Subtitles section Play video
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SUE: All right.
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We got something just poked its head out of the ravine there.
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I got a bunch of caribou and I've got a big ass bear coming in.
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I got a bear over here and I got caribou over here.
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He's actually quartering north,
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so I'm sure he's trying to get around without giving his scent trail up.
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He's damn close to camp, so, that's not safe to me.
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My name is Susan Aikens.
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I am the sole resident and owner of Kavik River Camp.
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It's an old oil camp 200 miles above the Arctic Circle.
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I'm the only refueling station and I do it on my own.
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In order to run a business, I have to cater to the people
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in the season that they're roaming around.
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That's summer.
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And in that June, July, and August,
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I need to make enough revenue to support the camp
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and get ready for the next year.
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I am working 24 hours a day and then boom!
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Winter hits.
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I've got nine months of some of the harshest conditions on Earth,
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and for the nine months or more that I'm totally alone out here,
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I hunt for the meat that I eat.
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I live by my wits and sometimes those are lacking.
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The older I get, the slower I get, but the animals keep getting faster.
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But, I rise to the challenge every day.
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It's the challenge that keeps me going.
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Welcome to Kavik, it's where I live.
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I think what I'm gonna have to do is try to get down there.
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Down the road a little this way.
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If I scare all the caribou, I'm gonna scare the bear as well.
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Either way I've got caribou to get, and there's a bear.
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It may be a twofer.
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Welcome to winter.
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(theme music plays)
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♪ ♪
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SUE: Every caribou is staring at me.
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Where is my (bleep) bear?
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It's like he disappeared off the planet.
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I've gotta get a little elevation here.
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Okay, they're all coming towards me.
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So, the bear must be on the other side starting to push.
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All right, these are bear tracks, but this is a pretty big bear.
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He's not a juvenile-long stride.
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This is just King Mamma-Jamma slothing his way through.
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But, I gotta get jamming.
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This is a lesson in frustration, right here.
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I'm trying to get the easiest place to get at this bear in a
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100% open field,
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without giving up 100% of my opportunity at caribou.
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Whenever you're hunting bear, the longer you take, even seconds, they're gone.
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Your hunt is blown before it's ever started, but I gotta try though.
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Yeah.
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They're cruising now for the river, which means they're in migration mode.
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But, it's possible that the bear is up there.
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I may just sit put and just see what develops.
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The bear across this open ground, there's no way I'm gonna sneak up on him.
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He heard me. He didn't smell me. But he heard me.
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He probably saw the vehicle.
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I don't have the tracks on the vehicle.
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All's I'm gonna do is end up getting stuck somewhere and no way to get myself out.
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That's not smart hunting.
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Bummed out about the bear.
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But not so bummed out that I'm gonna put my life in jeopardy chasing him down.
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That just, that's a fool's errand.
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All right, Mr. Bear.
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Live to see you another day, man.
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CHIP: Subsistence is basically just being able to make a living
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from the land with the things around you.
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And we do a pretty good job at that.
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And, we mix it into a modern 21st Century.
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Okay. We got one good one. Let's get another one.
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What's up little guy?
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You rolling up on us, seeing what we're doing?
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We're making you a sled.
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CHIP: We can make you a sled.
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Tata and Carol are gonna make you a sled.
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I'm gonna make a sled for Wade.
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It's gonna be something that he can play with for a few years.
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It'll be substantial.
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It'll be kind of a big sled, but over the next few years,
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he'll probably grow right on into it.
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And plus, just to be able to drag him around will be a lot of fun, too.
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I'm Edward Hailstone.
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My friends call me Chip.
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I'm married to Agnes Hailstone.
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AGNES: I'm Inupiaq Eskimo, and I was born and raised here in Noorvik, Alaska.
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We pretty much live a semi-nomadic lifestyle.
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We just go from area to area depending on season.
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CHIP: We're hunters, gatherers, fisher people.
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AGNES: I'm hunting in the same areas that my parents had hunted for hundreds of years.
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CHIP: We got seven kids together.
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Three of them still live with us.
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The four oldest have grown up and moved off.
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AGNES: We pretty much try and teach our children everything I was taught by my parents,
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and my mother and father learned from their parents.
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It's very important for me to pass down my knowledge to my children
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and to their children.
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CHIP: Okay. What we need to do is go inside, since the sun's heading down.
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And I think, actually, what I wanna do first is bend the boards I wanna bend.
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You know what I mean?
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CAROL: Come on. CHIP: Come on, grandson.
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Let's go inside the house and go work on your sled.
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CAROL: Come on, baby. Follow us.
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CHIP: There you go. Ho, ho, ho!
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You gotta walk on your own, crazy boy.
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Open the door for Tata.
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Hold it open. Hold it open. Thank you.
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Okay. Carol, check this out.
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CAROL: Yup.
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CHIP: First thing that we're gonna do is make the runners.
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CAROL: All right.
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CHIP: We're just gonna start steaming these things,
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and we'll be able to put foil over it to catch this,
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and as soon as these are nice and soft right here,
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we just have to make a bend up about yay far.
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And we can make a sled about that big.
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Just perfect for Wade to do his thing for a couple years.
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This will do.
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Basically, we're just gonna let all this stuff cook.
