and may contain mature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.
and may contain mat [dramatic music]r.
♪ ♪
male narrator: In one of the most brutal
survival challenges ever,
three strangers will try
to endure 30 days in the wild
with only one resource:
a fresh kill,
its location marked
by a single flare.
- I see that flare go off,
I know that there's gonna be an animal out there,
and we're gonna have to get on it really quickly.
♪ ♪
I think it's probably about 200 yards up this way.
narrator: They have no tools.
- Going in the swamp without a knife, I've never done it.
This is gonna be hell.
narrator: Just the clothes on their backs.
- This way.
Watch out for these roots.
They're all over the damn place.
- Our primitive ancestors
used every single piece of the animal,
and we're gonna follow in their footsteps.
- I think I see something.
narrator: Do they have the stamina and ingenuity
to survive?
♪ ♪
- There it is.
- Wow. Look at that.
- Oh, man.
Man, that's a nice size alligator.
The alligator is an incredibly powerful animal.
There's millions of years of evolution,
and the alligator is basically unchanged.
The skin is thick and tough.
I don't have a blade.
I don't know how we're gonna handle this.
What are the main things we need to get done?
- We need to get this thing out of the sun
and start processing it.
- Okay, process-- - And we'll need a fire.
Keep the bugs off of it. - Cool down.
Gotta get fire done
and we gotta get something made
we can hang this meat on
and start getting it cooled down.
- There was a huge, beautiful alligator,
had lots of meat on it and everything,
but I know this meat's gonna spoil quick.
The sun's going down. It's still hot outside.
The humidity is insane.
This is gonna be our number one resource
for this month,
so we gotta get it processed and going
before it starts to spoil.
♪ ♪
- I'll start working on the fire.
- We'll work on the gator.
♪ ♪
- When I was growing up, being from Georgia,
we spent a lot of time in the swamps,
hunting, fishing.
You wanna start right up here, come down the legs.
My inspiration to being a survivalist
and coming out here and doing this
is my father.
I wanna make sure that he knows
that I was listening
the whole time he was teaching me.
- All right, let's find something
to cut this open with.
- Watch out for those snakes.
♪ ♪
Anything bites. Everything bites.
Venomous snakes, you got your alligator,
bugs everywhere,
ticks, chiggers, anything,
and you never know what your foot's gonna land on.
♪ ♪
- Anyone that knows anything about survival
knows that fire is critical.
It means everything.
I don't wanna harvest anything
that's right on the ground.
I'm looking for stuff
that's higher up off the ground, you know.
I want it as dry as I can possibly get.
As far back as I can remember,
I've had a deep appreciation for nature and wild places.
In the past several years,
I've really tried to focus
on primitive skills specifically.
As someone who enjoys teaching primitive skills,
I've gotta be able to go
into a unique environment like this
and pull this off, because if I can't,
what kind of teacher am I?
♪ ♪
Up underneath this cypress tree right here,
there's a bit of an overhang,
and so this is some punk wood that's up underneath,
and it's quite a bit dryer
than the other stuff that's been more exposed.
This is one of the most difficult places
I can think of
to have to make a friction fire.
Everything's damp.
This is gonna be one of the most challenging places
I've ever made fire in my life.
♪ ♪
- You see anything over there?
- No.
In this area, there's not even a rock
that you can kind of knap a little bit
and get a sharp edge.
It doesn't exist. There's zero rocks here.
♪ ♪
My background is primarily in strength and conditioning.
I worked for Naval special warfare
with Navy SEALS
and attempted to make them stronger,
more efficient at their jobs,
overall just harder to kill.
My papaw, we did everything together.
Fished and hunted,
and he was like my best friend growing up.
He taught me a lot,
and that's why I'm doing this.
Hey, we got something right here.
- Got something? - Pocket full of 'em I guess.
I wouldn't call it a knife, but...
♪ ♪
In this area, there's shells, and they're not very sharp,
and then there's really nothing to sharpen them on
except for another shell.
- One might be better than the other.
Nice.
- So that's gonna be a struggle.
♪ ♪
- For the fire,
I'm choosing the primitive hand drill method
because it requires the least amount of tools.
