Original subtitles

[upbeat music playing]

That's spring right there.

Spring is fun because now everything is starting to grow again.

[Gilbert] We're going to see the return of the geese.

Everyone goes hunting for geese.

Oh! I did not expect to receive goats today.

[Matty] Whoo, doggie!

I'm like a little boy now, getting to run the machine.

But there are lots of challenges living off grid in the bush, especially alone.

It's hard to do everything by yourself.

[Billy] Having animals, it brings company.

You don't have the feeling of being alone.

If you're out here, no one is going to do it for you.

You got to just be a get up and goer.

[Emilie] Your family is relying on you, and you need to provide for your family.

[gunshot]

[theme music playing]

[soft music playing]

[Emilie] This is our spring.

You know, we have snow for a long time, but then it thaws really fast.

[Gilbert] But now it's starting to thaw again, so, we're going to see

the return of the geese.

[geese honking]

Oh, yeah.

We're here.

[Emilie] Springtime is very important in this community.

Everyone goes hunting for geese,

and the geese that we get now is going to feed us for the year.

[Gilbert] This place is good because it's open space,

and then there's two creeks running.

There's one there, and then there's one nearby.

And the geese, they follow the creek.

And when you call them, they'll turn.

[upbeat music playing]

[Emilie] So, what's the first step for the blind? Got to dig this out?

Yeah. We're going to dig it out and make it a bit bigger,

- because we have, a new teammate. - Yup.

She's gonna retrieve the goose.

[Emilie] Hopefully.

This is Piper.

She's a bit under a year.

And she's a purebred lab.

The reason why we got her is because labs are very good retrievers.

So, we brought Piper with us so that I can focus on getting her used to the gunshots,

getting her used to staying close to us in the blind.

And hopefully start training her to start retrieving some geese.

This is a homemade wooden goose.

The wind is coming from that way,

and you gotta place the decoys

- in the wind direction from the blind. - Okay.

So, we're putting all these goose decoys out so that the geese,

when they're flying, they're seeing,

"Oh, that looks like a good spot to hang out."

Then, they'll come down and check it out,

then, that'll be our time to get some geese.

It's warm enough and it's sunny and it's south wind,

so they're going to be here soon,

you're going to start hearing them honking by.

That's camouflage.

Geese are pretty smart creatures.

Sometimes, they fly above you and they see you down there.

- Then, they turn around. - And they turn around.

[Emilie] We're hoping to get, you know, 20, 30 geese would be nice this year.

We're going to pluck them and freeze them for the year.

[Gilbert] The goose can feed a whole family because a goose is like 10 pounds,

and they have a lot of protein, and it's really good on the grocery bills.

- Where do you want this one? - In the front.

- In the front? - Down here.

[Gilbert] Right there.

[Emilie] We gotta make the most of our time while we're here.

Soon, it's going to get very flooded the more it melts,

so we have a very small window.

It's really stressful because your family is relying on you,

and you need to provide for your family.

It's looking pretty good.

It'll start to look very camouflaged and we'll blend in with nature.

Now, we can start looking for geese.

[soft music playing]

[goat bleating]

[laughs]

[Billy] Hold on, little guy.

Going to put you here.

[goat bleating]

Come on.

Well, I did not expect to receive goats today.

Here we go. Get back. [grunts]

The goats were supposed to be here in five days.

Got a call from the farmer last night,

and he said, "Okay, I'm gonna drop them off, you know, tomorrow."

So, I just had time to build a small, temporary goat pen to welcome them,

to make sure, you know, they don't run everywhere.

You're in some nice trouble, guys.

Welcome home.

You got here so early.

[goats bleating]

Why goats? It's mostly because I get milk from the goats.

I can make cheese out of their milk.

You want more, huh? You want more, huh? Yeah.

Goats, it's like a dog, you know, they have personality, you know.

You get to know them.

And it's cool to have some company around here.

What I need to do now, and this is urgent, I've got to build a bigger goat pen.

It needs to be very goat proof.

