That above question I put in the subject line is for good reason. I just received an email (Non Reply) to a very simple question I had asked of the shows Producer Brian Catalina. I wondered why it was that during the past weeks show where Jeff and Elizabeth leave early...I was able to see a large vehicle moving out in the distance from the left to the right below the Cessna at the point where the cameraman zooms in.
Now...if in fact they were in the location around Icy Bay, there wouldn't have been any vehicles remotely close to them. The closest roads would have been miles east in Yakutat...west in Cordova or north well into the park, the McCarthy Road heading to the old Kennicott copper mine.
I saw the movement on the screen when the show first aired...I then watched it later that evening and got up close to double check...it looks like a box truck about a couple miles away...it is easy to spot the movement, because it moves behind some trees in the foreground and comes out the other side.
I've lived in Alaska during the early 90's and I've backpacked all over the state. Its one thing to put novice people out in the wilderness and record the humorous BAD decisions they make for things that really are not that hard to do...but when you try to pass off a location as something it may in fact have not been...that ruins the whole idea of the show.
Bush, I just watched that piece online, and I couldn't see what you thought was a truck. I'll look at it again later. I've matched the terrain to the topo maps and satellite photos. It is where the show says it is. There might have been some mineral exploration or wildlife survey tracked vehicle in there.
It's interesting how many people are examining this show "under a microscope." Are you people trying hard to find something wrong? Are you trying to drum up a scandal? Just wondering what your intentions are? Most of us are just really enjoying the scenery and the lessons taught to us city slickers. Why are you trying to ruin it?
mefolks...I don't know how you could possibly miss it? I mean...for someone that has the ability to match a topo map, to the video of a bay with low overcast clouds and poor visability, and still be able to tell where they are. I've been backpacking in remote Alaska for over 20 years and I myself couldn't come close to doing that.
Its not the first zoom shot. It is during the duration of the second shot where the pilot banks the plane to the right around the tree covered outcrop. It is about a 5 second shot and very visable at the back of the bay just above waterline.
It is also the scene right before they show the faces of Jeff and Elizabeth in the rear of the cessna where they look out the window and down at the tent.
iwatch1...I'm not trying to ruin it for anyone. I asked a simple question of the Discovery Channel and the Producer...it was their choice to avoid answering, by telling me they don't answer specifics about the shows. All I then can do is take that question to the fans of the show and let them draw they're own conclusions.
It is obvious they were in Alaska, I'm not trying to say they were not. But I also know from plenty of experience what a vehicle looks like moving along the rim of an inlet or bay from a distance.
Thanks for watching so closely Bushflying 62. I have not received any emails regarding the question you raise but I would be happy to answer here. The locations stated in the show are 100% accurate. There are no roads to our location in Icy Bay, and certainly no cube vans. I'll have to take a look at the footage you have described, but there is no "traffic" because there is no one out there. Both shelters are as described, in a very remote, fly-in location. If there is a vehicle it would most likely be an ATV used by the crew to travel to the shelters from their base. The maps used in the show are real, and depict the exact location of both Jeff and Elizabeth's tent and the Wise cabin. The Chitina River valley location is also exactly as described in the show, 100 miles from the nearest road and those maps are accurate as well. Hope this helps answer your question, thanks for watching the show!
AKProducer...Without having been there to see for myself, all I've got to go by are my two eyes. Could it have been a track vehicle that the crew used...I don't know,possibly. All I know is that I've watched that sequence about 25 times now and there is something moving in the distance that looks very man made. Its not a shadow or a reflection, and its movement from left to right isn't caused by the movement of the camera. The speed at which the object moves towards the right...would have to be matched by the speed of the camera moving westward across the bay for that to be the case. All of that happening while staying focused on the Cessna.
This is why I listed this topic with a question mark from the beginning. I reasoned that there might have been motives for needing a road close by...safety for the crews and the seperate groups.
Legal restrictions put on the producers from Discovery's legal department...who knows.
If you decide to do this again this fall I can suggest a great location. I know of some really great areas about 80 miles northwest of Bettles, AK in the Gates of the Arctic National Park. I've backpacked all over that remote park and I can assure you that you wouldn't run across a soul. Unlike Icy Bay where there are remote lodges that guests can fly into.
Anyone else see this mystery truck that Bushflying62 thinks is as plain as the nose on his face? I just watched that segment another five times, and I don't see it. I used to be one of those nitpickers looking for jet contrails in cowboy movies, television antennae and trucks in the distance in sword-and-sandal movies and similar goofs. But I can't see an obvious box truck in the scene he refers to.
