Surviving the Canadian Wilderness Solo with No Food

Oh shoot, stupid fire's going out. How hard can it be to keep a stupid fire going? I'm almost 30 and I'm still scared of the dark. But more importantly I'm terrified of camping alone. I've been trying to overcome that fear by just facing it head-on. In the last few years I've gotten out in rain, wind, snow. I've come to really value these experiences and I've learned that the more external challenges there are, the easier it is for me to be present. I'm going to get flown in to an area of northern Canadian wilderness that is twice the size of Yellowstone and get dropped off, just me and my raft. I'm second guessing how good of an idea this might have been. Oh. I keep expecting the pit in my stomach to go away but the further and further we fly in, it honestly just feels like it keeps sinking deeper and deeper and deeper. Well Levi, good luck man. Thank you. Have fun. What are those tracks? You see those on the shore? Yeah, either caribou or moose. They didn't look at it. No, it's better than bear. Okay, well there's probably bear tracks behind them. Thanks for the flight Brian. We have a small dilemma. That camera is Levi's and he wants to take it with him. This is probably the coolest experience I've had with a pilot. Thank you. I know it's a lot to ask. When you take off, can you stay low? And this is officially the most alone I've ever been. This is the furthest from any other human I've ever been in my life. So I'm kind of in this long corridor open valley. I'm starting at one end and heading down to the other. And the food situation, well, I didn't bring any. And the idea actually started a long time ago for me. One of the groomsmen at my wedding, Jim, we were younger than we are now, he was sharing, you know, it'd be really cool to just head out into the mountains and just eat what you catch, eat what you hunt. Especially as I get older, I'm looking for new ways to just experience sometimes self-inflicted challenges that help me just experience life a little bit more actively. My brain keeps thinking it's hearing stuff in the bushes. So definitely, definitely that time to learn. The lake definitely feels a lot bigger when you're floating on it than when you're up in an airplane. In the US, you're never more than 20 miles away from a road. You can be out there, you can get into the wilderness, but there's something about just being up North in Canada where we are a lot further than 20 miles from a road right now. And the reason why this is so special is because many of the biggest river systems in North America, in Canada, in BC, the most important rivers to our ecosystems find their headwaters, their start here in this vicinity, in this area. And I've been hearing about the importance of these rivers for my entire life. So to be able to spend some time out here alone is just very special to me. Okay, so it's now been just under 24 hours since my last meal. And I will say I am thoroughly hungry. So I'm going to try fish the connector section between two lakes. And the amount of times that I've fished, I could count on one hand. And I have never in my life touched a fly fishing rod. And that's what I've been doing at the start of this week. So my buddy Jake is a fishing guide. And Trent and Jake have been graciously teaching me the ropes of basically intro to fly fishing. I'm realizing that it's definitely one of those things that the more you learn about it, the more you realize you don't know. So I already thought it was pretty complicated. And then I'm out here learning it. And yep, turns out that it is complicated. Now they don't leak yet. That's good. Well, that's good. And you were there for like four seconds. This is Jake. And now your job is to teach me how to fly fish. Are you are you prepared for this? Well, I don't know. You never you've never really touched the fly rod. Not once in my life. Fly fishing can get pretty like, snooty and like, elitist or you know, whatever. Rods are pretty simple. Like, they can fold down like this, they get longer, you cast them. People kind of say is ten and two. This one is a little stiffer, and it looks like it wants a little more line out. Okay. That was pathetic. Oh, geez. What's the next step? Fishing. Fishing. Hey, you promised me we'd be doing some catching. That was before I saw you cast. We're gonna get classy here. We're gonna go for a classy, classy, timeless fly. Because you don't want to catch your first fish on something like this. Let's get romantic. River runs through it style. What's river runs through it? You get closer to the outlet and there's like that blue channel of depth. My heart is racing so much right now. I'm just so excited. Yeah, look at that little guy. Way to go, dude. He's gone. That's a good first fish. That was delightful. It's becoming more clear to me with each minute that passes, why this place has been deemed the sacred headwaters. Many of the most important salmon producing rivers in British Columbia find their beginnings in this very spot of wilderness. And that's a big reason why this trip is so important to me. You see, a majority of the stories my dad told me as a kid were all from up north. And the ones I loved the most were the fishing stories from further down these very rivers. The rivers that my dad fished as a kid with his dad, my opah. And so maybe it's partly because I share a birthday with my opah, but I've always felt this longing to experience life up north. So as my 30th birthday approaches and I no longer have my opah to share it with, I'm wanting to finally live out some northern stories of my own. I'm having an absolute blast learning from Trent and Jake. But the whole time what I'm about to do is just hanging over me. And the anticipation waiting for the weather window to get dropped off was