Original subtitles

[Sue] All right, looks like I got something right there.

I really can't tell. It almost looks like I see a wolverine over this way.

These guys are serious predators.

My wolverines are not like other people's.

Mine are 3.5, 4 foot at the shoulders, 120 pounds.

And they will take on a 800-pound grizzly and win.

[sighs] Crap.

You know, in my brain what's happening is, I wanna hurry, hurry, hurry.

When you see a predator, you run, you don't walk. That's the rule.

This wolverine and I have been going round and round.

There's a few predators that Kavik's obviously part of their territory,

but it's obviously part of mine.

I need to defend what I do have.

The longer I take hemming and hawing,

the further away it gets.

I'm gonna call it either a wolverine or a wolf.

Whichever one, it's an apex predator and I'm all over it.

My name is Susan Aikens. I am the owner of Kavik River Camp.

It's a remote fuelling station.

To get here, you have to fly.

Over the course of my 50 years,

I've picked up a lot of habits that culminate

in me being successful at being very isolated.

As I grew, I kept getting further and further remote,

and being very comfortable with it.

When I'm alone doing my own thing, I blossom.

This just happens to be my floral bouquet.

There he is.

See something black out this way and it's one of my darker foxes.

I'm not convinced that that's what I saw earlier.

I'll give it the once-over this way,

and uh, I don't see it, the wolverine, and then be done.

Source every square inch on here,

make sure that I'm not seeing two different animals.

No.

Got out the eyeballs and saw the tail flip,

and so that's my dark fox.

And those are never on the menu for me.

I'm not necessarily buying that's what I saw originally.

I'll keep my eyes peeled.

If I see him again, then it's just, I have to take care of that situation.

The defence of Kavik rests squarely on these two shoulders.

[Chip] The fact is, success is really opportunity meeting preparedness.

Put another cap on.

This thing's ready to go.

Right at the full.

Tilt.

[Agnes] Okay. Fire away.

[gun firing]

I'm Agnes Hailstone.

I am married to Edward Hailstone, my husband.

We're subsistence living out in the country.

-Whoo! -[Chip] There it goes.

[laughs]

[Chip] I'm Edward Hailstone. My friends call me Chip.

We're spending the spring here in the Kiwalik.

Me and my wife, we, uh, work this area.

We come down here and subsist by hunting, fishing, and gathering.

We've raised our kids around here.

I went out of my way to teach my children this lifestyle.

And our kids have just naturally fallen along.

I've never heard them complain.

I've never really heard them being bored.

Their value in this life is to be happy, is to be healthy,

and this is the place where you can get that.

We have a home in Noorvik that we centre ourselves out of,

and then the rest of this land out here is our home,

wherever we feel like pitching our tent.

I've got me a .50 cal Hawken here.

For me this is a tool for meat.

It's simply to provide.

And we're here to make meat, that's the whole deal.

That's what hunting's about.

I'm not hunting for some animal's head to stick on my wall.

I'm a meat hunter.

[narrator] Because of outstanding legal issues,

Chip can only hunt using black powder guns...

[gun fires]

Antique weapons with an unreliable firing mechanism.

Testing the guns is crucial to his ability to secure meat

for himself and his family while at camp.

Well, you know, uh, this is a black powder shotgun.

And it isn't that I need to do target practice with it.

What I want to find out is where it's hitting.

I don't know its power yet.

So, I've been getting familiar with seeing what it can do,

and how far away I can be from an animal,

and still make a definite kill.

I've always enjoyed the hunt even if I had to run it down

and to kill it with my own hands.

It's a good way to be satisfied at the end of the day,

to provide for your family, and to enrichen your life.

I'm not the best hunter.

This is something I was persistent at, and something I was interested in.

And you don't usually get those combinations

when it comes to making a living.

A lot of times you just do what you have to.

That was instant.

Boom.

I've got a pretty good idea how far away I can shoot a ptarmigan,

or a fox, or even a caribou with the shotgun.

