The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 546: The History of Adventure

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Peter Stark, Ryan Callaghan, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: Being an adventurer and then an adventure historian; Peter's many books; the beaver in the tile work of Astor Place; how young Washington was a screw up; how exasperated Steve gets listening to Attenborough, God bless him; dinosaurs in the snow; land back scenarios; mapping out old water ways; checking out narwhals with Inuit hunters; how far north can you go?; different ways to die; box jellies and black mambas; the lost Pacific Empire of Astor and Jefferson; young Washington; Tecumseh; and more.  Outro song by Jacob Perleoni Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

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Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-t-l-i-t-e.com holy cow big time author peter stark is here old friend too new york times best-selling author long time contributed outside like at a time peter and i I both contributed at outside around the same time. Peter is a, like an adventure, an exploration writer. What else? How else did you put it?

Well, now I call myself an adventure historian because I write about other people doing the crazy stuff because I'm too old to do it myself. So I look for historical figures that have gone over the edge in the world in the wilderness what went too far yeah yeah rather than myself or or rather than time well at a time you put you you would push it a little bit too far yourself right and now you let other people do the pushing right and you know what i'm talking about you've done some pushing yourself sure a long time contributor outside magazine um his work has appeared all over the place. He's written for the Smithsonian, New York Times Magazine, written for the New Yorker, written how many books?

A lot of books. Seven or eight now. Seven or eight books. We're going to get into some of these books, which are highly applicable. Peter Stark wrote a book years ago about just all the worst ways to die in the wild um he's written a book about uh aster and the historians so kind of like a mountain man beaver trade book america's first homegrown millionaire that is right visionary a visionary um he wrote a book about and this this touches on so so in a way you've touched you're touching on some mean randall's territory yeah oh totally yeah i mean this is this is your world yeah well we're like yeah we're

looking at more of the working class end of things and and not the bosses but you've touched on the boss so we're working on the thing about beaver trappers okay and he was sort of the boss of the beaver trappers yeah yeah yeah you worked for him and he told you what you were going to get for that pelt. And yeah, you were kind of a captive man under John Jacob Astor. And then he became big time rich. He became big time rich, yeah.

And if you go into Astor Place, the subway station in New York, today you will find a beaver on the wall. In the tile work. Really? I've never noticed that. There's a beaver in the tile work at Astor Place. I got it. Okay. I've been in that

subway station a million times. Never noticed it. Also wrote a book about... Man, you have a new book that's brushing up against our boy Clay. But also wrote a book about George Washington, but the early George Washington.

And the surprising amount of wilderness experience George Washington had as an explorer and bushwhacker. And kind of a general screw-up in a lot of ways, which really shaped his career. Because it was like he made all the mistakes he could make in his 20s in the wilderness and, you know, like inadvertently setting off the French and Indian War, almost freezing to death. I mean, within an inch of dying at age 21 and one thing after the other out in the Ohio wilderness. And then he managed to learn some things from that experience. And, you know, he became a great leader eventually.

But at this point, he was just kind of a jerk, actually. He was very self-centered. He was really thin-skinned. He was incredibly ambitious. He was in love with his best friend's wife. He wanted to be British. Chopped down and lied about chopping a cherry tree down. And he wanted to be British.

That's the— I mean, literally, he tried for years to be a British Royal Army officer and they wouldn't let him in. And he was really angry about that. He tried for years. There are lots of stories about that. Now, we were having trouble with George Washington because we just did an audio bit about, we're doing these projects on different phases of commercial hunters so the first one we did was on the white the deer hide hunters mostly in the first far west so you know stuff that floated into the ohio mostly from the south it's like daniel boom okay okay deer head hunters pre pre-revolution yes so our our book cover our audio project covers up to 1776 okay because then that world kind of dissolved but in

it there's some really alarming quotes from george washington who had like a very like condescending just shitty attitude toward the backwoodsman oh yeah of the frontier and questioned their um questioned their patriotism well in that he's like a tip of the hat would push him to the french and he says they're not was he bitching that they weren't brits or they weren't americans um just that they weren't quite invested in the in the revolutionary project and that the yeah that they didn't have any fierce loyalty one way or the other. They're sort of people in between empires. Well, now here's George Washington out in the Ohio Valley wilderness and you're talking 1776. In 1770, he took a canoe trip down the Ohio River and essentially he reserved 20,000 acres of the very best lands

for himself, literally. And the reason he could is because he had served as an officer, Virginia colonial officer in the French and Indian war. And, you know, that's how he got paid, officers and men got paid in bounty lands, that expression, free land for your service. And as an officer, he got 3,000 acres as an officer in the French and Indian War. And then what he started doing is he went around secretly to his fellow officers, but he wouldn't go himself. He'd send like a surrogate and say to the fellow officer, hey, you interested in selling that 3,000 acres? And if the fellow officer might say, yeah, I'll sell it. And so then George would buy it. And in that way,

he accumulated like 20,000 acres of land. And then he went over the mountains and canoed down the Ohio River in two big canoes with Indian guides, and he had some frontier guys with him. And he staked all the rich bottomlands, and he keeps a journal of it all the way down. So that's 1770. Then in 1774, you know, as things start heating up with a revolution coming along, you know, tension, a lot of tension between the American colonists and the British. And there's a certain point where the British in London, you know, the British in charge in London say, you know, those bounty lands that we were going to give to these American colonists for their service in the French and Indian War? Well, actually, those bounty lands are only going to go to British officers, not Virginia colonial officers. He went apeshit.

He went apeshit. As would I. There are these letters. I've got some, I think, reproduced in this book. But he was so angry. And that was 1774. Didn't take him much to push him over the edge to the anti-French side. Yeah, that was probably the point at which you got his revolutionary fervor, man.

Also a book, which we're going to get into, about the great leader Tecumseh. Exactly. And you pit him against- William Henry Harrison. William Henry Harrison. Territorial governor. leader tecumseh exactly and you pit him against um william henry harris william henry harris territorial governor and when i say that that um you uh pulled in on our boy clay is uh in our network there's a there's a podcast called bear grease and that and clay did i think a three-parter on tecumseh um which was interesting but not didn't delve into the, the sort of this, this, uh, it's kind of face-off, but yeah, this sort of face-off between him and the president

of the United States and the dynamics, it was really the dynamics between the, the white world and the white political world and the, and the native leadership. And yeah, really interesting. And Thomas Jefferson, my hero, does not come off well in this equation. Really? Yeah. We can get into that. Knock it down all the founding fathers, man. Yeah, you know, once you, their earlier days, you know, they're not all saints.

Yeah. They, I mean, they're great guys. There's no doubt about it. And they're great leaders. You know, a lot of them, they all. Yeah, forged by fire. But they, yeah, forged by fire. But they were, there was a lot of self-interest going on there at the same time.

No. You've never seen that in politics. Oh, you know what? So we're going to get into all that real big time. You know what I've been watching with my boy that's like well worth time, my littlest boy, is, have you guys seen that thing? It's like planet Earth, but it's dinosaurs. Phil, maybe you know.

No, no idea. It's called Prehistoric Planet. I mean, my kids have watched. I don't know if it's the same one. I feel like there's a lot of those. So instead of them saying, instead of them, it's got that same guy. That guy that does all those things. Attenborough.

Oh, my good Lord. I mean, God bless him. God bless him. But holy cow. They got a part of it where you actually see him talking. And it's like he physically has to sort of like expel his words. His head's like the hunter becomes the haunted oh it wears me out drives my kids crazy because i'm like the whole time i'm sitting i'm like but what they do in this thing so you know they got a lot of these dinos let me tell you about

dinosaurs they got a lot of these dinosaurs you find like part of a bone right the best you can do like i'm all for it we had the jack horner on not in this studio but our old studio where i'm warm to dinosaurs but you got like a dinosaur you find like a hunk of his toe which is great what this thing does is it totally tries to make up their lives so rather than it being a show about here's what its little chunk of its toe looked like and if you figure that his toe would look like this and you know its foot might look like this if its foot looked like that one might assume that right whatever they get into like it's all cgi yeah and there's one of them making a nest and then another one of them comes up to like rob the nest but a snake gets it

and they make up like mating ritual they got their they got all their vocalizations and every day in this thing every dinosaur is constantly vocalizing yep a dinosaur will be sneaking up he's sneaking up on something he's vocalizing they don't stop vocalizing. A dinosaur would be sneaking up. He's sneaking up on something and he's vocalizing. They don't stop vocalizing. Every dinosaur all the time in every scene is vocalizing. They even got it where like, there's dinosaurs that use tools.

So he'll get a stick lit like a cigarette and run over and light some stuff on fire to flush game out. There's a dinosaur that goes on a beach and he makes like this artwork on the beach to attract overhead mate and he lays out like an offering of like a show do they write books to this is all bird behavior mmm right so that's what they're yeah they take some I mean I totally get I mean it's it's bullshit because we can't possibly know.

But that's what they're extrapolating from is bird behavior. Like current bird behavior. I get it. And they got a thing, the science behind the show. And they got a thing. But when you're watching with a nine-year-old, I can't help myself. I have to pause it and be like, no, you understand. Oh, yeah. You sound like a blast.

You've ruined it for everyone is what you're saying. pause it and be like, no, you understand. Oh, yeah. You sound like a blast. He, like, in his mind, you ruin it for everyone is what you're saying. In his mind, they somehow have filmed, in his mind, they've filmed dinosaurs. Man, you're like ruining

the Santa Claus show. Oh, yeah. He's like, oh, it's good. It's great. And they even do this stuff where it's like, they even do parts of it in night vision.

So you'll be like dinosaurs in a hole in the ground and it's infrared. Then I'll pause and be like, now you realize. Yeah. I think this is very important for you to do because I think it's very dangerous. Right.

You know, we should film a watch along. Because like we talk to people of different faiths often that are like, well, you know, and you're like, okay. And you gotta, you gotta be able to explain certain things to certain people. We watch a little every night, man. It's fascinating. And parts of it, I need to.

Yeah. The Attenborough stuff kills me a little bit. God bless him. He's been in the biz a long time. The guesswork, but here's the biggest thing that blows my mind. And I don't think this is guesswork. Dinosaurs in the snow. And the hair they have on them.

I had it in my head. I don't know. The whole damn place is a jungle. But there were a lot of dinosaur activity in the snow. In the show. But they kind of lay the case out, like the poles. You know, In this show. But they kind of lay the case out.

Like the poles, you know, the landmass movement, I mean, the poles were still cold. They still stayed. They were. And they had like, they had, yeah, they had, there was like long, dark, you know, course at that time, you had long periods of light and dark, just like we do now. Right. dark just like we do now right so in areas that you had northern areas that would that were inhabited by dinosaurs that had total darkness in the winter total daylight in the summer had snowfall and so there's a lot of this fake footage of dinosaurs duking it out in the snow here's a which is just not something you think about yeah here's here's a Smithsonian mag article, as you've written for

the Smithsonian, from 2020. How dinosaurs thrived in the snow. Discoveries made in the past decades help show how many species cope with cold temperatures near both poles. Oh, that's okay.

That's total news to me. But Attenborough, man, he lays in more with them one-liners. The hunter becomes the hunted. You do got to tell the boys about fire hawks, though, right? In Australia. I'm sure that's what, yeah. Because that is bad. That's what they're going off of.

They're taking things that they know birds do and, and just sort of randomly assigning them. Yeah. Now there's one more gripe I got with the show. You got to point out the fact too, it's like, you can't make something like this and not have fighting. A lot of fighting. It's like the dinosaur spent a lot of time fighting each other.

