Staying Alive at 50 Below
Yukon Men (2012)
YouTube captions are often inaccurate. The transcript below is verified for accuracy.
Characters
Joey
Stan
Transcript
[Joey]:
A big challenge is just, uh, I guess the cold weather at 50 below and, you know, you gotta do something every day just to get by and it's—
You can't really just sit around and, uh, it's a lot of hard work every day.
Hey dad, what's going on?
Mostly it's just helping my family out.
[Stan]:
—sit it on the ground but sit it on those drums—
[Joey]:
Because you know they definitely have a lot more going than I do. Cuz I got a big family there and I'm the only [left] guy left there.
Everyone else kind of moved on in our family, so gotta help them out a lot.
When it's 50 below like that, it's really important just to have wood.
You gotta go pretty far out of town to where the dry wood is.
And there's not much left in Tanana because everyone—it's pretty picked through.
You gotta chop a tree down, or maybe four or five, and then cut all the branches off and then block it up to into like [four] four foot sections and then you cut that up into smaller sections when you're at your house and then you split that wood.
Then you stack it up and burn it.
Clip Context
Yukon Men is a reality show based in the remote Alaskan village of Tanana, near the Yukon River. The show follows a group of men who make their living by fishing, hunting, raising sled dogs, and logging. This clip details how they try to stay warm in temperatures as low as -50º F (-45.5º C).
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Vocabulary
Read each word out loud.
pretty
/ˈpɹɪti/
adverb
fairly; quite; mostly (can be used to make an adjective less strong)
Example:
My mom bought me a new shirt, but it's pretty ugly and I don't really want to wear it.
sit around
/sɪt əˈraʊnd/
phrasal verb
to spend time doing very little or nothing
Example:
I don't like to sit around all day on my days off, so I usually make a list of tasks to complete.
move on
/muːv ɑn/
phrasal verb
to leave a place, situation, or stage in life and continue to something new
Example:
After talking about our current project, we moved on to suggesting ideas for future projects.
help out
/hɛlp aʊt/
phrasal verb
to help someone
Example:
He often helps his sister out by babysitting her kids.
pick through
/pɪk θruː/
phrasal verb
to search through something carefully, often to take useful or valuable things
Example:
They had to pick through the forest to find dry wood to burn.
get by
/ɡɛt baɪ/
phrasal verb
to survive; to deal with a bad situation; to do something with limited money, time, or resources
Example:
Camping can be difficult, but I manage to get by even with limited equipment.
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Conversation Practice
Working with a tutor? Try asking or answering these questions out loud with them.
Working alone? Try speaking your answers out loud or write them in the lesson discussion below.
1. Could you get by living in temperatures as low as -50º F (-45.5º C)?
2. Have you ever chopped wood before?
3. Do you often help out your family with tasks?
4. Do you prefer to sit around and do nothing on your days off of work, or do you like to stay busy?
Lesson updated:
April 9, 2026
Film and series information sourced from TMDB.
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