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(grunting)
ALA: Ah, okay.
(grunting)
DANIEL: Yeah.
Woo, that was a battle.
DANIEL: Whatever we run into, whatever opportunity comes up
we'll, we'll take.
DANIEL: Ah...
Taking Chris and Ala with me today,
so hopefully we'll get something out there.
(singing in native language).
DANIEL: All our freezers are empty.
DANIEL: We can't come home empty handed.
ALA: There's more water right on the other side of this ice.
Looks like it's opening up so...
ALA: Window of opportunity.
ALA: Yeah. DANIEL: Ayveq! Walrus!
DANIEL: They're there, eh? ALA: Yeah.
DANIEL: That ice is opening up right there.
It's moving!
CHRIS: It's open!
DANIEL: We got to watch that real, real close.
TIG: Gotta plan ahead, think about tomorrow,
think about next year, think about next month,
think about what you're gonna do.
Can't just be out here living life day to day.
TIG: I'll show you guys how to drop these trees.
TERRANCE: Okay.
TIG: This is where our hand is gonna be.
All right? And then you bend your knee,
and you rest this arm on this one.
See that chainsaw's gonna go flat.
And we'll come through and do the back cut. All right?
TERRANCE: Okay.
TIG: Evan! You'll be spotter first.
Terrance, you're gonna cut first.
TERRANCE: Okay.
TIG: And I'm gonna be right there with you.
This wood yard,
it was given to me by my Uncle Charlie.
You know, a family needs a wood yard out here.
Without a wood yard,
you got no way to get any wood so this wood lot,
it's been in our family for a while now.
You know, that's how things go on.
Come here, Terry.
TERRANCE: Okay.
TIG: They get passed down from generation to generation.
Okay, go ahead.
Terrance, he's very strong, he's very smart.
When I show him stuff,
I don't have to go over it, over it, over it.
That's good!
He's able to pick up on stuff a lot faster than I was able to
when I was his age.
You're good, keep going.
TIG: Okay! Hey!
Holy.
TERRANCE: It felt nice.
TIG: All right, let's check it out.
All right, look at that, boy, that's perfect.
That is absolutely perfect.
See, that is an absolute perfect pie cut.
Now, for our second back cut we're gonna come in about a
half inch to an inch higher, flat, straight.
EVAN: A pie cut is like a, like, cutting a pie.
You go in the back and, like, use a chainsaw,
and it falls by itself.
TIG: Drop it like it's hot.
Huh?
Right now we're just trying to build them up and get their
confidence out there in the woods.
Get them confident around the chainsaw.
Stuff that these boys are gonna have to learn and
do all their life.
Every day I see a little improvement in their strength,
in their conditioning.
Their mind and soul, they're getting stronger.
They're better everyday.
I'm very proud of them.
EVAN: Falling! TIG: Falling!
Woo! Yeah, high five!
TERRANCE: Woo!
TIG: Woo! Yeah, look at that!
TERRANCE: Woo, woo, woo!
TIG: Woo! TERRANCE: Woo! Woo! EVAN: That's nice!
TIG: That's an absolute perfect cut you did.
Proud of you, good job, boy.
Good job hollering.
That was fun, man.
This is, woo, man I've been doing this out here in the
woods all by myself for how many years?
Boring, you know?
This is fun with you guys out here.
I've been missing out man.
All right boys, let's get these limbs off this tree and
get it limbed up.
Three of us together shouldn't take very long.
JUSTIN: We are Aleut here in the village.
We have a lot of good history and culture.
It's great being Alaskan native.
MARVIN: Getting the bait.
Can't beat that fresh salmon this time of the year.
Justin and I, we're gonna go out.
And do a little bit of trolling.
Are you ready?
JUSTIN: Yeah. MARVIN: All right, buddy.
What we are fishing for is king, and they are year round.
Figure we'll go out there and give it a shot,
because last year,
I think it was about this time of the year,
he caught one.
