All language subtitles for 2019. THIS MOUNTAIN LIFE

[music]

[Simon]
I've never used GPS,
I use my orientating skills.

I've always enjoyed
walking in the mountains,

the swish-swish sound
of the lovely powdery stuff

that is fluffy and woozy
and just nice and pleasant
to walk through.

Okay, nine.

18

[Simon] The first hour or two
is to be careful measuring,
padding along and plotting.

25.

[Simon] Drawing up the line, this is somewhat careful process

because it's so easy
to make a mistake.

OK.

[Simon] It takes about 12 hours.

This is it.

[humming]

[Simon] The idea normally
is to try and get it done
in one session.

So it's just about the same
as running marathon,
I would think.

Of course, it depends
how fast you run the marathon.

At an age where most people
are thinking of retiring,

I feel I'm just starting.

I think my life has been largely
wasted, trying to do the wrong
thing, trying to be good

at the wrong things
and trying to be good at too
many things when I was young.

When I did my first drawing,
I was very, very surprised,
such a simple process.

Just walking around at
the snow could produce
such an impressive result.

[instrumental music]

The plan is to traverse
the coast mountains
of British Columbia in Alaska.

Just myself and my mom.

It would be nice
to do it in five months.
I think it will take six months.

But we figure we actually
will have to cover terrain
about 2,300 kilometers.

There will be ski traversing
the coastal mountains.

I'm so honored that
she wants to do it with me.

She called me and she says,
"Oh, I've been thinking,

I just came up with this idea.

I don't know if you think you,
you would do it with me."

She was very careful about how--

It didn't pop out right away.

And then she says,

"Uh, would you do
the coastal traverse with me?"

And silence,
and I was like, "Yes!"

It's like, "Yeah, that'll
be so cool. I'll be 60.

Yeah, let's do it.
That'll be my birthday present."

[Martina]
My mom is super hardcore,
but she's also very humble.

I think she's aware
of her capabilities
and her limitations and...

She doesn't really care
what people think of her,
I guess, in a way.

She'll be the first
to talk about her fears
of water and heights.

I'm afraid of being
submerged in water.

I do not like that.

My head under water
is not acceptable.

Do not use in high winds,
rapid currents
or dangerous tides.

Follow these safety rules
to avoid drowning.

For the big rivers,
we will be using just
the little children's raft.

We will use
avalanche shovel for paddles.

Those will be big rivers.
They'll be cold.

I'm not headlessly going.
I will make sure we're crossing

somewhere where it's
as safe as possible.

[peaceful music]

[Martina] She's been dehydrating
and planning out six
months' worth of food.

[Tania] We need at least
5,500 calories a day.

Protein and fat has
to be a big part of it.

For me, it's hard enough
to just plan out what I'm
going to have for dinner,

but to plan out 180
dinners and lunches

and breakfasts and snacks,
it's huge.

[Tania] Um-hum, those are,
I did those last year.

I didn't catch them this year.

I started dehydrating the food

about a year ago, in September.

This is probably one-third
of the pile for the six months.

I don't have a lot of money,
right?

I have time.

We have to carry
everything that we need with us.

We're going to try and get
resupplies every 5 to 10 days.

So, that means that we have to
carry all of our food in between
that, stove, fuel, clothes,

glacier gear, because there's
going to be crevasses.
We need to be prepared for that.

We will be sleeping in
a two-person, one wall tent,

and we will have
down sleeping bags.

All right, let's see.

-There are two mamas in there.
-Yeah.

Yeah. There'll be a lot of room
for my thermos and hot water
and a lot of bottles in there.

[Tania] First two months will be
a bit difficult with hygiene.

You know, do you really
want to wash your underwear
in a cold creek in February?

I'm thinking probably not, so...

With our food drops,
we might have a spare pair
of socks and underwear

and base layer because
it might be crusty

by the time
we get to that foot drop.

[Tania]
The thing I will be missing
the most when I'm out there

will be my little avalanche dog.

His name is Summit.

And, uh...
I've been training dogs for the last probably 15 years.

So, he's my third dog.

He's the best,

and I will miss him a lot.

[instrumental music]

[Tania] It's probably
a hiking trail.

