Original subtitles

Holy cow, the wind's whipping.

This is insane.

It's like a hurricane.

We're going to put up a little cabin.

Brooke is completely out of gas.

I've never, ever seen that from her.

Oh, my God, I got a fish.

You got a fish!

Here's another one. Don't mind if I get one more. 16 sablefish.

We are officially on the verge of being flooded.

It's easy to see how this place can kick a man's ass. The decision to leave is

extremely difficult.

This is going to be an incredible challenge.

We're going to be dropped off in separate locations, and one of us has to

find the other.

I've got to wait on my brother.

Hopefully he'll be here soon. Please come tomorrow.

I don't know where I'm going, how long I'm going to be out here. All I have is

a compass bearing. It's a needle in a haystack. Can I even make it to base

camp? Dad!

No way.

Everything around you is telling you you need to go home.

Please leave.

If you don't work as a team, it's game over. I can't hold the whole thing up

still. $500,000 would be life-changing. I know. I just feel like life is sucked

out of me.

He's coming.

He sees me.

It's day 17 in the morning.

We've slept in quite a bit.

Today we are going to work on the boat. Maybe Jim has some tweaks to the crab

trap. It's pretty much finished.

And then we are, you know, going to forage. We're going to eat

breakfast, then we're going to forage.

And then we're going to, no, that's not what we're going to do. We're going to

eat breakfast, work on boats, forage.

Fuck you, man.

Asshole. Jim's pissing while I'm doing interviews.

Just ruined the whole thing.

Asshole.

Good morning.

It's day 17.

We're building a boat designed for the specific limitations we have here. We

only have a 12 by 12 tarp, so it can't be long.

but we want a boat that can fit two people.

We also have the ocean, so we want a boat with relatively high sides or

freeboard, they call it, when both of us are in there so we won't get swamped

with waves.

Ted's been the main guy doing work on it.

He's doing a good job, but it's taking longer than we thought because we only

have so much time we can work on it each day.

But I think that is going to give us the freedom to be able to find more food.

A few days ago...

We ate some fish and some duck, and we're like, man, we're going to stay out

here until 90 days, and a couple days go by, and all you got is two pots of shore

crabs. But I think out in those kelp beds, 50 meters offshore, there's

probably fish.

Jim? This sucks.

It's just pretty small, that's all.

Can you kneel and rest your butt on the seat? I don't know, man.

I feel like the boat's going to be tippy to the left.

It's going to be pretty tight with two people, man.

Two, like, little girls would be pretty good.

Yeah. Now we only have one little girl, so... Yeah, I know.

What drives me nuts about Jim is that he's just a loud mouth.

There's times where I just want to headbutt him and boot him down a flight

of stairs.

Maybe that's the good thing about being brothers, is we're not afraid to just

say what we're feeling in the moment and get past it.

Can't have one without the other, right?

I'm going to install seats, and I'm just going to use that net that I found.

If it works, it'll be nice so we can sit and fish and not get cramps in our legs

and all that kind of stuff.

But two of us on seats, I am a little skeptical whether the frame should be

holding that kind of weight.

It's just risky.

I took our tarp down. That's a heavy-duty vinyl-coated tarp that we're

going to use for the cover of the boat, which is a really exciting moment. We're

getting closer to having it ready to put in the water.

We need more food. It's just that simple. We can't go on and do the

projects that we want to do without getting some calories in us.

We're really hoping this boat floats and doesn't just immediately break.

Next time somebody asks me, what do you do for a living? I'm just going to say,

I build cobbled together stuff out of moss and sticks for a living.

Timber!

I starve for a living. I stink for a living.

It's good work if you can get it.

It's just soaking wet.

What's up, woman?

Trying to fish.

Right on.

Good luck.

The biggest challenge of building the cabin, you can't go work all day because

you have to fish.

Got some kelp.

Yes, I think I have a fish. If you could just work, you'd get a lot farther. But

the other person would have to fish so you don't get half as much done.

Oh, yay!

You'd think two people could do better fishing than one person, but you're

feeding two people.

So, I mean, it's kind of a net nothing.

If you don't catch any fish, it doesn't bode well for putting a bunch of energy

in. Ah, yes, a fatty!

Thank you, Lord.

All right, let's kill him.

He's going to be dinner.

I know.

If the fishing holds, we do have a sustainable source of food to carry us

through a cabin build.

If the fish runs out, we have a problem.

Our shelter philosophy out here is we're just going to do what we do.

Our whole married life is living in places that we've built.

Our first home was a 12 foot by 12 foot cabin that we built. No running water,

no indoor plumbing.