So we wanted to go and try his honey hole out again.
JUSTIN: Nice over there.
Nice looking weather.
MARVIN: Yeah, nice out here, huh?
MARVIN: There's the honey hole here, huh?
All right.
All right, here we are.
JUSTIN: Trolling is when you just tow a hook behind your skiff.
MARVIN: Here's the bait.
That's just what the kings love.
JUSTIN: Okay, ready to start fishing?
MARVIN: Okay. JUSTIN: We're all set.
MARVIN: We'll let it sit and now we just.
JUSTIN: Now you just watch and see if we can pick out
some fish and see if they come up and bite.
150 feet deep.
So, we can go a lot deeper, but we're good right now.
JUSTIN: Yeah, just right out here.
It was right at the switch of tide,
wind started picking up just like this.
MARVIN: It takes time for trolling,
you could be out there for two, three hours.
You know, it's a matter of just sitting there and
waiting for them to bite.
Pretty nice to get out, like I say,
those long nights are finally becoming shorter and
the days are getting longer.
And to get out in beautiful weather,
see different things.
Good to get out from cabin fever.
JODY: You might hear me say like,
yeah we live off the land,
but really we live with it because so much of
what we do is also caring for the land.
The land sustains us, and we care for and respect
the land and all that it carries.
Whenever I'm out on the land no matter what I'm doing.
You know, hunting, I could be running dogs.
I'm always looking for tracks of any other animals.
JODY: The rabbit tracks especially this time of year.
I'm always looking for a good place to set snares.
Right here's good.
I see fresh rabbit tracks on this rabbit trail.
It looks pretty well used,
so this is a good spot to set some snares.
Well, I'm gonna make a fire and actually make my snares
near the fire.
'Cause my hands will get really cold in 40 below,
and that could be kind of dangerous.
This might be enough.
When you're out on the land in these really bitter cold temperatures,
you just have to really play it safe and
carry all your safety equipment.
You know, I always have my matches and fire starter on me.
Something I taught my kids.
See, my hands are already getting a little cold,
so it is really important to be able to know how to make
a good quick fire out here.
Doesn't even need to be very big.
So you don't need a lot for rabbit snaring.
I actually keep some wire in my pocket.
I'm trying to make a loop with this wire that I'll be able to
hang over a rabbit trail.
It's gotta be about the size of your fist,
which is about the size of a rabbit's head.
It's gonna go through here,
it's gonna pull the wire like that.
That's how you catch the rabbit.
Well, I warmed up my hands and my snares are ready.
This is the fun part.
In Alaska, you have to do things in 40 below
without your gloves on.
I'm gonna set this snare above the rabbit trail.
So, the rabbit's gonna come hopping through here and then,
so, yeah, I learned this from my mom.
I taught my kids,
and when my kids were little they had their little rabbit snare lines,
and they'd come home just happy,
carrying their rabbits.
Hopefully a rabbit will come hopping through,
and then we'll have dinner.
I'm gonna just keep looking for really good rabbit trails to
set more snares today.
CHRIS: We have to hunt in order to eat to survive for
the next day.
All right.
DANIEL: This water has game.
We've seen a walrus in the crack of the water over there.
(whistling).
(singing in native language)
CHRIS: Ay, over there!
CHRIS: Yeah.
DANIEL: So far we've only seen walrus in the water,
nothing on the ice.
The bull walrus are hard to chase.
They stay under longer and they can go further.
DANIEL: We see walrus! ALA: Ay! Ay!
♪ ♪
DANIEL: Yeah.
DANIEL: Oh, right there, that ice right there got taken off.
DANIEL: Son of a bitch!
(Daniel groans)
Current has shifted.
DANIEL: Starting to close up a little bit right now,
so we gotta go up to the launch.
If the ice closes in on you out there,
you'd be in a bad spot.
