[soft orchestral music] [music builds] ♪♪ [Narrator] In southwest Alaska, nestled between two mountain ranges, you'll find Qizhjeh Vena: "Place Where People Gather Lake."

[plucky string music] It is also known as Lake Clark, and it is the heart of Lake Clark National Park & Preserve — some 4 million acres of protected land.

For over 10,000 years, this land has been home to the Dena'ina and Sugpiaq.

♪♪ [Darren Carltikoff] I don't think the ancestors could have picked a better place in the world but right here.

[Lary Hill] I step on this land, it feels like I'm in the right place.

♪♪ [Narrator] Over time, a diverse community of people have come together who share a devotion to the land, to its well-being, and to its wisdom.

[Buck Mangipane] It has an amazing array of different ecosystems, with some amazing wildlife, and those systems are intact.

There's been very little disturbance or change over time, and that really makes this area truly special.

♪♪ [Danielle Stickman] There's so much to learn when you're on the land, if we just take the time to listen and observe.

Forget what you think you know and just listen with your full heart.

[soft orchestral music] [Narrator] Over millions of years, powerful forces have been shaping this dramatic landscape, pushing rock skyward to form the jagged peaks of the Aleutian and Alaska mountains.

These two ranges meet here in Lake Clark National Park, which stretches westward from the Cook Inlet coast.

♪♪ Icy-cold water from glaciers and melting snow flows off the mountains, feeding a network of braided rivers and lakes.

These waters sustain thousands of species of plants and animals and help support the largest sockeye salmon run on Earth.

The salmon's remarkable life journey that takes them out to Bristol Bay and the Pacific Ocean begins and ends here in the Kvichak watershed.

[Eileen Kramer] We talk about salmon as the lifeblood of the culture, of the people, of the region.

[Karen Evanoff] Salmon is the heart of who we are as Dena'ina people.

That chain of offering from the salmon relates to everything.

[dreamy marimba plays] ♪♪ [Narrator] Dena'ina were the first people on this land, their ancestral roots entwined with the earth.

♪♪ [Rick Delkittie Sr] We are one with the land.

We don't live on it; we live with it.

♪♪ [Narrator] More people came later: seekers and adventurers, scientists and environmentalists, and those who simply fell for this place.

For those who stayed and for those whose ties go back thousands of years, the land offers the same thing: the chance for a deeper relationship with the natural world.

[Karen] What we care for gives back to us, or provides for us; it works both ways.

[mid-tempo orchestral music] [Narrator] As a National Park and Preserve, all of this is protected: the land, the water that runs hundreds of miles out to Bristol Bay, the fish and animals, and the cultural practices that are part of a way of life connected to the land.

[Rick] We can't go to the hardware store or the grocery store to get something that is needed.

[rain falling] The way of life in our culture is based on what the land have to offer, whether it's spring, summer, fall, or winter.

[upbeat strings music] ♪♪ ♪♪ [geese honking] [Karen] My dad always told us springtime is the most powerful time of the year.

It's when the Earth is waking up.

Everything is growing and coming back alive.

♪♪ [Lary] I smell the land and the new spring growth.

I smell the scent of the spruce trees and the cottonwood, and the flowers that are growing... and, you know, think about our people walked this land and saved it for us.

[animals calling] [Pauline Hobson] This is a yellow rose.

[Karina Jeffries] Growing up, I've always been taught, respect your elders.

As I've gotten older, I'm like, "These guys have lived a lifetime.

They have lessons to teach you."

[Pauline] This is the blueberry leaf.

You can see the berries ready to bloom.

[Karina] Yeah.

These things.

-[Pauline] Giga gheli.

-[Girls] Giga gheli.

-[Pauline] That's blueberries.

-[Karina] I don't think I've actually seen berries like this... [Harley Trefon] Neither have I.

[Karina] ...like, before they're actually big.

[Pauline] Taste that.

-[Karina] Eat it.

-[Harley] [laughs] Oh, yeah.

It does taste sweet.

[Pauline] When we get medicinal plants or anything, pick berries, something we get from Mother Earth, we always give back to Mother Earth, because you pick that medicine to use.

"Thank you -- chin'an -- for giving us this medicine to cure us."

Just pick what you need, what you can use, and share.

