Les Stroud Survival Challenge

The rain was relentless, the terrain unforgiving and the bugs were thick, but that didn’t stop challengers from participating in the Les Stroud Survival Challenge in Hornepayne, ON. Les Stroud, NHL’s Kris King, and Brad May challenged 14 of their friends to survive one night in the bush to raise funds for the much needed renovations to King’s hometown arena.

“Count me in,” was the familiar reply from Toronto Maple Leafs’ Alex Ponikarovsky, Buffalo Sabres’ Steve Montador, the Washington Capitals’ Brendan Morrison, Brian Muir, Mike Fountain, Colorado Avalanche’s strength coach Paul Goldberg and NHL linesmen Steve Miller and Mark Shewchyk among others.

Divided into teams by draft pick, and equipped with only a [back pack], GPS, flint striker, small camp knife, Coleman flashlight, one still camera, one video camera, a survival class from Les under their belt and Stroud’s best-selling book Survive, they were sent deep into the remote wilderness of Hornpayne by boat or bush plane to fend for themselves. The team judged by Les for having made the best decisions applying their learned survival techniques would be the winners of Stroud’s Survival Challenge. (Source: Les Stroud)