Ep. 348: Eating Walrus and Whale with An Igloo Boy

for a long time. Writer, photographer, commercial fisherman hunter born in a sad igloo in Alaska or a cave raised in the sade Igloo. Go ahead, well, I'm filling the gas. Sadly enough, it's true. A when I uh finally was able to find a girlfriend in my middle ages, I uh she started saying I was born in a cave, and I was like, no, it was It just had a tunnel and dirt floor, and and uh, I went to a lot of work to describe how it wasn't

a cave. And now I'm sort of accepting that A lot of mice running around on the floor and dark and cariboo hairs and everything, um cariboo hides to sleep on and Cariboo first where and Cariboo muck lux And that's I guess why I ended up writing about Cariboo. So they say, right, what you know about uh, We're gonna get into this book. You got a lot of books though, three three books, now four books, I think

it's five or six. Yeah, when's the children's story. But I first became aware of you when Ordinary Wolves came out. That was my first book novel. I wrote it as a novel so I could tell the truth about uh, northern Alaska and inpact villages and being a white boy in the huh, in the native communities I grew up in,

and um and uh. I didn't really tell the Alaska that people were used to and had a hard time finding a publisher because of it, and oh abs freaking I got fifteen hundred dollar advance after ten years of trying to get it published. Yeah. Yeah, but that book got around a lot though a certain extent. Yeah, um, but um yeah, it's kind of shocked people. I was always irritated as a kid reading about well, I didn't

want to read about Alaska, super boring. Um, we had so much uh, you know, bear licking the acts or you know, every wolves outside hauling at the dogs, and so to read about Alaska was super boring and um and when you did, it was all glamorized and bullshit.

And so when I wrote about that country, I wanted to kind of described the real stuff, you know, um, which had to include you know, drunks where they are fifteens and the stuff that maybe the New York houses didn't want to hear about Alaska and expected you to leave out. Um. Yeah, that was my first book. It took me probably twenty years of trying to get to that, you know, and then you follow that up with Shopping

for Porcupine. Yeah. People wanted a memoir and I didn't realize it was weird to grow up in a Saudi glue and uh and be sort of separated from people, and uh, I expected a lot from humans. We didn't see him very often, and and we would sort of run barefoot up the hill and tell my parents travelers that was the word for people here. Yeah. Whoops, almost

said the wrong word, but anyway, Um, yeah, travelers. It was a big deal back then because they brought news of other villages, usually any pack hunts and um, and uh, we just saw people the least of you know, most animals and um, so bears super common, grizzly bears show up,

but but people were not. So. UM. I could go on and on about all this, but anyway, I didn't realize until part way through my life that I was sort of in between white and uh native, and in between sort of human and U or nature and humans and um. And then when I did go out into this what we called the white world, it was incredibly difficult to understand, um why people didn't make sense. Which now I've accepted that they don't, um, which is a

lot easier once you accept that. But um, at that point it was like, well, bears to me makes sense. Uh um. And then also there's that whole thing where when you're armed in dangerous as you know, igly boy, I never went anywhere without a very few places without a gun, and um it was kind of like a shovel. You know, you don't think of it as a Um. All this stuff about guns now is weird, but it's

more like shovels. So um, take your shovel. Um. And so to me, the idea of like, uh, everybody being excited about a bear being dangerous is such a weird concept compared to what about humans. I mean, they're so fucking dangerous, um and weird and unpredictable, and bears generally especially, Like you know, I can tell you a lot more people on guns because of humans than they do because of bears. My worldview is horribly warped. And I'm just

at fifty seven, I'm finally realizing that. Well we'll get into that, Okay. Then you followed up most recently, Well, this is I love this book Man A Thousand Trails Home Living with Caribou, which like kind of moves outside of just general I mean, there's a lot of general, broad experience you talk a lot about growing up, but it gets it. I mean it gets into the sort of biology, the biology of cariboo along with the cultural significance of caribou. Um it really paints like a really

in depth picture. And I like about as you can't talk about I shouldn't say you can't. Reading the book, one realizes you cannot talk about cariboo without talking about people. Absolutely, yeah, which is pretty indicative of everything we have going on with the modern world. Um um, I just I can't stand that to a certain extent, It's like I want to protect the wild land up there, and which is you know, me protecting my lifestyle. But you gotta turn

your focus to people, which is a painful thing. You know, I want to focus on Cariboo, embars and wolves, but it all goes back to the people and them are guing over, you know, more and more resource conflict and who gets hunt what and um. So it's a really hard book to write for me because I didn't know what to say, and I guess to a certain extent

I still don't. And I did the best I could to go back and describe, you know, the whalers coming and what that meant for uh, for natives in Alaska, and and very quickly what it meant for Cariboo, which was you know, um um almost wiping out the herds and um and then too and that was that had to do with firearms coming. And then nowadays we have UM basically this big influx of technology, cell phones, communications.

So if a Cariboo swims across the Kobuk River, uh, people know pretty quickly and and uh and so there's all these boats and some automatic guns and so being a Cariboo is um is um starting to look like it did UM in eighteen seventy five when UH rifled UH um my skits and then repeating guns first arrived in the Arctic. It's this um danger zone for um us uh wiping out animals with our technology. So that's confusing.

But the thing I really wanted to do with this UH book was UM described you know, my love of caribou, which started with you know, meat and furs and uh you know, utilitarian use, and then UH this idea of being out on the tunder and having this you know, thousands of cariboo come across the across the tunder towards you and that companionship on the land, so you know,

all these different forms of greed. I think where you like, you know, caribou roasted ribs, and you like the warm furs, but you like the companionship of this animal too, and UM and what it would mean to be on a on an empty land if if we mess up, you know, that's one of the things We're gonna cover off on some stuff. And one thing that I wanted to get into is the long line. Just as an outside observer who enjoys just spending time in Alaska, as a tourist.

You know, Uh, the long line of things that all seemed to be competing to be the thing that ruins Alaska. Uh, meaning it was white people. It was the snow machine. It was the bolt action rifle. It was the bush plane. It was if you ask Buck Bowden, it was in reach devices. Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's it's been getting rude a long time. Yeah, that's interesting. And then and uh, I think it was before this started you were talking

about these these are the good old days. And in some ways it really is because um, I like to say, you know, regardless of that crazy amount of change we've had in climate and because of vegetation, and then uh just kind of we're kind of buzzing with technology up there now. Uh lots of times them out on the tundra.

You know. I just came from spending breakup. I never saw a human, you know, for almost a month, and um uh just animals and trees and thunder, and so that the land in some ways is is uh we're the ones who really changed, um um and um yeah. Anyway, I always like writing about it. I have this impulse to to describe that, uh, the Innupact people and the land and the connections and the um how we used to live. I guess this focus on um every animal

when it's fat, the innupact. We're fixated on fat for survival. UM. So I grew up. If you uh, if you came home with a skinny caribou, you are significantly more disgusting than uh, you know, serial rapist or or any other kind of criminal. Um because you brought home the skinny caribou and um and uh and you laugh, but it's not funny. Uh and you know all that was back to survival and the fat just kept your dog team

and your family and yourself going. And UM, I hate to tell you, but uh, I gotta cooler muck tuck here next to my ankle that I'm gonna pull out here in a minute. And uh so we'll need some cold weather afterwards. And I'm not seeing that outside right now, But get the get the muck tuck ready, and we're gonna we're gonna talk about a couple things that we're gonna come back in. And when we jump back in, we'll talk about cariboo fat. Okay, Uh, all the first

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white tails, not be chilly. Oh, so Seth is officially married. Yep. Now, when you set your date, did you realize that you set your wedding date for the Custer's death. No, never occurred to you, dude. The minute you told me you were getting married that day, I was like, oh, that's day Custer died, And I know exactly what I'm gonna talk about when I officiate the wedding. Never occurred to me. It didn't occurred to me that it was Kenyan Ferrywell

eye do either. But you know how you're living. You learn now like Serve Tea, you on a silver platter. I couldn't believe it when you told me that. The next day I went to we we had like you know, very Catholic like memorial for my grandpa's passing, which happened about ten years ago. So I drove over to Bill and I saw the fam had this deal and my stepdad was walking around being like, you know what happened

this weekend? Right? I was like, huh, interesting, We're at a memorial for someone who passed away, and somebody is bringing up the death of George Armstrong Custer, which was geographically much closer to where we were, and the day prior we were at um a ceremony celebrating the union of two people, and you brought up George Armstrong Custer, and it just kind of made me think what would

be the more appropriate venue seth wedding? This confused because Little Big Horn is July and twenty six, but Custer got killed on twenty five, and it was just kind of like a skirmish over on what the hell's is in June. I'm sorry, confused people. It was just like a little bit of a skirmish going on in oh Man, my ancestors went down the old George Johnson Henderson's represented on that Fateful Day anniversary. Do you think they had an idea what was what they were getting into. Well,

I don't know what happened a long time ago. You know what really threw me for a loop last night? Seth? What's that? Uh? You know how you and Chester think you're all the ship on catching walleyes. I was going fish for fish. I was going fish for fish with Chester last night. Well, he's probably, which makes me feel like I could be like no, no, it makes me feel like I could like be in there the tournament.

What we need to do is get to boats, two boats, you and someone else, Me and Chester, and that's how we'll figure out who the best wool I'm in is. I mean, do you guys limit out? We limited out on our top end fish, yeah, meaning we got one when we do this tournament. Yeah, it's hard to limit out on the low end fish or something like that. When we do this head to a tournament though, Prior to we need to go through Seth and Chester's boat and divvy up all the good ship so we're on

equal footing. In my boat, when I went fish for fish with Chester, my neighbor got a goose egg. Oh he did? It was rough. I heard you were getting him on plastics some where. Did you hear that from Steve's not into sharing tournament ticks. I heard that from from Chester. I got my first one. I leach I was drowning. Oh yeah, my talk Chester, my barrel leeches that I gave Chester to take along with him. Uh,

real quick speaking to Chester and weddings. When I get to Chester's house to pick him up, it's like a chaos at his house because his wedding ring fell out of the diamond fell out of the ring onto a gravel driveway. We sat on our knees for probably fifteen minutes. He had it kind of down to like a circle about a yard wide, and he knew like what should be the center of the circle. And we spent about fifteen minutes removing pieces of gravel one at a time

out of that circle. And then Chester he's like, we should probably go fishing if you want to stay and look for this diamond. I'll stay and look for the diamond out care And he's like, now we'll go fishing. So I'm like, you should look up on the internet how to find a diamond in the gravel. Um. I told him just to search where is my diamond? But I messaged Danielle and told her to go out at night with a headlamp. Well that's Chester learned. So Chester

was waiting. He was gonna go when we got back. He was gonna go out with a light and spend his night looking for the thing. But then Danielle came back, his wife came back and got some other friend to look, and he got a really bright light and was able to find the diamond. And he found the diamond in areas that we had cleared. We declared it like, we went out and ever expanding gravel removal circle, and the diamond was within what we had cleared out, you know, searched,

so to speak. Can we hit leech is real quick? Yeah? I was talking leech trapping with Steve. I would talk with Jay Siemens about leech trapping. Well I did, I just watched his YouTube videos. I don't think you're in a good spot though, I think you're in a stupid area. No. Well, according to the wide world of Internet, that seems like as good as spot as a lot. I'm gonna I'm gonna bounce around and look where my kids get leeches

on them when they swim. Yeah, I got a spot for you because I we waited in there for all of three minutes and came out with five leeches. Stuff. I like that, and my kids got But I mean, you guys do understand that the spot I hit is about half a mile from my house and the spot that you guys are talking about. So I'd like to start at the center and you could order five pounds of leeches for what it would require to go around the three forks. That just gives them away. But I

mean that's where my spot is. Well, this guy look for bucks. You get more leeches than you use off the summer. It's fifty bucks a pound. Those are the leeches that you're in gold dudes like morel The leeches you're using last night were from him. Um, he gets from Minnesota. So you just chucking in a chunk old meat or something every once in a while to keep these things alive? Are you trying to keep them all still live for months? With that? Yeah? They live. I

just keep the water yet flushing the water. He's gunk up your water. Leach keepers do put like something in there. I can't remember what. I don't know. Let me you know, I'll tell you why. I don't know how to catch them real quick. My dad when my dad's best bodies was a guy named Ron Spring, and he owned Springs Sporting Goods and later he sold Spring Sporting Goods, but he remained. Uh. He was a commercial bait fisherman, so he got commercial fisherman right. But he was a commercial

fisherman that caught fishing bait. And he he had a team of people that tide flies. He had a team of people that tide spawn sacks. He was a leech trapper, a wiggler trapper, raised red worms, leafworms, crawlers. He did everything, supplied all the live bait. He got to be in his early eighties and I wanted to profile him for a magazine. And I pitched the magazine and got the green light to profile him. And when I approached him in his eighties, he said no, because these are trade secrets. Oh,

