Maybe this has been discussed before, sorry if it has. Has anyone watched that show on Discovery called Survivorman with Les Stroud? http://www.survivorman.ca/ Does anyone else think this demonstrates exactly what NOT to do in a survival situation? I have seen that guy do some of the absolute dumbest things, get himself into ridiculous predicaments, and all sorts of other preventable disasters. There are a few things he does ok, but for the most part, he does some real boneheaded things.

For example, after using lint from his socks to start a fire, he started preaching the virtue of "always wearing cotton socks" in the outdoors. I mean, that is just flat out wrong as far as I have been taught. Anyone agree or disagree?

Yeah, I caught that "cotton socks" remark too. Totally wrong in my opinion.

Most of what he says is pretty good stuff. Yes, he gets himself into preventable situations, but I think that he has to do that in order to have a show. If he didn't deliberately put himself into a survival situation, he wouldn't have a show.

If you watch a couple of "Man vs. Wild" episodes, you'll see that Les Stroud is a lot more solid.

Nobody is perfect and everyone has his own preferences. It's easy to judge a person, while sitting in a comfortable chair, sipping coffee. But when your cold, hungry and miserable, you will make mistakes and things that might not have been the right choice. It's about doing enough things right, not about being perfect.

One thing you have to admire, is that he actually testing his skills and at the same time filming it. Very little of use can see they survived with that little.

The man spends a week at a time surviving in some of the worst places on earth, swims with sharks, built a house which can run on solar power and God knows what else. and you are going to call him wrong?





the fact that he has lived through a lot of REAL survival situations and not just sat at home reading books about it should suggest that he may be the one doing it right.



He did it though didn't he? cant really argue with a guy who spends his time outdoors doing this sort of thing for a living. who the heck are we to tell him it should be done a different way?



maybe what you were taught was wrong. Or maybe there is MORE THAN ONE way of looking at things. If he does it then it obviously works for him.



Whatever the man does or does not do, agree or disagree he makes it work. and has managed to survive some real world stuff. It is easy to give opinions from home sitting on the couch with a beer in hand and a bag of chips with feet up, warm and dry. but things are different when WE are the ones out there. unless you can HONESTLY say that you have done more, then it would be hard to say someone else has done dumb or boneheaded things.

I think that when I have my own hit TV show and I am internationally recognized as SURVIVORMAN I will have better judging ability on what is right and wrong in a survival situation.

I think the wrong or right can always be subjective. Les may wear cotton socks because he can use lint from them as tinder. And you may have been taught to wear wool or polypropylene, probably to avoid wet cotton and possible frost bite.

Maybe each could be correct depending on who is invovled. I don't think poly socks are useful for me at all. My feet sweat, they get wet, that is not going to change unless they get some air. A change of socks helps, and a fire might help one set and my boots both dry out.

I think some of the things Les does or does not do are batty, I really do not get some of them. However, I don't go out and spend my time crossing deserts or frozen tundra, so I really don't have room to criticize Les or Bear. As with any thing in this arena, you need to look at and evaluate what may work for you.

If you watch the Survivorman DVDs and look at the behind the scenes stuff, much of what he does it not pre-planned. He improvises and tries stuff just for the hell of it sometimes. He also openly admits that he's human, makes mistakes like anybody else, and I don't ever recall him refer to himself as an expert in anything.

He does however do a LOT of research on the area he is going to, the local wildlife, plant life, skills, etc. He also trains hard. He runs through the bush with a fully loaded pack and does it without much food just for the practice.

A few more things you just have to respect. He's alone (unlike Bear) and he has to carry all his own equipment. When you see a shot of him walking over the horizon...he has to walk all the way back to get that camera when the shot's done...sometimes that's in -40 weather or half way up a cliff. Plus when he married his wife, they spend the first year or two of their marriage living in a shack in the woods san civilization...if I recall their first kid was born there...or something like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Stroud
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorman

I think part of what he’s (Les) trying to do and show is that survival situations can happen to people any time without much warning. The last time you were flying on a jet, did you have cotton socks on or not? Did you think about it before you walked onto the jet that it may crash and you would be in a survival situation? I see Les as trying to get people to understand that at any moment in out lives we could be thrust into a survival situation and have very little survival supplies with us. You use what you have with you to survive.