[engine starts]

I'm just gonna roll out of here, use my intuition,

make my choices as I go,

and feel confident that I can put a bullet in something.

You don't hunt in a direct line.

You kind of hunt in a circle, so it's all fresh to you.

If you catch something, you might take your same track back.

But you know, you never know where the animals will be.

They're always moving.

If you make a rock solid plan to hunt just one thing, you'll often be disappointed.

So we're flexible. If you're not flexible,

you don't survive.

It's just part of it. It's like immediate adaptation.

I'm watching the ptarmigan fly.

I'm seeing where they're going.

They're going up on the tundra.

Here in Kiwalik is, I'd say, ptarmigan rich at the moment.

And if I get lucky, I can get some, and I'll use them for eating,

and I'll use them for some trapping bait.

And if I have extras, I'll be taking them home.

Ptarmigan right there, and there's another one over there.

[gun clicks]

[gun clicks]

The cap snapped. The gun didn't go off.

The gun is malfunctioning.

I'm gonna give this one more try.

If that don't work, I'm just gonna call it a day.

[gun fires]

There's one.

[gun fires]

That ptarmigan has got luck.

Look at them all go.

I'm a little frustrated, so fuck it.

What I don't do is want to get mad or anything.

I just gotta take it for what it is.

And what it is, is a malfunctioning piece of machinery.

I'm gonna go back to camp and address the issues with this gun.

It might be the kind of powder I'm using doesn't work good at low temperatures.

Maybe the cap doesn't work good, maybe it's full of ice.

I don't know, but, um, I'm trying. [sniffles]

My wife, she knows I don't waste my time.

Even if I come back with nothing,

she'll have known I was out here trying my best.

Sometimes it's just things don't work.

It's hunting, it's not shopping in a store.

[Glenn] It's all about being prepared,

and understanding, and learning more every year,

and taking advantage of the opportunities that exist.

-[pilot talking] -[Glenn] Yeah.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

My name is Glenn Villeneuve.

When I came up to Alaska about 16 years ago,

I settled on the Brooks Range as the place to go to do what I wanted to do.

I think it was really the only place

where I had a chance of doing what I wanted to do.

When I came up to Alaska, I didn't have a lot of the practical skills

that I acquired since I got here.

It was a big learning process.

I started figuring out what I needed to learn

and how I was gonna organise my life so I could move out to the Brooks Range

and live out there most of the time. That took years.

I'd lived in New York City, I'd lived in Berlin,

I'd lived in all these different places,

but when I moved into the woods

it was just like I found the way of life that was for me.

This plane's headed up to Chandalar Lake today,

so I'm able to catch a ride, which is most of the way up to my camp.

And then I'll walk the last 40 miles from there.

[narrator] After spending time with his family

at his second home in Fairbanks,

Glenn Villeneuve is returning to his remote camp

in the Brooks Range for the Alaskan summer.

To scout the wilderness in search of new resources,

he will trek 40 miles across the Chandalar Lake,

river, and valley, on foot.

But with uncertain ice conditions,

and predators roaming the area,

the journey to his camp will be dangerous.

Made it to Chandalar Lake.

Probably 4 miles or so across the lake from here.

I gotta get to the other side before I can spend the night.

Out here it can get really windy and really cold.

I gotta get in the forest to find shelter.

I know this area by air,

but I've never walked on the ground.

I don't have a map with me,

I don't have a compass, I don't have a GPS.

I navigate by the sun, by the mountains, the river.

I've got all this country in my head.

I've flown over it many times.

Finding my camp

isn't the big challenge, though, of navigation.

Big challenge of navigation is finding the easiest route

that's safe to travel.

Look at this, water.

I gotta be careful, 'cause I need to get on the land here,

but I got water running into the lake right here out of this river.

If I fall through the ice here and get my feet wet, I'll be in trouble.

There's water right there, that's dangerous.

