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JODY: Dogs were placed here in this cold country by Creator.
Our people traveled the country by dog team for generations.
My great grandparents had a dog team, my grandparents,
my parents, and now I do.
It's a tradition and a part of our culture.
We live on these lands, we understand the animals.
These dogs are made for this environment
just like our people.
(theme music playing).
JODY: Let's go!
I'm trying to gauge the conditions of the trail that
take us to the Yukon River Bridge,
or the Haul Road that could eventually take us to Fairbanks.
This winter, we've had a lot of snow and wind and there's been
times where this trail didn't exist because of the conditions.
And so, you know, it's important to keep this
trail open because it's our lifeline,
our connection to help if we need it.
DANIEL: Chris is stepping up to be the next hunter in our family.
I'm passing it down to the next generation.
It's his time.
CHRIS: I'm gonna be targeting my gun before I go out hunting.
Want to make sure it's zeroed in before we head out.
I don't want to be missing the animal.
People have been saying there's a reindeer that come
over the, the side of the mountain that's like 20 miles down and...
Probably gives a better chance to get reindeer
while they're closer.
It's, uh, one bullet in the chamber for now and, uh,
get ready to shoot.
(gunshot)
CHRIS: Yeah, it's not all about luck, you know.
It's all about the skill and the work you put into the hunting.
(gunshot)
CHRIS: And, uh, it's kind of hard to hold still.
Kinda wish my dad was coming along, you know.
He's getting pretty old there.
He's been staying home.
He had a heart attack last fall, but we have to get big game.
Basically, I'm the only one that has to go out all the time.
(gunshot)
CHRIS: Yeah that, uh...
CHRIS: Hopefully, it'll be a good day to go out and,
and bring home some reindeer.
MARVIN: Trying to be rich is a terrible feeling.
Because on the same wavelength, you're poor.
I just learned to become humble.
Just be very happy out here.
MARVIN: Beautiful day to go and get some wood.
Oh, good morning there, Justin.
I see you're all prepared, ready to go there.
JUSTIN: Yeah. Ready for our adventure.
MARVIN: My nephew Justin, he's a very big help.
He is a very good provider for his family.
JUSTIN: Little bit cold, but.
MARVIN: Yeah, it's a lot of cold.
(laughs)
We were dressed for this buddy.
You ready?
JUSTIN: Yup.
MARVIN: Hurry up and go on a calm day.
Winter is here and we do need wood to be prepared for
the next cold snap.
Otherwise, you will be without heat.
It's very hard living in a remote community because of
lack of resources out here.
Got a good beach there, we roll up right down the beach.
MARVIN: Justin? JUSTIN: It is 12:30.
MARVIN: We live by the tide out here because
the water is our highway.
That tide table out here is our bible.
Right there.
See, a log right up here in the grass here.
See in these last few days ago here we had these big tides?
JUSTIN: Mm-hmm.
MARVIN: And you can see how far out they are in,
inland from the beach.
The big tides play a big factor on where the wood ends up.
Everything that we gotta haul is off the beach.
(knocking)
Just cut that into sections and that's all night burners there.
JUSTIN: Oh, yeah.
I could tell a good logs by the sound and tapping on it.
(knocking)
That's the sound we look for.
(knocking)
Nice good ring.
(knocking)
MARVIN: Yeah, that's a cottonwood.
Good for smoked salmon in the summer.
JUSTIN: Whoa. MARVIN: There you go.
There's to youth, right there.
Juti, you're a good man.
My family still practices native ways of subsisting.
It's a little too big to lift and too flat to roll.
I'm very happy that I can teach the way I was taught.
JUSTIN: Usually, we'll be getting bigger logs we can't pack and
tow them off the beach.
MARVIN: Struggle of getting wood but,
they say all the little bit at the end will add up
for a good cold snap to come.
Lot of little bit and a lot a lot at the end.
You good to go?
JUSTIN: Yup.
