"Life Beneath Zippo" hit a new milestone as it aired its 150th episode on one January 2021 on the National Geographic Channel, having premiered on xix August 2013 with the "Stop of the Road" episode. This was quite an impressive feat, despite the many Alaska-based shows on television indicating that its target audience had not however reached the saturation point. The viewers continued to anticipate each episode season after season, as the producers pushed the boundaries of reality shows to offering fresh and ameliorate content.

Contents

  • 1 The cast and their stories
    • one.ane Sue Aikens (2013-nowadays)
    • 1.two Fleck and Agnes Hailstone (2013-present)
    • i.3 Andy Bassich (2013-present)
    • 1.4 Jessie Holmes (2015-nowadays)
    • 1.5 Ricko DeWilde (2018-present)
  • two What happened to the cast: "Life Below Cypher" deaths

The cast and their stories

This BBC Studios-produced evidence features people living off the grid in oftentimes freezing temperatures in the remote office of the Alaskan wilderness. Close to the Arctic Circle, wintertime is long and very common cold, while summer is short and cool, with each day a challenge having to acquire the resources vital to their survival before the brutal winter sets in, and taking on the wild animals in the procedure. They confront danger 24-hour interval in and twenty-four hour period out whatever the season may be, so they are no ordinary people for choosing this way of life.

Sue Aikens (2013-present)

'People become afraid of break-ins. My break-in involves teeth, claws and a hell of a lot of bad weather condition.' It sounded dramatic but this was real for 58-year-sometime Sue who lived in the middle of grizzly bear territory, 200 miles or 320kms northward of the Arctic Circle, for about xx years. She owned and operated a 'twisted' bed and breakfast chosen the Kavik River Camp, located lxxx miles or 130kms from the closest road. She could merely lease land on the Due north Slope, and to live there, she had to run a business.

The nearest city was Fairbanks, 500 miles from her place, so she was really isolated, with people coming in from just June to September. Hunters, scientific researchers, and tourists who wanted to feel the Arctic life stayed at her military camp, as she offered logistical support. For the remainder of the year she lived solitary, and enjoyed it too, saying 'I thrive on the challenge. I crave farthermost isolation.' The merely admission to her campsite was a small airstrip, simply she had an net connexion so she could communicate with other people and run her concern. Amazon ran deliveries on Fairbanks and a bush airplane delivered supplies to her.

With grizzlies as her neighbors, information technology was likely that she would get up close and personal with ane. In 2007, a juvenile male bear caught her off guard and almost killed her, but she managed to shoot it, and called the troopers; however, she had to stitch her wounds as she waited for x days before assistance reached her. Information technology was not her last encounter with a bear, nor was it the only danger she had to protect herself from.

Surviving and coping with whatever challenges life threw at her was something she learned at a young age. Sue was born in Chicago and lived from place to place until in 1975 when she was 12 and her mother left her father, and they moved to a village 80km north of Fairbanks, where she was then left to fend for herself. She got over feeling sorry for herself later on a while, and so learned to deal with her situation by thinking of it equally an hazard. An Alaskan resident gave her a rifle and some bullets and wished her the best! She learned to become self-sufficient, but felt sad subsequently she made her kickoff kill as she said, 'Animals were my friends only they had to also become my food, and I had to quickly acquire to separate the two.'

Sue had ii marriages – her 2d husband passed away afterward they were together for 17 years. Her two children were married, and they got together every year and had this ritual of talking about things she said or did that they didn't like, and things that are great.

In 2018, she said that the government took away her lease and gave her a temporary permit when they opened upwards the Arctic National Wild fauna Rescue to commerce and drilling. Sue had no thought how long she could run her business organization.

Fleck and Agnes Hailstone (2013-present)

Edward "Chip" Hailstone was born in Montana, and was 19 when he went to Alaska in 1988 for a visit, but never left. Agnes was built-in in Noovrik and belonged to the Inupiak Tribe. The couple was married in 1992 and have five daughters together; she also had two boys from a previous marriage. Their children were habitation-schooled then later sent to a local high school. They lived 19 miles or 30kms north of the Arctic Circle along the Kobuk River in a settlement with a population of 600. The biggest city in Northwest Alaska was 42 miles, 65kms from their place, and the means of send was through a snowmobile or boat. They fished and hunted for food and bartered them for other supplies that they needed.

