Les Stroud - Film and Television

Film and Television

After his marriage to Jamison in 1994, the two of them spent one year in the Canadian wilderness to attempt a paleolithic existence. They traveled to Goldsborough Lake (50°41′55″N 89°20′46″W / 50.69861°N 89.34611°W / 50.69861; -89.34611) deep in the Wabakimi, first building a tipi then an attached A-frame while using no metal, plastic, or otherwise manufactured tools. For the first half of the year, they took a store of traditional foods such as wild rice, squash, beaver and moose meat, bear fat, and maple sugar. In late September, Stroud's friends Doug Getgood and Fred Rowe brought in food for the next six months and chopped firewood for the couple. Stroud and Jamison built and equipped a winter cabin using an axe, a modern bow saw, and trapper's tin wood stove left by Getgood and Rowe, along with a metal pot they found.

Family and medical emergencies brought them out of the bush on three occasions. Once when Stroud's father was dying from cancer, another when they both went to be treated for giardiasis, and again when Jamison had a miscarriage. Stroud filmed their primitive living experience and released the 50 minute documentary, Snowshoes and Solitude, which was named Best Documentary at the Muskoka Film Festival and Best Film at the Waterwalker Film Festival.

In 2001 Stroud produced two one-hour specials for the science news show @discovery.ca. These segments follow the same format as Survivorman with Stroud filming his own survival in the wilderness. They were originally broadcast as daily segments over the course of one week but were repackaged as two one-hour specials titled Stranded. The popularity of these pilots spawned the show Survivorman. Stroud produced 23 episodes of the show which began airing in 2004. Stroud also composed and performed the opening theme music of Survivorman.

In 2006, Stroud produced a 90-minute special documenting his family's journey to building an off-the-grid home. The show, Off the Grid with Les Stroud, chronicled the process of buying property and refitting an old farm house with solar and wind power, a raincatcher and well, as well as the adjustments the Stroud family had to make to adapt to this style of living. Stroud has made multiple television appearances including on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The View, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and Larry King Live.

Stroud has also hosted an episode of the Discovery channel show I Shouldn't Be Alive titled Lost In The Snow, which aired during its first season and the TV program Surviving Urban Disasters, which aired on the Science Channel and the 20th annual Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.

In 2010, Stroud hosted and produced the Gemini nominated hit kids TV series Survive This and Survive This 2 (YTV, Cartoon Network) that takes teens into the wilderness to teach them how to survive by giving them some instruction and challenging them with survival scenarios. Stroud's follow-up show to Survivorman was titled Beyond Survival with Les Stroud and debuted in 2010.