Life Below Zero (2013) s01e08 Episode Script

1
SUE: And you'll hear me
reference my paws,
and, uh, to a degree,
I'm just another animal
out here on the Arctic.
I'm not another human,
I'm one of the animals
trying to survive.
I am a food group, I'm not
top of the food chain,
so every day,
every morning, every night,
I've got to look
for predators.
I'm fully aware in my mind
I live in their territory,
they do not live in mine.
There's more stuff
that wants to eat me
than I wanna be eaten
by out here.
It's always a challenge
just staying alive day to day.
(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
SUE: Back there in the room
I had just gotten to sleep,
and, I heard (VOCALISES)
something heavy.
You can tell that
the footprints
It's I mean,
I'm ten to one pretty sure,
it's either the wolf
or the wolverine.
All animals figure out
where other animals sleep,
where are they denning up,
where are they bedding down
He's testing my line.
He was here. There's no
fucking time, he had
time to get there.
Don't go too far.
That's exactly what a predator
wants you to do.
Shut the door.
It's, uh It's back there.
It's back there
and I'm shaking a little,
but, uh
(SHUSHES)
Right there.
(WHISPERS)
Okay, whatever it is,
it's big.
The foxes have little prints,
and they crunch a little,
this is big.
It's (VOCALISES)
It's going this way.
When I was in bed,
it went that way.
My heart is racing
a little bit,
but, I mean,
this is what it is,
to live in the Arctic.
But for me to go out
there to investigate,
that's what a predator does.
He draws you away
from the herd,
from your safety zone.
And I stand my ground,
I'll look, but no fucking way
I'm coming inside.
They wanna get me,
they're coming
right in here.
Tomorrow morning
when it's light,
I'll go look at tracks.
Tonight, that son of a bitch
gotta get in here to get me.
Probably not gonna
sleep very much,
but if anybody
wants to play poker,
I got the winning hand
right here.
(EXHALES)
CHIP:
We don't really make a plan,
but we have ideas,
and as we go along
we develop our ideas
and we go with the best ones
that we have.
That's always the plan.
This is one
of the road houses.
It's a public shelter cabin,
and we make ourselves
comfortable here,
and we leave things behind to
make other people comfortable.
-Here's your Starbucks.
-Thank you for my Starbucks.
I was gonna hide
in here real quickly.
CHIP: We really enjoy
coming up here.
Every year we make an effort
to improve the place
as best we can for
our comfort and other people.
A lot of other people
come up here and hunt.
And we are
in a very productive area.
We feel safe.
This is like our insurance.
When we're working
these mountains back here,
we know we can
get back to this place
even if we are walking
or broken down, and we know
we'll be safe here,
and this is a good place
if we ever have to wait.
If we have to wait for weather
wait for things to be fixed,
wait to be picked up.
When we dress up
to go out in the Arctic,
we really dress up.
If you got snow
going down your neck,
you have to take the time
to chill a little bit down
and change yourself out.
If you got one boot wet,
take the time.
You just have
to take the time.
A lot of people don't
realise how much time
things take up here,
and then again, it takes
time to get things here,
so we're all masters
of repair, improvisation,
and I always tell them
if I ain't got it,
I don't need it.
I kind of, sort of
I kind of, sort of,
got it all together, too.
We come down to this area
because this is where
the western Arctic
caribou herd winters,
it's 325,000 strong,
and there's traditional
caribou hunting grounds
back here.
My plan for today is to go
to that mountain over there,
where all those caribou
are covering the hillsides
and work among 'em.
Maybe my wife will get
a couple of caribou,
and we'll leave the guts
and the hides in a pile,
maybe set a trap nearby,
and we'll take
the meats back here
and we'll butcher them down,
nice and compact,
and work up a load of meats.
If not today, there's tomorrow
or the next day,
we'll just keep
doing the same deal.
It's coming.
I see maybe 1,000 caribou.
They're just like
salt and pepper.
They're like pepper
all over the salt.
There's a lot of
caribou up there.
The prospects
are pretty good, man.
