Original subtitles

[Glenn Villeneuve] I'd rather have the challenge

of having to take care of myself.

Some people would rather be able

to turn to somebody else for help when they need it,

and out here, you don't have that option.

[narrator] To subsist and survive in the wilderness of the Brooks Range,

Glenn Villeneuve depends on his knowledge and experience

to meet nature's demands.

[Glenn] If you don't know what you are doing,

you don't belong out here.

[narrator] The skills to survive have been gained over decades

of preparation and learning.

[Glenn] There he goes! [grunts]

But the ever-changing environment means every day is a unique challenge.

[gunshot]

On Glenn's journey of survival in the Arctic,

the freedom to live a primitive lifestyle in nature

is the final destination.

Whoa!

[Glenn] Yes, there's some risk involved,

but you've got to take risks every day.

If you don't want to take risks, don't get out of bed in the morning.

Look out, it's going! It's going!

[theme music playing]

[Glenn] My name is Glenn Villeneuve.

I've been living in the Brooks Range for years now.

And it's the place I think of as home.

I was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1969.

I grew up right at the base of the highest mountain in Vermont,

and finally made it up there when I was nine years old.

Right from the beginning,

I was never planning on a conventional lifestyle.

In 1997, I was living in a tepee and I liked it a lot.

And I thought I'd like to actually live in nature,

not just recreate there.

And realised that to really do it,

I was going to have to go somewhere where there was some real wilderness.

I looked all over the world, basically.

Thought about going over to Siberia, go to Africa, go to the Amazon.

Decided no, the Brooks Range, that's the place to go.

First time I ever landed on this lake,

15 years ago, I said, "This is an awesome place.

I'd like to live here. This is perfect."

It's paradise out here for me.

Yeah.

[narrator] Survival in the Brooks Range

means constantly finding, preparing and protecting food.

Falling behind on supplies or timing

can be the difference between life and death.

[Glenn] This is very hungry country, where I am.

The resources here are spread very thinly over the land.

Hunting and gathering... It's not easy to make a living.

It's all about where the resources are.

When they are there, you got to take advantage of it.

[whispering] It's my fifth day hunting moose, now.

And I'm over in an area that I know is a good spot

for most of this time of year.

[narrator] A single moose provides Glenn with six months of food.

Harvesting the animal during the brief fall-hunting season

is essential to sustain himself through the winter.

[Glenn] It's scary, because, if I don't get a moose,

it's really hard for me to live out here.

[whispering]

[imitates moose call]

[rattling]

[whispering] Here he comes.

See he's waving his antlers at me, just like this.

He thinks I'm a moose right now.

He's coming to fight me off. He's got a cow over there.

He doesn't want me mating with that cow.

He wants that cow for himself.

He's going to go out in that open field, I hope.

I just got to get lined up for the shot.

[gun cocking]

[gunshot fired]

[whispering] I got him.

[sighs] I got him. He's down.

That's a nice-looking bull too.

There goes the cow that was with him.

He's dead.

It's really an important moment for me to get a moose like this.

I got six months' food right here.

It's a good moment for me.

I would rather live this way, by hunting,

than by buying my food in a store.

That's the way I live out here. It's the natural cycle.

I'm just a person that doesn't really like to have

the future all planned out and nailed down.

I like the way nature goes.

There are certain cycles and rhythms, but it's different every year.

[chirping]

[Glenn] What a beautiful day. Springtime.

Lake's already starting to thaw out.

Hear all the little songbirds out there singing this morning.

[twittering]

Heard some ducks quacking.

Birds flying into the valley.

[narrator] Warming spring temperatures in the Brooks Range

signal the return of a number of animals to the region.

For Glenn, the thawing of the lake

presents an opportunity to harvest ducks for meat.

[Glenn] A lot of the animals aren't available to me.

The caribou have headed further north.

I probably won't see any more caribou this year.

But at this time of year, I turn my attention to smaller animals.

