[gunshot]
♪
male narrator: In one of the most brutal
survival challenges ever,
three straers will try to endure 30 days in the wild
with only one resource,
a fresh kill,
its location marked
by a single flare.
- As soon as that flare goes up,
the clock has started.
We need to get to that animal to preserve
every piece we can.
♪
- We have a long run. - We've got to move fast.
narrator: They have no tools...
- This is unreal.
I've never worked on an animal with just a rock.
- Come on. Let's go. - Come on.
narrator: Just the clothes on their backs.
- We have nothing.
This is gonna be extremely difficult to produce the tools
we need to accomplish the tasks
that have to be done right now.
narrator: Do they have the stamina
and ingenuity to survive?
♪
- [breathing heavily]
There it is. Holy...
- That's awesome. - Jeez Louise.
- As soon as I see the moose,
I know instantly that this is gonna be a lot of work.
♪
I'm not sure we're gonna get everything done,
including a shelter, before dark.
- All right. Let's get started with some cutting.
- Let's get some tools.
♪
- Not having a knife, it makes everything ten times harder.
So I am thoroughly impressed by our ancestors.
They used to live off the land,
and I'm excited about making that connection.
♪
- We're gonna have to find rocks we can work
to get sharp edges to get the animal apart and prepped.
I really can't work with this.
Why would I want to do something like this?
I like to see, how far can I go?
How far can I push this?
If my ancestors could do this, why can't I do this?
This challenge is the ultimate test
of my skills, wilderness survival,
bushcrafting, primitive skills.
Going out here with no tools in conditions
that are probably-- get worse and worse
day to day, minute by minute, it's a true challenge
and there are parts of it I'm not looking forward to.
- Found a rock, Lindsay?
- I'm seeing how well it does.
- You guys finding anything?
- Lindsay's trying something that she found.
- It's getting dull.
♪
- The rock formations around here
are just absolute junk for cutting edges.
The rocks have all been broken up by ice and frost
and everything else, so trying to get
a cutting edge is terrible.
It gives me a whole newfound respect
for why primitive peoples traveled so far
to trade for things like obsidian or chert
that they could knap into a decent blade.
♪
- Find anything decent?
- Yeah, I think I got one.
♪
- Oh yeah, that's good.
- Perfect. I'm getting started.
♪
The number one priority right now
is to get the guts out of it.
The guts keep a lot of heat trapped in there,
and if you get them out, it will cool it down
and prevent the meat from spoiling.
But the hide's incredibly thick...10, 15 strokes,
you might make it a half inch maybe.
♪
Just careful, because his guts are right here.
So you want to cut right at the skin right here.
I grew up running around the woods with my dad.
He taught me all about hunting and the love of the outdoors.
I have three of my own kids, and all of them have helped
in way or another with butchering,
whether they were on a hunt with me
or have hunted themselves
and harvested their own animals.
And I'm hoping that
as my kids watch their mom out here doing this challenge
that they can be inspired to chase their own dreams
whatever they are.
- And I might start working on this leg.
My skill set is definitely more the hunting
and fishing side of things,
setting primitive traps, stalking,
being able to hunt and take game.
I got excited about doing this challenge,
because it's the ultimate test.
Can I put my skill set to use?
Can I walk into the woods
with nothing but clothes and survive?
♪
- Come on.
- This animal is not only food.
It's everything for us out there.
And we have to preserve every piece we can.
♪
- I'm thinking, time-wise, like,
I don't really want to take the hide off of it
if we're not gonna get the quarters up somewhere.
- Yeah. I'm thinking we should divide and conquer.
- Joe, you want to start... - Shelter.
- Start on a shelter.
I'll have her get the lungs and heart out.
- Yeah.
- And then we can let this bad boy sit overnight.
- Tonight we'll be keeping our ears open for predators.
If we hear anything,
we'll have to go out and check it out,
try to chase off something if it's coming in.
♪
- Shelter-making and fire-making.
Those are the two components I excel at.
Here's a good area right here. Nice and flat.
We have a lot of these trees here blocking the wind.
So that's good.
This wind sucks.
♪
I mean, right now, I'm, like,
even just feeling it right now
just against my back.
Just gonna break off the bottom limbs here
and then take some more boughs and put them on the outside.
We do not want to have the wind blowing over us
during the night.
Otherwise, you're just gonna be wasting energy
and body heat.
♪
- Because the moose is an incredibly large animal,
it's very difficult to get the heart and the lungs out.
Ohh.
