Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast - Ep 605 - Arctic Cannibalism (feat. Buddy Levy)

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Support the D.A.W.G.Z. @ patreon.com/MSsecretpod Support Buddy @ https://www.buddylevy.com/index.html- Read His Books!! Go See Matt Live @ mattmccusker.com/dates Go See Shane Live @ shanemgillis.com Go See Lemaire Lee Live @ https://lemairelee.fun/ Go See Shawn Gardini Live if you want  @  https://www.shawngardini.com/live yo0o. Hello everybody. We got the legend Buddy Levy at the podiums for you this week. Buddy wrote 'Conquistador' and 'River of Darkness' two books that Matt's been podding about on the patreon. His latest book is 'Realm of Ice and Sky'. Check out the books. Check out the paytch. Please enjoy. God Bless. Visit ONNIT.com and lock in with Alpha BRAIN†. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/DRENCHED and use code DRENCHED and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wow, Wow, Wes. All right, we're live. We're live. Buddy Levy, thank you for coming. It's Levy or Levy? It's Levy. Levy. Hell yeah, I got it right. Thank you for coming.

Hey, my pleasure. Matt, I've been using your books to fuel the Patreon. And, well, thank you for that. I appreciate it, man. Dude, it's been, I mean, I guess we do have a symbiosis going here, but it's really, dude, they're, first of all, I thought, like, you know, I read the books. I'm like, man, this is a story and really is a good writer. I would like read and I'm like, this guy can really kind of really turn a good sentence.

And then I learned you studied as a creative writer. Yeah, that's true. I actually published my first story when I was 14 years old. And it was a it was a bird hunting story about me, you know, killing a chucker partridge, which no one knows about. But, you know, once I saw my byline for the first time I was, you know, because I grew up in this in the shadow of Ernest Hemingway in Catcham, Idaho. and I was like, I just like telling stories, you know.

And it was, so I, I wasn't ever good at anything else. I ended up being an English major. So I just followed that path, you know, from the time I was a kid. Well, that's where I really liked the books. And I was talking to you before we came in here. I was like, how did I, I don't know how I heard about the book. I was like, maybe it was from someone I follow. It might have just been like a random search.

I genuinely don't remember. I do think it's from the Josh reads books thing, but I forget that was Conquistador. But that was the thing. I was reading it. And I'm like, man, this, this history book is like, it's just focused on the narrative itself rather than just like, it's just I get drowned in facts reading history where I'm like, dude, just tell me the story. Tell me the story. And then, and then what you do is, what's nice is you give the occasional historical zinger where it's like actually this thing was that. And it's like, okay, it's kind of cool to know. Yeah. I got to say it was I got to tip the hat first foremost. It was the books are great. Well, and I've really enjoyed listening to you guys, um, make things like, uh, you. Uh, yeah. human ritual sacrifice and smallpox funny, you know. That's, you know, because when I'm writing it, I'm thinking, you know, this isn't really comedy. But you guys crush it. There is something very funny about, you know, we're talking obviously about the, the

Aztec, the conquistura thing. But there is something just that thought was funny about never meeting a certain type of people before. Because the way they like brought them into their temples like, yo, this is cool. Check this out. And it would just be like a dead. dog with his skull crushed in and like a dead kid they're eating and you'd be like, what the fuck? What is this? What is this? They're like, well, you don't think this is cool? Like,

we think this is cool. And they're like, no. That's the worst thing you can do. Like, no, this is like the coolest thing you can do. And then the civilizations clashed. Right. So it is funny to be like, yeah, I want to show you something very important to me. We were eating teenagers and you're like, no. Yeah. Yeah. When I write these books too, it's always like people are like, you know, why do you focus so much on this, this darkness, all this stuff, you know. And I'm like, well, I just, I like to see, as you say, you know, different cultures coming together and also what happens to people when they're on the edge of survival. Like how are they going to contend with this new world or this new place? And it really intrigues me to see what,

you know, to what degree people, especially back then, you know, like we're able to figure it out. and just and move on you know yeah it's pretty uh it is pretty wild because it's like especially the food thing and all that like in conquistador and all those books like these guys are going these missions and like yeah you only have so much food and they run out now it's like we got to drum up food in a place we've never been to right so that i kind of yeah just like you have to every time you want to eat you have to raid basically a village or just be like try to be cool right yeah that's the thing um or or have slaves it's just like you're Yeah, very helpful.

That also blew my mind in terms of the, uh, concoise, or hey, Nate, don't fucking laugh. We're talking about a different time period. And they were handy. You can't deny having 2,000 slaves would be handy to get food, Nate. We're talking history.

All right. I don't agree with it personally, but I needed food and I had either zero or 2,000. I'd like, I can get food. Whatever. Anyway. And by the way,

I used to sugarcoat it, you know, when I was writing it, I would be like, They had 2,000 porters and women who were making Cortillas. And my friend, this writer friend, she goes, yeah, those are called sex slaves. And I'm like, well, no, they were like bearers and porters. She's like, those were slaves.

They took them. She's right. That was the sheer volume. This is what shocked me because it would be like, you know, I think Cortez landed with, like, 600 guys and like 2,000 slaves. Was that true? Well, he didn't come with very many slaves. So he did bring one that had smallpox, which was useful for him.

That guy, yeah. Yeah. For some reason I thought Cortez had a start out with a lot. Maybe I'm thinking of someone else. Yeah, well, what he ended up doing, Cortez ended up like recruiting these ancillary villages, like the Totonics and the Talaskans. And he then did deals and said, can I use your guys to go get this major leader who you call Macha Joma, right?

Or Montezerjima. Wait, so I could have sworn Cortez, rolled up. They had, they had their porters. Yeah, but they got those from the villages that they subsumed. Yeah, yeah. First arrived. So he didn't roll. It was then, I'm thinking of the Pizarros. And yeah, yeah, that guy set out with the party with like 2,000 slaves. Yeah, but you know, at any rate, like they couldn't have done it alone. And even then they were often outnumbered significantly, you know. Yeah. But they just figured out ways to manipulate, terrorize. Yeah, well, there was that story from the, and I'm going to actually talk about this later today, but there was a

story from the, um, Gonzalo's last stand or when he's like fighting that Spanish civil war, he's fighting another Spaniard and it was actually hit Gonzalo, slave who ran out and chopped the guy's head off. Nice. I just carried it around town. Like, you know, we got it. And he had to be like, bro, why don't do that to a fellow Spaniard? The hell are you doing? He was dancing in the end zone on the guy. But yeah, it's just very, yeah, it was like the war was to stop slavery in South America. And the dude's slave cut the guy's head off who was trying to stop slavery. Yeah, it's pretty funny.

He was like, nah, fuck that dude. From Juan Gonzalez. Anyway. But yeah, it was definitely a complicated time for sure. Complicated time. But that is, it is so brutal. You are trying to get the story, but you like at every turn, it is completely. And like you were saying, you're rolling around with, you know, quote unquote, three women who make tortillas for 600 guys.

