Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

♪

- You never know when you come out into the woods.

It could be an hour, two days, three months

before you are sick and tired of things.

Piece of [bleep].

I have a pretty big problem.

I can't seem to find my ferro rod,

and if I can't get a fire,

then I can't stay here.

- If you suffer a mechanical injury,

there's nobody here to help you.

You have to know how to help yourself.

Only stop

when your heart says stop,

but never give up

because the challenge is hard.

[bleep].

I can't lift my thumb.

I can't lift my thumb. I can't lift my thumb.

Mother[bleep].

- Who are you when everything's been stripped away?

[bleep].

[yelling]

- It's scary out here in these woods.

- I have not had a serious meal in a week.

- If I can't get a fire, then I can't stay here.

- It's always in the back of your mind,

"Well, I could tap out."

- Putting up with this filming [bleep]?

- 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! Ah!

- $500,000 is a lot of money.

- It's just gonna keep getting harder.

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

It's me that needs to change.

♪

I can't lift my thumb.

I can't lift my thumb. I can't lift my thumb.

Mother[bleep].

I don't know how deep it is.

[groans]

♪

Ow.

♪

[groans]

[groans]

[bleep] damn it.

[sighs]

[groans]

[groans]

[groans]

♪

Hey-oh.

♪

Elevate.

Elevate.

Hold it up.

- Pressure. - And pressure.

Add pressure.

- Please, can I have a look at it?

Whereabouts is it? Just here?

- Uh-huh.

- Deep--it's about an inch long.

Can you feel your fingers, before we do that?

Okay, what we're gonna do

is we're just gonna bandage it up

and then take you out to the hospital.

The pain's starting to set in.

[bleep] pissed.

Hey, don't be pissed.

♪

Are you all right standing up?

Yeah.

- Got you. I got you.

♪

Go down that far side there.

- Take it down the s a little bit.

♪

♪

I'm extremely frustrated.

I mentally hadn't even

reached that mindset

of, "What would make me

want to walk out of these woods?"

♪

Something as stupid

as cutting myself with an ax

took me out of this unbelievable experience

of a lifetime.

♪

[birds calling]

♪

- I try to be as careful as I can, obviously.

Everybody does,

but I try to sheath my ax

every time I'm done using it for a little b

and I don't know if you noticed my saw,

but it's mostly a backpacker saw.

I try to put that away

when I'm climbing over stuff

that I could get hurt, you know.

Fall and hit myself on the teeth.

When you're out here in the woods, it's just amazing

how hard everything is

as far as, like, to walk and...

It's--it just saps the energy out of you.

It's not--obviously, it's not--not--

it's not like walking on a sidewalk or--

or walking to your car on asphalt

or something like that.

It's--and especially these woods.

These have got to be just about the hardest woods

I've ever had to try to climb through.

There's no deer-- there's no deer trails

that I've seen so far.

You know, up on top of the ridge up there,

there's--it's a little bit more open,

but, you know, everything is just rot

and solid just--

just stick your foot right through there.

So...

I need a drink of r, is what I need.

♪

I have a pretty big problem.

I can't find my ferro rod.

But I--I was able to sort of

rewind the footage.

And it rolled down the fire pit...

into the fire,

and it's not in there now, so...

I guess I need to go find stuff

to do a bow drill with.

♪

You know, when I'm doing friction fires

in the Southwest, where I live,

you can just sort of crank on it,

you know, and have a coal

within just a couple of seconds,

abe a little bit different here.

It's constantly wet.

Stuff just needs to dry out.

It's just gonna take a little bit of time.

So here are all my pieces.

I have a socket rock here,

a spindle, board,

bow, tinder.

Let's give it a go. Let's see what happens.

Heat is being created by the point

where my spindle meets my board

and the process of spinning,

but heat by itself

doesn't cause a fire.

If heat is in an airtight box,

it'll just remain as heat.

So I need oxygen.

