ALL AMELIA_STRASSBURG AMIYA AMIYA_STRASSBURG ASHER_ULROAN BEN_JUNEBY CHIEF_KARMA_ULVI DENALI_BLACK ELDER EVAN_STRASSBURG HAZEL_STRASSBURG JAMEY_JOSEPH JODY JOEL_JACKO JOHN_PINGAYAK LOUISE_MOSES MICAH_MALCOLM PATRICK SOPHIE_STRASSBURG TERRANCE_STRASSBURG TIG_STRASSBURG JODY Denali, come here with your scope real quick. Hurry. There's a couple caribou right up there. My son Denali and I are going to try to bring home some caribou meat to my home village of Eagle. We kinda ran out of meat already this year �cause we shared about half our moose with the village. JODY Might be able to just do a nice little sneak up on 'em, you know? This is the �40-mile caribou herd� that my people have hunted for millennia. I spent my whole life hunting from this herd. My family did and my ancestors did. Get the one with the biggest beard. You're hitting low. Aim higher. Take your time. Is that your last shot? DENALI BLACK Yup. JODY Mahsi' Choo, Creator. JODY We don't hunt for sport. JODY If it's feeding our families and when the animal offers itself to us, we also honor it by doing everything in a good way. Let's do it, take care of it right here real quick. Try to get this knocked out. JODY Take that head off and aim it towards Eagle inaudible DENALI BLACK That way? JODY This is a blessing, we're gonna eat well. This is a �40 mile herd� that goes across all those big mountains into the 40 mile country. The caribou never made it to the Eagle side. So folks in Eagle didn't get any caribou this year. That doesn't make it very easy on our people when we don't get our native food. Work quick, come on. We're definitely taking some of this meat to Eagle. Gonna share with our family and friends there. TIG STRASSBURG It's an unforgiving country. Raising my kids out here. I just hope that living this type of lifestyle is gonna show them to never give up. TIG STRASSBURG It's warm in there. HAZEL STRASSBURG Yeah. TIG STRASSBURG Oh boy. You guys ready? TERRANCE STRASSBURG Yup. EVAN STRASSBURG Yup. TIG STRASSBURG All right we're not pulling no �Home Alone� are we? We got five in there? HAZEL STRASSBURG Yeah. TIG STRASSBURG Head counts clear momma. We are good to go. TIG STRASSBURG Woo, we're rolling. Watch out for the deep snow. I got all seven of the kids loaded up. Louise and I are gonna go head up to Fish Creek Lake, trying to get a beaver to eat, I hope. Winters coming to an end and I wanna get my out here, while we still got a little bit of winter left. EVAN STRASSBURG What's the password? LOUISE MOSES Mom, mom's the password. EVAN STRASSBURG What? TIG STRASSBURG We do want to catch some food, put a little bit of food in the freezer before spring. Today this is where I wanted to bring my kids, set a beaver trap while they're having some fun. HAZEL STRASSBURG Think there's snow in my boots. TIG STRASSBURG I'll go down as far as I can with the axe. I wanna get as much of this ice outta here, before I poke through. Once you poke through this whole thing's gonna flood with water. And then every swing will be a splash. Oh, that freaked me out. Hey, beetles, that's a good sign of beaver. Last month I was having a hard time trapping beaver and I went and talked to one of the elders and he told me exactly where to set traps and that's why I came to this little spot. So pat myself on the back for that one, finally figuring it out. LOUISE MOSES I'm worried she's playing with the ice from the water. You gotta worry about the water splashing up on you, could give you beaver fever. TIG STRASSBURG Don't eat that ice, now. LOUISE MOSES Any of you kids got beaver fever before? TERRANCE STRASSBURG You did have it before, member. Got a little sick and got messy in the toilet. EVAN STRASSBURG Hmm. TIG STRASSBURG What I'm gonna do is take a couple snares and wire one off right here. Let's hope the beaver comes from his house to get the food. He's gonna come in this way. All right. AMIYA STRASSBURG I heard the beaver, Dad. TIG STRASSBURG Did it tell you something? It said Amiya, eat me! Huh? Maybe? As much as I've learned through my life, I just wanna be passing it down to my children, my nephews, nieces. You know, everybody, not just my family. I don't want that tradition to end and die with me. TIG STRASSBURG See that beaver is gonna come from his house. TERRANCE STRASSBURG And try swim around it. TERRANCE STRASSBURG And he's