- [bleep].
- I'm stronger than a lot of guys.
I want to finally have a woman win this show.
- Ooh. Got a squirrel.
That's a 100-day shelter.
- Ow.
There's something wrong inside my knee,
and I can't risk my future for this show.
male narrator: For the first time,
ten participants will fight to survive the Arctic
for longer than anyone in "Alone" history...
a grueling 100 days.
- This is the ultimate challenge.
- 100 days in the Arctic is no joke.
narrator: If they can endure,
they'll will the biggest prize ever--
$1 million.
- Whoa! - Holy [bleep]!
- You can't tap out
when there's a million bucks on the line.
- Oh, my gosh.
- How hard can you work for $10,000 a day?
- It looks like frostbite.
- Oh, [bleep]!
narrator: This is "Alone: Million Dollar Challenge."
- They're just surrounding my shelter.
- All right, guys.
Checking in for your daily Kiswahili lesson.
"Hello" is jambo.
Hakuna matatameans "no worries."
I'm sure you know that from "The Lion King."
What you do not know is that hakuna matata
is the real touristy way of saying
"no worries" or "no problem."
Now, if you ever find yourself going to East Africa
and in the need to say "no worries,"
I would highly recommend that you use an alternative.
I would stick with...
The locals will get very surprised,
as you will seem not like a tourist.
I was raised between South Africa and Tanzania.
We lived off the grid. It was pretty rural out there.
Lot of different wildlife.
Look at these baboon teeth.
We employed Maasai tribal people
to look over our property.
I learned to speak the language
and their traditional ways.
I feel so honored for the chief to invite me on this hunt.
I know what it feels like to be surviving
off the land for days on end.
I would consider myself a jack-of-all-trades--
very adaptable, and I think that's my strongest point.
Currently, I'm running my own survival school
in Sisters, Oregon.
Should we go for a swim? - Yeah.
- My wife is so supportive,
and we have a two-year-old son together.
I will miss my family a lot.
But 100 days for a million dollars
definitely is a game changer.
I'd love to be able to pay off my house,
spend more time with my family.
The Arctic is gonna come with a lot of challenges,
but I would rather starve and be cold
than come home early
and disappoint my wife and child.
- Go, Daddy!
- I believe in myself, and I believe in my skills.
I know that I have what it takes to win.
I have been catching small game,
but I want to go and explore
the extremities of my area and do some hunting.
So much of this experience is about learning for me.
You can see moose tracks right here and there.
Hunting and trapping and fishing out here
is all about understanding the animals.
You have to dial into their patterns, to their habits.
Look at this.
Wow, that is fresh.
Just not certain what this is.
It's got berries in it.
Wonder if this could be a musk ox.
This location, I feel, really stands out
as far as the probability
of having interaction with large game.
Having that big game stored
that you can calorically satisfy yourself
through those harsh, harsh times
is gonna be the game changer to get to 100 days.
What's this little opening up here?
Oh, no way.
Check this out.
That is a fresh musk ox kill.
Damn, that's not old at all.
Wolves in the area.
It's the only thing that could've taken
this thing down here.
I mean, you can still see pieces of flesh on here.
Keep me on my toes a little bit.
The risk for doing the wrong thing
with a dangerous animal encounter
is probably gonna result in them looking at you as prey
or as a threat in their territory.
That's a good find.
Means that the musk ox are in this area,
because it's that fresh.
It's exciting.
- Oop!
Got caught on a little nick of the stick.
Oh, [bleep]!
I just lost some of my bait.
Fishing is not going well.
I haven't caught any fish yet.
I got my gill net out, and it's not working.
But at least my other passive methods
of procuring food have had success.
My snares and traps caught a bunch of bunnies.
Come on, fish.
Get in my belly.
I have enough protein, with bunnies,
and if I can just start catching fish,
that will give me enough fat to supplement
with my bunnies to get me to the end.
Ooh. I don't see any fish.
I think it's too shallow.
