Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Zero Degrees Kelvin

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Conan talks with Kelvin from the Canadian Far North about his Dene ancestry and which of Conan, Matt, and Sona would survive the longest alone in the wild. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Hey, Kelvin, say hi to Conan and Sona. Hi. Hey, Kelvin. How are you? Hi. Hi, Sona. Hi. Kelvin, nice to meet you.

Yeah, absolutely. Pleasure to be here. Where are you right now, sir? I am calling you from Hay River, Northwest Territories, which is like way up in the Canadian far north, like close to the Arctic, basically. Wow. Oh, wow. Wait a minute.

Okay. So central, give me a longitude here. What? Alaska. Alaska. Okay. So you're up near, towards the west. Yeah.

So it's like, oh, wait, longitude. Which one is the horizontal and which is the vertical? I'm not good at my nautical charts. I think longitude is the long one, right? Yeah. No, longitude is this. Longitude is up and down. Longitude is up and down, and then latitude is the cross.

I never said I knew what I was talking about. Hey, Kelvin, could you excuse us for about 40 minutes? Yeah. Well, we iron out one of the basic principles of geographical navigation. You know, I was just curious if, like, I know that you're very far north, but I was just trying to figure out, you know, where are you? Are you in central Canada? Which region?

Yeah. So north of Montana? Yes. And east of Alaska? Oh, longitude. Yeah. Oh. This is why people tune in for this podcast, right?

It's the in-depth discussion of longitude and latitude. Well, that's what, it's like Sesame Street. Every day there's a theme. Today's the letter M, and then we're also doing longitude and latitude. And then a thing about... Far north. And then a thing about stranger danger towards the end, but we'll get to that. So Kelvin, that's cool.

So you're, I mean, you're quite, tell me about this town. How remote is this town that you're in? Is it Hey River? Is that what you said? Yeah, Hey River. So Hey River, this is where I was born and raised. And it is, so, so Northwest Territories, this is like the area that I live in. It is twice the size of Texas, and it has 40,000 people.

Oh my God. Oh, area. So if you want to high five someone, it takes you like six hours to just find anybody, right? Yeah. Usually not worth it. Do you ever randomly see people going through the woods with their hand up for a high five? And they're just, they've been walking for nine hours to high fives. Anybody?

Yeah, it's just so exciting and satiating to actually get that high five. You're like, oh, that was... So what's in town? Like, okay, you're in town, you want to do something fun. What are your possibilities? You're in Hey River, you want to get crazy. What are the options? Yeah.

I mean, like, it's still a town. It's not as if people are spread out, you know, like, like, you know, four kilometers away. Right. Like 4,000 people who live here. Oh, if we're going to use metric, then I may have to cut this interview short. Okay, right. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. But, you know, I'm rapidly losing patience with you. Okay. So fork. But what you're saying is so that people are, yeah, it's a town, I understand it's a town. So there's a convenience store. Is there fast food restaurants? Are there things like that?

Well, so when I grew up, I wish that there was fast food restaurants. So like, when you're 12, all that you really want to do is just like be a normal kid and like go to McDonald's or whatever. But if you wanted to go to McDonald's, it would be a five hour drive. No. Wait, five hours to get to a McDonald's? Pass. I don't know.

The McNuggets with the sweet and sour sauce. No, I'm saying I don't, I want it to be like a minute away. No, I know, but I would still make it's about making your generation doesn't make the effort. My generation knows that a five hour drive to McDonald's is nothing compared to what some people have to go through. Actually, my friends and I, we didn't do the five hour drive, but we drove three hours once to go to a Quiznos and to go to Boston Pizza when we were in grade 12. Oh my God.

I'm sorry. Those are not good chains. I'm sorry. You know, if I'm faced with a choice between three hours to get to the Quiznos or five hours to get to the McDonald's, I think I'm doing the extra two hours. But what if Quiznos is a sponsor of this podcast? Then I'm going to Quiznos and I'm going to enjoy some of the best food that I've ever had in my life.

