(music)
JOHNNY: Caribou, caribou!
It's just a lot of them.
That's too thick.
Once they hit those trees man, they're ghosts!
That's a hard one to swallow man, watching a little herd of caribou
just roll right through, like right in front of you.
Now the hunt's begun.
This is no man's land, but it's that challenge that I strive for.
I was challenged in town, but it was a really uncomfortable challenge,
it just felt fake it didn't feel real.
Being out in nature I feel a lot more connected to my challenges and my struggles.
Here we go. My name's Johnny Rolfe.
I like a simple life but not an easy life.
This right here is what the caribou were doing out here.
This is what they're after, man, this grass.
It's just torn up around here.
There must have been hundreds of caribou on this lake at one point.
And, uh, you can see what else they're eating.
This is, uh, horse tail.
It's one of the oldest plants.
The caribou just dig, and dig, and dig just to eat this, man.
That's a hard life that they live.
Like the caribou inspire me.
Watching them run around, cover tons of country,
working their asses off for a little bit of food.
But the sad news for them is they're my food source.
So, I appreciate the motivation, and I appreciate the food that you give me.
Where they're at is where I wanna be.
CHRIS: Thought I saw a bird over here.
Don't see anything though, I heard him.
JESSI: Bet there's a bunch of grouse up here.
I heard him fly down there so.
CHRIS: Oh, I see him.
Let me see if I can get him.
(rifle shot)
My name is Chris Morse and I'm out here on the Cosna River.
(rifle shot)
Got him!
Every day I wake up with my wife,
we go out and we work hard together
and when we get done with the day, we feel accomplished.
When you're out here it's just you and the world around you.
It's the bare necessities of life that you stress out about.
We're just always working hard to survive.
We've already got fresh meat now it's really important that we have
ice brought home that we can make drinking water out of.
Let me get my rope to you.
JESSI: Perfect!
I'd love to get some big blocks of really clear ice to the house.
Right now, the Cosna water is pretty stinking bitter.
One of the major building blocks of life out here is having water.
We're hoping that we can cut some big chunks of ice out of the river.
CHRIS: All right let's throw all this out before it becomes hard packed.
JESSI: Okay. Uses a zip line, to hoist it up to the house, and be done.
CHRIS: Let's see what we get, huh?
We might be hitting mud.
Might be frozen all the way down.
JESSI: Huh? CHRIS: I gotta get the auger and try that I guess.
JESSI: Ice is the only way to get ourselves through spring.
We gotta have about 300 gallons just for drinking water
and hopefully that will preserve any meat that we get.
CHRIS: It's mud. Wet sloppy mess!
JESSI: You have to prepared out here and ice is a major part of that.
CHRIS: It's ice all the way down, it's deeper than that huge chainsaw bar.
We're not gonna be able to pull ice out of here.
I'd much rather use river ice than lake ice, but
it's frozen all the way down. JESSI: So, we're effed.
CHRIS: We're gonna have to do it the hard way.
KALEB: The original path that I took for my life
didn't measure up to what I thought it'd be.
I grew up in McCarthy, and as a teenager I swore I would never come back,
but a couple years of living in the city,
working for a system that really did not work for me.
I realized what I was missing.
We're hoping not to get stuck too much,
but it's probably gonna happen more than I like. BRITTANY: Yeah.
KALEB: All right, well we'll see you later today. GILBERT: Yeah.
KALEB: Love you! BRITTANY: Don't get too wet. Have fun!
KALEB: Wanna start it, Gil?
My name is Kaleb Rowland.
I live in McCarthy, Alaska, with my children, and my wife.
Here we go. BRITTANY: Say bye. ELOVIE: Bye!
BRITTANY: Enjoy the wet snow.
ELOVIE: Enjoy the wet snow, Daddy and Gil.
KALEB: Gilbert and I are gonna go out and try to catch some squirrels.
We're gonna set out a little trap line.
He wants to learn how to catch something.
I can give him some basic skills on how to make sets.
I want Gilbert to learn that it's a way of life.
Something to be proud of.
It's a way to survive in these woods.
Wow, look at this moose tracks trough here. GILBERT: Yeah.