DANIEL: One time we had 11 boats out there stuck
'cause of the ice.
Trying to keep warm, it's hard out there.
You're covered in ice, maybe get frost bitten.
It's dangerous out there.
We just had to wait til next morning to come home.
Made it through a little opening.
We got lucky.
JODY: Being out here on this land practicing my traditional way of life,
is really where I find peace, and solitude,
and joy in my heart that I can't really find anywhere else.
♪ ♪
JODY: Well I have let my snares set overnight.
So I'm here to check them and see if I got anything.
Well, nothing in this snare.
No new tracks or anything, the snare is undisturbed.
We'll just leave it, and check the rest of my snares,
see if I have any luck.
When I was a little girl, checking my rabbit snares I was
always really excited, and I think I would run the majority
of the way to my first snare.
I still kind of feel that sense of excitement, um,
going out to check my snares today even as an adult.
Uh-oh.
Snare is gone.
The stick was secured there.
So I caught something, now I gotta kinda track where
it might've gone.
'Cause those tracks are new right here,
so it took my stick with the snare on it.
Never had that really happen before.
I see fresh tracks right here,
and then that stick that I had the snare secured
to here, here, here,
and it's hopping around and making imprints in
the snow like that.
The rabbit tracks just go up here around this big tree,
but I thought it might be close up here but I see its tracks
continuing further back in the woods.
So, I'm gonna put on my snowshoes.
It's just too deep of snow to walk through.
You know, you can't just leave it with,
"Oh, he got away, bummer, walk away."
Like you have to go after it.
We have that responsibility to the animal, you know,
we respect it for giving itself.
Now I gotta go find it, and make use of it.
MARVIN: When you're out on the water, you know,
you can hear the birds, you see the wildlife.
I love this place here.
We can check that spot right there,
is that where you wanna go or...
JUSTIN: Yeah.
Just start from over there and work our way over?
Eagle there waiting to get a duck.
MARVIN: Yeah, he's watching for a duck.
JUSTIN: Big mature baldy.
MARVIN: The weather is flat calm, sun is out,
and we are going to this other spot that Justin likes to check.
Now it's a matter of putting the patience to the test.
There's a sea lion's head right there.
JUSTIN: Yep.
Whoa, there's five of them.
MARVIN: There's quite a few over there.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
There they are, they're porpoising.
That's a hell of a deal, that was alright to see.
Oh, what a beautiful day.
C'mon! King, halibut.
It would be nice to get a halibut.
Even a black bass would be nice.
As a kid growing up, there was a lot of fish back in the day.
Now, we gotta go farther away to get our salmon.
The fish is not there like it used to be.
I look at it as the management,
we got trollers up and down our bay here.
Nobody talks about the trolling industry around and
how it destroys halibut,
king crab habitat for all the bottom fish.
And it's not gonna take very much more to deplete
what we got.
Something bit the hook.
Oh yeah, we got one, we got one.
JUSTIN: Oh, it's got a little fight to it whatever he is.
Got your landing net ready?
JUSTIN: Keep as much tension.
MARVIN: Tension on this, yeah.
JUSTIN: So it has no chance to really try and shake that hook.
MARVIN: Jerk itself out?
JUSTIN: Hit 30 feet.
Okay, you ready?
MARVIN: Whoo.
JUSTIN: Here he comes! Get him right into that net.
Whoo!
MARVIN: Whoa. JUSTIN: Whoa. Oh, oh!
Get the head in there, turn him sideways.JUST,
Whoo!
MARVIN: Yeah!
JUSTIN: We got him boys! MARVIN: Look at that! Whoo!
JUSTIN: What do you think of that, Unc?
MARVIN: That's a cool one buddy.
Nailed one!
JUSTIN: This is the same exact setup that I caught
my first one on.
MARVIN: Really made my day, no crap man.
JUSTIN: King salmon, buddy. MARVIN: Yeah.
