Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the White Tail Woods. Present it by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light, Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I am your host, Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, I'm joined by Steve Varnella to discuss how he's used the great outdoors as a classroom for teaching his children about life
and a whole lot more. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light, and today we are wrapping up our month long series on parenting outdoor kids, and I think it is fitting to wrap it up with the one and only mister Steven Rinella, my friend, a colleague, a guy who has taught me both kind of from afar and in some more personal interactions about bringing people into the outside, sharing the outdoors with folks, teaching folks about the outdoors, and
doing that not just with the random people, but also even with your own children. He is the author of a couple books on this very topic, which again makes him a perfect guest for us to help wrap a bow on this whole thing. These two books. One of them came out last year. It's titled Outdoor Kids in an Inside World, Getting your family out of the house and radically engaged with nature. It's a great book. I highly recommend it. I enjoyed it. Like I said, that
one's already out there. And then in a couple of weeks from now on June thirteenth, twenty twenty three, his next book is Hitting the Shelves, and this one is titled Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars, Fun Projects, Skills and Adventures for Outdoor Kids. And this is like an activity book for younger folks to engage with the natural world and build the skills and the experiences that will make you a competent hunter, angler, or just someone who enjoys the outside. I got an early copy of it,
and me and my kids have been enjoying it. It's great, it's full of fun things. My son, in particular, my oldest son, was really really excited that Steve had written a book for kids like him. So if you've got a young child, my boys are three and five and they like it. So if you've got a kid that old up to I don't know twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, who knows what. There's a lot of stuff in there
for them. Highly recommend it. You can pre order it now, and if you're listening to this after June thirteenth, just get out of there and buy it. I'm sure you can buy it from the mediator dot com at our store. So that's the plug on the book front. But most importantly, you know Steve, if you've listened to his podcast, if you've read his books, if you've watched his show, you know that he brings a thoughtful approach to everything he does.
And that's the kind of lens I think that we have been trying to look at parenting through and especially parenting a child that we hope will engage in the natural world. And that's something obviously that Steve's been doing with his own three kids that I think Gosh knows. I think his oldest is maybe thirteen or almost thirteen. So he's been at this for a while. He's had some interesting experiences that have colored that. And so here's
what we talk about, Steve. We talk about some of the childhood experiences that he had himself when he was a kid that have impacted his parenting. Today, we talk about a lot of different ways that he tries to balance the outdoor experiences that he cultivates for his kids, both trying to allow them to be enjoyable, but also taking advantage of them as a learning experience and a personal kind of growth opportunity. That's been a big thing.
If you've listened to the past three episodes with Tony with My Dad with Clay, you'll know this has been one of my big questions, which is, how do I balance making the outdoors or making hunting, or making fishing or camping or hiking. How do you make that fun? How to keep it fun so your kid is engaged
and wants to keep doing it. How do you also use these things as a learning vessel to teach toughness or how to deal with the diversity, or perseverance, or you know, a thousand different things that these outdoor experiences can provide. That's something that I asked Steve about and he has some great thoughts on. Another thing that I've wrestled with a lot and that Steve helped me bring some clarity to, was this idea of how do we teach our children about conservation? How do we instill in
them an appreciation for the natural world. How do we do all those things without overwhelming them, without taking the fun out of it. That's something that I really appreciated Steve's perspective on as well. So today we're going to get a look at how Steve raised his kids to live eye to eye with nature. It is is a
conversation I really enjoyed. I think you will too, And do not forget to go pick up those two books I mentioned, because there's a whole lot more than what Steve and I can get to today, and those books cover it. I know you'll enjoy it. So without further ado, let's get mister Stephen Ranella on the line. All right with me? Now, I've got the one and only Steve Ranella. Steve, thank you for making time for this.
Yeah, thank you, Mark Man.
We haven't done anything in a long time, so this is good.
I know it's been a little while, and I'm pulling in on.
The since the back forty days, dude, I know.
I'm pulling in for the hard hitting stuff too. We're talking parenting, So no softballs. If you're if you're okay with that.
Steve Man, you drive by the bag forty.
I don't drive by often, but I have been back and forth here and there and been there volunteering and mentoring hunter. So I've been seeing it. It's looking good.
Is there any are there any?
Are there any toads out there right now?
I don't know about right now, but last year there was because no one's sporting their sport and their official head gear yet, you know. But I was out there with one of the new hunters last year and we had a really nice buck stand up on one of those fields just out of range and had had a really close Yeah. So it's been it's been producing. I mean, almost two dozen people I think have killed their first year out there.
Now that's great.
Yeah, it's it's been. It's been really incredible. When we have more time, I'll have to actually give you a bunch of the details. It's been very cool to see what's happened there. And uh, I guess that ties in really well to this conversation too, because that that's been a whole mentorship kind of story over there, and and today I want to talk about mentoring kids. And I
don't know how you feel about this, Steve. There's some days when I think about this whole parenting thing, and it feels like I've got it figured out, like things are working out. My boys are, you know, coming along the way I hope they would, and they're listening great, and I'm excited about their future. And then there's other days where I'm wondering, Man, how did I get here? How am I qualified to do this? What am I
doing today? You've you've written now two books, the newest one coming out June thirteenth, related to this idea of parenting, And I'm wondering, do you feel like you're an expert at parenting yet? Or do you still have days like I'm describing where it's just not happening or you've got these question marks.
First off, man, I would never ever ever say that I was an expert in parenting.
In fact, when I hear of like a parenting.
