[dramatic music playing]
Hear that river?
I just noticed that two big trees
blew down in a windstorm, creating a log jam.
I got a call from a homestead that needs some help,
but these logs will destroy that footbridge,
denying us access onto this homestead.
We're gonna take it out of there.
[dramatic music playing]
[Marty] It doesn't matter what homestead we're working on.
Every day you're faced with a challenge,
so you better come up with an answer
or nothing's gonna get done.
[chainsaw whirring]
[Marty] For those that can do it and succeed...
the price of freedom is worth it.
[dramatic music playing]
I am in desperate need for help.
[Marty] Garrett Wolf has not been home in almost a year.
A plane hit his tram cable.
He needs to get back to his homestead across the river.
-[man] Grab me. -[Marty] We're hung up, guys.
We're hung up. Get... Somebody get out!
We're hung up!
[Misty] We only have like a little window from The 40.
We're heading into winter time.
You can feel the pressure.
[Matt] Time's running out.
We leave for rescues in seven days
and everything has to be done before the snow hits
and the ground freezes.
[Marty] Guess what?
This bear has to leave.
You're not even gonna be here this week?
Where are you going?
-[groans] -Keep going, Marty!
[Marty] We're all in this together, no matter what.
[man] Whoa.
[Marty] He's in the water!
Safety!
[dramatic music playing]
[birds chirping]
[Marty] I just saw my first leaves falling this morning.
[Misty] I saw them a week ago.
-[Marty] Did you really? -Yeah.
[Marty] And, by the way, it's much colder today.
-Have you noticed? -[Misty] Yes.
-[mule neighs] -[Marty] Sammy, Wayland.
[narrator] It's fall in Alaska.
In the heart of the Talkeetna Mountain range,
the Raney family scrambles to complete
last-minute projects on their 40-acre homestead.
[grunts] That thing is heavy.
[narrator] Carved out of a rugged Alaskan wilderness,
The 40 is split into upper and lower halves
with a rustic cabin set along the Little Susitna River.
[indistinct chatter]
[Marty] If I could sum up this 40 acres
in just one word, it would be family.
[Marty speaking]
[explosion]
[narrator] But three years ago, tragedy struck
when a fire destroyed Marty and wife Mollee's home.
[narrator] The family banded together to build a new cabin
at the top of their mountain and an access road to it.
The cliffside cornerstone stands with livestock pens,
a greenhouse, a footbridge, tram...
[man] Woo!
[narrator] and, most recently,
a 36-by-48-foot barn
for their new hunting mules.
But in a matter of days, the Raneys must leave
to rescue others in need, and snowstorms
and subzero temperatures will bring
every critical project to a literal freeze.
We're just a few weeks from the next winter.
Seven months long, snow, wind, ice every day.
It's the land of extremes.
It's not for everyone,
but I love it.
[narrator] For father, Marty, daughter, Misty,
and son, Matt, every day is critical.
And this week brings a challenging twist
that will force them
to accomplish their tasks a man down.
-[Misty] Hey, Dad. -[Marty] What's up, guys?
[Misty] How's Samuel and Wayland?
[Marty] They're not happy.
I gotta be able to get these mules out of the wind,
and this barn is just open, right?
-[Misty] Mmm-hmm. -So, yeah,
you know what's happening. You got seven days
to get all this stuff figured out because we're leaving.
What's different this winter
is that we have mules
that we've brought on to this property.
They till the land
and can handle the steep mountain terrain,
but we have to get that barn prepared with walls
to make it windproof.
I have to protect the mules
from what's coming this winter.
[Misty] The current state of my cabin is it's livable,
but we have to figure out water
and to figure out a bathroom situation.
First of all, thank you for letting us
use your restroom and take showers,
but me and Maciah wanna change that
and we wanna change it today.
It's gonna be winter and it's not safe
to travel that road in the dark
with a kid every single day
to use the restroom, take a shower, whatever.
Me and Maciah have a little homestead on Kauai.
That's where my husband's from.
But, currently, we're shifting focus
to living in Alaska with my parents.
But it's just really crazy
to get from our house to their house.
It can be super slippery.
The snow can be really deep.
And when it comes to water, it is not ideal.
If you have the notion
to get independence down there, that's pretty cool.
Something I've always wanted to do is build a A-frame.
I've talked about it forever.
It's always been like a dream.
-Yeah. -Love it.
I have a short window to do a lot of work
and make our dream a reality.
Three years ago, my wife Katie and I decided
we wanted to move on to this 40-acre property,
but life kept getting in the way.
Since that cabin burned down,
there's just a pile of rubble and ash.
I think it'd be really amazing if me and Katie
scratched out a footprint in the footprint
of where your cabin used to be.
Wow. That's amazing.
The fire was a tough day.
That was the very first building on this 40 acres
and it was a footprint for generations.
And in one hour, it all disappeared.
It's a thorn in the side of the 40 acres.
So if he wants to turn that bad memory
into a good memory, that would be amazing.
We've gotta get busy and get some things done here.
And they don't know this
but I'm about to make things worse.
So we've got about a week left
to get this homestead ready for winter.
That said, guess what?
You guys are gonna have to work a little bit harder
than the average bear 'cause this bear has to leave.
Do you remember that accident up there
with that cable that ran across the Matanuska River?
It was last winter.
It basically stopped Garrett Wolf
from accessing his 8-acre homestead across the river.
He has not been home since, I think, December.
-Wow. -We have this little window
to tidy up our homestead for winter,
but I can't leave him without access.
Wait. Are you telling me that you're not even
gonna be here this week?
I'm gonna try to get it done as fast as I can.
I'm gonna go look at it.
I'm gonna figure out what we need.
And then I'll be headed straight back here
and try to make the most use
of the little time I have left.
Finding out my dad is leaving the homestead
to go help a neighbor out is like, "I'm not surprised.
That's great." Like it's something he has to do,
but, man, that's really gonna hurt this week.
-Fair enough? -[Misty] That's pretty wild.
-[Matt] All right. -It's wild.
Let's hit it.
[narrator] 50 miles east,
in the shadow of King Mountain,
a rookie homesteader sent an SOS to Marty Raney.
Seated at the base of the Nelchina national forest,
access to the land is cut off
by the raging 75-mile-long Matanuska River,
which is fed by meltwater from an active glacier.
Without a way of reaching his property,
the homesteader's hope
of a life off grid will drown.
My name is Garrett Wolf.
My homestead is right across from the Matanuska River.
I purchased the property three years ago.
[narrator] After traveling the world
as a circus performer for most of his adult life,
Garrett returned to his native state of Alaska
to achieve his homesteading dream.
[Garrett] There's a log cabin
but there's no direct road access.
Because of the fluctuation of the river,
a boat, even motorized, is not sustainable.
The only way to get to the 8 acres on the other side
of this 300-foot river is by hand tram.
[narrator] But 10 months ago,
a tragic turn of events changed everything.
A low-flying single-engine airplane
struck the property's tram cable
before crashing into the river,
killing the pilot
and leaving Garrett without a home.
[Garrett] I was greeted by ambulances and fire engines.
The line was completely destroyed.
Anything I had to the property was completely severed
and I haven't been able to get back
to the property since.
I was in this position of wanting to mourn someone
for your community, but then at the same time,
being unable to get to my home.
[narrator] If Garrett is unable to regain access
before winter, he'll be forced to sell the property
and give up his homesteading dream.
[Garrett] Homesteading here with a working tram
is difficult, but without it,
it is impossible.
I am in desperate need for help.
[dramatic music playing]
Wow.
I can't believe that.
-How you doing? -[Garrett] Good to see you.
Nice seeing you again.
Well, uh...
you haven't been home in 10 months.
No. No.
-[sighs] -And that's why you're here.
I mean, didn't you reach out to other people?
I didn't trust any other people.
My childhood was here in Alaska.
My mom moved up here when I was three years old.
