Original subtitles

SUE AIKENS: I have people, clients coming in tomorrow,

and I don't even know if I can give 'em electricity.

NARRATOR: Kavik River Camp serves as a remote fuelling station

on the north coast of Alaska.

For Sue Aikens, making sure that camp is up and running for her clients

is vital to her business, and her way of life.

SUE: Get up on the perch,

any time you can gain elevation...

You're gonna have a much better picture on things that are around you.

And I'm scanning 20 miles out,

Anything that looks weird.

(AIKENS SPEAKING)

It is possible that we have a bear out here about a mile-and-a-half.

And the way the wind is blowing, whatever,

theoretically, that can't smell anything in camp right now.

The smell would be going this way.

So that is a bonus.

I need to get the generator on for power,

if I get attacked, if I get hurt,

I need to make sure I have communications.

Electricity, air-to-ground, it's gonna save my bacon when I need help.

Can't even begin to fathom getting hurt again.

* I need to get my generator running *

This is my little gen.

This right here is gonna give me the power in camp, to get stuff done.

It hasn't run in four months.

It may not want to.

Get this in the neutral position.

That's tight, that's tight.

All righty.

(GENERATOR STARTS)

(ENGINE SPUTTERING)

* Little baby didn't want to keep running *

Give it a minute.

(GENERATOR STARTS)

(GENERATOR CONTINUES RUNNING)

Okay.

Now I've got to go check camp, make sure that, you know, things are running.

I have a huge clean-up job to do.

I don't know exactly how I'm gonna get that done.

Go me, get my ass to work.

CHIP HAILSTONE: Kiwalik here is home to me. It's a good place to be.

Coming with me?

Get in the boat, dog.

I'm gonna go downriver, I'm gonna go get firewood,

and I'm gonna take my chainsaw.

I'm gonna hunt and kill trees.

And I'm gonna come back here with some tree flesh.

Come on.

Good girl.

NARRATOR: The Hailstones spend their summer in Kiwalik,

gathering resources for the months ahead.

Harvesting firewood is essential

to providing camp with heat, drinking water, and food preservation.

CHIP: Logs here come from about 20, 25 miles upriver.

And by the time they get down here, takes 'em a few years.

This what I call a mighty fine log.

This is a good, dry piece of knotty, twisted wood

that has really no carving value, no splitting value.

If you split it, it wouldn't split and make two halves,

it would make a big twist like a rifle barrel.

So it's gonna be firewood.

My chainsaw fired up.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

We need firewood, all the time.

Keep ourselves warm, dry ourselves out.

'Cause we got caribou to dry up,

pretty soon there's gonna be seals, and skins and oil to put away,

and whatever else we gather on.

I have to have firewood. It's just part of the process.

The only time the girls ever take any notice of my firewood-getting abilities

is when there is no wood.

Then they remember... (HIGH PITCHED) "Dad!"

Come on, dog, join me.

That's some nice-looking logs you have there.

Can't have too much firewood.

My next step is putting up a meat rack.

Around here they call it Inisuk.

We need a place where we can hang meat up off the ground, away from the dogs.

-We're gonna have to tie the dogs up soon. -(GRUNTS)

And keep the wind and the breeze on 'em, and the flies off.

Let's just get it done.

JESSIE HOLMES: I strive to live a simple lifestyle,

on the river doing the things I love.

(DOGS HOWLING)

What you doing, Polar? (CLICKS TONGUE)

NARRATOR: Along the Nenana River,

Jessie Holmes lives a life dedicated to his sled dogs.

Feeding them and himself is a full-time job.

But before he can gather fish, he'll need a place to store them.

So I'm getting my chainsaw, nice and sharp and ready, so I can go downriver.

I'm gonna build a smokehouse.

So, starting there, I'm gonna have to go find some nice post,

and get the bark peeled off of 'em, and some poles.

Start getting all my material.

I'm so pressed for time,

because this is just a small part of what I have to get done.

Thing is, I need to do this in a timely manner,

so I can move on to my next project,

then my next project, and then my next project.

This is better than any day job.

Or city job.

When I'm out there and I'm doing this,

it is like I'm working, but I'm working for myself.

I'm working towards my goals, not somebody else's goals.

So I'm gonna head downriver, and look for a really good spot to cut post and poles at.

Not every place has the right kind of trees,

so I got a couple places in mind to go look.

Where, they typically have really good poles.

It's about seven miles downriver,

pretty close to where I'm building fish camp.

