Alone

[Dave]

SO1 E09 Brokedown Palace

[Press play, then fullscreen icon.]

I've come to the conclusion that if they went out in pairs, Alan, [and its refreshing to see a literate yankee shown on TV] would have eaten Lucas by now. I would have sympathised.

 

[Fraxinus]

Cheers for that link Dave, just watched it. I concur with your thoughts on Alan, I think he has a great voice for narration (as in voice over for wildlife show kind of thing).

Rob.

 

[Stevie777]

Thoroughly enjoyed that show. The guys with the best PMA gonna see it through. Alan cracks me up.

 

[Philster]

Wow! Was surprised Lucas went like that!! Mind you, the guitar thing had to be a symptom

It's funny how, as the days passed, each contestants mental weak spots emerged - it does surprise me how many had pregnant partners. And Mitch's Mum having cancer - these are real stressful situations to leave behind for the "unknown".

 

[OldJimbo]

The snow here buries everything, even the Ravens have trouble finding road kill until the cats dig it all out again. Cats. As in Cougars, Lynx & Bobcats.
-25C or deep snow or both , I put out some bread crusts and dog food for the Ravens. Biggest dump was last Dec = 36" at my place, 44" down the street.

Our big one was last February - just over a metre in 24 hours but 170 cm total. The problem with measuring snowfall on the coast is that the snow is so wet and heavy, it packs down as it accumulates, so probably more fell than was measured. We had a power outage at the same time for days.. The problem is that that depth of wet snow is enough to crumple car roofs and damage buildings. Unless snowfall is kept up with by a plough before it becomes too much, then only heavy snowblowers and front end loaders will work. We have a lot of words to describe snow here - really bad ones! The biggest snowflakes I have ever seen happened as I was coming out from a local beach area, and they were larger than the palm of my hand. Very pretty but they hit with a thud due to being so wet.
It never gets extremely cold on the coast in terms of actual temperature - even up here the record is around -25C. But here cold is always accompanied by wind and those Arctic outflow winds can go on for days or weeks. The top layer of snow dries out and blows, so it's like being sandblasted in the open. It shouldn't be that bad on the island, but they will get either lots of wet or lots of cold wind and thus my shorter estimate of how long they could last with low food, no matter what.

 

[Robson Valley]

I can't get the 'Alone' series here. Any sense of season judging by leaf colors/berries/etc?

I've heard the snow hit the ground/snow/tree branch = balls of wet flakes bigger than golf balls.
I know it slumps. We all just went out and measured the next day. Nobody cared how much it really was.
I like to think I'm ready = dropped more than $5kilobucks for a new roof.

The village priority is services like the hospital parking lot, the main street (yeah, we have one) and gov't services buildings.
Becomes a little problematic trying to figure out where to put it. Then we all dig out as best we can.

You know it's bad when you see the local hardware store plowing their own off-street parking lot with a bathtub roped to a forklift with chains on the wheels.

 

[Jared]

I can't get the 'Alone' series here. Any sense of season judging by leaf colors/berries/etc?

Mitch seemed to think it was Thanksgiving in the latest episode.

 

[OldJimbo]

I can't get the 'Alone' series here. Any sense of season judging by leaf colors/berries/etc?

I'm figuring an October start and so now they are well into November. Lots of deciduous leaves around on bushes when they started, nothing now. That's the problem in that all of the plentiful food sources of summer are gone. Berries all done, salmon runs are over, so only by luck did they get a few tail end salmon. Just how food could be an issue, and one guy is eating banana slugs and another mice sounds bizarre if you've seen the place in summer with berries everywhere and you are treading on salmon in rivers. So their cupboard really is bare! Even the fish and crabs mostly move offshore.
I'd never much thought about those things until this series, because if I was hungry then I'd be off to the clear-cuts with a rifle. While these days people like to say how they got their deer with a bow - and those guys have bows, the way that it's done is to know a good trail by cams or tracks and then sit in a tree and shoot stuff as it comes by. Pretty tough to go deer hunting in unknown territory with a bow, despite the fact that they're so plentiful on the island.

