Six of Alone’s strongest survivalists were selected for The History Channel’s Alone: Frozen season one, and after just five days the field was done to five. Episode one featured three out of the six competitors and episode two, “Frost Bound,” catches us up with the other three Alone veterans who’ve accepted this special challenge – Woniya, Greg, and Michelle.
The Alone spinoff switches things up by challenging the competitors to survive 50 days in the freezing cold Labrador wildness during the North Atlantic winter. Anyone who manages to make it to Day 50 will receive a share of the $500,000 prize money.
Woniya Thibeault, Age 45, California – Season 6, Survived 73 Days
49 Days Left: Woniya loves her beautiful little beach but describes the area she’s about to make her temporary home as sparse. There are only a few tiny trees and bare rock, but at least she’s on the ocean.
Woniya was the runner-up on season six, the first season that took place in the Arctic. She was thrilled to be able to test all of her skills on that season and hopes to carry that forward to the first season of Alone: Frozen.
She wound up tapping after 73 days because she was certain she wouldn’t have passed the medical check. Her body was done but she definitely didn’t want to leave.
Woniya made her much of her own gear for Alone: Frozen, including leather boots. This season’s also different because now she has a partner in life, Taylor, and when she participated in season six, she didn’t. Being without him is going to be difficult.
She finds a water bottle on the beach and is excited about the prospect of having portable water.
The sun’s nearly down when Woniya’s dropped off, so her first priority is shelter rather than food. She sets up her ridge pole and it’s not beautiful, but at least it’s functional. She throws her tarp over it and admits the challenge will be finding firewood and tender because it’s so wet.
Woniya plans on positioning the tarp so that it covers the shelter and is also under her sleeping bag.
As she settles in for the night, she’s wowed by the Aurora Borealis. The sky is gorgeous and she thinks it’s a good sign.
47 Days Left: She’s going to work on her permanent shelter today. There’s not a lot of building materials but she discovered a spot with a rock cliff she can build against. The weather turns wet and windy as she starts her build. The rocks will provide two walls which should cut down on the amount of time it takes to put up a shelter.
Woniya admits she doesn’t feel as connected to this place, and the conditions are harsher than Alone season six.
She gets two and a half sides of her shelter built and puts her tarp over it. A combination of logs and sod will complete it, but her tendonitis is flaring up from all the sawing. The rain’s pouring down as she gets under her shelter.
44 Days Left: Woniya’s concerned about her tarp because there are multiple holes in it. There’s water collected on top of it, too. She admits this is so much more challenging than she expected.
Woniya cries as she says she doesn’t want to be cold, wet, and miserable. She’s thinking about what she put on hold to be here, and she misses her beautiful life at home. She never thought she’d consider leaving on day six.
Greg Ovens, Age 58, British Columbia – Season 3, Survived 51 Days
49 Days Left: Greg doesn’t have time to check out the resources as there’s only two hours left of sunlight. He’s going to find a nearby spot and throw up his tarp for the night. Hopefully, he won’t be visited by any polar bears.
Greg went 51 days in season three in Patagonia and says his fall in the lake – plus not eating for a long time – caused him to go downhill fairly rapidly. He realized he wasn’t thinking straight and was forced to tap.
He’s twice as old as almost all the other competitors but with age comes wisdom. Greg’s determined to be more patient and less stressed out this time. He hopes he’ll deal with the challenges differently than he did in season three.
Greg’s concerned about polar bears and worried about his very primitive temporary shelter. He’s set it up amongst the trees and hopes to get to work on a much better one soon.
He gathers some firewood as he thinks about the harsh conditions they’ll be enduring over 50 days. It won’t be easy, that’s for sure.
As he’s grabbing wood, he finds bear scat and footprints. He really, really doesn’t want to see a polar bear. Male polar bears can weigh 1700+ pounds.
48 Days Left: The wind’s kicked up and the weather’s turning nasty, and Greg admits he’s not feeling great about sleeping on the ground. His shelter’s a lean-to and he’s hoping for the best when it comes to protecting him from bears.
Greg sets out to find mussels and admits to being obsessed with living off the land. He loves coming up with new ideas for fishing and trapping. And although he’s gathered some mussels, he decides he needs to try fishing.
He relies heavily on fish when he’s on his own and thinks there should be lots of fish in this area.
Unfortunately, the kelp goes out as far as he can toss his handline. It’s the worst fishing spot he’s seen in his lifetime. He’ll have to dine on mussels today.
The tide’s coming in as Greg discovers he’s lost his pot. He set it down when he was looking for bait and without it, he can’t boil water, make tea, or cook the mussels. “I don’t see why I would do something so stupid,” he admits.
Greg goes through the footage he’s shot to figure out where he left it. It doesn’t help and he thinks it’s possible the tide took it away. So, he can’t catch fish and now his pot is missing.
Greg doesn’t like the overwhelming feeling of not being in control.
A short while later he finds his pot and yells at himself to hang onto it.
