BBC Two airing Alaskan adventure with roots in west central Minnesota

A float plane dropped them off at a remote lake, and Duane Ose and his 15-year-old son hiked 57 miles through trackless wilderness in central Alaska for 15 days to reach the site where he filed one of the last claims ever made under the federal Homestead Act of 1862.

Duane and his wife, Rena, would call this place with its view of distant Mount Denali “ Ose Mountain .” They made it their home for more than 30 years. They spent their first nine years in a 9-foot by 11-foot dugout while they felled more than 2,000 spruce trees and hand-built a three-story home far from any help. The nearest road is more than 100 miles away, and it’s a $1,100-a-pop, 145-mile airplane flight to Fairbanks.

In contrast to their solitary accomplishments in remote Alaska, the next occupants of Ose Mountain will prove themselves worthy of the place before a global audience.

BBC Two will begin airing a six-part series “Win the Wilderness” this Sunday. It follows six English couples vying to win the home and five-acre site known as Ose Mountain. And, it allows Duane and Rena to tell their story and help select the couple who will carry on their legacy.

“A lot of history there,” said Duane Ose. “Hope it comes across OK with the people,” he said of the series.

He and Rena are currently living in Redwood Falls. “There is such a thing called aging,” said Ose of what led him to return to Minnesota. He will turn 78 on Sunday, and both he and Rena have had heart troubles.

Ose grew up on a farm in Yellow Medicine County , served in the Army in Korea in 1964-65, and returned to operate his own cement business. He lost sight in one eye when his first wife, inebriated, pulled out a rifle and fired it.

He fell in love with the Alaskan wilderness on a trip, and didn’t turn back. He filed his homestead claim in 1986.

He met Rena, a native of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, thanks to an ad she placed looking for someone interested in living in either the Northwest Territories or Alaska. She mentioned she liked the cold.

She’s acclimating herself pretty well to life in Redwood Falls, said her husband. There’s running water and a thermostat on the wall, he pointed out, luxuries they never enjoyed on Ose Mountain.

Jason Davis of KSTP Television fame once visited them at Ose Mountain for his show, but otherwise, Duane and Rena never have had the attention that they experienced this past year. A production crew numbering 30 spent time filming there. The six couples vying to prove their wilderness savvy were put through their trials at a wilderness camp miles away.

Ose had two encounters with grizzly bears during his years in Alaska, and plenty of visits by black bears who have clawed at the house to get inside. He told the six couples about these and other challenges the winning couple will face. He advised them on what it takes to live in the wilderness.

“You have to have an income, a source of money to live on,” said Ose, who had devoted long hours to trapping. “You better have an income, true grit, and know how to be in solitude and be safe and cautious and be prepared like the Scouts."

Duane and Rena are not able to speak about which couple was chosen to carry on their legacy. He said his desire is to see the successful couple carry on the legacy and continue to improve Ose Mountain.

Ose said they had initially pitched the idea to Hollywood of a television series to award the home. At one point there were more than 700 applicants for the home from the U.S., including some living in Alaska, Minnesota and Michigan. Ultimately, the television folks in California turned it down, and BBC Two stepped up, according to Ose.

Under terms of an agreement with BBC Two, they had to move out of their home by September.

Moving back to Minnesota has brought challenges. “Harsher weather here than up in Alaska in our area,” said Ose. “Wet snow turns into ice right away, blizzardly wind comes from one direction one day and turns around goes back the other direction the next day.”

He had picked his home in Alaska on the arid, interior highlands, knowing that cold air sinks. The coldest temperature he’s experienced on Ose Mountain has been 20 below, although not far away on the lake they overlook, the temperature has dropped to 65 below.

The other challenge of returning has been getting used to the noise and daily hubbub of life surrounded by neighbors.

“It’s the opposite of being dropped off by an airplane and the plane disappears over the horizon and the noise disappears with it and all of a sudden you get this crunchy feeling, compressing feeling on you of solitude. I always tell everyone shrug it off and get to work, can’t dwell on it.”

“Coming back here was the opposite. Felt like a lion in a zoo being watched,” he said.

To learn about the show, check out the BBC Two webpage: Win the Wilderness: Alaska (https://bbc.in/2uwgQzk). Ose said it’s possible that it will be available for live viewing on DISH, but otherwise the episodes can be live-streamed from BBC Two after they have aired.

Ose is currently writing his fourth book about his Alaskan adventures. His books are available via Amazon.

1/8: Duane Ose is shown with an airplane on the airstrip he and Rena cleared in the Alaskan forest to allow planes to bring them visitors and goods. In the early days, the couple wrote a grocery list for goods expected to last them for months at a time. Submitted

2/8: Win the Wilderness series appearing on the BBC

3/8: A February 2010 photo of Rena with pelts from their trapping enterprise. Submitted

4/8: Duane and Rena Ose felled more than 2,000 spruce trees to build their three-story home in the Alaskan wilderness. What they couldn't make themselves had to be brought in by airplane. Their home is more than 100 miles from the nearest road. Submitted

5/8: The Ose's home at Ose Mountain offers a view of the distant peak of Mount Denali. Submitted

6/8: Duane and Rena Ose built their home in remote Alaska. Six English couples are vying to continue their legacy at Ose Moutain in a six-part series to be broadcast by BBC Two beginning Sunday. Submitted

7/8: Duane Ose at the home he and Rena built in Alaska. Submitted

8/8: Rena Ose and her husband, Duane, tell of their adventures living for more than 30 years in remote Alaska in the upcoming BBC Two series "Win the Wilderness." The six-part series begins airing Sunday. Submitted