This is the final segment of a three-part series by guest columnist Bill Gawor on the adventures of TV's Survivorman, Les Stroud, and his adventure in Nunavut.

Bill Gawor
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Apr 27/05) - It was easy to see by its sugary condition that the snow was not the kind needed, and Les was definitely not the right location.

Also, in spite of the season, there is always the danger of being buried and suffocated by a freak blizzard, since snow tends to pile up on the lee side of hills.

The floor of a land shelter is always colder than one built on ice.

This is a fact, since permafrost extends hundreds of feet down into the ground, while sea or lake ice maxes out at six-to-seven feet.

Later, Les took another page out of Freuchen's memories.

This time he cut a trench in the snow, lined the bottom with a caribou skin and pulled the qamutik over himself for a roof. Unlike Freuchen, however, Les survived without any mishaps.

The danger here is, again, getting trapped by drifting snow.

After a couple of days, when it came time for him to vacate his snug bed, Les found the exit blocked by an enormous snowdrift.

He was shut in tight by a frozen bag he had stuffed in the hole to keep the wind out.

Unable to kick his way out, he turned on his stomach and tried lifting with his back up against the crosspieces of the qamutik.

Because of the small space, he was unable to get to his knees and really lift.

All he was doing was going through a series of pushups which tired him out.

Try doing pushups with 200 pounds on your back. He was virtually buried alive and could do nothing about it.

There was no way for Les to tell day from night because it was pitch black in his trap.

He slept off and on, getting colder until he lost all feeling in his feet.

On top of all his problems, he had to make the choice of crapping in his pants or somehow finding a way to lower them. This is when he got the idea of making a key for his escape.

Gross as it may sound, he used his hands to shape a chisel-like tool from his own excrement.

Realizing he only had one chance, he forced himself to wait patiently while the tool froze rock hard.

With this device, he was able to chip through the ice layer that had formed from his own breath.

Finally, he had a hole large enough to poke his head and one arm out into the fresh air, but his chest was too large to get through.

Furthermore, he was played out, famished, and had no strength left.

While taking a deep breath, he noticed his chest expanded and had jerked the frozen sled runners free.

Breath by breath, inch by inch, the loaded sled moved until he finally got out. With his face bleeding, and his beard half ripped off from being frozen to the steel sled shoes, he stumbled to his feet.

But he was unable to walk because his limbs were frozen, so he kept toppling over.

He finally managed to crawl more than three miles on his hands and knees to reach his camp. Gangrene eventually set in, and he would have to poke a hole in the wall of his iglu and stick his foot outside to keep it frozen.

Otherwise, the stink was unbearable.

As for the most difficult method of making a fire in the Arctic, I'd very much like The Survivorman to show us how it's done.

Imagine lighting a cigarette using a magnifying lens made from a piece of ice!

You have to see this guy to believe it and even then.