Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

♪

Get on outta here!

Oh, man. That is a cub.

This feeling of remorse hit me

for being so aggressive.

You know, I hate to do it, but, yeah, I'm gonna tap.

I'm determined to make this happen.

Holy [bleep], I got one.

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

- [groans] - Fire blower.

Helps me basically bring a fire back to life

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

- There is nothing in my gill net.

If I can't get fish, I'm not gonna make it.

- Oh, my God. Bears are here.

[cub mewls] Not good.

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

[bleep].

[yelping]

- 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'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.

[moans]

♪

[grunts]

Ah.

- Okay, so this is... [chuckles]

this is almost definitely the dumbest idea

that I've had since I've been out here.

But it has the potential to be the funnest idea.

[laughing]

Yeah.

[grunts]

Now I just need to attach a handle.

This is one of those things

that serve no practical purpose whatsoever,

but the one purpose that it does serve

is huge out here.

The hardest part is really the mental aspect

and every single time I swing out,

it puts a smile on my face.

That's huge out here.

[laughing]

Oh, my God. This is the funnest thing ever!

It's part of life too.

You gotta have things that you enjoy.

You gotta have things that are fun.

You gotta have things that make you smile.

And that's what this rope swing has given me.

[Tarzan yell]

[laughing]

♪

- My net didn't do too well out here in the surf.

My other stake pulled out.

[grunts]

I am very disappointed in the performance of this net.

It has caught nothing

in the week or so that it's been up.

Man, head rush.

Bentr, stood up.

Have to learn not do that.

So far out of the ocean I've just had a couple of meals

of limpets and a lot of seaweed.

♪

Every campsite needs a place to sit.

[exhales sharply]

It doesn't have to look like a chair.

It just has to be a nice, comfy place to sit.

[exhales sharply]

Chilling on a log and waiting for low tide.

That's what I'm all about right now.

I'm hungry.

♪

I'm really hungry.

♪

I feel like crap.

I don't have a headache, it doesn't hurt anywhere.

It's not pain; hunger is a different kind of thing.

Physically, it feels like apathy,

if that makes any sense at all.

Getting my motivated and getting myself moving

is just...

a very hard thing to do.

♪

I have a SAT phone.

I can leave this experience at any moment.

Stepping out of this suffering is literally a phone call away.

But there's that $1/2 million prize,

and I think that--

that would be a life-changing amount of money for me to win.

I'd love to have something to give to my kids.

I'm sick of being the dad that always has to say no.

"Hey, can we go out to dinner?" "No, you can't."

"Dad, can I ha--" "No, you can't."

Can't afford it,

can't afford it, can't afford it.

It's like--it's like a knee-jerk reaction with me

because I've been so... broke all year.

So, yeah, that-- that prize money would be huge.

There's just no way I can go home.

I can't go home.

So whatever it is that I have to

endure out here, I have to endure it.

Whatever it is I have to put up with,

I have to put up with it.

Whatever it is I have to figure out.

I have to figure it out.

I have to finish this.

You know, whatever you do,

do it all with the glory of God.

I want to do well.

[soft music]

♪

- I should turn my headlamp off.

So it's, uh, really dark in here with my headlamp off.

So, uh, I went down and checked my gill net today,

and there was a mom and two cubs down there.

[dramatic music]

The bears are here. [bleep]

- Oh! Mama bear just stood up on her hind legs.

Not good.

♪

That was, uh, that was really exciting.

There's a lot of bear activity right here.

And, you know, predators aren't something to trifle with.

And, uh, I wasn't going to go disturb them.

Hopefully those bears will stay on their side

of the wa-- of the river.

♪

I slept great last night. Oh, my God.

Went to bed really early.

I got up a little earlier than usual this morning.

Went out, did a couple of things,

and walked around. Peed.

Now I gotta go check my gill net.

I'm guessing it'll be empty just because

salmon aren't running yet, but one of these mornings

they'll be running.

And that'll be a glorious day.

I'm gonna go this way just in case

the bears are coming out that way.