KALEB: Moose walked through the snow and its belly left a trough a foot deep.
GILBERT: Wow. KALEB: That tells you how deep the snow is,
'cause a moose, their belly is that far off the ground.
That's amazing. We're getting a lot of snow.
Here we are.
This is an old barn and it's got all our trapping goodies in it.
GILBERT: How old? KALEB: Probably a hundred years old.
All right, do you know what we're looking for? GILBERT: Squirrel traps.
KALEB: Yeah, and do you know which ones are squirrel traps?
GILBERT: No. KALEB: These are probably a little big.
Those would work, but these are the best ones right here.
This is the number one long spring.
Super easy to set. GILBERT: Does it hurt?
KALEB: Stick your finger in and find out.
GILBERT: Yeah. KALEB: There you go. Pull out.
Yeah, so we'll take these.
That outta be enough to maybe catch a squirrel, right?
GILBERT: Uh-huh.
KALEB: So, Gilbert, why do you wanna catch a squirrel?
GILBERT: Because then I can make stuff out of them.
KALEB: Yeah? Out of the fur? GILBERT: Uh-hmm.
KALEB: Good.
Squirrels are a great educational tool
to learn the ways of trapping.
Throw these traps in our box and hit the trail.
GILBERT: Okay.
KALEB: Trapping is something that gets handed down from generation to generation.
And it's my job to make sure my kids learn the art of trapping for fur bears.
Come on, Gilbert. GILBERT: Uh-huh.
KALEB: Almost there.
CHEVIE: My name's Chevie Roach.
Sonta and I have spent a long time growing up together.
As we got older, she talked about when we do have kids
I would really like to raise 'em in Shageluk.
I said well you know I want my kids to have what you have.
I want my kids to have what I fell in love with you for.
We have four kids.
They're Deg Hit'an Athabaskans.
And this is home.
SONTA: So, Chevie just seen a moose, or maybe two back here.
We're just making sure it doesn't have calf with it.
SYDNEY: I'm really excited about this, and, um,
it's a whole new experience for me.
CHEVIE: Sydney's been on several moose hunts with us,
been around Sonta getting moose.
But it's all out of a boat. It's all in the fall.
SONTA: I don't hear anything nearby.
CHEVIE: It's a different game.
There's two moose in here. I see two moose in here.
Probably a cow and a calf.
You wanna try to go in there?
SONTA: Likelihood's pretty good it's a calf.
CHEVIE: Probably a cow or calf. SONTA: Yeah.
CHEVIE: All right.
SONTA: Sydney's ten years old now, and she's just at that age
where we wanna get her first moose.
I was nine years old in the middle of winter,
just like this, when I got my first moose.
Keep your eyes peeled for anything moving, Sydney.
And I just remember changing what I thought about
being able to provide for your family.
CHEVIE: There's fresh tracks moving that way.
And that pee in the snow right there isn't even frozen.
I'm just gonna walk up there real quick and see if I can see anything.
If I see anything, I'll give 'em the hi sign and they can come up.
Our lifestyle is based around subsistence activities.
We follow the seasons.
Going on the land, getting your food, the whole adventure that it entails to do this.
SONTA: What'd it look like? CHEVIE: It's living.
Nothing. SONTA: Where'd those tracks go?
CHEVIE: Further back in there.
SONTA: Just straight back? CHEVIE: Yeah.
Let's go check it out. SONTA: Okay.
CHEVIE: Did you see it run?
SONTA: I don't see it.
Do you see it? Look around in the woods.
Come down here, scan the woods.
CHEVIE: Sydney do you see the moose?
SYDNEY: Where is it? CHEVIE: He's right there.
Look through your scope at that brown spot right there.
SYDNEY: Oh, yeah. CHEVIE: He's gonna move
Wait.
SONTA: It's moving out.
(rifle shot)
CHEVIE: You missed it. Get the gun.
All right, Bean. At least you got a shot off. SYDNEY: Yeah.
SONTA: She had that barrel pointed to the snow for like a long time.
CHEVIE: I know. Okay, let's get on.
SYDNEY: The only way I was able to see it
was the whiteness left by the thorns.
CHEVIE: What are you talking about? Get your hat on, let's go.
