One late night back in the early-2000s, I was flipping through the channels trying to find something to watch.
When I landed on The Discovery Channel, I saw something unexpected.
A man was standing in the middle of the Canadian Arctic, tearing apart his snowmobile.
I was immediately intrigued and soon I became a fan.
Then I realized he was everywhere when he was namedropped on King of the Hill and parodied on The Office.
For the past two decades, he has taught us how to survive.
Because of him, I know how to measure how much light is left in the day just using an outstretched hand and I learned that you could eat snow for hydration…but not too much.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx Biography.
Today, I’m joined by someone you might simply know as… Survivorman… Les Stroud.
Born on Oct. 20, 1961, Les Stroud didn’t grow up off the grid, instead he was very much connected to it in in a west end suburb of Toronto.
From his Mimico home Les’ primary access to the outdoors was through the magic of television.
Whether it was Jacques Cousteau, Tarzan movies, or the film Jeremiah Johnson, wilderness was always calling.
At first it was a passing interest, because something else had his attention.
Music.
Les said his musical awakening happened when his grade seven teacher had the class study Jesus Christ Superstar.
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The rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice retells the last seven days of Jesus’ life and it focuses on the conflict between Jesus and Judas.
(BEAT)
The following year, a new music teacher focused on album studies, which included Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John.
From there, his musical tastes broadened to include The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and other iconic rock bands.
And that gave him an idea.
He wanted to be a rock star.
After high school, he went on to the Music Industry Arts program at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario.
He graduated in the early-1980s, just as MTV hit the airways and music videos became all the rage.
He got a job at Canada’s answer to the US video channel — Much Music and quickly became an associate producer and production manager on videos for artists like Rush and Corey Hart.
But he never quit his dream in the spotlight so after work he played in a David Bowie cover band called the Diamond Dogs a reference to Bowie’s 1974 album of the same name.
Les also wrote music and played guitar for New Regime.
The Canadian new wave band was active from 1982 to 1987but Les left before they had been signed by RCA in 1984 and toured with Platinum Blonde a year later.
But living a double life of producer by day and rockstar by night began to wear on him.
Feeling like he was coming to the end of a dream something caught his eye.
A course on how to survive in the wilderness.
Stroud says that the course he took at Humber College changed everything.
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That’s because Les had a new goal in mind.
Instead of touring the biggest stages in the world he was now going to be one of the best outdoor guides in Canada.
He left Much Music to work for various wilderness adventure companies, paddle whitewater rivers and run dog teams.
Les says that during this time, he was turning himself from an aspiring rock star to Robert Redford’s character in Jeremiah Johnson.
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The 1972 film is partly based on the story of the legendary mountain man John Jeremiah Johnson.
In the film, Jeremiah abandons civilization to live in the wilderness where he is mentored by a veteran trapper.
There is more to the movie of course, but no spoilers here folks.
Even if you have never seen the movie, you have seen the character Robert Redford played.
An animated GIF of Jeremiah Johnson nodding as the camera zooms in on him became a widely used internet reaction meme, though most people don’t know it’s a husky Robert Redford they’re using.
When he wasn’t training outdoors Les was often in classrooms, watching, in his words, cheesy survival films.
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That planted the seeds of Survivorman in his head.
Les believed that for a video to make an impact, the stakes had to be higher.
Instead of a “how to” from the comfort of a classroom, or controlled environment. the person on screen needed to be outdoors, in need of fire and shelter.
The person… would need to be in survival mode. [PAUSE]
Les Stroud knew that he could do a better job The problem is that he was ahead of his time.
Other than shows like COPS and MTV’s The Real World, reality television wasn’t really a thing in the 1990s.
He also n needed technology to catch up.
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Over the next decade, while he waited for technology to catch up, he honed his skills and by the time small digital cameras like the Sony VX1000, began to appear.,. he was ready.
By then it was the dawn of a new millennium, and 16 participants were left to survive in a remote area in Borneo, Malaysia.
They were filmed as they used minimal tools and supplies to build shelter and feed themselves.
And their participation in a new reality show would change TV history.
Hosted by Jeff Probst, Survivor was based on the Swedish show Expedition Robinson created by Mark Burnett and Charlie Parsons.
The series follows participants from all walks of life that are isolated in a remote location, where they must provide food, fire, and shelter for themselves.
Every three days, one participant is removed from the series by majority vote, as challenges are held to give a reward and immunity from being voted out from the series.