So, what do you think, Agnes?
Do you wanna go?
Are you ready to shoot?
Got your ammo?
Yep, ready to go.
ERIK:
There's a lot of self-reliance
living out this far.
You do whatever you want
with your life.
This is the lifestyle
I choose to live.
It's not the right
or wrong way to live,
it's just the way I choose.
I live in one of the most
remote parts of Alaska.
There's very few people
in this region.
I don't live in a village that
has any kind of municipality.
We don't have a power plant,
so because of all
those factors,
I have to make my own power.
Spending a little bit of money
and buying solar panels
is very expensive upfront,
but in the end,
where you don't have to
continuously run a generator,
you actually save
a lot of money.
The light spectrum
that we have here in spring
is so intense and so long,
I don't have to run
my generator at all.
I'm able to power
everything in my home
with these three panels.
It saves me time,
I don't need to come out
and start my generator,
I don't need to pump fuel,
I don't need to buy fuel.
A lot of time and money is
saved with these three panels.
Well, I'm gonna go ahead
and check the fluid level
in all my batteries.
First one's good.
If any of these
batteries get shot,
it's like the old expression,
"Only as strong as
the weakest link."
My whole bank will go down
and it can damage
my whole system,
so you have to keep up
on checking them.
I'm saving and storing power
in that battery bank,
so when it's dark
I have enough stored power
that I can run my lights,
radio, telephone,
all those things
I can run in my home.
ANDY: It's all about planning
ahead out here,
you're always thinking
about tomorrow,
the next day, the next week.
What you're gonna need,
being prepared for it.
All right, looking good.
I've been wanting
to get a band saw mill
for a long time.
It's a tool that
for many, many years now,
is gonna provide me
with lumber
and the type of lumber
that I want to do
my building projects.
It just frees me up
to be very independent
in the long future.
I'm hoping that I can get in
and get back to Eagle before
the Taylor Highway blows in,
or a snowstorm comes in,
'cause this time of the year
the weather changes daily.
The last 160 miles is on
a lane-and-a-half gravel road,
very mountainous.
There's no guard rails
on the road, this new snow
and these warm temperatures
is gonna make the road
really slick.
So it's gonna be, kind of,
a challenging road home
for me today.
Getting some wind-blown
drifts here
crossing the highway.
These drifts
kind of suck you in
whenever you, uh
Your front wheels hit them,
it wants to just
drive the wheels
right into the drift,
so you gotta keep a little bit
of momentum going,
you don't wanna just
ease into them,
so you just gotta,
kind of, hit them hard,
and be ready
for the wheel to get, kind of,
sucked into the drift.
These drifts are pinching
the road in pretty tight.
You gotta be careful,
if you go too far off
to one side,
you'll just fall off the road,
off the shoulder.
Not a place to get
stuck there for the night.
This would be
a pretty serious situation
if you ended up getting
drifted in up here at night.
Here's another one
right here.
Looks like it's gonna blow in
pretty good right here.
Just another day
on Taylor Highway.
It never fails.
There's always, always
something here.
We're heading down
into the 40-mile valley now.
This would be a bad place
to go off the road.
It's pretty much
a 40 degree angle off
the left bank here,
so if you make a mistake
on this section of the road,
you might as well kiss
whatever you got goodbye.
It's pretty narrow up in here.
It's about
a lane-and-a-half wide.
Need a damn bicycle to come
through here if it gets
too much more narrow.
(TRUCK HONKS)
Come on, buddy, slow it down.
These truck drivers here,
they're used to having the
whole road to themselves
and they don't like
to slow down.
For someone like me
who doesn't drive a lot,
it scares the hell out of me.
We're on the home stretch,
coming down the hill
into Eagle now.
That's a good feeling.
(EXHALES)
All-in-all,
it went pretty good.
I'm feeling really good.
I've been watching
the river conditions now.
After discussion with Kate,
we've decided we're gonna
leave our sawmill
in Eagle this year
instead of trying
to get it downriver
before the ice breaks up.
