Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

♪

- It's too dangerous for you to stay out here.

I'm gonna have to extract you--

- No! - For medical reasons.

- What?

I wouldn't have ever believed

I would only last 52 days.

- All the fat is gone.

I can't believe there's another wolverine.

Bad news.

- Oh, my God, I got a rabbit in my lifting pole!

To have food-- what a turnaround.

- There's been a new development.

My entire bay has frozen.

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

male narrator: In "Alone's" coldest location ever,

ten participants fight to survive the Arctic.

- The Arctic is one of the most physically

demanding places on Earth.

- So freaking cold right now.

narrator: Battling subzero temperatures...

- This climate's harsh, it's extreme.

It's mean. It's got teeth.

- Get caught out here in a whiteout

and you're in trouble.

narrator: Vicious predators...

- Heard something big moving back there.

- It's me against the wolverine right now.

narrator: And isolation.

- There's nothing to fill that void.

It's just you left alone with your thoughts.

narrator: How long will they endure?

- House is on fire!

- I'm scared, but I don't wanna tap.

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

narrator: The last one standing wins.

- This environment will strip away everything and anything

you thought you had.

♪

♪

[water gently lapping]

♪

- It is day 58,

and it is still cold as anything.

Oh, my God.

There is no mistaking that we are in winter.

The sun is up for, like, five hours,

it feels like-- of, like, real solid light.

'Cause it's already going down and it's 3:00.

♪

[wind whistling]

♪

- It's frickin' cold in here.

It's well, well below freezing.

So what I'm gonna try and do here

is, um, take the hot rocks out of the fire

and lay them on two long sticks

and then just slide them in.

They all go in as a group stacked on top of each other.

They'll probably release their heat more up

than into the ground.

Okay, that looks like what I wanted.

It worked.

So long as nothing catches the bed on fire tonight.

♪

- This today is what you would call...

♪

Rough weather.

The winter and the ice

allows for very small margins of error.

[heavy breathing]

Especially when you're out in the wilderness,

you have to be on your game.

Like, you have a minor issue

and it can lead to your death.

♪

[dramatic music]

- We got snow.

It's still coming.

The Arctic winter is like a lead blanket

that is just laying on you.

It penetrates you to your core.

There's nothing that will defeat it.

The heat you take into your bag with you,

once it's out, it's gone.

♪

I had to do sit-ups just to try

and create some body heat in my bag.

♪

[ice pick thudding]

♪

- Water is a much bigger task now

than it was not long ago.

[water splashing]

All I know is it is way, way, way cold.

It feels like it dropped 30 degrees.

♪

- [sighs] Okay, well...

I have got some news from the gill net.

♪

Here it is.

Strapped to the bottom of my pack.

The ice got to the gill net,

and that's where every morsel of food I have eaten

has come from.

Now, that--that's all ice.

I've got a little bit of fear in me

about how long I'm gonna be here without food.

But overall, I'm hoping

the fear is getting to everybody else first.

♪

[wind whistling]

♪

[rustling]

♪

- All right, let's show you

what the inside of my shelter looks like.

♪

That's--that's ice.

It's just covered.

That's literally how cold it is.

[exhales]

I have a fire in here.

Let that [bleep] sit in. That's cold.

♪

♪

- [sniffs]

[groans]

Ouch.

[chuckles]

[exhales]

[exhales repeatedly]

It's hopeless.

[wind whistling]

♪

I have no more food options except fishing,

but the lake is frozen over.

So I got a strategy for ice fishing.

I'm gonna make a fishing net,

throw it in the water under the ice--

which is a trick in itself-- and then catch something.

Get us started here.

I've never seen anyone make a paracord fishing net.

I had to come up with the knot myself

and come up with some little techniques,

because paracord's awkward to work with.

Get it nice and tight,

and then we'll do a...

little hitch.

♪

To weave it into a net,

it's a very tedious job.

♪

My strategy was never fishing,

but that's the only option I have here.

I'm losing weight.

It's physically impossible

for me to win without fat,

and all I can do to get fat is fishing.

This has to work.

Gonna be a slow process.

♪

Whoo!

[exhaling]

It's hard to do, and it's really cold.

♪

[sighs]

There's one trick to surviving

in super cold weather,

and that is not to let yourself get cold.

You have to stay warm,

which means you have to be careful,

have good gear.

♪

My feet are cold.

[snow crunching]

Man, these boots suck.

[groans]

As tough as you are,

once you get really cold out here,

you're not tough enough to withstand it.

