Every now and then I recommend programs on the television or the streaming services to you my friend and Sometimes you watch them and then sometimes we talk about them There is one TV show that we've been watching as a family that is different than all my other recommendations because it's not scripted It's not some Star Wars fantasy thing It's just a show about people being thrown in the wilderness and having to figure out how to not die Have you heard of a loan you told me how one guy won when the season and so I know that oh but I've never watched it or anything Like that okay a guy killed a big animal and ate it. Yes Yeah, yes, and the eating and I think was the key to his success Let me set this up because I want to pick your brain about it I've been watching the show with the family I think it is a great program to watch with kids because it keeps giving us opportunities to think about what would you do? It's easy sitting in the comfort of your living room to look at a situation on the TV and be like well You should have done this or you should have done that or you're not thinking clearly But that's exactly what I want to sit with my kids and think about what you would do in a difficult situation So alone is all about humans being dropped in effectively an impossible situation to see how long they can hold out It's on the history channel each season 10 contestants get put somewhere way out in the wilderness They get dropped off in 10 random places within maybe 10 miles of each other So we're talking crazy remote though like Northwest Vancouver Island Patagonia great slave lake in the Arctic some other Alpine lake in Canada And they don't get that much stuff They have enough clothes to stay warm and they get to choose from a list of items That's maybe 40 items long 50 items long You can only take 10 of those items and then what happens is you get dropped out there with all your camera gear You have to film your own stuff I can't imagine what a pain in the butt that is off camera to learn how to film your own reality show and then film it But they do it and then what happens is you just see how long you can go without dying You're not allowed to die because they come and do medical checks, but they don't help you at all They give you any help you're done if you call for any help you're done And everybody gets a sat phone and you just you've got this button and you can push it if things get too bad And then they come and get you and you cry and they do a little interview and say how sorry you already have to leave and then you're done You just vanish and eventually there's one person left standing and that's pretty fun They always sneak in their spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever and have him come stand back behind him and sneak up on him Be like surprise you were in the wilderness for 80 days and now here. I am.
It's always emotional It's fun. We like that part too. I don't want to talk to you about what the reunion would be like if you won alone What I want to pick your brain about it Just what the heck would you do you have a magnificent engineer brain? You're pretty dang good at problem solving one of the many things I like about alone is that it starts with a problem before you ever even Get there and the problem is what are you going to bring with so what I would like to do with this little conversation Is I'd like to tell you what the options are for what you can bring and then I want to hear you Workshop what the correct permutation of items would be if you'll want to win.
Whoa, okay Well, I'm not a survivalist or like what do you call the people that are like survival experts like bear greels like I've been in the woods for 35 minutes and I'm drinking my urine, you know stuff like that It's not me. Yes. No, I know you're not But I think that's the which a container for thinking drinking your urine. Come on a container for fluids would be important I did read hatchet and it was very difficult for the boy and hatchet to like hold fluid That was a challenge and so I I would think one thing I would want is a the ability to hold some type of liquid a bottle Maybe okay.
Well, let me read the list now to you and see what stands out You're probably gonna want a little sheet of paper Okay, give something to write with that because I think you're gonna go through several different iterations of this list Let me start by telling you what you get automatically so you know on wheel of fortune RSD LNE. Yes. Those are free. They're just gimmes.
This is the rst lne part Okay, everybody gets this ready. Do I need to like type this or you don't need to write this down? I think you can remember this is all pretty straightforward Okay, we're going to assume by the way that you are being dropped at the great slave lake which has Scrubby pine forest. That's the name of the place the great slave lake.
Yeah, okay I don't know think straight north of colorado straight east of denali. Okay in canada That's that's got to get as close like yellow knife territory up that direction. Wow. Yeah, so way up there You're not gonna have a stream that you can flyfish or anything like that You're gonna be operating off of this ancient deep glacial arctic lake and it's gonna get cold You're gonna go there in september with a little bit of leaves still on the tree And you're gonna watch the leaves come off the trees and you are going to get snow That's terrifying and it's going to be cold by the time if you make it to Thanksgiving you'll be at about day 60 and it's gonna be Zero and below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
It's gonna be real real cold. Okay, that'll framed up in your mind Do you have clothes and coats and stuff like that like okay? Yes, okay. Yes, you do.
That's on the list Okay, I'm ready. Here is what is on the automatic list. Here's your rst lne one pair of high leg hunting boots, okay One pair of waterproof arctic winter boots one t-shirt One fleece or wool shirt two wool sweaters six pairs of wool socks two hats rammed wool for arctic or baseball Two buffs or a neck gator one scarf four pair of gloves Two pairs and there are variety of gloves like insulated work gloves Mittens a liner is a two pair of underwear one insulated parka style jacket two pair of outdoor pants or bibs One pair of fully insulated or waterproof winter pants or bibs a pair of insulated pants or bibs. Yes, okay Got it one waterproof uninsulated shell or jacket two pair of thermal underwear one pair of gators.
You know what gators are The thing that goes on your neck. I think that's like a gate or I think this is a gait I think that stuff that goes around your calves and joins your pants over the top of your boots Oh, yeah, okay stuff from getting up in there like pointy's and so forth Yep, yep One leather belt one toothbrush one pair of eyeglasses one personal photograph That's your rst lne anything on there raised questions for you. How do you feel about what you have so far? Um the bibs feel like they're important and the parka feels like it's very important Okay, so you get all that though the wool socks, man.
That's huge Uh, I was hunting two days ago in south, Mississippi I spent 12 hours in the woods and we My buddy shot a doe and we skinned it and We got all the meat off of it cool and so that kind of stuff is fresh in my mind But the first time I went out there my feet got really cold. It was really cold in south Mississippi I'd say and I said hey man, I feel you're crazy cold dude. What uh, what do you do? And my buddy said oh well home or up the road It was like a hundred years old when I met him He used to hunt all the time around here and he said what he would do is he would put a pair of socks on And then he would put Walmart bags on his feet and then he put socks over that and then his shoes back on And that you know just kind of kept the heat there in between that first layer of socks, you know, it doesn't doesn't just pay it out I was like, that's pretty interesting.
I think this is pretty good But the thing that out of this rstlne list the thing that I'm most scared of is the wind And so I don't see anything specifically designed to knock down the wind the parka style jacket Maybe and the insulated pants or bibs, maybe that'll do it But I think maybe the water waterproof shell But the wind is a big deal in the ability to keep your heat in and so one of the things that I learned at the ice water shelter on the Appalachian Trail and the Great Smoky Mountains the night we got there and it was 40 degrees And then the temperature kept plunging I think there's like I don't know if you ever done any hiking on that place and trail or anything like that Very limited just looking for trout. So yeah quarter mile half mile. Okay, nothing serious Well, we'll do like 40 miles over a course of you know a few days kind of thing And so we ended up at this one place There was literally ice there And um, I got so cold my feet specifically got so cold at night because I had a sleeping bag that was nowhere close to being warm enough That I was sleeping neck the way it works and those shelters Just like planks and y'all go in and there's a cage that you can close for bears And uh, I didn't know the lady I was sleeping next to what I sure enough at about 2 a.m. Stuck my toes under her butt I was like, you know my options at this moment in my life are get frostbite and lose my toes Or stick my toes under your butt ma'am.
I'm gonna stick my toes under your butt. I did what you say what she did Was she okay? She understand like she pretend we're all in fact and you're like whatever. Okay.
