#64： Survivorman With Les Stroud
Episode Stats
Summary
Les Stroud, better known as Survivorman, is a TV star, survival expert, and musician. In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, we talk about how he got into survival training, how he developed the idea for his TV show, and what he thinks everyone should know if they want to survive in the wild.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Now, I think most guys at one time or another have gone through this scenario in their head.
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What would happen to me if I was dropped in the middle of nowhere in the wilderness,
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With nothing but the clothes on my back and my wits, would I be able to survive?
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Well, our guest today has made a living answering that question for himself,
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His name is Les Stroud, better known as Survivorman.
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You've probably seen his show where it's just him and a camera that he's operating himself,
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trying to figure out how to survive in different locales around the world.
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But besides being a survival expert and a TV star, Les is also a musician.
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And in today's episode, we're going to talk about Les's just fascinating career,
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how he got into survival training, how he developed the idea of Survivorman.
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We're going to talk about tips and know-how that he thinks everyone should know
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if they want to survive in the wild, if they find themselves in the middle of nowhere
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with nothing but the clothes on their back and their wits.
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And we're going to talk about his music career,
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how wilderness survival training has changed his music.
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Okay, so let's start off by talking about your history.
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Because I know there's some of you who, people who are listening,
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that they know who you are, they're big fans of your show, what you do.
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But I'm sure a lot of people aren't, and I'm sure the people who know about you
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don't know about your history, your career history.
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Because I know there's a lot of young men who listen to our podcast,
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and they're at that stage in their life when they're trying to figure out
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And they feel like they have to figure out what they're going to do now.
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And they don't realize that opportunities come up.
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Can you talk a little bit about your career history?
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Because you didn't start off as a wilderness survival guy, right?
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I mean, I came by it, honestly, in terms of my early past, my childhood,
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in that I was a, you know, I was a big fan of Jacques Cousteau and Tarzan movies.
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And I went to my cottage a lot and loved going out in the back 40s.
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But I also left it around the age of 14 when I discovered rock and roll
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and focused entirely on being a musician for a good solid 10 years easily.
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Um, and it was, uh, it was around the age of 25.
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I had been doing pretty decent and pretty well in, in, in, as a singer songwriter and so on,
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And, uh, I was extremely disillusioned with the industry during the mid eighties.
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I hated the music of the eighties and didn't like where it was going and,
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And so I decided to make a big, a big, a big decision and, and, and quit all that I'd known.
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I mean, really everything that I knew was about music.
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And when I, when I decided, when I made that decision, um, two things happened.
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The world lifted off of my shoulders in two ways.
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And the first way was it lifted off of my shoulders and that responsibility of trying
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And then it was lifted off my shoulders and that, what do I do next came up.
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And I, and I knew right away, it's just wilderness adventure.
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Didn't have a clue what that meant, but I knew that was the direction I wanted to go.
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And I was, I was 25 years old when I made that decision to start to look into what it
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meant to, to be involved with wilderness adventure.
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You know, I, I don't think it ever left my soul.
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Um, I know that even as a, a later teenager, not doing anything to do with adventure out
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in the outdoors, my buddies, my party buddies, you know, still used to nickname me Ewell Gibbons
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because for some reason I knew which plants to eat and stuff.
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But, so I must've, I must, it must've never left me somehow because I, you know, I got
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that nickname for a reason, but it was certainly kept away from me until, until my mid twenties.
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You decided to make this big leap and it was wilderness adventure.
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How did, was it sort of a serendipity that led you towards the whole survivalist aspect
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I'm a, I'm a, I'm an outdoor adventure, a wilderness adventure.
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Uh, I'm a documentary filmmaker, uh, and I'm those things and I've combined, I'm an entertainer
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It's a, it's a, it's a very tricky word to use because it conjures up images of preppers
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and, and, and building bunkers for the apocalypse sort of thing of which I'm not.
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Like, I guess, you know, not the survivalist aspect, but you know, look, learning how to live
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off the land, um, learning how to, you know, just live with nature when you're out there
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Well, I mean, the first thing I saw when I said, I mean, I did the obvious thing.
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I just started looking in the newspaper and I didn't even know what to look for.
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I mean, I didn't know that you could do things like you could be a canoe guide.
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I didn't, I didn't even know, you know, I just, I just didn't know what was available
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And, and, uh, I always thought that when you went overseas to Africa or someplace like that
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or South America, well, that was only for privileged people.
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I didn't know it was something that a lot of programs had been developing that you
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So I looked in the newspaper and I saw a little tiny article that was for wilderness survival
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And of course I thought, well, that sounds like me.
