Holy [bleep].
It's the moose.
[bleep].
Maybe I will have second opportunity.
I'm feeling really, really good.
Nature is like the ultimate freedom
and just the open schedule.
It just seems so right for my brain.
My strategy is to get my shelter built right away.
Then I can focus on hunting, fishing, and acquiring food.
We just caught Moby Dick.
At the moment, it's just about spray and pray
and try and put out as many passive means
of getting food as possible.
Trap line produces.
I'm contemplating doing something
very silly and maybe very stupid.
Thinking about falling this tree.
Fashion up a wedge.
The only crazy thing is,
it's leaning towards my shelter,
which I don't even know if I should risk,
but the reason why I want to cut this tree--
it's perfect for finishing off my--
for finishing off my shelter.
It's got all the wood I think I should need.
And I'm thinking, if I can saw it enough,
get this wedge in here, bang it in,
I should be able to get it to fall the right way.
I just, uh... taking a few minutes to think about it,
'cause it could go very bad,
and it'd be extremely dumb.
I just need to push it this way.
Like, but do you need the tree that bad?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
This might be the dumbest thing you've ever seen on "Alone."
I feel great. I got lots of food.
I feel I need to really
take my time with things,
especially decisions that hold a lot of weight.
I don't need to rush, but I need to get things done,
because there's only a limited amount of time to do it.
Don't go this way.
This might have been dumb.
No, go that way.
Holy! Thank goodness.
Just out here being a lumberjack.
The old grandpa would be proud.
I've been working really hard, but in doing so,
I'm also burning a lot of calories.
Yeah, what a guy could do with a chainsaw around here.
You never know when your next meal is gonna come, so...
Trying to balance the working
and the hunting and fishing is--
we just got to keep doing what we're doing.
A buddy said, before I left,
if I'm not hunting, fishing, or working,
I'm slowly quitting.
It stuck in my mind.
I don't want to be a quitter.
Yeah, so now I kind of--
gonna make somewhat of a vise, a holder,
so that I can put my firewood or small wood
that I'm gonna cut, put it here
and make a vise system that I can lock it down,
and I can saw on this side, just without,
like, trying to hold it and saw.
Just--
I don't know if it's gonna work,
but what else do we got to do?
The amount of work, off the bat,
is hard on the body and mind,
getting yourself set up for the winter months
that we know are coming,
and doing that with a limited amount of tools,
limited food, and in bear-dense population.
You got to be on your toes,
always doing--always looking out for yourself,
but working extremely hard.
It's go fast, but slow down.
Go in the crack.
It's a weird mixture.
This is coming over.
I'm willing to push my body to the limit.
Obviously, there is a limit that the body can take.
So if I'm not feeding it or taking care of myself,
then the body will break.
Mother Nature is undefeated.
Now, this is your locking mechanism here.
It locks it down.
And this is your thing.
So if you got a smaller piece, you just unlock it,
twist it a bunch, push it down.
And then put this on.
Ting. It ain't going nowhere.
OK. Now to make the X.
Everything out here is a learning curve.
You definitely learn.
You know, it's a familiar place, Canada,
but it's unfamiliar ground, essentially.
I haven't stayed in a swamp.
I've hunted 'em, I've seen 'em,
I've been around 'em, but this?
Yeah.
No, I've never built stuff in it either.
Nothing you can't do with two feet and a heartbeat
and a little work ethic.
There's a lot of-- like, do it wrong,
figure out the right way, then, you know, build.
OK, now we've got it figured out.
Everything I've done so far is like,
there's been issues,
but then we've overcome those issues.
It's gonna be lots of problem-solving out here,
and I think I'm doing a good job at that,
but I still need to slow down.
Last wall.
Should be able to get her done tonight.
Oh, that just came off the bone nicely.
I just thought...
Episode one is usually
the first five people.
Episode two is usually the second five people.
Not sure when episode one cut--
maybe day four.
So it could have been...
