Sue Akins is a writer, survivalist, and all-around badass. She grew up in a small town in the late 60s and early 70s in Alaska and moved to the remote Alaskan wilderness to pursue her dreams of becoming a writer and survivalist. She s lived a life of total isolation, and is now one of the most remote people in the world, living in the arctic wilderness. In this episode, we talk about her adventures in Alaska, her love of the wild, and how she s managed to survive in the harsh conditions. She s also the host of the hit TV show Life Below Zero, which is one of my favorite shows of all time, and I loved getting to know her a little bit more. She is a force to be reckoned with in the wild and I know you re going to love her story and the stories she shares about her experiences in the wilderness. I hope you enjoy this episode and that it gives you a little insight into what it s like to be out there in the middle of nowhere and living your very own life in the most isolated place on Earth. XOXO, John Rocha and the WTF Crew Music: "I Am I a Badass" by The Smiths by Fountains of Wayne and "I Can't Sleep Tonight" by Shadydave (feat. Jeff Perla is outtro music: "Too Effing Highlighted" by Fucking Cool Fact or Fiction? Join us on Anchor.fm Subscribe to our new music streaming platform! on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices! Subscribe on Podcoin.fm? Rate, review, comment and subscribe to our podcast on Podchaser.fm and leave us a review on PODCAST CHECK OUT! and become a supporter of our merchandize! in the podcast? Subscribe and review us on PodChick or any other podcast you like what else is good in your favorite streaming platform? we are listening to us on the Podchick? and we are giving you a chance to win a discount code: of your choice? at in_ and other merchandiser will be featured on the next episode will be on my podcast is out in a new episode coming soon next week, coming soon!
00:03:22.000And, you know, like this last year, they just have to get him running, because within a mile or two, he's used up all of his calories, and there's no way he's going to survive.
00:03:30.000So when they came running through camp, crashing into my building as they go, I'm sitting there on the inside, you know, with my gun going, yeah, come through the wall, fucker, I'll get you, you know, but not until they do.
00:03:40.000And they went right past, and boom, they took him down on the end of the airstrip and ate him.
00:03:44.000So those are things that I get to experience that for an adrenaline junkie, somebody that's always pushing the limits, that's pretty skookum.
00:05:44.000And so I know something was bleeding, something was attacking something, and then I could make out as it got closer that was a bear running and the wolf pack was in the river and down.
00:05:53.000There's 22 wolves and they just tag him to keep him running.
00:06:01.000They are, they're top predators, and they're top predators for a reason, and they live in that.
00:06:08.000They genetically are predisposed to succeed.
00:06:11.000So, you know, for me as a human being, being there, yeah, I've got guns, I've got other things, but, you know, left to your own devices, I mean, we are nowhere near top predator.
00:06:21.000And they are the only predators that are that size that act in a pack.
00:06:57.000Now, for clients, in order for me to be there, as a Caucasian, I'm not allowed to own property on the North Slope, so for me to have a lifestyle there, I have to lease land from the state and have a profitable business.
00:07:09.000If the business stops being profitable, they have the right to eject me.
00:07:13.000And people say, oh, it's reverse discrimination, and you have to stop right there.
00:07:59.000But the tent that I live in, I'm not allowed a permanent structure, so I have a tent.
00:08:04.000You're not allowed a permanent structure?
00:08:06.000No, because I'm leasing the land and everything has to be mobile in case they, for whatever reason, tell you your lease is up, you need to leave.
00:08:14.000So everything either is on tracks or it's a tent that you can take down or something you're willing to throw a match on and burn.
00:08:20.000You're not allowed to have a permanent structure.
00:08:22.000That's a strange set of rules, isn't it?
00:08:24.000I mean, it seems like no house is permanent.
00:08:26.000They knock down houses all the time, and even the term permanent is kind of weird.
00:08:31.000Yeah, but Alaska still, I mean, if you want to break it down, I mean, we still have squatters' rights.
00:08:36.000We still have, you know, if you're allowed permanent structures, then perhaps you're allowing a squatters' rights situation to develop.
00:08:44.000I don't really care about the background rules.
00:08:47.000Just tell me what the rules are, and I'll meet the challenge.
