Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On this episode of Life Below Zero...

Alaskans battle the clock to stockpile for the coming winter.

I got two right here!

NARRATOR: A summer storm threatens Sue Aikens' trade.

If I don't get the fuel, the business of Kavik dies.

NARRATOR: Andy and Kate struggle with a new challenge on the Yukon.

That's pretty freaking disappointing, man.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones chase an elusive food source.

-Get it, baby girl! -(GUNSHOT)

NARRATOR: And Glenn protects his camp from unwelcome guests.

There's something on the hill there.

Oh, man! This is looking pretty lonely this year.

(CHUCKLES)

(GROANS)

ANDY: My clock's ticking right now.

I've got a lot to do this summer.

I've got a lot that I've gotta prepare for in the winter,

and one of those things is putting up fish for the winter.

Normally, we could just stick our fish wheel in,

and by the end of the day I'd probably have 50 pounds or more of good human food.

And that's no longer there for us.

The king salmon run has declined to the point where they've shut down

all king salmon fishing on the Yukon River this year.

We've lost probably our most consistent,

reliable source of protein for the winter.

(CHOPPING)

This is gonna be kind of an interesting experiment.

Right now, I'm trying a new method of fishing.

It's with a fyke net.

A fyke net's basically just a big funnel trap

with some wings out there to try and funnel the fish in.

They go into the trap, they can't find their way out, and you capture them.

The advantage is the fish are still alive.

So if you find one that you don't want, you can release it unharmed.

If a king salmon gets in there,

I can let him go without, without killing him.

That's the way I like to see them cut.

I'm taking all the moose food.

That's not nice.

(LAUGHS)

ANDY: This method has been used for 8,000 or 9,000 years

by indigenous people around the world.

They didn't have nets, and they didn't have wire,

and they didn't have plastic floats 9,000 years ago.

So they made everything out of wood.

It's something I've wanted to try for a long time,

and the lack of king salmon is kind of forcing me to try this method out.

(THUNDER RUMBLING)

Trying to make my first hoop here.

I'm using a barrel for a template

just to try and get me sort of round.

Basically I'm making a big hoop.

I'm gonna make a slightly smaller hoop, and then start attaching my

willow strips to it.

I'm not really sure how strong I need to make this,

but I think it's one of those things that the more I add to it,

the stronger it's gonna get.

You know, I've never made a hoop trap before.

So much of living out here is just drawing from the experiences that you have.

So every new skill and every new experience you have

gives you some other foundation for the next thing you wanna do.

And you'll be able to use it for something else later on.

Although it's taking a bunch of time right now,

the payoff might be pretty good in the future, I don't know.

I guess that's yet to be seen. Be another experiment.

But, hey, that's life on the Yukon.

Every year we gotta deal with something.

Every year is about adapting.

All right.

So that's, that's the main bulk of it.

It's a little bit thick up here.

I might have to add a few more thinner ones up here, but that's all right.

It's just gotta hold fish.

It's not gonna be pretty, but it'll work.

(LAUGHS)

SUE: Know in life where your needs are, where your wants are,

what your abilities are, and kind of marry it up.

This is a heli-crew coming in.

They're gonna be working out of here, and fuelling out of here the next few days.

SUE: Hey, how are you doing? RICK: Hey.

Oh, pretty good.

Do you wanna unload your stuff and get to get your rooms?

Might as well lighten up the load a little bit.

SUE: Kavik is sort of a twisted bed and breakfast.

During the summer people come.

Whatever your business is in the Arctic,

I give you a place to sleep and some food for your beak.

The majority of people want a little bit of comfort,

and that's my little niche here.

You can be in the wild of the Arctic,

but yet have a trailer and some creature comforts.

In the winter, not many people are making it out here to buy fuel or stay here,

but from the middle of June through sometime in the middle of September,

those are all the months that I get to make the revenue to keep this place profitable.

I mean, it is not inexpensive to do what I do.

