Original subtitles

SUE AIKENS: I recently had to leave camp,

take care of some personal business,

and while I've been gone, we had a phase two,

phase three storm blow through.

The phase two-three has a significant amount of blowing snow,

and where's it gonna stack up on?

My trailers, my runway.

Snow will crush a building if you let it.

(PLANE ENGINE REVVING)

And so I don't know how much drifting there's been,

I don't know if it's compromised any of the buildings.

(OVER RADIO) I'm kind of expecting to see a bunch of drifting.

I don't know how much drifting,

but if we can do any kind of a onesie-twosie,

it's gonna let me know how much snow has built up.

The buildings look intact.

I can see some pretty big tracks,

you know, so I'll just have to walk 'em.

SUE: Normally when I land, you want to get down, get your gun,

same thing every time.

Go around and make sure where are the paw prints, what kind of animal.

Is there something hiding behind something?

But, in the dead of winter, with another storm barrelling in on us soon,

the first priority is I need to have safe shelter and warmth.

That's camp.

And, uh, flying in, what I noticed,

Kavik seems to have dodged a bullet.

But, um, I do see some large prints.

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

This right here, this is wolverine.

And they're fairly fresh, we just had a storm go through.

And he's a decent-sized wolverine.

Hi, Foxy.

What up, little guy?

Oh, wow.

You're hurt.

He's got blood on his back and blood all down his one side by his head.

There is an animal around.

It is a wolverine, I do have at least one injured fox.

And they're wild foxes, they're not tame.

And things eat other things out here.

And they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do.

They're not dependant on me.

You think you're gonna get a lollipop like they do at the doctor's?

Most important thing is get my shelter, get my heat going.

I'll have my pistol on my side.

If something needs to come through the wall to get me, I'm prepared for it.

When I left, I turned the oil off at the tank,

so I've got to go dig that out, turn it back on.

I've got to let that fuel flow for a minute.

The oil is now flowing, hopefully, through the lines.

Looks... Looks pretty good.

I arrived, I've got the heat going.

I do have tracks all over camp.

It is a wolverine. I do have at least one injured fox.

But right now, it's cold.

I'm getting on darker time, I got to hunker down.

JESSIE HOLMES: There's danger around every bend out here,

and I just have to be very sharp and pay attention and know my game.

(DOGS BARKING)

I've got to get my sled, my harnesses,

and everything in line here.

Tie it down on the top and pick out my team to take over.

Just gonna take a small team that I can have easy to control.

NARRATOR: For Jessie Holmes,

rapidly dropping temperatures are a sign that racing season is about to begin.

Proper training involves hundreds of miles of running,

and Jessie's first task is to prepare his trails.

(DOGS HOWLING AND BARKING)

JESSIE: Constantly doing routine maintenance on my dogs' feet,

so I know the ones that do need the booties and the ones that don't.

While I'm out here working,

while my concern might be putting my physical work into cutting the trail,

I'm always... Biggest concern is the dogs.

Hike, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go!

Haw, haw.

Gee, gee, gee.

Haw, haw, haw.

I'm going five, six, ten, I don't know how many miles.

Wherever the trail ends and there needs to be trail cut, that's where I'm headed to.

So I haven't been out here this time of year. I don't know what to expect.

Right now, we have 64 days before our big race,

so we've got 64 days to condition these dogs out here.

There we go.

Now we're getting into some tunnely portages here.

Somebody's made it through here

but you can imagine what it was like before they punched through here,

and that's what I'm gonna be dealing with as we get further on.

Whoa, whoa.

All right.

I love to hear the dogs barking and screaming and howling.

That means they're ready to go, they're feeling good.

I build on that attitude.

This is why I do this. This is what I live for.

I live for the sound of the dog sled going across.

It's very quiet, it's not like a snow machine,

it doesn't smell like a machine,

or doesn't make loud noise.

They just trod along and...

-Whoa, whoa. -(BARKING)

Can see right here where somebody's had

to cut their way through to get through here.

These were laid over the trail.

That's what I'm gonna be encountering as soon as I get out further.

Turning around, heading home. It's getting dark.