They mostly duked it out. Yeah. See, now I find the firehawk less impressive if. Knowing that it's been going on for this long. Yeah, 65 million years and they haven't advanced beyond the, right? Well, they fly.

Yeah, but the whole, the trickery, the tools, the culture. Oh, come on, Randall. I don't know. Yeah, Randall changes off. He's the, he's the, he's a diaper. Look how much he's advanced just in his own life. From diaper to doctor.

Back to diapers. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you know. He's a PhD. You're sitting next to him. Is that right? In history. I told you.

Now I'm scared. Now I'm scared. Randall's just been looking at you with a condescending eye. He always should be. Yeah. One more thing about it. There's a lot of like... So you know the flying reptiles back then,

the pterodactyls and all that? There's one of those things as tall as a giraffe. Does it have a long neck like a giraffe? And they got them all walking around on their elbows. So they land, and then they bring their wings in. Their wingtips are sticking up in the air, and they walk on all fours. That sounds like the dragons. So they land and then they bring their wings in. Their wing tips are sticking up in the air and they walk on all fours. That sounds like the dragons. And they got these huge

necks and heads. And I don't care. I'll say this right in the face of a paleontologist. I don't know what they look like. They didn't look like that. They didn't. You got it. You got it wrong. because physics still existed do you know i mean like the the physical properties like gravity stuff like that yeah like unless you're gonna come

and show me this sort of like shit that like uh what's his name einstein was into yeah was somehow not applicable because i I'm like, that didn't look like that. You got that one right. I think we need to watch this. I think we need to watch this, throw it up on the screen. You know, there's some podcasts that do sort of movie watch-along commentaries, where you press play on the movie

and press play on the podcast, and then you have people like, you know, it's like a commentary on a DVD or whatever. New idea. It's just Steve pointing out all of the inaccuracies of a film with your like you know it's like a commentary on a dvd or whatever new idea it's just steve just pointing out all of the inaccuracies yeah with my kids there with your kids yeah it's like she's riffing on the whole thing my kids going dad yeah history science theater right exactly yeah that would be so fun i mean it would be obnoxious as hell but i'd love love it. I just do that a lot.

News from sort of commentary from Catalina Island. Going back to episode 488, we discussed the proposal by the Catalina Conservancy to eradicate non-native black-tailed deer, mule deer from Catalina Island.

They'd come up with a plan so catalina island is offshore well it's an island um off the coast of california and they have a they got a they got a herd of buffalo that were brought out there for a western i can't zane i think it was zane gray when they shot a zane gray new. And they got deer they brought out there. The buffalo are A-OK to hang out. The deer, they want gone. And so they're hiring. There's a proposal to use to bring in contractors to wipe the deer out from helicopters.

We were discussing it on the show. And we were saying, as I often do, why would you pay someone to go get something that people would pay to go get and we discussed this um is why not use why not increase or use the hunting permit the hunting permit process it's already in place and just expand the hunting permit process they've been given out 200 tags a year um for deer in 2018 2019 a guy a guy who's been retired from california department of fish and wildlife for three years wrote in with some commentary about this i'm kind of going through his commentary he says in 20 2018 2019 we increased that amount to 500 tags in an attempt to promote hunting to reduce the numbers on the island. California's Fish and Game Department went and encouraged the Catalina Conservancy to work with hunting conservation non-governmental organizations to recruit hunters to go out on the island.

It's a long letter, but basically he says that the conservancy is paying lip service there's a term for this that i can't i don't want to use on eric's try to limit the curse words to grin it's my favorite thing you'd say if you tell someone something and they kind of grin and go but they have no intention of doing it they're grin effing you right they're like you're like they're like oh we'll look into it that's what people have been doing to me all my life but i didn't know there was a term for it you know you're like hey why don't you try? So basically that the Catalina, him saying, when we discussed this many episodes ago, we talked about there are a lot of obstacles to conducting effective deer hunts on the island, financial and otherwise. He goes on to say, we have tried extensively.

He had tried extensively to work with the Conservancy to overcome those hurdles, and they did not take them seriously. Well, they were the ones that made the hurdles, really, is what it amounts to. And then now, with the helicopter plan, they've got a plan, like many things, where no one is happy. The helicopter plan has the animal rights organizations up in arms it has the hunters up in arms and you've gotten a thing where in trying to please everybody you've pissed off everybody um and he says that and he is not this individual is not on board with the idea that the hunting plan just didn't work. Did I do a fair job? Yeah, that's great.

I was never really given a chance to work. He's got a great point in here too about unsubstantiated claims about the difficulty of hunting in the wild land parts of the island. It's an island. It's completely accessible by water at all points. In fact, there's many different services out there so you can circumnavigate the entire island in kayaks. Really? Yeah.

Oh, super cool. Super cool. And then you do that during lobster season. There's lobsters all over that island. All sorts of good stuff to eat. Man. And, uh, so I always think about that when I, cause I had multiple people tell me, oh yeah,

you know, there's no water. There's no, it's like, well, how the hell these other people. Yeah. It's a big island to go paddle around. How big is it? I've been out there. I can't remember.

Yeah. I can't remember how many acres it is. Like how many miles long? It's like the kind of island I feel like you could drive around. I don't want to say. It feels like a California. Very limited roads. You can kind of take it all in with a view.

Depending on how closely you follow the shoreline, it's 52 to 66 miles to circumnavigate. Oh, oh, that is. 22 mile long island, eight miles across. Well, that's substantial. There's gotta be water on that island. There is, it's just, it's, it's very limited. Um, and then, you know, like ice, right, is very limited.

And then the roads, you know, so like boats, but I, yeah, I've, I've been out there more than enough times to dream up exactly how I would hunt that thing very successfully. Like it doesn't seem to be a real, not a problem. Doesn't seem to really stump a fella. Speaking of being able to take in, um, how i said you can take it in in a view from a distance so we we some episodes ago had the director uh werner herzog on the podcast oh my god um one thing i didn't ask herzog about that i wish i would have is he has a movie called the enigma of casper mansker and it's about a boy who was just raised in a little rock hut. They never let up. They kept him captive

his whole life in a rock hut. No interaction with anybody. Later he was freed and like educated a little bit, but it had developed this very peculiar worldview from having been like

deprived and kept locked up in a rock hut his whole life. Someone mentioned him one time that you were in such a small space but now you have the whole world. And he expressed that he viewed

that space as being huge. Because everywhere he looked, no matter what direction he looked, there it was. But when you're outside and you look, a thing is only in one place. Do you follow me?

Yeah. No, that's a really interesting perspective. Well, I mean, it makes logical sense. You can see how a human brain could configure it that way if there was no other reference. It's everywhere. Now, when Stephenson was traveling with the Eskimo of the high Arctic and they would look through his telescope, they would refer to what they were seeing in the telescope in a future tense. Okay. Cause that's when you would get there.

That makes sense. Right. What you would get to tomorrow, they would discuss as though it's existing in a future state as when you'd arrive. That's so it's, it's like a visual future tense in the language. Like,

well, we're not there now, but there will be a, but there will be a but there will be a mountain there will be a creek it'll be a time when we get there and he would get frustrated because when they would they would draw maps of islands for him and they would the features that they utilized heavy would be huge so let's say there's a huge island with a small bay where they hunt waterfall waterfowl they would draw it for him but it'd be's a huge island with a small bay where they hunt waterfowl. They would draw it for them, but it'd be like a little island mostly consumed by a bay.

Because in their head, like, who cares? Like, go to the bay. Makes a lot of sense. Way back when, when I was doing lots of spot and stock mule deer hunting and spend a lot of time just face down as flat as you can get right like especially in that like final 100 yards and sometimes it'd be hours of just trying to creep that last little bit. And, uh, when you would stand up eventually, there would be like a little instance of like nausea or, um,

uh, vertigo and your brain like recalibrating to the scale of things as a standing human with a much further line of sight. Whereas like, you know, that multiflora rose stuff out on the Prairie, that's like eight inches tall, you'd be like, it'd be like a giant boulder

you're hiding behind. Kind of like similar, like to like diving down on, on reefs where you're like, oh, there's a little tiny rock down there. And then you get down there and it's like the size of VW type of thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Um, but that was always pretty wild to me i can totally imagine that you're like in an ant perspective yeah and you're hyper focused and you're hyper focused and then you know and there's all sorts of things you know we have two eyes that do the triangulating yeah with your vision and they've been triangulating six inches away and now they're triangulating six miles away and they say, well, there's some, something's wrong here. Yeah. Yeah. But that was always wild to me.

One of the, uh, someone that got away, he died before we ever got him on. I always want to have Barry Lopez come on the show. And in Arctic Dreams, he's talking about a botanist who would, uh, was working on a tussock. So cataloging all the plant species on a

tussock and trimming it, which is like this little head size clump of vegetation and spending, you know, I don't know what it was, better part of a day working on this tussock, like snipping, weighing, snipping, weighing, and then having this feeling of then standing up. And as far as the eye could see in any direction was tussocks. It's sort of like the enormity, right? The enormity of the place. It's like a stone hut. Yeah. Or that's a Dr. Seuss trick, right? Where it's like the Horton hears a who type of thing.

Everything's on the head of a pin. Hey, folks. of a pin. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. Boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't

join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery,

24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team.

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Here's a letter. We were talking about, I like this kind of letter because it's a letter that someone wrote in mad about something, but it winds up they're wrong. The subject is, a serious issue with Steve not giving attention to something he's always bitched about. Corinne, you should have titled this Steve's Wet Dream. He calls himself, so it's Logan, the Mountaineer Trapper. And he says, y'all are always bitching about national parks because you can't hunt on them. And he goes on to say, well, how come you haven't acknowledged the latest entry into the national parks system,

which is the new river gorge of West Virginia. And he goes on to say, it's the only national park where you are allowed to fish, hunt, and trap within park boundaries, 70,000 acres of hunting, fishing, trapping ground now entrusted with national Park protections, and then some. Quote, I'm amazed that none of you have acknowledged the, quote, thing that you dislike the most in regards to the other designations. Brody went on to say, poof.

Yeah, I mean, look, it's great that you can do that stuff in new river gorge fantastic right but fishing you can fish in national parks all over the damn place yeah you can fish in yellowstone um and it ain't the first national park you can hunt in but i pointed out the broad there's a difference because if you get like wrangle saint elias national park and preserve hard park and soft yeah so in certain gates of the arctic there's a thing called hard park and soft park yep preserves and parks you know a lot of it's a kick out of that hard park and soft park a lot of what we're talking about is in alaska yeah where they'll be like an area of the park you can hunt in the area of the park you can't and i've even heard people i remember one time um i can't remember i met

someone who knew someone they were out in the middle of nowhere but they had killed a sheep on the wrong side of a ridge right and they were like they killed a sheep in the hard park not the soft park and there's a little bit of brouhaha about that but yeah there's there's other stuff too there's national seashores which would be like soft park, I suppose, where you can hunt. Um, but in Grand Teton National Park, you can hunt cow elk in certain parts of the park at certain times of the year. So sorry, New River Gorge. Sounds like Brody's turning into a national park apologist. No, I'm not.

But you know, you got to point out. I mean, I'd consider myself a park man. You're a park man? I'm a park man. I like to go look at large creatures that walk right up to you. It's almost breaking up my marriage. My wife wants to go to Glacier,

it's damn bad. Well, Randall's marriage, they're very much aligned. Just take my wife to Glacier. I'd be happy to. The line at which they would become pro-capital punishment, if not pro-vigilante. And it's based off of their national parks experience. Oh, just enforcing rules?

