Frontier House which aired on PBS in the spring of 2002 was an experiment to see if three families use to the comforts of modern day life could not only survive, but thrive in the Montana back country.
The Documentary was a historical reality program that was a cross between survivor, doomsday preppers and with a whole lot of Little House On The Prairie thrown in for good measure.
PBS had great success with The 1900’s House in 1999 and The 1940’s House in 2001, with both having been filmed in The United Kingdom. The Broadcast Company decided to film another documentary following three families as they try and scratch out a existence in 1883 Montana.
Over 5500 families applied for the chance to prove to themselves that they had the will power to live as our fore-fathers did just over a 100 years prior. The producers settled on these three families.
The Glen Family : 45 year old Mark Glen worked at a university in the medical and pharmacy department and was joined by his 36 year old nurse wife Karen and her two children from a previous marriage.
The Brooks Family : 27 year old Nate Brooks was accompanied by his father, 68 year old Rudy Brooks. Nate’s fiance Kristin would join them later on after Nate and his Father had built a log cabin that was fitting for his new bride.
The Clune Family : Gordon Clune was a 40 year old owner of a aerospace and defense manufacturing company. He was joined by his 39 year old wife Adrienne and their three children and a niece.
The families agreed to a basic set of rules of what they were and were not allowed to do. They had to dress in period clothing, eat only food that was available at the time, use no modern tools, use no modern methods of communication; i.e. telephone, laptop, etc. Use only medicines that were available at the time except for extreme life and death circumstances.
The three families spent two weeks preparing themselves for the task that lay before them. They spent time with experts in animal handling, construction, soap making, foraging, gardening etc. The participants were allotted a small amount of money and were allowed to purchase supplies before they headed out into the woods as the frontiersman of the period would have. Once that money was gone, they were on their own except for the chance to trade and barter at a local general store that was stocked with the same basic staples that would have been available in that time period.
One family stretched the rules and federal law though by making moonshine when their garden failed and they were running low on food. They figured if moonshiners were around in 1883, well then they were going to be moonshiners and they could barter with it for their family needs. They also broke one of the major rules the producers had put in place, but I’m not going to spoil that one if you haven’t seen it.
The five months was a trying time for the families except for the Brooks family. They seemed to thrive and grow closer together as a nuclear unit. The outcome for them was a beautiful outdoor wedding where the other families put aside their differences that had been fueled due to one family being successful with their animals and garden while the other failed miserably. The elder Brooks left the frontier after the wedding so his son and new daughter in law could enjoy each others company as newlyweds.
The other families were not so fortunate with their time spent on Frontier House. By the end of the show one couple was separated which ended in divorce and the other couple followed suit several years later.
One last thing I will mention though is the children. When the families first arrived at the the frontier you could tell the children wanted to be anywhere else but there. They were mostly teen and preteen kids that were totally thrown out of their element so their parents could go play pioneer for five months. They struggled initially with the lack of constant stimulation the modern world forces on kids today. You can slowly see them progressing over time from hating it, I want out of here now to a sense of peace where several of the Clune children even voiced that they would miss it when they left. I hope they carried those lessons with them throughout their lives. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfUgTWJ4ngE&list=PL872C99D9FA0E253E
If you would like to know what has happened to the families since then, here you go.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_8fe443d0-4eb9-5856-a088-908a50353878.html
http://erahouse.tumblr.com/post/45248000405/where-are-they-now-frontier-house
