We’re finally putting a wrap on fat bear fall as we finish our book report on an incredible story of survival in the face of misplaced baking spices.
Source: The Twenty-Ninth Day-Alex Messenger
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Episode Transcript
[0:00:02 – 0:00:08] Adam: Bears are made of the same dust as we, and they breathe the same winds and drink the same waters.
[0:00:09 – 0:00:20] Adam: A bear’s days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are overdomed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with heart pulsing like ours.
[0:00:21 – 0:00:23] Adam: He was poured from the same first fountain.
[0:00:24 – 0:00:30] Adam: And whether he at last goes to our stingy heaven or not, he has terrestrial immortality.
[0:00:31 – 0:00:36] Adam: His life, not long, not short, knows no beginning, no ending.
[0:00:36 – 0:00:48] Adam: To him, life unstinted, unplanned, is above the accidents of time and his years, markless and boundless, equally eternity.
[0:00:49 – 0:00:51] Adam: John Muir, 1863.
[0:01:28 – 0:01:32] Adam: Welcome to Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:01:32 – 0:01:34] Adam: My name is Francois Lake.
[0:01:34 – 0:01:37] Adam: I start coming to you live from the Tumble Shed.
[0:01:38 – 0:01:42] Adam: And concluding Fat Bear Month here with my dear friend, Eric.
[0:01:42 – 0:01:44] Adam: Hello, and good evening, Eric.
[0:01:45 – 0:01:49] Erik: Yeah, it’s still fat bear fall for sure.
[0:01:49 – 0:01:53] Erik: They got to be fully bedded down at this point though, right?
[0:01:54 – 0:01:55] Adam: They’re down in a crevasse.
[0:01:56 – 0:01:57] Erik: Deep in a crevasse.
[0:01:57 – 0:02:00] Adam: There’s a This American Life that came out.
[0:02:00 – 0:02:03] Adam: It was called something about bears.
[0:02:04 – 0:02:09] Adam: And it was told a story of his brother Combo.
[0:02:09 – 0:02:12] Adam: They were studying the bears of Bryce Canyon.
[0:02:12 – 0:02:13] Adam: Okay.
[0:02:13 – 0:02:14] Adam: On purpose?
[0:02:14 – 0:02:22] Adam: Yeah, they were going into caves in the hoodoos and putting collars on them and trying to figure out where they’re going.
[0:02:22 – 0:02:26] Adam: But yeah, mostly to go in there and give the bears blankets and snacks.
[0:02:27 – 0:02:27] Erik: Sure.
[0:02:28 – 0:02:52] Adam: and uh describing the terror of having to climb into bear dens yeah my god it sounds horrible but they’re sort of sluggish you know and you go in there and trank dart them yeah and put a new collar on them and give them some treats and then you move on but they’re basically like well there’s a couple bears were causing problems so we had to figure out where the bears were all going so we could relocate the people which is a nice way to do it sure
[0:02:53 – 0:02:54] Erik: The National Parkway, I guess.
[0:02:54 – 0:02:56] Adam: That’s the National Parkway.
[0:02:56 – 0:02:57] Adam: It was a good This American Life.
[0:02:57 – 0:02:58] Adam: I highly recommend it.
[0:02:58 – 0:03:00] Adam: It was just out a couple weeks ago.
[0:03:00 – 0:03:00] Adam: Wow.
[0:03:00 – 0:03:01] Adam: Yeah.
[0:03:01 – 0:03:02] Adam: OG podcast.
[0:03:02 – 0:03:03] Erik: The original podcast.
[0:03:04 – 0:03:06] Erik: Our hero, Ira Glass.
[0:03:08 – 0:03:09] Erik: Ira, are you out there?
[0:03:09 – 0:03:10] Erik: Are you listening?
[0:03:11 – 0:03:15] Erik: Talk a lot about the studio and what we’ve got hanging on the walls.
[0:03:15 – 0:03:17] Erik: We have never mentioned the old poster picture.
[0:03:17 – 0:03:18] Erik: The godfather.
[0:03:18 – 0:03:29] Erik: Of Ira Glass just lording over us in all of the decisions that we make and how we present ourselves and the stories we tell all come from him.
[0:03:30 – 0:03:35] Adam: Trevor is actually just a clone we built off of Ira Glass and a skeleton I found in the yard.
[0:03:35 – 0:03:36] Erik: Yeah.
[0:03:36 – 0:03:37] Adam: That’s how we got it made.
[0:03:37 – 0:03:43] Erik: The chance meeting where you just grabbed a fistful of hair from the back of his head.
[0:03:43 – 0:03:44] Adam: Put it into a cauldron.
[0:03:45 – 0:03:46] Adam: Say the spell.
[0:03:46 – 0:03:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:03:47 – 0:03:53] Erik: The skeletons also still hang on the wall next to the large poster of Ira Glass.
[0:03:53 – 0:03:54] Adam: That’s right.
[0:03:54 – 0:03:56] Adam: It’s a signed skeleton.
[0:04:00 – 0:04:25] Adam: uh tonight’s ronald share outdoor calendar fact of the night for november 10th 2023 and this is a real one i didn’t make this up this is really on the ronald share outdoor calendar fact of the night oh good november is cloudiest month sunsets at 4 49 that’s verbatim i’m assuming yeah that’s verbatim and it wasn’t punctuated at all
[0:04:25 – 0:04:46] Adam: oh good yeah everybody loves cloudy november yeah i did briefly see the sun for two minutes today yeah it came out for a little bit just a little bit um yeah good new music recommendations for the fall uh no i had to put you on the spot i didn’t i didn’t tell him i was gonna ask him this beforehand
[0:04:46 – 0:04:48] Erik: New music?
[0:04:49 – 0:04:51] Erik: Yeah, nothing really terribly new right now.
[0:04:51 – 0:04:54] Erik: I’ve been diving back for whatever reason.
[0:04:54 – 0:04:58] Erik: I don’t know what the cycle is and how or when I decided to do this.
[0:04:58 – 0:05:05] Erik: But I’ve been listening to like Deep Genesis.
[0:05:05 – 0:05:06] Adam: Wow.
[0:05:06 – 0:05:11] Erik: So like 70s, like prog Genesis before Peter Gabriel left the band.
[0:05:11 – 0:05:12] Erik: Yeah.
[0:05:12 – 0:05:14] Erik: They were a real force back then.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:15] Erik: Absolutely.
[0:05:15 – 0:05:20] Erik: Some solid records that I’ve been listening to a lot of.
[0:05:21 – 0:05:22] Erik: So yeah, nothing really new.
[0:05:22 – 0:05:27] Erik: I’m firmly in early Prague genesis and…
[0:05:29 – 0:05:30] Erik: Just like 80s.
[0:05:30 – 0:05:34] Erik: You can always go back and comb through the 80s and find something that you missed totally.
[0:05:34 – 0:05:35] Erik: I agree.
[0:05:35 – 0:05:35] Adam: Yeah.
[0:05:36 – 0:05:36] Erik: Yeah.
[0:05:36 – 0:05:38] Erik: I could rattle off a whole bunch of them.
[0:05:38 – 0:05:39] Adam: Like Nightmare on Elm Street.
[0:05:40 – 0:05:40] Adam: Yeah.
[0:05:40 – 0:05:40] Adam: 1984.
[0:05:40 – 0:05:41] Adam: Johnny Depp.
[0:05:44 – 0:05:44] Adam: Johnny Depth.
[0:05:45 – 0:05:46] Adam: So young.
[0:05:46 – 0:05:47] Adam: So young.
[0:05:47 – 0:05:48] Adam: Died so young.
[0:05:48 – 0:05:49] Erik: Died so young.
[0:05:50 – 0:05:51] Erik: Turned into a geyser of blood.
[0:05:51 – 0:05:53] Erik: Too early.
[0:05:53 – 0:05:55] Adam: It’s next up on Tumble Home Cinema Classics.
[0:05:56 – 0:05:57] Adam: Yeah.
[0:05:57 – 0:05:57] Adam: We’re doing it.
[0:05:58 – 0:05:59] Adam: We both watched it already.
[0:06:00 – 0:06:04] Adam: Whether or not we have time to record tonight or not, or if it’s going to go tomorrow or…
[0:06:05 – 0:06:08] Adam: That’s the next one up for Tumble Home Cinema Classics.
[0:06:08 – 0:06:11] Adam: Shout out to the Patreons for your continued support of the show.
[0:06:13 – 0:06:20] Adam: We hope you enjoy a scary, a weird, scary creep in a loose-fitting sweater.
[0:06:21 – 0:06:22] Adam: Doesn’t know how to run.
[0:06:23 – 0:06:25] Adam: Yeah, before he – Is it because he’s in a dream?
[0:06:25 – 0:06:33] Adam: Because sometimes I feel like I’m playing for the Packers at wide receiver, but when they hike the ball, I can’t run.
[0:06:33 – 0:06:35] Erik: Like the gooey steps that she’s running up?
[0:06:35 – 0:06:37] Adam: Yeah, or like my knees are backwards.
[0:06:38 – 0:06:40] Adam: But like that’s how Freddy Krueger runs.
[0:06:41 – 0:06:45] Adam: Like he looks like he’s me trying to run as wide receiver in the Packers in the dream.
[0:06:46 – 0:06:48] Adam: Is that because he only hunts in the dream?
[0:06:48 – 0:06:49] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know.
[0:06:49 – 0:06:55] Erik: We can get into all the logistics of exactly how he moves in and out of dreams, what’s real, what’s not.
[0:06:56 – 0:07:01] Adam: Why could he be booby-trapped but also only be in dreams?
[0:07:01 – 0:07:05] Erik: Maybe one of the greatest movie endings of all time, though.
[0:07:05 – 0:07:06] Adam: Yeah, no doubt.
[0:07:06 – 0:07:08] Adam: I’m excited to talk about that one.
[0:07:08 – 0:07:21] Erik: If you’ve ever wanted to see a mannequin get ripped through a peephole in a door, hang out until the last two seconds of Nightmare on Elm Street, it must have been added in just to be like, well, this should probably be a sequel, right?
[0:07:21 – 0:07:22] Adam: Wes Craven, you freak.
[0:07:22 – 0:07:24] Adam: You want to go on a canoe trip with us, Wes?
[0:07:25 – 0:07:26] Erik: Yeah, let’s say that.
[0:07:26 – 0:07:27] Adam: Hook us up.
[0:07:27 – 0:07:28] Adam: We’ll meet you on the DuBois.
[0:07:28 – 0:07:40] Erik: Partially why he cast Skeet Ulrich in Scream is because he looks strikingly like Johnny Depp, who was his first man.
[0:07:40 – 0:07:42] Adam: Oh, is he in love with Johnny Depp?
[0:07:42 – 0:07:48] Erik: I don’t know if it’s just that movie’s all just like meta, folding in on meta, folding in on meta, Scream.
[0:07:48 – 0:07:49] Erik: Yeah.
[0:07:49 – 0:07:50] Erik: It’s just one of those things.
[0:07:50 – 0:07:52] Adam: I still haven’t watched The Scream.
[0:07:52 – 0:07:52] Adam: Never?
[0:07:52 – 0:07:53] Adam: Again.
[0:07:53 – 0:07:55] Adam: I mean, I saw it when it first came out.
[0:07:55 – 0:07:56] Erik: You haven’t revisited it?
[0:07:56 – 0:08:04] Adam: No, I saw it was on HBO again, and I was like planning to rewatch it during Halloween, and now it’s Edmund Fitzgerald Day.
[0:08:04 – 0:08:04] Adam: It is.
[0:08:05 – 0:08:10] Adam: RIP, ring the bell 229 times for the boys out there on Caribou Reef.
[0:08:10 – 0:08:11] Erik: You can always watch Scream, though.
[0:08:12 – 0:08:13] Erik: I don’t think there’s any bad times.
[0:08:13 – 0:08:15] Adam: No, I want to re-watch Scream and Scream 2 for sure.
[0:08:16 – 0:08:18] Erik: Maybe we should do Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street.
[0:08:18 – 0:08:19] Adam: All right, well, we’ll do Scream.
[0:08:20 – 0:08:21] Adam: We’ve already watched Nightmare.
[0:08:21 – 0:08:23] Erik: I just watched Scream, and I have a lot of good things.
[0:08:23 – 0:08:24] Adam: Oh, boy, all right.
