mrs. trapeze has found herself a new reality show and this one isn't horrid. It's actually pretty good, especially from the doomsday prepper point of view.
It's called
Alaska: The Last Frontier.It's interesting because it shows three generations of a family living a subsistence lifestyle in a remote and difficult place. It's interesting because there is an emphasis on what they do rather than the "drama" between the characters that is so prevalent in other reality shows. Every time the show comes back from a commercial break they put up a disclaimer for liberals, telling them that there is a lot of animal killing. Poor liberals. Screw them. Every person carries a gun, all the time, everywhere because, hey, predators. So there's lots of animal killing which is good. And there is a lot of examples of survival stuff, making do with what you have.
Now, of course, there is the usual BS that is in every reality show. Things like pretending that there isn't a camera crew present. Like, for instance, when two of them (husband and wife) are out in the middle of nowhere, ice fishing, and the pull cord on one of the snowmobiles breaks. They act like it's a crisis. OH, NO! What are we gonna do?! We'll be stranded! Which is ridiculous. They have a second snowmobile plus the camera crew didn't walk to get there. I hate fake drama. It's stupid. But thankfully this type of nonsense is kept to a minimum.
And there is no explanation for what these families do to make money. They have to make money, after all, to buy the things that they cannot make or scavenge. Stuff like roofing metal, ammunition, cigarettes, propane, kerosene, gasoline (and snowmobiles and ATVs), diesel fuel, electricity, etc. Let's face it, there is no such thing as true subsistence living in a world where modern conveniences exist. People will find a way to get them as they should. To not make use of modern stuff would be to force people into the stone age in short order. Heck, even the Amish make use of modern stuff whenever it suits them. So, it would be nice to know how these Alaskan homesteaders make money (or barter) for life's little conveniences.
On the plus side, they mostly do not make the characters (I don't know what to call them...they aren't actors) look like freaks which seems to be the goal of most reality shows. Every once in a while the producers do it...one episode shows one of them picking up a road kill porcupine to eat, another character harvests a partially eaten (by a predator) fish on the shoreline of a lake. But that's about the extent of the highlighted weirdness.
But on balance this is a good show and it makes for an interesting look at what it takes to live in a harsh environment, something that preppers might want to look at, I suppose.
