Ten people arrive in Arctic Finland.
Before the first episode even begins, I started trying to predict who will win. I looked at their experience: military, survival, fishing, hunting, endurance, bushcraft, even previous Arctic experience. Who has the best preparation?
But as the series progressed, something strange happened. The more I learnt about the contestants, the less certain I became about who would win.
Their experience clearly mattered; but it wasn’t working the way I expected.
Experience comes from the past and usually that’s its great strength. We’ve encountered something before, recognise the pattern and know what to do.
But what happens when we encounter something our experience can’t provide the answer for?
I’ve started thinking of this as the Edge of Experience.
It’s the boundary between what our experience allows us to recognise and what we have yet to discover.
And Alone Australia kept pushing people towards that edge.
Trent
Trent was an extraordinary fisherman. He caught 44 fish, more than anyone in the history of Alone Australia. At one point he had enough fish jerky stored to last more than a month.
But food wasn’t his biggest problem anymore. His shelter didn’t have a functioning internal fireplace and the Arctic winter was closing in. Yet when his attempts to build one failed, he went fishing. He returned to what he knew.
That’s one response when we reach the edge of our experience: keep solving the problem we already know how to solve.
Jasper
Jasper responded differently. After 41 days, he hadn’t caught a fish for more than a month. He was weak, cold and ready to quit. He picked up the phone to tap out. Then he stopped. He wondered whether his mind was creating a story about how bad things were. Perhaps he could push a little further.
That night he walked along the shoreline looking for food. He found tiny water snails that he’d never seen before. There was no previous experience he could retrieve that said, “When this happens, eat the snails.” He didn’t know the answer existed. He had to keep looking long enough to discover it.
Dylan
Dylan faced a different edge. A previous back injury began to flare up. He recognised the pattern from experience and knew where it could lead.
He didn’t want to leave. But after stumbling several times, he made the decision to tap out. “I don’t feel ready to go, but I know it’s my time.”
His experience didn’t tell him how to stay, it helped him judge when to stop.
Clint
And then there was Clint. After weeks without catching a single fish, he kept experimenting: move the net, change the mesh size, try another location, build a fishing spear, modify the spear. As the snow arrived, he built snowshoes and learnt how to walk in them.
I admired his creativity and inventiveness; but, ultimately it didn’t save him.
After seven weeks without fat or protein, his body had had enough.
The Winner
Which brings us to the winner. After 52 days, Trent won Alone Australia.
I had been waiting for the winner to provide the answer to what I’d been noticing throughout the series. He didn’t.
Trent’s experience undoubtedly helped him win. His ability to catch and preserve fish gave him an enormous advantage. But even in the final days he was struggling with the cold and making mistakes.
On Day 47, despite having plenty of stored food, he went fishing at night. Taking a shortcut across a small river, he slipped into the freezing water and soaked his boots and clothes. Minutes earlier he’d been talking about how dangerous getting wet would be. “Such a stupid thing to do,” he said afterwards.
Meanwhile, Jasper discovered a new food source but was medically withdrawn with an infected hand.
Clint continually experimented but eventually ran out of physical reserves.
Dylan used his experience to make what looked like a very good judgement and left.
The Winning Strategy
There wasn’t a single winning strategy. Perhaps that was what Alone Australia had been showing me all along.
The environment kept changing. The lake froze, then it thawed and then it froze again. Food disappeared, daylight shortened, bodies weakened and emotions changed.
And every time something changed, the contestants had to decide what to do next.
That’s what happens at the Edge of Experience.
Experience doesn’t suddenly become useless, its role changes. Instead of providing the answer, it becomes something we use to decide what to do next. Then we look again because the situation may have changed.
And so might we. What do you do when your experience can no longer provide the answer?
More Field Notes
This is Field Note #15. Field Notes are observations from my ongoing enquiry into experience. To learn more about how to make the most of your experience, read these posts next:
