Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero,

winter strikes in the Alaskan bush.

The storm is showing up.

NARRATOR: Erik's got to make opportunities count.

ERIK: Ugh, fuck.

My gun is frozen.

The Hailstones race to stock up for winter.

CHIP: This really is our last chance.

Sue fights for winter fuel.

SUE: If they cannot make it back,

I have to start making decisions.

NARRATOR: And Andy and Kate are trapped by the mighty Yukon.

ANDY: This is just not a safe thing to do.

ANDY: The Yukon River is our artery.

It's our highway in the wintertime with the dogs.

It's really our only access to the outside world.

If we can't get on the Yukon River,

we can't get our supplies.

The problem is the river's not gonna freeze up

in front of our camp this year.

This year we had an unusual freeze-up.

It was extremely low water.

As the ice became more dense,

it reached a pinch point a mile upriver from here.

That jammed the river shut,

and it left open water for about 70 miles downstream.

Right now what's really on my mind is

how am I gonna get from our camp

to where the river is completely frozen

to where I can safely run my dogs.

Ugh, that don't look good.

The problem with running along the shoreline when it's like

this is that this current's really pretty strong,

and if you go into this, you can't pull yourself back up on the ice.

So, this is just not a safe thing to do.

NARRATOR: Unless Andy finds a way across the river,

he won't have access

to the resources and hunting grounds he'll need

to make it through winter.

ANDY: The second option, and one I've been thinking about for a few years

is to spend a couple of days,

cut about a mile, mile and half of trail through the woods

to another part of the Yukon

where the river is completely frozen.

It's gonna be a lot of hard work,

but I don't mind putting work in as long as

I'm gonna have long term benefits from that work.

So, I've got about a mile-and-a-half of trail

I gotta cut

through a fairly dense black spruce and birch forest.

I'm hoping I can do it in two days,

but days are short now.

So, it's a real race against time.

(CHAINSAW STARTS)

(CHAINSAW WHIRS)

Some years you work your ass off.

Some years you just kind of smooth right on through.

Every year is different up here.

We just never know from season to season.

I think it's time to stop for the day.

I'm starting to lose my light,

and uh, it's gonna take a lot of work to cut through this.

I'm probably about a third of the way

through this whole project.

With the hardest part yet to come.

So, like a lot of things,

it's good to go home, get a good night's sleep,

get a good meal, and start fresh the next day.

CHIP: You got caribou, you got everything you need to live.

You don't really need much else

but you can't always get caribou.

Right now I'm going to the Noorvik Aqqaluk High School

to go pick up my daughter Carolyn.

She's coming with us on this caribou hunt.

Each year I always take one of the girls.

It's actually her turn.

Of all the girls, she's the one who hasn't

shot a caribou crossing the river yet.

This ought to also be a good learning trip for her.

That way we can teach Carolyn her traditional ways.

(CHUCKLES)

Yeah. This year you get to shoot one.

Am I squeezing your hand too tightly?

So excited to go. (LAUGHS)

NARRATOR: Learning to hunt is essential

for surviving in the Arctic.

It's a skill Agnes is determined

to pass onto her daughters.

AGNES: There's caribou crossing upriver,

so we're heading up there today

and stock up for winter chow.

CHIP: Before the freeze-up comes

and the animals have to be hunted on land,

we're gonna be hunting them in the water in the river,

where we can pick 'em out, where we don't wound any,

and we can see exactly what we want

and get exactly what we want.

'Cause we're kinda behind, way behind.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones only have a few short days

to intercept caribou

as they migrate across the river.

AGNES: See where it's yielding?

That's where we're going.

We're almost there!

Do I get to shoot a caribou?

Yep.

This spot is perfect spot

because you can watch the whole river down that way,

and it's a long stretch,

and you can watch the whole river that way,

and it's like, it comes like this.

So, you're kind of right in the middle

to where you could look both directions.

CHIP: This camp is a pretty good place to be,

and there's good trapping in the winter,

and it's a transition point in the delta

where the river meets the sea.

People have been camping here for thousands of years.

My wife's dad, he hunted this place

almost all of his life and my wife, too.

