Original subtitles

'I'm Ben Fogle.

'And over the next few weeks,

'I'm going to live with different people

'who inhabit some of the most remote locations on earth.'

There is nothing here.

'From the mountain forests of Northwest USA

'to the freezing Mongolian tundra.

'The barren Hungarian countryside

'to the wild African bush.

'A Mediterranean island and the deep Canadian wilderness.

'These are the people who decided to make a massive life change.'

I said, "So, what do you think? Shall we just do it?

Give up everything?" And, er...she said, "OK".

Oh, boy!

'Are they daring, or just downright crazy?'

Come on, Ben! Oh!

We didn't even know where Mongolia was!

This is who I am, it's not who you want me to be.

'I want to find out what happens when you quit the rat race...'

If the whole world folds up, my pension is here.

'..and create a new wife in the wild.'

Today, I'm heading to a vast wilderness.

Home to mountains, glaciers and grizzly bears.

West of Canada's Rocky Mountains,

I'll be living with bear guide

Julius Strauss and his wife Kristin -

a couple for whom the wild has not just become home...

..but also their refuge.

When I came here, I was in a mess.

I mean, in the end, I could barely go out on the street on my own.

I'll learn how, against the odds,

they've found a way of surviving in the wilderness.

It doesn't matter how many degrees you have

because if you can't chop wood, you're useless, right?

And how, together, they're facing a new battle.

That's almost certainly a hunter,

and that really, really pisses me off.

Yeah.

'My journey begins over 7,000km away in Vancouver, Western Canada.

'It's then a further 11 hours east to Meadow Creek,

'in the Selkirk Mountains.

'This vast landscape surrounds me.'

Canada is the second-biggest country in the world.

40 times larger than the UK, but with half the population.

That is a lot of unpopulated wilderness.

If you want to escape, this is the place to come.

'Arriving deep in the forest,

'I can't help but feel I might be being watched.'

I'm very aware this is grizzly bear country.

Wow, look at this! That is quite a river.

'The only way to meet my host

'is to cross this old military Bailey bridge.'

Whoo! I don't know if I want to fall in there.

'It's in desperate need of repair.

'I can see why I had to leave the car behind.'

Julius?

Hey-hey-hey! Hello, Ben!

What a place to bump into an Englishman!

It's good to meet you. Hey, how are you? Really well.

I don't know if I want to fall in there right now.

You haven't seen anything yet. We'll be taking a raft.

A buddy of mine has got a raft and that's how we'll get down to the ranch.

Seriously? Yep. Come this way.

This is amazing! Look at this. And we're in bear country?

So, there could be bears now? Totally, totally.

There could be bears either side of us, or in front of us.

You can go ahead, then. BEN LAUGHS

48-year-old Julius Strauss was born in London.

After college, he became a journalist for The Telegraph,

and by 27, was a foreign correspondent sent to war zones.

He had a £40,000 salary and generous perks.

But ten years of reporting on the front line began to take its toll.

Julius became ill,

and, in 2005, he and then-girlfriend Kristin quit their jobs,

left Europe, bought an old campervan

and drove across the wilds of Canada.

They stopped at a remote ranch and never left.

It's here where they now offer

an unique wilderness experience to visitors.

THEY LAUGH

THEY LAUGH

That's certainly woken me up, thank you!

Pull again, please, guys.

'And Julius is now one of North America's top bear guides.'

And stop. Take a break.

So, are we getting near now, Julius? Yeah, that's it there.

Oh, look at that!

That's the ranch on the right-hand side, yeah.

Wow! This is incredibly beautiful here.

The property covers 32 acres,

with a main house and six small guest cabins.

This is absolutely beautiful.

Has all of this changed a lot, then, from when you first arrived?

Have you done all this yourselves?

We've done a lot, and it's very different from when we arrived, yes.

So it looks very different from ten years ago. Mm-hm. Absolutely.

And have you had to put a huge amount of effort in here, then?

We've had to put a huge amount. And it wasn't just that.

Right at the beginning,

we didn't have the money to buy what there was,

so we had to take this enormous risk.

And, um...what we did is we collected all the money we had,

we put it down, it came to just under half

what the previous owners wanted for it.

So we promised them that we would get

the other half of the money together within six months.

