Original subtitles

CHIP HAILSTONE: Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah.

This is gasoline for snow machines.

The gas is pretty important to us.

It's precious. It's, uh, like liquid gold.

This is the time of year when, uh, we're out for fur.

We have a very large area that we hunt in.

And we basically start in Noorvik,

and we work our way down to the northern Seward Peninsula.

We come down to this area

because this is where the western Arctic caribou herd winters.

We have all the advantages down here.

It's very well worth the ride, the gas, the effort to come down this way.

We're hoping that we can at least get up

to where we want to base ourselves out of.

It's called the Whitehouse. It's a shelter cabin

that should be amongst some good caribou,

and some wolf and wolverine country back there.

AGNES HAILSTONE: Today, we're hoping to get to the Whitehouse.

Aikens' father has a long history of working back there.

And he'd told us tons of stories

from when he was a youth, so

it's always good to go back there and check it out.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

(CHIP SPEAKING)

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

CHIP: Man, I can smell that.

AGNES: Smell it?

CHIP: Smell it? I can see it now, somewhere right there.

Okay, we got a pin-hole crack right here.

I can see it plain as day, right here, where it's coming from.

Oh, we got a crack in the bottom of our drum.

We got an old drum from beside the sea shore there.

You know, the village is next to the ocean,

and, evidently, rusty spot has decided

that it needed to give.

Right here.

It's gonna make that part crack too.

CHIP: We got lucky my wife could smell the gas

as I was driving ahead of her, 'cause I was towing it and we found the crack.

AGNES: Is it leaking real bad?

It's leaking bad enough.

We better get to where we're going with it.

You can crack the jug

and you'll, uh, lose everything.

If you lose everything, then it's all for nothing.

Where we live, this stuff is eight bucks a gallon.

It's just an old drum.

Well, the trick is just to get it the fuck up there and deal with it.

I'm going to save as much of this as possible.

It's like losing blood.

There's not much we can do, and this is just like a real race against time.

SUE AIKENS: Every single movement I make, every single thing that I do,

I'm constantly checking and re-checking.

"Is this a need or a want?

"Do I need this, do I want this?"

There are some ptarmigan a little ways off,

so I'm gonna go and see if I can't put the sneak on them.

It'd be nice to get a couple of ptarmigans,

and maybe make a little ptarmigan stew.

A ptarmigan is a type of fowl.

Sort of like, you know, a prairie chicken or tundra chicken.

Where they're at, pretty darn hard to get the sneak on them.

But, uh, in my favour, ptarmigans aren't exactly

the rocket scientists of the ornithology world.

If they're down there by the river, they just may be too far out,

but we'll go take a look.

It's a sunny beautiful day, why the hell not get out?

Safety precaution.

I am not the only thing out here.

Know what's coming at you at all times.

The stuff that I can shoot for food

out here in the winter is so minimal.

Your population of animals, it's not here all the time.

In the spring, they'll migrate in and be here.

About September, they migrate out.

When they leave, that's it, they're gone.

One of the only things that sticks around are these ptarmigans.

These here are ptarmigan tracks.

And it looks like an animal paw print.

The ptarmigan have almost furry feet and furry legs

which help protect them.

They spend the whole winter out here, you know?

If it's 80 below, they're hunkered down somewhere, you know?

They do blend in very well.

You know, they're right around the brush.

They like hanging out by the willow.

But trying to cross over an open plain to get a shot...

It's a little tough.

You little, fat bastards.

Yeah, the little bastards are walking over to the riverbed.

Fuck. Really?

There they go.

Bye, guys.

See you later.

(LAUGHING)

So ends the sneak.

Birds, one,

Sue, zero.

Tomorrow's a new day.

ANDY BASSICH: You got to get the job done and you can't take days off.

Rain or shine.

Pain or no gain.

You gotta get out there and do it.

Hey, little monster!

How's my little monster today?

Here you go.

I'm very involved in the Yukon River fisheries,

and one of the panels that I'm on

meets every year at the end of March.

Kate's gonna have to take control of the homestead here.

Whenever I go away for these fishery meetings,

I'm usually gone for a week to 10 days.

All the maintenance of our homestead here

are going to fall into her lap.

(SIGHS)

What the hell is going on with this damn machine?

