Survivorman | Season 2 | Episode 5 | Alaska | Les Stroud

that is gnarly is he going to eat it they're asking [Music] [Music] I'm being taken deep into the wilds of Alaska where jagged mountains shed their cold glacial waters into deep fjords it's one of those places where survival is a way of life sea kayaking up here is a powerful experience and not one you can approach casually every year thousands of adventurers take their kayaks into the icy waters of Alaska some of them become stranded or lost separated from their gear I'm about to put myself into that kind of Jeopardy I'll keep my kayak but little else these waters are frigid weather here can change quickly even rescue can be held off or suspended due to the harshness of the environment [Music] Alaskan coastal waters are rich with killer whales seals and sea otters brown bears and Grizzlies feast on the spawning salmon in the rushing rivers and glaciers are calving constantly into the ocean water you're taking your life into your hands if you get too close [Music] Alaska is larger than 21 of the smallest US states combined 34,000 miles of coastline more than half of the continental US a remote stretch of the coastline outside of Seward Alaska without gear my kayak has no equipment for camping fishing hunting or cooking no food and no fresh water I'm carrying only a knife multi-tool and a fire pistol and to keep this experience authentic I'll stay out here alone for a week the safety camp has been set up somewhere along the coast and I'll paddle and search the shoreline for huge shelter the place to survive the seven days where I stay out here will depend on what I find but the production crew leaves me alone now the rest of the filming is up to me as I search for a place to make a shelter the challenges of kayaking here become immediately evident the dry suit I'm wearing causes me to sweat which can put me in risk of hypothermia but without it on it would take only one spill into the icy ocean to put me in serious peril the ice and snow of the mountains merged with the rainforest and come down to touch the edge of the salty ocean water shelter is not a luxury here it's an instant imperative but not every location is ideal for survival taking a break here checking out long beach pretty steep though [Applause] we come up here there's some snow right down almost to the water's edge here and get some fresh water oh that's good script down just a little bit lots of good fresh snow here can't drink the ocean water so what's a great way to get rehydrated all right let me turn you around and show you where it came from [Applause] that's all open ocean right there and I know it doesn't look like it there's quite a cool breeze blowing in off of it we're coming in right down on me here there's lots of driftwood I could take advantage of and I've got this snow here for fresh water but not much else so this time I'm going to keep moving keep paddling and search for a better spot since it never really gets that dark this time of year I'll paddle through the night [Music] [Music] it's day 2 of my survival in Alaska night number 1 was spent mostly traveling stopping only to curl up for a bit of sleep in the drizzling rain and then carrying on again cold damp winds continue to blow down the fjord as I try out some new camera mounts I had built for this survival Odyssey without time to test them it's a surprise to me to discover just how top-heavy they make me which makes things dangerous for me and risky for the camera gear itself places like this offer what I would describe as no forgiveness one mistake and you risk your life it's funny how it can all be offset however by unmatched beauty stunning scenery that betrays the dangers it's like a paradise here see there's anything I can survive with them all right the only extras I have I'm a hikers for getting around on land and my paddle drysuit keeps me from getting soaking wet if I do dump the kayak in the ocean but it's extremely hot to paddle in and I've got to watch just how much I sweat when I'm wearing that thing I try to dry out before night comes in or before it starts to rain fair weather right now around here this is a rain forest and I expect rain anytime anytime soon it's just some clear weather for now bald eagles not too happy about me being here lots of water lots of good driftwood there he goes look at him huh not sure if he's gonna dive-bomb me or not you know this is one of those situations where I'm in an absolutely picture-perfect location I've got a waterfall in behind me active Eagle Nest incredible view to the front but it's not the best place for survival I do have a breeze kicking in off the ocean which is keeping me cool even the greenery that's available nothing's ripe yet not in this location well I can tell you what this is all this ripped apart wood here it's the first sign of black or grizzly bear in the area he's coming here probably trying to get grubs that are living inside the wood he's gnarled at it busted this all up he can even see his teeth marks there and there so I wouldn't have thought they'd be grizzly or black bear in this particular spots not very big but I thought wrong that does give me a lot of great ready to go firewood I'll stay here for tonight but sometimes survival means moving on no it was raining for almost a week before I got out here they'll always figure you can't get dry tinder and dry wood if it's raining or if it's been raining a lot and check out all those old stumps back there close to the eagle's nest and digging deep enough find yourself some nice dry tinder I can use this Oh beautiful let me take one of the other pieces and just get shavings that's why woodsman and trappers and people who are out in the wilderness all the time they obsess over keeping a really sharp knife a dull knife is what makes you push