[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I can’t wait to have this place
try and break me.
narrator: For the first time on "Alone,"
ten participants fight to survive
in the hunting ground
of the world’s largest land predator.
- Oh, my God, where’d he go?
Those are bear.
- I heard a big animal.
- Hey, bear. - Oh, no. [bleep].
- Sometimes you eat the bear...
- [groans]
- Sometimes the bear eats you.
narrator: Battling merciless conditions.
- This is some hardcore bushwhacking.
- Why does it have to be such a struggle every night?
[thud] - I hit it. I hit it. I hit it.
- I feel more alive every day I’m out here.
- [sighs]
- Here comes the rain again.
- Labrador,
you’re not gonna make it easy for us, are you?
narrator: In complete isolation.
- The most dangerous thing out here is myself.
- Look at that!
- The cold ground is just
pulling all the warmth from me.
- How many days can this go on?
- Very, very hungry.
- I feel like I’m hitting a wall.
narrator: Last one standing wins.
- Only gonna get harder the longer you stay out here.
♪ ♪
[person vocalizing]
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- We’re in the middle of nowhere.
Labrador is an extreme environment.
The isolation and that constant stress
of being in some degree of danger at all times
is undoubtedly gonna be one of the most
difficult challenges that I’ve ever faced in my life.
- And there goes our last connection
to the outside world.
This is living life, amplified.
- Labrador is a very cold and wet environment.
Avoiding frostbite and hypothermia
is going to be a big challenge.
- The weather is a serious threat,
and if people get wet and are not taking care of themselves,
that’s deadly.
We are our own worst enemy.
- We are entering a very wild area.
Wolves, coyotes, fox, black bears.
But the top predator are polar bears.
- Polar bears spend their time stalking prey,
which is not what most bears do.
They’re not omnivores.
They don’t mess around with berries.
They kill stuff. That’s what they do.
- This feels like that moment on a blind date
where you see them for the first time...
and you just kind of fall in love.
[dramatic music]
- Last one standing
wins $500,000.
There’s many, many strong participants here.
Anyone could win.
- It’s pretty simple.
No holds barred, 10 items,
as long as you can go completely alone.
Whatever we get on our cameras
is what’s gonna tell our story.
[helicopter blades thrumming]
[thuds]
- [bleep]!
There they go.
Holy shamoly.
[sighs]
I’m here.
Oh, my gosh, this place is incredible.
[breathes deeply]
First thing I’m gonna do, like I said,
is take a big breath.
[breathes deeply]
[soft music]
♪ ♪
This is so amazing.
Look, the river’s right there, the big river.
But not much time to enjoy this.
I gotta find a place to put up the tarp just for tonight.
I’m not a weekend warrior of the primitive skills.
I’ve got 50 years of preparing to do this kind of thing.
I’m living that lifestyle in my home life.
Brain tanning is my favorite of the primitive skills.
It really gives the animal a second life.
[wooshes, growls]
My love is to just be in the wilderness.
I live in a yurt where I’m not connected to anything.
I collect my own rainwater.
My only source of heat is firewood.
Sometimes in the winter, I have to snowshoe in
and ski back out.
Ooh!
Gotta do a town run.
I forage for my foods,
I make my own medicines,
and I do my own hunting.
Got a bunny!
Aww, little guy.
[kisses]
I’m a primitive skills instructor.
Nice!
Ouch.
And we have fire.
If I win half a million dollars,
I want to build a wilderness school
so that I would have a place
to do my own classes and retreats,
and so this money would help me start
living my dreams of what I really want
to be doing for the rest of my life.
Ah!
I have my boyfriend,
and he’s a sweet man.
both: Bye, honey.
- [laughs] I’ll miss ya.
My whole family is super excited.
I know they’re at home supporting me,
and I’m really gonna be thinking about them.
Okay, so this is what I’m looking at.
That, my dear, is a little storm coming in.
I need to get some tinder and get it in my pocket
so it’s nice and dry
and put up the tarp,
because that’s gonna be a downpour.
I don’t have a lot of time.
[soft music]
The weather is going to be
all over the map.
It’s windy, constantly rainy,
and the humidity level’s so high
that everything’s wet.
Even when it’s sunny, the ground is like a sponge,
so starting a fire is going to be difficult.
Here’s some nice tinder.
This is dead fireweed.
♪ ♪
There’s a lot of downed debris. Great firewood.
♪ ♪
Wind’s picking up.
