[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- There are some ripples forming.
Those are fish biting.
Probably should extend the pier.
♪ ♪
Score.
[bow thuds]
- [whispering] Oh, my God, I got one.
♪ ♪
I got a muskrat.
[chuckles]
[bow thuds]
- Got it.
Like running on a high right now.
Yes.
- I have been feeling extremely homesick.
It’s, like, gripped me.
♪ ♪
- [bleep].
This is Tom.
I buggered my knee up pretty good,
and I think that that’s gonna have to be it
for me, unfortunately.
- Stomach doesn’t feel good.
[vomits]
- It’s not safe for you to remain.
I have to medically extract you.
- To end like this, this wasn’t what I anticipated.
This isn’t how I saw it going down.
♪ ♪
- 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.
Sometimes the bear eats you.
narrator: Battling merciless conditions...
- This is some hard-core bushwhacking.
- Why does it have to be such a struggle every night?
[bow thuds] - I hit it. I hit it. I hit it.
- I feel more alive every day I’m out here.
Ahh.
- 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.
♪ ♪
- So my friend wrote
this song for me to sing while I’m out here.
And now anytime that I’m having a hard day--
and I really haven’t had very many hard days.
I’ve gotten down a little bit.
But I sing it a lot.
So I want to share it with you.
♪ I remember why I came here ♪
♪ I remember weaving this dream ♪
♪ I remember tending the embers ♪
♪ Tender hearts render the space in between ♪
♪ Connecting ♪
♪ The seen and unseen ♪
♪ The spirit that moves through all things ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Hi-aye-aye, hi-aye-aye, hi-aye-aye-hi ♪
♪ Hi-aye-aye, hi-aye-aye, hi-hi-aye ♪
♪ Hi-aye-aye, aye-aye-aye, hi-aye-aye-hi ♪
♪ Hi-aye-aye, hi-aye-aye, hi-aye-aye-hi ♪
♪ ♪
So that’s my song.
♪ ♪
I am going to hike to the yonder river
on the back of my sight.
It’s a new moon.
The animals should be active.
So, of course, I’ll do hunting along the way.
It’s gonna be an adventurous day,
and I’m feeling up for it.
♪ ♪
My muskrat plus the bone broth lasted three days.
So I’m running on berry juice right now.
My tummy’s like, "Enough berries.
I need some meat."
[animals chittering]
♪ ♪
You know, I’m getting skinnier.
And food, that’s my weak spot.
♪ ♪
[animals chittering]
Oh, there you are. You’re up there
[chittering continues]
Do I dare?
Oh.
Oh, nice, it bounced back.
Thank God.
I’m just gonna back up, and maybe he’ll come down.
♪ ♪
He’s back in the same spot.
♪ ♪
[bleep].
That’s what I get for being cocky.
Damn, it went way over there.
♪ ♪
I missed it by one inch.
I’m not keeping my form. I’m not keeping my technique.
And that’s really disturbing to me.
I hate looking for arrows.
As time progresses, yeah, I’m gonna get a little weaker,
and that can throw off a shot by a lot.
♪ ♪
Yeah, screw you.
I don’t know what to do about my shot.
Something has got to change,
or I don’t have much time left,
and that makes me really sad.
♪ ♪
Oh, I found it.
No, I’m not way off.
Yay.
Ah, thank you, trees.
Thank you for catching my arrow
and putting it on the ground for me.
Okay, on with our journey.
So glad I have you back.
♪ Aye-aye-aye, aye-aye-aye ♪
♪ Hi-aye-aye-aye, hi-aye-aye-aye ♪
[humming]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[wind whistling]
- It is blowing out there.
I did not sleep well again last night.
I woke up...
with some deep, deep hunger pangs.
[yawns]
They kept me awake
for the rest of the night, just about.
I’m just hungry, guys.
I’m just really hungry. [chuckles]
The solution is to find something today.
♪ ♪
When you’re well-fed and you’re warm
and you’re sitting in your home
and you get a bad night’s sleep,
you can feel a little bit crappy.
When you’re out here and you’re living on margins
as thin as we are, with temperatures like this,
a bad night’s sleep can put you behind for days.
♪ ♪
Important day of hunting today.
So we are gonna get out and do our thing,
wind be damned.
♪ ♪
[wind gusting]
Definitely gusting over 30 knots, 30, 35.
Strongest winds we’ve had out here.
