Pioneer Quest, a year in the Real West, episode 9

Episode 9 is not a regular episode, it is kind of a epilogue, a what happened after the show ended.
Which is a great thing to add to such a show.

I love that the cabins are now a tourist attraction, people from all over Canada want to come check out where the families lived.
Something I would have loved to do as well, sadly with most shows, before you know it the houses and locations are turned back into their normal modern self again.

I could have done without hearing the pig burning alive again though.

Wonderful to see how they are actually famous in Canada but I reckon this made it all even harder to get used to good old modern life.

I never quite understand the issues people have without not using shampoo for such a project.
I haven’t used shampoo in years, quite a few specialists say it is actually healthier for your hair.

And here come the post project tensions, the book deals, the difficult questions, trying to cash in on their experience (who can blame them) and the pressure.
And all this time still sort of having time travel jet lag, I reckon.

Wonderful to see the Treadway log ‘cabin’, which is actually a rather big modern villa by the lake.
They could clearly afford to just buy some land and do the whole project again, on their own.
I would have.

Fun to see them meet the contestants of the next show in the Quest series.
I hope to see ‘Quest for the bay’ soon.And it is great to see them use their experience and fame to teach others about the past.

They really miss their experience, the Treadways more than the Logies, it seems.
They no longer feel they belong in the modern world, something I’ve felt all my life.

They return one more time to the cabins before they are moved to the local museum.
The Logies still want to go live like this one day, or so they said when this was recorded aboot 15 years ago.
The Treadways want to move in right away.

Very nice to also hear what it was like for the cameraman/reporter who was there most of the time as well.
It clearly had a huge impact on him as well.

After 5 months, the Treadways still feel a bit unhinged and out of place in the modern world.

So, what further happened to the two, or three families after the project?
I loved this last episode but for a chance I felt the producers did leave out something.
It was shot a year, year and a half after the project began, a year and a half after the shocking moment when the Ziolkoski couple had to leave.
Yet they are not mentioned once.
I know it is painful and something they probably don’t want to dwell on and something that only took up a very short moment of the entire project.
But I still want to know.
According to the readers of this blog Tom Ziolkoski was acquitted, which technically makes him innocent of what he was accused of.
Having a dream ruined, in such a public and painful way for something he didn’t do must have been beyond horrific.
What happened to them afterwards, how are they today?

And what about Deanna & Tim Treadway, and Alana & Frank Logie?
Did they ever return to living in the country side or did their modern lives take over?

The Treadways seem to be running a rather nice looking Log Cabin bed & Breakfast.
Which doesn’t look very pioneer-y to me.
But it is in a wonderful location and surrounded by plenty of nature.
A bit sad they won’t allow pets though.
Make sure to check out their website by clicking here.

I can’t find much about Alana & Frank Logie besides some information on Facebook, but I didn’t want to pry into that too much.
It seems they didn’t return to living the pioneer life either.

 

Conclusion;

It was quite a wonderful show but a beast to watch.
Almost 9 hours of television that wasn’t always very nice, the fire was even disturbing.
For the mammoth project it was, it was really well done.
A year of living in the past and filming it, must have been been quite challenging.
So most of the things I did notice, are very easy to forgive.
Sure there were a few concessions made and a few modern items here and there, but it was not that big a deal.
I did feel it was a shame that the clothes were not more authentic, bits were missing I feel.

The general show was very well made and I applaud the team for being very open and sharing pretty much everything, even the bits that were painful and embarrassing.

I look forward to seeing more shows in the Quest series and hope I can trace them down.