We both live an extremely rustic lifestyle together.

We've been married 18 years.

Pretty much daily life was rough in it. We've always lived right on a very

fringe of society.

Starting from nothing and building a home from it, that's in our DNA.

Unbelievably cool.

I'm going to start chinking.

It's a good low-energy job for me today.

since I don't have a lot of energy.

Grabbing chunks of moss here.

I got a little stuffing stick, and I'm just going to be stuffing the cracks.

This cabin project has taken a lot of energy out of both of us.

Absolutely there is risk of expending a lot of calories in a build of a cabin.

But at the same time, there's a risk that you are mentally going to burn out

in a place that you hate to crawl into day after day, wet and miserable.

We feel like as it gets colder, the weather turns more and more terrible.

Being in a warm cabin is going to be a big deal.

Why build something this elaborate?

Why build something that takes this much energy? Why not build something simple

and focus on food?

It is a gamble.

You wonder if it's all worth it when you're going to have to crawl in through

a hole in the side of the shelter. You're not laying on the ground. You're

laying on a bunk.

You got a nice fire going.

Yeah, it's worth it.

You're darn right it's worth it.

Kind of dragging a little bit this morning.

Just hungry and tired.

This is it. This is the last.

Last log.

Going through the front door with the last log. Yeah.

Uh-huh.

When in doubt, force it, right?

Force it.

Cram it in the cram hole.

There we go.

So let me take you on a tour.

This is what it's like coming through the front door.

There's where the fireplace is going to go.

Hopefully, there'll be a mantle right across there, someplace to hang your wet

socks to dry.

That is cool, cool beans.

Our cabin.

Could use a nap.

All right, so we're ready for the maiden voyage of hope.

The boat we've built, that's what we've named her because she's providing us

with some hope. And we're going to get out there for the first time, see if she

floats. Yeah!

And see if it'll take both of us. And we've got our life jackets. We've got

our safety gear all ready.

There's a risk of wetting our gear.

It could give us hypothermia, all kinds of problems you can imagine.

We've gotten a fire and lots of wood split in case we took a swim.

Hopefully we won't, and we're ready to get the heck out of this freaking cove

and do this.

Yeah, it floats.

Floats pretty good, too.

Looks not too tippy.

Looks pretty good.

Let Ted get in first.

You sure you shouldn't get in first?

It feels really good.

Yeah, it feels good, he says.

Hold on. Hold on.

It's OK. It's OK.

I think I got to kneel.

OK,

hold on.

Pretty small.

All right, I'm in.

How does it feel?

Feels pretty good.

It still needs a little tweaking, but that's why we do a maiden voyage, just

to see what else it needs.

This is where the fish seem to be fighting. Do you want to get your rods

ready? Yeah, I guess.

Everything's pretty challenging to do in this tiny little space of terror.

We did a trip, like, years ago. It was in the Northwest Territories, Mackenzie

Mountains, and I've never even paddled a rapid before, and I went out there, and

after that, I was just hooked.

Jim and I got into expedition and canoe tripping, but then this is a whole other

level.

So far, no bites, no sign of fish.

No fish.

It's just getting dark, man.

Time to call it quits.

We are safely back at camp after the maiden voyage of Hope, our boat.

I guess I should be in better spirits about it because it floated quite well.

It did handle both of us with tons of freeboard on the sides.

But I don't understand how it's possible that, like, we could be there fishing

and didn't catch one fish, man. I don't know, man.

I don't know if it's given us a whole new lease on life, Jim, but it's

definitely an asset.

Yeah, absolutely.

When we get back, we'll write a book, The Vancouver Island Diet. Yeah.

All you do is you eat half of a seasonless fish per night, and that's

it. And drink water. And drink water.

And you can have some snails, too, if you want, but don't overdo it.

It's going to be time to go fishing pretty soon. Hopefully that's lucky.

All right.

Here, fishy, fishy.

We need fishes.

We did not eat fish yesterday.

Really would like to have a fish to eat tonight.

Mm-hmm.

Saw the sea lion on the way out here.

Oh, yeah?

We got this sea lion that hangs out.

He's scary because sometimes he gets kind of close, and I don't like that.

And he does it when you're not looking.

Whoa! Holy cow, there's Sneaky. Yeah, Sneaky, man. There he is.

Holy cow.

Wow, that was pretty close.

Yeah. I'm kind of scared he's going to just come flying out of the water right

up at us.

Wow, that was really creepy, man.

Man, where'd he go? I don't like this.

I don't like when he plays this game.

