(gusting winds)
♪ ♪
KALEB: The weather's not super ideal today.
But this is a golden opportunity and
I've been wanting to do this since I was a little kid.
Try and get fueled up, get off the ground,
get headed out to the coast to hunt deer.
This time of year, our freezers are getting low and
we need more meat.
I'm headed out to the Prince William Sound
on an island in the Gulf of Alaska.
And my goal is to come home with fresh venison.
This is as far as this airplane's going.
I need to get into a floatplane and, and, uh,
continue the journey.
It's another 15 minutes from here and I'm in deer country.
(grunts)
This is the adventure of my lifetime.
And I'm officially stuck on the island here.
My ride is leaving and it's time to set up camp.
I have no way of getting off this island until he comes back.
So, start thinking about hunting tomorrow.
There's a lotta deer here and that's what I'm after.
Being alone here, there's no contact with the outside world.
It's just me, my rifle, and the deer.
And who's smarter, me or the deer?
And we will find that out.
(gusting winds)
So far, I haven't seen any deer this morning but, uh,
I'm gonna sneak around a couple meadows close to camp,
see if anybody's out eating some grass.
I gotta get up from here, up several hundred feet to wherever the deer are.
They hang out in these little meadows.
And the play is to just hike from meadow to meadow,
and kinda glass around the perimeter of the meadow and
see if any deer are lurking.
And if there are, I've gotta determine if it's a buck, a male with horns,
or a doe.
I can only shoot the males.
So I've gotta be really careful about my selection of who I'm gonna harvest.
But there's also some big bears here.
They feed on fish almost year-round.
I've gotta be super careful,
and I gotta be aware of my surroundings at all times to
the threat of bears.
Lookin' for deer.
But there's a little spruce hen right there,
it's a good sign, this place has got animals.
There's game trails everywhere here.
I mean there's, it's like a, it's like a major interchange in the city,
trails going this way, that way, that way, up that way.
This is good.
CHRIS: The Cosna River's kinda like Fight Club.
The Cosna will knock you on your ass,
but once you succeed and you start winnin' those fights
you're gonna feel pushed and challenged at every point.
Until (bleep) summer, and there's mosquitos everywhere and I got to go.
(laughs)
CHRIS: Time to go.
JESSI: You ready, Toze?
CHRIS: Goin' for a boat ride.
CHRIS: Start haulin' gear. JESSI: Yeah.
CHRIS: Looking towards summer.
Got a lot of hunting to do, a lot of fishing.
We really want to go into fall time with a lot of food.
JESSI: It's hard to believe any other place is as nice as this place right now.
CHRIS: But there's no salmon fishing and there's no caribou hunting.
Ready?
JESSI: Yup.
CHRIS: There doesn't seem to be any fish up at the cabin.
Trapping was a little tough on the Cosna this year.
Pretty much all the lynx and martin headed outta here, so we're just gonna pack up and
head on outta here and head for greener pastures.
Down to the Tanana River, which is just a mighty powerful river
where there's really great fishing and hunting.
Everything starts with a big river trip off the Cosna.
Ready, Jess?
JESSI: Um... CHRIS: All right.
Hold up.
I'm trying to get down.
Oh! The bank gave out.
All right, go ahead and try to get your front end in the water if you can.
JESSI: Okay.
CHRIS: Okay.
There she is.
I'll lock up the door and let's get it started.
Come on Toze.
Load up.
Good girl.
JESSI: So, are we pushing my end out?
CHRIS: Yup. JESSI: Here we go.
Bye-bye cabin.
And the stinking journey begins.
CHRIS: Right side. Right side. Right side. Right side. Right side.
Yup, paddle.
Kay, ease up.
You feeling comfortable up there?
JESSI: No. CHRIS: No?
JESSI: Mm-mm.
It's tippy, it's in the water.
It's like the dead head sticking up, but you can't see,
and it's the sun's reflection, and it's the...
CHRIS: Toze is walking from side to side of the boat.
