Original subtitles

I'm slowly dying.

How far can it go?

Oh, my God, I got my chance.

The "Alone" World Championship.

Doesn't get any better.

Got him.

Going up against some of the world's

best bushcrafters.

"Fy-yah"!

This ain't a beauty pageant.

This is a survival challenge.

It takes a little bit of insanity

to want to stay out here alone.

Ah! Bear.

Hee-ooh!

But I think I might have

that little bit of insanity.

We are in one of the most harsh

environments on the planet.

The Beaufort Delta in the shadow

of the Richardson Mountains.

Yeah!

It's 125 miles into the Arctic Circle.

I'm so far away from the place I belong to.

Ooh!

There's gonna be a bitch slap of reality.

Place is brutal.

Being alone out here, it changes you.

You do lose your mind, but maybe you find

some of your soul as well.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

What a day to be alive.

This is the first "Alone" World Championship.

Ten participants from different

countries and cultures.

It's really something amazing.

Whoo-hoo!

Oh, man.

I'm literally launching myself into an experience

to see what I'm made of in a world

that I don't know much about.

We are walking into an environment

that most people will never witness.

Holy .

This is happening.

This is really happening.

There are not many people on the planet

who would even attempt this experience.

We are 125 miles into the Arctic Circle.

The thick snow, the cold weather,

and the extreme winds are coming, and it's coming quick.

This is insane.

What the hell have I done?

The Arctic is a beautiful place,

but the Arctic is a freezing cold desert.

There are not a lot of resources up here.

If that moose walks by you or that 30-pound pike

hits your line, you better get it,

'cause that might be the only shot that you have.

Predators would be a massive problem--

packs of wolves moving through,

caribou and moose, wolverines.

But my biggest worry is definitely grizzly bears.

40,000 to 50,000 grizzly bears make this place their home.

I don't know what will be my reaction

when I come face-to-face with predators.

I am meat for them, but they are meat for me too.

So I have to do what I need to do to survive.

The biggest struggle is gonna be,

what happens to people when they are completely isolated

and all they have is themselves?

The raw you is what you're gonna face out there,

and you better be prepared for it.

All alone.

It feels good.

$500,000 is life-changing money.

To be the last one standing is gonna take

everything that I have.

Being in the World Championship of "Alone"

is intense.

I'm honored to be here, competing against

some really tough competition.

If you're gonna stick around, you're gonna have to be

a tough, gritty son of a bitch.

Time to get to work.

Well, things just got real quiet really, really fast.

Oh, my God.

This is home.

All right, I'm gonna collect myself.

First thing I do--first thing I gotta do, temporary shelter.

Okay, here we go.

Well, we know not to put our shelter anywhere in here.

It's pretty boggy.

Oh, hello.

Wherever I go, no matter if it's

an inner city, a suburb, or a new environment,

I'm always looking at the plants.

Wow.

Oh, wow. This is really good.

I think there's a lot more out there than we realize,

in terms of the plants.

You know, the terrain, so far, it's a bit rough,

but...

there's a lot of resources here.

There is food out there.

There's a lot of minerals out there.

There's a lot of vitamins out there.

There's a lot out there that's gonna help us.

Finding it might not be easy,

but it doesn't mean it's not abundant.

Oh, wow. Okay.

So we've got some clubmoss right here.

I think for tonight, we are going to sleep in the moss.

It kind of feels like home in a weird way.

And I'm recording. Ah.

Why do I keep doing that?

Oh, hello out there.

I've been living in a van for three years.

This is my home.

I'll give you a tour on the inside.

I travel all throughout the continental United States,

so I currently don't have roots.

I was a video editor for a lot of television commercials,

branded content.

I love the storytelling aspect,

but my job was sort of forcing me to be a person

that I didn't wanna be anymore.

It was just this constant chase

of thoughts and anxieties,

and I would find myself going outdoors

because it just brought me so much more joy.

Okay, so first of all, you have a ton of goldenrod.

Then, when I understood what ethnobotany was--

ethnobotany is the relationship

between plants and people.

It's medicine. Is it edible?

Does it aid in fire?

That's when I started to dedicate

my life to the outdoors.

Okay.

Right now, I'm the founder of Wildcard Wilderness,

and I teach wilderness skills all across the country.

I'm not even doing anything.

The wind is just doing the work for me.

There are people in this competition who,

hands down, you know that their number one is hunting,

and that's not me.

I'm a tool maker.

I am your backyard engineer

that is going to find a way to solve a problem

with some sticks and some cordage and some pitch glue.

Oh, you did it! Good job! - Yeah!

The end goal is to be courageous.

And I think that it will also really benefit my school.

