EVAN_STRASSBURG GLYNDARIL HAZEL_STRASSBURG JAIRUS JAMEY_JOSEPH JODY JOEL_JACKO JOSEPH_WHITE MARCELLA TERRANCE_STRASSBURG TIG TIG Hazel, Terry, Evan! EVAN STRASSBURG Yeah, I'm here. TIG Hazel, Terry. Chop, chop. EVAN STRASSBURG Dad? TIG Hmm? EVAN STRASSBURG Where are we going? TIG Oh, we're gonna head back Kanuti. Spring camp they call it. Kanuti spring camp. I do try and carry on the tradition of living a nomadic lifestyle as much as I can. With spring time, I start taking my family down river back to Kanuti to the family allotments back there. It's a good spot for spring time hunting. Yeah, I just left the triangle. It's close to our roots as possible. I mean, this is the time of the year where it gets easy to live off the land. There's fish in the river, ducks in the sky. I mean, I didn't really bring much food. Planning on these kids getting a duck or something. They're not shooting straight, we're not eating good. TIG So my grandma used to drive with me. TIG Drive right next to the willow and these ducks take off real close. Might be able to get some good easy shots for these boys. Now, they got the shotguns ready up front. Something's gonna pop up soon. Ah. These kids, they do have guns. These aren't toys, this is real ammo that my children got. It's just something that I've been teaching them since they're two, three years old is gun safety. There's hours of gun around. You can't be in the woods without that gun. There's three in back coming over. Hit it. Oh. TIG Almost. Good try. EVAN STRASSBURG Uh-huh. TIG But we gotta keep going. The sun is almost down. It is now just about 100 in the morning. Let's start making our way back to camp. MARCELLA We've always had deep respect for the land and trying to make things still exist for the younger generations. GLYNDARIL Tide waits for no man. GLYNDARIL It's the reason we have to go now, this early in the morning, is because we're catching the morning minus. MARCELLA Tide is out and the table is set. You know what that means? We're going out and getting our own food. My name is MARCELLA. I am from Akhiok. I am Alutiiq. I am Filipino. I am a mom. MARCELLA I have five beautiful children that we get to raise here, in a place like this. GLYNDARIL The test is not hitting any rocks, not hitting land 'cause this is shallow up in here. GLYNDARIL The rule of thumb is if you're going fast and you see ground, don't slow down because your motor drops. Marvin's, uh, older sister, she's the one who showed me, minus tide first. MARCELLA No, she knew where all the reefs were. GLYNDARIL Well, you know that old school native, that's tough right there. Your mom, Uncle Marvin, it's a special kind of tough. MARCELLA We rely on our subsistence life. The fish, the deer, seal, clams. GLYNDARIL And now, straight to land. MARCELLA I have a husband that is not from Alaska. I feel like it's my duty to sit there and not only teach my children, but also to teach my husband. GLYNDARIL The wind blowing? MARCELLA According to my hair, it's going this way. GLYNDARIL Okay, I'll take it. MARCELLA He's blossoming, beautifully. Uh-oh [inaudible] GLYNDARIL Ooh, look at the crab. As a matter of fact, we might need that crab. Hand me a bucket. Today's plan, we're gonna cut some holes into the bucket. We'll get some crab. We're gonna dig a little hole, set the bucket in there. We're gonna make octopus traps. There ya go, grab it, squeeze. There you go, drop him in the bucket. Awesome. The reason we can only do this now is because this is minus tide. We can't set it up on, we ain't gonna get an octopus on the beach. We gotta go to like, it has gotta be under water, so. JOSEPH WHITE Is that so it can swim in? GLYNDARIL Yeah, so it can swim in, exactly. JOSEPH WHITE Octopus don't have bones so they can swim in into small hole. GLYNDARIL Oh, yeah. All is has to be is big enough for the beak. MARCELLA My connection to the land, I care for it on a whole new level than I did when I was younger. I am trying to make it blend into the environment that the octopus live in. When we were growing up, you know, there were some kids that weren't taught the same way as we were. They'd make trails all throughout the salmon berry bushes and ruin them. Get that as well. GLYNDARIL Oh, yeah. There we go. MARCELLA Enlightening people is definitely what it is that, I, you know, I try to do. JOSEPH WHITE Are we gonna come back tomorrow, daddy? GLYNDARIL Yup. We gotta let it soak overnight. JOEL JACKO Being out here, sometimes less, is definitely more. It kind of rejuvenates you. It just sets you back where you need to be. JOEL JACKO Wow. JOEL JACKO It's destroyed