JESSI: This is gonna be real fun when we're, you know,
going through treacherous (bleep).
JOHNNY: Rarely out here do I encounter just one problem or situation.
That's what's going to test you and see if you have what it takes to live out here.
'Cause all I have is me, that's all I have out here,
myself to figure out these problems.
JOHNNY: It's warm out here, isn't it Java?
You can't handle the 60s.
I cook out here a lot because it's hot to cook inside the cabin,
and rocket stoves are very efficient and that's why I like 'em.
What happens is the air just flows through it and shoots up like a rocket and
it heats up my water fast, I can cook a lot quicker.
But the problem with it is it just burns these sticks really, really fast,
and that it burns hot.
You kinda need to babysit it and feed it more often.
You know, the methods I use for cooking are very primitive,
but I want to find a way I can still do that and make it more efficient,
just let the cooking cook and I can move on and go do other projects.
Uh, I think, uh, I was to build an open oven on this platform,
that would kind of open up, you know, the different ways I can cook,
the different things I can make.
You know, I could possibly make bread.
Essentially, diversifying the way I cook would, uh,
open up a whole another world out here for me.
Water's boilin', so I'm gonna make a pot of coffee.
I'm gonna let this stove cool down, finish burnin' out.
That way I can move it off this table, start buildin' that oven.
All right.
Uh, this looks like a good spot to start.
It's gonna be a lotta ruts in here.
I don't think it's gonna be a easy dig.
The first thing I have to do is build a roof over this platform.
That way, if it starts raining while I'm building it,
it'll be protected, and I don't have to worry about it.
Don't you go falling on me now.
So, I'm gonna put four spruce poles for my firewood pile
to create a structural support.
In these little wedges, spikes,
they kinda just keep it snug around this.
(chainsaw humming)
So, that's the notch.
This is a pretty good fit.
(grunts)
Nice and sturdy, that's what I'm looking for.
Gonna move on to the next step,
which is putting planks all the way across.
You know, I don't come in really
with much of a plan, just an idea.
And I just grab tools and I just start going after it.
Just kinda let the project evolve into what it wants to be,
and that's kinda the best way to do things for me.
Good 'ol Alaskan roof is what this is.
That covers it perfectly.
Roof is up.
Move onto the next part, and that's gonna be the table, here.
What do you say, Java?
Good life, but lotta work.
CHEVIE: To survive out here,
the standard is you're gonna have a goal and
you're gonna accomplish it.
And the goal for us is to get firewood for the winter,
and we're gonna accomplish that goal.
ROGER: Keep your eye out.
I know we got a bunch of logs here so.
CHEVIE: Right on the left-hand side of that little opening there of grass.
Holy (bleep), that's a nice log right there.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
So, today me and my cousin Roger, are gonna get out on river
and see if we can find a whole bunch of driftwood before it all floats by us,
so we could get all that firewood back to Shageluk.
This is a good find right here.
All right.
Let's see what else this little corner has to offer.
Roger and I have known each other for a long time.
He's a good friend of mine, and Sonta's cousin.
We're gonna have to help each other out, be able to fill his woodshed and
my woodshed at the same time.
The goal is 40 full trees.
Something that we do every year to ensure that
our families stay warm throughout the winter.
That's your best chance of survival in Alaska, really gotta take care of one another.
Right now, we gotta get another log.
What do we got here?
ROGER: That's a long tree. CHEVIE: She looks heavy.
ROGER: Strong current.
CHEVIE: Yeah, just get in there however the hell you can.
Yeah, this is a big, nice log, super dry.
ROGER: Let's see if we can get it out, it's pretty swift here.
(grunts)
CHEVIE: Holy (bleep).
It's a lot bigger than it looks.
ROGER: That is a lot of log in the water.
CHEVIE: I can't get my arms all the way around the,
the (bleep) tree, that stump's huge.
All right, we'll give her a go again.
Okay.
Yeah, you hold this right there, I'll just reach up there as far as I can.
ROGER: Got it? CHEVIE: Yeah.
