Original subtitles

[Sue] All right everybody, this is just...

A general notification here at Kavik River Camp,

starting at 5:00 p.m. tonight.

I will be closed for fuel sales until 5:00 a.m.

Uh, I am doing repairs and restructuring

and an overhaul on my fuel system,

going from gas to electric.

Therefore, there will be no fuel sales. Thank you.

It's just a general reminder

that if you're out pooching around, just looking,

get your fuel now.

Because if something goes wrong on this overhaul,

it may be more than just 12 hours I'm shut down,

it could be all summer.

[theme music playing]

This is part of what I am working on today.

If you look behind you... I have new fuel tanks.

One is for my aviation, 100-low lead,

the other one is the aviation jet fuel.

But I'm still using an old-fashioned system gas-powered pumps.

This is to change everything and upgrade it all to electric.

This is electrical wiring, big, heavy-gauge electrical wiring.

I can't attach it to faulty 1960s wiring.

It's gotta be new, it's gotta be Arctic-grade

and it's gotta be efficient. It has to be safe.

Today, my job, to bring the electric from my gen shed and my junction box.

I've gotta dig a ditch, about eight inches down,

through this whole airplane pad.

It's about 80 yards of fun. The job is lay the line.

Out with the old, in with the new.

There's gonna be a little bit of brute strength,

a little bit of bobcat strength.

This is not what the forks were designed for,

but they can be used for.

So what I'm trying to do...

I've gotta get something...

Just, kind of, bind it together, hold it together.

I got some duct tape here.

Maybe a little bizarre, but...

It doesn't need to hold forever, just needs to hold today.

Waiting till right now

has given the opportunity, all that rain to soak in.

Maybe that'll soften it up, then I'll be pretty successful at this.

If not, won't it be another lesson I can learn and throw a fit about.

All right.

I have to live in the moment.

I don't worry about what's the future of Kavik,

'cause I'm too busy making today good.

If you've got one foot in yesterday and one in tomorrow,

the only place you're not experiencing is today,

and that's where I've gotta be.

All the electrics are being redone.

I'm almost completed with it.

I've been chewing away at it a little at a time.

This is 14 years now here.

It's not my first skate around the roller rink at this place.

I'm still falling, occasionally, but now I can do twirls as I go.

Well, time to take a look at my handiwork.

[wincing] Oh.

The little duct tape thing is...

It's... it's tearing but it held so far.

But you can, kind of... You can definitely see,

I've got a straight-ish line,

um, going from my fuel delivery area

to where I need to run the electrics down that row.

What do I need to do now?

I'm gonna go over it, starting from here

and going that way one more time.

You know, start working it, clearing it.

I have workers coming in, in just a few hours.

I better get it done, I better get it done correctly.

The repercussions if I don't?

I can't sell fuel. I'm out of business.

[Glenn] If you don't know how something's gonna go,

you gotta find out.

Because you don't want to learn

when you're in a life-or-death situation.

The wind can change fast out here.

A lot of times I go out on a calm lake,

but when I turn around to come home, wind picks up, I got big waves.

A lot of times I just hug the shoreline,

and that's safer, but it takes a lot longer.

I'd like to have the confidence to go straight across the lake

in more marginal conditions.

But I just don't know what would happen

if I ever tipped over out there, so I want to try it out.

I want to paddle out far enough

that the water's over my head.

I don't want to use the bottom.

I want to make sure that this is a true simulation of what would happen

if I was right in the middle of the lake and I tipped over.

That's gonna prepare me for the real thing,

if it ever happens when I'm way out in the middle of the lake.

Because if you tip over out in the middle of a lake, it's bad.

I can only swim so far in this cold water.

I might drown.

In the summertime, this is my main mode of transportation.

When I'm not walking, I get around by canoe.

If I have something heavy to move, I move it in my canoe.

I use this canoe to go fishing.

I use this canoe to transport meat home when I hunt moose in the fall.

From the moment this lake breaks up

and the ice melts off until it freezes again in the fall,

I use my canoe almost every day.

[panting]

The wind's really picking up out here.

I gotta be careful when these waves get this high.

I gotta keep the canoe pointed in the right direction.

I don't want to get sideways through these waves.

This canoe is not very stable in the waves, actually,

it's a flat-bottom canoe.

