In 1987, I had this idea that a great way to teach wilderness survival would be to head out into the woods and do exactly that.

Survive.

Now I need the skills because I'd be filming myself alone.

And you, the viewer, would be made aware of that.

And I thought, what a great way to make these skills more relatable to you.

Problem was, the technology was not available for me to film myself beyond the old grainy camcorders as we used to call them.

Well, fast forward to the year 2013 years and indeed the technology became available.

the take home information.

And the skills that you would learn from this series would make you more confident in nature.

You'd stay warm, dry and safe, and therefore you'd be able to reconnect to the natural world.

What you're about to watch is raw and real, and not to be confused with reality television.

These are my journeys into the world of survival and around the planet.

These are the skills that can keep you alive and open the doors to nature.

The only reality that matters.

- [Les] Here he is.

Here he is.

Here he is.

(branch crunches) (Les grunts) (rhythmic throat music) (tribal music) (tribal chanting) (upbeat music) Even as a young child, I was always fascinated with swamps and wetlands.

In the late 70s, I spent a lot of time in Florida just checking out the Everglades and the birds, the alligators, the snakes.

It just all was beautiful and captivating to me.

And I'm not sure who it was, but somewhere along the line, someone suggested I go check out the swamps of Georgia.

I had a friend named Mike Crawley, who was a survival specialist, and he taught me a lot of different tricks and techniques, and one of them was the one where I teach how to scorch the ground to get rid of biting insects.

As for dealing with the alligators and the alligator snapping turtles, and he told me I was on my own.

Now the Okefenokee Swamp is over 600mi█, and in fact, there's more than 7 million square hectares of wetland in the state of Georgia.

Over one third of the saltwater marshes on the east coast are in the state of Georgia.

The alta Maha River, at 137 miles long, was where my journey would begin, and it was early in the game, so I was messing around with a few things.

So I thought, well, let's try this blindfolded.

Now if you want to experience nature at its fullest, check out a wetland.

Bordering the states of Georgia and Florida, deep in the American South, lie the swamps.

The domain of alligators and poisonous snakes.

How could anyone last seven days here alone?

(anticipatory music) The plan is to have me taken deep into the swamp by a local.

A guy named 3 Rivers Charlie.

I'm blindfolded before the trip, so I'll have no idea how far or what direction we're headed.

(motor revving) See you guys.

What I do know is that Charlie is going to drop me deep in the Altamaha River Basin, an area of endless stretches of murky, waist deep water.

How many gators you figure you got living along this section of the river?

- I would say that we probably have at least 30 to 40, right in this general area.

- [Les] What's the likelihood of gators coming up into these.

- [Charlie] Pretty fair, especially at night.

- [Les] How about snakes?

What are the snakes?

- [Charlie] Quite a few.

We have a largest population of rattle snakes than we do any other snake, I would imagine.

(boat motor sputtering) (water sploshing) - [Les] The deal this time, the crew and 3 Rivers Charlie take me in blindfolded, drop me off, and come back seven days later to pick me up.

All right, well the rule is once I stop hearing the sound, I can take my blindfold off.

So now it's just me and my video cameras.

(birds chirping) Holy mackerel.

Well, this is really one spectacular example of the deep South Georgian swamps.

As you saw when I was dropped off, likely, I'm just on a little spit of sand right in the middle of it all.

I'll show you what I've got as far as equipment with me, at least in terms of camera gear.

I've always got two waterproof cases here, and inside, basically, just a usual assortment of lenses and batteries and tapes.

I've got my little camera.

This little guy right here, it's for getting a lot of those body mount types of shots.

I also have another camera set up right now, actually getting some time lapse shots.

But what I wanted to show to you was the fact that I have all this stuff, I can't use any of this for survival.

A lot of gadgets and metal and tape and all sorts of things, but I can't use that.

These are not things I'm, for the sake of doing this survival in the swamp that I'm allowed to use to make my time any better here.

So it's just camera gear and it's gotta stay camera gear.

(dramatic music) (birds chirping) And every time I go to a new location to see if I can survive, I bring along a few everyday items to see what I can make of them.

In this case, tin.

I got some rope.

That's pretty much useful anywhere.

Comb.

Some bubblegum, credit card, a lighter, but this time, lighter doesn't work.