(laughs)
TIG: The Koyukuk River feeds us,
it's our bloodline to our culture.
River water flows in our blood that's part of us.
TIG: You guys freezing yet?
If you guys are getting cold, wiggle!
(laughter)
TIG: Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!
Gotta do a penguin run.
(laughter)
Come on!
All right, how about we get a fire going?
Enough monkeying around,
gosh darn-it.
This time of the year, the weather's typically dropped down
to 60, 70 below.
The kids are getting pretty rambunctious,
they're tearing up the house pretty bad.
So today, I'd like to get out.
We don't got any fish left in our stockpile of food.
So, try see if we can jig out a couple burbot.
Up here we call 'em lush.
You girls warmed up a little bit?
This fire going good?
HAZEL: Yeah.
TIG: There's work to be done and you lazy little kids just
sitting around, soaking up the warm air.
(laughter)
Leaving no warm air for me.
Whoo!
Fishing, it's a big part of our culture,
it's something that we've always done.
Nowadays, we've got augers.
It's the 21st century.
Technology comes along, we move along, too.
I have mad respect for our elders,
our forefathers that would come out here and
get this stuff done with an icepick.
That's backbreaking hard work.
They were a lot tougher.
That was just the way of life back then.
What would normally take my ancestors and elders an hour to
punch through this three and a half feet of ice,
I just got done in less than a minute.
All right.
Get your fishing poles.
I lucked out and your auntie sent me some fishing gear.
I told her the kids wanna go ice fishing,
so your auntie went ahead and bought us some fishing gear.
Say, "Thank you, auntie."
SOPHIE: Thank you, auntie.
TIG: I need something, I can't just go to the store and buy it.
It's gotta be out of the city.
Which hook you want?
HAZEL: That one.
TIG: I've been fishing since I was a little guy.
My late grandma Hazel used to take me down
to the river and, uh,
we'd do a lot of this right here, lush fishing.
You know, I was a real mischief kid and so they had to
keep me out in the woods and keep me active.
Every day, I could not wait to get out of school and
go down and check my lush hooks.
All right, all right.
Who's ready to fish, huh?
ALL: Me, me!
TIG: Little Ann Marie?
As pretty as can be!
Let's see how deep you are.
Right there, right there.
Okay, who's next?
You remember?
TIG: As a kid, when we'd fish, the elders always told us this
saying that's in Denaakk'e, our native language.
(singing central Denaakk'e language)
And that's just saying bite my hook, bite my hook.
All right, Amiya, my pretty little fisher.
Bounce around, sing your song.
TIG: These types of fish, they like to stay right along the bottom.
AMIYA: Oh, I got one! TIG: What?
oh no!
No!
AMIYA: It's a big one! TIG: It was huge!
It almost pulled me back.
We know they're out here, huh?
Yeah!
That might have been a pike maybe,
how it snapped your line so fast.
You felt it tugging?
AMIYA: Mm-hmm. TIG: Oh, my goodness.
HAZEL: Oh! TIG: What's up?
HAZEL: I got one!
It took my bait! It took my bait, Dad!
TIG: It took your bait already?
HAZEL: Yup. TIG: I think I've got an idea.
And I don't have no leader, but we're gonna make one.
I hadn't expected to catch any pike.
Well burbot, they don't got no teeth,
grayling got no teeth, pike snapped the line.
So, I just twisted up some of this snare wire.
I hope this works.
But, I don't see why not.
Right here, Amiya.
Let's see if you can get him again.
You gotta sing your song.
AMIYA: Okay.
(singing central Denaakk'e language)
TIG: Stand over here.
(singing central Denaakk'e language)
TIG: Fishing is very important to us.
We gotta have variety of vitamins in our diet.
Right now, we don't have any fish supply in our freezer at all.
We do go through tough times, we do get a little bit hungry.
Our freezer does run a little low at times,
but we stay persistent, and we try hard.
We're out there, we don't let stuff get us down.
