Original subtitles

♪ ♪

We're just insignificant in this landscape.

I didn't come here to get killed.

It's time to go.

Houston, this ain't good.

Absolutely miserable weather.

I do not like this.

Some bear scat near my camp.

That might be the bear's home right there.

I'm not sure, but I don't plan on checking.

Being out here alone for so long,

I can't stop thinking of my wife

or my soon-to-be little boy.

My days here are just numbered.

I have never built a canoe,

so I've got to see if this actually floats.

Oh, my God.

It works.

This is gonna be a bitch.

We have to film it, and we're totally alone.

Nobody knows what it's like here

except for the ten guys out here doing it.

Time to get shelter.

There's nobody here but me.

This is so hard doing this alone.

I'm scared to death right now.

I feel like I'm starving.

Pretty sure I just saw a cougar.

Oh,.

The last man standing wins $500,000.

I don't want to go home. I want to win.

This is the chance in a lifetime,

but it's not worth dying over.

♪ ♪

"Ah, distinctly I remember

"it was in the bleak December;

"And each separate dying ember

"wrought its ghost upon the floor.

"Eagerly I wished the morrow;

"vainly my surcease of sorrow--

"sorrow for the rare and radiant maiden

"whom the angels name Lenore--

"Nameless here for evermore.

"And the silken, sad, uncertain

"rustling of each purple curtain

"Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors

"never felt before;

"So that now, to still the beating,

"I stood repeating

"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance

"at my chamber door.

This it is, and nothing more."

Sometimes things like that just pop up in the mind, don't they?

So...

how you doing?

I have scouted off into the woods here a little bit,

and I have found a place

that I think would make a suitable cooking camp.

There's a space between two rocks

where I put out a gill net.

And that way, if the gill net yields anything,

I'll have a place to take it.

Today is the first day-- I'm kind of feeling, you know--

I think the difference in my diet--

no carbs, no sugars, nothing like that.

So I want to, while I've still got some oomph--

I'm gonna go ahead and do this thing.

♪ ♪

The reason I've chose this location--

I don't want it really close to my sleeping camp.

Obviously, don't want any unwanted guests.

But I don't want it too far away either,

because then you're walking yourself to death,

burning up a lot of valuable energy.

This is the beginnings of the kitchen.

I decided to go with a wilderness motif.

There's the pile of roof material--

some hemlock--

and I'm gonna make the roof

as I did with my living shelter.

It's starting to rain,

and I've got to hurry if I'm gonna get the thatch on this

and get my wood in,

'cause if I have a fish tonight or in the morning,

I won't be able to cook it until this is done.

♪ ♪

What I'm attempting to do is a shingling effect,

'cause I'm starting at the bottom

and overlapping them as I go up

so the water will run from one to the other,

hopefully keeping it dry.

Every time I get in a building project here,

it seems like the weather steps in.

The weather always gets a vote here.

Couldn't have rained at a worse time,

but here it is, so I'm gonna try to crank this out

and get it done quick.

♪ ♪

You know how you hear the expression all the time,

"Man versus nature."

"Man battling against nature!"

Any man that does that is going to die.

You have got to learn to work with it,

or it will run you over

like a beer truck with no brakes on a downhill slope.

♪ ♪

Nature doesn't care if you're here or not,

if you're well or not;

it just is.

And you had better understand what it is

and get with the program

or suffer.

I have a pretty steep roof pitch,

because it rains a lot here and I want to shed the water.

So there's my cooking camp--

kind of a lean-to with a bit of an awning.

And if there's any fish in the gill net later,

I have a place to come handle it now.

I didn't want to have a fish with nowhere to take it.

You know, I want to be really careful

about how I handle my food in predator country.

♪ ♪

I had my first successful run in the canoe.

♪ ♪

It works great.

But the work's not done.

What I need to do now is start to open up the door

on my resources to go from shore fishing and gathering

to being able to go so much further.

So I'm throwing myself together right now.

I'm preparing for a journey--

scout, to take a look at places

that could be potential resource gathering areas.

