♪ ♪
RICKO: Okay, let's get these traps prepped.
SKYLER: Okay.
RICKO: Let's do the wolverine one's first.
This is a 3-30 conibear.
-SKYLER: Is it strong? -RICKO: Yeah.
These are powerful traps,
so we got to be careful with them.
SKYLER: Well, that's a good thing,
so it don't like die sadly.
RICKO: Yeah, they don't last long in these.
Trapping is all about survival out here.
You got to be able to get furs if you want to make nice
clothing that suits you for this weather and this climate.
Okay, we're gonna use these setters.
This makes it a lot easier.
I used to use rope to do these, but...
SKYLER: You did?
RICKO: I got fancy with these setters.
SKYLER: I'm scared.
RICKO: Okay. This one is ready to go.
SKYLER: That's it?
RICKO: Yeah.
This fits in here and it gets wired in right here.
And then this is the wolverine.
He comes hopping along,
"Damn that smells good. Woo-hoo, Beaver?"
(intense music)
RICKO: Yeah. SKYLER: Whoa!
SKYLER: That was big. RICKO: Big power.
Can you imagine that on your arm?
That would be painful.
You'd be going home.
Not crying, you'd probably be screaming.
You get caught in some of these bigger traps,
you could easily lose your life, or lose a limb.
So, Skyler needs to understand that handling
these big wolverine traps,
that's like handling a loaded gun.
Now you see how much power is locked and loaded.
NARRATOR: Ricko DeWilde and his son Skyler are camping
in the Selawik Hot Springs,
an ancient landscape where they hope to secure needed resources,
and where Ricko will teach Skyler lessons of their Athabaskan roots.
RICKO: I learned right off when I first started trapping
to be real careful with traps.
Tilt it towards you.
I had to have been about nine years old
when I did my first trap.
I was setting a trap for a mink, and I actually caught myself.
Caught my hand in a trap, walked all the way home crying,
and my mom took that trap off my hand.
Okay and latch it.
Okay, this one's ready.
SKYLER: That thing is like ready with the safeties on?
RICKO: Yeah, the safeties are on,
so you don't have to worry about it.
For now, we need the marten boxes.
This is good for small game, even like if you're hungry
and you wanna catch a squirrel.
Anything possible that I could do here with these traps to prep them
and make it easier when I'm out there,
I'm gonna do around this cabin with Skyler.
So, when me and Skyler are out there, we're not tinkering around
and wasting time and energy setting them.
We're ready to go. Let's start setting some traps.
JESSIE: This is rugged, tough country.
You don't prepare, you just don't survive.
JESSIE: All right, I'm about halfway to my destination.
Stop and make sure my load's strapped down good.
Seems like it's, uh, riding pretty well here.
Last winter, I was dragging a trail about 60 miles
to the east of here, and I was really impressed
with the countryside out there, you know,
definitely a place I want to spend some more time.
There's a lot of ptarmigan out there, and I saw a lot of game sign
and a lot of fur sign.
So, I'm gonna set up a camp out there.
That way I can have a safety net for using that area.
(dynamic music)
♪ ♪
Thinking I'm gonna put my tent right here.
Get it nice and packed down.
♪ ♪
The first thing I'm gonna do is, uh,
shovel off a nice area down to the grass.
Then I'm gonna start picking out my poles
and stretching out the tent.
All right, I've got a good spot shoveled out here.
Now it's time to set up my tent.
Right now, the weather's nice, and this is a great time to be doing this.
But the weather can make it so harsh out here.
(moody music)
♪ ♪
I'm planning on going out to this area a lot this winter.
It can dump two, three feet of snow overnight out here.
It can blow 60, 70 mile-an-hour winds.
You know, it can get deeply frigid cold.
I just want to be prepared to be able to have that comfort out there.
The hell with roughing it. I want to smooth it.
I want to be able to preserve my body.
Keep all my digits, which I've been lucky to do so far.
