Original subtitles

'I'm Ben Fogle,

'and over the next few weeks,

'I'm going to live with different people who

'inhabit some of the most remote locations on Earth...'

There is nothing here.

'..from the mountain forests of northwest USA

'to the freezing Mongolian tundra,

'the barren Hungarian countryside to the wild African bush,

'a Mediterranean island and the deep Canadian wilderness.'

'These are the people who decided to make a massive life change.'

I said, "So, what do you think?

"Shall we just do it, give up everything?" And, she said, "OK."

'Are they daring or just downright crazy?'

Come on, Ben. Oh!

We didn't even know where Mongolia was!

This is who I am, it's not who you want me to be.

'I want to find out what happened when you quit the rat race...'

If the whole world folds up, my pension is here.

'..and create a new life in the wild.'

'Today, I'm heading to one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth.'

North America's majestic Appalachians.

This is a crazy place.

Uh, no. That's a crazy place out there.

This is not a crazy place.

I'll be living with Tod Kershaw,

a forest dweller with his own unique way of surviving.

Truffle Parmesan mac and cheese - love!

'I'll find out why this former engineer,

'stripped away all complications of modern life...'

He's very complex. He's a scavenger.

'..and how he's created a like-minded family.'

We've got a lot of weirdos here.

Really? Yeah.

Weirder than you?

I see him in a lot of ways as, you know, an elder. Mm-hm.

He's very wise.

My journey begins 6,500 kilometres away in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I head northwest towards the Pisgah National Forest

and its 500,000 acres of immense forest peaks.

No-one's sure, but they say there's about 180,000 families here in the

United States living off the grid.

So that means they're not connected to the electrics, water,

they get no government assistance.

They effectively live as wild families,

but they're increasingly under pressure

because more and more states are making it illegal.

Tod, who I'm off to stay with, is incredibly secretive -

he doesn't even want me to reveal the location.

Which does lead me to wonder whether he's escaping something,

he has something to hide or he just doesn't like the government.

Finally, I reach my destination,

a dense patch of steep forest that's been my host's home for the past

ten years, and it's surprisingly close to the road.

It's a lonely kilometre uphill into the woods.

Tod?

'There is evidence of people, but there's no-one around.'

This is a bit creepy.

Oh, my God. It's like a horror film set.

This is very strange.

There's bones everywhere. What's this?

It feels like I'm trespassing right now.

It doesn't feel like a welcome place if I'm to be honest.

Hello?

Tod?

Oh, hello! Hello! Who are you?

Hello. A friendly dog at least. Hello.

Yep. I'm not very friendly, but the dog is.

You're not very friendly? No.

You must be Tod? I must be.

Hey, Tod. Welcome.

Who's this, as well? That's Early. Early. Hi.

Glad to meet you. How are you?

Pretty good, pretty good. Up a little earlier than usual.

This is a crazy place. Uh, no.

No, that's a crazy place out there. You hear that road noise?

That's a crazy place. This is not a crazy place.

Tod Kershaw was born in Baltimore,

but spent his childhood travelling with his family

while his father was in the army.

At 30, he graduated as an electrical engineer.

He earned $50,000 a year,

but working long hours in a lab took such a toll

that Tod quit the industry.

Ten years ago, aged 40,

he and his then girlfriend moved across the US to North Carolina

for a life in the woods, with no income and their own rules.

There's a lot of stuff here.

We have a term in England - hoarders.

People that just hoard stuff. Are you a hoarder? Um...

I gather a lot of stuff that makes sense to me to have,

cos you notice most of what's there

is tools, or junk that can be turned into useful items.

There's not, like, you know, records, vinyl LPs

and toys and coffee mugs and stuff.

It seems like there's almost too much stuff, though, for one person.

I'm not the only person who lives here.

There's several other people that live here.

It's kind of a transient community - a lot of people come and go,

and right now there's about...

I think six of us who are living here more or less permanently.

The property stretches for 30 acres through steep, dense forest,

but no-one who lives here owns it, and they don't pay rent.

The landowner agrees with her tenants chosen way of life

and is happy for them to stay

if they pay the property taxes of just $600 a year,

which Tod makes from blacksmithing.

Everyone has built their own home, made from wild materials.

This is my house. This is your house?