This is the end
of the road for this spring,
for this sawmill,
and I'll have to deal with it
later on in the summertime.
Now, all I got to do is pack
up the snow machine,
another hour trip home
on the Yukon,
jump in the sauna,
drink some beer,
snuggle with Kate
and it's a good day.
SUE: I got to keep
my little peepers peeled.
I got grandkids that want me
to go take them to see
the mouse someday.
I gotta stay alive to do it.
It's kind of eerie,
I normally have my foxes
All over they follow me
at everything that I do.
Um
But I haven't seen them,
so I'm just, kind of,
wanting to really
scan the area.
I mean, I got It tells me,
when they hide like that
and it's not a storm,
I've got one of the top
predators in my area.
My foxes are, you know,
they're cute.
They're sociable and
they're highly entertaining,
but one of the reasons
I cultivate that
friendship-relationship,
uh, they are great
at warning me what's to come.
A fox will always
run in the exact
opposite direction of danger.
You cannot take your own
safety seriously enough.
The largest thing
anybody can do
to be mindful of
their own safety,
get your ass up
in elevation a little bit
and constantly
survey your horizon.
It's a wolverine over there.
Come on, move, little fucker.
The only
big black thing running.
Being stalked by a wolverine
is bad news.
They are smaller
than a grizzly,
but I'll tell you what,
pound for pound,
they'll take them on
and I've seen them
come out on top.
So when I see a wolverine,
I definitely see danger.
He was coming in.
Little fucker.
The minute I see him,
he looked at me, he stopped,
and went (GRUNTS)
Boom. He's headed off
in that direction.
It's a very smart wolverine.
Smarter than I've
And ballsier than I have
ever seen one.
I need to think
like my opponent does
and outsmart him.
So it's like a chess match.
Right now, he's got me
in a check position.
He's been studying me
for a long time.
I I'll concede that
we're in a check situation,
but not checkmate yet.
ERIK: Up here
in the Arctic, you know,
everything's about efficiency.
You don't really put in
any extra effort
or use any resources
unless you have to.
In the wintertime,
I do extensive trapping
for supplemental income.
I have a lot of respect
for all of the animals that
live here in the Brooks Range,
and they are essential
to my life as
a subsistence user.
Animals can be
used to make mitts,
or parker ruffs, or hats,
and they can also be sold.
Different animals' hides
are worth different
amounts of money,
for instance,
a fox hide is worth anywhere
from $50 to $100.
A wolverine is worth anywhere
from $250 to $500.
A wolf hide is worth $1,500.
I'm gonna head up the creek
and check my trap line
and tend any traps
that need re-baiting.
If I see some more signs,
I'm going to put out a couple
more wolverine cubbies.
I've been seeing a good amount
of wolverine sign this winter,
and hopefully,
we'll catch something,
or we'll re-bait
and catch something next time
we get out there.
It's very important
to check your traps frequently
on your trap line.
For one reason,
you have that obligation
to the animals.
I don't want the animals
to be in the trap any longer
than they have to
before I go and humanely
dispatch them.
Also, you'll lose animals,
other animals will come
and eat them in the trap,
or snow and ice
will clog your traps,
it will freeze them open
and then your traps aren't
effective, so you're wasting
your time anyway.
There's a grouse.
A spruce grouse is
basically an Arctic chicken.
I need at least two
to make a meal.
I was just coming
around the corner
and I caught a little movement
out of the corner of my eye.
Saw one spruce grouse
and shot it.
A little supper.
Rural Alaska, most people
do their bird hunting
with a .22 riffle or pistol
like I just did and it's, uh,
it's not so much a sport,
it's just
a kill of opportunity
and a little bit of food.
(BIRD CHIRPING)
(ERIK SPEAKING)
(GUNSHOT)
A little bonus
along the trail.
Shot a couple of
spruce grouse
and third one that flew in
the trees over here.
I'm gonna walk over there
and see if I can find him
and get the fourth one there.
He flew right over here.
Got him.
Good eating.
Didn't plan on shooting
those grouse
when I left home today,
but always have
the .22 with me
and seize opportunity
when you get it.
