Flying to the Ends of the Earth (2005) s01e03 Episode Script
The Great Northern Wilderness
1 - You see the cattle at the end of runway are they going to be a problem for us? - No.
'On our crowded planet, there are still beautiful and little known wildernesses.
But for the determined adventurer, there is a way to reach them.
' Oh, my God, I've just seen the airstrip! 'I'm Arthur Williams.
I used to be a Royal Marine, but seven years ago I was paralysed in an accident.
Then I learnt to fly and regained my spirit of adventure.
' Yee-hoo! 'Now I want to see how far the plane can take me.
' Not enough oxygen for me! Stall warner.
'Tackling some of the globe's tiniest and most dangerous airstrips.
' Whoa.
Whoa, whoa! 'Meeting the people who've made their home at the ends of the earth Good job! '.
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and exploring the world that only flying can reach.
' I've walked on ground that nobody has ever walked before! 'This is northern Canada, a vast untamed wilderness.
'It's a land claimed by many different people, from Native Americans to gold prospectors to hunters.
' Well, I'll be damned! 'For six months of the year, much of the land is buried in snow and ice.
'But I've come here in high summer, when the ice retreats 'and the land gives up its secrets.
'I'm going to fly deeper and deeper into this magnificent place, 'beginning in a Native American town in a rainforest, 'before discovering a village built as a social experiment in the '60s '.
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and finally, seeing if I can strike gold at the very edge of the Arctic Circle.
' What's the most you've ever made from doing this? About ¤3,000,000.
'This is Port Hardy.
'It's the gateway to the Great Bear Rainforest.
' 'For decades this huge wilderness of lakes and mountains 'was almost completely cut-off.
'Even today, the only way for me to get there, other than taking a ten 'hour boat ride, is with this beauty -- a Grumman Goose flying boat.
' - You must be Vince.
- Yes.
Pleased to meet you.
- I'm Arthur.
'I'm travelling with Canadian bush pilot Vince Crooks.
'He's been flying people in and out of the forest for the last 30 years.
' This thing really is a boat with wings.
It really, really is.
It's amazing.
I mean, look at the yoke here.
I feel like I should be here with a skipper's hat.
Ten degrees to starboard! 'The Great Bear Rainforest is one of the largest temperate 'rainforests on earth.
'Which means no parrots, but plenty of rain.
' It's a long way between airports.
'The forest is home to brown bears, black bears 'and the highest concentration of Grizzlies outside of Alaska.
' 'I'm desperate to see one of these bears in the flesh, but they're under threat from the loggers and the hunters who fly into the territory.
' Wow, blimey.
- Would you mind if I took control, Vince? - Yeah, sure.
Go ahead.
All right, great.
It feels really, really solid.
- Yeah, it is.
It's very stable.
- Yeah.
'The Grumman Goose was first flown in 1937.
'It's a flying battleship able to carry heavy loads 'and withstand an enormous amount of punishment.
'Made for the challenges of the Canadian coast, 'it's been crucial in the opening up of the region 'and it's a thrill to fly.
' 'Most excitingly for me, it's my first flight in a sea plane, 'which means, in about five minutes, a crack at my first water landing.
' 'Water landings can be extremely dangerous.
'Two Grumman Gooses have crashed in Canada since 2000.
'With a weight of over ten tonnes this plane will hit the water 'with incredible force.
' So, we've just done a go around, which is a missed approach because we were coming in on final approach and there was a boat in the way.
It's not something I've ever had to deal with before.
It's really weird because you think it's just going to hit the water and you're going to nose over because of the drag that it creates.
Look at this wash and now we're a boat.
We've gone from a plane to a boat.
Now you need to put your captain's cap on and become a mariner, Vince.
Yeah.
'This is Klemtu, deep in the rainforest.
'With its white picket fences, it could be suburban Canada, 'but it's home to the Kitasoo tribe of Native Americans, 'or First Nations people, as they're known here.
'Once the Kitasoo hunted the animals, 'but now they fly in tourists to see them.
'Bear sightseeing is one of the major sources of income here.
'Charlie Mason is from the Kitasoo tribe 'and has lived in Klemtu all his life.
'He drives a boat that gives some of those tourists a chance to see 'the bears in the wild.
' 'In the 1800s, when Europeans first arrived, 'the forest's inhabitants lived off the land hunting, fishing 'and travelling by dugout canoe.
'Charlie and his nephew Tiny want to take me to some 'ancient wall paintings to show me what life used to be like here.
' Charlie, what have we got up here? How long do you think they've been there? 'As I was trying to make out the paintings of animals, 'Tiny had a surprise for me 'a humpback whale.
He's come back up again.
- Wow, there he is.
See him? - Yeah.
What will he be looking for here around the shore here? Krill, like little fish, herring something to eat.
Sometimes they rub, go along the bottom and rub their bellies on the bottom there.
- What for? - Massage, I guess.
Tiny do you still get excited by seeing these things? Yes, I do.
Pretty amazing.
Being able to come out in a boat and see nature like this and see whales.
Would you swap these sights for cinemas and takeaways? - No.
- No? - I like this better.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
'Tourists are not the only people to fly in.
'Trophy hunters in search of bears to kill for fun 'is a real problem and the bear numbers are suffering.
' Do you get angry with the trophy hunters Coming out here and seeing the wall paintings and seeing their reaction to the whales, it to showed me how important wildlife are to Tiny, Charlie and the community.
'And it's made me even more determined to have a close encounter 'of the grizzly kind.
' 'I'm in the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada.
'This remote land is home to tens of thousands of bears 'and a group of young scientists trying to track them down.
'Biologist Christina Service 'is halfway through a six-month stint here.
'She's left behind a comfortable life working in a lab in Vancouver 'to fly in and protect the forest's vulnerable bears.
' So where we're headed right now is a big stronghold for grizzly bears in particular, so we have a pretty good chance of being greeted in the estuary by some grizz.
'We moor at one of the research sites 'but, before we disembark, 'there's a slightly alarming health and safety brief.
' If a bear was to do a bluff charge - Don't run.
- Yeah.
The worst thing you can do is run.
I think he'd have a job outrunning me! 'Christina collects bear hair samples 'from specially designed snags.
'They'll give her all sorts of personal details 'about the bears' health, sex life and diet -- 'if I manage not to snap them!' And you just want to be as careful as possible that we're not ripping the hair.
So, if you think of it, each complete strand of the hair is a year of that bear's life.
So, half of a hair doesn't help us too much.
We're really in wild Canada here -- we've got claw marks on trees where grizzly bears have been in this very spot.
It's amazing to think that the guy that probably put the marks on this tree is just across the water over there.
'Of course, claw marks are very interesting, but I must admit 'I was disappointed that we haven't seen an actual bear yet.
' So, Christina, other than doing the tree, is there anything else that we do to set the site up here? So, the last step that we want to do right before we leave - is we're going to bait the site.
- OK.
- It smells pretty awful! 'To make sure the bears leave some hair, Christina has to lure them 'to the snags with a special perfume.
