The Last Woodsmen (2024) s01e03 Episode Script
Back from the Dead
1
Last week,
over a million dollars
in debt,
Jared fought to turn
a pair of old yarders
into a desperately needed
payday
Come on, baby.
yeah. Touchdown!
while
fallers Jim and Rob struggle
to bring down some big trees
for the next log barge.
- Something's up.
- Wrong way.
- Wrong way.
- Oh, man.
But
when Jared discovered
even more massive timber,
he took an even bigger gamble.
Going in the hole
another 600,000
to get this camp started is
a big risk.
Last guy that operated
in Grizzly River,
he went broke.
Welcome to hell, boys.
This is it.
Now, Jared's taking
the biggest risk
of his career
This is.
$250,000 crew boat
up a river.
to keep
the family business alive.
Way more shallow
than I thought it would be.
- Camp?
- No.
This is a point of no return.
While float camp
faces a daunting move
Hugging is
pure terror.
You have to be
very experienced.
It just takes one little thing
to throw a loop
into the whole plan.
bound
for richer logging grounds.
That jack's lost PSI.
Thing's
right on the verge
of wanting to go.
Let's go!
Yes, sir?
Dana, come in here,
I gotta talk to you too.
How you doing?
- Good. You?
- Yeah.
No. I'm stressed out.
You are? Why?
Since I've owned
my logging camp,
I have never missed a move.
With
a $1.7 million debt to pay
by the end of the season
and only $149,000 saved
so far,
Jared's not looking back
and taking his float camp
even deeper
into the wilderness,
10 miles down the inlet,
chasing the hard-to-get
to high-dollar wood.
Usually,
I'm here to manage it.
So, like,
that's the major thing.
His crew is
already moving
timber out there.
And with the next log barge
arriving in just a week,
Jared can't afford
to keep boating them to camp
and back every day.
So he's taking the camp
to the crew
and charging his top foreman
to get it done.
I can't be everywhere
at once,
so I'm saddling Ross up
for the challenge
of moving Float Camp
to McCurdy Creek.
McCurdy gets so shallow off
the end of that dock
So we've got to hold up
the camp back a bit.
And you've got to make sure
that you're away
from those pilings.
I think that piling
actually has collapsed,
it's half sticking
out of the water now.
Okay.
Inlets can be tricky.
We have outflows
and inflow winds.
There's rocks and rapids.
And if this barge hits
the rocks,
it could open like a tin can.
It could be all over for me.
All right. Well, you guys are
on your own then.
Don't wreck my camp,
'cause that'll be
"Company Over" for Jared.
Anything I do is
Ross's fault.
- I am spread so thin.
- All right.
I don't know how I even
keep it all together
right now,
so I really got
to trust in Dana
and Ross
to make this move
happen for me.
I'm not gonna sleep tonight,
I'm gonna burn out
a couple pairs of sheets
getting through the night
'cause I'm worried about it.
- You got me all concerned now Jared.
- Thanks.
Ten miles away
in the hills
of McCurdy Creek
Well, is it going
to start pouring rain,
or is it not going
to pour rain today?
Nope, not raining.
hand fallers
Brendan Bowman
and Chris Hersics already have
boots on the ground
and a lot of work
ahead of them.
Away we go.
With
the next log barge
only a week out,
Jared's counting on these two
to make sure it doesn't
leave light this time.
Watch
your shoulder.
So he's tasked them
with a tall order.
Drop $100,000 worth
of red cedar
before week's end.
I absolutely love
working with Jared.
He pushes you
to go harder at it
and strive to be better.
Take a quick walk around here.
I know what to look for
and get
the best quality lumber.
Like, everything pays,
but these bigger ones are
such a high-grade lumber.
Danger tree here.
Pretty dominant hook
in the top.
Holy grace.
It's like a dinosaur,
that thing.
It's leaning
down the hill pretty good.
Yeah, it is, yeah.
We've got this marm that's
hanging off the one side.
Trees will tend to want to go
towards their weak side,
which in this case is
straight down the hill.
We're
standing up on top
of probably
a 20-foot rock bluff
over here down to the right.
I don't want the tree going
straight down the hill,
'cause that's just going
to wreck the tree.
It's going to turn it
into kindling.
Just one tree
this size can yield
more than half of the fallers
100-grand quota,
but only if it comes down
intact.
So as the man running saw
on this one,
it's up to Chris
to make sure that happens.
I'm figuring out
my falling plan here.
I've been hand-falling
for about 15 years.
It's an addiction.
We're adrenaline junkies.
Unless my body breaks down
and I can't physically
go out there
and hand-fall trees,
I'm going to do it
as long as I possibly can.
What do you think, Brendan?
Are we in over our head?
We'll only be able to do
so much with the physics.
To keep this tree
from crashing
on the rocks below,
Chris will have to send it
90 degrees across
the side hill
for a much softer landing.
First, he'll make an undercut
and back cut
to help steer it
in the right direction.
Then, he and Brendan will
use a jack
to force it
the rest of the way.
All right, let's do this.
It's not going
to be easy
to put a tree like this
across the hill,
but the goal here is
just trying
not to explode this tree
in a bunch of pieces
and keep it most intact
that we possibly can.
All the weight is
definitely pulling
down the hill,
so I'm going to aim
my undercut up
fairly high here,
but I can't be aiming it
too high
or else it will just break off
and go straight down the hill.
Generally, you try
not to cut over your head
just 'cause you lose
a lot of your stability
as far as control of the saw.
It's a lot harder to see, too,
when the sawdust is flying
above your head.
But that's kind of
the only option
that Chris has got here.
Oh, let's see. I started
hand-falling in 1989.
Who would pick a job that,
do it wrong,
you're going to die?
It's like Game of Thrones
or something, right?
I've had
quite a few close calls, um.
I was falling
this rather large tree,
and I'd sent it
just a little bit high,
and there was a snag
that I'd left on the face.
It just barely brushed
the snag,
and the snag come right back
to where I was standing.
I was just basically
running for my life,
and the thing landed
right where my saw was.
It was basically
within inches of death.
We have our undercut.
But even
with the undercut in place,
this $60,000 cedar is
still leaning straight down
toward the rocks.
It's going to take
a fair bit of persuasion
to get this thing go
where we want it to.
Ah! I think
the jack might just be good
to just help it.
I'll agree.
Just this once.
With more
than 50 tons of lifting force,
jacks like this are
a faller's
last line of defense
for even
the most stubborn giants.
When you put
a jack in a tree,
it's essentially going
into the back cut,
and that's to push the tree
in the direction
you want it to fall,
and you're trying
to counteract
against the weight
of the tree.
Jack is just kind of
mashing into the tree.
It's trying to pull
the roots up
from the high side.
The tree is not cooperating.
What do we do now?
100 miles away
on
a treacherous tidal river
Candy,
a little stress reliever.
Jared's taking
one of his foremen, Dave,
and head cook, Mia,
to their new post
and the biggest gamble
of his career.
Not many people
have been
logging up here for so long.
It's just so remote
and so hard to get to.
But here we are.
And here we go.
If it's that easy,
everybody'd do it.
Last week,
Jared and Dave scouted
a rundown logging camp
on the banks
of the Grizzly River.
Welcome to hell, boys.
This is it.
And though
the compound itself was
as derelict as it was
difficult to access
Lots
of old gear left here.
the trees were
too valuable to pass up.
This is why we came
to middle of nowhere.
Great big cedar.
So Jared's taking on
another $600,000 in debt
to reopen the camp
and try to turn a profit
where every logger before him
has gone bankrupt.
Grizzly river poses
the most challenges
I've ever seen
in a logging operation,
just from its sheer location
and dealing with the river.