I think my school is at this point

where the only way for it to grow is if I had my own land.

$1/2 million would change my life.

Well, welcome to...

My kingdom for the evening.

It's essentially just a tarp on a pile of moss.

And I'm okay with that.

Survival isn't always meant to be pretty.

I just still can't believe that I'm here.

You know, five years ago today...

I lost so much.

Five years ago today was the day I lost my mom.

You know, I lost everything.

It was one of the darkest times of my life.

But my mom gave me a reset button.

So instead of building my life to the life that I had,

I decided to rebuild it to the life that I wanted

and one that catered towards the outdoors.

My mom gave me the best gift ever.

But I know she's out there.

And I know she's cheering me on, and I know she's with me.

You know, I need the camera gear

to film me getting the camera gear.

There we go.

That's something.

Now we need, like, a caption at the bottom of this, being,

"Alone" participants receive up to X amount of pounds

of camera gear to film their experience.

Here we go.

I got my tripod.

I do like the ease of this chest mount.

It's true.

We really are alone, filming all this stuff.

Part survivalist, part...

documentarian, filmmaker...

Part bat- crazy.

Video. Rolling, rolling.

My name is Nero.

I live in New South Wales in Australia.

My wife and I have our own outdoor education company.

Got my little pack mule here.

My whole entire idea is trying to get people outside,

reconnecting with nature.

Such a beautiful spot.

I spent time in the military, but it wasn't till

I came to the outdoors in bushcraft,

I started to realize this is my place.

This is what I've been looking for all this time.

Very confident in my fishing ability,

understanding where fish wanna feed,

where they like to travel.

There's dinner.

I can shoot my bow, and I can shoot it well,

but I'm not a big-game hunter.

In Australia, I've only hunted goat and small game.

Look at our beautiful goat.

I've spent the last two winters in Canada,

doing snowshoe expeditions

with Kie from Lure of the North.

Kie was on "Alone" season 7, made it 80 days.

She's inspired me in so many ways.

I've experienced minus 30.

I've spent a long time pushing through

uncomfortable situations.

Trick is, focus on your breathing

and try not to squeal.

Whoo!

I know all the strategies and the tactics

that will keep me safe and keep me warm.

All cozied up in the quinzhee.

I've got an incredibly supportive

wife and son behind me.

I'll miss them a lot, but I've spent

enough time away to know that I will be stronger for that.

Nice.

I find it to be a great honor to be

ambassador for the Australian outdoor community.

Whoo!

I've got the skills. I've got the experience.

Whatever happens out there, I'm gonna be better for it,

and I'm gonna come away a winner.

I'm just gonna have a little bit of a look around,

just this initial spot to see whether there's

something suitable for a temporary shelter.

Just trying to get a flattish area

that doesn't really require much to clear.

When I'm thinking about shelter,

I'm thinking about the five Ws.

It's, like, wood, water, wind, wildlife, and widow-makers.

Now, I don't wanna commit to a permanent shelter

until I've scoped out all of my land.

Some people argue there's two more, whiskey and women,

but I haven't really gotta worry about that.

There's a bit of a clear spot here.

I like it.

Okay.

My biggest concern is just trying to do too much too fast

and either making mistakes or just burning through calories.

So I'm really mindful of just slowing down,

trying to get established and go from there.

So for my temporary shelter, I'm just gonna

stick to a basic A-frame.

I'm gonna set up the ridgeline with my paracord

between two trees and then hang my tarp over it.

I want it raised as well so I can kind of look out

and see around my surroundings.

People are gonna see an Australian on "Alone"

in the Arctic, and they're just gonna be like,

you're not gonna last because of how cold this place gets.

I'm thriving on that.

I'm looking forward to surprising people.

Looking pretty good.

Here we are.

It's my shelter, so I'm standing up.

A good bit of clearance.

Then I can sit down,

and I'm protected from the rain,

and I can see all around me.

It feels pretty good here.

Just getting established.

Go from there.

Little baby steps.

Man, this site was made for me.

So much spruce pitch.

I love spruce gum.

Echoes of an old addiction, I guess, chewing tobacco.

I mean, it's no Copenhagen, but spruce pitch

is pretty damn good.

I'm gonna be chewing the out of that stuff.

Just gotta figure out where I'm gonna

set up my tarp for tonight.

The first day, there's priorities

that need to be met right away:

a shelter, fire, water.

So that tree and that tree are gonna host my ridgepole

for this lean-to I'm building.

The weather here is a force to be reckoned with.

Perfect.

Just wanna clear off some of this bark.

At this time of year, hypothermia

is a big concern of mine.

