“Equipped with only ten basic survival tools, the participants [of The History Channel’s Alone] face bone-chilling cold, icy landscapes, and intimidating predators including bears, wolves, and moose. Participants must forage for their own food, build shelter, and overcome both physical and mental obstacles while self-recording their journey for a chance to be the last person standing and win the coveted $500,000 cash prize. With no teams, no camera crews, and no gimmicks, Alone displays the grit of human endurance and is the ultimate test of human will.” - The History Channel’s press release for Alone.

Meredith Laura Lynn and I introduce our audience to the Alone TV show extended universe through a trailer to the television program in the form of a video and fiber installation. The installation has a dual focus on the Alone television show and 18th and 19th century environmentalists and artists and authors John James Audubon, William Bartram, and John Muir. These artists and authors were impactful to early conservation, and are often lauded in contemporary environmental movements and artistic discourse; however their legacies are far darker and more complex, as they were instrumental to the dehumanization of Indigenous populations and perpetuated myths of manifest destiny. History’s Alone brings self-identified outdoorsmen (just like Audubon, Bartram, and Muir) into remote landscapes (often touted as being untouched) to live out a survivalist fantasy. Hargrave and Lynn have become characters in this extended universe show, pointing to the hubris present from settler colonial 18th/19th century environmental visions to present-day outdoorsmen’s desires.