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Hello, friends, welcome to the show. This episode is brought to you by cross rope, cross rope, fitness folks jumping ropes, heavy ropes like ropes, jumping fast cross rope is a fantastic system that they've figured out a sleek way to jump rope system that makes working out at home fun. It's a cool, different way to get a workout for a fraction of the cost of joining a gym or using cardio machines.

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Taste great. And it's high quality athletic grains is just an awesome way to provide yourself with nutritional insurance. Head on over to athletic greens dotcom Rogan and claim the special offer today. Get a twenty serving pack for free, valued at seventy nine bucks with your first purchase. You can also claim this offer in the UK and in Europe using the same you are. Well, that's athletic greens dotcom slash Rogan. My guest today is a very interesting man.

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I first heard about him on my friend Aaron Snyder's podcast, The Cafaro Cast, and he's a winner of a show called Alone, where they let you take ten items and they drop you off in the middle of the wilderness.

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And this guy's had a lot of experience actually doing that and and living with people in Siberia and living in tents and stuff, which is a fascinating life. This guy's lived from being a hobo. And we got into all this. Just a really interesting guy.

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Please give it up for Jordan Jonah's girlfriend podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience Train, My Day Job podcast, my night all day.

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All right.

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Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's an honor to be here. My pleasure. Honored to talk to you. I really first of all, I really enjoyed you on Cafaro cast.

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So shout out to my friend Aaron Snyder and say, hey, we're back to him. I listen to you on the show.

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And I was like, God damn, what an interesting guy. What a fucking crazy life you've had.

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We should. So you were on that show alone, right? And explain that show for people. Don't know what the fuck it is. Yeah.

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So it's it's a show where they get ten people. Each of those people get to pick out ten basic items, you know, like an axe and a bow and a saw and you know, ten items. Just ten items. Right.

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Does that include arrows like you can only you know, your boat comes with nine arrows. So you bow and arrows I guess is an item that's a loosely ten items. And then you they basically take ten people, fly them out into the middle of nowhere and drop them each off by themselves. You got all the video camera equipment and it's just self filming and it's basically the last one to give up wins. So.

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Wow. And how do they how do you know if anyone's given up before you? You don't know. You just are out there. You could be like previously the show's been up. It's up to a year, you know. So yeah. Hypothetically it could go. You should.

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So you just go out there and do your best. And what if you are still out there but everybody else has quit and you don't know that's when they come and tell you that.

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Oh one. OK, yeah. So when you won they did that to you. They tried. Right. And how long did it take you. Seventy seven days.

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Seventy seven days. Wow. Completely surprise. I thought it would go maybe twice that long.

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You were ready. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But let's give people your background like it's kind of unfair in a way.

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And er and brought this up on the podcast that you were on this show with a bunch of people like me, like regular folks that have never really lived like that before.

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But you've done some crazy adventure shit in Siberia and. Yeah.

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So man I guess how far you want to go back. Let's go back right back. Go back. Plenty of time. How did you get started with.

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Have you always been an outdoors guy.

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Yeah, we grew up on a farm in Idaho and that kind of just puts you in the outdoors. I'd say I kind of had, you know, but then I was doing the normal thing, work and concrete job, working at a salad dressing factory, blah, blah. And then my brother took me out riding freight trains and we rode across the country just like. Like a hobo. Like a hobo. Yeah. Did you have a stick with like a bundle of progressive hobos with backpacks, progressive ovals?

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No, you just hop the. Freight train jumped on a freight train when it cross country back, and then I was also the first time I had been, you know, alone for a while. At one point I split up with them and rode for a week by myself. So I was like, kind of. What year was this? This was when I was 19, 37 now.

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So something like that.

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Bad at math. Cell phone or no cell phone? No cell phone. No cell phone. Oh, my God. Crazy person.

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I was it was a real taste of freedom. And I think that was kind of like a coming of age experience for me, because I just realized, oh, man, I don't really want to you know, I wasn't going to be in the typical life after having experienced that, like, every night, you know, it's like total freedom.

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You're out. Yeah. You never know where you're going to sleep. You never know who you're going to meet. You're always out there in the elements. It's pretty.

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Now, when you did something like that, did you plan on doing it for a long period of time? I mean, I guess we just planned to go across the country and so check it out. My brother had been doing it for like seven years, so. Oh, really?

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So he was like, oh, my pro hobo, a pro. So so talk me through the process.

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So he brings it up or you guys discuss.

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Yeah, he was just like, you know, he'd been doing it for a while. How much old is your brother? Five years older. So he invited me to come with him. And so I quit my job. And just one day up in Spokane there, sneak into the train yard and hop on my car and take off.

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And now did you bring money? Did you bring food? Yeah. You get cans of food in your backpack. And usually we would stop and work. You know, a lot of times he had had some connections throughout the country where we could just stop there and work for a guy, make a few bucks and then continue on. But you don't really need much in those situations. You know, you do some dumpster diving.

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Yeah, well, something you'd be surprised how good the food is in some of those places they throw out.

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But no, it was humming. The first night was kind of a christening. I remember it was like April, April still up in Montana Plains and really. Yeah. And and it poured out, poured rain. And I was in the open car and I don't know how it happened, but I just slept through a downpour. My my brother came climbing up.

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I was sitting there probably and three inches of water almost drown myself in the middle of the night. He woke me up and I was like, oh, man, what happened to him? That was the about the longest morning of my life, just waiting for that sun to go up. It's like going fifty five miles an hour and the way so I'm like, but, you know, every night was some kind of an adventure like that and it was pretty cool.

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And where all the cars open or did you know, sneak into a particular ones that. Oh yeah.

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On those like trains that go across the whole, you know, inter-modal as they're called, they're always open, kind of. So you're just exposed to the weather. But GeV range or anything.

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You know, I had his poncho, but I ruined it and it got sucked into the train. Oh, no.

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So anyway. Wow.

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So anyway, it was we ended up stopping in Virginia and doing some temporary work down there, and that's kind of how I ended up. In Virginia and I knew guy guys just got wanderlust, huh? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, yeah, I guess so. It was just a cool experience. And once you get that taste of kind of freedom, it's like a little bit hard to go back to a nine to five.

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I guess I could only imagine. I can only imagine that feeling when you're 19 years old. Yeah. You know, and to go back to a cubicle.

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Right. Right. Something low chance. Yeah, no, the torture. So we did some construction jobs in Virginia. And then and then, you know, I was a young guy trying to figure out how to live a meaningful life or whatever, you know, what am I gonna do with my life?

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And did you have thoughts? Did you have, like, an aspiration? Yeah.

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I mean, I guess to provide some context, I might follow Christian path. So I was I mean, I always feels like I got to put some caveats to that. Like it's like I understand for a lot of people, that means shame. I know you had like some may not be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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And I mean, nothing in particular straight me right out.

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I was like, right now it's I know it means a lot of things that a lot of people. But for me it was always like it was interesting because it was summed up in like in the Bible, like, you know, love the Lord, your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself and God is defined as love.

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And so that was kind of always the core focus for my you know, how I tried to decide what I was going to do in life.

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And at the time I heard of a guy, it was over in Russia building orphanages and needed help. And so I felt really strongly that I was the right thing to do.

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How did you hear of this? Uh, so I have a brother that's adopted, and when he grew up, you wanted to find his biological mom and just tell her thanks for the chance at life or whatever. And when he did, turns out she had another son who was going to go over there. And I met him and he told me about, oh, wow, this guy.

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So, uh. So I basically felt this was the right thing to do and bought a ticket for a year, just a full year, go over to Russia and then I headed over there and that was kind of how the next chapter, I guess, started in life.

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And how old were you then?

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Twenty one, yeah. Twenty one. So twenty one. Don't know anybody over there. Don't know how to speak Russian.

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Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was, that was interesting.

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I tried to learn. Oh absolutely.

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So this guy that I was building the orphanage is American guy but I went over there and I didn't want to live in America because I wanted to learn Russian. So he sent me to a neighboring village with these two families. Both of them were like ex-con. And, you know, I'd been spend a lot of time in Siberian prisons, but they change. You know, they were like super cool dudes. One guy was just covered in prison tattoos, one of the funniest guys I know.

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But he did. They drink a lot. You know, they didn't those guys didn't because they had changed their ways, you know, not in prison. So they they took me in, like, one of their own. And, uh. Wow. And I spent the better part of that year with those guys learning the language.

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And how much did you know before you got there? How much? Not then just the alphabet. Yeah.

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Has those. Can you. It was brutal. Yeah.

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I mean, I could make the sounds because I knew the alphabet but didn't know what anything meant so. Oh so it was. Yeah. That was an interesting experience like just. Very isolating, to be honest, but also it was I mean, it was pretty cool, you know, did you plan to write it? Yeah. So you could write things to people in that what is it called? Cyrillic. Yeah, right. Right, right.

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So you could write things and you could read it as well. Yeah.

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As I learned, of course I could pronounce out the words because I could read it. I didn't know what anything meant. Over time I started to learn the course. The guy I lived to was just taught me all the prison slang and stuff. So it was always pleasant beach. Yeah, great. Wow.

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So that's a crazy thing to do. Just go move there with no Russian at all. Did you buy a book on English to Russian.

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Yeah, but I found the best way. If you ever go to a different country, you don't know anything, just have a notepad with you and you'll start to like get familiar with words as you live in there. And then at the end of the day, I write those words down as I recognize them. At the end of the day, I would look up the definition and just five to 10 words a day to slowly learn. And and by the end of the year, I was pretty, you know, starting to get to where I could be comfortable.

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So a real conversation with people after. Yeah. Yeah. I was brought up.

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I know it was a long time to wait, but Russian seems like it would be harder than Spanish. French because you have to learn does that crazy alphabet. It's so different.

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The alphabet and the grammar so different I, I don't know anything about it. How is the grammar.

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So you don't speak like if you want to say like I love you, you know, there's no there's no form in the sentence like you could say you love I love you, you know, you could throw the words in any in any order, but the word actually changes based on its role in the sentence.

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So when you're learning the language, you just get all these words dumped on you and you have to like, try to sort through, you know, how it's.

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So how would you say I love you in Russian? No, you could say you to be blue blue or you blue. You ought to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You blue. There's like a is there a reason why you'd say it in different ways?

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I think you could emphasize you make different. It is a flexible language in that. Yeah. You could switch it up to emphasize certain.

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Is it more ambiguous like what people like.

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Are you sure see it differently. No, no. I think it works pretty good. How much do you love. Yeah. This is you know, that's not a phrase I got a lot of practice with and I should have chosen different ones.

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But it's fascinating that I mean, it's fascinating that people speak in a completely different way, the whole different way.

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It made me kind of understand, oh, maybe that's why you get those like Russian authors that were so great because they were supposed to you know, they were able to form ideas in a slightly more flexible way.

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Maybe it was interesting. It was interesting to learn a language. It was like, huh, that's actually probably a better language in English in a lot of ways. Yeah. It was like it's a lot of things you can it's more fun to speak in Russian because you can switch up words and make weird.

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But it's always been fascinating to me how people sound so different in different places like they have a different way, like Brazil. I love Brazil. One of things. I love Brazil, but the way they speak Portuguese, they have a way.

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It's like a song like, yeah, it's like a rhythmic quality to the way they talk that we don't have. Yeah, no, that's fascinating. Yeah.

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Yeah. It's, it's really interesting that, you know, there's different and then you go to Thailand, they've got their own way.

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Right. Everything and all that stretches. Yeah. Yeah.

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It's really it's people are so strange and how they don't you know, I always wondered like how does an accent like especially when you think about our country. Right. Like how does a New Jersey accent get formed versus a Virginia like living in Virginia?

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Sometimes I'm so fascinated by how with all like TV and and being surrounded by the standard way English is spoke.

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I'm just amazed at how some of the beats and you just it's like, well, how do you stop that Virginia accent?

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Like, Oh, I like my buddy described it best, you know, like if you replace the hours with the ls the like al nutile, you know, an L instead of ah at the end of the word that's er on tires.

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Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Stuff like that.

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And you got to go. Why do you like. Huh. Yeah. But then uh no it's pretty good. I don't know. Oh and then there's people like Cajun Country.

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Yeah. And Cajun country. They got down there. Oh they got a whole different vibe going on. They got some French and they went on, they're like crazy low like I grew up in Boston.

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Right. And I did this thing. I was on the news when I was 19 and I heard myself on TV and I heard my fucking terrible Boston accent. Yeah. And I was like, oh my God, I got to get rid of that accent.

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And I had only been living in Boston for about. Six years, but I just we've traveled all over the country and I just I guess when I was 13, I was very impressionable. I had adopted this. And so I was listening to me and I was talking about working really hard.

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We've been working really hard since I was like, oh, my God, I sound like a moron.

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And so no offense, but just some. Yeah, I mean, it's where I grew up, but I abandoned it and there was a little bit of it still when I when I lived in California, when I first moved here.

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Now, did you catch it, man? You catch Jackson's bedroom with my wife's Filipino family, all of a sudden I'll be speaking like, watch out for the radar.

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Yeah, it's it's just crazy how I always wondered, like, what started it. Like what started the New York accent.

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Why is it so different from an accent, from, you know, and, you know, Florida's all over the fucking place. I don't know where they are. Yeah.

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Yeah. I've heard they're not even sure they're American. It's like they're floating. But I hear it's just it's you know, you go to Texas totally different.

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We're talking California.

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So, yeah, it's interesting. It is interesting a little. That's just, I guess, how new languages develop over time. And you have alternating.

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That's what's always been weird to me, is like I don't speak Italian, but my grandparents did and they spoke dialect. So they spoke like a Sicilian dialect. So they would they would talk like they they would say shit that people who speak proper Italian didn't have no idea what they're talking about.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God. It's so weird.

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There's so many different ways to communicate. So it's I mean I know this, but I only know this in a sense that like I know it's a thing I don't know.

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Like you actually experienced. Yeah. It was really interesting to learn a very different language, you know, as an adult and kind of like, oh, wow, that's the whole I think.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a little out of practice, but I got pretty fluent. Could explain.

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I still can, you know, every time I go to my school you can order dinner. Oh yeah. Yeah.

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You know, and I could definitely have full conversations. I just would screw up the grammar.

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But could you read a book. Yeah. Yeah sometimes. A lot of times I will try to read in Russian just to the Gulag Archipelago.

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Yeah. One of my favorites. Heavy reading, heavy reading. But it's good.

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So when you were over there and it took you, you said like how long? Like a year before you were really fluey.

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Yeah, I think a year. And the guys I lived with, so they had both been to prison, but they had also been in prison together with some native nomadic guy that lived up in the north of Siberia. And so my buddy would always tell me, oh, you got to meet my buddy from the north, you know, you got to go live up there. And so so I was like, yeah, I'll be cool.

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Eventually he connected us, you know, dude was coming through to sell furs in the city. I was there and he introduced me. And the event you got, you're invited me up to the far north to kind of check out his way of life.

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Is that the videos that you sent me and I'm going to send UDD to you, Jimmy, because it's crazy dudes riding on reindeer's like you.

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You were what what what is the name of those people? Those are the event. Key people. They live in the like the tiger, the forest up there. And they are nomadic man. I didn't even know people like that existed until I met him because. Oh, you have a video.

