[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Black bear cutting across.
We're gonna try and cut him off.
Gotta move quick.
- My net never catches nothing.
We gotta make a move. There it is.
Catch a fish, baby.
- Yeah, baby!
Oh, [bleep]!
Whoo-hoo-hoo!
Every little success out here
definitely puts you in a better mental spot.
Oh, my gosh.
- No! Oof!
[grunts] Stupid.
I need to think about every single move
and every single step.
I can't afford to make this mistake again.
[arrow thwacks]
- [gasps] A porcupine.
This meat and fat is gonna fuel me
to get through this next week.
♪ ♪
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.
♪ ♪
- A hundred days in the Arctic is no joke.
narrator: If they can endure,
they'll win 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. - [growls]
- How hard can you work for $10,000 a day?
- It looks like frostbite.
- [screams]
- Oh, [bleep].
narrator: This is "Alone:
Million Dollar Challenge.
- They're just surrounding my shelter.
[animal growling]
♪ ♪
[soft suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
♪
- So, my hair started to get knotted and stuff,
so I decided to make a comb real quick.
This is the worst comb in the world,
but it does the trick.
Um...
And I need to cut my hair.
Man, I'll take it.
I'll take it for, uh, using a knife.
Pfft.
Done.
Who do I have to impress out here?
Absolutely nobody.
[light dramatic music]
Started a fire.
Gonna make some hangers for some of this fish,
'cause it's getting ridiculous on how much there is up there.
♪ ♪
I came out here thinking that
it was gonna be hard to find food,
and I was dead wrong.
♪ ♪
This is totally a dream come true.
So we come out here, catch all your food,
make everything yourself, survive.
♪ ♪
All right. 18 fish.
But I have nowhere to put them as of right now,
so I gotta make a tepee.
♪ ♪
My racks are full,
and I don't want to be waiting till the last minute
to set up a smoker.
♪ ♪
This is gonna be good.
Put a fire right there in the middle,
nice and small.
Cover the rest of this.
I'll tie an early warning device to it, and--
any little critters decide to try and come in here
in the night whenever the fire goes out,
well, I'll hear them.
♪ ♪
Two days before I came out here,
my son, Max, turned a year old.
It was awesome to be able to be there
for his first birthday.
And I'm very fortunate
that he has a mom that he has because
she's a saint.
Me and her aren't together anymore.
We split and went our separate ways.
But I wouldn't be able to be out here
and have the right mindset
of knowing that I can go 100 days,
and my son being perfectly fine
if he didn't have an awesome mother.
♪ ♪
But leaving my son when he's probably just started walking,
starting to talk more, that's for sure--
that's hard, that's real hard.
[knife scraping]
I'll never be able to get that time back,
but I'm hoping that me being out here
teaches him something in life.
So I'm gonna treat this like a three-month deployment.
Well,
not bad for a day's work.
Um, half day's work.
[thrumming ominous music]
♪ ♪
- All right.
We're fixing to grind out a primitive tattoo needle.
What?
Yup, that's what we're fixing to do.
We're gonna juice up some crowberries,
lay on some ink here.
And we're gonna have the first
"Alone" tattoo go down.
You guys are all like, "He's an idiot.
He's gonna get infected." It won't get infected.
Doing tattoos in an environment like this--
yeah, there's a risk of an infection for sure.
And, you know, I'm positive
my immune system's down a little bit right now.
But I can die from slipping
and hitting my head on a rock today,
so you just gotta weigh the risk versus reward.
♪ ♪
[sniffles] I think that's gonna work.
[clicks tongue] Check it out.
Yeah, we can lay some ink in with it.
I don't have any modern tattoos.
I have a lot of tattoos from cultures
that existed where I lived before me,
and even before recorded time.
Caribou bone and crowberry tattoo.
I've done this with different natural elements before.
It's not gonna be, like, tattoo parlor-grade ink.
But it's gonna be a piece of naturally-made rough art.
[sighs]
I like that spot right there.
♪ ♪
This is the ultimate way to connect to this place--
using the bone from an animal that passed through here,
using just naturally-occurring materials from this place.
They will be with me until I'm back in the earth again.
Then the whole cycle starts over.
♪ ♪
[sniffles] So there it is.
An "A" and a seven, for a long season seven.
♪ ♪
Pretty nice.
♪ ♪
[bird caws]
Really hope I get the net finished up.
♪ ♪
I'm hoping that that will go a long way
towards regular food procurement.
♪ ♪
At home, I just set bank lines,
and I don't have a problem.
But I have caught only one fish so far,
and I wanna catch as many fish as possible before ice up.
Getting this dude deployed out may be the trick.
♪ ♪
I'm pretty decent at tying nets.
I don't use the shuttle.
