Original subtitles

SUSAN AIKENS: You know, it's a beautiful time of year.

And any excuse to get Little Red out for a little...

A buzz-buzz is kind of nice.

I must stay profitable to keep my lease,

and I'm gonna have to open up this winter to inundate myself

with people to make up the difference and be profitable.

My name is Susan Aikens,

and I am the sole resident of Kavik River Camp,

which is located 197 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

I am the only refuelling station

on the eastern side of the North Slope.

That's the size of a third of the state of California.

I bought the camp because what I see is not an oil camp.

What I see is not a hunting camp.

What I see is an ecotourism camp and a place to visit

this incredible place we call the Arctic.

You know, when I was very little,

people always ask you what you wanna be when you grow up.

And in the mid-'60s for a girl, it's supposed to be wife,

mother, stewardess, maybe even nurse.

But I always had the same answer, lighthouse keeper.

I crave extreme isolation and my personality thrives

so that's how I'm living.

I don't live by anybody else's rules but my own.

I've been hearing the clients talk about

a tonne of new bear scat close in to camp.

This is around where they say,

I should start seeing where they're digging things up

and pooping all over.

I've got one bear out here that,

for years I've called a Monster Bear.

He is 12 to 14 foot.

Straight-up anomaly bear for the inland grizzly.

He's more like a Kodiak bear size.

The goal is to, er,

maintain a secure perimeter around camp.

There's some.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, this is like, totally really fresh.

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

Well, this is definitely a nice little

spring of dookie.

Some of the things you can tell,

it's fresh

and he's been eating the berries.

It's a juvenile bear.

If you look at the size of what's coming out,

it's not that big of, er, aperture.

That bear has every right to go be as happy

as he wants to be five miles out.

One or two miles close to camp,

I'm gonna try to persuade him to leave.

You don't go pushing the issue.

You don't push a confrontation.

I think that's some ptarmigan.

My food supply is getting a little bit lower than I like.

Ptarmigans are tasty little meals.

Maybe she doesn't see me. Shit!

She's getting ready to fly.

I got a little ptarmy.

Damn, there's a ton of them.

(GUNSHOT)

(GUNSHOT)

(GUNSHOT)

I got two here.

The original mission

was to check for predators.

That was worth it though.

I got some birdies.

Just a nice little addition for my food supply.

And I've got a tasty little meal for dinner.

Today I found out about the animals in my area.

Right now I'm seeing bear activity.

I need to take notice. I need to pay attention.

Until it gets within a mile, half-mile of camp,

I don't need to worry.

But I need to be aware.

JESSIE HOLMES: I'm a man building a lifestyle

and a life out here for myself.

Bailing the old wood boat out here.

It's been raining for a week, and this thing

has taken on a lot of water

in the last few days of heavy rain.

I've got so much to do I can hardly keep up

on everything, you know?

My name is Jessie Holmes, I live in Nenana, Alaska

with my team of 55 sled dogs.

I love dogs, I love the loyalty

and the work ethic of the Alaskan husky.

I appreciate their tough feats, their big hearts,

and their athleticism.

I build my own structures, I hunt, I fish,

I live a subsistence lifestyle.

I made a lot of mistakes in my life

and I fucked up a lot, and I'm trying to like make up for it.

That's what I would tell you about me.

It's gonna continue to rain and it's gonna get cold.

Perfect for moose hunting.

If I get a moose, it saves me a lot of time,

because one shot at getting hundreds of pounds of meat

as opposed to killing a hundred critters

to get by during the winter, you know?

(ENGINE ROARING)

Well, I'm here in the main channel of the big river,

and I'm about to dip into a slough back here.

Head a few miles up,

and try to find a meadow to hunt tonight.

My plan's to get out there and set up a little camp,

and then head down to a meadow and call moose in.

See if I get any response.

You always gotta keep your eyes open

when you're out here, because you never know

when a moose is gonna come.

I'm gonna set up camp now.

I'm gonna rig up a tarp here so,

got a place to get out of the rain,

stay dry tonight.

