"Country's Most Shocking" on CMT

[Len McDougall, Outdoor Writer]

Last month, I agreed to a 3-day interview with a production crew from
Country Music Television. The focus, I was told, was on "real"
survivalists who "live off the societal grid" and are constantly
prepared for power and water outages, blizzards, and other natural
disasters.
My suspicious nature must've been off when I agreed to the
interview, because it was only after the crew arrived here in
Paradise, Michigan that I learned they were filming for a CMT series
called "Country's Most Shocking." I warned them that if they were
looking for a wild-eyed revolutionary with an arsenal, they were going
to be disappointed. I showed them our hideaway cabin on the river,
the emergency solar/battery/inverter electrical system I'd assembled,
our cache of dried foods,40 gallons of drinking water, dog teams and
sleds, snowshoes, working kayaks, etc. I doubt we were the radicals
they'd expected to find, but they did seem intrigued by how we were
prepared to weather emergencies. The only really unusual facet of our
lives are the 3 wolves we keep for public education.
Still, we'll see how they treated us when the interview airs in
October (2004) under the title "Survivalists." CMT's ad copy for this
episode reads: "All those gun-totin', Sun-Tzu reading,
NASCAR-watching, Oliver Stone-thinkin' types are out there. Best of
all, most of them LOVE to talk. And shoot..." which doesn't make me
expect they'll be entirely objective. I couldn't care less about
Sun-Tzu's philosophy of war, NASCAR is boring to me, I think Oliver
Stone must be mentally ill, and I don't especially like carrying a gun
- I'm hardly anti-gun, I just don't need a firearm merely to stiffen
my spine. I will admit to being a talker, but that goes with being a
writer and teacher.
So, good or bad, check out this episode of Country's Most Shocking
to see how the latest generation of Country Music fans views the
people that, I think, epitomize the free-thinking, calloused-hands,
conservative views that created this style of music in the first
place.

Len McDougall, author of the books: The Encyclopedia of Tracks and
Scats * The
Log Cabin: An Adventure * Practical Outdoor Projects * The Field &
Stream
Wilderness Survival Handbook * The Snowshoe Handbook * The Outdoors
Almanac *
The Complete Tracker * Practical Outdoor Survival