Saving Cabins in the Arctic | Life Below Zero
[intense music]
RICKO: I'm learning a new country this winter
so my greatest challenge is don't let the land
or the weather kill me.
[hopeful music]
[wind howling]
[water rushing]
SKYLER: The water is cold.
RICKO: Your feet will get used to it after a while.
SKYLER: This is a big chunk of ice.
NARRATOR: Ricko and Skyler have traveled
to the Selawik Hot Springs with plans to break
trail for vital resources.
But with potentially catastrophic flooding
underneath the cabins on the grounds,
the duo must act quickly to ensure
the safety of the structures.
If they are unable to stop the water
from damaging the foundations, the cabins won't last.
[pensive music]
RICKO: It warmed up out here today
so gave us a little opportunity to start working
on this water situation.
Basically got the flood plain by creating a channel of all
this water going over the dam and alongside of the cabin
instead of through the cabin.
All this grass and moss was insulating the warm rocks
and mud at the bottom so when it gets real cold,
it's freezing all the way to the bottom,
creating a huge flood plain out here.
What I'm trying to do is break away all this moss,
grass, willows, roots, expose that warm rocks and mud
and hopefully that keeps it from freezing
down and just has a natural creek
to flow through all winter.
And it's basically a Band-Aid though because once it gets
real cold, it might freeze all the way down again
and create this whole flood plain to start up again.
Eventually that beaver house has to be destroyed.
So there's no water flowing around or next to the cabins
at all and just no hope for a flood plain happening again.
[water rushing]
People out here, we depend on these cabins
and we depend on it every year for generations.
We let these cabins get eliminated by water and ice,
that could easily eliminate someone's life that's coming
out here unprepared thinking they have a nice spot
to get cozy in and dry off in.
Not only that, there's water over the snow machine trail
and if you go in that thing and you get hurt,
end up in the water, and you come in
and the cabins are glaciered over with ice and water,
you're in a bad spot.
[dramatic music]
[water rushing]
There is a mysterious black bird.
[pensive music]
First time we're seeing them was when I was a kid.
[water rushing]
It has this pointed beak.
It doesn't have webbed feet, but it swims, it dives,
it hunts fish way up here in the headwaters.
It dries itself off in the snow and then
it hangs out in the trees.
It's unique only to these areas.
I really don't even know if that bird's been discovered yet.
If there's no name for that bird and it's a new one,
it's going to be De Wilde bird.
[water rushing]
OK, let's check it out.
Damn, look at this.
There's no more water going underneath the cabin.
[water sounds]
Oof.
Yeah, remember this?
It was just flowing right here.
This will help out a lot.
All this driving over with the snow machine
was a big ol' deal.
Woah.
All this is hanging ice now.
[pensive music]
Check out the snow machine trail and as you can see,
the water has quit flowing.
Dude, the trail looks a whole lot better.
Real gratifying feeling basically saving
cabins by playing in a puddle so a little tired now.
I'm glad we got the job done.
Let's go inside, take a break.
We want to bed early.
Tomorrow, we have a lot of work to do.
[upbeat music]