But you know, why do I do it?

To afford the style of life I wanna live the rest of the year.

You know, if I work my ass off for three months,

then I got nine months I can play and live.

So it's a fair enough trade.

NARRATOR: For Sue Aikens,

the arrival of clients in Kavik means she must get vital resources into camp

or risk losing crucial revenue.

SUE: One of the most elemental things I need to have available is water.

I have to get water out of the river and pumped in through the system.

I'm gonna head down to the river.

I wanna see what the water, what the river is looking like.

I must have a clearer water to pump into my water system.

The major problem for me,

this has been just, um, atypically wet spring and summer.

All the rain, all this deluge, the water hits the tundra,

and it all wants to live at the lowest point which is the rivers.

But it churns it up, and that has kept me from being able to pump.

Yeah, this is not, this is not looking good at all.

Can't really pump that, and it's not even real safe to get too close to the edge,

'cause it's undercutting my bank.

That current is real swift.

And that's a big old pile of mud. I'll continue to check it.

As soon as I see that I can at least read through it with no problems,

and not have dirt, you know, then I'll be pumping it.

It's a done deal, loose wheel. Check it again tomorrow.

GLENN: What goes through the mind, the stream of consciousness,

how you feel, how you experience reality each day

is affected by the spaces you occupy.

Bear came along and ripped up my sod house again.

Bears seem to be attracted to this place.

Every now and then they'll come and of course it smells like food in there.

I've had meat hanging in there,

and the bears will come and rip the place up when I'm away from camp.

So it's something that is a continuous thing.

This sod house works out pretty well for storing food most of the time.

But I thought that for smaller amounts of food,

if I just dug a hole straight down into the ground, a smaller hole,

it might actually keep it even cooler than this sod house does.

And also, the bears might be less interested in digging into it.

I'm looking around for a spot to put this little refrigerator,

and the main thing I'm thinking about is convenience.

I wanna be able to go in and out of it easily.

So I could put it right here in the front yard somewhere.

The problem with this though is the sun is to the south during the day,

and it'll be beating down on this hole.

I'd rather have it in a place that's shaded.

So I'm thinking if I put it on the north side of the cabin,

that might be the best spot.

If I dig the hole right here,

during the middle of the day it'll be in the shade.

That might be the best spot for it.

NARRATOR: Isolated in the Brooks Range,

Glenn relies on 10 years of experience to survive

the Arctic's predators and gruelling weather.

Without access to power tools,

he must build each structure in camp with the resources around him.

GLENN: In the summer it can get up into the 80s here sometimes.

I've seen it 85 degrees.

Cooler ground is going to help me to preserve food.

It's just like putting it in a refrigerator.

The gravely soil is well drained.

I should be able to dig down in here a few feet without getting wet.

That feels nice and cool down here.

Got a nice sized hole. Onto the next step.

So, I'm looking for some spruce trees in order to line my refrigerator with them,

and a lot of the trees around here just aren't suitable.

If I use trees that are too big,

it's gonna take up a lot of space in that hole that I dug.

If they're too small,

think of how many I'll need to build the height of the wall.

So this is the happy medium.

One I can reach around about that big. That's a good-sized tree.

If I wanted to run a modern refrigerator or freezer out here,

I'd have to have propane or I'd have to have gasoline

to run a generator all the time and produce electricity.

I don't wanna get into those complicated systems.

This is just simple. It serves my needs. Why get more complicated?

CHIP: We're always thinking about the future.

You know, you wanna stock things up.

You wanna prepare yourself for later life.

All that stuff. You watch your kids grow.

You think about the things you wanna accomplish, and you work towards them.

But you know, we live in today.

We enjoy every day for today.

Carol, you gotta get you a weapon of your choice.

NARRATOR: Chip and Agnes Hailstone

spend their summers in Kiwalik, harvesting meat for the winter

and teaching their daughters native hunting methods critical at this time of year.