Things that I can consume faster, so that preservation isn't such a problem.

And that's what I'm going to be looking for today.

In the spring, when the lake starts to melt,

the first ice to go is around the edge.

A moat opens up.

And that concentrates the ducks,

'cause the first ducks coming in

are going to have to land in this narrow channel of water.

Right along the edge of the lake, that's where I'm going to hunt today.

It's not the happy hunting grounds up here.

Game is scarce.

That's the reality living up here.

No ducks.

Just got to keep looking.

It's not uncommon for me to walk a couple of miles and not see a duck.

So, it's nothing out of the ordinary, it's the same with all the other game.

Way up here in the Arctic,

there's less life that the land can support

so you have to travel more country in order to get it.

[grunts]

[whispers] There's some ducks right there.

I gotta get closer to 'em before I can get a shot.

If I just go straight over this hill, I think they're

going to see me really quickly and take off before I get close enough.

[gunshot]

[ducks quacking]

[gunshot]

That duck's been hit.

I just got to kill him to get him back.

[gunshot]

I got him!

I got the duck. That one almost got away.

[ducks quacking]

Nothing like sitting out here beside the lake, plucking a duck.

It's more than just getting the ducks,

it's just being out here, enjoying this time of year,

listening to all the new sounds.

Winter's very quiet.

[chirping]

In the springtime, it gets noisier.

Birds come back, the wind just rustling in the grass,

and the vegetation. That's different.

Everything is moving again.

The water is moving. It's a different pace of life.

[ducks quacking]

When things die,

they get consumed by something else that's living.

By birds, by another scavenger, even by bacteria.

It's a cycle, it's natural. And people are part of it too.

This is a meat pole

that I built the first fall I was out here

when I killed my first moose ten years ago.

[narrator] After a successful moose hunt,

Glenn must now hang the meat 20 feet off the ground.

Doing so will keep the supply safe from scavengers,

and ensure that it will last through the coming months.

[metal rattling]

[Glenn] I'm gonna have to go out on that pole

and attach ropes to hang the meat from.

Working alone, I have to be very careful 'cause there's nobody to help me.

If I fell down,

and broke my back, it'd be a slow, painful death

laying there on the ground, freezing to death.

This meat is much too heavy

for me to just pull it up even with a rope.

When I put my pulleys up there,

I'll be able to position them here

by pulling on this cord that I've rigged.

Put the cord through there.

Let's see what happens.

I have to get it up there good and high.

Now...

No bear is going to get a hold of that.

Whoa!

[groans]

[sighs] Start all over.

It's not good that the ribs fell,

'cause they could have gotten dirty if they landed on the ground.

But it was better that those ribs fell from up there than me,

it's about 20 feet high.

I got to start all over again.

One piece down, several more to go.

Once I get this meat up where it's safe from bears,

it's safe for the rest of the winter.

I'll be able to keep this meat, because it's going to get cold enough here

it's going to be frozen in a short time,

and the meat will last me until spring.

All right.

I'll be able to leave this meat up here,

until next spring.

I grew up in rural Vermont,

and at a later stage of my life

I did live in cities, quite a bit.

When I was in my early mid-20s, I travelled a lot.

I was working as a courier in those days,

and I travelled all over the world, and lived in a lot of different cities.

In fact, the first time I ever saw the Brooks Range, it was on a flight

between Tokyo and New York City,

a moment that will stick in my memory forever.

I was flying across the Brooks Range that day,

looking out the window of that 747

and just seeing those mountains stretching out as far as I could see.

I knew there were people living down there

'cause I'd seen some National Geographic documentary

about a couple of families that lived in the Brooks Range.

I just thought, "Yeah, I'm going to go there."

[narrator] The price of Glenn's independent lifestyle

is making a home in brutal conditions.

And with few resources,

and dangerous predators, living off the land

requires constant awareness.

[Glenn] Humans have kind of separated themselves from nature over time.

And they have all these rules and regulations.

