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Bear Safe Hammocking In Grizzly Territory Day 21 of 30 Day Survival Challenge Canadian Rockies

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Twenty-one days into a bushcraft gauntlet through grizzly country, Zachary Fowler finally got his tree fort off the ground — literally.

Fowler, who won Season 3 of History’s “Alone,” is deep into his own 30-day, 30-episode survival series in the British Columbia backcountry, filmed for his channel “Fowler’s Makery and Mischief.” He’s running the challenge alongside fellow “Alone” Season 3 competitor Greg Ovens, under one non-negotiable rule: if you want to eat, you catch it and cook it yourself. On Day 21, the priority shifted from food to something more immediate — getting his hammock, and himself, off the forest floor in territory grizzlies actively use.

• Zachary Fowler, winner of History’s “Alone” Season 3, is running a 30-day, 30-episode survival challenge in the Canadian Rockies with fellow Season 3 alumnus Greg Ovens.
• The expedition’s core rule is “if you want to eat, you got to Catch and Cook it” — no outside food, no shortcuts.
• On Day 21, Fowler completed an elevated tree fort platform built specifically to suspend his hammock high off the ground as a bear-safety measure, and kept pepper spray within reach through the night.

Building The Platform

Fowler had been working toward the elevated shelter for multiple days, and Day 21 is when the build finally came together enough to sleep in. Rather than stringing his hammock low between two trunks — the standard bushcraft setup covered in builds like Amazing Bushcraft Tent made from Plastic Wrap! — he framed out an actual platform in the canopy, engineered to hold his hammock several feet above the ground rather than a few feet.

The logic is straightforward bushcraft doctrine for grizzly country: distance and elevation are two of the few variables a solo camper can actually control. A hammock strung low between trunks still leaves a sleeper roughly at nose-height for a standing grizzly. Fowler’s platform build pushes the sleeping position higher and further from ground-level scent trails, which is the whole point of spending a day’s labor on carpentry instead of foraging.

Sleeping In Grizzly Territory

The episode frames the night as a genuine test, not a stunt. Fowler had already logged three weeks living off caught and foraged food in the BC Rockies by Day 21, and grizzly sign in the area had been enough of a concern that he and Ovens built the safety measure into the schedule rather than treating it as optional.

If you want to eat, you got to Catch and Cook it.

That same rule that governs the diet governs the shelter, too — nothing about the trip is store-bought or shortcutted, including the safety precautions. Keeping bear pepper spray within arm’s reach overnight is presented in the episode as standard operating procedure once the platform is finished, not an afterthought tacked on for the camera.

Bear-Safety Fundamentals At Play

The precautions Fowler follows on Day 21 track with established grizzly-country practice: reading the site for scat, claw marks, and fresh tracks before committing to it, keeping any sleeping area well clear of food storage and cooking sites, and hanging gear and food high and away from the trunk rather than at ground level. Elevating the hammock itself is an extension of the same principle — put as much vertical and horizontal distance as possible between the sleeper and anything that smells like a meal.

Pepper spray is the last line of defense in that hierarchy, not the first. Fowler treats it as something to have staged and accessible through the night, which matters more than owning the can in the first place — a bear encounter in the dark leaves no time to dig through a pack.

Part Of A Longer Grind

Day 21 is a checkpoint, not the finish line. Fowler and Ovens are nine days from closing out the full 30-day challenge, and the tree fort platform is built to be reused, not a one-night rig — it’s shelter infrastructure for whatever stretch of the Rockies comes next before the series wraps.

Fowler’s channel has documented similar solo overnight builds before, including a solo overnight sandbag shelter project, and the tree fort fits that same pattern of testing a shelter concept once, then living in it. With Day 22 already on deck for the channel, the real question heading into the back half of the challenge isn’t whether the platform holds up for one night — it’s whether it becomes home base for the rest of the trip.