At least I'm not coming home
empty-handed. Good deal.
ANDY: Things don't
always go as you plan.
That's the way it is out here.
You gotta adapt to things
as they happen.
Out here when things
break down,
it's up to me to fix them.
The next thing
I need did to do is
work on my Bombi.
I use the Bombi for a lot
of different jobs around here.
I haven't found anything
it can't pull yet.
Boats, logs, little buildings.
You know, for something
that weighs about 3,400 lbs,
it's a mighty mite.
It's a track vehicle,
kind of like a bulldozer.
Where we live here,
it's mostly
perma-frosted country.
And when that
does start to thaw out
in the spring time,
it's very, very wet and soft.
This is about the only thing
I can use in my yard
without tearing everything up.
'Cause it's got a lot
of floatation,
so it's a very important tool
for me to keep operating.
-Hey, can you give me a hand?
-Yep.
ANDY: All right.
I was having problems
with these wheels not
being aligned straight
and they were throwing
the tracks off.
So I'm removing
these axles here
so I can clean them all up
and check 'em out and make
sure they're not bent.
-Okay, you're on it.
-I'm on it.
Ah, that's good.
That's really easy.
-It's coming off easy?
-Yep.
Whoo-hoo!
Whoo!
Okay, all right, now go back
about a foot-and-a-half,
you'll see another one there.
It's actually Kate's Bombi.
We were driving along
in Fairbanks
and I saw this for sale
and I thought it was
the cutest little thing,
so I bought it.
You know, it's sad that
the axles' not cooperating,
but I'm sure Andy can fix it.
-That's it?
-I think so.
I didn't know we had these.
ANDY: Well, you always
told me you like a man
with a big tool.
(CHUCKLING)
I think you are a big tool.
ANDY:
All four axles are off now.
Hopefully, I'll be able
get this thing going
in another day or so.
CHIP: It's just a matter
of what you want
and the things
you want in life.
And this is what we like.
This is what we want in life.
We like the action.
We like the good food.
That's the way
we like to do it.
I just wanna glass around
and make myself familiar
with all the little dots
all over again,
and then I'll be able to tell
what's moving and what's not.
CHIP: Well, there's caribou
moving down here.
Caribou are always walking.
They're always on
the move every day.
And when you get them
running like that,
it's almost guaranteed
something's spooking 'em.
I just don't see
what's spooking 'em,
and it isn't the first herd
that we've seen running off
that hill either.
I've seen about four other
small herds run off that hill
for some reason.
They're probably
a good mile-and-a-half away,
almost two miles away.
So it's definitely not us.
Quite a few bunches
of caribou.
Keep wards and keep
going up on top
and glass around some more
once we get to the top.
CHIP: This is a place
we call "on high".
This is a natural, kind of,
caribou trap.
The caribou take these
three drainages
and they end up
in this area right here.
And a lot of times we can hunt
them from the rocks.
We just dress like a rock,
look like a rock,
act like a rock
and we get
really close to caribou.
We've got
Right here is one lone female.
Look, they're coming up this way,
these ones are spooking.
They're gonna start moving.
AGNES: That first one
right there.
CHIP: The very first one.
Look she's the fourth one
back now.
The one that just
turned around is a female.
Then there's two bulls
and a female.
CHIP: Good drop.
You see her drop?
You spined her ass.
Should we go down
and finish her? She'll die.
AGNES: I just shot
a female caribou,
looks like she's down.
I was aiming for her shoulder,
right side, trying to get
a clean heart shot,
but, uh, it looked
like I hit it in the spine
and it just went
(VOCALISES)
and it fell down
with the first shot.
CHIP: Should we go down
and finish her?
AGNES: For sure.
CHIP: I'm gonna go up
and get my machine.
AGNES: Okay.
ERIK There is no schedule,
it's just whatever you want.
That's part of the beauty
of living in the bush
and having those freedoms.
ERIK: Picked up a couple
spruce grouse here,
which was kinda unexpected.
I was going along
and there was four grouse.
