Getting To Kiwalik - Behind the Scenes | Life Below Zero

Campers aren't working. That's getting super frustrating. This is what it's like on Life Below Zero. Cameras are already down. Tough conditions all around. I fill in: no heat, no car, no anything; won't even turn on. Too many times we've had batteries go out. It's just a typical day in the Arctic.

They confessed: what we've got takes a lot of food to feed a bunch of people for a few weeks out in the wilderness to make the show. While we're out there, we're getting ready for a winter move-off, and the place we want to go is to Kowalik. We go down there sometimes for several months at a time. We hunt, fish, and gather. It's worth the challenge, it's worth the dangers, it's worth the time and the unknown. It doesn't bother me because nobody knows.

Today we're loading up our entire show in order to follow the hailstones to Kowalik for some adventures out there. Part of what we have to do is load everything that we need for a couple weeks in the field: one sled with most of the camera gear, personal camping gear; the other sled that mostly carries food, a bunch of propane, and a generator. We use a tremendous number of camera batteries on a daily basis, so we have to run a generator when we're out in remote areas.

I always carry this safety bag that's got our communication devices; it lets us keep in touch with our office in Anchorage and LA. It's also got emergency provisions, a medical kit, and emergency shelter, warm clothes, food, and fire—everything you would need if you were stuck somewhere. I'm pretty excited to go; the hailstones are almost ready to leave, so we're going to start up the machines and follow them out to Kowalik.

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So we're carrying this big load out to Kowalik. We're going over these really hard-packed wind drifts, and it's pushed up the gate. It's bent the gate the wrong direction on two of these hitches now, so we're kind of in a bit of a sticky place here.

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So we're here in Kowalik; we finally made it. A bit of a victory celebration is going on at 3 a.m.—110 miles over some really rough terrain across tundra and frozen Bering Sea. We got here and pretty much just had to make hard luck shelter and get some food into the crew. We've got everything that we need for the next month with us in these four sleds. We'll roll out our sleeping bags, get some rest, and then wake up in the morning and build our little tent city here. Everyone's pretty excited to be here! This is what it takes to follow the hailstones in the middle of nowhere.

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