♪ ♪

Greater access to resources--

that's really what it's all about.

So I'm just gonna take it in stride,

but I can't help but to feel incredibly excited

about what I might see today.

If there's a greater opportunity over there, I'm gonna take it.

If there's more salmon swimming,

if there's more fish in the river,

if there's clam beaches over there--slow-moving protein.

Man, oh, man. I could be soaring.

♪ ♪

Oh, my gosh, I'm catching a current.

How am I gonna get home?

I'm literally just cruising with the current right now.

Oh, my God.

Whoa.

I'm moving.

If there's anything scary, it's just being in a current,

'cause I'm kind of a duck in a pond with this thing;

I'm really not fast or agile.

♪ ♪

I'm gonna go to this beach first.

♪ ♪

This is a big shellfish area.

There's signs everywhere.

Whoa, now I'm spinning circles,

'cause I'm in a quick rapid.

♪ ♪

Oh, man. Dig out of there.

♪ ♪

Go to the beach. Go to the beach.

Go to the beach.

♪ ♪

We'll park the canoe and do a little exploration.

I'm in low water right now.

It's only a foot deep.

♪ ♪

I just landed on a clam beach.

This is a great sign.

Definitely feels like there's a lot of shellfish activity here.

There's mud, it's mucky,

and there's a lot of bubbles going on.

There's a clam right there.

That's where it's been digging,

and it's filling in with water,

so all these bubbles--

that's huge.

There's food.

Slow-moving food.

Ay-yi-yi-yi.

♪ ♪

I'm just gonna do quick scouts from here.

Oh, yeah.

The water's coming up fast.

Already, where I put my boat,

the water has been moving up.

Check this out.

This water moves fast. Look at it.

You can even see it, just literally coming up.

So I've got to move my boat

even to a better spot than this.

And I got to move fast.

♪ ♪

Feels like I literally only have seconds to do this.

Already, where I put my boat, there's 3 inches of water.

Welcome to the neighborhood.

♪ ♪

This is insane.

♪ ♪

Already, the water's come up, like, 6 inches.

Huge tidal shifts.

♪ ♪

I've never seen anything like it.

I landed, and as soon as I landed,

this felt like the whole world just started flooding.

♪ ♪

There's a bunch of currents right now,

so going home isn't really an option.

This would be the time right now to be digging for food.

What I'm gonna try to do

is actually dig up clams.

It might look nice to you guys,

but out here, it's bitter cold.

I have the ability to start a fire,

but it's not gonna do me any good,

'cause I came here to work.

There he is.

Right below the surface. In fact, he's got a buddy.

♪ ♪

So 6 to 8 inches, it looks like,

there underneath the surface.

That might be my biggest one yet.

That's a lot of meat.

I probably have 10 to 15 pounds of shellfish.

I bet I have food for two or three days.

This is huge.

This is huge.

I have found a reliable source of protein and calories

that's readily available.

♪ ♪

I'm also very cold and very wet.

I need to go home and warm up.

♪ ♪

And some funny currents.

They're actually doing circles right now.

♪ ♪

What happens is that there's a big breeze that comes across,

and a lot of currents.

There's also a river that's pouring into this bay,

so there's constant movement of water towards this area,

and this is super bad,

because some of the channels have such force under the tides,

they create these whirlpools--

huge, tremendous force and power.

This is nuts.

Okay, Lucas, quick.

♪ ♪

Very quick.

This is definitely scary

and energy-depleting.

I feel like I'm paddling in pudding.

♪ ♪

I can't make these currents.

It's just too much.

♪ ♪

I just picked 10 to 15 pounds of shellfish.

This is huge.

I have found a reliable source of protein and calories.

I'm very happy.

I'm also very cold and very wet.

I need to go home and warm up,

so that's the next step.

♪ ♪

This is nuts.

This is definitely scary

and energy-depleting.

I feel like I'm paddling in pudding.

♪ ♪

I can't make these currents.

