Original subtitles

look at that that's a gigantic plastic container i'm thinking of making a

boat you know tying some outriggers to it to help stabilize it holy moly What

am I doing out here? I'm set up to be here for a long time. You could have the

best life in the world, but if you're alone, then what's the point? I needed

to go for broke and find a good location and live out here. Oh, my God.

I just need to hurry up and set up a shelter.

Just an inch too short.

Jim!

Who are you when everything's been split away?

It's scary out here in these woods.

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

It's always in the back of your mind. Well, I can tap out.

Putting up with a filming booth.

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

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

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

Yes!

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

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

This is ridiculous.

I just woke up to my sleeping bag being soaked through.

And I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense.

And this is all water right here where I was sleeping.

And it looks like it's groundwater.

I guess it's seeped through.

Luckily, my backpack didn't get soaked.

But...

Just to give you an indicator, that's my fire hole.

It is 100% full of water.

I have no idea how that even happens.

I don't even know what I'm going to do.

I mean there's no way that I can stay in here.

I'm not miked up yet.

It's morning.

You know, I figured I might as well film this.

This is me trying to get up.

If you're not eating a bite of food in four days.

This has been going on for about 20 minutes.

I'm just sitting here on the bed, you know.

I've got one sock on.

Got a sock on.

That's progress.

I found the socks.

Got a sock on.

Yep.

Means I'm headed out the door.

Now I've got to put the other sock on.

It is really hard to not allow the extreme hunger to affect my emotional

state.

I am here, cold, hungry, and alone.

I've got to get creatures that live out there into here.

End of discussion.

I haven't been able to fish these waters in close to a week or so.

Where my fishing hole was, I could see the waves just, bam, just crashing

against it.

There's no way I can get anything to eat out of the ocean. It's just too rough.

If I was a fish, I would not hang out in that washing machine getting banged

against rocks and things.

The ocean just has to calm down more before I'll be able to fish.

Not very happy about it.

If you have experience in the bush, it makes you humble.

You might swagger into the bush and you're going to stagger out of the bush,

you know, and eventually you're going to get your head handed to you because this

is too much.

sleeping bag soaked.

This just sucks.

Really, really sucks.

So it comes a point of, well, what am I doing?

Am I staying out here just to stay out here?

Am I accomplishing anything?

What's the point?

I'm at a low right now.

If there was a time that I wanted to hang it up, it's right now.

I mean, there's standing water in my shelter.

First problem is a sleeping bag is soaking wet. So we're going to address

that by laying in it in my cook camp. And hopefully my body heat combined

with the heat from this fire will...

Slowly, we need the problem.

Yeah, this is not fun at all.

My brain has been trying to convince me of quitting.

So not only do I have to fight the elements and the water

table on top of that.

I've got to fight my own damn mind trying to tell me that it's okay to

quit.

what I thought about when I woke up this morning?

I didn't have to wake up at four in the morning. I didn't have to wake up at

four in the morning.

I can get up whenever I want. I can get up whenever I want.

Hey, that's what I thought this morning.

Emotionally, I'm doing good.

This new place has all the resources.

It's got tidal wash.

It looks like it's got some good fishing spots and it's got open areas.

I'm finding chanterelles everywhere.

Look at the size of this one.

Some of this is rotten, but I can scrape that off and I can still see there's

some white meat inside there.

I mean, it's on its left legs, but I can eat some of this for sure.

That's a big one.

Look at this stream.

Isn't this beautiful?

Huh?

Oh.

It's all hard work.

And I won't be happy until I start bringing in fish, but once I start

bringing in some fish, man, this place is going to be gold.

I've got my line fed up, so I'm going to go down and check out what's going on

down by the seashore.

This move is a complete game changer, so long as I can find food from the ocean.

But if I don't catch a fish on those lines...

I might not be able to survive here in this location.

Well, I can basically see both of my sets right now, both of my fishing sets.

And I'm really intrigued to see if I got anything.

I really hope to catch some fish here, man.

One's got the shell on it.

Two of them are stripped clean.

Third one's stripped clean.

Dang.

No fish for me.

That really sucks.

I'm starting to get worried that there's no fish in this area.

So I got my mushrooms.

I want to go harvest some limpets. I'll set those aside for dinner.

Well, I've got my...

Sparse little dinner cooking.

I think it's getting close to boiling.

I tried out this new fireplace here.

I made a hole through the top of the stump, and I would think that it should

draw through the top.

But I don't need a huge fire.