She yeah, man Weird stuff happens on the trail dude. There's like they caught trail magic for the good stuff And then there's all kinds of names for the bad stuff that happens like the weird stuff, you know, okay Yeah, I'm at a dude on the yeah on the trail one time his name was shatter and he kept talking about how yeah They call me shatter because my mind shattered had a breakdown. So now I'm out here and I'm like, okay. Yeah, yeah, you're You're going shatter.
Yeah. Oh, I'm going this other way. So I guess I'll see you interesting much later Yeah, by the way shatter. You're not allowed to have pistols on the trail, but sometimes I have one Okay real quick.
I'm gonna go back to the the deer. Okay, did you have to quarter it out and haul it by hand or did you have a little ATB back in there or something? Yeah, my buddy Wayne's uncle uh, fun brought it up with the ATV So Wayne shot it and uh, fun foin went and got it hauled it back up to the house We strung it up. I was in learning mode and so I sat there and I just took it all in because the last time I skinted deer I was 14 and I actually picked up the knife.
I did it with tonight. I said my son had it on a shelf I said hey, this is what I skinted my deer with is like, you know, and I broke the tip off of it I was a curious young boy and I wanted to see this yeah No, this sounds like weird or not But like you're a 14 year old boy and your skin in your first year You want to see all the anatomy and so I wanted to see the brain because brains are interesting to me And I tried to like get to the brain and I broke my knife And so I showed myself like, you know why this knife is broken because yeah, you told me you've been at the wrong way I was like, I've been at the wrong way trying to get to the brain So I'm not squeamish or you know scared of that kind of stuff, but uh, how long will that deer feed your buddy's family? Quite a while. Uh, it won't get him through the winter, but you know, maybe a month, you know I mean, it was a lot of meat.
I mean he probably got 60 pounds of meat out of that thing. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's a big doe Well, it's good that you're not squeamish because if we put you on a loan, which I'm not actually proposing but in this hypothetical You're gonna have to kill stuff to eat There's a couple of food options that we're gonna get to here in the the list you can pick from but You got to live off the land and there's some only somebody buries you can eat so we'll get to that in a minute But it sounds like you are You're built right for this kind of thing your problem solver You're not afraid of getting a little bit dirty and eating off menu and you know, it's spilling a little blood if you have to to preserve your life so You're concerned based on what you saw on that list your red flag would be Wind chill and cold and wanting to make sure that that you could just be out and working and doing stuff without getting frostbite and chilled Like you felt that night on the trail. Absolutely.
Yeah, um, I made a decision that night on the trail that I would always keep what's called an emergency bivy So it's think of it like an aluminum foil sleeping bag like bivi Uh, I think it's bivy. I don't I don't know how to spell it. Um, okay, but basically there's a few different ways you can lose heat There's conduction uh convection and radiation, right? There's the main heat transfer methods Conduction is you're up against something and your heat moves directly from you to it It's why a wood table and aluminum table feel different the metal table feels colder because more heat is being conducted away from your body Okay, what about convection?
What does it look like to lose heat to convection? It's like the you know like heat rising up off of you like when a football player takes off their helmet and playing in cold weather Yeah, and then steaming that's convection heat lost. That's my understanding. Yeah, I could be butchering these terms But yeah, I think it's convection.
I took a course in in a college called heat transfer and those were the last most radiation and so radiation is the one that sneaks up on you because Like for example, you can have frost on the grass in your yard even though it didn't go below freezing And that's because heat can radiate to the vacuum of space to like, you know It's it's a complicated thing But the thing that the bibby does for you is it keeps all the heat and because it's reflective it keeps your your radiated heat in as well Which is huge and so if you can keep all that heat in on you it's really interesting I don't know why but I've noticed that if I were cotton socks my feet will sometimes get colder than if i'm not wearing socks Yep, yep I've had the same experience another thing I learned on the trail from this really nice redneck dude from North Carolina Is he said hey, man, uh, you know, I'm like, hey dude. I always get cold and I'm like how do this? Oh, I bet you're like bundling up when you get in your sleeping bag. There you go.
I was like, yes He goes shoot. Yeah, get down to your skivvies, man I said, what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, what I do is I get in my sleeping bag and I take my clothes off And then I'm in my sleeping bag without my clothes and then I stay warmer and I said that makes no sense to me We tried to explain it And I think what he was saying it's all about presented surface area to the outside world Let me just explain it simply this way. What's the difference in gloves and mittens?
If you were in five finger gloves describe the difference in terms of heat Oh, I think gloves are usually colder, but I assume that's because I just have more exposure to cold surfaces Mittens I can tuck all up in there and keep my fingers together and I can warm 25% of my pinky finger using 25% of my ring finger and so on and so forth I feel like I can cheat a little bit and kind of make my fingers hug That's right. You're decreasing your external surface area and in my calculus teacher in high school said the most efficient shape for a house That you could build in order to keep your energy bill low To like heat a house for example. What do you think the most efficient shape you could make a house would be? Well, I suppose I never thought about that It's a sphere Because it's the maximum amount of volume for the minimum amount of external surface area Boy would that cause a lot of other inefficiencies though And I think what offset your heating gains.
Yeah, yeah, exactly It's just a heat transfer equation And so I've often thought about this like how do you do this? And so what the kind redneck gentleman from North Carolina was explaining to me is like hey If I'm down to my skivis then my arms can be right next to my body You can burrito yourself and like the inside of your arms are touching your sides and your legs And so you're not losing that heat as it's trying to like slowly seep out of your sweatshirt for example So in a way if you're wearing all your clothes It's like you're using your body energy to heat your clothes Yes, but they don't hold it as well and they don't return the favor Whereas a well-designed sleeping bag does hold it and does return the favor Exactly It's about a trade-off between the amount of heat that's dissipating through the cloth versus the heat capacity of the cloth Yeah, exactly Hmm I know that to be true But I couldn't even start it to speculate as to why and that kind redneck gentleman also taught me about spam bacon I said what he goes. Yeah, man bacon flavor spam. You gotta get you some I was like you sir are a wizard and During the apocalypse, I would like to know your address.
I could come to you, please This episode of Nodum questions is sponsored by audible Which is exactly the service I would use if I was you know stuck out alone in the woods I would yes load down my phone with audio books I figure out some way to hack together the batteries from the camera systems to power my phone Just so I could listen to these audio books so I could keep my mind and my mental faculty sharp because that's what audible does for me What audio books would you make sure you took with you? I'd probably take some faith-based ones for me and then I'd take some fun ones like uh stories I've listened to in the past You know something that gives me a touch back to you know something I've listened to the past I'm familiar with it and probably some big thinky ones that were challenging me. I'd probably also take some survival ones. Yes Yes, exactly hatch it probably hatch it.
Oh, here's one a hundred deadly skills survival edition I don't know I just search for survival like in audible.com. I'm doing the exact How to survive by john hudson. I don't know anything about this bush they craft 101. Oh, you can sort Oh, yeah, you can just sort by the plus catalog and these are all free Oh, that's interesting really end dude You get an audio book on how to make a pie you dead fall trap so you get squirrels and endurance is in the plus catalog Okay, the plus catalog yes, it is the plus catalog is like you just get all these titles for free No matter what so like if you sign up for audible audible.com slash indq or text indq to 500 500 You get a free month to try it out you get audio book for free But you also get access to the plus catalog and endurance is in there.
