00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three twenty nine and today in the show, I'm joined by renowned conservation writer Hal Herring to discuss public land history and advocacy, wilderness, and an in depth look at my book That Wild Country. All right, welcome to the Wired Hunt Podcast, brought to you by Onyx, and welcome to the New Year. To Happy new year to all of you my friends. Today we've got a special episode in which I am not the host, I am actually the guest. How's that going to work? Well? I was recently interviewed on the back Country Hunters and Anglers podcast also known as the b h A podcast and Blast, which is hosted by a steamed conservation writer, hunter, and angler, Hale Herring. He hosts the podcast and you might also know him as a longtime writer for Field and Stream. He just does great work and he was kind enough to read my book That Wild Country recently and invite me on their podcast to discuss it. Now. I know you've all heard me talk about my book on the podcast. Over the past couple of weeks or months, I've asked you to buy it. I've given you the cliff notes version of what it's all about. But at least on this podcast, you know, we we haven't really gone in depth unto We haven't any kind of real discussion about the book. I just kind of told you, Hey, I wrote this book. It's called That Wild Country. It's about the history of public lands and my own journeys, blah blah blah. But we really haven't had any deep discussion on the themes of the book or the lessons I learned about public lands along the way, or the process of writing it, or you know, any of the details about this whole topic of public land history and politics because an advocacy, or any of my adventures or or hunts or trips or anything that went on as part of this book. We haven't gone into any of that yet. And I think maybe I'm biased here, but I think that's some really interesting stuff. And fortunately Hale wanted to discuss all of that and more on the b h A podcast, and I just think it was such a good conversation that we needed to share it here on Wired Hunt as well. So that's what you're about to hear. You're about to hear an excerpt from the back Country Hunters and English podcast with Halis host and me as guest. And this is obviously gonna be a little bit different, but I think you're really gonna enjoy it. If you've read the book already, I think this is going to give you a really interesting new behind the scenes look at how the book came together and what I was trying to achieve with it, and and maybe give you more in depth understanding um of of what it all meant. And then if you haven't read the book yet, my hope is that this conversation is going to help you better to decide if it's something you want to check out at all. So I do think if you love to hunt, or fish, or hiker camp or recreate on public lands of any kind, this is going to be a podcast for you. And if that also describes you at all, you should also strongly consider joining back Country Hunters and Anglers. They are one of the absolute most influential conversation not well, they're granted conversations, but they are also an influential conservation organization, one of the most influential out there in the country today fighting on behalf of public lands and waters. And you know our rights to hunt and fish and and explore these places. So I hope you'll join me in the fight to protect these places. And I think by tapping into b h A, it's a great place and a great way to start. So with all that said, let's take a quick break and then we will hop over to my interview on the b h A podcast and Blast with Hal Herring. Enjoy, Hey everybody, and welcome back, or welcome here if you've ever been here before. Thanks for coming. Just a country Hunters and nine podcast and blast um on how Herring and I am in Bozeman, Montana. Today I caught up with Mark Kenyon, who has a podcast of Wired Hunt and has just written a remarkable book that I've had in my hands for a month or so. Um, I reread it for I read it once fast and reread it once slow for this interview, and UM, I'm I'm super pleased to be able to turn people onto it because um we'll talk about how how powerful I think it is. But Mark, first you, uh, thanks for doing this for one thing, thanks, thanks for being here, but thanks for writing that book. It's called That Wild Country. Um, will you identify yourself just a little bit? Yeah, yeah, so Mark Kenyon here, Like he said, I wrote That Wild Country. But previous to that, I've ran a website in a podcast called Wired Hunt, which as of two thousand and eighteen I think is also part of Mediator's network now too. Um so yeah, I've been writing first for digital stuff, then for most of the Honey magazines, and then for me to do myself and launch the podcast then in two thousand and fourteen, and was doing all that full time for a few years, um, until I got to this point right in the book. So, um, well, Hunter Angler love to do just about anything outside and you're a Michigan or by birthright Michigan or by birth visitor of the West by my passion is yeah. Well, and in a book it's like it's like a grand tour of the of the West too, and um, which is which we'll talk about like the how how that works in the book. But it is like a grand tour and um it's one one and and you know what, it's an everyman's tour too. There's nothing in this book that you do that anybody in the United States can't settle up an old ford and go do which is really really cool. Um, but you came this, you're you're a white tail hunter first, right, Yep, that was what we kind of grew up on. We hunted a little forty acre piece that my grandpa bought five which was surrounded on two sides by public land. So I grew up going to our deer camp up north and then trudging across the public got you looking for big woods bucks? And uh is that Upper Peninsular or Northern Michigan or northern Lower And uh the bridge? Yes, below the bridge? When when when Jim Harrison stuff started coming out a lot um my friends and honor in Alabama, and we'd never you know, we need I've never been to Michigan. In the first place I ever went to Michigan was Kalamazoo as a grown man. But my friends, but you know what they call those people? And I said, what's that troll? Yeah, because they live below the route. That's that's that's super cool. That's pretty fun. But yeah, Michigander And grew up hunting deer and fishing for perch. And walleye and pike and bass and all that trolling around the lakes of western side of the state. And I did a little bit of hike and camp and exploring along the way to And did you start out when you were young all this? Yeah, I mean I think I was in the blind with my dad at age three or four. Um, it's an interesting thing. We were very Um my family was really into hunting and fishing from the cultural side, Like we identified as hunters and anglers, like that was the thing get together for a family get together. As we're all sitting there talking about unting fishing. Um. But we never the family before, we never took it so far as to really go deep into strategy or really go so far as start going out west or anything. So we we forever the family loved to hunt, love to fish, but it was always you did what you always did, went and sat next to a tree or you know, walked out and you found a rub and you sat down. That's what you did. So that is was the extent of my hunting education until I kind of went off on my own and then had to self educated to take things to the next level. But it developed this really foundational passion was really the biggest thing I got from my family. Well that's a really to me that that. Actually the South is somewhat like that too, but that's im Indwestern thing where it's it's everybody. Some of the best fishermen and hunters I know have come out of the Midwest and it's and it's they've they've been there, They've been unquestioned in this pursuit like since babyhood, you know. Um And and that's not to say that all of them don't take it to that other level too, they do. You run into them all over the place. But um, yeah, that's pretty interesting. And I can relate to that from growing up where people just went to the deer stand. It was very much uh, it just steeped in tradition. You know. It was the cabin go to deer campuses, no power, no water, just go out their propane lanterns and just getting away from it all. It is almost just about going to this. It was a pilgrimage to this place where your friends and family came back together every year, and and and so much the revolves around that. But I remember at age you know, six and seven, and nine and ten, the thing I would always want to do is I to go and stand out underneath the buck pool. You'd hang the deer there, shot tongue in the buck pool, and I I would just stand there staring at him, thinking, Wow, what an animal. Where Someday I want to head off into the woods on my own and be able to do that. And uh, and so y'all had some success there. Yeah, I mean we had success, relatively limited um and and decline over the years, actually just dear populations plummeting in the two thousand's part of the state, but put enough success to keep me interested as a kid, um to really just fill my imagination. Yeah, it's incredible to marvel at that. And I'm old enough to remember when they first came back to North Alabama and they were just our idea of everything that ought to be out there in the woods. But yeah, you know what I mean, they're like they're like they made the woods. I remember my Civics teacher who's helped me a lot in hunting and stuff, he said, you know, it just it just blows my mind that there's these there's these big woods left and there's these big old out there in it just living their own lives. Well, what how lonely or tragic would it be to have a place like that without those big hands? Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't It wouldn't feel right, right, you bet. I was thinking about them, like, um, Peter Matthias and I think when he wrote Wildlife in America he talked about that great American silence and then like and how it probably it wasn't silent on the Great Plains you you know, pre Columbus it was it was an uproar. Yeah, I can't I'm sure so many people have said this over the previous hundred fifty years, but I can't help but just wonder and imagine and dream about what that must have been. Like I go back to the Journal's list and Clark every once in a a while, just to just to think about that or not. I go to Great Falls, Montana, a lot that's like our supply town, and I'll go down and it it's all damned up, the falls and stuff like that. And someday I hope it'll run free. Maybe they could replace the power with a flow through or something. But um, we spent a lot of time on the river there, and uh, I think about that all the time. It's like there's areas there where there were so many buffalo that died crossing the ice that the water would be contaminated way downstream. And then wolves and dozens and dozens just eating all the kid and we were thinking about, um, pishkin is pishkin is? Uh? I think it's black Feet for a buffalo jump, and um, Montana is a little town there on the Missouri and it has an enormous buffalo jump and an incredible state park there and and I mean anybody who wants to is coming through Great Hell into the Great Falls on a trip, it would be checked well advised to stop. And uh, that place we were we were imagined when they this was pre bow, mostly pre horse, and um, when that was rocking, when they're running those buffalo over that and the little kids are hiding with the they have these these hides they put up to startle the buffalo, and when that was rocking, we were thinking, like every grizzly, every eagle, every wolf, I mean, I mean imagine what the scene was. And then all the people because they just moved there until they had it all processed. Yeah, unimaginable carrying a city and knives that are made from stuff that's uh it's quarry done to yellowstone carried. Yeah. I just read an interesting book examining, um, you know, the Clovis and fulsome cultures and kind of everything that's going on during the plato Seen area and uh, just talking about how how so many of the tools were imported in from very specific places. They would make pilgrimages to different places, to to Knife Lake in northern Minnesota, a certain type of stone, and from to this location, this location that you see them coalescing certain regions where then all the people came to for these Yeah, just really interesting. I think there's a quarry at Montana City near Helena that that is. You know, it's as old as anybody can date back. Everybody's changing those dates. Now there's ten thousand years ago, and then they're going, wow, this is twelve you know. But stuff, it's it's incredible stuff. And and if nobody has ever if anybody's never seen the Clovis stuff, they're huge them in person. There's some in the museum in Helena that um that and they're big. They're for chopping like Mamma sat John Sloss dis Yeah, and they're the only art that survives is this. They took these multi colored stones and they chipped them. They had somebody who was an insane artisan, you know, and they would and they had these multi colored bands in the stone and and we don't know what their art was, but clearly this was their art because they put it in the burial site on Um. It's called by Ansick Site up by will Saul, Montana. And there's a there's these two children buried in that and they're covered with red ochre and they have like the best of the best choppers and and scrape. Wonder what the what their status was or what warder than that kind of Yeah, somebody found him like looking for hunting gravel with a front inloader. Yeah, it's nice. It's pretty country, Pally, It's always been pretty beautiful valley. So Um as a Michigan or you you started coming west obviously in this book you started like like twelve year what you came with as a kid, Right, We did two trips west as a child when I was I don't remember, it was like six or seven or seven or eight, and then one more like two years later. Um. One trip we did the northwest. We hit Mount Rainier National Park, Northern North Cascades and Olympia Olympics. Sorry, and then the second was to Glacier and those just became foundational in my childhood imagination. We never went back. I wish we had, but I think families got busy and all that kind of stuff. As you you're got a toddler, yes, yes, you've got tyler now. So yeah, it's it's not easy, but but that had this, I don't know, it's just lingered in me forever so ever. Since then, I always dreamed of going back, of wanting to get into this big wild country doing doing something above and beyond what I did growing up, which was fun but relatively domestic hunting and fishing kind of adventure, to go out to the lake with the boat, that kind of thing. Everything you grow up with seems domestic. Yes, so yeah. It wasn't until I actually, uh you know, kind of went off on my own and finished off the craziness of college that I started making my own pilgrimages out west, and uh did the first one to the three week trip when I was heading out towards my full time job in California that I I took out of college, and we took took three weeks to go and experience these things, and and that's when I realized, Wow, this is I mean as as anyone who was done that same trip or experienced that same thing comes to understand, this is something really special. And ever since then, I've been trying to and more and more time of my year exploring public clans out west. And I've gotten to very lucky with my career that I get to spend significant my time for a Midwestern at least. And what did you study in college? Marketing business? Um? And took a job working for a tech company doing online advertising and marketing. Um. That was That's where it started from. And uh, there's a that's a great part of the book. Um, it's it's it's your personal journey. Like where you said, like that's that was great, but but you wanted something different at some point you took a big risk. Yeah. Yeah, So so coming out of college, I had I had a little bit And and you tell me if this is not what you want to talk about, because I could get rambling if I'm not careful, but I'll try to make as shure as I possibly can. I thought I wanted to get into business and be this big businessman, took an internship in New York City, realized that's not what I wanted. Couldn't hunt, it, couldn't fish, couldn't get outside of to do the things I want to do. So I said, okay, there's I've got to find a way to to to link my passion for the outdoors with what I do. But then my last year of college, I got wooed by by everything that is Google. This company came in and I was seduced by the allure of working for a company like that, which which ended up being great. But so I took that job and ignored what I learned the previous summer. But immediately upon getting out to Califord, you ignored what you learned in New York City exactly. Yeah, So I told myself, I will I'm gonna work somehow related the outdoors or Google, because Google just didn't say no to that. And so I got that job, and um, immediately they'll that fall. I'm working in Mountain View, California, at the headquarters there, and right away I felt that claustrophobia again. I felt that just lack of oxygen. And so it was I don't remember October probably two thousand nine, and I read a book. I went to Barnes and Noble and was looking for books and I found this book was called Crush It and it was all about combining your passion with um with your vocation someday and I, yeah, I closed the book and I said, that's what I'm doing. And I started right then working on this thing that became Weird Hunt. And I said, I'm not gonna stop working on this until I'm able to do this for a living in for my life. And uh, and that led me to where I am now. And this is probably not six training is type. But did you know about podcast and then that early? Um, I was aware of podcasting, but I actually listened to a couple of podcasts back then. I remember Um Peterson's Bow Hunting had a podcast at that point that early, and then there's another one called bow Cast I think, so I was listening to those back then. Um, but I didn't. I didn't realize that I should create my own for several years. But actually it was the the tools of the resources that helped me the most to build my own company and my own brand and allowed me to take that stepping stone or that that jump off the cliff. Um, it was podcast. I was listening to all these entrepreneurial podcasts and things, and that kind of gave me the um, the skill set and the confidence that while people are doing this, that's the thing you can do. Um. And then yeah, so I quit, I quit Google and the Fall of Tis and thirteen and went for it. Well, and you went back to Michigan. Yeah, yeah, And so I was only in California for four or five months at headquarters, and then um, we haven't. We had an office in an arbor, Michigan, and so that's where I worked for the remaining three and a half years. Um, did you great experience? Did you? Are you a self taught writer? Yes? Yeah, and just read a lot try. Yeah. That's and that's what I tell everybody to when people ask me, because because then you can look at a paragraph of yours and say, yeah, okay, or this clearly doesn't stand up because because I read, I just read, um rick baths where we go, you're reverting your book? But yeah, and that's set in the bar too high, right, But that's that's how I feel like most people can write. You just have to read. I just I'm a voracious, insatiable reader. I love, love, love, love love books. I read and read, read and wants it's are writing for my website. I realized that I wanted to become as good of a writer as I possibly could, because I found a tremendous amount of satisfaction and sharing and writing. So then started reading books about writing and reading with the writer's eye. And so when I read something, thinking to myself, why is this so compelling? Why does this move me from page to page to page? How did I learn something here