You carve in a notch

roughly, like, 1/8 of a pie

going outward from the center of the hole

that I've burnt in here.

And then the last thing that a fire needs

in order to exist is fuel.

This little, black, sort of charred dust

falls into the notch that I create,

and then with some oxygen flowing in there,

you eventually get a coal.

Hopefully.

♪

I'm so disappointed in myself right now,

but I can't let it get me down.

♪

Last season, when the guy

lost his ferro rod,

I was thinking to myself,

"How can you

lose your ferro rod?"

And then when he said

that friction fires were impossible out here,

I said, "Hmm.

I don't really know about that."

♪

It's getting lots of smoke.

That's good.

♪

But smoke does not always mean a coal

by any means.

♪

[wood squeaking]

I need to go find a different rock.

This is just tearing up my spindle,

and I'm getting

so much friction from the rock.

I'm not able to get this thing hot enough.

♪

I can't believe something like this happened.

♪

If I don't get a fire, I have to...

♪

There's no way I can be here

without a fire.

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

[birds calling]

♪

Mmm.

I'm gonna give you a little tour.

I thought we'd walk around today

and show you where I live.

This is the beach

that I walk out on every day.

Behind me is the bay where I live,

and I've gotten used to my new home.

I really love my camp, which is where I'm gonna

take you to next, because it feels like home.

I picked it because it feels like--

it kind of reminds me of Oregon.

♪

Well, the longest I've been away from my kids

is seven weeks.

It'll be a lot harder to be away from them

for this length of time.

- I'm confident my mom will do well out there,

because she's awesome,

she's independent,

because she's awesome,and she's reliable.

Want some?

I am a professor.

I am a safari guide in Africa.

I work primarily with the Kalahari Bushmen,

and I am a primitive skills instructor.

I teach medicinal plants,

how to make medicinal tinctures.

♪

I'm definitely resilient.

My biggest struggles probably have been health.

♪

I have multiple sclerosis.

15 years ago, I couldn't walk.

I'm on all this medication.

Couple years into that, I just said,

"This isn't working for me."

Oh, and there's heal-all.

It heals everything.

Started with Ayurvedic medicine.

Make most of my own herbs,

and nature was one of my biggest healers.

The other big thing that has impacted me

so strongly is...

ooh, I'm gonna lose it here.

[laughs]

The other thing that's impacted me so strongly is...

[crying]

The death of my stepson two years ago,

and...

♪

He drowned.

He was missing for a long time,

and I spent a month looking for him.

♪

The Pacific Ocean is what took him away,

and that's where I'll be living.

♪

I don't know if I'm doing this for him.

I'm doing it for my kids,

to be able to grow up and know that they can do

anything they want.

All right, it skipped.

It's a great personal challenge for me.

Oh, that one skipped.

I hope I shine.

[laughs]

All right.

♪

I'm gonna work on my shelter again today.

The back still has a lot of shoring up

it needs to do,

and by "shoring up" I just mean, like,

getting debris, shoving it in there,

and making sure that it's toasty warm.

[birds shrieking in distance]

Something in the forest over there.

birds aren't squawkifor nothing.

It's fun--it's fun to listen to all the bird alarms.

When I lived in Africa,

I'd listen to the birds and know where a snake was,

or know where a leopard was,

or a lion.

The birds really were my friend, you know?

They--they're what gave me that awareness

of what was around.

They really tell you what's going on.

[birds shrieking in distance]

All right, I need to get back to work.

♪

- No wonder I'm not a weatherman.

Right after I thought it was gonna be nice,

it's raining.

Oh, well.

I actually do like this shelter that I'm in right now,

but this watercourse right here

just worries the snot out of me,

so I have to move.

I've found two huge cedar trees

that have fallen over

a semi-level area of ground,

and if I can huddle under those two trees,

that might work.

♪

So just to make my trips

up and down that hillside

a little easier,

I'm gonna cut me some steps, basically.

All they are, are gonna be stakes.

