♪ ♪
TIG: Jump up there, hold the rope for me, Evan.
EVAN: Okay.
♪ ♪
TIG: Ooh, coming in hot.
Whoa.
Pull it.
Good job.
You got to hold it tight now.
It's moose season, so today I'm heading up the Alatna River
with my son Evan and my nephew Guno.
Your rifle and ammo.
Put it in that one spot and we'll load them after.
Guno, he's about 9, 10 years old,
I'm not totally sure, I think he's 9. (chuckles)
Catch, Guno.
I don't really go by the age, I go by their size,
and he's totally big enough to start packing around a rifle
and doing this type of stuff,
and just trying to toughen them up.
TIG: See that? EVAN: Yeah.
TIG: What is it? That's Daaltl'edze hair.
Bear hair.
And you see, these are bite marks.
See his fangs right here?
EVAN: Jeez.
TIG: We're not the only ones out here looking for moose.
This time of the year, the grizzlies, you know,
they're trying to put away some meat,
put on some more fat before they head to the den.
They're hunting, the black bears are hunting,
the wolves are hunting.
Everything's out here trying to get some food,
trying to get a nice, fat moose.
Keep an eye on these banks.
Any moment this whole hunt can change.
It'll go from zero to a hundred just like that,
kind of a slow day, and then boom.
♪ ♪
(imitating moose call)
(bellowing)
You guys got to learn these calls.
(bellowing)
EVAN: Is that good? TIG: Mm-hmm.
EVAN: Okay.
TIG: You can hear the echo back there.
Evan, he knows a lot about the woods,
but there's always something new to learn.
(bellowing)
Good job, Guno.
We'll go do our thing today.
It kind of spoils your luck
when you say you're going out hunting.
It's just not what we do in the Athabaskan culture.
Instead, we would say, you know,
I'm just gonna go camp with my boys.
You know, see what's out there.
So when you guys step, pick your feet up.
Don't drag your feet throughout.
Pick it up.
You put your heel down first. Then it's quiet.
♪ ♪
These animals, they can hear you.
They know what's going on.
They know you're coming out and they're looking for you.
TIG: See that moose knocked this tree down.
EVAN: Oh, yeah?
TIG: There's one around here. You can see the signs.
♪ ♪
DANIELLE: Where we are is a tiny little island
in the Bering Sea.
Weather changes in the blink of an eye.
You never know what's gonna happen.
♪ ♪
DANIEL: Just need 30 feet of it, huh?
6, 12.
15 feet right here.
CHRIS: Gonna be going out fishing today,
but with my sister and girlfriend.
The weather's getting nice out,
so all the salmon going up right now.
DANIEL: Yeah, that's good, right there.
It's a short season for fishing, so everybody gets excited.
I'm not really a big fisherman myself, personally.
I'm gonna tell you the truth.
I don't have too much patience for it,
but my boys and my daughter, you know,
hey, you want to go fishing, fine by me.
DANIELLE: We eat a lot of seal and walrus on the island,
and it's good to be catching fish during the summertime.
Have something different to taste.
(starts engine)
DANIEL: Hope you guys catch a fish!
[speaking Akuzipik language]
DANIELLE: It's a long trip to the river.
CHRIS: We're gonna be going 17 miles down the coast.
And that lagoon is called Naayvaghpak.
And the river we're gonna be going to is called Iqalugsik.
♪ ♪
(stops engine)
DANIELLE: Let's set the net up.
♪ ♪
CHRIS: I've always set the net here.
We're looking to get about, uh, 15, 20 fish.
DANIELLE: Good? Okay.
♪ ♪
The way we do it in the rivers is,
we grab a net and one of us goes to the other side,
and we pull the net through the river.
♪ ♪
In English we call it seining.
And in Yup'ik it's called Aghqella.
Right there, Agra?
CHRIS: Little bit more.
♪ ♪
INA: Right here?
CHRIS: Okay, make it straight.
Pull it in.
DANIELLE: You want that rock to weigh it down?
CHRIS: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Heavy.
We're gonna leave it here for maybe a couple hours.
Maybe we'll get lucky.