gonna stick his head right inside my snare. I'm just a stepping stone for this tradition. AMIYA STRASSBURG Tonight you're going to catch the beaver? TIG STRASSBURG I hope we catch him tonight. With that kind of confidence, maybe we will baby. Amiya, she's my lucky little girl. Tonight we're gonna catch him, yeah, yes we will baby. Now we got the beaver trap set, Amiya sure thinks its gonna be successful overnight, she's putting out good vibes, I'm hoping. JOEL JACKO I'm like a minimalist. You know, I kind of try to do as little as possible and live as simply as I can. JOEL JACKO All right, this is the cache I built this fall. JOEL JACKO I thought it would be a good idea to turn it into a dual-purpose building and also make it a smokehouse. JOEL JACKO You're not really using the cache in the summer so much, so I figured it would be a good smokehouse also. This is my first smokehouse build. Everything I do is pretty much self-taught. It's good to learn new things. So last fall, I built this cache, you know with my family, my wife and my daughter. You know they kinda out of the picture now, they moved down to Washington. But we're still good friends and everything. We just, uh, we definitely saw our lives going in, you know different directions. I turned a new chapter out here. A little lonelier. It's just, uh, me and Tracker. We work from sun up to sun down. So I'm going to screen in the ends of the eaves here so the birds can't get in. Keeping birds out is gonna be a bigger deal than the bugs. Cause the smoke actually keeps the bugs out. We live a pretty involved subsistence lifestyle out here �cause we are on one of the biggest salmon runs in the world. We rely on 'em quite a bit, �cause we fill up the freezer. And you can dry them or smoke 'em and eat it all year. Salmon is a very important part of our diet. The whole purpose of this is so that I have cool, dry storage, that doesn't require electricity. So, I am trying to embrace the traditional lifestyle, at the same time use modern technology in building materials to kinda enhance the traditional ways. Cause if they had it, they would've used it. So, when I originally built the cache, it was just gonna be a cache, and then I kind of had an idea to make it into a smokehouse. Kinda on the smaller size for smokehouses, but now that I'm alone. Now it's like the perfect size, just for me. I'm going to measure the door and then I can go down to the mill, throw a couple boards and I can build the door. And then we'll hang it, throw a wood stove in. Start pumping some smoke in there. JOHN PINGAYAK Your tradition is your story. Your tradition is your survival story. JOHN PINGAYAK Did you feel something? PATRICK No. PATRICK Almost thought I did. JOHN PINGAYAK Touch the bottom and go up like this. JOHN PINGAYAK We do a lot of fishing during wintertime. It's tough but I depend on my subsistence way of life out here. JOHN PINGAYAK The red attracts the fish. JOHN PINGAYAK The wind is changing to southwest. PATRICK Hopefully you'll be able to snag something. JOHN PINGAYAK Every season, creator has given us certain types of subsisting. Out there on the tundra, the river, or out there in the ocean. JOHN PINGAYAK Our land is not stale. It's our source of life. PATRICK Is it best to get the fish around this time of the year? JOHN PINGAYAK Yeah. JOHN PINGAYAK Usually the fish migrate. JOHN PINGAYAK From the ocean to the river. JOHN PINGAYAK About this time of the year. PATRICK It went from. PATRICK Barely any wind today to. PATRICK Fifteen, twenty knots now. JOHN PINGAYAK Yeah. I listen to the ice. Same thing with the wind. JOHN PINGAYAK Yeah. I listen to the ice. Same thing with the wind. JOHN PINGAYAK Big swells coming in. PATRICK So what do you want to do? JOHN PINGAYAK Let's go back. JOHN PINGAYAK Pack up everything. JOHN PINGAYAK Too far from Chevak. JOHN PINGAYAK Gotta go while we have a little bit of visibility. JOHN PINGAYAK And we'll come back if the weather improves. When it starts blowing, we gotta go home. JOHN PINGAYAK We can't take chances out here. If I see fog, on the other side, it's gonna be dark. PATRICK How much daylight do you think we have? JOHN PINGAYAK No more than an hour and a half. The snow is our traction for our snow machines. With the wind, if you go through ice, it will be blowing you to a different direction. It