And so what I'm gonna do is find a place to post up my canoe

on this side of the river

and walk my ass home.

It's just too much.

And I need to call it.

I'm fighting Mother Nature.

I'll have to find a path home,

which is being in new territory I've never been.

♪ ♪

Now I'm just gonna cruise along this edge

and see where I can pull up

a canoe that's safe

and walk into those woods.

Just got to go with the flow sometimes, right?

Okay.

Change of plans. Here we are.

So I'm gonna be walking this long peninsula home

with all my gear.

Keeping my canoe right across from the clam beach.

So, get my gear up to shore,

walk home wet,

but at least I got food.

I got food.

For me, if I'm not getting calories,

I start getting weird.

Mentally, emotionally, physically--

all of it.

And this is all about, really,

whether or not I can survive out here.

♪ ♪

Now I just need to find my way home.

So the weather has let off, more or less,

and it's almost all the way bottomed out,

as far as the tide,

so I've decided to go down and look at the gill net.

You can only stay indoors so long

until you start to go mental.

I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking.

"Oh, you're already there, pal."

But there's always higher plateaus

that can be attained,

and I have not fully peaked out...

yet.

So I'm gonna take my handy pot

down to the handy dandy fishing hole

to see what can be seen,

and finding nothing,

I've always got my old backup

of limpets and seaweed.

Yep, I can see the weather getting to people here.

That has to be one of the biggest challenges.

You won't starve to death,

but you may go nuts because of the weather.

So, any treasures in the net today?

Hmm.

Looks like a complete strikeout.

That's all right.

♪ ♪

I remember, early on, they were asking me,

"So what do you think's gonna be

the biggest challenge for you?"

And I said, "Well, caloric intake--

getting enough to eat"--

which, that hasn't been a problem--

"and psychology."

I said, "For every man here,

"it's gonna boil down to those two things--

eating and thinking."

Psychology for sure.

♪ ♪

I could eat limpets and seaweed from now on

and maintain perfect health

physically,

but back to the mental issue,

at some point,

you just want something different.

♪ ♪

Every one of us out here are capable of staying

as long as we want to,

but you reach a point sometimes, mentally,

to where you just don't want to do it anymore.

That's really the waiting game out here,

is to see when that moment strikes.

♪ ♪

But I have business unfinished here.

Still got things I want to do.

Standing by.

Place it delicately upon the flames.

For instance, a limpet kebob--

I've not had that yet.

I want to do that.

Turn the stove to about 375, 380.

What could be better--

limpets lined up on a sharpened stick

roasted to perfection

over an open flame,

seasoned delicately with seawater and ashes.

♪ ♪

Now, if that don't twang your butt and ring your bell,

nothing will.

Man. Mmm.

That's--that's what I got to do.

I got to do that.

Yes, I'll take the number 14,

the limpet kebob

with caramelized slug gravy, please.

No salad, thanks.

♪ ♪

I've already had seaweed.

Right on.

Plenty.

♪ ♪

My gear is growing mold.

That's bad news.

You know, I thought I had frost on my boots

the other morning--

it was mold.

My stuff is just wet constantly.

♪ ♪

Really windy day out today.

Perfect day to dry the clothes out.

Been wet for so long.

I don't even care if they get rained on.

I'm gonna just leave them hanging up here for a long time.

So, they need to be dried

to try to hinder the mold,

washed, and then dried again

before I can wear them.

My clothes are visibly moldy at this point.

See the mold? It's not good.

That'll give me really bad rashes on my skin

if I wear that.

I think this has got to be one of, if not the only,

afternoon that it hasn't been raining.

I'm gonna take full advantage.

♪ ♪

You know, it's tough, man.

♪ ♪

It's tough.

♪ ♪

It's tough watching your gear...

grow moldy.

And your shelter.

It's, like, not even exposed.

Like, my bow is inside my shelter all the time.

It's greased up.

Moldy.

My quiver is always inside my shelter.

Like, 1/4 inch of mold on a bunch of it.

