Original subtitles

Wait. just hang on.

Well, I got a wolf snare there.

It's all wiped out.

I don't see a wolf laying there.

Well the wolf is, I mean, he's the hardest thing to trap.

Boy, is he sly.

Well, the wolf broke the snare here.

He's gone. I mean, he's not hurt, nothing.

There's no blood on this, nothing.

So, this is the second time I've ever had this happen.

Now this wolf's gonna be super smart.

He's gonna be really hard to catch.

And then when you get a pack of them,

they learn from watching another one get caught, too.

They learn from that.

It's gonna very, very difficult to catch now in the future.

Very difficult.

The arctic refuge is roughly the size

of the state of south Carolina.

You go for hundreds, thousands of miles

without roads -- nothing.

Our permits only go up

until the death of our last child.

Within 100 years, there's gonna be nobody.

We are the last.

To live out here,

got to have that physical and inner strength.

You can be humbled real quick.

And this land will do it to you.

The reality of living out here,

it's really a harsh existence.

And it exposes who you really are.

If you don't have the right mentality for this,

you can get yourself into a bad, bad situation.

And it could lead to your demise.

-Seeing if we get a message. -Yeah.

..."trapline chatter" on this Sunday evening.

First message,

"I'm thinking of you all tonight,

wishing I could've been there.

Big hugs and lots of love to everyone."

There's a radio station out of Fairbanks

that has a community service.

They broadcast messages from people's friends and families

that live in the bush.

"Hope you're doing good, Rick and Laurel."

"Hi, Charlie.

Hope the cabin is coming along and trapping is going good.

All's well here in town. Talk to you soon."

You've just heard "trading post trapline chatter."

That message was to Charlie jagow.

Yeah. there. it's off.

Mm-hmm. he's a good kid.

He's got himself an airplane.

He's 19 and -- maybe 20 now.

This is his first year to be out there on his own.

But he's a pretty sharp kid, sharp guy,

so I think he'll do just fine.

He's just an all-around bush-wise guy, you know?

He knows what he's doing out here

and really driven to be successful at it.

Charlie's one of the few

that's continuing on what us old-timers did.

He's one of the few people in this world

that can live out here.

I'm 20 years old.

I grew up living in the bush.

So I've been out here since I was 2.

This is a trail that I cut a couple years ago.

It doesn't go back very far,

but last winter I caught a few marten on this line.

Oh, there's a pair of fresh marten tracks right there.

These are probably a female.

They're really small, skinny tracks.

They always walk kind of like this, bound through the snow.

I trap 'cause i feel it's my calling.

I enjoy the excitement of trapping,

kind of finding out what's behind every corner.

Through trapping,

you're interacting daily with a number of animals.

It's a very close connection with the land.

Gives you your own relationship with the critters around you

'cause all of a sudden, you're a part of nature.

You're not just observing from a safe distance.

You're directly involved in the circle of life.

There are tracks here.

There's two pairs right back there

and another pair 10 yards back.

It's pretty fricking exciting.

The main thing when looking at animals

is finding out its patterns.

You know, where it's most likely gonna go.

You're talking about an animal

that travels in, like, you know, several hundred square miles.

So you're trying to create a set

where an animal has to place its foot or its head

within a couple of inches.

Bob harte's the one who taught my dad how to make a pole set.

And then my dad changed it, made it --

set them how he likes them.

And then I kind of changed it up a little bit, too.

But, you know, the set's been kind of passed down.

My dad first got out here in 1978.

He built a place, so he got grandfathered in,

and that permit can be transferred to me and my sister.

I got a feeling this line might produce quite a few martens.

Up until recently, I've been fairly dependent on my parents.

I've lived in their cabin

and trapped a lot of my father's trails.

But in the last year or so now, I've extended my own lines.

The further your trail goes, the more fur you're gonna catch.

It's really a matter of just covering a lot of ground.

Right here's the end of the trail that I cut,

so tomorrow I'm gonna take my plane,

do a little bit of scouting.

