Original subtitles

[narrator] Last week,

over a million dollars in debt,

Jared fought to turn a pair of old yarders

into a desperately needed payday...

[Jared] Come on, baby.

[bleep] yeah. Touchdown!

[narrator] ...while fallers Jim and Rob struggle

to bring down some big trees

for the next log barge.

-[man] Something's up. -[man] Wrong way.

-Wrong way. -[man] Oh, [bleep], man.

[narrator] But when Jared discovered

even more massive timber,

he took an even bigger gamble.

[Jared] Going in the hole another 600,000

to get this camp started is a big risk.

Last guy that operated

in Grizzly River, he went broke.

Welcome to hell, boys. This is it.

[narrator] Now, Jared's taking

the biggest risk of his career...

This is [bleep].

$250,000 crew boat up a [bleep] river.

[narrator] ...to keep the family business alive.

[Jared] Way more shallow than I thought it would be.

-[man speaking over radio] Camp? -[bleep] No.

[man speaking over radio] This is a point of no return.

[narrator] While float camp faces a daunting move...

[Jared] Hugging is pure terror.

You have to be very experienced.

It just takes one little thing

[chuckling] to throw a loop into the whole plan.

[man] Oh, [bleep].

[narrator] ...bound for richer logging grounds.

[man] That jack's lost PSI.

[Chris] Thing's right on the verge

of wanting to go.

Let's go!

[crashing]

-[tense music playing] -[birds chirping]

[Jared speaking indistinctly]

[Ross] Yes, sir?

[Jared] Dana, come in here,

I gotta talk to you too.

How you doing?

-[Ross] Good. You? -Yeah.

[Jared] No. I'm stressed out.

You are? Why?

[Jared] Since I've owned my logging camp,

I have never missed a move.

[Dana] Oh, [bleep].

[narrator] With a $1.7 million debt to pay

by the end of the season

and only $149,000 saved so far,

Jared's not looking back

and taking his float camp

even deeper into the wilderness,

10 miles down the inlet,

chasing the hard-to-get to high-dollar wood.

[Jared] Usually, I'm here to manage it.

So, like, that's the major thing.

[narrator] His crew is already moving timber out there.

And with the next log barge arriving in just a week,

Jared can't afford

to keep boating them to camp and back every day.

So he's taking the camp to the crew

and charging his top foreman to get it done.

[Jared] I can't be everywhere at once,

so I'm saddling Ross up for the challenge

of moving Float Camp to McCurdy Creek.

McCurdy gets so shallow off the end of that dock

So we've got to hold up the camp back a bit.

And you've got to make sure that you're away from those pilings.

I think that piling actually has collapsed,

it's half sticking out of the water now.

[Ross] Okay.

[Jared] Inlets can be tricky.

We have outflows and inflow winds.

There's rocks and rapids.

And if this barge hits the rocks,

it could open like a tin can.

It could be all over for me.

All right. Well, you guys are on your own then.

Don't wreck my camp,

'cause that'll be "Company Over" for Jared.

-Anything I do is Ross's fault. -[Jared laughing]

- [Jared] I am spread so thin. -All right.

I don't know how I even

keep it all together right now,

so I really got to trust in Dana

and Ross

to make this move happen for me.

I'm not gonna sleep tonight,

I'm gonna burn out a couple pairs of sheets getting through the night

'cause I'm worried about it.

[Ross] You got me all [bleep] concerned now Jared. Thanks.

[tense music playing]

[narrator] Ten miles away

in the hills of McCurdy Creek...

[Ross] Well, is it going to start pouring rain,

or is it not going to pour rain today?

[Brendan] Nope, not raining.

[narrator] ...hand fallers Brendan Bowman

and Chris Hersics already have boots on the ground

and a lot of work ahead of them.

Away we go.

[narrator] With the next log barge only a week out,

Jared's counting on these two

to make sure it doesn't leave light this time.

[Chris giggling] Watch your [bleep] shoulder.

[narrator] So he's tasked them with a tall order.

Drop $100,000 worth of red cedar

before week's end.

[Chris] I absolutely love working with Jared.

He pushes you to go harder at it

and strive to be better.

Take a quick walk around here.

I know what to look for

and get the best quality lumber.

Like, everything pays,

but these bigger ones are such a high-grade lumber.

Danger tree here.

Pretty dominant hook in the top.

[Brendan] Holy [bleep] grace.

