Six days, no fish.

That meant Dan Wowak had gone without food for six days. The Mahanoy City man was one of 10 people chosen from a nationwide search to appear on “Alone,” a History Channel reality docuseries, now in season three, which airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. Wowak and his backpack had been dropped off in the wilderness of Patagonia in South America, where he’d had no trouble supplying himself with basic necessities, such as fire, shelter and water.Food, though, was a problem, especially given Wowak’s 6-foot-6-inch frame, which required 2,000 calories daily to maintain.“There were three things that I thought about the most,” he said. “I thought about food, and how to get it; and I thought about the things I needed to do for survival.”“Most of all, I thought about my family and friends back home,” he added. “I missed them all very much.”He roused himself from his fire, and started down the trail to the water, and his fishing lines.Trail to TVWowak’s trail to his appearance on “Alone” had its own symbolic roots, rocky places and turns. His grandfather, the late Michael Sypek, kindled his love for the outdoors by taking him hunting and fishing. Growing up in Mahanoy City, he and friends spent most of their time in the woods, behind the Little League field and Eighth Street basketball court, building forts and exploring.After graduating from Mahanoy Area High School, Wowak got a degree in criminology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and got his master’s degree in business administration from Alvernia. He got a job at Northwestern Academy in Shamokin, a facility for girls and boys 12-21 years old, termed delinquent or dependent. While working there he met his future wife, Brooke, who then worked as a counselor there. She presently is presently the principal at Shenandoah Valley Elementary School. The two have a 2½-year-old son, Jax.In the meantime, Dan worked on his outdoor skills, using vacation time to attend The Pathfinder School, Ohio, run by Dave Canterbury. He started taking outdoor survival courses there, and Canterbury soon asked him to be an instructor.“Northwest Academy closed and two weeks later, I got the call from ‘Alone,’ ” Wowak said. “I had applied through the Internet, probably nine or 10 months before I got that first call.”After that first call, officials from the show contacted him by phone, Internet and Skype interviews for about three months. Finally, 20 people from all over the country were invited for face-to-face meetings in New York. Of those, 10 were chosen for the show (for profiles of participants, go to

www.history.com/shows/alone).Participants could take standard outdoor gear such as clothing, like wool socks and rain gear. They were also given safety items such as a satellite phone and first aid kit. Before each was dropped off, by helicopter, camera gear for each was cached at the drop-off point. In addition, each could choose 10 items from a list of 20 items.Wowak chose a full-size felling ax, a high-carbon steel knife, a 30-inch bow saw, a minus-20-degree synthetic sleeping bag, a hammock, paracord, a two-quart brush pot with handle, a ferro (ferrocerium rod), fishing line and hooks (25 hooks, 20-pound test line and 8-pound test line) and food rations (5 pounds).The person who lasted the longest time alone in the wilderness would win $500,000. Participants are dropped many miles from each other, and have no way to know who has gone home and who remains. Three people went home before Wowak became the fourth to go home. He had lasted 50 days on his own in the wilderness, losing more than 50 pounds in the process.As he strove to win the $500,000 prize, Wowak realized that he was already rich, rich beyond imagination in the things that mattered most to him, family, friends. He longed to return home, and begin the next section of his life’s trail.“I always believed that when one door closes, another opens, and I have been fortunate enough that all those opened doors, over the years, were good places to enter into,” Wowak said.“The experience in Patagonia made me an even better survivalist and bush crafter, and I’m so excited to be able to share this experience and everything I learned during it with the bush craft and survival community, and family and friends.”Soon after a welcome-home breakfast of sausage and gravy over biscuits with his parents, Dan and Susan Wowak, Mahanoy City, he began concentrating on the next step of his trail, launching Coalcracker Bushcraft and the Appalachian Bushman School (www.coalcrackerbushcraft.com) on a large farm near Ringtown. The website is under construction.“I want to keep the groups small, maybe eight to 10 people,” Wowak said. “I would also like to run special classes and schools for youth.”As he talked about his goals for Coalcracker Bushcraft and the school, Wowak walked the trails on the property, stopping at various sites, where various types of shelters were set up: oilcloth tarp, yurt, wall tent and a lean-to debris shelter.At those spots, Wowak demonstrated how to start a fire from scratch, using three different methods — flint and steel striker, ferrocerium rod and high-carbon steel knife, and wooden bow and rod friction.“I had felt a void in my life heading into the show and the distinction between satisfaction and discontent was relevant,” Wowak wrote on the website for “Alone.”“While alone I reached my final point of self-actualization when I realized I am in total control of the circumstances at hand — my life as I knew it was complete in all aspects, career, family, love and passion.”