Mark Kenyon, welcome to the podcast. Hey, thank you for having me. So because I have to head to school in a little bit, I want to ask your senior year of high school, your English class, where are you sitting? What are you doing? And what was your grade? Hmm, geez. Wow. The details. Heater ready. Yeah, the details will be a little bit iffy, but if I remember right, I was usually sitting somewhere in the front half of the class in English because I liked that topic.
I enjoyed writing sort of, and I definitely enjoyed reading and my grade would have been pretty good. I think I was getting A's in English and, and were you kind of curious about, I might miss the front part of the question. Were you curious about what I was generally doing and thinking that time of or just the grade and where I was sitting? Well, sometimes people are doodling about something else and they're planning their life outside of it.
So were you an attentive student? Did you pay attention? Did you answer questions? Or were you showing up late with McDonald's? Yeah, so again, I was pretty decent in English. So I was showing up on time. I might've been thinking a little bit about the future, but if it was an engaging part of the class, I would be paying attention.
Now, so I loved reading even back then, but I definitely remember not liking the stuff that was assigned in English class as much as the stuff I would have picked out myself. So I would have been interested in reading books about climbing mountains or going on some big adventure somewhere like Alaska or hunting or fishing or sports.
Those types of books would have been really engaging. I remember, though, I was not excited to be reading and talking about Jane Eyre or Of Mice and Men or something like that. So I definitely would have been daydreaming about wishing I was either doing or reading something else. That's for sure. So I can't imagine that you were thinking when someone asked you, hey, what are you going to do after graduation?
Oh, I'm going to go to Michigan State and then I'm going to start a website in 2008 and then I'm going to get a job at Google and then I'm going to leave my Google job to pursue my website. That was probably not in the answer of what I'm going to do. It definitely was not. I had no idea those things would transpire. If you told me that I was doing what I'm doing now back then,
I would have been really thrilled. it would have sounded great but I don't think any of these things seemed within the realm of possibility I think at that point in my life, I thought that I was probably going to do something related to business, but I had really no clue what that would look like. I did not have a clear sense of mission or purpose or really any kind of direction of what I was going to do. So anyone in that stage now should not feel bad if that's how they feel as well.
Because I think it's pretty common that when you're a senior in high school, you start getting this pressure to know what you're supposed to do. Like, right. You got to make some choices about if you're going to go to college and if so, where, and if so, what are you going to do? Or if you're not going to go to college and what kind of job are you going to get? And I don't think anyone really has it figured out right out the gate. Very few, at least.
I had a student last year. I was asking him what, what their dreams were. And I said, it doesn't matter if you have a dream or not, just move forward in some regard. And if you have something that stands out as a pursuit, then that's great. But a kid said he didn't have a dream. He just wanted to be a lineman. I was like, dude, you have a career that you want to pursue. That's great. And he said he wanted to go down to Idaho to do that. I said, phenomenal elk hunting.
You're setting yourself up very, very well to have a very happy, content life if you work hard. So as your journey is kind of changing and evolving, what were some of the key moments when you were maybe in college? Why'd you start the website? And then later you get the job at Google, but then you go back to the website, like how did all, what were some of the, I guess, influences or what motivated some of those decisions? Yeah. So, you know, the, the key foundational thing.
I guess the foundation that has led to where I am now is the fact that I was raised in a family that valued the outdoors. So all of our time on the weekend, not all, but, but if we were ever going to do something special, if we were ever going to go on vacation, if we were ever going to go somewhere, it was usually somewhere to do something outdoor related. So we were going up to Northern Michigan to our cabin to hunt or fish or scout.
We were heading somewhere to go camping. We were going to my mom's uncle's place in the Adirondack mountains of New York to go canoeing and camping and hiking and all that kind of stuff. So from a very early age, I was steeped in a love for the outdoors. So that has always been my thing. But as I went through school, there was also a little bit of interest in business and marketing and advertising. And so when I was heading off to college, it seemed like that would make sense to pursue.
I never imagined the outdoors was a place you could make a career. So when I went to college, got a business degree. The website came about the summer before my senior year of college. I had taken an internship in New York City working for an advertising and PR agency. So I was living in Manhattan, right in the middle of the concrete jungle, doing this internship that I thought was kind of like the dream job, supposed to be at least. And I was miserable.