I didn't know that that's awesome Surely they've got podcasts on there as well about survival and all kind of tricks for getting food getting fish hunting Yeah, I think I could dominate at alone if they would just let me bring audible It's all I need man. Yeah, mine stays busy. You're never gonna lose it. It's like you're you're learning You're growing the whole time the hours fly by you listening to that while you're doing your chores loading up wood Chasing around muskratts with a club.
I don't know how you get a muskrat. That was just a guess Oh, it says right here. This is like you did last time. I like the way they say it says audible makes chopping wood easy Uh, you can get a free 30 day membership to audible.
It doesn't say that but I'm scrolling I'm here looking at my list and like I don't I think that's not true I don't you do actually get audible free for 30 days. Uh, that part's real. Yeah, that part's real So audible.com slash indq or text indq to 500 500 to try audible free for 30 days check out the plus catalog see what you like Okay, I know that's what we sound like when we're about to wrap it up But it's been a little while since we've actually asked the third chair to Work through an audio book with us and I have one that I would like to recommend. Would you be up for doing another one of these?
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, here it is I want to do amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman. You are the second person to recommend this audiobook to me Really? Who was the other uh, buddy of mine that I went to Peru with?
His name's Dave really he sent me some quotes. He said hey, you need to get this audiobook And uh, let me see what Dave has to say about it. All right, Dave sent me a couple of excerpts from amusing ourselves to death and uh He says also now that you aren't studying for the test I was taking I'll recommend that book again I'm using ourselves to death. So he's recommended it twice Uh, yeah, I've just I've got to do this.
So I'm in I think what you will find is this is a guy writing I think in the 1980s and You will not believe how prescient this book is it's well I don't want to ruin it, but it's a pre critique of what things were then and what he anticipated we would become But it it doesn't feel like you're just getting dumped on the whole time. You're in on the conversation You're invited to think critically as well. It's riveting. It's gonna keep your attention and it's quick That's awesome.
So we're gonna listen to it and then we're gonna go over it together like as a group That's what I'd like to do. Yes, that's great. Awesome. Thank you So if you want to join us in listening to the audiobook, I'm using ourselves to death by Neil Postman And then in discussing it however many episodes down the road You can do that by going to audible.com slash ndq or text ndq to 500 500 And you can get a free audible trial for 30 days, which includes one free credit plus access to the plus catalog and all that other stuff We were talking about as well.
Awesome. Looking forward to it Where are we going from here that you were just telling me to give me stuff. Yeah, that's the gimmy stuff We've talked about the red flags of concerns that you might have are you taking the photograph because we haven't talked about the mental game at all Look at this road grab I literally was hustling past it in the hopes you wouldn't do that Did you notice I took no breaths? I just rolled yeah, I would take the photograph.
Yeah, what would it be a photograph of my family? Okay, is that a bad idea? Uh, some people have gone with no on the show. I know that's all I'm gonna do is look at that and be sad I gotta be locked in I gotta be thinking about what's right in front of me and not wistfully dreaming about other places It seems like people psychologically have much more trouble on this show than you would figure Oh, I can imagine I'm an extrovert.
I like other people. So just being completely alone. I don't know this much. I'm cool Being alone like I actually really enjoy it.
Um, just walking into woods and stuff. I can see that sure Yeah, I could I can see that being a problem like wanting to interact with other humans for a while Can you imagine how cool it would be a way to be away from social media for that long? That'd be awesome You have that option right now. I just shut up.
Yes, I do. Okay. I'm addicted to social media. I say that yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, we are uh, yes, I'm with you.
I don't like saying it so I'll let you say it and then I'll agree Yeah, I think that's good enough for me. I had a twitter off to my wife for a month and that felt really good It was nice. Yeah I changed the name in my youtube channel so that it wouldn't dominate my thought quite as much and that's already been really nice That's awesome. It's a big deal.
Yeah, I mean I guess so all right 10 items from the following list ready here you go No duplicate items by the way, okay, shelter four items in the shelter category. You may take a 12 by 12 ground tarp They can have grommets You can take 10 meters of climbing rope You can take 80 meters of paracord You can take 40 meters of cotton cord and you don't have to pick anything from that part of the list It's just those are those are the items under the category shelter. Okay, okay, so you got the tarp with grommets You got 10 meters of climbing rope 80 meters of paracord 40 meters of cotton cord And I hope that everybody in the third chair is doing the exercise here because what you think is interesting But how can you can you hear this scenario and not be running it for yourself now? Let's talk about betting You can take a multi seasonal sleeping bag.
Ah, here we go a bivy bag It is the IV I like a Gore-Tex sleeping bag cover. Uh-huh. You can take a sleeping pad or you can take a hammock Huh a hammock And I thought about that. Okay.
Okay cooking one large pot No more than two quarts and that includes a lid so you do get a lid with that one steel frying pan No more than two quarts one flint or ferro rod set with standard sized striker One enamel bowl for eating one spoon one canteen or water bottle You could use one of your 10 items on something you take for granted as much as a spoon Huh, it's kind of wild isn't it that they think it rises to that level? Yeah, it is Uh, I'll run through the rest of it listen. I'll be interested here if you think it does rise to that level Hygiene you can take an eight ounce tube of toothpaste but they don't give you one You can brush your teeth with charcoal if you have to but toothpaste is a luxury one face flannel. I don't know what that means One flannel face flannel.
Okay That yeah, is it keep your skin from turning the leather? I don't know either one 40 millimeter roll of dental floss One small bottle of bio shower soap one shaving razor and one blade one towel 3060 Wait one bottle bio what? Shower soap, okay. Yeah, yeah one shaving razor one towel 30 inches by 60 inches Here's one I might leave behind or one coma.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'm kind of formulating my list here as well I'm just gonna draw a line through that one Okay Okay more uh participants need food to survive. So here's some your hunting options One 300 yard roll of single filament fishing line up to max of 20 pounds weight test plus 25 assorted barblis hooks No bigger than size seven no lures.
So you get a fishing kit. Huh option two One primitive recurve or long bow nine arrows simple quiver or arrow attachment. Okay one small gauge gill net You ever seen one of those in action? No, what is what is a small gauge gill net?
Use cable or uh post to stretch netting horizontally across the shallow stream and then fish swim into it they get their gills stuck They die and you can come back six eight ten twelve hours later and they'll be fishing there if it's working Wow, okay, that's important. Yeah, okay One sling shot with 30 steel ball bearings and one replacement band one net bag for foraging one roll of Effectively trapping or snare wire This one's wild three pounds of one solid block of salt. Yep. All right now we're on to food You can just bring food with you if you want, but you can only bring two food items.
There's a limit on this right here We go two pounds of beef jerky two pounds of dried legumes lentils for starching carbs Two pounds of built on for protein two pounds of hard-tac military biscuits. What is two pounds built on? I was just gonna hustle pass it. Nope.
You knew okay. Okay. I have no idea. I'm doing like that I gotta know two pounds of bill hard-tac built on dude.
I don't even know what I'm looking at Uh, it looks like a jerky. It's dried meat. Yeah, it looks like a thick jerky. Okay.
Okay. There we go. All right now we know All right, uh two pounds of chocolate two pounds of pemican Which is like a trail mix kind of thing or trail food rather because two pounds of gorp is an option as well You know what that stands for? Gorp good old raisins and peanuts Well done, sir And then another option is one pound of flour or you can do a multi-pack that is one third pound rice one third pound sugar One third pound salt.