I just don't want to give up on the fish,
'cause I know I'm gonna need that fat.
So I decided I'm gonna go on a secret mission--
fish mish.
I'm gonna pack my sleeping bag,
my headlamp, my axe, and a whole bunch of stuff.
I'm going to venture out on an expedition
to find a new spot deep enough
that I can hopefully catch some fish.
I'm just gonna go for it
because you got to risk it for the biscuit sometimes.
- It has become a tangled, tangled mess.
Got to be fixed.
Ah, it's like when you were little and your mom
combed your hair out, bring tears to your eyes.
So now I got to either be in an '80s hair band
or a '60s horror sitcom.
You choose.
I've been out here hunting every day,
but I'm not seeing the big-game sign
that I'd hoped for.
So far, I've shot a squirrel and a grouse.
The key to winning is making the most
out of every opportunity you're given.
Just got to keep taking breaks.
Stopping, listening, smelling.
You have to learn from the land to find success.
I've been feral my whole life.
I was turned loose into the woods as a little boy--
hunted, fished, trapped,
pretty much lived outside for 30-something years.
I live it.
It's not something I just do from time to time.
It's not something I play at. I'm in it every day.
It's just my way of life.
Me and my wife--
we got 40 acres here in Sturgis, Kentucky,
and we try to live as simply as possible.
Come on, go, go, go!
We run a small homestead.
We raise most of our own food,
forage, and do a lot of hunting.
I'm doing this as a challenge to myself,
and it's the opportunity of a lifetime.
I have a 9:00-to-5:00 job as a diesel mechanic.
- Mm.
- I don't hate it,
but I would rather be doing this all the time.
A million dollars would give me the freedom
to continue living like I'm living,
probably indefinitely.
It would basically mean super-duper early retirement.
- I'm gonna miss you.
- I think I can make it to 100 days
just because I don't have a whole lot of quit in me.
I feel pretty confident in just my overall tenacity
and my ability to stay upbeat.
Look at that...
moose scat and a lot of it.
There is a moose in the hood, looks like.
900-pound animal is a whole lot to have to deal with.
Might just be passing through, but he has passed through.
So maybe, just maybe...
Small game is enough to hold me for a while,
but it's definitely not gonna be enough
to survive for 100 days.
Big game's gonna be that lottery ticket.
Oh, my gosh, guys.
We got some squirrelly goodness here.
Got him, got him, got him.
Squirrel again tonight.
Appreciate you, buddy.
I very much appreciate you, little friend.
I'm already thinking about this place as home.
My wife is at the homestead down in Kentucky,
and I'm at the homestead up here in the north.
I do want to do everybody at home proud, stay the longest.
I got a whole pile of squirrel guts.
We're gonna go out and set some more bank lines
and see if we can't catch some fish
without even being there.
All right, let's get some of this yummy squirrel goodness.
Looks like the intestines and the stomach.
Look at that. Who wouldn't want to eat that?
A lot of passive trapping, passive fishing--
just making calories
without having to work at it will be key.
Of course, I will still hunt everywhere I go,
because you never know when the opportunity's gonna arise.
That will work. Let's just put another one in.
A nice fishing spot, I'm pretty sure.
The most promising section on my land.
Looks kind of perfect.
This fishing spot is quite far away.
But if this works and I start catching fish,
then that would mean my fish mish would be worth it,
and I could even build an outpost
where I could collect some fish and then go home to camp.
Fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish.
I see a fish, guys.
It's the first time I've actually seen a fish.
Oh! Yeah, I think I got one.
I think I got one!
Oh, [bleep]. I lost it.
Better luck in the morning, I guess.
Fishing is so important to my strategy for the long term.
I have to stay focused.
I made a plan. I have to stick with it.
I'm gonna sleep under the stars here,
and I'll just focus on getting a fish in the morning.
I've got to get fish.
If I don't have fish, I don't have fat.
And if I don't have fat, I lose all my body fat.