I’m gonna go grab my tarp
and kind of find a flat place
to hunker down and do something quick.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
Well, I’m sweating, losing calories.
That storm is coming in.
I’m gonna make a little bungalow right here.
It’s just big enough to sleep in,
and then I’ll be okay even if I have to stay here the night.
Hopefully, this is just a afternoon storm.
♪ ♪
I don’t feel old,
but you look at the numbers...
[laughs]
I’m in my 50s,
and I’m the second oldest participant
that’s ever been on this show.
Here comes the first couple of drops, just in time.
But I have to be realistic with myself.
Keeping my energy level up is a very big concern of mine,
and I’m not as strong as I used to be.
So I’m trying to use my wisdom to work smarter, not harder.
Well, here’s my first cute little ramshackle.
That makes me feel better.
Okay, let’s go figure out my next move.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Whoo!
Sweet site, super stocky.
Oh, my God, I am in bear heaven here.
Tons of good, thick cover, and then some open bogs.
I’m gonna keep that bow with me at all times.
It could happen any moment here.
Fishing looks like it’ll be interesting.
A lot of slow water here.
So...so far, so good.
[sighs]
I think we’re gonna go take a little walk around
and just see where I might set up,
in case some weather comes through.
So let’s go. We got a nice beach over here.
Let’s see what we can find. Here we are.
Foreign land, but it feels like home, really.
♪ ♪
I’m gonna go take a couple walkabouts with these guys.
I’m a hunting and pack goat adventure guide.
[gunshot]
I’ve lived my whole life
in the Rocky Mountains,
and I’m totally at peace in the woods.
♪ ♪
I’ve been a hunting guide
since I was right out of college.
My greatest skill is I’ve got
over 30 years of traditional bow hunting.
I’m not one to sit in camp
and hope I’m gonna find the caribou.
Big game is one of my specialties.
[gunshot]
I am a experienced bear hunter.
I know when you make the shot, it has to count.
You can load this thing up.
You can make it big enough to kill anything.
Like this. ♪ Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh ♪
♪ ♪
It’s a winner.
Being cold and hungry,
and then being alone,
it’s obviously a mental toughness game,
but I have a warrior spirit.
I just am relentless.
I’ve done Division I sports,
I’ve been a world champion in weightlifting,
I’ve raced motocross--
everything to just test myself.
♪ ♪
I know I’m gonna miss my young daughter and my wife.
They are so important to me.
But when I win this show,
I’ll just be so excited to share this with them
that I feel like the trade-off will be awesome.
Records are meant to be broken,
and I’m coming here to break the record.
I want to go 102 days, and I know I will.
♪ ♪
[sighs]
The weather here changes really fast,
and that storm’s coming out of the west.
The experience of being dropped off
in the middle of nowhere
is just like nothing you could ever imagine.
You know you want to be there, but you’re also realizing
in the back of your head, a warning light telling you,
"You have no food.
You have no idea what you’re doing."
♪ ♪
And yet you’re very excited
to figure out this puzzle.
♪ ♪
We’ll slip into the forest here
and see if we can find a decent spot
to get out of the wind for the night,
because otherwise, I’m gonna get hammered here.
♪ ♪
You got some bunchberries.
Good edible, not super sweet or anything.
Lots of that around, which is awesome.
I gotta get a tarp up here before dark.
I’m just having way too much fun
to worry about sitting under a tarp.
[tense music]
Natives that I’ve studied didn’t spend so much time
on shelter until they had food.
And in my case, a tarp over my head in a half an hour
is a fine shelter for a long time.
I’m looking for fish, bears, rabbits,
edibles for at least my first 30 days
before I even start building a shelter.
I think we’re gonna make a little stew.
I’m pretty stoked about that,
because I’m gonna be eating today.
And--
[animal squeaking]
[whispers] A squirrel.
♪ ♪
Game on.
♪ ♪
[thud]
Ah, [bleep].
We got another shot.
♪ ♪
[thud]
Dead squirrel.
Thank you, Labrador.
Check out the squirrel.
Made a really good shot, right behind the armpit.
I’m super happy with that.
Thank you, little buddy.
This is amazing.
It’s starting to rain.
I got some dinner, or some breakfast.
I think I’m gonna go worry about a little shelter.
I got sidetracked.
Let’s go grab our main pack.
It’s gonna start dropping here.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
This is wild.
It came up a lot faster than I’ve anticipated.
♪ ♪
[bleep] absolutely hammering right here.
