♪ ♪
[Sue Aikens] Hoo-wee.
♪ ♪
Got to kick around a little to find the pipes.
♪ ♪
They may be frozen to the ground already.
♪ ♪
The weather changes on a dime out here.
I mean, on a thin dime.
Overnight, bam!
Winter storm hits, but I've got to get the chores done
before winter takes the iron fist.
♪ ♪
I've got to get my pipes out of where they're at
before the snow buries it and melts it into the ice.
My drifts get 20 feet deep,
and I won't be able to get those pipes out.
♪ ♪
So, what's happening to me right now,
my fingers are starting to get frost-nipped.
But I can't stop.
It's not duck into the next building or call the plumber.
I am the plumber. I am the electrician.
You want to talk to the mayor?
Hold on, I'm busy working on the pipe.
I'll be right with you.
Ugh!
Give me a minute.
Trying not to puke.
I just got to get out of the wind for a minute.
♪ ♪
You're breathing in that super cold air.
Sorry, I might throw up.
And it affects your body.
Yeah, I'm chunky.
♪ ♪
Sorry.
♪ ♪
At most jobs, you're sick, you call in sick.
Here, if I call in sick, I'm my own replacement.
I'm still sick.
And this is, this is just the beginning of the storm.
Right now, it's got kid gloves on.
This is not what it can dish out,
but I know what's coming.
So, why do I work so hard at stuff?
There's no choice.
Just a little bit of elbow grease and puking.
Small price to pay so that I have showers, laundry,
and tap water to drink.
Now to get the pipe to the storage Quonset.
I got to go warm up my fingers and get back at it.
♪ ♪
[Ricko DeWilde] Oh, moose!
♪ ♪
Couple of moose right there.
Nice-looking cow moose.
And as you can see, the moose don't mind me.
We don't hunt them in the winter, so the animals know.
But, um, pretty sight.
Big old moose. That's what we eat right there.
It's what we love to see around here is moose.
And when there's moose, there's a lot of wolves,
and where there's wolves, there's a lot of wolverine.
So, I'm gonna keep moving.
Look for some tracks.
♪ ♪
I'm out here trapping for wolves and wolverine,
and it's the time of the year
when we start putting our sets out.
Probably the most prized things we can catch out here
is wolf and wolverine.
Fur's just real valuable to us for clothing.
♪ ♪
Okay, right here is some wolverine tracks.
You can see where he's hunting.
Basically, he's coming through here, he went underneath.
And the rabbit trail is right here.
Jump out and grab the rabbit.
He's a real smart hunter.
My late Grandma Lydia, she used to tell us about the wolverine.
She said his name is Doyon, that's his Indian name.
Doyon means big shot, chief,
and, uh, he's muscle, he's all muscle.
She said, "One thing about the wolverine, he makes mistakes."
So, no matter how tough you think you are,
always use your head.
And this trap is pretty nice.
Keep moving.
I love this. It's fun.
The wolves, they might be running the river here.
Last winter, I just drive right across,
and I looked for places to set for wolves.
That's a lot of water out there.
I got to turn around.
Tough country right now.
Running into a lot of water this year.
This is one of the warmest winters we've ever seen.
This time of the year, we'll have had like weeks of 20-below,
negative 40, 50-below weather.
All this would be frozen solid, but this winter's different.
We've only had 20 below a couple times, and that's it.
That means places that don't want to freeze.
Things like that kill people.
People drowning out here, going through the ice
is such a common story.
I already have a friend that drowned last week,
and he just went out on the river, he wasn't careful.
He was trying to drive along the edge
and then he slid into that river.
You can't turn around.
Your tracks are spinning without stud and...
ended up in the river.
Lost his life, and they can't even find his body right now.
That's what happens when you make a mistake out here,
and we all make mistakes.
Some of us are lucky, and some of us aren't, so.
♪ ♪
[laughter]
[Chip Hailstone] Keep going.
Keep going, you're good, you're good.
I'm gonna go down and go check this
and make sure it's thick enough
to bring at least one Honda down.
[Tinmiaq Hailstone] You have to be careful of the overflow, Dad.
Whoa.
