WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.869 --> 00:00:07.240 Something hunts these mountains shaped for myth 2 00:00:08.541 --> 00:00:11.244 formed by the spirit of the mountain man. 3 00:00:11.544 --> 00:00:13.913 He lives, by the way. He hunts. 4 00:00:24.357 --> 00:00:27.861 Born of the mountainous blood of the Indian. 5 00:00:28.228 --> 00:00:31.031 He survived by heart and lung bow. 6 00:00:32.732 --> 00:00:34.934 He's alone. He's free. 7 00:00:35.301 --> 00:00:38.905 He's forged ideals. 8 00:00:39.372 --> 00:00:42.342 This journey with the last of a breed 9 00:00:43.109 --> 00:00:45.678 Sasquatch Mountain Man. 10 00:00:49.849 --> 00:00:51.718 A journey begins 11 00:00:51.718 --> 00:00:55.855 across a wilderness spanning time as much as distance. 12 00:00:57.190 --> 00:01:01.361 The one they call Sasquatch is retracing the steps 13 00:01:01.594 --> 00:01:04.397 and reliving the sagas of the mountain men. 14 00:01:04.431 --> 00:01:06.933 He is the natural born heir to. 15 00:01:08.034 --> 00:01:09.069 He needs his feet. 16 00:01:09.069 --> 00:01:12.839 Lies the same land the free trappers once walked upon. 17 00:01:13.473 --> 00:01:17.043 And a head for sasquatch lie the same adventures 18 00:01:17.043 --> 00:01:19.145 and the same deadly perils. 19 00:01:21.014 --> 00:01:26.519 Of all the dangers this wild territory holds, the potentially greatest threat 20 00:01:26.519 --> 00:01:31.858 lies in the one that looks the purest and gentlest but hidden in its soft touch. 21 00:01:32.292 --> 00:01:38.198 Like a straight razor in a lady's glove is the fate known as white death. 22 00:01:39.332 --> 00:01:41.434 For Laramie Sasquatch Mueller 23 00:01:41.901 --> 00:01:44.604 White death is just one of the challenges 24 00:01:44.604 --> 00:01:47.740 of where he carves out a hard, true life. 25 00:01:48.975 --> 00:01:51.411 I live in the middle of nowhere in the Rocky Mountains. 26 00:01:52.045 --> 00:01:52.679 You look around. 27 00:01:52.679 --> 00:01:54.114 This is my home. 28 00:01:55.715 --> 00:01:58.318 I was born and raised in the mountains. 29 00:02:00.520 --> 00:02:01.988 Brought up living off the land. 30 00:02:01.988 --> 00:02:04.424 Learning all the ways of Mother Nature. Oh. 31 00:02:06.126 --> 00:02:08.394 Morris is my best friend. 32 00:02:08.595 --> 00:02:10.063 A sucker for a challenge. 33 00:02:10.063 --> 00:02:13.233 You can drop me off a hundred miles from civilization and I'd be tickled pink. 34 00:02:16.469 --> 00:02:18.872 We have the same instincts and the same blood as 100 years. 35 00:02:23.943 --> 00:02:24.777 Like they say, you know, 36 00:02:24.777 --> 00:02:27.147 Jeremiah Johnson, the Rocky Mountains in the marrow of the world. 37 00:02:29.482 --> 00:02:31.951 Sasquatches DNA is not of a 38 00:02:31.951 --> 00:02:36.022 mythical creature, but of the legendary trappers and hunters. 39 00:02:36.089 --> 00:02:37.924 Gold Mountain men. 40 00:02:41.761 --> 00:02:44.430 In the wake of Lewis and Clark's discoveries, 41 00:02:44.831 --> 00:02:48.101 enterprising young men with rifles, traps, 42 00:02:48.101 --> 00:02:52.238 knives and a sound course are to two pushed into the unmapped 43 00:02:52.238 --> 00:02:56.476 far western wilderness, seeking their fortunes and beaver pelts. 44 00:02:57.010 --> 00:02:59.512 Boss loafers is what they called themselves. 45 00:02:59.846 --> 00:03:03.816 And at their peak in the 1840s, they numbered over 3000. 