Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero,

Alaska braces for winter's grip.

SUE: I predict it's gonna be really bad weather.

Only the tough survive, man.

NARRATOR: Andy puts his bet on an elusive prize.

ANDY: (WHISPERS) I gotta let him get a little closer.

(GUNSHOT)

NARRATOR: Sue risks thin ice for last minute reserves.

SUE: Do not fall through.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones hunt for their community's survival.

CHIP: You gotta keep it in sight.

Where'd you go?

NARRATOR: And a costly mistake could break Erik for good.

ERIK: It's about 20 below zero. Oh!

NARRATOR: Every autumn, the Hailstones travel

26 miles from their home in Noorvik

to Camp Kookoochaiq,

where they acquire essential resources.

CHIP: Okay, you ready then? AGNES: Let's go moose hunting.

The plan today is to go hunting.

We'll see what we see. But there's definitely moose around.

And the chances of us coming along

with one is pretty good.

We like being providers and sharing.

And people treat us good for that

because that's an adult's place.

There's at least, you know, 20 houses we can give it away to,

and everybody will have three or four meals.

And they'll reciprocate.

And when I got nothing, fresh meat will land at my house.

CHIP: Ah, we're off.

We're checking out the lakes.

We're checking out the sloughs.

And the moose just naturally walk the grassy areas.

So, we'll hunt what we see first.

AGNES: Yee, yee, yee! Watch out for that wave.

(CHIP LAUGHS)

CHIP: I'm tearing this shit up.

AGNES: Watch out for that willow.

Whoo!

(AGNES LAUGHS)

Oh, you know, we're hunting. It's shopping.

We're gonna see what's on the aisles.

We got a moose tag and it's all good, man.

You don't know what you see till you see it.

When we see it, we'll hunt it.

NARRATOR: With dark winter approaching,

Chip and Agnes can't afford

to return to Noorvik without a moose in tow.

AGNES: You see that?

There you go.

Whoo-hoo.

(MOOSE CALLS)

CHIP: (WHISPERS) There it is. Shoot it. It's looking straight at us.

Do you wanna go grab the tree and take a brace?

AGNES: Yep, I do.

CHIP: Oh, don't move fast. Don't move fast.

There you go. Hurry up.

AGNES: I'm trying. It already left.

CHIP: She's going.

It's gonna hit the river and swim.

It's gonna put the river between us.

Put it on your shoulder. Let's go.

AGNES: There's a lake right over here.

So, it's between the lake and the river somewhere.

He just kept on going.

You see the look on his face?

-(AGNES CHUCKLES) -He gave us one eye.

And then he turned his head and gave us the other eye.

(CHUCKLES) Like double-checking.

AGNES: Yep. CHIP: Oh, well.

Saw a nice young bull moose.

He gave us one eye and then gave us the other eye,

and then he got the fuck out of town.

If you don't know where he is, you really can't shoot him.

Pretty hard to find them in this tangle.

So we just go on to the next one.

It's no biggie. It's actually quite normal.

Okay, let's carry on.

We got a date with a big fat moose somewhere.

SUE: You prepare for the worst

and be pleasantly surprised by the best.

But if you haven't prepared for it

by the time it hits,

that's a bum deal.

NARRATOR: As winter descends on Kavik,

Sue Aikens faces 300 days

of sheer isolation in her remote outpost.

Hey, look what showed up.

(CHUCKLES) Winter came back.

Seeing all the white on the ground,

it's a reminder that

this isn't going anywhere.

I'm losing more daylight daily

and so, shut down of camp.

I gotta get it buttoned up. I've gotta know it's buttoned up.

And that means going through each and every trailer. Just opening it.

Are the windows shut? Is there something I need to fix?

Make a list. Get it done.

I check. I double check. I triple check.

This is my last shot before winter stays and doesn't leave.

I need to get it done today.

Where I can today stand here

relatively thinly dressed,

that is going to change and change rapidly.

60, 70, even 100 below zero is not unheard of.

