Bear Grylls vs. Les Stroud

[UPDATE, January 1, 2009: Just a note to all the readers who have found this entry through Google searches of Bear Grylls and/or Les Stroud: there's nothing in this post that will sway you if you're already convinced that one survivalist is better than another. Besides, I didn't originally write this post in the spirit of "my daddy can beat up your daddy," which is the type of childishness that apparently infects hundreds of silly discussion forums devoted to the whole "Grylls versus Stroud" topic. I have my opinions about which show is better, but this says nothing about the shows' respective hosts. Comparing the two, as people, would be like comparing apples and oranges.

So relax, have fun, enjoy the read, and if you've something to add, feel free to leave a civil comment. And if you're interested in my trans-American walk (which is what this blog documents), please dig into my archives, work your way forward, and comment along the way.]

Staying in hotels means watching a lot of cable TV. While I've seen several episodes of Bear Grylls's pumped-up Discovery Channel series "Man Versus Wild," it wasn't until I was in that Motel 6 in The Dalles that I finally caught two episodes of Les Stroud's "Survivorman," a show that also deals with how to survive when stranded in the wilderness.

The two shows have a lot in common: in both cases, the men deliberately strand themselves in remote, inhospitable locations and must figure out how to move to a likely rescue point. Along the way, they improvise shelters, live off the land, and give us viewers advice on the hows and whys of what they're doing to survive.

There are, however, crucial differences between the two shows; this became obvious after I saw those episodes of "Survivorman." One major difference is the respective structures of the shows: Grylls relentlessly soldiers on until he reaches a plausible extraction zone; Stroud, by contrast, must show he can survive seven days wherever he finds himself (one episode, about a deserted tropical island, showed him feasting well on fish, coconut meat, coconut milk, and a strange root juice) while either moving to an extraction zone (Alaskan wild episode) or staying put and awaiting rescue (tropical island episode). Grylls often stops when he finds either people or fresh traces of civilization.

There's no doubt that Grylls puts on the more entertaining show. He's got a little Steve Irwin in him, and seems less hesitant about playing with dangerous wildlife (in one episode, he gets badly stung by bees simply because he wants some honey). Grylls also seems more willing to risk potentially bone-snapping leaps in his efforts to descend (or ascend) mountain peaks, while Stroud proceeds with far greater caution and deliberateness. Grylls is ex-military; this training is a huge component of his show, and partly explains his gleefully gung-ho approach.

But what's won me over to Stroud's show is that he works alone-- unlike Grylls, whose camera team is at the ready, doing everything Grylls does while also holding video equipment (hats off to that crew!). Stroud, poor bloke, has the unenviable task of not only demonstrating survival techniques, but also setting up, and occasionally ruining, the cameras with which he films them. According to Wikipedia, Stroud is usually carrying around 50 pounds of video gear with him on his adventures. Grylls has the luxury of stripping half-naked to cross an Icelandic river in 60mph winter wind if he so wishes.

Stroud also appeals to me because he fails a lot. Starting a fire with a camera lens, for instance, takes a lot of time and effort, something that Stroud very candidly portrays. He also loses his footing with enough frequency to reassure a tyro like me that falling is just a normal part of the wilderness experience. Grylls's show is more smoothly edited; failures are rarely shown.

There are other contrasts. When Grylls digs into a rotten tree and extracts a pulsating grub the size and thickness of two of my fingers, you know that that grub's history. In one "Survivorman" episode, however, Stroud paused and admitted that he wasn't quite sure about the species of mushroom he was about to bite into. It's possible he was playing up the fear factor for our sake, but at that moment he looked quite sincere to me. Eating an unfamiliar shroom is a big risk. I was riveted when he took that first bite.

In all, "Survivorman" feels far less contrived than "Man Versus Wild." While both hosts are obviously putting themselves in great danger, it's Stroud who, ultimately, has less of a safety net. He, like Grylls, is equipped to signal for help if things become truly dire, but as he pointed out in an episode about the Alaskan wilderness, when you're under a forest canopy, a rescue chopper can fly right by your position and still miss you completely. If Grylls goes down, he's got an on-site crew to help him out.

So: while I enjoy both shows and may even have learned a thing or two from them, I find I can relate more easily to Les Stroud's approach to wilderness survival than to Bear Grylls's.


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