46 00:03:04.384 --> 00:03:07.120 But many never returned from their adventures, 47 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:10.990 falling to the war arrows of Indians, the grizzly 48 00:03:11.257 --> 00:03:14.727 or the most silent, most ruthless of all the killers. 49 00:03:15.061 --> 00:03:18.198 White Death Winter in the Rockies. 50 00:03:18.665 --> 00:03:22.535 Today, Laramie faces many of the very same dangers. 51 00:03:23.069 --> 00:03:25.471 Deadly weather is still the worst. 52 00:03:26.372 --> 00:03:29.842 He can take comfort, though, in having a fine hiking rifle, 53 00:03:30.310 --> 00:03:34.347 a gun first built in the 1820s by the brothers hawken of Saint 54 00:03:34.347 --> 00:03:37.483 Louis, Missouri, and prized for a generation 55 00:03:37.483 --> 00:03:41.354 or more by the mountain men who hunted the shining mountains. 56 00:03:58.905 --> 00:04:00.139 For the Mountain Man. 57 00:04:00.139 --> 00:04:03.543 Survival depended on not just what he shot with his hawken, 58 00:04:04.077 --> 00:04:09.115 but on food taken in every way, including the most primitive. 59 00:04:22.362 --> 00:04:23.663 So if you look in there, 60 00:04:23.663 --> 00:04:26.199 there's a little piece of meat attached to the top of the trigger. 61 00:04:26.499 --> 00:04:27.233 What's going to happen 62 00:04:27.233 --> 00:04:30.069 is that mouse or pack, rat or squirrel is going to come around here. 63 00:04:30.503 --> 00:04:32.672 He's going to see that and say, oh, there's dinner. 64 00:04:32.872 --> 00:04:35.708 He's going to go in there to grab it and it's going to trip that trigger. 65 00:04:35.908 --> 00:04:39.078 The branch is going to swing back. Pull this out from underneath. 66 00:04:39.078 --> 00:04:40.313 And it's going to squishing. 67 00:04:40.313 --> 00:04:44.851 So like this. Voila. 68 00:04:54.427 --> 00:04:57.797 Here is the true and original American melting pot. 69 00:04:58.364 --> 00:05:03.903 Mountain men hunkered down beside fires just like this, using their sideboard 70 00:05:03.903 --> 00:05:09.342 differs and molds to cast their own silver screen bullets for molten lead. 71 00:05:10.543 --> 00:05:11.811 That's my 54 caliber. 72 00:05:11.811 --> 00:05:14.280 More capable of taking any game down in 73 00:05:14.280 --> 00:05:17.884 the world gives a man a sense of accomplishment and confidence, 74 00:05:18.284 --> 00:05:22.555 knowing he can make the bullets he needs whenever he needs them. 75 00:05:24.657 --> 00:05:27.527 Even with the ability to make them, bullets 76 00:05:27.527 --> 00:05:30.596 were always a scarce commodity to the mountain man. 77 00:05:31.230 --> 00:05:35.268 And if he could find a meal without having to use any precious lead, 78 00:05:35.702 --> 00:05:47.213 then it was worth the effort. All. 79 00:05:50.216 --> 00:05:52.218 What do we got here? 80 00:05:52.452 --> 00:05:54.454 We have a mud seasoned red squirrel. 81 00:05:56.723 --> 00:05:59.025 It's going to be red squirrel pancakes tonight. 82 00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:04.097 But it's better than no pancakes. 83 00:06:30.223 --> 00:06:32.525 The Sasquatch way is never easy. 84 00:06:32.892 --> 00:06:36.863 And for Laramie, it's a point of pride that even loading his rifles, 85 00:06:36.863 --> 00:06:40.433 a work of skill and art could be done perfectly 86 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:44.604 because he'll only have one chance at this shot of a lifetime. 