The Legend Of Mick Dodge on Nat Geo? | Page 2 | General Homesteading Discussion | Forums

Ok. I want to believe, I really do. But I just can't.

Let me start with the general issues I have with the show:

First, the show is too formula driven. MD has a problem, and gets help from one of his local friends (usually "Will of Stone"). This seems to be the recipe for every episode so far.

Secondly, I would expect that someone who supposedly lives like he does would spend his entire day either hunting, fishing, farming or gathering one resource or another. Much like they do in Alaska, the Final Frontier. He doesn't seem to do that. In addition he doesn't even seem to have any type of regular shelter. This seems to be human nature to me. Even if you're nomadic, I would expect you to have a series of shelters.

Now on the specific episode problems I have:

The beaver kill/maggots. That just seemed way too neat/clean and staged for me. Also, I'm pretty sure those weren't maggots, but meal worms or some other type of moth larvae. Secondly, when food spoils, it's toxins produced by the bacteria that make people sick, not the bacteria themselves. I doubt toasting the "maggots" would have kept them from getting sick. Secondly, wouldn't those "maggots" have been better utilized as fishing bait???

Fishing Gear. I would expect someone like MD to have an whole array of fishing materials (whether its commercial which he's owned, scavenged or homemade.) While I know it's possible to find lots of stuff, the quickness with which they found it, seems to indicate it was either staged or that's a very busy fishing hole with I expect MD to be WAY in the wilderness.

The Crabs. I've caught crabs using a trot line. Crabs are very good swimmers, and I doubt you would be able to catch them by hand like that. Secondly, did you notice after he caught the crabs he was shaking them a lot? Possibly that's a stun technique by "the barefoot sensei", but more likely I think it was done to give the illusion they were alive/active or to disguise the fact they were dead/inactive. Also, at one point when he asks the cameraman to move back, the camera moves back TOWARD where the crab is. why would he tell his buddy to get a horse trough for 4 (FOUR) crabs??? Once again that just didn't make sense, unless it's "for TV".

The Sweat Lodge. While it's not impossible to do what he did, he seems to have done it EXTREMELY fast with only a small hand saw AND being sick. He built a 4'-5' wooden structure in less than a day. Yes, it was rudimentary, but still seemed like a lot accomplished with limited resources in limited amount of time.

That's most of my complaints.

unless you're into it for the scenery, probably not. Not learning anything, and it's complete BS.