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You already have it. You go you wizzard change their color the whole time, cutting the antlers off of one.

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So why do they cut the antlers off. They do it for a no reason.

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One is because they put that antler skin. Well this one particularly was growing into the reindeer's.

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I so they were going to help the reindeer and then you can also eat the, the skin off the velvet and it's, you know, a Chinese medicine for men's health and stuff.

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Well, it actually was a thing that they were selling as a supplement. Yeah. And they were they were selling.

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Oh man. Are digging in there. It's all bloody and shit.

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It's just a crazy like animals with antlers. It's such a bizarre thing because they regrow ever so much energy fall off. Yeah. So much energy into that.

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And Cariboo which is what a reindeer is, I believe they have the largest antlers to body size of any.

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Right. Yeah. There's a massive. Oh he's just getting serious. So how often did they do that show that.

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Yeah folks that was a assassination's Cariboo assassination so they would ride them and take care of them in the building.

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Occasionally they would eat them. Yeah, exactly.

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They provide everything for him. So they have this they have a big herd, you know, a couple few hundred reindeer and they basically live off of them. So their their transportation, their clothing, their, their food, their food, their economic, you know, so economy.

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Basically, my friends, John and Jen, they live in Alberta and there's a place near them that had an elk farm. And they farmed elk for the velvet. Oh, yeah, that's what they farmed them for, they would velvet, I believe they would sell to like a body-building company.

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I think they were there was a vitality, you know. Well, I think it's got growth hormone in it, but it is because there was a time where it was a thing that you would buy in like I don't know if they do it anymore, but in health food stores, you buy like antler spray. Yeah. And it was somehow they broke it down to a spray. Right. I mean, I don't even know if it worked.

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No. Yeah, I don't either. But it I mean, I'm pretty sure rhinoceros horn doesn't, but I'm an astronaut.

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Did you see what happened where there was fucking tons of beaver penis that they found? They they caught a cargo going to China because there was tons here.

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So I'll send you the check. Fucking tons of beaver penis.

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Here it is. And you're fast. Too fast. He's the he's the wizard. Chinese authorities seized 12 tons of beaver penises smuggled from Canada.

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Wow. Yeah. And it's again, it's a vitality thing.

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It's about directions. The cool thing about the having you up there is it's a, you know, sustainable what they're doing because they got their own their own reindeer and they manage them and all that. So they don't have to import beef. Right. They got reindeer. Plenty of reindeer was.

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Oh, God, there's the beaver dicks. Oh, boy. Poor beavers. There's so much I mean, to kill that many beavers. What is the number of beavers says 40 to 50 billion US dollars.

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What the market value of animal parts illegally imported on the Chinese market.

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I mean, that's still. No, but yeah. Yeah. A little steep for that. Yeah.

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It's so crazy. Like they have these. Well according to my friend who's been to China many times, he said it's not even that they really believe that, like, rhino horn is good for your dick.

[00:28:33]

But what it is, it's like it's so hard to get and it's so exotic and they like having it. So they like like if a business person. Yes. Would you like some rhino? Yeah. Yeah. Come into the secret room.

[00:28:46]

The folks push on the fucking wall, the librarian slides, you know, like spy movies, and you go back to a tea room with rhino dick. Yeah, yeah. Deer antler IGF one spray supplements. Fifty bucks factor in it.

[00:29:00]

Yes. That is I think it's really it could be, it could be the fact that they do grow so fast. You know, there might be something in there I don't know. Well with well they taste good just like off the velvet and weed roasted over the fire real quick. And what does it kind of got the bamboo shoot texture like kind of that for sure. But it's real smoky. Anything smoky is good.

[00:29:21]

What does it say? Banned substances. Although previously found on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances, deer antler spray was removed in 2013 when it was deemed completely safe and legal to consume prior to athletic activity. OK, you know what that means? That means it doesn't work.

[00:29:38]

Yeah, I took it out. But the thing is, they take it off. It doesn't work. Safe to eat good. So that doesn't mean that means there's no fucking performance. Oh, that's a Ray Lewis was rumored to have used it following an injury to his tricep in 2013. You know what? I bet they've just realized like, hey, you know what? Not better than this real growth hormone. Right? Right.

[00:30:01]

It running around, sucking on your deer antlers.

[00:30:04]

But this farm near my friend John and Jen's place, they they bought this farm specifically. These people did not. John and General, these people specifically started farming elk just for their velvet. Yeah. For years. Then the market crashed like it wasn't valuable anymore. I guess this is prior to 2013 when they when it was illegal. And so this poor guy had all these fucking elk.

[00:30:28]

And, yeah, there's a there's an elk farm up by my house in Idaho that has recently closed down under similar. Yeah. I wonder. Yeah.

[00:30:35]

I mean, how crazy is it that the most delicious meat on earth. Yeah. Is that have a market. Yeah. That's not what you want. You want that fucking antlers. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Oh man. Yeah.

[00:30:47]

Such a crazy animal that they grow that stuff in like three months. Yeah.

[00:30:51]

Look at the size, the size of the rack just to that rack on the wall back there and then it's got to be some growth hormone and then something crazy that's pretty wild.

[00:31:01]

But and also with elk they keep them a lot longer than a lot of deer species could use them to fight off wolves.

[00:31:08]

So apparently they keep them like deep into the winter.

[00:31:10]

OK, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the female reindeer keep them a long time too.

[00:31:15]

But isn't it interesting the female reindeer, the only deer that actually have antlers, right? Yeah, probably also for protection. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, I think it is.

[00:31:23]

So when you're up there and these folks have these Cariboo and they're riding and they're taking care of them, did do they shield the other Cariboo from seeing one of them get slaughtered?

[00:31:36]

No. We seem to be too worried about it, like it's a very, like, mutually symbiotic relationship. Yeah, the reindeer and the reindeer, they're always getting attacked by wolves and tore up and stuff. And they always are coming to the people for protection in those times, not only from wolves, but even from like mosquitoes. And that's, you know, the big smoky fires.

[00:31:58]

So the reindeer, no people are their friends and I guess sort of are OK with an occasional, occasional and occasional sacrifice.

[00:32:07]

So if they have 200 of them, how often do they kill one? They try not to kill them, like they actually really avoid trying to kill their own reindeer. It's that you're mostly living off of, you know, moose and wild reindeer and.

[00:32:20]

Oh, they're yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting, though, because these are domesticated. They just behave differently. It's so weird to see them like with saddles on and shit people riding them.

[00:32:31]

They're ilma they've been there one of the first animals to be domesticated actually by humans. Yeah. It's interesting.

[00:32:37]

So they before dogs not before but one of the first I guess. Yeah.

[00:32:41]

And then they, and they've been domesticated so long that they don't even know how to domesticate wild ones anymore. So this is crazy.

[00:32:51]

Jamie, go back to that. Let me see how they put up these sheep. So is this they have this set up ready to go. Yeah. Then when they get to a place and they decide to then they pull out the sticks they have in the summer.

[00:33:04]

You're moving every three days or so. Just follow on the reindeer herd through the forest. You know, in the winter they everything's a little slower.

[00:33:12]

You'll be in a place for a month or so, but just. Yeah, no nomads. And what are they doing?

[00:33:18]

The weather sucks. Like they have this this year just always out, you know, it's you're just out in the weather also. Basically when it's when it's really cold, negative 50, you know, like they have a little woodstove in the in the in the teepee.

[00:33:32]

And it what I was doing pretty warm asking about actually is the wind, because the way they have these sticks set up, it's like they have these animal skins that go over. Is that animal skin that's canvas that that is. Yeah. Yeah. This oh. So it just looks like it's buckskin.

[00:33:46]

So they have these canvases, do they have loops where they tie it down like.

[00:33:50]

Yeah they do. And then they put Noeleen sticks on the outside also to kind of hold the canvas in place.

[00:33:58]

But people live in the No. Nomadic.

[00:34:01]

Yeah it is very nomadic and it's man it's awesome though. It's so fascinating to live like that and compare it to the modern world, like because not too many people get the opportunity anymore and it's you're so wired for it. It's weird, you know, like going to your body just falls into place for it.

[00:34:19]

Yeah. You're all your dopamine, you know, like you'll be out there fishing and every day you'll just like you got a fish, you know, because you're relying on it so much.

[00:34:27]

And whereas like in normal everyday life here in town and stuff, when you get that excited, you know, like you're always you don't have any schedule. So every day you wake up, it's like, well, what do I need to do today? And you can kind of you're just free to choose. You know, you can go try hunting, you go collect berries, you go find your reindeer. And, you know, like there's just a number of options all available to you.

[00:34:51]

And they're all directly related to your life.

[00:34:55]

So you don't have any you know, there's no money being thrown around.

[00:34:59]

It's just kind of I'm hungry. Let's go fishing.

[00:35:03]

Let's go to that spot because it's cool, you know, what do they do if they get injured? Now, that's the problem they actually have.

[00:35:12]

There's good and bad out there. And I just they are they can call in a helicopter, but it's so far out, you know, it's going to be a problem. I've broken some ribs out there and had some myself had some serious injuries. That just wasn't an option.

[00:35:27]

You know, you just got to tough it out because there's like what's over your ribs and the high chop my knee with an axe one time with cut attendant that tendon on the inside of your knee, right in half in the my other knee had recently had a knee surgery, so I was just laid up literally like three days.

[00:35:47]

I was just laying in a teepee. Couldn't move. I had to roll over poop in a bag.

[00:35:54]

It was brutal.

[00:35:56]

But then, you know, they rubbed like pine sap on it and it actually healed. And really, yeah, I could have swore it would get infected, but they were just packed it with pine sap and Winesap.

[00:36:06]

Yeah, it's a little dried up. What happened to the ligament or the cut doesn't really feel as bothering me, but I didn't know it was cut at the time.

[00:36:15]

It was only later when I did an MRI. Yeah, they told me it was but.

[00:36:19]

And so it was old. Well I don't know what it did. They said it was hanging on by a thread. I don't know if it ever healed back or well, but I don't even care, you know. You know, I don't I don't notice it as being weak, so why bother my surgery knee hurts more than that. And what kind of surgery?

[00:36:36]

I see a couple. Yeah, yeah, you know, it is, yeah, I do. So when one of these videos was showing a net, is that the way they would fish through it?

[00:36:45]

Both, you know, you'd like. Yeah, a lot of times you put nets out and a lot of times you just go cast your Bertsch, you know, homemade rod and everything.

[00:36:54]

Yeah. So this is this is a net that would just move it across the middle of the river and set it and leave it.

[00:37:01]

And they're just they're just setting it right now.

[00:37:03]

How do they do that thing that they do on the ice when they do that, when it's frozen, when it's frozen, when they cut a hole? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:10]

And then they somehow or another get those that to go through to cut you cut two holes and then you get a long stick and you shove it in the hole and slide it then like push the stick under the ice and on one end you have a string tied to it. So you push it and keep trying that until you get it to slide under the ice to the other hole. And when you do, you pull the stick out of that hole and tie your net one end to the other one and you can pull.

[00:37:38]

So on the string theory, this string on the end of the stick, do you catch it with a hook or something and try to pull it up?

[00:37:44]

Like, let me see if I can. Yeah. Now you just you pull the actual stick up through with the string tied on the back side of it.

[00:37:51]

So you just have to find a stick. Yeah.

[00:37:53]

You just got to get the stick to might have two, three or four times slide it under the ice until you get in the other hole where the other hole is.

[00:37:59]

Well yeah it works good.

[00:38:01]

I did it on that alone show. It was fun.

[00:38:03]

Yeah. That's what I'm asking. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:05]

And so that must be really hard to do by yourself because I've seen people do it on television on those survival Alaska shows.

[00:38:12]

Right. It wasn't too bad. No I was that part wasn't too hard but no. Yeah. I don't know. It was all good stuff to learn out there with the natives and then came in handy for.

[00:38:25]

Have you ever seen the Werner Herzog documentary that's about. Yeah. Yeah. So they got the native that I actually first met that I was telling you about, that you're a guy he isn't a nomad himself. He's a fur trapper. So he does all that real similar to that Werner Herzog documentary and actually, uh, where they film that isn't that far from where I was in Siberia. So it won. Yeah, I went for trapping and with him one year, you know, it's kind of showed me the rough ropes on it.

[00:38:54]

I told showed me a topographical map. He's like, there's a cabin, there's a cabin, there's a cabin through some noodles. And each of my cabins stocked them with noodles. And then he just dropped me off and said to see you in a month and a half or whatever.

[00:39:08]

And so I just was out there and I had a stupid little other wrestling go, yeah, good times. These kids wrestle a lot. Yeah.

[00:39:18]

It's a good way to grow up, man. Always just outside having a good time. Yeah, I guess so.

[00:39:24]

The Werner Herzog documentary was really fascinating because I watched those people and when they talk about like, you know, depression, they're all happy, they're always laughing. They love what they do. They enjoy what they do. But even though that's like everybody's goal.

[00:39:42]

Right. Everybody's goals. Right. Right. Everybody's like, fuck that. I'm not doing that.

[00:39:46]

Yeah, it's that's a fascinating conversation in of itself because, you know, having been up there and stuff, I'm just like, man, this is an awesome way to live. If it was like my friends, my family in that context, it's like I would probably choose that way of life.

[00:40:01]

But, you know, then you find yourself here in America and you're stuck on your phone and, you know, and it's just so unsatisfying that it's it's interesting to experience both.

[00:40:11]

But it's kind of hard to I mean I mean, because you're in where you are.

[00:40:16]

So my family's all here, everybody. Well, here we're not nomads, you know. Right. But it's funny to have experience that way of life and almost think, man, that's kind of what we're made for. It's almost better. I wish I wish I could implement that in some way, you know, here.

[00:40:32]

Well, I'm aware of that because people say it, but I'm not aware of it in the sense that I've experienced it before. I've never experienced like just completely living. I've hunted, camped out for a week at a time. Yeah. Yeah. You start to get a feel for. Yeah. You sort of, you know, it seems like when there's no other option like that's how you're eating. Yeah. You know we were eating Mountain House and yeah.

[00:40:52]

Yeah, yeah. When we shot a deer then we'd eat the deer. Right. Yeah. No. Yeah.

[00:40:58]

You were speaking of which you've read does like Quanah Parker and the movie books and stuff. Me too. And having lived with those natives it's like there's so much good there you see like. They really are happy people, so there's a giant difference between the people who live in the village and the people who live in the forest and the people who live in the forest, you would genuinely call like happy people. Like this is their knowledgeable, they're being productive, they're doing all this stuff.

[00:41:28]

Whereas when you go to the village, it's just like everybody's drunk, nobody's doing anything.

[00:41:32]

It's like just a total wreck, especially villages that don't have any reindeer herding connected to them because they kind of don't have their cultural context to remain connected to. So the so at least in the villages that have reindeer herding, the kids can go out in the summer and live with the reindeer herders and kind of experience that. And it gives them a source of pride.

[00:41:55]

It gives them like the experience of living in the forest, becoming like kind of really in touch with nature and all that. And whereas in the village, it's just kind of a dark hole. Everybody drinks in their native villages. It's like the statistic is that one out of three people die of suicide, homicide or accident. So it's just and you feel like I've got some stories of that. That's just brutal, too. But the the.