The wind picks up and I will not be able to see

this hand in front of my face.

I could never walk down here and be able to see

the orange colour of that trailer.

Let alone, it's gonna be dark.

Today, I have nice temperatures,

I'm getting liquid water. It's a blessing.

Just anything to add to what I use.

I normally

do about a gallon a day is what I give myself

between drinking, bathing, cooking, cleaning.

Tomorrow, it'll be frozen and a bigger challenge.

Where is an appreciable opening?

The goal is that you don't really wanna fall through,

but it could happen.

Do not fall through. Do not fall through.

Here we go.

I mean, water...

It is precious as gold out here.

Because I'm gonna have

the next 300 days

without running liquid water.

I'll have plenty in the ice variety.

Plenty in snow.

This is not frozen yet.

And this time of year, that's kind of unheard of.

So while the getting is good,

I need to get my water

and resupply myself.

Another week, maybe two,

the length of that journey

could cost me a couple of these.

It is a beautifully harsh place.

And, uh, only the tough survive, man.

ANDY: The more you learn, the more you see,

the more you get out there, the better adapted you are

to harvesting what you need out here.

KATE: Well, yesterday morning we woke up,

and we had

a little light snowfall.

And the forecast

was for snow and rain showers.

When we woke up it was,

holy cow, we'd already had seven inches.

But it's this wet, horrible snow.

ANDY: A cold day on the Yukon today.

We've had a very early snowfall this year,

and it's really putting a hurt

on the way we do things.

Everything's frozen down.

Everything's buried under the snow.

I would've liked to have harvested

a little bit more meat.

We got a nice moose,

but today, what's on the agenda

is to go get a couple beavers.

There's a couple beaver ponds not too far from here.

And the season's open for firearm.

Once it cools off a little bit more,

with this snow, we'll get a lot of ice forming on the Yukon pretty quick.

So I want to take full advantage of being able to use the boats

before winter sets in completely.

Hunting beaver is a little bit different

than hunting a lot of hooved animals.

Beavers have a pretty good sense of smell.

They tend to come out

in the early mornings and late evenings.

So I don't know if they'll be out right now,

but this is close enough to home.

I can always come back

in the evening time if I need to.

Yeah, right now I'm carrying

a .22 Magnum for shooting the beavers.

And, uh, I'm carrying my

.325, in case I run into a bear.

It'd be foolish to walk around here with just a .22 right now.

A .22 Magnum wouldn't do much

against a grizzly bear, except for piss him off.

(CHUCKLES)

It's a beaver chew.

It's a lot of aspen and a lot of cottonwood right here.

So, this is what they prefer to eat.

You can see there's quite a few chews around here.

This is a pretty good little beaver pond here.

There's a good-sized feed pile here.

And I can see the, uh, bank house here,

where they've been piling sticks up against the bank.

So, there's nothing swimming right now.

I'm gonna go thump on the water a little bit.

That's kind of an alarm for the beavers.

I'll see if that doesn't draw them out to investigate.

Looks like everybody's napping right now.

So, uh, I think it's time to go back home,

get a few more chores done.

I'm hoping if I come back late this evening,

have an opportunity to harvest one or two of 'em.

We'll see what happens.

ERIK: There's a lot of different types of people

that come out to the bush to live.

You know, some people come out here

'cause they're running from something.

And everybody lives out here

for their own unique reason.

NARRATOR: For much of the winter,

Erik Salitan makes his living from trapping fur.

Today he's hoping a new kind of trap will bring him success.

ERIK: Just opening up a box of conibear 330s.

This trap's different than most of the traps I use,

in that it actually breaks the neck

of the animal and kills it instantly.

Whereas most of the traps I use are leg holds

and just catch the animal's foot.

I'm trying to construct a box here to put a 330 conibear in.

Something I've never done.

I'm not that good of a carpenter,

but I don't think the animals will notice.

(WHIRRING)

Okay.

I think my cubby set box is going to work.

