and may contain mature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.
and may contain matur(raven caw).tter.
TERESA: The raven was part of the creation story in our culture.
He put me out here on the tundra that I love so much.
JOHN: We were put here by our Creator.
This is the story of how we live and how we survive.
For thousands of years.
JODY: It's a bull.
(gunshot).
I gotta shoot high.
(gunshot).
I saw blood.
Let's go get him.
My name is Jody Potts.
I'm Hän Gwich'in of the Raven Clan.
JODY: I feel a lot of gratitude to Creator for allowing me to
be indigenous to the land, and having the blessing of
living this life here, with my kids and my husband.
We point the moose's head towards home to honor the moose.
Towards the direction of our home where it's gonna
feed our family and our village.
Indigenous peoples of Alaska, we're still here,
we're still maintaining our culture and our way of life,
and we're fighting for it.
Generation after generation.
MARVIN: During my time of growing up,
there wasn't really no teaching.
You know, you learn from hands on.
You didn't read a book on our native way.
(singing in native language).
MARVIN: I'm gonna give it some gas.
I'm gonna go on an adventure up to Olga Bay
and set the king crab pot.
On this beautiful day.
Calm before the storm.
I am Marvin Agnot, from the village of Akhiok.
I grew up here pretty much all my life.
Which is a little over a half a century.
Alutiiq is what I am.
Today, we're on a mission to go and get some food for the winter.
But it's very windy and we got a storm coming in.
We got to work pretty quick.
We gotta go miles away just to hope we can get king crab
because over-fishing.
That alone really hurt us because our way of living
is on the water.
Akhiok is very unique because of its remoteness.
We are limited to our resources because of accessibility.
We gotta work harder to get more to make ends meet.
But regardless, we make it work out here.
Rain, snow, wind.
We'll go out and get our seafood.
When the tide is low, the table is set.
It rolls through here very fast, when the tide comes through.
I have to get the pot to drop before the storm coming.
Weather changes so quick, and it's an hour skiff ride one way,
and within that hour, it can be blowing 50 miles an hour.
It becomes disastrous for us.
When we do get it, it is worth the effort that we put into it.
We are way out in the middle of no man's land.
As we find out over our years that it's a lot easier to get
crab up in this area than it is out in the lower bay,
because of how big and vast it is.
It is very dangerous because this bay freezes up in the winter.
It's just a matter of when it'll happen.
We have to pull this up before the freeze.
All right, well I beat the storm that's coming in here,
and I got done settin' my crab pot.
I'm a man of the sea here, I love it here.
Cool like that.
JOEL: I would like to say my way of life is simple,
but it seems like it's anything but sometimes.
We're looking for, uh,
standing dead spruce trees today.
We're gonna get as many trees as we can.
If the wind will allow.
My name's Joel Jacko, I'm from Pedro Bay, Alaska.
Being an Athabascan in the 21st century is
a lot about adapting.
Your tools may have changed, but your hunting ground is
still the same.
My ultimate goal in life is to be self-reliant.
I'm a bush pilot.
For the last ten years, I've been building this house.
I live here with my wife, Jacqueline,
and my daughter Anzlie.
I think it's important to try to pass down traditions to
Anzlie as much as we can, and I will teach her about the
Athabascan way of life.
So, Fred the Bear is kinda my neighbor.
We see him every day, he's Tracker's arch nemesis.
Hey!
(barking).
So, we're gonna try to build a cache and fill our, uh,
fish and everything in there for the winter.
We're making it elevated to keep the bears out, because
the bears are a big problem around here.
JACQUELINE: I'm gonna be really mad if Fred eats our fish.
It's a lot of work to go and get 'em,
and then to have a bear eat 'em in, you know,
ten minutes, I don't like the thought of that.
JOEL: Pretty important to get this cache done.
The days are getting shorter, it's getting colder.
So, we need to get it done in like the next couple days.
JACQUELINE: You ready baby. JOEL: You ready Anzlie?
Okay.
JACQUELINE: To bring Anzlie up, with this kind of
lifestyle is important to me, so she can learn about her
roots, and be resourceful.
JOEL: I got a couple trees picked out for, uh, the main
posts on the, on the cache.
The wind and everything, it's gonna be a little difficult to
get 'em to fall where I want 'em.
And if it doesn't want to go, then get out of the way.
JACQUELINE: Hm.
JOEL: Jacqueline's from a family of city folk.
She went from Seattle to out here, within a month
she adapted super quickly.
