Cspan, creative by private industry, americas cabletelevision company, as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Mark kenyon was born outside of detroit, michigan, and raised there. Introduced to the outdoors and young age he grew up hunting, fishing, hiking and camping. After college he worked for google and started the blog and podcast wired to hunt. His ratings has appeared outdoor life and field stream, a member of the lifestyle meet eater inc. Pickiest hike, camp, rafted come hunted, fished his way across public lands in montana, wyoming, michigan, california, arizona, utah, nevada, colorado, north dakota and elsewhere. Without further ado, mark kenyon. [applause] thank you, samantha. Thanks all for being here. This is terrific. I am thrilled to be here to tell you all about my first book, and i thought to myself that it would be appropriate to start with a funny story, i thought was funny, and this being my first book and my first book tour, i got to thinking about my first public land trip, my first public land adventure. The story quickly came to mind, and i thought to myself this is perfect, its funny, its subject contextual. Its the winner. Before getting his i decide i maybe should pass this through my common sense filter. I think its a decently described that, being my wife. So last night i sit down in bed and say hey, i think i want to start with the story, very funny. What do you think . So i walk you through it, and the further and further i get through this story it was an experience i had out in wyoming a number of years ago. You could see her face start to contort more and more into this concern or discussed but eventually i got done with the store and you could tell straight off she was appalled, couldnt believe i was going to open tonight gathering with this story. Something about the combination of grizzly bears and human urine that she didnt think appropriate for such a fine gathering. So i will say that story for afterhours but i do appreciate and i do, its great to see this many people come out to talk about public lands, wild places, wild things. What i want to do is kind of open things a little bit background as to why young, my story, like a to this point, how this book came to be. Then i want to read a short passage from the book and finally what i would like for the most time to be spent on is just an open dialogue, i q a about public lands, about the book, anything you guys are interested in talking about. I spend a lot of time sitting and office by myself talking to a microphone. Very really dont get it right in front of me to talk back. Selfishly i want to take advantage of that. All that said, im a grand rapids point. This is where im from. Thank you all hometown crowd for being here. I was raised in the outdoor family, pretty outdoorsy family. We did a lot of the same things probably some of you did. We fished, hunted, height, camp. We didnt ever do anything particularly fancy. We were not the type if you were going to vacation were not going to go to disneyland. Never been there. We never went to mexico, florida. We didnt do those types of vacation. If we took a vacation it was going to be camping or seeing family, or more likely camping with family, something along those lines and that was why i would like did not take any allinclusive trips. I think the Fanciest Hotel we have stayed at, seven rangers old and older member of the fragments of this trip we were in Washington State camping alongside the shore somewhere around Olympic National park. Cant remember if were in the park were just outside of it but we were in that general realm and a beautiful campground right on the edge of the ocean, or day. I remember there were seal lions and dolphins along just off the shore absolute beautiful place that a storm came through, vicious storm came blowing through so much my dad and uncle tried to put up this tent, big old canvas tent, they couldnt do it. The polls were collapsing, the walls are getting knocked over, the tent was completely filled with water and eventually reluctantly they decided or realized we were not going to be able to camp on this one. We packed up all our stuff. Edwin got in the van, we drove off to the nearest town, found the only hotel with any vacancy and proceeded to pack my dad, my mom, myself, my sister, my aunts, uncles and various cousins into one very fancy hotel room. So that was high point of our Luxury Vacations but thats the way we like to. Would like to be outside. We had a cabin of north we frequently travel to. As much as i enjoyed the things we did outside, i think there were relatively pedestrian. We did a lot of local things which are great, fun, but had these aspirations, dreams of getting out there doing something a little bit more. I grew up reading books about people exploring across the western states of america or traveling to alaska or climb to the top of mount everest. I harbored these hopes of someday doing something kind of like that, going up though in junior high, high school, most of those types of places, those types of experiences, that lived in the pages of somebody elses book. That was on the screen. I just didnt feel like i had the skill set or the training to go up and do Something Like that. Until college. I took a class my senior year in college called wilderness preparedness 101. It was just as cool to sound like it shouldve been. It was terrific. I had a great professor. He was like bear grylls but in real life with a better beard and less annoying would be a good way just describing. He was a field biologist who are travel all across the world studying big animals and wild places. Hed been in an article on the way down to the amazon, studied walls and grizzlies and alaska and montana. And so this was the first time i was face to face with some put into these places and done these things. So i was inspired by the time we got done with this class i felt armed with tools like it to go into some of these things. I could read a topographic map. He taught us how to pack seven days of gear. He taught us how to safely camp for a hike in grizzly bear country. Simple things but things wasnt learning in grand rapids. I graduated, had that information in my back pocket come decide it was time to go and use it. So its 21 years or so i harangued up the courage and can dislike a refund that we should head west. I had a career as mentioned of starting out in california. So he took three weeks and road trip across country. Went to rocky Mount National park in colorado, yellowstone and grand teton National Parks in wyoming. And i think its any of you have been to some of