Okay, I'm going to clear up a few things here.
Firstly, Survivorman is NOT American. His name is Les Straud, and he lives in Ontario, Canada. He is sponsored mostly by the Mountain Equipment Co-op
He originally started a folk musician, but from what I've read, wasn't able to get a record contract. He had always had an interest in the outdoors and ended up taking any and every course that was available to him on bush survival.
He met his wife, and the two of them lived for almost a year out in a remote location somwhere in the Canadian backwoods, and they lived basically as primative man/woman. He filmed this entire expedition and it was screened for an audience in (I believe) a Canadian outdoor film festival. The Outdoor Live Channel (OLN) picked up on it, and with the MEC offered to sponsor him in a tv show. There are 9 episodes, the 10th is a behind the scenes.
I'm glad that someone finally mentioned "Survivorman" because for a while I've been contemplating whether or not to write a post about him, because I have a feeling he's sort of a Canadian version of Ray Mears.
Anyway, the show IS real. When I first started watching it, I was pretty sure that it was faked for effect. But I did some research on it, and needless to say, I was very impressed.
OLN basically picks a location and simulates basic survival disasters, such as a mountaineer who loses his way, a plane crash, etc etc.. For the plane episode, they had a company airdrop a wrecked Cessna 172 and made him put his arm in a sling to simulate a disaster.
They drop him in there with only the clothes on his back, no food or water and says "See you in a week." Oh, did I mention that he lugs around about fifty pounds of camera gear and batteries, too? There IS a tv crew that follows him around for the first few hours of the first day, and as well there is a base-camp looking out for him.
He carries a sat phone with him, but is not allowed any communication with the base-camp unless he breaks a leg or something. I read that he figured out that it only gets reception about 50% of the time, so if things took a turn for the worse, he'd be out of luck.
The funny thing with it is how real it is. I admit, I was skeptical at first, but a little internet surfing changed my opinion. He usually just has whatever clothes he's wearing at the time (appropiately done up with MEC Logo's) a Leatherman multi-tool, and maybe a couple pieces of chewing gum. And that's it.
So it means that if he wants to do a shot of himself walking around a lake, he has to go set up the camera, walk to the other side, take the shot, and then go have another look at the camera. If he screws up the shot, well, then he has to do it again.
I think the genius of "Survivorman" is how Les is able to improvise with whatever is available. And he makes mistakes, too. Some are silly mistakes, but others are useful things to remember. I think the mistakes are inevitable, there are some episodes where he doesn't eat a thing the entire 7 days except for maybe a grub or two. But in the end, it shows you that we CAN survive with little or no equipment as long as we improvise.
Yeah. So that's that.
Firstly, Survivorman is NOT American. His name is Les Straud, and he lives in Ontario, Canada. He is sponsored mostly by the Mountain Equipment Co-op
He originally started a folk musician, but from what I've read, wasn't able to get a record contract. He had always had an interest in the outdoors and ended up taking any and every course that was available to him on bush survival.
He met his wife, and the two of them lived for almost a year out in a remote location somwhere in the Canadian backwoods, and they lived basically as primative man/woman. He filmed this entire expedition and it was screened for an audience in (I believe) a Canadian outdoor film festival. The Outdoor Live Channel (OLN) picked up on it, and with the MEC offered to sponsor him in a tv show. There are 9 episodes, the 10th is a behind the scenes.
I'm glad that someone finally mentioned "Survivorman" because for a while I've been contemplating whether or not to write a post about him, because I have a feeling he's sort of a Canadian version of Ray Mears.
Anyway, the show IS real. When I first started watching it, I was pretty sure that it was faked for effect. But I did some research on it, and needless to say, I was very impressed.
OLN basically picks a location and simulates basic survival disasters, such as a mountaineer who loses his way, a plane crash, etc etc.. For the plane episode, they had a company airdrop a wrecked Cessna 172 and made him put his arm in a sling to simulate a disaster.
They drop him in there with only the clothes on his back, no food or water and says "See you in a week." Oh, did I mention that he lugs around about fifty pounds of camera gear and batteries, too? There IS a tv crew that follows him around for the first few hours of the first day, and as well there is a base-camp looking out for him.
He carries a sat phone with him, but is not allowed any communication with the base-camp unless he breaks a leg or something. I read that he figured out that it only gets reception about 50% of the time, so if things took a turn for the worse, he'd be out of luck.
The funny thing with it is how real it is. I admit, I was skeptical at first, but a little internet surfing changed my opinion. He usually just has whatever clothes he's wearing at the time (appropiately done up with MEC Logo's) a Leatherman multi-tool, and maybe a couple pieces of chewing gum. And that's it.
So it means that if he wants to do a shot of himself walking around a lake, he has to go set up the camera, walk to the other side, take the shot, and then go have another look at the camera. If he screws up the shot, well, then he has to do it again.
I think the genius of "Survivorman" is how Les is able to improvise with whatever is available. And he makes mistakes, too. Some are silly mistakes, but others are useful things to remember. I think the mistakes are inevitable, there are some episodes where he doesn't eat a thing the entire 7 days except for maybe a grub or two. But in the end, it shows you that we CAN survive with little or no equipment as long as we improvise.
Yeah. So that's that.