That's crazy.

♪ ♪

And I sleep in there, you know?

It's like, who wants to sleep in that environment?

Cold, wet, moldy environment.

♪ ♪

Who wants to put on boots that have mold on them

in the morning?

♪ ♪

You know?

These are the things that wear at you.

It's tough.

♪ ♪

So we're here.

I'm having a look at the gill net.

The tide is down,

and upon closer examination,

we have had some success

on the gill net.

Whoo, baby!

How awesome is that?

A crab and some fish that are ugly

and I don't know what they are,

but I'll take 'em.

♪ ♪

So there's a crab.

I think I'll have him.

I will let that be part of supper.

I will set him in this pot to hang out

till I get ready for him.

I've got some kind of huge fish on here;

I have no idea what it is.

Maybe it's some time of salmon. I don't know.

He's a pretty good size fellow.

♪ ♪

Catch of the day.

Sever that spinal cord--

that way, he don't have to suffer.

Just gonna break him down

best I can here.

I'm not a professional fillet person,

but I'm just gonna get the most out of it.

Bowl it up, call it good.

Got the beginnings of a nice stew.

I'm gonna add to this catch

a little bit of different seaweed here and there.

I'm gonna throw some limpets in,

and then I'm gonna go give it a bowl.

I'll just use seawater, actually.

♪ ♪

There's the first cooking fire in the cook camp.

Victory.

♪ ♪

This spoon--my first piece of kitchenware on the island--

something I can stir my seafood stews with.

♪ ♪

It has a handy little hanging piece.

You can just drape it on a limb.

All my needs are more than met today,

and I'm very happy.

♪ ♪

Seafood gumbo.

Ready to roll.

Ooh! Hot pan.

So I'm gonna eat.

When I first started looking at the plant life

and realizing I had no clue what all of it was,

I was worried about food, thinking, "Hmm,

I wonder if I'll make due."

But I'm finding new food sources.

Happy about that.

I'm keeping myself fed,

so I've got the ability to keep doing this.

♪ ♪

Man, this is so good.

♪ ♪

Mmm. Mmm.

Wow.

Good day.

Good day. Lot of work, but good day.

Beautiful meal,

beautiful fire...

The only thing I'm missing is my beautiful woman,

my beautiful kids.

Good, good day.

♪ ♪

Oh, yeah.

♪ ♪

So I made it to my beach.

I'm not far...

from being dry

and well fed.

Got a bunch of clams and mussels I just harvested.

I just pulled some food off the fire,

and I can't tell you how excited I am for this.

♪ ♪

Well, besides the sand...

that's really nice.

♪ ♪

It's, like, sweet.

It's so nice to have food that I brought in

from the earth

going into my body.

That boat's making the difference.

And now it's on the tip of that peninsula out there.

It's not safely in my bay;

it's somewhere else.

♪ ♪

Bam!

Salmon!

Frickin' huge. Wow.

He's lively. He's lively, everyone!

I'm gonna go put him out of his misery real quick.

♪ ♪

I think we should be able to use most of this meat.

♪ ♪

Look at these hunks of meat I got.

That's salmon meat.

♪ ♪

What I wouldn't give for some heavy cream right now.

Throw some clams in there.

Oh, my God.

Epic clam chowder.

I definitely only do white.

Red chowder's not chowder to me.

That's a joke.

Oh, it's so good.

Oh, excuse me.

♪ ♪

I had to get out of my sleeping bag

about eight times last night.

Too much shellfish, probably.

Clams and mussels.

So, basically, what you would have seen last night

is me trying to unzip my sleeping bag as fast as I can

and running out into my backyard here

and making a mess on the ground.

I'm sorry that ain't pretty to hear,

but it's just a fact of life.

Sometimes we get sick.

And, you know, coming out the lower end--

at least it's not coming out the upper end.

I lost a lot of heat and energy

running outside every half hour.

Basically my brains out.

You know, it takes a while,

'cause your buns are hanging out and it's cold,

and...

