Original subtitles

There's nothing like travelling by canoe.

You can cover a lot more country. You can get around a lot easier.

Normally I seldom go more than five or six miles from my camp.

It's hard to travel further on foot and get back the same day,

and most the time, I sleep at home.

[narrator] Glenn Villeneuve has retrieved his canoe

that he left ten miles from his camp three years ago.

He's using the boat to scout unfamiliar areas of the Brooks Range

to locate new resources and hunt smaller summer game for his survival.

[Glenn] Most of the time I've lived in the bush,

I've stayed within a really small area within a day's walk of my camp.

This canoe is gonna give me access to different habitats

that I don't normally have access to.

Places that might be better for fishing.

Places that might be better for duck hunting.

My camp's really good in the winter for caribou a lot of years.

It's great in fall for moose.

It's not the best place for springtime.

This spring,

I want to go to a place where I've never spent spring before.

With this canoe I'm gonna be able to access some lakes, and rivers,

and I'm gonna look for a place where I can build a camp to spend some time.

A new base away from home.

Hey! Look at that.

A snowshoe hare,

right on the bank.

[rifle cocking]

[gunshot]

[theme music playing]

[gunshot]

Got him.

Nice snowshoe hare.

I got dinner.

Springtime's the time for small game.

You see in the winter, and the fall,

most of the year up here, it's cold enough I can hunt big animals.

I can preserve meat easily just by freezing it.

But this time of year, it's different.

It's hard to preserve meat, and small animals

are what I eat more of in the spring.

There, I got some meat to eat.

This is good.

Got a nice snowshoe hare.

That's gonna be tasty.

Got a snowshoe hare for dinner.

[Sue] I've got nobody up here telling me how to do anything,

showing me how to do anything.

It's trial and error in its purest form.

Feel like I got...

50 freaking projects going at the same time.

This is my big project right now.

The new 300-gallon tank.

[narrator] Sue Aikens must constantly maintain Kavik's equipment

to survive on her own in the tundra.

She's overhauling her heating system to maximise its efficiency.

A task she must complete before the brutal conditions of dark winter arrive.

Heat is one of the basic, basic things that I have to have

in order to survive the winter up here.

My current system here at Kavik, I have one 300-gallon tank.

It is split four ways.

It's simply, I think, overloading that system.

My new system is going to be two 300-gallon tanks.

One in the front, one in the back.

The front stove's on the front tank, the back stove's on the back tank.

That splits the load on that tank in half.

It's gonna enhance my ability to stay warm.

Bobcat time.

I have to go down to the river get some gravel.

The placement of the tank, it's a nice square area.

All's I've got to do is put a foot, eight inches of rocks down.

It's got a lot more to compact, but what I see,

I got a big storm moving in.

A lot of fresh gravel here.

I wanna set that this aside,

and I want to get that impermeable layer.

It's a containment field layer.

Nothing that spills from this direction

can seep down that any further than where that layer is.

Fuel drops, it stops right there.

It doesn't keep going into the surface.

So I wanna get that before all this rain drops on my head,

'cause otherwise I've just got duck soup, and I don't want that.

Have it couple feet up the wall.

I just need it good enough to keep it from getting ruined right now.

The monster right there is called rain,

and it's gonna wash away all the finds.

I can't have that.

[drilling]

It is starting to come down.

Whew.

All right, well, that part of it's done.

I got what I needed done to save the gravel pile that I just built up.

I raised it a little over a foot.

I don't want to lose six inches in the rain.

I'm gonna put this away and wait for better weather.

[Andy] It's always a bit more of a challenge when you do things

when you're by yourself.

But the reward is you know you can do it by yourself.

Rain, rain, rain, all summer long. Rain, rain, rain.

Time to go fishing.

Hope there's still a few left in the river.

It's really late in the run right now

so I'm hoping there's still some fish coming up the river.

I'm looking for king salmon right now.

King salmon are the high quality fish in the Yukon.

In recent years they've been in serious decline,

so there were a lot of restrictions.

As it turned out, the run came in strong enough

that they were able to open it up

and allow people to fish and get some of the king salmon.

So, hopefully, I can take advantage of that today.

I'm way behind the eight ball on getting my fish this year.