Food. We don't have so many major countries. I got to be very broad here because I, it's not like I've dropped in on a Quiznos lately, but food that can be digested and then excreted later, that's where I'm going to enjoy Quiznos. Oh, come on. Just trying to be as vague as possible. Now, I'm going to be bold here, but people don't come to Northwest Territories for the Quiznos and the McDonald's.

They come here for the wilderness. That's what I will say. What about the Taco Bells? Yeah. You've got eight Taco Bells in the town. All the Taco Bells are in the wilderness. Why, if you go 70 kilometers out through those dark woods, you'll hit a Taco Bell. No, well, tell us about, it must be absolutely stunningly beautiful when you walk into the

woods there. Yeah, it is. And so this whole area is the traditional territory of my ancestors as a Denne person of the Northwest Territories. And so my peeps have been up here for about 15,000 years out in the woods. Yeah. Okay. And so say, yeah, this is the Denne people.

Is that what you say? Yeah. The Denne. I am a proud Denne man. Okay. Very cool. And tell me about the history of the Denne people. I'm curious.

Yeah. So it's kind of a large group. Like a lot of people know the Inuit, which are sort of like the folks that are way up in the high arctic. Yes. And so we're the next ones down. So we're the ones that would like, we would go back and forth between the tundra. So like the barren lands following the caribou.

So you'd go up to the, like, you know, in the summer up to the barren lands and then back into the forest. And they were just like tough, badass people, of which I'm very proud to be. That's so cool. But you said, follow me to the caribou. You were hunting them. You weren't just following. Stalking.

Yes. You know, because there was a lot of, there were a lot of complaints that it's just like, I swear to God, the Denne are just creeping on the caribou. The caribou are just trying to chill and, you know. This is the stranger danger element. Exactly. The Denne were always sliding into the caribou DMs. Oh my God.

It was just incredible. Oh my God. It was like, hey. It's a weird way of looking at it. Okay. No, that's so cool. Okay. So you were, your ancestors and your people would live off the caribou and have to follow

them for incredible distances and latitude and longitude. They were tough. Right. Way tougher than any of us here. Like, so for example, there's like white explorers that have like journals in the 1700s of like following these people around. And the accounts would be like, you know, the white British guy would be like, we haven't eaten in four days and the mood is low and we are fatigued.

But the Denne, they're just like skipping and jumping and like, you know, gossiping about who's got a crush on who, just like, I can't know the words. Right. These, these, these white chroniclers are saying things like it's six hours to a McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah. This is unheard of. And when we got there and the sign said over two served, wow.

This is a, okay. So that's so cool. Other, so the Denne population is quite high in your area. Would you say that when you do high five someone, chances are it's someone in also a Denne ancestor or some part of the Denne tribe? I think it's about a half and half of the 40,000. There's like half and half, like 2020. But just don't, just don't let the, don't let the Irish in.

They ruin everything. We've been trying, there's a sign at the border. Trust me. No, no Irish person would blame you. Okay, go ahead. You'll need to come up just given that, you know, you've been to all, you've done these cornered the borders, but typically you go to these like, you know, really boring warm places.

I think that you need to come up and get a little frosty sometime. You know what? I mean, I have explored, I did, I do, I did explore Greenland and I explored Finland, but you're right. I think, I think coming up to the name of your town again is, is, Hey River, Hey River. Yeah. Yeah. Yellenites might be the place that more people know.

There's lots of tourism. Like everybody comes here for like to view the Northern Lights. It's like this big boomer tourism industry. Yeah. And so like a lot of Asian tourists, specifically like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, like not too many Americans are Canadians. They, the Asian folks, they come up here and they'll Aurora hunt. So there's all these tourism outfits where you pack in like 20 people into a van and

you'll bomb around the back roads of like Yellenife and Arthur's territories, trying to find the best spot to see the Northern Lights. I want to do that. I do too. I just don't think they should be taking a van. I think you should be hiking. You know, I'm sorry. I'm, as you've probably could guess, I'm a real outdoorsman.