in here. This is my dad's old cabin. It's in, uh, pretty rough shape. I'm building a new hunting cabin a couple miles up Pile River to the head of Iliamna Lake. My dad's old hunting cabin is pretty much falling over so, I'm gonna go see what I can reclaim for the new cabin. Mother nature will take its course and, uh, return your building back to the earth. Think it's time to get to work before the rain comes. Eh. Sketchy. When my dad built that cabin, I'm pretty sure he was by himself, too. You know, I'm up here doing the same thing he was, building a cabin so I could go hunting and trapping up here. I never saw myself doing that. You know, it's kinda cool being back up here, kinda walking in his footsteps so to speak. Oh, shit! The tin is definitely not in as good of shape as I thought it was. Hopefully, there's enough of it that's salvageable for the new building. It's pretty difficult to get that material up there. I can't go to the store and buy tin and stuff. The walls are about to fall down now that I took the tin off. It was kinda holding the walls up. It's ready to go. See if I can get the flooring outta there now. This is the wood from our old barn at Peter's Creek right outside of Anchorage. But we tore it down when I was, like, middle school. So this is probably pushing 100 years now. I think it's got one more, one more building in its life. Straight out of the 70's. Still some good stuff in here. Stapler. Oh, yeah, look at that coffee pot. When I was coming up here as a kid, the first thing we ever did was we lit a fire and we made some coffee. You had a percolator. I mean, it was usually the most beat up thing you've ever seen. Back then, I didn't drink coffee 'cause I was like, "That stuff tastes like crap." But my dad would put a cup of coffee on the old fire and we'd sit around and, you know, drink coffee and talk about what we're gonna do. Start hauling this stuff over to the new cabin. TIG Everything that we know is passed down from generation to generation. So it's pretty important for us to teach our kids as much as we remember that we were taught. TIG Look alive, guys. Look alive. You guys ready? TIG Oh, the kids are doing fine. They're probably a little sleepy. TIG They just gotta get used to this type of lifestyle. Farewell, Allakaket. TIG What they're gonna be doing all their life if they're gonna be out here living a subsistence lifestyle. There's next month and the month after that to rest. These seasons are short. The windows of opportunity to get these animals is small. TIG Enaa Sebaabe, they call it. TIG Good food. EVAN STRASSBURG Right there! TIG Go ahead, Terry. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Oh, it's on safety! TIG Go ahead. Oh. TERRANCE STRASSBURG I'm shooting this puppy. TIG [inaudible] ooh! Almost buddy. EVAN STRASSBURG Over there. EVAN STRASSBURG Right next to us. EVAN STRASSBURG To our left! TIG That's a seaduck. One of those seaducks that we're looking for. TIG Almost. TERRANCE STRASSBURG I aimed a bit above it, but it flew away too fast. TIG Little ducks, straight ahead, Terry. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Ready Evan? EVAN STRASSBURG Yeah. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Canvasback? TIG Bufflehead. TERRANCE STRASSBURG I got him. TIG You got it, Terry. Grab it, Hazel. EVAN STRASSBURG Grab it, Hazel. TIG Hazel. HAZEL STRASSBURG Wow. EVAN STRASSBURG Whoa. TERRANCE STRASSBURG That was my first duck of the year right there. HAZEL STRASSBURG Blue, some green, some purple. TIG Good shot, buddy. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Thank you. HAZEL STRASSBURG A bit of orange. TIG Things are looking up. JODY For us, the salmon are more of a relative than just a resource. I think if the rest of the world shared that view, we'd have less problems. JODY Rise and shine. JODY You know like they say, daylight's a burning. JAMEY JOSEPH Ah, shall we? JODY As native people, there's always something to do in every season. Is the net in the boat already? JAMEY JOSEPH Yeah, the net's in the boat. We just gotta grab an anchor. JODY It is summer time, and traditionally, we would be fishing for salmon on the Yukon River. JAMEY JOSEPH Time to go to work. JODY Climate change and over fishing in the ocean has had a huge impact on the Yukon River salmon fisheries. So, we are getting less salmon in the Yukon River every year till where this last year. There was no subsistence fishing allowed on the Yukon River. JAMEY JOSEPH This is the place my family's been setting nets for, uh, for generations. JAMEY JOSEPH You'd see camps all along the Yukon, and