Life Below Zero

You know this last winter, I hurt the body.

One of the largest owies was to the, you know,

this whole area here.

The problems that I have,

I'm not gonna be shooting on this side-ever again.

All of my hardware is for somebody that has a whole

different body than I have.

Put on your gun belt.

Where does it hang?

On the right.

This is the one that's hurt.

My guns, every single, stinking one of them is made to go here,

on the right. So,

I'm gonna fly to town, see my buddy Gary, get a gun made,

and get back here so I can protect myself.

I can't maintain my style of life here if I can't protect

myself and hunt for the food that I eat.

If I can't do that simple task, I'm done.

I know you're saying it's all good, it's all okay.

But I know I'm putting the weight of the world

on your shoulders.

I love you and I absolutely respect you for stepping up

to the plate.

That's pretty cool beans. I love you too, Auntie.

And I got this.

It's a blessing to have Jesse here,

and being so capable.

This time of year, if I didn't have Jesse up here with me,

I would not be able to leave. I love you.

I love you too, Auntie. Thank you so much

for being you.

No problem, Auntie. ...Family's for.

Family sticks together.

You know, the gun, I'm excited about it.

I've got an idea.

But I need to see how it is, and then find my weaknesses.

Winter's coming; the bears are out there,

the wolverines are out there, the wolves are out there.

This is my life on the line.

All this nature is the same as it was

10,000 years ago.

We're the things that change.

You ready bun?

I got to flip over my shoes so they don't get rained on.

The Hailstones spend their summer along the Kiwalik

River, where they only have a brief window to gather resources

before the freeze returns.

For Chip and Agnes, teaching their daughters how to survive

in the Arctic is a priority and a valued native tradition.

Okay, girls, let's go to the greens!

We can start with sour docks. Yeah.

Since the sour docks are ready.

What we call sour docks in English,

they call quagaqs in Inupiat.

And they're a local green that we like to eat with,

they're a little sort of slightly on the sour side.

So, they're good with vinegar and oil,

a little bit of salt and pepper.

And they're a really good green, and they're really fresh,

and the time to pick 'em is now.

Well, you can spot these red stalks that are up.

And around 'em, there'll be nice succulent greens.

And they're pretty tasty actually. I like 'em.

I grew up eating this kind of stuff.

But we used to go gather them, you know, on riverbeds.

Not much different than this.

You girls got to make sure you pick the right,

correct greens so we don't get sick.

One year, we thought we picked all greens, and then,

there happened to be a few poisonous flowers mixed in

with those. And I happened to eat them and I got really sick.

And after that, me and the girls started watching every plant

we pick.

And they have it in their head,

if they don't pick the correct plant,

somebody's gonna get sick. So,

it's very important for the girls to know what they need

to look for, it's important for them to know where to go to pick

these things and how to preserve them.

If they don't have this experience

and if they don't know what flowers to eat,

they might go hungry.

Being out here, there's no reason to go hungry

if you know what you're doing.

We're really not scoring too high here, are we?

Yeah, we've picked most of the big ones

already and there's just quite a few smaller ones.

We should just go downriver.

You guys want to go a couple miles?

Yes. Yeah, we could,

probably there'll be bigger leaves.

We're heading down to the coast.

We've pretty much picked out this whole little valley here.

You don't ever want to impact an area too heavy

that it wouldn't grow back.

We go for quality, not quantity.

So we're gonna go wherever it's wet.

Wherever you see lakes, wherever you see rivers, creeks,

things like that, that's where we'll be,

and that's where the quagaqs will be.

There's lots of opportunities,

depends on what you wake up to in the morning.

We always keep ourselves busy.

My name is Martha Mae Salitan, I'm married to Erik Salitan.

I'm from Iliamna, Alaska.

I was born and raised here.

I enjoy hunting, fishing, camping.

Anything that has to do with the outdoors.

Beautiful day to go play on the lake.

See if I can find some birds.

Erik left early this morning with a fishing client,

so I got the rest of the day to go out and motor around

on the lake.

I'm gonna first check out this little pond that's not too far

away from here.

Erik and I have hunted over there and have been successful

before so, I figured that's a good place to go.

Hopefully I can prove to Erik that I'm just as good a hunter

as he is.

Martha and Erik Salitan live on the Iliamna

Peninsula during the summer months,

where they hunt and fish

to maintain their subsistence lifestyle.

I grew up out here.

You really learn to love and hate the lake.

It's a renewable resource that you can always depend on, but

you also learn that it's very dangerous.

It's the largest freshwater lake here in Alaska.

Eighty miles long by twenty miles wide,

and if you get caught up here on an ugly day, winter or summer,

it could potentially be really dangerous.

This is the first spot.

There's a little lake that's right over here,

so, we're gonna head over there and hopefully, there's a bird.

The lake's right there.

We'll see what we got here.

I'm gonna go down a little bit further and see if I can get

right across from 'em.

They're right in front of us.

Onto the next.

There are certain kinds of ducks that taste good

and certain kinds of ducks that don't.

Mergansers are one of the ones that don't, so,

we're gonna keep moving.

See if we can find something else.

Came to this lake here.

Had two birds in it.

But they're just not the kind that we want.

I'm gonna load up here, go over to this island right over here

called Rabbit Island.

It's a good spot.

Couple a small little ponds on it.

Hopefully, there's birds over there.

I define wealth as in I'm already rich.

I have a life that can live self-sufficiently.

Gonna help me? Yeah.

You know all about sharpening chainsaws?

Starting to cool down, the rainy season is coming.

It's been dry and, you know, I'm starting to focus on training.

Jessie Holmes devotes the winter season competing

in sled races with his dog team.

Having proper doghouses will ensure that the dogs stay

healthy and strong in the harsh conditions of racing season.

The theory of a doghouse, per dog,

is not to keep it warm.

It's to keep it dry.

In the winter, you know, if the dog's all wet and its fur,

underfur is matted down, it can't stay warm.

All the investment I put in these young dogs is investing

in my future career.

Time's overdue for me to get ahead on some new houses.

Then I don't have to worry about it for, you know,

the years to come.

One thing I gotta do is get all this fireweed out of here.

As much as I love it and as beautiful as it is,

I can't see the ground.

This is all gonna be places where dogs are gonna end up

going if I can clear it out.

So this is, like, gonna be the beginning of, like,

my new dog yard.

Right now all I see is, a lot of work.

Already, I got enough sod opened up for a couple dogs.

Look at it that way,

so you don't feel like it's so much work.

One step at a time.

For me, I had to, like, just work hard.

Deal with what I got.

A lot of people would have a big piece of machinery

and have a perfectly groomed dog yard.

Me, I have to deal with what I got.

You know, and I got what I can afford.

They won't be perfect but it'll be better.

Ah! .

Ah! .

Just got stung by a bee.

Outta' there.

I guess this is the disadvantages

of doing this kind of thing by hand.

One venomous bee.

Didn't want to get stung by a bunch of 'em.