Yes, but you guys were talking about killing people who broke the rules in national parks. Randall thinks you should death penalty people who break park rules? Randall, you should be a ranger in a national park. This is probably an offhand comment fueled by some sort of substance that leaves one prone to exaggerating their feelings well that if that was the case in my i have a dear friend that wouldn't be with us anymore because when he he grew up here and when he was a boy you would ride your horse into the park with a hacksaw because burls like elk burls was real popular for belt buckles and they knew you weren't supposed to take the antlers off the park but who really cared about the end so that was a common thing in high school is to

ride around hacksawing off just the end because like come on was it was their attitude come on there's still I need the whole antler here I will will say that there are the flagrant disregard for the norms of society that you see at national parks frustrates me and raises my blood pressure. When there's like a big sign that says don't walk out onto the alpine and then someone just walks out onto the alpine. Yeah, what would we do without Pierce Brosnan? Yeah, why did Pierce Brosnan get in trouble in the park? Well, he walked out towards the hot mammoth, the geothermal features. Was he in pursuit of a criminal mastermind? Well, he took a—no, there was a photo taken of him, and he posted it.

And someone said, what you're doing in that photo is against the rules. Well, it could have been his last walk, too. I mean, there are places in Yellowstone where, as you know, you walk out there and suddenly the crust breaks and you're in like a lobster boil. Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't want to wish ill on the brother, but it ought to be in the news. If they just got rid of all the rules, all the idiots would be dead anyway, Randall, right? Well, yeah. I don't know i i uh national parks i think are a source of

great uh frustration for me but i i also see what they have to offer in terms of wildlife and landscapes and yeah i just don't like going anywhere where i don't feel like i'm scouting i can justify anything by feeling like maybe i'll see something that'll guide my future activities when i'm in the park i'm like there's nothing I can see here that's going to influence anything for me. Have you ever gone deep in the Yellowstone backcountry? Right on the edge of it. But like in the center of the park. I mean, that's what I hear about.

That's where you go hunting? Yeah, that's even worse. That's where I run my trap line. Going into those places is even worse, though. Yellowstone beaver pelt is worth a lot of money. Yeah, just genuine Yellowstone Park beaver pelt. Yeah, I went into thoroughfare. Peter's slogan is rare in hen's teeth.

I went into thoroughfare once, and I was just like, man, can't hunt any of this. It really sucks. But did you get way back in there? Yeah, it was a long time ago. It was like in the mid-90s. To answer your question, I have not. Yeah, I have not. But I mean, just not in terms of hunting, but just in terms of, oh, scout.

When you're saying scout, you mean scout for some living thing. Like I'm doing something that might impact some future hunting activity. Okay, right, right. Oh, like, you know, whatever. I don't know. A friend of mine just went on a pack rift track. One of our buddies, he was pack rafting. And he casually mentioned seeing a couple bears.

Now I took note. And I was like, now where again? But if he was pack rafting in the park, it would have just been in one ear and out the other. I understand that. I understand that. But if he was pack-wrapped in the park, it would have just been in one ear and out the other. I understand that. Here's the thing I shouldn't even be talking about because we haven't looked into it at all. But just I'll point this out. Maybe, Cal, maybe you've read up on this.

Someone wrote in. I have not vetted this. Maybe we shouldn't even talk about it. No, it's... You vetted it? Yeah. I mean talk about it no it it's you've added it yeah I mean there's all several other examples too so this is a real this is a real mental tongue twister here I live in Minnesota this is someone writing in I live in Minnesota and earlier this year the Upper Sioux agency State Park consisting of about two square miles was transferred to the Upper Sioux community this land has a troubled history where the federal government failed to provide promised miles was transferred to the Upper Sioux community.

This land has a troubled history where the federal government failed to provide promised food annuities, and as a result, Dakota people starved. He goes on. This legislative session in the state Senate, a bill was introduced which would transfer state lands in White Earth State Forest, consisting of approximately 155,000 acres, or just under 250 square miles, to the White Earth Tribe of northwestern Minnesota. The land currently is a state forest in the public trust and is used for outdoor recreation by the public for small and large game hunting, horseback riding, fishing, etc. Leaders of the White Earth tribe have stated that they would keep lands open to the public. However, the sort of guarantee that being a state forest has to the public would be lost, and ultimately access for the public to the land would be up to the whims of tribal leaders. While I think the land transfer is a noble attempt

towards righting wrongs of the past, I do not agree with removing lands from public use to further this goal. Currently, the land is open to use for everyone, but transferring it threatens that common use. For this session, the bill has been tabled, but Senator Kunish, I don't know how he pronounces his name, who carried the bill, has stated she expects it to reappear in future sessions.

I would appreciate any consideration on the topic and some of the meat eater team's thoughts on this topic i'll hit you with mine and i'm gonna keep it brief i don't like to see any under any circumstances anywhere public lands falling out of the public trust ever ever i don't care what it's for yeah but this could potentially i mean i i agree i'm like staunch public lands advocate and want to keep them open to everybody um but just by like saying that it kind of leans into this assumption that that access is going to change and it's gonna come out of public access or not provide the same level of public access. All this is saying is that that management would change and that would be like the only known right now. But yes, it does with any management change. People like to rearrange stuff and let folks know who's in charge. Um, so, uh, we don't know what we don't know. That's why I hesitated to even bring it up. I know.

Uh, but yeah, the, uh, there, I just saw over in the Black Hills, a non-profit, uh, Cheyenne youth group, uh, just purchased 40 acres in the Black Hills. Mm-hmm. As. Off the open market. Off the open market as an example of another, like, would be like another example of like a land back situation where this is going to be like tribal land in theory held in perpetuity. But purchased off. But purchased off the open market.

Yeah. And then, uh, like Vermont and Maine have several examples of that too. So. Yeah. Yeah. Are you okay with that? If it's on the open market?

I mean, if it's private land. Oh, ruling seller, ruling buyer. Yeah. I mean, it's, I, I, yeah. I mean, there's plenty of people who aren't, and it's a really fun conversation to have because it's like, well, what is, in the north central part of this state, which is, uh, buying ranches on the open market, right? Ranch comes up for sale. You join the bidding process and you buy it. And what they would like to do is just take the infrastructure out, take the fencing out with a long-term goal of turning it into you know turning it into sort of like a pre-contact

prairie ecosystem and people that would be very much private property rights right have a very like don't tread on me attitude in general politically will find it very offensive um because it is it sort of transcends the property rights issue and gets into a removal of history or a cultural it's a cultural threat i think you know a threat to that ranching culture is my understanding i mean i'm not an expert in this yeah it's very much like these coastal elites coming in here and buying up, you know, and changing our way of life. But it's conflicted by like, well, but yeah, I, I, and I understand that, but at the same time, I understand that.

I feel like if you'd gone to ask someone, like, do you feel that you should be able to do on your land what you want to do on your land? They would be like, hell yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. So it's like, but okay. Then you need to extend, you sort of need to extend that outward unless you're saying that certain things trump, unless you're admitting a fourth-generation Montana or a fourth-generation ranch or a fourth-generation this or fifth-generation that. And then, well, then, you know, then you've got the people who are fourth-generation farmers or ranchers saying, well, this is our cultural history, and yet it ignores this incredibly 10,000, 15,000 years of other history.

And so what's the difference there? And with the point about the – is it the White national forest in Minnesota. White Earth. White Earth. That's another, it strikes me, that's another irony in that. State forest. State forest. State forest.

And I totally agree that I'm never foreclosing public access to anything. I mean, staunch as can be, but it's funny with, uh, um, it's kind of a big irony that now it's the, the we'll just call them the, the white guys who are worried that the tribes are going to break the treaty. Yeah. Yeah. And it is worth it. And won't let them, won't let them on the land.

Yeah. I'd be like, we're losing all of our land to these people. It's worth pointing out too, right? That if you look in Minnesota on state forest land, like the, there's plenty of threats to public access. On state forest. On, on state forest. And, and it's in open pit copper sulfide mines.

Right. A giant helium deposit, you know, all sorts of things that state land is typically there to generate some sort of income, right? Yeah. And that's part of its mission in a way. Yes. And so, and that's a certain kind of public access, which actually cuts out part of the public because it's being made into a for-profit resource.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, so like United Property Owners of Montana would be one of the groups that has like tried to, um, back legislation that would restrict, uh, APR from purchasing land or following through with, with their business model. Um, the legislation's real wonky because it is willing buyer willing seller situations uh so i was thinking the other day i've been like would like sherman antitrust act

be like the way to it you have a corporate entity that's uh gobbling up the resources influence right would that be the the way this is just just you're getting uh you're gaining a regional land monopoly right oh that's right yeah right okay i've got another one along those lines that's that's really been kind of eating away at me and this is on this is on we're supposed to switch to use so you're on your time now you do whatever you want okay well this is how you'd like to use it go ahead well i'll make it about me you sure you want to go to the bathroom right now okay no so this will feed into what i'm doing great um i come you know grew up in wisconsin came from a huge canoeing family and so my grandparents were into my grandfather grandfather was way into rivers, my father,

on and on and on. My father was also really into frontier history and Indians. And so I grew up steeped in that frontier history. And one summer, my brother and I, we grew up in a lake. My mom still lives there, 92 in Wisconsin. And yeah, doing well. well i'm gonna go back there next week and we took a canoe from my parents front lawn and we paddled from there to new orleans really yeah without getting out of the water i feel like i maybe forgot knew about this but then forgot it because it's somewhat yeah no kidding no i'm not kidding and and so i just were able to load right up in the yard. My buddies and I talked about that a lot, but we never pulled it off.

Yeah. Well, believe me, it's not like a summer vacation because it's like punching in at the factory and doing eight hours or 10 of hard, hard paddling and then coming to a sandbar. So what was the basic, like walk me through the basic, like here to here to here to here. Okay. So this is where I'm getting into the public access thing.

So this is, do you know about subcontinental divides? Yeah. And so this is the subcontinental divide between the Great Lakes system and the Mississippi

Gulf of Mexico system. Yeah, which was punctured by the Chicago Sanitation Canal. You are so right. We're going to talk about that. by the Chicago Sanitation Canal. You are so right. We're going to talk about that. Chicago Sanitation. Which was violated by the Chicago Sanitation Canal, which has the electric fish barrier

on it. Well, is that right? Okay. Well, because I've been writing so much in these books. This most recent one, Gallop Toward the Sun, about Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison. And a lot of it takes place in that whole Midwest region in the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes. And so I've always been really cognizant of rivers, I mean, my whole life and how they flow. And that one of the most important geographical features in North America is that subcontinent or mid-continental divide between that, where the waters flow out the great lakes to the, you know, Gulf, to the St. Lawrence

and into the Atlantic and where they flow from, uh, down the Mississippi or down the Ohio into the Gulf of Mexico. So if you're an Indian or family Indian, but birch bark canoe, I mean, you could travel all over the place without really getting out of your canoe, which, which they did. And people today don't really understand what an interconnected system of waterways there is, there was, and there is in this continent, if you have the right craft and you know, and you know where to go. So.

And the benefits, right? Like the safety. The safety of. Of being out on the open water with like a lot of distance between you and thick brush, potential death from animals and people and all that? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is safety.

And so one of the things that makes me crazy about public access is stream access law. And I'm sure you guys have discussed this in Montana. And I think it's- Right now, New Mexico is kind of the battleground. It is where it's going on. And I'm sure you've talked about, at least as far as I know, we still have it. I mean, Montana is a really good stream access.

Phenomenal. Phenomenal. That the high water mark is, I mean, you can venture up to the high water mark, which can be a lot of ground. there's this really important portage in Wisconsin that was, you know, it was like the main interstate interchange of this whole part of North America. And it's between the Wisconsin river and the Fox river. So it's green Bay.

