[Otto] I'm just going to, uh...
Gonna get the cows in here. Let them start eating hay
and then we're gonna figure out which cows are gonna get tags, Charlotte.
[Charlotte] It's time to drive the cows back to the head of the bay for pasture
and Otto's the only cattleman left on the homestead.
But I'm kinda nervous about Otto being around cows again after his accident.
[siren blaring]
That was really hard.
Those were some scary times.
[Charlotte] My God!
-[cows mooing] -[Charlotte] Be careful.
[Otto] I'm definitely way more cautious.
Up close and in a confined area with the cow.
I'm a lot more conscious about their mood and I'm a lot more respectful about their mood.
-[Otto] Hey, girl. -[Eivin] Dad, watch yourself.
-[Eivin] Are you all right? -[Otto] I don't know.
[Otto] I'm a little intimidated.
[Eivin speaking]
[Otto] I thought I was ready. But, I don't think I am.
Oh, man!
Maybe I need to cleanse my head.
[cow mooing]
[instrumental music playing]
[Otto] Wow!
Yeah, well the roads are a lot better now than it was then.
Yeah. It's a little bit greener, too.
[Eivin] We're going back to the scene at the crime so to speak.
Back to my dad's accident injury spot.
Down at the bottom of the switchback canyon.
I know that he's eager to get back working with the cows.
But he's having a hard time because it was pretty traumatic.
Kinda got some anxiety.
Today is my first day back working with my cows
since I got my near-death cow crunching.
I'm having a lot of flashbacks and kind of worrying thoughts about it.
Stupid, freaking cows. Wild bastards.
[Otto] Whoa!
I also heard that Katie has a tough time, too.
-Hi, Katie! -Hi.
[Otto] So, we're gonna revisit the scene of the accident.
So that hopefully when I go by there in the future, I don't have a...
this heebie-jeebie feeling. I have... a finished feeling.
-[Otto] Hey! -[Katie] Hey, ready to go check it out?
-I don't know. Long time I haven't seen you. -[Eivin] Scene of the crime.
[Katie] For sure.
[Otto] Katie is an amazing cow girl who I've known her entire life.
Katie was with me at the time right there in danger's way as well,
watching the whole thing.
Today might be the 31st day of the 31-day project.
This is exactly where we let them cows out.
[Katie] I've relived this incident often.
I don't really go pet other people's dogs.
I don't go into the pen with other people's cows.
I don't ride other people's horses.
I don't get off my snowmachine in the woods when there's moose.
Remember how we talked about how great the whole day had gone?
It was a really good time till right then.
I think of this incident all the time.
You ready to go back there?
[Katie] So, I definitely felt like I needed to come back here and get the fear out.
But I'm not sure we're really emotionally ready.
[Otto] Where are you taking me?
[Otto] Oh, my God.
[upbeat music playing]
Eivin's with Otto. So, I'm headed over to my friend James' place,
to check out his new spot where he has his bees.
[Eve] James is a good friend of the family and the beekeeper in town.
Where are the bees?
[Eve] They are right in those boxes right there. So, don't touch them,
but you can look at them, okay?
When we first invested in James' company, it was to help out a friend.
But, now I think we're looking into helping out local businesses
as a part of a bigger picture.
I would like to keep bees just this summer.
With a lot of factors at play, keeping bees is not a reality for me.
[Eve] With COVID and Otto's injury,
I think it's really hit home for Eivin and I.
Otto's always been sort of that pillar in the community.
-Otto, thank you. -You bet!
And it's time for Eivin and I to step up and work within the community more,
coming together with friends and fellow homesteaders to help each other out.
-Hey, Eve. -Hey, what a sweet pup you got there.
-Oh, thank you. Welcome. -Thank you.
-Good to see you. -Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to see all your hard work.
-Yeah, welcome. Get the dog out of the way here. -[Eve chuckles]
I'm James Reid. I've lived in Homer, Alaska for 20 years.
My dad's from New Zealand. My mom's from California.
So, we moved up in 2000.
My dad is a avid outdoorsman and that was kind of one of the reasons
he wanted to raise kids in a, you know, kind of a wilderness environment.
I've always been grateful for that, you know. It's been such a great experience
being up here, and Alaska's pretty unforgiving.
A lot of its about self-discovery or challenging myself
and seeing what I'm capable of.
Going outside surfing or skiing or flying, whatever it is.
Yeah, buddy. Yay!
I run Stoked, a beekeeping company.