I gotta find a safe way to get to shore.

There, I made it.

Got across the lake.

From here, it's probably about another 30 miles or so.

30, 35 miles up to my camp.

But I made good progress for the first day, so I'm pretty happy.

It's getting late, full moon's coming up, I'm ready to get some rest.

There's a spot right here with flat ground,

so I'm gonna make a little camp, get some sleep.

Tomorrow's another day.

[Andy] That's what life is out here,

it's always planning for the future,

it's always adapting to the seasons,

meeting the challenges head on.

Whoa. Cougey, wanna go?

Who wants to go beaver trapping?

Topey, wanna go?

Beaver trapping requires a fair amount of equipment, and, uh...

Most important one is my ice auger.

It saves me a lot of time chipping ice.

I also need an axe,

and a shovel for shovelling ice and snow out of the way.

I'm gonna go out and do some beaver trapping.

That's something I've done

almost every year since I've lived up here.

-[dogs barking] -Hup, hup.

When that late winter, early springtime comes,

I wanna get out and trap a few beavers,

get a little food, get a little fur,

and just enjoy the sun coming back

after seven months of darkness.

My name's Andy Bassich.

I've been living on the Yukon River now for about, uh, 30 years.

It's gonna take a lot to kick me outta here.

But at the same time I'm getting older, and uh,

my clock is ticking on how much this body is gonna be able to do.

And so I kind of feel like I got to get it done now,

while I'm healthy,

I'm in good shape,

and I can do the hard work that it's gonna take

to build my dream the way I want it.

Whatever I can walk around on this peninsula of land

in the big bend of the Yukon, that's my world.

It's where I want to live, it's where I want to die.

Oh.

All right, good boys.

Well this is, uh, this is a spot where I...

I've trapped before, but I've had problems finding water.

If I don't have water, I'm kind of screwed here.

If I got water, I got a chance of making sets.

I can punch through the ice in a couple of different places,

see how deep it is.

If I'm lucky, I'll find the feed pile.

[engine starts]

This is an essential piece of equipment for life for me out here,

otherwise I'd have to go out and spend hours and hours and hours

opening up a hole just to get water.

Most important thing is I need to have some water

between the bottom of the ice and the bottom of the lake.

You need an area there where the beavers can swim in

and get caught in your traps.

That's half the battle right there.

Now I gotta see how thick the ice is,

and how deep the water is.

Got about eight... Eight, nine inches.

So it's not ideal, but...

I think it will work right here.

I'm just gonna set a Conibear.

I didn't make the hole really big for doing a lot of snares on this.

And Conibears are really positive.

If you nail one, you nail him good with a Conibear.

Think I'm gonna have to just take a chance here.

See, right now I got no safety on it.

If that trigger goes off, the whole thing goes off on me.

All right, I think that might work.

I think that's gonna work.

[barking]

I'll grab some of my stuff,

go to the next spot.

[dogs yelping]

Hey!

Whoa, whoa. Whoa!

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Settle down.

[Andy sighs]

I'm fucked. [chuckles]

When they went to turn around, the back of the runner slid down in that crack,

and they just snapped the end of the runner off.

I could see it happening, I just couldn't stop the dogs.

Once you destroy a runner,

you pretty much have to take the whole sled apart,

replace the entire sets of runners. You can't just replace one.

So it's basically like starting all over again.

I'm just gonna turn around and go home, and, uh...

That's the end of it, for today.

Coug, we're going home. [grunts]

[dogs barking]

I didn't want to go and set the beaver traps

and then be coming home late at night in the dark.

I had no idea how well the runners were gonna hold together.

Pretty much had to stand on one runner the whole way back.

Oh, I'll transfer all this over to a smaller sled, and...

I just built a new sled, and it's a good little sled.

It just doesn't handle the same. It's really squirrely.

I'm gonna back out tomorrow and try and finish making sets, and...

Take a night to think about it, and...