Out here, it's a different set of rules. Nature is in charge out here.

And if you don't play by the rules out here, you could die.

And those are the rules I like to abide by.

I'm going to have a look around for caribou.

I walked out here on the lake just a little ways in front of camp,

where I have a good view of all the mountains around the valley.

I spend a lot of time out here with binoculars

just looking for caribou.

Caribou are one of the most important animals to me out here.

[narrator] In the sparse wilderness of the Brooks Range,

Glenn has limited opportunities for game hunting.

Securing meat often means contending with other skilled hunters in the area.

[Glenn] I see caribou, they're up on the ridge.

They're a long way off, they're out of my range.

But there are a few of them up there.

[wolves howling]

That's probably about two miles away.

Hear that?

-[howling at a distance] -It's wolves howling.

I'm going over there to see what's going on.

I'm headed over here because there's some wolves howling.

Ravens flying up out of this willow field.

About half a mile from my camp, something's going on,

I think the wolves killed something over here.

You know the wolves have a really good nose,

and there's times when the wolves do sometimes

lead me to a caribou.

Usually, the wolves, they don't want anything to do with me,

they know I'm dangerous.

The wolves always back down.

Until last year, one time there was this big pack of 20 wolves.

And I was approaching them, they had just killed a moose.

And those wolves actually ran at me,

and I ended up shooting three of them.

Wolves are right up this way.

Sometimes if I get there fast enough,

I can get some meat off of what they killed,

and they may have killed a caribou.

Right through the brush there the snow is all knocked off.

Wolves went right through here.

These are the tracks.

These are fresh wolf tracks, right through here.

Here it is.

Caribou, they killed right here.

The wolves killed this caribou.

Aw, man.

There's not much left.

I got here too late,

and they made a mess of it.

As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing on there for me to eat.

What I love about living out here the way I live,

is that most of the time out here it's just very calm and meditative,

it's a very silent, quiet environment.

It's very peaceful out here.

But that calm and peace is punctuated

by excitement like I had today.

A pack of wolves in my backyard killed a caribou.

Keeps life interesting.

Nature's completely indifferent.

I could mess up and meet an untimely death.

Within minutes the grey jays are going to be pecking my eyeballs out

and nobody's going to notice.

Nothing cares. They just come over and eat you.

I mean, if you die... [chuckles] It's just, "Oh, there's some food."

There's something over there.

There's an animal in the woods right there.

He's behind some spruce trees,

but he's coming to an opening right now.

Hey, bear.

He probably smells those fish I'm eating.

I have grizzly bears that come out

and sometimes cause problems at the camp.

A lot of the things that I own

have been chewed on by bears.

One time I came in here, there was a big hole

through the roof where a bear went through it.

There's been bears standing right on my bed.

Go away.

How to deal with a bear, is to talk to the bear.

Because then they know you are human.

And bears aren't interested in messing around with humans.

There's nothing for you over here.

When I first moved here,

it was very common for bears to walk right down the beach here.

After I was here for one or two summers,

they stopped walking by the front of the cabin very often.

They didn't want to come into the yard.

Hopefully, I won't see any more of him today.

A lot of people never have the chance to be alone for longer than a day.

A lot of people don't want to be.

When you're with other people,

your actions always have to be modified

in order to accommodate the other people.

That's reality. We're social animals.

You don't just go through your life, unless you're some arrogant son of a bitch

thinking only about yourself.

But it's also nice, sometimes,

just to feel that you are totally

responsible for your actions,

and you don't have to take anybody else into consideration.

There becomes no separation

between work and recreation.

What you do every day is enjoyable.

And that's something where

a lot of people have to take

a couple of weeks a year, or whatever to take a vacation.

And I never felt the need to take a vacation.

[narrator] Glenn has made a home in the Brooks Range,

one of the northernmost regions in Alaska.

To thrive in the difficult Arctic climate,

he must perform routine tasks each day,

despite the freezing temperatures and harsh weather.