[Martina] So there's this way,
I just...

[Tania] It started snowing,
and hopefully it will snow a lot

before we start and not too much
while we are out there.

But this winter is supposed
to be pretty stormy.

When I'm on a climb,
colors become more vibrant.

My hearing becomes more acute.

[instrumental music]

I just sense the structure
of the ice and the snow.

I like to think of the analogy.

See a wolf loping
through the forest.

You know that that wolf is
aware of everything around them.

You get into that awareness.

You're drawn absolutely
into the present.

We spend a lot of our time
so removed from our body

and every thing
that it can provide,

and it's nice to be
the wolf for a bit.

[grunting]

[panting and puffing]

[Barry] I think I was called
to mountain climbing,

just looking to the western
horizon growing up

in Calgary and seeing
the mountains on the horizon.

I was riding
a Greyhound bus back
from visiting my grandmother

to getting picked up by mom.

I was nine years old.

There was a girl
on the bus who was in her 20s.

She took time to read me
passages and show me pictures

of one of the really great
classic books on alpinism

called The White Spider.

Four guys coming together
on the north face of the Eiger

and bonding in partnership.

Using the rope to get up
a wall that no one else
had climbed to that point.

Here was pictures
of men doing their best
and trying to help each other

to get up this wall.

You know, Casperic,
spending the night
in an uncomfortable position

supporting Vorg's back
so Vorg could get sleep.

I just hadn't seen
that much sacrifice and support

in most of the males
that were in my life.

And here were some guys
doing heroic things.

And that resonated
in my bloodstream.

All boys wanna be heroes.

Here were men being heroes.

I was like,
"Okay. This is something that
I wanna experience in my life.

I wanna be a mountain climber."
Even though,

I didn't know much more
about it at that time
and just to say the word

I really didn't know what was
involved in being a mountain
climber.

But I started paying attention
to it and seeking it out.

[Barry] My family is Metis.
We're half Indian
and half Scots and French.

I've experienced
prejudice in my life
because of my heritage.

You know, I'm a brown-eyed,
brown-skinned, chug,
native neechee.

The young guy
kind of labored under that.

Trying to be
good enough in the white world.

It's interesting
about climbing culture,
it's largely tribal.

That sense of tribe,
which isn't really super
strong in Metis culture,

because our religion
is Roman Catholicism,

but the sense of tribe
is really powerful

experiencing it
in the climbing community.

[Barry] I don't wanna call
mountains an addiction.

I think I'd rather
call them a return.

I don't know.
A well spring or a fountainhead.

[breathing heavily]

[Barry] A mountain will lift you
physically, intellectually
and spiritually.

The moments of awe,
and I'll even use
the word grace,

that you can
experience up there.

They sooth your soul,
they rock your soul.

A lot of people refer
their mountaineering
as going to church.

I'm not interested in dying.

I'm up there,
because I wanna live.

I personally think
that the human body was
designed to be used really hard

for two or three days
at a time maybe,
maybe as much as a week,

and then to be rested.
I think we're built for it.

[exhaling]

Looking at my buddies
that I climb with,
I see some of them

come up with things that
they wouldn't be able to do

at sea level.
They become heroes.

And, I don't think
I'll ever fatigue

of seeing human beings
accomplish the heroic.

I think that's really beautiful.

[calm music]

It's actually not that bad,
even with everything in it.

[Martina]
There's no way that we can do
this trip, and not change.

You know, it'll change
who we are as people.

And I think it'll
change us for the better.

I'm excited to see what I learn
about myself, and what we learn
about each other.

And then excited
to do this trip with my mom.

[indistinct talking]

[Tania] No more logistics,
no more planning.

All I have to do is
walk and ski.

[calm music]

We believe that we can
pull it off,

but there are so many unknowns.

So many things can go wrong.

[rousing music]

Facing a whole winter
out there 24/7,

through all the storms.

So much of it
is out of our control.

[wind blowing]

[Martina] What happened
to the last of our water?

And we should use it
before it freezes.

[guitar music]

[Tania] We are trying to have as many food drops as possible,

hopefully once a week.

I am sure that
we will maybe lose one drop.