these places you will know what im talking about especially that first time you see Something Like that. It is, it is like changing, paradigm shifting when you see whats available to you, whats out there this big for anyone who appreciates the outdoors who appreciates openspace, quiet encounters of animals, if you appreciate any of those things, once you start heading out into some of these bigger wilder places and you see that scale and the depth of that, in situ. That happened to me. We climb to the top of the mounts. We backpack over 12,000foot mountain pass, we saw bison and elk and all those things that up into the point had been here. Now they were there. And i knew right then and there and my poor girlfriend at the time, now my wife, she probably couldve sought in my eyes as well that we were not going to be the same after this. This is going to be something i would have to be heart of our lives, and they are now. I set my sights trying to do that. So we return, i did return, i continued working california but from that point forward every spare vacation day, any trip that we took it was going to be at a guess im following in the footsteps of my family, my mom and dad, we didnt go to mexico, we didnt go to disneyland, we didnt go to any fancy resorts. We were sleeping in the back of my pickup truck or kept in a tent in montana or idaho or maine or tennessee trying to assist many big wild places that we could. Im unbelievably fortunate i was able to swindle some kind of deal in which i was able to make a fulltime living from the outdoors eventually, as noted. Starting to bite about the outdoors speaking of that door and that allowed us to spend more time outside. Eventually with us spending sometimes weeks and weeks and weeks, and after eyeing an old camper and renovating that sometimes months and months camped out in public land in montana or utah or idaho, and michigan, to, and throughout those experiences doing all the affirmation of things that i do, hunt, fish, hunt, backpack, realize two things. I realized, one, what an unbelievable inheritance we have. We have 640 million acres of public lands spread across the United States that opened each and every one of us. We can do any one of those things i just mentioned plus dozens of others, wildlife watching, scuba diving, kayaking, whatever your flavor is. Its there for us and that is not a common thing across the globe. Its very easy to take for granted and ive taken it for granted most of my life. We have a cabin of north and it was right next to a large swath of public land and i never once wondered how we got that or why that was there, what it meant, it was just that public. North of the ditch, go, its yours. I didnt realize it wasnt there by default. It wasnt there by accident. It didnt fall from the sky. People had to fight for those places. People still have to fight for those places. So this was something that i slowly was going more and more about. Around the same time i was also coming to find eastings were not guaranteed. There were many pressures on these places, outside forces, political, business, whatever, wanted to take advantage of the land for Different Reasons. One of note that became pretty ubiquitous around 2014, 2015, this idea of the Land Transfer movement. Some of you probably heard about it if you follow what i do. And this basic idea was relative or seem to me that shouldve been pretty french, pretty radical but it was this idea that the government shouldnt have land. We should that public land. We should instead sell it off to the highest bidder or transfer to states to let them do with it as they will. This at the outset seems Pretty Simple like not ever go to do when youre selling a public land, places that millions and millions and millions of americans go and visit every year. Places that drive very important economy around the recreation, around places that harbor huge wildlife population, make sure we have clean air, clean water, renewable resources. This is important stuff. But what you come to find is that obviously theres people different ideas about that, different goals, different priorities and this is all happening, i spend more of my time at her and also learn more or more about the cigarette Land Transfer movement is a sink that could possibly influence the future of these places that i was coming to fault increasingly in love with. Then we get to 2016, and early in the month of january, a group of pretty radical ranchers and militia types storming stored o National Wildlife refuge in oregon and take it over at gunpoint. You mightve seen this in the news. It became a thing for days and days and days, weeks and weeks, this group occupied the malheur National Wildlife refuge and used that standoff as a bully pulpit to spread the record, which was shouldnt have these lands, we should sell them off, give them back to different people. And the big thing here, there was a lot of concerning limits about it but the biggest thing that was going concerning to me was the fact it was in a way normalizing the idea because it went from being this topic discussed just in little backyard gatherings in certain parts of the country to think something is now being discussed on cnn and fox news and all points in between because of that mainstream nature of the conversation now, at also made it much more plausible that this could be a real thing. It went so far as then president ial candidates talking about supporting this idea. So things are looking dicey. Things all of a sudden seem to be in a position where the seemingly impossible idea of us losing some of our public lands all of a sudden they be isnt so impossible. My wife and i at this point turned to what we oftentimes do, which was heading to some wild piece of public land. We packed up the truck and drove across the country to utah and arizona for about ten days of hiking and camping and that kind of stuff. Which brings us to the passage of the book id like to read to you, which is several days ino that trip and the bundy standoff, which i should mention the folks leaving that take over of the Malheur National wldlife refuge were led by this guy named ammon. The standoff is going, i think it was, probably rithika some number of hundreds of miles away from where we were. While thats going on we were outside right to see these places and i find myself increasingly contemplating what could happen if they are not around. After spending a few more days in the National Park kylie moved our park drive and then airs on and the Glen Canyon National recreation area. There we returned to the colorado river. This time at the mouth