SYDNEY: The ant, something like that. The antlers.
SONTA: You just missed it just by a hair. SYDNEY: A hair.
SONTA: A very long hair.
KALEB: Living a subsistence lifestyle is not an old person's game.
It's a young man's game.
It takes a dedication to getting up every single day
and making a living for yourself.
I want my kids to live this lifestyle
not so they can be trapped in it,
but so they can learn a different way of life.
So, we're gonna jam this.
In right there, Gilbert, and then we're gonna wire it right here.
GILBERT: Can I, do it? KALEB: Sure, let me get it set.
This trip is important to Gilbert.
All right, there you go. Go this way. GILBERT: Okay.
KALEB: He wants to go trapping
to build a little rug out of squirrel hides.
To learn how to catch them.
All right, can I finish it off,
because you're starting to get a little bit skewed there.
And I wanna be able to give him that knowledge, because.
GILBERT: Got bait. KALEB: It can save his life someday.
Oh, yeah, the squirrels are gonna go bonkers over this.
There, now that, doesn't that look juicy and yummy for a squirrel?
GILBERT: Yeah. KALEB: He's gonna come,
he's gonna be standing right here and ka-bam-o.
GILBERT: Yeah.
KALEB: So, there we go. We gotta keep marching through the woods.
GILBERT: Okay. KALEB: I think this will be a dynamite set.
GILBERT: Yeah.
KALEB: Let's go see what the woods has to offer next.
I've been trapping since I was a little kid.
My first memory of trapping was actually setting a squirrel trap.
What'd you find up there?
GILBERT: Looks like a squirrel nest up here.
KALEB: Well maybe this will be a good spot to make a squirrel set then.
We got over three-hundred miles of trapline we've ran every single weekend.
And we'd pull ten, fifteen marten a week.
Four of five lynx.
Sometimes a wolverine, sometimes a wolf.
This looks like a good spot, Gilbert.
Gilbert wants to learn, and today's the start.
It's all about trying to outsmart an animal
that's a professional at survival. GILBERT: Okay.
KALEB: You're trying to deceive the animal into thinking
that nothing is wrong.
Everything is safe and he should just come and investigate.
We have a little goodie for him. All right.
Now, with any luck, we'll catch the squirrel.
GILBERT: Yeah, if I were the squirrel, I would just want the bait, no trap.
KALEB: No trap.
JESSI: Hopes and dreams only go so far out here.
You literally have to put in sweat equity.
You have to get out there and put one foot in front of the other.
CHRIS: This looks like the spot.
JESSI: And make it happen because no one else will.
JESSI: Okay. First one up here.
So, in the spring when everything starts melting,
that's when the water is at its worst.
The river itself is too murky
and too parasite ridden to be able to drink.
If you don't have a stock of water, then you're out of luck.
Nice.
CHRIS: The ice is really thick.
It's going to be hard to make a cut.
It was up to here. JESSI: Okay.
CHRIS: Which gives us about that much chainsaw to work with.
I mean. Let's just kind of get after it and see what happens.
JESSI: Okay. I'm just, this all fell in so
I'm gonna keep shoveling away.
CHRIS: It's really important to pull large ice blocks out.
The larger the ice block the longer it will last.
Woo! JESSI: Yeah, you're soaked!
CHRIS: That chunk of ice must be just super thick.
Wow.
Awesome. All right, so now I need to get my toggle, a rope,
bring my machine up, pull it out of here. Okay.
JESSI: Okay.
Nice. CHRIS: Okay. Let's yank the (bleep) out of this.
JESSI: Do you want me try to lever it?
CHRIS: Nope I'm just gonna give it a hit and we're gonna see what happens.
JESSI: Okay.
CHRIS: Ready? JESSI: Yeah,
I was hoping to get underneath this corner.
CHRIS: Okay do whatever you can?
Ready? JESSI: Yeah!
Oh, fudge!
JESSI: Broke the toggle!
CHRIS: Well, that's unfortunate. JESSI: Yeah.
Okay let's decide what we're gonna do here.
Yeah. I think I need to get this crossway
like support beam underneath it.
CHRIS: Let's try it again.