I love that. That's awesome. I couldn't believe it. Uh. He ate so much fish out of the Great Lakes that um they would every month or everything. No, there's every six months. He'd go to University of Michigan to do tests on heavy metal contamination and um like testing his mercury and all that ship. So he'd go down there and they'd give him a list. They'd be like, Okay, you gotta go to the store, right, you need two dozen eggs, two leader bottle of Coca cola, pound of butter,

three autocadles whatever, right, and give them a list. And then he'd wait a coup mists and they'd be like, Hey, what do you got to buy at the store. And that was like the kind of ship they were testing with them. And he told me, and I'll quote him, he said, Steve, I wouldn't remembered that list if I never ate a piece of fish at all. So he felt like it was biased. But I'd be like, but you don't know, Uh, I want to get out on

this podcast though. It was I built my leech trap. Oh, went out to a spot nobody has any business of going into, threw my lead trap out and somebody came by. There are a couple of people watch him. They sabotaged it. Yeah, they cut my line, which is really stupid because they left like, I used an old line spool and put some fly line backing on there. But they think you were doing well. I think they were probably even more confused when they took a look at a little tanfull

you know, old beef liver. But they left that out there. They left the trash out there, but they just cut the line and then took like the sectional line attached to the reel. So anyway, you left the whole reel out there? Well, yeah, because I had a line. Oh you're gonna reel it in? Yes, yeah, because you know it's all bogged. Don't gotta worry about the thing all tangled up and ship. Yeah, and I'm on in like full flip flop mode. I'm not so they stole your

boots around. They just took this. I don't it's very confusing. But no, no leeches. But they stole the real or not stole the real. They all the line off the reel and left the reel. Yeah, got such a like finicky thief. Well again, I think they've probably had an idea what was happening in their in their mind thought you had a set line. Maybe I don't know. Yeah, not a single leach, not a single leach. But I'm

gonna keep broadcasting out from from home here. So you get ready to turn you onto a hotspot man, people of Bozeman. You find something soaking in a local settling pond around here. It's not don't touch it, or we get one of those people that can speak to the dead and we to go talk to Ron Spring. Yeah, that'd be a Korean start setting that up, all right, The first meat Eator Medium podcast. It's a great space for a seance. Honestly, I gotta tell you a horrible

story about Ron Spring real quick. Um, well, my greatest moments a shame. We're fishing. My dad called a big northern and it was real cold out and it froze, and so later my dad said, hey, do you want to catch a big northern? And I was like yeah. So he threw me the big northern and I caught it, and I told Ron Spring I caught a bit whatever the hell inch northern And it felt so bad. I later called him back and said I didn't actually catch it, like he thought that a little that was my birthday?

Was my birthday? Uh a black bear. This is a crazy a story reported by her friends at USA Today. I was so pissed. I texted Spencer this morning, was like, how does the USA Today know about this? And we don't know about it? He's like, because they got four thousand reporters a black bear and what's date was this? Tennessee? A black guy, Okay, a black bear gets a closed car open, Yeah, which is not a usual? What is the usual? What happens next? It's a hot ass day.

He gets the door open, gets in the car and starts eating scraps, but the door closes behind him. It gets up to a hundred degrees that day and kills the bear inside the forty degrees in the car, and the bear died inside the car of heat, like what happens to people's dogs. And the weird part is then the Fish and Game Agency uses it as a chance for people to to not leave bear attract And so I'm like, I don't know, there's some ship in your

car which is closed. Counts is leaving bear attract and self, yeah, you'd have to keep your car. My truck is littered with bear attracted from all the crumbs and ship. My kids leave everybody's cars. I just don't count that. I don't count like your car and your driveway closed as being like being not bear safe. You have to run a pretty sterile car. But I get the sentiment they think the thing got in there. This is weird. He was in his car at ten am and he found

the bear dead at seven pm, middle of the damn day. Yeah, ambient temperature. There's a picture of the bear kind of limp. Yeah, another baby. I mean it's like every other days when we get to Seth in a minute, here he'll be able to speak to this. Not you, Seth Morris Seth. Canada's gonna be a confusing podcast. It seems like every other day this happens. A minor, a gold miner and Yukon, the Yukon Territory of Canada found a thirty five thousand

year old mummified baby wool mammoth. That thing is so that is bad ass with the big snout. What do they call that? A proboscis? Is that called? They named him none? None child hut long. I mean it looks just like a little amaciated baby mammoth laid out on a blue tart. Yeah, like everything else. When people find something to far north, there's a high likelihood it will

wind up laying on a blue tart across anything like that. Um, you guys are making me laugh because years ago I started calling myself, you know, part part of the blue tarp tribe. We lived along with South Tent City along the edge of the cot Spy. There's North Tent City in South Tent City. But we discovered blue tarps. I think this is about thirty years ago. And take four pieces of plywood and nailm together and um put a

blue tarp over. The only thing is that you look funny because the light um, you know, under a blue tarp And so anyway, we're the people of the blue tarp um. Which but speaking of mammoth, uh, I brought Karin a little chunk of mammoth ivory. I told her be careful because very addictive searching for ivory. You just that's choke of a manoth tusk. Yeah, that's blue. Is Vivian night. It's a mineral that sort of deposits into

the soaks, into the ivory. And so it's every time you find a piece of ivory, it's different color, either real dark or brown. Or you didn't saying that? Did you not at all know? It? Um like feels like polished. Where do you find something like that a long river? Um? Well, it's getting complicated nowadays because I think the state no longer once you picking it up in the in the feds don't and um on native land. You you know, if you're not native, you're you're not supposed to. It's

it's more, it's more complicated. I don't know the laws about you know, mean high water, you know, sea level along the shores. But people go along the shores looking and um, um it's very common to find uh. I shouldn't say very common. You hear, oh, so and so found h seven foot tusk or or whatever. And I was on the coast looking and somebody just found a tusk. And um. I was searching the smelting permafrost bluff and came across this big round thing that I chipped out,

and it was a turd, um, mammoth turd. And so I save myself by saying, I don't need the tusk. Everybody finds tusks. It's not very many people find mammoth turds. And um. So I carried it around it as a black for a while. Um, and then uh sent it to the university. They never thanked me for my ship. It was super disturbing. I never did hear back. But um anyway, yeah, searching for mammoth I was super super addictive. We find these big molers. Those are pretty common to find.

Should have brought a picture of one of those. But yeah, it's really fun. They say this, this one was the best one found on the continent yet and it had its last meal still in stomach. I guess what it was eating, Yanni, mm hm, circus peanuts is eating grass. Nebraska is introducing a uh you can read about this at the medior dot com conservation. Wildlife Management. Nebraska introduces controversial July elk season. Damn crop damage. Better have the

freezer ready, people. Yeah, people are bent out of shape. Other people are not because they're just sick of losing corn crops shooting them in land. They're they're working with landowners to lower elker words and crop land areas. Colorado used to have a spring summer crop damage hunt. The elk are spending the elk are spending their summer in the cornfields, not not dispersing until the corn is picked.

It's private land only hunt. Um. Even landowners have to pay like ten or five bucks to get get a depredation tag and then uh, it's open to residents and non residents. Um. But you need to have prior permission from a landowner in the areas that they're carrying on

the hunt in order to purchase a tag. I mean, am I rot and maybe you know cow like it seems like this is a part of the state where they don't even really want a bunch of elk running around in the first place, and that that's typically how you know, like the good folks at our m EF can can tell you, like when they go in, when I used to go in and do reintroductions of elk, it is there's a very serious plan in place, like

these things. We want them to stay in between these highways in this type of habitat because they're they're planning ahead for this type of conflict. I think there's only about three thousand elk in the in the whole state. And you know, a July hunt with cows carrying calves and a little soft horned bowls running around isn't as much, Uh, isn't very romantic compared to the way we all want to picture hunting milk. U. But this can be effective for the folks are catering to here. Is it going

to be too effective? I think that's what some audience members were kind of nervous about. Yeah, well that's I mean that's like the great thing is that when it gets in any of the stuff with like, well there's too many, like according to who, right, Yeah, I wait my whole life to you know whatever. Some person in Nebraska be like, I've waited my whole life to hunt elk Nebraska. It's native elk range. He thinks it's too many because they're getting in his corner. I don't think

there's nearly enough. So it's like you're always gonna have that, right, Like according to who, car insurance companies, crop insurance people, the ornamental uh landscape industry, hoof, and people that don't want lime disease we're talking about I mean before the podcast too. It's there's all just as Steve's pointing out, a lot of different stakeholders, and the really one of the few stakeholders that I actually care about are the

folks who were like farming that ground. Well, you know, during this huge period of elk being non existent, and now somebody decided to put elk out there that are causing significant damage to the way they're making a living, and their whole business is based around or you know, it was based with the idea of this type of competition not being part of the business plan. And so I do have some sympathy sympathy for those people that all of a sudden, now here's this big X factor

that is growing like crazy on the landscape. Yeah, it probably seems like pretty academic when you point out to him that they used to be here, like define used to then we're here in my grandpa like to first turn the ground over, right, So what's used to me? Yeph Down there on the river they're pulling um uh musk ox out of the river bank. They used to be here. Sorry. Uh. One last thing be where we get back into our esteemed guests. Broady, he's got a report.

