00:00:08 Speaker 1: The Hunting Collective is presented by Element. I guess I grew up. Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Hunting Collective. I am Ben O'Brien, and I am joined by Philip t Engineers. Say hello, Philip, Hello, Hey, Hey doing buddy, Not like that. Don't say hello like that. Oh, I was just trying to sound like you. I'm doing I'm doing good. Yeah, good good. Now we have cover off on Halloween. Quickly. I dressed up like a stormtrooper. My wife dressed up like a stormtrooper. My son was Kylo Wren. We scored the motherload of candy above all motherloads of candy. Uh so I'm feeling pretty good, pretty first first world stuff over here. We had piles of recy cups. Uh we did. We were able to identify the houses in my neighborhood that gave out the full size candy bars, and I went on my Onyx maps and I put a little way points on their homes. So next year, I know what my strategy is. How did it go over there for you? Oh? It went pretty well. We didn't. We only went to a few houses for trick or treating, but then we handed out candy and my oldest son said that he enjoyed that just as much as getting the candy. So, I don't know, he's either a really weird kid or he's he's got a good heart. I think he's got a good heart. He's got empathy. I think, having not met the young lad, I feel that's that shows a lot a lot of character from your little guy there. Yeah. Oh, actually I think he's just a freak. He's just weird for being nice in this day and age. But hey, yeah, I'm a little bit. I just don't know now as a father, uh, and a person who tries to uh stay alive, what I'm us to do with all this candy because I'm eating so much of it. My son has kind of a pitch count. He gets one a day. He gets one piece a day, right, this is he's he's working on kind of a very very curated schedule. But me, when everybody goes to bed, I'm sitting around the house with a bucket of candy. Yeah. So, I don't know you have any advice, like Dr Phil medicine woman advice for for people in this situation. Uh, I mean, you just gotta have self control. I'm gonna share a not so sharp moment with you, Benny, you ready, please, it might be early and it's not. It's my son's please. He had a Halloween party at his school the other day and um, he ate so much candy that he got home, walked through the front door and immediately vomited everywhere. So I mean, that's that's the end of the story. Play the jingle field, Um that you just gotta you gotta pace yourself, you know, yeah, yeah, I have again. I have the mind of a child, and so I found myself. If you'd like for me to paint the visual, paint the picture for you of last night when I was laying uh in my underwear on the couch and around me was like a smattering of wrappers and and there might have been like chocolate in my beard, and it just didn't wasn't good. Um, if there's something I mean, I I feel worse surrounded by candy rappers than I do like empty beer cans. I feel I feel more shame with sugar than I do with alcohol. That's right, that's right. I consider this a cry for help because a lot of people are seeing that I that's telling me that maybe I talked about booze a lot on the show. Um, I have I have my vices, and right now it's those white chocolate ghosts shaped reezy cups and they're there's the white chocolate. Yeah, there's none left over here, so don't come over. But but we won't blame the much much more. But I hate about a half dozen of them babies. Last night, Uh it was, it was glorious. But like you said, I didn't get I don't get much out of it when you're drinking. At least you get something out of it in terms of inebriation. When you're eating sugar. I mean, it's the ultimate quick high. You're like, this is delicious. Now it's gone. Look there's twelve more. And so there's nothing we can do. I'm powerless against it, powerless against it. So, um, we gotta prayers, but thanks not of prayers. Um, we gotta move on. Today's episode is a good one. Of course, you're already listened this far, you're already invested three or four minutes into this thing. But it's a good one, I promise. Jordan Jonas is the is the man who won season six of the reality show Alone. Now, Phil, have you seen this show before. I have seen the tile uh in my Netflix interface, I have not clicked on it. Well, at least you're aware of its existence, right. Um, he's a He's a much more interesting character than just the show he was on. But if if you guys haven't watched the series alone, specifically season six, we'll take a quick break. Let you binge watch all about eight hours of that content and we're back. Um, so now you know what Alone is all about. But Jordan's jonas one about half a million bucks by staying longer than I think eleven other contestants out in the Arctic. Uh. He shot a moose with a trad bow, he built a shelter, He killed a wolverine with a hatchet in defense of his moose meat. He did some things that make me feel real jealous in terms of going outside and surviving. He's also done a ton of things beyond just the television show that you need to hear about, including living with a group of tribal reindeer herders in Siberia called the Vankie people. So we covered that a lot on this on that interviewed. You want to stick around for that, but I will tell you before we get to that, Phil. As always, the email inboxes is hopping. UM, So thanks again for everybody for writing into th HC at the media dot com. A lot of you had opinions about last week's show on wound loss, particularly stories relating to some of the things that I had to say and that Sam Longer had to say, and that you honest but tell Us had to say about wounding animals with archery, um or or rifle, etcetera. There's you know, dozens of emails here from people relating stories that that they hadn't shared publicly before, or maybe felt a little bit of shame around or had only shared in the circles with folks that had been there or seen it. UM. So I'm not saying that we need to live out in the open with with wounding game, but it's certainly there's there's people around you that can relate if it happens to you, I guarantee it, and so, UM, if you were in a situation where you didn't really think that before, hopefully you get that now. UM. One of the craziest that came in came from Casey Bryson out of Utah, and he wrote in and he sent some pictures along with it. Phil, Phil, can you look up look at my Instagram page? Have you seen the last thing I posted? I set up first picture. I did not scroll through them yet, though they're not that bad in terms of, like you know, Glenn Bond photos, they're totally fine. And the scale of Glenn Bond. If if Glenn Bond is a ten, this is like an eight or nine, right, No, if Glen Bonds at ten, this is like a three something. Um, so if you go there. The first photo shows the knock and the back part of an arrow sticking through the hind quarter of a mule deer spike deal deer. And then the second photo shows uh, that same mule deer's testicles with a scab of some some kind on on the left side of its testicles. And then last photos just of the spike deer still in vell of it, and Casey writes, I shot the spike buck today with my rifle. We saw that it was still in velvet. When we arrived to the body, we noticed it had only one nut and a huge scab on its nutsack. We thought it got hung up on a fence something like that, But after we got it home and hung it up in the garage. I noticed an abnormal bump in the hind quarter. As I started to skin it and cut away the pus sacks that were there, I realized it was an arrow. I think someone shot the buck through the nutsack and the back half of the arrow stayed and bend it in its back leg. Craziest thing I've ever seen. I now believe that the scab is where one testicle had been sliced off and fallen out of the scrotum. And he goes on to say, these animals are tough s o b s. When we were watching, the deer didn't have a limp or anything that would suggest it was injured at all. Casey um, commons Phil, Uh yikes, mm hmm yep m. One commenter on Instagram said, and I thought this was pretty funny, uh, he said t Underscore hunter underscore l said, Bro, now that you and Phil have condemned poop stories for not so sharp moments, I feel like you're set up for quite a few nut sacks stories after sharing this. I mean, honestly, I'll take them. I'll take that. I'll take them. I'll take a few stories over the ship stories yeah, I feel it. I feel you. Um, this one is way more painful though. Um, maybe this is a a very sharp moment. But again, I mean, as much as you can kind of laugh at this, this happens. Um. Obviously there's there's very little um option here that somebody didn't miss horribly or took a bad shot on this this deer. Obviously you're not aiming anywhere near the nut sack of a deer when you're trying to kill it. So it just goes to show you this stuff is out there. A couple I say about half a dozen or eight of you have sent in similar stories independently of each other before I posted that one. Uh talking about wounded game. We had another guy, Sean Murray at a British Columbia who says that his son shot a moose earlier this fall and he found that somebody had already taken a shot at near the same point, but it had a whole clean through the top part of its neck and looked like it was healing up pretty good sents of pictures in so there's a lot of that going on. Um. So again, if you're out there and this is happening, there's no action you can take if it happens to you. If you see, if you have an animal down that where there's clearly evidence it was wounded, there's not a whole lot you can do about it other than learn from it and acknowledge it and and really just move on with your hunting and just be aware that happens and um and just be taking a look at the frequency of which it happens around you, and you know you're con ttribution to making it better. That's all you can really do. But appreciate all emails and that conversation. Also, Phil, we should we should say that we have someone here that needs an opinion, and I think that opinion was going to require the return of a very important segment. Do you know what that segment is? I have a guess no one has asked for this, especially me. Zero people have asked for this, but we're bringing it back anyway. It is the return of Dr Phil Medicine. Woman Dylan Lambert writes in he didn't even write this to Phil, really, he just wrote it in general. But I think we need you on this one, Phil, uh. He says, th HC. I've been listening to the podcast for about a year now, I really listened to your input on situations within a hunting world. I've been hunting for a few years, but this year and last year are the first I've gotten pretty heavy into it. I live in Virginia and mainly target white tailed deer. I was so far only old a doe teg. I've dreamed of killing a buck and just having that rush as a buck walks up to me in the woods, but of yet to have it happen. As I talked to multi multiple hunters, I often hear that some people get very aggravated when a hunter kills a quote unquote small buck. They all want you to kill quote unquote monster bucks and leave the small ones for your years to come. I understand where they are coming from, but in the same picture, I need to start somewhere. Should have any guilt when I possibly kill a smaller buck. I'm not just hunting for the size of the rack. I also wanted the feeling of accomplishment as I put meat in the freezer that I know I killed. What is your opinion on hunters being angry or aggravated with other hunters and beginning hunters for killing small bucks and not letting them walk. Phil please input well as a professional. UM, I would just like to say, I don't think you should feel guilty at least, I mean, especially at first if you're if you haven't been hunting for very long. UM, as long as you're you know, adhering to all the laws and regulations placed down by the people that you know, listen to the science and everything and tell you what you can and can't kill. Ye yep, I don't think you. I don't think you need to feel guilty. And I am am I wrong about this man, and you're not wrong about this at all. UM. I feel like this is something that a lot of new hunters run into, not only in their personal circles, but in social media different places like that veteran hunters are are probably want to actually promote the fact that they kill a spike or basket react deer or something like that. We certainly promote that on our show The Back forty with Mark Kenyon, that we should be hunting mature bucks. But at the same time Mark's dad, David Kenyon, came over to The Back forty this year, UM, and he shot the first respectable small buck that he got it. You know, got a crack at and that his scenario is different than mark scenario. Mark is hunts all the time. It's his profession. He's crafted this quality deer management ethic around along with the quality of dear management association, and he's managing properties for overall population dynamics, but also for his want to kill mature dear. And so his his his perspective is totally different from his own father's perspective on the subject. And we celebrate both those things at the same time. So you know what I'm gonna say next field, two things can be true at the same time. Uh. In this case, veteran hunters should be, you know, at some level looking for mature dear. It's good for the population dynamic. But also they should be promoting new