It's getting kind of late in the run,

so hoping I haven't missed 'em. [grunts]

I've never seen it rain like this.

The river's really high right now,

and, uh, that might affect some of the eddies that I normally fish

'cause I normally fish in that lower water,

so there's a big, big question mark out there

as to whether I'm gonna be successful. But, uh, I'm running out of time.

So I'm gonna try and put some fish up right now.

I don't have to go real far, maybe about four, five miles downriver.

I'm gonna fish a couple eddies that I... I know are good at low water.

I'm just gonna have to wait and see if they fish good at high water,

I have no idea.

All right, I still got an eddy here, that's good.

A lot smaller than it was though.

An eddy is a back current in the river,

so, anytime there's a point of land going out,

the current goes past that and then it creates a void

and sucks the water back upstream along the, uh, shoreline there.

The fish come into those eddies to take a break from fighting this heavy current.

And that's why you want to fish there with a net.

I have no idea what's out there right now,

so it's just gonna be go out, throw a net in the murky Yukon River

and see what comes up.

Beautiful.

Doesn't look too bad, I'll go back and see if it's tangled anywhere.

It can be very dangerous.

It's also pretty challenging

because there's a lot going on with river currents,

uh, nets going out, tangles, ropes coming in from behind.

So, you really have to be pretty acutely aware of what you're doing.

Yep, that looks good. I think this is a good set.

I'll let this sit tonight, come back and check it in the morning

and hopefully this'll, uh, this'll be catching something.

Maybe I'll go try and set another net.

There's another eddy farther down, I'll go try and set that.

I think I got an eddy right in here.

Looks like a pretty small little eddy, but I've got a small little net.

It's always kind of a challenge when it's like this to figure out

where to set it to minimise the amount of debris that's gonna go into your net.

I haven't fished this one very much.

In fact, I've never fished it at high water like this,

so I'm really not sure what it's gonna do.

But it's gonna do something, one way or another.

It's gonna catch trash or it's gonna catch fish, or both.

All right, I got two nets in.

Kind of a pissy day to be out here doing this.

But I got the gear in and it's fishing,

so, hopefully, I'll be able to pull a few fish out in the morning.

[Chip] What we're trying to do is enable our kids.

We want to enable them to do anything.

Out here, every day there's something to do.

Looks kind of windy still, but lot better.

We should go put our net while it's not too windy, eh?

You got the net and the ropes here?

Uh-huh, we're just gonna put it all together,

bundle it up, and get it ready in the boat.

-Okay. -Yeah.

Good idea.

[Agnes] The fish are starting to come in.

From the ocean they're hitting the lagoons,

and pretty soon, they'll be heading into the sloughs.

Then uh, for us, it's time for fishing.

Here you go, Mary. We're gonna start to untangle it.

Last summer when we were here, I had been using my nets that were worn, ripped.

And I had been using those same nets for like ten-plus years,

and, uh, my mother used 'em before me.

And this year I decided,

I might as well start my girls off with their own net.

[narrator] For the Hailstones,

passing down native traditions and techniques

to their five daughters is a priority and a way of life.

The family lives a nomadic lifestyle,

and for their children to be able to thrive

in the harsh elements of the Arctic,

Chip and Agnes must teach them to hunt, fish, and gather.

[Agnes] So you see what I'm doing? I'm just going...

Look, right along the edge, then it won't rip.

If you wanna go ahead and do the top part.

When I was Mary's age, I was taught how to, um, help in camps or at home.

And now, it's Mary's turn.

So, I wanna make sure Mary knows just as much as her oldest sisters,

and have a turn at getting familiar and comfortable with the nets.

All we gotta do now, Mary, is roll it up and go set it.

When you have a whole family working on your fish,

it makes fishing so much easier.

And then we're able to eat the fish together and enjoy it all,

but the most important thing is for the girls to learn how to fish.

Good job, Mary.

The nets are ready, now all we have to do is set them.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll have fish dinner.

Thank you, Mary, you make my work a lot easier when you're helping me.

[Sue] Driving the path of life, you can hit a speed bump

or you can hit the freaking brick wall.

I'd much rather hit a speed bump.

[exhales]

That... was a pretty good blow and rainstorm.

That storm reminded me,

winter is very real and it's coming to get me.

So, I need to get my job done.