I was stuck in the city and I couldn't get outside to do the things I loved. I was surrounded by noise and chaos and concrete and missing the outdoors. And my job was working with websites and bloggers, people that had websites and blogs about products that my clients, you know, wanted to, to get out there to the masses.
So I was, you know, reaching out to a blogger or a writer and trying to encourage them to write about Reebok shoes or to encourage them to write about Tommy Hilfiger or whatever it is. And that's when I kind of realized like, oh, wow, there are these people out there who have a passion for something. Maybe it's sneakers, maybe it's fashion, maybe it's sports and they're writing about it. And then people are sending them free stuff and people are paying them to do
this. And that's kind of what I realized. There was this whole world beginning online around passions and projects and, and different activities. And I thought, well, why couldn't I start something like that about my passion and my love? So that's when I decided to start this website called Wired to Hunt. And it was just basically a way to scratch the itch. I couldn't go out deer hunting. I couldn't get outside hiking and scouting and doing all that kind of stuff, but I could write about it.
And so, yeah, the summer of 2008, I started this website and that kind of got me through that summer in Manhattan. I come home at night and work on this thing and kind of think back on all my memories and write these stories and explore other aspects. And it helped me feel like I was doing those things. So that was the first big inflection point when I started that.
Now, fast forward a year later, and I took a full-time job now after college with Google, as you mentioned, and they send me out to their headquarters in California, just outside of San Francisco. And again, I'm feeling the same kind of way. I'm feeling like I'm stuck in the city. I'm around people that aren't interested in the same things I'm interested in. I'm missing the outdoors. And I returned to Wired to Hunt as a way to scratch that itch.
But it went from being just a way to kind of satiate my desires to actually a career. After I read a book that first probably month while working at Google, I read a book called Crush It by a guy named Gary Vaynerchuk. And the book was, the subtitle is Cash In On Your Passion. So it was all about building a career around what you're passionate about and using the digital tools and economy to do that. And that's when I realized like, oh, wow, I could take this website that I built
as just a fun thing to do. I could turn that into a real career opportunity if I really doubled down on it and took it serious. And so that was the fall of 2009. That's when I decided to really get serious about learning how to build an online brand, learning how to use online marketing tools, learning how to write well, learning how to use social media and all these different platforms to share my message and my stories. And from that point on, it was work, work, work, work, work.
I'd do the full-time day job at Google. Then I'd come home and work all night on Wired Hunt. I'd get up early the next morning and work on Wired Hunt more. I'd work on it during my lunch break. And it didn't feel like work though, because I was so excited about it because I was so passionate about it. And that's been kind of the story ever since I continued working on Wired Hunt for four years while working at Google.
And then after four years, I was able to quit Google and go full-time in the outdoor world doing this and continue that for another eight, no, another four years more of doing that on my own. And then four years later, joined Mediator, merged what I'm doing with Wired Hunt with a larger Mediator network. And now it's been, I think, eight years doing that. Mm-hmm.
As you're deciding whether or not you should make these big jumps what was that conversation like was it did you make a venn diagram was it a pros and cons list or was it kind of a just, jump some people just jump at opportunities burn the ships whatnot or are you a little bit more methodical when you're making these decisions definitely on the methodical side i am a analytical guy so there were pros and cons lists there were thinking through best case scenarios worst case scenarios,
developing safety nets and contingency plans and thinking through long-term strategies, all of those kinds of things. But when I made all of these big decisions, I would say there was a couple North stars. The number one North star was following my curiosity, excitement, and passion. Because one thing, my grandpa was one of the first people to instill this in this. And then my father is just if you are truly passionate and excited about
something, if you love it, it won't feel like work. It will feel like something you genuinely want to do. And if you genuinely are excited about your work, you are going to excel at it and you're going to work really hard at it. And if you do those things, well, then everything else will take care of itself. And so when I made decisions that allowed me to do that, to follow that curiosity, excitement and passion, it's always led me in the right direction.
And when I have that natural energy source, then yeah, I would work all night and all day because again, I'm genuinely excited about it. When there's a fire in your belly, it's really hard not to do really good at that work. And so that was the number one thing. The second thing I would say with, with many of these fork in the road decisions.
Is that I've learned that if there is one of the two options that is a little bit scarier, that I can feel apprehension and worry about it, if it will force me to get outside of my comfort zone and will force me to grow and change, I usually know, I've found now that that's usually the way that I should go.
