Original subtitles

Caribou, that's a good sign. They're not always here this time of year.

Sometimes they don't show up for months from now.

Look at that, hundreds of 'em.

They can be here one day and gone the next.

I got to go out. I got to see if I can intercept some.

This could be my chance today.

Typically, caribou make up about half the meat I eat in a year.

They could show up now,

and I might not see another caribou for months.

Those caribou are a few miles away.

There might be caribou down lower in the trees,

easier to get to.

Some of these caribou look like

they're coming down into the forest.

I got to get over there and see if I can intercept them.

Caribou, they're moving through the area.

They're big migrators, and they travel long ways.

They can be here one day and gone the next,

so when I see 'em, I have to go out, try to intercept them.

(WHISPERING) Hey, there's something.

There. Right there. Caribou right there.

Perfect shot.

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

(GLENN WHISPERING)

CHIP HAILSTONE: If it flies, swims,

grows underground, or towards the sun,

we'll probably pull it up, hunt it down, or fish for it.

Oh, I'm gonna get ready to go down to Emonakrov today.

I want to break a trail down there,

check out the conditions, and basically make it ready to drag this down there.

My wife has some newly titled lands to her.

It's been in her family for generations.

This last summer, me, my son, my wife, my kids,

we put up some posts, and we put up some crossbeams,

and this will be the next thing that goes down there.

We need to break a trail so that we have a really good

steady trail to take this thing down.

Something that's nice, knocked down, and smooth.

Pretty nice day for a long ride.

No shortcuts,

because this thing's gonna have to go down every bend of the river.

We're gonna have to go down every bend of the river today,

-if you can handle that. -Yeah.

We just want to check out the ice conditions.

We have to be in a trail wide enough for the tent frame

on the sled to make it down all the way.

(WIND HOWLING)

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Right there.

AGNES: There it is!

Well, we don't need a chainsaw, we don't need to build a ramp,

but we sure as hell need a shovel.

We've got a perfect ramp

already put up here by Mother Nature.

So the best bet's gonna be if we just lay down a couple sheets of plywood

to keep the rudders from sinking into the snow,

as we start to make a lift up here and get it uplifted.

It looks like Mother Nature's done us a good favour.

We've got some pretty good, stiff snow,

we can walk atop this stuff.

You can build a house under it if you wanted to.

We'll use a shovel, we'll fill this in,

and we'll lay the ply boards down

-and it'll come right up, like that. -Yep.

-Well, shall we go home? -Yeah.

Tomorrow is gonna be a different day

with different tools and a different frame of mind.

ANDY BASSICH: It's always a matter of thinking,

planning, and having your backup plan.

There's always a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C.

(DOGS BARKING)

I need to do some chainsaw repair

because it's time to cut an overland trail in,

to bypass a really bad part of a side river.

I live in a place that I'm surrounded

by the Yukon River on three sides.

So I have trail that goes from my house,

over the mountain range, to the Yukon.

But what I need to do is I need to put a trail in

that goes over the mountains,

follows the base of the mountains,

and then ties into one of these bends in the river.

Because this whole section from here to here,

which is about three and a half miles, is really bad ice.

Every one of these bends is very difficult to get around,

and by putting this trail in,

this is gonna allow me to travel on safer ice,

and get me into better dog mushing territory

up here early in the season, and that's what I need.

So during the early part of the year,

when the river's making ice,

when it's in its freezing-up process,

I'm really limited to where I can go.

I can go four miles in one direction,

and four miles in another direction.

That's eight miles a day.

But that's not enough to really get your dogs in shape.

Most dogs aren't really in good shape

until they have about a thousand miles on them.

(DOGS BARKING)

There's nothing harder on a chainsaw than cutting trail.

You're fighting cold temperatures,

pretty harsh conditions.

It's tough out here and I work my equipment pretty hard.

(DOGS BARKING AND HOWLING)

We'll go out and burn some daylight

and burn some calories

and hopefully have a productive day.

Let's go cut some trail.

SUE AIKENS: Experience teaches you not to go out unprepared.

Experience is one of the best teachers on the planet.

Time to gas up and go.

I have got something very, very unique

that I discovered years ago, up here.

I have a little place that I call the Kavik Forest,

and it's a bit away from me here,

but at almost 70 degrees north,

I have 40 to 80-foot tall balsam poplar trees.

They are of a variety that I can make a product,

a medicine called Balm of Gilead.

You make a Balm of Gilead for sore, aching muscles,

joints, damaged muscles.

