Alaska Film Archives

[Our Alaskan Winter – original reel 2]
[Our Alaskan Winter – original reel 2]
Detailed summary information was provided by the filmmakers, Bud and Connie Helmericks. According to these notes, this film includes scenes of travel by dogsled while hunting for seals.Polar bear tracks. Connie comes up to her dead polar bear — shot from the tent at 1 a.m. in late May — feasting (not shown) followed immediately after butchering. Seal meat goes into a modern pressure cooker. Apiak serves the dogs their meal. A starving seal has lost its diving hole and can’t find the ocean — carried in a sack on the sled to the nearest seal hole and it finally dove down into the ocean. On shore after two months at sea. A summer tent. Lydia, Nannie, and George. Saying goodbye. Home to a cabin at Takahula Lake. Unloading cargo from Hughes, the trading post (100 miles away), at the new dock at Takahula Lake. Bud cuts a moose hide into strips and makes chairs. Connie casts for pike at a tent camp at nearby Iniakuk Lake. Broken airplane tail — Bud fixes it by taking off part of the tail and then fortunately it flew okay. Connie catches a grayling. Geese migrating. Grizzly bears, moose, and other animals. Roasting caribou ribs. Connie uses the little yellow kayak on Takahula Lake before winter. Ice pans float down the adjacent Alatna River. Arrigetch Peaks rising above the house. Bud and Connie, in full winter dress, are prepared for winter again. Connie reads contentedly by the blazing hearth.