[00:42:23]

I when I read those, like, you know, Empire of the Summer Moon, those types of books, and I grew up with a couple good friends that were Native American, and it really made me think, like, I wonder if you could seeing how how well, how much of a difference it makes having that culture intact to some degree.

[00:42:44]

Like, I wonder if, say, on Pine Ridge, you know, on some one of these one of these reservations, if you could almost replicate something like that, like if you could maybe take the initiative to restore some buffalo herd, use a bunch of unused land that maybe the, you know, government land or or tribal land that's kind of unused restore heard and then.

[00:43:11]

Kind of bring back does nomadic ways, it's not like everybody would have to live that way, but from my own experience, watching places that have that option, you know, that kind of that are connected to that culture flourish a lot more than the ones that didn't. They were Venky villages with no reindeer herding in ones with. And it was like night and day.

[00:43:32]

And so I was like, I wonder if that would be anyway. It's something I've thought about. It's an interesting thing to think of.

[00:43:38]

But one of the things that happened to the Native Americans in this country is all the pieces of land that they got for reservations sucked. Yeah, I know the dirty trick that the white man pulled, for sure. I wonder. Right. And I wonder. If I mean, where is any of that land suitable for raising like, well, I'm sure some of the land is good, I wonder or I'm saying every piece of land, but yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not really true.

[00:44:03]

But a lot of it know for sure why they sent them to Oklahoma and the Dakotas.

[00:44:07]

They send to some barren land, but that was where the Comanches were anyway. Right. Right. Yeah.

[00:44:12]

But, you know, just for the white settlers got here and fucked everything up. Yeah. Oklahoma's probably pretty dope, right.

[00:44:19]

A lot of animals know. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of things. Imagine seeing 13 million buffalo room in the plains.

[00:44:25]

Well, there's an interesting story to that too. Like that seems a little bit imbalanced as well. And there is Dan Flores, who's a Dan is a he's a wildlife historian. Right. And he wrote an amazing book called Coyote America.

[00:44:41]

That's about it just really gives you a really interesting understanding of how weird the animal coyotes are. They spread out across the entire country.

[00:44:51]

And it's a beautiful book. But he also wrote a book called I think it's called Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy. And maybe this is a paper I might not have in the book.

[00:45:01]

But essentially the the thought behind this was these millions of buffalo that you see when that happened.

[00:45:10]

That only happened because the Europeans had come and given the plague, given the parks and all this to Native Americans and wiped out like hunting population, massive numbers of the the hunters.

[00:45:25]

So there was like at one point in time, there was as many as 90 percent of all the Native Americans died in disease management, which is insane.

[00:45:33]

So could have been literally millions of people dead from disease that would have been nomadic Buffalo.

[00:45:40]

That's a lot of sense. Yeah.

[00:45:42]

So what his theory is, is that they were in these incredibly large numbers because of that, and that it was because, as he points to, there's a time where the earliest settlers were making their way across the country and like the 1500 somewhere on that.

[00:46:01]

And they didn't talk about Buffalo. They did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They they talked about deer. They talked about bear. They talked about all the animals that we know existed. But there was no talking about massive, massive amounts of buffalo that all this seemed to have come after the Native Americans were wiped out.

[00:46:17]

And it kind of makes second make sense. They're not wiped out totally, of course. But, you know, large number of them wiped out, whereas these animals just were they're used to being preyed upon, just bred like fucking crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And developed these huge herds.

[00:46:30]

I mean, you know, you're talking about obviously over a period of hundreds of years. Right.

[00:46:34]

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Would be interesting to I thought maybe those, those travelers didn't run into the herds if they were bunched up in groups like two. But who knows now that I mean it makes a lot of sense. 90 percent of the population. Yeah.

[00:46:49]

Yeah. He's it's a really interesting story. Like when he breaks it down, like it really is an imbalance. If you think about like, why would there be a million buffalo or many more than predators.

[00:47:01]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[00:47:03]

Well, buffaloes are so interesting, too, because they don't really predators don't fuck with them. Yes. Giant furry thing. You can't even kill it. They're so big. There's so many of them just going to stomp you. All right.

[00:47:14]

You know, my friend Remy Warren, he's a very famous in the hunting world, and he had a show called Apex Predator, and he replicated a famous Native American painting and his famous Native American painting.

[00:47:28]

What they would do is they'd kill a coyote, skin the coyote, and then put the coyote skins and walk on all fours up to the buffalo and shoot it with a bow and arrow because the coyotes were no threat to the buffalo at all.

[00:47:42]

The buffalo would look at a coyote like, you want some of this big like like a baby coming up to a grown man, try to pick a fight. They weren't worried about the coyotes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:47:51]

No, I it yeah. It's, it's, it's a it's a it's a famous painting I've seen. Yeah. Those two guys. Yeah. You get up on their. That's literally what they used to do sometimes. Yeah. They had a bunch of different strategies for how to get close enough to the buffalo because you know if they're using a traditional bow like they had, you know, if you're shooting 40 yards of your Aaron Snyder maybe. Yeah I mean totally.

[00:48:15]

But when you get into that range like 50, 60 yards, like good fucking Laumann.

[00:48:19]

Yeah. Laburnum Yeah. Yeah, really. And it's probably going pretty slow anyway by the time it gets there. Yeah. Penetration an enormous animal, two by fours for ribs.

[00:48:28]

Yeah. Yeah man. Yeah. You can imagine hunting through those herds. You know, they say they like scenarios into this massive running herd of buffalo while you're on your horse next. Yeah. Fascinating stuff.

[00:48:41]

Well that book by Sam. What does he call himself. Cygwin. Yeah, his name's Sam. Sam, Gwen, who I had on the podcast. But when you read that book.

[00:48:52]

The life that they had was so it was so intense, the Comanche, and it was so fascinating, that kind of makes you want to live like that, you know, even even.

[00:49:04]

Right, man, that's that's what I was talking about earlier. Like, even the. Even living with the nomads in Siberia, it's like after having done that, it's a harsh climate, you know, brutal place, the alcoholism is rough. So that's the problem.

[00:49:18]

But all that into account, it's like, man, you would almost choose this. You know, especially now we have the advantage of having modern medicine and stuff also or and supplies, you know, that you can get. So you're not going to starve of your hunts bad and you're not going to you know, a broken leg won't end you. It's that's fascinating.

[00:49:37]

That's yeah. That's part of the reason why it's like I wonder if now you could kind of help revitalize some of that culture in a way, you know, like just you'd have to have an enormous piece of land.

[00:49:47]

See, the beautiful thing about the way the Native Americans lived before the white settlers came along was that there's no boundaries to worse. They had to worry about tribes.

[00:49:55]

And I mean, and what they did to each other was fucking horrific. Right. That's the other thing that gets documented. And as he Gwen's book in the Empire of the Summer Moon, because we have this narrative that the white man came along and did terrible things to Native Americans and the Native Americans did terrible things to the white man. But now they were doing terrible things to each other. They're humans. Right. Right.

[00:50:17]

Humans do terrible things to each other, especially fighting over resources, fighting over, you know, land and women and buffalo and all all the other stuff they fought over.

[00:50:26]

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's true. Yeah. You would need a huge piece of land. Huge. There's. But it's like, Alice, how many how many buffalo would you need to have a sustainable like, right. You know, a sustainable thing going? I don't think it would be that many. You know, if you can do it with two hundred reindeer, buffalo are a lot bigger. You know, it's like I don't know.

[00:50:46]

But they're herding these. You can't really I mean, know they're like, yeah, no, I mean, I guess it would be something to figure out. There's a there's an interesting project. Have you ever heard of that Pleistocene Park. We'll tell you about that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of maybe something like that where you would have to have a big area that you kind of that's the American Serengeti project.

[00:51:08]

Is that what you talking? It's similar. It's in Russia, though. It's where they kind of had the hypothesis that if you go back in the day that climate wasn't that much warmer up north.

[00:51:16]

It was just there was so much density of animals that they, you know, poop built better soil and grass grew. And it made for the more lush ecosystem than the tundra now. And so they've basically fenced in area, packed it full of muskox and moose and all that. And sure enough, you can see pictures in the grass is growing taller and, you know, like, mm.

[00:51:38]

It's much more Life-Giving ecosystem than the surrounding just tundra. The interesting that. Yeah.

[00:51:46]

I mean it makes sense. There was a there was talk about there were going to do something to try to revive the mammoth.

[00:51:56]

Uh what is this.

[00:51:57]

This is Pleistocene Park. So this is the place. That's fucking freaky animals, man. Yeah, anyway, those are cool. Those are cool projects, any of those ones where they're restoring?

[00:52:10]

Yeah, well, in animals, it's always interesting to see, you know, like when they have these theories about, you know, I had a guy on last week's names, Joel Salatin, right past his farms, and he was explaining how when you farm and let the animals just live like animals live. Yeah. You use their manure, they shit on the ground, they eat the grass. And it's actually not only does it not add carbon to the atmosphere, it actually takes it out.

[00:52:39]

Right. It builds. Yeah. It actually builds a healthy soil. You don't need fertilizer the day it's natural. Yeah. There's a whole system that nature's put in place.

[00:52:47]

But when we have these mono crop agricultural setups and these weird factory farm setups where we just hijacking nature and forcing it to do slave labor, yeah, it's a shame, man.

[00:53:00]

It'd be it'd be cool to tap into it, you know, like permaculture, I guess you could call it. Just tap into some of that on a larger scale because it is doesn't seem very sustainable. It does.

[00:53:11]

No, it doesn't. And the large scale stuff and he was kind of saying that it was possible to feed like all of Los Angeles that way.

[00:53:17]

And ultimately, it is like this is a lot of people, man, I'm not I'm not sure it's never been done right when something's never been done.

[00:53:27]

You got to go. I don't know if you can do it.

[00:53:30]

I guess you just start small and see where it goes, you know, like have already fuck this up.

[00:53:34]

But just having too many people, just this has never been this never been a thing before for the last few hundred years. Never been a thing. We pack 20 million people into one spot.

[00:53:44]

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:45]

Y yeah. It's crazy flying into L.A., you know it was my first time everybody just like I was your first time.

[00:53:50]

Yeah. Oh wow. You're packed and from a good amount of my Tahoe to this.

[00:53:56]

Yeah. I've been to New York and stuff but a good amount of smog. That's funny because it's the clearest it's ever been in the history of Los Angeles because the pandemic.

[00:54:06]

Have you ever been to Beijing? No, man. Talk about brutal as far as the air goes, is it? You step off the airplane into the airport and it's probably ventilated and you step off and you're like ports and those like like aluminum and just nasty. You can't even see the city. It's so dense, the the smoke. And then you kind of get used to it as you're walking around the airport. And then you step out of the ventilated airport and it hits you all over again.

[00:54:30]

It's like I played it rough. But you're doing better now too, with the sun. It's hard.

[00:54:37]

I mean, as far as the smog and pollution and I don't know who knows. I've been to Mexico City, though. It's rough.

[00:54:44]

It's rough, and I don't think it's as bad as Beijing. But I got a headache the moment I got on the plane.

[00:54:49]

So this is and you can't see shit when you're flying in you. It's where there's a fire. Yeah, there's no fire. It's just how it is there.

[00:54:57]

Yeah, that's rough. Now, you were saying that these people that live in the villages outside of the the people that are nomadic, those people live in a real shitty way.

[00:55:08]

Yeah, it's rough. It's like there's a it's like unconnected to any other villages. You have to only get there by helicopter.

[00:55:15]

You fly in and it's what do they what is their, their job. What do they do. Some of them work like in relation to the reindeer herds.

[00:55:22]

And I don't know, I think a lot of people live off like grandma's pension, which, you know, in Russia is a hundred bucks or something, you know, and you know, some people work at the school and the administration is just not a lot going on. But a lot of people are sustenance like hunters, fishers and trappers that live in the village.

[00:55:41]

But, yeah, it's it's it's so weird because the first time I went there, it was just like, man, this place is crazy. Everybody's drunk. It's just like being in, like a zombie land. Like even when the reindeer herders will come from the woods, they'll run into their house, lock the doors, shut everything up, and then you'll just see everybody, like marching over it.

[00:55:59]

And then they'll start banging on the doors and the windows and the and the guys inside the house will get out of here.

[00:56:05]

You know, I can just drive just drunks. Just it's just insanity, like but it's and it's weird because then you take the same people go into the woods, they sober up and it's just night and day. It's so weird. So weird.

[00:56:17]

And then. Yeah, but you have to see the effects of it, so like I was telling you earlier, is pretty brutal. I when I first went to over there, there was like a little, you know, nice family. It was like Doshisha and Arcadium, you know, these and their two little kids. Well, the first time I was there, I got back or I met the family, you know, I lived with them in their teepee and all this and that.

[00:56:44]

And then I went back to America.

[00:56:46]

Sure enough, right after I left, a tree fell on their daughter out in the woods and killed her.

[00:56:51]

And then they after that got, you know, started drinking a bunch, quit the nomadic way of life, started living in the village. I went back over there.

[00:57:02]

The girl or the the guy got stabbed in some drunken brawl or whatever and was in the in the hospital, slowly recovered. He had this big old gash with a piece of glass someone had cut him open with. He slowly recovered and then went back to his village. The drinking continued. Sure enough, they killed him. They took his body to back to the morgue, which the the freezer's had broken.

[00:57:29]

So it's in the middle of the summer. There's bodies there, but it was a murder. So they had to wait for the police to come and investigate. But it's way out in the middle nowhere. So I took like a week and it's like a week later, it was just brutal. Go over there. Had to, you know, pick up this guy who was your buddy. And his wife is helping me, like, dress this body because they're basically like, OK, we're done with the investigation.

[00:57:54]

You can go bury decomposing. Yeah, yeah.

[00:57:57]

Juss canoodle, I mean and the wife is helping you.

[00:58:00]

Yeah. And the wives help and we like take care of his body, like pick them up and like skin slips off and all that stuff and then.

[00:58:10]

Take care. You know, Tiger buried it, buried him, it was pretty rough, but then a year later I come back. She had gotten remarried, you know, kind of starting her life again. Turns out he hangs himself not long afterwards. So, again, it's this woman has lost two husbands and her daughter. She just her and her son. Oh, I just found out a little while ago she got too drunk, passed out in the snow and died.

[00:58:36]

So now it's just the one son left from this whole family.

[00:58:40]

And you hear those stories often up there. It's like really rough, you know, but that's balanced with what is could be so beautiful. It's like such a juxtaposition because you're out in this life where you have, like, people are happy, you know, ultimate freedom, and they're doing great. But when they but the village and the alcohol just does this whole other thing to them. And it's like these people who are so beautiful, so nice, so friendly, you know, so open to you.

[00:59:13]

But you just see them suffering so much from this scourge.

[00:59:16]

It's like, man, it's brutal. It's crazy that the scourge doesn't extend to the people that live in the forest.

[00:59:22]

Yeah. Once they get out in the woods, you know, they don't have the alcohol available and they don't.