This looks like it's mud, straw... It's clay. ..clay.

Clay and straw. Can I have quick look inside? Of course, please.

Oh, wow, look at this.

Wow. This is an assault on the senses, Tod.

So, you've got a little wood-burning stove,

so that keeps you nice and warm.

It does. That's the east wing over there.

Oh, the east wing. That's the east wing, and this is the west wing

over here, and this is the centre wing. So we have an east wing,

centre wing and west wing.

Am I sleeping in here? Am I sleeping in the east wing?

No, no, no. No. You're sleeping in what we call the stick shack.

At the bottom of the wild camp runs a stream

for drinking water and washing.

There's no plumbing. For the toilet,

you either water the trees or use an aptly named compost bucket.

This is called Crap Haven.

Crap Haven! I wonder what happens in Crap Haven.

Well, I'd tell you to look in the bucket and you could figure it out,

but I just emptied it this morning. Oh, did you?

Nice.

I tell you what... It's got a nice view, right?

It's a crap with a view. And then this is the crap shack.

Crap shack, so what's the difference?

This one's falling over.

THEY LAUGH

One narrow path hugs the hillside around the camp

connecting the different shacks.

The farthest away is the outdoor kitchen

with its open fire for cooking.

There's a vegetable garden,

and the forest is filled with edible wild plants.

Supposed to be full of vitamin C.

I don't know, I just love it. That is nice! Yeah, isn't it?

Down through a clearing, I finally spy my humble home for the week.

I think I see why it's called the stick shack, Tod.

Why would you say that? Well, it's a bit sticky.

It's sticky, yeah, yeah. A lot of spider webs in there.

Oh, nice! There's a lot of animal bones, Tod.

Well, we put all the human skulls out of sight.

Yeah, these are...

There's a young man named Chris who's been spending time down here,

and he collects animal bones

and sticks them in the sticks, as you see. Wow.

Is this actually weather-proof?

Er, from the top, mostly, from the sides, no.

OK! I gathered that. It used to be fully weather-proof.

I lived in this house for three and a half years.

Right. I'm going to go and settle in. Help yourself.

Thanks, Tod.

Look at this.

What is that?

Animal bits everywhere.

I mean, look at this place.

Everywhere I look is... There's stuff. Look.

If I get hungry in the middle of the night,

I just put out a mouse-trap and catch a mouse.

I mean, this is someone's place, isn't it?

Look, it's their slightly scabby duvet.

I'm not picky by the way. I'm pretty cool with most things, but this is

quite scabby if I'm to be honest.

But I'm fascinated by it. Absolutely fascinated.

I haven't really met a Tod-like person before.

Highly academic, you can tell. He's thinking, thinking, thinking.

He strikes me as someone that doesn't leave anything,

ANYTHING to waste.

'I'm in the Appalachian Mountains adapting to life in the forest.

'My host does live with other people, but they're away at

'a primitive-skills gathering,

'and no sooner have I arrived than Tod says we're also leaving.'

So, this is your truck? This is my truck right here, yep.

For some reason, I didn't...

I didn't think you'd have a truck.

It doesn't seem part of your...lifestyle.

I mean, OK, looking inside, you've got lots of bones and

animal hides and things, so I suppose it's in aesthetic keeping.

Is this road-safe, is it road-legal?

Yes. It is. It is legal, yes. OK.

It's not going to fall apart on us? As far as the safe question,

I try to keep it as safe as I can.

ENGINE SPLUTTERS AND STARTS

Tod was given this 26-year-old truck for free.

And he spends virtually nothing on fuel

because he runs it on recycled vegetable oil.

Apparently, we're going shopping for dinner,

but I don't see how when neither of us has any money.

We'll probably go to a few supermarkets, yeah.

But we won't go in the front doors, unless you really want to.

We're going to go round back

and see what Mother Dumpster has to offer us.

I'm a bit confused. What, so we're actually going to get rubbish?

Well, what's that old saying,

one man's trash is another man's treasure?

You know, if these people want to throw away perfectly good food,

I will be very happy to eat it.

An hour's drive away, we arrive in Tod's dumpster diving heaven.

I've been going here for, well, about ten years.

Let's go have a look, shall we?