She's hunted here all her life,

and the caribou are still coming.

(VOCALISING)

You guys got the .22's loaded?

(WHISPERS) Good, you'll both need it.

Did you bring the .22 shells?

AGNES: Ready?

-There's still some coming. Oh, there's couple more bulls. -CHIP: Shh.

AGNES: Sit down, Carol.

Sit down. CHIP: Are you ready?

AGNES: Yeah, they're coming straight to us.

CHIP: Okay. Here goes. You guys ready?

(MOTOR STARTS)

AGNES: Carolyn, the big one!

Yep, right in front of you.

Right in front of you, straight.

You missed. Carol, load up.

Load up, Carol before I shoot them all.

Look with the gun, sweetheart.

Only with the gun.

CHIP: Shoot it, Carol.

There you go. Hey, there you go.

No, that's not how you do it!

AGNES: Yes!

CAROL: Got it!

CHIP: This is a humane way to hunt.

This is the best.

You don't waste any. You don't wound any.

You shoot 'em in the back of the head, and they don't feel no pain.

There's no waiting for them to bleed out.

So, that's how it goes. We have to kill to eat.

There's nothing wrong with that.

SUE: The life you live out here, you better be in your top game.

Doesn't matter if you're just going to the bathroom.

If I get hit with a big-ass storm and my panties are down,

it's gonna be very uncomfortable.

Today I'm preparing for two planeloads of fuel

to be delivered.

I need to get 4,000 gallons to make it through my winter

for heat and whatnot,

but I've got horrible storms coming, horrible conditions.

I could have 60, 80 mile an hour winds.

Tons of snow at the backside, and that's gonna

cause a problem for me to get my fuel in.

If I don't get the fuel,

if I can't keep myself warm and alive, I can't be here.

You still got 10, 12 miles visibility to the east,

but it does look like it's degrading a little bit

on that side at about the five-mile point.

PILOT: Okay.

All righty. I do have drums to be filled.

Do you want that on the first or the second?

PILOT: How many you got?

I have 1,200 gallons to go in barrels.

PILOT: Okay.

Yeah. I don't want to take up too much of your time on the first loads,

but I think if we do it on the first load,

that might be better.

PILOT: Okay. We'll try.

All right. I'll see you when you get down here, buddy. Thanks.

PILOT: Okay.

The C-46 can carry 2,000 gallons of fuel at a time.

I am ordering 4,000.

SUE: While the plane is here,

and has the ability with a high-power pump

to put it in barrels so I can move it,

I wanna get as many empty barrels ready.

So I can fill those up

and get them where they need to live for the winter.

NARRATOR: In the depths of winter,

even a short walk across camp can be deadly.

Getting the fuel into barrels now will save Sue having

to pump it in sub-zero Arctic conditions.

Why can't you just stay put for me, you bitch?

I've gotta get the fuel

as close to where it's going to be used as possible

because I will not have the help of the equipment to do it.

It's all hand pump.

ERIK: I have a strong drive to want to take on those challenges

associated with being out in the natural environment.

A lot of times I wonder if I would've been better off

if I was born, you know, a couple hundred years ago.

Without subsistence, it would be too expensive

to live way out here.

Trapping and hunting are integrally important

to the lifestyle of living out here in the bush.

Just kind of glassing this river valley here

for predators,

and I'm gonna set up and do a little calling.

There's fox, wolf, wolverine, lynx.

Any one of them might come to the call.

(MIMICS RABBIT CALL)

This call I'm using is a dying rabbit call.

It imitates the noise that a rabbit in distress makes,

and it attracts all types of predators.

It's, uh, it's hard to be patient out here in the cold and sit still,

but it's what you gotta do

if you wanna catch a furbearer.

There's a wolf.

It's way out there. It's six, 700 yards.

I don't think it's gonna come any closer. I'm gonna give it a go.

I have a lot of respect for wolves.

They're unbelievably tough,

unbelievably aware of their environment.

They're better hunters than I'll ever be.

NARRATOR: Earning money in the wild is scarce at best,

but the chance at a wolf

could bring Erik up to $1,500 for the hide.

