Batten Down | Life Below Zero

Like we're stuck at home late. Red-flag! I know for three days I should go get firewood, and we should go get a couple days' worth of something to eat here: caribou or a few ducks.

The Hailstone family spends their summer living in Kowalik, away from their home in their native village of Norvik. This nomadic lifestyle allows them to live off the land and stockpile resources for the harsh winter ahead.

We got to start cutting down the tents and the teepees and the kitchen. We got to make sure everything is put up. We got 40-mile-an-hour winds coming in for the next three days. The next three days we're gonna need heat, we're gonna need some fresh meat, and we're gonna need to just basically secure our stuff.

These are tents; they can just blow away, and they can end up in the river. They can end up in the willows; it can end up destroyed. We got to get busy. That's really what we got to do.

You guys listen to the weather report: we have a 40-mile-an-hour wind warning with gusts. So we're gonna just hunker down for a couple days. It ain't gonna be any good to go out in the ocean, and it ain't gonna be any good to have fires. Probably gonna be any good to fish right now 'cause it's gonna be such a low tide with the north wind.

Me and John are gonna take off; we're gonna go look for the ducks, geese, whatever's in the river. A few more logs—yep, a few more logs. And you ladies can just tidy up camp. Anything that's loose and stuff has to be picked up. Anything that's up on the rack up there is gonna have to be nailed down or secured.

All right, well, I'm gonna go get ready for the boat. I gotta go get wood. Hey, look at me! They're gonna secure the camp around here and make sure that everything's picked up and put away and nothing is gonna blow away because we can't just go to the store and replace things, and it's just on us.

Carol, come in with these big rocks, okay? Take the whole teepee down and prepare for the real winds that are coming. How fast is it gonna be? It's gonna be like 35 to 45 miles per hour gusts. The cold is coming almost like best winter.

So I'm gonna use these right here to hold your girls' distance down. If it starts to get funny or if it starts to blow too hard, just come off; it should hold. You have to always just be prepared because once your stuff starts blowing, it's pretty hard to keep all your stuff dry, clean, and together.

So we're just trying to make sure we have food security, our shelters secured, and we have enough heat. There, I'm gonna take the chainsaw for wood. Looks like you're ready for some decent ducks. We'll see what we can come home with. I'm sure we can fill the boat.

So it looks like the winds are already picking up. This is kind of nasty. We've got my son John to go boating with me today. We've got firewood to collect, and we've got some meat to secure.

We know the weather's coming; we know what to do to prepare for it, and we get with it. What'll kill you isn't the weather—it's not being prepared for it. And if you don't prepare yourself and you don't go get the things that you need before it happens, you're gonna have to do it while it's happening, and that's when you can get nailed.