Original subtitles

(AGNES SPEAKING)

(CHIP SPEAKING)

You don't know the channel,

it's best to have a marker to apply your eyes to,

so you can range yourself.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

NARRATOR: The Hailstones are returning to camp from a hunting trip,

but without a marker to guide them along the treacherous river,

their path home is uncertain.

(SQUAWKING)

CHIP: This is it right here.

You see how hard that was?

This is just inches off the surface of the water.

You see how much trouble that was trying to figure out where we were?

That's why I was kind of fudging along here thinking,

I'm gonna take it slow till I know exactly where I'm going.

We were having trouble out in the, um, lagoon,

trying to find the, uh, mouth to the river.

CHIP: We came in really well over the sandbars.

It's these real high tides that took away the marker that was here.

Oh, it was wood that was staked down in here and it had jerry jugs,

red jerry jugs hanging on it,

and you could see it for miles.

It's gonna be important you know where the mouth of this channel is.

This point is receded quite a bit.

The old marker's fallen over.

The absolute best thing we can do for ourselves and other people

would probably be to put a marker here.

AGNES: Me and him know how to get into this river and this area

without any landmarks or anything.

But for the kids to learn and to be comfortable with coming here,

it's good for them to have something to aim for and say,

"Hey, I know where I'm at."

I wanna put a tower here.

We can use a tower for multiple uses.

We can use it for orientating ourselves to come in,

we can use it to orientate ourselves in the wintertime

when it's snowing or when we're travelling and it's foggy.

And we'll also be able to get up in it

and look over and see if the ocean is rough,

and maybe even see a seal or two if they're popping up around here.

Shouldn't take too long to dig and chop and tie something together

that'd be very, very useful to everybody around here.

SUE: Coming up with new ideas, improvisation,

that's the nature of living out here in Alaska.

(PLANE ENGINE WHIRRING)

So that's the, uh, plane that takes my nephew, Jesse, home.

-All right. -All right, Auntie.

(SUE SPEAKING)

-No problem, Auntie. -You did an amazing, amazing job.

SUE: He's definitely been a big boon, a big asset this year.

I could not have made it through the season without him.

Time for me to get back to work, get ready for winter.

It's coming.

Nobody here to help me, and that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

NARRATOR: With her nephew, Jesse, gone,

Sue Aikens must rely on herself

to survive the long winter months ahead.

Preserving her winter meat supply is a priority.

Time for Susie to look for some parts.

Making a smoker's pretty simple.

You got your source of heat, which creates the smoke,

you send it up into the smoker.

It's not gonna go there like a dog.

You gotta channel it using pipe.

Here you go.

(GRUNTS)

Might be able to use that.

This bone yard is pieces and parts

that I've taken apart and changed.

And as I change and update and upgrade camp,

this kind of stuff is extra.

There's another little elbow or two.

This goes up into my smoker.

Yay, smoke comes in.

I am happy with my little parts,

and, uh, time for me to get 'em together and carry 'em in.

(CLANKING)

ERIK: This is the life that I've chosen to live, and it's just what we do.

Martha and I have been really busy the entire summer

running our fishing lodge, and we're here right at the end.

Our last client left yesterday.

We're leaving Iliamna for Wiseman in a few days.

NARRATOR: Erik and Martha Salitan

have spent the summer at their lodge in Iliamna,

taking advantage of the area's resources

to maintain their subsistence lifestyle.

With dark winter approaching,

the couple has one last chance at harvesting salmon

before they return to Wiseman.

You know, Martha and I eat a lot of fish.

It's a real nice break, to break up our red meat diet

that we primarily eat up there

with moose and sheep and caribou.

And, uh, we just wanted to get out here,

put up a few fish of our own,

and be able to take those fish home to Wiseman

for the winter.

Because Erik and I rely a lot on subsistence,

it's, uh, very important that we take advantage of what's in season,

so right now salmon are in season.

ERIK: So these fish here in the Iliamna drainage are sockeye salmon

that are locally known as reds,

one of the best eating fish on earth.