And dogs had a good run though,

so that's... That's great.

They sure like being out here in a new spot.

They're really happy to be doing what they're doing.

Haw, haw, haw.

I got plenty of work to do ahead of me.

Going to have to get a little further tomorrow

and start cutting some trail and putting my part into getting the trail out.

CHIP HAILSTONE: Life improves as you get older and wiser.

Don't make the same mistakes.

Ah, it's a little stormy, but we'll get some willows.

We'll just pick out long, slender ones.

The game plan is I'm going to show my daughter how to go get willows

so we can put some snares in the willows for rabbits.

The only way you can really get them is by snaring,

and, uh, you know, this is what we do at this time of year.

When you grab 'em, you bend 'em over, and you saw on 'em

as you're bending 'em. And then they'll just snap off, okay?

And you have to watch your eyes in the willows, too.

You can poke an eye out.

NARRATOR: For Chip and Agnes Hailstone,

passing down native hunting techniques to their daughters is a vital tradition.

With an increase in rabbit population,

Chip will teach Carol to build and set snares

to harvest the animals for meat.

(CAROL SPEAKING)

Oops. Sorry, Dad!

I'm okay, I just got whacked in the eye.

What I'm looking for right now is basically the piece of wood.

So as long as I've got enough of these...

That's what I'm looking for.

The willows are the kind of material we're looking for.

They're short, they're easy to get.

When we put the rabbit snares out,

the rabbit snares will be in the willows, so they'll look like just any other willow.

And when the rabbit gets it, and it's trying to move off somewhere

and the noose is tightening on it, it won't break.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

(CAROL SPEAKING)

CHIP: I want my daughter to learn that there's both,

the materials that she needs down here

and the animals that she's looking for.

So that ought to work out pretty well.

And, uh, you know, she just needs to learn these little things,

then she can go off and do her own.

I want her to learn this and I want her to have independence,

and I want her to be self-motivated,

and I want her to be able to go down here at any time that she needs to

and use the materials for the animals that are available.

Ugh, getting slapped in the face with willows.

I think we've got enough.

What's next with these?

We're gonna take 'em to the house and trim 'em up.

I'll probably take 'em inside the house

'cause it's getting dark and it's pretty nasty,

and we've got to pare these things down to get rid of the branches

and get rid of the extra parts and make 'em a uniform size and then mark 'em.

So when all this big snowstorm stops,

what we've got to do is let the snow settle for probably a day,

and the snow will compact from its fluffiness,

and the rabbits will go and make a track,

and then where they make tracks,

they'll always try to follow their same trails

'cause they'll beat their trails down.

Once they've done that, we'll know where to put the snares.

Look at this, babe.

This is what I do.

I go around it twice. One time, and then two times.

I slip it through like that,

and that way it'll never come off,

but if I want to recycle it, use it again,

and, you know, I'm done snaring,

I just come and take the snare off

so I don't carry the stick home.

Something like that,

and then put it high enough to where their feet don't go into it.

It won't loosen up, it'll stay there.

And the more they struggle, the quicker they die.

But what we'll do is, we'll just take the snow machine.

Where we find the most rabbit tracks is where we'll set the snares.

And 35 is a good start.

GLENN VILLENEUVE: If you just walked out here not knowing what you're doing

and you didn't prepare yourself,

it would be very dangerous.

This time of year, the ice is growing, it makes a lot of noise.

Especially when it doesn't have snow on it yet.

I'm really excited to see the lake like this.

It's all frozen across,

but there's no snow on top of the ice yet.

This is an unusual condition.

It doesn't happen like this every year.

Some years, it's snowing right when the lake freezes.

With this ice like this, I can walk around the edge of the lake,

and I can find a plant that grows in the water,

and I can eat this plant during the wintertime.

The Eskimos call it "goosegrass."

Goosegrass is a plant I can get to even in the winter if the conditions are right,

and right now, the conditions are just right to get it.

And what I'm hoping is I can find

where it got frozen right into the ice

and where it's sticking up above the ice.

Then I can cut it off, put it in my bucket, and take that plant to eat.