That's my fear.

That we'll be short on food.

[Tania] You should eat.
It's getting cold fast.

-[Martina] Mm-mm.
-Yummy goopy.

Mind you, everything tastes
yummy when you're out here.

[Martina] I know for sure
that there's risks out there.

I've been on search-and-rescue
for a number of years.

I've dug out bodies
from avalanches.

My good friend, Todd Weselake,
was caught in an avalanche.

He was buried two meters deep.

[Janina]
The day of the avalanche,

we got the phone call
from Todd saying,

"Let's go out to Mount Proctor.

I was out there two days ago,
the conditions were great."

In the morning, myself, Todd,
Janina headed out to
Cold Feet Bowl.

Snow built in, put on our
climbing skins and started
heading up the ridge.

[Janina]
We're heading out with Todd.
He's one of our friends.

He's a photographer
and we worked
with him quite a bit,

Ian and I, so we were like,
"Let's go out and take
some epic photos."

It was going to be a powder day.

[peaceful music]

We skinned up the ridge
to the top and we thought,

"Alright, this is a place
where we're going to go.
Let's get some photos."

[camera shutter]

The last photos Todd took,
I ended up skiing by him.

[Janina] Ian was in front
and he cut across.

And I created a small avalanche
and alerted the group.

We needed to get off its face.
We weren't really
expecting that.

We went into larger trees
where we thought it would be
more supported.

Todd went first.

[Ian] And then there was
a settlement.

It's when a weak layer
in the snowpack fails

and you're actually dropping
and you can feel it collapse.

Suddenly I just was on my side
holding on to the tree

and I looked down
at Ian and there was
this huge wave of snow.

It seemed to me like,
"My, what a huge wave."
And I was just like [gasps].

[Ian] Waves of snow
underneath me pulling up
the tales of my skies.

I thought they were
gonna wrap my skies off.

I heard Todd just
one scream and then it stopped
and everything went silent.

"Ian, Ian, Todd's been
caught in an avalanche,
he's, he's caught."

And I remember Ian
just freaking out going, "No,
no, no he's right below me."

"No, he's caught
in the avalanche."

My first thought
was that we need
to switch our beacons

to search mode and go find him.

You know,
we've trained for this,

which is crazy because we just
did an avalanche course
literally a week before.

Janina was
ahead of me with the beacon,

and as soon as she received
a signal, and she started
counting down numbers.

[Janina] I had
my transceiver out looking.
[device beeping]

The lowest signal I got
on my beacon was 4.7 meters.

Oh, my gosh, he's buried deep.

[Ian] We didn't have
a lot of time at all.

And, um, yeah...

The first two probes I did,

I was actually
in the wrong spot.

And Ian was like, "Janina,
we need to step a meter over,

I'm getting a lower reading.
Fuck, we've just wasted time."

Then I, I took one step
and I got a reading
of 4.2 meters.

Okay, this is actually
a low reading.

Started probing again.
I did one in.

Nothing. Out. Probed again.

Clunk, and it was just like...

Janina struck him
on the second probe strike.

"Ian, I have him."

"You f##ing better have him.
Check again."

I was like,
"Whoa, again, clunk."

[Ian] She was certain
that it was in fact Todd.

I remember him saying,
"We are not taking home Todd
dead. We're finding him alive."

We started digging immediately.

[Ian] The digging was crucial.

We knew we had to get to his
head as fast as possible.

I was frantic.

I dug as fast as I could.

We were fairly certain
it was Todd, but I didn't know.

Digging and digging
and digging, trying to get
to the end of this probe.

We could see a silver mark.

Oh my gosh, it's his bindings.

Shit, and we still need to get
to his head.

As we got closer, we,
it was actually his helmet.

Oh my god, it's Todd. Like,
"We've got him. We found him."

We managed to just get all
the snow around his head out,
and he was bright blue.

-He was unconscious.
-Getting snow out of his mouth.

Sticking his fingers
is in his mouth.

He just had snow
everywhere, up his nostrils.

[Ian] And I felt
a very shallow breathing
on the back of my hand.

I've no idea if I'd die
during that time or...

What happened is about 20
minutes of not breathing,

being encased in ice.

