Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People is not canceled. Why?

Alaskan Bush People

Do the Alaskan Bush People get paid? We asked! Read our interview with the Brown family.

Alaskan Bush People Season 1 Recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | The Wild Life

Season 2 Recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2Episode 3 | Episode 4Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8  | Wild Times | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13 | Episode 14 | SHARK WEEK! | Episode 15 | Episode 16 | Lost Footage | The Wild Year

NEW! Is Alaskan Bush People Fake? Does It Matter?

Alaskan Bush People
There were a lot of things about Discovery Channel’s unscripted series Alaskan Bush People that didn’t pass the smell test. Now there’s more foul air surrounding the Brown family, and it’s very likely we’ve seen the last of them on TV.

 

Commenter Talkeetnachris tipped us to this:

Billy brown was just charged with stealing over $13000 filing fraudulent PFD claims in Alaska. His near life will be in prison. A few other family members were also charged. This guy and his family are frauds. I have lived off the road system for years and these people won’t last a year. You have to be self sufficient. Hell, I even had to stitch a band cut on my leg once. Many of these shows only have entertainment value with no real practical lessons on what really living on your own is about.

Many commenters doubted that the Browns were actually living off the land, as the show depicted. Instead, it appears the Browns may have been living off of fraudulent Alaskan Permanent Fund Dividend applications. According to Anchorage’s KTUU, patriarch “Billy Brown alone faces 24 felony counts and is accused of illegally obtaining $13,080 in dividend cash for himself and others. The charges do not describe why investigators believe the Brown family was not eligible for the dividends that some members received between 2010 and 2013.” Also indicted were five of Billy’s seven children: Amora Jean Snowbird, Joshua “Bam Bam,” Gabriel “Gabe,” Solomon “Bear” and Noah.

This will come as disappointing news to the many fans of the show who appreciated the Browns’ family values and the off-the-grid lifestyle that they claimed to represent. The credibility of Discovery Channel and Park Slope Productions has to be questioned, as they apparently weren’t diligent about checking the Browns’ backgrounds (even before these indictments came to light) and then aired a special episode with the family defending their authenticity. And personally, recapping Alaskan Bush People has been great fun, and I’m going to miss writing about it and reading all of your comments.

I’m so mad, I could punch a fish.

Update: Get this. Discovery Channel says they are “currently filming new episodes.” From the Alaska Dispatch News:

Stair said that between October 2009 and August 2012, the family did not meet the “physical presence requirement” to receive PFDs. This means the state believes the family spent more than 180 days a year living outside of Alaska and lied about it on their applications, Stair said.

Sean Martin, director of communications at Discovery Channel, wrote in an email Thursday that “we don’t divulge our actual shoot dates, so cannot let you know when filming concluded on season one, but can confirm that we are currently filming new episodes, but have not announced those air dates yet.”

I don’t even…

 

36 Comments

  1. Seems all these discovery channel reality programs are fake,
    Bloody disgrace if I may say, time discovery started to try and make real TV, they should try learn from yhr BBC who excel is making the best TV on the planet

  2. The Discovery channel absolutely knew the Bush Family was a total fraud. Growing up my family subsistence hunted to feed our family and keep meat on the table. This took a lot of time, effort and skill to supplement our store bought groceries. The Bush family episodes showed very little food gathering to feed 9 people every day. I think a lot of store bought grub was feeding this family. The cameras crews would have witnessed the daily fraud just feeding the “Bush Family”… not to mention they displayed very little woodsman knowledge or survival skills. Very disappointed in the Discovery Channel.

  3. There is entertainment value in the show, it has as much reality value as professional wrestling. My issue is not with the Brown family, it is with the integrity of the Discovery Channel. They need to place due digence and vet their programming for authenticity if they want to have credibility as a science based network. Is the ratings for one show worth risking their other shows? The show should be on another network.

  4. Well, its obvious there is more than fraud going on. HOW ABOUT INCEST? WTF is wrong with these children…………it’s called INCEST!!! Mom knows and all the kids know what dad is doing to them ALL!!! You dug too deep in the woods there Discovery Channel! You discovered the immoral evil of a sick man who wants to get away with f………g his whole family. Dig deeper Discovery Channel…there is NOWAY on God’s Earth the Brown’s are normal! Get it the Fuck off family TV!

  5. The narrator of the show says; “The family finds entertainment with “Playing in the Woods”? Yeah, I’ll bet they do! With each other! TAKE IT OFF THE AIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  6. The family finds entertainment with “Playing in the Woods”? Yeah, I’ll bet they do! With each other! TAKE IT OFF THE AIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

  7. Well, its obvious there is more than fraud going on. HOW ABOUT INCEST? WTF is wrong with these children…………it’s called INCEST!!! Mom knows and all the kids know what dad is doing to them ALL!!! You dug too deep in the woods there Discovery Channel! You discovered the immoral evil of a sick man who wants to get away with f………g his whole family. Dig deeper Discovery Channel…there is NOWAY on God’s Earth the Brown’s are normal! Get it the Fuck off family TV!

