NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ULTIMATE EXPLORER

Nick joins the National Geographic's Ultimate Explorer team and will present provocative stories of adventure and exploration, breaking news, world history, international culture and the wonders of the natural world. Their stories will be distinguished by experiential, point-of-view reporting that often employs first hand camerawork by the correspondents themselves. Through this unique and intimate brand of storytelling, Ultimate Explorer thrusts viewers into the middle of the action, creating a dynamic, immersive experience that inspires a broader worldview.

Episodes of Ultimate Explorer centre around a single feature story showcasing one of the correspondents. Shot live-to-tape, the studio segments allow guests and correspondents to talk freely about their personal experiences and provide insights that couldn’t be expressed in their films.

One Wild Ride: Yukon to Yellowstone - 14.03.04 

Nick Baker takes a remarkable 5,000-mile road trip along one of the greatest mountain ecosystems in the world—the Rockies. Beginning at the northernmost reaches of the Yukon and ending in breathtaking parklands of Yellowstone, Baker sets out to explore the natural history of the area in the wake of an ambitious and controversial plan called the Y2Y Conservation Initiative. The plan aims to link the great national parks and reserves of the Rockies and create a network of preserved habitat.

Baker's journey captures the essence of the area's half-million square miles of stunning beauty, from its mountains and valleys to the wild rivers teeming with life. Along the way, Baker encounters some of the region's remarkable creatures, including bison, caribou, bears, moose and wolverines, whose survival may depend on the implementation of the Y2Y plan.

The Yukon to Yellowstone corridor is also home to a number of modern communities and indigenous cultures. People and animals have co-existed here for tens of thousands of years, but expanding human populations and development by loggers and oil and gas miners threaten the wildlife habitat. As a result, animals are isolated on "islands" of wilderness, and conservationists want to find a way to keep these animals part of our future. Baker meets a diverse group of people, from conservationists to the local communities, who want to protect not only the region but also their own social and economic well-being.

Behind the scenes:

The Story of a Pickled Toe!
It wasn't a pretty sight, but the toe is the major ingredient of the Sour-Toe Cocktail invented by Captain Dick—a true Klondike tradition since 1973. Thousands have been served!

Ultimate Explorer correspondent Nick Baker hunkers down and drinks the Sour-Toe Cocktail, at a Dawson City saloon. It cost him $5 for the irresistible pleasure of having a pickled human toe float in his drink. The bartender pulled out a chest onto the bar, flipped open the giant case, and pulled out glass jars that contained cut-off, dried-up, preserved in salt, pickled human toes...little toes and big toes. Nick went for the big toe. It sounds disgusting and undrinkable, but he did it. The "dare" was on, and the rest of the crew proved to have a lot of adventurous spirit too. We each had our own pickled human toe drink...the toe slowly gliding down the glass to touch our lips...it's captured on film to prove it, and due to a technical camera glitch the first time around, producer Lawrence Cumbo even had to do it twice! Our official Sour-Toe Certificates are prominently displayed in our homes.

Which Way to Turn?
Driving in the north was easy. We started in Inuvik with Nick at the wheel, chasing caribou down the only road—a gravel highway called the Dempster. Heading south, we crossed the imaginary line on the Arctic Circle...all smooth sailing. (The only 30-mile dent in our south-bound trip was that time we had to drive back to get my notebook that I left in the Yukon.) But when it was time to say goodbye to the Dempster dirt, driving got a little more complicated—more and more bisecting roads appeared as we entered the "funnel" toward Banff. "Turn left on Bear, then right on Moose, then a hard left onto Grizzly!," I yelled out from my cramped back seat "office" in our gas guzzling truck. Sometimes I would forget to navigate, which was interesting as Nick had a tendency to get in the car and just start driving in the wrong direction too. "Sorry, I'm English!", Nick would exclaim as he barreled down the road. Five thousand miles later, we finally arrived in Yellowstone, and I told Nick to turn "left" at the "McDonald's," as we looked for the park entrance. He proceeded to turn "right" and got us lost in a parking lot. All in all, I thought we did pretty well, and we're proud of Nick for driving every single mile. We made it!

[He says he can't wait to see us driving in England, when it'll be his turn to give us a hard time.]

Virus Crisis - 30.11.03 

Nick investigates recent outbreaks of four exotic diseases — Ebola, monkey pox, West Nile virus and SARS — questioning how much we have to fear these outbreaks. 

Recent outbreaks of exotic diseases like Ebola, monkey pox, SARS and West Nile virus have provoked near panic in major cities throughout the world. These viruses, which previously lurked only in the remote wilderness, now raise fears of devastating worldwide epidemics. And to complicate matters, they’re all zoonotic diseases, viruses that normally live in animals and have somehow jumped into humans.