Expert, that's the quickest way to get me to tune out. Yeah, the quickest way to tune out what I'm here and because or to tune them out, because the minute I hear that, I imagine someone one who is taking a really strange, perhaps alternate path to their expertise or meaning that they're applying theory right, that they're like a parenting expert in that they're applying theory or developing theory around raising kids rather than just the nitty gritty, hands on
version of it. You know, I know so many great parents that I've admired my whole life, and none of them has ever uttered parenting expert. It was one time my brother Danny was saying that when he when people came to him and said, oh, you're such a good dad, he would say he would think to himself, meaning that I'm not sociopathic, like, of course, I would hope you're trying to you know. It's like he congratulated for that holding up my end of the bargain. But I uh,
that's a long winded way of saying. I know, here's what I'm an expert on. I'm an expert on after my oldest just turned thirteen. I have three kids eight, ten, thirteen. I am an expert. Undoubtedly. I am an expert on getting your kids outside, whether that's been a success or failure. I'm an expert on what it involves to get your kids outside, introduce them to nature, and get them into hunting and fishing. Like I am an.
Expert, because I mean, you know, I've been doing it for a long time.
I guess I could get better when I have grandkids, and then I did it all the way with my kids and all the way with grandkids, maybe I'd be even better than I am now. I probably wouldn't feel like talking about it anymore. So I have a I have thirteen years. I'm a thirteen year veteran of getting kids outside messing around.
Okay, And I think that's that's pretty fair. But it sounds like you still have days where you lack a full expertise or confidence on the whole rest of the thing. There's still questions for her some days.
Absolutely, I like, you know, but my wife sent me the their name of my wife sent me a clip and it was from a guy. There's a clip from Joe Rogan's show. I can't remember who the hell the guest was. It was just like a little pullout clip and the guy was talking about how frustrating it is
to have kids. And he was saying, in all your interactions with your kids, imagine that you're eighty years old and you're given in this moment, in this moment of intense frustration, you're given a chance to go baack in time and have this interaction at the end of your life, you had a chance to go back and have this interaction, how would you have it? Then? I don't have. All of my interactions with my kids are not how I would have them if I was eighty and got a
chance to go back and do it over again. I I'm not successful in that because they're frust They're annoying and frustrating. Yeah, my annoyance. So I could say I'm getting way better at not getting so annoyed and frustrated at my kids all the time. But if you mapped my level of an annoyance and frustration on a chart and had another line on the chart be how old they were, you would find a very tight correlation, meaning it just gets it gets easier. But I got I
got like my kids great, man, they're great. My annoyance and frustration was all just physical stuff, right. It was like the physical aspect of it, especially when you're outside. It's just keeping people warm, keeping people dry, keeping people fed. It it's hard, and then you run into this idea of of and it's a It plagues a lot of guys, a lot of guys, I know, and i'd be lying
up I said, I didn't feel it too. You're like, man, we'd be getting a lot more stuff if these kids weren't here, right, And yes, and that war is so I recognize it as though, like it's the most valuable thing I do. Like like if I had to whittle away all aspects of if I had to pick one thing and whittle away all their aspects of my life, I would I would the one that would be standing at the end of it all after I trimmed away everything else that.
Would be standing with like be being with my kids.
Absolutely, But but it's hard, and I'm not interested in someone coming and telling me there's just some little trick to escape, to escape every part of it that's so hard.
So speaking of this like parent child, uh, frustration or challenge when you're trying to go outside and do these kinds of things. I heard you say once that when you thought back to the way your dad introduced you and your brothers to the outside, you're shocked that it didn't backfire and push you away from honeting and fishing and make you not want to do it. What did you mean by that? Can you expand on like what that childhood, those experiences were that made you feel that way.
Yeah, I remember when I my mom still lives in the house that I was brought up. And I've mentioned this before in writing. My room was on the upstairs of the house and there's a big like oak tree out the window, and I remember waking on hunting days. I remember waking up in the dark hoping to see that tree blowing like hell and there to be to be all wet with rain, because I'd be like, that way, I don't have to go and it doesn't need to
be that. I bailed, Like if the old man called it right, He's like that too windy and rainy, and we're I canna go out. You don't have to get a new tree stands. I'd have been like because the last thing I was going to do was back out right. And so it was like I felt the guilt about it, you know when I've described this before, I said a guilt about it that I imagine some people feel, like when they don't go to church on Sunday, You're like, oh,
I do anything to sleep in right, just be hungover? Man? If I don't, you know, I feel so bad not going to church, I break get up, and a lot of times it was like that because there was not a lot of attention paid to There's not a lot of attention paid to comfort.
He was extremely demanding.
He was so uptight about gear maintenance, so uptight about the boat being clean, ran around screaming at everybody all the time. But man, you learned so much. And the other part about it is that and this is the thing that I look back like I used to most of growing up. I looked at him like, what a horrible like that? Yeah, it was horrible to be out in the woods with. But to think about it, it
would have been a laughable notion. As rough as my dad was, it would have been a laughable notion that he'd be going hunting and fishing and you weren't invited to go. There is no way, you know, out of school day if you want to go, like, oh that's fine, you need to go to school. You were invited. That was a huge gift, man, And it came like that was the gift.
The expense was that he was so harsh.
Uh.
He was a World War two veteran.
Yeah, by his own definition, he had been what they called shell shocked at the time, you know, PTSD stuff. He had been he he he had a very he wasn't raised his parents didn't raised me. He was raised by his grandparents. He had a all these reasons why.