They're obviously sex slaves. The guys, some of the fucking guys were probably sex slaves. You know what I mean? It's got to be somewhat prison rules. It gets lonely out on the trail. But, but yeah, I just got to say the books are, they're nice because it is just, it's the story. It's like the thing that happened based on all the historical. record, which how, how like, is that boring researching that? Like how, how do you get through that?

Because I feel like I would kind of go crazy. That's a great question. No, you know, when I love the research part of it. And it's like two components to it for me. There's the actual sitting there and reading everything that's ever been written or to the extent that I can, everything that's ever been written about the particular subject. So that then I know the story and then I start writing. But then I also, you know, I always go to the place that I'm going to write about to do an expedition of my own so I can make it as real and seem like even though I'm casting myself back maybe 500 years to try to be on the ground and in the environment that I'm writing

about so that I can feel the sense of the place and see the flora and fauna. And we can maybe talk about some of those expeditions that I've done. But, you know, it's, for me, it's fun to immerse in that. It's kind of like doing like a mini, a master's degree or a PhD for every book, you know. And it actually leaves a frickin mark, you know. I mean, I'm on my 10th book. And every time it's a huge divot out of my brain, you know, because I log in for, you know, maybe six or eight months of just reading.

And then I'll go on my expedition where I'm going to go. And then I sit my ass down and spend maybe six months to a year depending just writing the book. And so the, but I always find the reading part, the research part really inspiring because, you know, I'm going back to these original texts. And they've got, you know, journals and diaries. And in the case of the Spaniards, you know, they had these scribes that were there just to record the events. And then so you get these first and letters that they're writing back home. And so you really get transported to these places into the minds of the people who were there. And then, of course, you have to balance out to what extent like they're lying or patting the story for different political reasons.

And so you're doing a bunch of sifting and deciding on which you believe. And, you know, history to me is pretty dynamic and malleable. It's not like this set thing. It depends on, you know, they say history was written. by the victors. Yeah. But I love it. I love that part.

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sense of the place, but like, is that also just to kind of get your own adventure thing going where you're like, you know, because that's kind of, because you've done now, you've done the Amazon. Yeah. Did you climb the hills and everything? Well, I hiked over the Andes. Dang. So I started in key, I try to, for for a river of darkness and conquistador, I try to follow the root of the conquistadors as precisely as possible, you know, using maps. Now, in modern day context, it's a little different because, you know, there's more people there now. But But for the Amazon, yeah, I started in Quito, did some, went on partly on horseback, partly on a bus, and then I trekked down to the headwaters of the Coka River and then went for like three weeks in a dugout canoe with two guides and just me and two other people.

And floated down the river in a dugout canoe sleeping in the rainforest in hammocks. it was one of the coolest adventures. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. What was it? I do want to go there one time, but what was it like being there and, you know? Oh, my God. It's quite remarkable. I mean, to put it in context, I spent like, I think two to three weeks,

including the Andy's part. And by the time I finished, which was in Akitos Peru, that's just where the Maron meets the Amazon. And so there's 20, I went 400 miles. and there's 2,300 miles more to go to the Atlantic, you know. And that, you know, to give context, I had to look this up, that is like driving from New York City all the way to basically, I think like Idaho. It's so far.

It's so far. And, you know, but it's cool because once you get out there, it's still, I mean, I floated through this Yasuni National Park and there's so, you know, it's like one of the most biodiverse places in the world. And then you're just like, you get into this river rhythm where, you know, you float. for hours and everything starts to look the same because, you know, you're shrouded on each side by these giant seba trees. And, you know, you have to wear like knee-high rubber boots because there's ant colonies. I mean, there's so many critters that can, you know, mess you up,

vampire bats. Did you see any vampire bats? I did. And I saw, you know, the thing is, I don't know if you remember in River of Darkness, so the vampire bats are pretty intense. They come onto you at night and they have these like canine incisor teeth, and they, so they pierce the skin and then they have this anticoagulant enzyme in their saliva. So it is lick at the wound all night. And he's just drinking blood. Yeah, you just keep bleeding.

But I was, I was cheating a little because I had a hammock that had mosquito netting. So, you know, my guides were just like sleeping in hammocks just out there. But, you know, there's so many, there's like spiders the size of your fist and... What were some of the craziest things you saw in terms of animals? Oh, my God. Well, so I do... This is kind of bizarre.

You know, I wanted to, when you're in the, when in Rome, I guess, or when in the Amazon, I decided to go on an ayahuasca trip, you know? Oh, dang. So I didn't decide to do it. Oh, did you do it classically? Did you have it boofed? Remember they said they were like siphoned it up their butts back in the day? I did not go for the animal style.

That's kind of sick they did that, though. I know. Well, I mean, it gets there. It's mainlining ayahuasca. Yeah. No, this guy, my guide, Jose Xinjiangwu, cool dude, man. He was like, I'm going to go get the bark and you want to try ayahuasca. And I was like, sure, you know.

It was just your river. He was my guide. He knew all the birds. And he was like, you know, when you're here, you know, if you guys, whoever wants to try it, you know. And there were only these three people and the two guides. And so I said, yeah, I'll give it a shot. I mean, I grew up dabbling a little in some of these hallucinogens. And so I had read about and I thought like I was hoping for this amazing spiritual journey.

And supposedly if it really takes right, you're going to have this vision quest and meet your spirit animal. Yeah. So as we had been going through the Yasunia National Park, I had seen a pink dolphin, which is a freshwater dolphin. They're like a little four foot long, really cute. So I'm, the ayahuasca is coming on and I'm having these hallucinations. I keep seeing this pink dolphin. And I'm like, wait a minute. So my wife's spirit animal is a dolphin.

And I'm like, I was expecting like a sea wolf, you know, these giant wolves with like web paws or a freaking cracking or something. And I get a pink dolphin from my spirit animal. Yeah. Four foot. It's like, you know, I mean, it was not. But it wasn't what I had hoped for, frankly. You didn't drink enough. You should have drank me, like, give me four more cups.

Like, Smoan, Jose. So, yeah, how was that? Was it like, did you have a super strong dose? Or did you feel like it was like a mild dose? I wished, I had wished for, I was wishing for more. Yeah, actually. Just to transform that dolphin into something useful, you know? Like that can kill.

Yeah. But I have also read, I'm glad, actually, that it didn't take fully because I've seen some stuff and heard that, you know, people come out of that changed yeah yeah it's like from what I've heard I've never done it but I've heard like the full dose is like you're puking yeah I felt I just hurled a little okay early on yeah but um you know the other thing we did which was kind of insane I mean really because that you know I was like they took us out we were on this one big lake um that was like off I mean the whole thing is so massive that it was actually part of the river but it was slow moving it

seem like late. And he's like, you want to go catch my guy said, you want to go catch piranhas? And I'm like, sure, I'm an angler. Yeah, yeah. You know, fishing. And I go, what do you use? And he's like, hot dogs. And so we go out there, we got a little stick and we're dangling for piranha, right? And then he said afterwards, he's like, do you want to go swimming? And I'm like, well, they're carnivores, man. Like, are we going to, so we swam with in the same vicinity of these piranhas, you know? And it was like, you're just sketched a bit. Because, like, alone, they're not, they're like, I mean, their jaws are serious, but they're, they're not big. But you get a couple hundred piratas and you're bleeding and then, you know, you're, it's just like the movies.