Nero's boot failure.
So my foot feels quite wet.
Boot repair.
There's my temporary repair.
Nero explores land and finds bunch of junk
down by the river.
What is this?
I just found a container.
Got some wire, a little cog.
Well, it could have been
the start of the success of my trap line.
A good-sized snowshoe hare.
The trap line produces.
Got myself a muskrat.
So...
It would be cool, though, if it ended
on me bringing in
a beaver.
I got cameras rolling, just in case.
That'd be a pretty sick ending to the episode.
Today is about getting the smoker sorted out,
because I do have excess food
that I need to start making safe,
particularly in this wet weather.
So, yes, so I'm literally just gonna have it here
and just gonna just start weaving
and putting in uprights and stuff
and essentially just build the--the smoker here.
The fish is gonna spoil quicker than the muskrat
and the snowshoe hare.
It's gonna attract more predators and scavengers.
I've got around about 40 snares out.
And it's a combination of snowshoe hare,
beaver, and muskrat.
But I just needed to get as many out as possible,
because the more snares that I get out,
the more I increase my possibility of getting food.
Quantity is better than quality.
And then, over time, that quantity
will then turn into quality.
Beaver, 100%, is something that
I really, really want to get,
because there's a whole heap of calories in them,
but they're small enough that you can manage that food
in one go pretty well,
whereas trying to manage a moose or a caribou
in this environment, while it's still so wet,
there's, like, a high risk of spoilage.
But the biggest thing for me is the amount of fat
that I can get off it.
Fat is liquid gold out here.
It's what allows you to stay warm.
It allows you to process protein.
It's everything.
All right.
Base complete.
OK, I am not gonna do a door tonight.
I can do door tomorrow, because I know, otherwise,
I'm just gonna rush it.
And then, hopefully, we'll have game
to start this baby up soon.
OK.
I should repair that boot.
I can see that the stitching that I originally did,
at some stage, is gonna fail,
so I'm just going a bit wider on it.
Gonna get the old spruce resin out.
It might just break off as soon as it dries.
I really have no idea.
Having to deal with this rain is really, really annoying
and having to, like, just dry things out.
You know, my boot's broken,
and it's just making things really,
really difficult to manage.
And there's just a cold dampness
to the air, which--
it kind of actually gets into you more
and penetrates more than what the actual dry cold is.
So I'm always constantly just drying my socks and my liners.
Everything gets dirty and muddy,
and everything just turns into brown,
and it just-- it's not what I expected.
She ain't pretty, but...
All she's gotta do is hold.
Keep holding until the cold comes.
I need to go check my trap line,
'cause that's gonna determine whether I'm processing food
tonight or working on my door.
Nice. The rain stopped.
Cool.
So my family and I are, like, avid board-gamers.
And one of the first board games
that I played with my son,
it was, like, a cooperative board game.
You start at a helicopter landing spot,
and then you go around the island,
and, you know, complete the different tasks.
Meanwhile, the island is sinking.
So you're trying to finish all those tasks,
working together, and then once you finish,
you then need to get back
to that same helicopter landing spot,
and then that's where you exit the island,
and that's how you win the game.
Instead of my island slowly getting consumed by water,
it's gonna be slowly getting consumed by snow and ice.
I need to complete all my tasks
before the bitter cold arrives,
and then a helicopter ride back out of here.
I win the game.
Oh.
The snare cinched down on something.
Oh, got a little bit caught.
Just went straight past my snare.
The snare was too small.
But it looks like there's beaver tracks.
Very exciting.
Oh, see, I underestimated the power of the beaver.
We can't do this back in Australia,
snaring and trapping.
So I can't practice this and get better.
I need to fix my snares.
Hopefully this land believes in redemption.
Hopefully I can get that beaver.
I go check my snares,
and I need my bow and arrows.
I have so much to do.
I'm here to test my limits and myself.
You get stronger.
You get self-confident by being outdoors.
That's why I'm here.