I want to extend this trapline.

If I see what I'm hoping to see, then that's pretty exciting

'cause that could be an area where I'll cut a trail.

And the trail could potentially be a trapline

that lasts me my whole life.

Let me get my glasses.

How many's there?

Two, four, six, eight noses.

Okay. plus three is 11.

Oh, no. There's just two. Okay.

Two.

Every day we got to do this. I work on marten furs.

They're all dried,

and I bundle them up in a dozen a bundle.

There's a huge market out there.

So my job is to fulfill that market,

try to as best as I can.

So the trapping season's in full swing now.

That's what brings the bulk of our income.

Well, it's time to, you know, head out.

And then go hunting?

Yeah. I'm gonna hunt moose, you know.

Sure hope. We're running out of meat.

I know. I know.

You got to get one.

I have to.

Usually we set ourselves up before the winter

with having a moose.

But we didn't hunt moose in the fall

because we were working on the cabin.

So now since, you know, we don't have any meat,

well, of course that takes high priority.

Brit, come here. Let me do it real quickly.

Do what? Mom, I'm just --

I'll stitch.

It's so warm in here.

Let me stitch one.

At least to hold it so you wouldn't drop things.

Let me cut it.

I believe you.

Thank you. You're a wonderful wife.

Love you. Love you, too.

There's only been one winter where I didn't get a moose.

But that was back in 1977.

That year,

I lived off of bunnies, ptarmigan, grouse, and muskrats.

And I said to myself,

"that is the last time i will ever do that."

And it was.

Especially now that it's not just me.

It's me and Edna out here, you know?

As long as I'm physically able, i will kill a moose.

You can fry this if you want.

You said you wanted a job.

Fry the grouse now.

Yeah. this is...

This was koya's last collar.

She died last year.

She got cancer, and it was my first dog.

She was a good dog.

It's hard because...

Ah! you guys, get.

It's hard to say it.

We're isolated out here,

and the dogs just really get to be your friends.

And koya was my first dog friend, you know?

I think I'm gonna go let gwensie in for a little visit.

Do you want to come in for a visit?

Hey, Gwen.

Do you need some love?

Yeah, gwensie's a --

she's a puppy right now, really.

I mean, but she's old enough to start working as sled dogs.

But, you know, Ashley has maybe a slight tendency

to want to spoil puppies, you know?

Oh, good girl.

I can't help but like Gwen because she is a smart dog.

I don't just care about her because she's cute.

And she's really good indoors.

She just kind of chills out and hangs out.

Yeah. she's my fun, little, loving buddy.

-There's plenty to dish out. -To eat? Yeah? Okay.

But there's a fine line there.

You have to treat them like work animals

if you want them to be work animals.

My goal is that we turn Gwen into a puller,

that we teach her to like it.

And hopefully she ju has that natural drive to do it,

and we'll just be able to build on that.

So we're just gearing up to get ready to hit the trail

to get to the lake cabin.

And I'll be checking my traplines along the way.

We have eight husky dogs.

Good boy.

One vulnerability with our dog team is

we only have one good leader.

Jaff, come here.

My leader, jaffy, is getting older.

He's just turned 7 this year, you know?

So if something happened to jaffy,

we wouldn't really have another go-to leader on the team.

And I need them.

I'm really hoping one of these pups that we raised,

maybe gwensie, will take to leading.

So, training puppies is the most important thing right now.

Oh, gwensie.

We have an obstacle with her today because she's in heat.

So that always causes problems when you're running a dog team,

when you have a female in heat.

There you go, Gwen.

-Keep an eye on those two. -Okay.

Tyler.

We're gonna switch things around a little bit.

'Cause I -- when you know your dogs good enough,

I can already tell that there's problems because she's in heat.

So, we're gonna put her in the very back.

I'll switch her with arctic.

Gwenie.

I need them.

You know, I need the dogs to get around this trapline.

I depend on them,

and I need them to perform for me.

