TIG: All winter you go through nine months of dead silence.
MARVIN: Getting a little tired of cabin fever,
in this long cold winter.
TIG: And then you start hearing that first honk of a goose.
(geese honking)
Oh, my goodness, breaks the silence.
To hear those spring birds come back.
Amazing, unexplainable feeling.
MARCELLA: It's green everywhere.
Very beautiful.
Flowers everywhere.
MARVIN: Blue skies and calm water.
Green grass starting to grow.
(laughs)
JOHN: It's spring right now.
You can feel the sun.
My spirit is renewed.
In every season, we always have a different way of subsisting.
TIG: The springtime,
there is a sense of urgency to get stuff done.
It's a very busy time of the year.
(birds squawking)
♪ ♪
DANIEL: That's when the work starts.
Need more game out there,
'cause the main migration of whales and walrus are here.
LOUISE: That's the time to go out duck hunting.
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
JOEL: Maybe catch a bear if we get lucky.
♪ ♪
MARVIN: That's what I'm looking forward to.
Good things are coming.
♪ ♪
CHASE: We're, uh, kind of seeing the same spot.
♪ ♪
CHRIS: Where is it? You never see it?
♪ ♪
CHASE: It just went down.
CHASE: When I'm out there seal hunting with my brother,
we got to make sure we have the food
for not only us but the community.
It's just the way of life here.
Come on!
Where'd it go?
♪ ♪
(speaking in Akuzipik language)
CHRIS: It never came up again.
Go get 'em on the boat, huh?
CHASE: Yeah.
Bet you it's gonna come up again once we get to the boat.
(Chris laughs)
(groans)
DANIEL: Almost.
Past couple years, I've had health problems.
(groaning)
I had an ATV accident.
Broke a couple of ribs.
Month later, I had a heart attack.
CHASE: I got the boat.
DANIEL: I'm stepping down as a captain
just because of my health problems.
♪ ♪
My two boys, uh, Chris and Chase,
they hunt a lot of seals the last few years.
Chris has been promoted as a boat captain.
Chase has been promoted to be a striker.
He wants to take after his brother.
Hopefully I taught them well enough
to be out there by themselves.
Right there!
CHRIS: Are those seals?
CHASE: Yeah. DANIEL: Yeah.
♪ ♪
CHASE: When you're out in the boat,
it's a lot harder to shoot than on land,
but if you take that shot,
you got to make sure that shot counts.
I'm gonna go for the one way on the right.
Left.
CHRIS: Any one of 'em.
(laughing)
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
(ejects bullet casing)
CHASE: I missed.
DANIEL: After they go down in the water,
it's a little bit harder.
A little disappointing, but, you know,
they're still around, so stay persistent and chasing 'em.
CHASE: God, almost!
You can call me almost.
(laughing)
♪ ♪
JOEL: The winter's finally over.
(bird calling)
Summer's here.
The weather's good for building and traveling.
Trying to get as much done as I can.
♪ ♪
Hey, get out of there.
♪ ♪
I'm going up the Pile River today,
we're gonna start on, uh, rebuilding my dad's cabin.
Try to take the four-wheeler up there
so I can drag logs to the new site.
The boat's kind of a little too small to be doing this,
but think I should be fine if I can get it on here.
(engine starts)
(creaking)
♪ ♪
Ugh!
♪ ♪
Alright.
(engine stops)
I got it on.
Think we're ready to take off.
You know, it's not easy when you're alone
and your dog doesn't have any thumbs.
♪ ♪
My dad built his original cabin
probably before I was even alive.
And now it's just deteriorated to the point
where I don't even think it's fixable.
The river changed directions a little bit,
so it's actually not even on the river anymore.
I think the best course of action
is to go build a new cabin closer to the river
that's a little more easily accessible,
a little better view.
The original reason the cabin was up the river
is 'cause my dad would go trapping
all winter up this valley.