usually, they set up right around where they've been setting their nets, their grandfathers, great-grandfathers. JODY Salmon, it's a very important part of our diet. So that's one thing that we'll have to learn to adapt to is not having salmon potentially in the future. JAMEY JOSEPH We're gonna have to tie off here in a minute here. JODY Okay. We do have a white fish net, which is legal to fish with right now, and I'm just hoping that we're able to get a few white fish in order to have some fresh food. JAMEY JOSEPH This is a white fish net so it's got small mesh. Let's go take a look around for some morel mushrooms. JODY Gonna have morel mushrooms and white fish dinner. JAMEY JOSEPH Yeah, there you go. MARCELLA Living in Akhiok, everybody is always so willing to help. But at the same time, you cannot just rely on other people. You have to also learn to do things on your own. MARCELLA Let's grab our knives and go look for some bidarkis. JOSEPH WHITE Yup. GLYNDARIL Okay. MARCELLA Ooh. JOSEPH WHITE Slippery beach. MARCELLA Who needs an ice rink when you have a kelpy beach? GLYNDARIL Let's see. MARCELLA You seeing them? GLYNDARIL Ooh. GLYNDARIL I see one over there. Living here every day is like going to the zoo. When I walk out the house, you never really truly know what you're going to see. MARCELLA Put it in the bucket, please. Yay! Good job. GLYNDARIL Oh, there's one. Look at that. Feeling kind of brave today. Want to show me how to eat one? MARCELLA Cut around, outside part. GLYNDARIL See Jo Jo? Check that out. MARCELLA The kids are usually not a fan of the, this black outer part. GLYNDARIL Oh, is that what you're supposed to eat? MARCELLA Yeah. Really good. It's quite tough. Kinda tastes the way like rubber smells. GLYNDARIL As always, this is mommy's snack. MARCELLA It's very helpful to have a very imaginative husband and open-minded, you know. We could take things from what little that we have and create a lot. GLYNDARIL Got one. MARCELLA Okay. After that one, that's enough. GLYNDARIL All right. MARCELLA We got plenty. I'm an old timer living in modern times. GLYNDARIL All right kids, let's put our knives away. JOEL JACKO Around this part of the world, you never know when you're gonna break down, or you're gonna be stuck somewhere, or the weathers gonna get bad. JOEL JACKO How come you�re not helping Tracker, eh. This is the spot I had picked out for the new cabin. So just got the flooring down from my dad's old cabin. It's seen some better days, that's for sure. JOEL JACKO Not much strength left in these things. I guess it is what it is. JOEL JACKO Time to start stacking. Stacking and building. JOEL JACKO So, this being my first log cabin build, I don't have everything figured out yet. I do want it to be kind of a traditional cabin. Hopefully, nothing breaks, nothing falls over, nothing snaps in the process. So right now, we're like four feet off the ground, but the walls are gonna be like at least like five feet tall. So I need like, uh, 28, 30 more logs. I'm out here alone, and this would definitely be a lot easier with two people. With, you know, everything, especially just cutting trees down and moving them, it's gonna be pretty challenging. One down, 20 more to go. Living out here, you're usually doing mildly to very dangerous stuff. I don't have anyone coming to get me, so you do kinda have to remember that when you're out doing stuff alone. I know, I'm not too worried about it 'cause I'm pretty sure I'm never going to die, so, uh, yeah. Dammit. I tried to drop the tree, and it pinched my saw. How much risk I'm willing to take depends on how badly whatever I'm doing needs to get done. That's not working. Like this cabin really needs to get done because I only have the small window because of the weather. Well, the chainsaw's free. I think this tree hates me. It's about time for a bad idea. Whoa! JOEL JACKO Whoa! Agh, it's perfect. All right. Hope I got my length right. Ah! Ooh. Trigger control, very important on the chainsaw. All right. I got up to the, the bluff, and now that I'm looking at it, it's steeper than I thought. I thought I'd be able to drive up right here, 'cause I thought it'd be more of a, you know, not so steep I guess. But, I think I'm gonna have to make a ramp so I can drive the four-wheeler up. Eighteen feet . Just trying to get to the trees and get the trees out. It's like its whole own little fricking process. These are much heavier than they look. Oh, that's half the ramp. I'm gonna try to line these up with the tires and then line them up with the trail too so I can just pull straight up there and then straight