Original subtitles

[SIGHS] See that?

I'm going to have fish for dinner tonight.

That is food for a week.

This has to be explained.

Fire, fire, fire.

Fire, as you can see.

How am I supposed to live here?

What if I build a boat out of this barrel to get hooks in the water?

Swim fast, Susie.

Go catch me some fish.

Every muscle and joint is just throbbing.

You can have all the survival skills,

but one small little thing on the inside, and it's game over.

In Elom's coldest location ever, 10 participants fight to survive the Arctic.

The Arctic is one of the most physically demanding places on Earth.

It's so freaking cold right now.

Battling sub-zero temperatures.

This climate's harsh, it's extreme, it's mean, it's got teeth.

Get caught out here in a whiteout, you're in trouble.

Vicious predators.

Heard something big moving back there.

Me against the wolverine right now.

And isolation.

There's nothing to fill that void.

It's just you left alone with your thoughts.

How long will they endure?

Hose is on fire.

I'm scared, but I don't want to trip.

This is the most unforgiving landscape I've ever seen.

The last one standing wins.

This environment will strip away everything and anything you thought you had.

(suspenseful music) Check it out.

It's a big four rabbit day.

Today's the best day for pounds of meat.

Yeah, it's pretty good for a day.

I just went and checked the three snares they'd set over here.

Plenty o' rabbits.

Let's keep this up.

Well, I have the not bad problem of skinning all these guys and gutting them.

Look at that milk.

Rabbit milk.

See how much milk is in there?

You're sort of obligated to try it, aren't you?

Sweet.

Sorry, little lady.

That is a lot of breasts.

Dolly pardoned the rabbit here.

Well, I gotta admit, I was wrong about the forest.

I had no idea there was such potential for life even in a burnt up area.

If only the weather was a little nicer.

Bring the wife and kids up here.

That would be the place to be.

I've often thought that if I had my family in the nomadic

setting in the forest that I would choose the forest life.

You're very connected to the real needs of your life.

You don't have a schedule dictating you from the outside.

You have only what you need to do and you can do

it on your own time according to your own wisdom.

Here's tonight's soup.

Four rabbit heads and internal organs out of two.

You'd think since it's good for us, we'd think it looked good, but it doesn't.

I'm right there with you.

But you gotta eat it.

Bad food is better than no food.

(dramatic music)

(whooshing) Oh my God.

The sap is running out of this cup and it's so sweet and delicious.

Wow.

That hasn't happened yet.

I have yet to cut into in tree.

That's where the sap actually runs.

There's Monia out in the woods by herself making out with birch trees.

(dramatic music)

I'm pretty content with my A-frame shelter.

And now it is time to make this shelter

a little bit more weatherized and winterproof.

Arctic winter is no joke.

It is not fooling around.

It comes in fast and it will kick your butt.

So I just want to have this thing be uber insulated

'cause I feel like that's the best thing I can do to conserve calories.

Oh man, this is so brushy.

It's awesome.

I know that without the land working with me, survival isn't really an option here.

And I intend to not just survive, but to thrive and to live here,

make this place my home, become a part of it.

I've spent my life studying ancestral skills.

You can actually eat stinging nettles raw and they're just amazing nutrition.

I already live a lifestyle of harvesting a lot of wild foods.

And one of the things that I do in the world is tan deer hides and make clothing.

This is actually just the tail.

I've never felt afraid of wild animals.

My only fear is failing myself in some way.

Cannon some elk bone broth.

This is a real lifestyle for me, not just a hobby.

I'm doing my part 'cause every calorie I put in right now

gives me hopefully another day or two out there.

The main reason I'm doing this is to inspire people.

Also, not to be like a big buff military person, but a smallish woman coming at it

from a place of relationship rather than brute strength and dominance.

Because days are gonna be getting very, very short

and I'm gonna be spending a lot of time inside my shelter,

a peeled pole interior is gonna bounce both the heat and the light from my fire.

Also, it means taking off that outer layer so that they're gonna be able to dry,

which is gonna make them much better insulative value

than a wet pole that's gonna just hold its moisture.

So everything I'm doing in my shelter is thinking very long-term.

I'll need to put a door in.

Okay.

Exactly, exactly me height.

And then how big a door do I want?

Being the last person out here is gonna require a lot of

resiliency, both physically and mentally, emotionally.

I think being comfortable with discomfort

is gonna be a really important part of that.

Being all right with being cold and hungry

and being all right with lots of down and quiet time,

which is something I'm pretty comfortable with.

Oh my gosh, okay.

Self high-five.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

Had a lot of dreams last night,

but there was one dream where this big, black, powerful, huge bull

got its horns all hung up in my gill net.

It seemed pretty symbolic of something.

Hopefully there's a huge fish out there in my net right now.

