British reality TV comes north for a trek

DAWSON CITY - ITV, the British television network, will be coming to Dawson in early September as part of a 10-week trek across the Canadian Arctic by Billy Connolly, a well-known British comedian, folk singer and actor.

DAWSON CITY - ITV, the British television network, will be coming to Dawson in early September as part of a 10-week trek across the Canadian Arctic by Billy Connolly, a well-known British comedian, folk singer and actor.

He played Uncle Monty in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and will soon be seen bleeding from the eyes in the new X-Files movie, X-Files: I Want to Believe.

Advance scouts Mark Jones and Kevin Forde were in Dawson on Monday looking for people Connolly might visit during his two days in the Klondike on Sept. 7- 8.

Connolly’s trip will take him from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland, north to Baffin Island, and then through the Northwest Passage.

Along the way, he and his crew will film a four-part series which will air in Britain and elsewhere (probably also in Canada) in 2009.

The tour will see Connolly stopping to visit small settlements on the route and interact with the locals.

“He’s going to be hunting and fishing with a nomadic family in Nunavut,“ said series producer Jones.

Connolly has been to the Canadian Arctic before, notably when he filmed the BBC reality show type feature, A Scot in the Arctic in 1996.

Apparently that show, like many of his video experiences, involved Connolly shooting some scenes in the buff, a trademark of his, according to the online reviews of his work.

Once across the top of the Arctic, Connolly and crew will drive from Inuvik to Eagle Plains and probably fly from there to Dawson.

Jones and Forde were in Dawson to decide what he might do during two days here at the tag end of the tourist season, but one thing, whether it gets air time or not, will probably be a visit to the Jack London Interpretive Centre.

“Billy’s a big Jack London fan,“ Jones said. “It’s one of the reasons he wants to do the trip. He grew up reading White Fang and

Call of the Wild and all that sort of books.“

Connolly isn’t the only member of the team with a yen for Klondike lore.

“Robert Service was born in Preston, Lancashire,“ said assistant producer Kevin Forde. “That’s my home town.“