♪ ♪
CHEVIE: We're going out to one of our favorite hot spots
on Shageluk lake.
Because we know that those geese are coming in
in increased numbers.
Day after day.
SONTA: These guys have a stand to go on and
they offer some movement.
CHEVIE: We're just gonna block this off a little bit.
We've got bird, we have birds coming this way.
We're trying all totally exposed here.
They could see us from a long ways away when the geese
see manmade things, they know that it could be a threat and
they flare meaning they turn the other way.
So it's important to lessen your footprint when you can.
SONTA: Any little bit of camouflage helps.
What is that?
(imitating geese calls)
(gunshots)
At least you got some shots off.
CHEVIE: Little far. SONTA: Little far.
CHEVIE: Pretty far out there, but you know,
you gotta, you gotta warm up your barrel.
SONTA: Oh, wait.
There's something coming to your left.
Pretty low. There's about three.
CHEVIE: I see two. Is there three more?
SONTA: Yeah.
(squawking)
(gunshots)
CHEVIE: Go down.
SONTA: One looks like it was way the hell out there going down,
but let's watch it.
It's going down.
CHEVIE: It's going down. SONTA: Okay. I think I seen it.
CHEVIE: Out on the river, right?
SONTA: Maybe.
CHEVIE: Probably land on the ice out there, huh?
SONTA: Let's go take a look.
There's always a chance that we're not able to locate a bird
that goes down like this, and we just wanna make sure that we get
to it as fast as possible, so there's less chance that
it could get away.
CHEVIE: I know that this goose is gonna try to find a good,
clear opening to land and the closest big opening is the river
three quarters of a mile away.
That's a eight pound goose and ten square miles.
And I gotta find it.
Speed is everything.
SONTA: Oh, Chevie's going across the river.
Right now, the ice is pretty soft.
You just don't really wanna chance it on the river right now.
So best that he goes off by himself.
And I just wait here.
CHEVIE: I've gone through the ice and gone in cold water,
and you're always preparing yourself for that.
(theme music playing)
SONTA: Awesome. He's got it.
CHEVIE: This is the prize possession.
This is the one going in the pot for sure.
First sugar leg of the year.
Totally stoked.
We need to keep on hunting.
ROBERT: Being out here is a pretty amazing place.
I can look around the forest and just
see resources, materials, supplies.
I'm surrounded by everything that can save my life.
If I know how to use it.
ROBERT: There's a lot of hemlocks around here.
We gotta find spruce dominated forests.
A lot of spruce on the other side of the river though,
we get up there and cross the river.
RJ: Halibut fishing is really a way of life here in Sitka for
pretty much all of the community.
We're gonna build a traditional Native Alaskan Halibut hook
using 100% raw materials that we gather out in the woods.
ROBERT: Spruce tree here, some roots down here.
I can see, see if we can work some of them out of the ground.
I think we both should get like,
a minimum of 20 feet.
I know that if you get a little piece of spruce,
I mean, just a 16th of an inch in diameter,
that's almost as strong as parachute cord.
It's really strong stuff.
You gotta pull 'em out of the ground.
This one's kind of exposed.
You find more roots as you keep going.
It's pretty cool.
RJ: I think I'll go find another tree to start digging under.
ROBERT: Spruce root's gonna be real valuable for us when we
make halibut hooks that have been used for 10,000 years,
right here in Sitka, Alaska.
If we can come out in the woods and make a hook out of
our natural resources that are available the same way they were
available for my ancestors, six, seven, 8,000 years ago,
that's something I really want to succeed at.
RJ: This a six-footer.
This is a really interesting and great opportunity to go out
harvest from our resources, build this skill set and learn
how to do this.
And so I could make a ton of tools with spruce roots.
So, I think this will do exactly what I needed to, catch a halibut.
I think I got enough.
ROBERT: I think between the two of us we'll have plenty.
Let's get this fire going and then we can bake the bark.
RJ: That's good, huh? ROBERT: Yeah, right there.
You don't want to get it too hot in one spot.
'Cause it'll burn.
It's kind of a juggling act.
Try it. It comes off.
RJ: Ready? One, two, three.
(grunting)
ROBERT: I gave it all I had...
(laughter)
ROBERT: That's strong, isn't it?