So the idea is,

the bait is placed in the back of the cubby.

The animal comes along, he sees the bait in the back,

he goes in, he hits this trigger mechanism.

Snap. It instantly kills him,

and it's a real humane way to harvest foxes or wolverines,

so I think we succeeded.

Okay, now we're gonna go to phase two

which is to actually test this

and make sure that the jaws flow freely inside the cubby box I made.

Safety is now off

and that is a hot, very powerful trap.

The 330 conibear here, it's a large trap.

So I'm a little bit leery about this son of a gun here,

and definitely don't wanna be putting my arm in there.

I'm pretty sure it would actually break your arm.

And that's what happens.

Jesus Christ. That's powerful.

Guess it works. (LAUGHS)

ERIK: So I'm excited to give it a try.

You know, everything up here is trial and error,

but with error, you know, there's a price to be paid.

So, if I waste

part of the trapping season

fooling around with these cubby boxes and conibears,

and I don't have any success,

that's time wasted, fur I didn't catch.

And if I'm not catching fur, I'm wasting money.

And I'm not into wasting anything up here.

Using my handy trap setter here

and trying not to break my arm.

So I'm learning as I go

and whenever you're learning anything new,

there's a learning curve.

Gotta pay really close attention here.

You make a mistake, cost you a finger or worse.

So to be honest, I am kind of scared of these traps.

I'm just not very experienced with them.

So, I try to use a lot of caution.

It's pretty cold right now. It's about 20 below zero...

Oh!

That wasn't cool.

Oh, fuck.

Well, I caught my hand in it.

Didn't feel particularly good.

Oh, yeah, that... I guess that's part of the learning curve.

Forced to work without a glove right now,

to get my glove out of the trap.

It's not all that fun.

Stupid shit like that,

where you are operating when you're tired.

(EXHALES)

In the cold,

doing stuff by yourself.

You smash your hand open.

You can get yourself in trouble out here so...

(SIGHS) At least my arm's not stuck in it.

Using my body here as leverage.

This hand isn't feeling too good.

You may notice my leeriness around the traps now. (CHUCKLES)

This one should be a good one.

I got piece of a moose skull in there.

(SIGHS)

Come back here in a few days and maybe we'll have gotten lucky.

Learnt a good lesson here with these 330s.

Kinda I guess reminding myself

why I never fooled with 'em in the past.

They're frickin' dangerous. I'm happy all it had was my hand.

SUE: I've heard the term,

"Walking around in a dreamlike state."

I don't wanna sleep through life.

I can dream when I'm dead.

NARRATOR: With the deep freeze fast approaching,

Sue's racing to make sure her camp

can withstand the harsh Arctic conditions.

SUE: You know, for the last 10, 11 years,

I've been living in a corner

of the dining hall year round.

This year I put up this building

so that I had some personal space.

Any time you put up a new structure,

you've gotta lessen any of the imperfect contact.

You know, where's the wind gonna come in?

These winds are gonna hit me at 100 miles an hour maybe.

Cold air is gonna come barrelling in.

And if there's any little tiny hole,

snow is gonna come barrelling in and make a huge drift in here.

For my own safety, my own comfort,

I've gotta start foaming as much as I can.

There's no way I'm gonna be able to get

each and every tiny little crevice.

But I'll get the ones that I can see,

and I'll discover more as the winter goes on.

It's gonna be a new experience for me.

This is my... This is like

walking into Kavik all over. Day one.

Is this gonna be very pretty? No.

Is it going to be effective? Yes.

You know, and am I perfect at doing this stuff? Nope.

But little by little,

Miss Gomer Pyle makes it happen.

Personally, every single damn year that I'm here,

I'm a greenhorn.

And there is gonna be something

that nature or life shows me...

Entirely new. It's all the unknowns.

Which is thrilling,

but at the same time, spooky.

I've been hearing a noise...

(IMITATES METAL CLANKING)

In the wind. It's bothering me.

(CLANKING)

This'll have to be secured down.