[0:08:24 – 0:08:27] Adam: So I did watch Nightmare, but I didn’t take any notes.
[0:08:28 – 0:08:30] Adam: I just watched it, so it’s fresh.
[0:08:30 – 0:08:30] Adam: Yeah.
[0:08:31 – 0:08:31] Erik: It’s fresh, baby.
[0:08:31 – 0:08:34] Erik: Anything that you’re missing out on, I’m sure I could bring you up to speed on.
[0:08:34 – 0:08:35] Adam: I believe it.
[0:08:35 – 0:08:36] Adam: I believe it.
[0:08:38 – 0:09:01] Adam: all right we’re uh nine times what’s that speaking of 29 29 yeah jesus how does this keep happening on tumble home yeah too bad it’s episode 242 that’s not a prime number no definitely not same frontwards as backwards i like that though it’s a capicua capicua that’s a capicua it’s a numbers uh anagram that’s what they call it mexico at least
[0:09:01 – 0:09:02] Erik: Oh, yeah?
[0:09:02 – 0:09:02] Adam: Yeah.
[0:09:03 – 0:09:03] Erik: Anagram?
[0:09:04 – 0:09:05] Adam: No, it’s a Capicua.
[0:09:05 – 0:09:11] Erik: Isn’t it an anagram when you take the letters and make a new… Maybe, what am I talking about where the word is… Palindrome?
[0:09:11 – 0:09:14] Adam: Maybe it’s a palindromic number is a Capicua.
[0:09:15 – 0:09:15] Erik: Capicua.
[0:09:16 – 0:09:17] Adam: Yeah, Capicua.
[0:09:17 – 0:09:18] Erik: That’s a good word to know.
[0:09:19 – 0:09:20] Adam: Yeah, that’s fun.
[0:09:21 – 0:09:26] Adam: And apparently it’s a big deal in Mexico, numbers that are the same forward and backwards.
[0:09:26 – 0:09:28] Adam: So I’ve always appreciated that.
[0:09:28 – 0:09:34] Adam: You know, 22 is my favorite number, which is the most basic of Capacua, but 242 is even better.
[0:09:34 – 0:09:36] Adam: Wasn’t 11 the most basic?
[0:09:37 – 0:09:39] Adam: 11 probably is, but 11 is just two 22s, right?
[0:09:39 – 0:09:42] Erik: Yeah, it’s double.
[0:09:42 – 0:09:47] Adam: But yeah, 29 times we’re ringing the bell for 29th day from Alex Missandre.
[0:09:47 – 0:09:48] Erik: Missandre?
[0:09:48 – 0:09:49] Erik: Missandre.
[0:09:49 – 0:09:50] Erik: Missandre.
[0:09:50 – 0:09:51] Erik: Wow.
[0:09:51 – 0:09:53] Adam: Hook us up.
[0:09:54 – 0:09:55] Adam: We’re going to do it.
[0:09:55 – 0:09:58] Adam: We’re doing parts like two and three of the book tonight.
[0:10:00 – 0:10:02] Adam: I’m going to go ahead and get the gripe out of the way.
[0:10:03 – 0:10:12] Adam: My only gripe of this book is there’s too much talk of amateur surgery and wound cleansing and wound irrigation.
[0:10:12 – 0:10:14] Erik: Yeah, field wound management.
[0:10:14 – 0:10:19] Adam: I appreciate you can describe it and the excruciating pain it caused a few times.
[0:10:20 – 0:10:22] Adam: It just keeps going and going and
[0:10:22 – 0:10:27] Adam: It starts to hurt me as the reader, which maybe it was the point, and I shouldn’t complain.
[0:10:28 – 0:10:37] Adam: But my only gripe was the book is grotesque in a way of describing the way that the wound had to be cared for, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
[0:10:40 – 0:10:49] Adam: It was a good book, and everybody in the Tumble Homey community that recommended this one deserves a special gold star and an extra two to their own horn.
[0:10:49 – 0:10:53] Adam: But we’re going to try the other Oliphant beer.
[0:10:54 – 0:10:55] Adam: Saved them from last week.
[0:10:55 – 0:10:56] Adam: Sure.
[0:10:56 – 0:11:05] Adam: And we had the peanut butter and honey ale last week, and now we’re getting into the other treat the black bear would like.
[0:11:06 – 0:11:07] Adam: The grizzly bear doesn’t care about this.
[0:11:08 – 0:11:10] Adam: Grizzly bears only wants one thing.
[0:11:10 – 0:11:10] Adam: It’s blood.
[0:11:11 – 0:11:11] Erik: Blood and flesh.
[0:11:12 – 0:11:16] Adam: Yeah, but this is a blackberry, raspberry, and coconut sour ale.
[0:11:16 – 0:11:19] Adam: The super squishy from Olifante.
[0:11:19 – 0:11:26] Adam: That’s a good sound.
[0:11:31 – 0:11:32] Adam: Pretty sour.
[0:11:33 – 0:11:33] Erik: Yeah?
[0:11:33 – 0:11:35] Adam: Pretty sour, but it’s in good shape.
[0:11:36 – 0:11:40] Adam: That thing’s been out here since August, and the shed’s taking good care of that beer.
[0:11:40 – 0:11:41] Erik: Drink fresh.
[0:11:42 – 0:11:42] Adam: Thanks again.
[0:11:42 – 0:11:46] Adam: This is also Mike from Mystery Bag 9.
[0:11:48 – 0:11:52] Adam: This came in in August off of Clearwater Solo Loop to Johnson Falls.
[0:11:52 – 0:11:53] Adam: This is incredible.
[0:11:54 – 0:12:01] Adam: Mystery Bag 9 was a wealth of delicious Oliphant beers and heartfelt cards.
[0:12:01 – 0:12:02] Adam: Packed with cash.
[0:12:03 – 0:12:04] Adam: Meaningful amounts of cash.
[0:12:04 – 0:12:04] Adam: Yes.
[0:12:05 – 0:12:08] Erik: Life-changing amounts of cash.
[0:12:08 – 0:12:10] Adam: You can hear the sparkle in our voices.
[0:12:11 – 0:12:18] Adam: Just, you know, I was wearing a hat when I got out of here, and now I’ve just glued a bunch of cash to my head.
[0:12:18 – 0:12:18] Adam: Yeah.
[0:12:19 – 0:12:20] Erik: Who needs hats when you got this much cash?
[0:12:20 – 0:12:21] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:12:21 – 0:12:22] Adam: You just make a hat of cash.
[0:12:23 – 0:12:25] Adam: Feathered myself a little nest over here.
[0:12:25 – 0:12:28] Adam: We’re filling canoes with cash over here.
[0:12:29 – 0:12:29] Adam: Yep.
[0:12:29 – 0:12:30] Erik: Thank you, Mike.
[0:12:30 – 0:12:33] Erik: Bed down in Mike’s gracious gift tonight.
[0:12:33 – 0:12:35] Adam: We don’t even need the heater anymore out here.
[0:12:35 – 0:12:35] Adam: No.
[0:12:36 – 0:12:38] Adam: I mean, the heater’s nice, but it’s not necessary.
[0:12:40 – 0:12:43] Adam: All right, so we’re at the halfway point of the trip.
[0:12:43 – 0:12:47] Adam: We’ve just crossed the tree line, and we’re heading into the tundra.
[0:12:47 – 0:12:49] Erik: Riddled with icebergs.
[0:12:49 – 0:12:58] Adam: Too many icebergs, ebbs and flows, and there’s a lot ahead on this trip.
[0:12:58 – 0:12:59] Erik: So we’re going to go ahead and start.
[0:13:00 – 0:13:03] Adam: When I woke the next morning, I could sense a change.
[0:13:04 – 0:13:07] Adam: We were past the halfway point and now counting down the days.
[0:13:09 – 0:13:13] Adam: None of us was eager for the trip to end, but we all missed aspects of our lives back home.
[0:13:14 – 0:13:20] Adam: I’d always felt that the journey was incomplete without a homecoming, the anticipation of coming home being an integral part.
[0:13:21 – 0:13:28] Adam: We’d be coming back to Minoge and having completed OMS, the longest, remotest men’s canoeing trip the camp offered.
[0:13:29 – 0:13:40] Adam: We’d be welcomed with a feast and a hot cleansing sauna when we’d tell stories to friends and family over a campfire before putting our symbolic red paddle on the wall.
[0:13:40 – 0:13:42] Adam: to join the history of the long trips.
[0:13:44 – 0:13:53] Adam: Apparently, if you complete one of these big trips, you get to take a big paddle like that one or this one, sign all your names to it, and you hang it on the wall in the Great Hall.
[0:13:54 – 0:13:54] Adam: Nice.
[0:13:54 – 0:13:54] Adam: Isn’t that neat?
[0:13:55 – 0:13:55] Adam: Yeah.
[0:13:56 – 0:13:58] Adam: I like that a lot.
[0:13:59 – 0:14:01] Adam: I’ve never actually been to Minozoan.
[0:14:01 – 0:14:02] Adam: Have you?
[0:14:02 – 0:14:04] Erik: Yes, I accidentally walked there one time.
[0:14:04 – 0:14:07] Adam: Well, did you go break into the Great Hall and check out their panels?
[0:14:08 – 0:14:11] Erik: No, we just asked for a ride back on a pontoon.
[0:14:13 – 0:14:16] Adam: And they were like, the pontoon’s broken, but we can put you in the big canoe.
[0:14:17 – 0:14:17] Erik: Yeah, right.
[0:14:18 – 0:14:29] Erik: I think legally they need to always keep the pontoon operational for emergency evac situations and bringing… Not a lot of people know this, but for real emergencies, Minotian has a jet ski.
[0:14:30 – 0:14:32] Erik: Yeah, there’s probably a jet ski somewhere hidden there.
[0:14:32 – 0:14:33] Adam: With lasers.
[0:14:33 – 0:14:34] Adam: Yeah.
[0:14:34 – 0:14:38] Adam: And they’re like, don’t tell anyone, but we’re going to give you a ride on the fast boat.
[0:14:38 – 0:14:44] Erik: Yeah, we just got to get you over there before darkness.
[0:14:46 – 0:14:54] Adam: So they make their way through the DuBont Canyon and they start getting in some big lakes in the middle of the trip, including Princess Mary Lake.
[0:14:54 – 0:14:55] Adam: What a name for a lake.
[0:14:56 – 0:14:59] Adam: And this was highly recommended to them as part of the route.
[0:15:00 – 0:15:07] Adam: It’s like a great spot to get to and some good campsites to be involved in, including there’s a big island on the lake.
[0:15:07 – 0:15:07] Adam: No ice.
[0:15:07 – 0:15:12] Adam: In the shape of a crescent moon, and this one didn’t have any ice.
[0:15:13 – 0:15:18] Adam: When they got to the lake, this is one of them where he goes, I need five of diamonds.
[0:15:18 – 0:15:29] Adam: He’s talking about a big spoon, and Mike hands him a five of diamonds back, and he hooks it on, and he literally throws it on, and he catches like a lake trout the size of his leg on the first cast.
[0:15:29 – 0:15:29] Adam: Yeah.
[0:15:29 – 0:15:31] Adam: That’s the kind of waters they’re up into.
[0:15:32 – 0:15:34] Adam: They end up catching grayling at one point in the trip, too.
[0:15:34 – 0:15:34] Adam: Wow.
[0:15:35 – 0:15:35] Erik: Big grayling.
[0:15:36 – 0:15:36] Erik: That’s crazy.
[0:15:36 – 0:15:40] Adam: They truly are up in a whole other world of planet Earth.
[0:15:43 – 0:15:45] Adam: Neighborhood dogs are going nuts for that.
[0:15:46 – 0:15:47] Adam: They want the grayling.
[0:15:50 – 0:15:52] Adam: So they made it to Princess Mary Lake.
[0:15:53 – 0:15:55] Adam: The sun touched the horizon and then sank below it.
[0:15:56 – 0:15:56] Adam: I felt a chill.
[0:15:57 – 0:16:02] Adam: I continued pulling towards the island in a state of reflection, thinking about my own life.
[0:16:03 – 0:16:07] Adam: As we approached it, the island loomed larger and the shore grew steeper.
[0:16:07 – 0:16:10] Adam: When we finally arrived, I was amazed at its size.
[0:16:11 – 0:16:16] Adam: We came to a stone and grass landing so gradual that it seemed to extend the plain of the lake.