See that's down there, perfect for a... remote application.

It's looking good. I think I can take that stand, bring it in, and set it down.

This is a large part of my heating overhaul.

Doing this by myself, it's, I don't know, 240 to 300-pound tank.

It's a lot of weight and I'm not...

I'm not a person that's never had any injuries.

I honestly can't see too good.

Yeah.

I have to go back and down, but I don't have a lot of room.

And I'm tearing shit up to do it.

I'm gonna have to try and problem solve,

which means I gotta get the fork.

The only way I know how to problem solve right now is,

I can try to put it on the forks.

Problem is, probably could have gotten it with the bucket. I can't see.

[grunting]

[whirring]

[grunts]

Where are we at?

We are at Sue's great idea, um, didn't go so great.

Had to try and move the forks out of the way

and there was just no way around it.

If I would've lifted them to ease the forks this way,

it would've hit high up on my--

That's the haul, going from the dining hall to the kitchen.

Would've taken out my window. Unacceptable.

Guess what? The job still needs to get done.

And I'm still the only one out here to do it.

So, I need to come at it differently.

My thought is, if I can get it on the forks, tilt it up.

Instead of trying to come directly over it,

where vision is an issue,

maybe I can bring it in and get close,

a little above, then get out and push it, then boom, it'll hit.

Tearing this damned thing apart.

It is a hell of a job for a single person to do.

This is a big effort.

[grunting]

It's on there. Part of the battle is won.

Obviously my fuel doesn't come out of the side, but it is up.

I should be able to figure this shit out.

This is not that hard. It's just physics.

Physical manipulation.

[grunting]

Looking pretty good.

Half?

There we go.

This is a huge, huge amount of the work done.

Containment field? Check. Tank in place? Check.

Tomorrow, the lines. Tick-tick-tick.

Clock's ticking, winter's coming.

[Glenn] Out here, the more you know about the area,

the better your position to take advantage of opportunities.

Hey, this over here, this looks like it could be a good place for ducks.

Lots of grass along the shoreline.

That's the kind of habitat ducks like.

[narrator] Glenn is scouting the Brooks Range

for new areas to harvest vital resources for his survival.

But he is miles from his cabin,

and sourcing food in unfamiliar territory is a difficult task.

[Glenn] It's interesting getting to know a new lake.

Over at my lake where I'm more familiar with it,

I know all the good spots to go.

If I want to get ducks, I know where to look for 'em.

If I want to get fish, I know where to look for 'em.

Out here I don't know yet, I got to get to know the new country.

Hey, look, there's a moose.

She's got twins.

Moose are a very important animal to me.

Every year in the fall I hunt moose,

and getting moose is real important for me to get through the winter,

so, it's nice to see this time of year that the moose are doing well.

When they have twins, that's a good sign.

They're healthy.

Those are little moose, they weren't born long ago.

It's that time of year.

Everything's coming back. The land's thawing out.

All the animals are having their little ones.

This isn't the time for moose hunting. Moose hunting's in the fall.

I could sit here watching these moose for hours,

but I've got other things to do.

I got ducks to hunt. I've got to keep moving.

This is the way to get food.

Just go out in nature and find it yourself.

I enjoy being out here so much more

than walking through the aisles of a supermarket.

So, I'm always listening, hunting with my ears, and my eyes.

There! I hear a duck.

[whispering] Ducks can really conceal themselves,

when they're up against the grass.

Oh! There, oh.

I got to get within 50 yards, preferably closer than that,

before I'll take a shot.

This isn't a sport, it's not a game I'm playing. I'm looking for food to eat.

Two northern shovelers, a male and a female.

[rifle cocks]

[gunshot]

I got it!

Had to stand up in order to get a shot.

Almost tipped over, but I hit the duck.

There's my duck.

I got the male just like I wanted.

This time of year,

the females are starting to nest. I like to leave them alone.

It's better for the duck population.

I feel privileged just to be able to live in place like this.

Paddle a canoe around like this.

Nature's alive.

It's a bounty. Snowshoe hares bounding through the forest.

Ducks on the water. Fish in the lake. What more can you ask for?

I found a nice spot to spend sometime this spring.

I'm gonna go find a good place, set up camp, cook up dinner.

