Bear Talks… Fears

Do you find being in an excessively hot or cold environment worse?

One of the things I've learned in my life is that both are pretty bloody unpleasant. I remember as a kid I used to wonder what it was like being absolutely, properly, properly cold, and I think I've got that one really out of my system. But they're both very, very dangerous.

I was in Australia recently, and in the Outback it reaches 57°C, which is unbelievably hot. They say if you get dropped in the middle of that with no survival skills and no water, you'll be dead within three hours.

In Alaska I came down off a big mountain and eventually reached the coastline and a deserted saw mill, where I found a little rowing boat under a pile of wood. I used it, and I found myself completely surrounded by sea ice, and the boat then started leaking and taking on water, and eventually it just sank under me. I had a 500-metre swim through all these sea icebergs. I ended up very close to being hypothermic! I'm determined to one day do a show in a place which is really just nice and temperate!

Are you scared at all when you're out in the wilds?

Yeah, often. I've spent so much of my life being scared, whether it's on high mountains or things I did with the army, and I think what I've learned is that that's okay. I've been scared a lot doing this series. I've been scared a lot in various climbing incidents where I've found myself in quite precarious situations, but that's okay.

Being super-butch isn't real, and what it does is isolate people. It's about keeping going, not about the absence of fear. The great survivors, the people who manage to get through against insurmountable odds, don't do so because they're brave, but because they have a will to live. That's the important thing. That's why I really didn't want this series to be made to look heroic, and it hasn't been. There's more depth to it than that, and I don't look heroic at all.

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