Yeah, they can, they can munch you pretty quick. But they jumped in first and showed me and I was like, okay, I'm not going to whip out here, you know. Yeah, I'd be so, when I keep, every time I hear about people swimming in the Amazon, I'm like, it's terrifying. Because there's, there's, there's like manatees in there. Yeah, well, the manatee, you know, they're chill. Sure. I mean, I could have seen the manatee as my spirit animal too. Yeah, something, yeah.

Just the sea cow is what they're called. They're just like, go on the bottom and graze grass. They're just like sluggish. So anyway. That's awesome. Yeah, it was really informative. And you know, what I'm usually trying to do when I'm going on these journeys is I bring all the primary texts that I can carry.

And so I'm reading about. the expedition that I'm writing about and then I'm kind of living my own one and sort of putting it together like what this place would have been like and the sat you know there are all sorts of things like in the Amazon for instance the sounds you know in the evening there's like thousands of different um insects and weird like night insects where the freaking you know their head pops up and it goes around like with iridescent blinking lights and it's just wild you know And there's, you know, there's, there's panthers. And the thing that's got me a little nervy is I'm not scared of snakes, but, you know, the Amazon has the largest, the anaconda, right?

So, you know, even if you're in a four feet up in a tree and a hammock, you're thinking for a 30-foot anaconda, it's not a really big reach for them to, you know. Yeah, they can slither up a tree. Come constrict you to death. So, like. What do you do? I guess you got to yell and they cut it.

it off or whatever? Yeah. I mean, you know, you don't really want to be running into an anaconda. But there's a guy named Paul Rosoli who lives in the rainforest and that dude is badass. And so he, he like intentionally goes out and finds them and catches them and wrestles with him and stuff, you know. So if you know what you're doing, which I didn't, I mean, I was just trusting my guy. Yeah. I mean, what do you, how do you, what like skill can you have to like wrestle? What do you got to know to do? You need like the crock hunter mentality. You know. True. I don't know if it's like quicksand. If you like, I know if you like lay on your belly and quicksand, it's better for you. Spread out. Yeah. I think. I guess Anacana, I would try to poke its eyes. Yeah. And there's all sorts of poisonous animals, creatures, you know. The weirdest thing is that there are these like, you know, well, and also Kymann, you know, which are not as gnarly as like an Australian saltwater crock. But we went out evening spotlighting for Kymond. They're like an alligator. Yeah, yeah. And or they are an alligator. They're smaller. How big are they? Yeah. They can get pretty. big, but these, the ones we were messing with were just like four feet. But even that is dark

and you're like, I don't do you, not my normal course of life to be grabbing alligators. Yeah. Even though I was born in New Orleans, I should be more burly about gators. Well, are they can, can they jump out of the water? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of leap up and say you. Yeah. So that was and you know, it's just like the stuff that it's the unknown to me. So you're, you're, you're like sleeping in this hammock and then you hear all the stuff like the howler monkeys who make this really wild lion like husky roar sound um and you know just being out in that environment is so intoxicating for me yeah i don't know why so and you and you recently went to the arctic right i did that was surprising like what the hell i've never that's one place i've never even thought to go

yeah i went from the jungle to the great north the ice you know yeah um and i've actually now on my fourth Arctic book. So you like the Arctic? I really do. I like the, again, well, you know, there's so many elements to it. Like, but I was going to say that on my most recent book, I wrote about the first people who tried to fly blimps to the North Pole, like back in the early 1900s. And when I first read that, I'm like, huh, we're going to take a 200-foot balloon,

inflate it with like 270,000 cubic feet of flammable hydrogen, stick a freaking, you know, Johnson 40 outboard motor on it. What could possibly go wrong, you know? Yeah. Blow up. How did they make out? Well, there's some really great stories of, and that's just my third Arctic book.

You know, there were crashes on the ice and people having to survive for months on end on floating sea ice, big bergs. And, you know, Matt, incredible, well, this, that book is called Realm of Ice and Sky, and it set off the largest Arctic rescue in history. But the funny part about going to those places is, so I went to this place called Svalbard, which is 600 miles north of northern Norway. It's still in Norway, but it's halfway between the Norwegian North Coast and the North Pole.

So it's like, it's the most northern inhabited place. on earth. And I had met, I had previously met this woman in Greenland, and which is actually before we owned it and had a golf course there. But, you know, what are you going to do? This was 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. And she got me really turned on to the Arctic and Arctic and Arctic explorers and stuff. And so I ended up meeting up with Ingrid, my friend and went to Svalbard. Bizar bizarre thing. Before I left to go to Svalbard, I read this story and I was like, because I wanted to camp. And I wanted to get the feeling of what, you know, at least to a degree of what it was like for these people to sleep in the cold and on the ice.

And it turns out that there's only one campground that you can stay in Svalbard. And it's like during COVID, a guy, this Dutchman whose job was to put an electric fence around this campground. he was there with all, this is like one of the great tragic ironies, man. He was there. All the fencing equipment was lying there at the campsite, camp area. And the day before he was going to install the fence, he got mauled death by a polar bear. So in Svalbard, the polar bear is protected. There's signs all over the outskirts of the town that just have a picture of a polar bear.

And then it says, like, beyond this, you know, you're kind of on your own. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, you can imagine. the first few nights sleeping there, electric fence are no, if you've ever watched videos of polar bears, like they're to step right over that thing or break through it. You know, they're incredibly savage. For some reason, I thought they're, I just, I think I've only ever seen them in like Coca-Cola commercials. So I like didn't even knew they, I didn't know they ate people. I thought they were pretty chill. Oh, Lord. They're pretty vicious. They are, I mean, I, you know. Well, there you go. Learned

something every day. I thought they were honestly like the chill bears. I swear to God. You said they ate them. I was like, that sounds unlike polar bears. Yes. So there were some fitful nights in the campsite. Wait, so they never finished the electric fence after the guy got punched by the... They did, but man, the thing is this high. Like it just wasn't going to do it. But, you know, after a few nights, you're like, I mean, you know, you hear the tent flaps rustling and stuff and you're like all sketched out. Plus, at that far north in the summer, which is when I was there, the midnight sun is there's no darkness. So, you know, you're kind of not sleeping anyway. And then, you know, you hear anything. And you're like... What are the people like... who live there. I always wonder to those places where like it's light 24 hours a day. Do they get like the total darkness too? Oh yeah. So what are the people like there? Are they like completely weird or like I feel like you'd be really weird if you like didn't have a natural day. They're hearty folk man like six you know half the year it's nearly dark. Yeah. And so but there's northern

lights. There's the aurora borealis and stuff. So you know they cruise around on dog sled and with snow machines in the winter. And in the summer it has like you know a three day growing season. Really? Yeah, they do some quick harvesting. But no, it's just so it's never really that warm. You know, I was there in June and it snowed and it's a harsh. I really, you end up appreciating the kind of people who are carving out a life there.

