[narrator] Previously on Alaska: The Last Frontier ...
Wow.
This has been a summer of some new endeavors for me.
Eivin and August
have come up with some pretty cool gadgets to help manage the cows.
Now we're starting a hemp farm,
so when the day comes that I can't get on a horse,
Ah, there we go.
We've got a backup plan.
-[woman] It's a riding lawnmower. -[both laughing]
There's been times when we wanted to give up.
It's challenged, you know, our relationship, our marriage,
-[sighs] -I've been hauling water for four years and...
now, I'm finally ready to homestead.
- [woman] Whoo! - [man] Yeah...
-[man] What? -[woman] Yeah.
[music playing]
[Eivin] All right, I'm excited.
-[Eivin] I'm gonna take my first flying lesson. -[Eve] You gonna be safe?
-Yes. -Yes.
[Eivin] Starting out this year I had some pretty ambitious ideas.
Hopefully I don't get air sick.
On top of all the things I do on the homestead,
all the chores, all the work, family time, inventions...
[woman] Look at how easy it is to move that all by myself.
I really wanted to learn to fly, build an airplane,
and land one on the homestead somewhere.
But after my dad's injury, I kind of realized
I needed to kind of focus more on
making sure that things here on the homestead were taken care of.
[music playing]
[Eivin] As our homestead changes, we too have to adapt.
One of those adaptations I wanna bring to the homestead is a plane.
Hopefully that type of access to almost anywhere,
expands our world wide open to so many different locations.
And that's the type of legacy that I wanna continue to bring to the homestead.
I love getting into the back country via
small planes, bush planes, float planes, um...
-They provide amazing access. -They provide an amazing access.
However...
[laughs]
-I... -There's an however?
There's an however.
I know that
flying bush planes is extremely dangerous,
especially if you're flying them all the time.
-Here she is. -Here's the plane.
[woman] But I do understand how it could be a really big help to the homestead.
[Eivin] This is a 172.
[pilot] Right, a 63, 172. Pretty easy to get out. I'll just...
I don't want a lot of speed in here, so I don't get any hangar rash...
[Eivin] What is hangar rash?
-[pilot] When you scratch a wing tip or something. -[Eivin] Uh-huh.
Oh, yeah.
[pilot] Eivin has been dreaming of flying for so long.
So today, he is gonna do his discovery flight
and he'll get a feel for whether this is something he wants to pursue or not.
[pilot] We wanna check the tire inflation
-to make sure that we have enough nitrogen mix. -[Eivin] Uh-huh.
-[pilot] We wanna check the flaps. -[Eivin] Uh-huh.
-Yep. -[Eivin] This is not my first time in a small plane.
[pilot] Being in planes, on hunting trips,
and different jobs that I've held, fighting wildfire...
And, you know, these little planes,
it's about this equivalency of being on a roller coaster except
several thousand feet up in the air.
Should be good.
[Eivin] Plus I'm taking all the online prep courses.
So I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of all the controls,
all the gauges.
But actually being behind the controls of one is a first.
Keep your left hand here, and you can spring this to start.
There you go.
Good.
All right, man, we are pretty much ready to go.
Oh, this is cool.
[man on radio] 737 tango Homer...
We're gonna hold short right here, that's what these lines are.
Check our flight controls that they're looking this way
thumb up, aileron up.
[Eivin] I understand Eve being nervous.
Sitting here, starting to feel the controls a little bit
definitely makes me feel pretty antsy.
Butterflies in the stomach.
-Park straight out. -Flaps up.
Nothing on a homestead though, is without its risks.
I just think in the end, this will be worth it.
Homer traffic 23U.
[woman on radio] Homer 23U, go ahead.
I got two souls on board, four hours of fuel.
I'm gonna be one and a half hours en route to the head of the bay.
[woman on radio] Copy flightplan.
You're gonna have control.
[pilot] Grab the throttle.
[Eivin] How far am I pushing it?
[pilot] All the way in, all available power.
[plane revving]
[pilot] Pour it on.
All the way, all the way, all the way. Yeah, keep going.
There we go.
-And we're off. -And we're off.
[Jane] I'm in Kenai. Sorry. Oh.
So I'm filming again.
I apologize.
Ugh, way too close to my face.
Oh, my goodness. Okay.
Hi, I've just got to Kenai to pick up my cousin, Kate.
My cousin Kate's my cousin on my mom's side.
If we weren't cousins, we'd still be, like, best friends, because
we've just always, I mean, like, we just laugh so much together.
We have the same personality.
I'm super excited for this adventure we're about to have. Whoo!
