Documentary, Ben Fogle New Lives Wild S20E10 off-grid - USA
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00:01Any time I can stick it to the man in a small way, I do.
00:05Could you start your life all over again?
00:08Leave behind everything you know for something completely different?
00:13It's like, I guess we live in a bit of a pressure cooker.
00:16I'm Ben Fogel, and over the next few weeks,
00:19I'm going to live with the incredible people who've done just that.
00:22Did you ever feel like abandoning the property?
00:25No, it's like, it's my home.
00:28Would you say you enjoy the companionship of animals more than people?
00:31Probably, yeah.
00:33In some of the most remote places on Earth.
00:36This is why I love the wilderness.
00:38I'll discover their motivations.
00:40For me, it was just, yeah, you're born, you go to school,
00:44you work all life, and then you die.
00:46The challenges.
00:47There's no way that I was going to put my wife and my children in that house,
00:51the condition that it was in.
00:53Just make sure there's absolutely no electrical current down there.
00:56And find out what it takes to make a new life in the wild.
01:00Hasta la vista, Perini.
01:09This week, I'm in the forests of New England.
01:15Learning to live like a hunter-gatherer with Arthur.
01:18Will you do this throughout the winter?
01:20It gets tough.
01:21We have to start breaking through ice.
01:23I'll find out how he raises a family in the wilderness.
01:26You hit the target, you hit the target.
01:28She helps us butcher the animals.
01:31And the role of nature in healing his wounds.
01:34Death nourishes life, and life nourishes death.
01:38A spirit is sort of everywhere.
01:41That's perhaps how they grieve.
01:48From Boston, I'm driving three hours north to Maine.
01:55A state of homely towns, abandoned paper mills,
01:59and the most forest cover of any U.S. state.
02:06I often forget just how enormous the United States is.
02:09You don't have to travel too far
02:11to find great swathes of wild backcountry.
02:15And it isn't long before I'm off the beaten path.
02:29I feel like I'm in a different world now.
02:32Not a sign of anyone here.
02:34Very basic track.
02:36A little bit creepy, if I'm to be honest.
02:40It's quite a harsh, wintry environment.
02:42It definitely takes a unique person to live here.
02:47I've been told my host is a primitive skills expert
02:50who lives off the land using Stone Age technology.
02:54So I'm a little surprised when I spot my home for the week.
02:58Here we go.
03:00Not quite what I was expecting.
03:03Hello?
03:04Arthur?
03:06Hello?
03:07Hey!
03:08Hello!
03:09You must be Arthur.
03:10I am.
03:11Ben, nice to meet you.
03:12Likewise.
03:13So primitive skills, very modern house.
03:15We like to show that you don't need to live in a bark wigwam
03:18to be able to have connection to nature.
03:20So does that mean you're not going to suddenly dress me
03:22all in skins for the whole day?
03:24I can.
03:25They're in there, but I'm not going to do that to you.
03:27I don't need...
03:29I noticed nothing on your feet.
03:31No, it's still warm enough.
03:32We go barefoot a lot.
03:33Do you?
03:34Even in the snow?
03:35Occasionally short trips.
03:38I'm intrigued already, thank you so much.
03:40I got it.
03:44Arthur grew up in Maine, where he spent his youth camping and fishing in the forests around his home.
03:51After graduating with a Masters in Botany from the University of Maine, he began a career as a mountaineering guide and plant biologist.
03:59But the woods of his youth called him back.
04:04And in 2010, at the age of 40, Arthur and his then partner, Nicole, bought a 60-acre tract of land to pursue their dream of a wilder life.
04:13Skull on the table.
04:16Black bear.
04:17You don't often see that.
04:18Black bear.
04:19Black bear.
04:20How do you end up with a black bear skull?
04:21We hunt them.
04:23You hunt them.
04:24Whoa!
04:26One of the seasonal foods.
04:29Did you hunt those as well?
04:30Yes.
04:31How off-grid are you here?
04:32I mean, we're entirely off-grid.
04:34We do have to have satellite internet for my employment, but that's it.
04:38I saw solar panels on the roof.
04:40Yes.
04:41So that's how you get all your electric.
04:42Yes.
04:43Sometimes I have to go clear them off.