ERIK: I'm looking forward to getting home to Wiseman.

MARTHA: Yeah, me too.

I'd like to put away some salmon, though.

MARTHA: Fish on! ERIK: Fish on?

MARTHA: It's foul-hooked.

For salmon, you gotta catch 'em in the mouth,

you're not allowed to keep 'em unless you do,

so when you hook 'em onto the fin,

or anywhere else on the body besides the mouth,

you have to let 'em go 'cause it's called a foul hook and that's sports fishing.

Well, let's head downriver below the rapids.

I think the fish are better.

Even that one was a little reddish,

it's kind of turning.

I think the fish below the rapids are far less beat up.

Let me fish a couple more.

Oh, you wanna fish more. Okay.

Girl loves to fish.

MARTHA: The water coming down the river right now is all silty and glaciery,

and it comes into this little creek right here

and then you can't see the fish any more, because it's all murky.

Not to mention that the rain makes it hard to see,

'cause it disturbs the surface of the water.

I told Martha, like, 10 minutes ago, like, let's go,

and she agreed, and she's still over there fishing.

The girl is obsessed with fishing.

Push the boat off here and pick Martha up,

since she refuses to quit ever,

and see if we can't get on the fish a little bit better.

How am I supposed to get in?

-Like that? -Yeah.

JESSIE: Any time I get a chance to, like, get out, go camping,

and go hunting and fishing,

that's just, like, everything to me.

That's why I live up here.

(DOGS BARKING)

Well, I'm going up into what I call Bigfoot Country.

I'm about to travel 100 to 110 miles

through three to four different rivers,

just to kind of get more in touch with the country out there.

That's the whole purpose of this trip,

is, uh, to go out here in this time of year

before moose hunting season

and just kind of check the country out and get to know it better.

(ENGINE STARTS)

NARRATOR: Jessie Holmes is journeying deep into the wilderness

to scout for resources.

Finding an area to fish and hunt for the fall season

is crucial to feeding himself and his sled dogs through the winter.

JESSIE: All right. Daylight's burning.

It's pretty important to, like, be familiar with the land around you.

I don't really rely on compasses or maps,

so this is just all a part of developing my intimacy with the land out there.

I feel like I'm going on a great adventure,

I feel like I'm Jeremiah Johnson.

But I ain't. I'm Jessie Holmes, the River Man.

Well, I think this is Ding Mac Puck's Slough.

But I'm also thinking this still might be on the Tanana River.

I'm just trying to sense where I go as I go.

I don't necessarily know exactly where I'm at.

I just know I'm on the river.

We might still be on the channel of the Tanana and, like,

Ding Mac Puck might be up here around the bend.

Only been here one time, so,

I just kind of gotta pay attention, you know,

it's really actually difficult to navigate out here.

It's what I call a critical point of the journey,

knowing where the hell you're going.

Gotta make sure about these things, man,

you don't wanna spend a bunch of gas going in the wrong direction.

I don't have a GPS, I don't have a map.

Find out one way.

You have to always constantly be aware of the water and what it's doing.

It's full of, like, sandbars, logs.

The river's been dropping a lot lately.

We're gonna be dealing with shallow water.

It's okay, fella.

We're not bothering you,

we're just trying to get by you.

Pretty shallow. Hope we make it through here,

'cause we already came a long way.

I don't wanna turn back around.

(ENGINE STARTS)

Think I'm lost.

Took a wrong turn quite a ways back there,

and I'm tired of trying to battle up this shallow water.

I don't think I'm going the right way.

I've never even been this way before,

so looks like I made a mistake,

and now I'm gonna have to turn around and go back.

This isn't good.

I'm gonna have to lose a lot of time and gas because of this.

This is disorienting country, you know, it's easy to get lost out here.

I have to make sure I have enough gas to make it back.

If I make another big mistake like that,

then I'm gonna have to cut my trip short.

It's frustrating to go the wrong way,

but these are just the kind of things you deal with out here.

When I come out here, I'm out here by myself.

I got my life in my own hands,

because I'm way out in the middle of nowhere.

