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.

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:

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 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. [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]

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.

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.

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.

That's the word I was looking for! I just couldn't get it yesterday... Atmosphere, not charisma. As we say in Dutch: "Het lag op het puntje van mijn tong". Literally translated: "It was on the tip of my tongue". Meaning as much as knowing what you mean but not quite being able to put it into words.

the charisma, and no zombies

More deer and one wolf that will kill a deer for me every day and then leave it for me and not bother me at all. And maybe some rabbits, mostly because I think they are adorable. Ooh, I just thought of a good animal that you could tame: a rabbit. Or actually 2 rabbits (1 male, 1 female) and you could get yourself a sustainable food source! That would be grreeeaaat!

Interesting, I'm going to try that. It would be a nice backup heater in case the power goes out for some time in the winter. A couple of years ago we had a power outage for three days, it got pretty cold in the house. Luckily my parents did still have power and they live only 15 minutes away, so we spend most of our time with them.

Here's another survival tip, and arguably the most important of all: stay calm! Panic can make you do stupid things, and get you into far more trouble really fast. So in almost any survival situation try to stay calm and think before you act. (unless of course waiting to act results in instant death...)

Interesting those self igniting tinders... Funny thing, strike anywhere matches are illegal to sell in MN. I tried making the self igniting tinders this weekend. I found out strike anywhere matches are not available here in the Netherlands (not sure if they are actually illegal or not, just not a (web)shop that sells them), and ordering them in the states adds a $15 shipping charge to a $1 pack of matches... So then I tried a tutorial on making your own strike anywhere matches using regular safety matches. That was a bust... So I made the tinders using safety matches instead. Turns out that they are really hard to ignite unless there is no wind/ rain, and it takes a while until they get really going. But when they do they do burn for a decent time, but not nearly as long as I expected. And the wind actually blew one out when it had burned for 2/3rds and it wasn't really all that windy. All in all, I'm still using my trusty old vaseline soaked cotton balls. They are easier to ignite, especially in bad weather and they burn longer. They are a bit more messy though

"Good things come in twos" I thought it was threes? At lleast that's how the saying goes here in Holland. "Come to Holland and get 50% more good things!" We sure like our good things down here

"Good things come in twos" I thought it was threes? At lleast that's how the saying goes here in Holland. I agree with you on the principle that "one is none and two is one". It's not a bad idea to have more then one of the most essential essentials. I always carry two or more knives, although as survival tools not as weapons (not that I wouldn't use them as such if the situation calls for it), and I've always got multiple ways of making fire and to navigate as well. Heck, one of my BOBs has a hand-build ghille suit and a rebreather apparatus in it! Only one? A simple piece of tinder that can burn for a couple of mins. Take a cotton ball, spread it apart and put petroleum jelly in it. Repeat, and put them in an old prescription bottle, or watertight container. The combination of the materials is like a candle. They will light very quickly, and burn long. This is my go-to fire-tinder. In a pinch, you can use an article of clothing, and carmex for similar results. Yeah, the petroleum jelly soaked cotton ball is a great tinder for sure. But I find it hard to light them using a spark (firesteel/ flint and steel) if you soak them completely through (although they'll burn longer of course). I only rub the petroleum jelly on the outside so that I can peel them open and expose the still dry and fluffy fibers in the middle. That will catch the spark much easier. (I confess I could use some more practice striking a spark, so maybe that's where the problem lies.) Something I recently came across and planning to try out is self igniting tinder, using strike anywhere matches, toilet paper/ paper towels and candle wax. Completely waterproof and you don't need anything else to ignite them.