There's a lot more animals up there,
especially in the winters.
Be nice to kind of bring that back
and be able to hunt and trap in the winter.
Being able to get out of the elements
and having somewhere to crash for the night
would be a game changer, I think.
(motor roaring)
I reached the mouth of the river.
This river gets a little tricky in here, especially right now,
'cause the sun's melting the glaciers,
and so it turns the water like this blueish-green,
and you can't really see into it very far.
So, it's hard to tell
where the deep and the shallow spots are.
And then where the logs are covered up, too.
So, it will be a little tricky getting up in here
without hitting anything.
Try not to take off my lower unit off.
When I was younger, we were leaving here.
The boat drifted into a sleeper.
Uh!
The river was moving so fast
that it actually flipped the boat over,
and we almost died.
Part of the beauty is the danger that goes along with it.
You know, it's part of the reason I have a cabin
is so that if something does happen,
out in the middle of nowhere,
I have somewhere to kind of retreat to
and lick my wounds a little bit.
It's a magical place that'll kill you. (laughs)
TERESA: When other people look at the tundra, they see nothing.
But we see things that other people don't see.
The tundra, it's a lifeline for us.
♪ ♪
JOHN: You ready, Sonna Boy?
SONNA BOY: Yep.
TERESA: There's a new day beginning.
Take a deep breath.
♪ ♪
JOHN: Going down Kashunak River.
It's kind of a long and winding river.
We're gonna be looking for seal.
It's sustainable to our way of life.
We can cook the meat, render the seal
and use the skin for mukluks.
Teaching your grandchildren
how to hunt and survive on this land.
It's really, really special for me,
and it's spiritual, too.
SONNA BOY: My Ada taught me growing up,
seal hunting with him,
I do not choose the seal, the seal chooses me.
(John singing in Cup'ik language)
♪ ♪
TERESA: Over there, over there, over there, over there.
SONNA BOY: Oh, yeah.
JOHN: Sonna Boy, get it.
(gunshots)
Come on, Sonna Boy.
TERESA: If you look out upon the water, a head will bob up.
JOHN: Keep your eyes open, both of them open,
don't wink your eye.
Here.
TERESA: He just keeps going back and forth, playing with us.
JOHN: Huh, yeah.
Right there, right there.
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
Mmm.
Little low.
SONNA BOY: Embarrassing.
TERESA: You will get it, old boy.
♪ ♪
Want to go down river a little bit bigger?
JOHN: Yeah.
TERESA: Let him go and find something else.
JOHN: You gonna learn,
and you shouldn't have to feel bad about losing that seal
'cause there'll be another one.
♪ ♪
TERESA: You ready, old boy?
SONNA BOY: I'm ready.
♪ ♪
(birds squawking)
MARVIN: The tide has a lot to do with subsistence.
Minus tides in the morning,
it's a good sign that spring is here.
♪ ♪
Alright, we're off like a herd of turtles!
(laughs)
We're just out out of our village.
About ten-minute skiff ride.
We got all kinds of seafood out here, clams.
All the good things that go with living off Mother Nature.
There's all these reefs around here you got to navigate.
Otherwise, it's hope you don't shear your lower unit off.
(laughs)
(motor revving)
Around here you got to pay attention to Mother Nature,
'cause it's just so unpredictable.
You know, the tide changes every six hours,
and there's nobody around here to rescue you.
We're just gonna park right up here.
We are getting some clams.
And this is the first spot I've known how
to get butter clams right on the spot.
This is the tool right here.
This rake is a lot better to use than a shovel,
because it will break the clams with the shovel prying.
My father taught me how to do this since I was a young kid,
and we've been carrying this on, and I'm 50 years old,
and so it's still a spot that still produces a lot of clams.
I try to move around the beach
to find the concentration of them due to the tide.
Looks pretty clammy around here.
(laughs)
♪ ♪
Always have to work our tide to get these
because then you run out of places to move.
