Surviorman’s Best Story Ever
Bryan June 23rd, 2008
I thought WildrLog readers would enjoy this clip of Les Stroud (Surviorman) describing his best story ever: being chased by a male moose during the rut. Enjoy!
Archive for the 'Survival' Category
New episodes of Man Vs. Wild
Bryan May 20th, 2008
While the rest of America fawns over American Idol, the Discovery Channel is airing new episodes of Man Vs. Wild, with (in)famous host Bear Grylls. Bear got in a little flap a while back for airing episodes cut to make it look like he spent days in the wilderness, when actually he was staying in town at night. The funniest take I’ve seen is the renaming of the show to “Man Vs. Hotel.” Anyway, yes, I know it’s most likely fake, just like wrestling. But I watch anyway because I want to be entertained on a work night. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, check out this video.
Doesn’t that look fun?
And lookie here.. turns out ole Bear has a blog… this should be interesting.
New Surviorman Episodes start August 10
Bryan July 26th, 2007
Reset the Tivos kiddies, new episodes of Survivorman start August 10 on the Discovery Channel. I’m a big fan of Les and the Survivorman show.
How would I describe Les? I’ll let Lee Ermey do it: “You could drop this guy off at the Arctic Circle wearing a pair of
bikini underwear, without his toothbrush, and tomorrow afternoon he’s
going to show up at your pool side with a million dollar smile and fist
full of pesos. This guy’s a professional, you got me?”
Seriously, Survivorman is awesome. Les doesn’t have a crew following him around, so he does his own camera work. That’s in addition to building fires without matches, building shelters, and doing everything else you need to survive for a week in the middle of nowhere on 3 cashews. To catch a preview of this season, drop in over at Les’ blog. Oh and you can order Season 1 on DVD as well!
Say it ain’t so Bear
Bryan July 25th, 2007
We’ve all been waiting for it. I even pontificated on it back in February. A former consultant is confirming that portions of Discovery Channel show Man Vs Wild have been staged and Bear Grylls has stayed in hotels during filming of the survival show, instead of living in the backcountry as the show portrays. Apparently the Discovery Channel is confirming this and promising to re-edit shows to inform its viewers of the actual circumstances surrounding the episodes’ production.
But what do we expect? He’s got a flipping camera crew following him around the backcountry… how could Hollywood stay away?
Survivorman in Labrador
Bryan July 14th, 2007
I’m looking forward to this episode!
It’s minus ten degrees Celsius.
I am in the middle of the wild Labrador woods. Behind me is a sparse forest of small black spruce trees and a few birch spaced out here and there. Underneath me is a green army sleeping bag. Underneath it is about 6 inches of balsam and spruce bows and then finally below that - about eight feet of snow. Three feet to the front of me is a fifty-foot long heavy chain with a dozen three-foot-long chains attached to it, about every five feet. On the ends of seven of those smaller chains are leashed up a group of traditional Inuit sled dogs. Up here they call them Labrador Huskies. I’m sleeping with the dogs tonight.
Read the rest here
The Ultimate Survival Story
Bryan April 9th, 2007
Move over Bear Grylls, check out this story.
One of two hikers who became lost in the dense jungle of French Guiana and survived for seven weeks on beetles, frogs and tarantulas has returned home to France, frail and with a thick beard, "tired but happy."
"We ate palm seeds, we drank water because we always had a river next to us, where we washed," he said. "We also trapped insects and beetles. We ate frogs and tarantulas."
My hat’s off to them.
HT: Fox News
Three Hiking Lessons From My Almost Survival Story
Bryan March 17th, 2007
I’ve not always been in love with the backcountry like I am now. In fact, my parents rarely if ever took me there. My time with them outdoors was limited to boating and car camping. If there was any hiking involved, it was well within the safe reach of modern facilities (roads, buildings, other people).
I attribute my love for the backcountry to a friend I’ve known since grade school. When we were at college, Billy would often invite me to different waterfalls and short trails that were in plentiful supply within 20 miles or so of our campus.
On a Labor Day weekend during my college era (15 years ago or so), Billy called and asked if I wanted to go hiking with him. I said sure and within about a hour, he pulled into my driveway along with David, another friend from high school.
Our destination was some place I’d never heard of before and for our sakes shall remain nameless. It would later become one of my favorite places to hike. It took about 2 hours to get there from my house, so it was early afternoon by the time we arrived in the area. We stopped to get some food at a convenience store where I snagged one of those big Slim Jims. We left the store and headed toward the trail head. Billy wanted to make another stop, so he turned down a gravel road. He drove about 1/2 mile and stopped at a 10′x10′ white shack. He went inside and came out a few minutes later carrying a 6 pack of Budweiser (in the can of course). That’s just Billy’s style. Then we rode to the trail head.
We got to the parking lot at the trail head and headed out. It was a relatively short hike down to our destination (a waterfall less than 2 miles in). We stopped there, admired the falling, gurgling water and ate our snack. As Billy fished out our food, he handed each one of us a Bud. I must say it went down mighty well with the scenery and snack I had. Afterwards, we headed on down the trail.
After about 3 more miles, we came upon one of the most beautiful places on earth. It was a rock outcropping overlooking a beautiful valley about 500 feet below. We could literally see for miles and to this day, it is my favorite spot on earth.
After a little while, we decided to stay there, watching the sun go down whilst drinking our last Bud. It was the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen in my life. One thing I hadn’t considered though was exactly how dark it is in the backcountry. With nothing but the moon and the stars to light our way, it took some serious getting used to.
