M’CHIGEENG—There’s no mistaking the excitement in Neil Debassige’s voice as he describes the soon-to-launch second season of the popular Manitoulin-based outdoors program ‘Fuel the Fire,’ with good reason as this spring’s 13-episode run is packed with great footage and compelling stories from Canada’s great outdoors.
Each of this season’s episodes of ‘Fuel the Fire’ will run five times during the week, starting the week of April 2.
“We have lots of great stories to tell this season,” said Mr. Debassige. “We have two moose shows, four deer shows, four fishing shows and one show each of bear, turkey and waterfowl.”
Manitoulin is front and centre in many of the episodes. The Expositor Salmon Classic fishing derby will be featured on one of the programs, as will Wiikwemkoong’s Ice Fishing Derby.
“We also will be featuring Killarney, with the Sportsman’s Inn,” he said. Northeastern Ontario tourism is getting a pretty good boost from the program, but so are other regions of the country. “We have a great episode on deer hunting in Saskatchewan,” said Mr. Debassige.
Regular readers of The Expositor will recall the story of a wheelchair-bound deer hunter afflicted with the debilitating Lou Gehrig’s Disease whose dream was to bag a white-tailed deer, a dream realized on camera during a visit to a Manitoulin hunting camp during last year’s hunting season.
“That story will be airing as part of episode two,” said Mr. Debassige. “I am really looking forward to that episode airing.”
The success of the first season of ‘Fuel the Fire’ has really ramped up the excitement surrounding the project, noted Mr. Debassige, with more and more sponsors coming on board to join those, like the Great Spirit Circle Trail and Ramakko’s Source for Adventure of Sudbury who have been onboard since the very beginning. “The Manitoulin Expositor and Pro-Gas are onboard now and Manitoulin Chrysler is looking at working with us now; we are really starting to get some traction,” he said. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to Bestech, an engineering company out of Sudbury, they have really been a great support to us as well.”
Season one may be over, but it is far from gone, let alone forgotten. The US-based online platform ‘Get Outdoors’ is looking at E-casting the first season as part of their streaming offerings. “This is really perfect timing for us,” said Mr. Debassige.
‘Fuel the Fire’ is also working with Al Strader, of Northern Boys Outfitting TV, said Mr. Debassige. “The are doing something similar to what we are doing here at ‘Fuel the Fire’,” he said. “He’s got some great footage.” Mr. Debassige does not see things as a zero-sum game. “Really, together we are much more than the sum of our parts,” he said.
Mr. Debassige said that ‘Fuel the Fire’ has been well-served by some of the home-grown assets that can be found on Manitoulin. “Nano Debassige at Weengushk Film Institute has really been a great resource, he provides really top notch service.”
With professional staff such as co-host Rob Seifried and support such as Warren Corbiere and Wiikwemkoong Tourism’s Luke Wassegigjig it is little surprise that ‘Fuel the Fire’ has been barreling ahead with such focused determination.
“It really helps when you are doing something that you truly love,” admitted Mr. Debassige.
Viewers can tune into the second season of ‘Fuel the Fire’ on the Bell satellite system at 389 or on the Shaw system at 477 at a time that is convenient to their schedule, as each episode of ‘Fuel the Fire’ will be airing five times a week. Shows will air at 10 am and 8:30 pm on Fridays, 4 am on Saturdays, Sundays at 6:30 pm and Tuesdays at 5:30 pm.