You have to go shoulder-deep up into the animal
and try to reach the esophagus up in the throat.
Everything's attached inside the cavity to that esophagus.
If you can disconnect that, you can usually hook
your fingers inside the esophagus, pull down,
and get everything to come out all at once.
♪
- Did you get it? - Yep, I got it.
- Oh, nice.
- [laughs] - Ooh.
[laughs]
♪
- We've propped open the rib cage
with a stick to allow the air to circulate
inside the cavity.
It will cool down tonight, and in the morning,
we'll pick back up where we left off.
♪
- [coughing]
[wind whistling]
♪
- Last night was rough.
We all curled up around each other.
It was quite cold.
- [coughing]
- Was that you coughing in the night?
- And I developed a nice little cough,
which is kind of worrisome, 'cause,
it's, like, we're only 24 hours into this,
and it's, like, already becoming exceedingly
a challenge.
[coughing]
- Joe had a rough night. He's coughing really bad.
He said he's sweating, feeling, like, fever-y,
and just really not looking good.
♪
- We have all sort of priorities today.
It's gonna be a headache.
♪
This morning, my main goal is to get the hide off the moose
and get the quarters and the backstraps all off
and cached somewhere, so they're safe.
♪
- Having our cache up on the cliff edge
protects the meat from all sorts of bears here,
primarily black bears.
I want to make a decent cache for the moose,
because we need this food for the next month.
And we can absolutely
under no circumstances lose this meat.
♪
[birds squawking]
- [coughing]
[birds squawking]
- Got a pair of ravens. Bears aren't stupid.
They observe.
Yeah, if they see, like, birds circling around and gathering,
that's where they'll head to.
Bears getting ready to hibernate.
They're gonna be solely devoted to eating,
and you get in their way, they're not gonna hesitate
to bat you aside or turn you into a meal.
♪
Whew.
Damn, I'm feeling...
- Tired? - Yeah.
- You feeling dehydrated?
- It's not that; it's just burnt out at this point.
- Maybe sit down for a minute.
- Yeah.
Ugh.
[coughs]
This cold, right now, it's brutal.
- I would really like to get this moose broken down,
quartered out, get him cached,
and if possible, I'd love to get fire going too.
But to have one less set of hands
with Joe being sick, we're behind the eight ball.
- [coughing]
Oh, sheez, [bleep].
[coughing]
♪
- We're down a set of hands with Joe being sick.
He's coughing and hacking.
So Lindsay are doing a lot of work.
And would love to get fire going too.
There's a bit of a ticking clock right now,
with the meat.
To be able to preserve every piece, fire is key.
It's protection; it's a way to boil water
and prepare food.
It is literally gonna be our bread and butter out here.
♪
So I decided I'm gonna go for this
Inuit strap method.
It was used in the Arctic
and dates back hundreds and hundreds of years.
You'll have the fire board in between your knees.
The hide serves as the strap
run by both hands around the spindle.
And then your down pressure for your bearing block
is put in your mouth,
so it kind of gives you a little bit more control
over how fast or the direction of your spindle,
stuff like that.
♪
[bleep].
The wind and the fire
don't really go together for the first step.
It's great once you get an ember going.
♪
But trying to get that ember going,
the wind is just a killer.
Oh, my back.
♪
I've been at this for seven hours
and my shoulders hurt, my back hurts.
I've had some really close calls but nothing yet.
♪
So right now, I'm picking off witch's beard.
It's a fungus that grows on dead trees or dead branches,
I'm gonna take the dust from this,
put it into my fire board,
and hopefully be able to create fire with it.
♪
Hey Lindsay, we got it.
- Oh my gosh, I can't believe it.
- When you've put so much blood, sweat,
and tears into building one of these friction fires,
you really--you build a relationship with it.
This gives me a whole new respect
of what the primitive peoples went through
that lived in the Arctic.
♪
Feeling awesome.
I'm anxious to get some moose in my belly.
♪
Here. Here's a chunk.
- Ooh, it's hot. - Uh-huh.
It's pretty amazing, even without any seasoning.
- Mm-hmm. Tastes just great.
After not having anything to eat for so long,
just roasting meat
is kind of hard to beat when you're hungry.
♪
- Joe is pretty much down for the count.
We need to get all three of us working at the same time.
So one of our big pushes is,
we want to be able to boil water
to get the tea going so that we can help Joe out.
The Native Americans used this technique.
Cut into a stomach and use it to boil water.
Well, how about I'll go and rinse this stomach out?
- Okay.
♪
- Just washing out the stomach.