There's not very many ducks or geese flying,

so they must be moulting.

So, we're gonna go out and go

take a walk towards the lakes and ponds back there,

and go see what the birds are doing.

CHIP: The summertime the females are off raising their babies,

and the males all fly to lakes and stuff.

When they moult, their feathers are coming out, they're growing new ones.

They're flightless for about maybe a week or so.

They're grouped up for mutual protection.

It gives a chance of getting a bunch of ducks at one time.

The thing is that birds leave.

They migrate south and we don't see them till maybe next May, next June.

So it doesn't give us much time to get at 'em.

Whoo! Watch out, pup. Sorry!

AGNES: We're not gonna use any firearms,

but I am gonna carry some in case the bears or other animals come around.

But we're gonna take our clubs and our paddles.

CHIP: Whack it. This is a harpoon.

If there's a duck or something, I can spear it or I can whack it.

Yep, beat it in the head.

This is actually a legal way to hunt.

It's way cheaper to do a hunt this way.

We don't have to use any ammo or anything but our energy to try to catch them.

-Shall we? -Yup.

Come on, puppy dog. Let's go.

CHIP: These are big mud flats. This is where the valley meets the ocean.

It's a little deep here, girls.

This is swampy, mushy, marshy. This is a very difficult walk. Climb aboard.

Ugh!

CHIP: There's a lot of places where the moss is really deep.

There's a lot of places where the mud is really deep.

People trip, twist their ankles, fracture their ankles.

All kinds of bad things can happen on this tundra

when you're walking it with heavy loads.

So you try to take it as light as possible.

AGNES: We reached the lakes, Qutan.

You gotta keep you girls' eyes open for ducks now and stuff.

CHIP: Why don't you guys get on that side,

and I'll go along this edge and see what I can knock out.

Try not to go too far ahead.

Just don't shotgun...

-Good luck. -Yup.

CHIP: Good luck, ladies.

Just baby ducks.

AGNES: There goes puppy.

I've been watching the puppy dog, and it's been running all over the place,

and I haven't seen it scare any birds or ducks up yet.

So, we're just gonna keep going around the lake.

CHIP: There's a bunch of ducks. Oh, right there.

Keep walking. Keep walking.

Now.

CHIP: Get it! Hit it again!

You got it. Get it.

Just reach down and grab it with your hand.

Hurry up! It's getting away.

-Grab it before it go. -Hurry up! Grab it! It's not gonna hurt you!

AGNES: Oh, get him.

Ooh!

CHIP: Just wring its neck. AGNES: That's called cup of soup.

We got a cup of soup.

We always call them when they're small like that.

They're just right for just a cup of soup, but that's Carol's first one.

So, we'll get to have some real good soup broth later.

Right on, Carol.

Got a duck without a shotgun shell.

Carol's duck.

That's how you girls have to do it.

CHIP: Carol got herself a duck sight unseen.

I pointed it out to her, and she, she whacked it.

Did a good job, too, of bringing it in.

So, I was pretty happy with that.

We'll flip the duck up in the rafter and save it till we get some more.

One little duck ain't gonna feed nobody.

Yeah, one duck is not gonna feed all of us, huh?

CHIP: Nope. That's all right. It's a start.

We'll get a couple more ducks tomorrow maybe.

GLENN: To be connected to nature.

It's just fascinating all the stuff that's going on

when you start paying attention.

Every year I learn something new.

(SAWING)

NARRATOR: In order to preserve his food

and keep it safe from predators and the elements,

Glenn must use the resources surrounding his camp to build a new refrigeration unit.

GLENN: I like variety.

I would not get into the business of digging refrigerator holes

repetitively for a living,

but if I only have to build one in my lifetime, it's a lot of fun.

Needs to be a little longer.

I can put five gallon buckets in there.

I can probably fit four of them in there.

Berries, fish, whatever I wanna put down in there.

Meat, it's gonna stay much cooler on hot days.