of the grand canyon about 300 and all south of our first stop. I remember in the early 1900s the grand canyon faced an uncertain fate with eager mining corporations and tourist industry profiteers seeking to have the area parceled out to private land owners and businesses. But soon after president theodore roosevelt, a fellow hunter and conservationist, stepped up to the plate to ensure that didnt happen. After seeing the giant chasm in 1903 he addressed the people of arizona. Leave it as it is. You cannot prove on it. The ages have been work on it and man can only market. What you can do is keep it for your children and your childrens children and for all who come after you as one of the great sites which every american, if he can travel at all should see. Weve gotten past the days my publicist at woodward to be pardoned if we treat any part of her country as something to be scanned for two or three years for the use of the present generation. Whether its the forest, the water, the scenery, whatever it is handle it so your childrens children will get the benefit of it. Five years later with his own authority roosevelt properly pry protected the grand canyon for this future generations here standing there before that same seemingly impossible chasm, i watched the shimmering emerald waters of the colorado race by, avalanches of fraud rising falling as it careened over each new rapid carving the canyon deeper and deeper still. Ahead of me and behind rose the near vertical walls of sandstone and above it all was the dome ceiling of the most vivid infinite blue. With my wife by my side i couldnt help but wonder how different they canyon might be if it were not for roosevelt and his contemporaries at the different our own lives would have been. How many parking lots, ice cream stands or smokestacks and no trespassing signs mightve been within my view. A few days later we were home in michigan when the malheur standoff came to a command close on channel 26, 2016 on 16 on the wikimedia outside the refuge, ammon and several other leaders of the occupation were pulled over and arrested by the Oregon State Police and fbi. One member of the group fled leaving police on high speeches. Eventually run his car into a snow bank. When you disobeyed Police Orders and appeared to reach for a weapon, he was shot and killed. Soon after, the rest of the occupiers relinquish control of the refuge and the standoff came to an end. Despite this violent ending the bund is antimessage have been broadcast loud and clear. And it didnt take long for the mainstream politician to pick up the baton and continued to push the Land Transfer agenda forward. In november 2016 under Republicancontrolled Congress was elected amid a very agenda many within the party since it might of intent on destroying the public land system as we knew it. In the following whats a number of bills were proposed that would remove roadblocks and in a way of transfer of federal lands. Others would eliminate public land Law Enforcement and one even came right up and called for the sale of 3. 3 million acres of land owned by the american people. As a watch is much quieter headlines unfolded seemed everclear that is his movement was not stopped our greatest National Treasures would be stolen right out from under us. I decided i need to do something. I i couldnt sing handily stop a politician from writing a villa convinced the president to stand up for parks and forests but bi could at least try to make sense of how we got here. To share what ive learned. Up to the point of the spigot of hunting and Fishing Community to my podcast website and social media. I knew there was room to do more. But i had reservations. I wasnt sure i was most i did live full time among the western public land most hotly debated. I wasnt an environmental historian or conservation professional. I was under 30 at the time. This was my first public land controversy i had lived through as an adult. What did i know . Whispering thousands world but i also wonder if these perceived limitations were as bad as i feared. As a midwestern i was aware firsthand about his the issuesd places sometimes fly under the radar of americans who dont live close to the public land expanses of the west. My fresh eyes and outside of perspective might help bring the issue to the larger world in the relatable way. And as a young person, wasnt it my fellow millennials and i, not the baby boomers in office, who would be living the longest with the ramifications of the stations currently being made . My outsider status applied to more than just my location. My nascent critique of the antipublic land republican platform. It was some strange bedfellows. Staunch democrats were more than happy to attack the republican public land agenda. But on the other end of the spectrum, many self identifying red americans were reluctant to criticize the administration over any agenda. I found myself squarely in the middle as an independent, gun owning, per lighting, nature loving, freethinking conservationist. Neither Political Party seem to wholly represent me. In a climate of increasingly partisan politics, my independent stance felt not only unique but also slightly disorienting. But my stance on public lands was clear. I was happy to stand sidebyside with anyone fighting on behalf of of our public lands, no matter what other differences we might have. I hope i wasnt alone. My course was set and i continued my research, reading as much as i could about how our current public land system has come to be, convinced that some key unifying truth might be found in the past. Mark twain supposedly once said that history doesnt repeat itself but it often rhymes. If we want to wind the current and future battles over public lands, we had better understand the ones that have come before. And the same went for this later showdown with bundy. It would not be the last of its kind, that much i knew. There would be new lessons to learn from the present struggle as well. I wanted to understand it all. When i embarked on a study i decided to grab myself in the mission. I would explore the national force, monuments, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas across the country that hung in the balance. I would peak bagging the bad and wrapped in montana. Id hike in utah and hunt in alaska. I would fish in wyoming and backpack in michigan. I would think my feet into the dirt of the very places up for grabs and confront the reality of what the future might look like without them. I made a schedule of destinations for the next year and half, side the unsuspectig traffic and painted, nuclear, convinced