JODY: Using the same trails our ancestors did with my kids.
It's a really powerful living connection.
This is where we come from.
♪ ♪
Quan, look at all these green blueberries.
QUANNAH: Really?
I was just looking at all these cute little raspberries.
JODY: Yeah, we'll probably find some.
My daughter Quannah is a top international model.
She's also done a lot of work as a land protector
and in climate justice.
She travels a lot and gets really homesick.
QUANNAH: This place is so magical.
♪ ♪
JODY: We're here to be on our ancestral lands
and harvest some really high-quality medicines.
QUANNAH: To be in my homelands is very special.
(dogs panting)
JODY: Caribou trails.
♪ ♪
This is where the Fortymile caribou herd migrate through.
And I think a small part of them just came through recently.
You can see all their fresh tracks from a few days ago.
This is, uh, part of their normal migration route,
except they're here early.
Their migration has been changing.
You know, a lot of variables.
Outside hunters on four-wheelers chasing after caribou herd.
Climate change.
(thunder)
Yeah, I could smell caribou the other day.
Like, 'cause they were so freshly in here, you know.
Now I can't really smell them.
♪ ♪
This is a trail that our ancestors used,
that the caribou use and my family use
to get up into these mountains where we trapped and hunted.
It's so important for me
to bring my kids home to this place.
QUANNAH: I definitely needed to reconnect
and rejuvenate myself here.
I think you can see something, a little...
JODY: Yeah, a little cow and a baby calf.
JAMEY: Yeah.
Truckin' right along, huh?
JODY: I love seeing 'em.
Even though it's not caribou open season,
uh, there's still a lot of plant medicines we can get
from here in the mountains.
So, we'll pick a bag full.
QUANNAH: Let's go do this, then.
(Jody chuckles)
♪ ♪
JOEL: Living out here, most people think it's probably harsh
and you're just trying to survive,
but I thrive living out here.
♪ ♪
Summer's here. The fish are trickling in.
We get all these salmon here.
I'm gonna try to run across the lake and set my net,
'cause that's usually where the fish come up first.
I'm gonna try to get this thing all untangled from last year
and make sure it's still somewhat intact.
They kind of take a beating over the years,
especially with the bears pulling them up.
Then the seals pull fish out of the net,
but they tear it up pretty good, too, when they're doing that.
There's a bear-sized hole.
The abundance of fish brings an abundance of bears.
Kind of a big problem,
'cause they're eating the salmon out of your fishing nets.
Well, there's a couple little holes,
but there's nothing really to worry about.
I guess I'll, uh, I'll tie the buoy on,
then we'll throw it in the boat and get out of here.
(starts motor)
Pedro Bay is actually a great place for subsistence
because of our large salmon run,
and this is kind of where all the salmon end up.
Salmon are really only catchable for about a month
before the meat gets too white to really eat.
A pretty small window to get all your shopping done for the year.
♪ ♪
I'm looking for 20 to 40 fish today.
The last year was actually a record run
for salmon in Pedro Bay.
Supposed to be even more this year.
The salmon will feed you all year.
And that's another goal, especially this month,
is just put up as many fish you want for the year.
It's just me and Tracker, and so, you know,
I kind of got to put up fish for Tracker, too.
(barking)
There's a bear swimming across the channel right here.
Coming off the island, looks like.
(barking)
JOEL: Looks like a net puller-inner.
Troublemaker.
(barking)
Little guys are the ones you got to worry about, too.
They don't have any fear of people.
(barking)
Good dog, grrr, you showed him.
Showed him who's boss.
Tracker was freakin' out. He was gonna get 'em.
Gonna get 'em.
He was probably looking for fish.
It might be the bear that's pulling on people's nets,
I don't know.
He'll leave our net alone.
I think you could have taken him, Tracker.
♪ ♪
TIG: These past years, since my boys were young,
I put in a lot of work with them.
I don't want them to be as a good hunter as me.
(gunshot)
I want them to be a better hunter than me.
♪ ♪
(imitating moose call)
♪ ♪
(groan)
Be quiet. Shh!
♪ ♪
Sitting right here, being quiet.
