Life Below Zero

Just put those in the front of the Honda.

And we'll just take the Honda as far as we could

up the road towards the culverts.

While we're patiently trying to wait for Chip to come home,

we've, um, decided to go out hunting

and hopefully killing some geese and birds.

So hopefully when my husband finally gets home,

we can actually have something fresh waiting for him.

I'm Agnes Hailstone.

I was born and raised here in Noorvik, Alaska.

My Inupiat name is Qalhapak.

I'm married to my husband Edward 'Chip' Hailstone.

We have two sons and five daughters.

Chip is currently serving his jail time,

and it's just the girls and I for now.

Growing up here, being raised here,

and living here all my life,

I've been through every river, every slough.

It's always a cycle, and it's always changing.

The last ten months have been pretty long and sad

with Chip being gone.

Food didn't taste good.

Coffee didn't taste good.

But I got through it.

I had my daughters with me.

They've actually gone from walking behind me

to walking by my side and hunting with me.

It's been really awesome watching these girls

in the last year grow up.

He's coming home soon,

and we're looking forward to the day he steps off that plane.

We survived.

We've improved.

And now we're just a lot stronger.

I think if we put our beautiful minds together,

we might catch dinner.

Today we're heading about three miles out of Noorvik

to go do a bird hunt.

Normally we're in Kiwalik this time of the year,

and we're doing our bird hunting down there,

but this year we're in Noorvik,

and we're doing our hunt around the area.

Usually Chip and the boys go out and do the hunting,

but this year it's me and the girls.

But the season's changing and the birds are arriving.

It's time to go catch a couple birds.

This looks like a good spot.

There's birds already.

This is a good place.

There's willows over there,

we could go sit right over here along the water's edge.

Once we get over there, we have to load our guns right away,

because there's already birds flying.

So, we're going to really try to go catch us fresh dinner

for you guys' dad for when he gets home.

Yup. Ready?

Yup.

This is where I used to go when I was a little kid.

All you got to do is stand some of them up.

They don't have to be perfect.

We just need a good spot to sit.

So right now, we're just setting up a blind,

and in my language, it's called itchuvik.

And, ah, itchuk is to sit there patiently and wait.

Right on, girls, we're all good.

We got this blind up in no time.

Now we could just try to fill up our rifles and sit quietly.

We need to load them up.

We managed to make our ichovik

right before the next flock comes.

Right on.

No matter what, once you load your gun,

always watch which way it's pointing, okay?

Never point at each other, ever.

We already saw a flock when we first got here,

so that's a good sign.

The birds are going to be attracted

to that open water over there.

For now, we just have to sit and wait.

Come on, geese.

I'm definitely getting a little bit older.

I don't have quite the energy that I had

when I was 20 when I showed up here.

The difference is I have a lot more skills,

a lot more knowledge, and a lot more experience.

What do you think, Fog?

Fergy?

Hey, Bergy.

How's the old man doing?

Hi.

He says, 'I'm not getting in that mud.'

Yeah.

I'm going to hang out on my house for a while.

Alright, you guys ready for chow?

My name's Andy Bassich.

I live here on the Yukon River at Calico Bluff.

I canoed from Whitehorse down to Eagle, Alaska, in 1980

and landed on the banks right here along the Yukon River

and felt like this is the place I need to live.

I started out as an explorer, leaving Maryland

and coming to Alaska to explore a different lifestyle.

But then I became a settler.

It's just been a slow accumulation of tools,

equipments, and skills that have gotten me where I'm at now.

One of the things that I struggled with

for a long time was money.

I kept thinking I had to have a job.

I had to have money.

I think the most important lesson for me to learn out here

is that out here money doesn't mean a damn thing to you.

Nature is both beautiful and ruthless all at the same time.

But I love being able to live in a place

where I can make the world the way I want to live.

Whenever I'm gone from here,

the moment I come back, I have the exact same feeling...

and that is, ah, I'm home.

What do you think of all this rain, huh?

It means breakup.

Clear skies to rain means breakup.

It's coming.

One of the things I have to do every minute of the day

right now is to keep a really close eye on the Yukon River.

The water's extremely low this year for breakup.

I have never seen it this low for a breakup.

So, I really don't have any experience

on what that might entail.

When the river starts backing up and starts flooding,

it happens extremely fast.

You got to be ready for it,

because there's no time to react.

After a long winter with everything frozen

and locked up pretty tight,

the river moving again,

kind of like the beginning of the new year for me.

Let's go this way.

But I just noticed the river's come up quite a bit,

so I think I'm going to put a marker stick in

and kind of keep a close eye on this river.

I want to be ready for when this river breaks

so that nothing bad happens to me or my dogs.

Ah, I'm just putting in some, a stake into the river here.

And then marking a couple marks on it

so I can kind of try and keep track

of how much the river's rising.

It's really starting to move a lot in the last hour or so.

It's starting to happen, and I want to be ready for it.

Looks like that tree up there might be a good one to tie to.

What I'm trying to do right now

is, ah, get a line on my fish wheel.

So that if it floods and it starts floating,

it doesn't go down to Circle, Alaska,

on the Yukon River

and I have to start from scratch.

I've got a lot of money invested in this fish wheel,

and if I lose this, it's a huge, huge loss.

Alright.

That fish wheel represents

probably one of the most important tools

that I have for feeding myself and my dogs.

I don't want to have to lose that fish wheel.

And I certainly don't want to have to rebuild one from scratch

if it goes away.

Alright.

I feel pretty secure about that now.

I want to be ready for that river when it goes out,

'cause it could come and bite my butt really quick.

This is what I moved to Alaska to live like.

The land is my teacher. I'm out here to learn.

Springtime is a good time to be out hunting

and camping out in the woods.

Muskrat season.

Ice is just starting to free up

on the lakes and ponds and creeks.

It's not quite time to get out on the river with my boat yet,

but I got a canoe now,

and working on getting back to my roots

that brought me up here to Alaska in the first place.

I'm Jessie Holmes.

I'm from Alabama originally.

Before I moved to Alaska, I ran into some hard patches in life

and didn't really have much direction.

I got in some trouble.

I went back to what I really like doing naturally,

and that was living out in the woods.

Got a backpack, and all my possessions were on my back,

and I was on the road.

I was traveling, jumping trains.

Going from one place to the next.

I moved to Alaska determined to live a subsistence lifestyle,

and I found solace in the wilderness,

and as I continued to work with sled dogs,

I realized that I had a knack for it.

I just put all my drive and determination

into being successful at running dogs.

That led to racing,

and once I started racing, I knew I had something there.

Every year I try to better my life.

Always thinking about the dogs,