WA survivalist Jasper Harvey heads to Finland for season four of SBS’s hit show Alone Australia

When Jasper Harvey, a 24 year-old permaculture practitioner and educator from WA’s South West, decided to apply for the latest season of the hit reality series Alone Australia, he had no idea just how far from home he’d end up.

This year, SBS transplanted 10 brave survivalists — Harvey amongst them — to the wild and spectacularly beautiful area of Sapmi in Finland.

It’s a spectacular place. A place where bears, wolves and reindeer roam freely; where the northern lights shine across frozen subzero wilderness.

It’s also a heck of a long way from Margaret River. And for Harvey, who had never seen snow or ice before — let alone had to live in it for weeks at a time — the Arctic Circle was quite the adjustment.

He hit the ground running.

“(Before we left) we got a broad description of the kind of ecosystem we would be going into; roughly the ‘biome’, so the trees and the flora and fauna,” he explains.

“We got a pretty rough description of the temperatures and weather you might experience, and from there it was about doing as much research as you possibly can.”

For Harvey, who lives in a self-sufficient, off-grid community outside of Margaret River, it meant spending hours a day reading up about what to expect, though he still, at that point, didn’t know he’d end up in Finland.

“It was all about immersing myself into the research as much as I possibly could,” he says.

“I basically was completely off work, and constantly researching every plant that I might find out there; trying to find as many uses for it as I could, and trying to drill myself to try and remember and practise all of the skills I was going to need out there so I could really go for it.”

Harvey is one of three West Australian contestants who will battle it out this season, documenting their journeys into the brutal Arctic winter.

And it’s not going to be easy for them.

As the official show notes explain, “Each survivalist is a lone filmmaker … every frozen tear, every frost-nipped digit, and every hallucination born of the darkness is captured.

“This is an immersive, intimate look at the human spirit stripped to its most primal state.”

The three previous seasons have seen contestants sent to Tasmania and New Zealand’s South Island. Taking the show to Finland is a whole new ball game.

At just 24, Harvey is the youngest competitor. As he explains, age was both an advantage and disadvantage.

“I have learnt a lot and have really prioritised learning in my adult life,” he says.

“I have really sought out mentors and educated myself as much as possible, and I think my knowledge base is pretty solid for this type of challenge.

“But also, if you are putting me out there at 40 or 50, I would obviously know a lot more than I do now.

“I’d have more experience and knowledge, and knowledge of myself as well.”

He’d also have a lot more meat on his bones.

“I would say my metabolism was a definite disadvantage for sure,” he continues.

“Even putting on weight for preparation (before the show started) was a challenge.

“I wasn’t going to hold that weight for very long, because my body just doesn’t do that.”

Harvey, who is a specialist in plant identification and foraging, knew he’d have to think on his feet when he arrived.

But despite the daunting task ahead of him, he says he felt no fear on that first, freezing night on his own.

“I wasn’t at all scared of the environment,” he says.

“I think if I was tense out there, it was more about the planning side of things, and making sure I wasn’t making silly mistakes, and jeopardising my chance to win.”

Those lone wolves and bears?

“I wasn’t at all scared by the environment, or the animals there,” he insists.

“I have done a bit of spear fishing with sharks, and wild seals, and the idea of seeing a bear is nothing but exciting.

“It’s all about your body language, and being intelligent around how you react to it is really important — I really tried to be able to keep myself safe.”

Harvey says his time on the show was formative — and he’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

“The experience, as a whole, was amazing,” he says.

“It was one of the best things I have ever done in my life.

“I am so grateful for all the hardships and the challenges, because I learnt so much about myself, and about the land.

He hopes one day to return to the frozen wilderness he briefly called home.

“I still really want to see a polar bear at some point,” he says.

“And I would love to go and camp and survive out there again; to go back to my same spot if I could.”

Alone Australia starts July 15 on SBS on Demand.