No, no, I like to strap on a pair of boots and get out there, let my legs do the talking and I like to see the world. What's this? Well, I just, I just don't know if you've captured the lingo outdoorsman barely came out of your mouth. It's like you had to vomit at it out. It's the second time I've said it in my life. The first one was to say, I am not an outdoorsman.

I, sir, am no outdoorsman. I said, let's, let's, let's, let's compare you to, to, to, to a real outdoorsman. All right. So we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see. Nice. So, so my great grandpa, he was a denny man and what he would do is in the wintertime he would dog sled out to the tundra, like the middle of nowhere by himself with his dog team and he would trap white foxes all winter as you do.

Now he was out there by himself and there was once like he kind of took a tumble on a ridge and he gashed his leg and it started to gangrene and so he cut his own leg off. Oh. Okay. Well, here's what. Wow. I tumble a lot. I fall a lot.

So that part I'm totally right there with your ancestor, you know, I fell this morning three times and I was in a sitting position. So I'm not at all intimidated by that. But so he cut his own leg off. I don't think I would do that. That's cool. I don't think I would do that. I mean, it's not cool.

I mean, it's cool. You know what I would do? So I would ask you to cut my leg off. I would, I would do that for you. I'll do that right now. You would do that rather than remove a bandaid on my calf. You'd say, I'll just chop the whole thing off. No, no, it's just a slight scratch.

Wow. Okay. So, so this has got to be in your genetic code. You've got to be a tough guy. You really do. You, there's no way you're not. Well, I don't think I would cut my own leg off, but like he did go back to the woods the next year and just kept living off the land like with this wooden leg.

But I don't do that. However, I do like to disappear just into the woods now and again, and like just spend a week out there by myself or more. And that's actually one of my favorite things to do. Are you pretty good at, you know, keeping track of your whereabouts? Are you good at navigating and things like that in the woods? Yeah. I guess saying there's no trails.

So you want to be careful, right? Yeah. I like, I like being on the river. So like, I like having a canoe and like my pack kind of thing. And then like, you know, like portaging between spots, that's probably when I'm at my happiest moment. Oh, I got to say. I hate portaging.

Really? I love portaging. I hate portaging. I'm dying to know what it means. What is it? Portaging is when I was in this, I went to many camps. My parents were very eager to get me away. So they sent me off to these sort of rigorous camps where you would go on these long journeys.

And portaging is when you get to a place where the river becomes impassable, so, unpassable. So you take the, you and two other people usually take the canoe or you can do it by yourself and you haul the canoe over land at great distances to get to the next place where you can put it in water. And I remember hating portaging. And when you read Lewis and Clark's diaries, they had to portage a lot because they're exploring, you know, these, to them, completely unknown parts of the United States. Thomas Jefferson sent them out there to find out what was there.

And Jefferson actually thought they're going to see mastodon. He thought they were going to be willy mammoths out there. People had no idea what they were going to find and sent them out there. But every time they got to the portaging, it just sounded awful. How can you explore with a canoe on your head? You can't see. Well, you cut holes through the, just cut holes through the little sites. White holes through the canoe.

You can't do that. Yeah, you do. I cut holes all the time. Camp counselors hated me because I was always cutting a hole, little holes, eye holes through the canoe. Anyway, it took us on a long, I think, informative discussion. I think we learned what portaging is and we learned a little bit about one of the great explorations.

Calvin, I actually have it in my notes that you came back in from a moose hunt just to do this interview. Yeah, right? Yeah. So yesterday, I woke up on the side of a river in the Canadian wilderness. And tomorrow morning, I'm probably going to wake up in a tent on the side of a river in the Canadian wilderness. I mean...

I popped in just to say hi. Okay. And... Wow. Do you hunt? Do you hunt the fierce moose? Yes, I do. Now I will say there's shitty hunters out there that just try to get a rhinoceros on their

wall or whatever. That's not what we do. It's a caret, like, respectful way and it's about feeding your family and culture and tradition. So yeah, absolutely. What's your weapon when you hunt? Bazooka. A rifle.