Last three guys went
broke up here.
- Ah! I'll be fine.
- Yeah
We still got 40 miles.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- Yeah, we're still
- -We have a long way still.
an hour and a half
to there.
We have GPS,
but the river moves.
Sand gets pushed one way.
Deadheads come down the river.
They get hung up.
So there's a lot of things
that you have
to watch out for.
$250,000 crew going up
a river.
When navigating
these waters,
timing is everything.
The high tide offers
just two hours of passage
from the river's mouth
to the camp.
And even then, the sailing is
far from smooth.
Right when you see that river,
you got to bank hard this way.
Oh, yeah,
back over to the other side.
It goes like this, Jared,
that's why
- And then that's the sandbar.
- -Yeah.
It's a big risk,
and we don't do it unless
there's 10 feet
of positive tide.
If you don't know the route,
you could hit sandbars,
sink your boat into a river.
The final frontier of logging.
Okay, this is the point
of no return.
That's
a massive sandbar
on the left side,
and that's this guy here.
So now you almost hugged
that point there, right?
Yeah, I am sweating
like a whore in church.
Did we pass the sandbar?
You can't up now.
So yeah,
we're supposed to be
on this side.
everywhere.
Like, look at that thing.
- That thing is
on.
- on.
There's
major sandbars,
and we could
definitely hit them,
which could
sink the boat.
And people could
lose their lives.
Come on.
This is , man.
Way more shallow
than I thought it would be.
Oh, no.
We're out of here.
We crash this barge
or sink it,
that's going to be
a game stopper.
- So yeah, we're supposed to be on this side.
- -Yeah, that's it.
It's going tight.
Up the tidal waters
of Grizzly river,
Jared and his small team are
less than a mile from reaching
his latest logging outpost.
But getting there is
a nonstop obstacle course.
Yeah,
get over it a little bit.
Come on.
You're doing it.
- There's camp.
- Over there, I see it.
That was
nerve-wracking,
to be honest with you.
Built
more than 30 years ago,
Grizzly Camp has seen
many a logger come
and go broke.
And for good reason.
It's hard to get in,
even harder to get logs out,
and costly to keep running
in such a remote area.
I don't know why
that scared me so bad.
It wasn't that bad, but
It was.
It was.
But before
any tree-falling can commence,
Jared and his team must
make sure
that this logging camp is
at least livable.
They say
it takes a village.
Yeah.
So where are we going first?
Uh, Coco's, to see
-Let's go see.
-Mia might quit on me here.
That's it right there.
I can tell.
Mia's worked for me
for about seven years.
She makes everybody
so damn happy
in the camps.
Oh, this is so cool.
- Yeah.
- Super clean, too.
That's awesome.
It smells like
- Yeah.
- home.
She works harder
than most of the men.
She does not put up
with.
I don't know
why you got me
into here, Jared,
but
this is definitely going
to be an adventure.
She'll stab you,
like
Oh, God. No.
Wow.
All right.
- What is this?
- Watch your hand.
There's
a loaded mousetrap there.
I see that.
I figured there'd be mice.
Uh, we got
a ton of work to do.
This place has been
neglected for years.
It's definitely going
to be a challenge
getting the camp up to snuff
for the loggers,
the man princesses
that are coming.
There's hungry guys,
so this is the first priority.
I'm under
a lot of pressure right now
'cause we've got
to have that camp operational
within like 48 hours.
The fallers are coming,
it's got to be
in a clean environment.
There's a lot of history
in these old camps
and you don't know
the history.
Oh, God.
No, don't lift it.
Yeah.
In a logging camp,
there's many, many people
over many, many years
sleeping on these mattresses.
Gross.
You'd want to be comfy,
but I don't want to be laying
on that kind of comfy.
I'm not laying on that.
And this will get bleached.
- I can taste the dust. Yeah.
- Yeah, I can
Medical dust.
Maybe
something horrific happened.
There was
an incident years ago,
and anyhow,
I'm going to burn this one.
Lots of incidents happen,
and it just gets forgotten.
If all goes to plan,
a barge will arrive tomorrow
to drop off more equipment
and supplies.
Until then, there's
still plenty of work
to be done.
So you can
live with this?
I can live with this.
I can live with it, okay?
I can live with this
for the view.
More than
100 miles to the south
Well, we'll be in McCurdy
for a little while.
There's quite a bit
of wood in there.
Foreman Ross
and boom boat operator Dana
are headed to McCurdy Creek
to scout the final destination
of Jared's
170-foot floating camp.
This is McCurdy here.
Camp's gonna go
right into here.
Definitely doesn't sit
far from that beach.
No.
Worth
nearly $2 million,
float camp is Jared's
biggest asset by far,
and his only means for logging
some of the most
remote corners
of the Pacific Northwest.
But it's also fragile,
and even the smallest of rocks
could cut it wide open.
So we're just gonna lay
some more sticks
right in here.
So it's on Ross
and Dana to make sure
there's a floating buffer
of logs,
also known as a stiff leg,
to hold the camp
firmly in place.
If you don't secure
the float camp properly,
the camp's going
to be drifting around
like a big sailboat,
or it's going to end up
on the beach,
punching a bunch
of holes into it.
And you can imagine
the cost on that,
filling up with water,
and quite catastrophic
if something
like that happened.
You've got to make sure
she's dialed in
and tightened up.
Nice job, bud.
Well, Jared's put a lot
of trust in me here lately.
He's so busy
with the other operations
that are going on,
so there's a little bit
of pressure there.
I hate waiting.
I'm not very good at waiting.
This is better
like this.
I get short
with people sometimes,
which isn't the best way,
but the best way I deal
with it is just motivation.
Carrying on and not stopping
until it's done.
Got a dolphin here we can tie
part of the camp to.
Then we'll tie one
back over there,
so the camp's not
gonna go anywhere.
If that was me,
I'd fall right in.
Done?
Not yet.
Hurry up!
I'll put
three more ropes around.
Okay.
And then it'll be stiff.
That's why
they call it a stiff leg.
Feel good about that now?
Yeah.
Slide the camp
right in there tomorrow.
Okay.
I'm going to go deal
with the barge.
While Ross
and Dana prep
for the camp move
hand-fallers Chris
and Brendan are
already working
to get wood on the ground.
With the next log barge
less than a week out,
Jared's counting on them
to fill it
with high value timber
and keep
the debt collectors at bay.
Something going on.
But to bring
this giant cedar down
in one piece,
they need the help
of a high-powered jack,
and this one is
starting to fail.
Just
mashing around here.
Yeah.
We found
that there's some
soft fiber there.
The jack's just kind
of mashing into the tree.
It's not really doing much.
If this jack fails us
right now,
the tree will
go off backwards,
go where we don't want it.
I can cut
another window here.
And there's got to be
something in the middle here.
If I have to, I can
hog this out a little further.
-Want me to do that?
-Yeah.
With the center wood soft
and the tree so heavy,
the jack is sinking in.
Now the tree is destabilized.
If Chris and Brendan don't
reposition the jack
and get it leaning right,
it could fall back
and crush them.
The more
you cut the tree,
every bit
of that fiber you cut
tends to make
that tree more unstable,
more potential to fall
in any given direction.
Right now, it's kinda
we're riding the line here
between just buggering off
down the hill
and getting it to go
wherever we want it to.
If Chris
and Brendan let the tree fall
straight down on the rocks,
all $60,000 of it
could be reduced
to worthless splinters.
So with the jack
now on firmer footing,
they're giving it
everything they've got.
So Brendan,
he's beating
on the low side for me,
and I'm paying attention
to the pressure gauge
on the jack.
And I can see
that his wedge hitting
is releasing the pressure.
Come on.
