♪ ♪
[wind whooshing]
♪ ♪
- I'm gonna do this, man.
I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna fight this thing out to the last breath.
[dramatic music]
- OK, game on. [bear growls]
♪ ♪
- [grunts] - I got him.
narrator: In "Alone's" most remote location yet...
- Yes!
narrator: Ten participants set out
to survive at all costs... - [groans]
- I'm gonna stay alive.
- [groans] Ah.
narrator: Battling extreme isolation...
- There is no camera crews. You are really alone.
- It'll eat at you, tear you up.
God, why?
It's a battle. Nobody ever comes out the same.
- Oh, man. - It'd be impossible to.
narrator: And fierce predators.
- It's a big bear. It's right outside my shelter.
- Predators like that damn sure are gonna kill you.
- Please don't rip my face off. [creature shrieks]
He bit the hell out of me.
narrator: They'll endure merciless wind...
- It's been over 60 hours, and it has not let up.
- I can hear the trees falling down around me.
narrator: And bitter cold.
- This whole place just turned into a frozen hell.
narrator: Last one standing...
- It's a moose. Wow.
[laughing] Whoo-hoo!
- No, no.
narrator: Wins.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
♪ ♪
- I'm about to dive into one of the hardest things
that I have ever done.
Northern Saskatchewan, it's very vast,
and it really feels that you are on the edge of the world.
You can yell, but nobody's gonna hear you.
- To win this season, it's gonna take
tremendous amount of mental and physical fortitude.
And my end goal is to survive as long as I can.
Wow.
- There's a lot of black bear in this country,
and they got to fatten up to make it through the winter,
so it's gonna be a competition for food.
- It's a little bit below the Arctic Circle,
and it's gonna be really cold.
- And now, I am all alone.
It's wet. Nothing stops the wind.
It's gonna be brutal.
♪ ♪
- Is that my island?
[laughs]
- Y'all got to get me there now,
I'm telling you.
There's ten people, ten items,
and a one in ten chance to win $500,000.
- It's kind of crazy because you have
to film yourself and survive on your own
right before winter, so there's the opportunity
for a lot to go wrong.
Wow. It got super real right now.
- It's gonna take a lot to be the last man standing.
Freedom! [laughs]
- It's very intense to see the vastness of the landscape.
It's basically an ocean with lots of small islands.
I don't think any of us have experienced
the extreme we're about to get into.
First dip in the lake.
♪ ♪
Water's definitely colder than Maui.
Whoo! Sand in the toes.
I'm right at home. Check this place out.
Looks like quite the bog back here.
Fresh moose.
Could not have asked for more.
Let the safety team and everybody get out of here,
and then we'll get to work.
[engine rumbling]
Oh, [bleep].
[chuckles] Had it zoomed in there.
Sorry, guys. I did not know.
It's, uh...
Yeah, my beach.
Great big bay.
There they go.
[engine rumbling and echoing]
Finally alone.
Man, it's been a lot of work to get here.
Nothing compared to the work
it's gonna be to stay here though.
♪ ♪
Loving Maui life.
I'm a glass artist,
incorporating digitally-etched imagery, but
I was raised in a really primitive environment.
I am the youngest child of Larry and Sherrel Olsen,
who were pioneers in the outdoor survival movement.
They started many schools,
and I worked for all of them since I was very young.
A lot of what I learned from my dad
was from a primitive aspect.
Little mousy comes along.
So I'm not a big game hunter, I'm not a professional angler,
but I am a problem solver.
Being able to think outside the box
and just apply what I have to what I need
is my biggest skill for sure.
Collecting all these barrel cactus spines.
This is my absolute favorite fish hook.
I'm leaving behind my wife, Delia, and my son, Osiris.
My son is a huge motivation to take on this challenge.
I want him to see his dad thrive in the outdoors
and demonstrate my skills to the world,
but there's definitely a lot at risk,
my family reputation, my reputation.
I mean, my dad is a legend, and he has really big shoes.
I'm not trying to fill them, but they're there.
I got it. - I believe in you.
- So, ultimately,
it's a competition with myself.
♪ ♪
Time to explore.