[wind whistling]

♪

Oh, my--it's too cold.

Should have done this sooner.

Whoo.

♪

[wind whistling]

♪

[music intensifies]

- I could hear the rabbits again last night

moving around close, and I realized

it's probably because I have all the spruce boughs around,

that they're coming so close to the cabin

'cause they are all about the spruce boughs.

So it makes me really excited to put in some close traps,

'cause oh, my God, wouldn't it be amazing

to get a rabbit just-- right here,

first thing in the morning?

Yowza.

♪

Rabbits are about and on the move,

so I really need to set more traps

and check my traps.

Gotta check, gotta check.

[snow crunching]

The true settling in of Arctic winter

happened so fast.

Snow falling in the night is bad for my trapping.

Windy nights are bad for my trapping.

The mild, calm nights where it isn't snowing,

that's when I catch rabbits.

And those are few and far between anymore.

♪

[snow crunching]

This one, nothing doing.

Still set.

♪

I have never been anywhere near this skinny.

The hunger is definitely starting to get to me,

and when I'm really cold, it's so hard.

Fox tracks all through here.

[snow crunching]

Whoa!

♪

Check it out.

This area has been totally dug up.

The fox, clearing out

the rabbit areas, you guys.

I wonder how many rabbits it got?

♪

Wow.

This area, probably done-zo.

This is a good trail.

And there go the fox tracks right up there.

Holy crap, man.

This is rough.

Uh...

I really need food really soon.

♪

Damn it. [sniffs]

♪

Okay, well...

♪

I'm feeling pretty discouraged.

It's very cold out.

I haven't had any food for several days now.

And my weight is going down rapidly,

and they're gonna pull me soon if I don't get food.

♪

Being out here and being underfed,

I think about the food

that I could afford to buy if I won a lot.

Most of my life,

I've not had enough money to keep myself well-fed.

That is definitely the motivation.

So desperate times call for desperate measures.

Okay, I...

have these intestines in my pot

for bait for ice fishing.

Now is the time to get real humble

and eat those myself.

♪

I'm going to skoosh out the guts now,

and then rinse again in a fresh pot.

Eating rabbit intestines is next-level.

You're eating the place that something stores its poo!

It's a lot of tissue.

There's fat, there's blood, there's muscle.

♪

[laughing]

It looks completely, utterly foul.

♪

I know, that's thoroughly disgusting.

♪

I am not giving in, people.

I am still trying like anything

to keep my weight up to stay out here.

[pot clinks]

♪

[wind whistling]

I think that's pretty well done.

All right, you ready?

Not sure that I am.

[metal scraping]

♪

Hmm.

It's fine.

Nowhere near as gross as you'd think.

[metal scraping]

♪

[water roaring distantly]

♪

- For everybody at home...

I want you to know how hard this is.

This is not, uh...

This is not just a physical challenge.

It's not just an emotional challenge.

It is all the above at maximum level.

♪

Your hands, even in gloves, get cold.

Then you have the constant craving for food.

Your mind just maddens you with it.

♪

How long is this gonna last?

♪

I just wanna be home.

Victorious.

Holding my baby daughter.

Playing with my son.

Adoring my wife.

Talking to family.

Having friends.

And you know it'll come eventually.

You just gotta keep putting one foot in front

of the other, you know?

Tapping out is just not an option.

[snow crunching]

Having to adapt to an ever-changing scenario,

it forces you to stay thinking all the time about,

"How do I work the problem?"

You know?

So I'm going to begin getting my resources

steadily rebuilt.

♪

Okay, so I have spoor of a rabbit,

and it keeps kind of taking the same path,

so I'm gonna make a snare and set it on that path.

The problem with twitch-up snares

in this weather is, you bend a tree over--

if it doesn't come through in, you know, five, six days,

the tree will freeze

and it won't have the pop to get it up off the ground.

And by the look of the-- of the track here

it's a pretty big hare,

and I'm gonna need to get it off the ground.

So I'm gonna be using a counterweight

instead of using the twitch-up method.

All right, so I'm gonna fill my stuff sack

with a rock or two.

♪

Jeez, that was close.

I know what it's like to have nothing.

I come from nothing but hardship,

tough times, and making something out of nothing,

and that's why I feel this victory is mine.

This is the big boom in my [bleep] life.

My whole life has culminated to this point.

This should be enough, right here.

♪

Just put theheocks in the stuff sack.

So the big trick is getting it

to not pull my stake out of the ground.