'Unfortunately, bears have pretty distinctive tastes 'and so the perfume is made up of fish guts and beavers' anal glands.
' Um and it's super oily and you smell like it for a really long time when you get it on you, so Oh, no, come on, I want to be sociable tonight! - I don't want to have to be quarantined in to my - That's true.
Come on, let's have a whiff.
Jesus Christ! It's good, eh? - Smells great to bears, so that's what matters most.
- OK.
Their sense of smell is so much stronger than ours - that they can smell this from kilometres away.
- Wow.
'The team have a motion detector camera that films the bears 'once they've been lured in by the scent.
' Did you guys get any footage? We did, yeah.
We got two different grizzly bears.
- Awesome.
- Yeah.
So that's a pretty big grizzly.
Wow.
So, he's getting right into the pile, he's rolling on his back.
He can smell the fish is right on that pile where he's rubbing.
'The footage helps Christina and the team track individual bears 'and understand more about how outside threats 'are affecting their behaviour.
'Watching the bear version of Big Brother is all well and good, 'but nothing like seeing one in the flesh.
Here we're going to take it slow and check out to see if we have any bears hanging around.
What's going on? - Whoa! Can I have a look? - Yeah.
Well, I'll be damned.
That's quite incredible, isn't it? There's actually a grizzly bear over there, it looks amazing.
It's got, like, this almost perfect gold coat.
That is quite amazing, yeah.
He's got such a massive head, Christina.
Yeah, he's still a pretty young bear, so he's sort of at that awkward teenage stage where his legs are really long and his head's really big.
- What, he's an adolescent? - Yeah, like a 14-year-old boy.
'This is a scene that could have happened here at any time 'in the last thousand years.
'It's the bear's total indifference to man that's amazing.
' On less of a scientific level -- on more of an emotional level -- you guys feel a connection with them? - Cos you spend so much time watching them.
- Oh, absolutely.
He's been hanging around here and we've gotten to know him.
We've gotten to know him as he's grown up over the years, as well.
And also with remote cameras, as you just saw, we get this very intimate window into their lives, too, that they don't necessarily showcase.
So we get to see how they behave as they're walking the trails or who's found a mate.
So most definitely on an emotional level, as well, I feel a tremendous connection with these animals.
'The Great Bear Rainforest is breathtakingly beautiful 'and the villagers and scientists are determined to keep it that way.
' I really hope that the loggers, the hunters and even the visitors like myself don't spoil it for future generations.
'There's no chance of that where I'm going next.
'I'm heading even further north towards a tiny community 'on the edge the Arctic Circle via a town called Yellowknife.
'Yellowknife is literally at the end of the road.
'A terminus for the wilderness.
'From here, workers are shuttled out to diamond mines, 'supplies are ferried to remote villages 'and fire planes head out to douse forest blazes.
'But the place I'm going to is even stranger.
'It's called Wekweeti, and it was created as a giant outdoor social experiment.
' For years, there's been hardly any connection to the outside world until the '90s, when they built an airstrip and today we're hitching a ride.
All right.
'Pilot Ted Duinker delivers supplies and visitors to Wekweeti every week.
'They are a town reliant on the plane.
' Yellowknife ground -- Discovery 212.
I'll continue at the 6.
5 up to Wekweeti.
- What a beautiful day for flying.
- Yeah.
You've got to be used to flying in so such extreme conditions up here.
It's like one end of the spectrum to the other, you know.
Like, we get -40 in the winter and we get +30 in the summer.
You know.
It's unbelievable.
You can just start to see off the nose, there's just a little bit of smoke on the horizon.
- Yeah, yeah, sure.
- You can start to see the forest fires - that are just south of the community there.
- Wow.
'Forest fires caused by lightning strikes 'are a major threat at this time of year.
' If this south wind would keep up, you know, the town could be in jeopardy for sure.
It is actually quite scary, isn't it? Even from up here.
- It's so uncontrollable.
- Exactly, yeah.
- Do you want to fly? - Yeah, sure.
- Yeah, go for it, yeah.
'I didn't tell Ted that this was actually the first time 'I'd flown an aircraft on this scale.
'And I must admit, I was a little nervous at first.
' Set this up to 350 or so.
Shall I? Let's check that off on yours.
What pressure are you on? I got 2,995.
- 2,995? - Yeah.
Has it made a big difference, having the airstrip down there? Most definitely.
A lot of these communities don't have road access for I guess for nine or ten months of the year, so everything gets flown in.
Everything.
Food, groceries, people's personal stuff.
If somebody wants a bicycle, they get it flown in.
Everything's flown in, their medicine.
You know, if somebody was to get hurt in these places, there's only one way to get out and that's by airplane.
'Even today, few outsiders make it to Wekweeti.
' We know that they were a community that took themselves from life because of the corruption that towns and modern life had on the aboriginal communities.
It'd just be interesting to find out if the reconnection with aircraft - means that it is impossible for them to escape - Yeah.
- .
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the world.
- That's a good point, yeah.
'Wekweeti was a town built from scratch in the 1960s, 'in a bold attempt by a group of First Nations people to get away 'from the modern world.
'Founded by an elder called Alexis Arrowmaker, for years it had no running water, no electricity and only one phone.
It was almost entirely cut off until 1994, when they built an airstrip.
For the First Nations people who built it, Wekweeti was an attempt to go back to nature.
But has it worked? - Have you ever been there, Ted? - Yeah, I have.
Yeah.
And what did you make of it then? Yeah.
It's not bad if you're going there just for a little bit! So there's Wekweeti on the nose.
- Yeah.
- That's the town, that's the village.
- What you see is what you get.
- God, it's tiny! - Yeah.
There's a cluster of maybe 50 houses at most.
There's a little road that connects the airport, - which is just over here on the point.
- Wow, that's a proper bush strip.
Yeah, that's right.
Do the people of the town still get excited when you come? Most definitely.
Oh, yeah.
So what are we doing now? Are we just on our base leg approach? Exactly, yeah.
About to start final approach in to Wekweeti air strip.
This is great.
Proper dirt strip.
You can feel the aircraft slowing right down.
Just flare a little bit.
- We're down.
We're down on the ground.
Good job, Ted.
- There we go.
Give it some back thrust, so that we don't roll off the end of the runway.
'I'm going to meet Jonny Arrowmaker, 'the Mayor and son of the town's founder 'to see what the future is for this brave, experimental place.
' Wekweeti is a First Nations town, 100 miles from anywhere.
With all supplies flown in, life is expensive -- a bunch of grapes costs £8.
But jobs are scarce and now many youngsters are moving away, threatening the town's future.
Johnny Arrowmaker is the mayor.
Thanks to a recent windfall of government cash, he's gone on a construction spree designed to keep the youngsters happy.
A youth centre, a gazebo, a viewing platform and -- in a town that's covered in snow for half the year -- an ice rink.
But his latest scheme is his absolute pride and joy.
So, where are we, Johnny? We're at the golf course.
- The golf course?! - Yeah.
What?! How have you got a golf course? Yeah, we have a golf course, a nine-hole golf course.