And if I don't have body fat,
then I lose my organs, and the game is over.
Just super disappointing.
But as they say, it is what it is, right?
It is what it is.
It's too bad that rabbits don't have more fat on them.
Wouldn't they just be the perfect survival food?
Holy [bleep]!
Oh, my God. He's 20 yards from me.
Oh, my God.
[bleep].
- I need to get a food cache so I know that food is safe.
No!
- Maybe that's the wolverine.
Oh, [bleep].
- There's a squirrel.
He went down in that little hole to hide.
Come on closer.
- Holy [bleep].
Oh, my God.
[bleep].
There's a moose right there.
He's 20 yards from me.
Where is it going? No, don't leave.
He's turned around again!
Oh, my God, it's coming back.
God.
I was gonna bring my bow.
You [bleep] idiot.
That's my moose.
Damn it.
He's gone.
Damn.
I suck.
That's awful.
That was my moose. It was 20 yards away from me.
And it was just standing there.
I could've easily taken that shot.
Watching your food just swim away from you is devastating.
If I got that moose,
it would have been a big game changer for me.
- Tell you what--
it's amazing that they can walk around
carrying that much weight in their head.
Damn, that's got to be, like, 60 pounds.
Oof!
Boom.
I just love it.
Look at it staring right into my shelter.
I can sit there in the evenings,
and I can stare right back at it.
Hopefully it'll watch over me and bring good things to come.
Plan of attacknúmero uno is to go an check the gill net.
I have up till now caught five fish.
Been fishing ever since I can remember.
My dad was a fishing-boat captain.
I learned live-bait fishing, lure fishing, trawling,
and I've been spear fishing since I was about 11.
Caught a lot of big fish in my life,
but I've never fished with a gill net.
All right. Moment of truth.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah!
I got a fish in my net.
Awesome.
That is a big fish.
Wow, I've got a lot of meat right now--
Oh, there's a monster!
God, that was a huge fish.
I've hit the jackpot with fish location.
Whoo-hoo!
Gill net paying off.
I'm so glad I took this as an item.
Food was a big concern for me,
but so far, this land has been good to me.
Get some good old fillets.
To know that my gill net can bring me food
while I'm doing other things, that's a huge sense of relief.
If I can just continue doing as well as I'm doing,
100 days is possible.
- It's a beautiful morning.
The lake is shining. It's glistening.
Thank you, Nature.
Sorry for all the damage we're causing as humans.
You are beautiful. You don't deserve that.
You provide so much to us.
You're providing me with shelter,
with food, with water,
so thank you for all you do.
Another small pike.
Well, small compared to the other two I got.
I want fishing to be a big part of my game.
Got a whitefish.
I'm catching fish almost every day in the gill net.
Man, it's pike central over here.
Sometimes a couple fish...
Two nice pike. Whoa.
Okay, here we are.
Oh, check it out. I think we have a fish.
It's another pike.
More food for the belly.
I've been making fish head soups.
And then I've been smoking the fish fillets.
I have over ten pounds
of smoked fish hanging on a tree.
Fishing is going amazing.
But all this fish can attract a predator.
I have seen a wolverine right on the beach.
It does make me a little nervous
to know that there are predators walking here.
But you got to heighten your level of awareness.
Being from El Salvador,
I brought a specific mentality as a survivalist.
I've been through a war.
You have to have a positive attitude
that you're going to survive.
Maybe that's the wolverine.
Throom, throom, throom.
That sounded like claws. Throom, throom--
A big animal.
Oh, [bleep].
[bleep].
- Oh, [bleep].
Something's moving there. [bleep].
I worked so hard for that stash.
Tasty.
Mmm.
Huh. Look all right.
No seeds stuck in them.
You want to win a million bucks,
you got to look like a million bucks.
I need to have a big shelter day today.
I'm already getting a little bit of a late start,
but we'll go with it.
I would like to use traditional wood joinery
for pretty much my entire shelter.