He was the way it was. But yeah, he was just very, very hard.
And and I and and and uh it's I look back and it's funny that I wouldn't have just been well, never mind, man, this isn't my lifestyle. But somehow the quality of the experience overcame that. And I've tried to really learn a lot from that. Like I I I in the category of how I relate to my kids and the friendships I have with my kids, Uh is nowhere is so much better than what I got growing up. And in fact, my dad would say, like, I'm not here to be your friend.
How did you translate that experience then into the future for yourself? Because I feel like I look back on this kind of thing with my own childhood, and I think back on all the things I would like to
do different. But then I also think to myself, well, if he hadn't done this, then I wouldn't be like I am today, or I wouldn't have developed this you know, love for this thing the same way, or the importance I place on certain aspects if it weren't for this tough thing or this tough thing or this thing that
I didn't like so much back then. How have you tried to balance taking the good from what your dad brought to the table versus somehow realizing how to temper some of the other edges or soften the edges or maybe not.
I think it's a degree, and it's a point at which you pay attention to something. I I this is not a handful of times. I many times when I was a little kid literally froze my fingertips with my dad. Okay, I just don't like, I don't understand how I mean coming back with hard tipped white fingertips.
Jeez, I don't let it like I would never let that. I just don't let it.
Go that far, right, But I still push it, like I want them to be uncomfortable. But the point at which I'm like willing to sort of look at them and express like a level of tenderness and concern for how they're doing, it's just it's sooner. I'm just I'm more empathetic, h I'm more empathetic than he was. There's another thing at play, and just in the spirit of like full honesty, there is a in getting your kids
into the outdoors. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it's l that it's not ell, it's not entirely altruistic. Uh it. There are massive benefits of the kids, and we can get into that. There's also a massive benefit to the parent if the parent wants to be outside right right now. I could have things in my life that I'm into that don't believe are good for me. I don't believe they're good for me. Like, let's say, you know, I used to I used to drink a fair a bit and like whoop it up
my buddies back in college and grad school. Right, Uh, I had a hell of a good time doing that. Did I ever think that that was like good? Was ever?
Like?
Man, I can't wait to introduce my kids binge drinking. No, but I was like pretty invested in binge drinking once upon a time. At the moment, it just happened all the time, laugh our asses off all and have like a great time and be stupid. But I don't, like, I didn't think, boy, when I can do this with my children, That'll be phenomenal. Right. I recognize that's a thing, it's overwhelmingly negative, but it's the thing I engage in
with the outdoors. I love it way more than I ever loved that, and I want to be out there and I think that it's great for the kids. But in getting the kids into it, I am servicing my own desires as well. I just I think it's really important to point out that there's a big selfish part of it because that's where I want to be. And I could rationalize this in a hundred ways. I could say, I want it's important for my kids to see passion,
to see commitment, to see expertise. Right, it's important for me for it's important to me that they witness that, and that they witness a role.
Model of theirs, their dad a role model of theirs.
Being very engaged, being an advocate for what he loves, right, rather than them witnessing a household full of apathy. I kind of watch TV, But do I really care about TV? No, I'm just watching it, right, Like I sort of begrudgingly clean the house, and they get to watch me begrudgingly clean the house. I don't know how you're what you're teaching them about how to live a passionate, engaged life
if you're not showing them what it looks like. But that's all very logical, and it rationalizes the fact that that's where I want to be too.
So I'm servicing them an it.
And I'm sure that my dad had that element of dedication. I know he did. He had a dedication to fans, and he had a dedication to the outdoors. He wanted to be outside. He knew his role to his kids, and so the thing he had to do is He's like, I gotta do that. I got to bring the kids with me. And I don't mind showing them now and then that that I'm.
Not entirely happy about their presence here.
And and I've really tried to switch that around and be more aware of being more aware of that that I am asking something of them, right, I'm they're accompanying me to do a thing I love.
I hope that they love it too.
But they're in some way doing me, They're in some way indulging me, They're in some way doing me a favor to engage in the thing that I love. I hope it becomes infectious. But it's a give and take. You're giving them parenting, you're giving them fathering. They're giving you their days, right, and I think trying to be aware of that is really helpful. I don't think these are things that occurred to my dad.
Yeah. So so along those lines, you want this for them, You want them to enjoy that, enjoy this. You want them to join you out there, you want to be out there. I think there's this risk sometimes, or I wonder about this risk of wanting it all too bad. You want them to feel the same way you feel. You want them to have the same experience as you had. You want them to get the turkey so damn bad.
Do you ever worry about that kind of sports dad thing happening where you know, the dad wants his son to be so good, or he wants his son to get the thing you know just right, that you end up pushing them away from it, or because you're so into it, it drives them away and they want something different than what their dad wants for them. Has that been something you've you've thought about? Have you seen that at all? How do you deal with that?
Yeah? I think about all the time, and here's where I here's where I kind of here's where I land on it.
I push them pretty hard, and I push him for.
Success. We have a little fishing me and some family members on a fish and shack in Alaska, and I take my kids up there for a couple of weeks in summer. If it was up to if they ran the program, we would never leave the beach because they would just be like messing around with clams and stuff and messing around on a rope swing and we'd never leave the beach.
They'd never be in a boat.