Oh, my gosh. I'm emotional. I can't believe she's actually
made it.
I'm definitely the most social of the Kilchers.
I like to have a good time, getting out,
having fun, with friends, with family, everything.
So this year has been especially hard from
the pandemic and the shutdowns
and Otto and Atz Senior's injuries.
I've been really starved for social time, specially with my Texas family.
So I'm just really excited that Kate is here.
I need this.
[Jane speaking]
[laughing]
Kate has no idea what she's in for. She actually thought Alaska was an island.
She even asked how she was getting here, if she was coming by boat, um, ferry...
I told her you can actually drive here through Canada, and that was a real shocker.
-[Jane] That took forever. -[Kate] Sis, will you stop? [laughs]
Kate will be a fish out of water, because Kate is, like,
kind of like a Texas society girl,
and she's never been to Alaska, and she does live in a bubble.
So, I predict a lot of yelling and screaming.
-Ahhh! -[both laughing]
[Kate] Welcome to my country club, Kate.
Whoo!
Hey, you.
Members only. Gotta know a Kilcher.
-Hey, gorg. Okay. -[laughs]
Can I switch sides? I'm seriously getting a hand cramp.
No, this is my better side, so [bleep].
-I'm not switching. [laughing] -All right. Hold on.
-[Jane] Your chariot has arrived. -[Kate] Where is it?
[both laughing]
[Kate] We're gonna sit in the back of the six wheeler.
But the wheels are gone and now there's tracks.
[Kate] Right, but where are we sitting?
-[Jane] Like, just in the back. -Oh, seriously?
Yeah, somebody's gotta give us the drink.
[Jane] I just hope that she's not, like, begging to leave.
Like, yeah. Nope, this is not for me,
and just gets right back on the airplane and goes right back to Texas.
Yee-haw. Ahhh!
Oh, my God.
-We go... -Oh, my God. What is that?
[yelping]
[laughs]
[Kate] Oh, my God, this is it.
[Jane] That's it, right here, little panting.
-[Jane] We're partying tonight. -Yay.
-Whoo. -Made it.
Yay. [cheers] We're here.
-[man] The outhouse is around back. -Wait, what?
[man] The outhouse is our bathroom.
Where's the outhouse... Oh, [bleep].
-But do you know how to use it? -Yeah.
-[Kate] Is it like a porta potty? -Yeah.
-[Kate] Then, yes, I know how to use a porta potty... -[Jane] What are you?
Why is there a piece of wood over it?
[woman] So it doesn't, like, stink all the time.
[Kate] There's splinters in it.
What do you mean, there's splinters?
[Kate] Okay. What's in there?
-Should you [bleep] in there? -[laughs]
-[Kate] And that's the toilet paper? -[Jane] Yeah.
When you close the door, like, it's gonna get really dark in here,
'cause, you know...
[clicks] That's the light...
[Kate] Oh, that's really dark.
[Jane] I know, that's why there's a lighter.
-[Kate] Okay. -[Jane] The light is, sorry, the family show.
-[Kate] I'm family. -[Jane laughs] Good luck.
[music playing]
[James] This is our production facility
where we do our product packaging,
our honey extraction.
We got a brand new extractor
in the mail, top of the line. Hopefully we can make some use of it.
This year has been, uh, fairly challenging to produce honey.
This is not honey making weather. It's pretty wet.
[James] I've been doing this for five years and I haven't seen a summer like this.
Typically, on a good productive day,
there's a big cloud of bees working back and forth
and in transit to the flowers.
Yeah. No activity at all.
This is not ideal.
Some of the weaker colonies
are unable to, um,
kind of handle the temperature drops.
Typically, we're looking for five to ten gallons out of a single beehive.
Unfortunately, it's looking like we'd be lucky to get a gallon.
The pressure's been on to try and figure out a way,
you know, to solve that problem.
We really need a honey crop to be able to keep the business afloat,
pay the new employees, and keep moving forward.
We've had tons of community support, and investors, people like Eivin and Eve,
who have really looked out for us.
Really stressful trying to figure out how to,
you know, pay all the employees, and keep everything afloat.
Sometimes, to really
-like make your business... -Mmm-hmm.
-...excel, you gotta take risks. -Yeah.
You know, I really just don't want to let anyone down.
Traditionally, our target honey is fireweed,
which are these thin-stalked plants over there,
that produces beautiful flavored honeys,
crystal clear and light,
unlike any other honey you're gonna try.
On a standard year, this field would be full of fireweed flowers,
you kow, huge tall blossoms about 12 inches long.
As you can see this year, it is just not happening.
