Tribal Knowledge Spokane’s Hazen Audel has spent a lot of his life wandering — now he has his own TV show BY CARRIE SCOZZARO
H
azen Audel has escaped charging elephants while tracking game with the Kalahari Desert’s San bushmen, fished for great white shark from a canoe in the Solomon Islands and used golden eagles to hunt via horseback with Mongolian Kazakhs. All in a day’s work for Audel, who since 1998 has filled three passports with stamps from around the world. His first trip was at age 19 when, dissatisfied with college, he flew to Ecuador, rode a bus into the Amazon jungle and realized it was where he was meant to be. He’d return every summer for 10 years thereafter to run a guiding business. Now, Audel does all of this on his own television show, a new National Geographic Channel production called Survive the Tribe in which he attempts to adapt to the way of life and culture of a remote tribe of people. In between trips he studied — earning an undergraduate degree in biology and graduate degrees in both ethnobotany and teaching, and also
studying mathematics and Native American art — resulting in more trips to places like Costa Rica and southeast Asia. He also worked with Outward Bound, founded the Wisconsin-based Native Ways Association, launched his own custom fabrication and architectural artwork company, Hazen Audel Artworks, and taught art and science at Ferris High School up until last year. He created The Wild Classroom (now called Untamed Science) in 2003 with several fellow grad students and self-proclaimed “ecogeeks,” producing science education videos and an online portal used by teachers nationwide. That led to his being tapped as consultant on the “Ecuador” episode for Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild series in 2007. His big break came when he caught the attention of Icon Films, a British producer of mostly travel, history and science shows like Animal Planet’s River Monsters. Icon’s Harry and Laura Marshall visited Audel in Ecuador last year, traveling three days downriver via ...continued on next page
JULY 24, 2014 INLANDER 31