Original subtitles

[dark brooding music]

[door creaks shut]

57 below zero Fahrenheit.

Oof, it's cold.

[footsteps crunching in snow]

It's cold out here.

You can tell by the way, your feet sound, too,

on this hard path.

Snow has a different sound in this cold weather.

It's like styrofoam.

Everything is different in 50, 60 below.

If you blow air from your lungs,

you'll hear that air freeze in front of you.

Don't wanna breathe through heavily out here,

also, in this cold air,

because you could damage your lungs real easy.

I wanna throw this water up just to see the phenomenon.

-[water crystals crackling] -[haunting ethereal music]

[whistles] Ooh, you can hear that.

You could literally hear it go [imitates ice crackling].

Damn, that's crazy.

That's boiling water in negative 57 below.

It basically freezes before it hits the ground.

Right now, as the saying in Alaska goes,

"It's fucking cold out."

Been a lot of warm winters over the past 10 years,

but this is not one of them, extremely cold.

My snow machine isn't gonna start in this weather.

It's just too cold.

And if I'm even able to get my snow machine started,

now is not a good time to be out there.

I'm gonna stay close to the cabin and do some work.

My first job right now to fight against this cold weather

is I'm gonna bank the side of my house

so that I don't get such a draught coming in.

[shovel hitting snow]

I do have my degree in snow shovelling,

so I'm the right man for this job.

[soft dramatic music]

Snow is cold, but it also acts as an insulation

to keep the cold from coming into my cabin.

I'm gonna go all the way around and build snow up

so I have a nice insulated barrier to the outside world.

And this should make a huge difference.

Having to fix my fire constantly does get old,

but the worst part is waking up freezing cold

at night, and without good sleep, I'm a grumpy guy.

A lot of animals use snow out here, like moose.

If there's a winter out here in 50, 60 below

and there's no snow that winter, the moose have a hard time,

and a lot of animals, they basically curl up.

That's how they stay warm

is the installation of that winter snow.

There's not much to snow shovelling, but it takes energy.

[shovel scraping up snow]

Ooh, don't wanna breathe too hard out here. It's cold.

[haunting ethereal music]

Easy to freeze your lungs in this weather.

It's a lot tougher out here in Alaska, deep snow, cold air.

Just doing a couple hours of work outside feel

like I worked all day long.

So I just gotta watch how hard I push myself.

Don't try to breathe too much of this cold air.

Slow it down.

I wanna get the job done right away

and go back in the cabin, but realistically,

I just gotta work slower, breathe easy.

[shovel hitting snow]

Even though it seems like I'm working harder,

I'm thinking smarter also.

In the end, I'll be a lot warmer at night,

I'll sleep better, I'll eat better, and I'll feel better,

and it's vital to staying alive

in the woods out here is having a warm cabin.

[haunting ethereal music]

Is it brutally cold here? Absolutely.

It's a place like no other,

and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

[haunting ethereal music]

[footsteps crunching in snow]

Well, this is my little no-tech cabin,

and this is all the firewood I have left for 'em.

About half of this is what I'd use to cook a meal with,

let alone try to heat it for a few weeks to a few months.

So this is not acceptable.

This property is been dubbed the Chena cabin.

I have not been able to come down as often

as I like and maintain things.

I will work on it, but the first chore I need to do,

what's the first thing you do in any winter in Alaska?

Get your fucking heat supply in. Here, it's wood.

I don't think about wood often

because it's not something I deal with in Kavik.

[Narrator] Sue Aikens has returned to Chena

where she will spend the rest of winter improving the camp

for her life after Kavik.

With temperatures well below zero,

it's urgent that she gets situated quickly,

and her first vital task will be to source firewood

to combat the brutal freeze.

I'm between 20 and 30 below zero.

I've got my hat on, but I also put a little hand warmer

up in here, and it keeps your heat at the top of your head.

This dead is the one I wanna take out,

and I need him to go this way.

It's the way he wants to go anyways.

-[tense music] -[chainsaw rattles]

[chainsaw buzzing]

I haven't used a powered chainsaw in awhile.