It was just me and her.
Any Alaska kid growing up here
has this element of homesteading.
You're just engulfed
in mountains and forests and the river.
It gave me an amazing appreciation
for the land that we have underneath our feet.
And then at 23 years old,
I moved out of Alaska to join the circus.
Being on the road, it's lovely to see
different cultures, but there was always this
desire to get back into the nature of Alaska.
After my mom passed away, I found myself needing
to come back to Alaska to really grieve my mom
and I wanted to live back on the land.
[narrator] He purchased a cabin on an 8-acre homestead
next to the Matanuska River and began his off-grid dream.
[Garrett] My homestead keeps me connected
to my mom in a really strong way.
The dream for the property is being off-grid
and being able to source food that's on my land
with skills I received from my mom.
I think she... That's all she would really want as a mother.
[narrator] But with a raging river
standing between him and his property,
Garrett's homesteading legacy is on the line.
[Garrett] Now, being the lone wolf without his mom,
without now property, I am lost.
Where do I go?
That is a lot of weight to carry. [sobs]
This is the lifeline and the only way to and fro.
The whole thing got lifted up
and shifted closer to the river,
pulling the line out of its anchor points.
[Marty] So this is a unique build.
It looks to me like this just
goes back into that casing inside, right?
It just drops in and then the pressure
of the cable keeps it fast.
-Yeah. -We'll need to figure out
what that distance
is from anchor point to anchor point.
We'll figure out the length of the cable
we need to replace.
We'll need some pulleys. We'll need a rope.
And then the big elephant in the homestead is
how do we get a 500-pound cable across the river?
Great questions.
[Marty] Garrett was fully immersed
in embracing the homesteader life
across a pretty crazy river just like me.
His only access is a cable.
That was our only access for years.
I can relate to this man.
So I need to make a hard list of what we need.
And right now, I'm... I feel like I'm wasting time.
I gotta get crackin'.
[narrator] Marty will reattach and stabilize
the tram platform.
Then he must find a way to transport
a new 500-foot-long steel cable
across the Matanuska River, anchor it
and build a new hand tram system,
which will allow Garrett to prepare and supply
for the long winter ahead.
There's no margin for error.
-Let's do it, Marty. -Okay.
-Come on. -We are gonna do it.
-Come on, buddy. -[Garrett] Okay.
There's an old expression, "If you need something done,
call the busiest person you know,
and he might just drop what he's doing
and give you a hand."
There's a lot to get done on The 40,
but I do know this,
Garrett Wolf is in need
and everything will get done.
[upbeat music playing]
[narrator] On the Raney's 40-acre homestead,
a pressing rescue at the Wolf homestead weighs heavily
and the family has less than a week
to prepare The 40 for winter.
[Matt] Is this like the last feed before winter?
[Katie] Yeah. This is their food basically
because all the flowers are done for the year.
[narrator] But Marty's attention will be split.
[Marty] There's a lot to get done.
I've got to go help Garrett Wolf.
He has no access to his homestead.
But, first, I have to protect
my own little homestead in Alaska.
[Marty] These mules have 1 million acres to graze.
They like these watermelon berries.
They love it all.
But they didn't come home the other night.
We found ourselves searching for two mules,
pitch black, in a rainstorm somewhere out there.
That can't become a habit,
for obvious reasons, where we live, right?
Alaska, predators, and just safety for the animals.
I want the mules all to run free
within the bounds of safety.
I don't have time to put up 8-foot-tall game fence
around the whole 40 acres, so I have an idea.
Go 1,000 feet that way
and just put up a rope.
-[Mollee] Okay. -They're good smart mules.
They might just respect a rope
instead of a million-dollar fence.
So let's get this thing in.
We'll let them go and see what happens.
Okay.
We'll keep it on this side of the trees
because they might... Most likely,
they're gonna push on this rope.
Pin it when you're ready.
We dig tree to tree to bush to bush to stump to snag.
Could I interest you in some cranberries?
[Mollee laughs]
What are you, a mule?
[Marty] Okay. Cranberry, here we go.
Screwed the rope, pulled it tight,
screwed the rope to a tree,
made a single-strand fence.
Last one, sunshine.
[Mollee] Having Marty traveling
to help out at other homesteads,
it's hard 'cause I'm by myself.
But he tries to make it easier on me
with having everything prepared
and he always does a good job on it.
[Marty] You open the fence
-and I'll stay here and see what happens. -[Mollee] Okay.
Are you ready?
Okay. You're ready to go?
You guys wanna go?
Come on.
Let's do it.
If you've got good animals, they might respect
"one single strand of rope" fence.
[Mollee] Come on. Come on. Come on, guys.
[whistles]
There's the whistle.
Oh, here they come.
Okay. They've stopped.
[Mollee] Marty, it worked.
Wow.
[Marty] Thank goodness.
[Mollee] Oh, it's amazing.
[laughing]
They see it and they didn't even cross it.
That old cowboy knew what he was talking about.
That's all I gotta say.
That's pretty awesome.
Hey.
I don't high five.
Yeah, you do.
[laughs] Jeez.
That was the best thing ever.
Got work to do.
Copy that.
Let's hit it.
[Katie] It's definitely time
to start cleaning this place up.
[Matt] Here we go. Let's do it.
[narrator] On the lower 20,
Matt and Katie turn the page
on a new chapter of Raney family history
at the site of Marty
and Mollee's burned down cabin.
All right. Let's fill this truck up.
Nice.
[narrator] Matt and Katie
will remove the remaining rubble
and overgrowth from the old cabin site.
Then they'll grade a 40 by 40 footprint
in hopes of completing the foundation
of their brand new A-frame cabin.
-[Katie] It's looking really good. -[Matt] Right.
[Katie] But I wanna clean up with the excavator.
Okay. You wanna drive?
-Here we go. -[Katie] Sure.
[Matt] When me and Katie got together,
she was completely green
to this whole homesteading thing.
So right from the get-go,
you know, our lifestyle
has just been getting rubbed off on Katie.
-[Katie] I feel like I'm gonna need to adjust the seat. -[Matt] Oh, yeah.
[Katie] It's not made for...
-[Matt] Yeah. For beautiful women. -I need the...
I need the... I need the women's small.
You need a size zero excavator.
[Matt laughs]
[Katie] It's really imperative
that I know all the things that Matt knows,
because there's a huge part of the year
where he is out helping other people on other homesteads
and somebody's gotta keep the farm running.
This is the lock for all your hydraulics.
Right now, it's all locked up.
-So when you push this forward... -Okay.
you got all the controls.
Whenever I work, Katie works with me.
And I would be comfortable having her do any project
because she learns everything she can.
-It's like the claw machine. -[Katie] There we go.
[Matt] Okay.
Now, lift up.
Nice.
Just swing all the way over to the truck
and then dump it in there.
Perfect.
Now, just swivel.
All right. You got two more big objects.
[Katie] Learning to use the excavator
is really empowering.
I think it's pretty cool that
most all the women in this family
can run an ex.
Okay.
[Katie] It's Alaska, where men are men
and women drive excavators.
[Matt chuckles]
[Marty] Let's build the barn door.
[narrator] While materials and equipment
are en route to the Wolf homestead
50 miles away,
Marty utilizes every spare moment
to make an important upgrade for his newest asset.
[Marty] In the winter, the mules on this homestead
are completely exposed to the wind.
That can do damage and kill the animal.
These are done.
Start nailing please.
We are running out of time,
so we have to get that barn enclosed
and out of the wind.
One, two, three!
Okay.
[upbeat music playing]
[Misty] I wanna run something by you.
[Maciah] Okay. I'm all ears.
[narrator] On the other side of the homestead...
[Misty] Come on up.
[narrator] Misty and Maciah begin work
on a vital off-grid bathhouse
to ensure they can live on The 40 through winter.
Okay. So we have a week to build this thing.
