Welcome to the Jack Mountain Bush craft podcast Episode 128. Welcome to the Jack Mountain Bush craft podcast. With your host, Jack Mountain Bush craft school founder and Master Main guide, Tim Smith. I'm your host, Tim Smith. I'm a registered master main guide, and have been a full time outdoor instructor and guide since founding the Jack
Mountain Bush craft. School in 19 99. We help people become more skilled, more knowledgeable, more experienced and more confident in the natural world through our Bush k guide training semester programs and multi week canoe and Snows expeditions. You can check out the show notes to all of our podcasts through at blog dot
jack mt n dot com. If you're interested in learning more about our college accredited and Gi I bill approved programs Visit the Jack Mountain Bush craft school on the web at jack mt n dot com. And check out our online network and digital Learning Academy at bush craft school dot com. Hello, and welcome back to the jack mountain Bush craft podcast. I'm your host, Tim Smith. I'm here with Jesse G. How's it going
today, jeff?? It's going good. Good. It is Thursday, July eleventh we're recording this, Let's last night, we had the wren of a hurricane come through and dumped a couple inches of rain on. We were supposed to get an of frame today, so we made the executive decision to cancel class for the day on
week 4 of the Wilderness Bush craftsman. Semester, cancel class on Thursday and then make Saturday, a class day, figured we would be more, productive when we're not battling inches and inches of rain, but what always seems to happen whenever we cancel class based on the weather, the weather changes. So it's still very cloudy and overcast, but that extra inch of rain that we were supposed to get today has not materialized yet. So it's mid morning.
It's probably gonna come tomorrow. Yeah. Now it'll come tomorrow and ruin our plans but it did we did lose power this morning, like this whole our whole road. I don't know. I haven't been out. Away from here. So everybody lost electricity. So we're doing this old school podcast style like they used to do podcasts in the 18 hundreds. So we've got a certain ke lamp that we're using to illuminate our digital recording studio. We're sitting in large, high backed V or
arm chairs. Yes. And wearing smoking pipes, And I'm wearing a smoking jacket and a top hat. You too. Yeah I'm Yeah. But 1 of the beautiful things about kind of living the lifestyle off the grid lifestyle even though the the... H hq. The headquarters here at the field school is on the grid is we're totally set up to be off the grid. So you know, if you lose power, it's no big deal. We've got water. We can't lose our water system here. We've got hand pump wells. We've got compost toilet
out houses. We've got a variety of ways to cook. So we made made a nice pot of tea on the alcohols stove. So, you know, 1 of the nice things about having those levels of resiliency built into your systems is like, who cares if the powers out. Stove Who cares. Yeah. I I don't care. Just a little bit of of current events here for for our audience out there in Podcast land, coming up a week from now, July nineteenth to 21, in Columbia Maine, the ninth annual puck brush primitive gathering.
If you are interested in bush craft, primitive skills traditional survival ancestral skills hand handcrafted. You should put this event on your, on your radar, and you should make every
attempt to get out there. I still haven't ever made it to 1 of these, just because we always seem to be busy during the weeks that they have it in the summer, but the pretty good friend of mine, Tim Be has been involved with this event since the get go and real talented guide teaches the canoe polling stuff down there. So you should make every attempt to get there. We're gonna put a link to it in the show notes, but you can visit their website. Where is their website on here? It's on the back.
Just Google it. Butter brush, primitive gathering. Yeah. Puck brush primitive gathering. It's only 25 bucks for the weekend. That's crazy. Only 25 bucks the weekend and that includes camping. And they cost 25 dollars for the weekend. Yeah. Anymore. They've got this a tent set where they're making food all the time and getting... So you can purchase food when you're there, so you don't even have to pack a ton of food to go. Down there. Columbia main, way down east, not too far from Mach Maine.
So if you're familiar with the the main coast, the down east main coast, in that general region. But great people, you should go. Other current events, we're near the tail end of we week 4 of the summer 20 24 Wilderness Bush craft semester. And due to all the recent rain we had, we went out at, just posted the video this morning, but we went out and had a great day on the water a couple of days go coming down a local stream, and it's like spring high water.