There's quite a few steamers that are very good,
you just soak 'em overnight and you eat 'em whole.
All this seafood is fresh.
It's not frozen when you get it.
It's as fresh as it's gonna be, and it's very healthy.
A lot better than this fast food.
♪ ♪
See, we got the tide coming in pretty quick.
This time of the year it just comes up so, so quick.
It's all about Mother Nature out here.
(groans)
I don't want to get stuck on the beach.
Come on!
This is totally unexpected.
♪ ♪
(motor revving)
Out here, you have to prepare for the unexpected.
If you're stuck or broke down, that's very dangerous.
Well, at least we got a little success
and got some clams for a dinner tonight.
TERESA: The community of Chevak is also my family.
All together as one.
♪ ♪
(laughing)
♪ ♪
JOHN: We cleanse ourself.
We burn part of the willow.
The fire and the smoke
will cleanse those not-good spirits off me.
When we do this, we can feel much lighter than ever before.
♪ ♪
Sonna Boy, even if he doesn't catch anything,
I always encourage him, you have to be persistent
going out next day, next day, next day.
♪ ♪
Thank you.
You ready, Sonna Boy?
SONNA BOY: Yep.
♪ ♪
JOHN: I think they're running after a seal.
SONNA BOY: Yep.
JOHN: So I'm gonna join them.
Sonna Boy, be ready.
All of us are relatives when we're hunting.
TERESA: Over there, right in front of that boat,
I think it's a maklagaq, right, old boy?
Here, over there.
(gunshots)
They got it.
They harpooned it.
It's never individual in Chevak,
it's together that makes us a stronger people.
JOHN: Yeah! Ha ha ha! Yay!
TERESA: It's Kerby. He wants to give us the seal.
JOHN: So thankful for those young men.
It really humbled me.
That value is a blessing.
When they give food, it comes back tenfold.
That's the teachings of our ancestors.
TERESA: Alright, take care, be careful.
♪ ♪
JOEL: It's great being out in the woods.
It's just nice to get away from people and everything
and just listen to the river.
♪ ♪
(motor stops)
Home sweet home.
♪ ♪
Alright, wasn't too bad.
Better than I thought it was gonna be.
Well, that was the easy part.
I came up a couple weeks ago,
and I kind of got a new spot picked out for the cabin.
It's closer to the river.
Cleared out some brush.
Think I'm ready to start digging my holes now.
Now I can break some ground.
My goal today is just get the foundation in,
and I think I'll be sitting pretty if I get all that done.
This is ground breaking.
This cabin is pretty far away from everybody.
I went from being a family man
to being just a guy with a dog in the woods.
Everything has kind of changed a little bit.
I kind of like the struggle of doing stuff by myself.
Gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Now I got it finished, so see if I can't bust my way out.
Fall some trees, buck 'em up, limb 'em.
First, let's see if we can't get this thing out of the boat.
This is definitely the first four-wheeler
that's ever been up this river.
(engine starts)
♪ ♪
Ugh!
♪ ♪
(bleep)
♪ ♪
Oh.
Only got the boat tied up tight enough.
(engine revving)
Come on! (bleep)
Agh! Damn it!
JOEL: Agh.
(engine idling)
(dog whines)
Stupid!
Holy crap.
Pulling the four-wheeler off the boat,
and the torque pushed the boat back,
and it snapped the rope 'cause I have stupid cheap line on there.
And the boat slid out and the four-wheeler dropped,
and here we are, stuck in the sand.
♪ ♪
(hammering)
♪ ♪
(engine starts)
(revving)
Mother suck!
I got no four-wheel drive.
No wonder why it won't climb up there.
Brought a broken four-wheeler up the river.
I think the front differential must have went out
and I didn't know it.
'Cause the front tires aren't spinning.
So now it won't pull itself up the hill.
Shoot.
♪ ♪
(engine revving)
♪ ♪
Ahh!
