Out Of The Ordinary
Tyson Steele, then 30 years old, had spent years dreaming of doing something that most people would deem a crazy decision. Having fantasized of living in the wilderness, Tyson bought 40 acres of land in an area called Skwentna, near the Alaskan frontier, 60 miles away from the city of Anchorage.
Tyson was no stranger to the Alaskan wilderness, as he had visited a few times prior. He quickly moved to his plot of land and was ready to begin his new life with very few material possessions: a plastic hut he had bought from a Vietnam veteran, some food and some tools. However, Tyson could have never predicted the bittersweet journey ahead of him.
Running Through His Veins
Tyson had been inspired by the life of his grandfather, who hunted and fished, and he wished to continue “the wilderness tradition”, as he stated multiple times to his family. He knew the new lifestyle he had chosen would be very challenging, and there was a problem: he was not a well-trained camper.
Tyson was confident in his skills to be outdoors, and he had worked in a gear shop, so he knew how to use the tools. For the things he did not know, he studied through Youtube videos. Tyson felt his own experience and instinct would be enough to help him survive in the Alaskan wilderness; however, nothing could prepare him for the deadly mistake he was about to make.
Leaving For Good
It was now a fact, Tyson packed up his belongings, and went on to live this adventure and accomplish one of his life goals. As excited as he was, he was also very nervous about the upcoming challenges that he will encounter in his new life.
He moved to the Alaskan wilderness with his best friend: Phil, his six-year-old chocolate Labrador. He also took a bunch of supplies and the most important part: two years' worth of food. What he wasn’t counting on was with the fatidical mistake that made him lose almost everything,
Holiday Unrest
Miles and miles away, after that terrible incident happened, in Salt Lake City, Tyson’s family could feel there was something going on. It was unlike Tyson to not get in touch with them every so often, especially during the holidays. The Steele family was not able to enjoy the traditional holiday cheer knowing Tyson had gone no-contact while living alone in the deserted Alaskan frontier.
Both Christmas and New Year’s came and went without even a text message from Tyson, and they were right to be worried, as they would soon find out Tyson had been fighting against nature completely on his own - and the odds were against him.
Life In The Wild
Having moved into the middle of nowhere with only an old plastic hut, Tyson wasn’t exactly set up for a comfortable life. The only source of heat he had was an old wood-burning stove, in which he also cooked his hot meals.
The artifact wasn’t new to him, as he grew up around one. However, he made a life-threatening decision that night: he was in a hurry, so he decided to try something new, something he knew wasn’t right.
A Poor Decision
“I got hasty and I put a big piece of cardboard in the stove to start the fire. Which I knew was a problem…I knew not to do that”, he said. However, the wood stove seemed to be working ok.
Thinking nothing of his poor decision, he carried off as usual, going to sleep either on the night of December 17 or 18. He would soon be awaken by something unusual.
Wake Up!
In the middle of the night, between 1 and 2 o’clock, Tyson woke up feeling cold. Given he had chosen to move to the brutal Alaskan wilderness, he thought nothing of it. However, as time went by as he tried to fall back to sleep, he realized there was something strange happening.
Tyson recalls in an interview: “So, it takes me a while to go to sleep, and drip, drip, drip — there’s fiery drips of plastic coming through the roof above me.” He felt his skin burn as the dripping landed all over his bed and his body. He was quick to go outside and find out what was going on, but he never expected to see what he saw that night.
The Unthinkable
Thinking it would just be a quick trip outside, Tyson put on a heavy wool sweater and slipped his naked feet into boots, completely unaware of the terrible situation happening right above his head: “So I go out to pick up some snow and I just see that the whole roof’s on fire.”
As soon as he saw the gruesome scene, Tyson knew exactly what had happened. He had made a huge mistake by putting a large piece of cardboard in the wood stove, which had sent sparks through the chimney that landed on the roof. It didn’t take long for the wood and plastic his hut was made of to catch fire. Tyson now had to think fast, a dangerous idea came to his mind, but the clock was already ticking.
A Dangerous Situation
“It was just, like, from the point of going back and seeing the roof on fire, going back in, like, smoke everywhere,” Tyson remembered. “There’s this image that keeps coming back in my mind of a swirling flame coming sideways for my face, you know?” The cabin started cracking, being swallowed by the flames.
The flames were everywhere, swallowing his little cabin extremely quickly. There was no time for second-guessing: in order to salvage his few possessions, he had to dash in and out of the fire, which was turning deadlier by the minute. He needed to move fast and without stepbacks, but faith wouldn’t align with him on this one...