You find it necessary to attack me. There is a lot of information in the aerial shots of the Back Bay camp, including the shapes of headlands and the meandering of streams. I've been matching topo maps and actual terrain for more than forty years, including trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota and wide stretches of Washington's Cascade Mountains.
Interesting suggestion about the Brooks Range. But it would be rather difficult there to live without hunting, and you are suggesting a national park be used. Even the fishing there would be far more limited than in the southern part of the state. I don't think the point is trying to get as far from human contact as possible. Otherwise a snow cave near the summit of one of the lesser-known Himalayan peaks would be even better.
mefolkes...anyone with a vast knowledge of the outdoors such as yourself should know that hunting is allowed for non-local hunters in the preserve areas of Gates of the Arctic. That my friend consists of over 1 million acres in the northeast and southwest corners of the park.
There are also MANY fish species that are also available such as chum salmon, whitefish, sheefish, grayling, arctic char, northern pike and burbot! I should know this...when I was stationed in the Fairbanks area in the 90's, I made no less then 6 different fly in backpacking trips within the park and preserve. I've also done a few solo backpacking trips west of that location into ANWR.
As for you not seeing that swift moving boxed white object in the background...I cannot hold your hand and point it out too you.
Who knows...maybe it was blowing bedsheets from the George Davis Icy Bay Lodge. Icybaylodge.com... These groups and production people were not as remote and away from people as they claim. There is a fly in fishing lodge within that very same bay. Don't believe me...look at the website!
Bush, you could have been as specific and descriptive as wanderingturtle1 just was. I'll go back and review the footage. Thanks for including the mention of the lodge and its website. Perhaps they are still using the airstrip shown on the two-decade old topographic map, which is just northeast of the Wise cabin. But no one was claiming that there wasn't a human being within hundreds of miles. It is still pretty darn isolated. If you are suggesting that the volunteers could have cheated by hiking to a lodge or its outlying cabins and begged, borrowed or stolen a Snickers bar, then you could make a lot better case for fudging by getting food from the film crew and survival expert on the scene, who were provided with all their food by the producers.
You were the one who specified Gates of the Arctic NATIONAL PARK to the producers. You did not mention the adjacent preserve areas. I would not have made the comment I did concerning the park idea if you had not specified it.
I'm happy for you, and envious, that you had so many opportunities to backpack around Alaska.
Here is a line from the commercial catch-all website about Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve: Visitors expecting to supplement their diet with fresh fish may find themselves going hungry.Often the fishing is disappointing due to silt laden waters. Be sure to carry plenty of extra food supplies in bear resistant food containers.
In the preserve, there is a limit of fourteen days for sport fishing, hunting and trapping camps, without special permission from the park administrator. Lots of luck putting up a cabin or a bear-proof tent camp to film a program for three months.
There is also mention that the fish populations in Gates of the Arctic are very slow-growing and highly vulnerable to fishing pressure. Try to explain the impact to radical tree huggers of providing your protein needs for three months for several people from a vulnerable fish population. I couldn't justify it, and I'm a traditional conservationist, not a wild-eyed Greenie. The locations chosen for the show were good ones, and they were not significantly impacted by this "experiment". Given the success of the show, we can probably expect to see upcoming seasons.
The moving object is in the bay, with the bottom screened by a sand spit between the camera and the object. Okay, what other than a boat would be moving on the bay?
There are two reasons that sand pit theory will not hold water. First off...that sand pit as you call it in the forground also has trees growing on it...this tree covered sand pit stretches across the bay, thus, making this a shorter bay, with a larger body of water or a lake north and right behind it. Secondly...if that was a boat from the distance that cameraman was at it would easily have to be traveling at least 40 to 45 knots. All this in a body of water with large dead trees littering the beaches, not to mention any ice that may be around. Alaskans are pretty brave hearty souls...but during my years living their and the numerous travels I've made back to the state...I've never found anyone that stupid to try something like that.
You would have more credibility if there were bits of evidence that you were really examining everything as closely as you think. Read my post again. I never said sand pit. Spit. Did you catch that? Look it up in the dictionary. A pit is a hole in the ground. A spit is a low-lying point/cape.
I personally could care less if the show location was in my backyard, these people have a camera, survival, and emergency crews just off camera. It's basically a controlled experiment regardless where they're located, if anything life threating should happen, there's enough emergency people and equipment available, they might as well be camping in a McDonald's parking lot.