What have we got? What's the first thing? Dr Praeger's Spinach Cakes.

Gluten-free, tasty mix of spinach, potatoes and onions.

Perfect at breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Individually wrapped, that's more plastic to go in the oceans. Mm-hm.

And I think I just have to get in.

To me, it's a lot of fun.

I enjoy this. There we go. What have we got here?

Unsweetened almond, cashew and hazelnut drink.

I think I'm going to take all of this. All of that? Sure, why not?

'It's not illegal to dumpster dive,

'but the dumpsters have to be in public areas.'

What about this? True Whip? Oh, God!

Are you kidding? OK. Talk about shite.

What have we got? Ooh! Truffle Parmesan.

Truffle Parmesan mac and cheese.

Love!

Look at those ingredients.

I assume you're not going to take that?

You know, it's tempting.

It's not every day you find truffles in the dumpster.

I mean, it's unbelievable the amount of food waste in here, isn't it?

But, you know, it's not just the food waste.

Look at all the plastic, look at all the paper. Yep.

Tod has several dumpsters he regularly visits.

Let's see. Greek Gods Greek yoghurt, chocolate cherry.

I couldn't get over how much food is in there. And like I said,

that was nothing. That was nothing compared to normal.

Does it... Does it make you angry?

When you see all that? Yeah.

Still now? I mean, you're used to it. Does it make you angry?

Yeah, it does, I must say.

Does it make you feel like, shit, I'm going to grocery stores and

giving people money and then

they're throwing all this stuff in the trash?

That's what it makes me think,

except I don't go to the front of grocery stores.

What happens if the state passes a law, for example, that all dumpsters

have to be locked and you simply can't access them any more?

Have you thought about that? Yeah.

I've thought about it.

Would you shoplift?

You know, I tried shoplifting a little bit, and I get so nervous.

Are you nervous about the law?

Oh, fuck, yeah. Of course.

You know, when you're living on the fringes of society,

you're always a target for the law,

and the job of the law is to keep society functioning the way

it's supposed to function. One of the jobs of the law. So, yeah,

I feel very threatened by law enforcement even though

I don't do anything that hurts anybody.

As we arrive home and step back into Tod's other world...

Oh, that feels so much better.

..I want to know what happened in his life for him to become

this opportunistic outsider.

I got set up by a friend and wound up going to prison, briefly.

I got a year's sentence, but I got put on a programme for first-time

and non-violent offenders.

Was this drug-related? It was drug-related, yeah.

When I got out of prison and realised I had to change my ways of

doing things, I started taking

classes at a community college and I graduated and

got my bachelors degree when I was 30 in electrical engineering.

And I just found myself in this laboratory one day working on these

devices to make cars more efficient and I had these gloves on and

I had a respirator and I'm wallowing in poisons and I just think, "OK,

"am I going to save the world through more poison?"

No, we're not going to save the world with more poison.

If we're going to save the world, which I don't think we are,

we're going to do it with less poison.

Tod and his girlfriend became interested in

a back-to-basics lifestyle and primitive skills,

and they wanted to share this with like-minded people.

We realised that we couldn't just do it alone.

We were both getting on into our 40s.

We realised we needed a community around us, so she started searching

the internet and she found this place.

And we came for a visit,

spent about six months under a tarp down by the stream and went back to

California, got rid of all our stuff,

and then we came back here and I've been here ever since.

And she, unfortunately, had to leave -

she had mould allergies and couldn't live here any more.

Despite our earlier food foraging, I still haven't eaten.

And Tod wants to make sure I get some protein

with our dumpster treasures.

You know what? I should just expect the unexpected now.

Is this...? This is a beaver?

Yep, it's road kill I picked up this morning.

I love the way you're just so matter-of-fact about that.

How do you know that this is now edible?

You know, I've eaten animals in various states of decay,

and I've never gotten sick from it.

If all your senses tell you that it's OK to eat,

then it probably is.

If it doesn't look good, if it doesn't smell good, if you push

on it and it goes... HE BLOWS RASPBERRY

..doesn't sound good, maybe it's not good to eat.

OK. Give me a knife, let's get stuck in.

Starting right there, right in the butt hole.

What's the most unusual animal you've found as road-kill that

you've scavenged? I have eaten mountain lion and bobcat

and fox and coyote.