JACQUELINE: A month into dating Joel, I used to go out
into the woods with him and he'd cut trees down.
I just thought, you know, damn.
So hot.
JOEL: Wood out here is a continual chore.
It is nonstop, you're just always cuttin' wood, and
packin' wood, and splittin' wood, and nonstop.
JACQUELINE: Let's go home and build us a cache.
JODY: I feel like my soul is connected to the land because
I am of the land.
I'm a part of this environment, naturally, for millennia.
Wow, there's a lot more ice on the river today.
JAMEY: Not too long, it'll be frozen.
JODY: I know, I'm so excited.
We are on the middle Yukon in Koyukon country, at our fish camp.
I grew up in my Hän Gwich'in village of Eagle.
Our people have lived on this land for millennia.
So, I was very much raised in that culture and that way of life,
and I think that being on the land is a strong
part of my identity.
I eventually met my now husband, Jamey Joseph,
and this is, his family's native allotment and
his family's land.
It's such a risky time of year to get water.
JAMEY: Yup.
JODY: Our family was blessed with a moose, but as the
weather changes and it starts to get colder there are other
things that we also need to be working on like
getting water, getting wood.
The work is never over.
JAMEY: Huh, water dropped last night.
JODY: I want more ice.
JAMEY: You got that rope in your pocket, Denali?
JODY: Okay, just be careful you guys.
It's super dangerous.
Our only water source right now is getting water from the
Yukon River, which is full of ice flow.
JAMEY: All right, goin' out.
JODY: The ice isn't very stable yet.
The water every day is dropping and there's
air pockets under the ice.
There's been a lot of folks that have fallen
through unstable ice and perished.
Careful.
Whoa.
If I rope off your overalls with that little
loop in the back, I'd feel better.
JAMEY: All right.
JODY: Come.
I don't wanna go out that far.
JAMEY: The only problem with being laced in the back, if
you're pulling on me, I can't turn around to get myself out
and I'll be like this.
I'll end up head first in the water.
If I fall, yeah, there you go.
That, that's better.
Ah, much better.
JODY: How about I just keep this on you?
JAMEY: Funny. Funny.
JODY: Can't lose my handsome hunka-hunka-burning love.
I'm gonna reel you in.
JAMEY: Okay. Hand me that bucket, there.
JODY: The river is powerful and unforgiving,
and it demands respect.
Jamey and I, in our lifetime of experience on this land and
on the Yukon River, we are each other's anchor.
This rope represents love.
Right babe?
JAMEY: Something like that.
JODY: All right, hurry up off that ice.
DANIEL: Our Yup'ik ways is learned by observation.
You gotta watch the weather, watch the people,
and pass down time immemorial.
Got everything?
CHRIS: Alright.
Head to the beach today.
DANIEL: My name is Daniel Apassingok.
My, uh, native name is Takevaghmii.
I'm, uh, Siberian Yup'ik.
I live in Gambell, St. Lawrence Island,
with my family.
My wife, Susan Apassingok, and my two boys, Chris and Chase.
We're actually closer to Russia than mainland Alaska.
Bering Sea out there, it's a way of life.
For me and all the people in the village.
(gunshot).
CHRIS: We're subsistence hunters, and that means that
we go out and get marine mammals and bring that food home.
We don't just have a store that has everything you wanna eat.
CHRIS: Oh yeah, winter's coming down on us and
all the marine mammals that live up there come down too
with the ice.
Walrus.
Bearded seals.
CHRIS: We eat what we catch.
DANIEL: Subsistence way of lifestyle.
Subsistence has been very important for Gambell.
We've been eating off the sea for generations on end.
DANIEL: Bowhead whale, right there!
DANIEL: Ah, need to warm up another 15 degrees.
CHRIS: Yeah.
Right now, it's, uh, kinda too cold temperature to go whaling.
DANIEL: If you catch a whale in the cold temperature,
all the meat and muktuk will freeze instantly.
It'll be harder for butchering.
CHRIS: Oh (bleep).
Got a bearded seal coming over.
CHRIS: Oh (bleep).
(gunshot).
CHRIS: (bleep).
DANIEL: No luck today.
I need to provide, uh, food this week, you know, uh,
maybe from ice fishing.
Whatever opportunity we can get.
JOEL: The importance of living sustainably is really just
preserving the land, and the way of life,
taking what you need and no more.
This is it.
JACQUELINE: Oh.
JOEL: This is where we're gonna put the cache.
JOEL: It's called a cache 'cause you cache your stuff in there.
JACQUELINE: Do you know what it is?
