FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Did you bring any emergency food with you?
Nope. I didn’t bring any food at all. Only salt and pepper. It takes a long time to starve.
Where exactly were you?
I don’t want to disclose the exact location on this trip, but it was on the south slope of the Brooks Range, about 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
What did you bring for gear?
My gear list is shown at the 30 second mark of my Youtube video. I stressed minimalism on this trip.
How long were you out there?
Fifty days.
Did you see any people?
I didn’t see a single human being for 41 days straight, then I saw two fisherman who were floating the river.
Did you do any hunting?
You never know how a trip like this is going to go. I brought my 12 gauge shotgun. It would be nice to have “just in case” for grizzlies of course, but I planned to hunt ptarmigan and grouse when the season opened August 10, also ducks and geese when the season opened September 1. I was really looking forward to some game bird meat! However, I didn’t see a single grouse or ptarmigan the entire trip! Hard to believe. I saw many, many geese and ducks within range before season. After season opened I didn’t have the opportunity to fire a shot.
Did you have any trouble with bears?
Nothing serious. I had grizzlies run towards me twice, but one of those times it turned out it was just a coincidence, and it turned and kept running away, possibly without seeing me. Another grizzly ran towards me for a short distance but it turned out it was actually trying to get away and was just heading towards a path through the willows it apparently knew about. Grizzlies investigated my “cook camp” at least twice, rummaging around my campfire and one time ripping open my plastic bag full of dried grass and twigs I was using for kindling. One grizzly knocked over my solar charger a short distance from my tent. I heard it run off. A grizzly jumped up very close to me in the willows once. It was exciting as it crashed away. Each encounter made my heart jump, but there have only been three people killed by bears in the Brooks Range in recorded history.
Did you use or make any primitive tools?
I made a hand axe. I struck off flakes to make a sharp edge of a stone with one side rounded for my hand. It looked very similar to the hand axes used by ancient humans. It was terrible compared to a real axe, and very useful compared to no chopping tool at all. I also used sharp stone flakes to clean fish just to do it. Usually I used a real knife.
What kinds of food did you eat?
My main source of calories was fish. Grayling, char (dolly varden), chum salmon, pink salmon, one silver salmon. My next most common food was berries. I ate berries every day. 90+% of the berries were blueberries, but also highbush cranberries, lowbush cranberries, bearberries, crowberries, salmon berries (cloudberries) and nangoon berries. The only roots I ate were eskimo potato. This root and berries had opposite effect on the digestive system so I went for a balance. I ate some willow leaves for greens. There are many species of willows, so I followed the recommendation of sampling the leaves of multiple species and selecting the most palatable.
Often fishing was easy. Sometimes it was very difficult or impossible. Flooding ruined the fishing for an entire week so I relied exclusively on plant foods then.
Do you have any more questions? Ask in the comments!
