Life Below Zero

We'll be down there.

Yup.

We're planning to go on a little hunt boating trip, our very first one

this season now that the ice is gone.

These rivers here, they're our roads.

So now, it's time to travel this road.

But do it in a boat rather than a snow machine.

There's a lot of hunting to be done right now.

It's the breakup.

Birds coming in, there's fish coming in.

There's muskrats and beavers to be had.

And I don't know how well we'll do, but we got to go give it a try,

so the time to go is now.

You guys ready?

-Sure. -Ready and willing. -Let's go.

It's the last fur hunt of the year.

We wanna get out here and get behind where these ice jams are flooding everything up and

getting to lakes and sloughs that we can't normally access.

And just ride around and see things, and catch them.

Right there!

-Oh, it's right there, Chip. Stop.

-Oh, wow. That's our target.

-There's a muskrat, Carol, you're the first shooter.

-Good job, Carol. -Man, hook, hook, Qutan.

Good one. There you go.

Our first muskrat.

All right. Good job.

This is the last fur hunt of the year.

The animals that live in the water, they don't shed till next month.

So, their fur is really, really good still prime right now.

And they're pretty good-tasting.

And we can use their furs for making stuff out of.

You can make blankets. You can make clothing.

It comes down to, you know, feeding your kids, feeding yourself.

None of it goes to waste.

-12:00. You see it? -I see it. -There's another one.

-Right there, dad. -It's right there, Chip. Stop.

Right there, Carol.

-That's him underneath there underneath the log.

He's right underneath the log right there. Right in front of us.

-It's right in here, Carol. -It's just right there.

-Grab it, Qutan. You got it.

-Just grab it by its tail. -I can't reach it. -Here you are.

-There you go. There you go. -Perfect, Carol. Perfect. You're doing great.

-Now grab it and bring it in. Be quick!

-By the tail, Carol. Smack it. -There you go. -Well done.

We got a shooter and a grabber.

-We haven't even gotten a mile down this channel yet, and we're doing pretty good.

-There it is, Carol. -Right there!

One, two, three, go.

-You're a little high. You need to bring that front site down a little bit.

Go, Carol.

Yee! You got it.

-Carol's getting used to using a .22,

and she's in a boat doing this while the muskrat's doing this.

So, when you're doing this, it's not easy.

Not easy at all.

Way up there. 12:00.

You led it too much.

-Reload. One more time, get it ready.

By the fifth muskrat, you'll be just dialed in.

-Good job, Carol. -That's a big one. -Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Right here, right here.

-Whoa. It's coming right to you.

That one is dead!

-Nice shot! -Wonderful! -You got it!

-There you go. -You girls are awesome.

I love this. Now I know how my parents used to feel.

So exciting, fun.

-Good one. -Deader than dead.

-Now you're learning that rifle a bit, aren't you?

We got eight.

-Whoa. There's number nine.

Good job.

We haven't even made it a mile down this channel yet, and we're getting plenty.

I think we're gonna do pretty good tonight.

We just got a long night ahead of us.

We all go by seasons, and there are certain times a year we do things not by the

hour and the day, but by the day on the calendar.

I just wanna walk back to Ford Lake today and see what the ice conditions are like.

See if there's any sign of ducks or muskrats or any food to eat that's fresh.

Along the Yukon River,

Andy Bassich survives the winter by relying on big game meat he harvests each fall.

Now that the freeze has passed and the river ice has broken up,

Andy must seize the opportunity to get fresh meat for the first time in months.

-This has been kind of a bizarre, or different I should say, spring.

I, I'm just not seeing the birds I normally see.

Normally, there'd be lots and lots of ducks around.

Lots of songbirds.

I'm seeing almost no songbirds.

Most years, my porch, my yard is just full of juncos.

So, I'm just gonna go do a recon with the dogs back to Ford Lake,

see if there's anything worth hunting back there yet.

Okay, let's go.

Let's go to the lake.

Come on. Let's go to the lake.

Just seems like everything is late this year.

And that kind of goes along with what I'm seeing with climate change.

Winters are just protracting longer into spring, and so the migrations

seem to be shifting

a week or two later in the spring, and a week or two later in the fall.