It is gonna take longer than just, you know,
lashing a few poles together, but winter is coming,
and I just want it to be robust and airtight.
Got to make these joints precise.
I'm gonna build an A-frame shelter
that's anchored to a tree.
Got to figure out my ridge-pole situation now.
And then I gotta figure out how to hoist it up this post.
I got to make a joint in that post.
To me, I see this as my big gamble,
but if I don't have a bomb-proof shelter,
I can't see myself, as a smaller guy
who really doesn't do that well in the cold,
faring into the deep winter up to 100 days.
All right. I think that's gonna be it.
I want to use a dovetail joint
so those logs actually hold themselves onto the A-frame.
I'm just being super meticulous.
This better be blowing everyone's minds right now.
Ho-ho-ho-ho!
It's kind of good-looking, ain't it?
I feel confident with my skills in building.
And to carry that out to extreme nuance
is the kind of thing that gets me through long waits.
I just think of a project that I have in my head,
and I just go to that project.
I've been primarily an introvert
who can do without contact and feel comfortable
and confident in my own actions.
Good fit.
When friends or family have asked
why I would want to do this, one of the easy references
is the book "Hatchet" that I read in fifth grade.
Reading the story about this kid that was in a plane crash
and had to survive by some forested lake
with his hatchet-- it sort of put the idea
in my mind that, like, "Wow, people can do that.
People can just be out there, living."
This has always been a lifelong fantasy of mine.
That's good. That's real good.
- My friend...
I'm sorry I've been so rude.
I found you a couple days ago.
I couldn't help but love your set of horns,
so I put you up on the tree there
so you could hang out with me.
Do you think we can be friends?
What's your name?
"I come from Arcticfrica."
Is that, like, you mixing Africa and Arctic?
You're quite a smart-ass yourself, aren't you, Jaco?
No wonder you got taken down.
Jaco, I highly respect your horns, okay?
I just want to be friends.
The friendship we'll be building.
And just in case you were wondering,
his accent is South African.
He's a very confused musk ox.
I feel like I've got a good grip on the food.
The fishing I feel very confident about,
with the gill net especially.
At this point,
I need to get a food cache figured out.
There's foxes and wolverines in the area.
I have to make something that
I don't need to keep an eye on 24-7,
something that I know that food is safe.
It's gonna be a lot of energy to build it,
but it's necessary.
It would be wise for me to work on my ladder
that I'm gonna need to get up into my food cache.
I feel like I really could live off the land here.
And I just don't want any meat getting stolen
or going to waste.
This already set my mind at ease,
once I know my food is stored safely.
Success! I like it.
So there's three trees in here.
One. Behind it, two.
And then to the left over here, three.
It'll provide the perfect platform.
For basis of the food cache, I'm kind of using the design
that was inspired off of Jordan's.
The three trees coming up, and just a platform on top.
Kind of like that idea.
This is a very unique experience.
I'm very grateful to be here.
Not feeling the loneliness.
It gives me strength
knowing that I have such a supportive family.
I think my wife would rather I be home.
Our son is two years old.
She's gonna have him by herself.
The workload on her is gonna be pretty tough,
but she knows this is something
that I'm passionate about.
Knowing that I could change their lives by winning this
does nothing but motivate me.
Very grateful for that sacrifice
that she makes for me.
She believes in me.
You cut the tops off.
There's just no easy way to do that.
Fun trying to chop a tree down like this.
Straw that broke the camel's back.
No!
Oof!
Stupid.
Really stupid.
There's no easy way to do that.
I am uninjured.
And...
I will move forward.
That was stupid.
That could've gone very, very bad.
I could've broken an ankle.
There's a lot of things that could've happened.
My guardian angels were looking out.
I just thank my lucky stars
and just make sure I don't make the same mistake.
Damn.
Okay.
Just try and not repeat that.
So frickin' hard to...
saw from this angle.
A frickin' roller-coaster ride, folks.
And I think that's how this is gonna go.
Hold on for the ride.