I heard them yelling
"Avalanche!"

So, I just grabbed on
to the tree that was
in front of me.

The wind blast from it.

Knocked me on my back.

And I remember the snow slowing
down and I could still see light
and I was Like, "I'm on top."

And at that point, all the snow
that was above me caught up,
and it just hit me like a train.

It really pushed me
into the snow.

And I just remember the feeling
of just getting pushed deeper

and deeper and deeper.

And then it stopped.

Dead quiet and black.

[silence]

[Todd]
I couldn't move my fingers,
I couldn't even expand my lungs.

[muffled voice]

A minute of panic.

[muffled voice]

I'm way too deep.
There's no way that they'll
ever find me here.

I'm dead.

That's when I passed out.

After they got to me,

when I regained consciousness,

it was like coming out
of the best dreams
that you've ever had

when you're in the deepest sleep
and then all of the sudden,

someone comes over
and shakes you hard.

And I just remember thinking,
"No, I just wanna keep sleeping.

Why are you waking
me up from this."

It's just the most calming,
peaceful sleep.

It was like a utopia.

He had his camera on his chest.

And a puffy coat on,
and I remember pulling
the camera off

and just seeing his puffer
start to expand again.

I guess he was just
so compressed in there
that his lungs had no air

and you could see his lungs
start to breathe.

He came to
and he was just screaming,

"My toes, I can't feel my toes".

And we're like, "Who cares
about your toes, you're alive."

Then he told us to take
pictures.

Take photos.

And he was,
"Take photos, take photos."
And we're like...

"Todd, chill out.
We're taking photos.
We're getting you out first."

I knew that I damaged my back,
I could feel the pain
in my lower body.

At that point,
as I was waking up, I puked,
I shit myself, I pissed myself.

Everything had left his system,
he was this close
and he just kept going,

"I pooed my pants."
"We don't care, like,
you're alive. We got you out."

Just after they finished
getting me out of the hole,

I remember knowing that
the hazard was still very real.

It was getting dark.
If we would've called for help,

there's nothing they could've
done at that time.

[Ian] 30 to 35 minutes
of snowmobiling headed
for a service road,

and then a 20-minute drive
to get Todd to a hospital.

We didn't even get the
snowmobile back on the truck,
we just left it out there.

Jumped in the car and drove
and we were just sitting
in the car going,

"What just happened?"

[Todd]
They laid me down on the bed,

put heated blankets
around me just to get
my core temperature up.

Took some X-rays
and that's when I discovered
that I had compressed my spine.

Based on the depth that I was at
of approximately two meters,

the odds of surviving
something like that
is around 18% or slightly less.

Everything just kind of
lined up perfectly for me
to be able to survive.

The days after the avalanche
when I was at home,

it just wouldn't stop snowing.
It was just the perfect storm.

I was scared to go back out,
but I knew I had to.

If I didn't go back soon,
I might not do it again.

So, I chose to go back to work
four days after it happened.

Getting into the mountain still
and sharing my passion through
photography with people,

if you don't have the same
opportunities to get places,

it means a lot to me.

It might actually have been
this tree.

Janina and I both took
an avalanche course together.

I believe that that information
was invaluable to the success

we had that day,
of getting Todd out safely.

I would not go into
the backcountry now with anyone

that hasn't done
an avalanche course. Ever.

It's not worth
losing a life over.

[Todd] I got my private
pilot license last year.

The feeling of flying
in the mountains is
pretty much unbeatable.

Now, I'm able to go out
and help Martina and Tania,

drop their food
for this trip they're doing.

[ATC over radio] Papa Victor,
we're just 20...

[plane engine]

[ATC over radio] 180?

[Todd over radio]
Yes, let's do that.

[Todd] Some of the drops are
as high as 800 feet.

I hope the boxes hold together.

-[co-pilot] A pass right there.
-[Todd] That there?

[co-pilot] We're outside
the CAP.

[Todd]
It will be fairly closer
to line up there.

[Todd] What they've chosen
to do is further than walking
from Canada to Mexico,

only it's over some
of the most rugged remote
terrain in North America.

-[Todd] Do it right there.
-[co-pilot] OK.