That's your food list and now the big one tools. Yes, this part you're gonna get excited about One pocket knife one hunting knife no longer than 10 inches one leatherman multi tool or similar one sharpening stone One roll of duct tape or one roll of electrical tape one small shovel one small sewing kit Slash electrical tape. Yep one small shovel Uh-huh one small sewing kit. Yep one carabiner.
Okay. One led flashlight one pair of ice spikes one scotch-eyed auger One adds adz what is that? It's uh, it's a tool used to chop wood and basically You've heard of a hand-hewn beam Yeah, it's like the kind of thing that you would use to make a hollowed out canoe Yeah, it's a it's a weapon you draw back weapon. It's a cutting tool you draw back to yourself Yes, so what i'm seeing here?
Yes, never knew that never heard of that before okay cool One two-handed draw knife laid on longer than five inches one hatchet one saw one axe Destin sandlin i'm going to drop your alabama But in the middle of the arctic on a bitterly cold lake where there bears and wolverines and other means Animals there mooses there there are muscocks there probably coyotes rabbits squirrels Probably some birds grouse the water's going to have lake trout white fish pike, maybe grailing arctic char things like that It's going to be very cold You will be given a chunk of ground where you can get some shelter with some trees And a flat enough space to make some kind of shelter and you have to endure Probably about a hundred days if you want to win what are you bringing with you for those 10 items and why? You only get 10 of these items 10 you get your rst lne stuff That's just your your clothes Yeah, and then you get from that whole list. I just gave you from the category shelter bedding cooking hygiene hunting and food and tools You get 10 things from that whole list godly man. Okay.
Um How hungry am I when I first get there? I have no idea I'd like to think that they feed you on the helicopter the boat or whatever dude godly uh Okay Holy cow 10 because I'm thinking about big ones like axe You know sure yeah, okay, so let's work backwards from what you think you would need to do there Exactly. That's something you're gonna survive till christmas september to christmas what activities are you going to have to perform? What are you going to have to accomplish the first thing I have to do is build shelter like step one You got to build shelter.
Okay, and so I'm thinking what can I do I think the quickest way to get shelter is to gather some small trees and You need to make posts somehow like corner posts and then weave like like i'm step one not the wind off of you If I could find something like a hillside or something I would only have to build three walls instead of four and I could use the heat of the earth Oh, if you had a shovel you could go down Oh, that's interesting, but then you'd have water in there. Okay. This is a fascinating problem, dude. Um I'm not that's why I wanted to put your brain on it.
I'm already having fun. Okay I think I get the pot. I gotta have the pot because that's how you cook things It's I'm gonna cook the fish or whatever the frying pan is interesting because you don't have oil Right you'd have to save fat or something like that. So I would almost say an enamel bowl for eating Yeah, you don't need one more rule anything you find you can use Anything you find anything you find you can use I mean if you find a 60 pound survival kit out there full of food and I don't think you can use a gun But anything you find you can use so factor that in what's the how far can I walk?
Yeah, I've wondered that as well I've gotten the impression that there might be a limit But what I've seen weather-wise is the limit is how far you can get from your shelter getting up before dawn and get back No matter how bad the weather gets because this is mean territory and it's disorienting There are no trails landmarks are confusing If you wandered too far from the shelter and you couldn't get back You'd have to request to be you know an emergency extract But I've seen it go down on the show where somebody needed an emergency extract in a cold situation They couldn't get out and they couldn't get there with a chopper dude had to find a way Completely on his own with no shelter or help to get through a night below zero Wow, so your limit is how far you can walk because there's nowhere to go There's no destination to get to okay, so I think I'm starting with shelter I got to start with shelter. So I'm thinking the 12 by 12 ground tarp with grommets Okay, I'm thinking the paracord Okay, because with that alone you can make shelter you can do a tp style like One piece of paracord between two trees, you know 12 by 12 tarp over the top of the paracord Rocks on the corners. You've got a primitive tent right there So so if you have tarp and cord to make your shelter happen now, that's probably not your long-term shelter Right, that's not gonna get you through 15 below, but it's gonna get you through the first night right right? Right, you got eight things left.
Okay. Oh The large pot I think I'm doing that's right. You said that yeah, uh The bivvy And the reason I'm getting the bivvy is because of the promise I made to myself after sticking my toes under that lady's butt I'm never putting my toes ever again And you could also use the bivvy as a ground tarp as well because they're waterproof godly The sleeping bag you kind of have to do that. I mean right isn't that one just an automatic Yeah, I think you really get to pick nine items here because What fool is going to the Arctic and being like I think I can get it warm enough in my little shelter without a sleeping bag I should be fine.
You have to take a sleeping bag right? Yeah, I think so one two three four five That's five items already it is godly. Okay, so I think the five items I'm gonna go with the three pounds of salt Why because I read the book salt And uh your body needs it so like if I could just eat that salt and then use it on all kinds of food and stuff like that I think that would be a good thing and then I need to be able to hunt wait. Well, hold on a minute Yeah, you think you're gonna need that whole three pound block because you can get a one third pound I mean you get a third pound of salt.
Well, you can use it I mean when we killed the deer in Mississippi the first thing we did is we we we quartered it And then we put it in a cooler and we put salt in it And the reason we did that is that lowered the freezing point or the melting point I should say of the the ice that we had in there still preserved the meat longer and also what my buddy wane's uncle kept saying Oh, yeah, that's just gonna draw the blood out and help you preserve it longer. I think that would help you preserve food I don't know a lot about salt, but I feel like it'd be important. Okay, uh, I'm gonna pause and laugh at the slingshot Okay, uh, I've killed animals with slingshots before however What will you know no doubt happen is you'll break the rubber tubing on the slingshot and it won't work anymore? Um, well, you get a replacement band.
Oh, do you really? You do get one replacement band one replacement band now if I'm in it for the long haul I tell you what I've got to do is I got to make my bow. That's kind of what I'm thinking Ooh, um, yeah, it's just what I'm thinking so but making the arrows would be harder. Do you get arrows with that?
You said you do, right? You do. Yeah, you get nine arrows and you get a quiver Dang dude. I could make an apple a lot of stuff with that bow Somebody did that somebody made an outlattle.
I think I could make an outlattle the fishing line kit's pretty legit Like uh, those hooks, right? But the gillnet will catch fish while I'm not there that is appealing so can hooks though if you do a trot line make a trot line Yeah, have you ever heard the song country boy can survive? No, you just lied to me I know I didn't come on. Yeah, we got like two rules in our whole friendship and you just suggested I violated one of them I noticed this beach.
No net nudes. Uh, you never heard that. No, I haven't heard it. That's why when you asked me if I heard it I said no, okay country boy can survive by hank williams jr It's a song about like I can do stuff right I can skin a buck and I can run a trot line a country boy can survive Got it.
There's a connection the trot line. Yeah, so do you want to just do whatever that song says in the arctic? Um, I told a buddy of mine one time. I was like, hey man, we got lunch on Thursday and uh, we're gonna go swim across the river And he said why I said to prove it were me and you've heard that the song in alabama swam cross river Just prove that I'm a man You've heard that right who who's that by alabama?