I'll eat just about anything except liver and bell peppers.

You realise that means if I pass away here, you're going to eat me?

No, no. You're very definitely a domesticated animal.

OK. Just checking.

I think there's legal things with that, too. Yeah, I think so.

'Unfortunately, it doesn't look like much of the animal is edible.'

Yeah, this thing got hit really hard.

Well, at least it died very quickly. Yeah.

This is so much worse than I expected. I really thought that

most of this beaver was going to be good and edible.

I think we can salvage some of the haunch.

We can take it and wash it and see what we get. Mm-hm.

Hm.

I've smelt better, I've smelt worse. I might just be smelling my hand.

Well, I can tell you that's quite...

It's quite pungent, but if you're happy?

Well, we'll rinse it off really well and smell it.

Does that worry you? No, but...

I imagine my constitution isn't probably quite as strong as yours.

We'll see.

Down at the stream, we wash our dinner.

So, I'm still smelling that smell a little bit,

but not to where I wouldn't eat it.

It's also the only place we can wash ourselves.

This is how we bathe.

'I've dived into the deep end with Tod's life, really,'

and that's obviously a big part of his ethos here,

to be opportunistic. Whatever is around, he will consume.

As the sun sets in camp,

with our dumpster foraged onions and road-kill beaver,

Tod promises me a feast.

This is bear fat that was rendered in 2010, so about six years ago.

Still perfectly edible to my knowledge.

I like that little caveat at the end, "to my knowledge".

Yeah, you've got to always throw that in there.

I think it will be delicious.

Well, yeah, I was going to say, it will either be delicious

or poisonous, but it could be both.

Given that there are other people that live here and I'm assuming

they're going to arrive some time tonight, tomorrow morning.

Probably. Am I going to fit in? Will I be the odd one out?

I don't know, we'll see. We get a lot of weirdos here. Really? Yeah.

Weirder than you? I'm not weird. I'm a retired engineer,

you know, I'm basically a mainstream, middle-class, white guy.

It's kind of unusual the lifestyle that you lead, though, isn't it?

It's basic retirement, I don't know what you're talking about.

Um, you know, I sold my house, so I had a bunch of money,

I paid off every debt I had in the world,

I didn't have a family and so it was very easy, really, for me

to make the choice to come out here,

but I know a lot of people who I think would

like to do something like this, but they have families

and mortgages and careers and things like that.

They have a lot more to give up than I did. So it was easy for me,

but for some people, so many more ties to normal society.

OK, what do you think?

Well, I think one of us needs to try it. OK.

I'll try the first one, unless you want to be the brave one.

Look at that. How could that be bad?

That's pretty damn good.

There you go. I recommend you use your fingers.

It's a little bit hot, but not too bad.

Chewy. Yeah. Gamey.

Yep. What does it taste like?

There's a little hint of acidic-ness. Yeah.

Yeah, I definitely tasted that a little bit.

That's pretty good, though. I like it. I tell you,

that is a pretty good, weird, strange first meal.

And hopefully not the last. No.

I'm in the forests of the Appalachian Mountains

in the east of the United States.

So far, I've been alone with my host, Tod,

but overnight, the rest of the community who live here returned.

I was just a tiny bit concerned someone might try to join me

in bed last night,

but then I am staying in someone else's stick shack,

but I seem to be alone.

I know there's other people here, I've heard noises, voices,

but I've no idea how many people, who they are.

It kind of adds to the mystery.

Wow. Lots of people.

Hey, everyone. Hey. Good morning!

Hey, I'm Ben. I'm Will. Hey, Will. How are you doing? I'm Jonathan.

Morning. Nicky. Hey, how are you?

I'm Chris. Chris, how are you?

Wow! There's so many people.

These wild residents come together for breakfast every morning.

On first sight, it looks like quite a young community. It is.

How old are you? 21.

I love this on your head. What animal have you got up here?

What do you think? Racoon?

Mm-hm. You have those, right?

Not racoons, actually. Interesting.

We've got badgers, that's the closest.

And where did this come from?

Road-kill. And did you process the skin yourself?

Hm-mm. Did you? This was, like, the first racoon I processed and ate.