I mean, Svalbard itself is very organized. It has a lot of tourism, you know, big tourships come in. But also you can go on guided expeditions and go see. kayaking among the icebergs and the glaciers, which I did. And really, it's so, so rad. I love that place. Really? Yeah. I've never, that's, I got to, I got to think about that. Every time I hear about like North Pole, all that Arctic exploration, I'm like, count me out, man. I don't know why. I just, isn't it just like snow as far as you can see or like well, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of mountains too. And having grown up in the

mountains, I'm drawn to that. So, you know, huge. And it comes from sea level. So you've got these massive peaks jutting up in fjords. It's kind of like you picture Norway, but farther north, and stays icy and cold and wind swept for more of the year. So here's the question, because it's like, if you're on an expedition, would you prefer dying the death of someone dying in the Amazon or in the Arctic? Yeah, that's a good one. You know, I've read and written about both kinds of death, right? There's something appealing and way about like the cold if you were just going to get hypothermia and freeze to death, that would be okay because you just sort of like go to sleep and you know lie there and let it

happen. Yeah. Yeah. But you know if you go the other route, you know in the jungle, you get like dengue fever or something. It would not be fun or you know you're bitten by some snake that gives you paralysis first. So yeah, I'm going to take the north. Except I will say that when I was in Greenland, we went out on a boat with a, I was actually writing about a blind adventurer named Eric Weinmayer, who's the first blind man to summit Mount Everest

and kayak down the entire length of the Grand Canyon. How hell do you do that? Well, he had help. He had a guide. But amazing. I mean, he's a transformative human. Yeah, that's crazy. But I was following him in Greenland on this adventure race and where it's just like a week of different really hard sports.

And part of it included like boating for like a day or two all around this southern Greenland. And we were following him in this boat. And I get in the boat with this seal fisherman dude or seal hunter, I guess. And, you know, I said when we got in the boat, I said like, where are the life jackets, you know? And he looked at me and he kind of smiled, a greenlandic, inuit dude. And he's like, we don't have them.

And I go, well, why? Because I mean, I'm going to get off. And he goes, no, no. If we fall in the water, we don't want it to take that long to die. Oh. And I'm like, that makes a lot of sense. Because it's so cold, basically. Because if you're just like floating along, you know,

then it will take 10 minutes. Whereas if you just bob and then sink. How cold is this water? Oh, frick, man. because saltwater can keep it below free. You know, it's like, burgs are floating around the top. I mean, it's literally three minutes.

Without a dry suit, you'd die. You would die. So you're going in this boat hoping like everything goes well, you know? Like, I don't really trust the dude. But. Yeah. So he was basically like you fall in, we're dead anyway. Right.

So it seems like you don't really. What size craft are you guys on? This boat was like a 20 foot outboard. Okay. But we were following the people who were actually kind of. and rubber raft, you know. So they were more imperiled than we were. Yeah.

So, but they had the wetsuits, which I guess they were only even preserve you for not that long. A while. The really good, really good dry suits, you'd stay alive until somebody came and, if they came and got you. Yeah.

But, you know, of course, that made me realize, again, I'm thinking, I'm trying to think about the stories that I'm telling and the people I'm writing about it. Like,

they had none of that, you know, no Gortex, no dry suits. And they're out there in, like, native, in the north,

you know, like the, the Scandinavians and some of these northern people are the ones who invented like seal skin kayaks, right? So they are expert in paddling these things, you know. What is the seal skin kayak? So basically if you see it, you know, the plastic kayaks that you see out on the river here,

but they build them with like wooden frames and sometimes bone because in a lot of these places in the far north there's no trees. Yeah. And then they put the outsides or like stretched, seal skin or sometimes walrus. And so they are really, they're watertight. And, you know, they're the ones who invented the whole, the older kayaks actually look pretty much. The designs have stayed similar, you know, where there's a little cockpit and you're sitting down, but you're so

low on the water, you know, it's, it's, it's in any wind and waves and shit, it's just terrifying. Like, I don't want to be in there. That's crazy, dude. Well, it's funny, too, the guys who explored that place because, like, you know, again, going back to the Amazon, it's like, okay, check it out like here's like a kind of a useful place but like the thing for the north pole it's like you get there you're like yeah a ton of snow it's like okay it's an open polar sea like there's nothing there but what was really intriguing to me i'm trying to rig on the north pole but it was that you know they didn't um they they they didn't know like so where the people that I was writing about up until uh and even including the dirigible airship journeys um in like the 1880s uh this was just a giant

blank white spot on the map. I was about to say, what do they think was up there? Was there any like tales of what they thought might be there? Yeah, and some really confused tales that actually ended up like not helping people because they, they, there was this theory that there was a ring of ice around this kind of, um, warm, temperate zone. So they thought that it was like open sea there. And so a lot of times when the, the Brits and some of the, the,

I mean, the Norwegians went there or tried to go there. Like, the theory was, okay, we're going to break through this ice barrier and then it's like warm. I don't know why they believe that exactly. Could be, did you ever get into hollow earth theory? There are people who think at the top of the North Pole like it hollows out and kind of go in. Yeah, just jump in. Right through.

Teleport right to China. See at the bottom. Yeah. Where it's also ice and frozen. Yeah. So they found out there was not. the fabled oasis in the middle of all the others. Right. And a lot of times the early expeditions went with not enough gear and warm clothes because they thought they were going to end up in

these more temperate places. And they should have figured it out by noting what the indigenous people were wearing. Yeah, true. You know, they're like totally bundled up with freaking caribou. How high up do indigenous people go up to the, are they all in the North Pole? Well, nobody lives at the North Pole. But they, they live, they live, Salvard is the most northern place, but on the northern coast of Greenland, there are still Etab native populations, people who are still carving out of life up there and living traditional way with, you know, seal hunting and, I mean, there's like whales and beluga and, you know, they're hardy.

I would imagine. I think, which I'm we'll call it, the egg loser. I was in like a kid's museum with my kids. And apparently they like retain heat like insane, like snow retains heat. And unbelievably so. Yeah. One of the things that's in writing about these expeditions, you know, I marvel at the endurance of these, you know, the explorers. Because in many, in some cases, they were smart enough to take along indigenous guides and hunters. And, you know, they would slog for like 12 hours across the snow and ice, get to the end of the day, build an igloo in like 45 minutes.

and then you have like a seal blubber lantern at one end and you're tucked into this igloo and there's and these guys are you know taking not only writing down where they've gone what the coordinates were writing letters home you know and recording in their journals and diaries everything that's happened including what the weather was like um but you know they're doing that after after just trekking for a day or something And the other thing that most people don't realize is that they're the especially in the north. It's not not the case in the South Pole. But these they're giant flows of ice that's breaking up and they move tremendously. So you could be in your igloo and all of a sudden you hear this crashing, you know, heaving sounds and shattering. And now the ice is breaking up underneath your igloo. And so they're like, you kind of need to sleep with your boots on.

or your bucklucks. Oh, that's what you're saying. It's just a frozen sea. Right. And so you'll shatter. And then you have to get out of there and like regroup somewhere over here. And you know, you're yelling at each other in the darkness. And she's just gnarly.