[hammering]

♪

Oh, my heart's pounding.

[hammering]

♪

Okay, so what I'd like to do is run it over a branch

and then we bring this down.

♪

All right, well, we'll see how that works for me.

I have my snare, and if you follow the wire,

it goes up...

loops over my branches,

and then comes back down to my stuff sack.

Which, you know, uh, won't fail.

It's not gonna freeze or do anything like that.

♪

All right, let's get inside.

[sniffs]

[dramatic music]

♪

- Big day today.

[sharp inhale]

My net is finished!

Loaded, weighted.

Some moose meat hanging in it.

Now all that's left is to do it, really.

♪

Getting ready to go across the ice

for the first time...

to fish.

[wind blowing]

Oh, man.

I'm nervous.

If you go through the ice out here,

you're in huge trouble.

That's something that will kill you.

But, just don't have the options on the land.

Here we are.

[skis clattering]

We're gonna do it here, huh?

[wind howling]

♪

[water splashing]

Don't drop your hatchet.

[sighs]

♪

The net, you just chop two holes in the ice

about the distance apart that the net is long.

And then you find a stick that's also that long,

and you tie a long string to that stick

and you feed it under from one hole to the other.

[ice sloshes]

See if we can hit our target.

[wind blowing]

♪

Oh, I see it right here.

♪

Pull it up through the second hole

and then you have a string passed under the ice.

That's where your net's tied and you--like a laundry line

pull it through under the ice.

Feeding the net under.

♪

Now go get a bunch of snow

and dump on these holes so they don't freeze solid.

Wouldn't call that easy.

It's kind of more energy than I wanted to spend,

but it's my only chance to re-up my fat.

That's what you need to do to survive out here.

♪

Hope I catch a fish.

[dramatic music]

♪

♪

[fabric rustling]

- [sighs]

That's all the debris from all the debris piles

up against the back end of the shelter there.

So when that gets a foot of snow on it, man,

it'll be impenetrable by the weather,

so hopefully that logic is true

and pays off.

It's gonna get colder and colder,

and that's what I need to be prepared for.

I do think that my gill net going under the ice will work.

That gill net is why I'm still here

and potentially, ice fishing is why

I'm gonna still be here.

♪

[grunts] So this is the pole

I'm gonna hang the net on.

♪

Switching to lighter weight

'cause I want this thing to dangle more freely, um,

so it'll tangle a fish more easily.

I used old nails and tin can lids

and stuff I found some months back.

♪

And there we have it.

In the morning, I'm gonna deploy that.

I'll tie off, um, a T-bar

to the end of this thing,

and that's what I'll lower it all the way

into the water with.

♪

It'll be good to go, so...

♪

Hopefully that works out.

♪

- Nothing in my trap, which is expected.

Not much is gonna be moving around

in this kind of cold weather.

There's no real opportunities here at my place.

[sniffing]

Besides me. [laughs]

But even now, I don't know

how much they'd actually get off my bones.

[laughs]

It wouldn't be much of a meal.

[laughs]

And even getting things like water now

are more demanding, more taxing.

If you want water, you have to get snow,

process wood, start a fire, melt the snow.

Lot of work for a little drink of water.

♪

So there's a lake on the other side of my island

and it's, um--it's not frozen.

I'm considering spanning that gap

and fetching water on the other side,

but to do that, I really gotta be careful.

So I'm going to use these poles

just to make some...

♪

Long-type snow shoes to...

♪

Disperse my weight.

♪

The only thing keeping me going

is the love of my family.

That is the truth of the matter right there.

I wanna be able to get a house, not rent.

I wanna pay off our debts.

I wanna take stress off my wife.

I need this, man.

Like, it's not a matter of just want.

My family needs this.

♪

Hello?

♪

Thought I heard speaking.

♪

This is hard, people.

Trying not to think about my wife and kids right now.

♪

When I do get across to the island,

I'm gonna sit there and drink.

♪

And drink, and drink,

[sniffs]

♪

I do feel better...

being on these poles.

♪

Just need them to get me across that span,

where it's most dangerous.

♪

My face hurts. [sniffs]

♪

So tired.

So thirsty.

[bleep] starving.

♪

Dehydration will put an end to you out here

just as fast as anything else will.

♪

Look at that sweet, sweet water.

♪

[water splashing]

[exhales noisily]

Oh!

It's been over 24 hours

since I've had anything to drink, man.

Man.

This is kicking my ass!

[sniffs]

♪

I just want my wife and kids, man.