You know, through a lot of learning curve of living in Alaska,
I've survived with all ten toes, all ten fingers,
still have my nose.
But I've been in some pretty bad predicaments,
and it just teaches me to be prepared.
I love a wall tent.
It's just such a super simple setup here.
Okay, I got my stove set up.
Camp's all ready.
Now it's time to take off and go hunting.
Nice knowing I got something to come back to.
AGNES: It's responsible for us to teach our young ones
to do the right thing every time.
♪ ♪
CAROL: So we're just gonna go and blaze a trail through the willows?
AGNES: Uh huh.
CHIP: Yeah, we're gonna make a shortcut,
so we're not going two miles out of our way to go around them.
AGNES: That would make life a lot easier,
if there was a trail.
We're taking the time to cut us a trail,
so we don't have to go all the way around the willows
when we're trying to go from Kiwalik North to South.
That way, it'll save us some time, some gas.
It's just gonna be a great shortcut.
NARRATOR: In Kiwalik, the Hailstones rely on seasonal hunts
for their survival.
With the caribou migration soon to arrive,
the family must set up a new camp on a nearby hill,
which will allow them to scout for prey
from a high vantage point.
CHIP: There used to be a lot of gold mining here,
and when that ran out, they left.
But the giant tank remains that they used to fill up with fuel.
So, that's the landmark.
And if it's stormy or it's foggy, you drive towards the pump-site,
right there's the trail.
We can cut all these out of here, right here.
This will be our brushy pain in the butt,
but it'll be all right.
There's like oh, 100 feet of willows
that need to be removed.
So we got a pretty good job ahead of us, I think.
If I can get this done now before the snow comes
and get this done now while I've got daylight, you know,
I have the rest of winter to enjoy that access.
When I start knocking these off, you'll start pulling them out
and throwing them out of the way, huh?
AGNES: Yup.
CAROL: Whoa!
AGNES: We're gonna be working together
and trying to cut through to the other side,
and it's gonna take us all day.
We're just gonna share the workload.
When you work together, the workload is a lot less, you know?
It's time consuming, but you're not really
exerting yourself too much in the cold.
We don't really want to be sweating;
we just want to be slowly making our way
to the other side of the willows.
(energetic music)
♪ ♪
CHIP: You know how to saw, right?
Ha ha! I think it's your turn, man.
I've made some good progress here.
This is a real handy spot right here.
Animals track it, I track it.
Right here is where the river meets the hillside,
meets the, the Kiwalik flats.
It's in a very advantageous place, so opening this up is a good idea.
We can just bomb right through here with snow machines now.
AGNES: Zoom. That's pretty cool, eh?
CHIP: Yeah. Well, you guys feel like wrapping it up for the day?
AGNES: Yeah.
CHIP: We got tomorrow coming on us and we got,
always got more work to do.
AGNES: (sighs) Well-made trail.
CHIP: Yup. Thank you, guys.
SUE: I can't beat winter, but I can work around it.
(moody music)
♪ ♪
SUE: I've managed to get Little Red stuck by the runway.
Something inside of it broke.
I don't know what.
Bang, I heard it, and it stopped running.
So I have to get Little Red out.
Inconvenient as heck that he broke down there,
but you don't always get a choice where breakdowns happen.
They usually don't happen at the shop.
Take a little bit of rope, maybe a little bit of chain,
pull Little Red out of its trouble.
The biggest piece of equipment
has to rescue the littlest vehicle in the camp.
The 9-66 is really the powerhouse.
It's one of the newest pieces of equipment,
if you can call it that.
It's a 1968.
So, age-wise, it's just a little bit younger than me.
It is built for really the heavy-duty work.
It's how I dug the trench to get the culvert made
on the runway.
It's how I move large quantities of gravel.
This is something that is built for heavy construction.
Heavy work.
And you wonder, yeah, you got this big old muscular,
Schwarzenegger equipment.
Why the hell aren't you driving it down here?
Well, it doesn't have chains on it.
So, if I get that down here and get it stuck,
I am in a world of hurt.
