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The Tim Ferriss Show

#853: Jordan Jonas, Champion of Alone — The Art of Survival, Lessons from Nomadic Tribes, Hardship as the Path to Peace, How to Handle Rogue Wolverines, and Why Not to Photograph Attacking Bears

The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig

Tools Of Titans, Lifestyle Design, Business, Tim Ferriss, Timothy Ferriss Show, Startups, Longform Interviews, Productivity, The 4-hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss, Tim Ferris, The Tim Ferriss Show, Entrepreneurship

4.6 • 17.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2026

⏱️ 146 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jordan Jonas (@hobojordo) grew up on a farm in Idaho, rode freight trains across the US, spent time in remote Russian villages, fur trapped and travelled for several years with nomads in Siberia, and won Alone Season 6, after being the first contestant to truly thrive in the wilderness and harvest big game. You can learn more about Jordan's axes at JordanJonas.com/Axe.

This episode is brought to you by:

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TIMESTAMPS:

  • [00:00:00] Who is Jordan Jonas?
  • [00:02:20] The Siberian axe gospel: Single bevel, wide eye, and why your Lowe's hatchet is basically a butter knife.
  • [00:07:16] A Montana downpour baptism.
  • [00:08:04] Feather sticks and ferro rods.
  • [00:12:36] A gnarly axe-ident, a quest for an abandoned boot, and frontier convalescense in a tipi.
  • [00:19:59] First Russian word learned, courtesy of a Moscow airport officer with zero chill.
  • [00:21:18] Jordan's youthful faith crisis and a Trans-Siberian prayer.
  • [00:29:16] From building an orphanage to living with the Evenki.
  • [00:31:29] Experiencing tug-of-war hospitality between ex-con Siberian families.
  • [00:39:34] Reindeer vs caribou.
  • [00:45:42] The Gulag Archipelago at 17.
  • [00:49:36] The homeschooling advantage: Finishing academics by noon, then deep-diving history for fun.
  • [00:53:50] Campfire psychology for gentlemen.
  • [00:56:00] Why llamas are more practical than reindeer on Jordan's expeditions in the northern United States.
  • [01:01:37] How Jordan's grandparents found purpose and built a joyful family after surviving Assyrian genocide.
  • [01:11:18] Dad's 12-year health collapse and facing death with radical joy.
  • [01:18:49] Freight train philosophy and evolutionary dopamine alignment.
  • [01:30:03] Grandma moose rodeo.
  • [01:33:07] Alone Season 6: The "Super Bowl of survival" just south of the Arctic Circle.
  • [01:40:38] How Jordan survived 77 days in the woods barely breaking a sweat.
  • [01:48:21] Harvesting a moose at day 20 via Russian fence-funneling tactics.
  • [01:56:21] Wolverine vs. man with axe, a tin can alarm, and a wife who likes rustic jewelry.
  • [02:03:05] The crappy fate of less-than-lucky rabbit feet.
  • [02:04:59] Fat as a survival bottleneck, and how to experience the wild with Jordan.
  • [02:09:31] Jordan hopes his upcoming book will help readers build reservoirs of resilience before they're needed.
  • [02:12:27] The most overlooked part of the Serenity Prayer: "Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace."
  • [02:14:48] The wilderness as political neutral ground and other parting thoughts.


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, people who are incredibly good, possibly the best in the world, at what they do. My guest today is Jordan Jonas. I spent a week in the woods with Jordan with a few of my closest friends doing survival training. And all of my friends

0:23.7

said, you have to have Jordan on the podcast. So here we are. Who is Jordan? Jordan grew up on a

0:29.7

farm in Idaho, rode freight trains across the U.S., hence his Instagram at Hobo Gordo, spent time in

0:36.7

remote Russian villages, fur trapped and traveled for years with nomads in Siberia,

0:40.9

and won alone season six, one of the few reality TV shows that I actually watch because you learn so much.

0:48.8

And he won that after being the first contestant to truly thrive in the wilderness, in this case in the Arctic,

0:54.8

for 77 days and harvest big game. It's a crazy story. We get into it. He now leads people

0:59.9

from all over the world, including yours truly and all walks of life on extraordinary outdoor

1:05.0

adventures, facilitating once-in-a-lifetime wilderness expeditions, hunts, family adventures,

1:09.1

and team-building events. He has

1:11.1

a wife and three children and focuses on living life to its fullest with them. And that's the

1:15.4

truth. I have spent time with them. And Jordan is a model for living the good life, not over

1:21.8

complicating, focusing on the things that truly matter, the critical few over the trivial many. And I've learned

1:29.7

a lot from Jordan, and I think you can too. We get perfect timing for the dogs to have a spas

1:39.3

attack. With that, please enjoy this conversation with Jordan Jonas and be sure to check him out at Jordan Jonas, J-R-D-A-N-J-O-N-A-S dot com, and on Instagram and YouTube, Hobo, that's H-O-B-O, J-O-R-O-J-O-R-D-O. Thanks for listening. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

2:01.5

Can I answer your personal question?

2:03.6

Now we'll have seen an appropriate time.

2:07.0

I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endosclerone.

2:11.2

The Tim Ferriss Show.

2:20.9

Jordan, great to see you, man.

2:21.7

Good to see you, Tim.

2:22.4

Good to see you. And we've upgraded our interaction to in-person.

...

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