Survivorman Survival Secrets

22-rimfire

22-rimfire

Joined
Nov 20, 2005
Messages
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Any of you guys watching? The first episode (on Science Channel) is on shelters and shelter building. Pretty interesting and common sense kind of stuff. Episode #2 is about water.
 
I watched on youtube his epsiode of "surviving" in australia .. seems the secret to it is just bumming around in the bush :)

I only have free to air tv here , nothing worth watching tho
 
I watch it. It's just scenes from his older shows. Les is the man tho when it comes to survival. No one better.
 
Yes, a lot of it is excerpts from his older shows with some new stuff or at least new to me. But the focus is education not "survival" per say even though it is all about survival.

Added: So, in that sense, I think the shows are actually more interesting than the original shows. I'm always interested in the "how to". That is one of the reasons that I liked team Dave & Cody as they paid a bit more attention to teaching.
 
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Colog said:
I watch it. It's just scenes from his older shows. Les is the man tho when it comes to survival. No one better.
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Yup. The real deal. Took his new bride and honeymooned on a frozen chunk of ice for a year.

Les is the man.

Moose
 
Love it. Yeah, it's footage from old shows, but just the parts pertaining to the subject. He's dead on about his advice.

If you like some Les, and I do, check out his show 'Off the Grid" (Amazon Video has it free to watch for Prime members). It's about moving his family to the woods, and follows them along making the move off the grid. Fascinating stuff.

(Off the subject, but if you like that stuff, the 'Vice' channel on YouTube has a killer documentary about a guy and his wife who are the last people living in ANWAR. Another winner.)
 
I stopped watching his shows when I saw a dog-sledding episode where he said the golden rule was not to eat the dog's food. Next day he's shoving it in his maw and rationalizing. Dogs should have eaten him.
 
He is a serious source of wilderness survival info, but I cannot understand why he builds brush shelters and then builds fires inside them. He has, IIRC, set them on fire with him inside twice. That seems less like Les and more bearish.

As for water, he does not seem to know about SODIS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection
http://www.sodis.ch/methode/anwendung/index_EN

With clear glass whiskey bottles available in one desert episode, he elected to drink untreated water from a rock basis surrounded by rodent droppings. That risked more than just the "trots."
 
Les is awesome. I love Survivorman and have watched the episodes many times over. I got really excited to see the new show premier but was sorely disappointed when it turned out to solely be chopped up and rearranged footage from survivorman with narration :grumpy:
 
Dirtknap said:
I stopped watching his shows when I saw a dog-sledding episode where he said the golden rule was not to eat the dog's food. Next day he's shoving it in his maw and rationalizing. Dogs should have eaten him.
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I apologize for the tangent, but I just wanted to make a few quick comments about northern dogs. Or more accurately, their owners. Some isolated communities treat dogs as a tool of transport or community warning system. My own value sets were shaken by the seemingly cold view of a dog in the north. I saw owner's leaving their animals free to roam the community at their leisure with no food or attention, which resulted in attacks on children and an annual cull. I saw rotting dogs in a bush dump. I saw one large dog sleeping in a garbage shed to get out of blizzards. This dog also had a broken paw and was seen limping around the community for weeks. No one ever made the slightest effort to help this suffering animal. Eventually the dog disappeared. I saw dogs laying out in the open looking like snow drifts in a blizzard. On and on. I experienced real culture shock with the way that northern dogs were treated. I battle my own value system and try to consider the historic context that would drive someone to view their dogs like that. But I suppose that you wouldn't want to get too close emotionaly to an animal that you may have to butcher and eat in an emergency. Anyway, I really struggled, and still do, with how dogs are treated in some northern communities.

It happens, I was further north than this.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/dogs-killed-boy-grieving-sask-reserve-says-1.924962
 
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That's really interesting upnorth. There are many other cultures as well that don't view dogs so much as pets, but more like work animals, or domesticated food.
I had a guy from shanghai I worked with. He told me dog was delicious, as he had eaten it in his youth. I'll take his word for it, but he says black dogs taste better.

Surprisingly Wikipedia even has a page in dog meat: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat

I noticed on les's newer videos he is using the Les Stroud signature knife by Camillus. Anyone ever look at those knives? I'm wondering who wins in the les vs bear knife test :)
 
I like him and his shows however I'd like to see some new stuff, not the old stuff wrapped up like it's new. I think I've seen all his episodes so although I DVR this new series, I've seen it all.
 
Stroud worked for several years at the Toronto-based music video channel MuchMusic, and as a songwriter for the band New Regime before a Temagami canoe trip sparked a career change.[1] During this time he also worked as garbage collector for the City of Toronto.[3] In 1990 Stroud became a guide for Black Feather Wilderness Adventures leading canoe excursions into the Northern Ontario wilds.[3] It was also during this time while on a survival course he met his future wife, photographer Sue Jamison.[2] They married in 1994 and together left for a year-long honeymoon in the remote Wabakimi area of Ontario which was to become the basis of the documentary Snowshoes and Solitude.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Stroud

Les Stroud snowshoes and solitude 2-6

[video=youtube;KacYMZItSdM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KacYMZItSdM[/video]
 
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