We produce Alaskan wildflower honey and fireweed honey
for our local community, and we sell honey all over the US.
[chuckles]
That is unreal. Raven, what the [bleep].
So, this is gonna be the storefront/kind of, like, tour
-hub, where we bring people, sort of, down. -Yeah.
-Oh, my goodness, this is awesome. -Serve some honey lattes.
-Yeah. -When I was 12,
I was introduced to beekeeping in New Zealand.
My uncle has a large operation down there. It was kind of a
really profound experience getting into beehives and kind of witnessing
the synergy and the dynamics of the bees inside the colony.
[woman] Be free!
[James] I started beekeeping here shortly after high school with just a couple hives.
Fortunately for us, the flowers here in Alaska are really diverse
and there's a large amount of them. So, the honey that we produce is very unique.
And I realized that there was a business opportunity.
This is kind of cool. We just came out with this mead.
-No way. -Yeah.
Oh, my gosh, look at that.
Partnered with Denali Brewing where I'll be Alaska Meadery.
2016, when I was kinda getting stoked going, Eivin and Eve were generous enough
to extend investment money to start the company.
They helped me purchase four or five beehives.
So, I'm really grateful for their support over the years
and belief in what we've got going on.
-[James] Eve's back in the bees. -[Eve] I know, I'm excited.
Wow, they're putting up some honey already.
Beautiful. That's really pretty.
[James] There she is. There's our queen.
I call that one Beyonce.
[both chuckle]
There's a few challenges presented to us over the last five years, one of them being
just the climate up here in Alaska is fairly difficult to keep bees in.
We got really long winter
and a very short, rapid summer.
Summer is when the bees make their honey.
We only have about three months to produce
the honey that we're going to market for the rest of the year.
-[James] Oh, yeah, it's a much bigger cluster. -[Eve] Much bigger cluster.
[James] We kinda need to make things happen this summer
and make ends meet,
keep Raven's dog food in the bowl. [chuckles softly]
I'm going to go fishing with Etienne and Jane,
they don't know it yet. But I'm gonna go.
They're out there somewhere.
[Atz Lee] My dad got a shoulder surgery not long go.
So, I've been busy helping him out.
So, I wasn't able to go fishing with Jane and Etienne.
And I started thinking how many more chances
am I gonna get to go fishing with them
before he goes to college. And I'm not getting any younger.
So, I wanna just find those times to kinda go out with
Etienne or Jane and just enjoy life.
I'm excited. Take a little break. Get some fish. Fish on!
I woke up at 6:00, grabbed Etienne and we're gonna go into
a little Tutka Bay lagoon and snag some reds at the end of the day.
I just woke up and Jane was like, "You wanna go fishing?"
And I was like, "I always wanna go fishing."
I've been working a lot, preparing to go down to college.
So, I haven't had much time so that's why I'm really stoked to get out there.
I've been wanting fresh fish for a while.
[Etienne] You guys have bathrooms inside?
-[man] We do not have restrooms inside. -[Etienne] Damn.
Is that my father, what's happening?
-[Etienne] What? -[Jane] Is he gonna come with us?
-[Atz Lee] Oh, hey, guys. -Are you coming fishing with us?
You gotta get in one more trip with the boy and the missus,
-be a cheerleader. -Aww. You're lucky I have an extra pole.
Huh, huh, huh?
-Good times? -Yeah, that was pretty good.
♪ Making things happen ♪
I had no idea. He told me that he wasn't gonna come.
Team Kilchers, let's get our fish on.
[Etienne] It was an incredible surprise.
Everybody was just extremely stoked to go slay some salmon.
[Jane] Six each, we're gonna get 18 fish.
[Atz Lee] That's what I'm talking about.
And if nothing else, you got the best catch of the day.
- Moi. -Hey, whoa.
This is a little lagoon.
So, we're in Tutka Bay lagoon. This is Tutka Bay. It's like a fjord, basically.
[Atz Lee] Where are they? Oh, they're right in front of us.
Oh, they're jumping.
Oh, yeah, big school. Big school.
Oh, they're everywhere.
[Etienne] There's thousands of salmon that go in there,
and where there is fish, there are going to be people.
[Atz Lee chuckles] Going a little shallow here.
We just might clear it, Charlie, just might clear it.
Are you gonna be able to sneak all the way up, Charlie?
I don't know. We're either gonna go dry...
We got these guys right in the channel which really pisses me off.
[Jane] How deep are you?
[Charlie] I'm in a foot under my props.