To see, you know, a seventy pound halb that come out of the water and harpooning it and drag it up in the boat. They wouldn't see it if someone wasn't leaning on them heavy. So in pushing them, I'm pushing them because I part of it. And again, just I want to be I want to maintain. I want to say one more time that I'm gonna stop saying it. I want to catch fish. Okay, I personally need want to catch fish. So I'm just let's not forget that detail. That's what I like, right, Why do I think it's
great for the kids? Because I think that for them to see this thing playout of having a goal, making a plan about how you're going to do it, executing on the plan, overcoming hardship, sticking with it, and then out of like this murky depth comes this insane fish you know, that you drag up into a boat and then eat halibut nuggets off of for the next year
is like a huge payoff. And if I got to pull them by the ear figuratively, if I need to drag them by the ear into that discovery, I think it's worth it because that is so cool to witness. The reason there's the reason I know that that I have an like a somewhat imperfect approach to it is I catch myself being much more severe with my older boy than I am with my daughter, but I get the same end result, right, so where they're really both like really excited about being outdoors.
They love hunting and fishing.
So I have a severe version with my son, and it comes from just how I picture father son relationships to be and things that were adopted by me subconsciously perhaps, And I'm much kinder and gentler with my daughter, but she's got an equal drive to be successful. So I think that maybe I don't have the perfect way to do it, but I'm not shy about I'm not shy about leaning on them real heavy.
Gun safety is one thing.
I overreact around issues of gun safety because they got to know it right. And on issues of technique, yeah, like I push really hard. There's right ways and wrong ways to do stuff, and they'll say like, well, let me see the turkey call. I'm like, not here, you practice you anytime you want, We'll practice at home. You're not touching it right now.
Yeah, I've been there. I've seen this.
Right. And you're like, why am I That's like not cool? You think, like, if you're the coolest dad in the world, would you just hand it to him and let him wail away. I'm like, well no, because when I'm really trying to show him is how awesome it is to having yeah strutter standing twenty yards away. That's cool. They think mess them with the turkey calls. They don't even know cool until this turkey shows up. So you're like, you're denying.
I don't want to call them impulses.
You're stealing from them little moments that they'd like to have in service of like the real crazy moments, they're going to change their lives.
Yeah. So many people talk about how you got to keep it fun, you got to keep it light, You've got to stay on their schedule with their priorities first. And I think what I'm hearing from you is that sometimes we as the parent, know that the tougher path, if we were to follow it, will lead to a longer term win. It'll lead to a longer term satisfaction.
If they can push through this, if they can listen to me on this, if they can get to the point where the strutter shows up, or if they can make it through the shitty cold or any day and see you know, the results of it, that will actually be more valuable in the long run than having three outings where they had suckers and andy bars and came home after fifty minutes.
Yeah.
And we're talking about evolving organisms here, right.
I mean, these things they get older, so you're you're you're fine tuning it to what they're capable of early on, early on, getting your kids involved in nature and getting them into hunting and fishing early on when they're two, is going out and rolling rotten logs out of the ground. Ye right, yep, that's it. It's like lesson number one, and you can't pound it into them. You can't yell
at them about technique. It's like you go out, take a rotten log, roll it out and pick up the stuff underneath it.
Less number one.
Don't be afraid of anything, Yeah, unless it really warrants being afraid of. Guarter snake, pick it up, bull snake, pick it up, rattlesnake. Don't touch it sending a piece. Let them wash. Watch across your hand, beehives, watch out, ants pick them up. You know.
It's like worms. Every worm possible goes in your hand.
And that's just there's no there's no like bullying, dragging by the ear, conjoling.
It's just presenting. It's just presenting experience.
And what age shift for you? With the boy with the kids start to interrupt? But at what point did it shift from that to the next phase?
I started getting My eight year old, he's just about to get into uh, he's just about to get into where he's gonna get leaned down a lot more heavy. My thirteen year old.
It's no holds barred.
Yep, he's just another one of the guys.
Right he at his age right now, the expectation is that it's like, the expectation is high that get a string it. If you have a problem with the not let me know, but like, I'm gonna look at you in an annoyed way if you come to me to tie that thing on again. Yeah, if you're gonna tell me you need help taking that fish off the hook, I'm gonna really look at you, like really, Yeah, it's high expectations right now, my eight year old, I'm still
really willing to indulge and do some hand holding. But where I'm not willing to indulge is I'm not gonna go out there and come back home in thirty minutes.
Yeah.
And he came out turkey hunting with us this year.
He wasn't first up, but he was. He was there all morning.
He kept telling me he was gonna throw up, and I finally started taking him serious when he got real pale. And then he threw up before we could get back to my buddy's house, and I was like, wow, he really he really didn't He really didn't feel good. Well I felt a little bit about that, But you know what I'm saying, I'm like, like I I I they're not. I don't. At eight, they're definitely not running the show. But but and this is very you know, this is
as you know, this is highly variable. Like one, you know one kid from the next I was just I have a friend of mine I just spend some time with. And he's a spearfishing guide, fishing guide.
He's got a nine year old boy, and in certain areas, I was, I wash he's very diract, very diract, and his kid is incredibly competent.
And his kid is eat and breathe like fishing all that kid wants to do. Okay, So this guy, his name's Cam. He he recognizes that there's no ruin it with this kid.
You're not going to push him too hard because he's all in.