And that's gonna help me to keep food longer.

I think that's gonna do it.

That's high enough for the walls.

Now that I've got the walls in,

the next thing I need to do is put a covering on it.

I need some kind of lid that I can open and close relatively easily,

but that is going to insulate and keep the warm air out and the cold air in.

These started out as tepee poles, 14 years ago I cut them.

Then I shortened them to make a tent that I could use in the winter.

Now I'm gonna cut them again, and I'm gonna use them as part of my refrigerator lid.

I wouldn't know the materials if I just bought them in a store.

I would describe it as a more intimate relationship with the things that I'm using.

They don't come from some far off distant place. I know their history.

I watch the trees grow around me.

I watch the lake every day. I watch the animals I eat.

That'll be the lid right there.

I just need to get some insulation.

I'll get a nice, thick piece of moss to put over the top of this.

I'll cut it right here, and I'll be able to just lift that up.

I'm gonna go grab some moss.

This looks like a nice patch of moss right here.

I just want it approximately the right size.

It's not easy to find good moss,

because there are a lot of roots and trees in the ground.

I want a one continuous piece for that door. A nice thick piece.

It's all attached at the bottom by roots. So I have to dig.

(GRUNTS)

Out here you don't have to try to stay in shape.

The way I live without machinery, there's no choice.

All I have to do is try it on for size.

Should fit right in there.

Got my refrigerator.

That should work great.

ANDY: Most people don't wanna change until they're forced to change,

and we're being forced to change.

So, you can't cry about it.

You just gotta get out there and do what you can, and try and get by.

That's what life out in the bush is all about.

-Let's go catch some fish! -Yee-haw!

NARRATOR: With salmon fishing closed on the Yukon,

Andy and Kate Bassich are trying a new fish trap

to stock up enough food before the freeze overtakes the river.

We're gonna take this fyke trap four miles downriver to a slough.

I'm gonna set it in this slough to try and avoid catching king salmon.

King salmon do not travel up these back sloughs.

Especially a dead end slough.

So this is the habitat that a lot of pike, whitefish, and sheefish live in.

So, that's where I'm gonna go after 'em.

Let me go find the deepest spot.

I think right here would probably be a good place for the cod end.

Why don't you take the wings, and just hold the wings out, out there.

We'll get them untangled later.

In we go.

Now the question is, is it gonna float or not?

It's gonna need a little bit of downward pressure.

Nothing's gonna get by the pike slayer.

(LAUGHS)

ANDY: Okay, I think we're set, babe.

ANDY: What do you think? KATE: I think it looks great.

I think this'll work pretty good.

See, it looks like the Yukon's pushing in a little bit right now. See it?

Certainly anything coming into the slough isn't gonna get by it. That's for sure.

I'll check it tomorrow morning, and if it's catching fish... Yee-haw.

I don't mind putting work in as long as I'm gonna have

long-term benefits from that work.

It makes all that hard work that you put into living this way,

uh, have some meaning, and it's a payoff.

What do you think?

-Four fish. -(LAUGHS)

I'm not gonna even bet today. I got a feeling.

We're gonna catch something today.

Water is up today.

Looks like it came up about six inches last night.

So I'm hoping that's gonna push some fish into this slough.

We're hoping for, I don't know, half a dozen maybe.

But I'll be happy with one or two just to make sure that the trap is working.

Here fishy, fishy.

KATE: My fingers crossed. (MIMICS FANFARE)

Nothing in this end.

There is something in the back, isn't there?

-No, that's the, that's the bait. -Oh, that's the bait.

Yeah, I don't think we got anything, Kate.

I'm wondering if they're getting out of the trap here.

'Cause we should... We should've caught something.

Nope.

It's a bust.

(LAUGHS)

That's pretty frickin' disappointing, man.

I'm wondering if they're getting out.

I don't think I made it tight enough or whatever.

KATE: So, what do we do? Bring it home, work on it?