  8. I m behind the brown family it’s to bad they lied about their residency, but
    You know keep real, not everything is out in the bush just freedom but you still have provide for yourself and that’s hard to do when you need material things. It’s not really a show if you bought something and not explain how purchased it like for example the guns on the shw because don,t you need permits background checks to have those things I’m just saying as an example. GOod luck Bush family and too bad about your boat.

  9. Ok. Second time I have tried to comment. If this one gets through great, first one was better. I’m from a hillbillies and life is hard. My mother made my dad move to south Texas. Ok, things weren’t that great but nothing like Alaska. If I had a choice, I don’t want my four children to move. There but there’s not the drugs, I don’t think, like in lower 48. GOD BLESS THIS FAMILY AND THERE FRIENDS AND FAMILY MEMBERS. I really only want the best for this family. I’ve done wrong and I don’t think anyone alive hasn’t, they’ve just been lucky and not been caught!!!!!!!!!!! AMEN TO THIS FAMILY AND THOSE THAT FEEL OR HELP THEM. We’re all human. DO PN TO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE OTHERS DO ON TO YOU. My mother taught me that. Thanks MOM I LOVD YOU

  10. Anybody that believes that there really is a people in Alaska that are “bush people” are crazy! Discovery Channel has found “bush people”! Really? WTF! How stupid can people be? The people at Walmarts are more of a “bush people”. The old man looks like he’s been around the block many times and the stupid idiot sons that made up their own language and the poor little girl! Geez!!! And the mother must be the most stupid mother in the world to put up with this crap! Shame on you Discovery, shame on you.How much lower will you go?

  11. What a bunch of fakes! Clothes all wrong, unprepared, poorly equipped, very limited weapons knowledge. I’m from Northern Michigan (the Upper Peninsula) not the Alaskan Bush, but our property line is about 300 yards from a 12,000 acre conservancy. Last year we got well over 200 inches of snow and had over 40 days of below zero temps. Maybe the Discovery Channel would like to do a show on me? Don’t think I could grow that strange ‘stash” that Billie has though! The whole thing should be an embarrassment to true Alaskans for whom I have a great deal of repect.

  12. Really disappointed in discovery for airing this fake show and these fake people. I was born here as my father and his. And any true Alaskan who has watched this show knows its a fake. Unless there from out of state or live in anchorage and don’t know better. When it showed them living in chitna they were in a subdivision, not the bush, and when they said gun shots, lets say bottle rockets. What a bunch of cons. The browns and discovery for airing such a show.

  13. I just saw the show for the first time tonight. I think they cancelled it because it stunk. That is the worst piece of shat I’ve seen on television.

  14. If they committed fraud, Discovery will simply pay it off along with fines in order to try and run the show. A monetary risk, by discovery. Problem is, the show is a fraud!

  15. I’m very amused at the new December commercials on the Discovery channel, with the Alaskan Bush People.

    Billy says, “No one can stop us – no one!”

    Funny. He should be a comedian. Last I remember, he and his whole family turned tail out of the north, and cried about getting shot at. Even though that he claimed to purchase that land, they ran away like a bunch of nu-prepared refugees.

    BTW – I love the 1970’s biker motive that they all wear. That’s just fantastic for the Alaskan climate.

    Alaskan Bush People needs to come off of Discovery’s channel listing – point blank.

      • I do. They are frauds.

        After they are convicted of felonies they will no longer be able to run around in the woods “checking the perimeter” with firearms. For that I will be truly happy.

        The biker wear was a joke, the conditions that they claimed were a joke. It was a good thing the got out of the valley when they did, we had 3 weeks of -40 that October. (That’s the real reason they left).

  16. I don’t get it … I just saw an advertisement … that the BROWN FAMILY
    is coming back on Discovery in January 2015 …. ???
    Have they cleaned up their act? Have they or some one who “loved their family” paid off the $13,080 amount they owe the state of Alaska. Well
    if they now have a clean slate …. more power to them. I fine it interesting that Discovery is taking this risk with them again. If they have truly been a self sufficient living off the land family, then maybe this time we will see more of it. Billy now seems to be more of a flim-flam man than a mountain man. I guess they are looking for their 15 minutes of fame any way they can get it. Lets hope all the negative is behind them, and they’re moving forward in the light they are trying to convey. Money always becomes a problem, when you don’t work for it. Good luck to the Brown family, and lets see if a new January series shows them as a genuine bush family. Maybe it is the controversy over the Browns that Discovery wants to bring back….?
    Guess we’ll see!

  17. It was pretty obvious they were outta place and unprepared. Their. Clothing, no spare tire, equipment. I think they are not so much true bush people, but maybe trying to avoid laws or not wanting to abide by the laws that govern the. Rest of us. They try to play on sympathies by showing that they have lost everything, I.e. Boat sinking. I wanna know the real story, where have they been, how much are they compensated for show, etc?

  18. They all looked liked a bunch of fakes to me, especially the old man.I don’t, think they could live off the land if they had too. Just a bunch of wanttobees.

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About Ryan Berenz 2166 Articles
Member of the Television Critics Association. Charter member of the Ancient and Mystic Society of No Homers. Squire of the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx, Lodge 49, Long Beach, Calif. Costco Wholesale Gold Star Member since 2011.