It's funny. I was doing this

when I was living somewhere else and I, like,

was looking it up on the internet, YouTube videos and stuff,

so this was, like, really desperate... Really?

So that's how you learned how to do it?

Yeah. On YouTube videos. Mm-hm. Wow.

Uh-huh. Can I just say, it's slightly overwhelming to see

so many people here suddenly in the morning.

Uh-huh. I feel that way almost every day.

That was a bit unexpected.

I went to bed and it was just Tod, and woke up and there's like half of

humanity here. It's crazy. It looks amazing, though.

Everyone's kind of got their breakfast agenda and super young.

Didn't expect that. I feel really old.

Everyone's in their 20s

and they're super cool-looking in all their animal skins.

I really feel like I stick out like a sore thumb.

Many hands make light work,

but housekeeping is definitely not top of the tribe's to-do list.

So you don't always wash them?

Not usually personal dishes, but like pots and pans we might

kind of scrub out, wash out a little bit.

Because, I mean, sometimes the dog comes here

and licks them clean for us. Right.

Yeah, sometimes I'll find my bowl clean. I'm just, like,

"That's weird.

"Somebody washed my dish." Wow.

There you go. Cool.

If you just stumbled on what I did this morning, you'd be freaked out,

but everyone's super friendly, I have to say.

It feels like a warm hug rather than a kind of teeth-baring snarl.

But they definitely look...like that.

Nuts.

Breakfast is a social affair.

'And despite any extra bacteria, surprisingly tasty.'

If you're late, though, you don't get a hot meal.

But this morning, Tod doesn't have time.

He's had a call from a local restaurant and needs my help.

To work. To work.

There's no food involved.

Instead, we're here to pick up the restaurant's used vegetable oil

to fuel Tod's truck.

They need to dispose of it and Tod's happy to take it.

Hey, Tony. How are you today?

I'm great, I'm getting all oiled up, you know.

Living the dream. Living the dream. Living the oily dream, you got it.

There's enough to fill two oil drums.

You're doing fine. You make a natural veggie oiler.

Do I? You're going to start doing this

when you get back to England. I am, you know.

I'll sell you this truck, you could ship it back.

I don't think it would pass its MOT. Probably not.

How long will that drum last you?

Depends on how much driving I do.

That's... It's going to be...

By the time it's all settled and filtered, it'll be about 30 gallons,

and that's, for this truck, about 450 miles of driving.

That's not bad, though, 450 free miles. Free miles.

En route home, Tod just can't resist a dumpster without an opportunistic

look inside.

Wow, there's a lot of stuff in here.

Look at these pineapples.

Those are still good.

I suppose we could use a few more onions.

Yeah? Grab that. Yeah.

'Maybe Tod hasn't missed out on breakfast after all.'

Back at camp, there's an excited welcoming committee.

We have heard that they've got two bears.

So some hunters have come round

and dropped off two bears, so it's all hands to deck.

So did this come in pretty early?

It came in about an hour after you all left.

Wow. Look at all that meat. Holy shit. Whoa! Hey, guys.

What's in here? This is bone broth.

So we're cutting up all the bear and cooking the marrow out them.

'Today is the first day of the hunting season.

'Tod and his tribe don't take part,

'but the hunters sometimes leave them unwanted prey

'from their day's shoot.'

'The two bears have been butchered and nothing will go to waste.

'There's enough meat here to feed everyone for a year.'

It's amazing and brutal and shocking.

Well, I think what's amazing is how matter-of-factly everyone's just

getting on with everything.

I hate to come back and start immediately, but

knives left on the floor or on the ground is not a good idea.

Everything from the bears will be used,

including the skins to make clothes.

And it all looks quite tribal. I kind of feel I could be in Africa.

I've seen a very similar scenario in Africa, but we're not,

we're in North Carolina.

Ben, if you want to help out, you can just grab a foot or something

and just skin it out and it's all going in the bone bowl. OK.

Why have the hunters just dumped the bears off here, Tod?

My guess is that they give us bears they don't want for whatever reason.

But why would they be hunting for the bear

if they don't want the bear?

There's a real camaraderie, there's a real tradition of it

around here, but as far as I can tell, they really enjoy killing,

and I shouldn't say THEY because they're all different,

you know, there's all different people doing this.

Some of them do eat the bear. Mm-hm.