00:08:57.000It's just, you know, figure your Coleman tent, maybe a little bit thicker material, and that's it.
00:09:02.000Well, it's like the bear that I got this last year.
00:09:05.000The background of that, my dog was outside in her house, and the bear came up, tore her little house out, hockey-pucked it around the pad, tried to eat her, chased after some kids that were camping.
00:10:27.000This was a bear that was probably getting closer to the end of his shelf life and was going to attack anything.
00:10:32.000When they get ready to den, it's almost a certain insanity that they reach where they're going into hibernation and all they think is, I've got to eat, I've got to get fat, I've got to eat, I've got to get fat.
00:14:04.000They put the hips in, they had to do one twice, and they took a couple of discs out, and then the insurance company said, well, we're not going to do any more work, you've got to get a lawyer.
00:16:05.000But as with anything, it's like for me, I was later, a couple of years later, working on the overhead electrics and fell straight down from 22 feet, broke both ankles and the bones in my right leg.
00:16:16.000And that's where, at the beginning of the episodes, you see that I'm having surgery and coming back to camp.
00:16:22.000I've since had a few more things that I've had to look at.
00:16:25.000You know, you beat up your body so much, and I'm not a spring chicken.
00:16:28.000I mean, I'm not the Crypt Keeper, but, you know, I'm going on 52. At some point, my body's going to say, Bitch, you want to do that, do it on your own, because I'm checking out.
00:16:38.000You know, so you must, if you're going to do this lifestyle, you must always assess, reassess, and be extremely honest with who you are, what your limitations are, and how can you work within those.
00:16:49.000It's just such a strange life to be drawn to.
00:16:52.000Not just to be isolated like that, but to be isolated in this really vulnerable way where you're in tents.
00:17:29.000People assume that because I live alone, I am antisocial.
00:17:34.000Or I'm running away from something, and that's not the case.
00:17:37.000You know, I run to a lifestyle that I enjoy, and I really enjoy being social, but I'd like to know when it's going to start and when it's going to end.
00:17:45.000I don't want to live extremely social, but I love engaging in it, and then, you know, like a hit and run, I know when to leave.
00:19:05.000So you're putting all these bones and gut piles out there while your predators are going to eat those and then their numbers are healthier.
00:19:51.000You can't just go bury your garbage or leave it in bags.
00:19:54.000I, by law, have to take all of the garbage and even human waste, separate the liquids and solids, burn everything to its lowest ash, bag it up and send it to town.
00:22:22.000There used to be a theory in the oil fields because some of those companies have a lot of money to spend.
00:22:27.000If they don't spend their whole budget, they don't get a new great big budget.
00:22:30.000So there's a theory that you don't need to be more efficient.
00:22:33.000You obviously just need a bigger gen and more power cords.
00:22:36.000So every time you plug in a power cord, you have what's called line loss.
00:22:40.000You know, and that's, I guess, one of the neatest things about the lifestyle I have is, you know, I wasn't born knowing how to do diesel mechanics, and I tell people, you know, the only thing I used to know about it is how to bake bread.
00:22:55.000I don't like electricity, but I have to learn how to do it, so, you know, you learn line loss.
00:23:01.000If you plug in, keep plugging in extension cords, you may have 100kW when you start, and you only get 80kW at your final ending point because you've lost so much of it along the way.
00:23:10.000So I improved the electrics, did more direct wiring, fell and hurt myself in the process, but got back up and did it again.
00:23:57.000Well, the government took away the analog signal and privatized it for themselves, so I knew you're going to have no communications other than a satellite phone, which is horrendously expensive.
00:24:07.000So I told the owner, I said, you need the internet out here, you know, and he says, yeah, no, at this point, you know, technology where it was then, you have to get over the curvature of the earth to clip the satellites.
00:24:18.000So he said, if you want it, you're going to pay for it.
00:24:22.000It cost $8,000 to get the dish, fly it up, get the tech, and I worked with a geologist to find the bedrock, and I bounce a signal off the bedrock, and I haven't lost signal yet.
