Original subtitles

[sombre music]

Well, I got a decent little stack of wood going here.

Enough to make it through a warm day for sure.

But if it gets 40, 50 below again,

this wouldn't even last me a quarter of a day.

So, I'm gonna get my sled packed up.

Take advantage of this warm,

zero degree weather that I got here.

And get out there and put up some wood

before it turns 40 below again.

I'm burning about a cord of wood every two weeks,

which is insane.

In the last three weeks,

I burned a pile of wood as big as my cabin is.

This year, I haven't been able to train much.

It hasn't been safe temperatures to take the dogs out.

This cold spell has really thrown a wrench in everything.

The only thing I've been able to do is haul wood

and it's been a real struggle.

I need to get ahead on this wood game,

and focus on the dog mushing.

[snow machine engine revving]

In Nenana, I knew where the next three years'

worth of wood is.

Moving out here, it was all new.

And it's wild out here.

You're left with a vast landscape

where you got to figure out the whole deal.

I've established a trail system on the river,

and I found a place just a couple bins down.

And I've been able to find some pretty good

dead standing wood.

It's been a very big godsend to me.

[snow machine engine revving]

[subtle music]

All right, I got this double tree here.

It looks real nice and dry and dead standing.

This will make a nice sled load.

[machine revving]

Okay, best option for me is to dive my bar into this one.

It's leaning that way.

Get it out of the way,

and then follow this one right next to the trail.

[machine revving]

Got one down.

[machine revving]

Lot of reality checks going on this winter,

and I didn't expect it to be this cold here.

Definitely the challenges

of establishing myself in a new environment.

But I don't have a choice on how hard,

I'm willing to work for good firewood.

I just got to get in there and figure it out.

That's how I approach everything in life.

I'm willing to work hard at everything I do.

I mean the more challenging, that's when I dig deeper.

That's whenever I feel the best.

That's whenever I turn it on.

All right, got a little later than I was hoping.

I was hoping to get another load today,

but this will have to do.

Get this home, get it split up.

And tomorrow I'm gonna get out and get a bunch of wood.

[subtle music]

Out here it looks like a big vast open, nothingness

if someone is not trained but there's actually

a lot of things you can use out here to survive with.

Let's go check out the basket sled.

This thing needs a little bit of work.

[Narrator] With his children back in camp,

Ricko DeWilde will spend his time

teaching them the Athabaskan way of life.

But with temperatures well below zero,

Ricko must ensure their travel equipment is safe

for the kids before their lessons in the dangerous

and freezing wilderness can begin.

Before we get out and journey around,

I wanna get this basket sled set up

so that they can get in that toboggan.

I wanna make it so there's more comfortable travelling out

here for me and the kids.

What I wanna do is build a box up right here.

It'll be about that height.

And then there'll be a little windshield

to keep the snow from flying off the track

and onto you guys, both of you are back here.

I don't want you guys to get all blasted

with snow and wind, so okay, you ready?

Get this inside.

The basket sled is important

because it keeps the passenger off the snow.

But I can one up it a little bit and put a little windbreak

in there with the lumber I got laying around the cabin.

I got a whole snow machine windshield.

I wanna try to attach that so that they can look around

a little bit while keeping the wind off their face.

Okay, let me see.

Kay, Sky. Scalpel.

I'm like a doctor over here. Kay, Skar.

Can you hold that right here?

Right here?

Yeah. Thank you.

This is gonna be a chance for the kids to learn.

I want the kids to get a little more hands-on.

Can I try, Dad? Dad, can I try?

Yeah.

My dad's teaching us how to handle a drill, a saw,

and we're actually creating something.

Ah, it's useless.

No, you just got to learn how to use it.

See, it's like this.

If you go like this or this, its bends.

You've got to be, see, look.

Straight up and down.

All the way to the top. Okay.

There you go, right there.

Perfect. When you're this far out in the woods

you can't just get on your machine

and go to the nearest store

and grab some products you need to build something.

So, it's important I teach my kids to be innovative

and learn to repurpose things or create things

to make their lives more comfortable.

Because if you're not comfortable in the woods,

you're not gonna survive in the woods.

Okay, see, now, try sitting there, Sky.

Skarlett, you sit in there too,

'cause Sky, you'll be in the back.

Sit all the way in the back,

if push comes to shove and it's too rough

and I got to break trail, I'll see how it is.