and not even realize it? Or what don't I like about this book? And so and so That's how I how I learned to write. Um, and and hopefully, like like you said, I have this tremendous sense of of it, like that imposter syndrome. So as I'm writing the book, like there's no way this could be as good as Steve's book or Rick's book or such and such a book, um, but you just try your very best to just get something on the page. And then you pound your head against the wall over and over again, trying to rewrite and rewrite and fix and fine tune, and and then eventually you have to say I did the best I possibly could in this moment as I am right now, and you just have to put out there in the world. And uh, and that's what we did. And yeah, there's an athletic uh analogy there too is leaving it all on the field, you know. Um, and I think people, I think a reader can. There's there's a supernatural element in here. And it's like my friend who he's a diamond miner somebody I hope to get him on a podcast, but he's uh, he just he People say he has supernatural abilities to find stuff. But the truth is, he says, I I don't. I just I just look for stuff a thousand times more than anybody else. And so you end up and and then you you start finding that you can do these things. Or Malcolm Gladwell talks about the three thousand hour rule or the ten thousand repetition rule. Um, that's true and jiu jitsu right anything and in anything, right guitar playing, but you have to have an incredible passion for it in order to do it ten thousand times very rarely. Isn't this just like gift from having that flows down through your fingers easily? It's it seems like, Uh, we have that assumption when you think of great artists or writers or whatever pursuit it might be, we assume they must have something that we don't. But they probably don't. It's just like you said, having the passion of willingness to work for a long time, you can be like me and be utterly unemployable as a tree planter and a timber thinner, you know, in a trail builder. Eventually you gotta find something else. Yeah, could it? Um? I can tell you so when you're saying this book can't be as good as as Rick Bass or whatever the book is, the book is extraordinary. And I wouldn't. I would, I would take a different attack if I didn't really take that. Um. I just it is just you did it, and um it's it's a uh as we're we're talking about a little bit before we started. Um. One of the things you managed to do is is something that we need right now more than we've ever needed it before, which is to understand how we got the incredible things we have and you have managed to teach in this book. And it's the word would be to be didactic. Right, But as Jim Harrison wrote, he goes, but you better hide it because everybody wants to teach, right, because you feel like you've got something to relate. But you better give people a story and an adventure and not be putting on a little professor hat and and banging on the hitting them with a stick. You know. And one of the things you did in here is you have you have in it and it looks effortless, which it always does when you do it right. But you have given us this history that we cannot do without. I promise well that that that is the greatest compliment. That's what we're looking do. I mean, this is what I was hunting um and I just I was reading it and I was like, you have the history. You even go far afield from just public lands and do like, how did we restore the wildlife? You've got Pittman Robertson, You've got Danel Johnson in here, and they're all inside a narrative of you out in the field go into one incredible place after another. What kind of inspired me to do this was that, as as I alluded to earlier, I started heading out west. I started exploring public lands. I started hunting for elk and going to to this place or that place. And then in two thousand and fourteen and fifteen, then the land transfer movement starts picking up steam, and I'm starting to see, Okay, these places that have developed this tremendous love for and that I'm going out and spending every ounce of vacation time I have to see, and every time I leave Michigan, I want to dive in these places. Now I'm realizing they're threatened, and I'm trying to understand that. And during that whole period of time, I had this realization, I don't understand how we got here. I don't know I'm hearing these words like stage brush rebellion, or I'm hearing about this person or that person. I don't understand the context of the now. And if I don't know that, and I worked in the hunting world, in the outdoor world, If I don't know that, a lot of other people probably don't too. And then I start asking friends and family around me in the Midwest and elsewhere, and I realized they don't even know we have these places, let alone how we got there. So I realized there's this huge information gap. Um, So I started trying to learn myself and Then once I did that, I realized, Oh, there is information out there, but it's in these dusty old textbooks. There's dense not with dense history books, but the average person will never read. UM. So I thought, well, I'm not a a professional conservationist, I'm not a historian, I'm none of these things. I don't live out west. Um, I haven't been involved in these things for decades. Who am I to try to write a book about this? But I came to terms of the fact that I am the target market that needs this. I'm a person like there are so many other people just like me in Michigan or New York, or Florida or Georgia or Wyoming or Montana who don't know the context, who don't know how we got here, who maybe are unaware of of of even this amazing heritage and heritage that we have. So if I could write something from that perspective for those people that could do some good, maybe, UM and do it in a way like you said, that doesn't feel stodgy and slow and dense. It's it's in an adventure, you know. UM. And when I did, when I studied right and kilm Barn, he wrote a great book Call in the Wilderness. She told me, you you gotta give people seen if you want to give them expositions. She said, somebody wants to take a trip with you. They don't want to be lectured to. But but and she said, that formula, actually you got it's hitting. It's in this book, by the way, which you did unknowingly probably, But that's the way you tell a story, right, Um, and uh, I've never found that to fail. You can push it. She said. It was like taking putting money in the bank with like a story and adventure and seen and then taking money out of the bank when you're trying to teach somebody something or give them some facts. And um, do you do? You nailed that in this book. Um. One of the things I also when when you're saying you were the target market, you're the target audience you yourself, And so that the book also works as an exploration where you were you were going to learn these things as a person who loves something but doesn't know enough about it. But I'd also say that you are you And I think this is a where we are in Bozeman right now, like where we are with people all over the United States. Where we are b h A two and UM. And I've just come around to this reluctantly, like we are the man in the arena that Roosevelt talked about, and we definitely include all our sisters in that too, the man or the woman in the arena. UM. And because we love something so much, the onuses upon us two reach your hand out to somebody and say, hey, man, let me let me tell you a story. That's Hunter per Center and that's um. I I've told this story a few times were explained this, but basically I've had this career trajectory to where I went from could I do this thing? Could I write about hunting and and someday be able to make a little bit money from it? And then eventually was able to do that, And then it was the dream of maybe I could somebody do that as my career and I was able to do that, and then it was maybe I could be able to pay for my mortgage and hate for Spotify, maybe do that, and then and eventually got to a point that where I realized, Okay, what's what are my next goals? Where am I going with us? What? Um? What what do I want to be when I grow up, and I had this shift from just being able to make it or to make some money or whatever, to be able to love what I do, to how do I make a positive difference, Like how do I do something that matters? And it was right around the same time that this whole situation was brewing in the world, in the in the country, and then myself and I thought, this is this is that something you could do that maybe could could matter. And as you describe in a book, your own a trip when the when the Bundy occupation of mau here comes up, and and um, there's some incredible journalists covering that Amanda feature at O P b Argon Public Broadcasting. I mean I was just glued to that for a while, you know. And they they were, they were very well informed, unlike many of the journalist who showed up there and listened to what where they said and took it at face value. But um, you were you were actually put onto this. And I go back. I found Terry Anderson's report called How and Why I Privatize All Federal Lands Now in n and was kind of a watershed moment for me because I had been in the West for ten years, eleven years and I was just like, I was just hunting the Missouri breaks. I was just learning like the the the epic vastness of bom lands um doubt, you know, clear to eastern Montana, clear over to eastern Oregon. And I was I was really reveling in this stuff. And my kids were being born at right at the same time, you and I had that moment, and and it was it. It was like holy smokes. Yeah, yeah, you realized, Wow, this stuff isn't guaranteed, or the stuff physics. And we should have known that in a world of seven billion people, that people aren't gonna give free let you run around free on your on your own land. You know, it's very easy to take it for granted. Though everybody didn't and they still do. I mean, I mean, I have people that talk to me about saying and I swear I would swear that