So it's stable in flat water.

But when the waves get bigger, this canoe's initial stability

diminishes really quickly. And it can go over fast.

It can be frightening.

[straining]

Tipping this canoe over right here, it's gonna be the same

trying to get back in as if I was way out in the middle of the lake.

But I'm close enough to shore, if I have to, I can swim back.

[breathing rapidly]

It's so heavy with all that water in it, it's hard to move it around.

I'm gonna go right under it, and see if I can push it straight up.

[grunts]

It's too heavy. [panting]

It's so heavy, with all that water.

And my weight just pushes it down.

I can get on top, but the canoe's going down.

That's not working.

With that water in it, it won't float me.

This isn't working very well.

You can only stay in this cold water so long.

If I was out in the middle of the lake,

I'd be getting pretty worried right about now.

'Cause I'm not making much progress getting the water out of here.

I can't bail it because...

[groans] ...there's just too much water in it.

Every time I take some out, more goes in.

There's no way.

I can't get back in the boat and get the water out of it.

This canoe is just too heavy for me to turn it over

without having it full of water.

I can't lift it up out of the water high enough to turn it over.

I'm gonna drag this back to shore,

and I'm gonna try and... change things.

I'm gonna try and add some flotation

and figure out some kind of system to make this safer.

Because, right now, if I ever tipped over out in the middle of the lake,

it'd be very dangerous.

It's getting cold in here.

I gotta drag this back to shore.

By taking this out today,

intentionally flipping it over

and seeing if I can get back in the canoe,

that's gonna prepare me for the real thing

if it ever happens when I'm way out in the middle of the lake.

Gonna go in, warm up, dry out, and then figure out a system,

so that I can get back in that canoe if I ever flip it over out in deep water.

[Andy] You can plan all you want,

but, uh, you're always gonna be on Plan B or Plan C

at some point in time.

[panting] I'm going up the mountain.

Trying to get to a place where the glassing's good.

Plan is to get up on top of a high ridge up here

and just spend some time glassing and uh, looking around,

seeing what's out in the country.

And if I don't see anything,

then the other plan is just pick blueberries.

So one way or another I'm gonna come home

with blueberries or black bear.

[narrator] Andy Bassich has travelled 35 miles

from his home in Eagle to American Summit,

where he's harvested resources and hunted wildlife in the past.

Today, he's searching for black bears,

which provide him with meat and fur during the long winter.

But with bears going into hibernation soon,

he has a limited window to hunt them

before the resource becomes unavailable until next spring.

[Andy] You checking up on me, Tope?

It's always a good day when you get out and see new country,

or see old country through fresh eyes.

[panting] I keep finding these...

These trails are beat down pretty good...

and I'm not sure what's causing that.

It's definitely animal track.

Maybe a bunch of caribou came through here.

[exhales] Heating up here.

Ooh, a few blueberries up high!

Usually you don't find the blueberries this high up.

Mmm.

Ooh, man, they're sweet.

I'm about three-quarters of the way up to where I wanna go to glass.

I thought I'd take a break here out of the wind,

and just check out this one hillside down below me here.

I'm looking for uh... light brown,

dark brown, or black spots that are moving.

You gotta scan the area quite a few times

'cause they'll move in and out of the brush.

It's a pretty good day for glassing and the cloud's lifted.

It's a lot of country up here.

Late summer is when, uh,

we kind of get into our rainy season up here.

And that's why all the mushrooms and fungi you see over here,

there's a ton of 'em.

I think these are edibles.

Should I eat that?

[snickering] He says, "Oh, I don't know.

I think I'd stick to dog food."

I think if I knew more about mushrooms and fungi,

I'd probably have a big pot full of that to take back with me,

'cause there's a ton of those up here.

But I don't know enough about 'em.

[laughs] I don't wanna eat 'em right now!

That's looking pretty ugly over there.

I got one.

One rainstorm over here coming down,

and then we got an ugly dark one back this way.

[sighing] Lightning storm.

Nothing worse than a stainless steel rifle

sticking over your shoulder

and an aluminium pack frame.

-[rain pattering] -Starting to rain up here,

clouds are moving in. I'm gonna get off the mountain.

I can't really glass when it's raining like this.