What's the song mountain music really that's in there? Yeah, I mean, I know mountain music obvious There's also a really weird line in there. I'm not from alabama. So I don't know all the words all their songs Climb a long tall hickory bend it over skin and cats.
That's a line in there. Nobody ever knows what that means but it means like flipping over backwards All right. So back to the list. Um, sorry for that.
It's you too. I'm not it's only a weird place I'm taking the letterman. If yourself do a weird place. I thought like if you're gonna have pants on this adventure Yeah Taking the leatherman almost wrote that one in without asking.
Okay, and I'm taking the axe Yeah, I'm taking the axe not the hatchet. Oh hatchet. Yeah. Why would you go axe over hatchet?
Yeah, yeah, I'll do hatchet. I'm sorry. Okay. I'll do hatchet over axe.
We both read the book. Yes Dude, I would almost consider doing hatchet for a book club. My son's reading it right now That would be my condition is if you got if you got a kid or you got a niece or a nephew You got to have them go through it too. We ever do hatchet.
Those are my terms This episode of Netam questions is sponsored by hello fresh Hello fresh is a milk kit delivery service that will send you fresh ingredients directly to your house a really cool recipe card that you can cook And you become a chef it's like getting chef lessons at your house and the food is awesome And they keep coming up with more ideas. The menu is never static They've got very talented people who think about all kinds of creative flavor combinations at least for me and my family it pushes us Just the right amount it forces me to try new things It's always good. We always eat everything that is put in front of us We get to learn things about how to cook together We can set this up so that new stuff is coming on a regular basis We can go and check out the menus together and paste things out But if we're traveling or doing anything like that, we can always suspend it for whatever amount of time we need to as well It is awesome if you want to try this out you can do so by going to hello fresh dot com slash in dq 70 and use the promo code in dq 70 at checkout for 70 percent off plus free shipping It's awesome. I don't know matt if you've noticed but the price of food has been going up everywhere is it ever?
Yeah, so the other day we're like let's pull up hello fresh and start finding something on there Oh, we want to start normalizing eating around the table as a family more So we're starting to do that one of the things that we're finding that is very advantageous about hello fresh Is that your normal meal? It's maybe 30 minutes tops the ones that we order at least But if that is ever gonna hit us during a time in our family schedule where even that is a little too much Now they've got this whole 20 minute recipe stuff equally awesome Equally filled with variety and it's just stuff that you can cook a little bit quicker when you're in those more on the run times of the year Just like this episode that we're talking about the survival stuff Hello fresh is basically the same thing as having a must-gox delivered to your house and you can just eat the whole I don't think that's true actually now that I think about it. I don't think it is true But again, I feel like if I could take like Maybe my Leatherman off of my list and replace it with daily hello fresh delivery I think I'm alone every single time I think you would because your caloric intake would be steady and constant and it would be delicious Yeah, and I wouldn't have to exert a lot of energy to keep that caloric intake up I think all the other contestants would be super jealous absolutely unless you need some garlic for the recipe right sure There'd be garlic in the hello fresh kit right I wouldn't have to go kill a garlic fish I don't know what garlic comes from to harvest that it would just be it would just be there Where does cinnamon come from I've heard cinnamon is the bark of a tree Well, it looks like I mean it looks like kind of a wood shaving right you can imagine running a planer over that the way they Represented it's got the little spirally curly thing, but I don't know where cinnamon comes from I don't either that and olives I want to see an olive tree have you ever you've been to the Middle East have you seen an olive tree? I haven't greased greased so I went to some really cool olive groves They're between like Delphi and Thermopylae one time I was driving through there's unbelievable I've only eaten olives that have been I don't know they're pickled or salted or whatever What does an olive taste like straight off the tree is it really hard I bet?
I didn't I didn't walk up to it and just start grazing it was somebody else's tree I'm not from Greece the point is hello fresh is awesome And if you go to hello fresh comm slash indq 70 and use the code indq 70 at checkout for 70% off plus free shipping And seriously if you're ever on a loan and they make this an option take it you will win I'm straight up not joking at all. Thanks to hello fresh for supporting the podcast. Thanks to all you for supporting the sponsors Dude, I already have nine things on my list. I know you're gonna die.
I got a tart gonna die paracord Okay, I'm getting rid of the tarp. I don't need the tarp What's your plan for keeping moisture bivy out of your shelter bivy? How big is this bivy? Don't worry about how big my bivy is so so I've got I'm going paracord I'm going sleeping bag.
I'm going with the bivy Gore-Tex Kali another option is not get a sleeping bag and then just sleep in the Parca and put the bivy on the outside of me. I think that's what I'm doing. I think I'm dropping the sleeping bag I think that's what I'm doing. You're dropping the sleeping bag in the tarp.
Yep. Are you familiar with cold? Yeah, I'm gonna go bivy's gonna do a lot of heavy lifting man. Bivy's gonna do a lot.
It's gonna be my tarp. It's gonna be my sleeping bag Okay, I'm rooting for you, but you can't use you can't use the bivy as your tarp and your sleeping bag when it's raining or wet snowing Or snow is accumulating on your branchy roof Which doesn't have pitch or anything to keep the moisture out and you're running a fire in there and all that all that snow Accumulating on your roof is just gonna melt and that's gonna come right into your it's gonna come right into your space Yeah, I just made that decision. Okay. Cool.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just I mean I'm just pushing I'm not saying you're wrong I'm more gaming this. Okay.
I like it. That's what I wanted you to do if I'm relying on a tarp on day 80 I didn't build my like that's roof correctly, right? That's your god. It's yeah, that's your cottage.
Okay. Okay So we're going cord the cooking pot the bivy the salt the leatherman and the hatchet and the large pot Yeah, got that the cooking pot. So now we're down to six you got four more things fishing line kit You go and fishing line over Gilnet. Dang.
Am I by water with a bunch of stuff in it? Oh, yes That water's gonna freeze halfway through your time there. I'm going both I'm going fishing line and Gilnet in the book hatchet. He dug out a little area So like on the uh the shoreline He dug out a little hole that the fish could jump over into And real quick.
He is what a 12 year old boy Yeah, he's 12 year old boy that there was a there was an airplane that goes down And he gets stuck in the wilderness somewhere in Canada probably and he has to survive and all he has is a hatchet It's the story about how he does this like he gets really hungry. How does he discover food? How does he do carrying liquid is a hard thing? So um, yeah, he goes through a bunch of things Oh, man, I wonder if I can make the net there we go.
Yeah, I think that's a good idea I have the paracord. Okay. I'm not gonna do the net Because that paracord yes, it's made up of multiple parts woven together Well, tell me this part the snare wire. Yeah, is the snare wire thick enough where I can make my own fishing hooks out of it If I have a leatherman wow, the kind of fish you're gonna catch out of the great slave lake Yeah If you twisted it together how much how much how much wire how much wire is on the snare wire?
Uh, it doesn't say length. It's one roll, which is 3.5 pounds of 20 or 21 gauge Snare wires you could go with the lower gauge get something a little heavier Maybe if you twisted something together, like braided it out to make it into a hook I don't know these are big fish you're gonna have on those hooks You're not gonna have a net you're not gonna have a landing net to get that fish to shore You can't have your hook bending and letting a fish go. I'm getting the snare wire. Yep.
I'm getting the snare wire Um, I think with a snare wire and a leatherman I can do a lot like a lot Um, I'm trying to figure out how to make my own bow and arrow I think I could do that with a pair. Well right now. Yeah, I have a hatchet and a leatherman I got the paracord too. I think the paracord is my new bowstring.