00:26:48.000And then they also, we have a phrase, and I won't say what it is, but there is a key phrase, an if- If the kids or grandkids ever say that to me, that means drop what you're doing, get here ASAP. And how long does it take you to get to civilization?
00:27:32.000Well, today is day 13 of this major blizzard up there, and I just happened to have a window, a three-hour window, where a plane could make it in.
00:27:42.000Yeah, and we just hit it right and I got out.
00:27:45.000But the turnaround for me is when I get home, I'm calculating that Saturday I'm going to have another window.
00:27:52.000And I hope so, because that's my way to get back in.
00:27:55.000Right now, I've got a wolverine that's just been acting like a real creep around camp, trying to get into things, and so I don't know what he's doing while I'm not there.
00:28:05.000I can't afford to lose all my water and let everything freeze up in my tent, so my heat is still going.
00:28:11.000If that animal gets into my building, he's going to knock over my heater and burn my camp down.
00:28:16.000I don't know until I get there what I'm dealing with.
00:28:19.000And that might be happening right now?
00:29:25.000Wolverines, if they've ever been injured or you've ever angered them or they've ever gotten trumped on a hunt, they'll remember that like a GPS coordinate and they come back and they keep trying to attack it.
00:30:41.000I don't think, you know, it'd be like somebody, if there was a race of people that, you know, bigger than we are, and they come in, and I'm drinking my coffee, and he tags my ass.
00:31:10.000Or he's going to go in and, you know, he attacks the walls.
00:31:12.000I mean, I can only let it go so long, but I'm willing to bet that if I keep, you know, he keeps trying to come in and I keep dissuading him, sooner or later he's just going to say, wow, whatever, and leave.
00:31:39.000Well, a couple of years ago, and she is, what, 38 years old or something like that now, or she was then, but she ended up popping out a couple of babies.
00:31:47.000Now, she's the worst mother on the planet.
00:31:49.000You know, she'll let them get two miles away from her.
00:31:53.000Which, for a hiker, it's really easy to get in the middle of mama and cubs.
00:31:56.000So I try to warn people, but I was sitting up there on the roof of my, I call it the perch, and I'm watching, and here's Marty crawling up the hillside, and there's still a snowfield, and she goes, whee, and slides down.
00:32:08.000Here come the two cubs, whee, and they just all day long played, and they were so loving.
00:32:13.000So it's really, you know, it's a dichotomy.
00:32:15.000I see the aggressive side, but I also can appreciate the maternal, natural side.
00:32:21.000Yeah, and you're dealing with the same species that almost killed you.
00:32:28.000Well, you know, and even to do the lifestyle at all, and I don't care what part of the world, if you're going to go this remote and immerse yourself in their territory, you have to be comfortable with your own death.
00:32:40.000Not the same as having a death wish, but like with my kids and grandkids, we do one big meal a year, and whether it's over the Skype or whatever, I tell them, tell me three things you can't stand about me.
00:32:51.000What did I do that really pissed you off?
00:32:56.000And I do the same for them, and it's just a very honest relationship.
00:33:00.000I have accepted that I may die due to either conditions or animals out here, and I'm okay with that.
00:33:06.000That's a roll of the dice I'm willing to accept.
00:33:09.000But we each year tell each other, I love you for this, I think you're a douchebag for that, but you know what, I'm going to miss you when you go.
00:33:18.000And, you know, over my life, I have this big chest.
00:35:05.000You see people, but you cannot be guaranteed.
00:35:08.000When I see a bear and he's charging, I know he wants to attack me.
00:35:11.000You see a person walking down the street, you don't know whether he's going to pull a gun out of his pocket, shake your hand, pinch your ass, or wave goodbye.
00:37:46.000I've never held anything against her, you know, and that's the thing.
00:37:48.000I mean, when people, they hold grudges on other people or they let it affect their lives, you know, how many people are in therapy saying, when I was 10, this happened?
00:38:19.000Drama queens really wouldn't be back in Alaska after getting almost killed by a bear.
00:38:24.000Well, you know, is your life then going to be run by your fair, and where does it stop?
00:38:32.000Fair is a desperate creature that grabs as much turf as it can get.
00:38:36.000So once you start letting it run your life, you better have a good pair of sneakers, because you're going to be running the rest of your life.
