Wild Alaska Live, starts tomorrow on BBC1
Wildlife at it’s very best
Attempting to abseil underneath a glacier live on TV is all in a day’s work for explorer and nature enthusiast Steve Backshall. But camping in the company of 14,000 noisy, squabbling walrus on a remote subArctic island proved to be more of a challenge. the highest density of brown bears in the world, the biochemist and wild animal biologist isn’t at all phased by any potential dangers involved.
“It’s as remote a place as I’ve ever been to,” she admits.
“Wherever we go, I’m always in the little tent far away from everybody else because all the boys snore so badly.
“You can’t do that here; we’ve all got to be in a tight square surrounded by an electric wire.
“This will be my first time with brown bears and I’m thrilled. Sometimes I get so excited I wonder if I’m being 100 per cent safe. But I’m with experts who know what they’re doing.”
Some of those experts have been working with bears in the area for 20 years, and Bonnin is hoping to learn from their experiences.
“I want to find out what it takes to be part of a conservation outfit that has successfully protected whole ecosystems. I want to understand what it takes for a person to do that job and to convey that passion, to inspire our viewers to protect the wildlife on their doorstep.”
Baker, who’ll spend his time at the Wild Alaska Live hub in Tongass National Forest, agrees. Part of his focus will be on local communities, finding out what it’s like to live alongside wildlife.
“The whole point of doing this live is to show the pace of life and the tempo of nature,” says The One Show presenter. Although the live shows will be an adventure for Baker, he claims the experience will by no means be the most extreme thing he’s ever done. “I’m from the Durham Dales,” he jokes. “I’m always camping and I did eight years on Blue Peter.”
“In the middle of the night you’d hear these rasping sounds and you’d get woken up by an acrid smell of fish farts,” says the former National Geographic adventurer, who’s in between filming sessions in Alaska. “It was absolutely impossible to sleep.”
Backshall was visiting the aptly named Walrus Island to film a segment for Wild Alaska Live, an ambitious three-part live wildlife show from the team behind Big Blue Live.
Along with co-presenters Liz Bonnin and Matt Baker, the daredevil naturalist is hoping to capture some of the greatest spectacles on Earth.
“I would rather be filming the summer feast of Alaska than the wildebeest migration across Africa or the Great Barrier Reef,” claims Backshall. “The spectacles are more dramatic and we stand a good chance of seeing things that are going to blow peoples’ minds in real time.”
That sense of size and scale is something Bonnin struggled to comprehend when she first visited the sprawling state, which is bigger than Texas, California and Montana combined. “It’s hard to put into words, but I’m super excited to try and relay what that feels like to our viewers,” she says.
Stationed in a protected area within Katmai National Park, 300 miles from the nearest road, Bonnin is hoping to focus on the subtleties and complexities of bear behaviour. Although she’ll be camping amongst wolves and