Original subtitles

Running the loader, I got out, had to move something,

came back and looked, and this is what I noticed.

This is oil that's being blown up.

How does oil get blown up?

It has to come from down here in the engine.

Looking down here, I'm concerned, is it the head gasket?

And I looked to the back... No, it's not.

A head gasket leak is gonna leak all the way around.

This is being blown back.

And blown up.

So it's coming out of here, the turbo area.

The seal is blown and it's just puking it out.

It's gonna be going out my exhaust everywhere.

This is the piece of machinery that's gonna get my runway fixed.

[narrator] During the summer months in Kavik,

Sue Aikens provides fuel, food, and bedding for bush pilots

who are passing through the tundra.

She is low on fuel, but a damaged runway has kept her supply from landing.

Until she fixes the loader,

she will be unable to sell fuel to clients,

and each passing day is costing her crucial revenue.

[Sue] This is too critical for me to make a mistake.

If I make a mistake, it's gonna cost me the...

The ability to land a fuel plane. I can't afford that.

This has gotta get fixed.

Once it does, I'm back in business.

But until it is, I'm out of business.

[theme music playing]

Hey, Jordan, is that you?

[Jordan over radio] Yeah, Sue, it is.

Awesome sauce, buddy.

Do you got my... Do you got George, er, my mechanic with you?

[Jordan speaking]

[Sue] Thanks a lot. I'll see you in a minute.

That is Jordan bringing in the mechanic to help me work on the loaders,

so I need to get the four-wheeler and go grab him.

Get the trailer and grab him and... And start working.

Is it gonna cost me money to bring a mechanic out here and pay him?

Absolutely.

But I can't do it on my own, and I have to have it done.

It's gonna cost me less to have him show me how to do it correctly

than it would be for me to go in blind,

tearing things up that I have no business touching.

The importance of the loader is to straighten the runway out,

flatten it out again, take out the whooptees,

and repair the water damage.

In order for my fuel plane to arrive,

the loader has to do work on it and fix it.

If it's not running, I'm not getting fuel.

If I'm not getting fuel, I'm out of business.

-Hey, buddy. -Hey.

-[Sue] How you doing? -Pretty good, pretty good.

All right. Thanks for saving my bacon on this one.

Yeah, no problem, no problem at all.

But, er, yeah, I mean I'm looking at it, I mean I can see,

you know, and like talking to you on the phone, I agree on what it is.

But like for me when I was telling you...

There's so many other parts attached to it.

What I'm... I can tell you how to make bread really well,

but telling you what to take apart, what if I, like I told you.

What if I break a seal and I don't have the right part?

I mean, there's too many other things

-I might do wrong. -Yup.

Well, we, we were able to find a turbo and a seal kit and everything

-that we should need, so... -Awesome sauce. Awesome sauce.

Well, you see where he bounces, those are all areas I need to fix.

It's not level.

And it doesn't look bad now,

but Lake Aikens over here just flooded out the runway.

It's really way too soft...

-[George] Yeah. -...for aeroplanes yet.

But let's... Let's hit it and see what we gotta do, get our day started.

All right.

[Glenn] There's always lots to see out here.

There's also just a lot to learn.

Look at this lake.

It's starting to break up.

There's more and more open water.

You can't walk on the ice any more.

This time of year, when you have to cross water,

sometimes you don't have a choice, you gotta go through it.

But you can't stay in that ice water too long,

that's about 32 degrees where that ice is melting into the water.

Down that valley, about ten miles from here I've got a canoe.

I left it over there three years ago, the last time I used it.

If I can get to that canoe, I can use it this spring

to get around some lakes up in that area.

I have to cross a lot of land between here and the canoe.

I can't take the canoe I have here in camp with me.

But if I can walk up there, get to my canoe where I left it three years ago,

I'll be able to travel downstream with it,

I'll be able to get into some other lakes up there,

I'll be able to use that canoe to go hunting and fishing

in an area that I can't normally get to.

But it's gonna be hard,

because the river's not gonna be frozen any more.