They're very, very smart animals.

So, if there is a hole somewhere,

they can get through and, you know, get away.

Oh! What are you doing?

Eh, eh, eh! Oh, man.

Yeah. Come on. Come on.

- [goat bleating] - There we go.

So, I need to build you a home because this one doesn't work.

I'm thinking to use willows,

like an old traditional way of making fence.

This is fast, and I'm sure there won't be too much gap,

you know, in order to keep them inside the fence.

[intriguing music playing]

Living up here takes a toll on you.

Sometimes, I just get lonely.

This is the hardest part of living off grid.

But keeping busy helps a lot.

[sighs] Okay.

Right here, okay, I don't want the goats to go underneath,

so I need to do a fence of willows.

Going to put the roof on the top.

They'll be happy.

[rhythmic music playing]

I'm so glad I kept these logs.

I cut them more than ten years ago, and I'm using it now.

Living off grid, you just have to hold on to everything you've got around.

It's an asset, you know, you might need it one day.

Now, I'm starting, you know, the fence.

Right now, the willows, they're flexible because there is sap in it.

But if I leave them an afternoon, even a day, too late.

It will be so hard to bend them.

They'll become brittle because they'll be so dry.

[soft music playing]

Twist it around.

I'm making a knot out of it.

The thing is, when they dry, they last forever.

Doesn't need any nails. No screws.

The last one.

Yeah. Looks good. Very happy.

Oh. It's holding very well.

I don't think it's going to jump over and they won't get through it.

- [goat bleating] - Hey, hey, do you like it?

Oh, yeah, they do like it. [chuckles]

Next, I need to cut some trees to finish the fence.

I just want the goats to get in as fast as possible.

[soft music playing]

[Matty] One of the most precious resources here is water.

You need water to survive.

Up until now, my water that I use in a cabin for drinking, washing, bathing,

all comes from the pond, in buckets I carry up by hand.

So, I want to build a nice water well.

[upbeat music playing]

- [Don] There's water there. - [Matty] Oh yeah.

- You're going across now, look. Yeah. - Yeah.

Look at that.

[Don] You just got the hold the slack in your hand.

And when you're in line, they'll start to go on their own.

[Matty] Don's the one that taught me this.

At first, I didn't really believe it,

but I'm telling ya, look, they're moving on their own.

I'd like to speak to a scientist and really understand

what the hell is happening here.

And who figured this out?

The divining rods really work.

Once you put them in your hands, you can't deny it,

they really do pull together and cross to try and pull into the water.

- Look, look. See that? - [Don] Yeah.

Oh, it's strong there, boy.

It's good. A lot of water there.

Right here. That's where we dig.

[intriguing music playing]

[Matty] Take her easy now, Don, boy.

Nice.

Don's an old fella I've known for a long time.

And it's having a dream neighbour just down the trail from me.

He's always there whenever you need it.

First things first here, he's got to clear off all this brush,

get to the dirt, and then he'll start digging the well.

Don's like the cool kid on the block up here with that little excavator.

He loves that little excavator and he's really good at it, too.

Having Don do this with the machine saves me days.

Don's busy with that hole for a while. I'm gonna work on the well liner.

And it's maybe about 500 bucks for a nice one.

Or you can go straight hillbilly like this,

get a bunch of old barrels and put them all together like a stovepipe,

gonna make our own homemade well liner.

Then, we'll put it down in the hole,

and it'll hold all the dirt outside the hole and let the water sit inside.

[soft music playing]

One of the things I love about this lifestyle is,

if I can imagine it, I can create it.

It's like being a kid all over again.

When I'm seeing this well, I'm thinking,

like the little boy inside of me, it's a great hillbilly slide for the kids.

Take a few of these barrels, make a nice little wooden frame,

you can rig yourself a tubular in your backyard right here in the woods.

It's the perfect back country wall liner.

That's some hole, man.

- You're doing good, Don. - Oh, yeah.

You get that stump out?

This thing is so old. I mean, that's an old stump.