These fireweed flowers are not gonna bloom, and if they do bloom,
it's gonna be too late.
So, I need to, kind of, rack my brain,
and figure out an alternative production source
and try and target an alternative specialty honey.
We're gonna try and find a location with a better climate,
and, uh, a larger floral source.
Yeah. That's the one. It's an alpine ridge, right in here.
It's at the base of this glacier.
It's very tempting to get the hives up there.
But also, it's a really, really difficult place to access.
So, it's a hard tell whether it's worth investing into it.
This becomes a big financial commitment when you're trying to move these hives.
Transportation cost, paying rent to the locations,
I mean, it definitely has some cost associated to it,
and it's not something that I take lightly.
I'm gonna go do some scouting,
look at it in person and see what kind of access is
gonna be necessary to put the hives up there.
We're kind of forced to try something new here,
because if I can't find an alternative production source,
I won't have a business.
[music playing]
[Jane] Let's wait right up here for Charlotte
to come around the corner. She's got a little pumpkin car.
I'm with my cousin Kate. She's from the great state of Texas.
Kate's only here for a week. I'm really trying to pack in everything I can.
-[laughs] -[bleep]
I'm so excited to be seeing where Jane grew up at. It's beautiful.
All mine. [clicks tongue]
-You'll love Charlotte. She's super fun. -Yeah.
Also, Charlotte definitely needs a break from her homestead, like,
more apparent than ever.
[Jane] And when Otto got hurt, I was making Charlotte some soups and dinners,
and I even made her, like, little hot toddies.
So this is like giving Charlotte, like, a break from her stress,
a break from her chores. It's just so needed. [laughs]
I've never had such a nice excuse to have... or bad excuse, I mean,
to, like, have a good time.
-Leggo. -[Charlotte] Hi, ladies.
-[Charlotte] Hello. -[Jane] Charlotte, this is Kate.
[woman] Hi. So nice to meet you.
[Charlotte] Kate's never been to Alaska,
so I want everything that she does, like, to be very Alaskan.
Today, we are going to Crow Creek Mine, hunting for gold.
It's actually a mine,
like, from 100 years ago, and it still produces gold.
Gold panning, you can't get more like Alaskan authentic than like that.
It'll be good to, like, get off the homestead.
But also, if we get gold, then that's gonna be obviously awesome.
And Kate and Charlotte have not met each other.
But I know they're just instantly gonna click,
and this is gonna be, like, a really fun girls trip.
Oh, my God. You already got your gold nugget to inspire us?
I know! [laughs]
[jane] Ooh, look at this! You got a cooler? Sweet.
We got a cooler. We're good.
[Charlotte] Okay. You guys ready?
-[Jane] Yes, I am ready, yes. -[Charlotte] Yes, we are ready.
[Charlotte] Jane's cousin Kate is definitely a fun addition.
I'm really excited about wheels moving under me,
and putting some distance between me and the homestead,
and having some fun with the ladies.
It'll be my first time off the homestead in a year.
Every day there's so much in front of me that I have to do,
especially with this whole hemp growing project
we started a couple of months ago.
So, you pretty much just have to get off the homestead to relax.
And then hitting the road with Jane is really fun.
Jane and I pretty much have fun anything that we do.
What side of the family are you on? Mom's?
-Our moms are sisters. -Yeah.
-A little known fact in our family,
I'm the favorite...
-[laughs] -...of the grandchildren.
I'm the favorite.
Kate is one of my favorite cousins,
I also consider, like, her, one of my best friends,
and we talk all the time, specially through Covid.
Of course with, like, a drink. Thanks, covid, what it did to us.
Of the non-favorites?
-How many non-favorites are there? -[Kate] Exactly.
There's 11 of us. It's competitive, highly competitive.
[Charlotte] Okay, here we are.
[Jane] Check out our sweet camping site, Kate.
-[Kate] This is it. -[Jane] This is it.
[Kate] This is way smaller than I anticipated.
-[Jane] Yeah, it's... -[laughing]
-[Jane] It's, like, nice and cozy. -[Kate] Wow.
We do not have any gold panning in Texas, no.
Not that I'm aware of.
And I'm definitely hoping to find gold, 'cause I do love gold.
[laughing] I do.
[Jane] Oh, you don't have these?
I love gold stuff. I just don't have any gold clothes.
[Jane] You've got plenty of gold on, Kate. Just a different kind of gold.
Charlotte and Jane told me they had some outfits planned, um,
gold outfits, I didn't get that memo.
-I've got pants on that are too small for me. -Oh, my gosh.
[Jane] Oh, my gosh. I love it. Charlotte wins!