And it took us five months and about nine days,

and by the end of it, we were getting a little bit hot under the collar.

So we almost lost all our money and this place,

but then finally, the last minute, it all came together.

The couple still use all their old sheds for storage

and a outdoor toilet.

And three of the cabins

are still painted in their original engine oil.

But their main house, made from fir-tree wood,

is their pride and joy and took six months to build.

So, come in. Thank you very much. This is very cosy in here.

Oh, wow! So, did you start with, like, a very basic structure here and build up?

Very basic. Very basic. There was a little log cabin here.

No foundation, no upstairs, nothing. Just a simple log cabin.

And for eight years,

Kristin and I slept in that little space right there.

And then a couple of years ago,

we decided to turn it into what we wanted.

We ripped out that wall, put in some glass and, er...

this is what you see now, yeah.

Now, that massive gamble you were saying that you took,

you know, 50% promised later on,

what kind of figure are we talking? I mean, a huge amount?

We, um...the place cost us around £150,000,

so we put down £75,000, which was everything we had.

And then, yeah, the balance came a lot later, just in time.

Just in time. I love your smile there. Yeah.

Was that...was that quite a nerve-racking period?

Yes, it was. Because I remember when we got the mortgage,

we went out and we got really drunk.

Just being happy that we made it and that we got the place.

Otherwise, we would have lost everything.

We got so drunk, we forgot the name of the place that we'd bought.

Solar panels provide electricity.

There's propane gas for cooking and a water well.

Julius and Kristin stay connected to the outside world

via a satellite dish for the internet and telephone,

but other than that, they're on their own.

We don't have any services from the outside.

We have no garbage pick-up, no mail service, no fire cover.

It's not all as posh as it seems. I mean, we've got composting toilets

and to make it look this smart,

there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes.

But, basically, yeah, you can have everything out here

that you can have in a town, you just have to work a bit harder.

The start of the new tourist season is a month away,

so, until then, I get a cabin of my own.

I have to stay, I don't think I've ever stayed in a wilderness

that's quite as comfortable as this. Ha-ha!

Is that because of the guests?

Yeah. We had to... You know, we've had to put all the...

every cent we have into this place, basically.

If we're going to ask people to come here, it has to be nice.

So, we've really tried hard.

Is this really going to be my home?

This is going to be your home, yeah.

Oh, thank you very much.

The cabins have metal roofs

as protection from flying ash during summer bushfires.

But in winter, there can be four feet of snow,

so they all have wood-burning stoves inside.

Everything here, a lot of thought has gone into it.

And I like it because I am in the middle of a wilderness,

make no mistakes about that.

And although it looks like you have everything,

you're still relying on the wood

that you chop down to create the heat.

So, everything is still sort of self-produced.

This is the quintessential off-the-grid

luxurious cabin in the woods, surrounded by bears.

It's great.

The work my hosts have done

and the environment might look picture-perfect,

but I'm curious to know what things were like for them in the beginning.

We were so useless when we arrived. We didn't know how to do anything.

We didn't know where the water came from.

I remember going to Kristin and saying,

"Where does the water come from?"

And she said, "It comes out of the tap". And I thought, "Yeah".

Two days later, we were, like, "Well, where does that come from?"

We were... We were really useless.

And we did have a big dream back then, you know,

the dream of living in the bush.

And with the tasks around here, is there anything

that either of you are particularly bad at?

Money. Good at? Money.

Both of us. Money. Useless. Absolutely useless.

Who does it? Well, I was hoping that Kristin would be the responsible one

and she was hoping I would be. We encourage each other at being bad.

If one of us was clever, financially,

we'd probably have a much more profitable business.

But neither of us are.

But the great thing about that is at least we agree on things.

KRISTIN LAUGHS Yes.

Deep in these forests at night, the wildlife is active.

I'm told it's not safe to go back to my cabin alone.

So, do you often take guests back, escort them like this?

Yeah. Last year, in the autumn, we had to do it every night

because I think we had six different grizzlies around.

Really? In camp here? Yeah. During that ten days.

So, we were getting a bit worried about our guests' safety,

so we escorted them back every night.

What do we do if we do come across a bear now?

We should stand still, be calm, not run.