there's no they don't know what the federal government does, but they despised the federal government so much that they would give away their own land in an act of like what anger, like taking a chainsaw. It's not cutting off your nose to spite your faces, like cutting off your head with us all. Yeah, yeah, I can't and you go, I showed them. I can't explain that. But it's very present out there, that's for sure. But to your point, I mean, there is just so there's just just as today we are many many people, and at various times in our lives maybe were divorced from the natural world, diverse where we got our food as hunter as we try to reconnect there. I think the same thing applies to our land. It's it's for a lot of folks. For me growing up, it was just, oh, we crossed the ditch and that's public land, and that's where you and Dad go hunt, and Uncle Steve hunts on the west side of the public land and you and Dad hunt on the north side. And I never gave it a second thought, never wondered how we got that, never wondered how Glacier National Park can to be and why I could have this moment where my dad and I walked over the hill and a hundred elk ran across the river and I was mesmerized by it. And I can still see that scene in my in my mind right now. I never thought about what it took for me to have that transformational moment when I was ten years old. Um, when you talk about the Lamar Valley and here and that and and fishing and just being able to see every everything on the bottom. Yeah, like when and you know, like how do you get that? Right? Yeah? You know it's it's really easy to just to just enjoy that thing for what it is right now, which is good. You should it, right. That's weird about earlier. You want to enjoy the present. But every once in a while it's worth taking a step back and and looking at the bigger picture. Um. That's that Ed Abbey who infuses your book to um, you know a good way. But he said that that I don't know the whole quote, but he said, be a half hearted fanatic. Held, get out there and do this stuff, and do this stuff, be a half hearted fanatic. Yeah yeah, yeah. He definitely has has influenced some of my my thoughts and writing. We were talking about, um that I read him in high school. I was lucky in the My father was a fan of that movie. Lonely Are the Brave. Kurt Douglas is this ultimate anarchist cowboy and um, he it's it's kind of it's still a good movie, Um, but it's kind of didactic and um, it's like freedom and anarchy and cowboys and all. But it's a good movie. And it's based on a Edward Abbey's second novel or first novel, Brave Cowboy. I mean, you know, is that the one that starts off with, um, this cowboy that just just a guy that kind of walks, rides his horse up to a little town and gets off his horse, walks into a house. Um. I've read the first couple of chapters and it's a clunky book. Yeah, but it but it's good. Um. I mean it's got a lot of foam prints, as they Happy becomes the Desert Solitary Writer and the and the Fool's Fools Progress was one of my favorite novels. Um. But yeah, it's it's worth going back and revising some of that, especially as a writer, because you can see how much better he got. He's a heck of a writer. And I was we were just talking earlier, how I how I like these two different approaches to to talk him about something like public lands or conservation within this book. Even um, part of me really wanted this theme and this this idea and this is I personally think a lot about the fact that we need to find ways to work together, to find and compromise to reach a hand across the aisle or across the from Cabela's to r or whatever it might be. But hey, let's look past some of our differences and and stand up for these things we have shared love for um or. Sometimes you need to have a moderate way of going about things, and then other times you need to channel your inner at abbey and and burn the house down and have some piss in vinegar. And he was always he was a very controversial figure, passionate figure. He didn't have a middle gray area. He was black and white to a fault. Probably in some ways, in some ways I think where I think we all live in our time and um some of the of course, sometimes you're you live in the wrong time and it doesn't it doesn't catch fire, right, But he caught fire because it was the time for that. And um, I think maybe that that time will come again if it's not here now, I do know it's here in in some ways people need to become passionate and activists. Activists. But your book, I was gonna say, you could have seen this. You have written this book as a shot across the bow of the American Lands Council and the American Legislative Exchange whatever it is. You know, um, you could have written that as a is a direct attack, and you did not. The book is less a shot across the bowl than a tap on the shoulder. And let's let's let's talk here. Let's let me tell you a story. And I love that. Yeah, I hope it. I hope that's something that resonates with other people too, because I just I wanted it to be accessible. It wanted it. I didn't want to turn people off before they could get through it. Well, you you, you you got to earn their trust before you can give them a polemic. And you did not do the polemicist role here. You didn't do it, um. And and you know Stegner was a very and so that's where your title came from. Right. Let me read that quote. It's we simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in for can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures. A part of the geography of hope. Yeah, you can't. You can't beat that. And that's where you took your title, right, Yeah, I was. I was between the Geography of Hope or that Wild Country for the type, and I think there's been essay called the Geography of Hope. From this title, I decided to try to go this right, but yes, tremendously influenced by the words of Stegner and was a moderate. Yeah, yeah, it's there's a book called The Wild Within David Guessner. Yes, and yes it's Edward Abby. So it looks at this it's so interesting. They represent those two things that has talked about, those two sides of the coin, the two approaches to this. They both loved public land, they both loved the West. They both had a fiery passion for it. But they approached it in very different ways. And and it's it's how I personally try to approach it to I want something in me and I want something um and and try to somehow bring that to life, the firebrand and and and the diplomat exactly. Robertson sent me that book. Yeah, he's a friend of Guesser's. Yeah, he's a good guy. I just just chatting with him a couple of weeks ago. I just that's That was the first I heard that book, and I was I've been carrying it around, reading at it as I go. I like it. You look, it's perfect for this what you're talking about. There is um kind of a synchronicity. I think the police kind of ruined that term for me, the band, you know, but there's a kind of synchronicity and all this. You know. Um. But so in in all of this, you were you start, let's just talk about how you you did this. So you decided to start with the Yellowstone National Park, and you decided to go ahead and and and take the National Parks and the BLM and the First Service all together, which is which is bold? Yeah. Again, it came down to for me, just early on, I didn't know that there are all these different branches of public land, are all these different ways that it's broken down and managed and used. And so for me, for someone to have a basic foundational understanding of public lands and public land history, we had to at least define that, Hey, there are these different things. You talked to a friend of mine Detroit and they've got no clue at the BLMS or I think when a lot of people think, oh, America's public lands, it's Yellstone national parks like that's it. Well, so many times I've heard people go, well, they can't do that, they can't log there, that's a national park, and it's like, no, no, no, that's a national forest. It's been like providing logs for you know, a hundred years. No no, no, no. There's just so many gaps and it is confusing. So what I kind of wanted to do is is, um go on a series of trips that both fit naturally with the historical narrative that I wanted to share, but also in a certain way present the larger picture of our public lands were. So I tried to visit a varied array of places, different types of regions, different types of public lands. I had some BLM trips, I had National park trips, I had National Forest, had Wilderness area, UM, I will wildfe Refuge, And so I wanted to use those opportunities to also slip in the vegetables of information naturally as we went along. So as you, as you follow my own adventures through all these different places, doing all sorts of different things too, um, you naturally learned about the differences. You naturally learned about how these things fit into the progression of our public lands from you know, the original idea of of something the national park or national forest all the way to a wilderness. Um and what that means today and how we got it. I mean, I mean that that uh, the chapter where you introduced like the the battles over wilderness itself. I mean, those are some of my favorites because you, um, I've been at this a long time and you brought stuff like you regulations and all this stuff and with and they're the vegetables, right, but but they went down good. But that was stuff that I'm not I had to go back and look at that I did not do. You've got stuff in here that is a it's a deep dive without with with plenty of oxygen. Yeah, I got you. I gotta tell you. I'm I'm you know, for anybody who wants to inform themselves painlessly of this, this this book is is extraordinary and it's yeah, we needed it. I mean, that's what I mean. I was. I wanted to get down here and do this podcast and part just to to talk to you about the process of this, you know, um yeah, and it and it's it's it really it's it's it establishes you as an author but also as a hunter conservationist. This