Oh, that sounds awful. It really does sound terrible. That's not you're not pitched me on the North Pole. What's up with the South Pole? Yeah, well, the South Pole is different. It's more of a landmass that has frozen C too. But what I've always found funny is that, you know, because not a lot of a lot of people know about the Arctic and the Antarctic.

So they'll, I'll tell them I'm writing about the Arctic and they say, the only thing they know is Shackleton, which is one of the most famous explorers, right? And they're like, oh, so like Shackleton, right? And I said, well, yeah, it's like Shackleton, except on his journey, everyone lived. And I only write about stories where half the people died, at least. And Shackleton was Antarctic. Yeah. Yeah.

It's an amazing story. Personally, if I was talking Arctic and someone came at me, with Antarctic, I probably wouldn't even respond. I'd be like, okay, dude. I know what you mean. But I haven't been there. That's the one on my bucket list of, I've been on every continent except Antarctica. And so that's, that's next. So in North Pole, like the North Pole, is that like a military base or like what is there? No. It's just, it's just a spot on the map. What? Still. So what they did discover was that there had been a theory that there was a another continent landmass there. So, you know, maybe we, maybe there's reserves of something oil. Maybe we can,

you know, and it was contested by a number of countries. So what they did figure out in the book that I wrote, Realm of Ice and Sky, they fly over it in a blimp and are able to take pictures and confirm that there's no landmass there that is just a giant expanse of moving ice. Okay. And then I'm trying to like picture it. So if you fly to the North Pole and then just keep going straight, well, these guys ended up in, what is it? They crashed landed in Teller, Alaska. Well, it depends on what direction you go. But like, well, the cool thing is once you go, once you pass a North Pole,

every direction leads south. You know, it's like no matter if you turned around or which in one case, they did, they turned around and then went back to Svalbard. That didn't work. They crashed. Dang. But yeah, it's, yeah, these stories I love because, you know, once they're out there, then something usually invariably terrible happens.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really, it is, I do like that when you're reading all of a sudden. It's like they're about to die. They're like literally on the verge of death the entire time. Right. How are we not going to die? Yeah. Yeah, I was bugging out on the poison.

And it's a different thing. But the poison arrows in the river darkness was like, I couldn't stop thinking about them. Just one little scratch from. poison arrow and it's just like a 24-hour shivering horrible death and your arm turns black and falls off right and it's like yeah don't duck and stay under those manatee shields you know dude that shit sucks guys this episode is brought to you by on it ever feel like your brain is on but nobody's home hmm spend 10 to 15 seconds sharing a quick relatable and funny story from my own life about a time how about this guys i'll be honest i uh i do dumb stuff all the time

this is for alpha brain by the way i they sent it to me so i've been taking it i fucking like it i swear to god i figured i would like let me just try it out let me see you know let me see what's what it's all i like it's a nice uh it's caffeine free first of all that's why i never took it because i'm like i don't need any god darn caffeine um but yeah i don't know i think it i looked it up it i don't know if it's like you can say what it does but apparently just like boost your dopamine or like pushes dopamine into your brain give it a try give it a try i i I like it and yeah, it gets, it gets me charged, man. I take it.

It's a very, and here's the thing, too. I'm very, I'm very prone to just taking stuff and being like, oh, I think it's working. But I gave it to my brother. I guinea pig, my brother, Swim, who's no stranger to chemicals and chemical compounds, who has a heartier constitution than me. And he even was like, bro, this stuff's got me kind of, it's got me moving and grooving. So, hey, look, we did that science right there.

Did a fucking study on myself and my brother and Spud. And we were all, like, damn, the shit fucking rips. so get it yourself try it out try it out all right alpha brain is a daily supplement with science-backed ingredients like ltheonine design a support memory and focus so you can lock in tune out distractions and stay sharp visit on it dot com and shop alpha brain to unlock your next level that's oh n nit dot com and yeah i literally take it every day now i like it go ahead sean you have to plug a show yeah thank you coce it's what we do it for Hello, everybody.

This is Sean. I just want to let you know one last time that I'll be in Salt Lake City this weekend. Friday and Saturday with Nate Marshall, March 27th and 28th. Tickets are at shongardini.com. Please come. There are plenty of tickets available to these shows. So many tickets. And we'll be at the Houston Riot Fest the week after that, April 3rd and 4.

And then Anactus is after that at the creek in the cave. So please come. Tickets, at shangardineadne.com or lamarylea.lea.f.fondon. And you get Shaneemgillis.com too. Sell out the link. Thank you guys. Thank you, man. Of course. Guys, um, oh man, this leg of the tour is winding down on April 10th. I'll be in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Fitzgerald Theater. Oh. It's all good. What you guys need?

I was just, my red light was on when you were reading it. Oh, you're fine. Ain't no big thing. It's just getting the audio out to the people. Sorry. So 411, the next day after I leave Minnesota, I'm going to Des Moines, Iowa, Hoyt Sherman Place, whatever. I'll be there at 411. So Iowa, Minnesota, I have shows there. Let's go.

Let's finish this out strong, guys. What do you say? And then also, motherfucking Phoenix, man, celebrity theater. Guys, come on. It's in the round. It's a cool place. Don't embarrass me. Oh, yeah.

Gardeting will be there. Fucking, it's going to be a blast. And by the way, I come alive in the round. If I'm being honest, I have done the round. Shane. I love it. So please, guys, please, please, please. Otherwise, I'll literally, I'll just pay to get feet seat fillers and I'll, I don't fucking care. I'm going to have a good show in the round one way or the other guy and I'll pay them to laugh at me too. That's 417. Guys, 418. I'll be in Tucson, Arizona and let's let's get it going. Also, I'll be in Toronto.

We have two shows in Toronto. Both of them are one of them's definitely sold out. The second one's dang near sold out. So might add a third. I don't know. Riviera theater, Chicago. Let's go get that. I think that's going to sell out, guys. That's in April. There's been a rumor about adding a possible if that sells out and 11 o'clock show at Zanis secret show. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. Oh, nice. Fuck yeah. But yeah, guys, go to Mammapocuster.com. That took way too long. Just six shows left before I chill for the summer. Thank you. Oh, this is a good question.

Oh, yeah, okay. Bringing up the fabled Amazon warriors. Oh, the women. Oh, I thought because everybody who lives there is considered an Amazonian now. True. There's different tribes. So, yeah, the Amazon women, that's an interesting and perplexing myth and story. I didn't meet any.

I was looking for them. The Warriors. They're talking about the Warriors. Amazon Women Warriors, yeah. But they had their breasts in the jungle, whereas the Greek, the Greek, that's where the term comes from, right? They're Greek women who would, would they like strap their breasts down or down? Yeah.

Tie them down so they could shoot the arrow. But what I loved about that story in the Black Sea is that they, and this persists too in the Amazon basin, is that they would take men, uh, mate with them. Yeah, I know. And then like, tell them to fuck off. And then they just have the women on the island. They were like, we're using you as, you know, you're just procreaters, man. It's fantasy. It's a collective male fantasy.

Get out of here. We're done with you. Done with you. Go do shit in the jungle with your friends. I have no use for you right now. Go hunt. Well, that was the question. That was kind of what I was thinking about just yesterday.