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And I took the leap and, and, and, uh, I enrolled in a, you know, in class and every Thursday
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night you meet in a classroom at the local college and there's some guy there and he starts
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I was like, okay, we went out into the, you know, the first thing we did was, okay, everybody
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And as soon as I was in a classroom where we went outside and into the bush, I knew I
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I was in the right place for it to learn the types of things I wanted to learn.
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And at that point, it's just this ever expanding world of knowledge to, to partake of, you know,
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from, from, you know, being able to dog sled and canoe and kayak to edible and medicinal
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plants, to survival methods, to wilderness spirituality, to everything.
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And, uh, you know, there were certain areas that I, that I, well, actually I, I went after
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everything in certain areas that I really took on well.
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So, um, it sounds like you, uh, you just mentioned you're kind of an entertainer at
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I, I, did you have any involvement with, uh, television and film before this too?
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Um, and so I did a lot of filming with rock videos and, um, you know, fast forwarding to
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the future and 10 years of nothing but wilderness adventure under my belt, not having picked up
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my guitar for eight years and done nothing with cameras or anything.
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I started to have experiences and to do things in the outdoors that I, as an entertainer,
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as a creative person, as an artist thought, boy, these would make some great films.
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And the only thing that existed back then at the time really was like the Warren Miller
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People weren't really filming their adventures.
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I mean, you, you couldn't cause the cameras were too big.
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And so I knew though, that, that I had some great stories happening.
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The first thing I did when I was married was our honeymoon.
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We did it as if it was 500 years ago, no metal, no matches, no plastic, no nylon.
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And when we partook to do that, when we, when we were about to do that, I knew that, okay,
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And, and so I took it upon myself to film that year.
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Is that how you made your segue into television host or film creator?
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It'd be like, look, you know, then I started thinking, this is fun.
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Now my creative juices that never left me, but were sort of laid a little dormant could
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now be combined with my adventure desires to create film work.
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And lo and behold, my past dream world of Jacques Cousteau and Tarzan.
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If you think about it, that's what survivor man is.
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And yet there I was in this position, having something completely unique, no one else had
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ever done before and able to say, okay, I'm going to film my adventures.
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And, and that, uh, yeah, that led me to a, a cold call for, for, to pitch survivor man.
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There was nothing else like it on television at the time.
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Mark Burnett survivor series had come on air, but it was a joke.
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It was not survival, but it also helped me to think, well, wait a minute, this idea
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I have, it might be able to take traction, right?
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With that thing sort of distracting everybody and everybody going, Oh, survival is kind of
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I thought, well, let me show them the real thing.
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Let's talk about how, for those who aren't familiar with the show, can you talk about
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how survivor man differs from all the other, I guess, survival shows that are out there
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on the discovery and history and all those other, I mean, what's, what's, what makes
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Um, you and a camera, like it's, you don't have a cameraman, you don't have a crew.
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I mean, everything else came along after because survivor man became such a strong show and
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a hit that then the creation of man versus wild and dual survival and man, woman, wild
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and naked and afraid and marooned, all of this stuff came along after it's like the only
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And I really still, I still knowing production as I do, I have my questions as the guy doing
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marooned, he seems to actually have his shit together and be doing something for real.
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And if they're not real, then, then why are they pretending to hurt?
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Cause I, you know, I've, I've watched their shows and like, yeah, that doesn't seem like
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They're not, it's completely set up and it's completely a matter of television production.
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The difference is when survivor man was created, it was created by me, a guy who teaches survival.
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I taught it and I came, first thing I wanted to do was just simply teach.
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The other shows came from the side of television producers.
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What they wanted to do was jump on the bandwagon and produce a TV show.
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Hence, you know, a guy like bear is nothing more than a TV host.
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Um, you know, I wouldn't say the same for Cody.
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He's a, he's a good survival instructor, but the show dual survival is still just set up
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So there in life, the difference is mine came from being instructional and really learning
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And the other shows came from TV producers jumping on a bandwagon.
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I mean, these shows are like, all these shows are like, you know, pretty popular.
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I'm sure you think about this, you know, what's going on in the culture, right?
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That would make these, like people would be drawn to these shows.
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Like they'd want to watch, you know, you in the middle of nowhere, you know, surviving
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I mean, what, what do you, what do you think's going on with the kind of the wider culture
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Well, I won't comment on the other shows cause I think that's primarily entertainment.
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Um, in my case, uh, you know, I was very lucky.
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I mean, to back up a bit is to say that when I would create these shows, I would always
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concentrate on and even meditate on the thought that, okay, I want to make something.
