Original subtitles

We are heading into one of the harshest winters on the planet.

There's no finish line.

But there is $250,000 waiting for the last person.

It's so cold.

Cold like this can kill you.

I can't feel my face.

I can't feel my hands.

This weather's going to sort a few people out.

The wolves howling across the lake send shivers up your spine.

You've got wolverines, wolves, bears.

It's a whole new frontier.

Alone season four, the Arctic.

It's on like Donkey Kong.

The mind's unravelling.

It's gone completely tits up.

I didn't think it would be easy,

but I didn't think it would be this hard.

The landscape doesn't care if you live or die.

Shoulder's on fire.

Look, look, look.

that is so beautiful.

The northern lights are out. They're telling me to stay.

Permanent now. And here forever.

God!

I need to be here till the end. I'm not tapping.

- -

- Dinner! -

Hello?

Hello? He's not here.

Hello, mate?

He's gone. He's actually gone. He's missing. Call it in.

We need immediate backup for search and rescue.

It's like rushing into a first date.

Could be the love of your life, or a divorce waiting to happen.

That wind is bleak.

This shit just got serious.

It's a big animal that's been tracking through here.

It is so dark out here.

There could be anything out there, and I wouldn't know.

Just heard a stick crack.

Definitely didn't deal with the landing so well.

I started getting in my head.

So hard.

Couple of days in with no food, I'm starting to feel it already.

look at the worms in it.

See that?

my God.

Have a look at this.

I reckon there's about 30 here.

This could get me some fish.

a bite.

got him.

Have a look at that, baby!

Old Trent from Tassie.

There's the liver.

Ah, delicious.

I'm so thirsty!

Stuff it.

I'm going to drink it.

Tastes good to me.

Don't try to copy me.

The Asian stomach can handle this, OK?

Ahh!

The first thing this morning, I'm going to make a stove, actually.

A little fire pit in my shelter.

I want it to be warm in there.

The weather out here is so harsh, and we haven't even hit winter yet.

So I'm going to go down and get some rocks to carry back to my campsite.

Rocks, rocks, rocks.

This is where I'm going to get my rocks from.

And I want big, big ones.

Otherwise, the foundation of my fire pit is not going to be stable enough.

I'm out here competing against the elements.

It's going to take serious work to stay warm and safe here.

Big one. Big one.

I can last a bit longer without food.

Fishing is not on my radar at the moment.

It is shelter, water and fire.

my God.

my God.

I have to catch my breath.

I can do this. I can do this.

I grew up on a farm in Thailand.

Growing up in poverty,

so we constantly had to create and find things that we can live on.

Because of my upbringing, I have learned to be adaptable.

I know hardship, and I know how to push myself.

OK.

I nearly fell backwards.

OK.

I can do this.

I am small, but I am really gritty, robust.

And I definitely have a very strong competitiveness within me.

Yes!

I'm doing it!

my God.

I see myself as a little bit of a secret weapon, because, you know,

people do judge me by the way I look.

So I want to show them that don't judge the book by its cover.

In all my ultra-marathons,

I put my body, my mind through hell and back so many times.

Blisters, no toenails, blue toenails, black toenails.

You're bleeding.

I always get broken, but you get to rebuild a new version of you.

You build a stronger version of you.

And I want to see where this stronger me will break.

I've done probably 50-plus ultra-marathon races,

but the toughest have probably been through the Arctic Circle.

Midwinter in the Arctic, it was super scary,

because it doesn't just go cold, you feel the pain in your fingers.

The Arctic environment is nothing new for me.

The isolation, the darkness, I thrive in that environment.

Bye, Mum. We're going to miss you.

I'm a single mum,

so I'm doing this because I want to make my girls proud.

You be safe, Mama.

Also, it's because I want to find my limits.

I'm willing to push myself as far as my body allows me,

and I know my body can take a lot.

It's like a jigsaw.

You want this to be right, you don't want this to collapse on you.