Or it will get torn off in the winds

and possibly tear into one of my tents.

You know, I mean, you do live

to a large extent using your ears.

I mean, when you're protecting yourself, your eyes are pretty good.

But eventually it's all dark and they don't do me a hell of a lot of good.

I listen.

The footsteps coming through the river.

I can lay there in bed and tell you,

is that a wolf? Is that a caribou? Is that a bear?

This'll help protect me.

But it also helps keep camp in one piece instead of 10 or 12.

NARRATOR: Sue relies on her senses for survival.

But they are also linked to her darkest memory.

A bear attack, several years ago,

that left her nearly dead until help arrived.

SUE: After the bear attack,

when I was laying here, I don't know how many days...

And I can't move in the tent.

And you can hear a bear chewing on the skull of something,

not 10 feet away from me on the other side of the tent.

I could not move. I could not do anything.

And you're hearing, (IMITATES BEAR GROWLING)

and the huffing and they nudge the side of the tent.

Is he coming to get me next? Is this it?

Or is he just fucking with me?

And, yeah, thanks.

That's the most disturbing memory that I try not to think about.

I mean, is this some kind of a super-duper fix? No.

Will it do what I'm asking it to do?

It's not gonna make a hell of a lot of noise, no.

So I mean, yeah.

Fix is done. Onto the next chore.

CHIP: I enjoy myself. I don't live up to someone else's expectations.

I don't live up to someone else's standards. I don't care.

AGNES: Okay, moose, you can come out now!

NARRATOR: Chip and Agnes Hailstone are stalking

the Kobuk River for moose. A crucial source of meat,

for their family as well as their community.

AGNES: Just gotta go get the moose

and then we'll have moose meat

and moose tongue and moose heart

and everything to do with moose.

(MOOSE CALLS)

AGNES: Nope. Nothing standing.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

CHIP: So what we do as we come around the corner is we try to take them wide,

so we can have a good look at what's around the corner.

'Cause when we take them close

and we jump a moose, they just run away.

We take 'em wide, we're hoping there's a moose around the corner,

because quite often they're out of the brush, but this is where they live.

They live in the brush. They're very hard to detect.

AGNES: Locked and loaded.

We can't catch a cow with a calf.

We can only catch a cow without a calf.

CHIP: We gotta keep it in sight.

If we lose sight of it, we got nothing.

Where'd you go?

Well, we're never gonna see her in this shit.

Let's go have a cup of coffee.

AGNES: Well, we're shit out of luck for moose.

I think my husband's a little stressed out.

CHIP: That was a little too exciting.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

CHIP: Yeah, but she was fat. (CHUCKLES)

That was worth shooting.

AGNES: Go by those trees?

CHIP: Let's go back here and have a look.

Oh, man, there's a trail and a half right here.

We don't have any money. I need moose

in order to get other things.

Moose shit.

CHIP: A lot of good-sized moose tracks.

AGNES: The pressure's on...

ERIK: If you wanna live out in the bush here,

there's a lot of work associated with it

and there's a certain lifestyle that you gain

and a certain lifestyle that you lose.

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Pretty cold this morning.

Looking forward to going on a trip.

Doing some trapping,

but I don't think my machine will start.

Matter of fact,

my kill switch is frozen.

When it's this cold,

can't get the machine started,

I tarp it off. Throw a space heater under it.

So, see what we can make happen here.

I live a long ways from Fairbanks,

and I'm not that good of a mechanic to begin with.

If I break the machine

I'm down transportation out here.

I can't haul firewood. I can't go trapping.

It's a major problem.

So, it doesn't hurt it to just give her a little preheat.

I'm gonna get the tarp over the whole machine,

then kind of tighten down

the sides here with snow.

When it's this cold,

the equipment breaks.

You gotta preheat stuff.

I could probably yank on this snow machine

for a while and get her to start,

but if I fire up this generator

and plug in a space heater for 15, 20 minutes,

it'll start up fairly easy,

and it's a lot easier on the machine. It's a lot easier on me.