It's like a dinosaur, that thing.

It's leaning down the hill pretty good.

[Brendan] Yeah, it is, yeah.

We've got this marm that's hanging off the one side.

Trees will tend to want to go towards their weak side,

which in this case is straight down the hill.

[Chris] We're standing up on top

of probably a 20-foot rock bluff

over here down to the right.

I don't want the tree going straight down the hill,

'cause that's just going to wreck the tree.

It's going to turn it into kindling.

[narrator] Just one tree this size can yield

more than half of the fallers 100-grand quota,

but only if it comes down intact.

So as the man running saw on this one,

it's up to Chris to make sure that happens.

I'm figuring out my falling plan here.

I've been hand-falling for about 15 years.

It's an addiction.

We're adrenaline junkies.

Unless my body breaks down

and I can't physically go out there

and hand-fall trees,

I'm going to do it as long as I possibly can.

What do you think, Brendan?

Are we in over our head?

We'll only be able to do so much with the physics.

[narrator] To keep this tree

from crashing on the rocks below,

Chris will have to send it

90 degrees across the side hill

for a much softer landing.

First, he'll make an undercut and back cut

to help steer it in the right direction.

Then, he and Brendan will use a jack

to force it the rest of the way.

All right, let's do this.

[chainsaw turns on]

[Chris] It's not going to be easy

to put a tree like this across the hill,

but the goal here is

just trying not to explode this tree

in a bunch of pieces

and keep it most intact that we possibly can.

All the weight is definitely pulling down the hill,

so I'm going to aim

my undercut up fairly high here,

but I can't be aiming it too high

or else it will just break off

and go straight down the hill.

[Brendan] Generally, you try not to cut over your head

just 'cause you lose a lot of your stability

as far as control of the saw.

It's a lot harder to see, too,

when the sawdust is flying above your head.

But that's kind of the only option

that Chris has got here.

Oh, let's see. I started hand-falling in 1989.

Who would pick a job that,

do it wrong, you're going to die?

It's like Game of Thrones or something, right?

I've had quite a few close calls, um.

I was falling this rather large tree,

and I'd sent it just a little bit high,

and there was a snag that I'd left on the face.

It just barely brushed the snag,

and the snag come right back to where I was standing.

I was just basically running for my life,

and the thing landed right where my saw was.

It was basically within inches of death.

[saw running]

[Chris] We have our undercut.

[narrator] But even with the undercut in place,

this $60,000 cedar is

still leaning straight down toward the rocks.

[Brendan] It's going to take a fair bit of persuasion

to get this thing go where we want it to.

Ah! I think the jack might just be good

to just help it.

I'll agree.

Just this once.

[narrator] With more than 50 tons of lifting force,

jacks like this are

a faller's last line of defense

for even the most stubborn giants.

[Chris] When you put a jack in a tree,

it's essentially going into the back cut,

and that's to push the tree

in the direction you want it to fall,

and you're trying to counteract

against the weight of the tree.

[tense music playing]

-[saw running] -[Chris speaking]

[Brendan] Jack is just kind of mashing into the tree.

It's trying to pull the roots up

from the high side.

The tree is not cooperating.

[Chris] What do we do now?

[narrator] 100 miles away

on a treacherous tidal river...

Candy, a little stress reliever.

[narrator] ...Jared's taking one of his foremen, Dave,

and head cook, Mia, to their new post

and the biggest gamble of his career.

[Jared] Not many people have been

logging up here for so long.

It's just so remote and so hard to get to.

But here we are.

[Jared] And here we go.

[Dave] If it's that easy, everybody'd do it.

[narrator] Last week,

Jared and Dave scouted a rundown logging camp

on the banks of the Grizzly River.

Welcome to hell, boys. This is it.

[narrator] And though the compound itself was

as derelict as it was difficult to access...

[Jared] Lots of old gear left here.

[narrator] ...the trees were too valuable to pass up.

[Dave] This is why we came to middle of nowhere.

Great big cedar.

[narrator] So Jared's taking on

another $600,000 in debt

to reopen the camp

and try to turn a profit

where every logger before him has gone bankrupt.

[Jared] Grizzly river poses the most challenges

I've ever seen in a logging operation,

just from its sheer location

and dealing with the river.

Last three guys went broke up here.

-Ah! I'll be fine. -[Dave] Yeah...

We still got 40 miles.

[Jared] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

-Yeah, we're still... -[Mia] We have a long way still.