I just use the overhand loop method.
My wife actually showed me how to do that.
I think about her every day,
you know, just in little tasks that I do out here--
you know, the wood splitting,
and just stuff we do around the homestead.
And, you know, I miss her.
But I also know, when it's all over with,
the money will allow my family
the lifestyle we truly wanna live.
I mean, it basically would mean early retirement.
♪ ♪
Well, we'll see.
It ain't the prettiest net ever made,
but it's a net.
I'm ready to throw this baby in the dye pot.
♪ ♪
This water's so clear,
I think a lot of times, these fish,
they're following that lure in
and they see me standing there,
and they kinda act like a game animal.
So if I can get this white net dyed to more of a water color,
I believe it'll help immensely.
♪ ♪
Got my crowberries. Check it out.
♪ ♪
Well, let's dump her in.
♪ ♪
Hopefully, this takes some of the shine off of it.
Maybe at night, if they're cruising along,
they won't even notice.
All right, so check it out.
It gave it a real nice, almost a water color, so...
That'll work. I like that.
I like that a lot. So let's get it strung.
♪ ♪
[birds chirping]
♪ ♪
I'm liking this spot right here.
Looks like about 2 foot of water
to about 8 foot.
I'm sure fish probably cruise that edge.
Put it in the water, see what happens.
♪ ♪
Ooh, fishy, fishy, fishy, we're coming for you, buddies.
I need you guys.
♪ ♪
The key to winning is making the most
out of every opportunity.
And you can bet that I'm gonna give it 135%
to be there to day 100.
♪ ♪
Now we wait.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
♪
[animals chirping]
- I've been having a little bit of a challenge
finding a good shelter spot.
But I feel good about this spot.
It's a little far to water,
but it's worth it to be out of the wind.
So, I've been having so many vivid dreams.
One was this morning, and I was digging moss
for the shelter, and I found two turtles.
They were, like, that big each.
And I woke up thinking,
"You know, that is a message."
'Cause I was bumming out a little bit, like,
"Oh, man.
I've got so much to do. I'm just too slow."
But that was a message, I feel, like,
that it's okay to be slow.
Yes, it's okay to be a turtle--
just as long as this turtle doesn't freeze come winter
'cause she doesn't have food and a shelter.
[laughs]
That's all. [chuckles]
♪ ♪
The porcupine has served me well,
and I'm so appreciative of the porcupine.
But now, I'm just down to broth.
And it is time for me to find my next meal.
I have a new trap on spot, so hopefully,
the new trapping area will be productive.
I'm feeling hungry.
I hope we got something today.
I hope, I hope.
Doing something like this,
you realize what a gift food is.
Coming up on my first snare. It's empty.
♪ ♪
Making 100 days is gonna be full of challenges.
There's so many little things
that could just take you out in a moment.
You need so much food,
and everything's just gotta work out.
Second snare.
[music fades]
[gasps]
No way.
♪ ♪
No way.
[gasps] No way.
No way!
[soft suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
Oh, my gosh.
There's a rabbit in one of my snares.
Oh, my gosh.
♪ ♪
Sweet.
The snare got him perfectly around the neck.
Oh.
This morning, I was a little bit worried.
I ate all that porcupine,
and I was just starting to feel it,
so I am so grateful for this rabbit.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, all right.
Let's get you home, get you processed.
♪ ♪
Right down the color line that's on most animals,
it's nice to just make the cut
right down where the color changes.
Like, white to brown right here.
White to brown.
♪ ♪
Don't creatures look so much different
without their fur on?
It's pretty crazy, huh?
It's crazy.
That's what we look like too, underneath our skin.
♪ ♪
When I was 15, I made this pact to myself
that I wasn't gonna eat any meat
until I learned to hunt on my own.
So that really pushed me into the skills.
I've taken apart hundreds of animals,
and I've been preserving food for myself
for years and years.
I'm gonna have to get crafting
with all this-- these animal parts.
So many fun things to make.
For me,
using all the parts of the animal--
that's how I am.
I don't want anything to go to waste in any situation.
I want to use everything
to its utmost potential.
You guys wanna see a cool party trick?
These are the-- the rabbit lungs
and the heart right there.
Check it out.
[light music]
♪ ♪
[exhales]
So those are the lungs, inflated.
Pretty wild, huh?
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- So I just got two rabbits with my bow.
Had, uh, issues with the GoPro, and couldn't take it.
I cannot carry that camera through the brush.
I'm gonna leave this guy here.
[sniffles] Grab the camera.
Let's go see if we can show you a couple tricks of the trade.
Rabbit hunting 101. Rule number one.
Do not stalk rabbits.
They spend their entire lives aware
that they are the bottom of the food chain.