[0:16:17 – 0:16:24] Adam: Then the ground quickly angled up and kept rising, climbing up and rolling waves for several hundred feet before jutting sharply up into a cliff.
[0:16:29 – 0:16:33] Adam: It was somewhere around midnight when we began scouting for the site.
[0:16:34 – 0:16:45] Adam: The steep slopes of the island would have made a terrible campsite, but for a series of plateau steps far up on the shore, a third of the way up the hill and several hundred yards from water, we pitched our tents.
[0:16:46 – 0:16:52] Adam: Behind our sight, a steep cliff towered high above us in crumbling rocky terraces and stone escarpments.
[0:16:53 – 0:16:55] Adam: This is one of the best sights of the trip.
[0:16:56 – 0:17:04] Adam: From camp, we had a commanding view of the tundra, half of Princess Mary Lake, and the steep stony mountains and rolling cliffs beyond.
[0:17:06 – 0:17:09] Adam: We wondered what more a view from the top would hold.
[0:17:10 – 0:17:12] Adam: What would we encounter on the ridge?
[0:17:13 – 0:17:14] Adam: It had to be breathtaking.
[0:17:14 – 0:17:16] Adam: We would find out tomorrow.
[0:17:18 – 0:17:29] Adam: As the hour passed into the next day, July 31st, our 29th day on the trail, the sun started to brighten the eastern sky, and we made our way to the tents, to bed.
[0:17:30 – 0:17:40] Adam: Sometime the next morning, the femmes would pass us for the last time before the end of the trip, most likely while we were still deep asleep for the start of our layover day.
[0:17:41 – 0:17:46] Adam: In the tent, tucked halfway into my sleeping bag, I got out my journal and unstamped the leather cover.
[0:17:48 – 0:17:54] Adam: I flipped through the page after page of tiny, inscrutable handwriting until I reached blank space.
[0:17:55 – 0:18:01] Adam: I wrote about the day, the food swap, the lake, about the sunset and paddling on the island, about fate and free will.
[0:18:04 – 0:18:06] Adam: It’s amazing to think, this is a full quote.
[0:18:07 – 0:18:11] Adam: It’s amazing to think that we have around 10 days left of the trip.
[0:18:11 – 0:18:16] Adam: To think of the change that’s occurred to me and the rest of us is also amazing.
[0:18:17 – 0:18:22] Adam: It’s one of those things that you know has happened, but there are few signs of it apparent to you.
[0:18:22 – 0:18:26] Adam: And we won’t know how we’ve changed until we go back to our normal home life.
[0:18:27 – 0:18:36] Adam: Right now, the way we are and whatever we’ve become is normal in our day-to-day life, and those changes have been seen from an inside view over time.
[0:18:37 – 0:18:47] Adam: Once our perspectives go back to the one we live in most of the time, we’ll see how we’ve changed, as well as have a new outlook on life overall.
[0:18:48 – 0:18:50] Adam: All these things will truly affect the rest of our lives.
[0:18:52 – 0:18:58] Adam: I cap my pen, shut my journal, and put them away before turning over to my back and zipping my sleeping bag shut.
[0:18:59 – 0:19:01] Adam: It would be a week before I opened my journal again.
[0:19:05 – 0:19:05] Erik: What happened?
[0:19:05 – 0:19:06] Erik: They got passed by the women?
[0:19:07 – 0:19:11] Adam: Well, so they ended up meeting up with them right before they got to the lake.
[0:19:11 – 0:19:14] Adam: And they like traded spices.
[0:19:14 – 0:19:14] Erik: Oh, wow.
[0:19:15 – 0:19:19] Adam: And comically like thought they traded for cinnamon and made cinnamon rolls.
[0:19:19 – 0:19:21] Adam: And then it turned out it was all spice.
[0:19:22 – 0:19:23] Adam: And so they weren’t very good.
[0:19:23 – 0:19:24] Adam: But they’re like, well, we can’t waste it.
[0:19:24 – 0:19:26] Adam: We just had to eat these horrible cinnamon rolls.
[0:19:26 – 0:19:28] Erik: Yeah, not the worst replacement.
[0:19:29 – 0:19:30] Erik: Somewhat close.
[0:19:30 – 0:19:32] Erik: Isn’t there cinnamon in all spice?
[0:19:33 – 0:19:33] Adam: It might.
[0:19:34 – 0:19:34] Adam: Not big.
[0:19:35 – 0:19:35] Erik: It’s got all the spices.
[0:19:35 – 0:19:36] Adam: It’s all the spices.
[0:19:37 – 0:19:38] Adam: It’s 1% cinnamon.
[0:19:39 – 0:19:40] Erik: Yeah, it’s not like it was cayenne.
[0:19:40 – 0:19:42] Erik: Yeah, spicy buns.
[0:19:43 – 0:19:48] Adam: Hi, my name is Alex Messenger, and my favorite food is rolls.
[0:19:49 – 0:19:50] Adam: Spicy buns.
[0:19:53 – 0:20:21] Adam: so yeah they had like they knew like when they got to this section that they could interact with the other the lady trip or whatever and uh they did meet them up like on the river and they they traded a little and but they like weren’t supposed to camp together and yeah so they were trying to like do their own thing anyways so yeah they kind of figured like they because they had a labor day planned for like for this island and then they figured they’d get passed back by them and leapfrog them and they wouldn’t see them again till the end so yeah
[0:20:22 – 0:20:28] Adam: And then it was later on this island trip where they figured out that they had traded for allspice instead of cinnamon.
[0:20:28 – 0:20:30] Erik: Did the girls do it on purpose?
[0:20:31 – 0:20:31] Adam: Maybe.
[0:20:32 – 0:20:37] Adam: They traded because they had like been catching lake trout like crazy and the ladies trip hadn’t.
[0:20:37 – 0:20:43] Adam: So they’re like, we’ll trade you one lake trout for all your cinnamon and half your butter or whatever.
[0:20:43 – 0:20:44] Adam: Yeah.
[0:20:44 – 0:20:47] Adam: And figured out it was a good deal for them.
[0:20:47 – 0:20:49] Adam: But it turns out they got scammed.
[0:20:49 – 0:20:51] Adam: The trout was the better part of the deal for sure.
[0:20:51 – 0:20:52] Erik: Mildly bamboozled.
[0:20:52 – 0:20:53] Erik: Yeah.
[0:20:53 – 0:20:54] Adam: That’s all part of the fun.
[0:20:54 – 0:20:55] Adam: Yeah.
[0:20:55 – 0:20:56] Adam: Being on a Minoan trip.
[0:21:00 – 0:21:01] Adam: Well, that’s the end of part one.
[0:21:02 – 0:21:04] Adam: So we’ll see you next week for part three.
[0:21:04 – 0:21:08] Erik: It’s a very confusing setup, how this podcast is working.
[0:21:08 – 0:21:10] Erik: I don’t understand what’s going on.
[0:21:10 – 0:21:12] Erik: It’s the end of part one?
[0:21:12 – 0:21:13] Erik: It’s the second episode.
[0:21:14 – 0:21:15] Erik: What’s part three?
[0:21:15 – 0:21:16] Erik: Is part two?
[0:21:17 – 0:21:17] Adam: Yes.
[0:21:18 – 0:21:19] Adam: Part two, it’s a chance encounter.
[0:21:20 – 0:21:21] Erik: Chance encounter?
[0:21:22 – 0:21:24] Adam: If you are afraid, change your way.
[0:21:25 – 0:21:26] Adam: Inuit proverb.
[0:21:26 – 0:21:27] Adam: Wow.
[0:21:27 – 0:21:28] Adam: You like proverbs?
[0:21:28 – 0:21:29] Adam: I like proverbs.
[0:21:30 – 0:21:30] Adam: Proverbs.
[0:21:30 – 0:21:31] Adam: That’s the Canadian pronunciation.
[0:21:31 – 0:21:31] Adam: I like proverbs.
[0:21:35 – 0:21:43] Adam: Um, so it’s on this Island, uh, that, oh, and when the ladies passed them, they’re like, there’s a bunch of grizzly bears on the other side of the Island.
[0:21:44 – 0:21:44] Adam: Oh, geez.
[0:21:44 – 0:21:45] Adam: Better be careful.
[0:21:45 – 0:21:45] Adam: Okay.
[0:21:45 – 0:21:47] Adam: And they’re like, they’re not grizzly bears.
[0:21:47 – 0:21:48] Adam: They’re musk ox.
[0:21:48 – 0:21:49] Adam: We seen them.
[0:21:49 – 0:21:50] Adam: Don’t worry.
[0:21:50 – 0:21:52] Adam: What’s a big barren Island.
[0:21:52 – 0:21:53] Adam: What’s the most that could be on here.
[0:21:53 – 0:21:53] Adam: But,
[0:21:54 – 0:22:17] Adam: this island is seriously bigger than like the state of delaware i mean it’s a huge island so how do they know that even though there’s no trees there could be a lot of things hiding on this island but they were like pretty confident that because the ladies hadn’t seen any muskox or grizzly bears yet so they’re like they don’t know what they’re talking about thanks for the warning and thanks for the cinnamon now get lost yeah ladies don’t know anything
[0:22:19 – 0:22:33] Adam: Anyways, so then we go back to basically the cold open from the first episode in which all the other guys had gone for a camp, like a hike after lunch or whatever, but Alex had decided he wanted a nap.
[0:22:34 – 0:22:39] Adam: So he wakes up and realized, have you ever done this on a trip where you’re like, I don’t know, I don’t feel like it?
[0:22:39 – 0:22:42] Adam: And then you get up and you’re like, I’m missing out on the hike.
[0:22:42 – 0:22:43] Adam: The FOMO is real.
[0:22:44 – 0:22:45] Erik: I’ve never napped on a camping trip.
[0:22:45 – 0:22:46] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:22:46 – 0:22:47] Erik: I can barely nap now.
[0:22:48 – 0:22:48] Erik: I’m a baby.
[0:22:49 – 0:22:49] Erik: Yeah.
[0:22:49 – 0:22:50] Adam: Well, yeah.
[0:22:50 – 0:22:52] Adam: You get up and you’re like, I should have went with him.
[0:22:52 – 0:22:54] Adam: And you kind of hurry to catch up with everybody.
[0:22:54 – 0:22:55] Erik: I mean, I get that for sure.
[0:22:55 – 0:22:59] Adam: He’s running up the ridge trying to catch up to him to go see this grand vista.
[0:22:59 – 0:23:02] Adam: Because the whole point of camping on this island was it’s taller.
[0:23:02 – 0:23:06] Adam: The island itself was taller, way taller than the whole shore of the lake.
[0:23:07 – 0:23:07] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[0:23:08 – 0:23:10] Adam: Because it’s a tundra, you can see forever.
[0:23:10 – 0:23:11] Adam: Yeah.
[0:23:11 – 0:23:16] Adam: Imagine being up on the overlook of Rose Lake, how far you can see into Canada or whatever.
[0:23:16 – 0:23:18] Adam: That times 10.
[0:23:18 – 0:23:18] Adam: Yeah.
[0:23:19 – 0:23:23] Adam: This island on Princess Mary Lake is supposed to be one of the tallest features in all of Nunavut.
[0:23:24 – 0:23:24] Erik: Wow.
[0:23:24 – 0:23:26] Adam: So they’re like, we’re going to hike to the top.
[0:23:26 – 0:23:27] Adam: And he’s like, I just don’t have it in me.
[0:23:28 – 0:23:30] Adam: I’m going to stay behind and have a nap.
[0:23:30 – 0:23:33] Adam: And then he wakes up in a panic like, I should have went on the hike.
[0:23:33 – 0:23:36] Adam: And he starts climbing or whatever with his camera case.
[0:23:37 – 0:23:41] Adam: And they’re like, well, they’re on their way down at that point.
[0:23:41 – 0:23:43] Adam: And he’s like, well, I’m going to still go up there.
[0:23:43 – 0:23:51] Adam: So he’s up there hiking around by himself on the top of this ridge looking at these old cairns that were left by the ancient people.
[0:23:51 – 0:23:55] Erik: Did it turn out to be a good view?
[0:23:56 – 0:24:03] Adam: It turned out to be an amazing view and a great decision to go up there.
[0:24:03 – 0:24:07] Adam: 30 feet in front of me was a grizzly bear.
