“Alone” Runner-Up Timber Cleghorn Publishes Life Story

If you were one of millions of viewers who tuned in to Season 11 of The History Channel's hit survival show Alone last year, you may have noticed a familiar face, as Washington County's own Timber Cleghorn not only competed, but achieved second place after spending nearly three months fending for himself in the freezing, unforgiving wilderness of the Arctic Circle.

Now, over a year since coming home, he has published an in-depth account of his time on the show and his life story, aptly titled Memoir of a Wildman.

Timber Cleghorn showing off his new book Memoir of a Wildman

Before Alone

Growing up in a small log cabin in Rush Creek Valley with no running water or electricity, television was the last thing on Cleghorn's mind. While most of the children of Washington County spent the 1990s at school, playing sports, or going to the theater in town, Cleghorn was homeschooled and spent his free time almost exclusively in nature, teaching himself to hunt, trap, fish, build, and live off the land.

His unorthodox way of living followed him into adulthood, where, instead of settling down and working a 9-to-5 job, he chose to take his skills and use them to help others around the globe, becoming a humanitarian aid worker in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In addition to his survivalist skills, he is also a gifted linguist, speaks Chinese, Russian, and Pamir, and has worked with underdeveloped cultures to create a written language and translate books for them.

It was no surprise to his friends and family in the summer of 2023 when he decided that his next adventure would take him above the Arctic Circle, competing for the grand prize of $500,000 in the world's most intense survival reality competition: The History Channel's Alone.

Timber cooking dinner in his A-frame cabin on Alone, lovingly dubbed "Fort Moosehead"

A Test of Endurance in the Arctic

This season of Alone took place in Canada's McKenzie Delta, where winter temperatures can reach deadly extremes, the lowest recorded temperature being -70°F. Each of the ten contestants (chosen from a submission pool of over 30,000) were allowed to bring only 10 pre-approved items for survival, and had to rely solely on their hunting, fishing, and foraging skills to secure sustenance.

Isolated in their own designated territories, contestants had no contact with each other or the outside world, their only human contact being a short medical checkup every three weeks. In addition to a few GoPro cameras, a tripod, and batteries for self-filming, the History Channel provided an international GPS phone for emergencies and an emergency medical kit.

In addition to a sleeping bag and the clothes he was wearing, Cleghorn’s 10 items included a saw, axe, tarp, ferro rod, a modified Leatherman tool, a large two-quart pot, 300 yards of single-filament fishing line with 29 hooks, a bow with nine arrows, snare wire, and a spool of paracord. Each item had to meet the show’s strict approval process.

During his time on Alone, he built an A-frame shelter out of logs and moss, caught over 50 fish (some over four feet long), which he survived on along with rabbit, squirrel, and a large bull moose he took down using a single arrow. He later dressed the moose with his customized Leatherman tool, built from three knives he had combined himself. As of Season 11, the moose is the largest game to be killed on the show.

After 83 days in the Arctic wilderness, despite still having over a month's worth of fish and moose meat stockpiled, Cleghorn made the difficult choice to “tap out” of the competition, leaving William Larkham Jr., 49, of Labrador, Canada, as the winner of the $500,000 grand prize. Coming home, Timber explained his reasoning as, “Had I won, I was afraid that people would only see me as the guy with a half a million dollars, not as just plain old Timber.”

When he decided to tap out, it took 45 minutes for the crew to reach his location. He was then taken to the production’s base camp near Inuvik, where he spent 10 days undergoing medical evaluations and readjusting to normal life. In an unprecedented move by the producers, the History Channel even flew Cara, his wife of 14 years, to the camp to reunite with him. Describing their emotional reunion, Cleghorn said, “After 83 days of mind-numbing isolation, my heart almost popped like a balloon. It was all amazing… they filmed it, and everyone cried.”

Timber with his wife Cara and their two sons, Levi and Elliot

Despite not claiming the financial prize, Cleghorn considers his time on the show one of the most meaningful experiences of his life, discovering a deeper sense of inner peace and coming away with lessons that will stay with him forever. “I’m happy that I wasn’t beaten by the Arctic,” Cleghorn said. “I bowed and I left. And I’m just Timber. And life can go on, and I’ll live and I’ll just be a man, no better or worse or richer or poorer than anyone else.”

After Alone

Since returning home, Cleghorn has stayed busy, balancing the birth of his new daughter, Brooke McKenzie (named after the river delta from Alone), doing aid work in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene, preparing for upcoming overseas projects, and writing his book, Memoir of a Wildman, which released on Amazon in October of 2024. Anyone interested in getting their own copy can do so here.