How do you feel about hippie, Steve Dude, listen. I like definition, though, well, when did the hippie ever do anything bad to me? I don't know, never to some people like if I could pick it and have it be that most of the world was hippies, I like, I don't find they don't like to hunt, generally speaking, like I like when I wake up in the morning. When I wake up in the morning, the last thing I'm on the lookout for is hippies. My buddy in grade school, I had a shirt that you'd wear all

the time that said hippie smell. And he was always very quick to point out that the shirt doesn't say how they smell. Uh, my daughter, I don't know if you know this, but Gilligan's Island hats are in style for little kids, little girls, a little bucket hat. I call him Gilligan hats. Now I call my daughter Gilligan. Which pistols are off? I called her Clyde. I used to call her slim and I called her Clyde. Now

it's Gilligan. But hers has a ammunitem ascaria like the flying Garrick's hallucin and it's got that little hallucigenic jungle frog on I was like, you know, your hat's got twin hallucigenics on it. She's know what hallucigenic is? Shut up, dad, that's interesting. Who got that for? She bought it on Amazon because yeah, because she's like, I thought it was like a frog in them. It's like a Gilligan's Island hat. And she thought it was a frog in a mushroom.

And I said, you know what that mushroom is like that frog are She's on Amazon like a like an eight dollar Gilligan's Island hat. I saw a T shirt with those mushrooms on the really big ones on the covering the whole back, and it said make America giggle again. Now this is when hippies come for you. Well, yeah, I got the dog people. Now the hippies are gonna come for me. Um. There's a particular brand of hippie called the Rainbow Family, Family of of being Light. They've

been around since Um. I used to live in Boulder. We see these people all the time panhandling. Um. And this group of people has what's called a range. You know that they were from this group because they have rainbow Yeah you just have you ever lived in a state that was having a rainbow gathering going on? I know, but Rony just said, I lived in Bolder and I'd see them all the time. There's a residual effect. They're there months before the gathering and then it takes a

month to disperse. It's a huge deal when the rainbow gathering comes to town. Right, there's like a group that's all the Rainbow children and Boulder that were like it was like a known group of people. Anyway, they have this deal every year where they called a rainbow gathering where they get together on public land and it's generally

thousands of people. UM. This year's gathering was planned for Adams Park, which is north Esteemboat Springs on the Medicine Bow Route National Force UM, and they're thinking up to ten thousand people will gather, not just people rainbow people. Sounds like a care bear countdown. And uh, there's been like an increasing concern about what kind of impact this is going to have on public lank. They when they did it near Missoula, Man, it was like a bio has yeah yeah, and this is like an area that's

an important calving ground. UM. It's like very pristine public land. And so there's been calls to uh kind of shut this thing down. And generally speaking, when you have like an organized event on public land, you need a permit for it. And that's never like the Rainbow Gathering has never been a permitted, like sanctioned event. UM. And the Four Service took the step of closing Cow California Park, which is near Adams Park where the event is going

to happen. I'm not sure why they didn't close Adams Park where the event is happening, but they did shut down an area near the gathering, and there's already been some arrests, like people are already gathering there that the event hasn't taken place yet. It will have happened by the time this this podcast airs, but there's already been

arrest for various things. Um, let's see here. I appeal logs with a dude named Barefoot, and he'd go to the Rainbow gathering every year and he carried around when he went there. Well, he always carried it around. He carried around a black powder pistol revolver. It. It doesn't surprise me. They've already had rest for damage the natural resources, interoperable equipment, and ardocotics possession or distribution, aggravated assault on a peace officer, felony possession of a firearm. So it

doesn't seem like very hippie ish to me. Well, here's the deal man, here's what you know. Why you know how dog people don't like you even though you're a dog person. You won't get feedback because the hippies aren't touchy. I don't know, they're not touchy people. I'm expecting some feed now. I did this thing with Clay on Clay's podcast and we were talking about how beekeepers are touchy people because they all just got into it and they're all in a swinging dick contest to be who's most

into it. And people who enthusiasts who grew up doing like nothing and then they start doing something become touchy. Hippies aren't touching. You won't get feedback from hippies, but they don't do anything. You got people who live their whole life not knowing about some souped up breed a bird dog. And also they're like Joe bird dog, They're gonna be touchy. So I say this thing about beekeepers, and then what did I make the mistake of looking

at social media comments? There's a comment from this guy like, you don't stand up for hunters. You don't stand up for the Second Amendment. You don't stick up for hunter because you want them all to go away so you can have all the area for yourself. I click on this thing, beekeeper, We'll see, we'll see. I think like they should be getting a permit for this. I mean the amount of damage that ten thousand people can cause

just by walking through an area, the human waste. I've seen what thirty people can do to my backyard in the past few days. Do you work for bass pro Shops? No? What is what the beast pro Shops had they send They sent these to the office. Thought he walked out to get married to have that is wearing a bass pro Shop hat for the You ask Brodie if you work for on X, if you don't know what the rainbow gathering? Yes, and you want like an idea and this will touch some people on our sphere and piss

a few folks off. If you've ever been in a town where there's a three or five day fish concert, that that will give you a taste of folks gathering preve concert and taking days to get out and they have like a very very noticeable look to them. We'll take those guys three to five days to do one tune. I just want to go on record before we leave this subject. I want to go on record saying this. I support hippies because I just don't see where the

problem is. But I don't support the rainbow gathering on national on public land. And in the old days, in the old days they went to a guy's farm. Yeah, and outside of New York City, I think should go back that I don't like public land rainbow gatherings. But like I said, man, when I wake up in the morning, the last thing I'm on the lookout for is a hippie doing something to me, especially like the disenfranchised ones

that don't vote. I'm not worried about him doing something to me because they say it's like I don't care. Probably not good for the ECONO. They strike me as people that don't listen to podcasts, so they're probably not even gonna know that you're saying that. Hang out on Reddit. We're ready to move on, all right, Seth Canner. We're gonna start out with. What are we gonna start out with? It's our Alaskan sampler platter. We're ready, man, are you gosh? Uh?

It's still I'm kind of uncomfortable with this hippie thing because my parents were accused of being hippie down the middle of the woods. Well not at all. I think they were trying to get away from people, but they were. I think they were hippies. And none of them, those people that went north with them smoked or drank or um. But they did, uh, I guess not cut their hair as often as other people should. I should someone on record saying that I got no problem with we're we're

talking specifically the rainbow family of living life. What do you think Seth made him hippies? Yeah? Why do you feel because your dad was your dad was came up north as a caribou biologist, right. No, he uh was born and raised in Toledo and was trying to get away from Toledo and and then Catholic school, and so he went to UH seventeen years old, went to the territory Alaska and UM and UH applied for college UM

and then studied UH zoology and biology. And then along came Project Chariot, where they were going to bomb use nuclear weapons Obama Harbor up in the northern part of Alaska. So he got a job studying cariboo at that point because they were like they were trying to do baseline work on what that they were trying to do. What you should explain, like when once we get into our sampler, you should explain Project Chariot. I had heard of that, but until I read your book, I didn't really understand

the details of it. It's some you know, right, I'm fighting the Sambler Road that they want to build through the brooks range from the pipeline road to you know, basically where I live, and they want to come all the way across. Yeah, and I equate that as dropping a bomb on the native culture and the way of life in the in the wilderness country there. Um. But in the fifties, uh, United States had all these nice new weapons, uh, and then nobody to drop them on

hydrogen bombs and atomic bombs. And so they started this Plowshares program, which was hypothetically to do uh, peaceful work with nuclear weapons. They build a canal and a new Panama canal or and so they decided, well, Alaska Territory would be perfect place to uh, let's make a harbor with five or six nuclear weapons. And that was near

where I grew up. I wasn't born that then, And and so my dad ended up going north from you know, Fairbanks where he was working as a biologists up to the Arctic to study the effects of radiation on caribou. Other people were studying you know, walruses and and native use of the land and food and resources there, and and it was it was touching go the um this this Alaska became a state nineteen fifty nine, and so right in there was this giant alleged economic opportunity to

you know, get nuked. Um and uh so there's a lot of people were for it, and um. Of course, uh the natives were not because they were about to get their you know, their backyard bombed. But for a while their their voices were more sort of muted and um. But anyway it was stopped. Um, and that didn't happen. It certainly would have my life would have been totally different. Bombed northwest Alaska to make it a better place. Have you ever seen images of the creators they made in

Bikinia Toll? Absolutely unbelievable. Man, it looks like the blue hole. And at that time that um, I'm gonna lose my numbers here. But the radiation that was there was so much fallout from the Americans and Soviet testing weapons that that caribou were um kind of radioactive because they eat lins. The primary favorite food is this this lin that absorbs um. I'm forgetting the ces M one for I can't remember

that at this point. But anyway, one of these isotopes that would leach out of the atmosphere like and would absorb it and caribou, we'd eat it. And then of course our whole focus was fat, so we would eat tons of caribou that our bio concentrating this um this radiation and um um the fat store that. Yeah. And then if you have a bear, um, if a bear eats the fat, then and we're all say about rendering out bear fat and making you know, whatever we made

with the bear fat. So um um. In my young life, the people that went north with my parents, Um, they were tested and I guess they're like you're describing earlier, super high and uh in radiation, living out this uh this semi hippie sorry, um this wilderness Uh, strange white people living in the wilderness. Uh uh. We never used the word wilderness. We're scared of that word, but I'm

using it now. But um, living out off the land and then you know, uh, far higher than somebody in Chicago, probably on the glow in the dark, seemingly the most pure, the most pure food and most pure existence. You guys didn't like the word wilderness because you didn't like federally designated wilderness. Uh. In my life, as things are changing fast, pipeline was being built, which you know, made the Native Claim Settlement Act was necessary, so UM, the land up

there would have a title ownership. Somebody could say who owned what, so then we could start tearing it up, um and um. At that time, living out, we just thought of UM. We were people on the land. We cut wood for firewood, We hunted, uh, you know, bears for skins and fat or whatever, and um, and we didn't. It wasn't wilderness. We were there and then, and the

natives had no this was home. They knew you had named for every slough and lake and and sandbar where you caught this and that, and so it wasn't wilderness in our mind. And the only time we heard that word was when strange white people landed and started talking about what we were not allowed to do. UM. So wilderness was a dangerous word. Um and uh. At some point five or ten years ago, as asked to talk about, uh, you know what the Wilderness Act meant to me? Of

course I've never heard of it, um and UM. I was there with UM four tall white ladies and twice as tall as me and um, and they were describing you know this very interesting um effects of the Wilderness Act. If I remember correctly, when was from Chicago. I had grown up in uh, Colorado and etcetera. And and then along comes my turn. I went last, you know, and I was like, oh, we were I don't know, we're always scared. He it was it was, you know, white

people coming from somewhere else, and then um terrifying us. Yeah, we were my family. Um speaking of hippies, Um, um, sorry that they did. You know, reading your book, man, I kind of got like a mild hippie vibe, but I didn't get a total hippie vibe off your parents. Well, because they were like hunters and trappers. Sure, but my dad has devoted his life to avoiding a steady job. Does that count? No? Oh? Okay, um that that that the hippies do not in my mind we're talking about

it very hard to define. Tournament in my mind, planned by your own rules is not owned by hippies. Okay, okay, So I don't know. I don't know any I didn't know fishing talk about people who love anything you're saying talking about people who um first and foremost. When looking for an explanation to an unanswered question, if you told him there's a conspiracy that they're like, well, that's what I believe before you finish the sentence. Okay, that's so.

I guess we weren't. Yeah, we weren't hippies, but it was that time frame though, right, Yeah, I definitely was. I think the people that were doing, um, they're back they're part of the back of the Land, They're extreme edge of the back of the Land movement. Yeah, it was. It was I mean, barefoot kids and living in a cave. I mean yeah, so, um, I guess you I don't know what to call it. It was home really nice.

