Ravenwood - 01/11/06 06:45 AM
Did you see or hear about PBS' Frontier House. It was an American spin off of the British "1900 House", which I saw last year and thought had been produced very well. "Frontier House" is a "reality" show where an American family tries to live exactly as 1883 Montana homesteaders did. Although life for last years "1900 House" family in England was very difficult, the concept was ground breaking.
In the American spin-off however, an aura of political correctness came over PBS, and they decided to rewrite history. Gordon Clune, head of the Frontier family, had requested that he be allowed a gun to hunt for meat, but PBS denied him that liberty. Instead, Mr. Clune was severely restricted in the use of his only firearm to the warding off of hostile varmints. In addition, Clune was not allowed to actually use the gun for defense, only to try to scare wild animals away.
"We were supposed to give a predator two warnings," Clune told the LA Times. "'Excuse me, Mr. Coyote, please don't eat my chicken. Excuse me, Mr. Coyote, please don't eat my chicken.' Then, you were supposed to fire a warning shot."
Yeah, just like on the frontier.
Best of Ravenwood's Universe, originally posted 05/29/2002.
Bear Repellent?
Another comment on the PBS gun ban for "Frontier House".
PBS' rules state that "all participants agree to live as closely to the pioneer lifestyle of the 1880s as possible". They also list one of the ingredients of their "Emergency Box" as "Bear Repellent 'Pepper Spray'".
This gives me a novel idea for a 'reality' show that PBS may want to try. Lets lock a PBS producer in a cage with a bear and a can of pepper spray. At the same time, lock me in a cage with another bear and a 30-06 Winchester.
If I have enough rounds left, perhaps I'll put the PBS producer out of his misery before the bear finishes eating him.
Best of Ravenwood's Universe, originally posted 05/30/2002.
Category: Best of Ravenwood
Comments (2) top link me
Geez. If they want to authentically reproduce the 1880 "pioneer" [1] lifestyle, the proper response to seeing a bear is, "Martha, fetch my rifle. We're going to have bear steaks!" No one ate store-bought meat when you could get 500+ pounds for the price of a cartridge.
I've eaten black bear steak, and it was sweeter than I prefer in meat, but pretty good. By 19th Century tastes, which preferred pork to beef because it had more fat, bear meat would have been great.
Posted by: markm at January 11, 2006 11:57 AMThe pioneers carried gun for two reasons to obtain food becuase their were no supermarkets then and for protection from hostale idnians and wild animals and did you know you know that some were preposing that people not only carry pepperspray but wear little bells on the clothes to scare away black and brown bears? but it dont keep away the grizzlies and thats why you can tell that the grizzles poop becuase it smells like pepper and has little bells in it
Posted by: sandpiper at January 13, 2006 10:57 AM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