These are all voyagers. It's a portage to get from the Mississippi system to the St. Lawrence system. Yes. And you get from the shit that goes in the Atlantic to the stuff that goes in the Gulf of Mexico. And you know where Green Bay, Wisconsin is. And which was a very, I mean, it was a major Indian village forever. And then it was a really early fur post.

Who was the dude that got into Green Bay and put on a silk, what they call a Mandarin robe? Oh, yes. I know. Because he's like, ha, China. It was one of the French guys. It was a Nicolaire. Nicolaire, one of those guys. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'm in China. Cross Lake Michigan. He's like, here I am, boys. Here we are. Get my silk robe. But then, so there's this, and my father would tell me about this. Okay, it's called Portage, Wisconsin.

Oh, yeah. And it connects those two. Yeah, you know what's so funny? I've seen that and said that a million times and never thought about it. And you never thought? Yeah, because you grew up not so far away. And, you know, there's a big interstate that goes right by it. And so my brother and I, I was out there ski racing with my brother this winter at a ski area right near the portage.

And after we finished skiing, I said, hey, you know, I've always wondered really what this looks like. And so we started driving around. And this portage, it's really, it's like a marsh. And it's not very long to get from one system to the other. So this summer we're going to go and make that portage. Oh. And what I'm wondering is like, okay, now in stream access law, okay, here we are on one of the central routes across the continent in pre-contact time.

I mean, like, you know, 15-lane highway, this portage would be. And now, can you actually go across it? And is it public land or is it private land? And if it's private land, are you allowed to go across? So what's your take on that? No. What? No, you can't.

Yes, you can. No, listen, I feel that, you know, I feel like you should. Yeah. But I, you know, follow the rules you know, I feel like you should. Yeah. But I, you know, follow the rules. Seems sticky. But I think you should. I'll send you first. What is your intent?

Right? That's what we talk a lot about these days. He's trying to exercise his historic portage rights. I'm going to work to establish those. You're not intending to loiter on private land. You're not intending to harvest from private land. No, it's just a pass-through. And when some guy comes out in his yard and yells at you, and you say, I'm trying to get from the Atlantic waterway to the Gulf,

just leave me be. And that guy goes back to mowing his lawn. Yeah, I know a lot of guys who have done this. Yeah. But, you know, parts of it are, when I was really looking at it, it's like parts of it are still marsh. You know, it's like you might be wading. You know, you might not even be in like a real front line. What is the, from when you leave a substantial piece of water, how many miles you got to go to get to another substantial piece of water?

It might be a few hundred yards. Oh, that's it? Yeah. Oh. Have you started mapping it out on OnX? I'm about to, though. I'm planning on doing this in July. I love it.

That's a great idea. I'll send you a video. You can write about it, obviously. Yeah, yeah. And I have another guy who might be interested in doing it with me. My brother wants to do it. You don't want a whole herd of you going through there. I'd keep it tight.

We want to establish a precedent. Yeah, do it like the Voyagers have about 60 of you. Everybody has 180 pounds of beaver pelts on their back. Just do it like you know what you're doing. They can't stop you then. It's interstate commerce, right? Exactly. Yeah, because you've got to exercise the you then. It's interstate commerce, right? Exactly. Okay.

Because you've got to exercise the commerce code. Yeah. That's a fascinating idea, man. Like what happened? I think you should call your article. What happened to the old portage anyway? Yeah. Yeah.

And if you could find the last record of someone using it in that way. That's a great idea, man. It was a canal. It eventually was made into a little canal. Oh, it was? And then that was abandoned. But I think from what I can see, the canal is still there. I mean, you might even just be able to go take the canal.

It's sort of choked up with deadfall. Oh, that's fascinating. There is new legislation in Illinois. I'll invite you guys along when we do it. For stream access, revamping stream access, I think in Indiana as well. So, I mean, the stuff is still very much being tinkered with. You're saying it's up now and being kicked around? Yep.

Yep. For sure. Yeah. Because like there's plenty of historic use. That's Indiana. I mean, this is where this Tecumseh book takes place. That place is like rife with major passageways that people know nothing about today. And it was like this huge travel system through there. Fort Wayne, the reason Fort Wayne is where it is,

is because it sits on, it's not like a mountain. It's this low knob, sort of like a ridgeline. This is like your country. A ridgeline, very subtle, stretching south of St. Erie, I mean, St. Lake Erie, and through that kind of northern Ohio, Indiana, and to some degree, Illinois. And the rivers that go north of that flow off that knob, go into the Great Lakes, and those that go south of it go into the Ohio River system and then the Mississippi and the Gulf. And, I mean, you could probably jump from one stream to another in a lot of these places. And as forebearers, the Shawnee and the Miami were establishing villages.

That ridge was one of the primary places where they established the villages. And when the U.S. under George Washington first – he was like in office about a year, said that the Shawnee and the Cherokee are hurting our settlers who are supposedly on legally taken land, which they were not. And George Washington says, okay, we got to go get those, the Shawnee and the Miami who are killing settlers. And so he sent an expedition right to that spot. Kekeonga it was called, to destroy those villages. It was the epicenter. Hmm. But it's that, it's, so Indiana, it's really interesting that there's, there's so many waterways in Indiana that were used very extensively by, by native people.

And I'm like a river person. Okay. Love, love floating, love, uh, spending my time on rivers and, and yeah, I, you never hear Indiana as like this place to go travel. No, you know, it's not a canoe destination of which there's many canoe destinations. Um, but I, like do a lot of traveling and just yakking with people about natural resources and

stuff. And more often than not when i point out a river and i'm like holy shit that looks cool you ever go float that you ever go fish that people are nope yeah i know is that wild is that wild yeah it is yeah i have that same experience hey we're gonna let me let me interrupt because we're gonna do two things we're gonna we're gonna speed date we're gonna speed date with peter's books and his body work but cal you wanted to cal had an update for us. Then we're going to go into our speed dating mode with Peter's books.

Is this the plug for the week in review? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Phil, you chime in here. I think they're going pretty well, but we had a new drop every week to the week in review. And typically, it's getting to know an issue or a conservation group a little bit better a little more in depth versus uh taking the whole you know 22 and a half minutes that we do uh every sunday for the news um how do you think that's going phil i think it's going

great yeah so if you guys haven't been paying attention to cal's week in review uh he's been doing two drops a week for the last i don't't know, month now or so, and it's going to keep going. And just some really more in-depth conversations with these groups. And I think it's been going really well. I don't know what the feedback has been, but I assume it's been positive. Yeah. All positive. No, if you dig the kind of stuff that we talk about a lot of times up top in the show about certain little issues, conservation issues that flare up around the country, it spoke with a regional Pheasants Forever coordinator, Hunter Van Donsel, who's a wonderful human, very smart dude,

smart enough to live on the high line in Montana even. So he's got freedoms that we don't enjoy here in the Gallatin Valley. Don't ruin it. Extra wind. Yeah. And extra wind. All the wind you can handle. But, and we talked about how Pheasants Forever operates, what they have going on,

and then last year we spoke a lot about the grasslands, which would be like a N, uh, like a, a NACA for grasslands, which national what's, what am I, my acronym there, Randall? Are you talking about the, the North American Grasslands Act? Yes. Which would be a NACA.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but anyway, uh, would be, uh, a new updated version of a, a bill, which would be something that would affect us nationally. Like what we have for wetlands. That would operate on the same system as our National Wetlands Conservation Act, which would be providing lots of private and public funding and additional resources for the conservation of grasslands, which grasslands is a big catch-all word of sagebrush steps and mixed grass prairie and short grass prairie and lots

of stuff that big gnarly mule deer bucks and antelope bucks and bees and migratory birds and a lot of fun things that we like to chase and check out. Grasslands are going away at an alarming rate. So that's why we're going to start working and talking a lot about the National Grasslands Act. It's all these organizations that we're throwing money at during trivia, but you could actually get to meet the humans behind these organizations where their priorities lie, where the challenges lie, where they're spending this money and how they're helping you out.

So it's been going great, I think. It's been really interesting. Yeah, and this is like one of the pet peeves that I have of the Ask Cal email is when people write in, they say, hey, tell me what to think about this. And so this is another pound my head against the wall example of trying to give you the information that you can make a decision on your own i would never give up that i was gonna say a lot of people a lot of people want that power they're envious of you Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Peter, okay. What was, I can't remember now. Speed dating or speed reading? Speed dating your your books okay so you're uh what's that french word you're uh i think that's an omelet so uh was your first book sudden what the hell was it last breath last breath i was gonna say

sudden breath sudden death last kind of yes that was your first book yeah tell people about your first book this is fascinating it is yeah i mean, it kind of, yeah. But that was your first book. Yeah. Tell people about your first book. This is fascinating. It is, yeah. I mean, it just kind of like got me into this world. Well, I was in this world. Both Steve and I were doing articles for Outside. I'd started somewhat earlier.

And Outside would, you know, love it if you'd put your life at risk and then survive and write a good article about it. But that was sort of their oeuvre, at least in part. And so at one point, I came up with this crazy idea, kind of like this portage idea. And I said, well, I wonder what happens if you get in a car in Missoula and at our little apartment above Goldsmith's ice cream, when I was living with Amy, we were young marrieds and drive North on a highway 93. And you just keep driving North on a highway 93 and you don't stop. And you, and you cross the border and you still go, and then you still go, and then you still go. And like,

how far North could you go and then i started thinking i wonder if you just kept pushing if there would be some way you could ever get to greenland just by going north out of missoula on highway 93 so and so my father-in-law who's you're really into where one takes off from. And so, and my father-in-law, who is a foreign correspondent, great adventure, had a VW van. He said, okay, yeah, let's take my VW van. He was going to drive us up as far as we could get.

And then Amy and I thought, okay, then we'll start trying to look for, you know, planes or whatever we can find. And so we'd spent like six days driving from Missoula up through due north, and we got up to the Northwest Territories. And essentially Highway 93 ends in Yellowknife. And you guys have probably been there.

I have. Oh, yeah. Okay. Big lake, very big lake. And then my father said, okay, I'll take the van. And then we started hopping like small kind of commercial flights that would take, you know, the natives around to different far northern villages. And we started hopping those. And we got all the way over to Baffin Island, which is way on the eastern shore.

And, you know, it's a big hunk of ice. Yeah. Eastern shore. And, you know, it's a big hunk of ice. And then we managed to, in Baffin Island, we ran into this German couple and the guy was like a big international lawyer and had a lot of money. And the, his wife was a watercolor painter. And so she wanted to paint the Arctic. And so they'd hired this little plane, this little bush Arctic plane to go up to Ellesmere Island. And, you know, Ellesmere Island, like if you're going to the North pole, that's your jumping off point, you know, there's nowhere, no land has farther. And so we hitchhiked, it took a couple, you know, several days to do

all this. And we got up to Ellesmere Island and then we, um, we, we hired the, the plane from the German couple said, you know, can we borrow it for like half a day? And they said, fine, fine. We'll just stay here. And it's called Gris Fjord. It's like 10 houses on Ellesmere Island on the southern shore with like a, you know, tundra strip. And so then we had this pilot, Jacques, who was like a young guy retired from the Montreal Stock Exchange to be an Arctic bush pilot. And so Jacques says, okay.

And I say, well, we want to go over there to Greenland. And, you know, by that time, all these islands are getting squished together because you're getting so far up in the north. You mean by like plate tectonics or just squished together by? By the North Pole. Yeah. You know, everything. It all converges up there, you know. And so the distance between this little landing strip in Grease Fjord, Canada, and the farthest north villages in the world, the Inuit villages, Greenlandic Inuit villages around a place called Kanak. It's only 200 miles apart over open water.