[0:24:08 – 0:24:11] Adam: It was on all fours, facing me, snout down.
[0:24:12 – 0:24:15] Adam: The bear’s head mirrored mine, jerking up to attention.
[0:24:16 – 0:24:21] Adam: It gazed wide-eyed, clearly startled to find me on this barren plateau.
[0:24:22 – 0:24:28] Adam: Its head pulled against its shoulders as if it were trying to step back and stare forward at the same time.
[0:24:29 – 0:24:32] Adam: Every muscle between my shoulders and hips tensed in alarm and dread.
[0:24:33 – 0:24:34] Adam: Hot like a bile.
[0:24:35 – 0:24:40] Adam: In the milliseconds since realizing the situation, my brain had recalled our bear training from camp.
[0:24:41 – 0:24:44] Adam: The image of bear mace flashed in one side of my consciousness.
[0:24:45 – 0:24:49] Adam: How to remove the safety, aim the canister, and prepare to fire.
[0:24:50 – 0:24:51] Adam: The canister that sat in the tent.
[0:24:53 – 0:25:00] Adam: In the other half of my mind was Dan’s steady voice, saying, Hey bear, whoa bear, it’s okay bear.
[0:25:01 – 0:25:05] Adam: Next to this memory was a checklist growing rapidly like lines of computer code.
[0:25:06 – 0:25:07] Adam: Don’t run.
[0:25:08 – 0:25:10] Adam: Back away slowly, calmly.
[0:25:10 – 0:25:12] Adam: Speak calmly to the bear.
[0:25:12 – 0:25:13] Adam: Don’t run.
[0:25:14 – 0:25:15] Adam: Avoid direct eye contact.
[0:25:16 – 0:25:17] Adam: Keep talking.
[0:25:18 – 0:25:18] Adam: Don’t run.
[0:25:19 – 0:25:20] Adam: You’re helpless, Alex.
[0:25:21 – 0:25:22] Adam: Hey, bear.
[0:25:22 – 0:25:23] Adam: Whoa, bear.
[0:25:24 – 0:25:27] Adam: It’s okay, bear, I said, not believing in myself as I backed up slowly.
[0:25:28 – 0:25:31] Adam: It felt as if adrenaline were pouring out of my scalp.
[0:25:32 – 0:25:33] Adam: Whoa, bear.
[0:25:34 – 0:25:35] Adam: My quaking voice was betraying me.
[0:25:36 – 0:25:42] Adam: I tipped my head down, trying not to make eye contact while still being able to see the bear and whatever it was doing.
[0:25:43 – 0:25:44] Adam: I stayed back.
[0:25:45 – 0:25:46] Adam: It stared back at me.
[0:25:47 – 0:25:48] Adam: Not quizzical, but…
[0:25:48 – 0:25:51] Adam: Not yet aggressive, just wide-eyed.
[0:25:51 – 0:25:54] Adam: It’s startled and momentarily indecision.
[0:25:55 – 0:25:56] Adam: It’s okay, bear, I said.
[0:25:57 – 0:25:59] Adam: With that, it made its decision.
[0:26:03 – 0:26:04] Erik: Returned and went the other way.
[0:26:06 – 0:26:06] Adam: In the end.
[0:26:06 – 0:26:07] Erik: Yeah, another the end.
[0:26:07 – 0:26:08] Adam: It was crazy.
[0:26:08 – 0:26:09] Adam: Yeah.
[0:26:09 – 0:26:10] Adam: It was so close.
[0:26:12 – 0:26:13] Adam: Um…
[0:26:14 – 0:26:16] Adam: Yeah, I don’t want to, like, read, though.
[0:26:16 – 0:26:22] Erik: It’s so, like… Just like Leo from the Revenant-style attack here?
[0:26:22 – 0:26:23] Adam: Yeah, it’s bad.
[0:26:24 – 0:26:24] Erik: Yeah.
[0:26:25 – 0:26:42] Adam: Like, I don’t know how this guy survived this, because he, like, remembers everything up until a certain moment, and then just sort of, like, zaps out, and then wakes up laying there, and then kind of, like, his eyes start to click back in, and the bear’s still, like, there, you know?
[0:26:42 – 0:26:43] Erik: Yeah.
[0:26:44 – 0:26:45] Erik: Um,
[0:26:46 – 0:26:52] Adam: But it kind of wanders off, and he’s able to, like, make his way all the way back to camp and, like, call his buddies for help.
[0:26:52 – 0:26:57] Adam: And they, like, get him down into, like, the screen tent and set up a little, like, triage center.
[0:26:57 – 0:27:01] Adam: And the thing, like, bites his, like, thigh at one point.
[0:27:01 – 0:27:03] Adam: And that’s when he, like, blacks out.
[0:27:03 – 0:27:07] Erik: That’s where the guy from back country gets bit.
[0:27:08 – 0:27:09] Erik: Remember that classic?
[0:27:09 – 0:27:09] Adam: Yep.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:10] Adam: The classic.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:12] Adam: TCC classic.
[0:27:12 – 0:27:13] Erik: Instant classic.
[0:27:13 – 0:27:15] Erik: Classic on both ends.
[0:27:15 – 0:27:16] Erik: Instant classic.
[0:27:16 – 0:27:17] Adam: Beauty of a film.
[0:27:18 – 0:27:27] Adam: He gets bit right in the right thigh, almost bites his dick off, almost hits the artery right in the leg.
[0:27:28 – 0:27:30] Adam: They said later it was an inch from the artery.
[0:27:32 – 0:27:34] Adam: We never made it off the top of the mountain and he got hit.
[0:27:34 – 0:27:35] Adam: No way.
[0:27:35 – 0:27:39] Adam: And it punctured through right at the groin, at the artery almost.
[0:27:42 – 0:27:48] Adam: And then multiple other spots where it somehow didn’t puncture through, but like it killed the flesh underneath the leg.
[0:27:48 – 0:27:49] Adam: Okay.
[0:27:49 – 0:27:52] Adam: So he had this huge like dead section of leg.
[0:27:53 – 0:27:57] Adam: Somehow he was able to run down the hill on pure adrenaline and like stumble down back into camp.
[0:27:58 – 0:28:05] Adam: At one point, he throws the Nikon camera case right at it and hits it square in the face as it’s charging him.
[0:28:05 – 0:28:09] Adam: And then when he comes to, the camera case is still laying there.
[0:28:09 – 0:28:11] Adam: He grabs the camera and brings it back with him, too.
[0:28:11 – 0:28:12] Erik: You got to keep that camera.
[0:28:12 – 0:28:16] Adam: Yeah, I think he had some good pictures on there.
[0:28:16 – 0:28:18] Adam: Probably half the pictures in this book are off that camera.
[0:28:18 – 0:28:21] Erik: Just the one wound on the leg.
[0:28:22 – 0:28:23] Adam: Uh, he had the wound on the leg.
[0:28:23 – 0:28:27] Adam: Uh, it swattered him in the face like three times.
[0:28:27 – 0:28:29] Adam: So he was like bruised as shit on his face.
[0:28:29 – 0:28:30] Adam: Sure.
[0:28:30 – 0:28:36] Adam: And, uh, somehow no real other damage to his face or like torso.
[0:28:36 – 0:28:37] Erik: Hands are all fine.
[0:28:37 – 0:28:42] Adam: Hands were fine, but strangely, the tips of most of his toes were…
[0:28:42 – 0:28:45] Adam: He described it as being sliced clean off.
[0:28:47 – 0:28:48] Adam: He was wearing Chacos.
[0:28:48 – 0:28:48] Adam: Okay.
[0:28:49 – 0:28:57] Adam: So he may have been dragged or swung around a bunch to the point where his toe tips ground off.
[0:28:57 – 0:28:57] Erik: Okay.
[0:28:58 – 0:28:58] Erik: Jesus.
[0:28:58 – 0:28:58] Erik: Yeah.
[0:28:58 – 0:29:01] Adam: Or the bear just nipped his toe types off.
[0:29:01 – 0:29:05] Adam: Like they never did figure out why his toes were like in the shape they were in.
[0:29:06 – 0:29:09] Adam: Uh, he had just minor, like huge bruises everywhere.
[0:29:09 – 0:29:09] Adam: Yeah.
[0:29:09 – 0:29:11] Adam: Like internal bleeding.
[0:29:11 – 0:29:18] Adam: Um, but overall, like he could still like sort of walk and hobble, but his whole right leg was basically done.
[0:29:19 – 0:29:19] Adam: Yeah.
[0:29:19 – 0:29:20] Adam: After that.
[0:29:20 – 0:29:21] Erik: Full gimped.
[0:29:22 – 0:29:22] Adam: Full on.
[0:29:22 – 0:29:22] Adam: Uh,
[0:29:26 – 0:29:30] Erik: There’s no emergency sat phone that they had with them?
[0:29:31 – 0:29:32] Adam: They do have a sat phone.
[0:29:32 – 0:29:33] Adam: Okay.
[0:29:33 – 0:29:35] Adam: They are literally in the middle of the trip at this point.
[0:29:35 – 0:29:40] Adam: So they’re like outside the range of helicopter.
[0:29:41 – 0:29:41] Erik: Oh, wow.
[0:29:41 – 0:29:48] Adam: So it would have had to have been a fixed wing aircraft that could like fly in and land onto that lake and then get them and get them out.
[0:29:48 – 0:29:48] Adam: Yeah.
[0:29:49 – 0:29:51] Adam: But they basically determined…
[0:29:52 – 0:29:55] Adam: They basically determined, like, they could manage it.
[0:29:55 – 0:29:57] Adam: Like, he wasn’t that messed up.
[0:29:58 – 0:30:05] Adam: And they could manage it and try and, like, and he could, like, I guess they could basically plop him in the canoe and he could paddle still.
[0:30:05 – 0:30:12] Adam: And they had a lot of whitewater ahead of them, but they were like, well, we’re going to keep going and see if we can make it out, you know, manage the wound.
[0:30:12 – 0:30:15] Adam: They had a sat phone so they could continue, like, calling Minosian.
[0:30:15 – 0:30:17] Erik: So they were aware of it, though.
[0:30:17 – 0:30:19] Adam: Well, they called and, like, didn’t get an answer right away.
[0:30:19 – 0:30:20] Adam: Oh, God.
[0:30:21 – 0:30:26] Adam: But they eventually did get through, and they’re like, okay, here’s the deal.
[0:30:26 – 0:30:30] Adam: We’re going to call back, like, every, like, 12 hours and keep giving us updates.
[0:30:30 – 0:30:34] Adam: And that first night sounded like crazy hell because they had to, like, clean the whole wound out.
[0:30:35 – 0:30:36] Adam: This is where I get to, like –
[0:30:36 – 0:30:46] Adam: A lot of this book just describes like just horrendous amounts of like wound management, irrigation of wounds, which I’d never want to ever happen.
[0:30:46 – 0:30:49] Erik: There’s no fear of like rabies in this situation?
[0:30:49 – 0:30:51] Adam: They all had to get like that 12 days.
[0:30:52 – 0:30:57] Adam: You’ve got to get to an established civilization to get the rabies vaccine.
[0:30:57 – 0:30:59] Adam: It’s a series of doses.
[0:30:59 – 0:31:06] Adam: You have to get to protect against that because that can make your leg fall off and you just die if you don’t get to that fast enough.
[0:31:06 – 0:31:08] Erik: So they have 12 days before you get out.
[0:31:08 – 0:31:09] Adam: You got 12 days to get out.
[0:31:09 – 0:31:15] Adam: And at that point, they had about 12 days left in the trip planned if everything was going according to plan.
[0:31:15 – 0:31:17] Adam: So it was dicey.
[0:31:19 – 0:31:24] Adam: One of the guys brought me my folding compass and I examined my face in the small sighting mirror.
[0:31:25 – 0:31:32] Adam: My earlobe, where the one claw had caught me, was still dripping blood down my neck and back and would slowly coagulate over the next six hours.
[0:31:33 – 0:31:45] Adam: Where the palm hit my cheekbone were two bruises and corresponding scrapes caused by the bone structure in the bear’s paws where one of the metacarpals had transferred the force to my skull.
[0:31:46 – 0:31:51] Adam: One of these abrasions ran directly underneath my right eye, along the top edge of my cheekbone.
[0:31:51 – 0:31:56] Adam: Around the outside of my eye socket were short scrapes that ran horizontally for half an inch.