This is the toughest part of moose hunting, is just patience.
I remember being a kid.
I didn't have no patience for this type of stuff.
That's just something I had to work on for years.
♪ ♪
(bellowing)
(bellow)
(bellowing)
♪ ♪
(bird squawking)
♪ ♪
TIG: Boys, let's head back to the boat.
I know there's a good lookout point
about eight, nine miles upriver.
♪ ♪
DANIEL: Providing out here,
you have to be flexible with each season.
See what nature provides.
♪ ♪
Just one mark.
♪ ♪
(saw whirring)
We're gonna build a smoker today.
My son just got back from the Iqalugsik River.
Hopefully be smoking some salmon,
so we can have something over the winter.
(saw whirring)
(saw stops)
Oi!
Oh.
(saw whirring)
♪ ♪
It's gonna be for the sides and top, huh?
Pcch!
♪ ♪
Got to try to catch as much as possible
within the few weeks of summer we have out here.
♪ ♪
Even having a smoker's kind of hard.
The weather is pretty harsh out there,
so got to try to build them almost every year.
(hammering)
All done.
Ready to rock.
I'll put a couple racks in there.
All we need is fish.
♪ ♪
CHRIS: Got to have a subsistence lifestyle way to live out here.
We eat from the sea.
(whale blows)
From the birds.
(squawking)
(gunshot)
Not really other ways to, uh, get food around here.
Salmon only comes once a year,
and got to try in the time they come around.
♪ ♪
DANIELLE: Ugh. CHRIS: Argh.
DANIELLE: Come on, fish.
♪ ♪
You see anything?
CHRIS: No, nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
DANIELLE: Set our first net,
and we weren't catching anything.
CHRIS: Yeah, we'll just keep going upriver
until we get the salmon.
(starts engine)
Pretty much a small window.
Hopefully we'll get some salmon.
♪ ♪
TIG: I see my boys,
they're gonna be another stepping stone for our culture.
That's all I am, and that's what I'm passing down to my sons.
It's a little torn up.
All right, you guys, keep an eye out.
EVAN: Okay.
TIG: Got to look around when you're coming up the bank.
That might be from grizzlies, you know.
(squirrel barking)
♪ ♪
(rustling)
♪ ♪
This is your Grandma Christine's cabin.
♪ ♪
Door is still locked.
Holy cow.
EVAN: Not too much.
TIG: Damn.
Squirrels came in.
If it was a bear, it'd be demolished in here.
Start picking stuff up, grab a trash bag.
We've been having some tough luck all fall.
We haven't really seen very many moose.
The story I was told when I was a kid is everybody's got a bag
that they carry around with them.
Inside that bag is your luck.
And all year, you're supposed to work on that luck and add to it.
Put a little bit in here and there.
Helping somebody out, paying it forward.
♪ ♪
Little squirrels never hurt nobody.
♪ ♪
Well, let's get this wood stacked up.
The more we do, better chance we will have.
♪ ♪
EVAN: It is very important to me to get better luck,
'cause I love hunting and I love seeing stuff.
It just gives joy to me and excitement.
TIG: Already looking nicer, boys.
EVAN: We should play in that place.
TIG: My late brother came down by himself,
and he built this little cache-style house.
It's kind of like a little treehouse, the kids like it now.
(chuckles)
Yeah, that's what my late brother made right there.
EVAN: This is called the boys club.
No girls allowed.
TIG: Boys, come on.
Let's go. Get your life jacket.
All right, boys, I feel a lot better about leaving camp.
You know, we left it a little better than what we found it.
So, I feel like, you know, we added some good luck to our bag.
I feel, you know, we have a better chance
of seeing something out there now.
Let's hope and pray we see something on the way home, boys.
♪ ♪
JODY: Some of the best medicine is just being out on the land.
Going to these places gives me strength.
♪ ♪
Here's a perfect patch we can pick.
It is important time and opportunity
for harvesting medicines and our teas.
All the plants are really doing well.
We just got a bunch of fresh rains.
♪ ♪
Don't pick anything where Tank lifts his leg.
Get out of here, Tank!