Be nice to us.
It's talking anyway.
It wants to go.
Come on, old girl!
Go!
Go!
I feel
the holding wood popping
and the ground shaking,
and like this thing's right
on the verge of wanting to go.
Let's go!
In the hills
of McCurdy Creek
This thing's right
on the verge of wanting to go.
Go!
There really is
not much there.
I don't know.
After three hours of trying to
keep this tree in one piece
It just exploded.
We tried.
Chris and Brendan are left
with a pile of splinters,
and the majority
of their $100,000 quota
still to be met.
Live to fight another day.
car.
Up at Grizzly Camp,
Jared and Dave are
dealing with damage
of their own,
courtesy of
the local wildlife.
Did you guys just see
the bear up there?
Yeah, he's just
up in the bush.
Oh, really?
Brownish, blackish hair.
It left
quite a bit of evidence
in the pickup truck there
that it's probably
a small juvenile grizzly.
Bears can pose a major problem
out here for us.
It's called Grizzly River
for a reason, so
Hopefully nobody gets hurt.
That's the main thing.
Oh, what a mess.
Oh, he liked Rolaids.
Definitely
shredded this thing up
pretty good.
Bear was right up on the hood.
- Little dents are his claws marks.
- -Scratches.
Big time stressed out,
I definitely
bit off more than I can chew.
That's crazy.
I've worked
in a lot of these inlets,
and I've never seen a bear
- rip the window right out.
- Yeah.
I told my wife the other day
I might be having
a panic attack here soon,
'cause I guess I got
too much on the go.
The equipment barge
is on its way up.
If the barge sinks going up
the river, company over.
I'm not gonna sleep well
through the night.
As a new day dawns
at McCurdy Creek
Good ol'
morning leg burner.
Chris and Brendan
are only a tenth of the way
to meeting their
$100,000 quota.
And looking to catch up fast.
And they may have just found
the tree they need to do it.
Gonna get that big one
right beside the road.
It's a dandy.
Good solid 10 feet.
Looks like about,
I don't know,
maybe 200, 220 feet tall.
A couple of
houses' worth, anyway.
Could be some
good value in it.
If we can get it to lay out.
- You come up with your gameplan.
- -Yeah.
I got a plan. Run!
We're all clear
for you there, too, Chris.
So where we're
working right now,
we're right above this road.
There's three fat trucks
currently getting loaded up.
If we hold up that production,
we could lose
a whole day's worth of work,
which could be hundreds
of thousands of dollars
of timber coming down
and getting dumped
in the water.
Yeah, right on.
Thanks, Chris.
- All right.
- Dog in.
Let's get her done.
Yeah, you stand here,
it looks like it's cranked
that way.
- Yeah.
- -Leans right down to the road.
Yeah.
Deceiving.
I don't know why
I keep looking at it.
I'm second-guessing,
but it's like
Through our past dealings
with trees like this,
sometimes they look like
they're going one way,
but they're actually
going the other.
It kind of
creates an illusion,
or it kind of
tricks your brain.
From the bottom side,
it looks like
it's actually leaning
where we want it to go.
We walk around
the high side here,
and it looks like
it's leaning where
we don't want it to go.
The road's not an option,
so we're kind of sizing up
this little creek draw
in front of it.
Looks like
about the softest place
to put it and save it out.
Should be, uh
Should work out.
Famous last words, though.
I might have just
cursed myself.
To keep
this off-kilter giant
from hitting the road,
Brendan and Chris will have
to send it into a narrow gully
that should hold it
on the side hill.
After making a face cut,
they'll once again
use the jack to force it
in the right direction,
and hope that this time,
nothing goes wrong.
We've made a plan
with this tree, and, um,
we can make
all the plans in the world,
but once you start
cutting into these things,
sometimes there are surprises.
It could go down the hill
or something
will happen, catastrophic.
Sometimes they got
a mind of their own.
Things can happen.
Things do go sideways.
This job is definitely not for
the faint of heart.
It's optical illusion, man.
It's leaning where
we don't want it to go.
It's just.
Ten miles down the inlet,
and after weeks
of costly commuting
We could probably
start doing this dock.
Yeah, I think so.
it's moving day.
And with Jared tied up
100 miles away,
for the first time ever,
the pressure of a camp move
falls squarely
on Foreman Ross.
You think we're gonna be able
to move this thing
with the boats attached?
- Oh, yeah.
- All right.
This tugboat is paid for
by the hour.
When he's here,
we want to be ready to go.
He's basically just gonna
hook onto this thing
and pull it out,
and we're out of here.
They say that most tugging
is about 95% boredom
and 5% of pure terror.
You have to be
very experienced
with your tides,
the winds, and the weather,
and everything like that.
Glenn is the tugboat captain.
He has a lot of experience
in doing this,
so I got a lot
of respect for him.
He always does our camp moves.
What channel?
Six?
Okay.
There she goes.
Camp is out of here.
Nice work.
Smooth!
Everything looks
pretty good here.
Yeah, you bet.
Holler if you need me.
Thanks, Glenn.
It just takes one little thing
to throw a loop
into the whole plan.
And hopefully
that doesn't happen.
Knock on wood.
So far, the takeoff
has been smooth.
But there's lots of things
that can go wrong.
You're never really sure if
you're gonna actually make it.
We are shut down.
We have to bring
every supply we have by barge.
That thing's
just gonna go where
it wants to go.
You just hope for the best.
After nine miles
of towing down a remote inlet,
Jared's float camp is
finally closing in
on McCurdy Creek.
And the most difficult part
of any move,
the landing.
Just like that, things get
pretty lively all of a sudden.
Yeah, no, not really.
But I can
scoot up there real quick.
That should do it.
That was close.
That didn't work out too well.
I think we'll do that
with Dana next time here.
Roger that.
Ross still needs
to climb aboard float camp
to guide it safely
into McCurdy Cove
and make sure
Jared's $2 million vessel
doesn't take on any damage.
But this time,
he'll wait
until it's slowed down
for the final approach.
Run it up into the camp.
Last time we docked the camp,
it hit a piling.
So just jumping to
the other side there
just to make sure
we weren't too close to it.
Okay, I got to go back up.
Go back into the boat.
Yeah, it's in line with
the dolphin there now, so
Yeah, keep coming.
You probably got
at least 15 feet.
Just a little bit more.
Keep her coming.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you're moving.
There we go.
Excellent job.
You don't need
the big boss around.
She's in place.
Got a nice view of the inlet.
It's our new home.
Morning.
On Grizzly River,
Jared is still working
to get his
$600,000 investment
off the ground.
But before he can open
his newly acquired camp
to loggers,
he and Foreman Dave
must first ensure they have
all the supplies they'll need.
We'll get this off you.
You want to get out of here
right away
on this tide, right?
We have to bring
every supply we have by barge.
Come on, baby.
I'm talking gas, diesel,
oil,
food, groceries,
toilet paper, furniture.
People don't understand
the scale of it.
Packing groceries into Grizz
is $35,000 worth of groceries
and 10% of that
to get it in there.
The scale of the money spent
is mind-boggling.
It's numbing to people.
You just got to go for it.
Just throw your cards
on the table
and hope you
get some at the end.
I guess we're just gonna
get them up and out of here.
To run
an operation of this size,
Jared also needs fuel.
A lot of it.
But with no crane
to hoist these
25,000-pound tanks ashore,
Dave will have to improvise
with a standard-issue
log loader.
I don't even want to watch.
I'm glad Dave's doing it
and not me.
This one's
going to be interesting.
Some mornings
it's nice being the boss.
You can have a coffee
and watch your foreman do
the sketchy.
First barge load off.