[Todd] Back it over.

[Todd] Five,

four,

three,

two,

Box away.

[Todd] Being out there for six
months in the mountains,

I would not do this trip.

[banging and clunking]

[Martina] It's a munchkin.

[laughs] Look at the munchkin.

-[Martina laughing] Oh, oh.
-[Tania] Oh, my God.

[Marina] Oh, look, he's
holding the avalanche forecast.

[both] Ooh.

-[Tania] Sushi.
-[Martina] Control your tempura.

[laughs]

-[Martina] Yay!
-[Tania] What's oh, that's fuel.

[Martina] That one's fuel.

[Tania] Oh, I was hoping
that was vodka.

[strong wind blowing]

There's some tea
when you're done there.

That's a good 12-hour sleep.

[chuckles]

I could sleep all day,
but I feel better now.

[Martina] Well, I'm not doing
it to impress someone, right?

I'm doing it for the two of us.

[wind blowing]

[Tania] When people ask me,
did you do this trip
or that trip?

I would think,
maybe when I'm old.

Maybe when I'm old
I'll do Churchill River
or when I'm old I'll do...

and then I get this odd looks.

And then I realize, "Oh, they
think I'm old now."

I don't feel old, right?
I feel I can do this.

When I'm old,
that means when I'm not
capable of sleeping...

in winter
somewhere out in a tent.

[relaxing music]

[Tania] I think people make
themselves old way too early.

They accept they're
old because something hurts.

They stop exercising. And I think once you stop exercising, then you're getting old.

You're just going that much
faster to your grave.

So, I'm fighting it.

It doesn't have to be outside,
whatever you like doing.

Just don't think you're too
old to do it because most
of the time you're not.

[wind blowing]

[choral music]

[Sister Marie] Snow scared
me the first year.

And then,
Sister Claire encouraged me
to really push myself

and go and touch it and feel it.

And I did.

It's like flowers.

In the city, there is
all kinds of siren
and this happening and...

But here, the only thing
we hear are the wolves.

Silence is really an endangered
species in the world today.

[choral music]

[Sister Claire] We are not
here to convert people.

They can be of any religious
tradition, but they can
come to experience this.

Our main way of preaching
as Dominican nuns

is not going out to stand
in the middle of the street

or in the church
in the pulpit and preach.

We preach by our way of life.

[Sister Claire]
It's all about centering.

It takes such concentration...

that it centers
your whole being down.

At the still point
of the turning world,

there are the dances.

Where no still point,
there will be no dance.

[calm music]

So I feel like I'm in tune with the whole cosmos actually.

[calm music]

[Sister Claire]
I was born on the prairies,
not in the mountains.

Our house had a hill
and I spend my childhood going
up and down that hill on skis.

My parents were
alpine ski instructors.

We spent a lot of time there
in the mountains and skiing.

By the time I was 14, I was
on the Canadian skiing team

as a junior
cross-country ski racer.

[Sister Claire]
I think the most essential part
of my cross-country skiing

wasn't the competitive aspect.
It was the community
with the other skiers.

It was a highly structured
lifestyle of training
and time of solitude.

It was really formative for me.

[Sister Claire] We weren't
even Catholic, our family.

[religious music]

[Sister Claire] I did have
this interior, kind of secret
spiritual quest

that was awakened
in the outdoors.

It became my center of gravity.

[chorus chant music]

[Sister Claire] The mountains
really have changed my prayer.

In the candle you can see
this changing of light
and then changing of the snow.

You're never tired.

[Sister Marie]
It's just prayer made real.

[Martina] It's become apparent
that it's the coldest winter
in about 20 years.

-So, what's for dinner today?
-Our three course meal and...

[Tania] We just did not expect minus 20 temperatures for weeks in a row.

It has been hard, really hard,

to stay away from hypothermia.

We...

are dealing with it...

but it's making us much slower.

[tranquil music]

[Martina] With the cold come
the consequences of things like our stove breaking, and...

when the stove breaks we can't
make water, we can't cook.

-Have some ice tea.
-Oh, yeah.

All right, tomorrow night,
minus 25. Whoo-hoo!

-What? Again?
-Again, big surprise.