Tragedy Strikes
All the things he had taken with him had been placed on the shelves of the cabin, and he tried to gather them as fast as he could, but he hadn’t been looking for the thing he cared about the most: his chocolate labrador, Phil, who had been his only company thus far.
Tyson had thought the labrador had escaped the fire in time, but, to his surprise, he had not. By the time he realized Phil was trapped inside the blazing cabin, it was already too late. There was nothing left to do. “I had no logic. Nothing,” he said. “Just a visceral — not angry, not sad, just, like, that’s all I could express — just scream. I felt like I tore my lung out.” Now, Tyson would have to face the circumstances alone, and what happened after proved the dangerousness of being alone in the wild.
The Situation Grows Desperate
Completely covered in ash and in a desperate situation on his own in the middle of nowhere, Tyson did his best to put out the fire by shoveling snow onto his cabin, but nothing worked. He kept screaming, but the night was not over.
There was another unforeseen problem: the two years worth of food he had in his cabin had been kept near the very inflammable cooking oils and Crisco. Not only was he losing most of his supplies, but the oils and greases only added to the fiery flames. Tyson began feeling hopeless and scared, what happened after certainly made him fear even more for his life!
No Time To Cry
Heartbroken and afraid, Tyson had to remain by the fire to keep himself warm, while the flames consumed all he had left. At that time of the year, Alaskan nights are longer, so Tyson would have to wait until morning to fully assess his losses and come up with a plan.
As he said in an interview: “So, my first objective was making inventory. And to eat something! Because I’d been working my butt off all night.” However, Tyson would soon have to face a harsh reality: he had only managed to take a small fraction of his food supply. Now, the two years’ worth of food had been reduced to 30 days. He had to survive, and think of a plan for it. As he thought about it, something even more discouraging happened.
Reorganizing
Tyson had to figure out how he would ration the remaining food. “I got all my cans [of food] and I figured I had two cans a day for 30 days of rations”. Of course, the food he had gathered was not in perfect condition: some of the jars had been heavily affected by the fire, melting into their contents, while some other had popped open because of the heat, causing smoke to circulate inside the can.
They were good enough to be consumed still, though, and Tyson couldn’t afford to waste any more of his food supplies. Considering all the stress he was under, however, it seemed like two cans a day would not be enough, that’s when he remembered there was something much bigger to worry about...
Man Vs Nature
In the cold Alaskan wilderness, finding shelter was a priority. The first two nights were hard for Tyson, as he had to spend them in a snow cave, where temperatures dipped way below zero. Other than the clothes he was wearing, he had barely managed to grab his overalls and a sleeping bag.
Tyson had to spend his first nights in absolute darkness, but it was clear this could not last for very long, this is when he started doing something that he expected to be his way to survive… But was it going to work?
Out Of Luck
His plan was to build a more sturdy shelter. However, he knew he’d need more than that to survive. The situation grew desperate as days passed by.
Definitely, Tyson needed almost a miracle to get out of this life-threatening situation without harm, not having a shelter, heat or secure food was very dangerous and affected not only his physical condition but with his inner strength, until something incredible happened...
No Contact
Until his big mistake (and the unfortunate events after) that put him in a life-threatening situation, Tyson had managed to keep in touch with his family thanks to an old cell phone he had taken with him when he moved to Alaska. They were supposed to check in on each other weekly through text messages or calls.
Because of the lifestyle Tyson had chosen, it wasn’t rare for him to miss a phone call, so the weekly calls sometimes became biweekly. His family would worry for a few days, but he always ended up showing up. Now, Tyson was wondering how much time would pass before his family started suspecting something was really wrong this time. He could’ve never imagined the terrible event that was about to unfold.
His Own Plan
As much as Tyson knew he needed help from the outside this time, as time went by, he started to desperately work on a plan of his own. Then, for him, the main priority was to make a possible plan to survive. With a limited amount of food, staying where he already was would become a death sentence if his family didn’t notice his absence in time. He knew he needed to move, and fast.
In his desperation, and after days of thinking and giving thought to it, he remembered something that was in the back of his mind that could be his light in these really dark times.
Other campers!
In the snowy wilderness of the area, he remembered that his closest neighbors were about 20 miles away from him. He’d heard a rumor once about a camper staying about 5 miles from where he was, near Donkey Creek Lake.
However, this was a risky plan. It was possible he’d walk all those miles to find himself just as stranded and alone. The stakes were high and he could not afford to lose time at this point. Just as he was beginning to seriously consider hiking all the way to Donkey Creek Lake, things got worse for him when something even more discouraging happened.
Two Options
By this moment, he had two options: the first one was finding another camper's shelter and ask for help; and the other one was that his parents noticed his absence on time and alerted the police. He figured that if the police were going to try to find him, it would be on a helicopter, and the dense trees might become an obstacle for them to visualize him from the sky.
