TV - Alone - Survival In BC Canada Reality Show

[Bill Tarling]

The new reality survival show "Alone" aired its first episode, and I've gotta say it was surprising to see how quickly all the competitors began to fall apart realizing they signed up for way more than they bargained for.

The competition is to see who can last the longest Alone in the wilderness.

Ten men enter the Vancouver Island wilderness, carrying only what they can fit in a small backpack. They are alone in harsh, unforgiving terrain with a single mission–stay alive as long as they can. There are no camera crews, medical help, producers, or any support.

Each contestant is dropped off, completely isolated, in a different area.These men must hunt, build shelters and fend off predators. They will endure extreme isolation, and psychological distress as they plunge into the unknown and document the experience themselves.

I don't know if the video streams on the Canadian version of the History Channel will work for everyone, but they're including extended clips, along with some of the full episodes. I know Rob Doar on the forum here would drool at the chance of trying it - but check out the show to get an idea of Hinterland's backyard inspirations.

[bBvideo 560,340:3afzpm0r]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZQkH6kxG5M[/bBvideo]

[elloco999]

Just happened to find out about Alone today from a blog. Came here to post about it, but Bill beat me to it

I will most certainly watch this show!

Thanks for sharing this Bill!

I've got another link that you can try in case the link Bill provided doesn't work for you.

In case you're wondering why anyone would want to do something like this (other than because of the challenge/ to test yourself), the last man standing wins $500000.

Edit: here's a link to the blog I mentioned. The author did a breakdown of the items the contestants took along (each was allowed to select 10 items from a list provided by the show). It's interesting to see what items everyone (or nearly so) took, like the ferro rod (fire starter) and the axe.

[Ysidro]

[spoil]The first one to leave didn't surprise me at all (that was not a good place to be dropped off!), but I thought that, looking at his choice for a jacket, Joe would be the second one out. Also calling to a bear that hasn't seen you yet was a great idea I do wonder though why the second one to leave thought it was a good idea to join the show, considering his reason for leaving (If you are so scared of dogs already that you are terrified of the idea of even seeing a wolf then it's not a good idea to go sit in wolf territory. He could have packed up and moved camp the next day instead, but his fear got to him). The cash must have been too tempting I guess, or maybe he hoped he'd be in bear or cougar territory instead.[/spoil]

Edit: Thanks octavian

Edited June 27, 2015 by Guest

[octavian]

Edit: Seems there's no

tag support on the forums

[spoil]Of course there is. [(/)spoil][/spoil]

[Bill Tarling]

Watched the 2nd episode last night, and it's amazing how quickly they're starting to break down and fall apart after just a couple of days out there.

One thing I love about the show are the small snippets of insight text and quick facts shown to the side... not distracting, and much nicer that having a narrator talking throughout a show.

What really struck me was how much of the info actually related to many posts and comments about The Long Dark regarding wildlife... Players saying just make a spear so you can go after the wildlife, or punch the wolf, or the animals would all run away in real life -- ummm, definitely give the episode a view because it's not really quite as easy building the bravado as it was in The Grey

Really impressed with the show so far...

[Bill Tarling]

Okay, watched the third episode of the season... couple of points I've noticed:

While the competitors are seasoned, and trained professional survivalists, I was rather surprised that quite often that meant they were prepared as long as they start off immediately with survival tools [hatchet, fire strikers, etc.]... and if they lose or break one of their main items, some of them can feel completely lost how to even continue.

NOTE: ^^^ Good reminder as to the difficulty our own character would be facing and feeling in the game starting with very little, and especially since our character isn't a specialized survival expert.

Next I was really surprised at the reactions to the complete darkness at night. I guess most of the areas they've trained in likely had some visibility looking around their forest areas at night, but the pitch black nights in this Canadian area challenge seems to have really thrown a lot of the competitors out of their comfort zone.

I was also surprised [combined with the night blackness just mentioned] how fast the solitude was hitting them. I would have expected possibly a few weeks or a month at least, but each of them keeps talking about how hard it is having nobody around to talk to.

REMINDER NOTE: There are no crew with them, and they were each dropped off and separated in their own area. They were supplied with cameras to do all the filming on their own.

