Frontier House is a historical reality television series that originally aired on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States from April 29 to May 3, 2002.
[14] The participants spent two weeks in classrooms and kitchens, learning about the history of the period and gaining expertise in animal husbandry, carpentry, chopping wood, clothes washing, cooking, farming, gardening, harvesting skills, personal hygiene (without the use of toilet paper), sewing, soap making, and other skills which the average person in 1880s Montana would have known.
[13][15] The participants spent their days learning skills in Virginia City, Montana—a restored ghost town, open-air museum, and National Historic Landmark.
[17] In preparation for leaving for the homestead site, participants were allowed to purchase whatever items their budget could afford—so long as it could fit into the single horse-drawn covered wagon provided to each family for hauling goods.
Rob Owen, writing for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, noted that the Glenn marriage "begins to disintegrate as holier-than-thou Karen harshly harps on Mark for everything and anything.
They secretly put a box spring mattress beneath their bed, sneaked off the homestead to sell baked goods, stole fish from a neighbor's lake, and smuggled in shampoo, soap, and cosmetics.
[22] Clune and some of the other men on the show stole video cameras from the production crew and "hunted" deer with them in an attempt to prove that they could have shot the animals.
The producers later said that the decision to have the homesteaders prepare to survive a Montana winter led to this competition, which was a regrettable and unintended side-effect.
[23] During production of the series, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, and on the Pentagon in Washington D.C., occurred.
She said she was convinced that the production should have shut down for a few days to permit the participants to learn more and to determine if any friends had died in the Twin Towers disasters.
[26] Filming of Frontier House occurred in an undisclosed valley on a ranch approximately 25 miles (40 km) south of Big Timber, Montana, owned by Ken Davenport.
The Crow Nation had originally been given the area as a reservation, but they ceded it back to the United States in 1882 in favor of a larger parcel of land to the east.
[13] The country store run by the fictional Hop Sing Yim (played by local Montana historian Ying-Ming Lee)[29] was 10 miles (16 km) away, and required hiking on foot over two mountain passes.
[13] The production team learned that it was common for homesteaders in Montana in the 1880s to find abandoned cabins, and to live in them while building better housing.
This allowed the network to market Frontier House at the same time as other new series and specials, saving advertising dollars.
[13] The decision to air the show against other series on broadcast television networks during the highly popular May sweeps was strongly criticized.