We know this entire structure needs walls.
We know this entire structure needs a roof.
[Maciah] We got logs on the ground.
We could get up a little gazebo of logs
and then just fill it in with walls later, right?
-You wanna do that? -[Misty] Let's do that.
There's a spring on The 40
that used to feed my parents' cabin.
It's always been this work in progress.
Look at this!
I think we just found our source.
It's right there.
Okay. Drop in the electric submersible pump.
-[Maciah] Yeah. -[Misty] It will pump water
from this holding tank
up to the cabin's holding tank.
It's time for us to finally connect the dots,
revisit that spring for our bathhouse,
resurrect it,
and stop struggling through it.
[narrator] Misty and Maciah will construct
an 8-by-12-foot bathhouse
with a shower and toilet
located only 10 feet from their cabin.
Then if they're able to connect
a 300-foot-long waterline
to the nearby spring,
they'll have a constant source of fresh water
and the last essential piece
to their home on The 40.
Okay.
[Misty] The Raney homestead is such a special place
because it gives you everything that you need.
There's water, there's food,
and there's like a never-ending supply
of lumber with all these trees.
[Maciah] Just crank it.
There you go. Straight in. Straight in.
-[Misty] Okay. That was... -[Maciah] You got it.
[Misty] really, really good driving on my part.
[Maciah] Oh, that was actually amazing.
-[Misty] It's raining. -Impressive.
[chuckling]
[Misty] Me and Maciah work really well together.
Maciah and I have been married 23 years
and we basically grew up together.
What I've learned throughout the years
is the difference between
having one homesteader work versus two.
It makes all the difference.
We usually know exactly what we're doing.
I've learned a lot from him along the way.
We go into like job mode
and then we don't stop until the work is done.
[chainsaw whirring]
I thought you were gonna need the Finnish carving saw.
[laughter]
[Misty] I'm Marty Raney's daughter.
If I don't know how to use a chainsaw, he disowns you.
-No doubt, you are. -[chuckles]
[Maciah] Just put a mustache on her
and you got another Marty Raney.
[chuckles]
Watch yourself.
Yeah.
-Look like it's lining up. -Yeah.
I mean, I'm sorry,
but that's a good notch, folks.
Wow. That's the first try? Right on.
You are Marty Raney's daughter.
Oh, yeah. That's nice and tight.
-[Maciah] First post up. -The first post.
-All right. All right. Let's go. -Okay.
Three more to go. Let's do it.
[Marty] The number one killer of Alaskans is drowning.
We're gonna try to get the rope across.
[Marty] We're hung up.
[groans]
Oh. He's in the water!
Where's safety?
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] 50 miles southeast of The 40,
Marty arrives back to the banks of the Matanuska River,
along with building materials
for Garrett Wolf's treacherous cable tram system
that is required to cross the raging rapids.
-[Marty] Oh. -[Garrett] Hey, Marty.
[Marty] We're back.
I think the first order of business
is to put a strap on this
and see if we could just simply
pull this back in that hole.
We got the same problem over here.
But it could be that simple.
Just get it back into its receiver
and then get busy.
Clint!
Garrett hasn't been home
across that river since almost a year ago,
but he's been patiently waiting for me.
When that plane hit that cable,
the platform of this tram
became compromised.
It's been pulled out of its location.
It's unsafe.
It's really tight!
We're not putting any cable across that river
until we fix this foundation.
You gotta pull right here.
Let's tighten it.
Swing mark.
[dramatic music playing]
It's gotta be a millionth of an inch.
[whistles]
[Garrett] It's close.
[Marty] I think I can pound it in.
[whistles] You got a sledge?
We need it.
-When it goes in, it might just slam down. -[Garrett] Yeah.
So we gotta be prepared for that.
In!
Take it off and do the other side.
[whistles]
You might be able to fumble with the bucket.
You gotta be straight out.
You see it?
Woo!
You did it.
Money!
-You all right? -[Garrett] Yes.
-It's in there. -Oh, my God.
-You all right? -[chuckles]
It synced in. I...
I'm a little lost for words.
And you just finally see it
just kind of settle was a big relief.
Big relief. Nothing got splintered.
Everything seems to be intact.
[Marty] It's a unique design but it's tight.
It... That's tight. You know, 8...
That's gonna be 8,000 pounds of pressure.
[Garrett] It's a step closer.
I see myself getting back on my homestead.
This is really exciting.
[upbeat music playing]
[Matt] We're really close
to getting all this stuff out of here.
[narrator] Back on The 40...
-I'm almost done. -[Katie] Okay.
[narrator] Matt makes the final touches
on transforming the ruins of his parents' old cabin
into a build site for his family's future home.
[Matt] Actually, dug down like 4 feet.
Have a nice pad here that we can build on
and we are done with this entire cleanup.
[Misty] This thing is huge.
You wanna try and get them up?
[Maciah] I like a little heavy lifting in the morning.
It's good, isn't it? [chuckles]
[narrator] And on their corner of The 40...
[Misty] How much do you think it weighs?
Way too much.
[narrator] Misty and Maciah continue structural work
on their new bathhouse.
[Maciah] We got a nice solid piece of wood here,
but it's hard to get even up on the deck with our...
-You know, by hand. So... -Yeah.
we're gonna have to come up with a plan
for getting it 10 feet up onto these posts here.
And I don't know about you, but I can't reach that high.
[Misty] No. We could set up a gin pole system
and try to, you know, lift this weight up
onto the top of these posts.
[narrator] A gin pole is a lifting boom or mast,
built to be taller
than the highest point of a structure,
used together with a hoist for pulling up material.
Gin poles are widely used
in the telecommunications industry
for antenna construction and tower extensions.
[Maciah] You can't really get a crane in here.
We can't get heavy equipment.
The landscape is so beautiful,
you don't wanna tear it up,
so gin pole has a really good advantage
in tight areas like this.
[Misty] We created an off-grid crane.
You have a massive pole,
you've got some pulleys, you've got eyebolts,
shackles, ratchet straps, and a chain fall.
And, you're just using that mechanical advantage
of being able to lift a lot of weight,
and hopefully, nothing goes wrong.
Okay. Here we go. Ready?
-It's taking off, folks. -[Maciah] Get started lifting.
It's taking off.
Okay.
We're going up.
All right. It's working.
It's going good so far.
I'm gonna go up a few clicks.
[Misty] Whoa. Okay.
-[Maciah] Good? -Whoo.
[both laugh]
-Okay. So-- -[Maciah] All right.
-I'm gonna get that ladder... -Yeah. Yeah.
[Maciah] and get your hands on it.
[Misty] I've used pulleys,
I've used leverage my whole life,
but I've never used a gin pole.
[Maciah] Oh, almost there.
[Misty] There's a lot of hardware.
There's... You know, what if you miss something?
What if the foot kicks out? Or just...
There's some room for error.
-Yes! Whoo! -Oh, we're up.
We're on top.
[Misty] But it worked so well.
I'm very impressed, it was the first for me,
but it's definitely not gonna be
the last time I use one.
[Maciah] Gin pole worked.
[Misty] All right. It's time to put up the rafters.
Whoo-hoo!
In Alaska, we get an incredible amount of snow,
and every time you build something
and you want it to make it through the winter,
you have to over-build.
So we have these massive double-sized rafters
as big as you can go, 2 by 12s.
And with those two things combined,
it's not gonna collapse in the next snow storm.
How much snow do you think this roof can hold?
It's probably a--
[Misty] At least 4 to 5 feet, I hope.
Oh, man, that is tight as can be.
-[Misty] All right. -Right on the money.
[Misty] First one up, a million to go.
It's rafters, and then roofing,
and then that's it.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] It is early morning on The 40,
with only four days left
and Marty away on the Wolf rescue.
The Raneys must finish essential
winter preparation projects.
[Matt] We got to take out the trash,
-once and for all. -[Katie] Literally.
