Original subtitles

You never know when you come out into the woods. It could be an hour, two

days, three months before you are sick and tired of things.

I have a pretty big problem.

I can't seem to find my barrel rod.

If I can't get a fire, then I can't stay here.

If you suffer a mechanical injury, there's nobody here to help you. You

have to know how to help yourself.

Don't stop.

When your heart says stop, never give up because the challenge is hard.

I can't lift my thumb. I can't lift my thumb. I can't lift my thumb. Mother...

Who are you when everything's been stripped away?

Gary out here in these woods.

I have not had a serious meal in a week. I can't get a player and I can't stay

here. Always in the back of your mind. Well, I can tap out.

Putting up with a filming booth?

Running into a predator is not an if, it's a when.

Get the hell out of here. I see you. Get out of here.

I'm living a hand-to-mouth existence.

Yes!

$500,000 is a lot of money. It's just going to keep getting harder.

It's not the world that needs to change. It's me that needs to change.

I can't lift my thumb. I can't lift my thumb. I can't lift my thumb. I don't

know how deep it is.

Elevate. Hold it up.

Pressure. Add pressure.

Can I have a look at it?

What about what you just said?

It's about an inch long.

Can you feel your fingers before we do that?

Okay,

what we're going to do is we're just going to bandage that up and then take

you out to hospital.

They don't be pissed.

You alright standing up? Yeah.

I try to be as careful as I can.

Obviously, everybody does. But I try to sheath my axe every time I'm done using

it for a little bit.

And I don't know if you noticed my saw, but it's mostly a backpacker saw.

I try to put that away when I'm climbing over stuff that I could get hurt, you

know, fall and hit myself on the teeth.

When you're out here in the woods, it's just amazing how hard everything is as

far as like to walk.

And it just saps the energy out of you. It's not like... Obviously, it's not

like walking on a sidewalk or walking to your car on asphalt or something like

that. And especially these woods.

These have got to be just about the hardest woods I've ever had to try to

climb through.

There's no deer trails that I've seen so far.

You know, up on top of the ridge up there, it's a little bit more open.

But, you know, everything is just rotten solid.

Just stick your foot right through there.

I need a drink of water is what I need.

I had a pretty big problem.

I can't find my ferro rod.

But I was able to sort of rewind the footage.

It rolled down the fire pit into the fire.

And it's not in there now.

So I guess I need to go find stuff to do a bow drill with.

You know, when I'm doing friction fires in the southwest where I live, you can

just sort of crank on it, you know, and have a cold within just a couple of

seconds. But I can tell it's going to be a little bit different here.

It's constantly wet.

Stuff just needs to dry out.

It's just going to take a little bit of time.

So here are all my pieces.

I have a socket rock here, spindle, board.

Bow.

Tender. Let's give it a go. Let's see what happens.

Heat is being created by the point where my spindle meets my board and the

process is spinning.

But heat by itself doesn't cause a fire.

If heat is in an airtight box, it'll just remain as heat.

So I need oxygen. You carve in a notch, roughly like one-eighth of a pie.

going outward from the center of the hole that I burnt in here.

And then the last thing that a fire needs in order to exist is fuel. This

little black sort of charred dust falls into the notch that I create, and then

with some oxygen flowing in there, you eventually get a coal, hopefully.

I'm so disappointed in myself right now, but I can't let it get me down.

Last season when the guy lost his ferro rod, I was thinking to myself, how can

you lose your ferro rod?

And then when he said that fishing fires were impossible out here, I said, I

don't really know about that.

It's getting lots of smoke. That's good.

But smoke does not always mean a coal by any means.

I need to go find a different rock.

This is just tearing up my spindle and I'm getting so much friction from the

rock. I'm not able to get this thing hot enough.

I can't believe something like this happened.

If I don't get a fire, I have to... There's no way I can be here without a

fire.

I'm going to give you a little tour.

I thought we'd walk around today and show you where I live.

This is the beach that I walk out on every day.

Behind me is the bay where I live.

And I've gotten used to my new home.

I really love my camp, which is where I'm going to take you to next, because

it feels like home. I picked it because it feels like, it kind of reminds me of

Oregon.

The longest I've been away from my kids is seven weeks. It'll be a lot harder to

be away from them for this length of time.

I'm confident my mom will do well out there because she's awesome, she's

independent, and she's reliable.

I am a professor.

I am a safari guide in Africa. I work primarily with the Kalahari Bushmen, and

I am a primitive skills instructor.

I teach medicinal plants how to make medicinal tinctures.

I'm definitely resilient.

My biggest struggle probably has been health.

I have multiple sclerosis.

Fifteen years ago, I couldn't walk.

Put on all this medication.

A couple years into that, I just said, this isn't working for me. Oh, and

there's Heal All. It heals everything.

Started with Ayurvedic medicine, make most of my own herbs, and nature was one

of my biggest healers.

The other big thing that has impacted me so strongly is... Oh, I'm going to lose

it here.

The other thing that's impacted me so strongly is the death of my

stepson two years ago.

And he

drowned.