[Andy chuckling] There is no typical day at Calico Bluff ever.

You wake up every morning and put out fires all day.

All right it's day two, uh, on the fishing.

I set some nets last night, it was pouring down rain.

Pretty miserable out on the Yukon, but I gotta get 'em in.

I'm near, coming close to the end of the fish run,

and, uh, if I don't catch some fish right now,

all I'm gonna have is chum salmon this year.

[narrator] Andy has set nets in the Yukon River to catch king salmon,

a high-quality fish

and vital food source that can only be caught this time of year.

Regulations have limited the fishing in recent years,

and with this season's run coming to an end soon,

his window to stockpile the resource is closing rapidly.

[Andy] It's a short summer, a long winter,

and a short period of time to put up a whole lot of food.

So, when the resource is here, you gotta go get it.

That's what I'm doing right now.

[motor running]

I'm late into the run,

probably don't have too many more days of king salmon going by.

Summer's coming to an end.

Pretty soon I'll be fishing for chum salmon.

Here, fishy-fishy.

There's a hole in the net,

couple holes.

I think I got skunked.

I think it's time to just go check the other net, see if I have any luck.

I'm gonna fire back up, go back downstream,

uh, check my next net, and then, uh, make a decision on Plan B.

Ooh, doesn't look that good.

See an awful lot of cork filling.

Doesn't feel like there's anything in the net. [sighs]

Oh! Wait a minute. I got one.

Yeah. Oh, it's a big one.

Come on, girl.

Holy shit!

Look at the size of that one.

Whoo!

Yeah, buddy.

That's a nice fish.

Nice King salmon, probably about 25 pounds.

[chuckles]

Oh, here's another little guy.

This is what we call Jack salmon. This'll be a little male.

This is normally what I catch with these nets.

This is what I was kind of expecting to catch right here.

Now what I need to think about is,

do I want to bring another net down here?

This looks like it's the better spot.

The shorter amount of time I can catch a few fish to put up for winter here,

the better off I'm gonna be in the long run.

Time to go eat some salmon.

[Agnes] There's animals crossing, birds flying over and, uh,

we're just keeping our eyes open.

Seeing what's going on in the area.

If you want to carry that,

and if you want to carry that.

[Mary] Let me just pull the sled.

[Agnes] Uh, we got to put the nets in.

And there should be another net right here.

Me and the girls are going to be going in the, um, fishing boat,

then we're gonna go put a couple nets out.

Me and Mary prepared them,

and now the wind is a little bit better,

and I believe we'll be able to cross the lagoon.

Take the little puppy in case, uh, we stay too long.

When we travel here it's always with the tide,

the tide is either up or it's down,

and you have to try to catch it so you won't get stuck

or get stuck out there on the flats where there is no water.

So, we have a lot of challenges, but, uh,

right now the tide is up and the time to go is now.

So, today me, Tinmiaq, Mary, Carol, and Qutan are going out there.

Just let the girls have hands on, and uh, get a feel of the area.

[Carol] Whoa!

-Shallow. -Go to the other side.

The girls will have to help me find the channel to get back into the river,

so, they can start to get comfortable with figuring out which way is home.

Sorry about that, girls. That's why you have to keep holding on

and you guys can help me actually find the channel.

[Mary] Like about right there?

[Agnes] Okay.

-[Ting] Thank you. -[engine starts]

Tide must still be coming up.

That's why it's a little bit shallow.

Whoa! Just like that.

We're probably gonna get down there just in time for the tide to come up.

That's when the fish will be coming in.

We'll try to put our net right away.

Whoa!

We're hitting a sandbar.

[Agnes] Okay, it's still shallow.

You can see all those.

[Mary speaks]

Whoa, it's deep.

Okay, Carol, thank you.

[Ting] Yeah, right there, right there, right there,

Mary, go, you got the rope, baby.

Go. Go, Carol.

[Agnes] Oh, hey, got an anchor.

-[Ting exhales] -[Agnes] We made it, girls.

[chuckles]

Is the tide going down or is it coming up?

It's still coming up.

We could just use this, this right here.

This right there, and set our net right there. [imitates whooshing]

So, now that we've made it down to our fishing place,

we have a, um, real good chance of herring fish, I believe.

That tide is just starting to come up.