Biggest shock was:

[spoil]They're dropping like flies!!! It's only been a few days [about the same time as a long weekend] and almost half have called for rescue to be pulled out because the challenge was too much

ADDITIONAL EPISODE SPOILER:

I was really glad that they showed the rescue team having to head in at night because the competitor was in critical danger... And they had to do so by over 3 hours driving by vehicle just to get to the approximate location where the competitor was stranded. It showed that the competitors really were ALONE and completely on their own to survive.[/spoil]

...and crazier still -- this wasn't even during the harsher colder season!

If you haven't watched the series, give it a shot... It was pretty much filmed in Hinterland's neighboring backyard, and you can see why everything in the game should be made to make survival easy. 8-)

[elloco999]

Man, I really want to watch this show, but the site won't allow me to do so as I'm in Europe. If anyone has a link where I could watch it, that would be great.

[bethany]

Man, I really want to watch this show, but the site won't allow me to do so as I'm in Europe. If anyone has a link where I could watch it, that would be great.

You could try the Hola plugin. I mostly use it for Hulu (which is US-only), but it has worked on US and European network sites as well. It's free, so it might be worth a shot!

https://hola.org/

[Bill Tarling]

Episode 4 was pretty hard on some of them... Really shows how serious the wildlife dangers are, and how critical fire building and safe water supply can be.

[harobed1156]

Just watched all four episodes - I'll definitely keep up with this series. Thanks for telling us about it !

[elloco999]

Man, I really want to watch this show, but the site won't allow me to do so as I'm in Europe. If anyone has a link where I could watch it, that would be great.

You could try the Hola plugin. I mostly use it for Hulu (which is US-only), but it has worked on US and European network sites as well. It's free, so it might be worth a shot!

https://hola.org/

Thanks Bethany! I googled a bit last night to figure out how to watch the show from Europe and decided to try a free VPN service. That worked great and I watched the 1st and 2nd episode. However I got an email this morning that my free trial will expire tonight so I'll have to look for something else. Will give Hola a try tonight. Thanks again.

So, I watched two episodes and I have to say: I love this show! I was surprised at how difficult everything seems to be for them. I mean these guys are survival experts, right... Now don't get me wrong. I know that Vancouver Island is a very harsh place to survive and I doubt I would last more than a few days before tapping out. But still, I expected more of these experts.

One example of what I mean:

[spoil]The 1st episodes starts off with one of the contestants setting up shelter and then trying to make a fire using his ferrorod. He's found a huge chunk of fatwood and still he can't manage a fire because of the humidity. Now I'm no survival expert, I have maybe lit a couple dozen fires with a ferrorod and never in adverse conditions (yet ) but even I saw his mistake.

In such humid conditions you want your tinder as dry and as fine as possible. He used pretty big curls of fatwood and tried to get those to light. Had he bothered to process the fatwood down a bit further, maybe even use the spine of his knife to scrape some fine scrapings off, I 'm pretty sure he would have succeeded.

In his defense, they all seem to have great difficulty starting a fire and as far as I can tell not one of them succeeds to do so on the first day.[/spoil]

Another example:

[spoil]Most of the contestants were smart enough to scout their area for a good place to set up camp (not all of them find a good place the first day though). But the same contestant as in the first example doesn't seem to look too hard and sets up camp in the first spot he sees (or so it seems to me when I watch the show, maybe he'd been searching for a good spot for hours, I don't know).

After he sets up camp and fails to light a fire, he scouts his surroundings and finds evidence of bear activity all around his camp site, as close as 30ft away. He actually finds a bear den and a little later spots a mother bear and 2 cubs in the trees. You'd think you might move your camp, but he doesn't.

Had he gotten his fire burning, maybe those cubs (I think it was the cubs, they didn't seem as large as full grown bears) would not have paid him a visit that night. Luckily for him they run off once he makes some noise, but you can imagine he's scared shitless at this point (I would be too).[/spoil]

But it's a great show and I enjoy it very much! The show does a great job of showing these guys weighing their options and prioritizing what they need to do, their search for shelter, fire, water and food.

[elloco999]

I tried Hola yesterday and it worked great! Thanks again for the suggestion Bethany

Watched episodes 3 and 4 and a couple of the web exclusives. Alan's pinecone song is hilarious

While the competitors are seasoned, and trained professional survivalists, I was rather surprised that quite often that meant they were prepared as long as they start off immediately with survival tools [hatchet, fire strikers, etc.]... and if they lose or break one of their main items, some of them can feel completely lost how to even continue.