That snow machine is the bane of his existence.

A few curse words makes it work.

Fuck you, man!

Goddamn fuckin' machine!

(BANGING)

KATE: How to get things going with tender loving care.

(LAUGHING)

It's almost there, boy.

(ENGINE WHIRRING)

Got it.

Praise...

...whatever.

-ANDY: See ya. -All right, babe.

Well, Andy just left.

So I'm in charge, I guess.

(SHUDDERING) Cold!

That's it, on my own again.

Come on, Jack.

Come on, pupper.

You my man, now.

Yee-hoo!

ERIK SALITAN: There will be times where I will stay awake

for three days straight, just working.

Work and work and work and do stuff.

Pot of coffee, after pot of coffee, after pot of coffee.

We're gonna head up a drainage that's not too far from my house here.

And I've seen some wolf sign up there.

It's gonna be about a 15-mile run.

Not very far by wolf-trapping standards.

Some trappers in Alaska have up to 500-mile trap lines.

I trap approximately 100 miles of trap line,

but it's broken up into small legs.

Hopefully we'll go up there and get these sets in

and come back in a few days and have some luck.

I tried to put a couple of wolf snares here,

and in this thicket, there's a kill.

These snares are set up.

They are custom-made for trapping in this area by a good friend of mine.

It's rated for 750 lbs.

The intention being if a moose is accidentally caught,

the moose can just break it.

And we've actually gone ahead

and tested that, and it does work.

There's a wolf trail here, going back and forth through a thicket.

And I'm gonna fix my snare to this tree.

Tie it up high here, so there's some play in it

and the wolf doesn't break it free.

We're going to set the snare about 18 inches off the ground.

Just about the height of the wolf.

The idea is the wolf is gonna come through here.

Get his head through here and...

It's going to tighten up on him.

Cool.

I disconnected my sled

to access another little side creek

that I wanted to have a look in.

I wanted to get up over the bank to

avoid some really nasty ice conditions there on the creek.

(BEEPING)

I'm fucked. I hit a bush.

I wanted to get up over the top of that bank

to avoid some really nasty ice conditions there on the creek.

It was some troublesome conditions

and rolled the sled down.

My machine got all trashed, all thrashed.

The steering, the suspension is all whacked out, the handlebars bent.

I can't go more than five miles an hour on this thing.

I'm a little bit irritated here.

I'm a little bit mad at myself.

I'm a little bit mad at the circumstances.

I can't do much trapping without a snow-go.

I'm not even that worried about the money.

It's just that I gotta keep rolling, you know, as...

I got snares out, I got traps out.

You know, this sets me back.

I need to get my sled going ASAP.

KATE: He felt very connected to this piece of property.

And I have to say, I have to join him in that

because the first time I stepped foot on here,

I didn't want to leave either.

Andy had to go for his meeting.

So I'm the sole caretaker now for a while.

And I've got a little bit more responsibility,

of course, when I stay here by myself.

I basically take over all of the... All of the chores.

And I've had a few strange experiences on my own.

So, hopefully this one will be uneventful.

-Ooh, I don't like that wiggle. -(DOGS BARKING)

A lot of wind on you guys.

Up here.

The solar panels, it's really windy today.

It's gusting around 25 miles an hour right now.

It's supposed to get worse so I wanted to make sure

these were tight so that the solar panels are well-anchored.

So, they don't move in the wind and get broken.

That would be a disaster.

But, pretty tight there now, so...

I should be good.

But I'll check them on and off and make sure that

these don't take off in the wind.

You never know, we might get some sun.

Getting ready to feed the dogs.

Grab a couple of racks of fish.

Typically, this is Andy's job.

I figure that weighs about 50 lbs.

Like lifting weights.

It's nice being alone for a little while.

Not that long, but...

I like it. It's, uh, good.

I work a bit harder than I normally do.

But I'll do everything I can to enjoy it to the max.

Who wants fish?

(DOGS HOWLING)

One nice thing about being alone

is the fact that it's much quieter here.

And no power tools or anything like that.

They love this stuff.

(BARKING)

I'm coming, I'm coming.

A man may work from sun to sun,

but a woman's work is never done.

I'll say one thing for this,

it's not the place for designer clothes.

(LAUGHING)

CHIP: Well, we have no help.