...an hour and a half to there.

We have GPS,

but the river moves.

Sand gets pushed one way.

Deadheads come down the river.

They get hung up. So there's a lot of things

that you have to watch out for.

$250,000 crew going up a [bleep] river.

[narrator] When navigating these waters,

timing is everything.

The high tide offers just two hours of passage

from the river's mouth to the camp.

And even then, the sailing is far from smooth.

[Mia] Oh. [exhales]

Right when you see that river,

you got to bank hard this way.

[Dave] Oh, yeah, back over to the other side.

It goes like this, Jared, that's why...

-[Jared] And then that's the sandbar. -[Dave] Yeah.

[Jared] It's a big risk,

and we don't do it unless

there's 10 feet of positive tide.

If you don't know the route,

you could hit sandbars, sink your boat into a river.

The final frontier of logging.

Okay, this is the point of no return.

[Dave] That's a massive sandbar

on the left side,

and that's this guy here.

So now you almost hugged that point there, right?

[Jared] Oh, [bleep].

Yeah, I am sweating like a whore in church.

[Mia] Did we pass the sandbar?

You can't [bleep] up now.

[Jared] So yeah, we're supposed to be on this side.

[Dave] [bleep] everywhere.

-Like, look at that thing. -[Mia] Oh! [exclaims]

-[Jared] That thing is [bleep] on. -[Mia] ...on.

[Mia speaking]

[Jared] There's major sandbars,

and we could definitely hit them,

which could...

sink the boat.

And people could lose their lives.

Come on.

This is [bleep], man.

Way more shallow than I thought it would be.

[bleep] Oh, no.

[Ross] We're out of here.

We crash this barge or sink it,

that's going to be a game stopper.

Oh! [bleep].

-[Jared] So yeah, we're supposed to be on this side. -[Dave] Yeah, that's it.

[Mia] It's going tight.

[Jared] [bleep]

[narrator] Up the tidal waters of Grizzly river,

Jared and his small team are

less than a mile from reaching his latest logging outpost.

But getting there is

a nonstop obstacle course.

[Dave] Yeah, get over it a little bit.

[Jared] Come on. [bleep]

You're doing it.

-[Jared] There's camp. -[Mia] Over there, I see it.

[Dave speaking]

[Jared] That was nerve-wracking,

to be honest with you.

[narrator] Built more than 30 years ago,

Grizzly Camp has seen many a logger come

and go broke.

And for good reason.

It's hard to get in,

even harder to get logs out,

and costly to keep running in such a remote area.

I don't know why that [bleep] scared me so bad.

It wasn't that bad, but...

[Mia] It was. [chuckling] It was. [chuckles]

[narrator] But before any tree-falling can commence,

Jared and his team must make sure

that this logging camp is at least livable.

[tense music playing]

[Jared] They say it takes a village.

[Dave] Yeah.

So where are we going first?

Uh, Coco's, to see...

-Let's go see. -Mia might quit on me here.

That's it right there. I can tell.

Mia's worked for me for about seven years.

[Mia laughing]

She makes everybody so [bleep] damn happy in the camps.

-[Dave] Oh, this is so cool. -[Mia] Oh.

-Yeah. -[Dave] Super clean, too.

-[Mia laughing] -[Dave] That's awesome.

It smells like...

-[Dave chuckling] Yeah. -[Mia] ...home.

[all laughing]

She works harder than most of the men.

She does not put up with [bleep].

[Mia] I don't know why you got me into here, Jared,

but... [chuckles]

...this is definitely going to be an adventure.

She'll stab you, like... [laughing]

[Mia] Oh, God. No.

Wow.

[groans]

All right. [sighs]

-What is this? -[Jared] Watch your hand.

-There's a loaded mousetrap there. -[Mia chuckles]

[chuckles] I see that.

I figured there'd be mice.

[Jared] Uh, we got a ton of work to do.

This place has been neglected for years.

It's definitely going to be a challenge

getting the camp up to snuff for the loggers,

the man princesses that are coming.

There's hungry guys, so this is the first priority.

[Dave] I'm under a lot of pressure right now

'cause we've got to have that camp operational

within like 48 hours.

The fallers are coming,

it's got to be in a clean environment.

There's a lot of history in these old camps

and you don't know the history.

[Mia] Oh, God. No, don't lift it.

-[bleep] ... [bleep] -[Dave] Yeah.

