SURVIVORMAN

The Sonora Desert in the South-Western United States covers an area of approximately 120,000 square miles. It is an arid, seemingly barren environment with scorching daytime highs and freezing overnight lows. Riding a dirt bike out into the official middle of nowhere, Les simulates a break-down scenario. He empties out the contents of his pack - half a gallon of water, a snack bar and his multi-tool-7 more days!

A Costa Rican getaway - as far removed from everyday living as you can imagine: lush rainforests and deserted tropical beaches. Marooned on Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula, Les "Survivorman" Stroud has only a few items to aid him for the next 7 days: swimming goggles, 3 ballpoint pens, a multi-tool and the clothing on his back. On top of the keeping hydrated in the intense humidity and relentless heat, Les must cope with deadly snakes, enormous spiders, land-crabs and scorpions.

The swamplands of Georgia's Altamaha River Basin are all that one would expect of a Primordial bog: dank, menacing, swimming with slithering creepy-crawlies and, of course, alligator-infested. This is the welcoming environment Les Stroud will be immersed in for seven sweaty days and bone-chilling nights.

Pond Inlet, on the Northern reaches of Baffin Island, provides one of the most challenging landscapes our planet has to offer. Over 700km north of the Arctic Circle, it sits amidst grinding, ever-shifting flows of sea-ice where polar-bears roam in search of meat. In this severe climate, Les has been equipped with a bare minimum of raw materials to aid him for the next 7 days - a hunk of uncooked seal-liver, some oil-rich blubber for heat, a seal-hook, three matches, and a knife.

Les is airdropped onto a snow-covered peak in the Canadian Rockies courtesy of the Canadian Mountain Air Rescue Service. They'll come looking for him in seven days. Until then Les is entirely on his own, save for the grizzlies, cougars and wolves that also call this place home. To emulate a real-life survival scenario - in this case a heli-hiking expedition come to grief - Les has been provided with a few readily salvageable items, among them a broken camcorder and tripod. One man's trash is another man's treasure!

The spectacular red landscapes of Utah's canyonlands are as beautiful as they are inhospitable. Like outlaws of old who were known to eat their own horses out of desperation in this forlorn place, Stroud will cannibalize the mountain-bike he has ridden into the middle of nowhere. As well as these scavenged bike parts to aid him, he also has a multi-tool, a magnesium flint-stick and an old energy-bar - that he has a use for other than eating.

In the remote winter-bound forests of Northern Ontario, a crashed plane lies in the snow beside a frozen lake. There is no one alive on board. But this plane didn't crash here - the decrepit old wreck has been airdropped from a helicopter to provide a temporary home for Survivorman. For a week Les will have to survive in this harsh snowy wilderness with only an axe, a multi-tool and a single blanket to aid him.

Living "off the land" takes on a new meaning as Les Stroud casts off for a week at sea. With no food and only a bare minimum of equipment, Stroud will be set adrift in an inflatable life raft off the coast of Belize. Battling hunger, thirst and the Caribbean heat, he must also keep his cameras dry to film the ordeal. To top it off - the life raft has a few bad leaks and needs constant bailing. It also leaks air and requires frequent re-inflation with a hand pump - Survivorman is in for a busy few days!

Les presents clips and outtakes from the previous nine survival episodes.