You got the tree and my feet?
ROGER: Yeah, we ain't leaving this log behind.
(laughs)
Just to let you know.
CHEVIE: That didn't give me a whole bunch o' reassurance there, cousin.
ROGER: It, it all looked good from my angle.
CHEVIE: All right. ROGER: You get it?
CHEVIE: Let's see what it does.
There she goes.
Got her another six inches there.
All right, give her hell.
Go!
ROGER: I'm going.
CHEVIE: Come on baby.
Don't slip off of there now.
Watch the log.
It's a fight.
Go, go, go, go.
Aw (bleep)!
Il be,
I think she'll be coming.
ROGER: Come on baby.
CHEVIE: You're good.
ROGER: Try the board game.
CHEVIE: Hell of a deal.
Hell of a deal.
ROGER: I need to get turned around and back it up some more.
That was almost a struggle.
CHEVIE: Almost.
I would've been nervous if anybody else was driving, cousin.
ROGER: I, I knew I had it. CHEVIE: Good job, chief.
ROGER: 20 years' experience pays off.
CHEVIE: Let's go get some more wood.
Firewood doesn't only just heat us, we have big families,
both of us, you need a lot of wood to keep the house comfortable,
especially for small kids, babies.
I got a newborn on the way.
What are we rolling with now?
ROGER: 14, 14 logs. CHEVIE: Nice.
ROGER: The more we get, the better off we are.
CHEVIE: Still got a (bleep) load of work to do,
we're just barely getting started here.
ROGER: Yup.
(snaps)
JOHNNY: It's great being able to
build stuff with my own hands from the land.
Not rely on truckloads of material.
Sweat equity is what I like to put into things.
JOHNNY: It's a lot more complicated when you're not using dimensional lumber.
And I'm gonna do what it takes to build an outdoor oven.
All right, so I just need to put some logs all the way around,
and pretty much just building a sandbox on top of here.
And that's gonna hold the sand.
Which is gonna help insulate this table from the hot oven
that I'm building on top of here.
That's just one measure,
one of a few measures to keep it from burning the wood.
Too many pounds in this wheel barrel.
(grunts)
This about as far as I'm getting.
You know, when I first moved to this property, I bought a stove from this lady,
and she gave me just a load of these firebricks.
And I was like, uh, I don't really have a use for those,
and I'm glad I hung to 'em though
because these firebricks are gonna be the base of the stove.
So, this is the second layer of protection
keeping this wood fireproofed.
Yeah, that's kind of the birth of the oven, that's where it's all gonna start.
So, I can cook on the surface of these bricks,
'cause this'll be the inside of the oven.
Level says, level.
All right, so I can move on,
start progressing toward actually building the oven.
And that's gonna be the fun part.
It'll be a long day tomorrow too.
Java, you wanna go eat?
KALEB: Nature can be a hard thing to deal with.
But to live out here,
I need to be able to contend with whatever it throws at me.
Otherwise, I won't survive.
I won't come home.
KALEB: It's nice and sunny out today,
but the woods are just wetter than wet, so rain gear it is.
I personally don't want to get wet, even if it is a nice sunny day,
so just puttin' rain gear on the bottom.
Into the woods I go.
I need to successfully find some prey and bag it,
harvest it,
but these deer are really smart, and they're elusive.
They're hard to see, they're hard to find.
But I've just gotta be in the right spot,
at the right time in order to connect with one.
Straight down through there.
I got two deer.
I see two deer up here.
Um...
I'm about 50% sure one of them's a buck,
I'm pretty sure I see the horns.
It just raised its head up and I'm 100% sure that's a buck.
I'm gonna take a shot.
'Cause it's bucks only.
I have to make sure that when I do take the shot that it's perfect.
♪
KALEB: Safety's on.
Now, the buck did just step out of sight,
but he doesn't know of our presence yet.
So, I need to start sneakin' up and
see if I can get eyes on that deer without spookin' it.
I think one of those deer is a buck.
This is good sign.
