Life Below Zero

Go, go, go!

Another day of snow in this winter wonderland.

Yee!

Today, we're going up the river.

There's caribou crossing by the hundreds up the river.

This is the time to go do our caribou hunt.

The river's about to freeze.

This is the time we go out and go get our meat.

We could have meat during the freeze-up.

Jon's gonna be here with us.

He just came in from Selawik.

I haven't been up here hunting with my parents

in quite a few years.

I'm ready to go do just about anything

to catch a boatload of caribou.

I need meat.

Around this time of year, I usually have like 30 caribou

and a lot of food security.

But that just ain't the way it is right now.

The thing about freeze-up is that you never know

when it's gonna occur or how many times it'll occur.

Sometimes it comes along and it thaws.

Sometimes it comes along and it just stays frozen.

We're gonna try and get as many caribou as we can.

We're not trophy hunting, we're hunting for food,

so it's all about food.

That's the real trophy.

It's a long trip up there to go set up camp,

and our chances of seeing animals

between here and there are great.

And if they are, we'll just stop and work 'em.

And wherever we find ourselves this evening,

we'll sit and make camp, alright?

With limited time

before the caribou migration ends,

the Hailstones must intercept the herd

before the river freezes.

Heck, if we really score good,

maybe we'll just sleep at home in bed.

Well, the biggest problem we have right now

is having it be so cold and then getting wet.

Getting wet is the real pain.

So, it's about to freeze up in a couple days,

and we usually come up here to go get all the bulls,

while they cross the river,

and set up a camp, spend the night.

I don't see any fresh tracks.

But who knows?

Maybe we'll get lucky, maybe we won't.

This is probably the first time I've ever been up here

and not seen anything caribou-wise.

But what we need to do is get a few before rut hits.

For now we're just happy to be right here in the place we are.

Hopefully, there will be caribou crossing tomorrow.

We're just gonna keep at it until we get what we need.

Throw a pebble into the ocean,

you're still gonna have a ripple.

Sooner or later, it's a tidal wave

on another part of the world.

Well, today's the day I say goodbye

to my last little clients.

Kavik River Camp serves

as a remote fueling station and bed and breakfast

for bush pilots who are passing through the tundra.

With her season of clients coming to an end,

Sue must now prepare for dark winter alone.

And there's always a little trepidation.

People fly off, and I look around and I'm like, ah.

The amount of work is overwhelming,

and, nah, I'm not gonna see anybody for a while.

It's an emotional trip.

People are leaving and you're all by yourself.

And on one hand, that feels...

It is vast and overwhelming country,

so it feels vast and overwhelming.

It's the life that I choose, it's the life that I love.

And then suddenly, it doesn't seem so overwhelming.

Got to get to work.

Time to get myself a little cup of tea and warm up.

Winter's not waiting on me to be ready.

It's here.

What I need to do is get all my jet fuel barrels.

Get 'em over to the fuel shed to get filled.

Get as many pallets as I can,

and get those over by my heat tank.

I need to get it where it needs to live for the winter

to make it the easiest, closest for me

when the conditions are brutally cold and brutally dark.

Just gonna take a quick look at my barrels.

Huh, what a project.

Four barrels go on a pallet.

In order for me to have enough fuel for the entire winter,

that's 48 barrels.

I have to individually... look at each barrel,

say yes or no to it.

See if they're empty.

If they're not, verify what's in it.

Check it out and make sure there's no holes.

Even a pinhole leak.

It's a protected ecosystem.

You can't leak fuel out all over,

it's just not the way it's done.

So, I have to visually inspect each year, each barrel.

This is a no.

The bad ones are over here.

Why are they bad? Well, this one has a hole in it.

This one's beat up really dang bad.

Looks like it's been that way for a while.

Right here is a ding, but it's not a hole.

But if I need 48 barrels, I've got to do 48 inspections.

You know, I'm getting colder.

Am I well below zero?

No, but now is the time to get everything where it needs to be.

I have to continue my process

on getting the barrels where they need to live,

because overnight I can drop below zero.

Within a couple weeks I'm gonna be dark.

I got 48 that are free of holes,

free of things that'll compromise

the integrity of the barrel.

Next step for me, though, for this, get to work,

start pumping fuel.

I got a passion for this, and that's what drives me.

It's passion, determination, competitiveness.

Winter is coming fast, it's already snowed.

The ground's been freezing every morning.

But now it's time to turn

my full attention

to my last big priority

of the season, for winter,

is to put up a lot of fish here for the dogs.

Jessie Holmes relies on the resources

along the Nenana River to maintain a subsistence lifestyle

with his team of sled dogs.

To survive the long winter ahead,

it is vital for Jessie to catch fish before the river freezes.

My lead, which is one of the most important parts

of the fish wheel, is in pretty bad condition.

A lead is basically a fence from the shore

to the baskets of the fish wheel.

So, if the fish hit it, they have no way to go through

except into the baskets, scooping them up.

The trick about a fish wheel is attention to detail,

and this lead is one of the most important parts of it.

It could run now without the lead,

it'd catch some fish, but I'm not looking for some fish,

I'm looking for hundreds of fish.

Next thing is just to physically push this in here.

If you fall in this river,

you know you're not gonna make it very long,

especially this time of year.

Well, you could get hit by any moving part

or scooped up into the basket if you fall in,

you could lose your boat and your life.

Oh, come on. You got to be kidding.

Alright! Done.

I'm hoping that this will be productive,

'cause I want to put up as much fish

as I possibly can before winter.

Nothing goes to waste.

What I don't use, there's other animals that will use it.

It's getting light out there.

I got to get back up to that moose.

I got to go up there and get that before anything finds it.

This time of year there's still bears around.

There are wolves around, there are wolverines.

If anything gets that moose before I get there,

they'll eat it up.

What they don't eat, they'll destroy.

I got to get up there as fast as I can.

Glenn Villeneuve has successfully harvested a moose,

which he relies on to provide enough meat and protein

to survive most of the year.

He must retrieve the meat before scavengers devour it,

or be forced to search for other food sources in dark winter

when the animals are scarce.

Bears don't go into hibernation

until two or three weeks from now,

so, I definitely want my rifle.

Very important.

As I approach that moose,

main thing on my mind,

did anything get there before I get back to it?

I got about four and a half miles of walking in the snow.

I'm gonna be dragging heavy loads of meat.

I got to get that moose back to camp.

I'm listening carefully.

Listening for any sounds.

Trying to look ahead, see as far as I can in the forest.

Looking at the snow, are there any bear tracks around?

Just paying close attention.

I don't want to get surprised here.

The moose is just over the other side of this little hill.

I can't see it.

But it's just on the other side of this hill.

I got to be very careful, going up over this last hill.

Make sure there's nothing there, I don't want to get a surprise.

Very dangerous situation,

if you come across a bear that's on a food pile,

they can be extremely aggressive.