(breathing heavily)
(engine stops)
Oh!
I got the stupid broken four-wheeler out.
It's not gonna be a whole lot of good now
since the front wheels don't frickin' work.
But I'm gonna go grab the boat now
before it floats down the river and then I can't get it.
Then I'll be walking home.
It's a day of retrieval, I guess.
So I don't know how the cabin build is gonna go now
with having a two-wheel-drive four-wheeler.
I don't know if it will pull the logs or not with it,
but I'll give it a try.
It's a little, it's a little chilly.
♪ ♪
MARVIN: The food that we eat out here is right out our door.
That's the very uniqueness of Akhiok.
Beautiful day for this, very beautiful day for this.
There's a muscle in there.
And you turn it around
and you run your knife down the edge of it,
and you cut the other side,
and as you can see, it just popped right open.
And you do that on the other side.
And there you go.
You take the clam out,
and the gills, we'll scrape that right off.
And squeeze the belly, and there you go.
I've experienced once with one clam
where I swole up as big as a pie.
I don't know how long you live with the poison,
and I don't want to find out.
(chuckles) That'd be a terrible way to go.
(laughing)
♪ ♪
My parents were very into the subsistence stuff.
We were all united and gathered.
We'll just get more of these cleaned up.
I'll invite my family down here
to come and have some clam chowder soup.
Our food, that's a big part of our family tradition
that we still subsist.
I feel very happy to have all this seafood out here.
Nice to have it in the restaurant, too,
but in the restaurant, it costs you an arm and a leg,
and out here, just a little bit of time,
but the reward is greater
because we put it all together on our own,
and it's so much fresher.
This is the reward of the adventure.
Next mission is on the stove.
Just gonna go dump these shells out on their normal habitat.
Then be ready for the next adventure.
♪ ♪
CHASE: It's a learning experience every trip.
You're never done.
It's just like life;
you're figuring out things more and more as you go.
(birds squawking)
(motor humming)
(laughter)
CHASE: Seal hunting.
It's been a tradition
for thousands and thousands of years.
It's just the way of life here.
Keeping the tradition alive, it energizes me.
CHRIS: Look, look, look.
God.
I can't get a bead.
(bleep)
(gunshot)
DANIEL: Almost!
Got to move to a different spot.
You know, it's a big responsibility
to be the captain of a boat.
'Cause he's gonna take you where he wants to go.
You find the game.
You can't not know how to do anything if you're a captain.
Oh.
There's two swimming in front of you.
DANIEL: Yeah.
CHASE: Yeah. If you see one, there's gonna be more.
My brother Chris, he's not only thinking about us.
He's thinking about the whole community.
CHRIS: Lay down if you want.
CHASE: It's important for us to get more than enough food
so we can distribute it to the rest of the community.
Where?
CHRIS: Right over there.
Right in front of you.
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
Ah.
DANIEL: Watching Chase trying to decide which one to shoot
kind of reminds me of me somehow.
CHASE: (bleep) Right there, it's right there.
DANIEL: There's a time or two I had to do that.
His mind must be going crazy. (chuckles)
You know, you learn from your mistakes,
and you try to adjust with them.
CHASE: Ugh!
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
DANIEL: Ah!
CHASE: I missed.
Why?
How we play like that groundhog game or something,
where you hit the groundhog with a hammer.
It's kind of like that for me.
I mean, the seals come up out of nowhere,
and it's like a game of hide and seek.
Where?
DANIEL: That one on your right.
CHRIS: Other side of that ice.
DANIEL: Right there.
Right in front of you.
CHRIS: Ay!
DANIEL: (speaking Akuzipik) Got too close.
CHASE: It's just about telling yourself
you're gonna get the next one.
You got to think positive.
You'll find your shot.
(gunshot) DANIEL: Hey!
(motor revving)
CHASE: As soon as we hit the seal,
we got to try to go up to it
really fast before it sinks or anything.