04:44The snow gets so deep the cars can't move in and out.
04:47So we snowshoe in and out for the things that we need to buy or take out during that time.
04:54The house was already standing when Arthur and Nicole bought the property for $180,000.
05:01And today, it's a surprising blend of the modern and the Stone Age.
05:06Oh, my goodness me.
05:08Wow.
05:11Wow.
05:12Is this you?
05:13Academia.
05:14This is Academia Meets the Wild.
05:17Oh, my goodness.
05:19Wow, this feels like I'm in your brain right now, being in your office.
05:24Does that mean that your approach to life and lifestyle is very scientific?
05:29All of this is definitely an experimentation.
05:31I mean, there's a lot of things that we're learning fresh, if you will.
05:36Organized chaos in here, would you say?
05:37Yeah, I know where everything is.
05:39I may not look it, but I do.
05:42Arthur continues to work as a botanist, and he shares his home with his partner and youngest daughter.
05:51Nice to meet you.
05:52This is Kelly.
05:53Hi, Kelly.
05:54How are you?
05:55I'm going to interrupt you.
05:56Hello.
05:57This is Farrah.
05:58Hello, Farrah.
05:59What have you got here, Farrah?
06:00We're cracking acorns.
06:01Then we'll grind them.
06:02Mm-hmm.
06:03And then we'll make acorn pancakes.
06:04Of course you'll make acorn pancakes.
06:06Presumably this is all parts of life here?
06:09This is our food prep.
06:10Yeah?
06:11Yeah.
06:12And Farrah's fully involved in all of that?
06:13Yeah.
06:14I mean, she helps us butcher the animals.
06:16What?
06:17Farrah, did you help butcher it?
06:19Do you enjoy doing it?
06:20Yeah.
06:21How old are you, Farrah?
06:22Five.
06:23Five years old.
06:24Well, listen, I'll leave you to your pancake prep.
06:28I'll see you all a bit later.
06:29Bye, Farrah.
06:30See you later.
06:31Bye.
06:32Bye, Kelly.
06:33They may not be dressed in animal skins, but Arthur and his family seem to take their lifestyle
06:40seriously.
06:41A little single room cabin.
06:43Oh, I love this.
06:44With a wood stove.
06:45I'll leave you to it.
06:46Thank you so much.
06:47You got it.
06:48Thanks, Arthur.
06:50I'm fascinated by Arthur.
06:52I think he's a man of many sides.
06:56I think there's quite a lot to him.
06:59On the face of it, what he's trying to do is very straightforward.
07:02Primitive skills, killing animals, living a kind of low impact lifestyle.
07:07But he doesn't want to completely abstain from modern technology.
07:14I'll be curious to find out about schooling, about work.
07:19So I think the lifestyle that I'm going to explore this week is one that walks a very
07:24fine line.
07:25I think right now what's missing here is people.
07:30The volume, the size of this place seems a little bit too large for just three of them.
07:37But there must be a reason for that.
07:39And I'll look forward to exploring why.
07:45I'm keen to learn more, but Arthur's starting me off with the basics.
07:49So what are we actually doing, Arthur?
07:51Well, we're gathering water to drink.
07:53Right, sir.
07:54Yeah.
07:55Why have you chosen here?
07:56Just it's deep enough.
07:57I don't want to scrape the bottom and fill this with gravel.
07:59Mm-hmm.
08:00Will this water be drunk as is, or do we filter it further?
08:03Any of the leaf particles will just settle out, and we'll just decant off the top, and
08:07we'll discard the last little bit.
08:09If I'm not mistaken, there are taps in the house.
08:11Yeah, there's running water in the house.
08:12Mm-hmm.
08:13And we mostly use that for washing dishes, bathing, those kinds of things.
08:18Uh, the water that we imbibe comes mostly from this brook.
08:22You know, many people are terrified they're going to pick something up and get very, very
08:26sick, but I've been doing it for my entire childhood and on.
08:30And I came to understand that I'm not saying Giardia and things like that don't exist.
08:35I'm saying their frequency is overrated, exaggerated.
08:39But some contamination does worry, Arthur.
08:42They're finding plastic microparticles in the rain.
08:45Because it's being swept up from the ocean.
08:47But in the oceans and carried over.