Better to have a lot of rope and patience,
than, uh, getting the big equipment stuck,
'cause I've got no recourse.
(edgy music)
I hope I'm close enough.
♪ ♪
Are you kidding me?
Not by a couple of inches.
Come on.
(tense music)
(grunts)
Little bit more, little bit more.
Bam! Thank you.
All right, we got to help your little brother.
Let's get 'er done.
Come on.
Come on, Little Red.
There's so much tension on this rope.
If it snaps, my head is gonna be, uh,
not on my shoulders anymore.
SUE: There's so much tension on this rope.
(tense music)
♪ ♪
Come on.
Come on, Little Red.
Come to Mommy.
♪ ♪
I'm kind of seesawing because I only have so much runway.
Your chain is only as good as your weakest link.
The weakest link is Little Red itself and where that first hook is.
The 9-66 has all the power in the world to pull it,
but I've got to tickle and tease it,
and I've got to gently coax that out.
That's a good girl.
Who's your Mommy? Who's your Mommy?
(tense music)
♪ ♪
Okay.
All the equipment at Kavik is useful,
important in its own right.
The 9-66,
it's like having Schwarzenegger at your back.
It's having the muscle.
(dramatic chords)
What I need to do now is bring it close to the shop.
Then I can get the bobcat and push it in the rest of the way.
(moody music)
♪ ♪
JESSIE: You don't get nothing if you don't give an honest go at it.
It's nice to have some luck, but you create that luck
by getting out here.
NARRATOR: In Brushkana wilderness,
Jessie has set up a shelter that he will use throughout Dark Winter.
He must now head into the wild in search of ptarmigan,
an elusive yet nutritious Arctic prey.
JESSIE: There's a lot of moose out here.
Pretty cool to run into this bull here with four cows.
Pretty amazing moment, just cruising along right alongside of me
is trotting a big bull moose with four cows with him
and it's just pretty cool to get to watch that, you know?
I love coming out here. It's always something exciting.
It's a pretty good-sized bull.
This is, uh, some really moosey country out here.
Moose season has, uh, come and passed, and I can't get a moose,
but I can get ten ptarmigan today and, uh,
ten ptarmigan goes a long way.
Ptarmigan's just as good as moose to me.
You just have to work a little bit harder and you
got to study the ways of the animals if you want to
survive off small game.
♪ ♪
I'm definitely getting into some, uh,
country that's got some ptarmigan in it.
I'm starting to see a lot of tracks off in the brush here.
You're looking for a white bird in a white landscape.
You got to be eyes open wide, ears,
all your senses have to be alive.
Right there, right there.
Right there through that bush.
(suspenseful music)
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
Got one.
All right, I got a ptarmigan. There's a lot of tracks here.
I'm gonna keep hunting.
It's, uh, imperative to be really quick right now
while they're still around.
Try to look for some more. There was more.
Oh, wow, there's a whole flock up here,
they keep flying forward.
There must be a hundred ptarmigan up here.
There's a couple of different groups.
Small game is a great way to survive through the winter.
Just trying to make the right move to put up as much meat
as I possibly can.
(dramatic chords)
♪ ♪
I think I'm going to get the machine.
It seems to work better than walking.
I'm trying to get to the flock, but they keep moving forward.
So, I'm gonna grab my machine, and then that way I think I can
sneak up on them better.
I learned that last winter.
I just got to take what I've learned and try to put it to use.
I was definitely scaring them off as I walked forward.
You know, you just don't keep doing something that's not working.
I can get a bag limit of ten, so I'm after it.
(gunshot)
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
Alright, I got a few of them down.
Grab these birds.
Just gonna set this aside,
grab it on my way back through and keep moving after the flock.
(intense music)
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
I got one, I'm gonna leave it right there.
I'm gonna keep moving, because movement is my success.
Because then I can flush the birds,
hopefully find where they go and land.
-(gunshot) -Sweet dude.
Opportunity doesn't often come out here,
and you got to seize it when it's there.