[Matt laughs]
Here we go. Let's do it.
[narrator] While Matt and Katie remove debris
from the old cabin site...
Okay. So, the trick is to, obviously, cover these nails.
-What do you think? -[Maciah] That's perfect right there.
-[Misty] You like it? -[Maciah] Love it.
[narrator] Misty and Maciah
button up the shell of a bathhouse
that will allow them to live on The 40 year-round.
[Misty] We've made incredible progress on the bathhouse.
We've used the entire scrap pile at the mill
that has like all of these live edges
as siding, so that way we don't have to use plywood.
It's here, it's free, and it looks so beautiful.
All right. It looks good. So let's move inside.
[Maciah] Beauty.
[upbeat music playing]
[eagle screeches]
[Marty] This is 500 feet.
[grunts]
Look out.
[narrator] Marty and Garrett prepare the replacement cable
for the new tramline,
while they await the arrival of local rafting guides
who will assist in getting a tow rope
across the raging river.
[Marty] So the width of the cable is five-eighths.
Each one of those strands, and there's six of them,
has 26 individual strands.
The breaking strength of this cable is 41,000 pounds.
The last five-eighths cable took down an airplane, sadly.
I don't think we're gonna experience
that kind of trauma here with body weight.
That said, we're gonna get ready
and take this line off of this spool.
We gotta get it all out, 500 feet of cable,
hundreds of pounds to access that eye
that's already been pressed into the line,
and then just start pulling.
All easier said than done.
Okay.
After a whole year
to have it not be all on my shoulders
and have a neighbor like Marty
that has the knowledge of a hand tram,
it's a big deal.
[Marty] We got to cut this off,
put that through that eye.
Right through there.
[Garrett] And just to have that support
feeling, like, "Okay.
We are doing this together versus just me."
It's a good feeling.
I'm gonna take off. You're gonna spin this.
[dramatic music playing]
[Marty] We're all in this together,
whatever the job is.
Don't let it free spool.
Don't let it free spool, please.
And on this job, let's let Garrett participate.
Maybe learn something.
Five hundred pounds getting drag on the ground.
This is a good test.
If one guy can drag this,
then two or three should be able
to pull it across the river.
Getting heavy.
Keep going, Marty.
[Marty grunts]
Every man and woman, perhaps,
is prideful of their athletic prowess.
[grunts]
I might be of that frame of mind.
[grunting]
There he is.
That's it.
[panting]
That said, I'm not as good as I once was,
but I'm as good once as I always was.
Okay.
That's a lot of cable.
Let's look at this anchor.
Holy moly.
It broke a turnbuckle.
That probably is rated at 40,000 to 50,000 pounds.
-[Garrett] Yup. -[Marty] I'm looking at four cables
going into the ground.
This cables looks in really, really good shape.
So we're gonna hook right into it.
But, because there's an excavator here,
we're gonna dig a big hole in the ground
and we're gonna put something steel down there
and wrap the cable around it.
And we'll just clamp it to the main line,
and it'll be a safety.
Basically an insurance policy,
so if anything did fail here,
boom, we got you.
It's all good. Fair enough?
-I think so. -[Marty] Okay.
So, I'll have to figure out something to use as an anchor.
I did see a bunch of junk vehicles
and stuff over here.
[Garrett] Yeah.
If you can go through all those junk cars
and find us something that we can use as an anchor.
-Yeah. -[Marty] A piece of steel, a bumper,
anything round is gonna be cool.
If we just put a piece of pipe down there
or something like this,
the line is going around this and it really...
It's a stronger,
lasting longer bend on the cable.
-I'm on it. -Okay.
[soft music playing]
[Garrett] We'll see this bumper,
those abandoned cars were put there as a barrier for water.
This river back in the day had a lot of rise.
And that'll just help just prevent any of that
water flow then move pass that border.
That's all underneath the Earth.
Um...
So I had an idea what I was looking for,
you know, a bumper, tire.
Shoot.
But all that overgrowth
make it really kind of hard to find.
All right. Close.
Oh, hey.
[grunts]
[laughs] Oh, that's gonna be,
I think, what we want.
All right.
You know, I don't wanna buy more stuff if I don't have to.
To be able to look at the land and be able to pull from that,
I thought that was a really good call on Marty.
[Marty] That's money.
Good job.
Come on. Come on. Come on. We got stuff to do.
[guitar music playing]
[Misty] This thing needs some work.
[narrator] With Misty and Maciah's bath house
structure rounding into shape,
the next important step is water to feed it.
So they turned their attention
towards reinvigorating what was once
a key water source on The 40.
[Misty] Wow. Is this how we left it?
Man, I think back to me and you,
got the barrel, the pump.
-And it was kind of just make it work, right? -Right.
This wasn't like a project that ever was really finished,
and then the house burned down.
And then it was just totally abandoned.
[Maciah] But it's fresh water, right?
[Misty] Crystal clear.
It's amazing.
Also, this spring never freezes.
So there's a year-round water source literally,
within a stone's throw of our cabin.
-It's just we gotta connect the dots. -[Maciah] Yeah.
[Misty] The most important thing you can have
on a homestead is to a reliable water source.
To have that at our fingertips is like gold.
So for me to not use it is a crying shame
and we're changing that today.
[narrator] Misty will dig out the old well hardware,
remove dirt sand silt,
and build a new retaining wall around the spring
to prevent nature from reclaiming the area.
Then, she'll install a new water line and pump system
that will transfer clean spring water
300 feet uphill into the new bathhouse.
[Misty] Yeah.
It's so scary when you start to mess
with any spring because you can, like,
stop the eye of the spring from flowing.
We know where the eye is.
It's right out of the bottom of that little spruce tree.
So hopefully by the end of today,
the spring still flows.
We didn't stop anything.
And we can better it for our cabin.
Oh, yeah.
You hit the mother lode.
Wow. This is so cool.
So the fact that we're finding all of this rock,
we can set them as retaining walls.
Retain all of these banks and keep the spring clean.
Keep the spring crystal clear.
Good job.
It already look so much better.
[upbeat music playing]
[Matt] Are you ready to work?
Heck yeah.
[narrator] On the upper 20,
Matt and Katie shift their focus
away from their future plans
onto a project in need of their immediate attention.
[Matt] So my dad basically just broke a news to me
that he cannot finish this project.
We're gonna have to put our stuff on the back burner
once again and step up and help my parents out.
And mainly help these mules so that they'll have
-a nice place for the winter. -Yeah.
My dad started a very big project,
winterizing the barn for the mules,
but he's at the Wolf homestead.
And getting across that Matanuska River is no joke.
I was really excited to, you know, build a cabin.
But we're just gonna try attack this thing
and get it finished
before we have to go visit another homestead.
Unfortunately, winterizing the barn
is just more important than me starting
a foundation for our future cabin.
We got to have a place where the mules can live and thrive.
Winter's about to hit,
and that's where the priorities lie.
So do you know how to pull a layout?
Yes.
-Do you? -[Katie speaking]
First thing is it all has to land on a seam,
so that when the two sheets land together,
they'll be right smack-dab in the center of a stud.
-[Katie] Okay. Yeah. -You get it?
[Matt] There's a ton of work to be down on this barn,
and getting Katie up to speed
on how to mark layout
and what to do as far as framing goes
is really because I can do a lot of the heavy duty stuff,
and Katie can be getting all the walls ready
so that we can frame it up quick.
-Ready? -[Katie] Yup.
[Matt] Hopefully you can pass the test.
Here we go.
[Katie] Okay.
I feel like I definitely learn something new
every day here on The 40.
Whether it's experience
or legitimately a new skill.
[chuckles]
Never trust the nail gun.
Everybody needs to be able to know how to do every job.
These area necessary skills of being a homesteader.
-[Matt] All right. Looks really good. -[Katie] Thanks.
[Matt] Let's get into place.
All right. Good job.