I need to go slowly, think about it,

hopefully not make mistakes 'cause this area

will kill me just as frigging fast as Kavik will

if I don't have my wits about me.

[chainsaw buzzing]

All right, I'm gonna make my back cut.

Ooh! It's getting colder.

I'm having a hard time seeing the blade

in between the fog coming out of my breath.

-[chainsaw buzzing] -[dramatic music]

I can feel it pinching, so I stopped.

Well, this is a little bit of a problem right now.

As I'm trying to make that cut,

it's almost changing direction, which is not good.

So I'm gonna get behind here and gently push,

bearing in mind I need my exit strategy.

[tense dramatic music]

This standing dead, sometimes they just

don't go the way you want.

I don't wanna jerk it 'cause I

don't need that top breaking off.

Inside the wood, you can't tell how rotten is it,

is it not, and it starts going the way you think,

and then if bucks and twists and goes another direction.

Ugh.

[tree crackling]

There it goes.

-[grunts] -[tree crackling]

[tree thuds]

Phew!

It came down where I wanted it to, but it was pretty dodgy.

But every cut is a little more variant.

So it's time for me to get going and chop this,

stack it, and get on to the next one.

[dramatic music]

Winter's long, but the daylight's short.

So if you're gonna be effective out here,

you have to figure out ways

of killing two birds with one stone.

-[tense music] -[wind blowing]

[dogs barking in distance]

Got my gear packed up for a couple nights out in the bush.

Nice thing is I'm heading to a camp

that's got a wood stove and it's got some nice dry firewood

and a good spruce bed to sleep on in there.

I have a camp over by the Susitna River.

I've been using it for dog training.

I gotta go out and take care of this camp.

I'm gonna travel 40 miles.

Why not throw on my ice auger and all my ice fishing gear

and go out and see if I can't provide myself some food?

[slow dramatic music]

[Narrator] Jessie Holmes is in his first winter

as a resident of Brushkana.

To provide himself with food, Jessie will travel

to a remote training outpost he set up in the fall.

But in these freezing conditions,

he must be wary of the uncertainty of the trail.

[Jessie] It's a moose, a moose, a moose!

[snowmobile humming]

That was pretty cool.

Always exciting to see wildlife out here.

Holy crap.

[thumping dramatic music]

Wow.

I see a moose, and she's got a calf with her.

This is really great moose country.

It's just completely opposite country in Nenana.

This is a damn pretty place.

-[tense brooding music] -[snowmobile humming]

Oh wow, this thing is totally buried here.

Damn. It's somewhere under there.

My tent is just completely under the snow

and just a little bump under there.

It's snowed about two and a half feet

since I've been here last.

First things first before I go do any fishing,

get camp set up.

Oh man, it's gonna be a lot of work.

But the reward for the work is gonna be pretty amazing.

I'm gonna be in there in a nice, cosy wall tent

for the night,

[shovel hitting snow]

fire to dry out my clothes, get prepped for tomorrow.

Moving out here has just been adapting to a whole new scene.

It's tonnes of snow out here.

There's a lot of places out in the high country

already got six feet of snow.

I've been living in the interior where you're lucky

to get three over the whole year, so constantly learning.

[tense music]

That's what this tent being buried

under the snow symbolises.

This woulda stood just fine in Nenana,

but out here, [laughs] no go.

A little bit more work to do here.

Just gonna work into the dark.

[contemplative music]

And just enjoy being out here.

Not a lot of responsibility out here other

than getting up early and going out

and doing something I love to do,

exploring, trying to put a meal on the table.

All right, can't wait to get going fishing in the morning.

[dramatic music]

[Agnes] There's a lot of dangers out here.

That's what happens when you want

to live outdoors and live the subsistence life.

It's a lot of fun to be out here. Just gotta be careful.

[haunting ethereal music]

[Iriqtaq] Yeah, ready to go see Ana?

[child laughs]

You're such a goofball. Come on, let's go inside.

Let's go see Ana, show her the maps we have.

