Its been a while since I watched them, but I remember the series Les Stroud did before Survivorman, "Stranded" (or One Week in the wilderness/Winter in the Wilderness; the original episodes, Stranded was a packaged into one hour special version) being edited more towards the education rather than entertainment side. You used to be able to watch them at the exn.ca website, but I can't find them now. You can order stranded from Les Stroud's website.

edit:
here is a brief trailer for the winter episode of Stranded