He's been at that for an hour now.

Oh, it just moved.

Oh, oh, oh, here it is, boy!

Hey! Nice job, Don.

Oh, he don't seem to be fazed.

Oh, Don, Don saved my ass on this one. Without him up here to help with the well

and have the machine, wouldn't have done this.

The toughest part of this whole thing was getting rid of all that brush on top,

all those stumps, the big rocks.

And now, he's going back for his afternoon siesta.

He's trusting me now to do the, the digging.

[engine starts]

Part of me is super stoked, I'm a little boy now,

getting to run the machine.

Whoo, doggie!

I'd imagine it's kind of like digging a hole in the sand

when you're a kid at the beach and you dig deep enough,

and water kind of starts seeping in,

and then the deeper you go, the faster it will seep.

So, I think eventually, I'll just take a scoop out

and there will be a puddle of water and it'll just keep coming.

But who knows? It's my first time, so...

At this point, every scoop full, I'm just waiting to hit that spring.

[intriguing music playing]

We're down there now, boy.

My God, we must be 20 feet down.

She's looking damp down there.

[uplifting music playing]

I see water.

Not that I ever doubted Don, but his divining rods work.

There's water here.

That's it.

Now, we do the reverse of what we just did all day.

Put it all back in the hole.

Hey, Ron? What do you think?

You like the well, Ronnie?

Just napping and watching, classic Ronnie, the construction foreman.

[soft music playing]

[Margot] Spring is fun because everything was so dead for so long,

and now, everything is starting to grow again

and there's so much stuff you can make.

You can find a lot of supplies in the woods

if you just know what's around you.

I'm picking up balsam poplar buds.

I want to make a balm out of it.

I need about ten times this and I should be good for a couple jars.

I use the balm for, for sores, aches, wounds.

You can even rub it on your chest when you have some cough.

So, it's good for a lot of things.

When I moved to Canada, I was in school for...

for forestry and wildlife conservation,

so it's where I learned about flora

and the trees and plants we have in this area here.

Anything in the bush can be useful.

It makes you feel like you're more connected to the land.

When I'm in this environment, my home is not only my cabin or my camp,

it's, it's bigger than that.

My home is the Yukon.

[chainsaw buzzing]

Well, I'm cutting some trees here so I can get the view.

The cabin was kind of in this little dark hole.

So, opening here, I can see the mountains.

I grew up in the mountains, in the Alps, in France,

so I cannot live somewhere where there is no mountains.

So, if I can clear the view and get to see them every morning, it's pretty cool.

And I'm going to use the trees to mill boards and start building stuff.

[rhythmic music playing]

This lifestyle is based out of trees pretty much.

I mean, you don't do anything without trees here.

You get fire, you get a shelter.

They're the most important resources I have here.

I'd like to build more furniture for inside,

because right now, it's very basic.

I want to make a proper kitchen counter

to make it more livable in there.

I don't want this place just to be a crappy little shack,

so I want to have cool furniture and make it my own.

To work, your chainsaw has to be sharp, so sharpening it is a daily task.

My tattoo represents the mountains

that are behind my home in France, where I grew up.

So, it's a nice reminder to remember where I come from.

[soft music playing]

My face tattoo, I got not a long time ago.

Each line has a different meaning.

The first line is mostly to remind me that even if I do things differently,

and if someone doesn't like it, it's fine and, you know, I own it.

And the second one is to remember my own power

that sometimes I tend to forget.

And when this is fully accepted inside of me,

I will draw a third line, when I actually own it for real.

[Emilie] You really get to discover yourself when you're on the land,

to be in tune with nature and really be in tune with yourself.

[Matty] Being alone in the bush really puts stuff into perspective.

Just you and your thoughts, and you realize who you are real quick.

[Billy] You have to learn how to live with the silence, how to live with yourself.

[soft music playing]

[Emilie] Different times of the year, we have different harvests.

That's what I love about this place, every season has something attributed to it.

All right, let's wait for the geese to show up now.