Back at McCurdy Creek
The camp's here,
so excellent.
with float camp
now caught up to
the logging crew,
Ross can finally start moving
some serious wood
before the next log barge
arrives in a week.
Or at least,
that was the plan.
We got a bit of
a development happening.
Oh, I see.
Oh, God.
A goose
has nested on McCurdy's
one and only working
skid ramp,
the crew's one and only way
of putting wood in the water.
And there are
regulations for that.
It's a pretty big situation.
When we come across
a Canadian goose,
we're not allowed
to touch them
or interfere with them at all.
I've got a load
of chucks waiting.
We're not allowed
to dump them,
uh, in fear of
disturbing the goose.
Do we get to
move them out
once they're hatched?
I don't know, man.
'Cause they'll probably want
to hang around here.
Usually what they do is
they kind of hang around
in the area.
It's a pretty big situation.
Wildlife is kind of
one of them things.
We have to shut down the dump.
Um, that's what's
happening here right now.
So, yeah, we are shut down
until further notice.
Jared, how are things going?
Uh, barge load went well.
What's happening over there?
Well, we have
a goose making a nest
on one of our dump skids.
And right out in the open,
right next to
where we're working,
and the thing is hunkered down
on about six eggs.
Uh, it's a real, uh,
environmental issue.
Oh, man.
- Um
- -That's catastrophic, man.
Worst case scenario, it takes
four weeks for the eggs to
-hatch.
-Four.
If we got to wait four weeks,
that's gonna be devastating.
That'll kill this place.
This is not good.
Further up the hill,
and unaware
of the goose debacle,
Brendan and Chris
are still dead set on
bringing down
$100,000 worth of timber.
And having made their face cut
on this $60,000 cedar,
it's time to
break out the jack.
The jack is
definitely gonna be
a key to getting this thing
to go in the draw,
as safely as we can.
That should be okay.
- Yeah, I think so.
- Yeah.
Still a bit of
an optical illusion here,
but we've got
all the tools in place.
And it's one of
the biggest jacks they make,
so if it doesn't work,
then we're buggered.
If the jack fails,
and the tree hits the road,
it'll not only
devalue the wood,
but block an essential route
for hauling other logs
to the water.
Costing Jared
hundreds of thousands
in lost production.
This tree would
probably be about if you took
a semi-truck
and stood it up by end.
And that's about
how much energy
and how much weight
you're shifting around
over your head.
You never know.
Something could just pop
at the wrong spot
and away she goes.
We got this jack
pretty much maxed out.
I've cut everything I can from
the backside, in my back cut.
That jack's
lost PSI already,
so it's moving.
It's making noises.
Crazy time right now
'cause we're opening
a camp in Grizzly River.
We got a lot of issues
to deal with when we
get up there.
I've been chased
by grizzly bears before,
and I'm not doing that again
in my old age.
If you're gonna be a bear,
be a grizzly in this business.
- What's up, man?
- How you doing?
Good. You?
Is this three inch mag then?
That'll give you
two and three quarter
and three inch.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
The bear threat is real.
Grizzly bears
are extremely dangerous.
I gotta buy a gun,
and I gotta leave
a gun in camp.
Yeah, I'll take this one.
Now's the time,
you know
Yeah, they're gonna be
coming out now. Hungry.
Yeah.
We're gonna have
bear problems.
No doubt about it.
All right.
Have a good one.
See you later.
In the wilderness
near McCurdy Creek
Come on, baby.
Brendan and Chris
are fighting to push
a $60,000 tree
safely into a nearby gully.
If it goes the wrong way,
it could explode
on the road below.
Or worse, topple straight back
on the fallers.
There's obviously more wood
in the middle of this tree.
We're gonna have
to get back in there
and try and reach
that little bit of wood.
To get the last
of the holding wood,
Brendan will have to reach
five feet into this tree
with only a 30-inch saw.
So he'll carve large blocks
from the tree's exterior,
allowing for deeper cuts,
and hope he's making
just the right ones.
There's a moment in any tree,
and it doesn't matter
what one it is,
where it reaches a point
and it's holding wood,
that thing's just gonna
go where it wants to go.
You gotta stand back,
just watch, and hope
for the best.
Yeah, there she goes.
Attaboy! Nice shot!
I think your GoPro's toast.
Holy. yeah.
A! Woo!
Yeah, I don't think
that one's coming back.
Hang 'em high!
Everything went as planned.
We got it to lay in the draw.
Saved it out.
Kept it off the road.
Ten by ten.
- Wow.
Nice work, buddy.
-Jared
There's definitely gonna be
some good value in it.
Yeah, you better
put your initials on that guy.
The fall
went better than they
could have hoped.
But it's still
not quite enough
to reach Chris and Brendan's
$100,000 quota,
putting more pressure
on the days ahead
of next week's log barge.
At the end of the day,
the road's clean,
and we'll try again tomorrow.
Up Grizzly River
the camp setup
is coming together.
And Jared is eager
to start turning
the giant timber nearby
into a return
on his massive investment.
But unfortunately,
he's needed elsewhere.
Float camp
is shut down right now.
We are not hauling any logs.
No splash. No cash.
I'm in big trouble.
, man, I gotta go.
-What's going on?
-It's situation critical
over in float camp.
goose
laid its egg in the skid ways.
Now we can't dump.
No way.
Wow.
All that wood on the ground.
Log barge coming in five days.
Get some wood hopping in here.
. We'll grind
as hard as we can here,
to try and keep the lights on.
This is brutal.
- Yeah.
- -I'm just bouncing between disasters.
I hope that Grizz can
kind of pick up the pace here
and start delivering logs
to make up for float camp.
I'm swimming in debt.
Without float camp banging on
all eight cylinders here,
we're in big trouble.
So I need to get out there
and I need to get out there
right now
and figure out
what's happening.
Desperate for money
to start flowing at Grizzly,
Jared has hand fallers
flying into camp today
so they can
start dropping trees tomorrow.
But only if weather allows.
We've got
a helicopter coming.
He's flying from Port McNeill
to Campbell River
and then here.
Okay. Hear the wind?
This is a very
logistically challenging place
to work.
There's two hand fallers
coming in
on this helicopter
with all their gear.
-That'll give them
a good idea.
-Yeah.
Rick is a pretty integral part
of our operation
at this time here.
All right, let's go see
if we got them.
He's a watchman
here in camp, and he does
weather reports with
the helicopter companies daily
to make sure that it's clear
for them to fly in.
Uh, just give me
a call if you can
before you take off.
Thank you so much.
Well, how's she
looking there, Rick?
We're gonna get out?
Fingers crossed.
What's the ceiling at?
- Looks like about
- 800?
- About 750, 800.
- 750.
We've got about
a 750-foot ceiling today.
Hey, Ronnie, it's Rick.
Following up on the weather,
current conditions,
and the landing area.
As of now,
the cloud cover or ceiling
is too low to safely land
a helicopter,
which means the fallers
won't make it in today.
Jared stands to lose
thousands of dollars a day
in operational costs
until they do.
And with
a $1.7 million debt to pay
and only $149,000 saved
so far,
the timing couldn't be worse.
Failure is not an option.
We're gonna be in for
hundreds of thousands
of dollars in setup costs.
With all the logistics
and challenges,
we've got to
get into production here.
We've got to make sure
that we are profitable
and productive.
Every day or minute
you lose today,
you don't get back
at the end of the year.
Like, we cannot fail
or take down the company.
We have a log barge
coming in three days.
We can't
dump the loads.
This is gonna
send them over the top.
- Crank it.
- Come on, baby!
Another toy
in the sandbox!
Mad Max, Davey style.
Jackpot.
Uh-oh, stay up high!
Now what do you want to do?
I've never been
this frustrated
in my entire life.