♪ ♪
Holy [bleep].
♪ ♪
Crazy windy.
You need to be careful for trees coming down, for sure.
That would not be a fun way to go out.
♪ ♪
This is just not a great day to hunt.
There’s so much wind noise, I can’t hear anything.
But at the same time, we need food.
♪ ♪
I’m going out every day for three, four, or five hours,
actively hunting,
and the only reliable hunting
I’ve found over the last couple of weeks
has been to follow the river trail
and go up and down looking for grouse.
♪ ♪
I’ve not been able to get ahead on food in any way.
I only have half a grouse in the bag.
And things are just starting to dry up.
The grouse are getting harder to find.
♪ ♪
I have to be out every single day.
That means more calories getting burned.
♪ ♪
Oh, no.
♪ ♪
I had an arrow fall out.
[sniffs]
An arrow fall out of the quiver.
[bleep], [bleep], [bleep].
[sighs]
That’s one more arrow down.
I have to try and backtrack and find it.
What a waste of time and energy this is gonna be.
♪ ♪
I had an arrow get pulled out of its bow quiver
by just one of the branches just grabbing me
everywhere I go.
♪ ♪
It’s hard going through that brush.
I’m so tired of bushwhacking.
Oh, my God. [sniffs]
♪ ♪
All these branches, these dead trees,
they are wearing me down.
♪ ♪
[sighs] I don’t have the energy for it.
I don’t have the gas in my legs.
[sighs]
It’s just hard to push through.
♪ ♪
There’s some ankle-breaking [bleep] in this forest.
♪ ♪
Oh.
Aah!
[bleep]!
♪ ♪
Over it.
Over, over, over, over, over it.
♪ ♪
[groans]
Get off me.
These branches got me so twisted up.
♪ ♪
Two seconds-- I need two seconds.
♪ ♪
[exhales deeply]
♪ ♪
Okay.
♪ ♪
[sniffs]
Just take your time.
Everything’s good.
♪ ♪
I had a little bit of a temper tantrum.
♪ ♪
I’m just feeling it. My legs are pretty gassed.
And it’s getting hard to move effectively
through that dense, thick, steep hillside.
♪ ♪
I don’t have the energy in my legs
to go for three hours today.
♪ ♪
Starting to feel the weight loss, I guess.
♪ ♪
I’m gonna head home.
We burned a lot of calories for nothing.
And I lost my arrow.
♪ ♪
That’s one more arrow down.
Four arrows left.
♪ ♪
The wind about did me in.
♪ ♪
I’m missing my family
more than I ever have in my life.
♪ ♪
And I’ve been away from home
for up to a year at a time.
But it’s the isolation, you know?
It’s just the not knowing,
the not knowing that everyone’s okay.
I just want to see my friends and family and my dog...
so bad.
♪ ♪
I’ve never felt anything like this before.
And I cannot shake it.
♪ ♪
Combine that with being tired,
just feeling lonely and down.
♪ ♪
We’re living day to day.
♪ ♪
And...
you know, we’re just gonna do this one day at a time
at this point.
♪ ♪
I want to be here. I want to continue to be here.
So let’s see if we can make it happen.
♪ ♪
- I don’t know how many hours I slept last night,
but I don’t think many.
It’s all the wind and...
It’s so noisy.
I’m going to try to make some earplugs
because I think it will really improve my sleep.
Nice.
That worked.
That’s a little improvement...
for my life.
♪ ♪
We had lots and lots of wind lately.
The wind really brings me down.
It just makes me, like, want to just stay in bed.
But today I have two objectives.
I want to set up a hanging line
so that I can hang my sleeping bag
and make sure the feathers don’t clump up.
I also need to work on my bed.
I want to make it way more comfortable,
because my bed is uncomfortable.
Now I need to hang my sleeping bag from here.
♪ ♪
Sleep is huge, super important,
and the more hours of sleep I get,
I think it’s better
because that’s less calories I use.
It’s better to be sleeping
than to be awake in a survival situation.
So I need to figure out a way to be
as comfortable as possible so that I can sleep
as many hours as possible.
♪ ♪
Nice.
I’m gonna go work on my bed.
♪ ♪
I’m excited for the winter.
The snow, the cold, it feels familiar to me.
♪ ♪
I think no one here has as much winter experience
as me by far,
so it’s my advantage.