-Hi, Idi Bitty. -Hi, Mama.

[child talking indistinctly]

-The maps. -Oh wow, Idi.

These are what we were looking for?

Yup.

[Narrator] In Noorvik, Idi Hailstone is set to embark

on a rite a passage as a native Inupiaq.

Idi's heritage allows her to claim land in northwest Alaska

to build a life for herself, so long as it's approved

by the region's native association.

She and her mother Agnes will scout the region

for a suitable plot, but with freezing temperatures,

pinpointing known trails for the voyage is critical.

I know Melvin Channel best.

I know how to drive a boat up and down Melvin Channel.

I want somewhere where I could go every summer

and provide my own food, and I want a place

to be able to call my own and be able

to support my family the way my mother showed me how.

-Ready? -Yeah.

So we'll just take this road till the road go down,

and we'll hit the river, and we'll go to the main cabin.

-Sounds good. -Okay.

This is the first time I'm gonna go with my mom

and go say, "Hey, this is where I wanna build my camp."

-[snowmobile humming] -[ethereal music]

It's gonna be interesting riding.

It's been extremely cold.

The extreme cold temperatures caught me

while I was travelling, and it was already too late.

I already frostbit my face.

Frostbite is almost like a burn

from when you burn from like steam

or touch something real hot and it blisters up and stuff.

That's the same thing that frostbite does,

so just gotta be careful.

-[dramatic music] -[wind blowing]

[snowmobiles humming]

Hold on, Mom. I have to stop.

[Agnes] Oh gosh, I see!

-Look, you're freezing! -I know, I felt that.

[Agnes] You got a frostbite started right there.

-Ooh! -You're gonna look like me.

[Iriqtaq] Felt my freeze coming on, and I had to stop.

[Agnes] You gotta put something on it.

Frostbite, it's your face freezing.

Out here, the best thing for our frostbites

are our saliva or our [speaks in foreign language]

from our nose or mouth.

-Ooh, bubble up already. -Yeah, it's white.

-Does it sting? -Yup.

You need shelter. Get out of this weather.

-[wind blowing] -[dramatic music]

You have to really watch it, temperatures,

when you're out here because the weather changes real fast,

and sometimes, you just have to stop

and hunker down and wait out the cold.

We made it!

This is our lower camp cabin.

This is the halfway point between Noorvik and Kotzebue.

Your face is all red.

Ah, I could feel it right here.

A while ago when I noticed when I first looked at you,

it was white and swollen, and that's why I knew we had

to come to shelter for a little bit.

Frostbite, it's a stinging sensation,

but by the time we were able to feel it

while you're out there, it's already too late.

Your skin is damaged and frozen.

You're not really able to do anything

about your frostbites except for thaw 'em out

and dry 'em up as best you can without peeling your skin.

Oh God, I'm always so happy this cabin is here.

It's always in the perfect spot.

Yeah.

I grew up here fishing, playing all around this area.

The little lake's close by. This is old.

It's time for us to start new for your kids's place.

Anytime that I get a one on one

with my mom is always great.

We're able to talk more without being interrupted,

and we have more deeper conversations,

and it just feels great to be out there with my mom.

Your cheeks look a lot better.

-Still slightly red. -Yeah, I feel better.

I'm good if you wanna keep going and go mark.

-Yeah, I feel a lot warmer. -Yeah, me too.

I'm glad we came here to warm up and stop for a little bit.

All we gotta do is just go find that property now

and carry on.

[haunting ethereal music]

Everything's out here trying to get a mil, me included.

[dramatic music]

[tense music]

[tent rustling]

Beautiful morning.

Clouds cleared out, can see the mountain now.

Perfect morning to get out there on the lake

and go try my hand at some ice fishing out here.

Had a nice night's sleep, super peaceful,

so I'm gonna head to the Lake and do some fishing.

[tense dramatic music]

[Narrator] In need of food for his survival,

Jessie is heading to a Lake near his training camp

to fish under the ice.

But he's 40 miles from his cabin,

and in the dead of winter, caution is vital.