But he was But but you're old man. He's not trying to just like and understanding your biography, Like I don't want to go back all to Toledo, but you're old man. Became like your father, right, became familiar with the area that he would homestead and claim through that through the caribou work, right, my mistake, Um sort of. Yeah.

So he got done that summer working with the other battlegists, and he had spotted this sided glue on the coast right next to the ground zero where they were gonna bomb that, you know, and uh, he got his stuff and went to live there for the winter. And when he got there, Uh typical of you know when you get home and you find a porcupine in your house or whatever. Um there was um a native couple who had decided they going to spend the winter there. And so my dad was like, oh, you know, he's not

gonna um invade you know, their territory. It was an abandoned sod house. But they were like, they couldn't really speak English, but they thought, yeah, the old inn you pack extreme generosity is important. And you're you're about to spend the winter and h sade igloo as big as your average bath room, and they said you should stay. So along comes this white guy who's gonna sleep on their floor for the winner. And and so he uh

spent the winter hunting for this couple. The man had you know, one leg, and the woman was u uh not young and and so um here's this energetic, young white guy that wants to learn the old ways and and um and was willing to go out every day to hunt for the dogs, dog teams and the and the people and and so he got UM. I think I would just say terribly enamored with old Innu pac way of life. Just the connection, the hunting every day.

Harsh life, but um simplicity, I guess, and and so um, you know he went back to Fairbanks and and more or less you know, uh got my mom and they went north and build a sad iglo and started that life, um, which was you know, using caribou sinu for thread and and sewing muck lux out of uger steel, um tied in caribou and um, just the old ways. We just had dried fish for lunch and and seal oil and and uh whipped caribou fat and I could go on

and um that was the life. You guys. When you were a kid, you guys traveled by dog team day you Yeah, but was that was that like a was that sort of like a like a conscious decision to do something in old way because you were sort of like your age would have been where dog teams were

definitely on the way out. Absolutely. I was born in nineteen and it was like dead nuts on the arrival of snowmobiles, and and pretty quick into that, my dad got rid of his uh his dogs, and and I think it was bothering him shooting uh, you know, a hundred caribou of fall for for dog food. Um. Uh, Well that was people food and dog food, but um,

yeah it was. And they didn't have they didn't have much when they arrived, so they didn't have fish nets webbing, you know, to catch the very reliant Yeah, and and and everybody was uh, I shouldn't say everybody. You know, the villagers were way ahead of my family as far as catching fish. Pretty quickly we got um uh fish nets. And then my dad got a stone bile archaic bowlands with the track in the front and a seat that drugged behind on wooden skis and it was terrifying machine.

But um and then I think we didn't have a dog's again in Toil, maybe I was eight. I wanted to have dogs, and so I got dogs and built my own sled and started using a super small dog team for uh trapping, and uh, we didn't have neighbors, so uh, you know, my dogs were kind of my friends. I mean, they weren't allowing the house or anything, but um um hunting and every day and trapping and and all that was you know what I did. We Uh it was kind of substitute for go and senior neighbors

or whatever you said. So you didn't have neighbors, Um, how did your parents like learn all those skills? Were they learning from locals or trial and error or um I gotta get back to the hippie thing for a minute. So um, during about the time I was four, a bunch I think there was as many as maybe fifteen or so people living in little Sadi glues around us. So we did have a brief time of neighbors. Um. These were what we call commune. Yeah. Yeah, these were

what we at home call white people. Um. And so outsiders you refer to yourselves as white people, Um, yes, Um. But it's a weird mix because when I'm out on the country even now with my friends, Um, if you lift up your binkoclers and you're like, hey, look like white people. Um, that's how I grew up. So it's weird to be standing with your innu pact friends and they're like, hey, you, how come there's white people over there and and there's me and um, so I kind

of um, um, I don't know. I guess, as Sarah Palin would say, I shuck and jib um that I don't know, Um where that fits in? But my myself where I fit in? It's it's hard to uh, I mean, I feel white outsider ish a lot. And then other times I'm like, hey, I don't you know, I get uncomfortable when I see uh this outsiders. But I really want to explain that it's um, it's just sort of a sloppy term, like so many other things. And part

of that you're talking about hippies. It says it's a loose uh, you can accuse somebody of something and not really be careful with it. And and so um, there's a lot of comedy involved in the village. Some um black guy showed up a school teacher and and the um, the kids were calling him a honky um and uh, and it was just they didn't know um. And so yeah, I've I've been called that a ton of times, you know,

and for you know, everything, you get called everything. But um, um, I guess that if a person, let's just say, an Asian person showed up, they would be referred to as white people, which is just an euphemism, a broad a broad euphemism for outsider. That makes sense. So so it's almost become a joke in a way. It's a sloppy term.

But anyway, so I grew up um kind of a weird mix of that where, um, if you know, if somebody looks at you a mile way through the binoculars, you know, you're one thing, and then you walk over, oh you know you're um, you're into the your local you know, and didn't recognize you. Um. That was a long winded explanation of the tip of the iceberg as far as race relations at home. But um, yeah, anyway,

so my parents went north. Um, I think part of that back to the land movement, but at that time we're so focused on it that um uh, it's almost like in the village is the inn impact population was looking forward at modernity, blue jeans and plywood and and whatever else in my family was you know, actively looking back and and saying, oh, yeah, we'll stick with kerosene lamps or or um. Were you guys regarded by Native Alaskans as like did they sort of like recognize the

movement your family was part of. Was there enough of that going on that they're like, oh, there's these white people showing up on the landscape trying to sort of like act like how we lived years ago. Yeah, things are complicated. I want to catch you for a second, because, uh, you said something about your family went there and claimed homestead and all that. My parents didn't claim the land because they wanted to be like natives. The natives didn't

have ownership of land. Um. And so my parents actively didn't claim the land, which was a huge mistake, but they didn't. And then very quickly that that ended. Um and uh. And then they found out their mistake because we're on the BLM burn list and they were gonna come if they could get our sod iglu to burn, which is doubtful because it was sort of damp, but um, they were burning people's cabins out at that time. And um, these hippie squatters. Um. So I've never owned the land.

Um and and and now I'm I think I'm the last person in Alaska who has a National Park Service permit to reside where I was born and raised. Which is some writer that I think Senator Ted Stevens put into a NILKA the Native Claim Settlement Act. Um. So your daughter will lose, yeah, that's the idea, yeah, which is is not does lose at home? Yeah, um, which is home to her too. And and then you know to get back to really if you die, they destroy it. Uh. Yeah,

that's the idea. Yeah, I think I'm supposed to when I'm about ninety, I'm supposed to destroy it before I die, so like your last act before you die. Well that's why I'm always picking my trash. Otherwise I just leave

it on the ground. No, kid, really, I didn't realize that you guys didn't do I just I don't know why I assumed that they did the homes toad because then I noticed that, like you still hang out there and your daughter hangs out there, and yeah, I just you know, I just spent a break up there, but you know, not very long before before coming here. You know, never saw a person the whole time. And it's in a lot of ways, it's like the um. You know,

it hasn't changed that much. You know, my companions are in Cariboo and bears walking around, et cetera. But um, then in other ways, there's a lot of you know, um land claims and permits and rules Alaska. You probably know this, but it's real weird that way um up there in the Arctic. Uh, there's a ton of rules written on paper about that land. But the paper is far away somewhere else, and we don't know anything about it and kind of do what we used to do. Question.

I was just gonna ask that did your family when you were younger, did they have like interactions or run ins with federal officials like trying to get you to Yeah, that was yeah, the blm uh first, but then more of that was the precursor to the National Park Service. Was was showing up and pretty terrifying. You know, plane land on the ice and these big white guys walk up the hill and start telling us that basically we were you know, might have to move. And that's what

I grew up with. Lots of like fear of the parks. Yeah, yeah, fear of yeah, lots of things. But um, but I would say that the natives had that too, I mean they did. Is that, um, you've got thousands of years is living on the land here and then and then the plane comes and they say what you can't and can't do? And it just all sounds very confusing until the plane flies away and then it's not confusing anymore.

What okay, when you mentioned when you when you when you were young and you guys are living off caribou and you had a dog team, Uh, was there a regulatory structure in place at all, Like if a family is going through a hundred caribou, I mean you're not out putting metal locking tags on the things. Like was there any sort of regulatory structure in place that you were aware of in those days? Okay, so me, I was a little kid, you know, just chewing on a

bone or something. So now I wasn't aware. Um, my dad may or may not have gotten a hunting license. I assume he would try, but I don't know how you'd go about it because Juno is, you know, about as close as Miami. Um, local people certainly didn't get hunting licenses, and it was, um just such a weird idea that you'd have to get a license to hunt. I'm trying to come up with an analogy, but um, no I understand the analogy. What I'm I'm asking like a very buying. I'm asking like a very like I'm

not talking about pertate of Alaska. Have some I said, had I gone, had I gone to Juno? And I had said, and I had said, I'm living where you. Let's say you had gone, your dad had gone to Juno. I'm saying, what was whether it was regarded or not regarded, and I'm not like saying that it should have been. I can't answer that real easy. I have no idea. Okay, uh no, I think, Um, yes, there was game management

units already set up, I think. And and if you went down to the forty mile herd or something, there was probably a bag limits and and more accessible. Yeah. And everybody was supposed to get a a hunting license. And I think as a so called outsider or whatever, if you had flown to the northwest Arctic, you probably would have had a limit of such and such amount of cariboo locally, I don't think there was limits. I think you could. You could choot cows, calves, bowls, as

many as you want it. Um. And And then when in the seventies when they had a photo census where they fly over and the caribou aggregate in the middle of July, where there's some at times, you know, a hundred thousand or more in a in a tight mass, they would take pictures of those. You count the cariboo in the picture. That's the short version of the photo census.

And um, in the seventies they came up with this very very low number of I'm gonna say, seventy five thousand caribou for the Western art occurred and they promptly cut us from unlimited to one per hunter per year. Yeah, which was in my book. I use this uh analogy of like you'd be allowed one blueberry, um, so you've you know, you've always picked blueberries and then suddenly you're only allowed one um and um and people were you know, terrified and confused and um. And then we that at

that point we were ish. We not me as a kid, but my dad was issued this little locking silver thing which was very uh fancy, nice piece of metal with some numbers on it. But people didn't always click that thing together because you needed to carry when you got your next caribou. Um and UM. Yeah, I think this. I think, Yeah, there's lots of different ways of seeing things. But I suspect the the state of Alaska miss some

cariboo in their photo census. And I also suspect that at that time, with the introduction of um, you know more uh many fourteens and and and not too long after that Air fifteen with rapid shooting uh small caliber bullets, and then stomobiles had just derived, which was changed you know, our our relationship immensely with the with the natural world, like you didn't need to wait for caribou to come to you. Yeah, yeah, and go further and faster. And

so I suspect there was two things going on. There was that the cariboo were dropping in numbers, and the statement might have missed some, but it was a good time to wake up and say, okay, maybe we need to um not just shoot every cariboo we feel like at all times, all seasons, you know. So it was just a little rough the way it went about you

fish commercially? Now, yeah, does what is the fishing you described when you're when you when your family was living out in the land, you described a need to get like like learning how to get nets and fish. What was that fishing? And then what does the fishing you

do now? Oh? Interesting? Yeah, so um um, I say, you know, when we get done commercial fish and we go back up river and immediately set all our nets for for a non commercial But um my dad and um mom, I guess fished out of cots Abue in the late fifties, I think it was or nineteen sixty, right around then, and there was a canary. Um, I think you got the thirty five cents of fish and they made a hundred dollars for the season or something, and so people kind of discovered fishing was it was

real hard to get cash. Then it was either whitefish or in salm salmon, and so they didn't fish for another twelve years in that fishery went up. You know, we lived up the river, up the Kobuk River, which is like a hundred and fifty river miles from from Cotsebue where the fishery is. So they never fished again

until I think nineteen seventy four. My dad built applywood boat and we went down and lived in a tan and fished uh ninety four and and they grossed like four thousand dollars or something, which we had never heard of that much money before. Um he built he built the boat up yeah yeah, in Ambler or near the village of Ambler, and ordered marine plywood and et cetera, and then then took the boat down river, down the river.