takes a split second to get lost in there. JOHN PINGAYAK We cannot get stranded. Go to safety all the time. A lot of times we can't rely on GPS, but I was trained as a young man to travel on this land. My elders tell me, make sure you see grass sticking up, � that'll tell you, you're on the land. The tundra. As long as you are on this land, you are safe. Are you okay? PATRICK Yeah. JOHN PINGAYAK This building right here is for, uh, people that get stranded when it's whiteout. And so they have a shelter here that they can go to and keep warm in there. You have to make sure that this grass right here, is sticking out from the tundra. PATRICK One strand of grass? JOHN PINGAYAK Yeah. One strand will tell you. You're on land. The safest place is the land. The willows, this is my compass, and you say, hey I've been here before. We're gonna go down this way and then work our way back towards Chevak. PATRICK You lead the way. JOEL JACKO Here in America, not all the natives have land anymore. And that's something we have an abundance of. We have this huge lake and these clean rivers and all these woods to run around in that are just untainted by people. JOEL JACKO So this is the old smokehouse. JOEL JACKO This the original smokehouse. So my dad originally built these. That was I think was actually used before I was, you know, alive. Then this one was built, I don't know, twenty years ago. We had a big family when I was growing up. JOEL JACKO That smokehouse was smoking all the time. You're putting up, hundreds of fish. A very necessary part of living out here. We got an electric fence around it to try to keep the bears out which doesn't always work. And so you're always kinda worried about your fish in there. Which is why I built the cache on stilts. I've never seen an elevated smokehouse, I'm not really sure how it's going to work. Smoke-cache. It's a smoke-cache. Making something outta nothing is I think, super cool. When you're done you have this functional, almost piece of art you've just made. It's not gonna keep the wind out, all it's gotta do is keep the critters out. Looks like you're gonna get snowed or rained on. Probably rained on, since it's like 35� right now. Shouldn't really be raining for another month. I'll try to hurry and get this door on before, before we start getting wet. Should still be winter and we're quite a bit above freezing right now, and it's melting and raining. Good? Not so good. Hang it, should work though. Getting this done right now is pretty important so I'm ready when the fish get here. When the moose get here. And I'm you know, I'm just ready to process everything and get everything dried and put away. All right. It's a big step for you know, later on in the year. It's starting to snow and rain and getting dark so. Maybe I'll call it a day for today and then, uh, start again tomorrow. Get the wood stove in, start smoking some stuff. TIG STRASSBURG We're a very strong people, the Koyukon Athabascan's. It's a beautiful life that we live. TIG STRASSBURG Well, we let this beaver snare go overnight. TIG STRASSBURG Hello girl. TIG STRASSBURG I'm hoping that's enough time for this beaver to come out and find the bait and put his head in one of the, one of the snares. We'll see if you guys noticed anything different over there by the trap. Anything different? EVAN STRASSBURG Yeah, it looks tightish. TIG STRASSBURG Look there used to be something right there in this spot. EVAN STRASSBURG Oh, yeah. Oh, the bait. TIG STRASSBURG There's no food. Definitely been a beaver here. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Maybe Amiya brought some luck. TIG STRASSBURG I hope so. Once we're out here in the woods you know, there's no store to run to, there's no nothing. We're just completely living a subsistence lifestyle out here. AMIYA STRASSBURG Does beaver get wet in there? EVAN STRASSBURG Yup, it's water. TIG STRASSBURG Oh, man. EVAN STRASSBURG Messed up the traps? TIG STRASSBURG Darn, he hit 'em both. Maybe they're a little too big. Darn. LOUISE MOSES Wanna hold the pole up for your dad? TIG STRASSBURG Yup, Terry? Can you hold this up. Huh, how did he do that? EVAN STRASSBURG Doesn't that, one of those on the other side like that. TIG STRASSBURG Yeah, it goes like this. He did bump my snares. We are getting close, I missed him this time. So, I'm gonna