I need them to get me out there,

and I need them to get me back home.

So they're really important.

Okay?

Aye aye, cap'n.

We're gonna go.

Jaffy, hike. Hike.

This is the lake i usually see a lot of moose.

So I'm gonna sneak out to the edge here and take a look.

Right on them willows

and them willows along the edge of the lake,

that's what they like.

What I like about hunting is trying to find the animal.

That's harder than what some people think it is.

That's where the skill is, is in that --

not to pull the trigger and not the actual kill itself,

but to find that animal.

All right.

Okay. the moose...

The moose bedded down right here.

So he's hanging in the area.

That's good.

And then there's another one up there,

so he's been hanging in here quite a bit.

But that's, you know...

There's nothing really fresh, fresh, fresh.

You know, I'm talking, like, within the hour here.

And that's what I want to find.

So I think what I'll do is I'll head upriver,

because I got a hunch he's working his way upstream.

Right there. Right there. Right there.

Right there's the moose.

That's it.

Get down low and don't move around, okay?

Okay, Chris, get on. Get on.

Okay. low, low.

Low, low.

Low, low.

I think I hit him.

Get on.

What do you think of that? A running shot at 300 yards.

One shot.

Huh?

Man, I'm happy now. We got meat now.

Well, thank you, moose,

for providing us food for a year.

I see ribs over fire, hamburger, you know what I mean?

That's what I see, you know?

And right here is good for a soup, you know?

Well, you know, it's just like anything I kill.

I know that I'm gonna use it in some way, some form.

I don't consider myself a sport hunter.

I mean, I love hunting, but I hunt to sustain.

That's why I hunt.

This is our grocery store,

and it's a hell of a lot healthier

than anything you can buy in the store.

I mean, you couldn't get more organic than this.

You know? You just couldn't do it.

Whew!

One kidney.

I'm gonna take the heart and the kidneys

back to the house and fry them up.

It's so good.

Turn ahead. Good boy.

Oh, god.

Let's go. Let's go.

Ready? jaffy, hike.

Come on.

Lucy!

Years ago, we first cut a trail from main camp to the lake,

which is a terrible trail.

It was the first trail we ever cut.

You can tell we were inexperienced.

It's 15 miles long, and it's zig and zag.

I'm pretty sure there's like three extra miles on that trail.

But this year, we cut a trail from our northern cabin,

our new cabin, over to the lake.

Good boys.

Good girl, Gwen.

Gwen's just pulling hard.

Oh, I know.

She's dipping snow and panting a lot.

She's a little tank.

In order to keep a working dog team,

you've got to constantly be renewing it.

For us, that means we have to breed puppies.

Get across there. Get across.

Go on. Hike. Hike.

The expectations that I have for these pups

is that they're gonna be good enough to be a part of the team.

Ho. ho.

Jaff. good boy.

Puppies!

Hey, goose, smoke.

The start was a little crazy.

The dogs are really excited, partly because Gwen's in heat.

And then they get really jacked up.

But sled dogs really like to run.

And they're never, like, laid-back and into the routine

until they've run off their energy about a mile or two.

Hey, goose, smoke. Come here.

We should probably hook the pups up now.

Yeah. come here.

Good. good girls.

We're gonna try a little --

just a practice run with the pups

to give them some experience.

So they're gonna pull me and chase behind Tyler.

They're getting a little bit of harness training here.

Get them used to putting on the harness

like Ashley's doing.

So I'll be on my own now with just the puppies,

and we'll just be chasing.

Dog training for goose and smokey

has to be really laid-back for them and mostly fun.

And you know, no matter how they act,

we're just gonna reward any positive things they do.

You know, they're just learning

what it means to be in this family.

It looks like we're all set.

You ready, girls?

Good girls. Get them!

The modern trappers are really efficient

because they drive these big, powerful snow machines around.

Snow machine doesn't get tired. You can go all day.

There you go. Good boy.

Dog teams are more --

in my opinion, they're more realistic.

They're limited.