Keep it simple, man, it just keeps it more peaceful to me.

Five-star accommodations.

Get this done, now I can head on out and hunt.

It's getting late.

I'm hoping that this will be productive,

but the only way to find out is to go get quiet

and start calling moose.

My moose-call here is the moose shoulder blade

I scrape and use to call the moose in.

I'm looking for like, some sign of moose activity.

(WHISPERING) I see a lot of spots where a moose bed down,

so this is a meadow that moose come to.

(JESSIE SPEAKING)

(INHALING AND EXHALING)

It's getting pretty dark.

I can't reliably

even see for a good shot, so,

gonna head on, come back in the morning.

But good start.

Good spot.

EDWARD HAILSTONE: Boating. Hunting.

Fishing, camping.

I wouldn't trade this life for anything.

-The girls got mail. -Wonder what we got.

Dad, catch!

Ah.

I'm Edward Hailstone, my nickname's Chip.

I'm married, I've got five daughters, couple sons.

We live here in Noorvik, Alaska

for a good chunk of the year, then I live in camps

for probably good seven, eight months of the year.

And, er, we all work together

and we like to show our kids what to do.

And if our kids choose to live this way,

they've got good knowledge in it,

and if they don't choose to live this way,

they're well-versed in other stuff.

My name is Agnes Hailstone,

and I live with my husband Chip.

I'm 100% Inupiat.

Born here, raised here and we hunt, fish,

and gather pretty much year-round.

And we live a subsistence lifestyle.

What is that?

CHIP: It's deeds to property from your mom and your dad.

AGNES HAILSTONE: I've acquired some property.

It was passed down to me from my mother,

and it was passed down from her mother.

This is some real good areas here so,

-we're gonna... -Go check it out.

-Boat ride. -Yeah.

CHIP: My wife got a title to some lands

that she knew she had inherited,

and it's taken quite a few years for the courts

and the system and all these other things to come through.

You'll enjoy this place.

Me and your mom know it well enough.

My son Jon came over from Selawick,

and we'll take him down to Emonakrov,

that's the name of the camp down there,

have him pick out a place and he can give me a hand

and maybe start developing a taste for the area.

CHIP: It's over here.

AGNES: So, on both sides of the river.

We own both sides.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones' new land allows greater access

to resources for survival,

but with the onslaught of winter storms

and freezing temperatures rapidly approaching,

building a permanent structure is a priority.

My legs are too short for this!

(LAUGHING)

This is my train of thought.

Everybody that was here didn't come here to play

in the willows, they came here to fish.

So, they're definitely gonna put a place where,

they could park their boat or find it easy

with a dog team or snow machine.

So my thought is they can't get in with a boat,

I'm gonna stick with the creek and go find

a camping spot along it.

Look at that, tent pegs.

Somebody tented here, until the bush grew through it.

-Yeah, this is the place... -Yup, look.

-Tent's peg, look at that. -...we were talking about.

Whoopa-whoopa-whoopa, hot dog.

This'll be the place, and now we can knock that off

with a chainsaw real easy, open this up a little bit.

Look how flat and level this ground is.

This is just wonderful.

We're gonna take the cue of my wife's grandparents,

and we're gonna use this spot

to develop, instead of having just a tent on the ground

like those folks used to do,

we're gonna put something a little more permanent.

We're gonna put some posts down

and we're gonna put some crossbeams.

We gotta start with something, I can't start with a house.

Can't just land a house here or have it parachuted in.

We gotta start with a little bit of shelter,

and then we can build from there.

GLENN VILLENEUVE: When I first got to Alaska, I had to figure things out.

I had to learn things, it takes time.

In my case, it took years.

Man, I've been sitting down here for a week

just waiting to get out of town. It's crummy weather.

It was snowing, then it started raining.

It's just been totally overcast.

NARRATOR: After a brief stay at his Fairbanks cabin,

Glenn Villeneuve is returning to the Brooks Range

for dark winter.

Bad weather has him stranded,

and a break in the storm is his only chance

to return home.

