Original subtitles

AGNES HAILSTONE: Go, go, go.

-Another day of snow in this winter wonderland. -Whee!

AGNES: Today we're going up the river.

There's caribou crossing by the hundreds up the river.

This is the time to go do our caribou hunt.

The river's about to freeze.

This is the time we go out and go get our meat.

We could have meat during the freeze-up.

Jon's gonna be here with us. He just came in from Selawik.

JON: I haven't been up here hunting with my parents in quite a few years.

I'm ready to go do just about anything to catch a boatload of caribou.

I need meat.

CHIP HAILSTONE: Around this time of year I usually have like 30 caribou,

and a lot of food security.

But, erm, that just ain't the way it is right now.

The thing about freeze-up is that you never know

when it's gonna occur or how many times it'll occur.

Sometimes it comes along and it thaws.

Sometimes it comes along and just stays frozen.

But we're gonna try and get as many caribou as we can.

We're not trophy hunting, we're hunting for food, so it's all about food.

That's the real trophy.

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

It's a long trip up there to go set up camp,

and our chances of seeing animals between here and there are great.

And if they are, we'll just stop and work 'em.

And wherever we find ourselves this evening, we'll sit and make camp, all right?

NARRATOR: With limited time before the caribou migration ends,

the Hailstones must intercept the herd before the river freezes.

Heck, if we really score good, maybe we'll just sleep at home in bed.

(LAUGHING)

CHIP: Well, the biggest problem you have right now is having it be so cold

and then getting wet.

Getting wet is the real bullshit pain.

(TINMIAQ SPEAKING)

So it's about to freeze up in a couple days,

and we usually come up here to go get all the bulls

while they cross the river,

and set up a camp, spend the night.

CHIP: I don't see any fresh tracks.

But who knows?

Maybe we'll get lucky, maybe we won't.

This is probably the first time I've ever been up here

and not seen anything, caribou-wise.

But what we need to do is get a few before rut hits.

For now we're just happy to be right here in the place we are.

Hopefully there will be caribou crossing tomorrow.

We're just gonna keep at it until we get what we need.

SUE AIKINS: Throw a pebble into the ocean, you're still gonna have a ripple.

Sooner or later it's a tidal wave in another part of the world.

Well, today's the day I say goodbye to my last little clients.

NARRATOR: Kavik River Camp serves as a remote fuelling station and bed-and-breakfast

for bush pilots who are passing through the tundra.

With her season of clients coming to an end,

Sue must now prepare for dark winter alone.

Well, there's always a little trepidation.

People fly off, and I look around and I'm like, "Ah..."

The amount of work is overwhelming, and... (EXCLAIMS)

I'm not gonna see anybody for a while.

It's an emotional trip. People are leaving and you're all by yourself.

-And on one hand that feels... -(AEROPLANE ENGINE ROARING)

It is vast and overwhelming country,

so it feels vast and overwhelming.

It's the life that I choose, it's the life that I love.

And then suddenly it doesn't seem so overwhelming.

Got to get to work.

Time to get myself a little cup of tea and warm up.

Winter's not waiting on me to be ready.

It's here.

What I need to do is get all my jet fuel barrels.

Get 'em over to the fuel shed to get filled.

Get as many pallets as I can,

erm, and get those over by my heat tank.

I need to get it to where it needs to live for the winter

to make it the, er, easiest, closest for me

when the conditions are brutally cold and brutally dark.

Just gonna take a quick look at my barrels.

(SIGHS) What a project.

Four barrels go on a pallet.

In order for me to have enough fuel for the entire winter,

that's 48 barrels.

I have to individually,

look at each barrel...

Say yes or no to it.

See if they're empty. If they're not, verify what's in it.

Check it out. Make sure there's no holes.

Even a pinhole leak, it's a protected ecosystem.

You can't leak fuel out all over, it's just not the way it's done.

So I have to visually inspect each year, each barrel.

This is a no.

Bad ones are over here.

Why are they bad? Well, this one has a hole in it.

This one's beat up really dang bad.

Looks like it's been that way for a while.

Right here is a ding, but it's not a hole.

But if I need 48 barrels,

I've got to do 48 inspections.

You know, I'm getting colder.

Am I well below zero?

No, but now is the time to get everything where it needs to be.

I have to continue my process on getting the barrels where they need to live,

because overnight I can drop below zero.

