Alone in the Wild - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Alone in the Wild is a television series commissioned by Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

and produced by Tigress Productions, a UK independent producer. It was co-produced with the National Geographic Channel

National Geographic Channel

National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...

. Ed Wardle

Ed Wardle

Ed Wardle is a Scottish television producer, director, camera operator and adventurer.Wardle reached the summit of Mount Everest in 2007 while filming Everest: Beyond the Limit for the Discovery Channel. He reached the summit of the mountain again in 2009...

, an accomplished extreme photographer, created and filmed the series. Throughout the adventure, during which he never saw another human, Ed tweet

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

ed daily outgoing-only messages about his experiences. The goal was to survive solo for three summer months.

In Episode 1, he was dropped off by an amphibious aircraft, along with essential supplies and rations, at Dog Pack Lake in the Yukon

Yukon

Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....

Territory of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. He found a few fish, greens, and some berries, and managed to kill, butcher, and eat a porcupine

North American Porcupine

The North American Porcupine , also known as Canadian Porcupine or Common Porcupine, is a large rodent in the New World porcupine family. The Beaver is the only rodent larger than the North American Porcupine found in North America...

, but quickly lost weight, and his heartrate dropped to as low as 28 bpm.

Episode 2 focused on his trek to a potentially more food-laden site at Tincup Lake

Tincup Lake Water Aerodrome

Tincup Lake Water Aerodrome located on Tincup Lake, Yukon, Canada is open during the summer months and prior notice is required to land....

which, although only about ten miles away, took nearly four days to reach, because he traversed that large body of water, negotiating steep and brushy terrain, in order to locate his camp near the stream emptying from the far shore, where salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

would hopefully be found. He often commented about the serene natural beauty of the lacustrine

Lake

A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...

and montane

Montane

In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...

scenery. For psychological enhancement, he also tried meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

, but it appeared to provide little or no benefit.

During Episode 3, he attempted to find sustenance at Tincup, following the outflowing stream downhill in search of salmon. During the expedition, he saw several moose, a caribou

Porcupine caribou

The Porcupine caribou or Grant's caribou is a subspecies of the caribou found in Alaska and adjacent parts of Canada. It resembles the Barren-ground Caribou and is sometimes included in it....

, and ducks, but Canadian law did not permit him to kill any of them. Tincup proved to be even worse than Dog Pack. Although he continued to check nearly a score of rabbit snares, only one or two lagomorphs were ever collared. He shot another porcupine, but worried that a bear might smell the flesh and attack him. He was frequently overtaken by trepidation toward bears. Although he managed to capture a few trout

Trout

Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...

and graylings

Grayling (genus)

Thymallus is a genus of freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes; it is the only genus of subfamily Thymallinae. The type species is T. thymallus, the grayling. The genus's five distinct species are generically called graylings, but without qualification this also refers...

at Tincup, and found some blueberries, he never spotted one salmon. The most serious issue, however, may have been his loneliness, which caused him to cry at some point in all three episodes. The combination of social isolation

Solitude

Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people. It may stem from bad relationships, deliberate choice, infectious disease, mental disorders, neurological disorders or circumstances of employment or situation .Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one...

and undernourishment

Malnutrition

Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....

finally forced him, as he ran out of rations at approximately day 50 of the outing, to call for a rescue plane to take him to Whitehorse

Whitehorse, Yukon

Whitehorse is Yukon's capital and largest city . It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1476 on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas occupy both shores of the Yukon River, which originates in British Columbia and meets the Bering Sea in...

, where he reflected on the trip in the comparative luxury of a hotel room.

The series was produced by Dick Colthurst of Tigress Productions, Bristol. It was commissioned by Tanya Shaw of Channel 4, London. The multiplatform aspect of the project (including the use of Twitter) was commissioned by Adam Gee

Adam Gee

Adam Jonathan Gee is an award-winning London-based interactive media producer and commissioner.In 2003, he moved to Channel 4 Television, London, where he is currently Cross-platform Commissioner . He is a specialist in multiplatform interactive projects around TV, commissioning factual and...

at Channel 4.

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See also

External links