We got to harpoon it.
You got to try and get it in one shot.
And got to get it in the best spot for it
so we don't waste any food.
CHRIS: Right on the neck!
♪ ♪
CHASE: Ah.
CHRIS: Alright!
DANIEL: Makes me happy to see them
accomplish, uh, catching game.
Pull it up, huh? Hunt some more.
Pull it up and hunt some more.
CHASE: It's a really big responsibility to be a striker.
You got to know where to hit it.
It's a really good feeling when you hit it,
'cause you know you can do it again.
For myself, knowing that I can do that,
it's, it's a lot to take in.
I've been practicing and practicing for so long.
CHRIS: Alright.
CHRIS: When my brother finally hit the seal, you know,
it's a big, happy feeling.
Finally get that food onto the boat.
DANIEL: Day's not over, there's still more seals in the water.
Might as well try to see if we can get another one.
CHRIS: There's like three, four, five seals over there.
Straight ahead.
(motor starts)
Alright, let's go check 'em out.
JOHN: I look at the river as a source of life.
It's not stale, it doesn't stay in one place.
It keeps moving.
Full of fish, full of seals.
It's a way of living.
♪ ♪
SONNA BOY: When we were here a couple days ago,
I saw needle fish in the lake.
TERESA: Needle? SONNA BOY: Uh-huh. Needle.
SONNA BOY: I'm gonna try and go get some.
TERESA: Here? SONNA BOY: Yeah.
TERESA: Oh, you're, you're on a mission.
♪ ♪
JOHN: Wintertime when the food is scare,
our people are starving.
Men go out and they cut a hole on the side of the river.
And they put their nets in and during the low tide,
all of the fish that are swimming out,
they got caught in the net.
This is what saved our people
until the resource like the seals come in.
SONNA BOY: Oh, that's, that's a lot.
They're gonna be happy.
TERESA: Did he get that many?
I can't eat that many.
SONNA BOY: I tried getting as much as I could.
It's a good snack to munch on.
♪ ♪
Oh.
Yeah.
TERESA: Oh, they're so good.
It's a fish that small,
that's a giant for people that can survive
off of the richness of that little fish.
Comparing that to me.
No matter how small I am,
I am a bigger part of the bigger world.
(birds squawking)
If my home community, if they're in survival mode,
I am going to be the one to save them.
I am that little needle fish that feeds many.
And I am important.
♪ ♪
SONNA BOY: They're just right.
TERESA: Mm-hmm.
JOEL: The most fulfilling thing about living out here
is building stuff out of nothing.
Just a chainsaw and a dream.
(growl)
♪ ♪
JOEL: I got a couple trees picked out right here.
I'm gonna try to knock them down,
and then hopefully the four-wheeler
will pull them in two-wheel drive.
It might be a little bit of a challenge.
We'll see how it goes.
(starts chainsaw)
If I get a couple trees right here for the foundation,
and then maybe the first two logs
going across the foundation posts,
I think will be a good start for the cabin.
I got one down, I got two more to go.
Try to drop this one right in the river, I think.
(chainsaw roaring)
Most people, when they need lumber or firewood,
they got to go to the store.
The great thing about being out here,
you get to use the land to your advantage.
The reason this river was named Pile River
is 'cause they came up in this valley
to get all the pilings for the docks in Bristol Bay,
60 years ago.
(starts chainsaw)
(roaring)
These logs are so heavy, I can't pull them by hand.
Hopefully I'm still able to pull the logs
with two-wheel drive on this thing.
(starts engine)
♪ ♪
Yeah! Yeah.
You know, I'm up here with the four-wheeler
from the early '90s
that I just found in the dump, basically, got it running.
The four-wheel drive went out,
but it's still, it's pulling logs,
and I'm pretty impressed with it.
Just, it won't die.
There's no way I could do any of this without it.
(dog barks)
♪ ♪
(barking)
Tracker.
