Original subtitles

NARRATOR: As winter fades across the Arctic,

Mother Nature comes in for the kill.

With predators waking and unpredictable weather, the battle begins.

ANDY: Every day counts out here in the summertime.

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero.

-CHIP: Aim at their heads. -(GUNSHOT)

NARRATOR: It's a struggle against rising waters

as the thaw threatens Sue's livelihood.

SUE: I can't have a white landscape

turning to green without some more water coming in.

NARRATOR: Glenn is forced to carve out a new path.

GLENN: Look out! It's going. It's going!

NARRATOR: Andy and Kate create a shelter from the storm.

ANDY: Do or die, babe.

NARRATOR: And the Hailstones brave new ground

-for a summer harvest. -(GUNSHOT)

CHIP: Caribou! AGNES: There!

-Lots of caribou. -Caribou, caribou.

-Ooh, ooh, ooh. Stay still! -Stay still.

CHIP: Gunners up front. You got to stay still.

AGNES: Stay still.

CHIP: We have a bunch of caribou in front of us.

This is why we like this place.

It brings the animals to this point.

This is a natural trap.

Everything from caribou, to fish, to seals, to birds.

Let your mum up. You got the hot brass.

You got to go to the back. Carol. Carol.

Okay, you need to get ready. Hit them now!

AGNES: Ting, start shooting!

(GUNSHOTS)

CHIP: Again. Again!

CHIP: Get out of my way. AGNES: It's deep, Chip.

I got a knife.

It's not that deep.

Handful of ammo. I'm going.

NARRATOR: Chip and Agnes Hailstone are travelling the Kiwalik River

85 miles from their native village of Noorvik.

They will spend a summer teaching their five daughters

to hunt, gather and live off the land.

I'm looking for a blood trail or for caribou tracks.

It's gonna take us a little manoeuvring to get to them.

(SIGHS)

A shot from a moving boat, any moving boat, is not very easy.

We haven't even set up our camp yet. We just saw camp meat.

We took the opportunity, didn't work out so good. Sometimes that happens.

That's hunting.

We're confident in ourselves that it was a clean miss,

and we're on our way to camp now.

Finish this up, go get ourselves taken care of, and go make a new home.

We'll be here for a few months.

Frustrating when an animal get away.

That just takes time to go chase after it.

SUE: I think hand in hand with living here, you have to be brutally honest with yourself

about what your strengths and weaknesses are.

My name is Susan Aikens, and I'm the owner of the Kavik River Camp.

I live here year round. I'm the sole resident out here.

It's not a town. It's not a city.

It's just me and a GPS coordinate on the North Slope of Alaska.

Kavik River Camp is... It's sort of like a unique and twisted bed and breakfast.

I am the only refuelling station

but one for the entire eastern half of the North Slope.

So, it's really the only place of its kind

for these planes to land, and get fuel, or a room, or help.

You know, as owner of the camp now, I'm not anybody's employee.

I own it.

If the generator breaks down,

um, I get flooded, anything happens, I go to myself to fix it.

I don't call an owner and say, "Boo-hoo, send the stuff up."

I have to wake myself up and get it done.

If things broke down and I lost everything, I'd just have to lose it all.

There's no guarantees on any level here. It's all challenge.

Winter is on the way out. Spring is on the way in.

The snow and the ice goes to liquid.

The river is here, camp is here, the hills are here.

It's... You know, shit runs downhill, man.

And I, you know... I'm the cesspool in the middle of it.

I'm up in the high Arctic.

I shouldn't have to be telling my clients,

"Don't forget the snorkel and fins when you want to go use the outhouse."

The more of this that stands around camp,

it cannot drain into the ground, it's frozen down there.

So, this has to go bye-bye.

I need to help it live where it wants to live.

NARRATOR: Sue relies on income from the summer months to keep her business alive.

Flooding in camp could wash away her profits before the season even begins.

It's up to the bottoms of the palettes on the generator.

This is not what you want to see by your electricity or your motors.

But I've got things that are on the floor that are now soaking in water.

That's the highest I've ever seen it get in here. I gotta get it gone.

Electricity and water? A Sue-B-cue is not what I wanna be.