[snowmobile humming]

I see signs of danger.

[tense music]

Okay, I got some water here. It looks like it's overflow.

Gonna have to check it out,

see if there's good ice underneath it.

[ice pick hacking at ice]

Okay, it's got good ice underneath it.

Just gonna have to keep checking as I go,

make sure nothing changes.

Always better safe than sorry

and to take your time chucking your way out.

I'm gonna need at least seven, eight inches of solid ice

if I'm gonna get out on this lake.

I'm not gonna do anything that's gonna risk my machine,

so I had to take my time, go every 20 feet,

check the ice depth,

make sure I'm not running into a variance.

Okay, I've gotten to where I'm getting out of the overflow.

I got about six, seven inches of ice.

That should be good enough to support the machine.

It's some really hard ice.

I'm gonna pull the machine up here

and make the straight shot to that point

because I think that's where the best fishing's gonna be.

I'm gonna cut over towards this point.

That should give me some good shallow water.

Lake trout like to hunt in the little shallows.

Gonna get my auger out, start drilling some holes,

start setting some lines, and...

[auger rumbling]

Woo!

[auger rumbling through ice]

Woo hoo! Hit water.

It looks like I might be in the ice fishing business.

[bright contemplative music]

That looks like about eight feet of water to me right there.

I think this is gonna be a good spot.

Hopefully, I can come outta there with some fish.

I don't know about the fish in this region,

so it's important for me to get out and start learning.

If I wanna eat good out here, I have to go out

and learn the ways of this land.

I'm not used to fishing on lakes,

and I'm not used to fishing under the ice in lakes for sure.

Been a long time since I've thrown a rod and reel

in the lake before I even came to Alaska, probably.

[auger buzzing]

So far, I've been able to be pretty successful

at travelling this country.

Keep trying to go out and get better

at providing meals for myself out here

'cause that's what I really take a true pleasure in

is the subsistence lifestyle, being able to go

down the trail for myself and go get some birds,

go get some caribou, go get some fish.

What more could a man ask for?

All right, I got all my set lines out.

I'm gonna get out my jig and started jigging for some fish

and keep an eye on all of these while I do it,

and hopefully these fish are hungry.

[bright ethereal music]

Story of my life out here, wood and water.

It's a everyday struggle.

You gotta stay warm, and you got to stay hydrated.

[haunting ethereal music]

I haven't seen this cold out here in at least 10 years.

When it's 57 below, my stove is burning

like four times more wood than a normal day.

I really need to stack up more firewood

because I don't know how long this cold spell's gonna last.

There's wood right near my cabin

that I leave for times like this.

Hard times firewood, I call it.

When it comes to firewood,

standing dry spruce is where it's at.

If it's got any green limbs on it, any living branches,

that means there's moisture inside of that wood.

I wouldn't be able to burn it.

Ooh! This is on deep snow. [breathing heavily]

Having this firewood right near my camp

is really important in times like this.

I can't start my snow machine.

It's a danger for me to travel long distances from my cabin.

[axe hacking tree]

If I'm cutting this tree down and it starts

to fall a different direction, I wanna be able

to get out of the way.

So try to anything that might hinder my movement

under this tree when I'm cutting it down,

basically, the canopy branches.

[tree rustling]

Ooh, snow.

-[tense dramatic music] -[tree branches cracking]

I'm fighting with a birch tree.

Heating up quick out here.

It don't feel so cold when you're struggling out here.

The most important thing out here is managing my body heat.

Probably what I'm wearing right now is like 10 times more

than the average person in the lower 48 just to stay warm.

Holy.

I gotta know when to shed some clothes so I don't sweat

and also when to put clothes back on

so I don't get too cold.

So it's all about temperature management out here.

This is a big ass tree.

To me, it looks like this tree

is gonna fall against the hill.

I'd like to drop it on the lake where it's easier to access,

but I don't wanna saw this street down

and have a fall on me, either.

So I pretty much gotta go with the way it's leaning.

