narrator: In the wild, the right skills
can make the difference between life and death.
- Ahh!
narrator: Now, some of "Alone’s" best competitors
are taking on a new mission.
- This is, like, some Indiana Jones-type stuff.
narrator: They’ll have just three days...
- Whoa! narrator: and limited tools...
- Here’s the fun part.
narrator: For a build challenge
devised by one of their own. - Time is ticking.
narrator: At stake for the winner...
- Whoo!
narrator: Bragging rights.
- You guys have your work cut out for you.
narrator: Tonight’s challengers:
Amós Rodriguez,
58-day survivor from season 7...
- Muah! [laughs]
narrator: Callie North, 72-day survivor from season 3...
- Check it out!
narrator: And Lucas Miller, 39-day survivor from season 1.
- Whoo!
narrator: Let the challenge begin.
♪ ♪
- I’m Joel. I lost at 40 days on Season 7 of "Alone."
Whoa!
I’ve created a really tough challenge for Lucas, Amós,
and Callie, so I’m really interested
to see what they come up with.
- The gods have bestowed upon us a box of mystery.
- Joel sent us this box.
- It’s the moment of truth.
- Let’s see what’s inside.
- Our envelope.
"Your challenge is to build two large game projectiles."
- Whoa.
- So basically, we need to create
two sort of hunting weapons.
- [chuckles] Oh, no.
- I’m excited for this one, actually.
- "To complete the challenge, your build must travel
at least 20 feet through the air,
"hit a 12-inch target,
penetrate at least 6 inches deep."
- "The challengers are Lucas, Callie, Amós."
That’s, uh, is gonna be a hard one.
- Let’s see what tools we have.
Okay, we got a ferro rod, a way to start fire.
So we can do things like straighten arrow shafts.
So that’s one of the things that we can use.
Aha. We have some kind of, like, artificial sinew
sort of stuff.
Maybe for a bowstring.
And the last object tool is...
oh, cool.
These are sami knives.
[spits]
Looks like I could shave with it.
Holy moly.
Thing’s scary sharp.
- Joel, this is a really good challenge.
This is gonna be really difficult.
- My immediate reaction to this is, "Oh, no."
I have watched many a bow be made.
It just has never been my skill.
But whatever, we’ll tackle it.
[intense music]
♪ ♪
- I’m thinking strategy.
I know that Joel is an expert bow maker.
He’s an expert hunter, too.
It’s something he’s been focused on.
- Do not make eye contact
until you’re ready for the shot.
- I think that I can tip the scales in my favor
by making a crossbow and an atlatl.
♪ ♪
Whoops.
So I’ve got my piece
for the crossbow stock.
This will be where my shoulder goes,
and then this’ll be the straight barrel
that I’ll look down.
And so I just need to
clean it up and start
to straighten pieces out.
So a lot of chop-chop work right now.
♪ ♪
It is so hot.
♪ ♪
- So I’m just trying to figure out in my brain
how is this gonna work, man.
I can do a bow.
I’ve done them before.
I just don’t know if I can do it in that much time.
This hickory tree, it’s a really good wood
for bow making.
This is going to be the one.
Thank you, tree.
It’s not an easy thing just to go and cut some trees.
It’s a thing that you have to do with a lot of respect.
You’re taking the life of a tree,
and you’re going to use that as a weapon to take
the life of other animals.
I’m going to plant more hickories.
Now, the next step is to divide it
into what we call staves.
♪ ♪
Look at this gorgeous piece of wood.
That’s the stave we’re using.
♪ ♪
- I’m going to make two projectiles
that shoot poison darts.
For my blowgun, I’m gonna be using bamboo.
So you can see how the bamboo is hollow,
but it has these knuckles.
So what I’m gonna do is split this down and then
hollow out the knuckles, and then secure it
back together with our sinew.
Okay.
I think I have the basic shape of it.
What’s important is that this is super airtight,
so I’m gonna fill in any little holes with fir pitch glue.
Okay, so here we have fir pitch.
I’m gonna be making glue by melting it.
So my first step is just getting the resin here
on a little bed of coals to melt slowly
and then mixing it with ground charcoal from the fire.
This will help fill in any of the cracks on my blowgun here.
I’m also going to make a mouthpiece.
This is sticky business.
Very happy with how this has turned out.
We’ll just see if this works at all.
♪ ♪
[blows]
♪ ♪
- We’ll just see if this works at all.
[blows]
♪ ♪
This isn’t gonna work. [laughs]
Well, this arrow isn’t gonna work.
That’s just too small.
Not enough wind can get around it.
Let’s see. Let’s try one
with something like this.