So the decision that's going to force you into a new area, force you to take that next step force you outside of the comfort outside of the comfortable that's that's been a clue to me that yeah that's what you probably should should head towards and that served me well so yeah those are a couple of the things that have been on my mind as i've made these decisions i've tried to pursue things that i'm excited about i've tried to pursue things
that i think there's an important cause or mission behind that that's guided me in these later stages of my career as I've moved from just being able to do something that I like to now wanting to work on things that I think make a difference. And that's been important as well. There has to be some elements of, like people talk about the careers and if it's something that you love to do, then you never work a day in your life. And like, that's a really great ethos.
There has to be days or times when it is a slog though. So how do you get through the slog? And I look back at my teaching career. And there are times when you kind of have that youthful exuberance too. And then after a while, sometimes it's not burnout because you still feel a purpose, but some days are easier to get through than others. There are certain things that you have to deal with now that you think, man, this is all the extra stuff.
I would like to get back to those foundational days when I was staying up late to do this, because it was the actual thing. And how do you combat maybe the, I don't want to say stale, illness because it seems like you're super happy and you're loving it, but times where it's not as easy as it's not maybe what you first expected. Yeah, no, you're 100% right. There are times like that with any job.
I think you're going to have that because it's a job and there's going to be some days when even the thing you originally loved begins to feel like work because there are the obligations of work placed upon it and the pressures of work placed upon it. And then there are also parts of jobs that are just inherently not as much fun, right? The administrative stuff or the, you know, there's going to be boxes you have to check.
There's going to be sometimes people that are hard to get along with or whatever it is. So yes, that is all true. And that is true even for my job that, you know, in many ways is a dream job, but I absolutely have times that I'm burned out where I'm frustrated, where I'm not enjoying it. And I would say there's a couple things that I do. Number one. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and bear with it because that's just part of life.
But I do often try when I find myself ever kind of spiraling in negativity in those moments, I will have to kind of pinch myself and step back and try to have some perspective and remember where I am and how fortunate the circumstances are. And even on the bad days with what I do, it's still so much better than the best days of what I used to be doing. So having perspective is really important for me. I have a kind of a daily practice that helps me with this a lot.
I just, it's really simple and maybe it's cheesy, but every morning I write down three things I'm grateful for. Specific things. So it's not like my health. It'll be more specifically like a very specific thing that happened yesterday that I'm thankful for or a very specific thing that happened this morning.
And I think in the context of work, that's very important because you can get so caught up in the everyday drudgery or whatever's going on that you lose perspective about how genuinely good certain things are when you're just stuck in the day-to-day slog. So having that perspective, having that gratitude helps and having that practice kind of gives me a moment to pause and remember the good stuff.
Secondly, I would say, you know, I continue to remember that you're never, or at least hopefully you're not ever stuck in any one lane forever. And so sometimes I'll find like, man, what used to be the thing that did it for me maybe doesn't quite do it for me anymore, or maybe not 100%. And so in moments where I've been feeling that burnout and times when I'm feeling the drudgery of it, or I'm losing the passion, I will try to uncover where that flicker still is and feed that.
So, you know, maybe it's just realizing like, gosh, you know what? Like an example would be, I do a podcast as well. I do a podcast every week. I've been doing it for more than 10 years now, generally about the same topic every single week. And sometimes that can become, I'm losing areas to explore that are new without it becoming kind of the same old, same old.
And so to rekindle some of that excitement, I might say, you know what, we're going to go in a totally different direction for a couple of weeks here and dive into this other thing that I'm really actually genuinely interested in that maybe doesn't seem like it relates to our usual topic. But actually, there's these very surprising connection points here. And so by kind of allowing myself to go off the reservation to try new things, that will reignite some of that excitement too.
So giving yourself permission to try new things, giving yourself permission to chase those butterflies of interest that maybe you think don't necessarily belong, but taking those moments can go a long ways. So those are a few of the things that have helped me. Yeah, monetizing the passion can be a tricky thing because it ceases to be what it was. I have a bunch of friends who said, you should guide during the summer.
As a teacher, you have the time off, so you should guide. Well, if I'm guiding, then I'm not fishing. I like to fish. I don't want to teach people about fishing because the rest of my career is teaching people. Yeah. So are there times when you need time for yourself? Because I do freelance writing too, and there are some times where I'm out there, and I don't want to write the story that's happening.