RJ: Yeah, just that alone.
That gives me the confidence that I don't think a halibut's
gonna be doing anything to it.
We got a lot here.
ROBERT: Hike back home, start working in the shop.
RJ: Sounds good.
SAMANTHA: The chores are endless out here.
With as much as we have to do on the farm,
we don't have a lot of time to make things perfect.
We just have to get it done and then move forward.
SAMANTHA: We have roughly 70 animals total on our farm
running crazy, always just wreaking havoc.
And on top of it, Miss Olivia is due any second.
I bet she has like eight or nine in there this time around.
This last winter has been a real big learning experience.
We ended up with snow so high that the animals could
just step over their fencing.
They've just been wandering freely around the farm in just
a total state of chaos.
Hold on.
Now it's time to take the farm back.
Hey honey, would you wanna help me kind of figure out how to do this?
As you can see with ease,
they can just hop the fence and run off.
We can't do this anymore.
So we're gonna go ahead and fix up their living quarters so
they can be a little bit more confined.
So this spot is most definitely the worst right here.
They've just been pushing through this area.
NATHAN: We're probably have to put posts in some areas and
attach 'em just however we can.
SAMANTHA: Yeah.
NATHAN: Good enough is perfect, so.
SAMANTHA: I'll take good enough. Good enough is perfect.
NATHAN: We're almost there.
Keep going. Smash it.
SAMANTHA: It's a big deal, if they're getting out.
The animals, they're definitely necessary for our survival.
NATHAN: I think we're gonna want another post right over here.
SAMANTHA: The bears are waking up right now.
There are wolves in the area.
And they're not gonna be able to do anything to any predators.
They're just gonna be food.
NATHAN: This will fill the gap enough.
The loose ends are mostly buttoned up.
I don't see any other spot where they're gonna get out.
SAMANTHA: We'll have to test it here in a minute.
NATHAN: Throw 'em in and see what happens.
(bleating)
Jump. Jump. You can do it.
You can do it.
I think that sheep has figured it out.
SAMANTHA: Oh yeah. She's looking.
NATHAN: "This wasn't such a good idea, you guys."
(laughter)
SAMANTHA: It does feel really nice to have them in here and
just know that we don't have to deal with it anymore.
NATHAN: Yeah. One less thing to worry about,
but onto the next thing to worry about, so...
(laughter)
NATHAN: Yeah, it's good to get it checked off the list.
JOHNNY: When living this isolated, you can never be too prepared.
For what's to come and come early fall,
I'm want to expand my hunting grounds.
So I need to start setting myself up for success.
JOHNNY: Looks like the canoe survived the winter.
Last fall, I stashed the canoe right here.
I wanna take advantage of the snow to easily move
this canoe with the snow machine.
I won't have this opportunity once the snow melts.
That's if I can get this thing outta here.
That sucker is just frozen.
So the plan is to take my canoe go about 15 miles upriver and stash it.
Come on.
So once all the ice is gone, I can just go float that river.
(snaps)
That's not working.
And explore some new hunting areas.
There's a lot of caribou and moose up the river there.
(bleep).
Woo-wee, it's been a while.
The Orca, this thing's a beast.
I think I should just see what it would be like to
pull just the canoe.
What I got to lose?
The downside is if I get into anything wet like overflow
or anything, because aluminum in cold temperatures,
when it gets wet, it just weighs it down, uh,
because it's gonna freeze to it, but, uh,
think it's gonna work fine.
Just don't go too fast.
'Cause it can start to zigzag,
the trail that I'm gonna be taking to the river, it,
it zigzags in between the trees a lot.
So, that'll be the ultimate test.
All right, give it a go.
It's sliding pretty good.
(thuds)
There something's just not right here, man.
Oh, man.
JOHNNY: Man, this motor kind of sways to the side a little bit.
So, every time it opens up and it,
it gets really loud like that.
I'm losing compression.
I'm losing power.
This is it, the third motor mount.
Cracked it right off.
So now I just have a, a loose motor.
(bleep) dude.
It's like sometimes when you get so stuck in the mud,
you just kind of just stand there and almost wanna laugh
and accept it, man.
Ultimately, I'm not gonna let something like this stop me.
The best thing you can have with you is bailing wire.