my wife to join some of these trips, cobbled together a plan to report back to my followers, and headed out into the great wide open. Over the next 18 months i would come to discover in ever greater detail the ways previous generations of hunters, hikers, campers, and countless other stood up to protect these places. And by the end of it all, one defining truth blaze within me like the red rocks of utah. If they could do it then, we sure as hell could do it again. So this book was the product of that journey that i embarked upon. And route all the time, through the month traveling across the country, days and days, weeks and weeks and months and months of sitting in my office beating my head against the wall waiting for something bird on the computer screen, two things really kept me pushing forward, kept me focused, stood as these simply the reasons, the reasos why i had to do this. I think number one and ive alluded to both of these already but number one was a fact to recognize huge knowledge gap. If i didnt know about these things, if i did revise that we had so much available to us as americans, if i didnt understand the history of these public lands across the country, and i worked in that world, if i did know, what about everybody else, what about someone who lived in new york city or l. A. . Chatting with friends and family in michigan and elsewhere i saw there were many of those same gaps as well. The problem was there are books out there, resources that speak to this very important issue, but almost to every single one they are dense historical tones that your average person probably will never pick up and give a try. There had to be something that was accessible, engaging and available to the average person because the average person is who is going to go to these places, thats actually going to stand up for these places. Some wanted to bridge that gap. I also wanted to bridge a gap between people. Because one of the really neat things but also frustrating things about public lands across the country is that almost without exception they are multiple use meaning fear to be used by all sorts of junk people for all sorts of Different Reasons, and that is part of what makes them so great but also why they are so contentious with all these different stakeholders, theres a lot of different ideas about how they should be used, how they should be managed. Thats resulted in a lot of conflict. The thing is that if we want to keep these places around, we cant allow those complex within our family of people who care about these places to get in the way of the larger issue. I recently read that somewhere around 2 million acres of open space disappears across the country every year. Think back about the woodlot behind house when you were growing up or that old swamp behind walmart where you cant turtle and snakes and frogs. Those places are disappearing day by day by day we can all think of her own example like that. Thats not changing. The country is growing. The population is swelling. We had seen it. Public lands stand as one of the last vestiges of wilderness of wild open space, places for wildlife. Ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, if we dont have those places, what will we have . I feel so strongly that if we are going to be able to keep our National Parks and forests and wilderness areas around we have to do as a collective group of republicans and democrats, of hunters and deacons, of urban dwellers and world dwellers, rei shoppers. That is i think its a simple truth as far as i said i wanted to tell a story and lead by example, showing you can do that. You can reach her head across the aisle, you can speak with people that make you look different from you or speak different than june, maybe delete some things differently than you but if we focus our shared commonalities, our shared passions, we can debate and important things. Through all of his, through this whole project, through all the various trips i went on, through writing this book, i come back again and again to the words of feudal roosevelt. He said, and already quoted it within my reading, but he said something along the lines of the fact every decision we make when it comes to wildlife or wild places, public lands, we have to pass through this filter of what it means for the next generation, what does it mean for our children and our childrens children. I used to think i understood that. I understood it from an intellectual level and not emotional. But i am now a father, i have a twoyearold son and the Second Coming here in just a couple of weeks, and i dont ever want to see a future where they wont have the same opportunities i did. And i cant, i cant imagine what that would look like and the never want to. That is why i am here. Thats what about this book. I do think theres this tendency to sometimes look at these historic figures of the theater roosevelt and say wow my, these people were special. They did these amazing things, put them on a pedestal and we think of them as other, as different somehow because they are the folks in the books today. But while the did some very, very special things, they are just people, and those people, they are not here anymore, but we are. We have to be the next roosevelt, we have to be the next leopold. So thats why wrote this book, thats why im really excited to be a talk at you and seeing so many people coming out to celebrate public lands, and so with that i would love to answer any questions you might have. I would love to chat about wild animals, while places, public lands come what its like to beat my head on the wall. I really, really appreciate everyone being here, and if anyone wants to be brave and stand up to ask a question, i would encourage you to do so. I will say, before you ask your question, we are waiting for the mike flynn to get it to you, we want to make sure there it is. This question is coming from a mentor of mine. He was wondering if maybe a little offtopic but how was the squirrel hunting on your back 40 . He wanted to reiterate he is 40 acres in baldwin if its not going well. Awesome. So yes. The question was how was the squirrel hunting on the back 40. Part of what i do is i host a show for a media company, and we have a show right now called back 40 which is actually exploring the flipside of this going. This project i just spent the last three years on has all been about public land conservation. This new project im working on is about private land conservation. So we decided to dive into that world by purchasing a small property and documenting both what you can do on a property like that to improve it