He just watches us all. When we're out there, he just watches us. And I like

watching him, too, except when he gets close. I don't like when he gets close

because they have big teeth, and you can tell he's definitely a large animal, and

I don't want to be near him because I don't know anything about those things.

They look plenty playful and cuddly, but so do bears, and bears can tear you to

pieces.

Look at that. Oh, boy.

What was that all about?

I don't know.

Little ways out.

Good.

Sneaky, you stay over there.

You getting any nibbles? Nothing.

I'm not getting any action over here anymore.

No, it's so slow now.

Wow, man, skunk.

Like very few bites.

Yeah, I don't like that Sure

would love to get out farther.

I'll tell you what where I think would be some really good fishing It's that

point right over there Yeah, you never know what might be hanging out right

near that channel. Mm-hmm.

I think might be worth it We just might catch a fish. We'll see

We'll have to try it soon, though. If you're no longer getting fish, we have a

little bit of reserves left, and then it's a countdown just to see how long we

can last.

I hope we don't get to that point.

We've got big plans today to make massive progress on the cabin. We're

going to karate chop that thing. We're going to be in there before you know it.

Brooke wants to do the fireplace because she's got an idea of what she wants and

how she wants to do it.

The fireplace will be built out of rocks straight from the ocean, the flattest

rocks I can find.

And it will be built at probably three feet.

High to reflect the heat away from a wooden teepee that will stand over top

of it is to act as sort of a chimney.

No way getting around it.

Rocks are heavy.

Low energy people shouldn't haul rocks.

What can you do?

She's always pushing herself.

We're both burned out a bit. We need to not work so hard. She just carried like

75 pounds of rocks up here.

Stubborn, stubborn woman.

She's going to blow out something, and that'll be it.

What

are you doing?

I've been adding rocks.

Let me carry the big ones, please.

Well, I've been doing it for an hour.

Why don't you just keep doing your thing?

And I'll keep. My thing's a lot lighter than yours, and I don't want you to blow

something out.

Only blowing out my energy.

That too. That's what's blowing right now.

Just take it easy.

I'm going to carry a few more. I'm just going to keep going as long as I can.

She is pushing herself farther than she should.

And this place will just beat her down if she doesn't watch herself.

Part of the day is upon me, Ted.

Part of the day are my wet socks on my wonderfully dry feet.

Oh, God.

Cold,

wet socks.

We'd like to take the boat out today.

The boat is pretty awesome. I mean, it's actually pretty quick. Given the

resources we had, some trees and some wire and only a 12-foot tarp, it's

pretty amazing.

But we're thinking that it's just going to be too small to go big distances, too

small for two people, so we're going to rig it up for one person and just kind

of fish closer, just the kelp beds just offshore that we can't quite reach when

fishing from shore.

So I'm really excited about it. I think it's a really awesome little vessel.

Good luck.

Thanks.

Where should I try fishing?

I don't know, man. Maybe just over by that cow boat there.

It takes a lot of time to get food.

But the key is just be patient and keep working.

I fish 10 forages.

Maybe I catch nothing, but Ted gets enough. Of course, you gotta split that

food between two people, but at least there is some food as opposed to none.

Well, no fish.

Time to call it quits.

Go work on some other stuff.

that took a lot out of me but another test run of the boat going solo

starting to get worried about this boat not providing us with more fish yeah

we're not getting enough food out here how much longer can we go like this ted

i don't know 10 days we need to eat more we just as

simple as that man i feel like we're I am anyways. I just feel like I'm being

tortured, you know?

Yeah.

It's a slow starve is what's happening to us.

We're starving to death.

We're getting kind of a late start today.

I think both of us are just really getting tired, really worn out.

Lack of food. We didn't have any fish yesterday.

We had none the day before.

And it's really catching up with us.

Today, we would really like to explore a different place for fishing.

Alright so we're headed off on our hike to the new potentially good fishing spot

all the way around the cove.

Gotta work with the tide and it's starting to rain on us but hopefully

it'll work out well today.

It's pretty rough walking but at low tide you can circle around and get to a

point where the inlet really pinches down.

Could be a great fishing spot.

Watch the tide pretty darn close while we're out here. Yeah.

If we get stuck, it's going to be a horrible walk back.

Yeah, it sure will.

As soon as that tide starts coming in, we've got to keep an eye on it. Yeah.

This looks doable right here.

Right through there?

Yeah. It's going to be rough with these fishing rods.

Damn it, I'm stuck.

There you go.

Holy cow, Sam.

You're killing the old man.

We're almost there.

I sure hope this is worth it.

How about you start fishing here?

All right.

The tides are not very good.