Within a couple weeks I'm gonna be dark.

I got 48 that are free of holes,

free of things that'll compromise the integrity of the barrel.

Next step for me though, for this, get to work.

Start pumping fuel.

JESSIE HOLMES: I've got a passion for this and that's what drives me,

it's passion, determination, competitiveness.

Winter is coming fast, it's already snowed.

The ground's been freezing every morning,

but now it's time to turn my full attention to my last big priority of the season,

before winter, is to put up a lot of fish here for the dogs.

NARRATOR: Jessie Holmes relies on the resources along the Nenana River

to maintain a subsistence lifestyle with his team of sled dogs.

To survive the long winter ahead,

it is vital for Jessie to catch fish before the river freezes.

JESSIE: My lead, which is one of the most important parts of the fish wheel,

is in pretty bad condition.

A lead is basically a fence from the shore to the baskets of the fish wheel.

So the fish hit it,

they have no way to go through except into the baskets scooping them up.

The trick about a fish wheel is attention to detail,

and this lead is one of the most important parts of it.

It could run now without the lead, it'd catch some fish,

but I'm not looking for some fish, I'm looking for hundreds of fish.

Next thing is just to physically push this in here.

If you fall in this river, you know, you're not gonna make it very long,

especially this time of year.

You could get hit by any moving part

or scooped up into the basket if you fall in,

and you could lose your boat and your life.

Oh, come on. You got to be kidding.

All right! Done.

I'm hoping that this will be productive

'cause I wanna put up as much fish as I possibly can before winter.

Nothing goes to waste.

What I don't use, there's other animals that will use it.

It's getting light out there.

I got to get back up to that moose.

I got to go up there and get that before anything finds it.

This time of year there's still bears around.

There are wolves around, there're wolverines.

If anything gets to that moose before I get there, they'll eat it up.

What they don't eat, they'll destroy.

I got to get up there as fast as I can.

NARRATOR: Glenn Villeneuve has successfully harvested a moose,

which he relies on to provide enough meat and protein to survive most of the year.

He must retrieve the meat before scavengers devour it,

or be forced to search for other food sources in

dark winter when the animals are scarce.

Bears don't go into hibernation till two or three weeks from now, so,

I definitely want my rifle.

Very important.

As I approach that moose... (RIFLE CLICKING)

Main thing on my mind, did anything get there before I get back to it?

I got about four and a half miles of walking in the snow.

I'm gonna be dragging heavy loads of meat.

I got to get that moose back to camp.

I'm listening carefully.

Listening for any sounds.

Trying to look ahead,

see as far as I can in the forest.

Looking at the snow, are there any bear tracks around?

Just paying close attention.

I don't want to get surprised here.

The moose is just over the other side of this little hill.

I can't see it.

(TAKES DEEP BREATH)

But it's just on the other side of this hill.

I've gotta be very careful, going up over this last hill.

Make sure there's nothing there, I don't want to get a surprise.

It's very dangerous situation. If you come across a bear that's on a food pile,

they can be extremely aggressive.

There it is.

Looks good, just how I left it.

I want to keep the meat as clean as possible.

So I got this tarp, I'm gonna set each piece down here,

wrap it up, and drag it home.

Okay.

(GRUNTS)

I want to start with some of the tastiest meat.

The pelvis here's got the tenderloins and the backstrap.

(SIGHS) There, that's a heavy piece of meat.

I'm gonna make a new trail.

Try to go as straight as I can right down.

Try to find the path of least resistance through all these woods here.

That's where I got to get it to, down there to the water.

That's where the camp is, 500 yards down.

-(THUD) -(PAINFULLY) Aah!

Whoa!

This is out of control.

Living out here by myself I got to be really careful.

I don't want to take extra chances I don't have to take.

Running down that hill in front of this sled is not a good idea.

I could get myself run over, if this thing hit me in the legs,

I mean, it would knock me right over. I could get hurt.

I got to put the brakes on this thing.

If I put rope underneath it, the weight of all that meat,

pushing down hard on that sled, it'll force that rope into the snow,

it'll create a lot more drag.

That's the theory anyway.

I got to see how it works.

I got the brake on. I'm gonna try it out.

Hopefully this time, this thing's under control and I don't get myself run over.

Oh yeah. There's a lot more resistance.

Lot of drag there, that's helping.

Oh, perfect. No problems.