[Gilbert] Yeah. Let's get comfy.

[Emilie] Right now, in the spring, it's geese.

So, this is when we harvest it for the year.

When you're out hunting, you never know if you're going to get something

or if you're going to go home empty-handed.

And that's one of the challenges of living off the land.

[Emilie] Hey, look, there's a black dog over there taking a shit.

But she's, smart. She's pooping away from the blind.

[Emilie] I'm going to try to train Piper

- when we're waiting for the geese. - Okay.

Hopefully, we get real geese

- so she can smell them. - Yeah.

[upbeat music playing]

Piper, sit.

Sit. Good girl.

Go get it.

When she becomes a retriever, that'll save a lot on your legs.

Go get it.

- [Gilbert] And save time. - [Emilie] Good.

Well, that's a start, eh?

She'll get it, for sure, the geese, she'll go after, like, instinct.

- I think she'll prefer a real one. - Yeah.

[geese honking]

- Oh, geese! - Oh shit, there's geese!

[Gilbert] Up there. Look. Six.

[mimicking honking sound]

- [Emilie] They're gone. - [Gilbert] Yeah.

I feel like Rose from Titanic.

Come back!

It's good. Now, we're ready, so we're going to be on guard now.

Hopefully, there's going to be more of those.

So, come on goose.

[chuckles]

[soft music playing]

Timber!

Oh!

Right on the fence. Oh well, it held well.

A tree can fall on the goat pen, and the goats will be safe.

[upbeat music playing]

This kind of fence is very well known here in Quebec.

People have it around, you know, their fields and property.

It's very common.

I'll see how it goes.

Maybe later on, you know, I'll have some more animals.

Chicken are very easy, you know, they can have eggs.

So, a good omelette. [chuckles]

Having animals, it brings company.

It brings a lot of joy.

You don't have the feeling of being alone.

All right! This is done.

Whoo! Very happy. This is great.

[soft music playing]

I'm going to reuse this nail because I cannot make my own nails.

[grunts]

Reusing the old rusty nails and some old boards,

it's not a matter of being cheap, it's just a matter of survival here.

This is a way of life.

[chuckles]

But when you use, you know, old wood, it's harder to make a straight building.

The goats won't notice, though.

[chuckles]

Oh, yeah. Chainsaw.

[chainsaw buzzing]

[upbeat music playing]

[sighs]

Plywood is so rare here.

I don't have it too much, but that was some leftover,

so I'm just going to use it for the roof.

Way faster.

It's what I call doing the best I can

for the sake of the goats.

Oh, man. Feel the shade.

It's very cool here.

[chainsaw buzzing]

[speaking French]

Next will be the fence, a little bit higher up, and the door.

And after, the goats, they're welcome here, that will be their new home.

[upbeat music playing]

I'm going to measure for my counter.

I need two boards.

Building my own stuff has way more depth

than just buying it in the store.

When I build something, I mean, I make it from scratch,

so there's a story to it, there's memories, there's sweat.

It's more than just a thing. It's my table.

Here, I have a very small amount of tools.

It's always a little more challenging,

so I just got to make the best out of what I got.

Then if it's not perfect, it's, that's how it is.

[chainsaw buzzing]

Chainsaw is great, but it's not really for precision work.

[soft music playing]

This is the top of the log that I cut.

That's what I'm going to use to put those two together.

I like using hand tools.

You don't need to go fast all the time.

It's, it's nice to slow down sometimes and take your time,

but also because I don't have power, so I don't have much of a choice.

I don't come here to work fast.

I love just living it like the old days.

It takes more time, but it's more rewarding.

And I'm happy when I make something work with just the few tools I have.

It's, it's cool. [chuckles]

Well, that's it.

That's the top of the counter.

Not too wide, not too narrow.

It's going to be nice.

I'm still learning but I'm confident in my skills.

I moved to Canada when I was 18 and I started from nothing.

So, for sure, it's a long process.

I'm kind of the black sheep of the family.

Of course, I live in a different world than them.