Now everything will be nice and warm and ready to go.

But, when you're operating in extreme cold,

30, 40 below zero,

everything is a pain in the butt.

I'm gonna go and get myself warmed up.

Meaning I'm gonna have another cup of coffee.

-(ENGINE STARTING) -First pull.

(ENGINE REVS)

I got a long ways to go, and I better get to it.

ANDY: There's a time of year when things are meant to happen.

If you don't do it during that time,

you're not gonna get it.

ANDY: I didn't get a beaver this morning.

So I'm gonna head back to the same ponds

and hopefully there will be some beavers out swimming around.

This might be a bit of a waiting game tonight,

but I'm gonna hunt until it gets too dark to shoot.

ANDY: I like winter.

This is my favourite season of the year.

I love the fall. And we're having a really beautiful one this year

with all these fall colours mixed with the snow.

Every year is different up here.

We just never know from season to season.

I think that's why I love it up here.

The beauty of living up here is seeing the interaction

of all the different types of wildlife,

plants, animals, how they all interact,

how they all depend on each other,

and feed off of each other.

And that's fascinating to me.

(WHISPERS) Look, there he is. Get down.

(GUN COCKS)

(WHISPERS) I gotta let him get a little closer

to the shoreline before I take a shot,

so he's not too far out.

So I can get him if they sink.

(GUNSHOT)

Don't sink, don't sink, don't sink, don't sink.

Oh, you son of a bitch. Fuck!

So far I've never lost a beaver

hunting them this way.

I don't want this to be the first.

I'm gonna see if I can't cast out a few times

and hopefully snag him.

I'll probably end up snagging a damn branch.

There's an awful lot of stuff in the river.

It sucks.

Fishing for beavers.

That's a first.

Ooh, there's some bubbles coming up right there.

I think I got it. There we go. I got him.

Son of a bitch.

Oh, is that ever fucking lucky or what?

Got him.

Ooh, yeah.

Well, he's not that small.

Nice. Nice beaver.

When I first shot him

I thought he was gonna float for me,

but then he started to sink real slow,

and once he went down in there

I figured my chances were pretty slim.

But I saw some bubbles coming up,

and so...

That was kind of a tell-tale sign of where he was at.

Oh, got him, looks like I got him right where I wanted,

right in the ear. Went in right here.

Probably weighs...

He's a good 40, 50 pounds anyway.

40 pounds...

(GRUNTS)

All right, let's head back to the hacienda.

SUE: Kavik is not a place that you look on the map

and say, "I hope I live there when I get older."

It's a place that I happened upon

and developed a love for.

Hey, girlfriend.

You almost ready for your walk, huh?

I'm not.

I still got work to do.

Ermine is an older,

retired sled dog. She is companionship.

She is quite old.

She may not make it.

She may not have an extremely

long journey with me,

and I knew that going into it.

I don't form attachments

other than superficial ones with my foxes.

This is a committed relationship

to something old that won't be here long.

So it is

inviting something social into my world,

but she's not asking me to compromise my values to have her.

Gotta put away the fuel.

(SIGHS) What I'm doing now,

I need to bring those

barrels of unleaded fuel

from the outside to the inside.

I have barrels of unleaded out here.

It's in the weather right now.

I need to get it out of the weather.

If I leave it sit there,

it's gonna be buried under a 20-foot drift.

(ENGINE STARTING)

Life is one big learning lesson.

I like the feeling that

I am strong and I can take care of it.

And that probably leads into

why I don't make a good partner for anybody

is, I can take care of it,

and I don't have any desire to share a lot of the load.

That's the biggest thing being out here has done,

or this entire lifestyle throughout my life,

is really well defined

parameters of need and want.

What can I do for myself?

If I can't do it this way, the way everybody else does it,

well, how can I do it in a way that works for me?

You learn,

you can be quite capable of taking care of yourself.

Ah!

