Original subtitles

This is the hardest terrain.

Patagonia. It's a different environment entirely.

Everything out here is so hard.

Patagonia's no joke.

Are you willing to give up who you are for what you will become?

Has Patagonia forgot things?

Patagonia! It's tougher than I ever imagined.

She's missing home right now. You get a feeling of helplessness, like, why am I

doing this? Oh, my God!

The last person left won $500,000 and is a badass.

Bam!

What is that?

It's just how far you can push yourself and what you're able to do. You don't

have anyone to lean on. Go to bed hungry, wake up hungry.

Can't believe I did that.

It's going to come down to mental endurance and food deprivation.

First to be dead in a week at this rate.

Whoa, that's a big cat.

We're about to get dropped off at the edge of the earth, Patagonia, some of

the most desolate terrain known to man.

This is the hardest challenge anyone can do. It's such a vast, harsh location,

and we're completely alone.

We're all going to be on this new foreign land leading into winter.

It's going to get nasty.

No storms and winds.

It's just going to come down to pure gut.

Holy cow.

All alone.

The biggest thing to be worried about are predators.

Boar is just running rampant, and there's puma. I mean, who's not going to

be scared of a cat that weighs almost as much as me that wants to attack from the

back by grabbing my neck?

Oh, my God, this is it?

We don't know what the resources are like down here, so it's up to me to

figure out all the different ways to live on a foreign land for an

undetermined amount of time.

What did I just do?

Wow.

I'll never be in a more beautiful spot.

I see some cool things around here already. I see some bamboo.

I see a stream running into the lake.

I see humongous peaks. I see awesome trees.

And I see a lot of opportunity for me to succeed.

I'm going to try to get a quick shelter set up tonight.

I think I found a sweet little spot.

I want to get something set up quick and easy so that I can just get out of the

elements if it starts to rain and I have a place to lay my head for night one.

I need to keep myself warm. I need to keep myself dry, get a fire going, and

stay out of the elements because those are the things that are going to kill me

first. This is no joke. I mean, this is the edge of the earth.

It's very remote.

This is rugged country out here. It's cold.

Mountains are huge.

It's not easy living.

This is the real deal.

I feel that I'm ready to be tested and to really put my mind to the test and my

skills to the test for this journey.

My current job is a high school teacher. I did start

a survival class there probably about eight years ago.

So my knowledge of survival from when I started that class until now has grown

exponentially.

My strongest skill set is probably my positive attitude.

PMA is what I teach all my kids in all my classes, positive mental attitude. I

have kids walking down the hall, you know, they're like, PMA, Mr. Shields,

PMA. I'm like, PMA, you know, and that's what I teach in my classes because it

makes a difference between everything in life.

My wife and I, we had some trouble having our own children. It was a little

bit sad for a while, but we kind of feel like it's...

Happening for a reason.

They're in the process of adopting three boys.

And, you know, we've been involved in this process probably since last summer.

We were looking for siblings, you know.

We didn't just want one child.

So as soon as we kind of like started the process, they're like, wait, you

want three?

We're like, yeah, that's exactly what we want. And we have three boys coming to

us. You guys going to miss daddy?

Are you kidding?

Of course they will.

How is it going to affect me knowing that the kids are on their way, so to

speak, and my wife is sort of dealing with this on her own? I knew that it was

happening, and she knew, and we had a long talk, well, many long talks, and

this is what I wanted to do, and she wants me to live my dreams, and this is

one of my dreams.

My strategy is to kind of mentally block that stuff out. I mean, I hate to say

it, but to get through this, I think that's going to be something I'm going

to have to do.

Not bad for...

A little bit of a day's work.

So I'm trying to get some fire stuff together.

Some of the shaggy stuff in the bark, as you can see.

Just kind of want to scrape it down.

Matter of fact, this is looking pretty good.

Let's give this a shot. I just want to test a little piece of this tinder and

see if it goes up.

Here we go, baby. Come on.

Nothing around now.

I have a long way to go, but at least I got fire. I got a little shelter set up

for the first night.

So I'm feeling pretty good.

Instead of trying to get situated, I figured I would just take a quick little

walk and see what my new property has to offer.

And I'm just going to try and take in the whole area and just examine the

landscape and then figure out what my first step is going to be.

I should probably go over towards where the sun is, but that also might be where

it gets more wind because of the exposure.

I'm looking for a spot to set up for at least tonight.

And then when first light hits tomorrow, finding the next spot for a long, long

time.

Just trying to get a feel for the landscape right now.

Pretty steep.

Very gnarly and wet.

Got to make sure you're careful with your steps. Everything's slippery.