You have to go on the Tutka Bay Lagoon on a high tide.
Because it's just... You will just go dry. It's like sandbars when it's low tide.
Like all the water just gets sucked out by the tide.
So, we got people that came in on the last high tide and they stayed in here
and it went dry. So, everybody's kind off just hung up on sandbars
and now they're just breaking free.
[Charlie] I basically got to try to shoot it right in between those two.
[Etienne] Oh, God, there's a boat right in front of us.
[bleep] We're probably gonna hit.
-Go, go see if you can fend us off there. -[Atz Lee] Oh, God.
-[boat honks] -Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
The motor, the motor, the motor, the motor, the motor!
[bleep]
-[Jane] Oh, boy! -[Lee] Oh!
-[Etienne] Oh, God. There's a boat right in front of us. -[bleep] Probably gonna hit.
-[boat honks] -Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
The motor, the motor, the motor, the motor, the motor!
[bleep]
-[Jane] Oh, boy! -[Lee] Oh!
Yikes. We had a little crash.
Oh, this is what happens when everybody gets excited to fish in the same spot.
It's the most helpless feeling in the world cause there's not a damn thing you can do.
-I got no propulsion and-- -Tides gripping in right now.
-Yeah, there's nothing you can do. -It's just pulling you.
The tide is coming in right now but it's still pretty low.
And everybody is in their boats trying to catch all these fish.
And there are only certain channels where the water is still high enough
for you to be able to navigate. And it's not exactly a...
There's no stoplights.
So, when you get stuck and somebody's coming in, brace for impact.
Hopefully, this guy coming in behind us will miss you, too.
Oh, God, we got another collision happening.
[Etienne] Brace for impact.
[man] Brace for impact!
-[Jane] Did we make it? -Here we go.
-[crashing] -[Jane] Oh, boy!
-That was good, huh. -[Jane] Whoo!
Save some fish for us.
They were planning on fishing. I came just for the bumper boat excitement.
You know, there's nothing more fun when the beautiful extremes of Alaska,
out in the wilds, you are all alone in the wilderness.
Why have that when you could cram yourself on to a small boat
and just bounce off of each other, slamming into other boats.
Huh? I mean that's Alaska for you.
[music playing]
After some brief bumper boats, we finally get into the actual large pool area and you're...
You look into the water, there's basically just 60 fish
just swimming right below you.
Got one. Hey, got one.
The entire energy and vibe is just electric.
Oh, he's under the boat. He's under the boat. Oh, good Lord.
[Atz Lee] Little more. Here he is. Got him.
First fish. That's a healthy, nice red.
[Jane] Fishing is super important to me because it's what my family eats.
I do fill my freezer with between 600 and 800 pounds of fish a year.
And, right now, the time of year,
and the conditions is the ideal.
So, we just have to make the most of it.
Tip up. That's a biggie.
[Jane] Whoo! Okay.
[Atz Lee] Oh, nice. Etienne's got one on him.
Yeah, Etienne, first one?
Fish on.
[Atz Lee grunts] Nice.
Me, and Jane, and Etienne, have so many great memories
of going out fishing together.
And, you know,
this one might be the last one for a while.
So, we gonna make this one count.
[Jane] Whoa! I got a flipper.
[in distance] Ooh, yes.
[all gasping in surprise]
[Atz Lee] It jumped in the net.
Caught a fish in mid-air.
It jumped up out in the air, hook flew out,
and, I just took it and reached out over
and caught it mid-air, man!
[roars]
I mean, a good fisherwoman is important,
but a good netter...
Fish ain't fish, till it's in the pan.
-[Jane] I mean, he netted me. -[Atz] These fish, going in the pan.
Aw! Wow, honey, please.
[Jane laughs]
[Etienne] Fish on!
[line whirring]
I was just thinking, like, how beautiful Alaska is,
and just how incredibly lucky I was to grow up here.
Because, where I'm moving
I'm not going to be able to just get woken up,
and go slay a bunch of salmon, and come home,
and have a nice warm belly,
and know that I caught that fish with my own hands.
Oh, there he is.
Alaska made me who I am,
but I am more than Alaska, and I need to go...
prove that to myself,
and prove that to everybody else.
And, go to school, get that knowledge,
and go finally make some impact on the world.
For the last... family fishing trip,
before you go to college.
-Very true. -[Jane] Oh, that's true.
This in my mind,
will not be your last fishing trip in life.
-[Etienne] Yes. -Before you...