JESSI: So, let's push this thing back down.
Ready? CHRIS: Yeah.
JESSI: How's your skin, how's your body?
CHRIS: I'm quite cold. JESSI: Yeah.
Okay.
CHRIS: All right pull my rope, wanna come back just a little bit.
My trail's getting all gross.
Ready? JESSI: Not yet.
Think so.
CHRIS: Nice!
Man look at that beautiful ice!
Awesome to see this really good drinking water
and then this is gonna be not bad drinking water
and then we just got one funky line in there.
I'm really happy JESSI: It okay this is still going to be able to,
you know our food's gonna last.
CHRIS: I'm gonna hold the sled up and we're gonna see
if we can just keep pulling it.
JESSI: Yeah. We gotta do this soon because this is freezing to the ice.
CHRIS: I'm trying to go right now.
JESSI: Let's go!
Problems are constantly coming our way out here,
that is the type of lifestyle that we live.
But we just have to ponder about it,
we have to think about what we physically have
and how we can overcome these problems.
Nobody likes failure, one way or the other Chris and I have to overcome.
CHRIS: Get it taut! Here it goes, it's almost there.
There it is all right.
Okay.
Wow. JESSI: yeah!
CHRIS: That is some ice!
We have to have at least two big blocks this size.
JESSI: So, cut away! CHRIS: Cut away.
JOHNNY: One of the weirdest feelings about being out here,
when it's real cold and there's not a lot of sunlight,
without hearing any birds or seeing any animals.
It just kind of feels like the world is completely ending.
I feel like I'm the only living thing out here.
It's incredible how far you can see up here.
I can see one, two, three, four, five, six lakes from right here, seven.
Seven lakes, man, and I can see any caribou that'd be out on these lakes.
You know, they're very, very nomadic.
And they do a good job of evading me.
You know, I can see tracks on this lake
but, um, it's hard to tell how fresh those tracks are.
It's really hard to tell.
I mean, God, I've gotta be, you know, a few miles away at least.
At this point in the game, any tracks are gonna get me excited.
It's been unusually warm out here lately.
It'll get as high as just zero degrees. Pretty warm.
And I'm worried that with warm temperatures,
it's triggering their instinct to go north.
But it's not time to go north yet.
Look at this right here, man.
A wolf was bounding. It was jumping and leaping.
And it goes from right here to right here.
That's how far they're jumping and how fast they're moving.
And it stops really fast up there, really abruptly.
And it makes a sharp turn.
This wolf is chasing caribou.
And nothing gets caribou more worked up
and spread out to leave the country than wolves, man.
Wolves will scare all the caribou out of the country real, real fast.
I'm a little late to this party.
It's hard to tell how old these are, but they're not new.
Every time I'm out here it's just, putting together the pieces.
CHEVIE: To be a good hunter, you know
the only place to learn is out there
in the woods, and on the field.
If you're gonna be successful.
SONTA: So, Sydney. If you see something, you know, hit it right here.
Right behind the shoulder. Knock it down.
And then when we get up close to it, we'll have to put another one
or so right behind the head, right behind the ear back there.
SYDNEY: Um-hmm.
CHEVIE: There's no reading about it.
There's no talking about it.
There's no looking at videos about it.
That's all bull (bleep), you know? You gotta be there to do it.
All right, well there's moose in there.
SONTA: There. There's two.
Is that a baby? That's a calf.
CHEVIE: What the hell?
SONTA: Yeah, we see them come out, and I was going running.
CHEVIE: There's another one coming out right over there.
A winter moose hunt is a lot of long days,
a lotta miles on the snow machine.
There's no yellow brick road leading you straight to a moose,
I'll tell you that.
Okay, it's standing right behind that tree. Okay?
Go ahead and take your time.
Don't, okay, there it is. It's running on the side hill again.
Don't shoot. Give the gun back to Dad.
We're gonna have to go up just a little bit more.
Okay, so it's way up there. You see it? SYDNEY: I see it.
CHEVIE: You don't wanna shoot it that high because
you have to walk up there and get it.
They know that that hill is their safety.
SONTA: They're smart.