hunters to come in and set their own expectations and let them kind of get get to uh the larger you know, trophy hunting aspect in their own time, in their own way. Uh, right, Phil, that was very well said that I haven't agreed with anything more. Oh really, that's what I can't. I kind of get sad when you agree anymore. I want you to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about Yeah, so thanks, I don't have it, I mean today Okay, it gets boring. He sounded very smart. Thanks appreciate it. Uh so, Dylan, go forward, killed deer and and enjoy your kind of approach to it. Certainly as long as you as as Philip said, there you're the bounds of the game agencies and in the laws they lay down on you. Beyond that, UM, do it. But also be in the mind that those veteran hunters are there for that. There they have that opinion for a reason because they've they've been through what you're about to go through. And the end game is continually challenge yourself and to start looking at the wider picture. So that is that. And now, phil not a sharp moment played the jingle work sharp? Not to sharp moment. You don't have to, okay, Phil, I think we have um a non poop story here. All good because I wouldn't allow anything else. People are, people are m I feel like they want to fight back against you here. I've got a few d ms on Instagram for people that are. They want to they want freedom, they don't want censorship. Come at me in an election year. They want no censorship. They want to be free to express themselves in the way that they wish, and they don't want to be censored by the lexa you, it's them or me. Ben If I choose you, I guess thank you. But much like in an election, you put me between the lesser of two evils, but I will I'll choose you. Thank you. All right, here we go. Fred Larson says, my oldest daughter fourteen, and I recently went on her first quote unquote real hunt. I used to quotation marks that she had been on one prior hunt, but as an apprentice hunter. And this year she not only completed her hunter's safety course in the spring, she also drew a youth hunt white tail tag once the public land here in Tennessee. As the day too closer, she became more excited as she practiced with her rifle, to the point she grouped and zero in a hundred fifty yards with two inch groups and pasted Steve forrin Ella's milk jug test at almost two hundred yards unsupported. She was ready for her first hunt, but not looking forward to the early morning. I had set the two person stand on a field edge just over a mile off the road up a trail where we had to hike in in the pre dawn, and we did as quietly as an excited new hunter could. We settled in and waited for legal light and hopefully our first sight of a deer. Her tag was for either sex, and she was hopeful to get used anything, as I have not much success over the last few years myself. I'm also new well. Sunrise came. As we sat eagerly awaiting our first opportunity of tenderly listening to the woods come to life, she suddenly hears clang, bang bong, tink thod. I dropped my thermis a coffee and it must have hit every single metal step on the way down before thumping off a tree. We decided to wait about an hour and see if I didn't manage to scare everything away, but alas nothing showed. I am now feeling like the biggest jackass on the planet. We agreed to go warm up at the truck and take a nap at the house, thankfully only forty five minute drive away, and come back for an evening sit which work better than I could have hoped for. With about two hours still sunset, a couple of spike Bucks stepped out across the field of a hundred yards and she took her first deer in the first buck of her family. That's pretty cool. So now you know my not a sharp moment. But why is this example for t engineer? My daughter collects shiny I don't even know how do you say this? But you might know, Phil, my daughter collects shiny's and Pokemon capturing, Yes, and they're a shiny version is just a rarer version of a Pokemon. Okay, she capturing herself, no trading, Sorry, Ben, Maybe Phil will explain it because I don't even know what's going on here. Pokemon Go probably plays animals crossing on her switch animal crossing singular animal crossing. I don't know what's a switch. It's the it's the most current Nintendo game console, Ben Okay, and several other games. Besides being an all A student and advanced classes as a freshman at high school. If she can manage all that in addition to normal chores around high school craziness in this new pandemic man's surely Phil can finish this under safety ps. My ten year old daughter completed hers as well, with both of them doing the online course and then having to attend in person field the intendency to pass. Thanks Fred Larson, play the jingle Phil not so Sharp Bowman, if you don't have to. I am starting to sound like some kind of weird eighties radio guy. Uh well, Fred, I've got something to say to you and to Ben and the audience, and that is that I have finished my hunters Safety Oh oh yes, okay, you doubt it. I'm here on election day. I've never been more proud to be an American, or at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died and gave their hunter's safety to pass his Hunter's Safety course. Uh please, I speech speech. I mean I don't I don't have much to say. I uh, you know, I just you know, it was hard work, but I had to get it done for for you and for actually mainly for free for Yanni. I know. I always felt that when Yanni would give you ship, you'd be like you, you get up and you move. When I would it almost like it was like quicksand you would sink further into the non action. Yeah well, I mean in actuality, it wasn't difficult. I just it was time consuming though, because they've got mean, when you do it online. You got this little timer they threw up with a card and they were like, it takes what well, I don't know. I was just excited. I was making noises of Jesus. It's laid threw up a little car. It takes you seven seconds to read it, and then it's like you have to wait a minute and a half before you can hit the next button. And you know, it's just they don't it's you know, I understand why they want you to retain the information and really get it in there, but it was just it was a pain in the ass. But I learned a lot. I'm glad I did it. And you know, at this point, next episode, we're gonna have Phil give what he learned. We're gonna have what you learned segment. We'll have you give the listeners a little bit of what you learned. I've forgotten behalf of it already. So enough, man, this is great. I didn't feel just drop that in. Bye Bye, Fred Larson, You're gonna get yourself one of those wonderful field sharpers from work Sharp And if you Fred, go over to their YouTube page. They got all kinds of really cool sharpening Tips Hot Tips Weekly going up over there the YouTube page. Thank you again to our friends at work sharp for doing what they do. Um Man, this is this is really it man, for all of you people that thought, well, you know, I just voted. I don't know if I have anything to look forward to, you know how, phils first hunt to look forward to. And Phil, do you feel like we're gonna get it done this year? I'm feeling pretty good about it. I I mean, I I hope. So. I don't know what the I mean, I'm not educated enough to know about season length so good stuff like that, but I hope you can squeeze it in there. And they think about hunting. There's always something going on, and so I now will spend the rest of my week planning some glorious event for us to take you out there, and then thinking about what, you know, what's in it for me? That's what I'll be thinking about at that time. Okay, Well, we gotta get to our buddy Jordan Jonas. Um before we do that. Phil, you voted, I voted. I am voting tomorrow. Well, I guess when you're hearing this, I will probably be voting on the day of the election. Uh, Tuesday, November three, So I'll be out there voting. I will qu I'm not gonna We're not gonna spend a lot of time talking about the election or or what it means and all that stuff. I think most of the most of the cliches have already been uttered. Most people have have given their opinions one way to the other. I will just say, if any of you followed me on Instagram, you saw that I posted a what I thought was a joke about a Trump sign on a dilapidated building in eastern Montana. Was out hunting deer and sow this building. Thought this is funny, made a post. Well, it turned into um, hundreds of comments, some positive, mostly negative, lots of name calling, lots of Russia to judgments, UM, lots of I have lost complete faith in you, I will never listen to you again, things of that nature from a lot of people in the comments section on Instagram. Uh. You know, my friend Joe Roganala says, don't read the comments. But in this case, I think it's important to kind of get an idea of where we had as a country and maybe is listenership to this podcast where this is uh, this stuff's hard to talk about. It's hard to talk about who you voted for, it's hard to talk about why you did so. Um. And it just has become something where we all self censor because we don't want to hate us. We do want to in the case of somebody like me who has an audience on the podcast, I don't want to lose anybody from listening to this show, UM, and I don't want to lose anybody from being a follower mind on Instagram. All that's important to me and the business of doing this year program. So, UM, that was not I didn't enjoy that, but but certainly my response to that was listening. I'm happy to share who I voted for. I'm happy to share why. UM I'm not. I don't really I've never been in the camp to self censor because I'm afraid of criticism. I'm not afraid of somebody's snap judgment. I'm not afraid of someone calling me a liberal or conservative. Um. It certainly gets nastier than that, it seems. And so I say all that to say, UM, I happily shared in in that post too, I voted for on a couple of issues. UM. I also want to say that this podcast in my social media, if you're one of those folks that here that I voted for one person or in particular or another, immediately, UM want to jump jump ship or say that I'm I'm hateful or racist or whatever. Um, the folks that want to say that, it's probably not a real good place for you to be anyway, because we're going to continue to push these dogmas. We're gonna we're gonna take a look at the orthodoxes on both sides and try to push them. We're going to talk to people we disagree with. We are not going to be an echo chamber. And if you're looking to only come to a place where you're gonna feel accepted and affirmed and comfortable, this probably isn't gonna be that. There's pertainly, certainly many places that will just affirm these ideas that you have and not challenge them. So in that way, UM, I hope this can be a place where people can come to be challenged, come to think for themselves and fom ideas based on information that you gather, not ideologies that you share with someone. And so I no matter what happens in this election, I hope that that this can stand for this show and for my social media and or whatever else did I roll. This is this how it's gonna be um, not only with vegans, but with um, you know, gun control activists or people that agree that disagree with climate change, or anyone that disagrees with any of the things that I kind of hold to be true are important to me at the very least. Um, We're gonna go and and talk to those folks and see what we can learn you. Certainly, I'll certainly be sharing some thoughts um on Instagram, and when I vote, I've got some things I want to say, continue to say them. Um. But like I said, bottom line, it is important too to test your own ideas and to get yourself in a position where you're comfortable. If someone disagrees with you, and if you if you're not comfortable, you'd probably take a look at yourself and see what you can do a little bit better. So that's it. We're gonna get to a totally different topic. Now we're gonna talk to our friend Jordan Jonas, season six winner of Alone, All kinds of stuff. You wrote a reindeer one time. One time he killed a wolverine with a hatchet. He's just a generally good dude, so you're going to enjoy it. Jordan's Jones. Jordan, what's up, man, how's it going. Oh it's not that bad. I uh sorry about cutting this antelope up. We had to see your at work over there. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, these days, we're so busy these days that you gotta uh, you gotta work and work at the same time. So yeah, rather than just just podcast, I figured you might as well making neck gross have an antelope. We're at it. Yeah, so you're making good progress. Oh yeah, man, I'm I got a couple of hind quarters taking apart and uh the neck deboned. So you got me jealous at least that's you feeling. So you're in Virginia, you said, Lynchburg, Yeah, Virginia. I was just listening to the podcast deal with Rogan, so I feel like I got a lot of that background. Man. But yeah, I think we got to tell people how you got to Virginia by way, by way of traveling in train cars. Yeah, we rode. My brother did it a lot when he was He was my older brother, and he would, uh, he spent years just riding freight trains all across the country, up and down the coasts and back and forth. And he invited me to go with him when I was eighteen or so, and and uh, yeah, I hopped on a freight train and we went across the country and ended up we would end up stopping in Virginia a lot to do temporary work for some guy. And uh and the long story short, that's what kind of stuck us here in the long run. But yeah, I had some adventures doing that. Of all the things you've done, man, that was like the most interesting part to me because your brother was doing it for seven years and you guys would literally just get on an open train car and ride until he didn't feel like riding anymore. Yeah, basically had some of the coolest rides are up there through where you're at up in Montana and uh North Idah and stuff just beautiful because the trains, you know, follow the rivers and the animals aren't really that afraid of him anymore. So you you see a lot of the country, a lot of nature. It's actually pretty cool way to travel if you're not in a hurry. What drove you to do that? Because you were in Idaho right. You grew up in Idom. No. I was in Idaho and I was just working. I've been working a concrete job. Well, no, and then I was at whatever, the salad dressing factory, and my brother just invited me to come along, and why we why not? What am I? What am I doing? So I so I just joined him and went across the country, up and down the East coast, and then uh, I we came back and at some point I split off from him and came back to Idaho, uh on my own. So that was kind of cool. First experience, you know, a week or so alone that was kind of neat. And then uh, but yeah, I don't know, I guess just a sense of adventure or something trying to switch it up. Well, yes, it seems like there's a lot of foreshadowing in that, because you're now well known for being on a show called alone. But all right, yeah, it seems like it was see it seemed like that, you know, we'll get to the show because I want to talk about that, of course, but it seems like that's just a little bit a part of who you are, man, because there's not a lot of people that would follow that wander lust and literally just jump on a train and see where it took you. Yeah, you didn't run into a lot of other passengers. There wasn't like a first class and yeah, they weren't very crowded. Maybe in the twenties, no, but the uh yeah, it's definitely, definitely, especially when you're young like that, you can kind of get stuck just doing a job and it's like, well, why why am I doing this? I'm not you know, I didn't have a family to support or anything. I might as well fill up some experiences, and you know, one thing leads to another and ended up in Virginia and ended up you know, heading to Russia and all that stuff. It's all kind of I guess it's just kind of off the coat tails of riding the trains. Really, Yeah, that's what. Yeah, that's it seems like your story kind of started there. And then what's what's interesting to me is that you kept on just like taking the opportunities. I think that I think a lot of people wouldn't take right because you took this opportunity. You ended up in Virginia. I think that was a conscious choice I made at some point when I was young. I was like you know, I'm just gonna say yes to all the experiences at this point in my life because I knew I had I could, you know, I think I did, and uh yeah, it took me on in a bit of a journey for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think the coolest stories come from your time in Russia, um, with the Vankie people and and all this stuff. And this is a pretty it's a precursor to what people will know you from. But how did you get over there in the first place. It was actually kind of a convoluted story that I, you know, have one brother who's adopted and he found his biological family, and he had a biological brother who was going to go to Russia, and he kind of invited me to come over and help build this orphanage with this missionary guy, and I said, sure, you know, you know, but I actually I was gonna win all in kind of I just got to The longest you could get a visa for at the time was for a year, So I just got a year long visa and headed over to Russia, not really knowing what to expect it all, and tried to learn a few you know, some Russian and then when I got there, I kind of got into the deep end because I actually went to live with the Russian family as opposed to that missionary guy, and spent the better part of the year with them, trying to learn the language and just living in a Russian village with some villagers cutting hay with size and you know, they don't have hay bales. They stack them in those piles still like we used to be back in the day, you know. Yeah, I mean I feel like there's ever you know, it's situations with people that just follow what where life takes them. Like do you ever look around when you're in a Russian village and go like whoa, oh, yeah, how did I get here? Doing here? Yeah? Definitely definitely, And you know, of all the villages, why this one random village dropped in those central Siberia, Like how did this happen? So? Yeah, described the described the village and kind of the people you were with, because I think that the folks you're with had an interesting past. Yeah. So the family I lived with, there were two families in the village that they kind of bounced between. They both liked having me there because, like, you know, free labor and stuff just know, and they were just fun guys, but they were both both the men of the household, had been imprisoned together, so they had got real close in prison, and you know, the one guy was just covered in those Russian prison tattoos and then the other guy wasn't. But they had both spent the good seven or eight years in prison and had some crazy stories and stuff from there. But then they had also you know, been in prison with a vinky native guy from the far North, and that was that connection. But yeah, just in that Russian village, man, it was actually pretty cool, you know, pretty simple, and there was a lot of haynd milking the cow in the morning, uh, planting your potato, you know, doing all their gardening, kind of the classic stuff you might expect, firewood, uh, just wandering around the village or actually for being like a village of say, I don't remember how many it was at thot might be a thousand people in it, but it's pretty active. You know, people don't sit around inside very much. Even it's it'll be negative forty before they even closed the school, so at negative thirty eight degrees, you know, all the kids walking to school and stuff, and everybody's outside. It's actually pretty cool. You know, it's kind of interesting. I liked I liked it. Russian village. Lie was there when you're living in the village, Was there outdoor skills and hunting things like at that time where you're like a lot it was more like farming type stuff. Yeah, it was more this little village farm Stuff's say, the hunting. That is one cool thing about that makes you appreciate America and our conservation and stuff is you know, Siberia is huge, but around every village there's just a massive dead zone because anything that comes near it gets shot, you know. So it's it's nice to have the management that we have over here because it actually does just produce more animals around. And of course that's also having an affluent society, you know, because not everybody that sees a deers like, oh I got that's the value the value system, like I gotta kill it. I'd like there to be more than just one or two of them, right right. Oh yeah, So eventually you you left there or like migrated, eventually that that friend they had, they'd always tell me, oh, you got to go up north to Eura and you know, meet them, and eventually he came down to sell some furs and invited me to come and live with them, and and yeah, long story short. I went up there and he he is not actually a nomad like you know, like where my story leads obviously, but he's a fur trapper. And so he had this giant territory that he had somehow acquired after the Soviet Union. Felt that was his like personal trapping lands. And so he would take me out there and you know, and he showed me the ropes on trapping. We'd go to these back you know, deep deep rivers and fish and you know, pack as many fish as you could in your backpack and lug him out. And then like it was pretty cool. And then and then yeah, come winter, you know, he kind of showed me the ropes and then letting me loose on one section of his his uh territory to open up these old trap lines that hadn't been used in decades there. You know, so it was pretty intense. And that was that was That was a longer period there there. I was about five weeks alone, and but you know it actually went pretty well. It was pretty cool. I really liked it. It was what was it November October November in Siberia. Out there, you're just out there in the middle of nowhere. How cold? How cold is it that I would get pretty cold November started starting to hit. I don't actually remember. It's not like I had a thermostat or anything. I just it was cold. I did I know. The coldest that got while I was in Siberia with that was with the nomads, but that was negative fifty eight or so. So so the first trade what was the first trader's name again, the first trapper guy was Euro. So when you meet in Euro when you're you're in Siberia, like, what when you first lay eyes on this guy, does he look like you know this this because these people are kind of famous for reindeer hurting and the look that they have. Did he still have that look or did he look well, he's got that. He looks like more Mongolian then he does Russian, you know. So he's got that style of look. And he actually was a cobbler, so he makes reindeer for boots and stuff, so he's always got reindeer on. He's always wearing some first stuff and so in that way, yeah, but on the other hand, he's also lives in a village, so he's got more like he's more like, uh, I don't know, refined. He wasn't like he wasn't like texting on his blackbert or anything like that. Exactly exactly he was texting. So did you guys, You guys got along pretty well. I mean obviously by then, well I got By then I had learned the language pretty well. That was probably a year so into my time being there, and uh, yeah, I'd learned it pretty well, and we were pretty comfortable. And oh and I'm yeah, I lived with them a lot. So in between every time i'd go even to the natives that stop at yours first and spending weeks with him, and uh, we'd usually go out and do some fishing trip or do some stuff like that. We also long, you know, we worked on projects the job they're trying to Like, he's really aware of his people and his culture and their plight, and so he's always you know, he was thinking about ways to try to help revive their culture and help his friends who were stuck in like alcoholism stuff, trying to like get back into their ways. And and so I would partner with him on trying little projects here and there like that. So we were pretty close and still are, you know, but well he must have trusted you a lot to like let you loose on this trapping ground. Huh oh, yeah, I guess he thought either they get nobody got nothing to lose. Yeah, worst case scenario, nothing happens. Did you feel like when you're when that you first encountered that, was that your first time spent a lot of time outdoors alone? Yeah? That was that was the probably the longest stretch. They were definitely at that time just alone. There's not that many other good reasons to be that alone that long in the woods, you know, like so unless you're just trying it out. But but yeah, yeah, it just kind of came naturally. And but in this case you had a mission, right like you were going to run and now out a mission, which was nice because it kept you busy. I definitely every morning, wake up as soon as there was any light and get on your like snow Siberian like snow skis and just start heading out and you wouldn't get back in until after well after dark. You know, they're long, long nights. So and you were building shelters there too, or well you generally they'd have like a little hunting cabin and each if you picture like a spider web, every hunting cabin has all these line runs off of it, and each run takes like a half a day to get out and a half a day to get back. And and so you go to a hunting cabin and open up those five trap lines, spend a week there or whatever, and then and then maybe another day's full day hike to your next cabin, and you do the same, and you kind of had three cabins and like kind of a triangle, and it's been the time doing that. It was actually really cool. I'm like Google and all this stuff now I might be playing at a trip because definitely seems awesome. Have you seen we might I don't remember if we talked about the Joe Rogan butt that Happy People documentary. It might be worth watching. It's it's called Happy People and it's on you know, YouTube and stuff. But it's about for trapping in Siberia. It's basically what we were doing. It's super and that's it was filmed not far from us, and really it was what were you trapping? Mainly up there Sable That's all really the whole thing, like fine Martins, Yeah, yeah, trade what kind of traps foot traps mostly, and then some like they have some these they're called the kolomka, which is like a wooden contraption, you know, like before they had foot traps, they had those, and now when I did it, it was like all his old trap lines. He hadn't run for years, so it's all old, broken down stuff. Now when