(singing central Denaakk'e language)
TIG: Well, that sun went behind the hill again.
We gotta get going.
I'm gonna set these hooks real quick and a nice,
hungry lush will come by.
Gobble that right up, I hope.
Set these overnight hooks, just gonna let time do its thing.
I caught many, many, many lush this exact same way right here.
(singing central Denaakk'e language)
DANIEL: It's a beautiful thing that your children are learning
how to survive out in that environment.
Something that you passed down to them.
DANIEL: Yeah, we're pretty much gonna put that back on.
Nail it on a couple places.
And, uh, it'll be, uh, running in no time.
Our sled broke down.
We're gonna fix it up so, uh, Chris can use it
for our reindeer hunting.
Hopefully, he'll catch game.
DANIEL: Only option is to go, uh, deer hunting.
Go right here.
Right there, just secure it on.
DANIEL: And it's hard on our snow machines and sleds.
We have to maintain our sleds after each trip.
Almost.
I've, uh, had my, uh, health issues a little bit kind of affect my, uh, hunting.
Chris is, uh, stepping up to the plate.
DANIEL: There's no manual that you follow out there.
DANIEL: Ready to rock?
(grunts)
JODY: Walking with beauty means walking with dignity and
respect not just for yourself,
but also for the land and for others.
(engine starts)
JAMEY: I'm just trying to thaw the fuel system I believe
there's ice in the lines is what it is.
In these colder temperatures you have mechanical breakdowns,
mostly moisture, frost.
Jody's gonna go ahead and go down to the bridge by dog team,
just to check the trail out 'cause we had some wind,
so there's more than likely there's some drifts.
Gotta have that trail open, that is our lifeline and
today it's gonna be by dog team.
More reliable.
JODY: The dogs are looking really great.
Really strong, pulling hard.
I just prefer traveling with dogs rather than machines.
Good dogs!
JAMEY: Think I got enough heat to it.
See what happens here.
(engine revving)
Negative.
(generator stops)
Uh-oh. One thing after another.
Huh.
What's going on with this one?
(generator starts)
(generator stops)
Hmm.
(generator starts)
(generator stops)
Now, I gotta bring this one inside.
JODY: In these cold temperatures,
machines typically start to seize up.
But my dogs are dependable.
Just up ahead, I can now see the Yukon River Bridge,
which is the kind of the road to resources,
it's the road that goes north of Fairbanks.
It'd be tough going if something happened and
the trail wasn't put in.
Whoa.
Made it down here to the bridge.
Dogs looking good.
We've already traveled quite a ways and
they're just all rearing to go still,
so I'm just gonna switch some dogs around,
try dogs in different positions.
All right, stay.
Vampire.
(barking)
Hey, come here.
(grunts)
Hey, Vampire!
pire, co!
Good boy. Good boy.
These dogs are just really dependable.
I'm not a snow-go person,
and the machinery is giving us problems.
I mean, that machine could fail, but these dogs,
they're not gonna fail me.
(engine revving)
JAMEY: Come on.
(engine revving)
Nope, frozen.
Equipment just doesn't work at these temps.
Things are just gonna break,
break down on you.
The air intake will clog up with frost and it's just an ongoing problem,
so it's nice to have a backup.
JODY: All right, let's go!
Hard to beat days like this.
JAMEY: Just trying to get this thing warmed up,
so another solution, cover it up
and try to get some of that heat in there.
Bush ingenuity is working with what you have, on hand.
You know, with these elements,
living out here, you see what the, what works and what doesn't.
JODY: Good dogs.
Fills my heart being out here with dogs.
This tradition goes back a long time, generations.
Growing up, we've always heard a lot of stories of how people
did things in the old ways and
how they had success by certain practices.
Let's go!
JAMEY: Lot of heat in there now, 15 minutes now and, uh,
we're gonna give it another shot, see what happens.
My finger's crossed.
Come on baby.
(engine revving)
Uh, she's starting to fire now.
