Discovery Channel rediscovers North America

For many people, North America is home. They live in this extraordinary continent each day, but have never truly experienced first-hand the wide scope of incredible dangers challenging this diverse and tenacious continent. If you think you know North America, think again. In this unforgettable television event narrated by award-winning actor Tom Selleck, Discovery Channel turns the lens towards the massive continent and captures a land where life collides with hostile, untamed wilderness in the most diverse, deadly environment on Earth. From the network behind Planet Earth, Life, Frozen Planet andAfrica, the breathtaking seven-part series North America begins its journey on Tuesday, July 30 at 8:00 p.m. Encores every Wednesday at midnight and 1:00 p.m., and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.

Travelling the continent for more than three years from the sub-zero Canadian tundra to the tropical rainforests of Panama, Discovery Channel’s first, independently-produced natural history landmark series, North America reveals that “survival of the fittest” is truly the law here amid threatening terrain and ferocious weather. You will never look at your backyard the same way again as we discover a hidden world where life – ranging from the familiar to the exotic – battles deep freezes, deadly fires and explosive super storms. 

Discovery Channel’s determined production crew journeyed the span of North America including the frigid Yukon Territory, the lush forests of Belize, the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, the barren deserts of the American Southwest and more. They spent 2,830 days on location on 250 separate expeditions, and utilized 11 different types of cameras to shoot more than 850 hours of footage. State-of-the-art equipment including ultra-high-speed cameras, night viewing devices, and a one-of-a-kind submarine camera allowed the crew to capture behaviours never seen before on television. Time-lapses shot in High-Dynamic-Range (HDR) transformed the continent’s most severe weather events into truly mind-blowing imagery.

North America’s first five episodes will reveal the intimate stories of animals struggling to survive in unforgiving weather and rugged terrain. Never before seen sequences range from the elusive desert jaguar in Mexico to daring grizzly bears diving in more than 20 feet of water to grab salmon in Alaska. The North America: Revealed episode chronicles the production process and the challenges the production team faced including battling the destructive Hurricane Irene and other natural disasters all while attempting to capture the most majestic animals in the continent. The final episode reveals what online voters chose as the number one, natural North American destination via Discovery Channel’s “My North America” Facebook page.

Get ready to experience an entire world in one continent; welcome to the “home of the brave” – the land where hungry predators and quick-thinking prey battle daily in the land of unpredictable extremes.

Episodes:

Born To Be Wild

The premiere episode begins an extraordinary journey across the entire North American continent – introducing viewers to the wildest places across the land they call “home.”  Meet an incredible array of wildlife, both familiar and exotic, that live just beyond our backyards. Journey to the tip of the Canadian wilderness with mountain goats and dive into frigid waters with a whale and her calf facing numerous predators at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Follow the intense journey of sea turtles on the beaches of Costa Rica as they face hungry jaguars all while attempting to lay their eggs and watch wild mustangs fight for a valuable watering hole in deserts of Utah.

No Place To Hide
The fight to survive in this land full of extreme storms and unpredictable weather tests all those who dare to call this unforgiving place home. Watch as animals struggle to find shelter in a region where exposure to the elements means certain death. This episode goes from larger-than-life hunts to courtships invisible to the naked eye. Experience a dramatic hunt as a pack of wolves stalk mother bison and her calves. Peer into the lives of bunker-building prairie dogs as they search for shelter from the inhospitable sun in the plains of South Dakota. See the hidden world of a male jumping spider’s search for love in an endless ocean of grass.

Learn Young Or Die
North America is home to some of the world’s tallest peaks. Storm-battered at the top, these peaks give way to dense forests that are filled with extraordinary wildlife amongst the tallest and oldest trees on the planet. Watch as avalanche-dodging grizzlies, head-bashing Bighorn sheep, elusive mountain lions and cunning coyotes learn to adapt quickly as the weather rapidly changes from winter’s deep freeze to summer’s deadly fires in North America’s forests and mountains. Enter the secret world of America’s most remote places where survival is a daily battle across varying elevations.

The Savage Edge
North America’s coasts are the final frontier where human civilisation and untamed wilderness collide on a razor’s edge. Watch as all life faces the savage forces that storm in from the sea, including Hurricane Irene, one of the deadliest storms in recent history. Travel to the stark cliffs of California as peregrine falcons fiercely defend their nests against predators, watch a fearless band of maverick dolphins hunt by chasing fish onto land and travel to the Atlantic coasts where astounding aerials reveal a massive migration of tens of thousands of sharks just a few feet from Miami’s crowded beaches.