♪ ♪
[blows]
There we go.
♪ ♪
- So for the part of the crossbow that is the bow,
I need flexible wood that has a lot of spring to it.
I’ve found a pretty much ideal juniper bow.
Straight, doesn’t look like it’s twisted.
It’s amongst other trees, so it’s growing
up straight to get the light.
♪ ♪
So I’m gonna start to shape this.
It’ll need split, carved down,
but we’re on our way.
♪ ♪
So here we are. Another day.
Time is ticking, and I really need to begin
to attach my prod to my stock.
So I’m gonna use this natural cordage
that I made that’s so strong.
♪ ♪
So for a bowstring knot,
I do an overhand knot on one end
so big that it can slide over the bow itself.
This one is the one that will move.
The second knot is simple.
I’m gonna make sure the string is on the neck,
and I’m gonna just wrap around it a few times.
And then, when stringing a bow, use my hands
and just bring it over--boop.
And now, all we have left is to put this bow on.
♪ ♪
Wow.
[grunts]
That thing is no joke.
Okay, my bow string’s holding.
The bow looks strong.
Everything’s held in place by cordage.
I’m digging it. It’s looking good.
♪ ♪
- Okay.
I like how it’s looking.
I have to start a fire soon, just to dry it.
Normally, it will go to the garage for a few months.
[laughs] I don’t have a few months.
I got a few hours.
At least I got the ferro rod.
I don’t have to make a primitive fire.
Right there in the center.
While we wait for that, let’s work on the other project.
♪ ♪
The dart will sit in here, this hook.
Yeah, we’ll see.
Let’s peel it and put it by the fire.
Now I need to harvest some bamboo for the darts.
♪ ♪
[imitates dart flying]
[laughs]
- My next projectile is gonna be a crossbow.
Perfect. Okay, let’s go get a piece of ocean spray.
You want it to be able to bend without breaking
but also snap back.
I’m gonna clean this wood up.
So I’m just cutting a notch here,
and this is where top of the bow will bend over it.
♪ ♪
Gosh, that might be it.
Okay, here’s the start of the crossbow.
♪ ♪
All right, I’m gonna use some of my glue in here.
That’s already created a super strong bind,
and then once I wrap it with the sinew,
I think that’s gonna be really tight.
So I’m just gonna do a simple three-strand braid.
♪ ♪
This will pull our bow back.
[wood snaps]
[bleep]. It cracked.
[sighs] Okay.
I’m gonna have to make a new one.
Here we go. Let’s go get another piece of wood.
I can’t waste any time.
♪ ♪
- Okay, well, after a long couple days,
I figured out the best way for my bow to work.
Now it’s longer, and I think that that’s
gonna help with the breakage.
Okay, so we’re going out to gather our poison
for my poison darts.
This is foxglove here, and it has an alkaloid
and that affects the nervous system
and can cause the heart to stop.
Just to be on the safe side,
always gather poisons with gloves.
I’m gathering a combination of the leaves,
the seed pods, the flowers.
That should be enough.
♪ ♪
- Yeah, I think this bow is gonna be good.
So now, gotta work on the atlatl, make the darts,
make the arrow.
Today’s so crazy, man.
Make a little hole in the atlatl head
so it can receive the dart.
And this will fit in here.
You can exchange this if you break this one,
I guess, on the animal.
The arrow shaft.
I fire-hardened the tip of that to make the nock.
Just a little bit on one side,
a little bit on the other side.
The very last touch will be the fletching.
I was able to find a couple of feathers.
They’re pretty beat up.
♪ ♪
That’ll create drag, and then I can tie it
on top here with my string.
♪ ♪
- Looking for pieces to make bolts.
Time is definitely getting short.
Oh, my gosh.
[clanging rocks] Hear that?
High silica content.
So that’s telling us that this stone
is potentially knappable, could turn it into points.
Oh, yeah, that’s awesome.
I have a number of rhyolite flakes here.
Need to make it sharper.
This is called "pressure flaking," and what I’m doing
is using the tip of this antler and chipping.
And whenever it chips, it creates a very sharp edge.
Okay, I’m gonna prepare some feathers that I found earlier
for my bolt.
Not terrible.
So now I need to cut a notch into this
and pitch it in or tie it in, or all of it.
♪ ♪
Looks pretty good.
The pitch makes it a little bulky, but...
you know, I don’t got much time.
Gonna start my second projectile weapon,
this atlatl.
If there’s one thing I’m working against right now,
it’s time.
Nothing like rushing your craftsmanship.
♪ ♪
- I gotta hurry up.