He has uh maybe two hundred miles down the river and across Kobac like camp the camp ten miles across from cotsbu at a fish camp, and and back then if you wanted green American cash. There weren't too many ways of getting it, and commercial fishing was one. Fishing was becoming. Uh the price was great then it was like fifty cents a pound for salmon, which is it's

not even That's about where we're at today. And you guys using like drift gillnets, uh, set nets, hang your own nets and um and set we were allowed nine feet of it. And you guys were sitting here talking about fishing earlier, and I didn't understand it. Gosh starn thing you were saying nothing. Um, but my idea of sport fishing is to set six or nine feet of I'm joking about the sport. But I love commercial fishing and super exciting and especially when the fish are hitting,

but set and that effective. Um. Yeah, So when your parents were commercial fishing, were they doing it themselves? Are working for no? Okay? So I didn't answer either one of your questions, but so we would. We started doing that as a as a way to trap in the winner. My dad would make a dog sledge or some um sleds that people towed behind their snowmobiles, sort of like

a dog sled for cash. And then the summer we go down and commercial fish for for cash, and it was all pretty feeble, but would end up with you know, some actual money. But they're running their own operations. Yeah, everybody's doing their own things small super small boats. And then uh, come late August, we would put the dogs and the family and the tents and head up river. And my dad's boat was like four ft long, thirty five horse. Three days a holding the tiller to get

home and then unload the dogs. And then we would spend the next eleven or ten and a half months at our house, pretty much staying home because he didn't want to you know, buy gas and and travel. We would go to Ambler, that closest village five miles away, but we would go oh once or twice a winner, and you know, once or twice by boat, and and so they're at home. Uh, back to your original question. As soon as we got home, we put nets out

and started once again gathering fish and um. Yeah, and then at that point cariboo would be crossing, so we would get a couple uh to eat and dry and whatever. You just oh, if there's cariboo, well we need food. But we would kind of hold off on the winter supply of cariboo until late September when it's cold enough, because we didn't have electricity, so we didn't have freezer.

So everything had to line up with the season and every even every season, and about hunting different things when they're fat, when they taste good, when the fur is good, and then when you can keep it. And there's just really no use in boating home on August shooting a bunch of caribou because their flies were out and it was too warm. And what was the you guys do

at home? You do whitefish or salmon or what. Along the river there is grailing trout, trout which would be Arctic char, salmon, she fish, pike, mud shark which is a bourbon like you guess called mud sharks. That's a great name. Yeah, I don't know, I got it's a very confusing fish names. Yeah. Well, at home we call them ticktalic, which is that's the innu pack word, and so that's kind of ticktalic. You can find it in my book. And so I have a hobby of collect

bourbon names. Oh yeah, oh, well, there's such a great fish. I love hooking them. We hook them through the ice in October and at night, lay on a caribou hide and look slowly freeze ass as you When I when I told someone I have a brother, that I have a brother lives in anchors. When I told him that you were coming to do a show, and he said, if you can get he told me, if you can get one thing out of this, you need to get out of this. An invitation to fish. She fish through

the ice? Oh yeah, absolutely. It was like he was like strongly encouraging me to lean on you for that opportunity. He just did that, like, yeah, I just said a net to bring her a fish. I guess maybe I should have brought you, but I assumed you had already. He know, he wants you. He wants me to make you take me rotting and reeling for she fish through the ice. Well, we just used a stick with the line.

But yeah, okay, okay, okay, okay. The open water she fish is like he fishes those I mean, washing him, jumping stuff. But he thinks that the the epitome she They're not in it for this, the epitome of she fishing. He likes she fish, all right, but the epitome of shea fishing would be she fish through the ice. I

guess I kind of agree. I have a hard time with the hook and line thing that you cast and tangles up and then I don't know, man, Yeah, I know, hold on a second, somebody takes your hook or hooks on it. Well, I just it's all. I was listening to you guys, and I know it's fun. We used to do it, but I'm not good at it. But hooking through the ice, to me, makes more sense because you've got a stronger line and you got you got to make sure the hole is big enough otherwise you

can't get it. Yeah, they get up to what like sixty pounds or bigger maybe I don't know. I don't weigh things or stuff like that, but they're big. Yeah. Sure you a picture here afterwards. But how many feet long is a big shea fish? Probably four out of at all whitefish man white fish family, I think, I think so. Yeah, at all those different fish that your family would catch and late summer, what was your favorite? What we really liked? What we called trout, and it's

Arctic char. At that time, we didn't know that, and we called them either a mean trout or a nice trout. Um and the mean trout is when it spawned out, and it's kind of bright right right, and long and skinny and of course back to fat, which is very important. If it wasn't fat, it was you know, dog food. Um. And so the mean trout were skinny and we thought they were different trout and it turned out they're not.

They're just they go for eighteen months without eating and all and stuff and and trout or arctics are amazing. But like I think it pretty much is. But you have to check with the run um. Well, we're gonna lose track of this whole show if you start talking about it. You got a question for you. The fish, the varieties of fish you would net in August, You were able to dry those fish? Yeah, we start trying

to dry. It was hard because we were not yet people of the Blue tart Um, which is really import Yeah, we always had fish tracks, but but trying to cover them and what to cover them with. But is that because the blue tart wasn't around yet. It wasn't around yet. Everything was pretty It's it's shocking to think about how different it is with all this the ship we have nowadays, like plastic bags. Well, where you going to get those

fifty years ago. And and that brings me to a question too about and sorry to regress a little bit, but about your dad deciding at some point he decided to try to make some American cash. Yeah, so it was like a dilemma for him. No, he wasn't he didn't have it wasn't a hippie in the sense that he didn't want cash. He just didn't want a job. Um. And to him, a job separates you from life. He wanted to live and be out on the land and stuff. And so if uh, you know, when links became very valuable,

we trapped links. Um Uh. He didn't like bothering the wolves much, which was a personal thing, maybe because they were hunting much like he was, you know, walking a lot and out on the land every day. But um, we trapped wolverine and and when foxes, when they first got their foxes were worth nothing. And then as an eight year old, I trapped some foxes and sent them

to gosh was it called Goldberg's. I'm trying to remember now, But anyway, we went of the fur buyers and I got like sixty ninety bucks apiece, and my whole family took notice's we trapped foxes for the next because the guys needed money to buy gas or tools or whatever. It wasn't put it in the bank. Yeah, yeah. It

was crazy. Thing was we um, I mean we made our own dog collars and harnesses and sleds and tow lines and we anything that was what we called store bought very suspicious and the family had to have a big discussion about whether you're gonna spend any money, which was the final answer was no, so you might as well not have the discussion. But but they did order, um um, they did order stuff. It was real long process to you know, basically get to the village, take

an envelope and mail it to you. Probably, I mean probably you guys probably bought a stove, cookwere white gas, yeah, white gas for sure, kerosene um, and you know, coffee and sugar and flour. And then as the years went by and we started commercial fishing and had money, uh, you know, they'd order potatoes from Palmer, Alaska, and we we plan a garden so we'd grow that potatoes also.

But then uh vanilla for you know, making snow ice cream and powdered milk, and we just more and more stuff but but nothing like just walking in the store and filling your shopping cart. My parents were pretty much like, um, don't waste was well, they were you know, they were depressionary era people. They grew up in uh my dad, you know, at the end of the Depression and World War two. Um, and so there was already that pretty

strong don't waste. And then you go far enough north and trying to get up a pound of butter was complex experience. And so as kids, which you if your hippies indoctrinating your kids out in the wilderness so called wilderness, you can um tell them, oh, don't use that, don't use that, and don't cut string, and no you're not allowed to use any nails. But if you find a bad one, we'll discuss whether you're allowed to have it. Um um so um. Yeah. It was a lot of

everything was sort of in this don't waste. But you certainly were caribou hides that wasn't in the uh you use those for whatever you want. That was your blue target. Yeah that was yeah. Well yeah, so anything you want to do with the caribou hide was pretty much open season. And your book, I'm surprised by the amount of Um, this is gonna segue into you're given us some of that food you got there. But the amount of boiled meat you guys eat boiled joints and boiled feet and

like a lot of boiled meat. Not a lot of deep frying going on. No, yeah, there was a lot of and uh, you know the local thing is like caribou soup is is just a standard as his. He catch a trout at home, you give it to an elder. They're gonna make soup out of it, with the skin on and all the bones and stuff, and and certain people are like, cool, that's not what I would have done with that fish. But um, but um, yeah, maybe

that was a certain amount of ease. Or you've got the witch dove going and you talk about the waist. So because like you guys described taking sort of like carribout pelvis is oh, and just put that pelvis into pot and boil it until he could. Oh, I'm getting ready in salt white people, I can't believe at home if you leave the bones, well, let's just back up here. At home, we look at the rear end of the animal caribou to see if it's fat, and we kind of joked that the white guy or the outsiders are

looking at the antlers. Well, we're not looking at the antlers where it's got to be fat. And then, um, the fat is you know, maybe back fat or or stomach fat or whatever a chark, you know, the lacey fat around the intestines. But um, the bones are where

the flavor and the fat is. And so there's just so many stories of um, you know, some old innu pack elderly woman just disgusted with her daughter bringing home a white boyfriend and he goes out hunting and brings home the antlers and they're just like, you know, what's wrong with this guy? And then um, and then the other sort of standard story is, um, this outsider handing elders or somebody respected handing them a chunk of meat without a bone. You know, how come that guy show

stingy Um. Yeah, yeah, we think about that. You're gonna bring someone something nice, You're gonna bring him a backstrap. You just try to keep the moose is knee. But seriously, I mean, now I cook a lot with a not suit but a Dutch shoven with you know, put some oil in it. It's here the knee real quick is your fuel mostly would to make heat into not anymore. No, I mean, propane is an amazing thing. Nowadays everything has changed. You know. I have a place in Cotspy with electricity,

so I have freezers there. So when I come down from upriver, uh, where I don't have any of that, I'll bring meat and starting a freezer and sharing meat and a freezer. I don't know if you guys know about this is amazing. Well, I want to talk to a guy that he uh, he's actually a friend of mine and for his graduate work he was doing, um, he was doing sort of this hundred years survey of of hunting magazines, and one of the things that he really took note of is just the way the conversation

changed when freezers became a thing. I mean, it just changed. It changed everything about people's perspectives on deer hunting. Um, once every Joe Blow on the planet had a freezer in his house, because like the whole like filling the freezer, that's like a new like relatively speaking, that's a new concept. Right. It would be that you got a deer and you had to figure out what you're gonna do with that deer.