(engine revving)
Wants to.
Little bit longer.
(engine revving)
(engine starts)
Yeah, that did it.
Yup.
Little bush ingenuity goes a long way out here and, uh,
I'm ready to go for the day.
JODY: The Yukon River is glorious as ever.
Our people have been traveling this river by dog team for generations.
These machines do break down and, you know,
people have really struggled over the years with
snow machines breaking down out in the middle of nowhere
with no help around.
Heaven forbid anything happen, but should we need to get to
the road in an emergency and not have a snow machine,
these dogs are more than capable and the trail was awesome, so,
I just feel like these dogs are, you know,
just such a safe bet.
(barking)
TIG: At the end of the day, if we stay true to our culture and
our heritage, we'll be blessed with whatever we need.
TIG: All right, girls.
Hope we catch some burbot over the night.
We better hurry up and get dressed quick and
get out of the house.
It is warm in here, and if we sit in here too long
all bundled up, we're gonna start sweating.
If we start sweating once we go outside,
we're just gonna get cold just like that.
You gotta make sure you're bundled up good.
It's 65 below out there.
By the time we're done fishing, it's gonna be 70 below again.
Not a whole lot of people can say they come out and
enjoy 60, 70 below.
But if you dress up warm and you plan ahead,
you can go out and get some stuff done.
You ready?
AMIYA: Yeah.
TIG: Hey, how are you gonna see what you're doing?
The kids get sick and tired of being stuck inside.
The cold temperatures doesn't scare them, you know.
They're all pumped up, gearing to go.
That's scarves, sweaters, everything?
GIRLS: Yeah. TIG: All right.
You don't forget nothing now.
AMIYA: Yup. TIG: There's no coming back.
Once we're out there, we're out there.
(laughs)
(thudding)
Oh, yeah, not too thick.
Feeling light.
Oh, man, look at that.
It got all spooled up.
Well I hope there's something on this other one.
Oh, man!
HAZEL: Whoa. TIG: Even wore the line out.
See where the, this connected?
HAZEL: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIG: Spun it around until it took our hook.
Gah! We got close!
Something took that one.
Let's hope he never took this one.
Ah, nope.
Every time I set these hooks,
I'm almost guaranteed to have a lush, so,
a little bit of a letdown that we didn't catch nothing.
But, as long as everybody's smiling, laughing,
having fun, we're all right.
You girls know I got this pick from my late brother.
One time when I was a kid, I was watching my brother trip
the ice hole.
His gloves were all iced up like this, see?
And he couldn't hang on to the pick anymore.
So that crazy guy took his gloves off,
and pretty soon, his whole ice hole was about
as red as baby Sophie's jacket.
His hands got all blistered up and bleeding.
He was tough, you know.
He said, "I'm not done with my hole.
I started something, I'm gonna finish it."
That's just the mindset he had, you know.
He was a big influence on my life.
Well, why not do a little bit more jigging?
We're not giving up yet.
CHRIS: There's nothing really to hunt from the sea.
We gotta go out into the land and provide food for
a lot people that can't do things for themselves, you know.
A lot of hungry people.
(gusting winds)
CHRIS: Ah, the weather is, uh, blowing like 20 knots at least.
Hope it doesn't get any worse.
Looking for reindeer today.
Scope around a little bit, try to see if I could, uh,
see game from here.
First, uh, high point, good to, uh, look around.
Yeah, I don't see, uh, anything from here.
Might as well, uh, go to the next point.
CHRIS: So, uh, got to go look for, uh, some other source of food.
All right.
Growing up, I used to be, uh, the only hunter in my class.
I do it 'cause I feel a responsibility that has to be
carried on in our generation.
If that doesn't happen, who's gonna do it?
CHRIS: Holy (bleep).
(laughs)
I see reindeer over there!
CHRIS: Look like they are tired a little bit already from running.
♪ ♪
(gunshot)
♪ ♪
CHRIS: Yay! All right.
