APPLETON — Home is down a winding driveway three-quarters of a mile into the woods, an aging camper attached to a yurt on a plot of land Zachary Fowler cleared himself — the very definition of off the grid.

The 37-year-old devoured survival guides so he could homestead in the Maine woods, then applied that same philosophy in the woods of Patagonia in the South American country of Chile.

Thursday night, it won him $500,000.

Viewers on History Channel’s hit show “Alone” watched Fowler’s wife, Jami, creep up behind him in the Season 3 finale and deliver the news on day 87 as he talked to the camera about how much he missed his family and as he waited to hear whether doctors were pulling him from the show because he’d gotten too thin.

“I lost 73 pounds, I thought for sure they were there to take me away,” Fowler said in an interview this week. “The moment that Jami comes around me to hug me and tells me that I’d won, (that) I’d out-stubborned them all and I could go home, that was the best feeling ever, in my whole life. Seeing her, I didn’t even care about the money. After all that time, how much I thought about my family out there, it didn’t even really click for a good 12 to 14 hours, and then when it did, I couldn’t sleep that night. I didn’t sleep a wink. I was like, ‘We did it.'”

Fowler out-lasted nine other contestants on the grueling show, each camped out separately around a lake as Patagonian fall stretched into winter. Contestants fended for themselves and acted as their own camera crew to document the experience, all alone but for occasional medical checkups.

Viewers were introduced to Fowler in the very first episode of the season and he quickly stood out for his inventions: a duck trap, a wooden water bottle, a rake.

Fowler, a self-employed boat builder, said he’s been building that way his whole life, as a kid making things like a scooter with a skateboard sidecar.

He left Appleton — just west of Camden — to compete on the show last spring, weighing 223 pounds. Over 87 days he subsisted on 63 fish, two birds, grubs, plantain leaves and dandelion roots, boiling three meals a day of fish head soup when fish weren’t biting.

Throughout the experience, he said he had just one absolutely lousy day around day 70. He’d gone four days without food. His fish jumped off the line. He burned part of his boot in the fire. His shelter leaked.

“I had said on the show, ‘I wish everyone else would hurry up and quit’ — I was waiting around for everybody else to drop out,” he said. “I realized (the next day) I’m not going to make it much longer if I’m just waiting around, because I’m dropping the ball. I said I’ve got to rededicate myself, repurpose my mind, body and spirit to this effort so I can make it through this.”

A hearty meal a few days later of fish and the lone bird he killed with his slingshot helped cement the mental turnaround.

“I called it ‘fishbird’ soup and I felt like I rode that high right to the end,” Fowler said. “(Getting the bird) was such an exciting moment for me, vindicated for bringing the slingshot, even if it wasn’t super vindication.”

Homesickness was motivational. Besides Jami, he’d left behind daughters Abby, 5, and Sparrow, 2.

“That whole last month, instead of hiding from thinking about them, I thought about them every day,” he said. “Places to take my wife on dates, places to take my kids for fun. I was there for them to make a better life for us. This yurt, we’ve been in it two years longer than we meant to be. It’s very tight. I couldn’t quit.”

The Season 1 “Alone” winner lasted 56 days in the Canadian woods, the Season 2 winner 66 days.

Even at 87, Fowler said he felt like he had another 20 days left in him.

He returned to Maine in August last year and has had to keep his victory a secret from everyone — including his parents — until last night, when the final show aired.

Now that it’s out that he’s won, comes the payoff. 

First, he plans to build his wife a “she-shed,” space for her fiber arts studio.

“She’s sacrificed so much — her (current) work space is not much more than her side of the kitchen table and her side of the bed on a nightstand shelf,” Fowler said. “She’s been such a trouper.”

Next comes a modest homesteading house that he’ll also build.

“It won’t be too huge,” he said. “The kids are going to share a bedroom. We’ll have a loft bedroom and a bathroom. Simple, arched A-frame so the inside looks like it has boat ribs. Passive solar and fully set up so we’re comfortable with solar panels and self-sufficient, off-the-grid-wise.”

More money will go toward stringing high-speed internet out to his woods, buying new camera equipment and editing software, and stepping up his game on his YouTube channel, Fowler’s Makery and Mischief.

“I want to write a book from all my journals that I’ve made over the years of all the things I’ve invented and created, all the things I did on the show,” Fowler said. “I want to build up my brand with YouTube so that it’s a full-time show, people can count on it and enjoy it. It’s an investment in our future as far as moving out of boat building and building what I want to build and sharing that with the world. I’ve got all kinds of fun stuff in mind.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com 

Zachary Fowler practices with his slingshot at home in Appleton, just west of Camden. He’s working to break the Guinness World Record on the number of cans knocked over in a minute. The record is 25. He’s up to 10. On Thursday night, viewers of “Alone” on the History Channel saw Fowler win the $500,000 prize. He took his slingshot on the show.

Season 3 ‘Alone’ winner Zachary Fowler on . . .

Keeping the secret from his parents: “I told them I had a medical tap-out and I didn’t have a choice. They were suspicious of everything that was going on so I had to give them disinformation. They knew Jami came down and they knew the former winners had their wives come down, and so they were like, ‘You won, didn’t you?!’ I had to give them a believable story to throw them off the scent because I wanted it to be a surprise for them. You don’t write a book and then give it to your buddy and, ‘Oh, yeah, by the way, the good guy dies in the end.’ I wanted them to experience the fullness of my story. I went out there and I worked so hard to survive for that long, I wasn’t going to give away the ending.”

Patagonia: “The conditions were a lot like home with the snow and rain and different things coming and going all the time. It was a very harsh climate, but beautiful, the most amazing place I’ve been besides Maine, which I think is just one degree better-looking.”

Filming himself: “You’re alone and you’ve got nothing else to do. The camera becomes your friend. It was my Wilson. I talked to it all the time. It gave me an outlet, because I love to talk, so it provided me with that companionship I needed to make it through the whole thing.”

The future: “There’s things that I’ve invented over the years that I want to build so bad, like a wizard staff that has lightning that comes out of it — maybe a flame-thrower in it and a Taser. You know, fun stuff. A new catapult. Anything that I can imagine, I’m going to build and share it with my YouTube channel.”

Zachary Fowler at home in Appleton, holding the “wizard staff” he carved in the woods in Patagonia while on History Channel’s hit show “Alone.” Thursday night’s finale showed Fowler lasting 87 days alone and winning the $500,000 prize.

Zachary Fowler with the “wizard staff” he carved in the woods in Patagonia while on History Channel’s hit show “Alone.” He carved six symbols into the staff every day to record details, such as his mental state and how many fish he caught. “(It) was my journal of my entire time there, so I know exactly what I did now for the rest of my life,” said Fowler, 37, of Appleton.

The “wizard staff” that Zachary Fowler carved in the woods in Patagonia while on History Channel’s hit show “Alone.” He carved six symbols into the staff every day to record details of his day.

The fish head top to the “wizard staff” Zachary Fowler carved in the woods in Patagonia while on History Channel’s hit show “Alone.”

Zachary Fowler with a wooden water bottle similar to the one he made on “Alone.”

Zachary Fowler splits wood at home in Appleton, a town just west of Camden. Fowler bought the property nine years ago and built an off-the-grid yurt four years ago. With the money he won on “Alone,” the family plans to build a modest house on the property.

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