JUSTIN: So right in there, you can see underneath his
gill-plate you can see that red meat,
that's a good sign.
That is a good red meat king, not a white,
if it was all white meat like a halibut then there'd be a white king,
those are a lot oilier.
As soon as I felt him peel and drag,
that's a good sign of either halibut or a king usually caught
or pollock bass.
Good catch.
MARVIN: Mission accomplished there, buddy.
JUSTIN: Yep MARVIN: Time to head home.
TIG: There's my family inside my house and it goes to the community,
the whole Koyukon River you know,
we're all just one, big, strong family.
TERRANCE: I believe in you Evan.
Hang on tight to the chainsaw and listen to dad.
Also listen to me when I say falling!
EVAN: Okay.
TIG: Doing good boys.
EVAN: Thank you.
TIG: By the time you guys are young men,
you'll be able to build your own house.
Unless you go to college and make good money then you
can buy a house.
But ain't nothing ever gonna feel better than coming out,
getting these trees yourself and building your own house,
you know?
All right, let's do this.
I didn't wake up and know all this stuff one day, you know,
I learned from everybody.
All right, I lined you up.
My father and my grandfather.
And my children, you know,
I want them to be able to live out here in the woods.
Okay!
But if life took em to the city and they ended up living in the city
I want them to be able to thrive wherever they end up in life.
I just want them to be able to do the best that they can,
to be successful.
Whoo!
Be careful with that chainsaw.
All right, see? Here?
It looks good.
Good stuff for your first try!
Hang on to it tight!
When my son Evan was born,
doctors told us he was sick and that he wasn't
gonna make it very long.
Maybe a few months if that, of living...
Bring it this way.
To be able to see my son out here like that as a big, powerful, strong guy
not a sickness in his body.
I'm amazed and I'm very proud.
TERRANCE: Falling! TIG: Falling!
ALL: Whoo!
TIG: Yeah! Boom!
I adore every minute out here with my boys.
Sometimes I wake up and I just feel lucky.
All right, so let's get this one limbed up.
We'll buck em up, eight foot.
All right boys, this what we do!
I want a strong, healthy family.
We came from strong, healthy people.
I don't want that to end with me.
All right, good job boys!
Go home and see how proud your mama is of her big boys.
I swear man, it was just yesterday I was catching you
guys coming out from mama.
And now I'm watching you boys drop trees and haul wood
and helping me.
Time flies by real fast just, boom.
Let's go ahead and get this strapped down
and head home.
Then we'll come back for some more.
JODY: I think everything that we have is gifted from Creator.
And you know the land provides for us so we have to care
for the land in return.
JODY: Gettin really, kinda hard to walk around here.
I'm still following these rabbit tracks we kinda of made
it like halfway up the mountain.
I gotta ditch my snowshoes and go by foot.
I'm starting to see predator sign like,
some sort of nicely clawed animal following the rabbit track.
Over here looks like predator claws.
I gotta keep going before it gets dark.
Well, it went this way.
Oh, man.
I see his tracks,
including the stick going down this way and it's pretty thick
in there so I'm hoping it finally got stopped up.
Wish I had a sled right now.
I'm glad to see I'm still on his trail.
Looks like something went down in this hole.
Whoa!
JODY: I don't see anything.
Like that rabbit just disappeared down here.
I can't believe this.
I don't like doing that to animals.
I feel pretty bad.
But I'm gonna keep going there's a few tracks down here
I don't know if it's my rabbit, I mean they ended here,
so I see something down there I'm gonna go check it out.
You know, I may be a hunter but, you know,
these animals we take for a purpose and just super
important out here to treat those animals with respect.
That's kinda bad luck for me.
That's not a good way to treat our brothers and sisters
on this land.
Oh, man.
I put in really good effort,
followed that rabbit until I lost
its trail completely.
I feel bad, so I'm just ready to go home.