Yes.
I knew this would be the most challenging thing
that I've ever experienced in my life.
It hasn't got to that point yet, but it will.
And there we have it.
I need to think about every single move
and every single step.
I can't afford to make this mistake again.
It's like a nest up here. It's a food nest.
That's the fruits of my labor for today.
I feel really good about it.
- Squirrel pole struck.
They've been playing around there.
I wondered how long before they'd hit that pole.
Well, now we're talking.
I don't really start trapping squirrels too much yet.
I just got some poles here around camp.
I don't want them messing around my stuff.
Them squirrels sometimes get an idea to get in your [bleep].
Well, it's good to know your techniques are sound.
I feel good. I like that.
I like that fresh kill.
Don't want that blood dripping
away and going to waste.
I just made a little incision in his gut.
There's all the organs
separated from the stomach and intestines.
But intestine is real nutritious,
and there ain't nothing in that.
That is just clean, ready-to-go gut.
It's ready for the cook pot.
His back's all white. Only his belly's blue.
It's probably fixing to get cold.
See white? That's how they'll be.
Now, he still has blue over here on his belly.
We probably ain't got long.
I think people are gonna underestimate
the strength of a northern winter
and overestimate their own strength.
You got to have a plan every day.
It might change.
A plan's just a starting point,
but you don't want to just wake up and think,
"What am I doing today?"
You want to wake up and get something going on.
Coming up on rock house.
I think we got to cap that thing as quick as we can
and get into food production.
I need about ten more poles on the roof.
My strategy in the winter is heavy duty.
Winter is heavy duty.
My roof is real important on rock house.
But I'm also concerned every day
about burning too many calories.
But I'm so committed, I can't quit burning them.
I got to finish this thing. Winter's coming.
I got to get it done.
Now's the time to get her done.
Oh!
I know when it's done,
I'm gonna have what I want to go the distance.
Look at that. Ho-ho-ho-ho!
Nice.
Last big log in place.
Rock house is coming along.
I'm gonna make this all moss up here, get the tarp on it.
You could hold a dance on that sucker.
And then later I'm gonna build this up right here
with some rock and have a chimney
that's just a little higher than the roof.
Yep.
Starting to look kind of homey.
We got a 100-day shelter, all right.
- Keep myself occupied for hours.
Projects like this takes your mind off of everything,
which is a good thing,
'cause I think it's the worst thing you can do out here,
is let your mind start to wander.
Remember how easy it is just to go home.
Check them out.
Yeah, buddy.
Got some cool earrings done because everybody--
every man needs a nice pair of earrings, huh?
I think so.
I got to make a couple more sets of these.
I'm digging them.
Tell ya-- I'm gonna set a trend.
Yeah.
To get to day 100, I think you need to have
a positive mental outlook,
and you got to constantly be upbeat,
no matter how bad it gets.
You know, it's 100 days.
Well, back at the bank lines,
and it looks like a big nothing.
Man.
Yep, definitely nothing.
See if we have any bait left...
'cause if we have bait, that's good.
I'm 110% confident in my success...
because you have to have that mindset.
If you have anything else,
you're already sliding down a slippery slope.
Yeah, baby!
Oh, [bleep]!
- Yeah, baby!
Ooh, [bleep]!
Whoo-hoo-hoo!
He almost got off.
Thank you, Mr. Trout.
I'm gonna fillet this dude out and then smoke it,
make fish jerky with him, and then boil the rest of it
and eat fish soup for a couple days.
This fish proved to me that this system will work,
and, you know, it may not work all the time.
It definitely won't work every time, but it's a success,
and every little success out here
definitely puts you in a better mental spot.
I mean, look at that.
Mmm.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, I could get used to that.
- Morning.
All right, I'm gonna do quick little warm-up.
Starting to get a little bit of a morning routine.
Do a little stretch and then get out for...
Morning snare check.
Get the blood flow back.
Warm-up skip.
Staying warm is the name of the game.
