Merged Les Stroud's bigfoot show?

I've watched both of the episodes and although it was better than Finding Bigfoot, that isn't saying much. One thing Les said in both episodes that I don't think is accurate was there is DNA evidence of an unrecognized primate in north America.

I'm pretty up-to-date on the evidence out there and I don't recall anyone being able to successfully say they have viable DNA. Unless he is referring to Melba and I don't think that qualifies. Anyone else know what he might be referring to?
 
Northern Lights said:
I've watched both of the episodes and although it was better than Finding Bigfoot, that isn't saying much. One thing Les said in both episodes that I don't think is accurate was there is DNA evidence of an unrecognized primate in north America.

I'm pretty up-to-date on the evidence out there and I don't recall anyone being able to successfully say they have viable DNA. Unless he is referring to Melba and I don't think that qualifies. Anyone else know what he might be referring to?
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He's quoting noted make-stuff-up-guy, and unknown primate DNA expert DWA.

Seriously, this is how bigfoot ******** gets started. A "survival expert" makes a baseless claim about unknown primate DNA and another unfounded legend begins.
 
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Northern Lights said:
I've watched both of the episodes and although it was better than Finding Bigfoot, that isn't saying much. One thing Les said in both episodes that I don't think is accurate was there is DNA evidence of an unrecognized primate in north America.

I'm pretty up-to-date on the evidence out there and I don't recall anyone being able to successfully say they have viable DNA. Unless he is referring to Melba and I don't think that qualifies. Anyone else know what he might be referring to?
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Well that's an easy mistake to make. If you only have a year or so to prepare for a production like this then you don't have much time to research every little claim you make.
 
I always believed Les Stroud to be a fairly credible guy, and while I didn't watch the program, having read the accounts of it here have left me more than a little disappointed in the Survivor Man.
 
skullerello said:
I always believed Les Stroud to be a fairly credible guy, and while I didn't watch the program, having read the accounts of it here have left me more than a little disappointed in the Survivor Man.
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The Man Survived but His Credibility is DOA.
 
skullerello said:
I always believed Les Stroud to be a fairly credible guy .
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What is great about that is the opportunity it avails to look at his pervious work with a fresh perspective. Was he really being looked at with a critical eye, or was he just good at cultivating an image in front of people predisposed to buy into it?

Almost nobody watching his show is qualified to judge. People with experience aren't watching his show to pick up pointers. A few of us have mentioned camping 101 type mistakes on the shows. But this is entertainment and the fact is he has to be judged on the quality of entertainment he is doing rather than whether he is running a good survival school.
 
Les has always been a bit nutty. He even had a water dowsing person pick the spot for the water well in his off the grid house. He fully endorsed the technique in the off the grid documentary. He's a survivalist and artist... not a science minded thinker.
 
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ThunderChunky said:
Les has always been a bit nutty. He even had a water dowsing person pick the spot for the water well in his off the grid house. He fully endorsed the technique in the off the grid documentary. He's a survivalist and artist... not a science minded thinker.
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Exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. If there is a water table under his property, it doesn't matter where he puts the well, other than regulations pertaining to distance from septic systems and convenience to his home.

Since these regulations are determined by health and safety concerns, they are by definition "survivalist" if that means living to old age instead of dying from poop contaminating your water supply.

So by observation, "survival" to him means something very different: doing things that threaten health and safety in order to practice novel and even stupid things like water witching.

He got a car stuck in the snow on purpose in Norway or Sweeden. A reasonably intelligent person would hike half a mile back to the nearest house and be drinking rum by the fire in short order. That would be my definition of good survival tactics. But not Les, no - he is going to purposefully make it into a dangerous situation by having nothing in the car beforehand even though he knows he is going to get it stuck in the snow. He turned the hood of some junk car into a sled, which had no intelligent purpose to my way of thinking. I'd have my canvas tent and stove, some realty big steaks and show everyone how to melt snow for bong water. You want that water cold.
 