I don't wanna totally shock 'em.

I'm not afraid of the bears, I just don't wanna scare 'em.

You know? 'Cause then they get scared,

and then scared animals, in general, do stupid things.

Hear big splashing in the water.

I'm just checking out this tree line.

Looking for-- oh, there they go.

Birds are alarming over there. There's something over there.

Holy crap.

Oh! Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. It's big.

[gasps] That's beautiful.

There it is.

Glad I went with the big gill net.

All right, hang on.

Okay, well this is it.

I caught my first fish in my net.

It's-- I'm not exaggerating.

It's this big. It's two feet long.

Now I gotta make sure I get it without cutting my gill net.

♪

I need something to whack it over the head really hard with,

like a stone.

All right, sweetie. Here we go.

[dramatic music]

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

[water splashing]

Fish is just too big.

Cutting your head off really is the best idea.

I don't wanna keep it in misery.

I know. Try to stay--I know.

Gosh.

Just severing the spinal cord real fast.

There'll be a lot of blood in this water.

Just need to get through--

oh, there we go.

Oh.

These gills are really bright red.

Just looking out for bears

'cause they're gonna smell blood.

It's not very windy today, which is good.

There we go.

Oh, my, it's heavy!

This is, like, a feast.

I wish there was someone to share this with.

It's like-- it's really heavy.

It's a big fish.

♪

Colton, these eyeballs are big.

They're like 3/4 of an inch.

You would love these eyeballs, Colton.

Look at those. It's got great eyeballs.

My, uh, my son, Colton, would love that.

When he was little, someone told him

that if you ate the eyes of a fish,

you could see underwater.

And he totally believed that.

The size of my thumb, that eyeball.

Ooh. I'll cut it out.

I'll eat it in honor of you.

I'm gonna do this kinda right here in the water

because when there's blood coming out,

I don't want the-- I want it to run down.

I don't want it to be right here.

Oh, so slippery.

Maybe I can balance it against--

oh, I think it's a male.

I see semen.

See all that semen in there? You see that?

Yeah, this is all-- that's all semen right here.

Gotta make sure there's nothing there.

Watch out for bears. They like it right here.

♪

All right.

There. That opened beautifully.

Just beautifully. Ta-da.

So I've got the center part done.

All right. Just cut right along the spine

to flatten this fish out.

Oh, my God. It's beautiful.

All right, I think I'm bear-free.

We're all competing for the same thing.

And the salmon haven't run yet. The salmon are late,

so the bears are, uh, the bears are hungry.

Oh, my God. It's so heavy.

It is so much meat.

So I've got two huge filets on either side.

Got the center spine.

I didn't get right up as much of the spine

as I would've liked.

'Cause I'm gonna eat that too, for sure.

Okay, I'm gonna go, uh, clean all this off.

Time to bring it up to camp and get a fire going.

♪

Let me show you this smorgasbord I've got going.

I've got salmon in the pan.

Salmon that I put between two tripods.

I've got fresh cedar sticks smoking.

I'll move it over the fire when that other one is done

to smoke more.

That smoke is going right into this piece of fish,

which is gonna be great.

Later I'll move it right over the fire.

This fish that I have now I can keep just for a few days

and just keep eating off it.

As long as I keep it out of the hands of the bears.

Being really careful to keep it all right on this board

and not to spill any.

'Cause what I don't want are predators coming around,

so I'm going to-- going to make suhat, uh,

that I don't leave anything, that I burn anything,

and the rest goes way deep into the ocean.

There's my salmon.

I'm just gonna eat.

'Cause it's really good.

Oh, my God.

I can't believe I'm eating this well here.

I am a happy, happy girl.

[soft music]

♪

- Today, the priorities are gonna be

I'm gonna work out a little bit

just to, uh... [snaps fingers]

get my cylinders firing.

Uh, 'cause they're not right now at all.

I'm not a huge gym buff, you know?

I'm not, like, a "bro guy," you know?

But, uh, I enjoy working out.

So what I've done is I've built, basically, a gym.