Good and warmed up.
Time to go check snares.
I'm kind of excited to check these two...
promising little snares that I set last night.
Feeling hungry.
Oh, I can feel my body begging for some fuel.
It's like, "Sugar, bread, peanut butter.
Feed me."
Hmm. That one got messed with.
Looks like it got pushed aside.
All right, one last snare check.
No rabbits so far this morning.
Dang it. Nothing.
What do we got to do?
I know the hunger's gonna get worse.
Oh.
There's a squirrel.
It's down in there.
See him poking his head out?
He wants to come out.
He went down in that little hole to hide,
and I don't think he's got a way out.
So I...
I'll try to make a hook out of one of these branches.
I can stab him and hook him.
The hooking part is important.
I'm also gonna put a little barb on this thing.
Keep one eye on the hole.
Gonna go for it.
Where did you go?
Hear him going "cheep, cheep."
Sorry, bud. I don't really like it either.
There he is.
Come on closer.
- Hear him going "cheep, cheep."
There he is.
Come on closer.
Dang it. I missed it.
I'm gonna make a better stick.
Oh, there he goes! Damn it!
Dang.
He saw his window of opportunity.
I should've just waited.
That was kind of a one-time scenario there,
and I screwed it up.
Damn it.
I've got so much left to do on my shelter,
and I'm not getting all the food I need and want out here.
It would be nice to eat
something more than berries and mushrooms.
- Fireweed root is a great survival food.
It's marginal food. You got to stay with it.
Food store is gonna be the key to go 100 days.
On the outside of rock house,
a couple rocks formed a cavern
that we're gonna make my root cellar.
Nice, fresh, damp moss on the bottom.
Fireweed root is fairly nutritious.
And all that nutrition is down in the roots,
so this is the best time to capitalize
on the fireweed root.
A root-de-de-doot-doots.
My backup plan from the beginning--
if nothing else, I'll dig 100 pound of fireweed root
and exist on that alone.
To make it through the winter, you got to have reserves.
I had planned on the gill net feeding me
while I built the big substantial structure.
And this is my net, but it never catches nothing.
We got to make a move to another spot--
maybe some deeper water.
Down over there's where we got to go with it.
There's a little crevice there on a underwater ledge,
and it's 20, 30 feet deep, immediately right off that.
I got to go right in that hole right there.
Sometimes I talk different.
Like, I caught myself saying "we" a few times.
"We" is just me rambling on.
Maybe when I say "we," I mean "me and you."
Maybe I mean my departed mother.
She passed away while I was preparing for all this.
I just been thinking about my mother a lot
since I got here.
She was the strongest person I have ever met.
She had the bullheaded mentality.
Could do anything she wanted to do, and I have that.
Her tunnel vision, if you want to call it that--
I mean, if there's something she wanted to do,
she would do it and do it good.
Long hours.
My mother could work long, long hours,
and I've inherited that from her, too.
Lots of energy there, lots of energy.
She was an amazing person.
There it is.
Catch a fish, baby.
It was a lot of work.
Wish us luck.
I want to use this time to...
dwell on her and...
Refresh some memories
that were maybe getting...
lost in all the shuffle.
We're gonna win this sucker.
And dedicate it to you, Mom.
- Coming up after the break,
I'll be speaking with everyone from tonight's episode.
We will have some never-before-seen footage,
and then a little later, we'll take a sneak peek
at next week's episode. You don't want to miss it.
Stay tuned.
- Welcome to "Alone: Tales from the Arctic."
I'm Colby Donaldson,
here with all of the participants
from tonight's episode.
First and foremost, this is the first episode we've seen
where there's not a tap-out.
I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Joe, is it foreshadowing?
Do you think it's a positive aspect to this
that no one taps out on this episode?
- I think there's definitely a positive aspect.
I mean, you have so many uncertainties
going into this thing that it's almost a guarantee
that you're gonna lose some folks early,
um, whether it's through sickness, or injury,
or just mentally not being able to cope.