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I want to do something today that's inspiring for people that will take them to a positive
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place and be a positive influence in their life.
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And lo and behold, I would get all these reactions by email of exactly that going on.
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Things that had nothing to do with survival, just making, building shelters and making
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And I think that in a larger perspective, the survival itself, it touched on, you know,
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certain people's way of looking inside and going, man, I could, I wonder if I could
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I wonder if I could like have nothing and be like a cave person again and, and survive
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I wonder if I, and so we've got that, you know, that inner sort of thing of fantasy thinking,
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I wonder if I could survive if I threw everything away and just had to get my water, my food,
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And then I think the other more fun superficial level are those that sort of watch more out
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It's like, Oh my God, is he really going to eat that?
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You know, that brought people together too, but as a result, the demographic is wide from
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young kids right on up to senior academics and everything in between, because I think
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If you are looking for another podcast to listen to that interviews experts to get insights
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on how to live a better life, make better decisions.
00:14:06.280
One podcast I recommend you check out is the Jordan Harbinger show.
00:14:09.480
And I've had Jordan on my podcast two times already.
00:14:11.840
And I have him here again, Jordan, you just did an episode with general Stanley McChrystal
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So what's, what does Stanley McChrystal say about the myth of leadership?
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Yeah, he's got a lot to say about this and the book and our discussion centers around the
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counterintuitive ability of leaders who value their own mission essentially over the lives
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So he's got to send people to things where he's like, you might die.
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And I thought, wow, what is that going to be like?
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And so we go over different leadership styles as well.
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And the danger of these three myths of leadership.
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And this is a guy who's had to deal with sending people, I hate saying it this way, but to their
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So it was a very fascinating conversation with somebody.
00:15:00.280
You know, it's different when you lose a couple million dollars of your company's money.
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It's a totally different game when you say, yeah, we lost, you know, 75 men and injured
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countless others and a bunch of civilians died.
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So that's episode 111, General Stanley McChrystalman on the Jordan Harbinger show.
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I think all of us have that, in modern life, have that question.
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But Les Stroud Survivorman does get to answer it.
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Are there, have you had any close encounters with death during the show, during the filming
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The two most, the biggest recollection is Norway episode going down the mountainside
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That was more potential than anything that I narrowly, you know, escaped.
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But the heat stroke in the Kalahari Desert, that was very dangerous.
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I mean, that was a, I did get heat stroke and it took five to six hours just to cool down.
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And that was a very dangerous situation to be in for sure.
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Have you had any incidents outside of the show, like before, where it's just like,
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holy cow, I can't believe I did that and I survived?
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Yeah, but more, I suppose being chased up a tree by a 1,500 pound moose was, that was
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more, you know, one of those like crazy moments.
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I've been, you know, slightly hypothermic on lots of things.
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And in many ways, I'm boring because I know what I'm doing.
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I set things up so that, so that I don't have errors and problems.
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You know, that said, I found myself sweating to the bone and trying to get to my cottage
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this last New Year's Eve with minus 45 degrees Celsius.
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And there I am, survivor man, I'm supposed to know what I'm doing.
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And yet I was caught, you know, in the middle of a frozen lake, you know, pouring with sweat,
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trying to get to my cottage, a dumb move, struggling against slush, trying to pull a sled through.
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But the closer to death are probably more of the adrenaline things where I've been on a
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That's the situation where it's, you know, your heart's in your throat and pulled a couple
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But by definition, I'm not an adrenaline junkie.
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I think a lot of people who are drawn to that, like extreme sports or like survival, they
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would say that they're not, I've talked to lots and they say, I'm not an adrenaline junkie.
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I like the risk, but I'm definitely not there for the rush.
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Is there any place in particular that you just loved filming at?
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It's so hard to nail one, but absolutely the high Canadian Arctic is always a thrill.
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Those places are the types of places where I like to say you could throw the camera on
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the ground and it's still going to get a good angle.
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I've been, I've been to the Utah Canyonlands, but none of those other places.
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So let's kind of like some, I like to ask like some practical tips from people who are
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When you're out, say if some, or one of our listeners finds themselves stranded in the
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What are the most important things a person should do in that situation in order to survive
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And the way I like to describe the way to do that is I've sort of devised this in my instruction,
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as you know, I've got some books out and stuff like that.
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And I want to do an updated version of my book called Survive, which is the manual, because
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I've sort of come up with a new methodology I call the zone of assessment.
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And that is when you find yourself in a situation like that, you look at your three zones
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So number one is your body, your pockets, your coat, whatever you're carrying with you
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Zone of assessment number two is the immediate surroundings.