But in today’s global marketplace, modern shipping and transportation could allow the spread of some viruses across the planet with terrifying speed, as infected — and illicit — bushmeat begins to make its way out of Africa and into the markets of New York, Washington, D.C., London and other international destinations. Now, researchers are scrambling for answers within the animal world, searching for clues that may help prevent the next deadly outbreak.

Ebola is a classic example of an emerging disease that people fear - it kills both wildlife and humans with horrible efficiency. In rural Africa, hunting has brought Ebola out of the jungle and into the marketplace, primarily affecting remote villagers who most likely contracted the disease from infected “bushmeat,” which is any meat that originated in the wild.

Nick traces Ebola back to its wild roots. Combing the tropics of western Africa in search of insights and answers, Baker ventures into the epicenter of an Ebola infestation where hazmat suits are the required attire. Baker also searches for links that may explain the rapid emergence of SARS from a market in China and meets with survivors of West Nile virus and monkey pox in the United States. Along the way, Baker discovers a disturbing reality: the ease and convenience of today’s international trade and travel may carry a deadly price — deadly viruses from afar.

Nick enters the quirky world of medicine’s oldest practitioners — the leech and the fly — in a surreal journey through time and place to explore their macabre life cycles and reveal how these reviled creatures benefit humans in shocking ways.

In the darkest recesses of the human psyche there is a place where fear resides in its rawest form, primal and irrational. Within these shadowy passages writhing fiends gorge upon rotted flesh. Multi-brained hermaphrodites with an unquenchable thirst for blood bear 300 razor sharp teeth. Here be monsters. Here be filth. Here be LEECHES and MAGGOTS.

Nick is a naturalist on a mission. For years he has spanned the globe to learn about the natural world and the creatures that inhabit our planet. But his life’s passions are the creatures most people love to hate - spiders, wasps, slugs and centipedes. And Baker lives by his passions. He shares his small country cottage in Devonshire, England, with 26 snakes, 80 tarantulas, assorted scorpions, salamanders, giant hissing cockroaches, African clawed frogs, snails, snapping turtles and three leeches he keeps cool and comfy in the kitchen refrigerator. According to Baker, these creatures get a bad rap, but what people don’t know is that animals like this are marvels of evolutionary achievement.

In “Creepy Healers,” Baker takes on perhaps the most image-challenged beasts in the animal kingdom - the leech and the fly. The green bottle fly, or blowfly, and its voracious maggots, have long been associated with filth and decay. Typhoid, cholera, anthrax, dysentery, worms - these are the calling cards of the fly. One could argue that these animals are more dangerous than the venomous insects we flee from in panic. The European medicinal leech is one of 650 known species of leeches and enjoys the distinct advantage of having 32 brains (31 more than a human!). Armed with an impressive arsenal of teeth, a natural anesthetic and a powerful anticoagulant, a gluttonous leech can ingest up to 10 times its body weight in blood.

From the foggy hollows of Wales to the gloomy practices of medieval barber surgeons and surgical chophouses of the American Civil War, Baker leads viewers on an adventure through the remarkable life cycle of these creatures, explores their sordid history and reveals their medical renaissance as they save life and limb in today’s modern hospitals.

Nick Baker reveals the new militancy emerging in one of Southeast Asia's conservation movements while accompanying a group of "eco warriors" on an armed hunt for poachers in Cambodia's Bokor National Forest.

What motivates someone to brave landmines and AK-47-toting poachers to save endangered species? To find out, correspondent Nick Baker ventures into Cambodia’s Bokor National Forest, once one of the last refuges of the Khmer Rouge, on his first in-country expedition for National Geographic Ultimate Explorer.

The illegal wildlife trade is one of Southeast Asia’s most profitable illegal activities. It is a multibillion dollar industry, often unsuccessfully regulated by governments whose citizens drive demand and whose officials often participate directly in and profit from the trade. With an enormous number of endangered and desirable animal species, the forests of the region are particularly vulnerable.

Baker’s guide to this shadowy world is Mark Bowman, an Australian ex-commando who is one of the architects of the military-style anti-poaching program in Bokor National Forest. Bowman works for WildAid, a conservation group that embraces military-style tactics and that managed to get government concessions to lead an armed war against poachers.

But there is another side to the story. Thousands of poor Cambodians who live near national parks depend on poaching for survival. For these people, one poached pangolin or chopped-down tree can spell the difference between life and death, food and starvation.

Some say that these “eco warriors” are just what is needed to save Cambodia’s endangered species, but to others, they are crossing the line and taking advantage of their authority. Join Baker as he investigates the front lines of this environmental battle and experiences both sides of the issue.

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