for wildlife of all sorts while also trying to balance that with recreational uses like hunting. One of the challenges of announcing that kind of thing is trying to do all sorts of different activities. One of the things we often joke about is trying to create deer Hunting Properties while having crazy friends walk over and shoot squirrels. We did a squirrel hunt. We have an episode of it on the show this year. The hunt didnt go very well. We ended up not seeing a single grey or fox squirrel on the property. So i got an email from steve the other day though specific design hey, what do you think about planting a cornfield just for squirrels next year . Can we do that . The squirrel hunt didnt go very well on the farm but we did go to a piece of public land and had success there. So keep it public. What is your favorite public land that youve gone too . To . What was your favorite experience . Im going to point to two. One is simply from an aesthetic, first of all, alaska. It showed hard to just anything about alaska without admitting that it is on a different skill and different level than just about anything we have in the United States. I was really fortunate to be able to ship a trip with some folks up into the central part of the state, got airdropped hundreds of miles from the nearest town, and spent a week out there watching a migration of caribou, thousands and thousands and thousands of animals across a vista that is an ending. Not a single light insight, not a single person. Waking up in the morning on the open up the tent door and a step outside and the first thing i saw was it mountains in the distance. It wasnt there great beautiful blue sky. It was apparent drizzly bears. That experience is hard to compare to. So alaska, and in particular i was in the Yukon Charley National preserve, reserve. Secondly, i will point towards grand teton National Park and the surrounding wilderness areas and National Forest and that holds a special place in my heart because of the experiences. That was one of the first place of my girlfriend, my wife though, went and saw on that three week road trip in nature. I talked to you about how eyeopening it was, specifically driving towards the tetons, the last light as a storm was rolling in and sing this unimaginable skyline and just thinking this is real, this is america. This is something id watched on documentaries. I couldnt believe i could pull over on the side of the road, step outside and feel the rain coming down and look at this, this unbelievable setting. So we have returned year after year after year ever since. We have stayed there, this is one of the locations weve gone back to inspect our summers. I propose to my wife on top of a mountain overlooking the tetons, and its one of those places we will continue to bring her ours and spent a lot of time. Simple, i dont have i cant give you a magic silver bullet, but number one, be informed. Just tap into this whole river of information because theres so many things going on today. Its very hard to keep track of it. Even in someone, this is what i do for a living, i cant keep track of everything going on. There are tools and resources to help you understand whats happening there. The thing is, theres a lot happening thats impacting wildlife. Thats impacting open space and public lands and very mysteriously, that the general public almost never hears about. All we can do is pick and try to capture those most important issues and jump on them when we can. Number one, its trying to ways to stay informed. Probably the best way to do that is to choose a couple of conservation organizations that do a good job of filtering everything, and plug into them. So, when it comes to public lands, especially if you hunt or fish or do that kind of thing, back country hunters and anglers is one i continue to be a strong advocate for. Because theyre doing a great job of doing exactly what they say, taking everything thats going on, filtering it and letting us know when theres something to jump on. The sierra club, whatever it is, about i can pick a couple of those and try to get involved. The second thing is when the attorneys arise, take some kind of action, it doesnt need to be heroic, you dont need to storm the capital. You dont need to write a book. If you chat with someone at thanksgiving and tell them about why this thing matters, if you send an email, send a tweet, maybe you do show up at a capital building, every single one of those Little Things does make a difference. For every theodore roosevelt. We needed millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of people that just were willing to write that letter. So just do those two simple things and keep doing it. It helps, it makes a difference, its why we have these places. Thats not i wish i had something special, i wish i could tell you to buy this book and youll have it all figured out, but just care. And show people that. I think if we all do it that changes the world. How about we go this way . Im here all night. Want me to go . Okay. Two questions quick. Im a big fan of the wired podcast, the information and the special guests you have on there is very impressive. Keep up the good work. But ive always wondered and i love the pregame with dan johnson. You two are a great pair. How did you hook up with dan johnson. Deer hunting talk, so, yes, i ran the things, the podcast, a lot about my cohost, dan johnson is a character. I wanted to start a podcast back in 2013, i just quick my job at google, was going to go fulltime, trying to be an outdoor writer and podcaster and that stuff and i realized i had all of this free time and better do something with it and podcast seemed like the natural next step, but i am i am like the straightlaced normal bookish kind of guy, which is okay, but its not that funny. Its not that entertaining at all times. I realized i needed a ying to my yang. I needed ed sullivan to the Johnny Carson maybe. Im not that old, but i feel like somebodys emailed me that before. And i knew i needed somebody like that and i had met a guy years before at a film school, actually learning to film outdoor films and hunting and he was a guy who had a huge personality and huge guy only nine i think iffers which ma made he had nine fingers which made him stand out. And it he seemed like a good fit to balance out my sometimes overintellectual nature and i called him, hey, man, have you ever heard of a podcast. Thats how it came about. He said yes, and thats how it was history. As far as that deer, i named him after that a buddy that is here tonight, jason tran. [laughter] i hunt a lot, sometimes the same deer