I want to prove to myself
that I can stay here much longer,
that I can, and that it's possible.
I have the will to survive.
Yeah.
I catch a rabbit in the snare.
Look.
It's broken.
Look.
Something took it first, maybe a fox.
That's why you need to check snares in the morning,
in the first daylight.
Everything that lives in this place want food.
Damn.
I lost one rabbit.
Yeah, what a shame.
I have a lot of things to do.
I have my shelter to finish.
I want to go fish.
I need to hunt.
I need to have food.
This is a bad sign for me.
I call this the dead walk,
a walk where you found nothing.
The way to starvation.
Rose hips...
will be my lunch today,
because you are a bad hunter.
Dealing with problems
and being calm in difficult situations,
to go ahead and adapt and overcome yourself
is necessary.
Let's go back to the camp.
That's it.
I'm learning with mistakes.
Squirrel again.
Squirrel.
Damn.
It's a waste.
My hands are cold.
I need to go back to the shelter.
I am all wet.
No more.
I cannot shoot no more for a squirrel in a tree.
Yeah, I found my arrow.
Yes.
Let's go back to the camp.
You know, the first day, the ground squirrel
that I catch, it felt so easy.
I start with so much confidence in my bow.
Let's remain calm and humble.
It's a grouse.
I shot the grouse, finally.
Finally.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
I don't know if it's a grouse or ptarmigan,
but at least I know where they are.
Thank you, God.
Awesome, man.
Awesome.
I definitely don't want to get out of bed.
I'm pretty cozy here.
I slept really good last night.
Feeling pretty homey in here.
Today's project is probably to work on the fireplace.
I want to get this fireplace started,
and then I can--because I want to start concentrating
on hunting here really soon.
It's starting to get that cold, fall feeling.
So it should make the moose start rutting,
make all the animals start moving.
So rain stopped.
We're gonna get up and get at 'em.
Coming at ya.
I still need to figure out my fire and my shelter.
So I plan on building a frame out of 2-inch sticks
and then mud and have a chimney
going out through the roof,
and I could be good for a long, long time.
I need to calm down and relax, not push my body too hard.
Breathe.
Like, this is a marathon, not a sprint.
And just work a little bit slower,
a little more methodical.
I keep telling myself,
don't get hyper-focused on things.
And I don't think I am, because, like,
the shelter's have done, the smoker's half done.
It's like, I got so many projects half done.
OK, let's tie these together.
Oh, yeah.
If I can maintain, like, the projects,
where it's like, I feel like I'm playing catch-up
or I'm behind, and I need to keep working,
I think my time here--
I don't want to say it'll be easy,
but, like, right now, I--
it ain't bugging me one bit.
OK, that's the base. That will sit on the fire.
And now we'll just go, boop, boop, boop, boop.
And then those will sit on top of that.
[bleep] off.
Bugger off.
So I swear I started talking like my grandpa.
He'd always be like...
Son of a bear!
Like, obviously, I miss home.
I miss everybody, I miss family and loved ones
and whatnot, but we got a goal in mind,
and we're going for it.
You mother trucker.
It's not gonna be much more than three months.
Like, if it's four months, you know,
four months of my life will set me up for life, so...
I don't think it'll take much to heat the little cabin.
I think there'll be a lot of trials and tribulations
and problems you have to work through,
but as for now...
keep it rolling.
She's a slow, tedious project, folks.
We're gonna go down and check our fish lines.
Hopefully they're full.
Fishing, to me, is very important.
I think if I catch 30 or 40 fish,
I can be here 90 to 100 days.
That's the plan.
Nothing.
That one might have one, though.
This one's gonna be tricky, boy.
But I think it's got one.
Come on, baby. Come on, baby.
No, no, no, no.
Get the [bleep] up here.
Oh.
Yes, sir.
Yes.
Whoo!
What a good day.
A fish a day keeps the medic away,
so we're happy.
That's a decent-sized pike too.