No problems. Problem solved.

(GRUNTS)

There. One down, seven to go.

You got to really be on it.

Lot of work to get done in a short time.

But in a short time, I can get enough meat to last me for six months.

What an experience. There's nothing like it.

Killing a big bull moose up there in the woods,

it was so satisfying to have that moose,

knowing that I was gonna have moose meat this winter.

It was the most intense moose hunt I have ever had.

Headed back for the last load.

Most of the meat, easiest way to transport, it's in a sled.

But for the head, I'd rather put it on my back.

(SIGHS) Ah!

Made it back.

Hey, look at that, all the meat's still there.

Nothing came into camp while I was gone.

That's good.

Now the moose is all in one place, I can keep an eye on it.

I can see it right out my window, much more secure.

And then tomorrow I'm gonna get up,

and I've got to reposition this moose.

I've got to secure it so that I can leave camp

and know that nothing's gonna happen to it when I'm gone.

JESSIE: Nothing ever goes to waste around here.

That's what dogs are for.

Setting down here to check the fish wheel.

It's been running all night.

I'm really hoping the labour and the new lead's gonna pay off.

The season's coming close to an end.

I need a lot of fish going into the winter.

The winter's long up here.

You get all the conditions up here, 50 below zero, wind.

And that all affects dogs and ups the amount of calories they need.

Dogs love fish soup.

Nothing gets them going in the morning

like fish soup boiled up with a little fat, so...

Oh, it's looking like it's running.

You know the lead's all in place, that's an important thing,

it ain't gonna catch no fish if it ain't in place.

Oh, I see a lot of fish right there.

It's looking great.

Wow, it's looking better than I expected. Whoa.

There's a fish right there.

Wow.

This is a lot of fish.

And that could feed my dogs for a long time.

I know one thing, I'm gonna have some happy dogs.

I'll use about 18 a day, 20 sometimes.

So, that's, you know, days of feed for my dogs.

This is what it's all about for me.

You suffer a lot of hard times and lean times out here,

so, when it's good, man, you're excited.

You just... You realise how lucky you are to be doing something like this.

I'm gonna throw this last one on here, it's 177.

So, now I got haul all these up to my house on the Nenana River and get to work,

you know, moving 'em and getting 'em to where they're gonna be for the winter.

Fishing is nothing but work.

But whenever it pays off it's the best feeling you could have.

SUE: Winter is not waiting for me to get rested and have time to feel cosy.

It's here.

All righty.

(SIGHS) Well, there's 48 barrels of fun.

(SIGHS) Count them just to make sure.

Yep, 48.

This is only part of staying warm.

You don't stay warm staring at 48 empty barrels.

It's got to be 48 full barrels, so...

And a job half-done isn't done.

NARRATOR: To survive the harsh winter ahead,

Sue must disperse her fuel throughout camp.

But isolated in the tundra and working alone,

filling and moving 48 barrels of fuel is a hefty undertaking.

SUE: This is a 200-gallon portable tank.

I carry it wherever I need it.

This is my fuel shed.

I just got fuel in the big bladder over here the other day.

Now I need to start taking it out and sprinkling it around camp.

(ENGINE ROARING)

C'mon, c'mon, c'mon.

It's kicked on.

I'm trying to be very careful.

I'm giving myself 10 gallons of fuel a day for whatever purpose I need it.

That's 3,000 gallons in an average winter between loads of fuel.

That cold winter weather's coming in.

It's better if I can get a lot of my work done,

my winter fuel where it needs to live now,

than waiting till it's 50, 60 below and then saying, "Shit, where's my fuel?"

Take this into the gen shed, plop it into the tank, come back for more.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Really?

I've definitely got smoke coming over here,

kind of by, where this filter is, something smells hot.

It could just be overheating,

I thought I had a radiator issue before, coolant issue before.

Sorta smells that way.

It is a catastrophe if this Bobcat goes down.

I don't have the money for a new one. I don't have it.

Winter is beating down the door.

If I want to be successful at being warm this winter, then I've got to fix the Bobcat,

or at least fix it enough that I can get the hard work done.

The problem is it's a very, very old piece of equipment.

You know, you're, you're talking 20, 30-year-old piece of equipment.

Been around the block a few time like the town bike, everybody's had a ride.

So I'll start it off simple, process of elimination.

See if I can see an obvious thing, but do the simple things, check the oil.

