Recap: Naked and Afraid Canada, Episode 2

Naked and Afraid Canada
Poor Greg, he wants this fire so badly!!!

Finally! It’s gonna get hella cold. I’ve been hoping that Naked and Afraid would travel to a climate that I can relate to for a long, long time. I know what it’s like to be cold. This week, Naked and Afraid is heading to our neighbors to the north and Ontario’s Bark Lake, where daytime temps hover in the 50’s and the nighttime temps dip down near freezing. That’s gonna be blustery on the naked bits. Additionally, the area is home to dangers including black bears, wolves and moose. I never considered a moose a predator, but it will stomp you, which is not a way I’d like to die. Let’s meet this week’s pair of moose-avoiding polar bears.

Naked and Afraid Canada
Blonde hair, don’t care.

Cassie Turner
Age: 23 years old
Occupation: Marine Biologist
Current Residence: Honolulu, Hawaii
Relationship Status: Single
Survival Skills: Primitive Hunting and Trapping, Shelter Building
Cassie is a 23-year-old marine biologist who works in deep sea research at the University of Hawaii. Cassie grew up in a rural area of Arkansas where primitive survival was the norm. Her childhood was spent mostly outdoors hunting, fishing, and exploring 100 acres of forest surrounding her childhood home. She learned many of her primitive survival skills from her grandfather, who taught her cane-pole fishing, archery, and helped her to develop a deep respect and appreciation for nature from a very young age. When she’s not doing research at sea, Cassie spends all of her free time running — as she is an ultra-endurance runner. Primitive survival skills play well into this sport because runners find themselves alone in the wilderness.

Cassie is tired of people underestimating her because she’s a blonde.
Beginning Primitive Survival Rating (PSR): 6.7 out of 10.0

Naked and Afraid Canada
If you’re gonna be an ass, choose bad-ass over dumb-ass. Greg is a bad-ass.

Greg Wells
Age: 35 years old
Occupation: Electronic Warfare Specialist
Current Residence: Pleasant View, Tennessee
Relationship Status: Married
Survival Skills: Shelter Building, Primitive Fire, Hunting
Greg has been camping and hunting since he was 5 years old and learned, from a tender age, the necessity of building a fire and being able to do it with whatever is around. Greg joined the Army when he was 19 years old, and added to his survival skills by attending military training (Jungle Warfare, Arctic Warfare, Ranger School, Special Forces training and SERE school.) While in the military, Greg deployed to six of the seven continents and sixty-three different countries and in each location he learned more about living in different environments and the best ways to do so. A few of the places that Greg has been include the desert environments of Iraq, interior Australia and Niger; the mountains of Afghanistan; the jungles of the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia and Argentina; the Arctic of Alaska and Finland; and the temperate/evergreen forests of Tennessee, Virginia, and Vancouver (Canada).

Greg is confident that his prior survival experience in Canada will help him in this endeavor.
Beginning PSR: 7.2 out of 10.0

Naked and Afraid CanadaGreg hopes that his partner isn’t a blonde. “I haven’t met one yet that has one, single coherent though.” He continues, “They are, for a lack of a better word, morons.” I think I see his Adam’s apple noticeably gulp when he sees the golden tresses of his partner. I am riiting for Cassie so hard, I want her to prove herself a badass. When Cassie sees her bear-sized partner, she thinks he looks “warm.” I hope that this first impression if 100% true.

The show has given the duo a cooking pot. Cassie has brought a machete, and Greg has brought a spool of paracord.

Day 1
Greg and Cassie decide to head to an inland beaver lake and in addition to dodging mosquitoes, they see plenty to bear and moose scat. Then they see a real bear and they have to scat!

They make camp on a granite rock face and Greg tries to make fire using the partner method. (When I tried to make fire, I wished I had a partner to help). Night one, the temperatures in the 40s and they shiver all night long. It’s so cold that they resort to exercising to keep their heart rates up. Greg and Cassie don’t sleep a wink.

Day 2
The next morning is so foggy that the warming ways of the sun don’t arrive.

Cassie and Greg find a mess of blackberries, which are tasty, but they aren’t fire. After a snack and a little work on the shelter, they try to make fire.

The duo is getting desperate for water. Since they don’t have fire, Greg adds iodine-rich moss to the water and they take a few cautious sips. It tastes gritty, but since it’s wet, it works.

They move their camp off of the rock and make shelter in a more sheltered area. That night, they have a rain shower that further dips their body temperatures.