87 00:06:45.638 --> 00:06:46.873 We're in Sasquatch country. 88 00:06:46.873 --> 00:06:49.375 We're in the farthest northwest corner of British Columbia. 89 00:06:49.842 --> 00:06:52.979 We're after a huge Canadian moose, biggest in the world. 90 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:56.716 Four out of the top five in the record book of all come from around here. 91 00:06:57.049 --> 00:06:59.185 That's all we're after, Sasquatch. 92 00:06:59.185 --> 00:07:02.321 To come out here and mingle with the bears and the wolves. 93 00:07:02.822 --> 00:07:12.231 Try to give me a big move. Oh. 94 00:07:25.878 --> 00:07:28.648 In the giant moose country of British Columbia, 95 00:07:29.015 --> 00:07:33.519 a man called Sasquatch walks in the footprints of the mountain men. 96 00:07:33.753 --> 00:07:37.623 He uses traditional skills to honor the spirits of the ones 97 00:07:37.623 --> 00:07:41.794 who came before him while blazing his own unique trail. 98 00:07:44.497 --> 00:07:57.043 Oh. Speaking in the tongues of wild animals is one of the skills the mountain 99 00:07:57.043 --> 00:08:01.347 men knew learned from the Indians with whom they hunted and traded. 100 00:08:04.383 --> 00:08:07.620 There's a bold grin right over here. 101 00:08:09.789 --> 00:08:12.225 There. It's growing again. 102 00:08:12.725 --> 00:08:14.227 There's two wolves. 103 00:08:18.030 --> 00:08:20.199 I saw two different balls over here. 104 00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:23.803 There must be a cow somewhere in the area. 105 00:08:24.103 --> 00:08:25.404 Get up here on this ridge. 106 00:08:25.404 --> 00:08:40.486 See if we can't pull a big boy back over here. Or. Or. Oh. 107 00:08:53.900 --> 00:08:55.334 You know, these old 108 00:08:55.401 --> 00:08:59.572 people, mountain men back in the day, they used to wear lots of furs, 109 00:09:00.006 --> 00:09:03.409 lots of buckskin, because they're rubbing up against this kind of stuff. 110 00:09:04.143 --> 00:09:05.444 It helps keep them quiet. 111 00:09:05.444 --> 00:09:08.614 It's actually fairly waterproof 112 00:09:08.814 --> 00:09:11.284 and it helps keep your snow. 113 00:09:13.653 --> 00:09:15.888 For Laramie. As for the mountain men 114 00:09:15.888 --> 00:09:19.792 before him, wilderness is the ultimate mystery to solve. 115 00:09:20.126 --> 00:09:22.828 Bigger than him, bigger than his life. 116 00:09:24.764 --> 00:09:28.000 We've been having a lot of weather, been a bunch of rain and wind. 117 00:09:28.534 --> 00:09:32.772 They moved so deep down into these bottoms like this, it's real thick shelters. 118 00:09:32.772 --> 00:09:34.740 And from the wind, they can get up there. 119 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:36.943 They'll lay there for hours. 120 00:09:36.943 --> 00:09:40.212 And so it's it's a good idea to stop and really listen. 121 00:09:40.212 --> 00:09:41.714 You sit down for 30 minutes, 122 00:09:42.815 --> 00:09:45.284 and it's in those times of stillness 123 00:09:45.284 --> 00:09:48.321 when you can hear the true rhythms of the wilderness. 124 00:10:02.068 --> 00:10:04.236 There's no water repellent here. 125 00:10:04.236 --> 00:10:07.139 No high tech clothing to shed the frigid sleet. 126 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:12.244 And Laramie has to make sure to keep his powder dry, literally. 