I need to get my tarp up as soon as possible.

So I've gotta cut notches on the trees

'cause I don't have paracord,

so I'm not relying on the tensile strength of snare wire.

And so I'm thinking of running snare wire

around a couple trees and then lashing a ridgepole to it

and then just doing an A-frame.

Just cutting off a few sections of this

to hold up my ridgepole.

Elsie May, that's what you did to Daddy's wire.

I love you so much, but this is a pain in the butt now.

Dada.

What are we doing, Elsie?

I did that.

To come up here, I left behind my wife, Katie,

and my daughters, Elsie May and Alice Mary.

- Hello. - Hum.

A one-and-a-half-year-old

and a three-month-old. - Oh!

You're scaring away all the game.

It was a hard decision,

but it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Yeah.

Let's go get it.

I've been a traditional bowhunter

and bowyer for about ten years.

Looks pretty good.

So I'm very confident in my ability to hunt.

It's a moose missile.

I've been focusing more time on fishing

and trapping for the past few months

to really prepare myself.

And I think I'm willing to sacrifice

a lot more than most people.

You need to stay disciplined and have train of thought

and be conscious of what you're doing.

And being ready for when the opportunity comes

is paramount.

A nice, clean rabbit.

Eating that guy for dinner.

500 grand would help us pay off our house.

Not having a mortgage would be a huge burden lifted,

just in our ability to take more time off...

I love you guys.

And to be the man that my family needs me to be

and to be there and to show love and affection...

And strength and courage and determination to my kids.

I love you.

Got fire, got shelter, got water.

It's pretty damn good.

All right, let's go for a walk and set some snares.

I think I'd be foolish to think that missing home

would not be on my mind every single day.

So you gotta fight through that

and remind myself that this is a temporary experience,

and as soon as you give up would be

the second that you regret it.

Oh, .

There's a grouse.

.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

I missed twice.

.

I had a very easy shot

and a very-- two very bad misses,

so that's on me.

Could be tired.

Could be, yeah, just overwhelmed

with the experience of what's going on right now.

Probably both, but I'm not gonna

beat myself up about it anymore.

I'll look for my arrow in the morning.

My beautiful and loving wife told me

that the first night I'm out here, don't sleep on the ground

and don't get wet.

Make sure you make a temporary shelter with rain cover.

So here I am,

middle of nowhere, listening to my wife.

I sure love her.

In Iñupiaq, we like to thank our animals

for giving themselves to us.

So for this snowshoe hare, I will say...

My name is Will Punikerik Longley.

Hey! What are you doing?

Punikerik is my Iñupiaq name.

It was given to me by an elder when I was three years old.

Beautiful out here.

We got hit good with fresh apun.

"Apun" is Iñupiaq for "snow."

The Iñupiaq people, we've been around

for thousands and thousands of years,

surviving in Arctic climates of ice and snow and wind.

So our elders say when we harvest a bear

to cut the bottom of the tongue out and stick it

in between a piece of willows,

and that releases the bear's spirit.

Personally, what I wanna take away from this experience is

I want to relive what my ancestors lived through.

I wanna experience what they experienced.

I want to know how it was like to live off the land.

I know that this experience is probably

one of the only ways to do that.

There it is.

And I think with all of the knowledge and skill set

that my ancestors have passed down to me,

I definitely feel like a strong contender.

Look at that guy.

What a giant.

Hi!

Hi.

Hi, girl.

The most difficult part is going to be

being away from my family.

You guys wanna hold the fish? - Yeah!

When I think of family, I think of life.

Family is just something that I don't think

I could live without, and I don't see how anybody can.

Bye.

Bye, Daddy.

When everything's said and done,

I wanna feel like I represented my people well

and made them proud.

And I think by winning, I can show that our culture

has won for thousands of years.

Feel like I'm gonna sleep good.

All right.

I better find my headlamp.

And we're gonna call that a night.

Well, uvlaalluataq.

First night down.

On to day two, and I'd like to explore my location.

Looks like good rabbit country here.

I thought I heard something, but it was just bugs.

I wanna get familiar with the area,

kind of get a feel for my terrain.

Obviously, I'm gonna think about my kids all the time,

so I'm gonna do one of the only things

I've known how to do,

and that's work hard and stay busy.

Keeping busy is keeping sane.

Let's see what we got here.

Very fresh wolf tracks, like I'm right behind the guy.

Here's a duck.

Yeah, he's bleeding good.

He's gonna go over that bank and die, I'm sure.

I'm gonna give him time and see if I

can't retrieve these arrows.

Well, let's go find that duck.

Okay, made it to the other side.

Where's that duck at?

I don't see it just yet.