Grab my favourite part
of any bird or any animal,
the heart.
Take the legs,
breast meat,
and the hearts from each one.
These grouse,
they rely on their, uh
On their natural camouflage
of their feathers.
They'll sit still and you can
walk right up to 'em
and they don't run away.
Most of the time, it works.
I was hanging around
for quite a while
with these grouse
right next to me,
I didn't even see 'em.
Little bonus, little kill
of opportunity,
and something to bring home
on an otherwise unsuccessful
trapping mission.
Voila.
My whole life,
I've enjoyed being outdoors,
you know, I have
an appreciation for going
to a larger metropolitan city
and eating a good meal,
but I like to hang my hat
in the wilderness.
I like rural living.
Hungry.
It's like midnight,
got more work to do.
Everything in life is
a matter of perspective
and I'm learning, not knowing.
Some people are
They think it's incredible
the way that I live,
or different other people
who live in this region.
To me, it's just
everyday stuff.
Well, this is kind of my, uh,
quick meal version
of shepherd's pie,
I got potatoes
with meat, grouse,
cheese on the top.
It's not the greatest meal
I've ever cooked,
but I just need
something to eat.
I'm just gonna devour it.
ANDY: Experience is
knowledge out here,
and you'll only gain that
knowledge if you gain
the experience
and that just takes time.
And even then you screw up.
There were six of these.
Five, six
No, there should be eight.
I'm missing two
of these long ones.
When I took the Bombi apart
and I started
inspecting all the parts
and pieces on it,
I found that
some bolts got lost.
Where would you have
put them?
-In your pocket?
-No.
Okay, I'll look with
the big magnet.
It's gonna be a real pain
if he can't put it together,
if he can't get anything
to put it together with.
It's just a magnet that holds
tools on the wall
but they're wicked
for looking for stuff in
the snow.
Like, you just go over
the snow, and it just jumps up
into the magnet.
Let's check it out.
I'm having problems with
the alignment on the axles.
I pulled this one axle off
and it's
The alignment's
messed up on it.
It's not straight so
Because its cocked,
the bogie wheel here
is grabbing the track
and throwing the track off,
and once the track comes off,
then it's about
a half-a-day project
to put my track back on.
I'm gonna inspect them all
and clean them up
and one way or another,
I've gotta make it work,
so I've got a feeling
it's gonna be more
MacGyvering.
(MACHINERY WHIRRING)
There are some days
I feel like all I'm doing
is fixing things,
but the more things
you have to do
out of the ordinary,
the more skills you develop,
so a lot of times
when a problem happens,
it's just a matter of a minute
or two, and I know
how to fix the problem.
(WHIRRING CONTINUES)
(GRUNTS)
Crap.
I spend half my life
looking for shit.
I think I might have
better success looking
through his pockets.
Well, I guess I better go
deliver the bad news.
-So sorry!
-Can't find anything?
No, all that's out there
is just those little ones
with the washers.
Okay, I'll figure it out.
ANDY: Out here,
seems like I'm forever
redoing threads, or making
my own nuts or bolts.
It's a pain in the ass.
More damn MacGyvering.
SUE: Do I wanna shoot
everything in sight? No.
Do I need to rid myself
of a top predator? Absolutely.
No different than anybody
else's home protection.
My street gangs just have
fur and claws.
This wolverine predator
situation is,
kind of, getting on
my nerves a little bit.
I have too much work
to do to be held hostage
by a furball.
It's time for me instead of
waiting for him to come in,
I've got a beautiful, nice,
warm, sunny day.
I've got a Tyvek suit,
which is all white.
And I'm gonna
go out to an area
where he's popped up from
a couple of times,
and I'm gonna put
the hunt on him.
The wolverine is doing
some things that are
very uncharacteristic
for a wolverine.
You know, predators
are opportunists.
This is beginning to feel
more like, uh,
he's targeting me.
He was by my side of the tent
where I sleep
when I heard the noise
the other night.
He is not just,
"Let's open the tent
and see if there's food,"
he is definitely
directing his attention
at me, personally.