This might be the end of me.
Last week,
over a million dollars
in debt,
Jared fought to turn
a pair of old yarders
into a desperately needed
payday
Come on, baby.
yeah. Touchdown!
while
fallers Jim and Rob struggle
to bring down some big trees
for the next log barge.
- Something's up.
- Wrong way.
- Wrong way.
- Oh, man.
But
when Jared discovered
even more massive timber,
he took an even bigger gamble.
Going in the hole
another 600,000
to get this camp started is
a big risk.
Last guy that operated
in Grizzly River,
he went broke.
Welcome to hell, boys.
This is it.
Now, Jared's taking
the biggest risk
of his career
This is.
$250,000 crew boat
up a river.
to keep
the family business alive.
Way more shallow
than I thought it would be.
- Camp?
- No.
This is a point of no return.
While float camp
faces a daunting move
Hugging is
pure terror.
You have to be
very experienced.
It just takes one little thing
to throw a loop
into the whole plan.
bound
for richer logging grounds.
That jack's lost PSI.
Thing's
right on the verge
of wanting to go.
Let's go!
Yes, sir?
Dana, come in here,
I gotta talk to you too.
How you doing?
- Good. You?
- Yeah.
No. I'm stressed out.
You are? Why?
Since I've owned
my logging camp,
I have never missed a move.
With
a $1.7 million debt to pay
by the end of the season
and only $149,000 saved
so far,
Jared's not looking back
and taking his float camp
even deeper
into the wilderness,
10 miles down the inlet,
chasing the hard-to-get
to high-dollar wood.
Usually,
I'm here to manage it.
So, like,
that's the major thing.
His crew is
already moving
timber out there.
And with the next log barge
arriving in just a week,
Jared can't afford
to keep boating them to camp
and back every day.
So he's taking the camp
to the crew
and charging his top foreman
to get it done.
I can't be everywhere
at once,
so I'm saddling Ross up
for the challenge
of moving Float Camp
to McCurdy Creek.
McCurdy gets so shallow off
the end of that dock
So we've got to hold up
the camp back a bit.
And you've got to make sure
that you're away
from those pilings.
I think that piling
actually has collapsed,
it's half sticking
out of the water now.
Okay.
Inlets can be tricky.
We have outflows
and inflow winds.
There's rocks and rapids.
And if this barge hits
the rocks,
it could open like a tin can.
It could be all over for me.
All right. Well, you guys are
on your own then.
Don't wreck my camp,
'cause that'll be
"Company Over" for Jared.
Anything I do is
Ross's fault.
- I am spread so thin.
- All right.
I don't know how I even
keep it all together
right now,
so I really got
to trust in Dana
and Ross
to make this move
happen for me.
I'm not gonna sleep tonight,
I'm gonna burn out
a couple pairs of sheets
getting through the night
'cause I'm worried about it.
- You got me all concerned now Jared.
- Thanks.
Ten miles away
in the hills
of McCurdy Creek
Well, is it going
to start pouring rain,
or is it not going
to pour rain today?
Nope, not raining.
hand fallers
Brendan Bowman
and Chris Hersics already have
boots on the ground
and a lot of work
ahead of them.
Away we go.
With
the next log barge
only a week out,
Jared's counting on these two
to make sure it doesn't
leave light this time.
Watch
your shoulder.
So he's tasked them
with a tall order.
Drop $100,000 worth
of red cedar
before week's end.
I absolutely love
working with Jared.
He pushes you
to go harder at it
and strive to be better.
Take a quick walk around here.
I know what to look for
and get
the best quality lumber.
Like, everything pays,
but these bigger ones are
such a high-grade lumber.
Danger tree here.
Pretty dominant hook
in the top.
Holy grace.
It's like a dinosaur,
that thing.
It's leaning
down the hill pretty good.
Yeah, it is, yeah.
We've got this marm that's
hanging off the one side.
Trees will tend to want to go
towards their weak side,
which in this case is
straight down the hill.
We're
standing up on top
of probably
a 20-foot rock bluff
over here down to the right.
I don't want the tree going
straight down the hill,
'cause that's just going
to wreck the tree.
It's going to turn it
into kindling.
Just one tree
this size can yield
more than half of the fallers
100-grand quota,
but only if it comes down
intact.
So as the man running saw
on this one,
it's up to Chris
to make sure that happens.
I'm figuring out
my falling plan here.
I've been hand-falling
for about 15 years.
It's an addiction.
We're adrenaline junkies.
Unless my body breaks down
and I can't physically
go out there
and hand-fall trees,
I'm going to do it
as long as I possibly can.
What do you think, Brendan?
Are we in over our head?
We'll only be able to do
so much with the physics.
To keep this tree
from crashing
on the rocks below,
Chris will have to send it
90 degrees across
the side hill
for a much softer landing.
First, he'll make an undercut
and back cut
to help steer it
in the right direction.
Then, he and Brendan will
use a jack
to force it
the rest of the way.
All right, let's do this.
It's not going
to be easy
to put a tree like this
across the hill,
but the goal here is
just trying
not to explode this tree
in a bunch of pieces
and keep it most intact
that we possibly can.
All the weight is
definitely pulling
down the hill,
so I'm going to aim
my undercut up
fairly high here,
but I can't be aiming it
too high
or else it will just break off
and go straight down the hill.
Generally, you try
not to cut over your head
just 'cause you lose
a lot of your stability
as far as control of the saw.
It's a lot harder to see, too,
when the sawdust is flying
above your head.
But that's kind of
the only option
that Chris has got here.
Oh, let's see. I started
hand-falling in 1989.
Who would pick a job that,
do it wrong,
you're going to die?
It's like Game of Thrones
or something, right?
I've had
quite a few close calls, um.
I was falling
this rather large tree,
and I'd sent it
just a little bit high,
and there was a snag
that I'd left on the face.
It just barely brushed
the snag,
and the snag come right back
to where I was standing.
I was just basically
running for my life,
and the thing landed
right where my saw was.
It was basically
within inches of death.
We have our undercut.
But even
with the undercut in place,
this $60,000 cedar is
still leaning straight down
toward the rocks.
It's going to take
a fair bit of persuasion
to get this thing go
where we want it to.
Ah! I think
the jack might just be good
to just help it.
I'll agree.
Just this once.
With more
than 50 tons of lifting force,
jacks like this are
a faller's
last line of defense
for even
the most stubborn giants.
When you put
a jack in a tree,
it's essentially going
into the back cut,
and that's to push the tree
in the direction
you want it to fall,
and you're trying
to counteract
against the weight
of the tree.
Jack is just kind of
mashing into the tree.
It's trying to pull
the roots up
from the high side.
The tree is not cooperating.
What do we do now?
100 miles away
on
a treacherous tidal river
Candy,
a little stress reliever.
Jared's taking
one of his foremen, Dave,
and head cook, Mia,
to their new post
and the biggest gamble
of his career.
Not many people
have been
logging up here for so long.
It's just so remote
and so hard to get to.
But here we are.
And here we go.
If it's that easy,
everybody'd do it.
Last week,
Jared and Dave scouted
a rundown logging camp
on the banks
of the Grizzly River.
Welcome to hell, boys.
This is it.
And though
the compound itself was
as derelict as it was
difficult to access
Lots
of old gear left here.
the trees were
too valuable to pass up.
This is why we came
to middle of nowhere.
Great big cedar.
So Jared's taking on
another $600,000 in debt
to reopen the camp
and try to turn a profit
where every logger before him
has gone bankrupt.
Grizzly river poses
the most challenges
I've ever seen
in a logging operation,
just from its sheer location
and dealing with the river.
Last three guys went
broke up here.