If you move like a predator,
and they see you moving like a predator,
chances are they will run.
♪ ♪
Walk around like you look like a big grass eater that has
absolutely no interest in hunting absolutely anything.
This will give the rabbit a false sense of security.
[whistles softly]
[imitates chewing]
♪ ♪
Do not make eye contact until you're ready for the shot.
And then, with very slow movements,
turn around and make your shot.
♪ ♪
Okay. Now, for the rabbit's reaction.
[light music]
♪ ♪
[imitates arrow flying and striking]
[grunts]
Twitch is normal, don't worry about it.
Okay, we'll go clean these rabbits.
♪ ♪
Look at that.
It really is going...
♪ ♪
White very quickly.
Definitely gonna make something with that.
That's fat. Don't wanna waste that.
Fat is everything out here.
♪ ♪
Back in Africa, I learned from the Hazda
that being an effective hunter
is not how well you shoot the bow.
It's how well you can pattern the movements of animals.
When you know the habits of those animals,
it's just a matter of time before you get an arrow in.
Yeah, I think we're gonna fry this up today.
♪ ♪
[fire crackling]
In the pot, we've got a rabbit thigh,
a rabbit leg, and all of the organ meat.
I'm just so lucky.
I'm eating like a freaking king.
Oh, that's the liver.
Oh, this is really good fried.
And this is why I'm a student of primitive skills--
it's that I love relying on myself and a few tools
to be able to take care of all my needs.
It's very satisfying.
Very deep satisfaction that comes with that.
I can just feel like I'm getting a lot out of this.
Makes me feel good.
[birds chirping]
[driving tense music]
♪ ♪
♪
- All right, so here it is.
Reindeer moss for the first time.
Definitely never had this before.
Smells like nothing.
Tastes like absolutely nothing.
You know what it does not taste like?
Fat.
I really doubt there's any fat in this.
I've been having nothing but fish heads for lunch,
which is super fatty and oily.
Messed up my bowel movements like crazy,
so I had to start eating reindeer moss.
It's honestly not too bad. This might be part of my diet.
Let's see how I react to this.
I've got, like, 80 pounds of fish inside.
[sniffles]
And I'm eating moss. [laughs]
Never would've thought that would be the case.
[brisk dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Today I'm gonna take a day to veganism.
I'm still gonna catch and kill things,
but I'm gonna eat only plants.
I'm gonna take some blueberry roots.
[clears throat]
And I'm gonna boil them up today,
in the hopes that it makes my bubbly guts go away.
It's just a matter if I can find them.
[sighs] Nothing.
Then we come to a bear trail.
This, uh, trail,
thick trail, you can tell was mowed down.
We got two piles of scat here that are normal now.
This one, that's bear scat.
And the newer one right here.
And then we got another one.
So that happened last night or this morning.
Close to my shelter.
♪ ♪
He likes to defecate right there.
Claiming his territory, apparently.
I can't be having that happening.
The worst thing that could happen is the bear rummaging
through my shelter and stealing all my food.
That would be a bad day.
But not finding him.
Gotta keep a lot of stuff up in the air.
I need to get that bear.
♪ ♪
[thrumming dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Holy [bleep]!
Bear.
♪ ♪
Ah, it's aggravating.
It seems like every time I leave,
the [bleep] comes to the berry patch.
Every time. Why do I leave?
Don't leave the berry patch, Mark.
The berry patch is where you need to be, clearly.
Let's head back.
♪ ♪
I need to be at the berry patch.
If I want that bear,
I've gotta hold out, and I've gotta hunt it.
Having that source of protein throughout the winter,
it'll be a big weight off my shoulders.
It would change up my diet,
which would be really nice to have steak
instead of fish steaks 24/7.
So I need to make this happen.
♪ ♪
All right.
Um, this is my main hunting spot,
just because this is the one that the bears visit the most.
I'm hoping. Keep your fingers crossed.
It's today. If not, very, very soon.
♪ ♪
Takes a lot of luck and a lot of patience to kill a bear.
♪ ♪
The fish, they've been coming to my net every day.
That doesn't mean it's gonna continue to happen.
I gotta get a lot of it.
If I wanna last 100 days, I wanna go out there,
I'm gonna find my next meal.
Hopefully it's a big old black bear.
♪ ♪
[soft ruffling]
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[birds chirping]
- [sniffles]
Well, it's time today to play everybody's favorite game:
Will we have a fish?
So the big question is:
will we have a fish?
I sure hope so.
[light tense music]
♪ ♪
[water lapping]
♪ ♪
The food is just-- it's gonna be a problem.
Definitely starting to feel the fatigue side of it.
And today is the first day I've really felt lightheaded.
♪ ♪
But I just keep pushing on.
And you gotta burn calories to get calories.