I'm not gonna be able to walk across the ice.

I'm gonna have to cross through the water.

[narrator] Glenn Villeneuve relies on the animals that surround him

in the Brooks Range for the meat and protein he needs to survive.

Recovering his canoe will open up access

to new hunting and fishing grounds.

But melting river ice will force him to swim across the creek,

and he must condition his body to be able to withstand the frigid and deadly waters.

What I'm gonna do today, I'm gonna walk out here into the water,

and I'm just gonna practise spending time in cold water.

Let my body acclimate to it.

Let my body get used to it.

[deep breathing] An average person, if they're submerged in ice water,

they're unconscious or dead within about 15 minutes.

But you can train your mind. You can endure a lot.

It's amazing what you can do.

It's a little chilly in here.

It's very therapeutic, though.

When you focus the energy of your mind, it's amazing what you can do.

That ice is really cold.

Each time I go in, I can stay a little longer, training myself.

Whew.

I'm gonna go in and warm up.

[teeth chattering] I can't believe I'm shivering at 105 degrees.

That's amazing. What is it right now?

It's 112. 112 degrees, and I got goose bumps and I'm shivering.

If I had never done this,

and I got up to that river and I tried crossing,

I wouldn't know what I could and couldn't do.

But by doing this, I see how my body reacts

and what it takes to warm back up.

And it takes a long time to warm back up.

[shivering]

I can mentally make myself endure the water for a long time,

but it's after I get out that I have more problems.

So I have to be careful.

I didn't get killed, I didn't drown, I didn't freeze to death.

It was a success.

[Andy] My general theory is, the more things you can do,

the more things you can do.

And that's kind of my way of living out here.

So I'm looking for a tree that, er, has very few branches at the lower end.

I want my lumber to be as free of knots as possible.

I'm kinda thinking this one here might be pretty good.

I decided I wanted to start a new project that would teach me some new skills,

and, erm, I decided I wanted to try and build a skin-on-frame kayak.

I can, er, take it back to Ford Lake, I can paddle around on the lake,

go shoot muskrats, hunt ducks, and just paddle around a lot easier out on

a windy lake in a kayak rather than a big canoe.

They're pretty easy to build with just local materials on hand,

so my plan is to just go knock down a dead spruce tree,

take it over to the sawmill,

erm, cut it up into the pieces I need

and then use some hand tools to shape the pieces.

Hope my kayak's a whole lot lighter than this.

[panting, laughing]

Phew!

I should be able to put, build the whole kayak out of this one log.

And I wanna try and not cut through the grain too bad.

I want the cuts to be pretty parallel to the grain, natural grain of the wood.

Everybody's got a set of skills

or something that kind of drives them in their life.

For me, it's building.

For me, it's learning new skills and new techniques.

I like the idea of, once I learn how to do this,

I could go into the woods with, er, maybe a draw knife and a pocket knife,

and if I had to, I could build something like this

to get me from point A to point B.

[saw buzzing]

All right, I got all the lumber I need milled up and planed

so that I can start building my nice little recovery kayak.

It's gonna be about 10-foot long, made from a tree

that my dogs been pissing on all winter long.

The whole, er, design on kayaks is that it's designed to flex.

So there's nothing glued, there's nothing screwed or nailed.

So when you're in rough conditions,

everything on the entire boat can flex and move.

So you're not gonna break things.

One thing about steaming, you always have to work fast

when you're doing steaming too.

So it's almost like making my own piece of plywood,

but I'm not having to go to the store and buy the plywood.

I'm just going out, cutting a tree down to the sizes I want,

bending it, gluing it, making my own laminate.

Got this steamed.

Put it in the... The form to get it started bending.

And, er, let that dry up overnight, cure up really good.

By the end of the day tomorrow, I'm hoping that this starts to look like a kayak.

Right now, it's just a bunch of wood on a table.

[Chip] Good luck is opportunity meeting preparedness.

If you're prepared, and then you have the opportunity to do it,

you're probably gonna have what they call good luck.

It's er, springtime here in Kiwalik.