The winter can drop down to below minus 50 degrees.

Warmth is the most crucial thing in this environment.

Please don't.

Please stay.

I wanted my shelter to be warm.

And I also wanted to have a decent place to cook.

I'll boil my water.

Don't collapse on me.

I got a fire pit!

I'm so happy!

Can you see me?

Hello!

The irony of me preparing this fire pit

is that I don't have anything to cook.

Morning.

Well, yesterday was a good day.

It's going to be hard to top.

Finding all that bait just set me up for a really good day.

I've got, what, three fish?

Hopefully we'll get some more fish today.

Alright, let's check these fishing lines.

I've got food, and I'm very grateful that I do,

but it's not going to last that long.

So I need to catch more fish to go a long way here.

This line's quite tight.

Let's have a look.

There's a fish on there.

yes.

Look here.

yes.

nice trout.

he's a nice trout.

Have a look at that.

Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

Yeah.

Another fish.

Another one to Trent.

Yeah.

I'm happy with that.

I reckon he's bigger than the one I got yesterday.

Yeah. Hoo-hoo!

Let's go and check the other one.

This had a tiny little hook on it,

but I thought I'd put a bait on it anyway.

shit.

that's a fish.

that's a good fish.

yes.

yes!

Yeah.

Yee

Have a look at that.

Yee-hoo-hoo-hoo!

Another one.

You beauty.

Two fish in five minutes.

Wowee.

That is a relief for me.

I'm catching fish here.

Got more food than expected so far.

There's the liver.

Those dead baits I found, man, they were killer.

Can't believe it.

Trent from Tassie. He's here to stay.

101 days.

Here we come.

Day four.

I'm here.

I live here now.

In this tent.

In this forest.

We're at the edge of the Arctic Circle.

Look at that.

This place is so cool.

To think I'm going to be here when it's all white as well.

It's going to be incredible to watch.

it's nice here.

Awesome.

I've never seen ice.

I've never seen snow.

It's wild what I'm doing here

and I'm really excited for the experience.

Look, look, look, look.

Reindeer.

How cool.

And I see babies too.

Look at that little one.

So white.

Amazing.

Holy moly.

In the wild.

Hoo-woo!

Try and do it as calmly as I can.

I'm a man of the land.

here comes a kitten.

I grow my own food.

I forage.

I build my own structures.

This is my house bus, the old Bedford.

Built the roof on it.

Replaced the original chairs with some speedboat chairs.

I live on a small permaculture farm with mostly just family but also

some friends live here as well so it's a bit of a community.

Alright, lamb is from Mark's flock and I butchered that one.

All the skills that I've been developing since a young teenager

are just building to this experience and preparing me for it.

I've got the creativity and problem solving skills built in from just

living on the land.

And then the physical skills that I've got over time from my fishing

and my boat hunting and my building that I do.

- See you, Mum. - Bye, darling.

This is maybe a bit of a ceremony for me or a passage into being a man.

I came here to test my skills and to come home a different person

improved by the experience.

- See ya! - Bye!

Love you all.

And hopefully with $250,000.

My shelter is going to be exactly nipple height.

Today is permanent shelter construction.

I've got a bit of building to do, a bit of shifting.

Top time.

Making the permanent shelter the one that's going to be tight and solid

and keep me warm when the snow comes.

It's frigging awesome.

this shelter is cool, so cool.

I'm thinking of calling it Manden.

Like a man den.

What a cool home.

One more stake.

No way.

Slug.

Just what I want.

Bait for me.

Thank you, buddy, just come with me.

That is some bait if I've ever seen it.

yes.

That's awesome, that's this afternoon fishing.

Yes!

There's my slug bait.

I'm going to give it a whirl.

Very gently cast it.

Because the slug's fragile.

The fish, they're going to really slow down,

almost hibernate when that ice comes.

So I really need to be fishing them while they're in that active,

aggressive phase,

where they're just trying to feed up and store fat for the winter.

oh, I've got action.