- Ah! I'll be fine.
- Yeah
We still got 40 miles.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- Yeah, we're still
- -We have a long way still.
an hour and a half
to there.
We have GPS,
but the river moves.
Sand gets pushed one way.
Deadheads come down the river.
They get hung up.
So there's a lot of things
that you have
to watch out for.
$250,000 crew going up
a river.
When navigating
these waters,
timing is everything.
The high tide offers
just two hours of passage
from the river's mouth
to the camp.
And even then, the sailing is
far from smooth.
Right when you see that river,
you got to bank hard this way.
Oh, yeah,
back over to the other side.
It goes like this, Jared,
that's why
- And then that's the sandbar.
- -Yeah.
It's a big risk,
and we don't do it unless
there's 10 feet
of positive tide.
If you don't know the route,
you could hit sandbars,
sink your boat into a river.
The final frontier of logging.
Okay, this is the point
of no return.
That's
a massive sandbar
on the left side,
and that's this guy here.
So now you almost hugged
that point there, right?
Yeah, I am sweating
like a whore in church.
Did we pass the sandbar?
You can't up now.
So yeah,
we're supposed to be
on this side.
everywhere.
Like, look at that thing.
- That thing is
on.
- on.
There's
major sandbars,
and we could
definitely hit them,
which could
sink the boat.
And people could
lose their lives.
Come on.
This is , man.
Way more shallow
than I thought it would be.
Oh, no.
We're out of here.
We crash this barge
or sink it,
that's going to be
a game stopper.
- So yeah, we're supposed to be on this side.
- -Yeah, that's it.
It's going tight.
Up the tidal waters
of Grizzly river,
Jared and his small team are
less than a mile from reaching
his latest logging outpost.
But getting there is
a nonstop obstacle course.
Yeah,
get over it a little bit.
Come on.
You're doing it.
- There's camp.
- Over there, I see it.
That was
nerve-wracking,
to be honest with you.
Built
more than 30 years ago,
Grizzly Camp has seen
many a logger come
and go broke.
And for good reason.
It's hard to get in,
even harder to get logs out,
and costly to keep running
in such a remote area.
I don't know why
that scared me so bad.
It wasn't that bad, but
It was.
It was.
But before
any tree-falling can commence,
Jared and his team must
make sure
that this logging camp is
at least livable.
They say
it takes a village.
Yeah.
So where are we going first?
Uh, Coco's, to see
-Let's go see.
-Mia might quit on me here.
That's it right there.
I can tell.
Mia's worked for me
for about seven years.
She makes everybody
so damn happy
in the camps.
Oh, this is so cool.
- Yeah.
- Super clean, too.
That's awesome.
It smells like
- Yeah.
- home.
She works harder
than most of the men.
She does not put up
with.
I don't know
why you got me
into here, Jared,
but
this is definitely going
to be an adventure.
She'll stab you,
like
Oh, God. No.
Wow.
All right.
- What is this?
- Watch your hand.
There's
a loaded mousetrap there.
I see that.
I figured there'd be mice.
Uh, we got
a ton of work to do.
This place has been
neglected for years.
It's definitely going
to be a challenge
getting the camp up to snuff
for the loggers,
the man princesses
that are coming.
There's hungry guys,
so this is the first priority.
I'm under
a lot of pressure right now
'cause we've got
to have that camp operational
within like 48 hours.
The fallers are coming,
it's got to be
in a clean environment.
There's a lot of history
in these old camps
and you don't know
the history.
Oh, God.
No, don't lift it.
Yeah.
In a logging camp,
there's many, many people
over many, many years
sleeping on these mattresses.
Gross.
You'd want to be comfy,
but I don't want to be laying
on that kind of comfy.
I'm not laying on that.
And this will get bleached.
- I can taste the dust. Yeah.
- Yeah, I can
Medical dust.
Maybe
something horrific happened.
There was
an incident years ago,
and anyhow,
I'm going to burn this one.
Lots of incidents happen,
and it just gets forgotten.
If all goes to plan,
a barge will arrive tomorrow
to drop off more equipment
and supplies.
Until then, there's
still plenty of work
to be done.
So you can
live with this?
I can live with this.
I can live with it, okay?
I can live with this
for the view.
More than
100 miles to the south
Well, we'll be in McCurdy
for a little while.
There's quite a bit
of wood in there.
Foreman Ross
and boom boat operator Dana
are headed to McCurdy Creek
to scout the final destination
of Jared's
170-foot floating camp.
This is McCurdy here.
Camp's gonna go
right into here.
Definitely doesn't sit
far from that beach.
No.
Worth
nearly $2 million,
float camp is Jared's
biggest asset by far,
and his only means for logging
some of the most
remote corners
of the Pacific Northwest.
But it's also fragile,
and even the smallest of rocks
could cut it wide open.
So we're just gonna lay
some more sticks
right in here.
So it's on Ross
and Dana to make sure
there's a floating buffer
of logs,
also known as a stiff leg,
to hold the camp
firmly in place.
If you don't secure
the float camp properly,
the camp's going
to be drifting around
like a big sailboat,
or it's going to end up
on the beach,
punching a bunch
of holes into it.
And you can imagine
the cost on that,
filling up with water,
and quite catastrophic
if something
like that happened.
You've got to make sure
she's dialed in
and tightened up.
Nice job, bud.
Well, Jared's put a lot
of trust in me here lately.
He's so busy
with the other operations
that are going on,
so there's a little bit
of pressure there.
I hate waiting.
I'm not very good at waiting.
This is better
like this.
I get short
with people sometimes,
which isn't the best way,
but the best way I deal
with it is just motivation.
Carrying on and not stopping
until it's done.
Got a dolphin here we can tie
part of the camp to.
Then we'll tie one
back over there,
so the camp's not
gonna go anywhere.
If that was me,
I'd fall right in.
Done?
Not yet.
Hurry up!
I'll put
three more ropes around.
Okay.
And then it'll be stiff.
That's why
they call it a stiff leg.
Feel good about that now?
Yeah.
Slide the camp
right in there tomorrow.
Okay.
I'm going to go deal
with the barge.
While Ross
and Dana prep
for the camp move
hand-fallers Chris
and Brendan are
already working
to get wood on the ground.
With the next log barge
less than a week out,
Jared's counting on them
to fill it
with high value timber
and keep
the debt collectors at bay.
Something going on.
But to bring
this giant cedar down
in one piece,
they need the help
of a high-powered jack,
and this one is
starting to fail.
Just
mashing around here.
Yeah.
We found
that there's some
soft fiber there.
The jack's just kind
of mashing into the tree.
It's not really doing much.
If this jack fails us
right now,
the tree will
go off backwards,
go where we don't want it.
I can cut
another window here.
And there's got to be
something in the middle here.
If I have to, I can
hog this out a little further.
-Want me to do that?
-Yeah.
With the center wood soft
and the tree so heavy,
the jack is sinking in.
Now the tree is destabilized.
If Chris and Brendan don't
reposition the jack
and get it leaning right,
it could fall back
and crush them.
The more
you cut the tree,
every bit
of that fiber you cut
tends to make
that tree more unstable,
more potential to fall
in any given direction.
Right now, it's kinda
we're riding the line here
between just buggering off
down the hill
and getting it to go
wherever we want it to.
If Chris
and Brendan let the tree fall
straight down on the rocks,
all $60,000 of it
could be reduced
to worthless splinters.
So with the jack
now on firmer footing,
they're giving it
everything they've got.
So Brendan,
he's beating
on the low side for me,
and I'm paying attention
to the pressure gauge
on the jack.
And I can see
that his wedge hitting
is releasing the pressure.
Come on.
Be nice to us.
It's talking anyway.