And, er...that's it. And wait for it to go away.

Because it doesn't want to have anything to do with us.

Thank you very much for escorting me back to my cabin safely.

I'm actually rather disappointed there aren't any bears, if I'm to be honest.

Well, who knows, they might be sitting right there. Maybe in the morning.

Maybe in the morning. Yeah, exactly.

Kristin, thank you so much. Sleep well. I'll see you in the morning. Good night.

Fascinating couple.

Most of the people that I've spent time with in the wild

have shunned finances.

They've cut themselves off from the grid in every sense of the word.

Especially the financial grid.

But here is a couple who have...

I don't whether I'd use the word "embraced",

but they've got themselves tangled up in finances.

They've got themselves a wilderness mortgage.

That's a pretty unique situation to find yourself in,

which is kind of counterintuitive

to coming to a place like this.

'I'm in the Canadian wilderness home of Julius and Kristin Strauss -

'a remote lodging they've created attracting visitors,

'hoping to see bears in the wild.'

I slept very well.

The noise of the river is just amazing, with the window open.

So beautiful. 32 acres here, so something tells me there's probably

quite a lot of tasks and jobs to do.

'The first guests will arrive next month, so Kristin,

'who's in charge of accommodation and food,

'has me busy in the garden.'

Do you grow fruits as well?

No, we can't, because of the bears.

It would be a huge attraction so that wouldn't work out.

Would they probably just crawl their way in, would they?

Yes. Absolutely and if a 300lb bear climbs up the tree,

you can imagine they just break in half.

'A local farm supplies meat

'but it's the forest that's their real larder and where they forage.'

I'm still a little bit suspicious about it. Are you? Yes.

If it's a berry I know, I'll pick it and if it's

a mushroom I know, I'll pick it,

but here people do that a lot. Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

'The garden itself takes six hours to mow,

'and then there's the maintenance of the cabins.

'Julius is the hiking and bear-guide,

'so before the start of the season,

'he makes essential checks on the river rafts.'

What's the big black thing underneath?

Those things there are my... The wings from my old aeroplane.

What happened to it? I had a mishap.

A mishap with an aeroplane is never good,

especially when there's only one wing left.

No, there are two wings, two wings.

The body didn't survive but the wings are still there.

I bought it from a logger in Oregon and he made it himself.

It wasn't the best...

A homemade aeroplane. A homemade aeroplane and um,

I crashed it the second time I flew it.

'Julius's attitude to life is fascinating.'

Very elegant. Perfect.

'I'm keen to know more about the path that took him

'from frontline war journalist to wilderness bear guide.'

Ten years of war really chews away at your head.

And some of my friends were killed.

A lot more had problems - alcohol problems, some had drugs problems

and I thought I was all OK and then one day in Sierra Leone, in 2000,

I got hit by... I didn't know what I got hit by at the time.

I just felt this horrible dread and sense that I was going to die

and my balance completely went and I think in retrospect

it's probably what we would now call PTSD.

And do you think coming to Canada,

was this your way of overcoming your post-traumatic stress?

Ultimately I think it was. I mean what happened was, I had just met

Kristin. I'd been battling with this whole post-traumatic stress thing

for two or three years and still working.

I still went to Iraq and Afghanistan

and I was trying to manage it and then in September 2004,

there was a horrible incident in southern Russia, in Beslan,

where more than 100 children were killed and I was there

and I came out that afternoon and I had just met Kristin

and I thought this has got to be a changing point in my life.

I can't do this any more. I've just completely regressed

in terms of all the progress

I'd made over the last two or three years.

I've got a woman that cares for me, loves me, and wants to be with me.

So, maybe it's time for a change.

And, so, Canada, the idea of Canada came up.

'This involved a 1,500km adventure in an old camper van.

'But it took its toll on the new couple -

'until Julius remembered an advert he'd seen

'about this secluded ranch.'

I thought, "Ah, that's going to be a good diversion."

"I need a diversion before she leaves me and buggers off

"back to Europe."

So, I stopped at an internet cafe and looked it up.

And I found it. I found out it was for sale and I phoned up the real

estate agents and said, "Can we see it?"

He said, "Are you serious potential buyers?"

I said, "Absolutely, definitely."