I think that was the doe,
it was bedded down.
Now the challenge is I've lost sight of both deer,
and once I find 'em again I'm gonna have to determine
which one's the buck and which one is not.
'Cause one of them has no antlers.
So, this just got difficult.
Hunting really is just about
being in the right place at the right time,
so I gotta keep movin' around a little bit.
And there's only two things that are really important on this trip,
and that is to kill and not be killed.
These fish means there's bears.
I mean, here's a freaking bear trail right here,
and I'm gonna walk down it to try and get back into clearing.
All over this island there are monster coastal brown bears.
And this island has a phenomenon known as ringing the dinner bell.
When these coastal brown bears
hear a gunshot,
they know somebody just killed a deer,
and there's an easy free meal waiting for them if they just go and find it.
I got two deer in my sights right now.
I've gotten to about 80 yards away, and I can see that it's for sure a doe.
No antlers.
And the other one is her baby.
There's deer everywhere, but this is like hunting moose,
can only shoot the males.
I load all this gear back up, get back on the trail.
And there's a lot of country to cover,
and I need to stay out of the way of the bears.
CHEVIE: To thrive in this area of Alaska
you can't be cautious all the time,
you can't be scared of getting hurt,
or scared of being in a situation that you might be uncomfortable in.
If I can mentally see myself succeeding,
then I'm willing to take that challenge and push myself there.
(grunts)
CHEVIE: You can do it, put your ass into it.
This is the beginning of a small raft we're gonna stage.
It's damn near impossible to do it in this kind of wind.
Yeah, this must be kinda the eye of the storm.
ROGER: Yeah, we are, and it's dark all the way around us too.
CHEVIE: It is, yup.
There's three long trees right here though,
this is gonna add to this stack pretty good.
So we can see the storm's right there and
you could really feel the wind blowing out
of the south, blowing right at us.
The eagle's out, isn't it?
Everyday.
ROGER: Get that outside log tied up so it won't wonder.
CHEVIE: Okay.
ROGER: Make sure the rope doesn't come off.
CHEVIE: I kinda feel like sometimes you're the outside log, you know,
like I gotta tie it up so you don't wander, you know?
(laughs)
ROGER: Oh!
CHEVIE: Okay.
We're gonna pull these logs straight to those logs, so we'll have a little stash.
Getting these logs staged is time well spent.
ROGER: And, and you killed it in here.
CHEVIE: We'll end up having three rafts.
One big raft up river, a small raft in the middle,
and then a medium size raft down river.
And we'll put 'em all together as we're going home,
but right now we gotta get this wood out
of the main river before it gets super windy around the corner,
and get it in a secured area.
And this creek's a, a great place to hide it.
So, our biggest stash of wood's sitting right here.
This is 20 logs.
It's a lot of firewood and it's a lot of work.
It's a lot of time to get this here.
ROGER: I think this situation's gonna stay good
for another night if it needs to.
CHEVIE: We're just gonna wait for a break in the weather,
put all the pieces of the puzzle together,
and make a push for home whenever that's possible.
CHRIS: The Cosna is not one of those crystal clear,
luxurious rivers you get to float down.
It's dirty, full of sweepers.
It's got mud banks that are vertical, you can't climb out of.
It's got bears at every corner.
The Cosna's an (bleep).
CHRIS: Neutral positions.
Okay, head up.
JESSI: Yup.
CHRIS: Split the middle and then we're gonna cut left.
Going down the Cosna's always an experience.
Right here.
All right, paddle on the right, paddle on the right.
We've got sweepers.
Sweepers are big trees that are hangin' down over the river,
and when you go underneath 'em
they want to sweep you and all your gear out of the boat.
JESSI: Here's another tree coming up.
CHRIS: That's quite a, quite a tree going across there.
JESSI: Quite a tree. CHRIS: All right so...
JESSI: And this one has branches that come all the way out,
going all the way across.
What do you wanna do?
CHRIS: Cut it down. JESSI: Yeah, let's do that.