Yeah, is that gonna have too much flex? Uh What do they do on the show? Do they do they actually take the bone arrow or do they end up like making spears and stabbing stuff? Yeah, I kind of feel bad that I said the thing about the sleeping bag I don't want to spoil it.
No, it spoils the wrong word I don't want to ruin this exercise because I'm having a blast watching you workshop it I don't know what the right answer is to these questions. I got my theories I got my ideas I have ways that I would have thought about this before watching alone And I maybe have some new ideas for how I would tackle this after having watched it But uh, I'm not gonna answer that question just yet Let's get to 10 and then we'll workshop the list and shoot at it a little bit. Okay, I'm at nine I gotta figure out the last thing I'm gonna get oh Do I get batteries for the flashlight? It's led.
So you're probably getting like a couple of triple A's that's all Yeah, I would think so I mean how long is an led flashlight gonna work? Dang One led flashlight. Yeah, it doesn't say anything about batteries or anything, but you've got all the camera equipment Oh, you can use that. I don't know.
I don't know. Okay. So one time you one time on the Appalachian trail I could take anything I wanted and I took electric matches Electric matches are two wires that go through an ink and L So two copper wires that connected an ink and L wires and they're dipped in some kind of slurry of a pyrotechnical material And as you've been of current through there, it'll light off So what I did is I had a cell phone And I took electric matches and I built up a little fire and then I took my battery out of my cell phone This was an old Motorola phone And then I would touch the leads of the electric match to the cell phone battery and I would start fires that way Hmm What's your plan to start fires when you run a battery drop you off in the in the wilds of the Arctic here? Yeah, yeah while we were talking I went and I added and added the uh the flint ferro rod set to there Oh, you're doing the ferro rod, okay All right, so I got 80 meters of paracord I've got my bivy bag gortax because I put my toes into the woman's butt I got the large pot with a two-quart lid.
I got the flint ferro rod set. How many is that four? That's four? Yep Okay, I'm not gonna do the fishing line kit.
Oh, you're taking that off taking that off Okay, I'm gonna do one roll of trapping or snare wire three pounds of solid block of salt Yeah, Leatherman. Yep. Hatchet. Yep.
LED flashlight. LED flashlight. How much I got left? Nothing one two three four five six seven eight nine ten led flashlight rounds it out Okay, now you get to pick all of these items.
So it's not like they give you a brand of hatchet one two three hold on four five Six seven eight now. That's nine. I got nine. I got one more.
I got paracord cooking pot bivy Salt Leatherman hatchet Gilnet snare wire ferro rod led flash. I took the net I took the net off You said you took the fishing line off you taking the Gilnet off too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah Okay.
Yeah, I gotta make that I gotta man. I'm gonna starve the first day Okay, you might starve longer than the first day. Okay, I'm gonna throw the fishing line back on Okay fishing line. Okay, and with the hooks and stuff.
Okay, let me count it So paracord one bivy two large pot three flint ferro rod set four fishing line kit five snare wire six salt seven Leatherman eight led flashlight nine hatchet ten. Okay, take me to the woods. Let's go Okay, we're going out to the woods here the things i'm gonna need you to solve for with that line It says it's gonna be a little bit role play game as sure you get dropped off It is 10 o'clock in the morning. The sun is up.
It's pleasant enough The water is relatively calm. There is no campsite you dropped off in a place where you can't really set up shop It's on a bit of a slope. It's rocky. There's this scrubby brush all over the place is difficult There's no trails.
There's nowhere to even really walk. You're just dropped there and you have all your gear So total what is this gear gonna wave A lot a whole lot and you're gonna have a big backpack with all your extra clothes You're gonna have some pelican cases for all of your camera recording material stuff So it's not like you can just drag it all with you. You're gonna have to move eventually to a site They fed your breakfast at the hotel Uh, you know, you loaded up pretty good with protein eggs bacon. You're good for now, but you know by noon You're gonna start feeling a little bit hungry.
So pleasant weather sunny day 61 degrees What do you do? Okay, so the first thing i do is probably Fish I tied trot line first thing Um, I guess my dad always said In order to catch a fish. You gotta first catch the worm Or uh, he said go catch a grasshopper So the first thing i do is go hunt for insects I find some stuff and then I tie up a trot line. I throw it out I give myself an hour to do all that.
Okay. All right after that. I get the hatchet I start building shelter as quickly as possible I don't want to cut all the trees down immediately around me I want to go out of the ways I want to find a place with a lot of tree cover for wind purposes So if I could find something near like a rocky shelter or like if I could get like a cliff face That would be ideal. Okay, so knock the wind down on one side I want a place where the the air is stagnant so that I can avoid just straight line winds So how far is too far from water?
Um Ideally, I'd be I'd say 50 yards from water Yeah, that's kind of what I'd like to be if possible Do that start cutting down trees and start making shelter like immediately. Okay. What's your plan for fire? Once I get the overhang I start stacking wood to dry because you got to keep the keep the wood dry Man that tarp would have been nice to keep my wood dry I don't have a tarp so I get out my bivvy sack Yeah, I have a bivvy you can lay that over Maybe I start stacking the pelican boxes with a camera gear on top of wood Yeah, I just got to get the axe out or the hatch down start chopping trees down And build shelter as quickly as humanly possible.
What's playing with the snare wire? Uh, why'd you bring it? I can lash things together with the snare wire. Um, I can make little bitty fish traps with a snare wire I used to do this thing as a kid I would make bird traps in my backyard And the way I did it is I would get panels and out of like gridded metal mesh And then I would make a little, you know, like when wily coyote would draw like a tunnel on a wall He would draw that like mouse hole shape.
Oh, yeah, absolutely And sometimes it would work So I would make one little hole entrance into that thing with that little shape And I would bend the wires in so that when the bird goes in, you know, it's not no problem But in order for the bird to go out, it would get poked by the wires And so I used to build those I remember one day I went out back and I had 20 black birds in my trap I was like wow, wow, yeah, and um, of course I put seed in there So they I had something to bait them with so I wouldn't be that fortunate here Maybe I could gather berries and uh, you know get them used to going to one position one location And then as quickly as possible, I would try to build shelter But I would try to build passive ways of acquiring food So trot lines, so you don't have a gill net so you're you're trot line you're weaving a gill net? Yeah, that's probably day three or four. I'm not there yet. Okay, I just gotta get food to survive So I probably start with the trot line and then Shelter is priority one.
So my immediate problem is get food to get me two days into the future But immediately immediately I'm gonna work on shelter and I'm gonna try to make it as nice as possible Well, what's it gonna look like? What do you mean nice? I gotta stay dry So I want it to be a little bit elevated from the area around it So if it rains and there's a gully washer I might dig a little bitty I might get a stick or something and like rub the ground and make a little Like a runoff moat like thing around my shelter so that water will run around it instead of running in the inside of it Okay, if I can get a little bit of a high ground somewhere, even if it's like a 10 by 10 pad Um, that's where I'm gonna build my shelter Is this anything at all like what they do in the in the show? Yeah, it's really interesting to hear you workshop it Okay, this point I'll start talking about what I've seen on the show a little bit On the first day you get the people who are like, I'm gonna get some food And then you get the people who are like, I am going to tear into my shelter right now I want to make a house in the wilderness I want a house and they really get after it generally speaking if you're not pretty intentional about food from early on Those folks seem to lose steam within a week working on their shelter and burning all those calories Thinking they'll get to more food later on their forage a little bit But it tends to not work the best strategy that I see is you bring the tarp And the tarp is your bridge item to get you a temporary shelter In a temporary location and you just don't worry about building that shelter for the time being because the weather's nice enough Really instead you explore very carefully and you I mean all this stuff takes a lot of time and all that time is exaggerated by the fact that you have to film it all And if you don't film it surely you're in breach of contract or you're just not going to be on the show because there's no good footage So you got to film it you got to hold this stuff all over the place you got to make it interesting So it's all slow going and you can't just walk around this is difficult terrain.