And I'm already thinking about the column that I'm writing and I'm already thinking about this and angles and I'm not really enjoying the experience as much as I should because I'm worried about angles and I want to write a successful article and I want to write a this, but it's not looking like the deer are going to cooperate. So do you have times where do you just, like this is an off the books hunt or this is, I'm not going to write about it. This isn't going to be filmed.
This is just me and nothing else. Do you have those moments or you have those opportunities so not everything is a marketable experience? Yeah, I think that is critical to have that. Like that's the trick to being able to keep it fun and not all, because the work side of it just completely changes the experience. And so, yes, I need to, I try to increasingly find times to have hunts that are just a for me experience hunt because that's what refuels you.
That's what puts gas back in the tank to allow you to still enjoy it and allow you to do your job when it is that time. And for me, you know, most of my work related outdoor activities are on the hunting side. And so fishing for me is something that I love just as much, but do not have, nearly the obligations from a work perspective on that. And so fishing is like the place that I go to refuel.
So hunting season, that feels like work a little bit more. Still love it, but there's all the work pressures. Fishing is just pure joy, pure filling my cup. And that is the yin to my hunting yang. And so that refills the tank. That gives me a lot of energy and excitement. And there's no strings attached. There's no obligations attached to it. And that's been really important for me to have that too. So yes, I absolutely agree.
If you're going to try to build a career around your passion, that's great. I'm very glad that I did it, even though there are times when it feels like work, that's okay. It's still way better than I think it would have been otherwise. But preserving some of that still just for you, creating those spaces, creating those opportunities to just get back in touch with why you got into this in the first place, that's so important. That's a perfect segue to your summer adventures in Alaska.
I know you'd been here before, but it was the king salmon that you caught this summer. Is that the first king salmon? And then you also went to Bristol Bay. So, I mean, those are some, those are some, some bucket list moments. Yeah. So like you said, second visit to Alaska, but absolutely a just incredible trip. Didn't catch a king. I caught some cohos, got some big, some big silvers, but, but yeah, first time fishing in Alaska. and it was.
It was everything you could dream of i'm sure it's different living there but being someone from down south you dream of alaska all your life and to finally get up there and to do these things see these things with your own eyes it's it's spectacular so i like you mentioned i went up and i did a deer hunt in southeast alaska that was incredible got to get up in some alpine territory do some do some serious hiking up there and climbing up into the alpine and seeing deer doing
their thing unbothered by people just uh just an incredible setting and and hunt and it was successful tagged a nice black-tailed buck up there got to do some trolling down there around juno and caught some silver some big fish that was really cool saw some humpback whales got to hike up to a glacier and see all that that was spectacular and then as you mentioned then And for the second week, went up towards Bristol Bay and fished for rainbows on
the Quijack River and got to learn a lot about what's happening up there with the proposed pebble mine and just really sink my teeth into a incredible watershed and caught all sorts of rainbows and few salmon and a bunch of big grayling and just, just loved it. I'm hoping to be actually coming, going back this year again for a different project and, And, and, you know, I probably Alaska residents don't like to hear of, uh, Southerners wanting to go up more and more.
Cause I know you want to keep it to yourselves, but, uh, I think you're gonna have a hard time getting rid of me because I, uh, I'm going to get up there as much as I possibly can. I think it really depends on the story that people tell, you know, Ketchikan is very dependent on tourists. We had 1.5 or 1.8 million people off cruise ships this last year. So it's without logging, without logging.
Mining without these other industries that have gone out there's really nothing else as far as infrastructure goes and so we need that that revenue so it's a it's it's it's a tough thing we we are reliant on them but it is a lot of fun to be able to see people come up and really appreciate it you have the people that come up in there they expect 50 pound king salmon and they're rude and they're entitled in there you know but there's also so many people who are so excited
to see a humpback whale you can't help but think man i don't even like look as much anymore or like probably not humpback whales because we like those but even like eagles people are just fascinated by eagles like man yeah yeah i i should be more fascinated by eagles i get to see them all the time i should appreciate that so i think it is a reminder for people when people come up and they tell the story of of wonder and they love it and they want to preserve it they want
to like responsible use of it and i think that's a really beneficial thing but yeah it's it's. There are times when you start to think, man, this is getting a little bit crowded. That was always one of the temptations that I had as a writer. I could write about where to fish and how to fish.
But then I thought, man, this is my home river. And I remember growing up and there were people who would come to the river and they would kind of push us off the spot and they would, because they spent all the money to come up here. And then, you know, I'm just a little 12 year old kid, you know, and they want to catch the fish because they paid the money.