JUSTIN: Be a good hunter and gatherer,
be successful and if not,
just overcome and believe you're gonna do it
the next time.
MARVIN: Pretty heavy, huh?
That's a nice thick fish there, buddy.
All right, they're cool like that.
Quite the fish.
How are you gonna cook that, Justy?
JUSTIN: I don't know, I was thinking I might barbecue it.
Or deep fry it, maybe a little bit of both.
MARVIN: That alone is a $100 meal.
The reward is gonna be greater now that we got it and,
Justin's a good cook.
At the end of the day when you got that all cooked,
little bit of snow, was no problem,
didn't take no time,
but all the reward is when we get to sit down and
eat with the family and have all the good treats of your harvest.
JUSTIN: Yep. MARVIN: Yeah.
Yeah. I'm ready.
Hey, let's come sit, wanna sit with me and eat?
All the native food like seal, fish,
everything that we eat, these babies eat.
Happy to see that.
That fish was so good your dad caught.
TIG: I know that the harshness of this country,
from learning from our elders and our ancestors,
we learned how to make this a habitable country.
Oh, yeah.
This is the biggest one we've got in the wood yard right here.
How you guys feel about taking turns and helping me cut it?
EVAN: This will be fun. TERRANCE: Yeah.
TIG: Do this as a family. We'll get this down together.
Building confidence in a young man out here, you know,
just going out and doing these types of work with me,
seeing me do it and accomplish it.
See that's an old one, that's for sure.
Been here before us, before my parents.
How long you think it's been here?
TERRANCE: Probably a century. TIG: Think so?
Can you even put your arms around it?
TERRANCE: Gonna give it a hug goodbye.
TIG: Yeah. TERRANCE: Bye, old friend.
TIG: Hug goodbye and welcome it to our new addition
onto the house.
TERRANCE: Yup.
TIG: Yeah.
TERRANCE: Gonna be part of our family now.
TIG: Yeah. It's gonna be a good house.
We'll all get it done.
Sound good?
BOTH: Yeah. TIG: All right.
Terry.
Family is everything out here.
I do a lot of this stuff by myself,
and now that I brought 'em out here,
I'm seeing my boys drop trees.
TERRANCE: Take it off safety.
TIG: Now this is amazing,
it's opened up a whole new world to me.
Get that axe and hack this, with the backside.
Yup, right.
Whoo!
Terrance.
Keep an eye on it Evan!
Now I know it's a lot of fun having my sons with me.
Evan!
All right.
Not too much now, we're getting close.
I spent so many years learning and now it's time for me to
take all this knowledge that I spent learning and
pass it on to my children.
All right.
You guys, heads up now, bringing it down!
BOTH: Falling!
TIG: Oh, (bleep)!
ALL: Whoo!
TIG: Falling!
Whoo!
Ow!
EVAN: Woo-woo, woo-woo!
TIG: Three of us got this down no problem,
exactly where we wanted it to go.
You guys see? You listen to me, you guys.
Watch what I do, you guys learn this stuff,
you guys are gonna be dropping trees in no time.
Before we know it,
we'll be sending you out on your own.
You boys go get us some wood.
All right, boys, let's get it limbed up.
Whoo!
EVAN: Whoo, whoo!
TIG: It's a learning experience for all of us out here.
Learning their capabilities and their limits,
and they're definitely surprising me,
they're stronger than I thought they were.
They're tough kids.
I got it marked out at a ten-foot right here.
We're gonna get a lot out of this one tree.
Anything that's not usable, will go into the wood stove,
you know, just gonna use everything.
This is just the start of it.
Eventually, we're gonna start building houses and cabins,
getting a lot done out here in the woods.
I've been waiting years and years,
couldn't wait until my two sons were old enough
to be out here in the woods helping me.
No monkeying around.
All right. Think we're set, boys.
I don't think ain't no kids your age ever dropped
a tree like this.
Hell, a lot of men my age probably ain't never
a dropped that big.