This one is still a little bit under construction.
They're cutting bushes and they're clearing, you know, after they complete it we have a nine-hole golf course.
- Do you want some of this? - Yeah.
Use some of this.
What? Proper astro turf and everything! It's got to be said that we are all suffering out here quite badly because the flies, you just would not believe that they are everywhere.
Cos they're still attracted to you.
How do you deal with them every day? People must have thought you were crazy when you first came up with the idea? People kind of excited to hear that you have a golf course in the middle of nowhere What are you hoping to achieve with building a golf course? We live in an isolated community, so by having all this extra stuff, maybe hopefully to keep the kids happy.
You know, more things for them to do.
So, try to keep them in a healthy way instead of getting into the bad stuff.
What are you trying to keep the kids away from? All the bad habits.
Maybe try to keep them away from alcohol and try to keep them away from drugs and stuff like that.
So, we still keep our culture but our traditional way of living has changed.
How bizarre was that? To come across a pristine astroturf golf course here.
It was the last thing I was expecting, but it's a really, really noble attempt by Johnny to keep his community active and integrate it together and give them something to do.
But at the same time you can't help but think, that if they want to move away, I don't think a golf course is going to stop them.
'In winter, temperatures can drop below minus 30 'and there is near 24-hour darkness.
Keeping spirits up is essential.
'And when it gets too cold for golf, it all comes down to hand games, 'a kind of poker crossed with paper, scissors, stone.
'A key part of local Tlicho culture, the games used to be played for 'cattle -- and even women.
Now it's mainly pride and sometimes a bit of money.
' You know, when you play the game and you kind of -- there is an object in your hand where you try to hide it.
It's almost like a guessing game, but when you get a point, you get one stick and so when you get all the sticks in the middle -- you're the winner.
The drumming and chanting is designed to distract the opposition and I was definitely struggling to keep up.
- Is that the object or is this the object? - Yeah, that's the object.
- So, I get rid of this one? - No, you try to hide it.
- But there's only one object.
- Yeah.
'Essentially, the other team has to guess which of us is holding 'the stick under the tarpaulin.
If they guess wrong, we get a point '.
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and a surprising sense of satisfaction.
'And if they guess right? 'Oh, then maybe not.
'Having given up on the nuances of hand games, I grabbed Johnny for a chat.
'I wondered if he thought traditions like this had a future 'in the community.
' Do you think that there's the same level of interest in the kids today as there was when you were growing up? I grew up in this place when we had no TV and no other games that we know how to play, so this was the game we used to play every night.
Are you finding it increasingly hard to maintain this traditional way of life? You know, somehow slowly traditional is dying.
Time change, you know, it's not the same.
'Whether Johnny wants it or not, 'technology is definitely infiltrating Wekweeti.
'Just as hand games now takes place in a youth centre and not a tent, 'so duck hunting is no longer a matter of canoes and bows and arrows, 'but powerboats and shotguns.
' I'm about to go duck hunting with the Judas family -- Clarence, Vincent and Roy.
The price of goods out here are really high because everything has to be flown in, so it makes sense to go out once in a while and get your own food, but also they pride themselves on self-reliance.
'The Judas family were given their name by missionaries 'in the 19th century.
'Clarence and his brother-in-law, Roy, have lived all their lives here.
'Clarence's son, Vincent, is on holiday from high school in Yellowknife.
' How you doing, all right? Guys, this is going to be fun, eh? - Happy days! - Yeah, are we ready? - Yeah, yeah.
Ready to go.
So, Roy, do you think there'll be many bugs out on the water, today? - Not on the water, maybe on the land.
- Yes! THEY LAUGH Get away from 'em.
Can you manage? Got it.
Around August, everything, they get fat and hardly get off the water, eh.
So, when they're at their fattest they're the easiest to shoot? - That's all right, innit? - Lots of fat, lots of grease.
Natural grease.
- Do you use that natural grease? - Yes.
'Despite all my training in the Marines, I can't say I've 'ever fired a pump action from the front of a motor boat before, 'but it's got a lot going for it.
' Way in front! Way in front! Way in front! - Get ready, they might swing it round.
- Yeah.
- You got to load up? - Yeah.
For all my best efforts, the ducks are proving too nimble for me.
Well, my shooting's not quite what it used to be, Clarence, eh? Yeah, yeah.
That's embarrassing.
If we want to go home with anything to eat, it's time I hand over to a more practised hand.
Holy smokes! Right there in the water! THEY LAUGH 'With dinner successfully in the bag we turned towards home.
' The lands around Wekweeti, how important are they to you? Very important.
We live off the land, it's all ours.
It doesn't ask for nothing, though.
We respect it, we take care of it, we take what we need.
Plus, at the same time, it gives us comfort, gives us happiness and keeps us close to family.
It gives a lot of things, sometimes we don't even know till later.
'Clarence and Roy might not hunt in the same way as their ancestors did, but I could see how important it was 'to them to still be able to catch their own food.
' You be nice.
Where are you going? Have you missed us? That was so much fun.
Honestly, talk about, like, just doing these things as family, but what could be better than getting out on the open water, where literally you've got the entire lake to yourself, with a gun, just four guys having a blast.
The thing just clicked with me.
It just instantly all made sense about why they do it.
They just seem to have it right.
They've just got it right here.
Brilliant.
Really, really good.
'It was time to build a fire to barbecue our precious catch.
'With so few jobs, keeping Vince and his friends occupied is hard.
' That is good.
GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS IN DISTANCE - Vince, who's playing the guitar? - Poff Yaffle.
He likes to play loud.
Make the whole town hear.
- That sounds pretty cool, he's pretty good.
- Yeah, he's pretty good.
He's good.
- He's the Slash of Snare Lake! - Slash of Snare Lake! 'Wekweeti recently acquired broadband that's faster than I get at home.
'It's the biggest thing to happen to the town 'since electricity arrived in '89.
' Vince, do you think, like, your father and previous generations had it easier to live out here because they didn't have access to the outside world like the internet and they didn't know what they were missing out on? Yeah, why? It's good.
'I wondered if Clarence and Roy agreed with Vince that 'technology is making life better here.
' Do you think, like, with the internet here and Facebook, it makes it easier or more tempting for the kids to want to leave? Yeah.
Well, if today was anything to go by, I'd bloody be back here in a shot.
I wouldn't want to go anywhere else.
'Not even being hundreds of miles from anywhere can make Wekweeti 'immune from Facebook and broadband.
'It might go against the ideals of the town's founders, 'but it seems that if Wekweeti is to survive, then the people must find 'the balance between their own traditions 'and the realities of 21st century life.
'It's not just indigenous communities who want to escape the 21st century.
'I'm going to meet a man who spends months up here all on his own.
'He's known as Klondike Carl and he's taking me the deepest I've been yet into this wilderness.
Here's a perfect example of what we're looking for.
It is possible that you're looking at a bit of gold there, seriously.
'I'm in the far north of Canada, on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
'This was once gold rush country.
'In the 1930s, 'planes brought prospectors here in their thousands.