Reindeer Lake.
Oh, yeah.
Look at that.
Bear paw.
♪ ♪
Oh, wow, that's exciting.
♪ ♪
Old human tracks too.
They must be from the safety team.
These bear prints are fresher than those.
I've had several encounters with black bears
on a bunch of expeditions that we've done,
but there's no fear for me.
I am an alpha to them.
I'm super excited they're in my area,
so I'm keeping my eyes and ears open
for that possibility
as I move around and explore my new home.
In my explorations,
I'm looking for firewood caches,
buried caches, game trails, primary and secondary
shelter locations that the route between them
is my hunting and trapping and foraging grounds
so that every step I take has multiple purposes.
What a beautiful launch day.
♪ ♪
Take my shirt off. It's so hot.
♪ ♪
This is the second largest lake in Saskatchewan,
and it is enormous. It's such a vast area.
And the weather is so intense, but it's also really abundant,
and so it's tapping into that abundance mentality
and going after what is here and what resources
you do have is really important in this game.
All right.
♪ ♪
Got it.
That's awesome.
I got ya.
[wingbeats thudding]
It's okay, buddy. It's okay.
There you go.
Use a little trap wire and tie this guy on my belt.
In a survival situation like this,
my approach is that if you have any shot,
take it. It's eventually going to die.
Nature is brutal, and you have to be a little brutal
as well to operate on this level.
Wow.
Off to a good start.
First shot, first kill,
first hour, the first day.
What else you got for me?
♪ ♪
- Super hot day.
I am gonna go for a quick swim.
I mean, check it out.
How beautiful is this?
So I'm just gonna--
I'm gonna take half an hour and just kind of--
just kind of chill out.
Got to enjoy the good moments.
I'm a white whale.
Whew, that's cold.
♪ ♪
Whew!
♪ ♪
Oh, my gosh, I can't believe it.
♪ ♪
Whew!
If it was a weekday, I'd be teaching
in a classroom full of kids.
♪ ♪
Behind me here, I have a cattail swamp.
Lots of different uses in a survival situation.
I'm a high school teacher.
Here's where it all happens.
I teach outdoor education,
social studies, and English.
There's nothing special about me.
I'm not a military survival expert.
I don't own my own outdoor school,
but I've been preparing for this experience
since I was a kid.
And I'm a guy that loves being outside...
Ooh! Hey!
Has a passion for bow hunting.
I've competed quite a bit in archery.
I really love fishing, I'm strong-willed,
and I love bushcraft.
We have a camp mallet, or cougar bonker.
When I'm in the bush alone,
I feel like my senses just ignite,
and I feel like I belong.
Just beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous.
I have a bit of a home-court advantage.
I've lived in areas of Canada
that are very similar to northern Saskatchewan.
Delicious. This is really--oh.
My wife and my kids support me
and are behind me 100%.
And the $500,000, I'd definitely put to good use
to help out my kids through their education.
- Cheers, hon. - Cheers, Dad.
- Cheers to "Alone." - Whoo!
- Being on "Alone" is the ultimate
adventure challenge,
and it's gonna test the skills that I teach.
Yes!
I'm going in with that mindset of it's not gonna be easy,
and I'm expecting hardship,
but I'm actually looking forward to see
how far I can push that suffering.
I'm hoping to be the first teacher to win.
♪ ♪
I'm gonna work on a fishing plug.
I'm gonna use wet wood to help it--
get it under the water a bit better.
♪ ♪
So about there.
I want to fish on day one because I know
that in order to move ahead in the game,
I need to procure as much food as possible,
and I'm usually quite successful at fishing.
♪ ♪
My fishing strategy is gonna be trial-and-error.
I've got snare wire.
I've got parachute cord of multiple different colors
that I chose on purpose to make fishing lures,
and I'm just gonna adjust based on their success.
It actually looks pretty good.
That'll catch a pike for sure.
I like it a lot.
♪ ♪
This lake holds a lot of different species,
a lot of really aggressive fish
like pike and lake trout.
The lake trout are gonna be spawning,
so they're gonna be closer to shore
and a little bit easier to catch.
That's not a bad cast.
