This Saturday at 9pm on Global TV. My team, Helly Hansen-MOMAR will certainly get some decent airtime, as a featured team, who faced issues such as ripping a four inch hole in the side of our inflatable kayak, and suffering from severe hypothermia, you'll see our lovely faces throughout the race! Just be sure to put on your 'earmuffs' when we rip our kayak...I might loose it for a few seconds!!
Here's the official write up:
RTNX Broadcast Jan 12 on Canadian Network TV
2007-12-20T02:15:06Z by Race Staff
Canada’s premiere wilderness expedition adventure race, Raid the North Extreme, arrives in an unusually urban location this January – your television set!
The one-hour High-Definition feature broadcast of the race will air on Global TV across Canada on Saturday, January 12 at 9 p.m.
For those of you reading this that weren’t there, this six-day, non-stop, 500+km expedition race features coed teams of four from around the globe facing the challenges of nature, team dynamics, sleep deprivation, and gear failures as they bike, trek, paddle, portage and navigate the wilderness around BC’s North Coast - Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii.
Nearly thirty teams of four from across North America, and from as far as Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, blew away their physical and emotional limits during Raid the North Extreme. These athletes are not Olympians or sport celebrities, just regular people with a thirst for adventure and a desire to discover their potential. As Gary Robbins of Squamish-based Team Helly Hansen/MOMAR said after the race, “Raid The North Extreme is a genuine expedition style race and they practice exactly what they preach: Real Wilderness, Real Navigation, Real Freakin’ Tough…OK I made that one up, Real Adventure”.
Canada’s top adventure race organizers, Frontier Adventure Racing, in partnership with ATV Productions of Vancouver, had a vision to take adventure racing to new heights on Canadian television. Using boat, ferry, helicopter and aircraft support, along with caffeine and bug nets, film crews shot the event day and night in High Definition, capturing the action, the drama and the emotions as teams traversed the incredibly rugged northern BC terrain.
This broadcast is a first in Canada. For the first time, the mystique, excitement, wilderness, intensity and human drama of this incredible sport will reach Canadian homes on a national network in prime time.
“This type of coverage is ideal for this event,” says race director Geoff Langford. “There are incredible stories of determination and team dynamics that a broader audience will be fascinated by, and we put competitors in places that require aerial, high-definition shots to truly capture the immensity of it all. Viewers watching prime time Global will be blown away by this sport, this part of the country, and the entire experience.”
The breathtaking wilderness of the Prince Rupert region is made for TV. Viewers will watch teams paddle vast inlets that puncture the majestic Coast Mountains, under a Summer Solstice full moon. Racers will cover thousands of metres of elevation, traverse snow-covered ridges past pounding waterfalls, explore deep valleys and bike ancient First Nations trails, and paddle oceans with 24 foot tidal changes. Viewers will also experience the history, culture and overwhelming hospitality of the Tsimshian and Haida people.
Race organizers are encouraging enthusiasts across the country to organize viewing parties at their homes, local pubs, or community centres. Invite anyone with the remotest interest in adventure sports. Let’s use this opportunity to share our passion for adventure racing. It’ll be a cold dark night in January - what better time to gather together with a drink and some great adventure on TV?
Following the Canadian broadcast, the show will air in the US on PBS - full details will be released early in 2008. The show will also air again in Canada on menTV, the Extreme Channel, and will be available on DVD or by download on iTunes.