The doctor is a long ways away,

and I think last year I had enough of seeing them

to last me until they have to put me under.

The goal this year, is to be as healthy as I can be.

Time to load up the sled and get going.

Get the heck out of Dodge,

go for a nice little ride in the sunshine,

and get the ingredients to make something

which is gonna help me progress in my healing.

The beauty of being and living in an area like this

is when it's not 80 below zero and blowing nuts, you go enjoy it.

This is the Kavik River,

and I'd like to drop back down onto it,

but I'm seeing an awful lot of shiny mess,

which means water on the ice.

So I want to look and see how bad it is

and gauge whether I can get down on it

or have to keep going around it.

What I am seeing looks awful wet.

If I were to take a big old spill, it would hurt.

There would be nothing soft about that landing.

I've already chosen not to be on the riverbed

because of the overflow, and the water, and the ice.

But that means I've got to traverse around

and over and through all these

little stream gullies that are up.

This is gonna add a lot of mileage

to the trip but I'm gonna feel safer.

I don't know that I can do this.

I do not feel comfortable with this at all.

Whoa!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

(SUE SPEAKING)

Whoa!

(SNOWMOBILE ENGINE ROARING)

Well, what happened is, trying to get across,

it's not much, but it is a steep little ravine.

There's a little stream, and some of it runs there.

But it's steep.

So, for me to try and cross it,

the machine's wanting to fall over, fall over.

And, uh, I'm just not that brave yet.

I don't want to go head over heels.

I don't want to get hurt.

It's very scary, but I did it.

(SUE SPEAKING)

What's 18 miles as a crow flies,

is now almost 40 miles over land.

I'm not ready to give up yet.

If I can cross the river, I can find my trees.

CHIP: Thing about my daughters is enabling them.

They help out, they put their hands on,

they work with us.

It is a beautiful day.

NARRATOR: After breaking a trail to Emonakrov,

the Hailstones will now haul their tent frame to new grounds.

But towing a heavy cargo for 40 miles on frozen terrain

is a daunting task.

And avoiding any damage to the structure

on their journey is critical.

Basically, what we're gonna do is dig this thing out,

and we're gonna move it up on the mound

and poise it for leaving.

If you want to go get the kids,

and get 'em out here, we can take the roof off.

I have to be able to take it down in two pieces,

because if I have a heavy weight up on top of it as we drive,

the weight's gonna make the structure sway.

So, I'm gonna take this off, I'm gonna take it apart,

I'm gonna put it right here in the floor,

I'm gonna drag it down there with this.

And when I get down there, I'll put it back on.

Well, my little shorties,

what I want to do is pass this off,

down this way,

and I'm gonna bring it and set it aside over here

so I can disassemble it.

And we'll go try and move this all the way up to here,

and if that doesn't work, we'll put a snow machine on it and give it a try.

-Sound good? -AGNES: Okay.

CHIP: One part about the way that we live is that

we incorporate our family in a lot of this stuff.

And I get to work with my kids and teach my kids.

And then I get to see my kids

enjoy the rewards of their work.

This is school without sitting at a desk.

GIRL: Come out, come out.

-You guys out? -(GIGGLING)

All right. Good job.

One, two, three. Come on.

(INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)

Perfect.

CHIP: The kids came out. They helped us out taking off the roof here,

and the rest of it, me and Agnes can pretty much do ourselves.

If we can keep this momentum up,

and keep it going the way it's going, it's gonna be great.

CHIP: I'm pretty confident this thing is ready to travel.

-Looks pretty good. -Yeah.

CHIP: In a perfect world, this baby will be sitting up

on a rack tomorrow, at Emonakrov.

GLENN: Every year out here is different.

Everything plays itself out in new ways.

You never know what to expect.

(SNIFFS) (EXHALES)

(GLENN WHISPERING)

That little plant right there

sustains big caribou all winter long.

NARRATOR: Glenn is on the hunt for caribou,

a vital food source.

But this time of year,

he must be mindful of the type of caribou he pursues,

as he may only have a short window to harvest them

before they've migrated out of the area.

(GLENN WHISPERING)

You never know when the caribou are gonna show up,

where you're gonna find 'em.

But when they show up,

I got to take advantage of the opportunity.

(GLENN WHISPERING)

(SIGHS)

(GLENN WHISPERING)

(GUNSHOT) (CARTRIDGE CLICKS)

(GLENN WHISPERING)

I got a little one, that's good.

I got a long ways to get it down off of this mountain.