So I think it's definitely a positive,
you're seeing people start to hit their stride,
and yeah, I like seeing an episode
where nobody disappears.
- Hey, Keith, any advice for those that come after you
on the experience itself?
- Yes, I think the experience
will never be the vision that you have in your mind
once--you know, before you set out,
but I think at the end,
it needs to be the experience that you needed to have,
no matter the outcome.
- Ready? - Yes, sir.
If I'm not ready now, I'll never be ready.
You need to be at peace with the outcome
before you head out,
I think is the main thing,
and you gotta be your own best friend
before you head out there, because if not,
definitely be some demons preying on you.
That's it. They're out of here!
I'm all by myself!
- Well, two weeks
without any sort of human interaction,
you can't help but start to get in your own head.
There's no one to bounce ideas off of,
no one to really pick you up
when you're low.
Joel, I know you've got a tight-knit family.
Tell me what it was like
truly being solo out there in this experience
and not being able
to draw from them, at least not in person.
- Well, it was, uh, very interesting for me,
very profound spiritual journey
of which I--
what I didn't expect was,
the exact timeframe that you're talking about,
the first week was like the honeymoon phase...
Oh, my God, this is gonna be amazing.
If you could see that...
Bald eagle.
Look at that.
Oh, such a good omen.
You know, you're all super stoked, happy.
You know, you're catching fish and shooting rabbits.
Everything's amazing.
About sort of five, six days in,
I kind of started feeling the sort of pull
towards my family,
and my mind was adjusting
to not hearing any human voices,
you know, no sound.
The only things you hear out there are the squirrels,
you know, which in the beginning
really irritated and frustrated me,
but in the end, I ended up loving it.
- Kielyn, the importance of maintaining
that positive mental attitude--
give us your take on that
and just how vital that is
to succeeding in this type of experiment.
- Yeah, absolutely. Uh...
if you have something happen to you
and you don't like the outcome,
sitting and dwelling on the negative aspects of it
isn't gonna get you anywhere.
You need to move forward, stay adaptable,
and there's a lot of lessons
that you can learn from your failures
to help you in the future.
Learn from this, Kielyn.
Learn from this.
There's gotta be more moose.
- Okay, I want to dig in to Roland
dipping your finger into that squirrel's blood
like you were taste-testing
a batch of marinara sauce or something.
Tell me what was going on
and what the meaning behind that is for you
or the importance of it for you.
- No meaning in particular,
only, uh, utilization of the whole animal.
I'm not into the blood-worshiping aspect
of anything,
but, you know, there's life
in the blood,
and I want every bit of that.
- Joel, you were also doing
some interesting things out there,
mainly holding a conversation with a musk ox skull.
First time for you doing something like that?
Um...yes.
Look at me. I'm alone.
I need a buddy,
and you know what?
You seem like you're a pretty good guy.
Let's just get to know one another.
Let's do it, eh?
There wasn't much thought. It just came out,
and I got a kick out of it.
Going off what Kyle was saying earlier,
you gotta stay in a positive mental place,
and for me, that came through making things,
and it came through using my imagination
and really trying to get myself to laugh whenever I could.
Oh, no worries, bro!
- Joel, I want to stick with you.
Because of the predators, you decide to build
an elevated food platform.
Could have been a critical mistake
cutting that, you know, treetop from a ladder.
- The mistake was the--the method
of chopping down the top of those trees
and that was, um--
could have been the end of me right there,
but, um, I'm very, very lucky.
I was not injured,
and I was able to learn from that mistake,
and I didn't make it again.
Um, but there was a lot of learning for me
with that food cache,
and would I go back and do things differently?
Most definitely.
- Well, you're right.
You were very, very fortunate
in that situation.
Well, there is still a lot to talk about
when we come back,
including some never-before-seen footage
and a sneak peek at next week's episode.
You don't want to miss it.
- Try a bite. It's good!
- Stick around.