And this just gives you guys a little bit of comfort.

This sled building helps the kids to really get hands-on,

learn some use of the power tools

and also helps them understand the environment

that they're going into.

Okay, job done. Ready to check it out?

Out we go.

You're gonna sweat, you're gonna grunt,

you're gonna groan to build yourself a life

that's worth living.

[subtle music]

Come on, baby. Move.

[Sue groaning]

People ask all the time,

how do you get so much done by yourself?

I never stop chipping away at my skills

and my outside thinking.

[Narrator] Sue Aikens is spending the remainder of winter

at her property in Chena,

improving the grounds for her future away from Kavik.

Without running water and electricity,

Sue will use purchased materials to build a system

that will provide good hygiene,

and heal her body from a punishing lifetime

spent in the Arctic.

I do like to stay clean.

I've got the river and I purchased a slipper tub.

So I wanna see if I can make some kind

of a hot tub out of it.

[subtle music]

I've lived a lifestyle ninety-miles-an-hour

flames in my hair.

My body parts have been abused.

I'm sliding into the home base of 60

in a couple short years.

Not saying that I'm ancient, but tell that to my back.

Tell that to my knees.

Do you think a hot bath might sooth a savage beast?

I sure hope so.

Cool. So, how am I gonna get hot water?

[subtle music]

First method for heating,

I'm gonna take one-inch copper tubing

and I'm gonna have it run a short distance to a burn barrel.

And then that fire will start boiling

and sending steam back out.

Second method, this goes underneath,

and I build a fire straight in here.

Jack this baby up.

Get this project going.

[subtle music]

So now comes the task of getting it lifted.

God dammit.

Okay. Ah. [groaning]

One more.

This is perfect.

The crash test.

So far, so good.

[laughs]

Thumbs up.

[subtle music]

I'll make myself some little steps there.

So I've got it up here.

And now, the next step for me,

working on the heating.

[subtle music]

A lot of us don't work for someone else to call it a job,

we work for ourselves for getting food,

or for getting heat, or whatever. It's still work.

[subtle music]

So, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna make you a jig.

I got a bunch of these things that I use in fall time.

And I just set 'em sticks for tiktaalik.

I think you guys call 'em ling.

-You remember in Montana, -Oh, hell yeah. Ling, yeah.

Same thing yeah. My brother, Will, he's visiting.

My brother lives down in Southeastern Alaska.

He's lived down there for about 25 years.

And me and my brother, we grew up fishing together.

That's willow?

Yeah, just a plan old willow.

I'm Willie Hailstone.

I'm Chip Hailstone's younger brother.

Me and him are a lot alike, but we're a lot different.

Chip's shorter. I'm better-looking.

[laughing]

So the last 20 years in the Southeast,

you have fished vastly differently than I have.

My brother's a commercial fisherman down the Southeast,

and we're gonna go fishing.

Yeah, it's been like 25 years since

me and you have fished together.

Maybe longer.

We sure used to fish when we were kids, huh?

We fished before school.

[laughing] Yeah, in the morning.

And then go catch the bus, go to school.

And then get out of school and go fishing.

[subtle music]

[Agnes] It's gonna be windy and cold out there, huh?

I think so. We'll take the brown tarp and the white tarp.

So today we're gonna go fishing,

and we're gonna be heading out to the Kobuk Lake.

Yeah, in case it get windy,

we could use this for shelter, eh?

I think that our weather conditions should be okay,

but I'm not, you're not coming out here to get a suntan.

[subtle music]

With the wind-chill, it drops at 20 whatever it is.

So if it's like 15 below,

right now we're looking at 35, 40 below weather.

[Agnes] Let's go fishing.

[snow machine engine revving]

[Chip] We're gonna be out where the brackish water is.

It's kind of like where the salt and the freshwater mix

and then they flow out into the Kotzebue Sound

and the Chukchi Sea.

It's like an hour, hour and a half drive from here.

And it's just a big open lake.

[snow machine engine revving]

[air whooshing]

Probably basically gonna be nobody else out there with us,

so you never know what's gonna happen.

[snow machine engine revving]

Your brother is not coming!

I don't even hear his engine.

Let's just go back and see if he's flooded or something.

You know, every time you take off,

you just have to look behind you.

See if your travel partner's there.

If they're not there at all, it could be a problem.

[snow machine engine revving]

[dramatic music]

Yeah! Oh fuck.