There's a few ice in here, but, uh, none that's gonna drag my net away.

So, we got a herring net, we got a lot of girl power,

and, we have a lot of fishing to do.

Ay. Hey, hey, hey.

Okay, ready? Feed it out slowly.

Here we go. I'm gonna give it power.

Ting, let it go, Ting.

Oh. [chuckles]

Throw it out, yep. All right!

Looks good, girls.

-Yeah! It looks awesome. -It looks perfect.

You girls did a good job.

Let's hope we catch some herring.

Hope we catch a couple hundred herring, eh?

Yeah. Couple hundred herring.

[Andy] Always got to be innovative.

Keep thinking, if something's not working, try something else.

Mmm... I got some fish.

Got down to my first net and got totally skunked.

And then, uh, headed on down to the second net.

And it didn't look like there was much in there,

but there was a nice, big salmon in it.

Eh, eh, eh.

And then this nice little jack here.

I think I'm gonna go dig up a bigger net that I have.

It should increase my chances of catching fish pretty good.

Smells pretty good, huh, Carb? Look at that.

No, you can't have that one. No, no. That one's mine.

Now let's go get the big one.

Weigh that one, see what we got. [grunts]

20.95 pounds.

That's a nice fish.

When I went in last night,

from that pouring rain to put these nets in,

I didn't think I'd be cutting up a nice big salmon like this today.

I figured, if anything, we might catch one little runt.

But I'm glad to see there's a few nice salmon still in the river.

This is my smokehouse for my fish.

What I want to do right now is,

I just want this fish to kind of dry out a little bit, the skins to dry out.

It'll make it easier to process it later.

Go get my other net, see if it's gonna be any good.

This is a net that, uh, floated into my camp,

tangled up in a big tree, and I untangled it.

I've never used it.

But it looks like it's in pretty good shape.

It's a chum net.

Pretty simple dynamics behind fishing.

The more net you got in the water,

the better your chance of catching fish.

This net, more than doubles that other net.

The idea is that I'm gonna be able to increase my efficiency here for fishing.

Put this in the boat. [sighs]

Go set a net.

So I'm gonna take this small net off of here,

and I'm gonna put the big long net on.

Well, let's hope this goes out good.

That went good.

See how that fish is tonight.

[Glenn] I enjoy my autonomy.

I like to be the one that decides what I do each day.

I like to be the one that's responsible for my own destiny.

I need to set a camp up so I have shelter.

Out here, there's a lot of ground that's really hard to camp on.

You got to find a place that's nice and dry, well-drained soil,

easy access to the water.

I want to be able to get firewood for my fire.

Spruce poles to build a shelter with.

But this right here looks pretty good.

Let's check it out. Nice sandy shoreline.

There's a spruce forest behind it.

It goes uphill, steep,

so it's probably not boggy up there. It's probably dry ground.

I'm gonna go have a look.

There's plenty of deadwood around here for building fires.

It's close to the lake, right of the water.

I just need to find a good piece of ground.

Around here, the ground is really rough,

spongy, mossy, boggy soil.

Not good for camping.

Look at this.

This is good ground, nice and dry.

Smooth, level spot.

I'll build a shelter right here.

Got my gloves. Travelled pretty light.

I don't have a lot of tools but I brought a hatchet, knife, and a saw.

Time to go cut some trees.

I'll need poles to build a shelter with, spruce poles.

I'm looking for small trees.

I got small tools. I can't cut big trees today.

Here's a nice size tree right here.

Something like this.

I got a chainsaw with me, but it doesn't have a motor.

I'm the motor.

Time to cut some wood. Here we go.

Human-powered chainsaw, keeps you in good shape.

[sighs]

One down, many more to go.

This one here looks good.

I've got my materials. Now it's time to build my shelter.

I'm tying it in a way that when I stand it up,

it will get tighter hopefully.

This shelter's gonna protect me from the elements.

It'll keep me dry, and it'll keep me warmer than if I didn't have it.

It's gonna provide a windbreak.

It's gonna provide protection from precipitation if it rains or snows.

Shelter's essential to surviving out here.

It's pretty strong.

There. Got it all covered.

Spruce poles and spruce bows.

Oh, this is beautiful.

This is good, I like it.

[Sue] All of us, remote and otherwise, we should be opportunists.