shrink our snare down a little bit. I want as much chance as I can have to catch this beaver. It's a delicacy to our people out here. We're just gonna keep on trying. Reset these snares and hopefully we'll get him next time. LOUISE MOSES Good to be outta the house. Nine of us cramped up in a one room cabin. LOUISE MOSES Out here, they have all the space in the world. EVAN STRASSBURG Help, help. TIG STRASSBURG Well, we got the beaver house soaking. We got the sets put out so, now we're just gonna try and see if we catch some fish. AMIYA STRASSBURG Guytl een?koot, guytl een?koot. LOUISE MOSES See how it's done? AMIYA STRASSBURG Guytl een?koot, guytl een?koot. LOUISE MOSES You think you could do that? TIG STRASSBURG What you think Wesley? I don't want my kids to lose the tradition of going out into the woods. TIG STRASSBURG Oh, Dotson'. TIG STRASSBURG Hey, coming right up the shoot. LOUISE MOSES Rollie, seen it flip? TIG STRASSBURG When you see that raven flip over like that, he's got a lucky pack on his back. So when he's flipping over you know, he's wishing you good luck, he's dropping his lucky pack for you. AMIYA STRASSBURG speaking foreign language TIG STRASSBURG Tseek'aa? no haa? tee'oyh. LOUISE MOSES Man I've been wanting fish, too. SOPHIE STRASSBURG Me too. LOUISE MOSES You too? Hey, keep fishing! Ah, no, you're gonna make me fall in the hole. AMELIA STRASSBURG I want my momma! LOUISE MOSES Ah, no don't get it on the inside, hey! TIG STRASSBURG Everybody's starting to get a little complacent in this one area. EVAN STRASSBURG What's complacent? TIG STRASSBURG Oh, just getting tired of one area and they're getting a little rambunctious. Everybody's starting to fight and argue a little bit. HAZEL STRASSBURG Get out of there, Terrance. HAZEL STRASSBURG Can't we have one good time- HAZEL STRASSBURG Without you bothering anyone? TIG STRASSBURG So, we gotta get moving. Go home and get some food in them or something. Yeah. I bet it's been quite a while since this country has heard a baby cry. Brings new life to the country. Hopefully it treats us good, help us out with some fish or a beaver. JODY I was raised by a strong mother who was raised by a strong mother. I definitely feel like I have a responsibility to fulfill. JODY Haw, haw. JODY Let's go, haw, haw. JODY Good dogs. Now we're cruising. JODY We just got to Eagle and now we're, cruising up to the village where my people are from. JODY We brought the caribou meat so we can share with the village. The caribou haven't um migrated over to this area, so it's been kinda hard this year without the salmon and no caribou. People haven't had much of our native food. The traditional foods are our medicine and it's really important to just our health and wellness and our existence. Haw, haw. Here we go. Eagle Village is right near the Canadian border where the Yukon River comes in from Canada. The Yukon River is just a powerful presence in my life from the time I was born and traveling on it by canoe when I was a baby. To now as an adult traveling on the river with my dog team. The Yukon River demands respect. Anytime of the year, it is a force to reckon with. Haw, haw. JODY Super sketchy. JODY Wet ice! JODY Whoa! JODY That's what happens on ice. There's no stopping your dogs on that glacier. I mean it's just slick, smooth, hard ice. But that's all part of it, just kinda, nature of the beast out here. JODY Here we go again. You just have to hold on for the ride. Just never let go of your dog sled. JODY All right! Let's go! Up, let's go. Haw, haw, haw. Eagle is a really beautiful, very special place. It's just so scenic and the mountains are amazing. Just the country in general just has really good energy. JAMEY JOSEPH Here she comes. JODY Gee! Gee! Gee! Whoa! CHIEF KARMA ULVI Hi! Welcome home. JODY Eagle is a very healthy community. I have family here. I have my life-long friends here. I was raised, not just in the village but my family was always out on the land and that's where I just feel my best. Where I just refill my cup. CHIEF KARMA ULVI Who got the caribou? JAMEY JOSEPH Denali got the caribou. CHIEF KARMA ULVI Really? Good job Denali. CHIEF KARMA ULVI Fresh meat. Right on. JODY Yeah. Yup. Such a blessing. It's important to Denali to be able to step into his own as a provider for the people. BEN JUNEBY Got some fresh meat. DENALI