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I watched Les Stroud's latest survival show and I was really shocked when he just happened to find a cigarette lighter laying around on a desolate island! He really started his career out by doing things that no one had ever done. He went out in the wilds and survived. I had started thinking toward the end of his series "Survivor Man" I started thinking of him as "MacGyver Man" instead because he had started setting up situations and then showed how you could survive by using items that are available. Bicycles, suba gear, ect. His latest work "Frigate Island" he just happens to find a butane cigarette lighter laying around on some rocks. Bear Grylls would have been proud! While Les does command respect form anyone that studies "survival" and he is far from being a phony I changed channels after he "found" that lighter that had been there long enough to leave rust stains on the rock where it was found and oh boy it still worked!
I bet if they could get Les Stroud and Cody Lundin to do "Naked and Afraid" it would be very successful. N&A really seems tuff how you only get one item to take with you. I think that grubby SOB Dave Canterbury would thrive living like a animal for 21 days.
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The early concept for the show was to "re enact" common survival disasters that the audience could find themselves in.
That is why some episodes start with him next to a downed aircraft or a broken motorcycle in Baja. or a raft in the pacific or a car in Norway.
As far as finding things in remote locations I a working, loaded, rusted single barrel 12 ga in the mountains of north Carolina. There is a lot of weird shit out there and it is important for people to realize that macgyverisms are a part of survival as well as observation and scavenging.
Les Stroud would have little problem with naked and afraid.