We have no helicopter landing to come along this way.

We have nobody that's going to go pick us up.

We have to help ourselves.

AGNES: To get to the Whitehouse today we are going to have to

cross a couple of creeks,

couple of steep mountain ridges

and certain places, it's usually kind of rough.

I almost got stuck, too.

So hard it got stuck?

CHIP: Yeah. AGNES: So heavy?

CHIP: I'm tired.

Oh, I'm a little frustrated, all right,

'cause my drum of gas weighs 300-400 pounds...

AGNES: And it's leaking.

CHIP: It sank into the snow, and I'm stuck.

It ain't where I want to be so late in the day.

Give me the jerk rope.

I'm gonna jerk this guy right out of the hole.

My concern is that it's getting dark

and I don't have a trail up to the Whitehouse yet.

It's been a long day.

We're both tired.

We're almost there.

We're almost there.

Come on.

That's when all the crap happens,

within sight of home.

Can't get mad at anybody but ourselves.

I'm not interested in doing that right now.

AGNES: Oh, whoa. It's going back.

CHIP: Okay, hold onto that sucker.

I've already got a crack in the gas can.

We've already lost maybe five gallons anyway.

So, what we're trying to do is beat the seep of the gas

and getting ourselves unstuck,

and getting up to a place where we want to camp and make some dinner.

(ENGINE WHIRRING)

AGNES: Come on.

We sure know how to get stuck!

Try pulling it up.

Holy cow.

CHIP: Get it to the side.

So it doesn't go in the trench.

Chip, you're going to spray me!

Boy, I'm so glad you got free.

CHIP: I see daylight at the end of this tunnel.

Okay, here, make sure I can go first.

All right, well, first thing I'm going to untie is this damn fuel.

Would you go behind the building and see if that drum is loose?

My gasoline is leaking as we speak.

So, I'm in a hell-bent hurry to get this sucker done,

and get it upright and deal with my fuel proper.

Well, the gas has survived, but we're about five or six gallons less than before.

We worked pretty hard to get here.

And as long as you keep working hard,

you can work your way out of any situation.

We're going to take our jerry-jugs, our small five-gallon cans.

And we're going to syphon off as much fuel out of this drum as we possibly can.

And get it below the level of the crack and at least stop the leaking.

The 40 drum.

CHIP: It's going good, babe.

The consequences of not having the gas that's in here

is a lot less hunting.

She'll be shooting. I'll be trapping.

And if I can't check my traps, or she can't see animals to shoot,

this is all for nothing. And I didn't come this far for nothing.

There we go.

AGNES: I'm trying to get as much as I can in each one.

CHIP: It's been a bit of a mental strain.

It's kind of frustrating, but we're lucky we got it out of there.

We did really well.

It's just like how we left it.

This log here, every time someone comes back here, we write when did we get here,

which way we're going, where'd we come from.

In case we get lost or something,

um, the people who come looking for us,

if for some reason we don't get back when we say we're going back,

they'll know where we went.

CHIP: Finally made it to the Whitehouse here.

It took gas, it took money,

and we built up to this moment.

And now, we're here and we're happy.

Probably make ourselves some dinner

and go to sleep, that's the next plan.

Yeah.

ERIK: There's no rules here. There's no schedule here.

There's no social norms.

I don't need to adhere to any kind of timetable.

I just absolutely jacked my sled up.

Hurt myself, too. I don't even give a shit about myself right now,

but my sled is just...

Busted the cowling right open.

Plastic, bent my A-arms.

My skis aren't lined up.

It's not even drivable.

The steering, the suspension is all-whacked out.

The handle bars, bent.

Without a sled I can't get a whole lot done here.

Not going to be able to...

You know, I got a bunch of traps out I gotta go check.

This is a bad deal.

This is a real bad deal.

I mean, this is just sit...

That's just sitting there.

That's useless.

If I don't have a snow machine, not a whole lot I can do.

Being that I'm hundreds of miles from town,

this is a big deal,

'cause I gotta get all the way into Fairbanks, Alaska,

and get a bunch of parts and everything.

I can't just go down the road to a local parts store, it doesn't exist.

Don't think I ended up on top today.

SUE: It's not a pessimistic way of life.

You're not always thinking doom and gloom, the world is going to fail me.