[machine whirring]
[Matt] It's a good-looking wall.
Let's do another one.
[country music playing]
[Marty] All right.
Brand new day.
[narrator] 50 miles away at the Wolf homestead,
Marty sets a plan to pull Garrett's new tram cable
500 feet across the Matanuska river.
So, we've got your amazing
gracious neighbor and his crew.
A couple of rafts.
The idea is get a rope across this river,
so that I can hook it to the cable.
Then we'll get the cable across.
Hopefully that goes smoothly.
-With that said... -[Garrett] All right.
-let's grab a raft. -[Garrett] Let's do it.
Alaska has 580,000,
590,000 square miles.
But it's actually small when it comes
to the community of people.
-All right. -[Garrett] Nice drop right here.
-Good? Good. -[Marty] There it is.
[Marty] Thirty, forty years ago, I meet a man
half a mile from here.
His name was Chuck Spaulding.
He started a rafting business right here,
very successful.
Unfortunately, he passed away,
but his son has taken over that business.
And he volunteered to get us across the river.
[Travis] That looks great. Perfect.
I don't expect any swimmers today
but we got to talk about some of the what ifs
that can happen on the river.
The big thing here,
is you wanna be kind of aggressive when we're in the boat
to where we just ready for whatever.
If we're kind of lackadaisical,
we hit a bump, you go Scuba Steve and swim real quick.
The Matanuska river is 33 degrees Fahrenheit.
Uh, if you go in there...
If you don't aspirate and go unconscious immediately,
you've probably got about five minutes of strength
before you are so sapped of energy
that you can't swim, it's bad news.
[Marty] Alaska's got 12,000 rivers.
It's got three million lakes.
It's got about 35,000 miles of shoreline out on the ocean.
And the number one killer of Alaskans is drowning.
[Travis] All right. Is everybody ready to go?
-[Garrett] I am ready. -Yup.
Here we go.
[Marty] So here we are. The raft guide will carry
Clint and Garrett over. Their job?
To inspect the anchor on the other side.
Did it break? Is it compromised? Is it frayed?
[Travis] We're on the river.
-Yee-haw. -Whoo.
If it's good, we're good to go,
but we're not hooking up anything
until we check off that anchor
on the other side of the river.
So guys, a little wave coming up up here.
-Whoo. -[Travis] Couple of waves.
Here we go. A little splash.
-Nice. In the middle. Uh-oh. -[Travis] Oh, yeah.
All right guys, we're on our left shore.
We're gonna kind of beach the whale and just kind of
find our way into the shallows to stop the boat.
[Marty] Copy that, sir.
-Okay. -[Garrett] So guys.
Welcome to my humble abode.
-[Marty] We made it. -[laughs]
-[Marty] You happy? -[Garrett] Very.
It's a real special magical spot.
My mom's mission when I was a kid was making sure
that I even look at the land as more as a companion.
So my homestead dream is to really be able
to live off the land in a really healthy way.
How does it feel?
[Garrett] It feels unreal.
Before this accident, I was in the process
of moving my mom's ashes here.
And if we're successful, she's gonna be coming back
over here with me.
And being on this land and being on this rock right now,
that's, I feel, like another great step forward.
I'm excited.
[Marty] Clint and Garrett are going to check the anchor.
No one's been here since November.
Whenever that crash was, they're gonna look and see
if that anchor has been traumatized.
While they're doing that,
I'm going with Coffey and Travis across the river.
We're gonna try to get the rope across.
Man, you're strong. I'm impressed.
[Travis] All right. Little bump coming into shore.
[Marty] That was incredible. I'm...
I am impressed.
-Whoo. I am truly impressed. -Yeah. Woo.
-It's another day in the office, you know. -Whoo.
-[Marty] All right.
We need to get all this rope out on the shore.
[Travis] Yeah. We're gonna run all the line on shore.
-[Marty] Copy that. -[Garrett] Um, but we're gonna go up to the platform first.
[suspenseful music playing]
-All the way around? -[Coffey] All the way around.
Copy that.
[Marty] Pulling a rope across the river,
you think it would be easy to go from this side
to that side, wrong.
The current is so swift.
The river is so wide.
The energy pushing on that rope makes it
for a dangerous situation.
You cannot tie that rope to anything.
You have to just hold onto it with your hands
and feel that tension.
If it hangs up and you can't hold it,
you gotta let go.
Or you flip the raft.
Basically as we get in the boat,
you're just gonna hold onto it manually so we can let go
in case something happens, we don't wanna secure it.
As soon as we kind of get our angle
and we're ferrying across.
We're just gonna have it kind of feed out
and we're gonna kind of work our angle and pendulum out.
Coffey up top is gonna be on comms radio
and he's gonna kind of work that tension.
[Marty] Copy.
Once this ropes across, party's over.
Cable should, uh,
get pulled by this without any problems.
Famous last words.
[Travis] Here we go.
Okay. Watch that line.
Almost halfway. Almost halfway.
Come up.
We're good. We're good. Hit it. Hit it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Marty] Three quarters of the way.
-You gonna make it? -Get ready for a little bump.
-[Marty whistles] Stretch it hard, we're going up. -[Travis] Grab me, grab me.
-Grab me, Garrett. Grab me. -[Marty] We're hung up, guys.
We're hung up, guys. Let me get out.
We're going out.
-[Marty] We're going down. -[Travis] Grab me.
-Grab me. -[Marty] We're hanging. Somebody grab me.
-Quick, grab me. -[Travis] Let go. You gotta let go or you're gonna flip.
[Marty] I'm not gonna let it go. Grab me. Grab me.
Grab me.
[screams] Are you... Are you guys, okay?
[Travis] Guys, you're gonna have to let go.
[Marty] Are you sure?
[grunts]
We got a snag up there.
I'm sorry about that. You okay?
-[coughs] -You all right?
[Travis] Sorry.
[Marty] We were about 10 feet away from the shore,
but the rope was pulling me into the river.
I had to let go otherwise I would've been pulled in.
Travis had rowed so hard now he's coughing and hacking.
He overexerted.
So the first attempt to get the rope across,
convinced us all of this.
This job isn't gonna be easy.
You gotta mark that bank where that snag is, please.
Mark it.
You're gonna pull the rope out of there
and We won't know where the snag is.
-[Coffey] Okay. -Thank you. Okay.
Um, they're gonna pull it back up, sir.
When you're ready, I guess we redo it. Yes?
[Misty] Whoo.
[narrator] While Marty, Garrett and the rafters
figure out a way to get the rope across the river...
Right. I've got some random tools.
[narrator] Back on The 40, Misty makes crucial upgrades
to convert a neglected spring into a year-round
water source for her and Maciah's new bathhouse
before the winter freeze hits the homestead.
[Misty] The spring looks amazing.
It's all clean.
I just need to hang the electrical box,
put in the pump,
run some water lines and I'm done.
Maybe by the end of today,
have a restroom down here is a really big deal.
All right. It's not gonna be fancy.
This is a little bird house control box.
We're gonna mount it on the tree.
It'll be nice and covered
and then we're ready to set the pump,
run some water lines, done.
I'm feeling pretty optimistic,
but I'm also like,
"Man, who knows what can happen."
I think things are gonna come together like this,
like at the last second.
-I hope so. -And here we go.
[tool grinding]
[Misty] I'm just full steam ahead
trying to figure out the spring and eventually
run some water lines up to the bathhouse.
I kind of took the wires up and out to set the pump.
Everything seems like it's gonna work.
It's just a matter of running some lines.
Turning on the power and seeing
if we could get the old spring to fire up.
Okay.
We're gonna run this up to the cabin.
Turn it on, see if it works.
Hello.
-Hey, what's going on? -How's it going?
[Maciah] Good. Oh, you've been busy.
I cleaned up this spring, but I have a gift for you.
-Ta-da. -This looks like water.
-Isn't that exciting? -Yeah.