It's a mess It's not it's just wild right And so the best strategy seems to be Make something temporary the kind of little a-frame one stick a bit of paracord Hold it down with rocks so it won't blow away in the wind That'll keep the rain off me good enough for tonight if the bear comes in a bear comes in tough luck You do that and you really scout for the spot that you eventually want to move to But then you kind of try out the spot you want to move to how long does it take me to get water? What does the wind do at different times a day? You're never going to have the calories or the energy to try twice on a permanent shelter really yep or time Or time And so if you figure that out and you figure out a way to make food happen usually a little bit of foraging Some early luck with a couple of big fish out of the lake You don't just gorge yourself on the fish you cut them into fillets you make some fish head stew And you make a good size fish cover three four days of time Now you've bought yourself the energy to get that initial foothold survival wise But the nice thing about the tarp is it buys you that time You've got that shelter from the get-go But also the sleeping bag buys you that time So that you're getting through those initial nights without freezing out before you can really make the shelter happen So what you're saying is i'm dead i died no i'm not saying that here's one of the big reasons I'm not saying that everybody goes on the show is some kind of survivalist I don't know if i've seen any engineers You've got a really unique problem-solving talent you're very good at it Your list that's not the list i would take but i don't know how to do some of the things you know how to do And i got a couple tricks up my sleeve that i think some other tools would lend themselves toward that would benefit me more My concern for you i'd put it this way i think if with this kit you can get through the first week and you've got a good idea for your location And you're getting calories i think it could work you got to go to ferro rod some people don't but then they burn all kinds of energy on bow drills Because they're used to wood around where they live and they're not used to the unforgiving wood of the arctic That's scrubby stuff doesn't seem to want to ignite the same way They burn unbelievable calories just yanking that bow drill back and forth like a boy scout for hours on end trying to get a little Coal going so ferro rod i think that was just automatic and a must that's gonna save you a lot of calories in time on fire I have a wood burning stove here and one winter i made it a just a thing I will not light a fire unless i strike it with a flint and i did that for an entire year just for fun Granted i had like planar shavings from my woodworking shop, you know so it was really easy just poof You know just like a nice little fire but still it was really fun really fun And you're right those planar shavings or using your your letterman draw knife would have been nice Yeah, your axe to just peel off little bits of almost wood fuzz I mean you're gonna have no trouble you're gonna have no trouble with a fire But your shelter is gonna have to be able to accommodate a larger volume of heat without burning down And without smoking you out then would be the people burn their shelter down on the on the show I'm trying to say like even my hesitation gives it away. Yes, there are lots of fires Oh wow because because you think about it that fire is slowly drying out wood chimneys They're burning small fires and they're like, oh, we'll be fine But you're totally drying out any of the wood around the chimney area in these primitive shelters And just inevitably they get too dry they get too hot and just poof and then once they go Oh, dude, they really go so that'd be one of my concerns for you is you're gonna have to burn really hot in five degree Weather to overcome no sleeping bag So this is where your engineering skill will offset it though You'll have a better sense than anybody I've seen on the show Of how much heat is too much against what kind of material and I think you'll make a chimney because of your understanding of how heat and oxygen interact Attack it with mud.
Yeah. Yeah, I think you could get that right and so as a result if you could maintain the firewood If you'll supply I think you could keep your little cottage very very cozy much warmer than others I also feel like you could figure out how to how to insulate that up better than the people I've seen on the show What would you do to make your shelter warm? I'd use mud. I actually watched a video about this There's a guy that just went to Alaska like in the 40s or 50s and they he shot a video about it Like he filmed it and he took an axe It's all he had and he went up there and he chopped down trees and he quartered him up You know he stacked him up horizontally even cut a little door and then he took mud and he packed all the the logs with mud To keep the wind out.
I thought that was amazing And he made a little removable door not a hinge but it like a door he could put in and take it You know he could move back and forth. He made it out of woven brush It's fascinating, but I think I would use mud to insulate the sticks that I would use for any kind of flu So, okay. Yeah, I don't know if that's smart or not But that's probably what I would do. I don't know either but you figure it out.
How long do you think you could stay up there? I hate the cold dude. I hate it. You got that southern blood man.
Give myself like I'd go at least four hours. I think Okay, you laugh, but I've seen it really Oh, man There's there's one dude who's like uh Man, they're gonna have to drag me out of there on a stretcher because I'm never leaving and he says goodbye to his family and all of this and he goes up Sorry, it's hard even He goes up and the dude gets a rock We laugh about this so much as a family because all five of us were like What are you doing? He takes a bunch of paracord and he ties it around like a softball sized rock Okay, I don't know why and then he takes the rock he's got the rope in one hand and there's his branch about 20 feet above him This branch is it's I mean, it's no thicker than your wrist if even that it's a tiny little frail branch It's clearly just gonna snap and he's out here trying to throw this rock over this branch uh Look that's like the first thing he tried to do What and then he hears a noise in the woods like a rustling or something He's like yeah, I'm out just picks up the satellite phone and taps and that's it what? It's just gone instantly Well that guy's just never been in the woods.
He's clearly I mean clearly he's a smart dude And he'd accomplished a lot of things in his life But he just never been in the woods and I think that's the first hurdle is you just have to be okay With there being other things out there with you and that has to be interesting not horrifying And I think you've been out enough that it would be interesting and not horrifying to you even by yourself Oh, yeah, is that fair? You think you could hack that part? Yeah, absolutely Okay, so I think that's one of it the psychological game of just fear and early on they tried to pass that off is that was what the show's about It's spooky you're in the woods by yourself, but no what you're out there for a little while you get used to it Uh the second thing is loneliness and just where your mind goes when you have no electronics no books No storytelling just you and defeating the elements. That's it Third part is going to be missing people the draw I'd be at home the fourth big hurdle is going to be hunger Just how do you respond to being incredibly hungry watching your body waste away?
How far are you willing to let that go and then comfort getting sleep? Staying warm enough and so I've thought about the question I just asked you a lot How long do I think I could do this I think it depends on how much I need to do it But for me there seems to be there seems to be a 30-day breaker that if you make it pass to that now You're into the real game that means you were savvy enough to get set up Generate some reliable food build something that you could have enough shelter and protection to get into some kind of rhythm and start solving the more minute Problems, but you tend to lose about half the contestants in the first week to two weeks And you can just tell within I mean a day that like your plan it just wasn't a good this guy It's not gonna work out for him. It's not gonna work out for this lady They're going about things in the wrong order and you just you know Still a week in the woods is very impressive. I've never done a straight week in the woods.