I had no intention of buying anything

and that's how we came out here and we were absolutely smitten.

We left after an hour, an hour and a half,

set off down the road and I remember I turned to her and said,

"So, what do you think, shall we just do it, buy it, give up everything?"

And she said, "OK, let's do it."

'The couple had everything to learn.

'They thought they'd bought a ranch with

'a viable bed and breakfast business

'but after three months, no guests and no enquiries,

'they realised they'd been had.'

I sat down with Kristin, and we looked at each other.

I think we were a bit slow on the uptake.

We looked at each other and said, "There was no business, was there?"

She's like, "No, there was no business."

So, that was when we suddenly thought, "Shit, we've got to start

"from scratch. We've got to do something new."

'Today, we're fixing a rotting fence with 5lb wooden posts

'but in the early days, they could barely afford to stay here.'

So, how did you turn it around?

Slowly. We almost went bust the first winter.

I got a job in Alaska, luckily.

A friend of mine called me up who'd been offered the job

and he couldn't do it and he said, "Look, there's a job going

"teaching journalism at the University of Alaska.

"Do you want to do it? And I'm like, "Yeah, I definitely want to do it!"

So, we went up to Alaska for four months.

I taught there and came back in the spring.

That gave us just a little bit of money and allowed me

to go off and train as a grizzly bear guide.

'Kristin trained as a chef

'and together they gained the skills to actually create the business

'that had never existed.'

I think for Julius and Kristin, just moving here in the first place

was pretty brave. They've come from totally different worlds

and they've come to the Canadian wilderness, an extreme wilderness

at that and then to take on a business,

that then transpired to be a non-business,

you know, they're ballsy risk takers but they also work really hard

to make sure that that risk pays off.

So far, it's Julius who seems to be the driving force behind

the risks they've taken, but he did meet his match in Kristin.

While at university in Estonia, she married a diplomat.

She was part of the country's new elite and had

a successful career of her own at a leading news agency.

But Kristin wasn't in love.

Can I say that this is the neatest pile of wood

and the largest pile of wood I think I've ever seen?

Presumably though, this is life out here,

especially when it comes to winter.

Yeah, you have no choice, because we only have wood-burning stoves.

This is what we do. It's the only way to heat for us.

Hey!

Do you remember the first time you met Julius?

Yes, so I do remember it very well

and I remember I didn't like him very much, actually,

the first time, when I met him.

What did you think?

I think he was really cocky, actually! Did you?

Yes, but a year later, everything had changed,

so then when we met a year later, yeah, he was much nicer.

And what did your family think when they first met him?

Oh, they thought I was crazy!

Did they make their opinions known to you? Yes, especially my mum!

But actually my dad liked him right away,

so that made my life easier

and right now my whole family adores Julius because he's probably

the most emotional person we have in the crowd.

And, obviously, you were actually married when you met him, as well.

Yes, yes. I was legally. So was he, actually! Nobody has mentioned that!

Yeah, we were both married to somebody else but I think

both marriages were actually at the end.

They were both crumbling, anyway. Yeah, absolutely.

Otherwise, it wouldn't have happened, right? Of course.

We both led kind of... quite fancy lifestyles,

and I think it was very healthy for both of us to be removed from that

status world and just make it work here.

You are as good as you are here.

It doesn't matter how many degrees you have or how much...

And I remember... It's really healthy for a person.

The self-importance will disappear very quickly because if you can't

chop wood, you're useless, right?

Yeah. On that note...

It's spring and the snow-melt from the mountains

means the river's level is at its highest.

Upstream from the ranch, Julius has asked me to help him with the most

dangerous job he has to do - armed with a chainsaw and a life-jacket.

Fallen trees can create dams in the river and this can be

extremely dangerous for rafting.

If the boat gets caught,

it can be dragged under water by the force of the current.

So we have to clear the blockage.

Doing this on your own is not something you want to do,

so it's good there are two of us here.

So that's what I've got this for.

This is basically your safety harness.

You're going to clip it onto me, you're going to hang onto me

for dear life and when I do go in...

You're going to trust me with your life? You've only just met me! When I go in, you let goof me.

That's the deal. OK. Or you follow me in. OK. Go on then.

Just make sure you have one foot safe before...