CHRIS: I always, uh, thank God, you know,
when I get animals 'cause that's number one thing I basically do.
I pray and ask for game from the Creator of the animals.
CHRIS: My parents are gonna be real happy that I got a deer.
DANIEL: Out in our village, you know,
they need to learn at an early age to do the subsistence lifestyle.
Almost every household has that one child that goes out
all the time.
It'll help the community, families.
All right!
CHRIS: Yeah. DANIEL: All right.
Let's do this!
Hunting these animals, you know, they feed us,
they give us energy,
and you've got to give much respect.
MARVIN: You will always come upon a snag that you've
already snagged before.
But don't give up, it's just a snag.
You're free.
MARVIN: Well, good morning, Justin,
and look like we're gonna have a good day.
See if we can get a little bit more wood here.
We got a lot of snow out here.
JUSTIN: Yeah, hopefully we'll be able to see the logs underneath the snow.
Shouldn't be too bad.
MARVIN: Yeah.
It's been cold for like three, four days since we got wood.
Winter is unpredictable around here.
One minute, it could be blowing ten miles an hour,
let's go, we got time.
Within a half an hour, it can be blowing 50 miles an hour.
Ready?
JUSTIN: Yup.
MARVIN: It's all due to the weather.
(singing in native language)
MARVIN: So we can only go through this channel
right here, Juti, at, um,
high water.
JUSTIN: Who taught you this pass?
MARVIN: My dad.
Growing up, my dad, he used to take me out in the skiff.
My dad taught me a lot of ways, how to make it happen.
But I'm happy the tide is high.
We can still see 'em.
JUSTIN: Yeah, they ain't too covered up.
MARVIN: So I feel very fortunate to show these younger generations.
(thudding)
Oh, man, nice and crunchy.
A lot of family and friends...
Hear that?
Still rely on gettin' wood.
Yeah, we can throw this one back, Justin.
This is a good one.
It is a very important part of our way of living.
I know it's pretty cold so far this winter,
and I just wanted to be ahead of not freezing.
Tide's still coming, we'll go run over there to the mountains
and check really quick, and see if we can get one over there.
JUSTIN: Okay.
Grab this on our way back.
MARVIN: Tide has changed pretty dramatically out there,
and we don't not get the wood where we used to get it,
and now we gotta go a little farther.
Got a couple pieces right here we could look at.
We'll just pull it up right here, Juti.
That is a little more intense because of how far you gotta go
from the village for the safety sake.
This piece is nice, put it right in the skiff.
(thudding)
Watch out, they're quite,
very slippery.
Let's go look at that other log over there and
see if we could do the same thing.
If not, we'll just, whoa,
watch out buddy, pretty slippery.
It is dangerous where we get wood of because
it's not always beach and gravel.
It's rocks and boulders, and there's where the danger
is because of the slipping.
Oh, it's too heavy to lift here, buddy.
We'll just have to pull this one out.
It's so much easier because of the ice.
JUSTIN: Mm-hmm. MARVIN: And the high tide.
We got to take it a little easier today.
I'll just grab our line.
Because I thought I was still strong and rolling those logs,
it took a little toll on my back.
It's a lot easier to get the line,
then bang it around those rocks.
We'll just throw the rocks when I go out, okay?
JUSTIN: Okay.
MARVIN: Go ahead and just tie up here, Justin,
and I'll just put this over here like this.
Oh!
MARVIN: Oh! JUSTIN: You okay?
MARVIN: That's what I was afraid of,
and I didn't wanna tumble that way, buddy, that's why.
And I was even barely doing anything and I wiped out.
(laughs)
Where you're at, you don't just get up and walk to the clinic.
Out here's a medevac, you gotta get a coast guard out here
if you get hurt.
Stumblelina.
Safety is something you pay close attention to.
JUSTIN: That went smooth.
It came right down.
MARVIN: I'm happy with nobody got hurt.
This is not gonna tow too good.
