KETCHIKAN — A former Ketchikan resident and Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show lumberjack won FOX’s “American Grit,” a military-style endurance reality TV show.
Mark Bouquin of Colden, New York, and one of his teammates — horse trainer and fisherman Clare Painter — won “American Grit” and took home a combined $500,000 in the season finale, which aired June 9.
Bouquin worked at the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show and lived in Ketchikan during the summers and through two winters between 2008 through 2015.
In the first season of “American Grit,” 16 civilian competitors were led by four U.S. military veterans through a nine-week, military-based endurance competition show, which was filmed over the winter outside of Seattle.
The show was hosted by professional wrestler and actor John Cena, and the teams were lead by former U.S. Navy Seal Cmdr. Rorke Denver, U.S. Army Sgt. Noah Galloway, U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Tawanda Hanible, and U.S. Army Ranger Nick Irving.
“There were 16 athletes — all different types of athletes,” Bouquin said on Monday from his home outside of Buffalo, New York. “I’m a timber sports athlete. There (was) a roller derby person, a CrossFitter, a triathlete, an NFL football player, an obstacle course racer, a professional body builder, an Olympic athlete and some other people like that, and they were split into four teams with two girls and two guys on each team.”
Bouquin’s teammates were Painter, college track and field coach and former Olympic sprinter David Neville, and body builder and blogger Lisa Traugott.
The premise of the show had the teams competing against each other in group challenges. For example, in the season premiere, they completed a U.S. Army training exercise called “ruck up,” in which teams carry a 120-pound log through an obstacle course that spans three miles — without the log touching the ground. In the end, the group added up the sum of their birthdays to unlock a case for the log to complete the challenge.
Bouquin was one of the most sought-after contestants in the premiere, when the four coaches were deciding their teams. One coach said, “I want the lumberjack,” to which another coach replied, “Who doesn’t want the lumberjack?”
Galloway — a U.S. Army veteran who lost his left arm and left leg when his Humvee exploded during the Iraq war and who also appeared on the spring 2015 season of “Dancing with the Stars” — was the coach who got Bouquin on his team.
Bouquin said his lifestyle prepared him for the endurance challenges.
“It was all very difficult, but what helped me in this whole competition was the fact that growing up and throughout my whole life, I’ve done a lot of hands-on things,” Bouquin said. “I was in the Boy Scouts. My parents and family are very outdoorsy, (so) we grew up hunting and fishing and trapping and all that, kind of living off the land as much as we could.”
• Megan Petersen is a reporter for the Ketchikan Daily News, where this story first appeared.