Right there.

Nice.

Now we just need a long stick to get him.

Oh, yeah.

Nice.

Oh, yeah.

Sweet.

Got him.

It cost me one arrow, but I'll be eating tonight.

It's starting to feel like home.

I can't believe I slept in so late.

It's okay.

It's hard to kind of sleep here.

You have a million things running through your brain

of, like, what to do, what to build,

how much time do you have.

It's not raining today.

It's overcast, but it's not raining.

So I'm gonna take this opportunity

to dry some of my clothes.

But I think I wanna make some tea.

I'm also gonna go for a walk for tinder.

I gotta do something for these bug bites.

Eat some berries.

I think that's the plan.

I wish I had coffee.

I spoke too soon.

It's gonna be a really hard time

with how damp everything is.

This is super frustrating.

I was hoping that the weather from day one would continue,

but that didn't happen.

So I'm gonna take right now to do some self-care.

If being in a swamp wasn't already a bit unforgiving,

now it's the wet season.

Oh, my God, everything is just wet.

Everything is just getting wet.

Wet, wet, wet, wet, wet.

So getting ready for fire and fire maintenance

and staying dry is a whole other added element

to this experience.

So after this tea is done--

. Oh, my God.

A pool of water coming in, and now my sleeping bag

is soaking wet.

Oh, my God!

There's no way I'm gonna be able to dry this in this rain.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God!

. What am I gonna--.

I'm gonna freeze my off tonight.

That's what I'm gonna do.

Now I have a wet sleeping bag.

Oh, my God.

I really don't wanna leave for this.

This is so stupid!

Oh!

I knew this wasn't gonna be easy.

You can't always expect every day

to be sunshine and rainbows,

but conditions are what you make of them.

Jacks, chill. Relax.

Just chill.

You're smart.

You're very smart.

You can fix this problem.

So you can choose to be miserable...

You know how to fix things.

You are a problem-solver.

Or you can choose to push through it.

It's not too bad.

The sleeping bag is not, like, pierced.

It's just damp.

So this will end.

I will live.

I will be dry again.

And every storm eventually runs out of rain,

so you just gotta wait it out.

We're gonna do a short little walkabout,

and I'm going to confirm

my permanent shelter location.

My temporary shelter looks like a giant burrito...

And I am the filling.

It's just a problem.

You lose your body heat 25 times faster if you're wet,

so I need to figure out where my long-term shelter

is going to be.

Because if you can't get fire,

at least shelter can protect you.

So I stumbled upon this new pond

with all of this amazing seed down.

It's some sort of, I believe, buttercup,

but look at this view.

This is unreal.

I think we know our answer, and the answer is that

I need to figure out a way to be closer to this pond

to check out the rest of this landscape.

So this is a giant pile of crap

that is pretty big bear activity,

past day or two.

So that's not a good sign.

There's a lot of it-- here, here, here, here, here.

I think I know now I don't wanna camp near here.

Getting a shelter up as fast as possible

is my number one priority.

It's okay.

We'll go this way.

But covering as much ground as I can

in the shortest amount of time is not going to be easy

in a terrain as unforgiving as this.

This terrain.

We're not talking temperature.

We're not talking animals.

We're talking just the ground alone.

This is so much work.

Way more difficult beyond what I could have imagined.

Wait a second.

I know I was still wearing the--oh, wow.

I lost a freaking shirt, a sweater

wrapped around my waist.

This place is brutal.

Every single step...

Is so grueling.

Ooh.

Ooh.

Ah.

This terrain.

Oh, it hurt my shoulder.

I feel like I'm just wasting time.

Ah.

And I'm losing .

Things aren't working.

Like, it's really easy, I think,

for people to also, like, watch this show

and be like, oh, well, why didn't she or he do that?

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's different when you're out here, man.

Your head and everything you do has to be so dialed in.

And I lost a crucial item,

a piece of clothing that will keep me warm.

One, two, three.

That's my little snare.

I gotta check my snares.

Yes!

Yo, beauty!

Ah!

A drink bottle.

I did not think that there was gonna be

much rubbish around here, given the remoteness of this.

Ah!

This opens up a lot more exploring.

I can take this with me and drink whilst I'm out there

for, like, almost a whole day.

This isn't just a small-- this is--

oh!

Land provides.

The land provides.

Ah.

Whoo!

My main strategy for being out here

is trying to have as many passive means

of getting food as possible,

so I wanna have a snare line going for snowshoe hare.

I wanna have snares out for squirrel.

All right, snare line.

Let's go.

I've never trapped snowshoe hare in the fall,

because I've never been in Canada in the fall.

One, two, three.