CHRIS: Okay.
We don't wanna get too close to it, 'cause we don't wanna get sucked down.
JESSI: In we go.
Okay.
(grunts)
Please be careful.
CHRIS: Yeah.
I'd say the Consa's far from predictable.
So just 'cause the river's knocked me down a few times,
doesn't mean I'm gonna stop trying.
(chainsaw humming)
(laughs)
(panting)
Ah, that was a lot.
To...
(grunts)
(panting)
JESSI: Holy smokes, look at it over here.
Great job, Chris!
CHRIS: Yeah, it worked, worked out really well.
But now we gotta get ahead of that, otherwise we're gonna get jammed up behind it.
Dig in.
JESSI: Okay.
CHRIS: All right, perfect.
We just gotta make it way down river before we camp.
Lay down sweetheart.
Woo-hoo-hoo!
I'm tryin' Toze.
Come on Toze, get under here.
JESSI: This is some serious rain.
Okay, you wanna put my submarine pants on?
You want me to pull over?
CHRIS: I just put myself under the tarp.
JESSI: Yeah, just tell me what you need, we'll do it.
CHRIS: I can't hear you.
JESSI: Tell me what you need, and we'll do it!
CHRIS: Paddle through the rain.
Paddle on your right.
JESSI: Okay, hold on. CHRIS: We're just gonna crash.
We gotta paddle love!
JESSI: I know!
CHRIS: We're just spinnin' in the wrong direction.
Try to keep her nose straight.
Everything's getting soaked,
our guns and...
Kay, keep it straight,
I'm gonna try to suck up the water.
There's so much water in this boat.
CHRIS: Tell me if you need me.
JESSI: I don't, I'll be okay. CHRIS: I can't hear you.
JESSI: All is well!
CHRIS: Oh, it just poured right on my (beep).
JESSI: Our canoe has been sliding and
slithering down this serpent of a river for days.
We have been going through all these obstacles and
just making our way down this serpent of a river,
making our way through the belly of the beast.
And hopefully, we make it out on the other side.
JOHNNY: I don't like to overthink something.
I don't like to over-plan.
Because the blueprints are something to follow.
And I'm not much of a follower.
JOHNNY: So in order to have this dome-shaped oven,
I need to have a mold.
And I'm gonna build a mold on top of this out of sand.
So I'm gonna make a dome and I want the sides to be
kinda as vertical as possible and
that's gonna give me the most interior height.
16, 18 inches tall.
And, uh, it's gonna start drying out pretty quick.
And when it dries out, it's just gonna crumble.
So what I'm gonna do is take some old newspapers I found.
15 years old.
That'd be kinda fun to read.
Dip it in a bucket of water.
And that's gonna hold that moisture in.
Oh, The Departed is in, uh, theaters.
All right, so the paper is all the way around the sand mold.
It's gonna hold the moisture in.
And I'm just gonna give it one last little drink before I walk away to go grab the cob.
Java, I wish I'd could figure out a way for you to drag the cob over here.
You know, hold your weight.
Don't wanna interrupt your nap.
That cob mix is what I have here on my land.
Sand, clay, there's straw, water.
This stuff's heavy.
It's not lightweight.
Turn these all into a nice mixture and make an oven.
Man, this is awesome 'cause I've been thinking about doing
this before I even moved to Alaska.
And it's just so cool to be doing all the things
I thought I wanted to do before I moved here.
Yeah, I was sitting and daydreaming at any job I'd have like,
"Man, I wish I was building a cob oven," or
"I wish I was just barefoot walking around on my property."
It's kind of just sealing it.
It's almost like a seal coat.
Now it's time to start excavating out all of the sand.
Here we go.
All right.
The sand's still pretty damp from when I built this thing.
Starting a fire inside is gonna complete the drying process.
There we go, that's what I needed to do.
(bleep) yeah, that thing's blazing.
I'm gonna prop the door and that's gonna complete the drying process.
And move onto finding something to put into this oven.
CHEVIE: We're gonna go for it.