(GRUNTS LOUDLY)

The amount of physical labour it takes to be here,

do this on my own...

Oh, come on, bitch.

There's nobody to help you.

You've got to pick it up, and then you've got to move it.

And to depend on everybody else to get me there

is currently unacceptable.

I don't know,

that's 300, 400 pounds of fun there.

Unleaded. Highly explosive.

That's not a good feeling.

But the ratchet strap

that was holding them together, did not hold.

So you stop what you're doing, ride it...

I'll go around, check it, make sure there's no leaks.

I don't see any, but I'll check it again.

But I need it back here out of the way.

Every day's full of surprises. That's one of them.

You know, so be surprised, but get your ass off your,

you know, couch and deal with it.

This really was the last bit of preparation

for my equipment.

Yeah, I mean, your world is getting tight now.

The winter is gonna be here.

It's here, it's going to keep getting worse.

Everything else I do from here on out

it's going to be under my own power,

my own steam, my own energy.

The last of the heavy, heavy items

that needed to be lifted were forklifted.

The bucket is on it. It did its number.

Backed in and put to bed, it's waiting for spring.

Those doors are shut for the equipment

from here on out for that Bobcat.

The rest of the season...

It's, uh, girl power.

CHIP: People who do subsistence like we do

are self-employed.

We don't have to work for someone else.

That's a bunch of garbage.

We're a bunch of "Work for ourselves kind of people".

We're much happier this way.

CHIP: I think this is a little shallower than we want.

I'm just gonna turn around here.

Ooh! There's no calf, there's no calf.

Right there, right there, right there, right there.

It's alone. Ain't got no calf.

Shoot it.

AGNES: Yee-haw! Whoo!

Chip.

CHIP: (WHISPERS) He's right up here.

-(GUNSHOT) -Ooh! He's down, he's down, he's down!

Reload. Reload.

Put one in the chamber in case he's alive.

Just finish him off.

-(GUNSHOT) -Yeah, he's done.

My last shot. Empty.

Oh, my God, this is a perfect one.

It's going to be feeding a lot of people,

me and my whole family anyways.

Oh, man, this is a good one.

We're having moose steaks for dinner.

ERIK: A lot of different people come to Alaska

for a lot of different reasons.

I came here to sort of find

my place in the world, which I... Which I did.

But it's not for everybody.

(ENGINE REVS)

ERIK: Trapping is a real challenge,

because when you're trapping an animal like an Arctic fox,

where they live is a very inhospitable climate.

It's really cold up in Arctic fox country.

What you're really fighting against

more than anything then is the weather conditions,

and the terrain.

So trapping's a real challenge.

There's very little harder to do out in the bush

than to run a trap line and catch animals consistently.

The fox population is a cycle

like anything else here in the Arctic.

It comes up and it goes down and...

They get rabies and it kills them off.

And they crash and then they come back,

and they go up and down, up and down, and...

That's just the...

The cyclical nature of nature.

Checking this trap.

Nothing.

Trap's been here a few days. Nothing yet.

But being here in the light,

it's a nice spot here on the riverbank and...

I'm pretty confident this trap will produce in time.

I'm gonna go and check a couple more.

I guide hunters all fall,

and after taking other people around in the wilderness

for many months in a row,

trapping is a nice reprieve to just spend

some time alone out in the woods and do my own thing.

Got a couple traps checked, haven't caught anything yet,

but, few more to go and...

Hopefully I'll get lucky towards the end of the line.

I've been a little bit disappointed here

that there's been a rabies epidemic.

And the numbers of foxes that I'm seeing

are much lower than the past few years.

So hopefully as the winter progresses,

I'll see some more, but thus far this season

I haven't seen as much fox sign as I normally do.

Checking traps all day. I haven't had much luck.

I see a fox track here approaching my cubby.

I got high hopes here on the last one.

Nice!

I got an Arctic fox.

Finally got a payoff here on these new cubby boxes I made.

Really nice hide.

Nice clean catch, got him right on the neck.