In a logging camp, there's many, many people

over many, many years

sleeping on these mattresses.

Gross.

You'd want to be comfy, but I don't want to be laying

on that kind of comfy.

-[Mia] I'm not laying on that. -[laughing]

And this will get bleached.

-I can taste the dust. Yeah. -Yeah, I can... [continues indistinctly]

Medical dust.

Maybe something horrific happened.

There was an incident years ago,

and anyhow, I'm going to burn this one.

Lots of incidents happen, and it just gets forgotten.

[narrator] If all goes to plan,

a barge will arrive tomorrow

to drop off more equipment and supplies.

Until then, there's still plenty of work

to be done.

[Jared] So you can live with this?

I can live with this. I can live with it, okay?

I can live with this for the view. [laughing]

[narrator] More than 100 miles to the south...

Well, we'll be in McCurdy for a little while.

There's quite a bit of wood in there.

[narrator] Foreman Ross and boom boat operator Dana

are headed to McCurdy Creek

to scout the final destination

of Jared's 170-foot floating camp.

This is McCurdy here.

Camp's gonna go right into here.

Definitely doesn't sit far from that beach.

[Ross] No.

[narrator] Worth nearly $2 million,

float camp is Jared's biggest asset by far,

and his only means for logging

some of the most remote corners

of the Pacific Northwest.

But it's also fragile,

and even the smallest of rocks could cut it wide open.

So we're just gonna lay some more sticks

right in here.

[narrator] So it's on Ross and Dana to make sure

there's a floating buffer of logs,

also known as a stiff leg,

to hold the camp firmly in place.

[Ross] If you don't secure the float camp properly,

the camp's going to be drifting around

like a big sailboat,

or it's going to end up on the beach,

punching a bunch of holes into it.

And you can imagine the cost on that,

filling up with water,

and quite catastrophic

if something like that happened.

You've got to make sure she's dialed in

and tightened up.

Nice job, bud.

Well, Jared's put a lot of trust in me here lately.

He's so busy with the other operations

that are going on,

so there's a little bit of pressure there.

I hate waiting. I'm not very good at waiting.

[Dana] This is better like this.

I get short with people sometimes,

which isn't the best way,

but the best way I deal with it is just motivation.

Carrying on and not stopping until it's done.

Got a dolphin here we can tie part of the camp to.

Then we'll tie one back over there,

so the camp's not gonna go anywhere.

If that was me, I'd fall right in.

Done?

[Dana] Not yet.

[Ross] Hurry up!

[Dana] I'll put three more ropes around.

[Ross] Okay.

[Dana] And then it'll be stiff.

[Ross] That's why they call it a stiff leg.

[chuckles]

Feel good about that now?

[Dana] Yeah.

Slide the camp right in there tomorrow.

[Dana] Okay.

I'm going to go deal with the barge.

[narrator] While Ross and Dana prep

for the camp move...

[Chris] Uh-oh.

[narrator] ...hand-fallers Chris and Brendan are

already working to get wood on the ground.

With the next log barge less than a week out,

Jared's counting on them

to fill it with high value timber

and keep the debt collectors at bay.

[Brendan] Something going on.

[narrator] But to bring this giant cedar down

in one piece,

they need the help of a high-powered jack,

and this one is starting to fail.

Just [bleep] mashing around here.

[Brendan] Yeah.

[Brendan] We found that there's some soft fiber there.

The jack's just kind of mashing into the tree.

It's not really doing much.

If this jack fails us right now,

the tree will go off backwards,

go where we don't want it.

[tense music playing]

[Chris] I can cut another window here.

And there's got to be something in the middle here.

If I have to, I can hog this out a little further.

-Want me to do that? -Yeah.

[narrator] With the center wood soft

and the tree so heavy, the jack is sinking in.

Now the tree is destabilized.

If Chris and Brendan don't reposition the jack

and get it leaning right,

it could fall back and crush them.

[Chris] The more you cut the tree,

every bit of that fiber you cut

tends to make that tree more unstable,

more potential to fall in any given direction.

Right now, it's kinda we're riding the line here

between just buggering off down the hill

and getting it to go wherever we want it to.

[narrator] If Chris and Brendan let the tree fall

straight down on the rocks,

all $60,000 of it

could be reduced to worthless splinters.

So with the jack now on firmer footing,

they're giving it everything they've got.

[Chris] So Brendan, he's beating

on the low side for me,

and I'm paying attention to the pressure gauge on the jack.