The last remaining player is awarded a prize of $1,000,000.
That first season aired from May to August 2000.
After 39 days in the jungle, and in front of 51.7 million viewers, Richard Hatch defeated Kelly Wiglesworth in a 4–3 jury vote.
The finale had higher ratings than the World Series, NBA finals, NCAA men’s basketball finals, and Grammy Awards of that year.
And television would never be the same, because after Survivor aired, approximately 51 million other reality competition programs were put into production.
Les watched Survivor and quickly realized that both technology and television were ready for what he had in mind, so he called up Discovery Channel and pitched them his idea.
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It turned out that Discovery was looking for what he was selling but had no idea who to contact and now the perfect person had just fallen into their lap with a fully formed idea.
In 2001, Stroud produced his first survival video series for the show @discovery.ca.
Five segments, each five minutes long, would air from Monday to Friday.
They were an instant hit.
In fact, ratings s was so high that network executives told Les they would devote an entire hour of the Sunday recap show to his segments.
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And where it led him was to his own TV series.
Filming it would be unique.
Les would be left alone to operate all the camera equipment himself.
Unlike other survival shows that came before and after, where the host is joined by a camera crew and creates survival situations artificially, looking at you Bear Grylls, Les’ method wasn’t about shock value, it was about survival.
The first season would consist of 23 episodes, and it would be called …. Survivorman
It premiered on April 6, 2005, and in that first episode viewers watched as Les tackled the challenge of surviving outdoors with only the clothes on his back, his harmonica by his side and a multi tool.
Other everyday items would be used depending on the particular situation and environment because the assumption was that you would be in survival mode and be able to scavenge from what you had in the first episode, Les simulated being stranded in Canada’s Boreal Forest.
That season he also survived the scorching heat of the Arizona Desert, was marooned in the Costa Rican jungle, simulated being lost at sea and struggled with a broken snowmobile in the Arctic where he was also required to have a rifle to protect himself from polar bears.
Oh…and he also had all his camera equipment with him.
Keep in mind, this was the early-2000s.
No GoPro.
No iPhones.
Just heavy camera equipment that weighed 23 kilograms, which he had to take with him everywhere.
During a behind the scenes segment, Les stated that 65 percent of his time was spent setting up and taking down camera gear.
If you saw Les walking off into the distance, that meant at the end of that shot, he had to walk back, get the equipment before he could continue.
Les says it was important to be completely authentic. He didn’t want to fake anything.
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Like Les says, “if there is a cheat, then what is the point.”
He also believes that the raw graininess of the digital cameras he used is what made the show feel so real.
It had a unique guerrilla quality that would be lost today with GoPro’s and iPhones.
Again, authenticity is what made people stop and watch.
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He truly put his body on the line for his show.
While surviving in a swamp in Georgia, he contracted a parasitic worm infestation, likely from turtle meat, that led to an infection in his mouth that lasted for a year.
And it’s not like les went into the wilderness unprepared.
Because he absolutely made sure to get professional advice first.
Prior to filming, he consulted with local experts to learn about the flora and fauna of the area and survival techniques specific to the location.
That attention to detail and Les’ commitment to authenticity made the show an immediate hit and became Discovery Canada’s most popular shows and a second season was ordered which would premiere in in 2007.
For survival scenarios would include running out of gas in the extreme heat of the Kalahari Desert, surviving in the depths of the Amazon Forest and simulating a hot air balloon emergency landing in northern South Africa.
Once again, he put himself on the line.
In the Amazon Forest, he was forced to abandon all but two of his smaller cameras because a jaguar was stalking him nearby.
One location he wanted to visit, but was unable to do so because of political issues, was Tibet.
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Production even looked at going to Nepal and renting a helicopter to get aerial shots for the opening credits, but the cost was too high.
This was the days before plentiful drones.
Les says Tibet remains on his bucket list, which by the way is NOT how the show selected locations.
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Season two was a success as well and so for season three he expanded.
In the Colorado Rockies he took two horses.
Then, he simulated being a researcher lost on Baffin Island and then struggled to survive alone in Papua New Guinea.
In one episode, he took his friend Bob Wilson to play the role of lost hunters in northern Ontario.
One of the more popular episodes of that season was one where Les played a lost and injured backpacker in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains.
He then challenged local search and rescue teams to find him.
Remember that Les didn’t have a crew, and he was in fact putting himself in survival situations which meant filming the series was taking a physical toll on his body.
