Instead of watching these staged clunkers, you can learn far more about real survival by studying actual case histories of persons thrown into stressful circumstances more or less unexpectedly, and their success or failure in coping with conditions.

After all, if I am given two tarps as part of my basic kit for a "survival" situation, it is just rough camping, especially if I will be visited weekly by an EMT. I don't get that level of medical attention even back in civilization....

A good read of "Deep Survival," among many others, will be far more instructive than any number of hours watching "Alone[almost, but not quite]"

I am not critiquing the participants. I think that most did well and should be commended for what they put themselves through and suffered many hungry, wet, cold days and nights during their time there. Tonights epsiode revealed much more details on the participants that tapped out and also some sneek peeks on the 3 remaining episodes of the series.


Judging by the time required, my best guess is that the rescue team may have driven the gravel road from Port Hardy to Winter Harbour?



In episode 2, it shows that Joe did not start moving locations until day 3.

I stand by my assertion (and at some point, may be proven completely wrong) that Joe was moved. During episode 2 - Day 3 at 2:20 pm, Joe crosses the river and starts his move. At 4:54 pm, he announces that he found the beach. That beach at the new location (Longitude 50°29'2.72"N / Latitude 128° 1'5.33"W) looks to be about 7-8 miles over some very tough terrain and certainly not doable in just over 2 hours. In the scenes before and when the rescue chopper lands, take a close look at the beach and surrounding land then compare to the above coordinates in Google Earth.

Anyway, I done speculating and will try and hold off on any critiquing for the last 3 remaining episodes which look they should be good.

Teslinhiker, I hope my post didn't come across the wrong way. I think you made some good points and I wasn't trying to pick on your comments in particular. I'm simply making some general observations in hope it contributes somehow to the discussion at hand.

It is just a TV show so trying to read too much into it might not really be worth the effort. But personally, I can say "Alone" has been of the more interesting shows to follow. Granted, it is closer to "rough camping" than real survival as the more cynical minds among us might say. But then, the same could be said about Les Stroud.

However, that does not in any way detract from the basic premise IMHO. Going out into the woods with little gear and no food to see how long one can last is to my mind foremost a controlled experiment rather than a true survival situation. Still, it is an interesting and highly demanding test of skill. Maybe "Alone" isn't quite what it's made out to be. Perhaps I'm naive, but so far it didn't seem outright staged. Were the participants cheating? I'm not sure, they seemed genuinely hard pressed and losing something like 20+lbs in a month shows pretty clearly that they were getting no outside support as far as food. So the show reminds me a lot of Les Stroud, who I'd rate among the few "real" experts in the world of "survival" TV. But again, to each his own. YMMV.

As far as Joe, I have checked the first three episodes once again. The way I see it the story goes like this:

Episode 1: Joe moves from the shore toward higher ground looking for a better campsite. About an hour later, going through difficult terrain, he finds a game trail and more open ground where he builds a tarp shelter in the late afternoon.

Episode 2: Joe spends Day 2 at the shelter but is unable to find firewood or food, hence his idea to go looking for a beach on Day 3 at 9:58 AM. At 10:31 he is scouting the area along the river bank and is confronted by a bear. He returns back to camp, packs his gear and starts moving. At 4:54 PM he finds the beach.

Taken at face value, I see nothing inherently wrong with that timeline. Running into the bear around 10:31 AM Joe decides to get straight back to the camp, which is evidently close by. It takes him maybe an hour to pack his stuff, so he could well be on his way around noon.

At a first glance, the editing does make it seem as if he only started moving at 2:22 PM. However, note that whenever the story moves to another participant the sequence starts with an introductory shot and reference time displayed on the screen. That particular time does not necessarily refer to the starting point of the sequence but more like somewhere in the middle of the scene. Confusing perhaps but necessary if you need to condense several hours of slow paced action into a short video sequence.

Anyway, supposing Joe sets off around 12:00 that gives him plenty of time to cover some distance. At 2:22 PM he is somewhere along a stream climbing up toward higher ground. He is filmed at the beach at 4:54 PM. Joe is clearly very happy now that he's found a good spot "after so much hiking" uphill and downhill "with all his gear".

Just how far the beach was from the original landing zone I can't really tell from the show. But looking at the maps in Episode 1 (at 27:18) and Episode 3 (at 11:43) his location doesn't seem to have changed much, which is a little odd. I wonder if the location markers on that map are really accurate.

BTW... Clearly having way too much time on my hands and thinking about those coordinates I took another close look at the terrain on Google Earth. If I'm right, Joe's landing site was at 50°30'12.61"N, 127°52'39.60"W in a small marshy estuary. There's a road just North of the estuary, which was never mentioned in the show. And something that looks like a small logging camp barely half a mile East.

Joe proceeded North, established a temporary campsite somewhere in the woods. On Day 3 he continued further North along a creek, passing by a small lake and reached the far end of a long inlet with the beach at 50°31'12.72"N 127°54'2.98"W. There is a distinctly shaped hill just East of the beach across the inlet, which can be identified pretty easily from the footage. The overall distance between the starting point and the beach is only 1.5 miles, but over fairly rough terrain.

I'm betting that Lucas will be the last man standing as he keeps himself busier than the other 3. Making a stringed musical instrument has improved his morale a great deal.

I dunno. I think it is between Lucas and Alan (haven't looked at the spoilers yet to see who actually won).

Hmm, why don't you just ask Joe. He has a Youtube site and posted several vids on his experience. (At least 3 of the guys have posted videos on the adventure). He seemed like a pretty up front guy on the messages I sent him. His NDA may prevent him from saying everything but would likely answer if he could. I do know that the contestants were given a lot of leeway of where they could camp -- one said his area was several miles in all directions.

Just watched Episode 9. Two more participants out, I thought one of them at least would last longer. We also got to see Sam's first attempt at bowhunting. Not much luck in that department though. There just doesn't seem to be any game in that environment. So the bows and arrows are pretty much dead weight.

With the last episodes focusing more and more on personal drama over content the show has lost some of the initial appeal IMO. Nevertheless, now that the last two men standing have gone beyond 40 days out in the woods you can see the effects of malnourishment and general physical deprivation very clearly. Heck, the show should be titled "Weight Loss Camp".

INdeed. Weight loss camp for both of them. INteresting how one of them was the youngest while the other was, I think, the oldest.

There is plenty of game on the northern part of Vancouver island. The feeble attempts at snaring any were disappointing. Several of the contestants were unwittingly able to draw game into their camp where it could've been snared and dispatched fairly routinely. For all their effort, I was surprised no one even attempted to catch one. But then none of them were from that area, so I guess they don't eat bear etc where they are from. They certainly had plenty to work with to get the job done.