To really see and experience America, you’ve got to unplug, says Baratunde Thurston, host and executive producer of “America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston.â€
“We are showcasing people who have a relationship with nature. We’re looking for all kinds of representatives of We the People,†he says. The lower the wi-fi speed, “the better it is because then you’re really getting out there.â€
During two seasons of the PBS series, Thurston has tested his limits, jumping into 40-degree water in Maine, climbing trees in Oregon and riding with alligators in Florida.
For the Washington, D.C. native, communing with nature has been a way to understand experiences he might have readily avoided. Among them: hunting.
Baratunde Thurston, right, learns about turtles in one of his "America Outdoors" forays.Â
The nation’s capital, he says, was a war zone in the 1980s. “My father was, essentially, a casualty of that war,†he says. “There was never a police investigation; no person that I’m aware of was ever charged but he was shot and killed very late in the night one day.â€
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Guns, as a result, have a different meaning for him.
When he was assigned to shoot with Olympic silver medalist Kayle Browning, “I was terrified,†Thurston says.
Browning, who grew up in a family of competitive shooters, has a different view of guns: “I try to be the light in what seems like a very dark topic in the media.â€
When the two got together, she tried to show him “the more you know about the firearm you’re handing, the safer it becomes. At the end of the day, it’s an object and it has to be respected.â€
Thurston, she says, wanted to learn about her sport and her lifestyle. “By the end of it, he was like, ‘I see a totally new light, a totally new perspective on what you do and it’s not all bad.’â€
When he was invited to a turkey hunt in New Mexico, that preparation helped. “I had never listened so closely in the outdoors as when I was trying to be super-quiet and super-still,†Thurston says. “Even the prospect of taking a life heightened the experience, not with a sense of conquest or joy but with a sense of gravity. And so there was respect for the environment and for the habitat.â€
While Thurston didn’t kill a turkey, he learned about those who do. “This stuff gets real spiritual and philosophical very quickly,†he says. “It gets political, not in a left/right way, but in ‘How do people live together?’ How do we live with our fellow creatures on this earth?â€
Baratunde Thurston, Farmer Steph and the kids hike to the tree tipping spot in the forest in Maine.
In the six-episode second season, “America Outdoors†hits parts of the country rarely given national exposure.
In Elaine, Arkansas, Thurston learned about one of the worst incidents of racial violence in 1919. An estimated 237 Black residents were killed by a white mob. Today, the community has its first Black mayor, Lisa Gilbert. In the series, she helps Thurston understand how a connection with nature can bring about change. “Without me having to do a lot of convincing him, he got it,†Gilbert says.
“Our young people are so in tune with nature here,†she says. “We’re small, we’re rural, they come from generations of farmers, generations of hunters, people fishing. Young people don’t have problems detaching themselves from their devices because they’re so surrounded by nature and they grew up with it…it’s pretty much in their DNA.â€
Baratunde Thurston jet skis on the Suwannee River.
Now, Thurston says, there’s a lesson viewers can learn. The show is called “America Outdoors,†but it should be billed as “America, comma, Outdoors.†“This is a show about people and their connection to the outdoors, to nature, and, through that, to each other.â€
“America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston†premieres Sept. 6 on PBS.