It's a nice, practical location.

My time is limited right now, 'cause I'm trying to get ready for this fish run coming.

The fish are already in the river, and I'm missing out.

As soon as I get this done,

then I can get on to repairing my net and my fish wheel so I can get some fish.

Got all my tools I need.

Got my life jacket, I got my hammer, and my chainsaw,

and my tools for de-barking logs, and my tools for the boat, so.

Go downriver, check some spots out,

find some good posts for the smokehouse and get started here.

Well, every time I go out on the Tanana River, or the Nenana River,

I'm very apprehensive to safety,

'cause anything could happen out there.

Got to watch out for sweepers in the river.

That's this thing that's sticking out,

but there could be big logs sticking out of the bank

that you can't see under the water.

This river's so dangerous, like, so many people with a ton of experience

have ended up dead in this river,

so I try to always think about that when I'm out here.

This boat is great and everything,

but it's getting older, and it'd be easy to puncture something through it,

if you hit a log really hard.

Lots of stuff in the water right now.

It's high water, it's windy out.

These are the kind of days you gotta be careful on the Tanana River.

Old camp right here.

Well, you know what I think about

when I see a little old structure like that,

I think there was some smart old guy that used to camp down here

'cause there was everything you needed.

That's a nice-looking spot here, maybe.

All right, Tobias. Hold up, Tobias, come on. (WHISTLES)

Tobias, up. Good boy.

The beavers have really been at work here, you know,

and you can tell that this is some nice old seasoned wood.

This is exactly what I'm looking for, for smoking my fish.

Looks like some good wood in here.

Nice spot to spend the day, de-barking and getting these ready.

GLENN VILLENEUVE: What a place this is.

This is my favourite place in the whole world.

Getting packed up for a little overnight trip.

Several years ago, down in Fairbanks,

I met a man who used to trap up in this country.

And at that time, he was living in a little cabin

that's several miles from here.

When he left the last time, he told me that he didn't know

he wasn't gonna ever come back.

And he left a lot of things there.

I'm going down there today, take a look around.

See what I can find.

If there's anything there I can salvage, I'll bring it back with me.

It's been 30 years since anybody was down there that I know of,

so, there's a good chance that stuff got strewn around on the ground

that would have been buried in snow, in the wintertime.

Now the snow's melted, I can go down there, take a look around.

Who knows what I might find?

Long way to go.

The trick is gonna be finding the cabin.

It's a long ways from here and when I get down there,

I'm gonna have to look around,

figure out exactly where the place is.

I don't have a map of the area, I don't have a compass.

I just go by the sun and the landmarks,

I'm familiar with the mountains, the rivers.

And just looking at the sky.

That's how I find my way around out here.

There are no trails out here other than the ones the animals make.

Sometimes you can follow a game trail for a little while,

and then it peters out.

This here is where a bear's been digging up roots to eat.

Looks like he's just been through here this spring.

They like to eat roots.

Certain plants.

They store their nutrients in the roots in the fall,

and they're still nutritious in the springtime.

So when the bears come out of hibernation,

that's one of the first things they do

is they start digging up roots and eating 'em.

That's why this time of year, even when I'm not planning on hunting any big game,

I carry my rifle with me just in case.

You never know when you might run into a grizzly out here.

The sun looks like it's about as high as it's gonna get.

It's midday now.

One of the biggest obstacles to overcome,

getting my stuff out here, is the transportation.

If there's stuff that's already out here on the ground,

that I can make use of,

well, I won't have to fly those things out myself.

Gonna start looking for signs that somebody's been in the area.

Where people cut firewood, that shows up for a long time.

So if I see any stumps,

I'm likely close to the cabin.

Up ahead here, looks like there's a lake.

The trapper, whose cabin I'm looking for,

he had a cache on a lake,

maybe a half-mile or a mile from his cabin.

This could be the lake, I don't know.

Look at this.

Stumps.

Somebody cut this tree with an axe.

Looks like it could be about 30 years old.

More stumps.

Here, look at this, that's the cache right there.

(SNIFFS) That's the cache he told me about.

Oh, yeah, this is the place.

This is definitely a cache,

roughly 30 years old or so.

It used to stand up on top of poles,

there's just one left standing here.

These metal cans, they're to stop animals from climbing up the pole.

There's an axe stuck in the tree over here.

And a whole bunch of traps hanging up from this pole.