- Welcome back to "Alone: Tales From the Arctic."
I'm Colby Donaldson,
here with all of our participants
from tonight's episode.
Amós, you were doing
exceptionally well with the fish,
and then we start to see the wolverine,
and in one of those shots,
it actually looks like he's watching you,
almost as though he's stalking your path
and your trails. What was your thought
about that wolverine?
- I was expecting predators
to be close to my shelter
and where I was cleaning fish.
I was really close to the beach
for many reasons.
It took me a long time
to try to figure out my shelter.
But I was protected by the wind.
I have the resources of water, fire, close by,
and everywhere else that I had looked,
I hadn't seen a decent place to build my shelter,
so I took the risk
knowing that I could have had predators close by.
- Roland, even though the locations had been vetted
by survival teams in advance for signs of animals,
each season, we hear participants
complained or at least concerned
that their area may not have enough.
Tell me about your thoughts regarding this.
I know you had some concerns.
How much of this is about your location,
and then how much of it is about what you're doing
or what you're not doing with regard to the animals?
- Well, your location is like...
a rodeo star drawing a bull.
You can draw a crappy one,
or you can draw one that'll make you famous.
You just don't know that,
and I wasn't particularly happy
with my spot at first.
Actually, I was pretty damn hot angry.
Like, [bleep] 50 acres of woods,
nothing in the woods,
not a [bleep] damn thing.
[bleep] berries.
This spot [bleep] sucks.
You just gotta jump in there and look
for every little food source you can get,
'cause winter, once everything's under the snow,
that's it.
- Keith,
you know, something the viewers at home may not know
is that you aren't allowed to use barbed hooks
out there.
So tell me about--you know,
you were doing a lot of fishing from the bank.
How was that affected
by not having barbed hooks?
Were you concerned about that?
- Yeah, the barbless hooks--
man, that's a real handicap, in my opinion.
That was my first experience with them,
and unless you have a rod and reel
where you can keep constant tension on them,
in my opinion, they're pretty well worthless.
I don't know how many fish I had hit,
you'd make it three or four wraps,
and then, you know, the line just goes slack
and when that line goes slack,
your heart kind of goes slack, too,
as well as your stomach,
because that's a missed opportunity.
Whoo-hoo!
Yeah, baby!
Oh, damn. It got away.
- Let's talk about ingenuity in the rules.
All right? There is no question,
when you're out there, you need to adapt,
and you need to make everything that you have
work for you. So while Joel
was building an elevated platform,
Amós took a little different approach to it.
Let's take a look at this never-before-seen footage,
and I think you'll understand what we're talking about.
- There we go.
I brought this extra-extra-large underwear.
I will use this fiber to make char cloth
and fishing lures.
I haven't needed either or,
but what I do need
is a container for my fish,
so I'm gonna make a bag out of my underwear.
Pretty tasty pike
going into my underwear.
It's getting all greasy.
- Amós, uh, tell me
about that big old pair of underwear you brought.
- The cotton is heavy and is white.
The fish have white bellies,
so I could use it for lures.
I needed a place to store the fish.
I was catching a lot of fish.
So I decided to make a stash out of it.
You have to get creative out there,
and it worked for me,
so I'm pretty happy that I made the decision.
- Hey, Roland, tell me of an ingenuity pull
that you made when you were out there.
- I'm full of that stuff.
I pull crap like that out of my ass every day.
But I can't...nail one down
right now.
- Well, that is it for "Alone: Tales From the Arctic."
I'd like to thank Joel, Roland,
Kielyn, Joe, Keith, and Amós.
We'll be doing this all season long,
so make sure you stay tuned after the episodes
as we talk to the participants.
Until next week, as promised,
here is a peek
of the upcoming episode. See you next week.
- Bear scat.
Claiming his territory, apparently.
[bleep]
- Here, try a bite. No, really, try it.
It's good.
- You guys want to see a cool party trick?
- Agh.
Crap, I can feel it moving in there.