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B.S said:
I watched both episodes and was disappointed with Stroud's ease of conversion. Actually, I think he went in as a believer. It was only nine minutes into the first episode that he claimed that no act of nature and no human could have caused the small trees they saw broken in half, and also made the same claim about the couple of dead tree structures they found, or actually were led to by Standing.

Stroud heard one single "whoop" off in the distance ( only once in both episodes ) in return to his call, and claimed it could not be anything normal and natural. He said it was beyond belief that it could be anyone perpetrating a hoax. I can't believe that anyone could think that, especially when it was just one single occurrence. They were out there in the wilderness, so why couldn't someone else be there too? I don't think it is too much to think that someone could have been planted out there in order to boost the ratings and increase the believability of the show. Stroud also did claim, more than once, that no normal animal could make the noises he heard during these two shows and at other times in his survival career.

Standing also drove Stroud out to a remote spot ( more remote than they already were ) twice so he could do solo overnight sessions. He managed to hear noises that he suggested were not normal nature each time, but did not see anything. He seemed oblivious to the possibility that since Standing knew exactly where he was that Standing might have snuck back during the night and hoaxed the noises. Seems like it would be easy enough to do.

They took a long, difficult trek up to a very isolated high ground area to witness more broken dead trees as evidence, and claimed that no one would ever make it up there to perpetrate a hoax, and yet they were there. So why not someone else? Standing had obviously been up there several times himself before.

Basically it was just one long commentary about Stroud's incredulity that all this could happen way out in the woods where only super survivalists like himself would venture. The totality of his "evidence" amounted to a few dozen small, thin, dead, broken trees ... two large tree structures that looked like someone was trying to build a teepee ... some indentations in the moss surrounding the tree structures that Stroud claimed had to be Bigfoot tracks ... some disappearing apples that they placed around the tree structures ... one single "whoop" off in the far distance ... and some assorted noises at night that he couldn't identify.

Stroud finished the show by claiming that he was still a sceptic until he actually saw a Bigfoot, but his comments all through the show did not support that statement.
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So what happens if you don't know of what kind of natural explanation could explain it? Obviously, you shouldn't jump to "Bigfoot!", but what should you do? Would him just saying "Well, I don't know what caused this" be better?
 
AlaskaBushPilot said:
Exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. If there is a water table under his property, it doesn't matter where he puts the well, other than regulations pertaining to distance from septic systems and convenience to his home.

Since these regulations are determined by health and safety concerns, they are by definition "survivalist" if that means living to old age instead of dying from poop contaminating your water supply.

So by observation, "survival" to him means something very different: doing things that threaten health and safety in order to practice novel and even stupid things like water witching.

He got a car stuck in the snow on purpose in Norway or Sweeden. A reasonably intelligent person would hike half a mile back to the nearest house and be drinking rum by the fire in short order. That would be my definition of good survival tactics. But not Les, no - he is going to purposefully make it into a dangerous situation by having nothing in the car beforehand even though he knows he is going to get it stuck in the snow. He turned the hood of some junk car into a sled, which had no intelligent purpose to my way of thinking. I'd have my canvas tent and stove, some realty big steaks and show everyone how to melt snow for bong water. You want that water cold.
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So what would a TV show be like that showed real, valid responses to various survival situations?

Also, I'm curious: what if the nearest house was further away than that? (Though I didn't see the show in question, so I don't know what the scenario presented was supposed to be)
 
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mike3 said:
So what happens if you don't know of what kind of natural explanation could explain it? Obviously, you shouldn't jump to "Bigfoot!", but what should you do? Would him just saying "Well, I don't know what caused this" be better?
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Yes. But that makes for ****** TV.
 
mike3 said:
So what happens if you don't know of what kind of natural explanation could explain it? Obviously, you shouldn't jump to "Bigfoot!", but what should you do? Would him just saying "Well, I don't know what caused this" be better?
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As Resume said, yes, it would be better from the point of view of both science and honesty, but not from the point of view of peddling profitable television.