08:49Uh, it's in human breast milk now.
08:52This is a provocative question.
08:53Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:54But I don't feel negatively impacted by that plastic that is in me.
09:01The evidence is pretty clear that we shouldn't be imbibing these compounds.
09:05This isn't about longevity.
09:07It's about health while we're alive.
09:09I want the full complement of my abilities.
09:12No chronic disease while I'm alive.
09:15If that makes sense?
09:16But for Arthur, there are other benefits.
09:19We rely on this water for our drinking water.
09:23And we care greatly what goes down the drain and what we do with it.
09:27So there's a little bit of a, we have to take care of it.
09:30Because that's our drinking water.
09:32We want to be part of that web of life.
09:34Not like the onlookers.
09:41Since he moved here, Arthur has been buying up neighbouring parcels of land.
09:47And the family now get half their calories from the forest around their home.
09:52It's like magic, isn't it?
09:54It's beautiful.
09:55I love the way you involve Farrah in everything.
09:58Well, that's the only way she's going to learn, right?
10:01Yeah.
10:02Farrah, do you like watching your dad do stuff?
10:04Yeah.
10:05Would you like to start a fire of your own one time?
10:07Do you think you could do it?
10:09I think you could do it.
10:10You want to try right now?
10:12No.
10:13We've got a good fire here.
10:15Arthur's vision goes further than drinking from streams and hunting game.
10:21We treat children just like the elderly.
10:24Farrah's free to do what she wants around the fire.
10:27If she wants to damage something that's hers or have a certain amount of risk, that's her business, not mine.
10:35That's quite a thing for a parent to say, just because surely we're there to forewarn them before injury happens.
10:43She's very good at understanding where the risk line is from a whole life of being given that freedom to explore it.
10:51And you can see when you're watching her put things on the fire, she's back here.
10:55She's not sort of falling into it.
10:57Kelly, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on risk.
10:59I'm going to let them climb trees.
11:01I'm going to let them maybe take a tumble into the water and pull them right out.
11:07Because I want them to find their own limits.
11:10I don't want to find their limits for them.
11:12We have these needs that are built into us by this long ancestry of being hunter-gatherers.
11:19And so we're trying to essentially regain what it means to be biologically normal for a human.
11:29I can see a few complications.
11:32But in today's online world, there's something refreshing about a five-year-old eating by the light of a campfire.
11:39Enjoy.
11:42So this is wild rice?
11:44Yes.
11:45And tell me about the moose?
11:47We pulled out the tenderloin, the nice bits for you.
11:50So how long have you guys been together for them?
11:53Two years and some change.
11:56How does that work?
11:58Sorry to sound so nosy.
12:00I did used to have another partner.
12:02I was married to a woman named Sarah, and that was Farrah's mom.
12:05Can I ask where Sarah is?
12:07I mean, her physical remains are there.
12:09She's died.
12:10Oh, I'm so sorry.
12:11Yeah.
12:13How long ago was that?
12:15Two and a half years now.
12:18Yeah, Sarah lived here and participated in all of these things.
12:23And Farrah was her little peanut, her child.
12:27Kelly had lived with us for a while and knew Farrah from when she was very young.
12:33I guess I'm ecstatic that Farrah has somebody that knew her mom, and we don't have to hide this prior relationship.
12:42Wow.
12:43So into this intricate web here, I'm now understanding it's deeper than I realized probably when I first came.
12:52Yes.
12:53Yeah.
12:54I would say that her spirit at least is here some of the time.
12:58It's quite a revelation from a family I've only just met.
13:02Do you know what Sarah looks like?
13:04I do.
13:05Do you?
13:06Oh.
13:07Because I knew her.
13:09Wait, did you cover she's alive?
13:12I did.
13:13Yep.
13:16If I didn't know differently, I would have thought that Kelly, Farrah, and Arthur were a biological family.
13:23But now I understand differently.
13:26That must still be a very raw wound.
13:29And perhaps over the next few days I'll start to learn a little bit more about what happened.
13:36I think they're emotionally very free.
13:39I get the feeling this is a family that is very, very much part of nature, part of the landscape, where most of us live apart from it.
13:50And it's a very big difference.
13:57I'm in the woods of New England, with primitive skills expert Arthur and his family.