When we have an opportunity to make things better, you just do it.

I am really dropping in temperature.

So, I have a push-push to get this done.

[narrator] After getting her second fuel tank in place,

Sue must now rewire her fuel lines to increase their efficiency.

With a cold front moving in,

she must get her new system operational,

as she cannot survive without heat

when the tundra's weather turns for the worse.

I need to take the lines from the old 300-gallon tank, and put 'em on the new.

The weather is coming in. Snow is expected.

It's a good time to get this project done.

[exhales] All right, here is the old 300-gallon tank.

Good ol' faithful.

That goes to the Twinkie,

and this is the line that goes all the way to the back.

There's two lines that need to be completed.

The one to the Twinkie, and the one to the dining hall.

I'm gonna fit it on.

There we go.

Two lines, two stoves, one heating tank.

Time to fill it up and see if we can light it.

Put that over there.

I'm gonna flip that on.

Okay, open this up.

I just gotta stand here for a minute,

and see if I've got any active oil coming through.

And I don't. So it looks it's holding.

So, that is officially now,

open and accepting oil.

Now I'm at the last step, the, uh, the ultimate truth.

I've got some fuel in there.

I want to go into the Twinkie,

see if I can get it to light off and stay lit.

If that works,

I've just completed another overhaul.

As long as I can light that flame and have that heat,

I've beat Old Man Winter.

All righty.

[exhales] It is getting chilly out there.

Take this off, see how it's flowing.

This is where that line comes in,

and it hooks into the carburettor.

This is the carburettor for the stove.

I light it off in a couple a places,

close the top, give it a second.

See if it's gonna catch.

Nope. We're having a problem.

You've barely got a flame there. There's a problem.

So, put that back on, turn it off.

Still got to take apart my carburettor.

I doubt that it's the fault of the mechanics of how it's set up.

Gravity flows downhill, didn't need my help to do it.

But there is an obstacle of some kind along the way right now.

I'm gonna turn it on again.

See where we're at, see if it flows.

I don't see a lot of flow coming in.

I'm not really sure what it is.

So, I'm gonna go get more fuel and go back out to the tank.

Fill that sucker full, um, and hope that that resolves it.

The wind is picking up. It's getting cold.

It's time to get this heating problem fixed.

Turn that on.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have heat.

Boom. That's what I wanna see.

Why did I even wanna overhaul the heating system?

I worked all four stoves off of one 300-gallon tank.

Now I have two 300-gallon tanks.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out

you just cut your workload in half.

Baby's got heat.

Onto the next chore.

[Andy] It's kind of Groundhog's Day when you're fishing.

It's Groundhog's Day when you're hunting.

It's Groundhog Days when you're logging.

That's what this life's all about. There's a lot of repetition.

I'm on day three of fishing right now.

Last night, pulled my one small net, put in a nice big one.

It's getting late in the run. There aren't that many fish,

so I'm kind of running out of time, so, got to get on it.

All right, let's see if I got some fish in this little net.

Think I'm getting skunked again.

This eddy normally produces a lot of little jacks for me,

so, I'm kind of surprised but I don't generally fish at this high a water.

Could be that's just not a good high water eddy.

Think I'll head on down and check the second eddy.

That one's been fishing pretty good.

[sighs] Another stick.

[chuckles]

More sticks.

Forever pulling sticks out of nets.

I'm catching lots of sticks, hope there's a salmon to go with 'em.

I got one right here.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, there is a fish right here.

Two of 'em.

[grunts]

Man, you got all tangled up right in the bottom of the net.

This is a size I... I really like catching.

This eddy's fishing good. I like it.

Sounds like there might be something right here.

Yep, yeah, this is number three.

Looks like pretty much all clear here.

Well, that's three out of this net.

Two nice little jacks and one bigger guy.

All males, that's good.

One of the things I like doing out here is just exploring

and trying new things all the time.

And so, experimenting with some different eddies and different waterlines,

I learned a lot on this, uh, couple days of fishing.

And so, that just makes me more efficient,

and that's what I'm after out here.

Hmm, these already smell good and they haven't even started smoking.

I ended up with about five nice king salmon.

I stripped 'em out, filleted 'em, brined them.

And now, I'm doing the final step,

and that's putting them in these racks.