[thunder booms]
♪ ♪
Are you [bleep] kidding me?
♪ ♪
Should’ve got a shelter going.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[rain pattering]
Oh, my God.
♪ ♪
Mother[bleep].
♪ ♪
Well...
♪ ♪
Our beautiful, sunny day went away.
Got a little careless there, I made some mistakes,
and you get punished, especially out here.
There’s a good spot under a tree right here
I think I just might come back to and tarp out at
and get this camera dry.
So...
Thank you, oh, Labrador, for reminding me
that a sunny day can be a rainy day like that.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I think I just did my first rookie mistake...
And didn’t film any
of the working on this beforehand.
So now I know I’m recording,
I can do just a little bit more
so you have something to cut to.
[soft music]
This is really weird being on camera doing all this.
It really is strange.
I’m not used to speaking all of my thoughts aloud,
what’s going on with me.
Walking stick!
♪ ♪
"Alone" is known as being the survival Olympics,
but, really, we’re not doing survival.
We are doing primitive living.
And that, for me, is why I feel like
my training has prepared me to do this challenge.
Mmm.
So insects, right, they--
yeah, they can be really good for you.
♪ ♪
[slurps]
[laughs]
Ah!
There he goes.
Bye-bye!
So this seems like a good place to set up for the night.
Currently, I work as a survival instructor.
I take groups out
into many different environments or situations
and teach them how to take care of themselves
if something goes wrong, as they always do.
And you gotta step up.
Either somebody else isn’t gonna make it,
or you’re not gonna make it.
And I like that challenge.
I-form! Yay!
I am a former Air Force SERE instructor,
which stands for Survival, Evasion,
Resistance, and Escape,
which means I would teach our military members
how to stay alive in hostile conditions.
We would make cordage.
We would make primitive traps,
bow and drill friction fires.
That’s my primary base for my training.
There, we got some fire.
My main passion is starting my school,
OWLS Skills:
Outdoorsy Women Learning Survival Skills.
And I think it’s really important for women to roar,
for women to step forward and say,
"Listen up. Let’s get this done."
Whoo-hoo!
I am leaving behind an incredible support network.
I have a huge family, and I have so many amazing friends.
And then I’ve got my boyfriend, Blake.
♪ ♪
Kisses.
All right, want to follow me out?
The last person standing is gonna need grit,
and I have the skills and the ability
to stay out there and to win it.
And that’s my goal.
♪ ♪
So thick, wet, pretty dense.
[tense music]
I’m going to first scout the area,
at least get a base idea
of where I’ve been dropped off,
look for an initial shelter site for the night,
and then start seeing where my resources are.
Beautiful little creek going.
This is a log I’m gonna try to cross here.
Jiminy Christmas.
[tense music]
You all see that?
♪ ♪
That, my friends, is a bear print.
♪ ♪
Yeah, that’s fresh.
♪ ♪
That’s not good.
It’s so thick.
I can’t see anything.
That’s just crazy.
This whole day has been.
Find a shelter spot to settle in.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
So I’m gonna set up a shelter here for the night.
♪ ♪
It has been really rough
watching season after season go by
and watching some amazing women get pulled,
so I would love to be the last person standing
and the first woman to win.
There are so few female survivalists
and primitive living instructors.
It’s such a small niche for women still.
I would just really, really love
for women in the world to see that happen.
So I’ll go ahead and put some tree branches,
some boughs down here and make myself
a little rough bed for the night,
and this will be home.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
[branch snaps]
♪ ♪
[growling]
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep].
♪ ♪
[groans]
♪ ♪
[chuffing]
That’s a bear.
I’d say he’s under 100 feet from me right now.
[chuffing]
[bleep].
♪ ♪
It’s basically moving from over here, across,
around, and now coming down from there.
♪ ♪
It’s just trying to get around me.
♪ ♪
I’m just a big obstacle to it.
♪ ♪
It’s probably like, "What the heck is this
in middle of my path?"
♪ ♪
I almost feel sorry for the poor guy,
but I might shoot him later, so...
[laughs]
[soft music]
♪ ♪
[insects buzzing]
♪ ♪
- Man, these black flies are relentless.
Check it out.
Like, just all across here, my chest.
Oh, my God.
Got ’em on my neck, all the way around my neck,
my shoulders.
They just itch!
Ugh!
[growls]
Constantly!
Just sharing some misery with you.
Ah!
[sighs]
It’ll be okay.
Yeah, right.
