Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero,

Mother Nature goes in for the kill.

CHIP: There's a thousand ways to die out here in your own special way.

NARRATOR: Chip searches the tundra for his missing family.

People get lost. Just disappear.

Andy's dog team is put to the test.

ANDY: Looks like the ice is caving in.

NARRATOR: Glenn braces for danger on the horizon.

And the bears are just about

to come out of hibernation now.

And Sue braves thin ice for water.

But holding off could cost me my life this time.

(CHUCKLES)

Yeah. Weather's changing.

I gotta get my butt doing my chores.

Normally this time of year I'm shovelling snow,

putting it in a bucket in here so it can melt out.

So I can do my laundry, my cooking, whatever.

But the shovelling and twisting is gonna tear my spine apart again.

So, today I'm gonna grab the Argo,

and I'm gonna go upriver.

It usually have an open lead up that way where the spring is.

If I can get up there and fill even a few jugs, that's liquid water.

Immediate liquid water.

With less damage to my body.

With this storm coming in now,

I wanna get going and get back.

The one thing you must do is capitalise

on each scrap of good weather you get.

Are you ready, Ermine?

And we're off.

NARRATOR: With the river nearly frozen solid in many places,

finding liquid water is no easy task.

I know some of the spots on my river.

I know where some of the really deep holes are.

I'm looking for that green colour.

Which tells me there's liquid water

closer to the surface, but I don't know until I get there.

I'll never know how deep the hole is.

Until you're on top of it, there's no way to tell.

I mean, you might sink,

and that'd be a big, fat bummer.

This is kind of crazy.

The rivers will never freeze all the way to the bottom.

There's always some water trickling.

What does that do? It puts pressure on the ice sheet.

It causes a pressure ridge.

This is like a pressure mountain.

I mean, that's an unreal amount of water under there.

(MIMICKING EXPLOSION)

When the pressure gets to be too much, it overflows.

I'm not interested in breaking that pressure ridge up.

Yeah. Looks like my weather is coming in too,

so I'm gonna keep looking for a little bit.

Hopefully find it. If I can't find

an open source upstream,

I'll head downstream.

I really need to get some water.

GLENN: In the Arctic you have to have shelter to survive.

Because a human is just not adapted to the environment.

If I went and bed in the snow out there,

I'd probably freeze to death.

This is where I live. This is my shelter.

And I depend on it for my survival.

This is all bear damage.

And the bears are just about to come out of hibernation now.

And they'll start coming down here.

If a bear came in here and pushed the wood stove over

when I was gone, you know, it could catch the place on fire.

It's important to have a plan.

If you have to abandon ship, you need a lifeboat.

NARRATOR: Living hundreds of miles from civilisation,

Glenn has nobody to call on for help

if his cabin is destroyed by bears.

This is a sod house.

It's made from a frame of spruce poles, covered in sod.

Today, I'm gonna fix it up in case I have to use it in an emergency.

These barrels here are where I store things I need to survive

if I had to come in here and use it as an emergency shelter.

In here I got a sleeping bag, I got some food.

Way to start a fire, all the basics I need to survive.

But if I had to come in here right now and spend the night,

it would be pretty miserable.

This is my wood stove.

Pretty well buried in the snowdrift here.

So I have to get all this snow out of here.

So I can start working on the floor.

I got most of the snow out.

Got the stove all cleaned off.

I wanna cover the whole floor with a nice spruce bough carpet.

It'll be warmer to sleep on if I had to.

I'm looking for not just any spruce bough.

So here's a nice, little spruce branch.

Because it's two-dimensional, flat.

And it's kind of spread out wide, so it'll cover a good area.

A spruce branch is different on the top than it is on the bottom.

When I put them down on the floor,

I want the bottom side of the branch faced up.

It's much softer and more comfortable.

I want a nice smooth carpet.

I just find it a lot more enjoyable

to go out here in the forest because I like nature.

And I like being connected to it every day.

There's a lot about self-sufficiency too, and independence.

Just being able to get what you need right from nature.

I just enjoy this better than shopping at the carpet store.

ANDY: This is not the "Henry Thoreau on Walden Pond" lifestyle

that people think it is.

It's nothing but work, work, work, work.

And if you don't know how to plan

and have good logistics,

you won't make it up here.