It's kind of like cold weather, duct tape in a way.
It's pulled me out a lot of situations,
fix a lot of different things.
It seems to be bracing it pretty good.
I'm gonna try it.
All right. So here we go.
(engine revving)
It's not moving.
It brakes pretty good with the wire.
Let's start moving on,
head up north.
ROBERT: Being out here and being able to do
this stuff in our subsistence culture,
that's been here for tens of thousands of years,
makes me feel like I'm participating in something that
needs to be done this day and age.
ROBERT: This is what we want to make right here.
This is the end goal.
This one's caught halibut.
They sit in them.
RJ: I can see the teeth marks in it.
ROBERT: Yeah.
And so you want this to be about two feet long and
it sits on the ground line.
And it floats above the water like this,
about two feet off the bottom.
And then it keeps the starfish and all
the other critters from coming and eating the bait off it.
And then a halibut comes and he just swims in and
gets caught on that barb and he's hooked.
RJ: Oh, I found this bone in the back yard.
ROBERT: Yeah, we can make nice barb with that.
This is actually a moose thigh bone barb that
we'll be using today too.
RJ: Yeah. That's pretty sharp.
Hopefully be able to get something out of this.
ROBERT: Halibut hooks are something that's been used for thousands of years.
There's a few people around that fish these hooks religiously.
I mean, swear they out fish the steel ones.
RJ: My dad has a traditional halibut hook from a friend that
has caught tons of halibut.
So we're gonna try to carve our hooks to be similar to that one.
This is a really good way of building survival skills.
And if all I had was a knife and a lighter,
I could go out and make the things that I need to make,
catch a halibut.
ROBERT: This is not easy.
RJ: It's starting to take shape now.
ROBERT: Looks good, I think it'll fish.
RJ: I'm gonna go grab that spruce root and try to get these married.
ROBERT: Pretty excited.
I carved a halibut in the bottom of my mine,
so it can go down and trick the halibut and think it's a friend.
I'm almost done.
It's a little bit, uh, final love here.
This doesn't look too much different than the prototype
we originally got, which is pretty cool.
It's tradition to name your hook.
I'm gonna name mine the Kiks.adi Killer.
Kiks.adi is the name of our clan.
We're raven and frog.
That's what Kiks.adi is.
This has nothing to do with raven and frog but it has
everything to do about me and my blood.
The Kiks.adi Killer right here.
RJ: I think I'll name mine after my favorite thing about
Alaska is, uh, up in Peril Straits.
It's the sunset.
So just name it Peril sky.
ROBERT: I like it. Peril sky and Kiks.adi Killer.
Here we come.
I say, we go set these bad boys.
RJ: Looks good here. ROBERT: Cheers.
Let's get outta here.
SONTA: The first sign of spring,
you're itching to do some geese hunting,
and it's an itch that needs to get scratched.
Once you hear any sounds in the sky,
the place you wanna be is out on the land,
waiting in your blind.
SONTA: Duck. CHEVIE: What's that? Where?
SONTA: No, I hear it. CHEVIE: I hear it too.
SONTA: Back there somewhere.
Sounds like it's already in the water.
(whistles)
SONTA: Quack, quack, quack. CHEVIE: Was it quack?
I thought I heard its wings.
SONTA: No, that was quacking.
CHEVIE: Mallard. SONTA: Probably.
It did sound a little Mallard-ish.
CHEVIE: Ooh. There's nothing like sticking a good,
nice big fat Mallard in a goose roast too.
And just having a little extra side dish there to...
(imitating geese calls)
SONTA: They're just going down right on the,
right on the lake.
No. Look to your left,
down low, super low, they're on the lake.
Get ready.
(quacking)
(gunshots)
SONTA: Nice shot.
Two out there, Chev.
Good. There's another one out there, Thor, look.
Good boy.
CHEVIE: Bring it here. SONTA: Yeah. Good job.
Go get the other one.
Good boy. Good boy.
CHEVIE: Good dog. SONTA: Look at him go.
CHEVIE: Yeah. SONTA: Good boy.
CHEVIE: They were coming into those decoys for sure.
SONTA: Yeah. CHEVIE: And that open water.
Good boy. Come on, Thor.
SONTA: Good boy. Oh, he's happy.