We have to come back before the tide starts coming back in, or we'll get

stuck. I mean, that could kill you.

If we can catch a fish, it would be worth it, wouldn't it?

Oh, my God.

Damn, if he didn't take my bait again.

There's a sneaky damn fish here.

Getting really pissed off.

Oh, bitch.

Oh, this is frustrating now.

The tide will probably change soon.

It's still going out, but it's definitely slowing down.

Yeah.

Doggone it. I need to catch this bait-rabbing fish.

I actually did just get a hit.

Yeah?

See that?

Oh, my God, Sam!

No way!

Oh! I cannot believe that.

You should have just stomped on him.

He was already down the... I would have gone right in.

I tell you what, if it wasn't for bad luck, you'd have no luck at all.

I wonder how long we're gonna be able to stay out here.

Nothing easy about it, that's for sure.

But this is...

An incredibly unique opportunity, spending a lot of time with my son.

There'll come a day when he'll get married, have children, maybe

settle down in a different part of the country.

And then who knows how often we'd be able to see him.

So spending this time with him is just invaluable.

Got one, Sam?

Yes! Nice big greenling.

That is what I am talking about.

Get away from the shore.

Oh, man. How about that?

All the fish we've caught so far has been by meat.

And Sam, he hasn't caught a fish yet.

I'm going to try a new spot.

You know, Sam is honestly a very good fisherman.

I've seen him catch fish when other people don't. I mean, he's being an

awful good sport about it.

I think he wished he could contribute to our food a little bit, but sometimes

that's how it goes.

Any more luck?

Yeah, I got one more.

Nice.

Ah!

It does kind of bother me that I haven't caught any yet. I don't get it. I mean,

back home, you know, we go fishing, and we're competitive.

Like, we're both turning in numbers, and now here we are out here, and I can't

get anything.

Got another one, Sam.

Nice!

I get any more bites?

No. Oh.

Right there where you are is where I caught that first big one.

Well, it is frustrating. I like catching fish.

I'd like to be walking back with a stringer of fish. That would be

phenomenal. But I don't know what's going on. I have no idea what's going

on.

I think the tide has turned.

Oh, we can't get caught out here, though.

Let's go ahead and get out of here.

Well, at least we're not going to go hungry.

Yeah, we got a few days worth.

I mean, what would I be doing if you weren't here?

Oh, I know. What would you be eating?

Nothing. I wouldn't be eating fish, that's for sure.

Good morning.

Pretty chilly out. It was a really harsh night last night.

Rained pretty much all day yesterday.

Capped it off with strong winds and some thunder, but very cold.

This food situation sucks, eh?

Yeah. That's what's plaguing us, man.

This morning we're just headed out to the cove to try to do some fishing.

Do you really think our bodies are going to shut down out here? Of course. We're

not eating enough, man.

Of course they will.

Hopefully we get on some fish.

We don't exactly have the yummiest food in hand.

Fish is definitely a treat out here, so I do want to get a trot line set today.

That's what we're going to do without further ado.

I'm just at our fishing spot and I'm going to set a trot line.

Easier said than done.

My hands are really frozen and it's really annoying to try to work them.

But I'm going to give it a whirl.

I'm going to tie some wires around this rock and make a loop in the wire at the

end and then I'm going to tie my line to that.

That's what I'm going to throw into the ocean with all my hooks on it. And then

I'm going to tie the line back to like a tree branch or something up here on

shore.

How many hooks should I put on this thing?

I don't know.

Seven? Ten?

Nine? I have nine limpets here. Is one limpet per hook good?

Yeah, we'll start with that.

somebody has to throw the rock and somebody has to have like slack and hold

it high and then depending on where the hooks are we'll like tie it up in the

tree go walk down there I'll stay here you throw it off that way and then we'll

tie it here and it'll be a bit diagonally I could throw it out now

kind of but not really like it's all just getting tangled on itself

This is probably good.

I think it would be better if you were up the hill a little more. I don't think

so, man.

You're going to get snagged on your hand when you throw it, man. I know because

it's not going to work. I need you to be up there with slack.

Setting a trot line isn't really as easy as you might think because there's so

many hooks and line that can be tangled and then all over the rocks there's

barnacles which can cut your line and the hooks need to be baited. And on top

of that there's cracks in the rocks that your line gets caught in everything.

Here we are, starving, hungry, in the pitch block again.

I'll do it on my own, man. You suck.

Why are you having a nervous breakdown? Because you're just changing all the

plans, and your plan sucks.

Dude, I'm trying to do something so you don't embed hooks in your hand. I don't

embed hooks in my hand if we do it my way. I don't know, bro.