Les’s show is interesting and seems more about real survival. Bear’s show is more entertainment and I would say it shows what not to do as he takes a lot of unnecessary risks to show how much of a man he is. Do this stuff in real life and you come out in a body bag.

But with saying that, I still watch both shows.

Les Stroud isn't perfect, and that's just one of the many reasons I love the show "Survivorman"

My thoughts are that I'm glad Les Stroud shows his screw-ups as well as the things that go right. In a survival situation it is very likely that I'm going to screw something up, and more than one thing at that. When Les does something wrong and then recovers it shows that you can go on if something fails.

Here are a few of Les's more memorable screw-ups, off the top of my head:
Caught his shelter on fire
Got sick eating water lily roots
Cut himself trying to get water from a vine
Built the worst igloo ever, in the wrong season
Played a harmonica when polar bears were about
Built a shelter too close to a river, when it had been raining
Built a trap in a way that he almost crushed fingers in the attempt to set it
Failed to properly bait a trap, the bait was stolen and he caught nothing

I could go on and on listing various screw-ups. In any case, as far as I can remember Les has never given out advice that I would consider contrary to what one should do in a survival situation where he didn't mention the "proper", or perhaps I should say "commonly accepted", way to do things.

Regarding the cotton socks, Les was in a Georgia Swamp and probably could have gone without socks if he needed to, at least long enough to fire dry them. And even though the temperature dropped significantly several nights while he was out there, he survived the ordeal, so cotton socks probably worked well for him in those surroundings. We often hear the maxim "Cotton Kills" here on the forum. When you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, then yes cotton can fail to keep your body heat close to you, but cotton isn't the Boogieman if a person is careful and knows how to get around the materials negative aspects.

If he did say that a person should always wear cotton socks, then I'd agree that he shouldn't have, or at least that I wouldn't follow that particular bit of advice. I'll try and catch that episode when it's on again and listen closely.

As always, I could be wrong.

maybe i came off a bit harsh in my first post. i do respect the guy for doing what he does, but i think he does make some pretty obvious mistakes that he should know how to avoid. for instance, he was in the jungle, and mentioned how he had been paying for not purifying his drinking water (i assume the latrine was getting heavy use.) days later he finally realized he had an empty tin can to boil water in. i mean, come on, he should have been using that from day 1. in that same episode, he put his shirt on after getting out of the river only to be bitten by an unknown bug (what if it was a fatal spider bite!) he should have shaken out his shirt first, thats just a common sense thing. but by far the worst was when i watched him wade into the ocean barefoot at night time. survival situation or not, that is a very foolish thing to do. the odds of spearing a fish at night while carrying a torch are pretty much nil, while the odds of slipping on coral or stepping on a stinging creature are pretty good.

i know its easy to be an armchair critic, but any boy scout could pick out the poor decisions. but i do like his show because he is an everyman who ends up in a situation that we could all be in one day. it is entertaining, and maybe it is a bit of showmanship, but i just think he should make sure he's sending the right message to people.

bear on the other hand, to me, is total showman. way too many unnecessary risks. i think he does his show for the "im a badass" effect.

He could have easily edited out any mistakes that he made while in the bush and re-shot, but Les keeps them in to show that mistakes can be made no matter what the situation. For instance the laying his shirt on the bank mistake, being a Northern woods guy it would probably be just a natural thing for him to leave his shirt out like that with no problem, but he made the point by leaving it in the program so someone watching it hopefully won't make the same mistake. I have a lot more respect for Les being a "real life" survival person instead of scaling waterfalls and climbing into the rain forest canopy, things that would probably get you and I killed, like another survival show host does.

Bear took and passed the British Special Air Service selection course. That is one of the toughest in the world. By any measure Bear is indeed a "Bad Ass."