they set up new ones that use the more humane like, yeah, during that time, Like one of the things I wanted to talk about because we talked about this on the show before. When I go out into the woods for any length of time, whether I'm alone or with a single person, it doesn't really matter. It's kind of just the idea that there's no modern convenience, right, there's no there's nothing to fall back on. It's you and what you can do. Yeah. And if I didn't know, of course at the time about any of the garments stuff, you know, or even you know, I didn't even have a compass or anything. I was just out there. But no, yeah, I go ahead, what follow your thought throughout? Yeah, I mean I think that I've always kind of wanted to get inside people's heads that can do that. And there's two two sides of it, right, one the doing of it right, the skills and the self relying and you know, understanding your own abilities. And then there's the going back to modernity and like and having to deal with and I think they cover this and alone a good bit um about having to go back now to society and how hard it is to to see an email come in, or to sit in traffic, or the existential threats and stuff we have in modern society. Did you ever, It doesn't sound like you ever considered that early on, Like it was just you were just out there doing it. Was it's definitely something you kind of noticed. I never in all the times I went, you know, my wife's from New York City, so I would go from the most remote place on earth, and the day later I'd fly back and be in New York. And I can't say I ever really noticed culture shock that much. Oddly enough, maybe it's just the way I don't know, the way I am or something, but I it wasn't, you know, kind of felt normal. I don't know, it's I guess I expected it. But I will say when I leave those four situations there's definitely a part of me that dreads though. Oh man, here comes messages and then and things to do. Everything there's just so directly related to your needs. It's so nice. You know, you don't have to It's it's just how we're meant to be, how we're wired to be. It's like and you, yeah, you know it because you've experienced it. I'm sure it's just like, yeah, it's just it's just how you're meant to be. And I I don't know how else to explain it, but your whole mind is wired to live that way, and you're kind of in an odd situation in modern life. It's actually weird to experience that way of life and then not really be able to recreate it, Like you know, here I am in my house and you know, it can protect yourself from the elements and this, and it's comfort, but it doesn't add to like your fullness of life in any way. It's and yeah, it just it just seems it makes things seem silly. It makes just it makes modern life seems silly in so many ways when you just understand, like you said, you kind of like you're living by need. I'm hungry, well, I've got better. I better learn how to get food. Yeah, I better learned. Yeah, yep, and you can't. You're not gonna overeat because it would make no sense. You're not gonna take it like you're not gonna you don't let your mind never gets a chance to vege out as we do, like like watching TV. So there's just so much that right you think about I was all that. I was fascinated on that end. We're always so distracted here. You don't get very deep in your thoughts. In the wilderness, you get incredibly deep, and especially when you're alone and there's just no distractions. It's amazing what you think of me in your dreams are more vivid and your uh, yeah, it's it's interesting. It's more more connected to the human experience for some reason. Yeah, I mean I think it's it's your story is interesting because this is a good nice turn to take, like when you really like bought into this life and and spend more time. Yeah. So the uh, you're at some point, I don't remember the timeline exactly about at some point he was like, well, I'm gonna take you out to my you know, we have gotten clo and he trusted me and all that. So he just took me out to his cousins who were all nomadic of inky reindeer herders, and uh took me out on a snowmobile, dropped me off at the tepee and like vouched for me to the guys and took off. And I was just I was like, hey, you know, but they took me in right away. Uh they because they had to have your vouch for me. It was just they were just like immediately started making jokes, you know, like don't fart in the teepee and no, no, no, no, you know, just being dorks and uh yeah, they took me right in and went and went pretty smoothly. And then it was fenced building seasons, so we got right to work. But I feel like they were just all talking about you, like, we got this guy. He's great at working and he'll do anything. He's fun to be around. We'll ship him around. It just pass him around. He's gonna be great. And so we got some free food. Cash is built out of every time I went there. The first time I went there, one of the native guys, you know that right when after they dropped me off, one of our first projects. He was in the process of building a food cash and in elevated platform and then he showed me how to do it, and I did a lot of work and he was like, wow, he really liked how it turned out. So then every time I went back, you'd always have me build a new several of those things over there. But yeah, it's good. You want to be helpful to the people you're with. And of course, Kenn, you just just describe what it is to live with reindeer herders, because I know there there's some specific things about the Evenki that aren't common with other reindeer herding, you know, tribes and other natives. Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean they still it is still like they live in tepees and they're out in the forest. I know. The Evenki are one of the few reindeer herders that ride their reindeer in the summer like horses, you know. So so that's something unique to them, which is I'm pretty awesome. And they wait, let me, I gotta stop you. You have to just just describe for everyone the first time you saw in the banky reindeered herd or just riding the reindeer round like I shaid that first time when they dropped me off and some of the guys had been out searching for the reindeer. They're major and they're big herd. And then you know, they came riding back in. They got there like homemade hide ropes on them and stuff, and riding on their reindeer with their big beautiful antlers and stuff. You're just like, dang, that is cool. You know. I didn't even know these people existed like that. It was alsome. It was all new to me kind of and uh uh yeah, it was fascinating they and then they of course put me on there and it that fell right off. They have those uh their saddles sit on there and they're really loose. They're not like strapped on like a horse saddle. And you don't have stirrups, so you're kind of just using your body to balance. And uh and I definitely plenty of times over the years. And so you are you do you have reins or you have are you hanging on the MP? You have one it's a one rope system, so it's just you have one dots called but it's a and then it's not in their mouth. It's just a bone on their forehead, so you can pull it this way and pull it that way and it pushes their head. Yeah. Did you have correspondence with your family during this time? Were you able to like not while I was out there, just be out there and then come back and you know, did they ever say, like, where where's Jordan at? Is he riding reindeer? Like I hope? So, I don't know if they did or not be nice of hopefully across their minds at some point where he at least Siberia. Now, I think they were pretty okay with it. I think they felt, like, you know, I was in my purpose or whatever, doing what I felt I was supposed to be doing. So yeah, so what did you what did you learn? What you learned about yourself there? Like and you know this because this has to be it's a chanceformedive time in your life. I'm sure just the age you were, because how old were you at this point? Oh? I was probably m twenty four or something when I first hooked up with the natives up there. Yeah yeah, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I was probably wearing a suit and tie. Started my career an outdoor journalist, thinking that was gonna be some hotshot reporter was working pretty good, that's all right, you know, cutting up Antelope interviewing you came back. Um, but you're twenty four. This is a time where a lot of a lot of people are doing stuff like this, but not quite that a lot consciously where I was like, man, I should be trying to like what am I doing? I should be getting a career or like finding a wife for something. What am I doing out here? But but I just felt really called. I feel ever felt like it was the place for me, and uh and it was. And I learned a lot. I mean, you learned so much. And it's it's there, it's a lot. It's the idealism of it wears off pretty quickly, and you see the alcoholisms, and you're seeing suicides all the time and all kinds of I mean, quite frankly, it's a pretty brutal over there in in ways. And so then you like want to try to help, and you try to help in this way and that way and this way, and a lot of times it doesn't really pan out, and sometimes it does you kind of you know, it slaps you in the face with reality a lot, and you know it's from the outside, it looks really amazing and it is really amazing, but there's so many issues too, and uh, it helps you. You mature pretty fast, you know watching. Yeah, I mean I think here, that's interesting you say that because there's a guy named Doug about Clark, who we had on who you've spent three years living with um whale hunters and in the Far Pacific, and he described the same thing where it seemed like in the beginning he really wanted to like take a shirt off, jump on the ocean with a spear, and he was feeling the primal nature of it. Then after a while he started to know the people and see their struggle with modernity, and the younger kids had cell phones and wanted to go into town, and the elders wanted to keep the traditions. So did you see that It sounds like you might say something, Yeah, yeah, it's uh when my wife, my wife went over there with me and she described it well, and then it feels like there's just a damn with the thousand holes, and you just try to plug one and there's another one. You know, as far as like their culture surviving, and I really hope it does. And I think it can, but I also think it is on the brink like that because they have a lot of the a lot of them. For one, the women don't want to go out in the woods and live out there as much as the men. Quite frankly, they're there, don't have as cool of a time out there because they mostly are in the tps and beating and cooking food, whereas the guys are always out hunting and trapping and so um. So there's fewer women that want to go out there. But then because a lot a lot of the guys will stay in the village. But usually the less you know, the less motivated guys would be the most alcoholic, but they'll be the ones getting the women, while the coolest dudes you know, are out there in the forest reindeer hurting and like doing awesome stuff, but they don't have any partners. And so then, yeah, the draw of the village is very strong. But when you're in the village, everybody just drinks. And that's the way it's been for a long time. So they're just this cycle and as people, they're just the alcoholism is off the charts, like even on a Russian standard, it's just the Yeah, I mean, that's a it's it's interesting because it's a When I think of it, I think, man, I wish I could live like that. And even when we're talking about I go out and hunting for six days and I come back home and I just think, Man, the pool there, Yeah, the pushpool. This sucks because I would love to just stay there. But but this where I what I built here, this real comfortable thing is awesome. I really love this too. Um So it sounds like they have the same push pool. It's so cool. I mean, yeah, it's it's really interesting to see that way of life and see that it can be. I mean, in a lot of ways it can be better than our modern way of life. But there there's this awkward period I feel like where it's like somehow it's got to survive through this this uncomfortable transition period. Like I wish there would have been more Native American cultures that were saved to today when people would appreciate it, you know what I'm saying, Like because in the late eighteen hundreds, not enough outsiders appreciated and like stood up for it. But the natives that lived those ways really liked it, you know. They wanted to continue those ways, but they they couldn't, and then it got lost and now it's kind of gone and you can't really bring it back. Well, it feels like in the over there it's similar, except it's not gone yet, but you're just but you know, the young guys don't really appreciate it. And it's like even the word reindeer herder and rush can kind of be like an insult. You know. It's like so so it's not like esteemed yet, but I feel like it will be. And when it is, they have a lot of opportunities even to economically grow and stuff that The problem is, it's like the alcoholism and it's such a one sided issue they have. Like the people are so nice and so cool, hard working all this and that, and then it's just alcoholism. That's like seems like it's it's so weird. It's