#853: Jordan Jonas, Champion of Alone — The Art of Survival, Lessons from Nomadic Tribes, Hardship as the Path to Peace, How to Handle Rogue Wolverines, and Why Not to Photograph Attacking Bears

Hey everybody, Tim Ferriss here—welcome back. Today’s guest is my friend Jordan Jonas, a world-class woodsman who grew up on an Idaho farm, rode freight trains, lived with Siberian nomads, and won season six of Alone after thriving in the Arctic for seventy-seven days.

I spent a week in the mountains with Jordan and his family, and he’s a living masterclass in keeping life simple and focused on what matters; dogs are pacing, we’re at altitude, and our hefty “whiskey” pours are actually black tea, so let’s dive in.

We just rolled into a city we don’t live in, caught our breath, and brewed tea to get back in the groove.

Before Russia and reindeer, what’s this tool on the table you joked about if the interview goes sideways?

It’s an axe I designed from years in Siberia with Ewenki nomads—single-bevel, handed right or left, with a wide eye so the handle slides in from the top and tightens as you swing.

In the forest, an axe is the one tool that lets you do almost everything: fire, traps, shelter, ice, you name it.

Think of double-bevel chef’s knives versus single-bevel Japanese blades—that’s the difference you feel when Jordan’s axe bites clean instead of skittering off.

On our Montana trip, a sunshiny forecast turned into a soaking, and I watched you turn wet woods into fire—can you explain the feather-stick magic?

In a downpour, I fell a dead-standing tree, split to the dry heart, then plane curls with the axe; a ferro rod throws sparks, the curls catch, and a quick tarp tripod keeps the tinder dry.

Once those fine shavings light, you feed in rougher curls and the fire flips everyone from cold and miserable to alive again.

No wonder my buddy said humans have worshipped fire—it changes everything in minutes; now, what happens when you get cocky with a razor-sharp axe?

My first season with the natives, I rushed a tricky split on an angled stump and kept slicing my boots; a replacement boot was found miles away, and I promptly cut that too.

I lost my temper, swung one-handed, the axe deflected, and I tore up my knee—nearly severed the MCL and cracked bone—then crawled back to the teepee and packed the wound with spruce pitch, which miraculously kept infection away.

A few days later they returned, handed me a carved cane, and I hobbled out to keep working; big lesson learned the hard way.

Take us back to your first landing in Russia and that word you taught me—durak.

We deplaned in Moscow to a blue tractor and a wooden trailer; I snapped a photo, and a stern officer called me an idiot, made me delete it—welcome to Russia.

What actually put you on the plane in the first place?

I valued my Christian upbringing but wrestled with questions, so I committed to the core: love God and love your neighbor, and act even when faith felt thin.

I asked for a sign, met a Russian who offered lessons, felt an unexpected burden to go, bought a year-long ticket, helped on an orphanage, then moved to a village to learn by immersion—babysitting two kids without speaking the language.

Friends there had prison pasts; one introduced me to a northern fur trapper, and after renewing my visa back home, I returned and headed even farther north.

Up there, the drinking shocked me—men passed out in the cold—and every time I went farther north I had to recalibrate what “normal” looked like.

The native hunters you lived with were unbelievably skilled, but alcohol was devastating—what were the numbers?

I heard around thirty percent of deaths in those northern villages came from homicide, suicide, or alcohol-related accidents, which breaks your heart because, sober and in the woods, they’re joyful, brilliant, and welcoming.

Soviet collectivization crushed spiritual leaders, split families into boarding schools, banned alcohol, then the collapse sold off reindeer herds overnight; the family I lived with fought to keep herding alive, and that preserved culture and pride.

How close are reindeer to caribou, and why do reindeer matter so much?

They’re essentially the same animal across old and new worlds, but reindeer have a long domestication history that makes northern life possible: riding, sleds, meat, hides, and a daily rhythm that snowmobiles can’t replace.

With reindeer, you’re never lost—you’re home wherever you stop.

You mentioned the Gulag Archipelago shaping you; can you give the short version for listeners, then how that meets your homeschooling story?

