NARRATOR: We are here to document the lives
of people living in Alaska.
The harsh reality is the environment we're up against.
It makes it tough to do our job.
Get out of there!
NARRATOR: Working on "Life Below Zero" can be very dangerous.
Gun's here.
Camera's here.
Never know what to expect.
ALASKAN 1: Hey, hey!
You [bleep] that.
NARRATOR: It's going to be tough,
but we're going to get the shot.
Every scenario, we've got to prepare for this.
ALASKAN 2: But we're still smiling.
We're having fun.
Still making "Life Below Zero."
Yes.
Bring it on.
[theme music]
TERRY PRATT: Well, we're back at Andy's.
Now we got to get the necessities
for us, which is some heat.
We're expecting temperatures anywhere from minus 20, 30.
When it gets this cold, you burn a lot of wood to stay warm.
BRET BOHN: We're going to drop this tree
right down there is the plan, in between these two
big spruces here.
TERRY PRATT: You don't want to just cut down any tree.
You need to find a good dead tree, that standing
dead tree which is nice dry wood which will burn like a monster.
[chain saw revving]
[bleep] This is not good.
TERRY PRATT: What are you doing?
It's kind of leaning towards that crotch there.
TERRY PRATT: Oh, [bleep].
Oh, it's going to have enough weight.
It's going to punch right through it, bro.
I'm going to try to cut it over here and leave all
the wood over here and try to put it
right where I want it, though.
TERRY PRATT: All right.
[chain saw revving]
There it is.
Yeah, buddy.
Timber.
Well, I got it on that side.
Yeah, you did.
Boom.
Took it down.
And that literally, that one tree
is going to keep us going for probably nearly a week.
It depends how cold it gets.
TERRY PRATT: So Bret just felled quite a big tree.
He's bucking it up now until like eight foot lengths.
I'm going to pull the snowmobile around
and just start loading it up.
And we hope to get it 3, 4 feet high.
Before we can get comfy and start our filming here,
we need to be able to have enough heat to maintain us
for a couple of days, at least, before we have to stop again
and replenish our supplies.
I think Andy's going to be impressed.
That's all I have to say.
As you can see, one tree really does the job, huh, Bret?
We aren't even done with that tree, right?
Another load like this, probably.
No, we do.
We have another load [inaudible]..
It was hard work, knee deep in the snow,
and hefting these logs on your shoulders
and moving them around.
At least we can start up a roaring
fire right when we get back.
It's cold.
It's unpredictable.
And we don't know what we're going to get here.
This is the challenge of working in the Arctic.
SIMEON HOUTMAN: We are currently in [inaudible]..
We're out filming Sue as she takes her generator to Chevak.
This is the crew one that we're filming in right now.
But we've literally got three miles in
and we've just got it stuck.
So it's going to be a long journey.
But first things first.
We're going to need to help get this thing unstuck.
It's cold out.
Warm up, boys.
As you can see, we are pretty much stuck.
We have come out with two tuckers.
This is the river right here.
And we just sunk into some serious overflow.
So Sue's the one who is going to have
to try and get us out right now because obviously
we ain't going nowhere.
That's pretty deep.
Actually, not entirely sure whether it
was going to get out at all.
The wind's picking up.
It's about minus 15 right now.
They need to get it out of here before it freezes in there.
Otherwise, it ain't moving at all.
There's a big rush against time right now.
So they're going to try and dig out all the excess snow
and going to get it out there quick.
See all this overflow?
If it freezes, it ain't moving.
[dramatic music]
Wahoo!
We got it out.
Freaking awesome.
Look at that hole it made.
That's a sinkhole right there.
ROB POLLARD: So just a few minutes
ago, this was fully submerged.
So it got a bunch of snow piled up inside this track.
You got to free this up so that this thing could move
and the track could do its job.
All that snow is off this track.
They'll have roughly 70 miles to go in this journey.
So hopefully, we'll just be able to carry on to Chevak, pray
that we don't run into any more overflow
or any other obstacles.
Last thing you want is to be stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Hopefully, we can just keep chugging along
and get to Chevak and finish out our story.