They live in town in France.

You know, they go to work every day, nine to five.

So, sometimes, it's just hard to really explain what I'm doing.

But it's getting better because they just accepted who I am now,

and they're happy that I found my path.

It does look almost like a counter.

[soft music playing]

Being on my own is hard.

It's hard to do everything by yourself.

Sometimes, having someone would help.

It's just frustrating because it's an easy task, most of the time.

It's just being alone takes more time.

This one is higher.

I guess this is upside down.

Of course.

[soft music playing]

[smacks lips] [Matty] Come on, Ronnie.

Let's go see what we got.

Well's been here all night.

Should be lots of water.

Oh, yeah.

That's two barrels up.

So, that's a good four, four and a half feet water overnight.

Man, it works. I mean, that's, that's a well.

Until now, I've been drinking straight out of the pond,

so having a well is definitely a luxury.

First bucket.

The difference between the well water and the lake water,

is that this well's coming from the spring

and it's purified through of the earth,

through all the sand and all this gravel,

with no bacteria and mites and all that junk in it.

It's clean, well water.

One day, I work an extra day and we get a well for life, just like that.

But digging the well and putting the liner in like we did

was really only the first step.

Now, we need to build a big water tower,

then we can pump out of this, fill that,

and then gravity feed into the cabin, into the kitchen sink.

[rhythmic music playing]

I do love being out here and I love my time in the woods, every minute of it.

But still, I want to enjoy the basic comforts of life,

a little cold water running into the kitchen sink.

Not too much to ask, you know.

If you're living out here, no one is going to do it for you.

You got to just be a get up and goer.

That's a spring log.

Look how easy that is.

It's a dream.

It's way easier than wintertime peeling.

It's definitely a real blessing, having all the trees you want in your backyard.

Really is like a little lumber store out here.

And now, these trees get the privilege

of being the legs for my water tower for the next 60 years at least.

Lucky trees, if you ask me.

Ooh, final piece, baby, look at that reveal.

Come on. All the way to the end.

Come on.

Look, that's spring right there, baby.

You can't do that in the fall, in the winter, that's a spring log.

Saves me so much time and energy.

Okay, start building.

[rhythmic music playing]

Look how long these are.

I don't know if I was planning on building the CN Tower or what,

but my God, we could have used 12 inch logs.

Perfect.

You'd almost think I measured that.

This will be the framework that actually holds the water barrel up here.

It's a 1000-litre barrel, so it's going to be heavy.

This is a huge upgrade from hauling buckets of water.

You really become water conscious real quick when every litre's hauled up a hand.

There will be enough water once it's full,

I'll be able to last probably six weeks, two months.

And this will cover all my drinking water,

my water for washing dishes, cooking, bathing.

That's it.

That's our high-rise dance floor.

Ready for the go-go dancers.

Ooh ooh! Ooh ooh! Ooh ooh!

I mean, come on.

[soft music playing]

Right now, we just got a flimsy platform up in the air.

Every single brace we put on, every nail we add,

will make it stiffer and stiffer until it's one rigid piece that won't move.

I've heard somewhere in life that when it comes to building structures,

triangles are good, so I'm making triangles.

Look at that.

This thing is way bigger than I had imagined.

It's amazing. Really, really, really happy with it.

[Emilie] I really enjoy this lifestyle,

that doing all this hard work is really a small price to pay.

[Matty] Just going hand to mouth, going A to B,

just a very simple existence.

[Margot] But if you really want to make a life here,

you don't want to just survive.

You want to thrive and, and flourish.

[soft music playing]

Well, looking at the goats, the small one will be able to jump between these logs.

So, what I'm going to do, I'm just going to put some chicken wire

from the bottom all the way here, and that will be enough.

Even the mother won't be able to jump over the fence.

[goat bleating]

I need chicken wire in order, you know, to keep them inside, keep them safe.

We are in the wild.

There is coyotes, there is even mountain lion here,

so I really don't want them to get hurt.

That's perfect.

I just had enough.

Here we go.