[laughs]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
I don’t have very long
to find my shelter location.
I know intense weather’s coming,
and I need to be prepared for that.
So I kind of want to get a bigger scope
of what this land has to offer,
and I’m bringing my bow
because there’s gonna be bears.
♪ ♪
This ain’t so bad for-- shelter-wise.
It is on the hill.
We’re up in--oop.
Hi, little bug.
I’m gonna keep looking.
That’s what we’re here for, scouting it out.
[tense music]
It’s very overwhelming for me to figure out where to start.
♪ ♪
The trees are so thick.
They’re intimidating.
And I know there’s bears here.
♪ ♪
And I don’t want to build a shelter
in a exposed area.
♪ ♪
So neither one seem like a good place
for me to build a shelter.
I just entered the woods on the other side of that bog.
It’s getting thicker, but this is the first sign
of animal tracks I’ve seen.
Someone big has gone right through here.
You can see they stepped on this moss.
Maybe that’s the way to the water.
Maybe I’ll follow this animal trail for a little while,
see what takes me there.
I don’t want to make a bad decision
while I’m out here.
I do have a little bit of fear of, like, what if I’m wrong?
I need to be taking my time
and be smart about my actions
and not taking extra risks
that some other people might take.
♪ ♪
There’s a grouse right there.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[thud]
Oh... [flapping]
I’m gonna quietly see if I can flush him out of there...
’Cause I’m hungry.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
He’s right in front of me.
Now he’s in the thick of the brush there.
♪ ♪
I should have stopped about two steps back.
♪ ♪
[flapping]
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- He was right in front of me.
Now he’s in the thick of the brush there.
♪ ♪
[thud]
Oh, I got him.
Oh, my God, I got him.
♪ ♪
I got him.
[laughs] Oh, my God.
♪ ♪
Oh, my gosh.
♪ ♪
I got a grouse! [laughs]
Whoo-hoo!
Second day, I got game!
Whoo-hoo-hoo!
Oh, my God.
I’m so blessed.
[soft music]
Getting a grouse on the second day
is really boosting my confidence of, like,
yes, I can actually do this.
I can get food for myself.
Looking good.
Into the pot.
I see wilderness survival
as not just about the skills.
It’s about the attitude, the positive mind-set,
and being in a place of gratitude and awareness.
My first meal off the land.
Mmm, it’s so good.
♪ ♪
Could definitely use some salt and pepper
and some seasonings.
But...yum, yum!
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[thud]
- [bleep]!
This area here sucks.
[bleep]!
[tense music]
♪ ♪
This is very hard to walk in this terrain.
This is rough.
I’m gonna go up this hill
to see if there’s a spot for my permanent site.
I’m expecting this to be a miserable time.
[thud] Ah!
[bleep]!
It feels weird to say this, but for this experience,
I think it’s good to be negative.
I’m expecting nothing,
so I’m starting at a very miserable place.
That way, if anything that’s good happens,
then I’ll be thankful.
♪ ♪
This is my opportunity to take myself to the limits
of what my body and my mind can do.
The town over there, that’s where I live.
If you go through the ice, you’re dead.
Ever since I was a teenager,
I really wanted to do difficult stuff.
I’ve never been afraid of a challenge.
I was born and raised in Mexico.
As a kid, I was always running around in the forest
trapping rattlesnakes and lizards and scorpions.
It’s a grouse.
That really kickstarted my love for the wilderness.
♪ ♪
Recently, I did a 100-day expedition,
foraging and hunting and trapping
in a very remote part of Manitoba.
I feel tired. I feel weak.
I have a headache.
I have 60 more days to go.
I got super thin very, very fast,
so I truly knew in my bones
what it is to be cold and alone
in a state of starvation.
Minus 27, pretty nice day, actually.
Being alone is very difficult,
and I’m gonna miss my partner, Jennifer.
We’ve done so many adventures together.
She’s everything to me.
I see $500,000 as an opportunity
to buy land and to establish a home
where we can start a family.
I wouldn’t want to be my competitor.
I can win this thing.
I’m not willing to quit.
♪ ♪
Oh, wow, look at that pile.
Bear scat.
[tense music]
It’s fresh.
That’s very good news.
If I can get a bear,
that’s basically the golden ticket.
That’s sustenance for a month.
But bear encounters could be potentially pretty scary.
Hunting with just bows, it’s no joke.
There’s quite a lot of things
that could go wrong very easily.
♪ ♪
Wow, I’m liking this area.
