Spokane’s Hazen Audel taps skills of indigenous people for Survive the Tribe TV series

Spiders and snakes were more inspiring than school to Hazen Audel as he grew up in Spokane. “My high school teachers would never have bet that I’d become a science teacher myself,” he said.

Perhaps nobody could have predicted Audel’s wide-eyed fascination with flora and fauna would be broadcast internationally in a TV survival program with a unique educational twist.

“The indigenous people I stay with are the educators and stars,” he said. “I’m the student.”

In July, National Geographic Channel introduced “ Survive the Tribe,” as series featuring Audel in six remote locations from the Kalahari Desert of Africa to the icy arctic of Canada.

Planning is underway to film more episodes where natives use ancient traditions and skills to survive the planet’s harshest environments.

How Audel climbed to the pinnacle of survival adventure gigs is as intriguing as where he’s going.

Perhaps he got the survival gene from his mother, a Flathead Indian raised in a large impoverished family in Alaska.

Certainly he got the freedom for discovery from his father.

“My dad was known for building hot rods,” Audel said. “He taught me how to use tools and paint signs. He gave me the means to survive.”

Indeed, Audel blossomed into an illustrator and commercial artist. He’s used steel and torches to create the Montvale Hotel sign and the interior metalwork in Steelhead Bar and Grille – that is, when he wasn’t guiding nature tours into the Central America rainforest or consulting for the Bear Grylls survival show “Man vs. Wild.”

“Dad wasn’t an outdoorsman, but he took me fishing and camping to be a good father,” Audel said. “He fed my interests, taking me to North Dakota or California to find a new snake I’d read about.

“Instead of drawing limits, my family moved me into our basement when I had too many aquariums to be safe in my upstairs bedroom.”

Audel’s always been intrigued by plants, too.

“I grew up across from Manito Park and knew all the gardeners by name,” he said. “That’s where I first saw amazing plants from the rainforest.”

As a teen in the ’80s, he read magazines such as Tropical Fish Hobbyist. The academics of becoming a biologist seemed daunting, but the adventure of an ichthyologist on expedition to look for another species of fish spurred him on.

“I took Spanish at Lewis and Clark (High School) because I knew in my heart I had to go to South America,” he said.

Before plunging into higher education, Audel had to confront his doubts.

“I’m about the first in my lineage to go to college,” he said.

“I knew there’d be a lot of school ahead to become a biologist, but nobody in the family could help me understand what it would entail.”

He sold all of his aquariums and scrounged enough money for a solo dirtbag immersion in Central America.

“Fortunately, nobody in my family travels. They had no idea what I was doing – or that I didn’t, either,” he said.

He landed in Quito, Ecuador, and asked at a ticket counter for directions to any road that ended at the jungle.

“I boarded a bus that went two days through the Andes,” he said. “As we dropped into the rainforest I saw plants and ant nests I’d read about as a kid. I got so excited; I crawled out the window to the luggage rack on top of the bus to take it in all through the night.

“At daybreak, I spotted a boa constrictor. I impulsively pounded on the roof of the bus. The driver freaked, slammed on the brakes and I almost launched over the hood.”

Other passengers gawked as Audel jumped down to admire a 61/2-foot long rainbow boa as colorful as the sheen of oil on water. But their curiosity flashed to terror as he grabbed the snake and brought it into the bus.

“I caused a commotion until a man gave me a burlap bag to put it in,” he said.

Audel persuaded the driver to stop several more times so he could scamper out and collect plants and critters including a tarantula. It was so big he spotted it crossing the road.

“I couldn’t speak enough Spanish to explain, but they understood my enthusiasm,” he said. “Soon, everyone on the bus started looking for unusual things for me to gather.

“When the bus stopped so I could get a road-killed armadillo, they were entertained by my fascination.

“In the village at the end of the road, I studied all of my loot before releasing it back into the jungle. Feeling that humid air, seeing the plants and hearing all the animals – it was a magical moment.”

Over several weeks, living in a tent along a river, he fit in with the villagers as the concept for “Survive the Tribe” took shape in the back of his mind.

“Kids started showing me how they catch fish,” he said. “I was amazed at how much they know about the rainforest. They know where to find certain bugs and snakes, what plants are used for medicinal purposes. They know every tree and which ones are best for making structures, tools, roofs, rope. Whenever these people need something, they go into the jungle to get it.”