If it's out of oil it's gonna be hot and it's gonna be unhappy.

And you are pretty low on oil.

A Bobcat 753

will take seven and a half quarts of oil on a full oil change.

I'm not doing a full oil change right now, I'm just bringing it up to level,

and gonna see if that makes any difference.

It's starting to get a little bit on the late side tonight,

but I just want to see, is there something obvious?

Was it just a little low?

(SUE SPEAKING)

There's a petcock valve, and it's leaking anti-freeze.

It's already smelling warm to me, and it hasn't gone anywhere.

I'm gonna take it back, park it just like it was.

Get my little book out, read up, what the hell is it?

What does it mean?

Leaking anti-freeze is not good.

It's not good for the animals, and it's not good for my vehicle.

My whole plan with working smart instead of hard

falls to pieces when the equipment meant to do the hard part for me fails.

Now worst-case scenario, the Bobcat doesn't get fixed,

I don't have the money laying around to get another one.

Everything'll have to be filled, five-gallon cans at a time.

But the stakes are pretty freaking high for me to get this job done.

GLENN VILLENEUVE: Not everybody has the chance

to go out and hunt for their own food.

If you really want to, it's still possible.

(SIGHS)

I'm going from the whole animal down to bite-sized pieces.

(SIGHS)

NARRATOR: With all of his moose meat back in camp,

Glenn must now carry the supply to an area

that is safely out of reach from scavengers.

I still got to get this secure, so that when I leave camp, nothing can get to it.

When I'm not here to watch it,

this meat has to be out of reach of scavengers.

By hanging the meat up off of this meat pole, it protects it from scavengers.

Bears can't get to it up there.

Problem is,

I built this meat pole 11 years ago.

It's getting old, it's not in good shape inside.

Eventually it's gonna fall over.

I just don't want it to come down with me on top of it.

-It's 20-feet high... -(WOOD CREAKING)

If that thing broke when I was up there, that would be a disaster.

I can't chance it. I can't put a whole moose on this any more.

I think I'm gonna have to divide up the weight.

I'll put part of it on this pole, I'll put part of it up on this platform,

less stress on these structures.

-(CHAINS CLANGING) -All right.

See how this goes.

I'm just worried about the, the poles themselves, how strong they are.

Just gonna take it slow.

Keep my balance.

(GRUNTING)

(EXHALES DEEPLY) Got it up here.

That's definitely as much weight as I want on that platform.

I want to put the rest of it up here on this meat pole.

Getting this little block and tackle together, this is gonna help me.

I can lift a very heavy weight with this.

I've got to go all the way up on top of the pole

in order to make this system work.

(WOOD CREAKING)

I can't see what's going on inside that wood so I just have to use my best judgment.

Got to be careful up here.

I'm 20 feet high, where my feet are standing.

I definitely don't want to mess up.

I had to get this pulley up high enough

so that I could wench the meat all the way up to where I want to hang it.

Oh, wow.

Really light now.

It's given me a huge mechanical advantage.

There, I got it high enough.

Last piece of meat, just got to get these ribs up there.

I got most of the meat over on the platform this year...

(PULLEY CREAKING)

But I distributed the weight and put some of it on my meat pole.

Got it. That way, it's safe.

Neither of those are gonna fall down with that amount of weight on it.

And also, nothing can get to it.

Scavengers just can't get up there.

I got that moose, I got it back to camp, and now I got it safe.

JESSIE: The more you grow out here, the more you understand what it takes.

I'll be building a new rack system that I can hopefully hang 1,000 fish on.

So I can just take those fish right off of it, they're ready.

And just to lessen my workload, make more space.

NARRATOR: Creating a fish rack will allow Jessie

to dry, smoke, and preserve large quantities of fish.

The meat will provide him and his sled dogs

with enough protein for the long winter.

I need to start collecting some poles,

and I'm gonna put 'em up with some barrels in a level area

and start filling it up with some fish.

I'm not an idealist out here.

I'm a realist.

If it means using a chainsaw over a bow saw,

that's the way I'm gonna do it.

Waste time doing things the hard way, then you miss out on a lot of opportunities.

Time's of the essence.

It's imperative that I get these fish put up for the winter,

it really enables my lifestyle.

This is a huge part of my lifestyle to have these fish.

It fuels my dogs and it fuels me.

This is pretty much what it's gonna look like.