It's gonna take some restoration,

but that's a little Hudson Bay axe.

It's really lightweight, I don't have one like that.

Probably weighs about a pound and three-quarters, the head.

Really useful for just carrying when you're travelling light.

I'll take that.

Bunch of traps here.

But I'm not so much interested in these leg-hold traps

and they're a lot of weight to carry back,

but it's good to know where they are.

I might come back in the wintertime

when I could drag 'em on a sled.

It's really interesting, the stuff you find like this

has been sitting around here for decades.

This is a piece of aluminium that was used in printing a newspaper

at the time that this place was built here.

July 24th, 1982.

I was 13 years old.

Time's taken its toll on this cache.

Most of this stuff here is really beyond use now.

I got this one axe out of it.

This will be useful to me.

Most importantly, now that I know where the cache is,

I ought to be able to find the cabin.

Because the cabin's within a mile of here.

I bet you the cabin's just up ahead.

CHIP: When you're familiar with a place,

and you know where the resources are, it's an easier life.

We want all of these poles to go over there, girls.

Pretty sure you know how to build one of these.

It's the same thing I've been doing for years, and years, and years.

NARRATOR: After the Hailstones recently harvested a caribou in camp,

building a rack is essential to preserving the meat

and the rest of their summer food supply.

CHIP: Well, I'm gonna make a meat rack. An Inisuk.

And my wife wants a meat rack built, and she'll use it for fish.

She'll use it for seal. She'll use it for caribou.

While Chip works on the meat rack,

I'm going to be with some of the girls

just butchering and skinning, and butchering this caribou,

and reducing this one, and then taking the other one, and doing the same thing.

CHIP: I'm gonna make a couple of tripods.

And I'm gonna put a top piece, and I'm gonna put side pieces.

And then we'll go from there.

We've had a lot of rains already today,

and what we don't need is wet meat.

When you get water on the meat,

it makes a real slick taste to it, a real...

It's just not good.

I'll stand it up.

Now you got to get 'em to go like this, dear.

Mmm, maybe a little more.

So far I got a couple tripods up with my daughter Mary, here.

We got up a top piece.

Nice smoothed-off piece that we use for the tarp.

(SPEAKING)

(AGNES SPEAKING)

CHIP: I just got to keep hustling along,

and this should be done fairly quickly.

Want to go grab a tarp, want to go grab a little bit more rope

for tying things on.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

AGNES: When we're in this area, and my girls are around me,

I always try to teach 'em and tell 'em why we do this,

why we're gonna do this, how we're gonna do this.

I'm not quite sure what the English word is,

but it's... (SPEAKS IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

It's our responsibility

to our tribe, our culture and our peoples.

So I try to live that lifestyle.

And I try to let my daughters understand what my lifestyle is

so they can, say, you know, have a choice.

"I like my mom's lifestyle, maybe I'll just, you know, follow hers."

CHIP: Well, I'm gonna put the roof over top.

Gonna spread a tarp over this.

I'm gonna make it nice and tight.

And I'm gonna hopefully get it to lay over top of this, right here.

(MARY SPEAKING)

(CHIP SPEAKING)

(MARY SPEAKING)

CHIP: Like that.

This Inisuk is made from the same poles I had from last year.

I don't cut any of 'em up, I know exactly how many I need,

and I have one to spare.

So... (CHUCKLES) She's back again.

That's my Inisuk,

and now we're a full-fledged camp.

We're here, we're ready to make meat.

And that's how we're gonna do it.

JESSIE: Everything I'm doing during the summer

is to like think about how I'm gonna be able to mush dogs all winter.

Well I'm looking for something not too big,

that's not gonna kill me to carry to the boat.

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

Jessie must harvest materials for a smokehouse

to store and preserve his catch.

But with the chum salmon run on the way,

time is crucial.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

JESSIE: I really enjoy working by myself, to be honest.

I'm a very social person, but when I'm working,

feel like I do my best work alone.

That way I can just enjoy my time.

Gotta keep in mind, with these heavy logs

that I don't drop it hard on my boat.

My boat isn't as new.

Be really easy to puncture a hole in it.

Phew.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

This is the spot where I'm gonna build my fish camp.

And it's kind of an ideal location for me,

because my house is only about five miles from here.

Work on taking the bark off of these

so they can sit out here and bake and kinda dry and not be so slippery.

I got a log spud, that I use.

Hopefully, these aren't too dried on.

What you do is you get a strip started going off of these,

with the drill knife or the spud.