I take it you're referring to the guy who lost his ferrorod. He did have a point that making a friction fire would be very hard in the humidity they have there. But he still had a fire at that time, he could have used that to dry out the materials needed for a fire drill and kindling + tinder. That would make it plausible at least. And he could have tried to keep the fire going all the time. A pain to be sure but at least he would have been trying. I was really surprised that he just gave up and tapped out.

Biggest shock was:

[spoil]They're dropping like flies!!! It's only been a few days [about the same time as a long weekend] and almost half have called for rescue to be pulled out because the challenge was too much

ADDITIONAL EPISODE SPOILER:

I was really glad that they showed the rescue team having to head in at night because the competitor was in critical danger... And they had to do so by over 3 hours driving by vehicle just to get to the approximate location where the competitor was stranded. It showed that the competitors really were ALONE and completely on their own to survive.[/spoil]

...and crazier still -- this wasn't even during the harsher colder season!

[spoil]Yeah, that was a huge surprise to me too. 4 People tapped out in the first 4 days! And the 5th 2 days later. It hasn't even been a week and half of them have tapped out! And the way the 4th episode ended, it I would not be surprised if the next one is quick to follow!

I noticed that of the 5 that tapped out so far, 3 were because of wildlife encounters (and the guy I think might be the next will probably be because of an animal as well). The 1st had a couple of bear cubs nosing around his shelter at night, the 2nd had a couple of wolves fighting over something near his shelter in the middle of the night and the last was actually charged by a bear also in the dark.

It looks like the five remaining candidates are all settled in. All have build more substantial shelters than just the A-frame or lean to tarp most used for the first couple of days and all have been able to find food and fresh water. They look like they could keep going for a good while. So hopefully the wildlife will not disturb them too much or else this show will be over pretty quick.[/spoil]

[ChillPlayer]

Once again you point us to a new amazing survival show, thanks Bill. I wonder where this one will lead me, after watching Ultimate Survival Alaska (thanks to you) and playing TLD way too intensively, I began fishing and bought a Canadian Canoe

[ChillPlayer]

Okay as I kinda expected already when reading this thread, me = hooked I made the mistake of watching the first episode near 1am and then couldn't go to bed without watching 2 more episodes until 3am on a work week. Aaanyway...

Hands down I would be scared to the core in this situation, bears sniffing out my makeshift tent, wolfs houling and fighting 20m behind my back, the continuous thread of being jumped by a cougar.... Thanks to TLD I already feel my Amygdala at work when I only hear a dog barking lol.

It raises a question I couldn't figure out: what would be the ideal way to deal with such a situation where you need to camp in a place full of wild and supposedly dangerous animals? Is there anything you can do besides building a huge fire and pray to your gods? There are some survival experts here in the forum, what do your trainers teach you regarding this?

I think in this particual setting on Vancouver Island the lucky ones are those who got dropped off by the shore. I would keep the shore in my back, build a huge fire in front of me and camp between fire and shore. If not near the shore, for the first 3-4 days I'll probably turn religous again :roll: After finding water and something to eat I would then focus on building some kind of a fence (they have an axe and saw), big enough to keep my camp and a decent fire inside. But those are just fantasies made up while sitting comfortable on a couch watching a TV show.

In reality, how are you supposed to deal with this, is there a "right" way?

[Denyo]

I am not an expert at survival at all,my frend,but after reading some books,watching some documentaries about living in wilderness,I would like to tell you,what I would do in this situation. :oops:

First of all,I would choose place for camping not far away from water,on higher terrain and place would need to be protected from one side with steep rock.Then I would place arround unprotected sides kind of bushes with torns(if they grow in Canadian wilderness) or would make wall of braided rat tail branches rather than protect with fire camps.Fire can burn out whille I would sleep,or I could not be able to make any fire at all because of blizzards and other bad sort of weather.

I don`t know,if that wall would protect against bears,but other wildlife it would certainly keep on distance.Of course,that walll would have to be 2+m high and very densely placed.

Well,that is my wiew of protection. Whether this way would work,I rather let real experts judge.

Edit: Also,I would keep food and "kitchen" quite far away from camp,so that food would not attract wildlife.I would hang food in bags on very high branches.And if animals would still reach food...well...they better eat my food than me. :lol: :lol:

[harobed1156]

Also,I would keep food and "kitchen" quite far away from camp,so that food would not attract wildlife.I would hang food in bags on very high branches.And if animals would still reach food...well...they better eat my food than me. :lol: :lol:

After seeing the mountain lion footage I'd try to devise a way to sleep with ME in a bag on very high branches. There is such a thing, it's called a Tentsile.

