An arrest warrant has been issued for a US YouTuber for illegally fishing in a Canadian national park, and his partner has been fined $6,000, after a judge condemned their “reckless” outdoor survival videos.
The popularity of the videos highlights an increasingly lucrative online niche, with millions tuning in to watch avid outdoors people test their skills and mettle in harsh conditions. A number of television shows have further popularized the genre and inspired a growing share of the public to venture into the hinterlands.
But feats of survival and ingenuity are increasingly clashing with existing laws and the videos, originally posted for entertainment, are increasingly used as evidence against the survivalists – including by Alberta prosecutors.
Greg Ovens of British Columbia and Zachary Fowler of Maine filmed parts of their 30 Day Survival Challenge in the Canadian Rockies video series in Banff national park four years ago.
The pair first met on the third season of Alone, a popular television show in which contestants attempt to survive in gruelling wilderness conditions for as long as possible. In 2015, Ovens survived more than 50 days in Patagonia. Fowler eventually won the competition after lasting nearly 90 days in the wild.
The pair reunited in 2019 for their self-produced YouTube series, in which they taught fans how to construct shelters, build backcountry fires and forage for food.
While the pair filmed most of the videos near Ovens’s home town of Canal Flats, they spent later parts of the series in neighbouring Alberta, where they camped and fished at Banff’s Leman Lake.
The series received millions of views, but the idyllic scenes increasingly clashed with federal laws as the men moved eastward.
“That’s a nice cutty,” said Ovens in one video as pulls a cutthroat trout weighing nearly three pounds from the river – a fish that cannot be removed from the national park’s waterways.
One viewer eventually flagged the series to parks authorities, who began investigating.
In February 2022, Ovens was hit with six charges under Canada’s National Parks Act, including illegally fishing a threatened species, hunting in a park, discharging a firearm in a park and the illegal use of a drone. Five of those charges were later withdrawn and Ovens pleaded guilty to illegal fishing earlier this month.
In one video, Ovens searches under logs for earthworms for fishing. “They don’t seem to bite very good if you don’t have bait,” he said.
Justice Eric Tolppanen of the Alberta court of justice took issue with this, calling the use of live bait an “aggravating” factor in the charges.
“This type of bait is prohibited as it risks the introduction to lakes of invasive species, including the microscopic parasite that causes whirling disease,” Tolppanen said on Wednesday.
While the judge credited Ovens for an early guilty plea, as well as for his attempts to remove the videos, Tolppanen nonetheless found the violations a serious breach of the law.
“I do find … his conduct to have been reckless. As part of the Survival Challenge, he clearly planned to live for a significant period of time in an area familiar to him within the boundaries of Banff national park.”
Ovens previously told CBC that he and Fowler obtained fishing licenses but did not realize that the mountain lakes in the three national parks, Banff, Yoho and Kootenay, were only catch and release.
Tolppanen ordered Ovens to pay C$6,000 (US$4,500/£3,600) for the violation, less than the C$8,000 requested by Crown prosecutors. But Tolppanen also required Ovens to post details of his plea and sentence to the YouTube channel and to have the offending videos removed.
In addition to federal violations, Ovens was also charged by the BC government for violations related to the video series, including cutting down live trees and shooting gophers. Ovens paid C$1,200 in fines.
Fowler still faces seven charges and a warrant has been issued for his arrest for multiple fishing offences.
Owens and Fowler did not respond to a request for comment.