brutal. I never actually managed to get a sponsor for this project. So instead, I'd love to invite you to subscribe if you're enjoying this. And for the filmmakers out there, I want to actually just give you all of the hand-drawn assets that I use in this video. And I can also send you my behind the scenes with exactly the gear that I used for this trip and my breakdown of how I approach filming a project like this solo. And I actually just released my Left Coast color grading presets that I used to color grade this entire film and every one of my adventure films for the last four years. If you want to hang out with more adventure filmmakers, if you want more tips or things like that, I've got a community that I run just for adventure filmmakers. So this is a place where my goal is to help you finish projects that you're actually proud of. So I've got a link for that in the description that I encourage you to check out. That's a that's a pretty sweet space with some really special people and I'd love to have you join us. There's frost on the ground in the summer. It's apparently summer here, but thankfully the weather system has opened up so this has made this possible. Morning. Morning. You ready to go? Maybe as I watch the plane fly into the distance, my brain might start to decide weather update. It is frosty and it's July 20th. Snowed three days ago. Good luck. Are you seriously going out there with no food, just a fishing rod? The look on your face is telling you that you don't think that's a wise plan, Brian. It's bold. You'll improve your fishing, I'm sure. I was told inlets, outlets, pools to look for, bends of rivers. We're going to try some of that here. The urgency and the desire to catch fish is definitely heightened. This is a pretty good space to do it. What else can I say? Come on. I was headed up north to muddy my knees, to make a few dollars, to plant a few trees. My boots were brand new in my shoveled toe. Tying on a new fly here with a knot that I learned two days ago. Thank you, Trent. Unfortunately, there's definitely some weather moving in. New fly. Let's go. That's not exactly looking very fun. I thought it'd be a sweet spot to set up camp, but I've been fishing this spot now into the evening and it's not getting better. I don't know. I don't know what to do to make it work. The idea, oh geez, my seat. Today was a pretty paddle heavy day. A lot of distance to cover. Right down here, that's the section I'm heading to. That is where the main river section of my journey starts. I've seen no signs of any other humans at all. Not that I'd expect to, but usually the most beautiful spots in our province, a lot of people visit. It's so wild to be in such incredible terrain, 360 panorama, and not another soul. I'm sure that the wildlife around is aware that I'm here. Thankfully, I haven't ran into anything yet, which is good. I would like to You want to make adventure films? Well, I sure hope you enjoy doing things twice for all the camera angles. In some of the other spots that we've been at this week, you see little ripples and bubbles from the fish heads coming up and eating flies off the surface. I'm not seeing that right now. Eight days ago was the first time in my life that I've picked up a fly fishing rod. In an ideal scenario, I might have had a little bit more practice than that, but I've just so enjoyed the trial and error process of learning and the amount of times I've caught a hook in the back of my hoodie or just twisted up my line and had to cut it all off and start over. It's been frustrating at times, especially going hours and hours on end looking for fish and not finding any. It's been a frustrating experience. A year ago, I was still too scared to camp alone in a tent, and especially when I think, and I have to be honest, being alone with my thoughts for that long is definitely something that intimidates me. There's just a lot of stimulus in my day-to-day normal life that helps numb out some of the harder parts about this journey of life. And I guess what I'm realizing is that maybe there's a larger part of me than I care to admit that chose to do this trip without food as a convenient distraction from what I'm truly We've flown past 24 hours since my last meal. The daylight just keeps on going, and I thought that was honestly going to be kind of annoying because I wanted to be sleeping by now, but I'm not sleeping. I'm still trying to catch any food at all whatsoever. I've been changing through some of my flies here, so obviously it's in the name fly fishing. These little hooks are all dressed up differently to look like different kinds of flies at different stages of their life. I started today with dry flies, floaters that go on the surface, and I've been cycling through of total fishing today without catching any fish to eat. There's kind of a point where it went from I'd notice I was hungry every once in a while and then I was always noticing it was like a constant presence, the hunger, it's so bright out it's blowing my mind. I'm probably going to get to sleep soon because I'm incredibly tired but I'm also just really grateful to be out here. This is a special experience that's for sure. This is the current mosquito situation but the view outside is all time. This morning it was hard to put my finger on it at first but I'm definitely feeling different things than I've ever felt before and I can tell my decision making and my thought process and everything's just a little bit more lethargic. I've been making some silly mistakes making my cowboy coffee this morning. I burnt my hand on my stove which was a little silly. It was good to get the coffee down because I was kind of an appetite suppressor and good to get a little bit more alert and I came down to fish for a couple hours. Didn't have any luck and I actually