ERIK: It's hard shooting far

when you're cold and you're shaking.

This is a real difficult shot.

We'll see if I can make it happen.

(GUNSHOT FIRED)

It was a real long shot, but I gave it a go.

Failed to make it happen.

I guess that's why it's so sweet when you do get a wolf

just 'cause you know how hard it is.

I don't think I hit the wolf, but I'm gonna go over there

and follow its tracks for a while,

make sure there's no blood, and make sure I'm not leaving

a wounded animal behind.

I followed up this wolf track

about two-and-a-half miles here.

There's no sign of blood or anything.

Kind of bummed.

Started off to a shit start to my trapping season,

and I only have one fur so far, so...

The trapping gods have shined on me

a couple great opportunities here that I totally blundered.

I think it's one for the wolf and zero for Erik today.

You know, I'd like to make some money

and get some fur on the stretching board,

but shit happens.

CHIP: I want these kids to go to school.

I want these kids to work,

but I think working is more important

than schooling education myself,

because as long as you're willing to get up

and get something done, you're gonna do fine.

I think this is the one she shot.

NARRATOR: Carol Hailstone has just conquered

an essential rite of passage

as a subsistence hunter with her first ever caribou kill.

AGNES: You wanna tie that one, Carol,

since that's the one you shot?

CHIP: Grab the horns as we're passing.

Right now, Carol. Get it.

And face it up.

Here you go, Carol.

And try to put him as tight as you could,

so it won't drag.

CHIP: So that's your first big bull, bun?

CAROL: What?

That was your first big bull?

Yeah.

AGNES: Don't aim this way towards anybody in the boat.

CHIP: Can't turn around. AGNES: Always forward.

You have only this area to shoot.

You can't aim backwards.

That's where you'll always get scolded.

AGNES: See right here where you shot it?

CHIP: Oh, in the antler. AGNES: In the antler.

CHIP: This is our last chance of getting primo bulls.

What they've done is they've eaten,

saved all their fat for the rut,

and then they quit eating,

and they're gonna burn all this fat.

So, this really is our last chance at something.

It's our last chance at fat bulls.

So, if I get five,

she gets five, and she gets five,

it'll be awesome.

CHIP: Almost there.

Up next to the other one. Perfect, babe. Thank you.

Well, we've got six good caribou.

That's a good start for today.

We've got 500 caribou running across the river.

We're gonna eat about one

every week or two in our house.

So this is gonna do us good for part of winter,

but winter up here is long,

and there's no way I could have enough food for winter.

But this is a good start. This is how we get through

dark winter till we can hunt again.

SUE: The only thing you can count on with the weather

is the fact that you can't count on it.

You just gotta roll with the punches.

Getting the fuel is key for me to be here in the winter.

I have to have it to stay warm.

That's all there is to it.

NARRATOR: Sue Aikens is racing a winter storm

to load in 4,000 gallons of fuel

that has just flown 500 miles from Fairbanks.

So, looking at the weather,

that's definitely coming down kind of quick.

Would you rather get it in the bladder

or I can just keep bringing these barrels over?

How important is it to you to have those barrels full?

Very important.

We'd take the time and put 'em in there

if you'd rather have it there,

but if this comes down we won't be able to get back in.

So, we'll put...

Let's put it in there first.

If we have the second load, we'll get these.

How's that sound? Okay. We'll try.

I'll try. Okay.

I originally wanted my drums filled.

Takes a little bit more time,

so to save time and hopefully get the other 2,000 gallons,

I just said put it in the bladder.

Get going.

The hose here where it's connected to my bladder,

I mean, you can see there is ice all over.

Not a good thing.

So, I need to disconnect the hose that I'm using

so that the plane can connect its hose for refuelling.

I gotta find the right connectors.

I gotta get it all undone,

and hopefully, get two 2,000 gallon loads.

JETHRO: That's a two and something. That ain't...

TERRY: Two-and-a-quarter.

JETHRO: Son of a gun.

Let's see. We need...

We need...

Jethro, you wanna come over here and see what I got?

Yeah. Let me come over see what you got.