This is a place that makes some people worry.

This is a place that makes me feel comfortable.

That's a nice looking moose,

so I guess I'm out in the right country now.

I love coming out here and seeing animals,

you know, that's a good thing.

That's what I'm looking for, is animal country.

It's getting late.

Been travelling long today, been about 10 hours, 11 hours on the river.

So, I'm gonna check this out

for setting up camp for the night.

This looks like a good enough spot to camp to me.

It's got the most important essentials,

easy to get up the bank, it's got firewood.

Tobias! We're gonna camp here, buddy.

The main thing I wanna do right now is have a fire

and relax and eat and enjoy it.

I personally would've liked something a little more scenic,

but, you know, you take what you can get.

You like it here?

You keep an eye out, all right?

Tobias, he's, uh, pretty much retired.

I've had him for 10 years and he's done his duty, he's won dog races.

There ain't many dogs in my kennel that can say that they won a dog race.

He's a critical leader for me for many years of getting started in mushing.

'Course I'm gonna give the oldest, best dog in my kennel the respect

and retirement that he deserves.

Spend some time fishing tomorrow,

and spend some time exploring around also.

See what I can't rustle up.

It's just the excitement of a new day out in the woods.

Nothing's a guarantee out here.

But I can guarantee you,

if you're not willing to work for it,

you ain't gonna get nothing.

Here you go, buddy.

Good boy. Sure glad you came with me.

SUE: The biggest trait you have to know

is curiosity, ingenuity, imagination.

(SQUAWKING)

(GRUNTS)

I love projects.

NARRATOR: In order to preserve and flavour her winter caribou meat,

Sue is building a smoker using salvaged materials.

Preserving the meat is critical to her survival in the coming winter months.

I get a little table.

I can put these things on it, utilise it when I'm done,

clean it up, store it, use it again next year.

Or try to make it, it fails miserably,

I grab a brewski, laugh about it,

and think of how I can do it better next year.

I don't have really the right tools for the job,

I don't have a hole saw.

I have a drill bit.

(WHIRRING)

I drill the little holes and then kind of play connect the dot with my jigsaw.

(WHIRRING CONTINUES)

In a perfect world, I'd maybe put it through the bottom,

but I just need to inundate it, it's a cold smoker.

I'm not trying to cook it.

I just wanna inundate it with the smoke.

Doing the cold smoking, it's a flavour thing,

and to make it unattractive for pests and bugs.

I'm not trying to cook it. I'm trying to imbue a flavour.

All righty.

(PANTING)

Now...

This is my little stove.

I use him for when I'm going camping in the winter.

But he can have other uses.

This is where you kind of start playing jigsaw pieces.

Okay.

Come on.

You know you want to.

Susie loves you.

Come on!

Nice.

Okay.

I'm gonna get something in there

and get it starting to smoke.

We'll see if it's gonna work.

This is, uh, some meat that got donated to me.

It's here, it's fresh, and I can get it right in the smoker.

Bam, bam.

Just gonna set that one inside, go get another one.

(FIRE CRACKLING)

It is smoking.

I had meat donated to me,

and I did my little idea, and funky as it is, it seems to be working.

Life is good in the Kavik hood.

CHIP: Every year is different.

Every time I come down here

there's something different going on.

This place surprises me all the time,

and I kind of look forward to that.

Tinmiaq? Carol?

You two got yourselves squared away?

-Ting, you got a rifle? -Yeah.

Today, we're going to go put up a post marker

at the mouth of the river,

so that we can know where to go in

when we're coming through the channel.

CHIP: I see a lot of things that happen to kids around here,

is they get diverted.

It's easier for them to sit and play games than it is to go cut fish.

I want my kids to know how to go up to a place to get what they need.

You know, you gotta eat. You gotta be heated.

You need shelter and clothing.

And they can do it all by getting these things.

They can make money to buy the things that they can't get.

Seal, seal!

Right there on the fucking grass!

(AGNES SPEAKING)

You want to get closer?

Go get closer.