[0:31:56 – 0:32:00] Adam: It still felt as if my face had been cut, and it was throbbing.
[0:32:00 – 0:32:04] Adam: My cheekbone and the space under my eyelids were bruised and turning into a black eye.
[0:32:05 – 0:32:10] Adam: I could feel the tissue starting to swell, just a subtle building pressure along the bottom and corner of my eye.
[0:32:10 – 0:32:15] Adam: Ooy, ooy, ooy, ooy, ooy.
[0:32:17 – 0:32:28] Adam: My leg throbbed steadily and stabbed with pain whenever I moved it the wrong way, but overall the pain was beginning to numb as my feeling in the area dissipated, as if dripping out with the blood itself.
[0:32:29 – 0:32:38] Adam: With my equilibrium mostly back and after nearly passing out, Dan handed me another pack of gauze and had me hold pressure on my leg again.
[0:32:39 – 0:32:43] Adam: The pain from the pressure made it so that I could push only so hard before I had to back off.
[0:32:44 – 0:32:47] Adam: While I held the direct pressure, he worked on the other wounds around my body.
[0:32:48 – 0:32:53] Adam: He cleaned my toes and put bandages on them before wrapping them with white tape.
[0:32:53 – 0:32:58] Adam: Given the number of cuts and the size of our med kit, there was many smaller wounds that we had to leave undressed.
[0:33:00 – 0:33:02] Adam: Do you want me to take any photos?
[0:33:02 – 0:33:03] Adam: Dan asked.
[0:33:04 – 0:33:05] Adam: I was surprised by the question.
[0:33:05 – 0:33:05] Adam: What?
[0:33:06 – 0:33:07] Adam: I said, almost indignant.
[0:33:07 – 0:33:07] Adam: No.
[0:33:08 – 0:33:14] Adam: It was far from my mind, but a logical enough question, especially given my love of photography.
[0:33:15 – 0:33:17] Adam: Okay, Dan said, returning to his work.
[0:33:18 – 0:33:19] Adam: I didn’t know if you’d want one.
[0:33:21 – 0:33:26] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know how I would feel in the moment, but in retrospect, I probably would.
[0:33:26 – 0:33:28] Adam: He dragged his camera case back down the hill with him.
[0:33:28 – 0:33:32] Erik: Yeah, I’d probably want to see what I look like eventually.
[0:33:32 – 0:33:33] Adam: So they didn’t take any pictures.
[0:33:34 – 0:33:36] Adam: Eventually, they did get some pictures, but they didn’t put any of those in the book.
[0:33:37 – 0:33:38] Erik: Well, that’s good.
[0:33:38 – 0:33:39] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:33:39 – 0:33:41] Erik: That’s just for you, probably.
[0:33:41 – 0:33:43] Adam: Yeah, like, look at how far I’ve come.
[0:33:44 – 0:33:44] Erik: Yeah.
[0:33:47 – 0:33:50] Erik: So does he talk about the series of rabies shots?
[0:33:51 – 0:33:55] Adam: Eventually, they fly him to Winnipeg and he has to take a whole bunch of rabies shots.
[0:33:55 – 0:33:57] Erik: Yeah, I’ve heard those aren’t great.
[0:33:57 – 0:33:58] Erik: No.
[0:33:59 – 0:34:03] Adam: Compared to getting your wound irrigated in a campsite by Dan.
[0:34:03 – 0:34:03] Adam: I suppose.
[0:34:04 – 0:34:05] Adam: MSR tent.
[0:34:06 – 0:34:07] Adam: It’s not so shabby, I guess.
[0:34:07 – 0:34:09] Erik: Yeah, I guess.
[0:34:09 – 0:34:12] Adam: At least then you get some pain meds because they did have Vicodin.
[0:34:13 – 0:34:15] Adam: But they had to like ration the Vicodin too.
[0:34:15 – 0:34:18] Adam: So like he wasn’t allowed to have Vicodin really.
[0:34:18 – 0:34:19] Adam: They were just like tough it out.
[0:34:20 – 0:34:24] Adam: He literally was chewing on the leather case of his Leatherman for most of this trip at the end.
[0:34:24 – 0:34:24] Adam: Nice.
[0:34:24 – 0:34:27] Adam: Trying to like manage the pain by chewing on leather.
[0:34:27 – 0:34:27] Adam: Yeah.
[0:34:27 – 0:34:28] Adam: That’s old school.
[0:34:28 – 0:34:29] Erik: Yep.
[0:34:29 – 0:34:30] Erik: Yeah, it is.
[0:34:30 – 0:34:31] Erik: Jesus.
[0:34:32 – 0:34:36] Adam: Figuring out the logistics of my movement was the next big task.
[0:34:36 – 0:34:41] Adam: Somebody grabbed my spare paddle, the pathetic brass-colored aluminum and plastic one.
[0:34:41 – 0:34:45] Adam: It was longer than the rest of the paddles, but more importantly, we didn’t care about it.
[0:34:46 – 0:34:50] Adam: It just might suit as a crutch in a pinch, and this was a pinch.
[0:34:51 – 0:34:55] Adam: Gene and Augie brought the paddle and rigged more long underwear for my bag as a pad.
[0:34:56 – 0:34:57] Adam: We tied it to the handle end.
[0:34:58 – 0:35:02] Adam: Several of the guys gathered around and helped lift me up for the trip to the tent.
[0:35:02 – 0:35:03] Adam: I couldn’t help.
[0:35:03 – 0:35:08] Adam: My feet were out in front of me, and I had to get off the ground without moving any of them.
[0:35:08 – 0:35:09] Adam: Not an easy trick.
[0:35:10 – 0:35:13] Adam: They surrounded me and lifted my torso until my legs were under me.
[0:35:13 – 0:35:17] Adam: Several times, either I twitched or the maneuver shifted my thigh in the wrong way.
[0:35:18 – 0:35:40] Adam: i gasped from the pain this needed to happen i couldn’t just continue lying on the slope no matter what i had to move it’s just to get to bed the first night yeah like getting them off the side of like mountain they were on yeah yeah yeah yeah so i don’t know they ended up like
[0:35:43 – 0:35:47] Adam: Yeah, and then that’s when they start trying to call on the sat phone, and they’re, like, not getting any answers.
[0:35:48 – 0:35:56] Adam: And the ladies trip had already passed them by, so they had all their extra, like, batteries and supplies they might be able to, like, access, sort of then, like, drifting away from them.
[0:35:56 – 0:35:56] Erik: Yeah.
[0:35:57 – 0:36:02] Adam: And then they had, like, musk ox, like, show up in camp, and those can be kind of dangerous.
[0:36:02 – 0:36:04] Adam: Like, it was just a real nuts situation.
[0:36:05 – 0:36:05] Erik: Jeez, yeah.
[0:36:07 – 0:36:09] Adam: I have a passage on the sat phone I want to read for you.
[0:36:14 – 0:36:18] Adam: Dan had found his spot on the lower plateau and thumbed the satellite phone.
[0:36:18 – 0:36:20] Adam: It had been 10 minutes since his last call.
[0:36:20 – 0:36:22] Adam: He opened the antenna and punched in the number.
[0:36:22 – 0:36:24] Adam: The phone rang again, full of promise.
[0:36:25 – 0:36:27] Adam: After the first ring, the line clicked open.
[0:36:27 – 0:36:31] Adam: Someone on the other end, in the boathouse office in Minnesota, picked up the receiver.
[0:36:32 – 0:36:36] Adam: The phone had rung once, but Aaron, the program director, had been waiting.
[0:36:36 – 0:36:42] Adam: He lifted the wireless receiver from its base on the desk, clicked the line open, and connected the call.
[0:36:43 – 0:36:44] Adam: Camp Minosian, he said.
[0:36:44 – 0:36:45] Adam: This is Aaron.
[0:36:45 – 0:36:47] Adam: Dan felt a wave of relief.
[0:36:47 – 0:36:49] Adam: Aaron, this is Dan, he said.
[0:36:50 – 0:36:53] Adam: Oh, hey, Dan, Aaron said, sounding more casual than he surely felt.
[0:36:53 – 0:36:54] Adam: How’s it going?
[0:36:55 – 0:37:00] Adam: Well, Dan started, Alex got bit by a bear, but he’s okay.
[0:37:01 – 0:37:03] Adam: Oh, is everybody okay?
[0:37:04 – 0:37:09] Adam: If Dan relayed nothing else over the phone, Camp needed to know where the group was.
[0:37:09 – 0:37:15] Adam: As quickly and efficiently as he could, Dan told Aaron about the island and where we were camped.
[0:37:16 – 0:37:17] Adam: Oh, he said, sounding surprised.
[0:37:18 – 0:37:23] Adam: He had been to this place and had even advised Dan on the route, this lake, this exact island.
[0:37:24 – 0:37:28] Adam: He said he had said to visit there, that the view was amazing.
[0:37:30 – 0:37:45] Adam: sweet sight dude aaron said dan instantly felt less alone he was no longer in an unknown place he looked out at the lake now it had changed in the past hour from a place of sublime beauty to a place of variable scenarios and escape routes
[0:37:46 – 0:37:51] Adam: Aaron confirmed again that everybody else on the trip was alright, and Dan told him that the others were okay.
[0:37:52 – 0:37:57] Adam: He confirmed that the bear was no longer around and that he wasn’t stalking us, as far as we knew.
[0:37:58 – 0:38:02] Adam: Dan also told him that we were camped relatively close to the water and could get down there in a hurry.
[0:38:04 – 0:38:06] Adam: Can you call back again in a half hour, Aaron asked.
[0:38:07 – 0:38:10] Adam: Sure, Dan said, thinking through the logistics of calling back.
[0:38:10 – 0:38:15] Adam: He looked at his watch, reported the time to Aaron, and added 30 minutes for the callback time.
[0:38:15 – 0:38:16] Adam: I’ll call you then, he said.
[0:38:17 – 0:38:18] Adam: Sounds good, Aaron said.
[0:38:18 – 0:38:19] Adam: We’ll be here.
[0:38:22 – 0:38:24] Adam: So they had a way to, like, call back at least.
[0:38:25 – 0:38:29] Adam: And then they, like, they were able to give medical advice on, like, how to tend to the wound.
[0:38:29 – 0:38:34] Adam: And they could, like, they basically were like, okay, like, manage, like, where does it look bad?
[0:38:34 – 0:38:35] Adam: Like, mark it with a Sharpie.
[0:38:35 – 0:38:35] Adam: Yeah.
[0:38:36 – 0:38:39] Adam: And they would, like, draw a line around, like, the worst looking parts.
[0:38:39 – 0:38:42] Adam: And then they could tell, like, every time they checked the wound.
[0:38:43 – 0:38:45] Adam: It had grown, had it shrunk or whatever.
[0:38:45 – 0:38:47] Adam: Yeah, you don’t want to see any…
[0:38:47 – 0:38:49] Adam: These bite marks connected underneath.
[0:38:49 – 0:38:55] Adam: Eventually what happened was all the parts that got bit connected underneath and the whole leg started to die.
[0:38:56 – 0:38:57] Adam: Dead tissue kind of scenarios.
[0:38:57 – 0:38:58] Erik: Yeah.
[0:38:58 – 0:39:04] Erik: Yeah, you don’t want to see any streaking red off of the wound, especially as it’s trying to heal.
[0:39:04 – 0:39:07] Erik: Yeah.
[0:39:07 – 0:39:10] Erik: Bad place for easily getting an infection, I would say.
[0:39:10 – 0:39:17] Adam: Yeah, they had antibiotics with them, which they eventually started to administer with very little success.
[0:39:19 – 0:39:20] Adam: It was pretty dire, but…
[0:39:21 – 0:39:28] Adam: Uh, the bottom line is they were able to like get them in the boat and, uh, they’re in a huge lake, which took like another day or two to paddle off of.
[0:39:29 – 0:39:32] Adam: And then they enter the next river section, which was pretty gentle.
[0:39:33 – 0:39:39] Adam: And basically like got him like to the point where he was grimacing in pain, but could sit up front and paddle.
[0:39:40 – 0:39:41] Adam: His arms were okay.
[0:39:41 – 0:39:43] Adam: Uh, his leg was all messed up and, uh,
[0:39:45 – 0:39:58] Adam: Uh, able to like contribute at least in that way to the trip, but basically just reports like feeling crummy that he like, he’s all messed up and he like, can’t help in any of the camp chores or like, he just felt like he was like dead weight on the trip.