And so I have some of those memories and i don't want to resent people for it because that was just you can't paint every tourist or every fisherman as that person who was a jerk like that was an isolated that person was a jerk so people come up and tell great stories and care about it and want to protect it those are they're the people that alaskans often really really like so what was the what was the project was it just fun or was it just what are you working on.
Two projects that actually one i have a film that i'm working on for meat eater that will be coming out sometime this year and that is what the black tail deer hunt was for and so that's going to be the story of this black tail deer hunt and a larger kind of ecological story that that i'll.
I guess it's a little bit about sick of black tails as well as other species moving into alaska and why that's happening and how that's happening and what that means for the future so that's a larger project that that'll be really interesting. I'm excited to start sharing that with the world. So that was part one of the trip. And then the second part of the trip, which was involving the salmon and the trout and the fishing and pebble mine and all that kind of stuff.
That is for a book I'm working on that is exploring the biodiversity crisis, basically the threats to fish and wildlife across the world. So this book is about that situation, specifically in America. And, you know, the angle and opportunities that hunters and anglers have to be a part of the solution to that. And so I've been traveling the country, meeting with different hunters and anglers, conservationists, researchers, scientists to understand what's happening.
Why are so many fish and wildlife species struggling or threatened in various ways? And what can we do to make sure we can stop the bleeding and protect and conserve these critters, these critters and these wild places. And so that's, that's what that part was. Pebble mine is super interesting. I'm on my third bumper sticker because it just never goes away. It's, it's, it seems like it's dead, but it never goes away. And that's, I've never met an Alaskan who is for it.
I've met some people who are okay with the road to Ambler just because it's, it's an access road to an area that most alaskans can't go anyway and some people they they look at the dalton highway and think well the hall road was not it was just meant as a is the service place for the pipeline and now that it's open to the public you can access an area of alaska, that you wouldn't ordinarily be able to access not everybody can can afford fly outs and whatnot so.
People are kind of they're okay with with drilling they're okay with maybe the ambler road and other people say no to the ambler road because obviously it's going to be there's going to be 2 000 or however many culverts and it's going to cross six or nine major rivers and you know it's going to intersect the lower portion of the brooks range and so that the amount of habitat that's going to be impacted if not ruined is going to be substantial whereas bristol bay is so absolutely
clearly absurd and destructive i i can't i i'm terrified still even though it just always looks like it's about dead. So what was kind of in the back of your head as you're fishing? Was it, how can people be so greedy? It was it, there's also the technological piece. Like we, the more technology we use and the more electricity we need and our use is so high, there's a demand for all these minerals and we have to get them from somewhere.
It's like, oh my gosh, there's, it's certainly not easy, but. Yeah. I mean, a couple things were on my mind throughout the entire trip. Number one, I was just constantly struck with this realization that... What we have, or what you have still in Alaska is what we have. You can say we. We are Americans. So what we have in Alaska is what we have mostly lost in the lower 48.
And I find myself all the time down the lower 48, traveling across the Great Plains or hiking up in the mountains and thinking to myself, man, this is great. But can you imagine what this must have been like when Lewis and Clark first struck across this in the early 1800s? wow, what that must have been like when they had herds of buffalo streaming across the plains in the tens of thousands or millions. I find myself imagining that all the time.
And then I get to be up in Alaska in the mountains and watching thousands and thousands of caribou stream across in front of me. And I remind myself, I am living that right now. This is what it used to be light down in the lower 48, but we still have it here in Alaska. We still have that. So there's so much still intact that is worth protecting that we've already lost in the lower 48. So let's not make those same mistakes again. What we used to have is still there in Alaska. We can protect that.
It's incredible that we still have that now in 2024.
It just seems even more important now than ever to protect these last remnants of wild that we have in the world that is a increasingly rare resource and and it just seems to be something that is is so precious that it would be an absolute tragedy to lose that now to your point there are ever-growing demands for resources and we need that for modern life but i just feel like these wild resources are just as important as gold or oil or timber and and
golly we're not going to get them back once we lose them and so there's got to be a little bit of there's got to be a little bit of value placed on that and so a lot of it though comes to bring attention to it helping under understand the value connecting people with those things so while i was up there i was thinking about the fact that gosh this incredible thing worth fighting for still there was a little bit of this worry like you mentioned like golly you know the demand
for these things are unsatiable desire as a. Species for more more more right that's scary you can become a little nihilistic when you think about it because you look at the trend of you know the last 200 years 300 years it's just we're We're biting away at this stuff more and more and more and more and more. And it's really been hard to slow down. And so sometimes I'll get kind of negative about it.