It wants to go.
Come on, old girl!
Go!
Go!
I feel
the holding wood popping
and the ground shaking,
and like this thing's right
on the verge of wanting to go.
Let's go!
In the hills
of McCurdy Creek
This thing's right
on the verge of wanting to go.
Go!
There really is
not much there.
I don't know.
After three hours of trying to
keep this tree in one piece
It just exploded.
We tried.
Chris and Brendan are left
with a pile of splinters,
and the majority
of their $100,000 quota
still to be met.
Live to fight another day.
car.
Up at Grizzly Camp,
Jared and Dave are
dealing with damage
of their own,
courtesy of
the local wildlife.
Did you guys just see
the bear up there?
Yeah, he's just
up in the bush.
Oh, really?
Brownish, blackish hair.
It left
quite a bit of evidence
in the pickup truck there
that it's probably
a small juvenile grizzly.
Bears can pose a major problem
out here for us.
It's called Grizzly River
for a reason, so
Hopefully nobody gets hurt.
That's the main thing.
Oh, what a mess.
Oh, he liked Rolaids.
Definitely
shredded this thing up
pretty good.
Bear was right up on the hood.
- Little dents are his claws marks.
- -Scratches.
Big time stressed out,
I definitely
bit off more than I can chew.
That's crazy.
I've worked
in a lot of these inlets,
and I've never seen a bear
- rip the window right out.
- Yeah.
I told my wife the other day
I might be having
a panic attack here soon,
'cause I guess I got
too much on the go.
The equipment barge
is on its way up.
If the barge sinks going up
the river, company over.
I'm not gonna sleep well
through the night.
As a new day dawns
at McCurdy Creek
Good ol'
morning leg burner.
Chris and Brendan
are only a tenth of the way
to meeting their
$100,000 quota.
And looking to catch up fast.
And they may have just found
the tree they need to do it.
Gonna get that big one
right beside the road.
It's a dandy.
Good solid 10 feet.
Looks like about,
I don't know,
maybe 200, 220 feet tall.
A couple of
houses' worth, anyway.
Could be some
good value in it.
If we can get it to lay out.
- You come up with your gameplan.
- -Yeah.
I got a plan. Run!
We're all clear
for you there, too, Chris.
So where we're
working right now,
we're right above this road.
There's three fat trucks
currently getting loaded up.
If we hold up that production,
we could lose
a whole day's worth of work,
which could be hundreds
of thousands of dollars
of timber coming down
and getting dumped
in the water.
Yeah, right on.
Thanks, Chris.
- All right.
- Dog in.
Let's get her done.
Yeah, you stand here,
it looks like it's cranked
that way.
- Yeah.
- -Leans right down to the road.
Yeah.
Deceiving.
I don't know why
I keep looking at it.
I'm second-guessing,
but it's like
Through our past dealings
with trees like this,
sometimes they look like
they're going one way,
but they're actually
going the other.
It kind of
creates an illusion,
or it kind of
tricks your brain.
From the bottom side,
it looks like
it's actually leaning
where we want it to go.
We walk around
the high side here,
and it looks like
it's leaning where
we don't want it to go.
The road's not an option,
so we're kind of sizing up
this little creek draw
in front of it.
Looks like
about the softest place
to put it and save it out.
Should be, uh
Should work out.
Famous last words, though.
I might have just
cursed myself.
To keep
this off-kilter giant
from hitting the road,
Brendan and Chris will have
to send it into a narrow gully
that should hold it
on the side hill.
After making a face cut,
they'll once again
use the jack to force it
in the right direction,
and hope that this time,
nothing goes wrong.
We've made a plan
with this tree, and, um,
we can make
all the plans in the world,
but once you start
cutting into these things,
sometimes there are surprises.
It could go down the hill
or something
will happen, catastrophic.
Sometimes they got
a mind of their own.
Things can happen.
Things do go sideways.
This job is definitely not for
the faint of heart.
It's optical illusion, man.
It's leaning where
we don't want it to go.
It's just.
Ten miles down the inlet,
and after weeks
of costly commuting
We could probably
start doing this dock.
Yeah, I think so.
it's moving day.
And with Jared tied up
100 miles away,
for the first time ever,
the pressure of a camp move
falls squarely
on Foreman Ross.
You think we're gonna be able
to move this thing
with the boats attached?
- Oh, yeah.
- All right.
This tugboat is paid for
by the hour.
When he's here,
we want to be ready to go.
He's basically just gonna
hook onto this thing
and pull it out,
and we're out of here.
They say that most tugging
is about 95% boredom
and 5% of pure terror.
You have to be
very experienced
with your tides,
the winds, and the weather,
and everything like that.
Glenn is the tugboat captain.
He has a lot of experience
in doing this,
so I got a lot
of respect for him.
He always does our camp moves.
What channel?
Six?
Okay.
There she goes.
Camp is out of here.
Nice work.
Smooth!
Everything looks
pretty good here.
Yeah, you bet.
Holler if you need me.
Thanks, Glenn.
It just takes one little thing
to throw a loop
into the whole plan.
And hopefully
that doesn't happen.
Knock on wood.
So far, the takeoff
has been smooth.
But there's lots of things
that can go wrong.
You're never really sure if
you're gonna actually make it.
We are shut down.
We have to bring
every supply we have by barge.
That thing's
just gonna go where
it wants to go.
You just hope for the best.
After nine miles
of towing down a remote inlet,
Jared's float camp is
finally closing in
on McCurdy Creek.
And the most difficult part
of any move,
the landing.
Just like that, things get
pretty lively all of a sudden.
Yeah, no, not really.
But I can
scoot up there real quick.
That should do it.
That was close.
That didn't work out too well.
I think we'll do that
with Dana next time here.
Roger that.
Ross still needs
to climb aboard float camp
to guide it safely
into McCurdy Cove
and make sure
Jared's $2 million vessel
doesn't take on any damage.
But this time,
he'll wait
until it's slowed down
for the final approach.
Run it up into the camp.
Last time we docked the camp,
it hit a piling.
So just jumping to
the other side there
just to make sure
we weren't too close to it.
Okay, I got to go back up.
Go back into the boat.
Yeah, it's in line with
the dolphin there now, so
Yeah, keep coming.
You probably got
at least 15 feet.
Just a little bit more.
Keep her coming.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you're moving.
There we go.
Excellent job.
You don't need
the big boss around.
She's in place.
Got a nice view of the inlet.
It's our new home.
Morning.
On Grizzly River,
Jared is still working
to get his
$600,000 investment
off the ground.
But before he can open
his newly acquired camp
to loggers,
he and Foreman Dave
must first ensure they have
all the supplies they'll need.
We'll get this off you.
You want to get out of here
right away
on this tide, right?
We have to bring
every supply we have by barge.
Come on, baby.
I'm talking gas, diesel,
oil,
food, groceries,
toilet paper, furniture.
People don't understand
the scale of it.
Packing groceries into Grizz
is $35,000 worth of groceries
and 10% of that
to get it in there.
The scale of the money spent
is mind-boggling.
It's numbing to people.
You just got to go for it.
Just throw your cards
on the table
and hope you
get some at the end.
I guess we're just gonna
get them up and out of here.
To run
an operation of this size,
Jared also needs fuel.
A lot of it.
But with no crane
to hoist these
25,000-pound tanks ashore,
Dave will have to improvise
with a standard-issue
log loader.
I don't even want to watch.
I'm glad Dave's doing it
and not me.
This one's
going to be interesting.
Some mornings
it's nice being the boss.
You can have a coffee
and watch your foreman do
the sketchy.
First barge load off.
Back at McCurdy Creek
The camp's here,
so excellent.
with float camp
now caught up to
the logging crew,
Ross can finally start moving
some serious wood
before the next log barge
arrives in a week.