I was reading it. And so you have the, you know, because the conquistadors had the fabled myth of El Dorado, the kingdom of gold and all this stuff. And that was kind of the myth. That was like a myth that was driving them. But like why would, I think you might have just answered the question, but why would these Amazonian people, people all make up a myth of like powerful female warriors.

Right. Obviously, I mean, there's the sexual thing of them like abducting you from your village and taking you to have sex with you, whatever, drop you back off. But it's like, it is just a weird collective myth to have all these people in jungle form of like powerful women warriors. Yes. Especially back then. Now I'd be like, yeah, I get it.

My people would do that. But like back then in the fucking 1500s like, why would they all do that? And like, all agree that was a thing. Well, and also it, you know, since it has persisted for hundreds of years, I mean, I love the fact that this is where mythology becomes, you kind of wonder, like, is there a kernel of truth to this? Because, you know, with modern technology, wouldn't we have found them? But I have to say in the Amazon, I mean, when I came, when I did my journey and came out and landed in Ikitos Peru, there was an article in the paper or, you know, online. And it had images of, you may have seen them, like they're uncontacted tribes still.

And they're like painted orange and, you know, helicopters or whatever, small planes are flying over to check them out. And they're just standing there with spears going, you know, land. Please do. You know, see how that goes, Navy SEAL. But, you know, they. I mean, I think they would do all right with their guns and shit. Yeah, they probably would.

But for me, the point was. It's like, well, okay, if there remain uncontacted tribes, even in, you know, I was down there in 2008, they're still today are uncontacted tribes. And so it's so vast. And of course, you know, it's being imperiled by logging and farming and all this stuff. But there's still, it's so vast that there's, if there are pockets of people that have lived the same way for thousands of years and and then there's myths about these particular female tribes. that are warriors and don't want to be messed with. To me, there's a, I have to believe that it's possible. Yeah, well, the guy in the book saw them.

He fought them. So it was like they were paler, they were like lighter-skinned, tall women that had a bunch of like short guys. They were bossing around. You go first. Oh yeah, I love that. And if you don't, and if you, if you push out, you're fucking killing you. Yeah.

That holds. That still holds this day. Yeah. How do I tell you about you better keep fighting them. man. Yep. I might have an Amazonian in my house. That's the last Amazonian.

Why not you pick up your shirt off the floor? Don't back down. No, that, uh, yeah, it was, and it's just such a funny thing because you hear, you know, they're like, while they're floating around the river, it's like, there's these tales of Amazon women warriors and you're like, you know, you're like, okay, it's just like a fable. Then they actually battle them and you're like, what the fuck was that all about? They didn't kill the couple. Yeah, yeah, they killed almost all of them.

That was shocking. You didn't take one of them. I know. It was silly, you know, because if you look back to what Cortez did, and you know, there's also, there's albinos that come into camp one time. Yeah, that was a weird one too, tall albinos. These tall albino dudes. You know, they may have been pituitary giants or something, which... What is a pituitary? What is that? Well, like, you grow really fast and you're, usually they're marked by having a really big head. Actually, I played rugby for seven years, and one of our, one of our best players in the scrum was a paternity. a pituitary giant. So he was like huge, like Andre the giant. Yes, yeah, yeah. So your glands just produced. Good to have on your rugby team.

I would imagine, yeah, giant. I mean, that was like medieval battle and everything. It's fucking awesome. And he had it. You were like, oh, he talked like that. I'd be pissed if he didn't, honestly. If I had a giant with a soft voice, I'd be like, it's bullshit. Howdy?

But Cortez had the wherewithal to like snag some of these, you know, specimens and take them home to England, or pardon me, to Spain. Yeah, yeah. And he would be like, I want to show the king what is here. And so there were like dwarfs and albinos. And some of them, he, you know, absconded with, put them on a ship and sent him with the, you know, with the royal fifth of gold that they were required to send back. And it was like, check them out.

Like this place is rad, you know. It's crazy to send up just a bunch of treasure than like essentially a, an old freak show. He's just hit him with like, he was like, you open a chest and like, dudes, midges pop out. You're like, whoa, the hell's this? But in fairness to Oriana, he didn't have like, you know, he was just trying not to die and get down the river. So he didn't have the capacity to put him in the boat. He was trying to feed his own men. Yeah, true. Cortez was like, okay, we're going to put these guys on ships and send him back and show what I'm taking over. The worst story of all, I think, from River of Darkness is when they landed in that village.

and it was just women there and they took over the village and just all just slept with these ladies raped him obviously let's be let's not let's be frank about it and but then the guys then all their husbands came home from a trip to just see these like people

they've never seen before all with their wives and their huts and it was just like dude that's the most insane thing you could possibly imagine I know everyone goes out to work and come home and everyone's wife is now being detained by like a strange being I spend my whole day at the turtle farm and come home to this.

I know. You've been farming turtles all day. It's so funny. I was chuckling too at when you guys were talking about how they named everything, you know. And that one place they're at that you call, you know, you read it in the part three or whatever. And it's like, it was like, um, it was like um, place of the burn people. And I was thinking, you should have been called the place where we burned people.

You know, like they didn't want to name it what it really was. Yeah, I also love what he called it. When he had like that, Gonzalo, Bizarro had a bad march and it was named the worst march ever through the jungle. Literally, that was a literal term. Yeah. This was the worst march ever through the jungle. There have been a lot of bad ones.

Yeah. This one? Worst. Worst ever. Well, it is pretty bad. when he gets back and he's like literally in, you know, skins and barefoot, you know, the fact that any of those guys live. The worse is them, I didn't know you could do this with a horse. You cut it open, drink the blood as needed. And then you pack it full of mud. It's just like a walking. It's just like a food truck.

You just kind of why you would cut slivers, cook a sliver of it, eat it and just let it keep walking as you're eating. It was like, oh. Yeah, that was grim. I was listening to it a little bit on the plane. And I'm like, God, I forgot about that. You know, it's just. what people will do. And, you know, I have to say, there wasn't much cannibalism in the Conquistador tales, but in if you really,

if you like cannibalism, as you get to the, as you get to the, the Arctic stuff. A lot of cannibalism. Yeah. That was the, because that's the,

that's the funny thing too, because I, you know, whenever I'm like, I'll like organize notes for things and I'll use like, you know, grok or claw and they're always like, by the way,

they didn't sustain themselves on cannibalism. It was for ceremonies. It's like, okay, dude. They're still eating people. Like, don't like, nice it up. Like, it was church. It's like, okay.

But so that, Arctic was like, they needed to munch guys. That was like sustained. That was like sustaining. Yeah. And, you know, you're talking about a different, like, the idea was that the explorers coming from from Europe and North America were like, you know, it was taboo. In different cultures, it's less, less so, you know. Yeah.

And it does beg the question. I've been asked that at book readings. Like, would you eat? human flesh. There's always one guy at a book reading. Yeah. Would you ever read a person? Mr.

