#126996 - 03/11/08 12:18 PM
Re: SurvivorMan
[Re: steelie]
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Veteran
Registered: 03/31/06
Posts: 1355
Loc: United Kingdom.
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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. 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 do dumb & helpless.
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#126997 - 03/11/08 12:21 PM
Re: SurvivorMan
[Re: Leigh_Ratcliffe]
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Hacksaw
Unregistered
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I don't think of him as the antithesis at all. Being 'prepared to survive' isn't just about being physically prepared.
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#127004 - 03/11/08 02:14 PM
Re: SurvivorMan
[Re: ]
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Old Hand
Registered: 12/10/07
Posts: 844
Loc: NYC
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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.
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#127008 - 03/11/08 03:53 PM
Re: SurvivorMan
[Re: Dan_McI]
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Hacksaw
Unregistered
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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=0Lots 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
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#127014 - 03/11/08 04:30 PM
Re: SurvivorMan
[Re: Dan_McI]
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Old Hand
Registered: 08/22/01
Posts: 924
Loc: St. John's, Newfoundland
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Les letting the dogs go, also a decision I would not make. 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.
_________________________
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."
-Plutarch
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#127017 - 03/11/08 05:21 PM
Re: SurvivorMan
[Re: Am_Fear_Liath_Mor]
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Hacksaw
Unregistered
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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.
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.
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#127021 - 03/11/08 06:03 PM
Re: SurvivorMan
[Re: ]
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Rapscallion
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 02/06/04
Posts: 4020
Loc: Anchorage AK
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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.
_________________________
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)
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#127027 - 03/11/08 06:55 PM
Re: SurvivorMan
[Re: LumpyJaw]
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Sheriff
Pooh-Bah
Registered: 10/12/07
Posts: 1804
Loc: Southern California
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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.
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