And there's the ice with the overflow. [laughs]
[Chip] Well, I'm gonna go put the net in.
Got lots of fish in the river right now.
Fish migrations are going by.
The whitefish are going by.
Got people to feed.
I got dogs to feed.
I've got puppies.
Our dog Kumuk, she's got four puppies.
And, uh, we don't have so many kids in the house to feed now.
We don't have so many things to do at home all the time.
So, we're onto the puppies now.
I got to keep them well-fed,
and I got to keep them exercised and happy.
But, uh, we're gonna have a few more dogs.
♪ ♪
It's about this thick!
Bring one Honda!
[Tinmiaq] Okay.
♪ ♪
[Chip] I put these lines in a couple days ago
when the ice was ultra-thin.
Over the last few days, we got a lot more thicker ice.
So, I think it's safe.
Stop.
[Tinmiaq] There we go.
It's not frozen or anything?
[Chip] No, it's not.
Well, girls, we can run this net for a couple weeks.
We'll have a lot of dog food for the winter,
and then scraps, of course.
[Carol Hailstone] Good whitefish to eat?
[Chip] Yup, really good whitefish to eat.
[Carol] Remember when we all used to go check net
all the time?
[Chip] All the time, because I had lots of kids to feed.
Yeah, well, those are days gone by,
but I hope you girls can remember them
and look back and smile on it all.
[Tinmiaq] Still out here fishing.
[Chip] We're still fishing.
I'm gonna go over and start pulling.
Alright, you girls ready?
[Carol] Yup. [Tinmiaq] Yeah.
[Chip] Ahh. Ugh.
Damn, this thing's heavy.
But hunting and fishing sure beats going to the store
and paying hundreds of dollars for people food or dog food.
[Carol] Go, Dad.
[Chip] I want to be able to feed these puppies
and feed them well.
And keeping them fat out here in the Arctic,
'cause they live outside, is keeping them warm.
So, that's really, really a benefit for everybody.
It's, it's awesome.
This is what we do to make a living.
This is food.
Food for us, food for the dog.
♪ ♪
There goes.
And now the net is set right. Look at that thing go down.
[Carol] Just enough, too, I think.
[Chip] Okay.
I'd say it's good.
Alright, let's get going.
We'll go back to the house and see what they're doing.
[Carol] I bet we already caught a fish under there, huh?
[chuckling]
[Chip] Probably.
[Tinmiaq] Let the net do its work for the night.
♪ ♪
[Johnny Rolfe] Look. Look in those trees right there.
♪ ♪
I got, like, a couple dozen caribou laying on the lake.
[Johnny] There's a lot of them.
♪ ♪
See that? The snow.
It's blowing this way.
The wind's blowing this way.
Let's see if I can, uh, take this trail
and kind of mosey around.
♪ ♪
It's beginning of winter.
I got months and months ahead of me.
So, I need loads and loads of caribou.
The caribou are my livelihood out here.
They're my main food source,
and I don't know when they're going to be back around.
So, anytime there's an opportunity,
I fill that order.
My name's Johnny Rolfe.
I live in the Brooks Range with my sidekick, Java.
I don't think more than a few minutes ahead.
I don't have goals, I don't have desires, I don't have dreams.
I stay in the moment. I live in the now.
Living life to me is getting out on the land, adventuring,
getting cold,
getting frost-burnt,
getting my own food.
The nearest city is over 200 miles away.
It's a hard place to live.
But we got nothing around us to bother us,
got nothing to get into our way.
This is where I feel most at home.
♪ ♪
Look at all these tracks. Look at all this.
See right here?
They paw and just dig at the snow, and dig and dig and dig
and dig just to feed, just to eat the moss.
To eat just all the tundra,
all the stuff that lives on the tundra.
[sighs]
It's moments like this I got to, like,
remember to center myself.
Don't let my excitement override um, my instinct and my senses.
I got to stay locked in as a hunter.
♪ ♪
It's great news.
The caribou are here.
♪ ♪
[Ricko] Oh.
Something dead here.
Check it out.
Oh, yeah.
There's basically a moose buried down here.
You see its bones here. This is the upper rib area.