The biggest difference between now and spring is everything's in flour. The grasses are all super tall choking off some of the more narrow waterways. And we have, you know, some nice little fun wilderness helpers with us in the form of deer flies and horse flies to make sure that we're covered up. Love those guys.
You And just... I keep getting bit by these horse flies and then, you know, you you don't feel it and then they're biting you, and then you slap them, and it's, like like half a pint of blood in your hand and all over your leg, and you know it's your blood, not their blood. They're pretty rugged. They're pretty they're pretty rough right now. And it's always seems like hotter it gets, like... The more there's, like a heat wave or real hot weather. Like the deer flies are just worse than.
Wedding and itching. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to Northern Maine. If you're not freezing your itching. Yeah. So so we've got that going for us. Wedding but the current course, the folks on this course. They're pretty much crushing it. Like, we're way ahead of schedule. People are really putting in the hours and and, you know, knocking out the crafts, knocking out the academic work, knocking out the skills. So yeah. Kudos to them. They're they're. They're doing
great. As a as a group too, you know, everybody's kind of bringing... Everybody's energy is bringing everybody else along. With them. So they've got a great kind of
group energy and super proud of them. So let's transition right into our topic for the day and and you know, what's the point of of studying traditional skill sets, studying traditional cultures, studying Bush craft and the the terms change the skill set hasn't changed since probably the paleo era, but every couple of years, the terms change because they get cooperative by the marketers. You know, 1 year bush craft was this new thing and then a couple years later. They had
700 dollar bush craft pants. For sale. So, like, yeah. That's what happens. And that usually is what pre changing of the terminology. But, you know, what is the point? It's Wait. So you won't be releasing a limited edition, Jack Mounted bush. The trousers. Pretty funny. We have a thing a couple of years ago. I won't name the cup company, because, I mean, they're... You know, they're... If you've spent 700 bucks in a pair pants, they're probably pretty good. But we we had the Jack Mountain
expedition... Winter expedition trousers, and they were for sale, and it was just... You know, I often... I run pretty hot temperature wise, so I'll just go get a real crack be 4 dollars pair of sweat pants, and those are my winter expedition. Trousers. All wear wind pants over them, but, you know, that's that was the the the Jack mountain and expedition trousers are for sale. Right. At, like Martin's, other surplus places around the world
right now. Nice. But, yeah. The... So... But but to stick to our point yes, what is the what is the what is the point? What is yes. So we had a couple of thought things that we had thought of. So 1 was the aspect of resilience and practical skills. Yeah. Example, case and point today with losing electricity. If your systems, your life's systems, if you will, are built around not having outside inputs to make them run. You're just that much more resilient. They're you're
that much more self reliance. So today, we lost... Or this whole area lost electricity. But, like, our toilet and sanitation system doesn't require elect electricity or running water. You know, we made a big pot of tea on a little camp stove of alcohol stove doesn't require electricity or, you know, outside stuff. So you're just that idea about having being that much more resilient. That's 1 offs shoot of kinda living
that lifestyle. Absolutely I'm gonna go make a fire later, get a hot shower going. Can do some laundry, and I'm not gonna need electricity for any of that. Yeah. It's great. Or, you know, even if it's... An electricity isn't necessarily bad. Maybe you generate it on... We do that here. Solar panels and whatnot, keeping the keeping the phones and other devices chugging alarm, you know, batteries, charging batteries, all those things, but but that type of lifestyle makes you that much more.
Mh. Resilient. Absolutely. Yeah. The next point that we had was kind of the phyllis philosophical reasons for doing this stuff. So I'll make the claim. You guys have heard about the the 1 percent, and usually they're pointing in the finger. It's, like, super rich people and billionaires, But Mh I'll make the claim that chronological our modern culture... We're 1 percent... We are the 1 percent. So if we look at the hip ministry of of humans on the planet.
It goes back a long way. When I was a kid, I remember being in school and them teaching us that it was only just a couple of thousand years years ago, when we emerge from caves, all wearing leopard print sing and, like, which you still wear, which I still do wear. And I'm not gonna... Years I'm gonna say that I wear because I look good in it. Like, I don't know if I make that thing look good or it makes me look good, but we look good together.