Anything can happen.
♪ ♪
Envelope, please. Thank you.
♪ ♪
It's a resounding "no." We did not get a fish.
[blows raspberry]
[sniffles] Got to have something.
♪ ♪
Eating rock tripe.
♪ ♪
Think it's gonna be a new thing.
♪ ♪
I don't really like the word "tripe."
Doesn't sound that appetizing.
♪ ♪
For me, my grandfather lit the fire,
as far as the outdoors, because I hung around
with him a lot when I was little.
He and my great uncle grew up during the Depression.
They had very hard times.
They were very slick people, as far as trapping,
hunting, fishing, foraging.
I mean, you could drop them anywhere,
and they would figure it out
because they had to figure it out.
So that kinda trickled down to me,
and it's just part of my lifestyle.
It's something I've always done.
♪ ♪
All right, this is how you eat black rock tripe.
First, you gotta have an old, rusty can-bucket you found,
you boil it up,
and you just don't even look at it, you just...
Ugh. Swallow it, shake a little bit.
Move on to the next bite.
It's good. Oh, so good.
So good. Tastes just like filet mignon.
Ah, mmm.
Oh, I can't get enough of it. It's delicious.
Here. Here, try a bite.
Come on, try a bite. No, really, try it.
Try it, it's good.
Come on, try a bite!
All right. More for me.
Can't believe you don't want some.
Mmm.
[sniffles] Ah.
Now I feel recharged, refreshed, and full.
All lies. [sniffles]
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
- Oh, dreaming.
Dreaming is such a luxury out here.
[laughs]
I get to do everything that I-- that I miss out here.
I get to hang out with people.
I get to eat a variety of foods.
It's real entertainment.
At the same time, there is a catch-22.
♪ ♪
Like, for instance, last night.
I'm in the dream, noticing and--
and know my son is on a little stepladder right next to me.
And I realized, "Tyler's right here next to you.
"Before you wake up, make the most of it.
Hug him!"
I went and turned to the right, and then, bam!
Freaking takes me off into a different damn dream.
It is constant battles and fighting out here.
Constant battles.
That magnetic pull--
I have to fight that battle each and every day.
It's part of the being-alone process.
♪ ♪
I gotta get a door on the opening to my shelter.
To be honest, I'm most intimidated about the weather.
♪ ♪
Flies are just relentless.
[insects buzzing]
I just can only hope that things like having
a well-made shelter will allow me to get through it.
♪ ♪
Okay, now I need a real shorty.
♪ ♪
You look like the man for the job.
I'll cut you down.
[insects buzzing]
[grunts, groans]
Damn fly in the ear. Jeez.
[soft tense music]
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep].
♪ ♪
It's stuck in my ear.
♪ ♪
[grunts softly]
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep].
♪ ♪
If I call for a medic,
and they have to come intervene
and remove it from my ear,
that means they could pull me.
Okay, where did I put my pliers?
[bleep]. I can't see anything.
♪ ♪
Great, I can feel it moving in there.
♪ ♪
Oh.
[foreboding music]
♪ ♪
Oh, come on.
♪ ♪
[grunts]
♪ ♪
[grunts]
♪ ♪
Where's the first-aid kit?
Let's try a couple things.
Hold this light towards my ear,
and see if that draws the fly out.
♪
Come on, little dude. Go towards the light.
♪ ♪
Really don't have a lot of faith in that method.
♪ ♪
I don't wanna do further damage,
but I gotta get this fly out.
[grunting]
I don't want something like this to cause me
to have to leave this competition.
[blows nose, grunts]
I think the next thing is to irrigate.
Gonna put some water in a syringe,
suck out some water, turn my head down,
fill it up with water, and then drain it out,
and just keep doing that till hopefully it comes out.
[quiet tense music]
♪ ♪
[grunts]
♪ ♪
All right, let's just hope for the best on this one.
♪ ♪
[grunts]
[exhales]
♪ ♪
[grunts]
♪ ♪
[birds chirping]
[music fades]
It's not moving anymore.
Yeah, well, I don't see it,
but tell you what-- that's immediate relief.
Well...
[breathes deeply]
That was a little bit of an unforeseen...
Yeah, let's continue. [laughs]
Where were we?
♪ ♪
Oh, that feels so much better.
Fly trapped in my ear really makes me realize
that the hard skills out here, being able to survive,
or making a fire, harvesting your food,
are the easiest things to accomplish.
It's all the other small things
that in short-term survival could take you out.
[exhales]
Don't want that to happen again.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- Are you ready to lose the staring contest?
Ready? Okay.
[breathes deeply]
Oh, there's a breeze. I have to blink.
[laughs]
Okay. All right.
Ready, set, go.
Oh, man.
