Locals featured on National Geographic show

Last summer Andy Breland got a phone call from a producer interested in featuring him in a show for the National Geographic Channel.

But the caller didn’t come off that way — at least not initially — and Breland hung up on him not once but three times. He thought he was trying to sell him something.

On the fourth try, the producer pleaded with Breland, “Do not hang up.”

So Breland listened.

On May 7, Breland and longtime friends Chuck Allen and Bud Petryszak will be featured in a new National Geographic Channel show, “Dead End Express.”

The program showcases the real lives of men and women who supply people living in the hinterlands of the United States.

Breland, Allen and Petryszak have been packing horse and mule trains in the woods and wilderness for decades.

Their segment of the show, which runs 22 minutes each over six episodes, features them packing supplies to lookouts, stocking fish to remote lakes and a host of other adventures on Flathead National Forest and F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. land outside the wilderness (wilderness rules don’t allow commercial filming).

The men said it was a lot of fun but also a lot of work. They all quit the second day in. After two consecutive 16-hour days of shooting, tempers flared with the film crew. But in the end, there was a meeting of the minds and the men all eventually became good friends.

“They were trying to teach us to be TV stars and we were trying to teach them to ride a horse,” said Breland, who last year spent 85 days sleeping in the woods and packed more than 1,000 miles with his team of horses and mules.

“You’d turn around to talk to them and the horse would be empty. They’d fallen off.”

But they kept at it, shooting for weeks on end last fall and early winter. It dropped well below zero in November and the film crew taped handwarmers on all the equipment and themselves to stay warm.

Filming was a tedious process at times.

The men had to make sure they had clothes that matched day after day. Allen once put on a different shirt and a producer asked him if he wore that shirt yesterday.

“Well no,” he said. “That shirt was dirty.”

But in the film, yesterday was still today. He went and got the old shirt, dirty or not.

And there were often multiple takes.

“If we had a trip that took two hours, it would take at least eight hours to get it done,” Petryszak said.

Petryszak was the head wrangler — his horse team carried all the crew’s gear. And there was plenty of it. They attached Go Pro miniature video cameras to just about everything, including the riders, the horses, the mules and their pack saddles. They also flew over with camera drones.

The resulting footage is dramatic. The men have only seen bits and pieces so far, but in National Geographic style, it’s premium eye candy.

Breland said a lot of the credit goes to the families of the three men, who kept things operating at home while they were out shooting. Breland owns Trailhead Supply in Kalispell and his daughter and wife ran the shop and the ranch while he was gone. Allen had to take a five-week leave of absence from his job with the city of Whitefish just to be on the show.

Petryszak said while it was a lot of work, there were lighter moments as well.

On time, a film crew member stopped to shoot some footage and let go of his horse. The horse took off to be with the other horses and Petryszak went chasing after it, charging through the brush on his own horse.

In the pursuit, he lost a .357 Ruger Blackhawk pistol and was none too happy about it.

The film crewman apologized.

Petryszak said he wouldn’t have been so sore about it, but his brother gave him that pistol just before he died.

“Oh no,” the crewman said. “I knew you’d say something like that.”

“Just kidding,” Petryszak said with a smile.

The show debuts Thursday, May 7, at 9 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel and is available on other outlets, including Hulu, the day after the premiere.

Breland said the men are hopeful it gets picked up for another season. They’re already working on storylines.