Living out here the way we live,

we've chosen to go with dogs

-for our transportation, our work. -(DOGS BARKING)

So they're a big part of our world out here.

For me, lead dogs are critical to the process.

Iceberg is my main leader.

He's kind of what I'm hoping I can model these other dogs after.

He's eight years old right now.

So I figure I probably have at least two more

really good, solid years with him.

You're a good boy. Do you wanna go for a run again, huh?

KATE: They all have their own personality.

And they'll do things their own way.

But we just need to have faith in them

to do what they're told.

And take us where we need to go.

ANDY: Everything that I do out here revolves around dogs and dog mushing.

You have to constantly train new lead dogs.

Identify young dogs that might have potential.

So that when the old guys need to be retired,

you have dogs that are already ready to step into that position

rather than having to start from scratch.

I wanna run Jack and Iceberg together for a little bit.

And we'll just see what they do together.

And then if Jack looks like he's kind of wanting to do it,

I'm gonna take Iceberg out and put Jack up ahead by himself.

Well, we gotta remember, he's only 18 months old.

Yup. No, he's all right.

KATE: He's still a baby.

ANDY: Jack's showing a lot of maturity for a dog his age.

He's showing a tremendous amount of promise right now.

So I'm pretty excited about working with him.

Today I'm gonna be testing his confidence level

to take commands.

Either "gee" or "haw", "right" or "left", or "whoa".

The only way I'm really gonna get Jack going is

he's gonna have to run next to an experienced dog like Iceberg.

These dogs learn from each other

much better than I can teach them.

Okay, Iceberg. Straight ahead.

Little haw, little haw, little haw, little haw.

Jack is only 18 months old.

So we don't have a lot of faith in Jack getting it right.

Gee, gee. Gee, gee. Gee, gee. Gee! Gee!

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

relying on yourself.

When you go out there, and you come back time after time.

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

Figure, "Yeah, I did things right."

(DOGS BARKING)

Chip's going out hunting this morning, and he's...

Our boy is gonna be

coming up from Selawik.

And he's gonna be joining his dad on the hunt.

We're running low on caribou.

So it's time for these guys

to go out and go do a hunt.

NARRATOR: Chip and Agnes' son, Jon, is travelling 45 miles

across the frozen tundra to join the hunt.

CHIP: My son will bring a rifle.

He'll do the shooting, leaving a trail of destruction.

I'll be following his trail, and skinning, and gutting behind him.

And working with him is just simply me and him

working together.

Just like two good hunters ought to.

And it's a good team effort.

Jon should be in here in the next little bit.

I wonder where you plan on going?

CHIP: They say these hills all the way up to Long Mountain

are the place to be. There's already people there.

I guess these guys have been getting real fat ones down there.

So that's all good news to me.

You're just gonna take the main trail what we usually take?

-Yup. -Okay.

I know where you'll be.

Well, time is ticking,

and the boy is not here yet.

They should be here, pulling up.

Just keep getting ready. He'll show up.

NARRATOR: With 50 mile an hour winds and temperatures hitting 40 below zero,

travelling in the Arctic can be life-threatening.

Between the villages lies nothing but desolate tundra,

where cell phones and radios are useless.

I think Jon's about three hours overdue.

He should've been here already.

I think he was having issues with his engine yesterday, so.

Hope he doesn't have engine issues today.

It's just so cold out there today.

The thing is that the wind is supposed to pick up tonight.

And that's what worries me. So...

I'd like to get out to where we're gonna hunt caribou

-and get that as much as we can. -Yeah.

I just called Selawik. Um...

So if she's with him,

we better step this one up a notch or two.

Avery is Jon's oldest daughter.

She turned four years old yesterday.

This definitely changes things a little bit.

I'd really worry if they've crashed.

And if they've crashed, well, that's a whole different deal.

I'm gonna go around town, and see if he didn't stop

at Elwood's or somewhere.

And if he's not here by the time I've looked around town for him...

Then I'll ride down that trail.

I don't know why he'd go somewhere else though.

He should just drive right straight here.

No panic yet.

I'm gonna go around town. I'll see you in a bit.

Maybe he stopped somewhere,

and for some unknown reason didn't say anything.

That wouldn't be him at all, but, um...

Better to double check.

AGNES: It worries me a lot, you know.

If something happens to them while they're out there,

and I just don't know what's going on out there.

But I try not to worry too much.

