The 10 Items I brought with me on ALONE...and why.

So the million dollar question, what did we all bring on the show? What were our 10 items? I know a lot of guys have actually done the research and gone and looked on the site, and even on the history site, even posted a lot of the 10 items that we used. A lot of the 10 items were very similar. I think half of them were 100%. Five of us carried the same or very close to it, and the other five varied a little bit. There was a list of 40 items that we could choose from. I am not at liberty to say what those 40 items were. I can tell you there's a reason that the 10 of us picked such similar items. There was things that no person in their right mind would bring on that list. But we'll leave that and history can come up with that later or maybe they won't. Maybe they'll leave it a mystery for the next season. Who knows? But I can talk about my 10 items that I brought and why I brought them. I only have four items in front of me here. Some of the stuff that I brought was borrowed from friends. Some of the stuff I just don't have anymore. Some of the stuff I've sold, whatever. But I can describe what they were, explain what they were. You don't need to see them. So first up, what I have here. I figured anybody who's into survival, anybody who's watched survival shows, things like that, done the research, knows that you basically need three things. You need a shelter, you need a pot, you need a cutting implement. Well, where we were, that's fine on a desert island. Where we were, you needed a hell of a lot more things. You needed a way to make fire. Friction fire out there, I'm telling you guys, man, it's not possible. Maybe if you lived out there, if you went out there in the spring and had all the dry season, summer, whatever, to collect your materials for a friction fire. Maybe kept them in the sun the whole time or something like that. But we went out there in the peak rainy season, at the beginning of the rainy season, okay? Everything was drenched. Friction fire, I would be surprised if any of the guys got it. Don't quote me. I have no idea. Some of the guys could have. Some of the guys could have relied purely on it. But in my mind, hell no. There's no way that happened. I know personally that getting a friction fire out there for me would have been impossible or an act of God if it did happen. So three kit, a three item kit doesn't work out there. Anyways, back to what I want to talk about. My shelter, my tarp was a 10 by 10 Bushcraft Outfitters nylon tarp. This thing has been with me for probably over four years. I've taken it all over the states, all over Canada. I've stayed completely dry in this thing, in torrential downpours. I've never had a seam rip out on me. I've never had no problems with this. I actually punched holes in it on accident. I had it set up over a tent and the winds came big time, a crappy old tent, and actually broke one of the poles on my tent and the fiberglass pole broke through the tarp. This was before going on alone. I patched it up, seam sealed it up, and it's watertight still. This is an invaluable piece of kit in my mind for the show, for camping in general. 10 by 10 nylon tarp. I like a square tarp because you can do it in a lot of configurations. This is the exact tarp I brought. For cooking and boiling water. So, a water filter would have been an item. I'm not saying that it was on the list. So, it wasn't. A water filter was not on our 40 item list. We were not allowed to bring a water filter. I wouldn't have brought one anyways because that only serves one purpose right there We're thinking long-term here long-term survival. That's the whole point of the show We needed to stay out as long as we could so Having a container as robust as a zebra billy pot. This is a 12 centimeter one I actually brought a 14 centimeter one. I borrowed from my friend Ken Without the insert in it. We were not allowed to bring the the metal insert that comes with it So for those who don't know this is stainless steel I've had this specific one for probably six years. This thing's bomb-proof. You can cook in it, you can collect water in it, you can boil your water in it, and you can drink from it. This was my container for all of those things. I didn't bring a cup or a canteen, as it were. This was everything for me, but the bigger one, the 14. This is a 12, would have been just a little bit bigger than that. Two quart pot is what we were allowed. Let me see what else I had. So paracord, we were allowed 20 meters of paracord, which roughly is 65 feet of paracord I was lucky enough to get my hands on some mill spec Paracord nine strand paracord so normal paracord has seven strands inside it plus the outer sheath my buddy Sweeney guy hooked me up with Nine strand paracord and that was awesome of him. So that stuff really came into use What else a sleeping bag? So I brought a sleeping bag Okay, the warmest sleeping bag that I had was a negative 20 degrees Celsius Chinook synthetic bag. I got this bag when I lived up in Sault Ste. Marie or Huntsville, and that was seven or eight years ago. The bag is crap, okay? I'm not plugging this bag at all. It's rated to negative 20 degrees, negative 20, I don't know if I