I need to be able to catch fish so I get more fat.
There it is, ladies and gentlemen.
Fat out here is so important,
just because you burn so much of it.
You need it to insulate you, to turn to energy.
Just that's what our bodies run off of.
It's a female.
A little bit of roe.
Look at the heart still beating.
Crazy, eh?
I've just got to keep working,
keep pushing the pace out here.
We got things to do, things we need to get done,
so we just got to keep working.
So there. You have a clean fish.
OK.
Go get water, boil some fish.
Let's get after it.
Good evening.
Yesterday was productive.
I started my full-time shelter, built most of the raised beds.
So today I'll be finishing that
and making a start on the frame.
And depending on how I feel, I may even finish
the lean-to part of that today.
So it feels--it feels good,
except this continual concern
about where my next meal is coming from.
And I know that's "Alone."
That's--that is the game.
Where do you get it from? But same old story.
You're probably getting really tired of hearing me say,
I can't find food!
But I can't just manage on berries alone,
so I'm gonna have to find something.
With the temperatures dropping,
I'm definitely feeling some pressure
to get this permanent shelter finished.
I don't really want to be caught under a tarp
with snow coming down
and temperatures dropping to minus forty,
so there is a slight pressing need to get things done,
but I don't really beat myself up
if I don't get a lot of things done in a day.
Essentially, just keeping myself fed,
keeping my water boiled,
maintaining my morale,
they're all jobs.
And if I keep beating myself up
about not finishing my shelter so quickly,
then I'm probably gonna get much more uneasy
about the whole experience,
and so I'm gonna carry on
with my slightly lackadaisical approach,
which seems to have worked so far.
Now for the ridgepole.
So this is the piece
that holds everything together.
If we get a lot of high winds, this will eventually
start to creep down.
So I figured, lash it on.
Bring it on, weather.
Yeah.
Almost feeling at home already.
Still a bit of work to do,
but I'm definitely getting there.
I'm going for a walk with the bow.
So this camera is mounted to the front of my bow.
So whatever I'm shooting at, you will see it.
This bow is really long.
It gets in the way when you're trying
to walk through the bush.
So it's only really suitable
for open areas.
I'm trying to get through here now.
Tangled up.
One of the biggest challenges of my location is,
the undergrowth is way too dense,
so it's impossible to really walk without making
a huge amount of noise.
It's very difficult, especially with a bow,
because my bow is a longbow,
which, in hindsight,
may not have been the best choice
for hunting in very dense undergrowth.
I'm not sure how successful this will be as a hunting trip,
but I found some lingonberries,
so it's not a complete waste of time.
They're a little bit sharp, but in a good way.
The undergrowth is very old,
and there's a lot of branches
that are catching on everything,
and every step you take,
you're having to kind of pull things off.
And it becomes very, very tiring.
You're stooping.
You're climbing over,
so you're using up a lot of energy
in order just to make very slow progress.
Not entirely unsuccessful.
I found some berries,
but not quite what I was looking for.
I'm just heading back to camp now.
So I'm making the decision that doing that
on a regular basis is counterproductive.
I'm trying to conserve as much of my energy
as possible, which means sticking to places
that are far easier to get to.
I heard a commotion
and realized I'd caught another squirrel.
So here he is.
Poor little guy.
Thank you, squirrel.
Much needed.
I'm gonna check the other traps now.
Before I caught the squirrel, I was feeling very despondent
about my ability to get food,
but it's not a constant yearning for food.
It's more of an awareness that I need to be getting food.
Otherwise, my body weight will drop.
Nope. Nothing.
I hate snares. I really do.
Something about it.
It's just--it's not sporting.
It's not British.
But it is effective.
I would say, if I have a weak skill,
it's hunting big game with a bow,
because coming from the UK, where bow hunting is illegal,
I don't have that experience.
I have bow hunted with a compound bow before,
but using a primitive bow is not something
I have experience of.
Oh, hello.