..you go onto the next one.

Can I say, of all the jobs I thought you'd have out here, this is

the last thing I thought I'd be doing - standing on a raging

Canadian river with a chainsaw. This is usually the biggest hazard.

Well, this time last year, I went straight into this river,

a running chainsaw, high water. Now you tell me!

Yeah. So this will be my first time out since then,

so you're a brave man, Ben.

OK, I've got it. You've got it?

'Cutting too quickly and the strength of the current

'could snap the tree and throw us into the river.'

You happy, Julius?

Happy so far! OK.

'Here the water is ten feet deep

'and it's flowing at 15 kilometres per hour,

'twice the speed of an average river.

'When Julius first arrived here,

'he was told these waters were far too dangerous to raft.'

CHAINSAW WHIRRS

See how tense that is? I can hear it starting to snap.

So that's the danger with these things, there's so much pressure

on it that we're not going to get

much of a cut in before it's going to go. Before it goes.

Let's back up a little bit. Yeah.

Whoa!

She's close to going, isn't she? Yeah.

OK. You OK? Yep. Well done!

Whoo!

Good job!

Look at that!

It's going to be sucked under, I think.

'Half of the 30ft tree is finally released downstream.'

Look at it go!

Julius, I'm so impressed with that. I'm quite impressed as well.

It didn't do anything over here as well. Are you?

Is that quite... Do you get.. It's an adrenaline rush.

An adrenaline rush. Do you still need that adrenaline rush?

You do! Do you think? I can't answer that question.

But it strikes me... I know you need to do all of this

but I can see the smile on your face now. I mean that's...

It's total relief. Is it relief? Yeah. No, no, no. It's... Yeah.

Your heart rate goes up a bit.

I don't know if I need an adrenaline rush but life is

a bit more interesting that way.

'I could see there was genuine fear, genuine nervousness there,

'if one of those trees had catapulted us both into the water,

'as happened last time he was there,'

that's quite a nerve-wracking thing to take on again.

But it seems to me that this is part of the drive of his life.

He is a risk-taker. Bears haven't even come into this yet.

They're still the big, invisible, lurking mystery around us.

And that's the big thing that keeps him here

and undoubtedly with bears come risk.

I'm deep in the Canadian wilderness.

The climate here can hit extremes

but in springtime, it's very similar to home.

Do you have a favourite season here?

I mean it obviously gets very cold here in the winter.

Autumn... Autumn? ..when the grizzlies are out.

Is it all about the bears!

It's all about the bears. When the leaves are changing

and the grizzlies are out, that's my favourite season.

'At this time of year, the bears are still high up in the mountains,

'so we're packing essentials for a hike up into the woods.'

Obviously, a lot of people are quite scared of bears.

Are you quite fearful of them

or is it just the beauty that you're focusing on?

I think you should never lose your respect for bears.

I probably have about one run-in a year with a bear

which is usually my fault and something I've done slightly wrong

and they are very tolerant and they will allow you to get

away with things but statistically, you know, you could get mauled.

You could get mauled.

There was a guy I knew of. He spent 30 years in Yellowstone,

filming bears and he was mashed up twice by bears and I think

that's about the statistical average. If you do it every day of

your life for 30 years, things are going to wrong at one point.

But, you know, having the stuff with you and being sensible

will mitigate the risk a lot.

'Upstream, we need to cross the river

and head further into the woods.

Wow, look at this! What do you think? This is incredible.

That is being incredibly resourceful to make this.

Are you sure it's sturdy enough? Trying it out.

That is amazing. So that is literally just a tree that

has either fallen naturally or someone's helped it.

We helped it.

That must have been hard. How did you do that with the water?

The water was a little bit lower and at the time I could just

about scramble across.

This is amazing. It's like Indiana Jones now.

It is, Indiana Jones in Canada.

Has a bear used it yet?

I don't know. I'd love to know the answer to that question.

It would be cool to see a bear using your bridge. Totally.

'We head up out of the valley along tree-covered slopes.

'Right now, this should be prime bear-viewing habitat but it's not.'

'The Canadian Government extended the spring bear-hunting season,

'so trophy hunters roam these valley forests looking for grizzlies.'