Might be easier if we can get it in the skiff.
Okay, hold on, let me get that.
Right there, okay.
(sighs)
Good job, Juti.
Yeah, we got one more log over there, Juti.
Every day we go out, maybe bring one piece of wood back.
And when the cold snap comes, you'll have ten pieces,
instead of trying to go get it all at once,
and then hurry, hurry.
JUSTIN: It's all clear.
Looks like we broke it.
MARVIN: It's not gonna stop me from taking it because
it's a very dry piece of wood.
We'll just tow 'em with the two pieces of rope.
Okay?
JUSTIN: Yup.
MARVIN: You know, we're on our downhill stretch here, buddy.
Flat calm, beautiful weather.
We can enjoy the ride home.
We got the main part done.
(laughs)
JODY: You go in any community, you see native women juggling
a lot, but handling it with so much grace and love.
I'm definitely proud to be a part of
a very strong native woman collective.
(singing in native language)
JODY: How much further down do you want this?
(singing in native language)
JODY: I like that I think.
Be good, okay.
I'm gonna do a traditional tattoo for Jamey.
These tattoos represent our identity,
and our connection with our culture,
our way of life, and our land.
So traditionally, our people use bone needles,
but today in modern times,
I'm hand poking with a sterilized needle.
Come closer. I need that arm.
I need you like right in my space.
JAMEY: Here? JODY: There we go.
Closer the better, babe.
One of the first things that missionaries did was ban this
practice along with ceremonies.
And, you know, it was a, a big cultural loss to our people is
the traditional tattooing.
And lately there's been Alaskan native women from
different tribes reclaiming their identity,
and reclaiming, um, our tattoo culture.
But are you okay?
JAMEY: Yeah. JODY: Are you comfortable?
JAMEY: Yeah, I'm good. JODY: Okay.
For our people, young girls, when they became women,
got chin tattoos as a rite of passage into
another stage of life or achievement or milestone.
Men got tattoos on their joints,
represented good health, staying strong, being warriors.
Which my husband is.
JAMEY: We recently went to, uh, the Anasazi Ruins,
and I saw not exactly this symbol,
but I saw a symbol on, on the wall,
and it kinda like spoke to me.
Like a medicine wheel and a line of water through it.
It's like a representation of reflection.
JODY: It's really cool when you meet an elder that says,
"Oh, my Grandma had these tattoos.
I remember seeing them."
You know, and how it just uplifts their heart to see someone else wearing them.
And I think it's good medicine when our people reclaim
our identity of who we always were, without feeling shame.
It's really amazing.
I'm glad to be a part of it.
TIG: I know someday I'm gonna be all withered down and worn out,
and I don't wanna have to look back and say,
"Man, I wish I did more."
♪ ♪
AMIYA: No, I still never got one.
TIG: It's very important for us that we get this fish.
For thousands of years,
fish and salmon have been a staple of our diet.
Amiya, I think you're gonna have to do it.
You're better than me. Say...
(singing central Denaakk'e language)
Hey! Pull, pull!
Oh, whoo!
(laughs)
TIG: Holy smokes, baby!
We got the pro with us.
That's a good pike!
TIG: Whoo, look at that!
Good job!
Amiya, she's my lucky little girl.
Last fall, she'd done the same things.
I dropped the hook in the water, I turned around,
and instantly, "Daddy, I got one!"
Those fish like her, that's why I say she's my professional fisher.
They feel her luck.
We did it, baby.
Success!
JUSTIN: Totem pole.
(laughs)
MARVIN: Out here, you have to, um,
prepare for winter.
The wood is a community thing.
You got it?
And it's really nice when we get together and
help each other.
JUSTIN: Looks like we've got at least four or five
for your sister, Auntie Sandra.
MARVIN: Yeah. Oh, yeah, Auntie Sandra will be happy.
I love to help people, and that's what I'm trying to
instill in him, because we need to help our family,
especially winter time.