Too huge, you want to kick my stump on fire.

I got to say, I'm a little bit frustrated with the fishing here.

The other place, I think I caught fish on every set that I put out, just about.

Oh my gosh, this is like the smallest meal I've ever eaten in my life.

It's certainly a lot more uplifting and nice here, but I don't know what I'm

going to do about fishing.

I can't believe that I did that.

I think I'm up for dumbass of the year award.

I woke up, and the whole side of my shelter was glowing red.

And for a split second, I thought, that's a hell of a fire.

And then another split second, I thought, there shouldn't be a hell of a

fire. The whole thing was basically engulfed.

I had my fire right here.

And I traveled down, made a huge hole, and traveled all the way down

inside there.

The hole broke and burned out.

Look at that son of a bitch still smoking.

Unbelievable.

I keep making these mistakes.

I don't know what's going to happen.

So, growing a gray beard.

Man, I'm starting to look like an old fart.

Another day of boat building, making some good progress.

I can't wait to see her in the water.

It'll still be a little while, a few days, but I sure hope to be able to have

her in the water soon and in time to get to that salmon run, like I said before.

Finished both gunnels. I'm hoping to start putting in the ribs today.

The cedar branch has a natural curve to it.

I have hopes for this material to be the ribs.

Let's see what cedar can do. I'll just whittle it as fine as I think is safe to

do.

I have to make every single piece that goes in there by hand.

I'll refine it if it doesn't break.

And then comes a real chore, which is bending the ribs.

I'm going to put a bit of water.

Where the bed's going to be, especially the outside.

We'll see if I can steam bend it or basically hot fire bend it. I'm going to

play around with that a little bit.

Here we go.

One big honking splinter here, but that'll do.

First rip.

I hope it fits into its place properly.

I actually should have tried to fit before.

There goes one.

Twelve more to go.

This one here, nice.

But this one here was a complicated one, and it came out perfect.

There's no visible splintering on the outside, and that's a full bend. Matter

of fact, it's past full.

So this is probably the strongest testimony to how well this method works.

I'm making a huge investment in time and energy, taking a huge gamble to build a

boat to fish offshore.

Fishing from a boat now on the water, I think it's going to be much more

productive. I hope.

It would suck if it didn't, but that's the gamble right there.

Almost finished.

I have to tie on those rips now.

What I learned was building western Greenland kayaks. So I'm applying that

technology here as much as I can, but everything there is lashed and pegged.

There's no screws, no nails.

They didn't have any, they didn't need any.

So the rips are fitted in.

Quite a bit of wonkiness here and there, but at least something that resembles a

boat is underway.

I had it bad earlier.

I have no freaking idea what I'm going to do as far as shelter. The biggest

question I have is what am I doing this for? I don't know how much longer I can

do this.

I've got to limp it.

Limp it. It's part of a complete breakfast.

Actually, limp it. It's the only thing I have for breakfast.

Oh, but you are so cute.

I would let you go because you're cute, but you're too delicious to live.

Yes, you're tasty and scrumptious, therefore you must die.

It'll be quick. Don't worry.

Packed with flavor.

If I ever see these on a menu, I'm ordering two dozen of them just to have

the luxury of eating that many of them in one sitting.

The only thing that's bothering me right now is the starvation.

I just can't get enough to eat.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of limpets out there, but there's not a lot

of food on a limpet.

I need to get some big protein, big fish.

I've got to finish my net.

It's looking like a net.

None of the lines lay flat.

It's all kind of disorganized a little bit, which is kind of what you need for

tangling a fish. You want the net to be able to catch them, and you want them to

get in there and get stuck and try and turn around and get out of it and thrash

about.

I mean, I like the way it looks.

Oh, fog, fog, fog.

Outside.

Nice. See, that's internal.

I've got one minute left anyway on the battery.

Oh, that's great.

That's the part that doesn't get in the episodes. We see all the footage that

we're shooting and stuff, but the real burden of being out here is this other

full-time job I have of being a cameraman.

I'm out here surviving and trying to work and do all the things I need to do,

and I'm a cameraman.

I'm going to mount my homemade gillnet, an extension on this gillnet.

And we'll see how it goes. You know, I don't know if this will work much more

visible than the other one. But the other one hasn't caught anything yet, so

it can't work worse than that, right?

Just trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life after

this.

I don't know.

You know, it would be great if I had a career to go back to.

There's got to be something out there for me.

All right, that is a bottle of crushed mussels hanging on a gill net.