This is he this is his life, this will be his life. And he's very competent. And at that age nine years old, his dad talks to him like a peer. Get this, get that, get down off that thing, put your son's screen on. There's like zero assistance. It's so funny. It's like direct orders. But this kid's bought in, dude. So he's not in a state of kind of being like he's not in a state where he might be like, We're like, man, I can't tell him, I am I
not doing this right? Am I ruining something? You know? Maybe I should adjust my approach, Like if you get where I haven't had this problem yet, but if I had, if one of my children just got to where they didn't they didn't have fun, they weren't liking it, they
were trying to they were avoiding it. You know, by the time they got to be ten years old, twelve years old and they weren't into it, I would probably at that point, honestly, I would really probably reconsider my approach a six year old I'm not interested in what
they want to do. Yeah, yeah, Well, when we make plans even now, if we're gonna go camp for the weekend, even at our kids ages eight, ten, thirteen, if we're going camp for the weekend, the last thing I'm gonna do is ask them, you know, say, hey, this is what's happening this weekend. Now, I'll give you a ton of latitude within that to do what you'd like to do. But that's what's happening this weekend. If you want to go,
bring your friend, that's fine. If you want to bring your hammock or bring whatever or card games whatever.
That's great, But the basics are we're going camping.
Within that, I'm gonna give you as much room to customize the situation as you'd like. But that's happening.
Yeah, you know, Yeah, that that framework.
People yep, And I see people give that up, and yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't ever want to criticize other families. I got families that I got. I know families that raise kids and skyrise apartments in big cities and they have just absolutely fantastic, wonderful, loving, kind, curious kids. There's a lot of ways to skin a cat. Uh. I would never say there's not, but uh, that's those parents. That's not their life, right the way it's my life.
And so since this is my life, I I need to I want to manipulate the situation to create a livable experience for everybody.
Yeah, you know, so much of what I've you know, read from you or heard from you talk about when it comes to your kids and the outdoors, is you using these outdoor experiences as a classroom for teaching many different kinds of life lessons. Absolutely, And one of the things that I think you've approached in some of your you know, in the book Outdoor Kids, Inside World and
some of the other podcasts. I've heard things you've talked about risk and the outside, hunting, fishing, whatever it might be as as an opportunity to teach kids about how to assess risk. But I'm also curious about how you, as the parent, assess risk when adventuring outside with your kids, because that's something I've started thinking a lot about too.
It's like, Okay, I want to plan a backpacking trip with my boys, or I'm going to do a float trip with the boys, And how do I think about the risk of taking them on this adventure while also teaching them about how to assess risk themselves. How have you thought about that yourself with your kids and how has that evolved over time.
I want to start out by answering this question by saying this, you want to know what's landed our kids in emergency rooms? Uh uh? Swing sets, scooters, legos Okay, yeah, uh. As much as it's perceived and my wife and I laugh about this, as much as it's perceived by her that we're engaged in all these dangerous activities, there's no to date, there's no evidence to back this up.
Yeah, not gonna would, right.
She bought, she bought the kids of swing set. Dude, wasn't. Twenty four hours later we got a broken arm. I'm not kidding you, just like that. Yeah, so so uh I am more. If you were to go and take out of the man, let's say you're gonna go randomly pull a hundred You're gonna go randomly pull a hundred parents off the street, one hundred American parents off the street, and rank us in terms of risk tolerance outdoor risk tolerance.
I would probably sit with the least risk tolerant at one and the most risk tolerant at one hundred, meaning one can't go outside because you're gonna get bit by a tick or mosquitos to stand inside all day every day. One hundred being hey kids, we're gonna climb K two. I'm in the nineties, low nineties. You're up there, I'm up there. What I have? This is gonna sound I don't want to sound. I hope this doesn't sound arrogant
in some way. But I just have a like for a long time, just because I was dedicated to it, and now because of just a lot of professional experience I have. I just have enjoyed in existence of having a lot of exposure to stuff. So I have developed a really good understanding of what actually matters and what doesn't actually matter. Meaning I don't think this is to take an example that people would be able to relate to Mountain lions don't matter. They don't warrant any consideration.
Black bears don't matter. They don't warrant any consideration. Tics. Okay, stick cary pathogens warrant considerations. Ticks that don't carry pathogens don't really warrant considerations, right, Like, I have a really detailed sense from exposure and from being able to hang out a lot, I have a detailed sense of like what matters and what doesn't matter. Yep, being in being in small boats at certain water temperatures matters a lot
more than other water temperatures. Right. So, so so someone looking might be like, oh my god, that seems like dangerous or I can't you know, And I'm like, explain how you explain why you think that? Because I, like, I don't agree. I don't agree. I don't think it's dangerous. I think that factors could be a little different and it can be real dangerous. But I don't agree that this is dangerous because you can't point to me what is.
You can't point to me the high probability of something that's gonna happen.
So much of it comes down to your, like you said, your level of competence and context, right, I mean if you if someone took you off the mountain in Montana and sends you, I don't know, downtown Paris or something and said, all right, teach your kids how to I don't know, ride a unicycle down this busy street. Well, that'd be pretty risky for you. But maybe there's this is a horrible example, but maybe there's a circus worker in Paris who does that every day, and he'd be like, Nope,
this is easy for me. This is something I understand. This is the world I live in. And in that case, you know, it varies depending on where you come from, what your skill set is, what your competence is in that situation, and so so I understand your point.