You guys did good today, man.
I'm proud of you, boys.
JODY: Being on the Yukon, I feel closest to my ancestors,
our way of life and culture and also my identity.
There's a lot of important values and lessons in the
way that we live.
JODY: Well, I feel pretty bummed out,
my spirit is down because I made a mistake and
caused some animal some suffering so,
I just feel really bad about it.
JODY: So, I'm just gonna smudge and try to, you know,
re-center myself.
Indigenous people practice smudging when we pray.
I think prayer is just so important,
no matter what your belief is and where you come from,
Creator is always listening.
We use animals for a purpose, you know,
to feed our families and, you know,
it's in our culture to really take care of those animals too.
I feel like I failed.
I think there's things that we can always learn from mistakes.
This is something that I won't ever forget.
So when I have grandkids and we teach them how to set snares,
like, this will be an important part of their lesson.
Kind of have to move forward in the best way that I can.
DANIEL: Subsistence is very important out here in the village.
Everybody is depending on each other.
That's the only way we survive out here.
DANIEL: Yesterday, lots of walrus nearby,
looking out in the binoculars, so gonna go check it out.
Catching sea mammals is our way of life.
It's been like this for hundreds of years.
♪ ♪
DANIEL: Just seen a couple walrus, in the water.
ALA APASENGAQ: How many of them?
Like three of them in there.
DANIEL: They can stay under quite a bit.
The bull walrus can stay under more than a half hour sometimes.
(gunshot)
DANIEL: Come on!
(gunshots)
CHRIS: We got him. All right.
ALA APASENGAQ: The right side!
CHRIS: Ah, (bleep)!
CHRIS: (bleep). Missed!
ALA APASENGAQ: Okay.
DANIEL: You know, you gotta be very precise in your harpooning.
It's a lot of pressure at times.
There's a lot of people relying on you, family members,
pretty much the whole village.
Gotta make sure, you know, you finish it off good.
CHRIS: (bleep).
DANIEL: Hey!
CHRIS: Okay!
DANIEL: If you have a walrus on a harpoon line, you know,
you gotta be very cautious that the walrus come back alive
and start pulling.
I've heard of one person losing a finger,
he didn't know it.
He didn't even feel it.
One of his brothers seen it.
You know, "Hey, your thumb is gone."
CHRIS: Almost there.
(speaking in native language).
ALA: We're gonna tie it up.
CHRIS: All right. I got it, I got it.
CHRIS: All right.
ALA: We're gonna be towing this walrus home,
we're gonna pull it up, and we're gonna work on it.
Hopefully, a bunch of people come out to get a taste.
Eat something fresh.
♪ ♪
DANIEL: We're gonna pull the walrus up with the help
of all these people.
Everybody grab a rope!
Uuwik!
(speaking in native language)
(speaking in native language).
DANIEL: Everybody's there at the beach.
They're taking home what they can.
(speaking in native language).
DANIEL: Makes me happy that they come down and get a share
of some walrus.
And, you know, it makes me happy.
You know, it's been a very slow season this year,
that's the first walrus.
I know they're don't have too much food in their freezer.
You know, helping each other out,
carrying on the Yup'ik tradition.
Been going on for generations.
It's who we are,
it's what we eat, it's what we do.
Gotta give it back to mother nature.
It gave itself up as food,
in respect, you're giving it back.
So that's what I'm trying to follow in my heart.
JODY: All of our individual tribes we have values that we live by,
that really lead us in life.
MARVIN: I was brought up on respecting our land.
LOUISE: Sharing has been taught to us since we were little,
it's passed on throughout each generation.
TIG: There's no greater way to honor your elders than
living a traditional lifestyle out here.
Respecting the land, respecting the animals,
the way they taught us.
DANIEL: I feel better that everybody's eating.
This, uh, way of life. I hope it goes on forever.
Captioned by Cotter Media Group.