♪ ♪
Yeah, so I’m gonna call it a day for the bed.
It’s good, I think.
We’ll see. We’ll see tonight.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Let’s get some water.
The creek is iced up.
This is where I normally get my water.
Oh, I can still get in there.
Pretty cold out here.
♪ ♪
All righty.
I think this cold’s here to stay.
It’s only gonna get more cold and more windy.
In the military, I trained in Arctic warfare and survival.
So I’ve been to minus 60.
I’ve been to minus 70.
This is the temperature I operate in.
See, there’s still water draining,
but we’ll just melt ice if we need to.
♪ ♪
Out here, the only big factor for me is, can I hunt?
Can I procure food?
Everything’s a little more complex.
When it’s cold, there’s less food.
The squirrels--
they’re the most active thing right now.
So I’m focusing on squirrel.
♪ ♪
Let’s go get some food.
♪ ♪
I just need one kill to lift my spirits a little bit.
♪ ♪
Hoo.
♪ ♪
Oh, my God, I’m not doing well.
I’m getting to the point where I’m a lot more hungry.
♪ ♪
At night, I wake up just wanting to eat,
and all I can give my body is some cranberries.
[animal chittering]
♪ ♪
Why don’t you show yourself?
The biggest thing for me are the cravings.
They’re getting a little painful now.
And I have close to zero fat reserves right now.
♪ ♪
There’s two chasing each other.
Where did it go?
♪ ♪
Oh, there it is.
♪ ♪
[bleep].
I missed it.
♪ ♪
I don’t feel so good.
I’m just gonna sit down for a little bit.
♪ ♪
I need a break.
♪ ♪
I’m too tired to walk anymore.
♪ ♪
I feel so frickin’ weak.
♪ ♪
My energy levels are just...
too low,
and my muscles fatigue too fast.
♪ ♪
I don’t want any long hunts.
♪ ♪
My body is just not acting the same.
♪ ♪
I need to adjust my behaviors
so that I’m getting as much as I can with what I got.
♪ ♪
It’s definitely a mental game.
It’s hard. It’s really hard.
♪ ♪
For me to stay positive,
I’m just gonna have to take 20 minutes or so,
kind of think of what my happy thought is for the day.
It always comes back to Gabrielle.
I’m here for my mom.
I want her to see how hard I can push.
I want her to see the strength that she instilled in me
so she can see it in herself again.
But when that strength dwindles
and I start to doubt myself...
thinking about Gab and what we have
and what we hope to have in the future...
it gives me strength that I didn’t know I had left.
♪ ♪
And she’s helping me push through.
♪ ♪
Well, it’s snowing.
Good night, guys...
♪ ♪
And gals.
♪ ♪
- Good morning.
Oh, my gosh, what a beautiful morning it is.
[sighs] It snowed.
Yeah, it just gives you a little taste of winter.
It also is bitter cold.
[laughs]
Oh, my gosh.
♪ ♪
Today I’m gonna go check my trap line.
It’s been two days since I’ve been there.
And I just see a lot more squirrel activity
further in the woods a little bit,
so I might set up a few more traps there.
Yeah, just spectacular.
♪ ♪
Yesterday I was down on myself
because I kept missing the squirrels by one inch.
♪ ♪
Ah, this needs to be reset.
♪ ♪
Okay.
I am changing my hunting plan to be more around trapping.
♪ ♪
That one’s still good.
♪ ♪
I’m focusing on snaring for the squirrels.
Wow, look at this.
I’m gonna put a trap.
I’m gonna put five of them
in this little squirrel kitchen area.
Okay, let’s start with this one.
You know, at some point,
they’re gonna hunker down for the winter,
so I need to take advantage of that,
’cause I am hungry.
My thumbs are split.
Both thumbs are split.
Go, fingers, go, before you get cold.
Squirrels are so forgiving when it comes to trapping.
They don’t care about smells.
♪ ♪
Yeah, make a nice round hole
the size of a squirrel head.
Okay, perfect.
♪ ♪
It’s been a pretty good day.
I feel pretty content.
♪ ♪
I just found myself very much at peace today.
Um...
I went and checked all my traps.
There was no rush.
I set, like, five new traps today.
Um...
I was very at peace, and I felt very humble.
I felt...
like I wasn’t here to do.
What am I gonna do today?
And...
I was just present.