Yeah, maybe I ought to just bring it home.

Here, let me...

Let me pull the rest of this stuff

and go back and spend more time on this.

As much as I don't really feel like putting the time into this right now,

I've pretty much gotta do it.

Time is precious for us in the summertime.

I got so many projects I gotta get going on.

That's why I'm feeling a little agitated.

Summers are just too short here.

There's just too much to do.

SUE: It's a land of extremes.

If you are a person that needs to maintain the illusion of control,

you're not gonna do well out here at all.

Well, it's definitely, uh... Well, it's summertime.

It just doesn't feel like it.

I mean, this is the typically atypical weather on the north slope.

The only thing you can count on is the fact that you can't count on anything.

Been a really, really, really wet summer.

And Mother Nature turned on the AC today.

So this, this definitely

is getting in the way, again,

of me being able to get a fuel delivery, you know.

I'm out here at the fuel shed

trying to get ready for it to come in, and the weather came in instead.

The plane had to be turned around,

and they're gonna call it for the whole weekend.

So, I'm just kind of boned again.

I've really got to start getting concerned.

You know, I'm still selling fuel.

I'm now getting to the point where

I have to get the fuel or these planes aren't gonna be able to fly.

It's not so much that, you know,

if I don't get the fuel, I'm gonna die.

If I don't get the fuel, the business of Kavik dies.

It's that integral to the survival of the business.

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to pump water.

So I need to get down to the river,

and if it's clear enough at all, you know,

then I can pump and get back up to full speed.

It's looking better than it has for a few days.

It's certainly not ready to pump,

but it's looking a lot better.

That's actually not bad at all. I can filter that.

We should probably pump.

(MOTOR STARTING)

Kind of works out for them some of the time,

but there's a misperception that they have some control over what happens.

In Alaska, we will all down to a T,

say that weather is king.

It controls what we can hunt, what's in the area,

whether you can get water or you can't get water.

Every aspect of your life is governed by what the whims of nature are.

You take it as it comes.

So, now that it's pumping,

I can go anywhere on this line and feel it running.

Now it's time to go back in.

See where it's at in my initial tank.

This is what I wanna see.

So, it's gone through the main filter.

As it's coming in, another filter here. Three filters there.

Inline injected parts per billion on the chlorine additive.

Into the tank.

When you have the chance, you grab your liquid gold.

90% of the revenue I need to make is gonna be in the next four to six weeks,

and if I can't give them the services they've come to expect,

I'm not gonna make that revenue.

So, this is, uh... This is definitely a feather in my cap.

CHIP: We're always thinking about the future,

and saving food for tomorrow.

You know, you can't hold onto it like money in the bank.

You gotta let it go. It all disappears.

It's a consumable commodity.

So, we're always looking for more.

AGNES: So, you guys wanna just get ready and go do this again? Qutan?

Go find more ducks and all?

This is another day in the life.

But today I think we're gonna go look for ducks again.

If we wanna get some ducks, we just gotta find a nice bunch of 'em.

It's not always easy.

Certainly every pond doesn't have a duck,

and there's thousands of ponds here.

This is a tidal flats down here.

So, ducks shift from area to area as they feed,

but we're gonna find where there's a big group of 'em somewhere.

Gotta be a big group of 'em somewhere.

Ready, kiddo?

Come grab your harpoon.

-Try not to bend those, baby girl. -Okay.

CHIP: Bye-bye, puppy. Too bad you can't come.

You scare away too many ducks.

CHIP: Come on, kiddos. You ready?

AGNES: Even though we're kind of sore and tired

from walking yesterday all along the lakes and stuff,

we're still gonna go do this again today.

'Cause we have just a short limited time we can actually do this

while the ducks and birds are all moulting

and they can't fly and get away from us.

So, we're just gonna keep on walking sloughs and lakes

and just hopefully come across a flock of birds.

What do you see over there?