I'll be rolling these and spacing these,

even enough apart that I can fit about five fish per alder pole.

I'm looking to not go too far of a span

'cause I don't want it to bend and break and be under the strain of too many fish,

so, I'm just trying to fit in this rectangle what I can.

I'll have 125 fish per row, and nine rows, so I'll have

over 1,000 fish hanging on this which is gonna be cool.

It's time to hang some fish and try to fit as many in there as I possibly can.

As much as my rack can hold is the work I got cut out for me.

I'm just going for it, 'cause time's everything to me right now.

All these fish that I put up now,

fish that I'm putting up for my whole winter season of dog food.

I got to cut costs of my dog food and add a quality supplement of fish and,

you know without these fish, life is pretty hard.

I got to get this done right so I optimize on my catch of fish.

I don't get to try to do this again.

You know, this is it, this is my opportunity to put up fish for the winter.

Got a lot of dogs, need a lot of fish.

Got to do it right.

Fifty dogs, there's no such thing as too much fish.

(CREAKING)

(THUD)

Fucking damn it!

Fuck!

Well, it's a hard lesson that's gonna cost me a lot of work,

but it will probably stick in my mind, you know? It's...

I don't think that plastic barrel helped me too much there.

Could have had more barrels maybe and more supports, and some weight.

Think I cut a shortcut because the metal barrels, heavier to carry. (LAUGHS)

And this is what fucking happens.

I'm gonna load all these fish on the tarp.

Still just really thankful to have this fish.

This is a very valuable resource.

This is costing me valuable time

that I need to be out there on the river putting up more fish.

Takes a lot of pounds of meat to feed these dogs, so,

while this is a lot of fish and it makes me feel good to have it,

I don't want to waste time, thinking I got it made

'cause you don't ever have it made.

You can't be complacent.

I'm gonna put this back together, I'll just put it back together stronger.

And count it a lesson learned.

I got these fish, they're ready to go back on these racks.

Racks just need to be thrown back together a little bit more securely.

Fish got to be moved again.

This task is mostly done, so it's definitely gonna get done.

I have no choice but to get it done,

I don't start something and not finish it.

SUE: You count your years by the winters you're surviving.

All righty.

Time to, er, get some fuelling done, man.

NARRATOR: With temperatures dropping,

Sue must fix her Bobcat to disperse her fuel throughout camp,

or risk having no heat in freezing conditions.

-I'm gonna get some anti-freeze, pour it in there. -(ENGINE ROARING)

Got to mix it 50-50.

Last night coolant was leaking out, maybe that'll fix it.

If it fixes it, great, I'll run, run, run, get my fuelling done.

I've got to get my fuel done, winter's here.

Do I want to hurt my little Sue-Cat? No.

Do I have to push it to its limits? This time, yes.

So, that's good.

(ENGINE STARTING)

I don't like it when my shit doesn't work.

I'm gonna run that thing till it falls apart today.

I've got all this to fuel up and I'm out of time.

You start from one end, and go around to the other.

The Bobcat is running hot, pistol hot.

Erm, whether it's thermostat, pump...

Don't know, don't care.

I've got to get my barrels done.

That's the name of the game, is getting the chore done,

so that this winter I don't have to break myself doing it.

All lifestyles come with a certain amount of angst.

Mine just... My angst comes in 55-gallon drums.

CHIP: I wouldn't trade this life for anything.

It doesn't make a lot of money, but it's very satisfying.

Lot of ice going by.

Won't stop caribou from crossing, but...

This doesn't seem to have panned out very well.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones have arrived at a familiar hunting spot

and set up camp to scout for caribou,

a crucial food source for the months ahead.

We got up a couple of hours ago after the fog left.

And er, we haven't seen or heard any caribou cross whatsoever.

So we're thinking the ones that have been following this trail probably petered out.

But there were a lot of fresh caribou signs downriver,

so our thought is just to, erm, move on downriver.

We'll move to where the caribou are crossing, it's the smartest thing to do.

We got the transportation.

You can't always be 100% on hunting.

Lot of times you go home with nothing.

I'd like to avoid that though.

I want to go home with lots.

We're gonna pack up camp and put everything away and head back downriver.

This big sheet of ice right here,

what gets our attention is that it's up and out of the water,

which means that it's floating, which means it's at least an inch thick.

This other ice that we got here is a quarter-inch thick.