Go get closer.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

(GUN FIRES)

(BOTH EXCLAIMING)

(LAUGHS)

Right over here was a small ugruk check.

And, uh, my daughters jumped out and decided to hunt it.

Carol took a shot, missed it.

No ugruk check. (CHUCKLES)

You know, right now, we're gonna go get some wood.

See, look, really junky up here.

Why don't you girls spot us out some poles?

We'll be digging down a couple feet,

and then we're gonna want them up about six feet above us.

Add about four feet to that.

So, I would say probably 14, 15-foot-long poles.

They can be a bit larger, but we have to be able to carry them.

If you wanna just go spot a few of those out,

I'm gonna sharpen the saw

and get things running from this end.

I would go a bit further, Ting.

TINMIAQ: Okay.

Go a bit further down there, probably about 200 yards, and start looking.

It doesn't have to be that tall to be a good marker here because it's so flat.

And whether you're on the water

at sea level looking along here,

or you're, um, on a snow machine,

which is at sea level on top of the frozen water,

it's good to have a marker around here.

TINMIAQ: Holy crud.

Holy moly.

Magic poles, Carol.

Right there.

All righty.

CHIP: When we're down here it's like shopping, man.

We just get the resources we need.

We need heat. There it is.

We need building material. There it is.

We just skip the money part entirely.

Right here, Carol.

One, two, three!

CHIP: I'm gonna cut this pole right here.

We have to get our wood and stuff into the boat before the tide changes,

before it goes down, so we can pull it out of here,

'cause this is about a quarter mile of, uh, extremely shallow water.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

TINMIAQ: One more, Carol.

CHIP: We gotta get out of here,

'cause the tide's just starting to turn.

Got your jackets?

So, I think we're timing this out just right.

ERIK: I came to Alaska as a teenager.

I was in search of a sense of adventure, and I guess I found it.

NARRATOR: Erik and Martha are travelling upriver

to fish for salmon.

It's their last chance to harvest fish for meat and protein

before they return to Wiseman for dark winter.

MARTHA: It's swift out there right now.

I've been fishing at the same spot since I can remember.

Coming here for 24 years.

I have a lot of good memories over here.

Fish come by this one rock every single year,

and it's the greatest fishing spot for red salmon.

Wow!

There's a lot of fish.

I still feel like a little kid when I come out here.

Of course you go to the best spot.

I love my wife, but she's a game and a fish hog.

Look how net-rashed that one is.

Yeah, the fish are just...

Different days they run up in different ways.

We're foul-hooking a bunch of them.

It's one of those kind of fisheries you...

You can fish all over the world and be a great angler,

and then you come up here to Alaska and try this,

and you gotta get dialled in.

Haven't got dialled in yet,

but once we get dialled, we'll punch 'em out pretty quick.

MARTHA: Oh, that was in the mouth!

ERIK: Was it?

That's the first salmon of the day that we've caught legally in the mouth.

This is some really good, good fresh meat.

Meat like this sells for $19.99 in supermarkets across America.

Found free, here in the wilds of Alaska.

Can't let 'em get over the waterfall,

if they get over the waterfall, you're done.

If you don't use a net while you're fishing these salmon

you lose a lot of 'em,

so you gotta have control,

even though you see all the fish in the water there.

You just get the net ready 'cause it happens quick.

Hey!

ERIK: Now? MARTHA: Yep.

Nice job, honey.

Keep it off the rocks.

Nice!

All right.

We got the limit.

So, this is the last fish of our limit today.

Martha and I had the goal to put up

a couple hundred pounds of salmon for the winter.

Got our last 10 in the Rubbermaid.

We're gonna go home, set 'em up, clean 'em.

-Ship these fish to Wiseman. -And have fish head soup.

And definitely have fish head soup tonight.

I'm so hungry.

Let's rock and roll, babe.

JESSIE: There's no way a guy couldn't get by out here if he wasn't determined to.

NARRATOR: To scout for resources to survive the coming winter,

Jessie has journeyed more than 100 miles from his home into unknown wilderness.

JESSIE: Travelled a long way to get here.

First thing I'm gonna do is start fishing right now.

