The newest season of a popular survival series is set in the northern Saskatchewan wilderness.
The HISTORY Channel’s Alone features 10 contestants, who are dropped off in an undisclosed, remote location with nothing but a handful of survival tools and camera gear to document their days in isolation.
This time around, the group of survivalists headed to Reindeer Lake, which hovers over the Saskatchewan and Manitoba border.
“Shooting Alone along Reindeer Lake landed the newest participants in an extremely rugged and remote location among approximately 43,000 black bears, a strong wolf and moose population, and some of the largest fish ever caught on the show,” reads a news release.
Creative Saskatchewan provided nearly $820,000 to the production through a grant.
“We’ve been promoting the diversity of Saskatchewan’s topography, and production companies are taking note of what our province has to offer, from sand dunes to prairie grass, and now our remote wilderness. We’re so excited to see these come to fruition,” said CEO Erin Dean.
According to a news release from the province, Alone has an estimated $2.3 million spend, mainly in the northern region. It’s estimated to see about $4.3 million of positive economic impact put back into Saskatchewan.
The show is produced by Wavelength Entertainment.
“Film is an industry just like agriculture, mining, or oil and gas,” said one of the producers, Chris Triffo.
“I want all the young people to know that this is a viable career. I love Saskatchewan, and I’m not leaving.”
Season 10 of Alone premiers on Thursday on the HISTORY channel. Previous seasons have been filmed in Vancouver Island, Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories and northern Mangolia, usually in Indigenous-controlled lands.
Contestants are allowed to choose only 10 survival tools from a long list of options. Other than medical check-ins, they’re entirely alone for the duration of their time on the show.
The contestants can choose to “tap out” at any time, or may be pulled for medical reasons. The last one standing wins $500,000 USD.
Alone has included contestants from Saskatchewan in the past, such as season six’s Michelle Wohlberg from Mullingar.
There are no contestants from the province in the upcoming season, but two are from British Columbia. The rest are from a wide range of locations across the United States.