(dramatic music)

Okay, just arriving in my fishing area.

Holy smokes, I think I see something in the gill net.

I think that's another lake trout and it looks to be about as big as my last one.

Oh, that's so awesome.

I'm getting down to my last maybe pound and

a half, two pounds of the last guy I caught.

So, so excited.

He's a big fish.

Might even be a female.

She's really broad on the bottom, which often means that they're carrying eggs.

Yeah, it is a female.

Definitely some eggs in there.

- No, I just gotta de-size them out.

- One of the benefits of having the background in fisheries

is I know how to get the eggs out of a fish.

I'm gonna try and slurp some of these up right now actually.

Fish eggs, what a freaking phenomenal resource.

They've got three or four cups of cholesterol in it.

A fat of food, of golden, delicious, vibrant, pure life.

That actually has a faint egg yolk flavor to it.

Mixed in with a fishy flavor of course.

(sighs)

- A lot of other species of fish,

and even younger ones of these, like to eat fish eggs.

And because the lake trout are spawning, all the other

species of fish are gonna be looking for this food source.

- This is good fish bait.

This could be really huge.

- Oh, I gotta be careful when I stand up.

I just get so lightheaded,

and I'm standing on the edge of a lake,

10 feet deep in the water, just like crazy.

It's not a place to black out.

I'm gonna head back to camp, rest for a while.

Man, I hope the salt from those eggs kicks in soon, 'cause I am super lightheaded.

I don't know if I've ever been this lightheaded before.

Where like, every time I stand up, I just wanna keel over.

And I am tired and exhausted.

I still have to clean the fish and process it.

I've gotta do that.

I've just gotta get rested and take it easy for a minute.

I don't know if those fish eggs aren't sitting well with me or what.

I just kind of feel a little bit woozy.

I just need to lay down.

Definitely have something going on in my belly.

Definitely nauseous.

(dramatic music)

(gagging)

(gagging)

(gagging)

(gagging) This sucks.

(gagging) I'm empty.

Oh, that had something pink in it.

Definitely vomiting a little bit of blood.

Gotta get inside the shelter while I still can.

Gotta get through this.

(sighing)

I'm sure I have, but I don't ever remember feeling this bad for very long.

I don't vomit very often.

It was like pink slime with little blood spots in it.

I've had food poisoning two or three times in my

life, and this was way worse than any of them.

If this sickness goes into the evening, I'll be done.

This might be a tap-out event.

(dramatic music)

(sighing)

Let's talk about some Krav Maga.

Maybe I can teach you something.

Now, if he's choking me straight on with his arms, I'm going

to, with my hooks, grab at the thumbs and rip apart his hand.

That's step one.

Now, the best part is the simultaneous front kick

into his (beeping)

Okay, okay, his groin, right?

So a pluck and a kick.

That's your Krav Maga level one choke from the front demonstration.

Hopefully you'll never have to use it.

I wanted to check the northwest region of my area out,

so that'll be the direction that I'm heading today.

I don't know what to expect.

I'll get me walking out of here.

Hopefully I'll take some small game and be able to use their intestines for bait.

It's good.

I'm like super hyper.

Check this (beeping) out.

Cans.

Shazam!

One, two, three, four, five, six cans.

That's bananas.

That's so freaking cool.

Look, what I might be able to do is make lures.

Dynamite, dude.

That's freaking awesome.

No way I could continue the hunt with six cans in my pockets.

They'd hear me coming from a mile away.

Everything works out for me, right?

My plan for the cans are to shape them

into spoons like fish.

Hammer this out a little bit.

And then tie hooks to their end.

That way I can use them like lures.

Actually, I could probably just twist the tail

and that would probably cause it to corkscrew through the water.

I wonder how folks who don't win deal with it.

I don't even want to think about that.

That sounds like a horrible emotional process.

Because don't get me wrong, I'm not out here for my health.

I need this wealth.

Growing up a poor kid, money matters.

I've never made a lure out of a tin can.

But I'm pretty happy with that though.

I'm impressed.

Well, let's see if we can have some fish for dinner.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the 2018 Canadian Catch-All Classic.

I wanted to fish this channel,

kind of hoping it was kind of like a highway, you know?

I feel weak today.

This is the longest I have ever gone without food.

I'm a big boy.

I need food to function.

(dramatic music) Holy (beep).

Yeah, baby.

No!

Ah!

That was a nice size (beep) fish.

And I lost a hook, that's the big thing.

Ah!

Took my lure too.

Ah, I got a lot of work to do.

Ah, that was a (beep), that was food.

If you believe you're going to come out here and hit a home run every pitch,

I got news for you.

That's just not reality.

(dramatic music)

This is the most important thing I've ever done for my family.

I know it's going to get tough out here.

It's going to get boring and cold.