You have to find the right toilet paper

to really clean up that mess.

And by toilet paper, I mean moss

or tree branch--

soft tree branches.

Just trying to stay warm right now.

Get dressed, get motivated to get up

and get some hot water in me.

What will ultimately pull me out

is if I start to feel ill.

If my body doesn't do well with the diet here,

that'll make me pull out.

♪ ♪

All right.

I don't know if I'm done yet.

I think I might still be sick.

Yep. I need to go. All right.

And I'll turn this off.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Well, it's raining.

And it's getting colder along with that rain, so...

I have not done a thing here.

I'm just kind of hunkered down,

waiting the weather out.

♪ ♪

Day 18.

It's raining--

still.

The weather is the hardest on you

psychologically and physically.

It's--it's just relentless.

♪ ♪

When you spend two or three days in your shelter,

it feels less like a home and more like a tomb.

You're just kind of in there,

and it's dark, you know.

♪ ♪

It's day 20,

and there's nothing exciting to report but rain.

♪ ♪

Weather is what will get to you here for sure.

♪ ♪

You would just knock yourself in the head with a rock

to escape it.

Other than that, it's peachy.

It's, you know, Shangri-la.

But the weather--

the attrition--

the slow moving of the weather.

And just--it gives you a little bit of sunshine--

not the whole sun, mind you.

It just shows you the edge,

just to let you know it's there--

enough to give you hope--

and then, when you pin your hopes to that,

you're not looking behind you-- here comes a black cloud.

And then whoosh!

Rain.

Not your average rain--

this is ninja rain.

This rain gets into every crack, every crevice, nook, and cranny

of anything you've ever done or will do,

and it permeates everything,

so that when you're sitting there,

what would be, what should be a normal, easy fire to make--

oh, no.

Oh, no.

You got to struggle for it.

But that's okay.

That's okay.

We will endeavor to persevere.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

When the weather's like this,

it seems like it's a week of crappy days

to every one good day.

♪ ♪

You just get to the point where you're...

You just don't want to be out here anymore.

♪ ♪

If anything threatens me, it's the weather and the cold,

so I have to stay above it.

We're going into the rainy season.

It's nothing but rain.

I've heard this month,

there's gonna be 17 inches of rain on average.

That's being dumped on.

It's intense.

It's gonna be rough.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

I just feel raw out here.

I feel really raw.

I guess just--

I feel like I got so much of--

emotions.

♪ ♪

And I don't have anybody to hide it from.

This camera's pretty nonthreatening right now.

I mean, you guys-- when it goes on TV,

I'm sure it'll be a little different,

but whatever.

You guys can have it all.

I don't care. You can have it all.

♪ ♪

Oh.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

There you have it, ladies and gents:

The view from my front door.

It is a frog-choking rain.

A frog-choking, goose-drowning straight downpour,

and it hasn't let off.

I have not emerged from my shell.

I'm just here in the shelter, man.

The only way I'm coming out of here

is if I need to urinate, defecate,

or some other thing.

But that's boring.

♪ ♪

Boredom...

♪ ♪

The isolation...

This is one of the parts of wilderness living

that a lot of people really don't talk about.

All the books go into great detail

about building shelters and making traps

and getting water and doing all these different things,

but once you've survived that initial period,

then what?

If the weather's bad or there's really nothing going on,

you have to become a master at the art of doing nothing.

Just conserve your energy. Conserve yourself.

So the best thing to do is stay hydrated

and lay still

and just don't get wet,

don't get cold.

♪ ♪

Not a very grand scheme,

but that's what's on the menu.

Days like this are tough.

Your mind drifts to home and things like that,

so you have to put it somewhere else...

Think about whatever...

Anything.

♪ ♪

You know what's true entertainment?

Sumo wrestling.

That's an underappreciated sport.

♪ ♪

You get two guys, 500 pounds plus,

in diapers with their hair slicked back in a ponytail

going at it full bore--

now, that's a good time.

You know, used to be a time when a king

would actually lead his people into war.

