American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 155 Deployment! Labrador Coastline
Many of them have extensive experience in freshwater ice fishing, but all that experience will be wiped out when faced with constantly shifting sea ice.

“Finally, and most importantly, the beast.” Mark’s tone reached its most serious peak.

"You will be dropped into this no-man's-land, the territory of black bears. Before they hibernate, they become extremely aggressive and frantically search for food."

"More importantly, the polar bears' range extends further north along the coastline."

"Although your drop sites were carefully selected and are located at a certain distance from the known core activity areas of polar bears."

"But we cannot rule out the possibility that hungry black bears might migrate south along the coastline in search of food!"

"Any close encounter with them could be fatal! The bear spray and bear scare gun provided by the production team must be carried at all times!"

Mark's expression turned serious: "I must emphasize again, there are polar bears here, true apex predators! They're even bigger than brown bears!"

"They are not afraid of people and will even approach them on their own initiative. They are not as easy to deal with as black bears, and they are also protected animals."

"Therefore, the bear spray and flare gun we provide are your last resort. Don't hesitate. When you encounter them, it's not a fair fight. Survival is the most important thing."

After Mark finished speaking, he glanced at Lin Yu'an again, as if he had spoken to him alone. He was probably genuinely afraid that Lin Yu'an would actually fight a polar bear if they encountered one.
Extreme cold, gale-force winds, scarce land prey, a fjord on the verge of freezing over, and two powerful apex predators...

The atmosphere in the conference room became even more somber than the cold wind outside. This was no longer a simple survival game; it was a real war against the harsh winter of the North Atlantic!

“Alright, everyone,” Mark clapped his hands, breaking the silence.

"Now, let's move on to the last step—equipment inspection. Please place the 10 items you each chose on the table."

Two staff members, dressed in the program crew uniforms and with serious expressions, walked in.

Wearing white gloves and carrying professional measuring rulers, electronic scales, and a thick rulebook, they were clearly the examiners for this inspection.

The players returned to their rooms one after another, carrying their equipment and placing it on the table in front of them.

In an instant, the long table was filled with all kinds of axes, saws, knives and survival tools, resembling a small weapons exhibition.

The inspection began with Kelly, who had chosen a very solid set of equipment, including a medium-sized axe, a folding saw, a sleeping bag, a pot, a flint and steel, a fishing kit, tripwire, a waterproof tarpaulin, paracord, and a Damascus hunting knife.

The staff conducted a meticulous inspection, using calipers to measure Kelly's rope lengths, tarpaulin dimensions, and other details.

“Kelly Russell, 10 items, all in compliance with regulations,” the inspector announced in a businesslike tone.

Next up is Vonya, whose selection is full of primitive craftsmanship. In addition to the usual axe, saw, knife, pot, flint and steel and sleeping bag, she also chose a roll of thread, a sewing kit, a large whetstone and an extremely rare woodworking chisel.

"A beautiful woodworking chisel. With it, you can make the most precise mortise and tenon joints." Retired special forces soldier Amos glanced at it and nodded in approval.

Vonia simply smiled and nodded, without saying anything more.

When it was Colton and Michelle's turn, their choices were aggressive.

Both of them opted for recurve bow sets, clearly indicating that they were using active hunting as their core strategy.

Finally, it was Lin Yu'an's turn.

As he laid out his ten pieces of equipment one by one on the table, almost everyone's attention was drawn to them, eager to know how the king on the throne had made his choices.

The inspector first picked up his axe.

The inspector weighed the axe on an electronic scale, and it weighed 1.18 kilograms, perfectly in line with the regulations.

Next, there was his saw.

"Boreal 24 from Agwa Canyon. Triangular frame structure provides maximum saw blade tension, resulting in very high cutting efficiency. A smart choice."

This time it was Michelle who spoke up, and she had an equally sharp eye for tools.

Then there was the handcrafted hunting knife that old George had made himself.

When Lin Yu'an pulled it out of its leather sheath, everyone was drawn to the flowing Damask pattern and the warm, smooth birch wood handle.

"Wow!" Young Colton couldn't help but exclaim.

"This knife is so cool! Who designed it?"

“It was a gift from a friend,” Lin Yu’an replied calmly.

The inspector carefully measured the length of the blade with calipers, which was also within the 30-centimeter range.

Next came sleeping bags, metal pots, magnesium rods, tripping lines, waterproof sheets, and fishing kits—all compliant but top-performing brand-name products, which didn't cause much of a stir.

Finally, Lin Yu'an took out his tenth piece of equipment, the Samick Sage traditional recurve bow and arrow set.

The inspector carefully examined the bow and bowstring, and counted the nine hunting arrows and the replacement G5 hunting arrowheads, confirming that everything was in compliance with regulations.

"Lin Yu'an, all 10 items meet the requirements."

At this point, all the equipment of the legendary players has been displayed to the public.

Although everyone's choices are similar, subtle differences have already foreshadowed their drastically different survival strategies in the future.

A silent battle had already begun before we even set foot on that frozen land.

After the equipment checks are completed, the six contestants will board the program's landing craft one by one and be dropped into their respective completely isolated survival points along the icy fjord.

Lin Yu-an was the third to set off.

He shouldered his heavy backpack, said goodbye to Mark and the crew, and then boarded a powerful speedboat made of sturdy aluminum alloy.

"Woo——"

The outboard motor at the stern roared loudly as the speedboat sliced ​​through the deep blue water and sped into the depths of the fjord.

The simple wooden hotel cabins in the town of Naen quickly shrank in the field of vision and eventually disappeared behind the jagged rocky coastline.

On the ship, he felt the biting cold current that came towards him, carrying with it the salty, damp scent of the sea.

