King of the Wilderness

A silent battle had already begun before setting foot on that ice-sealed land.

After checking their equipment, the six contestants would board the show’s landing boats one by one, following the icy fjord, and be dropped at their completely isolated survival points.

Lin Yu’an was the third to depart.

He shouldered his heavy backpack, bid farewell to Mark and the show crew one by one, and then stepped onto a powerful, aluminum-alloy speedboat.

”Woo——”

The outboard engine at the stern roared loudly, and the speedboat sliced through the deep blue sea, speeding into the depths of the fjord.

The simple wooden lodge of Nain Town quickly shrank in his view, eventually disappearing among the jagged rocky coastline.

On the boat, he felt the biting cold currents, mixed with the salty, wet sea breeze, blowing against him.

He gazed upon the magnificent yet desolate lands on both banks, with endless black rocks and dark green coniferous forests stretching to the horizon.

Everything here exuded a more primitive and inviolate aura than Chilco Lake.

After about an hour of sailing, the speedboat began to slow down and gently approached a rugged shoreline filled with large rocks and sparse coniferous forests.

The driver pointed to that coast and shouted loudly to him, ”Lin, your drop-off point is here! Good luck!”

Lin Yu’an didn’t hesitate for a second. With his belongings, he jumped and landed steadily on the solid rocks.

The staff also lowered the waterproof box from the boat, which contained camera equipment, batteries, a first aid kit, bear spray, a signal flare, and other items.

After giving a thumbs-up to the crew on the boat, the speedboat slowly reversed, turned around, and the roar of the motor gradually faded away.

A few minutes later, the world fell into a sudden silence.

One moment it was the loud noises of modern industrial civilization, the next, only the whooshing of the wind and the sound of the icy North Atlantic waves slapping against the rocky shore remained.

Lin Yu’an closed his eyes and took a deep breath to adjust his state of mind.

When he opened his eyes again, there was no trace of confusion, only the excitement and focus of a hunter arriving at the hunting ground.

Here, darkness falls quickly, and the sun would soon dip below the western ridge, with biting sea winds rushing in from the mouth of the fjord, cutting like a knife on his face.

He knew he didn’t have much time.

He wasn’t eager to find a perfect camp, nor did he attempt to immediately start building a complex shelter.

On the first day, in the few hours before nightfall, the priority is always basic survival.

He turned on his GoPro in front of his chest, wondering why the crew didn’t use DJI, and silently grumbled.

Then he checked the power and audio and recorded his first words at the Frozen Throne.

”Hi, everyone, I have successfully landed. It’s 2 PM now, and there are about four hours until nightfall.”

”On the first day in Labrador, the most important tasks are only two: find a reliable freshwater source and build a temporary shelter. The complex engineering can wait until tomorrow.”

He started searching for freshwater first. He didn’t wander blindly along the coastline, knowing that water sources exposed directly to the sea were likely to be backfilled and polluted during high tide.

He turned directly inland, climbing up a rocky hill about twenty to thirty meters high.

He needed a vantage point to observe the macro terrain of this area.

Standing at the hill’s top, the fierce sea wind almost knocked him over, but the sight before him made his heart surge with joy.

Just beyond this rocky coastal ridge lay a vast depression with a huge, irregularly shaped freshwater lake, covering an area of at least dozens of football fields.

Like a deep blue gem, it lay silently in the wilderness!

Surrounding the lake were dense coniferous forests and golden birch trees. At the far end of the lake, he could even see a small river continually feeding meltwater from the upstream snow mountains into the lake.

”Found it in one go!”

He spoke into the GoPro on his chest, barely able to contain his excitement, ”This is even better than I imagined! It’s not just a drinking water source.”

”This is a complete, independent freshwater ecosystem! The lake must be full of trout and red spot salmon!”

”In winter, when the outside bays are covered with drift ice, this completely frozen freshwater lake will be my most important ice fishing spot!”

He descended the hill to the edge of the freshwater lake. He bent down, scooped up a handful of the icy, bone-chilling lake water, and took a small sip.

”Perfect freshwater source!” he said to the camera.

Then, he began searching for his first night’s shelter in the narrow strip between the lake and the coastline.

His goal was clear: it had to be sheltered from the wind, close to a water source, and have suitable building materials.

Finally, he chose a site about fifty meters from the freshwater lake shore, under a huge rock wall surrounded by a dense forest of black spruce trees.

Pointing to the large rock wall protruding outward, forming a natural corner, he explained to the camera, ”This rock wall standing over ten meters high is a perfect natural barrier.”

”It can shield us from the cold winds blowing from the north and east and is close enough to the freshwater source for convenient water access.”

”Moreover, there are quite a few black spruce trees nearby, spaced just about four meters apart, which will serve as the support pillars for my temporary shelter.”

”Unexpectedly, this might be my home for tonight, and after observing for a few days, this place is actually quite suitable for building a permanent shelter.” 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

”Alright, everyone, let’s start building my first night’s home.”

He said to the camera, ”I will use these two natural pillars to build a classic A-frame shelter.”

He walked into the nearby coniferous forest and quickly sawed down a spruce tree trunk about four and a half meters long and wrist-thick using his Agawa Canyon Boreal 24 bow saw.

Then, he dragged this future roof ridge beam to the two large black spruce trees he had chosen.

He took out a roll of professional annealed steel wire tripwire.

First, using the Damascus Hunting Knife crafted by Old George, he carved two deep horizontal grooves, about two centimeters deep, on the opposite sides of the two large spruce trees, about one meter sixty above the ground, to prevent the crossbeam from sliding.

Then he lifted the spruce pole and firmly wedged its two ends into the grooves in the two large trees, forming a temporary crossbeam.

He cut a long enough section of the tripwire and walked to the connection point of the crossbeam and the first large tree. Using the classic ”square knot” method, he crisscrossed the tripwire back and forth, wrapping it tightly around the crossbeam and the tree.

He pulled it extremely tight, with the fine steel wire deeply biting into the bark and the wooden pole.

After wrapping it seven or eight loops in a criss-cross pattern, he then used the end of the tripwire to make several rounds of tight twist in the cross-wrapped wires.

Using the same method, he securely bound the other end as well, and a sturdy natural roof ridge beam was thus formed.

He unrolled the large, 3.6-meter by 3.6-meter square waterproof tarp, covering it completely over the ridge beam like a blanket, letting it drape evenly on both sides, naturally forming an A-frame roof outline.

But he didn’t immediately secure the tarp’s edges to the ground.

”Now, I need to build a wall base. Directly pulling the tarp to the ground would waste a lot of interior space, and the windproof effect at the bottom would be very poor. We need to use logs to build two low walls on both sides.”

He picked up his saw again and headed to some nearby small, upright spruce trees.

Using his saw quickly, he cut down several spruce logs about three and a half meters long and around ten centimeters in diameter. Then with his Damascus Hunting Knife, he sharpened several thick branches into pointed stakes.

Arriving at one side of the shelter, he drove four wooden stakes ”thud! thud! thud!” into the ground to form a line parallel to the ridge beam.