♪ ♪
Got a trumpet vine here,
and this material is kind of what I'm looking for
for the hearth board.
It's soft enough that it's gonna allow me
to kind of maybe use a shell,
kind of start drilling into this.
♪ ♪
For the spindle, I'm gonna use goldenrod
because the woody exterior makes it rigid
and allows you to drill into it,
and that center pith material is soft enough
to help you get a coal.
♪ ♪
- We gotta get this [bleep] done.
- The initial process
of trying to cut into this alligator
is daunting.
The hide, even on the belly,
the softest part of the alligator,
is really tough.
♪ ♪
- We gotta get these guts out.
These mussel shells,
they're just not gonna cut it.
We're not moving as quick as we should be moving.
The sun's going down, the meat's gonna spoil.
We gotta get this taken care of.
[grunts]
What the [bleep]?
♪ ♪
- That notch is too damn tight.
[bleep].
Soon as you take the knife away,
your ability to process material
goes down instantly.
I mean, yeah, this is ridiculous.
I've got a blunt piece of shell
that I'm literally trying to carve into this wood with.
♪ ♪
We're gonna keep going at it, but...
this is five times harder than it should be.
♪ ♪
I'm feeling a lot of pressure right now.
If I don't get this fire done,
we're not eating anything tonight.
- Getting in there?
- Hell no.
- We have to figure out another way
to get into this alligator.
Well...
The only other way that I know of
is a reed knife.
♪ ♪
By splitting a common reed that grows in this area,
you can get a sharp edge on it,
but it's very fragile,
and it's gonna be still a huge challenge
to get through an alligator hide.
♪ ♪
Anything?
♪ ♪
- I got one.
- Did you get in? - Yeah.
I got it. I'm in.
I'm in there. - Very good.
- Awesome.
Now we need to hurry up.
♪ ♪
- There we go.
Got it.
♪ ♪
All right, now this is a critical moment.
I gotta protect this coal.
Very, very gently.
I wanna let as much of this dust as possible
turn into an ember.
♪ ♪
Take the ember,
put it in my tinder bundle.
♪ ♪
See if we can get a flame.
♪ ♪
Just let the wind do its work.
I'm gonna help it out just a little.
♪ ♪
Whoo!
We've got fire!
- Good job, Rick. - Thanks, man.
Fire is elemental for us.
It's our special skill.
It's the one thing that we hold
over the rest of the animal kingdom.
♪ ♪
- There we go.
Now we're talking.
- Best thing that we've found
is that if one person kind of pries the hide apart,
puts some tension on it,
and the other person cuts, that seems to work pretty good.
♪ ♪
- Let's get some gator meat.
♪ ♪
- Alligators are incredibly strong animals.
Super resilient. Their hide's tough.
The muscles in their tail are so strong.
Even after we've separated parts of the meat
off of the alligator,
You can still see the muscles twitching and wanting to move
and they react to getting poked a little bit.
It's just an incredible creature.
♪ ♪
- I'm thirsty.
- Yeah.
- We need fresh water.
- Well yeah, for sure.
- This [bleep] swamp, man.
♪ ♪
- When you're in the swamp,
dehydration's a dangerous situation.
Our bodies are gonna stop functioning properly,
and trying to track down water
that is of a clean, reliable source
is very, very difficult.
♪ ♪
[bleep].
Finally I found a pool of water,
but the issue is--is that this is standing, stagnant water.
There's a big risk of waterborne organisms
that can make you sick.
♪ ♪
So I'm gonna move several feet away
from the water source,
kind of right in this area,
and I'm gonna dig a sieve
and let the earth filter the water,
make it as safe to drink as possible.
♪ ♪
I can see a little bit of water
starting to seep in right here already.
♪ ♪
I have no idea
if the water's gonna be any good to drink or not,
but we really don't have a choice.
♪ ♪
- It's thick, it's nasty, it stinks.
It's a nightmare. It's a true nightmare.
[thunderclap]
- Trees are dropping.
Thick branches are falling everywhere.
♪ ♪
Holy-- [snake hisses]
- Out here in the swamp, nothing's free, you know?
Everything's tough.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I have no idea
if the water's gonna be any good to drink or not,
but we really don't have a choice.