this book is is is. I mean, a person who doesn't hunt will read this book no problem, and that that's a great point you brought up. That is was one of the foundational things coming into this project that I want to do as well. I talked earlier about wanting to bridge those divides. I wanted this book not to be just a hunting book, right, I mean when people would identify me like I'm probably a hunter first and foremost other than a father and a husband hunter. Um, but I also love all these other things. And I wanted something that would be accessible and interesting to all outdoor users because I think all outdoor users need to come together for these places and we gotta find ways to to work hand in hand on some of this. And so I wanted something that again wouldn't turn people off, but also hopefully come out of this maybe with a different perception of hunting to um and maybe the reverse as well. Maybe a hunter would read this and maybe feel a little bit different about a backpacker. UM. So so yeah, I have backpacking trips. I have a back rafting trips, I have hunting trips and fishing trips, a little bit of everything in here, because I I wanted this to reach an audience of diverse people's, because I think this, this message of public lands is really important for all those people. It is it is, and it's and it and we we tend to get hung up in the inside baseball of of mountain bike and or e bikes or all this stuff, you know, whereas most of the people that we talk to, most people we know, especially for me in the South, they don't they're not they don't care about where your mountain bikes can be on the Missouri breaks. They don't even know where that is or why they can go there and enjoy it. And um, I tell people about the cat fishing on the Missouri, you know, and they're and they're super interested in that. And that's to see him Russell wildlife refusnia. What's that? You know? You gotta kind of find though these like you you mentioned it earlier with um, I can't remember how you phrased it, but you have to find different treat different doorways for people to come into something like this. And so for some people maybe it's oh, it's there's some hunting in there. That's my doorway, and I'm gonna read it because I know Mark Huncrot. But maybe that the doorway for somebody else might have been, well, I don't know. I see he's a hunter, but hey does a bunch of backpacking. I'm into that kind of thing. And then they come into it, or maybe it's something else. But if if we can get him in the door and through this this journey, hopefully they come out of it with this with a positive idea about hunting and hunters and anglers and they learn something or maybe a hunter. I mean, I don't know. I just would at least for me, that's the way I would like to go about my work is with with open arms. And so they join the family, Yeah, exactly. I'm not I'm not the person who wants to say, well, you're not just like me, get out of here. No. And and we've talked about this before, but it's like you don't want everybody to be the same or everybody agreeing or walking in lockstep um and and you treat people with a lot of respecting this and I and I've learned something from reading this book actually, because I was getting less and less objective about the Utah contingent. And and it's this, it's continuous assault on every aspect of public lands and and this vaguely couch hatred of of really the way our country is now, where everybody hasn't say and um I was um I was getting less and less objective. And as I read this, I realized that that I've been in the West, probably too too long. And uh, and your approach here was much more balanced. And the truth is is everybody does they do we need those voices at the table. Okay, those voices can't go to the president and demand whatever and get it. I don't want that, but but I'm I won't. I never want to be the kind of person who doesn't shake hands and listen. Yeah. Well that's and I say this in the book. One of the one of the things that's most frustrating about public lands, but also what makes them so unbelievably special, is that they are multi use. Is that there's a lot of different take holders with very different ideas about how to manage them, how to use them, and that can be huge pain in the ass. Sometimes they can drive us and nuts. Great great things are come with the pain in the yes. And so that's this like inherent and is never going to change hopefully in that I hope it never gets pulled away the other direction. Um, But that is going to be that tug of war that's going to continue for the next fifty years or hundred, hopefully hundreds of years. We can keep these places around and viable. Um, that's a reality that we could either point a finger and said this is horrible and complain about it, or we can say this is the reality we live in, how we work within that box, how do we do this in a way that's positive for the lark, you know, the greatest good for the greatest number, um. And so I've always kind of approached things from the rational standpoint there, but it's also really easy to to have the emotional, visceral feeling of frustration and concern. I also believe that you know, there's the Leopold quote that the downside of ecological education is that you live in a world of wounds, and I think the same thing exists for someone who pays attention to public lan issues. Is the more you paid mentioning and stuff, the more you see this being cut away at and this being attacked and these little things that fly anyth radar? Are you talking about the d what Brandy Newberg halls, Uh, you didn't use this phrase, but defunding decry. We're cutting the budgets for the BLM, and now we're gonna tell everybody that holy he smokes, these people don't do nothing. You know, why don't we just do something else with the land? And you know, and and uh that I think that that's a really good part in this book too, because it's that's something that unless you're really paying attention, you don't get that part for service death by a thousand cuts until finally or and you manage to get this in there too, or we industrialize the landscape so completely that nobody wants it. What's the point of protecting because yeah, we've already ruined it. Sorry. Yeah, that's the tricky thing is is you have to It could become if you if you pay attention, you want to pay. We want people to be engaged in this. There's also though, and I imagine you've experienced this because as you've been in it longer than I have, but there's probably a tendency to either get so upset with things that you either become bitter or you become apathetic, where you say throw your hands and say what can I do? And I think at least what I learned from this, from learning and and dissecting the stories of so many people who were part of this history, was that regardless of how oftentimes we might feel that we're not in control, that we can't influence things, the people that did were the ones who said, damn it, I'm still gonna put my foot down. I'm still gonna do the little thing I can do. Um. And those things add up. And you know, we've seen a few things recently that I think are encouraging the show. Hey, we still have a voice, we still can make a difference. And then you can look back fifty years ago and see how people had a voice then an influenced real change. And you know we're benefiting from it now. So we are, we are the beneficiary. So I mean sanely difficult decisions and hard work. Um. And Roosevelt and you you really bring in it, Uh, Colin Roosevelt in here too. Um. Ed Robertson mentioned to me, he said, I have about your book. I had no idea how much Franklin Roosevelt did on public lands issues following the dust Bowl, you know, um, and so much of that that can make me very angry, I'll tell you, because there was a lot of lands saying that I know really well in eastern Montanna who were basically homesteaded, destroyed, not out of note, not out of malice, just people trying to make it right in a place that they couldn't and then abandon Those lands then were taken back by the federal government under the bankhead Jones and restored. So much of it was restored. And now we have people saying, well, we want those and and you're I'm looking at him, I'm like going, dude, you gotta go back to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalga and you gotta come up with that six million dollars in gold or whatever it was we paid after the Mexican War. And then you're gonna have to fight. But you're gonna have to you can't have the American people's legacy. Yeah, it's yeah, There's there's so much in there and so easy to to never feel to wrap your head around. So it was tricky to try to figure out a way how do you distill a titanic ship full of information into a few anecdotes and a handful of key points. Um. But yeah, FDR was one of those characters who I had no idea previously what an influence he had, and what I liked about, um how he handled things, at least in regards to some of these public land decisions, was that he from what I understood and from what I've read and seen, is that he'd never tried to position himself as the arbiter of what was right, where as being the expert on how these things should be handled. He seemed to take a much more um, oh, what's the word I'm looking for here, delegatory approach, and that he would reach out to the experts. So he brought and give for a pin show. I had me different. He brought him Bob Marshall and said, hey, tell me what you're seeing on the ground. Where do we need to go with this? He listened to the Leopolds and the Marshals, and UM, I think that led to some decisions being made that really helped us out in the long run. Um. But also, I mean, right there, you look at the debates between FDR and and a Marshall about wilderness. Right. President Franklin Roosevelt was much more in favor of more development, more roads, more of that. Um and he had, you know, good reasons for something. Do you have an interesting part in here? It's the road through the Smokey's or through the Blue