CHEVIE: He's got such a soft mouth.
What a good boy.
SONTA: This is gonna go right into the pot tonight.
SAMANTHA: It takes a lot to run a farm.
We definitely don't have unlimited resources.
We have to make things last as long as we can to sustain ourselves.
(geese screeching)
NATHAN: Come on. Get outta there.
SAMANTHA: Come on, guys. NATHAN: Get. Get.
SAMANTHA: Get outta the way. NATHAN: Get. Norman, go.
Since this wall of snow melted,
all the animals are raiding the grain building.
SAMANTHA: This place is a mess.
NATHAN: Yeah, an absolute disaster.
SAMANTHA: Ugh.
NATHAN: They ate all the supplemental goat feed,
the supplemental cow feed, all of our chicken feed.
And now we have, we have half of tub there,
like a third of a tub in there.
So all together we have, not even a full tub of oats left.
So.
SAMANTHA: They ate, like, whole tubs of grain or
something like that in the last...
NATHAN: I don't know. SAMANTHA: Two, three weeks.
NATHAN: More than I even wanna think about.
SAMANTHA: Oh, my gosh.
NATHAN: It's great that they're all fat and happy,
but it comes a point where you gotta fix a problem and
put a stop to it.
SAMANTHA: I think it's about time to build a door.
NATHAN: Yeah, we should probably take care of that.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, I think so.
NATHAN: I've been kind of putting off the door,
'cause I don't know how exactly we're gonna do it.
I mean, we have these hinges here.
We could just work off there, I guess,
but kind of in odd places, but it could probably work.
SAMANTHA: Right? NATHAN: It'd be something.
Something's better than nothing at this point.
Or we're gonna be out of food for the ducks, chickens,
and the geese.
And our goats are getting fat off all the grain.
SAMANTHA: It's time to try to get them back into pens and
get this covered up.
Ow.
NATHAN: The Alaskan way. Make it work for now.
SAMANTHA: Yeah. NATHAN: Until it don't work.
And then make it work again.
All right. Let's test it out.
SAMANTHA: It looks good. NATHAN: The question is...
SAMANTHA: Pfft. Psh.
(laughs)
SAMANTHA: It's gonna be interesting.
At the end of the day, it just has to keep them out.
NATHAN: All right. SAMANTHA: That's not too bad.
It's a little ugly, but yeah.
NATHAN: Like I said, fitting a square inside of a circle.
SAMANTHA: It's functional.
NATHAN: Give this gate a test.
(rattling can)
The big beef is coming.
(rattling can)
What you gonna do?
Well, if the cow jumped over the moon,
hopefully it doesn't jump over the gate.
(geese screeching)
SAMANTHA: Oh, the geese are mad.
NATHAN: We may end up modifying the bottom,
but it seems to have visually deterred the goats.
Lily is giving it a sniff, uh,
testing the quality.
Professor is smart enough to figure it out.
'Cause, of course, he's a professor.
SAMANTHA: It definitely seemed to keep them from going in though.
I'm content with that.
So let's just, uh, hope and pray that holds and
maybe clean up and work on the next project.
NATHAN: Yeah, let's get to it. SAMANTHA: Sounds good.
ROBERT: If you live on a coastal community in Alaska,
the halibut is a prime source of protein for you.
Halibut are so valuable.
'Cause you can go get a couple 60-pounders out there.
That's enough meat to get a family through the winter.
RJ: Yeah. I mean, anywhere out here now is good.
We're in the depth range.
I think this is a pretty solid spot.
I'm excited to see what the heck this thing does.
ROBERT: Yeah, me too. RJ: You got yours. I got mine.
They're both engineered the same.
ROBERT: Looks like a beaver. RJ: Yeah.
ROBERT: With a big tooth coming out.
Pretty cool.
RJ: Yeah.
ROBERT: Well, let's go put the Peril sky and the Kiks.adi Killer.
Well, let's do two metal hooks and two wood hooks.
RJ: Yeah. Make it a fair chase.
ROBERT: Yeah. Let's see what happens.
RJ: When we're ready to pull it in about four or five hours.
Hopefully, the hooks that we made have some fish on 'em.
ROBERT: My goal is not to come home with
2,000 pounds of halibut today.