CHEVIE: No reason to put yourself in a situation
where you got way more work you need to do. SYDNEY: Yeah.
CHEVIE: I've shot some moose in some places where I wish I wouldn't have.
(laughs)
The ultimate goal is to get Sydney on a moose, and Sonta realizes that.
But we have the baby at home.
Okay, I'll see you in a little bit.
We're just gonna check some more spots.
Sometimes those motherly instincts come in.
She has the feeling that she needs to get back,
and you just keep on going. Don't argue with it.
Getting the animals is the bonus.
But it's the hours, and hours, and hours that this stuff takes.
Those are the bonds that you create with your kid
and the trust that you create with them, and it's so great.
All right, Sydney, got a set of wolf tracks a couple nights old.
SYDNEY: Wolf or a lynx.
CHEVIE: You see how far it sunk in the snow? SYDNEY: Yeah.
CHEVIE: That's a wolf.
Maybe they're pushing our moose out. SYDNEY: Uh-hmm.
CHEVIE: All right let's keep on going for now, okay?
Well, we'll find it, I think we'll find it.
It's still going up, it never crossed back over.
We're not the only one out here hunting moose.
The wolves are trying to get them also.
And if they're putting pressure on the moose,
we gotta know how to capitalize with what nature's giving you.
Look at these tracks, Sydney.
You gotta be able to be ready to roll when that time presents itself.
There it is, right there.
He heard us and turned around. SYDNEY: Oh, jeez!
CHEVIE: That's a big wolf right there baby.
CHEVIE: Ready, Bean? SYDNEY: Yeah.
CHEVIE: Hold on, Bean, hold on. We gotta get it.
Holy (bleep), Bean.
SYDNEY: Yeah, that's a black wolf, right?
CHEVIE: That's a black one!
Okay, you never approach them, okay?
SYDNEY: Yeah, I had a feeling you'd say that.
Did you get it? CHEVIE: Got it! SYDNEY: Yay!
CHEVIE: Come on.
SYDNEY: I'm gonna like go like five feet behind you maybe.
CHEVIE: Okay.
Are you shaking? SYDNEY: Yes.
CHEVIE: Make sure it's dead.
Sometimes they'll play dead, they'll lay there
with their face down and they'll wait for you.
Okay, stay right there.
It's dead.
That is a big wolf.
That is king moose eater right there.
SYDNEY: No wonder the moose was scared of it!
CHEVIE: Are you still shaking? SYDNEY: A little bit, yes.
That wolf looked at me with his giant yellow eyes, and I just,
I just got jitters, and it was just so fun at the same time.
CHEVIE: To have you there, and then to have this moment like this
together is like epic, you know? SYDNEY: Yeah.
This is better than the gray bird caught in the trap.
CHEVIE: Well, a little better than the gray jay in the trap, yeah.
JOHNNY: Finding food for me is hard, but it's an adventure.
I've never had an adventure finding food in the grocery store.
This is old caribou tracks right here.
They've been foraging, trying to dig out for that moss underneath the snow.
They're old tracks but they're everywhere.
This is kinda cool, this little hill right here.
It's like a big berm to this lake and,
uh, just look past it, and see if,
what's going on in the other side there, 'cause, uh.
The lake's gonna be my biggest advantage.
Caribou on the lake, you're going to see the brown dot.
You can't mistake it.
There's two caribou!
I gotta go! They're moving pretty fast right now.
They're going along the lake.
(bleep).
Lost a snowshoe.
There's just no way I'm gonna be able to pop up on that big open lake.
They're gonna spot me.
The only way to get to the Caribou without being seen or heard
is to just walk down on this path.
I don't see him.
I don't see him anymore.
Right through those trees, right through the trees.
They're gonna walk right here.
(rifle shot)
JOHNNY: Small fawns.
Someone was gonna get these guys.
I'm glad it was me.
It's really weird to see two young caribou like
this walking around you know, all alone.
Either their parents pushed them away and said,
go be adults or were, you know, know, taken down by wolves.
CHEVIE: Look how good that fur is.
JOHNNY: There's so much more hunting than just, uh, an animal in the ground.
Some people could look at it as a selfish thing,
taking a life but this will be sustaining lives.