I have it turned inside-out.
And these are all the little fibers the move the grasses
or the barks or whatever the moose has been eating,
so I want to make sure I get everything washed
out of all of these little nooks and crannies.
♪
Well, that'll hold water now.
- And then we'll set the rocks on the flaps.
That's good thinking. - Yeah.
♪
- We're heating rocks in our fire pit
and as we heat them,
we take one out, and we'll put it in the water.
As those heat up, we switch them out with a new hot rock.
♪
- You--you need some rose hips?
- Yeah. - Okay.
We'll find some rose hips.
Rose hips have some vitamin C that we can grind up,
and hopefully, that'll get Joe feeling a little bit better.
♪
- [coughing]
- The whole point of having a group
is to help with the workload.
- Joe, we've got some of that tea ready for you
if you want to try it.
- I'm just worried about him getting better.
♪
- Doing any better?
- [groans]
- It's very hot.
♪
- [coughs]
Feel like I'm just being a damn anchor to you guys.
♪
Ohh.
This is hard for me. It's just--
it's like, guys, I have to--I'm done.
I have to call it in.
♪
I've got to take care of my health.
♪
- It's a blow to the team to lose part of your crew.
- Sorry.
♪
I'm disappointed.
Feels like I'm abandoning my team, letting them down.
I tried, and then I just crashed and burned.
Sometimes you've just got to call it in.
♪
Mother Nature doesn't take kindly to fools.
And if you're being foolish by trying to push
by sheer stubbornness,
she ain't gonna be gentle about it,
and that's why I'm listening to her.
She's saying, "Joe, get your butt back home."
That's what I'm doing.
♪
That water is ridiculously cold.
- Lindsay and I are gonna have way more work
now that Joe's gone, to go get firewood,
to go get water, to cook meat,
all of the stuff that has to get done on a daily basis.
And to have one less set of hands is
gonna add to our workload for sure.
- That's interesting.
♪
- Liver's gone.
- Kidney there too. - Mm-hmm.
- Yeah.
- We know that there are predators in this area,
bears especially.
We haven't seen one yet, but we know
that it's only a matter of time before they show up.
So we've been trying to keep our eyes out
and be ready for that when it happens.
♪
- The carcass has been stripped of everything
that we can use it for,
and now we're just gonna concentrate on defending it
from whatever predators are around
and preserving what meat we've taken off.
♪
- Out here, there's not a lot of ways to preserve your meat,
so one of the ways people used to preserve their meat
was by smoking it.
Smoke gets the moisture out of it,
and then it also creates this barrier
on the outside of the meat that helps protect it
from bacteria and things like that.
♪
- We're using a chunk of hide that was cut off of the moose
to attempt to channel the smoke
through this big split rock
that's next to the shelter,
and if we go and build a fire box on one side,
the moose hide will cover the top,
so it's acting like a horizontal chimney.
That should allow us to put the meat in it
and should give us a real nice smoke.
♪
We have about 400 pounds of meat,
so it's gonna be a lot of work.
♪
I'm not super stoked about
going to sleep in the shelter tonight.
It is wet and drippy, damp, and cold.
This is a bunch of crap.
- The snow, it's settling on the shelter
and then it's, like, slowly melting through.
It's gonna make for a long night.
- We'll just hunker down and ride it out.
- Yep.
♪
- So last night, the snowstorm moved in
and started to melt into the shelter
getting everything wet.
And then the temperature dropped off.
Panic goes through your brain,
because you automatically start thinking
about hypothermia.
♪
So trying to keep things dried out is gonna be paramount.
- This is a big 'un.
We've decided we need to add some more boughs
to the top of the shelter to just make
a waterproof barrier that we know
the snow can't get through.
- Hopefully, it'll keep some of that snow from just blowing in.
Out here in the Arctic, you have to keep your fire going
and try and keep your shelter dry
and keep your meat from freezing,
and that's way more difficult than back home.
That stupid smoker.
Fire's out again.
Man, the Arctic is brutal.
- We're gonna have to build, like, a massive one in there.
- The Arctic is just a harsh environment,
and just trying to stay warm, trying to stay motivated,
it's gonna be a constant fight from here on out.
Could make for a long month.
♪
- Hey, Zane?
Zane.
- What?
I think I hear something out there.
- Bear.
♪
[leaves rustling]
[bear growling]
- Get the hell out of here. Ahh!
Go on!
♪
- Yeah.
♪
The Arctic is one of the more brutal places in the world.
