Going to Extremes
{{short description|British Television Programme}}
{{for|the book by Joe McGinniss|Going to Extremes (book)}}
{{other uses|Extreme (disambiguation){{!}}Extreme}}
{{Italic title}}{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}}{{Use British English|date=February 2014}}
Going to Extremes and Surviving Extremes are television programmes made for Channel 4 by Nick Middleton. In each episode of the two series, Middleton visited an extreme area of the world to find out how people have adapted to life there.{{cite web|title=Dr Nick Middleton|url=http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/nmiddleton.html|department=School of Geography and the Environment|publisher=University of Oxford}}
Both Going to Extremes and Surviving Extremes were accompanied by books of the same name, except in the USA where the latter was titled Extremes: Surviving the World's Harshest Environments.
There was also a third series, titled Going to Extremes: The Silk Routes.
''Going to Extremes''
In this series, Middleton visited the coldest, hottest, driest and wettest permanent settlements in the world.
;Coldest:
Oymyakon in Siberia, where the average winter temperature is −47 °F (− 44 °C).
;Driest:
Arica in Chile, where there had been fourteen consecutive years without rain. Fog is the only local source of water.
;Wettest:
Mawsynram in India, where average annual rainfall is 14 meters, falling within a four-month period in the monsoon season. The rainfall is approximately equal to that of its neighbor Cherrapunji.
;Hottest:
Dallol in Ethiopia, known as the 'Hell-hole of creation'{{cite book|last1=Nesbitt|first1=Ludovico Mariano|title=Hell-hole of creation; the exploration of Abyssinian Danakil.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4123838|publisher=A.A. Knopf|language=English|date=1 January 1934|oclc=4123838 }} where the temperature averages 94 °F (34 °C) over the year.
''Surviving Extremes''
In his second series, Middleton visited places without permanent towns, locations where "survival requires a lifestyle completely in tune with Nature's rhythms."
;Sand – Niger: Middleton travelled with a group of women across the Sahara in extreme heat to trade date palms.
;Ice – Greenland: Middleton travelled with the indigenous people of northern Greenland, where four fifths of the land is permanently ice-covered.
;Jungle – Democratic Republic of Congo: Middleton visited the dangerous jungle in Congo.
;Swamp – Papua: Middleton examined how people live with very little solid land.
;Toxic – Kazakhstan: Middleton visited an abandoned Soviet biological weapons testing site with a toxic environment.
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- Middleton, Nick Going to Extremes: Mud, Sweat and Frozen Tears.
- Channel 4 books, 2001, hardcover, {{ISBN|0-7522-2016-0}}
- Pan Books – Macmillan UK, 2003, paperback, {{ISBN|0-330-49384-1}}.
- Middleton, Nick Extremes : Surviving the World's Harshest Environments .
- Thomas Dunne Books, 2005, hardcover, {{ISBN|0-312-34266-7}}.
- Middleton, Nick Surviving Extremes.
- Macmillan, paperback, 2004, {{ISBN|0-330-43182-X}}.