[ChillPlayer]

Yeah I just saw it - lucky guy gets 10lb of fish but it seems the cougars are opting now for a free meal too. I thought about sleeping high on a tree too but in one of the first episodes you see a whole bear family up on the trees and cougars can climb them also, not sure I could make a bed in the trees that I can reach but the predators don't.

How about smoked fish, would that attract predators as well? It keeps insects away from the meat so I'm thinking the predators might lose interest in it too.

[EDIT]: btw, ep 5 is already out

[Ysidro]

After seeing Episode 5:

Seeing all the islands out there it could be worthwhile to look for one that doesn't have big wildlife but doesn't get flooded during storms either. If you can make a boat, get across and then find a way to store water there it could be the perfect spot to make a permanent shelter. Bring across lots of fresh water, if you can get it food for several days, and then spend time dragging across firewood. You'd be reasonably safe from predators, if you'd gut a fish you could dump the remains in the water and the tide would take it away, and as long as you can keep the boat in one piece there's always a way back.

It sure as hell beats spending time on an island with cougars and bears

(Note: There's several quite big IFs in the above reasoning. You'd have to find such an island, be able to make a boat, get across, not find proof of big predators on the island, see no proof of it being flooded, have a good spot to set up camp and a way to shelter it from all sides against the wind)

And also from Episode 5: If during a storm the trees around me were making that kind of noise and I'd like to remain in that location I'd consider finding several tall ones close together, sawing them through at about 2-2 1/2m height, and building a shelter in between. If a tree around it falls over it might hit a tree stump first rather than me, you'd have lots of building material, and at least you'd not have branches brreaking off and falling on your head either.

Note: I'm not a survival expert, but this sounds like a reasonably logical way to deal with such a situation.

[elloco999]

I think it's really hard to create a safe shelter in this environment. To build something sturdy enough to safe your life if one of those giant trees were to fall on top of it would require some very sturdy building materials, that I doubt you would be able to get into place by yourself.

The ideal situation would be if you found some rock overhang with enough room underneath to create a sleeping space. Then you could cut a nearby tree and let it drop against the rock and somehow secure it so you have a very strong ridgepole. Throw a tarp over that to make a wind and water proof side and then build a layer of poles over it to give some protection against predators and strong winds and also some added isolation. I would manufacture some sort of door to seal the opening during the night.

But since your location is also dictated by your other needs like fresh water and food, you would need to find a stone overhang in a location that is not too far from a fresh water source or from area's you might gather some food.

If you've ever been in a state park that has a bear population, you've surely read the warnings that you should not leave food (or personal hygiene products like soap) in your camp or car as this will attract bears (and other predators). You're supposed to hang your food from a tree at least 100 yards from your camp and keep in mind the minimal distances to the ground, trunk of the tree and the branch (bears can climb trees remember). Also, your "kitchen" should be 100 yards from your camp as well and the same is true for any site you use for disposing your refuse. Another important thing is to keep your refuse at least 100 yards away from your drinking water source!

Here's a nice image that shows site placement and how to hang the food:

[nicko]

I watched 4 eps. to me yeah would freak out big time but the footage/Editing just seems way to over dramatised which makes it look fake/cheap as semi reality show.

Maybe it was just the repeated footage every 5 minutes. or just the lack of seeing the guys do their stuff more not just the tiny bits of footage? Like you see one guy tapping out for losing his fire striker, seriously? at least explain or show more of his story. or just a pussy?

[elloco999]

In several (if not all) of the episodes so far, a text saying something like "go to history.com for a full list of the 40 items the contestants could choose from" is displayed. Has anyone been able to find this list? All I can find is the 10 items each contestant chose and by googling I found a compiled list of 19 items the contestants took together, but nowhere can I find a list of all the items they could chose from.

Here's the list of 19 items they took:

1. Axe (10/10)

2. Sleeping Bag (all10/0)

3. 2 Qt Pot (10/10)

4. Ferro Rod (10/10)

5. 25 piece Fishing Kit with Line (10/10)

6. Knife (9/10...Josh Chevez elected not to take a knife and was the first to leave- no correlation)

7. 12x12 Tarp (6/10)

8. Saw (6/10)

9. Paracord (5/10)

10. Bow & 6 Arrows (4/10)

11. Gill Net (4/10)

12. Emergency Rations (3/10)

13. Canteen/Waterbottle (3/10)

14. Leathermen Multi-tool (2/10)

15. Bivy Bag (2/10)

16. Sling Shot (2/10)

17. Sharpening Stone (2/10)

18. Wire (1/10)

19. Extra Tarp (1/10)

Here's a question for you all: what would you take if you could only take 10 items from this list (or the list of 40 items if anyone can find that)?