So, yeah. First things first, I gotta get a pump and start pumping.

You know, this time of year here at Kavik,

um, you're really at the flux of winter going into spring.

I'm trying to run a business, but the business has to turn a profit.

It doesn't matter how cool the place is.

I don't have a profitable business, then I can't stay.

You know, there's just things I've gotta do.

My world opens up, and I have two and a half, three months

to do whatever construction I'm gonna do,

improvements, people in and out,

make the money, pay the money that I need to pay to be here.

You know, and then winter comes in again.

I got pumps working, and it's gonna be continual.

This is now daily until it's gone.

I need to keep it going towards the river and not towards camp.

Next on the list, gotta get in the bobcat so I can attack the snow.

I need to get all the snow off of this.

It's got a lot of ice underneath it.

I need to get it down as far as I can,

and let the sun start melting it so that

the water can go from camp to the river where it wants to live.

It'll take the path of least resistance if it can find it.

And as you can see, yup, it's finding it.

This is the beginning.

I mean, you can take a look around you, and I am thawing.

I am not thawed.

ANDY: This is the land of extremes.

Everything out here is extreme. We go from light to dark.

We go from cold to warm, very, very quickly.

It's constantly changing here, and I think that's why I love living out here.

Let's go check out the river, Jack.

Let's go see what break-up's doing.

My name is Andy Bassich. I'm at Calico Bluff along the Yukon River.

I live here with my partner, Kate.

For us living out here, break-up is the first of the year.

Our life revolves completely around the Yukon River,

and what it throws at us or what it provides for us.

KATE: We really appreciate what we have down here,

and we know that it can go anytime. Any year.

NARRATOR: Every spring, the Yukon River breaks up,

threatening the safety and stability of the area.

In 2009, Andy and Kate's property was flooded,

and they nearly lost everything, including their lives.

KATE: Every April, every May, it's a bit of a worry that...

Is this gonna be our last year here?

ANDY: This is probably one of the lowest water break-ups we've seen,

and I like this one a lot better. (LAUGHS)

Well, this... This is like a merry-go-round compared to a Ferris wheel last year.

ANDY: The potential danger of flooding is past,

and I'm feeling like it's time to get going on my projects.

Last year, I built what I called the doomsday raft

because I was expecting to be flooded.

And it was basically just a set of logs with barrels underneath of it,

and a platform that I put a lot of my tools, and snow machines,

and important equipment on so that it wouldn't get damaged if we did flood.

The idea is to turn it into a workable space,

and that means putting a roof on it.

The system that I want to use for building this roof

is called post and beam timber framing.

All right, 40 and a half inches.

Most important thing on any building with your foundation

is getting it levelled up to begin with.

36 and 7/16ths.

So, we're within an eighth of an inch all the way around.

I'd call it good.

Well, that went easy enough.

ANDY: Bottom line is, we've got a lot of work ahead of us.

It's gonna be very challenging, but that's why we live out here.

We like that.

GLENN: I'm not out here for the isolation, but it goes with the territory.

I'm here for nature and wilderness,

and where there's much wilderness left, there aren't a whole lot of people.

GLENN: My name is Glenn Villeneuve.

I have a camp in the Brooks Range where I live a subsistence lifestyle

hunting and gathering, living close to the land.

I live simple, and I love nature. I love the wilderness.

This is the last place in the world where there's this kind of wilderness.

Where I could come and live this way.

There's something over there.

There's an animal in the woods right there.

He's behind some spruce trees, but he's gonna come into an opening right now.

Hey, bear! He probably smells this fish I'm eating.

Go away.

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

Because then they know you're a human,

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

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.

The bear went that way. I'm going over this way to build a bridge today.

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

NARRATOR: Living 60 miles from the nearest road,

finding food is a constant challenge for Glenn.

Having access to his hunting grounds is key to his survival.

GLENN: Just about a quarter mile from here there's a creek that I cross often,

and I've been crossing on a tree

that had naturally fallen across the creek years ago.

But it washed out recently,

so I can't get across there any more without getting my feet wet.

It'd be nice to make some type of a bridge

so I can go across the creek without getting wet.