I like to eat a lot of meat, I like to eat a lot of fat,

but it's important to have some plant food to go with it,

because you need the fibre.

I can walk all the way around this lake,

look in the shallows where this plant grows

and hopefully find some goosegrass to bring home tonight.

(LOW RUMBLING)

Listen to that ice.

(LOW RUMBLING)

Aren't those sounds amazing?

It's still pretty thin.

I'm going to have to be careful walking around on it.

When the ice first freezes like this, and there's no snow on it,

it makes a great place to walk.

It's so smooth and easy to travel on.

But I got to be careful,

'cause there's still places where there isn't even ice yet.

Look at that, open water right there.

But it's important to go now because if I wait, it could snow.

If it snows tonight, I won't be able to get this plant tomorrow.

It's like being in an aquarium here.

I can just look down through the ice

and see what's going on in the water.

I learn more about the lake walking on this ice in just a day

than I do in weeks paddling around in a canoe.

It's important to go out and look for things, even if it doesn't work out,

because every time I'm out walking around,

I'm learning more about the area.

I'm getting in touch with what's going on right at this time.

The fact of the matter is it's different every year,

and you never know, unless you go and look, what you're gonna find.

Hey.

Look at this.

That's a bear track.

That's a grizzly bear.

He was walking right here along the edge of the ice.

It's a nice-sized bear.

I'm not the only one out here looking for food today.

Right in this area here,

this was all full of goosegrass

growing up through the water in the summer.

Here are a couple pieces right here,

but most of it, it's underneath the ice.

Unusual weather this year.

It snowed really early

and I think that snow and cold weather

just knocked the goosegrass down

before the lake had a chance to freeze.

(LOW RUMBLE)

Hey, something just walked through the woods.

I don't know exactly what it was,

but I'm gonna go up and check it out.

So I was down on the lake, walking along, looking for the goosegrass,

and I just caught a glimpse of something in the trees up here.

I ran up, and look at this. A wolverine. It just came by.

Look at this track, it's perfect.

You can even see the claw marks at the end of the toes here.

There's a wolverine right around here.

He heard me when I started walking up here and he took off.

Something's going on around here.

NARRATOR: Glenn is searching for goosegrass,

a source of fibre he can harvest this time of year.

But a sudden movement in the trees

forces him to investigate.

Any opportunity for meat in the scarce Brooks Range cannot be taken for granted.

GLENN: There's a moose track here.

There's a wolverine following this moose track

and I think I caught a glimpse of a wolf through the trees, but I can't be sure.

If there's a wolverine around, a lot of times it's a sign that something's been killed.

Wolverines are scavengers,

and there's a wolverine running around here,

and that's a sign that there might be something killed around here.

There could even be caribou.

I'm gonna get back home now. It's getting late.

You can be out looking for goosegrass,

you can have a wolverine right behind you walking around in the woods.

It's what keeps life interesting out here.

All the animals around, different things that happen.

It's not like going to the supermarket for your groceries.

That's why I live out here.

You never want to put all your eggs in one basket.

You can't count on any one resource.

That's why I have other alternatives.

I didn't get the goosegrass, but I'll find something else to eat.

SUE: You don't know when something unique is gonna happen out here,

but you better be on your toes.

There he is.

He's on top of my ridge now.

NARRATOR: After a brief stay in Deadhorse,

Sue has returned home to find a wolverine lurking around Kavik's perimeter.

To protect herself, securing camp is a priority.

Came in last night, got as much done as I could,

noted the wolverine tracks.

And they're... It's a decent-sized wolverine.

Saw my little Foxy bloodied up.

Got up here to look around just to make sure there's no wolf,

there's no anything directly in my path to go from here to the shop,

and boom.

Way out here about a mile and a half,

is, uh, the big wolverine.

Is that a threat? Absolutely.

They are a force to be reckoned with.

And they will take on a 800-pound grizzly and win.

You know, and it's just one of those things.

I've got to make a committed choice.

Do I go after the wolverine?

Or do I continue on my chores?

If he comes closer in, then I gotta...

There's no choice, I gotta go take care of it.

I have to get my electric started.

I have to check the integrity of camp out.