-Winds dying Monday. So,
that's two days from now?

-Yeah.
-Balls.

Mainly sunny,
temperature rising to minus 10.

[Tania]
Yay, it's going to be warm.

[Martina] I wasn't expecting
to have to deal

with so much hazard
every single day.

I knew for sure that it was
going to be a dangerous trip

but a constant assessment
of, "Is this too risky?

Should we try and find
a different way?
Should we back off?

Do we keep going?"

[river flowing]

[Martina] It feels like
we're not getting anywhere.

Mom is literally carrying half
of her body weight out here.

[Tania] Walking through all
there is like going through
a field of angry octopuses.

[Tania] Oh, here we go.

It used to be logging road.
Now it's a creek.

We don't know what to do
so we're climbing a cliff.

I don't hear any swearing yet.

Let it go.

[singing] Oh, see the tee.
Please don't let me
go for a swim.

[Martina] We're moving
in teaspoon distances.

It's making me doubt
our chances of finishing.

[Tania] The Arctic outflow
is coming and it's going
to be really cold again.

I am almost looking
forward to it because this
wetness is my nightmare.

I don't like being wet.

[calming music]

[Martina] We're stuck
on the Goddard Glacier
and we can't find the food.

We've put Bluetooth beacons
in each of the food drops but we can't get a signal here.

Mom just made the last
of the hot chocolate.

We really have pretty
much nothing left now,
just a few crumbs.

We keep having
the same dreams out here.

Dreams about food.

I'll be in a grocery store.

I walk down the aisles
and fill up my cart.

When I go
to check out the food
will suddenly disappear.

I never get to eat the food.

[wind blowing strongly]

We've searched for boxes
and every little rock we found.

[Martina] After two full days of searching we had to give up.

Our next food drop
was about six days away.

So, Todd had to organize
a helicopter to come in.

We were super remote.
It cost about $4,000

to get a few boxes of junk
food flown in at that point.

We got food. A lot of food.

Hmm!

-Hmm! Hmm!
-Oh, hon!

[Martina] Those were the most expensive potato chips, I think, anyone's ever eaten.

Food. Cheese! [laughing]

[Martina]
Mom has gone through so many
difficult things in her life.

These are just little things
and she knows it will pass.

My mom was born
in the Czech Republic in a small town called Teplice.

It was under Russian
occupation and communist rule.

[Tania] I felt like I was
living in a police state.

I did not want to raise kids
in the physical and mental
environment I was living in.

[Martina] You couldn't
leave the Czech Republic

so they had to escape across
the mountains on foot.

They had to leave
everything behind,

all of their possessions
other than

what they could
carry on their backs.

They had homemade down jackets and sleeping bags.

It was early spring so they were forced hauling through snow
and it was wet and cold.

They picked
the worst border crossing.

This narrow canyon with a road
and a river down below.

They had to walk
through the river.
If the border guards

ever just looked down
they would be caught.

My mom is pregnant with my sister. They're soaked.

[Tania] The only dry thing
I had on me was a toque
because I fell in the current.

[Martina] She took off her toque and put it over her belly to try and warm up the belly.

[Tania] Little baby. Stay warm.

We made it to Switzerland.
We lived there
for about four years.

And just the idea that we could be sent back home any time
was not acceptable for me.

We applied for Canada
and Canada accepted us.

When I was like 10 years old
I was reading books
about Canada, and...

It was my dream to see
the nature here

and here I am.

I think my whole life I was just steering towards this place.

[strong wind blowing]

[Tania]
My friends ask me why am I
doing something like this?

Why would I go through
a hardship like this?

I keep telling them,
"Well, you see things...

you normally would not see.
And sometimes you just
pretty much trip over them."

One day, we just...

walked by an ice cave at the bottom of the ice field.

[mystic music]

[Tania]
It was such a magical place.
It was unbelievable.

I've never seen
anything like that.

Ages old ice.

It was so beautiful.

Just like without ugliness,
there would be no beauty,

or without night,
there would be no day,

then without suffering,
there is no joy.

I think the harder
I have to work for something
I want to experience,

something beautiful,
the bigger the joy, or...