[dramatic music]

[Agnes] That's your brother, what the hell?

You crashed brother?

[Willie] Yeah, I almost ripped my fuckin' hand off.

We turned around. We go back there

and he's sitting on the sled.

Oh, God. Oh! Oh, there it is. Oh!

When we found him, he was laying down

and he was not looking so good.

[Willie] I can't feel my fuckin' hand.

[Chip] Yeah, you got a broken wrist, bro.

It's bone. That's his wrist.

[Willie screaming in pain]

[Agnes] What the heck?

[Chip] We can't go any further than that.

That's his bone.

[Willie groaning]

[Willie] It's peeling my flesh off when you pull it back.

[Agnes] I have a survival kit.

Do we need some gauze and stuff?

[Chip] No, we need to put him in a position of comfort

and take him to a clinic.

We can have you there in half an hour.

[Willie] Yeah, please. Let's go.

He's not gonna do it very well on this sled.

We do a lot of first responding stuff up here.

So, to me it's real easy to get into the motion of

we got to take care of this, take care of it the best way

and manage it the best way.

Come on. Let's make this better for him.

[dramatic music]

We decided to take everything out of our sled

and just fix it to where somebody

could sit inside the sled who's hurt.

[Willie groaning in pain]

[Willie] No!

We always say basket sleds are made for people.

[Chip] Right over here, bro.

[Willie] Oh my fuckin' wrist!

[Man] Get his arm.

[Chip] I got him, I got him, I got him. He's good.

And now, we'll just slide you back, bro.

Work your back. Two more feet to go.

[Willie groaning in pain]

[Agnes] Careful with him.

[Willie groaning in pain]

[Willie] Ooh, ooh shit. No.

Yeah. We're gonna tie it down, bro.

I'll get you there in one piece, bro, you'll be fine.

Okay, I'm going now.

I almost panicked, but I knew Chip was there

to take care of his brother.

[Chip] I'm not gonna stop, I'm just gonna go slow.

It scared me because if he starts bleeding

while nobody's there to hold it close, he could die.

Not only frostbite will get you out here, so will accidents.

Time to get back to the town, get help.

[subtle music]

I'm not here to satisfy myself.

I'm here to survive and do what I got to do.

[upbeat music]

All right. I got a nice load of wood here just in time.

Every day that goes by,

I exhaust this wood pile more and more.

Finding and hauling firewood is one of those things in life.

Sometimes, I tend to complain about it,

but I don't know what I'd do without it.

Yesterday, I was on an established trail

that I hauled a lot of wood out.

But it's starting to get to where it's smaller stuff

and it's harder to get to.

I don't wanna exhaust that completely.

If I have an emergency,

I need to know where I can get wood at.

[snow machine engine revving]

Today, I'm gonna head further out

and try to find a new wood yard.

It's about five-mile trip.

The area I'm thinking, I'm gonna find some wood.

It's on the Nenana River.

There's bigger trees down there.

The reason I haven't been going down to the Nenana River

or trying to find another wood yard is safety.

You don't wanna go very far

when it's fifty below zero on a snow machine.

Now that it's warm, it's much safer to get out

and do things like this.

I don't wanna waste this time

with this warm spell of weather.

I'm gonna be breaking a trail out

that I haven't used in over a month.

[subtle music]

[snow machine engine revving]

Holy shit man. Where the fuck am I at?

[dramatic music]

This is getting crazy.

I hit a point where I just can't keep track

of where the trail went up in this open country here.

It's really important to find the actual trail.

Right now, I'm just cutting through the woods,

trying not to get stuck.

[dramatic music]

I was trying to work my way back to where I was.

See if I can find where the trail went.

[snow machine engine revving]

Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit.

Damnit! Ah.

[subtle music]

[groaning]

Not having much fuckin' luck!

Yeah, I'm really stuck.

This is some hard country

to travel around in a snow machine.

Getting stuck is just something

you've got to be prepared for out here.

This machine is strictly designed for work.

It weighs 960 pounds.

When they get stuck, it's stuck.

You just learn to look at it as as long as I got a shovel,

there ain't nothing I can't get out of.

Put the work in, dig it out right the first time.

Don't get hasty. I should be able to get it out of here.

[subtle music]

I ain't having any luck at finding the trail right now.

It's completely blown over,

I haven't found a single trace of it

from whenever I came up here,

there's just a lot of snow here compared to

where I'm used to hauling wood from.