But then I'm reminded that every once in a while we catch ourselves and we stop and we pause and we fix things. And I think when you look at what we did. In the late 1800s, early 1900s, that was a really good example of what's still possible because, you know, we were flooding across the United States and destroying basically everything in our past. So many wildlife species nearly went extinct. We almost lost buffalo, elk, deer, bear.
I mean, everything. Everything was basically brought almost to a screeching halt. And we tapped the brakes and we said, whoa, we've gone too far. We didn't realize we could actually make an impact this way. We really can. We need to change our ways. We need to find ways to do this differently so that yes, we can grow as a country and as a civilization, but we can do it in such a way that we can still preserve some wild places, still preserve these other species alongside of us.
And that changed the trajectory of our relationship with wild animals and wild places. And that's the only reason why we still have flourishing populations of elk in the lower 48 states and white-tailed deer and grizzly bears are making a comeback again. And there's wolves again, there's mountain lions spreading across the country again. And so in many ways, we have proven that we can right our wrongs. We've proven that we can moderate a little bit.
We've proven that we can take a different path. And so I'm hopeful that we can do that again. And that as we're kind of nearing another one of these inflection points where a lot of wild places and wild animals are, are again trending down and the pressures are mounting. I guess I have faith in us as a people that we can care about something more than just ourselves. And so being out there in Alaska on this trip, I was reminded of how powerful, how powerful these places and animals are.
If you can connect people with them, if you can connect people with these landscapes, you can't help but feel something really deep a deep connection to these things very primal that can then i think help. Give a person a reason to want to moderate, to want to work, to advocate, to fight for these things.
And so that's one of my jobs, I think, is helping connect that, is helping bridge those gaps, is helping people understand that we still have this amazing, amazing place and resource and wild animals that are really deserving of our care and respect. And I believe we can do it.
That's kind of how you closed your book that wild country with you were talking about you were in the yukon charlie for the caribou hunt and then talking about the keeping it because i think your was that your first born was was still it was was pretty young at that time you took the trip, away and you wanted that kind of flipped a switch that it's not just about me and preserving it for me but it's also for that next generation i'm feeling
that too with my daughter's almost four months old and just, well, what is she, what is she going to have? What's going to be left? Like what experiences are she going to, is she going to be able to, because we're going to take her out on hunts, but you know, when you're one or two years old, you don't really remember it. So there's going to be pictures of her, but you know, what is she going to be able to experience and what's that going to be?
Yeah. Yeah. And that has been a, a huge motivator for me was since, you know, since having kids, I now have my boys are almost, almost seven and five.
Now they turn seven and five in a couple of weeks. and that's crazy how how fast that's happened and that's what that's what gets me more fired up than anything to just keep on working on these things to keep on doing anything i can to protect these these opportunities these places these animals the wild the wild places and animals here on this on this earth have given me so much i mean so much so many of the greatest experiences of my life have come from
these wild places and I so badly want those opportunities to be there for my boys and I just feel a strong obligation to give back and make sure that that's available for not just my own kids but but other generations too it's just. Being out there is so powerful, being able to, whether you hunt or fish or backpack or climb or hike or whatever it is, that is, is, is what it's all about.
And we got to fight for it because if the people, those of us who actually get out there, if we don't fight for it, nobody else will. Because folks that aren't connected to these things the way we are, they have no idea. They don't have that connection. So it's on us to do the heavy lifting, to make sure that this stuff's around for the future. And so, yes, I ended that wild country very much with that mindset. And that book was really focused on the land, on the public lands that we have.
And this next book is very much a continuation of that, but this is focused on the animals living on that land now, because you don't have one without the other. I imagine, man, if we had all these incredible public lands, but we didn't have the wildlife on it, how lonely would that be? How different would those experiences be? And vice versa.
If you've got a whole bunch of critters, but we are destroying and selling off the lands that they need to survive, well, we won't have those animals for very much longer. So those two things together are the foundation of what I think is what we need as a human species to thrive. We have to have fellow travelers on this earth with us, and we have to maintain some wild places, some healthy ecosystems on this landscape for us to thrive too, right?