I feel like we should see if we can get water
-to the bathhouse right now. -Yes.
-Let's go. Yes. -You want it? Okay. Let's do it.
All the times in life where you didn't have a restroom
and you were using a bucket, it's like a really big deal.
This is the exciting part, right?
This is what we're here to do.
-The moment of truth. -[Maciah] Awesome.
Do we have water at the bathhouse?
Okay. Yeah. Really good job, Misty.
-[laughs] -Oh.
Do we have pressure?
That's good pressure right there.
That's gonna work for us. All right.
-We got water at the cabin. -[Misty] Oh, my gosh.
-Right on. -This is so cool. Okay.
Eventually we can bury the water lines
-and kind of figure it out with the excavator. -Yeah.
But for now, water's here.
-So now what? -Let's try to hook this thing up, man.
-Get it in there. -Okay. Oh, my gosh.
[guitar music playing]
Hey, did you guys look at the anchor?
-We did. -And?
Right now it's in the ground.
The whole line has moved.
You can follow it along the pathway right here.
[Marty] Okay. This is where it got ripped out?
[Garrett] Yup.
[narrator] On the Wolf Homestead.
While the rafters prep for another
rope crossing attempt,
Marty and Garrett assess
the damage done to the tram on this side of the river
to see what components, if any, were salvageable.
You saw the wreckage after the fact?
-I did. -What did you see right here?
When I came, it was probably just
not even an hour after the crash.
Where was the plane?
[Garrett] The body of it was over there.
One of the wings was over here.
-Here? -[Garrett] Yeah. On this beach.
Probably right around here.
As I'm seeing it tangled is where that wing landed.
[Marty] Is that what's happening here with all this?
[Garrett] Yup.
But that's the pulley
from the tram
ripped off.
But it is a clean cut from that other side.
[Marty] What that tells you is the cable did not break.
What broke was the one-inch steel turnbuckle.
When the plane hit the cable
at Garrett's homestead, it broke.
Not the cable, not the anchors,
but the turnbuckle.
We inspected everything else and decided that we would
just replace new turnbuckles, a new cable, be good to go.
-[Marty] What's this? -[Garrett] That looks like the plane.
Huh.
-[Garrett] Yeah. -[Marty] The plane wrapped right around this?
[Garrett] Yup. Wow.
Wow.
[Marty] Sad.
[Garrett] To wrap around that wire, that's crazy.
I guess a moment of silence for that, but let's go.
Shame.
Where is that anchor, please?
Right on the ground. Right here, my friend.
So you can see how from the other side,
how it was kinda' resting here on this
really kind of makeshift platform.
Did a little bit of a lift, but it didn't break
like on the other side.
[Marty] Understood. Well that's all a good sign.
Coffey, you wanna get that kayak ready?
[Coffey] Uh, yeah.
[Travis] We're going to a kayak instead of a raft.
It's just a smaller boat, smaller craft.
Be a lot easier to get back and forth and, uh,
it's just more agile, more nimble.
You know, the raft is just a lot of work,
especially with all that weight and stuff.
And the kayak requires more skill though.
Uh, Coffey's an excellent kayaker.
So he is comfortable with this whole situation
and he's gonna get us across.
Hey, you wanna hold me so I can get in?
Just so I can start with a good angle.
The dangers of the river are escalated
by what we're doing.
'Cause normally when you're in a kayak,
it's like you have ultimate control
and freedom in the water.
But with the rope,
it's like a big lead weight connected to me.
I'm gonna be doing the initial hook
to his live bait release tether.
Uh, if anything happens and he catches or anything,
he's gonna just release it so he's free of it.
All right, brother.
All right.
[suspenseful music playing]
Okay. I'm pushing off.
Look, look, look, look, look.
Give him slack.
I'm getting smacked.
[Marty] No.
[Coffey grunts]
[Travis] Release, Coffey. Release.
Whoa. He hit the water.
He's in the water!
Where's safety?
We got a man in the water.
[suspenseful music playing]
I'm getting smacked.
[Travis] Release, Coffey. Release.
[Marty whistles] Hey!
We got a man on the water!
One person got killed in here already.
Not gonna be two.
[Garrett] Head's above water.
[Travis] Keep swimming, Coffey.
[Garrett] And that safety is going to get him.
[Travis] Coffey got it.
[Garrett] He's out.
[Coffey sighs]
[Garrett] Well, okay.
That was a long time to be underwater,
so I was really quite concerned,
but by the time I got second eyes on him,
he was out hands on the rack.
Head above water and, yeah, my heart came back down.
[Coffey] Oh, my God.
Ugh.
The rope is really heavy
and the second it gets in that water,
it starts to penduluming me back.
And it was so intense.
I didn't... Couldn't even go for my roll.
So I just pulled this,
got out of the system of live bait
and pulled my skirt and then swam to the shore.
This is the kind of stuff I don't like.
He's a professional.
Um, he'll be fine.
He's alive,
but there's no cable across the river.
So we've gotta come up with a plan.
[country music playing]
Let's talk about our bathroom situation.
You know, we live off grid,
we're not gonna have a septic,
so I wanna do something real crazy.
I wanna build an incinerating toilet.
[narrator] Incinerator toilets are an off grid solution
of disposing waste without the aid of septic or plumbing systems.
The waste is disposed of into a receptacle
attached to a heating device and reduced to ashes
while its gasses are removed with a ventilation pipe.
This allows for water-free disposal.
And unlike a traditional outhouse,
it won't leave behind any unpleasant smells.
[Maciah] Obviously, there's some technical stuff
that we gotta figure out here,
but I think I might have something for this.
There's been something sitting around in the yard.
Check this out. Let's go check it out.
[Misty] It's a pretty simple concept.
You just gotta cook, you know, waste to ash.
And I think we can do that.
-Ta-da. -[laughter]
Look at this thing. Okay.
You remember, of course, field stove.
This is a stove that can handle a lot of heat.
-[Misty] Yeah. -[Maciah] So you put some heat in it,
maybe cut a hole in the top,
turn it into a toilet-looking apparatus,
and we're gonna be onto something.
I really like where your head's at.
How hard could it be, folks?
I'm not leaving The 40 until the toilet works
because I'm not going up the mountainside anymore.
I'm going to the bathroom down here.
I will make this toilet work no matter what.
Step one, cut a hole in it.
Step two, figure out what the heat source is.
-[Maciah] Camp stove. -[Misty] Okay.
Let's put it in there and see what we come up with.
All right.
[Misty] So we're running it off propane.
I got this tank. Let's see.
[Maciah] That's cool. That's good.
I'll reach my lighter up.
[Misty] This is so exciting, Maciah.
There's a flame.
We need some kind of chamber
where the waste goes into and it's cooked.
-Nice. -[Misty] Nice. Ooh.
We need some venting, put the stove pipe in,
get it fire safe,
and start this thing up and see if it works.
-[chuckles] -[Maciah] Hotdog.
-[Misty] Okay. -[Maciah chuckles]
It's kind of gross and kinda--
Is this weird? Let's see if this works.
I know... I think we're way past weird at this point.
I think this is a good thing to use.
-I like it. -Okay.
Hopefully this works or that number two
might take us back to square one.
[Misty] Oh, God.
Number two might take us back to square one.
-No. I don't like that at all. -[laughter]
[Maciah] Oh, ooh.
[Misty] Yo-ho!
[Maciah] There's something brewing over here.
[laughter]
[Misty] All right. We got lid on.
-Yeah. -Moment of truth.
-Yeah, I'm stoked, too. -Okay.
-Woo. -All right.
[Misty] All right.
You wanna check in on the toilet and see where we're at?
-Yeah, let's go. -Okay. Let's go.
[Maciah] It's drying really good, huh?
[Misty] It's red hot
and it's totally done.
For number one, it boils, it evaporates really quickly.