[00:59:27]

But even if they did, do you think they would drink it? It seems like yeah. They usually drink it, you know, like when they go to the village, they get it and then they'll go out to the woods and they'll drink for a few days until it's all gone. And then it's also when they get back to normal, it's back to normal.

[00:59:39]

Do you think it's a genetic thing? Why do they have. It's been a good I've thought about that. You know, there's that there's that hypothesis like. Yeah, that maybe it is because that people have been introduced to alcohol more recently that they're not, you know, can't process it as well.

[00:59:54]

That was the thing. Could also you could also have the explanation. It's probably a combination of both that when you do like have a people that are largely stripped of their culture and they're like, you know, because even the event is cool is their way of life is you know, they had, you know, 70 years of communism where they came in and they collected all the best reindeer herders and said that they were like kulaks or, you know, like the bourgois because they have too many reindeer, sent them all to prison, you know, like collectivised all these reindeer herds, these family herds they turned into like government herds, you know, so it's been like their culture is not completely intact.

[01:00:34]

And it's like, well, there might be enough cause just from that kind of thing to explain some of the alcoholism. But I imagine it's a combination of both, you know.

[01:00:43]

Yeah, I've always wondered that about the Native Americans, the same sort of situation, like how much of it is despair for them being removed from their normal nomadic way of life. Right. Right. How much of it is just the fact that they don't have the genes to process alcohol because they didn't evolve with alcohol yet? You know, there's a story of Cynthia Ann Parker on the wall out there, who's Quanah Parker's mother. She was kidnapped by the Comanche when she was nine and then recaptured by the Texas Rangers.

[01:01:14]

I think it was the Texas Rangers when she was like thirty with a child and she was begging to go back to the Comanches.

[01:01:22]

She did not want to live. And she found a way of living that the settlers had was just pathetic. She right.

[01:01:30]

You know, they the Comanche lived in a world where everything was magic and like the sky was a god. The wind was like you worshipped nature. You lived off the land, followed the buffalo herd. And then all sudden you're in a cooped up in a house.

[01:01:43]

Yeah. And you got. Yeah. Everybody's pushing Jesus on you. You like that, right, man.

[01:01:48]

It's the same same thing over there. It's like right. It's, it's a juxtaposition of ultimate freedom in this beautiful way of live versus like you're in the village, in this little house. You know, these people are never going to be good like in Russian society because they live in some remote village. Yeah. No Internet, nothing, you know, like. Yeah. And then but they're also the ones that aren't connected to their way of life are also not going to be great event because they've just lived in this little house and drink, you know, a bunch.

[01:02:14]

So people get caught in that weird in-between place.

[01:02:20]

And it seems like even if it's not cultural, there's something, there's something that draws people to that way of life.

[01:02:27]

Well, live like that. It's very satisfying. Absolutely.

[01:02:30]

And that's my firm for my own experience. Like, yeah, I'm not a native, you know, but but I lived with them and it was awesome.

[01:02:37]

And it, like, spoke to me the same thing even on, you know, things like The Alone Show, it's like, oh, man, this is what we're built for, you know, like you really feel it. It's, you know, the interesting thing, like I don't have, like, a great memory or, you know, I don't usually have good, very vivid or interesting dreams.

[01:02:57]

But when I'm in the forest, you know, it's like I have all these vivid dreams that seem really meaningful and powerful. It's like my memory is way better. I remember people that I long forgot just because you go so long without.

[01:03:10]

Distraction, you can really delve into your thoughts and yeah, it's a fascinating thing to experience, and once you do, you kind of realize, you know, what's missing. And it was interesting listening to you talk to like Elon Musk and as the, you know, inevitable march of progress moves forward, it's like we kind of lose things, but we don't actually know what we're losing, you know?

[01:03:32]

And so as far as like the natives and like one of the reasons I want to see them preserve their cultural culture and their old ways and take it forward is just that's kind of a memory receptacle so that as things move forward, we can still connect, you know, with what we've lost because it is a lot, you know, but it seems like we're becoming something different.

[01:03:56]

It seems like we used to be this thing, this animal that figured out how to use tools and clothes and figured out how to live off the land and figured out how to live in harmony with nature.

[01:04:09]

And then we invented electricity.

[01:04:12]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we then we invented something that allowed you to project media, like whether it's radio at first and then television. And then we are connected in this way where the world is. It's a smaller place in some ways because it's you're connected to everybody, but it's still the same size really. And it's also far more complicated because you get so much information.

[01:04:36]

There's so much to learn. Yeah. Like Twitter. Like I don't know if you on Twitter, but I find myself from that dip my toe into it every now and then. Just a peek at the fucking madness. It's like a it's like a bunch of chimps with weapons just fighting in a box.

[01:04:52]

Yeah. It's this madness. I've appreciated your stance on, like putting something up and forgetting about it. But it is such it is hard to do that.

[01:05:02]

Of course those are I mean, yeah, it's hard to not get sucked into social media, but it doesn't really speak to you anyway. But it just like absorbs your time.

[01:05:12]

It absorbs your time in a negative way though I know I very rarely get anything positive and I get occasionally interesting stories from people that I follow and I appreciate that. But the actual communication aspect of it, like communicating to me or me to them, like, oh yeah, not interested. I like this. Right. Like in a way like even though this is digital, like you and I are sitting at, I don't even like when I do them remotely, the only doing remotely because the pandemic or so I can't get it.

[01:05:40]

So I wanted to show up, feel a natural.

[01:05:44]

You like looking at people I want to be in the room with.

[01:05:47]

You know, it feels better. It's fun. Yeah.

[01:05:50]

But it's that's I think that and I think that's ironically because podcasts are a digital medium and a lot of ways it's one of the reasons why it resonates with people, because they can tell that we are really having a conversation in a way that people don't have that much.

[01:06:07]

Like you don't really have three hour conversations with someone where you just don't look at your phone, just sit across from each other, talk to each other and then talk about all kinds of shit.

[01:06:16]

Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful thing. It's like, yeah. And you and you got to have that and it's like, yeah, yeah. That's one of the things you experience, like, you know when I'm in the woods or on that. Yeah. I was on that show. It's amazing how little you miss social media. Right. But don't miss it at all. Yeah. You don't miss it at all. But then when you come back to life it's still just like yeah it just sucks.

[01:06:36]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:06:37]

It's like a little demon. The whisper is it is coming to God. It's like the clown from it. Absolutely. Come on, let's just do a little rolling.

[01:06:48]

Yeah.

[01:06:48]

Oh and next thing you know, it's really interesting that those people that live in the village are so close to the happy people.

[01:06:56]

Yeah. They're so close to the top, so close to.

[01:07:00]

And those people in that Werner Herzog documentary, you watch it and you're like like why is it why is it that people think there's part there's like a cynical aspect of our society where they look for people that live like that, like this dummy. No electricity. Right. Right. He's got a plastic windows. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because the bears might attack us out there. I'm not living like that. But meanwhile, he's not on antidepressants.

[01:07:24]

You are he's not on you know, he's not on Xanax. You are he doesn't drink before he goes to bed every night because he can't deal with life.

[01:07:31]

You did. It's cool because you're out there and it's like, yeah, your creative juices flowing, you know, like you get problems constantly coming up. And it's like you got to think to solve them. And there are even that's probably how people, like, developed creativity. It's like, yeah, how do I catch this moose or how do you do this or that? And and you really just feel alive in that way.

[01:07:53]

You really do what so many people have done it like detached and then documented it like I'm sure you're aware of Dick Prensky. Yeah. Yeah. So he's got there's a bunch of great videos of him before he died where he, you know, he, he moved up there. I believe he had some sort of a. Industrial accident when he was like in his late 40s or early 50s and almost went blind and then made the decision like, I'm not living like this anymore.

[01:08:18]

All right, I'm going to get a fucking cabin, just live in the woods and live off the land.

[01:08:22]

And if something so universally appealing about that, where those videos are fascinating, watch him make his tool, build his house.

[01:08:31]

Right. And that's that's a just to add to that, it's super appealing. What's actually interesting about native culture and stuff is you have that, but you also have community because you've got like multiple TBI's or whatever, all these people and you're interacting with your family and loved ones while also, you know, living in.

[01:08:51]

Yeah, you're not out by yourself. And they're all living that kind of fulfilled life. Right. So you're all, like, feeding off it to get her in touch with, like, the cycles of life. Like, it doesn't it didn't feel. You know, death feels more like a natural part of the sort, you are always seeing it with the reindeer and with this and that, you know, there's always and it just feels more natural part of life.

[01:09:13]

It's less there's a little bit less existential angst, I would imagine, amongst the rest of the average nomad out there than there is here in L.A..

[01:09:24]

Look, dude, here in L.A., it's a fog that sweeps through communities, particularly now because nobody could work.

[01:09:31]

This is the grossest I've ever seen it, because just people are so angry and depressed and confused and frustrated and helpless when everyone's in a mask and you don't get the personal connection of, like, just seeing someone really smile.

[01:09:44]

And if you try going out in L.A., they'll screaming. If you don't have a mask on, put your fucking mask on, like on the other side street, bitch. They scream at you. Nowhere near you, Delora. Fucking everyone's Judge Dredd.

[01:09:57]

It's like, come on, Jesus Christ. Common sense.

[01:10:01]

Meanwhile, I was in Texas last weekend. Normal people say, hi, shake your hand. No one's walking around, no mask. Go to a restaurant. They make the waiters wear masks, but everybody else just everyone's fuckin sitting there like normal people. And it seems fine.

[01:10:16]

Right? Be interesting. See, I mean, just life has an inherent risk.

[01:10:20]

Yeah. But they're like coronavirus cases rising in states that have opened early. Like, I love to blow people. Right. Right. And they walk it off. But of course it will rise. But it's also like. Yeah, but yeah. We got you also got to live. Yes. I you really should go outside because that's probably one of the big reasons why you're getting sick in the first place is lack of vitamin D being cooped up, unhealthy lifestyle.

[01:10:43]

Absolutely.

[01:10:44]

All those things that are like a side effect of the city, the bad food, the sedentary lifestyle, the lack of nutrients, all those things contribute to all those diseases and then people being stacked on top of each other like like think about where they got it.

[01:11:01]

The worst New York, of course, New York City, which you think about how they live.

[01:11:05]

They live in this really weird way.

[01:11:07]

It's exciting. It's fun, but action.

[01:11:10]

Yeah, a lot of energy fuels like, whoa, this is crazy place to live, but it's not normal.

[01:11:16]

Like compared like take someone from the Tyga and bring them to Manhattan before the pandemic and they'd be like, what is this.

[01:11:24]

Yeah. What is this. If you grew up there and you didn't know and you've never seen a TV, that would be a fucking trip.

[01:11:31]

It would be. Oh my God. You get so you'd be exhausted immediately. There's a vice vice guide to travel special online that you could watch on the Sky Hindman and he lives in Hineman Koth, I think his name is, and he lives in really far north Alaska.

[01:11:52]

And it's hindmost Arctic adventure. It's what it's called. And this guy moved out there, I believe, in the 70s. He was working as a lawyer and he has a permit to have a cabin up there, like the last guy to have a permit. And he has like a permit on his door in case someone stops by because he's really not supposed to live out there. But he is allowed to.

[01:12:10]

And he's a really intelligent guy, really articulate guy. And he just talks about how he just hunts Cariboo and and catches fish. And he believes this is how people are supposed to live. It feels really connected. Yeah. And really healthy and happy. And I mean, he looks great. It's like in his 60s, he's just wandering around hunting and fishing and occasionally has to shoot a bear because it's fucking trying to steal his food. Yeah, yeah.

[01:12:36]

But there's something about it that again, this is not a guy who grew up like that, but he just it resonated with him in a way that nothing else did.

[01:12:45]

Like my wife came with me to Siberia or spent a winter and a summer. But, you know, it's like she's from New York City. Oh no way. Yeah. And she went out there and loved it, you know, like it's like it's like a way better. She could see what it was. It's she could feel that connection. It actually, interestingly, is that there's Hindmarch.

[01:13:05]

There you go. And he lives up there. And one of the things that he said that was really interesting. And so what's really funny is this dude who's with him is I guess you call him a millennial and it looks like a reporter's little fellow with glasses on.

[01:13:19]

He's probably never done this a day in his life, but he's got balls because he went out there and live with this guy for a little bit, stayed in a tent, the whole deal.

[01:13:26]

But this guy had never seen 9/11. Gitmo didn't know anything. He never, never heard of it. It's happened. Yeah. And then one day years later, I believe he saw a photo of it.

[01:13:40]

It's like that Japanese guy that didn't know World War Two ended, right?

[01:13:43]

Exactly. The guy on the island. Yeah.

[01:13:46]

So this guy this reporter lives with him for quite a while and sort of experiences the life. And it's the same thing. It's like there's something about it that resonates with you and see the way this guy lives his life. You're like, wow, this is amazing. Yeah.

[01:14:01]

Yeah, I think it's. I mean, obviously, there's a big for someone that grows up in a city or something, there's like a big hurdle to get over, but I think it would be fairly I want to say universal, but I think a lot of people would really connect to it. Yeah.

[01:14:15]

Once you experience it well, my friend Dan, Dan Doty, he actually takes people out and particularly kids, troubled kids and takes them to the woods and for extended periods of time has them live off the land. Yeah. And as a therapy. So you take these kids that are that have affluenza that is actually very affluent.

[01:14:36]

They grow up, you grow up in the second, you grow up with nannies, no connection to your father and all that kind of shit. And they take them out to the woods. And Dan has this whole he's got some project he's doing. I forget what it's called. She did find it, Dan Doty, but he actually has extended this to men. And it there's these these retreats. They do. And they essentially the idea is like to just reconnect people with nature, reconnect people with hard work and and living in the forest in a natural way as a therapy.

[01:15:10]

And there's something incredibly there. It is right there. What is it called everymen. Yeah. And that's my my buddy Dan, the guy on the right. I've been hunting with him. I used to be on the media crew and then now he's doing this and it's like, oh, that's me and him.

[01:15:25]

Yeah. Go and dance. He's a great guy. And it's it's a really interesting thing that he sort of felt like he had a calling. Right. To introduce people to this sort of way of life as a therapy, as just just giving them a new perspective and letting them know that there's there's actually meaning to this. This is not as simple as like, oh, let's go camping and be an asshole.

[01:15:48]

Fucking drink beer that we we tried a similar thing in Siberia where we took a bunch of the village like young guys that were just kind of drinking their childhood away. Yeah. Took them out into under that year a guys, you know, trapping lions and how that just went.

[01:16:05]

Well I mean they all did great while they were out there. Of course, it's like a temporary thing when. Unfortunately, when I left, a lot of them went back to doing the same thing they were doing, but it's like giving people an opportunity, you know, like that's all you can do. You can't force anyone to change.

[01:16:23]

But, yeah, you can show them the stream. Yeah, exactly.

[01:16:27]

Yeah, it's it's got to be hard because if you've experienced that way of life only briefly, but the other way of life is very normal.

[01:16:35]

You just go back to your old friends and your own, you know, although that that said there was one dude that did it, you know, for one. And he really. Yeah. Well that's all you need. Yeah. Just one is a picture. Exactly. That's really out of how many people actually live. Only like five that went out there.