Are you, to be clear, are you a hunter yourself?

No, I don't hunt.

This is the most communal I've seen, everyone's kind of appeared.

Is this what brings the community together?

Food? Free food? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, plus, the community hasn't been here until today,

everybody was gone.

This takes all of the community resources,

so we all come together and work on it.

Well, I love the way you jump in, Ben. I respect that. Thank you.

The thing I find most difficult is it was only a few weeks ago I was in

Canada revering these bears.

I was with a couple who were trying to protect them from hunters.

Now, suddenly here, I'm with a community who are butchering up

two of these magnificent creatures that have been killed for no reason

except that these hunters want to kill.

But I can also see that this is what maintains their way of live.

They're, by their own admission, scavengers.

The vats of bear broth will be cooking all day,

so we'll need to cut more firewood.

It's a team effort, as our chosen fallen tree is lying precariously on

the steep hillside.

That's probably good.

And if it starts to go, everyone get out of there.

OK. Now bring it down gently.

OK. One, two, three.

Look at that. There we go. It's all very physical, all of this. Yeah.

You look incredibly fit and able, are you?

Uh, I've had some pretty serious injuries

that were getting worse and worse over the years.

What kind of big injuries have you had?

Well, I worked for the forest service when I was 21

and I got rolled over by and pinned underneath a...

about a two-tonne log that was on fire

and I broke my back when I was 18 playing rugby.

Do you think very carefully now

about when you're about to do physical...?

I do now. I've learned, yeah.

I have learned because I've hurt... I've re-hurt myself so many times.

All the people who live here know that. They kind of...

They'll kind of brush me away

when I go to pick up something that I just shouldn't pick up.

Does it help having Chris and Jonathan and youngsters like that?

It wouldn't work any other way. You know, it just...

It wouldn't work you've got to have the young people,

the young people whose bodies are strong. I think so.

For any kind of community setting, anyways.

No machinery is used here. Even cutting wood is a communal affair.

But it takes skill to use the two-man cross-cut saw.

You just go very easy until you get a groove. OK.

And then you still go easy. OK.

At no point are you trying to whale on this like a chainsaw would do.

Just you gotta... Gotta pull it straight.

Once we get farther into the cut, it won't be so difficult.

And when it's catching like that,

it means someone's doing something...

It's not me. How do you know?

THEY LAUGH

You're starting to bend it towards yourself.

There we go.

You don't push any harder than I pull. Now we got it.

And now just slow down. Go easy, just like when we started.

There we go. Oh, look at that. There it is.

Beautiful. It's like...it's like a dance.

Yeah, it is, isn't it? You're really working with one another.

Yeah, and you're feeling the wood.

With these great big teeth, you can almost feel every tooth engage

and disengage once you've done it enough. You can really feel the saw.

Someone could probably give you a chainsaw that they're not using

any more, you've got vegetable oil, you could adapt it? No. No?

You couldn't do that?

A chainsaw wouldn't run on vegetable oil, it's not diesel.

If you had an ecological chainsaw... There is no such thing.

There's no such thing. What's an ecological chainsaw? I don't know!

You invent one! It would be made out of like, you know, leaf litter,

and things like that, with no chemical ingredients.

There's no such thing as sustainable in the industrial world, right now.

And the world you're living in is unspeakably beautiful.

In my opinion, yes.

But not just because it's pretty. Not just because it's pretty,

but because there's food here and there's good water.

That sort of thing. But is your life slightly tenuous here?

Because you don't own...you don't own this, do you?

No, no. Someone else owns the land

and she lets us live here and we pay the property taxes

and it's an open... It's an understanding,

kind of an unwritten understanding between ourselves who live here

and the land owner that it's an open teaching community,

that anybody's welcome here

and that this is the sort of thing we're doing.

I think if we started doing chainsaw repairs she might sort of say,

"Hey, you know what?"

Does that leave a slight vulnerability?

Do you have any vulnerability in your life?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, it's there, you know. It's there.

If this place were taken away from me

or I was taken away from this place,

I'd be... It would be very sad for me.

With the primitive skills that are practised and learned here,

I can see how important it is that this place runs as a community.

Nice!

The reason this lifestyle works for Tod in particular is

because there's other people. You need manual labour.