[soft music] ♪♪ [Karina] I've just made it my goal to be respectful, be kind, do what I can to help these elders and learn as much as I can from them.

[knife scraping] Hearing stories about what our ancestors used to do here and how they were able to live and survive off the land without the help of machines; what Cheda Pauline and Chuda Butch have done for me is extraordinary.

So, who taught you how to cut fish?

[Butch Hobson] Just by watching.

[Karina] Watching?

Like your mom?

[Butch] Everything I did, I learned by watching other people.

[Karina] Mm-hmm.

[Butch] When I was growing up, if you're hunting, you had to have respect for animals.

If you're gonna kill something, it had to be for food, not for no sport or anything.

Everything on this earth is connected: trees, fish, birds... the water.

The water is life.

That's life out there.

Alright.

That's supper.

We're done.

That scraps could go in the water.

[Karina] I get this feeling of being proud of who I am and my culture and being able to walk where my ancestors once walked and getting to know the land better and seeing how that connects to me as a person.

I'm proud of being Dena'ina Athabascan.

[orchestral string music] ♪♪ [Narrator] On a still day, Lake Clark mirrors the surrounding peaks.

Qizhjeh Vena is framed by mountains, their slopes textured by boreal forest and tundra.

♪♪ Beyond the tundra, granite spires and snow- and ice-covered rock rise up to 10,000 feet.

♪♪ With no roads to the park, or within it, small planes routinely make the flight from Cook Inlet to Lake Clark, traveling through Lake Clark Pass, a narrow corridor between the mountains.

[Karen] Flying in from Anchorage through the pass, as soon as I see the glaciers and the mountains, I feel filled up.

There's a sense of aliveness that opens up inside me.

♪♪ To me, when you're on the mountains, you could feel more of a presence or a deeper connection; more power.

[Lary] The mountains especially are respected because of their age.

They've seen a lot, heard a lot, experienced a lot.

As elders are respected because of their knowledge, so it is with the mountains.

[strings under marimba] [Narrator] Each year, hundreds of earthquakes shake the ground beneath these mountains and two active volcanoes, Redoubt and Iliamna, tower above the ridges and periodically unleash their power to reshape the landscape.

♪♪ Redoubt has erupted at least 30 times in the last 10,000 years.

In a six-month period from 1989 to 1990, 23 separate explosions blanketed the region with ash.

♪♪ While volcanoes can change the landscape overnight, glaciers are slow-motion sculptors.

Hundreds flow from these mountains.

♪♪ Over millennia, they've carved deep valleys, creating the lakes and rivers that are critical for the life cycle of the salmon.

Qizhjeh Vena is the biggest lake in the park, at 40 miles long and almost 900 feet deep.

On its western shore is the ancestral village site of Kijik.

For countless generations, it has been a place for Dena'ina to come together.

[Karina] ...I'm gonna try.

[woman] How are you?

[woman] ...raining too much.

[indistinct conversations] [woman] Yeah.

Yeah.

Very windy.

[Lary] Remember, smoke follows beauty.

-[Karen] Yeah.

-[Darren] [laughs] You hear that, Karen?

[Karen] What did he say?

[Darren] Smoke follows beauty.

[Karen] [laughs] [Lary] Just think how long our people have lived here.

[George Alexie] They got charcoal there and carbon-dated.

It was like 11,000 years.

-[Lary] 11,000?

-[George] Yep.

That's a long time.

[Lary] I feel the evidence of the Dena'ina everywhere.

[Darren] I come up every fall to go get fall fish.

And I look around, and I try to imagine what it looked like a couple thousand years ago, or when all our ancestors were still here.

[soft orchestral music] ♪♪ [George] This was well sought after, this land here.

People come from miles around because of the richness in the woods, timber, the sheep, the moose, the caribou... you know, the salmon.

♪♪ [Narrator] Beginning in the late 1700s, white Europeans from outside the region were also drawn to what the land had to offer.

[Karen] Our elders predicted that there would be outsiders coming in, utilizing the area for their own values and gain, and we've got to be prepared for the change.

♪♪ [Narrator] Russian explorers were the first to arrive, followed by missionaries, trappers, and gold prospectors.

They brought not only change, but disease.

In the early 20th Century, a flu and measles epidemic swept through Kijik, forcing the community to relocate.