♪

They'll be handholds. They'll be footholds.

Then I can get up this-- this incline,

and they'll be there

for as long as I need 'em to be,

so now they're done.

[rain falling]

Much easier.

[seagulls cawing]

I can see where I'm gonna need a couple of--

a couple of supports.

Couple of ribs, you might say.

There's a few ridgepoles down there.

I need to go grab 'em

and bring 'em up.

[exhales]

[breathing heavily]

I didn't see that.

Oh, [bleep].

♪

[bleep], I'm lucky that didn't go

in my [bleep] collarbone,

you [bleep]-sucking piece of [bleep].

[bleep] you.

♪

[bleep] piece of me.

♪

[bleep] you.

♪

Son of a [bleep].

That almost cost me.

♪

- Okay, made myself a qulittle digging stick

out of a dead branch.

I'm after some roots.

Where I live in the North,

we use spruce roots

as nimble,

strong thread.

So now that I have some roots bundled up,

I want to peel them.

If you have a strong thumbnail,

you can peel 'em by hand.

♪

Here's a cleaned bundle of root,

and here's one that's not cleaned.

To keep them nice and supple,

just need to store them in water.

I hope to stay out here a long time,

'cause, oh, man,

I have so many projects I'd like to make.

♪

I'm originally from Spain,

now residing in the Yukon territory.

I look at the world with the eyes of somebody

that is an aboriginal-minded person.

♪

Nothing but projects in this house.

I tanned the hides,

and then I put it together.

I have been teaching wilderness living skills

for many years now,

and this is a wonderful opportunity

to put these things to the test.

Whenever I have traveled

in North and South America,

if there was a native elder

that I could spend time with

and see how they were doing things, I've done it.

I've traveled thousands of miles, literally,

to take up on those opportunities.

I'm happy you can go,

but I'm gonna miss you.

I have my wife, Shauna.

A son, Humiel.

He just moved back to Spain,

and Shauna has a son, Kyle.

You make sure you don't behave yourself while I'm gone.

Yeah.

She knows who I am,

and she understands.

She's gonna be the main thing

that I'm gonna miss.

- Did you mix them? - Oh, I didn't, no.

[meat sizzling]

- I think I have a good shot at doing well,

because I've been out in the bush quite a bit

all over North America and Europe

and South America,

but n't like to express myself in a way

that is not humble,

because lack of humility

is a sure way to have trouble with nature.

♪

Humility prevents humiliation.

♪

If I now tell you,

"Oh, yeah, this is a done deal,"

and then something stupid happens,

like you slip on a wet log

and you break an ankle,

then what?

Where are your proud words now?

♪

That's a slippery son of a gun.

♪

I really want to finish one particular project.

The fireblower.

It helps me, basically, bring a fire back to life,

even if there's just a tiny little coal remaining.

So now my job is to hollow these guys out,

except the last bit,

and then tie 'em back together.

So there's a big, wide channel,

but it ends in a smaller little channel

that I'll carve in there.

When I go to a camp like this,

this is one of the first things I make.

After this, a wooden spoon and chopsticks.

♪

Today...

♪

Gill net day.

♪

I've been waiting to see whether or not

this was gonna be my permanent location,

and, well, this is it.

So gill net's going up today.

That way, I can start bringing in something

a little more substantial.

You know, I tried handfishing out here

and didn't get a-- even a nibble,

nor did I see a fish.

So we'll see what happens.

♪

Here's my plan,

'cause I don't want to rub my net over all these rocks.

I'm gonna take this lodge pole,

tie this off to it,

take it over, anchor the other side

to the rocks,

and then roll it out.

But right now, I'm gonna roll it up.

That way, it's not getting caught.

And I got to move a little diligently,

because tide's coming back in.

And just so everybody knows,

these rocks are all razor-sharp.

They are just covered in barnacles,

and it's probably the biggest worry

I have for my net.

♪

[animal calls]

Hey, hey, hey.