JUSTIN: It felt good to go and get the wood for my Auntie Sandra,
because she doesn't have a skiff to get out and do it.
MARVIN: Out here, times change,
but the way of living hasn't.
All right.
And we still need each other.
We'll just offload these right here for Auntie Sandra.
It ain't the best looking wood,
but it's gonna burn.
Whew.
If I can offer a good gesture or
help somebody in a kind way, I'm happy.
That's it.
Well, look like we got enough for a cold snap.
Good job, Juti.
DANIEL: Mouthwatering food right there.
(growls)
SUSAN: I have potatoes, carrots, and then the meat right here is
freshly caught reindeer by my son, Chris.
To have my grandson here and both my boys and my husband,
you know, to eat something freshly caught by our children
is a, a big blessing.
I'm just so happy today.
CHRIS: The food is, uh,
number one thing.
I'm excited to pass that experience down to my boy.
(praying in native language).
DANIEL: An animal gives itself to you.
And, you know, it's a beautiful, humbling moment.
They have given us life.
I'm very thankful for that.
SUSAN: Amen. DANIEL: Mmm, dig in.
DANIEL: Passing that torch to my boys it, uh,
makes me happy and sad at the same time.
It's gonna be their time now, and hopefully,
they'll follow my footprints out there.
Having the whole family here is, uh, you know,
make that dinner, uh, much more delicious.
Been a rough winter.
To have something fresh like this is a, is a blessing.
I guess if you survived and lived with what you have,
it's always gonna be there in your heart.
I don't know how else to put it.
Home is where the heart is.
(singing in native language).
TIG: Was that hard work going out and getting this fish, girls?
Huh? Or was that fun?
HAZEL: Fun. TIG: Really?
SOPHIE: Yeah. TIG: It was 65 below out.
Are you guys crazy?
All ready.
So, yeah, we got this fish nice and boiled up.
Next step is to let this cool,
and then we squeeze the water out.
There's a real delicacy in our native culture called
Indian ice cream.
See, it's nice and flaky now.
Mmm.
These girls have been out and they sat in this cold weather,
so now, good little reward for their hard work.
Got the little ones working together,
these little ones are learning how to do this stuff.
They don't realize that they're sitting down learning,
they're just having fun.
GIRL: Yummy.
(laughs)
TIG: We caught this fish from our land,
we picked the berries from our land, it's all natural.
Except for the lard that we're gonna be using in it.
I could definitely see how some people might be hungry in this country,
but you work hard, you listen,
you learn, you eat good,
you live good, you're healthy.
We ready?
So this is the finished product.
And now look, that's one pike, one little itty-bitty pike.
This is our ice cream.
This is Indian ice cream.
TIG: In Inupiaq, it's akutaq.
TIG: My honey and the kids made a cobbler this morning.
That is the last of our blueberries and salmonberries.
Stuff like this, going out doing ice fishing,
these kids are never gonna forget it.
You gotta think of life as a book and every day is a new page.
At the end of the day, what are you gonna have to write down?
This is their culture.
They know who they are and where they came from.
ALL: Thank you, God.
Thank you, dad!
TIG: You guys are welcome.
And we got to thank this one, this is the.
EVAN: Oh, thank you, Amiya!
TIG: This is because of her, we're eating fish.
She's the one that got us this fish.
JODY: How's it feel, babe?
You know, it's nice knowing that,
you know, we don't always need machines.
We don't always need gasoline or fuel.
We can still go back to the old ways,
and take care of our family.
Do art, cut firewood.
I mean, we have all these other means of
taking care of each other.
Well, I think I'm pretty much done.
You happy with it, babe?
JAMEY: Yes. JODY: Good.
JAMEY: Yeah, I like it.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
JODY: Cutie.
You know, we're really strong people that come
from generations and generations of strong ancestors,
and family, and tribes.
So, I feel like as indigenous Alaskans, you know, we're a powerhouse.
Captioned by Cotter Media Group.