Get over being disappointed, and hopefully I won't do the same thing

to the other sled, 'cause then I'm out of sleds.

[laughs]

Just a disappointing day.

But that's the way it goes, sometimes.

[Glenn] Out here, it's a different set of rules and regulations,

and humans didn't write them.

Nature wrote the rules out here.

My plan for the day is to walk down this river.

I can see where I'm headed.

See that mountain up there?

That's where I gotta get to.

I gotta get to the other side of that mountain.

I gotta follow this valley up to the base of that mountain,

and then get over to the other side of it,

'cause that's where my camp is.

It's still a long ways, but my goal's in sight.

[narrator] On his trek home through the Chandalar wilderness,

Glenn is now nine miles to the halfway point.

He must take the river to avoid rough terrain,

but ice and snow conditions this time of year are unpredictable.

And finding safe passage isn't guaranteed.

Wow, look at this.

A white birch.

That's interesting.

That's an exotic material where I'm from.

I never see trees like this around my camp.

This white birch bark, it's useful.

I can start a fire with it tonight.

The forest is different down here. I'm in unfamiliar territory.

And I'm gonna take advantage of resources

that I don't normally have access to.

I can see the river up ahead. It cuts across the valley again.

I want to intercept it.

It's just too hard walking through the woods right now,

I gotta get back on the river.

I think that's gonna be my best bet.

It's hard breaking trail.

But if I want a trail, I gotta break it.

There are no trails out here to follow.

[panting]

There's just too much snow here.

Oh, wow.

Gotta get down this big bank, though...

To get back on the river. I've gotta find a route.

[grunting]

Whoa.

Oh, that sled's heavy. [panting]

There. [exhales]

[exhales]

Oh, yeah. Look at this.

It's windblown over here.

Time to get back on the river, for sure.

See, conditions are always changing.

Right now, I'm just gonna get back on the river,

'cause it's easy walking here. I won't even need my snowshoes.

I just gotta take advantage of any little pathway I can find.

Sometimes it's gonna be better going through the woods,

sometimes it's gonna be better on the river.

You gotta adapt.

Got a long way to go.

Gotta keep moving.

I feel lucky.

Not too many people get to travel this way.

It's not like travelling in a car,

it's not like getting on the subway and going to work.

When I'm headed home, I'm gonna take the river.

I'm gonna travel through the mountains.

This is incredible.

Just out here, miles and miles from anybody,

walking down a frozen river in the Arctic.

This is the way to travel.

Hey, look at this. A big track.

Whoa, look at this.

That's a grizzly bear.

He just came out of hibernation.

They're coming out right now. This is the first one I've seen.

This is a really fresh track.

Look, he just walked through here.

I think this bear was travelling down the river,

and when he heard me coming, he took off into the woods.

Hey, bear!

Go away.

See right here?

He just went up the bank.

I just don't want him hanging around, I want him to know I'm here.

Get out of the area.

'Cause when I camp tonight, the last thing I want

is a bear coming around and harassing me.

In this time of year, the bears come out of hibernation

and they start looking around for food to eat.

This bear is not far away right now.

I'm gonna keep walking.

Try to cover some more miles tonight,

but I gotta keep my eyes open, 'cause he's not far away.

You always wanna be alert.

You always wanna pay attention to what's going on,

'cause sometimes it feels pretty safe, but...

There are dangers, and you have to be aware.

And most of the time, the bears will leave you alone.

But not always.

Look at this.

This doesn't look too good.

Water's coming down from one bank to the other, right on top of the ice.

It's all slush here. Open water flowing over there.

My camp's right on the other side of that mountain. That's where I gotta go.

But before I can get to the other side of that mountain,

I gotta get to that mountain. And right now, I'm stuck.

This is a problem.

I can't go over on this side where the valley's flat.

The only way I can get around this is go to the left.

And look at the terrain here, there's a big bank,

steep hills up here ahead.

It's gonna be really hard going.

It's gonna be slow, that's for sure.