[01:16:52]

That's pretty amazing. Pretty good. That's amazing. That's great. I felt like I felt not like a failure, but it just felt like, hey, man, 20 percent.

[01:17:02]

Well, yeah, I guess you have to look at it that way. Excellent odds in that regard.

[01:17:05]

That's incredible. I mean, if you get 100 people and 20 of them turn their life. Yeah, that's good.

[01:17:11]

That's as good as any therapy ever hope for, right? Yeah, sure.

[01:17:15]

I mean, how many people go to therapy for years and, you know, barely budge, right?

[01:17:19]

That's absolutely true. We think of it that way. There you go. Thanks for the new perspective.

[01:17:25]

So were you aware of a loan before you went to do it? Yeah, I was like I had watched it. I don't watch much TV, but it happened to be the one show that I kind of liked. So I. I watched the first two seasons and basically just sent them a link to my YouTube videos.

[01:17:41]

I was like, you know, everyone watches in like, oh, I could do that.

[01:17:47]

And then I forgot about it. And then a few years later they called me out of the blue and said, Yeah, we won't go on season six. Well, it must be like Fear Factor.

[01:17:57]

When we were doing the factor we would get just now, I mean, I wasn't going through them, but they were going through the casting folks.

[01:18:03]

They would catch his fucking stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Trying to get on the show. Oh yeah. It was impossible to navigate at all.

[01:18:11]

Yeah. You'd have to get really lucky and even. But they found you. Yeah, they found me somehow. And then I would think that they would think you were a little bit too good at it.

[01:18:21]

Just this guy's already done this. Yeah.

[01:18:24]

I guess I don't know what they thought, but it was I was pretty happy when the. They when I found out I was going to be in the north, you know, like I was like, oh, awesome, that's like that place. And how much money do you win when you win?

[01:18:38]

Five hundred thousand will lose a nice little. That's a good chunk of change. Yes, it's definitely motivating.

[01:18:43]

It's a lot of a lot of manual labor to do that.

[01:18:47]

Yeah, especially seventy seven days worth. Yeah. Yeah. You could bang out a half a million. Seventy seven days and I'm pretty fucked. Not bad wages. No. Yeah, real good.

[01:18:57]

So when you sign up for the show, how much time in advance do they give you.

[01:19:03]

You probably hear maybe two or three months before they drop off.

[01:19:08]

So when you hear, OK, you're going to I guess, you know, actually maybe it's like a month and a half from when they select you to when you get dropped off.

[01:19:16]

So when you knew you were selected and you knew, did you do anything to prepare, you do little things like I had been living with my family, you know, like I had I haven't been in Russia for a few years because I had a few kids and doing the whole family thing and found out I was going on as a oh, man.

[01:19:32]

Like, I'm a little rusty on all this, but I but mostly my main preparation was trying to put on weight, which is always not that easy for me. So I was drinking like as many calories as I could, trying to put on a little extra weight and shooting the bow, you know, getting out there, shooting the recurve, trying to dial in a little bit on that. And why did you choose a recurvature compound? Because you're only allowed to recurve.

[01:19:58]

Yeah, it's got to be kind of primitive gear that you get the shitty bow.

[01:20:03]

Yeah, it would have been sweet with the comp you got. Yeah.

[01:20:07]

But no, it was cool. The some. Yeah. My preparations were mainly that mainly just put on weight Dylon on the bow and you know when you try to put on weight that was so that you could burn fat, you just ran out of food.

[01:20:22]

Right. Just so I had a little more reserved skinny guy with a fast metabolism like previous winners of the show had usually been bigger dudes that had a lot of extra weight to lose.

[01:20:32]

You could live off your fat for a long time. And the water, there's actually a guy, Rob Wolf was Rob Wolf that told us about this guy that had lived.

[01:20:42]

No, Dom D'Agostino told us about this guy who lived a ketogenic diet, who went he fasted for three hundred and sixty some days. He must have been huge. He was fat as fuck. Yeah.

[01:20:54]

But at the end of it was a normal size. And what's really crazy is he didn't have this the loose skin, that boy, a lot of people that lose weight, his whole body shrunk.

[01:21:06]

Yeah. He became like a normal guy. Good for him. He lived off of vitamins and water. He took a vitamin drip and drank water and for a whole year ate no food. Yeah. And his body just lived off the fat. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing.

[01:21:21]

Yeah. It's a crazy story. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it takes. Well there you go. There. Yeah.

[01:21:26]

I wonder what he did for just like hunger pains. I know that. Well I don't think you get him. I think after a while they do go away. After a while you kind of and when you're that fat I mean you just switches have a year's worth of food just carrying around. Yeah. I think he got down like one hundred and sixty pounds and became a normal person like was morbidly obese, you know it when he lost two hundred and seventy pounds for him.

[01:21:51]

Two hundred and seventy six. That's crazy. That's crazy. You got to wonder if he was able to hold it. I got it for I wonder if they were able to keep it off. You know. I know he's a fat fuck now.

[01:22:00]

Now he's 3000 pounds. Just went back to doughnuts and only. Yeah. So it's back in the day.

[01:22:07]

That's what he does. That in the sixties. Oh was it really. Wow.

[01:22:13]

That's incredible. Yeah, I know. Like you say, he doesn't have like a lot of that skin. No.

[01:22:17]

He wasn't plagued with this. This is the only time this was done was in the sixties when I typed it in a toe popped up. There's something I fasted for three hundred eighty five days like a hunger strike or something.

[01:22:27]

But wow, look at what he used to look like versus what he looked like at the end. That's nuts. Yeah.

[01:22:33]

So I was I was I was self-conscious about my weight going on there. Like I'm too skinny for this sport, so. OK, so what kind of stuff did you eat to to pack on the calories.

[01:22:43]

Oh, I was just drinking olive oil and trying to get fat off of that olive oil, huh.

[01:22:48]

Yeah, really. What kind of farts did you have from just drinking olive oil.

[01:22:53]

I would imagine you're like the Mediterranean system would be like, what are you doing?

[01:22:59]

But not like your homeland of Italy right now.

[01:23:05]

Did you drink soda to try to get sugary? Well, yeah, I tried drinking. Does weight gain or shake things, but man, that just got strudel. Yeah. You feel terrible. Like all morning I was just laid out.

[01:23:19]

They fucking just wreck you. Oh, it's terrible stuff. Yeah.

[01:23:23]

Those were like I remember back in my like right out of high school, there's a lot of guys who are trying to put on. Also, the weight gain and would come in this tub, you know, tub, and you had to put many scoops into the ship and just fucking feeling in your stomach.

[01:23:42]

You just drank sand, just not meant to be at the end. So. So you just drinking all of what did you wind up putting on any weight?

[01:23:50]

Yeah, I got like twenty five pounds or so. Oh wow. Actually pretty good in like a month and a half or whatever. That's pretty impressive.

[01:23:57]

You're a really lean but it was all fat and and honestly that that weight went away really fast too when I was out there just from your exercise and. Yeah, just from running around and.

[01:24:07]

Yeah. Yeah I would imagine the cold alone.

[01:24:09]

Yeah. You burn. I mean I think it was about average around a pound a day. Just losing weight, maybe a little. That's kind of scary. Yeah. So you kind of feel like the pressure is on the hunt and big game hunter, you know, like. Yeah.

[01:24:23]

So do you have formal training with a recurve. Do you know how to use it correctly? No, I don't. It's self-taught. So I need to go meet up with Aaron and get some tips. Right.

[01:24:34]

Yeah, well, that's why Aaron really got into it, because he's such a good bow hunter with a compound that he actually found it to be not too challenging. You needed and wanted.

[01:24:45]

And he wanted to kind of proved himself and other people that he could do the same with the recurve bow, you know, super carriker.

[01:24:53]

Yeah, that's awesome. Have you seen the video? Yeah. Yeah. He's got these videos of him shooting bull's eyes like forty five yards recurve curve. Right. Kind of crazy. It's it is. That's really cool. And uh yeah. I mean I just practice getting better.

[01:25:07]

I mean you get to practice a lot. You do. You do. I did notice on that show like there's something about you by yourself and you need the food. You get so concentrated, you're so dialed in. Like when I go shoot at a target, it's hard to really be fully focused. Man, when you see, like, this squirrel or the rabbit over there, it's just like you're so dialed in that I found my I was pretty accurate out there.

[01:25:29]

Were you using the point of the arrow, the tip of the arrow, where you using that as a guide, like when you aim?

[01:25:36]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's see, maybe it's a little more instinctual than that, but yeah. You kind of. Yeah. It's the point of the arrow Chinna. Yeah.

[01:25:44]

This part of Arron was trying to explain to me how he use it like he actually like to a certain range, but he knows like where his twenty yard range based to the point of his broadhead.

[01:25:57]

Oh yeah. Yeah. No that's a good idea.

[01:25:59]

I mostly was, I mean I've done a lot of bow hunting and it way up here and looking down the shaft of the arrow versus like a reeker or a compound. Right.

[01:26:08]

You're your string is much lower in your face. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're using the arrow to kind of guess the distance between the target and. Yeah. The top of your. Yeah.

[01:26:16]

And just like bow hunting just gives you good experience with estimating range. That's one of the most important things because with the recurve you got a big arc. So five yards slow. Yeah. It's going very slow. So did you have a target that you practice with while you were out there?

[01:26:34]

Now I was out there. I practice a lot on just rabbits and squirrels, you know, every day.

[01:26:39]

Just got pretty detailed. Nine arrows. Nine arrows. Did you lose any. I lost a couple. I can shoot squirrels and trees.

[01:26:47]

And that's kind of so tempting because they're up.

[01:26:49]

They're like, oh, now what about fat? Like, yeah, I would think that you would need fat.

[01:26:58]

Well, yeah, you do. And that. So that's why you eat the whole animal, you know, suck the brain out of the rabbit, try to get every bit of fat you can get. And I, I learned a lot about that out there because I mean I caught a lot of rabbits and squirrels early on, but I still just lost weight as fast as if I wasn't eaten. It felt like. Yeah. That it's starvation. Yeah.

[01:27:19]

Yeah, I was when I went out there I was like, I wonder how long that takes.

[01:27:22]

Is that like a year. But basically it's as soon as you start eating. Right. But there's no fat. Yeah. Not much on him. It was like maybe enough to make up for the energy I was expending by running around like I don't think I lost fat their weight faster than someone that was just sitting there was probably about the same. But I was able to run around, have fun, you know, shoot my bow and like, learn my land, see how animals were moving and stuff.

[01:27:47]

So you didn't have any supplies that you initially set out with in terms of like, no food, no food? Yeah, it's a fascinating experience. When the helicopter drops you off, flies away and you're you've never scouted this place before. You didn't get to choose where you're at. It is flies away and you're just like, wow, somehow I have to scout it.

[01:28:07]

Yeah, they did. So they didn't do.

[01:28:09]

Is wild animals there. Yeah. They scout out and basically try to find ten spots that have some form of potential sustainability on it. And then you got to try to unlock the key. You know. Did you have any filtration system for water?

[01:28:21]

No, I started by boiling all my water, but then I just slowly drank bits of. Raw water, until I could pretty much just drink raw water, because I was it was a big old lake up in the far north, it's like there's pretty clean. So yeah.

[01:28:37]

And I didn't get sick, but I drank out of a lake once off of in Prince of Wales, Alaska. Currently it's high enough altitude. So there's no beavers. Yeah.

[01:28:48]

It's still we're just dipping into the lake drinking. Strange I thought we had done in Siberia too. And it's always good even in Lake Moss puddles. It's like this yellow water, but this dip right now.

[01:29:00]

So now when you said you drank a little, that was to test. To see. Yeah. See if I get mildly sick rather than chugging it to begin with. Right.

[01:29:08]

So you boiled it first and then started sipping in a little bit and then eventually just drinking it.

[01:29:13]

Yeah. Although another thing in the in the cold, when you're trying to conserve calories like that, you don't want to drink a lot of cold water. So I'd eat it anyway. So it makes it.

[01:29:23]

What did you do for shelter? The tarp was one of the things we took, so I built a little like a frame shelter just out of logs, covered it like it with moss, but the frame of it. I spent less time on shelter, more time like procuring food and hunting. So it was a quick shelter. Threw it up. I knew. I mean, I've lived in a teepee in that weather, so I knew I was going to be fine on the cold as long as I could provide enough calories to keep my body warm.

[01:29:54]

So how many days it take you before you got an animal?

[01:29:58]

I got a rabbit on day one. I was nice. And then I continued to get rabbits, but it was twenty three days when I got a moose. So that was. Well, then you're good then.

[01:30:08]

You're right. It kind of looks like months of eating. Yeah. I mean again, I was amazed how much fat you eat, you know, like. Yeah. So I was, I was counting my moose and being like, no, no, this isn't like an infinite supply of food here.

[01:30:23]

You know, there's just not enough fat. Yeah. Because you're definitely eating more fat than you are protein. Yes. But plus I had a Wolverine come and pillage my stores of fat and stuff so yeah.

[01:30:34]

I heard about this. So how did that happen. What where did you store everything.

[01:30:38]

Well it was initially I didn't to be honest. I didn't expect to see a Wolverine. I never have and I just wasn't something on my consciousness. And so when I got the moose, I put all the meat up on this shelf I built and thought, man, if a bear comes, it'll be great. I'll have a chance at a bear. You know, I'll wake up at night and kind of be like a bait. PYLE Basically plenty of fat.

[01:30:57]

Yeah. Yeah. And so I was maybe expecting a bear to come, but I went to sleep the first night I got the moose and woke up and came out and there were just tracks everywhere.

[01:31:07]

Somehow I hadn't woken up, but Wolverine's a lot slier animal and he had come and pulled out all the kidney fat, you know, like a kidney that I was just like, no, it all.

[01:31:18]

Your fatty hauled off a full gallon jug packed with kidney fat. I had other fat, but I was like, you know, weeks of fat. There you find it now. It was it was rough. And so then he was pretty excited. I'm sure that Wolverine just kept coming back every day. I figured out of there like I figured they were nocturnal, but they sure enough, I'd be like out there scraping my moose hide in the middle of the day.

[01:31:44]

I'd come running up and, like, try to grab some meat and run off. I was like, holy smokes, this thing's bulb.

[01:31:49]

Is this a photo of him? Yeah, that's the one that's at my shelter there. There he is sneaking around. The vote now, yeah, so they stole thirty five thousand calories, which is gold up there.

[01:32:05]

Oh, so you got some serious gear on you, weren't you? Yeah, yeah. So you got real, real gear. Yeah.

[01:32:11]

You're not it's not naked and afraid, you know, that's that's a serious hunting gear. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And there's your you're a pillar. Yeah. That's been lit up. Is that when you pissed off that the moose fat. Yeah. Calaboose that moose fat contains roughly 35000 calories while gone. Gone.

[01:32:29]

Contee a little manoeuvering. You should get that shit in the little tent with you.

[01:32:32]

Yeah I really should have. I thought I would hear a bear coming but didn't think Wolverines then the. Anyway, he kept coming every day and I knew I knew it was going to be me or him kind of on that I was so scary little fucks I heard, I read. Maybe you, Jamie, could find it, but that one killed a polar bear in the zoo a while ago.