I'm used to hauling wood off a hard-packed trail,

and this is nothing like it.

You got to put your own damn trail out here.

All right.

[snow machine engine revving]

[subtle music]

I could see the trail!

It's right over here!

I just got to come hook my sled up and there it is.

I can see it plain as day,

so I guess I was kind of close.

I'm just gonna move on down the river

and hopefully find some wood.

[subtle music]

I'm not afraid of failure.

Failure is just one step in the journey towards success.

[subtle music]

Just testing it for size.

It fits.

[Narrator] Sue Aikens is creating a bathing system

at her cabin in Chena.

Without running water and electricity at the grounds,

the device will use water from the nearby river.

It will allow for proper hygiene and comfort,

and heal her body while staying at the camp.

I've got the tub in place.

The next step, the heating system.

So I'm gonna take one-inch copper tubing from the tub

and I'm gonna have it run a short distance

to a burn barrel inside of another barrel,

to trap that heat effect, that convection.

What I need to do now, start putting in air holes

for my hot water to come out, cold water to go in.

[subtle music]

There we go.

[subtle music]

There we go.

Curled it to get it in.

Now, I'm uncurling it to get it out.

Bend that in, just a little bit more.

Oh, I got something.

Come on, come.

I don't wanna take it in too far.

Straight, you pig.

[groaning]

Okay. Go me. I got it out.

[subtle music]

Don't burn your own hair, Susan.

[subtle music]

Okay. So, I have "sweated" this joint together.

I've got the cold line done.

For all intents and purposes,

the cold water can now run all the way down

and start filling these up.

Imagine flame, flame takes that cold water

and turns it into steam which then rises,

and goes in the top.

[subtle music]

Time to get water in the tub.

Fire in the barrel.

And, it's time to test the tub.

[subtle music]

Up here, we're all the same.

We're all first responders.

We all know how to fight fires.

We're all militia together.

[subtle music]

My brother hit a piece of ice, ricocheted

and was flipped off the ride.

[snow machine engine revving]

He had a big tear in his wrist and his bone was sticking up.

I put him in a sled and took off with him.

[snow machine engine revving]

[Agnes] I'm gonna go up ahead of them

and I'm gonna go let the clinic help aids know we're coming.

So they'll be ready when Chip and his brother get to town.

Because he really does need help. He's broken.

You know, I know all these trails.

I've just gone over them,

so I knew where the bad spots were.

You always mark that in your mind,

so you know consciously when to slow down

or where you can pick up some time and speed.

[dramatic music]

[snow machine engine revving]

[dramatic music]

Come on. Come on, bro. How can I get you out?

[Willie] I'm gonna move. Just move that shit.

[Chip] Move yourself?

[Willie] Yeah.

They're coming, Barbara's coming.

The doctors are coming.

[Chip] But nobody's here, huh?

Yup. Yup. They're coming.

[Chip] Oh, it's Sunday.

Chip immediately brought Willie

straight to the clinic, of course.

[Chip] We're here, bro.

[Agnes] Take your time. Take your time because

the doctors are on their way still.

I went straight to my house,

and I called the emergency number

and that there was an injured person coming in.

Thank you for coming over and helping, Carol.

I just got here, like, seconds ago.

Okay.

Okay, let's go inside.

Careful.

I got him here as fast as possible.

And then we actually beat the doctor to the clinic.

[Willie groaning in pain]

Oh, fuck me up.

See? That's what I'm saying.

That's what I was telling you.

No shit.

[Willie screaming in pain]

All right. Let's get, this hand.

I unlaced him, and he was cussing. He was hurting.

[Agnes] Just keep still.

[Chip] You can hoot and holler all you want, bro.

Get it out of you.

The minute he pulled his glove off

and showed us his wrist, it was,

like, ew, God, I couldn't even look.

Oh, my God.

[Chip] It's just how it is, bro.

I know.

[Chip] It would only be worse if she don't clean it.

I know.

[Tinmiaq] My uncle, he just crashed

and cut his wrist really super bad,

and we were wondering if you would have

an available charter today.

When we travelled to the village,

we were travelling to the closest clinic.

But he needed some help.

The best thing to do is always go see a doctor

in the hospital, in Kotzebue.

That's where they have the X-ray machine, a real doctor.

Any other injuries?

From this wreck?