back out. Ooh, that's a lot of flex. I got my ramp all tied together. I'm gonna give it a little test run. Hey, that worked really well. Feel like that is the only thing that's, uh, worked like it's supposed to, so far. Now I gotta take it back to my new cabin. One down, twenty-eight to go. JODY We have an important relationship with the land and its resources. We don't need to take everything that's out there. JODY Good we got a little rain yesterday. There's still some moisture back here in this moss. JODY We're waiting on the white fish net, but there's no time to be lazy and there's no time for, uh, down time. JAMEY JOSEPH We are looking for some mushrooms. I'm sure we'll find some, like under the tree's where the root masters were burnt out. See this stuff right here, all of these, these small ones are starting to come up. JODY You see morels, oh there's an old one from last year. JAMEY JOSEPH There's an old one from last year right here. JODY A fire went through here, two summers ago. JODY You can see it just goes on for miles. It was devastating, but we do have new growth that will be coming in. Morels grow after a fire has gone through a forest. I mean, you do have to just make the most of something like a natural disaster. We're facing unprecedented times and we're gonna have to learn as indigenous peoples to adapt. JAMEY JOSEPH I'm not seeing any. JAMEY JOSEPH But I think it's too dry yet, babe. I think we're, it's too early. JODY Just like the animals are gonna have to adapt to their surroundings and this habitat change, so are we as native people. JAMEY JOSEPH Got one! JODY Oh, yeah. JAMEY JOSEPH Single one, popping up. A cute little bugger but I'm gonna let it. I'm gonna leave it. JODY Let it get bigger. JAMEY JOSEPH It's too small. It's just a, yeah. So we'll go back and continue on. Too early. JODY Food in general is very expensive in Alaska. In the villages, it's sometime two or three times the amount. Our native foods are essential to our existence. Ah! Babe, I found way more. Jackpot. There's a lot in here. JAMEY JOSEPH Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're in business now. We got a meal here. We got a meal now. Jackpot. JODY It's, like, so exciting. I'm really happy. All these little blessings. We're gonna have a tasty meal. Do we go down river? JAMEY JOSEPH Yeah. So we'll go, uh, check the net. Coming in hot. Watch out for the brush. JODY Oh, it caught on to something babe. It's not a fish. JAMEY JOSEPH Here, got a little bit of drift. JODY See a few fish. See the fish? Well, first fish. First little Fish. Got a couple more [inaudible] got three fish. JAMEY JOSEPH Scored. GLYNDARIL Any sense of urgency comes more around summer time. This is the time where you gotta make sure everything is prepared for the winter. GLYNDARIL Whoo! GLYNDARIL We come back here and check out traps. GLYNDARIL And if we're lucky, we'll have an octopus. MARCELLA Wow. Where's our rock, Jo Jo? Do you know where our rock is? There it is. With all the climate change and stuff that's going on, it just seems like we're having to move further out of the village to find subsistence food to put away. GLYNDARIL Oh, well let's see what we get. GLYNDARIL All right, Tinky, let me see your stick. MARCELLA Anything around in it. GLYNDARIL Does not feel. No. No nothing. Nothing in this one. We'll look over here. Hey Jo Jo, you wanna try? GLYNDARIL Poke down in there, see if you feel something squishy. And try put your hand in there. MARCELLA Nothing? JOSEPH WHITE Nope. There's nothing. GLYNDARIL All right, kids. MARCELLA Trial and error. GLYNDARIL Whoa. Look down here, there's an octopus down there. It's just chilling there. Don't touch him, not yet. MARCELLA You're gonna let it get mad and stick to the top. Let me try blow it. Should blow bubbles and he'll come out. MARCELLA Look it. GLYNDARIL Ooh, what's that? JAIRUS [inaudible] GLYNDARIL Yeah, octopus. MARCELLA There it is. GLYNDARIL See how she does that with just no problem. MARCELLA Okay. Can you see these? JAIRUS Uh-hmm. MARCELLA What are those? JAIRUS Gills. MARCELLA Yep, those are gills. JAIRUS And that's the ink pad. MARCELLA I think this is the ink right here. You don't have to worry about it. And yeah, it's gonna try and wrap around you. It's gonna try and stick on to you. But you don't have to worry about it because the beak is right here. JAIRUS Where's the beak? MARCELLA I just made a big mess. GLYNDARIL It just inked all over you. Okay, kids. You see this octopus? We're not going to eat this one. Nah, we're gonna use this bad boy for bait. And that's gonna help us get some