He was missing for a long time, and I spent a month looking for him.

The Pacific Ocean is what took him away, and that's where I'll be living.

I don't know if I'm doing this for him. I'm doing it for my kids to be able to

grow up and know that they can do anything they want.

It's a great personal challenge for me.

I hope I shine.

All right.

I'm going to work on my shelter today.

The back still has a lot of shoring up that needs to do.

And by shoring up, I just mean, like, getting debris, shoving it in there, and

making sure that it's toasty warm.

Something in the forest over there. Those birds aren't squawking for

nothing.

It's fun. Fun to listen to all the bird alarm.

When I lived in Africa, I'd listen to the birds and know where a snake was or

know where...

a leopard was or a lion.

The birds really were my friend, you know. They're what gave me that

awareness of what was around.

They really tell you what's going on.

All right, I need to get back to work.

No wonder I'm not a weatherman.

Right after I thought it was going to be nice, it's raining.

Oh well.

I actually do like this shelter that I'm in right now, but this water course

right here just worries the snot out of me.

So I have to move.

I found two huge cedar trees that have fallen over.

a semi-level area of ground.

And if I can huddle under those two trees, that might work.

So just to make my trips up and down that hillside a little easier, I'm going

to cut me some steps, basically.

All they are going to be stakes.

There'll be handholds, there'll be footholds. Then I can get up this

incline, and they'll be there.

For as long as I need them to be. So now they're done.

What do you do?

I can see where I'm going to need a couple of supports, a couple of ribs,

you might say.

There's a few ridge poles down there.

I need to go grab them and bring them up.

I didn't see that.

I'm lucky that I didn't go in my collarbone, you fucking piece of...

You... Piece of me.

You... Son of a... That almost cost me.

Made myself a quick little digging stick out of a dead branch.

I'm after some roots.

Where I live in the north, we use spruce roots as nimble, strong

thread.

So now that I have some roots bundled up, I want to peel them.

If you have a strong thumbnail, you can peel them by hand.

A cleaned bundle of root.

And here's one that's not cleaned.

To keep them nice and supple, you just need to store them in water.

I hope to stay out here a long time because, oh man, I have so many projects

I'd like to make.

I'm originally from Spain, now residing in the Yukon Territory.

I look at the world with the eyes of somebody that is an aboriginal-minded

person.

Nothing but projects in this house. I tanned the hides, and then I put it

together. I have been teaching wilderness living skills for many years

now, and this is a wonderful opportunity to put these things to the test.

Whenever I have traveled in North and South America, if there was a native

elder that I could spend time with and see how they were doing things, I've

done it. I've traveled thousands of miles, literally, to take upon those

opportunities. I'm happy you can go, but I'm going to miss you.

I have my wife, Shauna, a son, Umiel. He just moved back to Spain, and Shauna has

a son, Kyle.

Make sure you don't behave yourself while I'm gone.

Yeah. She knows who I am, and she understands.

She's going to be the main thing that I'm going to miss.

Oh, I didn't know.

I think I have a good shot at doing well because I've been out in the bush quite

a bit all over North America and Europe and South America.

But I don't like to express myself in a way that is not humble because lack of

humility is a sure way to have trouble with nature.

Humility prevents humiliation.

If I now tell you, oh, yeah, this is a done deal. And then.

Something stupid happens like you slip on a wet lock and you break an ankle,

then what?

Where are your proud words now?

That's a slippery son of a gun.

I really want to finish one particular project, the fireblower.

It helps me basically bring a fire back to life, even if there's just a tiny

little coal remaining.

So now my job is to hollow these guys out except the last bit, and then tie

them back together.

So there's a big white channel, but it ends in a smaller little channel that

I'll carve in there.

When I go to a camp like this, this is one of the first things I make.

After this, a wooden spoon and chopsticks.

Today, gill net day.

I've been waiting to see whether or not this was going to be my permanent

location, and well, this is it.

So, gill net's going up today.

That way I can start bringing in something a little more substantial.

You know, I tried hand fishing out here and didn't get a...

Even a nibble or did I see a fish?

So we'll see what happens.

Here's my plan.

Because I don't want to rub my net over all these rocks. I'm going to take this

lodge pole, tie this off to it.

Take it over, anchor the other side to the rocks.

And then roll it out.

But right now I'm going to roll it up. That way it's not getting caught.

And I've got to move a little diligently because tide's coming back in.

And just so everybody knows, these rocks are all razor sharp.

They are just covered in barnacles.

And it's probably the biggest worry I have for my net.

Precautionary measure.

You know, running into a predator here is kind of like not an if, it's a when.

I'm not so much worried about the bears.

Wolves, no.

They pretty much, you know, they stay to themselves.

Cougars, no, that's another story.

I'm a little meatier than the other contestants out here.

Well, we'll see.

Who knows?

One gill net in place.

Oh, clouds will pour their potion if you get a notion that life

is so long.

If you get a notion that life is so long.

Think of the world in motion.

Clouds that pour their potion.

Trees and the ocean and sing this song.

As you can see, this debris goes really fast.