harder and you're trying to cut things and that's how you end up cutting yourself a sharp knife just melts through wood like butter all right it's been a quick race of wood just wood underneath where I want to have my fire well the worst things you can do is try to get a good fire going and have it sitting right on top of wet or damp ground it just sucks up all the moisture out of the ground and put your fire out or at least makes it a lot harder to keep your fire going I'm going to try a new method for starting a fire something I've never used before remember that punky wood that I gathered well this is where it's going to come in handy don't need very much so this is a fire piston and what happens here is there's an airtight grip and as you push in really hard boom hit that in really hard it works just like the piston in an automobile the air that is condensed and pressurized so quickly rises in temperature extremely rapidly and if you've got a little tiny bit of tinder down there some punky wood it should actually ignite it take my little piece of punky wood drop it in there and it's simply a good hard hit like this with any luck I'll have a little cold in there when I'm finished I hope there we go [Music] I can smell it oh it's on the end there we go there we go [Music] [Music] okay it's not that one out the purpose of using fire-starting devices other than matches and lighters is that they can be used indefinitely without returning to civilization for resupply yeah there's nothing to run out of except for the natural components like tinder fungus or punky wood which the wilderness provides in abundance oh thank you thank you thank you what's missing from what you're watching is the hour I spent gathering all my firewood supplies ahead of attempting to light it preparation is the key to a successful fire look what I found an old running shoe not a big deal except that out of the heel of it are the distinct markings of grizzly bear teeth it's not a good omen tonight night number two I'll spend laying out by the fire trusting the rain to hold off I know you can't really tell just by looking but these rocks here are actually they're very hot to the touch in fact they're too hot to the touch and what I'll be able to do is lie on these rocks on the smooth side fire in front of me hot rocks underneath me and just this heat will just be coming up into my body and right now the dew is coming down pretty heavy I mean that's why I've got to have these yellow covers on the cameras because otherwise the dew is getting them soaking wet and it's coming down on to me I might have to put my rain shell on to get through the night and as long as it doesn't rain it should be a doable night this may be a beautiful location but it's not much for survival there isn't even any seaweed coming in that I can eat nothing to gather nothing to pick and eat nothing to catch I'm gonna move on rocks getting hot see if I can find myself a good survival Basecamp the general rule of thumb for survival is to stay put but that is not always the best course of action it's amazing how warm these rocks are and actually make it possible to sleep in this position you can see how far out the tide is now this is the morning of day 3 it actually started to drizzle on me a little bit last night not too much fortunately but I can't stay here got to get a place where I can get some food and especially where I can set up a good shelter because it will rain more this is a rain forest I don't think I'll wait for the tide to come back there's a black bear I have no idea if he he's got to know I'm here he's acting like he doesn't go [Music] I'm just gonna hop in the kayak and paddle on I found yesterday when I had the camera gear up and the first day it was just so top-heavy the kayak always threatened a tip so to get to my next location I'm not gonna film what I'm just gonna pack the camera gear away and get going black bears and Grizzlies abound in this area this one as expected took off when he saw me but the massive Grizzlies maybe a little less intimidated by the sight of a human so this is it then base camp I wouldn't blame you at all if you looked at this and said ah come on that looks setup but no word of a liar I didn't see it and here it is laying here this happens actually a lot on the ocean coast Eagles will catch their salmon and different fish and come somewhere to eat surprise I don't see bird poop all over here there isn't any but the come they'll pick a spot they'll eat and then a fly away leaving a good portion of the fish I don't know I have no idea of knowing how long this guy's been sitting here that is gnarly not smells fishy but it doesn't smell bad oh that's kind of gross it makes some fish soup out of that and I could also use it for bait it smells a bit fishy there's a good hunk of meat there though now this is just to show you that if you had to you can eat a lot of things raw be surprised how many things you can eat raw without getting sick well I may not have a really large tidal zone here to gather from and pick from but these beach greens are fantastic good source of both vitamin A and C on this beach here it's just covered with them a lot of locals actually still mix these in with salads so I've got a massive bit of salad greenery on this Beach well the driftwood I've got this should do just fine it's good and solid that's for sure a little bit exposed but I can cover it up one thing's for sure I want to get this shelter up now it might be fair weather at the moment but you never know how long that's gonna last and out here on the Northwest Pacific coast of Alaska rain is the usual way sunny and warm is the exception to the rule I better get a shelter up now while I can it's way better spend all these calories now building this shelter on this day rather than waiting until