Right. Okay. Oh my God. Is it cool to use a grenade? I don't know. I mean, it's cool. It's cool. I'd like to blow up a moose.

You would not last in the woods. I would. If I saw a moose, I'd be like, you know, they're a grenade! And I would throw it. Fire in the hole. Yeah. And then you just see antlers raining down. So...

There aren't antlers. Yes, there are. Moose? Yeah. Oh, sorry, Sona. I didn't mean to. Sona's really up on wildlife. I'm sorry to offend you.

Oh, yeah. Because you're an expert on wildlife. The fierce moose! I've battled a moose in my day. You're the one who asked if moose have antlers. Guys, guys. Everyone knows they do. You're bumming my portage.

Okay. Just chill out a little bit. All right. God. Well, that's very cool. I would love to go moose hunting with you because... Yeah. Oh, come on.

You think... I'd be a fun guy to have along. I'm a chipper-chappy. Okay. So, here's what I think. Okay. I feel like... And respectfully, Conan.

I feel like... Oh, this isn't gonna... We all know this isn't going well. I love it. Respectfully. Okay. Respectfully. Uh-huh.

I feel like camping with you would be intolerable. Yes. Why? Just say it. I can take it. Say it. You should try podcasting with it. You just don't take anything seriously.

Like, everything would just be a joke. You wouldn't be able to do anything done. Yep. You'd be making fun of everybody. Yep. People would just want to push you in the river. That kind of stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. You'd be doing everything right. But I think that leads up to a fun time. What's the problem with everything you just listed? As long as someone else is keeping us alive, providing food, and doing all the work, I think I'm just a lot of fun to have along. Hey, man. Sonya, you want to go camping sometime?

Yes! Yes! Good. Mad will be much more useful to you than I will bet. That's not true. I think you will. No, I think you're... Okay.

So, here's what I think, though. Here's what I think. Okay. There's an animalistic version of you. There is. It's going to take being pushed up against the wall, like a plane crash in the wilderness, where you have to fend for yourself. Yeah.

Or something will just crack. Oh, I mean, you've seen it, Sonya, right? You've been around me when the chips are down. I have... When you've gotten rugged? Well, I didn't say rugged, but when pushed to the edge, yes, I have Viking-like abilities. I think Kelvin's saying, though, the key there is something snaps and you become feral. Yeah.

You go off into the woods and you come back... You're thirsty. Wearing a loincloth. Nothing else. Yeah. And it's not even in the right place. I think I should go on the show naked and afraid. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, no, you don't think so? Well, I think so. I'd watch it. I'd watch it. Yeah. I'm in. I think the clown part of you would overtake the, like, I need to survive part of you.

I think you would die joking. Yes, I would. I do think that I... You're out of it. No, seriously, I would. I think that is a problem. I think I'm an evolutionary dead end. I think I'm not meant to survive because...

Junk DNA. Because when the chips really got down, Kelvin, and we were both trapped there and we were starving, you would finally reach deep down into your proud heritage, your DNA heritage, and you would go out and you would make something happen. And I would take little pieces of rocks and twigs and create a scenario, a silly scenario. A silly scenario. And I would have the rock be sort of passive-aggressive to the twig and the twig hit the rock. And I'd be giggling as I died.

Yeah. But the animals around me would be amused. Yeah, so between cutting your own leg off to survive... Stunning endorsement, yeah. Or, like, curl up and die further to the... He would take your gangrene leg if it were you and you would make jokes with it. And then you would die. Right.

You'd find my skeleton later on, but you'd see that there was a... I had a grinning smile, you know, because I had giggled my way into the afterlife. Would it be dead as a skeleton and then there'd be a rubber chicken skeleton next to you? Yeah. Oh, God. I'm always like a little, you know, for when society collapses, which, you know, who knows when that could happen. Two weeks.