See what's over here.
Oh, this is... look like a grizzly skin.
Like something got killed, probably a moose got killed,
then maybe a grizzly was on it,
and the grizzly got killed by another grizzly.
So, there's a lot of mayhem back here.
♪ ♪
Oh, I got an antler!
You see the fresh wolverine tracks right in here.
This is a good sign.
Those wolverine, they really like, uh, the bones
and the skulls and stuff of these animals.
They chew on everything.
They're one of the stronger animals
that can bust these open.
I'm out here looking for places to set traps,
and I just came onto a gold mine here.
So, I'm gonna get the box out, put it out and just keep moving.
Wolverine probably right around here.
♪ ♪
It's about 25 below right now.
It's one thing about being out here in subzero temps.
If the wind is blowing strong, and I went like this,
that wind is blowing across, it's not gonna hit my face.
This is big, long wolf hair,
there's wolverine fur on the edge.
The marten hat.
My face is just enclosed with fur.
People like fur for decorative reasons,
but for us out here, it's all about staying warm.
Okay, this trap is set.
Okay.
I'll keep moving.
♪ ♪
Trapping is a way of life out here, that's all it is.
Comes out.
It's like something everybody that lives in the woods
or hangs out in the woods, they, they trap.
It's not something I just learned over my lifetime.
It's passed-down knowledge, it goes from my parents to me
and went from my parents' parents, so.
Trapping is a lot harder right now
because just a limited amount of daylight.
♪ ♪
Right now, it's like four hours of daylight,
and it can get real cold real fast,
but darkness don't stop us out here.
It's part of the game.
♪ ♪
Just gonna creep in.
I got to run my trap over up here.
It's kind of thick brush.
♪ ♪
This here is the river, and as you can see down here,
this is all the wolf trail coming in.
♪ ♪
[bleep]
♪ ♪
Don't sound good.
[chuckles]
[Ricko] I don't know what's going on with my machine,
but it doesn't sound too good.
So, what I'm gonna do is, uh,
I got to take this machine apart.
I have a toolbox in this thing right here,
and I want to go home.
I'm not trying to walk.
It's deep, dark winter.
Very hard to see.
I was definitely scared of the dark when I was a kid,
more than my brothers and sisters.
And I've been in bad situations out here.
When I was a kid, traveling around with my late dad,
and, uh, I was about 12 years old, I think.
We were about 12 miles out of camp,
and, um, the machine just shut off.
And that was a scary feeling for me.
We walked all the way home to camp, and it was dark.
I remember praying a lot.
Like, not out loud, but in my head.
♪ ♪
I remember being in storms with my dad
and him, like, leaving me,
so he could break trail ahead and come back.
I remember crying.
Didn't tell my brothers and stuff, but I was so scared.
I remember that feeling, it's like,
is there something out here?
You start looking around,
I mean, like, something coming up the trail?
Is there wolves? Is there a ghost?
[chuckles]
It's this eerie darkness,
like there's something running up behind you on the trail.
And now I'm older, smarter.
I carry tools.
And I'm not afraid.
That's part of being tough, I guess,
is going through those experiences, so.
Man.
Now, this is what I'm looking for.
Right here.
Boom. Oh, there's a stick.
This is the problem.
Ohhh, there we go.
There's the problem.
This looks like a tiny little stick,
but a tiny little stick like this can have me stranded.
I mean, if it's 40, 50 below,
that's life-threatening, just from a twig.
So, it's really important
to know how to work on your machines.
Oh, I'm so happy.
Put this right back together.
♪ ♪
Looks good.
Sounds good.
Let my trap soak.
Come back on a brighter day.
♪ ♪
[Sue] Alrighty.
I got that pipe put away.
Go me.
But right now, the storm is just blowing hard.
But I've got a little bit of a lull.
While I've got that, I've got some of my rope.
And this is just part of my safety line system.
If I come out my door,
I'm in a situation I can't see,
but I've got to get over there, something's broken,
or I've got to get over here.
No matter what direction I take,
I could get out to the end and swing,
and I'm going to hit this building.
I swing this way,
and I'm going to run into the tank and this building.