♪♪ Many Dena'ina resettled in Nondalton, on Six Mile Lake, just downstream from Lake Clark.

♪♪ Yet the connection to Kijik runs deep.

♪♪ [Lary] One of the lessons my grandmother taught me: if you really want to learn anything, you really want to hear anything, you have to learn to be silent.

I mean, if you're out in the woods, you don't talk.

Don't move around, and just listen.

[Karen] Darren's grandpa, he said there's this word for it, Dena'ina word, and he called it K'etniyi.

He said, "It means when you look out on the land, on our earth, the water, everything, it's talking to you."

[Lary] Old timers would tell us: "Be quiet; the grass will hear you."

That meant that everything around you does sense what you feel.

And so you must be respectful.

[calm music] ♪♪ [Narrator] From Kijik, ancestral trails branch out across Dena'ina land that extends far beyond the borders of the park, connecting to distant villages and linking inland and coastal Dena'ina communities.

♪♪ [Karen] Dena'ina people lived on the coast, and they still do.

[Narrator] People crossed the mountains for funerals and marriages, for potlatches and clan meetings.

[Karen] Part of the travel was trading certain foods from the land, like moose or certain plants or berries, or even medicines, or ocean foods.

For my ancestors, before the convenience of ATV vehicles and snow machines, you know, even before the dog teams, they walked!

The trails were like highways are to cities.

The trails led people to all the food and resources they were gathering.

[Narrator] The trails, which are often invisible to unpracticed eyes, are still used today.

Features in the landscape, like stands of trees and river crossings, are waypoints that show the route.

[Karen] The names of certain places along trail routes — these created a mental map for people.

[soft piano music] [Narrator] Inland and coastal Dena'ina also traded with Sugpiaq, who traveled over hundreds of miles of open water to hunt, fish, and forage on this abundant shore of Cook Inlet.

Many coastal Dena'ina hold a deep connection to their ancestral lands and continue to gather food along the Cook Inlet coast.

♪♪ [down-tempo music] ♪♪ The bounty of coastal resources is also a draw for brown bears, who have made their way from their winter dens in the mountains to feed on sedges, the protein-rich plants that turn these meadows a brilliant green.

Extreme high tides inundate the meadows, delivering ocean nutrients to the land.

[Buck] The interface between the land and the marine saltwater is a really rich environment.

[Narrator] Park biologists research and monitor wildlife and their food sources throughout the park to understand how they are reacting to a changing environment.

[Buck] And so you have these dynamic systems that interact with one another and provide this really rich array of resources that most wildlife species are dependent on, including shorebirds, waterfowl, and bears especially.

[upbeat, energetic music] ♪♪ The female bears are coming down; they're trying to build their health back.

And male bears are coming down, looking for females to breed.

The sedge meadows are really the driver that brings them in and provides the bulk of the food.

But there's a whole group of bears that also take great advantage of the big tides and this nearshore community, where clams are really prevalent.

And so in these really high density bear populations, you have really rich resources, but you also have rich diversity.

♪♪ [Narrator] Just a few decades ago, this coastal edge looked very different.

[soft piano music] In 1964, a 9.2-magnitude earthquake, the second-most powerful in recorded history, caused massive damage in Anchorage and throughout the region.

In some places along the park's Cook Inlet coast, the land lifted over six feet.

[Buck] Being in a coastal system with uplift, that really causes things that seem very static to be dynamic and move over time.

For me, the really interesting part is how wildlife adapt to that.

♪♪ [Narrator] Forests encroached on former salt marshes, and what were once tidal mudflats sprouted sedges, grasses, and flowers and merged with the existing coastal meadows.

They are part of a string of salt marshes that stretch for some 100 miles along the Cook Inlet coastline.

Isolated and biologically unique, they are some of the most nutrient-rich habitats on Earth, which is why they are home to one of the world's densest populations of brown bears.

♪♪ [Buck] What we do in science is ... is observations, and our observations ultimately lead us through the scientific process to come to conclusions.

And what the land here is saying to me is it's healthy.

It's a system in which all of the species that have been native to this area, they all still exist, and they exist in relatively high numbers.

As a park, we need to ensure that these natural and healthy populations are protected.

[hopeful music builds] ♪♪ [Narrator] By late spring, after being at sea for two to three years, the salmon begin their journey back to their natal home streams, where they will lay their eggs, their life cycle complete.