We don't like to go that route. (CHUCKLES)

CHIP: There's no place for panic over something you have no knowledge of.

We don't know what's going on out there.

So, we gotta go see.

What's up, Joe?

JOE: Working on this snow machine.

-You haven't seen Jon, have you? -Nope!

Yeah. Jon took off at 6:00 this morning.

He's supposed to be here

by 8:00 or 9:00, all right?

If he's not here by noon, I'm gonna go take off,

but I'm just looking around town for him.

He's somewhere between here and there if he's not around here.

'Cause he's not in Selawik.

Anyway, if he stops here just let him know we're starting to wonder.

-All right. -Tell him to call the hell home,

or just go straight there.

-I'd be happy. -Yeah.

-All right, bro. I'll catch you later. -Yeah.

CHIP: Well, I went to where Jon would stop around town,

and I don't see his SnoGo anywhere.

After four hours of being overdue,

if he's not at the house right now,

then it's pretty close to time for me

to go down the trail and just have a look for him.

ANDY: When you're working with dogs, you only get out of them

what you put into them.

If you don't put the time and energy into training them,

you're not gonna get a lot out of that dog.

(BARKING)

Straight ahead.

NARRATOR: Andy needs new lead dogs

if he is to maintain an effective dog team.

18-month-old Jack is training alongside veteran Iceberg.

Straight ahead. On by.

Jack did pretty good with Iceberg.

This is only the second time he's run up front,

but he was kind of trying to follow the different tracks that he had already done.

So that's a good sign.

So I think what I'm gonna do is

just put him on one of these tracks,

and we'll see what he does by himself.

Jack, go haw, haw, haw...

This is just the beginning training

to get them used to the words of left and right.

For left is haw.

Gee is right.

Haw, haw.

Oh, yeah. Good boy. That was good.

Good, gee. Gee.

Gee, gee, gee, gee.

Oh, you're doing it. Gee, gee, gee.

Good boy. Gee, gee.

We raised him as a sole puppy.

So he's really tuned into me. And I found over the years

that's one of the better things you can do

to really get a good lead dog.

Gee, gee.

Jack, go gee.

Jack, go gee.

Everybody stay.

Everybody stay.

Jack, gee, gee. That's gee.

Good boy. Good boy.

Okay. Jack, go haw.

Haw, haw. (CHUCKLES)

Iceberg and Topaz are doing it for him.

(ANDY AND KATE LAUGHING)

Good boy, Jack!

The fact that Jack was running out front by himself

and keeping the line tight with motivation

was a really, really good sign.

He really doesn't know his gee-haw commands.

The two leaders behind him were kind of steering him.

But what was really good is he was picking up on

which direction they were going.

You're doing really good.

Yeah. You're not quite sure,

but you're gonna figure it out.

The big thing that really made me happy today is

that he's just out running by himself without looking back.

Huh? That's not a bad start.

KATE: I think Jack's gonna do well in time,

but I think it's gonna take a lot of patience.

Come here, Jack.

He's pretty happy with himself. Aren't you?

Huh? You're pretty happy. You did a good job.

SUE: As I get older, the things that weren't challenging

are a pain in the ass now.

But my personality thrives on the challenge.

NARRATOR: Despite the threat of an Arctic storm,

Sue takes her search for fresh water deep into the tundra.

SUE: The colour is looking really good up ahead.

It's a lot of green.

I can't tell whether it's the snow blowing or the steam rising from water,

but I'm betting bottom dollar I see some water up ahead.

(ENGINE STARTING)

Yeah. This is the colour I'm looking for, that green colour.

I definitely see water, but I have no idea

whether it's, you know, soft, fresh overflow,

or refroze over it.

This may seem like a whole lot of effort for a little bit of water.

But for me to melt snow for this amount of water is three, four days of work.

You know, so this, if I can get enough liquid water,

that'd be cool beans.

I really don't know the substructure.

I've got some deep, deep sections of the Kavik up this way.

Um, but I wanna just get at the edge,

move a few pieces of the ice.

And get to where I can get enough water to start filling these.

You know, I've broken through the ice before, and it's dangerous.

You don't have a way to get dry,

you're gonna start losing body parts.

So I'm cautious.

I live by myself.

If I go through the ice, I'm dead.

One done.

One to go.

