I feel bad for this guy – though not bad enough to take down a post I wrote about him on Red Alerts laughing at his suicide attempt cleverly disguised as a reality show. Adventuer Ed Wardle had no real survival training or outdoor experience when an English television channel decided to drop him off in Alaska. Hilarity did not ensue. He almost starved to death and had to call in an emergency rescue five weeks before he was supposed to be evacuated.
The point of watching this is to show people the subtle mistakes many people who don’t have a lot of wilderness experience make that sets them up to fail and die. Not knowing the native wildlife is highlighted in the first ten minutes. But throughout the show you’ll see that him running out of food because he didn’t bring enough assuming he could hunt for game, wandering from place to place burning calories he’s not putting back into his body, climbing trees to store food instead of using a rope even though breaking a leg could be fatal in the wilderness and just in general treating the woods the way people who live in cities do by which I mean crying alot. And I mean a lot.
It’s actually a bit of a scary movie because right away you see that there’s something off about him after the first night. What spirits lurk in the woods that drive men mad?
I’d say enjoy but that’s mean. For the record I might not do any better in the Alaskan wilderness – which is why I’m not there.