Solzhenitsyn chronicled the Soviet camp system and argued that happiness can be stripped away, so a life needs purpose; that hit me as a teen reading war memoirs and gulag accounts.

Homeschooling let me blitz core work in a morning and dive deep into my interests; later I sampled public school, and now with our kids we build community on purpose—jujitsu, gymnastics, hikes—and keep screens to a minimum.

I watched your kids and cousins bonding around constant outdoor activity; campfires help people connect without forced eye contact, and you’ve designed a life with better defaults than “put the phone down” in a tiny apartment.

We chose a place where the outdoors is right there and got llamas so the whole family can go deep for a week or two without heavy packs.

Why llamas and not reindeer or horses?

I got Idaho law changed to allow reindeer but fencing rules killed the dream, and horses are high-maintenance and risky, so llamas won on safety, calm temperaments, and low drama.

Their soft pads and two small claws grip wet rock and mud better than metal-shod hooves; goats can go wilder terrain but you can’t leave them tied without chaos.

Let’s go to purpose and your Assyrian roots; most people don’t know that story.

My grandparents were Assyrian Christians from northwestern Iran; during World War One, nationalist violence and deportations wiped out families—my grandpa fled as his father’s home burned, and my grandma survived death marches, eventually landing in refugee camps.

They met in Baghdad, moved to France before World War Two, then to America, and died when my dad was young; despite horror, they built a joyful clan that never trafficked in hate, which gave me a living model of choosing love over bitterness.

Your dad made brave choices too.

He was an engineer who lived to provide and hug his kids at the door, then diabetes and polio took his work, then his legs, and we hit food banks while he battled pain and grief.

Over twelve years he refined his purpose into encouragement and joy; when he chose to end dialysis, we feasted, laughed, and watched him face death as a final act of love, which gave me a template for evolving purpose as life changes.

Did he shift into more of a teacher and supporter at home?

He leaned into what wasn’t tied to output—kindness, optimism, and lifting people up—which carried farther than any paycheck.

We also talked about modern structure versus natural rhythm; on our trip you said we’d wake up when we wake up.

Train-hopping first showed me the old rhythm—get water, get food, move—and living with the natives made it crystal: tasks are direct, feedback is instant, and your brain chemistry settles where it evolved to be.

A good fishing run or a clean hunt feels like peak human joy without buying your way there through layers of abstraction.

Your brother’s shepherd snapping into herding mode reminded me how people click into purpose when the task is clear.

Exactly—cause and effect you can touch; now picture this bear episode.

A grizzly killed a moose near our cabin, we stored meat in a permafrost pit, and a few days later it stormed back; my buddy sprinted off with the SKS, emptied the magazine, and we dropped the bear.

Then came the rituals—calling the bear “grandpa,” tucking its eyes under a stone so it couldn’t see who did what, and sending the intestines downstream so another village caught the blame if the spirit came hunting.

One more: the canoe caper.

Two elderly women spotted a swimming moose, tossed a bowline over it, swung an axe, and got towed hundreds of yards into the forest inside their aluminum boat before the rope snapped; they waited days for help and later kept sliding off reindeer saddles on the ride home—tough as nails, hilarious in hindsight.

Let’s hit Alone, which I binged during hyperbaric sessions; give the quick season-six setup.

Ten people, ten tools, self-filmed, last one out wins; we were just south of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories.

We geeked out on cordage—your survival cord with tinder, snares, and fishing line wasn’t allowed—but a gill net and smart snares are massive force multipliers.

A gill net passively catches fish sized to its mesh; snares do the same on land when set right, and even squirrels will hang themselves running a favorite pole between trees.

During one early med check, a squirrel kicked in my snare as the crew walked by; one British guy nearly cheered out loud.

You lasted seventy-seven days and didn’t seem near a breaking point.

I snared a pile of rabbits, took a moose on day twenty, then filled the larder with fish; years in Siberia made the isolation familiar, but the unknown end date stressed me more than the cold.

Had I known there’d be a cap like season seven’s one hundred days, I’d have enjoyed the ride; instead I planned for one-forty and was shocked when it ended.