 

[dewi]

Pretty somber episode this last one... but interesting to see who is left... and neither seem to want to quit.

Seems to be who can mentally hack it now rather than who can gather the food to survive. I'd have cracked long ago... how they're doing it... can only wonder.

 

[Robson Valley]

That really is a late and frustrating start. No native idiot would start there with winter tuning up.
There's oodles of clams in the beaches, limpets and oysters on the rocks and they're hungry?

In the meantime, care to drop by for some Saskatoon pie (24lbs this harvest)?
Home made breads with home black currant jam tomorrow?
No salmon but lots of venison, a little bear and plenty of bison.

 

[Palaeocory]

I haven't seen the show yet, but how much time do these guys spend gathering? There's loads of bivalves on the beach, yes, but they'd need to eat about 10 cups of deshelled cooked clam meat to be getting enough calories a day (which is pretty intensive foraging!). Do they know this? Are they slowly wasting away?

 

[OldJimbo]

That really is a late and frustrating start. No native idiot would start there with winter tuning up.
There's oodles of clams in the beaches, limpets and oysters on the rocks and they're hungry?

I believe the object of the show was to have everything wrapped in a couple of months, and so the timing. I guess care was taken not to drop them off on a clamming beach either.
There are lots of places with few bivalves, or just as important, they are only available at low tide, which some of the time is at night. Lots of limpet eating, and those are the most available given tides.

Are they slowly wasting away?

To some extent, though it takes a well fed N American a while to waste away even under those conditions. I think the idea of the show was to have lots of scenes of people undergoing hunger and misery due to cold and wet - really influencing their psychology, and so capturing a wider audience who aren't interested in the specifics. We only get glimpses of the specifics, such as in the last show where Alan mentions eating inner tree bark. While that won't be of great help, it can be enough to prevent a person from making serious mistakes and cutting themselves, etc..

 

[Stevie777]

Pretty somber episode this last one... but interesting to see who is left... and neither seem to want to quit.

Seems to be who can mentally hack it now rather than who can gather the food to survive. I'd have cracked long ago... how they're doing it... can only wonder.

Yeah i would have cracked a while ago. Half a million bucks says you would stick it out until they come looking for you, but that's easy to say from the comfort of your home. One guy lasted 24 hours because he was scared of the Bears....... or the dark, it was hard to tell.

 

[Lush]

There might be enough clams or even fish available to collect/catch yet they are also hungry which makes you feel cold... they are trying not to get wet and it rains a lot. I think those are big complicating factors in them not being "able" to go out and collect enough food. And like being said many times here already; the psychological factors. And.... true..., the tides complicate things a lot, good remark Jimbo.. Makes it very hard getting their ocean food. Imagine getting out in the cold at night to collect your fish from the gill net without being sure you have enough food to be able to warm up again for the night... Pretty hard.. If there is one thing I don't like it is leaving my sleeping bag and going for a p*ss at night when it's cold outside.

 

[GGTBod]

I'm with you there Lush i hate having to do that, Monday night / Tuesday morning just gone i was in Scotland on the edge of a loch cocooned inside my sleeping bag inside my midge proof sleeping net and the call of nature woke me up about 5am, i lay there for an hour trying to convince myself my bladder was not going to burst, eventually i accepted i had no say in the matter and reluctantly unzipped my bag, put my footware on loosely squeezed out from under the midge proof net closing it up behind me and went for a tinkle, just me in my boxer shorts and shoes and a million midges and the first light of dawn, the release of fluids was rapid and i turned to get back under my tarp and into my net at which point i tripped on my ridge line peg ripping it out the floor and collapsing my tarp at one side as the walking pole toppled over, the midges thought it was christmas with my big white exposed body glaring in the twilight and they attacked in their millions on every bit of bare flesh, by the time i got the pole righted the ridgeline taught and the peg back in the ground i was being savaged mercilessly, i got back under my midge net and turned on my bed lamp and the midges on my body were visible and also flying around inside my midge-proof cocoon, i spent a good 30 minutes trying to kill them all thinking i had won the battle dropped back off to sleep, i am sitting now with midge bites like welts everywhere except where my boxer shorts were (thank the gods of mice and men for small mercies).