No change.

Empty, empty.

I'm used to coming up when it's full winter.

There's snow and ice everywhere.

It's gonna take me a while to kind of figure it out.

No, it's fine.

No change.

As I learn the land,

I can kind of adjust and go from there.

At the moment, it's just about spray and pray

and try and put out as many as I can.

Yes. This one has a hare in it.

I think it might still be alive.

It is.

Got him on the foot.

Sorry, dude.

You're fighting for your life.

I get it. I get it. I get it.

Shh.

Thanks, little guy.

Trap line produces.

First snowshoe hare.

Got it by its foot, which is not ideal.

But I'm super grateful for my first protein of the land.

It gives me confidence that,

you know, this spot can provide for me.

I just gotta keep figuring it out.

Take this guy back, get him processed,

and enjoy my first solid meal.

Trap line's starting to produce.

Getting somewhere.

It's pretty special just to get your first actual game

off the land.

Liver.

So much nutrients in that liver.

Whoo.

You go in there to check, and there's no sign.

You're not even sure whether you're in the right area.

And then to have one come in into your snare,

you're just like, okay, we're on the right path.

A lot of meat in there.

It just opens up the possibility

of more coming my way.

And if I can make it happen once,

I can make it happen again.

Pot full of snowshoe hare.

I'll eat some now, and I'll have more tomorrow

for breakfast as well.

Perfect.

These organs right here are just gonna be a huge boost

of vitamins and minerals.

Oh, yeah.

Efforts are paying off.

Thank you.

Ah, thank you.

Hunting is very opportunistic in a place like this.

So as I'm walking around, my bow is always in my hand.

Arrows are in the quiver, ready to go,

should the need arise where I need to send one.

It's thick, but might find rabbits in there.

Gotta play to win.

My site is bountiful.

It's full of berries.

I see lots of small-game trails.

I see moose sign and bear sign on the beach.

Anything moving is gonna get an arrow in it.

Thought I smelled moose.

I thought I could smell moose.

Pretty sure I did.

I've wanted to hunt moose my entire life as an outdoorsman.

They're such an impressive animal.

Just the thought of having the opportunity to hunt one,

I'm getting goose bumps.

Grouse.

Damn it.

I'm not sure what's going on with me.

Missing--missing like crazy,

missing shots that I never miss.

Marking a trail back to that arrow I lost.

I need to get back to camp,

think about what I wanna do next.

It's so unlike me to miss shots like that.

In everything I've ever done,

I've always found an extra gear

and been successful.

So not finding that extra gear is a big concern of mine.

Where I'm standing right now,

it, like, shows absolutely zero sign

of a human ever being here...

On a piece of land maybe nobody's ever stepped foot on.

It's kind of a wild realization.

And for the first meal of the day...

I have here

the rosehips.

My plan for food, eat everything that I can--

berries, worms, grubs, insects, fish, meat,

birds, everything I can catch.

Hello?

I shot a squirrel.

Yeah.

Thank you, man.

I shot my first meal.

The castle of my city, Palmela.

My name is Clementino Pedrosa.

I have been in the Portuguese Army for 21 years.

I started with six years in the paratroopers.

Every day, we went training, calisthenics.

I catch a boa in the snare.

Then I spend two years in the sergeant school,

where I learned a lot about tactics.

The heart of the boar.

Very nice to eat.

And when I finished, I went in the special troops, Commandos,

where I became a survival instructor for the military.

And I wrote three survival books.

Nature is always good to us.

With all the things that can happen to me--

starving, injuries, predators--

I have the skills to deal with it.

It's starting to snow stronger, and I can't be here.

But I want to test my limits...

Here is my shelter.

Prove to myself that I have the will to survive anything.

Today will be the wedding of my sister.

I have a good family.

We love to spend time together.

But tapping out for being alone

is not a possibility for me.

My parents created me not to be at their side

when things become wrong but to protect everybody.

My last cut.

That's why I joined the army.

I know that I have the skills.

I can push further.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Ciao.

So I'm ready to go through the sacrifice

and become someone that they are proud about.

Let's go.

Look at this.

Let's cook this.

In all the seasons,

non-active military won the show.

So for me being here alone is like "Rambo," the movie.

I hope I can inspire all the military guys.

I decided to bring the flag of my country

instead of a picture of my family,

because I have my family in my mind all the time,

and I know they understand that.

And I decided to bring that flag, a symbol of hope

to the Portuguese people.

And for me, it's important because

I want to prove to myself and the people

that it's possible to survive.

Let's eat the brain.

Yeah, the little brain.

Another squirrel.

Oh, no, no, no.

The guts.

Awesome.