JESSI: Whoa!
JOHNNY: It's not me I'm thinking about.
Boo--boo--boom!
JESSI: Well.
JOHNNY: I'm thinking about this animal.
I'm thinking about the people that taught me how to hunt.
How to do all the things that I'm doing.
KALEB: Remember to be uh listening for squirrels. Sometimes they chatter.
JOHNNY: And I'm grateful for all them right now.
You know this reminds me, of a picture of my grandfather
where he's got a deer draped over the hood of his car.
I think it was in the 60's.
I never met him, but we have the same name,
and we have a lot of the same interests, so.
Maybe we're bonding right now, maybe that's what's going on,
with the caribou on the hood of the snow machine.
CHRIS: Up. There we go. Hang on. Hang on.
There it is. JESSI: Yep.
CHRIS: Okay. JESSI: Great.
CHRIS: What were you pointing at?
JESSI: This guy right here.
There's like a funny little, I don't even know what that is.
You can see his little face and all of his legs and totally frozen in there.
You have to be strong to survive out here.
You've gotta put a lot of time and a lot of muscle power
behind every single thing that you do.
CHRIS: Awesome. What a nice load of ice.
JESSI: Made it all the way here.
Um, how many gallons do you think this is?
CHRIS: Two-fifty, three-hundred gallons.
JESSI: It's what we needed.
CHRIS: All right, so now we just need to dig a big ass hole right here.
And then we'll put a tarp, we'll roll these in,
and then we just gotta bury it and heap it over.
JESSI: This ice means our future, so we need to preserve these.
CHRIS: I'd like to make it all the way to the ground. The deeper, the better.
JESSI: We're gonna take care of this ice
just like we take care of our firewood,
just like we take care of our meat. CHRIS: Looking real good.
JESSI: And then it's gonna be there,
and it'll be waiting for us when we need it.
CHRIS: All right, here goes the first one. JESSI: Great.
CHRIS: All right, watch out.
JESSI: Okay, do you want me to get on that side and push?
I think you're gonna break that.
Um-hmm.
CHRIS: Time to go get a bigger pole.
All right, one, two, and up.
-Nice. JESSI: Remember when this was a big piece?
CHRIS:(laughs) Yeah. JESSI: I can't.
CHRIS: Look at that. Beautiful.
JESSI: Look how clear it is.
CHRIS: It should be pretty much parasite free which is great.
JESSI: I hope it tastes good.
CHRIS: It's gonna taste so good.
KALEB: Look at this, there's fox tracks. Hopefully if we caught a squirrel,
the fox didn't eat it.
The kids and I are heading out this morning to go and check.
Gilbert and I's nice little squirrel trap line.
Ellie decided to join us today because she's excited about maybe seeing
if we caught something. Look at that guys, squirrel tracks.
This is good sign. This means we're in the right spot.
GILBERT: Yep. KALEB: So, let's keep walking down the trail
and see if we can find anything else.
Our first set is right up around the corner here.
Aw, we didn't catch anything.
But a fox came and checked it out.
Oh, he even walked down underneath the pole, look at that.
GILBERT: Yeah, there no peanut butter anymore.
KALEB: I think the fox ate the bait. GILBERT: Yeah.
Well, let's go to the next one.
KALEB: Next one? GILBERT: Yeah.
ELOVIE: Where's the other one? KALEB: Just a little ways.
GILBERT: Oh, squirrel tracks! KALEB: Good eye, Gilbert.
GILBERT: Oh, and over there, I see it.
KALEB: I see it too, but I can't tell if anything's hanging.
KALEB: Oh, Gilbert. Do you see what happened?
GILBERT: Huh? KALEB: The trap is snapped.
GILBERT: Yeah, but there's nothing in it.
KALEB: We almost caught something here. ELOVIE: Oh, yeah.
GILBERT: There nothing.
KALEB: Whatever set the trap off got spooked
and didn't eat the peanut butter. ELOVIE: Yeah.
KALEB: Oh, here's squirrel tracks right here.
GILBERT: Oh, so that's what did it.
KALEB: There was a squirrel on this pole.
See the little paw prints,
there's a big paw print with claws even,
he knocked all the snow off right there.