It’s a nice flat spot and dry-ish.
And it’s really open, and I can have lots of sun.
♪ ♪
Ooh, great access to the water.
This is such a good find.
♪ ♪
My strategy for the shelter is very simple.
I’m not gonna waste too much time on it.
I’m basically gonna make a tent,
with the sidewalls using the tarp,
and then I’m gonna block the entrance
and the other side with wood.
I think I’m gonna cut the ridgepole for my shelter.
I don’t feel that I need to insulate the roof.
As long as I have a fire with a chimney
and it’s quite tight, I think I’m gonna be fine.
♪ ♪
To prepare for this challenge, I put 60 pounds on.
I am normally pretty skinny, so I went hard.
I drank one gallon of milk
and 350 milliliters of olive oil every day.
It was an insane effort, but that’s my plan B.
Plan A is get a bear,
but plan B is basically to be able to stay here
with no food around for as long as I can.
[squeaking]
Oh, [bleep], there’s a squirrel.
[chittering]
Hello, squirrel.
[squirrel squeaking]
Squirrel?
Chirp chirp.
Where are you?
[rustling sound]
What was that?
♪ ♪
I heard a big animal.
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep].
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
It’s gone now.
Ai-yi-yi.
Oh, wow.
[bleep] yeah.
♪ ♪
Look at that trash. Lots of cans.
With these, I’m gonna be able to make, like, a chimney
and maybe a stove.
♪ ♪
In survival situations, I improvise a lot.
One done, lots to go.
I wait to see what the land has to offer...
♪ ♪
And I try to adapt.
I basically just go with the flow
and go with my intuition.
That gets the job done.
This is where the wood will be burning.
This is the oxygen intake, and this is
the connector for the chimney.
So here’s the assemble.
[laughs] Looks pretty funny.
All right, I need to fireproof my stovepipe.
I brought these gaiters, and the bottom part
is a fire-resistant material.
So I’m going to sew them together
so that I can surround my chimney.
To me, when you have good boots,
you don’t need gaiters,
so that’s an item that I could sacrifice.
That’s my needle.
What I’m gonna use is a piece of wire,
and I’m going to bend it like that.
For thread, I’m gonna use paracord.
I love stoves.
To me, they’re so interesting--
how they’re designed and the way they work--
so I’m so excited to get this working in my shelter.
Okay, I finished sewing.
And the stove pipe goes in.
Looks good from here.
Now I’m going to surround the whole skeleton with clay.
It’s going to provide some thermal mass,
and it’s going to seal all the holes.
♪ ♪
Most of my life, I have not cared about money.
Water, shelter, food-- those are my priorities.
If I have that, I’m okay.
♪ ♪
But the reality is that for me
to marry and to start a family,
I feel that I need financial stability,
so it would be nice to win and have that security.
♪ ♪
So let’s see what I did today.
I’ve set up the foundation around the stove.
I also did the door.
And that’s the inside.
This is my base for my pot.
Not bad, eh?
Not bad.
I’m gonna call it a day and go to sleep.
♪ ♪
- [humming]
I have no idea if that little beautiful jingle
is copyrighted or not.
It’s just stuck in my head.
It’s been stuck in my head for years,
and I can’t figure out what it’s from.
And, of course, now it’s stuck in my head out here.
[humming]
Okay, it’s only day three, and I’m already going insane.
♪ ♪
It is very snowy here.
It will be hovering right around 34 to 36 degrees.
♪ ♪
I am a glacier guide, specializing in ice climbing
along with bear viewing.
Little bit further this way.
Mountaineering has taught me a lot
about how to problem solve.
Oh, my goodness.
I’ve been charged by black bears,
and I’ve been charged by brown bears.
I live in a place that gets 42 1/2 feet of snow,
so I know how to thrive in the face of hardship.
♪ ♪
I am the youngest person here by almost a decade,
but I had a rough childhood.
Beautiful.
So I had to be an adult from a very young age.
It’s taught me how to think outside the box
to solve problems, and it taught me resilience.
Bam, smack goes the weasel.
I got into bushcraft when I was about 11 years old.
I’ve got the whole hierarchy of survival skill sets--
catching fish, shooting animals,
building shelter.
These will serve me well.
Hey, Pep, don’t want to walk anymore?
My girlfriend, Catherine, my dog,
and I are living away from the trappings of modern life.
- [laughs]
- The whole #vanlife thing,
that’s not camping--
that’s just me living everyday life.