(IN NORMAL VOICE) Pretty steep terrain here.

I got to get down there, butcher that caribou,

start moving it home.

There.

Right now, I'm a long ways up on the mountain.

I got a long ways to go.

I'm gonna leave the hide on to protect the meat.

I'm gonna take the guts out to reduce the weight.

Sometimes, getting the animal home

is harder than shooting the animal.

And it might be one of those times.

This sure beats the view at the meat counter

down at the supermarket, doesn't it?

SUE: Life adapts to the changes it is handed.

Nature heats up, nature cools down.

Life finds a way.

All righty. (GRUNTS)

Made it, made it to the Kavik Forest.

NARRATOR: To gather materials that will make a vital healing ointment,

Sue has travelled 40 miles across frozen terrain

in search of balsam poplar trees,

a plant that is scarcely found in the tundra.

SUE: This is what I'm after.

These little buds here,

that is where the medicinal value

in making the Balm of Gilead...

That's where it's stored.

When I get it home I take all these little buds,

I put 'em in some oil and water and boil the hell out of 'em.

Leach all the goodness out,

restore aching joints and muscles.

First, before it gets too dark,

I want to get several of these branches,

get 'em in my sled.

I can take off the little buds later.

Balsam poplar is the tree,

Balm of Gilead is the product you make from that tree.

I've always had an interest in natural things,

as opposed to going to the doctors.

As a small child, I had rheumatic fever.

Lots of shots, lots of medicine,

lots of close calls.

Didn't care for that much.

Got to Alaska, was on my own, and...

Figure it out or die, man.

There is a prize-winner.

For me, this is one of the coolest little special things that I have out here.

It's got some nice buds on it.

(WIND HOWLING)

Winnie the Pooh had his thousand-acre woods.

I've got the Kavik forest.

To buy a similar product in town, is about 15 bucks.

I have to pay somebody $65 an hour to go get it,

package it, get it on an aeroplane,

and then $1,200 to bring it out.

So for around $1,500

I could get a product that won't work as good as what I can make.

So I can put a price tag on it.

This is all about the road to recovery.

I am armed with my little

balsam poplar branches and buds,

so I have an opportunity to see

if I can't make that medicine

and help myself feel better.

CHIP: Instead of making payments to a bank,

I'd rather buy, like, a couple sheets of plywood when I got some money,

and a couple more sheets of plywood when I got some money and add on.

Stop.

Basically what we're gonna do is take this tent frame to Emonakrov and put it on its

post foundation that we built for it.

Now that the ice is thick enough, it's a good time to travel

with big loads such as this down the river.

AGNES: I'm gonna get the girls.

CHIP: We could probably shed at least a couple hundred pounds

if we just leave the roof behind.

We were trying to be optimistic and load it up

with as much as we could for a one-shot go,

but it weighs too much,

so we're gonna leave the smaller parts behind and just make a second trip.

It's not what we want to do, but it's what we gotta do.

Looks like we're gonna have a long, slow day, but it's worth it.

Are you guys ready?

We're gonna give my parents a hand all the way down to the beach...

Once they get to the beach there wouldn't be a problem for them to bring.

But we're gonna make sure they get around the roads.

AGNES: Careful!

CHIP: I really wanted to bring a lot more,

but we had to lighten the load.

We had to be realistic about our time, our gas mileage,

and the ability that we have with these machines to do that stuff.

CHIP: I'm gonna try just one. Sound good to you? -Yeah.

All right, let's get out of here.

CHIP: She's gonna go pretty smooth and easy, I think.

Tied both straps to mine.

I didn't even have to jerk it.

It was really easy to pull it from where it was,

and I think I'll be able to do the whole journey this way, actually.

AGNES: Whoa!

AGNES: Fuck!

Oh...

That is a broken down snow machine.

Coolant is leaking.

(SIGHS)

What started off as a real promising day is going downhill really quick.

I think Chip finally caught on that I needed his help.

I'm glad you turned back.

Is that coolant?

Oh, man.

I stopped 'cause I'm always looking back,

and then I waited quite a while,

and she wasn't coming up.

So after you give somebody about 10 minutes,

if they haven't got it figured out you kind of go back for 'em.

I went back here, she's got coolant all over the ground.

I was just wondering if you had just doubled up and kept going, or else...

Um, because we're almost here.

-Finish the delivery? -Finish the delivery.

We'll go deliver this thing,

and we'll come back here with at least one strap,

-pick this up, and I'll drag you home tonight. -Yeah.