over and over again, just because of what i do for a career, i talk about these deer a lot, makes sense to give him a name of some kind, sounds a little weird, but yes, on the last day of hunting season, i saw him, i believe hes still around sore so 2020 will be an interesting hunting season. Thank you for listening. How about the young guy in back. Why do you hunt . [laughter] wow. Coming at me with the big ones. [laughter] whats funny is i dont think i prepared myself for that one tonight. Its a great, great question and one thats not easily answered. But i think if you hunt, its good to take some time to try to answer that for yourself. I hunt for a lot of reasons. And so my answer is, if you were to take all of these different things, throw it in a pot and stir it up and cook it for eight to 10 hours and then take whatever that concoction is, thats my answer. It would involve a few things, number one, first and foremost hunt for food and a way to provide my family with protein and sustenance and im connected to. I understand where we get our red meat and so we havent had to buy red meat for years and years and years. Its not for everyone, thats fine. Its the right way for me to get my food. I secondly hunt because, it allows me to engage it allows me to engage with the Natural World in a different kind of way and so when i was writing this book, and im out there hiking through a place, lets say the tetons. When youre hiking along passing through a set of mountains or forest, youre an observer. When you go out and hunt even if its in the exactly same place its a different experience. You go from an observer to a participant. And have you ever seen lion king . The circle of life. When you become the hunter you become a part of the circle of life, youre kind of like simba and that is a really special thing to do. Every sound matters more, every smell matters more. Everything around you is now influenced by you and influences you and what youre going to do next. So that, i mean, thats an experience that is powerful, thats exciting, thats compelling, and that keeps me coming back again and again and again. So, i hunt to get food. I hunt for that experience. I hunt to connect with what the very human part of what we are, too, right . I mean, we have teeth that are built to eat meat. Humans have been hunting for tens of thousands of years. This is what we were built to do physically and i think when you hunt, you tap into that. You press a button that does something in the back of your mind that its hard to put word to, but it feels very right. And again, not everyones going to want to do it. Not everyone need to do it. Some people might not even approve of the fact that we do it, but i see value in it. I think it breeds advocates, often times, people that dont hunt have a hard time understanding that, but when you have an engagement like i described, when you get your food in that kind of way, its really hard not to care about the animals and care about the places they live. And all the mat ultimately, thats one of the things that drove me to do what i do. There are a few more ingredients in the pot im not thinking about, but thats a start. Thanks for the question. How about right there . What is your favorite, like your best way to hunt youve ever had, your most favorite way to hunt . Oh, boy. My favorite white tail hunt. So ive been lucky to hunt a lot. The white tail, the most ubiquitous animal in america, probably you see them in your back yard. Favorite white tail hunt. Man, i think i could point to some deer i shot or some story that was great that i really enjoyed and shared with my followers, and was great for my career or Something Like that. All of those things make for great hunts. But i think a couple probably stand out to me that wouldnt fall within that. I think one experience, which was not really a hunt, but sort of was, was my first time that i can remember and i didnt have a gun. It wasnt even hunting season. But it was somewhere in july or august and i was with my grandfather up at our small family property in northern michigan, and i was probably five or six, somewhere this that ballpark. I cant remember a whole lot, but i remember these little flashes and its the earliest flash i can remember from my entire life of having an up close experience of wildlife of any kind. It just so happened to be deer and its consumed my life since. My grandfather and i were sitting in a little, what is called a blind, some of you know what that is. An outdoor shack, and outdoor carpeting stapled in and mesh, and we were sit there and he had a video camera with him, i wish i had the footage. I remember him filming it and me being this little kid, a group of seven or eight does came walking across from you to me and id never seen anything like that so close, but i must have remembered or must have been told a lot about deer or animals because the thing i realized was special. So i remember these deer walking across in front of me. It summer, everything is green around me, but the deer are almost an orange or a red. I can still see it and theyre walking across and i was just erupting with excitement. Grandpa, grandpa and i called him gp, deer, deer, deer. And hes the whole time, mark, youve got to be quiet. Youve got to be quiet. Shh. H. Youve got to be quiet. So i just remember the pure joy of it and i think pure again, i wasnt hunting really, i was just being there in the wild and seeing the animals and that pure joy i think is what kept me coming back again and again. And again, it comes back with that engagement with them is something thats special, quite simply. So, that one stand out. Ill stick with that one. How about way in the far back there, black hat. Nervous in front of everybody, yeah, i know, what im saying, just like that gentlemen said, im sure a lot of you listened to the podcast. I just want to say thank you, and im sure everybody wants to say thank you. Changed my life. I started hunting late in life. And appreciate it every episode. And for someone who wants to hunt somewhere, out on public land possibly, what was that like for you . With a was your first specious out there doing like hunting not just camping or adventuring . What was that like for you and kind of tell us, i guess, what that was . Again, another one of those kind of paradigm shifters where i went from my life is like this to all of a sudden, oh, life can be like that. I loved hunting here in michigan, still love it, its home. Something special about it, but again, i would always encourage people to go outside of their comfort zone to see the new places and do new things. My