He looked through his campsite and knew that the only way for the possible helicopter to land and save him was using the frozen lake as a landing space. But would it be thick enough? Was this plan going to work?
Make A Choice
If he decided to stay where he was, his survival would depend on his family's report and the police’s efficient work, he also quickly realized that the frozen lake plan wasn't going to work either and that it was also not viable for him to walk through the freezing snow with broken boots to see if he could find someone near that could help him.
He had to make a decision that would ultimately define if he was going to survive or not. After some meditation, he made a choice.
Stranded and with one goal: Survival
Tyson took what he had and went back to where the ruins of his former shelter were. His homestead was relatively clear of trees, so he decided to build a shelter there where he would do his last attempt to survive for as long as he could.
It became obvious that he had to do something more than wait, he had to take action: but how? Suddenly an idea came to his mind, using the few tools available: snow and ash.
A Snowy SOS
If anyone was going to try to find him, it would be through a helicopter, so he had to make himself noticeable in all of that empty land. This is when he decided to carve an enormous SOS into the snow, but as soon as he finished the letters, the snow would cover them and he would have to redo the sign all day long if he wanted to have a shot at being seen from the sky.
He was starting to lose track of time, occasionally he would see planes flying above his campsite, but too far for them to notice his SOS sign. As disturbing as it was, that wasn’t even the worst part…
Starting to lose hope
People say hope is the last thing you lose, but Tyson was only feeling it during those moments where he glimpsed planes going above him, and even when he knew they couldn't see him he would wave and scream at them. And when they passed him he would find himself hopeless and counting how many meals he had left.
He had also managed to rescue his old wood stove, and started using it to keep himself warm, but as snow was growing around his around-the-stove shelter, the shelter became a different thing…
Craving Warmth
The wood stove could barely keep him warm, and the shelter wasn’t fit anymore. The temperatures were extremely low and even if he had the wood stove burning at all hours, it wasn’t enough for him to keep some warmth.
While it was all bad news for Tyson, far away, other people were now very worried about his well-being and his life.
Heartbroken Holidays
It was December and the holiday season when all these life-threatening events occurred. Tyson’s parents, given his particular way of living, were used to hearing from his child every few weeks, but they remember these particular weeks as something very dark and different.
“When Christmas came around, for sure, that’s when we were like ‘something is wrong, this is not like him not to communicate. Then New Year’s comes, and that’s when we called the pilot.” his mother remembers, but it might be too late, it had been weeks since the fire that left him without food or shelter.
Now they know
Tyson’s parents alerted a pilot about their son, this is when a bigger plan started to find out if he was even alive. The Alaska Department of Public Safety and Alaska State Troopers immediately got involved and divided into search teams that started to look for Tyson using Helicopters.
While looking at the ground and hoping to see a young man safe in his cabin, they saw something very different that caught their eyes
Finding Tyson
When they reached the place where Tyson had been camping, the first thing that caught their eyes was a massive message written on the snow that said “SOS”, and shortly after a man running out of a shelter screaming at them, and waving his hands in hopes to be noticed and rescued.
And after being on the verge of death for almost a month, Tyson was finally rescued. But this wasn’t all!
Changes and going back to reality
Spending more than three weeks fighting for your life and months alone in the Alaskan woods will certainly change your appearance. Tyson wasn’t the exception, he had a quite peculiar look when rescued: the troops found him covered in ashes, charcoal and soot, and with a dirty haired look.
Despite his looks, Tyson was only happy, and in his best mood when he was found. After all, he survived and that’s the most important part of it… Until thousands of people had something else to say.
Viral
His story, as crazy as it was, touched a lot of people when the Alaska Department of Public Safety posted the rescue video taken by the helicopter’s camera, and where it is shown the emotional episode that a person goes through when an extreme situation like this takes place and they actually get to survive.
In hours, the video became viral and everyone was talking about him. In just a few hours Tyson went from being hopeless, alone and freezing, to hugging his family and receiving the support of thousands of people around the world, but it wouldn’t last that much…
Did he learn the lesson?
Usually, when someone experiences a near-death event like this, he or she develops some kind of rejection to relive something similar. Maybe their way of feeling safe is to avoid going back to the place where they experienced those traumatic events or develop some kind of PTSD.
But this wasn’t the case for Tyson. He felt a lot different, in fact, quite the opposite. After being safe at home for a few weeks, he posted on Facebook “Two months away from Alaska is wearing on me, so I’m going back to the homestead!” Didn’t he learn the lesson? Or he did and that’s why he feels secure that he can manage the dangers of the Alaskan wilderness now?