JOEL: We're gonna put stuff in there so the bear can't get it.
That's why we're gonna make it way off the ground.
JACQUELINE: We don't want him eating our food.
JOEL: Mhm.
JACQUELINE: Right?
No.
JOEL: So, this is basically what it'll look like.
I need help standing the uprights up.
Make sense?
JACQUELINE: I guess it will as we go.
JOEL: Yeah.
I don't know if it makes sense to me yet.
So, getting ready for winter is a lot of work, and the
bears being around all the time is definitely
a cause for concern.
Because we are so close to the mountains, the weather happens
to change super quickly.
And you still gotta do whatcha gotta do and you're just gonna
be out there and whatever Mother Nature's throwin' atcha.
Okay, this is probably gonna be the most dangerous part.
(grunting).
JACQUELINE: You okay, babe?
JOEL: I think we're way off here.
Oh my gosh.
JACQUELINE: Oh my gosh.
JOEL: Okay.
JACQUELINE: It needs to go back.
JOEL: Or this one, it can go forward.
Try to move that log back.
And if I say run, you better run.
JACQUELINE: Okay.
JOEL: Yeah, yeah.
There you go.
It's just not lined up with the hole.
Uh, we're at a bad angle.
JACQUELINE: Can you just push it?
JOEL: Yeah.
JACQUELINE: Oh my gosh.
JOEL: Jacqueline's a good partner out here.
It's always easier to get projects done with two sets of hands.
JACQUELINE: I definitely didn't know how to do
some of these things before I met Joel.
And we've learned together.
Oh! Oh!
JOEL: Look at that! Huh, huh!
JACQUELINE: Woo!
That's what Fred's going to be doing to this.
JOEL: Yeah!
Give me some of that fish.
Yeah.
JACQUELINE: That looks much better.
Good job.
JOEL: We got half of what I wanted to do today done.
Start again in the mornin'.
JACQUELINE: Okay. JOEL: Huh?
You gonna help us clean up a little bit?
ANZLIE: Mm, no.
(laughing).
MARVIN: Our way of living, a big part of it is on the water.
The sea is something we pay close attention to.
GLYNDARIL: Hey Unc? MARVIN: Yeah?
GLYNDARIL: What's the plan for today?
MARVIN: Well, today, we're gonna go up and pull the crab pots.
You and I will go in my skiff, and Justin will go in his and.
JUSTIN: Yup.
MARVIN: All right, I guess we're ready, huh?
GLYNDARIL: Let's rock and roll.
MARVIN: Glyn is married to my niece, Marcella.
He came up from California.
GLYNDARIL: My name is Glyndaril White Jr.
I moved up here 2005, and I have not left since.
Marvin shows me around out here, shows me hunting and fishing,
living out here, and what this life is about.
MARVIN: I'm just showing you, so when you come on your own,
you have no problems buddy.
Because I'm gonna show you the right way.
And as you learn it, you can find out the shortcuts.
It's not much that I've learned, it's what I've learned.
Basic way of living out here, that's the knowledge that
I carry on.
Glyn.
For Glyn to be a part of what we see, it makes it easier for him.
'Cause I don't want people to struggle out here.
GLYNDARIL: Oh.
That ice looks pretty, uh, pretty thick over there.
MARVIN: It's been cold since I set the crab pot,
and the ice or frost is always a concern.
I'm gonna go see if I can break through that.
GLYNDARIL: You calling me fat?
MARVIN: No, it's just the weight buddy I mean I just like.
GLYNDARIL: No, I know, I know. I'm just messing whicha.
MARVIN: We'll, we'll become an icebreaker.
So you just follow me through there, okay?
JUSTIN: Okay.
MARVIN: All right, sounds like a plan.
We'll give that a shot, because tide's falling.
GLYNDARIL: Never rode through ice before.
Have you ever, uh, made it through the ice and like got
stuck on the other side?
MARVIN: No, I don't want to try that.
GLYNDARIL: No, no, yeah. I don't want to try that.
GLYNDARIL: All right.
MARVIN: I see another quarter mile of ice, so I figured I'll
give it a little bit of gas and sway my motor back and forth,
and give us a little rocking movement,
and keep the momentum going.
GLYNDARIL: You can't see the water move, but you see the
ice just cracking and it makes this sound.
It's breaking, but if we go too much and end up on it,
we're stuck out here.
Woo, that's a chunk.
♪ ♪
(ice cracking).
MARVIN: We made it through.
