The Coldest Night

The 2008 Iditarod race begins. Returning champion Lance Mackey already has a hitch in his plan. Iditarod icon DeeDee Jonrowe loses her dog team outside a checkpoint. The mushers prepare to face the dreaded Alaska Range.

The mushers cross the treacherous Alaska Range. Jonrowe faces "the Step," where she was injured last year. Injury also causes Mackey's lead dog to be dropped. Martin Buser takes a strategic rest at Salmon River before beginning the trek again.

With the Alaska Range behind them, mushers now must rest -- a strategy all its own. Mackey, already down a lead dog, cares for his exhausted team. Jonrowe, nursing a virus, is first to the half-way mark, winning Yukon Gold, but at what price?

Mackey makes up for lost time while King devises a new plan. Eskimo Nelson debates whether to withdraw from the race. The Busers separate to allow former champion Martin a chance to go for the gold.

Mackey continues to break trail for rival King but is catching on to King's game. Rookie musher Holt, making a slew of beginner's mistakes, has to decide whether he can carry on or if he will succumb to the treacherous nature of the Iditarod Trail.

With Nome less than 100 miles away, Mackey, King, and Martin Buser battle for the finish line. Icon Jonrowe battles to stay in the top 10, and for rookie Holt, just finishing Alaska's toughest race means winning.

Meet the Kilcher family, who live on a 600-acre homestead in Alaska. With another brutal winter approaching, and bears having killed two of the family's cattle, they are forced to pin all of their hopes of surviving the winter on one hunting trip.

The first storm of the winter is fast approaching so the entire Kilcher homestead must race to finish preparing for the next eight months. Atz Sr. races ahead of the storm to lead a herd of cattle on a dangerous trek across flooded glacial rivers.

The early winter storms have left the entire homestead unprepared. A desperate search for a newborn calf and its mother forces Otto's wife and their youngest son into a night snowstorm while Otto is away building shelter for his herd.

The extended Kilcher family struggle to get through a record-breaking harsh winter. Desperate for food, Atz Lee and Jane venture onto the ice to try fishing. Patriarchs Otto and Atz embark on a dangerous mission to bring aid to a fellow homesteader.

Spring finally arrives on the homestead. Eivin mills lumber, builds a large chicken house from scratch and helps wife Eve take out a rogue cannibal hen. Desperate for food, Jane goes fishing for king salmon solo.

Otto and family battle the elements and predators to drive their cattle to the summer pasture. A missing calf causes Otto and Eivin to head off for a dangerous late night rescue mission. Atz Lee and Jane build a makeshift greenhouse.

Atz begins his summer range riding season to protect Otto's cattle herd. A bear menaces from the edge; a wolf invades the herd. Otto & family race the clock and the elements to gather in winter's hay crop. Eivin and Eve's cannibal hen strikes again.

The Kilchers rally & call in favors to tackle their largest project this season. They have 48 hours to build a long cattle fence and rebuild a cabin, or the treacherous river's tide will trap their barge full of critical equipment for another month.

Summer half over, the Kilchers head out fishing, but it's not for fun...at least not entirely. They need 100s of pounds of fish to eat and barter with during winter. Each couple has their own time-proven technique for catching salmon and trout.

Atz Lee and Eivin travel 160 miles and brave the bears of "Terrible Island" to hunt deer. Otto refuses to admit defeat and will use all the blackpowder he has to remove a pesky stump blocking his progress.