00:38:51.000Do you anticipate living there for the rest of your life or would you be interested in a similarly sort of isolated but different environment?
00:40:00.000You've always run it as sort of a bed and breakfast?
00:40:02.000Yeah, the company that owned it before, I know the person that used to own it, the company, they were friends of mine, and they came looking for me.
00:40:10.000I used to have a 400-mile trap line along the Jim River and had a bunch of sled dogs, and that's how I lived for a long time.
00:42:09.000Gluten-free, diabetic, any nutrient diet, other than there's some people, there was only one group, and I don't know what they call themselves, but they will only eat something, an apple that fell to the ground.
00:42:22.000It has to commit fruticide or something, and I'm like, yeah, no, I can't do that one.
00:43:51.000Sometimes you're just going to have to put on the gear.
00:43:53.000There's been times where, you know, the wind is your biggest enemy.
00:43:56.000So as the winter goes on and you're building snow up the sides of the building, I try to let it get six, eight feet deep because that's a form of insulation.
00:44:03.000But where the wind hits your fabric, it's going to wick away the heat as quick as you can make it.
00:44:08.000So I have battery-operated fans to convect the air, and then sometimes you're just going to wear your winter gear for a week or two until the temps come up.
00:45:04.000I'm not the proud owner of a piece of equipment that's all enclosed and heated.
00:45:08.000Whatever it is outside is what I'm experiencing.
00:45:11.000So, like, for me to even get out on my two to three hour window, I had to go out there, clear it, and then sit there for an hour and a half until, boom, the plane landed.
00:45:21.000And so, Ermie, my dog, and I jumped in the plane and left.
00:45:39.000It's, in the end, a plastic product and it will, at a certain temperature, instead of keeping you warm, it's going to turn hard and then it's going to conduct the cold.
00:48:34.000Yeah, three of the major herds migrate right through camp.
00:48:37.000The Kavik River Valley is, if you go into the different geologic papers, professional papers, even in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s, the Kavik River Valley is very unique among the watersheds there.
00:48:53.000My variety of plant life is far different than it is in other ones.
00:48:56.000Well, the type of lichen that a caribou eats and moss that they eat to gain the most fat for their journey out is right in that valley.
00:49:41.000Sometime in August, I start peeling the bark off the willow.
00:49:43.000If it's easy to peel, the plant still thinks there's going to be plenty of good weather.
00:49:49.000Once it starts to really get tough and it's sucking up to the skin, well, all the sap is being reserved and that plant's getting ready for winter.
00:49:56.000It may be 80 degrees outside, but the plant is telling me to get the hell ready.
00:50:00.000So, you know, meteorologically speaking, I can get on the internet and look at the weather systems and say, oh, I think this is going to happen.
00:50:07.000But I go outside and look at my plants and my animals and I know what's going to happen.
00:50:34.000All of a sudden, like there was one year and all the bears, rather than, like they'll dig their dens into the side of the bank, and when the water starts to rise, it comes in and wakes them up, and a bear's favorite food is cub.
00:50:46.000So the boars wake up the male bears usually first, and they run around, find the other dens, and eat the cubs.
00:50:53.000But then one year, all of a sudden, the bears came up and about 3,000 foot level, 2,000 foot level started digging dens.
00:50:59.000And I'm like, I called Fish and Game, and I'm like, wow, what the hell's up with that?
00:51:03.000And nobody's ever there but me, so I'm like, dude, I see this going on, and what's happening?
00:51:08.000And they said, I don't know, but all the bears, the ones that are collared, they're all moving up.
00:51:13.000So I try to get everything set up in camp because that usually means an excessively high amount of snow, which means an excessive amount of water and flooding in the spring.
00:51:22.000So I try to get everything ready by watching what they're doing.
00:51:25.000I can set camp up differently to be protected from a flood in the spring.
00:53:36.000So the safety dude for the filmies was there with his weapon and we put the headlights all out and you'd see this bear come in and sideswipe the four-wheelers.
00:53:44.000Well, after 300 pounds of meat and harvesting the fur, I just had to say, it's time for me to back off.