Or at least,
that was the plan.
We got a bit of
a development happening.
Oh, I see.
Oh, God.
A goose
has nested on McCurdy's
one and only working
skid ramp,
the crew's one and only way
of putting wood in the water.
And there are
regulations for that.
It's a pretty big situation.
When we come across
a Canadian goose,
we're not allowed
to touch them
or interfere with them at all.
I've got a load
of chucks waiting.
We're not allowed
to dump them,
uh, in fear of
disturbing the goose.
Do we get to
move them out
once they're hatched?
I don't know, man.
'Cause they'll probably want
to hang around here.
Usually what they do is
they kind of hang around
in the area.
It's a pretty big situation.
Wildlife is kind of
one of them things.
We have to shut down the dump.
Um, that's what's
happening here right now.
So, yeah, we are shut down
until further notice.
Jared, how are things going?
Uh, barge load went well.
What's happening over there?
Well, we have
a goose making a nest
on one of our dump skids.
And right out in the open,
right next to
where we're working,
and the thing is hunkered down
on about six eggs.
Uh, it's a real, uh,
environmental issue.
Oh, man.
- Um
- -That's catastrophic, man.
Worst case scenario, it takes
four weeks for the eggs to
-hatch.
-Four.
If we got to wait four weeks,
that's gonna be devastating.
That'll kill this place.
This is not good.
Further up the hill,
and unaware
of the goose debacle,
Brendan and Chris
are still dead set on
bringing down
$100,000 worth of timber.
And having made their face cut
on this $60,000 cedar,
it's time to
break out the jack.
The jack is
definitely gonna be
a key to getting this thing
to go in the draw,
as safely as we can.
That should be okay.
- Yeah, I think so.
- Yeah.
Still a bit of
an optical illusion here,
but we've got
all the tools in place.
And it's one of
the biggest jacks they make,
so if it doesn't work,
then we're buggered.
If the jack fails,
and the tree hits the road,
it'll not only
devalue the wood,
but block an essential route
for hauling other logs
to the water.
Costing Jared
hundreds of thousands
in lost production.
This tree would
probably be about if you took
a semi-truck
and stood it up by end.
And that's about
how much energy
and how much weight
you're shifting around
over your head.
You never know.
Something could just pop
at the wrong spot
and away she goes.
We got this jack
pretty much maxed out.
I've cut everything I can from
the backside, in my back cut.
That jack's
lost PSI already,
so it's moving.
It's making noises.
Crazy time right now
'cause we're opening
a camp in Grizzly River.
We got a lot of issues
to deal with when we
get up there.
I've been chased
by grizzly bears before,
and I'm not doing that again
in my old age.
If you're gonna be a bear,
be a grizzly in this business.
- What's up, man?
- How you doing?
Good. You?
Is this three inch mag then?
That'll give you
two and three quarter
and three inch.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
The bear threat is real.
Grizzly bears
are extremely dangerous.
I gotta buy a gun,
and I gotta leave
a gun in camp.
Yeah, I'll take this one.
Now's the time,
you know
Yeah, they're gonna be
coming out now. Hungry.
Yeah.
We're gonna have
bear problems.
No doubt about it.
All right.
Have a good one.
See you later.
In the wilderness
near McCurdy Creek
Come on, baby.
Brendan and Chris
are fighting to push
a $60,000 tree
safely into a nearby gully.
If it goes the wrong way,
it could explode
on the road below.
Or worse, topple straight back
on the fallers.
There's obviously more wood
in the middle of this tree.
We're gonna have
to get back in there
and try and reach
that little bit of wood.
To get the last
of the holding wood,
Brendan will have to reach
five feet into this tree
with only a 30-inch saw.
So he'll carve large blocks
from the tree's exterior,
allowing for deeper cuts,
and hope he's making
just the right ones.
There's a moment in any tree,
and it doesn't matter
what one it is,
where it reaches a point
and it's holding wood,
that thing's just gonna
go where it wants to go.
You gotta stand back,
just watch, and hope
for the best.
Yeah, there she goes.
Attaboy! Nice shot!
I think your GoPro's toast.
Holy. yeah.
A! Woo!
Yeah, I don't think
that one's coming back.
Hang 'em high!
Everything went as planned.
We got it to lay in the draw.
Saved it out.
Kept it off the road.
Ten by ten.
- Wow.
Nice work, buddy.
-Jared
There's definitely gonna be
some good value in it.
Yeah, you better
put your initials on that guy.
The fall
went better than they
could have hoped.
But it's still
not quite enough
to reach Chris and Brendan's
$100,000 quota,
putting more pressure
on the days ahead
of next week's log barge.
At the end of the day,
the road's clean,
and we'll try again tomorrow.
Up Grizzly River
the camp setup
is coming together.
And Jared is eager
to start turning
the giant timber nearby
into a return
on his massive investment.
But unfortunately,
he's needed elsewhere.
Float camp
is shut down right now.
We are not hauling any logs.
No splash. No cash.
I'm in big trouble.
, man, I gotta go.
-What's going on?
-It's situation critical
over in float camp.
goose
laid its egg in the skid ways.
Now we can't dump.
No way.
Wow.
All that wood on the ground.
Log barge coming in five days.
Get some wood hopping in here.
. We'll grind
as hard as we can here,
to try and keep the lights on.
This is brutal.
- Yeah.
- -I'm just bouncing between disasters.
I hope that Grizz can
kind of pick up the pace here
and start delivering logs
to make up for float camp.
I'm swimming in debt.
Without float camp banging on
all eight cylinders here,
we're in big trouble.
So I need to get out there
and I need to get out there
right now
and figure out
what's happening.
Desperate for money
to start flowing at Grizzly,
Jared has hand fallers
flying into camp today
so they can
start dropping trees tomorrow.
But only if weather allows.
We've got
a helicopter coming.
He's flying from Port McNeill
to Campbell River
and then here.
Okay. Hear the wind?
This is a very
logistically challenging place
to work.
There's two hand fallers
coming in
on this helicopter
with all their gear.
-That'll give them
a good idea.
-Yeah.
Rick is a pretty integral part
of our operation
at this time here.
All right, let's go see
if we got them.
He's a watchman
here in camp, and he does
weather reports with
the helicopter companies daily
to make sure that it's clear
for them to fly in.
Uh, just give me
a call if you can
before you take off.
Thank you so much.
Well, how's she
looking there, Rick?
We're gonna get out?
Fingers crossed.
What's the ceiling at?
- Looks like about
- 800?
- About 750, 800.
- 750.
We've got about
a 750-foot ceiling today.
Hey, Ronnie, it's Rick.
Following up on the weather,
current conditions,
and the landing area.
As of now,
the cloud cover or ceiling
is too low to safely land
a helicopter,
which means the fallers
won't make it in today.
Jared stands to lose
thousands of dollars a day
in operational costs
until they do.
And with
a $1.7 million debt to pay
and only $149,000 saved
so far,
the timing couldn't be worse.
Failure is not an option.
We're gonna be in for
hundreds of thousands
of dollars in setup costs.
With all the logistics
and challenges,
we've got to
get into production here.
We've got to make sure
that we are profitable
and productive.
Every day or minute
you lose today,
you don't get back
at the end of the year.
Like, we cannot fail
or take down the company.
We have a log barge
coming in three days.
We can't
dump the loads.
This is gonna
send them over the top.
- Crank it.
- Come on, baby!
Another toy
in the sandbox!
Mad Max, Davey style.
Jackpot.
Uh-oh, stay up high!
Now what do you want to do?
I've never been
this frustrated
in my entire life.
This might be the end of me.