Original subtitles

I'm going to make a traditional ivrulik.

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

You're not going to survive a winter

without a strong shelter.

All right.

A dead squirrel over there.

What the ?

That's embarrassing.

Wow.

That moose will live for another day.

- What was that?

Oh, . My ferro rod's on fire.

- Bow and drill

is not one of my best skills.

I'm in the Arctic.

I gotta have fire.

- Come up.

- Fire!

This is David Booth.

I'm officially tapping out.

OK, I've been working hard on this ivrulik,

and my feet, they're just getting hot.

They're getting hot and they're getting stinky.

And one of the things that we've done traditionally,

when that happens, when you get hot and stinky feet,

is you put ptarmigan feathers in your boot.

And in this case, I'll use my grouse feathers.

Oof, stinks.

Take our boots here.

Got some clean,

non-wet feathers,

and we'll just stick them in the boot.

Just like that.

We'll stick those in there

and push them towards the end.

OK, I think that'll do.

All right. That should take the stench out

of my boot and out of my socks.

Ukalliatchiaq translates to snowshoe hare

in the Iñupiaq Kobuk River dialect.

So...

winter is coming.

The Iñupiaq language, it's an endangered language.

There's upwards of 20,000 of us in the world.

And I feel like the Iñupiaq way of life

is just kind of fading away with the technology

that we're given.

So I'm looking for new signs of game on the riverbank here.

I'm not seeing any.

We've definitely had a bump up in technology

in Kotzebue in the last ten years.

The phone just started to come out.

High-tech video game system just started to come out.

And so I'm seeing a lot of kids just want to stay home

and do those types of things.

You don't even see as many children playing out anymore.

They want to be like the people that they're seeing

on their tablets and phones and TVs and all that.

And that's not the Iñupiaq people.

It's tough to see.

Nothing in here today.

I had one right here.

Took the whole wire with it.

Damn.

Moose, possibly.

So let's be quiet.

Let's check the next one.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Caught a rabbit.

Caught a ukalliatchiaq.

Oh, man.

Much needed.

Got him.

Yes, we're eating.

Eating good, eating good.

That's a lot of meat compared to what I got right now.

This is going to last me a few more days.

Getting closer to gill net time.

Beautiful.

We'll get back and make some ukalliatchiaq soup.

There's my stomach rumbling.

Get the rabbit skin first,

and then start a fire second.

Make sure the whole bunny's in the picture.

OK.

Down...

between the middle of the legs.

Cut around the...

ankle area.

Being out here, I feel like this has given me purpose.

I'll do the front paws.

I definitely feel like there's a lack of role model

for the Iñupiaq children.

If you start to get any tension,

just a little bit of a trim.

I want my culture to survive.

And that's it.

And we'll gut.

We'll pull these

guts out here.

Get a fire going, get it in the pot.

And, uh, yeah.

Get some ukalliatchiaq soup cooking.

With ashes.

Now I will use this to brush.

All right.

Are you looking at this?

Yeah.

It's better now.

Yeah.

You can make-- you can make signals

to rescue.

Not yet. Maybe in Christmas.

Now what I will do,

I want to try fish something.

I have lot of things to do.

I have my shelter to finish.

But fishing is the most important thing

in "Alone" season.

Let's get some bait.

Oh, I got all the guts for fishing.

The one who fish more is the one

that have more possibilities, because the fish

will feed the body with more nutrients than the meat.

I want a big fish.

Yeah, nice throw.

I saw in the other seasons, people have big animals

and they get thin because they only eat meat.

Don't get me wrong.

Animal meat is important to survive.

But protein is not enough.

You need to have fat.

And fish have more fat than the meat of the animal.

Oh, God bless me with a big fish.

Nothing.

Yeah.

There's nothing.

I will do a box

to put berries,

waiting for a fish.

The people in Portugal are strong.

We were made for war.

My strength comes from when I was young.

It was difficult to breathe.