Wow.
I've prepared myself in quite a few ways
for this experience.
Number one, I gained 40 pounds.
It's the heaviest I've ever been in my life.
And then I prepared mentally
and just having that idea that feelings
of loneliness and frustration
will go away if you can fight through them.
And what's gonna keep me pushing to the end
is knowing that my family's behind me,
and they don't want me to come home
until I'm ready to come home.
Come on, now.
Oh, God!
Holy [bleep], it's huge!
Oh, my God, I'm so excited.
It's a laker, I think.
♪ ♪
Oh, my God!
♪ ♪
Yeah, that's a big laker.
[laughs] Yes!
♪ ♪
OK, I got to get you up here more.
Holy shiz-nickels.
Look at that thing.
Thank you for your life.
I'm lucky that I got him in on a handline.
♪ ♪
Let's clean this guy.
In this lake, it's not uncommon to get
lake trout up to 40 pounds.
But you have to be careful because without something
like a rod to help take the stress off the line,
it could be difficult to handline
a big fish in like that.
Oh, my God, look at all this roe.
I'm gonna have to eat that roe tonight.
Can't waste it.
I'm just not ready to eat that raw.
[laughs] I'm gonna have to cook it
because I don't really like the taste of fish eggs.
My love of the land started in grade two
when my family moved to the West Kootenays
and my father instilled a love of fishing and hunting.
Holy moly.
That's a big meal right there.
But he passed away of cancer 2013.
He was 72 years old, but it was sudden.
He was, like, in really good shape,
mountain bike club, whatnot,
but without my dad,
I wouldn't have these passions.
And I'll be thinking about him a lot out here.
He'll be someone who gives me strength
when I'm feeling down.
Oh, wish me luck, guys.
I'm not feeling it.
I'm not feeling it right now, but I'm gonna do her.
I'm super thankful I have this.
It looks [bleep] disgusting,
but it's a soup of fish eggs.
I like sushi, but I avoid the egg.
I understand how important fish are
for long-term survival.
Game like rabbits and grouse are great for the short-term,
but past seasons have proven that it's tough
to go long-term without that fat.
Maybe I should have just slipped them down raw.
So eating the skin and the roe of every fish I catch
is extremely important.
I have to get used to eating this kind of stuff.
♪ ♪
[coughing and retching]
Yeah, they're not great.
♪ ♪
- Good morning.
Slept pretty good.
The wind shifted around midnight or so,
blowing all that smoke and ash right at my bed all night.
Ended up with these holes.
Spark burns.
Ah, smoke's just going right back in the forest,
letting all them moose know that I'm here.
It's crazy how windy it is at my beach.
This is definitely not my final shelter location.
I've just got to find the right spot.
It's gonna be a busy day.
♪ ♪
You always fill your belly basket first,
that's what my dad said.
And so my strategy is food procurement,
is 100% my focus.
And until that's done, I don't need good shelter.
♪ ♪
It's so important in survival to keep your energy up,
to not miss a day of food.
I've slept in amazingly uncomfortable situations
and very inadequate shelters through storms,
but you survive that.
What you don't survive is starvation.
♪ ♪
Get them berries in my belly.
There's definitely big-game trails
that are highly used that I've found
in my exploration here,
but putting a lot of calories into the pursuance
of big game is a gamble.
Your best chances of big game
is just happening across each other.
♪ ♪
Oh, wild edible. That's as good as it gets.
And berry picking is a really good opportunity
for still hunting because you're just being super quiet,
head down, ears up.
And any little thing that I hear,
I'll go pursue it.
♪ ♪
Wow.
I just saw a black bear heading across there.
There it is right there.
♪ ♪
It's cruising.
♪ ♪
Damn, I can't believe I missed that.
Oh, man, you're giving me another shot?
For real?
♪ ♪
[bear grunts]
[bleep]. [sighs]
I can't believe I missed both times.
You can't hit a shot you don't take though.
♪ ♪
The significance of a big-game kill
in this situation is monumental.
There are a lot of very experienced
big-game hunters in this season.
Found one arrow, one that I shot low.