And so, you know, Jacques was saying, yeah, I'll do that. Or, you know, Jacques' boss said, yeah, you can do that. And Jacques was like, okay, I'll do it. And one of the problems was Jacques was a medical rescue plane. So it was used to landing on prepared airstrips. You know, it had, so it had pretty small, small tires, you know, landing wheels, and it was a fairly sleek plane. It wasn't one of those big like balloony bush planes, but it was still, you know, it was pretty, pretty all purpose.

And so we get in, we get in, I'm spinning this story out. I can spin it for hours, but that, uh, you know, early in the morning, beautiful, sunny day, like June, completely sunny, but everything, you know, seas completely frozen or glaciers every which way. And we get on this, in this plane and jogs a little plane on this little Tundra airstrip. And, you know, he, he, he taxis out to position and then, and I'm sitting in the front seat with him, you know, and he on the earphones. And then it's like, we're waiting for the control tower.

And it's just go. And then we launch. And then we're, you know, flying over the incredible northern scenery, you know, ice and islands and glaciers. And, you know, and this is pre-GPS. This is in 1990, 91. And so there were none of this, you know, high-tech computer satellite tracking. And so Jacques has like an aeronautic map on his lap and, you know, trying to find his way to Connock over there. And by now you're so far North at the magnetic compass points.

Yeah. The declination is like about 180 degrees. It's like almost exactly the opposite. And so we're flying North and I mean, we're flying, you know, across this gap to a different continent, um, 200 miles of water. And, you know, after about a half an hour, we're driving along this beautiful weather, and Amy's in the back, and we have all our skis and stuff, crampons for Greenland, you know. And Jock has this map unfolded in his lap, and he says, at a certain point, he just goes, he just kind of crumbles it up in a ball

and shoves it in my lap. He says, I can't figure out where we are. See if you can. And anyway, eventually we make eventually. And that's a timed exercise at that point. Yeah, that's right. You're on the clock. We're on the clock.

And the plus green was clouded in, you know, and but he found a hole in the clouds. It was like real, it was very dramatic. And as we dropped through the hole in the clouds, you look down real, it was very dramatic. And, and as we dropped through the hole in the clouds, you look down and there's this huge expanse of sea ice, massive fjord. And I could see these little, they look like

little wagon trains running along. And I realized those are dog slits. Oh. And they're way out on the sea ice. And so we, we circled around this little village and Jack was really nervous about landing and, you know, the airstrips like a cliff at one side, a cemetery on the other,

and it's all kind of lumpy. And so he's finally on the third try, just puts it down and all of a sudden, crack, you know, we go spinning down the runway, like fishtailing down because the landing gear breaks off when we land. And then, so, now we're in Greenland. And so, to make the long story short, we ended up hanging out with the Inuit hunters on the sea ice. And in this region of Greenland, they still hunt, I think still do the traditional way with, with kayaks and

harpoons. Snowmobiles are banned, literally banned. Oh, no kidding. And yeah, I mean, you'd be, you'd be totally into this thing. That's interesting. They got out ahead of that and just didn't want to do it. They got way ahead of it. Yeah.

And I hope, I hope, I'm really curious if it's still like that. And so we went out twice on two expeditions on the sea ice with, with hunters, one at a dog sled and, you know, and you have this seal skin kayak, one on a dog sled, and you have this seal skin kayak strapped to the dog sled, or two of them, and you get out there, and you're hunting for narwhal. And they're out on these, the leads, the cracks in the ice, but way out,

like 20 miles out before you get to the, where the ice starts cracking up. And then, and we got stormed out of that one. you didn't happen to get a toss you looking to unload you don't happen to have a narwhal toss you're looking to get rid of you didn't bring one home no no almost but i wasn't gonna get in the kayak with a harpoon believe me it's like you tip over in that kayak and that's all she wrote. And it's, but it's a wild scene. And, and then we got stormed out that time and had to kind of flee a storm to get back. Dogs led back to the, to the village.

And then another time, a few weeks later, the ice had broken out and we went out in boats and, and did the same thing. And we, our guys, you know, they came close, they almost got a narwhal, but then, but, but not. And then, and then we decided, Amy said, well, you know, I really have to get back home now. Um, she had, I can't remember. She had some hard deadline. And so like, we're almost at the North pole and we have to like turn this whole expedition to go home, which

takes like a month to get home. And the reason this story started is because when we were up there and it was like 4th of July, we're on the sea ice, we're in this dog sled and it's like a sunny day. When it's the other day, it was a blizzardy day, but we have our full Montana ski gear on. day was blizzardy day but we have our full montana ski gear on and these guys the inuit hunters are wearing mama root and another guy thomas and they're wearing you know really good veteran hunters they're wearing like white wind light windbreakers white because that's you know to disguise for a camouflage and like thin you know like almost silk white gloves and that's all.

And we're just like dying of cold and they're like, you know, no problem. And so when I got home, I started thinking, what is it about the physiology of cold? And then I came up with this idea for outside magazine to write about the physiology of cold. And I had this notion that I'd go out and camp out at Rogers Pass on the coldest night of the winter at the coldest place in the lower 48 states and see how that was, you know, as a first person experience for outside. See how it was to get real cold. Yeah.

And then as it turned out that when that cold came along, that cold sound was 50 below with 50 mile an hour winds. And I said, you know, I have two, like a two-year-old daughter at home and I'm thinking this might be a one-way, a one-way camping trip. And so I call, you'll, you'll appreciate this. Our Mark Bryan was our editor at Outside. And so I called Mark Bryan and I said, I don't think I'm going to do this. You know, it's too, it's like, it's way too cold. And, and I said, well, how about if I just camp in the backyard? It's going to be like 20 below. No, we don't want you to camp in the backyard.

Why don't you invent a story of a guy who goes out in really cold weather and then goes through all the physiology of cold. And so that's what I ended up doing. And I, and I wrote it in the U, the second person voice. And I essentially stole the plot line from, um, to build a fire. Where else? And so the story it's called, now it's called, it has a hundred different names. It's because it's been around 25 years and it goes viral every winter.

It's cold snap. It's called, I think it's called Frozen Alive at this point. But it's this really kind of eerie story about a guy who's trying to visit his friends at a mountain cabin on a, on a winter night and it's 20 below or something. And he's driving his Jeep up this winding road

and he, you know, spins off into a snow bank. And, you know, he's stuck and he, but he still wants to get out of the cabin and he has his cross country skis and he says, well, I just ski to the cabin. You know, it's this beautiful moonlit night, you know, it's only five miles or so I, you know, I run that far every, every morning before breakfast. And then you can imagine how it goes from there. And so dead, not well, you know, it's like, it's, it's. I trace his physiology.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that, that he gets up a certain point and then the clip on his binding breaks and he has to dig in the snow to find it and as you know, now his body temperatures is, is dropping from like 95 down to 93. And at that point, brain function starts to slow down. And then at this point, kidney function starts to slow down.

It goes through the whole thing. And he does survive. But it ended up being this huge hit of a story. Yeah, I remember, man. And then so I thought, well, maybe I'll write a whole book like that. So I wrote a whole book called Last Breath. It's like 11 Great Ways to Die in the Wilderness. And I remember you did the box jelly.

Yes, the box jelly. Yeah. Talk about that for a sec. Yeah, I was trying to find the most poisonous, most toxic, most venomous creature. And it turned out to be the box jellyfish. Any of you guys familiar with that, the box jellyfish you got any of you guys familiar with that the box jellyfish i've seen one i know it exists but i've never seen one yeah um never been swimming with a box jellyfish no we've gotten tangled up those little man not little those

yeah yeah that hurts and then the lion's mane ones hurt that yeah i've heard yeah i've never been in those guys well and the box jellyfish it you know, they say it's the size of like a grapefruit, but it has this incredibly powerful neurotoxin in it. And you can be dead in like two minutes with a box jellyfish. And it's, you know, and I traced all the chemistry of that, you know, it was, the setup was a couple on their honeymoon in Northeastern Australia. And you know, the guy takes a dive in the water and, you know, they're sort of fighting and the guy takes a dive in the water to get a, to, you know, sort of get away from her. And it's like, what other ones? He doesn't survive. What other ones are in there? Playfully splashes. She dodged a bullet.

Was there a falling one? Yeah, I had, oh yeah, that, that was, that was a fun one? Yeah, I had. Oh yeah, that was a fun one because I created a real jerk. And like a real type A hyper in your face jerk who was like, I'm the hottest rock climber there ever was. And he goes, he's going rock climbing one Saturday morning. His buddy stands him up. So he says, I'll do it alone. And, you know, I'll free climb it.

And he gets partway up and he peels off and he falls, I don't know, like 30 feet and lands on a ledge. Really hard slam. And I don't know, do you know Doug Weber? He was an ER doctor in Missoula, but he was the one who gave me this scenario. Cause I was just going to have some guy like go tumbling down a steep slope and, you know, flipping around. He said, well, you can make that a lot more interesting because you know, when somebody takes a real fall and it happens in car accidents too, it's, I mean, this is, it's like tragic stuff when

it happens to somebody that, um, that sudden deceleration can pull your heart forward and it, it, it causes the aorta to have a, um, like a, a, a weak spot in it, like a bubble, you know, which I, I'm now spacing out the name for it. And that, you know, it's, you can either, can either break right then, or sometimes it kind of lasts for a while.

Are you feeling that right now, Steve, like you usually do? Yeah, the phantom may already be paying. I didn't cut to his camera, but he made a face. Some things I don't like hearing about. And so, yeah, this guy, well, you didn't, don't fall 30 feet on your back onto a ledge. You're okay. But so this guy falls and he really slams and he, you know, and then he kind of dug the ER doc said, yeah.

And you typically throw up right then because this is your body, what it does, the physiology. And then, and then the guy realized, well, this is your body, what it does, the physiology. And then the guy realizes, well, he's still alive, you know. He didn't even really get knocked out too severely, but he has a broken leg. And so, you know, and this guy's, I'm just painting him as the biggest asshole I can. And so he's up on this ledge and he laughs the night, you know. And he, dawn comes and he thinks, he lasts the night, you know, and he, dawn comes and he thinks I've got it,

you know? And also there's a sing in the, in ER world called, called the golden hour. You've probably heard of that. It's like the first hour after one of these really traumatic, uh, body impacts accidents that,

that your, your body can kind of hold itself together for an hour. And they call it the golden hour. I mean, it doesn't always happen, but it can. So he gets past the golden hour and he lasts all night. And in the morning, he's like, I'm alive. I'm alive. And when he does that, he bursts his aortic bubble.

And that's all she wrote. This doesn't sound like it was any fun to write. Give a couple more that are in there. I remember. I'm trying to remember, man. I remember. Well, I said in some. Did you do hyperthermia?