Watch your feet, Campbell. That's what I always tell you. Watch your feet.

Watch your feet.

See if you see any tracks in the mud.

Here's a deer track.

Yep. Which way is it going?

This way. Yep. My son, Campbell.

He's so special to me, and everything I do is for his betterment. We have a

bobcat around our house, and we're going to try to catch it. This is my fort.

Everything I've learned through the culmination of my life, I get to share

with that little boy, and I'm trying to build him into a great person, and he's

already well on his way.

Do you want to know anything about the way it looks or the animals or anything?

Yeah, I want to know what the animals are.

I'll tell you what, there's going to be something like Zuko, but it's much

bigger. Bobcat. Bigger.

Lion? Not a lion, but a mountain lion or a puma.

Those are cool, aren't they?

Mm-hmm. Are you going to really hunt them?

I'm not hunting those, and hopefully they won't be hunting me.

How long will you be gone? More than 30 days?

We'll see how long I'm going to be gone, but it could be 30 days.

It could be 40 days.

50, 60, or 70? It could be 50, 60, 70.

It could be 300.

We'll see.

It should be fine while I'm gone.

I work in accounting, which is such a contrast to the things that I enjoy to

do outside of work.

Bushcraft is kind of instilled in my brain. It's something that I've always

been doing. I want to show what I can do, what I'm capable of. Bye, buddy man.

Take care of mommy, right?

Okay. Be a good man.

I'll be the man of the house. There you go.

I'm looking for a plot that's about 20 by 20 feet and is flat.

And that's going to be hard.

Let's see what's over here.

Definitely need to hit some layers.

We're getting hot in here.

I want to start sweating.

And I'll get cold really fast.

So...

Look

at that.

A complete skeleton.

And over here, a cow skull sitting up here.

Good gracious.

You know what? Look at that.

There's another size mandible in here that does not go with the size of that

skull.

It's possible that it was taken out by a puma and dragged it back here and had a

fantastic feast.

Maybe I'm sitting in a damn puma.

kill zone what's that

I hear a noise

something is around here

Here's something.

I'll dismiss it.

You won't hear a puma.

Still on the search for a good first night camp location.

Got a bunch of game trails right here.

Pathways are trampled to death.

Oh, now that is a lot of very fresh boar scat.

Flies still on it fresh.

That kind of gives you the idea of the size of pig I might be dealing with.

I was worried about seeing boar activity.

Boars like to come out right when the sun goes down and disappear right before

day.

That might just set one little snare, just out of curiosity.

So I just put a little simple slip knot on the end and made a loop.

I'm going to have it hanging head level, maybe a little bit lower.

I'm not exactly sure of the size I'm dealing with, so anything coming down

this path in low light will go right through there.

Hopefully I'll hear it and be able to get out here to it. And that'll be my

dinner bell.

I plan on setting a lot of these.

This is just the first one.

I'm worried about losing daylight.

I'll tell you what, right now, I can make that into a nice little shelter.

Keep it simple for today.

Venture out tomorrow.

Keep it simple.

That felt really good.

It always feels good to jump in the water.

Yeah.

Okay.

Anytime I come to a new place where there's a body of water, I go in it.

It's a way of deepening my connection with the earth.

I'm really inspired by the land.

I really see a lot of possibility for little things I want to do.

I was able to put up my little temporary shelter.

It's cozy, but I'm going to take my time, take it slow.

This isn't about trying to survive out here.

That is not how I'm looking at it at all.

I am totally looking at this as this is my home. This

is where I'm moving to.

We like to thrive in my world.

I am not planning on being out here and not being comfortable.

So I'm going to make a chair.

Check this out.

Now we've entered the bamboo forest.

No, a chair is not a necessity.

But being comfortable is so important out here.

It's just a way of feeling at home.

I would not claim that I'm the most skilled by any means in terms of

bushcraft, but my lifestyle lends itself to doing something like this.

I've lived off-grid for many years, and I've been pretty much alone most of that

time. Knowing how to problem-solve and think critically and self-soothe, all

that, is really what I think separates the people who make it long-term versus

the people who go home early on.

The prize money is a huge factor for me doing this.

What I would do is buy the piece of land that I live on. You know, I don't have a

partner, I don't have kids, but I have this incredible net and support system,

my family and my community and my friends. When I'm out there, I can draw

upon that foundation.

But I've never, ever gone more than two weeks without talking to my mom.

That's going to be the biggest challenge for me.

Okay, so we got the frame of our chair. It's kind of a recliner.

I'm digging it.

Dig it.

Okay, so now I'm going to go up and out.