day six or seven when I'm really exhausted [Music] keep forgetting haven't really had any deeper through this speech call me score god I like it one man's garbage on a man's goal one old hunk of plastic saves me a lot of waterproofing see if I can block up that drafty hole every little bit helps [Music] boy I don't know if this is even gonna be possible but the only water I can actually walk to on this site is up through this dry creek bed I mean it's gushing up at the top there so hopefully I won't have to go very far before I start to see it coming through the ground but I can get myself some fresh water otherwise I'll have to hop into the kayak and paddle over I'm not far from some Falls but it's just kind of a drag out to get in the kayak every time I need water boy it's a long way to go some water I can find a container to bring some water back to camp it'd be easier those are well I'm here starting to get a bit of a headache from dehydration surrounded by an ocean of water and you can't drink one ounce of it well I've got the shelter - pretty much where I wanted it today a good roof to shed the rain a place where I can crawl inside and get out of the rain one two maybe three hours of actual sunlight left take my hand touch the bottom to the Sun and count down the widths of my hand till I hit the horizon it gives me an hour each time with my shelter priority taken care of I can turn my attention back to the scavenged fish and take in a little nourishment well it's better than nothing free fish dinner nothing to turn down that's for sure even if the fish is bad we ride to eat it raw which I already did but I'm feeling fine we're cooking it should kill all the germs so not being the case I'm gonna have myself a fish dinner thank you eagle [Music] this is such an unexpected treat I'm kind of ripe for a visit from any kind of grizzly or black bear now because this fish smells all over this place not a smart idea the other thing that would be good to do would actually be to boil this fish that's the best way I can get all the nutrients out of it I just don't have anything to boil in right now so I'll take it cooked man Wow nothing gross about eating it now I know you see it all cook this is gonna be a good night this is a beautiful place [Music] would you believe that it's actually midnight not very dark wow this is the end of day three I think starting to lose track hopefully I won't get too much smoke inhalation in the shelter see if I can try and get some sleep wake up every now and then look for bears and stoke the fire I can't believe how good that fish made me feel tonight I learned that even with years of experience you can never let your guard down one small mistake can turn deadly first time in my life my shelter caught fire you should have seen it as a big ball of flame in the sky fortunately there was this hanging around if not for that one piece of junk on the beach my shelter would have been a massive bonfire man so I've splashed water all over the top and I've pulled what was left of the coals outside keep the fire going and I've soaked the front entranceway the fire did not go to where the plastic was on the roof was over in the fire area where the flames are supposed to lick up but I guess they just kept drying out and drying out the wood up above it I let the flames get too high Wow [Music] well here I go again another night of sleeping on rocks tops incredible last night I'm really fortunate that my whole shelter didn't burn down first time I've ever had one of my shelters catch fire come close before but another close call wow this is an extremely low tide right now it's got to be down about 12 or 13 feet so I'm going to head over to what looks like a much larger tidal zone across the bay and see what I can find there hopefully the Pickens will be a little bit better and I can get something to eat I just sit here and wait for the tide to come in okay that's long Oh top-heavy cause of that camera it's tricky you know I made a practice of trying all kinds of different camera mount me wildlife filming myself once they get into doing spider-man it's a little bit harder one thing I don't have the energy another blow it and ruin a camera have nothing shoot with there's no point in me being out survivor so I usually end up with three to five cameras with you and then waterproof mounts and again the intense beauty of Alaska can lull you into a false sense of security but for now I'll gladly take this fortunate spell of great weather to seek out food sources sunshine fills the soul but not the stomach and in four days there's been nothing more for me to eat and a few ounces of rotting fish [Music] little sheltered protected Bay in here I've seen this before I might have come and stayed in here this is a fantastic area for harvesting but the tide is coming in really quick I'm actually in a bit of a race against it when you have an area that's this large of a tidal zone the tide seems to move in on you quite quickly sea lettuce hmm just eat it raw there's lots of it in here it's a whole garden of it this Beach is loaded with good food bladderwrack this is fantastic you just pick up and eat it raw and it's full of minerals and protein even mmm just little babe there's a good score now that I'm eating I'm getting hungry Wow you can see just how fast the tide is coming in that's not a river that's tide flowing in and behind this peninsula that I'm on when it comes in it comes in fast tides can be very dangerous you never want to get caught in one you got to watch the signs better to paddle during slack tide so harvesting from the sea is all about timing things with the tides if I come out here just before slack tide get out here so that I'm here during slack tide that should give me plenty of time to gather what I need to when the tide is down let's see what