GLYNDARIL: Just when you realize how small and
insignificant you really are.
MARVIN: Oh yeah.
All right, Juti's ready.
JUSTIN: Hope we get crab.
GLYNDARIL: Viva la icebreaker!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
JODY: In today's modern world, being able to bring my kids to
lands and use trails that have been used for time immemorial,
it's just a powerful, powerful feeling.
(chainsaw whirring).
Thanks, son!
That's good. My right hand man.
So handsome.
Gathering water, gathering wood, those are all like our
first order of business when we arrive at camp.
JAMEY: How's it goin'?
DENALI: Goin'. JAMEY: All right, looks good.
There's another tree right here we can probably
buck up right here.
JODY: Oh yeah.
I need to cut that smaller, it's kinda long.
JAMEY: Sounds good.
JODY: As a kid growing up, I always went out with
my dad and brother to cut firewood.
I learned to run a saw sometime in my teen years.
It's good work, it warms you twice, three times, four times.
Cuttin' the firewood, bucking it up, stacking it,
chopping it, bringing it home.
Then you get to put it in your stove after you bring it in.
Keeps you healthy, keeps you strong, and it's good hard
work that makes you feel alive.
So, if you guys want to grab the last load of wood,
I'll make a campfire and some tea for all of us.
Sound good?
JAMEY: Sounds good. JODY: Go team!
We are just nourished by the land.
It provides us a lot of our basic needs.
Perfect!
The land provides us with our water and our food, and also
provides us with a lot of peace.
Like it's just a good feeling at the end of the day,
after you spend time on the land.
Clean snow!
Wow, water's already boilin'.
There's all kinds of medicines and teas around us.
Our people call it jalaki.
It's this little leaf, tasty and has a lot of medicinal purposes.
You tired, son?
DENALI: Mhm.
JODY: You worked hard today.
JAMEY: Want some tea, Denali?
JODY: Good signs, for sure. JAMEY: Mm-hmm.
JODY: Got water, got plenty of firewood, then we got a moose.
We have everything we need, so I feel rich.
DANIEL: Different kind of cold out here.
Somebody from mainland, they'd think it'd be too cold to do anything.
It's just our lifestyle.
It's helped us to be who we are today.
DANIEL: See if we can catch, uh, tomcod and smelt.
DANIEL: Ay!
I've been teaching my boys how to do, uh,
subsistence lifestyle, hunting and fishing.
Who's gonna catch one first?
Race!
(laughing).
You know, we take whatever opportunity we can get.
CHASE: Nice weather we're having today, huh?
(laughing).
DANIEL: Beautiful!
C'mon, king salmon!
DANIEL: You're on an island,
200 miles off the mainland, Alaska.
The weather changes very quick.
You gotta be prepared for that.
DANIEL: Getting ugly!
♪ ♪
DANIEL: I pretty much experienced all the, uh,
the weather you can handle out here.
You gotta be very knowledgeable about
how to, uh, handle it.
Ah, finally home!
DANIEL: Time to go, uh, turn the stove on, warm up, huh?
JOEL: The mindset of living out here and living off the land,
it's just beat into you to be resourceful.
So, the uprights are a little more difficult
than I thought they were gonna be.
But I think at this stage it should go a little faster.
(barking).
I think Fred might be coming.
(barking).
You definitely gotta be vigilant to keep these bears
out of stuff.
That's why we're building the cache.
(chainsaw whirring).
We kinda got a window in the weather right now.
Seeing a little bit of blue sky showing, so try to get
as much done as I can right now.
(grunting).
I don't have anything to stand on right now,
so this is pretty awkward.
I'm glad Jacqueline's not up here for this, uh, this part.
She would not be happy.
Jacqueline definitely thinks I'm more dangerous than I need to be,
but I like to get stuff done as quickly as possible.
(grunting).
All right, screwin's done.
I'll start buildin' the walls, and then the roof after that.
Being in the woods, man, it feels great.
Especially when there's nobody around, it's just you.
Definitely gives you a sense of peace and happiness,
accomplishment.
MARVIN: Around here, you got to pay attention to mother nature,
'cause it's just so unpredictable and
you just gotta be prepared for that.
There!
GLYNDARIL: You see the buoy?
MARVIN: Yeah, right there!
GLYNDARIL: Me, Marvin, and Justin.
We're all gonna pull the crab pots.
And hopefully, it will be loaded with some king crab,
and we'll be able to eat tonight.
Gotcha!
MARVIN: And just pull it up to the motor.
Get us both some slack.