Man, it's gonna be a feast. This is so exciting.
Man, it's just been some hectic shooting.
I've been having to keep moving.
I got quite a few of them back here.
I haven't even counted, but I know I'm not near ten,
and that's the bag limit.
Right now, the hunting's good,
and you got to make the best of a good opportunity.
You know, it's exciting hunting.
Days like this are just bread and butter for me.
You know, this is what I thrive on.
Coming out here, hunting, providing my own food.
Here's one of my birds.
I've been just tossing them off the side
and moving as quick as I can along with the flock.
They kind of flew off, so I'm gonna go back and,
uh, get the rest of them,
see how many I got and take care of the meat
that I have before I get greedy.
I feel like I had a great hunt.
I think I got quite a bit of birds down.
I definitely set my camp up in the right country.
Four, five, six, seven, eight.
All right. Man, I didn't know I had that many.
That's awesome.
It's been a damn good hunt. Now I got a lot of birds to clean.
But that secures me meals for a whole week right there.
Definitely going to cook up some heart and liver and gizzard tonight.
SUE: The wheels are always turning.
Just because I don't know how to do it today,
doesn't mean I won't figure it out tomorrow.
SUE: I do not have a storage building
or a gen shed, or a shop large enough to put this into bed.
So it has to live outside.
My thermometer goes to 100 below zero,
and I peg it most years.
When this piece of machinery gets cold in winter,
the rubber contracts in a different rate than the metal
and it loses its air.
And this 46,000-50,000-pound machine…oooh...comes down.
And all that pressure cuts these tires and causes splits.
You don't want this heavy metal ruining this soft rubber.
One more causality on the tires and the tires are done.
It is a 1968 model.
Those tires on it are 50-something years old.
So, even though I have a Hulk for a piece of equipment,
I've got a baby it.
For me to prevent ruining my machinery,
I've got to put it up on blocks and just say I'll see you in the spring.
One of the things I like to do-- I re-use, re-purpose
things that I have left laying around.
My bone yard where I keep all the items,
it's a little on the thin side.
But I have to find something strong enough
to overcome the weight of the vehicle.
I'm looking at those timbers, and I guess I didn't realize
how nice those were.
If I take this and I put this up,
you're looking at a pretty massive piece of wood.
You get that weight of that sitting on this,
and it's pretty stout.
So, I've got a plan.
Wood, big timbers from the old wildcat days up here
in the oil industry-- they're valuable to me.
This one here, I rescued on, uh, a little salvage, uh,
not too long a little salvage trip.
Uh, so I'm already putting it to good use.
The timbers do weigh a whole lot,
and that's kinda the point that they're gonna be sturdy.
(punchy music)
♪ ♪
RICKO: If you don't know how to hunt or trap out here,
you really ain't anybody.
♪ ♪
RICKO: Okay, we're in the open country here.
SKYLER: It's real flat. RICKO: Yeah.
We're gonna set some traps today,
but you can't just put your trap anywhere.
You got to look for the spot that animal might most likely be.
You see that timber line out here?
That dark spot about five miles out?
SKYLER: Yeah, it looks like dirt.
RICKO: That's where all the small things like spruce chicken,
rabbit, all that's in there.
So marten like to go in there. Also, good food for wolverine.
So, that's where we want to get to.
(dynamic music)
♪ ♪
RICKO: What I'm teaching Skyler is whatever animal you're after,
you got to basically become that animal
if you want to be successful harvesting it.
When you're thinking of that animal, what does it like to eat?
Where does it like to walk around in?
These animals like timber, so we're going where the timber is.
(engine revving)
Watch your leg right there.
Watch your hand.
(engine revving)
Hold on.
The best way for Skyler to learn
is for me to just get him out of his comfort zone,
put him out in this area, and I'm learning it too.
So, he's learning with me.
I got to immerse him into this whole system
of trapping and navigating the country.
SKYLER: Oh. Oh. RICKO: Oh, you good?