I'm going to be (beep) hungry, but my kids deserve a good start.

If that means I have to suffer for it, I'm just going to have to suffer for it.

For the right amount of money, I would die for my family.

(dramatic music)

(upbeat music)

Out here, I have the craziest dreams.

Like last night, my wife and I and the kids

were camping in somebody's backyard in India

and this tiger came and I had to make a whip

and fend it off and then this mountain lion came

and the mountain lion wanted to eat my dog's head.

But then it turned out we really liked the mountain lion

so we ended up keeping it because it was cool.

And then we went in and we told the family, they were like, "God, it sucks, you know,

sleeping in your backyard, no offense, but there's like lions and tigers.

" And they go, "Oh, that's nothing, you wait till the monkeys come.

" Being out here, just having a shelter up,

just getting my projects up and running, feels good.

But we got to figure this food out.

I got to collect as many berries as I can before they die.

So I'm going to go on a nature walk.

This whole area is full of blueberries.

Nice and slow, don't burn a lot of energy.

When we're in training for the military, everything's for

time, you know, you're always in a hurry to get stuff done

and sometimes I remind myself to just slow down, be efficient.

I am a SEER specialist, which stands for Survival Evasion, Resistance and Escape.

Our job is training students to give them a skillset

to make sure that should something happen, they can make it back to safety.

And we're training for any biome.

This thread right here,

more and more and more of that will make cordage.

But what's really cool is these needles right here.

You've got a needle and thread in a pinch.

I'm not coming out of this show.

We've all shortcutted things in our lives.

I will not shortcut this.

I got tenacity, I got grit.

I'm not quitting.

All right, what are we looking for?

- Snakes. - Snakes.

We have four kids.

- Daddy, can you open this please?

- Yep.

- I love being a dad.

Like, that's my joy in life.

My wife, Chelsea, is tough.

On our honeymoon is when she got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

And she's dealt with pain for the last eight years.

To the point where that's her new norm.

The reason I want to do this,

for me it's the money because of what it provides for us the rest of our life.

- Bye daddy. - Bye daddy.

- My mission's to come out here and to represent my family

and to represent the United States Air Force and to win this sucker.

Snow's starting to fall again.

It's been on and off all day.

Look at this.

Look at all this right here.

Any wonder if there's wolves in the area?

Just the way they're spread.

There's ribs over there.

Just picked clean.

Absolutely picked clean.

I need some fish lures so this couldn't have come at a better time.

These bones will be awesome.

Let's see what else.

I think the thing that makes me suited for this sort

of outdoor experience is the fact that I love it.

Hello.

I like being cold.

I like being hungry.

I like struggling.

I like building stuff.

I like being challenged and I like beating it.

Holy cow.

My goodness gracious.

Holy cow.

That's going on the front of my shelter.

I mean, I got a lot of chores to do, firewood to cut,

got a chimney to make.

What am I doing?

Something way cooler.

(dramatic music)

- Good morning, little hat squirrel.

How are you doing today, my friend?

I didn't know you before I got here, though I knew of you.

You've been a constant friend here.

Someone to do things with.

And you become one with me.

However, I'm hungry.

So, we had to look at them again as a food source.

Squirrels are pretty freaking active.

So, I think it's time to move to more active traps,

like the Mojave Scissors Snare.

All right.

So, the premise of the Mojave Scissors Snare

is that the animal is snared in a wheel with a scissor.

My strength coming into this is creativity and resourcefulness.

So, I'm preparing.

I tried to fill my brain with lots of images and ideas,

figuring that some of them would prove to be relevant.

When it's set off,

it loops up, catches whatever game you have in there, and pinches it tight.

Go ahead and get up there and set it up.

I'm almost starting to feel bad about hunting my little squirrel friend.

Do I really want to eat that squirrel?

And the answer to that question is,

I will eat that squirrel.

Got it all set up there.

Basically, a squirrel steps on that little stick there,

pushes it down, it releases the spring pull,

which brings up the scissor and closes them.

It works.

I'm gonna go try to give him hell.

(dramatic music) Got very sick.

I think I had food poisoning and it really took a lot out of me.

I did quite a bit of puking,

but I feel a lot better right now.

It just didn't click in my head that like, yes, this is a fresh caught lake trout,

but she is dead and you don't know for how long.

So, the eggs could have been colonized by some bacteria

and I just was not thinking that one step ahead.

I feel good.

But I have a lot to do today.

I'm still here.

So, I guess that's the number one thing that counts.

(dramatic music)

(birds chirping)

(whistling)

See, that was my nature moment.

All right.

Arts and crafts time.

Let's make some fishing lures.

I wanna make a little bit of a smaller one

and then I wanna make one out of this orange cloth that I've got.

I'm gonna be using part of the rib bone from that beautiful baby.