Wait, this is looking promising.

Hang on one second. We may have something here.

Let me get this.

JETHRO: Is that right? TERRY: No.

-That ain't no better than what we got. -JETHRO: No, no, no.

Hey, let me come over there and see what you got, Sue.

NARRATOR: Without the right hose connectors, Sue can't pump fuel from the plane.

If she doesn't find it,

she could lose $20,000 in delivery costs

and run out of fuel.

That ain't gonna work either.

Yep.

Did the piece that he brought out not work?

We're looking for a double female.

Well, we looked through what I had in there.

Let me see what I got over here.

JETHRO: I got something right here. TERRY: Hey, Sue. We found it.

Okay.

Jethro found something.

SUE: Oh, thank God.

Okay.

SUE: Okay.

TERRY: Okay. We're ready?

Now open it back up.

JETHRO: All right. Let's see if we get it full.

Closed, closed, closed.

Awesome.

If you think you can do a second load, and when you get out,

if you think there's enough time, it would help me out

an awful lot to have the barrels done.

-Well, I'll try to. -But just in case it's not looking as good,

then at least I've got 2,000 going.

TERRY: We'll just have to see. SUE: Yeah.

I can tell the difference from the time we landed to right now.

Yeah. It's pretty quick.

We'll get what we can.

So, you guys are gonna pack it all in

like you're going away for good?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree.

SUE: So, he's halfway done, but the storm is showing up.

Things are changing rapidly.

Hopefully if the fog monster stays on the south side

of the river, we're all right.

If he comes another mile north,

I don't get the rest of my fuel.

You know, you just gotta, you gotta roll with the punches.

Hopefully, I'll get my second load of fuel.

If anybody can do it, the old war birds can.

I mean, Terry is a hell of a pilot,

but if they cannot make it back,

I have to start making decisions.

What do I cut down?

What do I not have to have on?

What can I risk?

There's only one thing. Shut down the gen.

That means all my frozen food, I may lose it.

The closest grocery store is 500 miles away.

ANDY: If you live out here long enough,

shit's gonna happen to you,

and you better know what to do when that happens.

'Cause when it gets cold out in this country,

you don't have a lot of time to react.

Well, day two for trail cutting.

The wind chill's almost 40 below zero,

but I'm back in the woods, and I'm up against the wall.

It's a whole wall here of really dense black spruce.

I'm gonna have to cut a hole through the wall,

and hopefully, I'll be able to connect up to the Yukon River

in about another three quarters of a mile or so.

These temperatures are gonna be really hard on the saw.

(CHAINSAW STARTS)

One of the problems I have when it's a dense forest like this

is just getting all the trees out of here.

There's no place to throw 'em on the ground,

so you just gotta kind of pick 'em up

and throw 'em over the top.

Kind of hoping Kate will show up later on today

to give me a hand with some of this stuff.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

Another thing you have to be careful of is you can't lay your saw down in the snow.

Gotta keep that out of the snow as much as you can.

Otherwise it freezes up.

Boy, this chain's getting really dull.

I'm working way harder than I have to to cut this stuff.

Cutting these trees is like cutting through rocks.

It's like anything the first time you do something.

It's always the hardest.

Right now it feels like it's futile

in this wall of spruce trees,

but when I break out and when it's all over,

I'm gonna sit back with a cold beer

and feel real good about this.

I'll be able to use it for multiple years.

It looks like it's gonna start opening up

a little bit more for me up ahead,

and, so I should start making

a little bit better time with this,

so that's good.

I just gotta keep working.

(CHAINSAW STARTS)

That baby's frozen up now.

I can't hardly even move it.

(EXHALES DEEPLY)

Fuck you! God damn fucking saw!

(SIGHS)

I think what I need to do now is build a fire,

try and thaw this thing out,

and hopefully I can get back to work.

Birch bark is probably one of the best

natural fire starters there is out here.

Even if this is wet, this'll burn really quick.

As you spend more and more time out here,

you begin to look at things in a very different way.

I look at trees, and what can I use off of them?

If you lay a couple green logs down,

you can keep a fire going for quite a long time.

