He hung around all the time with his hunting rifle and a 12 gauge loaded with slugs to make sure nobody got eaten.
He got in trouble for sharing smokes and giving fire to the contestants a few times.
The use of tribe, incidentally, is common when describing Saxon tribes, who formed a confederation collectively known as the Saxons. The term tribe is not somehow prejudicial, and it would be a poverty to lose yet another perfectly good word to social hypersensitivity.
Not that your point is invalid, from my limited knowledge of the subject you are correct in pointing out that the Cree, et al are supergroups of tribes and correctly described as nations in the historical sense, and in some limited capacity, in a modern sense.
My point is that you risk undermining your claim if you compare them to a modern, fully sovereign nation, because the context is not apt for comparison, and I think readers lose out if they dismiss your statement based on a poor example.
For example, I previously believed the contestants to be truly alone, in that each potential encounter with bears would be hugely risky. But now I know that was a minimal risk because a bodyguard was close enough to intervene, and was probably monitoring grizzly activity in the area.
The mental changes that happen to a contestant when they can even see someone nearby kind of invalidates the whole premise a little.
He said he and the camera crew talked to the contestants all the time, despite them being shown to be “alone”
I think he said he gave fire to people that already had it anyway and theirs just went out.