Les Stroud, aka Survivorman
Les Stroud
Living off the land takes on a new meaning when wilderness survival expert and filmmaker Les "Survivorman" Stroud spends nine harrowing weeks alone in a variety of survival simulations.
Stroud's idea of a nature outing is probably a little different from yours and mine: he takes off alone and heads to a punishing corner in the back of beyond with nothing but a few cameras to document his (often miserable) experiences. From the frozen Arctic pack ice to the fetid jungles of Central America, Survivorman highlights Stroud's extraordinary self-reliance and survival skills. In each episode he is set down in a deserted wilderness and left to fend entirely for himself with no food, no fresh water, no shelter and no matches.
Stoud started his film career in the 1980s as a music video producer for MuchMusic, a Canadian music video channel. As he stared out the window of an office into an urban alleyway, Stroud itched to escape to the wilderness.
In 1987 he made a break for it and spent the next seven years traveling Canada as a canoe guide and wilderness instructor. He developed his own outdoor company called Wilderness Voice (still in operation) and paddled numerous Canadian rivers as a whitewater guide for Black Feather Wilderness Adventures.
After Stroud met his partner in life, Sue Jamison, also an outdoor enthusiast and photographer, the two spent an entire year living in the remote boreal forest of northern Ontario. They lived as if it were 500 years ago — no matches, no metal and no tent — just a stone axe and their knowledge of traditional bush survival.
Stroud filmed the entire adventure, eventually releasing the odyssey as a one-hour documentary called Snowshoes and Solitude. In addition to being an award-winning filmmaker, Stroud is also a recording and touring musician.
With custom camera rigs and plenty of black humor, Stroud will spend nine weeks documenting his battle to survive in nine separate locations for Survivorman. Whether marooned on a tropical shoreline or deposited onto searing desert sands, Les Stroud takes living off the land to the extreme.
Q: How has wanting to do a "real" show about survival in these locales constrained you?
A: A real show about survival means I must actually DO IT — actually be alone and have no food or matches. To make an instructional film is to show a bunch of techniques and go home at night. To make a TV show about survival is to have a crew with you all day... and go home at night.
To make a real show about survival means being alone, running three to five cameras with all the set ups and tear downs, changing tapes, cleaning lenses, changing batteries and fixing gear ALONG WITH finding enough food and water to survive, building a shelter to protect from hypothermia, building a fire without matches. The camera work takes up about 65 percent of my time and the true survival leaves me filthy, wet, hungry and cold while I try to concentrate on good camera work and storytelling. It's a heavy combination of tasks.
Q: How much research on local flora/fauna do you do before you go into a place?
A: In spite of the fact that I am well-versed in survival methods in general, and that survival philosophies do translate across the globe, I can't know ahead of time which plants to eat or not eat in a Costa Rican jungle, which creatures will kill me, or how to make something like an igloo if I have never done it before.
For each location I went down for three or four days of intensive on-the-land training from a local; in the arctic an Inuit hunter named Sam Omik; in Costa Rica, Victorio, a tiny Spanish man and a master traditional healer who spoke no English; in the Sonoran Desert, Dave Halloday, born and raised walking through the cactus and living on the land. These men spent one-on-one time with me, indoctrinating me into their worlds. In addition I, along with my survival expert Mike Kiraly and my flora and fauna researcher Maxine Crook, spent a great deal of time researching scientifically before I headed down.
Q: How does science (either broadly or specifically) help you out in the field?
A: A fantastic part of the experience for me is taking to task many of the "proven survival methods" existing in books, as well as carrying out the actions that we know from research MOST survival victims do...even though they're wrong. On one side, I can debunk previously taught survival methods through my practical (or impractical) actions, and on the other side be a kind of "guinea pig of survival" for the viewer.
For example, it's well known from research that most people will not be able to resist the belief that they can walk out of their unfortunate circumstances, even when the survival advice of experts might recommend staying put. It is a thought that will dog the survival victim constantly — "perhaps I can make it out on my own," "there's got to be a trail back there somewhere." And so, even though as a survival instructor I knew I should stay on my Costa Rican paradise-like beach cove, I ventured into the jungle as a practical experiment to experience just how rough it can be to act on such ill-thought-out impulses.
For the plane crash experience — I had gas, a battery and wires. That should equal fire, but rather than practice it ahead of time, I prefer to put myself in the position of an actual victim — someone who's never started a fire this way before, and I attempt to make a fire this way for the first time while the cameras are rolling, no punches pulled.
Q: What fields of science are represented in the show?
A: Through ethnobotany, my survival experiences are often made less pathetic. I can use my knowledge, newly-acquired or otherwise, to search out and harvest the plants that can sustain my life and bring me renewed energy to carry on with the task at hand.
Geology and a knowledge of the kinds of rock available to me enabled me to make knife points in Utah or start a fire with a spark in Northern Ontario. Understanding the biology of the various creatures around me has helped me to search out the trails, dens and homes of many creatures that can be caught and eaten for survival.
Q: What do you want people to take away from watching the series?
A: I want people to be inspired — to experience great passion for the wild world and the cold, hard realities of what it takes to survive out there. My intention is for viewers to spend an hour fascinated by compelling, beautiful and inspirational storytelling, film work and real adventure. And yet to take home enough that they too feel as though they could adapt well enough to survive what is thrown at them.