Ridge? Yeah, yeah, through the smoke He's there in the road right through a ridge through what's not the National Party that more people could enjoy it, right from some one approach that could make sense. But then, um, I still hear that about the Bob Marshall by the way, right, UM. I can't remember where I read it. I think maybe it was in this book I just finished, called The Only Kayak Um. But the guy said, there's when you're when you're talking about this topic. At some point more access becomes excess, and there's a there's a really fine line that access is important, but it can very quickly become access and um. And that was this debate raging in the thirties and forties when the c c C was building new campgrounds and roads and uh, fire towers, all these different things, which reviewed is progress and great by a lot of people. But then you had other folks saying whoa, whoa, whoa, rain it back, guys. Yeah, we're destroying the thing we're trying to protect. Yeah, and we of course we're still having those same debates today and and they yeah, and it's and some of that architecture and stuff they did is so spectacular still around. Yeah. And um, I think about Gates Park and the Bob and that's this incredible cabin situation and it's beautiful, like infrastructure, it's way up if you if you go up where y'all went up the North Fork, you jump the hump over into this big park system. It's freezing cold in there. People try to homestead that. Actually, at one point it's an amazing place. Yeah, I'm very jealous about time you're of your book backcraft in part really cool trip backcrafting and fly fishing in the Bob. Wow, that is a special special place and it's um and I and I Yeah, there's a lot here. I was gonna get you to read the very last page, but I'm not gonna do that because that that can be for the people who get the book, right. I don't. I don't. We're not we're not doing any spoilers on it, you know. But the the you are conclusions in in in Alaska. You know, um, there there's some powerful stuff there that people can lead. They can put this book down and take away energized. UM. And I was. I was interested to um. Beyond that, I like the fact that it that it ends in that massive landscape. It does. Yeah, And it's funny. We were talking earlier about how so many times we think that writers, artists or whatever have this like divine intervention it flows through them, and so so it wasn't like that at all for me. For this book. It was. It was hard. It was a lot of days sitting the blinking cursor, like oh my gosh, how I'm I gonna do this? But I had one moment of of that flow. It was it was it was two in the morning and I wrote the final chapter in a flurry of like, I don't know, two hours NonStop. Wrote that last chapter. It's it's my favorite chapter, is my favorite thing I've ever written. It just it just kind of poured out of me. It's like an emotional outpouring. UM. So I'm very proud of that. I wasn't glad that you like that. I never heard that that quote. I'm almost gonna look it up. Um, of the it's Peter somebody who it's a it's a quote on hunting of intersecting the line. Yes, uh yeah, that the great moment that only hunters no where where. I'll let you read it, but I'm gonna have to find it. Give me with me while you're looking for that. It is in a terrific collection of essays called The Hunter's Heart, which is edited by David Peterson. Yeah, I know David Peterson, and so that for one looking for another book, highly recommend that one. And within that there's a there's an essay where he he talks about I think it was an outcome and he had this wonderful description of that moment right before the shot, and um, do you want do you want to read it? It's just it's it's it's really hot, all right? Let me find word is here on the page here it is. Pete Done in a Hunter's Heart describes these final seconds as the great moment that only hunters know, when all existence draws down to two points in a single line, and the universe holds his breath and what maybe and what will be meet and become one before the echo returns to its source finding the bull cariboo in my scope, I squeezed the trigger. Sweet And that's how he used your quotes to build your own work. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful stuff. Thank you. And that was I don't know that. I didn't know that guy's work. It's a great I would recommend reading that, uh in anything with Peterson's two or he was a seminal voice in ilk cutting in there a book called ilk Hart that's a good one. And then and then uh, oh gosh, is it blood Sport or blood Uh? I don't know the other one. He has another really good collection of his own essays that are all related to hunting. And of course he's definitely uh get strong opinions which some might not agree with, but he certainly has a lot of passion and writer. He's a powerful guy. Um. And and he was he was he was doing it before anybody else. I mean, like to me, I mean he came of age and that he's Vietnam age. Yeah. And he was friends with the Abbey for a little bit there. I think he did some collections of Abby's letters and things like that. Well, um, so interesting guy, I have UM. I had a question when you're you're talking about the jeep rally and moeb I actually hit that this year in April, I think, And um I was, and I was. There was like six different languages being open at the gas station. Yeah yeah, and it was all these people though from Um, these people were from countries where such a thing would be absolutely unheard of. Grout um. And and I had the I just I love that chapter because I had the same impression. I go, Okay, you gotta get a grip, buddy, because these people are enjoying the hell out of this, and they're from countries who long ago have lost any concept of public lands and and public like access to go territory stuff right with the monster truck. Yeah, but um, we are you familiar with Jim Style stuff? The Canyon Zephyr, I don't think he was. He is the one you should read Jim Styles. Look him up, um and uh Canyon Countries Zephyr. I think he's a reporter in moabb he's he's Edward Abbey years and he um he's like the recreation industry is just as bad as the uranium industry, and um, and he makes he's he's very smart, so he makes a lot of sense. But you you're finally Um for me, I'm like, no, it's not as bad as your radium industry. That's how that's my personal take. I'm not here to judge Jim Styles because he's older than I am and he's been there in the trenches for forever. But um, Jim is that you should read his stuff. I'll check that out. But I definitely I mean to that point, I found myself over and over and I felt this for years, and then I had to confront my own emotions and thoughts when while trying to make this write this book right. So I had to kind of confront my own biases and all that as I'm as I'm I can get so angry, feel frustrated with these things I'm seeing out there, disheartened, pissed. It can ruin you a good time, right, Yeah, absolutely, But then I've tried to get better at stepping outside of my way of looking at these things, are my way of enjoying these things and think about think about where these other people are coming from or how they're and engaging with the landscape, and would I rather than not at all? Not? Because because if you know, if somebody wants to go out into a national force with eighteen kids and scream and hoot and holler and have a great time. Maybe it kind of ruined my experience what I thought I was gonna get this. But if they're having a good time and that leads the to them appreciating these places, someday, maybe they'll do something to keep them around. Every one of those kids might become the ultimate advocate. You never know, the guy got our girl who fights it out. So so I've I've constantly trying to remind myself that not everybody has to be just like me and how I enjoy these places. Um, and and there is a there's a there's a there's a filter, though I try to pass it through. And I mentioned it here in the book somewhere. Um, when you're thinking about how to balance all these different ways of using and enjoying our public lands and all the various stakeholders, it can be hard to it can be hard for me to sit here and say, no, this is the way it should be done, this is how I think it should be done. And I'm right, I'm coming from my own perspective that I'm coming from my own set of circumstances, I'm looking through my hunter's lens or whatever might be. Um, how do you balance that with all these different stake holders, all these different ideas. And the one thing that I think is helpful that I took from the past all this research was taking the approach that Theodore Roosevelt always advocated for, which was always passed through the lens of what's going to be best for the next generation and those to come. Look at this situation, look at this decision, look at this controversy, look at these opposing points of view, and think about what that might mean twenty years from now or thirty years from now. And if you can pass it through and it's going to keep this stuff around and keep it positive and viable, if we're gonna make sure this is available for our children and their children's children, then that's probably right. It's kind of like all the Leopold's quote when you're talking about you know, if it tends to work with nature, it's probably right. If it tends to work against nature is probably wrong. Well, I would say the same thing with public lands. If it tends to be positive for future generations, then we're probably airing in the right direction. And I think that one of the things I I've got from a Stephen Pine, the fire historian, was UM. He said that that the Forest Service itself needs to kind of redefine itself in the wake of being a fire suppression agency or or and all this this stuff, he said, and to build towards perhaps on ecological resilience UM. And that word is everywhere now resilience, resilience. But but it's not that it's just because it's huge, law don't mean it ain't great. UM. And to to build those kind of UM ecosystem