Here's what I would take:

1. Knife

2. Axe

3. Saw

4. Ferrorod

5. 12x12 Tarp

6. Sleeping bag

7. Bivvy bag

8. 2Qt pot

9. Fishing kit

10. Bow and arrows

I'm having a hard time deciding between the paracord and the bow and arrows. You can use some of the fishing line (you get 300 yards with the fishing kit) as cordage to tie things down and if you make clever use of your environment (e.g. by using a long branch as a ridgepole) you could certainly make do without the paracord, but paracord is very useful to have.

The bow on the other hand would enable to to kill a larger animal like a deer or something. Such an animal would supply you with a good amount of food of course, but more importantly, it will also give you very useful items like the skin, tendons and stomach, that could make all the difference in the long term. So I think I would go with the bow and arrows. If I were allowed 11 items though, that would definitely be the paracord. The gill net and a waterbottle would be numbers 12 and 13.

[elloco999]

I watched 4 eps. to me yeah would freak out big time but the footage/Editing just seems way to over dramatised which makes it look fake/cheap as semi reality show.

Maybe it was just the repeated footage every 5 minutes. or just the lack of seeing the guys do their stuff more not just the tiny bits of footage? Like you see one guy tapping out for losing his fire striker, seriously? at least explain or show more of his story. or just a pussy?

I particularly disliked the editing at the end of ep. 4 (the what's next part).

[spoil]They make it seem like that guy will wake up with a cougar next to his face, but that's far from the truth.[/spoil]

I mentioned that guy who tapped out over losing his ferrorod in a previous post. That did surprise me as well. He does mention that it would be next to impossible to start a friction fire in such humid conditions, but you would think he'd at least try but he just gives up. It could be there's more at play, but that's not obvious from what I've seen. Maybe I should have a look at his "why he left" video...

[harobed1156]

In several (if not all) of the episodes so far, a text saying something like "go to history.com for a full list of the 40 items the contestants could choose from" is displayed. Has anyone been able to find this list?

The complete list wasn't published, and the contestants aren't allowed to discuss what was on the list. This article has more details, including a list of banned items.

[elloco999]

I saw that article in my own search, but I'm pretty sure in the episodes the text on the screen states you can view the full list on the history.com website. That's why I asked.

What I find a bit weird is that there is a list of banned items. If you can only take items from the list of 40 items you're allowed, than a list of banned items is rather superfluous... I mean, those items would not be on the list of allowed items, would they.

One quote from the article gives us a lot of information:

Joe also mentions that most of the men ended up with similar items as their 10 – and that a number of the men actually chose the exact same 10 items to use. He states that this is because there were many items on that list of 40 provided by History that no person in their right mind would bring along with them.

The compiled list of 19 items they did take probably contains all the items you might take from the full list

EDIT: The article details the specific items some of the contestants took. It seems they were allowed to choose their own type of each item on the allowed list. i.e. the list says they could take a knife, but the contestants could choose they specific knife they wanted to take.

[ChillPlayer]

The bow on the other hand would enable to to kill a larger animal like a deer or something. Such an animal would supply you with a good amount of food of course, but more importantly, it will also give you very useful items like the skin, tendons and stomach, that could make all the difference in the long term.

I doubt that they are allowed to kill big game, after all they are not in a real survival situation and are doing this for fun. Ed Wardle who did the series "Alone in the Wilderness" mentioned several times that he's not allowed by Canadian Law to hunt for big game - if he would've been he would not have almost starved to death, he saw several deers and moose passing by and he even had a rifle.

Left aside that it's not as easy as in TLD to hunt with bow and arrow, except of course if you've practiced it.

About being fake or not: well there's the 500k reward for the winner which makes a strong case for being true. Unlike Ultimate Survival Alaska where all the winner gets is a knife IIRC (not saying it's completely fake but probably heavy edited).

The guy who lost his firestriker and then tapped out probably was just looking for an excuse to get out, from all I've seen so far the 4 remaining guys should be able to survive for a long time, especially the canoe building guy