I gotta get a float plane here and get up to the lake.

It's 200 miles north of Fairbanks,

and between here and there, there's a bunch of mountains.

Here's the airport right here, oh, my gosh!

Look at the clouds.

Right down to those hills.

That's not good.

But the pilot thought that we might be able to make it.

We're gonna give it a try anyway.

It doesn't look very good.

-Morning, Myles. -Morning.

Any chance of getting up there today?

I think there's a chance.

We'll give it a try.

GLENN: I used to live in Vermont.

And I used to like being out in the woods a lot,

ever since I was little, so when I got to thinking about

where I wanted to live the rest of my life,

I was looking at a map and I thought, "Hey,

"Alaska, that looks like a good place to go."

Even if there's only a small chance of getting up there,

I wanna get up there so bad I'd like to try it.

To fly a small plane, you gotta be able to see where you're going.

We can't fly on instruments, so,

if we can't see where we're going, we can't get there.

On a clear day, you can see mountains

all across the horizon down there, big mountains.

Can't see anything down there now.

What about just getting over to the flats though?

That might be a little tricky too.

Yeah.

GLENN: It's time for me to get headed back to the Brooks Range.

It's about a 60-mile walk from the nearest road,

200 miles from town.

I live out here 'cause I just feel really well living out in the mountains like this.

This is my favourite place in the world.

There's this veneer of civilisation

that's weighing people down,

and there's something inside waiting to get out

and you get out here in the woods and you can live it.

You can get as primal as you wanna get.

It's different out here.

GLENN: Touchdown, we made it. MYLES: We're here.

GLENN: Look at this.

Looks like I went straight from fall to winter.

-There you are. -Okay, Myles.

-Thanks a lot for the lift. -Okay, Glenn, sure.

-Have a good flight back. -Thanks.

(PLANE WHIRRING)

I love it when that plane takes off,

and I just hear it disappearing into the distance.

And I'm all alone out here.

(PLANE ENGINE ROARING)

JESSIE: I totally am nomadic

because you have to be nomadic to survive in Alaska.

(BOAT ENGINE STARTS)

I went hunting up this slough last night.

Found a meadow, but I didn't see a lot of sign there

so now I'm gonna try to find another meadow.

Time's wasting.

So I have one day left of hunting season out here,

and starting to feel under pressure.

NARRATOR: To help feed himself and his team of sled dogs

for the long winter,

Jessie relies on the bounty of the Nenana River.

But with the clock ticking,

and competition from nearby predators,

finding a moose won't be easy.

Wow, that's a bear den right there.

Doesn't look like it's habituated now,

but come time winter comes a bear's gonna come

and crawl in here and den up here.

This is definitely bear country out here.

If I found a bear,

I would definitely go for it,

because they're covered in fat too,

and at this point in the season meat's meat, you know?

I see a lot of moose scat right here

on this stretch of the trail.

Definitely found a place where the moose

are active, you know.

You can get a moose by luck,

and I've gotten a moose before by luck.

That's pretty easy.

But to like, really develop like moose-hunting skills,

and techniques you know, is what I'm looking to do.

Yep, well, my best odds are gonna be to just wait it out.

Be real quiet.

(IMITATES MOOSE CALL)

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

Cow come in.

Then, a bull came in.

Too dark to get a shot.

(JESSIE SPEAKING)

I'm in the right country.

CHIP: I like doing the behind-the-scenes stuff.

I like taking care of the little things.

Here, let's just grab this one right here.

We don't need to knock the branches off of it, they're already gone.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones plan to develop on their newly inherited land.

Their first step is to gather wood and build a foundation

for a permanent structure.

But with the full force of winter on the horizon,

they only have a limited time to complete the build.

What I'm looking for is basically,

what we call "river logs".

And there's logs aside the river

that have been stripped of their bark.

They've been stripped of their branches.

They've been tumbled.

Maybe they've gone through a couple breakups

and the ice has really had at them.

And those are the logs I want to get

because they're number one, easy to get, they're right on the riverbank.

But they're stripped of bark. They're stripped of branches.