BLACK Yup BEN JUNEBY How many you get? DENALI BLACK Just one. BEN JUNEBY Yeah, these are pretty good. Man, we didn't get nothing this year. DENALI BLACK Yeah. BEN JUNEBY Usually, every year we get surrounded by caribou here. JAMEY JOSEPH They just took a different route this year huh? BEN JUNEBY Yup. JAMEY JOSEPH Yeah. JODY I feel really proud of Denali for his good harvest and sharing the meat. Uncle, you want to go with us to pass this meat out? BEN JUNEBY Yeah. JODY All right. DENALI BLACK Hey Micah. MICAH MALCOLM Hey. JODY Denali, he spends a lot of time with elders in our village. MICAH MALCOLM Right there. DENALI BLACK All right, yeah. Cool. JODY He has the skills and knowledge that was passed down through the generations. ELDER Wonderful! JODY And he possesses that ability to provide for people. ELDER Mahsi' Choo. JAMEY JOSEPH speaking foreign language JODY He's a culture bearer, for sure. JOHN PINGAYAK Elders have no time to rest. We have to bring all of our young people to the future. JOHN PINGAYAK Check this wood, see if it's dry. JOHN PINGAYAK Part of a stump, but it'll work. JOHN PINGAYAK Bite and see if there's any moisture. PATRICK Seems kinda dry. JOHN PINGAYAK It's pretty dry. We can use it for firewood. That's a good find. PATRICK Yeah. JOHN PINGAYAK It can be used for cooking and keeping our house warm. Let's look for another one. Okay? PATRICK Okay. JOHN PINGAYAK All of the driftwood are deposit out of the Yukon River and northwest winds bring it to this area. What resources are available, we go out and get it. PATRICK It seems wet, John. JOHN PINGAYAK Okay, then leave it. This is really dry. This is the kinda wood I usually like to get for art. My specialty, I make faces out of them by carving. When my hands touch that wood. When my eyes look at things and analyze and make something out of a piece of wood that look like nothing. Try to watch your back. PATRICK Yeah. JOHN PINGAYAK When I was younger, I did all this kind of work by myself. I'm still strong, but uh, my son-in-law, he does all the work. PATRICK You are still strong, John. JOHN PINGAYAK Okay. Don't sit down too early. Encourage the young people, teach them what do they know. You gotta make it tight, yeah. It's good. PATRICK I can't imagine being an elder, but I know I am gonna be teaching if that time comes. JOHN PINGAYAK Start your engine and let's get ready to go. TIG STRASSBURG There's a balance between us and the animals. We only take what we need to. We always take with respect. We always show respect for the land. TIG STRASSBURG Let the girls out. TIG STRASSBURG Hmm, no bait. Well, we've had this beaver set out for a few days now and uh there's good activity there, he's coming and getting the bait. TERRANCE STRASSBURG The beaver took the bait? TIG STRASSBURG No bait, yeah. My kids, they've been sure missing beaver meat right now too, they wanna eat some beaver meat. EVAN STRASSBURG Did he try taking some? TIG STRASSBURG Yeah, he did. TIG STRASSBURG Uh oh, what's going on. He's got this bait all twisted up to the, one of the snares it looks like. Ah, he keep taking the bait and not putting his head in my snares. Not quite having any luck with this guy. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Really smart beaver. TIG STRASSBURG I hope the land is gonna help us out with some beaver. We just gotta keep trying and stay persistent and not give up. EVAN STRASSBURG See anything? TIG STRASSBURG Nope. AMIYA Dad, what�s that? TIG STRASSBURG Yeah, it looks like he got his food all tied up in the snare. What? TERRANCE STRASSBURG Did our plan work dad? TIG STRASSBURG No, it got that bait all stuck on one of the snares. Whoa! AMIYA STRASSBURG It's a beaver TERRANCE STRASSBURG We caught the beaver. TIG STRASSBURG Enaa Sebaabe. Holy cow it's heavy. Watch out. EVAN STRASSBURG It's a big beaver. TIG STRASSBURG Holy smokes that's a big guy. AMELIA STRASSBURG I love that. TIG STRASSBURG You love that? Awesome. We did it guys. Woo, we did it girls and boys. Now after we catch, we gotta rum him in the snow. We gotta get that water off of the fur. Boys, roll this around the snow, shake it around. Woo, we did it. Hard work, persistence pays off. We never gave up, we kept trying. TIG STRASSBURG Now we're going to eat good. TIG STRASSBURG Enaa Bassee' Noye'e. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Enaa Bassee' Noye'e. TIG STRASSBURG Me and my grandma Hazel and me my dad would pull out a beaver and that was my job as a young boy to roll 'em around the snow and get 'em dried out. That beaver, he's got a good 30 pounds of rich meat once I get him all processed. Super rich, super fat meat. All right, let's get this guy loaded up on the sled. He's having a first-class ride back to camp. First-class there buddy. Like the big beaver we got, you know, we sure lucked out with this guy. Kids were super excited when they seen the beaver. TIG STRASSBURG And right away, they said, that Dotson' did bring us good luck. JOHN PINGAYAK My grandfather would tell me, "These things that you learn are not yours." JOHN PINGAYAK "It's like Paiciteq." JOHN PINGAYAK "So you pass it on." JOHN PINGAYAK One thing I gotta teach you is I gotta teach you how to chop wood. ASHER ULROAN Why? JOHN PINGAYAK That's how I learned how to be tough. JOHN PINGAYAK I trained Sonna Boy how to chop wood too. JOHN PINGAYAK So far, he hasn't cut his toe off. JOHN "SONNA BOY" PINGAYAK III So far? JOHN PINGAYAK So now, I'm a grandpa. I can sit and watch my grandson do it because I trained him already to do that stuff. ASHER ULROAN Hey, how about use the bigger axe? That one. JOHN "SONNA BOY" PINGAYAK III No, too much work. My grandfather is training me mentally and physically how to do all these things that his grandfather taught him. JOHN PINGAYAK You know, when I go get wood like this, I want to share it with people that don't have anybody to go get 'em wood. When people's houses are cold, it's no fun, right? ASHER ULROAN Uh-hmm. JOHN PINGAYAK But you help them. When you grow up, you need to do that, okay? ASHER ULROAN Okay. JOHN PINGAYAK All right, 'cause you're gonna get stronger just like Sonna Boy. All of these young people, they need to be trained to be a warrior. A warrior is a leader. If you're a young man, and you can do it, bring 'em wood. ASHER ULROAN It kinda looks full. JOHN "SONNA BOY" PINGAYAK III We're going to go give this wood to Edna. ASHER ULROAN Who's Edna? JOHN "SONNA BOY" PINGAYAK III One of the elders. JOHN PINGAYAK One of the positive things that we live by is being compassionate to one another. Training our children, passing on our tradition and values. There is love in that circle and life in that circle. It's a beautiful concept. JOHN "SONNA BOY" PINGAYAK III Okay. That's it. JOHN "SONNA BOY" PINGAYAK III See you. ASHER ULROAN Now I wanna go home. JOHN PINGAYAK Okay. JOEL JACKO Being your own person out here is a big deal. You definitely need to find yourself. And you're not dictated by what other people do. JOEL JACKO Gonna have my chimney go right on the side, I think. JOEL JACKO So, I'm gonna go trace my hole. JOEL JACKO And I'll try to use the chainsaw and cut a neat hole in the side of this thing. It's very fulfilling being able to provide for yourself and not have to worry about relying on the grocery store. It's nice just being out in the woods, you know, working on your own stuff, providing for yourself. Oh, yeah, that'll do. Sweet. So I guess I'll throw the wood stove on the ground and then I'll start running the pipe up to this pipe. The stove is, uh, like a quarter of the size that I thought it was gonna be. So, I don't how this is gonna work. Okay, I got the stove pipe all run up. Looks pretty good. I think that wood stove is way too small though. I'll light it and see if there's, if it's putting off any heat at all. Now it's really raining. Yeah, out here you really have to be in tune with nature. You have to go along with whatever's thrown at you that day. Everything's wet. It's not helping the situation. Come on, baby. That is the smallest wood stove I have ever seen in my entire life. You know, it came with a Barbie I think, so picture can be deceiving. So the only stove I have is this little tiny one. So, hopefully, it works and if it doesn't, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Okay. It's going now, so I guess I could jump up there. Gonna see if there is any heat coming out. JOEL JACKO Oh, man! There's actually a lot of heat coming out. It was a grand idea, I had. It's looking really good right now. I'm actually pretty impressed with the little wood stove. It's got a very, like a consistent temperature too, because the wood stove is on the ground. And