I just don't trust that furry little fucker.

I'm gonna go down the rows,

and see what tracks are there.

How fresh are they? Where are they headed?

Make sure that that little joker

doesn't have a cubby he's cubbying up in.

This little dude has got a taste of blood in camp.

I know he hurt Slinky.

I don't want to be his next meal.

This over here,

little tiny roundish prints. Look at the spacing.

This is a fox.

This has got some snow in it,

but check out the size difference, right?

Let me get my hand down there. Boom.

That is a wolverine track.

You cannot be too careful here.

The minute you let your guard down,

just put a little ketchup on yourself

and call yourself a pork chop.

You're gonna get it.

Again, wolverine, wolverine.

The fuck?

Tell me the wolverine is not decked out

in a little hole by my camp.

This is my camp, not his.

He sees it the other way around.

So, what's the most imperative thing that I can do today?

Get my electrics on, get those spotlights on in camp.

The predators tend to stay out of range of the spotlights.

I'm hoping that he just says, "Shit, Sue's back, damn it." And he goes away.

But if he doesn't, I will defend this camp

with every piece of armament that I've got.

I will defend my foxies with every piece of armament that I've got.

This is my camp.

JESSIE: No matter how much I know or how much I try to be safe,

it still can all go wrong for me out there at some point.

(DOGS BARKING)

Gee, gee, gee. Straight ahead, straight ahead.

I'm just trying to get 'em settled into a rhythm

and travel to the end of the broke-out trail and start cutting some trail.

I've got my chainsaw here, my bow saw.

All the stuff I need for a good day of working on the trail here.

NARRATOR: After scouting favourable mushing conditions,

Jessie and his dog team will trek deeper into the wilderness

and break more trail in order to train for the coming racing season.

JESSIE: Once you head out here,

you're just heading further and further away from civilisation,

and that's a good feeling to me.

I didn't move out here to live in a town,

I moved out here to just have access to this.

Good dogs.

Stay.

Well, it looks like there's some tracks up here.

Yeah, here's these tracks right here going this way.

We're out in wolf country now,

and that's the pleasure of getting out further

is that you start getting out into the real wilderness

and start seeing things.

This guy was through here last night,

but he's coming back.

This track's about the size of my hand, so he's a big ol' boy.

I'm getting' pretty close into the area where I got chased by wolves.

I was coming home from a 60-mile training run

and come out onto one of these lakes at about 1:00 in the morning,

full moon night, right into a pack of wolves.

Chased me for two miles, charged me.

I used to never carry a handgun out here. I didn't have a handgun.

Now I always come out here prepared with a firearm.

-All right, guys. -(DOGS BARKING)

All right.

This is it, the first dog team,

first person out here this year,

so we got our work ahead of us.

Straight ahead, boys.

Oh, whoa, boys. Good boys, stay.

Hey, whoa, we're gonna stop here for a while.

This is where my work will start.

I got to get this stuff cut out,

so it's time to get to work now.

This is it. This is what I come out here for

is to mush trail, but at least you know, I'm feeling good

because the dogs already ran 16 miles, with six dogs.

That's amazing, man. These guys are in great shape.

I just got to put good day's work in.

Plug in some more trail.

Might be able to bring more dogs out here tomorrow than six.

-(CHAINSAW BUZZING) -Stay, stay! Whoa, whoa!

Whoa!

Fuck are you guys doing?

These dogs will get away from you

and they will not come back. They will keep going.

Stay up!

Stay.

Sometimes, they go without you, and that's not good.

Just pushed through about 150 yards to this portage here.

These are the trail passages that go through here,

this is an old trail,

but every year it takes work and maintenance to get through here,

and stuff falls in the trail.

I just got to make it through this section of woods here

and then it's gonna be open and then the dogs are gonna do the work

and put the trail in to the next portage,

and I'll continue to cut my way all the way to Old Minto.

This is the kind of stuff we have to do all winter to use these trails.

They don't just maintain themselves.

They take elbow grease and chainsaw power to get through here.

All right, that's one trail, and now it's off to see what lies ahead of us.

This thing's got to go.