And all the other things we'd have to trim off, so,

basically the river's done a really good job

of making these things into the posts that we want.

CHIP: I'm sinking. AGNES: Okay.

-You gonna grab? -That was a pretty easy one, eh?

If we just find a few easy ones like that

it'll... We'll be done.

One over here is nice.

I'm gonna get the chainsaw, let's make into,

some four-footers.

Wow, that's a good one, eh?

(CHAINSAW ROARING)

Yee!

CHIP: We spotted what we needed.

And then we're just gonna take all this wood that we can,

and see what we can do with it.

There it is.

I hope we got here on a tide.

There's mud, this is all mud.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones return to their new land

to begin building a permanent structure.

But the heavy load causes them

to get stuck in shallow waters.

AGNES: We got to figure this out with our load, so heavy.

(ENGINE ROARING)

All right, I'm good.

Tell me if we're getting shallow.

JON HAILSTONE: Still pretty deep.

CHIP: Still deep enough? AGNES: Yep.

Yee!

Wow, I can't believe I didn't even touch

bottom with the motor.

All right, I think we can deal with this.

Let's, erm, gas up the chainsaw. It's already sharp. Should be.

If you want to start winging that around,

I'll help you and we'll take turns with it.

(CHAINSAW ROARING)

(SIGHS)

One, two, three.

It's just a beautiful spot and I'm glad my parents

picked a beautiful spot and they were probably here

doing the same thing, you know?

I feel happy that I'm able to share some of that with them

and then I'll be able to tell the girls the stories

of what I know my grandparents did

and I'll be able to share with my daughters.

Okay.

You got a little clearing made here.

We're all working together and, er,

we're gonna make a raised platform here.

Raised platform may end up being a cache,

it may end up being a tent floor,

it may end up being a lot of things over the years.

GLENN: Things are changing fast.

It's the change of the seasons.

Winter's coming on.

Wow, it's a good thing I got here when I did.

Look at the weather that's coming in.

Snowing pretty hard already.

NARRATOR: After returning to his cabin in the Brooks Range,

Glenn must secure vital resources

to survive during dark winter.

One of the first things I gotta do is get some more wood.

I got a little woodpile there, but as cold as it is,

I definitely want more than that.

I usually use a saw if I'm anticipating

cutting large-diameter trees.

Saw allows me to cut larger timber,

and I'm anticipating finding some today.

Wow, look at how much snow there is already.

I can't believe it, this is amazing.

Look at the forest.

It's so beautiful!

Here's one.

Right over there.

Let me go take a look at it, see if it's suitable.

I only cut deadwood for firewood.

And I don't like to go further from my camp than I have to.

In the wintertime when the snow gets deep,

all the trees that have naturally fallen down

on the ground that are dead and dry,

they get buried in the snow and I can't utilise them,

so I have to look for standing dead timber.

But since deadwood is limited,

I'd like to use those trees on the ground right now

before they get buried.

Remember when you were a little kid,

and like the first time the snow came,

how exciting it was? I still feel that way.

I get up in the morning, I look out.

"Holy cow! Look at that.

"The snow's all over the trees,

"it's like winter wonderland out here."

I don't want to get up and get in my car

and commute to some office cubicle.

I like it out here.

It's perfect.

It's beautiful.

Got a sled load of wood right here.

All from a tree that would have been buried in the snow.

When I come back later in the winter,

I left these standing trees for then.

I can still get to them all winter long.

It's time for a transition.

That tree's not gonna be a tree any more.

I'm gonna turn it into heat.

It's gonna become something else.

It's gonna cook my food, it's gonna heat my cabin,

it's gonna heat my hot water.

Got my wood.

Mission accomplished.

SUE: Just feeling happy that I'm in the middle of nature.

I gotta get the Argo, bring it around to the other shed,

and then I'll get the, er,

sled out.

NARRATOR: With hunting clients staying at Kavik,

Sue must remove the carcasses of their kill.

If not done immediately,

hungry predators may breach the camp's perimeter

and threaten the safety of herself and her guests.