(barking)
There's something over there.
(dog barking)
JOEL: Tracker.
(barking)
Tracker.
(barking)
Tracker.
(barking)
What's there, Tracker, huh? What's there?
(barking)
Tracker.
(barking)
I think there's probably a bear coming up the river.
Could be a moose, but I doubt it.
♪ ♪
There's a pretty prominent bear trail
that follows the river all the way up.
♪ ♪
There's actually been one hanging out
at the mouth of the river,
so hopefully they're not coming up here.
Oh, here's a couple tracks.
Yeah, this is a good-size bear.
I mean, that's his front paw, too.
There's wolf tracks right here, too.
Wolf tracks, moose tracks and bear tracks,
within three feet of each other.
You can still see the claw marks on everything,
they're so fresh.
There's definitely a bear over there,
but he might be going away now.
Tracker doesn't get that excited over nothing.
He definitely knows that there's bears around.
Within a half a mile, he's gonna find them.
He may sleep all day,
but when it comes down to the action, he's ready.
He don't fear nothing.
Great protector of the woods.
Yeah, yeah.
DANIEL: As you get older, you know,
it's bittersweet sometimes.
Learning how to hunt, something that you pass down.
Touches my heart.
(motor rumbling)
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
DANIEL: Hey! CHRIS: Long range.
♪ ♪
CHRIS: Right on your wound.
Alright!
CHASE: I feel real confident about myself.
It's a...it's a really good feeling.
Especially when you're catching food
for your family and for other people.
DANIEL: We got two seals in the boat now.
Real good job for the boys that they get two seals.
Chris mastered the boat,
and Chase proves himself as a striker and a hunter.
CHASE: Fresh seal, man, I can't wait to have some.
I'm gonna be the one cutting the seals,
and my brother, he's gonna be helping me through it.
He knows a lot about cutting seals and butchering.
And past the first shoulder blade.
DANIEL: Chris has been cutting seals
since he was like five years old.
I taught Chris how to do a lot of butchering and hunting,
and it's good to see Chris passing that along
to his younger brother, Chase.
CHRIS: Put your hand on both sides.
DANIEL: It's good to see my boys accomplish that
at a very young age.
♪ ♪
DANIEL: Both the positions that they're in, you know,
it's a joy to watch that.
♪ ♪
CHASE: We're bringing it home.
♪ ♪
JOHN: If I pray, food are gonna be given to me.
We have to respect the creator.
♪ ♪
Keep your eyes open.
♪ ♪
If you know the land and you respect it,
our creator will look down upon you and give you plenty.
The birds.
SONNA BOY: Duck.
TERESA: Ooh, they're gathering, old boy.
And these birds, they usually start gathering
about this time before they take off south.
And they're good eating,
so we need to get some, we need to hunt.
JOHN: Use the shotgun.
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
JOHN: Good job, Sonna Boy.
Sonna Boy, when I first taught him how to hunt,
I had doubts.
He grew to be a man.
Right now he knows what to do.
TERESA: You're a good shot, Sonna Boy.
JOHN: My family, they gonna keep fishing out there.
They're gonna keep hunting and storing food for winter.
(quacking)
It's not gonna stop with me.
My grandson is gonna continue living the way I lived,
bringing our culture alive.
(motor rumbling)
♪ ♪
(chainsaw starts)
(roaring)
JOEL: I brought the Alaskan mill with me.
I mean, I actually made most of my house with this thing.
And it's probably older than me, 'cause this was my dad's also.
So he did a lot of milling with this for his house.
The mill's definitely been around the block.
(engine rumbling)
I didn't bring any power tools or anything with me,
so I'm just gonna do this
kind of old-school, traditional way.
Chainsaws and axes, so, you know, notch in everything.
I got all my trees cut down and I got them cut to length.
♪ ♪
I got the, you know, the fortress of cabins.
Okay.
Alright, I got all the posts in.
They're all pretty lined up.