♪ ♪
To be honest, it’s been quite embarrassing
as far as my inability to shoot a squirrel,
and I found myself using words
like "my successes" and "my failures."
And I don’t want to be a failure.
Well, what is failing?
Those are words I don’t even use at home.
♪ ♪
When I was 36 years old, I was pregnant.
And...
♪ ♪
At four months pregnant--
when I was four months pregnant...
♪ ♪
I ended up having a miscarriage.
And that’s pretty late in the game to have a miscarriage,
and so it was pretty big,
because I still had to go
through the whole labor process.
And...
♪ ♪
It was unique,
even though I lost the child,
because I still got to experience having a birth.
♪ ♪
So I don’t know.
Does that not make me a mother?
I learned death.
It could happen anytime, anytime.
And for you to know how to live,
you need to know how to die.
♪ ♪
When I feel like I’m failing or succeeding,
I’m judging myself.
♪ ♪
And why am I doing that?
♪ ♪
I’m here.
♪ ♪
I must have done something right to get here.
♪ ♪
Yeah.
So thank you for listening.
I think I covered it all. [chuckles]
[inhales deeply] I think I covered it all.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Still feeling a little tired,
but I think it’d be a good idea to go down to the beach
and make those bird traps,
because if we can get birds and squirrels,
that would be a game changer.
♪ ♪
I’ve been storing my grouse guts on the beach
under some rocks, hoping that a bear comes by,
but the only thing that I’ve seen is the ravens.
♪ ♪
And if this bird trap works,
that’s gonna be a huge morale booster.
♪ ♪
Let’s see.
Got to make sure to implement
as many food-procuring strategies that I can
so that I get some passive food.
Okay.
♪ ♪
Am I concerned about how tired I’m getting?
♪ ♪
Yeah.
I still think this is a little too tight.
I’m eating every day,
but my body knows that it’s not enough,
and it’s screaming.
It’s yelling at me.
♪ ♪
Every day it’s a fight
to not press that button,
just to hear Gab’s voice.
♪ ♪
I guess my always-happy thought is...
Gab.
♪ ♪
I was thinking about the first time we met.
You know, we work in different departments in the hospital.
This was during COVID, so I was so tired
and hungry and overworked.
It kind of felt like today.
♪ ♪
Almost through.
♪ ♪
And then I saw her.
And she looked right at me.
And I swear I could have seen her smiling at me
through that mask.
♪ ♪
What started with small talk continued with banter.
And I think we realized early on,
everything was just better together.
♪ ♪
All right, I got a little perch over here.
The idea...
is that bait’s on this stick.
There’s a rope, kind of like a cowboy lasso,
that rests over here.
And then as the bird lands on this, this falls down.
And there’s a string attached to that rock
that falls down here.
So...
that’s how that’ll work.
♪ ♪
You know, it’s all about your spirit out here.
Your body can feel like it’s breaking,
but if you still have it in your soul and in your mind,
you can push a ways.
All right, that should do the trick.
♪ ♪
And Gabrielle--she is my rock
that doesn’t weigh me down.
Keeps me grounded when I feel
like the wind’s gonna push me away.
♪ ♪
And I love her. I love her so much.
♪ ♪
Hopefully they’ll let me push a wee bit more,
see what happens.
♪ ♪
Yeah, day by day.
Okay.
♪ ♪
That was a lot of work,
but that’s a beautiful bird trap.
If I catch a bird with this,
I might just eat the whole thing
right then and there just to celebrate.
Oh, I’m done!
♪ ♪
- Just getting everything prepped for the day.
Fortunately for us, we won’t be wasting any time
eating breakfast this morning.
We can just get straight under way.
♪ ♪
Isn’t it great?
♪ ♪
Such a time saver, not having any food.
♪ ♪
Today is all about hunting.
♪ ♪
Very cold.
This snow on the ground-- just a tiny little dusting.
And the river is already icing over.
We’re gonna head down
to some of the further valleys and look for grouse.
♪ ♪
Out here, I’m grateful for every life
that I’ve taken.
You know, killing is a hard thing to do every day.
It can be exhausting.
It takes a lot of grouse to feed a man in the wild.
♪ ♪
Look at how pretty this little valley is right now.
The camera doesn’t do it justice.
♪ ♪
No grouse, though. [sniffs]
[sighs] I’m getting tired early.
Not a good sign, but we need to keep pushing on.
♪ ♪
Fingers crossed.