services, those ecological communities which also work on a huge number of levels. You can still ride a mountain bike from it. You can still probably go monster truck. And in part of it, you know, UM. And James Pogue, who wrote Chosen Country about the Bundy's UM, he he ends up in that book and in real life of course with the books non fiction, but he's UM. He gets to be friends with this guy who builds monster trucks and they go bang banging around on monster truck sometimes for like eighteen hours at a time. The guys obsessed and UM. I talked to James about that, and I was just like, you know, is that's your thing, you know? And he said no, but it's his and he's a friend of mine, and I got to see it, and are I can appreciate his way of of this of pursuing this freedom. Yeah, it's it's a tight one. Man. It's hard these days to do that because we're so surrounded me whether it be in the digital social media world, so much of us are kind of sucked into. Now you can be I mean it's said all the time now, but this echo chamber, it's really easy to get into our little zone, our little group of people are a little ecosystem and never have to pull out of it and look at things from somebody else's perspective. And that's so true when it comes to public line. So it almost takes like a proactive approach. You have to constantly have a little self talk with yourself saying, hey, you know what, take a step back, think about this from a different perspective. And I think it's a helpful thing, and I think it's probably the only way that we're going to be able to move this whole thing forward in positive ways. We have to uh, whether just be American politics in general or public lands are people we probably need to do a little more of that. Yeah, And and we don't live in a in a a dictatorship, you know, we don't live in a place where somebody can be so right and then impose their will on others. You know, We've chosen not to do that kind of uniquely in the world. Um and and so when you choose that path, that's a difficult path, and you've got to embrace that difficulty. You know, that thing you're talking about in writing this book and challenging your biases, you know, that's a spiritual discipline. I also can highly recommended to people who want to write, or want to do podcasts, or want to do anything like outside of say just roofing a house or or fixing a car. Right, if you want to do something that that is large in a on a more abstract and larger level, that's the first thing you do, is you challenge your biases. And that can be one of the most interesting spiritual discipline in my in my experience. Yeah, well, anything that anything that's in this book, anything where where I have shared an idea or a suggestion or a we need to do this, we need to think about this, or this is something that we as a people are struggling, whatever it is. Every one of thoseens are simply things that I'm struggling with right now and working through right now. I mean, like this, this book is simply a communication of my internal battles and challenges and trying to figure this all out myself. And and in many cases, I think there are things that are are happening all across the country. We're all battling with these same questions and inner turmoil and and and it's there every day. I was listening to all that stuff and I don't have a smartphone or anything. I was just listening to Brigador Radio and it's just like it's just it's it's so boring to you know, the process and all. But when in the NPR versus the Fox station versus all this stuff, and I have a what did that? Not intentionally? Intentionally, I just just not part of my life. And I'm hoping to to I want to be informed, but I don't want to be drowned, you know. UM. But one of the things and in this and it's in your work here in UM, we have to know that when we are over across the table with people who disagree with us on one thing or another that we and they are acting in some sort of good faith. And that has not always been the case with the privatization of public lands movement. And we should understand that there are people who do not say what they mean, and who will tell you falsehoods, and who will couch their agenda in other things that come out. And that's when you that's when righteous anger must must must be sustained and applied. Right that was um in In. You have an incredible quote in their um where during the pushback against Teddy Roosevelt's um forest reserves and whatnot, one Western senator said with google eyed, bandy legged dudes from the East and sad eyed, absent minded professors and bug oologists, and you know that is the perfect that scorn ridicule. It's all. It's the last bastion of like somebody who's like furious and they're losing. And when I read that, I went and looked up Linda Beck, who was the carp researcher at mau Hir who was trying to restore they want to restore the red band trout, and the carp had muddied the water so much that they couldn't get any light through two falster the aquatic vegetation and the and the whole um whatever you call that, the food chain that would would allow them to restore the red bound trout. It also was messing up the irrigation and the agriculture and all that stuff. Right, So she was the carp researcher, and those is what ran Bundy said. And there he said, yeah, this carpet lady, this is part of what is destroying America. And Ryan didn't know anymore about what was going on in that office and that research. Then I know about astrophysics, you know, and so one of the things, and on on many sides, I just will full and scornful ignorance. We can fight over process, if we can agree on goals, we can fight over method. But I wrote that's what I was woot in your book. But we cannot yield to ignorance or messianic religious beliefs that will take us all over Cliffe. That's where we have to that. We have to draw a line. Yeah, draw a line somewhere. It's it's figuring out, it's it's getting people engaged in the process enough that they can start to start in between those two is a challenge. But once you get in there and people are in the arena understanding what's happening, then you can start having those You have to plan a flag on the hill at some point, and you have to We often choose the sword we want to die on. Do you think if you explained what the carpet lady did to run Bundy that he would understand it? But I think there's sometimes there will be people or groups that simply don't care because they've there are such some sometimes such strong ideological stances that aren't necessarily supported by rational evidence, but are simply because that's just I'm not saying a literal religion, but a figurative religion of ideas, uh that if you present anything different, they'll just look at it as rubbish because it doesn't fit that worldview. Just you know, damn the evidence. Um, that's why you do armed rebellions, I mean armed attacks instead of unarmed attacks, as you're not there to learn about the research being done well. And it's the same thing with like hunting. There's gonna be some portion of the of the populace out there that's going to be vehemently anti hunting no matter what, and they're going to no matter what conversation would have them or how you present it, they're never going to change their mind. They're never gonna be willing to consider what we're doing or why we're doing or how we're doing it. UM. So in some cases there's it's it's like beating your head against the wall. There's no point sometimes with trying to convince that person. But there's always most often there's a large middle ground who is open to new ideas or rational evidence. UM. And that's the audience I think we can can speak to and work with and um where there's opportunity. And I think that's what one reason when I finished this book it was there's there's a I don't know if it's in yours, but it's just like what we're talking about here is hope and UM and the idea that informed citizenry will often it'll be excruciatingly slow maybe, but we'll often make the right decisions. And that's what we're we're that's what we're working on, that's what you're that's what you're doing in this this adventure book. You have to have hope, You have to have faith. I mean, I was just thinking about this the other day. Von Shnarda always says that the only cure for depression is actual and I think that's so true. And so there's two ways you can go about it. You can look at this world of wounds, as Leopold called it, whether it be ecologically or with the attacks on public lands, and you can either look at it from the perspective of, gosh, the stuff keeps getting attacked, gets worse and worse, the the sky is falling down around us, and you can throw your hands up and say, what can I do? You can get depressed about it or just turn off and stop paying attention. Or you can take the opposite approach, which is saying, yeah, there's a lot of things going on. I can't control at all, but I can do something right. I can. All I can control is my actions and my decisions, and I'm going to choose to do every damn thing I can to to be on the side of the good, on the side of the positive, on the side of the action. Uh. There's a there's a line in here that I found from Theodore Roosevelt, and I'll miss quota, but he says something the lines of Theodore Roosevelt. Um always preferred the man that took two steps to the man that theorized about. I got that. It was great. Yeah. It's one thing to think about it, and it's one thing to theorize. But do something, one little thing, um, and that will lead to another and another. But the best antidote is action. Yeah, and and and and and to have a somewhat of a thick skin need to optimism needs some thick skin. Um. One of the things I kept I've been noticing amongst I have a large group of folks that I keep in touch with. I mean, I've been less that way, you know. Um, and uh, there's a there's there's a feeling of that things are so broken that you can't do nothing about it. Oh, it's so corrupt, right, But actually the United States we're following