-[Etienne] But, for a while. -...left to go to college.
-Yup. -[Atz Lee] Become a man.
Team Limit, on three. One, two, three...
-Blood oath! -Team Limit blood oath!
[Jane chuckles]
[Etienne] Oh, that's gross.
[serene instrumental music playing]
[footsteps crunching]
Wow.
And, you guys carried me like, out through here?
[Eivin] Yeah.
[Otto] Oh, my God.
[Eivin] And, we, I think we had like...
eight of us, or six, seven of us.
[twigs snapping]
[Otto] Holy crap!
[sinister music plays]
So, there's another casualty of that same event.
Right there.
Could have been me.
[breathing heavily]
That's where I was?
-[Eivin] You were-- -Yeah, you were right in here.
Them cows, they were down there.
And, they didn't wanna...
Go up around on that icy hill.
And, then she saw me, and she just came a running.
Now that was like 30, 40 feet.
Where were you?
[hesitatingly] I was holding onto that tree right there.
Crazy.
-[Otto] Oh, you were that close? -Yeah.
I somehow thought you were further away.
So, you were pretty much in harm's way yourself.
But, it was really icy right here. I...
feel like, I couldn't get away,
but she couldn't get me.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't scream. I couldn't...
I couldn't do anything. I was just hanging on...
to that tree.
I know it probably was only ten or 15 seconds,
but it felt like it was so long.
She wound up pushing me, how far down, Katie?
Uh, a ways, you were like, wedged in that...
crack down there.
The cow got him against this tree.
She came a running this way
and I tried to hide behind the tree,
-but she just wouldn't quit. -[Katie] Yeah.
[Katie] At that point, it was definitely frustration,
terror, and extreme helplessness.
And the, afterwards, I was really angry with myself
for letting us get into that situation.
We have technology today. Like cell phones.
And, we could have told someone what we were doing.
We could have had a gun.
All of those things that go through your head
after the fact.
We had none of those things.
We were really... poorly prepared.
She was going to kill you
if she hadn't fallen on the ice
and not been able to get back up.
You weren't yelling any more when she was...
squishing you. And, I thought for sure you were... dead.
[ominous music plays]
[Otto] Then it must have been terrifying to watch.
-[Katie] I was frozen in fear... -Uh-huh.
...of what was happening.
[Katie] It was the longest three hours,
I think, of my entire life.
We did everything, from singing, telling stories,
giving massages, trying to keep him talking,
and it worked for a while.
-[inspiring music plays] -And then, it didn't.
And then, I really just focused on...
suppressing my own panic.
Well, holy mackerel, I, uh...
was wondering about your part of it,
and it's been on my heart and my mind,
ever since, [sobbing] and, uh...
I knew it would be difficult, um, to hear that, and...
I appreciate all of the help you gave me.
And, I know my breath was getting shorter,
but I didn't want to tell you that.
'Cause I didn't wanna worry you.
I just really appreciate
that you were there during that time.
[smacks lips]
-I'm so glad you're okay. -Your light,
your energy, pulled me through that.
Thank you.
This is what today was about. Sharing this moment.
Sharing this pain, sharing this... terror!
And, then looking at it from the other side and going,
"Wow! We did that."
It's kind of the cowboy way is just to get on a horse
and not look back.
But being here right now,
and the relief I'm feeling,
feel like I can put this behind me now and move on.
[Katie] Definitely gonna be hard to top this one.
[Otto] I don't wanna top this one.
[Katie] I know. Me neither.
[Otto] Promise me you'll never top this one.
-[Katie] I don't plan to. -[both chuckle]
[upbeat country music playing]
All right.
[grunting, speaks indistinctly]
Being a small business owner is really hands-on.
Whether it be making the lattes,
or feeding the bees, I'm doing it.
And today, I'm down at our commercial kitchen
to do some bottling.
[breathing heavily]
All right. Here's, uh, the goods.
[breathily] Welcome to the kitchen.
This is our bottling kitchen,
that way we can do all of our wholesale
around the state and stuff.
And a nice clean kitchen to use.
We lease it from, uh, Coal Point here.
Basically, we have to bring all the honey from the shop
down to here.
Um, and then just run buckets through the machine.
When I first started Stoked,
it was basically out of my parents' basement.
And, our first sales outlet was the Homer farmer's market.
So, that'd be $30, please.
Here you go. Thank you very much.
Over this last year,
we've made a lot of progression with the business.
Now we have this equipment that
advances our production tenfold.