Thing about logs, a lot of times, each one's different.

Some of 'em will peel good.

I am a little bit late doing some of this stuff,

so it's not quite the ideal time of the season.

This one's peeling pretty good.

Ha, off she comes.

I like this spot because it's nice and secluded from too much sand and wind.

I really just like the view, and I like to have this island for my dogs to run around on.

It's gonna be something that's gonna last for years to come.

All right. Now I have all my material here.

I'm gonna clear out some brush, to open this up,

so I won't be tripping and falling over it,

and right here is where I'm gonna put my smokehouse,

so I need to clear this brush outta here.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

I try to not think about how many fish are going by in the river right now,

that I'm missing out on, because I really need to put 'em up,

and, you know, I gotta get this done.

Been a lot of work already.

I'm just getting started.

Fuck!

Oh, my chain came off.

Sometimes, you know, your chain comes off.

It's the kind of things you have to deal with out here.

You gotta have all your tools so you can fix it.

You know, I'm just doing what I got to do right now, to get by,

but as things get better, and I get better at doing this,

you know, like, I'd have a nicer chainsaw.

I'd even have a sawmill.

But, right now, I got the simple tools that are effective

and, you know, some people spend a lot of money on tools.

But I got this chainsaw for 50 bucks.

(SPEAKING)

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

When I'm doing all this hard work,

I just try to think about all my big goals.

And that doing this work helps me get to that.

Now on the last post.

Yeah, so, now I'm onto my next stage,

and now, I'm just gonna start tying it all together

with the planking.

The planking for the sides of my smokehouse, it'll nail into my post.

Come from a sawmill my friends own.

Just bartered for it with them.

I've never really done this before,

so I'm kind of just doing it as I go.

Trying to make it as functionable as possible.

I can taste that fish.

Oh, that's the reward to all this hard work.

SUE: For the business of Kavik,

safety, security, fuel, rooms, and fun.

I got the generator going,

and testing to make sure I've got power to places I need it.

The biggest, most important thing for me, right now to check,

is going into the dining hall, or what will be the dining hall again.

And checking for my air-to-ground.

The radio.

And I just clip-clip, knock it a few times,

and the white light comes on and we're all good.

All right, so I can see right now I've got power in here.

This is the heartbeat of the generator.

It's telling me how it's running.

This part is running.

There you go.

If I have to call for help, I mean smoke signals aren't gonna get me real far.

Erm, there is no standard telephone you can pick up.

I can't use my cell phone and get a signal.

It's air-to-ground radios.

So this is Sue at Kavik River Camp,

122.9 on the eastern half of the North Slope.

Just letting you know that I've got the generator running,

and I'm open for business again.

Yee-haw. Good to be back, guys.

Done.

GLENN: I live simple and I live close to nature.

I love nature. I love the wilderness.

That's why I live in Alaska.

NARRATOR: After hearing of an abandoned trapping cabin near his camp,

Glenn has hiked into the rugged terrain of the Brooks Range

to gather any supplies that were left behind.

Look at this.

I found the creek.

This is the creek he was talking about.

Right here, just how he described it.

Isn't that a beautiful creek?

He said the cabin was right down on this bank of the creek,

with the mountains out in front.

Another tree, somebody cut this with an axe.

It could have been this very axe that I found at the cache.

This tree right here, could have been used building the cabin.

There it is.

There it is, I can see it through the trees.

Look at that. It's still standing.

A lot of times, a 40-year-old cabin might not still be standing.

It might have rotted and fallen down by now.

There's the old woodpile.

Somebody left without realising they weren't coming back.

They cut all that wood for nothing.

Bow saw.

Oh, beautiful. Thirty-six-inch bow saw.

That's something I could use. Just as a spare.

Takes the same length blades as my bow saw.

Blade's no good, it's all rusted up.

But I've got blades.

That one's a classic.

It's got some history behind it.

I wonder how many cords of firewood would cut with this saw.

Hey, look there.

Binoculars.

Looks like a bear bit into 'em.

Wonder if they still work.

Piece of junk.

Bunch of bear hair here.

It looks like a grizzly bear was rubbing up against this tree.

And that's how a lot of this stuff gets strewn around.

Bears come along when there's an old place like this,

and they just help themselves to it.

Go inside, look around, throw stuff around.

They're very destructive.

Can see where a bear's been on this tree.

Bear probably threw most of this stuff out in the yard.

Gonna look around some more.