Yeah. And that's what I said. I said it in some notes that I sent to Corrine that out of that whole book, you know, sometimes people ask me, what, what's the, what's the, what do you think is the worst way to die? And you know, the outdoors, I would say, oh God, you know, none of them are good. And that's, you know, it's nobody wants any of those and nobody wants any of those from anybody they know. Um, but that I think hyperthermia would be the worst. So hypothermia of course is low,

low body temperature. Hyperthermia is high, high, high body temperature. And what that gets to a certain point where, and you know, I've, I realized how on the edge I'd been of that in certain moments, you know, I used to run up Mount Jumbo every day in the height of the summer heat and, you know, I could feel my body doing this weird shit. Yeah, yeah. And, and that it's really amazing how quickly you can go over the edge into a heat stroke or hyperthermia and that, that it's, it gets to a point where your body can no longer cool itself down. Like the mechanisms that you use to cool yourself down, like sweating and various other mechanisms

are overwhelmed. And at that point, your body actually starts heating up more. And it's like a nuclear furnace, you know, reactor that's out of control and then it gets really nasty that your organs start perforating in various ways. And so you just start getting multiple organ failure. And it's just, I mean,

it's really awful physiologically. Who's that really promising young writer? I think Ian Frazier knew him as well and he died of hyperthermia in africa was his last name shepherd or something i don't know i'm not i'm not striking a bell it's not striking yeah i feel like he was an outside writer too he does that right he died of hyperthermia well i can i can believe it and then i mean the one the one thing about there's like a writing fellowship in his name now. Who the hell was that? He was a good writer, man.

Try to find that. I'm Shepard Hyperthermia writer. I don't know, something like that. But I mean, the one, the one thing about it is that by the time all this really nasty stuff happens to your organs, you're, you're unconscious. You don't know anything. And so you see it. I mean, that these unfortunate situations of people dying of heat stroke and athletic fields and whatnot, they're out of it. Yeah.

All right. What's your next book? My next book. Well, see, I- No, not what you're doing now. Tell me after. Oh, after that one. We're doing the speed dating.

Yeah, because then you did- Then I did a story. Well, I did one called Last Empty Places. Oh, I went doing the speed dating. Yeah, because then you did the Astorians. Then I did a story. Well, I did one called Last Empty Places. Oh, I went down the African River. That was a crazy book where that's where I came to second close to dying. From a black mamba. From a black mamba. After your trip.

Wait, what? After the trip. I thought I was going to die on the river, and once I got off the river, I was safe. And you guys got tangled up with the hippos. Oh it would be really aggressive yeah yeah yeah oh and the waterfall you need to just be buzzing around a bend you have no idea what's around it and they're you know vines hanging everywhere it looks like an african movie in fast water you know you're whipping around a bend and that all of a sudden like the our guide who was i'd never been there but he was a good really good whitewater kayaker.

Stopped like in this big boulder right in the middle of the river. And he says, stop here, stop here. And you go whipping around the bend, you know, stop right at this kayak and you look over. Oh, there's this big waterfall where you die instantly. Yeah, it's like in every cartoon. Yeah. Every cartoon. Is there also quicksand? No, no. Yeah. Well, and a vine.

But like at night washing, you guys, I don't know if any of you have been in Africa, but you'd like washing the dishes beside the river at night, you'd always have to have a second person with a headlamp scanning. So the crocs, you know, you'd see their red eyes come in. And if you tipped over in the kayak in the rapids, which happened to, I think, all of us several times. Like when you're in the rapids, it's kind of like you're safe because the crocs don't like the rapids. They like the calm water below the rapids. So when you get washed out of the rapids, that's when you really have to get nervous. And that's when I said, this is as far as I'm going in my adventuring life. This is as far as I'm going.

That was the end. Yeah. Then that's when I said, I'm going to write about historical guys doing the crazy stuff instead. But what talks to, uh, tell me about the black mama. Oh, the black mama. Okay. So, so we'd been through, you know, 15 days of this incredible, you know, crazy stuff.

And I would have quit and walked out if I could, but I, you know, then I'd surely. Was there a lot of fish in that river? Not a lot. Were the guys fishing? No, no. I mean, we were just trying to, we're sort of surviving. Yeah. And there was no, there was no, through the whole middle section, there were no people.

I mean, there were no African villages. It was very remote and rugged. And that, so after 15 days of this craziness where I've just thought I'd die every day, we finally get off the river and we end up at this big, very remote, still huge remote game reserve called Niasse Reserve in Northern Mozambique. And we, we connect with a hunting camp there that has a, you know, like a hunting block on the border of this big reserve. And so, and they're kind of taking us around. It's this really nice hunting camp and they have a, like a land Rover and you know, it's the kind of land Rover that, you know, there's no windshield, there are no doors. There's sort of a higher rack on the back where like the

trackers will stand. And so the, the, you know, he's like the great white hunter. Jamie is going to take us out to show us where he's going to do a leopard stakeout. And he's got to go set up the leopard stakeout during the day. And so the photographer and I get into this Land Rover and the bunch of trackers on the back, and we wind through this kind of open forest and we get to the leopard stakeout and he does his thing. And then we're driving like an hour back to

camp and I'm sitting in the left, you know, it's British drive. So I'm in the passenger seat on the left side and there's no door. And Jamie has his, you know, his 50 caliber. What are they, you know, what's the 50 caliber elephant gun that, you know, his 50 caliber. What, what are they, you know, what's the 50 caliber elephant gun that, that, you know, that, that huge big.

500 nitro maybe. Yeah. It's, it's, maybe it's the five, maybe it's the 500. It's a, you know, it's just the, the cannon that they use in, in Africa. So he has that mounted on his dashboard and we had no guns at all going down this river.

So it's like, wow, we even have guns to protect us now, not to mention a Jeep and cars and, you know, I mean, iron, all this stuff. And we're driving back to camp and we go into this open clearing with a sun coming down through the forest. And I remembered going through this clearing earlier because it looked kind of pretty. And then I noticed like, wow, there's a big stick poking up in the middle of that clearing. I wonder how that happened because there's no wind. It couldn't have fallen out of a tree.

And so Jamie is driving completely oblivious. And I'm looking at this thing and he's going right towards it or there's like two little tracks right next to it. And I'm looking at it and then I noticed that big head that big stick is waving back and forth at like my head level that high that high that high unbelievable and and so and he doesn't i mean he is completely oblivious this is all happens at just a few seconds at most and i just said oh shit and i i had nowhere to hide i just i dove underneath the dashboard i mean like really hard slammed into all the metal down there and

then you hear this big kind of co-op on the on the land rover and all the trackers go struck the land rover they all say mama mama mama so he stops the land rover all the track jump out. And the first they kind of go trying to chase the black Mamba. I don't know what they were going to do with that. But then they go running around the Land Rover. And right in front of where my leg was, there were these two scratches down the paint. Really? Really. Like a foot in front of my leg.

And, you know, down, you know, that Land Rover's hand. His teeth scratched the paint. Just. And, you know, down, you know, that Land Rover's hand, just. And these guys, you know, these real serious, these are serious African professional hunters. They're from, one's from Zimbabwe or Rhodesia and the other was from South Africa. So they, you know, this is their life. And they said, yeah, that the black mamas are extremely aggressive. They'll protect their territory against anything. And so it's not unusual that they'd strike at a land rover.

Is that the one they say, like, if you get bit by it, just go lean against a tree? Yeah, that's the one. There's no – There's a couple of minutes. There's nothing you're going to do. The British – they have that British sense of humor, kind of that dry, understated sense of humor. So Jamie says, you know, after all this commotion, we get back and, you know, I'm like, can I stand on the very top of the street, please? And rather than sit in an open front door.

And he says, yeah, yes. You know, in his British accent, like, yes. With a black mamba bite, you know, your time to live is 20 minutes. And we do have some black mamba, you know, antidote at our camp, but that's 45 minutes away. That's hilarious. How'd you get interested in the historians uh that's um well i wrote a book called the last empty places and i i profiled like four really unpopulated areas of the country and the way i did it is i asked like a geospace geologist or a geographer, how do I find these real unpopulated areas? And he said, well, go get the, like the NASA

Landsat 7 photo, satellite photo of the, of the U.S. at night. And you look where the lights are and then you go where they're not. And so that's what I did. You're like, thanks for the tip. Yeah, thanks for the tip. I would have never thought of that. And I spent hours and hours. It was really fun to study that. And I ended up choosing.

Like looking for the biggest holes. I was looking for that. Yeah, I call it my blank spots book. It's called The Last Empty Places. I wanted to call it the blank spots. And I ended up choosing two in the east and two in the west. And one of the west ones was southwestern oregon where i'm sure some of you all here have been which is really really

empty um so unpopulated so huge and i was driving out there i think i had our old my falling apart land cruiser at that point and i remember remember that, Rick. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were around on the stage. And it was still alive then, but, you know, not getting a lot of gas mileage. And I'm blasting through southeast Oregon. And it was getting dark. You know, I'm doing research. You know, I'm just checking it out.

And it's like May, and it's getting dark. And I'm driving down this road. And it's like really getting darker and darker. And it's like, I haven't seen a town for hours. And it's like, well, like, where am I going to sleep? And I, I'm not even sure I might've had camping gear, but it's like, I don't want to go sleep in the ditch. And then, so then all of a sudden I come to this town called John Day, John Day, Oregon. And so I find a motel, spend the night at John Day, Oregon. And then the next morning I say, John Day, that's a weird name for a town.

And I look up, I start doing research on John Day, you know, first on the internet. And then I think there was a little library there. And it turns out John Day is a member of this Aster expedition. And he's this guy who's been gone through everything you can imagine you know he's had malaria he's been he's poisoned himself by uh eating the death camas rather than the good cam camas he's been almost he's been left he had another guy when the Astoria Overland Expedition got caught in the middle of Hell's Canyon in winter, and they had no food, no way out. He got a river named after himself. Yeah, he did get a river named, and a couple of dams, too.

He sounds like he would have been a good character to profile in your book about 10 ways to die in the wilderness. Yeah, he would have. Well, he was helping me. That book was helping me when I was writing about John Day. And, oh, he went through all this stuff. And then, you know, they left him behind and the expedition left him for dead. And he and another guy managed to crawl out and find some Shoshone who, you know, gave him like some fox to eat or some wolf, I think, actually. And then they survive and they poison themselves with a death camas and they crawl. They just mis-ID purple camas.

Yeah. And then they eventually managed to crawl like over the Blue Mountains to the Columbia. And so they get to the Columbia River and they're thinking, ah, we're saved, you know, because all our guys are supposed to be building this fort at the mouth of the Columbia. the Columbia, but they're like a couple hundred miles upstream at this point. And so they're – but they think they're safe and they're sitting on the riverbank on this nice sunny day having survived all this stuff. And then suddenly they find themselves surrounded by Indians. And I can't remember which tribe they are. There are several tribes right in that area. And so the – and the Indians are really kind of friendly at first and want to talk to them and whatnot.

And then they have, you know, they have muskets and the Indians don't. And then, you know, like one of the Indians says, oh, I want to see how long that musket is. And, you know, wants to measure it. And, well, there goes that musket. And then another guy says, hey, I want to see that knife. Well, there goes that knife. And then another guy goes, oh, I want to see that shirt. And so they ended up being completely stripped, utterly naked,

and told to go back the way they came and don't come back. The way they came. Yeah. The way they came. I was like, well, I was more thinking. It'll be you on your portage trip this year and then when they finally get to historia this john day there's an expedition that immediately turns around and goes back overland to bring mr aster letters in this tin box about you know we made it there blah blah and, blah, blah. And,

and just John Day, he's like, okay, I'm done with this. I want to go, I want to go back. He's just like a really good Virginia hunter and it's good guys, like 40, it's lanky guy, really good humor. And so they started going back up the Columbia in these, you know, these big canoes. Um, and then they're going to start trekking overland and they get to a place where they run into the first tribe on the Columbia friendly tribe. But John Day starts freaking out and he's, he, he goes completely crazy. He clearly has PTSD. Yeah. And then he, he tries to kill himself, two pistols to his head in the middle of the night and he survives.

Um, but he. I wasn't good at everything. night. And he survives. But he... So he wasn't good at everything. No. Yeah, I guess not. But anyway, that was John Day. And so he was the guy who got me interested into the Astoria story.