[Glenn] Weather conditions

and snow conditions are always different out here.

You never know what to expect.

In the winter, it's 60 below zero, sometimes.

In the summer it can be 85 above.

It's a very extreme climate.

You can become very vulnerable, very fast.

This time of year, one of the most important things for me

is to keep my camp heated.

And to have enough wood to do that, I have to work at it almost continuously.

In really cold weather,

I could burn up this whole sled boat in just 24 hours.

So, I have to be cutting wood,

bringing it home, splitting it all the time.

[narrator] In winter, temperatures in the Brooks Range

can plunge to as low as negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Without a steady supply of firewood,

Glenn would be unable to survive more than a few days in isolation.

[Glenn] This area where I live, in the Chandalar, this is documented

to be the coldest area in North America.

There are only two places in the world where it gets colder than this.

One is in Antarctica,

where it can down colder than 100 below zero in the wintertime.

And the other is in a certain area of Siberia,

but the south slope of the Brooks Range,

and the Chandalar drainage in particular, where I live,

is the coldest area in North America for sure.

Wow, there is a tree right there.

That is a big tree with a lot of firewood in it.

Just in that little section,

that's a whole day's firewood in real cold weather.

This is a whole different ball game here.

One hazard of extreme cold weather

when you're working very hard physically

is getting frostbite.

Any exposed skin, like, on the face or the fingers,

when I have to use my fingers for dexterity

take my mittens off,

I can only do that for so long,

and then I will get frostbite.

That's one of my biggest concerns about the cold.

Okay, I'm going to put in a wedge now,

try to get the tree to tip over the way I want it to.

Okay.

It's going! It's going.

Yeah!

All right.

Right where I wanted it.

A lot of time when I'm operating out here,

I'm uncomfortably cold.

But there's a big difference being uncomfortably cold

and dangerously cold.

And it's important to recognise that difference.

What can happen is you get so cold

that you just can no longer perform the functions you have to perform

to keep yourself alive.

Yes!

Made it through.

Look at that. Think of the firewood.

I got all this wood.

A few days, just in one sled load.

I couldn't be happier. This is awesome.

Good thing, 'cause my hands are getting cold.

Out here, you are really puny

compared to... [chuckles] The forces that are around you.

Like the weather,

just something like the wind. It is so much stronger than you are.

If the wind comes up and you're up on a mountain,

and you learn that really fast.

I'm going to head up into the mountains this morning,

spend a few days walking around.

Up in these mountains, several miles from camp,

there are Dall sheep.

And in a couple of months from now,

I'll be hunting those sheep.

So, what I need to do at this time of year

in preparation to hunt for 'em,

is to go out and scout for them.

I'm going to head up this ridge, see what I can find up there.

[narrator] The changing seasons provide an opportunity

for Glenn to travel higher into the mountains,

and scout animal behaviour for coming hunts.

But he must be wary of any sudden weather change

on steep terrain.

[Glenn] Of course, I got to pay attention to the weather.

Just a few little light sprinkles falling now.

You can see over there.

Those mountains, it's raining over there.

Raining or snowing.

If that weather gets over here,

I could get pretty wet, pretty fast.

So, I got to pay attention to the weather.

But so far, it's been a beautiful day.

And I'm seeing more sheep sign the further up this mountain I get.

Things are looking good.

There. I see some sheep right there.

[whispering]

Little snow squall blowing through.

You gotta be prepared for any weather this time of year.

I never know what to expect up in these mountains.

It's really blowing up here.

I got to find a place to camp.

Set up my tent before this storm picks up

even worse than this. [sighs]

Storm can blow in fast like this, and it won't necessarily last too long,

but you never know.

This time of the year, the weather can just be about anything.

Changes are very dramatic here,

because it's a land of extremes.

That's what keeps life interesting, the changes.

It's good just to get in here out of the snow and out of the wind.

I'll just ride this snowstorm out in here,

and when the weather clears up, I'll go back out.