[chainsaw buzzing]

I have to work a lot slower so I don't breathe harder

and just be careful no matter what I do out here

because if I get hurt in these temperatures,

that's a death sentence.

-[chainsaw buzzing] -[dramatic music]

Whoa, shit!

-[tree cracks] -[chainsaw buzzing]

Success. Okay, now I gotta limb the thing.

And it's a little hung up, but I'm gonna use my axe

and just knock as much limbs off if I can

and cut it down from the little canopy it's hanging on.

-[tense music] -[axe hacking limbs]

[tree limbs cracking]

When it's 57 below, you gotta move a little different.

[exhales sharply] I don't wanna fatigue myself

by getting too much work in in this cold air,

so try to move a little slower,

and just walking alone out here is hard work

in this deep snow trying to get this firewood.

Okay, it's gonna fall once I hit this.

[limbs crackling]

There we go. [exhales sharply]

It might be easy in the city

where you turn on the thermostat

and then you crank it up or down for warm or cold.

Out here, it's not like that.

This is the hard part of living out here is hard labour.

It's good, though.

I'm sure as hell not bored in my cabin, that's for sure.

[exhales sharply] I'm fucking sweating.

Now I gotta buck it up with the chainsaw.

I'm gonna start at the top.

[tense dramatic music]

Stairway to heaven right here. [breathing heavily]

-[chainsaw buzzing] -[dramatic music]

It's a lot of work dealing with a big tree like this,

but once it's said and done, this is like

at least a whole week's worth of warmth in my cabin.

So one day of work, seven days of comfort.

I guess that math adds up for me out here.

There's no way around this

it's either get firewood and stay warm or lay down and die,

so today, I'm out here getting firewood.

This hill is taking half my motherfucking energy.

[breathes heavily]

Only a fool would think a woodpile

is a good enough woodpile.

You always gotta have more wood out here,

and you got to be ahead of the game on firewood.

You can't wait till last minute and go get firewood,

especially if I'm out here and I get hurt

and I don't have a sufficient supply of firewood.

I'm gonna freeze to death out here.

So if you're not ready and you get hurt in your cabin

and you only have a week's supply of firewood,

you only got a week to live.

People have died out in this country just

by not being ready.

[grunts loudly] There we go. [breathes heavily]

I'll start carrying 'em back to the cabin.

Then I can saw 'em up, split 'em up, stack 'em up,

and I'm set for firewood for at least a week.

Beautiful firewood.

[dramatic music]

Take a lot of pride in most people

couldn't survive 10 minutes out here.

I spend all day and all night out here.

[tense ethereal music]

it's just a slight motion I wanna do.

I don't wanna do anything too unnatural.

Not only is this awesome to be out here fishing,

it's a really good way to test my survival gear

'cause I'm just not moving around a lot.

Seeing that I can stay warm in this wind out here

at zero degrees, which means the wind chill's

probably making it about 20 below,

it's a good way to test your clothing.

Most people who go ice fishing,

they go sit in a little hut and drink beer, watch TV.

This is the real hardcore side of ice fishing right here.

[up-tempo chiming contemplative music]

It's getting late out.

It's time to give these guys a check here.

Tried jigging, didn't catch anything, so...

I might have something.

[stick cracking ice]

Nothing on that one.

Four more holes to check, so it's a game of probability

whenever you're fishing like this.

You put out five lines, and you hope for the best.

A lot of people say they like fishing,

but I'm not gonna lie.

I like catching more than anything.

Okay, check the rest of these.

[tense music]

Nothing on that one.

This is a different style of fishing for me, period.

I'm used to using the fish wheel

and catching lots of fish all at once.

Out here, there's no mass amount of fish to be caught,

so it just makes the value of that fresh fish even more.

Maybe?

Maybe?

Oh, there is something on this one. Holy shit.

Oh, it's big, too.

Break this ice out. I hope I don't lose it.

Oh yeah. Oh, it's a burbot.

It's a burbot, yes!

Oh, that's a trout! No, that's a lake trout!

Woo hoo! I've never caught a lake trout before.