It's looking like pretty hungry country up here right now.

Come on, boys, let's go.

Down the hill, let's go.

[Chip] If you want prestige and pride,

it isn't sitting on top of the pile of gold, it's sharing it.

See anything interesting?

There's some caribou down there in the flat.

-Caribou? -[Doug] It's on the hill yet.

Excellent.

[narrator] For the Hailstones...

-[gunshot] -...caribou is an essential resource

to survive year-round.

Hunting the animals as they migrate through Kiwalik,

is critical to providing meat and fur for the months ahead.

With the herd in sight, it's an opportunity that cannot be wasted.

Oh, yeah, like, more than four,

maybe six or seven of 'em.

[Chip] Our son, Doug, he lives 30 miles from here,

and when he can, he comes on over.

And he was over here this spring by snow machine.

Now the ice in the Sound there is open enough

that he's been able to come over by boat.

So we're gonna do some hunting around here

while his mom's working on other things,

and see if we can get us some caribou to dry up.

If we take Magdalene Channel to the east here,

and we go north,

we should be able to get there before they do.

[Chip] We got caribou coming from the west,

and they're going east,

and we have a really wide island here with two channels.

We're gonna go onto the East Channel, it's called Magdalene,

and we're gonna go cut those caribou off as they come across, headed that way.

So the boat's ready, my shotgun's ready.

Doug's got a rifle,

and um, we're gonna go see what we can do.

[engine revving]

We're gonna go over here to, like, a...

a place where there's a little dip and I can land quietly,

and we'll get up and have a look.

We'll see where the caribou are versus us.

We only want the bulls. We're not interested in the cows,

we're not interested in the calves.

I'm gonna go as he directs me. I can't see 'em, but he can,

so he'll tell me where to go and how far to go.

We just gotta keep it quiet.

[whispering] Now we've got these caribou coming across.

We've seen 'em from our camp.

And they're about two miles that way.

We've watched them progress.

We're using the bank to hide ourselves,

and we're using the bank to hide the boat.

Hopefully, there's a couple bulls in the group.

So we're just watching for their heads

to see if they have antlers.

-[leaves rustling] -All right, we got 'em.

-They were laying down? -Those are bulls, yep.

Do you see it? One's standing up.

Nah, I'm looking. I'm looking, I'm looking.

-Oh! There they are. -Yep.

[Chip] Oh, there's four bulls right there.

[Doug] Fucking awesome.

We'll take the boat down along here

and see how close we can get, quietly.

We'll get in front of these guys, or they'll get in front of us,

one way or the other.

We've got caribou over here

at a place called Mud Creek about three miles away,

and they'll be crossing this big island.

And where we are, is at the forks of a river,

and the island in between is what they're crossing.

And we're going to go anticipate 'em over here

on this channel, which would be the East Channel

because they're coming from the West.

So we've kind of got some goals with this meat.

And it's a lot of fun to go get it.

You know, I get to spend some time hunting with my son.

We've done this since he was three years old,

me and him together in this same place, all over this place.

So it's good to work with somebody I don't have to talk too much to.

I know what he's thinking, he knows what I'm thinking.

And, uh, we just get it done.

It's a lot of fun. I don't compete with my kids at all.

I like watching him do what he does, me do what I do,

and see that he's up to par exactly with me.

[Doug] Three bulls.

Oh, I see 'em!

[Doug] Go. Go.

Shoot him, son. Just shoot him.

-Shoot him. -[gunshot]

Here, son, I'm gonna shoot.

We're here to make meat.

We're not here to tally a kill

or see who's first, or any of that crap.

So we work together,

and it doesn't matter who shot him or who drove.

It's teamwork.

So we're picking bulls out of the bunch.

Doing it this way we're very selective.

None of them get away,

you know, they're right there in the river.

We can pick out exactly what we want.

We won't wound them when they're all bunched up

and running together or anything like that.

You don't have to make any crazy shots or anything.

Just add him to the next one, son.

We'll take him to a clean spot and do him.

We'll get him over here to the bank, get him up,

and gut him out.

[panting] Uh, we're just gonna

gut him real quick, cut the legs and heads off,

and bring him to camp.

The meat is the trophy,

so we leave the heads behind, we never take it.

[Chip] That was an excellent one.