And er, basically this is gonna be underwater.

This place goes underwater a couple times a year.

Usually in the spring, during the spring break-up

when the ice jams and the water floods up behind it.

And then again in the fall, when storm surges come through.

Break-up's imminent.

It's gonna be coming along here in the next week or so.

And we wanna go up here on the, erm, tundra, and put our tents up there.

And then if this place does get washed, everything will be safe.

And, er, when the women are done repairing

the few repairs they need to make to the tent,

and, er, they load everything onto the sled,

I'll take the sled and I'll drive it up there

and I'll come back here and I'll pick up the tent,

and we'll take it over there and we'll pop that sucker into place.

[Agnes] It's gonna be a change of the season here soon.

And you have to try to get all your stuff hauled and moved while you can.

Because once all the ice and water starts coming down,

there's no crossing the river, and there's no accessing this campsite.

So what we're doing is planning for the next couple weeks,

and the next month.

[Chip] The ladies are making up some loads to move.

While they're doing that, instead of getting down there

and getting in their way and being a... An extra thumb,

I figured I'd just go get a load of wood,

'cause that's something else that's gonna be unavailable here

shortly when this floods.

We're not gonna be able to access fuel.

And we use probably a log, log-and-a-half a day for just cooking

and cleaning, and er, keeping warm and stuff.

I need to go get a nice stack of logs.

I need to make sure that erm, we're gonna be ready for break-up.

The more firewood I can get, the better off we are.

Caribou.

It's always good to see caribou, but I think they busted me.

The lead female right there is already running.

Oh, well. It's always good to see 'em.

I like seeing caribou around.

Some days I'm out to get 'em, some days I'm not.

But when this river decides to give out and this whole lagoon is flooded over,

you know, that's gonna be the end of getting firewood.

And getting firewood is more important than getting caribou.

So onto the firewood.

[narrator] To prepare for break-up along the Kiwalik River,

Chip must secure firewood for camp.

But with the river ice melting quickly,

he has limited time to gather the wood

before flooding makes the resource unavailable.

Hmm. Looks like I got wood. Lotta good wood, too.

I'm here to whip up the chainsaw and knock these,

er, pieces into manageable sizes.

Tie 'em on down and get back home.

I just kind of have an order of things

that I know I need to do, and I get with it.

Nobody tells me jack shit.

They don't tell me anything to do,

they don't tell me where to go or how to get there,

or what to do once I'm there.

Good to be my own boss out here.

What's important is making sure we've got ourselves moved up to high ground,

and that we have ourselves enough firewood to stay warm and dry up there.

We're gonna do it one step at a time. But we're getting there.

[Andy] Everything I own out here, I use as a tool.

It's all about function and form.

[narrator] In Eagle, Andy is building a kayak

that will allow him to access new resources in the lakes

and streams that stem from the Yukon River.

But the waters are swift and deadly,

and building a stable boat is critical.

Yesterday, I got the basic deck work done on the... On the boat,

so I've got my deck form now.

And, er, I'm just finishing putting the last stringer in.

Deck stringer.

And I drive the pegs in at two angles like this,

and that locks, locks it into where it can't separate.

If you just drive 'em in straight, then... Then the joint can come apart.

So this is kind of the... The fun part of it right now

is getting the shape of the boat the way you want it.

The whole design behind these skin boats is that they're very flexible.

The strength isn't in materials,

the strength is collectively in all of the joints

and the fact that the joints can move and flex under pressure.

So a boat is very seldom in flat, calm water all the time.

There's always wave action,

there's wind forces on you, your bodyweight in it.

So the boat has to be able to move and flex with the waves.

You can see I have all my... My mortises done for the ribs.

Basically, the ribs are gonna go down into here like this.

And then they'll... They'll come up,

there'll be a sharp bend right here,

it'll come across to the keel,

back down and then a sharp bend back down to the, er, to the other side.

After I get the keel on, I'll be spending the rest of the day getting my ribs done.

If I can get to the point at the end of the day where I have all the ribs in

and maybe start putting my, my stringers in, erm,

I'll feel pretty good about it.