At least there's no fuel left in it.

Two pieces of tissue paper.

Then I also have my Swiss army knife.

(exhales) Let's see what I can do with them.

(lighter clicks) (gentle music) There's nothing friendly about a swamp.

It really conjures up a lot of images of swamp creatures and monsters and this place here is full of gators.

These are the swamps of the deep south, southern Georgia.

Swamps like the Okefenokee and where I am now, the Altamaha River Basin.

They are beautiful, but they are vast and they can be spooky and they're not the place you wanna spend seven days alone.

And sooner or later, the only way out is to cross the water.

(temperate music) (leaves rustling) Walked for a ways.

(mosquitoes buzzing) Just keeps gettin' dark.

I keep trying to find a nice little spot to set up camp and there just, there really isn't one.

Well, let me bring you up to speed.

This place has got a lot a alligators, aggressive snapping turtles, millions of mosquitoes, four kinds of poisonous rattlesnakes.

At the ground is covered with ticks and things called jiggers, and they're like little mites that like to burrow into your skin.

And I'm alone in the middle of the swamp and the sun's just about down.

(dramatic music) Other than doing up my collar, get my shirt real tight, and I've got my raincoat, my rain jacket.

I'll wear it.

The only other way to protect myself from these hoards of mosquitoes that are coming in right now is if I, you kick yourself up with mud like this, they can't bite through it.

Ah, yuck.

Swamp mud.

Of course, I really don't know how many pathogens are in this water.

Right now, it's the mosquitoes that are gettin' to me and this'll keep 'em from biting and maybe just maybe give me a nice smooth, wrinkle-free complexion.

There you go, mosquitoes.

Come and get me.

(foreboding music) (crickets chittering) (chainsaw revving) A night in the swamp is not a lot of fun.

The mosquitoes came on pretty thick, pretty strong for about two hours or so, maybe three hours.

pretty strong for about two hours or so, maybe three hours.

And I stayed curled up underneath my rain gear waiting for them to go away.

Then finally it dropped in temperature and cooled down a bit and the mosquitoes dissipated.

And that was great, except then it started to get much cooler.

So I have a sweater and an undershirt with me, So I had, good thing, I threw them on and my rain gear and started to wait out the chills.

Well then I spent the rest of the night shivering.

It was pretty, it was surprising how cold it can get here at night.

Such a low area.

Damp.

(bird cooing) There's a few things I can work with around here and it looks like there's a big old, very old river dam just over here.

It might help me get across to the other side of the swamp.

I was really surprised to find out that there are beaver living in the swamps here.

I mean, being a Canadian thinking it's like a Canadian animal, you know.

I just couldn't picture beaver living alongside of alligators.

And they don't really, the alligator's feed on them.

This beaver dam is very flat.

It's almost like a road.

And it cuts across to the other side basically, over to more flood basin.

And any other time of the year, or in another time of the year, maybe about two weeks before this, this was under another 10 feet of water.

(birds chirruping) I dunno, I think I've got like 20, 25 Great Egrets nesting right here in this swamp.

Now what that means is this is a perfect Now what that means is this is a perfect and prime area for alligators.

and prime area for alligators.

They love to come in and just wait at the bottom of the trees, and I guess hoping for a young one to fall down.

Well, I've got a lot of wood to work with here.

I shouldn't have any trouble keeping a fire going once I can get a fire going.

Wow.

I gotta find out what kind of edible plants are here that I could nibble on.

And I have a feeling that I may be able to catch a few things out of this swamp.

(birds chirping) (leaves rustling) Well, I've decided to come up onto this flat beaver area to make a shelter.

And why a shelter when it's 75 to almost 90 degrees every day?

Because last night I got quite a chill, put a little rain into that scenario and you got the makings of a possibility of getting hypothermia.

So, I think better to be safe than sorry.

I'll make a bit of a shelter.

Not a real major one, just something to keep the rain off me, I think.

(leaves rustling) Yeah, this area will work fine.

Normally, I would clear the area away.

In this case, I'm actually gonna push all the sticks and branches up onto it.

Basically do a controlled burn to help to clear out any ticks and jiggers and things that are on the ground here.

I can't see this Spanish moss not being good (grunts and sputters) for fire starting.

It's very dry.