People come, they'll hang their meat.

Age it, whatever, wait till they can work on it.

But as soon as you can, you get it out,

and the state tells me how far I need to go and dump it.

And, er, that's what I'm doing now.

This is what bears and predators eat

to get their fat for winter.

I don't want them to come through my building to get it.

The goal is to get this out of camp,

so the predators don't see Sue's Diner

written on the side of my tents.

The grizzlies are the ones

that I'm most concerned about here.

One's called Monster Bear.

The first time I saw him, he dwarfed the trailer.

All's I did was get up and out of his way.

Whatever he wanted he could take.

So I just want to see what the river looks...

There's bear prints there.

We'll get out and take a look-see at what kind

of prints we have going on here.

You really want to see what's running around your turf.

Start checking out the mud.

Yeah, pad

and claws.

Pad, claws.

Not Monster Bear.

Sometimes,

it's the smaller bears

that are more of a threat than the bigger bears.

What is that?

About a mile, mile and a half out that way,

I can't tell you what I see.

There's a moose.

I cannot shoot a moose.

Go back a couple of years, they shut down the hunting.

Probably never to reopen it.

But damn is that a happy fucking sight.

Here's a bull moose,

in his prime, looking awesome.

Probably made out with the girl down the road.

Procreating.

And here he is just strutting his stuff looking awesome.

All right, time to go.

I got a little marshy area here.

I got to be able to dump off the bones

far enough away from camp.

(ENGINE STOPS)

Okay, make sure that's secure.

You want that close by.

And then I'm just gonna take this and,

get rid of it. (GRUNTS)

(THUDS)

All right. (GRUNTS)

I'm just gonna take your little hoof.

You use what's around ya.

This is antibacterial,

and, er, antimicrobial.

And I'm just trying to get some of the skunky blood off.

We'll just clean it up.

Here we go.

The predators have what they need.

I have what I need. (SNIFFS)

Time to get back home.

CHIP: I don't want to sit at the house and do nothing.

I don't want to be stuck in some camp doing nothing.

There's so much to do out here, it's crazy.

All we gotta do is dig holes and,

put those posts in and put the three top pieces, huh?

NARRATOR: The Hailstones have returned

to their recently inherited property.

Chip, Agnes, and Jon will begin building a foundation

for a structure that will allow the family to maximise

the resources at their new grounds.

CHIP: I'm gonna eventually have a camp here.

Just have to start with something and, er,

this is gonna be the foundation of our something.

AGNES: Emonakrov is a pretty good place to go fishing.

It's a pretty good place to go birding.

Even if it didn't really have anything, just you know,

having it from my mother

and grandmother is pretty good with me.

CHIP: That post is all the way down.

It's about two and a half feet in the ground.

Couple of them are irregular,

and I don't know how deep each hole is gonna be,

so the best thing to do is put the posts in first

and then we'll trim them to the size we want them,

which is gonna be about two feet up.

We're gonna put the crosspieces, gables,

and the flooring later.

We're just doing a foundation today, nothing more.

And this is an excellent one.

-Cool, huh? -Yeah.

Water will flow under here, snow can blow under here.

We'll be good up top here.

We better just call it a day now.

I think there's not much more we can do here anyway.

AGNES: Ready? CHIP: Yep, ready.

We'll bring the girls back and let them see what we've done, huh.

This is awesome. Something we can come down here and stay here

when we work instead of driving back home.

JESSIE: Nature pretty much provides everything you need,

you just have to learn the skills, and adapt to it.

NARRATOR: Jessie Holmes is hunting moose along the Nenana River.

But this time of year,

he can only legally hunt bull moose.

With hunting season coming to an end,

Jessie must wait patiently for a chance at the animal.

JESSIE: Moose-hunting season ends at midnight tonight.

I need to get one before it gets dark.

You gotta be patient,

for moose hunting, but you also gotta be persistent.

(GRASS RUSTLING)

There's a cow.

Cow and a calf, so,

where there's a cow, usually there's a bull.

I think it's the same one I saw last night.