Then I'm gonna be heading up,

further up the river, this evening.

Deeper into the wilderness.

Testing spots out as I go along the way.

For me this is just exploring and broadening my range,

you know, like, getting a greater understanding of the country.

At this point in my life, I wanna spend a lot of time out in places like this.

Make it to where I can live better out here.

I ain't seen a fish jump since I've been here.

All right.

Come on, buddy. Man, there that sucker goes.

He's fighting now.

Gotta wear him down a little bit,

where you can get him in.

Yeah. Pretty good-sized one.

Oh, yeah.

That is a beautiful fish right there.

Son of a bitch!

You've got to be kidding me.

That was a huge fish!

Yeah, I lost him. Line snapped.

Fish over.

I saw another pike in there.

It's a nice-looking fish right there.

Fish are feeding at a certain time of day and coming in and out.

Sometimes they're up in the lake,

sometimes they're down in the river.

So, timing's everything here.

We're in freaking pike country.

Yes!

I saw that guy jump out there and I cast it.

Got it!

That's definitely our biggest catch so far out here.

Yeah, look at that guy. Great fishing out here.

One more.

Got him.

There it is.

You know, that's when you're really getting ahead in life up here.

When you're putting fish away for the winter,

when it's hard to catch fish.

It's taking advantage of this resource while it's here.

A lot of people don't want to work that hard for their food,

but I don't want to do it any other way.

Main goal in life is to be able to make a life off the land

and put food that's wholesome in your freezer.

It takes a lot of resources to be able to live like this.

Takes a lot of time and knowledge.

Some people like to do it with less, I'm not that way.

I want to do it right.

Couldn't do this if I hadn't worked at years at getting prepared,

got my own boat, and my own motors,

and my own everything.

I earned every bit of this.

Now it's time to get camp set up

and get fed and get to bed.

Rest up for the next day.

(CLICKS TONGUE)

We're out here in some serious wild country now.

Travelled deep into the wilderness over the last couple days.

I don't want to go around out here without a gun.

So, I'm looking forward to getting further into the wilderness

and setting up camp tonight.

You never know what's gonna happen out here.

Just got to put yourself in the right situation.

CHIP: We get to teach our kids how to live this way.

We make 'em comfortable and we make it acceptable.

It's acceptable to live in a tent.

Well, at least the sky is getting sunny.

NARRATOR: For the Hailstones,

building a tower marker will help them navigate

the dangerous waters of the Kiwalik River.

CHIP: I came down here to take this wood.

Dig some holes. Chainsaw some wood.

Tie some ropes together and get her done.

Yeah, if you want to start digging these holes,

I was gonna show you where I want 'em put.

I want 'em put in these different places.

They gotta be oblong, too.

They can't be just perfectly round,

you're gonna have to make them oblong,

'cause we're gonna put two posts side-by-side.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

We're getting the poles ready.

If you go get the rope, yep.

This is where the platform part to the top of it

is gonna be placed,

to hold it together and give it some integrity.

These didn't cost us much, time, wood.

Doesn't cost us much to do these kind of things.

This'll probably stand for a few years,

or at least I would hope it would.

We'll, uh, tamp it down and put some crosspieces up here.

What this will do is probably give me a good orientation when I'm coming in here.

Especially when the tide is high

and I can't really see the land very well,

I'll know right where the mouth is.

You know, we could put a platform up here

and the kids could sit up top, and scout the place out, get them a spotting scope.

Maybe make a fire pit.

Eat a little bit of lunch.

I'm pretty happy with this today.

SUE: Life is just a series of events you overcome.

And succeed.

(GASPS) Look at that!

It's meat and it's not cooked, you know?

It's just smoked.

Just gonna cut a little hunk.

Spent quite a bit of time there.

And you have the smoke look and flavour,

but you can see it is not the hot smoke

where you're physically cooking the meat.

You're just flavouring and keeping the bugs off it.

So, let's go see how yummy it is.

Hmm. Smells pretty tasty.

(SIGHS)

Doink.