Climate change is impacting the way we live up here.

There's just all of these big question marks, all these big unknowns.

It's a feeling of always wondering what's coming around the next corner at you.

'Cause we just can't do things the way we did it for the last 20 years,

and that leads to a little bit of apprehension.

All bets are off.

Lots of ducks.

Lots and lots of ducks here.

Holy mackerel.

This looks like it's just about perfect conditions for duck hunting.

Looks like the bottom of the lake is still frozen, so I'll be able to

walk around without it being too soft and mucky.

I'm seeing lots of mallards back there.

Ducks are being held pretty close to the shore by the ice.

So, time to go ditch the dogs, go get my shotgun, practice a few rounds,

and then go duck hunting.

All right, let's go, guys.

Got a launcher here so I can hopefully launch a few skeets and,

there's a big difference between shooting a static target on the ground and

shooting at something that's moving.

If I can hit a few of these, maybe I'll be able to hit a few ducks.

Practice, practice, practice.

Dang.

Miss and a miss. I better stick with one at a time until I feel better.

Second shot got him.

I don't really hunt with a shotgun very much.

I really don't hunt waterfowl except during the springtime,

this time of the year when they first come back.

The rest of the year, I usually have big game.

I prefer killing the fewest animals I can for the food that I need.

Got it!

I'm starting to feel a little bit more confident.

It was a little bit shaky at the very beginning, but I'm starting to feel like

I'm getting my range and my motion in a little bit.

So, I think I'm just gonna head on back to the lake and see if I can't shoot a couple

ducks and put some meat on the table.

My life revolves around these dogs.

When I started doing this, there was no success.

There was nothing but struggle.

But I'd do anything for those dogs.

Those dogs are my family.

This is absolutely gross around here.

This is about the worst time of year in a dog yard.

You just kind of dread breakup.

Breakup's no fun.

Breakup's just muck and work and work when you got a dog yard and a dog team.

Ground starts thawing like we're getting now.

Every night's starting to warm up.

This is just a big swimming pool in the summer.

I wouldn't wanna live in this, so my dogs ain't gonna live in this.

In Nenana, Jessie Holmes has devoted his life to training and

racing his team of sled dogs.

Maintaining his kennel is a year-round job and today, he'll begin work on the most

essential labor of the spring.

-I'm building a new dog yard over across away.

It dries out early, drains good, so I'm thinking my best option is to put a

dog yard in over there.

I got 20 dump truck loads of gravel and sand mixture.

I'm having my friends come over and we're gonna spread it all out.

I'm gonna do a bunch of manual work ahead of, I got them coming tomorrow.

It's a challenge constantly to keep these dogs healthy.

Wet ground like this, dogs are gonna get sick, you know?

They're gonna get colds.

They got moisture.

They need to be on fresh, dry ground.

Over here is where the new dog yard's going in.

And some of the driest ground I was able to find this year.

My vision for this is to have a really expanded, like, gravel, flat pad.

And it's got to be a healthy environment for the dogs.

I haven't had this opportunity in the past,

financially, to bring this kind of gravel and filling.

It's not cheap, but the dogs won some races this winter and placed highly and

that purse money that I've made, I'm putting it back into the dogs always first.

Whoo.

The future of this dog team continuing to have the success that it does and grow upon

that, this is essential to get this done.

This is my number one priority this year.

But right now, the next thing to do is, I got a lot of trees I need to take out over here

before my friends come over with the bobcat.

It's a lot of work, but it's gonna be worth it.

Every day I wake up, I know that there's lots of stuff that needs to be done.

And the only way I can do it and make it and be ready for winter and

make the things I wanna

have happen next winter is to just consistently, steadily work towards winter.

I'm not really thinking about summer as like,

"Ah, it's summer, this great time to relax.

Get a suntan." No, I'm thinking

"Summer, man, I got a lot of (bleep) that's got to get done.

And I got a limited timeframe to do it."

All right. Now I got all the perimeter cleared out and

everything's ready for the guys to come in with the equipment

and spread out all the gravel evenly.

And then I can start setting up my dog yard.

There's a potential for things out here to go very wrong.

It's important to take things slow.