Got a tug straightaway.

Did he frigging just take my slug?

No, the slug's still there.

You stay on there, slug, you stay on.

We're a team now.

we've got splashes near it.

Get ready.

Get a tug, I'll give it a little tug back.

Come on.

Have a bite, have a bite.

holy moly.

Come on, come on, come on.

I saw a splash.

Get ready.

Get a tug, I'll give it a little tug back.

Come on.

I've got a fish. I've got a fish.

I've got a frigging fish.

Holy moly. Holy moly.

my God.

It's a grayling.

Look at the frigging... Yes!

It's grayling.

Got a fish, got a fish, got a fish.

Grayling.

Fish.

A fish.

That is so cool.

That is so frigging cool.

I caught a fish.

I can use those eyeballs as bait.

I've got so much bait now, I've got guts.

Like one fish is great, but if I can turn that one fish

into a bunch of other fish,

that's primo.

That's really good.

Fish and lingonberries.

So frigging cool.

It's really encouraging to like see fish,

have figured out how to catch them.

It's been a cool day.

Been a really cool day.

Fish has got a bit of hair in it.

That is really good.

So great to have this food.

I'm getting set up here.

I'm getting set up.

Better get back inside.

There's a few really dangerous animals here.

Wolverines, wolves, bears.

It's definitely nothing like Australia.

It's about as far away from home as I could possibly get.

Damn, I look sexy.

Hey, baby.

Day five, baby.

All right, let's go.

I've had like such an emotional time out here.

It's not what I was expecting.

Like, I knew it was going to be tough, you know.

I just didn't expect it to be so emotional.

I hope that turns around and we find joy in stuff.

My biggest priority from here on out

will just be getting this permanent shelter done.

My plan for today is just make the A-frame and then I can like just

build the walls up and see how we go.

I can handle staying at my location a couple more nights.

Hopefully the weather stays good for me.

But I think this is where the official location is going to be.

This experience, it's been such an emotional rollercoaster for me.

Getting this up is going to be difficult.

But I know I work with validation.

And one of those validating processes

are actually witnessing your project come to life.

So I think once I move into that other shelter,

it'll just be a morale booster, you know.

A little bit high, but that's all right.

All those doubts kind of go away a bit.

All right.

It's like one of the first homes I've ever made, you know.

I haven't had too many of them in my life.

I left home at 15 because home was too intense for me.

For me, winning would be an opportunity

to start a new chapter of my life.

It feels nice to have a bit of direction.

I feel back.

I feel better, you know.

guys, I feel like I'm having fun again.

I don't know how that happened.

Fucking doing this.

Just saying.

Cool.

Gosh.

I was really worried there for a moment that I wasn't going to get to

enjoy my time out here, you know.

Really worried.

Check it out.

Fuck yeah, she's back, baby.

For now.

Don't get cocky.

Hey, fish!

Hello, fish.

You there?

Come on, please.

Don't be shy.

I need a few of you.

I'm here.

Come on.

Day five.

See these beautiful birds?

I have to keep reminding myself that this is a marathon.

So I have to take it easy, bit by bit.

I need to do the most important things, the heavy things,

which is shelter.

I have to make that in one or two days, max.

And today's a beautiful day, so we'll take advantage of this.

I'm thinking about the long run.

And in order to survive that long,

a safe, secure shelter with a fireplace inside.

That's my number one priority.

And then focus on the food.

So what I do, I'm actually using these two trees.

And I'm just going to make a wall on this side.

But once I finish, that will protect me from rain, wind, wild animals,

and also the cold winter and snow.

Because they're coming. I have to prepare for the worst.

Keep working.

So this side is done.

Without using paracord or anything else.

Because I need to use this paracord for gillnet.

So I don't want to use it to tie up this log.

I'm not a trained survivalist,

but I grew up in Afghanistan on the war zone.

And I crossed seven countries to make it to Australia.

And I suffered a lot during this journey.