The extreme temperatures, the erratic weather,
everything that's unpredictable and unforgiving
about this area, it makes everything harder.
Right now, I'm missing my kiddos, like,
to the point where I'm contemplating...
um...I don't know.
We'll see what happens with that.
♪
How goes the battle?
- Slowly but surely. - Um...
so... [clears throat]
I'm gonna have to-- you know,
just keeping this short,
I have to tap.
♪
- [bleep].
- Um...so... [clears throat]
♪
Just keeping this short, I have to tap.
♪
- Why? - I'm missing my family.
And I've got to just tap out
and get home as quick as I can.
♪
I'm very, very sorry about leaving you solo up here.
This is gonna be--
make things ten times as hard.
- It's gonna be quite a long time
out here without you alone.
♪
Suddenly, two is down to one.
♪
He's having to head on out, which was a shock.
I didn't, obviously, see that coming at all.
Coming out here, you know, the whole mind-set,
getting ready for this thing, in my head,
it was, like, a team thing, you know.
It's a team effort. And suddenly, the team is me.
And I just wasn't expecting that.
So it's a little bit of a mind shift,
and the whole dynamics change.
♪
Now that he's gone,
my load's just gonna be a lot more daunting,
just to keep everything going that I need to survive,
to keep my fires going, the smoker going,
keep myself warm, keep myself dry.
♪
In the conditions that we're in,
I don't know that I would be able
to start a fire out here if the fire went out.
I was pretty sure to have at least some company
throughout the whole journey.
But this one did definitely catch me by surprise.
It's just gonna be a grind during the days
from here on out.
♪
[bear growling]
♪
I think I heard something outside.
♪
Every night, you hear a little bit of something.
Usually, it sounds like a squirrel
that's really small or something.
This time it sounds a little bit bigger.
♪
I was just coming down to get some water,
and the bear's on the carcass, and I can see him.
[birds squawking]
It's just--
that kind of effectively changes my trip to the water.
I know that what this bear wants is the meat,
and if I happen to get between him
and some of that meat,
and he thinks that I'm a threat,
he could attack me.
And I don't really want to go there.
♪
Yesterday, the bear was really wanting to be
down there eating on that carcass,
and it might be best for me to drag that carcass
that he wants down around where he feels safe
and I've him his stuff in his area
and keep my stuff in my area.
♪
Hopefully, if he has that
that he can eat on and feel comfortable and safe,
then he won't feel like he needs to wander up
looking for more this way.
He's a big boy.
Just to help reduce the risk of him, you know,
coming up and getting into one of my caches.
I was able to move the moose
from where he was to below these cliffs,
which is quite a little way from where my camp is.
It's definitely worth bringing it down here.
It kind of gives us a little bit more separation
and gives him what he needs and gives me what I need.
♪
I thought I would try my hand at making a little bone knife.
We'll see if I can pull it off.
But I'm trying to thin this piece down
so that I can sharpen this edge right here.
♪
For me, it's more of, like, to have here in the shelter
in case Mr. Bear pokes his nose around,
I have something that can give me
a little bit of distance maybe
better than nothing, which is what I had.
♪
[wind whistling]
♪
[bear growling]
[bleep].
I just saw a bear right out past my fire,
and he was literally, like,
ten feet away from me.
♪
[bleep].
[bear growling]
♪
- [bleep].
He's literally, like, ten feet away.
He could see the fire, and he could see me.
He's way too comfortable.
He's getting into my personal stash
right here by camp.
♪
Just gonna check my cache.
♪
Found some bear tracks.
My shelter is right there,
and he didn't--obviously, he didn't care.
He was here.
♪
Bears, you know, are dangerous.
They can hurt people.
That's it's just me, it's gonna be a lot harder to be safe.
♪
Now that I know that he's obviously not gonna go away,
the best decision is to find another location.
So I'm gonna pull my hide out from the shelter
that I used for keeping me dry,
and I'm gonna fashion that into a pack
to carry the few things that I do need to take.
And I'll gather up the meat that I need
and roll that up into that pack as well.
I also decided to bring this scapula,
because it actually throws fairly well.
If Zane and Joe were still here,
setting up a new shelter would be a lot easier,
but this seems like the best option that I have right now.
I'm gonna use this birchwood to carry my ember
for my new fire in a new spot.
♪
Fire is essential,
and I'm not capable of building a fire in these conditions.
And I've put my ember down here and this piece of chaga,
and then the heat from the fire can rise up into the chaga.
♪
It is a great coal extender. It should hold my coal for me
and keep it going until I get to my new location,
and I can use it to start a fire.