-Every time. -I know.
Charlotte takes the gold on this one.
-[laughs] -[Jane] Outta here.
I do think when you're panning for gold,
it's pretty easy to get gold fever.
And so when that happens, like, watch out, girls.
I'm pretty competitive.
[pilot] Well, man,
you're flying.
[Eivin] Oh, this is cool.
Yeah, this is way cool.
Super exciting to be behind the controls of the airplane.
Actually, flying itself is
easier than I thought it was gonna be.
[pilot] All right, you can continue that left-hand turn, we're gonna turn now.
[Eivin] Can I push on the pedals just a little bit, to get a feel of them?
-[pilot] Yeah. -[Eivin] Feel that there, yeah.
We took off from the Homer Airport and we kinda headed up to the head of the bay.
That's my farm there, where you can see the hay meadows. Not this one.
Not this green roof here. But the next one over there.
[pilot] Oh, I see. We'll get a little lower where the kids can see us
-rock the wings. -[Eivin] Yeah.
From the air, the homestead looks so small.
[pilot] All right. Let's wave the wings. Here we go!
-Hope they saw that. -I know, I hope they did, too.
How cool.
[pilot] All right.
Let's head straight for the glacier, just nice and gentle.
[Eivin] Yeah.
[pilot] Beautiful day, man.
[Eivin] Ah, this is great.
Our weather today, it couldn't have been any better.
So, having, you know, calm air to be able to fly,
really, that in itself, is just a gift.
[pilot] We're lucky to live here.
[Eivin] I know, so lucky.
[pilot] And you should see the waterfalls down here.
You might be able to see it
-off your side once you make this turn. -Uh-huh.
It's just gushing.
[Eivin] Oh, yeah, gosh! That's just gorgeous.
-[pilot] Isn't that cool? -[Eivin] Wow!
[Eivin] So cool being up above the glaciers like this, you know.
[pilot] Oh, gosh.
It's really amazing to, kinda, get that bird's eye view of the glaciers,
and the mountains.
I'm gonna need a little more altitude if you wanna go further over the ice.
-More throttle? -Pretty good.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
Power it all the way, actually.
[pilot] We'll just, we'll climb it.
And we can level off here.
So we can kinda stabilize that speed. Keep pulling it back.
Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull.
[Eivin] I'm definitely learning as we go, that the conditions can change.
And you really need to be paying attention to how the plane's reacting in the air.
I'm having to pull back on the stick. Should that be a trim thing, then?
Uh, it would be.
It's trimming up so much, we have to start to turn out of here.
-Right. -The wind could come down this way and catch a wing.
Uh-huh.
-I'm just being extra, extra careful. -Oh, that's good.
More information, you pass stuff on like that to me.
-This is the type of situation where I really absorb it. -Right.
[pilot] Um, keep an eye out for a down draft, like, pushing us down.
[Eivin] Right.
-[pilot] Wow, man! Did you feel that? -[Eivin] Yeah. I felt that.
It just went over the top of us.
[automated voice] Caution! Terrain.
-[Eivin] Oh, no! -[pilot] All right, I gotcha.
We have to start to turn out of here.
[automated voice] Caution! Terrain. Terrain.
-[pilot] My controls. -[Eivin] Your controls.
[automated voice] Terrain.
-[Eivin] Oh, no! -[pilot] All right, I gotcha.
We have to start to turn out of here.
[automated voice] Caution! Terrain. Terrain.
-[pilot] My controls. -[Eivin] Your controls.
[pilot] My controls, thank you. Good job.
[Eivin] Hearing "caution" blaring,
I'm definitely wondering, are we about to crash?
Was he right about this being too dangerous?
There we go.
[pilot] We should be okay.
But, if anything were to happen,
it is not pretty.
[Eivin] Oh, good.
[Eivin] There's a lot of risks and there's a lot of hazards,
especially in a small plane.
You're dealing with a lot of factors that, uh, can't really be seen, you know,
you're dealing with warm air rising up mountainsides,
or you're flying over glaciers and you're dealing with
cold air descending very, very quickly.
And you really feel that inside of the plane, and it can be pretty abrupt
and shocking.
I think I've got a lot to learn.
At this point, I just wanna take it slowly
and make sure I've got really good instruction.
[pilot] All right, we're level. It's all you, man.
-[Eivin] All right, my controls? -[pilot] Your controls.
-My controls. -Yeah, see, you're catching on.
[James] Ooh, gorgeous up here.
Oh, yeah.
Beautiful Alpine purple lupin here.
Still plenty of bloom to go.
Check the nectar.