So we need to do a little bit of fashioning of these.

Already I feel like I'm thriving.

You know?

I can see that already I'm using projects.

as a big form of distraction.

And I feel very good about the home I'm creating here, and I have so many

projects in my mind.

That should do it.

Oh, yeah.

Even something as little as a chair.

It can make all the difference.

I hope I see a UFO when I'm out here.

This would be prime UFO locating.

I hear a noise.

And I'm trying to figure out if it sounds like a distress call, like

something is stuck in my trap.

That's what it sounds like.

I want to confirm before I go running off into the woods.

Something's, ooh, let's go check it out.

Got my knife.

Sounds like something in distress.

Creepy sound Here my heartbeat I

set my trap over here

Sounds like something in distress.

My trap is still set.

Right there.

What is that?

It's way up there.

I do have my sheath unsnapped.

On an unlikely occasion, I do have to pull it out and fend off something.

And no easy win.

I guess I'll just head back to the fire.

Predators out here are something that's definitely lurking in the recesses of my

brain. I just have to be very careful and mindful and not be careless and just

try and stay focused.

Sleep tight.

Day two.

Feels good to say day two.

Feels really good to say day two.

Been waiting a long time to start day one, and now I'm on day two.

I like that.

I've got big plans for today, but I've got to take advantage of all the

daylight.

I think I'm going to try and make a teepee today.

I'm going to have to build a pretty kick-butt shelter to withstand the

winds, the snow that's going to come.

It's going to be one of the most serious winters I've ever experienced.

One of the primary concerns is thermoregulation and keeping my core

body temperature where it's supposed to be.

So I've decided to whack down a couple trees with my axe, put up a wrap-and

-frap kind of tripod to work, maybe.

Now the moment of truth.

And just add probably five or six more logs to that.

And then wrap the tarp around it.

The reason I like this design is because you can keep a fire in the middle of it

to keep you warm through the night. And also the smoke will escape through the

top.

Hey, America.

How are you?

Hey.

Time to try to get a bed going real quick.

You don't want to lay on the ground.

It's too cold.

Suck the heat out of your body, and then you get sick and die.

A single bamboo stick wouldn't hold anything, but you get all of them

together, pretty sturdy.

It's weird to think about that this is not me just teaching a class at school

or messing around in the woods near my house. This is real.

My body is so awesomely tired right now.

You know when you've had a really great day of working hard physically and your

body's just like... Today

I spent the day doing some

more exploring.

Coming out here...

It was very clear that I was not going to be hunting more.

You know, I'm not a huntress.

I really wanted my focus to be on foraging and fishing.

I just set one line out.

I found a nice little stash of firewood, which I think I'm going to go and try

and gather more of tomorrow.

I also foraged.

Found a lot more mushrooms and tons of berries. Look at this beautiful bowl of

fruit.

This place is unbelievably abundant and so beautiful.

I'm just so looking forward to the future here.

Oh, my God.

Wow, what a beauty.

Okay.

Thank you for your life, fish.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to make nice fish head soup.

Now this I'm going to save for bait.

Should we see what was inside the fish's stomach?

Wow, look.

An entire shell.

Look, a beetle.

So the trout seem to be eating whole snails, pieces of stick, and a

beetle. So I'm going to use the beetle from the inside of the stomach as bait.

Starting to get into a groove here.

Understanding the different rhythms and patterns and how you interact with the

land, how the land interacts with you, what resources the land has.

Oh my gosh.

Check it out.

I can't believe I caught two fish.

It's an amazing feeling.

Da-da-da!

Hello?

Ah!

It's dark all the time here, and then it rains.

I thought if I can just stay busy, it would just go away, but the thoughts are

overwhelming.

It's having a moment here.

It's raining out.

What am I going to do?

I have all these ideas. I want to put in a stone floor, expand my shelter.

I found a tree cache for wood.

But it's raining.

And I just... It's dark all the time here.

Then it rains. Want to play it out?

Day three, day three,

day three.

I keep thinking about my wife, and I keep thinking about three kids that

we're adopting this summer.

I thought if I can just stay busy, it would just go away, but I'm just sitting

here.

The thoughts kind of just are overwhelming.

I can't get that out of my head.

It just won't go away.

Number one rule, survival, stay positive.

PMA, positive mental attitude.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't have the skills.

It's just a matter of one skill that I can't control.

My brain.

Hello?

I am tapping out.

I do feel ashamed, I really do.

Thousands of people would have wanted to be in this spot, and I got here, and

this is what I did.

Hey, guys.

I'm done. I tapped out.