Be coming through here in the middle of the night and bam, knock yourself in the head.

Not something you want to have happen out here when it's 30, 40 below zero.

(CHAINSAW BUZZING)

Put this work in now and you can use this trail, you know, safely.

That's the thing.

Feeling good though, making good time.

Are you boys ready?

Straight ahead, gentlemen.

I had no intention of going this far today.

I thought I'd just be cutting brush,

but I'm gonna make a straight run back

and be back out here tomorrow with the new team.

CHIP: It's not only using the materials.

It's knowing when to be there, what you're targeting, and how to get it.

Carol's inside getting herself ready

and I'm getting the machine ready.

I'm gonna throw my sled on.

I'm heading down to the willows.

That's where the rabbits live.

We're gonna go put some snares out.

I'm gonna put the sled on and we can take them with the sled.

Throw the willows on here, those snares that got set up.

We're just going down here, down along the edge of the river.

AGNES: Have fun!

NARRATOR: After fashioning their snares,

Chip and Carol head out to set a two-mile trap line

to harvest rabbits for vital meat and protein.

We're trying to get these little...

Little snowshoe hares right here.

Around here, they call these "ukulaitchiaq",

which are small rabbits.

We're just gonna keep going down along the trail here,

and wherever we see where they're crossing,

we'll probably put a snare on either side.

Finding where the rabbits have got a trail,

they tend to go reuse the same trails again and again.

So we find that trail, we put a snare,

we put a couple little guide sticks to make sure that it hits the snare the right way,

put the snare a certain amount off the ground,

and let 'er rip.

We'll see what happens.

You might make that just a little bit lower.

CAROL: Like that?

CHIP: Yep, just like that.

The snare has to be high enough above the snow

that the rabbit's feet doesn't get into it, and its head does.

This is what we do at this time of year when the river's freezing up.

It doesn't matter if it's freezing up in October or November or December,

it's the time of year to set snares and traps.

We got a lot of darkness.

The traps hunt while we sleep.

This is what we do when there's rabbits around

and now there's rabbits around.

Let's see what comes of it.

SUE: Progress happens.

Just 'cause I stand still, the rest of the world doesn't.

What I need to do today is get power to camp.

I have to get those lights on.

NARRATOR: With a wolverine nearby,

it is critical for Sue to restore Kavik's power,

as the lights will aid in keeping predators from her doorstep.

But before she can reach the generator,

she must be sure that her shed is free of danger.

SUE: I did put on the .44.

I've got to have some form of protection.

I mean, I see the wolverine out this way.

He's still about a mile out.

So I'm gonna try to get my chores done.

But that doesn't mean there's not something else in the sheds.

Sometimes the predators work where you're paying attention to this,

and not to what's right here.

This is the back entrance to the gen shed.

And I am just looking.

I mean, it looks pretty good. What I'm really looking for

is it should be dark. (LAUGHS)

If I can see any light down in the end there from either side,

that means the building's been compromised.

And I don't see anything.

Using my ears, I don't hear an animal.

One of the last steps for clearing camp.

There is the generator in question.

(EXHALES) Good.

I'm really concerned with some of this stuff.

It was not black and shitty like that before.

See the oil?

(GENERATOR STARTS)

Stay running, stay running!

(ENGINE STALLS)

Fucking hooker.

Goddamn son of a fucking bitch.

Argh!

All right. (SIGHS)

(IGNITION FAILS)

Come on. Pick it up.

Come on, come on, you can do it.

-Get your fuel in there. -(ENGINE STALLS)

Fuck you. (SIGHS)

It is starving for fuel.

Why are you starving for fuel?

This is the fuel line going in,

and this is my return line.

And I should be seeing fuel right now.

This is not looking too good.

And that's dry as a bone.

What I need to do is follow my line...

Yeah, right here.

And this shut-off valve is frozen solid.

What that tells me is there's water in here.

It couldn't get the fuel to come out.

Now I know why it couldn't go down the line.

It couldn't get through the line.

I'm going to have to tear it all apart,

and I guarantee you that once I heat those up, all those metal fittings,

probably gonna see that they're cracked and leaking.