That night, a chipmunk scurries into their shelter. Cassie names it “Monster” and they vow to eat it. I’m doing to give Cassie a pass for using baby voice, because it’s cold. But don’t do it again C-dog, badasses don’t use baby voice.

Day 3
The Naked and Afraid announcer informs us that 15 minutes of shivering burns as many calories as an hour of exercise. I’d like to do some significant shivering, but Greg and Cassie have had enough. To make matters worse, that night it rains again. “Stop raining!” Greg implores. Once the rain stops, a moose wanders through camp and investigates one of the cameras on a tripod. It’s kinda awesome, says the woman sitting nowhere near a moose.

Day 4
Greg and Cassie move their shelter again. Their birch-shingled abode is sweet, but it’s not going to be warm until there is a fire.

Day 5
They try to make fire again, and use a piece of cedar wood as the spindle’s base. Greg manages to make a massive coal and we even see flame, but it doesn’t catch. It’s mind-blowing that it doesn’t work, and heartbreaking.

Naked and Afraid Canada
Poor Greg, he wants this fire so badly!!!

That night, Cassie struggles to keep her partner awake. He’s exhausted, and frigid and possibly hypothermic. If only they had seen Chalese and Steven’s interesting sleeping positions from last week’s episode.

Day 6
Greg is grateful that his partner saved his life and admits that his first impression of her has changed. They try again on making fire and finally, they succeed! Yay team! Cassie catches frogs and they enjoy a meal of Frog legs, greens and blackberries. Their joy is short-lived, as another storm rolls in. And it doesn’t stop…

Day 7-11
Raining. And shivering.

Day 12
The day dawns full of sunshine. Cassie and Greg are cold, they are hungry, but they still have their fire. Cassie heads out to set some dead-fall traps, while Greg collects acorns They’re very bitter and if they’re not processed correctly, they can diarrhea. Greg roasts the nuts and they look amazing, but one taste tells them that they are inedible. Cassie describes it as “If you were to solidify urine and try and eat that, that’s pretty much what they taste like.” Mmm, tasty.

Day 15
Cassie checks her trap and although it’s been deployed, it’s empty. Cassie also tries fishing but doesn’t catch anything.

Day 17
Monster the chipmunk taunts them at every opportunity. He eats the bait in their traps; he prances upon the trap, and eats their berries.

Day 19
While Cassie lies in the shelter, Greg tries to throw spears at the chipmunk. He laughs at them. But then Greg spies a snake, which is pretty much Naked and Afraid’s manna. It’s a tiny guy, but it’s food.

Day 21
Their extraction is a 6-mile hike to a rescue plane. Cassie decorates her face with soot and they bid Monster adieu. Their hike is thorny, and concludes with a refreshing swim. There is something magical about watching an airplane land on water; it always makes my heart soar.

“Day 1 to done!” cheers Greg as they board the plane.

After 21 days in the Canadian wilderness, Greg and Cassie are significantly thinner;
Greg has lost 30 pounds and Cassie lost 21 pounds.
After finding success and overcoming adversity, Greg’s PSR rises from 7.2 to 8.0 out of 10 and Cassie’s PSR increases from 6.7 to 7.8 out of 10.0.

Naked and Afraid
That awkward moment when you ask your coworker to take a photo of you
… topless.

More Naked and Afraid:
5 Reasons I would die on Naked and Afraid
Recap Episode 1 “Alabama”
Recap Episode 2 “Canada”

19 Comments

  1. What the heck was he thinking I am in no way a survivalist but that is such a no brainer that you need a fire starter in Canada wow! I get so upset every time I see this one.

  2. What the heck was he thinking I am in no way a survivalist but that is such a no brainer that you need a fire starter in Canada wow!

  3. You guys are all funny….. and correct. Had he not been a fatkid, he would have starved. She did good. The show needs a little more realistic outlook as to what is actually happening. I feel shelters were highly inadequate. Totally inadequate for him to have a psr of 8. Totally political correct

  4. I cannot believe that they aired this guy saying how blondes were dumb like he said!

    What if these were the same comments applied to a black!?

    Absolutely NO difference!

    Please note: Blondes have had this only happen since Jewish controlled media started this soon after/in response to Hitler’s nonsense racist shit too! Started with casting blondes into roles as “dumb” blondes. NEVER was an issue before then!
    Note that most are NOT natural blondes!

