Age: 36

Hometown: Hobbit Hole, AK

Profession: Homesteader & Educator

Colter was born in Montana, raised in Oregon, and has spent the last 14 years living, working and homesteading in the Alaskan bush—far from the road system.

While he grew up hunting and fishing with his family and friends, it wasn’t until at age 22 when Colter moved into the fly-in only native village of Kokhanok, Alaska, that he actually understood what living off of the land means. With the mentorship of the local residents, it was there that he began the physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually challenging and rewarding pursuit of a more subsistence-based lifestyle. He discovered that it was more stimulating, hence fulfilling, to accomplish something for himself rather than trade money and have someone else do it for him.

After 10 years of working in public education in rural Alaska, Colter found a unique opportunity to combine his passions of teaching and living off of the land. For the past three years he’s been employed as a homesteader and educator by the Tidelines Institute, a field school located on a remote island in Southeast Alaska. Each summer, the school hosts environmental education courses where Colter gets to share his enthusiasm and curiosity with students by teaching “homesteading” skills each afternoon; milling wood and construction, blacksmithing, foraging, gardening, tanning hides and fish skins, food preservation and more. And in the winters, when he has the islands to himself, Colter enjoys the peaceful, slow paced life and deepening his connection with both himself and the natural world.

Colter hopes to combine modern homesteading science and skills with indigenous wisdom and traditions to not only win season 8 of Alone, but to demonstrate the beauty, meaning and fun that can be found when we slow down and simplify our lives.

Here are the ten items Colter selected to bring on his survival journey to Grizzly Mountain:

1. Sleeping bag

2. Pot

3. Axe

4. Saw

5. Tarp

6. Bow and arrows

7. Snare wire

8. Fishing line and hooks

9. Multitool

10. Paracord