This is a very ancient technique of building.

I'm gonna be using a few more modern tools

and maybe a few modern materials,

but the theory's the same.

You know, if I learn how to build these boats,

I can go anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world.

Grab a couple pieces of wood, and find some material,

and make a boat that I can go surfing with or paddle the river.

So it's just a really practical skill and...

And hopefully it'll be really beautiful too.

Kind of a work of art.

[Sue] I'm so used to the way I do things that I don't see them as difficult.

It's just the way it is for me.

Where... Where do you start?

[George] We're gonna pull the oil return line

and the oil feed line that feeds your seal.

That's pretty much what this is.

[narrator] To repair her runway and get fuel for clients into camp,

Sue must get her loader up and running.

She has flown in a mechanic from Prudhoe Bay to help with the fix,

but every moment without fuel is a crucial loss to Kavik's business.

Springtime is the time where I've gotta take everything

from winter, make it spring.

What, what does that mean?

That means I'm changing the whole camp over again,

making it an active place that people can visit.

They can't get here if I don't have fuel.

The planes can come in, but then they'd never be able to leave.

People come here to buy the fuel that I have.

The fuel that I have goes to keep the camp running.

If I don't have it, nothing works.

I gotta get the loader done, gotta get the fuel done. Gotta, gotta, gotta.

[George] Pull it towards you.

Okay. Back towards me.

Actually, hold on a second.

Don't let it down you'll break my thumbs.

Come on.

Okay. She's all yours.

[Sue] I can take this down

-and kinda clean it up? -Yeah.

[Sue] This is the exhaust stack.

Erm, this gets pistol hot.

When something is super, super hot,

and it's got oil on it, you're gonna get a lot of smoke.

You ready for the other part?

Where do you want me? Up there or down here?

[George] Right here.

This is what we're replacing, right?

Yup. See it with the new O-ring inside here?

[Sue] Uh-huh.

[George] Everything gets bolted down,

right here down to your, er, exhaust manifold.

And that's gonna hold everything nice and tight together.

Just a little bit of a gap in there I wanna close up.

Okay.

Kinda want it basically facing the exact way that it is.

Okay.

[George] That way when you're driving

in the wintertime, you're not getting your, er...

[Sue] Exhaust in your beak?

[George] All right, go ahead and set her down.

Come on... Be nice.

Set it down.

That ring was stuck. There it goes. It's off now.

Okay. So what's next?

[George] Ready to start.

[Sue] Just on and off?

No, just go ahead and turn it on.

And then you're gonna step down on your throttle pedal.

[Sue] Okay.

Get it out of the stop position, then you're gonna push down

on your ignition switch and turn it to the heat position.

[Sue] Okay.

And then you could probably go ahead

and hit the start, and she should pop right off.

Rain cap is flapping.

So, and that's just 'cause it's cold?

Yup. She's an old girl, she's gonna be a little bit slower

than any, anything that's new.

But she's a workhorse.

Yeah, she's probably warm, warm enough to move now.

All right.

The loader's been worked on, it's running.

What I've gotta do now is get on the runway and start fixing things.

All right, let's get her done.

Scoop is down, all right.

Not too bad. All right.

This kind of equipment, big companies have.

And I'm just trying to be one fat grandma

taking it on to fix a runway that was built in the '40s.

If I don't get it done, I don't get fuel,

I cannot open, I cannot stay here.

In order to live here, I have to have a profitable business.

I can't do that until I get the runway done.

Plain and simple.

I'll keep working it, and I'm just gonna come at it

from every single angle until I exhaust all my resources.

It's time to be open for business. It's time to step up my game.

[Glenn] When you're travelling through the country,

it's important to keep track of what's going on.

Lock things away in your memory,

and you never know when it might come in handy.

[narrator] After a trial run in the freezing cold water,

Glenn is heading out into the wilderness

to recover a canoe stashed in an isolated area of the Brooks Range.

But without a map, Glenn must rely solely on his knowledge

of the terrain in order to navigate.

