Right. Time for some ranting.
You need to bear in mind, he wasn't on established game trails, but in deep Yukon. IT could have taken him days to cover just a few miles. I've seen some deep American forest.
When you consider his... rather fragile mental state.... it's easy to understand why he didn't do better.
Frankly, his safety camp was more than likely at the lodge. He wasn't thrown in blind, he had a detailed map and a planned route. His safety camp didn't need a map to find him (He had a sort of non maritime epirb that i've been after for a while,
http://international.findmespot.com/), so the map was presumably in place to keep him away from the camp.
The fact of the matter is, he was utterly alone for the 50 days he was there. OK, he didn't handle the solitude as well as some would, but i think it's churlish to criticize him for this expedition.
The point of the program was to see if a lone man with almost no training could survive in the Yukon for the six months.
Patently, this was not possible.
OK, he was across a lake from a camping lodge. Would YOU want to swim a lake that close to starvation? Even in summer? You wouldn't survive. If not the swim, then the hypothermia after.
In any case, did you expect that the production crew would be camping in the woods... with a helicopter / plane? They needed either a significant clearing or a landing site where they'd be able to maintain the aircraft in a ready state, in range, in case Ed triggered his beacon.
Even Les Stroud, for whom I have deepest respect, has both emergency equipment and a safety camp nearby. He's got 20+ years of TEACHING experience in this field, and he STILL finishes some of his expeditions looking like hell.
Rant over.
Kudos to you, Ed Wardle. You're mad as a goose on stilts, but have more stones than a nudist colony sunning beach.
PS: He wasn't allowed to bring down big game.