On this side, Juti.
You're just gonna go that way and wait for the pot to come up.
GLYNDARIL: Okay.
MARVIN: We pull apart.
One goes one direction; one stays above the pot.
GLYNDARIL: All right.
MARVIN: Prior to us using two skiffs, we would pull it by hand.
That's how my dad done it, and, um, those days are over.
It's so much easier if we use two skiffs.
You just watch him and then you can see about
300 feet back, that's when it'll come up.
300 feet, 50 fathoms align.
JUSTIN: The worst that can happen, the line busts and
the pot just free-falls.
MARVIN: We gotta be gettin' pretty close.
GLYNDARIL: It's still just line.
JUSTIN: And the line, it can grab somebody, but you just
don't want it to bust off.
GLYNDARIL: All right.
Ho, ho, ho!
MARVIN: Ok, stop it.
MARVIN: Grab it!
GLYNDARIL: Got her.
MARVIN: Okay. How are we doin'?
Well, we got some crab!
GLYNDARIL: Ooh-rah!
MARVIN: Okay now you can... Yeah.
GLYNDARIL: You wanna, you're gonna come around?
MARVIN: Yeah, we're just gonna let that go over to the end.
There you go.
Now we got a, can you grab that?
We are deadlifting the crab pot right over the side of the skiff.
Hold it, Glyn, right there.
There you go.
Yeah!
We got her buddy, we got a few.
GLYNDARIL: Woo!
MARVIN: We got dinner.
GLYNDARIL: Oh, yeah.
MARVIN: One.
GLYNDARIL: Two, there you go.
MARVIN: We got two, cool like that.
Well, I see three.
GLYNDARIL: Ha!
MARVIN: In the store, it's like $100 for three legs.
Out here we just go out and get it.
It's worth the trip.
We got a few tanners, didn't we?
This is too small to keep, and this is going to be the.
GLYNDARIL: Future. MARVIN: Yeah, future.
We gotta give back. Take em' all, we'll run out.
We overcame.
GLYNDARIL: Thank you, Unc, it was a pleasure.
I don't get to usually come out and get king crabs.
MARVIN: Last two I took, you can take these ones, so we get more.
Huh? Sound good?
GLYNDARIL: Thank you.
MARVIN: I got a big pot.
We'll just cook 'em all together and be done with them.
GLYNDARIL: Oh, yeah.
MARVIN: Okay? GLYNDARIL: Sounds like a plan.
MARVIN: Sounds good guys.
We're off, like a herd of turtles.
GLYNDARIL: That's what you get here in Akhiok, the closeness,
the family-ness, the camaraderie.
Where I came from it's mine, mine, mine, take, take, take.
Here, people wanna give.
JODY: Wealth is not important to me in money,
but I feel rich in quality of life.
I already fried up some tenderloin and fat for the family.
And I got some...
Diced up backstrap here, I'm gonna cook with this rice.
We're able to have some fresh meat and not have to eat
so much spam.
This moose is a lot to us.
It's winter's meat, and it's healthy.
Culturally, you know, it's our soul food.
It's our medicine.
So, just such a blessing.
And that's how I have healthy, strong kids.
Is having a good healthy organic protein.
I know what's in this meat and it's hard to beat.
Oh! I'm always so proud when I have a rhyme.
As a mom, especially as a native mom, there's so much
that I have to know and learn so I can pass it down
to my children.
Traditional knowledge, and skills, and values,
all those things are really important to pass down.
I'm gonna warm up that fat.
JAMEY: Mm.
JODY: Kids are so much help.
Like I didn't have to pack any meat.
It's just so crazy 'cause like when they were small,
I was packing all the meat, and now it's reversed.
So thankful.
JAMEY: Can't stop. I'm gonna hurt myself.
JODY: Here, I'll help. Mm-mm.
CHRIS: This village has been hunting off of the Bering Sea,
the land, for thousands of years.
I'd like to be happy to keep that going.
Looks good around there, eh?
DANIEL: We'll catch some fish!
We finally got a little bit of a break of, uh.
Good weather here.
It's a good window for fishing.
Gonna be a good opportunity today.
Ay! Hey!
DANIEL: This is what we get, smelt and, uh, tomcod.
My king salmon, eh?
(laughing).
CHASE: Ah, jeez!
DANIEL: They're down there, got couple of nibbles.
Ay!
CHASE: Oh, man.
Looks like you got the hot hole today.
Hey!
DANIEL: Ay!
DANIEL: Chase, he, he's my younger boy, you know,
he wants to follow the footsteps of Chris.