And I can see that his wedge hitting

is releasing the pressure.

[soft cracking]

[Chris] Come on.

Be nice to us.

[cracking intensifies]

It's talking anyway.

[Brendan] It wants to go.

[tense music playing]

[loud cracking]

[loud cracking]

[cracking intensifies]

[Chris] Come on, old girl!

-Go! -[loud crack]

-Go! -[loud cracking]

[Chris] I feel the holding wood popping

and the ground shaking,

and like this thing's right on the verge of wanting to go.

[cracking intensifies]

[Brendan] Let's go!

[narrator] In the hills of McCurdy Creek...

[Chris] This thing's right on the verge of wanting to go.

[Chris] Go!

[Brendan] [bleep]!

There really is not much there.

[Chris] I don't know.

[narrator] After three hours of trying to

keep this tree in one piece...

[Chris] It just exploded.

[Brendan] We tried.

[narrator] ...Chris and Brendan are left

with a pile of splinters,

and the majority of their $100,000 quota

still to be met.

[Brendan] Live to fight another day.

[Jared sighs] [bleep] car.

[narrator] Up at Grizzly Camp, Jared and Dave are

dealing with damage of their own,

courtesy of the local wildlife.

[Jared] Did you guys just see the bear up there?

Yeah, he's just up in the bush.

[Jared] Oh, really?

Brownish, blackish hair.

It left quite a bit of evidence in the pickup truck there

that it's probably a small juvenile grizzly.

Bears can pose a major problem out here for us.

It's called Grizzly River for a reason, so...

Hopefully nobody gets hurt. That's the main thing.

Oh, what a mess.

Oh, he liked Rolaids.

Definitely

shredded this thing up pretty good.

Bear was right up on the hood.

-Little dents are his claws marks. -[Dave] Scratches.

[Jared groans]

[Jared] Big time stressed out, I definitely

bit off more than I can chew.

That's crazy.

I've worked in a lot of these inlets,

and I've never seen a bear

-rip the window right out. -[Dave] Yeah.

I told my wife the other day

I might be having a panic attack here soon,

'cause I guess I got too much on the go.

The equipment barge is on its way up.

If the barge sinks going up the river, company over.

[sighs]

I'm not gonna sleep well through the night.

[narrator] As a new day dawns at McCurdy Creek...

[Chris] Good ol' morning leg burner. [laughs]

[narrator] ...Chris and Brendan are only a tenth of the way

to meeting their $100,000 quota.

And looking to catch up fast.

And they may have just found the tree they need to do it.

[Chris] Gonna get that big one right beside the road.

[Brendan] It's a dandy.

[Chris] Good solid 10 feet. Looks like about,

I don't know, maybe 200, 220 feet tall.

A couple of houses' worth, anyway.

Could be some good value in it.

If we can get it to lay out.

-You come up with your gameplan. -[Brendan] Yeah.

I got a plan. Run!

[Chris laughs]

[man speaking over radio]

We're all clear for you there, too, Chris.

So where we're working right now,

we're right above this road.

There's three fat trucks currently getting loaded up.

If we hold up that production,

we could lose a whole day's worth of work,

which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars

of timber coming down and getting dumped in the water.

[Chris 2 speaking over radio]

[Chris] Yeah, right on. Thanks, Chris.

-All right. -[Brendan] Dog in.

[Chris] Let's get her done.

Yeah, you stand here, it looks like it's cranked that way.

-[Brendan] Yeah. -[Chris] Leans right down to the road.

[Brendan] Yeah.

Deceiving.

I don't know why I keep looking at it.

I'm second-guessing, but it's like...

Through our past dealings with trees like this,

sometimes they look like they're going one way,

but they're actually going the other.

It kind of creates an illusion,

or it kind of tricks your brain.

From the bottom side, it looks like

it's actually leaning where we want it to go.

We walk around the high side here,

and it looks like it's leaning where we don't want it to go.

The road's not an option,

so we're kind of sizing up this little creek draw in front of it.

Looks like about the softest place

to put it and save it out.

Should be, uh... Should work out.

Famous last words, though.

I might have just cursed myself.

[narrator] To keep this off-kilter giant

from hitting the road,

Brendan and Chris will have to send it into a narrow gully

that should hold it on the side hill.

After making a face cut,

they'll once again use the jack to force it

in the right direction,

and hope that this time, nothing goes wrong.

