What happen to Ed Wardle in the Yukon did he get sick or what?

Answer 1

He couldn't find enough food and was down to eating a single meal once every two days. The expected salmon run which he'd hoped to survive on, was late arriving due to unseasonally hot weather. He lost a huge amount of weight and his pulse rate dropped to less than 30 beats per minute. Combined with the starvation, he found the solitude and loneliness difficult to cope with and had begun to hallucinate. He finally decided to issue a rescue call after 50 days, 5 weeks short of his intended target.