The decision was made to pause the series.
But that didn’t hurt the show’s popularity in the least, especially after one of the biggest shows on tv did a parody of it.
On Nov. 8, 2007, fans of the U.S TV show The Office sat down to watch the very popular series.
In this episode, Michael Scott feels left out after discovering that his employees went on a corporate wilderness retreat without him. To prove his toughness, he decides to survive on his own in the woods.
Played by Steve Carrell who also wrote the episode, Michael documents his efforts with a small camera.
The name of that episode…Survivor Man.
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Meanwhile, Les was on hiatus, so he kept busy with other projects.
In 2010, he produced the children’s shows Survive This and Survive This 2, which earned him a Gemini nomination.
Then he made it back to our screens in Beyond Survival with Les Stroud which debuted that same year and focused on Indigenous survival techniques.
He said the show was about reconnecting with nature.
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He returned to his flagship show after four years away with Survivorman 10 Days.
It premiered in 2012 and consisted of two two-part episodes, he survived on a mountain in Norway and then a Mexican desert island.
An eight-episode fifth season debuted in early-2014.
The first four episodes focused on solo survival.
Two episodes included Les’ son Logan, and the final two episodes involved Les looking for evidence of the Sasquatch in Alberta and British Columbia.
Survivorman was still incredibly popular, and Discovery channel ordered a seven-episode sixth season which would focus on the mystery of Bigfoot.
Les brought a scientific approach to the legend of the Sasquatch and the attempts to separate fact from fiction.
A seventh season debuted in late-2015, and included Les being stranded in the Transylvanian Alps while Romanian search and rescue teams try to find him.
He also travelled to India and the foothills of the Himalayas to survive amid the densest population of tigers in the world.
By now if there was a survival situation somewhere in the world, Les had recreated it for viewers.
I have watched Survivorman more times than I can count.
And you can enjoy episodes now on YouTube as well.
One thing I always wanted to know was if it was tougher to survive in the heat of Kenya versus the bitter cold of Baffin Island.
Les says that when it comes to survival it is not about geography.
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While Survivorman ended a decade ago, Les didn’t slow down.
In 2018, he released Alaska’s Grizzly Gauntlet, which explored survival methods and social structures of the Kodiak Brown Bear.
Since 2020, he has worked with chef Paul Rogalski on Wild Harvest to show how food can be made using wild ingredients.
If survival is one part of the story of Les Stroud, every Survivorman viewer can tell you, Les is an exceptional harmonica player, and music has always been an important part of the show.
He put his guitar down for a decade to focus on wilderness survival, but he returned to his first passion and began to play at bars around Canada, Les says that it felt good to be on stage, with no agenda, and just playing music for the love of it.
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Les said the harmonica he used to entertain himself and audiences while alone in nature has also led to plenty of incredible moments on stage.
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It’s not lost on Les those 25 years after Survivorman debuted, his legacy is found on the genre he helped develop.
Shows like Alone and YouTube channels such as The Outdoor Boys and Camping with Steve may not exist if it weren’t for him.
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Because of his experience as an innovator in filming survival shows he also knows when others cut corners or lack complete authenticity.
And he’s not afraid to call it out.
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In the years since Survivorman, music has taken a more central role in Les’ life.
One of the biggest highlights of this upcoming year is the release of his second album, which will feature Canadian music icon Bruce Cockburn.
He will also be releasing his second book.
A follow up to his award-winning children’s book Wild Outside and it’s called Early Bird.
While the first book focused on kid-friendly activities and tips on how to safely observe wildlife, Early Bird will be Les’ first foray into fiction.
However, regardless of these other projects, wilderness survival is always part of Les’s life and he’s never too far from it.
Currently, he is producing a documentary called The Question of Bigfoot.
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And you miss seeing Les on TV make sure you head to his YouTube channel where you can find director commentaries for his episodes.
It’s a feature that I personally love because instead of a voice over, Les sets up a camera and sits down to watch the show and pauses it to give you unique insights on his experience.
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For Les, those at home have given him unique opportunities he’s very grateful for.
He also hopes to inspire those watching to get out there and appreciate nature and fall in love with it like he has.
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That’s because Les believes that the more people experience nature the more, they’ll fight to protect it.
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Les says in the end, his path may have not taken him to the world’s biggest stages, but by staying true to himself and sharing his love for the outdoors is something that he will always be proud of.
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So, if you’re listening… please take a moment to get out there and touch some grass…