♪ ♪
I’m still losing weight at a pretty steady pace.
The number-one thing is just conserving calories.
But if I have to actively hunt
for three or four hours every day,
I’m burning a tremendous amount of calories.
The grouse are around,
but getting harder to find and harder to shoot--
same with the squirrels.
And I’m not finding any new bear sign.
♪ ♪
It’s right there.
♪ ♪
Stay right there.
♪ ♪
[bow thuds]
♪ ♪
Yes.
♪ ♪
We got something to eat tonight.
♪ ♪
Ah, thank God.
[exhales deeply]
It’s a beautiful, beautiful grouse.
♪ ♪
I can’t tell you what this bird means to me.
I’m so hungry.
And I’m really deeply, deeply appreciative.
♪ ♪
We get to stay for another day.
♪ ♪
I’m just letting her calmly die.
♪ ♪
Go to sleep. It’ll be okay.
♪ ♪
You’re okay.
[exhales sharply]
♪ ♪
I’m getting a little burned out on killing things...
♪ ♪
Watching them die.
I feel a little bit sad every time.
♪ ♪
And I think day after day,
that kind of takes a little bit of a toll.
♪ ♪
I wish I could just kill one more animal
and be set for my time out here,
not have to continue to kill and kill and kill.
♪ ♪
I feel a deep, deep commune with this place.
The only other place I felt this deeply connected to land
is in my own property.
♪ ♪
At home, I could shoot a white-tail deer
and be good for a couple months.
That’s one animal to watch die,
to appreciate their death.
♪ ♪
But that is unlikely to happen.
♪ ♪
And if I want to stay, then other things need to die.
♪ ♪
And that’s the web of life that we live in.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Today is day 50, day 50.
Big milestone.
Just as a treat to myself,
today I’m wearing new socks,
so completely unused,
nice, new wool socks.
The last socks that I’ve used,
I’ve used them continuously for about 20 days.
It’s kind of like when it’s Christmas
and your grandma gives you socks,
and you’re like, "Oh, thanks, Grandma."
But--[laughs]
In my case, it’s like, "Thanks, Grandma!
I really wanted these." [chuckles]
"They’re awesome." [chuckles]
♪ ♪
Right now I’m a bit dehydrated.
I need to drink water.
So I’m gonna check how thick the ice is
and grab some water.
♪ ♪
I’m excited for the ice.
Time to start using my ax.
♪ ♪
Very conveniently, I have a pier.
That means that I can go to the deeper ice
and just use my ax.
♪ ♪
Another day in Labrador.
I’m dying.
[gulps]
♪ ♪
I’m thankful that there’s water here,
but there’s no food coming in.
And trapping, hunting, fishing
takes so much energy.
With the fish, I kind of screwed up.
I think I probably spent more energy
trying to build the pier and the fishing pole.
And now I realize
I have to be strategic about my energy.
This is not my first time starving.
So I know that if I just eat a little bit,
I’m going to have extreme hunger
and I’m gonna have hunger pangs.
This mental hunger is an obsession.
And it takes a lot of mental energy to come back.
But if you go full fast, you basically jump that,
and you do not get the mental hunger
because your body really understands
that this is an extreme situation.
So my plan right now basically is to fast
for 20 more days.
Isn’t that insane?
♪ ♪
What inspires me the most is the amazing things
we can do when our minds and bodies are in sync.
I feel everything is telling me hunker down.
It’s all a risk.
But I improvise a lot,
and I’m not afraid to just go, like, completely opposite
of what everyone would do and go with my intuition.
I just need to last a day longer
than the other contestants.
That’s all I need, you know?
You don’t have to outrun the bear.
You just have to outrun your friend.
That’s my plan. It’s a little bit crazy.
But I think it’s doable.
20 more days of starving.
I think my body can take it,
and my mind can take it.
We’ll see.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Well, good afternoon.
Oh, my God.
I’ll show you, but the river is frozen over.
I can’t believe it. [chuckles]
Let’s see if we can pick it up on the camera.
Gonna spin you around.
There we go. Zoom right in.
Look at that. That’s all ice.
And a section in the middle is actually flowing.
It hasn’t froze yet.
♪ ♪
Winter is upon us.
♪ ♪
I’m out here as long as I can stay out.
Winter, here we come. Bring it on.
This is "monumentous."
My fishing pole is gonna become a walking stick
’cause I love this stick and I think fishing’s out.