Yeah, he wasn't... He might not have been trying so hard. Who knows? That's another checkmark on the list of things he survived. Yeah.

Oh, God, yeah. He saw a picture in the movie and he's like, in the movie, when I got two pistols, that's gonna look badass. So, you look extra deranged. Hey folks, exciting news

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onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. And then this, you know, ends up being this, as I just got into it, because I ran into this little town of Chante, and then the character Chante, and then the expedition itself,

and it was just, I learned, it's kind of, kind of like this massive expedition that I'd never heard of. And it had come five years after Lewis and Clark to – sent by this huge fur baron in New York, fur and real estate baron, John Jacob Astor. trade scheme where he was sending one big party by ships around Cape Horn, establish a trade center at the mouth of the Columbia, another big party going over land to establish a series of posts going over the Rocky Mountains and meeting the, the, the Seaguang party at the mouth of the Columbia.

But all, all based around the beaver market, right? No. Were they, were market, right? No. Were they in a sea otter? Oh, I see. So that was the coastal thing. Yeah. And at that point, the Northwest Coast, there were a lot of sea otter.

Got you. And it was Captain Cook's guys who discovered you could get a sea otter on Vancouver Island, a pelt, for like a dollar worth of trinkets and sell it for a hundred bucks in China. Hampton Size was just sitting where you're sitting. Is that right? About the Captain Cook book. Oh, is he?

Okay. Which I read, which is phenomenal. And he talks about when some of those dudes, so when some of those guys who picked up a bunch of sea otter pelts in Alaska, they wound up like over in Siberia at one point. Yeah. They were able to sell some of those. And I can't remember what expedition he was talking about, but he mentions there was guys that almost,

it was so lucrative. They hatched a plan, not Cook's guys, but these guys on his other boat, hatched a plan to mutiny because they wanted to go back and get a bunch more of those things. Yeah. It was like that. That was that valuable. That kind of money. of those things. Yeah. It was like that. It was like that kind of money.

Incredibly valuable. Yeah. Incredibly valuable. So that was Astor's scheme was, I mean, it was like this brilliant global trade scheme. It was really visionary. And the idea was to have a fleet of ships that are literally continuously circling the world. And, you know, say that he was based in New York and Manhattan and they'd, they'd leave New York and they'd have trade goods on them, you know, in trade goods for the,

the tribes like pots and knives and beads, trade beads. And they'd go around South America, around Cape Horn. They'd end up at the mouth of the Columbia at the emporium, the trade emporium that he was building. And there they would trade their trade goods to the tribes, and there are a lot of tribes in the Northwest Coast, for sea otter furs. And then the ships with the sea otter furs would then go to Canton in China, and they'd sell those sea otter furs or trade them for huge markups. And they'd take on silk and tea and porcelain, which are really valuable trade goods in the Western world. And then they'd sail around the rest of the globe, you know, around Africa and they'd end up in London and they'd sell the silk and porcelain and tea in London and also in

New York and make these huge profits at every stop and have this fleet of ships continuously circling the globe. Man, that reminds me of me recently leveraging a couple DSD turkey decoys into two big ribeyes. Grass-fed ribeyes. That sounds pretty global.

Yeah. But it mostly didn't work right well it it it would have worked i mean there were there were various factors and and one is this is you know i i wrote in some of these notes that it would be really which we don't have time to do uh at least now is talk about the birchbark canoe and what an incredible craft that was. And that the Brits in Canada had birchbark canoes and they had the whole Voyager trade route that could go all the way out to the West Coast by this time really fast. Whereas the Americans had, you know,

it took them months and months and months. You know, they're dragging barges up the Missouri River and, you know, walking. And it's really slow. So the War of 1812 broke out in June of 1812. That's announced that Congress, U.S. Congress, President Madison declares war on Britain because the Brits are screwing with American commercial ships in the Atlantic and dragooning sailors off to go join the British Army and fight Napoleon. So there's all this hoorah about the U.S. is really pissed at Britain. So President Madison declares war. That's like mid-June of 1812. And the word of that, the news of that war, you know, like in an actual formal declaration of war,

immediately is launched through Montreal, out the Great Lakes, through Grand Portage, through all the lakes of like, you know, that Manitoba, that whole area. Meanwhile, John Day is going, oh shit, we can't go down the snake. I have to turn around, walk all the way up this valley with no food. Right, right. And so by this time that the Astorians had established a bunch of fur posts all in the Columbia Basin. And so they had this enterprise up and running. And then all of a sudden, one day, these Scottish fur traders, those were like the British honchos,

Scottish fur traders show up at the northernmost Astor post and walk in the front door of the cabin and say, Hey guys, uh, we're at war with each other. And that means we're taking your fur posts, which is what happens. That's wild man. The other thing like that had to have been like all the, a lot of reasons for PTSD. Yeah.

I bring up turn around on the snake because that would be the thing in that whole deal that would give me PTSD. Hate being wrong and not, and having to turn around. Um, but the Russians were so established. Yes. Like way established. Way established. With like, to the point of when you got out there after making that trip and be like, okay, we're going to establish this thing, this monumental scheme for transcontinental trade. Like you're like, oh, there's a literal world power that's been here for decades. Well, they haven't been, that's, that's, that's, it's decades. Well, they haven't been. Right?

That's close. It's close. I mean, there are several world powers like circling around this whole West Coast and the Pacific because it's kind of unclaimed territory. And the Russians had come over. They didn't establish their fur trade in Alaska until the late 1700s.

And so this is, what we're talking here is 1811 and the the but the russians did have a major post um just just up it's just what's the southernmost part of like catch is a catch a can is that the uh you know the southeast alaska that's the end of alaska yeah so okay so that i that, I'm pretty sure that's where they had, it was like a, you know, stone castle. And he had, you know, he was like living there like a baron. This guy, Count Baranov. And so he's this really decadent, you know, Russian count. And it has all these, you know, all these Indians working for him.

And I don't know, slave women. And he has military, Russian military. There's a Barinov. Oh, the ABC, yeah, the ABC islands, like Chilikov, Barinov. Admiralty. Up that way. Yeah, so it's Count Barinov. And he's like this incredible drinker, you know.

And he has all these military guys with him too. And he has this big fur trade working with, I think they're, are they, uh, uh, uh, maybe they're there's Tlingit there. Yeah. I think, well, I think he has several tribes working for him. It was the Chugach to the north. Yeah. And, and, but here's his big fur post.

And so at one point, my guy, the guy who leads the Astoria overland expedition, Mr. Hunt, who's this real mild-mannered guy, he's from New Jersey, he'd never been in the wilderness before. He led the party across the country that got this, the continent that got everybody in trouble because he didn't know what he was doing. But he ends up taking a ship and it, I think it has a bunch of sea otter pelts on it. And then he's going up to visit count Baranoff up in Baranoff Island. And he's going to buy like 25,000 beaver pelt from, uh, count Baranoff. And then he's going to take those over to like Russia, Siberia, or China.

And he's got this thing all worked out. And Astor's already sent his son-in-law and daughter to work out the diplomacy with the queen, you know, with the Tsarina of Russia. So he's got all this stuff worked out. So Mr. Hunt sails his boat with his sea otter pelts from Astor's post up to Count Baranoff's post. And he's going to buy these 25,000 beaver pelts and he's going to make a fortune for Mr. Astor. But so Count Baranoff is like, huh? Oh yeah.

Hey, why don't you stay a while, dude? We got some parties coming up and I want to show you my military parade. And well, let's have another drinking contest. And so it goes on like that for three weeks that he can't get out. And he keeps saying, well, what about my beaver pelts? Oh, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. And so by the time that the party's over, it's too late in the season to go across to get the beaver pelts and go across to China. And so it's like, Mr. Hunt is screwed and, and, uh, count Baron off keeps his beaver pelts.

And so it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a Russian ploy basically to keep, to keep Astor out of the, out of the, yeah. It's like that blues brother scene, you know, or it's like, yeah, you guys get 50 bucks for the concert, but yeah, you drank 75 bucks worth of beer. Yeah, when the good old boys, the band called the good old boys was late for their show. Great reference. That puts it into perspective for people. When that was called the Astorians.

It was called Astoria. Astoria Astoria and then the subtitle is John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's lost Pacific Empire got it so that was a fun crazy book to read I mean to write so hit me with getting into George Washington well so that came every book I've written in the last four or five books came from that last empty places book oh okay well you know what i gotta i gotta tell you something i want to tell you earlier you're talking about winding up at the john day hotel or winding up in john hotel i took my wife one time on a on a research trip

we went in bismarck north dakota and there was a um if i remember right man i think it was like there was a big all the seventh day adventist churches we're having some kind of conference if i remember that that's what it was i think i remember either way everything you couldn't find anything and no place to no place to stay and i didn't make any plan um and we find a motel i'm not joking i wish my wife could come down and tell the story literally letters in the motel neon are burned out. We pull in, it's a dirt driveway. We pull in and a guy comes out and a guy comes out to greet us. Like before we need to get out of the car, he comes out to greet us.

And I have, I rolled down the window. It's like, Oh, who's this? He must be the proprietor. I rolled down the window and he pokes his head and it goes, how many of you are in there? We get this room and there, and there is no joke of prophylactic on the floor of the room and cigarette. But these aren't the seventh day. I'm the card. No, no, it's the only room left.

The only place left. And my wife's like, I am your future wife, and you would have me stay. So from then on, yeah. When you go on research trips, call ahead. Call ahead. Advice for future writers. Maybe have your spouse along. Yeah, yeah.

Make arrangements ahead of time. That would have been so good, though, to keep referencing that in the, you know, my past wife. You know what my past wife would have done. So that's why this, you know, this empty, the Blank Spots book, The Last Empty Places, one of the places I profiled was western Pennsylvania, which is, I mean, it's amazingly dark on the- Is that right? Yeah, amazingly dark. I mean, you know, and it's like the biggest, darkest area in the East near an urban area that I could find.

Where were we at in- If you went to Pittsburgh and went somewhat Northeast of there, do you know that territory? I grew up in Edinburgh, so not far from where you were from. Okay. So, I mean, it's like it's all national forests and, you know, and it's mountains and it's just, it's not agricultural land. It was actually was given away as bounty lands after the Revolutionary War and the War of French and Indian War. And there was no good, nothing good out there. So the guys who, soldiers who got this land said,

it's not worth anything. And so they kind of walked away from it. But so I was out in that blank spot doing research. I was like, well, I don't know, that was 2007 or something. And I ran into this like 22 year old guy stumbling around in the woods out there who is really screwing up and he's this real jerk and his name was young George Washington. And that's where he'd kind of cut his teeth in the wilderness. And so I said, wow, this guy's a really interesting character.

And so then I decided to write a book about him. Yeah. That's that stuff that that like aspects of his life i only found out about that because i was on this thing um you've heard the warrior's path yeah it's just like one of the it basically it's one of those trails part of this trail the great warrior yes i do i know it yeah i know it well yeah yeah i read something about washington but this is post this is post-revolution. Okay.

He had a bunch more land claims there from having served his duty. That's where he bought his first land at age 18, right along there. Okay. He had went out to take a look at – he's got so much land, he hadn't even taken a look at it yet. Right. Went out to take a look and got lost. In his journal, he describes getting lost. And I met this old-timer down there in the panhandle of Maryland who had – he went and showed me. You know how you can go to places in the Oregon Trail where it's not – like there's no road overlaying it?

