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WNC duo star on reality TV show BY GARRET K. WOODWARD STAFF WRITER
May 22-28, 2013
Lights, camera … Haywood County? During the past two years, a local reality show has become a phenomenon that’s being broadcast into homes across the country and beyond. The program is “Hillbilly Blood: A Hardscrabble Life,” and it features Western North Carolina outdoor survival experts Spencer Bolejack and Eugene Runkis. “There’s a lot of perplexity in ‘Hillbilly Blood,’” Bolejack said. “On one hand, it can be silly and entertaining, and on the other is a lot of valid information on how to survive and thrive in the outdoors.” With the second season currently hitting the airwaves, the premise of the program follows Bolejack, 36, and Runkis, 44, around the woods of Haywood County, where they cross paths with skilled craftsman and figure out planned scenarios or get out of surprising situations. “We concentrate on community, fellowship with neighbors, helping people out when you’re supposed to, which are all Southern Appalachian values,” Runkis said. “Spencer and I come up with and build ideas, figure out storylines and invite guests into the show.” Each episode features another member of the local community, ranging from a blacksmith to moonshiner to sawmill operator. One day, they’re making a canoe out of a burned out log; the next, they’re creating electricity with firewood or finding the ideal method to distill moonshine. “With this show, we want people to see that hillbillies are intelligent people and not necessarily stupid, grass-chewing people,” Runkis said. “If somebody calls me a hillbilly, I look at it as a badge of honor because they’re telling me I’m intelligent.”
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TAKING THE OUTDOORS ONLINE The show all started two years ago when the duo, who didn’t know each other previously, were approached by the television channel 3net, which is a 3D station owned by the Discovery Channel. “When we first did this, there was no other 3D show like ours,” Runkis said. “It’s a run and gun camera operation where you get 3D moments like when I’m chopping wood and a chip flies ‘out of the screen.’” After a successful first season, the program moved up the ladder to the Destination America channel. As the notoriety and success began to snowball, so did the exposure with episodes now airing on the Discovery Channel to a lot of viewer curiosity. “Honestly, I think the show is happening 8
“I was a Boy Scout and an only child, so being the only child in a family that doesn’t buy a lot of things, you get outside and do things,” he said. “My father would always take me into the mountains. It was hard for me to stay focused in the classroom because I liked being outdoors too much.” Those academic hardships put Bolejack at odds with the school. He was soon placed into an outdoor survival program aimed at reaching troubled youth, helping them find their inner potential on missions and treks in the great outdoors. “A kid with ADHD, they have this big turbine in their mind and not enough water to run it, so they create their own information, and that’s what causes problems,” he said.
martial arts and being in the wilderness,” he said. “It’s about being aware, being humble. You can get knocked down in martial arts as easy as you can in the woods.”
HEADING SOUTH
Runkis got his first taste of the outdoors growing up on his grandfather’s 80-acre property in the isolated forests of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. He joined the Boy Scouts and ran around the woods, learning on some deep level that people are able to the proper techniques in trapping and orienperceive, where once they get past the humor teering, all the while harboring an ever-growyou can get into things about community ing appreciation for nature. friendship and start to see lessons within les“We all participate in nature, the trees sons,” Bolejack said. and all of the animals participate in it,” he Before they became television stars, both said. “Everything has its place, men had found Internet success and by just making use of during the past several years by everything you can find out posting survival videos on there, wild plants and animals, YouTube to millions of views you help the natural cogs of the and thousands of subscribers. machine function.” Bolejack (under the online hanAs a teenager, Runkis relodle “WindRider707”) would cated to Florida, where he post clips of his martial arts began to apprentice as a carand outdoor skills, while penter. He built restaurants, Runkis (“TrapperJackSurvival”) churches and homes around the uploaded dozens of videos South, eventually finding his showcasing his survival techway to Western North Carolina, niques. a place where he had family and Through his videos and soon came to adore after several Land of the Sky Wilderness trips to the area. After 14 years School summer camps he conin Jackson County, he had ducts throughout the region, grown as attached to the forest Bolejack, a resident of Bethel, as a mature tree tucked away in was soon contacted by the telethe deep wilderness of Southern vision network about doing a Appalachia. series. It would be another year “I was learning a lot about of talks before Runkis, hailing bush craft, where I was buildfrom Little Canada in Jackson ing log cabins using all the traCounty, was brought in as the ditional pioneer methods, last piece of the puzzle. woodworking, splitting logs, “The network found my healing logs,” he said. “I videos, liked what I was saying learned it all, and I enjoyed it as and contacted me to see if I much back then as I do today. wanted to do a series,” Runkis It’s a big part of what I teach.” chuckled. “I really didn’t know In 2008, he launched his what to think about the whole “TrapperJackSurvival” channel thing. But, I stuck my neck out (after a wilderness mentor in and told them I’d participate.” Michigan named Jack) channel With the plans in motion, on YouTube to great fanfare. Runkis had one last obstacle to The initial intent of the videos overcome, which was to demonstrate to Superfine Films — the Stars of the reality show Hillbilly Blood on the Discovery Channel, was to promote an outfitter Manhattan-based production Spencer Bolejack (left) and Eugene Runkis (right) take viewers on store he had hoped to open in company behind the show — adventures throughout Haywood County. Focusing on their extensive Florida. The store never really got off the ground, but the just how good his outdoor skills outdoor survival skills, the duo poses scenarios around the region and videos kept being made. It was really were. For his presentation, how to successfully navigate the situations. Garret K. Woodward photo an outlet that would soon Runkis made a shotgun out of prove worthwhile once televipart of a princess tree. He hol“But outside, the turbine starts to run correct- sion came knocking on his door. lowed out a branch, stuffed it with gunpow“I’m always discovering something new,” ly, and they quickly realize their value as a der and shells, and lit the fuse to a successful he said. “The more you use the techniques, human being.” blast. With that, Superfine had found their the more you learn from it.” After graduating from UNC-Asheville, perfect co-star for Bolejack. Bolejack went into teaching, only to be let go few years later due to budget constraints. OLL CAMERA NTO THE WILD aWhile he was teaching, he held martial arts Throughout each of the 12 episodes of An 11th generation North Carolinian, seminars and started up Land of the Sky. Bolejack was raised on a tobacco farm, the With his layoff came the opportunity to find a season two, Bolejack and Runkis bring on one person whose background provides the storyfamily business, in Pilot Mountain. After the way to make his hobbies into a career. The line of the program. Owner of Cheyenne’s farm went under, he and his parents relocated classes grew in popularity, with Bolejack Corner (located in the Bethel Grocery), to the forest outside of Asheville, where they teaching anyone interested in learning the Cheyenne Keener specializes in hunting and lived off the land and enjoyed the fruits of not discipline, patience and humility of truly fishing supplies. Hillbilly Blood used his shop only their labor, but also of the natural beauty being one with your surroundings. on a couple of episodes, where Keener encapsulating them. “There are a lot of similarities between
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