47 Days Left: The tarp’s a bust as his down-filled sleeping bag is soaked. He’s going to have to use the black tarp provided for the camera gear to cover everything for now. (That tarp doesn’t count as one of the contestants’ 10 items.) He expects the rain to keep up all day and picks up his sleeping bag, showing it’s soaking wet.
“This is much harder than I thought it would be. The mental struggle is extreme; that’s what I’m finding the hardest is just mentally dealing with the failures,” he admits.
Greg reminds himself to be careful because he’s not 30 anymore. He confesses he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t know when to quit.
He gets in a tussle with a tree and gets soaking wet in the process. All of this is very déjà vu-ish and brings Patagonia back to mind. It took him three months to recover from that experience.
46 Days Left: The sleeping bag’s no longer soaking wet but it took forever to dry it out. He cooks up his mussels for breakfast and decides to try and trap the seagulls that come by during low tide. (FYI, one cup of seagull meat has 300 calories.)
Greg starts work on his bird trap which looks complicated, but he swears will work. It’s one of his new ideas and he’s hopeful it’ll catch something.
45 Days Left: Greg says the lack of food and wet bedding isn’t much fun. Getting any substantial food would be a game-changer and he heads out to check his seagull trap. Unfortunately, he set the trap too close to the water and part of it was destroyed.
Greg thinks he’s wasting his time and it was a lot of work for nothing. He’s finding out there’s just not enough food here and he’s getting very stressed out. He’s sure things will only get worse from here on out.
44 Days Left: Greg’s having panic attacks because this is much harder than he thought it would be. It’s only day six but it’s reminding him so much of Patagonia and how he struggled and suffered there. That’s what’s creating his anxiety.
“I’m just not ready for suffering like this again,” confesses Greg.
Michelle Finn, Age 47, Maine – Season 8, Survived 21 Days
49 Days Left: Michelle’s from the East Coast of Maine and feels a kinship with Labrador. She tapped out after 21 days during season eight because she wasn’t successful at procuring food. She went from 120 pounds to 98 over 21 days.
Michelle feels honored to be given another shot at testing her survival skills. “This season, I really want to win the show,” says Michelle.
After being dropped off, Michelle immediately begins hunting for clams. They’re scattered all over the beach and she’s determined to eat as much as possible as soon as possible.
48 Days Left: Morning arrives and Michelle wakes up after camping on the beach. She also saw the Aurora Borealis and it was cool. She hasn’t seen it since she lived in Alaska.
The day’s gorgeous but she knows bad weather’s coming in. That means she needs to get to work quickly on a shelter. The challenge will be cold, wet, and windy, so she needs a campsite that’s protected but with access to what she needs.
Michelle finds bear scat and recites the bear warning: “Black, fight back. Brown, lie down. White, good night.” She absolutely doesn’t want a polar bear to know she’s there so her shelter needs to provide protection against the weather and predators.
Michelle finds the perfect spot and starts cutting down trees. She wasted too much energy on constructing a large shelter on Alone season eight. This time she wants to keep it simple and small. “The smaller I can make it, the warmer it will be,” says Michelle.
Her shelter will be an A-frame completely covered to the ground by the tarp. Ribs internally will be attached to the support beam across the center.
She takes a break from shelter building to check on the fire and hears something large nearby. Michelle grabs her camera to check it out and discovers it’s just the water. The level’s gone up much more than she anticipated and now she’s nervous because the weather’s changing. She needs to make sure her shelter can support the snowfall. Labrador can get 30” of snow in one day.
45 Days Left: It’s raining and Michelle plans to go collect food. She hopes there are lots of mussels, crabs, clams, and periwinkles around.
It’s only 21 degrees as she wears gloves while digging for clams. She spots mussels out in the open and can’t believe her luck.
As she’s gathering food, she recalls a childhood spent outdoors and growing up in a family that grew their own food. “The connection with food sources was always big in our family, so I feel really grateful for this level of clams and mussels,” says Michelle.
Michelle sewed one of her gaiters shut with fishing line and has been using it to store the food she collected. She’s got a pot full by the time she’s finished and is really happy about how much she was able to find.
Michelle hopes to make it to 50 days in better condition than she was at 21 days on season eight.
44 Days Left: Michelle woke up feeling sick, weak, and nauseous. She made sure to hydrate and feels better, and her goal for the day is to gather a lot of firewood and store it in the shelter.
Her stomach’s feeling raw, but she hopes that will pass. She doesn’t think it’s caused by hunger. Her mind races thinking about what could be causing her to feel sick.
- Alone: Frozen Season 1 Episode 1 “50 Day Freeze” Recap
- Alone: Frozen Season 1 Episode 3 “The Edge” Recap
- Alone: Frozen Season 1 Episode 4 “Bone Cold” Recap
- Alone: Frozen Season 1 Episode 5 “Outfoxed” Recap
- Alone: Frozen Season 1 Episode 6 “On Thin Ice” Recap
- Alone: Frozen Season 1 Episode 7 “The Last Hope” Recap
- Alone: Frozen Season 1 Episode 8 “The Bitter End” Finale Recap