Usually, I'm really good at staring,
but I think my eyes are dry.
[laughs]
All right, here we go. Back to work.
Back to work, y'all.
Back to work, man.
♪ ♪
Gotta make clay pots.
Gotta make lots of clay pots.
Here's the clay hole.
I have one cooking pot, which is awesome,
but containers are everything out here.
If I can just make a couple pots with lids
that I can cook in and then store,
that would be amazing.
Oh, that is so nice.
Look how nice and sticky that is.
I'm so happy I found it.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Did you guys see my clay balls?
Look at all my clay balls.
Aren't they nice?
♪ ♪
All right, I need containers.
♪ ♪
Do a little test coil real quick.
♪ ♪
Oh, my gosh, it's acting pretty nice.
So I'm gonna add the temper in.
Can't be too wet or too dry.
Everything's about having just the perfect amount of moisture.
♪ ♪
And you kinda roll and pinch, and it's a particular method
that's for cooking potteries specifically.
It has more surface area,
so that it distributes the heat better.
I was hoping for clay,
because being out here doesn't have to be a suffer fest.
It's totally possible to have
all my needs met and be comfortable.
And the more comfortable and at home you are,
the better you're gonna make it through the winter.
♪ ♪
If I can just get one pot that survives a firing,
I will feel like that was a big success.
Kinda looks like a beehive, huh?
I hope I get to the point where it's, like,
oh, my shelter's done.
And I have a bunch of meat hanging up,
and I can just, like, hang out.
But we'll see.
There's a long way to go before I get to that point.
♪ ♪
Clay pots are done for the night.
It's dark.
Two pots, ah!
Two pots, so nice.
Time to warm up the hands.
[soft suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
♪
- I'm starting to have mixed emotions.
Let's put it that way.
Uh, there's only so much black crud
you can scrape off a rock in a bowl and call it dinner.
[sighs deeply]
Sometimes, you just gotta figure out
what you want more in life.
You think you know what you want.
And that's not it.
♪ ♪
I'm pretty sure I know what I want today.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
♪
- I think this is what I really want.
♪ ♪
[birds chirping]
Yes, this is Keith.
I know what I want.
I want a large pizza with everything, extra cheese.
Yeah, this phone doesn't even work for something like that.
I doubt anybody delivers out here anyway.
So that's not happening.
♪ ♪
All right, let's get crack-a-lackin'.
We'll go check the trapline.
♪ ♪
A lot of snares in this little area here.
♪ ♪
[grunts]
I would've thought this one would've paid off.
That was a good set, and I thought...
It's almost like playing the lottery.
You go all in to try and reap huge benefits.
But my immediate area is not much
in the overall plan that I had in my head...
♪ ♪
Tough little guys to trap, sure enough.
♪ ♪
Winter is right around the corner.
There's no time to mess around.
♪ ♪
Oh, my gosh.
A miracle has just happened.
[dramatic musical sting]
I have finally snared a squirrel.
[laughs]
I was really starting to doubt my trapping abilities.
And I trap a lot.
♪ ♪
[grunts]
Wow, he's wound up in there.
Golly, I give you guys credit.
You are tough, tough customers to trap.
[light music]
♪ ♪
Wow.
[chuckling]
Thank you, little buddy.
Starting to get some good snow now too.
Huh, well, that's awesome.
At least I have something to eat.
I was getting tired of eating blueberries and rock slime.
♪ ♪
Awesome.
♪ ♪
That is definitely a morale boost.
♪ ♪
These little guys have been driving me nuts
on the trapping side of it.
It was almost like they were digging at me a bit.
But, you know, eat this guy,
it'll give me that boost of energy back up.
A little liver.
I'm not much of a liver fan, but I'm learning.
You gotta constantly be upbeat no matter how bad it gets.
That's just the way you get through hard times.
♪ ♪
Holy crap. Mmm.
♪ ♪
That right there.
Little squirrel drumstick.
♪ ♪
Tastes amazing.
And we'll have squirrel soup all day tomorrow.
You know, 100 days is just one more day,
and one more day,
and eventually, it'll be that 100th day,
and that's $1 million.
Wish I could find a six-legged squirrel
running around here and trap it.
That'd be awesome.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- You hear that?
[sniffles]
That's the sound of silence.
Deep silence.
I'm really hoping there's a fish in that net.
Getting that food storage put in is
what it's gonna be all about.
I don't need to be making no little knickknacks
or tools or bull[bleep] like that.
We gotta get some food put up.
And it's right here.
Yeah.
Yes!
We got two fish.
We've been blessed mightily right here, just now.
♪
Big old lake trout and a big old whitefish.
♪ ♪
Oh, my Lord, I feel better now.
I was getting worried when we weren't getting no fish.