'Now, it's not safe for Julius and Kristin

'to take guests out to view bears.

'They are campaigning to get the hunt banned

'and we're going in search of new ground

'where the hunters can't reach.'

We had a bear last year called Apple, who we'd been watching

for ten years, we watched her bring up cubs, and she was shot last spring. Now, I don't know

if she was shot within the extension part or the basic part of the season

but it's upsetting when something like that happens.

From a business point of view,

it's not totally disastrous but it certainly means we're not

going to make any money. We might survive but it's going to be tough.

And is it expensive to kill a bear?

If you're a resident - and all the bears shot round here are

shot by residents - it's going to cost you $88. $88.

That's less than £50. $88 to kill a bear, to take a bear's life.

Are we talking a big grizzly? Yep, that's a grizzly bear.

What?! What planet are they living on?

I know. Seriously, I thought you were gonna say thousands. No, $88.

Do you feel in some ways that you're in the midst of a war then now?

Yeah, I mean if we could get the grizzly hunt banned,

that would be something we could be proud of

and it would be a legacy. Whatever happens to us happens to us.

We may be here for another ten years, 20 years, we could be here forever

but it would be a legacy that we could leave behind,

something that was meaningful and hopefully permanent.

So, yeah, it would be a huge deal.

I think part of the reason we came here was to get away from politics

and some of the worst of human nature and what you find

is everywhere you go in the world, it doesn't matter where you are,

there's politics and there's human nature and you

can't really get away from that. You just have to deal with it.

'There are nearly 15,000 grizzly bears in British Columbia -

'about a quarter of the entire North American population.'

'Julius thinks there may be several hundred in this area alone.'

So, what do you look for, for good bear habitat?

This. This is exactly what you look for. You look for avalanche slopes.

I mean, they're unlikely to be on the snow itself

but just on the sides, where the fresh green stuff

is beginning to come in.

That's the best place to find grizzly bears at this time of year.

And when you say fresh green stuff, I mean berries, latterly,

later in the year...

Later in the year, berries but right now it's literally...

it's grass, it's forbs, it's young flowers, glacier lilies,

all that kind of stuff -

things that have got... They don't look like much to us but in quantity

it's just enough to keep the bear surviving through the spring.

What do you think it is about bears

that captures people's imaginations so much?

I mean, you were saying you've got people that come here,

big, grown, tough men and when they see a bear, you see tears.

It's totemic. It harks back to an era of something that's

mostly been lost in this world - the wild.

You know, the wild out there, but also the wild inside us, as well,

something we yearn for deeply, even if we can't quite

express that always.

I think there's something quite deep there.

'After two hours of hiking, we're now on an abandoned logging trail

'and spot of our first sign that we're not alone.'

This is what we're after, isn't it? Mm. Yum, yum.

You wouldn't want to pick this apart with your hands if it was fish

but because it's vegetation, it's fairly safe.

So, that's some kind of maybe skunk cabbage or something like this.

Mm-hm. And any idea what kind of bear this might be? Black? Grizzly?

It's really difficult to say. You can't tell, definitively.

You can guess from the size and you can guess from what

they've been eating.

Erm... I couldn't tell you, actually. It could go either way.

Could be either.

Did you ever think when you were in Afghanistan that one day

you'd be picking through bear shit with your bear hands...

No! ..in the pouring rain?

Not in my wildest imagination did I think that.

Strange how life takes its twists and turns. Yeah.

Well, we know bears are around. This is good. We certainly do.

It's amazing to see. He's like a detective,

looking at all the scat on the way and you can see we're in the world of Julius

and the Canadian wilderness now.

'Finally, up ahead on the track, we spot a black bear.'

He or she is gone.

'We attempt to track it.'

WHISPERS: Just up here on the left.

We may miss him again.

We'll just have a look.

WHISPERS: He went in about here but he might come out further down

or he might go up. OK.

WHISPERS: Look at the tracks. Awesome. That's great, isn't it?

So, black bear - any idea of sort of age?

Youngish, but you can see from the tracks definitively,

it's a black bear, even if we hadn't seen that ourselves. Yeah.

You can tell from the tracks it's a black bear.

I would say four but it's a bit of a guess.

Let's walk up to the corner and we might still see him.