♪ ♪
You know, tastes like mud, I'm not gonna lie,
but at the same time, it's a whole lot cleaner
than that water that was stagnant over there,
so I feel like this is gonna work for us.
We can get hydrated so we can keep working.
♪ ♪
- I really wanna get this head off.
There's plenty of stuff right there to use.
- Cutting the ol' esophagus. Good work.
We need to get the head off
because there's tons of meat in the head itself.
We'll eat gator head for dinner.
- Yeah. That'll work.
- You can use the jawbone for several tasks.
Chopping, cutting,
because it's probably the hardest thing
we can find out here.
♪ ♪
- And it's free.
- There's no rocks of any kind,
so these bones might be crucial for us.
♪ ♪
- We're gonna have to dry and preserve
as much of this meat as we possibly can.
Drying it is a much better option
for long-term use
because it's less susceptible
to getting bacteria in that meat.
♪ ♪
I'm gonna start building a rack.
I've constructed this frame from these sticks.
I'm gonna use cordage material to create crossmembers,
and then laying meat on it.
There's insects everywhere,
and having that smoke coming across the meat
is gonna help to keep the insects at bay
and really help us to preserve
as much of that meat as possible.
You guys ready to eat?
- Yeah, starving, man. - All right.
- Ooh, it's hot. - Yeah.
They're used to it.
♪ ♪
Man, that's good.
- Yeah. - It's not bad.
- Not bad.
But what are we thinking for tonight?
I mean, I'm wore out.
We still got more meat to process.
I think we're sleeping right here.
We probably need to be here to protect this meat anyway
in case we get alligators coming in here.
♪ ♪
- Naturally, there's predators.
There's big alligators.
We've gotta kind of be vigilant.
♪ ♪
- Not having any tools,
we don't have any way to get into this gator head.
- He's in there.
- So we're gonna do the best we can
to cook it right now.
Put it in the coals, cover it back up,
and build the fire back up over it,
and the hope is-- is that in the morning,
we'll peel everything back
and we'll be able to get into this gator head.
The jawbone from this gator
for sure will be a very functional tool for us.
- Let him roast.
♪ ♪
Wow. Look at that.
♪ ♪
- This alligator head is basically char.
- Is there anything left of it? - I think this is it.
That's not a good thing for us.
- That is well done. - That fire was crazy hot.
- Even the bone's burned up.
- I mean, there's a little bit of bone,
but I just don't think it's gonna turn into anything.
The jawbone from this gator
might've been a very functional tool for us.
I did not expect it to char that much.
- Damn.
- This animal is our only resource,
and if we can't utilize it to the utmost
and use every piece of it possible,
then we're hurting ourselves.
♪ ♪
Priority one for us is gonna be getting shelter
'cause we're just getting lucky
without it raining right now.
- Yeah, the roots' pull looks pretty strong,
but that water's been running through.
It's still standing water right there.
Yeah, I mean, there's mosquitos all around us.
- If we don't pick a good spot and we get flooded out,
man, it would suck.
It would just be miserable.
♪ ♪
This actually looks higher than everything around us.
- Yeah.
- I'm looking for something that already exists in nature
that I don't have to build,
so if I can find a tree
that's kind of already leaning over
and this is gonna be my ridge pole,
and I can just lean my rafters up against that,
then it saves me so much effort
because building a natural shelter
is a ton of work.
♪ ♪
- So I'm out here looking for cattails and palmettos.
We need something to secure our structure.
Right now, I'm in the middle of nowhere.
I don't have a clue where the hell I'm at.
It's thick, it's nasty, it stinks,
bugs are horrible.
It's a nightmare.
It's a true nightmare.
We've been out here working our asses off
since we got here
and it's just really taking a toll on me.
I don't have any energy.
I'm tired. I have not slept at all.
[grunts]
I keep getting the shakes.
It's just--I'm done with this [bleep].
I'm tired of this swamp.
Tired of it.
♪ ♪
- Right now, we're busting up a bunch of branches
that we use for rafters
that's gonna hold all of our thatching on there
that's gonna keep the water out.