Some squirrel got real lucky.
Cool, we're back in business.
ELOVIE: Hopefully we got one on the next one. Right?
GILBERT: I think there none.
KALEB: Hmm, nothing.
GILBERT: Yep. KALEB: And no bait.
So, the squirrel probably came up and just jumped over the trap,
and then, he was reaching down here. GILBERT: It jumped.
KALEB: So maybe what I need to do is rebait it
and stick it a little bit closer to the trap like that.
GILBERT: Yeah. KALEB: Learn from my mistakes.
That's called, uh, trial and error.
The kids, they're getting older, they're more observant,
and there's a language to learn in the woods.
Putting the bait close, see if that works.
Today they are learning how to read some of this language.
GILBERT: I see nothing.
KALEB: I see nothing, too.
I don't see any tracks around here;
I don't think anything's even been here.
Little bit smarter this time.
I'm thinking what we should do is reset the two that had the most action.
GILBERT: Yeah, and I'm gonna wait here for you.
KALEB: Oh, you are, huh?
GILBERT: Yeah. ELOVIE: Yeah.
KALEB: Uh, I don't think so. GILBERT: Why?
KALEB: All right, let's go.
Let's go get the other sets done up.
We'll start with two.
JOHNNY: All right, Java girl. Stay back.
You know, this land and country has become a part of me.
How everything works in this little eco system.
Flies. I can't believe there's still larva in here.
They're like candy if you eat them.
So, what the flies do is in the summer
they get up in their skin and they lay eggs,
and there's a larva in there, right there. See that?
And then what happens is Spring comes around,
it warms up, this guy hatches, flies away.
They are kinda tasty. (laughs)
Look at this though.
There's just no pretty ending for a caribou in the wild.
Look at that, man. Look at that.
But the meat's gonna be tender, it's gonna be really, really good.
It's not gonna affect the quality of the meat whatsoever.
Without the symbiotic relationship between all
the animals this place just wouldn't exist.
It's a little patch of heaven,
and it's a great feeling to know that this is where I belong.
This is where I'm supposed to be.
JESSI: There's something different about preparing for the future out here.
Work is hard but it's a simple kind of hard.
Year after year it's showing me that I have the strength to keep going.
CHRIS: Hmm, this is great, a little dry caribou meat.
JESSI: So, it's more than just this cup of water.
CHRIS: Look how clear that is.
JESSI: There you go, love. CHRIS: Hmm.
I've been looking forward to this all day.
JESSI: It's the certainty that I'm gonna continue to be here. Cheers.
CHRIS: That's good. JESSI: It's so good.
KALEB: All right. Now let's figure out
how we want this on the tree. ELOVIE: We're never.
KALEB: We'll see if we're smarter than the squirrels.
(laughs)
I just caught my own set. (laughs)
People have been trapping animals for fur
and food since the beginning of time.
Knowing that Gilbert is interested in this art form is very rewarding.
All right, let's go to the next set.
You can't write the story; you don't know where the story's gonna go.
CHEVIE: Too fast? SYDNEY: What?
CHEVIE: Too fast? SYDNEY: No.
CHEVIE: Being there is the biggest part of it.
Being able to hang.
JOHNNY: Oh, man, look at all those bot flies.
CHEVIE: And somehow, you'll get paid back.
JOHNNY: Hmm, yummy.
CHEVIE: The world, karma, whatever you want to call it
throws you a bone every once in a while, when you need it.
SYDNEY: Look. SONTA: Wow, honey. Nice.
CHEVIE: Bean was along for the ride. She held on.
JOHNNY: All right. You know, these caribou kinda remind me of myself
when I first came out here.
I felt lost, I felt unsure of where I was going.
Where am I going to get food?
Now I know what I'm doing out here, and every year I get a better sense
and a better grasp of my role out here with nature.
And it's just a special connection out here that I don't get in the city.
Oh, man.
The only thing that excited me in the city
was the thought of moving to Alaska.
Really no words to describe that.
And living with the land.
It's more than just the meat, right?
It's the experience. Here, Java.
It's the lifestyle of simplicity.
That's good, huh?
But simple's not to be confused with easy.
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