Raising a family was non piece of cake in the wilderness, equally they lived off the state and had to fence with the wild animals in the expanse and the freezing common cold. Agnes was raised in this kind of environs, and was all likewise enlightened of the dangers, having lost her brother and mother into the ice. Scrap said, 'You've got to remember the state can eat you merely every bit quickly every bit you can swallow anything from the country.'

Andy Bassich (2013-nowadays)

He was born in Washington DC and raised in Wheaton, Maryland. Although he established a carpentry business after matriculating in 1976 from John F. Kennedy High Schoolhouse, he moved to Alaska in 1980. He became a musher, and worked extra hard to ensure that his 25 sled dogs had enough food to eat by catching and preparing over 2,500 salmon each year. Andy too has a survival training school and a musher school.

He and his kickoff married woman, Kate Rorke, lived in a cabin he constructed near the Yukon River that was 120 miles, or 200kms s of the Chill Circle. Access to and from their home was through the river by boat or by snowmobile when the ice was thick enough.

In 2009, a firm-sized floating ice block was carried past the Yukon River x miles, 16kms downwards river in Eagle, which caused floodwater to build upwardly behind it. Before they knew it, they were waist-deep in icy cold h2o every bit 'Yukon breached its banks and merged with Ford Lake.' As the water continued to ascent, Andy had to rapidly devise a manner to save his dogs by loading them on the long johnboat; unfortunately, some drowned. When the water receded, Andy, who was given the nickname, "MacGyver," led the recovery attempt as the Alaska Native settlement was destroyed.

In 2015, Kate claimed that she was mentally and physically driveling, just endured information technology all hoping things would get better. However, they gotten worse over the years, and she decided to go out afterwards ten years of living in the Alaskan wilderness with him. Their divorce was finalized in 2016.

In 2018, Andy sustained a hip injury while trying 'to motion his snowmobile that was stuck in the snow.' It became life-threatening equally the infection reached the muscle and bone, so he had to receive handling in Florida.

Life Below Zero

Later being away from home for 6 months, he returned and brought his girlfriend, Denise, with him. She was a trauma nurse at the eye he was receiving treatment in, although the two kickoff met years prior to this when she was on a canoe trip with a Boys Scout troop. Having been raised on a farm in Canada, she understood and adapted to Andy'south subsistence lifestyle. It was tough for Andy equally he was still on crutches, simply with the help of Denise, they got things done.

Jessie Holmes (2015-present)

He hailed from Alabama, then worked as a carpenter for three years in Montana before moving to Alaska in 2004, where he initially stayed in Hawkeye, and so later on set up his cabin in Nenana in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, using his carpentry skills to build his new home. Jessie worked as a musher with 38 dogs, and has been competing at the "Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race" since 2016 and won a few times including Rookie of the Yr with the prize money of over $25,000 in 2018'southward long-distance race. His goal every summer was to catch three,000 salmon fish for his sled dogs, and in winter, he went fur trapping.

Ricko DeWilde (2018-present)

Ricko, a subsistence hunter and Native American activist, grew upwardly 100 miles upriver from Huslia. His male parent, who moved to Alaska from San Francisco, met and married his mother, a Koyukon Athabaskan who was born and raised in Alaska. He built cabins in areas where they could hunt, fish, and gather food depending on the season, while she kept them warm. Ricko and his xiii siblings were taught how to survive off the land, and know the importance of the Athabaskan way of life. They were domicile-schooled, so he only attended public school for his senior year. The family went to Huslia every spring to get their supplies, and it felt surreal to him as life in that location was very different from what he was used to.

However, he really experienced culture shock when he moved to Fairbanks, and his transition to urban society was difficult. Young and impressionable, he hung out with the wrong crowd and became a drug addict. He only managed to turn his life effectually later on existence imprisoned for two years on drug possession charges.

Ricko said he would go to his hometown every autumn to hunt for the elders, and stayed at the motel he grew upward in. He would as well bring his own family out there so he could teach his kids their Native traditions.

