Some flint, a water bottle, and a knife. That’s all Bear Grylls has with him when he gets “lost” on Man vs. Wild.
In each episode of Man vs. Wild, Bear strands himself in popular wilderness destinations where tourists often find themselves lost or in danger. As he finds his way back to civilization, he demonstrates local survival techniques, including escaping quicksand in the Moab Desert, navigating dangerous jungle rivers in Costa Rica, crossing ravines in the Alps and surviving sharks off Hawaii.
I admit the show is pretty ridiculous: He’s stuck in the frozen tundra but stops to demonstrate how to climb out of a frozen lake!? What’s the crew up to while he is starving/freezing? You have to take the whole thing with a big grain of salt.
But it’s also damn compelling. Even if you never venture into the wild, it’s fascinating to watch him catch and eat snakes, bugs, and fish, build shelters, snow caves, and rafts, find utility in urine and dung, etc. Discovery.com has some clips and a list of survival tips from the show.
Some of the lessons he offers sound ripe for being turned into a business “survival” guide too. For example:
The way out of jungle or mountains? Find a stream or river and follow it.
You never know how steep something is until you “rub noses with it.” From far away, you can’t really judge.
Survival is about playing the odds. Expect to fail before you succeed.
Building a fire is a great way to boost morale. And keeping morale up is the key to survival.
Never rely on one source for catching food. If you set up a fishing net, go out and start hunting for something else.
Do your homework before going on a trip — know the local geography and what’s edible there.
Expect luck in your life. “People come through hopeless situations because they push themselves to extraordinary places.”
Grylls’ gives motivational speeches and his site lists some of the topics he talks about.
On giving extra…
The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word – extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me…and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different…and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it.
On leadership…
A realisation that the qualities needed for effective leadership can be learnt. That real leader’s inspire a feel-good factor around them; you want to be with them regardless. That we all perform better when we are appreciated and encouraged and valued. That leader’s think bigger, and differently. They inspire those around them to go that little bit further, to perform that little bit better, and feel that little bit stronger.
On communication…
Bear is only too aware that an effective team on a high mountain relies on honest communication. Having a shared purpose, a culture of can-do and want-to; rather than politics or one-up-man-ship. Encouraging faith in each other, encouraging trust, and an ability to share weaknesses as well as strengths. An awareness that vulnerability creates bonds, and where there are bonds there is strength. A determination to make it together, where humility is a virtue and kindness really matters.
A bit cheesy? Sure. But when eating live snakes and maggots is just a normal day at the office, you’re allowed to sprinkle on some cheese.
Josh
on 31 Jul 07The thing about Bear Grylls is that he’s out classed on his own network by Suvivor Man’s Les Stroud—who is actually alone (and just lugs around a ton of camera equipment). So he’s a lot easier to take seriously.
http://www.survivorman.ca/
BradM
on 31 Jul 07There is a Canadian run show that is similar called SurvivorMan. It’s on our OLN network so I don’t know if you can get that in the US or not.
He puts himself in dangerous situations as well for 7 days. One thing that really impresses me is that he is also the cameraman! So the shots where he is off in the distance, he then has to go back and pick up the camera for footage.
One episode was where he was stranded on a Northern Ontario lake as a survivor of a plane crash. He put his arm in a sling. Of course it meant that he could only use 1 arm. That didn’t last long as he nearly went nuts. Or there was another episode where he was in the Artic and took a brief nap. When he woke up, there were Polar bear tracks right beside him!!
I would like to See the TV Show Survivor do an episode in Northern Ontario in late May early June. Those people would quit for sure! Why? Black Flies! Moose drown themselves because they can’t take it any more.
I’ve never heard of Man VS Wild. Thanks for the link! I love those types of shows.
BradM
on 31 Jul 07Josh – Sorry, we submitted at the same time!
Adam T.
on 31 Jul 07Survival show faces ‘fake’ claim
Whether or not it’s true, it’s still a blow for the show (although he does do some pretty crazy stuff on camera).
I’d suggest Survivorman to anyone looking to get into the survival-based shows.
David Spotts
on 31 Jul 07Man vs Wild is pretty sweet, but I agree Survivorman is way cooler. I wish Bear Grylls would do shows in Falluja, Iraq or the Sudan. Something real world. Nobody gets stuck in Scotland.
ML
on 31 Jul 07Nobody gets stuck in Scotland.
Every episode he talks about the hundreds/thousands of people who get stranded each year in wherever he’s going.
Josh
on 31 Jul 07@BradM - Great minds think alike and all. ;) And yep, we actually get Survivor Man here on the Discovery Channel - the same network that airs Man vs. Wild. I’m actually a fan of both shows, but Survivor Man is definitely the better show. (New episodes coming in August, I think … can’t wait!)