[animal calls]

Go away.

♪

Precautionary measure.

♪

You know, running into a predator here

is kind of, like, not an if.

It's a when.

I'm not so much worried about the bears.

Wolves, no.

They pretty much, you know,

they stay to themselves.

Cougars?

Now, that's another story.

And I'm a little meatier

than the other contestants out here.

Well, we'll see.

♪

Who knows?

♪

Bringing gillnet

in place.

♪

- ♪ Oh, ho, clouds will pour their potion ♪

♪ If you get a notion that

♪ Life is so long

♪ If you get a notion that

♪ Life is so long

[animals calling]

♪ Think of the world in motion

♪ Clouds will pour their potion ♪

♪ Trees and the ocean

♪ And sing this song

As you can see, this debris goes really fast.

I'm gonna need a lot more

to fill this in.

It's the never-ending theme, isn't it?

But it's a good start.

[animals calling]

Please tell me you hear that.

[animals calling]

[whispering] What the hell is that noise?

♪

[animals groaning]

That is insane.

[animals calling]

♪

What is that noise?

Listen to this noise.

[animals calling]

That was insane.

It was like-- [growling]

[gasps] There's a bear.

Oh, my [bleep] God, there's a bear.

[bleep].

[dramatic music]

♪

- [gasps] There's a bear.

Oh, my [bleep] God, there's a bear.

[whispering] Oh, there it is.

Oh, my God. It's beautiful.

See it?

And it's going up that river,

which makes me think,

maybe there are salmon there.

Oh, wow. Hi, bear.

So I heard...

So I heard, like, a crazy--

I heard, like, a crazy noise, like--

[growling]

Which, I swear, was--

two Sasquatches having sex was my--

was my first, like, go-to,

really, on that.

But there's a bear.

That's Blackie.

That's my local bear.

[animals calling]

There's that noise again.

[animals calling]

I think it's the bear making that noise.

I don't think it found fish over there.

I'm kind of curious

what it's eating.

Didn't look like it was eating berries.

Maybe just the grass.

I'm kind of wondering if they eat this.

What I'm eating now.

See that?

This sea asparagus.

This salicornia.

I wonder if it eats that.

It'd be cool if the bear and I...

are eating the same stuff.

Maybe I'll turn into a bear.

All right, bear, you stay over there.

Please stay on that side of the bay.

That's what I ask.

Please stay away from my camp.

Thank you.

♪

- I finished hollowing out the other piece

with a small hole

coming out the front.

This is a blower

that puts air under pressure

in the part of the fire

where you need it most.

So this here, when I tie it back together,

I'm gonna use roots for that.

Once you get used to this implement here,

you don't like to manage fires without it anymore.

When you wake up at night,

and a couple of little embers

are the last thing you have from your fire,

putting a stream of air right there

is a fantastic asset.

So here's the finished thing.

[air hissing]

You hear that?

[air hissing]

It really revives fires,

and then I also just discovered...

it can work as a didgeridoo

if you know how to play it.

Not that I'm a good player at all.

[instrument buzzing]

♪

It's really good to have some form of music

out here.

Keeps you company.

I think it also sends a message out

to all your wild neighbors.

♪

You're not...

this shy, quiet presence in the forest.

You are a presence

to be acknowledged.

[instrument buzzing]

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

- I have to say, I've never done a friction fire

in an environment this wet before,

but there's no way I can be here

without a fire.

♪

So I have two very different paths

that I can go down.

One being--just sort of call it

and go home.

Or two,

I can commit myself to it

and--and get it done.

♪

Found the rock.

See that indentation?

It's smooth.

It's a hard rock, so it's not gonna

bind or anything like that.

I'm not done here yet.

There's still things that I

came to do that I haven't done, so...

I'm not gonna let this

hold me back.

♪

now takes priority

over anything else.

♪

I had a mentor in my life who said...

♪

His definition of a decision

was to cut off from all other possibilities.