I shot another one.

I shot another squirrel with my bow.

Awesome.

My start is easy.

Thank you very much.

I can stay.

I can feed myself.

I hope, in the future, this will not be a problem.

Thank you, God.

Thank you.

A challenge like this really

is dependent on your life circumstance.

Like, I set up everything to where it would operate

when I'm gone, but...

the guilt associated with putting burdens

on everyone else is significant.

I miss tucking my daughter into bed, singing to her.

They grow so fast when they're that young.

Like, I just don't wanna miss any of it if I don't have to.

Okay, stay focused.

Priority for today, fishing.

Fatherhood means a lot of things to me.

It means providing a safe, stable, honorable,

respectable place for my daughters to become

who they were made to be.

Pretty skinny for bait right now,

but we're gonna try some cranberries

that look like fish eggs and a little frog that I found.

Let's go fishing.

I do worry about if I'm good enough as a father, every day.

I come from a line of fathers that were kind of absent.

It's very damaging to grow up without a father.

Wow.

Just lost the hook already.

Man, I can just not snap into .

Get in the game, David.

Get in the game, man.

It's at the forefront of my mind to break that cycle

and to be the man that my family needs me to be.

Good Lord.

Oh, my gosh.

Being a provider for my family is something

that I take very seriously.

Being out here is a very roundabout way to do that.

The question is, are you putting your family first

or are you putting yourself first?

And I don't know what...

I don't know what's going on with me.

I need to snap out of it, though.

I'm just exhausted.

My stomach is still just churning.

I'm gonna go put up some more snares now.

I feel like in any other point in my life up to this moment,

I would have been just ecstatic doing this.

And for some reason, I can't seem to gather any enthusiasm.

Man, I miss my wife and kids.

I am not in the game right now, so...

the thought of my stubborn ass going as long as I can...

I don't want it.

I don't want it.

Hey, this is David.

I am officially tapping out.

I'm...

I'm feeling ready to go home.

It's obviously not how I wanted it to go,

but the cumulative time away from my family,

I'd never been away from them that long.

And it's like a magnet, man.

It's like, it's inseparable, like,

wanting to come back together and be there for them

and them be there for me.

And all I can think about is my wife and kids.

This just not how I saw myself leaving.

I'm not one to quit, ever.

I came out here to win, but I'm choosing this

over being at home with my wife and kids.

And that was a decision that I was

no longer comfortable making.

What I told myself to come out here

was that I'm doing it for them and that

they will reap the benefits of the cash prize.

And then it just occurred to me every step of the way,

like, man, there's not a thing in the world worth trading

time with your family for.

You talk to anybody on their deathbed,

that's all they want, is time.

They want more time with their family.

I know the kind of father I am committed to being.

A good father doesn't take days off from that.

My lips are very dry, so I need to take care of them.

I will use the fat of the skin...

For my skin.

When the rain stops, I will check my snares.

Yeah, that's it.

For my hunting strategy, I already set up snares.

I go hunting every day, in the morning.

Let's see.

Nothing.

Let's check the other snares.

I think I will fail a lot.

That will be my number one skill,

dealing with the failure,

because it's normal for me to fail.

All the courses that I passed in the army,

I was pushing to the limit to fail.

And dealing with the fail is the most important thing.

That's where the grit is.

I catch a rabbit in the snare.

Thank you, rabbit.

Let's cook this.

Want to cut here.

Yeah.

Cleaning the rabbit, I learned with my mom.

My parents teached us how to cook,

and making your own things to eat and drink is the best.

The ground squirrel have more fat

than the rabbit.

The flavor of everything is completely different

than the commercial things.

Oh, it will be good

to make a pair of gloves.

It will be awesome.

I am grateful for my childhood and my family.

Yeah, let's take off.

If I win, I will share all the prize money with them.

And we have a beautiful rabbit.

Equal to equal.

Let's go.

Because we are like one.

We are one family.

Wait.

I see another rabbit.

He is so close for my snare.

I can't get closer.

Oh.

He got trapped.

Ah.

Sorry, man.

It's amazing.

Two rabbits.

Let's make some fire.

That rabbit, he was so close to the snare,

and I shot the arrow, then missed the shot.

But the rabbit ran and get caught in the snare,

and it was funny to see.

But once again, it felt so easy.

I need to be cautious,

because surviving is not for ego.

The leg of the rabbit.

The ego can destroy you.

Thank you.

And sometimes it's difficult.

Let's eat, because I deserve to eat.

I say to myself, fight your ego.

Don't let your ego be superior...

This tastes awesome.

Because if I let the ego of hunting being so easy,

I can see myself in a hard situation.