00:53:53.000The bear can munch on this, which will buy me the time to get away.
00:53:56.000It's weird that bears are such cannibals.
00:54:12.000I don't know what started that with bears, but it's a sure bet.
00:54:17.000In an area where the caribou may not have migrated out early enough, and when the bears wake up, they're fairly sluggish, they walk around like drunkards, their muscles are atrophied, and there's not a lot of food.
00:54:27.000But it's a sure bet that the mothers with cubs tend to wake up later, so they just go in, dig it out, and it's an opportunity for food.
00:54:36.000Still, it's just so crazy that an animal would almost instinctively and naturally cannibalize.
00:56:18.000When I was in Alberta, the camp that I was at, the guy who was there, this guy John, his son, saw a bear kill the cub, attack this female, kill the cub, and then ate half of it,
00:56:35.000left, and the female came back and ate the rest of her cub.
00:56:50.000It was crazy watching these, like, ultimate fighting championship of bears.
00:56:55.000They just started going to battle because the male kept trying to come into camp, and the female would send her cubs up the tree and try to chase off the male, and he would deal with it for a little bit, and then he would come back in, and then they would start fighting, and they were standing on two legs and going at it.
00:57:10.000It's amazing to see even the wolves or the wolverines Now, you know, I've seen a wolverine.
00:57:17.000Now, when I say wolverine, yeah, they're like a badger.
00:57:20.000Mine are about three and a half, four foot at the shoulders, 120 pounds.
00:57:24.000But I've seen them take on grizzlies and come out on top.
00:57:29.000Yeah, so the wolverine's up by me, and even the wolves, they're considered to have, they call it a throwback to the Mackenzie River breed, and they're averaging about 200-250 pounds.
00:58:10.000They adjust their pack size according to how much food there is and opportunity there is.
00:58:16.000Well, there is enough by me that they've actually, they never split the pack.
00:58:20.000They're still, and I used to say 21, and then the people that do the air censuses, you know, he called in and he says, hey Sue, it's Andy here, you know, you always say 21 wolves, and I'm like, yeah, so what is it, 18?
00:58:31.000It looks like 21 to me, and he says, no, 22 plus pups.
00:58:36.000And he says, yeah, they've actually dug a permanent den now, which is unusual.
00:58:40.000They follow their food source, so to dig a permanent den shows me that my ecosystem is changing enough that the wolves feel they can stake a territory and stay there.
00:58:52.000It's not just everything migrates out, you follow it, it comes back in, you follow it.
00:58:55.000They feel that there is now a good enough food source that they can stay year-round in one place.
00:59:00.000Besides the time where they chased the bear and the bear brushed up against the tents and they took him out, how close did they get to you?
00:59:33.000So I go to reach the gun, and he just slipped down and ran.
00:59:37.000So he kind of had a feeling that you were going to shoot him?
00:59:41.000Yeah, he just needed to get the hell out.
00:59:43.000You were making a move that was probably a bad thing for him.
00:59:45.000Yeah, I was doing a shady move, so he needed to get out, but I don't know how long he was back there, and he certainly could have chewed me up, but he was as curious about me as I was about him.
00:59:54.000And it seems like if they're making a den and having, they probably have a steady supply of food.
01:00:08.000But I'm not a city, I'm an individual.
01:00:11.000But like when my granddaughter, when she first came up there to visit, and she was six, five or six, and every time she got more than ten foot away, here out of the riverbank, the big gray wolf would start slinking.
01:00:21.000So I had to tie a rope from her to me, and she couldn't get more than ten foot away.
01:00:25.000Which frustrated her, so I took her for a walk down to the old fox den, where the little babies were, and all the little bodies are there, and bones are there, and the wolf had gotten in and eaten them.
01:00:35.000And she was all bummed out, and I turned her around to walk.
01:00:38.000Now we had not even two minutes there, and here's a wolf track about this big, and I have a picture of her hand next to it, and it was right in her footprint.
01:00:45.000And I said, okay, and she says, he is stalking me.
01:01:10.000And then like my grandson this year, he came up and for the first time he got to take down a couple of caribou and feed his family.
01:01:16.000You know, I helped him prepare the meat, and he took it back down south.