It's a good fishing hole.
♪ ♪
Well, we gotta pick this net now.
♪ ♪
I hate to break the silence of this beautiful morning,
but there's a lot to do today.
[grunts]
Oh, look at that.
♪ ♪
It's gonna take every little pinch
to pull through 100 days.
This is a bad spot.
I can't imagine doing that when it gets icy.
[panting and grunting]
This is still the baby stages.
Hell, we're still living in our tarp.
That's gonna come to an end here pretty soon,
especially with winter coming.
Fishing and permanent structure and food gathering--
that's how it's gonna be till the snow flies.
♪ ♪
Oh, yeah, that's a biggie.
And that whitefish is a damn good one too.
♪ ♪
[exhales] Now we're talking.
What a blessing.
Give me, like, 20 more like this,
and we're seeing 100 days.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
Oh, what a night. What a night.
[sighs]
Had a dream that I was eating a pumpkin pie.
[sighs]
Yeah, last night was the worst night
since I've been here, for sure.
I don't know, just-- stomach's cramping bad.
I'm mentally usually a pretty tough person,
but last night was humbling for sure.
But we'll get up and do my thing,
keep my mind in the right place.
[low dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[sniffles]
See where this broth is.
Uh, needs to be warm,
probably just a little bit more, maybe?
Cool squirrel broth.
It's not where we wanna be with it, at all.
♪ ♪
Needs to be hot, hot, hot.
Catching a squirrel is just that relief
knowing you're gonna get to eat something of substance
other than berries and rock slime.
And knowing that, you know, you have broken
that mental barrier that has made it so hard,
because if you keep that mental barrier up,
then you've already failed.
And now, what wasn't possible is right here in my hand
and it's totally possible.
So I think it's gonna be okay.
[exhales]
[sighs deeply]
[grunts and sniffles]
Stomach's cramping again pretty good.
I'm gonna try to drink some of this.
[exhales hard]
[sniffles and grunts]
♪ ♪
[gulping]
♪ ♪
[sighs]
[grunting and sniffling]
♪ ♪
[burps]
[retching and coughing]
[foreboding music]
[sniffles and grunts]
♪ ♪
[grunts]
[retches and coughs]
Ugh, [bleep].
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
[Keith retching and spitting]
[exhales and sniffles]
Oh, my God.
[sniffles]
[grunts]
That squirrel is the only thing I had ate--
eaten in a couple days.
♪ ♪
I'm having some terrible, terrible pains.
Stomach's cramping bad.
[burps]
I'm definitely hurting.
[retches]
♪ ♪
Oh, I gotta get a little bit of water, [bleep].
♪ ♪
[retching and coughing]
[chokes]
[sniffling and grunting]
♪ ♪
I don't have anything to throw up.
Good grief. [sniffles]
[groans]
♪ ♪
[retches]
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep].
I don't know what's going on.
[birds chirping]
♪ ♪
But the pain I'm experiencing--
man, you can't keep any liquid down.
[exhales deeply]
Dehydration is nothing to play with.
And I'm smart enough to know that if I push it,
it could get a lot worse.
[sighs deeply]
♪ ♪
[sniffles]
[breathes deeply]
♪ ♪
[device beeping]
[sniffles] Hey, this is Keith.
Uh, man, I'm-- [sighs]
I got something going on with my stomach.
I'm tapping out.
[breathes deeply]
Ah, [bleep]. [bleep].
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
[sniffles] Oh, my God.
I'm never gonna live this down.
Definitely like to win it, but...
the possibility of a long-term recovery
to get back to where I need to be--
no amount of money is worth that.
[grunts and spits]
♪ ♪
Here they are.
♪ ♪
[burps and sniffles]
This is not how I planned it at all.
[sniffles]
Just a lot of abdominal cramping.
[burps] I think I've thrown up everything I can throw up.
And that was mostly water. [sniffles]
[burps]
[exhales]
[retching]
[gurgles]
[grunting and panting]
Yeah, I've reached my limit. I think so.
[groaning]
[sighs]
I never saw myself going out sick.
Matter of fact, this is the worst way
I could possibly go out.
[groans]
There's no hope for any future here.
And you know, in my head is the shame of it.
[retches]
The whole dream is over.
Oh, yes, [bleep] great.
I didn't want to let down my wife.
That's the last thing in the world I wanted to do.
But there's definitely no control out here,
'cause you're dealing with Mother Nature.
And if you think you're gonna control
anything that's gonna happen out here,
then you have no idea what you're doing,
and you should've stayed wherever you came from.
♪ ♪
I'm Colby Donaldson, and here tonight
with Mark, Keith, Callie,
Joel, and Roland.
This episode starts off with something
people have become very familiar with lately,
and that is cutting your own hair.