[Brendan] We've made a plan with this tree, and, um,

we can make all the plans in the world,

but once you start cutting into these things,

sometimes there are surprises.

It could go down the hill

or something will happen, catastrophic.

Sometimes they got a mind of their own.

Things can happen. Things do go sideways.

This job is definitely not for the faint of heart.

It's optical illusion, man.

It's leaning where we don't want it to go.

It's just [bleep].

[narrator] Ten miles down the inlet,

and after weeks of costly commuting...

[Ross] We could probably start doing this dock.

[Dana] Yeah, I think so.

[narrator] ...it's moving day.

And with Jared tied up 100 miles away,

for the first time ever,

the pressure of a camp move

falls squarely on Foreman Ross.

You think we're gonna be able to move this thing with the boats attached?

-[Dana] Oh, yeah. -[Ross] All right.

This tugboat is paid for by the hour.

When he's here, we want to be ready to go.

He's basically just gonna hook onto this thing

and pull it out, and we're out of here.

They say that most tugging is about 95% boredom

and 5% of pure terror.

You have to be very experienced with your tides,

the winds, and the weather, and everything like that.

Glenn is the tugboat captain.

He has a lot of experience in doing this,

so I got a lot of respect for him.

He always does our camp moves.

What channel?

-[Glenn speaking] -[Ross] Six?

Okay.

[Glenn speaking]

[Ross laughs]

[Ross] There she goes. Camp is out of here.

Nice work.

Smooth!

Everything looks pretty good here.

[Glenn speaking]

[Ross] Yeah, you bet.

Holler if you need me. Thanks, Glenn.

It just takes one little thing

to throw a loop into the whole plan.

And hopefully that doesn't happen.

Knock on wood.

So far, the takeoff has been smooth.

But there's lots of things that can go wrong.

You're never really sure if you're gonna actually make it.

We are shut down.

[Jared] We have to bring every supply we have by barge.

[Chris] That thing's just gonna go where it wants to go.

You just hope for the best.

[narrator] After nine miles of towing down a remote inlet,

Jared's float camp is

finally closing in on McCurdy Creek.

And the most difficult part of any move,

the landing.

Just like that, things get pretty lively all of a sudden.

[Glenn speaking]

[Ross] Yeah, no, not really.

But I can scoot up there real quick.

[Glenn speaking]

[Ross speaking]

That should do it.

Oh!

[bleep]!

That was close.

That didn't work out too well.

I think we'll do that with Dana next time here.

[Glenn over radio] Roger that.

[narrator] Ross still needs to climb aboard float camp

to guide it safely into McCurdy Cove

and make sure Jared's $2 million vessel

doesn't take on any damage.

But this time,

he'll wait until it's slowed down

for the final approach.

[Ross] Run it up into the camp.

Last time we docked the camp, it hit a piling.

So just jumping to the other side there

just to make sure we weren't too close to it.

Okay, I got to go back up.

Go back into the boat.

Yeah, it's in line with the dolphin there now, so...

Yeah, keep coming. You probably got at least 15 feet.

Just a little bit more.

Keep her coming.

[Glenn speaking]

[Ross] Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you're moving.

There we go.

[Glenn speaking]

[Ross] Excellent job.

You don't need the big boss around.

She's in place.

Got a nice view of the inlet.

It's our new home.

[Jared] Morning.

[narrator] On Grizzly River,

Jared is still working to get his

$600,000 investment off the ground.

But before he can open his newly acquired camp to loggers,

he and Foreman Dave must first ensure they have

all the supplies they'll need.

[Dave] We'll get this off you. You want to get out of here

right away on this tide, right?

[Jared] We have to bring

every supply we have by barge.

[Dave] Come on, baby.

I'm talking gas, diesel,

oil,

food, groceries,

toilet paper, furniture.

People don't understand the scale of it.

Packing groceries into Grizz

is $35,000 worth of groceries

and 10% of that to get it in there.

The scale of the money spent is mind-boggling.

It's numbing to people.

You just got to go for it.

Just throw your cards on the table

and hope you get some at the end.

I guess we're just gonna get them up and out of here.

[narrator] To run an operation of this size,

Jared also needs fuel. A lot of it.

But with no crane to hoist these

25,000-pound tanks ashore,

Dave will have to improvise

with a standard-issue log loader.

I don't even want to watch.

I'm glad Dave's doing it and not me.

This one's going to be interesting.