Since then, they've pushed back the dates of anatomical modern humans, I think currently, we're somewhere around 350000 years ago, that the people who lived then, same as us. Right? If they knew our language, their brains were the same size, like, just same as us. If we knew each other's language, we'd probably just chat about what's going on, and they lived a vastly different lifestyle. And I think as, archaeology becomes more what's the word I'm looking for? Not skilled, but
technologically competent. I think that date is gonna be pushed back for they're and further and further. It's just harder to find. The longer you go back into the past, the harder is to find the evidence. Mh. Further But so we've been walking around for that long, you know, 1 percent of 350000 years is 3500 years. So if we went back 3500 years, that was basically when I was a little kid what they taught us when we emerged from the caves.
So it's drastically different in in a few short years, and I'll make the claim that there been 3 huge. There's probably in a lot more than... 3, but what come to mind for to me is 3 enormous changes in how people live their lives.
The first 1, maybe it happened somewhere between 9 and 5000 years ago and that was the rise of agriculture, you know, before that, the evidence leads us to believe that we were mostly hunter gather slash fishing cultures that agriculture dramatically changed how people lived on the planet I'm gonna say the second 1 is the industrial revolution. So 17, 16 to 1800 somewhere in
there. People went from living on small subs systems farms and other people living further out, probably still hunted and trapped or kept herd. For most of their food and their lifestyle. That was a huge change going the, you know, the in the agriculture, than the industrial revolution for And the third big 1 that we're still in the infancy of was the Rise of the Internet. Like, that's for dramatically changed how people have
lived. And I think that you know, we're 0 point 00001 percent of humans that have ever walked the... Planet based on that timeline, live life like we do. So that makes us, like, you know, probably much more we're much more elite than the 1 percent let me adjust my mono. Yeah. But if you think about that, like, we are connected therefore from over 99 percent of our existence and what we've have evolved doing.
Agreed wholeheartedly. I think if, you know if you went back if either was went back in our family line and met somebody from 200 generations ago and just sat how to sit down. Like, let's have tea. First of all, they'd go nuts because they probably never had caffeine, but just more. But, you know, like... And just interview them,
hey, what what's important to you? What... Mh. 1 of the best things in your life, you know, and it would probably be community, family, a real visceral contact with the natural world. And then, you know, if you ask somebody... If I ask you, you know, right now living in 20 24, it would probably be the same thing, but we're so disconnected from those. From the basics. Yeah. And I think that that has led to a lot of modern people feeling incredibly alienate and kind of...
There there's this term species loneliness. Have you ever heard of that? No. So it's this idea that humanity as a species because we have separated ourselves so far from the rest of nature. We... As species have have this loneliness whereas, like, the rest the trees and the animals that exist in their wild state have continued to be a part of the ecosystems that they evolved in.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I've fed so many bugs off of my body in the last, like, a couple of weeks that I don't I don't really feel disconnect. Okay. We feel, like, you know, my Dna is now a part of those deer lies horse lies mosquitoes black flies, no C. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you... You're read be linking with the with the food web there. Totally. III get where you're going though, and I
think... Yeah. Yeah. It's probably true That that, you know, even though the the promise of the Internet age is, like, we're connected out to the global Yeah you know, But I think the result... The actual result is that we're disconnected from everybody local to us, and we've never actually connected to anybody, you that's not local to us. So it's Yeah. It seems like a big bait and switch, the whole
Internet community thing. Yeah. There's the promise of total connection, but then most people's actual experience of it is feeling surprisingly disconnected. Yeah. And I think along with that comes with this sense of kind of nature literacy people don't know even the names of the the birds, plants, trees, fungi, rocks around them, and it's like, not knowing your Abc abc's. Right?
So I tell the folks on, like, the 9 week semester courses, we're gonna be intensely studying all these things but, ultimately, if we grew up in, like, a traditional culture, a land based culture, everything that we're gonna learn here, including all the advanced stuff, you would have learned by the time you were, like, 7 or 8 years old as a little kid. Mh.
