Mark Anstice (born 17 May 1967 in the Angus Glens area of Scotland) is a Scottish explorer, adventurous documentary reality television film maker and writer. He is best known for appearing in the Travel Channel's series with Oliver Steeds.
After school, Anstice travelled extensively throughout Australia and Asia. In London he joined the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards of the British Army. Anstice spent six years in the guards with operational commitments in the Middle East, Central America and Bosnia, leaving the service in 1995 as a captain.[1]
In 2000, Mark travelled along with his friend Bruce Parry for 77 days to climb the south face of Puncak Mandala in the Indonesian part of New Guinea. This is the third highest mountain of Australasia, but is little known and had only been climbed once before, from the north. During the expedition, the team had first contact with some members of the Korowai tribe. In the course of the expedition, the adventure documentary, Extreme Lives: Cannibals and Crampons.[2] was co-directed and written along with Bruce Parry. The film won both the Banff Mountain Film Festival[3] and Kendal Mountain Film Festival.
Mark subsequently wrote the book First Contact, published by Eye Books.,[4] which was published in 2004. chronicling the expedition to Mount Mandela.
In 2005, Mark took part in the recreation of the Terra Nova Expedition of Robert Falcon Scott and the Amundsen's South Pole expedition of Roald Amundsen as part of the BBC Blizzard: Race to the Pole[5] documentary. The documentary reconstructed the 2500 km expedition using the same equipment, food and clothing as the original two teams, placing the setting in Greenland as dogs were no longer allowed in Antarctica.
Between 2006 and 2008 he co-presented, with Olly Steeds, three 8-part series for Travel Channel in each of which the duo went to live with a remote, jungle-dwelling tribe for three months. In 2009, amidst growing resentment at the way their experiences were edited for the viewing audience, and public controversy surrounding the edit of the third series Steeds left the team and the show was axed. Anstice went on to make a different series, 'Secrets of The Tribes', in West Africa. Mark Anstice currently runs the charity Fertile Roots Foundation.
Anstice is married to Ayelen, who is Argentinian. They have two children and live in Morocco where they operate The Serai, a retreat centre near Essaouira.