I got a varying hare.
It would appear that my fortunes have changed.
Ooh.
I mean, this is no guarantee I'm gonna get anything
for the rest of the time I'm here,
but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
So hopefully, between my squirrel and this guy,
I'll have a few days' worth of food here.
So let's get busy.
Whew.
Cut a lot of boughs.
Still got plenty to do, but here's what I eat in a day
as a 24-year-old survival athlete.
Rabbit bone tea for breakfast.
Already harvested probably six spruce trees
for their boughs, 'cause I need, [bleep],
more boughs than a church could ever bough.
Um...
Nice.
But, yeah, we'll be able to keep on keeping on.
I'm feeling great.
My plan is working, and I'm just gonna
keep eating three meals a day,
so that I can push myself physically.
Timber.
I got some pretty hard bits done on my shelter.
Now it's just all fine work.
Probably time-consuming,
but that's one thing I do have a lot of.
Time.
Huge, huge tepee.
And I'm only justifying its size.
It's definitely quite a risk.
Pretty easy way to blow out, mentally and physically.
But just because I have access to food,
might as well utilize that energy I've got,
because once this is built, then I can store food in it,
I can smoke things inside and all that good stuff
and hopefully be a little bit more comfortable.
But, yeah,
just a little thatch by the little thatch.
The amount of sunlight and daytime
is very much so in my mind,
the amount of time you have to work.
♪ And we just keep on thatchin' ♪
But, you know, if you have 16 hours of daylight,
and you work hard for 16 hours,
you'll just tank.
My strategy, in terms of my permanent shelter,
will be, you know, just days and days
and days of small snippets.
♪ Nearly time for lunchtime
♪ Yeah
I'm gonna take it one day at a time.
And if that's too much,
I'll take it half a day at a time.
I think, in this environment, if you put a number on it,
you'll just hurt yourself.
This is the longest I've lived off the land so far.
This is what's allowing me to keep on.
You probably can't see, but there's a bunch of fat
floating on the surface.
Fish head soup.
Ah.
Mmm.
Very honest day's work.
I walk up to my fishing spot
and have a couple casts,
just for a therapeutic walk.
And yeah.
Out here, being alone has given me time to think.
I've just had my first, like, positive daydream.
There's always thoughts of, you know,
perceived hunger and whatnot,
but this was, like, things I want to do.
And it filled me with joy, and that felt really nice.
You know, the first couple episodes
I actually watched of this show, I was like,
these people are not what they say they are.
And then I went on a hunting trip with no food,
and I was like, I understand.
You know, everything goes out the door.
Oh, no.
Whoo!
Knowing that I'm in a very healthy state
is an advantage.
There was a lucky one.
I can actually just relax.
I feel like there will be some people here
who have a huge shock to the system.
Hope you guys saw that,
but that bigger pike just got off in the shallows,
and then I grabbed it.
Time to go sit by a warm fire and have dinner!
Yoo-hoo!
There we have it.
Thatch door and a complete smoker.
I actually think...
I think it actually looks a lot like
the cartoon character Grug.
If you don't know who Grug is, go--go look him up.
So I think my smoker is gonna be called Grug.
Grug doesn't normally endorse smoking,
but hopefully he gets plenty of smoking time.
Job done. Boo!
All right. Time to fill this baby up.
Well, that was a fun little project,
but I want to be able to take my time
and sit down and craft
and just do things that bring me joy.
There's some kind of noise coming from down at the point.
Down near my gillnet.
I'm gonna go check it out.
But that's a want, not a need.
What I need is food,
permanent shelter,
and to survive.
I've heard it for the last 15 minutes.
Anyhow, it stopped.
Just so much time goes into just meeting your basic needs.
But everything can't be polished.
Like, that's just not the way it is.
It's not the way that survival rolls.
This is life.
This is just raw, how it is.
No action on the snare.
There's only so much you can do.
You've just got to roll with however it goes.