' The job title of "gold prospector" seems so old fashioned.
For me, it conjures up images of the old gold rush era.
But here in Yellowknife, there are men that actually fly themselves, miles from any airfields, land on water and go in search of gold.
Sounds like the stuff of comic books, but here, it's very real.
'I'm flying with Carl Clouter, 'or "Klondike Carl", as the locals know him.
' - Hey, nice to meet you.
- And you.
'He's a bush pilot who spends months alone in a wood cabin, 'hundreds of miles from anywhere, 'hoping to strike gold and get rich.
'Today, Carl is putting his tiny plane's maximum payload to the test 'by bringing along fellow aviation enthusiast, Gordy.
' It's so gorgeous up here, Carl.
I can understand why you want to do it.
I love it up here.
You know, it's beautiful.
I love being outdoors.
I do not like being indoors.
I'd much rather be out with a campfire than any place indoors.
It's not me.
This is what I like, right here.
This airplane has been places where no-one's been before.
- Yeah.
- I've walked on ground that nobody has ever walked before.
In terms of wildlife at the site? We're really watching for the bears all the time and very aware of how dangerous they can be.
And we've got precautions against them, have we? Absolutely! Yeah, we've got Gordy here.
- You know, he's a bear wrestler.
- LAUGHTER What's the most you've ever made from doing this? - About three million dollars.
- Are you kidding? - No.
- It's addictive? - Yeah, the hunt is never over.
'Most of Carl's money has been ploughed back into his prospecting, 'but the area is geologically rich.
'Known as the Canadian Shield, 'it's full of gold, silver, copper and nickel.
'Finding these buried seams combines science, guesswork 'and a determination to go further and wilder than your rivals.
' That's pretty cool.
We're coming in to land.
God, our wings are literally just over the treetop level, it's brilliant.
The water's rearing up in front of us.
Third degree of flaps! Throttle back He's holding it right back.
Look at that angle.
SPLASH Boom! We're on the ground.
Good job, Carl! Well, thank you.
It's quite barren, quite flat.
It looks like perfect gold prospecting country.
First impressions of this seem pretty good.
Though I've got this itching suspicion in the back of my mind that we're going to be met by a big black bear! 'Bears or not, we head straight on to the boat 'and a piece of land that Carl has had his eye on for a while.
'The site of a previous camp, he thinks it has some potential.
' - Well, we're off and running.
- We are.
I have to tell you that there's gold in them there hills.
- Ha! - Keep looking for it.
We'll get rich today? Well, you know, it's the luck of the draw.
Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.
'Unlike large-scale prospecting companies, 'Carl doesn't have access to exploration teams 'or industrial drills.
'He relies on his map, his hammer, his instincts 'and a lot of luck.
' One for me, one for you.
Why do I get the small one? You get the small persuader because you're a beginner.
I can't believe I'm doing this.
You know, I think ever since I was a little boy, I wanted a hammer and go and bash some rocks in search of gold.
We're going to do it.
Now.
What are we looking for? We're looking for some little vein-type alteration in the ground.
- OK.
- And we'll no doubt find something.
There you go! Then you look at the rock.
- Is that gold there? - No gold! LAUGHTER 'Carl isn't looking for massive gold nuggets, 'but quartz, mixed with tiny fragments of gold.
' What about this one here, Carl? This is pretty dark.
Once he finds some, he needs to establish if there is enough to make it worth the enormous expense of mining the stuff.
Can you make a decent living from this? On average a year, can you pull in quite a bit, or is it nothing, nothing, nothing, until you find a mine and then boom? It's most likely nothing, nothing, nothing until you find a good showing and then it's boom! - Wow! - And it can be, you know, like rags to riches stories.
But then, most prospectors, they'll probably go back to rags again, because they spend all they had out looking for another one.
LAUGHTER I'm learning that there's not too much you can't handle.
So - Yeah, I'll come around that.
- OK.
Yeah, come around that tree.
- OK.
You take the route.
- Yeah.
Here's a perfect example of what we're looking for.
- Now, you see the quartz veining there? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the copper and there's some contact with the granites.
- Yeah.
- And the pegmatites.
This piece here? - Yeah.
- Lots of copper.
- Yeah.
- We just went through that.
It is possible you're looking at a bit of gold, there.
- Seriously.
Gold and copper are hard to tell apart.
- Yeah? We're going to have a look.
Zoom in on that mineralisation there, it looks spectacular.
Here comes the gold fever! 'It might not be the gold nugget I'd dreamed of, 'but it's enough to make Carl want to explore further.
'I was beginning to suspect there might be more to Carl's prospecting 'than just the desire to get rich.
' If you hit it big today, would you carry on doing this? - Oh, yes, positively.
- Yeah? I'd just do it in greater comfort.
I don't know, I'd probably bring out lobster tails and caviar, versus pork and beans.
That might change a little bit.
And what would you spend it on, when you got back to town? Don't go to town, don't like that.
I'd rather be out here.
'The thrill of feeling that 'you are only a rock hammer blow from millions is addictive.
'But the last gold mine here closed ten years ago, 'and now, it's just individuals like Carl who keep looking.
'For three months of every year, 'Carl stays in this cabin, 'living a life of a 1930s prospector 'Almost.
' I can't help but notice your massive TV as well, Carl.
That's not something you'd expect to see.
I like watching Columbo -- I've got all his movies.
- I prefer Ironside.
- Yeah? LAUGHTER I was woken up one morning around three o'clock and there was a bear in here.
- What? In your bin? - In the bin, yeah.
Just empty pop cans, I guess.
I want to say beer, but pop cans.
Then he went over there, was eating berries, right where you see that bumblebee and I took out my trusty weapon and said, "Out of there, bear!".
He didn't move.
I stayed back in here until he wandered off and I came back out.
You've got family.
Are they ever concerned about the fact that - you're out there on your own? - No, I've done this all my life.
'I was intrigued as to what kept Carl coming out here, 'leaving his wife and daughter back at home.
' It's the last frontier.
I can fly up here in the north for six hours and never see anybody.
I love flying.
It's a freedom, isn't it? Yeah, it's total exhilaration and you're in command.
There's nobody else here but you.
Does your family miss you when you're out here? Yeah, they wonder when I'm going to come home.
In Newfoundland, my wife is always calling.
Every single night when I'm in Yellowknife, she calls -- "When you coming home?" "I don't know, I just got up here".
"You've been gone two months!" "Well, that's just getting up here.
I'm not ready to go home yet.
" My lifestyle, you know, didn't permit me to even raise my own daughter.
Seriously, I spent more time away from home when my daughter was growing up than I did at home.
I might have been a bit greedy, I suppose, in choosing what I wanted to do, versus letting my child or my wife change my lifestyle.
Do you even care if you make millions and millions here? - No.
- It's just doing this? It's just sitting out here? - Doing this, absolutely, yeah.
- Doing this? It's great.
It's perfect.
This is absolutely perfect.
'In three months' time, 'this landscape will be once again be covered by snow and ice.
'Even so, it's still a land people want to lay claim to.