Yeah, we we hang out a lot, like we spend a lot of time in Grizzly Country, and there are times in grizzly Country. There are times when I'm on high alert. There are times when someone will be like, think that you had your guard down. Is it we're just getting up in the morning and they're coming out of their camp, out of the camp or in the
early morning. That matters to me? Is it that it's the afternoon and their dog is out playing with them and we've all been out making tons of racket and the dog is like very tuned into stuff like that, and the dog has covered every square inch of ground within three hundred yards. My attitude is different because I'm just like weighing all the stuff that's going on. Also, I'm looking at like, look what kind of injury? You know.
I encourage my kids to climb trees because I don't think they're gonna They're not gonna, I mean they could, They're not gonna fall out a tree and die. Probably they might fall out a tree and break your arm, but they break you. Already broke his arm out of swing set, so like, I'm not I can live with a broken arm. My kid had lime disease. I couldn't live with that. That was hard. That caused a lot of guilt, and it caused a lot of concern for his well being, and it was some of the worst
weeks of my life. Okay, So I just have a I feel that it's important for people to develop a calibrated, a finely calibrated sense of risk. I talk a lot about this in Outdoor Kids in an inside world is just getting educated enough to understand what matters and what doesn't matter.
So, speaking of some of these things in Outdoor Kids and inside world, there's another, I guess another one of these lessons that stood out to me, and this you wrote about kind of this relationship to nature that we are trying to help foster with our children, and that can come from hunting or fishing or many different things.
But you talked about this really interesting concept of looking down at nature versus looking up at nature, and it seemed to me that that your belief is that we ought to try to help our children understand to live somewhere in between. Can you can you span on that? Can you explain what you mean by that and why that matters as we are trying to introduce our kids to these things.
Yeah, looking down at nature, I talk about looking down at it, looking up at it, and be an eye level. Looking down at nature is very easy to explain it's it's the idea that everything's gross and dangerous. Okay, you are in outside of something like maybe like some kind of like a cute iraq and aphobia or things like that. You're in the driver's seat on whether your kids think that everything's gross and dangerous, they're just they're absorbing it
from you. There's individual personality at play, but by and large, your kids if you think nature is gross and and they're gonna absorb that, you don't need to even say it. Your body landlang, which tells them being dirty is bad. Looking up at nature is something much more modern. The peril of looking down at nature is that you disregard it and disrespect it, and would just as soon do
away with it. I'm thinking of a common practice where I grew up, of going down to the beach and buying a bunch of sand, trucking a bunch of sand, and taking around up and killing off every bit of vegetation along the beach, dumping a bunch of sand down, and then knowing you've vanquished everything slimy or crawley, you can finally sit down in your chair and enjoy your day. Right, It's like looking down at it, looking up at it,
like I said, is newer. And this is this idea that nature is so pure and pristine that human presence spoils it. That you know, I live not far from Yellowstone Park. Could be that you'd go to Yellowstone and anything beyond looking out your window is spoiling the landscape.
Humans are bad. Were the ones that are gross, Were the ones that are dirty? Were the ones that foul everything? And it can create a where nature has an otherness and it lacks relevance in one's life. Where you imagine there's nature that sits separately from human existence and that the two are incompatible, and that creates a sensibility that that in and around us, in our living spaces and our yards and things, that we're not regarding these as a.
Compromise between us and nature. I would much rather have my kids understand that there is a way to engage explit like, explicitly engage with nature in a hands on way that is productive for them and is productive for the natural world, because any other perspective is ridiculous. In this world today, there is no putting the genie back into the bottle. This is a human We live in a human engineered human manipulated ecosystem We live in human engineered,
human manipulated ecosystems. There is no having a world in which nature sits outside of us. Most landscapes that we live on are already massively impacted by humans. It will take it's human impact that will restore them and make them better. In our yard, in our yard, in the areas around our yard. It's like improvements to nature inviting nature. Interactions come from hand on, hands on involvement. Yeah, And so I want them to under stand that their actions
have impact. Right that you can make a brush pile, And we did this last fall. I was like, I bet you if we made a brush power right here, rabbits can move in and live in this brush pile. We made a brush pile. A rabbit moved in and lived in that brush pile.
That's awesome.
They couldn't believe it. They ate all all the sticks we put ate, all the bark all year off the sticks we put down in there. And and that is hands on relationship to nature, right, Like they have power to do good and they have power to do bad. And that I think is like trying to demonstrate that like nature at eye level.
So kind of taking that next step. You you also talk about the idea of thinking native and helping your kids understand that, as you just said, that we are a part of this natural world, not outside of it,
and the next step. In my mind, a lot of times when I'm thinking about out there doing stuff with my kids, right shoot a buck and the kids come help me track it down and they're seeing it, I constantly am thinking about how do I, or should I, or when should I be connecting the dots between just the hunting or fishing activity and then the conservation context. You know, when I grew up, When I grew up, I just did the things. We just did it. We hunted, we fished. I was taught to love it, I was
taught to respect it. But I never once heard about public land or how we got it. I never once heard about the Pittman Robertson that. I never once heard about the fact that we need to advocate for these things. That wasn't something I learned about till I was an adult. And so I wonder, now, you know, when should I start introducing those things, or if I do it too early, am I going to overwhelm them or stamp out the fun of it because I'm trying to teach too much.
How have you thought about that, Steve, as far as taking that next step and understanding how we have these things and how we keep them around.
I was brought up the same way. Uh we lived by and uh we live by and use the national forest that that that you ask anybody that lived in that area, the best explanation they could give you is that it fell from the sky. I was raised hunting ducks. I was never told that ducks were nearly wiped out. I was raised hunting deer. I was never told the stories about when you couldn't find a deer track in that area. Uh. I don't know why. There's they're extremely important.