Maybe that's one of the lessons
that was out here for me--
embrace the imperfection.
Embrace the raw, the rugged, the real.
Holy [bleep].
There's a beaver right there.
Oh.
Attached to that giant log I had across the line.
He's snared up.
He's not going anywhere.
I don't want to damage the pelt.
He's dead.
Yes!
Come on!
Oh! Oh!
I'll be happy with any beaver, but the fact that it's, like,
a full-size adult one is just incredible.
Oh.
This thing's about 15 to 20 kilos.
I cannot even imagine what it would be like
taking a moose in this weather,
or a caribou.
I'm not sure a caribou would have as much fat on it
as our Mr. Beaver here.
Oh!
I can barely hold it up.
It's so heavy.
This gives me food security.
I don't know for how long.
Let's let the caption tell us how much calories
this food's gonna give us.
Thanks, caption. I appreciate that.
Get smoking, Grug!
Whoo!
Let's go, baby!
Let's go!
OK, so the main thing to do is get the pelt off
and then gut, and then this thing's
gonna become a lot lighter.
The beaver just gives me options.
Look at the size of that tail compared to my head.
You know, it's early days, and I feel that
it's a massive, big step in the right direction.
It's the best food that I've gotten,
and it's just incredible.
I'll never forget this moment.
I love this beaver.
This beaver is mine.
There are many other beavers out there,
but this one, this is my beaver.
I just had this feeling that nature was waiting
for me to finish that smoker.
Look at the size of this liver.
It was like, Nero,
you build that smoker, and I will provide.
But you gotta do the work first, dude.
Snowshoe kidney, beaver kidney.
I am happy.
Oh.
Really smoky out here.
Just hooking into a squirrel head for lunch.
Eating a lot this morning,
having a real slow one, just because I feel
very depleted, but bouncing back.
And then I'll do some on the door.
[bleep] you.
I'm just gonna go get my saw...
♪ And an extra battery for the camera ♪
Shelter-building time.
A couple hours of thatching, spruce bough
and whatever you want to call it.
I kind of need to make a ladder.
I'll just make a small one for now,
just to get a little bit further up.
I'll make it out of willow, and then I'll need
to harvest more spruce boughs,
and then a few more again.
And then we'll start having a sweet teepee.
I'm noticing the weather's getting colder,
the wind's blowing a little bit harder at night.
And I know it's going into winter,
but it's happening quicker than I'm expecting.
And I feel like I've put all my eggs in one basket
with my huge shelter.
And I keep telling myself that my decision is justified.
And, you know, if it all works out, it can actually--
it could work really, really well.
However, I'm eating as much food as I possibly can.
But I'm working less efficiently.
My breaks are getting longer,
and I've still got, you know, lots to do.
It's worrying.
All these negative thoughts
are just gonna creep in naturally.
There's only so much the land can give you,
and then it's sentimental endurance and starvation.
It's a ticking time bomb.
And that ticking time bomb is relative to what you've got
and what you're given.
We're just gonna start with three rungs.
We can always add more, if we need.
And it's funny, you know, how you prepare for this show
with bushcraft and bush skills--
no, you go out with nothing,
and you see how you operate mentally.
It should be good.
Not-so-blue sky coming.
Good.
My theory is, short season.
Here for a good time, not a long time.
Yeah.
♪ Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo ♪
So I'm 24 years old.
I've never had a full-time job.
Right now, I just teach whitewater kayaking.
The rain's setting in now.
Whatever.
Whitewater kayaking has the whole mental aspect to it
that I enjoy, just because the river is so strong
and, you know, water is just so unforgiving.
All righty.
We're gonna do a little bit on my door,
give it a little bit of structure,
and then we can weave that in.
And if you allow yourself to slip,
the river just kind of eats it up,
and before you know it, you're upside down
or out of your kayak, in a really dangerous spot.
And, yeah, I've had friends pass away
from the smallest mistake.
I think trying to survive out here is the same.