[Glenn] Travelling through this country, you gotta pick the best route.

There are a lot of little lakes,

there are a lot of steep hills, mountains.

The trick is to find the easiest way through.

The path of least resistance, it's hard to find,

but it's important if you wanna get where you're going efficiently.

I don't like to use a map. I don't use a compass.

I just look at the landmarks, the mountains, the rivers, the valleys.

That's how I navigate. And a lot of it's just intuition.

After you've been out here a long time, you just internalize it.

You get to know the land, and you just let your legs do the walking.

From this rock, I'll be able to see a long ways up ahead.

I should be able to see all the way up to where my canoe is.

Have to be careful, there's a lot of loose rock here.

Whoa!

There.

Look at the view up here!

Yeah, I can see all the way up to the area where I left the canoe three years ago.

It's just past that big dome of rock, I think,

somewhere in the woods over there.

If I can get across the river, that's gonna be the trick.

That water's ice cold, and it's deep.

But if I can get the canoe, I can take it downstream,

take it right down this river here,

and get right into that whole area of lakes.

I'll be able to hunt right out of the canoe,

I'll be able to fish right out of the canoe.

It's gonna give me a lot of opportunities.

That'll really help me out this spring.

I just gotta get across that river. That's gonna be the trick.

There's the river, right there.

Looks like a long way across.

That water looks cold.

You don't just go racing into an ice-cold river without preparation.

It's like anything, you gotta prepare yourself if you wanna be safe.

I'm getting tired, it's been a long day.

I think my best bet is just to camp on this side tonight.

Tomorrow, I'll get up better rested, look around, try to find my way across.

[Chip] Sometimes, it's taking the long river route is the shortest route,

than trying to go over the terribly hard lands.

Are we going over on the side that way?

Er, yeah. Just leave it, Bun.

We're moving the teepee up to higher ground.

We're moving everything up to higher ground,

or high up on the cache there,

so that we can, er, escape the floodwaters should they be up this high.

And they... They usually are. They probably will be.

This whole place will be inundated.

But, erm, you know, we know it's coming so we gotta make our move.

[Agnes] All just towards the sled.

Which way now? Whoa! Let it go. It's gonna peeok.

The river's gonna start flowing with overflow,

and we're not gonna take any chances and just move while the moving's good.

And, er, snow machine's running good and it's a good time to move.

I guess that's close enough.

It's high ground. We're gonna try and stay above the flood.

But up here is tundra.

And from up here, you can see pretty well across the Kiwalik.

We're about the same elevation now that the cache is.

You know, it's a really good place.

If there's any caribou moving below us or above us,

we can see 'em from up here.

When we're down in here, we have to rely on climbing up the tower.

Up here, all you gotta do is stand up. Open your eyes.

So we keep our eyes open. All the time.

I was thinking right here.

[Agnes] Oh, right there? [Chip] Yup.

No water here.

-That looks like a good, level spot. -Yup.

I have to get these things up and moved according to how they're arranged on here,

rather than some haphazard method.

God.

But I wanna make sure that the top is arranged as it should be,

so we could use as few of poles as possible,

and yet still have a maximum strength in our... In our tent here.

[Agnes] Ready, then?

The whole thing goes up like this, Tinmiaq. Up and over.

[Chip] I'm getting this stuff one inch at a time pulled over.

[Agnes] Almost to the middle.

It's getting heavy.

[Chip] Oh, I got it. I got it. I was trying to figure it out.

[Agnes] Erm, it's getting there.

You know, we're doing our best to make it all good as quick as we can.

This right here will take care of us, you know? It's our tent.

So once we've got this thing up, erm,

I'm gonna put up a bit of a meat rack over here somewhere,

and we'll get our caribou out and we'll, er, dry up a bunch of caribou.

We just basically operate in different areas.

To us, it doesn't really matter where we're at. The tents are mobile.

That's the whole idea of it all.

It's nature. It does what it wants to,

and we just get to observe it happening.

[Andy] There's a place for everyone in this world,

if you're lucky enough to find it.