Look at that. Well, do you see that?
Crazy pollen structure.
[James] This is one big experiment.
I don't know how this is gonna turn out.
The second you get above 1,500 feet, it's a completely different nectar source.
Orange pollen.
I've never heard of anyone targeting these kind of flowers
at this elevation for honey before.
What is this one? Holy smokes!
Unchartered territory.
So many different kinds of flowers.
It's so intense, you know, 'cause there's carpets of flowers here, it's insane.
No way.
Tons of bumblebees.
That's promising.
I think this is the nice, little, flat spot
that's wind protected and plenty of, uh, solar gain.
But the ambient air temperature is pretty warm
I mean, it's 55, 60 degrees up here in the sun.
I definitely see potential in this hive site.
It's like, the most pristine environment.
Tons of purple lupin,
loads of blueberry flowers
next to these glaciers and this
sun-exposed bowl.
There's a lot of pioneering that has to be done, but,
who knows, we might get the most phenomenal tasting honey in the world.
Seeing as our season down in town is going
fairly poorly.
The micro climate down near Homer has just been wet and cold, so our bees are
having a hard time producing.
So this is kind of a, you know, a make or break time.
We gotta try and find an alternative production source for our bees, so,
I'm hoping it pays off. Lots of pressure,
and it's looking good up here, though, there's tons of blueberry flowers.
But, we're in unchartered territory.
Uh-oh.
We've got lots of bear scat up here.
One there, one there, one there,
tons of it.
You know, we had one bear demolish ten of our hives last fall.
It was horrendous.
We'll definitely have to set up a bear fence around our beehives.
The biggest risk besides actually moving the bees to the location,
is being in that remote spot
with all the bears around.
They can smell the honey
outside the hive. They smell something sweet but,
the bee larvae
is what the bears are really obsessed with.
I do have a bear fence that I'll put up and that should protect the beehives.
But there's a million things that can go wrong.
Especially when you got bees coming in via helicopter.
Part of, uh, the difficulty up here is the access.
We're gonna lift our hives up into an Alpine meadow.
It is a high-altitude gamble and as you can imagine, moving bees
by helicopter is very risky.
A lot of other beekeepers will probably say I'm crazy for trying this.
But desperate times calls for desperate measures.
Gotta risk it for the biscuit, you know.
-[woman] Let's get ready to push off. -[child] Okie dokie.
-[woman] Dip netting. -We're gonna catch lots of fish.
[Tela] Today we're gonna go dip netting.
This is your first time, right?
It's my first time.
Pretty exciting.
[Tela] We're gonna be fishing with a net, it sounds like.
-In the river. -In the river?
-Yeah. In the river, with our wet suit on. -Yes.
-Got that. -Fishing for fish.
Maybe I can catch one with my hands.
If you're really fast. I mean, bears do it with their mouth.
Let me get practice, yeah.
I'm, like, really excited. Dip netting is super fun.
Specially with some of the best ladies in the world.
My name is Tela. I grew up down the road from the Kilchers.
I still live just down the road with my husband, Paul, and my three kids.
I'm a former Olympic wrestler.
There's definitely some overlap between homestead life and wrestling.
[woman] Oh, my God! Tela, that was amazing.
[Tela] There's something that needs to be done and you find a way to make that happen.
I'm really good friends with Eve since we were kids.
When people are just getting started doing homesteading, like,
you pretty much have nothing.
You're building it from your own hands.
You have to get food, you have to get water.
So, when I was introduced to the Snowhawks, a young couple figuring out homesteading,
I really wanted to help.
And I thought, one way that I could help,
would be to show Alysse the way we catch fish for the winter.
Hopefully we'll just get in,
get out. Finished.
I'm excited.
Miss Tela is a big cheerleader in our corner.
My husband,
Owen and I,
we're newcomers, still.
We have only four years under our belt.
We've had to learn.
Ooh, there we go!
[Alysse] And it has not been easy, let me tell you.
It's been really nice
having people help us...
Yeah!
along our journey.
Especially Atz Senior, bringing us a water tank.
That means I can keep my household going.
And I'm really grateful for Tela
to take me out dip netting and show me the ropes.
It's vital to store up as much fish as you can,
because if you don't have enough food stored up
by the time winter hits, you're in trouble.
[Alysse] It's so quiet.
I love the sound of the water.
-Okay, I got you! -Hey!
[Alysse] Right now, this is our beautiful, yet treacherous, walk up
to the falls.
My Dad was a deckhand when I was young
so I actually did grow up around salmon fishing and boat fishing.
But never something like this, where we're
navigating slippery rocks,
being pushed by the current,
just to get to a fishing spot.
