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One of my favorite TV shows is coming back for a second season in August, after a long hiatus. Survivorman is a one-man survival show, hosted by Canadian survival expert/musician/TV producer Les Stroud. Each episode finds Les completely alone in the wilderness for seven days, carrying his own cameras and recording himself on a seven-day survival trek. Let me emphasize that: this guy is alone, schlepping fifty pounds of camera gear himself, while devising his own food, water, and shelter (he typically brings the most absurdly minimal survival gear with him, like a single match, a candy bar, maybe a rusty tin can). He’s hardcore. And he’s quite a nice guy, which makes you root for him as he survives the elements.
Tons more after the jump.
The first season of Survivorman found Les in locales such as a Georgia swamp; simulating a plane crash in the northern Ontario forest (there’s a nice scene where he starts a fire by shorting the plane’s battery and igniting a tiny bit of gasoline left in the tank); and my personal favorite: lost at sea off the coast of Belize. For that last one there was a support boat tailing his life raft, with a radio in case of emergencies. The raft was leaking, so much of his time was spent bailing seawater. I’m telling you: hardcore.
Much of the joy of Survivorman comes from how it operates on multiple levels. On the surface level, it’s a show about survival, which is fairly interesting. But on the level below, it’s a show about making a show about survival — watching how this guy is all alone out there, making compelling TV. When you see some of the stuff Les is doing, you have to ask: how in the world did he get that shot? The Season 1 DVD has a behind-the-scenes episode that explains the lengths he goes to in order to record himself doing things like trekking across arctic ice floes (the short answer: he sets up a camera, treks for a few miles, then comes back and gets the camera). Finally, there’s a slight Grizzly Man element to the whole thing — what if he dies out there in the field? Would there be a final episode cobbled together from the tapes he left behind? I sure hope it doesn’t come to that, but still, I have to wonder.
While shooting the second season, Les has been blogging from the wilderness (I guess this means he’s carrying a computer too?). Here’s an example from his entry in the Kalahari Desert:
My challenge is to spend my time in this extremely hot ecosystem and make my way across the desert to the crew camp. My personal survival items consist of only my watch, a multi tool and 20 litres (about 4 gallons) of water. With the truck I found: two empty pop cans, a nearly finished jar of peanut butter, a can of jam, two buckets, some cups, a can of coffee and an empty glass sugar dispenser from a restaurant. The locals sent me in with an ostrich egg as a gift and I’ve snuck in a small piece of chocolate I had in my pocket. Heh heh. I’ve brought all the stuff here under the tree with me.
It’s mandatory that a person has at least one gallon per day if they expect to survive dehydration in this kind of heat. I have 20L – roughly 4 gallons – enough for four days. I’m supposed to stay here for seven.
Survivorman returns to the Discovery Channel on August 10, and OLN (Outdoor Life Network) on October 2. You can read more about the Season 2 premiere, but the best preparation is to watch old episodes from Season 1 (Les wants you to buy the DVD but episodes are often on Discovery in syndication). A word of warning: there are cut-down 30-minute episodes on some networks in syndication. The original episodes are an hour long, and you lose a lot in the edit.
Comments (16)
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I’m with you, Les is amazing. While Man Vs. Wild is enjoyable, knowing that Les is out there completely solo makes his show. Glad to know he’s coming back.
posted by Craig on 7-18-2007 at 11:14 am
I’m so glad it’s coming back. I’m not a huge fan of Man vs. Wild. Survivorman is so much more interesting. And I’m constantly amazed to the lengths he goes to get the right camera shots. I like that he sometimes shows himself putting down the camera, hiking/climbing/swiming, then coming back for the camera. It is incredible.
posted by Jenny on 7-18-2007 at 11:26 am
Being a camera person myself, I am the first to point out that whenever you see someone doing something completely outragous, there is usually a person holding a camera that you don’t see, equally putting themselves in danger. So when I first saw Survivorman I was really impressed. In one episode he actually destroyed some of the camera equipment to start a fire.