So... Yeah. Like, I'll make the claim pretty regular that the the people walking the planet today are the dumbest people that have ever walked the planet with regards to natural history with regards to looking at the night sky and knowing the the lore of the night sky with regards to knowing the plants in your region with regards to the tracks with regards to really everything regard the natural world. Mh. And I don't think that we're dumb per s than
people in the past. Modern people, we have a lot of hub risks as a cold where we think that every other previous generation of humanity was just, like, an imperfect attempt to try to be us here at the top of the technological Pyramid, which I definitely definitely don't believe is the case. Yeah. I kinda disagree with you that word dumb. I think that where we've directed our intelligence to be hyper specialized. Right? So people are really smart, but on a very narrow
band of of things. And I think that most people historically and pre historically were more of generalist. And that's kind of something that I've kept through throughout my life is this huge curiosity to have a general skill set and knowledge of of a wide variety of things to be able to you know, be able to cook and find food in the forest and be able to paddle a canoe. Like, this kind of general general skill set is what is often lacking. Let me qualify the dumbest general attention because I
think... Yeah, that did sound kind of bad. How about... I think all people have the same potential for knowledge and intelligence. Yeah. Where... And it's... I think it's usually culturally chosen, where the culture chooses to direct that. Mh. It's So if the culture says, you know, we... We're not interested in knowing every plant that grows in your yard and the people of eden it or used it for medicine in the past. Then people probably won't value that and and
won't learn it. And I think that's where we're at, whereas, you know, we have a culture that values you know, in modern American culture, we value money. So if it can't make your money, it can't be that valuable. So I think that's what I meant. When I said, we're the dumbest. The least knowledgeable about the natural history and things that you can't translate directly into money. Yeah. When and basic existence skills. Right?
Yeah. If you live your life with all you've got is a smartphone and a credit card, you can basically get it. If you got enough and like, in the account, Like, yeah. I have your food delivered. To have anything you need delivered. You know, you just...
That's that's all you need whereas compare compare a modern b person in, you know, in a high rise, 1 of the larger urban areas with, you know, a Stone age hunter back in the day, basically, there's, like 700 middle men in the modern world that's gonna be yeah focused on getting you everything you need. And if you were dropped off somewhere and and maybe this is a benefit of some of kind of reality Tv shows where modern people get to
go that. Have that experience, and they're always like, man, that was really hard or I get a quit This is too much. Yeah. And as, you know, our our modern techno technological civilization gets more more to that state where you don't need to do anything. You could literally stay in a high rise apartment like you're saying, work on your computer online, order all your food from Uber eats, some you don't have to do the dishes or crook or even have a body. What was the movie about the...
Wizards Wall, like, all the humans were like a spear spaceship just... And they couldn't even walk. They're we like floating around totally. Yeah. So it's kinda like, you don't have. To do any of the human things, but then are you are you really a human at that point? Like, tough to tell. Yeah. So I bringing it back to the outdoor skills, bush craft, ancestral skills. You know, we don't need to forage mushrooms or light fires in order to survive anymore.
Maybe if you're out and out in the wilderness, you do, but you can get live an entire lifetime. You can probably even be happy without doing any of the stuff that we have dedicated our lives too. But you can do it by choice, and I think that both of us believe that doing it by choice is gonna have some huge benefits. There's a real reason. Yeah. Absolutely. For me, personally, it's like, I just wouldn't wanna live any other way. Like, I I like... Yeah. I I find it personally pleasurable.
I get bored. If I'm just sitting around, I get crazy board, and and, you know, I wanna move my body. I wanna be out, like, pushing a canoe around in the water. I wanna be dragging a sled with snow shoes. I wanna be exploring the landscape and breathe in the clean air and physically exercising. Yeah. The too much idle to me is, like, Oh, it's it's awful. I I really don't like it. Yeah. And there's all those studies out of Japan, like, with the forest bathing stuff are you heard of that?
