Letters
Making a Life, Literally
Dear Kay,
I spent the weekend on North Vancouver Island with ten guys trying to survive on limpets, bull kelp, and sheer will.
It was the History Channel series Alone, the reality show where the challenge is to be the last man surviving in a wet, cold, miserable forest. Sort of a Last Hands On The Buick contest, only the stakes are half a million dollars to the winner.
I watched Season 1 (circa 2015) in a breathless way.
As Day 1 opens, my mind starts to churn. This isn’t about avoiding bears and cougars (though there is plenty of that). This is about doing what needs to be done to get by. This is a show about making a life.
There’s no teamwork here—they’ve been dumped miles apart from each other, with an impenetrable forest between them. Individual ingenuity is what makes or breaks them.
They scramble to figure out the big three—water, shelter, food—and I notice that they are all constantly making things. Sam rigs up a water catch in a rotten log. Adam sees a hole in the ground, envisions his hideout, and quickly begins thatching with hemlock boughs. Mitch needs to get across a bay to safer land, so he fashions a coracle (a circular boat!) out of tree branches and a tarp. There’s weaving—a fish trap basket based on Native fishing tradition. Trotlines made with a scavenged foam buoy. Exquisite mouse traps with delicate triggers.
Lucas seems to be the most skilled maker of the group. He isn’t happy with his campsite, so he decides to build a canoe. His goal? Finding better food resources and a better campsite.
Spoiler: he builds a damn canoe.
Later, once he’s built a fresh new yurt, he stays up all night to make a three-stringed lute from a piece of wood and fishing line. His all-nighter energy is exactly what we all experience when we’re on to something great.
What motivates all these makers? Survival, pure and simple. Yet as they rig up clever thing after clever thing, they take great pride in their creations. When something works, it’s a triumph. They are making the ordinary extraordinary, even when it’s a simple as a wooden spoon to scoop a hard-won fish stew out of the pot.
At the end, the winner shows his wife his campsite, and she is polite about it. I can tell she doesn’t see the art in what he has created out of the materials around him. When he shows her his wooden spoon and asks if she wants it, she says yes in a disinterested way that breaks my heart. That spoon, woman, is not just a spoon. That spoon is huge.
Making a Life: The Conversation
This all dovetails exactly with my bedside reading these days, Melanie Falick’s Making a Life: Working by Hand and Discovering the Life You Are Meant to Live.
Melanie has recently launched Making a Life: The Conversation, a new online series featuring makers. We’re thrilled that she has set up a conversation with Jeanette Sloan, the designer we’re celebrating in MDK Field Guide No. 15.
When: Saturday, August 8, 1:00-2:00 pm Eastern.
Where: It’s free, with preregistration required right here.
We just received a new shipment of Making a Life. It’s been a very popular book, and Melanie has graciously provided us with beautiful cards she made for you. Available with your order, while supplies last.
It’s a book to inspire any knitter, or survivalist. Clearly, the impulse to make a boat is powerful.
Love,
Ann
PS Season 1 of Alone is streaming for free at History.com.
Okay, now I gotta watch Alone! I have wondered about the series, so thank you for the review!
This sounds fascinating. What I always wonder in shows like this is who is photographing them? Do they set up a camera themselves? Is each contestant assigned a photographer? How does this all happen? In the Amazing Race there are literally only two people producing the show. The host and one other. There is a lot of scrambling about on airplanes. I would love to know the behind-the-scenes on this one. Chloe
We have been obsessed with this show the past few months. They have to film themselves using either a big camera on a tripod or a gopro type camera. They talk to the camera explaining what they’re doing, how they’re feeling etc. The only contact they have with producers is for periodic medical checks. The contestants also have satellite phones in case of emergency or when they want to tap out/quit.
Although making a boat is not high on my making agenda, I do enjoy this book as bedtime reading. The makers are fascinating and inspiring. I fall asleep with visions of casting on or starting something new that I’ve yet to try. Thank you both for my daily dose of “can do” with a generous dollop of humor.
My husband and I have pretty much all of them! Its a great show to watch. I love catching ourselves talking crap about the participants knowing full well that we would fail in less than a week if we did it. Lol
Can you watch episodes of Making a Life, at a later time? I’m afraid my Saturdays are spoken for.
Francis, If you sign up for the event, you will receive a link to a recording of it. It will also live on the Making a Life page on Facebook and on the Making a Life You Tube Channel. This is assuming all of the technology works. It should but . . . I always worry a bit.
Thanks, good to know. Just started the book, enjoying it very much, but 3 am is a bit early for me.
The only other time I’ve encountered the word “coracle” was while taking classes from the wildly inventive knitter Debbie New. She knit a lace coracle. You can search for images on the web, or look in her book “Unexpected Knitting” or in Meg Swanson’s “A Gathering of Lace.”
I just started watching season 3 on Hulu this weekend! One of the contestants wives is a knitter! He has an orange twisted stitch hat that I would love the pattern for!
Hulu has seasons 3-7. I had to pull myself away!
Great show, very creative people.
I loved Fowler’s hat too! He was definitely one of their most talented makers.
This is probably my favorite show!! And you have hit on one of the themes that resonate with me. It’s really a show about introspection. As they found out in the very first season, survival skills alone won’t win the show. It’s really all about making a life in the fullest sense, without the buffers of supportive others or the drama of distressing g others. It’s all about what are you made of? How do you look at adversity and risk? Aside from your social self, who are you? Quite a powerful show, breathtaking scenery, amazing ingenuity. I am hooked!
My husband and I watched every season but the current one. We were hooked and couldn’t wait to watch the next show.
I am addicted to this show! the raw creativity and ingenuity of the survivalists is fascinating. I root for the makers each season, watching them build simple joys that ward off loneliness and create a sense of place in the wild. Keep watching. Each season is better than the last!
I’m watching the Arctic season right now! Totally addictive….and puts ‘survival’ into context!