I like "Survivorman" a lot, though I do wish Les (Stroud) would go into a little more detail on some things.

Regarding the space blanket: he showed a night of survival without it where he looked for natural protection from the elements, a night where he used it as it was intended to be used and inside a makeshift shelter, and a couple of nights where he used it as an actual part of a shelter (the shelter he made too close to the river).

The show follows a similar pattern in each episode, blemishes and all. He's good for showing his mistakes just as much as his successes, partly for theatrical effect I'm sure, and partly to show what to do and what not to do.

Even still, survival to a great extent is about the ability to adapt to the situation, and I would almost guarantee that that none of us would make zero mistakes in such a situation no matter how much we think we know about survival. The key is rebounding after the mistake has been made if we’re capable. Hopefully, this is where the part of the psychology of survival in which we are confident in our own ability to adapt because we are well prepared for almost any situation will push us to rebound and turn the situation around. (Jeez I can't write a sentence to save my life LOL)



If you choose to follow the show, you'll also see that Les uses different survival methods from show to show and even different methods within the same show. Regarding this, as someone mentioned before, in the Rockies episode he started a fire with a lens salvaged from a video camera (He was successful in starting the fire in 25 minutes), in one episode he uses a rock and the back of his axe to strike a spark on tinder, in another episode he starts a fire with a gun, in another he uses a hand drill, and so on.

In the same manner, Stroud had gone spear fishing in a few previous episodes and hunted prey on land with a spear as well. Even so, spear fishing in a rain swollen river where visibility is zero, and where a rainstorm up river could cause a flash flood that would potentially sweep anyone away, in water that could cause hypothermia quickly, and in a river where falling on jagged rocks are as much a potential problem as anything else it may be a bad idea for the above reasons and more. If the show covered more than 7 days it may have been a different prospect though.

Equally so the slingshot wasn't very effective, but true to Les' style he showed it anyway. My thought when he tested it by shooting a rock in the river was that he wasn't getting much more speed out of the projectile than if he had thrown it and probably was only a little better off in the accuracy department versus throwing. You'll notice he also took a throwing stick with him. I wish he had commented on that.

In the end, we also shouldn't forget that we who are active in survival forums, training and such aren't the target market for "Survivorman". It's a broad-spectrum setup... Well... As broad a spectrum as such a show could be. There's no one to vote off the island, and no chunk of change to be one by the last man/woman standing... LOL



I had a brief email exchange with Les a month or so ago, and hope to be able to draw him into a more in depth discussion on a few topics. I hope I can pull it off, but then again I'm just some schmoe with an email account. I may try to lure him into the forums.

Anyway, interestingly enough he clued me in to a couple of survival videos he had done previously that are currently available.

To quote briefly from that part of the email (which was more than likely copy/pasted LOL):
"The Survivorman DVD series wont be available until the summer or fall, when it is finished. However 3 other videos available are "Snowshoes and Solitude" an award winning film about the year my wife and I spent living in the bush as if it were five hundred years ago, and "Stranded Winter, Stranded Summer" the two original pilot versions of Survivorman which did so very well for the Discovery Channel. (I paraphrased some of that due to the shear number of hyphens used)

I'm going to order "Snowshoes and Solitude" soon, and will let you good folks know whether it is worth picking up.


In the end, “Survivorman” is what it is, and most likely we’ll not see an in depth show where survival skills can be studied because we are less than a niche market.
I like "Survivorman" a lot, though I do wish Les (Stroud) would go into a little more detail on some things.

Regarding the space blanket: he showed a night of survival without it where he looked for natural protection from the elements, a night where he used it as it was intended to be used and inside a makeshift shelter, and a couple of nights where he used it as an actual part of a shelter (the shelter he made too close to the river).

The show follows a similar pattern in each episode, blemishes and all. He's good for showing his mistakes just as much as his successes, partly for theatrical effect I'm sure, and partly to show what to do and what not to do.

Even still, survival to a great extent is about the ability to adapt to the situation, and I would almost guarantee that that none of us would make zero mistakes in such a situation no matter how much we think we know about survival. The key is rebounding after the mistake has been made if we’re capable. Hopefully, this is where the part of the psychology of survival in which we are confident in our own ability to adapt because we are well prepared for almost any situation will push us to rebound and turn the situation around. (Jeez I can't write a sentence to save my life LOL)



If you choose to follow the show, you'll also see that Les uses different survival methods from show to show and even different methods within the same show. Regarding this, as someone mentioned before, in the Rockies episode he started a fire with a lens salvaged from a video camera (He was successful in starting the fire in 25 minutes), in one episode he uses a rock and the back of his axe to strike a spark on tinder, in another episode he starts a fire with a gun, in another he uses a hand drill, and so on.

In the same manner, Stroud had gone spear fishing in a few previous episodes and hunted prey on land with a spear as well. Even so, spear fishing in a rain swollen river where visibility is zero, and where a rainstorm up river could cause a flash flood that would potentially sweep anyone away, in water that could cause hypothermia quickly, and in a river where falling on jagged rocks are as much a potential problem as anything else it may be a bad idea for the above reasons and more. If the show covered more than 7 days it may have been a different prospect though.

Equally so the slingshot wasn't very effective, but true to Les' style he showed it anyway. My thought when he tested it by shooting a rock in the river was that he wasn't getting much more speed out of the projectile than if he had thrown it and probably was only a little better off in the accuracy department versus throwing. You'll notice he also took a throwing stick with him. I wish he had commented on that.

In the end, we also shouldn't forget that we who are active in survival forums, training and such aren't the target market for "Survivorman". It's a broad-spectrum setup... Well... As broad a spectrum as such a show could be. There's no one to vote off the island, and no chunk of change to be one by the last man/woman standing... LOL



I had a brief email exchange with Les a month or so ago, and hope to be able to draw him into a more in depth discussion on a few topics. I hope I can pull it off, but then again I'm just some schmoe with an email account. I may try to lure him into the forums.

Anyway, interestingly enough he clued me in to a couple of survival videos he had done previously that are currently available.

To quote briefly from that part of the email (which was more than likely copy/pasted LOL):
"The Survivorman DVD series wont be available until the summer or fall, when it is finished. However 3 other videos available are "Snowshoes and Solitude" an award winning film about the year my wife and I spent living in the bush as if it were five hundred years ago, and "Stranded Winter, Stranded Summer" the two original pilot versions of Survivorman which did so very well for the Discovery Channel. (I paraphrased some of that due to the shear number of hyphens used)

I'm going to order "Snowshoes and Solitude" soon, and will let you good folks know whether it is worth picking up.


In the end, “Survivorman” is what it is, and most likely we’ll not see a lot of in-depth shows on TV where survival skills can be studied because we are less than a niche market.

For what it's worth, in my opinion "Survivorman" is a worthwhile show... A great show.