We're able to distribute honey
across the lower 48.
And also, wholesale accounts here in the state of Alaska.
So, today we're gonna work on some Greenland wax.
So, basically Greenland wax is used to treat cotton canvas
to make it waterproof.
This year, I want to branch out
into other bee products, like bee pollen and beeswax.
So, we're looking to start
a little clothing line/bag line where we're using
our beeswax to waterproof cotton canvas.
So, right now I'm working on a recipe.
Obviously, it's all a by-product of,
you know, Alaskan flowers,
and pollen, and stuff like that.
-Yeah. -So, I would say more of...
the higher end.
Definitely.
I'm a little biased, but...
-Yeah. -[James laughing]
-Our beeswax is better. -Our beeswax is the best.
[both laughing]
Looks the same, but...
[both laughing]
All of these things are great.
And, really cater to, like, different people,
and different markets.
So, I just love his ingenuity, which... you gotta have,
when you're a homesteader.
So, how are things going with the bees?
And, been a cold one.
Yeah, super cold.
The temperature just stayed really static.
Like 48 degrees...
-Uh-huh. -...in the spring.
50 degrees sometimes,
-but that's just really like... -That's so cold.
-Yeah very cold. -...mediocre for them.
Recently, I've been kind of like,
coming to terms with it like, okay, we might not get
huge honey crop this year.
Producing honey in Alaska,
is fairly unpredictable. Because if spring comes late,
that usually means
it's going to be a short summer.
And, this year we had a particularly long winter.
So, I'm worried this summer won't be long enough
for the bees to harvest the fireweed honey.
Our fireweed honey has been
what has set us apart as a company.
This year, I'm concerned that the fireweed
will not bloom in time
for our bees to produce honey from.
Really stressful trying to figure out how to,
you know, pay all the employees,
and keep everything afloat.
I think sometimes to really, like,
-make your business excel... -Yeah.
...you gotta take risks. And, I think it's something
I actually have a hard time doing...
-Uh-huh. -...is taking risks in business.
-Uh-huh. -Or, investment adventures.
Eivin's always like,
"How are we gonna know if we don't try?"
-And, I'm like "Uh!" -[both laugh]
The thing I've learned from living up here in Alaska is,
uh, risk comes with the territory.
Um, it's always present. And, oftentimes,
the circumstances where the risk is highest
is when the rewards are the most significant.
And, right now, there is a huge risk
that my bees won't produce enough honey this year
to fulfill all my orders.
For now, we won't know for another month
if our bees are able to produce
any honey at all.
-[both] Fingers crossed. -[James] Yeah.
[cow moos]
-Yeah. -[brakes screech]
[engine idling]
Well.
Should probably load up a couple of these hay bales for those...
-Yeah, it wouldn't hurt morale. -...poor cow herd.
-Grab a saddle. -Uh-huh.
-Here, real soon. -[Otto] Yeah.
Do you think your...
-Well? -[chuckling] Do you think
your bones are together enough to get saddle sore
at this point?
You know what?
Everything beats being six foot under.
I got a whole new reference to, uh, living.
- Having... -[sniffles]
...gone in there to visit the place of the accident
with Eivin and Katie.
The biggest thing I can say, is I felt safe.
I'll just take it easy. [stutters] I'm bored.
I'm itching... I wanna be with my friends.
I wanna go out with my people.
-Okay. -[both laughing]
[Otto] I felt the excitement
at going out and doing some more adventures.
All right, if you're that adamant.
But, I just want...
I just want to make sure that you don't, uh...
Don't get too jostled up.
Aw... Thanks for taking care of me, son.
Yeah, I won't get in another disaster.
So, I'm just gonna rebound.
These cows are my livelihood,
and, um, I ain't quitting.
[Otto] Shall we go?
[switch clicks]
You know, I like the idea of putting collars
on those cows, Dad.
-Well, let's see what we can make happen. -I think it'll be pretty good.
Because time's running out
and we gotta get the cows up there.
I have proposed an idea
to my dad, and he has thankfully latched on to it.
Putting GPS collars on the cows.
-[Otto] Hey, Devaney. -Yo.
This is a satellite tracker.
-We're gonna tag two cows right quick. -Okay.
[Otto] So, this is the GPS tracker.
-[tracker rattling, beeping] -Glad you could join us.
-Thanks, me too. -Yeah.
[August] My dad is really stubborn.
Especially when it comes to healing and resting.