Whoo.

They're resting now.

It's good.

Of course I need a gate, you know, to let them in and let them out.

Uh, so, what I'm thinking

is just maybe some board sliding down like this.

[drill whirring]

One last post here.

All right, looks good to me.

They won't be able to push it open.

So, it's goat proof, okay, there is no goat that's going to leave this place.

It's impossible.

[playful music playing]

Yeah, they're going to love it.

Oh, man, it's a nice, beautiful bed they're going to have, beautiful goat pen.

Are you ready to go in your new home?

Let's go.

[goats bleating]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming.

[speaking French]

Here we go.

This is your mommy and your new home.

[laughs]

Water now.

[goat bleating]

What are you doing here?

[laughs] You're not supposed to do that.

Oh, man, you're just full of surprises.

[goat bleating]

That will need to be patch up. No big deal.

There we go.

[soft music playing]

So, you like it here? Do you like it here?

Way bigger, right.

- You've got room here. - [goat bleating]

Whoo hoo! [laughs]

You know, just by looking at them, I know they like it.

Yeah. They've got enough room, they've got food, they've got shade.

Yahoo.

[laughs]

Oh my God, jumping around.

It's cool, you know, to, to have life here.

You know, it feels, it feels more like home

because they're, they're here with me.

Well, you're gonna have fun here, but you've got to stay inside.

[goat bleating]

[soft music playing]

- Did you hear geese? - No.

The wind is this way, we can hear something coming from a mile away.

[Emilie] Spring hunt is really important for most Indigenous communities.

Everything stops and you focus on harvesting geese.

This is my double badger.

I find it's pretty good.

Like, you can have a. 22 on top and your. 410,

and then you have two triggers.

You know, if you don't get your goose with your. 22,

then you could try with the. 410.

It's like you have two shots, you know, two tries.

The main reason why I got this one is my dad was telling me

that my grandfather used to hunt with a double badger 410/22.

When I showed this to my dad, he said it looks pretty identical.

So, I think to me it's my way of being closer to my grandfather.

[geese honking]

- [Gilbert] Geese coming. - There's geese.

[mimicking honking sound]

[gunshot]

[mimicking honking sound]

[Gilbert] I got one.

[Emilie] Is there more?

- Hey, Gilbert, what's that over there? - I got, I shot it.

- No. There's two, Gilbert. - What?

There's one right there, just waiting for his friend.

Okay.

That's really far. Hopefully, I'm going to make this shot.

[gunshot]

[rhythmic music playing]

[gunshot]

- Did you get it? - Yeah.

- I just have to go get it with the skidoo. - Okay.

Good job, Gilbert.

[Gilbert] First time you kill something, you'll get the shaky knees.

Caribou, geese, it doesn't matter.

You just have to respect that and you know these animals aren't going to go to waste.

[Emilie] I don't enjoy killing geese.

Personally, you know, I have a little bit of a hard time with every kill.

I respect the animal, and at the end of the day,

I remind myself that this is to feed our family.

- [Emilie] You got it. - Yeah.

And they're big, eh.

- [Emilie] Yeah, it's very big. - [Gilbert] Like a turkey.

So, we're going to use this as a decoy.

Just going to add to what we have over there.

[soft music playing]

Look, this is a goose.

I just want Piper to smell the goose, just to get familiarized with the smell.

This is her first time that she smells it raw.

There was a lot of, like, high tension, you know, there's geese,

you're stressed, you're trying to hurry up.

And she stayed really calm the whole time, so, that's good.

And then, hopefully, one day, she'll be our goose retriever.

[Gilbert] We're lucky that we're getting two birds today.

It'll get better as the days go by.

We'll get more, more geese.

[soft music playing]

[scoffs] Crooked.

I think it's just my post is all crooked.

I can't get it straight.

It can be frustrating sometimes, working with logs.

You have to be okay with things not being perfect and straight,

but that's bush building.

Okay, well, that's just how it's going to be.

Nothing is straight here anyway.

