Chris James says quick exit from show also a ‘badge of honour’

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On the surface, Traitors Canada and Naked and Afraid have very little in common.

Other than the fact that they both belong to the ever-expanding universe of unscripted television and both have high-concept premises, the role-playing and treachery of the former offers a very different dynamic to the physically demanding rigours of the latter.

Calgary-based wilderness instructor Chris James has competed on both shows. He was the first Canadian male to participate in the American series Naked and Afraid, appearing in the buff in three different seasons of the series that found him fighting the elements in the wilds of Mexico’s Sonoran Desert; in Limpopo, South Africa; and, most recently, in Colombia.

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For the second season of Traitors Canada, he was the first contestant “murdered” by the titular antagonists at the manor in Montreal. It all happened in Episode No. 2, which aired Sept. 30.

“The thing that attracted me to Traitors is that it’s still a survival show,” says James. “Except, instead of trying to survive nature and elements, you are now trying to survive people and survive their intentions and their back-stabbing and deceit. So, at its core, it’s still a survival show and social experiment. I know I could go out in the wild, I’ve done it on three continents, and survive. But now I wanted to see if I could survive the human capacity.”

“It’s pretty evident that I couldn’t,” he adds. “I was the first one taken out.”

For those unfamiliar with the concept, Traitors Canada is the homegrown version of the global sensation that puts a twist on the murder-mystery format. The premise has a group of 22 strangers meeting at the “manor” in Montreal to compete in various challenges to build up a pot of prize money. At the end of the season, the surviving members of this group of so-called “Faithfuls” can split the bounty. However, there are traitors in the ranks. An unknown number of pre-chosen competitors are secretly working against the Faithfuls to their own ends. Their job is to eliminate players they feel will stand in their way. If a Traitor is the last contestant standing then all the money goes to them while the Faithfuls get nothing. Every night, the Traitors meet in secret to murder a new Faithful and send them home. Meanwhile, the Faithfuls work to unmask and eliminate the Traitors from the game before they are killed off.

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Clearly, the series’ premise requires a much more detailed explanation than the one for Naked and Afraid, which basically revolves around contestants being dumped into the wilderness without shelter, food or clothing for a set period.

But it was his experiences on that series that had James assuring himself that he would be too valuable in the challenges and building the prize pot to be “murdered” in the early goings of Traitors Canada. So he made the unusual move of being one of the five volunteers to be put on “Death Row,” which is where contestants are placed by the Traitors with the idea that one of them will be murdered in the following episode. By volunteering, these brave Faithfuls added $10,000 to the pot.

This was a strategic blunder on James’ part.

“If I were to go back and we could rewind the tape and do it all over again or if I was invited back to do a redo and there was a death row twist, I would not step forward,” he says. “I would glue my boots to the ground, I would not be moving anywhere, I would be 10 toes down and moving forward and let somebody else take that one.”

James arrived in Montreal in July to shoot the series and ended up leaving a few days later after being “murdered.” He hasn’t soured on the series, though. If producers were to ask him back for a future season, he would do it in a second.

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James represents a somewhat new phenomenon in unscripted television: A contestant with more than one series on his resume. Not unlike fellow Calgarian Kevin Martin – who was in the first season of Traitors Canada but also participated in Big Brother Canada 3, Big Brother 5, the Korean poker series Game of Gold and, most recently, Amazing Race Canada – James’s past as a reality-TV star gives him a higher-profile and perhaps more baggage than most contestants who are appearing in the public eye for the first time.

In keeping with the secretive nature of Traitors Canada, James will not say how he came to participate in the series. But he says he became an obsessive fan of the franchise after his last appearance on Naked and Afraid. He needed to physically heal from his experiences in Colombia and was looking for something to watch.

“I had a little bit of downtime to recover and lick my wounds after that gruelling, gruelling episode in the series,” he says. “I started flipping through these streaming apps and came across the Traitors. I read the premise and thought it sounded a little interesting. It was Season 1 of the American one and I was about three episodes in and I got hooked. It was just a binge session where I would get up and start studying and watching the Traitors and watching, watching, watching. After watching quite a few versions – I watched the U.K., I watched Australia, I watched Canada, I watched New Zealand – I watched all of them as far as the English-speaking iterations go. It was one of those series where I was like ‘I have to get on this at some point.’ And I was on it for about six minutes.”

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James runs Be A Lion Outdoors, where he is a wilderness outdoor educator in Calgary. That was how he appeared on the radar of the American producers of Naked and Afraid back in 2019, who recruited him for the series.

Clearly, Naked and Afraid is a much more physically draining enterprise than Traitors Canada. During his time in Mexico on the series, James developed a blood infection. In Colombia, which was easily the most physically taxing of his experiences on the series, he ended up with dengue fever and parasites.

Given his short stint on Traitors, he didn’t need time to recover upon arriving back in Calgary. While he wasn’t pleased about his early exit, he admits he also sees it as a “badge of honour” that the three traitors saw him as enough of a threat to murder him first.

He wouldn’t hesitate if asked to return to Traitors or any other reality-TV series.

“If I got called back to the manor, I would be on a flight tonight,” he says. “But If I got called to any other adventure, any other experience, I will be there. A mantra that I always follow is ‘live your dash.’ What that means to me is that when we pass on, we have a birth date and a death date and that is separated by that dash. The most important thing in life is how you live that dash. So I’m never going to say no to an experience, I’m never going to say no to an adventure. I’m always going to say yes. If another opportunity arises, I will be back on the screen.”

Traitors Canada airs on Mondays on CTV.

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