This is done.

I am at a dead standstill.

Argh!

I'm having problems.

GLENN: I was looking all over the world

for a place to kind of live close to nature like this,

and I ended up up here.

I think today I'm just going to stay home and do some work around the cabin.

I've got a few jobs I can work on.

This is my sled, and it's in need of some repair.

It's on its third winter.

It's starting to develop some cracks,

and these cracks are very significant

because if I don't do something about it,

that crack's gonna continue right across the sled and it'll break.

And I've got to fix this in the back where the plastic's bending under.

That's just causing way too much drag in the snow,

and it's just gonna tear worse and worse if I don't fix it now.

NARRATOR: In winter,

Glenn must constantly maintain his camp and equipment.

But 200 miles from the nearest town, and without any machinery,

Glenn uses only the tools at his disposal to survive in isolation.

I'm gonna have to soften it up with heat.

Hopefully, then I'll be able to bend it down.

Oh, yeah.

I can feel that heat now.

If I bend that when it's real cold,

I'm afraid it might crack.

So I just want to heat it up.

Now that it's softened up with that heat,

I'm able to bend the plastic.

Oh, look at that. It bends easy.

When that cools, it'll stay right where I want it.

Get that straightened right out.

That was all deformed, probably from a stick on a piece of firewood,

and it wasn't gonna straighten out

without heating it once it was deformed that badly.

All right, I got that bent back into shape. (BLOWS)

Don't need any more heat on it.

Anywhere there's a crack,

I need to put a hole right at the very end of it.

That'll stop it from spreading.

I don't really own that many things,

but the things I own are essential to me living out here.

When things break down, I have to fix 'em.

Out here, I got to be a jack-of-all-trades.

I have to be able to fix everything that I have, keep it going.

If it's essential equipment and I don't maintain it,

then I'll have a real problem.

Got the sled all fixed up, I'm gonna go grab some firewood with it.

A sled is an essential piece of equipment for me.

This is one of my most important basic tools, like my rifle, my knife.

It's the way I move heavy things around all winter long.

Without a sled, I'd have a hell of a hard time just getting my firewood home,

getting meat home when I kill the animals far away from camp.

This is transportation for me.

All through the winter, I'm cutting firewood.

A lot of times, I'll cut more than I can haul home that night,

and I leave it and come back later and pick it up.

Sometimes now I'm going 300-400 yards to get firewood.

It makes all the difference having a sled to bring it home with.

Sled is sliding great.

I got the plastic bent back up so it's not dragging in the snow.

I got the cracks stop-drilled,

so they're not going to spread.

Hopefully, it'll last the rest of the winter.

JESSIE: When I do all this work to provide for myself up here,

it's a good feeing to be self-sufficient.

(DOGS HOWLING)

Wilson, you're being good?

Are you serious? You're being good?

NARRATOR: With the trail fully broken,

Jessie's ready for an overnight run

into the surrounding wilderness.

It will be his first serious training run of the season.

JESSIE: All right, these dogs are raring to go.

I've got a long way to go.

I got to cover 40 miles and still get out there

before I lose daylight and get my tent set up

and camp out for the night, so...

These dogs ain't gonna wait around no longer.

Whoa, easy!

Easy.

This is a scary team.

(DOG HOWLS)

I'll be camping my dogs all winter

'cause I'm preparing for a 1,000-mile sled dog race next year.

Thousand miles is a thousand miles on the trail,

camping in the wilderness.

They need to learn that the trail is their home in the winter.

I mean, I'm just having a blast, you know.

I'm back here on this sled, seeing all these lakes, all these portages,

it's just incredible out here for me.

This is what it's all about.

Straight ahead.

Easy, easy.

Easy! Whoa!

I went the wrong direction and I was coming through the brush

and I caught a tree on the line,

and I tipped it over.

Don't really wanna do that when you got your sled fully loaded.

Things come flying out of there. I was pretty lucky.

Easy, easy!

Whoa, whoa!

Ten dogs is a lot of power.

Dog gets caught on something, it's a lot of pushing and pulling against it, so...

We're back on the main trail now.

All right.