Silver in their prime, their bodies turn bright red as they age.

Their arrival will ignite the entire ecosystem.

♪♪ [Eileen] Salmon are central to everything around here.

It's kind of like talking about the weather.

We talk about, "What are the fish doing?

When are the fish coming?"

♪♪ [Narrator] Clusters of small cabins -- Dena'ina fish camps -- are tucked along the banks of the Newhalen River.

[indistinct conversations] [Karen] The last one here.

Don't even start.

[laughter] [George] Some of these poles are not very straight.

[Karen] [chuckles] Quit making fun of our poles.

[laughter] To me, salmon is such a part of my entire life.

I've never went through a summer where I didn't come to fish camp; so salmon is very much an integral part of the fabric of who I am.

When it's getting toward the end of June, I know the salmon will be coming.

And so we need to come back and prepare fish camp and get ready for the fish to come.

[George] Who patched it right there?

[Karen] Yeah, they patched it.

That's it.

[Darren] There's a bigger one over here somewhere.

Checking the net, cleaning the smokehouse out; everything's got to be cleaned and ready for the fish when they get there.

Fix that one.

-[George] Mm-hmm.

[George] Every four opening here.

[Karen] Every four of those squares?

[George] Yeah.

Okay.

[Karen] Wow.

That was fast.

Can you do some more?

[George] [laughs] You do the next one.

I'll show you.

[up-tempo strings] [music swells] ♪♪ [Narrator] At the beginning of summer, tens of millions of salmon begin to arrive in Bristol Bay on their return journey to their home streams.

Locals and crews from around the world converge to work the bay's commercial fishery.

For over a century, these spectacular salmon runs, the most productive in the world, have fueled a major part of Alaska's economy.

The fish that avoid the nets continue up the rivers that feed into Bristol Bay, eventually making their way to Lake Clark and on up to the farthest headwaters.

[rain falling] ♪♪ [Eileen] We are monitoring the fish that make it back to the spawning grounds to reproduce.

We count generally in the hundred thousands.

Some years we've had closer to three-quarters of a million here on the Newhalen.

[upbeat string music] ♪♪ [Motor starts] We count 10 minutes of every hour on both banks of the river.

The central purpose of the work here is ensuring the subsistence fishery is healthy and supported.

So one of the main purposes of Lake Clark National Park was to provide for subsistence harvest.

♪♪ [Rick] I prefer to say traditional gathering.

♪♪ Our homeland is like a garden: we harvest the food, the material that's needed to sustain our Tribal members.

It's our way of life.

My dad did it.

His dad did it.

It sustained us for well over 10,000 years.

And hopefully my grandkids and their kids will do the same.

♪♪ [Karen] The land is what guided my ancestors and Indigenous people around the world.

The Earth was their first teacher... and so even the way we take food, we're very mindful of what we take and not taking it without gratitude.

[water splashing] [Rick] See how pretty that is?

♪♪ [birdsong] [Pauline] tsik'ezdlagh [whistling to tune of birdsong] [birdsong] They say when you hear those birds, the salmon has hit Lake Clark.

[Darren] Let it out.

-[woman] Let it out.

-[Darren] Let it out.

Ready?

Let go of your stick.

Keep your lead line down.

Alright, now I’ll grab the boat.

[Darren] Coming to you Miles.

I got two boys: a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old.

And, you know, they're eager to learn.

They're always asking me questions and questions, you know, it's a hundred questions a minute, you know?

I like teaching them as much as possible.

I just want all the younger generation to learn how to survive and live off the land much as possible.

Put your lead line down.

Fish camp -- it's an experience by itself.

It's like a time when the families come together.

Everybody's at fish camp, getting ready for winter, putting up fish.

It's awesome.

[seagulls crying] [Karen] Too bad Grandma's not here.

[Danielle] Yeah, she would be telling stories.

[Karen] She would be.

[Danielle] With each fish that we get, I say, "Chin'an, chin'an liq'a," and just give gratitude that it gave its life to us.

There's these bloodlines between the salmon and the people... [laughs] and I think about the salmon who've come back this year.

I maybe had some of their parents or their grandparents, and then my grandparents had their ancestors, so it's so interwoven.