[Tela] In the upper falls, you have to really get deep down into the water
so Raima's big pole
will maybe be helpful for that.
We'll see how it goes.
-Imagine that you have eyeballs on your feet. -Yeah, I'm feeling--
-And make sure you're safe, 'cause, you know, it is slip-- -Survival!
[Alysse] We all had bags on
inside the rushing water
straddling rocks and that was a little hairy.
You good?
I get kind of intense, I can't help it.
I feel intense.
So, it did get to a point where the water was too dangerous
for my kids to fish.
[child] Can I come there?
-It is slip-- -Survival!
[Tela] Its tricky because it was,
it's really full right this year.
Just faster, more water than normal.
There are some pretty
-like, legitimate dangers... -Yeah.
...specially with the increased runoff.
You slip and you fall, it's over.
[Alysse screams]
[Tela] It's just so slippery.
You slip and you fall, it's over.
[Alysse screams]
You good?
[Tela] There's definitely a skill to it.
You have to push it up against the current of the river
and then spear it down into the hole
of the river to get to the fish.
And then, once you get the hang of it,
you can sometimes come home with a whole month's worth of fish.
[Alysse] I caught a fish.
Let's keep this fish. Thank you, fish.
Hold still, baby.
[Tela] After we catch the fish, we gotta whack it on the head and kill it.
-Okay. -Thank you.
I wanna thank it for letting us catch it.
It's our first fish of the season.
-[girl] Thank you. -[Alysse] Thank you, fish.
I wanna make sure that my kids understand the value of a life
and the value of our food. This, thanking the spirit of the fish
helps us recognize that
we don't take our food lightly and we don't take killing and taking a life lightly.
It's just part of
living close to the land, I think.
-Whoo! -Yeah!
Yeah!
Yay!
Hello, cutie!
It's a beauty.
-It's a beauty. -Yay.
[Alysse] I'm extremely grateful for Tela inviting me out to go fishing
because we don't have a boat.
A nice-sized one, look!
And it's vital to store up as much fish
as you can to be able to survive the winter.
Yeah!
[Jane] To the creek. I've been to Crow Creek Mine as a child
and caught some gold flakes out there.
And, it was so much fun. And it's so beautiful there.
This is definitely a girl's trip.
You know, Kate did come to Alaska, I can't just put her to work on the homestead.
But it is kind of an excuse,
like, if you're gonna take a vacation and oh, we're also getting a little
gold out of the creek if we can.
-[Jane] What do you think about right here? -[Kate] Yeah.
That's, like, more acceptable to, like, the Kilcher men.
But, basically, we're on vacation. Big time.
Shovel in the pan and swirl, swirl, swirl.
Swirl like you mean it.
[metal clanking]
It's gonna be thirsty work.
I mean, are you doing it in the dry part or the wet part?
No. So what you do is you... you put it in
and then when you shake the water, you're gonna do it down here.
Like this.
So you get a little water...
-[Kate] Yeah. -... and you just start swirling.
You wanna get the mud out.
Get to work.
-Nothing, Charlotte? -[Charlotte] Nothing.
[Charlotte] Oh, God! Well, it sure is nice
to get away from the homestead.
[Jane] So you started a hemp farm?
[Charlotte] It's so exciting.
Fell into some luck recently?
It's been a lot of work though.
[Jane] When Charlotte and Otto said that they were gonna grow hemp,
I was like, "Well, of course, Charlotte would want to."
It just goes with that, like, hippie mentality I guess.
I don't... I don't even know. I don't know what the 'F' they are doing over there.
[Charlotte] Oh, my God! You guys, you guys--
Oh, never mind.
-God gang it! I swear. -[Kate laughing]
It doesn't have like-- It's not.
That does look like it.
I know. It... it surprises you.
If I don't get a nugget pretty soon...
I'm gonna have to go to the saloon.
Nada. Nay-thin'.
You know, of course, gold is valuable.
You never find it. [laughs]
I swear, you guys. This is, like, not happening.
I need some gold.
So right now, we're at our first spot
and I've just tried it out.
And it seems kinda easy, but...
you're expecting to find gold right away and you don't,
so then you realize it's a little bit harder than it looks.
So it's kinda frustrating to not find any.
[Kate] Do I need to swish mine more?
Always keep these rippled out. Yeah.
[Jane] We need a shot of whiskey.
Let's try a different spot.
[Charlotte] Well, should we move upstream a little?
The farther up the river you go,
maybe the more lucky because it's still, you know, less travelled.
[Kate] Let's go.
[sniffles] Ah.