'Perhaps these days, the people come out here 'to find meaning in their lives rather than money, 'but the attraction remains just as powerful.
'
'On our crowded planet, there are still beautiful and little known wildernesses.
But for the determined adventurer, there is a way to reach them.
' Oh, my God, I've just seen the airstrip! 'I'm Arthur Williams.
I used to be a Royal Marine, but seven years ago I was paralysed in an accident.
Then I learnt to fly and regained my spirit of adventure.
' Yee-hoo! 'Now I want to see how far the plane can take me.
' Not enough oxygen for me! Stall warner.
'Tackling some of the globe's tiniest and most dangerous airstrips.
' Whoa.
Whoa, whoa! 'Meeting the people who've made their home at the ends of the earth Good job! '.
.
and exploring the world that only flying can reach.
' I've walked on ground that nobody has ever walked before! 'This is northern Canada, a vast untamed wilderness.
'It's a land claimed by many different people, from Native Americans to gold prospectors to hunters.
' Well, I'll be damned! 'For six months of the year, much of the land is buried in snow and ice.
'But I've come here in high summer, when the ice retreats 'and the land gives up its secrets.
'I'm going to fly deeper and deeper into this magnificent place, 'beginning in a Native American town in a rainforest, 'before discovering a village built as a social experiment in the '60s '.
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and finally, seeing if I can strike gold at the very edge of the Arctic Circle.
' What's the most you've ever made from doing this? About ¤3,000,000.
'This is Port Hardy.
'It's the gateway to the Great Bear Rainforest.
' 'For decades this huge wilderness of lakes and mountains 'was almost completely cut-off.
'Even today, the only way for me to get there, other than taking a ten 'hour boat ride, is with this beauty -- a Grumman Goose flying boat.
' - You must be Vince.
- Yes.
Pleased to meet you.
- I'm Arthur.
'I'm travelling with Canadian bush pilot Vince Crooks.
'He's been flying people in and out of the forest for the last 30 years.
' This thing really is a boat with wings.
It really, really is.
It's amazing.
I mean, look at the yoke here.
I feel like I should be here with a skipper's hat.
Ten degrees to starboard! 'The Great Bear Rainforest is one of the largest temperate 'rainforests on earth.
'Which means no parrots, but plenty of rain.
' It's a long way between airports.
'The forest is home to brown bears, black bears 'and the highest concentration of Grizzlies outside of Alaska.
' 'I'm desperate to see one of these bears in the flesh, but they're under threat from the loggers and the hunters who fly into the territory.
' Wow, blimey.
- Would you mind if I took control, Vince? - Yeah, sure.
Go ahead.
All right, great.
It feels really, really solid.
- Yeah, it is.
It's very stable.
- Yeah.
'The Grumman Goose was first flown in 1937.
'It's a flying battleship able to carry heavy loads 'and withstand an enormous amount of punishment.
'Made for the challenges of the Canadian coast, 'it's been crucial in the opening up of the region 'and it's a thrill to fly.
' 'Most excitingly for me, it's my first flight in a sea plane, 'which means, in about five minutes, a crack at my first water landing.
' 'Water landings can be extremely dangerous.
'Two Grumman Gooses have crashed in Canada since 2000.
'With a weight of over ten tonnes this plane will hit the water 'with incredible force.
' So, we've just done a go around, which is a missed approach because we were coming in on final approach and there was a boat in the way.
It's not something I've ever had to deal with before.
It's really weird because you think it's just going to hit the water and you're going to nose over because of the drag that it creates.
Look at this wash and now we're a boat.
We've gone from a plane to a boat.
Now you need to put your captain's cap on and become a mariner, Vince.
Yeah.
'This is Klemtu, deep in the rainforest.
'With its white picket fences, it could be suburban Canada, 'but it's home to the Kitasoo tribe of Native Americans, 'or First Nations people, as they're known here.
'Once the Kitasoo hunted the animals, 'but now they fly in tourists to see them.
'Bear sightseeing is one of the major sources of income here.
'Charlie Mason is from the Kitasoo tribe 'and has lived in Klemtu all his life.
'He drives a boat that gives some of those tourists a chance to see 'the bears in the wild.
' 'In the 1800s, when Europeans first arrived, 'the forest's inhabitants lived off the land hunting, fishing 'and travelling by dugout canoe.
'Charlie and his nephew Tiny want to take me to some 'ancient wall paintings to show me what life used to be like here.
' Charlie, what have we got up here? How long do you think they've been there? 'As I was trying to make out the paintings of animals, 'Tiny had a surprise for me 'a humpback whale.
He's come back up again.
- Wow, there he is.
See him? - Yeah.
What will he be looking for here around the shore here? Krill, like little fish, herring something to eat.
Sometimes they rub, go along the bottom and rub their bellies on the bottom there.
- What for? - Massage, I guess.
Tiny do you still get excited by seeing these things? Yes, I do.
Pretty amazing.
Being able to come out in a boat and see nature like this and see whales.
Would you swap these sights for cinemas and takeaways? - No.
- No? - I like this better.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
'Tourists are not the only people to fly in.
'Trophy hunters in search of bears to kill for fun 'is a real problem and the bear numbers are suffering.
' Do you get angry with the trophy hunters Coming out here and seeing the wall paintings and seeing their reaction to the whales, it to showed me how important wildlife are to Tiny, Charlie and the community.
'And it's made me even more determined to have a close encounter 'of the grizzly kind.
' 'I'm in the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada.
'This remote land is home to tens of thousands of bears 'and a group of young scientists trying to track them down.
'Biologist Christina Service 'is halfway through a six-month stint here.
'She's left behind a comfortable life working in a lab in Vancouver 'to fly in and protect the forest's vulnerable bears.
' So where we're headed right now is a big stronghold for grizzly bears in particular, so we have a pretty good chance of being greeted in the estuary by some grizz.
'We moor at one of the research sites 'but, before we disembark, 'there's a slightly alarming health and safety brief.
' If a bear was to do a bluff charge - Don't run.
- Yeah.
The worst thing you can do is run.
I think he'd have a job outrunning me! 'Christina collects bear hair samples 'from specially designed snags.
'They'll give her all sorts of personal details 'about the bears' health, sex life and diet -- 'if I manage not to snap them!' And you just want to be as careful as possible that we're not ripping the hair.
So, if you think of it, each complete strand of the hair is a year of that bear's life.
So, half of a hair doesn't help us too much.
We're really in wild Canada here -- we've got claw marks on trees where grizzly bears have been in this very spot.
It's amazing to think that the guy that probably put the marks on this tree is just across the water over there.
'Of course, claw marks are very interesting, but I must admit 'I was disappointed that we haven't seen an actual bear yet.
' So, Christina, other than doing the tree, is there anything else that we do to set the site up here? So, the last step that we want to do right before we leave - is we're going to bait the site.
- OK.
- It smells pretty awful! 'To make sure the bears leave some hair, Christina has to lure them 'to the snags with a special perfume.
'Unfortunately, bears have pretty distinctive tastes 'and so the perfume is made up of fish guts and beavers' anal glands.