To always kind of be prepared who your crew is, like you're going to disappear in the woods with. And so I feel very confident that when that happens, I can just wander. But, like, I feel like all y'all in LA are pretty fucked. We are. Oh, yeah. Well, here's Calvin, do you ever listen to the podcast when you're in the wilderness, like you're way out there on your own?

And clearly you must be a fan if you've reached out to us. Do you ever, when you're just far, far away in the beauty of nature, listen to the podcast? No. I see. Did you want him to say yes? Yeah, I did. Isn't it nice that he unplugged and he goes out there and appreciates? No, he listens to other podcasts out there.

I feel like don't do it long. My whole life isn't just being in the woods. If you could tell me that you just listened to the ads, that would help me a lot. Oh, yeah. The ads, for sure. There you go. Okay, great. All right, I'm doing that.

And the tax is happy. So you don't listen to every single episode. You don't listen to every single episode. Oh, great. Oh, good. Yeah, but just not in the woods. And actually, so, like, as a denigate growing up, I was such a huge fan of your show. But it would be, you know, all the celebrities who appear on the show, they would never be

people like me. Okay. And so it's like, it's a huge honor to be able to be here and just be able to talk to you. To be like, hey, yeah, like we're like inserting more indigeneity into the world. And I think that that's what we do. Kelvin, the honor is ours. Seriously. And I seriously would love to come and check out your neck of the woods and walk around

with you. That'd be really fun. Yeah. As long as we brought 900 pounds of food with us. Yeah, McDonald's. Yeah. If Gurley followed us, Gurley followed right behind us as we were trekking in a Chevy Suburban and it was just packed with ringdings, miodals, energy drinks, you know, and laptops, then

I'm fine. My goal would be, I'd love, because I work in media as well too. It's not just the woods that I disappear into. But at some point, I want to work my way up. And so I want to, like, elbow everybody else out of the way who's a fan and try to get to the real show. That'll be one of my goals. Ooh.

I'm coming. I'm coming for you, Conan. You're one of those celebrities. I'll get back on television when I do that. Just for that. No, seriously. Just for that. I agree.

I would like that. I would like that. Well, you're a very, I mean, you're a very telegenic fellow as well, Kel, and you're a very good-looking fellow. So, yes, you know, I think definitely you should just take my job. I've been told a lot of my life that I look like various celebrities, even though I'm, like, from the sticks. Wherever I go around the world, people say, like, you look like this celebrity or that

celebrity. I can see that. You've got a little bit of, who do you get a lot? Because I could see there's different people. The celebrity who follows me around, who is, like, this constant presence in my life is Ryan Reynolds. Yes. I can see that.

Yes. You've got the similar smile to Ryan Reynolds. Yes. Yeah. I can see that. For the past 15 years, like, every month, several times, just, like, strangers will, like, stop me. They'll be like, you know who you remind me of?

Yeah. Ryan Reynolds. I'll be at the grocery store or, like, in a, like, intimate situation, like, after intimacy, after intercourse. You mean post bone? Well, we, we call it the post bone zone. Okay. Oh, sorry.

Sorry. What's this? This is the correct terminology. Oh, my God. Uh-huh. So you're in that situation and what happens? After a wet nap. So, whether it's the grocery store or after intimacy, I've heard this statement so many

times. You know who you remind me of? Oh. Ryan Reynolds. Oh, thank you. Wait, so you've been in that intimate moment with a person and then they say that afterwards? But that implies that they've been with Ryan Reynolds, you know, and they're comparing you like, it's not just your face.

Oh, that's interesting. It's your, it's your moves. You know? I'm told. Oh, God. I'm told in those intimate moments afterwards that I look like Kate Blanchett. Well, that's pretty good. Yeah.

I'm suddenly attracted to you. That's a compliment. It was. I was expecting like Kate Blanchett. This is when I was dating years ago. They would say, wow, this was, that was like Kate Blanchett. Really? Yeah.