♪

[sobbing] This is so [bleep] hard, man!

I'm starving!

It hurts!

[sobbing]

♪

Please!

♪

Put the fight in me again!

♪

Put the [bleep] fight in me!

♪

[sobbing]

[dramatic music]

♪

[ominous whooshing]

♪

- I have smoke streaming out from underneath my bed

from the hot rocks that I put under there last night.

I think that they are smoldering.

The ground has now dried out enough.

It was icy when I first started doing this,

and it's had enough time

from all the nights of me doing that

to dry things out so that they would continue to--to smolder.

And I've been smelling the smoke all night

thinking it was from the fire, but it wasn't.

So I'm gonna get underneath there

and see if I can't figure out what's going on

and maybe even potentially harvest an ember or two

to relight my fire

so I don't have to do bow-drill today.

[light clicks]

Underneath that rock, it's all hollowed out.

It's all burned away.

There's smoke coming from the ground right here.

Was hoping to get right out

and deal with the gill net this morning, but...

I have to deal with this first thing.

Can't burn down my bed and my shelter.

♪

Beautiful, they all came out in one.

Here we go.

♪

Awesome, okay.

♪

That was easier to do than most of my bow-drill fires

I've had to do out here, so I'll take it.

I'm going to, uh...

♪

Get my gill net deployed out on the lake today.

[ice cracking]

♪

I don't know if you can hear that or not,

but the lake is shifting underneath us.

Hopefully it's deep enough.

If I can get 5 feet of depth, I think that'll work.

[ice clattering]

♪

I got to thinking about, you know, my grandfather Jack.

He taught me how to hunt and fish.

I'm trying to hatch a plan

to take him out ice fishing.

It's like one of his favorite activities.

It's been decades since I've been out with him,

fishing or hunting.

These last 20 years,

I've been living far, far from home,

and I haven't seen him nearly enough

because I've been too poor to afford even a bus ticket,

let alone a plane ticket.

The fact that it will be possible when I win this,

I'm gonna kind of use it as fuel to keep going.

Okay.

There's the channel.

Chopped through.

It's probably 8 or 9 inches thick.

[wind blowing]

Okay, she's in.

Yeah, that looks beautiful.

I think it's doing its job.

Gill net's in the hole.

Keep my fingers crossed that some fish drifts through there

and gets hung up.

♪

[shuffling]

Yeah, I felt pretty damn depleted today

after getting off the ice.

All that chopping I did was a bit much.

I pushed myself a little bit, and I shouldn't have.

I'm gonna get more efficient out on the ice

and make sure I'm doing everything

as smoothly and efficiently as I can.

And that's how I've made it this far, so--

I'm really hoping it winds down, though,

because I am... [sniffs]

Depleted.

And I miss home, and I miss my woman,

and, um...

you know, I'm really homesick.

For the first time in my life, actually, I'm homesick.

I just have too [bleep] much on the line out here.

Too many ideas.

Too many plans that, um...

♪

That I can't let go of.

I don't think I can tap out.

I just don't have it in me.

♪

[wind howling]

- Hmm.

See how my, uh--

see how my hairline's doing here.

Am I losing hair from malnutrition?

Looks like-- you know, it's thin.

It's a little thin.

[long exhale]

[wind whistling]

I'm gonna go pull up my fishing net.

♪

Spent a lot of energy

trying to get that net in the ice.

Hopefully catch something.

♪

Can tell I'm not getting enough nutrients

'cause I'm tired a lot.

♪

In a dire situation.

I need fat.

I'm gonna, at some point, just get too thin

and have to go home.

[sniffs] Okay.

♪

Gotta catch a couple fish.

[dramatic music]

See if I have any luck.

♪

[grunts]

♪

Holy cow!

♪

Yeah!

♪

Whoa!

We're not done... [laughs]

Not done putting notches on our hatchet yet!

♪

Yeah, here we are.

Look at that, we have the same look on our face.

[heavy breathing]

♪

[wind whistling]

Let me gut this guy really quick.

Some good fat on this one.

♪

Good fat.

♪

[munches noisily]

And eat it.

♪

I've been dreaming of catching a fish

after all the creative energy that happened

in making this net.

To actually put it in the ice,

catch something this valuable,

it's actually shifted my whole perspective

on being out here.

Starting to have hope

that it might get me somewhere.

♪

Whoo!

[dramatic music]

♪

[wind whistling]

- All right, end of an era.

♪

I am taking down my laundry line.