127 00:10:28.861 --> 00:10:30.630 For Sasquatch now 128 00:10:30.630 --> 00:10:34.467 and the mountain men before there is one universal 129 00:10:34.467 --> 00:10:39.005 lore of the mountain's gold is death and fire is life. 130 00:10:43.509 --> 00:10:46.379 You know, the wind's been blowing real bad up here. 131 00:10:47.079 --> 00:10:49.482 What that does to the animals is it pushes them down in the thick 132 00:10:49.482 --> 00:10:54.120 river bottoms and thick brush and trees and makes it tough on Sasquatch 133 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:56.889 who got to go maneuver through there and hope he can get a bull to Grant. 134 00:11:08.601 --> 00:11:11.771 Last night, it cooled off a little bit, so I move to pray retinol night. 135 00:11:12.571 --> 00:11:13.506 It's cloudy right now. 136 00:11:13.506 --> 00:11:17.076 Trying to rain and moisture can be going to bed a little early this morning. 137 00:11:17.076 --> 00:11:19.545 So hopefully we can get up there and catch them as they're heading down to bed. 138 00:11:19.545 --> 00:11:20.746 And I think we're losing the morning. 139 00:11:25.251 --> 00:11:28.954 And down here is evidence that Laramie is not the only one 140 00:11:28.954 --> 00:11:32.958 still carrying on the traditions from the days of the Boslough Bears. 141 00:11:34.160 --> 00:11:37.396 You see right here, somebody cut out a notch in the tree 142 00:11:37.697 --> 00:11:41.634 and there's an old pine marten trap, Nautica pine marten trap to that. 143 00:11:41.667 --> 00:11:43.269 And so some food in there. 144 00:11:43.269 --> 00:11:46.872 And by Martin of I'm up in there and you got your fur. 145 00:11:47.139 --> 00:11:50.376 So a lot of people up here make their money 146 00:11:50.376 --> 00:11:52.945 the way the old mountain men used to 147 00:11:52.945 --> 00:11:54.246 wear the mountain man. 148 00:11:54.246 --> 00:11:57.850 The way of life could always turn into a way of near death. 149 00:12:02.688 --> 00:12:05.758 A threat to a mountain man could come from anywhere. 150 00:12:06.292 --> 00:12:11.063 One day on the trail of free trappers confronted by a rut, crazed bull moose, 151 00:12:11.864 --> 00:12:15.735 great blades of antlers driven by nearly a ton of rage, 152 00:12:16.001 --> 00:12:19.338 slammed the man into a tree, knocking him unconscious 153 00:12:20.339 --> 00:12:22.041 when his blackness lifts. 154 00:12:22.041 --> 00:12:25.878 The man finds the ball looming above him, ready to attack again, 155 00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:28.714 pulling his flintlock pistol from his belt. 156 00:12:29.115 --> 00:12:32.752 The trapper fires a desperate ball through the moose's glaring eye. 157 00:12:33.552 --> 00:12:36.889 This happened only miles from where Laramie is now, 158 00:12:36.889 --> 00:12:40.793 about to have his cool encounter with a giant moose. 159 00:12:42.561 --> 00:12:45.364 For Laramie. The trail to East Moose leads 160 00:12:45.364 --> 00:12:47.733 through the close quarters of thick brush. 161 00:12:51.737 --> 00:12:53.205 It's right here. 162 00:12:53.205 --> 00:12:56.575 So are these moves that animals that brush up here to stay out of the way 163 00:12:56.609 --> 00:13:13.692 and on the right track. Oh. Or. 164 00:13:34.180 --> 00:13:36.081 The shadows of the mountain men 165 00:13:36.081 --> 00:13:39.418 stretch from the past to the giant moose of today. 166 00:13:40.252 --> 00:13:43.656 What remains the same is the threat of white death. 