Waiting for him to get in the water was the best choice.

Ah, the mess of success.

I don't work with many people.

I don't like to work with people, tell you the truth.

But people that you hunt with or people that you work with

are usually the better friends you have.

You've, uh, laboured together, you've succeeded together

and you do stuff together.

It's a really good thing.

You know it... it makes it more than just your father or your son

or your kids or any of that stuff.

It makes it like friends, you know.

You go out and do this stuff with the people

you want to spend your time with.

That's why I like taking my kids with me everywhere.

One-two-three, up. [grunts]

-Okay, that's good. -[Doug exhales]

[Chip] We'll go home and make your mom happy,

and give her meat.

Let's go home, let's go have a cup of coffee

and let these guys stiffen up and we can skin 'em later.

[Sue] Like a bull in a china shop, I keep on tripping over everything,

but I get there in the end. If not, I'll make a new damn door.

It's 10 to 15 out of the Southwest right now.

Be aware landing, uh, and coming in on the pad.

I'm just getting ready to do the swap over to the electrics.

So there is a ditch going from the dining hall

to the fuel shed, just to the south.

[man speaking over radio]

See you on the ground, fly safe.

[narrator] In Kavik, Sue is replacing her gas-powered fuel system

with electric, to provide a safer and more efficient fuelling system

for bush pilots.

But every moment without being able to sell fuel

is costing her crucial revenue.

And unable to complete the task on her own,

she was forced to fly in mechanics

to help with the labour.

Awesome, well, we can put your stuff over here.

Oh, gosh, you did great.

[exhales] On that...

[chuckling] I was booking on it.

-The forks? -[Sue] Mmm-hmm.

Did it with the forks, and now by hand.

Getting all that big-ass rock out of the way.

And we'll look at the ends, 'cause I took it to the front of the row,

and I took it to where, like, the barrel is on the side,

'cause that's where the panel is on the inside.

Everybody has something to do.

Everybody's doing something.

We're getting the fuel tank ready,

the fuel lines disconnected.

Those fuel lines carry fuel.

Empty 'em out, put 'em in the gen tank.

It's all hands on deck. They're laying the line

on the ditch I just dug.

We're all pulling our weight to make sure that, uh,

this gets done, gets done on time,

and I'm back up and running full strength soon.

Now that the line is laid inside the trench that I dug,

I need to get this cable buried

under the softer gravel, so it's protected.

It's easier if a plane does come in, they can roll over it

and they're not gonna damage it.

My job right now... Gravel, cover, gravel, cover.

When I'm done with that, I'll go and help them.

Kavik is not a new place.

Every single day,

every single year, I'm thinking how can I improve it.

How can I bring it kicking and screaming

into the century that we're in?

Make it so that it's more self-reliant.

Camp is growing, the needs are growing,

I've gotta grow with it.

Damn!

[grunts] Gotta make sure it didn't hurt something here.

What I'm doing is filling it in.

But I made a mistake here, ran it over.

Now I gotta dig it up, make sure I didn't hurt it.

It has to be buried.

Eight inches to 12 inches.

But, um, what I didn't wanna do... Run it over.

Running it over, I just pulled the whole line out of place.

It's only a few scant inches being covered.

[strains] I can't have that.

Worst-case scenario,

I just gotta dig the whole fucking line out from there.

Very frustrating. I'm trying to be efficient, I'm...

Yet, I'm trying to be fast.

I need to get the electrical part of this fuel over... overhaul done.

But in the process of being fast,

I backed up on top of the electrical line,

bringing it back up rather than burying it.

I don't need a kink. I don't need a break.

It has to work well or it's not gonna work for me.

It's too expensive to do twice.

I can't pooch it now.

[Andy] Anytime you go out, it's, uh, go out

and adapt to whatever the conditions bring,

and that's just the way it is up here.

Had a rainstorm come in and kind of force me off the top of the mountain,

so I dropped back down.

Figured I'd take some of this time and pick some blueberries

so I don't go home empty-handed, in case I don't see any bears.

Wow, look at all these blueberries. Holy mackerel.

They're really ripe.

It's been a couple years since I've picked blueberries.

We haven't had very many good blueberry years the last couple years.