There's no problem, but that right there

is kind of like a "Hey, there's some big guys in the river to be aware of."

What we don't want to do is get ourselves stuck here.

-AGNES: All set, ready? -(CHIP SIGHS)

CHIP: You got that secured?

All right, well, you guys make sure the lids and stuff are down,

'cause ploughing through all this ice and stuff is just a bunch of crap.

It's gonna knock all this loose.

(ICE CRACKING)

AGNES: Stop, Chip! CHIP: Damn it!

(ENGINE SLOWING DOWN)

CHIP: This ice all around isn't doing us any favours.

It burns a lot of gas to either slow down and plough through it,

or to take the time to go way around it.

And er, I'm not into beating up my boat, and I'm not into wasting gas,

so we're gonna get out of this stuff here and make a new plan.

Go ahead. We're just gonna sit here and wait a little bit,

quietly, and try to keep still,

not scare any of the animals away and hopefully

they all come down the hill and cross over here

so we can try to catch some zooming across the river.

Feels like we're in an okay spot, but not a really good spot.

CHIP: Ah.

Huh.

That's pretty fucking dead if you ask me.

I feel like the main herd has already passed.

-Oh. Yep. You guys just want to go home? -Yep.

Well, the ice makes it really hard for the caribou to swim.

I mean, they're literally cutting and beating themselves up

if they try to get through this stuff.

Caribou aren't gonna be crossing here.

As long as there's all these big huge pans of ice,

and to me they're only getting bigger,

it looks like it's time to go, so we're gonna get out of here.

Here we go.

We've decided to get away from the ice.

We're gonna pare out all the extra heavy things that we've got.

We're just gonna lighten the boat as best we can since we're at home.

And hopefully in the morning start out anew and go out and see what we can get.

We're not defeated or anything.

It's just not the day for it.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

We'll see.

GLENN: I took the time to learn what I needed to learn.

That's why I survived.

(METAL CLANGING)

I cook all my food right here on this woodstove,

or outside on an open fire, if it's warmer.

I just like the atmosphere of the woodstove and cooking on it.

You get used to it.

Cut myself a couple of nice steaks.

Backstrap for dinner. Look at that.

Just clean it up a little bit.

It's hard to keep it perfectly clean.

Sometimes I get a few moose hairs on my meat and that's all right.

I can just pick 'em off.

I can trim a little bit if it's a little bit dirty.

But I don't want to trim more fat than I have to 'cause I like eating that fat.

I'll eat three or four pounds of meat a day, that's normal.

Cold out here. Got to have a lot of meat and fat to stay warm.

There's nothing like hunting for your own meat, nothing like it.

Everything that lives has to die.

And the way nature works,

when things die, they get consumed by something else that's living.

It's a cycle, it's natural.

And people are part of it, too,

and when you're hunting you see it up close and personal.

You're part of that big process whether you know it or not.

But the hunter is aware that he's part of that cycle of life.

The hunter knows because he killed it himself.

-(CHIRPING) -(HOWLING)

Time for dinner.

Look at this, that steak's looking pretty good, isn't it?

I tell ya, this is when it's really all worth it, right here...

Right here at the dinner table, that's what it's all about.

Mmm. There's something about it.

All those miles walked and all that weight dragged,

all that time spent

out there in the woods,

and then it all pays off, I tell ya.

Lucky enough to live up here, you may as well be grateful and thankful.

(HUSKIES BARKING AND HOWLING)

JESSIE: Got this rack project.

Would have been nice to have finished that in one day,

but now we got good six inches of snow to add to the mix.

NARRATOR: Jessie has suffered a setback while constructing his fish rack.

With snow already falling,

he must complete the rack to dry and preserve the fish

that will feed himself and his sled dogs through the winter.

This isn't like I'm having to start this whole project over again.

I'm just trying to rectify the balance problem that I had and...

And then I just pick these fish up and slap 'em on here and...

I'm behind right now, if I don't keep moving I'm gonna be way behind.

For me, fear is... Fear of failure is probably the greatest fear for me.

'Cause right now I have so much on the line, and I've invested so much.

Hopefully this'll set up a little bit and help it from kicking out.

(CRACKLING)

Whoa.

Oh, God.

That tree's gonna break and fall right on this rack and destroy all my hard work.

I'm gonna have to take a look at it

and see if I can safely get it down somehow without hitting the rack.