I gotta make a bowstring,
so I’m going to do a reverse wrap.
- I’m looking for feathers to make my fletching.
Oh, yep, here’s one.
Hopefully, one will work,
’cause that’s all I have time for.
- I need to get moving.
Oh, goodness.
So here’s my chucker.
I need to carve this down quite a bit.
- Physically, it’s a real challenge.
To try to make a bow like this takes a lot of effort.
♪ ♪
- I don’t know if you can see it,
but I’m just actually sweating.
- So I’m gonna use the last bit of my sinew here
to tie on my fletching.
Basically figuring it out as I go.
- Not bad, man.
For one knife, this is gonna be a killer bow, dude.
I can already tell.
- I feel good about the crossbow.
I feel uncertain about the atlatl.
♪ ♪
- Three days ago, I gave Amós, Lucas,
and Callie a really tough challenge to build
two large game projectiles.
I only gave them three tools:
Artificial sinew, a knife, and a ferro rod.
The rules of the build were that their projectile
had to travel 20 feet through the air,
it had to hit a target no bigger
than 12 inches in diameter,
and it had to have at least 6 inches of penetration.
And now it’s time to see how they did.
♪ ♪
- Okay, so here’s our target.
I have my arrow dipped in poison.
What I’ll do for my trigger is I just take
a tiny little piece of bamboo and just flip it up.
♪ ♪
- Oh, that was not a good one.
Okay, here we go again.
♪ ♪
Yes! [laughs]
Went in that far.
6 inches.
And now we have our blow gun.
I’m really excited about this one.
[blows]
Oh, yeah.
First shot.
Definitely went 6 inches there.
That’s awesome.
[blows] Ooh, okay.
I think the poison dart is my weapon.
The crossbow, not so much.
♪ ♪
[blows]
♪ ♪
- This day, I got my weapons, my projectiles.
So I’m measuring 20 feet.
18, 19, 20.
Right there.
So let’s go with the bow and arrow first.
And I can’t believe it’s raining.
Every time.
♪ ♪
That’s about 4 inches right now.
♪ ♪
It’s 5 inches.
100% humidity makes it hard.
♪ ♪
Whoa.
♪ ♪
6 inches.
Let’s do the atlatl.
So basically--
ah, it’s so high.
♪ ♪
Look at that.
Oh yeah, that’s 6 inches.
I’m actually really happy with the results,
with how everything went down.
And I should stop shooting in the rain,
but it’s so much fun.
Come on, this one wins? [laughs]
♪ ♪
- Okay, so it’s testing day here in the Sonoran Desert.
I’ve got a crossbow and an atlatl that I need to test.
So we just measured out 20 feet here,
and I’m gonna start with this atlatl first.
♪ ♪
It split it and went through it like that.
So that’s definitely 6 inches.
♪ ♪
Yeah, it went right through it again.
The atlatl is actually quite accurate.
All right, let’s check out the crossbow next.
It looks sharp, but does it perform?
I’m about to find out.
♪ ♪
We’re going 6 inches through a target.
This thing has a lot of power.
So I’m very pleased with how the crossbow
and the atlatl turned out.
They both shot straight, worked powerfully.
I think Callie and Amós will have a challenger this round.
I guess now it’s just up to Joel.
♪ ♪
- Oh, man.
I am just so blown away.
They have all impressed the heck out of me
and exceeded my expectations.
So let’s look at Callie’s build.
I absolutely love the originality
of building a blowgun with a poison-tipped dart.
Her ingenuity of the crossbow was really impressive.
However, there were a couple of things that made me
wonder how much power it has.
Amós delivered.
He built a symmetrical bow.
He took the time to dry it and cure it
which is absolutely crucial to the longevity of a bow.
He clearly has got the eye for the detail,
and he got great penetration with both
the atlatl and the bow.
Lucas really surprised and impressed me.
He had a really high-powered crossbow.
But not only that, he also had higher front-of-center weight
on his arrow, which gives it more stability
and better flight because he has a stone point up front.
I was impressed with his atlatl.
I think his dart was nice and long,
and it had fairly good penetration.
This is such a hard decision.
They all met the criteria,
and they all had various original ideas
that they brought to their build,
which I was very impressed by.
But I’m gonna have to choose...
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
Lucas.
♪ ♪
The power that he was able to achieve
in that environment with such limited resources
blew me away.
Well done, Lucas, very impressed.
- Joel, I know you’re a keen hunter.
I appreciate you choosing me.
I put a lot of hard work into this one.
Everybody else, I know you put in a lot of work, too.
Thank you so much for being good competitors,
and on to the next skills challenge.
♪ ♪