I think that that stuff that's where. That's where the dinner table, that's where being in the car driving down the road. That's where the books that you leave out for them, the books you read for them at night, that's where that stuff plays in. It plays out in the field too, But that's just baked into everyday life. My kids are not gonna remember, like they probably still couldn't tell it to you since the day they've been born. I don't care where we're at and we've lived in
a handful of places. I always will say, if you pour a cup of water out in your yard, you take a leak in the yard, here's the path by which that water would go to the ocean. Right, it would go into like this creek, and it would flow into that creek, and it'd flow into that river, and that river had flown into that river, and that river would pick that river up and that's where that would wind up. And we were one time on vacation, right, Like I'm always pounding that stuff into them, but I
just it's it's it's infused everywhere. It's like I and I talked about well with our activity book Catch a Crayfish, Count Stars, the one of that that's coming out as soon. It's meant like more four kids. It's not about kids, but it's four kids. We have a lot of stuff about in the home, right and how to like bring nature in the home. I talk about the same thing and outdoor kids in an inside the world is this how do you create a home environment where these kind of things are.
Are are are part of.
It, And it's the books you read, the conversations you have. One of the beauties of hunting and fishing for your food. Is that that's what we eat. We eat wild game at our house when we're at home. You know, we go to restaurants, right and don't. But when we're home, we're really strict about it. And when we're eating something, we're talking about it, right, We're not, we're not. We're probably not talking about how you get it. We're not
talking about how you get a deer. We're probably talking about deer, the history of deer, yea, how people utilize deer historically, just all those narratives, right, And it's and again it's it's it's the stuff I like to learn about, and it's the stuff I like to talk about it.
But they're they're all of their world is framed to include all of that information, all of the context. I didn't start personally finding out about this stuff untils in my twenties.
I'm not making that mistake of my kids. And I don't want to say my dad made a mistake. This wasn't on his radar. But conservation history and natural history and that the moon does this and the sun does that, that's just baked in. That's every day. Yeah, a little snippet every day.
Yep, So you mentioned Ketch a Crayfish new book coming out June thirteenth. You mentioned it's it's four kids, not about kids, But can you elaborate a little bit, you know, why this book?
Now?
Why did you decide that this was the next thing? And what age do you feel like this is kind of geared towards what do you hope comes out of someone, some kids, some boy or girl getting this book for their birthday and opening up the pages.
We started to conceive of it.
We started to conceive of the kids Activity book while I was working on Outdoor Kids in the Inside World, where Outdoor Kids in the Inside World was sort of like a parent you know, it's me. It's it's largely essayistic, but it's structured around themes about experiences and experiences and advice and other things about how to get your kids outdoors. And the book is also like a sympathetic ear to the struggles that people encounter how to overcome those struggles.
While we're doing it, we thought like it would be really cool to do a book that made.
Some of those same learnings real meaning.
And Outdoor Kids and Inside World there's a chat after on how to approach having a garden and catch a carry fish, count stars, which is the So let's let's imagine it as the kid's hands on version of this.
There's a lot of projects around gardening, okay.
The the Kid's Activity Book. I think that if you know, someone might look at that book and think that it was seemed to have a lot of like, uh, seemed to have a lot of different kind of weapons and dangerous stuff in it, you know, and it really does, like how to make a bow, how to make a blow gun, how to how to sneak up on stuff and build blinds and and all this kind of stuff.
Yeah, my five year old picked up on that blowgun picture real quick. Oh he saw that immediately said we need to make one of those dead.
Oh. Yeah, and I learned that, I say, I think I mentioned in there that I learned later or while working, uh that there's states where it's actually illegal to make a book, and they don't define it very clearly either. So it's funny, but.
Uh, it's like.
It's hands on stuff that you need to dig in and you need to get into it and find out what your kids are going to need help with and what your kids are going to be able to safely do on their own. But it's it's meant for projects that are going to increase competency, build risk assessment capabilities, dexterity, environmental awareness. Okay, so things around basics, around celestial navigation, basics around little survival skills that are built into projects
kids can do, based around uh, outdoor ingenuity. Okay. So it's like when I looked at it, I was looking at if you let's say you're someone like you and me, Mark, and you know that you're going to put a high priority on being outdoors with your kids. It's a lot of the stuff that that you want to get around, you want to get around to teaching them and they'd be great if they knew, and it puts in the way that they can just tackle it and do a thing a day, a thing a week, spend their summer
working on it. Some of it's and all of it's like pretty rewarding and pretty fun. And there's those things in there like, uh, you know, there's there's tool use
where you're gonna need to get involved. There's things where you you know, a machete or a hatchet would be helpful, or you're gonna need your parents to help you drill some holes and stuff, or you're going to make a blowgun and need to set up a target and talk real seriously about what that blowgun should be used for not used for, And and and also understanding like issues around risk assessment, understanding how to like produce your own food,
how to produce food and cook something for your for your siblings and your parent. Right so sell things that generate self sufficiency, situational awareness, outdoor expertise.
And even though you might look and be like, oh, it.
Seems that some of this stuff is dangerous, I would look at it too like a lot of this stuff drives ultimately safety because it creates expertise and a skill set where you're learning with guidance how to do stuff right, how to whittle, how to drill holes, how to be around a campfire, so that in a supervised sense, a
kid can pick up some good know how. And then if you see, like if I do, if I tell my kids to go out and make a fire in the fire pit at all of their ages, I know that they can go out and do that mat and they know the rules, because at some point they're gonna want to do it, and you could have taken that chance when they were young to teach them like how to do it?