(laughs)
The plant we're picking is called këläk'ày.
We make tea with it, and it's really, has a good flavor.
It's kind of almost minty, yeah? QUANNAH: Mm-hmm.
JODY: We can find it in the lowlands,
but it's really the best quality found up in the high mountains.
It's good for just overall wellness.
It's like the most popular tea for our people,
and it has a long list of benefits.
QUANNAH: Smells super good.
♪ ♪
When I think of medicine, I think of plant medicines first.
This is what nurtures me.
This is what's healing to me.
It's overall wellness.
JODY: This is our pharmacy and, you know, the healing begins
by coming here to this place.
How much better does it get in the world?
I mean, look at this.
JOEL: My family is originally from this area.
They've been here thousands of years.
I'm very grateful to still be able to do
the traditional subsistence out here.
♪ ♪
Ho.
♪ ♪
So this is, uh, Durants Cove.
We're kind of on the edge of the lake,
so the salmon have to swim up the side usually,
and they got to go right around this point.
So, it's usually a good spot to get them
when they're first getting in.
The way the wind is right now,
it's pretty good for catching fish, 'cause it hides the net.
If it's flat calm, the fish can see the net,
and they'll just swim around it,
but I think this'll be pretty good today.
Setting the net by yourself when it's blowing
makes this a little interesting, usually.
I'm all by myself this year.
Usually I have a couple people helping me.
Tracker, you coming?
Oh, good dog.
Tracker's gonna help throw the net.
Well, he would if he had thumbs.
So he'll just watch.
You're just gonna watch, huh.
So the most difficult part is usually setting the net
when you're by yourself,
'cause you're trying to, like, back the boat up,
and then, like, throw the net out at the same time.
And the, you know, and the mesh in the net is really fragile,
so if it gets caught on something, it'll rip,
and so it's, it's a little bit of a struggle
trying to do it by yourself.
Get in the back.
♪ ♪
Not ideal, I'd have to say.
♪ ♪
I don't want to catch a whole bunch of fish.
20 to 40, I think.
40 would definitely be my max.
'Cause it's a number I can handle.
Once I catch fish, you're on a timeline for sure.
You got to get the fish processed,
you got to get 'em hung.
Gonna be a long day once I start catching fish.
♪ ♪
(bleep) They're hitting.
JOEL: Hey, there's like a whole school just went in there.
That's got to be 20 right there, at least.
I just dropped the net in like a minute ago.
That was a little bit unexpected.
♪ ♪
I might even pull the net in.
♪ ♪
Hey, huh?
♪ ♪
Hey.
Ah, ah.
Ah.
♪ ♪
Yeah, usually I have to set the net overnight
to get 20 fish this early.
They're saying it's a record year,
and I think I, uh, I believe them now.
That took 10 minutes to do all my fishing.
Thanks for the help, Tracker.
We have a lot of work to do.
♪ ♪
(motor running)
♪ ♪
QUANNAH: We have everything we could possibly need out here.
Take care of the land,
and the land will take care of you.
JODY: Well, we have this last little bit.
QUANNAH: This is always the hardest part. (chuckles)
(wind whistling)
♪ ♪
JODY: On the top of these mountains,
we have these ancient rock piles as a sighting point
to stay on the trail.
♪ ♪
JAMEY: Huh, pointed right towards Eagle, huh?
JODY: You could tell this was not a Native hunter.
They sawed the antlers off, out here.
Left the skull.
We would take the skull for the meat.
I'm gonna move this down.
I like to honor our ancestors
and this place and our traditional land
by adding a rock to the pile,
to signify to our ancestors that we're still here.
Everything they fought for, for future generations,
we're still here.
♪ ♪
Pretty powerful, huh?
Our ancestors touched these rocks down here
when they made this.
JODY: Yeah. Yep.
JAMEY: Special.
QUANNAH: This place is very untouched by the world.
♪ ♪
...connect to.
But when I'm here, I don't have to feel like I'm searching
for some kind of connection.
And I know I really needed this,
'cause I've been really grieving the land
and being separated from that.
It's really hard.