We have to find some way
to protect ourselves from the rain
or our fire's gonna go out,
our meat's gonna get wet,
and it's all gonna go bad and get spoiled.
- Good news, Rick. I found a bunch of cattails.
- Oh, right on.
- I didn't get a whole lot,
but we'll go back in a little bit.
We're in good shape.
- We're doing work, you know, we're thatching the roof
and, you know, pulling in stuff.
Hudson's helping,
but at the same time, you know, there were times
when Hudson seemed a little bit
like he had started to check out.
- I vote we just sleep on those palmettos tonight.
- Okay. That sounds good.
I wish we would have gotten the shingles up on this thing,
but we'll work on that tomorrow.
♪ ♪
- The ground is freezing
and you can't get comfortable.
It's all part of it, but damn, it's hell.
This swamp just isn't giving us a break at all.
♪ ♪
- Like, 20 more trips and it should be done.
We've been lucky so far,
but when I woke up this morning,
I could see clouds coming in,
and it's gonna be turning rainy,
so it's real critical today
that we make this shelter as watertight as possible.
- And now we'll just go this next row,
and then after we get all the way to the top,
we'll probably do another one.
- No tools or knives or anything in here,
that's what's beating everybody down
'cause it's extra work.
It's hard as hell.
Man, this swamp's a bitch.
[sighs]
♪ ♪
- You know, I'm tired, but--
not--I don't feel bad.
I'm just tired, you know?
- Yeah.
- I'd like to stop and take a break
but that's not gonna happen 'cause we got...
♪ ♪
Firewood to gather,
we still got shelter to work on.
- I'm taking a beating.
My feet are killing me.
Big time.
♪ ♪
This is hard.
♪ ♪
[thunderclap]
- We can't stay here.
- I don't have a plan B.
This animal is our only resource.
If we can't use every piece of it,
it's never gonna be enough to sustain us.
- What the hell out here could carry that thing off
besides another gator?
[alligator hisses]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I'm taking a beating.
Big time.
I think--I think it's time for me to head out.
♪ ♪
I've been lightheaded all day. - Have you?
- Yeah, bad.
- Dude, I don't know.
I think you can hang.
♪ ♪
I hate to run off.
I'd like to talk,
but this firewood's not gonna pick itself up.
- No, it's not.
- Hudson decided to call it quits.
I'm not gonna lie, it's disappointing.
That leaves us with two, Jason and myself,
and so each of us now have a bigger workload.
There's a lot of challenges in front of us.
We're far from being squared away out here
and a month to go?
That's gonna make it a whole lot harder
to stay out here.
- I grew up in the swamps,
but this swamp right here is just--
it's complete hell.
♪ ♪
[flare pops]
♪ ♪
You know, the swamps, they're nothing to play with.
I don't know how they're gonna make it the whole month,
but I'm rooting for 'em 100%.
♪ ♪
- We know rain's coming.
It's gonna be here if not tonight, tomorrow,
so it's a little bit of a race against the clock here
because at some point, our luck's gonna run out,
and I didn't come here to tap out.
♪ ♪
- That's good as it's gonna get for now.
- It's gonna be dark anytime I think.
Nice work, man.
♪ ♪
[thunderclap]
♪ ♪
Just rain all night long.
[thunderclap]
Got some lightning and thunder.
The wind's actually picked up.
♪ ♪
We're starting to run out of firewood.
♪ ♪
The swamp is definitely...
not cooperating right now.
♪ ♪
[distant thunder rumbles]
♪ ♪
[grunts]
We wake up this morning, and it was pouring down rain.
- I'm wet all the way through
and there's no chance of me drying off anytime soon.
Literally might get hypothermia in the swamp,
which sounds ridiculous,
but it's, like, 50-something degrees around here.
At least that's what it feels like.
♪ ♪
- Our camp is literally flooding.
There's water coming up all around us.
[thunder rumbles]
- If the water comes any higher than that,
we're gonna be laying in a puddle.
♪ ♪
So we're digging trenches
to get ourselves a little bit dryer,
trying to get the water to channel away from us.
♪ ♪
As I'm digging, the water's kind of just--
it flows away as I dig, but then you can see it
kind of flow back towards us again
because there's no place for it to go.
