Solo Trip | Life Below Zero

[Music] My name is Martha May Salatan. I'm married to Eric Salatan. I'm from Ilama, Alaska, was born and raised here. I enjoy hunting, fishing, camping—anything that has to do with the outdoors. Beautiful day to go play on the lake, see if I can't find some birds. Eric left early this morning with a fishing client, so I got the rest of the day to go out and motor around on the lake.

I'm going to first check out this little pond that's not too far away from here. Eric and I have hunted over there and been successful before, so I figure that's a good place to go. Hopefully, I can prove to Eric that I'm just as good a hunter as he is.

Martha and Eric Salatan live on the Ilna Peninsula during the summer months, where they hunt and fish to maintain their subsistence lifestyle. I grew up out here; you really learn to love and hate the lake. It's a renewable resource that you can always depend on, but you also learn that it's very dangerous.

It's the largest freshwater lake here in Alaska: 80 miles long by 20 miles wide. If you get caught up here on an ugly day, winter or summer, it can potentially be really dangerous. This is the first spot; there's a little lake that's right over here, so we're going to head over there. Hopefully, there's a bird.

The lake's right there. I'm going to take a peek at that spot there and see what's on this side. You got to be a little quiet out here so as to not spook the birds, let them know you're here. There's one duck over there. Oh, there's two ducks! I think they're good dabbling ducks.

I'm going to walk down behind this brush line here and see if I can't get a little bit closer. I immediately spotted two ducks; there could be more. I haven't really taken a full look. Hopefully, those come a little bit closer towards us, and I'll be able to shoot them.

We'll see what we got here; they're still pretty far out there. I'm going to go down a little bit further and see if I can't get right across from them. They're right in front of us. I can't tell how far out, but I think it's shotgun range.

So, I got a little bit closer and noticed it's some merganser, which is a fish-eating duck. They don't taste very good, so on to the next. There are certain kinds of ducks that taste good, and certain kinds of ducks that don't. Mergansers are one of the ones that don't, so we're going to keep moving and see if we can't find something else.

Came to this lake here; had two birds in it, but they're just not the kind that we want. I'm going to load up here and go over to this island right over here called Rabbit Island. It's a good spot—couple of small little ponds on it. Hopefully, there's birds over there. [Music]