Don't just read about it, live it! Channel 4's Pioneer House is experiential history at its best, enabling viewers to follow courageous volunteers as they recreate the lives of American colonists in the conditions of 400 years ago.
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The mission of these present-day adventurers – men, women and children from Britain and the USA – is to create a profitable colony in Maine, New England, just like those of the first European settlers.
Chosen from 10,000 applicants, the 26 pioneers are led by Jeff Wyers, their governor, and Don Heinz, their lay preacher. They arrive in a replica 17th-century ship and move into cramped buildings that have been specially created after years of research by the Plimoth Plantation living history museum.
For four months, they live and work using only tools they would have had access to in 1628. The diet is grim, the weather appalling and the labour backbreaking. The settlers wear authentic 17th-century clothing, have no toilets or baths, and make their own entertainment. Thank goodness someone packed a few kegs of beer.
Not only are living conditions tough, but these colonists have to obey the rigid social hierarchy of the era. They are divided into freemen, who make the decisions, and servants, who must obey. Officially, women have no voice at all.
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