I damaged my knife,

cutting wire.

I had this inhaler and I was ashamed

to use it because I feel weak.

People made bullying,

but I start to play soccer in a team

and develop more discipline.

And I saw that more I train, more get better.

I want to fight against everything.

And I'm grateful because all those things

brought me here to this moment.

Holy .

It's the moose.

Holy [bleep].

It's the moose.

Can you see the moose?

It's a female.

It's with two childs,

so I cannot hunt them.

But they are awesome.

Wait, wait, wait.

I will try to flank them.

.

.

I'm terrible.

I don't deserve to be here.

Today I missed my chance.

I feel terrible.

First, because I probably injured that moose.

And I lost one more arrow.

That moose could fill me here forever.

And I miss my chance.

I want to sleep...

because I lost my opportunity.

Sorry.

Jeez.

It's a full-time job and some.

Processing fish,

cooking food,

and--

keeping a smoker going.

So when do we get to phone in a friend?

Emotionally, I feel like I'm on an absolute roll

in terms of successes.

The fishing and the snaring is so effective, you know,

I'm ticking boxes quicker than I thought I would.

I've got plenty of food.

I'm going to keep eating three meals a day

so that I can push myself physically.

And I built the smoker.

Knowing that I've got myself some reserves

is really, really reassuring.

'Cause, you know, right now I literally can't fit

any more fish in my stomach.

There it is, folks.

All right, the smoker.

I've got all of the pike in there, except one.

Which means I can start on my permanent shelter.

I had so much fun with this tepee,

I'm going to make my permanent shelter a tepee as well.

The weather's getting colder, the wind's blowing

a little bit harder at night.

And I know it's changing because it's going into winter.

Timber.

But it's happening quicker than I'm expecting.

And it's my first real sort of sinking feeling of,

like, I need to get my permanent shelter up.

And I've sort of ridden the high

of figuring out my food source.

And now I do need to get my tepee done.

I'm actually having a lot of fun.

All righty, folks, we're going to get

this big old log over there.

Going into the competition with my body weight,

I told myself that I need a fire

and my permanent shelter to keep me warm.

So a fire was always a must.

So my plan is to build a large tepee as my permanent shelter

just because it's basically a chimney that you live in.

But if you get it nice and insulated and air-tight,

then the smoke will just trickle out the top.

This is a perfect scenario of,

I can put meat in the store room.

Once I build my shelter and set up a big drying rack,

I could get close to 20 pike on here,

and then that would give me, you know, a huge amount

of food stores in the competition

later on when things get cold.

And that'll be my way to smoke fish and then also have a fire.

This is a big task, but I think it'll be worth it.

Well, , now it's time to see

if I can move this big bitch.

Don't blow your backs out, kids.

Well, , it's huge.

How about that?

The hardest part is over.

The tri of the pod is erect.

I got a lot of rabbit soup made.

Look at that heart,

aorta and all attached,

if that's what it's called.

Mmm.

Juicy.

A lot juicier than that grouse,

which is awesome.

I am hungry for frozen pizza though.

Little cheap round kind that costs, like,

2 bucks,

a little bit of hot sauce on them.

Good stuff.

Ew.

Testicle, I think.

Eat around it.

Let's get started on layer number two of sod.

We're going to cut another piece of sod.

And I've been making these about 2 feet long

by...

16 inches wide.

The smaller ones are always a little bit easier to work with.

Another piece of sod material.

The ivrulik is a sod house and a home

that Iñupiaq people have lived in for thousands of years.

I'll work with that.

One of the reasons why we're here today, and I realize that,

is because of the sod house that helped us survive

long, cold, windy winters.

Perfect.

Looking good.

The general shape of the sod house is

more of a round shape,

and that really helps keep the wind off of it

and keeps the wind from blowing it over.

Looking good.

Building this traditional ivrulik,

I'm feeling like I'm walking through

my ancestors' footsteps.

The sod is highly "sod" after.