And from the sign that I see on my land,
the chances of someone getting big game
are very high, so that definitely
needs to be a big part of strategy to go for the win.
I think that's one arrow down.
At least it was taking a shot at a bear,
not a freaking squirrel or something.
♪ ♪
- All right.
My glasses, boy, I really got to watch this glasses, man.
I'm gonna lose this bugger if I don't watch out.
So here it is.
Got my shelter, the hard part done.
Made a tent structure, hole's here.
And, uh, I think that's a good place for a bed.
♪ ♪
No time to waste.
Never know when it's gonna rain
or what kind of weather you're gonna get
in this country.
Guess I'll start laying them down.
Got a lot of moss.
It's wet moss, so I need a lot of those.
All right, start out on the top end,
kind of like shindling,
and then start working my way down.
♪ ♪
My dad taught me how to do this when I was about 13, I think.
We went to a trapping cabin,
and I never had a mattress or a mat.
I just had to put spruce boughs down.
That's what I slept on.
I come from a unique place.
I'm half Koyukon Athabascan, but we call ourselves Dinaa.
That's just the people.
There's something. Oh, yeah, beaver.
I was born in a cabin.
My dad and my mom raised 14 kids out in the woods.
Never saw another community till I was 15.
When other people were going to school,
I was hunting and trapping.
Found a porcupine den. There it is.
I'm gonna get it. I just clubbed it.
Coming from a big fishing family,
I know the value of a fishnet.
If you had a ball of twine, you can survive.
Our soul food is salmon,
but we got cow moose in the winter and bear meat.
That's our best food.
There was a grizzly out,
and they get hungry in the winter.
All right, I'm gonna put it together.
Currently, I own an air charter business.
It's a one-man show. I'm the pilot.
I'm the mechanic.
And I fly all over the state of Alaska.
I'm taking this adventure on for that half million dollars
so I can buy a bigger airplane and provide
better service to my village.
There you go. That is a war club.
I'm gonna miss my kids, my grandkids,
but they understand that I'm a ninja in the woods.
I was born into this, and I want to be
the last one out for them.
♪ ♪
There's the bed.
Home sweet home.
So back to business, make a fishing rod.
♪ ♪
My survival philosophy is first,
shelter for the night,
so you can sleep and stay warm,
then food so you can stay alive.
Not the prettiest, but hopefully it works.
Clay Hayes, I hope you aren't, like,
laughing at me right now.
Then, later on with the calories coming in,
my long-term shelter.
♪ ♪
Careful with my axe. Don't want to lose it.
♪ ♪
I just heard something big, I think.
♪ ♪
Over here.
♪ ♪
Something making a bed here.
Just a bunch of sticks.
And it's not a beaver.
I think there's a bear around here.
♪ ♪
Something's been up here.
♪ ♪
Something is in the water.
♪ ♪
There it is.
♪ ♪
OK.
But I ain't getting over there without a boat.
All this area is shallow.
If there was deeper water,
I would just cast straight out.
Guess I'm going boating earlier than I thought.
♪ ♪
- [laughs] I can't even believe this.
I was scouting for a place
to put up my shelter for the night,
and I just found this magnificent bed
right here. Look at this.
I think you could, like, jump on this.
Isn't that crazy?
It looks like a cotton mattress.
Mattress moss. [laughs]
That's--it's a new name. It's mattress moss.
[laughs]
I'm gonna be so comfortable tonight.
This is so cool.
Well, I think I'm gonna go gather my tarp
and put up a shelter tonight.
This is crazy.
Six months ago, I couldn't get up off the ground.
Come a long way.
I live this way all the time.
My family homesteaded.
We have stories beyond stories of living
out in the wilderness and surviving off the land.
I was raised that way. I was taught that way.
Got it.
My playground was the mountains.
The trees were my toys.
I grew up on the back of a horse.
I was feral and free my entire life.
And we have fire.
I'm a really good hunter and a really good tracker.
We have a cow moose and a baby moose,
which is actually potentially really dangerous.
I can identify plants like no other.
Pine needles.
I chew on it a little bit just to break the oils up.
You want the oils to come out.
I did teach school, teaching special education.