[0:39:58 – 0:39:59] Erik: Sure.
[0:39:59 – 0:39:59] Erik: Yeah.
[0:39:59 – 0:40:06] Adam: But, like, they had gotten a hold of his parents, too, and were like, we could have him out of there tomorrow.
[0:40:06 – 0:40:08] Adam: It’s just going to – we’re going to have to fly a plane in there and get him.
[0:40:09 – 0:40:12] Adam: And they left it up to them to make the call, like, do you want to be – The kids?
[0:40:12 – 0:40:14] Adam: Do you want to be evacuated out or not?
[0:40:15 – 0:40:16] Adam: Like, I can do it.
[0:40:16 – 0:40:18] Adam: And they, like – you left them in there.
[0:40:18 – 0:40:19] Adam: And they didn’t, like, imagine –
[0:40:20 – 0:40:23] Adam: I could see a scenario nowadays where they’d just be like, no, go get them.
[0:40:23 – 0:40:24] Adam: No.
[0:40:24 – 0:40:25] Adam: Yeah.
[0:40:25 – 0:40:25] Adam: 2005.
[0:40:25 – 0:40:28] Adam: It’s not that long ago, but yeah, this seems like a different mindset.
[0:40:28 – 0:40:32] Adam: Then like, they’re like, well, if the kids say they can get out, they’re going to let them try and get out.
[0:40:32 – 0:40:33] Adam: That’s the Minoan way, I guess.
[0:40:33 – 0:40:36] Adam: Like they left it to the campers to make the call.
[0:40:37 – 0:41:07] Adam: uh with all the information they had and so they like paddled out of there yeah packed everything up and got going and like they had to basically stop that first night they had to check the wound every hour and there was like musk oxen camp plus the bear was still on the island with them they had people on watch yeah they’re like okay you’re on watch and you’re on watch first and then when you guys go to bed we’ll get up and watch yeah in the meanwhile they’re like checking the wound every hour like nobody slept that whole like whatever night was at that point
[0:41:08 – 0:41:08] Erik: I’m sure not.
[0:41:10 – 0:41:14] Erik: Even if it was just not even a wound management situation.
[0:41:14 – 0:41:16] Erik: Freaky.
[0:41:16 – 0:41:17] Erik: Just knowing that there’s a bear.
[0:41:17 – 0:41:19] Adam: Yeah, he talks a lot about it.
[0:41:20 – 0:41:22] Adam: They’re all watching now, and I can be safe.
[0:41:22 – 0:41:30] Adam: He felt so much better being back in his group, but I just couldn’t help but keep watching up the ridge.
[0:41:30 – 0:41:34] Adam: My head kept turning, looking over that ridge to see what is coming back for me.
[0:41:35 – 0:41:37] Adam: He expected it was going to come back and get him.
[0:41:39 – 0:41:45] Adam: The only thing he ended up losing, he grabbed the camera case and hobbled down, but he ended up losing his hat.
[0:41:46 – 0:41:47] Adam: He’s like, my hat.
[0:41:47 – 0:41:50] Adam: And they’re like, well, do you want us to go back up there and find it?
[0:41:50 – 0:41:50] Adam: He’s like, no.
[0:41:52 – 0:42:17] Adam: what kind of a hat was it just a hat and then like is he had like a special necklace on and while they like dan was doing like immediate like care to him or whatever he’s like and by the way your necklace is gone i’m sorry no he lost his necklace his necklace is gone never got it back wow eventually we’ll jump all the way ahead to the end and the mounties are like we’re gonna go out there and kill this bear oh jesus
[0:42:18 – 0:42:39] Adam: and he’s like you don’t have to do that and like we gotta there’s nobody else out there and they’re like well an aggressive bear is an aggressive bear yeah and so he’s like when i did find out later that they did try and go out there even though i talked him out of it and they went out there but they couldn’t find the bear well did they find his hat and necklace they never did find the head or necklace either what are these mounties doing i don’t know
[0:42:39 – 0:42:42] Adam: Did they actually go to the island or are they just flying around for fun?
[0:42:42 – 0:42:42] Erik: Probably.
[0:42:43 – 0:42:44] Adam: Yeah.
[0:42:44 – 0:42:44] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:42:44 – 0:42:47] Adam: Why would you try and like… We got to go eliminate this threat.
[0:42:48 – 0:42:49] Erik: Threat to nothing.
[0:42:49 – 0:42:50] Erik: It’s the threat to nothing.
[0:42:50 – 0:42:51] Erik: Just being a bear.
[0:42:51 – 0:42:53] Adam: A moonscape tundra island in the middle of Nunavut.
[0:42:53 – 0:42:54] Adam: Yeah.
[0:42:54 – 0:42:57] Adam: I guess they actually went out there and tried to find it and could not find it.
[0:42:57 – 0:42:58] Adam: But I mean, bears can swim.
[0:42:59 – 0:42:59] Adam: Yeah.
[0:42:59 – 0:43:01] Adam: It’s a good chance it wasn’t even on the island anyways.
[0:43:01 – 0:43:02] Adam: That thing’s gone.
[0:43:02 – 0:43:03] Adam: But so…
[0:43:04 – 0:43:09] Adam: But then at the end, he was like, you know, it was kind of comforting, like, knowing it’s still out there somewhere.
[0:43:10 – 0:43:12] Adam: I don’t, like, hold any ill will against the bear, I guess.
[0:43:12 – 0:43:13] Erik: I would probably prefer it that way.
[0:43:13 – 0:43:16] Adam: Yeah, he didn’t, like, want them to go kill the bear.
[0:43:16 – 0:43:16] Adam: Yeah.
[0:43:16 – 0:43:18] Adam: He was like, I was on his island.
[0:43:19 – 0:43:21] Adam: He’s super, like, I don’t know.
[0:43:22 – 0:43:31] Adam: I wouldn’t say he’s super humble about that, but I would just say, like, he was understanding about, like, I was in the bear’s house and shouldn’t, you know.
[0:43:31 – 0:43:34] Adam: Not that you shouldn’t have been climbing around up there and exploring.
[0:43:34 – 0:43:40] Adam: It was just an unfortunate coincidence that you happened to be at the top of the hill at the exact same time of that day.
[0:43:40 – 0:43:44] Erik: Yeah, after five people had just come down, you know, weird.
[0:43:44 – 0:43:49] Adam: Yeah, you know, it just ended up being bad timing, you know.
[0:43:49 – 0:43:49] Adam: Yeah.
[0:43:50 – 0:43:53] Adam: And he didn’t ever seem to hold any ill will towards the bear.
[0:43:54 – 0:43:55] Adam: Like it wasn’t like a mean bear.
[0:43:55 – 0:44:04] Adam: This is not a Leonardo DiCaprio situation where the bear is just continually stalking him and like chasing him down the lake, swimming after him or whatever.
[0:44:04 – 0:44:06] Adam: It was like they never saw the thing again.
[0:44:07 – 0:44:10] Erik: Was it like just a random attack?
[0:44:10 – 0:44:11] Erik: It didn’t sound like it was trying to eat him.
[0:44:12 – 0:44:15] Adam: Well, he clearly could have eaten and killed him if he wanted to.
[0:44:15 – 0:44:17] Adam: I was going to say because he passed out for a little bit.
[0:44:17 – 0:44:19] Adam: So what does that mean?
[0:44:19 – 0:44:25] Adam: He took him out until he passed out and then just was like, oh, God, he thought he was dead and ran?
[0:44:25 – 0:44:27] Erik: Yeah, maybe it was just a territory thing.
[0:44:28 – 0:44:30] Adam: Don’t you dare come up on my ridge.
[0:44:30 – 0:44:31] Erik: Spooked him enough.
[0:44:31 – 0:44:31] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:44:31 – 0:44:32] Erik: It’s so weird.
[0:44:32 – 0:44:33] Adam: And then he ran off.
[0:44:33 – 0:44:38] Adam: But the way that he like woke up and like kind of came to and then like all of a sudden there it is.
[0:44:38 – 0:44:39] Adam: And he started laying there.
[0:44:39 – 0:44:43] Adam: And then the bear like he’s just got to go read the passage.
[0:44:43 – 0:44:45] Adam: And he’s like, just run away, man.
[0:44:45 – 0:44:45] Adam: Just run away.
[0:44:46 – 0:44:46] Adam: Yeah.
[0:44:47 – 0:44:48] Adam: Just please run away.
[0:44:48 – 0:44:48] Erik: Yeah.
[0:44:48 – 0:44:49] Erik: Just please go.
[0:44:49 – 0:44:55] Adam: And then the bear sort of like ambles off but keeps looking back over his shoulder until he goes over the ridge.
[0:44:55 – 0:44:57] Adam: And then finally he goes over the ridge and he’s like, okay.
[0:44:57 – 0:45:01] Adam: And he starts like scrambling back down the other side of the hill to get back down to his camp.
[0:45:01 – 0:45:01] Erik: Yeah.
[0:45:02 – 0:45:03] Adam: God, it’s freaky.
[0:45:03 – 0:45:05] Erik: Yeah, that sounds like it could be in a movie or something.
[0:45:06 – 0:45:06] Adam: Jeez.
[0:45:06 – 0:45:10] Adam: I don’t want to like read these passages because I’m afraid I’d ruin them.
[0:45:10 – 0:45:13] Adam: But I want to read enough to like get people to read this book.
[0:45:14 – 0:45:14] Adam: Yeah.
[0:45:14 – 0:45:15] Adam: But not like give away too much either.
[0:45:16 – 0:45:18] Adam: So I’m being like pretty sparse in my selections here.
[0:45:18 – 0:45:19] Erik: Sure.
[0:45:19 – 0:45:38] Adam: but yeah the whole like bear attack sequence and the way they like get out of there just nuts and they’d make it in less than 12 days i’m assuming no they don’t oh wow unfortunately uh unfortunately they don’t uh moving ahead
[0:45:41 – 0:45:43] Adam: They find a bunch of cool ancient sites, too.
[0:45:44 – 0:45:48] Adam: I want to mention this at this point while I’m paging up to the next passage.
[0:45:48 – 0:45:55] Adam: They find all these weird rock rings and old standing stones, like mini stonehenges out there.
[0:45:56 – 0:45:57] Adam: Like ancient peoples.
[0:45:58 – 0:46:00] Adam: They find burial sites at one point.
[0:46:00 – 0:46:03] Adam: I do have a passage for that I’d like to read.
[0:46:03 – 0:46:06] Adam: Day 31.
[0:46:06 – 0:46:07] Adam: Day 31.
[0:46:09 – 0:46:13] Adam: I slept for 12 solid hours before I began floating back up into consciousness.
[0:46:14 – 0:46:17] Adam: From a dark void, I became self-aware and would feel my body.
[0:46:18 – 0:46:25] Adam: My eyes stayed shut, but I sensed my deep, regular breaths as my lungs filled slowly and exhaled easily.
[0:46:26 – 0:46:29] Adam: I felt the weight of my limbs and the warmth of my sleeping bag.
[0:46:30 – 0:46:32] Adam: I slowly started piecing together my surroundings.
[0:46:33 – 0:46:37] Adam: The person next to me moved, and I heard the swish of his sleeping bag.
[0:46:38 – 0:46:44] Adam: As the sphere of understanding and placement around me grew, I realized I knew which direction I was facing.
[0:46:44 – 0:46:47] Adam: And then I knew where the tent was in my orientation.
[0:46:48 – 0:46:50] Adam: My mental map was placed and set.
[0:46:50 – 0:46:59] Adam: I knew where I was in the tent, where the tent was on our site, where our site was on the river, and where the river bent in the vast tundra of Nunavut.
[0:47:08 – 0:47:12] Adam: Feeling grounded and placed, I opened my eyes to the pale khaki of the tent roof.
[0:47:12 – 0:47:17] Adam: I looked over the rustling surprise to see someone I didn’t expect.
[0:47:17 – 0:47:25] Adam: I turned towards the tent door, whose nylon was peeled back, so that all that stood between me and the vast tundra was the thin mesh of the window.
[0:47:26 – 0:47:31] Adam: I realized that this too, the door, the space beyond, had been misplaced in my mind.