Once I got my permanent Humanitarian Protection Visa,

completed Year 10, 11, 12.

Got my HSC.

Got my Taekwondo black belt.

And became a 10-time state champion, a couple of national champions.

And I was representing Australia as well.

I'm not an expert in survival.

I think most of my skills come from my childhood.

I've learned most of my hunting technique from my grandfather.

In Afghanistan, they're not doing it for trophies, for sport things.

And anything they hunt, they eat.

So I ended up all the way...

I've done this survival thing in real life.

For our people, giving up is not in our DNA.

So we'd rather die in a honourable way than living in a shameful life.

Tapping out from where I came from and who I am is not an option.

We've got a visitor.

Look, it's beautiful.

Hello. Hi.

Just right behind me there.

Hey, mate, do you speak English?

Hey, can you just drop something for me as well, please?

I'm hungry.

Let him enjoy.

And we've got to go back to work.

Please stay.

Please stay with me.

Might not be the most good-looking shelter, but I'm proud I built it.

Keeps me dry and keeps me warm.

I'm happy with that.

Getting pretty hungry, need to get some food.

So today I am keen to go explore.

Hopefully I can find some mushrooms.

Changing my socks.

So...

..this morning I put on a pair of socks that I used yesterday on.

And I could feel that they were a little bit damp.

And I put them on anyway.

And it took me ages to get my feet warm up.

And that was just laziness of me.

I knew I shouldn't have done that.

Because I have a pre-existing frostbite already.

I got it when I raced in the Arctic.

So my frostbite is up here.

My precious toe.

I need to look after her or she'll take me down.

In the Arctic Circle, the smallest mistake can be fatal.

Calories intake is my main focus today.

So today's hike, hopefully it brings some good news.

Have to be careful.

I can use a lot of calories doing this, but I got no choice.

Hopefully I can find some mushrooms.

I'll climb up to the highest point on this land.

I just want to see what's around me.

Plenty of birds around this area.

Could be mushroom that I recognize.

my God!

I'm going to eat a mushroom for dinner tonight.

Do you see that?

There's another one here.

Two mushrooms.

I'm going to have dinner.

That was a big climb for two mushrooms.

Now I have to find my way back to my shelter.

OK.

When the sun's up, I know it's going to go down really quickly.

I think I've discovered another lake on this land.

There's a big lake.

There's a tiny little lake over there.

And then there's another lake here.

I really have to find my way back.

To my shelter.

To be honest, I'm not too sure where I am.

I need to find my way back.

I've been out all day.

Here's another lake.

It's one lake after another.

I just lost my way, to be honest.

It's getting really dark.

Now I'm freaking out,

because I haven't taken my head torch.

my God.

God. It's not good.

I don't know where I am.

We're heading down to the drink to have a swim.

Wash, scrub, whatever you like to call it.

I was going to leave the camera behind, but...

I know you're a pack of twisted buggers.

You'd probably want to see me naked.

I've got news for you.

It's not going to happen today.

This is a family show.

Who knows what will happen in the weeks to come, mind you.

What are we? Day five?

Rapidly closing in on our first week.

I've got nothing to show for it.

What the hell have I actually done?

Everything takes so much time out here.

So many times on Alone,

we've seen people rush around like a blue-ass blowfly

trying to build frigging mansions for shelters and everything else.

And what's happened?

They've crashed and burned just about every time.

So my strategy all along is just slow down.

Try not to burn too much energy.

It's quite relaxing, that sound, just the eyes shut.

Warmth of the sun, just the waves lapping on the beach

and a bit of wind in the trees.

I've just turned 57 years old.

But I've probably got even a better mental toughness now

than I had 30 years ago.

The tough life at the farm has made me a pretty resilient character.

It certainly teaches you survival skills.

I do a lot of hunting around the farm, hunt wild deer.

That's how we get most of our meat.

And I've done a lot of incredible outdoor experiences.