' Um and it's super oily and you smell like it for a really long time when you get it on you, so Oh, no, come on, I want to be sociable tonight! - I don't want to have to be quarantined in to my - That's true.
Come on, let's have a whiff.
Jesus Christ! It's good, eh? - Smells great to bears, so that's what matters most.
- OK.
Their sense of smell is so much stronger than ours - that they can smell this from kilometres away.
- Wow.
'The team have a motion detector camera that films the bears 'once they've been lured in by the scent.
' Did you guys get any footage? We did, yeah.
We got two different grizzly bears.
- Awesome.
- Yeah.
So that's a pretty big grizzly.
Wow.
So, he's getting right into the pile, he's rolling on his back.
He can smell the fish is right on that pile where he's rubbing.
'The footage helps Christina and the team track individual bears 'and understand more about how outside threats 'are affecting their behaviour.
'Watching the bear version of Big Brother is all well and good, 'but nothing like seeing one in the flesh.
Here we're going to take it slow and check out to see if we have any bears hanging around.
What's going on? - Whoa! Can I have a look? - Yeah.
Well, I'll be damned.
That's quite incredible, isn't it? There's actually a grizzly bear over there, it looks amazing.
It's got, like, this almost perfect gold coat.
That is quite amazing, yeah.
He's got such a massive head, Christina.
Yeah, he's still a pretty young bear, so he's sort of at that awkward teenage stage where his legs are really long and his head's really big.
- What, he's an adolescent? - Yeah, like a 14-year-old boy.
'This is a scene that could have happened here at any time 'in the last thousand years.
'It's the bear's total indifference to man that's amazing.
' On less of a scientific level -- on more of an emotional level -- you guys feel a connection with them? - Cos you spend so much time watching them.
- Oh, absolutely.
He's been hanging around here and we've gotten to know him.
We've gotten to know him as he's grown up over the years, as well.
And also with remote cameras, as you just saw, we get this very intimate window into their lives, too, that they don't necessarily showcase.
So we get to see how they behave as they're walking the trails or who's found a mate.
So most definitely on an emotional level, as well, I feel a tremendous connection with these animals.
'The Great Bear Rainforest is breathtakingly beautiful 'and the villagers and scientists are determined to keep it that way.
' I really hope that the loggers, the hunters and even the visitors like myself don't spoil it for future generations.
'There's no chance of that where I'm going next.
'I'm heading even further north towards a tiny community 'on the edge the Arctic Circle via a town called Yellowknife.
'Yellowknife is literally at the end of the road.
'A terminus for the wilderness.
'From here, workers are shuttled out to diamond mines, 'supplies are ferried to remote villages 'and fire planes head out to douse forest blazes.
'But the place I'm going to is even stranger.
'It's called Wekweeti, and it was created as a giant outdoor social experiment.
' For years, there's been hardly any connection to the outside world until the '90s, when they built an airstrip and today we're hitching a ride.
All right.
'Pilot Ted Duinker delivers supplies and visitors to Wekweeti every week.
'They are a town reliant on the plane.
' Yellowknife ground -- Discovery 212.
I'll continue at the 6.
5 up to Wekweeti.
- What a beautiful day for flying.
- Yeah.
You've got to be used to flying in so such extreme conditions up here.
It's like one end of the spectrum to the other, you know.
Like, we get -40 in the winter and we get +30 in the summer.
You know.
It's unbelievable.
You can just start to see off the nose, there's just a little bit of smoke on the horizon.
- Yeah, yeah, sure.
- You can start to see the forest fires - that are just south of the community there.
- Wow.
'Forest fires caused by lightning strikes 'are a major threat at this time of year.
' If this south wind would keep up, you know, the town could be in jeopardy for sure.
It is actually quite scary, isn't it? Even from up here.
- It's so uncontrollable.
- Exactly, yeah.
- Do you want to fly? - Yeah, sure.
- Yeah, go for it, yeah.
'I didn't tell Ted that this was actually the first time 'I'd flown an aircraft on this scale.
'And I must admit, I was a little nervous at first.
' Set this up to 350 or so.
Shall I? Let's check that off on yours.
What pressure are you on? I got 2,995.
- 2,995? - Yeah.
Has it made a big difference, having the airstrip down there? Most definitely.
A lot of these communities don't have road access for I guess for nine or ten months of the year, so everything gets flown in.
Everything.
Food, groceries, people's personal stuff.
If somebody wants a bicycle, they get it flown in.
Everything's flown in, their medicine.
You know, if somebody was to get hurt in these places, there's only one way to get out and that's by airplane.
'Even today, few outsiders make it to Wekweeti.
' We know that they were a community that took themselves from life because of the corruption that towns and modern life had on the aboriginal communities.
It'd just be interesting to find out if the reconnection with aircraft - means that it is impossible for them to escape - Yeah.
- .
.
the world.
- That's a good point, yeah.
'Wekweeti was a town built from scratch in the 1960s, 'in a bold attempt by a group of First Nations people to get away 'from the modern world.
'Founded by an elder called Alexis Arrowmaker, for years it had no running water, no electricity and only one phone.
It was almost entirely cut off until 1994, when they built an airstrip.
For the First Nations people who built it, Wekweeti was an attempt to go back to nature.
But has it worked? - Have you ever been there, Ted? - Yeah, I have.
Yeah.
And what did you make of it then? Yeah.
It's not bad if you're going there just for a little bit! So there's Wekweeti on the nose.
- Yeah.
- That's the town, that's the village.
- What you see is what you get.
- God, it's tiny! - Yeah.
There's a cluster of maybe 50 houses at most.
There's a little road that connects the airport, - which is just over here on the point.
- Wow, that's a proper bush strip.
Yeah, that's right.
Do the people of the town still get excited when you come? Most definitely.
Oh, yeah.
So what are we doing now? Are we just on our base leg approach? Exactly, yeah.
About to start final approach in to Wekweeti air strip.
This is great.
Proper dirt strip.
You can feel the aircraft slowing right down.
Just flare a little bit.
- We're down.
We're down on the ground.
Good job, Ted.
- There we go.
Give it some back thrust, so that we don't roll off the end of the runway.
'I'm going to meet Jonny Arrowmaker, 'the Mayor and son of the town's founder 'to see what the future is for this brave, experimental place.
' Wekweeti is a First Nations town, 100 miles from anywhere.
With all supplies flown in, life is expensive -- a bunch of grapes costs £8.
But jobs are scarce and now many youngsters are moving away, threatening the town's future.
Johnny Arrowmaker is the mayor.
Thanks to a recent windfall of government cash, he's gone on a construction spree designed to keep the youngsters happy.
A youth centre, a gazebo, a viewing platform and -- in a town that's covered in snow for half the year -- an ice rink.
But his latest scheme is his absolute pride and joy.
So, where are we, Johnny? We're at the golf course.
- The golf course?! - Yeah.
What?! How have you got a golf course? Yeah, we have a golf course, a nine-hole golf course.
This one is still a little bit under construction.
They're cutting bushes and they're clearing, you know, after they complete it we have a nine-hole golf course.