And I found it here for me.

It's looking like a kayak now.

The whole boat's pretty light.

I haven't weighed it yet, but I kept the boat really lightweight.

That's what I want.

I wanna be able to just pick it up with one hand and go places with it.

And, er, I think I'm at the point where I can start

laying the material out for the skin.

[narrator] Andy has built a kayak that will improve his range of travel

and ability to harvest resources along the Yukon River.

He is now in the final stages,

and he must be sure the boat can withstand the powerful river.

[Andy] So I've cut the skin about a foot longer than what I need,

and, er, put a couple of marks here where my keel's supposed to go on it.

So I'm just gonna lay this over the top,

and staple it down.

This is what is basically gonna give me the... The structure on the boat.

Okay. It's what's gonna be epoxied.

And when the epoxy soaks into this, it'll waterproof it.

Okay, now comes the scary part.

[chuckles] Time to start cutting.

It's all completely new to me.

The sewing, the stretching, I've never done anything like that before.

My biggest worry is that I make a cut too... Too small,

and I can't pull the material together to stitch it.

That's my biggest fear right now.

Erm, you can always re-stitch something and make it tighter.

But it's pretty hard to re-stitch something and make it looser

once you've cut some... Some materials.

I think I... I understand how to do it,

but it's one of those things that I'm just gonna

have to do it and figure it out as I go.

All right.

I got a kayak, it just needs some epoxy on it.

Get going on the epoxying.

I'm trying to put this on as light as I can.

It's better to do lots and lots of light coats

than it is to do a heavy coat.

So I'm just gonna just keep working it.

Basically, what this epoxy's doing

is waterproofing it and giving it some strength.

This is a pretty flexible epoxy.

The whole design of this boat is that it can flex and move as you paddle it.

That's the whole reason for tying everything,

not nailing or screwing anything.

You want the boat to be able to flex.

And this epoxy and this skin allows it to flex and move.

After I get this side done I'll just mix up another batch again,

and go right over it a second time, right away.

And then, er, I'm just gonna have to wait for this to set up

and I'm kinda anxious to get it in the river.

It's looking pretty good, I think.

All right.

[Glenn] The most important thing out here is not the gear you have.

It's your knowledge.

You gotta have knowledge to survive.

I'm going real light with this river crossing.

I'm gonna leave the tent set up here, my sleeping bag.

I'll have to leave my shotgun.

Just about everything other than my clothes and my matches.

I hate going without my shotgun up here.

I don't have much choice today.

If I got swept down, that extra weight, that just wouldn't work.

'Cause it's too deep to walk, I might have to swim.

[narrator] Glenn is hiking through the Brooks Range to find his canoe,

which will give him access to new hunting and fishing grounds.

He must first cross the river, but the current is swift

and any mistake while crossing the freezing waters could be fatal.

It's very difficult to judge how deep this water is

because it's so murky, I can't see through it.

Could be deep. It's definitely cold.

All this water is coming from snow

that's still melting off of these mountains.

Right here.

This could be a good place to try.

This sandbar here kind of peters out,

and it might be a little shallower underneath the water here

on the downstream end.

I can get started across this way.

Hopefully I can walk all the way to the other side,

but if it gets too deep, I might have to swim.

It's actually moving down pretty fast.

I'm gonna have to swim pretty hard,

'cause it's just gonna take me straight down.

If I lose my footing or get in too deep and have to swim,

I'm gonna have to swim hard.

'Cause the current's not gonna carry me

across at all, it's gonna keep me on this side,

and just carry me downstream.

It's deceiving. Currents can be very deceiving.

It looks like the water's fairly flat,

but it can actually be moving quite fast.

I wanna get across this river.

I'm gonna give it a try.

I'll have to take my clothes off,

pack 'em in my backpack, try to keep 'em dry.

See if I can walk across.

I gotta take care of myself. If I get cold, I gotta warm myself up.

If I drown, nobody's gonna resuscitate me.

Crossing rivers up here in the Arctic is serious business.

You gotta be careful. People drown in rivers in Alaska every single year.