And we're limited, you know?

That's kind of the way that nature intended it, I think.

And I feel more comfortable traveling at that pace.

There you go. Good boy.

Ho. ho.

Jaff. good boy.

You guys did good.

Come here, puppies.

They look pretty good, huh?

They were pulling.

Goose digs. Like, digs hard.

And smoke keeps it tight.

And you can tell she's constant, you know?

She's real constant with it, but she doesn't --

not like goose. Goose is a horse.

The pups, they did really great.

To make a sled dog

is just that natural desire to please and to pull.

So that's really great news, you know?

Just to be able to see that.

-You set? -Yeah.

Okay.

Jaff, let's go.

I'm gonna be trying to figure out

where the brush line is today above my old trail.

Best case scenario,

I'm gonna see a lot of good timber for cutting through

and hopefully some tracks.

Worst case, I'm just gonna see a sea of brush for 5 miles

which I don't have to cut through.

I just bought an airplane this last spring.

My family kind of nicknamed it tweety bird.

Not a very tough-sounding name, but it stuck.

During my scouting flight,

I'm hoping to find an area of black spruce.

And marten really, really like that timbered country.

Usually when you're cutting a trail,

you don't see that country

until the time that you're actually cutting through it.

And at that point,

it's too late to change your mind and then turn around.

The airplane solves that problem

because I can fly over the area and see it from the air

before actually cutting the trail

so that I can get the trail right the first time.

All right. I'm out of here.

This is a place that you build your own life.

It's not handed to you.

You kind of got to bust your own trail out.

At this point, I'm starting to extend my trails.

And you have to work pretty hard for that constantly.

Otherwise, you're not gonna be successful.

Okay, goose.

Come here.

There you go.

Good boy.

Go ahead. Go on.

Hike up there. Come on.

Hike up. Up. Up.

We learned through trial and error how to run dogs.

Hike. hike.

Go on. Gee.

Part of your job as the driver

is to manage the relations between the other dogs

and give them commands.

Jaffy, haw.

They need to know commands for going left, which is "haw,"

and right is "gee."

You want to them to stop, you just say "whoa."

See that? Marten tracks all through here.

Ho. ho.

Good boy.

You guys did good.

They look pretty good, huh?

I'm just gonna go in and check a trap here.

First marten of the trip.

Really?

Don't bite, smoke.

One thing that sled dogs have to learn is not to bite,

not to attack fur animals,

not to bite the marten when they go by them and stuff.

You can see she's not gonna bite that.

She's just curious enough to sniff it.

'Cause then they know what we're out here for,

and it gets them excited to keep working hard down the trail

to make that next catch.

Okay. we are gonna go.

Come here, pups.

Okay. let's go.

Jaff, let's go.

Straight ahead.

I'm glad you got the moose.

Yoo-hoo.

So, the moose is here.

You know, it's on the wood pile now.

I want to get it off the wood pile.

Mice will eventually come and eat off it.

So it's better to hang the meat.

Is it gonna reach, mom?

Got to go up a little bit, i think.

There it's starting to roll a bit.

I know. That's why the --

oh!

Ohh.

Maybe I might not be tall enough to get that.

Oh. I don't want to bring the ladder over here.

It's too big.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.

Hey, I'll muck you.

Serious. let's do it.

-Let's do it. -I guess.

Gonna have to do it.

Okay. step on here.

Okay.

Okay, when to go. Okay.

Okay.

And we could've put that drum.

-Okay. what... -Hang on. Hang on.

Okay. hang on.

Okay. up.

Jump up. Jump. Jump up.

Jump up.

Okay. go.

-Wait! -you're the one who's...

Don't drop me now.

There. do it.

You almost done?

You're telling me I'm almost done?

I'm not even -- haven't started on it.

The rope is so... Keep tangle up.

It's gonna stretch.

Come on. Just -- just do it, please.

Don't talk about it. Just do it.

Okay. you're done?

God.

Whew!

What -- what -- what is that?

What is that?