like it's it's like it's not like in the States where people have to you know, you don't you feel like, I don't know, someone might not drink, but they don't know, you know, they might have other issues. It's like over there just seems like, well that's the issue. You know, It's it's odd do you think that's Is it a cultural issue or is it a genetic issue or do you feel like it's a good question, right, I think it's probably both. Like I think it probably I imagine genetics play a role, but I also, you know, you could explain a lot of it just by the way their their cultural path followed forced collectivisation during the Soviet Union, and then the the aftermath of that was just they became dependent kind of on the government, which for a while worked because the Soviet Union put a lot of money towards them, kind of invested in it. But then when it collapsed, you know, it was just it was one generational hit during force collectivization and a second generational hit when it all collapsed. And then it's like there's just not a lot left of it. All the Shamans were sent to prison camps and all the like the rich, you know, reindeer herders, anyone that had five reindeer sent to prison camps, you know, and it was just the dumbest stuff. And uh, and then when it was privatized, the same thing happened. Like it was the Russians just came in and bought all the reindeer and butchered them all and sent them to meat shops because they had the assets to purchase them, whereas the natives didn't. And so they had spent all the you know, their generations building these herds, and they just bought and anyway just slop the rough stuff. So that could explain a lot of the alcoholism. But I think it's repeated. It's repeated through history so much in different ways. But if you if you listen to or read the book Sapiens, I was listening to that. I was listening to that audiobook in the way back from a hand up and they talk about, Yeah, they talk about the author talks about this idea of the change from hunter gatherer civilizations to agriculture, you know, thousand years ago we go, we go from this idea that the sick and the elderly would be killed and the young men and some of these native tribes around the world would their job would be to kill the slow, the sick, the week, the elderly, because if you couldn't move, you couldn't you couldn't live, um and that and that those harsh conditions. But then when we started to have agriculture, we started to settle we started to life started to get easier in some ways, but then we cultivated disease and and and some of the diseases of in Sapiens too. I can't remember which book I was reading, Uh, it might have been Sapients, but where he talked about the point that the quiet, honestly, until maybe really recently, hunting gatherer culture has probably had a higher like life satisfaction than the people that lived in these like you know, medieval Russian. Yeah, I put it. I've seen it put multiple ways, but that's the way that in Sapiens it goes that that that he more of fantizes and kind of says, hey, look, if the people that lived in these hunter gatherer societies were more fulfilled, they might not have lived long lives, they might have died young, but they truly did live just like you were saying when you were alone. Yeah, you're living off kneeds, You're living off you know you There is more Darwinism. The healthy survive the week do not. Well. What's weird now is that we could almost have the best of both worlds, right because now we don't have to die if we have a bad hunt. You know what I'm saying, like we can, we can have noodles start up and you know, like now they're safety nets. But the problem is that we don't have almost any of that culture left to like revive you know, like, yeah, it's tough. I mean there is there is a there's something that you can do. And people that listen to this podcast now that I have the the life Knife analogy where I'm like, man, if you go out in the woods, it sharpens you in a way that you can deal with everything else in your life so much better. And if you're in like a nine to five cubicle job, it dolls you up in a way that you just can't deal with a lot of stuff. You get existential stress and these things. But just three or four days in the in the woods alone is enough to just give you. Yeah, it's it's like and also gives you a little inkling of what it was like to think that way and act that way, and and that's enough I think to kind of balance things where where maybe they weren't balanced before. Yeah, that'd be cool for people to do, just like just get out there. Like even if you don't you know, you can take supplies. You don't have to starve for a week, but go out for a week and see where your mind goes and stuff like you might realize even in your you know, where your issues are that you need to deal with when you get back out, you know, because they might start popping up in your head, like, oh jeez, this this this. Well. It's also that if you if you've ever taken things for granted, if you take the taste of a cheeseburger for granted, try going out and not having one for a long time and then and then coming back and get a chance at one. And I would hope you would appreciate maybe not Well, the hunt win things, that's right, that's right. Well, what else? What else from your time do you banky? Because eventually this this you talk about it a lot in the show alone. I think it's a big part of why he probably won the show. But what else did you learn? What else do you want people to know from that time, because it's it's a unique thing that you went through. Yeah, that's a pretty broad broad Uh, there is so much that I learned, really and it was interesting. I don't know, life's just a path and so I at the time, I was, like I said earlier, I was seeking out certain experiences and this and that, and then you and then you learned that all experiences aren't all that it's all about, because I'm going to forget those anyways. So then you try to think get on a deeper level, like, okay, well relationships matter and the love expressed to these people, and then you and then you roll with that, you know, and so and then you sometimes even in that, you get a little bit uh disappointed or something, what's the right word, But you know, you get let down because somebody invest a lot in you know, all of a sudden, Oh they just shot themselves. Well that sucks, you know. And then are you like, or you know that my wife's good friend over there, the lady that reached out to my wife the most, they connected really well, she a couple of years ago just drank too much and froze to death. And you're just like, well, man, all that relationship invested, you know, and it just makes you think about that. And then but that's what you That's what I fall back on is that that's what's important is investing in people, in relationships and lives and move forward with that. And that goes with here or in Siberia or wherever you are. You know that experiences are great too, but really that yeah, and there's no no matter how simple life is, you know, you would imagine and a thank you reindeer heard her, their life would be labeled as simple based on our standards. And no matter how simple of your life is, you don't escape human problems and the human reality that everybody struggles. They have some rough stories over there, and it could go on about those, but yeah, it's a it is. It's hard, and they still have the I still have all the human struggle. But yeah, again, it's a weird thing. It's so weird because it just seems so their advice or whatever their problem seems so one dimensional. It's like, oh, it's just the alcohol. It's like other than that, it's like they're awesome people, hard work and don't that. But suicide rate, you know, like one out of three people die from suicide, accident or murder over there, it's like it's insane. It's like I don't know well, and then you have these small immunities right where and I it's just it's just man, I'd love to really know or or try to suss out. Is it is it the alcoholism of despair? Because I've had some alcoholics in my family and it was never it never felt like I wasn't super close to it. My uncle died for on alcoholism, but it just felt like it was never even in it manifests itself in like socially being drunk all the time. I'm sure there was despair involved, but it didn't seem like I'm gonna drink myself to death. It just says like I drink a lot. I drink a lot. I drink a lot. Oh man, Yeah, yeah, it's all you know what. I've not been able to parse it completely. Like sometimes it just blows my mind because you know, somebody will have a lot going for him and it's just they just drink it away. And then sometimes it's completely explicable, like oh, this guy's you know, third wife just died, so I wonder he's depressed, and you know there's a there's a lot of there's both. It runs the gamut, you know, but maybe that sometimes it makes you wonder like is it you know, is there a propensity for it? There must be some of that at play too. I just don't know, but yeah, it's got there has to be something in Paul. But when so eventually you left. Have you gone back? I had a kid, so my wife was over there when she was pregnant and now I got a daughter's four and she was you know, born in the States, and we've been here ever since. We actually wanted to go back this fall, but of course it was coronavirus, so that was really closed. But we stay in contact with them and stuff. I'm still in touch talking. I talked to your a couple of days ago. Yeah, so we're planning to go back. But yeah, I was gonna say, you intend to have them more offensive now I got all these extra kids. Yeah, I'm with you. I got a four year old two and in a nine months, Yeah, tickets just doubled all the time. Fights are a little more expensive before, and the food definitely, and the screaming. Yeah, it's all tougher now. No, but I do I want to. I'm gonna make a you know, we're making a point of staying connected over there, and then that's good. Well, when you get back the first time, what did you do next? I mean, obviously, uh, you had a lot of a lot of experience, but you did, like you said, you hadn't really started a life in America. Yeah. Well, fortunately on one of my trips back, you know, because I've come back to States, earned money working and then head back to Russia and kind of spend it. And that's kind of what I did for ten years, spent like five year some total in Russia and then uh. But during some of those times back, I had met who you know, my wife, and and we got married on one of my trips back, and then she went over with me for a winter with the natives and then the summer, and then uh, and then we had the baby, came back and and yeah, I was just kind of doing the usual, you know, the usual thing. I was renovating some houses and and I was actually building a driveway when uh alone called because I had watched Alone, you know, and I you know, you think to yourself, I could do that. Thought of that, that's all I think. I'm like, that's a nice little house she built there, but I would have probably had an annex. Then a bathtub I've built out of. Well, i'd recommend you for the show. I'd say, they throw you on there. My wife. Don't tell my wife when my wife watches it with him she like, you want to be on there, don't you. I was like, yeah, I do. Anyway, I was sending my little application and a link to my YouTube videos, you know, living with the Natives and stuff, because I had filmed a lot of it. I'm not crappy little camera, but the and I think they watched it. But I forgot that I had applied, and and they didn't contact me for like three years. And now I was just working on that driveway and they called me out of the blue and wanted me to come on. It's like, oh that you followed the show. Uh, you know, I had watched the first two seasons at once, Like my buddy told me about him, and we binge watched him, and that's when I sent it in the application, and then I don't, I didn't. I kind of forgot about it through seasons three and four, and then I remembered it and then uh watched them all again, you know, like I was caught up. By the time I went out there, I'd watched them all. It was a cool show. I don't really watch a lot of TV, but it was the only show that I would be like, oh, I forgot about that show. I got watched that. So my Yeah, my dad called me and said, have you seen this show alone? I said, no, it's not my thing, man, because when I watched that, I'm just like, this is so full of ship and this is this reality TV. There's usually crazy people on there and and I so I resisted it for so long. It was on Netflix and it would always suggest it to me. You know, it's like in the algorithm, Hey, you want to watch this, you should watch this, watch this. I'm like, no, I'm not watching that. But finally, just like you watched seasons one and two, I started binging it in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, and then two weeks later I'm like, damn, I'm watching this every night. It's a great show. Man. Um, I take back everything I thought about about the show, because they do I mean, they do the normal reality show things they do. They do the editing into this, into that, and the drama. It's all there. But it's all there. But you guys, so give people the story. What's happening is real? Yeah, Like, what is the show if you would describe it, Oh, it's just it's