I think what i am trying to say is yes i too hate having to climb out of my sleeping bag in the middle of the night

 

[Lush]

I'm with you there Lush i hate having to do that, Monday night / Tuesday morning just gone i was in Scotland on the edge of a loch cocooned inside my sleeping bag inside my midge proof sleeping net and the call of nature woke me up about 5am, i lay there for an hour trying to convince myself my bladder was not going to burst, eventually i accepted i had no say in the matter and reluctantly unzipped my bag, put my footware on loosely squeezed out from under the midge proof net closing it up behind me and went for a tinkle, just me in my boxer shorts and shoes and a million midges and the first light of dawn, the release of fluids was rapid and i turned to get back under my tarp and into my net at which point i tripped on my ridge line peg ripping it out the floor and collapsing my tarp at one side as the walking pole toppled over, the midges thought it was christmas with my big white exposed body glaring in the twilight and they attacked in their millions on every bit of bare flesh, by the time i got the pole righted the ridgeline taught and the peg back in the ground i was being savaged mercilessly, i got back under my midge net and turned on my bed lamp and the midges on my body were visible and also flying around inside my midge-proof cocoon, i spent a good 30 minutes trying to kill them all thinking i had won the battle dropped back off to sleep, i am sitting now with midge bites like welts everywhere except where my boxer shorts were (thank the gods of mice and men for small mercies).
I think what i am trying to say is yes i too hate having to climb out of my sleeping bag in the middle of the night

That does sound like a very unpleasant experience... Naaasty predators those midges! Unbelievable how those little insects can "spoil your day" even day's later...

 

[dewi]

I'm with you there Lush i hate having to do that, Monday night / Tuesday morning just gone i was in Scotland on the edge of a loch cocooned inside my sleeping bag inside my midge proof sleeping net and the call of nature woke me up about 5am, i lay there for an hour trying to convince myself my bladder was not going to burst, eventually i accepted i had no say in the matter and reluctantly unzipped my bag, put my footware on loosely squeezed out from under the midge proof net closing it up behind me and went for a tinkle, just me in my boxer shorts and shoes and a million midges and the first light of dawn, the release of fluids was rapid and i turned to get back under my tarp and into my net at which point i tripped on my ridge line peg ripping it out the floor and collapsing my tarp at one side as the walking pole toppled over, the midges thought it was christmas with my big white exposed body glaring in the twilight and they attacked in their millions on every bit of bare flesh, by the time i got the pole righted the ridgeline taught and the peg back in the ground i was being savaged mercilessly, i got back under my midge net and turned on my bed lamp and the midges on my body were visible and also flying around inside my midge-proof cocoon, i spent a good 30 minutes trying to kill them all thinking i had won the battle dropped back off to sleep, i am sitting now with midge bites like welts everywhere except where my boxer shorts were (thank the gods of mice and men for small mercies).

I think what i am trying to say is yes i too hate having to climb out of my sleeping bag in the middle of the night

Oouch! Spent some time around Garelochhead.. midgy hell... making me itch just thinking about it.

 

[GGTBod]

I'm really trying my best not to scratch at them all now, got them everywhere except my butt and my family jewels, the ones on the sides of my feet are unreal on the annoyance scale

 

[Bishop]

Just watched episode nine with SWMBO and it was refreshing to hear her ranting at the TV, partly my fault.. I joked about Lucas releasing an album. Mitch tapping out was however a real shock, all she could say was "Oh god that poor boy, his mother's going to kill him when he gets home" . Personally I'm worried about Alan, he's trying to hide it but has clearly dropped a lot of body mass and made references to digestive issues. It could be that he's overdone it on the seaweed and suffering bouts of diarrhoea as a result.

 

[Stevie777]

I joked about Lucas releasing an album. .

He aint no peter Andre...