There was a bull travelling with her, so...

Hopefully he's around here somewhere.

I haven't heard him anywhere though.

She might not be in heat.

There's a slough up around this bend

that goes and cuts in here.

I'm gonna go check it out,

see if there's another entrance to this meadow

and check it out over there.

This is the whole thicket in between

the moose and the slough,

so they're travelling through this area.

I just gotta keep trying.

I gotta get some meat, you know?

This is my opportunity.

I'm gonna go and check this side of the scene out.

When I've gotten a moose in the past,

I feel like it's more out of luck than skill,

so coming out here,

moose hunting is a real opportunity for me to build

a skill that's gonna be a

very good life skill to have in Alaska.

(WHISPERS) There's more fresh shit.

Just can't see nothing.

Damn it.

It's kind of a bummer to not get a moose,

but, you know, I'm not angry or I'm not like discouraged.

Like, I'm not gonna like, stop trying.

I'm gonna continue to come out here in this land,

and develop an intimate relationship with it.

That doesn't all happen overnight.

Some grouse.

There's some grouse!

(GUNSHOT)

Got him, right in the neck.

Man, nice breast there, not damaged.

I'm just, er, filleting out the breast meat here,

the prime part of the grouse.

I realised there was no moose where I was at,

so figured I may as well not come home empty-handed.

Look at that good fat on there.

I'm, er, really into hunting small game, you know?

Like I've always really enjoyed it,

and always considered myself to be pretty good at

hunting the small game, you know?

This is where they process their stomach,

and they have to eat rocks and gravel.

This is one of my favourite parts right here.

It's like, I think last year,

I probably killed about 30 grouse.

Because, bam! One grouse, one meal.

Simple guy like me who only needs one meal a day,

you know? Like, goes a long way.

Well, no moose yet, but at least

I got something to eat here.

Now I can go back and have myself a delicious breakfast.

Still got some embers going to this fire and I

have a fresh grouse to cook up.

Just got back from hunting this morning.

Little bit of action, saw a cow and a calf.

No bull came out.

Saw a grouse,

I figured may as well take this opportunity.

Best to always be ready for something like that,

because it just pops up really quick.

(INHALES DEEPLY)

Nothing more pleasurable than being out here camping,

and like eating food that's like,

actually come from the land, you know,

I don't wanna come out here with MREs

like a lot of guys do. That's disgusting to me.

Go.

Whole reason I'm out here trying to get a moose

is because I enjoy eating like

natural food that comes from the land.

That's part of my lifestyle.

I'm just gonna let this cook here

in this water.

That way I'll have myself a nice broth

for my boat trip home.

I didn't get a moose, but what I did

is invested in my knowledge of the country

and knowledge of the moose's characteristics,

and how to better hunt them in the future,

and I feel like I learned a lot, you know?

It's hard not to learn a lot, I mean,

your eyes are closed if you're not learning.

Not getting a moose just means like,

I'm gonna have to snare a lot of rabbits,

shoot a lot of grouse,

and eat a lot of fish this winter.

That's all right with me though.

I appreciate any food that comes from the land.

You can't lose out here.

This is a lifestyle that's like a blessing

to be able to live.

CHIP: I work for myself and I work for my family.

I work for my wife, I work for my kids.

CHIP: This is pretty cool, huh? All this snow.

(LAUGHING)

AGNES: Careful with that chainsaw, son.

CHIP: Oh, what a day. Look, it's snowing like crazy across the river.

You girls are gonna like what we've cleared out down there.

You'll like the different little places that we made.

AGNES: Today is the first day of winter, so, erm,

we have a couple inches of snow overnight, and, er,

it's kind of put a thin layer of ice all over everything.

Crazy how the weather changes, eh?

-AGNES: Yeah! -(LAUGHING)

I love it! Winter's arriving, it's knocking on the door.

It's saying, "Get your shit together."

(LAUGHING)

We're heading downriver, all right.

We're gonna go down to Emonakrov and, erm,

we're going to show the girls the progress we've made,

me and Jon and Agnes.