[Karen] When we hang the fish on the poles outside, the bellies are facing toward the water.

And part of that is so their spirit have a easier time to return back to the river; it's a sign of respect for this gift we're getting of salmon offering themselves to us.

[Danielle] It's also so restorative, listening to what the salmon are doing, the Earth is doing.

We are on their time, and we're also on the weather's time.

Nothing is in our control; it's a releasing of the illusion of control.

[Eileen] Good morning, Nondalton.

This is river mile 22 with your daily fish count.

Yesterday, we counted 9,642 sockeye past the tower, bringing our cumulative total to 52,614.

We got a male.

MEF.

555.

[man] 555.

[Eileen] MEH.

493.

[man] 493.

[Eileen] When they're catching fish, we're up there almost every day, collecting otoliths and checking in with them.

[Narrator] Otoliths are the tiny ear bones inside the salmon's head.

They grow like tree rings and are used to determine the age of the fish.

[Eileen] We like to collect the ages and the size of the fish to track how that changes through time, and it's a good metric of the health of the salmon population.

[Karen] What's the numbers of fish up there?

[Eileen] Uh yesterday, there was 7,000... Um and, then, the day before, I think it was 5,000... So, been adding a couple thousand a day.

[Narrator] Everyone benefits from the shared information, especially as environmental changes are making everything less predictable.

[orchestral harmony builds] ♪♪ [Karen] The warmer climate and seasons we're having is affecting the salmon run coming up the river.

Several summers ago, we had a really hot summer, and when the salmon came up, they went in the middle of the lake because it's cooler in the middle.

Along the edges, it's warmer.

We had to wait to do our seining later because there was no fish along the edges.

♪♪ [Danielle] The people who live out here, they see so much change: the salmon are getting smaller.

[Narrator] What they're seeing and what the data shows is a shortening of the cycle.

The fish are leaving their freshwater homes sooner and returning earlier to spawn.

[Eileen] Talking to the Dena'ina people, they've got stories about pretty much anything you can imagine happening in the salmon run.

They've been here observing for long periods of time.

[Karen] I know the berries are good up there.

[Eileen] Traditional knowledge is this great data set that goes back way further than Western science ever could.

I think putting them together just makes your research that much more robust.

♪♪ [Karen] Western science-- it's not a whole lot different than the way my ancestors collected data.

And part of that data was knowing how to read the land and the weather and the movement of the animals.

The difference is, we're not studying the Earth as if it's a thing separate from us.

It’s, it’s part of us.

[marimba music] [Narrator] In 1980, Congress passed ANILCA, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which set aside more than 100 million acres of federal land for protection.

It was the largest designation of public land in American history, creating and expanding national forests, wild and scenic rivers, and wildlife and conservation areas.

It also doubled the size of the National Park System.

A primary purpose of ANILCA was to protect subsistence rights for local rural residents.

♪♪ [Rick] I used to hunt there, fish there.

And, then, all of a sudden, it's a national park.

It's somebody else's land, the way I looked at it; it got taken away.

♪♪ [Karen] I grew up seeing my dad's anger at the systems-- you know, the school system for not being able to speak his language, the Fish and Game for regulating when they went hunting and fishing.

He was angry at, also, land ownership because in our culture, there was no such thing.

This land, we're borrowing it; we don't own it.

[Narrator] ANILCA was transformative, representing a new way of thinking about public land based on the idea that people are a part of places, not separate from them.

This new legislation was the first time traditional and customary hunting, fishing, and gathering rights were protected as a core purpose of national parks.

Working with Dena'ina communities was an early priority.

Soon after the formation of the park, Andrew Balluta became Lake Clark's first Dena'ina ranger.

[Balluta] I was born in Nan Qelah, which in English called Miller's Creek, and raised over here in Nondalton.

[Narrator] A prolific writer and scholar, Balluta was instrumental in advancing the park service's understanding of Dena'ina values and knowledge of the land.

[Rick] Today, how I look at the park is much different.

The park works together with the Tribe.

The general public can't hunt and fish in the hard park like we can.

And the resources that are in the park are protected.

The animals can't speak for theirself.

They can't say, "Hey, the water is not clean.

There's something wrong with the forest over here."

We have to look after that.

[Karen] I've learned over the years and working for the park what they offer.

And what they offer can enhance what we know about the environment.