Looking at the magnificent yet desolate land on both sides of the river, the endless black rocks and dark green coniferous forests stretch to the horizon.

Everything here exudes an aura that is more pristine and inviolable than Lake Chirko.

After sailing for about an hour, the assault boat began to slow down and slowly made its way towards a rugged coastline covered with huge rocks and sparse coniferous forest. The driver pointed to the shore and shouted to him, "Lin, you've reached your drop point! Good luck!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Yu'an leaped with his belongings, landing steadily on the solid rock.

The staff also carried the waterproof box off the ship, which contained photography equipment, batteries, first aid kits, bear spray, signal guns and other items.

After Lin Yu'an gave a thumbs-up to the crew on board, the speedboat slowly reversed, turned around, and the roar of the engine gradually faded into the distance.

A few minutes later, the world fell into dead silence.

One second it was the deafening noise of modern industrial civilization, the next it was just the howling wind and the slapping of the cold North Atlantic tide against the rocky shore.

Lin Yu'an closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and adjusted his state.

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

Darkness falls quickly here; the sun will soon sink behind the western mountain ridge, and the biting sea wind rushes in from the fjord entrance, cutting like a knife against your face.

He knew he didn't have much time left.

He did not rush to find the perfect camp, nor did he try to immediately begin building a complex shelter.

On the first day, in the hours before dark, basic survival is always the highest priority.

He opened the GoPro on his chest and muttered a complaint, wondering why the production team didn't use a DJI drone.

After checking the battery and radio, he recorded his first words in The Frozen Throne.

"Hi everyone, I have successfully logged in. It is now 2 p.m., and there are about four hours left until it gets completely dark."

"On our first day in Labrador, the two most important tasks are finding a reliable source of fresh water and building a temporary shelter. We'll deal with the complex engineering tomorrow."

He began by searching for fresh water. He did not blindly walk along the coastline because he knew that water sources directly exposed to the sea were likely to be contaminated by seawater backflow during high tide.

He turned around and headed inland, climbing a rocky hill about twenty or thirty meters high.

He needed a vantage point to observe the overall topography of the area.

Standing atop the hill, the biting sea wind made him almost lose his balance, but the sight before him filled him with ecstatic joy.

Just beyond this rugged coastal ridge, in a wide depression, lies a huge, irregularly shaped freshwater lake, at least the size of dozens of football fields.

Like a deep blue gemstone, it is quietly set in the wilderness!

The lake is surrounded by dense coniferous forests and golden birch trees. In the distance, he could even see a small river that continuously fed the lake with meltwater from the snow-capped mountains upstream.

"Found it right away!"

Pointing to the GoPro on his chest, he said with barely concealed excitement, "This is even better than I imagined! It's more than just a drinking water source."

"This is a complete and independent freshwater ecosystem! There must be plenty of trout and red-spotted salmon in the lake!"

“In winter, when the bay outside is covered by drift ice, this completely frozen freshwater lake will become my most important ice fishing spot!”

He walked down the hill and came to the shore of the freshwater lake. He bent down, scooped up a handful of the icy lake water, and took a small sip.

“A perfect freshwater source!” he said to the camera.

Then he began searching for a place to stay for his first night in this narrow strip of land between the lake shore and the coastline.

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

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

Pointing to the huge rock wall that juts outward and forms a natural concave angle, he explained to the camera, "This rock wall, which is more than ten meters high, is a perfect natural barrier."

"It can shield us from the cold winds blowing from the north and east, and it is close enough to a fresh water source to make it easy to get water."

"Moreover, there are many black spruce trees near the rock face, and the distance between them is exactly four meters, which will be the load-bearing pillars of my temporary shelter."

"If nothing unexpected happens, this will be my home tonight. After observing for a few more days, this place is actually quite suitable for building a permanent shelter."

"Alright everyone, let's start setting up my home for the first night."

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, with his Agwa Canyon Boreal 24 frame saw, quickly cut off a spruce trunk about four and a half meters long and as thick as a wrist.

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

He took out the roll of professional annealed steel wire tripping cord.

He first used his Damascus hunting knife, which had been handcrafted by old George, to carve two horizontal grooves, each two centimeters deep, on opposite sides of the two large spruce trees, about 1.6 meters above the ground, to prevent the beams from slipping.

He then lifted the spruce pole and secured both ends firmly into the grooves between the two large trees, forming a temporary crossbeam.

He cut a long enough tripwire, walked to the junction of the beam and the first tree, and used the classic "square knot" binding method to make the tripwire cross and wrap back and forth between the beam and the tree.

He pulled it extremely tight, the thin steel wire digging deeply into the bark and the trunk.

After the cross had been wrapped around the wire seven or eight times, he used the end of the tripwire to tighten it several more times between the crossed wires.

He used the same method to firmly bind the other end, and a sturdy natural roof ridge was thus formed.

He unfolded the huge, 3.6m x 3.6m square waterproof sheet and covered it completely over the ridge beam like a blanket, letting it hang down evenly on both sides, naturally forming an A-shaped roof outline.

However, he did not immediately secure the edges of the tarpaulin to the ground.

“Now, I need to build a foundation wall. If we just stretch the waterproofing cloth directly to the ground, it will take up a lot of interior space, and the bottom will not be very windproof. We need to use logs to build two low walls on both sides.”

He picked up his saw again and walked towards a few graceful little spruce trees not far away.

He quickly sawed off several spruce logs, each about three and a half meters long and ten centimeters in diameter. Then, with his Damascus hunting knife, he whittled several thick branches into sharp stakes.

Arriving at one side of the shelter, they drove four wooden stakes into the ground with a "thump! thump! thump!" sound, forming a straight line parallel to the roof ridge.

(End of this chapter)