I need to make some new kind of bridge.

Imagine this here is the creek.

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

and where a tree is growing here,

I'm gonna 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.

Now I just have to go through there.

The creek's not very wide here, but it's deep.

I'm taking my boots off, and I'm taking my pants off

so I can cross without getting them all wet.

And I'd have to go through this every time

when I'm moose hunting every day.

Sometimes I walk across here twice a day.

So, this is just gonna make life so much faster

and more efficient when I get to this creek in the future.

The water is ice cold.

Oh!

That's cold water.

Out here you don't have to try to stay in shape.

There are jobs that have to be done that take physical work.

The way I live without machinery, there's no choice.

Over on the other side of the creek,

it's a good place to hunt moose.

And it'd be really nice if I could just go across a log over there

rather than go through the water.

The water out here is cold. This isn't the tropics. This is the Arctic.

Even in the summer when it gets really warm,

the water doesn't ever get warm. It's still cold.

And if you get wet, and you get cold, you can get hypothermic.

In the wintertime I've never felt in danger of hypothermia,

but in the summer I have.

If I get wet, and then I get cold,

and I can't build a fire, I got big problems.

So, I like to stay dry when I can.

CHIP: I'm the hunter. My wife is a hunter. My kids are hunters.

I have enough respect for this land to be aware that it can eat me too.

And it probably will someday.

AGNES: Hold on, girls! CHIP: Hold on. I'm gonna ramp it.

AGNES: Whoo! Yeah. Yep.

We've got to unload the boat.

We'll take our things to high ground.

We'll make sure the boat is safe where it is.

I'm gonna tie it off, and then we're gonna go put up our stuff. Okay?

We got it here dry, let's keep it dry.

NARRATOR: For the Hailstones,

setting up camp along the Kiwalik River is a summer tradition

and a way to build up their supply of food to survive the months ahead.

Everything over here, girls.

AGNES: Our children go to school,

but there's also time where we teach them subsistence lifestyle.

CHIP: The goal for summer here is to spend time with my kids

and my family, teaching them.

It's absolutely necessary that we teach our kids these survival skills

and these living skills.

You're making them self-sufficient.

You know, you give them exercise, you give them adventure.

AGNES: They need to learn to survive

and, you know, to pass down to their kids

and try to keep it in our Inupiat traditional manner.

It's something that you have to be involved in.

I'm just undoing the tent, and the first thing to do is put up some shelter

so we can get out of this cold, cold, cold wind.

Make everybody happy with a little bit of fire and heat.

The kids grew up here for quite some time.

The older kids grew up here. This is actually Ting's first home.

It's a good feeling to be able to come out here, live out here,

and happy to have my sisters hunting with me.

So that they could know and learn it too.

CHIP: You know, your best friends are the ones that you work with.

And I like to work with my kids and show them what I'm doing.

And we like to go to sleep tired at the end of each day,

and have something to look forward to and something to show for our efforts.

CHIP: We got a fire going.

Gonna warm this place up. We're gonna dry everybody out.

For the first night tonight we're all gonna crowd into the tent here,

into the tepee. And we're gonna crash out.

At the end of the day, when you're tired and you're hungry,

basically most people wanna get dry, get warm, and go to bed.

And, uh, that's why we do shelter first.

ANDY: Every day is a workday here.

Can't afford to sit around and not do anything out here.

You gotta get moving every single day.

Springtime is here. For me that means building mode.

And so, I'm gonna be doing some timber framing.

Learning a new skill,

and applying that skill to putting a roof over my doomsday raft,

and turning that into a workshop for me.

Not enough.

The ends need to be tapered so that it fits properly.

You know, when you live out like this you've really got to figure out,

you know, the best ways to divide the labour.

I've cut a lot of the material right now, but I need, uh,

five more of these 6 x 6s.

The most important thing for me right now

is not to make any major mistakes,

because this is all I have left for building material.

NARRATOR: Living remotely, resources are hard earned.

One mistake could cost Andy days of work and thousands of dollars.

On my second cut when I went to cut it for length,

I had that sticking up, so it raised this end up.

So, I went from six inches to five inches,

and that sucks, because that was a really good log.

These aren't easy to come by.

(LAUGHS) I gotta go out, cut them a couple miles away from home,

limb them, drag them in with a snow machine,

stack them up, roll them onto the mill.

It's not easy to come by this material,

so when I screw up a good one, it kind of pisses me off.

KATE: It's a new... A new thing for him to do this post and beam construction,

and sometimes he gets hurried.

And if you don't have the patience to slow down

and just think about what you're doing, and...

Or getting overconfident with what you're doing, things go wrong.

Okay, see. So, this is where... Where it becomes kind of tricky,

trying to get everything to go together.

ANDY: We're at a really critical point.

I've gotta make sure that these centre post pegs

are gonna fall into the notch as I raise this up.

I'd rather have my peg just be slightly loose,

than have problems with it splitting out the wood.

That one's perfect.

Ooh, Kate. God damn it.

Fuck!

I'm gonna drive the pegs, okay? That's really fucking bad.

God damn it.

The problem that I'm having right now is that my holes are off centre

just a little bit more than the dowels are tapered for.

And so as the dowel starts to come through the other side,

it wants to split the wood out on the backside.

And that's not good,

'cause that's gonna take a lot of the strength out of the joint.

KATE: This is all about precision,

so I guess when something is off just a wee bit, it can backfire in a hurry.

What I'm doing right now is getting ready to build a gin pole rig,

so I can lift this thing.

Getting that first part up is gonna be the hard part.

That's the job of the gin pole.

As it comes up, the second thing I have to worry about

is it going too far, falling over.

And then the third thing is as it comes up,

getting my little pegs to go into the holes right there.

Once they're started, I think we're all good.

I'm gonna get it up probably about like this degree.

Try and get those pegs lined up,

and then it's that last bit when it comes up that you're gonna have to

have a little bit of tension, and then just, I'll go a little bit,

and you let out a little bit.

Can we do a little practise?

Nope, there is no practise.

Okay.

Do or die, babe.

Every day counts out here in the summertime.

So, every morning I wake up, and I gotta be on task.

I gotta get humping, get these jobs done, and stay on schedule.

I'm gonna just push it forward manually and get those notches in.

Okay. Stop it there.

All right. We're in.

-You got fingers left? -Yup.

All my bracing here looks nice and tight.

These joints are tight right here.

So, that's important,

'cause this is what keeps it from racking one way or the other.

It's time to start cutting and measuring for round two.

Looks like a new house.

GLENN: This is a very free lifestyle

because out here nature dictates what I do, but other people don't.

This is the tree I'd like to use.

NARRATOR: With limited food sources,

building a bridge will allow Glenn better access to hunting grounds.

It's in a good place.

Back a little ways from the bank, and I think it's just long enough.

Problem is...

It looks like it's leaning back just a little.

Naturally, it would wanna fall that way,

but I want it to fall this way.

I think it's close enough that I can make it fall over this way with a wedge.

I'm gonna give it a try.

Yeah!

Now that I've got the tree down, I'm gonna limb it,

and I'm gonna cut through it a couple more times in order to make

bases for my bridge.

I'm almost through.

It's a big tree to cut with an axe.

Got it.

Now, I've got two logs for the foundation of my bridge.

I just have to figure out how to move them into place.

This is a heavy log.

About there.

Just making a little notch, so the bridge will be more stable.

There. That keeps it from rolling.

I got a log here I need to move to the other side. I've got a rope tied on it.

Now I just need to cross this creek one more time and pull this log across.

Ow! I wanna get everything in position on that side.

Gotta make one more crossing. Cut this tree down.

It's gonna fall perfectly across there if everything goes right.

If everything goes wrong it could fall in the opposite direction.

Let's hope not.

I made it.

SUE: Spring wants to happen.

Winter is giving him a run for its money.

You know, you've got two of your main seasons just going head to head.

Boom. Who's gonna win?

What I'm seeing next to the dining hall,

unfortunately, is back down to square one.

It's water. You gonna come for a swim?

Went to bed, and a bunch of rain came in.

Spring is rapidly approaching,

but somebody... Somebody invited old man winter to the spring party

without me realising it,

and I got several inches of snow.