I gotta find a place to camp, I'm getting tired.

It's very hard going in these woods,

walking through this snow. And it's not getting cold enough tonight

to walk on top of it.

I'm just breaking through.

Here's a nice spot right here. I got some deadwood,

river's right over here where I can get water close by.

Level place, sheltered in the trees, protected from the wind.

I'm gonna stomp this down with my snowshoes

and make a nice level place where I can set up my tent.

I don't have any way of keeping my food out of reach of a bear,

but I can at least keep my food away from me.

I don't want a bear coming in my tent if it smells the food tonight.

I'm gonna hang it on a tree out here,

somewhere that I can see it right from my tent,

but a little ways away.

Bear can still get my food,

but at least it's not laying right next to me.

Better chance the bear will get my food and not get me.

And I'll have my gun right in my tent with me.

[Sue] To survive and thrive, you can't come from a super emotional place.

[narrator] In order to protect herself from predators in Kavik,

Sue Aikens is on high alert at all times.

With the possibility of a wolverine near camp,

she must scan the tundra for danger,

and be ready to defend herself at any moment.

All right.

I think...

I see him again.

It's a fucking wolverine.

Right now, he's about 2, 2.5 miles away.

He's damn close to the river, I don't like that.

But there's only one way to find out if I can nail him.

Oh, yeah.

Notice the wolverine tracks from last night.

Stopped, glassing around a little bit.

I don't know where he is right now.

They're crafty little bastards.

Yep, there he is.

I think the wolverine followed the tracks into the river.

He's trying to lure me in.

Time for me to get through that brush and get in the river.

-[motor revving] -Oh, shit.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Fuck.

I'm stuck. Damn it.

Oh shit, I'm right on that tree.

[grunts]

Well-played, little wolverine.

It, uh, sucked me right into his trap.

But, uh, hopefully I can get out without busting up my machine or myself.

There's the little joker's tracks I've been following.

And, uh, and he is, he's just leading me on a good old chase.

I wanna follow these tracks, see where they're gonna lead me,

and then at some point,

if I don't see him and get another shot, I'm gonna have to call it.

But I'm... What I'm doing is telling him,

"Dude, this is not your ground. This is mine."

Hey, hey, hey.

[gun fires]

[gun loads]

Fucking...

Hey.

Hey!

Hey. Hey.

Hey!

You're starting to get into some pretty hinky damn territory

where he's got the advantage.

I don't know where he's at. I don't have a visual.

Did I bag my wolverine?

Absolutely not.

Did I get to use my skills of tracking? Yes.

From what I was doing, I saw him, went after him.

Good enough to not have him knocking on my door.

It's getting dark, it's getting late.

Beautiful sunset, but a sunset nonetheless.

I don't wanna be out here past dark.

If I let myself out here

chasing after him in the pucker brush after dark,

I've just made myself into his best evening snack.

I can't do that.

[Andy] There's good and bad in everything.

Everything that happens out here,

there are some things that benefit you,

and there are some things that kind of hurt ya.

Attagirl.

Come here, Coug.

Give me your butt.

[barking]

Great day yesterday, up until the point where

I shmucked a runner up on the sled.

Whoa!

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Settle down.

Pretty frustrating.

I was feeling pretty depressed last night

'cause it's my favourite sled, and I've had a lot of miles on it.

So I got this sled, which is kind of a carbon copy of the other one.

However, it's about two feet shorter, so...

It doesn't have the hauling capacity that the other one had, and...

So, it's gonna be a little bit more tricky getting everything in here.

-[barking] -[narrator] Andy's heading out

on his backup sled to trap for beaver.

The animal is a vital source of fur, clothing and food,

but can only be trapped this time of year.

[Andy] All right, let's go.

Today I'm gonna go to a spot I know there's been beavers at before.

Punch a bunch of holes in, get some traps in.

And then it's just a waiting game.

One of the warmer furs. It's a very dense fur,

it has a very dense undercoating.

