The smart choice would have been wait till night and in most places in that region you will see distant lights either from a house or vehicle. I would have stayed high where the chances of hitting a logging or mining road or seeing a distant home or road were likely rather than chance a homemade canoe ride on an unknown river.
In most Appalachian/Cumberland Mt chain locations if you keep your head you can walk out with 24-48 hours except for possibly Appalachian mountain back country where in that case if you are lost it is very wise and safer to simply stay put and use resources to signal for help. That is the best proven chance for rescue even if it takes a couple of weeks. This is due to very dense foliage and terrain issues.
Except for the Cumberland Plateau region the mountains and ridges generally run northeast by southwest. The mountains & ridges have been logged over several times over and that means old roads or abandoned roadbeds that go somewhere.
The always barefoot nonsense was also highly annoying. Dangerous, stupid, and a very unnecessary risk taken in any venue.
I forgot about that. I kept thinking he was going to cut himself on some coral and get infected, and wondered why he didn't try to craft some footwear from leaves or coconut husks, or something. It then dawned on me that this was just another phony affectation.