CHIP: I think I see ducks,

but I don't know what kind. So, gonna go have a look.

AGNES: Yee!

(QUTAN SPEAKING)

AGNES: Feathers?

(QUTAN SPEAKING)

AGNES: Yeah. Moulting ducks.

AGNES: We're getting close. Let's keep going.

What they do is just keep running, trying to get away from us,

and we have to really keep moving.

They're a little excited, but hopefully the birds will calm down

and we'll have another chance at getting some.

AGNES: Oh, they're coming to us.

They are? Where?

-They're right there! -Right where?

AGNES: They're coming out of the water.

CHIP: Oh, man! There's loads of 'em over there. AGNES: They're coming to us.

I see 'em. They're really watching us.

So how we gonna do this?

You go wide this way.

Me and Carol will go wide this way if you take Qutan.

Just keep minds on where we are,

-and do some good shotgunning, huh? -Yeah.

Yep. Don't be afraid to use that shotgun.

Me and Carol will block off the rest on the way

and we'll whack them with our sticks.

Come, Qutan. Ducks are moving.

We gotta get down low and start getting over there.

(CAROL SPEAKING)

CHIP: Let's go.

AGNES: Yeah, they're just hiding in the grass someplace around here.

Get it, baby girl!

AGNES: Into the water! You got it! You're stepping on it!

It turned. (EXHALES)

Chased that one and it got to the drink before me.

And I don't swim as good as a duck.

So I chucked a harpoon at it and missed it again. So...

Such is life.

CHIP: Well, we'll just keep on going.

-(CHIP SPEAKING) -AGNES: Oh!

CHIP: Come on, baby girl! Right there.

Hurry!

Yeah, get him in the head. Only in the head.

That's a good job, Carol.

AGNES: There's one.

(SIGHS)

AGNES: Oh, there's another.

(FIRING)

Baby, stop! Right in front of you.

Right there!

Okay, hit it. There you go, good job.

Break its neck.

-I got two right here. -(GUN FIRES)

(SIGHS) I got it.

-I got one, Dad! -Good job, girl!

(CLEARS THROAT) I got one more right here coming directly at me.

(GUN FIRING)

I got it.

These are fat geese.

Hey, Qutan, what's going on? Did you round any up?

I tried to over there.

-Oh, did they get away? -Yep.

It's all teamwork. Even though my daughter Qutan didn't kill one,

she was making her presence by running back and forth

and the geese didn't want to go to her.

So it made them lay down and me and Carol were able to go catch them.

(AGNES SIGHS)

All right.

(SIGHS)

-Right on. -Over here, baby.

Oh, yeah, we did quite a bundle.

Quite the collection.

-I would say this is enough for today, even for tomorrow. -Yeah.

Yeah, this is about all we can carry home.

CHIP: I'm pretty happy for my daughters.

They're gonna learn where to go get food when there's no birds flying,

maybe no fish in their net.

Right now, there's no caribou around,

and if they need something, I wanted them to know where to start looking

and where to end up.

You girls know this place now, you'll never fail if you come here.

Yep. You girls ready?

You got a long walk.

A happy one, we get to go home and pluck geese and eat dinner.

CHIP: We didn't find male ducks, we found geese.

Geese with no babies. And the geese that have no babies,

or lost their babies, or maybe didn't have any this year

were all grouped up together for mutual protection.

Nine.

And these were rather bulky and big

and they're just so big they couldn't hide so well,

so we had much better luck.

Fourteen.

(EXHALES)

Now that was a good haul. A real good dinner.

Well, that will make some jars of geese

and we can eat a couple, three or four fresh.

We'll eat a couple of these and we'll have about 10 good jars of geese.

Since we don't have any in the freezer for this winter,

we'll save those aside to make a huge pot of goose soup

out of these and then jar up the goose soup.

-Good job girls. -Yeah.

You could go on ahead and take your socks off.

Yep, go take your socks off and dry out.

