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June 11, 2010 |
Arizona Living
Discovery Channel's 'Dual Survival' show features Arizona expert
John Stanley - Jun. 10, 2010 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic
Off the coast of Nova Scotia, two men paddle a life raft to a small island.
They have no food, no shelter and only a few items besides the clothes on their backs.
Their task: survive two nights of sub-freezing temperatures in the snowy woods.
That's how the first episode of the new Discovery Channel series "Dual Survival" opens.
The show, which debuts at 10 p.m. Friday, features primitive-living-skills instructor Cody Lundin of Prescott and military-trained outdoorsman Dave Canterbury of Chillicothe, Ohio.
"The premise of the show," said executive producer Tim Pastore, "is we've got these two survival experts with different backgrounds and personal philosophies. And they're put together in survival situations, and then we sit back and watch them showcase their skills."
During the series, the mismatched duo tackle real-life survival problems ranging from lost hikers in the jungle to fishermen who run out of gas while deep in the swamps of Louisiana to separated campers in the Arizona desert.
They filmed in 10 locations around the world, three of which were in the United States, and are currently in Brazil, shooting the final episode.
Pastore is excited about the results.
"I was at the Nova Scotia location, and when I saw them on the beach and saw Cody get out (of the raft) in shorts and bare feet, I knew we got it," he said.
The perpetually barefoot Lundin, who sports long blond braids and a silver nose ring, is a striking presence, at once commanding, gentle and blunt-spoken.
"He's pretty much everything you want for a show," Pastore said. "From the beginning he was always spot-on, ready to go and spoke from the heart. He says what he wants to say, and that's the magic."
At first, Lundin had concerns (which he posted on his website in the form of an open letter) not only about the series format, but that genuine survival techniques and situations might be manipulated for the dramatic needs of a TV show.
"The first thing I asked when they approached me about the show was whether it was a competition," Lundin said. "I had no interest if it was a competition. Survival is about cooperation. If you compete, you die; if you cooperate, you live."
Although he has yet to watch the shows himself, he's pleased with the overall level of control that he and Canterbury had.
"I'm really happy so far with how I can be me and Dave can be Dave and I can get the majority of my needs met and still be OK with looking at myself in the mirror," Lundin said.
Odd couple
When the producers found Lundin, they knew they were onto something. The 43-year-old founder, director and chief instructor of the Aboriginal Living Skills School has since 1991 taught primitive-living skills, such as making fire with sticks and catching fish with bare hands, and modern outdoor-survival skills, such as what to do when your SUV breaks down in the backcountry and rescue is days away.
The producers' challenge then became to find someone equally strong to cast beside him.
Dave Canterbury, 46, joined the U.S. Army at 17 and eventually became a Special Reaction Team instructor, sniper and scout. After leaving the Army, he worked as a commercial fisherman, a diver and a hand on a reptile farm. He had been posting survival videos on YouTube for years and now teaches wilderness survival at his Pathfinder Training School in southeastern Ohio.
Although Canterbury respected Lundin's survival expertise, he pointedly questions his techniques on the show's first episode, especially Lundin's propensity for going barefoot and wearing shorts in all weather.
"I'm a common-sense kind of guy," Canterbury says at one point. "I have a hard time buying into this bush-hippie logic."
"This is who I am," counters Lundin. "This is how I live my life."
"They were an odd couple, but they looked out for each other," Pastore said. "Viewers can watch the relationship grow between Dave and Cody, see how they work together and learn from each other."
Survivor tales
"There is a longstanding literary tradition of survival narratives," said professor Peter Lehman, director of the Center for Film, Media and Popular Culture at Arizona State University.
It began, at least in the English language, with the 1719 publication of "Robinson Crusoe," he said, and has continued in both film and television, and includes TV shows such as the just-finished series "Lost," which developed a cultlike following.
Survivor tales function on two levels, Lehman said.
As adventure stories, they focus on how the hero gets out of jams. On a larger scale, though, they provide a frame in which readers - or viewers - can contemplate such philosophical issues as what it means to be a human being apart from culture and civilization.
The shows also give us the chance to see how other people cope in extreme circumstances, Lehman said.
"We wonder," he said, "will the situation bring out the best in them, or the worst?"
Survival shows may also reflect our sometimes nebulous angst over today's widespread economic, environmental and political uncertainties, just as the countless space invasion/evil mutant sci-fi movies of the 1950s reflected the anxieties of the first generation to come of age in the shadow of nuclear weapons.
"It's also that whole man-versus-nature thing that has inspired stories since the dawn of time," Pastore said.
Realistic scenarios
The show, Pastore said, strives to be both educational and entertaining.
"I think all the scenarios were very much like real life," Canterbury said. "Wandering off trail, running out of gas . . . they're situations that people could really be in."
Despite the perilous scenarios they faced, there was never a time when they felt their lives were in danger. At least during filming. But the danger of infectious diseases, food poisoning, remote locations with horrible roads and the ever-present possibility of accidents hung over cast and crew alike.
Canterbury said the most difficult scenario for him was the one filmed in Arizona.
"I'm more of a woods and jungle and swamp kind of guy," he said. "To go out where there's no water was hard. But Cody's a desert expert, so I kind of leaned on his expertise in that episode."
"That's what's cool about the show," Lundin said. "We play off each other's strengths and knowledge."
Engaging the viewers
Although scenarios were based "on real crappy things that happen to real people," Lundin is aware that most viewers just want to be entertained. And that's perfectly OK.
"I think a good educator is an entertainer," he said. "If people aren't being entertained, they're not learning. That's what I try to do with my books and survival courses. People see this hippie with no shoes and it gets them engaged."
And although he hopes some viewers may pick up a few tidbits of survival knowledge, he said the show isn't meant to be an instructional video.
"It's (expletive) TV," he said. "It's entertainment. If you want to learn survival skills, you need to get your butt up off the couch and get outside and train with someone knowledgeable."


Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... z0qZPAN1ex

More on this topic
'Dual Survival'

What:Survival experts Cody Lundin of Prescott and Dave Canterbury of Ohio team up to take on 10 survival scenarios around the world.
When: Premieres at 10 p.m. Friday on the Discovery Channel.
Details: Lundin's website is codylundin .com; Canterbury's is wildernessoutfitters archery.com.
Canadian cold, clams and roasted porcupine
The first episode of "Dual Survival" was filmed in January, in Nova Scotia.
Army-trained, no-nonsense outdoorsman Dave Canterbury almost immediately questions primitive-skills expert Cody Lundin's "bush-hippie logic."
"The very first time we were out it was 20 degrees, and there's this guy wearing shorts and going barefoot and someone watching at home has got to be wondering what this guy's doing," Canterbury said.
Some of his questions, Canterbury said, were meant to get viewers up to speed on Lundin's philosophy and approach to survival.
"But some of it was genuine feeling. I was wondering if that might be dangerous, if he could really handle (the cold)," Canterbury said.
The first day, they dined on mussels and clams that Lundin gathered. Although Lundin described them as "easy calories," Canterbury was underwhelmed.
"Dave's a meat and potatoes type of guy," Lundin said. "I could have pulled in a lobster and he wouldn't have been impressed."
Taking matters into his own hands, Canterbury made a dinner of fire-roasted porcupine the next night.
Lundin was pleasantly surprised.
"It tasted a lot like roast beef," he said.
- John Stanley

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... z0qZPS6qgY

te-wa wrote:I would vote to cancel your cable, replace your television with a fish tank, and read the book "98.6 degrees, the art of keeping your pumpkin alive"
but that's just me

Sredfield wrote:I find most commercial television, and radio for that matter, would insult the intelligence of a rock.