SKYLER: Uh-hmm. RICKO: It's a little high grounded there.
Not easy breaking trail, huh?
Lot of work, just moving through this area.
But once we get trail in, it's gonna be a lot easier.
It's very difficult terrain right now for breaking trail.
It's early winter, so I'm basically sinking
to the bottom in a foot of snow.
Jeez.
All the tussocks, all the humps, all the willows,
any kind of brush, I'm hitting that with my snow machine
and it's causing me to go side to side.
Ooh, I didn't know it was gonna be this tough.
This is not just about trapping;
this is about learning the area you're in.
Learning to break trail.
It's about making a safe path for you to trap on.
-(Skylar crying) -RICKO: You okay?
RICKO: Hang on.
(intense music)
-(Skyler crying) -RICKO: You okay?
-(wailing) -Are you cut?
SKYLER: I'm fine.
-RICKO: Okay sit up, sit up. -(crying)
No blood? Take a deep breath.
(crying)
Take a deep breath.
It's [bleep] white out, I can't see.
You're not cut Sky, you'll be okay.
Sorry about that, Sky.
You're okay.
Help me with this thing, Sky.
It's very, very difficult to travel right now and break new trail.
It's easy to have an accident.
I'm sorry about that, I gotta take it easy.
SKYLER: It's not your fault.
RICKO: Yeah it's kinda my fault, but I gotta make sure
I'm taking care of you.
I can't just let you get hurt like that.
The snow machine is 800 pounds, so we don't wanna get hurt
with that snow machine falling against us or on us.
Almost there. The first trail when you go in
is always the hardest.
Don't get discouraged. This isn't how trapping is every day.
This is called breaking trail.
I really wanna make sure
Skyler has a fun learning experience trapping with me.
Some kind of tracks in here. You see that?
When I get into the timber area, it's the first thing I'm looking for
is any marten passing through that area.
If I see any type of marten tracks, if I see a lot of rabbit tracks,
or maybe ptarmigan are eating on the willows in the area,
I know the marten are gonna be frequenting that spot,
trying to get food in its stomach.
Here's the marten tracks.
We'll put some marten and wolverine sets in this whole area.
Okay, I've never used these before.
They're lighter, easier to haul around.
Yeah, I don't know how these are gonna work.
I hope they work.
We'll find out.
You got to have luck when you're trapping.
If you don't have luck,
you just don't have animals in your traps.
This marten ran under this tree,
so chances are it's gonna come through and do the same thing.
We also gotta think kind of like the animal,
hopefully get our traps in the right spot to have some luck.
SKYLER: Ah, it's supposed to go timber!
RICKO: We're not trying to chop it down completely.
SKYLER: You're not?
RICKO: Cause I wanna use it for, uh, a little runway,
see I want to put the box up here.
I followed my dad while he went on his trapping,
and that's how I learned to trap, so it's important
that I teach my son Skyler how to trap.
Okay, now you see how I attach it.
SKYLER: Uh-hmm.
RICKO: Now we put the trap in there.
This is his first time doing traps with me, so he has a lot to learn.
I think go like that.
Oh.
SKYLER: Did it snap on you?
RICKO: No, see it's got the safeties on.
SKYLER: Oh.
RICKO: That's why you want the safeties.
We're gonna pull the safeties off.
Just like that.
Okay let's set some more, keep moving.
Next is a wolverine set.
SUE: I don't feel intimidation by the size of the job.
I would feel more intimidated if I didn't get it done.
So, I've had the, uh, wood drying out overnight.
Not gonna be perfect but good enough for me to wanna cut on it,
and so now I'm gonna get my measurements for the wood.
Just like you would putting your car on blocks.
I've gotta get the 9-66 on blocks so that when those tires lose air,
when the contraction of winter happens,
50,000 pounds of machinery isn't coming down
on that 50-year-old rubber and biting it and killing it.
I am at 22 again there.
So, I've got my measurements.
Now to go get it cut.
Mark it, cut it, and use it.