a show where they get ten people and drop them off separately with no cameraman. You're just by yourself, and you have ten basic items like not a gun, but like a bow and arrow and yeah for sparking fires. And I'll say ten guns a gun and ten round nothing else, I'll be fine. So you're really out there with not much and you basically film yourself and uh, they come and give you new batteries and check your footage and make sure you're not medically unable to continue every once in a while, and other than that, you're just out there and it's whoever last the longest wins basically, So and what do they was They obviously call you and say we want to we want you to be on the show, and then what's the conversation? They think, we're gonna come get you and we're gonna take you and trap you. We're not gonna tell you where or well I knew the premise of the show, so yeah, I kind of knew that's what was in the cards, but they didn't tell you where you were going to be until a couple of weeks before you know the flyout dates, so you don't have a ton of time to think about it and prepare. But uh, but yeah, and then they take you out there. You got a week or so learning how to film yourself and do camera work, and then they fly out on a helicopter and drop you off with your stuff and leave, and you're just like, wow, this is weird. Yeah, this is the show. It's like you're just out in the middle of nowhere. You've never scouted this place, you have no idea, Like you wouldn't have chosen to That was what I stuck out to me, is like I just wouldn't have chosen this spot, Like why am I here? You know what? I was mad? I was mad watching I'm like, don't they have ONYX maps, Like why can't they choose a spot that's like has a nice little uh, you know, a little deep shoreline or something would be nice. Yeah, fishing hole would have been sweet and a nice little bog for the moose to hang out. So yeah, you got all the things you think about that you know, never like you picture it. So but then you get there go ahead, well no, they so what did you pick? What were your ten things? And like? And why I should be able to rattle these off really easy and ask for sure because like nuvinky as they would say, that's the one tool you need to live in the woods, Like if you have an ax, you might be able to make it without anything else. Definitely need an ax. Uh. That's one oh one. And then a saw I took, which was kind of I was really on the fence, like I never really used the saw on the woods that much like a hand like a sand saw, but I figured might save me some calories, so I took that, which was probably my only mistake, Like if I was gonna change it, that's what I would switch up. And then took a a pot, and I took or like a frying pan and a leatherman and a faro rod and a sleeping bag and bow and arrows, trapping wire, fishing line and something else that I'm missing in there. And then then this next season they do after mine, season seven have a hundred day caps So that was the first season where they put a limit on it, which was weird. But yeah, that sea, but so you so you kind of know that you know, somewhere around days, that's what you're prepping for, Like not really, I actually really had. I told myself there was zero chance that it would end before ninety days. I didn't even din't even cross my mind, and honestly, out there it didn't even like I had no clue that was about to end. I thought, I thought, And I was actually prepared to stay another couple few months, like I didn't have had plenty of food, and I my weight was still what it is right now. I but I yeah, I was shocked. I had done such a good job convincing myself that there was no chance that it would end any before nine day ninety that I didn't even well because I'm sure that this idea, yeah, the idea of hope, like the idea of saying I could tomorrow might be the day. I would joke with myself when they got here, a medical flight coming in, I'm like, oh, maybe this is it. But it's like, but you, I would just kind of be kidding myself, and I knew it. Uh. But like on the medical check where they did come and tell me it was over, I hadn't even had that thought. I just didn't even cross my mind that it might be over house and then you're to skip to the end, your wife just pops out of the trees. They got me good. I definitely thought they did not let on that it was close at all. I think it was. That's awesome. Um, what about it? Is there anything about the show when you washed it back, assuming that you washed it back that that you thought was contrived or can just completely like they don't they don't contrive it. But they definitely made it look like they covered up how much food I had, you know, if anything to like make it more. They definitely made it look like I struggled in a way more than I did, which is fine, but uh, it was annoying for me to watch because I wanted to see the big fish I caught in the different things like that that I didn't get to see because they had to make it more suspenseful. So if I had, if I had a complaint, that was it. But but nothing's contrived, like it's it's all. It's all there, and it's all footage that I sent in, like it's all there's definitely I was out there, you know, seventy seven days. There's days where I was like, man, this sucks, Like you know I can't. I can't you know, eat enough moose to stay fat or what you know I can. And in my mind I was thinking the show is gonna go a hundred and forty days. So then when I would count my moose, I'd like, man, I don't have enough fat to make it a hundred more days. And then I'd be like, man, I don't have enough moose fat. And then you know that might get in there, that me complaining about not having enough food when I'm thinking that, you know, in context, it's relative to yeah, and we like make some time, we make some TV around here. You gotta do it, yeah, And it's kind of like you you know what you want to happen, and if sometimes you can manipulate little things to kind of build suspense where might it might have been flat. So I could see him doing that when I was watching the show. But there's there's points in the show that are real. Right, you shot a moose. I mean, the whole thing's real. It's all real footage. And they don't like tell you to do anything like it's not like they go out there and they're like, hey, we want you to do this or whatever. You know, I don't know they don't so if they use all your real footage that you sent in. But yeah, the moose hunt, that was all genuine stuff. That was and that was intense this can be. That was like the most up the day down in my life, you know, because you know how it is hunting. It's always you can GOLLI if just you shoot it and you're so excited. I just like, oh man, it all works because I made this whole contraption to funnel moose into a certain area and it worked and I got the shot on the moose. I was super excited. But then, of course, as it happens, you lose your blood trail and you lose your you know, you can't find any more tracks. And then you're just like, no way am I from I can't lose this. They the con the quinces, there's so much greater in that situation that it's just super intense. And then it's like, well, there's no blood. I saw bubbly blood. He's hitting the lungs. I'm just gonna walk downhill because he probably went downhill. And then so you stay along the shore and then sure enough all I stumbled across from like there he is up there, and you get all excited and then and then you're like hiding behind a bush, but then you see him stand up and you're just like no, like no, way he's going to run off right now, But then he doesn't. He lays back down and you're all relieved. It's just such it was such an emotional roller coaster, unlike any I've ever been on, because you're just you're so reliant on that day. People that listen to this show know that I'm always I'm always saying like, man, if I could, one thing that I wanted to do was feel what it felt like to hunt because I had to have a food. Yeah. Yeah, it was unbelievable, Like that's an experience I won't forget because it's just that was the most intense hunt ever because I just you're so reliable on it, and when you get it. When I finally walked up, I touched my arrow to its eyeball and it was just dead is dead to me, You're just like, oh my gosh, the pure excitement there. You just could I couldn't. There's no way I could read do that situation no matter what. Yeah, that's yeah, it's it's so damn primal, And yeah, I wish I almost the reason why I want to want if they would ever have me on the show. And if you're listening to us alone, casting agents. I'm down to do it. Just reach out to my people, Fill the engineer, reach out to Phill the engineer. Um. Yeah, when I look at that, I'm like, man, that's that's the one reason I would do it, because I want to fish opportunity to yeah, fishing, fishing hunt because it was the same. Man, it was just so fun, the funnest fishing I've ever had. And plus it was the biggest fish I've ever caught. You know, all the fish were the biggest fish ever got Lake trout, right, yeah, Lake trout. But you know there's like a the one was like twenty three pounds and it's just on your on your little homemade can reel that you've rigged together, and it's barbarous hooks and it's so intense the whole time, and uh, you finally landed, it's the same thing. It's like pure joy that you cannot replicate anywhere else. It's yeah, well that throughout the show, all the other contestants you included, that was the one thing when I was watching, I'm thinking, Man, if I'm gonna anti hunter or or a non hunter, or somebody that doesn't know what it's like to kill an animal, and I see these people going through this, at least, then maybe I can I can watch a hunter in modern demdern sense do the same kind of dance when they shoot something and gets have some kind of understanding of what they might feel. Yeah, why they're so excited. Yeah, because every time you came back with four rabbits, I felt like they were like your storyline wasn't quite true to to actually as it happened, as you mentioned there, because you would, yeah, you would come back with four rabbits, and they would cover that, like very briefly, and then somebody else would get like spend six days looking for a rabbit that would get you know, very very observant. No, for me watching it, it was a little frustrating, but it was I understood it. But because then they had to because of that, they couldn't show a lot of the cool stuff because they had to like maked more you could, they couldn't show you like reading the book, you know. And that's why I didn't get to see any of my fishing. You know, I just made it. It looked like I just lost all my hooks and didn't catch any fish, and it was over, and I was like what, no way. So how many fish did you catch along the way? A thirteen? But they're just such big fish, you know. It was like golly, and they're all exciting, and I don't know. I did catch one arctic railing artic grailing, and it wasn't that big all the rest of her big old fish? Did you did you feel like that you ever had a moment where you were worried you were going to call and ask to be taken out of there or be medically. It never got close at all. I thought, I, I can't get into if I like, there's some production details they don't want us to get into, like as far as if I thought I was too skinny at some points. But I never was too skinny at some points. But but that was the only thing I was worried about because I just figured, if I ever leave here, it's because I'm gonna be too skinny, and so uh yeah, no, I it would never never was an issue. Like I I really thought, Okay, we're gonna get to day ninety and then we're gonna get started. It's gonna be like I figured a few of us would make it to day ninety and then but nobody's gonna quit. Then I figured then from then on it would be the push, Like that's where we're gonna stretch it way out and see how far we can go. So I was doing everything I could to accumulate everything I could until day ninety and then see if I could push through January or into February, and then then I figured I'd win. But so before that, I hadn't had that thought. Honestly, I got the moose at day twenty, and once I had a day a moose, it's like, you, you're not gonna quit. That's a T shirt. I totally did you. Did you ever have like a mental um like drill that you would do or did you ever like check in on your mental status and try to keep yourself healthy, you know, out there by yourself? It's always a yeah. I mean you have to stay active, Like you really have to stay active, and you get a lot of like trials that come and you have to approach them proactively. It would be easy to be like, oh, this sucks, you know, I can't do this or that, but yeah, you're staying mentally active is a big thing. And I did that in a you know, I had a lot of different outlets for doing that. The ideally you're doing something productive that's mentally engaging, you know, So that's what I would try. But you honestly, as much as when you're watching your show, you're always like, why are those idiots sitting around? You know, like good, you can't actually be a productive a hundred percent of the time, even though I tried. You know, there's there's just times where you just don't really have anything to do. And so, uh, in those times, I would like film stupid skits and just try to you know, encourage myself by coming