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And zone of assessment number three is the further beyond.
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Once you do that and you determine, well, there's a cabin a half a kilometer away.
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I've got a broken ankle and I've got food in my pocket and a flashlight.
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Once you get all those answers, you now can make a proactively based decision or make a
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decision and then become proactive because you have answers.
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They run around and they get panicky and they forget.
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But if you just sit down and do your three zones of assessment, you will have enough information
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Um, anything they can do to get started with survival training?
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Well, firstly, is to remember that philosophically speaking, they have to understand something.
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And then the next day you strap on skis and go off and jump.
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And then head off into the, into the bush next weekend.
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There is nothing to be versus or against the wilderness.
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It doesn't screw up for you, but anything can happen.
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So you have to realize that to get involved in survival is to get involved with something
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that is a demanding level of, of skill required.
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Learn properly, go take the classes, go out with groups.
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I went out for two years before I was doing solo stuff, you know, with groups and other
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students and instructors, people who had my back.
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That's what you really need to do to learn these skill sets.
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And then, then when you can go on your own and stuff, boy, it just feels amazing.
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But it's definitely not something you learn in one weekend and then you're a pro.
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So you talked about the beginning, how you left music, rock and roll for eight years
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before you, and it was eight years before you picked up a guitar.
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You're, aren't you, you've put out a new album.
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Um, how has your experience with, you know, being out in the outdoors, has that affected
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So actually, um, what's happened is my creative juices have never stopped.
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I love being prolific and, you know, so I write books and so on.
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Well, musically speaking, I, I allowed it to start to seep back into my life, uh, a number
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of years ago, and it's just been growing and growing.
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And now I'm at a place where, and I believe this too, I mean, once a writer, always a writer.
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And, and I'm at a place where my music is just, it, it, it surrounded with the influence
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of, of, of who I've been and what I've done as Survivorman, from the crazy ceremonies I
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did with remote cultures, filming the Beyond Survival series, to being alone on the middle
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of a mountain as Survivorman, to all of my adventuring, which has taken me down a strong
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path of environmental concern and, and, and wanting to celebrate nature and the earth
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And my performances have large video screens and storytelling and imagery from around the
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That's like Dave Matthews meets Tool sort of thing, or Ray LaMontagne.
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And, and so very much so, uh, it's all a blend.
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If you come to see a Survivorman show, Survivorman in concert, you're going to get, you know,
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Survivorman telling you stories and keeping it, and there's also going to be, you know,
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a rock extravaganza and, and videos and, and, and all of that.
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And you know what I like to say is, come on, man, I'm over 50.
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So I'll do what I know really, you know, really well and, and, and, and speak on subjects
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that I know really well and, and, uh, and, and, and, and go from there.
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Um, so what can we see from you, uh, this coming year in 2014?
00:23:24.660
Well, right now we're still rolling out brand new Survivorman shows, um, new Survivorman
00:23:28.900
classic shows, Survivorman and Son, where I went out with my 16 year old son, uh, Survivorman
00:23:36.100
Uh, and I've been, you know, there, everything is doing so well that yes, I will definitely
00:23:40.280
be doing more filming and more Survivorman work.
00:23:42.500
And in addition, I've got two new albums coming out and hopefully very soon launching
00:23:47.120
a, um, a tour, uh, a world tour on, uh, as Survivorman and in this respect, I'm hoping
00:23:54.180
it's everything from opening up for a major act as a solo artist or my own stage with my
00:24:00.900
full band and large screens where you come and it's just the whole extravaganza and everything
00:24:06.700
And as you know, my, the only thing that I really maintain a virtuosity on is, is, is blowing
00:24:12.520
And so I like to take the stage at festivals and rock, rock people's socks off.
00:24:15.940
But all of that is what you can expect because, uh, I'm, I'm, I really feel at my prime.
00:24:21.060
I really feel, um, full of energy and passion still.
00:24:27.840
And yet I feel more energized now than ever before.
00:24:31.260
Um, and I'm happy to, to keep up, to honor those that are the Uber Survivorman fans and bring
00:24:38.000
them into the new world of everything else that I do as well.
00:24:40.960
Well, Les Stroud, uh, it's been a great conversation.
00:24:48.640
Les is the star of Survivorman, where it's just him and a camera trying to survive in the
00:24:55.260
Definitely recommend you check out the show, check your local listings for airtimes.
00:24:59.020
And then you can also find out more about Les's work at lesstroud.ca.
00:25:03.860
You can find, read his blog and you can also find out more information about his music.
00:25:08.300
Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:25:13.900
For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at