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The weekend's TV

Source: The Guardian

Nov 09, 2009

Summary

Ray Mears won't be happy until the earth swallows him up and he comes back as a tree

R ay Mears is tracking a man through Manitoba in north-west Canada. He won't catch him, though, not just because Ray walks so slowly and thoughtfully, but also because he's too far behind: nearly 250 years, in fact. The other man, in this episode of Ray Mears' Northern Wilderness (BBC2, Sunday), is a chap called Samuel Hearne, a British pioneer who was around these parts in the late 18th century. Hearne did an amazing journey in search of copper, from the Hudson Bay to a river 1,000 miles to the north-west.

He wasn't your typical colonial Brit with a red coat, a musket and a dubious attitude towards the locals. No, Hearne quickly realised that the only way he was going to make it was with plenty of help from the people who properly knew the area. So his only companions were Chipewyan Indians. He learned from them how to make a canoe out of birch bark, how to catch the fish in the lakes, and make fire from the green bushes of the tundra. And he learned to stay south of the tree

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