167 00:13:44.023 --> 00:13:46.091 Winter in the Rockies. 168 00:13:46.091 --> 00:13:49.495 As Laramie, Sasquatch Miller prepares to track a bull 169 00:13:49.762 --> 00:13:53.299 into its betting grounds in far northern British Columbia. 170 00:13:56.702 --> 00:14:07.379 Oh. Oh. Game calling is 171 00:14:07.379 --> 00:14:11.016 just one of the traditional skills Laramie carries on. 172 00:14:16.856 --> 00:14:17.823 Pretty cool, huh? 173 00:14:17.823 --> 00:14:20.092 Real little bow wow. 174 00:14:20.092 --> 00:14:22.361 But it's pretty neat to watch 175 00:14:22.361 --> 00:14:24.363 that and go, fine, big boy Bullwinkle. 176 00:14:26.398 --> 00:14:29.535 You can gauge the vastness of the wilderness, by the way. 177 00:14:29.535 --> 00:14:32.571 It simply swallows up the largest of animals. 178 00:14:33.372 --> 00:14:36.809 The skyline shines with the shimmer of a white death. 179 00:14:37.476 --> 00:14:40.045 But this country has more than one kind. 180 00:14:40.479 --> 00:14:44.783 Some clothed in silver tipped fur are the kinds of death 181 00:14:44.783 --> 00:14:48.053 that may find you before you find them. 182 00:14:48.821 --> 00:14:51.490 Or even know that they're there. 183 00:15:11.410 --> 00:15:15.881 His move. Well, it was like this is their main food source. 184 00:15:16.315 --> 00:15:18.651 They'll walk through and they'll just eat the topped off all these willows 185 00:15:19.218 --> 00:15:21.887 and big bull moose muscle stand over seven foot in his shoulder. 186 00:15:22.388 --> 00:15:24.390 So, I mean, these walls are just perfect height for. 187 00:15:27.693 --> 00:15:30.529 And over the top of this, there's a big mole back in the back. 188 00:15:31.063 --> 00:15:33.165 So we're going to sneak up this drill drill out through here 189 00:15:33.165 --> 00:15:34.767 with all the willows and brush and everything. 190 00:15:34.767 --> 00:15:36.602 So we've got to try to keep 191 00:15:36.802 --> 00:15:39.405 our sound down because a moose can hear you from a long ways away. 192 00:15:45.644 --> 00:15:48.614 You only get one shot with these babies, so you better make it count. 193 00:15:49.214 --> 00:15:51.850 Look at me with an honor heart. 194 00:15:51.850 --> 00:15:54.253 It means getting up close and personal with the seven and a half 195 00:15:54.253 --> 00:15:56.021 foot tall animal. 196 00:16:02.361 --> 00:16:04.663 The wind is blowing straight down into this canyon 197 00:16:04.663 --> 00:16:07.299 or in a circle up and try to get the wind in our favor. So. 198 00:16:10.169 --> 00:16:11.136 They're in here. 199 00:16:11.136 --> 00:16:13.005 I just got to find them. 200 00:16:25.718 --> 00:16:27.586 In the heart of a country ruled 201 00:16:27.586 --> 00:16:31.490 by white death lives the magnificent Canadian moose. 202 00:16:31.924 --> 00:16:36.028 Here, Laramie carries on their traditions of the mountain man 203 00:16:36.395 --> 00:16:40.065 as he challenges fierce weather, treacherous terrain 204 00:16:40.532 --> 00:16:43.402 and another kind of death that robs itself 205 00:16:43.402 --> 00:16:46.972 and silver fur skilled at calling game. 206 00:16:47.239 --> 00:16:50.109 Laramie has brought the moose to him, but 207 00:16:50.109 --> 00:16:53.479 still hunts for a bigger bull ring. 208 00:16:53.812 --> 00:16:55.948 Right up here, we're going to go up there 209 00:16:55.948 --> 00:16:58.350 and see if we can hear the moose cracking down in the valley. 