Survival Show Guide
Quatsino, near Port Hardy, northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia

David McIntyre

Kentwood, Michigan · Alone Season 2

Age on show
50
Gear sourced
10/10
How far did David get? (tap to reveal)
Season 2 winner
Days lasted
66
Placement
1st
David McIntyre
Photo: Photo: History Channel via Wayback
How David's season ended (reveals the result)

Winner; built a raised 4x8 ft hemlock-mattress bed shelter, relied heavily on a hand-made gill net and fish/crab traps, and lost roughly 35 lbs in the first five and a half weeks before regaining weight by extraction.

Our take on the run

McIntyre won the season without ever tapping out; he was still standing on day 66 when producers pulled him from the island as the last contestant left. The middle of his run was brutal, roughly 35 pounds lost in the first five and a half weeks, and what turned it was not a new tool but infrastructure: he paired the gill net he already had with a seafood box trap and a floating line rig, converting near starvation into a working food system that let him regain weight in the final stretch. He talked afterward about being haunted late in the run by the memory of a can of yams in his pantry at home, which says everything about what sustained hunger does even to a disciplined mind. McIntyre died in 2024, and his run has aged into something like the franchise's reference text: the clearest early proof that winners are built out of sleep, calories, and systems rather than moments.

Compare this kit with every other winner's →

The loadout, examined

David McIntyre built his list the way he taught survival: around systems, not stunts. The sleep setup was two layers deep, a 0 degree Fahrenheit bag inside a US Army issue Gore-Tex bivy, and he raised it further off the cold ground with a bed platform he built on site. Five pounds of pemmican gave him a real caloric runway for the establishment phase, and every one of his ten items was sourced and confirmed in the record, one of the few kits of the era with a complete verified list.

The water gear shows the same instructor's redundancy. His fishing kit ran 270 yards of 50 pound test plus 30 yards of 100 pound test with 25 circle hooks, and it sat alongside a gill net, giving him both active and passive fishing on a coastline that rewards patience. A 2 pound cruiser axe and a Silky Bigboy folding saw covered camp construction without excess weight. Taken together the kit was unglamorous and almost perfectly matched to a long, wet, cold stay.

David's loadout, item by item

Fully sourced selection. Photos marked “category example” show a typical product for that slot, not the exact unit carried. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Compare with the rest of the Season 2 cast or see what every winner carried.