♪

That's kind of where I'm at.

[wood squeaking]

I'm determined to make this happen.

[groans]

[wood squeaking]

♪

Ignite.

♪

[wood squeaking]

♪

I keep going and coming back

and going and coming back,

taking a break.

It's exhausting.

♪

Why won't you ignite?

[dramatic music]

♪

[wood squeaking]

I just got to keep on going

with the friction fire.

[wood squeaking]

♪

All's I need is one fire.

[wood squeaking]

♪

Holy [bleep], I got one.

Oh, my God.

So when...

When this starts smoking,

all that dust that you built up...

That's how you know you got a coal.

This one coal

is the start of my fire

from now until I leave.

I can't let this coal go out.

Well, I guess I could,

and then I'd have to go through that process again.

That hellacious, long,

miserable process.

♪

How am I gonna keep this going 24 hours a day?

♪

Well, it's going now, so...

♪

That's all that matters.

[groans]

♪

[sighs]

♪

Oh.

[laughs]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I got a twofer.

One crab and one fish.

Here you go, folks.

♪

Throw that in the pot.

Then come over here

and do the same.

What a day.

All this smoke's gonna kill the scent.

♪

'Cause we are in big predator country.

One fish,

flame-roasted.

That is good.

♪

[chuckles]

That was only a few hundred calories,

but a few hundred calories

that makes you feel better.

I feel good that I made it seven days.

'Course, I had no doubt.

See, I didn't come out here to find my breaking point.

I already know what my breaking point is.

I have been through

some pretty tough stuff

that started in childhood

and went through my law enforcement years.

♪

The pinnacle was September of '97.

♪

I had...

♪

just finished my day

working the road.

And then I heard the tones go out over the radio.

"All units,

"there is a shooting in progress at the plant

"off of the 118 bypass.

The individual is actively shooting people."

And the thing that was ringing in my head was,

the sergeant that we had

kept saying,

"At the end of your duty day, you go home."

And I radioed back.

I tried to call back to the office.

Nobody was answering.

Should I stay?

Should I go?

And then it just hit me.

You're going.

And I flipped on the lights and sirens,

and I get up to the front of the plant.

People are coming out.

"He's in there. He's over there.

He's in there," and then I hear gunfire,

and they've got this young lady

they're dragging out of the back

of the building,

and I could tell by her wounds

that she was gone.

♪

If I hadn't have had those moments of indecision

and gotten there quicker,

I probably could have saved her.

♪

But I have carried that guilt with me.

And still, to this day,

it weighs so heavy on me.

And I feel responsible for her death.

It's been hard for me.

I don't know. It's late.

Tell you about the other stuff later.

I don't feel like talking anymore right now.

♪

[animal growling]

- Sorry, thought I had a bear in camp.

[leaves rustling]

[animal snuffling]

[leaves rustling]

Hey, hey, hey.

Go on.

Twig snapping.

[leaves rustling]

Go on, get.

Get out of here.

[animal panting]

Whatever it was.

I can hear sniffing.

[animal panting]

[animal groaning]

[animal groaning]

It's like a whining and a huffing

and a really deep huffing noise.

Sniffing right here at the back of my head.

♪

[air horn blaring]

Get on out of here.

[animal calling]

Get.

[bears growling]

You heard me. Get.

[air horn blares]

[air horn blaring]

[bears growling]

Okay.

[flare crackling]

[bears growling]

Get the hell out of here. I see you.

[bears growling]

Get out of here!

[bears growling]

Go on, get.

[bears growling]

Oh, man.

[bear groans]

That is a cub.

Get out of here.

- The aloneness and the hunger compound

to make it way more difficult.

- Already, my stomach's growling.

I have to hydrate. I have to drink water.

No! [groans]

Got something in my gill net.

Oh, and I let him go.

My mind needs to stay busy.

- Don't have the energy to do anything.

There is nothing in my gill net.

Nothing.

Oh, my God.

The bears are here.

♪