His wear apparel, Hydz, was inspired by the reaction to the hoodies he presented during the souvenir-giving part of the memorial potlatch for his grandmother, parents and sister in 2007. The designs that showed the beauty and strength of wild animals impressed the natives.

Ricko was passionate most sharing his honey of nature, and didactics others to take intendance of Mother Earth. He's used YouTube as his platform since 2011, which had amassed around seven million views, and this led the way for him to exist cast in the bear witness.

What happened to the bandage: "Life Below Nothing" deaths

Only those who had adapted well to the Alaskan wilderness and skillful caution would get to see another day, as one error could mean the end of even an experienced hunter.

Life Below Aught

Each episode showed how dangerous it was for the people who followed the subsistence hunting lifestyle in an unforgiving environs, and the show kept the viewers on the border of their seats regarding who survived and who didn't. Some viewers assumed that people no longer seen on the reality evidence had died, as they were in a "impale or be killed" situation living in the wild, but non so.

Sue Aikins had several close calls, and saw everything around her as a potential threat that some fans gave the show the nickname "What'south Killing Sue Today?" Every incident seemed to be a lot more than dramatic than information technology seemed, and then that many believed that the producers kept her doing crazy stuff for the evidence. Co-ordinate to Sue, a BBC coiffure of 3 or four would come to her camp and film her. 'Nothing is scripted. There's enough real stuff that happens that nosotros don't need to invent information technology.'

Nonetheless, in a lawsuit she filed against BBC Productions in 2017, she accused the producers, particularly Aaron Mellman, of enervating that she drive a snow machine at 60mph beyond a frozen river, which was dangerous with the water ice covered in "overflow."

Equally a result, she was thrown from the vehicle when information technology striking an ice boost, and sustained serious injuries including a broken collarbone, but the crew allegedly called for an airlift to land miles from the crash as they collection her six to seven miles in 20 below zero temperatures for meliorate footage. It was filmed in February 2015, and aired starting from June of that year. Although her contract stated that she assumed all risks of personal injury including death with her participation in the series, she said she had no option but to follow the demands of the producer, fifty-fifty every bit she argued with him and expressed business organisation for her prophylactic, every bit their agreement included that she 'would not hamper or delay the production schedule.'

Chip was said to exist missing in action during the 10th flavour, and fans feared the worst. Yet, he was serving out his xv-month sentence starting in 2017 at the Anchorage Correctional Circuitous, afterwards being found guilty of two counts of providing false information, and ii counts of perjury regarding an incident that occurred in July 2011.

His children, Jonathan Carter and Tinmiaq, were among those arrested by state troopers Bitz and Young for being involved in a fight. While they were beingness processed at the public safe building, Chip and Agnes arrived and confronted the troopers, and it concluded with Bitz having to restrain Tinmiaq as it was believed she was nigh to strike him in the chest. Fleck claimed that the trooper physically assaulted his 17-year-old girl, and wanted him charged for that. He also said that they feared for their lives every bit Bitz had his hand on his gun. He later sent an electronic mail and swore nether oath with these accusations. Nonetheless, the jury heard audio recordings of the incident and decided confronting him. Agnes had to take care of the family while he was incarcerated.

Glenn Villeneuve, who was function of the bandage from 2013 of a sudden stopped actualization in the show in 2019. The producers renewed his contract for a twelvemonth and filmed him for an episode, and then zippo more was heard from them until he sent them an eastward-mail after v months to ask them about it, and was informed that they had no more plans for him.

He said he was always pushing for stories that didn't fit in with the concept the producers had for him, and then this might have been the reason why they're no longer interested. It seemed that he was hard to work with, and a producer told him that he would have fired him if he could. He in one case told a cameraman while they were upwards on the mountain at nighttime to leave, so a helicopter came to get him.

Capturing the struggles and triumphs of the residents was likewise unsafe for the crew as they sustained injuries and had close calls with the wildlife in the freezing cold.

Some said that the magic happens during post-product, as they made each scene more appealing to the viewers. How the stories were told naturally fell on the producers, editors, crew, and cinematographers, but cracking content also depended on the cast and how they lived their life. "Life Below Cypher" scored eleven Emmy nominations and v wins.