5 Days Solo Survival in Bear Cove - No Food, Water, Shelter or Fire.

Hey bear! Okay. I'm in the coastal rainforest of the Pacific Northwest. Over the next five days, I hope to fish and forage my way to sustenance as I beat off the nasty rains that inhabit this region. I'm out here for a handful of nights surviving up the land with the limited tools I have here in my bag. What I don't have is any kind of fire starter, any kind of shelter, any kind of water, or any kind of food. Four things you need in order to survive. Though this is a brand new environment for me and with that comes brand new challenges and as I've learned there's more to this place than meets the eye. I'll tell you guys all about that a little later but for now let's find a nice place to call home because I've got a lot of work to do. See these? Those are all trails. Lots of them around here and those aren't made by any human. This is all bear scat all here. Look, looks like something's been laying there. Let's get out of here. All right, I'm gonna call this home. I'm gonna set up a shelter here. The ground is nice and spongy. It's not too swampy like some of the other places around here. Ocean's right there. I have supplies to build my shelter and there's firewood around so this is it. Home sweet home. Surviving out here forces you to rely on skills that were passed down through generations. Really makes you wonder about the people that came before you and the ones that came before them. This curiosity sent me on a deep dive into my own family history with MyHeritage, paid partner on today's video. Use my link and you too can uncover your ethnic origins and find new relatives with MyHeritage DNA test for a limited time only for $25. Honestly it's super simple. I got the kit in the mail, followed the instructions and swabbed the insides of my cheeks, packed up my DNA and sent it on its way to the return address. A few weeks later I was greeted with an email and my results which I have right here. Let's open them together, shall we? Xander, ready to explore your ethnicity? Xander, you are 50% Eastern European. Yeah, that'd be the Ukrainian side but I thought it'd be closer to 25%. Interesting, 22% Germanic. I thought that would be closer to 50%. Fascinating. English, 12%. That makes perfect sense. Grandmother's side. Balkan. Didn't see that one coming. And then 8.9%. More ethnicities. That looks like that's up in the Baltics. Interesting. Okay, so I'm far more Eastern European than I expected. I expected to be 50% Germanic and then 20 to 25% further Eastern European being that my last name is Ukrainian being Budnik. And then we can go to DNA matches and there we go. There's my mother. Shared DNA 50%. That makes sense because she's my biological mother. And then I got my brother Maxim here and then a whole bunch of other people. Grandparents, first cousin, parents, second cousin. Wow, there's lots of people here. And while you're able to contact people through MyHeritage, MyHeritage has committed to never selling or licensing any genetic data so your DNA, your personal information is completely safe with them. It's really cool. This is the family tree that my mom put together on the website. Very comprehensive. That's the thing about MyHeritage. It's not just a platform for finding your own ethnic origins or where your people came from. Also a platform for exploring, researching, and starting to build your own family tree out. Honestly, I just find this stuff super fascinating as I'm sure a lot of you guys out there would as well. And if you use my link, you too can uncover your ethnic origins and find new relatives with MyHeritage DNA test for a limited time only. It's only $25 and you get a 30-day free trial for all access to the platform so you can start building out your family tree immediately. Thank you guys for watching. I'm really excited to do a deeper dive on my DNA origins. But for now, let's get back to the video. Before I get going on the shelter, let me just quickly show you everything I brought. Over here, we got a bit of camera gear, drone. This is a whole bunch of backup batteries. People ask me how I get power. It's a whole ton of these. This is first aid and emergency kit. I got a bit of clothing. Here's rain gear. Here is thermals and a sweater, sunglasses, a little bug hoodie. Don't know if I need that. And a puffer jacket. Next, we got bear spray, bear horn. We got a headlamp, a little emergency beacon, some fishing line, hooks, a bit of wire for fishing, saw, machete, knife, small pot, hair cord, life straw. This is a cheap life straw so hopefully it helps me not get giardia. And the two luxury items I brought, instant coffee. I always bring it. No calories in that. Caffeine is wonderful. And I also brought a sleeping bag. Obviously, I got this wool blanket here, which is quite a small wool blanket for me. It barely covers me. It'll keep me slightly warm. The nights out here are actually quite cold. And with just the wool blanket, I'd have to keep a fire going all night. And if I have to do that for five days, it's a ton of energy. And I decided last minute I'm going to bring a sleeping bag and save that energy to film and procure food. So this will be nice to have. Obviously, still no sleeping pad or pillow, which I'll have to figure out. And I'll be sleeping on the ground and I still don't have a shelter. So still going to be a challenge. Speaking of which, we got to get moving because time's a ticking. I found an awesome freshwater stream right beside camp. This is going to be my source of water for the experience. In a normal survival situation, I'd probably risk drinking this water, hoping