I don't know
how to better describe it.

[Tania]
When the helicopter came and,

he, uh, quite blatantly
asked if we wanted
a ride out of there,

Martina stopped in her track,
and I could see she was really
tempted to just take a break.

She just wanted to keep going.

[Tania] I'm really proud of her.

She has never done anything
this hard before.

[Martina] There's definitely
a chance that we'll fail.

We still have months to go.

[Bernhard]
I'm not a city person.

I had to move out
here because the only time

I felt I had my heart
in my chest is when
I was up in the mountains.

I feel at home.

Bernhard is
his German pronunciation.

And bernis bear,
and hardtis heart.

He's bear-hearted.

When Bernhard
walked me around this property

when he proposed that I might
want to live with him,

I knew right then and there
he would never move from here.

You're free
if you follow your heart,
otherwise you're not free.

[Mary]
We're on the north most tip of
the Cascade Mountain Range.

We're at about
a 2400 foot altitude here.

We've lived off the grid
for almost 50 years.

The steepness of these mountains
is really abrupt and severe,

and it takes a lot
of getting used to
and it didn't happen overnight

that I, I felt at home,
shall we say.

[Bernhard] I have no idea which
one is supposed to be clean.

They're all clean now. I know
you don't wash them at all.

They're all clean
but they're all dirty.

Yeah, I know--

[Mary] I came from an area

that was hill-and-dale
and ravines

and I would go home in
a flash if Bernhard would kick

the bucket on me
because, uh, my family is there.

Are you absolutely sure
there is nothing else.

But you and I live
beyond Amanda.

By the time I met him,
he was fresh out of art school.

Once I started touching rock,

it's like, you know,
the first time a duck
becomes aware it floats.

You can't get him
out of the water.
[laughs]

That's what happened to me.
I love working with rock.

[tranquil music]

I can bake eight loaves of bread
in here, large loaves of bread.

This is the
first fort he ever built,

because every boy wants
to build a fort.

And he finally got to
when he was 20-something.

And he's been working
on it ever since.

[Benhard] I just love the idea

of taking
what is wasted otherwise

and make something with it.

[Mary]
He's a pretty versatile guy.

In the winter Bernhard paints.

But for a number of years,
he was mostly doing woodwork
and carving.

[Bernhard] In the winter you
can't go anywhere. There's no
road, no train.

The winter allows me
to take what I've harvested

from my year

and place it
within the concept of my art.

That is something that I credit the mountains for.

I am allowed the time
and the season to grow.

If I didn't allow
and explore in the summer,

what would I paint about
in the winter?

It's what makes
something brilliant.

It's when opposites stand
next to each other as equals.

Life comes from
the yin and the yang.

Heavenly seen. [laughs]

[Mary]
When I met Bernhard he had two
young boys aged three and six.

And their mother lived
in the city but they came
here every other year.

We homeschooled them.
I'd work from dawn 'til
dusk and I'm glad I did

because then now you can
look back on it and think,

"Oh my goodness, I did that."

I'm going to give
the, the peas water

because I didn't do that
earlier.

Um-hum.

[Mary] Bernard and I are
actually better gardening
far from each other

because we don't agree
on how to do it.

I have been in the garden
and been surrounded by bears

and I think they recognize
that, that I'm making my food

and they're eating
their favorite food
so we can co-exist.

When I first started
out here as a younger person

I knew that where
we were living
if there was something

like a stroke or a heart attack
or something really serious

where you cut an artery,
you'd be dead.

There would just
would not be the help
that would be available quickly

and especially
not without a phone.

The older we get, the more,
perhaps, questionable it is.

I don't worry about it.

That's just what you live with.

[Bernhard] It takes me about minimum six hours, eight hours, to get up to my cabin.

I grew long in the tooth,
as they say in horse language.

It's my backyard.

When I first come up here,

I lost my heart here.

[playing harmonica]

I consider myself so fortunate

to have had the
opportunity to live a life

that really extended past
any of my expectations.

I never expected
to outlast my horses.

And now I don't hunt anymore.

I wouldn't be able
to fire a shot at anything.

Only to save maybe
a life not to take one.