In the lower world, all you gotta do is, "Oh, I'm thirsty."

Flip the tap, and you put your finger

under it for five minutes

till it's the right temperature

for whatever you wanna do.

And I don't have that luxury.

This is gold.

This is liquid gold to me.

It's another resource that I'm able to tap into

that normally I wouldn't.

I wouldn't be able to get this liquid water

without a hell of a lot of effort.

Okay. That one's full.

(SNIFFLES)

Success.

Now I just have to get it home.

I basically go for nine months without running water.

And I set aside almost 300 gallons.

So I'm rationing a gallon a day for all of my needs.

Drinking water, washing water, cooking water, everything.

Yay! Success!

And so to be able to go with relatively few problems

and get liquid water, now I have more freedom to do more.

Yeah. It's a nice luxury.

Takes a little work to get it, but anything worth getting takes a little work.

GLENN: Space is different out here.

There's a lot of space.

There's no boundary lines out here

that I have to worry about.

You could walk as far as your legs will carry you

in any direction.

Okay.

So I've got five piles now.

Now the trick is

just to get them back to the sod house.

NARRATOR: For Glenn, insulating his sod house

is imperative to surviving a worst-case scenario in the bush.

I do have a problem. This string is not strong enough.

I think I may have a problem because this is the same kind of string

that I used on my head strap,

and it's breaking just tying it together.

So how am I gonna carry it?

So my head strap is gonna be here, and these two pieces of string

may or may not support the weight of the spruce boughs.

(GRUNTS) Oh.

Okay.

Let's see if I can make it to camp.

Whoa!

(GRUNTS)

String broke right here.

I should've made the string out of caribou hide.

I was in a hurry.

Used this store-bought stuff.

Big mistake.

I'm gonna have to braid a few of these together

to make a stronger cord next time,

but I'm almost back to the sod house.

So, for now I'll just tie it back together and keep going.

Got the first load of spruce boughs back.

I got four more to get.

Before I go get them I'm gonna braid this string

with three strands to make it strong enough that it doesn't break next time.

CHIP: There's a lot of ways that things can go wrong out here.

Everybody could be dead.

That's the worst thing that you could possibly have happen.

NARRATOR: Chip and Agnes' son, Jon, has gone missing,

failing to arrive from a trip across the tundra.

CHIP: Yeah. He probably left at 6:00 in the morning,

and now it's noon.

So, it's time to go find him.

'Cause it should've took him a couple hours,

and that gives him four hours of fudge.

He's not here.

Right here, Selawik.

Right here, Noorvik.

This distance between here is probably,

I'd say, 40-some odd miles.

So he's in here somewhere.

He's not at Selawik, and he's not at Noorvik.

So I'm just gonna ride down the trail,

and see if I can bump into him.

See how well it goes.

It's just cold. Very cold.

What he's gotta do is make sure that he stays out of the wind.

The time to panic is if I go from Noorvik to Selawik,

and he's at neither place.

Then we re-evaluate what's going on,

and we get some help.

You're gonna come back before it gets dark, right?

Of course.

I still got a few hours of daylight.

It gets a little scary,

and I get worried once in a while, you know,

especially with the conditions

of the weather and the wind.

But, uh, I always try to think,

"Hey, man, we teach them how to dress proper.

"And he knows what to do."

So, he's aware of the dangers that could happen out there.

That's what comforts me.

-Thank you. See you. -See you later.

-I'll be back in a bit. -Yup. Good luck.

CHIP: You know, we're not on a road system here.

We don't have Triple A.

We don't have police coming down the road.

We don't have tow services we could call.

When we're doing something like this,

first we cover where they're at,

we cover where they're expected to be,

and then we cover the in-between.

And if you start getting all worked up and worried,

if you start to panic, then you're not gonna do things right.

You're not gonna help anybody. You're just gonna add to the disaster.

If we don't see him by the time we get to his home,

and he's not home, then we talk to some more people about it,

and more people look, and have more eyeballs out there.

Maybe a plane in the air.

(ENGINE STALLING)

Oh, no.

That's not good.

Thing's up.

(ENGINE SPUTTERING)

(SPEAKING)

Dang it!

NARRATOR: With temperatures plummeting, Chip has got to repair his snow machine

and get back on the trail to find his son and granddaughter.

My machine has been idling quite a bit, because it's been deeply cold.