you want to try to avoid cooking your fish 'cause you're trying to cold smoke it not hot smoke it. It's already warm in here. It's like, pretty impressed actually. Barbie, you did it again! Now, I can fill this whole thing up with salmon and once it's dried, I can just leave it in there all year. Kinda of a cool dual-purpose building and it works good as a smokehouse now, especially since I'm alone. Oh man, that smells good. So, living out here, it's, it's a very unique lifestyle. And I'm kinda not, you know, your run of the mill guy. I live out here 'cause it's fun and it's beautiful and it's on the edge of nowhere, so I need to find that person that belongs out here, you know, with me. Mm, smokey. JODY Say a prayer? CHIEF KARMA ULVI Yeah. JODY We're gonna have Karma say a prayer. CHIEF KARMA ULVI Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this beautiful day. Thank you for having Jody come home and her family, Jamey and Denali. And thank you for everything that you provide for us Lord and the food that we're gonna eat. Thank you for this time and fellowship together. In His precious name, amen. JODY Amen. Well, the sticks are over here and there's fresh caribou meat. I, I sliced up tenderloin and back strap you guys can cook over the fire too. And then, Auntie Bert made fry bread. Our traditional foods are our medicine. We didn't have salmon in the river this summer and the caribou never made it to this country. CHIEF KARMA ULVI Was there a lot of caribou when you guys saw this one? DENALI BLACK Yeah, there was. CHIEF KARMA ULVI Really? Did you tell them, "Come this way"? DENALI BLACK We did. JODY To be able to be home on H�n Gwich'in land, sharing the meat with so many people, I feel really blessed. CHIEF KARMA ULVI I'm gonna put mine among the coals. Denali's smart. DENALI BLACK Cooks fast. JODY I hope that I can come home to Eagle with my family and really contribute to our tribe reclaiming a lot of our culture and our identity. These lands are always calling me home. JAMEY JOSEPH One and a two. TIG STRASSBURG We just got this beaver a few hours ago and he's already in the pot. It's amazing lifestyle we live. LOUISE MOSES You guys lucked out with a beaver. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Yup. TIG STRASSBURG Yeah. LOUISE MOSES You guys got to see the whole process. Whoa, that looks hot. Careful. Man, it smells good. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Hmm. AMELIA STRASSBURG It's inaudible TERRANCE STRASSBURG Yup. TIG STRASSBURG Yeah. Ooh. I cooked up the whole rib cage. These are meat eating kids and go through quite a bit of meat. AMELIA STRASSBURG inaudible TIG STRASSBURG How is it, Amelia? AMELIA STRASSBURG Good. TIG STRASSBURG Good? AMELIA STRASSBURG Yeah. TIG STRASSBURG Say, Enaa Sebaabe. AMELIA STRASSBURG Enaa Sebaabe. TIG STRASSBURG Yeah. You know a lot of people think beavers are rodents, but to us it's not. You know, this is a staple of our diet right here. A rich fat food, it's really good eating. TIG STRASSBURG Enaa Baasee' Noye'e. ALL Enaa Baasee' Noye'e. TIG STRASSBURG Hmm. We eat good now, see. I sure do enjoy watching my family all happy and chowing down the foods from our land. How was it? EVAN STRASSBURG Good. TERRANCE STRASSBURG It was good. EVAN STRASSBURG Real good. TIG STRASSBURG All right. TERRANCE STRASSBURG Enaa Baasee'. ALL Enaa Baasee'. AMELIA STRASSBURG Enaa Baasee' TIG STRASSBURG Noye'e. Oh, thank you. I get kisses for the beaver? AMELIA STRASSBURG Yeah. TIG STRASSBURG Hmm. EVAN STRASSBURG A lot of kisses inaudible TIG STRASSBURG That's the best payment ever. Oh, so sweet. JOHN PINGAYAK Come, sit down and I want you to listen to what I have to say. This is part of our history. Patrick's grandpa carved this mask for speaking Cup'ik Eskimo dance. And when they're Eskimo dancing, they used these to make people laugh. Asher, come. Okay. chanting Cup'ik . It was around 1950, I had my first education in a classroom. I was 11 years old; I was taken away from my village by the federal government to Wrangell Institute to immerse me into English and western way of life. I would cry, every, every night. Missing my mom, missing my dad, missing the village. And that's the way they treated us when we were small. And when I spoke in the Cup'ik language, my own language, my ancestor's language, they punished me for that.