Review: Dual Survival

I’ve just finished watching the first season of a show called “Dual Survival” on the discovery Channel. It features the usual device of putting people in a nasty environment which they then survive while teaching you the tricks and tips of doing so. The difference here is that the show does not dump a single individual a la Les Stroud or Bear Grylls, but rather two individuals working together.

The individuals are Dave Canterbury (at left, above), an ex-military type with a lot of bush experience hailing from the American Northwest and Cody Lundin (at right), a primitive skills survival expert from Arizona. The two men have somewhat differing approaches to survival, which is part of the interest.

Together, they work through a variety of survival scenarios, with the two of them mostly agreeing on how to proceed, but sometimes in sharp disagreement. A good example is when Canterbury goes after honey from a possibly Africanized honeybee colony over Lundin’s protests. He gets the honey, but gets stung multiple times. The lesson, as Lundin puts it: “Do dumbass things, suffer dumbass consequences”

There is a good deal of talk about cost/benefit of survival actions when it comes to food (Calories expended vs. benefit received) that I haven’t seen on most of the other survival series I’ve watched. There is also a reasonable amount of talk about survival psychology, which is a topic that interests me a lot.

In addition the gear and operating styles of the two men are very different. Lundin is a primitivist, and improvises a lot of his gear. In fact, throughout the season, he is barefoot and wearing shorts throughout each episode. He feels this is actually an advantage overall, forcing him to slow down and be more aware of and in touch with his environment.

Canterbury is more of a hard charger in your face type, and seems to go to higher risk situations more readily than Lundin. He tends to feel survival is a battle to be fought with Nature, in contrast to Lundin’s more adaptive approach.

As far as techniques go, the show doesn’t present much you haven’t seen on other programs, although watching the ease with which Lundin operated a fire drill compared to Canterbury’s palm blistering efforts is instructive.

Overall, I feel the show somewhat misses the mark in presenting differing approaches to survival situations, although that isn’t really their fault. Often, there is only one sensible way to proceed. I think the idea of a team of two is interesting, and something I have not seen before. All in all, it’s a watchable show, but it’s not going to give you any Eureka! moments.

Originally posted November 22, 2010 @ MPN