The, I... Heard the term, but I don't know much about it. I mean, it's just kind of a scientific validation that literally being outside in the forest heals you. It makes you healthier. It
can help fight off disease and everything. And I I feel that in a subjective sense, like, the more time I spend outside, the more I feel a sense of well being and I feel physically healthier, mentally healthier, emotionally healthier, just by being out there and I I think it's just like, the benefits that come from doing basic human stuff. Yeah. Agreed that maybe we weren't supposed to just be staring at smartphones and ordering probably not. And and at and it seems like the people that that's
all they do. They they don't seem to be that overly happy. Obviously, subjective anecdotal evidence there, but, you know, that an that sort of disconnect we have. I think that's at least a part of it, Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But other, you know, other philosophical reasons for for... Engaging in that sort of lifestyle. For me, the older I get, it just... I don't know if any other is even an option. It's the only life you've ever the only life I've ever known.
Yeah. So maybe we can move on a little bit to, like, the bay the vocation, the career, the professional side of this. I think people might be curious about that. Yeah. You've been doing this for a long ass time. Yeah. Full time this is... Year 25. Yeah. Yeah. It's... I'm in year 1 of doing this professionally. So, well, I think it's interesting to hear the 2... Perspectives, you know, lit totally. And things have definitely changed a lot since
I started doing this. And and to be honest, like, I'm definitely not current. I don't really know who's in this industry and and what they're doing. Because again, like, I don't I don't leave Artist very often. So it's kinda cool being up here. You know, we stick this part of the Us as part of Maine, Rooster county sticks up into Canada, we're surrounded by Canada on 3 sides. So I don't even really consider myself that I live in America. When people ask me, I'm like, I I live in the
county, you know, I don't live America. If I gotta go to America, I gotta go all the way down south Bang or. And once I get sell through too, then I'm down in America, but up here at it's the county. So I even say if I'm going down there. I'm like, yeah I'm going down south to America, or I'm going to South America. So... And I haven't been to South America in a while. So... Getting back to our topic. Yeah I'm wondering what has kept you with doing this for 25 years?
That's a good question. Have you made it work and and why have you stuck with it? I think for me, like, when we started doing this, if you don't, here's the quick version of the story, I... After finishing an undergraduate degree, bought a 500 travel trailer, move to Alaska spent a year there, washing windows with a friend of mine, going fish and doing a lot of stuff. Realized I wanna live early, but I didn't wanna keep watching windows or nothing or pound nails or anything. Nothing.
There's anything wrong with that. It just was... I wasn't super interested in it. So went back to school, got a master's degree education, was able to do that for, like, hardly any money we're and, like, I think, 13 months, it took me back then. I don't know what it is now. It would probably be dramatically different. And then when I finished that, young single, no dependence, Ted Met in couple of guys that were very influential on me.
Main guide named, Raymond Reit was a huge mentor to me, and then, Canadian, some of you guys have heard of Morris Ka. And both of these 2 gentlemen had spent... Made a career working outside, kinda doing what I wanted to do guiding trips, teaching courses and things. So I said, yeah. Maybe I'll try that for a year and then get my regular job. And now it's kinda 25 years later, and I probably couldn't get fine to. Very short resume. Yeah. Very short resume.
But the thing that really allowed us to do it full time. My friend Dan And I were teaching courses and running trips together for a year and then we decided to... We came up with the idea for the long course to do a semester course. And then you're like you and I were talking about earlier before we hit the record button,
Jesse, the the beauty of the long... Running longer programs is that you just have to kind of fewer people each year interested in order to make a living at it, and that was what allowed me to make and living at it and then you know, over time. It it grew... That's grown a little bit every year, and that's, you know, luckily for luckily for me, has given me that. Kinda longevity in this business. That's great. Yeah. I don't have a whole
lot of regrets about it. So and I still enjoy getting up and doing it every day, and I think if you can do that and, you know, do it with a smile on. That's great. Yeah. I think that for me starting my business, it's that that quality of life is 1 of the big milk motivator, the flexibility to, you know, plan canoe trips into my year and to be able to spend significant amount of time outside.