Yes, absolutely Impressive. Yeah, yeah, and a week in the woods is my longest ever but I took a lot more than 10 items And you better believe I wasn't foraging for food. I brought things to you. Was it like truck camping?
No, it wasn't truck camping either Yeah, we just camp all the time in the mountains of Colorado a little bit in Wyoming But more so when I was younger in Colorado we get up there for good chunk of time But I mean we're bringing a hundred items from this list not 10 Wow, so I don't know man. Um if I had to guess knowing you I think the thing that would get you would be the mind I think yeah, you would just feel like you weren't achieving things If you weren't getting things done and I think you would just miss your family so enormously that you would quickly feel like okay I got what I needed to get out of this. I'm done. I'm out of here.
That would be my guess Okay Yeah, what do you think like when you finally push the button to come home? Why do you think you would push it cold feet literally my feet would be cold I mean what if you shot a moose or something you could put your feet under its butt, you know my grandfather was in the Korean War And he had jacked up toenails. He's done. That's where jacked all up didn't expect that I asked him.
I was like what's about Yeah, my feet got really cold in Korea and Yeah, my feet just get cold And uh, I think it would literally be that I mean two days ago. I was in the woods in southern mr Missippi with the walmart bags on my feet You did the walmart bags. Okay. Yeah, I mean that's what the recommendation was you didn't say whether or not you did it Yeah, I did it.
Yeah, and so I think that'd be my deal but the uh, what kind of boots do they give me they give me I don't think it'd be good stuff. It is good stuff. Yeah, it's good stuff. Okay, six pair of wool size Would my feet be cold?
I think I mean one pair winter proof arctic winter boots Waterproof arctic winter boots. I mean that sounds pretty legit. That does sound legit high leg hunting boots So you're getting like multiple pair you could warm one set up by the fire swap into those get your toes cozy Okay, maybe my feet won't get cold. I think your feet might be all right.
Yeah, I don't know man That'd be the hard thing. Well, what are the medical medical checkups like oh they come and see how much weight you lost Make sure you know I made diseases or anything They've got a certain threshold with your metrics where if you fall below certain numbers They're like we just we're pulling you that's it. You don't get to argue. That's that that that's part of the contract I'm sure they say you're done.
You're done a lot of people who make it past that 30-day breaker It ends up being a med check that does them in even if they're getting food They're malnourished because they're just getting one kind of food Like for example, everybody seems after we're getting fat out there and the lack of fat proves to be a really big problem Huh, yeah, which is why the fishing is super important because I don't know where else you're gonna get meaningful fat in that kind of an environment Can you get back from fish? Is that fat? Yeah? I didn't know that.
Yeah, the fish head soup is a good source of that. I believe really I didn't know that okay, that's my understanding. I've been wrong about other things that could be wrong about that too But the survival thing is just it's interesting isn't it? Just how much obviously we don't have to think about any of this everything is so easy in the grand scheme of things I go on Twitter usually it's just fun because I follow accounts and say funny things and they're jokes It's great go on YouTube Some people are mad about stuff, but I watch videos of some guy making fart sounds in central park and everybody making giggly faces after he does it Like you know what it's all harmless and fine every now and then you come across stuff that makes him add want to complain about the world You have a bad experience in a restaurant in your fussy But the idea of actually having to survive and not having any brain space for all of the little inconveniences and irritations and political bickering and everything else The idea of having all of my mind used on preserving my life and the life of my family against the cruel elements with very few tools to make that work Um, that's pretty humbling to even imagine trying out and I think I'm a fairly clever guy But I don't think I could defeat nature in a harsh northern climate and stave it off for very long to protect my family And that's sobering.
I've been hungry, but I have never known true hunger The fact of the matter is is the american midwest produces so much grain for me That I've never been hungry. Thank you american midwest I'm listening to a book right now about how the colonization of america started and how initially they started farming up around the the northeast and the virgin area Within after they expanded to the west and the agricultural capabilities of that land was incredible You know, there's a lot to be said for manifest destiny and all that and there's there's a lot of negativity there historically The native americans would disagree that it was great. However, once the expansion happened to the west and food started being able to be produced on those farms Untold of levels then that created a d Agriculturalization of the eastern seaport area as people didn't have to farm there anymore and that's when you know, all these businesses started People got to think of more Less survivalist type things and they're like, oh, I think I'll open an insurance company right? I think agriculture is huge food supply and food assurance is the biggest thing you put me on the middle of the woods I'm gonna die pretty dank with it.
I just am you know, yes Unless you had the ability to go against some big game I mean we were hunting with rifles and crossbows in Mississippi We were waiting all day for a deer to come out to where we were where we had planted food for the deer to come eat Like just the amount of effort that goes into that like I want a deer here therefore corn feeders We're gonna train this deer to come to this area and then we're gonna quit feeding him one day He's gonna come there's not gonna be any corn and I'm gonna be sitting here I'm gonna shoot him. I'm gonna feel like I did some hunting. That's not hunting Oh, come on that counts. Yeah, I mean that's you you outfoxed an outmaneuver to big animal that can feed somebody for a long time It counts at your point stands, but I mean what is hunting?
You're outfoxing you're outmaneuvering an animal so that you can kill it and eat it you achieve that But you're right it'd be a lot tougher without any of those advanced tools. Yeah, there's a quote by teddy roosevelt that i'm having trouble finding right now It says something along the lines of a man who doesn't have a desire to outwit or outsmart an animal as a man that I have no time for Or something like that. Oh, it's a fantastic quote. Anyway, so I think the ability to acquire food Would be very very difficult interesting to explore so finding good shelters important And then getting your food supply stable and they pretty much only survive on meat.
Yeah, they forage mushrooms They like dandelions and some kind of wild onion when you're You know vancouver island near the coast their even limpets little shellfish things I don't get snail almost looking things They'll eat like cucumber looking slugs out of the forest they get desperate man They do deadfall traps to try to get mice and squirrels But my favorite season is the one where they go to mongolia and mongolia is basically lander Wyoming mongolia and wyoming are twin places the animals look the same they behave the same the climate is similar the growing seasons Similar and they put them all on a trout fishing stream and they're like good luck like oh man I would have lost so bad on all these other seasons, but I think I could have hung in for quite a while watching those people flyfish I mean make you angry they're doing literally everything better than me other than fly fishing and this just shows how powerful The ego and pride is I forget that they're better at everything else And all I do is sit there quietly judge them in my mind for how poor their fly fishing technique is while they're starving in mongolia Mongolia seems like you would find a yak and then like drink milk straight from his teat straight from his teat Delicious I want male yak milk Yeah, all right, dude. Well, thank you for indulging me on this I I've been really looking forward to we did the whole thing we went through with the kids trying to teach them lessons about life and problem-solving and strategy And what are you gonna do if you're in a difficult spot? What's your order of operations? How do you make good decisions?
How do you recover from a bad decision all of these kind of things? I just thought I would love to get a look at what your brain does with this math equation that all these contestants are running in that people Who watch the show run and it was really fun. That's awesome. Well, thanks you for I don't know let me experience this I think it's cool that I've never watched the show.
I kind of want to watch the show now Well, I really wanted to press you into this episode before you did because I've been badgering you to watch it So there was there was some urgency here. Yeah, thank you very much, man. I really appreciate it Yeah, I like your ideas. Okay, last question one more chance anything you would change on that list portable bidet Okay, yeah, I'm with you.
That's worth one of the ten items. I'll leave the fires are behind it