When I started living this lifestyle

I used much more technology than I do today.

I then ran a snowmobile for a number of years,

and I had a chainsaw to cut my firewood at that time.

But over the years,

I've moved toward a simpler, more primitive way of life.

And one aspect of that is that I cut all my wood with an axe.

When I'm out in the woods, it's the only tool I take.

Even though, of course, it's a lot more time-consuming

to get the amount of wood I need,

but I didn't mind that, actually.

Compared to having those earplugs stuck in and breathing exhaust fumes all day,

I'd just be out there cutting wood,

and hear the birds singing, and the wolves howling.

I just found it a lot more enjoyable.

[narrator] Glenn has chosen a primitive lifestyle in the Alaskan wilderness,

without the use of modern technology.

But his relying solely on hand tools

means extra manual labour,

and longer hours to survive the volatile seasons of the Arctic.

[Glenn] It takes skill to live out here, the way I do.

It's all about experience.

Gaining knowledge. Keeps life interesting.

Being bored, I've never had that problem.

I need to make some new kind of bridge.

Imagine this here is the creek.

I'm laying a log here and a log here,

and where a tree is growing here,

I'm going to try and fell it right across those two logs,

then I'll be able to walk across the creek

right there without getting my feet wet.

This would be a great spot for me to cross for years to come.

Yeah!

This is the basis for my bridge.

I just need to cross this creek and pull this log across.

Ow.

I got the base on this side,

I got the base on the other side.

I just have to cut that tree

and get it to fall straight across here, and I'll be all set.

This notch has to be perpendicular to the direction I want the tree to fall.

[grunting]

And it's a very narrow space that I'm trying to get it to fall into.

I'm going to cut just a little higher up in the base of my notch.

Just a couple of inches up higher.

And I got to be really careful not to drop it on myself, obviously.

I have to get, to get it back to about here,

where I can really wedge it,

and the problem is, I can't

seem to get this saw to go in any further now.

The wedge is too thin.

If I put this axe right here,

it's much broader.

I really have to get something pretty darn heavy to pound on that with.

I got to think about this.

All I have is this axe.

Nothing to pound it.

[sniffs]

[tree creaking]

Look out, it's going. It's going!

Yes! Right in the right place.

Look at that.

[exclaims in delight] Look at this.

Awesome!

All I got to do is limb it, and I got a bridge right here.

Look at that. [laughing]

Mother Nature helped me out again.

I just had to wait for a little breeze to come.

Beautiful. I love this bridge.

[sighs]

You could just sit on a bridge, relax,

you could fish from the bridge,

you could take a nap on a bridge.

You could always fall off of a bridge.

Whoa!

Now, I won't have to take my clothes off every time I go across the creek.

That's a beautiful bridge.

When I first came out here,

the way I lit fire was with a match.

I had no idea how to light fire with the materials right here at hand.

What would happen to me if something happened to my matches?

There were a lot of things that I had to learn in order to live out here.

Here in the Arctic, fire is essential.

If I don't have a fire, I couldn't live long out here.

And my preferred way to make it is with a friction fire set like this.

The nearest place I can get matches is 200 miles away from here.

I want to be able to light a fire with what I can get right here in this valley.

Here is the set that I build fire with.

The thing is, some components of the set wear out.

I need to get a new spindle, I need to get a new fireboard,

and with that I should be able to build a fire,

entirely with materials that I gather within a mile of my home.

Almost all the trees in this valley are white spruce.

But the type I'm looking for,

a Balsam Poplar,

is a very different tree.

I'm pretty familiar with the forest,

so anywhere there's a resource that I might need in the future

I lock that away when I see it,

and then I can get back to what I need when I want it.

Rather than cutting a standing tree,

I might be able to find a good piece of wood

on the ground from a tree that fell over.

I can see where some poplar trees here have died

and fallen over underneath the snow.

[thumping]

There, that's a piece of wood right there.

This is the piece I want.

