Episode 5 of History Channel’s Alone, Season 9, takes place over days 21-26. Eight contestants remain at the start of the episode.
This is a recap and review of episode 5. At the end, I’ll provide some guesses as to who will last until the end and who might successfully hunt a bear.
Spoilers to follow!
Adam
Treefort Guy starts off his segments by highlighting his prowess in hunting squirrels. He also takes a moment to show off the window in his shelter, which honestly does look like it adds a lot of aesthetic value to the space. But then Adam gets a stomachache. He worries it’s a parasite like giardia and finds some birch bark for tea. Luckily, he feels better the next day.
Jessie
We only see Jessie briefly in this episode, where she’s still building her shelter. I will be so disappointed if she leaves before she gets to finish it!
Juan Pablo
Juan Pablo freaked me out when he explained he was drinking unboiled water.
He also spends time building a dock. At first, I was skeptical (possibly because I doubted his skills after the unboiled water thing), but it turns out the dock did make his fishing quite effective. He’s able to cast longer, and it seems it’s easier to pull in the fish. He manages to snag six brook trout! Docks – not just for drinking beer, apparently.
Karie Lee
Karie Lee’s segments feel like a Bob Ross episode, as she always has a positive, enthusiastic mindset. She starts in a very good mood, as usual, and doesn’t even get that frustrated when she misses a shot on a squirrel. She explains she wants to forge a spiritual connection to the land while on the show and appears to be doing so. She also manages to catch a large brook trout while fly fishing. Karie Lee is just plugging away with a smile on her face.
Tom
Most of Tom’s segment focuses on his shelter. He’s the one who was building his into the side of the cliff, using the dirt side as the one wall. He compared his shelter to a mix of “cabin, mineshaft, and giant basket,” which I thought was pretty accurate. He also used clay from the river and stone to create a fireplace that honestly looked like it was dropped in from someone’s cottage.
Tom also gave us a lesson about checking for snares daily, explaining it’s inhumane not to and that you could lose your kill if another animal takes it. He snags a decent-sized snowshoe hare in his third trap and makes a rabbit stew. I think Tom is moving up in my estimation of final contenders.
Benji
Lastly, we have Benji. He was a frontrunner for me last week, so this week took an interesting turn. Dude, I told you not to eat that beaver!
Before my reasons for saying so arose, Benji talked about why he was putting off hunting a bear for a few weeks. He claimed that there was no way to preserve the meat efficiently without the cold weather. I never considered that!
Benji finally works on his permanent shelter, using the Wikiup style, and sharpens his axe. He also creates a fleshing beam to remove the fat from the beaver hide. He gets a beaver tail’s worth of fat to render to tallow, putting the fat on the tail to transport it. Is this where his future problem came from? Or was it from eating from an animal that lay around too long after dying? Or maybe it was bad luck from another source (maybe from that grouse he shot)? Either way, Benji gets sick.
He wakes with a terrible stomachache and spends time trying to remedy it with yarrow, Qigong exercises, and napping. Finally, after burping constantly and having other less-than-pleasant bodily experiences, he has to call for help out of fear of serious illness. Is it Canada’s latent revenge for hunting our national animal? If so, Terry from last week should watch out!
It’s really too bad for Benji. He was a real contender to stay until the end, and I thought he was the most likely to hunt a bear. It just goes to show you that sometimes the most dangerous things in the woods aren’t the animals but the microscopic beings who can do a tremendous amount of damage. If I ever went on the show (ha!) one of my items would be a big tub of hand sanitizer.
My Assessment
Given Benji is out of the running, my top three based on this episode are Jessie, Adam, and Terry.
For now, Juan Pablo can keep the bear-hunting prediction because the guy constantly surprises me.
The next episode airs June 30, on History Channel.