Lovie, would you eat a person? And then if I died. Your fate. I'm going to, I mean, what do you say to that when someone asked you that? I say,

would you? Tichet. I mean, it depends on if it was your fucking homie, you know, like, how well do you know them? True.

You know. Is it a guy or a girl? Right. I would eat a guy personally. Yeah. I would, I would, I would,

Personally. Oh, man. Unless it was a powerful warrior, I would eat a powerful warrior. Yeah, I mean, I think at a certain point, I would. You know. Yeah, obviously, if you get hungry enough, yeah, for sure. You know, you're delirious with hunger and it's like meat. Yeah.

If you were a vegan, I would say no. I have a cupboard full of like cereal and all this stuff and I'll be not hungry. And I don't want to eat the cereal and I'll eat the cereal. If I was starving to death, I would totally eat a person. Yeah. No, not even not a question. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So then. I literally would eat every person, everyone here. I think you guys are great. But if I got hungry enough, I would eat. But so it gets kind of grim. I'll try. It gets kind of grim because then it becomes a question of, okay, if they're already dead. Yeah. Like, let's say they starve the death and then they're, which happens in a couple of my books where, you know, they're, they're dead already. They starved. So, bad eating. You're looking around. Okay, not a lot.

You know, we've already gone out hunting and we haven't found anything. And there's a guy. Yeah. Starved. You know, are we going to, are we going to do it? Versus, you're going to, you know, kill someone to eat them, which is a different thing for me. Well, this went dark. No, that's, no.

I hear what you're saying. Because if someone starves to death and, you know, you got to split up your friend with all your other friends to eat them. But it's like, they isn't a lot of meat on them. Right. Next person starts lagging. Like, we can just eat this guy now and get a better meal out of it. Yeah. And then in some cases, what happens is like they start looking around. This happens in that book actually or in labyrinth vice. So one guy, you know, everybody else is like emaciated sort of walking dead situation on the ice. And and then you've got like one guy who's like 200 pounds. It looks like he's just come from CrossFit, you know? And they're like, what the fuck is up with him?

Like, why is he so burly? And they realize, well, he's been going off to the title crack where they've been throwing the dead people and, like, feeding at night, you know. Feeding at the title crack. He's just jacked and ripped. Yeah. And that guy, it doesn't go well for him. So he kind of gave himself away about being like, man, I'm just different.

I'm just Bill different. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's genetics. So he was just sneaking off at nighttime and just frying up the guys. Yes. And then, but the commander, this was an army expedition. And the commander figures it out Adolphus Greeley.

And he's like, I don't, I hate getting stuff away, but whatever. Yeah, that's so funny. But he ends up going, okay, he catches him stealing food. And then he says, okay, we're going to take three guys out there and Henry, that's his name. Henry's got to go because he's eating what little food we have left. And so they do a thing where they have. Oh, he was munching the food reserves. after and and dead people and the people yeah and so then he's like we you know we'll all die if

henry keeps eating everything so they have an execution and they just like go out there and you know i got to say that's not very fat positive of them and he's hungry yeah yeah and Henry was body shaming people too that's fair damn so he was so they executed him but you know they wanted to not know who did it so they really put like blanks in two of the guns and then a live round in the other one. And all fired. They all fired on him. Dang.

Then they had to report it to the, if they, you know, they met some survived. Yeah. And they had to like write a report of like, yeah, we took out Henry. Made it kill him. Sorry. That's what you get, man. He can't be doing that on the expedition. No.

It's a bad form. Bad team player. That's a terrible team player. Yeah. Things is all about himself. There's no I in team, Henry. Yeah. Dang.

That's awesome. So what is like, so out of all the expeditions you've done, what are they? You've done the Amazon, Arctic. Well, also I went to Borneo. This was, I think I mentioned you, I had followed these crazy multi-sport adventure racers around the world for about seven years. And this was run by Mark Burnett, the guy who created Survivor, The Apprentice. And so I was doing some research. And I was, I was a journalist then writing about.

these sports. And one of the ones I went to was in Borneo, which is northern Malaysia islands. And that was super intense because, and it was actually during this race where Mark Burnett found the island that was the first Survivor Island where the first competition happened, however many like 112 seasons of Survivor ago or whatever it's been. And so this was really incredible. We were following these racers around and we were boats, motor boats, but we would sleep on islands, right? And I had heard my friend who's trying to freak me out, he's like, yeah, well, Borneo, that's where the headhunters are, right? So I thought, yeah. Yeah. Really? And he's like, well, they're south. They're south of where you're going to be,

you know, and I'm like, oh, good. And he said, but, you know, Borneo has like some of the most toxic snakes in the world. And also, so at one point, I'm on this island. And we were like, waiting to go to the next island and we camped out there, right? This is, couldn't have a hammock there because of no trees. And so I had heard about this sea crate, K-R-A-I-T, which is like one of the most toxic snakes in the world, right? And if it bites you, I think you have like hours to live. Really?

So we're like, get to this island. It was beautiful. We're all sitting up camping this one guy. We had this McGiver dude named Brito. He's British and his nickname was Brito, which isn't that clever. but that's just what we called him. But Brito, it turns out, was really scared of snakes, right? So we had seen in a couple, they're water snakes.

So it's freaky because we had to anchor out like it's shallow. We anchored like 200, 300 yards from the island. And then you couldn't get into shore because it would break, you know, fuck up the boat. So we're like carrying all our crap through the water, seeing occasional slithers going, goddamn. And so when we got to shore, Brito was like, buddy, I'm so scared of snakes.

And I'm like, okay, well, you know, just stay away from them. But we ended up like, so in the middle of the night, so I set up my tent. And in the middle of the night, I feel something like next to me. And the dude is spooning me, you know? And listen, I'm okay with spooning, you know. But the guy, I'm like, Brin, what the fuck are you doing? He's like, I can't take it.

I can't be out there. And then I showed him, I go, well, it's not going to help you that much in here. My tent had like a little hole in the corner. And I'm like, the sea crate's going to come right. Because they look for warmth too, you know, and I'm like. But they're water snakes. Yeah, they're water snake, but they can come on laying there, they're amphibious. It's not a good.

It's also like, don't be next to me. We're going to, you know. Right. She'd be like, I'm afraid of snakes too, bro. Back up, man. Get off of God. I know. Like a butt, dude.

Get your snake away from me. But. But and then I went the next day, I go, I go like. I think you made it all up and get close to you, honestly. He probably did. Oh me, buddy. Yeah. So the next day I went out to take a leak.