[0:47:32 – 0:47:40] Adam: Like a huge whirling set of concentric disks, my mental map spun from where I thought it to be to where it truly was.
[0:47:41 – 0:47:46] Adam: I suddenly felt a sense of stillness, of motionlessness in an ever-spinning world.
[0:47:47 – 0:47:51] Adam: I lifted my head and felt the tug at the wound on my thigh.
[0:47:53 – 0:47:54] Adam: It wasn’t just a dream.
[0:47:56 – 0:48:00] Adam: You ever get that like thing where you wake up not really knowing where you are in camp?
[0:48:01 – 0:48:04] Adam: You’re so used to sleeping in certain spots, you know?
[0:48:04 – 0:48:04] Adam: Yeah.
[0:48:04 – 0:48:08] Adam: It’s one of the best parts of camping is like waking up in a strange campsite.
[0:48:09 – 0:48:13] Adam: You know where you are, but like it takes a while to like for your mind to enter your body.
[0:48:14 – 0:48:16] Adam: I think that’s a pretty good way of like writing it.
[0:48:18 – 0:48:18] Erik: Yeah, for sure.
[0:48:19 – 0:48:20] Erik: I mean, yeah, that happens to me.
[0:48:23 – 0:48:37] Erik: all over the place not just when i’m camping i would say it’s a high likelihood that i wake up and have to really try and remember where i am probably has a lot to do with the fact that i live in a van most of the year but yeah i know that feeling it’s weird
[0:48:39 – 0:49:03] Adam: so they made their way finally to uh it’s called 30 mile lake which is halfway between princess mary lake and like their final destination thinking they’re gonna like we might make it you know in time to get the rabies vaccine yeah when they hit a they hit a horrible windstorm and like a rainstorm which isn’t even supposed to happen in the summer in the tundra
[0:49:04 – 0:49:05] Erik: 30-mile lake and wind?
[0:49:05 – 0:49:08] Adam: Yeah, it doesn’t sound like a good… 30-mile lake is not even nearly one of the…
[0:49:08 – 0:49:10] Adam: It’s not even a top 10 lake.
[0:49:10 – 0:49:13] Adam: It might be in the top 10 lakes for big lakes on this trip, but…
[0:49:13 – 0:49:14] Adam: Still.
[0:49:14 – 0:49:15] Adam: It’s a 30-mile lake.
[0:49:15 – 0:49:15] Adam: Yeah.
[0:49:16 – 0:49:22] Adam: It’s full of graves and cairns and mystery and wind.
[0:49:27 – 0:49:51] Adam: gene climbed out from the other tent to relieve himself and see the storm he walked through the rain and looked towards the open lake then at our small fleet of boats there was the one closest to the lake the second and then he looked around up and down the shore past the first boat back to where he remembered beaching the third the night before one of the boats is gone gene yelled over the wind
[0:49:53 – 0:49:57] Adam: Hearing this, Dan jumped up out of his sleeping bag and threw on his clothes and rain gear.
[0:49:57 – 0:50:02] Adam: In half a minute, he was outside the tent, quick-timing it to our harbor of canoes.
[0:50:02 – 0:50:06] Adam: The closest canoe was there, so was the second, but the third was gone.
[0:50:07 – 0:50:11] Adam: In its place, a blank spot of undisturbed tundra.
[0:50:11 – 0:50:16] Adam: He looked at the other two boats, at the gear stored in them, and the pile near the wanagan.
[0:50:16 – 0:50:18] Adam: Everything else was gone.
[0:50:19 – 0:50:20] Adam: The loss of the boat was devastating.
[0:50:21 – 0:50:24] Adam: With the rain, millions of gallons of water had saturated the tundra.
[0:50:24 – 0:50:36] Adam: It spilled into the lakes and traveled downstream, filling the Yachtyad, the Ford Lakes, and the Kazan River to the southwest, and Princess Mary Lake and the Kunwak River to the northwest.
[0:50:37 – 0:50:41] Adam: At the west end of the 30-mile lake, just beyond our campsite, these rivers joined.
[0:50:41 – 0:50:53] Adam: Their influx of rain had raised the water levels by nearly a foot Our boats, whose beaching had been solid the night before Had been surrounded by the rising waters Lifted off the ground and carried out into the lake
[0:50:55 – 0:51:24] Adam: Along with the boat, we were missing Augie’s paddle, my spare plastic paddle, our big barrel of onions, my fishing rod and reel, my blaze orange day pack, my gloves, my compass, my bug jacket, Darren’s fleece, my fleece hat, a dry bag, the portage pack with everyone’s dry boots but mine, several water bottles, and worst of all, our loop three food barrel with all our sustenance for the rest of the trip.
[0:51:25 – 0:51:25] Erik: Oh, God.
[0:51:25 – 0:51:28] Adam: It was the boat I tried to pull farthest up the night before on one leg.
[0:51:29 – 0:51:30] Adam: Our food was gone.
[0:51:31 – 0:51:37] Adam: We had cocoa, coffee, sugary drink mixes, desserts, brownies, cookie dough, batters.
[0:51:38 – 0:51:40] Adam: And the one again, that’s the little wooden thing.
[0:51:41 – 0:51:42] Adam: The wooden cabinet thing.
[0:51:43 – 0:51:43] Adam: Yeah.
[0:51:43 – 0:51:48] Adam: In the Wanigan, we still had all our cooking supplies, oils, flours, butters, and spices, and breading.
[0:51:48 – 0:51:49] Erik: All spice?
[0:51:49 – 0:51:53] Adam: The one part of our trail food we needed most was substantial meals.
[0:51:53 – 0:51:54] Adam: And they were lost.
[0:51:56 – 0:52:01] Adam: Both the satellite phone and my camera had been in the boat earlier, but we’d taken them out the night before at the last second.
[0:52:02 – 0:52:06] Adam: I remember struggling with the boat, giving up and coming back to the side to grab the Pelican case.
[0:52:07 – 0:52:16] Adam: I felt compelled to move it, wanting to bring it closer to the tents, but there now sat, barely 10 feet from the boat’s empty berth, this camera case.
[0:52:17 – 0:52:22] Adam: Yeah, he was down there like at the night before like trying to pull it up on one leg and everybody else was sleeping.
[0:52:23 – 0:52:24] Adam: He’s like, ah, whatever, it’s fine.
[0:52:24 – 0:52:26] Adam: And then it was gone the next morning with all their food.
[0:52:27 – 0:52:29] Erik: Well, at least he grabbed the satellite phone.
[0:52:29 – 0:52:31] Adam: Yeah, you can always make rub-a-boo.
[0:52:32 – 0:52:32] Adam: Oh, God.
[0:52:32 – 0:52:33] Adam: They got their sugaries.
[0:52:34 – 0:52:36] Erik: Yeah, and batters.
[0:52:36 – 0:52:40] Adam: Can we check for demons and take a step out and then we’ll…
[0:52:40 – 0:52:42] Adam: Caught in the trap of 30 Mile Lake.
[0:52:42 – 0:52:46] Adam: Like everyone, we paddled here only to get shut down by the wind and rain.
[0:52:47 – 0:52:49] Adam: It would let us go eventually.
[0:52:49 – 0:52:51] Adam: But what would my leg be like by then?
[0:52:52 – 0:52:53] Adam: What would I be like?
[0:52:54 – 0:52:57] Adam: There’s no possibility for evacuation during this storm.
[0:52:58 – 0:53:02] Adam: Only after we got stuck had my leg started to show signs of infection.
[0:53:03 – 0:53:05] Adam: Now I hope for the antibiotic to work.
[0:53:06 – 0:53:06] Adam: It should.
[0:53:07 – 0:53:08] Adam: That’s why we brought it.
[0:53:10 – 0:53:15] Adam: I knew there were graves on this lake, and now, looking out across the great expanse, I felt their presence.
[0:53:16 – 0:53:25] Adam: I imagined the spirits of Thirty Mile Lake holding on to travelers as they passed through, holding us to account for disturbing their rest.
[0:53:26 – 0:53:29] Adam: I felt a pull in my stomach as emotions welled within me.
[0:53:30 – 0:53:37] Adam: It made its way up my spine and throat, sending chills over my neck and scalp, and forcing my mouth open as words spilled out.
[0:53:41 – 0:53:42] Adam: but they were whispers.
[0:53:43 – 0:53:46] Adam: I could barely hear them myself, much less speak them.
[0:53:47 – 0:53:49] Adam: From that rock, I pleaded with the spirits.
[0:53:50 – 0:53:51] Adam: I asked them to release us.
[0:53:53 – 0:53:56] Adam: I could feel my leg, too warm and disturbingly numb.
[0:53:57 – 0:53:58] Adam: The wound wasn’t improving.
[0:53:59 – 0:53:59] Adam: We needed to move.
[0:54:01 – 0:54:03] Adam: Please, I said, let us through.
[0:54:04 – 0:54:09] Adam: My words disappeared on the wind, whipped out over the open expanse across the length of the lake.
[0:54:10 – 0:54:14] Adam: I watched for a long while until the glow had passed and the gray returned.
[0:54:17 – 0:54:18] Adam: It’s crazy.
[0:54:20 – 0:54:20] Erik: Graves out there?
[0:54:21 – 0:54:21] Erik: Yeah.
[0:54:24 – 0:54:28] Adam: Yeah, you know, I don’t like a big lake with huge wind on it.
[0:54:28 – 0:54:29] Adam: No, that’s not okay.
[0:54:29 – 0:54:31] Adam: I certainly don’t like having my leg almost bit off.
[0:54:32 – 0:54:33] Adam: Yeah.
[0:54:34 – 0:54:35] Adam: What a story, you know.
[0:54:36 – 0:54:41] Adam: I don’t want to say any more, and I don’t want to, like, reveal the ending, really.
[0:54:41 – 0:54:41] Adam: Sure.
[0:54:42 – 0:54:46] Adam: But I can’t believe that after being attacked by a goddamn grizzly bear…
[0:54:48 – 0:54:51] Adam: and then they go ahead and, like, lose a canoe on top of that.
[0:54:52 – 0:54:54] Adam: That, to me, is, like, the biggest nightmare on that trip.
[0:54:54 – 0:55:01] Adam: We talk about bears, and we’ve been talking about bears for a whole month now, ripping up a food barrel or something.
[0:55:01 – 0:55:13] Adam: But, like, the biggest thing that, like, scares me, like, I wake at night in the hammock or first thing in the morning on a windy morning, you know, always looking in camp, like, for that boat.
[0:55:14 – 0:55:39] Adam: yeah and they’ve always been there and we’ve had a few a few spots where like they get away from the on the portage or whatever and you can quickly grab them this wasn’t even the first time a boat got away from them one of them they barely caught a boat like going across a big open water earlier that had snuck away from them there’s no trees or nothing entire boats do yeah right i’m like you know like an anchor system or they need something you know to help tied to your foot yeah geez
[0:55:41 – 0:55:43] Adam: Surfed all that to lose the canoe.
[0:55:44 – 0:55:46] Adam: I will say they sent a search party out.
[0:55:46 – 0:55:49] Adam: Dan and Augie went out in the horrible storm.
[0:55:50 – 0:55:50] Erik: Looking for it.
[0:55:50 – 0:55:51] Adam: And they found the food barrel.
[0:55:52 – 0:55:52] Adam: Oh, nice.
[0:55:52 – 0:55:54] Adam: Actually, and a couple of other things.
[0:55:55 – 0:55:57] Adam: They never did find that third canoe.
[0:55:57 – 0:55:57] Adam: Oh, wow.
[0:55:57 – 0:56:01] Adam: There’s just a canoe out there on 30 Mount Lake sunk to the bottom somewhere.
[0:56:01 – 0:56:02] Adam: Old red.
[0:56:02 – 0:56:02] Adam: Old red.
[0:56:02 – 0:56:05] Erik: That picture at the end that you showed me, there was only two of them.
[0:56:05 – 0:56:06] Erik: I was like…
[0:56:07 – 0:56:34] Adam: yeah interesting so they lost a canoe too after that I mean Jesus yeah they still got their red paddle hung up in Minoan though pack it up and call it a trip so they had to like basically like Tetris themselves into the two canoes with all their crap to like get across 30 mile lake and then you know they eventually got out he lived he didn’t lose his leg yeah everybody was okay and you know and so on and so on but
[0:56:35 – 0:56:40] Adam: It’s a hell of a story, and I can’t believe I thought for all this time that it was just like a novel.