Not that I know of yet.

[Tinmiaq] Oh, he's on his way to Noorvik right now.

He'll be landing in eight minutes.

[Chip] Jesus. Okay. Well try to get him on that one.

[Tinmiaq] Okay, we'll try to get him on any one.

My daughter got on the phone

and she called a charter company we know.

We're kind of personal friends with the guy.

And he's actually doing charters back and forth here.

[Tinmiaq] Just landing.

All right. Plane's just landing.

He said if you get up to the airport,

he had a copilot seat open.

He's gonna get in a jet and he's on his way.

Thank you, Flora. And then, of course,

the ladies at the clinic did their part.

We're like just the delivery service.

[subtle music]

Well, good luck, brother.

[subtle music]

That's the number for the ER

and that's the number for the hotel,

'cause I imagine they would tell him

to go to the hotel to go crash out. It's problematical.

Try the ER first?

Yeah. Try the ER first.

I'm gonna try.

Chip's brother is in the hospital right now

and getting some proper care.

[phone ringing]

He's not gonna answer.

Too many of my friends have died.

Too many of my wife's family

have been killed simply by being out there.

And it could be spring, it could be mid-winter,

it could be anytime. It's just how it is.

[phone ringing]

Hello?

[Willie] Hey, Agnes.

Hi. You're on speaker.

Your brother's right here.

We were just trying to call for you.

[Willie] Yeah. I know. I know.

I just got the message.

I'm at the ER right now.

I'm doing all right.

I just dislocated it, kind of,

they're gonna take me to a hand surgeon in Anchorage,

to a doctor and they got me all taken care of.

Excellent.

[Willie] And they put me up in a hotel and it's all good.

When I was out there at the field, I saw,

to me it looked like a really serious life-threatening wound

and I almost panicked.

But I'm just glad he's safe and he's okay.

That was that. Willie is all right.

Yeah. So he needs surgery?

Wanna go?

Yeah.

[subtle music]

So seeing my own brother in that kind of way out there

kind of put a damper on the day, I'd say.

We went fishing and brought him home broken.

[subtle music]

But I have patched up many a person, splinted many,

and boarded many a person and got them back here.

And every one of them, well, not every one of them,

most of them lived.

So it's how it is.

[subtle music]

But that's my brother, you know.

[subtle music]

[plane engine roaring]

Oh, look. The plane's here. Yes.

I got a moment to sit down and take a deep breath

and thank God that everything was gonna be taken care of

by other people and not having to lose my brother out

in the country because we wanted to go fishing.

[subtle music]

You know, I lost my mother because they went fishing

and that hurts you when somebody else is hurt.

[subtle music]

To survive and harvest food out here,

you have to be able to predict the weather.

So the power of prediction is my greatest asset out here.

[upbeat music]

Skarlett, you sit right here.

[Skarlett] Okay.

[subtle music]

[Ricko] Here you go. How's that?

Good.

You guys are ready?

[Skyler] Uh-hmm.

Let's roll.

Now that the basket sled is revamped and ready to go,

it's time to test it out.

[snow machine engine revving]

Good?

Yeah!

[subtle music]

[Narrator] After improving the safety

of their basket sled, Ricko and his children,

Skyler and Skarlett, will brave the deep snow

and freezing temperatures of the Huslia wild,

to explore their Athabaskan roots.

Breaking trail with a snow machine,

it's a lot of work but it's even harder

having two kids on the machine with me

because it's hard for me to get the balance right.

[subtle music]

[snow machine engine revving]

[subtle music]

Oh. You see this caribou?

There's how many? One, two.

[Skarlett] Six.

[Ricko] Are there six of them?

[Skyler] Are we gonna get one?

Maybe we'll wait.

We'll wait, we'll see.

That's a small herd, so let's just let them go

and then if we see more, we'll hunt them.

Even though I really wanna get one

'cause caribou meat's real good eating.

A native belief when we see a herd like that

wintering right around your cabin,

there's not many, let them go.

I'll get my rifle though, just in case.

You've got to really understand these animals

and respect the animals.

You got to let them go sometimes.

But we'll keep driving.

We'll just drive real slow along the trail.

Won't disturb them, won't chase them

and if we see more, we'll start hunting.

I believe with hunting, it's all about luck.

And if we respect the animals

and we kind of give them their room.

If we play our cards right,

eventually that animal will present itself.