Kayaked 10,000 kays around Alaska,

mountain biked across Australia and through Nepal and across India.

Countless hunting trips throughout New Zealand and now I've got a good

grounding in just about every outdoor skill I can think of.

Shelter building, fishing.

There he is.

Holy shit!

Look at that.

Bloody hook...

It's gone right into my thumb.

I'm always looking for another challenge

or something that's going to push me along a bit.

It's almost like a mountain to climb to me.

It's like there's a summit up there, you know, how can I get there?

And on the top of that summit is obviously a pile of cash.

I have no doubt I can win this because I've got the right attitude,

the right mental attitude.

There's only one way to do these things -

you just harden up and get on with it.

Take a cement pill.

That is tough skin.

Wind's not blowing, the lake's reasonably calm,

we better have a fish.

We might just chuck the rod in and have a few clicks of the fly.

Just see if there's anything lurking.

Priority today, really, is to attempt to catch a fish

and get a bit of food in the old belly.

It's starting to grumble and groan.

Here, fishy, fishy, fishy.

Got a big body.

Six foot two.

Takes a hell of a lot of calories and a lot of food to keep her going.

Come on, fishy, fishy, fishy.

What's that there?

Is it a fish?

bloody rock.

Damn.

Thought we might have been fairly deep out there.

Got to be kidding me.

I'm going to try and get the hook back if I can.

OK, get some gear off.

OK.

No need to look now.

A man's got to do what a man's got to do.

under my feet too.

Yep, got him. I got him.

Jesus Christ, that's cold.

My external organs have just about become internal organs.

Well, it didn't go quite to plan, but at least we didn't lose any gear.

I still think it's got potential here, but it's just not deep.

Can't beat having a nice drop-off to fish into, eh?

So we're going to have to just keep looking, keep exploring.

We'll get there.

Don't discount that old grey-haired farmer just yet.

Just lost my way, to be honest.

I don't know where I am.

This is freaking me out.

I'm sweating.

Thirsty.

I can see water all the way there, so I'm just going to head toward it

and then try to find my way out or back to the shelter.

I found my way back.

my God.

I've never been so happy to see shoreline before.

thank God.

Thank God.

I'm back.

So upset with myself.

I did all the things you're not meant to do.

So silly.

When I saw that sun was coming down and I was in the middle of nowhere,

that's when I realised that I was in a competition and that my time

might be over.

And I'm not ready to leave.

I'm here...

for another day.

Look how beautiful she is.

such a different vibe with the sun out.

There's a rock over there that I've named Pride Rock.

And I'm going to sit on that every morning and meditate for 10 minutes.

The way my mind works is a balance of intuition and intellect.

Meditation has been my path to fine-tuning my intuition.

I think you do need a degree of intellect

to be able to be successful out here.

But you also just need to follow your gut to do things that feel right.

satisfying.

Look at that.

Beautiful bush medicine.

I studied science at university, so I am a trained scientist.

And there's that part of my brain

that loves to know how things work at the most minute detail.

So it hasn't completely charred,

it's just sort of dried it out a bit and hardened it.

People don't often consider nerds and hardcore survivalists

to belong in the same basket.

I'm definitely both.

I didn't discover my love of nature until my mid-20s

when I started hiking in the Himalayas.

I spent a month training at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute

in Darjeeling.

That opened up a whole avenue for me of adventure.

I think learning survival skills just organically evolved

from spending so much time in the outdoors.

A lot of my bushcraft skills are self-taught.

So making notches using axes, de-looming trees.

Anything that is going to really help me build a robust,

bomb-proof shelter.

And also I would say that I've got a pretty good technique

when it comes to fly-fishing and hard-body lure fishing.

I think I'm a serious contender for Alone.

Having a combination of science and spirituality

is going to serve me well out there on the land.

And I can't wait to see what's in store.

After days of agonising, I've 100% locked in

the site for my permanent shelter.

I've put the scaffolding together.