I have very little use for a chainsaw in Kavik.
There's no trees, and the only chainsaw here
is basically from the dark ages.
If I open the case, there may be two squirrels
running around trying to keep it going.
It's a little small for a big job like this.
It's--it's wanting to cut in.
It's wandering a little, and I get a little leery
when it jumps, when it chatters.
It's not my strong suit.
This is definitely, uh, a tiny tool for a big job.
When I feel something not right, I gotta pull out, uh,
the bar is bent a little bit and I'm no expert on,
uh, the little, tiny ancient chainsaw, so...
Having these few really large timbers,
I can't even describe how valuable they are.
If I pooch cutting them and I make them too short,
if I do something wrong and they're not going to perform,
I cannot go to a store and buy more.
I'm well into winter now, and I can't go find more.
Well, I'll have to straighten that up.
The pressure is on me.
This is the most expensive piece of equipment that I have.
I cannot afford to replace it,
so I've got to keep my wits about me,
make my cuts good and not screw this up.
There is no second chance.
(percussive music)
♪ ♪
So, I've got my big piece for the back of the 9-66
and I've got the other two pieces for the front tires.
It's time to get these pieces of wood where they
need to live and get the uh 9-66 put to bed.
CHIP: You got to pay attention to what we're doing.
If you start paying attention to other [bleep].
you're gonna get hurt.
CHIP: We found a place we wanna go put the teepee.
We're gonna go put our teepee over here at the base of the hill over here.
-CAROL: Should we go help you guys? -AGNES: Please.
CHIP: We're gonna need to set up the teepee and,
um, while we're cutting this trail,
we found the place that we thought would do really nice for it.
AGNES: And those are the poles.
NARRATOR: With their new trail completed,
the Hailstones must now bring a teepee to the ridge that will
serve as a remote hunting camp and emergency shelter.
It will also give them high ground to easily
glass the Kiwalik landscape for future hunts.
AGNES: We'll have to go at some speed huh?
-Zoom. CHIP: Yeah, it's gonna take some speed
to get up that and not only that,
I gotta make a turn at the same time,
and I don't wanna take the sled into the willows there.
But am I crazy, or is there a bunch of willows
just like in my [bleep] way right there?
I have this really long sled that I'm trying to take up
this steep embankment and actually make a turn at the same time,
and I'm worried about this sled going up
and sliding into the willows and getting stuck.
I'm just gonna have to get on the left side as far as possible and make my turn.
AGNES: Yeah. CHIP: I'm just worried about
shoving my face in that bunch of willows right there.
(intense music)
♪ ♪
When in doubt, we max it out.
I always like speed, and the more speed I can get, the better off I am.
(exciting music)
♪ ♪
AGNES: Woo-hoo!
AGNES: Go, go, go! We did it!
It's coming, it's going. It's good.
CHIP: Good trail.
Put it right here.
This'll be just fine.
CAROL: One, two, three, go!
CHIP: For a winter camping spot, this is a fine spot.
We can see the whole Kiwalik, and the wind was not here.
Which is a good thing.
AGNES: Center, right there.
CHIP: It's got protection from three different sides by willows
and protection from the south from the,
from the huge storms that we get in the wintertime.
It's nice and flat and, uh, we've got access to all this stuff again.
We might as well plop the tent down. If we don't like it we'll move.
AGNES: You guys are pulling it-- good, good, good Chip.
CHIP: Yeah, that should be good.
AGNES: Good, good, good.
-This is the door. -CHIP: Yeah, I see.
I really enjoy being outside. I really enjoy the things I do.
I really enjoy being out here.
It's become a lifestyle because we've integrated
ourselves into this kind of living cause we wanted to
because this is where the fun is, the adventure,
this is where great [bleep] things are done.
This is where no one bothers us,
this is where we just get to rely on ourselves
and do what we wanna do.
It's freedom, it's like, um, it's part of us.
You can see the whole Kiwalik from here--everything.
It's the flats and then the lagoon.