There’s an old documentary shown on PBS in the states every once in awhile about a guy who moves to Alaska and builds his own cabin out in the wilderness using somewhat primitive tools (he actually cuts his own boards using an ax). It’s shot like Survivor Man—i.e., he’s alone and does all the camera work himself using an array of old 16mm cameras. The show is pretty fascinating and the narration is great. I don’t know what it is called, though.
Jason DeFontes
on 31 Jul 07> about a guy who moves to Alaska…
http://dickproenneke.com/
Nicole
on 31 Jul 07While I realize Man vs Wild may not be entirely genuine survival, I love the show. The guy intentionally jumps through ice in a glacial pool in the Alps—who couldn’t like that?
JF
on 31 Jul 07Cut corners or not, I love Man vs. Wild. It’s well produced, entertaining to watch, educational (if just for fire starting and navigational techniques), and genuinely interesting. Bear has a curiosity that inspires. Long live Grylls!
Rahul Pathak
on 31 Jul 07Apparently, Bear wasn’t being entirely truthful. I was bummed to find this out because I thought the show was terrific. Bear is still a bad-ass (special forces, Everest etc etc), but not quite what I had initially thought.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6913108.stm
“The issue of scenes being manipulated was raised by Mark Weinert, a US survival consultant.
He told the UK’s Sunday Times that Grylls spent nights in a motel in Hawaii when he was claiming to be stranded on a desert island.
Mr Weinert also alleged that a raft was put together by team members before being taken apart so Grylls could be filmed building it.”
Jack
on 31 Jul 07Bear is a faker: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6911748.stm
This guy is a legit dude, but better show too: http://www.survivorman.ca/
brad
on 31 Jul 07Nobody gets stuck in Scotland! Hah! I remember when I climbed Ben Nevis there were warnings on the summit about how people die there every year, and for me it felt like a mere hike up a hill. I once got lost in winter at the summit of Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, then the second-most climbed mountain in the world. It was sunny at the bottom but by the time I reached the summit there was a white-out blizzard, and I was climbing alone. The trail disappeared and kids had thrown all the cairn stones off the mountain during the summer…fortunately I had a compass and crampons and took a beeline down the icy rocks until I intersected a trail and got back to my car about an hour after sunset.
Eric Prugh
on 31 Jul 07I have watched both Discovery Channel shows. Survivorman almost put me to sleep.
Bear has got an intensity and personality about him that makes the show better. Who cares if he eats a warm meal every now and then? Wouldn’t you? I don’t understand what the big deal is… Bear Grylls is still a badass and could out-survive all of you (help or not). :-)
Randy
on 31 Jul 07I’ve been more of a fan of Ray Mears, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Mears_(author). He’s been writing survival books and doing tv shows since the early 90s.
Les Stroud does put himself in more real survival situations and does all his own camera work, long shots and all. Max does more crazy stuff, but he also has a camera crew that can bail him out if something happens. Les can’t be so careless.
David Spotts
on 31 Jul 07How long can these shows last?? I like both of them, but we are going to hit the limit pretty soon. What’s the finale?
I think Bear is a bad ass but I wish they would push the creativity factor past drinking shit water. That’s pretty entertaining but once you see him do it you have a new gross out threshold that has to be pushed.
I like the green aspect of Les Stroud. I can’t wait to see his show about living of the land for 12 months recycling everything. Canada gets all the good shows.
Paul
on 31 Jul 07I like this show a lot, I think the problem is that he pretends to be lost like the great Les Straud, when in fact he is putting himself in these situations to demonstrate what to do if you yourself are in them.
If he just came out and put himself in that light it wouldn’t be that bad.
The man did drink shit, BTW.
Andy Knight
on 31 Jul 07My four year gets bored watching cartoons, but he can’t get enough of Bear Grylls. Now we have to play “survivor” down in our basement, pretending to eat snakes and boil our drinking water. He also goes around asking his friends if they like Bear Grylls, and they have no idea what he is talking about. Thankfully the show is nice and clean and appropriate for him.
Sandy
on 31 Jul 07I knew Bear as a kid at Eton and even then there was something extraordinary about him. We were in a karate class together – and I often saw him doing serious training workouts between times, more than almost anyone else. We had a heavyweight Japanese Sensei come to grade us – and he kept getting double-graded (an achievement you can’t fake). My point is that even then he knew what it was to give ‘extra’.
Bartholomew
on 31 Jul 07You are aware that Man vs Wild is a television show, presented for entertainment, right?
