The filming was done last October/November. Some of the contestants remarked that they were considering being their for American Thanksgiving or even Christmas. None of the contestants know when the others have tapped out and conceivably even the last person doesn't know the fate of those who have tapped out before them -- it may be a case where they don't know who survived the longest either.

I've camped on the island in the middle of summer - ie. the dry season. I can't imagine living there during the wet season with nearly constant rain and hard to find dry combustible material. The wildlife is either tiny like mice or much larger like black bears, wolves and cougars. Very little in the way of small to intermediate game for a food source. Black bears vs grizzlies as virtually no grizzlies have made it over to the island from the mainland. If it had been a year of a "red tide" bloom, the shellfish would have been contaminated with the toxins and unsafe to eat.

The website is pretty anemic as far as information goes. It says they have a list of all the items each contestant has -- that is an extreme exaggeration. If you watch the participants videos of what they brought and the rationale why, their item lists vary more than what the website mentions.

The type of trees is an issue. There appears to be very few smaller trees in the area with most of them the size of your waist and above. To cut down this size of tree and haul by hand would be very tough. The one guy who did think about building a log cabin gave up on that idea given the amount of effort involved.

Alan is quite the character -- able to spout off Shakespeare in the woods and his philosophical discussions are spot on. He seems to be a gold mine in being so eloquent of the psychological aspects of the experiment are a boon to the show.
From that standpoint I hope he makes it the longest.

So as it turns out, the show is not quite what it is made out to be.

After reading on another website, I spent some time comparing the maps that are displayed on the TV show where the participants are located then matched them in Google Earth and also via a paper map from a BC recreational map book that I own.

Participant Sam was about a mile from a village and about 1/2 that from some seaside homes.

Participant Mitch was across the sound and slightly NE of Sam. Depending on his exact location, it is conceivable that he could of seen the smoke from Sam's fires and on a clear night, if he looked further SW, he may seen the lights from the same village that Sam was close to.

Participant Dustin was about a 1/4 mile from an active Forest Service road that leads to a provincial park.

The seemingly fan favorite, participant Alan was in an inlet 1-3/4 miles overland from the above village. This inlet is popular with boaters and kayakers and I would not be surprised that he had not been seen and visited at some point by boaters.

Admittedly 4 other participants that I placed on the maps, were camped further out but not as far as the show makes it seem they were.

Given their closeness to civilization, the saying goes "where there is people, there is garbage" it would perhaps explain the appearances of extra tarps, the frying pan, the green plastic shopping bin and so on. The rules were though, the participants could use anything they found which included debris that had floated over from the 2011 Japan earthquake and Tsunami.

I must say though, despite the above findings, give credit to the participants for sticking it out as I hope that in their quest that they kept true of their goals and rules that they had to follow. I will continue to watch the show if anything just to find out who ended up winning.

Seems rather contrived and artificial....

This shows almost always seem contrived to me, which is why I don't watch them. But then I don't watch much TV in general, as I think it tends to rot one's brain.

This illustrates just one reason why these shows seem contrived to me. They always seem to focus on a lone individual, or at most a very small group.

The Native peoples (or "First Nations"), who inhabited the Pacific Northwest Coast for millennia before "discovery", did all sorts of things using really big logs. They built seagoing canoes, Totem Poles, houses big enough for 50 people.... But they had a well developed society, and collectively could tackle tasks like handling big logs. They most certainly weren't trying to live there as isolated individuals.

The tarps were part of their base kit provided by the producers that they didn't have to select giving the participants more choice in the kit selection.

Those villages are pretty darn small - probably no bigger than a dozen homes belonging to First Nations and may not even be used all year round. Quatsino has about 90 people; Winter Harbour 20 people. Any decent location manager could have bought their silence and non-interference in a heart beat. Regardless the area is pretty remote. I don't think the area is used much by kayakers in the late fall but GE shows a large commercial fishing structure in the area and of course commercial logging in the area. The "park" is more of a tree preserve than an developed area and designated to protect old growth forest.

They were each given 2 tarps. 1- 5x7 and 1 12x12. However as I noted and so did others on various forums and websites, at least one participant is seen with no less then 3 tarps. How/where he got that 3rd tarp/ plastic sheet which is seen in the first episodes - is the question.


Winter Harbour definitely has more then 20 people regardless of what Wikipedia states. Regardless if is 20 or 100 people, the fact of the matter is, having participants camped out a mile from the village while under the guise of being in the middle of nowhere, questions the integrity of the show.



Another website mentioned the same but also brought up the fact that the area around there and park is fairly active with hunters and fishing even during the fall months. Also one of the resorts there explicitly state on their website that the road there is actively used by logging trucks every day.

Also did you notice that the location that Joe was placed in during the first episode does not match the location where he lost his ferro rod and called it quits. In the 2nd episode, there is a clear overhead shot of his area which does not have a beach. In fact, Joe clearly says in episode 2 that he "wished I had a beach" then said; "there is no beach." When he was extracted after quitting, his location clearly has a beach and it has been suggested that his location had been swapped with the departed Josh between episode one and episode two.

First attachment shows Joe's location with no beach. Next 3 attachments shows Joe's location with a beach. You be the judge...

All in all, there are enough discrepancies that I do not have faith in this show's intent and integrity.

Now that is a disappointment. Just when I thought I'd finally found something halfway decent on TV.

Staying within a mile or two of villages and seaside homes sounds a lot like Bear Grylls... Not quite "real" wilderness survival. That said, some of the critique may be a little unfair. You can see that the four remaining participants have had a pretty rough time. All have lost a lot of weight. Especially Sam, he used to be pretty chubby but is now almost a completely different person. That didn't look staged to me.

I'm not familiar with the terrain, I have no idea what things are like on Vancouver island. Checking out Google Earth though the area does look pretty remote. Note that when Wayne tapped out in the middle of the night it took the rescue team over three hours IIRC to reach him, despite covering much of the distance by road.

I've been under the impression that each participant was equipped with a GPS location beacon to keep track of their movement (and presumably keep them away from the local settlements or other participants). As far as possible contact with third parties such as hunters or hikers, I have no idea how that worked out.



It was made pretty clear that Joe moved a fair distance since Day 1. If you watch the early episodes he was struggling to find a good place to camp until he found that beach. So that in itself didn't look too suspect to me.

I saw that Joe has been walking through the swamps, searching for a better place to camp for quite a while, and at some point has found that beach. There is a video fragment, I think at the end of the Ep1, when he has discovered it, and started developing his camp.

So far (I'm at Ep3)- not bad, imo. Just wish there is more footage from some of the participants. But, perhaps, those just don't bother to do selfies concentrating on survival tasks. I wish filmmakers will once start using drones for filming that kind of shows. That would be safer for "actors" as well.