The Yukon River provides pretty much everything up here.

It's a highway for me both summer and winter.

But it also provides salmon.

Both king salmon, which I'm putting up right now,

and fall chum salmon for my dogs.

Those two resources are probably the single most important resources

to me for living.

There's no price tag for this, it's priceless to us.

[Agnes] We work to get to the fish.

The fish takes care of us and provides it back to us,

and we keep living, and being healthy,

and keep moving onto wherever the fish goes.

Girls, wanna go make fire and have a snack?

[Qutan] Yeah.

And, let our net fish for us while we go do other things.

Yeah.

[narrator] Agnes and her daughters have travelled across the Kiwalik River

to a lagoon where they've set a net for herring.

A vital source of meat and protein for their survival.

They must keep an eye on their net

to ensure it's not damaged or swept away by chunks of ice coming in with the tide.

[Agnes] So, now that we have our net set,

we're just gonna kick back, relax, and let our net do the fishing for us.

We're gonna go pick up some sticks and logs

and go build a real fire, warm up,

and then wait for the tide to start turning.

And once the tide starts getting back low,

then we'll pull the net out and hopefully we'll be doing that with some herring.

Watch out, Ting. Go.

Whoo! [laughing]

Cool.

Now, Mary, all you gotta do is really learn this channel

and you'll be able to not only set your net,

but you'll also be able to learn how to

travel with the high tide and the low tide and when to put your net.

[Ting] I'm the oldest out of the girls,

and it's awesome to watch my sisters grow up

and do the things they're doing today.

My sister Mary,

she's starting to do more things where we don't have to tell her what to do.

She just already knows and she's picking up faster and faster

and she's enjoying it.

Wow, Mary, just when we was running out of wood.

Thank you, Mary.

It's called training my replacements,

so I can be wet and sit here while you girls do it. I joke.

Thank you.

[Agnes] Look, guys, it's about to hit the net.

We have to go pull it off before it take our net.

Come on.

-Heavy. -[Qutan] Ready.

[Mary] I'm just gonna start pulling it.

[Agnes speaking]

[Ting] Jellyfish.

-Just jellyfish. -[Qutan] Yeah.

[Agnes] Even if we catch no fish, that's all right.

We just have to go try again.

Don't worry about not catching anything.

This is just something we all learn from.

I'm so proud of you.

Pretty soon you'll be driving the boat.

[Agnes chuckles]

Even though we didn't catch any herring in the net, I still learned a lot.

[Agnes] Come, puppy.

Today was really awesome.

I really enjoyed your girls' company, and better luck next time. [chuckles]

[Chip] They're back from the coast.

-How'd it go? -[Ting] No fish.

[Chip] That's okay.

No fish today, there's no fish tomorrow, no fish the next day,

we'll keep fishing till the day after that.

You know, even though they didn't catch fish, I'm proud of Mary.

You know she's following the footsteps of her mom and her sisters.

What do you think, Miss Mary, managing nets?

That's one of the best things you've learnt,

is doing this before the fish get here.

If you went down there and there's nothing today,

maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day.

I think Mary's gonna do really fine. I think she's a big help.

She's 16 now. She's got the muscle behind it,

the brain to go with it, so, it should be a natural course for her.

We'll go back to the tent and go call it a night.

[Glenn] Some people, they'd rather look at the view

from a skyscraper in Manhattan.

And I'd rather look at the view from a mountaintop up here.

It's been a long day, dinner's gonna taste good.

People have lived in this country for thousands of years.

They knew how to find the resources and how to take advantage of 'em.

It's not an easy place to make a living,

but you can find what you need to survive.

The land will provide for you.

While that's heating up, I'll get the meat ready.

It's a different pace of life. Can't be in a hurry.

I got some good meat to eat. I haven't eaten meat in a while.

Snowshoe hare legs.

It's been a good day.

Such a beautiful trip in the canoe,

getting over here, and finding just the right camping spot.

Building my shelter.

It's a great end to the day.

Snowshoe hare should be just about done here.

Let's check it out.

Look at that. That's some meat to eat.

Mmm.

That's tasty.

[sighs]

Found a nice spot to set up a camp, built my shelter.

I found a really nice spot to spend some time this spring.

Got a new home away from home.