a little bit, but it actually ranks fairly low in the international corruption indexes. Yeah, and to say democratic republica congo or and all. But even even amongst the upper levels, we we have a fairly good right and so that excuse for apathy it's not actually valid. It's it's funny. I certainly can't being relatively new to the arena myself. You know, I'm only thirty two years old. UM. I don't want to claim to say that I know what I'm talking about all these things like this, but trying to learn from those who came before you, UM, it seems to be the case that, UM, yeah, you have to keep trying. You have to try to stay positive. At least that's the approach I'm certainly gonna try over the next thirty two years. You've done it in tremendous amount of information gathering, research reading on people who actually took the first step and accomplished incredible stuff. I mean, there's several of these things in here, of of John F. Lacey, who's a personal hero of mine, even though I'm from Alabama. Was my my family was on the Confederacy side, right, But John F. Lacey was from West Virginia. They pioneered Iowa. He joined the army at age twenty. He was captured at Blue Mills, the Battle of Blue Mills, and then paroled and went immediately back to the army and then stayed in until the final blast. And then he's the one that wrote the antiquities at so sometimes and I think I've said this on my podcast before. Sometime I see these lesser beings who have have experienced no fire that we know of, try into attack the creations and and the the accomplishments of John F. Lacey, and I just it very hard to hold on to your objectivity at that point. It can be and I'm sure every decade from here and out, I gotta believe I'm gonna find myself having those kinds of moments more more often probably, And you can remember John F. Lacey and you know what would what what would he do? Like? Like what what's happened here? Eight term Republican senator from Iowa? You know? Um in public services? Whole life, the ninety two joints, the Moon and Crocker Club. I wrote all this down earlier because I just was like, as in your book, there are as we spoke earlier, and I know we gotta get wrapping this up, but there are doors in this book the great writers, great thinkers, and there is a there is a clear portrait of how Americans have achieved fantastic things over and over, despier It's inspiring, if anything, I came out of this whole project from all all the all the reading, all the research, everything I try to dive into to just better place myself in the now. I came away with with absolute optimism and inspiration and hope because uh, they did it, then we can do it now. Um. They laid the blueprint for how to do it. They showed us as possible. It's not gonna be easy. As Randy always has to say, it's not easy, it's not convenient, but it's worth it. It's one of my favorite quotes are Randy's. And I think about this all times. Conservation is not convenient, and that's it's a choice, you know. Um, And there's all there's there's winners and losers and all of it. But in the end, they what we're talking about was was to to maintain the integrity of something that we've inherited. That's what we're trying to do, you know. You know, Yeah, this's a hell of a torch. Those path stunned us, it was. It's a heavy burden you have that in the book, to the responsibility oldment of it. Yeah, I feel that a lot. We're so lucky to have it we have now, and it's I think it's it's important to remember that it is a responsibility now on our shoulders to keep that going. And absolutely after becoming a father, I felt that a whole lot more personally. And I've got a second one arriving a two months, another son coming and yeah, thanks, and that just it makes us unbelievably personal. It's not just about my own what I'm gonna be doing for the next fifty sixty years, but what's the world they're gonna grow up in. Um kids have and I'm only just learning this now, but they've got a way of really changing the timeline you think on and how you do world they do. Um it also, uh, it explodes the concept that you're the most important thing on earth. And in my experience, I tell people that that raising these children with my wife, who which was really good at it, I was a work in progress. Um. They it's been the largest like adventure of my life. And um, they're they're big now, but they the adventure continues whether you whether you wanted to or not. You knowing, like in your in your book you're talking about like adventure is not really comfortable. It's like gallons of sweat and running out of water and falling and having the sewer flow come out of the out of the camper, right. But it's, um it, this is what I wanted to pass on. And and you you'll do it because you're I mean you're you're deep in the arena with this and and it's it's a spiritual discipline to write this book. It's a spiritual discipline to be a father. And you, man, we've got something my kids and I have, and my wife and my kids and I especially they hunt with me. And this is something that I it's an obligation. There's no way I could repay it. I can't even begin to repay it. But I can try. I can act his act. Yeah, and so what's I'll quit? What's got? What's next for you? Well? Um, you know, uh, doing a lot of cool things here with the Mediator. Actually been working on a project here, most recently called The Back Forward, in which I'm looking at the flip side of all this, which is some of the issues related to private land conservation, which has been a really interesting thing to learn about. Um. But I want to write more books too. That's I think that's when I'm when I'm seventy five, and looking back, I hope I've written, Um, a bunch of books that can stand the test of time. Yeah, body of work. I loved this process. This is the of everything I've been blessed to be able to do. I've nothing has been harder, but nothing has been more fulfilling, more probably this than anything else I ever done. UM. So I would love to continue to explore these types of issues, issues related to my love for the outdoors, wild animals and wild places and and what we can do to keep them around and keep them healthy and sustainable. So I don't know exactly what those stories will be. I don't know exactly where they'll take place or where they'll take me. Um, But that's what I want to do when I grow up, is share those stories and share those lessons, um and hopefully leave a positive impact. I think you're in it, and I appreciate you saying that, but um, and I'll be interested in sal read whatever you you right? I mean is this This is a This is a hell of a freaking launch. But I can't tell you how much that means because you've been inspiration from I've read your work for so so many years, and I've always looked at the things that you've put out there to the world like, man, he's got it. You're you're conveying, You're getting across this sometimes hard to digest information in a way that is emotional, in a way that fired me up, in a way that helped me take the next step. Um, you were one of those people that helped with this book too, so so thank you him. I appreciate that. And and it's it's written like you, all of that stuff was produced, and it was produced beating your head against the days, all of it. But it comes from that same will of like absolute passion. You're like, you're like, this is just too incredible. Yeah, you know, I just love, love, love love these places. Yeah. I love what we're able to do. The luckies people in the world, as far as I'm concerned. That's why I feel too many well Mark, I will um uh. They can check out. People that want to get more can do the wire to Hunt podcast. Um and you do you still are you running a blog? Still? So now all of my articles live on the mediator website. Okay, so that's all the meat Eater dot com and you know, the wires on podcast um and the books available on Amazon and where books are available, right on and then then the book is that wild country and epic journey through the past, present, and future of America's public lands. Thanks for doing it, man, Hey, thank you. I can't tell you how much how much I appreciate it. This has been fun. Thank you you bet. This has been back Country Hunters and Anglers podcasting blast. Um how hearing we're signing all for this one, but we'll be you back in a week or ten days. And meantime, check out back Country Hunters dot org get some more podcasts there and see what we're up to. And uh. Also, I'm I'm gonna be out there wandering around hunting and fishing, wearing out a pair of boots, and I hope you'll be doing the same thing. We're living in God's pocket. We need to celebrate that, never forget it, and get out there and and live it and enjoy it. Hey, thanks a lot, everybody, talk soon. And that's a rap for me to thank you all for listening to this unique version of the Wired Hunt podcast. And big thanks to Hell and back Cruntry Hunters and Anglers for hosting me on their show sharing all this with their audience. Um, hopefully they all enjoyed this as much as I did, and I hope you did too. I will give you one more ask if you haven't yet, would love it if you could pick up a copy of That Wild Country for yourself or a friend or a family member. I put my heart in sold to this. I hope you can see that and feel it, and here as I talk about it, and as you read the book, I hope you find it valuable to learn something from it, that you enjoy it and um that maybe it can give us all a little push to do a little bit more. I know that in writing this book for myself, it gave me a huge kick in the butt to try to do a better job of of walking the walk. It's not always easy or convenient, but as Randy Newburgh has reminded me in the past, it is always worth it. So with that, my friends, I will let you go. I hope the beginning to has been a good one for you, and I hope it's a wonderful, wonderful year that you've got laid out head to you. So until next time, thank you for listening, and stay wired to hunt.

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