Some mornings it's nice being the boss.

You can have a coffee and watch your foreman do the sketchy [bleep].

[Dave groans]

[bleep].

[Jared] First barge load off.

[narrator] Back at McCurdy Creek...

[Ross] The camp's here, so excellent.

[narrator] ...with float camp now caught up to the logging crew,

Ross can finally start moving some serious wood

before the next log barge arrives in a week.

Or at least, that was the plan.

[Ross] We got a bit of a development happening.

Oh, I see.

Oh, God.

[narrator] A goose has nested on McCurdy's

one and only working skid ramp,

the crew's one and only way of putting wood in the water.

And there are regulations for that.

[Ross] It's a pretty big situation.

When we come across a Canadian goose,

we're not allowed to touch them

or interfere with them at all.

I've got a load of chucks waiting.

We're not allowed to dump them,

uh, in fear of disturbing the goose.

[Dana] Do we get to move them out once they're hatched?

I don't know, man.

'Cause they'll probably want to hang around here.

Usually what they do is they kind of hang around in the area.

[Ross] It's a pretty big situation.

[Dana] Wildlife is kind of one of them things.

We have to shut down the dump.

Um, that's what's happening here right now.

So, yeah, we are shut down

until further notice.

[cell phone ringing]

[Ross] Jared, how are things going?

[Jared over phone] Uh, barge load went well.

What's happening over there?

Well, we have a goose making a nest

on one of our dump skids.

And right out in the open,

right next to where we're working,

and the thing is hunkered down on about six eggs.

Uh, it's a real, uh, environmental issue.

[Jared] Oh, man.

-Um... -[Jared] That's catastrophic, man.

Worst case scenario, it takes

four weeks for the eggs to

-hatch. -Four.

If we got to wait four weeks, that's gonna be devastating.

That'll kill this place.

[Jared] This is not good.

[narrator] Further up the hill,

and unaware of the goose debacle,

Brendan and Chris are still dead set on

bringing down $100,000 worth of timber.

And having made their face cut on this $60,000 cedar,

it's time to break out the jack.

[Brendan] The jack is definitely gonna be

a key to getting this thing to go in the draw,

as safely as we can.

That should be okay.

-[Brendan] Yeah, I think so. -[Chris] Yeah.

[Brendan] Still a bit of an optical illusion here,

but we've got

all the tools in place.

And it's one of the biggest jacks they make,

so if it doesn't work, then we're buggered.

[narrator] If the jack fails, and the tree hits the road,

it'll not only devalue the wood,

but block an essential route

for hauling other logs to the water.

Costing Jared hundreds of thousands

in lost production.

[Chris] This tree would probably be about if you took

a semi-truck and stood it up by end.

And that's about how much energy

and how much weight you're shifting around

over your head.

You never know.

Something could just pop at the wrong spot

and away she goes.

[Brendan] We got this jack pretty much maxed out.

I've cut everything I can from

the backside, in my back cut.

[Chris] That jack's lost PSI already, so it's moving.

It's making noises.

[bleep]!

[Jared] Crazy time right now

'cause we're opening a camp in Grizzly River.

We got a lot of issues to deal with when we get up there.

I've been chased by grizzly bears before,

and I'm not doing that again in my old age.

If you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly in this business.

-[man] What's up, man? -[Jared] How you doing?

[man] Good. You?

[Jared] Is this three inch mag then?

[man] That'll give you two and three quarter and three inch.

-Okay. -[man] Yeah.

[Jared] The bear threat is real.

Grizzly bears are extremely dangerous.

I gotta buy a gun,

and I gotta leave a gun in camp.

Yeah, I'll take this one.

[man] Now's the time, you know...

Yeah, they're gonna be coming out now. Hungry.

[man] Yeah.

We're gonna have bear problems.

No doubt about it.

[man] All right. Have a good one. See you later.

[narrator] In the wilderness near McCurdy Creek...

[Brendan] Come on, baby.

[narrator] ...Brendan and Chris are fighting to push

a $60,000 tree safely into a nearby gully.

If it goes the wrong way,

it could explode on the road below.

Or worse, topple straight back on the fallers.

[Brendan] There's obviously more wood in the middle of this tree.

We're gonna have to get back in there

and try and reach that little bit of wood.

[narrator] To get the last of the holding wood,

Brendan will have to reach five feet into this tree

with only a 30-inch saw.