Mark, give us some pointers.
What does it take to give yourself a good groom?
- Oh, man, well, first, let me just say that
I didn't plan on going out there, cutting my hair.
I was so busy preparing for this show and everything,
and living off the land that I just forgot to get a haircut
when I got out there.
And I'll tell you right now.
I don't recommend doing it
with a Leatherman, but it works.
- Yeah, it's not a very big pair of scissors
on that multi-tool you have there, is it?
- Oh, no.
- Okay, so this episode
takes us up to day 22.
Callie, checking in with you.
How are you feeling at this point in the adventure?
- I'm feeling pretty great.
I mean, I'm stoked to be out there.
I'm loving the experience,
and I was starting to feel, like, at that point,
I wanted to have a lot done.
I wanted to have my shelter fully finished
and have a bunch of food laid in,
and there's just so much to do to prepare
for an Arctic winter.
I felt like I was kind of behind in the game.
And then that dream of the turtles
just let me know, like, "Nope, it's okay."
So it reassured me that moving slow was the thing to do
and just take it easy.
- As this point, I bet you're pretty happy
you brought the snare wire, huh?
- Oh, yeah, that snare wire was invaluable.
- What's the trick?
Is it the design of your snare?
You know, the loop. Is the placement?
What do you think the key to your success was
while you were out there?
- My trapline was very successful,
and I think it's because
I've spent a lot of time as a tracker.
That's one of my winter jobs, is tracking.
So I can see where the animals are moving
and where the rabbits are moving.
So I can just--I just know where to put the snare.
So it's placement.
It's understanding rabbit behavior,
and how you set up the wire and the snare, of course, too.
- Roland, we see you finally get some fish
in your gill net.
What'd that feel like when you finally
started to bring some fish in?
- Yeah, I should've been fired up.
Eating berries and moss and a few ants
just ain't getting it, so when the fish
started coming in,
then you got a substantial food source.
But it's hard to keep that net safely in the water.
And I tried shallower places
where if I would've lost my net,
I could've retrieved it, but there was no fish there.
You gotta have that deep drop-off,
and I coined my deep drop-off Danger Rock
because it was pretty dangerous
getting that thing in there.
So when the fish started coming,
I felt strong.
- And, Mark, at this point, you're eating moss
because you're consuming so much fish,
you've gotta offset that fat intake.
Tell us about that.
- I was eating fish after fish after fish,
and the one thing I wanted to make sure
I had out there was fat.
And I was getting enough of it.
That's for sure.
And so it just messed up my digestive tract.
I mean, it's day 13 or 14.
It got ugly in my sleeping bag
at about 1:00 a.m. in the morning.
I have had diarrhea pretty bad.
Then I woke up and my entire sleeping bag
was completely covered.
And it was as a horrible experience.
I decided, "You know what? No more of that.
"That will never happen again. I need to put something else
in my body other than fish."
- Okay, Joel, we gotta talk about the fly in the ear.
I mean, I think those of us watching at home,
we could feel it.
It would just-- I can't imagine
how annoying that is.
Talk us through that whole experience.
- The moment it went into the ear,
I felt like it was-- like a sensation
that you've felt before, you get something in your ear.
But when I started shaking my head
and trying to push my finger in there
to actually feel, I realized
that it actually penetrated my inner ear,
and that I was not able to take grasp of this fly.
It was literally flying around my inner ear,
driving me nuts.
And I couldn't get it.
And so I had a little moment of concern,
'cause what was going through my mind
was if this thing flies around--
keeps flying around in my ear, it's gonna drive me crazy.
But eventually, it'll die.
But if it dies,
is that gonna cause an ear infection?
So that's kind of the concern that I had,
was I didn't want that infection to take place.
And I tried a number of things,
as you saw, but the irrigation
was instantaneous relief
because I think what I did was just
basically drowned him straight away,
and he stopped flying and that was the end of it.
- Nice work.
There's lots to still talk about when we come back,
eith,
Callie, Joel, and Roland.
Callie, we gotta talk about when you found that clay.
- That is awesome.
So excited to have a clay play day.
Containers are everything out there,
so you start bringing in food.
Like, all of us that had food had probably storage issues.
Where to put the food, how to store the food,
and also, just basically,
we only had one 2-quart pot,
and so having another pot
means that one pot could have food in it,
while another could one have water for washing
or for drinking.
And having multiple containers just makes life
so much more easy.
And so I was hoping to find clay.
And on day one when I was exploring
the territory that I was dropped in,
I found that clay source,
and I couldn't be more stoked on it.
- So the safety gear, the camera gear.
You know, everyone's aware that "Alone" is self-shot.
The safety crew is up to an hour away
from you guys and gals.