There she is and that's what the bones of her are going to look like.

I think she looks really good.

So my plan is to move in tomorrow.

No ifs or buts.

I'm moving in on day 7.

It's going to have the structural frame, the tarp's going over it.

I'm going to put some rocks around the bases of the poles as well

just to give them that extra stability.

I want to get as many rocks up here as possible.

So I'm going to go down the river and just get rocks.

And fill my pack up with them and lug them back up the hill.

And then before you know it, I'll have walls.

I reckon I'm going to be carrying about 40 kilos of rocks each trip.

Which is like, not small.

It's like carrying a small child or a small person on my back.

Here we are.

There's just rocks everywhere.

I'm in Wonderland.

Alyce in Wonderland.

my God, that is heavy.

Building a good shelter that's warm enough

is going to be important in my strategy.

You know what, that'll do.

Alright, let's see if we can carry this.

my God.

okay, that really hurt.

Fuck.

I think I just pulled a muscle in my hip trying to get up then.

Goodness.

That really, really hurt.

I've got to get back up the hill.

Like, right here.

my God.

Yeah, that's not good.

Humble abode.

I'm pretty happy with that team.

You see this behind me?

I made this.

I did.

The one and only.

The Mist.

So...

I'm going to move everything into it now.

Mission.

I just got a pep in my step today.

Mad happy.

Alright.

My biggest concern right now

is just making sure I get the bed frame up there.

Feeling a little tired.

Alright.

I officially moved into this campsite.

I should be feeling good about it.

Or maybe I'm just low blood sugar or something.

Burned a lot of energy doing that.

Those logs were hectic.

It seems after every time I do some hard yakka,

and I think burn a lot of energy...

I just get into a very emotional state.

I really wonder how everyone else is doing.

I just keep having these big bouts of emotions.

I'm struggling with trying to find the balance, you know.

Yeah, like I'm just not...

I'm just not enjoying myself as much as I thought I'd be.

And maybe it's because it's the alone factor of it.

There's a big chunk of my life where I did a lot of stuff alone.

Like, I had a drug overdose.

When I was in hospital,

no one was with me in the hospital.

And...

It's a pretty shit feeling, you know.

Pretty shit feeling.

No one...

No one came.

And my body's like, "What? I thought you'd left that tough life behind."

Me too, my friend, me too.

But it's a quarter of a million dollars on the line.

And the only thing my mind is telling me is like,

"Why are you doing this to yourself?"

You know? Like...

"What are you trying to prove?"

I just didn't think it would be like this.

I just feel like I'm in like this...

constant fight or flight mode

this whole experience.

Yeah, that's all I'm realising, you know.

And I'm just emotional.

Fuck, I needed that cry.

I just needed... I just needed a big cry.

God.

This hip has gotten worse.

Really beating myself up for picking up those rocks in the bag like that.

You know, it wasn't really necessary.

I was going to move into my permanent shelter today.

And I need to move all my stuff about 50 metres up the hill,

onto flat ground.

I cannot stay on this sloped block any longer.

It's okay, I'm going to find a solution.

So this... this position like on my knees...

Well, on my shins and leaning a bit to the right,

it seems to be better.

Like, workable.

Yeah, that's better.

Right leg, right leg.

I'm just going to take it in small trips and just move everything up.

I'm going to start with my little day pack and just see how that goes.

Just little steps, I'm not going to push it.

my God.

You just really can't appreciate how steep it is.

it hurts.

Nah.

This is not a good idea.

I physically cannot with this hip.

It's going to destroy me.

I don't know what to do.

I had so many plans.

Because my body feels so low.

I think I have something.

no!

How much failure can I take?

I'm building a damn boat in the Arctic.

Hey, mate, come check out my boat.

I can't keep going like this without a feed.

no.

I've got one hope and that is to find fish.

There's so much riding on this kayak, it's unbelievable.

my hip.

I feel like giving up.

I just don't want to be doing this alone, you know.

.