Everything is labour intensive,

everything from starting the fire to collecting the water,

to processing whole bears that come through.

So this is about, um...

volume of people. I don't think you could live here solitarily.

And as much as Tod needs the community,

they also need him.

I see him in a lot of ways as, you know,

an elder for this community. Mm-hm.

But not because of his age, but his demeanour, his countenance.

He probably wouldn't admit this, but I think in a lot of ways,

he's very wise and his counsel is heard.

And people do want to win and gain his respect.

Over the past week,

I've been living with a host and his community

who have created a very unique, wild homestead on the fringes of society.

In all seriousness, do you think there is

an outside perception of you guys? A misconception, maybe?

A lot of people call us woods hippies. Or dirty kids.

Dirty kids. That's, like, another one.

Mm-hm. Um, I would mind it if I took it personally.

Do you...? You don't take it personally, then?

No. I don't give a fuck.

I... You know, I can I just say you took the words out of my mouth.

You look like someone that doesn't really care.

I care what the people that are close to me think of me. Yeah.

It's funny, though. Like, we'll sit in the shitter

and be reading the People's Magazine or Cosmo...

Mm-hm. ..and just realise, like,

people really care about what they think of...

like, what people think about them.

Tod calls that feeding his negativity. Yeah.

It's like propaganda to keep us here.

Oh, really? Is that a...?

Is that why? Ah, now I get it, Tod.

That's why you leave them all there, so these guys don't leave.

HE SINGS

Obviously, Tod and the rest of the community don't approve,

necessarily, of society out there.

That's what they've come here to get away from.

But this kind of scavenging, if that's what we call it,

could probably only exist here in America.

Supermarkets simply wouldn't have

that kind of waste in other parts of the world.

It... It just wouldn't happen.

No-one in their right mind would go and kill a bear just for the sake

of killing a bear in other parts of the world.

You'd kill it to eat it. So it's an interesting dynamic

that the only reason they can live this lifestyle

is because they're in the United States,

and they're living this lifestyle

because they don't like the lifestyle of the United States.

It's very complex!

After two days of bear processing,

I finally get a well-earned break with my tribal elder.

So, what's this here?

That is, um, apple cider from apples that we picked nearby and then

pressed on a friend's press and then fermented.

Can... Can I? Please. Much as you want.

What do you think? Ooh, that is nice.

I mean, that is really tasty.

That's the best stuff right there, as far as I'm concerned.

During my time here,

I've noticed there is romance in the forest.

Tod, too, even came here with a girlfriend a decade ago.

But their relationship ended last year.

Is there anyone else now?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's, uh, there's Erica, a gal that I met...

I actually met her at one

of the primitive and homesteading skills gatherings in, um,

in the Piedmont of North Carolina,

and she has a seven-year-old daughter.

She comes to visit quite frequently.

Your eyes are lighting up when you're talking about her.

I'm pretty darn happy. Well, I've been wanting to be a parent

my whole life, and to meet this wonderful woman

with a wonderful seven-year-old daughter has just...

It's brought a lot of happiness into my life.

A lot of happiness and a lot of fulfilment.

While I continue with my tasks,

Tod goes to meet the new girls in his life.

They've come to visit for the weekend.

Hey. Hello, Ben. Hey, hey, hey, we've got company.

Yeah, you want one? You've got a handful there.

Who's this? This... This is Josie.

Hello, Josie. How are you?

I'm Ben, upside down.

You've got your hands full.

And? Erica.

Erica. How are you? Really nice to meet you.

Listen, I'll let you guys settle in.

I'm sure you've had a bit of a journey. Yes, a long drive.

I'm still getting used to day-to-day life here,

but Erica and Josie seem to have no problem easing into it at all.

And for a child, this forest seems a natural playground.

Do you like being out in the wilderness like this?

Yeah. Is it fun?

Which do you prefer, being back in a city,

in a town, or out here in the trees and the woods and the mountains?

Out here. Out here?

But why? What's so good about out here?

Well, I just like it out here more cos...

..if there's a house and a city,

there's not really any woods to go do anything

and you always have to go pee in a bathroom.

BEN LAUGHS

But you just pee out in the trees here?

Yeah. I agree. That's the best way.