Couple of cast-iron frying pans.

This would need a little restoration, that's for sure.

There's a lot of history behind this place.

This cabin was originally built about 40 years ago.

It's been out here a long time.

Let's look inside.

There's the old door.

Hey!

Roof's all fallen in on this side.

The beam that supported the roof,

it rotted and cracked right here.

It's like an archaeological dig in here.

Check this out.

I've never had a radio up here.

FM, AM, weather, air, police.

Chilli powder. But it's 'empty.

Look at this. Can you believe it?

Un-waxed, yeah not my type.

A file.

A little rusty, but that'll still cut steel.

I can use that to sharpen that axe.

Hey, what's this?

Little hatchet.

Let's see what's in here.

It's heavy.

It's definitely got something in it.

(GASPS) Look at this. Ammunition.

375 Winchester.

30-06! That's what I shoot.

$12.60 a box.

I pay over $40 a box now for ammo for my 30-06.

Full box. Brand new. Never used.

That's gonna be perfect.

Ammunition's getting hard to come by these days.

This is a find.

This is definitely worth taking, this ammo here.

Found all this ammo.

Some of it's for the same gun I shoot.

This is great.

Look at all this firewood he cut

and never got to burn.

Sat here for three decades.

A little bit of it is gonna get used tonight.

Got myself a new axe.

Resurrected after three decades of disuse.

A file.

Spare bow-saw handle.

Couple hundred bucks worth of ammunition.

And had a really good time coming down and exploring this old cabin here.

It's just fascinating to me to look at an old place like this

and think about the things that happened here.

Think about how somebody lived down here,

spent a whole winter out here.

They lived in the same area where I live in the Brooks Range,

and they lived a similar lifestyle.

It was a long day walking down here looking around.

I'm gonna eat a little dried caribou meat for dinner,

lay down right here, spend the night,

and head back up to my camp in the morning.

CHIP: So there's a lot of resources here.

And I can make a good living and I always have made a good living here.

We busted our butt yesterday getting this meat dried up and the rack put up.

They've busted their butts cleaning up camp, putting everything away.

We got firewood, and gonna go take the kids out for a little pleasure cruise.

We're heading downriver.

We see most of the birds in the flats here are settled down

so they must be nesting.

There's hardly any of 'em flying.

Erm, it's a good indication that it's nesting time,

so, the least we could do is get a hold of some really good eggs for now.

And we could get a few dozen of 'em,

we could put 'em away and they're very large.

We're pretty happy to have any eggs we get a hold of.

AGNES: Okay.

CHIP: Go ahead, ladies.

IRITAQ: Oh, nice and warm.

CHIP: Listen, ladies, I'm gonna let you walk this island.

I'm gonna go to the far side of the island with the boat and watch the boat, okay?

Jump this creek.

Right now we're looking for some, eggs.

And if we probably go closest to the point

towards those dried grasses we might find some.

When we just go around the whole area we look for raised-up grasses,

or little dry patches where there's a few feathers here and there.

That'll lead you towards, towards eggs.

Oh, yeah.

-One. -IDI: Want to put them in here?

-Oh, yeah. -Three.

Four, five, six.

It's real flat, so it's easy for us to separate.

We can actually see there's no bears or wolves or anything else here.

It's all right for everybody to just go on ahead and run their separate ways

without any firearm, or real danger around.

We're just gonna keep walking around the area,

keep looking up, looking out and just have a good day.

(QUTAN SPEAKING)

Geese eggs. Five geese eggs.

Or six.

Oh! We found one.

Yeah, those are seagull eggs.

TINMIAQ: It's a wild goose chase.

The goose looking for the goose nest.

My name means "goose".

I was born the day when the geese come, so my name means "goose".

Oh, you got a nest, look there's a nest right here too.

I didn't know there was one right there.

CHIP: Looks like my kids are doing really well.

And this'll be the first day.

We'll do this a time or two again and call it good.

Found goose eggs.

What you find, princess?

Oh, lots of 'em.

-Eleven. -Two, four, six, eight, ten, eleven.

-Wow. -Six seagulls and five geese.

(CHIP SPEAKING)

Man, that's looking good.

Everybody back in the boat and let's go to the next island.

(AGNES SPEAKING)

JESSIE: For this hard work, you get a lot from it.

(HAMMERING)

I like working on this side of the smokehouse,

I'm starting to get a little relief from the sun.