My goal is to catch a halibut on one of these wood hooks.
RJ: I think we'll have a good chance of being in
the territory of some halibut.
The question is whether or not we catch one on the halibut hook
that we make, or we catch one on the circle hook.
You know, now that I see how this is, uh...
ROBERT: You can see all the work.
RJ: Put on here.
I have a lot of confidence in this.
I think this is gonna crush it.
ROBERT: I think so too.
Look at it. It's pretty awesome.
RJ: That barb is sharp. ROBERT: Oh, yeah.
RJ: I mean, it's super sharp.
ROBERT: All we gotta do is just get a lip under there and they're caught, huh?
RJ: Yeah. First hook going over.
ROBERT: Oh, there's the Kiks.adi Killer
going in the water.
RJ: Yup.
Last one.
ROBERT: Sweet, four hooks.
I'm feeling pretty good about them.
We're gonna let them soak and then we're gonna check them all.
Look at him, he's holding his tail up.
Look at that.
RJ: Yeah. ROBERT: That's freaking cool.
Wow.
Oh, a big old gray whale.
It's pretty.
It's always cool to see some gray whales out here.
Three of 'em right here.
They're having a party.
The wildlife opportunities out here are unreal.
It never gets old every time you see it.
It's like the first time for me.
And so, I'm always living in the moment and
I'm always appreciating the moment.
I can't wait for the next moments to happen.
You want to check these hooks about every two to five hours.
If you don't catch a halibut in the first couple hours,
odds are a bunch of little rock fish and all kinds of other fish
that are down there are gonna pluck the bait all off.
And you're just gonna have wood floating in the bottom of the ocean.
That buoy's, uh, going underwater, RJ.
RJ: Oh, man.
Either we set it too deep or there's something on there.
ROBERT: I think there's something on there.
RJ: Got it.
There might be something on there.
Oh, there's something on there.
ROBERT: There's something really heavy.
RJ: Oh, it did just get really light.
ROBERT: It did? RJ: Yeah.
ROBERT: Uh-oh, I wonder if something, um...
RJ: Maybe that anchor or something snagged on the bottom?
ROBERT: Definitely felt like there was something on there.
RJ: Ooh, I think I just felt a tug.
Light again, really light.
There's something going on 'cause that was really heavy for a minute.
Ooh, there was a tug.
ROBERT: You felt a head shake? RJ: Something tugged it.
The line slipped from my hand a little bit.
ROBERT: Oh, that's good, that's a good sign.
All right, we're getting close.
RJ: I got some color here. ROBERT: Color's good.
RJ: Here's my hook, in there.
It's a halibut, big halibut.
That's on the circle hook.
ROBERT: That's okay.
RJ: But my hook got tangled up in that halibut.
ROBERT: Yeah, your bait got gone.
That thing drug it along, that's a keeper size...
RJ: Yeah. ROBERT: 100-pounder.
RJ: Something might have been on mine and chewed the bait off.
ROBERT: It definitely got the bait.
Circle hook's one, wood hook zero.
RJ: Right on, we got one. Good.
ROBERT: Still, I don't feel one on Kiks.adi Killer down there,
so I think this guy got it and drug that whole line a quarter mile.
But your barb and everything's still just how you made it.
That hook is so pretty.
RJ: I wonder if it got... ROBERT: Tangled on the way down.
RJ: Tangled on the way down or, it shouldn't have gotten tangled
on the way down 'cause it was above the line.
ROBERT: Perfect size halibut to keep out here.
RJ: Yeah, this one's a beauty.
ROBERT: Yeah, good eater right there.
RJ: You don't think there's another one?
ROBERT: I don't know there's nothing tugging or anything.
I am interested to see my hook though,
see what happened.
RJ: Yeah.
ROBERT: Look at it, Arge.
It's floating, just like it's supposed to, bait's gone.
RJ: Yeah, bait's gone, something ate it.
ROBERT: Set this thing in the morning again,
give it another shot tomorrow, just the wood.
RJ: Yeah, just the wood hooks.
ROBERT: Good job, Arge.
RJ: We got a halibut, we know how to catch halibut.
ROBERT: That's for sure.
RJ: Now, we gotta try to catch it on that hook.
ROBERT: Yup.