Outlaws and Skeletons
Water drives all life in this parched land. Mystifying adaptations are the only way creatures can survive in the continent’s driest areas. Travel from Death Valley to the scorching deserts of Mexico where both humans and animals live at the mercy of the elements. Go underground as spadefoot toads emerge from the bone-dry earth after a sudden rainfall in West Texas. Watch a rarely-seen jaguar prowl in the lonely darkness just across the border in Mexico. Take to the skies as an entire family of Harris hawks team up to hunt a cottontail rabbit hiding amid spiny cacti.

North America: Revealed
North America film crews crisscrossed eight countries and nearly 30 states in America for over three years with more than 2,800 days in the field. Many of these shoots required exceptional skills and tested the crews to their limits, whether filming elusive animals like jaguars and mountain lions, getting close to battling bull bison or trekking across the Rocky Mountains’ bone-chilling peaks in the middle of winter in the search of mountain goats. Perhaps the most dangerous mission of all was when the team went head to head with Hurricane Irene – one of the biggest storms of the decade.

North America: Top 10
In this special episode, Discovery reveals the results of its online poll asking viewers: “What is the top North America destination?” Over 35,000 online votes reveal what viewers deem as the top natural landmarks of this extreme continent. Expect some surprises along the way. Did the geysers of Yellowstone reign supreme? Did the rainforests of Belize top the competition? Be prepared to view the best that North America has to offer.

What it took to make North America

Over 3 years in production
110 animals species filmed
2,830 days of filming
250 separate filming expeditions
29 U.S. states
8 Canadian provinces
10 countries visited stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Panama Canal
51 camera crew members
Enduring -40 degrees Fahrenheit (plus wind chill) to film the Aurora Borealis
Digging 350 tons of dirt to create “eye-level” hides to film prairie land creatures
100 sticks of dynamite to film and study the progression of 20 avalanches

Travelled over 14,000 miles to capture tornado footage
Crossed more than 17,000 square miles of wilderness in Wood Buffalo National Park
Flew 120 hours to capture aerial footage of wolves hunting bison
Travelled over 5,000 miles for 3 weeks to film the Northern Lights
Flew 600 hours in a helicopter

More than 850 hours of high-definition footage filmed
First series to use time-lapses shot in high-dynamic-range (HDR) to chronicle weather and extreme storms
It took a total of 91 camera days to film prairie dogs, bison and rattlesnakes in the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota.
A dozen cameras filmed continuously for over 6 months captured footage of the elusive desert jaguar.
State-of-art equipment including ultra-high speed cameras and one-of-a-kind mini submarine camera were used.
While no animals were harmed in the making of this film, four cameras were lost or damaged beyond repair.

Dangerous encounters

In Labrador, Canada, the crew awoke in the middle of the night to sounds of a polar bear battering at their camp door. The next morning, they discovered their helicopter was severely damaged including broken side windows, ripped seats and trampled camera equipment. Prior to this sighting, it had been 25 years since a polar bear was seen this far south of the Arctic.

The crew faced over 120 degree Fahrenheit weather with 100 percent humidity in the Crystals Caves. They could only stay a maximum of 30 minutes in the cave, even while wearing safety gear lined with frozen gel to regulate their body temperature. If the crew stayed any longer they would have lapsed into heat-induced comas and died.

While filming the bison rut the team had to get in among the herd. The crew drove a small 4-wheeler all-terrain vehicle (ATV) to get close to film the bison rut; however, the team was nearly trampled when two rutting bulls, each weighing a ton, clashed right in front of them. The fighting pair would have hit the team had the crew not managed to quickly get the ATV in gear and back out of the way up a steep hill.

The crew was chased by black bears several times in Labrador, Canada. Most scare tactics did not work – especially when one bear charged over the camp’s fence.

To film mountain lions, one of the most elusive predators on the continent, the crew had to trek over 400 miles in 3 weeks through knee-deep snow – but when they did encounter the perfect opportunity their camera failed in the sub-zero temperatures.

While filming nesting turtles in Costa Rica, the assistant cameraman came face-to-face with a jaguar on a trail through the forest at night. The jaguar walked within a couple of feet of the cameraman. The assistant cameraman took a photo of the jaguar before it ambled off into the forest.