Dogs did good five-hour run getting out here,

so this is a great spot for me to have a camp,

'cause I'm gonna have to continue to work

and it's getting to where it's too far away to come out here

and spend all day working, putting trail in

and then have to, you know, go home.

So this is gonna be great to have a camp here.

All right, good.

I'm pretty amazed at how the dogs handled that run.

They're really coming along nice,

and getting into shape fast.

Time to get the tent up.

I'm just a man with simple taste.

I like simple things

that I can put together myself

and I don't have to rely on anybody else.

This is a refuge.

A place of shelter.

Harsh environment up here, you got to be able to get out of the weather

and warm up to push hard.

This is a good end to a good day's work.

Some people think of money when they think of riches,

I think of lifestyle.

That's what I think makes you a rich man, is the life you live.

This is a good as it gets for me.

GLENN: It's how we spend our time that's important.

How do you want to spend your time?

I got some ice building up along the edge of my roof here.

Pretty thick.

What happens, heat from inside melts the snow on the roof,

and water runs down and freezes here and it creates an ice dam.

That's bad.

If I don't keep it cleaned off,

it builds up real thick and then when it starts to melt in the spring,

it gets so wet on my roof that it'll leak through sometimes.

So I like to keep the roof all cleaned off.

I'm gonna go up there now and shovel off the snow,

and then I'm gonna smash off this ice that's already built up along the edge.

It is slippery.

I just got to use common sense,

make sure I don't fall off.

It's just not good for the roof, too, to be wet.

It's not good for the canvas. I like to keep it dry,

so I like to keep it all shovelled off.

The roof used to have better insulation,

and the heat from the cabin wouldn't melt the snow

and I wouldn't have a problem with the ice dam.

Problem is a grizzly bear got inside,

and it ripped all the insulation

that I had in the ceiling out.

That's good. I got the snow off.

Now I just got to go down and break the ice off.

Roof's gonna stay drier now.

I don't have to worry about that ice building up real thick,

and then trapping water underneath it

and melting and getting the roof all wet and soggy.

There.

So I got the roof all cleaned up.

It's gonna stay dry.

Feel good about that. It was a productive afternoon.

I'm gonna go inside, heat up some water and bathe tonight.

CHIP: We have a lot of adventure. We have things to talk about.

We hang together, we work together.

It's all good.

(SNOWMOBILE ENGINE RUNNING)

You about ready to go?

-Yep. -All right.

CHIP: Yesterday, in the evening,

me and Carol got done setting our rabbit snares.

And we came home when the sun was going down

and now that the sun's coming up again,

it's time to go out and go check them before the foxes do.

CAROL: Nothing in that one.

CHIP: Well, this one's not snared very well, Bun. I'll get him.

He's a fat one.

Ideally, though, we find 'em dead in the snares.

When we find 'em dead in the snares,

the snare's done its job really well and proper.

I just broke his neck. I don't want him to suffer.

You know it's not always perfect, but, um, we got him.

I set the snares...

I'm not the rabbit that's going into it.

And that's always unpredictable.

(CAROL SPEAKING)

CHIP: Oh, man.

Look like Mr Fox done ripped this one off, huh?

CAROL: Yeah. CHIP: See the fox trail?

See the stick and the wire?

He just broke the wire and took the rabbit.

'Cause they're out hunting exact same animals we are,

and if they get a chance, they'll clean out your whole trap line.

Mr Fox comes here and gets a rabbit like that,

he's probably gonna start checking our other snares.

As soon as we get enough rabbits out of this place,

we'll just move our snares, huh?

You want to go in there and get that?

We won't leave that wire sitting there.

Look at this, check it out. Yup, he broke it off.

That's a pretty clean one there, huh?

But you can see where he ate the rabbit.

Look, there's fur and blood and pieces of rabbit.

Must have done it last night, huh?

Well, let's go check the rest of 'em before the day gets too long.

Whoa!

Almost drove past that one.

This one's got prints from yesterday, but nothing fresh.

I'd say we leave this one here, too, huh?

It looks like it's still in a good place.

If we get at least one, we can make soup.