I don't wanna be one of 'em.

It's time to get in this water and get across this river.

It's cold.

Whoa!

Whoa.

Whoa, whoa.

Oh!

These are dry.

That's good, that dry bag worked.

Water's cold, and I'm cold.

I gotta get warmed up.

Gotta get these dry clothes on, I gotta build a fire.

Fingers aren't working too good. They're cold.

Got it lit.

Come on.

Come on, here it goes. Here it goes.

Oh, yeah. I got it going.

That's good.

Phew.

The water's so cold.

If the water wasn't so cold, it wouldn't be so hard.

But the cold water and swimming with a pack,

that's the hard part.

Once I couldn't stand any more, the current was pretty strong.

Oh, that fire feels good.

It's gonna take me a little while to warm up here.

Glad I made it across.

All warmed up.

It's time to go get that canoe.

Canoe can't be too far away.

I remember leaving it somewhere right over here in the woods.

I know it's right around here somewhere.

It's just hard to see because the trees are so close together,

but that's the kind of place I left it in.

It was where all the trees are real small and growing close together.

I just don't wanna miss it and walk past it.

Right there!

Hey, I hope it's okay.

It's been sitting here for three years. All by itself.

Three years ago I left it here.

Look at this.

Hey! It looks good.

Yup. Couple paddles right here.

Awesome.

I found the canoe.

Got my canoe in the water.

Three years since this canoe's been put to use.

No more walking now.

It was a long walk and a cold swim, but I got my canoe.

I'll be able to take this downstream, access new areas to hunt.

It'll help me to fish, it'll help me to get my ducks back after I shoot 'em.

This canoe is gonna help a lot this spring.

There's nothing like paddling downstream after a hard walk and a cold swim.

I've been in a lot of places,

but I've never been in another place quite like this one.

It's incredible out here.

[Sue] People think I don't like people, and that's why I'm out here.

I like people just fine. I don't wanna live with 'em.

Is that you, Everts?

[Everts over radio] Yeah. We're about five minutes, five miles,

be just a couple minutes now, 'til we're at Kavik.

[Sue] All righty. And you have six out of the north.

[Everts] A'ight.

The turn-in has been redone.

Erm, haven't had any water to speak of, you know,

any rain to speak of to pack it down,

so it may be a little bit soft on the western half of that turn-in.

[Everts] Sounds good.

-And you got hundred low lead, right? -[Everts] Yes, we do.

All righty.

Cool. Sounds like my hundred low lead is in.

That runway is ready and they can land.

You know, culmination of a lot of effort here.

Fuel tanks came in over the winter,

my loader got fixed, enabled me to fix the runway enough

that I could get this plane in today.

Fuelled up both of my tanks.

My fuel system is good to go.

Well, thank you so much.

You saved my little biscuits again,

and it looks like just in time.

Now that I got bigger tanks and more fuel, gotta sell more.

-That's right. -Sell more.

-We'll see you when the weather clears. -Yup.

[Sue] All right. Hey, you take care.

It's always hugs.

All right.

-[Sue] Talk to you later. -Yeah.

It's been months and months of effort,

and this is what it boils down to.

One more bird, 8,000 gallons of fuel, and Susie's back in business.

You know, I'll be honest and, and pat myself on the back a little bit.

These are big steps.

These are not little by little by little. These are big steps.

Maybe not for some huge conglomeration,

but for a grandma living 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle?

Kavik is open another season.

Eight thousand gallons says, come on in, I'll keep the light on for ya.

[Andy] You have to give up certain things when you live this lifestyle.

You may not have a lot of money, but you have a really rich life.

[Andy] All right, let's go see what this thing's like floating in the Yukon.

So I had about four days of really pissy weather,

which was great for working on this boat inside.

And today, the sunshine god's out.

So it's a good day to launch the boat.

After four days of rain, nice beautiful day.

See, we even have an Amazon jungle here in the Yukon.

It's just ice instead of forest.