It’s gonna be definitely hard
to be away for a long period of time,
but we learn the most about ourselves
when we’re put into difficult situations.
Be strong. - Mm-hm.
- I know I have what it takes.
I’m ready, and I’m going to win.
♪ ♪
Oh, you see that?
We have bear poop, first sign of bears I’ve seen yet.
♪ ♪
And it’s still wet.
♪ ♪
That either happened right before I got here,
or it happened while I was here.
♪ ♪
That’s within eyesight of my shelter.
♪ ♪
Not ideal.
♪ ♪
Black bear is a top predator in this area,
barring the occasional polar bear,
and there’s never been a season
with polar bears before.
There are only three things on this planet
that actively hunt humans:
polar bears, lions, and other humans.
That’s terrifying, and you have to be insane
to say that doesn’t terrify you
that there are polar bears here.
♪ ♪
Oh, check this out.
♪ ♪
You won’t believe what I just found.
♪ ♪
This is sweet.
♪ ♪
That’s so rad.
♪ ♪
Dude, I bet you this thing still even works.
♪ ♪
Okay, welcome to Jacques trapping school.
To set this, we’re going to put it
on a nice, solid ground.
We’re going to depress the spring here.
We’re going to flip that open, set these jaws...
♪ ♪
And the trigger fits into the foot pan...
♪ ♪
Just like so.
Boom, now we have a set trap.
♪ ♪
Mr. Fox comes walking along.
[humming "March of the Gladiators"]
And then he’s going to come right here,
and, bam, pop goes the weasel.
I’m very excited about this.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- [yawns]
That was not my best night’s sleep.
Um... I ended up hiking up to the rocks
because it might be good access to building materials,
but it got pretty late and could not find a flat spot,
so I ended up sleeping on top of a rock.
And, yeah, didn’t even have time to set up my tarp.
I just wrapped myself up like a burrito,
which is kind of embarrassing.
♪ ♪
So far, I’ve been hiking around,
trying to find a place to build a shelter.
You can see that spot right there
was where I was dropped off.
I went over there, and then down through there.
I’m really burning calories like crazy
and not putting anything back in.
But it’s such a big choice.
So much depends on shelter,
resources, so I’m going to keep exploring,
hopefully find where I can build
my little home here.
I love turkey hunting because they’re so vocal.
They’ll respond to pretty much any sound,
like a good cough.
[coughs]
[turkey gobbling]
I’m Armenian, Egyptian, French, and Russian,
and I’m from generations of diaspora
that have been forced out
because of war, politics, religion.
And so my ethnicity has been
a very large influence in my life
and also in my work.
I spend my 9:00 to 5:00
helping create programs for refugees,
but I have a background in traditional bow hunting.
And just growing up in Utah, you get
a lot of time out in the backcountry,
hunting deer, fishing, living off the land,
and I got to go on two amazing bison hunts last year.
So I got the poles up for the lean-to.
In a survival situation,
without calories, without loved ones,
mentally, physically, it’s going to be draining,
but I think survival comes from desperation.
I love challenge because I don’t panic.
I just focus on building relationships
with my surroundings.
I did some lashings
at the dead trunk and the living trunk.
It’s pretty secure.
I could jump up and down, and it’s not going to move.
I’m leaving behind my wife and my adorable dog, Enzo.
It’s gonna be long and hard but 100 days--
you know, it’s a blink of an eye in a lifetime.
- Bring me home a bear.
- I am ready for this.
- Bye. - See you later.
- Goodbye. - Good luck.
- Love you.
- I’m going out there,
and I’m going to be the last one standing.
♪ ♪
Trying to walk through this thick of brush
with all this stuff is just wearing me down,
and these flies are just buzzing all around.
I’m wearing this neck gaiter to try and get the flies from--
to stop them from biting me.
But I don’t think it’s working.
They are vicious.
♪ ♪
This is a really harsh, elemental environment.
An injury could be fatal, and I could die out here.
♪ ♪
But I also know that the risk element of it
just feels like an opportunity to really push the conceptions
of where I think my limits are.
I’m finding sheer cliffs
where it’s too steep to build a shelter on.
I’m finding muskegs.
I’m finding bogs.
Everywhere I step,
my foot sinks an inch in to water.
I’m looking for the right resources
for building a shelter,
and I need proximity to a food source
and to fresh water.
♪ ♪
I’m excited that I found a good spot,
but as I’m expending calories,
I need to be putting them back in.