Bon appetit, as Miss Child would say.

That's pretty tasty.

The season is done.

It's been a tumultuous year.

The injuries I sustained last winter

were just the injuries that didn't want to let go and just let me get on with life.

You know, the injury cost me some time

and a little bit of body parts.

But, financially, it's ruinous.

Three or four weeks of my busiest time of year

had that much revenue.

Nobody was here to run the gens to keep the food frozen.

It all went bad.

I lost all the food, I lost all the appliances.

You never get to pick and plan when things break down.

You pick and choose how you react to that.

And how do I always react?

I jump right back in the saddle

and kick it into high gear.

That's just who I am.

One last thing to do, and then I'm done for the day.

I'm back.

Haven't seen this little rat bastard since I got hurt.

(SIGHS)

So...

Say hello to my little friend, Susie's back.

This is for my shoulder.

This is just because.

It turned out not to be such a good fucking tool!

It's a piece of machinery.

It didn't have any evil intent.

But I tell you what,

sometimes swinging that frying pan

and making contact feels good.

I'm not somebody who gives up easily.

I am not somebody who finds it a strength to say I need help.

It's just been the course of my life that,

"So you can't get it done? Draw a little deeper.

"Dig a little harder. Learn a little bit more."

This injury taught me fear, respect, some new limits.

Whoops!

Been waiting months to do that.

(CHUCKLES)

Hurt me, will ya?

I'm back, motherfucker.

It's time to back this bad boy up,

and get him out of my shop for good.

I don't like seeing the little rat bastard,

but, you know, I almost kind of want to make a shrine out of it

because this one taught me something I obviously needed to learn,

a little bit of fear and respect.

And I'll never forget it 'cause I'm forever changed.

ERIK: Life is good. Life is busy.

I like to get out and just get my hands dirty.

NARRATOR: After catching their limit of salmon,

Erik and Martha begin to process the fish

so they can be shipped to their winter home in Wiseman.

Let's get this done and eat.

Even though we use the salmon to sell and bring guests in,

we also love to eat salmon.

There's not a whole lot of salmon up in Wiseman.

So every year, when we leave Iliamna for that at the end of the summer,

we make sure that we bring a couple hundred pounds with us.

You won't find a filet much fresher than that in your local supermarket.

Every time Martha and I go into a grocery store

and we see a sockeye salmon, $19.99 a pound,

and we laugh and we look.

And we look at one fish in there

and think about how that's $100,

and we say, "Man, just all you got to do is go in the boat

"and putt along a few minutes

"and you're gonna come out with several thousand dollars in fish."

We got these fish all cleaned up, filleted,

and now we're gonna go ahead and vacuum seal these fillets

and get them ready to ship up to Wiseman.

MARTHA: Oh, boy.

What are we at for poundage right now?

ERIK: 50-pound mark.

Last two.

All right, where's that? Can you grab that Sharpie?

MARTHA: Sure. Let me turn this off.

Even though we're leaving Iliamna,

we're taking a little bit of it with us,

which is, uh, the red salmon that we're vacuum sealing here and bringing with us.

So, in a couple months when we're kind of missing Iliamna,

we'll be able to break out some of that salmon and, uh, enjoy it again.

ERIK: All right. We're ready to roll, I think.

Let's go ship this out. Let's ship it to Wiseman and, uh,

go back to the lodge, start breaking things down

and close it up for the season.

I got the fish, you got the door?

Yep.

JESSIE: You can't get a feel for the country you're in

unless you're willing to get out in it.

NARRATOR: Jessie is scouting a remote location for signs of resources.

Locating areas that he can hunt and fish in the future

is critical to surviving the harsh winter ahead.

JESSIE: Worn down moose holes here.

This is where one's bedded down at,

all the grass is laid down.

There's moose tracks all over the place.

By the looks of this track here,

I'd say it's a really new track.

A day or two at the most.

Looking out for a good moose hunting spot,

that's one of the main things I'm looking for, is right here.

A sign that they're here.

A fresh sign.

This is moose scat.

Pretty happy with what I'm seeing around here.