I am a food group
if he needs it.
I am a lone individual
culling my
I've culled myself
from the herd.
I do walk with a limp.
So all of that says,
"Ooh, there's a pork chop."
It will be very
offensive to him
that I've come
and screwed up his den.
That is a direct challenge.
So I'm gonna get
right up in his grill
and let him know
two can play this game.
This wolverine predator
situation is, kind of, getting
on my nerves a little bit.
It's time for me to go out
and push back and assert
my dominance
and hopefully, in doing that,
he'll stay away.
We, got, uh
Couple of very distinctive
smaller wolverine tracks.
All these little
circles are prints.
But because of
the light windstorm we had
the other night,
it's gonna leave,
uh, inverted print.
But this shows me
that there are
There's a lot
of activity here.
You know,
some are smaller,
obviously, fox.
Some are bigger,
obviously, wolverine.
But this is home central.
So this is a good area for me
to take a couple of shots.
Even not seeing
the wolverine jump
in front of me,
by me going into
their territory
-Boom, boom, boom, boom!
-(GUNSHOTS)
It's posturing and warning.
"I'm the alpha."
"No, I am." "No, I am."
And then, we'll, you know,
we'll either come
to a meeting of the minds.
One of us comes
out the victor,
or we both say,
"Fine, I have my territory,
you have yours."
CHIP: Small game will get you
through the time when
there's no big game.
And there's plenty of time
when there's no big game.
Gotta know your alternatives,
you'll always be successful.
(AGNES SPEAKING)
(CHIP SPEAKING)
I just went back up
and got the snow machine
with the sled,
and I'm gonna go down
and go pick up that caribou.
The ultimate plan for
the animal, of course,
is the caribou that we hunt
at this time of year,
she's a nice, fat female,
and it's the best meat,
they're prime right now.
Caribou are good
all the way round.
I'm skinning away.
We've got some antlers
and head and some skin
for bait.
What we're doing here
is killing off two birds
with one stone.
Basically what will happen
is there'll be a gut pile
left here with the skin
'cause the skin at this time
of year is just not any good
and the ravens will come
and they'll eat,
and they'll let the other
predators round here know that
there's something up here
and the predators will
come up here,
and when we come
around tomorrow,
we'll be able to sneak up
to the same rock,
have a look down,
maybe be able to take a shot.
So this doesn't
pan out in one day.
This is just our first
good day of riding weather.
This is our first good day
of being able to get out
and do what we wanted to do
and we've waited a long time.
It's taken quite a while
to get here,
and this is just the first one
of several caribou
that we plan on having.
The first bait that we plan
on leaving behind.
We call them baits,
but it's just gut piles
that we leave behind.
But it's really
what they become.
We're not placing them
or something,
but this is a good place.
I threw the skin on there
simply to keep
the ravens from eating up
and clearing off the gut pile
over the next couple of days.
We made ourselves a gut pile.
We made ourselves some meat.
Now we're looking
to make some fur.
ERIK: The real value of
wilderness is aesthetic
and it's a non-tangible asset.
The basic building blocks
for living out in
the wilderness is having fuel.
It's having meat to eat.
You gotta have
a good supply of firewood
to get yourself
through the winter.
(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)
This will be some
good dry spruce.
Some high quality fuel here.
I like to be efficient.
I burn fuel to come all
the way up here to trap.
Fuel costs a lot of money
in rural Alaska,
so I try to make
the best of it
and cut down a tree
you know, in an area
that otherwise would
be too far away
to just go to cut
firewood so
In these temperatures,
that's a couple days of wood.
So it didn't really cost me
anything just to knock this
little tree down.
Every little bit
of wood helps.
You can never have
too much firewood.
I was getting pretty low
on wood.
That shed, in late Fall,
is filled to the top
and was heaping
over with nice split,
dried wood ready to go.
At this point, we're down
here pretty low,
just a couple pieces left,
so went out today
and cut this tree.
Got a little bit of
expendable wood now.
I'm ahead a couple of days.
Having an ample supply
of firewood is 100% essential.