Letting a bicycle or motorbike
out into the backcountry

we're saying today is in place,

that's letting
a wolf into a pen.

I let the trails
deteriorate or dead trees into the trail to obliterate it

because where a bicycle goes,

a motorbike will follow.

And where a motorbike
will have been,

snowmobiles will go.

And where snowmobiles will go,

the wolf has
a track to stay aloft

so that the moose
cannot go and hide.

And all of a sudden,

the advantage is
on the side of the wolf.

When I look back on
approximately 50 years

in the mountains here, I...

it brings me to tears.

["The Road Ahead Is Golden"
by Jon and Roy]

[Bernhard] I'm so lucky.
Somebody might say they're lucky when they win the lottery.

Oh. Try this one.[laughs]

I got the best draw of them all.

I'm looking forward to sushi.

[Martina] I can't wait for
the all-you-can-eat sushi.

All-you-can-eat sushi, oh god.

I'll be bursting.
I think they will lose
some money on us.

-Shower, whenever we want to.
-Oh, showers.

-And toilet. Hmm.
-Yeah.

-No more freeze dried food.
-No more. Hm.

Conversations with other people.

You have all that.

[Martina] We've arrived at the Dean River and the water is black and fast and cold.

Mom has stripped down to her ski boots and underwear so she can
keep her other clothes dry.

She's got this. She's got this.

[Tania] Mom, mom!

Come on, mama.

[swearing in Czech]

[Martina] It literally took us
all day to get across.

Dark was setting in
and it was pouring rain.

[mystic music]

[Martina] There she burns.

-The mean Dean river.
-Mean Dean.

I don't want to see that river
in my life anymore.

-Never again.
-Ever.

[Martina] The glaciers are
clearly retreating out there.

Our original route plan
is just not feasible anymore.

[Tania] This is really making me
nervous to see all these open
crevasses, so high up.

[Martina] It was kilometers of bare ice and rock, and then it just suddenly ended.

[Tania] The map is showing three more kilometers of the glacier, which is not there anymore.

[Tania]
All your baskets are caught.

Oh. It's so bad.

My pelvis is screaming
at me right now.

-Are you dying?
-No, I'm not dying.

[Martina] Oh, your feet stink.

-Tuck them in the sleeping bag.
-I need clean socks.

[Martina] This three-day storm
had kept us tent bound

and then it finally cleared up
and we ski toured up
to this high ridge.

Mom was a little bit ahead
of me and as I reached her,
I saw that she was crying

and she told me it was
the most beautiful thing
she'd ever seen in her life.

[Tania] That was something
I'll never forget, for sure.

I think it's time to be done.
Six months is a long time.

[Martina] I think
our relationship is stronger.

I understand her past and where she came from a lot better

and I think she understands me
a little bit better too.

I'm ready for summer.

[Tania] We're still
talking to each other.

We respect each other
even more after this.

[Martina] I can't believe
tomorrow is our last day.

[Tania] Forecast for tomorrow
is, of course, is rain. So,
it could never be easy for us.

[Martina] You be careful
up there. You're 60, you know.

[Martina]
For me what's impossible
and what I'm capable of

definitely got redefined.

We're in the berg shaunt.

[Martina]
I found that when I thought
I'd reached my threshold

and that I couldn't go any
further, I actually could.

[Tania] I think she did not have any idea what she was into

when she started
thinking about this trip.

[rousing music]

[Martina]
When I was a kid I was
that uncoordinated asthmatic,

skinny child that just
struggled to pass gym class.

[Tania] I knew
she could do it, but she had
to figure it out on her own.

Oh my god.

-[Tania] Nobody died. [laughs]
-Yes.

Where did we just come from?

We climb and we think...
Where did we come from?

Where did we come from?

We came from Vancouver.

[laughing]

Argh.

Wow!

[Tania] It doesn't have
to be 50 days or 100 days.

Even if you've spent
just a week in the mountains,

or some kind of a trip,
where you're taken out
of your normal life,

it just teaches you
about appreciation
of the little things.

All my life,
I could always see mountains.

I could not live anywhere else.

There's something about
being in the mountains

that just feels like home.

["The Road Ahead Is Golden"
by Jon and Roy]