to pay off the equipment.

So it's a giant karma thing. Where we're helping each other.

We're all getting what we want in the end, and it's a giant trade,

but it's also kind of a business deal.

This is tied in with subsistence obviously,

because it's the skin of an animal that we caught and ate.

AGNES: Not only the sealskin vest, the leather, the buttons,

are all from the country. So is the thread.

So, I didn't really have to pay for anything.

CHIP: This is how subsistence comes around.

AGNES: Perfect.

CHIP: Get up and put it on.

Wow.

-Probably gonna fit him perfect, huh? -I think he'll like it.

AGNES: Good deal.

SUE: When I'm the only one that I count on in the winter to get my chores done,

you know, the only ass that gets kicked for not completing the job is my own.

Today is the day. I've got good conditions here.

Bob has good conditions there.

Um, so he's gonna try and make my medicine drop.

(PANTING) Uh, one snag, one little fly in the ointment is

on my runway. I have not been able to go out.

I got some snow, a little bit of wind.

So, I may have drifts on it.

What's hidden underneath this little bit of snow is ice, glare ice.

So, that's the danger. He can't see where it is. I can't tell him where it is.

I'm not in good enough shape to get on my equipment and groom it for him.

So, he's gonna have to do what we call an airdrop.

He's gonna line up with the runway,

and then go as slow as he can,

open up the door, and kick it out of the window.

Hey, Bob. You got a copy on Sue?

(BOB SPEAKING)

Zero wind.

(BOB SPEAKING)

I'll start making my way out towards the runway,

but if you can give me a minute, I'm a little bit of a slowpoke.

(BOB SPEAKING)

Come on Sue. Come on. Fuck!

SUE: Okay. He's gonna start lining up.

I am in position and ready, buddy.

(PANTING)

Okay. Here we go. Fuck me, it hurts.

My left leg is shaking. It wants to give out.

Fuck.

Come on, buddy. Come on, buddy.

Don't hit me in the head.

He should open it up right around now.

Boom!

Got it, buddy. Right on target.

(LAUGHING)

Most of it made it on target. It's to be taken with food, so he gave me food, too.

The food just didn't happen to make it quite as much.

Yay!

Bob, I really appreciate it. I want you to fly safe.

(BOB SPEAKING)

Thank you, Bob.

(GRUNTS)

(GROANING)

(PANTING)

Three days, and I've got some medicine.

It's emotional for me

that people will help me like that.

It makes me wanna be a better person.

The next challenge after I start healing

is to slow my natural personality down,

and say, "Okay. Baby steps.

"Baby steps. Let's be a toddler on this."

And I wanna go gangbusters and be a football team.

"Take one tablet by mouth, three times a day."

Ah!

It's for the swelling. Anti-inflammatory.

I'm hoping that 24 hours or less,

for being mobile enough to get some things done.

What I need to do,

get under these things right here,

and let the medicine do its work.

(SIGHING)

Time for healing.

CODY: I don't care how cold it gets.

I don't care how tough it gets.

I don't care if I'm freezing in the middle of the night.

I don't care if I'm hungry.

I'm sort of answering my call to the wild

I think it's about time to start getting my wood cut up.

So, that way I got wood stacked up on the side before it gets dark,

and have stuff to burn throughout the night so I don't freeze to death.

It's gonna keep me off the ground.

It's gonna make it a lot easier for me

to get two hands on the saw.

Cut through a piece, slide over, get my next piece.

My knees aren't gonna be packed down in snow.

It's also gonna make everything just go a lot quicker.

'Cause with how short the days are out here.

You know, you gotta get enough wood built up to keep you warm throughout the night.

(SIGHING)

Last piece for the night!

Kind of getting a little bit more settled in here than when I first showed up.

I got a, a great little contraption over there

that really just made,

with the daylight that we have out here, two to three days' worth of work,

of on the ground work, (SNIFFS)

freezing cold, standing up now.

And I knocked it out in three or four hours, so...

Cody's completed his, uh, project

to learn how to use some basic hand tools.

ANDY: I think he did a pretty good job.

He's not afraid of the hard work.

And he seems to be highly motivated to wanna live this lifestyle.

And that's what it takes.

(FIRE CRACKLING)

One of the first major lessons I learnt out here is being prepared.

I mean, running out of firewood in the middle of the night,

that was just dumb.

But I learnt my lesson from that.

Just from that night, I can see myself looking a little farther ahead

in everything I do.

You know, is this gonna help me for the next 15 minutes,

or is this gonna help me for the next 15 years?

If you think short term out here,

then you're gonna end up in a ditch pretty quick.

After the experiences I just went through,

I'm feeling damn proud, damn happy,

and good to be alive.

-(CRACKLING) -(CLATTERING)