That is the number-one challenge
for me.
♪ ♪
I just have to trust that it’s the right site for me
and I’ll find what I need here.
♪ ♪
Polar bear do tend to stick to the coast.
♪ ♪
- Can you hear it?
[growling noise]
The growling?
♪ ♪
First stomach growls of the "Alone" experience.
I think it’s gonna be the first of many.
I ate so much food
leading up to this journey,
my stomach hasn’t growled in a long time.
Okay.
A squirrel.
♪ ♪
He’s looking at me.
♪ ♪
Just gonna see if I can get close to it.
♪ ♪
[whistles]
[clicks tongue]
[whistles]
Oh, my God.
I shot my first squirrel.
♪ ♪
[sighs] Right out of the tree.
♪ ♪
Oh, my God.
♪ ♪
Thank you, Mr. Squirrel.
♪ ♪
I appreciate you and the sustenance
that you’ll provide me.
♪ ♪
Killing something is an incredibly final act,
can never be taken back,
but in order to stay alive out here,
you have to kill things.
There’s no way around it.
You have to-- have to--eat meat.
You have to have fat.
And if you don’t do that,
you will cease to exist.
♪ ♪
Oh, I just spooked a grouse.
With my arrow, I’m going to be able to get him.
Oh, my God, I see him right there.
Okay.
♪ ♪
[bowstring snaps]
[bleep] I hit it.
I hit it. I hit it.
Where’d he go?
♪ ♪
Where’d he go? Where’d he go?
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep].
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
The arrow’s in him, but he flew off.
[bleep]
♪ ♪
I really hope that I killed it
and it just went off to die,
but we have to find it.
♪ ♪
I cannot let it go to waste.
That would break my heart.
♪ ♪
Oh, I see my arrow.
♪ ♪
You see that?
♪ ♪
I got him.
I got the grouse.
♪ ♪
Oh, my God, thank you, grouse.
That is a game changer, man.
♪ ♪
A squirrel-grouse combo
is pretty awesome.
It’s killing both a mammal and a bird
within minutes of each other.
♪ ♪
I’m gonna throw this pot
with meat on the fire.
Mmm, grouse and squirrel stew.
It’s gonna be so tasty.
What an epic morning.
That was some serious "Alone" [bleep]
right there, man,
all within a few yards of my shelter, too.
That’s pretty rad.
I had a traumatic childhood.
♪ ♪
My parents were divorced
when I was about five, six years old.
My father was a hard man, old school.
You can kind of draw the conclusions
of what that upbringing would look like.
♪ ♪
We had a lot of woods behind the house.
I would just go hide in the woods
to be away from the hurt.
♪ ♪
I’m feeling super thankful right now to get meat.
I’m feeling very lethargic today.
♪ ♪
And then, you know, growing up,
I was a bit different.
I was kind of like
this big, chubby, soft kid.
I wasn’t good at sports,
and I got made fun of at school, too,
for being all those things.
And in a lot of ways, survival skills were
the answers to all my problems.
I put the grouse feathers on my hat
so I’ll always have a reminder.
♪ ♪
So, if you are a young person
and you feel lost in the world,
my advice is to follow your passions
because you never know where they’re going to lead.
♪ ♪
Ah!
♪ ♪
Wow.
♪ ♪
Hope everybody else is eating as good as I am right now.
♪ ♪
- All right, let’s check out my body comp, day four.
I started this adventure at 221 in my long johns
for official weigh in.
So as you can see, I’m not ripped.
This is going to be a video journal
of me going from as fat as I’ve ever been
to, hopefully, Labrador-forged woodsman/hunting machine.
Let’s see what happens over the coming weeks,
days, and hopefully months.
♪ ♪
So, today, goals are to get a fishing rod built
and do some fishing.
Gonna look for a tenkara.
Got a nice little spot, let’s see what we can find.
I like to start off with simple approaches
to most challenges
and problems in life,
so I went with the tenkara setup.
I need about 6 foot--
ooh, there are some good ones right in there.
Little flex.
A tenkara is a long branch, relatively straight.
Ooh, ooh, I like it.
Generally, you use a heavier, thicker line
for the first 8 to 10 feet, and then a monofilament
for the second part.
Got my hooks.
I’ve got my fly line.
Oh, yeah, that’s about perfect.
♪ ♪
Let’s see what we can do here
fly fishing in 15 mile an hour winds...
Whoa, miss.
My site floods every night.