I know it's going to be hard work,

but I know it's worth it.

OK, one wall done.

Now we'll get started on this side.

Ivruq block number one, on the side.

Last piece for the walls.

Oh.

Yeah.

Got it.

Got it.

Oh.

Mm.

It's hot.

Oh, I have an idea.

I have this arrow.

And I lost

my broadhead in the first day.

No, in the second day

when I was hunting the rabbits.

So this is a pipe.

I can blow it.

Blowing machine.

Awesome.

OK, let's go try to do something useful.

I feel bad because the moose run away with my arrow.

I walk through here.

I saw them there.

I prefer to fail that shot and the animal is in good health

than shot the animal and not feeding off him

is not correct.

I walk all of this looking at them.

But maybe I missed.

You can see the log there.

That was the log where the moose passed.

So...

now I need to find my arrow.

As soon as the snow fall, it will be difficult

to have big game in the field.

Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue.

So I need to hunt now.

And to do that, I need arrows.

What?

What the hell?

I found my arrow.

Look, the arrow, how deep it is.

Look at this.

There is no blood.

This means a lot of things.

First one,

I didn't hurt the young moose.

So he's not injured somewhere.

And there's more opportunity.

One more arrow

means one more shot,

one more opportunity.

It's important when you fail, you have second opportunities.

That moose had a second chance.

He can live more.

He can grow.

He will be the biggest male.

I had the second chance from the bronchitis and asthma.

And maybe now, like the moose,

I will have another second opportunity.

Wow.

Yeah.

Thank you, God.

Thank you.

Thank you for one more.

I catch another rabbit in the snare.

Awesome.

Thank you, God.

Thank you.

I'm going to try my greens,

which will be rabbit gut bag for breakfast.

You might think that's a little disgusting,

but I'm sure you put some things in your body

that are pretty bad.

This is for you, Mom.

Always eat your greens.

All right, folks.

A little bit sour, a little bit bitter.

Could be mistaken for pesto.

Mmm.

My mom makes the best pesto.

And if everything goes well,

we'll be flying home together

to the glass house full of basil,

ready to have a delicious...

Pesto pasta.

All righty, we had our breakfast.

Not too sure what the time is, but we're going to work

on the permanent shelter.

Small amounts of work a day is a bit of a tactic.

I don't want to just go all in it at once.

I'm feeling really, really good.

I want to have fun here.

And emotionally, I feel like I'm in a location where I can

actually feel like I'm at home

and I feel like I can enjoy the process.

Nature's like, always, like, just this big door

that is wide open.

And you go through that door and it's just large release

comes flooding over.

It's the purest form of an antidepressant

or something to, you know, clear my mind

or, you know, let some thoughts run.

All right.

Freeze frame photo.

Beautiful.

We'll keep going from here.

Get some crossbeams up, kinda the walls.

The ultimate freedom and just the open schedule,

it just seems so right for my brain.

It's just another step closer to my goal,

and that is to be more self-sufficient.

I really feel like so many friends are so stressed out

from being tied down and having all these

avoidable and unnecessary ties and strains.

And I don't want that.

I've got a bunch more spruces dropped.

Should do at least another side.

My greatest dream is totally a small block of land,

a piece of paradise,

that's in the area that's abundant with a variety of game

that I can keep myself very entertained.

And, you know, a small house--

Luckily, I've got food.

And not fall into loans and debts

and the feel of being tied down.

So winning this money would allow me

to be able to have that dream.

That's pretty bloody good, if you ask me.

- That bite.

Ooh.

It's itchy.

As I washed my hands gently this morning,

I noticed that my knuckles are bruised here.

And it's not from,

you know, hurting myself.

It's actually because my hand got

so swollen from all the bites

that it actually bruised my knuckles.

Look at that.

Well, today is a very important day.

Today is shelter-building day,

and there is no around.

Oh, excuse my French.

Let's go make a home.

Bam!

Today I feel good.

The first 72 hours were difficult.