For number two, it actually cooks it
in about an hour to ash, done,
which is amazing because that's what
the $5,000 incinerator toilet do
that you buy at the store.
-It's working. -Killer, man.
-All right. -Okay. Kill the heat.
-Kill the heat. -All right.
Woo!
It's kind of hard to create your off grid
dream bathroom, but I think we've done it.
And I just love the idea of not going up the mountainside
every time you need to shower or use the restroom.
So this is the dream bathroom.
It doesn't matter what it looks like.
We just made an incinerator toilet
-out of a woodstove. -Yeah, man. Good job.
I mean, it doesn't get more homesteady than that.
-Good job. Good job. -Woo-hoo!
[chuckles]
[country music playing]
Around three.
[narrator] Over at the Wolf homestead,
Marty and the river team redoubled their efforts
to transport a 500-foot long steel cable
across the Matanuska River,
a crucial step in rebuilding Garrett's tram system.
Well, right now, we're gonna coil up this rope,
we'll try to sit in front of the boat and then,
we're gonna kinda do a similar thing we did at the first attempt.
We'll go across about halfway,
we'll then feed in this rope.
And then, once I get a little bit farther,
then we'll deploy a throw bag to get it on shore.
And then, with this, we'll have a coil
so we'll be able to throw it and get it away from the raft.
Let's do it.
-You guys ready? Ready? -[Coffey] Yeah.
I'm ready.
You know, third time's a charm.
There we go.
[Marty] It's gonna be way down there, start running quick.
[Coffey] Oh, my God. [indistinct]
Okay. Keep going.
That's it. That's it, that's it.
[Marty] Over the [indistinct] good job.
Keep going.
We're going in, Coffey.
All right, guys. Grab this bag, hold it.
On it. On it.
Touchdown. Touchdown.
Whoa. Whoa.
There's a lot of pull on there.
Pull quick. Not good.
A lot of drag, everyone.
No. That's not it.
We'll have to let go if it goes, guys.
Start pulling, everybody. Get a hold of it, everybody.
Everybody! Everybody!
[Marty] Whoa, whoa. Careful.
Here we go. Pull.
[Coffey] Pay attention.
That's it.
Stop.
[Marty] Holy crap. That was a lot.
That river was swift and we came that close
to losing it again.
Good job.
Woo!
Pick like a chicken and pull it.
[Garrett] Already knowing the difficulties of this property,
I knew that it was gonna be a difficult task.
Up the hill?
Yup. We're going right to the anchor, please.
[Garrett] Right to the anchor.
I am so appreciative of all the rafters
and to volunteer time and really put your life
on that edge for somebody else.
-Here we go. Pull. -Pull.
[Garrett] As an Alaskan and as a community member,
I am more than grateful.
-It'll hold. -[Marty] Amen.
That'll hold. Thank you.
Okay.
We're anchored.
I never dreamed it would be this difficult
to get a rope across a river.
Now, we're thinking we're gonna hook that rope
to a cable, hundreds of pounds
and pull it across the Matanuska by hand.
It's big, it's long, it's powerful, it's swift.
To assume that the Matanuska
is gonna let you do anything easy,
I've learned my lesson.
Phew. Hold on.
All it's gonna take is manpower and a good connection
between the rope and the cable.
[Kaj] We're gonna get this cable across this river.
We got about 20 people over there
that are gonna try pulling it.
[Cody] A lot of force is gonna go into that cable
the second it hits the water,
that's what I'm mostly worried about.
When ropes and cables start running very quickly,
they start whipping all over the place
and that could be pretty unpredictable.
I mean, it could chop somebody in half.
Everybody's gotta get a hand on it.
We're gonna go straight back into the woods.
Are you guys ready to render it?
[Kaj] Yup. Start pulling right now.
Thank you.
Here we go. Pull.
We're pulling.
There you go.
[man 1] That's enough, all right.
-Coming off, guys. -[man 2] That's good. That's good, Marty.
[Marty] Pull.
Keep it out of the water.
We're getting to the cable,
able is coming over the top.
We got the cable right now.
[Cody] Getting close.
It's gonna go in the water.
It's almost ready to touch the water.
Pull!
It hit the water.
[dramatic music playing]
It's almost ready to touch the water.
[Cody] Pull!
It's getting close.
Pull!
[dramatic music playing]
[Cody] All right. It's in the water.
[Marty] Okay. Hold fast.
Everybody get on.
All mules in position, please.
[Cody] Pull!
They need to pull it another 50 feet.
[Marty] Okay. Ready?
We're gonna head for that tree back there.
One, two, three.
[dramatic music playing]
[Marty] Work together. Very good job. Very good job.
Could not have done it without you.
Stop. You made it.
The cable's here.
As we tighten the turnbuckle,
the cable across the river gets tighter and tighter.
We're really close in getting Garrett Wolf
from the civilization side of the Matanuska River
to the wild side where his homestead it.
Let's get it on here.
Call it good.
All right.
[Garrett] When I saw that line go up above the water,
that was really a huge relief.
I looked down that shaft
and knowing I was gonna get back on that line again.
I'm very excited and should be sleeping very well tonight.
Took longer than I thought, but it's there.
It's here.
[Marty] You're not gonna like this statement,
but this doesn't mean we're done.
[country music playing]
[narrator] With less than two days remaining
before the Raneys must leave to help other homesteaders...
Hello.
[narrator] Marty returns to The 40...
What'd I miss?
[narrator] to recruit some help
to finish Garret's cable tram.
[Marty] Holy moly.
[Katie] Welcome to your new barn.
What do you think?
A barn? Woo!
Well, the other half of a barn.
-That's amazing. -I mean, you did build
most of this thing but we got it closed in.
Oh, listen.
Look at this finish.
This is exactly what I wanted.
While I was helping someone else,
my family helped me by completing that barn.
So we have a tack room.
I love it.
In my absence, a safe,
protected refuge for the mules was built.
What's going on in here?
-This is a stall. -That's amazing.
I love that everything's Dutch doors.
Let Mother Nature do her thing.
Let her get angry because we have a barn
that'll keep our animals safe.
[narrator] One week ago,
the Raneys had a half-finished barn
that left their mules exposed to the elements
as subzero temperatures were only weeks away.
Now, the mules have a fully enclosed,
weather-proof living space where they can safely live
throughout the harsh Alaskan winter.
[Matt] Did we come through on the barn?
You have no idea
how happy I am to see that thing
ready for mules and ready for winter.
[Matt] But that's not all we did.
I wanna show you something down below.
Holy smokes.
-Does it look different? -Yes, it does.
-Yeah. -Wow, you guys.
Am I glad that this got cleaned up?
I wouldn't even let myself look this direction
when I went up the cliff.
I couldn't even look over here.
-That's how crazy it was. -[Katie] Yeah.
You haven't spent much time over here, huh?
-[Mollee] I don't come here. -Yeah.
For me, I was, you know, hoping that this is like
a healing thing, you know.
[Mollee] I agree.
I'm tearing up.
[laughter]
This is a totally brand new place.
It is. This is literally a clean slate.
[laughs] This is amazing.
[narrator] Seven days ago,
the charred remains of Marty and Mollee's old cabins
sat on an overgrown patch of the Lower 20.
A constant reminder of a painful day.
Now, the ruins are gone
and the land has been grated ahead of winter
allowing a new chapter of Raney Family history
to be written with the first sun of spring.
I have no idea what's happened over at Misty's place...
-[Marty] Let's go. -[Matt] so let's go
-check it out. -[Mollee] I love it.
-[Katie] Okay. -Hmm.
[acoustic music playing]
-Hey, come on in. -That's a local call.
-Hello. -[Matt] Hey.
Hey you guys.
-It looks totally different. -What is...
What is that thing?
[Misty] Welcome to the bathhouse.
[Marty] First of all, it looks amazing on the outside.
[woman] My God, it's beautiful.
[Marty] It's so Alaskan.