up with dumb things to do like that. And uh, and you know, you you kind of journal to your cameras. You might talk to your daughter or your wife or your son, you know, like try to try to think about deep they're politically charged issues and see if I could think of like unifying solutions and things like, you know, like all that kind of stuff. And you're like, yeah, you're like Gandhi alone, Ye, Gandhi alone, trying to figure out the world sales exactly? Do all that? Did you ever? Have? You know, because when I've I've done, you know, a couple of weeks away and again nothing. I'm not no comparison to what you've done. But I I've always found once I had a little baby, I had my son, it was so much harder. I could not I was, I was. I was undecided on whether it was harder or not with kids, because, for one, it's so I mean because it's harder when you don't have any prize out there, you know. But like so when you're out there, you're like, man, I'm out here a week. I haven't seen the kids, like kind of miss him. But when there's a big monetary prize, that's like, man, that's so much time with the kids. Like I work dumb construction job. I know what how much time? How much work do I have to do to uh, you know make up for that kind of money. It's like that's a lot of time with the family. So it was all it put it in pretty good perspective. But you know the other thing, Uh, it's just haven't gone to Russia for long periods of time. I have the perspective that like a year will pass and I'll come back and my loved ones will still be my loved ones, and you know, like the relationships are strong. It's not like insecurities there, but yeah, you missed the kids, do you know you definitely that's what you think about all the time. But but you kind of just keep it in perspective and it's like, you know what, three months isn't that long. If this show goes three months, it's like fine. I'll get home and I'll be like, hey, how was it, And I'll be like, oh, it's fine. Yeah, here's a briefcase with half a million dollars. Now we're all caught up. It turned out it wasn't that simple because there's actually a lot harder on my wife than me. So because he had to deal with the kids and they were young, you know, had like a two and at three or something year old, really young kids, and they were sick the whole time and this and that. You know, she lost more weight than I did. Honestly, she was She had a hard time. But yeah, I feel that's how that is. One of my favorite things in the world is a garment end reach, right, Those are awesome. Yeah, I just got to use one this summer for the first time. Yeah, So you're just like, man, if I could text my wife and just say how are you, and she could say not doing great, Like then you can recalibrate when you unlike you like have the choice to go back and you don't have anything really riding on at other there something, Yeah, you can kind of make that decision a little more and yeah, ahead, I wanna I don't want to leave the best thing for last. But you killed a wolverine with your acts, man, Yeah, I was talking about when I think about primal, that was the most primal experience because I wasn't really like I would have been built up for so long. The thing kept coming and harassing me and I would always and I'd spent a lot of nights like ah awake with my bow and arrow in my shelter, in a pile of meat out front, just like hoping that they would come, and uh, trying all these different things to get him. I like, I knew it was gonna go down at some point, but then when it when it finally did, it's like it's not like the Moose where it was just like, oh man, this is up and down and up and down. It was just like it just happened so fast, and it all oh and over there and I still have It's like, you know, imprint, I can still picture memory where it was like nar snarling at me and jumping at me, but he was stuck with his arrow. So yeah, so you stuck him to the ground with an arrow. Well, the night before, he had been behind a bush and I was like, I don't want to shoot him because he found it. So I was waiting for him to come out from behind the bush, but it was nighttime as I was just watching his eyes, and then he like turned his head and his eyes went away, and then I was like, where is he? Where is he? And he had just vanished and I was like what, Like, oh no, I should have just shot, like what an idiot? And then uh so the next night, the same scenario kind of played out where he ran through my warning system. I heard the cans rumble, so I like ran outside, kind of set the camera up where I thought he you know, where his trail was, and then U uh, sure enough he came scurrying down it, and but then he kind of paused behind these bushes and that was just I was like, well, tonight, I'm gonna shoot him. Behind the bus just sent a narrow in and I don't know, it deflected through there and stuck him through the hind leg and you know, the arrow stuck into the ground, but also it was still in the shrubs on the top because on the holders, and so it just hung them up enough to where I grabbed that axe and ran over there, and you know, it all happened really fast. I got the axe, ran over there, swung that first swing like disemboweled him, and then he like spun around, and you know, he was spinning around mad, and then I swung again, and the next one like hit him, and and then I just swung a bunch. But then they like and then it ended, and you're just like, wow, I didn't think about any you know, I hadn't thought about any of that. And he's like, wow, that was crazy. I just can't feel like kill the wolverine with the ax. And then you're just like, whoa, that was wild. Yeah, if you're making a show like Alone and that happens and you get your reaction like they did there, they were pretty excited. I'm yeah, I'm sure the producers are like, we got it. Yeah, this is this one's gone on Netflix. Jonas killed a wolverine with his I'm mad, but yeah, you were, you were of that kind of regrets not grabbing the camera and bringing it with me, But I don't know that they would have shown it. So maybe it's better that I left it like it was. But probably I think it was perfect for what it was because you knew what happened, you could hear it, you saw your reaction, you're all wide eyed when you came back from that. Um, I think it was. It was well done in that regard, but it shows. It just goes to show people how when I'm watching this, I'm kind of watching through the lens of somebody who thinks a lot about these all the issues of wild life and making shows right, same thing, And I'm thinking of like, how do how are they trying to tell the stories based on how they happened? But then what what can people learn from this? You know, what can they see? Well, they can see that you know, in a in a scenario where you're just trying to survive, there's no room for compassion for the wolverine because yeah, you just couldn't coexist in that situation. There just wasn't. It wasn't an option. It was like he or me, and we both knew it. He knew. I tried many times to get him to stay away, and he's he was trying to make it through the winters. So yeah, he was trying to get some he got a taste for moose. Yeah, I can't blame it for that, but he got a lot of good food before he went. But yeah, I was definitely thought about that. It's like in those situations, it is like, of course you love nature and that's that, but yeah, it's in some in some situations you're you kind of feel pitted against it, and that was definitely one of those situations. That's That's a good point. Is there is there anything for for people that watch the show or didn't um in terms of foraging or skills because you you did a lot of stuff. Obviously built a shelter, you built u you built some skis for for ice ski, a bunch of other things. Are there any other things that that you did out there that um you either did for the first time or you know, now that's just essential knowledge for somebody like Scott's side. Oh man, um should there's a lot of things. Of course they didn't show a lot of things. I gotta think about what I thought. But yeah, of course there was a ton of foraging you're always foraging. I was always drinking, like you know, there's all the little, so many details, like I would always drink hot water instead of cold water because you're just saving calories by preheating it. And then you're always drinking teas, so you're getting vitamins when you're drinking your water. It's things like stacking your hot rocks around your water before you go to bed so that doesn't freeze solid, and sleeping with a hot rock and you're sleeping bag and you know, it's just there's so many little details. But the cool thing about it is when you put yourself in those situations, your ingenuity starts to come alive because like when you're in the modern world, everything's kind of figured out for you and you don't have to think that much as much, you know, like whereas out there it's like you get these really specific problems and you have to come up with a solution or you're going to fail, you know. So it's like it's very very uh direct once again, and so that you can kind of hopefully you can rely on your ingenuity too to arrive for you out there when you need it. And uh, because that's one thing I felt was really cool. I felt very creative out there, whereas I'm not. I don't feel creative usually because I'm not like an artist or anything. But when you're out in those situations, it's like, oh, this is where creativity came from, you know, like you're just trying to figure out solutions to these problems. And and hopefully when you guys go out there for your little week alone and you come across little problems, you'll find like, hey, that's cool, I just thought of a solution, like you know, like and uh yeah, sort that's the broadest way to say. And rather than just giving you a million little examples of this that, I think that's a good thing, man. And because because as I you know, like I said, I was, I knew we were going to chat, and I was listening to Sapiens and I was thinking, man, you know, this is just the way my brain works. But you know, all the things that you were learning out there, all the things that you were doing, were very human. They were that you were kind of recreating how we came to be where we are and in a lot of crazy ways. And and to to know that you've kind of seen not only have you seen I felt like a lot of the other contestants had maybe played at this a little bit or trained for it, or had like woodcraft skills, but had never done what you've done in terms of living with the eve anking and having that perspective. So you've seen, yeah, you've seen different sides of it, um, but yeah, I mean, did you ever think about was it? Because the one thing that I did the questions in my mind is did you think about the money as much as they portrayed in the show. Not you personally, but it just it kind of kept coming back to this. That was my motivating factor for going out there, because it's like, I can do all this stuff for free, and I have a lot, so it's like, uh so, if I'm really honest, I'm going out there because it's an opportunity to win a lot. When I was out there, I found they were almost went in reverse where I kind of went out there, well, because it is a chance that a far of course I'm gonna try it because it's right up my alley. But then when I was out there, I realized they were actually and before I remember telling History Channel guys before I went that, I wanted to leave something for my kids to see and you know, descendants to see that I wish I had of my grandparents, you know, like I wish I had footage of my grandparents doing their thing in life, you know, so I could know them more than just pictures and stories and uh in the same way, I wanted to have that. And when I was out there, I was realizing, Oh, this is cool because I can share this not only with my descendants but even my immediate family. Because a lot of times, you know, like you're you're in town right now, and I'm in town right now. We're just living in our little houses. People don't know that aspect of us, not all you know, a lot of my friends and family don't. And so it was cool to be able to be like, oh, can share this with my loved ones. Actually, you know, like there's an aspect of me. Not everybody gets the seat. And so I was really motivated by that also, that's I mean, yeah, and then then you have like, well, Uncle Jordan's coolest shit he made. He made skis. It's inspired a lot of fun backyard activity around here. That's good looks kids, a lot of wolverine hunts down in the playroom, I love it. Man, What did your kids like? It? Sounds like your kids are old enough to kind of say a few things about it. What do they say? Uh, what do they say? They re enacted a lot. They just play, you know, they play those games a lot. Hunt the moose and they hunt the wolverine. And yeah, they're worried about wolverines at night, which is odd in Virginia. But you're trying to explain it. So, yeah, don't worry. They're not only in comic books. Yeah, they're really animals. Then. Uh no, it's become a part of the and of course it's bled into so many other things now that now you know, we're doing survival courses and writing a book and blah blah blah. So it's kind of affected more of their stuff, you know, you know, it's affected our lives trajectory. Obviously, Yeah, for sure did did when you got