Stuff's coming together.
Or coming apart, one of the two.
Our work that Roger and I do together,
a lot of it's mental.
Once you're in it, you're in it to win it.
And having humor to keep you going is a really good trick.
Just gotta maintain a positive attitude.
ROGER: Positive attitude.
CHEVIE: Doing anything we can to keep a smile on our faces
because we know that the work
that we're doing at the moment's kinda (beep) suck work at times.
CHEVIE: Ready to hook up to the back?
ROGER: Ready to hook up to the back.
CHEVIE: Okay, there you go.
Chief picked a good spot here to dock her out of the wind.
But right now it's better than it was yesterday.
It's not pissing rain.
We're not in the middle of a storm.
It's not black all around us.
Our visibility's better.
There is still some wind, but it's dying down just a little bit.
It's rougher than we'd like.
It's still windy.
But, um, we're just gonna have to work with what we got today.
We're ready to get these logs home.
It's a lot of firewood, that's for damn sure.
It's, uh, 28 logs right there.
We're still learning how to count, cousin.
ROGER: I only count up to 20.
(laughter)
CHEVIE: We got another raft to pick up about five miles from here.
And then one more another three or four miles below that.
Hopefully we can get all three rafts tied together and, um,
pushed into Shageluk.
ROGER: I'm still a little worried about the wind.
But I would like to get it all done in one sweep.
CHEVIE: I hear ya.
We're gonna have to unhook and get ready to get our next raft.
So we released 28 logs.
The 28 logs come down the river,
we go down in front, and hook up six, seven logs
and we should meet 'em together and be able to hook up and
keep going down river towards Shageluk without wasting any time.
Timing's gotta be just right.
Once this raft goes by, we don't want to have to chase it.
Bad (beep) can happen.
I worry more about that than falling in the water or anything like that.
This is really gonna be a real test.
The risk to reward, the risk to reward.
ROGER: Yeah.
CHEVIE: Kay, we got eight logs here.
We're gonna get hooked up to them.
ROGER: Little bit of wind. CHEVIE: Little bit of wind.
Okay.
We're good, cousin.
You don't have as much room for error right now, so, uh,
you know, let's get pushing, huh?
I think down there, man.
ROGER: Oh, yeah.
CHEVIE: Holy (beep), there.
There they are.
We can't let that raft get way out in front of us.
If we get behind the eight ball,
we'll be chasing it all the way to town.
It turns into a real pain in the ass.
Think we can pull it off, cousin?
ROGER: I ain't holding back. CHEVIE: Haul ass.
It's getting real, real quick.
♪
CHEVIE: We're dealing with a lot of wood here.
The wind's really blowing like hell.
And, uh, we just gotta get these things tied together where,
as tightly as we can.
You're hitting on the back right there.
You got it?
ROGER: Yeah.
Let the line go a little bit.
It's a lot of wood to be dealing with.
(laughs)
CHEVIE: You wanna add 16 to it?
ROGER: Well, let's see how I'm feeling with this big load.
KALEB: Once I shoot an animal,
the hard work starts with 60 pounds of meat.
Fresh, bloody, juicy, bear bait.
Inviting all of the bears.
As a hunter, I have to be very careful about staying out of harm's way.
KALEB: Out in these woods,
it's kind of a big game of Russian roulette for the deer and for me.
The deer are doing their darndest to stay alive.
I'm doing my darndest to stay alive because
I'm not the top predator in these woods.
I've got a gun for the deer.
I've got a gun for the bears.
And I'm hoping to beat the odds on this island because I have not killed,
but I do not want to be killed.
At the end of the day, we're all just trying to survive here.
I just saw another little doe.
Not what I'm looking for, but one of these days it'll be a buck.
There she goes.
Have a nice life, deer.
So that's just the way it goes.
This is hunting, not shooting.
And, uh, you just gotta deal with the problems when they come.
Okay.
Got some mussels here.
I'm not doing too well hunting deer.
But these mussels don't run away.