When they're good like this it's worth it

to come up here and spend some time and get 'em,

'cause they freeze really good

or I've even dried... Dehydrated 'em.

That works pretty good, too.

A lot of good, natural antioxidants in, uh, blueberries,

so it's a real healthy food.

Blueberry picking's kind of like hunting,

you gotta be kind of patient.

It's just something where you just sit down,

get into your mind-set and just keep picking.

Let's go find another patch, Bergy.

Nice big, fat ones.

They seem to like to grow into these little...

These little hillside areas.

You'll be walking along and there'll be,

kind of almost like a little drop in the hill,

and that's where the blueberries really seem to be.

I'm hoping that I can find a bear

in one of these nice blueberry patches.

And I'm sure they're up here. It's just a matter of connecting with them.

There could be a bear 30 feet away and I'd never see him unless he...

he really stood up.

That's why I got these guys.

These guys won't let any bears kind of walk up on me.

If you know where the bear food is, you can go get a bear for food.

These are a little bit longer ones. Makes it a little easier to pick 'em.

We got a full bucket!

Let's go find another place to hunt bears.

Weather's clearing up.

Let's go find another ridge.

Come on! Come on, Tope. Let's go find another ridge.

[Glenn] It's really important out here to test things out

and to have a plan, to be prepared.

If you're not prepared, that's when you get into trouble.

[bird chittering]

I gotta do something about this. I really need to be able to

get into this canoe if I tip it over out there.

Get into it, bail it out enough that I can paddle it home.

I don't wanna end up tipping over in the middle of the lake

and having to swim all the way to shore.

That's a long ways in cold water, I might not make it.

The only way I'm gonna be able to turn this canoe over

and get back in it is if I increase the floatation.

It's gonna have to have some floatation added.

Because right now, when I tip this thing over

and it gets swamped full of water,

it just floats underneath the surface.

And the water just keeps coming in over the edge

as fast as I can bail it out.

Let me go get a foam pad I have for camping.

I have a little mattress I sleep on sometimes.

I don't really need that any more. I could cut it up,

and I could cover the seats with foam.

I could put quite a bit of foam on the seats.

If I added foam all over the seats, that would help float it.

It would add buoyancy.

It would definitely help keep it a little higher in the water,

even when it was swamped. I think I could flip it over easier.

I'll try that.

I gotta make this thing work.

I've gotta increase my safety.

Out on that lake, I do not want to tip over

and have to try and swim all the way to shore.

If I flip over out there someday,

I wanna know I can get back into this canoe

and paddle it home.

There.

That's a nice seat cushion.

It's more comfortable to sit on and it increases flotation in my canoe.

Nice. That should help out quite a bit.

So I'm thinking about a counterbalance.

If I have a weight hanging off that side,

when I push down on this side,

that weight would counterbalance my weight

and prevent the canoe from rolling so much as I'm climbing back into it.

So, maybe, if I could take my paddle, and fasten it while I'm in the water...

Then take the dry bag...

fill it full of water for weight,

and hang it off the paddle, on this side.

That might help.

I think it's gonna be a challenge

to get back in the canoe and get the water out of it,

even with these improvements.

I got a plan, I got some ideas.

I gotta go out and try to put it into practise.

I don't know if this is gonna work.

But I am curious, because being able to get back in the canoe

when it flips over, being able to paddle it to shore,

would be a big, big increase in safety.

Especially, if I was way out in the middle of that lake.

I'm gonna tip this canoe over intentionally,

and I'm gonna see if I can get back in the thing

and paddle it to shore before I get too cold to function.

That's gonna be the challenge, this is cold water.

I'm not gonna know if I can do this unless I try.

I've gotta test it out.

Okay. I'm gonna try and go under the canoe,

come back up and flip it over.

This water's cold.

[inhales deeply]

It's still got a lot of water in it.

But it's riding a little higher than it was before.

I gotta pull this dry bag over to the other side.

[grunts]

Look at that.

It's working. It's floating it higher.

This water's cold.

I don't want to try getting back in until I get as much water out as I can.

I'm getting out of breath.

It takes a lot of work, trying to swim,

while under the canoe without tipping it, and bail...

all at the same time.

[exhales]

There, I got most of the water out.

I gotta try now and get back in the canoe.

And I gotta figure out how to get in without tipping it over.