You should bear in mind that Bear was invalided out with seriour injuries whilst on active service. So he has to earn a living. There is an old saying that goes: He who pays the piper calls the tune. So I would suggest to you that the Producers etc are responsable for the content of that program. Not Bear.

As for Les Stroud, I think that he is the antitheis of what we are trying to achieve on this forum.

No matches.
No signaling gear.
No water purificaton gear.
No map.
No compass.

Prior Preparation Prevents A bad Case Of Death.

I don't think of him as the antithesis at all. Being 'prepared to survive' isn't just about being physically prepared.

I've got to agree with BigDaddyTX, because if Les had the gear there would not be a show.

I think if you look at both Bear and Les they do things that make their shows entertaining. Les is travelling through the snow-covered Canadian North with a team of dogs, when he decides to let the dogs go, hhhmmmmm, seems like he just said, I want to make my week this much harder SO MY SHOW IS ENTERTAINING. Since Les is out tehre all by his lonesome, he cannot really blame anyone else for his decisions. However, I could see that whoever provides him financing exerting pressue on him before or after he ventures out.

Bear clearly does thigns for some of the same purposes.

If you watch these shows, and I like to watch both, you can learn things, both what to do and what not to do. Climbing down into a glacier like Bear did in Patagonia was something not to do. Good entertainment, but he had a tough time getting out. Les letting the dogs go, also a decision I would not make.

Speaking of Les and Bear and survival shows, it's Survival week on the Outdoor Life channel here in Canada.

http://www.tsn.ca/oln/Schedule.asp?Channel=OLN&ShowDate=Mar%2011%202008&TZ=0

Lots of Survivorman episodes, Ray Mears Extreme Survival, and Mantracker. Last night I saw a new show called 'How Not to Die' about survival. Hosted by an ex SAS Commander who was the only one from an 8 man team to survive being stranded in Iraq. They put put every day people in survival situations (mostly urban from what I can tell) to see how they react under pressure. They also provide a lot of educational information and expert information. Last night was the burglery episode.

Pretty amazing how people act even though they know it's not real...most of them were pretty cocky until the big ex SAS guy in a belaclava and with a 10 inch kitchen knife started screaming at them. Helps you forget it's not real I guess

http://www.tsn.ca/oln/feature.asp?fid=11152

Hi Hacksaw,

If you liked Chris Ryans 'How not to die', then there was also his TV show called 'Hunting Chris Ryan' or as its called in the US 'Special Forces: Manhunt'. You can watch it on VeochTV. Pitting the survival skills of an ex SAS soldier against the hunter force comprised of 2 SEALS, 1 USMC, 1 RM and 1 Para.

And just to be clear, in a true survival situation, I doubt Les would intentionally let the dogs go just for the fun of it. However, I believe it's perfectly legitimate to simulate an "oh, drat, did I really do that?" moment? Forgetting to tether your dog team for a minute while you attend to the call of nature would be one of those moments.

Also, to whatever extent these shows do teach real survival skills (and I accept that, financially, they have to provide entertainment first, real skills second), they are most likely to be of use by teaching to the lowest common denominator. Therefore, the advice they give needs to be learnable by the average armchair warrior; something that only works for someone who's gone through a half-dozen military survival schools is kind of like preaching to the converted.

I went through Officer training in the Canadian military (and flunked out at the end) and I was astonished at just how difficult it was to keep track of my rifle at night after a couple of days with minimal sleep (and that was something I was highly motivated to look after - if an instructor was able to pick up your rifle before you could get to it, you were "not in control of your weapon" and could expect some pretty nasty consequences). I think somebody who doesn't have years of experience in survival training is very likely to make these kinds of mistakes; for a survival instructor to pretend they won't happen if you're "careful" would be dangerous and irresponsible.

Thanks for the tip. That sounds like my kind of show! According to Wikipedia he still works as a professional bodyguard...seems like he's a real bad dude.