All right, we got, uh...

two new additions to the gym...

AKA: Muscle Beach.

'Cause it's a beach and it's the gym.

First we've brought over the, uh,

chain that I found.

And also...

my new pull-up bar.

Yep. That happened.

Just knock this out.

I enjoy being physically active, you know?

And I think that it's an underrated part of survival.

I look at survival, especially long-term like this,

as living.

You know, I work out in my own life.

Why wouldn't I work out out here?

I think some of this comes from being in the military

for so long as well.

I'm not gonna do it to the point

to where, you know, I'm expending so many calories

that I'm just draining myself.

But it keeps my motivation levels up.

It keeps, you know, kinda everything up.

Finding things that you can enjoy

even though the weather's horrible

or, you know, it's kind of a miserable existence,

makes a huge, huge impact

rather than just kind of sitting there waiting it out.

[groans]

Think when I, uh... [chuckles]

when I get back, maybe I should start

a survival workout program.

That's not gonna happen.

♪

- I never realized sea otters are such a big creature.

They're like the size of a small dog.

♪

What a happy life, just float around on your back.

Go down, eat some seafood.

Come back up.

Float around on your back, swim around,

play with your buddies. That's a cool animal.

♪

I'm thinking what I need to do

is catch some of those sea otters

and train them

to bring me fish.

♪

They have my cove all figured out.

This cove is my universe.

And I have to adapt myself to it.

I just have to make use of what is here

and figure it out and just stay alive.

I've got an idea for active fishing.

I can see that there's fish swimming in the kelp

just below my point here.

And this is the first time I've actually seen fish

of a size that I can eat swimming in my waters.

So that means I have to try and catch some of these fish.

Okay now, the secret to doing a cane pole

is you don't just tie the string

onto the end of the pole.

You tie yourself a safety line

back below.

♪

So if the end of the pole breaks off,

you don't lose everything.

♪

am desperately hungry right now.

And I want to eat.

That's pretty much the end of the story for me.

♪

Oh, man. That one stole half my bait.

They're hitting it though.

♪

Ah!

♪

Yes!

♪

- Two weeks out here and no fish to show for it.

That's embarrassing. I'm sorry.

I'm at the point now of total embarrassment

that I have not caught a fish.

I'm hungry.

I'm really hungry.

♪♪

Yes!

Yeah, baby!

Oh, yes.

That's a big ol' fish.

I'm gonna have a meal.

I'm gonna have a meal!

♪

Oh, thank you, Lord.

♪

Oh, I gotta go make some fish stew.

That is a good feeling.

♪

It is a lot easier doing this waist-high

than down on the ground.

♪

I'm a happy man.

This has definitely taken away that hollow feeling

that I've had for the last several days.

It gave me hope today. It really did.

It really gave me hope.

I just want to do well at this thing, you know?

I just want to make my kids proud

and let them see their dad persevere and tough it out.

I can feed myself here.

And I need to do that on a regular basis

to stay here as long as I possibly can.

[exhales deeply]

Thank you, Lord for this food.

Oh, that is good.

[soft music]

♪

When I lost my ferro rod,

I wanted to go home.

I need to get my head back in the game

if I'm gonna do this.

I can't just sit around and hope for--

hope for the best.

I need to take action.

I'm gonna start on a permanent structure today.

I'm gonna do it using two different structural pieces

to hold it all together.

I'm gonna be pounding posts into the ground,

and then I'm going to take a piece of cord,

and I'm gonna wrap the cord around each of the posts

to be able to just hold it all together.

And then the other way is I'm going to, uh,

actu notch each of the logs

sort of log cabin style.

I'm doing this for two reasons.

You know, one, obviously having a long-term shelter

and having some comfort is gonna improve my morale.

It's gonna just make me happier.

Also, two...

winter is coming.

This is one of those projects that is gonna require

a lot of energy.

It's a lot of work going on very, very little food.

I haven't really eaten any...

any meat, so...

I'm definitely, like, running pretty low on fuel.