And then the spit.
CHIP: This gives you a good idea of why we built this trail here huh?
AGNES: Uh-hmm.
Cause you could really hunt it now being able to
go all the way around it and that's a,
that's more than a mile that way and a mile back.
So saves us two mile of travel.
AGNES: I treat the whole entire Kiwalik like my home.
It's a great, big outdoors, and being a person
that's comfortable living most of your life out in the country,
camping around with your tents and with your children,
it feels like this whole entire river's my home.
And hopefully my grandchildren will feel this way.
JESSIE: You could work hard doing something you don't love
or you could work hard doing something you do love.
JESSIE: I don't really like my ptarmigan overdone
so it's pretty much almost there.
Oh, yeah, that's done perfect, the heat of the pan will cook it
the rest of the way.
Dinner is served, first dinner at, uh,
Clearwater Range Camp.
Oh my God, that is so perfect.
Mm. I mean this is all I need right here.
Heat, shelter, and food.
You know, I set out here to set up this camp and had
the great bonus of getting to go on a wonderful hunt.
I saw a lot of moose along the way, I seen a lot of game sign.
You know, this is definitely the ideal location for this camp.
60 miles away from my place, and I can come out here
and live as comfortable as I can at home.
To me, being here, this is so peaceful.
This is the kind of stuff that fills me up
for the hardships, you know,
that I run into with the logistics of living here.
I feel like, you know, it's been hard getting ready for this winter.
It's been a lot of hard work this summer.
Coming out here is just so relaxing to me.
This has been an amazing day.
Looking forward to many more like it.
SUE: You plan for it to go "pfft", so that when it doesn't,
you can go, "Ooh!"
This is the third stand.
And this one will go here.
I go up there, start it, let it warm up.
I take this bucket,
lift it, turn it so that these teeth are now digging in.
Bam, I push it down, and gently lift up enough
that I can scoot this underneath.
The goal is to get these big blocks of wood
to take the pressure so that the tires don't.
All of my equipment is important.
The 9-66, it's not that it's more important than the other equipment,
but its chores are much larger
and I really don't have anything else that I can substitute for it.
(engine chugging)
Hydraulic fluid heats up fairly rapidly,
but you've gotta exercise that bucket and get the hydraulics moving
so you're not asking it to do something cold.
Yeah, I'm gonna start moving those teeth down.
I use the machine itself-- it's a powerhouse,
lift itself up, it's like doing a pushup.
♪ ♪
Okay, I can see that I'm about that much higher than the wood.
The hydraulics are gonna slowly leak down.
I need to put the wood where I marked it.
I don't have a lot of time.
The hydraulics don't hold,
they release themselves a little at a time.
I have to get these timbers in quickly.
Because if it releases, that's it, 50,000 pounds
are coming down, and it's not gonna care where I'm at.
Uncomfortable.
This piece of wood has that oddball height
which is gonna make it an awkward fit.
I don't have a lot of time and I don't have a room for a mistake.
I'm gonna put a couple of rocks in here,
just to keep it from slipping, but I need to get back in
and let it down.
All right, this is it.
The timbers are stout, they're strong.
If it doesn't crush when I set the vehicle back down,
I'm golden.
♪ ♪
(cracking)
(crunching)
I heard something go crunch!
Let me see what I got going on.
Heard something kinda crash-bang so let's see
how it all turned out.
I can see it's making solid contact with the wood.
The tires have a little bit of space between them and the ground,
the weight is obviously on those stands.
When this loses air, and it will,
the rim is not gonna be cutting the tire,
so that's good.
Looking at the 9-66 up on these timbers,
this is a win/win for me.
Timbers that I scavenged are being reused
to keep the 9-66 from self-destructing just due to the weather.
A little bit of effort went a long, long way this time.
9-66 is ready to go to sleep.
I'll wake her up in the spring.
RICKO: Can't be sad if you don't have success.
It's all just learning.
RICKO: There's marten tracks in there huh?
SKYLER: There is?
