Life Below Zero

You know, it's a beautiful time of year.

And any excuse to get Little Red out for a little

a buzz-buzz is kinda nice.

I must stay profitable to keep my lease, and

I'm gonna have to open up this winter to inundate myself

with people to make up the difference and be profitable.

My name is Susan Aikens,

and I am the sole resident of Kavik River Camp,

which is located 197 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

I am the only refueling station on the eastern side

of the North Slope.

That's the size of a third of the state of California.

I bought the camp because what I see is not an oil camp.

What I see is not a hunting camp.

What I see is an ecotourism camp and a place to visit

this incredible place we call the Arctic.

You know, when I was very little,

people always ask you what you wanna be when you grow up.

And in the mid '60s for a girl,

it's supposed to be wife, mother, stewardess.

Maybe even nurse.

But I always had the same answer, lighthouse keeper.

I crave extreme isolation and my personality thrives

when that's how I'm living.

I don't live by anybody else's rules but my own.

I've been hearing the clients talk about

a ton of new bear scat close in to camp.

This is around where they say I should start seeing

where they're digging things up and pooping all over.

I've got one bear out here that for years

I've called a Monster Bear.

He is twelve to fourteen-foot.

Straight up anomaly bear for the uh, inland grizzly.

He's more like a Kodiak bear size.

The goal, is to uh, maintain a secure perimeter around camp.

There's some.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, this is like, totally really fresh.

Well this is definitely a nice little spring of dookie.

Some of the things you can tell it's fresh

and he's been eating the berries.

It's a juvenile bear.

If you look at the size of what's coming out,

it's not that big of an aperture.

That bear has every right to go be as happy as he wants to be

five miles out.

One or two miles close to camp,

I'm gonna try to persuade him to leave.

You don't go pushing the issue.

You don't push a confrontation.

We got some ptarmigan.

My food supply is getting a little bit lower than I like.

Ptarmigans are tasty little meals.

Maybe she doesn't see me. !

She's getting ready to fly.

I got a little ptarmy.

Damn, there's a ton of 'em.

I got two here.

The original mission was to check for predators.

That was worth it though.

I got some birdies.

Just a nice little addition for my uh, food supply.

And I've got a tasty little meal for dinner.

Today I found out about the, uh, animals in my area.

Right now I'm seeing bear activity.

I need to take notice, I need to pay attention until it gets

within a mile, half a mile of camp, I don't need to worry.

But I need to be aware.

I'm a man building a lifestyle and a life out here

for myself.

Bailing the old wood boat out here.

It's been raining for a week, and this thing has taken on

a lot of water in the last few days of heavy rain.

I've got so much to do I can hardly keep up on everything,

you know?

My name is Jessie Holmes, I live in Nenana, Alaska

with my team of 55 sled dogs.

I love dogs.

I love the loyalty and the work ethic of the Alaskan husky.

I appreciate their tough feats, their big hearts,

and their athleticism.

I build my own structures, I hunt, I fish,

I live a subsistence lifestyle.

I made a lot of mistakes in my life and I up a lot,

and I'm trying to like make up for it.

That's what I would tell you about me.

It's gonna continue to rain, and it's gonna get cold.

Perfect for moose hunting.

If I get a moose, it saves me a lot of time,

'cuz one shot at getting hundreds of pounds of meat

as opposed to killing a hundred critters

to get by during the winter, you know?

Well I'm here in the main channel of this big river,

and I'm about to dip into a slough back here.

Head a few miles up and try to find a meadow to hunt tonight.

My plan's to get out there and set up a little camp,

and then head down to a meadow, and call moose in.

See if I get any response.

You always gotta keep your eyes open when you're out here,

because you never know when a moose is gonna come.

I'm gonna set up camp now.

I'm gonna rig up a tarp here so

I got a place to get out of the rain, stay dry tonight.

Keep it simple, man.

It just keeps it more peaceful to me.

Five-star accommodations.

Get this done, now I can head on out and hunt.

It's getting late.

I'm hoping that this will be productive, but

the only way to find out is to go get quiet

and start calling moose.

My moose call here is the moose shoulder blade

I scrape and use it to call the moose in.

I'm looking for like, some sign of moose activity.

I see a lot of spots where a moose bedded down, so

this is a meadow that moose come to.

It's getting pretty dark.

I can't reliably even see for a good shot, so gonna head on,

come back in the morning.

But good start.

Good spot.

Boating.

Hunting.

Fishing. Camping.

I wouldn't trade this life for anything.

The girls got mail.

All right. Wonder what we got.

Dad, catch! Ah.

I'm Edward Hailstone.

My nickname's Chip.

I'm married, I've got five daughters, couple sons.

We live here in Noorvik, Alaska for a good chunk of the year,

then live in camps for probably a good seven to eight months

of the year.

And uh, we all work together

and we like to show our kids what to do.

And if our kids choose to live this way,

they've got good knowledge in it,

and if they don't choose to live this way,

they're well-versed in other stuff.

My name is Agnes Hailstone,

and I live with my husband Chip.

I'm a hundred percent Inupiat.

Born here, raised here, and we hunt, fish,

and gather pretty much year-round.

And we live a subsistence lifestyle.

What is that?

It's deeds to property from your mom and your dad.

I've acquired some property.

It was passed down to me, from uh, my mother,

and it was passed down from her mother.

This is some real good areas here, so we're gonna.

Go check it out. Like a boat ride.

Yeah.

My wife got a title to some lands that she knew she had

inherited, and uh, it's taken quite a few years for the courts

and the system and all these other things to come through.

You'll enjoy this place.

Me and your mom know it well enough.

My son Jon came over from Selawick,

and we'll take him down to Emonakrov,

that's the name of the camp down there and have him pick out

a place, and he can give me a hand and maybe start developing

a taste for the area.

It's over here.

So, on both sides of the river.

We own both sides.

The Hailstones' new land allows greater access

to resources for survival,

but with the onslaught of winter storms and freezing temperatures

rapidly approaching,

building a permanent structure is a priority.

My legs are too short for this!

This is my train of thought.

Everybody that was here didn't come here to play

in the willows.

They came here to fish.

So they're definitely going to put a place where they could

park their boat or find it easy with a dog team or snow machine.

So my thought is if they can't get in with a boat,

I'm gonna stick with the creek

and go find a camping spot along it.

Look at that. Tent pegs.

Somebody tented here, until the bush grew through it.

Yeah, this is the place we were talking about.

Yup, look, tent's peg. Look at that. Whoopa, whoopa,

hot dog. This'll be the place,

and now we can knock that off with a chainsaw real easy,

open this up a little bit.

Look how flat and level this ground is.

This is just wonderful.