And when it's really cold you have to warm your machines up.

But it also plugs, fouls the plugs.

'Cause they're starting at a low temperature,

and it just kind of adds to the trouble,

but I'm hoping to bump into my son.

After four hours of being late,

he's been six hours on the trail,

and he's got his daughter with him.

I don't know.

I'll go all the way to Selawik if I have to.

He's somewhere.

-(ENGINE STARTING) -Now that's what I wanna hear.

Carry on!

Very common things up here are snow machine crashes.

Another thing people do is get lost.

Or they go through the ice, and they're never seen again.

People just disappear.

(SPEAKING)

-Overheating, huh? And your belt's skipping? -Yeah.

Yeah. My belt is skipping from my secondary clutch,

and I was overheating.

When I pulled up to Jon and he had snow packed all around his engine,

and in a glance that just tells me he's overheating.

And what you end up doing is driving until your red light comes on

and says that you got a high temp,

and you stop and you take your plugs out,

and that's what he's been doing the whole way here.

Well, I heard that you took off out of Selawik,

so I figured after so many hours,

I'm just gonna go have a look.

-Yeah. -And when I knew Avery was with you

then I really wanted to go have a look.

Well, how long till this thing cools down to go?

-It's just about cool. -It's about cool?

-Yeah. -Are you sure you'll make it yourself?

JON: Yeah. I'll make it.

-Okay. -JON: I'm running good. I was just cooling off.

-How are you, baby girl? -JON: Tired.

CHIP: Are you four years old and tired?

(JON SPEAKING)

Do you wanna ride to Noorvik with Ta-Ta?

I got a windshield.

-I should take her. -JON: Yeah.

Come on, baby girl. I'll take you to Noorvik with me

behind my windshield.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

Okay.

GLENN: A human is wholly dependent on their shelter,

and the technology that they use

to keep themselves alive out here.

In the modern world, people are losing

their independence rapidly.

I got the boughs in here.

And it looks like a good quantity to get started.

I think it's gonna cover the floor.

The floor is just dirt.

It's very cold and hard, so I'm gonna cover it with spruce boughs

because it makes a much more comfortable floor covering.

It's warmer.

I don't want these sharp needles sticking into my feet.

I like to walk around barefoot.

If I set it like this, the twig sticks up, the sharp needles stick up.

If I set it like this,

you see how it's much smoother,

and the twig where I broke it faces down.

There's a lot of stuff to learn.

Which is why I like living this way.

But, you know, I learned it.

People that were experienced in this way of life taught me that,

"Okay, this is the way you make a spruce bough floor."

The first time I did one, a Cree Indian up in Northern Quebec

showed me how to do it.

These spruce boughs are very flammable.

If they were to catch on fire,

obviously that would be a very dangerous situation.

So I'm gonna put some logs just to hold them back.

If I'm sleeping in here, in the night I don't wanna

push a few spruce boughs over and hit the stove.

Yeah. That's pretty good.

Cool.

Got the place all spruced up.

I just need to put down a few caribou hides,

and a door, and I'll light a fire to test it out.

Caribou hides are a very good insulator.

On top of the spruce boughs it will make it more comfortable and warmer.

This caribou hide will make a good door.

That'll keep the breeze out.

Shouldn't have any more problems

with snowdrifts blowing in over the wood stove.

Got some coals out of my other stove.

My little bird-feather blowpipe here.

(BLOWING)

There. I got flame.

It would've been really miserable

if I had to come in here and use it as a shelter,

and today, I got it all fixed up. Look at this.

I mean, it's as comfortable as a home.

ANDY: Even 30 years of living out along the river,

just goes to show, you never know what's gonna happen.

You gotta be pretty vigilant all the time.

NARRATOR: After training youngest dog Jack to be lead dog,

Andy will now put the more experienced Topaz through her paces.

ANDY: Topaz is a fireball.

She's a definite spark plug in the team.

She exudes personality.

(ANDY SPEAKING)

Hey, Topey!

-(WHINING) -KATE: She's smart.

We noticed this as a puppy that

she was one of the most

intelligent dogs we've ever had.

ANDY: So the goal today for me is gonna take Topaz out,

run her in front of a bigger team,

and take her someplace we haven't gone this year,

and see how she performs in that environment.

And get her to run over some bad ice,

or maybe even through a little bit of shallow water on command.