halibut. MARCELLA It's a fun task. Not so much for the heavy, though. JOEL JACKO One of the big things in Alaska is leaving your cabin open. You don't usually try to lock your cabin up. It's nice to have cabin that anyone can use, open for anyone who needs it, that seek shelter. JOEL JACKO The weather's kinda taken a turn for the worst. JOEL JACKO Everything's all slick now. JOEL JACKO Not a great thing. JOEL JACKO Pull, Tracker, pull. Mm-hmm. All right. This is my first log cabin. There's definitely a learning curve. Everything is just getting taller and taller and harder and harder. So the main purpose of this cabin is obviously for hunting but it's far enough away from Pedro Bay that if the weather gets bad and you can't make it back. You have somewhere to shelter up for the night. Stay warm which is, you know, almost a bigger deal than hunting, 'cause if you get stuck out here you get the creep for sure. That's it, I got the slopes cut for the roof. Now all I have to do is throw the roof on, cut the door in and be good. JOEL JACKO So little energy right now. Wanna give me a hand Tracker? Huh? No? All right, that's fine. Do whatever you want. So when I was a kid growing up out here. The town was almost 200 people. We had a full school and a store and everything. Now there's only, like, 15 people left. I'll go ahead and bring it back a little bit. Start with a cabin. That about does it. All right, it looks good. Feel like I didn't get a whole lot of advice as a kid from my dad but the one good piece of advice he gave me was, first thing you build when you're building something is you build the outhouse. And I have yet to do that. Never gonna build any out of logs ever again. That was way too much work. But it will last forever. It better. It better last forever. TIG If I didn't go about teaching my children tradition and culture, there'd be a whole gap and that we might not be able to give back and then my family would be lost in the tradition and culture. TIG Good little spot back here that sisters a beaver dam. TIG Blocking it. TIG But there's enough water flowing over it to where we can jump it. Woo. EVAN STRASSBURG Woo. [inaudible] Dad, can we do that again? TIG No. Hell no. This boat that I got last year, and I was able to sell a bunch of mammoth ivory, buy a nice big 150 motor and it's got a jet on there. I'm able to drive in some pretty skinny water. This boat is specially designed for smaller rivers up here in Allakaket. EVAN STRASSBURG Look Dad! Look at that! EVAN STRASSBURG An owl. TIG Yeah, he's hunting just like us. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Holy cow! A moose! TIG Oh, a little calf. Two calfs. TIG [speaking foreign language] Enaa sebaabe. EVAN STRASSBURG [speaking foreign language] TIG Future generations food right there. You know, someday my kids might be hunting those calf's when they're nice strong bulls. EVAN STRASSBURG [inaudible] Wow. TIG We don't shoot swans when they're paired up like that. They mate for life. If you kill one of them, that other one's just gonna fly around and, uh, it quit eating and just die of a broken heart. That's a happily married couple. I don't want to jump in between that. I think we've been out for at least 24 hours, I'm not totally sure. Hard to tell when the sun doesn't really go down. We're just gonna keep on trying. It'll open up wider here pretty quick. Woo. Uh-oh. TIG One more beaver dam to jump. We really got to get up some speed to get over this next dam. TIG I don't know about this. I don't know about this. TIG Damn beavers. TIG Oh, my goodness. Trying to rip some of these sticks outta this beaver dam. Having the kids out in the boat it is a safety hazard. This is the spring time, the rivers are just right above freezing. And they got a lot of water in them. When they get a lot of water in them, they get heavy and they start flowing really fast. TIG Nothing easy in this life. TIG We got it broken out good. TIG See, there's a lot of water flowing through it now. And if we can get some speed, we can make it through it. I'm sure of it. TIG All right, hang on you guys. Woo. EVAN STRASSBURG [inaudible] TIG That was pretty wild. We made it. Woo. Ah. Hard times don't last forever. Strong people do though. See it. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Yeah. TIG Go ahead, Terry. Woo! Good shot. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Thanks. Canvasback. Wow. TIG We're 300 miles away from the ocean and you get to eat something from the ocean. That's pretty special. JODY There's something different when you gather your own food. It's really important, but it's also super challenging. JODY Yeah, we got lots. JODY Lots and lots. I was taught by my mom, and she was taught by her mom how we take care of our food. JODY Jamey's the same way. He knows we're respecting not just ourselves, but also the food and the gifts that creator gave us. JODY This is how I cook it over the fire like this. It's a challenging time for all the people that live on the Yukon River. We don't have that really important nutrition source that we get from the salmon, and this is something our people have lived on for thousands of years. And it's gonna be really important for my generation to kind of lead our people into this new era of how we're gonna adjust. How we're gonna adapt but continue to fight for our rights to our way of life on these lands. Well, it was a good day, huh? JAMEY JOSEPH Uh-hmm. JODY Feel super thankful. JAMEY JOSEPH This whole meal is just, wow. MARCELLA Being Alutiiq, it's important for us to retain as much as we can and pass down what it is that we can. GLYNDARIL Come on Mr. John, let's cut up some bait. GLYNDARIL Ooh. GLYNDARIL This is bait. Wanna touch it? MARCELLA We catch the octopus to bait in and get some halibut. GLYNDARIL And we'll just. MARCELLA That's we call the involuntary circle of life. GLYNDARIL Oh, good job. Thank you. MARCELLA Yeah. GLYNDARIL Put in the bucket, right here. Put in the bucket. Yeah. Woo. MARCELLA The tide plays a huge factor when it comes to halibut hooking. GLYNDARIL Pass me some bait. MARCELLA Yeah, we're trying to catch some halibut, huh? The first hour of incoming and the first hour of outgoing are the most crucial. That's when you'll get your most action. GLYNDARIL Hey, Jo Jo, Tinky. JOSEPH WHITE Yeah. GLYNDARIL You guys know how we do this? Put the anchor on the bottom. You snap these on the line. You let the hooks go over so they don't snag. Once that first anchor hits, it will sit on the ground. And when it sits, it will tighten up and the waves will push us this way, and then we'll be fishing. MARCELLA 20 hooks that you said that were on it? GLYNDARIL 20 hooks. MARCELLA God willing, we'll catch at least one. There's something on there, there's tugging. GLYNDARIL Let's pull up dinner. Let's see what we get. Teamwork makes the dream work. JOSEPH WHITE Okay, Daddy! Do you want me to watch JOSEPH WHITE And see if there is anything? GLYNDARIL Tell us when you see something. MARCELLA Uh, nothing on this end. Nothing on this next one either. GLYNDARIL Even if we only get one halibut. That's a win for me. Oh, yeah. MARCELLA Oh, it's a cod. Cod, it's what we call a garbage fish. We're just not very big on consuming cod. Well, we're just gonna go ahead and throw it back, we are not going to eat. Kind of amazing how octopus got us all this though, huh? JOSEPH WHITE Are you going to throw it? MARCELLA Yeah, wanna see. Watch him go. JOSEPH WHITE Oh, another cod. MARCELLA That's a cod. GLYNDARIL Another cod. Got a lot of cod over here. MARCELLA Another cod. GLYNDARIL Oh. MARCELLA You got him? GLYNDARIL This way. Come to me. Grab you by your eyes. It seems mean, but you grab them by the eyes. This is his, "I saw God moment" but God said, you weren't big enough. Pay attention Tinky, tell me if you see anything. 'Cause once it gets straight up and down it's hard for me to look over, ok Tinky? JAIRUS Uh-huh. GLYNDARIL Oh, Tinky. JOSEPH WHITE Halibut! JOSEPH WHITE I didn't know that was a halibut! GLYNDARIL Yeah. JOSEPH WHITE Yeah, Daddy! MARCELLA There's another one on here. GLYNDARIL You could feel it? MARCELLA It's heavy. Yep. GLYNDARIL Oh, yeah, you could feel that pull. MARCELLA Right there, there it is. JOSEPH WHITE Oh, there it is. MARCELLA This line is still very heavy. JOSEPH WHITE [inaudible] GLYNDARIL Tell me if you see. MARCELLA Right there, there it is. It's another one. GLYNDARIL Oh, that's a halibut. JOSEPH WHITE Another one. GLYNDARIL Hoorah. MARCELLA Success GLYNDARIL We made a trade with mother nature. How about we take your octopus and then we trade it for some halibut. Mother nature said, that's a good trade, I like that. MARCELLA How cool is that? JAIRUS Are we gonna keep that? GLYNDARIL We're gonna keep some. But we're gonna share. Share with the community. It's what we do. MARCELLA Yeah. GLYNDARIL Tide has delivered, the table is set. TIG No nibble? No nibble. Well it must be around midnight now. Up here in Alaska, during the summer, spring, fall, time doesn't really matter much. 