that it's clean. My biggest fear, though, is the parasite giardia. Giardia will mess up your gut, but it usually takes about a week or two for it to hit. So if you know that you're going to be able to get out of the wilderness in a week or less, I would totally risk drinking this water and deal with the consequences when I get back to society. But in this case, because I have things to do after this excursion, I'm going to use this here life straw and that'll save my gut and eliminate all risks. Six hours till sunset. It's time to get a shelter going. In these densely packed alder forests, not one of these trees is very healthy. All of them are kind of strangling one another with their presence, so it's actually a good thing when you harvest one or two or three. Make room for others to survive. Oh wow, look at all this fisherman's rope just washed up right here. Nice and handy for me to use for my shelter. All right, I'll come clean with you guys. I found this rope a little earlier today as I was getting here, but I figured this would come in handy for the shelter. There's lots of fisherman's rope washed up on the shores. I wouldn't say a lot, there's a little bit. This place is very clean. Every once in a while you find some rope. Found some earlier, didn't find it just now. About an hour left of sunlight. I'm almost finished the shelter. I just got to put the roof on it. Tide's gone way out and I see something across the bay that I'm going to go check out, but first I have a little snack. This here is sea asparagus and it's edible. It's good, but it's exceptionally salty. But a nice little snack to fill my belly as I haven't eaten in about 10 hours now. Just as I thought, about 200 meters over that way there's a black bear. Looks like it's digging under some rocks looking for shells and getting a bite to eat. I hear there's a high population of black bears in this area, though I also hear they're relatively harmless, whatever that means. In any case, it's a little unsettling knowing that there's two 300 pound omnivores lurking about. Shelter's done. Probably needs a little bit more waterproofing, but that's gonna wait for another day. I'm pooched. The sun's setting. I'm gonna pack her in soon and get ready for tomorrow. Got a lot of work to do. Gotta get a fire going. Start finding food. Oh yeah, and I gotta explore this area because it's unique. Well, this came together really nicely. Definitely is a little bit warmer in here than outside. I feel a bit of a breeze come onto my bear feet, but I'm just trying to dry them out. So I'm gonna get some socks on in a sec, but I'm gonna head to sleep. I'm gonna try without the sleeping bag, but if it just gets too cold, I'm not gonna fight it. I've got a sleeping bag right here. I'm gonna use that, but until then, see you guys tomorrow. Good night. Well, good morning everyone. I'm not gonna say I slept great because I didn't. It was all right. I stayed nice and warm because I did bust out the sleeping bag. It was way too cold to just endure with the wool blanket. That's okay. I ain't complaining other than the fact that the ground is like sleeping on the ground. There's a little bit of moss beneath me, but it's still lumpy, clumpy, and uncomfortable. But all things considered, she'll probably be one of the better sleeps I've gotten on one of these challenges, so no complaints. It's low tide right now, so I'm gonna go search for some food and then I'll have to get fire started to cook that food. Morning coffee. There's a ton of shellfish in the area, which would normally be great eating, but unfortunately there's also a lot of red tides, and these shellfish, they filter those red tides using their bivalves, and what happens is that red tide creates this PSP, paralytic shellfish poisoning, in the shellfish. And if I were to eat these shellfish, there's a chance I'd be fine, but there's also a chance I would develop nervous system issues and die. So yeah, the red tides cause these shellfish to have a concentration of toxins in them, which makes them unsafe for me to eat. Whoa. Oh, breakfast. Just gotta get a fire going first. I'm using the inner wood of an alder tree to make this bow drill set because everything around here just has like this moisture clinging to it. My socks that I dried last night haven't dried whatsoever. I don't think anything will really dry out here. But the inside of this wood is bone dry. Bunch of sap. This is the bark of the cedar tree scraped off. This is nice and dry and it's going to make my tinder bundle. I'm just going to take that little bit of sap that I found earlier and put it in here to create less friction. Oh, look at that. There we go. Nice. It's crazy that all of this was land about four hours ago. Man, the tides are so fascinating. I want to go check out this area once the tides go down. It's much faster to just cut through than go through the mess of trees over here. Check it out. First meal of many. Not bad. Wow, I'm already feeling the life come back to me. That's crazy. I haven't eaten in over 24 hours and putting this meat in my belly is making a difference, let me tell you. I'm going to take a quick nap. It's already like 2.30, which is crazy because all I did was get some snails, make a fire today, and that took about six hours, which is nuts. But I'm going to take a nap and then I'm going to explore a little bit more. There's something I want to show you a little bit later. Well, it's that time of the day where you had three massive moon snails for lunch and a couple handfuls of instant coffee, and it's time to go take a number two in the woods. So I'm going to show you guys how to do