[01:32:53]

A Wolverine. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:32:54]

I'm not shocked. Ferocious little things. I've seen him chase off bears. You've seen the videos of them chasing bears off, kills wolves, bears like what the fuck is this?

[01:33:04]

Ferocious. Yeah.

[01:33:05]

And they're so durable. They get bit by bears and wolves and they just fucking shake it off. Yeah.

[01:33:11]

Cool animals for real. Oh yeah, man. It's just a weird animal, right.

[01:33:16]

It is so ferocious. Yeah. Yeah. Small. Yeah. You know, just making it on at it. Yeah.

[01:33:22]

Just fucking anger fighting it. A muscle bull like when you eat him. Yeah. Of course if you shoot a well I was actually killed it with my axe but when you do that you've got to eat the heart out of it, cut it open in the heart then a drumstick of course, but it tasted like skunk.

[01:33:39]

So I was like, oh, I'll save the rest for a minute.

[01:33:41]

I didn't know it. Skunk tastes like, have you smelled? And I was assuming no. Now they have a musky flavor to it I'm sure.

[01:33:49]

Fucking gross animal. Yeah. Imagine how much testosterone those little fucks must have.

[01:33:53]

Course and so ferocious.

[01:33:56]

Oh so you, you ate his drumstick and that's it. Yeah. And the organs for the vitamins. Yeah.

[01:34:03]

Did you try to use the rest of them for bait for something.

[01:34:06]

No, I was just saving it for eating later, you know, like I put it up on case so yeah I went dark day and you run on a moose and it does go a year.

[01:34:16]

Yeah exactly.

[01:34:17]

So when you didn't have the fat like what was it like just eating. Did you have some fat.

[01:34:23]

Oh yeah, I have a lot. I mean to be fair there's still a lot of fat on a moose like there was all the ribs, you know the the but the rump has a big old thick layer of fat.

[01:34:33]

You got the it's a weird the, the bone marrow is. Oh OK. Yeah it's all straight fat.

[01:34:38]

The brain, you know there's like there's a lot of fat still but that was kind of the easiest fat you know anyway.

[01:34:45]

Yeah. Yeah it was, it was sad but not the end of the world. It was only it was mostly depressing and that I figured somebody else got something big and once I lose that now I'm at a disadvantage again. So then it put the fire under me to keep getting more, you know.

[01:34:59]

So you killed him with an axe, but you shot him in the bow first, right? Yeah, the Wolverine. Yeah.

[01:35:04]

So what did you like, pinned him to the ground with the bow.

[01:35:08]

Yeah, it was he had come the night before and I had seen him behind a bush and you know, I had my flashlight and I could see his eyes and I thought about firing an arrow in there. But I was like, surely he's going to come out and I'll get a better shot. But he must he, like, closed his eyes, snuck away, and I never saw him leave from behind the bush.

[01:35:25]

I was like, dang it, I missed my opportunity. The next day I saw him again the next night coming down through some shrubs and had like set up some warning systems around, like cans on string. So I'd hear him come in and I heard, like, clang, clang, clang was like, oh gosh, I got my bell, went outside. Sure enough, he'd, like, scurried down this hill, went behind a bush and I just sent my arrow in there this time through the bush, through the bush.

[01:35:47]

And so I don't know what it did going through there, but it deflected deflected branches. Yeah, pinned his leg is back leg to the ground like top of the arrow was in the branches and it just gave me enough time to grab my ax run over there. He was just like, you know, Zakim.

[01:36:03]

No, no, no, no. It's just a video.

[01:36:05]

One of those little guys, dude, you must have been so fucking terrified with it so fast.

[01:36:11]

And yeah, it wasn't a cool like you picture me like killing it like really. But it was like.

[01:36:19]

Yeah, no it was, it was. Did you film all that too. Yeah.

[01:36:24]

But it was at night so it's kind of grainy. So that's the crazy thing.

[01:36:27]

Right. Like you don't, you're not just doing something, you also sell film film.

[01:36:31]

So you got to like, you know, do they give you tips on how to film. Yeah, they give you film tips before you go out. I actually found like this was in everyone's experience, but I found it was like kind of nice to have a camera because when I had been like fur trapping in Siberia, it's like you're just alone, alone. And everything you do just feels like nobody's ever going to know about it, you know, like you do all these cool things.

[01:36:52]

And, you know, I remember like I'd been out there for a few weeks and I came into, like, as beautiful woods in Siberia, you know, and I remember being like, wow. And then I said, oh, weird. That was the first time I've spoken out loud in like three weeks, you know.

[01:37:07]

So it's like I was just saying, wow. Yeah. Well, I caught my attention.

[01:37:10]

Oh, that was my voice, you know, like and then of course, your mind's really active, but it's just all in your head.

[01:37:15]

But on the show, at the cameras, you know, it's like you're constantly like everybody talking about stuff. You know, it's kind of made me feel like I wasn't quite as alone.

[01:37:25]

So when they tell you when they give you the camera equipment until you go out and film yourself, how much battery life do you have while you get this big, like, car battery size pack that you can, like, recharge your batteries with?

[01:37:39]

And then they'll occasionally come on like mad checks to to see make sure you're not too skinny or something like that.

[01:37:46]

Really? Yeah. Yeah. How often do they check on you? It varies. Sometime around 10 days ish or so every 10 days. Oh, he's dead. Yeah. They had people out there.

[01:37:57]

Not yet. And, uh, fortunately, they give you a bell to ring or something.

[01:38:01]

Do you have a thing that you like? It's the thing you would give up with, like if you were ready to tap out your Garmin.

[01:38:08]

Yeah.

[01:38:09]

It's like you can send texts on it. Oh, OK. And then let's say you text them every morning and night and basically say I'm OK and so they know you're OK. If you don't do that, then they'll come probably see if you're alive still.

[01:38:20]

Oh wow. Wow. And so are they. I would imagine their show is entirely dependent not just on you succeeding, but documenting every.

[01:38:30]

Yeah. I think that I mean, they were very clear with us, like the you guys have to document everything. We need eight hours of footage a day minimum, you know, like. Wow. And when you're out there, do you have a solar charger.

[01:38:44]

No. No. So but, you know, I wasn't a lot of sun up there that time of year, but that big battery block and, you know, you got a lot of little packs, battery packs. And it's kind of what restricts where you're you know, where you live is that you car?

[01:38:58]

Yeah, I guess so.

[01:39:00]

When you're swinging an ax at this Wolverine, you got all that on film. Yeah, it's like in the shot. Yeah.

[01:39:07]

Well you can see me. It's like I'd like because I mean I heard him come in and because my, my cans were a long ways away, you know, a ways away and is a clinical psychologist.

[01:39:17]

Tripa right out with my tripod, my camera set it on time because he had a trail. So I knew generally where he'd be coming. So I just set my camera up, put it in that direction. And that's kind of where it came.

[01:39:28]

That would be a giant distraction.

[01:39:31]

Yeah, that would make it so because I know that I missed the first moves because because there was a different moose that I had shot at that I totally missed. But a big giant dinosaur of a moose, it was so cool to see. But I grabbed my bow and arrow and my camera and ran out there, set the camera up, took my shot and I was like, oh, I didn't grab my quiver.

[01:39:52]

And so my first shot, I misjudged the distance and dropped the arrow between his legs.

[01:39:57]

I was like, Oh, no, I only have one arrow because I grabbed my stupid camera.

[01:40:00]

So did he run when he when the arrow came near him? No, I like, dropped between his legs. He looked around. I totally would have had time for another shot. It was a real kick in the pants.

[01:40:10]

So then I got hit, kind of took off, shot it off.

[01:40:14]

And I was just like, man, did he know you were there? Was he aware of you? Not too aware. Like, I took a shot. He, like, heard it, knew something was up. What had happened is I had set again, like those cans up as a warning system. And I heard him like in the morning, hit the cans. And I figured that would just warn me, what if something hit the cans?

[01:40:32]

It would wake me up and I could go out and try to hunt it. What actually happened is he went through the cans, scared himself and ran like perfectly in my direction and turned around and looked at the cans like broadside to me, like I came out and it was just a perfect shot, but it was forty. I paced it off afterwards. Forty three yards. And he was such a big animal that I thought he was closer. So I put him at like 30 yards, I'm guessing, you know, and I missed my first and only shot.

[01:41:01]

I was like, oh, did you call him in.

[01:41:04]

Yeah, I've been calling Moose like every day. I would just pick berries, call moose like. Oh yeah, yeah.

[01:41:11]

Good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:41:14]

That's very good. I think they come. Yeah. Get in your lungs and learn that from my friend Mike Hockridge. Yeah.

[01:41:21]

Now when you, when you're doing that you're, you're waiting a long time. Right. You're calling them and then you just waiting literally.

[01:41:27]

It was like I'd find a good berry patch, just sit there and eat berries and call and eat berries and call and. Yeah. And that's all I would do and on.

[01:41:37]

And I think both the bull moose that I saw came into that calling because it would all but it would take them a long time. So I'd like call all evening and then they would usually come in in the morning, which was interesting because it's not like they they come from Miles.

[01:41:50]

Yeah. They must have come from a long ways away.

[01:41:52]

They come like huffing and puffing all in the rough stuff, like so cool.

[01:41:56]

Now you just hear it going, yeah. Yeah. They're so vocal. Yeah. It's nice.

[01:42:01]

You can mimic their voice with your voice. Yeah. It's about moose. Right. It's not like an elk without a tube. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:42:08]

You can actually make the horny cow noise. She's got to get into it. So will you in. Was it in the rut. Yeah. Oh that's lucky. So was that on my design for them. They want to give you a chance of getting something.

[01:42:21]

Yeah. Yeah. Now you shot that moose.

[01:42:24]

How did the other people survive and how many people made it?

[01:42:27]

To a lot of people, just the toughness, you know, like just starving out. Like, dude, you know, you were pointing. Yes, just catching a few rabbits here and there. You know, like, uh, fishing is a big thing. You know, like, uh, but, yeah, it was it was nice to have the movie for sure. Oh, imagine I knew I had to was like that. I'm not going to have a chance if it was started.

[01:42:51]

I've been out of there so fast. Did anybody else get a moose?

[01:42:54]

No, I assumed someone would. But I mean, again, with it recurve, it's pretty hard.

[01:43:00]

Plus, you haven't ever scouted your territory, so you don't know how things are going, because I was so focused on getting one right from the bat, like, right when they dropped my helicopter off, it was like I went out and scouted, like where my moose come in, bring Benos. No, you can't take those.

[01:43:17]

But I didn't think I would just put my shelter where the wind would always be blowing my sent out to the sea, you know, out to them and taking into account all those little things, you know, like, yeah, building my shelter away from where Moose might walk by so that I wouldn't blow up a spot.

[01:43:34]

You know how that kind of stuff.

[01:43:35]

So how did the other people what did they eat? Yeah, it was I mean, a lot to them after it was like summer maybe to seventy seven days before they quit. Seventy two or three. So that you go an extra four days. Yeah. Because the storm came in and they couldn't get out there.

[01:43:50]

Did you know about it. No, I had no idea. Oh wow. Plugging along. So who the fuck made it to.

[01:43:56]

Seventy two days. It was a girl named Wanya and she and another guy named Nathan made it, you know, his shelter burnt down and that was kind of in for him. Both of them made it right up to seventy one seventy two days.

[01:44:10]

His shelter burned down. He said I'm not making another one. Yeah. I mean it was cold at that point because there's a girl. Yeah. Her this is her.

[01:44:17]

She caught something with her bow. Oh. Game Fezzan or something. Oh. And she said she's happy I think happy to finally eat and she cooks it up.

[01:44:26]

Wow. Chop it all up. Yeah. So, yeah, they would, you know, as everybody did, but that is you just eat everything crazy or read that birds meat is that's nuts.

[01:44:39]

It looks like a like a beef, you know. I mean, it looks like. Right, right. Red meat, venison bird, doesn't it. Yeah. It's crazy looking so happy.

[01:44:48]

Oh I'm so happy. So she almost almost made it. Yeah, she did really well, but. So fucking ballsy people to do this. Yeah, it's pretty intense, you know, like good for everybody that tried to get like, yeah, but they don't get shit. They got 72 days of star rating, know it's rough and one guy walks away with a half a million. Yeah, that's crazy. How much money did you have left at the end of the show?

[01:45:17]

Couple hundred pounds.

[01:45:18]

You know, I still had a lot. You were good to go. How many pounds of in a day? As much as I could. I was so hungry.

[01:45:27]

Plus I was having fish so I would have fish for lunch and then breakfast and dinner. I would eat moose. And I was just I basically I told myself, well, I can't quit until I finish this whole moose, eat it as fast as I can.

[01:45:41]

So how are you catching fish? You brought a on.

[01:45:45]

Yeah, I got most of mine is is a birch pole. I'd rigged up a little thing that made me so I could cast and I could cast a long ways out. And it was the funnest fishing I've ever done. You could cast. Yeah. I made with like a spool that I'd brought for my fishing line or whatever.

[01:45:59]

And what did you use for like the eyes for the wire?

[01:46:03]

Snare wire was one of the things I brought in. So I'd made like rigged up a little fishing pole and it worked great. It was real similar to what they used in Soviet like old Soviet reels.

[01:46:14]

So I been gave me the idea for making that style of it real because they're just so basic, you know, and and it takes a little practice to use.

[01:46:23]

But anyway, I rigged it up. It worked great. I could cast way out there, took me a long time to catch my first fish a few weeks. But after I did, I kind of like dial them in.

[01:46:31]

And it was what were you using bait or. I made a lure like a little spinner I made and that and I caught a fish, but it snapped my line. But the and then I tried moose meat and they loved it.

[01:46:43]

So I would just be cashing in on catching them all on moose meat or like fish belly, you know, you catch a fish and cut out a strip strip. And they loved that. And it was mostly lake trout, but some of them were, you know, over twenty pounds.

[01:46:58]

And you got this homemade rod and you're like really shaking your hands out to one pound lake trout. That's insane.

[01:47:06]

With a homemade lure in a homemade strainer.

[01:47:10]

That's a different thing. That's paracord. I was. I was. Yeah, just testing out making like a fly line, not a paracord there.

[01:47:18]

And did you have a leader as well, like using the paracord and like breaking it down? That's not the that's not the thing I used on the show that was just experimenting.

[01:47:26]

Now, when you were using the line, what kind of did you bring fishing? That was another item. But I did know you can only bring monofilament Kabulis hooks.

[01:47:36]

It made everything that much more intense. Yeah. Why?

[01:47:39]

Why Barclays Canadian regulations are so silly. People there was never going to be any release in that situation. That's why it's so confusing. They have Barlas hooks.

[01:47:53]

Yeah, but but you they allowed you to. What pound test did use. Twenty. Oh wow. So you like at the limit. Yeah. Yeah. And you got no drag so you just kind of going on feel. Yeah. It was very wow. They're trying to drag it out like a fly rod. Will you let it slip too.

[01:48:08]

There's a little boy they really didn't let it pull away until it finally wears itself out, which, you know, you take stripping the lining or you do.

[01:48:15]

You have had my little reel so I could, like, put my thumb on it and my spool and I would like drag drag like a real and did you real with a finger. Yeah. Oh, wow.