Best would be a version of the following but presented entertainingly: We don't know what did this or how it could happen. More precisely, I don't know, but it is possible or even likely that there are experts out there who do know; I just haven't found them yet for this show. Before I jump to conclusions, I'll need to do some more research. But just for fun, let's pretend -- and we're only pretending, mind you -- that there is not a single expert in the world who can put forth an explanation for this. What does that change? Well, the answer may surprise you; it changes nothing. We will still be in the position of saying "We don't know." And "we don't know" means exactly that. It does not give us license to start pretending that we do know, which is exactly what a lot of people try to get away with. In one breath, they say "We don't know what caused that, therefore we know it's Bigfoot." See that? They're saying "We don't know, therefore we know," which is silly. Of course, they rarely say it that clearly, but when you break it down into the basics, that's what's at the bottom of it."


mike3 said:
So what would a TV show be like that showed real, valid responses to various survival situations?
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Boring to most people (not to me). It would be a realistically presented version of the following (list is top of my head, and I welcome revisions):

1. Best survival tactic: Avoid survival situations by minimizing risk, which means you have to know your risks, and you never know them as well as you think you do. Face it, people are idiots.

2. When #1 fails, don't panic.

3. Make a SIMPLE plan.

4. If the only thing you can do is point out why every possible idea will fail, then shut up and let someone else decide.


mike3 said:
Also, I'm curious: what if the nearest house was further away than that? (Though I didn't see the show in question, so I don't know what the scenario presented was supposed to be)
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It is still dependent on circumstance. If the nearest house is 100 miles away, you won't walk there. If it's 10 miles away, possibly. If it's 200 meters away, but you are wheelchair bound and the only way there is through snowdrifts 10 feet high, you still won't go.
 
(Originally Posted by Mister Earl)

"I like Les Stroud. I've said it before, but when Les Stroud comes, Bear Grylls hides."

...and Ray Mears laughs!

From what I've seen of Stroud, he's about 3 clowns short of the full circus, either that or survivin' just ain't cutting it for him any more and he's resorted to playing hide 'n' seek with that absolute tit called Standing.

Frankly, I've lost the ability to be embarrassed, and it's all thanks to the noble art of Bigfootery.
 
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mike3 said:
So what would a TV show be like that showed real, valid responses to various survival situations?
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Not my problem. I do what I know. Practical survival stuff. For example, you stash a couple fatties in the chinking of a trapline cabin and they're going to survive just about forever.

Also, I'm curious: what if the nearest house was further away than that? (Though I didn't see the show in question, so I don't know what the scenario presented was supposed to be)
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You've got to be kidding me. You don't go ANYWHERE that you can't walk out of.

My personal record is 22 miles through knee deep snow on the Rex Trail. We couldn't make a river crossing in this tractor we modified into a track rig because the ice went out early. I rested for an hour and then got on a snowmachine to go back and rescue my 72 year old partner.

I couldn't do that now!
 
mike3 said:
So what happens if you don't know of what kind of natural explanation could explain it? Obviously, you shouldn't jump to "Bigfoot!", but what should you do? Would him just saying "Well, I don't know what caused this" be better?
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Yes that would be better, but it should not be necessary since anyone living under heavy snow conditions knows that "snowload" ( Stroud's term from the show ) can easily cause the broken trees he saw along their trail. He claimed that heavy snow and ice conditions would not break trees in the manner that they saw on their hike, but I saw it very clearly after a short walk in our park here after our last snowstorm. There were lots of trees of a similar size and height as the ones in the show, broken over in the same direction, at a similar height from the ground as the ones in the show, both live and dead ones.

For him to suggest that normal heavy snow and ice conditions couldn't have caused the broken trees was really quite ridiculous. Also for him to suggest that no human could have, or would have, made the large tree structures was just as ridiculous.
 
Jeez, what an idiotic show.

I'm 18 minutes in to the conclusion and I can't believe the stupidity and gullibility...

Standing is waving a lit flare in the woods in the dark, and yelling at make believe sasquatches...
 
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