Right now, absolutely. And I really value living seasonally, so I'm gonna go home and start commercial fishing, which means that I bring home a seal bit salmon that you can't sell, you know, seals are working them. And so I eat salmon like all summer, but come August, and of August, people are like, oh, how many salmon do

you put in your freezer? I'm like one, And even then I started begrudgate because it's not going to be fresh, and uh and I'm kind of sick of salmon by then, anyway, and then heading up river hoping to you know, start eating caribou and then um and whatever else and uh. And I like that seasonal connection to your food and and so a freezer um is handy too to save food and not waste hypothetically. Um, but I kind of

like just eating what's in season. And um. A lot of hunters and anglers use their freezer as a prolonged wasting machine, funk. I'm so glad to hear you say that. Like it's like it's a way that you can get something and then put off the waste. When it's five years old, You're like, oh, I can throw it out now. Yeah,

freezer burn. I'm so glad to hear you say that, and you know that bugs me most about uh, you know, many things, but at home there's it's this uh conveyor belt to wasting because um then you especially something like she fish which you mentioned, people love to go out and hook them through the ice really close to town and there. What do you do if you get a sledload of sheat fish, you know, and you can leave someone.

I'm joking, but I actually wrote a proposal to make it illegal to leave them on the ice when you you know, your head home. Uh oh absolutely, Um, but uh in the state past that proposal. So now it's illegal to leave your you know, spare fish there. But but people bring them home and they put them in the freezer. So many, you know, because you can catch a lot of big fish. And and so I'm thrilled to hear you um mentioned that the freezer is is uh you know, a wasting device. It's it's it's one

of it's one of hunting and fishing. Uh. Many dark secrets. Is the the the old Like I'll put my freezer then later I'll throw it out for some weird reason. I won't feel bad about it in two years. The same goes. You know, if you get sixty geese and don't get around and plucking him and stick him in the freezy pull out. I've never done that because I'm very fanatical, But I see people pulling out geese that are not plucked and not gut it and in the freezer.

That's an extreme. They're scary. Okay, what do you got front of man? We gotta I gotta know so I um, I don't know if you're I don't want to scare any of your listeners. But so that's a fermented whale bowhead meat. This is fresh mucktuck, which is bowhead, the skin and blubber. I don't know how scary you want to get. Do we need something I've had? This is walrus kind of the same idea of the skin. This has still got the hair on it, which looks like

unshaven one of your neighbors. Um but um, but the same idea as muck tuck. It's the skin with the layer's lever. What else do I got here? Oh? This is for you? You touched on which one walrus? Um? This right here is is uh yeah, that's got the hair on it you touched on this earlier. So, but like the walrus and the whale, is this stuff that was was given to you or were you yeah? Yeah? Because so they have this right here is uh this is just salted or raw or what it skills firm

that's cooked. This is cooked. This is raw. Uh, this is raw. Um, so this is uh, this is right cariboo. So at home, my um uh kind of standard lunch would be um dried caribou and either steal dipped in seal or more likely uh boehead and muck tuck, which just raw very often the bluga muck tuck smaller whale the same idea is cooked. But but the wall you guys cook the walrus. Um the skin yeah yeah, it's

got some blab and skin. Uh. My experience was trying to cut walter skin is you wouldn't get too far if you didn't cook that. What do you mean kind of bulletproof? Oh so, but you guys eat the hair like I just did. Right, Well, I don't know said, but I gotta tell you the old that I need you try to combo. You're you're gonna like this. It's some very fresh and simple Try it on them. So you're eating the cariboo with the fat. Yeah, it's super good. Yeah,

this's other stuff. Give me a photo. That's not a frad. He's doubling down. Do that wallus me to something. Man, there's nothing like that on the planet. Holy God, this is bow ahead. Yeah. I don't want say like it. I don't want to say I don't like what I'm saying. There is nothing like that. So Steve, the first time I had um, it's like if a deer was made out of fish. The first time I had uh, this

walrus was some we were camped at fish camp. One floated in so the hunter squad and shoot shoot them. And I hate to say this, but a certain amount of time to get the tusks. But um, but if they sink, they stayed down for a while and then the gases form in the stomach, they float up and then they then they're floating in the ocean. They come ashore. Um. So one came ashore. Seagulls are on top, pooping on it and everything, and it's all sunburnt, rotten on top.

Well underneath, the cold water kept it fresh, and the you know, the natives knew that. So they towed it ashore and somebody claimed the tusk. I don't remember that part, but so they cut that. Um, it's called coke. That's what the local word coke. You've probably had many a coke and your life, m but that's what they call this skin part of it. So they cut that off.

That um floating did the corpulent walrus, and and and got a third of a drum, you know, fifty five gallon drum to cook boiling water over a campfire and then cook that. Well, my brother and I were barefoot kids, you know, fish camp there, and we walked down and they said, you want to try something. We thought it was the best thing ever what you just had. I'm not convinced that this is as fresh as that was. Um, that's fermented whale meat. You want to get into that.

I'll try the non ferment I want to try, but I want to cleanse my pal I think the fresh wheel meat. Yeah, let's let's recap on on the bowhead, right, which is but what you're going about to have, Brody, what what are your thoughts on? I mean, it's just tastes like fat. It's pretty neutral. So UM, that demarcation between the black skin, and the where the blubber starts shows a tough layer. And you could tell how cool

you are when you're given um uh muck tuck. If you are given if it's really tough that layer, you're you are given a section in the whale that's not as desirable. Um and often when I'm sort of joking, but um, I joked that if you're not if you're not cool, you get the tougher uh uh portion of the whale. You know, to go really good with this salt. Yeah, that's why. That's that's really so, that's why you eat it with the caraboos, Steve the dried caraboo, because it's salty.

But I'm a buehead. I got maybe I have like some delayed effects from my last round of COVID, but I'm not opposed to the walrus at all. Do you guys think that do you already render that fat into an oil? Absolutely? Yeah, yeamnum cover is super thick, and so people render a lot of se oil and store it and uh buckets and jars, and we used to always use wooden barrels, which I think is the store your seal oil. Yeah, I think it's healthier actually than buckets. Um,

just for that ship. I try a piece here, I'm gonna do it, But to be honest with me, I'm a little bit chicken shit about the fermented whale meat. Okay, what's this? Oh no, no, you don't want that. You already had it. Um. Raw will meat is phenomenal, but it's fat and skin. So this is um. I didn't think this was the way I was supposed to be. I wasn't as excited. Is it okay to put that on the cutting board? That's fermented wheel meat? No? This is uh is uh beluga uh basically skin um. I

don't know. I think it's not cooked. I usually you don't like it or like it. I didn't. Well, here's the section. This is the flipper so you can see that out of the outside, and then super sinowy section. I like it better than walrus, but I don't like it as much as bullhead. I wonder if you just got like a slightly tainted chunk of all risk I ain't pretty good Tony, what man? I wouldn't let a bullhead get by me? What size portion? When you said

you eat that for launch seth? Sadly enough, I wolfed down. Uh, a lot of fat, and I'm I'd fight to not be a skinny white boy. I just don't seem to put on weight. But um, yeah, I eat a lot of a lot of fat all year around. And um. When my daughter was young and her mom would go to work, she was like three years old, and she'd sit and have lunch with me, and I would catch her dipping whale blubber and bear fat. And I was like, you're supposed to have some dried meat with that, not

just fat dipped in fat? Well, where, um, what's that there? I wanted to try that dried caribou, did you? I haven't had that I want with this? This is how Oh yeah, I'll tell you what a little rock salt on there and so dry caribou And that's how. This is the bowhead skin And that's how thick a skin is. Nope, that's how thick the skin is. But the blubber would be, like, you know, way thicker than that. I love how it's like a little exclamation point or something, that bowhead fat

melts in your meal. Actually, here's just my kids would like the bowhead, but they wouldn't like the wall. It's not too far removed from like a beef, And that's why I don't. I like both, but it's this is the simplest to slice this up, eat it with dry meat. And I don't know how to answer your question, but probably there's a uh, I don't know. I might eat a half a cup and then and then the local tradition is then to have um, maybe pilot crackers and jam and tea or coffee. And that was kind of

the lunch we'd have. We'd have dried pike, dried whitefish, dried trout, which is harder if it's fat, right, cheap fish, um through that little combo of the dried cariboo in the bowhead. Oh yeah, that's lunch. Um. But shoot, I keep forgetting whatever what are the crackers? Uh, sailor boy? Pilot bread? Yeah? You hear so many lasting thought about that, and I built up like a high expectation of what pilot bread would be. And I foundly got some like

that's what they're talking about all the time? Is it? Like? Um? Yeah, and it's a kind of a big cracker. Why do you guys eat so much of that? Because it preserves well? Um? Well, I joked that it's uh that pilot breader is actually in new pack food. It's uh, it's it's been so uh adopted by the culture that, um, I don't know, you just get used to. It's like eating, you know, why don't you eat muck tuck every day? And so that's how could you survive without it? And that's how

we could get pilot bread. I can't get that. It's just funny. Like rural Alaskans and the whole pilot bread thing. It's like it's kind of like a bland thick. Yeah. I don't think it's salted. Think you're getting your protein salt. It's a car I'm taking offense. I don't care if you don't like the wall or I love it. You guys love it. It's just funny because when I had it, I was like, well that's what they're talking about. When we lived in Fairbanks. Yeah, immediately, like first time I

went to the grocery store getting some of these. After those ten months living up there, I didn't miss it. When I left Alaska, were you did you guys have many sweets at all? Or was that like my dad? Yeah, that's very interesting. My dad said that eating all that protein and fat made greatly desire sweets, and so he would, uh, we get done with some giant um meal of notice you got mediterranean Mediterranean sea of that was at the hotels.

My dad collects salt along the shore. But um, we would get done with a big meal of you know, boiled caribou meat or something, and then start getting a hankering, large hankering for sweets. And my dad would take um, powdered snow, you know, fluffy snow, uh, dairy gold powdered milk, sugar and vanilla and start whipping it up in the corner and snow ice creams. Great, it's just like dairy green. And we had had that in your book. I wanted to make it for my kids. I never got around.

You need that real fluffy uh cold dry snow. Yeah that falls almost like cotton e snow. Yeah, super nice and um yeah, we'd have that every night. Yeah sweets. Yeah it sounds great. So the the fermented way all, have you already had it? Yeah? No, I'd like to. Well, yeah, well you so you explain why this is part of the diet versus what we just happen. Sure, just not that will be Manneth dropping down. Oh well, no offense, but it's you're gonna think it is it was bad.