Okay, I'm gonna continue on with

my traditional berry picker.

And you can see,

we just need to install the nails

at the base of the picker.

And that's gonna be difficult, I think.

I found some old pieces of wood next to the riverbank.

Some of them have nails that I know I could use for tools.

And the immediate thing that comes to mind

is making a traditional berry picker.

Starting to get cracks here.

And I can drill out the remaining nine holes.

Then we won't have this splitting.

I'm gonna get the components of my Eskimo bow drill made,

my pattaqtuun.

I've built many berry pickers.

The split that the nails are causing is common,

so I need to pre-drill the holes for the nails

to be inserted.

But the only way to pre-drill these holes

is to use a traditional Iñupiaq mouth drill.

Okay, looking good.

So put the mouthpiece in.

Find the hole.

There it is.

And I want to drill there.

So as you can see, I got a hand freed up.

And I'm gonna do it just like that.

And that's gonna make a hole.

I'm looking to show traditional methods

and traditional ways of hunting, gathering,

tool making, and shelter building.

Beautiful.

That worked amazing.

Representing the Iñupiaq people

is very important to me.

I'm hoping to show the world how strong that we are

and how strong that we've always been

for thousands of years.

And if it wasn't for all of the knowledge

that was passed down for generations,

we might not be here today.

All right, there it is.

Beautiful, beautiful Iñupiaq berry comb.

Man, that is gonna pick me a lot of berries.

Next on the agenda this morning is working

on my permanent shelter.

So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna

make a traditional ivrulik.

And "ivrulik" means "sod house" in Iñupiaq.

We'll get started on that.

I'm gonna limb these three trees, and we'll go from there.

A traditional ivrulik sod house helped my people

survive through long winters, and I'm hoping

that's gonna help me survive the cold, frigid temperatures.

Okay, there's three posts, all solid.

Need to install the fourth.

We're in one of the most desolate climates on Earth.

We're gonna have a lot of wind.

We're gonna have a lot of snow.

We're gonna have a lot of freezing temperatures.

You're not gonna survive the winter

without a strong shelter.

All right, post number four, done.

Let's get the beams up.

So my strategy is to get this shelter built fast.

There we go.

Okay.

We're solid.

In my head, I know that if I do this

within the first few days, I'm not gonna burn much energy.

I'm not gonna lose a bunch of weight.

Timber.

I know if I can get this finished quickly,

I'm gonna have a roof over my head,

and I'm gonna be able to devote

most of my time and be able to have all the energy

to burn on hunting big game.

Yeah, I'm happy with that.

I'll head back to the shelter.

Wow, spruce grouse.

There's another one too.

You get a shot.

Thank you, buddy.

Two spruce grouse.

Woot-woot!

Nice.

Beautiful.

Taikuu, quyanaq, spruce grouse,

for giving your lives to me.

I'm gonna be eating good for a few days.

We got our beautiful grouse.

And that's just gonna slide in,

just like that, just like butter.

Look at that.

I'm gonna start cooking it just like that.

Beautiful.

Being out here definitely feels like home to me,

because this is the life that I live.

We live off the land.

We live in darkness. We live in cold.

We live with all of the similar dangers

that this land has.

Oh, yeah.

We are done.

Let's bite into this guy.

Mmm.

So good.

Save the bone for fishhooks,

and we'll see if they're strong enough.

And the heart.

Doesn't look cooked all the way.

I will cook it a little longer.

And you know what, as hungry as I am,

let's just do the heart pretty much raw.

I mean, I think it's, like, a quarter of the way cooked.

Yeah, it's not cooked, but I don't care.

Every piece of flesh and meat, it all adds up.

We'll tie these up in case I decide that

they're strong enough for fish barbs.

They look long enough.

Grouse feet, nunchucks.

Okay, very good.

Yeah.

I just have my Christmas tree.

I hope I can stay and be the last one.

Today I will modify my shelter.

Time to get to work.

Now that I catch enough food, I feel like a bullfighter

with so much strength.

This remembers me the calisthenics

in the paratroopers.

Make squats.

Yeah.

Two, three.

Eight, nine.

Ten, eleven.

Yeah.

The most important piece, making a good shelter.

I will take off the tarp

and put some logs in the back side.

The first days were important to do the first walls,

but will be a problem when the winter comes.

I can have a storm, and I need to make a resistant shelter.

Careful.

Do not get the tarp.

Yeah.

Patience is the most important

for my log cabin.

There are so many straight logs around me,

building a log cabin will not be a problem.

I will put four sticks each side and put log above log,

in the horizontal.

I want to have the best shelter.

Let's pick up more moss to insulate.