[0:56:40 – 0:56:50] Adam: I thought it was a work of fiction, but this is somebody who’s been at Minotian a bunch and been through Grand Marais and up the Gunplin Trail and now lives in Duluth, apparently.
[0:56:50 – 0:56:51] Adam: Yeah.
[0:56:51 – 0:56:52] Adam: Hell, I’ve probably seen this guy.
[0:56:52 – 0:56:53] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:56:53 – 0:56:53] Erik: Yeah, maybe.
[0:56:54 – 0:56:55] Erik: That’s crazy, though.
[0:56:55 – 0:56:57] Adam: He’s been on the Caribou Rock Trail.
[0:56:57 – 0:57:00] Adam: There’s parts of this book that are in spots that we’ve been to.
[0:57:00 – 0:57:00] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:57:00 – 0:57:07] Adam: Then there’s most of the book where they’re up above the tree line in spots I can’t even comprehend.
[0:57:07 – 0:57:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:57:08 – 0:57:09] Adam: But it’s all in a canoe.
[0:57:09 – 0:57:10] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:57:10 – 0:57:14] Adam: It’s all long-term camping trips, carrying everything you need with you.
[0:57:15 – 0:57:19] Adam: That part of the book really resonates with me.
[0:57:19 – 0:57:20] Erik: Yeah.
[0:57:21 – 0:57:23] Erik: Yeah, no, that’s another level.
[0:57:23 – 0:57:26] Erik: Still preferable to long over-trail hiking.
[0:57:27 – 0:57:28] Adam: No doubt.
[0:57:28 – 0:57:29] Erik: I would say.
[0:57:29 – 0:57:34] Adam: Mostly paddling, and I don’t know, I’d love to do some big whitewater trips in a canoe.
[0:57:34 – 0:57:37] Adam: I remember being down in the Grand Canyon and watching those rafters go through there.
[0:57:38 – 0:57:38] Adam: Yeah, that looks amazing.
[0:57:39 – 0:57:40] Adam: Really cool stuff, so…
[0:57:42 – 0:57:46] Adam: That’s a whole nother way to like travel by boat, you know, in the wilderness.
[0:57:46 – 0:57:56] Adam: But freaky too, because there’s definitely some spots in there like, oh, the most dangerous part of this trip is going to be the rapids and the recyclers and getting chewed up by rocks.
[0:57:57 – 0:57:59] Adam: And it wasn’t even like a top 10 threat for them.
[0:57:59 – 0:58:05] Adam: They ended up getting mauled by a bear and losing a canoe to the wind and almost losing all their food and
[0:58:05 – 0:58:07] Erik: So the water just came up far enough?
[0:58:07 – 0:58:14] Adam: Well, yeah, because it had been raining so hard that apparently the water came up and just slipped the boat off the land.
[0:58:14 – 0:58:16] Adam: And there it goes.
[0:58:16 – 0:58:18] Adam: The one with the food back in it, too, is crazy.
[0:58:18 – 0:58:24] Adam: And then they somehow recovered the food back and expected it was going to be swamped and full of water, but everything in there was dry.
[0:58:25 – 0:58:25] Adam: Wow.
[0:58:25 – 0:58:27] Adam: So they were okay.
[0:58:27 – 0:58:28] Erik: Allspice buns for everybody.
[0:58:29 – 0:58:30] Adam: Yeah, allspice buns.
[0:58:31 – 0:58:32] Adam: So that’s it.
[0:58:32 – 0:58:32] Adam: The 29th day.
[0:58:33 – 0:58:36] Adam: Um, pretty, pretty damn exciting read.
[0:58:37 – 0:58:41] Adam: And I’m glad I finally, I’ve been trying to get this book on electronic version for like a year.
[0:58:42 – 0:58:47] Adam: And every time I get close to the top of the list, I’d somehow like get bumped off and like lose my spot in line.
[0:58:48 – 0:58:52] Adam: So it’s very frustrating and just felt like I was never going to ever get to read this book on electronic.
[0:58:53 – 0:58:53] Adam: Finally, I just looked.
[0:58:53 – 0:58:56] Adam: I was like, I just don’t want to paper copy this thing.
[0:58:56 – 0:59:04] Adam: You can’t make notes in a paper copy from the library, which makes the reading of it and the reporting on this harder.
[0:59:06 – 0:59:11] Adam: I was able to give this thank you to the Aurora Public Library for shipping this over to Grammaray.
[0:59:11 – 0:59:12] Erik: Aurora, Minnesota.
[0:59:12 – 0:59:15] Adam: Aurora, Minnesota had one, yeah.
[0:59:16 – 0:59:17] Adam: And nobody had a hold on it.
[0:59:17 – 0:59:20] Adam: I found it, and it was there in two days.
[0:59:20 – 0:59:21] Adam: Interlibrary loan system.
[0:59:21 – 0:59:22] Adam: Got to love it.
[0:59:22 – 0:59:25] Adam: So, yeah, pretty damn good book.
[0:59:25 – 0:59:31] Adam: Like I said, at least six or seven different people would highly recommend this on the Tumble Homey community.
[0:59:32 – 0:59:36] Adam: So shout out to everybody who thought this book was a good read, and I agree, it was a hell of a read.
[0:59:37 – 0:59:38] Erik: Yeah, it’s got my interests piqued.
[0:59:41 – 0:59:45] Adam: Arrow the dog is freaking out and just tripping over all these Oliphant beers.
[0:59:45 – 0:59:47] Adam: Thank you to Mike for the Oliphant beers.
[0:59:47 – 0:59:47] Adam: Yeah.
[0:59:47 – 0:59:49] Adam: Sour is pretty damn good.
[0:59:49 – 0:59:50] Adam: It’s not too sour.
[0:59:50 – 0:59:51] Adam: I was a little worried.
[0:59:51 – 0:59:53] Adam: It’s pretty cold for a sour.
[0:59:54 – 0:59:54] Adam: Yeah.
[0:59:54 – 0:59:55] Adam: And not your fault.
[0:59:55 – 0:59:58] Adam: You donated them in August when you were going swimming in Johnson Falls.
[0:59:58 – 1:00:00] Adam: It made a lot more sense back then.
[1:00:00 – 1:00:02] Adam: So that’s on us.
[1:00:02 – 1:00:02] Adam: Yeah.
[1:00:02 – 1:00:06] Adam: But yeah, I think that’s a good spot to leave it here.
[1:00:07 – 1:00:08] Adam: And next week.
[1:00:09 – 1:00:11] Adam: We will be getting to the question of the year.
[1:00:14 – 1:00:17] Erik: Yeah, so if you haven’t responded, get on that subreddit.
[1:00:18 – 1:00:20] Adam: Write a haiku.
[1:00:20 – 1:00:23] Erik: I’m pretty sure there’s at least a couple of haikus on there.
[1:00:23 – 1:00:25] Erik: It might be all haikus, Eric.
[1:00:25 – 1:00:25] Erik: Could be.
[1:00:25 – 1:00:27] Erik: Could be a lot of haiku reading.
[1:00:27 – 1:00:30] Erik: But, yeah, more than welcome to get your name on there.
[1:00:30 – 1:00:32] Erik: You’ve still got a little bit of time.
[1:00:33 – 1:00:39] Erik: Tumble Homecast, our Tumble Homecast on that lovely old site, Reddit, still around.
[1:00:40 – 1:00:41] Erik: And we’re still on there.
[1:00:41 – 1:00:43] Erik: So, one more week to get that.
[1:00:44 – 1:00:45] Erik: And, yeah, we’ll see.
[1:00:45 – 1:00:47] Erik: It might be one big one.
[1:00:47 – 1:00:49] Erik: It might be multiple small ones.
[1:00:49 – 1:00:49] Erik: We don’t know.
[1:00:49 – 1:00:50] Erik: But…
[1:00:50 – 1:00:52] Adam: We’re not doing a break in between, though.
[1:00:52 – 1:00:55] Adam: Once we start reading, we’re going to read it all the way.
[1:00:55 – 1:00:57] Erik: It might just be a four-hour epic.
[1:00:57 – 1:01:00] Adam: That would be a good way to finish the season maybe.
[1:01:01 – 1:01:02] Adam: The new record for longest episode.
[1:01:02 – 1:01:03] Adam: What’s the longest tumble?
[1:01:04 – 1:01:06] Erik: I think it’s like three hours.
[1:01:07 – 1:01:07] Adam: Oh, God.
[1:01:07 – 1:01:10] Adam: Was that one of the tumble tourneys or what?
[1:01:10 – 1:01:12] Erik: No, it’s one of the end of the year questions.
[1:01:12 – 1:01:14] Erik: We were getting some grief for people.
[1:01:14 – 1:01:15] Erik: Not even think it was grief.
[1:01:15 – 1:01:21] Erik: It was just somebody poking fun at how we would turn one of those questions of the week into like a three-part series.
[1:01:21 – 1:01:22] Adam: Oh, that’s right.
[1:01:22 – 1:01:23] Adam: And we’re like, no.
[1:01:23 – 1:01:25] Erik: Yeah, so we just read all of them.
[1:01:25 – 1:01:26] Erik: I think it’s like three and a half hours.
[1:01:26 – 1:01:27] Erik: We got the beef.
[1:01:28 – 1:01:47] Adam: yeah we got the muskox in us yeah so we might do that we might just do something entirely different i have no idea but who knows we’ll see how we get responses but you still have time plenty of time to get in there yet um and then uh yeah can’t wait to find out how the season ends that’s how we’ve always done it eric
[1:01:47 – 1:01:48] Erik: Oh, God.
[1:01:48 – 1:01:49] Adam: That’s how we’ve always done it.
[1:01:49 – 1:01:50] Adam: It’s cold.
[1:01:50 – 1:01:58] Adam: It’s nice and cold, and we’re going to go on and get… Yeah, we’re doing Nightmare on Elm Street and probably Scream.
[1:01:58 – 1:01:58] Adam: Scream now?
[1:01:58 – 1:02:03] Adam: It’s going to be a Wes Craven double feature to end the Tumlum Cinema Classics season.
[1:02:03 – 1:02:09] Erik: Yeah, a horror intro and then a horror outro from old Mr. Craven.
[1:02:11 – 1:02:12] Adam: Is that his real name, you think?
[1:02:15 – 1:02:17] Erik: For a guy that’s as ingrained into the…
[1:02:17 – 1:02:21] Adam: He used to be Dr. Craven and then he lost his license.
[1:02:21 – 1:02:22] Erik: Yeah, maybe that’s it.
[1:02:23 – 1:02:23] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:02:23 – 1:02:25] Erik: We’ll look into it.
[1:02:25 – 1:02:31] Erik: Become a $5 a month patron member if you want to find out if Wes Craven is his real name.
[1:02:32 – 1:02:33] Adam: We’ll know more soon.
[1:02:34 – 1:02:34] Erik: Soon.
[1:02:35 – 1:02:35] Adam: All right.
[1:02:35 – 1:02:39] Adam: Well, thanks to Alex Missandreze for the beautiful book.
[1:02:40 – 1:02:43] Adam: And as we always say in Top of Home, life is…
[1:02:45 – 1:02:50] Adam: Life is pain and suffering and bare wounds and… What did we say?
[1:02:51 – 1:02:52] Adam: It’s always a miracle.
[1:02:52 – 1:02:58] Erik: Yeah, I think it’s just ask… Make sure that… Just pray to the spirits that they will let you pass.
[1:02:58 – 1:02:59] Erik: Let us pass.
[1:03:10 – 1:03:21] Adam: I remember you by underground in the sky Lightning flash, tempers flare
[1:03:42 – 1:03:42] Adam: If you dare.
[1:03:42 – 1:03:43] Adam: I just spent six months in a leaky boat.
[1:03:43 – 1:03:44] Adam: Lucky just to keep my boat.
[1:03:44 – 1:03:46] Adam: Hey, I’ll tell you all about it.
[1:04:16 – 1:04:18] Adam: So why should it stop me?
[1:04:18 – 1:04:20] Adam: I’ll find the rest of you
[1:04:33 – 1:04:49] Adam: There’s a world to explore There’s a town back on shore I just can’t see what’s in a leaking boat I just can’t see what’s in a leaking boat
[1:05:04 – 1:05:05] UNKNOWN: Thank you.