I'd say that one aspect of Survivorman that holds such great attraction for many of us is the "make do" attitude of the show. Carrying a minimal of gear, not even as much as many in such environments would edc, Les manages to get quite a bit accomplished. He sometimes does things that can seem useless or even counterproductive. These failures add value because, while not really helping him or maybe even contradicting recommended behavior, they inspire us to think rather than simply react or follow programming. I think his efforts and suggestions are to lead us to try to solve the problem even when we may not be ideally prepared for it.

My impression of his show is that with a little knowledge and a stick to it attitude, you can get through what may seem like an impossible situation. It may hurt, you may not be comfortable, but you can survive. If it always went well for him on the show, I suspect we would learn less. Seeing what to do when it doesn't go like you want it to can help alleviate the stress of failed expectations later on. If it didn't work, try again, with some alteration.

I like the movie "The Edge" for much the same reason. They were ill equipped, unprepared, and in a tough spot. But because one man refused to quit trying, and had a little knowledge and was willing to think instead of complain and give up, they got out of it (at least he did), even after making a lot of really bad mistakes.

Les helped me find ETS. After seeing his show a couple times, I started doing some web surfing on him which lead me to this forum. While I always had a few things thrown into the car it was from this site that I learned about true preparedness. Les' program does more than show how one man survives a week in the wilderness, it causes others to stop and think "what would I do?"

Also, my daughter put a fish tank together last year, and while some fish have gone to fish heaven, the one that has survived the longest is an algae eater named, Les "Trout".

I can see where people are coming from when Les goes out "unprepared." You can bet that I will be carrying a lot more gear than Les does the next time I'm out.

I think what he's doing is trying to show survival situations that the average person might find him/herself in. He's showing how to improvise. Some of his scenarios are pretty real world: plane crash, dumped while canoeing, and mechanical breakdown. In some scenarios, one wouldn't necessarily have time to gather all of one's gear and would probably wind up with only whatever they had on their person (a good argument for a pocket PSK). To me, Les' mistakes only add to the realism. Remember the epsisode where he tries to light a fire with rifle cartridges. What a klutz, lol. But neither did he edit the scenes out. I think his non-edit policy actually teaches a couple of really important things. All will not go according to plan, so 1) Expect and be prepared for failure 2) Improvise, improvise, improvise.

And, oh yeah, you wouldn't be catching me wading out into the sea with no shoes on a night to hunt. Not good, Les. Of course, being from relatively benign California, I'm sure I'm going to forget something obvious like shaking out my boots since I really don't need to do it here.

I've seen Les try to fish using a torch at night, but I do not remember the episode.

When wading in shallow water through which you can see the bottom, it can be better than at night, after all, you can see. However, night or day should not matter much when the water conditions do not allow you to see the bottom. I've been in the water a lot in my life. On very few occasions did I ever wear anything on my feet, but my ventures are mostly U.S. East Coast.

The danger footwear avoids is if you step on something that can inject you with something. That danger seems slight in the areas I've been. I know stingrays exists, but I've only seen one near Sydney, Austrailia, which swam a few feet under me and my surf board. The danger I remember fearing when I was a kid on the DelMarVa shore was a pinch from a crab claw.

Walking around in the water without a good view of the bottom in many parts of the world could be bad for you. I would not do it at night unless there was something on land that was dangerous and chasing me.


Ask Steve Erwin about stepping on things in the water, oh wait, you can’t.

Les mentions sting rays in at least one episode. I believe in the Amazon Jungle ep. when he's noodling for catfish he mentions that Stingrays like to hide in the same places and how the natives fear the sting more than any snake bite.

He fishes with the torch during the episode when he's on the tropical island in Costa Rica playing the stranded scuba diver...I believe (I've seen them all so many times you think I'd rememeber but they all sort of run together after a while).

I think the biggest danger from wading in the ocean at night, especially barefoot, would be falling on coral and suffering a pretty big gash. sharks and other animals are a distant (but not impossible) second. i learned to be very methodical in a survival situation, and avoid unnecessary risks. suffering a major injury in a survival situation could truly be the end of the road. (this is what makes bear's show seem so counterproductive to me)

i do agree with benjammin and hikin_jim that Les does put himself in situations we could all wind up in, and he does come out alive with less gear than most of have in our pockets right now. i guess there is the entertainment aspect of the show so his mistakes are kept in the final footage. i guess i'll just try not to make the same mistakes he does.