Oh, right there.

[dramatic music]

There's caribou right there.

[gun clicking]

[gun shot]

[subtle music]

Got that one.

[Skarlett] You going to try to get the others?

[Ricko] No, we let the rest go.

[subtle music]

Dad, that caribou's going to heaven

in that little dot of sun.

Oh, yeah. It is shining right on it, huh?

[snow machine engine revving]

Okay. We'll go through.

We have to honour and respect the land

and the animals to have this luck,

and that's the most important thing

I wanna teach my children.

Not just how to kill an animal, but first,

they have to learn how to honour

and respect that land and animal.

Oh.

This is a bull caribou. Pretty awesome, huh?

Is this a big one or a skinny one?

No. It's a good-sized caribou.

But enough talk, let's get to work.

The smaller your body is out here,

the quicker the cold starts to seep in.

So I got to get through this butchering process

with the caribou, so my kids don't get cold

while they're watching me.

Did your dad get lots of caribou?

Yeah. When I was 14 I got my first caribou.

[ Skyler] Fourteen?

Uh-huh.

I wanna try to get one too.

Your day will come.

You can't even carry a rifle yet.

You're little yet.

Skyler, he really wants to hunt.

He wants to be the one to pull the trigger.

But I think the most important thing I teach him

is how to respect the land and respect the culture

and what's all behind it, before he takes that first shot.

[subtle music]

The way I was taught was how to get food from our land

and I follow the trails of my ancestors to do that.

We understand everything about the animals

and the environment we're in.

And it's important that I teach that to my kids

because that's a burning torch that has to be kept alive.

And if that torch goes out

and I don't pass that knowledge onto my kids,

that flame dies, it's hard to reignite it again.

[subtle music]

Okay. You guys ready?

Yeah.

What do you say?

[Skarlett] [speaking in foreign language]

[Ricko] [speaking in foreign language]

[Skarlett] [speaking in foreign language]

[Ricko] We had luck out here. Let's roll.

[snow machine engine revving]

[subtle music]

[upbeat music]

The possibilities are out there.

I'm not too caught up on the outcome.

I'm more caught up on the process.

Get out there and get it done.

[upbeat music]

All right. This is the Nenana River.

There's some pretty decent-looking size trees up in here.

It's five miles from my house. It's a beautiful trip.

There's a bunch of dead trees in here.

There's miles and miles of this river

and if there's dead trees right when I'm coming out on it,

I've got miles of river to work.

I can see dead trees way down there.

This is a good spot.

[Narrator] Jessie has located an area

with optimal firewood for his winter survival.

He will now harvest the resource

and cash it along the river for future use.

But he must do so before the weather turns

or risk being trapped in the bitter cold,

five miles from his cabin.

This is a goldmine for me right here.

This is exactly what I need.

[upbeat music]

Oh, yeah. That's some good firewood right there.

I see about a dozen tops around here that look like that.

I found my wood yard.

Time to start dropping this down.

That's BTUs right there to take home to the stove.

[upbeat music]

[machine engine roaring]

Trees like this gives me the security

that I can come down here

and cut wood for not just this winter, for winters to come.

And it's gonna take that for me to get ahead out here.

I'm establishing myself in new country.

Know where my resources are, that's a big safety net.

One thing I got to do out here is be efficient.

I'm gonna relay all my logs out to the river,

get a nice cache going.

For me to just keep hauling.

Then I can start focusing on relaying it home.

[air whooshing]

It's cold and windy out here.

Brushkana is a hard place to get wood.

The wind's gonna blow.

The snow's drifted.

I got to work 10 times harder but that's a challenge

and, you know, it makes you strong

and I'm not gonna let any of this stop me.

[machine engine revving]

What is going on with this guy?

It's always something, you know?

These kind of temperatures and this kind of weather.

[machine engine roaring]

Oh, it's out of gas. Thank God.

Whew. Fuckin' A.

Oh, man. Once again, more proof and validation

that there is no problem, only a solution.

All right, back to the next tree.

[machine engine roaring]

Three-and-a-half weeks of deep cold.

I burned a whole sled load of wood in 24 hours.

So, it's very important that I have a large amount of wood

to survive the rest of the winter.

It's not like I wanna go out every day

and go risk my life doing it sometimes.

There ain't no easy part in any of this.

Hauling it ain't easy.

I got to worry about getting stuck.