[sighs heavily]
You've gotta be pretty tough to live out here.
Mentally, I've just gotta keep myself staying positive
and push through.
♪ ♪
- [bleep].
The jerky's getting wet.
Damn it.
- It just suddenly started leaking on the spot.
- I don't know, man.
That's gonna be a problem for spoilage.
Probably a third of it got wet.
[bleep]. - Yeah.
- The whole point
of making jerky in the first place
is to remove the moisture from the meat
so that you have more long-term preservation.
If you reintroduce moisture into that jerky,
that's gonna be problematic
because it could start to mold,
have bacteria growth on it, and things of that nature.
It sucks bad.
I mean, that was gonna be our food for the next month.
♪ ♪
I guess it makes more sense to just eat it.
♪ ♪
- Let's eat some chow.
- There's no way that this gator
is gonna last us for a month.
As soon as we're out of that,
we've gotta start trapping, hunting, fishing,
and life's gonna get a lot harder.
It would be great if this rain would stop.
♪ ♪
We've got a super probably brief window in the rain,
so we've gotta work as fast as we can
to get as much done as possible.
[bugs buzzing]
The mosquitos are biting the crap out of my neck.
I had to wrap up.
- Hey, man. You notice something missing?
♪ ♪
- The gator's gone, dude.
- Where's the carcass?
What the hell happened to it?
It was right there, right?
- On this branch.
- What the hell could've taken that thing?
The missing carcass is a big problem.
There's some type of predator out there
that's large enough to carry off
a large alligator carcass.
That thing was not exactly light.
- Easily, like, 75 pounds probably, the carcass.
- It was hanging right there.
What the hell out here could carry that thing off
besides another gator?
- An alligator close to camp could become a serious problem.
[alligator hisses]
♪ ♪
[thunder rumbles]
♪ ♪
The tops of the trees are moving, like, 10 feet.
We're losing shingles.
Holy crap.
It's kicking hard, man.
Trees are dropping.
Big branches are falling everywhere.
[loud thunderclap]
♪ ♪
[tree cracks]
Holy [bleep].
[dramatic music]
[loud thunderclap] - Holy moly.
That's crazy.
Yikes.
The tops of the trees are moving, like, 10 feet.
♪ ♪
We're losing shingles
off of our roof.
Trees are dropping.
Big branches are falling everywhere.
[thunderclap]
[tree cracks]
♪ ♪
- Yeah, like, we hear it popping,
and it's--like, that crack wasn't there when we started.
- Oh, you can just-- you can see it.
It looks like it's about to split away
from the main trunk.
- The wind is what's gonna do it ultimately.
The tree above us is probably 40 to 50 feet tall
with a trunk that's maybe 2 feet around,
so you can imagine how much it might weigh,
and if that thing comes crashing down,
it could kill us.
We don't wanna be anywhere around it.
Every time the wind blows,
that crack keeps getting longer.
- The tree's going to come down.
It's just a matter of when.
♪ ♪
- And the other option's move, you know.
- That would be such a disappointment
to have to rebuild a shelter.
- Yeah, it will be a lot of work.
- Building shelters requires a lot of calories,
and I've only got so many calories in my body.
Moving our shelter in these cold, wet conditions
just seems like a terrible idea,
but it's really kind of the only option here.
- It wouldn't hurt to get out and start looking.
- [sighs]
♪ ♪
- On the new shelter,
we've decided to go with a wraparound,
wickiup type shelter.
Resembles more of a teepee actually than a lean-to.
♪ ♪
- It was unexpected, but we got it done.
Bam.
♪ ♪
- We've been given a single resource,
which is an alligator,
so it's crucial that we use
all parts of the gator
to the limit of our creativity.
- What are you thinking with that?
- I think we can make a bag out of it.
- Yeah?
- That we can collect wild edibles
and things like that with.
- Sure.
- Yeah, something.
So we've got a brief window in the rain,
and I'm making this gator bag
because we have no way to really carry anything.
It's gonna be super durable.
Alligator hide is really, really tough.
♪ ♪
So in order for me to stitch this thing up
and turn it into something,
I need to cut the hide
and make small little slits in it.
That will make the holes that I need
to be able to stitch it up.