But you prepare for it.

It is being proactive.

And we got some ptarmigan out there again.

They're out there a ways,

but it'd be a nice addition to get some fresh meat and make a little stew.

We'll see if we can't put the sneak on them.

Yesterday, of course, I went out and tried, and I was wearing all dark

so at least the lighter colour, I may blend in a little bit more.

The challenges for me with hunting out here

this time a year is number one, trying to blend into your surroundings.

Birds are... They're skittish at best.

So, you want to put the sneak on them and stalk,

but, you know, I mean, you can look here and where are you gonna hide?

Between the 300 yards to the top of that hill,

there's one stick hanging up there, maybe three.

So, in this environment it is really hard to put the sneak on them.

Look at all the tracks. Bird central, man.

How far away are they?

They're roosting,

so I'm trying to see if I can see anything roosting a little closer.

'Cause once you take one shot, they're all taking off.

Way too far out. I don't see any way to surprise them.

(SUE SPEAKING)

It's still a fuck of a long shot.

(GUN FIRES)

(FLUTTERING)

Fuck me.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I bother?

So, now, it's Ptarmigan, two, Sue, zip.

Bitches!

It would have been nice to get one or two,

but the scarcity of the game,

and the conditions with which you have to hunt them in is...

Your success rate is not 100%.

But, you know, I'm patient,

there's always tomorrow, or later today, or tonight.

KATE: When I stay here by myself, you have to be very cognitive

about what's going on around you.

I got to watch everything.

So, I usually do this every day.

I can melt this for the dog water,

and that will help my drinking water supply considerably.

There's noticeable differences when Andy's gone.

I've handled some things I didn't want to

over the years, and that's par for the course, and that's how you learn.

I'll never learn how to live in the bush by myself,

and if he goes first, I got to do it anyway.

But, you know, I'm older so I should go first, I'm counting on it.

(LAUGHING)

This weather, we've had colder than average temperatures here for one thing.

Then we had a huge snowfall.

Today, when Andy called me, I told him it was a light breeze,

so the trails should be good, but, no,

it's been gusting now around 30 miles an hour.

Friggin' wind, man, it's blowing a gale.

Oh, shit, the solar panels!

Fuck.

Solar panels.

My solar panels just lifted up.

Damn it.

(WIND WHOOSHING)

30-odd miles an hour of wind.

(KATE SPEAKING)

It was crazy wind and buckets were blowing off the porch,

and it was just a huge gust of wind.

I just looked out the window, and I saw that the solar panels,

the rope had broken that was tying them down to the pole.

So, I had to rush out there and secure that, and it's not easy to do,

because that was gale-force wind, and it was just a bastard.

(KATE SPEAKING)

It's lovely to be here by myself, but it can turn the other way pretty quick

when something goes wrong,

and, uh, I sure could use Andy around when things run amok.

I know the basics on some of these things,

but I don't know it in depth to be able to troubleshoot as well as he could.

That's a lot of power behind a flat surface, it's like a sail,

so it's pretty hard to handle.

Good!

There's not much more I can do. I can't hold onto them all day.

And when Andy comes home, he can check it out

and make sure there's something different he can do.

(KATE SPEAKING)

A bit daunting.

All right, say a prayer.

ERIK: Alaska has been incredibly good to me.

I think a lot of the opportunities that I've had here,

my guiding business.

I've been very fortunate.

Rolled into Fairbanks.

Headed up to Compeau's here,

this canoe dealership, gonna drop my sled off.

And see if they can't get me sorted out and back on the trail.

Man, you're supposed to keep these rubber-side down, buddy.

-How you doing? -Did I make you proud here or what?

Yeah, you did good. (LAUGHS)

Tell me it's still running good.

It's still running fine,

but the whole front end's all bent out of whack.

We've got a left panel for sure.

Everything looks good underneath.

(CRANKING)

Yeah, ski is tweaked.

If you could help me out and get me in and out quick.

I got a lot of traps out. Man, I'd love to get on the trail again.

-I'd do it, yeah. -Yeah, I'd appreciate that, Craig.

We try and put a priority on guys from the bush like Erik,

because we know this isn't a toy, it's their truck.

Whatever we got to do, we make it happen so these guys can keep making a living.