This is a renewable resource,

and it's a damn good resource.

So, there's a beaver house right here on the hillside right here,

so I think I'm gonna look around for a couple places out here,

drill a hole,

see if I can't find a good spot to make some sets.

I have no idea if there's any beavers in this.

There were in the falltime.

And I'd never trapped on this particular pond before,

so I'm not really sure what I'm gonna find here.

I think, uh...

The only thing I can do is just pop a few holes in and see what I'm up against.

[machine whirring]

Yeah.

That's not fucking very good.

Not much water in there.

Yep, there ain't no fucking water there.

I'm gonna go out a little farther and see what I got.

Nothing but mud. [sighs]

I think this pond's a bust.

There's not enough water left in it right now.

That's no good. [sighs]

I think this is a waste of time, unfortunately.

That was a lot of work for nothing.

That's a big part of beaver trapping, is just you're always constantly

exploring new areas, and...

Sometimes you have really good luck with a spot,

and sometimes you just get skunked.

I don't think I'm gonna make anything happen here.

I might as well just go back I think, and, uh,

check my other traps and see if I got a beaver.

Yep, we got a beaver.

All right, that's a nice sized beaver.

Ah, it's probably a good 30 pounds, maybe 35.

We'll find out when we get home.

I mean, that's a mature beaver. That's not a little kit.

Go back to the house and skin him out, butcher him up,

boil him up, have a nice beaver dinner tonight.

Okay, let's go skin a beaver, guys.

Any time you can harvest something from the land around here,

that's why I live out here.

You know, I don't want to go to a store and buy crap.

I want to go out and get the animals and make it.

It's not about the work, it's about being self-reliant,

and being creative in everything you do.

[Glenn] The view here is never the same, it's always changing.

Every day and every moment.

I've never seen it repeat itself.

Time to get up.

I gotta get up, see what's going on.

Didn't hear any bears walking around in the dark. That's good.

I can hear water.

More water running. That's not good.

This river's like a highway at this time of year.

It allowed me to walk all the way up here from Chandalar Lake pretty fast.

But if this river's unusable, that's a problem.

[narrator] After two days of hiking through the Chandalar wilderness,

Glenn is 21 miles from his cabin in the Brooks Range.

But melting ice would block his path across the river,

and force Glenn to find an alternate and longer route home.

[Glenn] That's not good.

It's all water, all the way downstream where I just walked last night.

Can't follow the river upstream any more and I can't go back on it either.

This time of year, things are thawing out.

Things are starting to warm up.

This river's unusable.

It's on its way to breaking up.

I got a problem now, because the only way I can get to my camp

is to get back across this river somewhere.

I'm gonna have to find a place to get back across it.

When this snow gets a little bit firmer,

when things start to cool off,

that's when I'll start travelling.

I'll just travel at night, keep my eyes on the river,

hope for the best.

One way or the other, I have to get across this river.

I gotta walk all night in order to find a place to get across the river.

It's a little easier walking at night than during the day.

The sun's not beating down on me, the snow's a little firmer to walk on.

I'm gonna keep walking down through the forest, following the river,

and keeping my eyes open for a place to get across.

I'm stuck in the middle of this alder thicket,

and there's no way out of it.

It's like getting stuck in a traffic jam

when you're on your way to work on the freeway.

Out here in the mountains, we don't have traffic jams,

but we got alder thickets.

It's not good, but this ravine goes long ways up and down the mountain.

I can't get around it.

I'm gonna have to go through it.

It's just one obstacle after the other in the woods.

Really slows me down.

I can go ten times as fast on a frozen river

as I can through these woods.

But the river's no longer available, so I got no choice.

These alder ditches are pretty rough.

The ups, the downs, the brush, the deep snow.

It sure makes me miss walking on that river.

I've got no idea what lays ahead.

Hopefully it starts getting better, though.

'Cause if I got too many of these ravines, I'm not gonna make it.