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CAROL: Should we do the next step now?
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CHIP: Yup. We'll start shaping the different pieces.
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Carol. Yeah, sitting on this so, you would really help me a lot.
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CAROL: It's always good to do activities with my dad, 'cause, like,
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I get to learn faster.
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CHIP: Grab me the, um, small diameter and thread it in.
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CAROL: Okay. My dad, he has fun teaching me.
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CHIP: See what you can do with that, love.
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CAROL: It's real useful out here knowing how to build,
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and being with my dad and doing the one on one work,
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it's pretty fun.
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I love it.
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CHIP: Yeah, these are good.
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Come here, bun.
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I'm gonna pull this off, we're gonna take these two ends right here,
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and put them in there, and I'm gonna ease 'em down this way.
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If we hear any cracking, if we see any lifting, we stop. Okay?
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CAROL: Okay.
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CHIP: The runners have to be bent, and it's kind of a delicate process.
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Because, when you bend them together, they're a match pair.
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You can't duplicate, uh, another bend.
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So, so the trick is to just do it right the first time as best you can
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and make your bends carefully, and listen, and feel when you do it.
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So, ready. Let's give this a try.
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(mimics dramatic music)
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CAROL: Are you sure you're gonna bend it that way?
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CHIP: I am sure. I know exactly what I'm doing.
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CAROL: Hey, stop.
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CHIP: That's all right, it's not decent.
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Okay. There we go, there we go, there we go, there we go.
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Gently. Okay, I don't hear any badness.
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Now go choke up these two together.
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CAROL: Yeah. CHIP: These two right here.
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Okay, right there is perfect. Absolutely perfect.
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Tighten it. Okay, that's good.
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Okay, that way they have the same bend, and the same place,
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and the same time, same bat channel.
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We just have to let it dry now.
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CAROL: All right.
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CHIP: That's all we can do.
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CAROL: So, we're done for tonight?
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CHIP: We're done for tonight.
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This needs to dry and tomorrow we'll, uh,
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we'll take it off there when we have everything else prepared,
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and this will be the last thing that we mount
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and that we fit everything to.
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CAROL: All right.
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GLENN: Wherever you are, there are dangers.
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If you don't wanna take a risk, don't get out of bed in the morning.
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But the reality is, that knowledge will protect you
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from the dangers in your environment.
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About 1,000 feet above lake elevation here.
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Hey, there's the camp.
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I can see it. See it, Amelia?
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AMELIA: Yeah.
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GLENN: I got my own airplane this summer.
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The nearest road is a 60 mile walk from here.
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If you wanna get somewhere, you're not gonna drive.
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You gotta fly or you gotta walk.
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Those are your two choices.
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AMELIA: Feels good to be back at the Brooks Range, huh?
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GLENN: Yeah.
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NARRATOR: Before dark winter hits,
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Glenn Villeneuve and his family return to their cabin in the Brooks Range.
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Glenn will hunt for a bull moose,
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an important supplement for his family's diet.
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GLENN: Okay. Landing gear is up for water.
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We got four blues.
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Can you check on your side, make sure it's up?
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AMELIA: Confirmed on my side.
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GLENN: Looks good on my side.
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First thing I do when I fly into camp,
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I always like to make a pass over the cabin,
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look down, see what's going on.
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Anytime I leave camp, even like now, when it's only for a couple of weeks,
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I have to check things out when I get back,
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because things happen when I'm gone.
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That's when bears are more likely to come into the yard,
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that's when things can get damaged,
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that's when things can cause problems.
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I didn't see anything from the air,
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but when I get up to the cabin,
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I'm gonna look for smaller details.
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Things can happen here that I can't see from the air.
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I don't do what I do because it's easy.
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I don't do what I do because it's hard.
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I do what I do because I have a lot of fun doing it.
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Everything is a choice.
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I chose to live in the Brooks Range.
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I choose to hunt for my food,
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and now I choose to have an airplane.
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It all goes together for me.
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My name is Glenn Villeneuve.
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I live in Alaska.
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I moved up here almost 20 years ago,
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'cause this is the only place in the world where
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I could live this lifestyle I'm living.
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I built a cabin in Fairbanks, I got a place in the bush,
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and I live half the time in each of them.
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There's no other place on this planet Earth where
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I could live the way I live here.
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I'm in control of my own destiny.
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I decide where I'm gonna go,
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when I'm gonna go there, what I'm gonna do.
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Nobody is telling me what needs to be done.
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I just see what needs to be done and I do it.
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My family is growing.
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I had a new baby born last summer, I got four kids now.
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It was always my dream to have my family in the bush with me.
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It took time to achieve that,
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and there were times when I had to set the priority on
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being out here even though I didn't have anybody to share it with.
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I've spent a whole winter out here by myself,
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but it gets lonesome.
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I mean, I'm only human.
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And now I got everything I want.
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I got the wilderness, plus I got my family with me.
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Made it back to the camp.
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There you go.
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TRISHA: Camp looks good.
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AMELIA: Hey, dad, it looks like the meat pole is knocked down.
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GLENN: What happened here?
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Our meat pole got knocked down.
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This has never happened before.
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There are not many things that can reach up there and knock that down.
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That's been up there for 10 or 12 years.