Our ancestors must have been a totally different breed.
They had generations of knowledge
of the natural habitat,
and I've always been kind of a student of nature I think.
I love being self-sufficient, self-reliant.
Check this out.
It's a gator bag.
- Really beautiful.
Gonna start selling those?
- Yup. - [laughs]
Yeah, we're gonna put 'em on the shelf.
♪ ♪
The lack of food is overwhelming on your body.
It makes you so lethargic
that you just can't do even the smallest tasks.
♪ ♪
So I need to collect cattails
because it's a source of starch and a source of carbohydrates.
♪ ♪
It's never gonna be enough to sustain us.
It's not even close to our basic caloric needs
that we need just to be alive and breathing,
but it's still something.
♪ ♪
[bleep]. It's a rabbit.
Straight ahead. On the ground.
That's a rabbit.
♪ ♪
[grunting]
[screams]
[laughs]
I've been hunting rabbits since before I can remember.
[screaming]
But this is the first one I've ever killed with a stick.
As lethargic and as tired as I've been
from not being able to eat,
that was a big boost.
Right now, I'm feeling pretty good about life.
[thunderclap]
Rick, I caught something.
- Dude! - [laughs]
- Hell yeah.
How'd you get that thing? - I clubbed it with a stick.
- That's awesome.
- I know!
♪ ♪
[bleep].
I don't know if we should eat this, dude.
♪ ♪
Yeah.
He's got worms.
I can see 'em.
Probably got a bunch inside of him I bet.
- Yeah, he's probably full of parasites.
♪ ♪
You eat this, and a day later
all of a sudden your stomach is in knots and you're puking.
- So that sucks.
- Out here in the swamp,
nothing's free, you know?
Everything's tough.
♪ ♪
- So last night was freezing cold
and we burned through a mountain of firewood,
so this morning I've gotta get out and collect some more.
[bleep].
♪ ♪
Hey, look at right there. Straight ahead.
On the ground.
So this snake is a cottonmouth.
It's a highly venomous snake.
♪ ♪
Oh, there it is.
It's extremely painful
to get bitten by a cottonmouth,
and we'll probably only get about four hours
to get to a hospital and get to medical attention,
and if that were to happen here,
that would be pushing it.
♪ ♪
But at our current state with very little protein,
it's gonna be something that I'm willing to risk.
♪ ♪
[snake hisses]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- There you go. Nice hit.
- Yeah, he's dead.
- First thing we've gotta do is get the head off.
Even a dead snake is a risk
because the teeth are still there,
it's still got venom on it,
so we've gotta get the head cut off.
♪ ♪
- Put some tension on it so I can cut it easier.
Yeah, like that.
- All right.
- So after the snake's been dispatched--
- Pull up, pull up. There you go.
- It's a pretty simple process.
You basically just turn 'em inside out like a sock.
Skin 'em that way,
the guts all come out all in one piece with the skin
and then they're ready to go.
That's pretty much it.
We can grill it over the open fire.
♪ ♪
Snake for breakfast?
Whoo-hoo!
♪ ♪
- I'm not sure if I can get the spine all the way out.
♪ ♪
I would definitely say
this has gotta be the boniest critter I've ever eaten.
- Still not enough. - That's still--
- It's not even--it's still-- - Miniscule.
- Still a snack compared to what we normally eat.
- Yeah, compared to what you normally eat.
- I'm gonna nibble off every morsel.
♪ ♪
- We have arrived at the inevitable moment here.
That is all of the alligator.
It's no small thing to kill an animal,
but that animal's demise
has led to our ability
to live and eat and be out here and we're thankful for that.
- Cheers. - Cheers, buddy.
♪ ♪
- Still good.
- Last piece of alligator.
♪ ♪
Getting food has proved to be the biggest challenge
we've faced out here in the swamp.
♪ ♪
I need to develop another method
of getting some prey.
What I'm working on right now is cordage
for making some snares.
For cordage, we've pulled in some of the red bush.
The inner bark in it,
you can get some long strands off of it,
and I think it's gonna work well.
Everything is so much slower
without just a cutting tool,
just the knife.
Swiss Army Knife at this point would be huge.