I don't know. You keep telling me to hurry up.

My hands were cold.

That's not -- that's --

stop making fun of me.

Sorry.

Make fun of my poor knot.

Your poor knot? Yeah.

Are you hungry? I am.

Are you cold, too? Yeah.

Let's go eat. We'll have heart and kidney.

Oh, yeah.

The area we're in is pretty rugged.

It's a lot of small rivers running off of the main river

and a lot of canyons.

I think that this country

is most beautiful country in the world.

As a trapper, it's essential to know your territory.

You don't know your area,

you don't know where the animals are.

You don't know where to put your trails.

I spend altogether too much time looking at maps.

But I'll literally come back from a trapline

and sometimes spend a half-hour staring at a map.

Then you get a really, really good image of your country.

Sometimes my parents laugh.

They're like, "you're reading something off my map?"

But one of the largest parts of trapping

is knowing your area by heart.

You guys want a snack? Huh?

Want your noon break?

About halfway through the day,

the dogs will keep looking at us and slowing down and...

Go get it.

It means it's snack time.

That hat cracks me up.

It's warm, though.

I know. It's a good hat.

It's very Russian-looking.

We are trapping --

I can't do a Russian -- how do you a Russian accent?

I can't do a Russian accent.

"They're gonna give me a piece, not to you, goose."

Oh, sick.

Yeah. his breath.

Straight ahead. Good boy.

There you go, jaff.

Hike up, guys.

-Go on. -Yay.

We made her.

Good job, guys.

-Come here, buddy. -Yeah. That went well.

Good boy. Good boy.

Little gwenie. You did so good back here, girl.

I'd say you became a sled dog on this trip.

Didn't you?

I wasn't sure whether she was gonna pull or not

'cause she was kind of spoiled, weren't you?

But you're doing good, Gwen.

You're doing good.

I would've rather have just been a straight pet,

but I suppose it's not so bad.

Is it?

That's what you were meant to do.

-Should we let her loose? -Yeah.

This is definitely the trip

where she came around to it and really worked hard.

I think we got a sled dog now, you know?

Kind of a cool feeling to know that, you know,

she's gonna be a valuable, contributing member

of the family, you know?

Yeah.

Good call on gwensie, ash.

Whatever. nice work.

We should take the dogs for a walk, huh?

Yeah. let them have some fun.

This is kind of like our family here, you know?

I mean, it's just me and Ashley

out here with the dogs, you know?

The whole winter.

So we get pretty close with them.

Goose and smokey

are probably gonna be good additions to our family.

It's funny. You just never know about a dog.

And then it's like something just gets triggered in them,

and they just accept the fact

that, yeah, that's what I'm supposed to do.

Oh. here's some heart and kidney.

Mmm. mmm.

Mmm. mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

When I first moved out in the bush like this,

oh, I was scared.

I was scared.

And just over time, you just, little by little,

you learn more and more.

Then learning all of these things, it was fun.

It was an adventure, you know?

It was joy.

Nose tomorrow?

Let's have the nose tomorrow.

Mm-hmm. good job on killing the moose.

Just for you, i tried harder.

Thank you.

This is, you know, a time of making it on my own.

So the goal is to start cutting towards this bog.

Eventually, i want to get up to this lake.

This lake looks like it might be landable with an airplane.

That's always a real good thing.

I'm cutting this trail

mostly as, like, a long-term investment.

It's not just 10 miles that I'm trapping this year.

It's gonna be 10 miles that i trap for many, many years.

Now that I've tasted that freedom

that comes with this life, I --

you know, I can't give it up.

It's what I love

and what makes life worth living to me.

Holy something stole the bait.

You can see its tracks all over.

-What the heck? -It's a Wolverine.

Lots of thievery going on.

We might just cleaned out from this point on.

Dang it.

This cabin represents my future out here.

It's gonna last as long as I do.

The past, it's gone.

All the memories are going up in smoke.

Everything in this world's temporary.

Watch yourself!

Everything.