That's how we work in pairs. We help each other out,

you know, wherever we need an extra hand here.

But today it looks like I'm gonna be needing the hand to get back home.

CHIP: I don't think we're gonna have the time today

to stop and erect everything, but that's all right.

It adds an extra day to what we want to be doing, but we're the kind of people

that can put out that extra day.

Turned out better than I thought, actually.

And this got here in one piece.

Albeit a little shaky, but we'll reinforce it again.

Just because we're a snow machine down

don't mean we can't finish up with what we started.

We finished the job, now we go back

and go start a new, unexpected job.

Little bit of mechanic-ing.

We'll get this home and we'll call it a day.

Been a long day already. This morning was long enough.

This afternoon was long enough.

And we still got a 40-mile ride home.

SUE: Nature takes care of itself.

If you have a problem, the resolution is close at hand.

I'm gonna grab one of these longer dudes.

There's a lot of good ones on here.

This is my balsam poplar wood that I harvested yesterday,

and now the task at hand is to get all the little buds off

and turn that into medicine.

I've just got to squeeze it, and look at all that coming out.

Balm of Gilead has been around for eons.

The medicinal value of it,

what I need, is to make a balm

so I can put it on my sore muscles and joints.

I had a tremendous amount of surgeries and work done,

and I'm in my mid-50s living in a very brutally cold climate.

This is, hopefully, gonna keep me limber enough to keep my lifestyle going.

Pour it in here.

Then, I'm gonna take oil...

All of the resins those little clumpings have,

I want to leach it out into the oil.

I can use it as an oil treatment,

but I prefer a salve, a cream.

This is my bees' wax.

There we go. Now you can see that nice amber colour.

This is the salve that I'm after.

Right there, you see the scar line.

You know, it hurts like hell through here.

But, um...

This is gonna help me sleep and get me through this.

And get me through it, with a smile instead of a tear.

ANDY: I always say that the best way to learn something is to screw up.

You'll remember that lesson really well.

I'm gonna use the machine as much as I can to break the trail out.

Snow machines have gotten bigger, stronger, heavier.

And that allows you to do a lot more work with them.

You can use it like a bulldozer

to plough over a bunch of these smaller spruce trees.

Like that.

NARRATOR: In order to bypass the unsafe river bends

and open up access to the country,

Andy must break a new overland trail through the rough terrain.

ANDY: When I cut a trail, I like to cut it wide,

because I don't want it to grow in.

Whoa! That one's a little too big.

It saves a lot of time cutting trees,

but every now and then you got to take time to clear 'em out, too.

This is gonna be a big time-saver once it's in,

and it's gonna pay off for many years,

and if I do a good job on this,

then I'm not gonna have to think about cutting this trail again

probably for the rest of my life.

Yeah, I'm starting to open up here,

so this is good. I see a really nice,

natural little opening right here,

so I'm gonna follow that as long as I can

and take advantage of that.

Yeah, I like this. This is good. Good going here.

It's not as dense as I thought it was gonna be.

(CRASHING)

Whoa!

Yeah, that one's big.

I'm going through, I see a skinny, little top like that,

but, I thought I could bust it out

but it looks like there's a big stump underneath of it.

So, you know, busting trail, you're gonna hit things,

you're gonna turn snow machines over.

(GRUNTS)

And sometimes you just got to grunt and groan

to get that 650 pounds right back up where it's supposed to be.

If you can't turn it back over, it's a long walk home.

Whew!

So I've come to the conclusion,

when I get too old to turn this damn machine over by myself,

that's when it's time to slow down a little bit.

(LAUGHS)

It's a labour of love when you're out here.

It's all a part of creating the world that you want to live in.

I don't want to go crashing through the trees when I'm 70 years old,

and I don't want to be dealing with bad ice when I'm 70 years old.

So I'm putting the time in right now so that when I get older,

I'm still gonna enjoy myself and I'm still gonna be able to get out.

And this trail's gonna provide that access to me,

and provide the opportunity for me to continue to get out there.

Yee-haw! All right, now the real work begins.

These trees are way too big to knock down with a snow machine,

so it's time to break out the manual labour tool

and start cutting trail with this.

Still got another hour or so of daylight.

(MOTOR WHIRS)

Try and take full advantage of that.

(CHAINSAW BUZZING)

Everything I do out here is work.

There's nothing easy about getting out in the woods out here.

Cutting trees. Throwing 'em out of the way.

Handling the chainsaw. It's all a lot of work.

At the time, sometimes these jobs feel kind of arduous,

and, like your never-ending projects.