[chuckles]
I know some really cold weather is coming in.
I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing--
hunting and trapping every day.
I’m definitely on the trail for food
because that’s what’s gonna keep me out here.
[ax thumping]
I’m going to be so happy to have this
when I’m trekking around.
♪ ♪
Yay, I got a walking stick.
Fishing...krr, done.
Let’s go find some food.
♪ ♪
I need to get some blood moving.
Every time I check my traps, I come home empty-handed.
Today I woke up feeling super refreshed,
and I’m hungry.
[laughs]
Mentally, emotionally, I feel ready for winter.
It’s really dependent on food right now for me.
♪ ♪
Oh, here’s one of my traps.
And...
♪ ♪
It got blown out.
Looks like...
♪ ♪
Someone went through there, which is good.
♪ ♪
With the fishing days coming to an end,
I am changing my plan to spending as much time
as possible trapping.
♪ ♪
That one still looks good.
That’s really my only food options at this point.
♪ ♪
Looks like someone’s been digging there.
♪ ♪
Where is it?
Oh!
[gasps] Oh.
Oh, my gosh.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Oh. [gasps]
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh, my gosh.
♪ ♪
I got one.
♪ ♪
I got one. [chuckles]
He’s frozen.
Looks like he still has snowflakes on his head,
so obviously not from today.
Aw.
Yay, I got something for dinner.
[laughs]
Wow.
Mwah.
I got a frozen dinner for my dinner tonight.
[laughs]
Oh, that’s not funny.
I hope he hasn’t been there for too long.
Let me put you in the pocket.
I’ll have to thaw him out just to gut him.
♪ ♪
This one tastes really good.
♪ ♪
It makes me wonder how long it’s been sitting there frozen.
[chuckles]
Okay, one more leg. I did three legs.
Got to save some meat for tomorrow.
♪ ♪
I often think of the word "survival"
in a military perspective.
It’s a hard-core term.
But then the word "wilderness" to me is very different.
It’s about that spiritual connection with the land.
I am loving every single bite that I get to eat.
♪ ♪
I see wilderness survival as not just about the skills.
It’s about the attitude, the positive humility.
It’s why I sing songs.
The songs bring me back to myself
and ground me
to the spiritual connection with the Earth.
It is that connection with the land
that keeps me ready for whatever it’s going to be.
Checked my traps, got a squirrel.
It’s been a good day.
So just chillin’ tonight. Gonna go to bed.
Do it all over again tomorrow.
♪ Aye-aye-aye, aye-aye-aye-aye ♪
♪ Aye-aye-aye-aye, aye-aye-aye-aye ♪
♪ Aye-aye-aye-aye... ♪
♪ ♪
- Look.
♪ ♪
Plan for today-- still recovering on my legs,
so I’m gonna set up snares for squirrels.
♪ ♪
Kind of keep an eye out for good snaring spots...
so I take advantage of every food opportunity.
This is a nice snare point right here.
♪ ♪
I know my hunting grounds very well now,
and I know the animal behavior very well now.
The hunting that I do is based on sectors.
I don’t overexert myself walking around,
and I’m only taking shots when squirrels are feeding,
when squirrels are shuttling from points A and B
and I’m waiting at points A and B.
Hopefully we catch something.
♪ ♪
Every day you have to adapt here.
The next challenge for me is seeing
if these new limits on my body
will affect my ability to get food.
♪ ♪
This is a good one.
I can see some of their stashes over here,
those little piles.
Looking for kind of natural funnel points,
snare areas.
♪ ♪
I feel like no matter how hard it gets,
if it’s for family,
everything’s worth it.
♪ ♪
In my heart, I know that I need to push.
I need to show how strong I am,
how strong my mom made me.
♪ ♪
[bird cawing]
Oh, there’s the crow.
[cawing continues]
♪ ♪
Let’s check the bird trap. All right, to the beach.
♪ ♪
Holy cow.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[bleep].
May have been tampered with.
♪ ♪
If I go another week without catching anything...
I think that’s gonna be hard.
That’s going to be really frickin’ hard.
♪ ♪
Just got to keep the spirits high,
the energy levels not overworked,
and just need one win.
♪ ♪
I don’t know how I’m gonna explain this experience.
♪ ♪
I think it’s a lot different
than what I thought it would be.
Look at that.
♪ ♪
I wish Gabrielle could see what I see right now.