And after I had my fifth child,
I retired from teaching
and became a cattle rancher and was in a farming accident.
I was thrown from a piece of farming equipment,
and I flew about 30 feet in the air
and severed every single thing in my entire leg.
The recovery process took a long time.
I came to a dark place where I thought my life was over with.
Something in me told me to start fighting,
and I did, and I got back up and I started fighting,
and I fought.
It took me three years to be able to get to the point
to where I could actually get up and start
taking care of myself again.
Some people might not see this as a skill,
but to me, my biggest skill is my stubbornness.
Look at that, baby.
I fight tooth and nail to the death
for everything I do.
There you are.
Bye, guys. Love you guys.
- Bye, Mom. - Bye, Mom.
I love you.
- I plan on being out here longer than anybody else.
I don't quit anything.
♪ ♪
Now, everybody at home, I know that you're saying,
"You're gonna get a hole in your tarp,
You're gonna get a hole in your tarp."
But I plan on only having this tarp long enough
to get me a cabin built.
♪ ♪
I'm planning on being here all the way till Christmas.
I can only imagine that negative,
60 degree below weather.
There's no way anybody could live
long-term in something like that
without good shelter.
This is, like, definitely a good spot
for my permanent shelter.
It's protected from the elements,
from the weather coming off of the lake.
There is no dead trees that could fall on me.
There are several places where there's firewood.
And I made sure that my shelter
isn't in a highway for animals.
I will always have to be vigilant,
but bears are hungry this time of year.
So no matter where I go, I'm gonna have
a chance encounter with a bear.
I've got my shelter pretty much set up,
and I used the paracord to string a line.
And when I get ready to go to bed,
I can just pull this in and pull it close
and have it completely enclosed.
It'll stay up for at least a couple of days
till I can get a cabin built.
♪ ♪
- This owl won't stop circling.
Look at him.
He's been circling and circling and circling.
There he is.
He's very interested in me. Here he comes.
Look.
Owls are-- owls are so reclusive.
Jeez.
It's pretty trippy, pretty trippy.
There he is.
He will not go away.
This is gonna be hard for me to talk about, but...
[sighs]
when my dad died...
♪ ♪
My brothers and I had really weird experiences
with, uh, the owls,
some real close encounters,
all very close to the same time.
I'm not an overly spiritual person like that,
but right before I left, my mom goes--
ooh--my mom goes,
"Al...
wait for your dad to show up."
♪ ♪
I don't totally believe it.
Don't get me wrong, but it just--
my mom called it and it reminds me of my dad.
That's for sure.
Oh. Bye.
Hope to see you again, my friend.
♪ ♪
Pretty cool experience.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Good morning.
My bed's better.
I slept a little better.
Um, last night, looked like-- it cleared.
It was clouding up last night, but looks like it cleared,
so that's good.
Well, today, I'm gonna make a raft.
♪ ♪
My philosophy on food procurement
in this area is fish first, moose second.
If I get small game, good, but I'm not gonna
go sneaking around the woods.
♪ ♪
I don't have a lot of body fat to spend,
and the only way I'm gonna get it
is with quite a bit of fish.
I'm getting hungry.
As far as fishing spots, the beach on the water
itself is too gravelly to cast out of
or to put a net, so the only way
I can get around this is with a raft.
♪ ♪
All right, so I got my pile of logs here.
Tie her up right now.
This is, uh, 32,000 aircraft safety wire.
When I was growing up, in the springtime,
back of our house, it flooded in the back
in the spring up close to the river,
way up there.
We'd float around on these rafts.
We were just kids. We made them.
Each of us had our own little raft,
floating around.
♪ ♪
Watching this show beforehand, for me to see people
bring tarp out as one of their ten items
to make a watercraft when I grew up as a child
making rafts, it surprised me.
That's what I thought all young boys did.
Didn't we all want to be Tom Sawyer, you know,
or Huckleberry Finn.
All right, I think this thing is done.
I got my gators on just in case
it goes over my boot top.
OK, now it's floating.
Now I will see if it'll stay floating.
♪ ♪
OK, here goes.
♪ ♪
Don't fall in.
I don't want to get wet.