NARRATOR: For Jessie, building a smokehouse is key to storing the fish

that will feed himself and his sled dogs.

But with fish already in the river,

there is little time to waste.

Shit.

JESSIE: My short-term goals and my long-term goals

are basically wrapped around the same thing right now.

Acquire some more top dogs,

keep my breeding programme going.

Keep my resources and my fish coming in.

And spend more time at home with my dogs,

so, living on the river is the perfect lifestyle for that.

(HAMMERING)

I've got enough of these on to get some structure

to where I can get up higher now and get my ladder on it.

And then I'm gonna run my crosspieces across,

which I'll put my roofing poles on.

(GRUNTS)

(EXCLAIMS)

Damn. (PANTING)

(SPEAKING)

This next piece is probably my heaviest piece that I have to get up high.

I don't have the wall to use the ladder on like I did before, so...

I'm just gonna have to muscle this thing up here.

And so this is kind of a significant point for me,

because best-case scenario is, it's not a problem at all.

Worst-case is it comes tumbling down,

and I have to figure it out again.

Or, you know, hopefully, I don't fall off the ladder with this on top of me.

(GRUNTING) So what I'll do, try to get this here.

(GRUNTS)

(EXHALES SHARPLY)

(BREATHING HEAVILY)

(WOOD CREAKING)

Whoa.

(CLICKS TONGUE)

(SIGHS)

Well, damn it.

Got to fix that.

Try this again here.

(GRUNTING)

(EXHALES)

These are only nailed in, you know,

to not withstand weight...

Just kind of try to teeter it up on this and hope it'll stay.

But...

Isn't the safest thing in the world to be doing.

Like that. (SIGHS)

It's a lot more difficult than I would ever imagine, to live out here on the land.

The rugged lifestyle, the challenge.

I love all that, you know?

Yeah.

You gotta be tough. You gotta be mentally tough.

It's more than that, too.

You have to like, be very intelligent about how you plan things and organise.

I'm gonna put a tarp up on the top for a roof.

It'll shed water nice through this nice slope.

And then I'm gonna be able to go get my dogs, and finish setting up camp

and get some rest.

SUE: Figure out who you want to be,

how you want to be, and then live it.

And live it honestly.

Anything I'm gonna keep in here,

I'll just move over into that corner.

'Cause everything has to leave.

Time to change from winter living quarters back to summer dining hall.

I've got people dropping out of the sky any minute,

and I'm nowhere near ready to be in business.

This is how I keep the dining hall.

Normally, has tables. It's a dining hall.

You come in, you sit down, I feed you food.

But right now, during the winter,

I take all of that out, I put four beds in here.

If I pull out all the bells and whistles,

I can house 83 at maximum in Kavik.

Can't imagine wanting to. But I have done it.

Thirty-three is what I have it set up for right now.

Phew... (SPEAKING)

You know the accident, cost me my health.

Somewhat of my sanity.

Could in the end cost me Kavik.

I've lost over 300,000 in potential revenue.

That's how much money did not come in, because I wasn't here.

I'm just getting through it.

What I can't do, I can't lift any of these.

What I'm actually doing is just doing it anyways.

There's nobody here to help me.

And that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Have I gotten down on myself a few times?

Yeah. This is shaky ground for me.

This is a very physically demanding place.

Winter is brutally hard here.

If I can't make it in the summer,

I sure as shit can't make it in the winter.

I should be able to come in here and knock this shit out.

But the body simply is starting to tell me that you know,

I can't do everything on my own.

I hear the plane is coming in, and he's gonna need fuel.

This is Susan to Kavik, how's it going?

DIRK: Good, we'll be there, just a couple minutes.

All righty, I have not had a chance to work on the runway,

so er, take a low, slow flyover.

You've got... It's a bumpy ride

and taxiway alpha is a little bit un-groomed.

(DIRK SPEAKING)

SUE: All righty, see you soon, fly safe.

I was in the middle of trying to change the winter-style dining hall

into the summer-functional dining hall

when my buddy Dirk landed and needed fuel,

so, that's my first legitimate Sue's-on-camp fuel sale.

And he's just gonna get some hundred low-lead.

It's back to business. That's what it should be.

Business, business, business.

The business of keeping people safe.

The business of giving 'em food.

The business of being in business.

Hopefully, when you come back the next time,

I will have running water, showers, baked goods, sandwiches.

I had a lot of cancellations.

People heard that I got hurt,

and when I couldn't answer rapidly,

you know how people are.