So, I want to implement this technology
to hopefully make it much easier on my dad,
and much safer.
[Otto] August is saying that we should be able to go home
and look at a computer and see where the cows are.
[August] I went to college for a couple of years
for electrical engineering
and, I've been more inclined to be on the tech side of...
just the homestead.
It's not like we have to live in the dark ages.
So, if we can elevate our knowledge, or methods,
or machines, that's great.
These collars transmit the cow's location
to a receiver.
That is a radio tracker.
That goes to the home station
that we're gonna put up at the Willard Cabin.
Okay.
[August] We're gonna go out and set up this receiver box
at one of the cabins.
Then that receiver pings the satellite,
and we can track
where the herd is actually roaming.
[hooves thundering, mooing]
Then we can go right out to our cows' location,
and bring them home faster.
And, even if a cattleman goes out,
and is unresponsive for whatever reason...
[Otto] Bad quicksand over there.
...we can use the cows to kinda geo-locate where they might be
and maybe get someone some help.
Oops.
[speaking indistinctly]
[grunts]
[dog barks]
Now why in the hell did I wear long johns today?
[August] My dad just healed.
So, him getting back up on a horse
and herding cattle...
[Otto] Let's see what happens.
There are a number of things that could go wrong.
[horse neighing]
[Otto] What the hell!
[horse whinnies]
[August] Hey!
[Otto whistling] Yep.
[groaning] I can feel that.
We're gonna have to take it slow for a minute.
[August] It's Dad's first time back on a horse.
And, after numerous broken ribs,
I'm keeping one eye on my dad,
and one eye on the cows.
[Otto] Okay. So far so good.
-[August] Dad, watch yourself. -[man] Look at the cows.
Let's go, get 'em. Hiya!
Oh, my God.
[Otto] Oh, my God.
-[August] Are you all right? -[Otto] I don't know.
Okay. Here they come.
I'm gonna take the point here.
[August] Let's go, let's go, come on.
[Otto] Let Katie go get that wild one.
Okay. Hey, darling.
Not cool.
Let's go, let's go, come on.
Let's go, let's go.
Come on, boys.
Right!
Devaney, keep an eye on any escapees.
-Okay. -We're gonna lose them all if we let one go.
My mind is at about 110%. But,
as I'm riding, I can feel my ribs and the, uh,
you know, the healing part of my body
with every step of the horse.
-[Katie] Uh-oh. -Hey.
Ouch!
[bleep]
Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa. whoa.
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
[August] Are you all right?
[Otto] Oh, man.
[Eivin] Check this out, man.
It feels really good to have my dad back up and at it.
I think he's still recovering.
And I've got this idea for
a way to help my dad out,
but kinda with my own twist.
I've got an old snowmobile that's blown out.
But the engine is still good.
And my friend, Chris is coming over and he's got
a hovercraft.
He picked it up doing a work-trade from somebody.
It doesn't run. But hopefully, we can put that engine
into the hovercraft.
And so I think it could be a pretty good way for my dad
to get from our homestead up to the head of the bay where the cows are
safely, and quickly, and efficiently.
I have always been fascinated with hovercrafts.
Oh, yeah!
Looks good.
They're just this air-powered machine that's
floating on a cushion of air.
-Sweet! -What's up, Eivin?
Right on, Chris.
-This looks good. -What do you think about the new project, man?
This is awesome.
[Chris] Being neighbors with Eivin,
I get to help him out with Otto, and,
and the family.
[Eivin] Looking good.
That's good.
His shop, of course, he's got all the tools,
all in a nice, warm, dry area.
Okay.
Yep.
This thing is ready
for a new life's purpose.
-Yep. -[Chris] As us Alaskans do, sometimes.
It's the beating heart of the new hovercraft.
-Yes, it is. -And a heart transplant surgery.
We need to check the compression in the good engine,
make sure both pistons have a decent amount of compression.
That will help us know if the engine's gonna run properly.
It is a oily, yucky bugger.
We're losing oil.
We need to take the good parts off of that motor,
stick 'em on this motor,
put this motor in there,
fire it up, and we're good to go.
-Just that simple. -Set! That simple!
[both chuckle]
I've never fixed a hovercraft before
or did an engine transplant with a snow-machine
to a hovercraft before.
So it's all, kind of, a learning experience.
[Eivin] Part of building this hovercraft was
access the back country, but I'm also looking at it and going,
"Wow! This is an amazing emergency evacuation vehicle."