said that before, Celsius. But really, the rating couldn't have been more than negative 15, negative 13, like the true rating on it. But it was the warmest bag I had that wasn't down. Okay down in that environment a down bag would have just Soaked the water up. You know what I mean? It would have never dried and it would have never stayed warm My thinking going into the show was my synthetic bag is still going to get wet but my fire will be able to dry it out somewhat and Synthetic stays a little bit warm when it's dry or sorry when it's wet So that paired with my clothes and stuff was my method of sleeping at night. I'm not going to show it it's just a negative 20 degree celsius Chinook bag and brand is Chinook if you want to look it up I'm not recommending those bags though um fire steel as I was saying before um relying on friction fire would have been impossible so I brought fire steel we weren't allowed to bring matches or lighter or stuff like that so fires even if I was allowed to bring matches in a lighter I would not have brought it you saw on the first on the first episode everybody's struggling with fire I don't care if you had a lighter. It doesn't matter. The fire steel is the way to go. Yeah, I brought a big, big, I think it was like a bunker style fire steel from firesteel.com, and I used that. You don't need to see it. It's a fire steel. It's what it is. 300 yards of single filament line with 25 assorted hooks. I know a lot of guys brought heavy, heavy duty fishing line. I didn't. In my mind, fishing line needs to be workable. I brought 10 pound test, okay? I was not trying to set snares and stuff with my fishing line. I didn't bring snare wire. The reality of the situation is that there's not many small mammals to trap on the island. I did a lot of research, okay? Believe me, I'm sure we all did. This was a humongous opportunity for all of us, a humongous way to test ourselves beyond anything we've ever done before, okay? if you guys think that any of us took that lightly, you're sadly mistaken. So we did our research. I did my research and the rabbits on the island, where are they? Not where we were. Rabbits there are brought over and they're in like the mainland area where there's like parks and whatnot. We were in the wilderness. There's no rabbits out there. As far as squirrels and stuff go, I can do figure four dead falls and stuff. I relied on that. Personally, my method of gathering food was from the sea, was collecting coastal foods and fishing. So my fishing line was more for actual fishing than using for other tasks. So I brought 10 pound line, test line, fishing line, and I brought 25 assorted hooks, small, medium and large. So that's how I was getting my food. A small gauge gill net. So for work, I got laid off in May, but for five years, I was a research assistant for the biology department at the university in my city. My job was to go and gill net fish and bring them back to the lab. I ran the lab. We would test them for mercury, PCBs, toxins, stuff like that. But I have a ton of experience using gill nets. So as soon as I saw we were allowed to do that, that immediately in my head. You set a gill net out, you wait two or three times for the tide to come out, you're going to get fish regardless. So we were allowed, how big was it? Man, six meters maybe long. So what I did was I asked my boss at work if I could use one of the old gill nets and I cut it at a transition point from small gauge to normal size gauge. So it went from about an inch gauge thick mesh to two inches. That way I had more versatility and I could put the smaller mesh towards the shore and the thicker mesh towards the ocean and try and get different sized fish you know what i mean because some fish can swim right through the the bigger size gill nets and i wasn't opposed to eating a small fish that's for sure so the gill net in my mind was just a no-brainer um we were not allowed to bring firearms as you probably figured out because i i don't know what the other guys would have done but in my mind 90 percent of us 100 percent of us would have brought a rifle, would have brought a .22 if that's all we were allowed to bring. That's a piece of mind, and that's food, okay? The thing that some people brought in the ways of weapons was a bow and arrow. You were allowed a primitive bow. Don't quote me. I think it was a 60-pound test. It might have been 40, minimal 40, but again, it could have been 60. Sorry. Anyways, a recurve or a longbow, and then you were out six arrows. I'm not a hunter. I'll be the first person to tell you that. I've never killed anything in my life except for a squirrel and a million fish. And for me to bring a bow and six arrows, I would have needed to know how to repair my arrows or how to make new ones because I would have lost or broken them. And game there, game that we could have hunted, where was it? There was deer and there was bear. I'm not shooting a deer or a bear for the simple fact that I don't have experience cleaning them. I don't want to make a mess and bring in predators, bear, other bear, cougar, and I don't know how to deal with that much meat. You know what I mean? On one person, I would have ate my full for sure, but that would have been