If you hear of anybody that needs a place to be...

I keep it tiny numbers, I don't overcrowd.

Keeping it six to ten people a week.

Now do you want to deal with this today?

(DIRK SPEAKING)

-You want a card or do you... -(DIRK SPEAKING)

A cheque is fine.

I started out 300 in lost revenue, 300,000.

That's a $500 sale,

so now I'm 299,500 in the hole.

I'm coming up.

Every little bit's a little bit closer to being solvent.

We can do the best that we can do.

And then you just gotta go kick ass.

CHIP: We're all happy to be here.

I'm certain of that.

(DOGS BARKING)

AGNES: Careful. CHIP: I'm tired, I'm wet, I'm, hungry.

Careful with those eggs. Boy, we have lots of eggs!

We're gonna just eat by the grass, yeah?

CHIP: Yeah, we'll go sort 'em out over there.

So we'll store 'em for now.

MARY: I found a couple small ones.

CHIP: Two-hundred fifty-five.

AGNES: Two-hundred fifty-six.

CHIP AND AGNES: Two-hundred fifty-seven.

CHIP: Two-hundred fifty-seven. AGNES: Two-hundred fifty-seven eggs.

-Look at these ones. -Yeah.

-Big as my hand. -Whoo!

We did real good for the first day.

What we're gonna do is we're cleaning 'em off,

we're getting all the bird crap off of them.

All of the eggs that sink are perfect egg.

All the ones that float aren't,

are going to have little bit of bird in it.

CHIP: We busted butt getting the caribou chopped up and putting up a meat rack

and then we busted butt to get out there and get them eggs.

Erm, you ladies want to go over the rack

and grab some of that dried caribou, or half-dried caribou?

We need a little more water, ladies.

(TING SPEAKING)

CHIP: Yeah. It's never hard work, if it's hard fun.

AGNES: Right on. The eggs are almost done.

Yay, let's see.

Wait, wait, wait.

Pass me one, Dad.

QUTAN: Me and Mary had fun learning too.

CHIP: Every single one of my kids has taken part in gathering food here.

And to me, that's all just really satisfying family work.

You get to work together, we get to have a good time,

and the best friends you usually have are the ones you work with.

I like my kids, and I like being around 'em.

This is like the ultimate picnic, huh?

We're here at home, we got fresh eggs,

dried caribou, good old Kiwalik River behind us.

This is awesome.

JESSIE: Ever since I come to Nenana, everything's gotten better.

(DOG BARKS)

Hey, North.

Ready to go to camp, North? Yeah.

I'm so stoked. This has been a long day.

I just want to get these dogs in this boat,

and get 'em down there, get 'em settled

so I can get some rest and start fishing tomorrow.

What are you doing, Rowdy Smalls?

Just getting the last couple of my pups here.

These dogs are about eight months old.

Gonna take 'em down to camp with me.

Way I can work on training 'em, letting 'em run around loose,

and just develop a bond with me.

Pup, pup, pup, pup, pup, pups!

Tobias, Tobias!

Come on, all right, all right, all right! (CLICKS TONGUE)

Let's go!

These are some of my best up-and-coming dogs,

so I really need to spend a lot of time working with 'em.

Whoo! Yeah, buddies. Let's go for a boat ride.

Biggest thing is gonna be teaching these dogs how to ride in this boat.

Come here.

That's... You'll have to be seeing how that'll go.

Come on.

(LAUGHS)

Polar.

Polar.

I wouldn't want to be out there without dogs.

-(DOGS GROWLING) -All right.

No fighting.

I like to have a dog with me wherever I go.

Take these guys out here is what it's all about.

Bring up the next generation.

And that's how you load a bunch of crazy young dogs into a boat.

-We're ready to go to camp now. -(DOGS WHINING)

Probably be camped out down there for the next few weeks.

My goal is to be there as long as it takes to put up the fish that I need

and use this resource to the best of my advantage.

Come on, Rodney.

Ha-ha.

Amazing thing about those pups,

they've never done any of this before, yet, so they take to it right away.

I raise all my dogs loose, till they're five months old, just running around in a pack.

(ALL BARKING)

Dogs need exercise, good food, and it's amazing what you'll get out of 'em.

Sometimes life is fun, sometimes life is work.

When I'm out in a place like this, doing things like this,

you know, it's hard to not think about how lucky I am

to have found a lifestyle like this.

It's just a real blessing to end up here.