Get it full of water again.

Because if I can hang a dry bag full of water on the other side,

'cause when I pull myself up out of the water,

I might just tip the canoe over again.

So I'm gonna try and put a counterbalance off the other side.

This paddle...

if I can attach it right here.

Okay.

Now that's a weight.

That bag's full of water.

As the canoe starts to tip,

the theory is that's gonna help me get in,

stabilise the canoe.

Working. I can see it...

A lot of weight that's going on there.

It's bending the paddle, that's good I suppose.

It's helping me stabilise the canoe.

It's not gonna be easy to get in here without tipping it, though.

There.

[panting]

I'm in the canoe.

Wow.

I got back in, that's good.

[exclaims]

[sighs] Got in the canoe.

This helped a lot. I could see how much weight was going on,

it was bending the whole paddle.

[exhales] I'm cold, but I'm very happy.

If I ever capsize in deep water, I've got a plan now.

I've got a way to get back in my canoe and paddle to shore.

Hopefully, I never have to use it.

But if I ever do tip over out there in the middle of the lake,

I know that I can survive it.

I'm gonna head home now.

I gotta go warm up.

It all paid off. I got a system.

I can get back in my canoe if I tip it over now.

[Andy] It's beautiful country to be in. It's a great place to live.

But you gotta work hard to get your food here.

[Andy exclaims]

-[squeals] -C'mon. Straight ahead.

[narrator] Andy is scouting American Summit for black bears,

a resource he depends on for meat and fur.

But black bears can only be hunted this time of year

before they go into hibernation.

And spotting them in the vast region is no easy task.

I'm heading up to, uh, another peak here

that I really like glassing from.

I've had a lot of good luck up here glassing from this area in the past.

Oh, my God. These are salmonberries.

They're a primo berry, but they're super delicate.

They're pretty much an on-the-trail treat.

They're only ripe for a short period of time.

Hey, you're stepping on all the good ones, man.

Go find your own.

They're refreshing when you're hiking around.

It's good to get some moisture into your body.

Whether it be through water, or these berries have

an awful lot of moisture in 'em

and they taste a lot better than just drinking a glass of water.

Something kind of magical about the high country.

All the flowers, and the... Just the smell of it,

and the beauty, the scenery, the mountains.

I think I'd have a hard time living in a place

where there weren't any mountains.

What I'm basically looking for

is anything that is a colour or a shape that's moving,

or a colour that doesn't match everything else that's out there.

You know, hunting up in this country's just a time game.

You gotta sit up here and put your time in

and be very methodical about glassing an area,

and you gotta also remember it's nice to spot it,

but you gotta also remember, uh...

what's it gonna take to get it out.

Yeah, I thought I'd maybe try and put a little fire together

and try and dry a little bit from that rain earlier.

Being up in this country brings back a lot of memories

for me, 'cause I spent a lot of time up here

when I was in my 20s and 30s,

and, uh, trapped extensively up in this country,

and hunted extensively up in this country.

And then when I moved down onto the Yukon,

I had to learn a whole new way of...

of trapping, hunting and fishing.

A lot of memories of that mountain there,

and that mountain there, and this rock right here

and everywhere I look around here,

I have memories of places

that I shot a bear or got some caribou.

Not having much luck. I think I'm just gonna

put out the fire, pack up the gear,

get the dogs going.

It's been a good trip. Got some consolation prizes.

I got a couple of nice big tins of berries, so,

I'm not going home empty-handed. I'm just going home without a bear.

Come on. Everybody's jealous, you guys been loose all day.

[laughs]

Now let's take care of these blueberries, you mutt.

[sighing] So i didn't... didn't find any bears,

but I did find bear food.

And a whole bunch of it.

I wanna freeze these up so they don't get all bruised up.

Now I need to do is find a bear for my food.

Look at that. Oh, that's gonna be some good eating.

It wasn't in the cards today,

so I'll settle for these blueberries.

I'll enjoy these.

Just not very good bear-hunting I guess today.

It was kind of one of those rollercoaster days, you know?

You start out, you're on a long climb,

and then you go down and you have some fun,

and then you got a long climb up,

then you come home and you got some nice blueberries.

And, uh, all is good.

You know, one very long day

is a drop in the bucket when it comes to hunting.