JOHNNY: Taking my canoe upriver,
that's a pretty difficult task.
It's getting mushy, slushy.
Been weaving back and forth between the trees.
It's proving to be a little bit more challenging.
JOHNNY: Yeah, these are big wolf tracks right here.
These are nice.
You know, if my hand was a paw, it's, you know,
pretty much the same size.
That's like alpha wolf size right there.
Like, these are just a couple days old, so.
And if there's wolves around, then,
you know, generally, there's other animals around,
so that's, kind of, nice.
Maybe I'll see some game up the trail.
That'll scare 'em off with the snow machine and this canoe.
Glare ice.
It's frozen solid, which is good but very, very slippery.
You can lose control pretty quick on a snow machine if
you don't have studs on your track,
I don't have studs on it.
But I just wanna make sure the ice is thick enough to go around it.
It's pretty wet stuff in here.
The last thing I wanna do is get stuck in overflow man,
this stuff is a mess.
Oh, my God.
I would never make it in this, two-foot of water almost.
Look at this, it's just water.
(bleep) that's cold.
I'm just gonna stay on this trail,
get across this glare ice, try to keep control of the sled.
I'm not going to go into the overflow here because
I'm just gonna get stuck.
So, I gotta get some momentum and just try to shoot across
without going sideways and jackpack it.
All right, baby, come on.
(laughs)
Woo! Yes, we did it.
Just a couple miles short of the goal.
My hands are frozen, man.
NATHAN: The work doesn't stop once you get one job done.
It's on to the next and there's a lot of things you're kind of
forced into learning and a lot of things
you're forced into doing.
You don't really have a choice out here.
NATHAN: Jerk.
This is pretty destroyed.
I'll grab my grinder, we'll cut off all the destroyed parts,
take a measurement, cut those to size and
we'll just slap them on the inside here.
And we can U nail it into the post there.
You can use that, uh, baling twine on the other side there
just to tie it in.
ADRIEN: Pretty early. NATHAN: I think.
That's the plan anyways.
SAMANTHA: I love nap hour on the farm,
the animals are all being really quiet and nice right now.
NATHAN: Yeah, mostly. SAMANTHA: Mostly.
It's about time we get the animals back in, huh?
NATHAN: Yup.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, their reign of terror is over.
NATHAN: The sooner the better. SAMANTHA: Yeah.
NATHAN: They're catching on to us, though.
SAMANTHA: They're figuring it out.
What's up butter bean?
AISLYN: I wanna be in your hands.
SAMANTHA: You wanna be in my hands?
AISLYN: Yeah, I wanna be in your hands.
SAMANTHA: Well, it looks like you guys got this part handled.
So, I might leave you two to it and find another project to work
on maybe with the girls here in a little bit.
NATHAN: Yeah, the, the goats getting them back in their pen
would be a good one.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, putting that latch on and working with the, uh,
the drill and whatnot or the, the impact driver if you will.
AISLYN: Mom, look. NATHAN: I know.
SAMANTHA: It's fine, he's not gonna come get us.
AISLYN: It's scary.
SAMANTHA: And if he does, I'll go, and he'll run away.
I'm gonna leave you fellas to it and I'll, uh,
I'll catch up with you whenever you're done so
we can do our project.
NATHAN: Okay. SAMANTHA: We'll see you later.
(laughs)
NATHAN: Oh, here comes the goat.
NATHAN: There's Smooch chasing around.
ADRIEN: Good girl, Smooch.
NATHAN: Smooch what are you doing?
ADRIEN: Good girl.
NATHAN: Are you just tormenting them for fun?
ADRIEN: Well, they torment her. NATHAN: That's not your job.
ADRIEN: So I mean. She's walking along with Moses.
(laughter)
SAMANTHA: Everything's kind of starting to regain order,
it's time for the goats to get back in their pen too.
Every animal needs like their own kind of space, the goat...
Oops, sorry, honey.
The goats don't necessarily get along with the sheep too well.
They do pretty well with the cows and stuff but
it's just nicer when they have their own outdoor shelter.
So, I've got to put a latch on that gate and
dig out so it can close a little bit better.
NATHAN: We can't have them running around like this.
The few months that they were doing it,
they enjoyed their freedom but enough is enough and
we gotta put a stop to it.