14:18So what are you doing up in the chair?
14:21I'm going to take a tree stand shot, which is probably what I'd be doing if I was shooting a deer.
14:25And his 11-year-old daughter Samara has joined us to practice her hunting skills.
14:31Oh, nice.
14:33Wow.
14:34Very nice.
14:35Normally with deer hunts, people are up in a tree.
14:37But when I shot my deer last year, I was in a blind with my dad.
14:42Was that your first deer?
14:44Yes, that was my first deer.
14:46She was a very pretty deer.
14:47Did you feel sad at all?
14:49Definitely.
14:50I always feel sad when I take an animal's life.
14:52But I also feel very happy and excited and kind of like relieved too.
14:55Like, ah, I did it.
14:56It's not wounded.
14:57I'd way rather miss an animal than wound an animal.
15:02Arthur is separated from Samara's mum, Nicole, who lives nearby.
15:06And the couple share homeschooling duties.
15:09On top of his botany work, he also raises money by teaching primitive skills to paying students.
15:16Wow.
15:17You're up.
15:18Of all ages and abilities.
15:20Two fingers down, one finger up.
15:23Draw all the way back to the corner of your mouth if you can.
15:26And let go.
15:28Wait, wait, wait.
15:29That one didn't count.
15:30I didn't even see you shooting.
15:31You didn't?
15:32No.
15:33Okay.
15:34No pressure.
15:36Oh, you're in the target.
15:37You hit the target.
15:38You hit the target.
15:39You hit the target.
15:40I hit the target.
15:41Very good.
15:42Quit while we're ahead.
15:43That then actually may have been a lethal shot.
15:45Oh, really?
15:46Yeah, yeah.
15:47What's...
15:48What's the hardest part when you go hunting?
15:50What do you find the most difficult?
15:52Well, some of it is waiting.
15:54How long will you wait for?
15:55A lot of times it's two, three hours, something like that.
15:59We all here recognize that we didn't grow up as hunter-gatherers.
16:03Sometimes it's difficult for some people to sit with their thoughts and just be still and tranquil.
16:09And one aspect of it that's really good for her are those longer sits, to be able to just calmer mind, calmer body, and not have to have sensations just coming in all the time.
16:20Beyond killing an animal to consume it and eat it, what are you trying to teach, Samira, with these skills, with the lifestyle that you have here?
16:30I do want them to learn how to get their food from the forest. If they can't do that, that idea of being part of the wilderness as opposed to an observer will never come.
16:39I know you've never been to school, but is there anything about school that you've heard or you've ever read about that you think would be fun?
16:46Definitely. I feel like I'd like to have more friends. It's because I'm homeschooled. I don't feel like I have as many and I don't get to hang out with them as much.
16:53Is it worth missing out on those for living the lifestyle that you live?
16:58Definitely. I definitely, that's why I haven't gone to school because it's my choice.
17:04Arthur has mentioned about this idea of sovereignty when it comes to his children. They are the decision makers.
17:09They can stand or fall according to those decisions that they make. I don't want to kind of pick holes in that, but when you are arming your children with one line of information, it tends to sway that decision-making anyway.
17:27It's really important that you hear all sides of the story.
17:33It's not a trade-off everyone would agree with, but for Arthur, there are other lessons to learn.
17:40I need Samara to understand that everything living is mortal and I want her to experience death around her so that she comes to that understanding that death nourishes life and life nourishes death.
17:55And they're in a cycle and they both have to happen.
17:59Quite unique in many ways. He's obviously incredibly just someone who sort of seizes, believes in what he's working towards.
18:29An old man who's fighting in his life and life.
18:30What they do, who do you agree with?
18:31And he's always, who does that.
18:32When he's looking for that, what he's in and out of one person.
18:34He's being able to understand what he's going to do as an example.
18:36And he's not going to do that.
18:38He's coming back to a story, in the case of a life, how much does he say that he's going to be written for this?
18:39He's going to be like, you know, so it's a strong faith in his way.
18:41I want him to act upon him.
18:42He's been a band a little bit of theismy.
18:43And I see him as a band.
18:44He's doing very well.
18:45Okay, and that's a great way in the relationships.
18:46And that's just the way he's playing it all to be.
18:47How did he get into that?
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