CHIP: You guys make yourselves comfortable.

I want these girls to know that this is gonna be there,

and where it is, and start to familiarize themselves

with the territory around there,

so that even in the winter, they'll find it.

You girls will like it. Keep watching these channels so you'll learn

your way down here.

In the springtime when we're sheefishing,

we'll come down here lots.

The snow's kind of getting wet now, huh?

-It's almost turning to rain. -Yeah.

We're gonna be doing pretty good down here I think.

Oh! A seal ahead of us!

There he is.

Oh, he's a big one.

See him right there?

Coming at us?

I think we're not gonna get any closer.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

We're almost there, let's keep going in.

There you go, kiddos.

(LAUGHING)

So what you girls think of this?

AGNES: Nice spot, eh?

This right here is the start of, what we're gonna do.

And I want to get a tent in here,

and then once we got a tent, we can start working on

bigger projects like a log cabin,

tower, caches, things like that.

AGNES: I've been fishing down here lots with my mom.

I'm sure she was fishing down here with her mom.

Now you girls get to come down here and go fish with me.

-Pretty cool, huh? -Yeah.

We'll eat a little something before we head home.

We're way far away from help. Whoo!

Even though it's snowing, it's a beautiful day.

We're sitting here warming up to this little smoky fire,

trying to have our, erm, nice dinner.

Wow, that meat is soft, huh?

Well, we really scored, look, we got it in

before winter's setting in.

But now we got these foundations.

We can start with the tent and go off something to camp out of that.

Well, it's a good start.

GLENN: You have some agency out here that gets taken away

from you in society, it's a powerful feeling.

One thing I really miss when I'm down in Fairbanks

is just being able to jump in the lake and go for a swim

any time I want to.

I tell you, when I'm feeling tired, dirty,

after cutting that wood, ugh.

There's nothing like jumping in that lake,

really wakes me up.

I'm gonna go for a swim.

I believe that the cold water is very therapeutic.

Conditions the body.

Whoo!

Human body's capable of a lot.

People just don't realise it

because they don't come anywhere near

pushing their limits.

That's ice-cold water!

That feels good!

To live this lifestyle, you have to be strong.

You have to go out there and make things happen.

Nobody else is gonna do it for you.

But on the other hand, you're also insignificant,

irrelevant,

and really puny compared to

the forces that are around you.

Very invigorating!

You can't be arrogant,

but at the same time you have to be strong.

Then you'll do okay, you'll survive.

As long as you can.

I gotta go in and warm up.

Whoo!

It's great to be up here again.

SUE: I'll always make it no matter what I do.

Sometimes I come out a little skinnier

and sometimes I come out a little heavier.

Getting a little nicer out.

NARRATOR: With hunting clients in camp,

and reports of bear scat on the outskirts of Kavik,

Sue must remain vigilant in protecting her territory.

When it snows, you're gonna see who's walking around.

This is not a location you wander into by accident

and check to see if there's rentals.

This is an area you plot, plan,

lease, spend a lifetime

dedicated to overcoming the hurdles.

And then enjoy the hell out of it.

This is one of my little high points I like to come to.

I've got at least 10 miles that way.

You got about three miles that way,

and maybe a mile that way.

That's a lot of, that's a lot of real estate

for me to be looking at.

With my super eye sockets, I can tell you that I do see

what I think is a bear.

I think this is that little juvenile bear

that I was talking about.

These apex predators,

they do what I'm doing right now.

They get up on high ground and they kind of look around.

That little dude is over there,

and he's on high ground looking back at me.

That's the way it works to, to be top dog.

You gain a little elevation,

you see what's out there,

and then you hang it out and piss all over your territory.

Might be a good idea

to take my gun and just pop off a couple of rounds.

(GUNSHOT)

That's the warning to all the predators.

Might seem silly,

but the animals know, boom means something's going down.

Now, there's not a predator in this area

that doesn't know I've got some firepower.

So... But it is time for me to be get myself back home,

get things buttoned up for the night.

Brand-new day tomorrow.