But it's better that you release

your emotions to feel better.

We have waterfront property, guys.

Some people say it's in the sticks.

Oh.

But this could be

your dream home property.

I remembered I was on this experience

in this crazy competition

and I was like, wait a minute.

This is awesome.

If I choose to not give myself pressure and just surrender,

then it's really just having fun.

So now what I'm going to do

is I'm going to start lining up the walls.

I'm going to take full advantage

of this opportunity to make a shelter

that I've always wanted to make.

I've always been inspired by pit house shelters,

Hogan shelters, and I kind of really want

to lean towards that design.

Think log cabin, but instead of tall, it's wide and short.

It will still have four walls,

and it'll have a small dome on top.

I felt very strongly going into this competition

that I wanted to have a shelter that had a central fire.

Having a central fire is going to maximize your warmth.

This shelter gives me enough space

to be able to stretch out and relax my body,

and store the things that I need immediate access to

while still just maximizing how warm it could get

in the really extreme temperatures.

Oh, my God!

Cameron?

Oh!

Oh, my God.

Are you all right?

Oh, buddy.

Why didn't you say something?

Oh.

You gotta speak up more.

.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

I got a hare. I got a hare.

I got a hare. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Hey, buddy.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, universe.

Thank you.

It's funny.

I have spent more time in a drive-through

waiting for a meal than I did getting the hare.

And this is only showing me that taking the bow

was the right decision.

And now more than ever, I can say, yeah, I'm a hunter.

Marksmanship is something that

I've always wanted to be better at.

Before I was dropped off,

salt was actually my tenth item.

OK.

Salt's a multi-tool.

Salt is electrolytes.

It's flavoring.

It can heal wounds.

Oh.

There's another kidney.

Yum.

Oh.

So I felt very strongly about taking salt.

And then I was bringing a bow as an alt item.

I could have been convinced to take it.

And during orientation camp, I was.

Oh.

The taste of success.

Phew.

And I am glad because that bow got me food.

Liver's my favorite.

Saving the best for last.

I think that there's a power in it,

and not just marksmanship,

in being a hunter,

a person who can provide,

a person who can come out on top.

Look at my new additions to our home.

Yeah, it's just the one hare,

but it's a sign that I might be OK.

It's a sign that I might be here for the long haul.

It's a sign that I'm good enough to do this.

Getting this hare was a really good sign.

To be continued.

- Here we go.

Had a pretty vivid dream last night.

I was here, but I had my phone

and, um,

I got a text from my wife

and she said,

"I feel lost. I feel hopeless."

That was the word.

And then I woke up.

Her aapa, her dad, maybe yesterday was

his last day, um, here on Earth.

And that could have been the world's way of telling me.

Her aapa pretty much taught me a lot in my adult life

about the Iñupiaq lifestyle, the old Iñupiaq ways.

Yeah, he means a lot to me.

He's more of a father than I've ever had.

He's been the biggest--

biggest role model

my entire life, I would say.

And, um,

someone I'm going to be thinking about.

I hope that's not the case.

But if that happened, then

that's not good.

So yeah, first thing I'm going to do is finish the ivrulik.

I have the roof to do.

And then, uh, I can move in.

My father-in-law, his name is Elmer.

His Iñupiaq name is .

There's one.

What I really love about my father-in-law,

he's just a really genuine Iñupiaq man

who grew up with Iñupiaq culture,

old Iñupiaq traditions

that not a lot of people know about.

Now

we can position it into place.

He's taught me more than my father ever had.

And, uh, he's my father,

he's my aapa.

I call him aapa, too.

Perfect.

I instantly had a connection with him,

and he took me in as a son.

He was immediately teaching me how to

live the old Iñupiaq way.

And just thinking about him and realizing,

you know, he's lived a long life,

a long, beautiful life.

He's--he's in his mid-80s.

He's not going to live forever.

And, um, we all realize that.

And we all realize that every moment with him

is precious, it is special.