I don't know how much water I've got in the shop right now.

I can guarantee if I'm seeing it here, it's there too.

In my shop I have my generators.

They're up on palettes, but it's possible that it goes higher.

So, if it's getting close to the battery and the electrics,

I've gotta get that water out.

My gosh.

I got more water in here.

Last night, I had this whole area down to gravel.

And now it's water up to here.

So, I've definitely gotten a lot of water that's melted and run in.

I'm gonna have to be Suzie on the spot,

and get in there with both feet, both pumps,

and instead of letting those pumps rest as much over the... Over the evening,

I may just have to keep it on a round the clock thing.

Burning up a pump is a $5,000 mistake.

Letting camp flood is a couple $100,000 mistake.

ANDY: It's gonna be a challenging summer for us.

I don't run from that. I embrace that.

I embrace the challenge, and I embrace the physicality of living out here.

All right. Gonna go together.

I'm kind of racing against what looks like a rainstorm.

I'm really hoping I can get this last bent up before it starts raining.

It's time to kind of beat the clock,

and try and beat this storm.

NARRATOR: With Alaska's unpredictable weather,

Andy is creating a structure that will allow him to work in any condition.

Okay. Moment of truth.

KATE: There's so much to be done this summer.

It's mind boggling, and I don't... I don't know

if these two old bodies can handle it, but we're sure gonna...

We're sure gonna try.

Ooh, that's not good.

One of those things that happens at the end of the day

when you're tired, and you wanna finish up,

and you're fighting, trying to beat a storm coming, taking shortcuts.

Shortcuts are never shortcuts.

I should know that by now.

I see what I did. I measured wrong.

That was supposed to be one inch, not an inch and a half.

So, that put the hole too close to the end of the tenon.

Ouch. Fuck. (LAUGHS)

Getting tired.

Yay.

All right. Well, I got her done.

And I'm pooped out, (LAUGHS)

but it feels really sturdy, and it looks good.

And it'll look really good once I get some metal on it.

GLENN: Really hard physical work,

and a very intellectually challenging lifestyle

don't often go together in the modern world the way they do out here.

I'm just looking at the trees,

and what might happen when I fell that tree that's gonna make my bridge.

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 tree right here wants to fall the opposite direction

from where I want it to go.

But it's a slight enough lean that I'm hoping I can push it over the other way.

I'm gonna try.

This notch has to be perpendicular

to the direction I want the tree to fall.

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

As I'm cutting in there, the tree is gonna wanna fall that way.

I'm gonna cut just a little higher up than the base of my notch.

Just a couple inches up higher.

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

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

before I can really wedge it.

And the problem is, I can't seem to get this saw to go in any further now.

'Cause it's getting a little bit pinched.

The wedge is too thin.

It's getting pushed down into the wood.

See 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've gotta think about this.

All I have is this axe. Nothing to pound it.

Look out! It's going! It's going!

Yes! Right in the right place.

Look at that. (CHEERING) Look at this.

Awesome! All I gotta do is limb it, and I got a bridge right here.

Look at that. (LAUGHS)

Mother Nature helped me out again.

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

Look at that. Beautiful.

The notch went in here and down like this.

And then I cut in from here, and this was the hinge.

The problem was the blade started getting pinched,

and I couldn't saw any further.

And I pounded in this wedge.

The wedge is too narrow, and it squashed into the wood.

But then the breeze came up,

and just that breeze is what pushed it over.

Put the tree right where I wanted it. It couldn't be better.

This is perfect.

All I gotta do now is cut the limbs off the top.

This is just gonna make an awesome bridge.

Fortunes can change pretty fast out here.

One minute I was worried I wasn't gonna get that tree to fall in the right spot,

and then the wind blew it down exactly where I wanted it.

Beautiful. I love this bridge.

This is a beautiful bridge.

I can just walk across here now.

When I'm out moose hunting in the fall,

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

My bridge is done.

That's a beautiful bridge.

SUE: There's this pattern that you must follow

to be a productive person within the society.

Being able to do what I want, when I want,

and how I want is why I live out here alone.

You know, right now, it's a waiting game.