01:01:19.000So, my granddaughter, though, you know, that's the difference in, I have to celebrate who she is, not who I am, when I'm with her.
01:01:26.000And after her first year there, you know, I asked her as I was bringing her home, I said, so are you going to come up and visit, you know, Nathan, my grandson, he's all booyah about coming back.
01:01:35.000And I said, so do you want to come back up and see Grandma?
01:01:38.000And she said, well, Grandma, you know I love you, right?
01:01:41.000And I'm like, Yeah, and she says, but I'm going to go visit Uncle Jesse and Aunt Megan, because they do mani-pedis and they like to shop.
01:01:52.000Anything sparkly, shiny, and pink is on her hit list.
01:01:55.000So, I told her, I said, well, okay, you can't bum out at your brother when he gets to come up, but when I do take a break, I'll hook you up, we'll go to Laughlin, and we'll go get big-ass sunglasses, drink virgin Mai Tais, and go shopping for dresses and get mani-pedis.
01:02:11.000So I have to celebrate who she is, not necessarily who I am or who I think she should be.
01:03:43.000Now, how the hell did they find you for this TV show?
01:03:47.000The creator of this show also created another show called Flying Wild Alaska, and I used those pilots to fly for me, and so I appeared on a couple of those episodes.
01:03:58.000Sarah Palin also did a show, and she came out there to hunt.
01:04:02.000And now I already had a family out there at the time.
01:04:05.000It was very early in the hunting season, not a lot of animals around, so I flung her in a little plane further out because I had an 8 and a 10 year old girl that were hunting for the first time out there.
01:04:15.000But they had seen me do these other shows, so when he created the Life Below Zero concept, He called and he says, I've got this idea.
01:04:36.000I mean, if we swear and go psycho, I mean, that shows it on TV. If we pooch it and don't stock enough of something, well, it's going to show that.
01:04:48.000So anyways, they did the sizzle reel and asked me and I said, alright, as long as you don't ever ask me to do something stupid, you know?
01:04:54.000Did you have any reservations about exposing yourself like this?
01:04:59.000About putting yourself on television and about showing this lifestyle?
01:05:04.000I don't have any reservations about showing what I do.
01:05:07.000There are some things, you know, privacy is privacy, and I do expect a certain amount of it, and I'm certainly, I treasure my alone time, so I can sometimes get an attitude about sharing that.
01:05:20.000You know, for me, doing the show and the premise that it does it on, one of the cool things for me is, you know, sooner or later my number's gonna be up.
01:05:29.000You know, I've looked all over, there's no expiration date I can find, I just simply know what's coming.
01:05:34.000Now, I may not ever get to meet my great-grandchildren, but if they want to know who I was, pop in a DVD, they see who I really was, not who they thought I was.
01:05:43.000So, that's a pretty cool trade-off for me.
01:05:46.000Occasionally, there is some unique territory that comes with Being in a social setting, there are...
01:05:55.000Go to some of these sites and, you know, I've had people send me emails, why don't you just die?
01:06:03.000Well, whenever people have access, just any kind of access to people, there's going to be a certain amount of shitheads that are going to do things like that.
01:06:09.000For me, there's far more people that are positive, curious...
01:06:14.000And it's cool to touch this kind of a lifestyle.
01:06:17.000You know, some people romanticize the Grizzly Adams thing and this is a way for them to experience it without having to actually outrun a bear.
01:06:27.000Yeah, that's how I feel about that show.
01:06:29.000I don't have a desire to live a subsistence lifestyle, but I really enjoy watching all these guys do it, and you do it.
01:06:37.000But you're very different than anybody else on the show, because everybody else on the show, they live in a place where there's woods, and they have a house, and like I said, you're the gangster of the gangsters.
01:07:12.000It's called Happy People, Life on the Taiga, A Year in the Taiga, the Taiga River in Siberia, and it's about these guys who are just hunters and trappers, and they live this subsistence lifestyle in Siberia, and they're incredibly happy.
01:07:27.000They're always joking around and smiling and laughing.
01:07:30.000And that's one thing, maybe on the series you don't get to see, I'm a really big goofball, and I laugh a lot, and I dance a lot, and I... But you do it by yourself, though.