Oh, my God, the bugs keep hitting my face.
-[Pilot] We're at just about where the road ends. -[James] Sounds good.
[helicopter hovering]
Today, the plan is...
to use a helicopter to lift our bees
up on to the Alpine Meadows across the bay.
It's a little nerve-racking.
I've never lifted bees
with a helicopter before,
but my, uh, friend that is helping me today
has had quite a bit of experience lifting
uh, with his helicopter, so...
um, I have faith in his abilities
The question is...
have I properly prepared the hives
for the move?
Bees can adapt fairly rapidly
to a new circumstance and new environment,
but, you know, if any damage is done to the queen,
that entire colony will fail.
There's a million things that could go wrong.
[Pilot] Roger that. Okay.
[indistinct radio chatter]
Whoo!
[howls happily]
[pilot speaking]
[James] Copy that.
[James] Coming round the corner, seeing the pallet
flying with all four bee hives.
I was hovering over the ground. You never really know
what's gonna happen.
All it would take is just one rock
in the wrong place underneath that pallet
when it comes down to, you know, dump the hives off
and suddenly the entire investment is a failure.
I see you guys coming.
[pilot speaking]
Just here on my left side.
Let's go!
Safe and sound.
[James] Seeing the pallet, all four beehives on the ground...
That was a big relief.
[James speaking]
-Thank you. -[pilot speaking]
[James] But on the way over, it was about a half-an-hour flight
and as you can imagine, those bees
were exposed to some pretty cold winds.
And I don't know if the bees survived
until I open the boxes and look.
These are little air bags,
these little wind catchers
were supposed to work better on the way here,
but they didn't, they're--
These were supposed to drag behind the pallet in the air
[clears throat] and keep it tracking in a certain direction
so it doesn't keep spinning.
But yeah, they-- it wasn't enough drag on the way here,
so they just kept spinning, unfortunately.
You know, it's a pretty high risk,
but like we were seeing earlier
there's tons of flower source up here
for them to forage on.
Oh, look, there's a black bear right there.
Uh-oh.
-[Otto] Hey, Charlotte. -[Charlotte] Hey, hon.
[Otto] How is the plantation doing?
We're growing some hemp.
It's something that...
my dad dabbled in years and years ago,
but we haven't done it on the homestead in a long time.
Every single day, they get so much bigger
[Otto] Oh, my God, look at this.
Our goal is to grow enough hemp
to make enough CBD
which really helped me deal with my pain
in recovering from my injury.
Is that too cool or what?
I am really excited about the plants.
A lot of my excitement is seeing Charlotte in her element.
Jason told me that I need to plant them
a pencil eraser's depth and so I thought,
"Okay, I'll actually use a pencil eraser."
[chuckles] That way we'll know.
[Otto] The garden's beautiful. The peony are beautiful.
And these hemp plants,
they're just really doing well.
And that gives me a lot of happiness just by itself.
All right, well, I'm pretty happy about it.
Hope my cows don't eat it.
-[chuckles] -[Charlotte] Right.
-[Kate] All right. -[Jane] Gold fever.
We just weren't having any luck.
So went up to the next spot
and then there, you know, hopefully it'll give us some luck.
[Charlotte] This looks cool.
-This looks good. -Yeah.
[in sing-song voice] I'm feeling lucky.
Do I need my glasses?
What about that one?
[Charlotte] Oh, my God. That one is gold!
-That is gold? -Jane, Jane, Jane! That one is.
[bleep] exciting, look.
-I didn't see it. -Oh, there might be more in this one.
Oh, my God.
-She's stealing my gold. -[cheering]
She's stealing my gold!
Okay, now I get the fever.
I get, like, why gold is, like, so wanted.
Why people would, like, die trying to get gold,
like, back in the day.
-Awesome! -Nice!
I was ready to kill someone for gold, for sure.
[Jane] Slap happy.
[Charlotte] Okay.
Now we're in business.
[Jane] This is the spot.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Charlotte, Charlotte! Hey, Kate.
-[Kate] What? -Look, right there.
[Charlotte] Oh, my God.
-It's gold. -[Charlotte] You're on a roll.
[Jane] That's me gold.
I thought I saw one, but then it goes away.
[Charlotte] Oh, my God. Jane, Jane, look there's more!
Okay, I gotta put those in my vial.
I'm loving it.
[Charlotte] After looking at this pan of muddy rocks,
for a while and not seeing anything,
when you see that glint of gold,
it really just freaks you out,
makes your heart stop, makes you scream.
That's so cool.
Oh, another one! I swear!
[Jane] Damn, Charlotte.