As long as you're making that arc,
I'm at the next point of safety.
So now, I'll coil this all up.
Tie you up.
Alright, that one's done.
Now I got to get to the back of this row,
tie on a rope so I can get to the gen shed.
♪ ♪
Okay, you can see the wind is starting to come back in.
All this stuff, this is the ice on top of the buildings.
The snow on top of the tent.
That wind is breaking it up.
And then it sends it flying.
When I'm out here working,
you get hit in the head with the ice,
it's like an axe blade going right in.
It shatters windows, and you are compromised.
You've got to always have your eyes peeled.
The wind is wanting to knock me right over.
Okay.
I've got almost whiteout conditions again.
The winds are supposed to stay around 75
for the majority of the day.
The time I have out here before frostbite is minimal.
Time is not on my side right now.
♪ ♪
Okay, so now...
I can get here to the shop.
I can get to the middle row, I can get to the freezer tent,
I can get to my water house.
It seems silly only until you get lost
going from here to the bathroom.
You have to have these safety measures in place.
The animals are not always the biggest predator;
weather itself is.
I've got phased storms up here, being told to stay inside,
and I'm like, nobody else is taking care of this camp.
I need to get my eyes on every problem.
You can turn around and look right here
and see my wind turbine is having a hell of a time in this.
That's going to come apart.
Um, I've got to secure it,
but I can't do anything about it in this wind.
So, I've got to get inside, I've got to get warm again,
and try to fix things.
♪ ♪
[Johnny] So, I just saw a bunch of caribou on the lake.
♪ ♪
I'm trying to circle around and kind of flank them.
♪ ♪
I guarantee you they're gonna be up here.
♪ ♪
Right through the trees, right there.
♪ ♪
They have spotted me, they're staring at me.
I just got to get a little bit closer.
♪ ♪
[click]
♪ ♪
I'm shooting right into the wind, man.
♪ ♪
[Johnny] Nothing's been hit.
♪ ♪
Holy cow, look at all those caribou.
♪ ♪
Good god.
Look at this sight right here.
[bleep]
♪ ♪
[imitates caribou call]
♪ ♪
[gunshot]
I shot higher.
♪ ♪
Man, that's a [bleep] hard shot in this wind.
It's just dropping my bullet fast.
♪ ♪
They're just, they're just too far.
♪ ♪
I can barely feel my fingers.
In fact, I can't feel them at all.
Maybe one more try.
♪ ♪
He's hit.
♪ ♪
Go down, buddy.
♪ ♪
He looks like he's down.
♪ ♪
Something to finish him off.
So, I'm gonna walk around and have a closer shot,
not into the wind.
♪ ♪
Nothing will eat at me more than seeing an animal injured,
an animal that I injured.
But this is hunting.
This is subsistence living.
When I injure something,
I got to put that animal down as quick as I can.
[breathing heavily]
♪ ♪
The animal's down.
It was a hard shot through those trees.
It was a hard shot with that wind.
Thank you, caribou, thank you so much.
I'm so grateful for you.
♪ ♪
[Ricko] There's wolf tracks there, they're old ones.
Not seeing any fresh tracks,
but it doesn't mean they didn't come in.
♪ ♪
Right here is a set under that cottonwood right here.
Don't look like I caught anything.
Keep checking.
This is the spot where the wolverine was at.
You can see his tracks right there.
♪ ♪
Oh, there's my trap right here.
Oh, I got something!
A marten!
Heck yeah, that's a good one there.
But unfortunately, it's still alive.
I don't like when they're still alive,
but always lucky to catch them.
Okay.
I got to dispatch him.
These things will bite, though.
You got to be careful with these.
♪ ♪
I wasn't going for marten, but I got one.
I'm happy to catch one, so.
Anaa basee', sooge.
Thank you to the marten.
Marten is like prize, prize animal.
It takes three of these to make one hat.
This thing I'm wearing right here, that's a marten hat.
Okay. Nice beautiful marten.
This is a smaller one, but it's nice and dark.
I'm gonna set this trap and keep moving.
♪ ♪
This goes here.
Pretty good, first time out on the line I got something.