We need a lot more to fill this in.

It's the never-ending theme, isn't it?

But it's a good start.

Please tell me you hear that.

And it's going up that river, which makes me think maybe there are salmon

there.

Oh, wow.

Hi, bear.

So I heard like a crazy noise.

Which I swear was two Sasquatches having sex was my first go-to, really,

on that.

But there's a bear.

That's Blackie. That's my local bear.

There's that noise again.

I think it's the bear making that noise.

I don't think it found fish over there.

I'm kind of curious.

What it's eating.

Didn't look like it was eating berries. Maybe just the grass.

I'm kind of wondering if they eat this.

What I'm eating now.

This sea asparagus. This salicornia. I wonder if it eats that.

Let me pull up the bear and I.

We're eating the same stuff.

We all turn into a bear.

All right, Gary, you stay over there.

Please stay on that side of the bay. That's what I ask.

Please stay away from my camp.

Thank you.

I finished hollowing out the other piece.

with a small hole coming out the front.

This is a blower that puts air under pressure in the part of the fire where

you need it most.

So this here, when I tie it back together, I'm going to use roots for

that.

Once you get used to this implement here, you don't like to manage fires

without it anymore.

When you wake up at night and a couple little embers, the last thing you have

from your fire, pudding, The stream of air right there is a fantastic asset.

So here's the finished thing.

Hear that?

It really revives fires.

And then I also just discovered...

It can work as a didgeridoo if you know how to play it. Not that I'm a good

player at all.

It's really good to have some form of music out here.

Keeps you company.

I think it also sends a message out to all your wild neighbors.

You're not a shy, quiet presence in the forest.

You are a presence to be acknowledged.

I have to say I've never done a friction fire.

an environment this wet before.

But there's no way I can be here without a flare.

So I have two very different paths that I can go down.

One being just sort of call it and go home.

Or two, I can commit myself to it and get it done.

Found the rock.

See that indentation?

Smooth.

It's a hard rock, so it's not going to bind or anything like that.

I'm not done here yet.

There's still things that I came to do that I haven't done, so I'm not going to

let this

Hold me back.

Getting fire now takes priority over anything

else.

I had a mentor in my life who said his definition of a decision was

to cut off from all other possibilities.

That's kind of where I'm at.

I'm determined to make this happen.

Ignite.

I keep going and coming back and going and coming back, taking a break.

It's exhausting.

Why won't you ignite?

I just got to keep on going with the friction fire.

All I need is one fire.

So when this

starts smoking,

all that dust that you built up, that's how you know you got a coal.

This one coal is the start of my fire from now

until I leave.

I can't let this cold go out.

I guess I could, and then I had to go through that process again.

That hellacious, long, miserable process.

How am I going to keep this going 24 hours a day?

Well, it's going now, so... That's all that matters.

Ladies and gentlemen, I got a twofer.

One crab and one fish.

Here you go, folks.

Throw that in the pot.

And come over here.

Do the same.

What a day.

All the smoke's going to kill the scent.

Because we are in big predator country.

One fish.

Flame roasted.

That is good.

Oh.

There's only a few hundred calories, but a few hundred calories makes you feel

better.

I feel good that I made it seven days.

Of course, I had no doubt.

See, I didn't come out here to find my breaking point.

I already know what my breaking point is.

I have been through some pretty tough stuff that started in childhood

and went through my law enforcement years.

The pinnacle was September of 97.

I had just finished

my day working the road.

And I heard the tones go out over the radio.

All units, there is a shooting in progress at the plant off of the 118

bypass.

The individual is actively shooting people.

And the thing that was ringing in my head was the sergeant that we had kept

saying, at the end of your duty day, you go home.

And I radioed back. I tried to call back to the office. Nobody was answering.

Should I stay? Should I go?

And then it just hit me.

You're going.

And I flipped on the lights and sirens.

And I get up to the front of the plant.

People are coming out. He's in there. He's over there. He's in there. And then

I hear gunfire.

And they've got this young lady they're dragging out of the back of the

building.

And I could tell by her wounds that she was gone.

If I hadn't have had those moments of indecision and gotten there quicker, I

probably could have saved her.

But I have carried that guilt with me.

And still to this day, it weighs so heavy on me.

And I feel responsible for her death.

It's been hard for me.

I don't know, it's late.

I'll tell you about the other stuff later.

I don't feel like talking anymore right now.

I thought I had a fair in camp.

Twig snapping.

Go on, get.

Get out of here.

Whatever it was, I think you're sniffing.

It's like a whining and a huffing and a really deep huffing noise.

Sniffing right here at the back of my head.

Get the hell out of here. I see you.

Get out of here.

Go on, get.

Oh, man.

That little cub.

Get out of here.

The aloneness and the hunger compound to make it way more difficult.

Already my stomach's growling.

I have to hydrate. I have to drink water. No.

Got something in my dill net. Oh, and I let him go.

My mind needs to stay busy.

Don't have the energy to do anything.

There is nothing in my gill net.

Nothing.

Oh, my God.

The bears are here.