Incredible. Hey, would you guys excuse the two of us for a second? Why? Because I want to get with Kate Blanchett. Okay. All right. Listen, Kelvin, I apologize. I feel you tried to elevate the podcast by teaching us about your, your very cool history

and your town and, you know, really telling us all about the Denne people and then look where we are now. Well, he's, he's the one that brought up naked Brian Reynolds all covered in it. Okay. You said wet nap. Kelvin. I'm stuck on wet nap. Kelvin.

I'm going to find you. I'll find you and we'll hang. It'll be a good time. Yeah. We'll go dog sledding. We'll. You know what? You know what?

I have gone dog sledding. I did it in. What did I do? I did it up near the Arctic Circle in Finland. I wrote a dog sled. So been there, done that, but I'm ready to do it again. There's many things you don't know about me and I've killed several people. But you have to do it off camera.

No. You can't be filmed. I don't exist off camera. Okay. Yeah. If Conan falls in the forest and there's no one there to record it and put it on YouTube, did he really fall? I think it'd be fun.

It'd be fun to get to know like the, like me and you just out of the woods. No, no. You don't want to know the real me. Okay. Trust me. This guy's coming. Not the real me. All right.

Hey, Kelvin, very cool talking to you. Hey, uh, were we going to do the questions? Oh, sure. Yeah. Oh, oh, yeah. You can. I mean, we've got sure we have some time. Go ahead.

Um, okay. So one of the things I was curious about, I spent a lot of time just going out alone in the woods. Oh, we've heard about that. Yeah. So I'd be curious of the three of you. What if you y'all were like alone, like whether on that TV show you ever seen alone? Yeah.

Or in like, I don't know, there's like a plane crash and it's just you alone in the woods. Which of the three of you do you think would survive the longest? Matt. I was going to say Matt too. Oh, I don't know though. I think mental fortitude. No, no, I think you would. I think you're very, uh, you're, you're crafty.

I mean, you're very good at making things. I think you have real, uh, knowledge of, um, maybe how to start a fire, how to build a birdhouse out of twigs. That'll get me through. No, no, I, I do think, I, I think of the three of us, uh, you would, I'm a Masonic. You would definitely agree. But I, I think my mental fortitude would be missing cozy comfort and I might crack. No, no, no, you wouldn't crack.

No, no. If you had to survive, I think it would be you, then you, then I would die instantly. Yeah. Yeah. You'd take your own life instantly. No. Even if you were like, if you had wandered five minutes into a fairly populated part. Uh, you know, we're talking nuts.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they, it's clearly, you can see Ferris wheels above the tree line and, um, here other people, but you just quickly become despondent and take your own life. Yeah. Okay.

That makes sense. Yeah. But it's Gorley. Gorley is the winner. If you had to, if you had to make your way back into town, what would be your motivation in order to get out? Like if you're just in the middle of the woods, would you have the motivation to do so? Like would it be like your family, would that be enough to get into like family?

No, not family. Oh, well you're raising small children. My children are older now and they don't like me. Uh, they've seen my work. So no, it wouldn't be family. It would be, I've got to get back and talk to my business manager. Oh, okay. Yeah.

What if there was like a show you had next week and it was sold out and you're like, I got a kitchen. Oh no, screw those people. If as long as it, as long as the money has already been collected, um, screw them, you know, and, but then it becomes a memorial, that show. So if I don't make it back and those things do really well. You sell a lot of merch when you've passed away. Oh, so I've given this a lot of thought.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, Kelvin, we're going to wrap this up, but thank you so much. This was very cool. Thanks Kelvin. Thanks Kelvin. A huge privilege to talk to all of you. Honestly, dream come true.

It means a lot to be a DNA kid, to be able to talk to all y'all. That's very cool. Very cool to talk to you. Thanks Kelvin. Thank you Kelvin. Take care. Bye bye. That was so nice.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gorely. Produced by me, Matt Gorely. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joe Anasoloteroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples.

Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Engineered by Will Beckton. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco Production, in association with Stitcher.