But when you get it all done,

all you can think about is, "Man, thank God I did this."

And I'll be saying that for many years to come now.

Little timber!

(CRASHING)

It's starting to open up. I can see the mountain on the other side.

Hooey!

Fire going, warm my hands up a little bit.

So, I'm gonna get a little food.

This is just some moose sausage that I made up this fall after I got a moose,

and I find it's one of the better things for me to bring out here.

It's got a lot of fat in it, it's a lot of good calories.

Puts the energy back into you. Mmm.

That's some good stuff there, boy.

I also like to bring a thermos full of soup.

Mmm-mmm, this entire meal came from right here.

The vegetables came from my garden.

The sausage came from a moose.

The water came from the Yukon River.

It's all good stuff. Mmm-mmm.

Everything you need to live out in the country is out there for you.

You just got to know what it is and how to use it.

The sun's set below the mountains.

It's gonna start getting dark pretty quick here.

I got a lot done. And I'm feeling really good about the progress I got.

I can see the light. It's lightening up through the forest here,

so I know I'm getting close to the river.

I think I'll call it day, and, uh, come back with the dogs tomorrow.

Whoa! This is a nice trail, look at this.

Take that! Ah!

CHIP: Hunting, camping, a lot of action, a lot of good food,

a lot of good pride in what you're doing.

Not the rich in money life, but the healthy life.

Oh, it's getting cold.

Well, you know today's goal, right now, is uh...

Since we have the frame for the tent down at Emonakrov,

we want to get the roof to it down there.

It takes more than one load to get this stuff done.

This will be our third load down.

We'll be doubling up on my ride today,

'cause hers is busted, and hopefully we'll get the roof down to Emonakrov

and onto the tent frame that's waiting for us.

You know, when you're doing like almost a 90-mile round trip,

it can be most of your day.

Now that my wife has title to the property, this'll be permanent.

Then we won't have to come home. It'll save a lot of gas,

it'll save a lot of our time. We can wake up down there in the morning,

and just go fishing without having to drive an hour and a half.

I got a lot to look forward to, now I just got to get this done.

-Oh. -That was a bumpy ride eh?

That was a bumpy ride.

Tonight, we'll go home with nothing on the sled.

To us, this is just the beginning.

We have the plan to develop this place.

You know, we're taking it as we can afford it.

So, this is what we can afford.

It's gonna be a tent, it's gonna be a start.

We'll start by getting that up there after we have a roof on it. (LAUGHS)

AGNES: Trying to work as fast as we can, doing whatever we could

before it gets dark, we just have a few hours left.

CHIP: There's lots to be done here. There's caches to be made.

There's nets to be brought. This is just the start.

There we go.

What I want to do is I want to lift this up,

and then we'll just see if we can get it to tip forward here.

One, two, three, up!

(GRUNTS)

One, two, three, up!

(GRUNTS)

Okay, stop! Stop! Stop!

Okay, there we go.

(GRUNTS) Okay.

Wow! And that's our roof.

What we need to do now is put canvas around it.

-CHIP: Is it looking good? -It's looking awesome. Looks like a tent frame.

CHIP: We're gonna get it up here on the frame that we built this last fall,

and this'll be the very beginning of a camp.

And when we drive out of here tonight,

we can say we have another camp.

We own other pieces of property, and on each piece of property

we like to put a little something permanent,

because if we have that piece of property, there's a reason to be there.

And if there's a reason to be there, then there's a reason to stay.

And this'll be the place where we stay.

AGNES: You got to go straight.

CHIP: One, two, three!

Okay, that's great.

This willow's my anchor. We call him a dead man,

he ain't going nowhere, hopefully.

And it's basically what you have in the ground,

to be able to lift or move or pull against.

Uphill.

I like your cool tool.

Yeah. This come-along was the best 45 bucks I spent last fall.

It's coming up.

(GRUNTS)

It's coming over.

Whoa!

Just tie it off.

There we go.

Now, hold that while I take care of this.

That's called averting disaster.

(CRANKING)

AGNES: Yee-hee!

Come on, tent frame!

CHIP: It's coming over.

(SIGHS) Yeah.

-(AGNES LAUGHS) -(SIGHS)

I think my right arm wants to fall off.

AGNES: That was easier than I thought, though.

Okay! Right there.

That's it. That is it, it, it!

Well, we got it all done.

We wanted to get this done. This was something that was on our list

before light winter comes.

AGNES: It's all working together and I'm so glad

my husband could, you know, come up with this great idea

of a sled with a tent frame on it.

