Ah, wilderness survival.
There's nothing better to get your blood pounding and your heart racing...even if you're only
experiencing dangerous situations vicariously through TV shows like Survivorman.
First aired on the Discovery Channel in 2004, the premise of Survivorman is simple: One
man is dropped in the wilderness and left to survive for seven days using nothing but
his wits and a sharp knife.
But how realistic is it, really?
To get the real scoop, we talked to Les Stroud from Survivorman, and he set the record straight
about reality TV — and what it actually takes to survive.
It's real
First things first: Survivorman is, by all accounts, the real deal.
Stroud comes from a background of teaching wilderness survival.
But, as he puts it, survivalists don't know how to make a TV show, and television crews
don't know jack about survival.
"Nobody was doing it and the ones that did it, they just sucked.
It was just bad videos on stuff so I said 'you know what?
I'm a filmmaker and I'm a survival expert why don't I put the two together."
Other survival shows have come after Survivorman, but according to Stroud, they're all done
by what he describes as "TV people."
They care about doing things that look cool on camera and get ratings, but they aren't
interested in teaching actual skills.
Get lazy
Stroud stresses that every decision you make in the wild needs to be weighed against its
energy cost.
See a possible food source a mile away?
It better be enough food that it's worth the hike.
And how do you even know that's a mile away?
This leads to situations where that ridge you may be looking at just hangs on the horizon
and never gets any closer, while you waste your entire day chasing a wild goose.
Or sheep.
"baa."
Before you know it, it's dark and you don't have any food or shelter.
The one time to ignore that advice is when you're being chased by a wild animal.
Stroud has been chased out of the jungle by a wild panther.
And in situations like that, running suddenly becomes acceptable: that's because maintaining
your energy levels won't matter if you don't survive the next five minutes.
Now that's just common sense.
Man vs. Wild could get you killed
Unsurprisingly, there's no lost love between Les Stroud and Bear Grylls of Man vs. Wild.
Stroud often calls out elements of Man vs. Wild that he considers fake, like the numerous
allegations that Bear Grylls will build a shelter on the show, but then takes a helicopter
to a hotel for the night, or that a raft he'd built had been pre-assembled by the crew.
"This raft needs to be strong, but it also needs to be big enough to support me in the
sea swell."
Stroud told us that trying to recreate some of the stunts on Man vs. Wild could get you
seriously hurt or killed.
In other cases, the survival tricks are just useless, like trying to squeeze drinkable
water out of elephant dung.
Les Stroud took to Reddit to clarify that stunt, saying that, most likely, someone poured
water over the dung before Grylls drank it.
Also?
Yuck.
Survival myths are just as dangerous
Hollywood is notorious for showing us things that look great on the big screen but work
completely different in real life.
If you ever thought that drinking the water out of a cactus was a handy survival tip for
the desert, you couldn't be more wrong.
The barrel cactus that you're thinking of is actually filled with a vile liquid that
will make you puke, dehydrating you even more.
And drinking your own urine reintroduces toxins into your body.
Also?
Yuck.
Again.
So what about starting a fire?
Stroud's favorite method:
"Wha - wha -what would you do differently?"
"Ah, just nothing.
I just carry a big butane lighter."
That sounds a lot easier than rubbing sticks for an hour.
Movies look cool, but no one should be watching them for tips on how to survive a real worst
case scenario.
Experiments
When Stroud hears about some new survival trick, he doesn't try it out at home: he tries
it for the first time in the wild, and films it.
What this means is that sometimes, the viewers witness him fail spectacularly.
But when one of these tricks works, the surprise is real.
He also throws himself curveballs to simulate real situations.
For example, to simulate a broken arm, he's bound one of his hands.
No big shock there: It makes even the simplest jobs a lot harder.
He's also taken out a second person to see if that made the survival situation easier
or worse.
The answer?
Both.
Manual labor like building a shelter and other tasks become far more manageable.
But you also need to divide all your food sources in half.
It also helps with morale: just having someone to talk to can go a long way.
Stroud has taken his son out on the show several times, and describes it as a wonderful and
educational experience.
It's...boring
It's easy to picture wilderness survival as one big adventure, but according to Stroud,
the hardest thing about trying to survive is the sheer boredom of it all.
"That's the reality.
Of survival."
Extreme boredom and loneliness, combined with hunger and a lack of sleep, is a recipe for
depression.
In real-life survival situations, people have taken their own lives.
The best thing you can do is get a fire going.
Even if you don't need it for warmth or food, a fire is the biggest morale booster you're
going to find in the wilderness.
It provides a sense of accomplishment: you did something.
You're surviving.
And that goes a long way.
Thanks for watching!
Click the Looper icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!