When I first signed up for this challenge,
I thought it was to challenge myself.
But the more that I think about it,
I couldn’t do this if it was just for me.
I want to do it for the people that I love at home.
♪ ♪
I’m not the most trained out here,
but I’m relying on the land to teach me.
I take time to respect the ancestors of this land.
♪ ♪
If you’re in it to really test your boundaries,
you might not come back the same.
Relationships crumble,
and your life as you know it is changed forever.
Kind of just want to skip rocks on the river...
see how thick that ice is.
♪ ♪
Whoever catches fish in this, kudos, man.
♪ ♪
I feel like I’m gonna come back
with a very strong sense of who I am,
what I want to do in life, in my relationships,
everything.
Ooh.
How about this one?
♪ ♪
Yeah.
This experience has made me feel closer to Gab, too.
♪ ♪
I’ll fight for her every single step of the way,
as hard as I’ll fight over here...
♪ ♪
’Cause she’s everything.
♪ ♪
All right.
Wind’s telling me to go home.
I get it.
♪ ♪
- [sighs] How do we look?
We are looking skinny, boy.
We are looking skinny.
♪ ♪
Sorry for having to show you that beautiful sight.
♪ ♪
I don’t know what to do.
♪ ♪
The calorie game here just isn’t working in my favor.
I’ve got food.
I’m working harder to get it, and it’s not enough.
I’m losing a pound of weight a day.
And there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about that.
♪ ♪
No one on this show has ever really thrived
on small game.
People have eked by.
♪ ♪
So I’m gonna focus
on getting a black bear.
♪ ♪
I’m gonna walk out to the back lot
and see if we can find any bear sign out there.
♪ ♪
[exhales deeply]
Hard to make this walk. [sighs]
Used to be I could walk up this hill
two minutes, four or five steps at a time.
♪ ♪
[exhales deeply]
My energy levels are definitely at an all-time low.
I can feel my body slipping into starvation mode.
My body’s just getting weak.
♪ ♪
I keep having to stop every couple minutes
and catch my breath.
♪ ♪
Not a great sign.
♪ ♪
I have been grinding away out here...
[exhales sharply]
Day in and day out, for over 50 days.
It hasn’t been an easy time.
Every day has been a challenge
that I have embraced and loved.
But my trajectory
has been bad for weeks.
♪ ♪
All right, my friends...
we have reached a critical juncture,
I believe.
[exhales deeply]
My legs are gassed.
I’m not walking right through the forest.
I’m stumbling.
♪ ♪
I’m walking like I’m really tired, and I am.
♪ ♪
And I have to call it.
♪ ♪
It’s time to go home.
♪ ♪
I don’t know how to logic my way around this food equation.
♪ ♪
We just aren’t bringing enough in,
and I’m not finding any new bear sign.
♪ ♪
Grouse and squirrels, berries and mushrooms...
that’s worked for 52 days,
but it’s not gonna work for another 20.
I just don’t think I have
20 days’ worth of weight to lose,
which is what I think I need to win.
♪ ♪
I wish I had fishing to fall back on
or gill netting or something, something,
something, something, you know?
♪ ♪
I have to work a physical job.
And if I can’t win,
I can’t screw my body up
to the point where I can’t work when I get home.
♪ ♪
But that black bear could walk
down that river valley trail
three days from now.
I could get a 20-yard shot from my front door.
♪ ♪
I really do love it out here.
I just wish I could get a little bit more food.
♪ ♪
[sighs]
♪ ♪
Okay.
♪ ♪
Let me show you something.
♪ ♪
There’s a spruce grouse in my camp.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
That bird has fueled my body.
My time in this place is inextricably linked
with that spruce grouse.
I wouldn’t be here right now if not for them.
♪ ♪
What a beautiful creature...
I’m grateful for.
♪ ♪
Any other day...
the last 52 days,
and this little guy would be dinner.
Today he’s gonna get away with it...
’Cause we’re going home.
♪ ♪
It’s a sad thing to think about--
my time here coming to an end.
♪ ♪
Today when I felt my legs just turn to lead
and every step just be a massive effort
just to move,
that’s when you know.
♪ ♪
It feels like a good time to make that phone call.
What do you say?
♪ ♪
Go up top and admire the view a little bit.
♪ ♪
I want to leave here on my own two feet,
of my own volition, with my head held high.