I got my machine into Compeau's canoe dealership,

and they're going to try and get me back out there as soon as they can, so, it was good.

SUE: You know, I'm a slave to the environment.

But a willing slave to it.

It's, uh... The only thing you can count on is the fact that you can't count on anything.

I got some ptarmigan way out there.

Now, it's a matter of principle.

Hell or high water, I'm going to get one of them little bastards.

I might be able to get by that snowdrift and get a shot in.

(GUN FIRES)

That's nowhere even near close.

With my gun, the sight is off, it got hit really hard.

No, that's fucking going everywhere. I mean, it's just so off, it's pathetic.

It is a challenge to find an open expanse of snow

and sight it in on the fly.

That means I'm taking aim, I'm shooting, and I see where the snow goes poof.

How far away is it from the bird? How do I need to adjust it and zero in?

(GUN FIRES)

Son of a bitch.

We're only at 50 yards. I mean, it's not that far.

I mean, at that distance, I should have him dead nuts.

It's a little frustrating.

There's that little fucker right there. I should've gotten him.

There he goes. He's down.

Okay.

This is what I've been trying for.

This is a ptarmigan. It's the state bird.

They've got really furry feet, which helps them survive in the winter.

And, so now, I'm gonna, in the field, breast them and take those breasts inside.

They're real easy. Got very soft skin.

I step on either side of the wing

to hold the majority of the body down and pull up.

(MEAT TEARING)

This will be one good meal, I mean, it's a nice size breast.

It's all dark meat. Lot of protein, lot of iron.

You can see, I mean, the shot I got kinda took a hunk out of the breast,

but, uh, you know, some awful good eating right there.

I also like the heart.

The heart and the breast, that's what I keep out of it.

The rest I'll leave, and my foxes, they'll have it.

I've benefitted by this, my animals will benefit by it.

The blood is far enough away from camp, it won't be an issue for my predators.

Let's go cook some chow. Yay me!

Sue, one, ptarmigan, two. I got a little catching up to do, but I got dinner.

ERIK: There's a million things to do out here.

People think about people who live in the bush

and think they just sort of sit around all the time.

That's not the case.

There's not enough hours in the day for me to get done what I need to get done.

My snow machine broke down the other day, and when I say broke down, I crashed it.

It was a very negative event. Right now, it's in Fairbanks, at the dealership.

So what I'm doing is I'm using this down time to catch up on a lot of things.

I brought in these moose quarters.

There's absolutely nothing about moose that is fun.

Moose are heavy, they are big.

The only good things about moose is it's fun to hunt them and they taste good.

We got these two shoulders. We're going to take these coats off of them.

We're gonna skin the hide off of these moose.

We're gonna pile this meat up, I'm going to bring my grinder in,

we're going to grind all this meat, and we're going to end up

with just an absolutely massive pile of moose meat.

You can invite all your friends, we'll come down and have a barbeque.

This is one heavy piece of meat.

You don't want to slip with your knife and cut that rope that it's hanging up by.

If this thing came down and hit me in the head, it'd probably knock me out cold.

Time out.

A little dried blood flipped up and got me in the eye there.

That smells really... Just cutting this up, the meat of it smells very good.

I'm gonna grind the entirety of it, and that's what I'm going to have

for the warm weather season when I eat a lot of things off my grill.

Got my grinder set up here.

Before I begin, I boil every part of this to sanitise it,

because you're dealing with hundreds of pounds of meat

and if you contaminate it even one little bit, you could spoil everything.

Highest quality meat in the world. Lean, healthy, organic.

Lot of work, it goes on and on and on and on.

But it's better than a real job, I suppose.

CHIP: I miss, you miss, we miss, they miss.

Just the way it goes.

This is the way living is when you're a hunter, but what we don't do is stop hunting.

Being as we're caribou hunters, we are here to hunt these caribou.

All the caribou here are pretty stationary.

I see a raven. Ravens follow wolves a lot.

Looks like there's a couple of hundred over here, they're progressing to the West.

If we don't pressure them, and we're on the backside of that ridge,

they'll come over to us.

And we get behind the ridge, and we're going to go around,

and when we go around, hopefully, the caribou will come on over.

Caribou's are our income, caribou's our life, it's our bread.

We eat caribou, we trade caribou, we are caribou.