[Chip] There's things in this world that are just bigger than us.

And you go with the flow,

you be like the grass, and you make the bend in the wind and you survive.

First thing I wanna do is take all this cap residue powder

off the outside here.

[narrator] After his black powder shotgun misfire...

[gun clicks]

Chip must repair his weapon

in order to keep hunting, and secure food for his family in camp.

So I think what's happening with the black powder substitute I use,

is that I'm... I'm ramming it down here

and the spark is just hitting a solid wall of powder.

So what I'm gonna do is add a little bit of gunpowder

into each one of these things,

and I think that will help the ignition.

Because the loose grains are kind of like kindling in a fire.

If you're trying to set a log on fire, you can't really set a fire up against it

and expect to get quick results.

So a little bit of kindling

will get a smaller fire into a bigger fire pretty soon.

But basically with these things, I just wanna make sure

I've got reliable ignition.

Hopefully I've got the solution.

I'll get it figured out, though, when I got some ptarmigan in my sight.

There's tons of ptarmigan tracks around. I know they're in the area.

There's tons of willows, and I know where they kind of congregate,

so we'll give the shotgun a try.

We'll see what I can get.

Ptarmigan a couple hundred yards away.

You can't drive right up to them, but I can walk.

My plan is to intercept the ptarmigan.

I seen a nice big bunch of 'em, and this is how we check out ptarmigan.

Over at Noorvik for the last couple years,

there's been a dip in the ptarmigan population.

It's a natural cycle.

Here at Kiwalik, seems to have quite a bit more ptarmigan around.

And getting the shotgun to work is the most important thing.

You gotta have this stuff working.

It has to go off when I want it to.

Or when I need it to.

[exhales]

Right there. There's one.

Two of 'em there.

Feel pretty good.

I got two with one shot.

I'm gonna go back and go drop these off,

and tell the wife about what success I got going.

I've got an idea where I want to put traps.

I've got a little bit of bait. I've got some dinner.

My shotgun's finally working.

It's a way better deal than yesterday.

Yesterday, I got a little more and more frustrated

because it didn't seem like it was gonna turn out,

but I knew to be persistent.

And that's what you have to do out here.

[clanking]

Well, Chip should be back any time now.

Um, I was just making some kindling here,

and I'm about to go start the fire in the tent

and start warming it up, and hopefully he'll come back with some ptarmigan.

How did it go?

Well, I got two with one shot, but I only took one shot.

Oh?

So, I tried for three but the other guy

-just took off like nothing happened. -Yep.

Here, you might want to take 'em in before they freeze.

Yep.

-Thank you, I was just gonna... -Yeah.

-Start up the... -I figured out how to make it

a more reliable ignition on the shotgun for the black powder,

so maybe I got that figured out.

Hopefully, anyway.

I'll get these started and we'll have ptarmigan for dinner.

Good timing. Awesome.

[Chip] I'll get a couple ptarmigan chunks here.

[Agnes] I'll have some, too.

[Agnes] Right on. We got dinner and trap bait.

[Chip] Yep.

Real good ptarmigan flavour.

Oh, yeah.

Over the next couple weeks while we're doing our thing,

keep our eyes open for 'em, we could probably go back to Noorvik with a sack.

I know everybody would like to have a few.

Can I get some salt from you?

I actually have nothing wrong with killing things,

it's exciting, to say the least.

Especially if you can get two birds with one shot.

Yeah, two birds with one shot is not bad.

It's really satisfying being able to get wild meat to me,

and I like the taste.

It's really good.

Not only that, I like the satisfaction of getting it myself.

There's a lot of satisfaction in being a successful hunter.

Good dinner. Good shot.

Yep.

[Andy] For me, money out here,

the only thing it's good for is fire starter.

Yeah, let's get this big boy...

skinned out. 38 pounds.

Thirty-eight point one.

And summer is really nothing more than...

a timeframe to get ready for next winter.