If that doesn't attract fish to the net, I don't know what else to do in this

bay. Seriously.

I'm kind of like at my wit's end.

If this idea doesn't work, I'm drawing a blank.

And it's got to catch something.

All right, I've decided to quit moping around like a little baby and

get some stuff done.

I have to stay because I feel like I need to set an example for veterans to

just not give up, you know, to keep going, you know, even though

it sucks and even though...

You want the pain and everything else to go away.

All right, so the net is not catching fish anymore.

I only caught one weird-looking fish that I think just flew the wrong way.

I have officially outworn my welcome, sleeping on the ground.

Since my net...

isn't doing really anything as far as catching fish.

We're going to turn it back into a hammock.

You constantly have to change your approach to things, you know, because

just when you think something is going good, it could change and go bad, and

then you've got to figure out something else to do.

Stuff happens. You're going to have those things that just kick you while

you're down, and you've got to get up and say, well, I've got stuff to do.

Just really spent a lot of time building that shelter.

Now it's flooded.

But I don't have the energy to rebuild that thing somewhere else.

Particularly without food, calories, and all that.

That's just not going to work.

Yeah, I barely have the energy to split wood.

All right, so it's still soaked in here.

Smells like...

Seaweed.

Bad. Like really bad.

If you allow yourself to adapt and you allow yourself to change,

then you're capable of just amazing things.

That might just work.

Other than the...

Foul stench of seaweed.

Well, good morning.

Day 21.

I'm thankful for this beautiful place.

I'm enjoying myself being here.

It's brought out the best in me.

I've built a very beautiful camp. I have a comfortable home here.

I can spend hours in my shelter.

Then I've got means and ways for getting food.

And I've got things to occupy my time and my mind.

I cut dice two blocks, kind of round off the corners so they roll better

for my football game.

Sunday night football.

We have our two opposing teams, the scallops and the stones.

The dice determine yardage and distance.

Yes! It's a pass.

Greater than 10 yards.

No. All right. So let's roll to see how many yards we get.

And we just got two that time. All right. Second down. The defense is

holding. You know, the projects keep me busy throughout the day. And so time

just flies by because of that.

I did get the Arapuka live box trap made.

Hopping along.

And he is caught. The other day I found that black buoy, the perfect size

for a bowling ball.

Boom! And I got the top one, no problem.

I like it when the time flies, but I'm beginning to feel

guilty of wasting time and space

that could be used in a better way.

I feel like my journey is becoming selfish and self-serving.

I'm not growing more, and I'm not discovering new things about myself.

And after thinking about it, praying about it,

I don't know how much longer I can do this.

I woke up craving cinnamon sugar

donuts and hot apple cider.

Mmm.

Oh.

Still missing home a lot today.

Over these last couple of days, I wanted to go home.

I'm just having second thoughts about it.

You also have the expectations of other people.

My family's going to be watching this.

You don't want to let anybody down.

So it's a tough one, you know.

It's really hard being alone. I've never been alone for this long before.

I have to figure out how long I want to stay here.

So today I'm just going to build a little sweat lodge.

sweat lodge is one of those things that feed you more spiritually just do a

couple rounds and you know have a dip in the ocean and get myself clean both

physically and spiritually before making the decision biggest question i have is

just what am i doing this for i think i got eight

saplings and then i just dug them into the ground and fold them over so that

way they all are connected at the top, and then you just tie them together.

So after those rocks have been heated, those will go into that pit, and then

pour water on top.

So now I'm going to put the tarp over it.

Super simple.

Looks good, actually.

I got all the rocks in there.

i'll get the rocks like just super hot put them into the lodge and then pour

water on them and then sweat it out maybe this will provide

some insight

oh man

There's a certain level of contentment and exhaustion that

comes from doing a good hot sweat.

It's like you are happy doing nothing.

A lot of things to look forward to. Today's been a good day. I'm really

grateful to be here and to be in this place.

It's so beautiful.

It's seriously an incredible, powerful place.

Kind of out of it a bit this morning and I feel actually pretty good right now. I

feel really grounded.

It's all a mental game.

You know, it's just about like pushing on and adapting yourself to the

situation. A lot of staying calm for me is just like looking around and being

grateful for what I have.

Every day I've been able to walk outside and see something beautiful.

I've come to my decision.

far can you push yourself? How much can you test your limit?

It's not really about that.

I'm in a quandary. I don't know what to do.

And I'm just going to go ahead and say it. I don't know if I can do this.