AGNES: There's the first bunch coming up to the right.

Right on the hill,

a whole herd.

It's a challenge to hunt in this wide open so we wear white specifically out here,

and we try to put a darker colour towards our front end

and a darker colour towards the other end,

and what you end up looking like is a caribou.

AGNES: They're coming to us.

We gotta keep walking, 'cause the lead cow just...

(CHIP SPEAKING)

AGNES: My gun is ready.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

(CHIP SPEAKING)

(AGNES SPEAKING)

Nothing to shoot!

(CHIP SPEAKING)

(CHIP SPEAKING)

I just shot a couple, and I just missed a couple of times and hopefully the caribou...

(CHIP SPEAKING)

...will turn back. I'm just waitin' for a good shot,

because right now, if I shoot, I'll shoot it in the ass.

And I don't want to do that.

-Can you make that? -AGNES: Yup!

CHIP: Put it dead on.

Wait till she hesitates more, she's about to.

She's already turning sideways.

AGNES: They're off. A total miss.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

AGNES: Three high shots.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

CHIP: Which is life.

I shot a little high three times.

We basically used the hill to keep between us

and the caribou until we got close enough.

We got off and walked, and let the caribou think

that we were caribou also. They started running towards us,

they got a little spooky, they wavered. I think the lead cow was kind of educated,

and she was leery of us.

Being as they're running caribou,

it just went a little high, and that's just the way it went.

Better luck next time.

CHIP: We didn't catch any caribou yet. So, we have more hunting to do.

We're going to go on the other side of the hill

since that's the direction we're headed anyway,

and, hopefully, we got some more opportunities

over on the other side of the hill.

ERIK: I have the utmost respect for my environment.

The utmost respect for the predators in my area,

but not a hell of a lot I fear out of life, it's just a challenge I haven't met yet.

Fresh meat. Yum-yum. It's got a lot of nutrients in it.

Got the meat that I wanted out in the field. Now, I'm gonna debone it,

and get those breasts so I can cook them.

I don't believe in waste.

That animal just gave its life so I could have life,

I'm using it up.

It is special to me that I was able to go out,

even, you know, the difficulty of the rifle being off,

it made me a little crabby,

because I don't like failure, I don't want anything to suffer,

I'm... My shots are missing, the ptarmigan were two up on me,

you know, I mean, the heat was on.

But this one I got, and it's a pretty special deal,

and I feel pretty grateful for it, so I want it to be a special little meal.

Butter, apples, cranberries, ptarmigan.

I don't worry about any growth hormones in this little dude.

I'll just add those in. I don't believe in over-cooking the meat.

I've killed it once, I don't feel any need to do it twice.

People ask me what does ptarmigan taste like,

I say it tastes a lot like grizzly bear.

They go, "Well what does that taste like?" "A lot like ptarmigan."

Then you got one plate full of goodness.

Eight minutes ago this thing was cackling out on the tundra,

now, he's on my dinner plate.

Pretty good. Life is good.

KATE: I trust him completely to look after me,

so it's super sweet when he comes home.

And, uh, that's the best part.

I watch that river like a hawk.

Andy left a couple of days ago. I'm just waiting for him to get home today.

Hi, Katie, how's my little girl?

Hey.

Recognise me?

Nope.

(ANDY SPEAKING)

(KATE SPEAKING)

I know. I'm tired. I need beer, sauna and food.

-We had major friggin' wind here today. -ANDY: What happened?

We almost lost the solar panels.

-Why, 'cause they weren't locked down? -The rope broke,

everything was going nuts, and I looked out the kitchen window,

and they were horizontal,

and I ran out and I got them pulled down and tied down.

You got to go do something mechanical today.

Good for you.

Boy, I tell you what a fright I got, and you know those things are so strong

when that wind was blowing against them.

It's like having a sail.

Holy crap.

-But you can go check it all out. -I will tomorrow. That's good.

Mmm-hmm.

Well, at least they're not totally fucking destroyed.

Say, "Well done, Kate!"

I said you got to be a mechanic. What a good girl.

Kate knows how to do shit.

She's watched me do shit for so long, it's rubbing off now, huh?

KATE: I know, I'm just used to...

ANDY: Is it rubbing off? Yeah, must be.

Must be. (LAUGHING)