I don't think I could do yoga,

even if I did know the techniques.

♪ Ring ding diddle diddle eye-di-oh ♪

♪ Ring di diddly-eye oh ♪

I'm not much on rap music.

I know about Greek yogurt;

I usually sprinkle some blueberries in there.

That's the extent of my knowledge.

Take the heels of both of your feet

and place them behind your ears...

and relax.

♪ ♪

I have entertained myself most of the day now.

♪ ♪

But there's only so much of me I can take.

♪ ♪

I feel slightly restless.

Days like this make you want to hit the old button.

Tap! Ready to go home.

Bye!

Ready to go home.

♪ ♪

Is there no sun in this cursed land?

♪ ♪

You can push that button at any minute.

And if you let your mind wander too much,

you'll start adding up the things that are not convenient

about living out here in the woods

and start balancing it against,

"Boy, I really miss the kids.

"I really miss home.

Miss my wife."

Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi.

But you can't allow your mind to get into that tug-of-war

if your goal is to remain, you know?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

But I do miss 'em.

♪ ♪

Wow.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Wow.

Amazing rainbow.

Oh, that's amazing.

Yes!

Now we're talking.

♪ ♪

Weather is nice for the first time in awhile,

so I'm just out here soaking it up.

Oh, it's so nice when it gets sunny for just a little bit.

When you see the sun,

it's just like, "Oh, man" --

this amazing, marvelous thing.

It's so beautiful.

I love the sun so much.

♪ ♪

And I think I'm going a little bit nuts now.

♪ ♪

It happened again.

Sun's out.

Oh, God.

♪ ♪

Oh, my God.

Oh, thank you, Lord.

Oh.

Oh, my gosh.

♪ ♪

So while on my way to forage,

I had a bout of diarrhea

and decided to go ahead and jump into the ocean

and take a bath.

Hopefully it's not...

Any of the water.

I've been boiling it.

Eh...

I guess any time you travel

and get used to a new environment,

your body has to adjust.

♪ ♪

Oh, the sun.

Phew.

♪ ♪

And that's another thing I have thought about

while I've been out here.

I think we use too many health and beauty care products.

You know what I've used since I've been out here?

Sand and water.

And it has been sufficient.

Just basic.

Good old-fashioned basic.

I think that's where--

that's where we're failing at:

just basic, down-to-earth skills.

We're the only creature in nature

that cannot survive

apart from all this artificiality that we have.

Technology's good-- there's benefits to it--

but there's a dark side.

Something's wrong when you go through your whole day

looking at a screen and pushing a button.

♪ ♪

I'm just saying balance,

I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

In all things, balance.

We're gonna have to slow down,

think--

get back to being real people,

listening to each other.

I think if we focused on what we had in common,

instead of what we have that differs,

then a lot of things would be different.

That's one thing, you know,

with coming out into the woods--

one thing you realize:

there is no hierarchy or pecking order

or social status.

There are so many commonalities.

Air--we all breathe it.

I don't care if you're a billionaire

or a homeless vagrant;

you got to have it.

And the same air he breathes

is the same air that I breathe,

so we have that in common.

And the same with water.

♪ ♪

See, I'm a person that--

I think like Henry David Thoreau.

I actually read Thoreau.

I like him.

I would have liked to hang out with him.

He was probably a really cool guy.

♪ ♪

And here am I, just a speck of dust...

♪ ♪

Abiding his time in patience...

♪ ♪

Until such time as I

don't want to do that anymore.

♪ ♪

I feel like I'm starving.

I need to find sustainable ways to bring in calories.

And so far, I haven't.

There's something wrong.

I'm gonna carve a Paiute deadfall trap.

Highly effective. Instant kill.

I'm a lot better at trapping than I am fishing, anyhow.

Ugh! Whatever.

I can't believe this is happening.

My net is gone.

Oh, my God.

This is very bad.

My net could be anywhere right now.

I think we're all competing against ourself.

I have my regrets,

I've made my mistakes,

and some of them were very painful.