This is so cool. Wow, that's a nice fish right there.

Oh man.

That's gonna be some delicious eating right there.

The beauty.

It's just pretty cool to see that I can come out here

and put the work in and come away with man,

that's a huge meal.

I can't eat that all in one sitting.

It's getting late here.

I could head home, but the fish are biting.

I can't leave these holes unattended.

But if I camp out here, right here on the ice,

I can keep these guys going.

So I'm gonna rebait this one, and I'm gonna keep trying.

Got my sleeping pad here.

That's really important if you're

gonna sleep somewhere like this.

You gotta have something between you and the ground.

Pretty windy out, so trying to think

of a way to break the wind here.

Make myself a nice windbreak.

That'll make it a lot warmer to sleep here.

Yeah, that should work.

One thing when you're camping out in the cold,

you don't wanna take your time getting

into your sleeping bag,

and you don't wanna take your time getting out of it

and into your clothes in the morning and get moving quick.

For me, this is just another night practising being

on the trail with my dogs.

There might not be no dogs, but I'm putting myself

to the test always.

It's around zero.

I'm sure to most people, this seems insane

to come out here and just get in your sleeping bag

and go to sleep, but to me, that's just the norm.

[tense ethereal music]

All right, tomorrow's another day,

and I can hardly wait for it.

[tense music]

[Iriqtaq] We live in the Arctic,

but that ain't gonna stop us from going out.

The weather never holds us back from anything.

We just work around it.

-[dramatic music] -[snowmobiles humming]

[Narrator] After sheltering from the bitter cold,

Idi and her mother Agnes are continuing their search

for land that Idi can claim as her own.

A shift in weather has made for easier travel,

and they must seize the warming conditions

and remaining daylight if they are to find an area

that will be bountiful for Idi's future.

As we left town, it was a little cloudy

and snowing and a grey foggy feeling.

And as worked our way down to the coast,

the sun started to pop out a little bit more.

[snowmobiles humming]

-Wow! -Wolf prints!

-Fresh ones. -Yup. Wow.

[Agnes] They're chasing a caribou.

-See how they're far apart? -Yeah.

[Agnes] The farther they're spread out, they're running.

When they're closer, they're just walking.

You could see in the tracks that the wolves

were pestering the caribou,

and you could see 'em turn the whole group

around a few times.

And to just see all that gives me a good idea

about what the resources are around those lands.

All kinds of tracks!

Rabbits and marten.

Whoa, it just gets beautiful the more we walk up here.

The main thing I'm looking for

in this property is just high ground to stay

out of the water during high floods and stuff

because the floods come about twice a year.

Those trees are still alive,

so it doesn't flood too much over here.

Those trees make me really comfortable

because I could go right over there

and go get myself a load of wood.

[Agnes] Yeah.

[Iriqtaq] Just being that close to the river,

to set the net, it's a pretty good spot.

[Agnes] I think this is a great spot, Idi.

I love the animal trails that are all over the place.

Oh, this is just a good spot all around.

I'm pulling out my ribbon, and I'm setting it right here.

[soft dramatic poignant music]

Seeing the tracks and being able to walk

and find a piece of property with my mom is really great.

And all my life, every time I go to that camp,

I'll always be grateful for my mom

because she's showing me a great area that is plentiful.

[Agnes] This is a special moment.

[Iriqtaq] Feels pretty special. I feel great about this.

It's really close to where my mother's camp is

and where I grew up,

and it's a beautiful, wonderful experience.

She chose a beautiful spot.

I think you selected a good spot, Idi. I'm proud of you.

[tense ethereal music]

[Sue] Far as I know, we get one trip on this ball.

When you're done, you're done. Make it good.

[tense music]

Here it goes.

Boom!

[chainsaw buzzing]

[Narrator] With current temperatures dangerously cold

in Chena, Sue must stock up on firewood

to provide heat for her cabin.

Not only is it crucial that her current stores

are plentiful but also that she has a supply

for the year to come.

The sun is now gone and it's

gonna start getting markedly colder fast.