NARRATOR: While the pumps work around the clock, Sue tackles another spring task.

SUE: So, while I've got time, I'm going to do some laundry and just wait it out.

270 to 300 days is my average for being totally alone out here,

dealing with my solitary lifestyle.

Over the course of my 50 years, I've picked up a lot of habits,

traits that culminate in me being successful at being very isolated.

You ready to jump in afterwards, Erms? Huh?

This is not a lifestyle that you wander into blindly,

and go "Oh, I think I'll do this. It's cool!"

To do it here is a conscious choice

that you're going to work and earn whatever money you can,

however you can to afford a lifestyle that you care for.

I did not choose to leave society.

I am just living my own life.

My own life is very content.

I find myself incredibly entertaining.

I don't care where you live or what you do for a living.

The only person you're guaranteed

you're born with and you die with is the one in the mirror.

The only skin that is not going to leave you until you pass away

is the one you're born with, your birthday suit.

Better make sure that's somebody that you enjoy being around.

CHIP: I've got my gunners, and I'm the driver.

And we're all a crew or a team.

And we'll be teaching our children.

If we catch something, they'll see the process from beginning to end.

From death, till it feeds us and gives us life.

We spent the first night in a... All together kind of clustered up in the tent,

but that's because we got here so late,

and spent a lot of time chasing caribou that we didn't catch.

First thing you have to do is have a place to store your things out of the weather.

And being dry in the Arctic is the big thing.

It can be 40 below, you get wet, you're gonna die.

It can be 40 above,

if you get wet you're gonna get chilled and you'll be miserable.

We're not into that at all.

We're into living, not just surviving, so, no misery here.

(WHISTLES)

Um, we're just finishing up a place to work.

This is a place where

if it's really bad weather,

and these women want to cut fish, or cut meat,

or the kids wanna play, just hang out,

we build a hut like this, and this is kind of like a waterproof shelter place

where everybody can work and do their things.

-It needs to go over this way. -It's already made to be tied down, babe.

If you just keep pulling it this way, it'll be good.

We separate our cooking and meat cutting facility

from our sleeping facility, from our kids' little bedrooms.

There's a lot of good, good family time out here.

We're usually working together.

It's just like bonding. It makes you closer.

We got the shelter taken care of, which is a really good thing.

'Cause we need to be able to shelter ourselves, and keep our stuff dry,

and then now we're gonna work on food.

Agnes, I'm gonna take off.

Okay. I'm just gonna keep fixing this, and arranging it the way I want it.

-I'll be back with firewood. -Okay.

Be safe!

Yup, yup. See you guys later.

It's a very diverse place.

You know, you've got the trees upriver. You've got the ocean downriver.

We got the mountains all around us,

so we have chances of seeing almost anything and everything.

If we go get firewood, we have a possibility of getting geese,

getting swans, getting any kind of birds.

There's caribou running around.

Caribou, caribou, caribou! There's lots of caribou crossing.

-Get your gun. Ting! Caribou! -Where?

Come on. Shh! Bunch of caribou coming over.

I love caribou.

Oh, wow. There's a ton of them.

You know, animals don't tell you when they're gonna show up.

You gotta be ready basically anytime.

You gotta have a gun for every occasion.

You gotta have your eyes open, and you have to pay attention.

(WHISPERING) Okay, here they come.

They're still just getting to the water.

All right, they're just about to cross.

Now. Sit down and shoot.

There it goes, Ting. Now.

(GUNSHOTS) Yee, too high.

Again.

(GUNSHOTS)

-Jeez. -(GUNSHOTS)

(GUNSHOTS)

It's not going anywhere. He's... They're dying.

(GUNSHOTS)

-Oh, your mum got it. -Like that.

Those are the two. That's it.

No more. No other caribou. Those two.

One wounded, and it's standing there, but it ain't going anywheres.

We have one right here, and it's just down, but it's trying to get back up.

I'm gonna go get the boat.

We're gonna cross the river and get the two caribou that the women were shooting.

We try to get all of our kids into the caribou game.

That's what we call it, it's the game.

-The game of getting game. -Come on.

We gotta go fast 'cause we have a wounded one across there,

and we don't want him to get away.