This section in here.

'Cause inside this piece of wood, there's a fireboard and a spindle.

I just haven't found it yet.

There...

I just split off a piece

that I think will work pretty good.

So, I've got my spindle.

I'm going to try and build a fire and cook some dinner right here.

It's just so beautiful to see that first ember...

When I'm drilling away like that.

And it's all dark, and then you see this little orange glow,

but you don't want to stop too soon.

You just keep going, until you can't hold your breath any more

'cause all the smoke's rolling up.

You have to stop breathing at some point

and you just keep on truckin'.

There's just something special about these tools.

Just to think that you can just take a tree that's laying under the snow

and you can make a fire out of it.

Here's some moose meat I brought.

I'm just going to boil it right in this pot.

For thousands and thousands of years,

people have been building fires this way.

Most of the time people have been on Earth,

this is how they've been building fires, you know.

I live this way because I enjoy it.

I could be laying in a hammock on the beach in Thailand,

if I wanted to be.

But, no, I'm just having a lot of fun up here.

If you just walked out here, not knowing what you're doing,

and you didn't prepare yourself, it would be very dangerous.

The way I did this

involved a lot of preparation.

And some people do it without much preparation,

and if they can pull it off, I think that's great.

But there are risks. I mean,

I was actually preparing to move out here for seven years after I decided

that that's what I wanted to do.

I didn't have any hunting experience, really.

And during that first four months I ran out of store-bought food completely.

I had one little bag of flour at the end before I killed a moose.

That was all I had.

[narrator] The Brooks Range can be unforgiving

to even the most seasoned woodsmen.

Maintaining his lifestyle allows Glenn

to constantly develop new ways of living in the Arctic...

And accept the cost of his mistakes.

[Glenn] When I've been out here

and some misfortune has befallen me,

and I've been able to overcome it,

I find that satisfying.

You can handle a lot.

People are taught to be weak.

They're taught to be dependent.

But you can learn to be strong and independent.

Spring is a transition time

because the caribou leave, and things really change here.

[narrator] Tracking the seasons and the resources around him

is critical to Glenn's survival in the Brooks Range.

Even simple tasks,

such as getting water from the lake,

can quickly turn into crucial opportunities to source food.

[Glenn] I had to learn a lot in order to live out here.

Physically, it's been very hard.

[ice crackling]

This is really hungry country up here.

It's the Arctic, and life is spread really thin over the land up here.

Only way I can find enough food to eat

is to keep really close track of the territory I hunt,

watching all the time.

[Glenn shouting]

Sometimes I've been able to get caribou to come in pretty close

just by yelling like that.

I'll run right at 'em and yell

and try to bounce my voice off the shoreline.

[Glenn shouting]

[gunshot]

You sometimes get them to stop and turn towards you,

get 'em to come in 75 yards or so by doing that.

Unfortunately, this one didn't work out.

To live this lifestyle, you have to be strong,

you have to take control of the situation.

You have to go out there and make things happen.

Nobody else is gonna do it for you.

I'm gonna go looking for food in a different location.

[narrator] With no caribou in the area,

and moose-hunting season still far off,

Glenn relies on the lakes and streams

to provide fish for necessary meat and protein.

[Glenn] This time of year,

the pike like to go into the shallows and weedy areas

and they spawn in there.

So, I was thinking, maybe I can spear a fish.

There's still ice across here

and this white ice is just melting, so the water is just above freezing.

I won't be able to stay in this cold water too long.

But I got to stay in long enough to find some fish.

I've done a lot of fishing with a rod and lure,

but I'd like to be less dependent on that,

I'd like to be able to catch fish with a spear,

something I could possibly make right here on the spot.

[whispers] I see a fish right here.

Missed it.

I tell you, this is more fun than fishing with a fishing pole.

[chuckles]

Think I have to get closer to the fish

before I get too excited and let the spear fly.

Let me try and sneak up closer.

And the closer they are, the better.