[01:48:26]

I made like when it was cold, I made this rabbit fur glove that we're just the tip of my finger stuck outside. Oh. And then yeah.

[01:48:35]

I got to say that that's. So how many fish did you want to catch in this. Thirteen.

[01:48:39]

But they're all big, you know, like they're all so you need them for a couple of days. Yeah.

[01:48:43]

Like from between eight and twenty seven.

[01:48:46]

Did you eat the fish guts at all. Did you. Yeah. Like I eat the stomach and the head was the best part. Like when you're out there, you know, starving and you need fat, it's like a lot of times I would eat the fish and kind of put the main meat part of it away for later. But you need the belly.

[01:49:02]

The head. Oh, you like a soup with the head?

[01:49:05]

Yeah, I made all my fish in the soup and then I would fry all my most basic. Oh, OK. All your fish in the sea. Yeah. Just to get all the nutrients out of the body.

[01:49:14]

Do you find any edible vegetables or anything.

[01:49:17]

Lots of berries like up north. So yeah. Awesome. As far as berries go. Although my spot didn't really have many but I found patches you know, like well where you find berries, you find berries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:49:29]

Did you find any root vegetables or any like wow there's, there's not a lot of that up there. There's like inside boiled reindeer lichen. Oh that's. And what does it taste like. Real bland.

[01:49:40]

It's really kind of acidic. It's not great for eating, but I would mix it with my moose meat just to get carbs like some carbs.

[01:49:47]

Maybe that's where all the Cariboo eat, right? Yeah. Yeah. But that's weird. Weird. It's weird. But you can turn into an animal, you know, just take it like it and it turns into. It's weird stuff, too, right? Yeah, so that was you have no seasoning or anything, right? Right. But man, I got to tell you, I didn't, you know, you know, Elk do, but, man, I didn't miss it at all.

[01:50:07]

It was so good from the first bite to the last.

[01:50:11]

So I was just like, hmm, just over five.

[01:50:15]

I had to do some of it raw like. Yeah. Like deliver that raw.

[01:50:20]

Yeah. For the extra boost that you have, you get a knife. Leatherman Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Just a leather, a leather man. So you butchered the moose with a leather. Yeah. Holy shit. How long did that take.

[01:50:34]

Oh I think I've got the moose finally at like noon and then I think I was done cutting it up and hauling it by like ten o'clock that night.

[01:50:42]

And do you have a sharpening stone or anything. Yeah, just a rock. You know, it's just a regular rock to find laying around. It kind of looks like it might work. Well, did it work. Yeah.

[01:50:52]

Yeah, yeah. Good. Oh. Oh that's so crazy to rely on a Leatherman that little tiny ass.

[01:50:58]

Only so many items, you know. And I wanted the wire cutters, I wanted the little softer craft and stuff, you know. So I've figured if my worst problem is that I have a small knife to cut up a big game, I'll be pretty happy.

[01:51:12]

Was there anything that you wished you brought that you didn't? Yeah, I would have taken probably a gillnet instead of my saw. I took a saw and I almost never used it.

[01:51:20]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you thought you would use it for trees or. Yeah, I just thought for it. Just be a calorie saver rather than using your axe. But it was kind of a risk I took and I ended up not being so that was worthwhile.

[01:51:32]

That's pretty good though. Yeah. One thing. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:51:34]

It was nice for building. I built like a 12 foot tall cache where I stored all my moose meat and it was nine for nice for that.

[01:51:41]

So what other objects did you bring. You brought a tarp. You brought a fishing line.

[01:51:45]

Fishing line here is if I can James the best rod what is a Ferro rod that's like that sparkler.

[01:51:52]

You know, you scrape it in it. Oh so that's how you started your favorite fishing line and hooks all barbel. How many hooks did you have. Twenty five.

[01:52:01]

Oh that's nice but yeah. No they go fast. Seventy seven. They got one. That was down to my last one's a bow and you're allowed nine arrows only.

[01:52:10]

Yeah. Did you think about constructing arrows.

[01:52:12]

Yeah I thought and I was thinking by the time I got the moose, you know early enough that I didn't really need to make arrows. But I was thinking if I wanna shoot more at squirrels I better make some arrows.

[01:52:22]

Trapping wire. What is that? That's just just thin gauge wire like twenty gauge wire would use that for five snare and rabbits, hundreds of snares out. And then I built, you know, for building that fishing pole and did that in a sleeping bag.

[01:52:36]

Yeah. I just brought a fucking warm sleeping bag for forty and that's for the rocks. Throw it in there with. Oh OK. Yeah.

[01:52:44]

And then a multi-tool crazy. You didn't bring a knife. Just a multi-tool. Wow.

[01:52:49]

I guess it makes sense though if I was looking at that list like what would I take off for a knife.

[01:52:54]

Yeah it's kind of Defensor. What would you take if you didn't have the support?

[01:52:58]

I would have taken a gillnet. I ended up making gillnet out of the paracord, but I think that would have been useful.

[01:53:04]

Wow, that's crazy. I only get ten things. Yeah. Puts the pressure on. Oh my goodness it does. So once you shot the moose and you you had all that meat and then what did you do with your time after that.

[01:53:21]

Oh I kept busy. I just always assumed somebody else was going to get something. So I was like, you know, I spent a lot of time right after getting the moose, like, preserving it, smoking it, trying to store it where it would be safe, because everywhere you put it, something's getting you hang it. And trees and the birds are pecking. You know, everybody's going for have a tarp that you could cover it with.

[01:53:40]

Well, I only had the tarp for my shelter and I didn't that would have been that that was an item. I also thought had I known I was going get something big, would have been nice to have a tarp, but.

[01:53:47]

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was a lot of work protecting my meat, but then also just continued fishing continued, you know, all that kind of stuff.

[01:53:58]

And after you got the Wolverine out of the picture, was there any other man? After I got the Wolverine, I was so happy. I was like, yes, I just got to eat and live. And then, like two days later, I was sitting there frying up some meat. And and I've never I haven't been able to find on the Internet a good Wolverine sound. But another one came. Another one came. And I just hear it out in the woods and, you know, it's like a witch in the woods, just like me.

[01:54:21]

And I was like, oh, did I was like just praying like, oh, I think I made that up right. I didn't really hear that I could dream. Yeah. But sure enough, he started coming around. But we were only we have regulations. Right. So you can't kill you don't kill one wolverines those. Oh. So then I was just on defense mode trying to set up like I'd like set up all these cans so that when I walked through with, you know, it clank and then I'd be like, chase away, shut that camera off.

[01:54:49]

We're going commando on Wolverine. It's tempting for sure. Oh, 100 percent. I mean, I just like that survival.

[01:54:56]

It is like this isn't just hunting. Yeah, it is. You're trying to survive and talk about intense hunting.

[01:55:03]

And I can imagine when I hit the moose, you know, like, oh, like unlike anything I've ever experienced, like, oh my gosh, that was a good shot.

[01:55:12]

And you knew had. But then you got to wait, you know, you got to wait like an hour to go look because you don't want to spook.

[01:55:17]

It is such a big animal. How heavy were your arrows. That's the one hundred and eighty grain broadhead. So heavy. I mean one hundred and twenty five grain broad heads and eighty grain insert so pretty heavy up front the FARC. Yeah. Yeah. And then like the full length shaft they've been like what do you. Yeah. Carbon would look like shafts. Feathers. Yeah. With feathers and Yeah.

[01:55:45]

Did the job, it sunk all the way in to the moose entirely and didn't come out the other side because it was a quartering towards me shot. Oh wow.

[01:55:54]

Sunk the feathers in the back of the arrow, touched its back hip.

[01:56:00]

So you must have shot it perfect. Between the ribs.

[01:56:02]

Yeah. Just yeah it was a it was great but it, I only hit one lung so it was a long you know of course I was tracking it. Lost track of the blood is like a big ordeal tracking it.

[01:56:15]

And when you got to worry about something. Finding it before you. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:56:18]

What would you do. It's mostly bare found that hunt the bear. I guess I've and I was expecting a bear to show up and never did. But you never saw any bears over there. No. My spot must not have had bears like I was expecting one to come for the kill. Maybe they hibernated, you know, right around that time. So it was like right on the edge of when they would go in. Yeah. And yeah, I just got away with that one.

[01:56:42]

Or, you know, I actually, to be honest, was kind of hoping one would come because first the you got the heart down. The heart is delicious. Yeah. That ring of faffed around. Yeah.

[01:56:52]

So good. And how did you cook that. Described it, sliced it and put it on sticks or something. I one of my items was a frying pan. Oh that's right. Oh that's nice man. It was so good.

[01:57:02]

You use the fat as, like oil. So you like cooked the fat first.

[01:57:07]

At first I rendered a bunch of fat into like oil.

[01:57:12]

Just wow. You must have felt like a fucking caveman. Little caveman. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting to get into that mindset because you just, you know, you're just living and you feel really connected to everything you feel like out there.

[01:57:26]

Kalvin steaks with a Leatherman. Yeah. So crazy.

[01:57:31]

And you use the axe to chop up the bones to make marro. Yeah. Just to break open the bones with rocks on a rock and then pick out the marrow and that was rock. Or did you take it cold and raw. Wow.

[01:57:43]

Creamy and delicious.

[01:57:44]

Oh so healthy for you too when you're out there. Right. Yeah. It's exactly what you're craving. Wow.

[01:57:50]

And so when you had that stashed in your cash amassed a lot of pressure. Must have been relieved though, right.

[01:57:57]

Oh yeah. It felt like a just a demon lifted off my back.

[01:58:01]

It's just, you know, the whole time you're like you're going to start. You're going to start. You're going to start.

[01:58:04]

It's like trying to fight this thing off. And then, man, we when you shot that and it it was like three hours, I tracked it and I had lost it. So I was lost its blood trail and I lost its foot trails because it was like hard ground.

[01:58:18]

And I was just like, no, I can not lose this moose. And then but I was like, well, I hit it in the lung, I'm sure. So I think it's going to stay downhill. So I just followed the shoreline. Sure enough, I came up on it.

[01:58:29]

But it was like sitting there alert in a little while and I was just like, oh, man, a duck down has like debating like, can I sneak in and try to get another shot, but no way.

[01:58:39]

And that's like so I just waited it out and it was a long three hours where I would just be like sitting there and it would stand up and you're just like, no, no, no, no, no.

[01:58:48]

It would fall down in New York. Yes, and like really dragged it out, but when it finally died, yeah, I walked over there and I yeah.

[01:58:56]

Talk about a weight lifted off your shoulders. Do people give you a hard time for that?

[01:59:01]

Yeah, I got some good Internet hate, but honestly, it's people I can understand it like it sounds good. Like why you go finish it off with an arrow you could run away.

[01:59:09]

Of course you know that. Yeah. You got to let it be calm and just like, go away.

[01:59:14]

How close were you when you saw it standing? Only 50 yards, probably. So you really don't want to send 50? Yeah. All you can do is poke it and then it's going to know it's being attacked and get up and run away. Brian, I understand the people that were mad just having been hunted, so. Fair enough. Yeah.

[01:59:29]

And also, it's survival.

[01:59:31]

It's you can make any risks. Yeah. Yeah. That's a crazy situation, man. Yeah. It was this anticipation not that's even more crazy, right.

[01:59:41]

Like you hit it but it's still alive.

[01:59:43]

And then you got to you hoping to get that moose I've lost.

[01:59:47]

I don't know if you've ever done that. Where I've hit a deer, you know, you wait forty five minutes and then you go out there and then you see it stand up in front of you and run off. And at that point, it's almost impossible to find because it's already bled out mostly.

[02:00:00]

And and I've lost your adrenaline kit and I can run for miles. It's crazy. Yeah. They're I mean they're built for survival, built to get away from wolves.

[02:00:09]

It's amazing what they can do to help. Yeah. So that was in my mind for sure. Do you have the antlers? Unfortunately, no. Maybe somebody in Canada is listening to this. I was I was flying out on the airplane and the lady wouldn't let me bring them on the plane because I had them, like, improperly wrapped, I guess.

[02:00:26]

And then my plane was just about to leave from Northwest Territories and she just left. I just had to set it in front of the airport.

[02:00:33]

And I was like, oh, what a bummer. I couldn't I didn't have any of the locals no. To like, hey, could you come grab this?

[02:00:42]

No, that would be something you would want on your wharf. Yeah, right. Absolutely. I was this big moose. No, it was like a young moose which great eating but huge.

[02:00:52]

But was it the first one was a monster. Yeah, the first one was a monster. And a lot of that was I mean, have you seen Moose like up close shot one.

[02:01:01]

Oh you did shot a young one. Yeah. But it's like cool.

[02:01:04]

And it was like the young one that I shot was like a fork. It was like 900 pounds. Yeah.

[02:01:08]

That's about what I got three points on it. And but yeah the there's just such cool animals to see. They're so, they're so big. Yeah.

[02:01:16]

So I was with my friend Ben O'Brien and he shot one that was huge when it was walking across the road, it walked across this dirt road.

[02:01:24]

It looked like a dinosaur. That's exactly what I thought.

[02:01:27]

Even look real, even the one I missed. Like, I can't even say I was upset because I was just like that was so awesome to see you. Like, that was really like seeing a dinosaur.

[02:01:36]

You don't realize how big they are until you're in their presence. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[02:01:40]

I guess that's probably like all animals that are enormous in Africa. Right.

[02:01:45]

Mean it's I mean, you see them at the zoo and they're not impressive for some reason.

[02:01:49]

Yeah. They don't have they're like wild energy in the forest, like you know where they are. Yeah. Look at the map. Oh there's a giraffe cage. Let's go check out those motherfuckers. See that not as interest.

[02:01:59]

No, it's not like you turn a bend, you know, go around a corner and you, like, see what you want.

[02:02:05]

Yeah. Just out there living wild. It's so indescribable. Just seeing something even you just stumble into any kind of animal that's like the wild and you realize like this is how this thing's species has been existing for hundreds of thousands of years.

[02:02:21]

Just how when we were on when we were doing that project, trying to get you guys to stop drinking out in Siberia, we had like a little hunting cabin. We were Bastet. And I woke up one morning and we had a stupid dog that just barked at everything.

[02:02:37]

And I just hear the blogging and it's like, oh, it's a squirrel.

[02:02:40]

So I got up and I didn't get up. I let it bark. And then my buddy got up like an hour later and went out to brush his teeth and came running back.

[02:02:48]

And he's like, there's a bear out there. So I went up, jumped up, looked out, and a bear had killed a moose like less than one hundred. We could have watched the whole thing if I would have just woke up right away. But it came killed a moose right next to our cabin when we came out at source and took off running and we were like, oh, man.

[02:03:05]

So we walked over there like cheese. A whole warm moose still here. So we, like, cut it up, haul it back to our stole it from the back it from the back to back. Come back. Oh yeah.

[02:03:14]

Like three days later, like we were in in the shelter and sure enough that one dog just came running in and hid under the bed and started like out there barking and so we grab that has chaos and go out there.

[02:03:30]

And it felt like like have you seen the ghost in the darkness. Yeah.

[02:03:35]

It reminded me of because it's like all this tall brush and you just hear, like, you know, the dogs barking over here.