My next tree is this live one here.

I'm trying to thin the ones that are closest

to the road that are gonna become issues.

The goal is to drop this tree right

where I've dropped this other one,

but we'll just have to see.

I wanna clear some of these branches

so I don't get caught by 'em.

I'm picking out some live trees, too,

because it's not just about the dry timber for this year.

It's about letting stuff build for a pile for next year.

That means some live cuts that need to leave the property.

They're too close to the road. You get a wet spring.

It's gonna slide right over and block everything.

I don't want anything that's gonna be in the way.

If it goes the wrong way,

I've got to get the hell out of Dodge.

-[chainsaw buzzing] -[dramatic music]

And living in Kavik as many years as I have,

there are no trees.

They don't cut down trees there.

So chainsaw, trees, not my favourite comfort zone.

Mistakes taking down trees,

a tree gets stuck doing something or it pops the wrong way

and we call those things widow makers, why?

Because men used to be the lumberjacks,

and mistakes like that, you don't have a wife,

you have a widow.

Now my back cut.

[chainsaw buzzing]

Ooh. Oh, shit!

[tree crackles and thuds]

I'm not sure.

I'm gonna have to go over and look

to see exactly how I messed that one up.

That could've been a real life mistake.

Feeling a little shaky about it.

Looking at it, I actually dished it.

I didn't stay exactly in the same groove,

and this is exactly what I didn't want it to do

is to get hung up in the other trees

because it makes it dangerous to start cutting.

But tree down. Go Sue.

What I wanna do now is start the chainsaw back up

once I'm down with my little willies,

and I need to get this thing limbed

and then assess how I'm gonna get it cut up.

[tense dramatic music]

I misjudged putting the back cut in a little bit.

Turns out to be a big mistake of mine.

That could've been a widow maker.

That could've been a life-threatening mistake.

I'm learning from it,

but learning from almost losing your life

is not the way that I wanna learn, but it's a quick study.

It's not my happy place cutting above me,

but if I cut it up, hopefully it'll just boom!

And this'll drop.

[chainsaw buzzing]

There we go. I'm done falling trees now.

I wanna cut up these rounds

and start getting the wood into the cabin area.

I've got at least 10, 12 loads, probably more.

It's been an old-fashioned winter,

lots of 40, 50, 60 below zero temps.

You burn through the wood.

Get your supply close to where you're gonna use it

so you're not caught with your panties down.

Stock pile it now.

I don't depend on anybody else at this point.

I don't wanna have to start

because I was too slow to get it done.

[tense dramatic music]

[chainsaw buzzing]

I still enjoy physical labour. I'm in my late 50s.

You go to the doctor's and you go,

"Oh, I think I have a problem.

The leg doesn't work all the time.

The arm doesn't wanna work."

Automatically, they ask,

"What accident is this referring to?"

And I'm like, "Bitch, a life well lived."

90 miles an hour, flames in my hair,

you gon' bound to bounce into shit once in a while.

Come on, baby. Cowabunga!

That's a nice little pile of wood just

from those few pieces,

but I've got a lot more to get through.

But I still got it, and Granny's still got it.

I got a pile going.

I've got more to learn, a lot more work to do,

and hopefully a lot more years to do it in.

[axe thuds into wood]

[tense music]

One of the keys to staying safe is good rest, I believe.

If you don't sleep good, you don't eat good,

you don't shit good, you don't feel good.

[tense ethereal music]

I woke up this morning.

It's 57 below zero, but I have work to do.

I can't lay down and just wait for this weather to go by.

Now I need to get up on the roof

and take some of the snow off the roof.

There's about three foot of snow in my cabin.

That's a lot of weight.

I could hear logs popping,

and things start to shift under that weight.

We're gonna take some off, leave some for insulation,

but I wanna get a lot of this weight down off the roof.

Probably shortens the lifespan

of your cabin by having all this weight.

Having this much snow on my roof is not good

because that's basically like sitting a truck

on your roof all winter.

Eventually, it's gonna do damage.