And you're pretty good with, uh, knowing which plants you can eat,

aren't you? Do you have a favourite plant to eat out here?

Yes. Which one? Clearweed.

Clearweed? Is it good?

So this is clearweed, is it? Yes.

Ooh, this looks good.

Just eat it up like that?

That's nice. That's really nice.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Tod's half-empty glass has suddenly filled

since Erica and Josie have arrived.

He's got a spring in his step, you know.

You see him being very tactile

and you can tell he's a different person now.

He's relaxed and it's really nice to see a very different side of Tod.

Did you always imagine that you would end up with someone like Tod?

No. But, in retrospect, he was exactly what I was...

..subconsciously asking for.

You know, he feels like a...a real partner.

Back in Tennessee, Erica home-schools Josie,

and when she's here, the whole community help her learn

out in the wild.

You see something that she naturally gravitates towards

and then find a way to turn it into a lesson.

You know, she wanted to make money making granola bars

so it was reading and math, you know,

and she'd figure it out in her head.

So it's practical application of things.

You know, I'm the biggest advocate

of using the wilderness as a classroom.

This is, like, the most amazing place for a child.

But presumably, the downside -

and I think most things in life have some sort of negative -

is there aren't that many other children around.

In fact, I haven't seen any other children.

Uh, right now there's not, but, um... You know,

we still go back to Floyd all the time,

so she's got a lot of friends there.

And we're meeting people around here too.

There's a lot of home schoolers around here too.

And what about looking into the future?

Do you imagine one day you might both be able to move here?

I would love that. Yeah.

Cos it was just me and her for so long, and now we have other people

that she loves, and she's really growing up.

She's always been really adventurous and daring...

..much to the mother's chagrin.

I'm sure. She's kept you on your toes?

Yeah. But I guess I was like that, too.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm not...

I'm not worried about her.

She's going to be just fine.

Pretty amazing that Tod's found someone like Erica.

You know, she's very at ease here.

Takes a pretty unique person to feel that comfortable here.

And so does Josie.

You know, on the face of it, this might not be...

the most idyllic place for a...

a child of that age, but you've got all these people,

you've got all these skills, you've got people who are very concerned,

and it kind of makes sense.

# This is another prayer song

# Perhaps you'd like to sing along... #

As night falls, everyone can enjoy the fruits of their labour.

We really do feel like one big family.

Beautiful. Yeah, really lovely.

Thank you.

It's, uh... You know, work never stops here.

They're still working now, you know.

They're cooking, they're skinning animals.

But music is their way of kind of relaxing.

It's very traditional, I suppose, in that sense.

No... No TVs or modernity here, despite that...

that kind of connection with the outside world.

It's my final morning in this unusual forest home.

Hey, still going, still bubbling.

I'm off, guys. Thank you so much.

Everyone's got their own dream.

Everyone's got their own form of wilderness, their own form of...

alternative living.

And it's kind of a beautiful thing, isn't it,

that Todd and this community have found theirs just off the main road?

And they're living their dream.

It's not everyone's dream. It's their dream.

And this...this community, it's so complex.

It's full of so many contradictions.

In some ways, I'm leaving with more questions than I came with,

but I think that's exactly what Tod would like me to leave with.

Thank you so much. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed it.

This has been one of the most fascinating weeks.

Yeah? Genuinely, yeah. You don't say that to everybody? No, no.

Really... Really, I'm still... I'm intrigued. You're...

You're a mystery to me. Well, come back again

and maybe I'll be more mysterious. Who knows? OK. But I...

I wanted to say one thing, though.

There's a saying the locals have around here when they

appreciate someone. They say,

"I appreciate you." I just wanted to say that to you.

I've picked that up from the locals.

It's been good having you here. That's really nice.

I'm really touched by that. Bye, Josie.

Bye, Tod. Look after yourselves. Good travels to you.

All right, Josie, let's go! Bye!

Come on, wave goodbye. Bye!

'Next time, I'm in Morocco...'

Ah, straight in the face, that one!

'..living with couple Dinah and Mostafa

'who shunned the American dream...'

If you can survive without money, that's freedom.

'..for a precarious hand-to-mouth existence.'

I see ourselves at the bottom. It can't get any worse than that.

Subtitles by Ericsson