I sure like being dry right now.
♪ ♪
So it feels good.
I'm gonna go look the area over.
♪ ♪
Bon voyage.
♪ ♪
OK, I'm gonna find a place to set a net.
The net is a survival tool, has always been.
My mom stressed it to us.
It's low-calorie expenditure,
and it will allow me to procure food
while I am building my permanent shelter.
♪ ♪
This is where the otters were fishing.
Not quite deep enough, but maybe if I go out here.
Yeah, deep here. Nice and deep here.
Nice rocky bottom.
So there's where I'm gonna sit my net, right there.
All right, I think that's enough.
Don't overdo it.
But I feel really good about this.
Goodness.
There's another area just right over here.
This is a real good fishing spot.
All right.
Now I know where to cast.
Tomorrow, I am going to try to get some fish.
♪ ♪
My dad, he moved to Alaska because he wanted to.
And I was born into that life that he chose.
So out of necessity, I did a lot of crazy stuff.
I'm glad for that.
♪ ♪
- OK, it's time to go hunting.
I'm gonna try this again.
♪ ♪
Oh, look at that, look at that.
See that right there? That's a moose track.
Good, good, good, good, good.
It's a good sign. It's got me feeling good.
I'm hoping that I can do some calling.
Lord, I hope we get a moose.
I've been a professional hunter
for better than half my life,
and so I'm very proficient in patterning animals
and tracking them,
but this place is alien to me.
The ground here is alive.
It's a rock bed with moss on top of it,
and so it doesn't leave tracks the way topsoil would.
♪ ♪
You can see where the moose has been
eating on these willow trees.
You have to actually follow where they've eaten,
and they don't eat every step, so you have to jump
patch to patch to patch.
Look at that rub.
That's a moose.
But I'm a big game hunter.
I love to pursue,
and so I feel very, very confident.
[foliage rustling]
I hate making all this noise.
♪ ♪
I don't see my potential spot and stalk hunting.
Instead, let me sit over a trail,
wait for a bear, maybe a moose to come through.
♪ ♪
I'm sitting over my rub.
It's fresh.
I mean, he made that rub not even a couple of days ago.
♪ ♪
[imitating moose call]
[foliage rustling]
♪ ♪
Something's coming.
♪ ♪
[sighs] [bleep].
♪ ♪
All right.
I'm on my way down here to get some blueberries.
I really want some meat.
Berries are nice, but meat is nicer.
♪ ♪
Those are--that's fine.
Look at these blueberries, tons of them.
Yeah, my little boy,
he eats his blueberries every morning.
Every morning.
I like them all right.
It's a good thing I do because that's about
all I'm eating right now.
But if my little boy was here right now,
he'd be going crazy.
I started hunting before I could even
really remember learning how to hunt.
♪ ♪
I love the outdoors,
and I love the animals because not only
do they literally feed my family,
they also pay my bills.
The deeper these tracks are, the more open they look,
obviously the fresher they're gonna be.
I've guided anything that you can legally hunt
in the Rocky Mountains for over ten years.
Good lord, what a beautiful bull.
I take anybody who wants to see the deep, dark woods
where other people don't get to go.
I've been blessed to be able to make hunting my profession,
but it keeps me away from my family quite a bit.
I live in a cabin with my wife and my son.
I'm definitely gonna miss him like crazy.
He's two years old. He's growing.
He's different every day,
but I have confidence going into it
because I'm gone for about three months of the year,
and I know what it's like to miss
all the important things at home and get back
and know that they're still there.
- Yay!
- If I won the half a million dollars,
I would really like to start a horse camp for children
with learning disabilities
and put them on little pack trips
and give them a sense of responsibility
and get them outdoors.
I think maybe that's something that's lost nowadays.
Going into this competition, I didn't gain any weight
because I do not believe
this is a starving competition.
So I'm gonna hunt as hard as I can,
fish as hard as I can.
I love you.
And I feel extremely confident I'll come out successful.
♪ ♪
A grouse just landed in that tree.
♪ ♪
Got him.
[wingbeats thudding]
Ah, that's a good shot right there.
Shot his head smooth off.
We're on the scoreboard.