Right, right. And you can see the ruts? He took me out, and I remember there was a big and, you know, a bunch of farmland and stuff. And we go out and there's a big oak tree and he kind of had, he'd lived there and grew up there and read all the stuff. He's like, yeah, that trail was here. Do you know what I mean? And you could still kind of picture it. Was it the Great Warriors Road or was it the Braddock Road?

Do you know what? Yeah. The Braddock Road. Well, I think it was part, yeah. Wasn't all the same complex road? Well, I think it was part, yeah. Well, it wasn't all the same complex rows. The Braddock. No, no. The Braddock road went, went from like the head of the Potomac, not the head of the

Potomac, but from like Arlington, Virginia, you know, right near Washington, DC over the Allegheny mountains to Pittsburgh. And that was built by general Braddock who is a no in the French no Braddock yeah yeah he got slaughtered out there yeah but yeah no man because it was like in but it could have been but because you know why it was in Maryland though uh yeah that that could be because Morgantown yeah I know where you're talking that's a cool place that the panhandle whatever the hell road it is but I think it was what you're talking about That's a cool place, the Panhandle. Whatever the hell road it is. But I think it was, what you're talking about, I think, is the Great Warriors Road, which was used by the tribes. I think it was like Catawba in the great, up in the, you know, near the Great Lakes.

And they had mortal enemies down in the southeast. And so these tribes would go up and down that road, that path, when they would fight each other. And so it became known as the great warrior road and then when settlers first came there they became known as the great wagon road so it was down the the middle of the allegheny of the yeah the allegheny valley okay or that that's the allegation that okay yes anyhow he took me and said, you can pretty much. You can see the ruts. Yeah. He's like, it's reasonable to assume that Washington.

Yeah. Rode his horse to the right of that oak tree. Totally. Yeah. That would be totally. I mean, that would be totally right. That would be totally right. And got lost hereabouts.

That's awesome. So that book's called Young Washington. How. Let's see. How wilderness and war forged the founding father yeah we get into in our long hunters piece um that the audio original is telling about we get into um washington being there for braddock's defeat as some sort of informal advisor. Right.

And the way that battle wound up sort of changing wilderness warfare. And also that it changed, it was one of the pivotal moments of his life because every other officer virtually died, was killed. And he survived and he had bullets through his coat and his horse was shot out from under him and that after that he it was almost kind of the one of the key pivotal moments that turned him from being this self-centered guy who's really ambitious and trying to be a british royal officer and whatnot into someone who was kind of thinking about a larger picture because after that battle and he survived and so many other people officers were killed he said well providence he wrote this in a letter to his brother providence must be saving me for some larger purpose now there's a footnote to that

not laying grabbing well that could be part of that on the side you have to you have to have a backup plan right but but you know what's really occurred to me? You guys would find this way interesting. Because now I've studied a lot of these battles, especially, you know, in the East. These early Indian warfare, Northwest Indian Wars and French and Indian War. But in that battle, Braddock's defeat, Washington, he wanted to be a British Royal Army officer and they wouldn't let him in. I mean, he didn't have much of an education. He was kind of crude. He already really screwed up in causing his own massacre early in the going. And so they wouldn't let him in as a guy. They wouldn't let him wear a red coat and gold braids.

And so he was wearing like civilian clothes or, you know, hunter's clothes during Braddock's defeat. And so who do you think the Indians shoot first? Sure, man. They take out the officers. And so all the officers got mowed down almost instantly, but they, you know, Washington didn't really show up on their radar screen. And so he,

he, uh, that in my theory, that's one of the main reasons he survived. He was incredibly brave. I mean, no doubt about it. And it was his whole life.

Incredible bravery. You know, we, in, in, in the long hunters, we mentioned this connection that Boone was there that day. Yeah.

Yeah. He was a teamster. So mentioned this connection that Boone was there that day. Yeah. Yeah. He took off with his wagon. Yeah, he was a teamster. So he mentioned it like Boone, even though Washington was later critical of frontiersmen like Boone, Boone would have been aware. He would have been aware of Washington. Almost certainly, he would have been aware of him. Of his presence. And would have seen him.

Yes. And conversely, Boone would, or Washington would have zero idea who Boone was. Exactly. Yeah. No, I think that's exactly right. When you look at the hierarchy of the people there that day. And Washington was literally attached to General Braddock's camp. So he would have – their meals would be served in the general's meal tent.

And they have like sterling silver platters going on here. And it's not what Daniel Boone was eating off of. He had a Bowie knife would be his version of a sterling silver. And so, and I think, if I remember, I think Boone was like 17 or 18 or maybe 19 at most. Young. And Washington would have been in his early 20s, 23 maybe. And so I don't think Boone was anywhere near that core of officers other than knowing who they are.

And yeah, Washington, there's like a mule tier back there. Sure, yeah, one of many. But Boone, to his credit, could see the writing on the wall right away. Boogied. Yeah, he boogied. Real quick, so I can see how this leads in, but really quickly hit us with your book about Tecumseh. Tecumseh. Because that winds up like like that's very tied to

this because one of the things you see look at the the french and indian war the revolution the war of 1812 you wouldn't have perceived it if you were alive then you wouldn't perceive these as distinct no no do you know i mean it was it was the great european powers right it was like the great european powers jockeying for influence that's exactly and then using tribes as proxy forces that's exactly right and it would have just seemed like um like like someone involved in the cold war would have would have been vietnam korea afghan, like all this stuff would have sort of bled into this, this broader thing against Soviet influence. Right. Do you know what I mean? Right. And you'd be like, well, yeah, there's, there's this and this and this,

but it's part of this broader story of the West. Like, like for sure. Yes. Capitalism and communism. Yeah. Oh yeah. That West. I mean, both the American West and the West, the West being West, you know yeah that west i mean both the american west and the west mean west you know as a as a the global west the global west but but all these a lot of what we're talking about here is sort of these um like all conflicts i mean they all like bleed into one another and players overlap oh exactly i know what I mean? Like Washington was a player in French-Indian War and very involved in the revolution. And then people that were very involved in the revolution were War of 1812. Right. And then they enter the political sphere.

No, that's exactly right. And that's sort of what I've been fascinated with for some years now in writing about just that period that you're talking about. And actually Astoria is part of it because it's, you know, it's the West Coast projection of empire. And, you know, you have in Astoria, you have the Russians, you have the French, you have the British, you have the Americans, and you have the Spanish all vying for the West Coast at the same time, right around the the year 1800 in the east of the continent you know at the when you start out in like 1790 the uh white settlement it it barely goes to the appalachian mountains i mean it's trickled over a little bit but barely and so there's all that

land out there that's that's a no man's land in terms of European empires. Of course, it's Valley land, it became a storm center of the world where these empires ended up conflicting with each other and essentially fighting it out. And as you say, using the tribes as proxies. And one of the things I really emphasize when I talk about this is that in these years, in 1790s, 1800, 1812, I mean, right up to then, nobody knew what the U.S. was going to be. I mean, nobody knew if it was going to survive. No one knew if this was like an experiment. Because now I've gone into this stuff so deeply and really read records of Congress when they're arguing about all this stuff.

It's some of these frontier issues and some of these like other issues. But it's like I think of it as, you know, have you ever built with framed something? You used to be a framing guy. No, I've been i've done some i was not i can't i can't lay claim to that i was a tree man i know you did closet work at one point yeah i did that but that's not framing that's true but okay well if you think like cabinet stuff and yeah yeah but not okay but think of like i don't want to i don't want to have that you know that crown on my head as a framing man. Okay. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Cal was a framing man. Oh yeah.

I can rattle off, I can rattle off a list of places that are still standing probably in Missoula. Okay. Now imagine you built that place out of, out of green uncured wood and rough sawn, you know, completely green and you hammered together this frame, you know, and you kind of tack it in with the nails like halfway in

and make this sort of structure. Well, that's the way the United States was in 1790. That's also a lot of my projects resemble that. That's great. I mean, literally, that's the total image that comes to mind. And so, so much hadn't been worked out. And one of the, I could go all day and night about it, but that one of the things that really wasn't clear is like how far west the U.S. was going to go. So, it was not a done deal if the U.S. was going to go even past the Appalachians or even to

the Mississippi or no way to the West Coast. And so the, and the British were really, you know, their literal plan was to create what was called an Indian barrier state, which would have been a no man's land, a neutral territory where, where in the U.S. had no control, that would be a strip of land, essentially Ohio and Mississippi Valley, that whole, all the way from the Great Lakes down to the Gulf of Mexico. Tribal land. Tribal land, and it would be controlled by the tribes, and the Brits and Americans were free to trade there, you know there in this sort of controlled way.

But the Brits, they made at several different points a push for what they call the Indian barrier state. In a way, it would be like trying to, not in a way, it was literally trying to bottle up the little fledgling baby United States to bottle it up on the East Coast. So it didn't come over the Appalachian mountains and didn't screw around with, you know, British holdings in the interior of the continent didn't screw around with a really valuable fur trade that was out farther West.

And so in this era, we're talking about a country that didn't, it didn't really know how it was going to fully function. And it, and it didn't know what's what size it was, you know, how far it would go. So these,

the, the battles that we're talking about this whole era is, as you're saying, it's all part of that arc. It's all part of that piece. And it's like working it out. Tell the, tell the title of the Tecumseh book.

It's called Gallop Toward the Sun, Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison gallop toward the sun tecumseh and william henry harrison's struggle for the destiny of a nation and that was i guess you could put his so tecumseh was a war leader who had a prophet brother yes and they put an idea of instead of tribes inter-fighting, instead of like internecine conflict, they would unite all the tribes and push America back into the ocean. Well, yeah, or at least stop it from pushing them into the ocean. And it wasn't so much about stopping internecine conflict. It was about agreeing to hold the land as one as one entity so what was happening is that that you know the federal agents

would approach one tribe or one sub-chief of one tribe and try to pry you know land or some kind of agreement out of that chief who might actually be selling some other tribe's land hundreds of miles away. So it was like always splitting the tribes. Yeah, that was a common thing. A guy would be like, sure, I'll sell that to you. Yeah. Well, I mean, the Iroquois sold all of Kentucky to the Brits. The Iroquois. It wasn't theirs.

Yeah. And the Iroquois were 700 miles't theirs. Yeah. And the, you know, the Iroquois were 700 miles, miles away when they signed a contract. Yeah. Yeah. You can have all that land down there. The Cherokees think it's theirs, but now we know it's not theirs.

That's exactly what happened. We got to wrap up. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's so many fun things to talk about. No, no,

there's a ton of fun things to talk about, but give the name of the Tecumseh book again. People, people like this a lot. It's called Gallop Toward the Sun, Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison's Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation. I'll say this.

You read all Peter's books, you're going to dominate me to trivia. A few questions or a few answers we've alluded to them today. Yeah. Past trivia. A lot of times he says stuff and I've been like,

that was a trivia question. All right, Peter Stark, thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, really fun to talk to you, Steve, and all the rest of you. Thanks so much for having me. We'll have to have you back on again. Yeah, oh yeah, anytime.

Let me know. The well is deep. Well, until it dries up. Thanks, man. Yeah, thank you. Well, until it dries up. Thanks, man. Yeah, thank you. Well, there's nobody better than Steve Rinella. Guy can go on and on forever just talking about squirrels and asking about nicotine. And there's nobody better than he honestly can tell us.

And he could lie to Cooper killing Lafayette and his bird. Talk about his mama. You'll see a flash before your eyes. I'm out. And there's nobody better than a man named Spencer Got a tree tattooed on him forever But these don't hold it against him It's just something about that meat-eating crew It keeps me tuned in for an hour or two Maybe it's just a really good damn show Maybe it's how much the boys all love to act like they know But either way I want to give them a Michigan hello Thank you.