Rocks and skin boats are not very friendly to each other,

so, trying to find a place where there's a little bit of silt,

but this river level, that's not gonna happen.

Let's see how this thing floats in the water.

We are launched.

That doesn't feel too bad.

It's a little tender, little more tender than what I wanted,

but feels pretty good.

Yeah.

Yeah, this feels good.

Feels pretty stable and everything.

I don't feel uncomfortable in it at all.

For a first time boat, I feel pretty good about it.

This, this boat isn't intended to paddle the Yukon River,

it's intended to go on flat water for me.

And lightweight, I can take it into a little pond or a slough,

or a little lake off the river,

and do some hunting in it.

It's pretty tender on the initial stability,

but I... I can feel it's got a lot of good secondary stability in it.

And she definitely tracks.

I can feel it when the current grabs my bow a little bit here.

Feels pretty good once I get out into the river a little bit.

First time in the Yukon in, er, seven, seven-and-a-half months.

It's not the boat I normally use on the Yukon, but hey, it's working good.

There's no way I'd get a big boat

in the Yukon right now with all this ice piled up.

The kayak build seems to be a success.

I'm still getting used to the feel of it.

It's a pretty squirrely little boat,

it's like a little Corvette.

And it's gonna take me a little bit of time

to get used to the boat in the current.

But I think it's gonna work really, really good out on the lake.

I can feel it tracking really good.

Feel like this was time well spent, and er, a new skill learnt.

Feels pretty good.

[Chip] There's always work to do.

Besides, we're here to work. That's what we're here to do.

There's a whole bunch of caribou just come out of the bushes.

Look, they're running that way.

I bet you there's gonna be more running out of here pretty soon too.

Look right there. Right across the river.

[Agnes] Caribou?

[Chip] There are more caribou coming back this way.

They'll work their way over to this sandbar.

[Agnes] It's kind of windy and, er, caribou have not smelt us yet

and, er, we have a really good chance at some really choice meats here.

So since they're at camp and coming our way

this is an opportunity we're gonna take.

So instead of us trying to go on the other side

to the animals we're just gonna kick back and wait for them

to try and come to us, hopefully.

We won't have to get wet crossing the river.

It's a pretty intense kind of situation when you're really, really watching.

Really, really, really waiting, and you're trying to keep everything still

or calm or quiet.

We have an advantage that we're on this side of the river.

The wind is coming from them to us.

They can't hear us, they can't smell us.

Whether these guys cross or not,

we still have to take care of the meats that we have.

We still have to put up our rack.

We still have to keep everything waterproof where we are.

[Agnes] That lead cow is back up and she's heading back into the willows,

and off the rest of the herd go.

Once that female lead cow starts moving around,

the whole herd just woke up and started following behind her.

So doesn't look like she's gonna cross,

but as long as they have this trail established,

coming towards us and across, then I think we're set.

[Chip speaking]

We just have to wait for the next herd.

-[Chip] I'll start skinning. -All right.

-And see what I can get done out here. -All right.

[Chip] Over the last couple days, you know, we went off,

we went caribou hunting, came back with some caribou.

And the meat preserves excellently.

In this kind of wind, it's gonna dry excellently.

So we kind of put off butchering the caribou until last.

Okay, it's drying time.

The rack is ready.

Which ones of these would you want hung up first?

Erm, these here are all prepared.

-They're all prepared? -Yep.

The tenderloins and the smaller pieces and the big slabs.

It's real nice how we all work together and get this done, eh?

Yep.

Having all this meat here on this side of the river.

All we have to do now is just let the wind dry our meats and call it good.

Yeah.

This meat is gonna be just fine.

It'll dry slow and we can watch it over the next few days, pretty well.

[Agnes] Not bad, eh? [Chip] No, not bad.

[Agnes] That completes our whole preparing for the spring break-up.

[Chip] Yup. Pretty much.

[Agnes] Just gotta sit out the ice break-up

and let the wind dry our meat.

[Chip] Yeah. We're all living, we're all happy.

Everything's above the flood waters that's gonna come.

Everything up here can be seen.

It's just a good place to be.