Got my trout line out and traps.

That's my first real attempt at getting some food,

but I need to have a consistent source of food.

The process of doing this without anybody else...

the isolation, you know, is difficult.

It does get to you.

Just start to search for things to--

to communicate with.

Even if it's yourself.

You know, like you start having conversations in your head

where you're talking to yourself,

and you're saying "we."

I'm like, "All right, well what are we going to do today?"

"We"? What am I talking about?

There's no "we." It's just me out here.

And that is arguably the most difficult part

of this journey.

So these are the walls on the inside.

Barely even see. Let's turn on the infrared.

So that's as high as my back wall is gonna be.

It's basically just a log cabin lean-to essentially.

Here's what it looks like from the outside.

[chuckles]

Amazing.

The process has been definitely laborous and exhausting.

And it's taking a lot of calories out of me.

[groans]

[bleep], I'm hungry.

[soft music]

♪

All right.

I gotta get moving 'cause it's a little chill in the air.

I could see my breath last night when I went to bed.

[exhales]

♪

It's really feeling like the rain is coming.

And I have a feeling once the rain comes.

we're just in for the rain.

It's not gonna stop, so getting ready.

This is the front of my shelter.

So I've started to put a door in.

These are my final-- this post on the left

and this post on my right are my final two beams.

is thing leaning in here...

it's going to be my door

that will come in and out.

♪

There are some big storms that come through here.

♪

I know that the storms are gonna hit really soon,

and rain is just gonna be... [whooshing]

This door fits pretty snugly.

Now I'm reinforcing the front of this structure

to make sure that the whole thing is covered.

Hopefully this will keep both

the warmth in and the cold out,

but also the wind out as well.

Perhaps we'll see rain tonight.

[dramatic music]

♪

- Well, I wouldn't want to be out on a raft

on this.

Normally this water's really calm.

Just passive.

It's just super rocky today.

The wind has been going crazy fast.

Like tornado.

I don't know. I mean, I'd say...

probably, you know, 40-50 mile an hour winds easy.

Just, you know, kicking.

♪

And now it's raining.

And I gotta go back to camp.

[bleep].

♪

All right.

[groans]

[grunts]

♪

[heavy raindrops]

Yeah, hey.

It's really coming down, so I have the, uh,

thought I'd turn the audio on here.

[heavy raindrops]

My, uh, lean-to is not leaking at all.

We have had intense rain, so...

I feel really snug.

It is really dark though.

I'm, uh, getting ready to go.

Got my raincoat on,

and I'm gonna go check my gill net.

And the storm's going... [whooshing]

King of whipping around.

It's really sheltered in this, uh, in this hut.

I don't think you can hear it as much

as is actually going on.

Whoo.

Ahh!

Oh, my God, I'm getting blown over!

Wow, that was crazy.

My gill net is way underwater.

Looks...

I think a lot of it's showing,

but I can't get to it.

It's way too--

It seems like the water's really just blowing...

in, which is--

like, the waves are coming and making it hard to get to--

to the--that area.

I'll have to keep watching it today.

Yeah, it's really raining.

I'm gonna, um, I'm gonna head back to camp

and, uh, before I get gusted away here.

Just kinda get settled in for the day.

[dramatic music]

♪

- I came out to the beach this morning

just to check things out.

This iout as high tide as high gets.

And the surf is just amazing here.

I've never seen it this rough.

That's where I clean my fish, on that twisty-looking thing

where the surf is beating down right now.

If I was to go fishing, that's where I'd go fishing.

All the way out there.

I would have to cross all that water

to get to my fishing spot.

Normally at low tide, I can walk out there.

Look at it now. It's just surf.

And this is--this is as rough as I've seen it.

The water is murky and evil-looking.

♪

This is a tragedy, people.

My giant twisty kitchen thing is drifting out to sea.

That is the most important feature of my beach,

and it's leaving. Come on, don't go! No!

No!

[dramatic music]and it's leaving. Come on, don't go! No!

♪

I'm so scared.