We don't wanna track him. We don't wanna carry him forever.

Follow me, Ag.

He's right there.

(GUNSHOTS)

There you go. Now he's down.

AGNES: This is the place where we like to sit and stay,

and just wait for all the animals to come to us.

So, we're blessed to have this real great spot.

-That's a good-sized one. -He's done.

Yesterday we had the same... The same thing come to us.

Except for we were in a boat.

We were in a heavily loaded boat, and we had no speed,

and shooting from a tippy boat like this is kind of crazy.

But today they were here just shooting at moving animals,

and the animals lurch and move, and you know how it goes.

You can't just connect every time, but today, they've connected.

It's a bit better than yesterday,

and this rounds out our getting camp ready

because now we have fresh meat.

We'll be eating good tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day and the next week.

We have no worries.

Yeah. We have food security.

-Yup. -And one caribou will last us for about a week.

My oldest daughter and my wife,

they set a really good example for the younger ones.

And the younger ones will probably follow.

I just got myself a gun for my birthday,

so I was testing out my new gun with the scope, and I got one of them.

Two, three, go...

AGNES: Now that we have food security,

we can easily just go about our business.

We have wood to go get.

We have some travelling to do, and check out the whole entire area.

For now, we're set for the next couple weeks.

Yum.

For us this is like going to work and getting the job done,

and it's a job well done.

ANDY: Life is good out here.

It's what you make of it, and for me, everything is made with my hands.

And that's important to me.

So, a month ago

I was out in the woods cutting trees

with this project in mind.

The project's done, and it turned out about the way I'd hoped it would.

This technique is not the technique to use if you're in a hurry.

But I guarantee this building will be here long after

anything that I built with stick framing.

Probably took me about eight days to do this, including cutting the trees.

So, you know, a little over a week's worth of my time to build a 16 x 16 cabin.

Started really being fascinated with

timber frame when I was about 16 years old,

and I didn't even know I would be a carpenter at that point in time in my life,

but here it is 40 years later. I'm finally doing it. (LAUGHS)

It's a great way to build.

It's definitely slower.

It's definitely a lot more meticulous type of work,

but it'll be around for a long time.

All right.

Man, I'll be glad when I don't have to climb any more ladders for a while.

I feel good. It was a good early spring project.

I've got a pretty full summer of making sawdust.

Having this is gonna make a big difference in the bad weather days for sure.

SUE: I'm the only one that I count on in the winter to get my chores done.

You know, the only ass that gets kicked for not completing the job is my own.

Well, I definitely got some new snow. Winds got pretty wild.

So, I'm interested. I'm gonna check the generator out.

See if all the proactive stuff I did

making channels, pumping, you know, did it do what I wanted it to do?

Yeah, look at that.

All my hard work has paid off.

You know, I took the opportunity

before everything happened to get ahead of the flood.

Last year, 22 foot of snow,

then 110 degrees, and it was a wall of water.

This year I was able to get ahead of the game, direct it, and it worked.

So, the water was up to here.

Well, you can see, and now it's down to there.

Am I gonna have more flooding?

Yeah, I can't have a white landscape,

turn it to green without some more water coming in.

But getting ahead of the game,

giving it a path to get where it actually wants to live, that's good.

I'm really pleased at having the ability

to stay ahead of the game on the flooding.

So, I've got more coming, but it's manageable.

Being able to channel, utilising the road,

the slope of the tundra itself,

you know, saved the bacon on camp this year.

The river is down from what it was,

but when you freeze, it slows everything down.

You don't have that free flow of water.

There's a little bit of sun going to be coming out.

(IMITATES RUSHING WATER) It's going to flow again. It's going to happen.

Your basic push to the beginning of the thaw is over.

It's done. The river is broken. It's free flowing.

The river's breaking is a huge deal emotionally

because for all of us it's like,

(GASPS) "Winter is over, the end is in sight."

I can handle the tundra flowing.

The river and how that backs up,

and how the water coming off the tundra is impeded

getting to it is what causes you your problems.

The thaw is going to be a continual thing this year.

I'll just handle it as it comes, 'cause that's what I do.

Kavik's going to be open for business.