Get these in the freezer.

[Sue] There's a circle and it turns around and round.

Things change, things evolve, things rotate.

[engine stops]

I do not know what I am seeing out here.

I can see a dark hump over here.

It almost looks like a little caribou.

-[starts engine] -I'm gonna go get my gun,

get my glasses, see if I can get me some dinner.

Well, as I'm getting the last of the buckets of the gravel

in on top of my line, my electric line,

I just see a brown shape

and there's a caribou right over there.

See if I can pop him, kind of get a twofer

a new electrical line and some food in the freezer.

He's gonna go right into the river bank.

He slipped into the bank.

He could either cross...

or come back down.

I'm gonna take this opportunity to try and gain ground.

[in a lowered voice] These are my range-finding binoculars.

He looks close, but he's 155 yards out, man.

By him going over there, it shields me, and I can get closer. Hopefully.

If he runs too much further,

all's it is, is cat-and-mouse. Fuck that, I got work to do.

[sighs] I mean, that ain't the biggest bullet on the planet.

It's good. It'll knock him down.

But you wanna be close, 155 yards.

[whispering] I don't think I can make this shot.

[whispers] Fuck.

[Sue whispering]

[sighs] A 155 yards with the wind,

that's a hell of a shot for this little gun.

It's open sights, it's just not got a lotta beans.

He is running, I mean, running!

You can chase 'em till you're blue in the face,

but they can run like that through this stuff and I sure can't.

I was working on the electrics.

I saw that little 'bou, it would've been awesome

to have something that close and pop it in the freezer.

But I really, really need to stay focused.

This means too much to let my mind wander.

I gotta get back to work.

Where are we taking him up through?

Okay.

Look at all those cables coming in.

That's all the power in camp.

In order to supply that area,

run the line all the way down and through.

Now we have to get it in so we can put on...

-put it on the breaker system. -[whirring]

That throws the power on and off.

But I've gotta turn off the generator,

so that I'm not delivering power

and they don't get fried by accident.

It's failsafe after failsafe after failsafe.

You don't want anybody hurt.

-[whirring stops] -All right.

This way there's no power being produced in camp,

through the wiring system.

They cannot get fried. That's a win-win for me.

With this off, we can achieve the biggest,

the most important step going on...

Hooking the electrics together in the main junction box.

It's getting close to midnight.

These guys have been hard at it, I've been hard at it.

This is the land of the Midnight Sun.

Just 'cause it's overcast doesn't mean it's gonna get dark.

-There you go. -[clicking lever]

Down, down is on.

-Okay, are you ready? -[mechanic] Yep.

Trying it out. This is, uh, this is the big moment.

This is gonna be the deciding factor.

[mechanic] Switch is on in here.

Switch is on. Is it running?

-Pump's on. -[Sue] All right. Pump's on.

[mechanic] Check.

[Sue] This is the moment of truth.

[spluttering]

There we go.

All right. [chuckles] I'm good to go.

Now this electricity, everything working,

fuel going in, I'm back in business.

We went from having fuel bladders, to the tanks.

From digging the trench to laying the line.

Running the electric all the way over, into hooking it up,

to yanking the old system out, to the new pumps.

This is not something that just happened.

At 4 o'clock today, I said, "Hey, you want to fly out and dance?"

It's a year in, in the process.

And I'm finally there. Electric pumps in Kavik,

hard tank fuel tanks.

This is not your kids' fuel station, this is a grown up girl's fuel station.

All right. Thank you, man.

-Thank you, Sue. -Thank you very much.

-Thank you. [chuckling] -Yeah.

-Hey. Take care. -All right, Sue.

Say hi to your wife.

You know, I mean this is another day we're boom-boom-boom.

I mean, work till you drop.

When you're doing a big project,

not one step of it is less important than the next.

All steps have to be done, all steps have to be done well,

and the whole project comes out well.

I'm back in business, the job is done.

You want fuel? I got you covered.

-[chuckles] -[engine starts]

[Glenn] When you get to know the environment around where you live,

you learn to utilise all the different materials.

It's amazing what you can do with stuff right here.

All right.

I got my canoe all set up, now it's a lot safer than it used to be,

and I've practised getting back in it.