Should work out just nicely.

Looks like good tinder to me.

I got a way I can make a fire with that lighter without fluid.

First I'm gonna sacrifice one of these pieces of tissue and what I wanna do is just first just take it and roll it up.

I need a little bit of a, sorta funnel-like opening.

The next thing that I want to do is turn to my socks here and pull off a good wad of sock lint.

Just try to get, oh, I don't know, maybe a dime sized amount of lint.

Just put the fluff in this top end of the tissue paper.

And we have the makings of what I'm going to call prison match.

This is how people often get a fire going even just to light their cigarettes in prison when they run out of fluid since lighters are at a premium there.

(birds chirping) Don't ask me how I know that.

Don't ask me how I know that.

So all I have is a spark, (lighter clicks) no flame, (lighter clicks) and my little prison match.

and my little prison match.

Let's see if we can make this work.

(lighter clicking) (birds twittering) Ha ha ha ha ha, success.

Right off the bat.

The first one too.

Nice, nice, nice.

Yeah.

A nice little trick when you run out of fluid.

Now I can burn off some of these ticks and mites.

Be gone, you guys, off you go.

And the moral of this story is always wear cotton socks.

Fire makes all the difference in the world.

It keeps the boogeyman away and it makes cooking food, if I can catch it, a very real possibility.

Hmm.

(underbrush crackling) Now here's something here.

You can see the fish down in there and there's, the maggots crawling around them, lots of 'em.

There's no way that I wanna bother eating these fish 'cause they're rotting, but with this little bit of water here, maybe there's a couple other little puddles like this where there still are minnows swimming around.

Don't want these ones though.

Well, now that I've got a fire going, I'm sure I could boil water for drinking.

But this water, I mean, it looks awfully scummy, and who knows how many pathogens are lurking in here.

I'm gonna see if I can find another way of getting water.

'Cause the last thing I really wanna do is drink this stuff.

I suppose if it was absolutely life or death from dehydration, I'd do it, but I'm not there yet.

In fact, in fact there was a young boy who a number of years ago right in these areas here, he was swimming in one of the more, I guess it was a more stagnant pool, ended up getting an amoeba in his ear and died within five days.

So there are dangers in parasites and problems and pathogens here with this water.

But this, this is all wet right down here where there seems to be a bit of a break.

This is water vine.

If I cut this, cut this vine, it may give me, see it's even wet already, just in the cutting of it.

Ow.

Okay.

So that should hopefully, start juicing and dripping out.

And I'm gonna use that tin can and see how much water I can catch with this.

(foreboding music) (snake rattling) This old tree here (Les grunting) is nicknamed Georgia Fatwood.

(bark cracking) Hmm, whew.

Can come into great use.

This wood is just full of resin.

Makes a very bright torch.

(focus music) (foliage rustling) You know, in the dryer areas here, just a little bit outside of the swampish spots, this sweetgum grows and actually it's kind of a neat little plant.

So I'm gonna peel this bark away.

The good thing about it is it helps my hygiene.

Good for cleaning the teeth.

(birds chirping) Hmm.

Almost a little bit of a, almost a menthol kind of feeler, taste to it.

(doom music) Huh.

All through the swampy area there's a lot of vines like this, and of course the vines are just great for tying things up.

So, I think I'm gonna be able to put this to good use.

(upbeat music) The lack of food can cause indecisiveness.

That's when my survival instinct has to kick in.

In this case, it's just get busy.

(upbeat music) Well, this is the shelter so far.

I stuck a couple of forks in the ground and then tied supports across it and a couple of other sticks in the ground, and then I just began to lay poles on top of it and even tied the poles off as well at the top.

Stuck 'em in down at the earth at the bottom.

Really, all I want to do here is for the most part is keep the rain off of me.

I guess keeping some warmth in would be good too, 'cause it is getting pretty cool at night.

But, it's not too bad, I suppose.

Mind you, the chills are not so nice.

But with the fire now it's a lot better.

I can keep that fire going and stay warm with it.

I'm getting right out of energy now.

I mean the water from the water vine is good, but I've got no food and I am starting to feel that already after one day.

It's very strange, it's really hot during the day, but it's cooling down quite at night, so it kind of takes a lot outta you.

And I don't think I'm gonna do too much more.