I'll just nail it down and... done.

All right.

Looks pretty good.

It's quite heavy, so it's gonna be fun to bring inside.

We'll see if it fits the door. [chuckles]

Sweet.

That's going to be the kitchen area.

And there's a little shelf here, so it's going to be more storage.

I might put a sink at some point,

so it's easier to, you know, do dishes and stuff.

Probably have another little counter here and couple shelves up.

Then, it's going to look more like a real kitchen.

Almost everything you need is around you here.

You just gotta look for it, and you'll be surprised

how much you can actually use from the forest.

But most days, it's just hard work.

It's awesome to be able to just harvest stuff you can find around here

and, you know, make your own medicine, make your own little balms.

So I'm mixing olive oil with the balsam poplar buds,

that I'm going to let boil over the steaming water.

I'm gonna let it cook a little bit, and then I'm going to drain the buds,

and I'm gonna melt some beeswax

and put everything together into little tins.

Smells very good.

In the bush, you don't need to be an expert in everything,

but you need to know a little bit about a lot of things.

I do want to be self-sufficient, that's why I chose to live this way.

And especially here, it's just you don't have a choice,

you have to be self-sufficient.

Well, I think it turned out pretty good.

Just got to wait for it to cool down before closing the lids.

Couple hours later you can the balm.

The more you learn, it gives you confidence

that you can make your life here.

It's powerful.

[intriguing music playing]

This here is the crown jewel of the whole project.

This is why we did all that work building that base,

is to hold this big old behemoth, 1000 litres of crystal clear well water,

boy, gravity feed, down, right to the faucet.

The only issue I see is just getting it up on the roof.

See what happens.

It's gonna flip.

[grunting]

Fuck.

May need to reassess.

The smart thing to do is take this ladder, move it up on the front patio.

This patio's a lot higher than the ground here,

it'll be a lot more gentle, the slope, to be able to push it up easier.

There's lots of challenges living off grid in the bush, especially alone.

That's one of the real big draws of this lifestyle to me,

is always being put up to challenges that you've never done before,

learning new things and just figuring it out on the fly.

It's what makes me get up in the morning.

Okay.

Try this again.

[grunting]

[suspenseful music playing]

[grunting]

Whoo! There it is.

Look at that.

Looks so good.

Okay.

Got to feed this down.

The bedroom is right below me.

It'll go through the wall, into the bedroom,

and then around to the kitchen.

[soft music playing]

Ooh, look at that.

All the way in!

The water tank's here.

Now, we're to make a turn here, go around the room,

out that wall, right to the kitchen.

Ooh, look at that. Come on.

That's it. She's all plumbed in, faucets are in.

All that's left to do now is get out the water pump,

string the hose to the well and fill the water tower.

Turn it on.

Oh, wow, the sink looks so different.

I've been looking at the sink with no faucets.

To see it with faucets there, trippy.

[suspenseful music playing]

Now, we get down, fill the baby up.

In the city, you take running water for granted.

But here, there's a lot more to it.

So, stick our suction hose down through the pump,

run a line all the way up to the back of the water tower,

start it up and let her buck.

[motor roaring]

This is it. The big reveal.

[air whistling]

I hear air.

Come on, baby. Don't let me down.

- Oh. - [water gurgling]

[uplifting music playing]

We got flow, baby.

Ooh, that's good water.

It doesn't look like a whole hell of a lot.

Here, that's something to brag about.

It's nice and clear.

Really, the only thing left to do now, have our first test.

This is the very first glass.

Oh, yeah.

Feels like a storm is coming in.

The weather out here is not very predictable.

It's a race against Mother Nature here.

[Margot] There's a lot of pressure, time-wise.

- We're gonna have to hurry up. - [grunts]

My God, that's some tough stuff.

I'm exhausted right now.

This is a one-shot deal. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

I just cross my fingers.

[Margot] It's kind of stressful.

[sighs] God, just breaking hearts.

And now, it's the beginning of hell.

[theme music playing]

Subtitling: difuze