that here in the Pacific Northwest. So around here, the best thing you could possibly do is find yourself a nice patch of moss. There's no shortage of it around here. Dig yourself a six inch hole using a stick, squat over top, and well, make sure you pull down your pants first, then let her rip. Grab the moss, use it to wipe. I'm a front to backer. I know some of you out there are a little kinky. You go back to front, and if the moss is wet, it's actually even better. As Jim Baird says, it's like an angel's kiss. That's it for my poop tips today. If you guys enjoyed those poop tips, leave a like, maybe subscribe for more poop tips in the future. Time to get out and do a little bit of exploring. The tide's high, so it's hard to walk around the brush. Kind of a pain in the butt, but there's another solution here. There's an old forestry road here. Hasn't been used in years and years and years. In a real survival situation, if you find one of these roads, you might think that you're home free, but the reality is these old forestry roads, they meander, they go off in odd directions, and they're mostly meant for just covering the area. If you find one of these, sure you can guess going left or right, but both directions might take you nowhere. This is the remnants of an old town that was used back when there was a lumber yard around here, and I think they decommissioned it and deconstructed it about 20 or 30 odd years ago, maybe more, maybe 40. And as you can tell, nature's taking back over. Obviously, it looks a little different than the cedar forest in which we're posted up in, but in all honesty, that's not bad. It's kind of pretty. No way. Holes in it, but hey, that's a good bucket. Got my coffin mug. Look what I found. Oh, good sir. Ah, yes, greetings. How may I help you? What? I said, how could I help you? Ah, just looking for the ocean. Oh, the ocean's this way. This way? The other way. Oh, okay. Thank you. Wow, never did I think I'd see the king of England all the way out here. Little bit of tea. Yeah, I should have invited the king of England for some tea. Oh, that's cool. Got a nice patch of chanterelles. These are edible mushroom, and they're delicious. I know these are chanterelles because true chanterelles have false gills, while false chanterelles have true gills, and these are false gills. Therefore, it's a true chanterelle. And it's also dinner, so let's get going. I'm going to cook the chanterelles on this, so I'm going to flip this upside down. Maybe burn off whatever chemicals are on it. Hopefully. I was hoping for crabs, and all I got was snail. That's all you need. Well guys, it's dinner time, and tonight we're having escargot and chanterelles served on organic wood dish. Get a little bit of that chanterelle, put it on the snail, escargot and chanterelle. This is fine dining, baby. Okay, let's go to bed. Great day today. I'm actually way more fed than I thought I'd be. Five massive snails will do that. That being said, I'm still eating probably only a quarter of the calories that I need to be eating. The hunt for food continues tomorrow, and I'm probably waking up to a dead fire, so good night. Good morning. I'll probably lay here for the next two hours, but it's low tide right now, and I gotta get out there and get some breakfast, so let's go. I've been seeing sea lions around here. I think that's what they've been eating. They've been eating the crabs and the fish. So cute. Ah, this seems like a nice place to sit. Hi there, little darling. Oh, don't mind me. I got a bit of a cold. Welcome to Coastal Rainforest, Pacific Northwest Coastal Cafe. How may I help you? Yes, I would like one coffee, please. And how would you like that? You see, I like my coffee the same way I like my woman. Excuse me? With snails. Oh, of course. Ah, just how I like it. The weather's been extremely nice so far. I feel like I just lucked out, but my luck might be ending. Overcast. Looks like it's calling for potentially rain. Anyways, I have no idea. I just want to make sure that my shelter's bomb-proof, because when stuff gets wet around here, it doesn't dry. So let's bomb-proof this shelter. I'm gonna go explore a little bit, see if I can forge something up. Add to the collection. Oh, there's a bone. Look at that right there. I hope it's what I think it is. So this is chicken of the woods, and some of it looks like it's getting a little old, like these ones up here I won't touch, but down here, all this looks delicious. These ones are definitely too old to eat. Ones down here look pretty decent, and I saw this cluster over here. That looks friggety fresh. Let's take one of these and see if maybe this is better tasting. Honestly, I'm only going to take as much as I think I can eat tonight. I'll remember this spot in case I want to come back, but this should be good. All right, let's go eat. Taking a little shortcut back on the forestry road. I figure I'm just going to hustle home to eat these mushrooms, and hopefully the fire's still going. So it's known as chicken of the woods because apparently the texture is like chicken. I don't think it tastes like chicken. I have no idea, but I'm assuming it doesn't. But this is a more mature mushroom. I'm just gonna guesstimate where on this thing that I should eat. Who knows? In all honesty, it's probably not the best idea eating a mushroom I've never tried before in quantity. In a survival situation, I'd probably advise against touching mushrooms altogether. There's not that much calories to be gained from there, and there's a lot of risk. But we're gonna do it anyways because it's either we're gonna have a nice tasty meal or I'm gonna die doing