♪
The risks of leaving my campsite
are just the fact that I'm leaving good shelter,
a dry location,
resources that I'm aware of and well-established as to
where I can find them, a large amount of food.
There's a lot of risks to leaving,
but at some point, it would come to a head
between him and me and the meat.
When it comes down to it,
without a gun, he's gonna win eventually,
and I don't really want that fight.
♪
I miss my family. It's not easy.
My kiddos are my life.
They are the number one thing to me.
But I've learned in life that you have to do the things
that you would regret not doing.
♪
[bleep].
♪
If my fire went out along this trip,
I would be [bleep].
I will not longer have a fire to dry my clothes out.
I won't have a fire to warm up by.
Fire is huge for me out here,
and without it, I would have to tap out.
♪
There's still heat there.
♪
There you go.
I know that I'm gonna have to find a spot quickly.
♪
Zane had an incredibly difficult time
getting the fire to go,
and it's not gonna be possible for me to create a new ember,
and I need to nurse this one back to a flame.
♪
Come on.
♪
- [bleep].
♪
Fire is huge for me out here.
♪
It's not gonna be possible for me to create a new ember,
and I need to nurse this one back to a flame.
♪
It means a lot to have fire.
If I didn't have fire, it would be a very wet,
cold night.
So tonight I'm just gonna throw some green boughs down,
just to try to get up off the wet,
and I'm going to use the moose hide
to keep me dry
and the fire to keep me warm.
Tomorrow I'll build a shelter.
♪
In the Arctic this time a year,
it's just going to keep getting colder.
So I've got to get a new shelter.
I'm gonna keep it simple.
Just big enough that the moose hide
can still cover my sleeping area and keep that dry too.
I need to get quite a few more boughs,
and then I'll have to trim off all the branches on the inside.
Positioning the hide so I can know
that that part will stay dry and then cover the rest of it
with as many boughs as possible.
I can tell that I'm drained,
but I need to stay protected from the wind and the cold.
It's just going to keep getting colder.
♪
When I woke up this morning,
I was feeling quite run-down and light-headed.
Been out here for quite a long time.
Not as many nutrients as I'm used to getting,
and I've been losing weight.
♪
When I decided to make a new camp,
I just brought only dried meat with me,
so I've just been eating dried meat.
And last night, when I was in bed,
it felt like I had been chewing glass.
Like, I cut all of my gums up.
So if my gums can't get fully healed,
it's gonna be difficult for me to eat.
I may also just need some more fat.
I've lost quite a bit of weight,
and I don't really have any fat.
♪
So I'm gonna be trying to hunt
and add some fresh meat to my diet.
If I get, like, a grouse,
there'll be some fat in the meat there.
And just the fresh meat, being easier to chew,
would also be a good thing.
♪
I've hunted grouse before,
but I usually hunt them with a .22 or a shotgun.
But the scapula, located on the shoulder
of the moose, I've discovered
that I can throw it fairly hard and accurately.
So this is my new grouse hunting tool.
♪
I've gotten a lot weaker.
Not nearly as capable as I was when I first came out here.
And it's a humbling feeling.
I'd like to leave knowing that I can fix that.
♪
I need more food.
♪
Yeah.
This will be a good dinner.
It's time to eat.
♪
I've been hungry the last couple days.
♪
It was the first time that my stomach
had actually felt full in probably a week.
And it gives me a little more energy
to be more excited for the final bit of this.
♪
Finally, it's time for me to pack up my stuff.
This journey is about to come to an end.
And I'm excited that I'm gonna be able
to finish it on a high note.
That's a great feeling for me.
Feels like forever ago that this whole thing started.
♪
Trying to survive with nothing
but the clothes on my back--I can't say,
like, this was fun or it was a good time,
because it wasn't fun; it was hard.
But that's exactly what I expected.
I didn't come into this with rose-colored glasses.
I knew it was gonna be a challenge.
But in the end, you see the value of all the struggle.
It's like climbing a mountain.
The climb sucks, but man, when you reach the summit,
that feeling-- that feeling is unbeatable.
♪
So much has happened since Zane and Joe were with me.
It's hard to go back there in my mind
and feel what I felt like then.
I'm very proud of how I've done out here.
I'm proud of the fact
that I was able to move forward by myself.
♪
I've found a new limit to what I'm capable of doing.
♪
And now I'm very excited to go home
and share this story with my kids.
And I hope that they are inspired to go and chase
and their own wild adventure stories.
♪