- Do you want some of this? - Yeah.
Use some of this.
What? Proper astro turf and everything! It's got to be said that we are all suffering out here quite badly because the flies, you just would not believe that they are everywhere.
Cos they're still attracted to you.
How do you deal with them every day? People must have thought you were crazy when you first came up with the idea? People kind of excited to hear that you have a golf course in the middle of nowhere What are you hoping to achieve with building a golf course? We live in an isolated community, so by having all this extra stuff, maybe hopefully to keep the kids happy.
You know, more things for them to do.
So, try to keep them in a healthy way instead of getting into the bad stuff.
What are you trying to keep the kids away from? All the bad habits.
Maybe try to keep them away from alcohol and try to keep them away from drugs and stuff like that.
So, we still keep our culture but our traditional way of living has changed.
How bizarre was that? To come across a pristine astroturf golf course here.
It was the last thing I was expecting, but it's a really, really noble attempt by Johnny to keep his community active and integrate it together and give them something to do.
But at the same time you can't help but think, that if they want to move away, I don't think a golf course is going to stop them.
'In winter, temperatures can drop below minus 30 'and there is near 24-hour darkness.
Keeping spirits up is essential.
'And when it gets too cold for golf, it all comes down to hand games, 'a kind of poker crossed with paper, scissors, stone.
'A key part of local Tlicho culture, the games used to be played for 'cattle -- and even women.
Now it's mainly pride and sometimes a bit of money.
' You know, when you play the game and you kind of -- there is an object in your hand where you try to hide it.
It's almost like a guessing game, but when you get a point, you get one stick and so when you get all the sticks in the middle -- you're the winner.
The drumming and chanting is designed to distract the opposition and I was definitely struggling to keep up.
- Is that the object or is this the object? - Yeah, that's the object.
- So, I get rid of this one? - No, you try to hide it.
- But there's only one object.
- Yeah.
'Essentially, the other team has to guess which of us is holding 'the stick under the tarpaulin.
If they guess wrong, we get a point '.
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and a surprising sense of satisfaction.
'And if they guess right? 'Oh, then maybe not.
'Having given up on the nuances of hand games, I grabbed Johnny for a chat.
'I wondered if he thought traditions like this had a future 'in the community.
' Do you think that there's the same level of interest in the kids today as there was when you were growing up? I grew up in this place when we had no TV and no other games that we know how to play, so this was the game we used to play every night.
Are you finding it increasingly hard to maintain this traditional way of life? You know, somehow slowly traditional is dying.
Time change, you know, it's not the same.
'Whether Johnny wants it or not, 'technology is definitely infiltrating Wekweeti.
'Just as hand games now takes place in a youth centre and not a tent, 'so duck hunting is no longer a matter of canoes and bows and arrows, 'but powerboats and shotguns.
' I'm about to go duck hunting with the Judas family -- Clarence, Vincent and Roy.
The price of goods out here are really high because everything has to be flown in, so it makes sense to go out once in a while and get your own food, but also they pride themselves on self-reliance.
'The Judas family were given their name by missionaries 'in the 19th century.
'Clarence and his brother-in-law, Roy, have lived all their lives here.
'Clarence's son, Vincent, is on holiday from high school in Yellowknife.
' How you doing, all right? Guys, this is going to be fun, eh? - Happy days! - Yeah, are we ready? - Yeah, yeah.
Ready to go.
So, Roy, do you think there'll be many bugs out on the water, today? - Not on the water, maybe on the land.
- Yes! THEY LAUGH Get away from 'em.
Can you manage? Got it.
Around August, everything, they get fat and hardly get off the water, eh.
So, when they're at their fattest they're the easiest to shoot? - That's all right, innit? - Lots of fat, lots of grease.
Natural grease.
- Do you use that natural grease? - Yes.
'Despite all my training in the Marines, I can't say I've 'ever fired a pump action from the front of a motor boat before, 'but it's got a lot going for it.
' Way in front! Way in front! Way in front! - Get ready, they might swing it round.
- Yeah.
- You got to load up? - Yeah.
For all my best efforts, the ducks are proving too nimble for me.
Well, my shooting's not quite what it used to be, Clarence, eh? Yeah, yeah.
That's embarrassing.
If we want to go home with anything to eat, it's time I hand over to a more practised hand.
Holy smokes! Right there in the water! THEY LAUGH 'With dinner successfully in the bag we turned towards home.
' The lands around Wekweeti, how important are they to you? Very important.
We live off the land, it's all ours.
It doesn't ask for nothing, though.
We respect it, we take care of it, we take what we need.
Plus, at the same time, it gives us comfort, gives us happiness and keeps us close to family.
It gives a lot of things, sometimes we don't even know till later.
'Clarence and Roy might not hunt in the same way as their ancestors did, but I could see how important it was 'to them to still be able to catch their own food.
' You be nice.
Where are you going? Have you missed us? That was so much fun.
Honestly, talk about, like, just doing these things as family, but what could be better than getting out on the open water, where literally you've got the entire lake to yourself, with a gun, just four guys having a blast.
The thing just clicked with me.
It just instantly all made sense about why they do it.
They just seem to have it right.
They've just got it right here.
Brilliant.
Really, really good.
'It was time to build a fire to barbecue our precious catch.
'With so few jobs, keeping Vince and his friends occupied is hard.
' That is good.
GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS IN DISTANCE - Vince, who's playing the guitar? - Poff Yaffle.
He likes to play loud.
Make the whole town hear.
- That sounds pretty cool, he's pretty good.
- Yeah, he's pretty good.
He's good.
- He's the Slash of Snare Lake! - Slash of Snare Lake! 'Wekweeti recently acquired broadband that's faster than I get at home.
'It's the biggest thing to happen to the town 'since electricity arrived in '89.
' Vince, do you think, like, your father and previous generations had it easier to live out here because they didn't have access to the outside world like the internet and they didn't know what they were missing out on? Yeah, why? It's good.
'I wondered if Clarence and Roy agreed with Vince that 'technology is making life better here.
' Do you think, like, with the internet here and Facebook, it makes it easier or more tempting for the kids to want to leave? Yeah.
Well, if today was anything to go by, I'd bloody be back here in a shot.
I wouldn't want to go anywhere else.
'Not even being hundreds of miles from anywhere can make Wekweeti 'immune from Facebook and broadband.
'It might go against the ideals of the town's founders, 'but it seems that if Wekweeti is to survive, then the people must find 'the balance between their own traditions 'and the realities of 21st century life.
'It's not just indigenous communities who want to escape the 21st century.
'I'm going to meet a man who spends months up here all on his own.
'He's known as Klondike Carl and he's taking me the deepest I've been yet into this wilderness.
Here's a perfect example of what we're looking for.
It is possible that you're looking at a bit of gold there, seriously.
'I'm in the far north of Canada, on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
'This was once gold rush country.
'In the 1930s, 'planes brought prospectors here in their thousands.
' The job title of "gold prospector" seems so old fashioned.
For me, it conjures up images of the old gold rush era.