And then on Matt note,
-can we open the door? -[Misty] On that note... Yes.
-All right. -[Marty] Oh, my Lord. Oh.
-Oh, yeah. Nice. -[Misty] Oh, yeah.
[Marty] Nice.
[Misty laughs]
What?
This is our wood stove incinerator toilet.
What Misty and Maciah did is amazing.
I love when they build things, it's always natural,
it's always creative.
It's amazing.
But this is really cool.
-Look at this. -Oh, what?
Oh, yeah. Shower.
[Misty] This warm water
from the spring we re-vent
that the old cabin used to use.
We now have a solar generator
and we have power for the... On the main water heater
and we're running water from the spring to here.
That's cool.
[narrator] One week ago,
Misty, Maciah engaged had to make a long uphill trek
to their parents' cabin
to use the bathroom or shower,
making it impossible to live on The 40 through winter.
Now, they have their own bathhouse with running water
and an incinerator toilet 10 feet away
from their cabin making it easier than ever
to do their essential off grid business.
[Misty] We do have just a tiny little thing for you,
we actually found something that was really cool
-in the fire. -[Mollee] Oh. Oh.
-The broad axe. -[Misty] The broad axe.
-[Marty] Oh. -[Mollee] Oh.
[Misty laughs]
[Marty] That is really special.
The handle didn't make it
so we put a new handle on it and then Katie was sweet
-enough to wood burn. -Oh, what was nice gift.
-I mean, look at the art work. -[Mollee] Yeah.
[Misty] It's wild roses. [laughs]
[Marty] Look at that thing.
The second Matt and Katie showed Mollee and I
that they cleaned up the footprint
of the house that burned down, I was thinking,
"I wonder if they found anything."
So, it was kind of cool to get that broad axe from the kids.
We made a little time to make you a nice little gift
and I think it was worth it.
[narrator] With Raney homestead secure
and ready to face the challenging winter ahead,
the focus turns to the final piece
of the Wolf Homestead Rescue.
We do have the cable back in place
and we're ready to get him across the river,
how we gonna do it?
Hope you guys don't mind
but I think we're going to gift him
our tram that got us across our river.
-That's really nice. -So, but I won't do it
unless you guys sign off on it.
-Of course. -[Marty] Okay.
Misty and Matt come with me.
We will see if we can get it off our cable
and see if we can get it on his cable.
-[Matt] Fair enough. -Yeah. Let's go.
-Let's go. -All right.
[rock music playing]
[Misty] That is one high window
and there's no safety precautions
when it comes to fire.
Got any ideas?
-Fireman pole. -[Misty] A fireman pole?
-[laughs] -[Gauge] Yeah.
[Misty] We've done a lot of work on our cabin,
the next step for me especially as a mom
is to create fire safety for Gauge.
Something quick that that's good enough for firemen,
that's good enough for us.
We have some old drill pipe,
if we sand it down, polish it up,
and get it in place...
[Gauge] Three, two, one.
[Misty] it's not gonna take that much time
and I think it has 12-year-old boy written all over it.
All right. It's time to test it.
-[Guage] Yeah. -Here we go.
Yeah. [laughs]
Creating something from scratch together with Gauge
is just really fun and really rewarding.
Fire safety, it's just very important to me
and very much needed.
[Gauge] That was so fun.
[narrator] With only a few hours
before the Raneys begin traveling the country
to help homesteaders in need,
Marty enlists Matt and Misty
to aide him in one final project.
Getting Garrett Wolf across the Matanuska River
and back onto his homestead
50 miles southeast of The 40.
Marty, hi.
Whoa.
I brought the best hope in Alaska. Misty.
-Hi, Garrett. -Hey. Hi.
Now, if that doesn't look like a homesteader helper person?
-Hi, love. -I dressed up for the occasion.
-How's it going? -And Matt.
-Good to meet you finally. -Misty and Matt.
-Hi. -What's your name again?
Garrett.
[Marty] These kids brought you a gift, follow me.
Come on, kids.
-This is exciting. -[Misty laughs]
[Marty] All right.
So, let's cut to the chase,
in the middle of all this craziness
between our homestead and yours,
it's kind of hard to find the time to weld
a very custom strong, lightweight cart like that,
so we thought, well, we'll just give you ours.
It's your tram car.
[dramatic music playing]
That's very, very kind of you, all of you.
Thank you.
Well, that thing right there
was a life-changer for our family, yeah?
-Mmm-hmm. -Yeah.
Yeah. Hopefully, it gets put to use.
We're, like, sad to see it go
but happy it's going here.
Yeah, this is gonna be
a game changer for the property.
Okay. Well, let's load this thing,
-let's test this thing. -Meet you up there.
-Here we go, kids. -All right.
[Garrett] The hand tram is something really quite special
and the Raneys know that,
and to have this gift
from their property
is a true, true testimony of how I feel like Alaskans
really want to be a part of each other's lives
and be able to give what they can.
That's good.
[dramatic music playing]
Coming in, pick this up.
It's one thing to go help another homesteader
with your skill, your knowledge,
and a few tools.
It's another thing to gift a homesteader
something that means a lot to you,
but Garrett Wolf hasn't been home since November
and I think Garrett Wolf is deserving.
[Matt] Let's see if this is gonna work.
Feel free to get in, Garrett.
[Garrett] Pardon me, everybody.
[Misty] I'm gonna unhook you guys down?
Not yet, we've already had one accident here, let's not have two.
So everybody, double-check everything I've said,
everything we've done.
See if this is gonna work.
-Ready? -[Misty] Ready.
-Are you ready? -I'm ready.
-All right. -Hit it.
-Here we go. -[Garrett] Go.
Woo.
Oh. Yee-haw.
-[Garrett] Very awesome. -[Marty] Oh, yeah.
All the way across.
[Garrett] Woo. All right.
[Marty] Gravity took us all the way across
the Matanuska River
and then...
as every tram car owner knows,
it takes work to get to the other side.
-Is it hard? -[Garrett] No.
You got to know what it takes to pull a load.
He's pulling dad up.
[Marty] Let me help you get into the platform,
let's go.
Oh, it feels pretty easy with two people.
Yeah.
Woo.
[Marty] So, I'm gonna tie that up.
Here we are.
Wow.
My gosh, this is paradise.
I'm getting the exact same feeling
that I had the first day I made it across our river.
You said once, "I'm Garrett Wolf,
I'm all alone, I'm the lone wolf."
And I don't want you to feel like that anymore.
A lot of people wanted to help
so don't feel like a lone wolf, please.
Thank you.
I'm gonna get right back to the other side.
I've got to get back to work but...
[Garrett] I know you do.
I know you've been away from this place
for almost a year.
-Yeah. -So, welcome home.
[Garrett] Couldn't have done it without you,
-and the team, truly. -Yeah.
Well, that's kind of you to say.
-All right. Absolutely. -Thank you. See you later.
Until next time.
I'll see you, Marty.
See you.
I wanna believe that from now on,
Garrett Wolf won't feel like a lone wolf.
I wanna believe that he appreciates
all of the people that came together to his rescue.
-Yay, yay. -[Misty laughs]
[Marty] From this point on,
maybe Garrett Wolf isn't a lone wolf
but in fact maybe he's a part of a wolf pack.
[upbeat music playing]
[Garrett] To actually walk into my home,
it was a huge relief.
And the future is looking very busy.
To get ready for the winter, what I'm gonna have to do
is insulate the bottom of the house
because of the snow fall being so much
and there's some holes in the roof
that I have to take care of.
There's also a garden space
so therefore, in the spring, we're gonna be planting
and definitely getting a garden up.
So mom's ashes are on the property,
they're currently on the hatch that her grandfather,
my great grandfather made, he was a bit of a carpenter,
so she is there,
simply just taking care of the house.
Marty, my friend, thank you so much.
You're a true Alaskan neighbor and I hope to see you soon.