It should be good.
You've got to be quietly confident in yourself
and your ability.
Trying to fill the tank for tomorrow.
I'm very depleted in the evening today.
It's fine.
Then the mind just runs.
It thinks about tapping out and all that good stuff.
I'll move a little slower tomorrow.
I'm about to go and check
those snares in the new area.
Hopefully a lot of rabbits, but we shall see.
Right, let's do this.
Yesterday, I was feeling very, very down
about my long-term prospects.
So I've put a huge amount of effort
into going to a new area,
where there was a lot more signs of game.
I set a lot of snares there, which hopefully will create
some more food opportunities.
Nothing goes easy.
So, long story short,
I had a rabbit.
So I went to grab it, but it somehow managed
to work its way loose, but I got it.
So I've spared you the gory details
of breaking its neck.
Ooh.
Bit of an adrenaline-pumping moment.
I thought I was gonna lose him for a second,
but I'm gonna make my way back to camp.
OK, I'm on my way back to camp,
and I spotted these--
very fresh grizzly bear tracks.
So at least we know the bears are still around,
and they're on the list.
Problem is, I'm on theirs as well.
OK, may the best man win.
Overall, I feel really, really good.
My head's definitely in the game.
So along the riverbank,
I've made my temporary cooking camp,
which is just a little dome shelter.
I think if I can keep getting more food,
maybe some fish, I'm in a good position
to do this as long as it takes.
I still have some of my rabbit left from yesterday,
so that will keep me going.
So my plan now is to use this energy
that I'm about to get to further my chances
of getting more food.
Wow, this is gonna be so good.
So I'll fish more.
I plan to put more snares down,
and I'd like to try and maybe
not gain weight, but at least not
lose any weight now for the next couple of weeks,
if I can.
Mmm, mmm, mmm.
What a perfect day.
This new area has a lot of potential.
There's beaver, muskrats, rabbits.
I just need to keep the pressure on now,
catch more, and get myself
back to taking in enough calories
to be able to function.
If I can keep myself in a good condition,
I know I can sit it out for longer.
Ooh, right.
Well, I've eaten.
That was good.
That was a really good meal.
So I think I'll light another fire at camp,
do an hour on the shelter.
It's time to do some work.
Still pretty ugly out.
Windy, some light rain.
But we didn't get too much done yesterday,
so today we're gonna have to try to be
a little bit more productive.
Running out of good days.
I don't know if this is called a good day,
but a day where there's no minus twenty, so...
It looks like there's--yeah, there's snow in the mountains.
Look at that.
It's coming.
That's all snow, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh, wow. Look at this.
Probably only a matter of time before we get snow down here.
And then my window for shelter-building
will have gone.
Whew, mountains have snow!
Ah.
Snow in the mountains is beautiful,
but also, it's a reality that cold is coming.
Just how many days of opportunity do I have left?
We got to get that-- the fireplace
just became number one, actually.
It's coming, baby.
There is snow in the mountain.
I need to finish the shelter.
I have no more time.
I'm gonna take every piece down there
and start mudding 'em.
There's no waiting around now.
She's coming here soon, so we gotta get ready.
Hurry. It's a race.
Something's pulled my tripod down.
Things are preparing for winter.
Bears are racing around, trying to get all their food.
We got to work harder now.
Ooh. Wow.
I got the shivers. Wow.
Birds are moving.
That's a [bleep] load of geese.
Leaving right now, I gotta change my plan,
do more on my permanent shelter.
That time of year.
Winter is [bleep] coming.
Let's fill this thing with mud.
Here's our mud shovel.
I didn't think the weather would come this quick,
but here we are.
The only reason why I feel this won't work
is because of the silt in the mud.
It's not really clay, clay.
We're gonna try our best.
This is a very unhospitable place
that we're gonna have to dig deep to survive in.
If you're not set up for winter,
you're not gonna last-- it's just the way it is.
Like, I'm from Canada. I know that.