♪ ♪
[Carol] Brr.
[Tinmiaq] Yeah, I was just thinking that, too, chilly.
Got the axe?
[Chip] Let's go free up these holes.
[Carol] Wonder what kind of surprise we have coming.
[Tinmiaq] We just got to hope for some fish.
[Chip] Alright, girls, at least we're on safe ice.
Me and Carol and Ting have got a net running for dog food.
Here we go. Alright.
And we're hoping for whitefish, sheefish, Tiktaalik.
We never know what's going to happen.
[Tinmiaq] Ready when you guys are!
[Carol] Okay, we're ready.
♪ ♪
Heavy? [Chip] Yeah, it's heavy.
[Carol] Oh!
[Chip] Oh. [Carol] We got one!
[Chip] We got a pike. [Carol] Oh, my god.
[Chip] Nice big pike.
[Carol] Heck yeah! [chuckling]
[Chip] Look at that one.
[Carol] Real fresh whitefish.
[Chip] Right on.
[Carol] How about that, man?
[Chip] How about more? [laughs]
I'm not feeding seven children anymore,
but the dog's got to eat, and now I've got someone to feed.
There's like three in a row here.
[Carol] Oh, there is a lot in a row.
They're jumping all over the place, huh?
Oh, look, even more at the very end, look at that.
Heck yeah.
♪ ♪
[Chip] 36, 37, 38, 39.
39 whitefish and two pike.
I am so happy.
[Carol] Good fishing, yay! [Chip] Yeah.
[Carol] The dogs will be super happy today.
[Chip] They will be, yup.
You're probably talking a week's worth of food,
but then again, it's a lot of food for us, too.
And, uh, it's free for the work.
You just do the work, get the fish.
I'm going to go home, and we'll divvy these up.
♪ ♪
See you, girls. Thanks.
[Tinmiaq] Love you, Dad. See you later.
♪ ♪
[Carol] Oh, look at that beautiful sunset.
[Chip] Wow!
[Tinmiaq] Beautiful.
♪ ♪
[Chip] You want a fish?
I was gonna give your puppies fish.
How about I give you...
[Agnes Hailstone] They're all fresh.
[Chip] It's a male. [Agnes] Fresh fish.
[Chip] Is that what you want?
Give your puppies a snack?
Here, puppies.
[yelping]
Oh, yeah, they love the fish.
We got lots of food for them.
The net's producing really well.
Yup. Good puppies.
If it was just the three dogs and me and you,
and a couple of the kids, I'd have been done fishing already.
[Agnes] Yeah.
Just because the girls grow up and go do their own thing
doesn't mean we have to stop.
We can just keep living
our subsistence, nomadic life we live.
[Chip] It gives us reason and rhyme.
[Agnes] Yeah.
[Chip] Remember when the kids were young,
and we used to go back and forth
between Candle and camp with dogs?
That was a lot of fun. Dogs are fun.
[Agnes] Mm-hmm.
[Chip] Yeah. Ah-roooooo!
Alright, let's go make some lunch, huh?
It's about that time of day.
Later, puppies!
♪ ♪
[Sue] I have to keep that wind turbine from blowing apart.
Depending on how it blows apart,
there's a lot of raw power going down it.
It's a dangerous situation. It's just too dangerous.
I'm over 60 now.
I've done this lifestyle for a long time.
It's getting harder and harder.
Oh, [bleep] me.
Is there a time when you're too old to live a remote lifestyle?
Come on.
Getting older is being brutally honest about where you're at.
I can't [bleep] do this.
I can't do it.
♪ ♪
Ugh.
♪ ♪
Okay.
So, if I get a little piece of foam,
put it in between that pole and the building,
lasso it and tie it down somewhere.
It doesn't have to hold forever.
I just need to get it to stop slamming into that wood.
♪ ♪
Ooh, that's [bleep] brutal on my face.
♪ ♪
When things break,
I don't get the luxury of being afraid of it.
I have to just rush out and fix it.
But this is the stuff that, uh, I mean, it makes you feel alive.
And that's part of why I'm here.
It's the terrible, it's the raw, it's the effervescence of life.
