-30°F Camping & Fishing on a Creek That Never Freezes | Alaskan Winter

Hey guys, welcome back. It's about 20 below out here, but this creek never freezes. So today we're gonna fish it, set up a little camp, we're gonna cook a meal right on the banks. Let's see what we can catch. This looks like a good spot to set up camp. We're gonna clear some snow, set our tent up, and try some fishing. Here you go in the tent. Well this tent's supposed to be rated for cold weather. It's about negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit, so we're gonna find out. Nice in here though, huh? Well, it's a little hot warmer in here now. It's pretty cold out. Even the wood is steaming. All right, I'm gonna go out and try to get us a spruce hen. This part of Alaska gets cold quick. One day it's hovering around zero, and the next day it's 20 below. Even though it's bitter cold, these little creeks become highways for wildlife. Everything needs water, so animals will travel long distances to places like this. I think there's gonna be some pretty good spruce hen hunting out in this forest here, so I'm gonna take a walk out here and see if I can see any. Oh, and there's a big fat one right up in that tree there. I don't know if he was just fluffed up or if that was a really fat hen. There we go. Nice bird. I'm gonna bring him back to camp, make a fire, and we'll cook him up. It was negative 20 when we left the cabin. I think it's a little colder down here. Hands are cold. It's cold out, guys. Oh, we got a bird for lunch, Lene. Sort of wood stuff saves us. Yeah, it's good. These little hand warmers are real lifesavers. There's a reason they sell these everywhere in Alaska. I'm gonna go around, find me some dead spruce branches, and make a little fire. Gold. You need that one? Yeah. Gold. That one? Yeah. Wouldn't be good to catch a big birch, huh? Birch is a big fish. Well, I'm not really a rod and reel guy, but I know there's brook trout and dolly in here, so I'm willing to go give it a try. We all like eating brook trout or dolly. I love dolly. You do? They're pretty, aren't they? We could definitely get one with the spear, but we're not allowed to do that. Try along the edges. These fish go right in these little pockets. I've caught dolly in here in the summer, but I've never fished it in the winter. Fish will often gather in deep pockets of open water in the winter. A lot of these creeks freeze solid, but these spring-fed ones stay open all winter long. But my reel's starting to freeze up here, so I think I'm gonna go back to camp and start cooking dinner. All right, we're gonna make a little late lunch slash early dinner. I'm gonna start by getting some water from the creek over here. I'm gonna mix this sourdough flatbread in here because I think it might freeze if we try to do it out there. My starter's frozen. We're gonna heat it up. Might be going flatbread-less. So I was gonna mix the spruce hen, the smoked salmon, a little bacon on some flatbread. Just a nice warm meal when it's cold like this. It's really nice. I'll make it work. There it goes. Alaska gets brutal cold, but it's also incredibly beautiful in the winter, and I really almost look forward to it because the summer is so busy. Yeah, there we go. Mixed up nice. You excited for spruce hen? Yeah. Yeah. Lane is excited for marshmallows and hot cocoa. And again again. This little tent does really good. We kind of wanted to test this out because when we go winter hunting, we're gonna take this tent. I know it's gonna be similar temperatures, so negative 20, negative 30, this thing heats fine. Do you want to start? It's snowing. Nice and dough. We got here, set up the tent, put the sleeping bags out, and Lena promptly took a nap with Birch. That is a hack if you are ever out with little ones. All you need is a big fluffy dog and a sleeping bag and the baby will sleep. Huh, Birch? Birch loves to camp. That's why we tuck her. The other two are back home with them looking in on them. I think they're happy to be in the warm. Oh, that is so nice. Love a fire. Smoked really good. We lose daylight so quick this time of year. The sun really doesn't come up until about 9, 30, 10. It's about four o'clock now and it's already setting pretty hard. Got a grouse, a little smoked salmon. I'm gonna throw it all on here. It's done. It's got bacon, smoked salmon, and a little spruce hen. All right, let's get in the warmth of the tent and eat some dinner. We're all gonna have to share plates. Let's see, Lena. You got bacon on there. Let me get you a big piece of grouse. You can have the grouse. Don't worry, Birch. You'll get some. I know. Birch communicates in wigs. Great. Cut me Probably negative 30 right now. All right, well, dinner was great. I'm gonna bring some firewood in. I'm gonna layer up with clothes, put my waders on, take these headlamps, and I'm gonna walk up and down this creek and see if I can see any fish. It's gonna be pretty dicey out there without these boots. Well, those boots make me really warm. It's really cold. These waders are pretty well insulated, though, so we'll find out, won't we? The only good thing is that the water is actually warmer than the air, so I think my feet will stay warmer than the rest of me. Daddy was a fisherman for many years, Laney. Used to actually be a fisherman. We're gonna make some hot cocos. Birch is a saint. All right, let's go see