I like survivorman mainly just for entertainment, but he does have some handy tips. I prefer Ray Mears, because the shows main focus is survival skills and talks about how some real life survival situations went wrong or what a person did right.

I dont live in a tropical region so I will admit that I dont know more than what I have read on this but...... If you step on a stingray, shoes or not I was led to believe that the barb was long enough to hit you in the ankle or shin, over your shoes. Even if it hits you where your feet are covered the barb would most likely still penetrate. Maybe I am wrong on this.

If I had shoes I would wear them regardless if out in the surf. Christ knows what else is there besides a stingray. Or I would stick to eating coconuts from the beach. As far as I know they wont sting or bite.

BTW. I watched that episode a few days ago on OLN and as far as I could tell he was wearing his neoprene dive booties every time he stepped in the water, even at night while torch fishing.

I don’t remember what network it was on (Discovery channel?) but did any of you see the show on the box-jellyfish in Australia? It’s this little, clear jellyfish that is small & very hard to see, the size of a thumb and only 1-inch long. It’s so small it slips through all the jellyfish nets on the beaches. People were getting hit with these things and for a while the authorities had no idea what was killing people. It’s a very dangerous little thing, the show said its poison is 100-times as strong as some snake poison. Right now I guess they have no anti-venom for it.

It was an interesting show.

It would keep me at the pool and not at the beach if I were to go to Australia.

If I seem to be diverting the topic, I apologise but I was wondering.

If you step on a stone fish with typical water/beach shoes will the horns penetrate or will you simply crush the fish?

Around the Canadian coast where I grew up we have fish called sculpins which have horns similar to stone fish. they can be quite small to the length of a forearm from finger tip to elbow in most places though. http://en.wikipedia.org If stepped on they are super painfull and will lay you up for a while but I have never heard of them being fatal. In fact, I have never heard of anyone stepping on one either. They dwell in the rocks and are quite large so they are easy to avoid. Really fun to catch as well. but the horns are super sharp and if you did step on one it most likely would go through the bottom of all but the toughest bottomed shoes.

Pantyhose? If the jellyfish didn't kill you, you'd die of embarassment.

Look up "Irukandji". I don't know if I saw the same show as you're talking about, but these things are tiny, invisible buggers. Despite trying to cover every piece of exposed flesh, those two Irukandji researchers both got stung on a dive together and were in full-body agony. Luckily they got out of the water before they were incapacitated with pain. They said that even max doses of morphine only took the edge off the pain. The woman was in severe pain for weeks IIRC.

I don't want to think about either of you in pantyhose. However, I will gladly see, imagine or even fantasize about a woman in something sheer. Got to think about how to use the information.

It sounds like we saw the same show, she was in the hospital shaking, in a lot of pain, and looked real sick, and mumbling that she didn’t know why she does this kind of work. I would not want to go through what she did. The guy did much better, I don’t think he got stung as much. I remember them holding up a bottle of water (the size of a Mason jar) with them in it and there were a lot of them in it. It’s amazing something so small can do the damage these little jellyfish can.

I don't remember where I heard it but one of the 'rules' is that the smaller the creature, the more toxic the venom. Jelly Fish, Frogs, spiders, Octopii, etc. There are exceptions but for the most part is holds true.

Speaking of Octopii I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Blue Ringed Octopus. One of natures most venomous creatures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-ringed_octopus

I think I will stay out of the water...

Hearing the M-16, in full auto mode, going off, immediately followed by the shout, "SHARK", made up my mind about swimming in the ocean as I "flew" up a cargo net and onto the safety of the ship's main deck's non-skid under my bare feet!!!!

I can see it now: "But honest, honey, I wasn't looking at her legs, I was evaluating her jellyfish protection capability."