Alright, let me see how that looks.
It's not perfect.
It is still moving, but it has stopped
from beating the hell out of itself
against the wooden structure.
It's got a little cushion.
It's got a little give.
Sorry, I'm going back up around 70, 80.
I will need to wrap it and strap it.
But for now, it's better than it was.
But my speech is getting a little slow and slurred.
I probably have a good beard-sicle going.
It's time for me to get out of this wind, defrost.
I have to take care of the body
or the camp ain't gonna matter a bit.
And it's just the relentless
drip, drip, drip of the freeze-up.
I've got to call it for the day.
♪ ♪
[Ricko] This is where I set the wolverine and marten trap,
and I'm not seeing no fresh tracks in here.
That's where the dead moose is buried.
Nothing came around.
Wolverine box is empty.
Kind of depressing, but that's how it is sometimes.
It is what it is.
Let's keep checking, hopefully catch something.
♪ ♪
I've been trying for the wolves and wolverine,
haven't had no luck.
Not seeing no fresh tracks.
But that's how it goes when you trap,
you don't always, uh, you don't always have success right away,
or even sometimes not at all.
♪ ♪
Woooo.
Doyon neeyo!
[Ricko] Alright, we got a wolverine.
Doyon.
Anaa basee' Denaahuto' gheenghon'.
Gotta be lucky to catch these things.
They don't come around all the time.
Got the wolverine.
Doyon.
Big chief.
And as the elders say, when you come home with this, you say,
"Doyon neeyo!"
Doyon neeyo! That means big chief animal came to me,
let's celebrate, you feel happy.
Look at that long guard hair.
Amazing animal.
Beautiful colors under the chin right here, the yellows.
It's a very awesome animal.
I'm happy.
This has been a good start to the year.
Big chief animal.
Doyon neeyo!
♪ ♪
[Johnny] That was a hard one, man.
That was not easy.
The wind just whipped my butt.
♪ ♪
No matter how good of a shot I think I've become,
every hunt teaches me something different.
And I'm glad it does.
And that's nature just showing me time and time again,
who's in charge, who's the boss, who makes the rules.
Not me.
♪ ♪
Java girl, what do we got?
You know what we got.
We got some meat.
Alright, let's get butchering.
♪ ♪
I mean, these caribou have thousands and thousands
and thousands of acres to just roam and be free.
And the odds that they come right through by my cabin,
I take advantage of that, and I'm very fortunate.
Next year they might start migrating 20 miles east,
or 20 miles west from here.
And I won't have a food source.
Look at this.
There's the bullet.
It's not often you find the bullet,
you know, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.
That's probably what I love about this lifestyle the most
is keeping my senses sharp and in tune
and just be ready and prepared for what comes next.
I wake up just so excited,
like, I have no idea what's gonna happen today.
I have no idea.
And that, to me, is living life.
♪ ♪
[Ricko] It's been a good start to the trapping season.
I got a marten, and I got a wolverine,
so I'm real happy.
When I'm out in the woods,
it's just like I'm in church, in a way.
Can't help but think about the people that went before me
and all the teachings they gave me.
Helps me to have luck, I think, too.
But I carry them with me because that keeps me grounded,
keeps me alive.
It's dangerous country out here. Anything can happen.
[Chip] Alaska's fickle, and it's moody,
and it changes a lot.
Temperatures change, scenery changes, the animals change.
We have migrations come in, migrations go out.
Could be fish, could be caribou.
So, I'm in a dynamic place, and I like to change with it,
I like to roll with it, I like to go with it.
[Sue] Been here almost a quarter of a century.
Holy cow.
What a day.
And now I'm over 60.
Will the body keep up with the lifestyle I have?
Not much scares me.
But at some point this winter,
I'll have to close camp up for a little bit.
I'm supposed to go have surgeries this winter.
I have a little bit of fear that...
[voice breaking] What if I can't come back?
♪ ♪
But the now is all we have.
And the Arctic is beautiful, it's primitive,
it holds its secrets,
but it can kill you the minute you forget to respect it.
Nature always has that front foot forward.
We're just along for the ride.
♪ ♪