Beautiful.

OK.

We're going to get moved in to this ivrulik.

We'll start hauling sleeping poles.

Moving out.

I'm most afraid of never seeing my family again.

I know that there are dangers on this land,

and that I may never return home to my children again.

But I've accepted that.

I realized that for thousands of years,

Iñupiaq hunters would go out in order to harvest food

for their families and their communities,

and they might not ever make it back.

There we go.

They might not know if that was going

to be the last time that they saw their loved ones.

This is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

to represent my culture,

and I'm willing to die to show the world

who we are and who we've been.

Beautiful in here.

I just feel so at peace.

OK, guys, let's build a bridge.

Here is the place.

Nice.

Let's see what's underwater.

It's interesting to see.

I hope I don't fall in water.

OK, that's enough of aquatic biology.

My idea is to set all the wire I have,

as many snares as possible.

When I put ten snares and check the next morning,

there were two hares there.

And then next time I put even more and more.

So 45 is the number now.

When I was young, I kind of listed down

what I would like to do in life,

and I wanted to be an expert in one area.

There were two big passions for me, and one was,

of course, bushcraft,

and another one was underwater life.

And only one looked likely to get me a job.

And so I became a fish biologist.

The best thing about my job is the research.

OK, funny tree formation.

I'm very analytical about stuff in general.

But now, having this time out here,

I can reanalyze where I was successful and where not.

And I have realized that it's much more important

to understand why something is working in this way,

or should be done in this way.

Once you understand things,

it's also much easier

to give slight improvements or adaptations

according to the situation.

OK.

Now let's go berry picking.

Oh.

The reason why I'm doing this competition is

not only my personal challenge,

but I'm doing it as a researcher, as a scientist.

This series created a lot of knowledge.

I would like to contribute to this knowledge.

From academic perspective,

you really see what happens to your body.

These are really extreme conditions

that there is no other way that people

would go in these situations and to monitor this.

And you can really have a proper scientific approach.

This would be really valuable information,

not only for bushcraft, but also for medicine

or maybe even for space exploration,

pushing the limits of what human body can stand.

It's really valuable, the data that actually exists here.

A bit of berries, a bit of sun.

And...

you can feel so much better.

OK, regarding the position,

there's my shelter.

This is, unfortunately, kind of peninsula.

So lake goes all the way around.

So it's a bit unlikely that moose--unless, I mean,

there is kind of separation between two lakes.

So it might swim over,

but I think this wouldn't happen.

But the good point is,

here, it's like this 2-meter channel.

And if the moose would pass here,

which I think it's quite likely

because it's really easy to pass,

I might hear splashes in water.

So yeah.

That's basically it.

I won't do so much active hunting.

I will always carry a bow with me

when I go do berry picking.

But beside this, I'm all set for everything.

Good morning.

I slept in my shelter last night.

Slept just amazing.

I mean,

how cool is that to be able to sleep in a home

that just thousands and thousands of Iñupiaq

before you have lived in and survived in.

So that's such a cool feeling.

We'll get started on the morning.

I knew this would be the plan--

get a permanent shelter built

and rest for a few days, more or less.

Beautiful quiet morning.

Got the gill net in yesterday.

Checked it last night.

Didn't get any fish in it.

I'm going to go check it here this morning.

Fishing will be more important than small game will be.

And I know that.

I haven't heard of any tribe surviving

off of rabbit and small game alone.

So I know that's not a great long-term solution

to my food-gathering strategy.

Oh, yeah.

Whoo-hoo.

Whoo.

Let's go.

Not too big of one, but we'll take it.

Yeah, the first fish.

Nice size siulik.

Net reset.

There.

That's a lot of meat, man.

A lot of meat.

That's a lot of fish, a lot of change of diet.

I've been eating nothing but rabbit.

Been eating nothing but ukalliatchiaq.

Ukalliatchiaq eyes, ukalliatchiaq brain,

ukalliatchiaq heart, ukalliatchiaq meat,

and ukalliatch broth.