Whoo, yeah!

Ah, disaster diverted.

Oh, man, I'm feeling good about this, you know?

It's way more solid, it's gonna hold.

It's a lot of work, but it's for a greater cause.

That's what attracts me to this, you know?

Is that long time out in the wilderness with the dogs.

You got to be really solid with who you are, you know?

You got to like yourself.

All right! This looks great.

This is gonna hold.

Got, you know, nearly a thousand fish here so,

you know, I achieved what I wanted to achieve.

I had some hardships along the way,

but it's just a lesson in perseverance, you know?

When things aren't going good, that's when you got to step up, man,

you got to step up and get it done.

My mind can rest that I accomplished this and I can move onto the next job,

which now, that the snow is coming, is many.

CHIP: This is part of life.

You've got to kill something if you want to eat and you want to live.

(HUSKIES BARKING)

Are you guys ready?

-I'm ready. -Yeah.

It's too bad your mom doesn't feel good enough to follow today.

-That's all right, the four of us will get 'er done. -Oh yeah.

This morning Agnes hasn't been feeling very well, so we suggested she stay home.

Me, Jon, Ting, we can cover this. We've got Carol.

We're pulling her out of school for the day, let her go hunt some more.

We're a good crew. We'll work out.

-(GRUNTS) -Jon will direct the hunt.

He'll pick up any of your wounded. You two will do the shooting.

When he's telling you "shoot", "don't shoot", you listen to him.

You know how it is when you've got two or three people shooting at the same time,

you have to have control on that.

Take the boat, go out, and when darkness is coming we'll come back.

And it's gonna freeze up the river here pretty soon.

So we're trying to beat the rut basically.

And we need to come up with a certain amount of caribou

because there's a certain amount that we eat,

and other people that we support, too, and we need to get caribous.

Yesterday where we were at, up above Kiana,

up on the main channel of the Kobuk River, it was icing in.

So, we decided to ease on down home, go back out again today,

'cause there's no ice down this far.

The caribou aren't gonna cross route through the ice

when it's going through the river, so

we don't want to be too late. But then again, we don't know what we'll get.

So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna give it a try.

(JON SPEAKING)

Checking for some tracks...

This is always a good place to park and have a look.

There ain't nothing here.

Migration is going basically from the north to the south,

but to bypass this place they have to swim east to west, so

we're just gonna, just keep looking, I guess.

We're going to a place called Kugluktuk, where the delta starts to separate.

We're looking at all the caribou trails over here.

I want to find some caribou that are making tracks,

I don't want to just see the tracks of caribou.

We didn't see any today. And that happens.

It's just part of hunting.

It's getting later in the day.

Just make our way back down Noorvik and hunt our way home.

We're easing on out of here.

Let's hope we see something on the way, huh?

If we're not gonna catch caribou, then we're gonna have to...

We're gonna have to have a hard, cold winter for the first few months.

It's pretty hard.

It doesn't feel good.

It's hard to be unsuccessful, especially on so many trips.

CHIP: Never, in my life, have I ever been without caribou at this time of year,

or had this happen.

That just ain't the way it is right now.

Sometimes you go home with nothing.

Oh, well, that's the attitude you got to take.

If you don't, you just get upset and that doesn't help.

Sometimes nature takes control in the strangest ways,

and that's part of living in the Arctic. You just keep at it.

Hunting isn't always a sure thing, that's why it's "hunting".

SUE: I don't want to get caught with my panties down, I got to get my work done.

Commando is no way to get caught by nature.

(ENGINE ROARING)

Well this is the last barrel.

The sun's just getting ready to go down.

I've been at it since the sun came up.

All right.

There you go.

Three-thousand gallons of fun.

So, you know, snapping a little bung down on this one is kinda,

snapping together one of the big puzzle pieces of winter.

I got the Bobcat going.

It didn't want to run, and it's not running well.

But I did manage to get it going,

which enabled me to get fuel from my storage containers

to my fuel barrels, over by my heat tank.

Er, what that'll do for me is that enables me to, very short distance,

I can hand pump that fuel into my heat tank,

but it allows me to have heat for the nine, 10 months of winter

in between fuel deliveries.

Preparation is just 90% of thriving out here.

It's not easy no matter what style of life you choose

but for me, it's the wind in my face,

the chill up my spine

and the thrill of not knowing what's out there

that keeps me living here.