What are the risks? How do you mitigate for those risks? How do you do it properly?
Or you just leave it hanging h right until they're all enough to be out on their own doing stupid stuff.
Yeah, No, I think I think it makes a lot of sense getting mad. I've always thought, with so many things, the earlier the better to establish those foundations and to get that experience, and to build up to the point where they can you know, I'd much rather than figure this stuff out now while I'm here with them than
when they're sixteen on their own with their buddies. Another thing, another thing I noticed when I was just looking through the book and looking through it with my kids was just how many things as as as someone whose life is outside right, I mean, we're constantly doing these outdoor things. There's so many different little projects that I just take for granted now that I just never even think about.
But actually, if I were to take the time and slow down and talk about this with one of my sons, there would be real value, Like walking in a straight line through the woods, like something as simple as that we just do all the time. But actually, you know, calling out in the book here like you did, and talking about well, how do you do that? How do you use landmarks? How do you navigate? You know, there's there's real value in or just little things that you know.
One of the things we did just the other day after taking a look of the book, was we found an alpellet and dissected it and it was just a great reminder like, oh yeah, these things are sitting around and they are pretty darn cool if you take some time, oh yeah, to do it with your cast and so and so. Yeah, me and the two boys, the three year old in the five are were picking apart regurgitated mouse and had a blast with it.
You know, my kids every year spent a couple few days my friend dog at his farm.
And dog likes to say that's life and death on the fire, you know, I think the looking at owl palaces, like that's life and death in the woods.
Yeah, it's a good lesson to learn. So, uh, do do you or your kids have a favorite from the book? Favorite activity? Is there anything that stands out to you or that your that your family has particularly enjoyed you can think of.
Man, Yeah, they like, uh, they like it's so funny.
Man. They like anything involves fire, like stuff with projectiles.
Yes, I guess that's pretty coming.
Pretty you know, it's pretty understandable.
Area where the day they're gonna run toward that. Right, anything on fire in their mind is like good, So that needs to be directed, harness educated, you know, projectile. Same way. And area where they really like the results but they just don't connect the labor with the results is gardening. They love planting seeds, they love picking stuff. All the stuff in the middle is without you leaning on them heavy, it's just you're not gonna get it
out of them. And I think that helping them understand that that middle stuff is real important to the later stuff is great. One of the best things I st of growing was I tailored my garden to what's gonna catch their eye.
Carrots and strawberries.
Man, right, they can't.
They don't stay away.
From either of them. They're always out there messing around. And they like the fruits of the labor, but they they dislike the labor. But if I say, hey, go out and build a fire, you know we're gonna go out sit by the fire. Gonna make a fire, dude, They're going to fight over it. So, uh, it's just little. It's a little you know, looking at what they love and helping them figure out and help them learn how
to do it right. And then and then some coersion on other stuff, and and and and and understanding that processes are long. Sometimes processes are long, and you got to stay you gotta stay with it. One of the projects we have is just how to start measuring rainfall. Right, you do the project is pretty quick, but then you know what you gotta do, wait for the rain. It's like a thing. Right, They're like, okay, You're like, well, ain.
And rain for a week, stay tuned.
A lot a lot of important lessons there. There's a lot of good stuff in both of these books, Steve, but uh the Catch a cray Fish in particular, my son Everett, who's five now, when I told him this was a kid's book, and he said, you, I mean Steve wrote this for me? Well, and I said, well, I guess. So he's obsessive that he just likes to page through it now and look at the pictures and say, can we do this one?
Now?
Can we do this one?
So? So good. There's a lot of there's a lot of good fun stuff in there, and they call you asked about age.
You know, the way it works, the books that you have to kind of like picking you know, I.
Can't remember, you know that the way they's there's a whole system to it. But I think our recommendation is I think it was the one up being eight and up. I think at you know, at fifteen sixteen, you're probably getting a bit for the book. I think that at eight you a lot of kids have been ready, are already ready for it. At eight, I imagine the real you know, ten even twelve being just you know, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve being great, great years for just most kids. I think in that in that handful of years is when it would be most applicable. But there's enough in there where you can really shop around in there, right.
Sure makes for great I mean for the younger kids too, Like with my three and five year old, even just it's an opportunity for me to read them something interesting I can pick and shoes in there. You've got some great little sidebars talking about different conservationists or impactful people. So I think there's some cool little bedtime story opportunities and then a teaching activity that you know I can guide as a parent. So I've enjoyed that so far too.
And man, it's good stuff, Steve. I appreciate it. And I know you got to run, So I just want to thank you for carving out the time to talk about this stuff.
Yeah, I'm manning slot Mark. I really appreciate it.
This is gonna be a book I'm sure will be following me around for many years to come as my boys continue to work their way through it. All right, And that is a wrap. Thank you for tuning in, Thanks for being with me this whole month, as we have taken kind of a left turn off of the usual path of talking deer hunting, and instead we have maybe zoom out to some of these bigger picture topics
that a lot of us are experiencing. Maybe we experienced them in the past, maybe we're in the throes of it right now, living the parenting life every single day, or maybe you are listening and contemplating do I want kids? Is this something I can do? I hope to each and every one of you in any one of those phases, I hope there's been something here useful, beneficial, beneficial, insightful
and enjoyable. So thanks for being on this ride with me, thank you for being a part of this community, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.