a leg of a deer, you know what I mean? Not even. The rest of it would have went to waste. I could have smoked it, sure, but it's just it seemed like too daunting of a task for me personally I'm not saying the other guys are wrong in doing that if they did that I have no idea but for me personally bringing a bow and arrow if I would have shot a bear I would have just pissed him off it would have had to been a kill shot man and I've never killed anything with an arrow so it just again was a no-brainer for me I'm not bringing a bow and arrow coastal food was my method that was my thoughts anyway what else we got on here extra emergency rations hell yes I'm bringing extra food the emergency rations I brought were legumes lentils stuff like that all mixed in a five-pound bag I was allowed so that to me was saving grace that to me was an extra week an extra two weeks you know what I mean when I couldn't find food when I was withering away to nothing that that was my method behind that so we have on there it says I brought a a large knife. Well, I brought a four and a half inch bladed knife. I don't consider that a large knife, but it is what it is. I don't have that knife anymore, sadly. But this is a copy of that knife, just with a little bit of different handle material and a smaller blade. So this is an Adventure Sworn Mountaineer. Adventuresworn.com is where I got it. It's an O1 tool steel that, yes, rusts like crazy, but I really don't care. I got it in 1/8 thickness. The one I brought was 1/8 thickness. This one as well. It had a white handle with orange liners, four and a half inch blade, 1/8 thick, and a tapered tang. I've beat the crap out of that knife and this one. These things are bomb proof. I know a lot of the guys on there might think 1/8 is a little bit too thin. Not Adventure Sworn. This is a Scandinavian grind too. I can beat this through anything and have no worries about it. This is a rock solid knife. So that was, and I had a lot of experience with it. That was my knife. I've had it for over a year before I brought it there. I mean, I knew the knife. I could sharpen it. I didn't bring a sharpening stone, but I brought a leather belt and I strapped that on the belt. Hair shaving sharp, no problem. No problem at all. For my axe, this is what I brought. I didn't bring a saw. I brought an axe. I like to think of myself as very proficient with an axe. I have a lot of experience using one and I'm not scared to use one. This is a 26 inch house handle and this head is like an old, it seems like a Michigan pattern to me, but I think it might be an old German head because of how big the eye is. It's a 2.5 pound head on a 26 inch handle. And I have, I found this, the head in my grandma's basement and had a buddy sharpen it up and put it on this handle for me this is the best axe I've ever had I would not trade this for a Gransfors Bruks or Wetterling an Aguateen anything you can think of this is my axe I love this axe and this axe serves me well the shave with it bust up my wood with it cut anything with it this was my saw this was my axe this was my my my digging in the dirt tool this thing is my favorite tool i have it's all beat up there's red on the on the head still from the old paint it's it's a it's a classic and i love it so let me just make sure i got went through them all i got my tarp i got my paracord my axe my sleeping bag my cooking pot my first my fire steel my fishing line with hooks my gill net my emergency rations and my belt knife excuse me, so that was my 10 items, I cannot tell you if I was happy with all of my items, if there was anything I would have changed, because that might give clues onto, onto things that I, I can't talk about, um, I'm sure after the show is all done, said and done, all the 10 episodes have aired and stuff, I can say more, and I will, if you guys want to hear it, but as for now, we're going to have to call that quits, um, I really, I appreciate all the support, all the support all the guys are getting actually um on on the internet and i would just ask everybody to not even respond to the to the trolls or the haters you know what i mean because there's a lot of them already and i've read the comments and stuff and it's a little bit disheartening but it comes with the territory and i know myself and all the other nine guys who are on the show are not going to respond to them and i would just ask that even if you guys are if you if you're sticking up for us and i appreciate that you do just don't don't take it too much to heart you know what I mean? People are going to say whatever. There's no sense feeding the trolls. You guys all know that. This is 2015. We know how the internet works now. So I hope you guys learned something. I hope you got something from this. If you have questions that I can answer, I will. But please just realize that there's not much else I can say other than what I've said in this video. A couple other things. Chris Tanner, I think his Prepared Mind 101 did an awesome sit-down musings about the Alone show that I really liked. He really hit on a lot of good points and made a lot of common sense notes about the show. So thanks for watching, guys, and tune in on Thursday for Alone. See you next time. Bye.