Getting to Location - Behind the Scenes | Life Below Zero
[Music] Cameras aren't working, that's getting super frustrating. This is what it's like on Life Below Zero. Cameras are down, tough conditions all around. A fill-in, no heat, no power; do anything won't even turn on. Falling too many times. Yes, Banton, it's just a typical day of the Arctic.
They confessed what we got. It's an exciting time getting ready for our big trip in the most remote location you can think of. Wow, cash is still standing. This is just one of our cycles in the earth. The time to come down here is now. We're getting ready to follow the Hailstones out to their hunting grounds in Kowalik.
We're here in Norvik right now, so that's about 90 miles away by snow machines. So, there's a lot of prep that goes into getting ready for the journey. A lot of things up here when we're filming in the winter start with digging this comics trailer where we store our gear. Here, Norvik is pretty well drifted in with snow, hoping to get a dug out and get one of our sleds out so I can load it up and start the packing process for our big trip to Kowalik.
So, we got the door cleared out and hopefully it should be enough clearance to open it up and get the sled out of here. Seems like we have a frozen lock; that happens from time to time. I think some water got into the mechanism of the lock and froze. Just putting a little bit of light or heat on it in the past has worked pretty well for us.
The trick—alright, here's a sled I was looking for. So this is our crew flat sled; it's very similar to a sled that the Hailstones use to move their gear around as well. Pretty common in this area for moving stuff in the wintertime. In addition to keeping the crew safe and well-fed, my role on the crew is taking care of logistics. So, when we go out and do a remote shoot, it's my job to make sure we have everything we need to set up a little city that we can live and work out of when we're out there.
I can't run down to the corner store if I forget something, so I need to make sure I've got everything that we need to set up a comfortable little tent city where we can live, eat, sleep, work, and enjoy ourselves as well out there. So, this is something that we use whenever we're working remotely. It's a big heavy-duty double wall canvas tent; it weighs a ton but it's really ready for the Arctic environment.
It can handle big wind; it's a good spot to set up all of our camera equipment inside, also to set up a kitchen. That's where the crew hangs out and sleeps, so it's really important that we have something good for tents. Hailstones like to move around depending on where the game is or what the story is we're working on. I need to also be ready to set up mobile camping situations.
Heat is going to be really important out there. I've got a couple different systems for that. A very crucial part of our gear here is this gas generator. Electricity is very important when you're making television; obviously, we have to charge all of the camera batteries and keep all of the other equipment functioning. This is our toilet.
We practice Leave No Trace camping out there, which means we want to leave the Arctic environment just like we found it or even better. So, we pack it in and we pack it all out, including our human waste. I put a little foam seat on there to keep everyone's butt warm in 30 below. I packed a lot of food ahead of time when we're out spending a long day filming, and then coming back to camp, it's not always practical to make a big dinner.
So, I've prepared a lot of meals ahead of time and frozen them, and we'll travel out with us and make the cooking job a little bit easier once we get out there. So, I've gone through the list; I've got all my essentials. I'm gonna pack all this stuff along with our personal gear and all of our camera gear on our four sleds, and we're gonna head out for our big journey to Kowalik following the Hailstones.
We're Eagle crew out; I think this is our last year load. [Applause] It's fascinating to watch the workings of mother nature on this massive river throughout the year. When you live out here, we don't have roads in Alaska. Most of the rivers are our highways, and we live along an interstate.
Our last ride is with a helicopter, so we're gonna sling all of our stuff over to the bluff 16 miles downstream on the Yukon River, which is frozen right now. Hit it to camp and film the ice break up. This is all of our supplies for the next two weeks; that's already two, three hundred pounds. Let's keep loading and wait for this helicopter—500 pounds of gear ready to go. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]