But here in Yellowknife, there are men that actually fly themselves, miles from any airfields, land on water and go in search of gold.
Sounds like the stuff of comic books, but here, it's very real.
'I'm flying with Carl Clouter, 'or "Klondike Carl", as the locals know him.
' - Hey, nice to meet you.
- And you.
'He's a bush pilot who spends months alone in a wood cabin, 'hundreds of miles from anywhere, 'hoping to strike gold and get rich.
'Today, Carl is putting his tiny plane's maximum payload to the test 'by bringing along fellow aviation enthusiast, Gordy.
' It's so gorgeous up here, Carl.
I can understand why you want to do it.
I love it up here.
You know, it's beautiful.
I love being outdoors.
I do not like being indoors.
I'd much rather be out with a campfire than any place indoors.
It's not me.
This is what I like, right here.
This airplane has been places where no-one's been before.
- Yeah.
- I've walked on ground that nobody has ever walked before.
In terms of wildlife at the site? We're really watching for the bears all the time and very aware of how dangerous they can be.
And we've got precautions against them, have we? Absolutely! Yeah, we've got Gordy here.
- You know, he's a bear wrestler.
- LAUGHTER What's the most you've ever made from doing this? - About three million dollars.
- Are you kidding? - No.
- It's addictive? - Yeah, the hunt is never over.
'Most of Carl's money has been ploughed back into his prospecting, 'but the area is geologically rich.
'Known as the Canadian Shield, 'it's full of gold, silver, copper and nickel.
'Finding these buried seams combines science, guesswork 'and a determination to go further and wilder than your rivals.
' That's pretty cool.
We're coming in to land.
God, our wings are literally just over the treetop level, it's brilliant.
The water's rearing up in front of us.
Third degree of flaps! Throttle back He's holding it right back.
Look at that angle.
SPLASH Boom! We're on the ground.
Good job, Carl! Well, thank you.
It's quite barren, quite flat.
It looks like perfect gold prospecting country.
First impressions of this seem pretty good.
Though I've got this itching suspicion in the back of my mind that we're going to be met by a big black bear! 'Bears or not, we head straight on to the boat 'and a piece of land that Carl has had his eye on for a while.
'The site of a previous camp, he thinks it has some potential.
' - Well, we're off and running.
- We are.
I have to tell you that there's gold in them there hills.
- Ha! - Keep looking for it.
We'll get rich today? Well, you know, it's the luck of the draw.
Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.
'Unlike large-scale prospecting companies, 'Carl doesn't have access to exploration teams 'or industrial drills.
'He relies on his map, his hammer, his instincts 'and a lot of luck.
' One for me, one for you.
Why do I get the small one? You get the small persuader because you're a beginner.
I can't believe I'm doing this.
You know, I think ever since I was a little boy, I wanted a hammer and go and bash some rocks in search of gold.
We're going to do it.
Now.
What are we looking for? We're looking for some little vein-type alteration in the ground.
- OK.
- And we'll no doubt find something.
There you go! Then you look at the rock.
- Is that gold there? - No gold! LAUGHTER 'Carl isn't looking for massive gold nuggets, 'but quartz, mixed with tiny fragments of gold.
' What about this one here, Carl? This is pretty dark.
Once he finds some, he needs to establish if there is enough to make it worth the enormous expense of mining the stuff.
Can you make a decent living from this? On average a year, can you pull in quite a bit, or is it nothing, nothing, nothing, until you find a mine and then boom? It's most likely nothing, nothing, nothing until you find a good showing and then it's boom! - Wow! - And it can be, you know, like rags to riches stories.
But then, most prospectors, they'll probably go back to rags again, because they spend all they had out looking for another one.
LAUGHTER I'm learning that there's not too much you can't handle.
So - Yeah, I'll come around that.
- OK.
Yeah, come around that tree.
- OK.
You take the route.
- Yeah.
Here's a perfect example of what we're looking for.
- Now, you see the quartz veining there? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the copper and there's some contact with the granites.
- Yeah.
- And the pegmatites.
This piece here? - Yeah.
- Lots of copper.
- Yeah.
- We just went through that.
It is possible you're looking at a bit of gold, there.
- Seriously.
Gold and copper are hard to tell apart.
- Yeah? We're going to have a look.
Zoom in on that mineralisation there, it looks spectacular.
Here comes the gold fever! 'It might not be the gold nugget I'd dreamed of, 'but it's enough to make Carl want to explore further.
'I was beginning to suspect there might be more to Carl's prospecting 'than just the desire to get rich.
' If you hit it big today, would you carry on doing this? - Oh, yes, positively.
- Yeah? I'd just do it in greater comfort.
I don't know, I'd probably bring out lobster tails and caviar, versus pork and beans.
That might change a little bit.
And what would you spend it on, when you got back to town? Don't go to town, don't like that.
I'd rather be out here.
'The thrill of feeling that 'you are only a rock hammer blow from millions is addictive.
'But the last gold mine here closed ten years ago, 'and now, it's just individuals like Carl who keep looking.
'For three months of every year, 'Carl stays in this cabin, 'living a life of a 1930s prospector 'Almost.
' I can't help but notice your massive TV as well, Carl.
That's not something you'd expect to see.
I like watching Columbo -- I've got all his movies.
- I prefer Ironside.
- Yeah? LAUGHTER I was woken up one morning around three o'clock and there was a bear in here.
- What? In your bin? - In the bin, yeah.
Just empty pop cans, I guess.
I want to say beer, but pop cans.
Then he went over there, was eating berries, right where you see that bumblebee and I took out my trusty weapon and said, "Out of there, bear!".
He didn't move.
I stayed back in here until he wandered off and I came back out.
You've got family.
Are they ever concerned about the fact that - you're out there on your own? - No, I've done this all my life.
'I was intrigued as to what kept Carl coming out here, 'leaving his wife and daughter back at home.
' It's the last frontier.
I can fly up here in the north for six hours and never see anybody.
I love flying.
It's a freedom, isn't it? Yeah, it's total exhilaration and you're in command.
There's nobody else here but you.
Does your family miss you when you're out here? Yeah, they wonder when I'm going to come home.
In Newfoundland, my wife is always calling.
Every single night when I'm in Yellowknife, she calls -- "When you coming home?" "I don't know, I just got up here".
"You've been gone two months!" "Well, that's just getting up here.
I'm not ready to go home yet.
" My lifestyle, you know, didn't permit me to even raise my own daughter.
Seriously, I spent more time away from home when my daughter was growing up than I did at home.
I might have been a bit greedy, I suppose, in choosing what I wanted to do, versus letting my child or my wife change my lifestyle.
Do you even care if you make millions and millions here? - No.
- It's just doing this? It's just sitting out here? - Doing this, absolutely, yeah.
- Doing this? It's great.
It's perfect.
This is absolutely perfect.
'In three months' time, 'this landscape will be once again be covered by snow and ice.
'Even so, it's still a land people want to lay claim to.
'Perhaps these days, the people come out here 'to find meaning in their lives rather than money, 'but the attraction remains just as powerful.
'