So that's what we're gonna do.
ADRIEN: Ow. NATHAN: Careful.
As the weather's warming up,
the kids are outside playing more, hanging out around the animals,
so that's a, a big concern.
We don't want the kids getting trampled by a cow or
rammed by a goat or any of the above.
Norman's coming to fight you.
He doesn't like what you're doing.
ADRIEN: Well, too bad so sad Norman.
You're gonna have to live with it.
(laughs)
NATHAN: You got beef?
SAMANTHA: It's really important for them to get back
in and just get the farm a little bit more organized.
NATHAN: Well should we test out this fence?
Yeah, you know what we're doing, don't you?
She's gonna jump in.
Guarantee it. Nope.
Let's go.
(laughs)
Lure these guys in?
(rooster crows)
ADRIEN: It's in there. NATHAN: Come on. Get.
ADRIEN: Good boy. Good boy.
NATHAN: It ain't perfect, but it's good enough.
Keep them out of our way and hopefully keep them contained.
SAMANTHA: I think it's gonna hold them and now
it's just time to go get the goats.
Honestly, I don't know who I would be if I hadn't been called to Alaska.
This, this place is turning me into a person that I think
my younger me would really,
really admire and I hope my kids do too.
NATHAN: Cows are in, goat are in, sheep are in.
SAMANTHA: We're, were so...
NATHAN: Grain building's blocked off.
(sighs)
SAMANTHA: You mean we actually get to like rest?
NATHAN: No, I didn't say that. SAMANTHA: Oh, okay.
RJ: This is the open ocean.
It constantly changes and can sometimes be extremely dangerous water.
Where you kind of have to be on your toes at all times.
ROBERT: We're only gonna try the wood hooks today.
RJ: Yeah, I think I'm gonna stick with the herring,
you're gonna try some squid, huh?
ROBERT: Yeah, give them a combo meal and
put a little bit of each on the hook.
They might fish a little longer than the herring,
that's my goal, kind of my goal.
RJ: If it stinks and it throws out a scent, they'll eat it.
Maybe today is a different day.
ROBERT: Put a couple of them up towards the top and then a little bit of
herring down here to camouflage it,
maybe they'll just come and suck it right in.
RJ: Good.
ROBERT: Let's go to the beach, Arge.
We can get up in there, behind that rock maybe a little bit,
see if we can get in there,
and find a place to get to the beach.
RJ: Yeah.
ROBERT: It doesn't look too promising from right here,
but we can go up below closer and see what,
see if there's a chance.
There's a pretty decent swell rolling in today
even though it's not windy.
There must be something brewing up out
in the ocean that's pretty big.
It can get scary pretty quick.
RJ: The waves are huge and it's not really looking like there's
an option to get to the shore today.
Kind of a little bummed but, you know,
we get lucky to be out here this time of the year.
It's good weather window and it's absolutely incredible.
Bunch of Bald Eagles.
ROBERT: Is that right?
(bellows)
Pretty wild out here.
RJ: Are you ready to go check the hooks?
ROBERT: See if old Kiks.Adi killer and
Peril sky talked to any halibut into it.
RJ: All right, I'm excited.
ROBERT: All right, let's go.
RJ: We should see it by now.
It should be right on top of it.
ROBERT: Comb the area.
I hope we can find it, we put a lot of work into those hooks.
RJ: Big swells. ROBERT: Totally.
RJ: Yeah.
ROBERT: Should be right in this spot,
this is exactly where we set it.
Not seeing nothing.
The odds are pretty good that it's gone forever.
RJ: It's all part of the game.
It's fishing, not catching.
What do you think, just keep looking for a little while?
ROBERT: Just drive circles for another hour and
maybe it'll pop up.
SONTA: In a land like this you really have to take care of
one another and as a hunter the majority of what you get
from the land, you give out to everyone else.
To elders, to family, to people that don't have anyone
to hunt for them.
That's something that we just know we have to do;
to take care of one another.
SONTA: Holy smokes, there's a bunch, Chev.
CHEVIE: Stay down, stay down. SONTA: Okay, okay.
(quacking)
(gunshot)
Good shot. Yee!
CHEVIE: Give me some. SONTA: Way to go, way to go.
Good boy, Thor.