♪ ♪
JODY: A really healing feeling to be here with my daughter
at a place where your ancestors are so strong.
We're so lucky to be born Hän Hwëch'in
and have this connection to place,
because it really improved my quality of life.
It really gives me a strong sense
of belonging and connectiveness.
Even though we're small in numbers
compared to what we used to be as Hän people.
We're still here, and these places, these animals,
this way of life is still important to us.
♪ ♪
(squawking)
TIG: We're not gonna have luck all the time.
(imitating moose call)
You can plan, prepare for it,
but not everything's gonna work out the way you want it.
(animal howls)
♪ ♪
You boys ready?
EVAN: Yeah. GUNO: Yeah.
♪ ♪
TIG: You boys ought to be looking around.
We're traveling down the river.
Moose, they like islands, they're usually around islands.
But we can't know exactly where they're gonna be.
Any bend in the river, the whole outlook of our trip can change.
I'm thinking about the bag of luck I got.
TIG: When there's a cow like that,
there's usually a bull around.
♪ ♪
TIG: Shoot those trees, Evan.
Try to scare 'em back over to the other side.
We'll go around this island again.
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
♪ ♪
(motor rumbling)
♪ ♪
(Tig imitating moose call)
♪ ♪
EVAN: Yes.
♪ ♪
(imitating moose call)
♪ ♪
(Tig bellows) (gunshot)
TIG: Come on.
♪ ♪
Good job, my boy.
♪ ♪
EVAN: Baasee'.
TIG: All right.
We're gonna have to figure this out, boys.
You sure couldn't have gotten him
in a tighter spot than this.
It's late right now, once we get those guts out and head off,
it's gonna be perfectly fine for the night.
We'll come back up in the morning,
pack him out, easy peasy.
Good job, my boy. Proud of you.
EVAN: Thank you.
TIG: Come here, Guno, good job.
EVAN: It felt pretty good.
Really excited that I seen the bull drop, one shot.
♪ ♪
TIG: Seeing my son drop it with one shot in his first try
is a good feeling, but I am a little jealous.
It took me years and years and many moose
before I finally dropped it with one shot.
That darn guy.
♪ ♪
TIG: If you don't open the guts and spill them that night,
cooling the moose off, they will spoil.
I'm gonna have to hustle and get these guts out,
try and make it back to camp before it gets too dark on us.
♪ ♪
TIG: Inside the guts, you know, there's the kidneys.
There's the viable fat.
There's the heart.
There's the fat intestine.
There's a lot of good parts inside the guts
that we keep and we bring home and eat.
EVAN: Jeez, what's that? GUNO: The heart.
EVAN: Oh, god, that's a big heart.
TIG: Mm-hmm.
TIG: For myself, there's not a whole lot of excitement anymore
taking down a moose.
I've done it year after year.
Where I do get the excitement is seeing my son and my nephew,
they're super excited.
This is huge for them, it brings that excitement back to me.
I remember how excited I used to be when I was their age
and how amazing it was.
All right. Got the hardest part done.
So, let's grab our stuff and vamoose.
We'll be back tomorrow and get the meat.
♪ ♪
JOEL: Poor fish, swam 10,000 miles,
dodged all the commercial fishermen in Bristol Bay.
Dodged the whales, the seals, the bears.
Only to get caught in my net at the very end.
Almost made it.
♪ ♪
All right, I think I got like 25 fish or something,
which is like perfect.
I'm gonna make a little pen right here,
so I can get them in the water and so they don't float way.
♪ ♪
Perfect.
Bunch of these are not even for me,
they're for my dad and my mom.
They kept me alive, fed me for 18 years.
I can toss them some fish.
♪ ♪
I will salt eggs for this winter, for ice fishing.
Then I'll keep the bones for the dog,
so we're pretty much using the whole fish, except the guts.
All right, left the tail on, we're gonna smoke this.
That's for me,
that's for the bear,
that's for the dog.
♪ ♪
You know, this big salmon run that we get,
it's one of the few self-sustaining food sources.
And a lot of the, the salmon fishing
around Alaska's been restricted,
'cause the, you know, the runs weren't big enough.
