It's a curious field, survival. I knew Doug was 'the real deal' when I saw 'Critter' a truck weathered down to essentials like a working ranch woman who could be anywhere from 35 to 65. A beat up truck is sort of de riquer. Thats french for rigorous use. And a knife! You have to have a knife. Lets see; Doug has the RSK. And Tom Brown the Tracker, Ron Hood the ATAX, the late Chris Janowsky the Ranger, Bear the knife recently mentioned in a post ( I tend to forget names that cost 3 very fat figures.) Davenport used to promote Swamprats and Lofty Wiseman a parang. My 'Les is Mor' special edition Mora received a tepid response ( response nothing, I didn't even rate a canadian EH!) I suppose they're weary of the heavy influence from the south ( thats us, the us of A) and have a deal brewing with the guys in Pictou. I have to question why Ron Hood is advising Bear? If video sales are flat you don't go dressing in bear suits for the competition and then outing them like a Hollywood Madam busted and threatening to publish her little black book. Again, it's a curious field. For every Les Stroud, Dave Alloway or Peter Bigfoot there seems to be some mystical force in the universe to match Ying with Yang, Or ding a' ling and give us Timothy Treadwells, Aron Ralstons and Bear Grylis. It would be great fun, if the subject wasn't actually serious. I'd just sit close to the TEEVEE like I did when I was 5 in my blanket with my RED RYDER and a bowl of raison bran to watch onetime nieghbors Roy Rogers or poor Ronnie Reagan who sort of faded from such early promise. I'll have my survival knife, curl up in the Wiggy and munch on some Mainstay with tobasco sauce and water filtered from my cat Piewacket's waterbowl (the supreme test of a filter.) Like my Grandpa used to say, " Watch wrasslin Chris, It's real and you can learn a lot for later."

Ron was the adviser on the very first show ultimate survival and he was suppose to have an on air role pointing out all the mistakes and giving bear advise over the radio, but when the show came out they edited out all of Rons stuff and you get the current man vs wild formula of bear doing stupid things like jumping off rocks and climbing roots and all the other dumb things he does on screen. Heres a looooong thread covering the whole story:

http://survival.com/IVB/index.php?showtopic=7294&hl=Ultimate+Survival

The mention of Bear Grylls in a thread has the same effect on me that the sight of Paris Hilton on the TV does, and it produces the same result: a frantic click-click-clicking of the mouse/remote.

Pictou, Nova Scotia.... Yes, the Grohmann Knives Ltd. operation. Toured the plant some years ago and came away with a Russel Belt Knife #4, the "Survival" model, in stainless. It became my favorite outdoor blade. Next year we plan to visit the area and pick up one of the original design models.

Hope your blade doesn't cost seven or eight big ones like others in the business have done.

It's sad but true the majority of people who watch survival type shows on TV enjoy Bear over Les... for his stupidness, accent, and just overall entertainment.

Les is more interesting to me because you can actually learn something!

Recently Bear has started to sound like a book with the info he relays from the survival experts, blek!

People in the 'survival' industry would give their left arm for Ralston's publicity. His immediate legal threats against ETS and others not to publically discuss his mishap revealed a cavalier mindset of reality that brings criticism and company with Treadwell and Bear. Ron signed up as advisor and 'Discovered' the Discovery Channel are hardly ethical. Thats why we sign contracts. Ron's thread was, as always fun to read. It looks like Les Stroud is now the antichrist instead of Tom Brown. Again, the 'pie' of this curious industry is only so big, and people out for their slice often as not get most of it on their faces. This no doubt, from hacking into it with such big knives. Sadly, the religous cult phenomon of Guru personality cults seems pervasive in survival. I'm going to curl up later with some first editions of GREY OWL. Now he was the real deal!

My 'Les is Mor' survival knife was merely a red handled Mora with Les Stroud and Mors Kochanski's autographs applied with a woodburning set. A deluxe faux damascus blade ( 24 hours stuck in a potato) was planned along with sheath upgrade of naugahyde from a closed custom interior shop in east los Angeles. Alas, the reaction from both men's representatives was akin to the 'Silence of the Great North.'

Chris,

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your posts, but from what I've read of Ron Hood's posts, he's never come across as disparaging of Grylls or Stroud. That can't be said of other posters on his board, as well as this one. I personally think some idiot is going to follow Bear's example and get himself killed.

I think Hood's complaint was regarding the issue of credit and how the episode was edited. To the best of my knowledge, Hood did no further work on Gryll's series or with Discovery Channel after that first episode aired. I haven't seen anything to indicate that Hood is slashing at the others to preserve his piece of the pie.

And regarding the cult of personality, I read this board pretty often, my library contains Mors, Kephart, Nessmuk, Aboman, Lundin, Nyerges, Weisman, etc. I have a number of issues, but hero worship is not among them.

In the interest of full disclosure, I own most of Ron Hood's videos, strongly recommend them and frequent his board.

Misanthrope

I'll second everything Gerry said. Ron bit his tongue for well over a year before another advisor on the show broke the original story. My greatest fear with MvW is that some uninformed soul will try to emulate Bear's feats and end up assuming room temperature.

chris: for the record, i would buy one from ya.

as far as bear goes, i find his show entertaining, albeit a little silly. a portion of his stuff is quite obviously created for entertainment and not intended for the multitude of one-"percenters" here ...but despite all that, i think the minimal amount of good info that he does provide, while not necessarily negating all the crap, rambo-esque stuff, can serve as a benefit to the general, naive wanna-be's. that being said...while Survival may be the forte' of the majority of people here, the general public lacks in even the basic of prepardness and every little bit is better than none.

while i agree that reality tv has a way of promoting its product as 'Gospel' if you will, the high-flying, acrobatic, pee drinking, fool hardy displays Mr. Bear is so famous for are misleading at best. im not necesarily convinced that the bad in this particular case outweighs the good.

agreed, Les is preferred in my household of 1.