You're really selling it. You know. The thing that's my daughter. Just make this guy from Point Hope to bring her something. Um, she loves this. But yeah, I'm telling you what. My new favorite food is your jerky and your into this. Uh that's fermented well meat, their raw prosion. So what's what's the process of fermenting that? There's not? Um, well, we we had it's not. I'm like, I actually found that less remarkable than the waters small piece. I think

you got to try the way. It's not a big deal. Let's give him some more waters, Steve, I think you got to try the wall risking you good because I think he got a funky piece because I thought it was I had a couple of pieces of the hair and everything. I didn't want to be rude. That fermented. So explain the process on the fermented stuff. Well, it depends. You know, we ate a lot of frozen fermented fish

when I was a kid, and is it like legitimately fermented. Well, it's just like do you have the fermented candle fish? I hear that's quite the culinary experience, haven't Uh I don't know what a candle fish is, but oh yeah, I haven't had the fermented I've ried. So let's get

back to uh. In the fall, we were we would come, you know, set our nets and uh beat drying fish, and then it would reach a point where, um, I guess it was cold enough that the flies were not gonna blow things, and so then we just start uh dumping washtubs of fish in the grass, tryed to laying them up so they weren't criss cross, because you need to chop apart when they're frozen, and then cover them with grass. And I don't know how we kept the bears away then, but I guess we had dogs and guns.

But um and then um that would uh ferment. You could use a different word if you wanted to rack and um and um. Then after it got cold, which used to happen sort of consistently in late September, the ice would freeze, and uh we'd separate those fish and then store them all winter and said we would have lunch that was very similar to this, which would be uh dried meat, dried um fish, pike, whitefish and other dried meat. And then frozen raw um, fermented um trout,

she fish, whitefish, um. And you take your boats, you know, and saw it like you're cutting a log into what like you fry steaks. Those were super cold frozen. Bring him in and put him on a um cutting board and then um peel the skin off and then just eat those chunks. Cut it in chunks between the bones. So what the pike and white fish? Are you cutting the pieces so thin? You just chew the bones right up? Um?

I guess I feel like we also kind of went around the bones because you can see everything pretty clearly when you say that. You you catch fish and you lay them out in the grass and you just because you don't want the freeze together, and they sit there some number of days before they froze, like weeks weeks, and then eventually just pile them up. Yeah, and then we put them on like you had to put him up on a log cash for the winter because they're fermented.

Like yeah, like most people would look at and be like that fish is kind of rotten. Totally yep, rotten fish yet just a desired taste as flavored to it. Yeah, But then we would eat um like grayling. We would jigs through the ice after the ice frozen the fall, we're setting that's under the ice to catch whitefish for people and dogs and hopefully trout under the ice two and chap fish, and then jig for grailing next to your nat because whitefish re spawning and eggs are coming out,

so the grailing would swarm there. We would jig there and then we would eat the grayling frozen raw. So it was the same ideas. So fermented frozen fish, cut them up and they're super good. I if you said, you know, do you want fried grailing or frozen raw, definitely want the frozen really fried fresh grailing is fantastic. That is a tasty fish. We ate what was it,

frozen thin sliced. That's good stuff. So that's the same idea. Well, the seal oil is like I like the frozen tom cod because it's just like it's it's it's thin slices. It's so like clean tasting and it's frozen and it's just kind of it's refreshing. The seal oil adds a whole other element to it, man where it's like a very peppery, like a like a very like a like a spicy oil. I thought it tasted. I thought we

said it tasted like cantaloupe. Almost didn't it well? I think you guys did pretty well, because what I'm finding with seal oil now is um it's often kind of strong. I mean I thought I thought it was strong. I think when they used to use wooden barrels to render it, it wasn't it was it did a better job of

making uh, sort of a fresh tasting oil. I wasn't a coastal person, so we were we were known, as you know, up up the river Inland as um having crappy oil because it was you know, you're lower on the totem pole as far as trading, and you had your jar of oil that was from last year as opposed to the seal you got yesterday or whatever. But a lot of this stuff um. I have to be careful culturally not say the wrong thing, but I feel like the a couple of generations back, the elders had

um um. I thought they did a better job of it. Um. Uh. So I end up now with with all that, I often am not as excited about the flavor as when I was a kid. And and some of that's me. I noticed, I'm getting more squeamish. Um. We used to my parents would we get a muskrat or many muskrats and cook them up, and we'd eat the feet and tail. And I want to ask about that. When you say you guys are eating the tails, I don't get it. Well, what are you eating off the tail? I need to

tell you about raising kids. Um, if you don't tell your kids not to eat the butt hole or the head or the tail or the lips, they will um. And especially if you did tell your kids, like it's time to eat, and you open the soup pot and there's the entire you know, I got it, But the rest of the muskrat there while the tail's fat and chewy and uh great, So there's a there's enough under that skin, between the skin and the bones of the tail. You guys are nibbling off like a layer of fat

and meat. Yeah, and the yield's got to be really low though. Yeah, but wait a minute, what else would you do with the tail? Just cut it off and fling it in the willows, put it in the pot um. And the same thing with with beaver, Like springtime, the ice would go out and beaver send their teenage kids out to find new homes. Um, And so along the river would be we would uh my brother and I would paddle in our little kayaks that my dad made, and we would shoot and shoot beaver and muskrat with

twenty two. Um. So you skin out the beaver, save the hide, and then cook the feet and head and tail and um everything else. Um and yeah, but the tail on a beaver man that's got a lot of fat? Did I try? I'll try the muskratch? I just can't really picture it. I've handled like quite a pile of me know. Yeah. Well, I mean, like I said, now, I probably would. I don't really need muskrat fur. And

I can't remember the last time I got one actually. Um. I just I think after I ended up with my first girlfriend and later my wife from uh we're not together anymore, but were living along the river, I started being uh more careful of like, oh I should cut that off, and oh, I don't think she would be that excited to have the head grinning out of the pot at her and um, well, I mean I knew she wasn't. Um and so I started my long road

to being more squeamish. But as a kid. My parents were just like, that's what we're having for dinner, and fight over the tail. Um, and then of course beaver, uh, beaver of the tail. What's the favorite part? Tell me about the Tell me about this road situation you're involved in here. Um. Probably in the early nineteen hundreds, they built Kennicott Mine down by McCarthy and built a railroad

from Cordova across the glaciers and up and got copper. Uh. They got that copper and then they started looking for more. And so right about the time my parents went uh to the Kobuk Valley, there was a cabin above our place called did a right thing, Pastor McCarthy. Nope, no, Sorry I'm being long winded, but there was a cabin

that we always called the Kennicott cabin. And we didn't sort of put these pieces together, but that was that mining company, uh, coming up the Kobuck and had discovered um or new about previously discovered copper um up the Ambler River and in those mountains in the Kolbuck watershed. Yeah. Absolutely, And so all these years, uh, the UM, Senator Makowski, Senator Stevens, all these people have tried to figure we're trying to figure out how to access that, but it's

pretty you know, remote. UM. So they talked about railroad from they could get the ore. Yeah. And so now there's been uh this steady push over the years that has built um crescendo now where they're they've got the I s kind of mostly through. It's a little complicated that uh all that, but they're they're wanting to build a spur road off the pipeline road two hundred miles sort of um, straight west from the pipeline road through

an through the controlling reserve. UM. Well in this case, it's it would go about through battles and then some native lands, some state land, and through the gates of the Arctic National Park UM and then hit the head of the Kobuk and end up at UM basically Kobuk Village, which is which is the village at the furthest um

up the Kobuk River. It would be a two hundred mile industrial corridor that would then open up the Brooks Range and northwest Alaska to the many many uh large deposits of minerals and coal and oil and the UM. From my point of view, it would uh uh ruin the maybe the last largest uh intact ecosystem ecosystem in

the world uh um the Brooks Range UM. And then put this these many giant open pit mines at the at the head of the kobuk and the um Manila can cocollacta conambler, all these rivers that flow into the kobuk um and UM and also sort of bring this tidal wave of technology that would change the innupact way

of life, which has already greatly changed. But what sort of finish it off with UM technology and money and uh influx of people and and and and and the final things change hunting greatly as far as um, um, resource conflict and UH and then back to the technology.

But then UM, the Western art occurred is just just sort of flowing the river of Cariboo that was almost half a million cariboo twenty years ago and has dropped now to just under two hundred thousand, hundred eight thousand, I think, and so on that though, I mean, that's like a wildly cyclical population of animals that goes up and down with great frequency. I mean, don't you agree with that? I do agree with that. Um, it's a

it's a very complex subject because right now there's some UM. Locally, there's a lot of effort put into um keeping so called outsiders or from coming up to hunt UM. But to me, it makes no sense if you're um not uh looking at your own actions. So at home, there's

a uh, there's a kind of this is stereotypical. Uh, you know, I'm I'm I'm speaking in broad broad terms, But at home there's this feeling that, you know, outsiders damage to the herd, but locals dome and and at home that we there's more of us locally, we have more guns and more boats and and UM, and the herds falling as we're you know, we have more UM, more stuff to hunt them with, and more access and ability.

And then there's a push to build this road at the same time and and um get more high paying jobs and and all that. So what was it? What's the general UM? I'll point out that anything like this my I was gonna say my reflex, but it goes beyond my reflex. Uh. I'm always gonna be on the side of habitat and I'm always gonna be on the side of wilderness. You though you don't like that word, I'm okay, with it now because it's pretty handy. Like I'm always gonna be like people like, well, you have

a house and all that. I'm like, okay, uh, if I get to a point where I don't have a house, maybe I'll have this conversation with you. But right now, um uh. We're not gonna win every fight. But I'm always gonna be on the side of Wilder's always goa on the side of wild life habitat. But what are

the people like your neighbors? Okay, like, what like if you had to gauge I'm sure there's a lot of sophisticated polling in Alaska about the project, But what's just sort of the like the mood on the street as you live your life up and down this vast kobuck drainage. That's a complicated question. Um, there's uh. I would argue that the culture has a lot of fatalism built into it. Uh. Ten thousand years ago, you just sort of had to

let nature do what it did. You couldn't really control a lot and hopefully the the ubern whales and caribou showed up, and if they didn't, well, so too bad. Starvation And so I think fatalism is a cultural norm. And then along came the I'm gonna call them white people, um, and sort of we're kind of uh pushy um as far as you know, saying what you could do moving in change of culture. And so locally there's just these uh this dual fatalism, like these outsiders are gonna come

take what they want. There's nothing we can do about it. Um. Separate from that is a huge cultural change where you know, uh, living off of hunting and fishing is uh dwindling rapidly. And the young generation really likes their phones and or their toys and their stuff and um, and so who wouldn't want to uh very high paying job running heavy equipment or something. It sounds like fun. Um. And then um, they're Alaska. This is complex thing, but uh it was

divided up into U regional Native corporations. The native corporations paid dividends to their native shareholders. So can we pause just for me explain this for a minute. You've touched this earlier. You know it better than me, but I'm

gonna like it, so correct me where I get this wrong. Um. During the Carter administration, Uh, there was a lot of undecided there's a lot of like undecided questions about who owned what parts of Alaska, and you had a lot of like they didn't have They don't have the reservation system in Alaska like they have in the lower forty eight, and they started to they wanted to come to some finality about certain land areas, and so they started to

formally like divide up the state. And one of the things they did differently than they did in the eighteen hundreds in the lower forty eight is when making settlements

with Native Alaskans. Um they built corporations and oftentimes multiple what we might think of as tribes or multiple groups of Native Alaskans will belong to a Native Alaskan corporation and they'll have a board of directors and they have a chunk of land and they run that chunk of land like industry, mineral extraction, timber extraction, whatever, and that income produces payments to shareholders the same way if you are a stockholder in a in Amazon and you draw