I've got a big bailer, I've got added floatation,

and I've got a technique in mind. So I know if I flip over out there,

I can get back in this canoe and paddle to shore.

That's important.

It's a big advantage when it comes to safety.

I'm gonna take the canoe now and go get some moss with it.

I've been needing to get some moss

because my refrigerator hole here,

the lid's getting all worn out.

This hole right here,

stays a lot cooler in the summertime

than the air does up here.

It's just a hole I've dug in the ground. It's lined with logs.

And I've got a steel barrel in it now with my food in it.

Prevents small animals, little rodents like voles,

from chewing into my food.

But to keep it cool, it needs to be covered.

And over time, the covering has worn out.

Whenever I come across a resource...

that is useful to me,

I lock that away in my memory and then when I need it I can get back to it.

So I know just the place to go to find this Sphagnum moss,

and make a perfect lid for this hole.

There's a spot right back here in the woods where the moss grows real thick.

I'll go see if I can find just the right piece.

This might work right here.

I'm just cutting down through the moss that's on the surface,

trying not to go any deeper than I have to

'cause I don't want to jam my axe into a rock.

I gotta get down through the moss,

and I'm just cutting out the shape I need.

I got the edges all cut out.

Now I just need to roll it up.

[breathing heavily]

There. Got it.

This piece of sod here will provide good insulation.

It will keep all my food a lot cooler down in that hole.

[exhales] It's heavy, though.

[grunts] There.

Got my sod.

Time to go home and put this on top of the fridge.

It's a natural blanket of insulation.

It's gonna keep my food well-preserved down there in that hole.

I got my moss back, and I did it safely.

I had my canoe all fixed up

so that even if I had tipped over in the middle of that lake,

I know that I could get back in it. Very important.

I feel a lot better having practised the technique.

My canoe is one of my most essential pieces of equipment out here.

I use the canoe all the time in the summer to get around

and to move heavy things.

And the canoe is an all-purpose utility vehicle for me.

Helps me carry heavy loads home.

Without it I'd have a hard time out here.

[Chip] There's kind of city folks and there's country folks.

And this is a country education.

[Agnes] What you guys up to?

Oh, we got a couple caribou.

-Oh, wow! -[Ting] Nice.

[exclaims] Looks like some good meat.

Yep. They're nice and thin and they're great for drying.

Awesome.

[Chip] Yeah, we were having too much fun.

[Agnes] Two good bulls.

Once they stiffen up we can skin 'em,

and then the meat can relax and it'll be a lot more tender.

Oh, wow, heart and tongue, and look, fat.

Shall we go make dinner?

Let's go have dinner.

[Agnes] Awesome. This is a good, good dinner.

And we'll be eating good tonight.

[Chip] We got a pot full of caribou tongue and heart,

with some onions and such, all cooked up.

Looks like it's gonna be a good dinner, all right.

-That sure does look good. -It sure does.

Springtime caribou are a great resource around here,

and we've been lucky to have lots of 'em passing by the way they have been.

They make good dried meat, good fresh meat.

Eat every little piece and part of 'em.

And the caribou being around here all winter long

with all the fur that follows them, and all the meat that they can give...

We're lucky to have 'em passing through still.

Did you guys have to go run and carry 'em back way far?

We took 'em over to a bank that had grass and not mud,

and worked from there.

Doug did just fine, I did just fine.

It was just synchronicity.

You both got one each?

Yup, it's all we wanted.

We looked at 'em all and we took the two best, healthiest ones.

It's a lot of fun to have a real hunter to hunt with.

Somebody I don't have to tell anything to, or worry about or...

When you can do things that are both dangerous and deadly,

and, uh, it's with somebody who knows their business about such things,

it's really efficient.

It's a lot of fun.

We've got this shit down.

It's good to work with someone who knows what they're doing.

Yep.

People been living around this area for thousands of years making a good living.

And everything that they needed, they got from this land, that ocean.

Maybe it flew up in the sky, or it came up in the water.

It's all here.

Everywhere you go along the Alaska coast you can pretty much make a living,

and this is one of those good places.

You really had to, you could have a nice, quiet,

but very hard-working and adventurous life here

simply 'cause you know how and you know where.

And knowing that how and where is pretty dang important

later on in life when things get difficult,

at least you have the basics.