else I can find this is great this is called goose Tong it's a simple grass but mmm bit of a salty taste to it the natives used to actually gather this and harvest yet and there's just tons of it here when you just sit here and graze like a grizzly I'll tell you a good reason why not to camp here for me it's because there are bear trails everywhere this is a massive mound of Bear poo looks like he's been eating seaweed lots of it a good place to come and harvest but I'm gonna have to keep my eyes open for grizzly and black bear all this tall grass think it'd be beside me and I wouldn't even know it my newly dubbed bounty Bay is a source of reassurance for continued survival and I'll be back often to scavenge tronic well I've got my vegetables now it's time to turn into a Beachcomber and scavenge my own Beach for supplies well I was really hoping to get a fish line in the water when the tide was low so I've been scouring the beach looking for stuff and I've got all kinds of junk here alright let's get busy well I need a fishing line and this is all I've got all I have to do is split it apart get ting better but the big thing about doing this is it really keeps your mind occupied still day 2 day 3 day 4 always really rough days I haven't got anything going yet and and I'm out here completely alone I could really mess with your mind after a while staying occupied has saved more than one survivor from insanity and some of these survival skills hearkened back to our most primitive times quite a few bottles kicking around here I think what I'd like to try and do is see if I can make a fish hook out of this bottle it's been a while since I've done this and it's very tricky to do with glass there's a primitive skill called flint knapping I might be able to get myself a bit of a blade or hook alright yeah first thing I'm gonna need is my bandana and I just want to kind of break away a little pieces here I don't want to break away too much you see these edges here I can actually thin that edge down using the flint knapping yeah it's actually starting to work you can just sort of see see if you can see that getting an edge to it I want to make it so that the glass has a nice point and I do that by a little bit of grinding called pressure flaking you can see little shards of glass there I'm just breaking them off the edge see that it's hard to show you but that's one edge done almost to a point it's very difficult all I'm using is this crude stone it's a great skill to know because if you don't have a knife if you can learn flint knapping you can make a knife oh okay man all that effort and I just broke it in two yeah that's frustrating [Music] try this I suppose it's just a hunk of plastic it's pretty good but I'm a little worried it might be too big I can always try it that's the tail leftover from that fish with the hook in the middle of it [Music] so I've got the fish out on its hook the thin line that goes up to the big rope the big rope that goes up and I've got a float that I found lying around here I just saw a huge school of salmon just go swimming right past me here tomorrow I've got to get a net oh that's for sure oh well as you can see I got my fire going and I'm keeping it a lot farther away from the shelter tonight there's salmon jumping all around so with any luck at all something will smell the bait on the end of that hook and go and take it the only way I'm actually able to stay warm tonight is I've been heating up these little rocks and putting them in my clothing around me and it's oh it's warming too small on my back right now otherwise I'd be pretty chills shelter just probably going going to be a dry one and that it'll keep the rain away but there's no warmth I'm too nervous to have a fire inside well it's morning used to rock for a pillow that I heated by the fire the Sun's up on the other side of the bay and as soon as I get the energy I'm gonna get up and go check my fish line the plastic hook and the bait hasn't caught a single thing but my beachcombing has turned up numerous old fish nets and floats there's not an ocean shore anywhere in the world that doesn't have some kind of washed-up treasure on it and this is a major fishing area so the score is big all I have to do now is make use of some of the floats that I found maybe some wood anything to get the top edge floating and then using all of this excess netting and rope and all of these Beach scores that I've been able to get through beef combing and tie rocks to the bottom end to weigh this thing down okay well the two big floats now I've got a scrounge around and see what else I can find and use as a float and then the tough part will be trying to tie it some rocks on the other side have anchors this one wasn't going to work as a float because has already holes in it from bare teeth some big old bear has been chewing on this thing so it'll make an anchor instead [Music] that's a bit of a climb just for a drink but I found a way to bring some of the water back to my camp using the shaft of the paddle of course means that I have to make sure I don't spill it all the way but hey it works in the more water I can get back to the camp unless I have to come up this climb get this fresh water look what I found here check this that fiddleheads mmm this is a nice surprise not bitter missing tender I'm sure there's probably more fiddleheads up and down this freshwater Creek here and you call it Creek or a waterfall my thing is every time I come up here to get water I'm always thoughtful looking whether or not I'm being visited back at camp by some kind of bear you know here's the view from where I drink say that all right that's a lot of bear scat in fact there are a lot of sign of bear all over this location if I were to see a big bear the old cliche holds true he's more afraid of me than I am of