♪ ♪
Oh, two in a row miss.
And I find that a little pool exists
even when the tide goes to rock bottom.
The tide comes in and brings fish in, and when it goes out,
the fish that get stuck end up in this little pool.
And they can’t go anywhere, and it’s right by my camp.
♪ ♪
Come on, fishies.
♪ ♪
I’ve grown up in a bass boat with my dad and brother
since I was six years old.
We fished for everything from bonefish in Turks and Caicos,
to walleye and pike in Ontario,
and everything in between.
♪ ♪
Fishing to eat tonight.
♪ ♪
Oh, come on, boys!
Oh, come on, dude!
How am I [bleep] missing them every time?
♪ ♪
All right, let’s give them a sec.
You never know when these fish are going to turn on and off,
so...
♪ ♪
There we go.
We got one.
No! [bleep]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
No! [bleep]
Ah! Oh, my God.
♪ ♪
Hi, little brooky.
It’s not huge, but first dish of the trip.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
You will be so delicious.
All right, let’s go get some more.
Man, this rod casts.
♪ ♪
Boom!
Heck yeah, two, sardine size.
I could eat about 10 of these things,
so we’re going to keep going.
One at a time, I think I got the technique.
Gotta let them eat the back of this thing.
To win this, you have to have a relentless ability
to move forward in life.
Whoo-wee, sweet.
It’s going to come down to those last seconds and minutes
where you’re going to put in that one more cast
or you’re going to go look down the shoreline
for that bear one more time,
check your traps one more time,
which could get you through a few more days.
You have to just do that basic work,
day in and day out.
Oh, there we go!
♪ ♪
Tenkara!
♪ ♪
Making a net wouldn’t be a bad idea, too.
I’m pulling fish out for dinner.
It’s like a jackpot.
But it’s not obvious unless you have fished
your whole life in little creeks, and ponds,
and tiny waters as a kid, exploring Huck Finn style.
♪ ♪
Oh, good one!
I’m going to eat almost a full fish
by hacking it out, hooking brook trout.
♪ ♪
Let’s keep it going.
Ol’ tenkara, I love you.
I don’t want to be greedy, land,
but they’re not going to be like this every day.
♪ ♪
Ooh, I just saw a couple of big ones.
♪ ♪
There we go.
Heck yes!
Yoo!
Holy [bleep], this is freaking amazing!
[kisses] Yum, yum, yum!
♪ ♪
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12--
12 trout day.
It may never happen again, but it happened once.
I am going to eat pretty much all of these
and just blow it up, celebrate.
I don’t really want to do the rationing thing.
I’m sure that will happen at some point, but right now,
I want to try and hold this weight
and keep my body as well fed as I can until I can’t.
♪ ♪
I don’t know if I have ever been
so excited to have fried trout.
♪ ♪
Don’t want to forget your salt.
♪ ♪
When you fast or when you’re on low calories,
you tend to burn up protein really fast
and drain your electrolytes and dehydrate really fast.
So the addition of salt-- it’s delicious,
but you’re really kind of supplementing
your body with kind of a woodsy multivitamin mineral,
if you will.
[laughing]
That is amazing!
It’s like popcorn, salty popcorn--
and crunchy and salty.
Did I say salty? It’s salty.
Oh.
I’m going to go with small steps
and just win little battles
until there’s no more battles to be fought.
I know there’s going to be a lot of things
that I will struggle with here,
and I’m going to have to endure that.
But I really feel I was meant to come here
and not feeling so much like I’m on a survival mission,
but that I’m on one of the greatest adventures
of my career.
♪ ♪
Mmm, it just doesn’t get better than that.
[metal scraping]
- Are you one of those people who would love
to try something like this...
- [bleep]
- Or one of those people
that are like, "Oh, hell no"?
- Oh, my God, I really hope I killed it.
- When you’re in a survival situation,
you need to be ruthless.
- Every calorie counts out here.
- Here’s my muskrat.
- And we feast.
- Labrador, you are one beautiful son of a bitch.
- [howling]
- There’s definitely a bear living around my site.
- To win $500,000,
I’m gonna have to dig deeper in myself
than I’ve ever had to go before.
- Mother, I’m sorry you have to see this.
- It’s harder than it looks on TV, folks.
- There’s a point for everybody
at which you break.
I want to walk up to that line.
- It’s taking a lot out of me.
- [bleep]!
- Right now, it’s not a good situation.
- Don’t forget to smile.
♪ ♪