I mean, I'm already thinking about,

what do I need to get done this summer...

to prepare me for the next winter.

That's just the way it is. You want to be well-prepared.

Oh, that's a nice hide.

That's, uh...

That's definitely blanket size.

I don't know about super blanket,

but that's a pretty good-sized hide.

Prime fur.

So, now comes the fun part. Get this...

Get my stretcher, and stretch out the hide.

Something special for me, getting out and beaver trapping.

It's something I've been doing ever since I came up here

and moved out here 30 years ago.

It's a tradition of mine to go out every year in the springtime

and spend some time trapping beavers and getting some meat,

and putting up some fur on the wall that I'll be able to use next year

to make some more mittens or hats or whatever I decide I want to do.

It's really important for me to...

take the time, do something a little bit traditional.

Take the time to do something that's kind of fun

even though it's hard work.

And just continue to do the kinds of things

that I love to do out here.

[Glenn] If you don't want to be productive,

this isn't the place for you. You gotta produce out here.

If you don't produce, you die.

There's the river right there.

And it's got snow on it.

I've been walking all night looking for a place like this where I can get across.

No water at all.

I walked about 30 miles along this valley from Chandalar Lake.

Almost didn't make it. Got stuck on the wrong side of the river.

But it looks like it's gonna work out.

If I can get down there and get across it right now...

I've succeeded.

I wanna get to the other side of that river this morning.

This here could break up when it gets hot today.

All of a sudden there could be water all over the top of this ice.

I gotta get across it before I set my tent up.

Look at this beautiful snow and ice.

There's no water here at all.

Finally.

Finally found a place to get across.

It sure was a long night, but it was worth it.

Ah.

Now that I've made it up the river,

all I have to do is get through these mountains.

My camp's right on the other side of that mountain, right there.

I'm just gonna unpack,

crawl into my sleeping bag and get some rest tonight.

Get up early, keep heading down this river.

And then when I get up there in the distance where that mountain is,

I'm gonna have to leave this river,

cross over the mountains, get to the other side.

That's where my camp is.

It's still a long ways, but the goal is in sight.

[Sue] I've gotta watch my own personal safety.

It doesn't do me any good to set a goal

if I don't, you know, survive to see it.

All right.

Let's look. I see...

Oh, I see my foxes' house pretty close.

Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

There he is. There he is. The wolverine.

I gotta go get in position.

Come on, buddy.

Let this be the day.

[narrator] Sue has spotted the wolverine

that's been stalking Kavik for the past several days.

Eliminating the threat from apex predators

is crucial to her survival in the tundra.

Hey! You better stop.

[gun fires]

[gun fires]

Fuck.

I got the, uh, wolverine injured.

And I have to fucking load more bullets.

It's hard being nervous on the fly. Cold.

He should be going down, but they're a hearty goddam thing.

Stop, motherfucker. Stop!

[gun fires]

[Sue sighs]

Why am I not rushing up to him right now?

I need to make sure that son of a bitch is dead.

I can't have him playing possum and killing me.

It doesn't do us both good to die.

That's a smaller one for up here, but he's been every bit as feisty.

These little dudes will take on a bear and win half the time.

I'm sorry, buddy. I appreciate you.

You have no idea how much I appreciate your fur.

You will not go to waste.

But I'm scared as fuck of you, still.

[Sue breathing heavily]

[grunts]

You know, I'm not trying to glorify killing in any way, shape, or form.

This is an absolutely necessary part [sniffles]

of my survival out here in the wilderness.

Beautiful, beautiful game of chess played with this guy.

But, checkmate, man.

Checkmate.

Truth of the matter is,

this is not the last one I'm gonna deal with.

Camp is named Kavik. Kavik means wolverine in Eskimo.

There's a reason they named it that.

This wolverine is gone,

but there's gonna be another coming in its place, you know?

Life is a circular thing.

This is one issue that's been resolved,

the next issue will be coming up.