Race Across The World cast endure ‘genuinely scary’ bear encounters in series 3

Race Across The World series 3 sounds terrifying (Picture: BBC)

Race Across The World is finally back after four years away and this time the new batch of contestants are heading to Canada, where they face the danger of… bears.

The hit BBC reality contest follows five pairs of friends or relatives as they race from one end of Canada to the other on a painfully tight budget without flying.

They’ll kip wherever they can find a shelter for a cheap as possible, often having to work for their sleep and food.

Previous series have followed contestants zooming from one end of South America to another, while the first saw the group dash from London to Singapore.

This time Canada is the race course, which comes with a grisly new challenge.

‘There are bears around,’ producer Maria Kennedy said at a recent event.

‘Each team had to carry bear fences. So they would go to a campsite at night and we’d have to put their electric fence up around their camp, so if any bears came strolling around, they’d hopefully be safe.’

The operative word being ‘hopefully’.

‘Bears are not that scared of cameras, they would have taken them out,’ Maria continued. ‘So yes, the cast were genuinely scared – as they should be. But they did have bear spray and obviously we would have intervened.’

Race Across The World welcomes a new batch of contestants (Credits: BBC/Studio Lambert)

When asked if there was any seriously sticky moments during filming, Maria added: ‘For routes, no. For Bears, yes.’

As a spectator, BBC commissioner Michael Jochnowitz spoke more fondly of the bears.

‘There’s a great scene in episode five, I think it is, and there staying at the a hotel, and it’s 4am, and a bear is just roaming outside the front of the hotel. Even as a viewer you think actually it’s that close, it’s that real,’ he said.

For the third series of Race Across The World, we’re all about to become unreasonably emotionally invested in Monique and her dad Ladi, best friends Tricia and Cathie, and Claudia and her dad Kevin, husband-wife duo Zainib and Mobeen, and brothers Marc and Michael.

Race Across The World returns to BBC One on March 22.

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‘Bears are not that scared of cameras.’