[laughs]
So that's good.
That's a win. We eat good tonight.
♪ ♪
I got a fire.
Getting my grouse cooked up.
♪ ♪
It'll be a nice night here on the lake.
Would like to be eating caribou right now,
but that's the way things go.
♪ ♪
Bad things are gonna happen.
That's an unfortunate fact of life,
but you can't let them take away from the good.
My wife was pregnant when I started this endeavor,
with another child,
and just a few days out from being dropped,
she miscarried.
So she's very sick right now.
And I feel guilty that I'm not home,
but this is a chance for me to change
her life as well as mine.
You know, you have to accept the things
that are hard in life that you can't change
and move forward
because the second that you get down,
you're out of the fight,
and my wife would be so upset with me if I quit.
I mean, so upset with me because that's who she is.
And she would never let me quit for her.
Oh, that looks so good.
[blows]
Mmm. [laughs quietly]
Oh, baby. Mmm, mmm.
♪ ♪
- [grunts] Yeah.
Whoo!
All right, let's go get water.
Yo.
Finally braided my hair, little braids.
It's pretty funky-looking.
All right. Here we go.
Off to go get water.
♪ ♪
Oh, look at-- blueberry.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
I'm constantly eating between the berries
and the plant life and the reindeer moss.
I'm full all the time. I'm never hungry.
It's like eating salad.
It may not be a lot of calories,
but it's enough to sustain me.
♪ ♪
When I had my accident, I was bedridden
and I gained 70 pounds, but I think
it will allow me to go longer.
Here we go.
Right now, my first priority is my shelter,
that's number one above food, above everything else.
♪ ♪
I'm gonna have to take some layers off.
Today, I'm gonna start on my cabin.
♪ ♪
The clouds went away.
It looks like it might turn out to be a good day.
Here we go.
My intention is to build a log cabin
because logs can hold a lot of heat.
I need to be able to stand up in it,
I need to be able to move around in it
because I know that I will thrive
out here if I'm comfortable.
♪ ♪
After my shelter is done,
then I'll go hunting and fishing.
♪ ♪
The first four logs are the most important
when you're setting a cabin because they're
what's going to determine whether it stands.
♪ ♪
My dad was a fence builder
and a logger and a cowboy.
He pretty much taught me everything I know.
When I was growing up, we would spend six months
out of the year in the wilderness
building fences or packing.
We would use our saddle for a pillow
and our saddle blankets as a blanket.
♪ ♪
He made me strong. He made me so strong.
And that's how it's done. [chuckles]
Out here, it's gonna take a lot of grit
to do what the ten of us are doing.
I know I can do it.
♪ ♪
Now to put the net out.
Wonder how long this raft will float
before it gets waterlogged.
It's got pretty good flotation, so even if it does...
♪ ♪
It should be good for a while.
I've got my line ready.
Try throwing it overboard, I guess.
Let me see.
OK, I think I'll have to turn this board this way.
♪ ♪
Right there.
Just start throwing this overboard.
♪ ♪
Boy, this is pretty cool [bleep]
if I wasn't so hungry.
♪ ♪
[grunts]
♪ ♪
OK, maybe that fits.
Let it go. OK.
Come on. Come on.
♪ ♪
There you go.
I'm going back to shore.
Hopefully that works.
♪ ♪
All right, I'm just heading out.
Gonna go blaze my trail to the fishing spot.
♪ ♪
Last night, I was remembering when my mom put a net in.
It was one of my earliest memories.
Head downhill, towards the lake.
We were on high ground because my dad
was worried about flooding.
We had a dog team. We had a tent.
That was it.
I'm at the beach, but...
I got to walk a little farther.
♪ ♪
My mom made a net to catch some fish on a little creek,
and all she caught was one pike,
and we're all hungry,
and we're ready to eat, and Dad said,
"Well, shouldn't we say grace or something?"
OK, made it.
My mom said, "Thank you, God,
for this one effing little fish."
Here it goes.
♪ ♪
It works.
Next day, they went to check the net,
and there's a whole bunch of fish,
so God must have a sense of humor.
♪ ♪
[humming melody]
Oh! A bite.