01:08:08.000It's like me, you know, for the hunting sequence because, you know, for me, any of us when we go out hunting and there's a camera right behind you, you know, the very first episodes were learning experiences for us all.
01:08:19.000You know, I'm out there trying to get the ptarmigan.
01:08:21.000And they're all flying away, flying away, and I'm, you know, bitches, you know, what the hell are they doing?
01:08:26.000Well, I turn around, here's a six-foot-something guy in a bright blue outfit going, dude, there are no six-foot blueberries in the winter out here.
01:08:32.000Can you fucking get it down, you know?
01:08:36.000But so for the hunting sequence, me and my hilarity, you know, I went and got Cornish game hens, and, you know, what kind of a trail do they leave?
01:08:47.000So I did this whole hilarious sequence of, you know, hunting the Cornish hens.
01:08:52.000But, you know, all of us have a unique set of challenges.
01:08:56.000Part of the challenge is still being in love with your lifestyle at the end of the day.
01:09:02.000I think the cure to this sort of aimless life that a lot of people find themselves in when they're stuck in a cubicle, they're working for a company, the end of the day, they just go to sleep, they get up again, they have to do it all over again.
01:09:13.000It doesn't feel like they're connected to what they're doing, or it doesn't feel like they have a passion for what they're doing, and then they see people that are living the subsistence lifestyle, and it has this romantic quality to it, this sort of throwback.
01:09:28.000Both people are going to have to go out and work.
01:09:30.000They're going to have to work a lot of hours, they're not raising their own children, and they're eking out enough money just to pay the electric and the water and do it all over again.
01:09:40.000Are you living life or are you just getting through it?
01:09:43.000And is that the fault of the government?
01:09:45.000Is that the, you know, I mean, are you over-governed?
01:09:49.000Where's the profit margin on the companies gonna fall down short enough so that the money a family makes, you get your two weeks vacation and you go play in the woods with your kids?
01:10:08.000Yeah, I think the over-competitive nature of a lot of people has led us to all agree to this really ridiculous life where you're working 50 plus hours a week and you don't really have a life outside of work.
01:10:22.000Well, I can't imagine having to set my alarm clock and punch a clock for somebody else anymore.
01:12:49.000What are you, like a.44 Magnum or something?
01:12:51.000Well, I've got a couple of.44 Mags, some have shorter barrels, some have longer barrels, and I just got a.454 pistol, so with a chest harness, there's something I'm going to be doing here in the near future where I felt I needed something a little bigger, a little closer to the chest, because I'm going to need hands-free.
01:13:14.000Do you anticipate, like, do you have a plan of, like, how long you want to stay in this place or are you just merely, like, by your feelings?
01:13:27.000You know, when I, like I say, Raven personality, there may be something awesome that I find out about or I see or I want to do or maybe I want to go gold panning for a while.
01:13:38.000My vision is my own, not anybody else's.
01:13:41.000But because I am only there through the grace of having a lease with the state and a profitable business, If that turns around, or the state, or anybody else says, look, there's been a land swap.
01:15:59.000You know, if somebody dropped a pop can on the tundra and I don't know about it, in an 80, 100 mile an hour breeze, that's going to become a missile that might take out my tent.
01:16:07.000So I have to have several places, another tent that I can go to and live in.
01:16:10.000That gets taken out, a trailer that I can live in.
01:16:12.000And you also have to be able to get to those tents, so you have to be able to make a path.
01:17:32.000Yeah, there was one that showed up this year.
01:17:36.000And actually, for a couple of years, I've been trying to set up, you know, and it was, you know, bringing the family out to hunt, whatever.
01:17:42.000And then it was like, ah, they can't make it.
01:20:30.000I mean, it probably wouldn't happen, but, you know, have you thought about doing your own version or another show that just kind of entirely focuses on you?
01:20:40.000You know, that's not something I would think about.
01:20:43.000That would be something that a network might present.
01:20:46.000They must be, like, looking at you and realizing that this is this incredible personality that's attached to...
01:20:51.000I know you probably don't like to think about yourself that way, but...