Jake's Take: "Out of the Wild" (1.7): And I'm officially out! As a gay man, that is!

Each week, Jake Nodar, one of the "volunteers" on Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment shares his first hand take with us about the latest episode.

After 23 days of starvation, yet another six mile hike lies between us and our next camp. Who am I kidding? It’s official bitches ... I’m gay!

After seven episodes, it is finally national news. I have a feeling this will be the episode that brings the straight lady love letters to a screeching halt.

It’s funny, in high school I would have given my right arm for people to think that I was straight, now here I am praying that the g-bomb dropped before the season ended. I recently expressed my concern to my sister Rachel as to whether anything would ever be said on the show about me being gay, to which she was a little too quick to point out “Have you heard your S’s lately? They’re gonna know!”

Thanks, Rachel. Now a big round of applause to the Discovery Channel for taking a huge step in the right direction!

So… back to the episode. After an arduous hike and a canoe ride across Otter Lake, we arrived at our cabin. After realizing that we were completely out of food, and there was nothing left inside of this cabin from previous travelers, we began to freak out.

Trish’s natural response was to go postal on Alaska’s wildlife. Her killing spree began with the cro-magnonesque shovel clubbing of a small squirrel; then with the 410 shotgun, a duck, and finally a spruce grouse. Maybe THIS was the week she was PMSing…

On day 24, I opted to go out on a hunt by myself. It was, without question, the lowest point of my time in Alaska.

I was miles out from camp. There were about six inches of snow on the ground, and another front had moved in. Never in my life have I felt as physically exhausted as I did that afternoon. I stumbled more than any drunken night of my past. I thought back to what I had learned from sobriety tests: “right foot, now left foot”… just to try and keep myself going.

I remember my breathing became much more labored. I wanted to take a break so badly, but I knew if I had sat down, even for a second, I wouldn’t have been able to return to my feet. The camera man that was along for the day was a face that I recognized, but since we were not allowed to interact with them at all, I really didn’t know him from Adam.

I was, however, able to see the concern for me in his face, which freaked me out even more. Despite an unsuccessful hunt, I vividly remember the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment I felt as I finally returned to our cabin on Otter Lake.

While I was out wasting away and void of all energy (just another day for Kate Moss), John was out trying his hand at fishing. After a few hours of sitting in a canoe in subfreezing temperatures, being whipped by high winds and snow, John’s patience paid off as he returned to camp with a big ol’ rainbow trout.

I was happy that this trout was so prideful in his rainbow garb… it made me feel at home. I was also happy because he tasted delish.

After dinner, yours truly provided the evening entertainment: recognizing that the usually gorgeous Carolyn was looking a little “rough around the edges,” I opted to give her a makeover. After combing her hair with a fork (a la The Little Mermaid), I cut and styled her long locks. I gave her a beautiful up-do style bun and topped it off with two chopsticks that I whittled from an alder branch.

I wanted something that really made her heritage pop. Something she could write in her memoirs. I know you are going to find this hard to believe … but that was my first makeover.

Day 25 was another full day of hunting for me. After an unsuccessful morning hunt with Kim, I hopped in the canoe and went out for a duck hunt with John. We both managed to bag a duck each and returned home with dinner in hand.

Despite the protein, we were feeling the lack of carbohydrates (Dr. Atkins would be so proud), so the next morning Carolyn and I set out looking for cattail roots. For those of you who don’t know, cattails are the plants that grow around bodies of fresh water that look as though they have a corn dog on top. We ate the cattails in survival training, and they were actually quite good; however, we had gone 25 days without seeing a single one, so after a short time out, we called the corn dog hunt quits and headed back to camp.

After a full day without a single bite of food, I got a bit desperate and decided to try and trick my stomach with a “flavorful” snowball. I filled my cup with snow and seasoned it with some leftover cayenne pepper and salt. “It’s not the best snowball, but it’s not the worst” I said as I ate it.

In hindsight, I’m fairly certain it was in fact the worst.

The next morning, we packed up and began our next leg of the journey. It had snowed quite a bit the night before, and we know that that was going to make the next hike that much tougher, but we also knew that the snow was only going to get worse, so we pushed on.

So against all odds, I’ve made it to the final episode! However, there are five of us left, and not everyone is going to make it to civilization.

I will promise you this: whether or not I make it to the end, I will sport a gorgeous and completely impractical outfit that I had been working on for some time. Be sure to tune in Tuesday June 9th on the Discovery Channel to see if I have what it takes, or if I will be the weakest link.