And you know, it's just a lot of fun watching the boys
grow up to be who they are today now.
CHASE: I don't know why they don't want to bite my hook.
DANIEL: Maybe use his hole.
CHASE: Oh, man.
DANIEL: Hey, got another one!
King salmon!
CHASE: What the hell is going on?
DANIEL: Whatever fish I catch out here is gonna be a king salmon!
(laughing).
C'mon boy, what's going on!
CHASE: I have no clue what's going on.
Jeez.
DANIEL: Gotta work for it.
CHASE: Come on, fish.
DANIEL: All righty!
CHRIS: Perfect! DANIEL: Ay!
Finally got a fish!
CHRIS: King salmon!
(laughing).
DANIEL: We're lucky to be on an island where we can catch
almost everything out here.
From fish to birds, to uh, big game.
Just right there on the island.
Something very beautiful about it.
DANIEL: Get ready?
Race for the last fish!
Ah, I won!
Ay!
(laughing).
Subsistence lifestyle I learned from my father,
Anders Apassingok, and, uh, I teach it to my boys too.
And someday, you know, they'll teach it to their own kids.
DANIEL: 21, I've got 21.
It's a blessing to catch our food, you know.
It's a blessing to share your food at the same time.
Can't wait to eat tonight.
MARVIN: We'll get it on the hard steam, and then we'll do
um, 20 minutes.
I am willing to teach this native way of living and of
subsisting and it's all been brought down from my parents,
and I feel very fortunate to pass that on to someone else
of different cultures.
There you go.
Cools them off fast and, um, the meat tightens up and
it pulls off the shell.
GLYNDARIL: Oh.
Here's dinner.
MARVIN: It was a very good day you guys, I'm happy.
GLYNDARIL: Yes, it was.
MARVIN: With a little bit of trudging through the ice, we made it, and there you go.
GLYNDARIL: Thank you, Unc.
MARVIN: You tell the kids I'll stop by sometimes,
later on this evening.
(nail gun clicking).
JOEL: So, this is my last wall, I'm gonna finish, uh,
finish this up, cut the doorway out, and then
I'll pretty much be done.
Super excited to show Jacqueline.
Last thing she saw I think was just the decking.
Now we have a whole building.
Living out here, it's kinda like, different way of life,
and it makes you a little more self-reliant.
I think it's important to pass these skills on to my
daughter, Anzlie, and even to Jacqueline.
JACQUELINE: Hi, honey!
JOEL: Hey, give me one minute, I'll cut the door out,
then I'll be done.
JACQUELINE: It looks amazing!
The cache is important for us to have this winter.
It relieves a lot of stress knowing that the bears aren't
going to be able to get into our cache.
JOEL: Yeah!
JACQUELINE: Can I come up there with you?
JOEL: Yeah, come on up!
JACQUELINE: I think this way of life is important.
It's Anzlie and Joel's roots and heritage and you know,
people aren't really relying on what's around them anymore.
JOEL: Cool, huh? JACQUELINE: Yeah!
JOEL: You want my coat?
JACQUELINE: Aw.
Again, I can't believe it's done!
You've like.
JOEL: I know.
JACQUELINE: Been through so much!
JOEL: If Fred can get in here, he deserves to eat the fish.
(laughing).
JODY: This is a piece that I found in the hills back here
when I was out hunting one day.
And diamond willow is a type of willow we have
up here in Alaska.
Has a really beautiful look.
Dark color and the light color of the grain of wood,
and then these diamonds that are naturally formed.
It's just really special.
You don't see logs this big or with this beautiful
development of diamonds.
Like, this is a really unique piece.
So, I'll work on it for a while and just steadily,
cause it's such a huge piece.
There's so much beauty on this land.
And today it warmed up really nice.
It's only like zero, so it's a good day to work on this
when it's warm out.
I know that I can adapt and live and be happy
in Hawaii for instance.
But the thing that keeps me here is I'm indigenous to this
land and I have a responsibility to our people.
So our people can continue our way of life and thrive.
Years ago, when I was probably just a baby,
my grandpa carved a diamond willow cane.
You know it's just something that our people have done
through the generations.
You know one of the things that I've always reiterated to
my children, is to remember who you are.
Our people have lived here for millennia.
We've survived racism, genocide, poverty, violence,
and overcome a lot and there's still a lot more work to be done.
We don't need to do soul-searching,
we know who we are,
where we come from, and where we belong.
Captioned by Cotter Media Group.