'Alone' winner to return to his native Athol

In six seasons of the History Channel’s survival reality show ”Alone,” no other contestant ever took down a large game animal. Athol native Jordan Jonas changed that this season, taking down a moose with a bow and arrow.

Then he took down a wolverine with a hatchet.

“He is truly the [Greatest of All Time],” one fan wrote on Reddit.

“Slam dunk. King in the North,” wrote another.

Jonas outlasted the other nine contestants who were all dropped off in the sub-Arctic of northern Canada, earning him the $500,000 prize. But he didn’t just outlast them. He thrived. He actually fed the production crew that came to inform him that he had won.

“The production crew was low on food. I guess it lasted longer than they thought it would,” Jonas said in a phone interview.

Instead of a big meal or an IV drip waiting for him after 77 days on his own near Canada’s Great Slave Lake, Jonas said with a laugh, “They were just feeding me my own fish.”

“And they gave me smaller portions than what I’d been eating. I was like ‘C’mon, man, I’m hungry,’” he said.

Jonas estimates he still had about 200 pounds of moose meat, 60 pounds of fish, a whole wolverine, some hares and squirrel — enough to last well into the New Year. By comparison, other final contestants were reduced to gnawing on boiled hare feet and reindeer moss before tapping out. The day Jonas was told he won, he pulled a 25-pound pike out of the frozen lake using a fishing net he made himself out of paracord.

“I felt great with that last fish. I thought ‘Wow, I might be sustainable out here and not just counting calories,’” Jonas said.

Unlike other survivalist shows, there are no camera crews filming contestants. They’re left to their own devices except for occasional health checks. Contestants are given three cameras with instructions to film everything they do. They also have a radio that they can use to call in a helicopter in case of an emergency. Making that call is an instant disqualification. Their chance at the prize money ends.

Throughout the show, contestants are pulled if a field doctor determines they’re endangering their health. Jonas is naturally very tall and skinny. His fear of being pulled because of low weight was a driving factor in how he approached the contest.

“I knew for sure if it was a starving contest I was going to win,” he said. “In the end, that was an advantage. It forced me to go out there and hunt — to be active.”

On day 77, after being weighed, Jonas was being interviewed by producers about the state of his health. Unknown to him, the show’s producers had flown in his wife, Janahlee, who sneaked up behind him while he tried to convince the producers he was at a healthy weight. He was legitimately shocked when his wife surprise-hugged him and he realized he had won. He told her he “still has gas in the tank.” He said he could have set the show record of 87 days if he needed to.

“I had all the meat I’d smoked and dried, which I didn’t even start to eat yet,” he said.

Jonas said he doesn’t have any specific plans for the $500,000 yet, but intends to move back to Athol next year to be on the farm where he grew up, where his mother still lives. His wife is taking online classes at North Idaho College, where she is going to enroll in the college’s nursing program next fall. Jonas is an NIC graduate himself; his uncle was a longtime instructor at the college.

For now, Jonas is still fixing up houses in Lynchburg, Va., and renting them out, which is what he was doing before the TV show. Since he won, he has fielded a few calls from producers interested in giving him his own TV show. He said he’s keeping all options open.

“Right now, it’s bought me more time to spend with my family,” Jonas said.