Through the whole process where my dad got injured with getting those cows
out of the head of the bay,
one of the biggest challenges that we were dealing with
was the extreme, icy conditions.
Our ATVs were struggling on the ice to get around.
So, if something were to happen again, if someone were to be injured,
like my dad got injured at the head of the bay,
we can use it to extract somebody.
I wanna see a spark.
We don't have the gas hooked up to the
carburetors yet.
We just dribbled a tiny amount in the cylinders.
With the kill switch on.
-Contact! -Clear.
[engine starting]
Whoo!
-It runs. -It's running.
We just gotta finish getting the coolant lines hooked up
and the propeller on and we are ready to go.
[instrumental music playing]
Finally doing backcountry cooking.
Today, I got to go out and have fun with my son,
with my wife
and we got a bunch of fish, we got our limit.
And we've always had fun when we go out hiking and camping and stuff,
making, just awesome gourmet meals
in the middle of the wilderness out of, just, local ingredients.
So it will be nice to, kinda, have that quality time.
And I am a foodie at heart.
So we're gonna do halibut, three ways.
♪ Hey, hey, ho In the southwest ♪
♪ Cookin' in the southwest ♪
♪ Hey, I gotta answer When the... Hey! ♪
Wow!
Always a funny party with Mr. Kilcher here.
That's my father.
Ancho chile,
thank you for saving me from a life of bland freezer-burnt food in Alaska.
Every year you go out during fishing season
and get a bunch more fish then you come home
and your freezer's already full of disgusting, horrible,
nobody wants to eat it, freezer-burnt fish that's like two years old, so,
we're trying to clean that out in the most delicious way possible.
Peeling this kale's bringing me back to when I worked for you, sir.
Etienne's first job off the homestead is
-washing dishes for that guy. -That guy.
My name is Chris Miller. I'm an executive chef here in Homer, Alaska.
I'm here hanging out with my friends, the Kilchers.
There she goes.
It's a lot better than hanging out around a fire pit
in a back alley, if you know what I mean.
We're getting dangerously close to making some amazing food right now.
I mean, everything's prepped out, pretty much good to go.
We got the halibut medallions, these guys are just gonna get pan-seared...
And then, we got massaged kale salad, which is just good to go.
We got the halibut cakes
which has just beautiful fresh garden herbs in there,
flaked halibut, panko crusting...
Ooh! That's the dinner bell ringing right there.
Etienne's gonna be very, very missed.
Our house is gonna be, like,
um, way more quiet.
But I know, like, when he graduates,
he, most likely, will come back and live here.
I mean that's, that's in our, uh, mindset, that's what we want.
We don't really know that.
But, I mean, you can't help that the homestead gets ingrained in you.
[indistinct conversation]
-Let's get in there. -Yeah.
Mmm.
[Jane] This is really good, Chris.
We're diggin' in and all of a sudden, out of the bushes,
comes my father.
I don't know where he came from.
You never know where these Kil...
Kilchers pop up, I mean, there could be one...
They could be anywhere.
He could show up right now. Good timing,
-Way to... -Oh, my God. What is this called?
You couldn't have shown up at a better time.
This is the poor man's lobster.
It's just poached in clarified butter.
DId you catch this, like, today, or yesterday? It's delicious.
Eight months old.
I was telling them how, when we were kids, we would come down,
catch fresh salmon, then we'd take
the freezer-burnt stuff out of the bottom,
take it out, put in the fresh stuff,
put the freezer burnt back on top.
'Cause you can't eat the fresh stuff until you eat the old stuff,
but we never ended up eating the fresh stuff.
-So we never ate fresh fish, basically? -No.
And when my daddy died,
we went through his freezer, it was like an archaeological dig.
He died in '98.
We get down to '96, '95, '90, '88,
T-bone steak, 1980,
picked up that package, it was air. We unwrapped it.
That meat was freezer-dried,
looked like a honeycomb, the meat was gone.
But he'd saved it, by God.
I've been lucky enough to be able to raise my children
on the same homestead
that my grandmother and grandfather broke ground on back in 1936.
There's a lot of tradition.
But eating freezer-burnt food all winter doesn't have to be one of them anymore.
I was a camp cook on the North Slope.
I was a army cook in Vietnam.
And I'm just tickled to see my boy carry that on.
[Etienne] That was one of the best meals I think, I've ever had.
-Way to go. -Yeah.
Way to go.
[Etienne] Moving down to the States in the fall,
I think that makes this day, just, even more special.