Living out here is not just how to do things.

If you don't have the right philosophy of life out here,

it's a struggle.

You have to want to live this way.

Oh, look at that.

It's turning now.

Yeah, I just got to keep it out of the snow now

while it's nice and warm or it'll just ice up again.

Stuff gets in there, and it's all iced up,

and it creates a lot of friction,

and all the oil that's lubricating the bar

gets iced up.

Oh, that feels good.

God only made one mistake when he designed man,

and that was he needed to have bigger veins

in the thumb.

Hey, boys!

Who you guys got?

Hi, Jack, hi, Berg. What are you guys doing here?

Did you bring lunch?

KATE: Looks like you're working hard.

Uh, chainsaw froze up.

KATE: Oh, no.

Oh, man, thanks for bringing my parka.

I get cold pretty quick as soon as I stop.

How's it all going?

You know, besides that trouble?

Oh, it's slow. It's really thick back there.

It's gonna be a lot of work. I still got quite a bit to do.

KATE: Yeah.

Well, do you want me to stick around and help a little bit, help stuff, or...

That would be a huge help.

Be careful, 'cause you know how I get with a chainsaw.

-Oh, I'm gonna give you a wide berth, buddy. -(LAUGHS)

(CHAINSAW STARTS)

Kate's out here with me, throwing the cut stuff out.

I'm making a lot more progress with her here.

If I'm lucky, a few more hours.

If I'm not, another day or so of cutting.

It's hard to say.

I'm gonna be glad when this trail's in,

'cause I'll be able to use this for a long time.

So, even though this is a lot of work,

this is gonna be a big payoff in the long run for us.

I just gotta keep working.

(CHAINSAW WHIRS)

SUE: For me, the doctor is 500 miles each direction,

several bush plains.

There is nobody that's gonna come help me.

I better figure it out.

I'm waiting on my fuel, however,

if a fuel drop happens and they have a (COUGHS) cough,

that can be life threatening for me.

You live in a sterile environment,

and you have no defences.

So the smallest little bug comes in,

and I get knocked flat by it.

I have not been feeling

100% lately,

so I have a way here that I can take care of myself

and kill some of the bacteria or viruses

that may be trying to attack me.

Bacteria cannot live in the presence

of silver or gold particles.

There's a thing called colloidal silver water

that I want to make.

And electrical charge is going to allow

molecules of this silver

to come off of the strand and become suspended

so many parts per billion in the water.

I take just the tiniest bit of sea salt.

It's an electrolyte.

It will help conduct the current better.

You do not need much.

Ten, $15 worth of silver is going to save me

five, $10,000 in flights and antibiotics

if I want to fly and see the doctor.

I can't afford to be down because I'm sick.

It's arming myself on the inside.

I put guns all around camp to keep me safe

from the big creepy crawlies.

I got to put little silver bullets in my body

to take care of the tiny creepy crawlies.

Bottoms up to my health.

ERIK: There's certain people that are born

with a certain drive in them.

You either have it or you don't.

And for me it's strong.

You know, living way out in the Arctic here

in rural Alaska, you need to be self-motivated.

You know, the only person to kick my butt out of bed in the morning is myself,

so I need to get up and do what I need to do,

and there's nobody there to tell me to do it.

Been working my way along this river bluff here.

There's a fresh fox track moving along.

I'm gonna get up on the little bluff

and see if I can't call a fox in.

NARRATOR: Erik missed his chance yesterday

at a $1,500 wolf pelt.

Today he's hoping to make up for the loss

using the call of a rabbit in distress to lure in predators.

(MIMICS RABBIT CALL)

(GUNSHOT FIRED)

It's always nice when a plan comes together.

A lot of people misconstrue people's desires

to hunt as a bloodlust or something like that.

That's not what it is at all.

I love animals more than anything.

I came here just because I really had an appreciation

for wilderness and I was willing

to sacrifice some of the social interactions

associated with living in a town

to have all these great opportunities that I do.

Nice red fox.

Really nice fur.

Really nice rich red colour.

Nice fox.

NARRATOR: With one fur in hand,

an unusual opportunity crosses Erik's path,

a unique and valuable dark red fox.