It's fun tracking bears. It's good, isn't it?

WHISPERS: Yeah. He's still in front of us, somewhere. Yeah.

There it is. Yeah.

So, the bear's just having a little think now,

making a bit of a calculation.

He doesn't really want to leave this nice feeding zone

but he's not quite sure about us.

Whoops! And he's gone.

Wow, that was pretty awesome.

Amazing how such a big creature

can just disappear like that, isn't it? I know.

It shouldn't be this difficult.

But do you think one of the things that's made it harder here

is because it's the hunting season, so they're much more skittish?

Absolutely. I mean, really, bears have no reason to be scared of us -

if it wasn't for hunting. We're not...

They don't naturally predate on us.

We don't naturally bother them so this behaviour

is unfortunately brought about through the hunting. Yeah.

But, still, we saw a bear.

Listen, I've seen my black bear now. Yeah. Just a grizzly.

Now we just need a grizzly. OK.

'It's ten hours since we left the ranch and Julius decides

'we should set up camp before nightfall.

'Dusk and dawn are the main times when bears are active.'

Are we going to be attracting bears with these? We might.

We'll have to eat them and make sure we clean up properly.

If you were to have a big pile of bacon and you got it all over

your T-shirt you definitely wouldn't want to go and sleep in that

same T-shirt in the tent.

All those years you spent in those pretty tough situations,

seeing things that some of us can't imagine,

do you think that has had a long-lasting effect on you?

Do you bear the scars?

Yes, the scars will always be there.

I mean, ten years ago, when I came here, I was in a mess.

You know, no two ways about it. Psychologically, I was in a mess.

In the end, I could barely go out on the street on my own.

I couldn't drive a car for nearly two years.

I had problems with my balance and there was a feeling of dread.

Um... And then coming here, it still lasted for quite a while

but it got less and less and less as time went by.

I still have the odd flash of something,

a sort of remnant of whatever it was

but most of it has gone. So I think this place has been good to me.

'In the remote mountains of British Columbia,

'my host Julius and I are up early

'on our mission to track grizzly bears.'

So, it's about...

..five in the morning or so.

I'm hoping they're foraging somewhere.

200,000 berries a day apparently they eat.

'We head further into the wilderness.

'Julius thinks that over the past few decades,

'only a handful of people have ever ventured here.'

In terms of southern Canada, this is about as remote as it gets.

Really? Yeah.

I love looking up at the peaks here and imagining there are places

where no human has ever set foot.

You know, I've thought about that a lot.

You could almost go 100 yards into the bush there

and say with some certainty the same thing.

Isn't that amazing? Yeah.

'Finally, there's evidence we're in grizzly bear territory.'

Whoa! Look at that!

So that is one of the biggest bear turds I have ever seen.

Wow. Big grizzly?

It's almost worth feeling the temperature of it. It's cold.

Yeah, big grizzly bear, that.

And if you look at the shininess and the greenness of that,

it is cold but it's got to be today.

I'm loving your enthusiasm for turds out here. It's great.

It's just such a good turd.

BEN LAUGHS

'At this time of year,

'the grizzly bears are in danger from trophy hunters.

'The new extension in the hunting season means there's huge conflict

'with those who simply want to view bears in their natural habitat.'

'We've trekked to 6,000 feet to avoid the hunters.

'But Julius spies something in the valley below.'

So we've got a vehicle right down there. Good spot.

Let's just have a little look.

That's almost certainly a hunter, so from our perspective

not only are we going to see less bears than we otherwise would

but also these guys are out to shoot the bears that we're trying to view,

so that's pretty infuriating.

I can see that - anger, emotion, everything seems to...

Yeah, we've spent ten years trying to do this

and then somebody can just turn up and blow that bear away

and that's the end of that...for $88.

Doesn't make me happy.

I kind of want to go and suggest slashing their tyres.

That would be your call, not mine. Yeah, yeah.

To be honest, we've been through all those emotions

and we're trying to win the argument rationally now

because we just want people to listen.

It's really, really irritating.

Because, presumably, if you're a bear,

you're going to scarper at any sign of... Yeah.

So, it will hurt our chances, anyway,

because these guys are up here in general but the fact that they're up here today is definitely

going to hurt our chances.

Yeah.