So he'll carve large blocks from the tree's exterior,

allowing for deeper cuts,

and hope he's making just the right ones.

[Chris] There's a moment in any tree,

and it doesn't matter what one it is,

where it reaches a point and it's holding wood,

that thing's just gonna go where it wants to go.

You gotta stand back, just watch, and hope for the best.

Yeah, there she goes.

[Chris] Attaboy! Nice shot!

I think your GoPro's toast.

[Chris] Holy. [bleep] yeah.

[Brendan chuckles] [bleep] A! Woo!

Yeah, I don't think that one's coming back.

[Chris laughs]

[Brendan] Hang 'em high!

Everything went as planned.

We got it to lay in the draw.

Saved it out. Kept it off the road.

Ten by ten.

-[Chris] Wow. Nice work, buddy. -Jared...

There's definitely gonna be some good value in it.

[Chris] Yeah, you better put your initials on that guy.

[narrator] The fall went better than they could have hoped.

But it's still not quite enough

to reach Chris and Brendan's $100,000 quota,

putting more pressure on the days ahead

of next week's log barge.

[Brendan] At the end of the day, the road's clean,

and we'll try again tomorrow.

[narrator] Up Grizzly River...

the camp setup is coming together.

And Jared is eager

to start turning the giant timber nearby

into a return on his massive investment.

But unfortunately, he's needed elsewhere.

[Jared] Float camp is shut down right now.

We are not hauling any logs. No splash. No cash.

I'm in big trouble.

[bleep], man, I gotta go.

-What's going on? -It's situation critical over in float camp.

[bleep] goose

laid its egg in the skid ways.

Now we can't dump [bleep].

[Dave] No way.

Wow.

All that wood on the ground.

Log barge coming in five days.

Get some wood hopping in here.

[bleep]. We'll grind as hard as we can here,

to try and keep the lights on.

This is [bleep] brutal.

-Yeah. -[Jared] I'm just bouncing between disasters.

I hope that Grizz can kind of pick up the pace here

and start delivering logs to make up for float camp.

I'm swimming in debt.

Without float camp banging on all eight cylinders here,

we're in big trouble.

So I need to get out there and I need to get out there right now

and figure out what's happening.

[narrator] Desperate for money to start flowing at Grizzly,

Jared has hand fallers flying into camp today

so they can start dropping trees tomorrow.

But only if weather allows.

[Jared] We've got a helicopter coming.

He's flying from Port McNeill to Campbell River and then here.

[Dave] Okay. Hear the wind?

This is a very

logistically challenging place to work.

There's two hand fallers coming in

on this helicopter with all their gear.

-That'll give them a good idea. -Yeah.

Rick is a pretty integral part

of our operation at this time here.

All right, let's go see if we got them.

[Dave] He's a watchman here in camp, and he does

weather reports with the helicopter companies daily

to make sure that it's clear for them to fly in.

[Rick] Uh, just give me a call if you can

before you take off. Thank you so much.

[Jared] Well, how's she looking there, Rick?

-[Dave chuckles] -[Jared] We're gonna get out?

[Rick] Fingers crossed.

[Jared] What's the ceiling at?

-[Rick] Looks like about... -[Jared] 800?

-[Rick] About 750, 800. -[Jared] 750.

We've got about a 750-foot ceiling today.

Hey, Ronnie, it's Rick.

Following up on the weather, current conditions,

and the landing area.

[narrator] As of now, the cloud cover or ceiling

is too low to safely land a helicopter,

which means the fallers won't make it in today.

Jared stands to lose thousands of dollars a day

in operational costs until they do.

And with a $1.7 million debt to pay

and only $149,000 saved so far,

the timing couldn't be worse.

[Dave] Failure is not an option. We're gonna be in for

hundreds of thousands of dollars in setup costs.

With all the logistics and challenges,

we've got to get into production here.

We've got to make sure that we are profitable and productive.

Every day or minute you lose today,

you don't get back at the end of the year.

Like, we cannot fail or take down the company.

[Jared] We have a log barge coming in three days.

[Ross] We can't dump the loads.

This is gonna [bleep] send them over the top.

-[man] Crank it. -[Dave] Come on, baby!

[man] Another toy in the sandbox!

[honking]

[man] Mad Max, Davey style.

[Chris] Jackpot.

Uh-oh, stay up high!

Now what do you want to do?

[Jared] I've never been this frustrated in my entire life.

This might be the end of me.