The Beast Mode Cowboy is riding into Prince George.
With his roots in Kentucky and Texas, Caleb Reynolds is authentic out on the range where there are few people and even fewer television cameras. But Reynolds became authentically world famous for his other profession, starring first on the Big Brother show (season 16 airing in 2014) and then the current Survivor series, making him a rare double-hit on reality TV.
He was recruited after he auditioned unsuccessfully for yet another reality TV super-show, the famed Amazing Race program. The producers couldn't find a place for him in that year's Amazing Race but saw his on-screen potential and the rest is history.
He also does live entertainment events, and he will be in Prince George this week to meet his most northerly Canadian fans ever. He said he had been to other Canadian cities before, but the list (Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton) fell short of the 54th parallel.
On Thursday, he will be available for two public appearances here.
"I'm going to come and see if I can stir up a little trouble in the area and have some fun," he said. His first engagement is a meet-and-greet at Northland Dodge at 3:30 p.m., followed by an evening event at Cariboo House (the former Heartbreakers nightclub). He also hopes to get a look at the general area around the city because the description he heard - that you can drive 10 the proverbial minutes from downtown and be in the relative wilderness - is exciting to his adventurer's mind.
"I like it. That's my style," said the former U.S. soldier, Texas ranch hand and Kentucky hunting guide.
"I love to hunt. Anything country-boy-ish is right up my alley. If Prince George is country, I guess I'm ready."
He didn't come by the Beast Mode Cowboy nickname by accident. He lived on an actual working ranch in his Texas youth.
"I used to wake up and work with horses before school and after school. I rode a bull a couple of times, but nothing crazy," he said.
Then he enlisted in the army and developed a passion for body building in his pursuit of fitness. He also loves to shoot guns as a sport and that feeds into his hunting passion but that is not a mere sport to him and he strictly draws a line between the two.
"I like to hunt anything I can eat. I do not hunt for a trophy, I won't hunt something for a hide or a skin, so deer, ducks, turkey, recently in Iowa it was pheasants, so I hunt anything I can eat," he said.
This rugged, rural and self-reliant background helped get him deep into the Big Brother elimination process and it also stood him in good stead on Survivor but since that program isn't finished its current season he is unable to discuss it.
His position was further complicated by a rare event in the history of the Survivor reality TV program. Due to heat stroke that emerged as he raced through a challenge, he was medically evacuated from the set. That was shown on the fourth episode to air (this week is the sixth episode) so he is gone from the current competition having never been voted off the island.
He is allowed to talk about the location, though, on the island of Koh Rong, Cambodia. Being involved in the tasks of the show were not as onerous as his military duties, he said, so he got to enjoy the scenery a bit more than when he was deployed to exotic locations with the military.
"It was like no other experience I'd done. It wasn't a vacation, but it was nice scenery," he said.
Tickets to socialize with Reynolds at the evening event are $15 available at The Citizen front desk or at One Boardshop. Access to the meet-and-greet at Northland Dodge is free, on a first come-first serve basis.