If we get several, we can roast 'em.

So basically, we'll just leave these ones here that look like they're really good,

and we'll go home.

We got one bunny, we can go make some soup.

-You want to go make soup? -Yeah.

Yeah, if those foxes hadn't taken two of our rabbits,

we'd have three, and we'd be able to roast 'em.

But I think that'll make a really good soup.

(CAROL SPEAKING)

Right there.

CHIP: I almost drove by it. (LAUGHS)

You want to get it? It's dead.

He choked out like they're supposed to.

Looks like kind of a young one, huh?

So, he must've got caught early in the night, huh? He's frozen.

She knows where the trails are now.

I know where the trails are.

We got two rabbits, that'll be good start, good munch,

and it's a great motivator for Carol.

And I bet you a million bucks she'll be taking my SnoGo

and going down and checking these snares herself when she feels like it.

'Cause she's tasted success.

Now that's good effort, Bun.

Let's get home, and, uh, let's go show these to your mom.

It's time to head home now and go see what we can do with these rabbits.

If my wife doesn't have a dinner plan,

then the rabbits will be the dinner plan.

Is that a bit?

Here you go, kids. We're gonna have ourselves some rabbits and rabbit food.

This has got a bowl full of shredded-up carrots,

cabbage, raisins, and apples.

I'd like to take a picture of that.

CHIP: I don't know about yours, but mine's pretty good.

-It's sweet and it's fat. -Is it spicy?

I must have got some fat off the fat one.

Yeah, I peppered 'em.

CHIP: Really done good, Carol.

Get ourselves a couple of rabbits today, huh?

They taste good, these rabbits.

Yep, we'll get 'em while they're fat,

'cause it's the time of year that they're still fat from summertime.

-CHIP: See how easily that just falls apart? -Mmm-hmm.

A lot of times you got to let 'em sit for a day or two.

Especially when they're real skinny, they'll be chewy.

These aren't chewy at all. They're perfect.

-Nope. They're perfect. -Yep.

-Here's a heart for you. -Thank you, Mom.

CHIP: We're gonna get to get a lot more.

This is just a start.

GLENN: I love nature. I love living out in the woods.

That's why I moved to Alaska.

There were a lot of things over the years

that I had to learn in order to live out here.

I didn't know a lot of practical skills

that I've picked up over the years,

so it's been interesting for me.

There's a lot of variety in the work.

Like today, look.

Working on a plastic sled, melting that and reforming it.

Got the roof all cleaned up.

It's gonna stay dry.

I feel good about that. It was a productive afternoon.

I'm gonna go bathe.

That feels so good.

Right out here in nature, nothing like it.

I tell ya, this shower right here,

it's got the best view in the world.

Look at that view.

SUE: Know where the danger is coming from,

and how to escape it.

NARRATOR: In Kavik,

Sue has been unable to get her main generator started.

With a wolverine stalking her camp,

she must get her power running

for spotlights that will keep the predator at bay.

-(SUE SPEAKING) -(ENGINE STARTS)

Get it, you fuckin' pig.

(ENGINE WHEEZES)

Come on, pick it up.

Just do Susie a fucking favour and work, will ya?

Where are you having your fucking heart attack at?

This is project B. Onto project C.

I'm gonna grab the 2 KW.

That's my backup plan number one.

Get it over to the Twinkie, kick it over,

and I'll definitely have power.

Is it a perfect fix? No.

But it gets me, what I need, done.

It's not an ideal situation.

It's not a win-win.

But it's a winning enough hand.

As soon as I sourced what the issue was with the 8 KW,

and I can't resolve it instantly, backup plan.

So, here's to hope.

(MOTOR TURNS)

Oh, man, come on, really?

(MOTOR TURNS)

(MOTOR RUNNING)

All right, so hopefully...

There we go.

I have electricity.

Yay!

Well, this kind of rounds everything out.

In the last 24 hours,

I landed, I got my shelter secure.

Those spotlights are gonna keep that wolverine at bay.

The big predators do not like the lights.

Now I can go in and I can enjoy the Northern Lights

without worrying about the wolverine enjoying me.

So, all in all, success.