Pretty much wearing...

all of my long underwear layers

at this point, so...

Doesn't really seem like there's much point

in an outdoor laundry line anymore.

But it was awfully nice to have for a little while there.

Made it feel very homey, don't you know?

All right, so now I can pack this

into the traps pack

and it is time to head out into the world

with some extra cordage.

♪

Let's go check traps.

♪

You've got to keep the calories coming in

when it is so cold.

♪

It's getting more and more cold

and I have less and less reserves.

The intestines were the last resort.

Basically, I could get pulled

if I don't start getting more food soon.

[animal squeaking]

Please, please, please, rabbits.

Please, please, please.

♪

Let's see.

♪

Nothing here.

[rustling]

All right, I can see-- [gasps]

No way!

[gasps] I got a squirrel!

Hooray, thank God!

Yes!

Thank you, dear squirrel.

Okay. [sniffs]

Here is my squirrel.

I got a squirrel to eat today.

Hooray!

Now I'm way more enthused

to go check the rest of my traps than I have been.

This is so much better

than frozen rabbit guts right now.

Yes.

[percussive music]

♪

No freaking way.

Check it out.

Another squirrel.

Ugh! Yay!

The home trap's... [sniffs]

the most effective today.

[snow crunching]

Oh, my God.

I just got another squirrel

in my close home trap.

Check it out.

I am so grateful, you guys.

I am gonna eat enough today.

I am going to get enough calories.

That is freaking amazing.

Everything is possible again,

and it's so time for a woman to win this.

[dramatic music]

♪

♪

- I'm starving out here.

I've lost a lot of weight. [sniffles]

[fire crackling]

♪

My brain's [bleep] up.

♪

Today is med check.

I hope they say I'm all right.

It's just something that, you know, I can--

I can push through if I choose to.

♪

You put a price on my life,

right now it's a $1/2 million.

And what I'm hoping is that whoever's still out here

has less than me and less weight

and I can just ride it out.

♪

For all I know,

the other guy could be leaving tomorrow.

So, you know, every day could be the day you win.

♪

[distant helicopter whirring]

Here they come.

♪

Fingers crossed for good news, okay?

♪

[snow crunching]

♪

- So do you have any symptoms that I should be aware about?

- No, just, uh-- well, I don't know.

I'm just sore, man.

- Let's give your heart and lungs a listen.

- [deep inhale]

♪

- One more. - [deep inhale]

♪

[bleep].

♪

[sighs] - And step off.

- Ugh.

- And turn around real quick. Real quick.

♪

And go back inside.

♪

- You push yourself out here.

You're really trying to go for it, you know?

♪

- Just hit me with it, man.

Don't waste any time.

- [bleep], man.

Man, come on.

♪

I feel fine, I'm just beat up.

I-I don't understand.

♪

- This is the worst news you could have told me.

♪

Why is this happening to me?

This can't be right.

♪

This can't be right.

♪

- [sighs] How much of a danger zone?

- Once your body stops eating its own fat,

it starts consuming its own muscle.

- That's right. That's--I know this.

I know this.

- And among the muscle it's consuming is heart muscle.

Liver, kidney.

♪

[hushed breath]

♪

- Oh, my God, dude.

I can't lose this for my family.

Oh, my God, dude.

I can't lose this for my family.

- We are worried about possible cardiac complications,

and worried if you continue

you may make prolonged damage to your heart.

- I don't want to do that.

♪

My family would rather have me alive, right?

[laughs]

♪

Least I can say I gave it hell.

♪

I didn't get the victory this time, baby.

♪

I know I made a promise.

♪

I'm sorry.

♪

I had every intention of leaving either victorious

or in a bag.

I'm realizing I'm closer to the bag

than I am to the victory.

It hurts to know it's over.

You just wanna give your family the security

you never had, and that's why I took this on.

♪

You give everything you got.

And normally your best is enough.

It has been in the past.

But this time, it wasn't.

It's a hard realization to, uh--

to know that you're gonna have

to face the people you let down.

They deserve a hero in their life,

and it's hard to realize

you're not the hero of this story.

And that's a hard pill to swallow.

♪

[dramatic music]

- [bleep].

I just ripped the heck out of it.

I might have just totally ruined my gill net.

- [bleep]. It's really, really thick.

If I can't get fish, I don't know what I can do.

- I left the ladder up. [groans loudly]

I can't protect my meat.

At this point, I'm just done.

♪

[fire roars intensely]

[high-pitched ringing]

[suspenseful music]