That's why it's so important for me to get out here

and go walk all of these areas.

I might be trampling through the brush

and that seems, like, hard, but to me that's just fun.

I don't want to, like, come out here and blindly hunt,

I want to come out here and feel like this is my camp.

The work is done, we're in the moose country.

I'm coming back here and hunting for sure.

Kind of just gives me a better idea of how rich this country out here is.

There's some spruce chickens.

(GUN COCKS)

(SOFTLY) Tobias, stay, stay, stay.

Tobias, don't scare it off. Come here, Tobias.

(GUN COCKS)

There he is.

I love spruce hen.

Especially this time of year,

they're full of berries just like everything else.

You got to know what you can eat and what you can't eat

and take every advantage you can get.

I want to go home and cook this grouse up and relax around camp.

I've done a lot of tramping around today.

All right, now I'm home.

That was a heck of an adventure there.

Found my happy hunting grounds

and this is definitely gonna be where

I come back to this fall for moose hunting.

You never know what's gonna happen out here.

You might get a bear, too.

Well, right now, I'm sitting out here in some new country to me

and feeling very inspired of where my life's going.

This year it's just all been about my boat and the river.

'Cause those are my main providers.

The fish wheel has been stuck

and looking like it would never make it either.

Got that unstuck and came back and got that thing going.

That's a huge relief to see that old piece of equipment survive,

hopefully another year here.

Getting my dog yard set up.

New doghouses, new chains,

so I'm not stuck worrying about this stuff come wintertime,

when it's time to really get busy.

Now I'm out here, scouting new country,

and, uh, finding a nice place that I want to come back to here.

Come fall time, put up some moose,

berries, and some peace in my heart.

This is a life of adventure,

and that's why it's the life for me.

I'm not a sedentary person, I'm a nomadic person.

I mean, I got a lot to learn out here.

The reason for coming up here is to invest my time,

going out into some real country.

That just intrigues me and makes me feel small.

I love that feeling.

Feel very small out here, I feel very on my own.

(FIRE CRACKLING)

A lot of negative things can happen

and a lot of things can be thrown in your way,

but it's your attitude and outlook on life

that control where you go.

And that attitude has brought me to a place like this.

CHIP: We have 12 and 16-hour days out here.

We will work from the time we're awake to the time we go to bed.

AGNES: Well, here's our lunch.

A few pieces of salmon from the inisuk for our picnic.

I built a tower marker down at the mouth of the river,

and I'm gonna go show it to my wife,

and she wants to go down there and go eat lunch.

It's just another wonderful day in the Arctic.

Okay, loves.

We'll go take us a little cruise down the mouth of the river

and see what we see!

AGNES: I love it.

Awesome. You guys did an awesome job.

CAROL: I'm gonna go up.

I'm just putting the finishing touches on this thing.

Seems like my wife likes it, which is important to me.

Well, this thing's for everybody.

It's for you, it's for Buckland people, it's for Deering people.

Everybody'll see it, if they're off the trail,

they'll know which way to get back to the trail.

No problem-o.

AGNES: Wow. CHIP: There you go.

We should just throw all that wood in a pile right here and start a fire.

You could get some tea built, huh?

Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Man, I'm hungry.

CHIP: Did pretty good on berries this year, huh?

AGNES: Yeah. Yeah.

CHIP: Down by the ocean, we're down here all summer, the resources are rich.

It's just been a really wonderful summer.

I love the peace here, it's always quiet

and there's just me and my family here.

If the rest of world would be here,

I don't think it would ever be the same.

CHIP: We're gonna be going into winter,

right now darkness is coming, and it'll be dark winter.

And then it'll be light winter again,

and we'll make our way back down here in February.

I see this has been a pretty good year.

Good spring, good summer.

We got a lot of fish up, we got a lot of smoked salmon.

The women are picking berries, and while they're doing that,

I've been gathering wood and building things

and then, uh, getting firewood,

because that's constantly being used.

We're heading into fall.

Yep, something to look forward to.

Well, I look forward to going to Noorvik, huh?

Don't you?