I have so much going on at home.

my wife and we're adopting these three kids this summer and it's like i can't

get out of my head i go crazy and work hard and you know just stay busy but it

just keeps getting back into my brain and i can't i just can't get rid of it

when you're really truly alone it's it's another story um so that hit me

pretty hard that hit me hard after just a few days and that was it

I probably underestimated Patagonia.

I really thought I could do at least a month.

It's cold here.

It's wet. It's dark.

And survival's not easy. It's not easy at all.

It's harder here than you think.

Being alone, it takes a special kind of person.

It's just not something that I guess I was ready for.

This is me on the third day.

Oh, I'm not doing it right.

I'm supposed to be looking at the camera and looking at the thing.

All right.

This is me.

Do it again. No, looking at the lens.

Man, I got to turn that thing away. I just cannot not look at it.

This is me on the third morning.

All right, that's all you get.

I found myself a little area.

It's only like 15 feet from where I was dropped off.

But my choices are limited.

My sight is almost completely uphill.

It rained all night.

This whole area was soaked with water just coming down the hill.

All my stuff is damp.

I need to move further up and further in.

When you're going somewhere to settle a place, you don't just stop at the most

miserable place you can find and try to make the best of it.

You push on until you find the promised land.

So I've got to explore my territory, find a spot where it plateaus above,

where it's safe, where I can make something permanent.

Just looking at the best way to go up this hill.

This is what I'm working with here.

It's a 45-degree angle heading up into the woods.

This is one tough place.

This hillside is so treacherous.

Almost impossible to walk through.

There could be a whole different ballgame going on up there.

It's kind of the way it is here. You go around the corner and...

over a hillside or around the bend, and it's a different environment entirely.

Looks to be signing a game.

That looks like a big boar.

You just got to be careful.

This is crazy.

This is pretty freaking crazy.

Four will aggressively attack.

You can't let your guard down.

I read somewhere a plan of attack.

Never survives first contact with the enemy.

Already, I have found that to be true.

Maine's nothing compared to this.

Big spin.

I live in a yurt off-grid in Maine with my wife, Jamie, my daughter, Abigail,

who's four, and our daughter, Sparrow, who was just born to us almost a year

now. Yay!

Think of ourselves as minimalists.

We don't have running water unless we run and get it. We don't have power

until we turn the power on at night for light.

My skills for survival and things are self-taught. I am living a survival

situation every day.

My greatest skill set is my ability to build stuff.

If I can imagine it, I can make it.

So are you going to miss living in the yurt?

The prize money is kind of a big deal to us. We could really use it. We want to

build a bigger house.

It would be like a 10-year jump in getting us towards that goal.

You remember, trust your struggle. You just don't give up when it gets hard.

I won't. I'm going to miss you so much. I know.

I see this as an opportunity and a stepping stone to build a better life

for my family.

Down there somewhere.

is my beach area.

Look at that mountain range.

Gorgeous.

The way I live at home is so tough and rugged that I know about not giving up

until you are safe and secure for the night.

Further up and further in.

This massive tree tipped over.

The root base is up there, and it goes down, and it's just, it's huge.

I was thinking of incorporating this big tree into the back of my shelter as a

back wall, so if I slept up against it and the rest of my shelter came out from

there, it might protect me from anything that fell from the trees.

I think building a shelter here will work really good, but...

Heading up and down that hill every day will be a real challenge.

Holy crap.

Look at this.

Big pile of bones.

This is unreal.

Kadapuma.

Take down a cow.

If I move up here, I might be moving closer to his territory.

My goodness.

Down here setting up fish line.

I want to try out fish hook way out in the water.

I found a spot where I plan to build my shelter.

With all the resources of bamboo and stuff that are up there, I can build a

pretty damn awesome shelter.

I'll just go up and work on what I can each day and come back down.

Maybe a little work on the trail as I go up the hill.

This will be the interesting part.

Got one fish line in.

Get one in every day.

There's something big crashing around out there.

Just got a glimpse of his eyes.

That's a big cat.

Whoa cat.

Whoa cat.

A lot of people go through life never learning how to be alone.

Out here, there's no time off. You take a break, you're done. Oh my God, it's

like quicksand.

I'm in Patagonia so that I can evolve as a human being.

Thank you.

I am who I am and I got to do what I got to do out here. I can't get warm. I

can't move my hands.

Water's coming up about a foot from my bed. This is a bad situation.

When all of the things aren't going very well for you, then the isolation is what

starts to give you. Got the fish.

I've heard that noise yet. The duck trappinator.

And a motor out there.

Survival isn't about being happy. It sucks.

Oh, my God.

There's definitely something outside.