First Western hunt was an elk hunt in aid low in the caribou National Forest and its been one of those things where, again, kind of as i mentioned earlier id always dreamed of doing that and oh, some day im going to do it. Some day im going to do it. I want to do it, i want to do it, i didnt feel confident. Theres a lot to it, a lot to figure out. You need new gear, you need to learn how to survive in different places, a lot different than weeking out behind the house and sitting in a tree. So its interesting, this guy this guy has helped me with a lot of things. I was reading something from steve vernella and finally gave me the push, dang it, ive got to go do it. It was a passage in one of his books about elk hunting and flipped the switch, i said, forget i dont know about this, dont know about that, just go and youll figure it out. I found a friend that had been out there before. I said were doing it this year and make it happen. Checked the boxes and the todo list, exercised got ready, quit my job, and headed out dont need to quit your job, but i quit my job for multiple reasons, but, yeah, headed out there and again, i come back to some of the same ways of describing it. I wish i had something new to say, but when you go from deer hunting or hunting in michigan, its a pretty intimate experience, right . Its small places, its close encounters, and thats great. But then theres something really great about big place, wide open vistas, intense experiences where youre literally chasing animals on foot or running up mountains trying to find them, and standing on top of a mountain and seeing miles and miles of any distance. And again, layering the hunting component on top of it. Youre not just hiking, youre fully tapped into whats going on around you. Sometimes compare this, deer hunting and elk hunting. When youre deer hunting, youre given these opportunities to to step away from everything. And you can completely turn your mind off. Because youre not doing anything, right . Youre sitting and waiting. While you sit and wait, you have this rather thing in life where you dont have to go anywhere else, where you dont have to do anything else. I dont know about you guys, but all day, every day, ill go, go, go, ive got this thing, that thing, somewhere to be, stress, worried, all of these things going on, a million things going on, but when youre deer hunting, when youre sitting waiting, watching, you can clear your mind and then decompress, think about things. When youre out wets west and elk hunting, you cant turn your brain off because its an active pursuit. So instead your brain is turned up to 15 because your hunt depend on what you do next, what step you take, what direction you go. Are you going to run up there . Are you going to run down there . Are you going to climb that mountain . And so, you are fully engaged and thats a lot of fun, too. So ill recommend you do both. I recommend you go for it. Theres a lot of public land out there to do it on and i think having proper expectations is important. Going out there and not feeling like you have to have success, if you go out there looking at success as enjoying the experience and learning something, youre going to have a blast, its going to be amazing. Do that, dont go out there thinking you have to fill a tag. Eventually you might and its amazing when you do. And all of the work and effort and sweat that goes into it makes for what i often refer to as type two fun. It can be painful in the moment, but it will live long in your memories. That stuff worth chasing, so go for it. Its much more achievable than maybe you think it is. Just do it. Yeah. How about corner there. Yeah, so like obviously in the way youre talking about the book, youre shooting for a much broader audience than something titled wired to hunt. You know, youre trying to hit left, right, cabelas, you talked about it. When you think about your approach to this book then, what is the role of personal narrative and story telling and kind of breaking through those ideological barriers and helping people find a way in . And related to that then, did you find yourself telling the hunting related stories differently than this book than you were writing for kind of a purely hunting, hunter audience . Yeah, so i absolutely approached this from the perspective of not writing a hunting book for a hunting audience. Now of course, my core because of the things ive built to this point in my career, i knew that that contingent of readers would be there. Theyd understand what i was getting at. Even if i didnt get into the details. So i did kind of write it with a nonhunting audience in mind so that, if you read the book, and that had some people like my core audience read the book, im surprised it had a little hunting in it and i did that on purpose because i talked about bridging that gap between rei and cabelas, or whatever it is. Another thing i saw this as an opportunity to do, not only do i think we could bring together groups much more powerful force for public land, but selfishly one of my personal goals is to help present and represent hunting in a way that will make sure that we can hunt into the future. Making sure thats something thats socially and politically palatable for the general public. I think thats something that is really, really important for anybody that has a platform. Even if you dont have a platform, its important for anybody to hunt to look at yourself as an ambassador for what we do. So through this book i saw an opportunity, if i could get nonhunters to pick this book up because of a whole lot of back pacing and kayaking and camping and fixing campers, if they would read this book and be willing to give me a chance, maybe someone could come out the other end thinking, the way he talked about it, the way he thinks about these things, i could get behind that kind of hunting. Maybe hunting is not so bad. So that was that was a really important kind of Stealth Mission i had with this book and i hope it comes off that way that people that read it would come to a tiny bit more where were coming from. So, question, everything i say, everything i write, im thinking about that because i think thats a fundamental issue for anyone who hunts going to the future. We have to all approach it in that kind of way. As far as the story telling and the narrative, absolutely, whether it be hunting or anything else, again, this stuff can be heavy, it can be boring, it can be hard to slog when it comes to the public land issues, theres all sorts of regulations and bills and laws that are maybe not that much fun to think about or to talk about, how do