    • I support you. Dumb jokes that hurt. You are also correct in that most of the “airhead blondes” I have known are “bleach blondes.” Before it turned gray and started a disappearing act my hair was an ash blonde. I tired of the nickname “sandy.”

  5. you can use cattails to start a fire – or use them as a torch. the inside is all fluffy seeds that catch fire easily. Also – they could have hollowed out a sleeping place in their shelter and filled it with hot rocks from the fire – covered it with dirt or sand and laid on it to keep warm.

    • Sharon, Way to go girl! What you suggest was used by Native Americans. If they had a blanket or hide the NA would build a fire, cover the coals with dirt and sit with it between their legs with the blanket or hide around the shoulders to hold the heat. Not too comfy but better than being cold.

  6. Kellie,
    I just watched the episode again with the pop ups and re read your notes. We may be judging Greg and Cassie too harshly from the comforts of our home. The episode was similar to “Argentina Impossible” where there was so much cold and rain that Tom and Lisa could do nothing but try to keep warm and work on their shelter AND they had a Mg fire starter. I did not like that episode either.
    The pop up notes said Greg graduated from the Army’s S.E.R.E school which is plenty of Bona Fides.
    The Canada episode conditions may have been just too tough for naked and shoeless people. I am sure I will be jumped on for issuing platitudes.

  7. Did anyone else notice the cattails in the ponds? Their roots are like potatoes and are easy to harvest and cook. They could have gained weight!

    It’s hard to believe that digging up soil would not have yield worms..yum…

  8. Kellie, was all the good stuff edited out of this episode?? It was like watching meat hang in cold storage. The only action and amusement was provided by the evasive and mischievous ground squirrel!
    Cassie is a marine biologist and should know that with a gorge hook you need to let the fish swallow it before striking and pulling it in. Those waters teem with pike and our heroes harvested nary a one.
    Greg was working too hard (too fast and jerked the spindle out of Cassie’s hands) with the drill and never allowed enough time for the dust to accumulate at the notch and form an ember. The “tender nests” were atrocious and I doubt they could have been lighted with a match. One tender nest caught fire then went out because it was so poorly made. One try per day and quit!! Come on man!!
    I can only suppose the cold led to brain freeze.

    • Corrections. They are eastern chipmunks not our western ground squirrels.”tinder nests.”
      …lit with a match.

  9. THe first thing my wife (Debbie) said was “Oh no not another military guy, they’re always such losers” and she was right. This moron brought, wait for it. . . . Paracord! Yay, the notoriously magnificent Paracord. Which he used for, wait for it again. . . . absolutely NOTHING. He doesn’t seem to have learned much in his many “survival” schools and it took him 7 days to make fire, what a putz. I give him Shelter building, zip, fire making um pretty much zip (there’s a reason primitive man used a bow drill and not two hands with a bit of cord), hunting skils, zip. How does this guy rate an INCREASE in his PSR? She however, like most of the women on N&A caught the first meal, was pretty much the standout in morale and her PSR only raised slightly……good job Casse, epic fail chubby Greg (whose best survival skill was to pack on the lard before he left, he needed it. In the Marine Corps we called guys like him Slow, Noisy, Harmless and in Gregs case we could also add Fat.

    • KO.
      I wonder if it ever occurred to Greg to exercise to keep warm by working a bow drill at night until successful. I don’t remember any part of my own military training (nearly 60 years ago) that said to give up on a mission or task. I wonder if “electronic warfare expert” is another name for what we called “radio operator and signals monitoring/jamming?” This place was teeming with food and they only got a garter snake and a few tiny frogs?? 550 cord has many uses such as making a bolo, sling, unraveled for fishing line as Cassie did and other small cordage tasks. I wonder if any of these survivalists will ever learn that 70% of the body heat loss is to the ground, so ground insulation is the only answer. Glad you and Debbie are still fans.

      • J.C.- your suggestions to use the bow drill to keep warm is an excellent one! And I laughed out loud when I saw the paracord. My dad was a Green Beret, and kept an old parachute under our deck. He would cut off lengths of paracord whenever he had a project and usually kept a few lengths in every car, tool bag and suitcase (I once wore a paracord belt to Disney World as a vacation improvisation), but I double he would stake his survival on it. He would rather have a good blade or a guaranteed fire. On your ground cover comment- I remember Bear Grylls saying in one of his shows, “one on the ground, is worth two on the top.” It is a statement that I will never forget.

        • I would not have chosen paracord either. Greg was overconfident in his fire making skill and your Green Beret Dad will tell your that overconfidence can get you killed quickly.

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