And also, I brought a couple of different kinds of wire.

So, hopefully that'll attract the eyes of the fish.

And if not, they're stupid and I hate 'em.

I want it to be this shape right here and then I'll cut off kind of the top.

And this will be for smaller fish.

I did not bring a bow because I'm a student of

the show and statistically, it's never paid off.

So, I'm leaning more towards fishing and snaring.

I'm not relying on getting an elk or a moose.

Fish is gonna be my long-term goal.

And we got a fish lure.

Let's get fishing.

That camera is so far away.

This whole filming thing sucks.

This is gonna sound stupid and cocky.

I feel like one of my strongest skillsets is figuring things out.

Looking at a problem and figuring out how to solve that problem.

I'm here to win.

That's what I'm here to do.

I'm not here to find myself.

I'm not here to play a game.

I'm not here for an experience.

I'm here to beat those other contestants because that's what I wanna do.

That's the mission.

I got one.

- You got food.

(elk bugling)

- Yeah, absolutely beautiful.

We're eating fish tonight.

I should stand in front of it so it looks bigger.

That's how big that is.

Dinner.

Maybe some breakfast.

- We have food.

(elk bugling)

(dramatic music) - There I am.

Wilderness chic.

Let's get the (beep) going.

So I am gonna take my bow out

and I'm going to go check on a Mojave's scissor snake.

Trap still on.

Oh no.

Trap was set off.

Trigger snake got stuck.

Damn it.

Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it.

So close to having squirrel.

So close.

Oh, there's his friend squirrel.

I got something for you, buddy.

I got something.

Hi, buddy.

I really wanna eat you.

(elk bugling) There he is.

(elk bugling) Sorry, bud.

I found him.

And I pulled him out of his misery.

Red squirrel.

That's what's for dinner.

(dramatic music)

I have to say, it's a little bittersweet.

I need to eat.

I just killed my only companion.

It's gonna be nice to eat something.

(dramatic music)

Thank you again, my little squirrel friend.

Live on, little buddy, inside of me.

Oh crap, excuse my manners.

Would you like some?

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

Brought to you live from No Fish Bay.

Where Michelle, struggling to survive.

Nothing.

(beep)

All right, get the (beep) out of here.

I'm crushing or something.

On day 12 of no food.

Guys, like this should be the easiest part for me.

At home, I'm kind of the master fisherman.

My husband and I never thought that this would be the problem for me.

Not getting fish.

We were worried about like,

will I be able to handle mentally, being away from my family?

Am I gonna be okay with the isolation?

Those were our concerns.

This never crossed our mind.

They're not committable.

So switching gears here, we gotta do something else.

I need some foods in my belly.

So I'm off to the hunting grounds to go check my snares.

I'm hurting.

Hurting for some food.

This place is just trying to forge me first.

Give me the taste of how harsh she is before I get some food.

Oh, (beep) you guys.

Look.

(beep) Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Look it.

Look.

Mama's got a grouse.

Oh, thank goodness.

I was getting worried there.

All these days with no food was starting to wear a little sin on me.

So I am super thankful to have found food on my own.

Do you guys know what this means for me?

It means I'm now in the game, for real.

I am producing snares.

It's beautiful.

Now I have something to eat finally.

Now I'm in the game.

(dramatic music)

I was born a hunter.

Let's face it.

Even though my family didn't hunt.

At a young age, I was making bows and crossbows and trying to hunt everything.

I've eaten a ton of animals.

I've processed, I've harvested from the forest.

(sobbing)

I don't know why I feel heartbroken over the squirrel.

I don't know.

Probably too into my head.

But he treated me with an uncommon familiarity

and I betrayed his trust.

(dramatic music)

(fire crackling)

Mm.

Mm, mm, mm.

That's all I needed.

I still have chicken.

I didn't eat the breast meat yet.

We call them prairie chickens where I'm from.

I grew up in an area fairly similar to this.

I've always had to figure it out.

Never had a lot of tools, never had a lot of fun things.

We ran barefoot, to be quite honest.

Like literally barefoot.

We didn't have money for shoes.

I left home when I was like 14 years old and I just wanted to be something more.

So I pulled myself up.

I worked hard, made my fingers bleed every single day.

I tried, but I couldn't get on government assistance 'cause I was too young.

So I've been homeless, coach surfing.

There was some dark times in there, real dark times.

So you can see how living in something like this,

ain't so bad after all for me.

Oh (beep) Uh-oh.

I got a fire.

(beep)

(beep)

Can't afford to lose my shelter.

(beep)

Oh, that's not good.

Holy (beep)

(beep) Oh my God.

Got a shot now, I just gotta take it.

She flew off and now is dying in the woods somewhere.

Oh (beep)

I stabbed myself with my arrow.

Oh yeah, it's totally bleeding.

you