Good Will Hunting

I’m a producer for Alone, the TV show on History. This story is about a participant we had in season 2, whose footage we had to cut. I’ve never felt comfortable talking about this before, especially because it opens me up for liability. After all, giving away TV show secrets is a bit of a faux pas, especially a survival show. But I feel like people should know the truth.

One of the things you may not know about the show is we often have nearly double the amount of participants actually part of the show, and in editing we choose the most entertaining people and only include them in the actual season. That way we can weed out the boring people, super survivors who could literally last years alone (who we have to “force tap,” or otherwise make them quit), and also get rid of the ones who can’t even handle a single night alone in nature. That happens a surprising amount. But these people don’t make for entertaining TV.

Season 2 took place on Vancouver Island, a densely forested land with just as much fish as it has rain. The weather – the chill, the numbing wind – took care of most of our contestants. And if you watched the season, you’d know the “winner,” Dave, lasted 66 days. Long, but, like I said, there were other “super survivors” who lasted longer. We let them stay out longer as an experiment to see just how long it might take. These men – all the women had tapped by then – had built impressively sized cabins from the surrounding forests. All except Will, that is.

That was his name. When Will sent us his application and video, he seemed like a normal guy. Well, for a survivalist. He was the kind of guy who came off as a good guy to know both at the local bar and should the apocalypse hit. The kind of survivalist who hunts for sport but you know could really stay out there for some time. He had professional training, would take others on managed hunts, and spent a lot of time in nature preserves camping by himself. Really personable and had the looks for the show, too. We knew he’d be popular.

But the image wouldn’t last. When we picked up the footage on day 90 and reviewed it, we found a very different person.

Describing his story isn’t exactly easy. See, one thing about the show is these guys are really alone. Like, really alone. We drop them off, give them their chosen 10 items of survival gear (knife, ax, tarp, fishing line, stuff like that – they get to choose the 10 items themselves), video equipment, and say good luck. Oh, and there’s the emergency satellite phone they use for when they finally tap. It also allows us to track their movements. Usually, at least. Of course, out in the wild, with tall, dense forests and the typical cloud cover of Vancouver Island, connections can be tricky. We leave them be until they hit the button to come home except in the cases of super survivors. And for Will.

Days 1-38 were normal for Will. Compared to the others, he struggled no more or no less. Typical footage of failed fishing, some successful drop-falls (a way to catch small rodents). But he wasn’t desperate enough yet to eat insects. From the looks of it, he was doing well. No real mental struggle. Not even a single “night scare,” which is what we call the footage participants take when they’re awakened by a rummaging animal – usually a mouse or other small rodent, but sometimes a wild hog or bear gets nosy. He’d talk about missing his family – his parents and brothers and sister – but every participant does that. But something happened on day 58 that seemed to change Will.

We know something happened on day 58 because when Will reappeared on footage on day 59, he was a markedly different person. After not having taped anything since day 39, the footage seemed to come at daybreak, with Will’s face covered in blood. We figure it must have been deer blood, as he had been tracking a small group of deer that seemed to live maybe a quarter to a half mile away. He hadn’t been too concerned about the local bears. They’re big and dangerous, but he had only seen one in his entire time there, and wasn’t planning on hunting any, and the other game was too small to be worth the energy. He was stringing up his kill; too blurry to make out the animal but, like I said, we’re pretty sure it was a deer. He hadn’t cooked it yet, and we couldn’t see if he had started a fire. It was just him across the camp, tying the animal up to a tree so he could gut it. The video seemed to come on and off without any movement from him at all; none of the “pushing the button on the camera” that you would typically see when starting or ending a shot. It just stopped. The video lasted 49 seconds.

The participants are supposed to tape every day – and preferably as much as possible – so that we can splice together a ton of shots. Nature shots, instructional shots to show how they created their cabins, weapons, or the trinkets like necklaces that some of them enjoy making to pass the time. The next video from Will came on day 70.

Will didn’t look like Will. Up until day 58, he had kept a pretty clean-shaven face. He wasn’t a big fan of beards, and took care to use his survival knife to cut as close as possible to keep that quarterback-turned-model image we saw in that application video. But now he looked old. Dirty. Dried blood flaking from his face. Newer blood than day 58, but old enough to where it shouldn’t be there hours or days after hunting and eating the kill. It was just different. He spoke, though. He apologized for not taking video as much as he should’ve. Said hunting was a little more difficult lately, and he felt like he was losing weight too fast. That he would dream of steak and of prior hunts and of family and of Thanksgiving dinner. He thought about tapping but said it was too late for that. The video ended.

As he had promised, the video started back up on day 76. This time he was ranting – yelling – at the forest. He talked about his food rotting too quickly despite the freezing temperatures, not being able to find any “others” to eat, and starving. This was far past frustration we typically see from participants. This was anger. Deep-seated anger. The footage ended abruptly after he threw his hatchet at the camera.

He didn’t tape again until day 82. But this wasn’t normal footage. Not even like before. The video came on, and it’s just him standing there. Silent. Still. Not in his tent. In the middle of camp, though the video was zoomed in closely on his face. No blood anymore, and no movement from him, either. Not to turn on the camera. Not to make sure the shot was in focus. Just standing. This continued for three days. We thought the video must’ve inadvertently paused, but I am not joking. We even checked the GPS records on the emergency phone. For three days Will stood in his camp without movement. Trees around him shaking in the wind. Rain and snow falling from the sky. Will remained still and looking off into the distance until the video shut off in the afternoon of day 85. The battery and video card on the camera should’ve ran out two-and-a-half days prior, but they didn’t. It captured it all. We never did see or even hear any animals in the footage for those three days, though, which was weird.

To be honest, we aren’t sure what happened to Will. You see, we arrived at his camp on day 90, and Will wasn’t there. That’s not all that uncommon; sometimes we get there and they’re off hunting. We checked the GPS for the phone, but it was nowhere to be found. We waited in camp all day until it started getting dark. We had already loaded Will’s belongings, including the camera equipment, into the boat. A couple guys stayed behind in a tent to see when he’d show up. He never did.

About 3 miles away down the coast, another suspected “super survivor,” Benjamin, had made camp. In his last scene, he’s fishing along the coast, stick-as-a-rod in hand, and line in the water. He looks up from the river towards the camera, white-faced and wide-eyed, and the video abruptly stops.

It was day 58. We never found him, either.

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More stories from Alone:

1. Alone: Good Will Hunting
2. Alone: Voices
3. Alone: Bloodless
4. Alone: Why We Won't Tape a Kids' Version Ever Again