And to me, that collaboration and cooperation and partnering with agencies and tribes is so important.

I've come to a place in my life now where I know we're all in this together as human beings.

[dreamy harp music] ♪♪ [Narrator] Several decades before it was designated a national park, Lake Clark became valued as a place of refuge, especially as air travel made it easier to get here.

♪♪ [Karen] I think people are looking for that inner sense of well-being... that intuitive, deep wisdom that come from being out in nature.

It's easy to forget what really matters.

[birds chirping] [folksy guitar music] ♪♪ [Narrator] One of many people who found a connection here was Richard Proenneke.

He arrived in the late 1960s at the age of 51, seeking simplicity and a life connected to the land.

Proenneke was a skilled craftsman who used only hand tools to build his log cabin on Upper Twin Lake.

He lived here for 30 years, surrounded by the mountains.

♪♪ Deeply inspired by nature, Proenneke recorded detailed observations of the world around him: the thickness of the ice, the coming of summer storms, the movement of the caribou.

♪♪ [Proenneke] All these wild animals-- they was the only neighbors I had, you know?

If you just study animals, just watch them, you learn a lot.

[strings crescendo] [strings crescendo] ♪♪ ♪♪ [Karen] The sensing in the fall time is that the Earth is preparing for the winter, so it's shedding its leaves and all the greenery, and it's going to sleep.

[Narrator] In the boreal forest that rises above the mountain lakes, fall triggers a shift, with green giving way to rust and gold.

Trees and shrubs are compact here, adapted to their brief growing season.

♪♪ The neighboring tundra is even more spare: a world in miniature of tiny plants.

[Rick] The tundra offers food, a medicine we call [Dena’ina word].

It also offers diapers for newborn... there's string... and the list goes on.

♪♪ [Darren] My grandpa used to tell me, "Don't overharvest anything and let food go to waste, and if you take care of it, it will give back to you."

♪♪ After we catch fish, we always go grouse hunting.

And after that, it's berries.

First come salmonberries, and then blueberries.

In the fall time, when we're moose hunting, we do a late evening drift.

When you're drifting down the river, and everything was just so peaceful and quiet... and just listen to the birds... you could listen to the wind, the water.

The land speaks to us in different ways.

♪♪ [Butch] Spirit, everything got spirit: trees... birds, animals; everything communicates with one another.

♪♪ [Pauline] We don't consider ourselves bigger than the animals.

♪♪ That's why we show respect for everything.

[soft orchestral music] ♪♪ [upbeat guitar] ♪♪ [Narrator] Just as the land changes with the seasons, the water that flows from the mountains and into the park's lakes and rivers goes through its own transformations.

♪♪ [Eileen] The Lake Clark drainage is this really pristine environment.

We have snowmelt in the spring and glacial melt during the summer, which is this continuous input of cold, clean water, which is ideal for salmon spawning and rearing habitat.

♪♪ [Narrator] But the amount of water that flows off the mountains is changing with the shift in long-term weather patterns.

[slow tempo music] [Karen] The glaciers when we're flying in through the pass are really receding; the melt-off is huge.

♪♪ [Rick] 30 years ago, we'd have snow all summer long.

That is no longer the case.

Some of the creeks that I grew up with are dry; so the water is going away.

[Eileen] There's been large fluctuations.

We'll have a really, really warm summer, with above-average temperatures that are harmful to salmon.

And, then, the next year will be very low temperatures and really low water flow.

[Narrator] Salmon are highly adaptive, but how they'll respond to the effects of long-term warming is unknown.

[Eileen] We're trying to keep really good track of those changes and sort of stay ahead of it so we can anticipate how that might affect the salmon run and the subsistence harvest.

I really like to swim, so I take any excuse to get in the water with the fish.

[birds chirping] It's just more practical to have someone in the water than trying to do a lot of our sampling from a boat with a dip net.

This time of year, when they're spawning, they die fairly quickly after they spawn.

And we're here, collecting carcasses.

We got a male.

[man] Male.

[Eileen] MEH497.

[mid-tempo music] ♪♪ Salmon navigate back to their natal streams using what we call olfactory imprinting.

They can smell the different chemical characteristics of the water where they were born.

♪♪ It's a really beautiful thing to watch these fish come back to their home and complete their life cycle.

