Survivorman returns to his roots

Published in The Cottage Times, August 2008

After surviving the stifling jungles of the Amazon, the ever-present daylight of Alaska, and the scorching sands of the Kalahari desert, Les Stroud returns to Huntsville to share his experiences, his filmography and his music with those who live in his hometown.

On July 19, Stroud will host a performance at the Algonquin Theatre where he'll intertwine his music with his films in a show that will take the audience on what he describes as musical and visual adventure. The rest of the world will completely fade away.

Known to most as television’s Survivorman, Stroud is the only producer on television to have an internationally broadcast series singe handedly written, videotaped and hosted alone. After growing up in suburban Toronto and moving to Huntsville where he currently lives with his family, Stroud began his television career in 2000 when he took his video camera into Northern Ontario’s wilderness and spent a week without food, water, equipment or a camera crew, documenting the every move of his own survival.

“I’ve always been addicted to adventure, even when I didn’t know what adventure was,” says Stroud. “Once I discovered what it was, I became more passionate about it. I discovered I could have adventures, big adventures, and wilderness adventures.”

Growing up in Toronto, Stroud’s curiosity was piqued by following the television adventures of Jacques Cousteau. Then, while vacationing at his cottage on the Muskoka River, Stroud would create his own mini-adventures.

“Playing behind the cottage very much fostered my fascination for the natural world,” says Stroud. “By coming to the cottage and building little shelters out back, and chasing frogs in the swamp. I was a classic kid that went off and played in the swamps during the day.”

Today, Stroud is more adventurous than ever, both in his survival outings and his creative outlets. He is currently in the middle of producing another season of Survivorman, developing his concert tour series, which will debut in Huntsville on the 19th, and in the middle of completing a book for Harper-Collins.

“My passion is driven on two levels – my love of adventure and my love of creative output and expressing myself creatively,” says Stroud, explaining the mindset behind the concert tour, in addition to his already-hectic schedule.

Stroud’s music is one of the outlets that carries him through his enduring adventures.

“I tell my field producer that wherever he goes, he has to buy me a beat up guitar somewhere. I leave them behind, whenever I go. I find a lodge or a kid and autograph it and leave it behind

Though Stroud has already released a solo CD of his musical works, as well as a collaboration disc with the Northern Pikes, he will be joined on stage by Ron Sexsmith and his backup band, and a number of other featured singers during the concert tour. Together, they will create and perform a broad range of music that suits the mood of the adventures Stroud has filmed over the years.

“I’ve taken a lot of my wilderness images and adventure images and been working with some really great musicians,” says Stroud. “I’ve taken about eight or nine films and said let’s score them, so when we play the music, we play to the imagery and the imagery plays to the music. I think that makes a much stronger connection.”

Stroud describes the musical sound that will be heard at the performance as Bruce Cockburn meets Blue Rodeo. Combined with the images he will project onto the screen, the performance will be deep and moving.

“There are a couple of clips that I have a little more potent impact than others and I think the Amazon film will come across powerfully,” says Stroud, mentioning one of his most memorable adventures. “There are a few really special moments.”

By January 2009, the concert tour will be visiting stages all around the world. But for now…

“You’re going to get a very classy evening of entering into your seat and being transported back and forth from adventure to adventure,” says Stroud.