-[snow crunching] -[breathes heavily]

Shovelling snow, it's not very gratifying.

It's a lot of work.

I guess you feel a little better when a job is done,

but it's not like you get brag about it.

Can't tell your buddies how much snow you shovel.

You can't get a good job for shovelling snow.

It's just a lot of work.

-[snow crunching] -[breathing heavily]

Whoa. Starting to get slippery here.

Woo! It's slippery on this part.

Gotta be careful where I step.

[tense music]

-[tense chiming music] -[grunts]

Lot of work shovelling the roof, but a step I have to take

to make sure I sleep good at night.

Being tired out here is not only uncomfortable.

It's dangerous.

If I let myself get too tired, too run down,

it's easy to make mistakes out here.

You gotta be comfortable when you're in the woods.

So this seemed like just shovelling snow,

but it's more than that.

Job done.

It was 57 below out here,

but I got a lot of work done today.

Got my cabin banked, shovelled off.

I got a firewood right nearby. The stove is burning hot.

It's all gonna pay off, this work I did,

because now I'm gonna be more secure

as far as staying warm, sleeping good,

and anything else needs to be done around here,

it makes the job so much easier having a comfortable cabin.

[tense ethereal music]

I'm a hunter. I'm a predator.

I'm one of the top predators out here,

so I'm always keeping my eyes open for opportunity.

[tense ethereal music]

-[grunts] -[sleeping bag rustling]

It's a beautiful morning, but it's cold out here for sure.

There's this kind of fine line

between discomfort and danger,

and I'm definitely on the discomfort side,

not the danger side.

Oh, hopefully I caught something on these sets.

Late last night whenever I caught my first fish.

Decided to camp out and leave the sets to soak overnight,

see if I might get lucky and get some more fish.

Once I pull these out, if there's nothing on 'em,

I'm gonna be moving on.

[shovel hitting snow]

Come on.

Something got my bait right there. Well, that was a miss.

There's a lot of perfecting

to the technique to be done here.

This is just my first trip.

[tense music]

[shovel hitting snow]

I don't feel like I got a fish on that one.

No, another one of my bait's gone. Geez, dang.

That's a bummer. That's a real big bummer there.

I didn't catch anything this morning,

but I'm not disappointed that I spent a night out here.

I got a real good night's rest,

and just a good way to test my ability

to sleep out in windy, cold conditions.

Maybe don't always get what you want,

but you're always gonna come away with an experience

every time you come out to places like this.

Oh man, there's a caribou.

I'm just getting ready to leave,

and I just seen a caribou come out on the lake.

That's the first caribou I've seen in awhile.

Wow, that's amazing.

There's just not much caribou in this country right now.

Everything that happens out here has a story.

You're constantly reading the tracks.

You're reading the signs.

You're reading what the animals are doing.

You're reading the weather.

Seeing this caribou, what kind of sign

is that animal trying to show me?

There's something to everything you see out here,

so you have to have a mind who thinks like that.

[soft ethereal music]

Okay, it's been an awesome trip out here to the lake.

Before I leave, I'm gonna go pay a tribute to a place

that this dream all started from, the tree of life.

Can see it right over there in that thick timber.

Go see if I can't find that spot I camped four years ago.

-[snowmobile humming] -[dramatic music]

That's it. That's the tree of life right there.

Really underneath this tree with my dogs four winters ago,

this dream started.

I came out here, and I was looking for a place

to camp whenever it was 40 below.

I had five of my best dogs with me,

just coming across this lake breaking trail.

I saw this big tree and I said,

"Man, I'm heading right for this tree."

And I coined this tree the tree of life

because when it's 40 below and you're out there,

you need a good camp.

It's all came together, and coming back here just floods me

with memories and just those dogs.

Those dogs are the foundation

of the amazing dog team that I have

and just time I spent out here surviving

in the deep cold with my dogs.

Man, I just wanted to live out in this country

and be a part of this country.

This amazing view, mountains everywhere.

It's just absolutely incredible. This'll never get old.

[poignant instrumental music]