♪ ♪
I'm using a sapling as a spring pole,
and if a critter comes by and hits it
by trying to take the bait,
hopefully it will choke them or snap their neck
and we'll have a meal that way.
The loop closure
has to essentially be instantaneous,
and if it's not,
it's gonna give that prey a chance to escape.
Cordage, while it's strong, it's really rough.
Waxing the cordage will hopefully be helpful.
♪ ♪
This is where we store all the gator fat.
♪ ♪
I mean at this point, it's going pretty rancid.
I'm gonna use it to wax the string on the traps.
It will make the cordage more slippery
and the noose part of it will close a lot better.
The spring goes up,
it's gonna constrict tightly around 'em just like that.
At this point,
getting the food is gonna be a fight to the end.
♪ ♪
- There's plenty of things to watch out for out here.
Watching our feet where we're stepping
so we don't step on all the poisonous snakes
like cottonmouths and rattlesnakes.
♪ ♪
Traveling through this terrain
is kind of a dangerous process
if you try to do it at night.
♪ ♪
Typically we don't move around at night
because it's just not safe.
We trip over all kinds of stuff.
But if we should need to get out and about,
it's definitely a good idea
to have some sort of light source.
Being able to make a torch
will give us a little bit more freedom.
Alligator fat is very combustible
and it burns extremely bright.
Put my cattail in there.
This has to have soaked up quite a bit of that fat by now.
♪ ♪
Let's see if it-- see how it burns.
♪ ♪
Looks like it's bubbling.
That'll work.
It'll probably burn a long time.
And if I was to need to move around camp at dark,
in the dark, this would guide my way.
♪ ♪
- This morning, I'm gonna head out
and check the snare.
There's nothing left in me anymore.
♪ ♪
I'm running on fumes.
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep]. Oh, man.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- At this point,
we've come to the realization that the swamp
is an incredibly difficult place
to procure any type of animal protein.
It just seems like there's always something
that's preventing you from being able to get it done.
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep]. I think I caught something.
♪ ♪
Oh, man.
♪ ♪
We got a rat here.
We got some food.
At this point, like,
not gonna be the most appetizing food,
I realize, for most people,
but in our situation,
I'm grateful for any piece of protein we can get.
♪ ♪
One thing about rodents like this
is they can carry fleas,
and sometimes those fleas can harbor disease
and things like that.
♪ ♪
I'm gonna singe the hair and everything
and sort of try to sterilize it a little bit,
and then from there we can clean it.
♪ ♪
That work?
- Rick had a good idea to use the alligator vertebrae
to strip the guts out of the rat.
It's got a decent point on it,
and you can insert it into the tissue
and you can cut open the gut cavity
and access all the guts and clean it out.
♪ ♪
Oh, it's done. - Is it done?
- Oh, it's done. - All right, man.
- I got that for you. - Thank you, buddy.
- Oh, yeah. That's not bad.
Tastes like squirrel.
- Yeah, it's actually not bad at all.
- Yeah.
- The rat actually tastes pretty good.
I'm really protein-deprived
and... yeah.
I'm not gonna lie,
I actually enjoy eating this rat right now.
♪ ♪
- Inside loin.
♪ ♪
- This last week was agonizing.
♪ ♪
That's among the most exhausted
I've ever been in my life,
and...
I'm ready to hike out of here.
- Let's get out of here. - Let's do it.
♪ ♪
This experience will be incredibly valuable
for me going forward
as a teacher of primitive skills.
You know, I don't know many instructors
who have walked into the wilderness
with nothing but the clothes on their back
and lived for a month.
The knowledge I've gained that I'll be able to share
is huge for me.
This is it.
♪ ♪
- I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.
♪ ♪
This has confirmed that I've got what it takes
to persevere and endure some hardship.
♪ ♪
I do think that my papaw would be...
♪ ♪
Would be proud of me.
He'd look upon this
and he would definitely have a smile on his face.
♪ ♪
- Here we go.
[flare pops]
♪ ♪
A long time ago, I heard somebody say
that as long as you don't give up,
you can never lose.
You either win
or you learn,
and in the swamp,
I've learned a lot.
♪ ♪