I don’t want to get medically pulled for weight loss.
I don’t feel like that’s a noble way to leave.
♪ ♪
I came out here to burn my candle down to the wick,
and I got 52 days out of it.
Some could do better.
Others will do worse.
♪ ♪
[phone beeping]
♪ ♪
Hey, this is Adam.
I’m officially tapping out.
♪ ♪
There is a sadness there now,
sadness at the definite finality.
[sighs]
But I’m excited to see my loved ones,
to tell them all how much I love them...
♪ ♪
Deeper than I ever have
my whole life thanks to this.
♪ ♪
What a gift that is.
♪ ♪
Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
[chuckles]
♪ ♪
Done good, moss house.
Done good.
♪ ♪
Be sad to see you go.
♪ ♪
[distant engines rumbling]
Here they come.
Hey, guys.
I failed at my goal
of winning a half million dollars,
and when you fail at something,
you’re always going to want to review the playbook
and figure out what you could have done better.
But I did 100%--
and I can say this with confidence--
give everything I had to every single day,
even if on that day it meant that I couldn’t get out of bed
until 9:30 because I was so tired
’cause I hadn’t slept all night
and I could only do two or three hours of hunting
instead of five, and I came home empty-handed.
I still did the best I could.
And when you know that you’ve done your best,
losing at something
doesn’t feel quite so...
bitter.
What more could you have done, you know?
♪ ♪
I came out here with a backpack full of clothes
and ten items,
and I built myself a house,
and I kept myself fed and rested and watered
for close to eight weeks.
I’m pretty proud of that.
♪ ♪
I’m not a professional.
I’m a tradesman that loves the outdoors.
And I want to encourage anyone
to just get outside and to learn
and to try new things
because you don’t have to be a professional survivalist.
You just need to have some tenacity, some skills.
♪ ♪
I played my hand the best I could,
and I don’t quite match up,
and that’s okay.
♪ ♪
The risk that comes from doing things on your own
also comes with a great reward,
which is the opportunity to learn things about yourself
that you can’t learn in any other way.
♪ ♪
- Getting weaker.
My mind’s not as sharp.
My body’s kind of declining.
Oh. [bleep].
- The landscape has considerably changed.
Really crazy weather!
And it just hasn’t stopped.
Perfect hypothermia weather.
- Oh, my gosh, it’s deep!
I’m feeling like I’m not good enough
to come home with a meal.
It’s getting overwhelming.
Ah!
♪ ♪
- Any other day
of the last 52 days,
and this little guy would be dinner.
Today...
He’s gonna get away with it...
’cause we’re going home.
♪ ♪
My body is telling me it’s time to go,
and my brain is telling me,
"Hey, dude, it’s also time to go."
♪ ♪
A final gift from the land
is reassurance...
in my decision.
♪ ♪
Here they come.
Hey, guys.
Great to see you.
- How do you think this experience
has changed you? - [sighs]
So many ways actually.
First and foremost, I feel like it has changed
my relationship to food in a pretty profound way,
and this whole time that I’ve been out here,
and I’ve been living off of the land,
I want to go home and take that kind of connection
with me and really work towards deepening
my connection with the food that I eat at home as well.
Ooh, what is this? - Ooh.
- Oh, my God, it smells amazing.
Oh, my God, yes. Thank you.
Oh.
Okay, I gotta ask.
How many people are left?
- You really can’t tell me?
- Okay.
♪ ♪
I’ve had a great run.
I get to leave here with a smile on my face
and my head held high and my health intact...
♪ ♪
Having learned so much about myself
and learned so many new skills...
and there’s no loss in that.
♪ ♪
That’s me taking home a win.
♪ ♪
I will always remember this place fondly.
I have nothing but positive memories,
and that’s another win.
♪ ♪
I’m a blue collar tradesman that likes the outdoors
and has some cool skills.
♪ ♪
It was always gonna be a bit of a longshot win for me.
This landscape is entirely new to me...
♪ ♪
And I managed to make it a home...
based on the skills and the knowledge
that I do have...
♪ ♪
Just by adapting and by listening
and by...
being malleable to the conditions.
♪ ♪
I’m proud of what I’ve done.
♪ ♪
I don’t feel disappointed
about losing the half a million.
I am leaving here with a wealth
of new knowledge and wisdom
and deepened love and appreciation
for my family and for my home,
and that’s a pretty good consolation prize.