They provide ecosystem services that give us the water we need to drink, that provide the air, the clean air we need to live, and so, so much more. So it's, you know, in some ways, a selfish endeavor. Protecting these animals in these places is going to help us in the long run, too. This is not just an altruistic thing just for nature lovers. This is something that if you live in a city and you want to continue being healthy and happy and being able to flourish, you need this stuff, too.
First time you took your boys out fishing, hunting, hiking, or whatever, were you just like, please like this, please like this, please like this, have a good experience. So you don't want to be inside on your phone or games. You probably don't have your, your kids probably don't have phones at seven years old, but. Don't have phones. Fortunately, they were doing this stuff before they had a choice, whether or what they wanted to like it or not.
So I started taking them out, you know, from the moment they were a couple of weeks old. My firstborn was living in a camper for months at a time when he was four months old. So we lived alongside the Yellowstone River in my renovated camper for two months, his first summer, and another two months, his second summer. And so they have been camping, hiking, fishing, hunting every year of their life since the very beginning.
So that has kind of built in for them that this is just kind of the way of life. And that said, I still, you know, from the very beginning and still to this day, try to make sure that these are experiences that they're going to enjoy. I try to prioritize, you know, their experience and making sure that I don't get caught up in my own personal goals on these trips, which sometimes is easy to do. So try to find ways to balance the two sides though.
So on one side, I want to make sure they're having fun and enjoying it for all those reasons you mentioned. On the flip side though, I also have found that the outdoors is a really incredible. Testing ground and learning opportunity and kind of a forge for you as a person, right? And so going through some tough times in the outdoors, I think can really help build inner strength, toughness, resourcefulness, all of these qualities.
And so something I've tried to balance with my boys is getting them out there, keeping it fun, but at the same time, making sure they have to experience some tough stuff too, because I think that is part of necessary growth, right? Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable, I think is a really important quality that the outdoors teaches very well. So that has been something that I'm constantly trying to walk that line with the boys.
And I think we've been able to do it. There's been lots of opportunities for fun. And then there's been lots of opportunities where man, this is kind of tough and we're going to make the best of it and we're going to make it fun.
Yeah, we're backpacking and it's a blizzard and we thought it was going to be a summer camping trip and instead it's 25 and blowing snow but this is kind of fun in its own way let's make it an adventure and you make the best of it and so and so yeah it's been good for the for many reasons, you had a whole bunch of good quotables in there so i don't know if you have any closing thoughts to go on top of that or if you just want to kind of give
the pitch to your your first book and where people can find you like subscribe all that stuff what do you got. Yeah. Well, you know, there's this, there's this line that Edward Abbey wrote. I'm going to, I don't remember the specifics of it, but the general sentiment of it, I think it was a really important one.
Something I try to keep in mind all the time when it, when it comes to these types of topics that we've been discussing, that being, you know, the many threats to public lands or wild places or wildlife. You know, he speaks about the fact that, yeah, you got to be an advocate. You have to fight for these things. You have to stand up for these things. You have to speak out for these things.
But on the flip side, you also need to get out there and live it and love it and immerse yourself in the wilderness and the wild places and go wholeheartedly in that way. You have to give yourself to these places and enjoy and soak up every single little bit of it because that's the only way to have the fire and the passion to keep fighting for it. He kind of ends this quote. I wish I had the whole thing in front of me because I'd read it to you. It's terrific.
But he basically goes on this diatribe about how, yeah, you got to fight, but then just live it, love it, soak it and get out there. Because if no other reason, you will outlive the bastards. All the other folks that are trying to destroy these places, if you can get out there and love them enough and enjoy them enough and jump off into the lakes and squeeze every ounce out of this wildlife, you'll make a difference and you'll outlive those suckers.
And we'll hopefully have these places for many more years to come. So yeah, if anyone wants to read that first book, That Wild Country. I think we have a few autographed copies still available over on the meat eater website. If you go to themeateater.com, otherwise you can pick up your standard hard or soft cover on Amazon. The podcast is the Wired to Hunt podcast that can be found anywhere podcasts are.
And then all of my films and TV shows and things like that are on the meat eater YouTube channel now. That's where this black tail deer hunt and film will be probably sometime here in 2025, as well as plenty more. So appreciate anyone checking that out. Awesome. Thanks for being on here, man. I appreciate it. Thank you, Jeff.