So now I finally have some fish.

I'm really excited to get pike.

I see it as another confidence booster,

and I realize that I might be getting several fish every day.

Can you imagine if I tapped out

because I was choking on a bone?

That'd be crazy.

This is going to allow me to put food away

for freeze-up.

I do feel like there is a little bit of weight

on my shoulders to make it to the very end

of this competition and to win this for the Iñupiaq people.

And I feel like with the gill net,

something that provides food for us today

and has for thousands of years,

I'm able to do that, to be able to be

the last one standing out of ten people.

Could be cooked a little more,

but...

who's complaining out here, right?

It's food.

- Oh, it's quite heavy.

This is my gill net.

Ladies and gentlemen,

welcome to championship of berry picking.

So we have two champions here.

One is dirty hand.

And the second champion

recently made is berry-picker.

OK.

And three, two, one, go.

Hop, hop, hop, set this, and go.

Picking, picking, picking.

Don't give up.

Never give up.

Keep on picking, keep on picking.

Keep on picking and over!

OK.

Let's check what's the outcome.

So the result is hand, 59,

and 41 for berry-picker.

Oh, too bad.

Anyway, it was a fun project to do.

Guys,

there is a duck.

OK.

OK, guys, bow really paid off.

I didn't think it will serve me this well, but squirrel

and we go also for this duck that is dead.

I'm very surprised to be so successful with bow.

It's a small duck, but I'm very thankful for it

because it's fatty and nice proteins.

Whatever I can harvest, it's more than welcome.

Oh.

My brother, he's the person without whom I would

never be in the place I am now.

We started as kids sharing this passion for outdoor life.

In our very young age, we started doing

these survival challenges each year.

Guys, this is a successful day,

and I didn't check the snares yet.

Each year we went for bigger challenges--

survival without food,

having less gear, going in tougher environment,

doing it for a longer time.

And what I learned from this is that nature has its own rules,

and you cannot complain about them

because they are as they are.

So I will just take it as it is.

Crazy .

Nice one, guys.

It's a really good day.

So one duck, one squirrel, one hare.

And I didn't check all the snares yet, maybe half of them.

Very good.

Very good day.

Today this land provides me with a lot of game.

With this respect and connection with nature

that I'm building, I'm really confident that

I will stay on this land for quite a while.

You must be kidding me.

But seeing all other participants

and seeing how many among them are super good hunters

is definitely a huge advantage over me.

I feel like I have that duty

to represent the Iñupiaq people because I have

a strong Iñupiaq skill set.

I want to feel like I made them proud.

I want to succeed.

I want to win.

I expect that multiple people might

shoot something big,

which will result in a really long season.

- Well, I did it again.

I'm just feeling really blessed.

This is just unreal.

Although I don't have much experience in hunting,

I think that I will last quite long relying on my knowledge,

but at the same time also learn a lot from nature.

OK, here is another squirrel.

Wow.

I think with my youth I do have an advantage

of not actually knowing a certain amount of things.

Sweet as keehoo.

You just have to be in it to win it

and there is a chance I could win.

And I'm happy to run on that chance.

I think that's very important,

being able to learn and to adapt to situations.

I catch another rabbit.

Thank you, God, for another rabbit.

Thank you.

You are blessing me more than I deserve.

There are simple some rules that you cannot change.

Better adapt yourself.

And if you can do it,

you can succeed.

OK.

It's a really good day for shooting.

I don't know how, but

I'm just doing it right.

So we have four squirrels today

and a duck

and a hare.

Pretty crazy.

Really thankful for this.

I'm on a very good way for winning.

I catch a rabbit in the snare.

Something took it first.

This is bad sign for me.

I call this the dead walk.

The way to starvation.

- It's really good to see some game hanging up.

I feel like I'm back in the game.

I just need to keep the pressure on.

- Birds are moving.

That's a load of geese.

Winter is coming.

.