I really like it. You did a real good job.

CHIP: Well, you know, my wife got the title to this property.

So, we put in these posts when the water was still

flowing and we could use a boat.

Then, while the freeze-up was going on

and we were all stuck at home waiting for the ice to thicken,

I built this frame. And when the ice was thick enough,

we drug it down here on a nice, clean, smooth river.

And we were able to jack it up to the posts here,

and here we are permanently. It's kind of crazy.

AGNES: Wow! Nice, eh? CHIP: Nice with the lights on.

The white canvas idea is a good idea to make it bright in here.

Yep. It'll make it bright and this place will hold heat really well, too.

The thing that we need to do is put in a stove,

and we'll put in a bed, and all our other stuff.

But, you know, having it up here and secure on the platform

is more important than anything else.

Because no matter what happens now, the whole thing is safe

and the rush is over and the big part's done.

-The structure is here, and that's what counts. -Yep.

-Shall we make our way out of here? -We shall.

-CHIP: Man! That day's go by quick, huh? -Yeah.

I think we all need a rest.

ANDY: If you're afraid to work, you don't belong out here.

If you don't like being tired at the end of the day, you don't belong out here.

(DOGS BARKING)

You guys want to go for a run today?

I need a kiss-kiss. (MAKES KISSING SOUNDS)

Little more, little more, you missed. There you go.

So today, we're gonna go finish cutting a bypass trail,

and hopefully I can finish cutting that trail today

and then we can really take advantage of it.

It's gonna be a lot of hard work to put this trail in,

but it's gonna pay dividends to me for the rest of my life out here.

It's gonna open up a whole new section of the country for me.

A lot of work ahead of us today, Tobe.

Oh, these guys are really excited to go for a run today!

(GRUNTS)

These dogs are my world, and that's why I'm doing the work I'm doing here,

is to get better access so I can get them in shape.

Atta boys!

This is why I'm trying to put this bypass trail in,

this overland trail in, so I can avoid the Yukon River early in the year,

and I can avoid it on years when it's really rough.

This is a really tough year because we don't have much snow,

and we have really rough ice.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Easy! Guys, watch the cracks.

Easy.

When you're out on the jumble ice, it's really intense.

You get pounded really hard.

It's really difficult for a musher to stay on the back of a sled

because when you're dealing with ice,

the longer you stand in one place,

the more chance the ice will give out on you.

Probably your best friend is some speed.

Straight ahead. Up and over. Up and over.

You guys take a break here for a while.

It's my turn to work.

Strip down a little bit, so I don't get too hot.

Here's where I finished cutting trail.

So we'll just grab that chainsaw and start whacking again.

(CHAINSAW BUZZING)

This section down in here, the snow's pretty darn deep.

So, it's been a bit of work to get through these woods here.

So, a lot of calories.

A lot of cutting. A lot of throwing.

My total trail here is probably about three miles.

That's cutting off over six miles of travel,

and four miles on really bad river.

I'm feeling good.

Tired, but good.

I busted out the trail.

I made my connection.

So, the only thing left to do

is pick up that nice hard trail and head on home.

I'm feeling really good about all this.

It's been a lot of work, but it's gonna pay off for years to come.

Hup! Up easy. Hup, hup!

Atta boys!

GLENN: You look out the window, and hey, there's something to do.

This isn't just routine.

It's always new, it's always changing, it's always beautiful, too.

(SIGHS)

Made it back to camp.

(EXHALES) Long day.

Yeah.

Okay, got my caribou home.

This one's gonna be good eating.

A nice, young one.

I was able to get it down off the mountain in one trip.

It's gonna be real tasty.

It was a good, clean kill.

Got the caribou, got it back to camp.

It's a lot of work getting a caribou down off the mountain.

After I get home, I like to eat some of it.

Re-energise myself.

I'm gonna cook up these kidneys and a little liver.

Wow, that's looking good. I'm gonna put a little rice in it.

That looks delicious. I love this stuff.

Dinner is served.

This year, caribou showed up early.

And it took some searching, but I finally intercepted them and I got myself a caribou.

First caribou of the season, that's always a good thing.

Mmm.

That's the first caribou I got in about seven months.

That's the way it is, caribou come and go.

They're not here all year round.

There's nothing like being able to see

where your food came from. Right there on that mountain.

This is the best food in the world.

Just to be able to live out here in the mountains like this

and get food like this up there myself,

there's no other way I'd rather live.

That's tasty stuff.