him all I have to do is remain calm in fact I have seen three bear already on this site and every single one of them took off like a shot so there's no need to panic no need to fear bear at all really it's just a matter of be cautious give them their space hold your ground and most likely they'll just take off well I'll leave the fish net out of waiting high tide it's time to try and make my shelter just a bit more comfortable besides I'm sick of sleeping on rocks [Music] a bit of a math delay on now instead of the rocks [Music] there we go it's like a night at the cottage except that I have no food no friends and no beer it's five days more food than usual but I need some real food [Music] this morning of day six big bank of fog has rolled in not a good sign it off for me weather-wise go check my net because I have an extremely low tide right now cross your fingers what I hope to find is one or two fish entangled and ready for the grabbing all I need is one fish just one fish in this case I preferred somebody just feeding me with a fish rather than teaching me how to I'm going to kayak into the middle of the Feuer to go fishing but with the camera still making me dangerously top-heavy and the water still as cold as ever I need to make something to help stabilize the kayak I'm much more secure and stable now especially because I'm putting a camera mount up high making the kayak top-heavy [Music] [Applause] [Music] love that there are salmon jumping on either side of me not to take my baby well here here's my bait nice big fish guts there for you as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by the multitude of jumping salmon all around my kayak hey some more food look at that bull kelp and I can eat it that's a nice chunk Wow well if I don't get any fish I've got this killer that's the bonus getting out and about [Music] seagulls are finishing up the last little bit of that dead fish that I had that I was using as bait they might as well because I'm having no luck with it I was disappointing this is not salmon it's not even rockfish its kelp what is edible um that's quite a meal and for now it's going to have to do so unless there's something on that little makeshift net over there let's kelp for dinner nope that doesn't look good I don't think I see anything on that net and that is the reality trying to survive especially when you're alone there's only one person to do everything hoping that net would kind of be like a second person for me and just hang out there and catch a fish it hasn't done anything maybe if I was here a lot longer it would but in two days it's done well this is almost all that's left of that dead fish that I found that I've been using his bait but I did take some of it and I had it soaking in the water now it's been a few days I really was hoping it wasn't going to come to this I expected to have some fresh fish but I just washed this guy off what I'm going to cook it the way I'm going to cook it is I'm going to wrap it in that bull kelp which is actually a traditional way for cooking fish I have no idea why I'm doing this this just does not seem like a good idea but you know what it'll be some food in my stomach which I could use there we go I'll leave that to cook for a while it'll be the last bit of nutrition I'll actually get out here lucky with the weather not so lucky with the fishing anyone who's tried it knows how that can be all the skill in the world won't make the fish bite oops try to keep it on the stick here we go so this is my forte old piece of fish what's left of my fish bait wrapped in bull kelp and cooked so it in essence it's kind of like steaming it yeah try to get it in my mouth okay doesn't taste so fresh but I'm going to eat it to get food that is a cast-off of other animals as a survival trick worth knowing you can watch the river otters they might leave a fish behind Eagles all the time are dropping fish and leaving behind or even sea gulls frustrating to have a fishing line out there and salmon jumping on either side of the boat well I'll tell you defending grizzly bear comes around now I smell and stink like fish old fish so I'm sure you'll be quite interested keep my knife handy at the Enders to my shelter tonight for sure not that that's going to do a lot against a massive grizzly bear or 600-pound black bear for that [Music] that's why I didn't catch any fish today blues goodnight [Music] well it's bill of the day hmm on this last night and the weather's come in you just come in harsh winds whipping in from the side so I'm crawled over into one side of my shelter because in all this time I neglected to really beef up one side of my shelter and naturally that's the side that the wind is blowing hard from right now so the rain is coming in I brought my fire inside keep it protected and out of the rain let's hope I don't burn down the shelter this time and once it gets daylight enough it looks like well then this week the same way I started it paddling in the cold and the wet in the wind after my one hour of nighttime darkness the sky lightens again and I returned to my kayak to paddle out to safety Alaska is powerfully beautiful it's a place on earth that could present some of the greatest survival challenges but its abundant landscape offers not only beauty but also bountiful supplies for survival if you know what to look for [Music] [Music]

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 600,970

Rating: 4.8495274 out of 5

Keywords: 'Les, Outdoor Survival, Survivorman TV, Stroud', Les Stroud, Survivorman TV Show, Survivorman TV Series, Survivorman, Survivorman Les Stroud, Survivorman - Season 2 - Episode 5 - Alaska, Todd Standing, Logan Stroud, Sam Omik, Uzimann, Joseph McConnell, Bob Wilson

Id: oOhpc0129po

Length: 45min 35sec (2735 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020