Cutting it down is dangerous

and I got to limb it through waist-deep snow,

so I'm super happy about this wood yard

where I can sustain the rest of the winter.

I'm not gonna have to do it on a daily basis anymore.

This is a great head start to get me in the clear.

[subtle music]

All right. I'm done for the day.

I'm heading home to get warm.

Start using up this wood.

I'm looking forward to getting the fire going, thawing out.

It's been absolutely brutal out here today,

but I got done what I set out to get done.

Ain't gonna let a little cold and wind stop me.

[subtle music]

Got a big stash of wood on the river

and I accomplished a lot.

This is a wood yard that I'm gonna continue

to use for years to come.

[dramatic music]

We're free people and freedom isn't safe.

That's just one of the dangers of anything we do.

[subtle music]

Hey, here it is. Knock-a-knock-knocking.

There's my brother, right there.

[Agnes] Hey there.

Hey, bro. I hope you brought me a fish maybe, huh?

No, I brought my wife though.

[Willie laughing]

Yeah, I really wanted to go fishing today,

but instead, I'm taking care of myself

and my health, and my family's helping me.

You got a cast on?

Yeah, they put one of those light casts on

'cause of the swelling.

And then I have this hand grip in here.

But holy cow rolling.

Oh, it looks so much better wrapped up like that.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. That hurt like hell, you know.

I'm not a crybaby but it hurt.

But I couldn't believe how fast we got back.

That was crazy.

She got ahead of me so I could watch her fly

and I would know where to slow down.

[Willie] Thank you for going ahead.

Yeah.

Agnes was right on it, Chip was right on it.

They knew what to do.

And you got so lucky to slide right into an aeroplane,

that don't usually happen.

Yeah. I know. That's, wow.

It just like went like clockwork. Ch-ch-ch-ch.

[Agnes] Yep.

They had me on a plane and sent me down to Kotzebue

and I met another nice doctor here,

and they treated my wound.

It all worked out.

Yeah, that's good. Everybody kept their head.

[Agnes And Chip] Yeah.

[Willie] It was cool.

Yeah. The worst thing you can do is panic.

I just don't wanna be a burden.

I wanna be able to do things.

Nah, you won't be a burden as long as you heal yourself.

[Willie] Yeah.

A burden will be as if you don't take care of it

for the short term and you fuck it up for the long term.

Don't sell your tomorrows for a quick today.

I should have fuckin' teased you

and given you snow machine riding lessons.

Yeah. We'll buy you a helmet and a leash.

[Chip laughing]

Yeah, they told me to get a helmet.

[both laughing]

Being through this whole situation

is just a learning experience.

That which does not kill you makes you stronger, right?

[laughs]

[subtle music]

I am ever evolving and I like that about myself.

[upbeat music]

We are now at the water part of the hot tub. Yay!

The heating system, the barrels are all looking good.

Everything's ready.

The only thing left to do

is to get the water out of the river.

[subtle music]

The water for the tub has to come from the river.

I don't have running water.

The only running water I have for this place

is the fact that the river runs by it.

So, I have to bucket-by-bucket bring the water up.

I do have a little bit of ice.

I just went through a period of 30 to 50 below zero,

and you'll get chunks that get in and get stuck.

You'll get ice that reforms.

So I'm gonna have to bust this piece free.

Okay, there it goes.

I dip it in,

Bring it out, and that's some good clean

Alaskan water there.

[subtle music]

For us, that's liquid gold.

All right. Here we go. First load.

[subtle music]

It's going down.

Part of my 30s, 40s, and 50s

were spent in Alaska, right on the Arctic Ocean,

in some of the harshest conditions on the planet.

So, as I'm kicking 60 in the head soon, I hurt.

I've pushed my body and my body's pushing back.

Will that hot tub be an answer to my aching bones?

I sure as hell hope so.

[subtle music]

All right, water is in the tub.

Fire going in the barrel.

I'm also gonna get the firebox out.

I'm gonna start a fire beneath it

and test the secondary system.

I've insulated the pipe.

Now, I just got to wait for it to convect and do its magic.

And then I'll be able to take my bath in my own hot tub.

[subtle music]

I hope it's not too hot to jump in.

Holy cow. It worked.

[laughing]

[subtle music]

Get my little pink toes out.

[subtle music]

Everything went fairly well,

and now I can take a nice hot soap whenever I want.

Suzy made a hot tube.