dividends or whatever, is that good or not good? Um, that's a good start. So it wasn't the Carter administration that was a nail cove which set up like that national parks and stuff. So previous to that was anksa Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act, which I think Nixon signed, UM and that set up the corporations. It gets incredibly confusing from there. And and uh, don't quote me on any of this, hopefully you're not recording this, UM. But um uh, the Native corporations do have the land as

a uh you know, for resources extraction, et cetera. But they also were given a big chunk of change that they can invest in, like a company that um uh provided toilet paper to the troops in Iraq, or or all sorts of other things. And so like the uh North Slope Regional Corporation has done very well on oil and gas. Um some of the other ones um almost like the Alaska Permanent Fund might have invested in uh

what ever you know. So so in the North on the North Sult, for instance, they've taken oil revenues and diversify their portfolio and invested in presumably you know, a

pension fund might go running investing. Yeah, yeah, presumably. And and so um what happens back to the Ambler road is that um uh people, the Native corporations are for profit, and so they're kind of like a corporation saying well, this is a this is a good idea, we want this, this will provide jobs, and we'll also pay you separate from your job, give you know, native corporation dividends. So

in that sense, like wow, what a great deal. Um. And then separately they say, will protect your subsistence hunting and fishing. Uh you all there talk of like limiting the road, that the road will never be open to outside traffic like the Hall road, the pipeline road was which is now open. Yeah, and so there's it would take you know, hours and hours and hours just to touch the tip of iceberg on this. But but those

are the the thing the propaganda for the road. Um, it's hard if you're actually paying attention to say this billion dollar road or and then many open pit mines, which I know would lead to more roads and more mines. Um, is not going to damage the caribou herd or the or the subsistence hunting, or the quality of the water or anything but fishing in itself, right, like all the different spawning species of fish that you mentioned, right, and

and just small streams. This road, as it's perceived, would would have to go over. Yeah, many thousand small streams something like that, and many major rivers and et cetera. It's a it's a giant industrial corridor into the into the Brooks Range, which it's hard to if you don't know the Brooks Range, it's hard to explain just how

wild that is. But it's imagine the Mountain Ranges side of California, Okay, yeah, with with no people, with road, with road across no road, no roads and yeah, and then if you're going up the pipeline road and you you know, and you wander off to the west, you'd be like you'll hit another road in Siberia. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot, like there's a lot of parallels between this road and the Pebble mine where you have and the Pebble Mind you had like a lot of diverse

groups that pushed back against the road. Is that happening. Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say that, because it's been uh, super frustrating to me over the last decade that Pebble Mind is so known and people have stickers and hats and and every other dude that was well marketed man. Yeah. Uh. And meanwhile, from my point of view,

the Ambler road is much much more detrimental. Um. We don't have the Bristol Bay fishery to say, well millions of dollars and uh red salmon harvest potentially could be damaged. We have you know, the fishery that I've fished in forty seven in years that makes very little money and um, but we have and we have those the she fish that you know, the most sheafish don't um live everywhere, and so we have the the she fish population there.

We have these incredible long, huge rivers that are you can dip your cup in the water, and but but how do you equate that to value? And say, like, well, dipping that cup in the value in the water feels good to me. But but oh, this road would bring jobs. And so it's a hard argument, and it's not been publicized at all, let alone on the on the couple and and I would say, it's uh, um, I don't want to um. The apples and orange is thing, but it's at least as important as pebble. And I would

say much more so. Where you gave me a hoodie, did you design that hoodie? Not that one? And I gotta admit you know, I went to Rdova to uh do a book reading, and somebody came up to me and gave me a shirt that said no road Cordova. Didn't say anything about protecting your food or anything. And I I asked people and they were trying to stop a thirty mile road I think it was, or do you I'm not familiar with it, but so I wore that around and and then I was like, I gotta

make some of these that say no road. Amblers is and um, a lot of the time up home, UM, I feel like the lone ranger. I mean, people know I'm against the road. But locally, um, this is getting back to before we started talking about the Native Corporations and the Land Claims Act. But locally people have that fatalistic attitude. But they also have this you're not supposed to speak out. Um, you're supposed to just you know, keep to yourself about if you're against the road, you

just you're not supposed to talk about it. And and so I'm this lightning rod, this lone ranger, you know, trying to stop the road. But I don't. People come up to me in private and say, you know, can I have a hoodie and thanks and whatever. But in public, uh, people are not speaking out. Um. And part of that is that the Native corporation um, you know, potentially would provide jobs, and you won't you know, if they're going to build the road, you'd maybe you'd want to be

one of the people with it. Um. You don't want to anger your neighbors. You don't want to There's all the normal reasons that humans might or might not speak out. And so I think there's a lot of people who are against the road, but it would be hard to quantify. It would be hard to get them to speak out. Um. Meanwhile, the propaganda machine is sort of grinding forwards, um, saying all the the goodness the road would would bring, um a lot of jobs and moles. Will I actually like it?

Yeah yeah, um because the cariboo someone got that famous picture of caribou getting shade under the pipeline. Oh yeah, yeah, no, they like it well. And then like how much easier it is for a caribou to run down a road versus over tussocks. So the north of uh Cots, beyond the coast is it's a red dog mine which was established probably years ago between Kamenko Native mining company and

the local Native Corporation nana Um and Um. They have a fifty two mile state road from the Mind to the coast the port site and um and it's very very popular at home. It's brought people piping jobs, which is a whole another subject what that does to hunting and and and people's lives and stuff. But Um, that road doesn't lead to you couldn't drive from Miami to it's not on the road. The road on the road and then UM but um cariboo come down that coast.

So western Ardo Kurd hits that road at times and the fishing game callers, radio tracking collars show uh that that stops the caribou for extended periods of time or potentially keeps them from migrating UM further south. And that's a little road, a short road that um Um there's a little speck along the coast star compared to UM this road that would come up the pipeline off the pipeline road north of Fairbanks and then two hundred and eleven miles UM east west UM. So as far as

the caribou migration, UM, the effects could be uh um catastrophic. Really, you can't have a heard of uh you know serengetti like uh animals roaming over giant areas um and then slowly cut back on that area without um something happening UM and UM. I guess I wanted to say another thing about the migration. So the migration has changed greatly in the last uh ten twenty years, and we got

really spoiled in my young life. Where August, September, October all in there it comes this flood of cariboo coming through the yard. You know, thousands of cariboo. Oh, I don't want to get one tonight. You know, I got a band aid on my thumb. I'll get one in the morning, you know whatever. There's just so many caribou flooding through to now where these last falls i've seen like zero um or or a cow and calf eighteen miles away or something. Um. And that's the migration uh

um not happening or delaying. All different things are taking place and super warm in the fall. Um. There's more hunters on these rivers, local hunters driving boats. And then the final thing which I mentioned before that people like to um blame the lack of migration on which is flying outside hunters which are are coming in on super

cubs and stuff to the leap Frog north of US. UM. So it's a it's a very contentious issue when you mix the resource conflicts with the development and and and all that, and then and the lands claim stuff, which is super confusing too well with the industrial development. I think that you'll look back on the pists and match between outside hunters and locals as the good old days.

That's interesting. Yeah, And uh, you know, I recently met um people that talked about oh working together and stuff that locally we don't really have a reason to work together because you can this is gonna sound uh mean, but that the locals can kind of go to the federal government and say, um, you know, protect us because Anelka said, um, well, on federal land there would be a subsistence preference for local hunters. Um. Yeah. Uh. I don't want to get into it, but I think that's

been grossly exploited. Oh yeah, they take I think there's a lot of bullshit with taken. Um. There's been like a lot of overreach I feel on the part of like really like blaming small amounts outside hunters for these like huge macro issues about caribou I think it's just it's like just sticking it to people. I don't disagree with you, um, but I think that most groups on planet Earth have long used whatever they can to their advantage. Most Yeah and so oh yeah, yeah, that's trying to

soften the edges on that. But yeah, and so that's in place right now. I Um, I put a proposal into the board of game to limit, um, the number of cariboo that myself and others up there were allowed to get, because I thought it was, um ludicrous. If we're saying, um, we live subsistence, we should be allowed to do whatever we want, and outsiders shouldn't be allowed to do anything. Um, and so what about taking a look at ourselves and trying to make our subsistence activities

more responsible? Um? Why do we need to be allowed you know, five cariboo a day, every day of the year. Um, when we're uh worried about the cariboo herds, the dude that comes in and gets one, it's like blowing the whole thing. And so I got horribly shot down on that. Um. Um. But I think it's comeing. I mean, I hope it's coming. I think as as uh people who live there and care about that spot. I'm one of them, and and UM, well,

I don't know. I do think there's a local attitude of um, locals can't hurt the resources, it's only outsiders and and all that needs to change. I'm sorry to say it's I'm sure I'm going to have some people that give me some flak over that. But our our local um way of treating the resources as has gotten a little out of hand. And then, um, if we do want to blame the outsiders, which is great fun and really UM feels good. Um we can every group out there. UM, we need to clean up our act

as best as we can. Uh, Seth Canner? Three things? How do people find out? What's the best resource for people to find out your perspective on the road? And then what's the best way for people to find you as a photographer and author and to find your work? Um, I have a a website which apparently is uh hideously unkempt kept and I don't I don't, I don't do much. I don't know how to do computers very well. But any you have a website Seth Kantner dot com and I S E T H K A n T N

E R dot com and UM and on there. I have a few of my thousands of caribou photos and and um in my books, UM and a few of my articles. UM. Nowadays I think everybody, Well, you mentioned googling how to find a diamond out of a ring. I thought that was pretty interesting. I don't google much at all, but you can google me and you end up with these articles. I've written books, have written and then uh op eds about the Ambler Road, which some

of them have been pretty happy with. I recently had a crazy opportunity to meet Secretary of Interior deb Holland and uh and uh I wrote about that and uh and these are sort of boiled down. I try to make the Ambler Road issue as uh. You know it's complex, but I try to clarify it. And you know, you know, a thousand words for people. UM my books. Remember most

recent book this A Thousand Trails home. Uh, Living with Caribou is uh available on there if you want, uh, you know me to ship you on and uh and sign it however you want, but it's uh then you

got paid for postage. So there's other sources. UM. My publisher on that is a nonprofit Mountaineers Books UM out of Seattle, and they are you know, strong advocates of um, you know, um environmental protections and other the use of the outdoors, and so ordering from them, I imagine um uh mountaineers dot org u is uh potentially makes more of the money go to a good cause. UM. But my publishers have all been nonprofits and and haven't I say, I make enough money and from writing to pay for beer.

But it just keeps going up. Uh yeah, hundred hundred ten dollars and cots to be for five six packs um, And so that's become a little challenge. And that's not something kind of goofy yanni beer. That's probably like this regular beer yea, So like is it hoppy? Like? How how citruacy? Yeah, you might have brewing your own over the winter something. Oh well, no comment. I think it's

a felony. But up there all right. Seth Cantner, author most recently of the phenomenal book A Thousand Trails Home, Living with Caribou um, and many many, many damn near All the themes we covered in today's episode will be picked up. Stay tuned Wednesday's drop. You'll see how Seth Cantor does on the Trivia Show and spend there, probably will throw him a bone like what Seth Cantor's favorite color. Uh, he'll probably throw him some kind of bone, but UH, stay tuned. Game on sockers coming up.