We're gonna have to go out on the town.
Whoo! I got another one!
-There's a gold over here. -What!
-There's gold in them thar hills. -How did I not get any?
I was a little bummed and then I was thinking,
it was probably the gold outfits that they were wearing that helped.
Is this gold?
Oh, yeah.
-Oh, my God! -[laughs]
Yes, I want a vial! Yes.
-[Jane gasps] Mosquito. -Oh, my God.
-Oh, wow. -Whoo!
-[laughs] -Yay!
[Jane] Kate struck gold finally
and she is, like, more than excited.
You know, she, like, literally, like jumped up.
[Charlotte] Kate's got gold fever.
[chuckles]
-Did it go in? -[Jane] Just wait.
Make sure they're in. Hold this in your pocket.
I didn't stop 'cause I know I had to come back with some gold.
And I did.
Well, I feel much better about this
-gold-panning experience. -Hold your gold.
[Jane] We are done gold panning.
and it was fun.
-[all laughing] -[Jane] We didn't get very much gold,
but we still accomplished, like, what I wanted
which was to get Charlotte off the homestead
and have a good time.
And for Kate to have, like, you know, like,
a little mini-Alaskan adventure
that... as much as I could cram in for her.
[Kate] Now it's getting cold.
[Jane] My feet are officially frozen.
[Charlotte] Kate is buying dinner tonight.
-Whoo! -She is.
[Jane] Kate and I's adventure is not over yet.
I've got a lot planned, like, over my neck of the woods.
She's gonna freak out.
The outfits worked.
[Charlotte] When do we get to have a cocktail?
[James] Uh-oh.
There's a black bear right there.
Better get that bear fence up asap.
[exhales] Okay, let's do this.
I keep this guy handy
just in case.
The biggest risk besides actually moving the bees
to the location is being in that remote spot
with all the bears around.
But I do have a bear fence that I'll put up
and that should protect the beehives.
This bear seems to be moving away
from my hive site.
I need to go in and check to see if the bees are okay.
Oh, yeah.
I see a couple of bees fly out and that's a very good sign.
They're all clustered up right in the middle of the...
of the colony because of the...
of the little cold.
Oh yeah, there is the queen too.
They're good.
You know, they're lookin',
um, happy and they're--
the temperature's nice and warm up here right now.
I'm excited to see what they come up with.
[softly] Do good, please.
[Eivin] Where are you, like, eyeballing
where you're gonna try to wanna touch down now?
-So there's a little bit of float. -Uh-huh.
That goes beyond where we wanna touch down, so I'm
-aiming before the big white markers. -[Eivin] Uh-huh.
[Eivin] Coming in for the landing, you know, you see that runway...
There's a lot I don't know
about how fast I should be coming in,
how fast I should be descending.
It's a thing you gotta feel it.
[Chris] Coming on down.
All right, less death grip here.
Let's just keep it right where we're at.
Don't let the runway freak you out.
Gonna touchdown. Pull, pull, pull, pull!
-Pull, pull, pull... -[alarm beeping]
... a little less.
Pull a bit more! Yeah!
-Boom. [chuckles] -You're good.
[laughing]
[Eivin] Coming in on that landing and touching down on the runway...
super fun. That was actually my favorite part.
You really can feel that cushion of air.
That was super fun
-I'm excited to do a bunch more of that. -[chuckles]
-Yeah, man. -Awesome. I had fun.
-[chuckles] -I hope so. That was awesome.
[Eivin] I hope to have my own airplane at some point.
I like to adventure.
It's one of the things that I like to do most
about my lifestyle in Alaska.
It's going farther to go hunting,
going farther to new places,
and a lot those spots, you can only access
by an airplane.
For me, learning to fly a plane
is about opening up new...
new country, new territory.
And that's the type of legacy
that I wanna continue to bring to the homestead.
-All right. Thank you, Chris. -Absolutely, man.
-It's a pleasure. -I had a blast today
-and I'm looking forward to the next one. -Yup.
[narrator] Next time on Alaska: The Last Frontier...
[Jane] We are going into bear country.
Black bears, brown bears, they're there.
I hate them. I don't wanna die.
-I'm like paranoid all the time. -Oh, yeah.
-[Jane] Oh! No! -[Kate screaming]
[air horn honking]
Elise is gonna be harvesting her first chicken today.
[Elise] Okay!
Taking a life is no easy task.
I feel awful.
[Eivin] I wanted to get August up here
and bring some things up to him in the hopes
that he starts making changes in his life.
You've struggled a little bit with trying to decide what to do.
Uh, I... I-- Gosh! [sighs]