ERIK: This is a one in a thousand type

of colour fox.

This is a really, really incredible fox.

They don't come much better than that.

(GUN COCKS)

Oh, fuck that.

My gun is frozen.

(GUNSHOT FIRED)

Let's roll.

This is a red fox, real dark one.

It's got a little red left in it, but totally black legs,

totally black belly.

It's got a fairly black tail with a nice white tail tip.

I couldn't be more enthralled.

You know, even though I'm kind of down on myself

about missing that wolf...

Okay, that's an understatement.

I'm really down on myself about missing that wolf.

I'll probably beat myself up about that for,

I don't know, 10, 15 years.

But I was able to call in two reds today.

A red red and this real dark cross.

I wouldn't say that redeems myself for the wolf,

but we're at least headed in the right direction.

Beautiful male cross fox.

The tradition of fur in Alaska is as old as Alaska itself,

and specifically foxes.

The first white people in Alaska were the Russians,

and their business was fox farming.

Fur and Alaska are synonymous.

You know, for me, riding my snow machine

a short distance,

burning up maybe a gallon of gas,

couple of .22 shells,

I have less than ten dollars invested into this.

This red here, bring $150-ish.

And that cross fox there

will bring at least two-and-a-quarter,

if not $250.

Snapping off the leg bone there

to separate it with the hide.

And down to the face.

Work our way down to the eyes.

When I was a little kid

and I was learning how to skin fox,

I'd skin fox after fox

and I'd always screw up the eyes.

Get in a rush, you can do like I did there

and cut the corner of the eye.

It'll still be fine, but as a perfectionist

and being that it's such a nice fox

I hate that I did that.

This is $400 or maybe a little bit better

in fur here.

And kinda ironic when I think about it.

When I was in my early teens I'd sell fox for $10 apiece.

This one fox is worth more than I probably would have made

in the whole year when I was 13, 14 years old.

(LAUGHS)

It's probably one of the nicest foxes

that I'm gonna get the entire season.

They don't come much prettier than this.

CHIP: I don't do things that are uninteresting.

I am the most interesting hunter in the world.

(LAUGHS)

AGNES: We try our best to teach our girls what we do,

with all the fishing,

and the wood gathering, and the harvesting of meat.

Hold it, hold it.

CHIP: Come here, Carol. Check this out.

So I just cut the throat right below the trachea.

This is no different

than what they do to cows in factories.

You know, the meat that people eat down south

is raised in pens.

They're not free. These animals are free.

There's thousands of them, that's a renewable resource.

We don't take too many of them.

It is. It is much more healthier for us,

and that's why you need to learn how to do this,

so that you can be healthy,

and then your kids will be healthy.

Yeah, me either.

-You wanted me to show you the kidneys, right? -Mmm-hmm.

Okay, so there's the diaphragm,

and that's the muscle that makes all of that work.

And that's a kidney.

If it was 40 below zero,

you could warm yourself up by having a fresh slice.

You can have a slice of kidney.

It'll warm you up. It tastes like cucumbers.

CAROL: Could we make heart and tongue soup?

Oh sure, good idea. I already cut up the heart.

Here, I'll show you how to get the tongue out.

Right there's the bone.

See it?

Put your knife next to the bone,

hook it in, slice forward,

reach inside, pull out the tongue.

Go to the back of the tongue, there's a bone,

and cut up against the bone.

Now I'm gonna go clean it up

and we'll have that for dinner.

My older kids have all done this.

My older kids, I don't really worry so much.

But Carol, Carol is at that age

where she's really curious about it.

And Carol's on subsistence leave right now.

The school allows them to follow their parents

or uncles or brothers to go do these kind of things.

She's missing days of school,

but she's not missing an education.

There's a lot of things in this world that you have to do for yourself,

and if you want your kids to learn properly

what they can't learn in school,

you gotta teach it to them yourself.

Well, what matters is that we got the food,

and I don't have to pay for it in the store.

'Cause I can't afford it.

Subsistence is basically do it yourself.