what we can find. Come on, Lane. Let's see if we can find a wolf. I heard some sort of animal. I'm not really sure what that was. There's a lot of wolves down here, but no fish yet. Well, there was one little fish right there. It wasn't something you could eat. It was pretty little. Looking for animal tracks on the sides of the river here. Looks like something right here. Iceberg. I think those are caribou tracks. Caribou or moose. Those are moose tracks. So there was a moose kicking around over here not too long ago. Let's see what else we can find. Here, all this ice is making all sorts of noise. My feet are warmer than the rest of me for sure. Moose tracks running along the whole side of this creek here. Alaska is a whole different world in the winter versus the summer. The creek's getting a little deeper here. Maybe we'll see something. Lots of bunny tracks. I'll say this, this is a pretty nice way to travel in the winter here. Another small fish just bolted off. Nothing big, though. Some more moose tracks over here. It looks like he crossed the creek, kept going that way. Everything is pretty frosty out here. Nothing but a few little fish, some moose tracks, and some rabbit tracks. But it's pretty cold out here and these lithium batteries aren't going to last too long, so I'm going to start walking back to camp. It's definitely peaceful out here. These spring-fed creeks come out of the ground just above freezing, so they're almost like nature's little heater. This flows year-round. My hands would be better off here if I just stuck them in the creek. I don't think this spring is volcanic, though. There is plenty of volcanic activity in the Wrangell Mountains. I believe it has some of North America's youngest volcanoes. Would have been cool to see some wolves. By the time you see them, they're gone. The amount of steam coming off this thing is wild. It's causing my shirt to freeze. It's a cold but beautiful night. Should be getting close to camp here at some point. Here we are. I'm going to go downriver just a little past camp and this thing should start freezing up here at some point. Surfing on ice. Pretty wild to think that on either side of me you could walk for probably hundreds of miles, never see another human. If you keep walking that way, the next thing you'll hit is the Yukon. And if you walk a little further down that way, the next thing you'll hit is Glacier Bay National Park. But it is cold. I think I'm gonna... I think I'm gonna head back to camp. Oh, it's nice in here. All right. Cocoa time? You can pour that right in there. We're gonna heat it up on the wood stove. We're gonna get this nice and warm and we'll make our hot cocoa. Pop it in there. It's going slow. My waders are frozen solid now. But my feet were the only thing that was warm. My hands are frozen. My feet are nice and toasty. Nice hard crust on there. This one's dad's. Put one more on dad's. Put candy canes in them. That's mom and dad and that's me. There you go, dad. Next one is mom. There, it looks great, Leen. Oh, thank you, Leena. It's beautiful. How about a marshmallow for the marshmallow? Good hot chocolate, huh? That was fun. Even though it was cold, I had a lot of fun. It's nice to be out, isn't it? It's nice to be out. Do you have fun, Leen? Yeah. Yeah, well, we're pretty tired, but it's nice and warm in here. Do you want a peppermint tea, Leen? Sure. Morning tea and coffee for me and dad. Leena's tea. Well, we slept pretty good last night. It cut down to about negative 32, but it stayed nice and warm inside this tent. So I'm pretty confident now that we could take this tent up north on some hunting trips and not freeze to death. It's not as warm as like a traditional canvas tent, but it holds up great and it's easy to put up. Some snow moved in early in the morning here and it's about negative 10 now, so it's warming up. We're going to make some breakfast and try a little more fishing. I pre-mixed up some gingerbread sourdough pancake batter to take with us. How'd you sleep, Birch? All right, Leena's heart pancake. Oh, this looks really good. Do you? Very Christmassy. Very Christmassy, yeah. Well, I think I'm going to go out to the truck, get the generator, bring it in here, let it warm up, and hopefully we can get the truck going. Worst case scenario is we'll jam this wood stove under the oil pan and we'll get it going that way, but the truck's going to start one way or another. And while we do that, me and Leena are going to go try some fishing. You ready? A really cold night paid off with a really beautiful morning. Well, no fish today, but to be honest, I didn't hold that high of hopes for it. A little practice never hurt anybody. Let's go see if we can get this truck going. We probably only have about an hour of run time on this. All right, we'll let that go for an hour. We'll go warm up in the tent and hopefully it fires off. We should go see if we can float down the creek. Well, though it was cold, we had a lot of fun on this trip. I'm going to go see if the truck fires off and then we'll start breaking down camp and head back to the cabin. All right, let's try to start the truck. Hey guys, this is Amy and Dennis from Cold Fast Alaska. We are a small family living in the eastern interior, building a subsistence homestead. Thank you guys so much for watching. We hope you enjoyed that video and we'll see you on the next one.