And I'm like, I see the movement in the scrub, you know, and I'm like, what the is that? And it was like, it was a, it was a monitor lizard, which are next to the Komodo dragon, the monitor lizard is the second largest reptile. in the world. I mean, there's like from me to these guys, you know. Damn. And it's like a Shetland pony elongated size lizard, you know, and you're like, and they're kind of gnarly too. I mean, you know, if you don't spook them or something, you're good. But like, it all just makes you nervous. You know, we went. Technically a dinosaur. A lizard of the size of a Shetland pony. That's a dino. Yeah. And you're out there in its Jurassic Park situation. And, you know, you're just trying to make a living. That's fucking terrible. And then how to how, so you're just on that

island for a day? Yeah, and then we went off to the next. I mean, it was like a 10 or 12 day long race. And we also had to crawl through, they had this really cool section of the race where they had to there are these bat caves that are really famous and they're huge. You go through these, like you crawl through these tunnels to get inside the big cavern and they're massive. And then there's these bat caves that actually are the local population. They harvest these, birds, they're kind of like a swallow. They're called Swifts. They harvest, there's a, they go up on these like vine ladders to harvest the eggs from these swift birds. It's like a medicinal aprietyac situation. What? Yeah. Every, every single place has their like, I swear, like give you,

this is like the tree bark liquor or whatever. Yeah. Every single civilization has their own like boner medication. You gotta have it. You do. Hey, I turn 40 this year. I'm in the thick of it, bro. I'm like, It's finally come for me. But so, yeah, then you're crawling. It was kind of nasty. I'm not, I'm not against bats or anything. But like when you're, and you guys, I know at Congress.

Yeah, yeah. You got bats. But you have to crawl through like tunnels of bat guano, like, you know, centuries of bats shitting there to get into the cavern place. And then as part of the race, the racers had to go through there and then climb up this huge, like a scarpment and then like repel down.

on the other side, right? So, you know, you're just coming out of there going, did I pick the wrong gig? Like, I'm covered in bat shit. Yeah. You know, it's not good. No. Can you get, it's like, it's like bird. I know bird shit you can get really sick.

Yeah, you back on, oh, you don't want to eat it. True. Fair enough. But no, it has, you can get sick. Well, because the bird, the bird shit, what happens is it dries and then you hit something and it goes up in the air. And then as soon as you breathe it in, it becomes that like when it gets wet, that's when it kind of messes you up.

Like, like whatever. I think moisture activates. Yeah. It's good as been, I was working with my dad. We were doing the thing with pigeon shit. He might have been making this all up. And he was just like moisture activates the germs and bird shit. It's like the hunt two virus.

You know, you don't be snorting that. That's pretty cool, though. So what do you have, what do you have like cooking up? What's your, what's your next? Well, I'm doing a, I'm doing a fourth Arctic book because I am the master of the Arctic. You are the master of the Arctic, as it turns out. And so, I'm claiming Antarctica.

I'm going to go to the Arctic. Anarchy. Yeah. I'll beat you to it. Well, my editor, I'm actually, this is avoidance behavior right here because I am working on a new book and it's about, so you may have heard of John Franklin who, this Franklin expedition that went off in the two boats, ships got stuck in the ice and then he never came home.

He had 120, well, did you, have you guys heard about the terror? It's an AMC show called The Terror. That was a huge deal. But anyway, these two ships got stuck in the ice and then nobody came home. And so his wife, Lady Jane Franklin, sent for like 20 years, sent expeditions to go try to find them. And then half of those people died. But those two ships were recently found in like 2017 and 2014 because of Inuit oral history. They said we saw, you know, their ancestors said, we saw these boats where they went down.

And they ended up using submersibles to go find both those ships. And it helped solve the problem or the questions about what happened. And in fact, cannibalism. Of course. 129 men perished. Oh. But that's not one of the books about. Yeah, yeah, sure.

No, my book's about the first Franklin expedition. Are you giving it away? What the hell? Yeah. It's about the first Franklin expedition in northern Canada, which is an overland journey in, like 5,000 miles on foot in canoes with Deney, Yellowknive, indigenous people. It was during the time of the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest fur traders, right? And so it's 1819.

And it's just this incredible ordeal where they're trying to figure out where the Northwest Passage is. In fact, almost all this stuff was related to finding the Northwest Passage, many of the Arctic Tales. And it's just an incredible ordeal. What's the Northwest Passage? They were trying to find a sea route. Instead of having to go all the way around to Asia, you could go quicker from Europe through the circuitous, all these islands north of Canada. Yeah. But it's really hard to navigate.

And half the time it's frozen and not navigable. And so it took centuries to figure out that it's not practical. And you just can't do it. Many people. I mean, with global warming, it's becoming open longer. I mean, if you believe in global warming. True. But, you know, it's still not.

It's too circuitous to get through quickly and it doesn't really solve the problem. But it took them a long time in many. lives to come to this realization. It sucks. A lot of those guys, too, I've noticed when they, whenever, whenever someone has like a successful voyage and they try to do the second one, it never works out. Besides, I feel like Christopher Columbus is the only guy who kind of like, I don't even know what happened to him ultimately.

It gets, yeah, like where their journeys improve. Yeah, he just kind of just, I, I don't know if this is true. I was talking to somebody months ago about Christopher Columbus, who was a history teacher. And he was saying that Christopher Columbus when he first got to, what was it, like Hispaniola whatever. There were the people there. I forget the name of them. They were like, you know, he famously was like they're super docile, blah, blah, blah. Apparently he would just like hop on their back and make them piggyback him around the eye, which is so disrespectful. He'd be like, I'm tired and just piggyback. You know what? They just carry him around. You look fit.

That's disrespect. Yeah, I thought that was crazy. I mean, there's obviously all of them did a lot of terrible things, but that would just, if a grown man was like, all right, come on, let me hop up. top on you real quick, I'd be like, it's fucking bullshit. Yeah. But he made it. He was the only guy. I feel like you did. I mean, I'm sure there were others, but he had like multiple successful expeditions, right?

Yes. Yeah. He was all over place. Well, yeah, but you're right. They tend to end poorly. I mean, even in the case of Oriana and River of Darkness, like he thought like what he learned going down the river would have helped. And then the return voyage was disastrous.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, plus you can't figure out. where you're going, you know, like, because of the mouth is so wide. One of the staggering facts that I wrote it, I'm going to have to confirm this after we are done here, if it's actually true, that there's an island at the mouth that's the size of Switzerland. Yeah, yeah.

That's insane. There's no way you look that up. I think that it's the case. It'll probably quote me. No, I swear to God, I think that's the case. Yeah. And it's, so you imagine Oriana arriving back there with his child bride, you know, and He did bring a child bride in the return voyage, which is crazy.

And they're like, we're going back up, and we're going to mostly visit the places that were nice to us. Yeah. Marahoe Island? Yeah, that's insane. And I forgot about that. And he survives it and then brings a child bride, honeymoons, the child bride. Great honeymoon. It's crazy.

Crazy. He just dies in front of her. Brazil's nice this time of year. You know. Yeah. I do like learning about those little like those weird like waterways like the Boka de Serpiente and the Bocaday dragon where they got to like navigate these weird rocky channels with like wetlands through where was that like the Trinidadian coast.

Yeah. Mangrove swamps and everything. Fuck it sucks. Yeah. I mean that would suck. Especially just to learn where you're at and I go where the place we're in is called the mouth of the dragon. I'd be like, fuck.

Fuck. I wonder why they call it that. Yeah. Well, buddy, this is great. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you have or anything you'd like people to know or any of that stuff? Talking business? No, man. I really appreciate being here.

It's been a blast. And I'm going to keep writing these things until I'm weak and infirm and need to feed on a friend. There you go. Well, thank you so much. My pleasure, man. See you, buddy. Take care. Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's Secret.

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