The last two days have been mentally pretty rough.

You know, just going back and forth in my head if it would be okay to quit.

I don't have to do this.

There's not enough caloric intake in the meals that I can pull out of the ocean

to keep me from eventually starving to death.

That's the end game for me.

I know my goal all along was to stay out here for the entire year.

But I just miss Barbara terribly.

Being away like this so long, I'm afraid that it'll mess me up so bad that I'll

go home this thing that Barbara doesn't know.

I have to admit that I did not foresee the heartache that I'm feeling.

Love that camp.

That's saying goodbye to a really good friend right there.

I do not like saying goodbye.

It feels like abandonment.

Man, oh man.

That is something.

It's even more beautiful from here.

Tomorrow, day 22, I'm going to climb up this mountain behind me

in remembrance of the

22 veterans a day that are committing suicide in this country.

So hopefully, you know, somebody sees it and is inspired to

keep fighting, to keep going.

So that's my hope, that's my goal in what I'm doing tomorrow.

Today I have a lot of prep work to do, getting the camera gear ready and food.

And you have to boil water, which is huge because that gives you the ability

to purify enough so I can get to the top of that mountain.

If I can climb this mountain on day 22, then...

I can do whatever.

I think it's going to recharge my batteries.

It's going to give me a little bit of extra motivation to go a little bit

further.

Water takes forever to boil here.

It's been about an hour, the last hour, boiling this water.

It's just such a pain in the ass.

Starting to rain.

Little mess. I'm going to pull this inside here.

You've got to be kidding me.

Oh, my God, man.

I wound up spilling the majority of my water.

It was right there.

right at a boil.

And now I don't even know if I'll have enough to fill up my water bottle.

You know, I was like, so at peace with my decision, but I don't know.

Going back and forth on it.

Before I came out here and I was in the process of choosing whether or not I

wanted to do this, I decided not to.

Called my dad up. What do you think?

And he had a really good perspective, you know.

So this is a sort of like once in a lifetime opportunity to do something

like this. And I just remember like how big this is.

I'm torn between living here and going home.

If I leave, I'd be doing myself an injustice.

If I stay longer, I'm going to be alone.

Hey, Dan, this is Randy.

How you doing? Hey,

man, I wanted to call because I'm ready to go. I'm tapping out.

Okay, man.

We'll come and pick you up shortly.

Physically, I felt capable of staying out here a really long time.

But we're not just physical bodies.

And so I wasn't being fed mentally, I wasn't being fed emotionally, because

there's no interaction with other people.

I mean, don't get me wrong, like, I love living this way.

I want to live off the land.

That's the ideal life for me, but there's no way I could do it alone.

I am craving human companionship. Like it's water.

I wanted to just come out here and just sort of, like, connect with the land.

And I wanted it to teach me things.

You know, it really made me appreciate my loved ones, my sort of, like,

community and tribe.

I mean, it really opened my eyes to how amazing the people in my life are.

But I'm really going to miss this place a lot.

I'm just craving my loved ones. And, you know, I just, I

way underestimated that being the hardest part.

All right, good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Justin, and I'm reporting to you live from the scene of the

set of the movie Waterworld.

Everything is underwater.

Holy... It's about, oh man, at least six inches underwater.

I thought I had it bad earlier.

This is nuts.

I have no freaking idea what I'm going to do as far as shelter.

But you know what?

Today, that doesn't matter.

Because today is day 22.

I decided that on day 22, I was going to climb a mountain.

Kind of really at the bottom of my rope right now.

And so I need this. I need to get to the top of that mountain.

Because when I come back down, I've got to start all over.

So this is it.

There's a lot of ups and downs in life, and for every one step you take, there's

three things that pull you back down. Over the course of time, that can drain

on you, drain your soul, drain a person down to where they don't want to do

anything, they don't want to deal with life anymore.

If one veteran that's hurting sees this and says, I can keep going, that it can

get better, and that it will get better if you keep putting one foot in front of

the other.

and you keep climbing, then it's worth the risk.

I'm ready to put the skin on the kayak.

The tarp I have, one good scratch on those barnacles, and it's done with.

I'm going to climb this damn mountain. This is extremely dangerous.

One wrong move here, and I'm done.

Rough surf came in and destroyed both of my gill nets. I'm wasting away in here.

If I don't get some solid food out of that ocean, I'm not going to make it.

There's a bear behind me.

It's at my neck. What's it going to do?

Oh, it's coming my way.