210 00:17:00.486 --> 00:17:04.123 Oh, how almost perfect. Over. 211 00:17:05.324 --> 00:17:08.060 Going to try to grind and see what we can't do. 212 00:17:13.999 --> 00:17:37.890 Oh. Oh. Oh. Or. Calling 213 00:17:37.890 --> 00:17:41.093 game means knowing a wide vocabulary. 214 00:17:46.632 --> 00:17:51.703 I hear that her. 215 00:18:01.980 --> 00:18:03.048 I'm just going to shut up. 216 00:18:03.048 --> 00:18:05.951 Sam, maybe you'll get interested. 217 00:18:08.554 --> 00:18:11.423 And sometimes it's silence that overpowers 218 00:18:11.423 --> 00:18:14.493 the animals with curiosity and brings them in. 219 00:18:18.163 --> 00:18:22.101 Now it's down to one shot from Sasquatch as hawk and rifle. 220 00:18:57.469 --> 00:19:00.172 As the moose disappears in a cloud of powder 221 00:19:00.172 --> 00:19:03.442 smoke, Laramie fills his hawken with a backup load. 222 00:19:10.315 --> 00:19:11.683 I call my name and Pumpkinhead. 223 00:19:11.683 --> 00:19:13.619 He's got a big old don't want me. 224 00:19:13.619 --> 00:19:17.556 Look, we shot him from a little orange patch right there, about 50 yards away. 225 00:19:24.930 --> 00:19:27.266 High 57, 50, 84. 226 00:19:27.900 --> 00:19:29.902 I'm tickled to death. 227 00:19:41.280 --> 00:19:43.715 But we let the meat sit overnight. 228 00:19:43.715 --> 00:19:46.118 We had to go get the horses to come back and check it out. 229 00:19:46.218 --> 00:19:48.187 It's a dog man's best friend. 230 00:19:48.187 --> 00:19:51.590 I disagree. I think it's a horse safety. A lot of work. 231 00:19:52.558 --> 00:19:55.027 And my concern was going to be fine. 232 00:19:55.027 --> 00:19:56.428 There might be a grizzly sitting on it. 233 00:19:56.428 --> 00:19:58.030 Who knows? We'll see. 234 00:19:59.831 --> 00:20:04.469 In this land of white death, there's an endless struggle for every bite of food. 235 00:20:04.903 --> 00:20:08.540 And if the grizzly finds the moose before Laramie can pack it out. 236 00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:11.944 Then one of them may have to die. 237 00:20:11.944 --> 00:20:14.580 The horses know the score and are not excited 238 00:20:14.580 --> 00:20:17.683 about leaving the safety of camp before. 239 00:20:19.985 --> 00:20:21.353 It's a simple fact. 240 00:20:21.353 --> 00:20:24.990 The further north you go, the more things that can eat your horses. 241 00:20:27.392 --> 00:20:28.560 Moose was killed last night. 242 00:20:28.560 --> 00:20:29.461 He's just right over this. 243 00:20:29.461 --> 00:20:31.263 A little more for the ease in there 244 00:20:31.263 --> 00:20:33.298 and make sure there's no predators bigger than us. 245 00:20:37.502 --> 00:20:39.771 With a single shot in his Hawken 246 00:20:39.771 --> 00:20:43.675 Laramie aim will have to be true if there's a Grizz on the carcass. 247 00:21:00.392 --> 00:21:03.862 Let's go pack it up and get the hell out of here. 248 00:21:05.931 --> 00:21:09.301 After the shuttle disappeared in the. 249 00:21:10.902 --> 00:21:16.508 Hey. For Laramie, Sasquatch. 250 00:21:16.508 --> 00:21:19.811 Miller The trail of the mountain man is just beginning. 251 00:21:33.492 --> 00:21:35.761 It's time to find camp for the night 252 00:21:35.761 --> 00:21:39.064 and cook fresh moose steaks. 253 00:21:54.546 --> 00:21:57.416 The smell on the wind brings in company. 254 00:22:04.656 --> 00:22:09.428 Yet. This is only a first meeting for Laramie and Audie for him.