Waco’s “fixer-uppers” Chip and Joanna Gaines are out with a new series — one that winds back the clock, dropping three families into the world of 1880s homesteaders.
The participants, who included Dallas-based dads Joe Riggs and Jason Hanna, relinquished their technology for the eight-week social experiment in the Canadian Rockies.
In 1862, circa the era of Manifest Destiny — the belief in a divine push to migrate west — the Homestead Act was passed. In exchange for a small fee, the government doled out acres of land to adult citizens, who would legally own the parcel after five years of continuous residence.
During the eight-episode series Back to the Frontier, a joint venture between the Gaineses’ Magnolia Network and Max, Riggs and Hanna lived in a 600-square-foot cabin with their 10-year-old twin sons, Ethan and Lucas.
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There were hard times, Hanna said in a Zoom call ahead of the show’s July 10 premiere.
At night, they could hear mice scuttling on the cabin’s hardwood floors. “Every drop of water we needed, we had to go to the well. We had to carry it in,” Hanna said.
The frontier life posed a stark contrast to their normal life, where technology loomed large in their household.
The couple was shown on-screen enlisting Amazon’s smart speaker Alexa to raise their bedroom curtains in the morning. Their kids use electric toothbrushes. A swirling gadget vacuums their carpet.
“Our house is pretty well automated,” Hanna said. Part of the allure to him about the series was disconnecting from technology.
“We’re so caught up in modern day life that sometimes, even at a dinner table, we get a ping and it takes our focus away from our kids.”
Both Riggs and Hanna have worked corporate jobs.
During the evenings on the frontier, there was nothing to do, Riggs said.
They passed time playing dominoes and card games.
“Once you remove those devices, they’re focusing on the here and now,” Riggs said of their children.
The boys learned to whittle sticks and build forts.
“They were using their imagination to create this lifestyle,” Hanna said.
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In a news release, the Gaineses said the series “taps into something we’ve always believed — that stepping away from the noise of everyday life can bring you closer to what matters most.”
Early in the season, each family designated a head of household — a role reserved for men.
“Gender roles were a very strong ingrained thing in the 1880s,” Riggs said. “One of our strengths as a two-dad family is that we both have to wear all hats.”’
But to replicate frontier life, they were pushed toward the gender archetypes, with Hanna overseeing the domestic sphere and Riggs working in the field.
Riggs was initially hesitant to uproot their lives for a summer, but he said being on the show was an “opportunity to put ourselves out there and help normalize families like ours.”
Their Dallas life now has relics of time on the homestead. The couple’s son Ethan has developed an affinity for cooking (mostly mushrooms and pies). They have regular game nights — “one on one bonding time,” Hanna called it.
When the show ended, the family was placed in a hotel room. Riggs saw dirt come off from his fingers onto the white bathroom sink. A mirror reflected his unshaven face.
Riggs would later reminisce on the scenic vista of the mountains, while Hanna said he misses rummaging through the garden with his sons to scrounge up meals.
One thing Hanna doesn’t miss though? The lack of running water or electricity.
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