Do you think Theo was really Bill Cosby’s son? Wait a minute, come to think of it, Bill Cosby used a fake name on that show, too!
I wonder if all that stuff on the History Channel is real footage or some sort of fake ‘recreation’. I am suspicious about that Alexander the Great guy.
None of this has anything to do with the point of the article, of course.
Eric Atkins
on 31 Jul 07I for one enjoy Survivor Man a lot better. To me, Man vs. Wild is just one dirty outdoor episode of “Fear Factor”.
Hmm. I’ll eat a few bugs. A few raw animals. Pee on myself. Jump in some dangerous situation.
Survivor Man is about one man’s attempt to survive alone in some wilderness. MvW is sensational. SM is real.
Michael Vu
on 31 Jul 07Man vs Wild is a badass show. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s very entertaining and educational.
Martin
on 31 Jul 07There was a parody of Man vs. Wild on the last episode of Mind of Mencia where Carlos had to find his way out of the true wild: South Central L. A. :-)
Randy
on 31 Jul 07I meant Bear, not Max. I must have been thinking of Max Baer the boxer for some reason.
heri
on 31 Jul 07this reminds me of McGyver. ok, it’s much more hardcore, but both are the coolest you can get.
Thor
on 31 Jul 07I’ve been entertained and educated by both of these shows. I wonder if Bear and Les go to bed each night thinking of ways to outdo each other? I doubt it.
Bear is a fraud BearWiki
on 01 Aug 07Bear is a fraud!
http://www.daughtersoftiresias.org/bearwiki/Special:Allpages
eric
on 01 Aug 07have all you survivorman fans seen this show? seriously? he’s a whiner! he complains about being lost, but he puts himself in these situations.
nonetheless, he’s still total BA. as is grylls.
and you can’t deny that grylls is a man’s man. he broke his back in three places in the SAS. then climbed everest. twice. then flew over everest in a paraglider.
come on! i don’t even care if he slept in a hotel. i would too being that far from family and home.
thanks to bear grylls and les stround for entertaining shows despite their faults.
Maxime Brusse
on 01 Aug 07Check out this Credit Card Survival Tool.
Michael Chui
on 01 Aug 07It’s really quite amazing how much value our society places on not being lied to. (And I mean “not being lied to”. We’re fine with lying and non-truths.)
Personally, I haven’t seen the other shows mentioned, but regardless of the truth of the show, the actual point is educational and I don’t see anyone criticizing the techniques he demonstrates as wrong.
And nice extractions, Matt.
Survival Guy
on 01 Aug 07I’ll admit I fell for all of Bear’s “tricks”. I truly thought he was roughing it for every show although I knew he had a camera crew he could use as a backup. The recent news about the staged situations is disappointing, and yet the show remains entertaining. It’d be nice if there was a way to provide full disclaimers for each episode without ruining the mood.
The good news is I’m on DVD 2 of Survivorman and loving it!
Deano
on 01 Aug 07Ray Mears makes far more interesting programmes without the need to project some gung-ho survival nonsense. You actually find out about how indigenous people survive today, stories of how people lived in different locales throughout history and an appreciation for the beauty of nature.
I would have thought Mears would be more 37Signals cup of tea rather than ol’ faker Bear.
Mark
on 01 Aug 07I would just like to say I like Man vs. Wild and have never watched it even thinking it was a “survivor” show. In fact, I’ve assumed that much of it was staged. I’ve always taken the show as educational on how to survive certain situations in the wild rather than a reality show.
Tor Løvskogen
on 01 Aug 07I’ve just seen a episode of Man vs. Wild, and it was too ‘showy’. Now I’m watching Survivorman, and it looks very promising, much more real :)
Chris
on 02 Aug 07I agree w/Mark. I’ve always watched Man vs. Wild under the premise that some of it was staged. C’mon, it’s TV. I like Les Stroud too, but I think people are over-reactiing to this Bear ‘controversy’. The fact is that Bear still shows survival skills that you can utilze in the field, as does Les.
18Delta
on 02 Aug 07do you have any solid facts that bear grylls is fake or youre just grabbing for the lame newspaper articles and tv news??? am a biology student and soon I hope to start my own survival school and I always try to tell people to see thing with more than one aspect, to always have and keep an open state of mind. even if bear grylls is fake, survival knowledge and skills ARE NOT!!!! did you watch bear grylls cuz it had interesting and educ. material or because of bear’s good looks??? even if hi did fake it (which I am NOT CERTAIN about) I still have a high opinion of him (remember he was into spec.forces, climbed everest, parachuting, survival knowledge etc.), he is an extraordinary person. try not to be shortsighted in life!
This discussion is closed.