And then we'll throw these long guys on top of them,
and then we can put the joists in.
This is my first log, the building.
Pivotal moment in log cabin building.
Ugh!
(starts chainsaw)
Super excited to have this cabin up here,
especially in the wintertime.
To be able to go snow machining
and then go moose hunting back in this area
and just have like a nice cabin to come to and warm up,
be out of the weather.
I just think it will be great
having my own little shack in the middle of nowhere.
♪ ♪
Alright, that's it.
♪ ♪
(surf pounding, wind howling)
(scraping)
DANIEL: My boys got a couple of seals, and we're gonna eat.
(bird squawking)
Food's looking nice, boys.
CHASE: Feels great to be looking at the food I caught.
I get to feed my family.
DANIEL: Hmm.
It's hard to accept at times.
The older you get, the harder it is to do stuff.
Having your boys step up
in ways that you can't do yourself anymore,
it's gratifying.
I have a lot of confidence in my boys.
Sky's the limit, from what I see.
Nice, beautiful day to eat out.
♪ ♪
GLYNDARIL: Hey, Unc, ready to chow down.
MARVIN: Alright, we are ready for that.
Come on in, kids.
MARCELLA: Hi, Uncle! MARVIN: Hey, how are ya?
Hey there, kids. Are you guys happy?
MARCELLA: Fried halibut, some fried rice,
some, uh, fish to throw on the grill.
It's going to be an awesome spread.
MARVIN: Well, we're gonna eat very good, kids.
MARCELLA: We tend to rely a lot on our subsistence life.
The fish, the clams.
This is the clams that I cleaned yesterday.
MARCELLA: That's the important ingredient for the chowder.
MARVIN: My family still practices
native ways of subsisting,
and I'm very proud of them.
Runs in the family, how to cook.
MARCELLA: That's the funny thing,
everybody always sits there
and wants to try and ask for recipes.
We can't really give them to 'em
'cause we don't measure anything.
The joke is we sit there
and receive the messages from our ancestors.
(laughing)
♪ ♪
MARVIN: The seafood that we got right here
is right out your door.
This is how we were brought up, right from the sea and land,
but very comforting to see that, you know,
that what was brought down from my parents
to seeing how happy the kids are and being a part of all of this.
And, you know, that's where it is,
right here with the family.
♪ ♪
(dog barking)
♪ ♪
TERESA: Let's see if they're easy to pluck.
You want to race?
JOHN: Yeah, I want to compete.
I'll go faster.
Man, you're an expert.
TERESA: I'm always an expert at ducks.
JOHN: Yeah.
SONNA BOY: It was a beautiful day today.
I didn't get no seal in the end.
But we got fish and a couple birds.
Maybe a seal would want to come see me another day.
JOHN: Sonna Boy...
you were told to do service for me, right?
Until I pass on, right?
And that's a big commitment for you.
And you're already done a lot so far,
and I can't go without you.
♪ ♪
(singing in Cup'ik language)
When I sing a song, I have a beat.
It's a sound I already know in my spirit, in my heart,
in my whole blood.
(singing)
It's my mom's heartbeat.
♪ ♪
That's my family song.
If it belongs to me, it belongs to you.
♪ ♪
Sonna Boy, stand up. Face toward the east.
And put your stance on,
put your hands up toward the east.
That's where our creator is.
That's where the sun owls come up, from the east.
You want to be a good hunter, then you go like...
Go up and down.
There you go.
Keep doing that and don't stop.
(singing in Cup'ik language)
It's non-stop, it just keeps going.
And it's part of my body.
And if I'm singing and performing
in front of everybody,
it reflects that heartbeat out to the people.
And it wakes them up.
Hey, wake up.
This is life.
(singing in Cup'ik language)
No matter how tired you are, I'm gonna let you dance all day.
(laughs)
(singing in Cup'ik language)
(tapping foot)
Captioned by Side Door Media Services