Just feeling the force of the current and the water's temperature that they're fighting against... the fact that any of them make it back at all, and that they make it back to the same place that they were born is amazing to me.

♪♪ [Narrator] Late in the season, the salmon arrive at the Cook Inlet coast.

♪♪ Brown bears have switched from sedges, razor clams, and berries to the rich, fatty fish in preparation for their long winter hibernation.

[Buck] Salmon have a really interesting role: they migrate to the ocean and take in all of these amazing marine resources that they then come back into the freshwater system, and they provide food for an array of species.

[meditative instrumental music] ♪♪ [Butch] Salmon is the most important of everything because they're the ones that fertilize this whole world.

If we didn't have salmon, what would this world look like?

♪♪ [Rick] Everything that have a beginning have an end.

Only it's not the end.

When the fish come to their end, they provide nutrients for somebody else.

So it's all together like one.

♪♪ And it happens spring, summer, fall, and winter.

♪♪ [calm music] ♪♪ ♪♪ [Darren] The elders-- I think they're the smartest people around.

Grandpa used to say, "Oh, it's gonna be a cold winter."

And sure enough, when that time comes, it sure is a cold winter.

He used to always say, "Keep watching and observing.

Everything has a meaning."

♪♪ [Karen] There's a sensing when it comes to each season, how we listen to the seasons and observe the changing of weather patterns.

[Pauline] Mother Earth speaks to you all the time.

So you can tell what the weather is gonna be like tomorrow just by looking at the clouds and the mountains... ♪♪ ...sometimes the way the animals are acting.

[calm music, chimes] [Narrator] Winter brings a quiet stillness to the land, and darkness.

By the solstice, there are just six hours of daylight.

[wolf howls] [music swells] During this longest season, even miles-wide Lake Clark freezes over.

♪♪ [ice skates scratching] ♪♪ As massive sheets of ice expand and contract on the lake, they create an ethereal soundtrack to winter.

[ice shifting] [Rick] This land is abundant; it's also very unforgiving.

The winters here are a lot different than they were 30 years ago.

Warmer temperatures, thinner ice makes traveling more dangerous.

[Darren] You got to pay attention to everything.

You gotta make sure you know where you're at at all times, and don't get yourself in trouble.

[Rick] Living in the bush, you have to be resourceful; you have to rely on your knowledge.

[mid-tempo guitar] ♪♪ ♪♪ [Rick] This is the time of the year that we come over here to harvest the fish.

Pike is one of our mainstays in our diet.

We eat so much fish, we have a way to mix it with berries and prepare it for dessert.

[Pauline] My mom showed us how to fish through the ice in the winter.

You always sang a song: [singing in Dena'ina] ♪♪ She said, "You'll catch a fish every time you sing the song."

♪♪ [George] I remember probably about 8 years old, we used to come across the lake over here, getting wood.

Well, I'm looking for dry, and standing dead.

And you make your first cut, usually on the limb.

My dad would cut it and load up the sled for me, and the dogs would go home on their own.

My uncle would unload it and turn the dogs around and load up all day.

[Lary] So, if you cut down a tree like this, you could pile the limbs in one spot and give a little shelter for the smaller critters.

You don't leave a mess behind when you cut the tree down; you actually thank the tree, 'cause it's a gift from our Creator.

[engine revs] [mid-tempo orchestral music] [Rick] On a day like today, I feel at ease, and I'm at home.

This is our homeland.

[Narrator] Beneath the ice, newly hatched salmon alevin will survive off their yolk sacs until early spring.

As fry, now about an inch long, they'll emerge from the gravel beds, ready to begin their life in the watershed.

♪♪ As spring arrives in the park, it will be time to prepare again for the salmon's return.

♪♪ [Pauline speaking Dena'ina] "The land is beautiful."

And peaceful... it's home; it's always been home.

♪♪ [Eileen] I think standing and being quiet and observing the sort of flow and the interaction of what's going on helps nature speak to you in a way that it otherwise wouldn't.

♪♪ [Karen] K'etniyi.

"The land is speaking to us."

Any place on our Earth offers something when our heart is open.

We're not separate from the natural world: we're of the natural world.

Nature -- it's the simplest way to come back home.

[music swells] [harp over strings] ♪♪ [orchestral music] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