Surviving Against the Odds

On one of the Danish Far Oer islands, the about thirty men gather annually for a single harvest, during a six days window, of a rare seasonal delicacy: eggs on steep cliffs of the storm petrel, a risky job which exacted several deaths. In Brazil's Mato Grosso Amazonian rain forest waters, a small tribe's shaman and his retired father preside from the use a poisonous wood to sedate fishes to be caught in huge nets, while evading predators, to nourish the warriors for a religious day-long dance to earn the spirits' favor. In northern Ethiopia's Tigray, isolated orthodox villagers celebrate a birth by joining the parents on a dangerous climb without proper path to a mountain peek-carved chapel. In the Swiss Alps, Europe's highest mountain range, man's exploratory drive creates a whole industry, but also requires frequent helicopter rescues, as in Zermatt near the famous Matterhorn peek.