There's no store out here. We ain't got no money,

but this is a store and this is what was in the aisle today.

We just had a good time. I'm pretty happy with my kids.

GLENN: Spruce tree turns the sunlight into needles

and the grouse turns the needles into meat for me.

It's like a cycle. That's what I'm into.

Part of the big cycle.

Right here this is where I'll start walking looking for the berries.

NARRATOR: High in the Brooks Range,

Glenn has a brief opportunity to gather berries

before winter overtakes the land.

I like to walk on these low ridges that are drier,

gravelly soil.

Less brush, easier walking.

Hey, this looks like some mushrooms I can eat right here.

There are other mushrooms that look very similar to this that are poisonous.

But this one has an orange-ish colour,

and when I break it I can tell

that that's the type I'm looking for.

Something else I can take back and stick in the fridge.

Oh, here's a nice patch of blueberries right here.

Some good enough berries here to stop and pick for a while.

With this berry picker, I can pick faster.

There are a lot of different plants that you can eat,

but there are some plants out here that can kill you if you eat them.

So you wanna know which ones are edible and which ones are poisonous.

What's that?

There's something on the hill there.

I'll have closer look with my rifle.

Something up there moving through the trees.

I'm not sure what it is.

It's brown.

It's a moose.

Yeah, I can see now it's a moose.

It's always a good idea to keep an eye on something like that though,

'cause there are bears around.

Still another month until I hunt moose.

Moose season's later in the fall.

I got a couple gallons of berries now.

I'm gonna head back to camp and on the way I'll be canoeing,

I can do some fishing.

There might be some pike or some whitefish along the way I can catch.

This is just a small lake way up in the mountains.

I'm a long, long ways from the ocean.

So I don't get fish migrating into this lake from the ocean.

I live mostly on moose meat and caribou out here.

I have a fish once in a great while for variety. I like it.

I got something.

There.

I'm gonna keep fishing because the fish are biting.

When you're up in the mountains a long ways from the ocean,

it's not the same kind of fishing you get

when you're in a big river system

where the fish are going in and out to the ocean.

Getting some food for the fridge.

One way to get a refrigerator is to go to the store and buy it,

bring it home, plug it in to electricity, you got your refrigerator.

What I had to do here, I dug a hole,

lined it with spruce trees,

found myself a piece of moss that will insulate for the lid.

It was an experiment. I never built a refrigerator before.

I'm really happy with the way this turned out.

What a way to live, you know?

Go out and pick my fruit in the forest,

catch my fish in the lake.

I prefer it to any restaurant in the world.

ANDY: Consistent access to the resources is our insurance

out here in the bush.

You take that away from us and it really affects our lives

directly and immediately.

I'm trying to figure out how the heck I'm gonna do this. (LAUGHS)

Without taking the whole bloody thing apart, you know?

NARRATOR: Andy and Kate's, new fish trap has failed to yield any fish.

They must repair it if they hope to harvest

enough food for themselves this winter.

I gotta add... I gotta add more willows in here, obviously. Right?

If they came through here, they could get out here.

I just didn't get them close enough together.

Clock's ticking, fall's just around the corner,

and basically we haven't put up any fish.

And that's a real big concern for me.

Like that size?

It doesn't matter. Even smaller than that will work probably for me.

For every king salmon I used to catch, I now have to catch about 10 pike.

And that's turning out to be not as easy as I thought it would be.

Okay. I think we got everything, huh?

-Okay. I think we're fishing. -Okay.

Check it tomorrow, swear some more tomorrow

(LAUGHING) when it doesn't have any fish in it.

Tomorrow morning there's no betting on whether we get any fish or not.

-No. We won't even... We won't even discuss it. -(LAUGHING)

It's undisturbed.

-Well, it's still underwater. -Yeah.

That's a good sign. All right.

Let's see what we got.

KATE: I think so. No.

Negatory, it looks like.

Son of a bitch!

Well, this is obviously not producing at all.