I'm curious - how much revenue can they actually bring in?

If it's $88 per bear, as you've said, which I'm still shocked by,

how does that compare to tourism, for example -

what you guys are doing?

If you're a foreigner, you pay a bit more to shoot a bear here

than the locals do.

But total, total, total for the province,

best case scenario, they bring in about two million bucks a year.

The hunters? The hunters.

And bear viewing, right now, our best estimates are 40 million.

$40 million a year and it's a small, growing industry.

So there's really no...

So there's no argument even that the money from bear hunting

is superior or could go back into conservation. No.

In fact, it's even worse than that.

People in the ministry tell us they spend more money regulating the hunt

than they bring in in income from it. Now, if that's true,

it means that as a British Columbian, paying taxes,

I'm subsidising what's going on down there

and that really, really pisses me off.

Yeah.

'In the autumn, when there's no bear hunting,

'the grizzlies are spotted in huge numbers here.

'But after my 24 hours in the bush, they remain elusive.'

I think what was more significant for me was what we didn't see

and that's what Julius really wanted to drive home to me.

This extension of the hunting season,

the hunters, they're having a huge impact

and for someone like Julius and Kristin who rely on

those bears for tourism, that's got a massive impact

and for the bears themselves, they're retreating

to the deep wilderness but, you know, I still saw that black bear.

It's a magical experience to see one of these creatures.

They're... It's so rare that you actually get to see one

that close-up on foot. It was amazing.

'It's almost time for me to leave but there's one last job Julius

'and Kristin need help with.'

It does feel good putting the sign up.

We're kind of proud of what we do, you know? We're not ashamed of it.

Is there a part of you... We know there's hunters out there.

They're going to be coming up and down this road, aren't they?

Yeah, they're not going to like what they see

but, you know, we have a right to be here, too.

If the hunt is banned, that's different.

But, right now, they have a right to do what they do,

so, for the time being, we'll just do what we do.

In a dream world, if I come back in five, ten years, do you...

I suppose you hope you might have helped

change policy out here?

Yeah, I think so.

I would think five, ten years is a realistic target for us, actually,

to have the bear hunt banned. Absolutely.

I hope it will be sooner than that. Me too! And we're trying hard.

This is being conservative, yeah. Yeah.

Five to ten years should be realistic, as well.

Do you think it will happen? Yeah, it will happen, it will happen.

It's just a question of time. Absolutely.

It looks great, well done.

Really, well done. Thank you very much. It's brilliant.

I don't doubt you both.

'There's something rather special about spending time

'with two individuals

'that love where they are.'

Wow.

'You know, here's a couple that have taken huge gambles

'but, you know, sometimes, if you don't take a risk in life,

'you don't stand to benefit.

'Those who take the biggest risks stand to benefit the most.'

They're still tied to the financial model but that's the beauty

of what they've done here.

They've shown and demonstrated to people that you can...

You can do this if you're willing to take that gamble.

Can I say, guys, this has been the most amazing, amazing trip.

I'm not going to forget that black bear.

It's been awesome having you.

It's been incredible. Give me a hug. Thank you so much.

Look after yourself. I will.

Thank you. Kristin, thank you so much for everything.

Thank you for coming. Good luck with everything here. Bye, dogs.

Thank you. Remind me where I left the car.

By the bridge, that way. That way.

I bet I'm going to meet a grizzly on my way out, aren't I?

Let us know if you do.

A little smirk on your face. I kind of hope I do.

Listen, guys, thank you so much. Take care.

Thank you for coming, Ben. Bye, guys! Bye!

'I think what's interesting as well, from my perspective, is that I've

'always known that the wilderness is a great form of therapy.'

The wilderness can heal people. The wilderness can educate people.

And it's fascinating to see how much Julius

has benefitted, in particular, from a wilderness like this.

This is a circumstance where I'd go as far as to say that the wilderness

saved his life, really.

'Next time...I'm in Ibiza,

'living with a man who's built a home from junk.'

It's all really good material. It's not garbage.

'Leading a wild tribe...'

I don't know which planet you're from.

'..on a mission to build a community before time runs out.'

If nothing changes, I think we've got five years left

and then it's all over. Five years? Before the 'S' hits the fan.