I mean, it's definitely global warming.
The overfishing,
messing up the salmon runs in places.
Subsistence salmon fishing in Alaska, it's super important.
A lot of places wouldn't even exist
if it wasn't for the salmon.
Just culturally, it'd be a big shock
just to not be able to put up salmon.
It's gonna change a lot of people's lives.
You know, respecting the land, respecting the fish
is a big thing out here.
It's good to take what you need and not just to take to take.
25 fish was the good number to start with.
I'm definitely done, I don't want to cut any more fish today.
Yeah, I still got quite a few things to do.
Not really all the way there yet.
Too many fish is, you know, is a good problem to have.
Especially this early in the year.
It's great.
CHRIS: Kind of cool to be going out there without my parents.
Keeping the tradition alive.
♪ ♪
You got to go that way.
DANIELLE: We decided to move upriver where it was more narrow
and a little bit more shallow.
CHRIS: I need to grab a rock for you.
Just keep going.
INA: Which deep part?
CHRIS: Yeah, the deep part is right along right there.
♪ ♪
Now, Ina, straighten it.
♪ ♪
On one of those rocks.
I gonna be walking upriver,
trying to get the fish towards the net.
They're right in here hiding under the...
DANIELLE: Grass?
CHRIS: Grass.
DANIELLE: Look right there, right there.
CHRIS: Oh, (bleep), right there.
INA: Look, there they are.
CHRIS: Oh, (bleep). DANIELLE: Oh, (bleep).
INA: There were super lots.
King salmon!
♪ ♪
CHRIS: Yeah, you can pull it up on that side.
♪ ♪
DANIELLE: They're here, they're running.
We're gonna bring the net upriver
and see maybe one more time,
and then we'll be good to go.
You know, we catch some fish for ourselves,
but we're also providing for other family members.
So, a lot of it's gonna go in the smoker,
and some of it's gonna go to our family, our grandparents.
They're too old to be fishing themselves.
We're the young generation, and when we go out fishing,
it's fun, and we're keeping tradition alive,
and it's something we love to do.
Ooh, that one's pretty.
♪ ♪
CHRIS: All right!
DANIELLE: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
♪ ♪
Just like that.
♪ ♪
What you gonna do, you gonna filet them right now?
CHRIS: There's eggs in here.
DANIELLE: Oh.
♪ ♪
CHRIS: Yeah, look at all that eggs, man.
DANIELLE: Oh, beautiful.
♪ ♪
We found Nemo.
(laughing)
Pretty meat.
♪ ♪
CHRIS: Hwaaah!
(Danielle laughs)
We got a full smoker.
DANIELLE: Yeah, today's been a good day.
Fresh meat.
Ready to go home?
CHRIS: Yeah.
♪ ♪
JODY: My secret recipe, on-the-trail chicken soup.
QUANNAH: It's nostalgic for me every time I have it,
'cause I only have it on the trail.
JODY: Mm-hmm.
QUANNAH: I've had it since I was little, so I always think about
like the fun times that we'd have, me and the boys.
JODY: It sure hits the spot when you're hiking all day and...
Yeah, it just really, refuels you.
QUANNAH: While I'm out here,
one thing that my mom really instilled in me
was really recognizing how powerful we are as women.
If we approach a lot of these issues that we have today
with indigenous sovereignty with that matriarchal mindset
of never taking more than what is needed
and always giving back,
we wouldn't have a lot of the issues that we have today.
We wouldn't have to fight so hard
for environmental justice.
Us as women deserve a voice.
While I was just drinking this tea,
I was saying my little prayer to myself.
Just appreciating being here.
This is the exact type of medicine I need, you know,
for me to be able to do the things I need to do for work.
I really needed it.
(fire crackling)
JODY: There's never any place like home.
CHRIS: These are the salmon we got,
and we're gonna be fileting 'em.
DANIELLE: Not many people around the world can do what we do.
A lot of people go to the store and pick up what they need.
Here we make it ourselves.
We know where our food is coming from,
and it's not factory food and it's not processed.
It's all from land and sea.
It's our traditional lifestyle.