Pro tip for future contestants: skip the heroic bow-drill and pack a ferro rod—hard northern woods are unforgiving.

One guy lucked into a cedar board that doesn’t even grow up there; better to bring reliable sparks than rely on miracles.

You could scavenge beach junk and human castoffs, but within the ten tools you were allowed, what made your cut?

I brought an axe, a saw, a Leatherman, a frying pan, a ferro rod, a sleeping bag, a bow with arrows, a fishing kit, trapping wire, and paracord. The cord let me rig tons of things and even weave a basic gill net, so it beat packing a single-use net.

Outside of a gill net, what gear choices do people often get wrong?

Skipping an axe baffles me, but the big mistake is not bringing a fire starter, because bow-drilling for every boil burns calories and adds stress, which also cuts water intake. I always carried the bow too, so any walk to fish or collect wood could turn into small game.

How many arrows could you pack?

Nine. I ran five blunt small‑game points so they would not pass through, and four tough two‑blade broadheads I could keep sharpening.

When you say moose fencing, what did that really look like?

After missing a forty‑yard shot, I doubled down on calling and wind, set a tin‑can tripwire, and started a funnel between two rises with saplings. Indigenous practice is four stacked rows, but I began with a single run across the gap, knowing it was a calorie gamble worth taking.

The can clanked, a bull walked the lane, and I arrowed him at about twenty‑four yards. I waited, then tracked by where a wounded animal would choose the easiest path, found him, and resisted pushing so he could lie down and fade; it was a long, nerve‑shredding watch, then pure relief when he tipped over, and I used everything I could, though the liver had to go first because it spoils fast.

On the fat front, you had a big setback—and I noticed your wife’s earrings might relate.

A wolverine swiped a full jug of rendered fat, and once you have meat, every freeloader shows up. That animal was fearless, so I rigged a long tripwire, sent an arrow through brush, then closed with an axe when it lunged; it was primal, it solved the problem, and I later turned the claws into earrings.

People might miss that you could only take one wolverine, yet another appeared, which flipped you from offense to defense.

Exactly—another came as the lake skimmed over, so I could not fish yet, and I had plenty of moose, so no point snaring more rabbits. I built a raised cache but should have finished the box because that thief still got up, and the whole period became guarding what I had while burning as few calories as possible.

How crucial is fat out there, given rabbit starvation and similar pitfalls?

Fat is the bottleneck, because protein is everywhere but your body needs fat every day, so you either bring it in or burn your reserves. Even the birds and scavengers prove the point by targeting bellies, brains, and the richest bits first.

Let’s hit your projects—where can people find that axe, and learn to use tools well?

Head to jordanjonas.com for two axe sizes, one backpackable and one heavier, and expect a short learning curve. You can follow me on Instagram and YouTube at HoboJourney, and courses and private trips open on the site but they fill fast.

Why write a book now?

Alone felt oddly normal because of my past, and I want to share the patterns that built a reservoir of resilience you can draw on before life gets hard. I am partnering with HarperCollins, aiming for 2027, and I am excited for a first book that blends stories with usable principles.

I found a folded copy of the Serenity Prayer recently—could you share the full version and what landed for you?

I read the whole prayer, and the lines about living one day at a time and accepting hardship as the path to peace hit home, because I had just learned not to chase worry and to let patience do its work.

Any parting thoughts for listeners?

See people before politics, and live your ethics personally instead of outsourcing them to policy; I housed Russian asylum seekers because I could, and I do not judge those who cannot make that sacrifice. Whatever your stance, carry some of its real cost, and keep wrestling with the command to love your neighbor—faith becomes alive in that struggle and gives life meaning.

Wrestling with beliefs often leads to choices that fit your deepest values, and I admire how you bring people back to core human senses that make online fights look hollow. Thanks for doing what you do.

Appreciate it—it has been great spending time in the woods together.

I am fired up to pack my own axe next time. Show notes are at tim dot blog slash podcast—search Jordan or Jonas—and until next time, be a little kinder than you need to be to others and to yourself, because compassion that leaves you out is not complete.