Will Longley

Pre-season loadout analysis: Will Longley made one substitution to the standard ten, and it may be the most culturally grounded gear choice in this World Championship cast: a gill net where the default fishing line and hooks kit would sit. Longley is a stay-at-home dad of Inupiaq heritage from Kotzebue, Alaska, partly raised in Nuuk, Greenland, carrying ancestral netting and hunting practice into Arctic delta country, and the rest of his list runs the full standard spread, axe and saw, bow, snare wire, ferro rod, sleeping bag, pot, multitool, paracord, all brandless in the single pre-season source this season's gear record currently rests on.

Pre-season loadout analysis: A gill net is a volume-and-patience instrument: it fishes around the clock without spending its owner's calories, which is precisely the economics a long cold-country run wants. The franchise's own record makes the precedent argument for him, this exact substitution, net over line, in fish-rich northern water, sits behind one of the strongest runs in the show's history, and a minority of recorded lists across the franchise ever attempt it.