CHEVIE: Good dog. One shot, one kill.
(quacking)
SONTA: I hear more up this way.
(quacking)
(gunshot)
(gunshots)
CHEVIE: Woo, good shot, Sonta.
SONTA: Going down.
CHEVIE: That was distance right there.
SONTA: Thanks.
CHEVIE: Was that your last shot you get it on?
SONTA: Second. CHEVIE: Second, huh?
SONTA: Yeah. CHEVIE: That was out there.
SONTA: That was a good reach.
I felt like that was gonna happen.
I wasn't quite sure and then, "Oh, yeah."
You know, it starts going down, it's a good feeling.
That's a good boy, that's a good boy.
CHEVIE: Good boy, Thor!
Some dogs they'll get, they'll...
With a goose they might get a little intimidated 'cause they're so big.
SONTA: Right.
CHEVIE: He doesn't seem to back down though.
SONTA: Oh. No, he's loving it out here right now.
I just wanna make sure to capitalize on this time and
get as many birds as we can.
CHEVIE: Two guns is better than one.
SONTA: Yeah, two of us shooting, double our chances.
CHEVIE: I'm done hunting when our freezers are full.
So, we're going to get it done and get as many geese as we can.
JOHNNY: It was a hell of a journey today.
Feels good to reach the goal, you know.
Because the river threw pretty much everything it could at me,
boots kind of just frozen at this point.
You know, you always want things to just work perfectly,
and you end up having to go through hell and high water.
But I'm super grateful.
Ah, that feels nice.
So, at this point I gotta get this canoe hung up,
tied up high into one of these trees.
Come back in early fall, bring the rifle, bring Java,
and we just float down the river.
ROBERT: I'm frustrated.
Can't find this buoy, where's that damn thing at?
It should be like right in here.
We'll just gonna put a weight on here in the bottom of it and
drag this thing around.
If I can go across the ways to the current maybe,
we can hook onto the line if that buoy's like ten feet under it.
The good thing about it is,
that hook's made out of wood, bone, and spruce root.
We harvested the material to make these hooks from nature,
they went back to nature.
Well, let's pull that rope thing and head back.
Alaska's tough. Alaska took my halibut hook.
Alaska's taken some of my friends.
But Alaska's also given us everything that we possibly need
to thrive and survive here.
It's an amazing place, and we gotta treat it with respect.
SONTA: Well, I think it's done, Chev.
CHEVIE: This is what we live for.
SONTA: That's a beauty.
CHEVIE: There it is. SONTA: Mm-hmm.
(quacks)
I'm hearing birds.
Better make that quick buddy.
(quacking)
Look how low.
(imitating geese calls)
CHEVIE: I'll grab our goose and bring it into the blind with us
and we can snack on it while we're hunting,
let's get in there.
SONTA: All right.
We feel a lot more secure when we have birds heading to the freezer,
just a great time to be around a campfire a little bit,
do some hunting at the same time.
We enjoy eating what we're shooting.
SAMANTHA: See. Ooh!
NATHAN: Here comes another.
(gasps)
(puppy yipping)
AISLYN: Whoa. NATHAN: There he is.
SAMANTHA: Good job on this. AISLYN: So cute.
SAMANTHA: All the puppies are coming out super healthy,
they all are just beautiful and happy and they're going straight
to nursing, so this is a good batch of puppies.
And she's doing a really good job at being mom right now.
Good job baby.
The kids are doing great, I'm actually really impressed with
the way they're behaving while she's giving birth.
They seem to not mind watching the birth process happen which
is really great because it's just part of farm life out here,
there's a lot of things born so they're gonna see a lot of that
kind of interaction just being on a farm.
It's neat to have them here to witness a live birth
for the first time.
She had nine puppies total, and she is rocking mom life.
I'm so proud of you, Olivies.
NATHAN: Probably time to give her a rest and
leave her be for a little bit.
SAMANTHA: Makes me so happy to have a farm back under control.
It is a lot of hard work but I'm not afraid of the labors.
It's a beautiful thing and to be able to do all of this stuff
with your own hands, it's so rewarding.
To be able to go hunt, or fish,
or trap, or raise your own food, you know,
however that may look for you.
That is real freedom and that is what Alaska can offer.
Captioned by Cotter Media Group.