“Alone” on History is back for season nine this Thursday and boasts two survivalists, Benji Hill and Karie Lee Knoke, both from Idaho. Historically, the women cast in “Alone” have not won the competition, but they do well overall and come very close to taking the top prize. And that fact makes season nine’s Karie Lee Knoke — our Sandpoint, Idaho wilderness instructor, a woman with big ambition — a wild card to watch.

Fans of “Alone” have a track record of rooting for the unlikely contestant. This unassuming person comes into the competition with equal amounts of humility, pragmatism, and exciting approaches to survival. And Knoke, at age 56 and older than most contestants in the competition, will show how experience and basic skills, and comfort levels with nature, despite any modern convenience, may establish her out of the gate on the show as the one to watch and root for, as we see her make cheerfully make her way in Labrador, Canada.

And just what makes people from Idaho out to be such strong contestants for this show? Knoke had her opinions. She said: “Idaho is a beautiful and wild place. The folks that have lived here are used to hard and unpredictable weather patterns and a rugged way of life. What other folks see as being ‘out there or ‘off-grid’ or ‘roughing it, is Idaho’s ‘normal.’ We are used to it, and it’s a part of our daily life. Nowadays, people want to ‘get off-grid, meaning they are leaving their comforts behind and get back to basics, whereas, in most rural places in Idaho, the grid never existed in the first place.”

The terrain’s familiarity with Knoke’s backyard of rural Idaho gave her an instant edge in her mind. She said: “Labrador reminded me a lot of Northern Idaho. It’s wetter and colder, but the weather was all over the place, just like in Idaho. So I could predict what was coming and knew that it could and would change at any moment. This familiar feeling informed me of the many decisions I needed to make in a survival situation.”

As much as she prepared, Knoke ceded that her physical size was a challenge for the bowhunting part of the competition, where longer arms and the upper body strength to pull were required. Every bow has a draw weight, and every person has an ideal draw weight. Some archers can pull over 70 pounds. Knoke shared that she needed some training to increase her pull weight.

She said: “My biggest challenge regarding skills going into this was the hunting with a traditional bow. So, in practicing every year, I would buy a license and go out with my bow to learn more but not shoot a big game. Because I’m a shorter woman and my arm’s pretty short, pulling 40 pounds on a bow is challenging for me. Even after years of just tracking around the woods and practicing, I finally got a rifle when I started hunting. But going into this challenge, I needed to increase my strength to pull a full 44 pounds, required in Canada.” Knoke laughed that her reliance on a rifle for years made learning the bow skills and developing this tensile strength formidable. “That was my big challenge going in, yet when I got out there and shot two grouses in my first five days, plus some squirrels and other game that I can’t mention right now, that was reinforcing some training and advice I got in Sandpoint from two amazing hunters. They trained me to help strengthen those particular muscles. I would need to pull that heavy of a bow. By the time I could do it, it was amazing to see that I did pretty okay with the archery.”

Women seem to weather the solitude a bit better than the male contestants of “Alone,” and Knoke shared that her mental attitude was a huge part of her strategy in charging ahead in Labrador. She said no woman should be afraid to attempt a challenge like this and said: “If you have an inspiration or a passion for doing something like this, I would say, go for it. And also, to keep in mind when you’re watching this show, it’s edited in a way that makes it intense, and while it can be intense when you’re out there, you are there with just your environment. There’s no scary tension-filled music playing in the background like when you’re watching this show. So you must remember that when you’re out there, it’s just you, the trees, and your environment, with no scary music playing in the background.”

“Alone” airs on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the History Channel.