So I can grab 'em, collect enough of 'em,
there'll be some little tasty bites in here.
When you see a resource.
I think I got a pot in my pack.
Reach out and grab it while you can.
I kinda feel like a brown bear pawing through
the rocks here looking for food.
Oh, oh, crab.
Have a little impromptu seafood buffet.
This will be a good dinner.
Ultimately, the deer outsmarted me on this trip.
Their will to survive was stronger.
And I'm okay with that.
And I still get to eat food that I pull off of the land.
Ha, here's a good one.
JESSI: It's spring coming into summer.
The fish aren't here and pretty much every other animal
is out of season to hunt.
And we're looking for anything that we can eat, really.
Anything that will fill our boat and
fill our bellies for the upcoming weeks is good for us.
CHRIS: Wind's blowing this way.
JESSI: Okay.
CHRIS: Beaver.
That's a big beaver.
It's going right up there.
You can see him there.
You can shoot him as he goes by.
It'll take him about half an hour to float.
We'll get the canoe, come in here, and you can pick up a, a beaver.
Then we'll be set for the next week.
He's trying to be territorial.
Get comfortable.
Adjust your bipod.
You've got time.
If it's not a good spot, find a good spot.
JESSI: I see him just like sitting over there like a crocodile.
This is wild.
CHRIS: (inaudible) trip.
JESSI: Bedded down in (beep) bear country looking for a beaver.
CHRIS: Maybe it's gotten wise to us.
JESSI: Oh, (beep)!
CHRIS: Where's he at? JESSI: He's up there.
CHRIS: Across the river?
Shoot.
Move really slow.
Square him right behind the ears and like hit him
in the spine or the brain.
JESSI: Yeah, but I don't have a clear view of his face.
He's gotta come back down, right?
CHRIS: Yeah, I mean it's nice that he's up there.
JESSI: Okay.
CHRIS: If you have an okay shot.
JESSI: (bleep), where'd he go?
CHRIS: Here he comes.
JESSI: I'm taking the shot.
(gunshot)
CHRIS: You got it! You nailed it.
JESSI: Did I?
CHRIS: Yeah, you (beep) nailed it.
Let's get around the other side.
JESSI: Safety on, safety on, safety on.
CHRIS: Leave it there.
Let's go.
Around the other side of the lake, let's go.
JESSI: I'm not leaving the (beep) gun.
You kidding me?
CHRIS: Come on.
CHRIS: Good (beep) shot, baby.
Why are you bringing that?
We're gonna have to carry.
JESSI: What if there's a (bleep) bear?
CHRIS: I have a (beep) 50.
Leave it, you need to carry it.
Let's go. Let's go.
JESSI: There are bears here.
CHRIS: C'mon.
JESSI: There's probably three bears
looking at me right now wishing that they had this beaver.
Here...
CHRIS: Yeah, I just saw blood, so...
Awesome.
JESSI: We did it.
Thank you, beaver.
We appreciate you.
CHRIS: Perfect shot.
I can't believe it's right below the ear, right into the head.
Killed it instantly.
That's the quickest beaver death I've seen.
JESSI: We appreciate everything you gave up.
We appreciate you.
CHRIS: Good shot. JESSI: Appreciate your life.
CHRIS: We should take him down to the riverbank to clean him.
JESSI: That's what I was thinking.
CHRIS: And I'll bring the boat, the boat up.
JESSI: Okay, so I'll get him cleaned out.
God, thank you so much, beaver.
(crashing)
CHRIS: Shh, I just heard a crash in the woods.
Get that beaver.
We gotta get moving.
JESSI: Okay.
CHRIS: I don't wanna deal with a bear too.
Scared the (beep) out of me.
We are deep in bear country.
We gotta get back to our boat as quick as possible.
JOHNNY: It's the magic moment now.
What we've been waiting for.
A pot of bear meat that I just cooked brought out of my oven.
It's hot.
Oh, yeah.
Man, that looks good.
Falling off the bone.
You know, it takes a long time to be able to do this.