So it's a race for me.
I don't think these people know this.
There's one piece to the puzzle.
Let's go get the other.
I think if we turn this upside-down, it'll be easier.
This is what I work in.
This is what I grew up in.
This is my advantage.
So let's see if these other countries get what we get.
This is Canada.
This is cold.
The cold is gonna destroy people.
Like, it's coming.
Hypothermia is real.
People will get it.
I think I might start a fire in that right now...
Just to help dry it, because it is wet.
Holy [bleep], that's heavy.
We're surviving. We're having fun still.
No worries whatsoever yet, like, of wanting to go home.
Nothing like that's crossed my mind.
I said I came here to win, and I mean it.
I ain't tapping, I can tell you that much.
This'll get dried right out, and then we'll, uh,
take it up there, get it in place,
and fix what we can with light mud on the inside.
Put it in, and...
we'll be sitting pretty.
December, here we come.
Nothing in the snares this morning.
Whew.
Far too exhausted.
I could barely go for a walk and enjoy it.
I'm just gonna hang tight, stay dry,
and just try to do as minimal as I can.
I'm just depleted.
I'm guessing just a little bit too ambitious,
thinking the bigger shelter.
All of a sudden, my creativity...
on how exciting this whole shelter is
compounds on itself.
My mind's going down these rabbit holes
that feel like it's impossible to pull them out of.
Usually, I can keep them under wraps,
but right now, I'm confused.
I'm eating every day.
I don't have the energy that I think I should have.
Why?
And now, becoming afraid--
are my energy levels gonna come back?
If so, when?
How much will they come back?
Yeah, very much so confused and afraid.
Things were feeling really good,
and then I decided to build this teepee.
I need to get spruce boughs
from over there and finish it.
I just feel like I've got nothing,
nothing in the tank.
At home, my strategy from the burnout,
you know, I'll eat more, try to do some projects
to try to calm my mind down...
But these tactics that usually work
are just getting overridden like I've never felt before.
Do I suffer for another 10, 15 days?
And it's just a ticking time bomb, you know?
I just can't see myself finishing--
finishing the shelter.
I'm not enjoying myself,
and I'm feeling confused
and unknown with the amount of damage
I could be doing to myself.
I'm so sorry.
Those are some cues that, I told myself,
prior to the competition, that it'll be time.
Hello.
My time's come, and I'm officially tapping out.
Feeling very, very weak-- full body,
you know, from foot and your mind at the same time.
The sort of mental hardship I came to,
I just haven't felt it before like that.
You know, money's money.
And I mean, yeah, it would have made for
a pretty crazy kickstart to my life.
But what I thought I could do, all of a sudden, I couldn't.
As soon as you're not doing anything,
you're just in your mind.
And I thought I might as well just cut my losses
and remove myself from this place.
It's giving me quite a lot of pain.
The decision's been made,
and now I have to really live with it.
I'm just a little bit disappointed in my ability.
This experience has definitely given me
another depth of the mental perspective.
I think the biggest thing I learned is that
I've still got so much to grow mentally.
A lot of people will think it's pretty early on
in the competition,
when I made the decision to tap out.
I don't know how people are gonna perceive me.
But right now, I actually feel completely OK with that.
It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
That's been like another little, like, stepping stone
in, you know, the life I choose.
If you're happy in your decision-making
and you really want something,
then you just have to go for it.
That's, I think, one of the biggest things
that I can take away from this whole experience
and implement that on my choice
to try and live that very free schedule
and potentially earn some money
in a different sort of avenue
than the average Joe, and then, you know, be able
to buy that block of land and live that life
that I really want to live and not feel judged.
My long-term food source, is going to be big game.
Big game trail here.
I need to find moose.
Definitely a moose trail.
Right now, it should be primetime moose hunting.
If I harvest moose, I wouldn't have excuse
not to last very, very long.
If we get moose, we win this competition.
There's not a doubt in my mind.
[bleep].