back. I mean obviously, like I said, I listen to you on the rogue in and uh and and other places. Um, and so obviously there was a plenty of attention when you got back. It's like, how did that go for you? All Right? It's like I'd actually quit all my social media you know, a good while before I went on the show, and I actually was really happy. I was like, Man, I'm glad I don't do that because it's just waste my time. And uh, now though it's a part of and you know, I've had to dive back into that stuff. And I really like connecting people that are genuinely interested, you know, and that's how we connect and it's all that it's it's so necessary, but at the same time I can sense it's it's you know, the ability to suck away our time and what we're really Yeah, it gets you in that half distracted mode, which is super annoying. And so it's like trying to navigate that has been the most annoying part of it all. Because before I could just be like, ah, forget it, I'm not doing any of that stuff. I'll buy an old Nokia or something. But now it's like, now I can't really So now I have to actually figure out how to navigate that more. Man enjoy Man? Can I relate to that? I do want people when we do this podcast, and the podcast is the thing I enjoy the most because it's just talking to cool people and telling ship stories and just whatever makes me laugh or makes right. It's enjoyable. But the social media stuff, there is some poison in there. Yeah, and I don't think. I don't think my my personal feelings. It's not what most people would say. For me. It's it's what you said. It's just addicting. It's this. Yeah, it's exactly. That's it. In um it's just something to be there every time you're mildly bored. It's like yes, it's like dang it, like so, yeah, I get to press sometimes. When I was I was when I last I traveled, I was on a rental car shuttle. I'm sitting on the shutal car shuttle and I had been on my phone the whole flight, and I looked up and I was kind of like in a daze, even when I wasn't looking at my phone. And it's kind of like I had been in this virtual world and I had to readjust to like walking around the airport. And I get this rental car shuttle and I decided to turn my phone off and just like for the drive home, I wasn't gonna look at I just wasn't gonna look at my phone. And I to go see my family and I was. I was in this rental car shuttle and I was looking around. There's fifteen people in there. It's COVID. They're all wearing their mask. Every single one of them was deep into the phone. Like I could have probably taken all of their wallets out of their podets. No one would have known. It feels so impersonal that world mas You just just like, man, you can't you can't imagine. You couldn't have explained this to something the bank, You couldn't take them, drop them here and say like this is what these people are doing. That well, that's that's ultimately better. It's way better. Like, no, it's not. It's awful. Yeah. I feel really hacked at times, like they just they hacked my brain. It's annoying to try to overcome it. Yeah, so you get and you get those moments where you feel like you're reaching for your phone when it's not there. Syndrome, the missing syndrome. Yeah, so yeah, I don't I don't mind that people will always complain about the comments and the negativity. I don't mind that that's the discourse of the world that I live in. But it's it's more just the idea that the addiction of the thing. It's like, what it is that sucks so much? And I tell you, when I go in the wizard come back. The most stress I feel is when they pick up my phone and gets service again and I start hearing the exactly that's exactly me. Like We'll be riding back, you know, coming out of the woods, and you're just like, oh man, it's that little dread you get because your phone's coming. You cannot do it. There has to be some irony for you, right because you got famous by going out in the woods and being alone, and then when you come back and now I'm like spent all literally spent all day to day, uh doing a website. I was like, how figure this out? And then uh my brother was laughing at me because I could like had my sister watched the kids and uh, and he's like, oh, cool, you're going hunting. I was like, I know, I'm doing a podcast. He's like, oh, times have changed. This is I used to be out doing what I like. Now I have to be Social Media's a lot, but it's just a part of the all comes with the territory. But for us to figure out how to navigate it well and then we're all work in progress, so hopefully well. And like I said, a lot of people would love to be in that situation to teach other people like you can, or to to be known because now you'll be known for a while a little. I'm sure the guy from alone, the guy who um is that? Is that ever felt weird to you? Or is this that's you knew that going in that there, if you won your on TV whatever, Yeah, yeah, that doesn't feel really weird. I guess it probably just goes with my personality that didn't get culture shock, you know, it just feels kind of it's whatever. It just like, yeah, kind of roll with it. But the it's fun. Like I always thought it was hilarious when I get recognized, not that much here in Lynchburgo. Then I went up the IDO and every time I went to like Black Sheep, like the outdoor store, it's like you can just counted on the clockwork somebody Like. It's like, I guess that's the demographic you should. You should troll everybody every time you go into like an outdoor store. Just wear like a wolverine hat, totally try to stand wait a minute, wait a minute. If I ever need an ego boost. I just swing on over to the outdoors door. Oh yeah, you started looking around, man, You're like, uh, know what's going to happen. That's why I like podcast. I could be in my kitchen, you can be in your sister's house. Yeah, we could just be hanging out. Um, that's a good I thought too. Like I said, it's not too much fame, it's just enough. That's sometimes it's fun chatting with people. But I remember when I was with Joe Rogan, I was just like, man, that sucks to be that famous. Like that poor guy as to like, God, he can't go anywhere I've been. I've been with that dude. Yeah, I've been with that dude a few times where he picked him up one time at the Austin Airport to go hunt and he was flying into Austin before he lived there and when I when I lived there and he didn't. I picked him up at the airport and he was putting his stuff in the back of my truck and people were just running up to my truck going like and just yelling things at him. Yeah yeah, And I thought, why to say, like hey, love your show or love the UFC or love your calm, and he would be cool to do. But just running up to him and yelling some slogan running away, that seems but I got imagine it's got to be twenty four seven when he's outside basically like unending. Yeah, it's unending. It's yeah, that's tough life, man, That's yeah, it's gotta be tough. I don't I don't envy that, man. Yeah, for me, it's still enjoyable. You know, it's fine. So what's in that? What's the future like working people? I know, like you said, you're writing a book and some of those things, and yeah, I'm trying to be I want to do some of the more of those survival courses. And then I got the I just thinking about trying to do some online stuff because that's just where people are at these days, and so it could be cool, and uh, actually it sounds fun because I feel like it'd be fun to like do the coolest, like the most practical and cool online stuff I can put out, like real stuff, why do you actually need to know? And then do it well? And that'd be fun knowledge to relay. So I'm just now thinking about how to do that and what I would want too. That's cool, man. We just we just finished our company just finished a book on just practical survival and uh, you know, stuff for hunters and outdoors. So there's a lot in there. Um then there's so many different levels. So maybe maybe you find yourself on the meat eator dot com right, and they're doing some videos, no doubt. Yeah. Let's well, I appreciate, appreciate me at that Hobo Jordan is on my Instagram. Go there, keep people linked up to whatever I'm doing. That's awesome. Man. Well, I appreciate the time and the show and let me binge watch and my underwear, uh midnight watching you shoot him? Good times for you to know what things you were like. Man, look at that moron he's doing that. There's a couple other people on the show. I thought they have to have a couple of crazy people who were never gonna make it anyway. I won't I won't make fun of them in the public form here, but there's few people in there that you're just like, you just knew that they're they're playing the role they were meant to play. They were never gonna make it, but they're crazy and they have you know, they have they tried. That's more than most people would be willing to do. Good. Yeah, and then you and then you get to the thing where you're when you're just saying, well, that guy only made it a couple of days. My wife said that, well, that I only made it a couple of days, And I said, how many days would you make it? Like, let's not judge these people. They're doing their best. You know, guy fell down and broke his leg. I think he probably it's fund Well, it's been fun chatting and yeah, man, it's been fun. It's fun getting to know what what you're all about. I'd love to take a trip with you over to Siberia. Man, it sounds like the most interesting thing in the world. Yeah, someday maybe I'll organize something where people can come, because it would be cool if you write documents sound very scary in that situation, if I can make an ask and your is your book about out that time? Like are you in the book? Yeah? Hell yeah, man, I can't wait to read that because I'm I'm endlessly interested in those kind of experiences. So yeah, yeah. Tying in like resilience with Siberian natives and what we can learn from nomadic life. You know anyway, that whole thing will be interesting. Just a guy riding to reindeer. Just a guy riding reindeer on the cover. Totally all right, Jordan, Man, I appreciate man. We'll talk soon. Yeah, that's it, and that is all for the uh this episode of the Uncollective. Thank you to George Jonas, and thank you all of you from righting in being a part of this. Hopefully, m Hopefully you've got a nice little distraction from Jordan's as you guys are all casting your votes and out there doing your American duty to elect the next president, the next senator, next to everything, elect our officials in this country. Um, we'll talk much more about that. I'm just gonna leave you with that. I'm a little bit, a little bit melancholy, a little bit sad about this election. Uh. Me and Phil were just kind of going back and forth about why we would vote the way we did. Um. It leaves me this, this the conflict in my own mind about who I voted for and why I voted for them. Um Man, it just it is making me sad because I don't identify with either party. I can't find if I'm finding reasons not to vote for each candidate rather than reasons to vote for for those candidates. And and this is it feels like I feel like a man on an island. And I feel like when you are that way, when you don't really identify with either of these two candidates or parties, then you're you're You're kind of out in the open for hate from both sides. And it's it's a tough place to be. So I'm gonna go back and after all this and reassess my own values. I just wish the best for our country, and I wish the best for all of you, especially you Phil. I'm looking forward to going hunting with you, even though we voted for different candidates. Maybe we can heal by going hunting together. Ben, let's me up after after this election, and uh, we'll crack open a watermelon white cloth. Maybe make a salty Gilbert. If you try to salty Gilbert with a water watermelon white cloth. I have not, but I would love to. It might make me just a little bit happy, because I'm feeling pretty salty right now. I'm feeling alone, which is good because we just interviewed a guy that lived in the woods for seventy seven days. Um, So if to any of you out there that feel alone, that feel like you don't align completely with one of these ideologies and politics and all the polarity, if you're feeling alone, there's just nowhere to turn in your life. You know who's there for you. Me and Fill the Engineer. We're there for you. Yeah, that depends if you're gonna tell if you're gonna talk about poop stories, I don't want to, don't come. Don't come to me. Fills there for you unless just talk about poop stories. Well, also, I mean you're gonna look down on me for playing video games. I don't wanna. I don't want to hang out with you either. Also that also that one thing. Also you have to like you have to like Star Wars. Um. You know, you have to like everything that I like and agree with everything that that I agree with. Perfect. So well, you're welcome here as long as you agree with Phil that's right. Luckily, you should be naming your dogs after various fruits and yeah, this is what you should be doing. As long as you do all those things, you're welcome and accepted here at the Hunting Collective. So we'll keep soldiering on episode one one next week A whole New World. We'll see you next week. Say bye, Phil, goodbye, because I can't go a week without doing run O.

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