As he pursued his college degree in Washington and post-graduate studies in ethno botany in Hawaii, Audel also developed a rainforest guiding business in Central America starting in 1993.

By 1998, he was branching out, including a remote stint in the rainforest of Irian Jaya, New Guinea, where he carried out independent biology and ethno botany research that inadvertently tested his survival skills.

In 2003, he joined independent filmmakers in a van traveling through Mexico to produce “The Wild Classroom,” which he describes as “a magical, horrid educational documentary” to help spice student interest in science classrooms.

“It was a stepping stone that helped me rub elbows with people in the business,” he said.

While teaching science at Ferris High School for 11 years, Audel departed to wild corners of the world at virtually every break. He left teaching two years ago when the National Geographic opportunity came knocking.

“It’s amazing that the survival topic has been hot on television for 10 years and it’s still going strong,” he said. “I’d been on the inside of filming with Bear Grylls and I wanted to do something different. Rather than being just a survival guy, I pitched myself as more of a passionate naturalist.”

The company that produces the series “River Monsters” heard about Audel’s background and developed the reality show around his set of skills.

“They took the chance in creating a survival series that doesn’t involve the sensationalism that’s so popular in the U.S.,” Audel said.

“Survive the Tribe” allows him to live his wildest dreams.

“I lived in the dirt with the San bushmen of the Kalahari for two weeks,” he said. “I was filthy and just incredibly happy. I was dehydrated, sunburned and stressed inside and out, but if I were a millionaire I’d be spending my money to do this.”

“Survive the Tribe” filming is difficult because actual survival situations, as opposed to canned ones, don’t always accommodate schedules.

“We sat at a water hole broiling under the sun for days and nothing came,” he said. “The bushmen stayed with their poison arrows because they had to bring home meat. The whole time I was on the edge. We couldn’t plan what was going to happen.”

But big changes came suddenly.

“At first it looked like a dust devil coming through the scrub in the distance,” he said. “Pretty soon, about 35 elephants were crashing through the trees, breaking branches in a huge cloud of dust, charging toward the waterhole – and we were directly in their line.

“When you see elephants running in real life they are like huge boulders rolling down a mountain. Nothing is going to stop them.”

Knowing they could be trampled by accident if the herd didn’t see them, or on purpose if spotted by a bull, everyone reverted to the original survival tactic:

“We ran,” he said.

Besides being athletic, the film crew must be skilled and diplomatic, keeping camera gear functioning in sand, heat, humidity and cold while being sensitive to tipping cultural balances, such as the tense intertribal political situations in South Pacific islands.

The arctic presented some of the harshest conditions. “Death comes easy in a world of cold and ice,” he said.

“I linked up with the best hunters in a village, 20-somethings who’d spent their lives outside. They still love hunting even though they’ve capsized kayaks in icy waters and been attacked by polar bears.

“Yet when I said I was going down to the frozen sea they said no way were they going to join me. Too dangerous.”

Audel wanted to chronicle a survival technique that helped Inuits survive through the worst times when seals or other prey were unavailable: He would follow a few elder experts under the sea ice to quickly gather clams, crabs and starfish before making a hasty retreat.

“Elders told me stories about relatives who were crushed by the ice – it’s always shifting; always unpredictable,” he said.

“My balls were in my throat. I did it, but I wouldn’t do it again. With that sort of thing, it’s only a matter of time. Survivors make those choices only when they have to.”

Occupational hazards abound in Audel’s line of work.

“I’ve had malaria and dengue, but staph infections are worse,” he said. “I’m not the greenhorn I used to be. I’m better prepared to see the warning signs of a cut or being worn down.

“I believe I’ve had every single vaccination known to man.”

“Survive the Tribe” producers have described Audel as having “the intestinal fortitude of a warthog.”

“Everybody was concerned after our stay with Kenyan hunters, where I lived for three weeks on blood and milk,” he said.

“I was really fortunate this season not to be laid out with sickness, although I’ve suffered some bad stuff after returning home on a few occasions.”

Yet he’s ready for another filming season that may include a stint at minus 40 degrees and an episode at 18,000 feet.

“I can’t wait to be a teacher again,” he said. “But right now I’m living a rich cultural stew of outdoor adventure.

“My driving force has been my heart. The more you know the more you care and the more you want to learn.

“That’s how I got here.”