Uh, if she does that, then I know I really have

something for the future.

Come on, let's go!

I think most people see a dog team run down the trail,

and they think it's like starting a car up and stepping on the gas,

but it's nothing like that.

There's an incredible amount of nuances

to every single member of the team.

That a girl, Top. You're doing a good job, girl.

She's definitely got the running down the trail with a tight line.

She's got the confidence to be up front.

She's quite happy and proud of herself to be up there.

But she needs exposure and experience.

It's one thing to go on a broken trail

made by a snow machine or a former dog trail.

Good boys!

It's another thing to go into an environment where there's no trail broken,

the dogs are up to their bellies or their chest in snow,

and actually push through that and break that trail.

Attaboys. Easy.

Whoa! Haw. Haw, haw.

No, I want you to go haw.

Good girl.

Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Everybody stay.

Everybody stay.

Everybody stay.

Good boys. You're doing a good job.

You're doing a good job. We're gonna try and cross, okay?

You stay right here. Everybody stay.

Looks like this is a little dicey right here.

This part of the trail, it looks like the ice is caving in.

(HOLLOW THUD)

Hopefully it'll hold us up.

She's not gonna like going over thin ice.

They can hear that hollow sound.

-They can hear this when they come up on it, -(HOLLOW THUD)

and she's gonna see this open water,

and she may not wanna cross here, so.

The big test right now for Topaz is to see

if she can get past her instincts

and listen to what I'm asking her to do right here.

You ready to get your feet wet?

Tighten up. Haw, haw. Haw, haw, haw.

No, haw. That a girl. Good girl.

Straight ahead.

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

Let's go! Let's go! Come on.

Sometimes you're in situations where you want them

to go a certain place

or do a certain thing, and they've gotta forget about

what they think they're supposed to do,

and actually do what you ask them to do.

Let's go, let's go, let's go. Come on. Let's go.

Attaboy, Burgis. Good job, buddy.

Good job.

Good girl, Tope.

All right! Good girl!

That was really good.

All right!

That was a good job.

You're a good, little lead dog.

I'm impressed.

Her first response was to try and take the route around it,

but she immediately corrected and went over the old trail over thin ice,

and it actually broke out on us a little bit.

I looked behind me and saw the ice break out.

So, that was really good.

What really impressed me is she responded quickly.

Man, I think she's getting it pretty good right now.

I'm really happy with her.

She's... As you can see she's quite proud of herself.

Aren't you? You're quite proud of yourself.

Yeah.

You did an awful good job, you know?

For a little punk.

For a little punk, you do pretty good.

Hup, hup.

Straight ahead. On by.

She's having a lot of fun up here.

This is kind of the A-team, and for her to keep the line tight like this,

and to take commands, it's a really, really positive sign.

I think she's gonna develop into a really good lead dog.

Attaboys.

The key element for me is just to keep working with her

throughout the rest of this winter,

and I think beginning next year

she's gonna be a super lead dog.

CHIP: I don't live in isolation.

I have a wife. I have seven kids.

And I have a village of friends

and married-into relations.

AGNES: Oh! They're back!

You make it home!

CHIP: Here you go.

AGNES: Right on.

Hi, sunshine.

Hey, big girl! You come to Noorvik?

NARRATOR: After hours of searching,

Chip has rescued Jon and Avery from the freezing trail.

With daylight slipping away, the caribou hunt will have to wait.

(CHUCKLING)

AGNES: All better now?

CHIP: We use every reason to celebrate. You know?

And a birthday party is a good time to celebrate.

-So we make the most of them all. -(ALL SINGING)

-Keep going, girl. Keep going. -AGNES: On Channel 4.

-And Scooby Doo on Channel 2. -ALL: Yeah!

CHIP: When everyone's alive, no one's injured...

Your machine's still running.

It's all good.

It's stuff we can deal with.

Yup. You gotta just enjoy every day as it comes.

AGNES: Real good cake?

TING: It's chocolate. It's your favourite, you know?

(LAUGHTER)

CHIP: That's what the girls got, or that's what the girls made.

CAROL: I've got to wash her face. AGNES: Come, Carol.

CHIP: No need to wash her face,

she's four years old. We're fine.

One side?

Two sides!

It's these ones?

Pretty!

I think she's happy for them.

These are a pair of Mouton mittens

covered with pink cloth.