almost slipped on a rock going into the water. Only really want to be hungry, not hungry and cold. Now two days away from my last meal I'm definitely aware that my body is sounding some alarm bells at me. I'm feeling a little jittery and definitely aware of the lack of nutrition. I am. This is maybe the first time in the experience where I'm second guessing how good of an idea this might have been. I mean it's maybe it would have been okay to bring some snacks and just catch my main meals. Maybe that would have been a better plan. But I'm in it and the only way through it is down the river and the float plane on the other side. But I'd very much like to catch some fish today. I came down here to fish this morning. I didn't really have any luck catching anything and so it's definitely time to break down camp and just move further down the river. And this next section of river is definitely the trout in these water systems most likely want to hang out in an area that has some protection. So I'm looking for these spots with boulders or slower moving deep pools. But I don't know where else to fish on this river because this is what I'm on. I don't know where the fish are hanging out. Don't know. I've burned through so many memory cards and batteries already on this trip. Just setting up shots of me casting and catching nothing and just letting it roll hoping that this would be the joyous moment that I finally catch some food. Let's move further down the river. Well I just had the scary realization that when you hit a rock it almost flips you over. Obviously that should go without saying but well going to bed last night actually went really well. Turns out that sleep is a pretty good antidote for hunger and I did sleep pretty good except for getting spooked thinking I heard a bear a couple times. There's a lot of bugs out and it was freezing again last night so I wasn't in a huge rush to leave my comfy tent. I'm experiencing new feelings and new sensations that... Well that's still pretty mellow all things considered but fun to spice it up a little bit. I've only got a few corners left in this section and we should arrive at in theory what should be the best fishing opportunity of this trip. There's a convergence point of a couple different river systems and then it dumps out into a lake so there should be a pretty good drop off there where hopefully the fish are hanging out. It's now been 52 hours since I ate a meal last. Right now I very much just want to go lie down and sleep but I'm also worried if I sleep I'll crash out and not have enough energy to wake back up and fish again. I think I should be responsible and fish first and I'm going to give myself two hours, two hours to catch a fish. If not I'm going to pull out the old satellite device and probably call it in. Like the idiot that I am I knocked off several flies today. Now I'm down to four flies. Oh no way! Did you see that? No way! There's a fish that jumped right there! Either I'm hallucinating or there's fish here. Let's go! Let the line sink. Yeah! No! Okay my fly's still there. Okay this is still game on. It's okay. Oh my gosh my heart is racing. Come on! Fish on! Come on! Come on keep tension, keep tension. No! No! What? I lost my hook to that last guy. Officially down to three flies. That sucks man. Are you curious? On goes the dry fly. This is the fly that I began fishing with at the start of this trip. That's the one. Come on. That's the one for sure. That's out there. Don't take my fly. Don't do it. Okay. Come on. Stay on. No! I dropped the fish. I dropped the fish man. I dropped the fish. I had the fish in my hands and I dropped it. Oh my word I dropped the fish. Okay next fish I get on. No yelling. No yelling. Just catching. How about that? It's in my hand and I let it just back into the water. So dumb. We just crossed the two hour point that I said I was going to pull out the sap phone and phone it in. But I'm not ready to call it in though. Well I have to say this has got to be one of the most beautiful camps I've ever set up at. I think part of what was going wrong earlier is that the adrenaline when a fish would bite the hook was just so extreme that I was kind of just I was just so excited when a fish would bite. Now I'm ready to now I'm ready to just relax. I'm just gonna settle into a groove. I'm gonna send out some line and I'm just gonna see what Come here buddy. I've got a death grip on this fish man. Thank you buddy. Oh. Fish jumping eh? Fish jumping. Can't drop him if he's on the beach can I? Oh man. Hmm. Oh man. My excitement is building to see my kids and to share with them some of my own fishing stories from up north. I'd kind of been bracing for a moment that would be some big moment. Some kind of profound understanding of myself that I'd arrive at and I'm not sure I'm not sure if that's happened. I was hoping that my fear of being alone would be less by the time that this trip was over and I can't really say that that's the case. But what I can say is that when enough time goes by for those thoughts and feelings that I usually try to avoid inevitably come up. I've learned that I can sit in that space even with the fear. I feel oddly more ready to just keep doing life as the person that I am and that is a gift that I didn't expect this place to give me. A feeling that's just been settling in for me in sort of just these waves. Just observing the sheer lack of accountability I've had for playing my part and looking after spaces like this. And I'm realizing just how grateful I am that there's people before me who care and I want to play a part in the lineage that comes after that. And what shape and form that takes at this point I'm not too sure. But I do know that it's far more important what I do when this camera turns off and when I go home and I get back to my normal.