-RICKO: Yeah, you see those tracks? -SKYLER: Oh, yeah.
RICKO: Remember we put a couple of sets there?
Whoa, huh.
SKYLER: Is that a marten?
RICKO: That's a marten.
-SKYLER: What the heck? -RICKO: Sooga!
Awesome, Sky, we got one.
-SKYLER: Ooh. -RICKO: Ooh.
Look at the size of that one too, look at its tail,
it's got grey on it. Pretty one.
You can pull it outta there.
Grab it.
-SKYLER: Uh-uh. -RICKO: It's dead.
You could go for days without catching something,
so I was real happy to see that marten in the marten box.
We had some luck today and I'm very, very appreciative of that.
Holy, look at that.
SKYLER: That's what marten look like?
RICKO: Yeah, looks crazy huh?
SKYLER: I did not know it looked like that.
RICKO: Yeah, this thing is a vicious hunter, it kills everything that's small.
SKYLER: Wow, we got a marten!
Anaa basee for you, because you're my first marten.
RICKO: Skyler is super excited to catch his first marten.
He's never even seen a marten before, which I didn't realize,
so it's awesome to see him real happy to catch a marten.
This is quality fur, just like your hat, the little hat you're wearing.
They make good hats and they're very strong.
They withstand the weather and the cold for years and years
and very, very important to our culture.
Okay, let's roll, check some more traps.
-What is that? -SKYLER: I don't know.
RICKO: Check it out.
SKYLER: Is that a baby rabbit?
RICKO: No.
SKYLER: Is that a mink?
RICKO: No.
SKYLER: What is that?
When we first came up to the other marten trap,
I saw a little white thing.
I didn't know what the heck it was.
-What is that? -RICKO: I don't know, man.
Alien or something.
It's enjoyable times for me out here with my son,
and I like seeing his reaction, and I made him guess a little bit to
what kind of animal that was in the trap.
He didn't know what the heck was going on.
And I got a kick out of that, it was fun.
-SKYLER: You know what that is. -RICKO: Just kidding, it's a weasel.
SKYLER: That's a weasel?
RICKO: They're a little predator.
With something like this you can't take the trap off of it,
-you gotta put a new trap in its place. -SKYLER: Why?
-RICKO: When it's frozen like that? -SKYLER: Uh-hmm.
RICKO: It'll break that little animal right in half.
To catch a weasel is supposed to be lucky.
Weasel skin is kind of synonymous with a lot of the shamans.
It's like the rabbit foot of the Native world.
Athabaskan lucky charm.
We got a marten and a weasel today!
SKYLER: Yep, let's go skin them.
RICKO: Okay.
Let's go skin some animals!
SKYLER: I learned a lot while I was trapping with my dad.
I learned how to set the traps, I learned where to put the traps,
how to put the traps in place.
Now we lucked out with a marten and a weasel.
RICKO: Grab it and pull down, like this, look.
Just go like this.
Keep pulling on it.
I'll help you. Keep going.
Pretty easy, huh?
SKYLER: Yeah. Whoa, look how skinny that is.
RICKO: There you go! Skinned your first marten.
It's a very gratifying feeling after all that work
it's like the, um, pot at the end of the rainbow or something,
you know, it's very rewarding.
Let's make a little stretcher for this weasel skin.
It's really important I teach Skyler all this passed on knowledge
that I have for trapping, hunting, fishing,
anything we do out here.
Technology has a way of consuming past knowledge,
and if we don't pass it on
and we let technology take over, we could lose hundreds
or maybe thousands of years of knowledge just by not
teaching our kids what we need to do to survive
out here in the woods.
SKYLER: Ha ha. It looks so funny.
-RICKO: There's your weasel. -SKYLER: Okay.
RICKO: I'll put it up here. Let it dry out.
Good, little, quick trapping trip.
SKYLER: Oh, I always wanted to go trapping with you.
RICKO: It's fun to have something to look forward to huh?
SKYLER: Yeah.