It took a few rounds of telephone tag, but the Star finally managed to pin down Les Stroud long enough to get the scoop on his new season of Survivorman.

Season 2 begins Friday at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel as Stroud takes on the Kalahari Desert. The show will also see visits to Alaska’s Pacific Coast, the Amazon Jungle and the Labrador region of Canada this time around.

A complete interview transcript is below. Enjoy!

What are you up to right now?

“I am in mid-production right now. We are trying to get all of our first five episodes out the door for Discovery. I leave to go shoot my last episode next week. I am in the middle of this maelstrom of activity, which is my entire summer. It has been rough.”

How did filming for this season compare to last season for you?

“It is on par with the first season. What I do doesn’t change. Where I do it changes. I would have to give an edge to this season for being a little tougher physically in a couple of circumstances. I went to the Kalahari this year. It was 107 degrees in the shade, really tough. That really took a toll on my body. It has also been physically tougher because we’ve gone to some bigger places. I made a conscious effort to go further out into the world — to go bigger and beyond our North American borders to see what the rest of the global ecosystems have to offer.”

The Sonoran Desert episode came early in the first season. Why choose Southern Arizona?

“I guess it had the classic desert appeal I was looking for. Those beautiful saguaro cacti. The look to the entire region seemed to be very classic in and around your area. I like to go to an area that not only gives me something unique as an ecosystem, but also represents the best of that ecosystem. In truth, the best places are the parks, but I can’t do this sort of thing in parks. So I look for natural areas that say, ‘If you think of the desert, you think of this.’

Where do you live when you aren’t struggling and surviving?

“I live a couple of hours north of the city of Toronto in Northern Ontario. Originally, I grew up in Toronto. But I was able to move up north and I never looked back. It is nice up here. Like living in the Finger Lakes area of New York”

You have been filming survival footage in one way or another since the early 1990s. What attracts you to this work?

“Sometimes I wonder why I am not doing a special series on the five star resorts of the world. For me, a huge part of my life is about outdoor adventure. I have a great passion for it. Survival, along with white water canoeing or sea kayaking or hiking, has always been a part of that adventure picture for me. I started thinking six years ago that no one was doing this on network television at all. I was the first one. I am still the only one to really go out there and do it alone.”

It was a conscious thought in me that I was perfectly positioned to be a guide and pull this off, to go out and survive alone. This is because: A, I am a survival instructor and B, I am also a filmmaker. It is combining those two passions of mine that I am able to make this series. When I approached the networks, I told them they weren’t going to find that combination anywhere else. In all other cases, you would need a camera crew. In my case, I could go alone, I could survive and come back to you with the truest representation of survival on film that seems possible.”

How do you choose where they drop you?

“I will go and scout out places ahead of time until I see an area and think, ‘This region is good; I can get all the permits I need and go for it.’ The interesting thing about that Sonoran Desert show was that it was only the second one I had ever filmed. I was still in the stages where I had no safety crew, no emergency satellite phone, no radio. During that particular episode, I was completely alone.”

You carry an emergency phone?

“Yes. Now, normally I always carry an Iridium satellite phone. They are fantastic because they give me that emergency connection to the outside world if I need it. But even now, if I get under the jungle canopy, it is difficult for any phone to get a signal out. Sometimes I have no contact. What happens then is my mind switches over to my former reality as a survival instructor. The thought that I am completely alone. I have to really think at that point. I have to walk and act like I have no contact. In many ways, for me it is truly survival at that time.”

When you are preparing for an episode, do you consult experts?

“Yes. My own particular skills are global. They will transfer and this is good from a general perspective. But that doesn’t mean I know what plants will kill me or save me. I always go down and meet with some kind of local survival expert and we go out for a number of days for land training. I learn about all the plants and the different skills that apply to the area.”

Do you just jump from one adventure to another while filming?

“Haha, no. That would kill me. I always said that I wanted five weeks to recuperate between shows. My body goes through a lot to do those things. Unfortunately, this season has been tight. It has been only a couple of weeks in between filming. The production company would love if I could do more, but it is not that kind of show.”

Can you see yourself doing another season?

“I think there are still places I can go with this series. I am looking at expanding how I do it and what I do.”

How many cameras do you have on you during your trips?

“I usually have about five cameras of various sizes. I actually, for the most part, have to make sure they are all the same brand. That way all the specs will match up. If I don’t do that, it can be a nightmare in the edit sweep. I try to take 7-9 five-hour batteries for one-sized camera and 8-10 three-hour batteries for the smaller cameras. They are lithium batteries, light. That’s why I can pack that many.”

Do you have to keep track of battery power?

“Yes. All the time. It is not too bad because I take so many. Only one time, and it may have been the Arizona episode, did I get to that point. I had just enough battery power left. I was literally doing my final goodbye shot with 15 minutes of power left. It gets down to the wire sometimes.”

“Yeah, most of the time. Survival would be a lot easier that way. Running the camera equipment takes up 50 percent of my time. 50 percent that could be spent bettering my survival. Then again, that is why I am there in the first place.”

Scariest moment so far in your travels this season?
“That was in the Kalahari Desert. I came very close to heat exhaustion. I almost had to call in the cavalry and get taken out of there. You will see it in the episode. There is a moment where I stop and I stare at the camera and I’m out of it. There is no play acting going on. I was very close to succumbing. That is a dangerous place to be.”

Did you visit Tucson before or after your adventures in Southern Arizona?
“I did get down to Tucson. I went down on a couple of day trips just to look around. I thought it was stunning. Absolutely beautiful.”

What do you hope people come away with when watching this show?

“Well, I think it is easy to assume that the simple practical skills are a good take home thing. But I come from the place too where I hope people take home a greater understanding of and appreciation for the natural world. I always have. I make my little comments here and there about conserving areas and the beauty of an ecosystem because that is coming from my heart. There is no scripting there. I still want people to look at it and see it as a beautiful, natural world and that we can coexist with it. In the end, we should all be appreciating and adoring it for what it actually is. I would love if people took that home.”