Come on.
Oh, oh, I got one.
♪ ♪
I'm trying to get you up here now, buddy.
You're doing good.
There you go.
Thank you.
I'm just gonna club you now,
send you to the happy fishing ground.
All right, well, I got one, folks.
♪ ♪
This fish, it's just such a blessing.
It's got eggs.
Yummy, yummy. Here goes, first meal.
♪ ♪
Mmm, mmm.
OK, that's good enough for now.
It just picked my spirits up.
OK, checking the net before it gets too dark.
Fish is on the fire.
I feel like I can expend energy now.
I even feel better-- I ate that eggs,
and I feel normal now.
But now that I have food, I can work hard.
Oh, I caught one.
I guess when it rains, it pours.
No laying around tonight.
♪ ♪
Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey.
Grab it by the eyes.
You don't want to grab a pike by the gills
unless you got gloves on.
It got teeth, these pike.
Whoo-hoo.
Went from nothing to two fish.
♪ ♪
To start from scratch with an axe, a knife, a saw,
and some p-cord and actually make a rod,
the fishnet, the raft, and be able
to get food out of the water
is just such a satisfactory feeling.
Mmm, mmm, mmm.
♪ ♪
- There's all them bastard ducks again.
Look at all that food swimming out there.
But as you can see, I am here and hungry,
and the ducks are over there.
I sure wish they'd get somewhere
where I can shoot at them.
[sighs] Let's go hunting.
♪ ♪
Just easing my rhythm.
♪ ♪
This is really good bear habitat.
I've eaten all the grouse.
I chowed that sucker down, so better start producing.
♪ ♪
There's a good heavy trail going through this swamp.
I've always been in love with the outdoors.
I never wanted to pay attention in school.
I was always too rambunctious and all that.
And my mama just kicked me outside, you know?
I'm very thankful for that.
I think a lot of kids just need that chance, you know?
Oh, boy.
The ground out here just swallows you.
♪ ♪
I hope my little boy enjoys being out in the wilderness.
I hope he wants to carry on this sort of lifestyle
and eventually teach his own children these skills
that I'll teach him, you know?
What the [bleep]?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no. What the [bleep]?
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
♪ ♪
[sighs]
♪ ♪
My quiver came off my bow.
I just...
[bleep].
♪ ♪
That's all my arrows.
♪ ♪
[bleep] damn it.
[sighs]
I've got to find it. I got to find it.
♪ ♪
I don't know how it came off.
♪ ♪
[bleep] Oh, [bleep] damn it.
♪ ♪
I got to find that freaking quiver.
♪ ♪
[bleep]
Chance of a lifetime, half a million dollars.
[bleep] cry right now.
I could [bleep] cry right now.
I couldn't kill a bear or a moose if I found one now.
I couldn't kill one if I [bleep] found it.
♪ ♪
This stuff is just--
it's miserable.
I don't know.
It must have got hung up in the brush.
♪ ♪
[grunts]
♪ ♪
I've got no arrows.
[sighs]
It's my own fault putting all my arrows
in my quiver.
I never thought about losing the arrows.
I just thought about not having them.
I can't believe it.
I can't believe I did that.
♪ ♪
Oh, I can't believe it. [groans]
♪ ♪
It's the biggest mistake of my life, hands down.
♪ ♪
They're just gone,
and I don't know what I'm gonna do.
I don't have the fat to starve it out.
♪ ♪
I don't see--
I don't see myself making it much longer.
At the end of the day, though...
No matter what...
I can't let this break me.
♪ ♪
This is when you really have to dig deep.
♪ ♪
I'm getting very deep inside myself right now.
I have to find the willpower to move forward.
♪ ♪
I guess in the scheme of things,
I've got a warm fire. I have a dry shelter.
♪ ♪
Got a beautiful little boy at home
and a wonderful wife waiting on me.
♪ ♪
I can't let those people down.
♪ ♪
My little boy, he'll watch this.
If I give up, he's gonna know
it's OK to give up.
And it ain't OK to give up,
even when you're down and out,
even when you don't think there's a chance,
don't give up.
♪ ♪
Don't give up.