BEWARE OF THE BEARS MR PRESIDENT

I check my watch once more. Still 10:53. My radio crackles with static. It makes my heart jump. I have to remind myself I’m surrounded by a ton of snipers and close protection officers – none of whom I can spot. That’s their job. It’s not a comforting thought, though.

And then, suddenly, everything goes strangely still. I can feel it. Flanked by ten Secret Service agents clad in black, weapons ready, the President of the United States emerges from the trees.

Wehadjusttwoweeksto prepare for this moment in 2015. The White House had contacted my production team out of the blue to announce that President Obama was a fan of my survival show Running Wild and wanted to shoot an episode with me in Alaska.

During the hours before the President arrived, his lead Secret Service agent had flagged the anti-bear spray I was carrying. He’d told me my suggestion of showing the President how the deterrent works was a bad idea. But some rules are meant to be bent.

So the first thing I told the President was that we were in grizzly country and should always carry anti-bear spray. These can be sprayed up to 25ft at a charging bearandgiveusachanceto escape. I always find it tempting to give things like that a quick test blast. I said so to the President. He smiled and said, ‘Sure.’

‘Mr President, grab this, hold the can facing forward, and blast it downwind… Oh, and watch out for the Secret Service guys,’ I added with a wink.

The man with the earpiece and the gun holster glared at me through his mirror sunglasses and

shook his head. The President gave the canister a blast downwind, we both chuckled, and then set off towards the glacier. Within a few moments the wind changed and I got a waft of powerful anti-bear spray in my eyes. Immediately tears started streaming down my face. The Secret Service guy looked at me, smiling. Now who was the idiot?

As we stood there waiting for the camera and security teams ahead to be ready for us, I told the President how especially dangerous it can be if you disturb fornicating grizzlies. He said he understood that one entirely. I had also been told there was no way the President would eat the half-eaten salmon we had found the day before on the river bank. It was the remnants of a grizzly’s lunch, and I had it stowed in my backpack, sandwiched between two clumps of moss to keep the fishy carcass together. The President’s chef prepared a salmon to be ‘swapped in’ with the half-eaten one. At the appropriate moment the chef would step in and do the switch.

We reached the snout of the glacier and I’d shown the President how to walk on ice with his socks over the outside of his boots, and how to light a fire with a flint. I produced the bear-kill salmon and started cooking. I could see the chef behind the camera holding his silver platter covered with tinfoil, with the pre-cooked salmon waiting underneath.

But it turned out the President was game to eat grizzly leftovers. Together we wolfed it down, and he even shared a water flask with me – strictly against protocol. At the end of filming we hugged and I said a prayer for him. The moment was never meant to be in the final show. But in the end the prayer was included, and it aired.

IWASTOLDHE WOULDN’T EAT THE REMNANTS OF A GRIZZLY’S LUNCH – BUT HE WOLFED IT DOWN