Ray Mears is a serious man. He’s the kind of man who could kill a squirrel, skin it and eat the insides, while using the fur to fashion little gloves to give him extra grip as he climbs the icy rock face of a mountain, only to get the top and use the tail to present as a gift for the leader of the tribe he finds living there. He and Bear Grylls could probably start a small colony out of killing squirrels alone.

But, to the programme. Ray Mears’ Northern Wilderness sets out to impress with the glacial beauty and sweeping vistas of Canada’s great outdoors. The first episode looks at the Boreal forest which covers most of the country’s land mass. It begins seriously enough, with Mears telling us how cold it is and a slow motion shot of him snapping a twig on his knee, and, let’s face it, once you’ve seen a slo-mo twig snap, you know you’re in safe hands.

From there, Northern Wilderness becomes a mix of David Attenborough-style nature documentary and a how-to survival programme. We learn how to get wound-healing resin out of a tree, how to beat forest disorientation and about the wonders of sphagnum moss. There’s a brilliant moment when, after constructing a shelter from dead wood, Mears earnestly turns to the camera and simply states ‘now psychology’s on your side’.

Despite fronting numerous TV series, Mears is not the greatest presenter, and occasionally looks a little nervous talking straight to camera. His enthusiasm (he calls his jacket the ‘mothership’), though, is infectious; I’m really not sure what I’m going to do with those notes I took on how to roast pine cones.

At points it’s a little hard to know exactly who the programme’s aimed at. While it’s always embarrassing to admit how many times you’ve been lost in an Arctic circle forest without any high-visibility tracking tape, there can’t be that many viewers watching and thanking their lucky stars Mears has provided them with a three-step guide on how to find the best location to pitch a tent in snowy weather.

However, that’s missing the point, and Northern Wilderness combines the entertainment of the hardcore survivalist programme with the wondrous spectacle of the natural world. Plus, next week he said he was going to build a hut using only beaver skin and masking tape. Come on, that’s got to be worth watching.

 

Ray Mears’ Northern Wilderness is on every Sunday on BBC One and is available on BBC iPlayer.