what I love, eating strange things from the wilderness. It's pretty amazing being out here and thinking about the First Nations people that would have inhabited this land before us. They would have been eating the same foods, traversing these woods, and marveling at its beauty. This is Haida Gwaii. This is an island off the coast of BC, and it's rich with beautiful history. The Haida people of this land were amazing craftsmen. They'd build these big canoes and paddle around trading with other tribes. They were known for their massive totems that they would create, which would riddle the shores along the coast here. And before I came in here, we got to walk around one of the ancient villages and see some of the ruins. Very cool. Wish I knew more about aboriginal culture. So fascinating, and all I have is appreciation for it. I've never cooked chicken in the woods before, but pretty sure the recipe calls for one cup of siwaka. Just want to salt them a little bit. Whoa. Oh man, it would have been way more convenient if they made these road signs non-stick. What were they thinking? Pretty good. Not as good as the chanterelles, but yeah, I get why they call it chicken of the woods. It has like a chickeny texture to it. Fairly chewy. It's nice. With some seasoning, I can see this being actually quite good. Doesn't taste very earthy like some other mushrooms I've eaten. Had some slimy, earthy-tasting mushrooms in my past, and I don't want to go back there. So it seems like the bear dipped off into the woods. I'm going to use this opportunity to head down the coast. It's currently like medium low tide. I'm going to check out this little river, this stream that I saw, see if there's anything of use to me there. Problem is, it's kind of getting late, so basically I'm just going to scout it out. I'm going to have to head back right after. No way. Yes. Look at all the salmon. What? Wow. Okay, well, tons of salmon here. I don't have fishing line. I don't have lures on me. I don't have a headlamp. I'm not equipped, but we're going to head back for tonight. We're going to come back tomorrow. Salmon might be on the menu. We just got to catch one. That's a day four activity. For now, we rest. Well, guys, I have some good news. There's salmon in the river. We're moving up from snails and mushrooms to salmon. Should be good. Good night, guys. I'm going to bed. Some water I boiled last night when I still had a fire. Instant coffee. Well, tide's out, but I am not feeling snail-y today, so I'm going to assemble a fishing rod, get some bait, and see what we can do. I don't feel safe to fish right now. I'm going to wait for the bears to leave and the tide to come up a bit. All right, it looks like the bears are done with the fish. Now it's my turn. I'm going to try not to spook them too much, but I'm going to use these as bait. I'd be surprised if they eat them. Okay. Okay. Oh, no. No. I had one. I've been getting a few bites, but honestly, I think the bait's just terrible. I don't really have many options right now. The shellfish are the only thing that's around. Maybe they like slug as much as I do. I don't know, but there's no slugs around at the moment, so I'm going to chill out for five minutes and then try again. A lot of salmon have come up the river as the tides have flooded it. The black bear's just over there taking a nap. I'm up here to see if the black bear tries to get one of these dudes because I'm having no luck. The black bear's right there, but it looks like it's getting some food, so I'm going to try to sneak below him and see if I can fish, but it might be a bad call. I don't think it's very territorial, so it could be all right. The bear's looking over here. Okay. Okay. I had a fish. The bear's giving me a stern look like this is his territory, not mine. Spend the day hungry and not mauled by a bear. If any of you guys are wondering how I learned all the skills in order to be out here surviving off the land, well, it's all from my buddy Tom McElroy. He is an amazing survival instructor, stand-up guy, and an OG YouTuber. He's been making videos since the dawn of YouTube. Check his channel out. Tom McElroy, Wild Survival. He also runs courses and I've taken a few of his courses and I plan to take some more in the future, so if you guys are interested in learning any of the skills you need in order to survive in the woods, go check him out. Sign up for a course and who knows, maybe you will even see me there. Look, it's my home. Plus, it's my little kitten sized bear. It's called an artisan conch and it leaves the markings that you put on it. There's my hand from earlier when I pulled it off. So, heading out tomorrow. First thing, this is a cool trip. You know, I feel like I'm getting better at these. I find my body adapts quicker to the hunger. I enter ketosis, which just means my body's eating its fats faster. The day two hunger pains I usually get on these outings didn't even happen. I just went right to ketosis. Stoked about that, but what I'm even more stoked for is a juicy, crispy, saucy chicken burger. Oh my god, I've been craving one and I'm gonna get one as soon as I get out of here. Mark my words. So, stoked for that, but we just got to get through the night and then the chicken is ours. Good morning, everyone. The sun is just rising. Time to get up and get out because I'm getting picked up, but I got to meet them at the pickup point. Thanks again to MyHeritage for sponsoring today's video. Use my link and you too can uncover your ethnic origins. Special offer for a limited time only. Yeah, the hot honey fried chicken burger. Oh, it's everything I ever dreamed of. This is it.