I'm sure I killed him instantly here with this 330 conibear,

and this makes it all worth it.

I'm pumped. That's awesome. Got a white fox.

I'm definitely leaving this cubby box here

and next time I come through I'll bring the trap back and reset it.

It's a good spot.

When I was growing up I really enjoyed hunting,

and that's why when I came of age I became a guide.

And now that I've entirely ruined hunting for myself

by being a guide, and I miss pretty much the entire season,

my big thing in the last few years is trapping.

Where I live in the Brooks Range of Alaska,

I'm in the most southern of the Arctic fox's range.

So, I don't get very many. So, it's kind of a special catch.

I'm gonna get this fox home, and skin it out and...

A fox like this is worth up to about $250.

So, that's a good catch for me.

CHIP: The whole idea of us hunting is economic.

It's what we do to make a living.

A lot of people criticise us,

but yet those people don't put their hands on an animal

and kill it themselves.

Somebody else does it for them.

CHIP: Hello, Mr Moose.

Yeah, you can use every part of this.

What I can't use, I can give away.

I personally don't need the antlers

but I know somebody who will value

the material of the antlers.

They don't care if they're intact or anything,

but I'll saw them up and send them to 'em.

Trying to use all of an animal's products,

is giving it respect.

You know, and trying to kill it as painlessly

and as fast as possible is giving it respect.

This is a delicious moose tongue. I'm gonna boil this in water.

I'm gonna take it out and slice it up.

Put salt and pepper on it, and I'm gonna eat the whole thing myself,

if I can do it without them catching me.

Is that heart and tongue?

CHIP: It's just tongue so far, babe.

The heart's in here somewhere.

You should make heart and tongue soup.

The heart's in this bag.

You want me to make heart and tongue soup?

There's a heart. Delicious.

See, my daughter wants heart and tongue.

So, I'm really working for them.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

CHIP: Yeah... That's a nice chunk of it.

CHIP: Yeah.

-CHIP: Sure. -(PHONE BEEPS)

-Hey, Jeff? -(JEFF SPEAKING)

Hey, I got a tenderloin here for you.

Yeah. Stop by.

Bye.

I'm always happy when I kill something.

It's success. It's what we do.

We don't get a moose every fall. We used to get musk ox.

We prefer them to moose.

But it's a good substitute. What can you say?

NARRATOR: For the Hailstone family,

spare meat goes a long way

in a community that relies on trade.

Today they will share their harvest

with their neighbour and long-time friend, Jeff.

-CHIP: Come on in. -Hey, Chip.

-CHIP: What's going on? -I see you guys got a moose out there.

We got a moose out there.

We're gonna hang the bigger chunks up,

and we'll split it up later,

but for now there's tenderloins.

JEFF: Awesome. CHIP: You guys can chow down for a day or two

or give it all away if you don't want it.

JEFF: No, that'll go straight to the freezer.

CHIP: Yep. There's a shorter piece of sinew for you.

JEFF: All of this? CHIP: Yep.

AGNES: Yep, we'll always give you some.

CHIP: She just cleaned up that tenderloin here.

A lot of this is fat you can just chop up.

There's some hairs, and there's some grass

that needs to be gathered off of it yet.

But, what the heck? They eat grass, right?

-Yeah. -And twigs and willows and...

This one was almost invisible in the willows, though.

Got an excellent colour on him. No rut.

JEFF: Thanks a lot for the meat.

-I appreciate it. -Yeah, no problem.

What are you gonna do with the tongue?

Eat it myself. All myself.

JEFF: I'll make sure I stop by.

There you go. Yeah. I'll make potatoes with it.

Well, I gotta run. Thanks for the moose again.

-That was awesome. -CHIP: Yep.

And I will see you later.

CHIP: We all reciprocate in one way or another.

Gasoline, meat, parts, babysitting, bullets.

We've chosen to be happy,

not rich, not full of money.

We're not in competition with other people.

We like being providers, and sharing, and contributing.