posted by Beth on 7-18-2007 at 12:36 pm
Survivor man is way cooler than Man vs. Wild as the guy in man vs. wild is often pretending to be in more peril than he is. For example, he’s standing on the edge of a rock cliff about to jump into the water below, and he says “I don’t know how deep it is, so this is pretty dangerous”, then they cut to a shot from below the cliff looking up at him. Why doesn’t he ask the cameraman how deep the water is?
posted by Scott on 7-18-2007 at 12:49 pm
I would like to offer up “Rough Science” as a very cool “survival” show. Well, maybe not survival exactly, but still pretty darn cool.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/roughscience/
My favorite one was when they had to make ice for an icy cold drink with only the materials on hand. And no, a freezer wasn’t one of the items on hand. =)
posted by Ed Hands on 7-18-2007 at 1:21 pm
I was a fan of Survivorman until I noticed he was wearing a lifejacket under his clothes while swimming downstream in some rapids in one episode. I understand that it’s dangerous, and the show’s producers might have forced him to wear it, but he pretended like he was using a trashbag he found in the woods or something as his sole flotation device.
posted by JR on 7-18-2007 at 2:29 pm
Thank you JR, survivorman is a hack. Bear Grylls FTW
posted by Patrick on 7-18-2007 at 5:25 pm
I’m fairly sure JR was referring to Man vs. Wild in terms of the life jacket fiasco. Man vs. Wild is more entertaining albeit pretty damn fake.
posted by squeak on 7-19-2007 at 3:35 am
Survivorman is boring TV to me, for the same reasons that a lot of you seem to like it. The guy sacrifices entertainment for realism, and it always seems like he’s complaining about lugging the camera equipment.
I prefer Man Vs Wild. Bear comes across as a bad ass, kicking the butt of whatever wilderness he’s in. Les is like my whiny uncle, unable to light a fire, kill anything to eat, with a blister…
posted by hal on 7-19-2007 at 12:28 pm
Survivorman is admirable, but at the same time a whiny heel. Bear Grylles is the real deal and covers tons of ground in no time. survivorman expends no energy and sits on his arse in the woods playing that stupid harmonica. not remotley helpful or educational. no thanks my friend my time in front of the television goes to mr. Bear Grylles!
posted by KStack on 7-19-2007 at 3:01 pm
“I’m fairly sure JR was referring to Man vs. Wild in terms of the life jacket fiasco.”
Nope. Survivorman.
posted by JR on 7-19-2007 at 8:18 pm
Yikes. I take that back. It was Man vs. Wild, not Survivorman, who used a lifejacket. That’s embarassing.
This is from some forum, and is supposedly from a live chat in November 2006:
stealther: What do you have to say to people who claim you used a flotation vest instead of your backpack when you rode down the river in your previous show?
Bear: That was the first show I did, and health and safety insisted if I wanted to get in that river with those rapids, I had to wear a thin flotation device for one particular shot. After that show, I told the producers if I’m going to do it, I need to do it on my terms, i.e. no vest. And the rest of the series, they’ve allowed me to do it all my way.
posted by JR on 7-19-2007 at 8:25 pm
While Bear might talk tough and do all those tough things, he is not lugging around his own camera equipment and living in total isolation like Les does. So the crown goes to Les and it is good to have him back. Missed him and his cool deamoner and not overly confident behavior which is what it takes to really survive in the wilderness.
posted by neb on 7-22-2007 at 7:26 pm
i like man vs. wild all the way. bear is interesting, informative, and more importantly exciting to watch (we are talking tv shows here). as far as the whole who carries around and positions their camera or not debate, i say who cares. i didn’t realize taping yourself was important for survival.
posted by rafael taylor on 7-23-2007 at 12:40 am
Bear is a hack. Didn’t anyone see the episode where he made a “Native American throwing stick” to hunt rabbits. He picked up a stick, rubbed some bark off on a big rock and then “practiced hunting” by throwing it around. He then *supposedly* killed a rabbit with it. Lame. It was a stick, plain and simple. He acted like he just smelted some ore and forged a rifle or something. How dumb do they think we are? Oh, yeah, we made Paris Hilton a celebrity… nevermind
posted by noobs on 8-26-2007 at 10:20 pm
Anyone know where you would ever find a jacket like the one les wears in the arctic episode??
posted by PbNewf on 8-12-2009 at 9:09 pm