What they may not be aware of is just how much safety gear
you're required to take with you
when you leave your camp and go out.
So Keith is gonna give us
a little more insight into that.
Take a look.
♪ ♪
- All right, so I'm fixing to take off for the day.
I just want to show you what I have to carry.
I've got two cameras,
GoPro and the big camera with a tripod.
Extra memory cards for those.
I've got extra batteries.
Extra batteries for the mics.
Then I've got my little safety bag
with my Yellowbrick transponder
where they can find me if something goes bad wrong.
♪ ♪
A sat phone if something goes super bad wrong.
Then I've got this little backpack,
when I go far, I have to carry,
and it doesn't have anything but safety gear in it.
It's got tourniquets,
full first-aid kit,
bear bangers, bear spray,
and then I have my bow and my arrows with me.
So they're looking out for you on the safety realm,
but they sure are making you pack
a lot of crap through the woods
when you're trying to slip around.
♪ ♪
- All right, Keith.
Was the gear and lugging it around--
was it really that bad?
- Yes.
I'm not the kind of guy
that's used to packing gadgets around.
Let's just say that.
And less is more in my book.
And, man, just--I felt like a pack mule out there.
And the more area you're taking up,
the more things to clang and bang,
the more things to spook game,
and I did not need any help
not getting game out there.
My camera tripod,
I wanted to wrap that thing around a tree
three or four times.
Every time you would open up,
it made this horrible sound.
God, I hate this thing.
Yeah, the camera equipment was that bad.
It really was. - Mark, I'm curious.
Do you feel the same way?
- Oh, man, it adds a whole other aspect
to this whole thing, and it's frustrating.
And, you know, you're used to going out there
and hunting and surviving and living off the land,
doing it the way you normally do it.
And you're not carrying all this stuff.
It just doesn't make sense, but we have to, you know?
I mean, I'm glad we had it. Don't get me wrong.
But it definitely hindered your ability
to do what you wanted to do sometimes.
- Roland, in the end, does it make sense, though,
to carry all that safety equipment
that you're required to lug around?
- You'd just figure it out or die
if you didn't have all that safety stuff.
But then the camera in your hand all the time,
that makes you a one-armed man.
We're doing this one hand behind our back
'cause one hand's full with a camera, always.
- Keith, it's time.
We gotta talk about
that agonizing tap-out of yours.
First of all, do you think there's any irony
in the fact that...
you know, you joked about tapping out
and ordering a pizza?
- Oh, yeah. Looking back,
I have to laugh about it.
And, you know, I also have to wonder
if it wasn't a little foreboding,
because it seems like just a day or two after that,
you know, I started really feeling
like I was hitting a wall as far as physically.
Mentally, I still felt good,
but my body was just-- it wasn't having any of it.
- Shed a little light for the viewers at home.
What happens when they come retrieve you?
Where do you go?
What takes place immediately following your tap-out?
- Yeah, I mean, everybody thinks
that you tap out, boom,
24 hours later, you're home,
and that is definitely not the case.
I know for me, gave me some shots
to stop all the cramping,
and I was still vomiting when I came into camp.
And then you're going in a refeeding program
because your body
is the one thing you cannot control.
And you do not know how it's gonna react
because you have never put it under the kind of stress
that you have out there.
So you come back into camp,
and you are attended to medically,
or, worst-case scenario,
you're flown out to the hospital.
Put it in perspective.
I gained six pounds back in 24 hours.
That's how dehydrated I was.
- Okay, I have one final question for you.
That self-administered primitive tattoo--
you had 25 dots on there representing 25 days.
But you tapped out at day 22.
Is that a permanent reminder of that situation?
- Here's a great thing about primitive ink.
If you get on it pretty quick, it won't set.
I was able to scrub a few of them out.
- That's what I was gonna say.
Did you erase the whole thing,
or just take three of the dots off there?
- You gotta be real careful.
You can get three of the dots off
because I did not want to have to look
at my ankle the rest of my life,
and be like, "Jeez, you know, 25 days."
Because that was my goal at that point,
but, you know, your body ultimately
is gonna tell you when you're done.
- Well, then with that, I'd like to thank
Mark, Keith, Callie, Joel, and Roland.
Tune in each week after the episodes,
when we'll be talking with the participants
about their experience.
But until then, as promised,
here is a sneak peek of next week's episode.
We'll see you then.
♪ ♪
- Where the hell is my ax?
I don't see it here.
So stupid.
[bleep].
- Ooh, it's got a bite.
Don't freak out.
[splashing and grunting]
- I want a moose. I want a bear.
Lots of indication that they're here.
- Probably just a rock.
♪ ♪
[bleep] moving. I think that's a bear.
[bleep].
♪ ♪