[chuckles]

[coughs]

Oh.

The wind is really crazy.

It's not raining too much,

but the wind is just going nuts.

Don't really have much to do

in the way of chores or work.

Everything is pretty--

pretty much revolving around food.

And tide's about halfway up,

so there's no food to get.

I might just hunker down in here.

You know, over the course of active duty in the military,

years of my life had been spent in isolation.

You're sitting in a tiny hole with, you know,

a couple of other guys

for three, four, or five days.

And you're pissing and [bleep] in a bag, you know.

You learn things to do to kinda entertain your mind.

And now, ladies and gentlemen,

the moment that probably

none of you have been waiting for,

other than me.

When I first saw this bad boy,

I was thinking, "That is a tube.

And I can use the tube for a lot of cool stuff."

And hopefully we can give it a little--

little test drive here.

And that is a win.

No longer do I have to leave

the comfort of my room

to urinate in the middle of the night.

Believe it or not, it's a pretty big moment.

[soft music]

♪

Rainy day, windy day.

Very windy day.

Wouldn't want to be out at sea on a day like this.

♪

I'm gonna go walk over-- walk over to the fish net.

See if I can rescue it.

Let's see what the situation is.

A lot of stuff in the net.

Like kelp pieces and whatnot.

You have to go in the water.

We're basically freeing it then make it work again.

That's the last darn day

a guy would want to be wading in the water here,

but it's hard to see how deep it is.

Ooh.

[grunts]

It's already past knee-deep here.

Probably going to drown here like an idiot.

And the wind picks up some more.

♪

What a tangle.

♪

[grunts]

Lot of kelp.

Oh, man. I could do without these waves, I tell you.

♪

Huh. There's a salmon in here.

Lordy!

Well, that's a reward.

Salmon.

Not too big, but not bad.

[heavy raindrops]

I don't know if you folks can even hear anything.

'Cause it's raining about as hard as it can

but I'm eating salmon.

so I don't care.

I'm having the best meal...

I've had since I've come here.

So the salmon are coming towards the coast.

They're looking for places.

[dramatic music]

♪

Good morning.

It's another beautiful day here in British Columbia.

What else can I say?

Gonna walk down and...

gonna check my traps.

♪

Trap number one.

Not triggered.

And the bait is gone.

Man.

I need to figure out a way to make this way more sensitive.

♪

- Think I'm gonna try to start eating these slugs.

I don't want to, but...

I'm getting pretty hungry.

♪

Next trap.

♪

Triggered.

Do we have anything to show for it?

♪

Oh, my God. Look at that.

♪

♪

Nice.

A little mouse.

My first bit of meat in 14 days.

All right, well let's cook up our mousey-mouse here.

What I like to do is just...

singe all the hair off.

So this guy is all singed.

And then you could just...

you don't need to spend too much time

skinning him or anything.

You just sort of peel the singed hair off.

I'm super excited to eat this right now.

You could just peel open the stomach

to take out the guts.

But I leave in, like, the heart and the liver.

Delicious.

Mm-hmm.

And I'll just throw him directly on the coals there.

Just let him cook.

♪

I feel like I'm starting to find my pace.

I'm starting to connect more with the land.

But I'm just not pulling in any fish.

♪

So I don't know.

I gotta try some new fishing techniques.

Gotta try to make a living off the sea.

Because when winter comes here,

animals are gonna be holed up and might not be there,

so I gotta figure out a way to get some fish.

♪

Little leg.

Mmm.

And that's the only bit that's left.

Just the teeth.

The teeth are just too hard.

Actually, no, they're fine.

All gone.

[sighs]

Well, that's it.

Breakfast of champions there.

- If I end up in the drink and swimming,

then this could be the end of my journey today.

- You build and you build and you build,

and when you run out of things,

then you're just sort of left here.

- A mouse has completely destroyed my gear.

I swear to God if that thing chews my sleeping bag up,

I'm blowing this place up.

- I've never been alone for this long before.

I am craving human companionship.

- I really miss my loved ones.

Oh.

♪