After about 100 yards, we came to the trail we had been on and Billy headed to the right. “But Billy!” I said. “We came from the other direction.” “Yeah, but this trail is a loop. We’re only about a mile from the truck. If we head this way, we’ll be driving home in 30 minutes.” he said. “Okay.” I said.
After about an hour of walking I began to doubt him. After two hours, I was really doubting him. After three hours, I was one step away from panic. We had no flashlights, no food, nothing to bivvy in. But what’s that? It’s a street light. Sure enough, it was the parking lot. It just wasn’t the parking lot with Billy’s truck in it.
We wandered around until we found the caretaker’s house. He was just sitting down with a bowl of popcorn to watch Seinfeld. We asked him the quickest way to get back to the truck. “Eight miles back through the woods, the way you came.” he said irritatedly. It wasn’t what we wanted to hear. It was 8:00pm already. We decided we’d take our chances hiking back along the road. Five minutes later, a truck rolled up to us. It was the caretaker. He said “Hop in back, I’ll give you a lift.” Finally, we caught a break!
As we rode in the back of the truck, Billy noticed he had a 5 gallon bucket with aluminum cans in it. He donated our 6 empty Budweiser cans to him (just like Billy). After about 10 minutes, we arrived back at the truck. We thanked the man, who handed us each a trail map. Ouch! Then he said “Next time you hit the trail, make sure you get a little knowledge first.” Double ouch! We got back in the truck and made the 2 hour drive back to my house.
Lessons I learned:
- If you think you probably shouldn’t, don’t. Being in college at the time, I wasn’t used to turning down free beer. But I must admit, I was a bit uneasy about consuming while on a day hike. I’m no lightweight, but drinking those 2 beers definitely impaired me physically, making the hike harder than it had to be. It also impaired me mentally. Clearly the trail wasn’t marked as a loop, but I acquiesced to Billy’s idea anyway. It doesn’t mean don’t be adventuresome. It does mean don’t be stupid.
- Think ahead and make sure you’ve got the right gear. There was nothing wrong necessarily with us watching the sun go down at that beautiful place. But had any of us thought beyond the sunset, we would have realized how difficult it would be to get back. None of us had a flashlight that would have been invaluable in finding our way back.
- Always know where you’re going or at least how to get back. If any of us had a map, we would have known that trail wasn’t a loop. If any of us had a compass, we would have known we were going the wrong way. A GPS would have told us EXACTLY where we were. We were just meandering through the woods.
This adventure turned out just fine, but could have been very different. What if it had been cloudy? We would have been walking in the absolute dark along the edge of a deep ravine. But this leads me to the last (and probably most important) lesson: Always learn from your mistakes. And that’s exactly what I did.
I Shouldn’t Be Alive
Bryan March 2nd, 2007
As I mentioned last week, I have just been enamored with survival shows lately. I wrote about Man vs. Wild last week. This week, my featured survival show is I Shouldn’t Be Alive, another aired by the Discovery Channel.
The show is a reenactment of events as told by the survivors of some really serious nightmares, such as:
- A couple and their baby driving through a blizzard to reach a funeral, only to get stuck for days in a Wildlife Refuge that is closed for the winter.
- A father and son go rafting in Alaska in late spring, only to discover the river is still frozen over… and they end up under the ice.
- A hippo upsets a family’s boat on the Zambezi River. With crocodiles all around, they spent the night standing in the middle of the river.
- A young man is flying a friend and their fathers to a fishing trip when their 4 seater plane gets caught in a freak thunderstorm. The pilot is able to climb out of the thunderstorm, and everything is fine until… the plane’s engine dies. They descend back through the storm, and crash into the Sea of Cortes, where they survive for days.
- Three people shooting video over Kilauea are stranded in the volcano’s crater after their helicopter’s engine stalls.
First, this is a reenactment show, so it’s all very ultra-dramatic. I wonder how much of this is actually that big a deal. But I guess I can’t really argue much since I’ve never spent the night in the Sea of Cortes hugging an ice chest.
The narrator often stops in the middle of the story to explain what is happening to the persons body in simplistic terms. He does an excellent job of explaining dehydration, hyperthermia, frostbite and other common maladies to the non-medically trained. I really like this because it helps me anticipate them and ward them off.
All in all, I Shouldn’t Be Alive is a great show, usually climaxing in an unexpected rescue. The endings are at least somewhat happy… at least one person had to survive to tell the story.
Have any of you seen I Shouldn’t Be Alive? What are your thoughts? Does watching it help you mentally prepare for the unthinkable or is it merely entertainment? Is there another show I need to be watching?
Man vs. Wild
Bryan February 21st, 2007
Since November, I have just been hooked on the latest round of survival shows from the Discovery Channel. The first one I started watching was Man Vs. Wild. For each episode Bear Grylls, a former member of the British Special Forces, ends up being dropped from a plane in the middle of a different nowhere. His objective? Survive in the wilderness until he can find civilization. And survive he does, with nothing but a flint and a water bottle. And I’m simply hooked!
Now for a dose of reality… he has a camera crew following him around. So I wonder, how hungry is he really? And did he really squeeze the water from that elephant dung because he was thirsty, or was it merely for shock value? On the other hand, the editing process I’m sure compresses the timing of everything. It’s easy for me to critique a 3 day expedition from a one hour edit.
It is entertaining and while I’m not certain I would do everything he does, it does get me to thinking about survival. And I suppose that’s better than nothing.
Have you seen any of these survival shows? Leave a comment and let me know what you think of them!
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