Moose Jaw’s Kane Fritzler competing on next ‘Survivor’

By Jordan Rivers

Moose Jaw’s Kane Fritzler is hoping to be the third Canadian to win the CBS reality show “Survivor” when he joins 17 other castaways on the beaches of Fiji for Survivor 44.

Fritzler, who now resides in Saskatoon, says he’s excited he can begin to share his journey.

“This has been like such a crazy process, and you just get swept out of your life and taken away on this insane experience and then you get plopped back into your life. You’ve got to pluck away at your keyboard and go hang out with your friends and pretend nothing happened,” said Fritzler.

The 25-year-old law school graduate had the perfect cover story for heading halfway around the world to play “Survivor.”

“I, unlike most people, hit this really good gap because I had just graduated law school and so I had a little bit of time off before I was going to start (my new job),” noted Fritzler.

“So I called my boss and was like, ‘I want to take a couple months off (and) go see the world. I’m young,’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, sure, that’s absolutely fine,’ ” added Fritzler, noting he told friends and future co-workers that he was going to Vietnam.

“I had a couple of months of improving facts about Vietnam to people.”

In addition to the survival elements that contestants face on the show, they also compete in challenges that test their physical and mental abilities along with their endurance. Prior to heading to Fiji, Fritzler spent time preparing himself for every facet of the game.

“For me, the No. 1 step was homework. I mapped out all of the seasons that I knew I wanted to watch, and me and my girlfriend, Kat, we just crushed them. We were watching a binge-worthy dirty amount of ‘Survivor,’ ” noted Fritzler, who studied challenges and contestants from past seasons.

Fritzler, who spent a fair amount of time practising puzzles, also worked on his physical activity.

“The No. 1 physical activity I did was cardio,” he said. “You don’t do a lot of running on ‘Survivor,’ but if you make your way to the (end), there’s a lot of endurance challenges, right?

“When you get there, it’s pretty much just you versus you. Running was the way that I could just interact with that voice in my head. That was telling me to quit. I would just run as far as I could and just try and outlast the voice in my head.”

Strategy and self-awareness are big aspects of the game and Fritzler knew he wanted to play up his reputation.

“I know just like from my reputations in law school and my reputations in my life that people see this sort of goofy, more laid-back vibe of me first, and I think that that’s what I wanted to promote from the very start and that was always my strategy: Just go out there and be friendly, try and make friends first,” he said. “Then as I move forward, try and figure out how to make allies out of friends was my strategy,”

The love of “Survivor” is more than competing on a reality show for Fritzler. The show has been a fixture in his life for as long as he can remember.

“Every single week we would watch. My grandma would come over. My entire family would get together and we’d all watch ‘Survivor.’ As I got older, I re-fell in love with the strategy of the show and I really started watching with my brother,” said Fritzler, who added the show allowed him and his brother to stay connected when they moved away from home.

“So then it became sort of a way that I would bond with my brother while he was gone,” added Fritzler. “Now over the last few years as I really got into it, I’ve been indoctrinating other people slowly but surely and making sure that everyone understands the joy that is ‘Survivor.’

“I’ve had a very dynamic relationship with ‘Survivor’ that went from like a little kid in front of the TV who was just like wonderstruck by these people to like an academic of the game, if I can be so bold.”

Fritzler joins 17 other castaways as they divide into three tribes to compete for the million-dollar prize and the title of “Survivor.”

The 44th edition of the show premieres Wednesday, 7 p.m., on CBS and Global.