you get that across to someone and make it digestible in any kind of way . Its i always append this to the same guy, steve. I always say that he told me this and one time, i think you told me this, steve i never said that. So somebody once told me if you want somebody to eat their vegetables, youve got to give them a lot of candy along the way. I always remind myself of that, for me at least, this book and really the books i enjoy the most and thats probably why i wrote this book this way, this is the book i wanted to read, was a book full of fun stories, personal narrative, something that can draw you along someones adventure and throw the vegetables in there and youre going to be so full and happy with that candy, youre not going to mind the broccoli. Thats what i try to do, and its funny having written the book, i wish i could have done this differently, wished i could have done a better job of this, and changed this, but eventually, you have to just have to, you know, you can only rewrite and read and rewrite so many times so eventually you have to put out the world and say this is the best i could do at that moment in my life and hope its good enough and im hoping that ill get a chance to do another one and well see where it takes me, but its a lot of fun to try to fix up a meal like that. Yeah. Right here. So im going to switch gears back to white tail. I think you kind of alluded to the fact that those of us that hunt white tail tend to care deeply about the animals and what they bring to, you know, our lives. And i think one of the biggest threats at this point to white tails, especially in the state of michigan is cwd. And so as a neuroscientist myself, i know how devastating that disease is to the deer population, but one of the things that you run into is a miscommunication, i think, between the Larger Population about cwd and how it is a problem. You know, people are getting information from all of these different avenues, whether it be a rock star or a scientific article, right . Like you dont always get the information from the most reliable source, so i guess my question to you is how could you cut through all of these barriers and how does the general population know what is good science and how to interpret that science and to what it means for our enjoyment of these white tails . Yeah, the question was in regards to chronic wasting disease, which is disease that was found in michigan some number of years ago, and has been spreading and popping up in various places across the country that is a fatal disease to deer and there are a lot of concerns around with what that might mean for the future. Its a disease thats universally fatal, its a disease thats transferred by these little strange proteins that are left basically anywhere a deer traveled. So its very easily passed. And so, because of that, because of the possible ramifications of it, theres some pretty extreme ways that government, Wildlife Agencies approach trying to manage it. Offer times very controversial, riles up the hunting public. For any of you that hunts, its probably not news to you. As far as cwd, right, like you said, i think the biggest thing there is a lot of confusion and misinformation and just frustration from the hunting public, too because when these regulation changes come to your neighborhood, its usually not great. Its usually not very happy about it. So, that riled a lot of folks up and theyre not terribly keen on it. The way i approach things like this is to understand what i know and what i dont know. What my limitations are, what my expertise is. And then, looking to those, to have the best possible chance of knowing what theyre doing. So, im going to err on the side of science and the Scientific Method and the fact that you go with the best thing, the best knowledge, you have theories and you test them and continue to see what the preponderance of evidence tells you. Im going to trust that the folks working in this every day know more than i do. And they know more than a rock star knows and knows more than a guy with a tv show and great hair. Im going to err on that thing, if this thing is as serious as our scientists and neurologists say, im going to err on the side of caution because this is an amazing resource we have, whether its deer, elk or moose, excuse me, or moose, if this thing goes wrong with, if chronic wasting disease does become ubiquitous across the country, then the future for my children and all of our children, its pretty grim for totally Different Reasons so i try to lead by example in that. Im not going to claim to know it all. Im going to claim to try to stay uptodate in the latest science and put my faith in those that have spent their lives in this field of work. Yeah. [inaudible] who really, really wants the question . The question to go to, how about theres a vortex. So talking about public land, talk to us a little about what we should be if there are issues we should be concerned about in michigan. Im a public land unt had hunter and i want to be informed as thats where i get into the wild. Are there areas we should be aware of in michigan and if so, where are the best places to get information and just more information. Yes, great question and there are a lot of things going on here in michigan, but whats nice is that we do have different than some of the western states, the way the state land system works in michigan is pretty good. We manage a lot of state lands. We dont have a horrible track record of selling them, but i will tell you that there are examples, even recently, some state land was put on the auction block. So i would say a couple of things, theres some local organizations that are keeping track on this. And again, ill mention back country. We have a michigan chapter of back country hunters and anglers, i sit on the board and ive seen a couple of folks on the board here today doing a lot of things in the state of michigan, getting people involved ap volunteering to clean up public land and having get together to celebrate public lands and connect people so you can stay in touch. Mucc is another great local organization doing a lot of great things to keep you abreast of whats happening in the state and i will tell you, also, that this whole National Federal Republic Land thing, that impacts us here today. We have a pretty darn great National Forest here in the state. Excuse me. So tap into the local organizations, get involved. I think alan would be a great guy to talk to if you want to do things here in michigan. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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