And the freedom to, you know, come up for with an idea for my own course, something that I would wanna take and then put that into the world and see, oh, people are into this, and I genuinely have something to contribute. It feels like I can have a concrete impact even if it's pretty small, but if I can, you know, get small numbers of people to feel more connected to nature and to their human nature, bring a little bit more joy and happiness into the world, than I think that that's a beautiful
vocation, beautiful career to to pursue. Yeah. I
think so too. Yeah. And I'm based in the city at the moment like, I give my classes outside of the city, but I think that there is this interesting position of being kind of in the heart of the beast, and, like bringing people from that world that, you know, probably work... A lot of people at work office jobs and very urban lifestyle, bringing them outside of that world that they know and being kind of a an ambassador and introducing them to the the Woods life and the skills of
outdoors Bush craft and all of this. Yeah. A lot of modern people because they maybe weren't raised rural, it's scary. It's an unknown, And I've I always Thought that knowledge is an antidote to fear. Right? Just like action is an antidote to anxiety knowledge is an antidote to fear. So Know if we can, learn something, take an action, then we're getting rid of both fear and anxiety. Which is... Yeah. That's... If you can do that for some. So. That's great. And especially if it's
not gonna... You know, you're not you're not going to a doctor and getting pharmaceutical drugs to achieve that end, you're just going and experiencing the natural world. And it sounds kind of a little bit fu food, but really, if you go back to that 99 percent of our ancestors live in certain way we live differently. Maybe we try to reintroduce them to that more human life ways, and and it really
resonates with people. K Absolutely. And as as an instructor, like, obviously, we have to have certain skill set to do this stuff, but I often think that we're... We are kinda setting people up so that nature can do the teaching.
Right? Getting people into the forest to experience it's, the seasons, the weather, the plants and animals, that's really the the content that does it's a lot of the teaching end it's our job to basically create situations where people can be in a a state that's could help them learn and not just have, you know, an adverse experience of freezing their butt off or burning themselves or being totally... Costed by horse sliding. Yeah. Oh wait. That's
that's my experience. Yeah. There's a old kind of, very popular saying an outdoor education was let the mountain speak for themselves. Yep. So, yeah, You get the people out there, and show them a few things so they can beat they're comfortably and feel safe. And then when they have that experience, then, you know, the mountains or the woods or the ocean or whatever you're interested. Acting with can speak for itself, and I think there's there's a lot of power there.
Yeah. 1 of my favorite lines acting my good friend, Ben Mc from the Uk. I think it was 2009. It might have been 2008, but we're riding in my old horrible dodge van across Northern Quebec. We were on our way up to U j. And we were having a similar discussion. We were having you know, what's the point? You know, what do you what do you... And I think we were phrasing it on that discussion like,
okay. So you spent a significant amount of time and energy studying Bush craft or traditional skills or or whatever you wanna call it. What do you do with it? What's the point? Why bother? And he had the line that it allows you to experience even just for 1 moment, what it actually means to be a human being. And obviously, this is what 15 years later in that line. Still resonates to me still
think like, wow. That, like, he nailed it right on the head there, because I do think that's you know, that's it. I don't think in our modern world, we're not asked to be human beings so much. We're asked to be consumers. We're asked, to be, you know, customers where asked to be this. We're asked to be that, but not about looking at the entirety of the human experience and and experiencing that. Touching that. Like, that's sort of outside the realm of what the
modern world asks us to be. We are animals and our nervous systems evolved over hundreds of that thousands of years to expect a certain type of stimulus that we no longer get. So no wonder people are depressed. Yeah. Thousands I make the claim though that we didn't evolve from Apes. We're still apes. Oh, yeah. What we have a cell phone today? Apes self phones. Yeah. Yeah. That's a we're kinda dangerous because of that. Yep. Yeah. Anyway.
We got anything else that worthwhile discuss here today or... It's beautiful work. It is beautiful work. And I also said to you before we were recording, you said, why do you keep doing it? And I was like, well, nobody else would hire me at this point. If you work for yourself long enough, you're unemployment. So there's that. There's that. Well, thank you for, joining us on this exploration down the philosophical rabbit hole. Yep. And we'll hit you back again soon with another
1. Have a great day. Take care. You have been listening to the Jack Mountain Bush craft podcast. For more information on our professional wilderness training programs that are college accredited and Gi bill approved, visit us on the web at JACKMTN dot com.