'Cause the sun doesn't go down ever. It stays bright like this throughout the night and so, the hour on the clock doesn't mean a lot to us. Oh, fish on. Oh, yeah. Ooh, little guy. Not big enough to eat. Oh, hey, thank you. Saved me. Prior to 1972, it was all our land, we all used it. And then in 1972 they came out with the Alaskan Native Settlements Act. And they said, "All right, this is no longer all your land. It's all our land but we're gonna be nice to you guys, we're gonna give you guys little patches of land." This is all we got. We got no trust fund. We got nothing like that. When I die, I'm not gonna be passing nothing on to these kids except for my guns, my boat and the, and the land. The land that was passed down to me. Traditions and culture. That's all we're gonna pass on. And when I kick the bucket, that's all I'm leaving these poor kids. It's about 400 in the morning right now. The kids, they've been up all night, they're doing good though. EVAN STRASSBURG Hey, Dad, beaver. TIG Is that a muskrat? If there's one, there might be some more. EVAN STRASSBURG Hey, Dad! TERRANCE STRASSBURG That's a muskrat. TIG Oh, little high. Oh, a little low. TIG You got him on the run, Terry! Oh, hell yeah. Headshot. TIG Enaa Baasee. TIG Oh, good shooting boy. Yeah, we got breakfast of champs right there. The spring time, the countries coming back to life. It's amazing to hear these birds in the sky. Seeing all the animals swimming around, flying around. Calf's pretty soon out on the beaches and islands. Bear cubs are popping out of the dens with their mothers. A whole lot going on in the country. MARCELLA Everything comes to life. It's an amazing experience. The grass gets a little greener, the sky's turn a little bluer. JOEL JACKO The Pile River actually turns a like turquoise in the summertime in the heat of the day. The sun's melting the glaciers and so it turns the river a turquoise color. It's kind of cool. JODY The land of the midnight sun, it's like 1000 pm but the sun is shining bright right into my eyes. Need my help. JAMEY JOSEPH Yes, I do. JODY I think in the summer anyone that lives this far north, maximizes the daylight. I've been working on the diamond willow that I found when I was out hunting alone. I've been carving these two pieces out, I want to use them in the log house that we're gonna be building. JAMEY JOSEPH The sun's already up, starting to rise again. Time to do something. Time to go live life. TIG We're gonna stop and cook some breakfast. My boy got breakfast of champs right there. We got some fresh meat. Don't get no fresher than that. TIG Start off by cutting around these feet. EVAN STRASSBURG And the tail? TIG Yep. TIG And the tail. You know, we spent the whole night out here on the boat, I don't know how many miles we put in on the river. I've seen a whole lot of country. It's good, I love muskrat. The sun's coming back up. We'll take a little rest. TIG And nap and continue at it tomorrow. MARCELLA There's the dreadful winters that we have to live and then our summers where, it's a whole lot of work. The sun comes up, 400 or 500 in the morning, you know. The sun is awake, I'm awake. Summertime comes with having our outdoor fun and then prep for winter all over again. TIG We're gonna take a walk to this big lake back here. It's named after the ducks we are looking for [speaking foreign language] We're about 75 miles away from home river wise. 120 years ago, this country was just nothing but trails. If you were able to get an aerial view of this country, it'd just be a spider web of trails everywhere, you know. From here in Alllakaket, there'd be trails over towards Stevens Village. There's a trail to Tanana. There's a trail over to Kobuk River for Shungnak, Ambler, and those places. It was, I'm not sure if it was my mom or one of her siblings was born, my grandpa walked from South Fork up to Wiseman to get her birth certificate. 100 miles one way. It took him two weeks. TIG Right over this little hump. You know, that is part of our tradition and culture too, is passing on these portages and trails that we use. When we lose an elder, we're losing some portages and trails there also. Guaranteed, these elders know trails and portages that we don't know. And so when they die, all that information dies with them. TIG There's something swimming around out there. We'll just hang out right here, a lot of the time muskrats come swimming right by the shore. That's a muskrat call. Something my grandma showed me when I was a little kid. Not much in there. I was hoping to hear some [speaking foreign language] We might as well keep on heading up the river, 'cause, you know, if there is any in this lake we'd definitely hear them by now. Want to check it out up the river some more? EVAN STRASSBURG Yeah.