TORONTO – When Ontario-bred adventurer, animal trainer and TV personality Dave Salmoni snagged hosting duties for Mark Burnett’s newest reality competition, “Expedition Impossible,” he quickly realized it would require far more than just welcoming contenders to the show and mugging for the camera.
The intense outdoor contest pits 13 teams of three in a series of challenges in Morocco, testing their limits with sand dune races, camel rides, mountain climbs and white-water rafting.
Salmoni appears at the beginning and end of each episode as he sends competitors on their way and greets the weary trekkers when they return.
But downtime offered even more hurdles for the challengers, who were forced to bunk down in Moroccan-style tents between excursions, notes Salmoni.
“You see these people coming in at night and they’re camping out and you watch them and you know they’ve got to eat and they don’t know how to cook over a fire,” says Salmoni, a seasoned outdoorsman best known as host of Animal Planet’s “Into the Pride.”
“I was helping people with their fire, showing people how to dry out their clothes, showing people how to set a tent, showing people how to stay dry if I thought a rainstorm was coming in, all of the outdoorsy adventure stuff.”
“I’m also their friend. I’m also their advisor. I’m an authority figure there.”
The non-stop ordeals are what set “Expedition Impossible” apart from similar-sounding adventure series like “The Amazing Race,” says Salmoni.
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While that show sends teams of people around the globe on a mission to be the first to complete specific challenges, Salmoni says his series offers no respite between ordeals.
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“These people literally get dropped off in the desert and told, ‘Go,’ ” says Salmoni, summing up “The Amazing Race” as “a scavenger hunt.”
“And they race across Morocco, across the desert, up mountains, through the snow, down rivers. (They’re) rappelling down gorges, riding camels, horses, mules. These people literally are abused. You’re not going to see any taxis, you’re not doing to see any hotels. Nothing like ‘The Amazing Race’ type of stuff.”
“Expedition Impossible” debuts Thursday on CTV and ABC.
The premiere marks the network debut of Salmoni, a longtime outdoor enthusiast who began his adventure career as an animal trainer and conservationist.
Born in Sarnia, Ont., Salmoni studied zoology at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont., and worked as an animal trainer at the Toronto-area Bowmanville Zoo.
But his predator expertise really took off 10 years ago when he went to Africa to train captive-bred Bengal tigers to hunt and survive in the wild. That was documented in Discovery Channel’s “Living with Tigers,” and led to more work with African lions.
Salmoni says joining up with “Survivor” creator Burnett has taught him a lot about creating dramatic television.
“Network television, Mark Burnett, ABC, CTV, it’s all very big for me, definitely a big step for me but my aspirations in life aren’t really television-oriented, which sounds awful as a television host,” says Salmoni, whose other series include “World’s Deadliest Towns” and “Into The Lion’s Den.”
“I love working with animals so I do my animal shows. I love conservation so I do my conservation shows. I love adventure so I’m doing an adventure show. And certainly I want this to succeed because I had so much fun making it and all my friends made it with me. I really want people to enjoy it so I can do it again.”
Certified mountain guides from British Columbia helped create, troubleshoot and stage some of the most daring excursions on “Expedition Impossible.”
But Salmoni says he also dove into the pre-show tests, running through the very challenges that competitors would eventually take on themselves.
“Everything you see in the first three episodes I did,” says Salmoni, noting the behind-the-scenes crew of cameramen, mountaineers, medics and a range of experts involved as many as 400 people on some days.
“We would estimate the fast times, the slow times, we had to know where our cameras were going to be. The director, the (executive producers), all the executives, we’re all outdoorsy people but they also had to see the course to know where the cameramen should be, to know where the helicopter’s going to be, to know the terrain when you get people out there, how will we get them out.”
In the end, almost every contender suffered injuries, including infected blisters, muscle soreness and a kick from a camel, says Salmoni.
With all that adversity, he acknowledges the payout for each winning team member is relatively paltry – $50,000 and a car.
The bigger prize is the feeling of accomplishment each contestant gets from pushing themselves to the limit, he says.
“It certainly became obvious halfway through the expedition that people were recognizing this as a personal challenge…. Every single one of them at one point mentally or physically considered quitting,” says Salmoni who splits his time between Toronto and South Africa, where he hosts and produces wildlife documentaries for his independent production company.
“At the end, they wanted to win but most of the whole expedition is, ‘I want to go over that next mountain. I want to ride down that rapid.’ It was a personal accomplishment for them.”
The 10-part “Expedition Impossible” debuts Thursday on CTV and ABC.
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