Moss.

All this moss.

The plan that I have is to make the shelter

and spend all the days there...

Let's see.

Collecting wood, making traps,

fishing, and enjoying every day

like it's the last day of my life.

And I hope my brother can be here with me,

sharing my beautiful shelter.

I'm expecting that can happen for me.

But being alone in this extreme environment

can change a lot.

And that's it for today.

That's it.

All right, Iñupiaq berry comb.

Let's test it out.

Ooh.

That's how it works.

And once you get more skilled at it,

you can just pick a ton of berries quick.

You can see it just combs the berries right off the leaves.

Just look at that. Beautiful.

Dump 'em in.

Keep on cruising.

Okay, we're gonna get started on building

the permanent shelter again.

Big decision.

I'm gonna make my ivrulik just half the width.

With all the trees that I have to fell,

limb, stack, and then moss after,

I don't wanna spend that much time on a shelter.

So I'm just thinking it's too big.

I'm gonna start pulling these poles down, off the roof,

and reuse the poles on the outside.

I don't wanna gas myself out making a big shelter.

It's gonna take too long.

One, two, three, hyah!

More importantly, the energy it's gonna save me...

Timber.

I'll be able to use a lot more of it

to go hunt and fish when the time comes.

A little bit into the ground there.

Perfect.

I don't really like calling it a shelter

just because shelter, to me, just seems like a place

where you're living to try to survive.

I don't wanna feel like that out here.

I don't wanna feel like I'm in a place

where I'm just trying to survive.

I wanna feel like I'm in a place where I'm living,

a place where I'm thriving.

All right, ivrulik frame is almost done.

Shall we go on a tour?

You can see the outside walls are made from spruce.

Rooftop here.

Our qanitchaq entryway.

Beautiful.

Let's take you in.

Ooh, this is nice.

Beautiful ivrulik.

So this whole thing will be covered in sod,

which is a top layer of soil here.

And we'll move our sleeping platform in here.

And then eventually, I'll figure out a way

to get a fire pit in here,

a fire stove, wood stove, something.

I'm gonna need something for heat.

But yeah, I'm really happy with the frame,

the outcome of the frame.

Day one, I was like, what the heck am I doing here?

I got kids at home.

I just felt like, wow, you know, this was a mistake.

I just felt like I could tap today.

And then once I started to get busy, I was on a mission.

And I know if I stay busy,

my mind isn't gonna have time to think.

I feel like...

my kids, my wife, and my culture,

that's all I have.

That's all I want.

I have those two things, and I'm happy.

I always tell them,

you know, if we were homeless or...

living at a camp or--

as long as if we had each other,

that's all that would matter.

As long as if we had each other and we're all healthy,

we'd be happy.

So I know that's the truth.

Mwah.

And we'll just keep that...

Up there.

Other than that, we'll continue on with the ivrulik.

We'll be doing the moss, the sod,

the ivru portion of the ivrulik.

And I think that might go smooth.

We'll call that a day.

Missed that.

What the am I doing?

It's cold out there.

The shelter is not done yet,

but it's starting

to be a little better.

Working on the shelter is hard, really, really hard.

You get tired fast.

So for today, trying to catch something.

I start to teach survival skills

to the army students in the same time that

"Alone" started on TV.

So I tried to put something of that in my classes,

because what I saw in the other seasons is that

they quit because of their mind.

So challenging my students to push theirselves

to learn about their mind...

Nothing there.

Because the most important is the grit that you have

to deal with hard days.

Squirrel.

I lost another arrow.

.

I already lost two arrows because of a squirrel.

I don't want to lose any more.

And I lost all the arrows.

I brought only nine arrows.

Now I only have four arrows.

Let's try to find.

I miss all the shots.

I lost the arrows, and I start to lose the confidence.

Why am I so stupid?

What is happening with me?

And I realize I had some victories,

and I let my ego come out.

I can't see my arrow.

Damn.

This is not good.

I mumble enough to understand that failure

is part of the process.

I need to collect...

This for making arrows, new arrows.

And sometimes it's difficult,

but I don't focus in the failure.

I focus in the next step.

What the hell is that?

There is something big here.

Yeah.

It's a moose.

Down there.

Holy .

I think it's two of them.

Two of them in the sand.

Oh, man.

Oh.

Amazing, but I can't kill them.

Looking at these moose, it's wonderful.

I know I cannot hunt a female with the son,

because it's not allowed by the hunting rules.

But it's hope that there is more.

Now...

she goes away.

This lake is my chance to have big game.

I need to come here more times and hope that one day,

I have my opportunity.

And in that moment,

I will not miss the shot.

.