And I'm cutting my cooking time in half with that oven.
Have myself a little fancy dinner tonight.
Kinda celebrate this new oven.
It's like all that hard work and effort I put in,
my body is just thanking me so much with
all this meat and protein right now.
You know, I need fuel like this to keep me going.
Here you go.
KALEB: As this hunt draws to a close,
I'm reminded that I don't always have to kill something
in order to be a mighty hunter.
Sometimes just going out in the woods is what's needed.
And these are amazing.
Oh, dang, that was good.
And I will miss this place.
And I cannot wait to come back here next year,
next hunting season, with more knowledge, more skill.
So next time will be a different story.
CHRIS: Been one heck of a trip.
Came a long ways down that river.
That tight little Cosna to the wide-open Tanana.
JESSI: It's pretty amazing.
We did it.
CHRIS: Oh, yeah.
Nice and smoky.
It's perfect fire for cooking beaver.
I've been waiting to just chomp into this thing, man.
JESSI: Worth it? CHRIS: Oh, man.
JESSI: Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Oh, it's juicy.
CHRIS: Like a smoked turkey leg, huh?
JESSI: This is delicious. CHRIS: Yeah.
There's no funky beaver-y skunky flavor at all.
JESSI: No! Mm-mm.
CHRIS: We had a lean winter, so I'm gonna hit this summer hard.
JESSI: Maybe some burbot? Maybe some whitefish?
CHRIS: Yeah.
Whatever we can catch we'll smoke up and we'll dry,
and we'll eat and, we got a lot of hunting and fishing to do this summer.
JESSI: I knew that it wasn't gonna be easy, but I knew that it'd be worth it.
CHRIS: Oh, yeah.
It blows my mind that not everybody would just want to run off into the woods.
CHEVIE: All right, Roger and I made it into town.
But pushing this much weight,
the next big feat here is parking this barge at the, uh, boat landing
where we need to stage these logs before we pull 'em up.
Sounds a lot easier than it is.
ROGER: We'll see what happens.
Hope for the best.
Expect the worst.
CHEVIE: I'm gonna keep my (beep) mouth shut, let Chief focus,
and put us in there.
And there's my beautiful wife!
Go ahead and tie it, Sonta!
ROGER: Safely.
CHEVIE: She's gotta get us tied off fast or else this whole raft will spin
until our boat's hitting that bridge.
'Cause the water's so high our boat won't go underneath the bridge.
So we don't want to rip off the top of the boat.
Have her tie it right there, huh, cousin?
ROGER: Yeah. CHEVIE: Sonta's going in.
Sonta's going in the water.
SONTA: I have excellent balance. CHEVIE: Seven months pregnant.
SONTA: I'm an old pro, pregnant or not.
CHEVIE: All right, so everything's tied up.
ROGER: Perfect. CHEVIE: We're here.
We brought these logs 30 miles.
Everybody's safe.
Happy to see the family.
The kids are here.
You have to have firewood to heat your house throughout the whole winter and now we got it.
Other years we got 25, 26 logs and split it.
And this year we're actually splitting 56 so.
ROGER: 56. SONTA: Oh, nice.
CHEVIE: So it's a lot of wood.
Big accomplishment here.
It's nice to be able to measure your success by hard work and
develop these relationships with people
like Roger to help get big projects like this done.
'Cause we understand each other's value to one another living a lifestyle like this.
SONTA: Good job, guys.
CHEVIE: Ryder, you wanna help me start splitting,
cutting and splitting some firewood and loading it in the truck?
RYDER: Yeah. CHEVIE: All right.
JOHNNY: Alaska is the playing field and
what you choose to do with Alaska is entirely up to you.
CHRIS: And what we've learned is when you push really, really hard and
you feel like the whole world's given up on you and
you just push a little bit harder, you will be rewarded.
KALEB: Everything that I learned on this trip I will be able to
use on future trips to help amp up my odds of success.
CHEIVE: Alaska is and always will be my home because it feeds my need for adventure.