[sighs] Got away.

[exhales]

There's freakin' ice on the bottom right there I slipped on.

That water's cold.

[sighs deeply]

My feet are getting really cold.

Wetness is a real danger.

If it's raining all day, or if I get wet in the water,

I got to make sure I get myself warmed up,

before I get too cold to function.

[sighs] Missed it.

This hasn't been very productive.

I'm getting too cold. I'm gonna head back.

Go back to camp.

We all got the same amount of time.

It's how we spend our time that's important.

How do you want to spend your time?

This is beautiful country up here.

It's not always easy living out here.

Especially, summer coming up, you know, the bugs when they get bad,

sometimes you think, "Gosh, is this really where I want to be?"

But overall, it's just so beautiful.

I don't think this is for everybody, but I think...

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that aren't doing what they love to do.

That's too bad to let life go by and not really do what you want to do.

If you really wanna do something, you have to get out and do it,

and this is what I want to do so this is what I did.

There's no point just dreaming about something.

If you got a dream, make it come true.

One thing I really enjoy about living out here

is all these jobs, you know,

because you get a very concrete reward out of it.

Water is good and hot.

I'm just adjusting the temperature.

I want it about as hot as I can tolerate, ideally.

Yeah, that's just right.

And then I like to leave the stove going, good and hot.

So that when I come back in, I can warm right up.

I tell you, I remember getting pretty

strung out one time, there was just too much going on,

and I didn't take a bath for a long time. [chuckles]

I mean, one winter I really didn't bathe hardly at all.

I was just... I was too busy.

It was like... I realised, "Wow, I haven't taken a bath

or washed my clothes in ages."

What a nice day for a bath.

[water splashing]

It's up to 28 below.

[sighs]

As long as the water's hot enough,

you can actually take plenty of time.

You don't really have to worry too much

about getting frostbite if there's no breeze.

It's calm.

I'll take baths down to 40 below, no problem,

maybe even colder.

Sometimes you feel the hair is getting a little frozen,

but as long as the skin doesn't get frozen, it's no problem.

Oh, that hot water feels so nice, though.

[exhales]

Okay.

Out of water.

Okay, I'm starting to get a little chilly.

So, I better slip these boots on.

I've only been out here a few minutes.

[sighs].

Look at that view out there, isn't that beautiful?

Life out here, it's purposeful, it's complete.

I've been right here for as long as 15 months within five miles of my camp.

And I never felt I was missing anything.

I didn't care what was going on over on the other side of the world.

I didn't care there was a new pope, or some celebrity died,

or we even had a new president

once, who I didn't know about for a couple of months.

It didn't matter.

All that really mattered was what was going on right around here.

Sometimes, it goes down to 60 below zero or colder

and there's times I think,

boy, it would be nice to live in a warmer place,

like New Mexico, but

you know, I couldn't get more than five or ten miles away from a road down there.

That pretty much cuts off that line of thought right there.

I've been wearing the same clothes for more than a week.

It's time to do some laundry.

You can do a lot more outside in the cold weather than people realise.

The sun's gone now, but I got the moon up all winter long.

People are becoming less and less free today.

The demands of modern society are requiring people

to follow the programme,

do what somebody else needs you to do for your paycheque.

I know that I'd lose my enthusiasm for life very quickly,

if somebody else says,

"Today, Glenn, we need you to go over there and do this."

But I'm free to just take care of myself out here

in a direct way.

Every morning, I'm very happy and excited to get up

and go to work on the things that nature demands I do.

If the weather changes,

and it demands that I go cut some more firewood,

because I'm running out fast because all of a sudden it's 50 below,

I'd never mind that at all.

I get excited about it.

[chuckles] I mean, I'm enjoying life, that's why I'm here, you know.

This is the place that I feel most comfortable at

and most at home at of any place in the world.

Right here.

Even if I left here for ten years, I think I'd still feel that way.

I feel more connected to this spot than to any other spot on this earth.