[02:03:41]

And I'm like, oh, man, the bears over here. And then over here you hear, you know, oh, crap, it's over here, you know, like and then all of a sudden I'm like, man, I'm. We're kind of in this tall brush, but I like it was like, well, I got my camera, so I handed the gun to this dude and he's just like I figured he knew what he was doing with bad choice.

[02:04:00]

But I got my camera, he got the gun. And then again, we're looking at where the dogs barking and the bear, like, pops up right here and stands up. It's like, hmm. And do just took off running with the camera.

[02:04:14]

Yeah. We were like camera recently out of knee surgery. It's like I wasn't running out of there.

[02:04:18]

So I just like stood there and duck back in the bride and then dude comes back like a full you know, almost a minute later I was just like, there can't be that. He's like, my knees are shaking.

[02:04:29]

I was like, Dude, you got a gun, don't run.

[02:04:31]

And just as I said that, it stood up again. And he's like, Dude, you sound like Vietnam. And he shot the man who shot him. So you guys want to be eating it?

[02:04:39]

Well, I was they were all Venkaiah people and we ate the heart. But they don't eat. They have like a whole ritual when they shoot a bear. It's like that because they're so Worimi up there. You can eat them in like a serious situation.

[02:04:54]

But what they would like, they like cut the head off and put the eyes under a rock because they didn't want the spirit to see where, where, who got it.

[02:05:03]

So they like and then they say put the other parts of it in the river so that it floats down to like a different village, so that the bird thinks those are the people that got all these weird, weird little things.

[02:05:17]

But in general, because there's so, so much chicken noses and stuff, they don't eat the brown bear up there. But although you can if you boil the heck out of it.

[02:05:26]

Yeah. Or just cook it over 160. Right. I guess. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My friend, we got up trichinosis. Oh did he Stephano. Oh yeah. Or no. Yeah he got his, the whole crew got it and they even got Techdirt.

[02:05:38]

Isn't that mildly trichinosis. Crew. Yeah. Is it, is it. Did they get rid of it.

[02:05:44]

I imagine it just goes away but it's always in your body so if somebody made him someday they would get trichinosis. Oh interesting. Yeah.

[02:05:52]

But he said it felt like his muscles like you could feel the little, the little parasite worms. Yeah. Burrow to your muscles. So it's everything is a pain. Yeah. Not a robot. And then eventually just goes away. Oh yeah.

[02:06:06]

OK, well go fucking worms just living in your body you get used to. It's creepy man because when you I have experiences but I know that some people who eat bear have cut open the bear and seen the worms literally crawling underneath the skin.

[02:06:22]

Oh yeah. Yeah. No you could see him even on the bear. That bear. Yeah, yeah. I see him in there. They're like yeah it's pretty gnarly. So you guys eat the heart only that's just the heart to me. A little bit of a waste but yeah that's just I was kind of doing when in Rome you know.

[02:06:37]

Yeah. That's one of those things. Right. Like if you insult them and fuckers, they know what you're doing, tradition of things they were doing so and you're out there making better barbecue. Yeah. They're going to bring the girls. Yeah. That's how big was the bear.

[02:06:53]

The brown bear. Big ol brown bear. I mean, it wasn't an old one. It was probably it's hard to say, but it was full grown and foot and yeah, somewhere I put a picture of the hide but anyway, hey, he's a big bear. I don't I don't actually know what I did with that video, which is very sad.

[02:07:10]

So you guys, you ate the moose, eat the heart of the bear. Yeah. How do they do that? They just slice that up. Yeah. Just sliced it up. Fried it up and then yeah. There's a lot of bear stories out there. You're constantly I can only imagine constantly interacting with him when you're always in the woods like that. Well and happy people.

[02:07:27]

The guy was talking about losing his favorite hunting dog to. Yeah, yeah.

[02:07:31]

That happens that the way they do dogs over there, they think you're interesting because they have a different dog for every type of animal. So if you got like a dog that's really good at treating birds and you get a dog that's good at going after bears and you got a good dog, it's good and stable. You know, like you just keep raising dogs until you get one that likes to go after what you need it to go.

[02:07:50]

Where are they getting their dogs from? It's just like this.

[02:07:52]

A venki breed of dog, I don't know, just random look like just like either white mutts. Yeah. Look, and things are not very big but they're not small. Is average five year coyote sized dogs and the. Yeah, usually white or red or spotted, what do they feed them, just mush like this, like oat and mush stuff they buy in the village. Not very good food, but then the the dogs like and try to fend for themselves and stuff, catch mice and things.

[02:08:20]

It's like they're like not in any of the dog. Seem pretty happy but they also like you know, you go out in super cold weather and this dog will have melted a big hole in the snow and it snowed on top of it. And he like pops out of this hole. That's how it hits sleep outside their top dogs. Yeah.

[02:08:38]

Yeah, they're. Yeah. And they're eating just mush.

[02:08:41]

Yeah. There's eaten mush and like certain scraps and stuff, but yeah. Not an enviable diet they have, they're usually kind of thin but but they don't know any better. Yeah. They don't know any better. They like it. They seem happy running around free like the incredible animal dogs. Yeah. Supercool.

[02:08:59]

It's just what a strange. What is this pet. That's a he's such a cool guy but that's him and his ring.

[02:09:07]

If I saw like if I didn't know any better I saw a dude with a reindeer with a satellite. Get the fuck out of here. That's not real. You can't just ride a reindeer around.

[02:09:15]

He's a reindeer is not that big. Now let's talk about a two hundred pound reindeer. Yeah, they're not, but they're pretty strong. They're like they'll pull you in like but it is border like a guy like me or whatever. It's starting to get borderline. But how much do you weigh.

[02:09:29]

Like one seventy five. And so if you're on a two hundred you just got to get a stronger one.

[02:09:34]

Yeah. And they do it. The strongest ones will carry well over two hundred pound person.

[02:09:38]

How big are the big ones. Big. I don't know the weight but eat like a 300 pound. No I don't think Caribous that really big.

[02:09:46]

Yeah. Yeah.

[02:09:46]

Not the domestic ones are probably a little smaller and I think they get that heavy, maybe two hundred and fifty but the but they're strong man.

[02:09:56]

You like get on like there's be some cool times while you're just out in the middle of this field and Siberia, you know, you know the swamps have that like tough to grasp. That's like you walk on and you know, you're carrying your reindeer along, you know, he's like in tow maybe. And then you get to this big flowing river with ice and everything and jump on your reindeer and just hope he can make it through without stumbling. And you're like on the back of this reindeer like feels life or death.

[02:10:21]

If you fall in this river, you know, and you just hang on to him and trust that he won't stumble, you know, and. Make it across this river, pull up on the other shore, and you're just like, oh, do you ever have dreams of that life? Like after you've done it? Like, do you ever. It's always present with me, you know, like I always think about it. Like I was saying, it's like it's interesting to live in a modern world and see the things that pull my suck my time and how in some way it's a very unsatisfying, you know, the Internet, the social media thing.

[02:10:52]

But it's so engrossing and I miss it. And then and those are the reasons why I like I always think, man, how could you how could you get this, you know, a little more in our modern society?

[02:11:06]

You know, that's what I was like the initial catalyst for while I thought about I wonder if something like that would be able to be revived.

[02:11:13]

You know, now, after you've had all these wild experiences, do you long for more? Is it something like where you go live a normal life for a while and you start getting the itch?

[02:11:22]

Yeah, definitely. It's like. Again, it's like that thing where it's like if it was my friends and family living that life, I would just choose it. But because it's not like it's hard to, like, feel fully committed into it because, you know, you've got your kids and all your wife and they're all over there and none of your family can see him.

[02:11:42]

You know, it's just such a different and separate life that said it. I do know that it's very satisfying, you know, on a deep level. So it's kind of interesting to me. But I try to incorporate as many lessons as I can, you know, and like anything that keeps you connected to, you know, how we were designed to be just you just connected to the land, to nature. I love all those things.

[02:12:06]

So what do you do now for a living? Well, we're going to I what I generally do for a living is renovate crappy houses and flip around random out usually, but.

[02:12:17]

I'm going to start doing trying to do some survival schools, you know, in Idaho and the wilderness, OK, out there and then so maybe connected to my friend Dan Doty.

[02:12:29]

Yeah. Yeah. Who's he? That's the guy we were talking about earlier. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They look like really I should I should touch with them.

[02:12:38]

And so you see stuff like that. But yeah, I did a class in Ontario this winter thottam folks, just general survival skills and stuff. And what do you say when you do that?

[02:12:49]

What do you how does that set up? Do you give a spend a week to come out on the week? Yeah. The classes we're going to have in July, we'll just ride horses up into the wilderness in Idaho and spend a week up there. And a lot of it is teaching. You know, there's definitely hard skills, all the hard skills. There's also a lot of just mental what's the mental framework that you need to have to survive, you know, and and to be resilient and stuff like that.

[02:13:17]

And that's a whole fascinating topic in and of itself. You know, you get it. You dig deep when you're out by yourself. It's amazing how deep your thoughts go.

[02:13:27]

You know, now, when you say mental skills, like what? What do you teach people in terms of mental skills? Like, how can you know it?

[02:13:33]

Well, like if someone was going to be prepared, wanted to prepare to go. There's a few things that would be really helpful. One, you need to practice gratitude, right? It's like just being thankful for what you have, even in a rough situation, is key, you know, and and that that can come from having perspective, you know, like reading. If you read The Gulag Archipelago, you're saying it makes it hard to complain about your particular situation.

[02:14:03]

And so having like perspective like that, I think is good for me. It was good knowing my family history. You know, they're like Assyrians who got, you know, in the Armenian genocide and kind of got wiped out. And so they have brutal stories of what happened to them. And it's like, oh, it puts all my suffering in perspective. And I see that the people who lived through that came out joyful people somehow. And, you know, and so resilient, resilient people not yeah, not only did they live, but they went on to have a family that was like my aunts and uncles who were like, really happy, beautiful people.

[02:14:39]

And so how do they get that? Resilience is something that I've thought a lot about. And in you know, gratitude is a big deal, I think. You know, having an experience that puts perspective on on time, like knowing that your relationships are strong, so like having gone to Russia a bunch, you spend a year over there, you know, you're the first time.

[02:15:02]

You're like, oh, man, I miss everybody.

[02:15:04]

But then you realize when you come back, they're right there. They still love you, you know? So having strong relationships is very important. You don't want to have a lot of skeletons in your closet. You know, like if you get out there and you're alone and some survival situation, think about all this.

[02:15:17]

Yeah, it's amazing when you think of people that had long forgot about, you know, like and like people like, oh, I should call that guy and make it right with that guy. But I think if if you had a lot of, like, issues that you'd never dealt through and you guarantee you they're going to come up out there, you know, stuff that you forgot about. And so that's like coming through and making sure you're just mentally everything's in order, you know, like kind of knowing why you're doing what you're doing, you know, like.

[02:15:46]

Yeah. So that's yeah. There's a lot there that you can kind of unpack.

[02:15:52]

So when you have this survival school that you're teaching, do you have a specific curriculum? Do you write out?

[02:15:58]

No, basically I've thought like, what is it that I've learned over the years that's allowed me to do, you know, to be successful or to do.

[02:16:09]

To thrive in some of those situations and how can I impart that, you know, that that's mainly I'm just trying to show people and what I've learned and what's practical in the woods, because it's easy to get a lot of skills that you're not really going to use or whatever. But I think if you. Know what? You know, I've experienced what people in the wilderness really do to live and like having those skills, hopefully being able to impart the, you know, mental and also physical skills to thrive.

[02:16:42]

I don't know. I just think that. Yeah, and some of its experience, so somebody's just going out in the woods, a lot of people haven't spent a week in the woods just going out there and seeing what it's all like like what it's like to scout out a new place and be like, OK, where am I going to? Build my shelter, how to get food, you know, like all that stuff, when you have those people come out for survival school, what do they bring with them and what do you.

[02:17:06]

Well, it depends. Like I mean, I haven't done a lot of these. This is my first ones in Idaho are going to be in July, the one I did in Ontario. We basically told them to bring back like they were on that show, you know, bring canned items and we'll make the best of it, you know.

[02:17:23]

And then and so that's how many people live there at a framework up there.

[02:17:29]

I think it was six. And in Idaho, if it's still covid still a thing and there's a limit of ten people, then I guess it'll bring eight and it'll be me and my brother who and we'll teach them what we know.

[02:17:45]

How do you vet those people? Like, how do you make sure they're not completely out of their fucking mind trap good will. You don't want to go to sleep next to learn a whole new set of survival skills? Yeah. I mean, you would imagine if someone was a real psycho social. Yeah.

[02:18:03]

Would be a way they'd want to express themselves alone in the forest with a bunch of people trying to survive.

[02:18:11]

Hopefully we can keep that in check. Yeah.

[02:18:13]

Do you ask about their background? Do you do a background check on them?

[02:18:17]

Not really, no. See, just let it ride. Let it ride. Well, see, you once put themselves in that situation. It's all right. It'll be cool.

[02:18:26]

Uh. Have done a lot of people, so I think it's OK. Yeah, we will in general, what are the type of people that want to learn this kind of stuff?

[02:18:38]

Oh, I think it can be broad.

[02:18:39]

It's like it's not too extreme. It's not like I'm looking for people that like you don't have to be super hardcourts as people that want to have a new experience broaden their horizons. It's kind of like choose your own adventure. You don't have to go out there and starve for a while.

[02:18:52]

Like, yeah, just come out. I'll be there with you to teach you things and we'll, you know, make the best of the week and see what we can learn. And I know whoever it could be, anybody.

[02:19:05]

Do you have a longing for personal adventure, though? Is the thing like outside of just teaching this? Yeah.

[02:19:10]

Oh yeah. Like one of the things I want to do now, I feel like I got a little more freedom because I got to spend more time in the mountains, you know, I love it speaks to me. So I'm going to try to do that now. I want to also stay connected with the event you over there. You know, when the borders opened back up, I want to go back with my family. We've tried, you know, restoring some reindeer herds to people who have lost their reindeer and want to go over and kind of check on that project, see how they're progressing, see if they're if they are, you know, and like stay that type of thing.

[02:19:46]

If I see that people are making progress and, like, building their herd back or making some kind of progress, then to try to support them more and like, you know, feed into that. So there's things that I want to remain connected to.

[02:20:01]

We'll see. I'm also really interested in like I like all those, like restoring like when the people I hear about restoring elk to the east or restoring buffalo herds, all that kind of stuff, to me it's pretty exciting. So we'll just see how it just goes. Yeah, like a day at a time.

[02:20:20]

We'll do a really appreciate you being here. You've lived a really fascinating life, but I appreciate you having me on. It's cool to connect with you and be able to do this. Yeah.

[02:20:28]

Enjoy man up to Idaho some time when you're bored or out to Virginia. I'm and I'm not going to Siberia. So that's about as far as you get better. Well, thanks, brother. I appreciate your man. Thanks for being here. It's been good bye, everybody. But thank you friends for tuning in to the show. And thank you to our sponsors. Thank you to athletic. Green's a fantastic way to ensure your nutritional needs are covered.

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Thanks for tuning into the show much love to you all.

[02:22:29]

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