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  • [music playing]

  • [clock ticking]

  • NARRATOR: Not everything goes the way you want it to go.

  • You don't get to choose how life unfolds.

  • You just get to live it.

  • Looks like I've got good moving water,

  • but it looks like it's out there quite a ways.

  • Right now here in Kavik, this is the changing of the seasons.

  • Winter is letting go and the springtime is coming in.

  • My list of chores is long.

  • But the most important one that opens up first

  • is get running water to camp.

  • How do I get water?

  • I have hose.

  • I have to run it all the way down to the river,

  • put it in the river, pump it all the way up,

  • filter it, treat it, and then send it around camp

  • where I want it.

  • That's stagnant right they're.

  • Not interested in that.

  • Why is it important to have rapidly moving water?

  • In a stagnant pond, what do you get if you're down

  • south maybe in the lower world?

  • Tadpoles, slime-- you're going to get sick.

  • So stagnant water-- big fat no, no.

  • Moving water keeps it clean, keeps it oxygenated.

  • That's what you want.

  • I've got nice water action coming down this way.

  • It's moving.

  • I may be able to just get it right here.

  • The melting ice doesn't have a lot of issues.

  • So what I think I want to do is get the water line,

  • set it out so it can finish thawing,

  • and then go from there.

  • You can see my pipe is encased in a little bit of ice.

  • So my favorite piece of equipment is a sledge.

  • When you run into a problem, you can just kind of sledge it out.

  • Alaska is known for its resources--

  • oil, gold-- but the one as residents we desire the most

  • is that liquid water.

  • That's what we call the gold.

  • I've had a good nine, 10 months with no running water in camp.

  • A nice hot shower is not a bad thing.

  • And especially this last year with COVID, the importance

  • of keeping everything hygienically clean

  • can't be overstressed.

  • Who said Mike doesn't make right?

  • Wasn't somebody with a sledgehammer.

  • I guarantee you that.

  • Not bad for a fat old chick on the tundra.

  • That's the pipe.

  • And it can lay out here.

  • There's going to be frozen bits inside.

  • Even in a cloudy state, that sun will work on that, melt it,

  • so when I need to use it, it's free of that and it can flow.

  • I'll let this be, let nature start working on it,

  • go inside, and warm up.

  • [music playing]

[music playing]

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