If you don't have
enough firewood to make
it through the winter,
it's not gonna be
a very good time.
ANDY: There's a lot
of different ways
of living subsistence,
I'm always improvising.
You gotta find
a balance out here.
So, I've cleaned up
all the axles,
got all the parts ready
to put back on the Bombi
so she's ready to get put back
together again.
If you don't like
doing mechanicking,
you better
If you're gonna live out
in the woods,
you better not buy
any equipment.
Because you're going
to be forced to
MacGyver a lot of stuff.
Out here, the trade-off
is investment you have
in this equipment
and the amount of work
you can do without it.
Everybody comes to
realise after a while
that if you don't have
some of these equipment,
it's just too much work.
Kind of feeling like
I'm on the home stretch here,
which is a good thing.
Often the biggest battle
with any of this stuff is
doing it in the right order.
One of the things that my
parents taught me in life was,
"Just go do it.
Don't be afraid to make
a mistake, you'll learn."
All right. (SIGHS)
Think for the most part, I got
this bad boy back together,
hasn't run for quite a while,
so that's the next thing,
see if she'll start up.
(ENGINE STARTING)
(ENGINE STARTING)
All right! Looking good.
The Bombi is just a really
important tool to me.
It's just
an all-purpose vehicle
for us during the summertime.
It was a bit of a struggle,
you know,
having to take parts off
and find replacements,
but I've gotta say everything
went back together good.
I don't have any spare parts
laying around.
(CHUCKLES)
I'm not missing any parts.
All-in-all, I feel like
this was a good project
and a good day today
to get this done.
KATE: Whoo-hoo!
ANDY: Go Bombi!
CHIP: We see a change
in seasons coming
and things happening
in a really fast rate.
Every day, there's
something else to hunt.
Every day, there's
something new to gather.
Yesterday, Agnes caught
a really dandy caribou
and we left a gut pile behind,
and what we like
to do is go back
and look at the gut piles.
We have one
in a pretty strategic place.
So our plan is to go on
up there and see what fur
has gone to that gut pile.
(ANDY SPEAKING)
So, we've got our gut pile
from yesterday down here,
from a nice caribou
that we killed,
and we were glassing
to see if any fur
would been on it.
Uh, from what we see,
there's only been
ravens on it so far.
So we're gonna come
back here again tomorrow
and have another look.
Today doesn't
seem like we're gonna
be getting out there
as much as we want to.
The weather's gonna be
calming down.
It's not really the cold,
it's the wind.
So we're just gonna
have to sit and wait out
the weather.
Um, today is
blowing Gusting 45 and
blowing 30,
and it's about zero out there.
So I think it's something like
a 47 degree wind chill factor.
(CHUCKLES)
Out of every
good hunting day,
there's probably two days
of nasty, nasty weather.
It's the Arctic.
-Pretty good caribou, huh?
-This is the 3C menu.
This is the caribou, the corn
and the carrots,
with whole wheat bread
that you made at home.
I'd throw all this in a pot
and call it good.
AGNES: We're gonna
just wait out the weather
and hope for the best
and it should clear up,
hopefully by morning,
and we should be rolling soon.
SUE: I've always craved
extreme isolation.
I like the isolation.
I love my animals,
even the ones that
want to eat me.
Hey, baby.
Come on, it's okay.
Well, I mean,
my foxes are back,
um, that means
the wolverine isn't.
Uh, you know,
I had to push play.
My dominance over
his dominance,
and he's left the area.
Today, the
The whole feel is different.
There is an absolute lessening
of the tension in the air
and things are back to normal.
You can't get me.
Oh, you can't get me.
You can't catch me.
(LAUGHS)
The foxes, they are
my social world.
Come on, dummy dum-dum.
(CLICKING TONGUE)
Right here.
People are 350 miles away.
The foxes,
they're family to me.
My favourite thing
about the foxes
is that they are willing to
share the Tundra with me.
They're allowing me
to experience
what they are,
what they can be.
You know, they're not
just a fur coat.
They're friends.