So they're real nice and pretty for little girls. They're nice and warm.

On her way here she dropped her pair of mittens,

so um, she... Her hands got a little bit chilly.

So these are to replace

the ones she lost on her way over.

So she should be warm heading back home.

Like anywhere else in this world,

there's a thousand ways to die out here

in your own special way.

So, anytime you can celebrate another birthday

is a good thing.

SUE: You don't really get a choice when a problem comes up.

You do what you gotta do when you need to do it,

and that's just the way life is here in Kavik.

Today I got a storm in.

Got some of my chores done yesterday.

But the storm that came in,

southwest winds blew up this stove,

and all's I've got is a small stove over there.

Does not produce enough heat to compensate for when this one's out.

This stove here, it's useless to me right now, but it's getting colder.

I'm gonna be 20, 40 below.

If I don't have enough heat, I'm gonna freeze.

So what I wanna do today is go to another building,

take a stove out of there that produces more heat, swap it out.

Then I have enough to keep me, you know, keep me at a healthy temperature.

Ideal conditions, no.

Normally I'd hold off,

but holding off could cost me my life this time.

You know? I cannot...

You don't go to sleep at 20 below,

'cause you might not wake up.

I gotta get on this.

The one guarantee you get is that your weather is never guaranteed out here.

Yesterday, I was out getting the water, and...

You could see that there was a pattern changing.

You know, and it's just gonna keep getting worse.

This storm is supposed to be raging for a few days.

All right.

This is the stove I'm gonna be trying to change out.

Again, these are not optimal conditions for doing this.

Come on, you.

It doesn't wanna go willingly.

Come on, you fucking puke!

(GRUNTS)

Now my job is to get this back to the other building.

Again, it's not ideal conditions to do this in.

You know, the snow is deep.

It's blowing, but nobody else here gonna do it for me.

I'm just coming off the back injury, so I gotta be careful.

(YELLING)

God damn it!

(PANTING)

Too painful.

Too unpredictable for me to carry it the normal way, so I just drug it.

Fuck it.

Ah!

NARRATOR: With a storm approaching, Sue must install the new stove

if she is to keep her home warm enough to survive.

All right.

Fucker.

It's not wanting to budge, man.

I think a lot of people, their method of dealing with this

is to call the plumber.

I don't have the means to call

a technician in and get it done.

I have to be willing to do my own work.

No matter the conditions, whether I'm happy or sad, whether it's too heavy.

You know, I mean, I don't have a lot of options

other than me.

It ain't coming.

Okay.

Think, Susan.

There we go.

This is gonna leak a little fuel,

so I wanna get the other one on real quick.

Come on!

Fuck it.

(PANTING)

There we go.

Here goes nothing.

Ta-da. Flamage.

Not the best conditions for doing the work in, but score one for Suzie.

I got it done.

Makes me feel good.

I am taking care of myself.

GLENN: You are gonna die.

There's no question about it.

The question is whether or not you're gonna live,

and half of the people in this world are not living.

I could use some light in here, so I'm gonna build a lamp.

The fuel for the lamp will be some moose fat.

This is some fat from a moose that I rendered.

This fat's a year and a half old.

So it probably...

It's all right.

I can still eat it.

But it's not as good as fresh moose fat.

It has re-solidified, 'cause it's cold,

but I need to thaw that out and melt it again.

This is sphagnum moss.

The same type of moss that I use to cover this house for insulation.

And the same type of moss that you can use for all sorts of things.

Run out of toilet paper, it comes in handy.

It can also be used for a wick.

And I'm just kind of compacting that with my hand.

I got some moose fat.

Now I'm gonna pour some of this fat onto the lamp.

And before it gets solid

I need to get my wick in there.

The moss is very absorbent, and it's absorbing the fat.

Okay. So, hopefully, I'll have a flame all across here.

I'll be able to manipulate it if everything goes right.

If everything goes to hell, it'll all burst into flame,

and I'll have to run out of here fast.

Just trying to get the flame to spread across the whole thing

so I'll have a lot of light.

So there's my lamp.

The nice thing about this kind of lamp is that the fuel is edible.

If you're hungry, you can always take a bite.

Pretty nice setup I got here.

Got no worries if I have to abandon ship.

I got a nice, comfortable lifeboat to run into here.

Life's pretty good.