And we're spending a lot of time and gasoline

and we're not getting a damn thing out of this.

I'm kind of baffled as to why I'm not catching fish right now, here.

I mean, I've got it completely closed off

so anything coming in, it's gotta come in here.

I can't, I can't imagine the fish are going in and then coming back out.

So for some reason we're just not getting them here.

We know there are fish at the mouth, right at the mouth.

We know they travel along the edges, right?

So let's just give that a shot and see what happens.

I've been fishing it for days and so far I haven't caught anything.

So I don't know if it's my design,

or if there just aren't any fish here.

I'm feeling a little bit stressed out right now

because we're putting a lot of time into fishing

and we're not getting anything.

I'm gonna keep trying.

NARRATOR: Andy and Kate, have repaired and moved their fish trap.

But with winter approaching,

they cannot afford another day without a catch.

Doesn't look good.

-Nothing? -I don't see anything in this one, Kate.

-(SCOFFS) -There's no fish left in the Yukon, I guess.

Well, this is a waste of time.

Waste of time, waste of effort, waste of everything.

-I don't get it. -I don't get it either.

It should pick up something.

This is the most effort I've ever put into fishing

with zero results in my entire life.

It's a tough lesson to learn, you know, and that's a part

of trying anything new out here.

Trying to develop new methods and go for a different resource,

there's a learning curve.

And right now my learning curve is kind of on the negative side.

And I don't really like that. I'm not a person that really likes to fail at things.

I don't mind experimenting and having some minor failures,

but I don't like it when I try something and put a bunch of time into it

and it's a complete waste of my time.

It looks like probably what's gonna end up happening for Kate and I

is fall time's gonna come,

that's gonna be a really critical moment

for us to make sure that we get fall chum salmon.

So we're gonna pray that that run is good enough for us to fish.

And I think I'm gonna be hunting moose, and caribou, and black bears

a whole lot more 'cause it's looking like

we're not gonna have much fish for the wintertime.

SUE: Bam! Like that, things change.

If you can't roll with the punches,

you know, don't get in the boxing ring then.

PILOT OVER RADIO: How's it going over there?

Uh, we have fog down to the ground.

Half to one-mile visibility right now.

Better to the south and the east.

Okay, sounds good.

I'll ship you with a load.

NARRATOR: An unusual summer storm has prevented Sue's fuel delivery.

With more clients set to arrive,

getting fuel into camp is crucial to Sue's business.

Trying to get the fuel delivery in

and just kept getting boned by the weather.

But we cleared up, the ceiling got nice,

they launched and in between then and now

we've come back down to the ground in fog.

PILOT: Okay, be up, uh, right over your place right now.

I can hear you.

As you go around let me know what you're thinking so I can help out.

The plane just radioed in. He's going overhead now.

He's gonna try to find a hole to come through.

If not, he'll have to detour

and go to Deadhorse and wait it out.

PILOT: I think I'm gonna be coming around and take a landing to the east.

All right, buddy.

Sounds like he's gonna try it.

Looks like he's smiling.

(ENGINE SHUTTING OFF)

Hey, buddy.

What do we got on board right now?

-Jet-A. Yeah. -Jet-A first?

Okay.

You know, this fuel that I'm getting now is, it's absolutely key

to me being able to make my revenue.

This next six weeks is when I see the heaviest concentration

of the small planes coming in and doing their thing.

So if I'm not able to get all of the loads I need,

I would not be in the black and I would not have a lease any more.

Kavik would be a memory.

Right as the fuel came in, bam, there's the helicopter that needs it.

He's gonna use about 1,500 gallons in the next three days.

That's half of what I just got.

You know, jet fuel delivered, jet fuel out.

You know, that's, that's the nature of the business.

As soon as I get it, man, they're after it.

So how much is that little pig gonna drink today do you think?

-64.1. -64.1.

Yep, ready to do business, and then ready for winter.

(SUE CHUCKLES)