We have been doing this for many years,
and it's passed down to us from our parents
and from their parents,
and one day we'll pass it on to our own,
our kids, their kids.
Got to keep it alive.
CHRIS: Your brothers, sisters, cousins.
(Danielle laughs)
Former roommate.
(Danielle laughs)
DANIELLE: Going fishing with my brother
keeps us close and as family,
but he's still annoying as hell.
(Ina laughs)
(thunder)
JOEL: So, this is the cache I built this last fall.
It started out as a cache,
and I kind of modified it to make it a smokehouse.
'Cause I don't want to worry about the bears eating my fish.
So, I'll get these in there and we'll get the fire lit
and call it a night, it's been a long day.
Even Tracker's tired.
♪ ♪
Genius.
This is my pulley system I put in when I built the cache,
just for this purpose.
So I don't have to pull these buckets up
by hand on the ladder.
♪ ♪
This is kind of like the final step,
'cause after I get them in here,
all I have to do is keep the fire going.
Today I've just been going nonstop, working my butt off
to get all these fish in there, and once they're in there,
they just sit there for like two weeks.
Weird little system we got,
but you know, it's worked for hundreds of years,
so, we'll keep doing it.
♪ ♪
I'm gonna get this fire lit, and we'll start smoking.
Well, that's pretty good
for a day of 10 minutes of fishing, I guess.
I mean, it's pretty impressive you can go out in one day,
couple hours later you're hopping in the smokehouse.
This is like one of the few places in the world
you can even do this.
All right for the next, uh,
basically for the next two weeks,
this thing's got to keep burning and the smoke pumping in there.
First batch of fish is smoking.
It's good.
♪ ♪
It's been a long 14-hour day,
It's totally worth it to get those fish in there.
(laughter)
CHRIS: Agh!
♪ ♪
Gonna eat a sandy fish.
♪ ♪
INA: Dinner, dinner.
DANIELLE: Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
CHRIS: My girlfriend and sister makes the trip a lot funner.
Ah, put it on the wood.
DANIELLE: Mmm!
(laughter)
Got it.
♪ ♪
Mmm. Real good over the fire, huh?
CHRIS: It's not always about the fishing and hunting, you know.
Always a good time to spend
with your friends and family out in the tundra.
DANIELLE: Guys. Smile!
INA: Forever.
(Danielle laughs)
♪ ♪
GUNO: But we got to him.
TIG: (chuckles) You're right, nephew.
Something did get to him.
Evan.
Evan got to him.
It does feel real good seeing my boys grow up
and being able to do a lot of this.
I do miss them being little boys,
but that's just the way life is.
♪ ♪
EVAN: I'm ready to eat this boy already.
TIG: We're gonna eat good.
Just have to go home now.
♪ ♪
Feels real good to finally have some luck this season.
The whole family's gonna be happy.
It's not enough to feed all of us throughout the winter,
but you know, we're gonna have a little more
than what we had yesterday.
All right, my boy, see if you can pick that bad boy up.
Use your legs.
(Evan groans)
All right, you got him. Bring him to the four-wheeler.
Go.
EVAN: I can't. (chuckling)
TIG: I'll take it.
EVAN: Jeez.
TIG: You got to raise these kids
to be the best people that they can.
I feel that Evan, he has a good start.
He's gonna be a real good person.
EVAN: It feels pretty good to get the first moose
for the season for our family,
because I get to feed them.
♪ ♪
TIG: Hello, uncle. DANIEL: Hey.
TIG: My boy shot moose.
You got him? EVAN: Yeah.
TIG: All right, go ahead, go in first.
Watch your foot.
EVAN: My dad is teaching me about our culture.
Respect nature, respect elders, respect the land.
CHRIS: I feel our responsibility has to be carried on.
DANIELLE: I don't know what the future holds,
but it's up to us, the younger generation,
to keep our culture alive.
QUANNAH: Seeing younger generations
practice their culture, bring back practices
that were almost completely erased through colonization,
is what keeps me hopeful.
Our people have been not listened to,
not heard, not seen.
But we're changing that.
Captioned by Side Door Media Services