When you're subsistence hunting, you're hunting for yourself,

for your own needs, your own food, your own materials.

We work for ourselves.

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.

It's the health of the chase. It's the health of hunting.

It's the health of staying the night in the snow.

It's the health of what we're catching.

And it's got a lot to do with my wife's culture.

And people give me a really good time

because I'm a pretty good hunter.

It's the one thing in life I can do really well,

so it's what I stick with.

ANDY: Every day's a challenge.

It's what Mother Nature gives you.

That's just living out in the bush.

So that's what I gotta deal with.

(CHAINSAW WHIRS)

Day three of cutting.

I've broken through to the Yukon here.

Unfortunately Mother Nature keeps throwing me curve balls.

'Cause now this wind is blowing all the snow

off my beach, and I'm down to rock and sand,

and really lousy conditions for mushing.

But at least I'm past the point

where it's deep open water.

So from this point on,

I should be able to make it up to Eagle

along the edge of the Yukon River ice.

I think I'll head back to the house, go get the dogs,

run my trail, and see what I'm up against.

NARRATOR: After cutting through the forest to bypass

the unfrozen river,

it's do or die for Andy as he tests his new trail.

Iceberg, let's go down this trail.

New trail, buddy.

New trail today, and you got to listen to me real good,

because it's too rough for me to hold on with you going full speed.

Okay?

It's gonna be a rough going, huh?

You know, the first part of the trail's pretty good,

and then I get into all the tussocks.

And then cutting through that slough and down on the river,

it's pretty rough.

I have to go out, use this trail.

That's the only way we're gonna get upriver now.

All right, well, good luck.

ANDY: Up, up.

Straight ahead.

I think that's gonna be a wild ride.

Straight ahead. Haw haw. Haw haw.

Good. All right!

Easy, easy, easy.

Easy. Whoa.

It's a white-knuckle trail right now

and it can only get better with time,

but it's the best I can do

with the conditions that we have.

It bypasses the only part on the river

that I can't run with the dogs.

And so I feel good now.

I've linked up to some other trails and good parts of the Yukon River.

I don't feel as landlocked in right now as I did before.

Boil it all down, it's a couple of days of real hard labour and cold,

windy temperatures, but the effort's paying off.

The world's opening up,

and this was a good long-term investment for me and Kate.

SUE: It is the isolation that I find paradise.

Not because I dislike people.

I'm not running away from anything.

I am just living my own life.

Not even a half a mile to the south,

fogged down to the ground.

That is the leading edge of this storm.

Mother Nature gave me a little break in the weather,

but the next iron fist is coming in.

I need to get this fuel in now before it gets any worse.

I don't wanna risk those pilots' lives by having them

fly in these horrible, dangerous winter conditions.

I wanna get it done early so I can relax.

Here's to a good safe delivery.

100% of my order, that's what I want.

Some chicks want chocolate and roses.

Me, fuel.

I have 20 barrels.

I've got you 2,000 gallons.

Yeah, and then I just figured the rest

we'll puke into there.

Okay.

SUE: I am really glad that the weather stayed

at bay long enough to get the second drop in.

They have enough time to help me get it into barrels.

I don't have enough barrels

set up for the whole winter yet.

But it's a darn good start.

It doesn't wanna lift the load.

(MOTOR REVS)

TERRY: Okay. SUE: All right.

Thank you. Thank you, Sue.

I appreciate it. Oh, thank you,

and hopefully I'll just see you

between the end of May and June.

All right, you fly safe.

I'm not getting any more fuel

till more than halfway through 2014.

So, yeah, I mean, this is it.

That was my social contact

for the next eight, nine months.

(AEROPLANE DRONES)

Be safe.

Thank you, guys.

I'm all emotional now.

I don't get emotional. I'm Super Sue.

Like I've said before, when that last person leaves

is about the only time that I can really say

I have that momentary twinge or twang if you will...

...of emotional loneliness,

where it's like, "Oh, man."

"That's it."

I do feel that, er,

emotional angst.

And then it's like, "That was my last person!

"Yee!

"And now I can get on with my stuff."

So it's, for a split personality,

it's, you know, quite the experience.