One, two, three.

Oh!

Oh, dude, I knew that was going to...

happened what did i say man dude i lost the rock and all the hooks the hooks

embedded in my finger dude man you've thrashed yourself man no it's okay

it's not okay it's okay man shut up dude i tried to let it go man this was your

plan dude i told you that was gonna happen i told you shut up it's gonna be

fine hurry the up please

I had a plan from up there and like... You were just like, I'm going to throw

it. I was like, dude, you're going to get snagged on your feet. I know, I

know. I thought that might happen too, but it got caught on my jacket.

I wanted to just one hand throw the rock.

Well, you had rock spooled over non-barnacle area.

Show me what happened here.

Hold on a sec.

So me and Ted were trying to set a trot line. We tried to throw it out and Ted's

got a hook embedded in his finger.

That's prone to infection for sure.

What are you trying to do right now?

Pull the hook out.

Let me see.

Let's go back, man. I've hit the wall.

Okay. I'm really hoping it doesn't get infected because infection could spell

the end for us out here.

cold this morning.

Doesn't feel like when we got here.

There were days when we got here and I wore my t-shirt.

I'm a bit tired.

What's on the agenda for today?

We're going to work on the cabin this morning.

I'd love to sleep in there tonight.

A lot to do. Better get at it.

We're back in the woods.

We need poles for the fireplace for our cabin.

We are both just exhausted.

We got to get this cabin done.

You're taking them over the hill then?

Yeah. Oh. Oh, boy.

Go ahead.

Warning. Go ahead.

Nuts in danger.

Does that look about center, or does it need to come your way a little? I think

it needs to come my way.

What do we have to get done to move in?

First, the tarp.

Let's get the tarp on.

Are we in the home stretch, do you think?

Because if we put the tarp on, we'll be cutting wood in the rain if we don't

make it in. We're kind of committed once we do that.

I'm committed to being there tonight, man.

My spirits would be dashed if we're not in there tonight.

Here's our dilemma with the cabin right now.

We're ready to put the roof on and move our stuff over.

But it has went from a beautiful sunny day to now it's just dark and ominous

and moody.

Moving in the rain could be pretty awful.

Are we committed?

Yeah, I want to do it.

I don't want to be in that place anymore.

Wow.

Once the cabin's done, we're going to tear down the first shelter.

We're going to use a lot of the poles out of that for our bunks.

It has went from a beautiful sunny day to now it's just dark and ominous and

moody.

It looks like you're going to get pounded with rain in 20, 30 minutes.

Everything that you do out here is a risk. It's a calculated thought process

to get from one thing to another.

I'll figure this out in a minute. Let's get all four corners up.

You just have to weigh your options and make your choice.

You also can't just sit on the bench and think about it for too long, or you'll

never get anything done.

This is so unbelievable.

Yeah, really dark and ominous.

And now look at it.

It's like fairytale land.

It's beautiful.

Bringing back memories of day one.

Built this day one.

I'm proud of this shelter.

Honey, blue sky.

I know.

I saw it.

It's a good day for moving.

Yeah, basically.

You just fill in the cracks with the smaller stuff.

It's a lot of work.

Energy is something that is in completely short supply here.

So we definitely don't need to make more work for ourselves.

We are so close to moving in.

I'm going to go over. I'm going to grab the fire.

I'm bringing my fire.

You got to see the inside.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow, that's really throwing off some heat already.

Yeah, it feels pretty good.

Looks like a Christmas tree exploded in here.

I feel like the cabin is absolutely

the best decision we have made.

It will allow us to just come in at the end of a long day, and if it's pouring

rain, you can sit on a bench and be dry and be upright, and there's no leaks.

And he's carving our initials into the hearth, the mantle. I don't know what

you call this thing.

You feel secure, and you're dry, and it's a much happier environment.

So far, that risk has paid off. It's not a losing game right now.

Add a little more.

Hold me touch. I think it's pretty endearing after 18 years.

He's carving my initials in the mantle. Yay!

Later on, I'm going to give her a tattoo.

It's going to be my name. It's going to be on her cheek, like a prison tattoo.

It's going to be awesome. I'll take it.

We are in the cabin tonight.

We worked our butts off today, and we're in.

on our own bunks.

We can walk around.

We got head space.

Unbelievable.

I heard a flame sound, and I look up, and the chimney is on fire.

Every fish we've eaten out here has been my dad. I have not caught a single fish.

Yes! This is called a yellow brick. This is how you quit.

It's gonna be really exciting to check out the crab trap.

It looks like the float is not floating. No!

The float sunk.

No!