A companion volume to the new PBS series Frontier House offers behind-the-scenes details on the planning, production, casting, and filming of the six-hour series, along with informative sidebars offering historical perspectives, profiles of real-life settlers, and the social and cultural aspects of life of pioneers in the American West. Simon Shaw is the series producer of Frontier House. He has spent more than twenty years as a television and radio producer for such prestigious organizations as the BBC. In 1999 Shaw joined Wall To Wall, under the leadership of Managing Director Alex Graham, one of the United Kingdom's leading independent producers of quality factual programming and drama. There Shaw had a unique opportunity to immerse himself in a lifelong fascination: trying to understand the everyday experiences of life in the past. First up was the award-winning television series 1900 House, in which a British family spent three months enduring the ups and downs of life in a Victorian home. After taking on World War II in The 1940s House, Shaw was thrilled to explore the settlement of the American West for public television. The experience left him with a deeper love of beautiful scenery but an even greater appreciation of modern life's luxuries. Chapter One: The American Dream If you were told that an artist had devised this place, you'd believe it. Tucked in a perfect valley that nestles at the feet of a mesmerizing mountain range lies the place we call Frontier Valley. Even Montanans, who've grown accustomed to living among majestic settings, pause to take in its beauty. Sit quietly here and nature will come to you. Deer and elk graze nearby, eagles will watch you from on high. Time your visit right and hundreds of species of wildflowers and butterflies will accompany you. Last spring we brought a dozen strangers here. Men, women, and children from across America who imagined we had delivered them to a heaven on earth. But beauty and serenity comes with a price. This valley, a lush carpet of green for much of the year, can be deep in snow for up to six months. (Minus forty degrees isn't uncommon where the plains meet the mountains.) The real residents here are hungry predators such as coyotes, bears, and mountain lions. In high summer the sun chars every blade of grass to a crisp brown. Raging forest fires are an annual hazard. In truth, you and I probably wouldn't find it such an enticing place once Mother Nature had shown us the full picture of life here. But this place really was home for a small community who volunteered to take part in a unique experiment. For six months they put their real lives on hold to forsake the modern world and stepped into the shoes of their ancestors to taste life when being on the frontier promised no safety nets. Isolation, danger, unpredictable weather, and punishing workloads became their everyday expectations. Their experience affected them in ways no one expected. From the youngest (nine years old) through to the most senior member of the community (sixty-eight), this was a life-changing encounter. It all began at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, November 21, 2000, when PBS television affiliate KPTS broadcast an appeal to its Kansas audience: "It's time to make American history....Could you live as a pioneer out in the American West? ...We're looking for volunteers." In making the twenty-second broadcast the station was, unknowingly, starting the first current in a wave that was about to envelop the nation. Seventeen minutes later the first response landed via e-mail at frontier@pbs.org. By the end of that day thirty-eight other applications had arrived. By the end of the month upward of one hundred and fifty responses were received daily as the message flashed from Hawaii to New York City. Christmas saw over two thousand hopeful families join the rush. By our deadline of January 15, 2001, more than fifty-five hundred applications had been received. As we started to wade through the piles of eager entrants it became clear that the dream of carving a new life out in the untamed land of the West was still a potent force in modern America. Life in this day and age is way too fast. I just want the opportunity to slow down and take advantage of the more important things like the smell of pure, clean air and to know that I have a part in giving something to my children that was not bought or ordered. -- Family, Florida My son is a dotcomer and making lots of money at twenty-three but has decided that wealth isn't everything. -- Mom, New York I always feel that we are spoiled by our technological developments and want to develop a proper amount of respect for those who gave their lives so that future generations could live on. -- Father, San Francisco Like most girls growing up in the 1970s I was addicted to Little House on the Prairie and often wondered what it was really like to live during such exciting, yet uncertain times. I realize that life in the