And I do, kinda, feel a pull to stay here
because, honestly, I never really thought that I would leave.
[instrumental music playing]
So,
we just had baby goats.
And now,
-everybody is happy. -Everybody is happy.
[girl speaking]
-[Eivin] Uh-huh. -Yeah.
[all cheering]
[Eivin] Are you just so new to the world? You're the baby goat.
Goats are super awesome animals to keep.
They help keep the weeds down around the place.
Eve also milks them.
[girl speaking]
The kids love 'em, you know. It's definitely part of the farm scene.
Having the kids involved, they were right there the whole time.
Three feet away, watching us go through that.
[Eve chuckling]
[Eve laughs] Chocolate Cherry, I like that.
[Devaney] Uh-oh. These rain-water cows are real [bleep].
[August] Dad, help me out here.
[Otto] Hey!
[August] Right now, we're on our way to the head of the bay
to set up a cow-GPS tracking system.
But it's my dad's first time back on the horse since his injury.
[Otto] Turn 'em, we gotta turn 'em.
[Otto groans] Ouch!
[bleep]
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Stop, stop, stop, stop.
-[Otto] Oh, man. -[August] Are you all right?
[Otto] I don't know.
[groans]
I twist my shoulder weird.
[groans]
We gotta turn this group.
[August] Dad, would you like some assistance?
[Otto] Yeah. That would be helpful.
[August] Okay. Camera guys, come to me.
All right, August. Just tell us where to stand.
RIght now, we're gonna be taking several cows
and we're gonna be pushing them across the river here.
I can hear my dad in pain every time he chases down a cow.
We need to keep them in line.
There's so many cows.
I directed the camera crew just to make a visual barrier.
August, push on 'em a little.
[August] And fortunately, that seemed to do enough
to get the cows going where we wanted them to.
[yelling at cows]
Ready, if you're just gonna fan out right here,
Seth, stand right where you are.
Kyle, you can start pushing in.
Perfect.
[Otto] Since my injury, August has just really stepped up.
Seeing August just
kick in to full homestead mode,
I'm really proud of him.
[August] Let's cross the river here.
Devaney, pinch, pinch that hole.
[Devaney] Come on, boy.
Come on. Get, get, get, get, get, get, get.
There they go.
-Freddie. -Hip, hip, hip.
Let's go, let's go. Come on, let's go.
August, good job.
Yeah!
Yee-haw!
Way to go, guys.
[August] All right, we've got to put the collars on.
RIght now, we're gonna try and put GPS collars on some of our cows.
Make sure that things are up and running.
Last time I was in this corral, there was one mean ass cow in here.
-[Otto] Have we got Twisted Sister in there yet? -[August] Yes.
This cow right here, her name is Twisted Sister.
[Otto] Ah! Go in there, buddy.
-Let me catch Twisted Sister here. -[August] Okay.
Argh! Not being that, uh,
helpful, is she!
-Want me to put that noose around her? -Yes, please.
-My uncooperative left arm is just not really... -Sure.
-It's, like, making me slow. -Yeah.
It's just beautiful that August takes an interest in,
well, the family stuff,
you know.
I don't know if he likes the cattle that much.
But he likes the technology and
it's a big family thing where we help each other.
[Otto] Hey, girl. Whoa!
Perfect.
[August] Nothing has changed from last month to this month.
I'm still not sure what I want to do,
but I do know there's a lot that can go wrong, especially with my dad.
While his body is healing,
I'm doing my best, at least right now, to help him out.
[Otto] Okay, we can just take her to that corner over there.
Come here.
Come here, girl. Yeah, we're not gonna hurt ya.
Hey, August. Just, kinda, pet her a little bit. Whoa!
Okay, good enough.
She broke that horn when she was about,
a little over a year old. She was running, hell bent for leather,
and a cow corralled her into a tree, just broke it right off.
Whoa!
Geez Louise.
[August] Are you okay?
[Otto] I'm okay.
[August] Everything to do with cows,
including just going out to see them
always has its dangers.
[Otto] I got her, I got her, I got her.
Some tape here and here.
She's done.
Every single animal that we encounter is
well over 1,200 pounds.
[Otto] Okay, here comes the last one.
Take that rope.
Watch it, watch it.
Okay, good.
[cow mooing]
Hey, girl.
[August] Dad, watch yourself.
I'm not gonna hurt you too badly.
Okay, she's got her collar on.
[Otto groans]
[August] Dad?
-[cow mooing] -[Otto] Oh, man.