I don't think I have the energy to keep doing too much more.

I'll put more roof on later.

(low energy music) Ready for a war against the bugs.

(low energy music) Just enough energy to keep myself occupied here.

Mosquitoes will be coming in very, very soon.

In the meantime, let's see if I can get me some food.

(drowsy music) (wood scraping) It's actually a cooler night tonight.

It feels like the mosquitoes aren't as bad as they were last night.

That's good.

This fire might help me get through the night, that's for sure.

This fish spear I'm making, I've got the prongs really shaved smooth.

Not so that it looks cool but because it increases the efficiency.

It can slide into the fish much easier, and whereas the bark is more like, almost like a sandpaper, it can grab the fish and not be able to slide through it as well.

So, try some fishing soon.

They told me there's nearly a hundred pound catfish in this swamp.

We're gonna find out.

(wood scraping) (upbeat music) I took and sprinkled some of those little rotting minnows around here in the hopes that it might bring in some catfish.

The hunger is driving me to try fishing in the middle of the night for catfish.

If you think it's easy to stand at the edge of an alligator swamp in the black of a southern Georgian night and not to think about them, try it.

(upbeat music) I see something moving around down there.

Even if it's a crayfish, that'd be good.

Here he is.

Here he is.

Here he is.

(water sploshes) (Les grunts) Ah, crap.

Well, so much for that.

Maybe I'll better organize myself for tomorrow night.

Try again.

(fire crackling) Boy, it's spooky here.

(backpack rustling) Sleeping only three feet from the water's edge, I dream of alligators, if I can sleep it all.

The water vine has started to slow down its drip a bit, but just the same, even overnight I managed to collect a whole bunch of water.

This is an absolute lifesaver.

There's ants in there.

That's okay.

That's just more protein.

(birds chirping) Mm.

(water swishing) Oh.

Good Lord, that helps.

That helps a lot.

Now finally, I might just have myself an edible plant.

These little center new shoots and maybe pull 'em out.

(grunts) Ah, whoa.

Look at that.

Now that's pretty cool.

And these guys show the bottom bit.

I don't know how old this one is, but we'll, we'll find that.

(Les grunts) (birds chirping) A little woody but tasty.

There's lots of these around.

I'll try to see if I can get some more.

Gimme something to chew on.

Get a bit of starches into my system.

(Les grunts) (foliage rustling) (fire crackling) I started weaving them in from the bottom.

Just down the bottom, a line, line, line, all the way up to the top to try and create a nice little, kind of shingled roof effect here.

It should work well.

I don't wanna be caught off guard like I was last night when it started to spit on me and I was running around trying to cover my camera gear.

Tonight, I wanna make sure that I'm dry if rain does come in.

So far I've been lucky as far as the weather is concerned.

(foreboding music) (birds chirping) Shh.

(stick splatting) Looks like I got me dinner.

All right, well this represents my first real meal in a couple of days.

Nice big set of frog legs.

So, what I'll do is I already gutted him and I'll use the guts and I'll use the head and that for hopefully baiting in some big catfish.

I have to build something or try spearing them, but find some way if I can bring in a big fish or keep looking for turtles too.

I see turtles out there, it's just a matter of if I can find one.

(tired breaths) Well that's good.

A little bit of meat into my system.

Bring back some well needed energy, I think, 'cause I'm really starting to wear out.

It's only been a couple of days, but all this work burns all your calories.

(branch crackling) (upbeat music) I had never had frogs legs before, Mm man, that is good.

This is by far the longest night I've had in a long time.

Well, now that was a horrible night.

Very, very cold.

You won't believe what I caught in the trap.

Big old turtle.

This is gonna fill me up.

time to put this raft to the test When it floats.

That's a good sign.

Holy (...), it's a rattlesnake.

Those guys, if I just slip and that sticks into my finger, I'm on my way to the hospital.

(shaky gasps) I'm so scared.

Directly inspired by his own survival expeditions, journeys and challenges.

World renowned survival instructor Les Stroud brings you survival, essential skills and tactics to get you out of anywhere alive.

Available for 19.99.

In addition, the book will to live Dispatches from the Edge of Survival is available, featuring Les Stroud's own top ten survival stories of all time.

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Survivorman Les Stroud.