Bruce McGlenn Hunting for What We Lost

Joel 00:00:02.000 - 00:01:29.260 Bruce McGlen is the founder and leading structure it. Leading. Sorry, I'm gonna start that again. Bruce McGlynn is the founder of and lead instructor at Human Nature Hunting, a program designed to awaken our innate senses through conscious hunting and gathering by tapping into the fundamental wisdom of our ancestors and building the foundational skills and confidence to think and live like a hunter. It emphasizes our relationship to the earth, our ecosystem, our food, and life and death. It is an exploration of our primal past and what it means to be human. And it's an invitation to step out of our comfort zone and to be open to seeing things from a new perspective. Bruce has 40 years of hunting experience in the Pacific Northwest, passed down from his father, who learned from his father. Hunting has been a way of life for him from the beginning, and he sees as much importance in the experiences and personal growth gained from hunting as he does as a healthy source of food and connection to nature. He's a certified master hunter and shooting instructor, a committed steward of the land and wildlife, primarily due to his understanding and appreciation of our ecosystem from engaging in it as a participant. A hunter, his desire to help heal and strengthen the human nature connection is what inspires him to teach and pass on his skills and so others can experience the journey of the hunt with confidence and a renewed sense of connection to place. Bruce, welcome to Here for the Truth. Bruce 00:01:30.060 - 00:01:33.820 Thank you, Joel. Good. Nice to meet you and good to see you again. Your assimilation. Yerasimos 00:01:34.140 - 00:02:08.960 Yeah. For our listeners. I just want to start this off by saying that this past June, I had the pleasure and the honor of spending four or five days with Bruce and his team and several other members of the Awakened, the hunter cohort that you teach this class in in Washington, which is a pretty amazing holistic course on hunting that, that Bruce leads. And it was definitely super impactful. I'm sure we'll get into it. But yeah, really excited to have you here and, and hear more of your story and get into this topic more deeply. Joel 00:02:09.120 - 00:02:11.200 Yeah, yeah. Bruce 00:02:11.200 - 00:02:42.810 I mean, hunting is such a fascinating topic. On the surface, it's like, ah, just a bunch of rednecks out chasing animals and drinking beer or whatever. But the other side of that is that that covers such a broad spectrum of thoughts and beliefs and history, and you name it, and it's. I always enjoy an opportunity to kind of dig a little deeper into these topics because I think it deserves a little bit more of a. A look than what, you know, the surface level gives it. Joel 00:02:43.380 - 00:02:44.180 Yeah, absolutely. Yerasimos 00:02:44.180 - 00:02:44.460 I'll. Joel 00:02:44.460 - 00:03:10.910 I'll come in and say, I've got little to no hunting experience, but definitely excited about the connections that can be bridged here in this conversation. Man. One way we always like to kick these off is we want to kind of really dig deep into your personal hero's journey, like how you came along this path and some of the major rites of passage that have catalyzed your ongoing transformation in terms of your relationship to hunting and, you know, your growth, etc. So where does that, where does the story begin for Bruce basically? Bruce 00:03:12.590 - 00:08:09.170 Well, I was born actually. I mean, my first memory of hunting and almost anything was when I was 3 years old on my dad's shoulders. We were hunting pheasants in the Columbia Basin in central Washington. And I partly remember that because we had a little voice recorder. My older brother and sister and I would interview each other and they interviewed me after I got home from this hunt. And I told this story of riding on his shoulders and a rooster flushing and him shooting and I'm holding on to his hair, you know, try not to fall off. And no, no ear protection, no seat belts, no nothing back then. And, and it left quite an impression. And I mean hunting, we were hunting seasons are fairly short, you know, in the, in the year. So it's not like we're doing this all year long and that we were never, never really fanatics about it, but it was just something we did. My dad grew up hunting. He taught us to hunt. For some reason, it stuck with me a little bit more. He and I went on many one day hunting trips in the fall over the years growing up. I started hunting on my own when I was 9 and went to University of Washington, got a civil engineering degree. You know, I was kind of getting into the mainstream workforce and, and I, I went to work at an engineering firm and it was doing good work, doing structural design on high rises and working with good people and. But I kept thinking about, you know, getting back to the land and the feelings I was having when I was on the land and, and we were going back to Montana more and more in those years, this is probably 20 years ago now, where my dad was from. And, and we would, a typical trip, we would pack, we'd drive to the end of the road, pack our gear or sledded in about four miles up into the mountains to about 8,000ft, set up camp, a wall tent and a wood stove and our cooking gear and living essentials and hunting gear and we just hunt for two weeks. And part of that was, was the, the challenge of being off grid and just immersed in nature. But along, you know, during those hunts, I, I realized there was something very unique happening. You know, just, it was, it was requiring me to really step out of the domesticated life and into a more wild life and, and tap into my innate senses and intuition and, you know, just really paying attention to what was going around me and, and feeling very grounded and, and this was all, you know, whether or not I shot something. I mean, the 99.9% of a two week hunting trip like this is just being out there and hunting. And of course, when you shoot something or someone in your party shoots something, it's a bonus. You get some good, you know, meat for the freezer. But the act of hunting, I realized was just this totally different, unique experience that I wasn't getting anywhere else in my daily or professional life. And I thought if I could, if I could figure out a way to bottle and share this, I think it would be valuable for people on all levels, you know, to, to think and feel and act like a hunter. And. But it, it's, it's not that easy. And so I eventually came around to the idea of, you know, training people to get out and have these experiences because I felt it was so valuable and, and I mean, just maybe to add on to that a little bit over, along the years of these hunts, you know, after I started the hunting program, I was out on another hunt. I think it was right around the pandemic year and we had a smaller group with us that year and I was out. I mean, I always go into the backcountry with people I trust and can count on and enjoy being with. And I like to wander off by myself during the day and hunt. It's just easier. You can, you can follow your gut, you can stop, you can take a turn this way or that way, sort of choose your own adventure. You don't have to sit there and, you know, debate it with somebody else on what to do. You just, you just go and you just follow your instinct, truly and purely. And I was hunting and I, it just kind of hit me like whatever, whatever it is I'm doing right now, I just feel totally human and totally alive and whatever I can do to serve this feeling, you know, I think is a, a good use of my time and energy and you know, so I just, it felt like was on the right track in terms of trying to give people this opportunity to have these experiences. Yerasimos 00:08:09.810 - 00:08:34.810 Yeah, it's amazing. What did you learn, like from your grandfather and your father that like, has helped guide you? You know, obviously there's like the act of the hunt. But, like, you know, you. You talk about it from such a. Like a deep, primal way, in a philosophical kind of way about you. Like, how were you? How did your father and grandfather approach hunting? Was it in a similar way? Where are you guys similar? Where maybe are you different? Bruce 00:08:36.810 - 00:10:38.130 Well, I unfortunately never had a chance to meet my grandfather. He instilled these things in my father, who taught me. That's a good question, I think. You know, I. I really appreciate my dad's approach to teaching me all about this, because it was never about, we got to get our limits, we gotta maximize this. We gotta stay out until the bitter end. You know, it was. It was about the adventure and it was about little things along the way and what we were finding. No, he told he one day we stopped and he showed me what an owl pellet was, which is, if you know what that is. It's an owl eats a mouse and then digests it and regurgitates a little pellet with a bunch of bones and hair that they can't digest, and it drops under the tree where they've been roosting, you know, or feeding. And, you know, it's just like a little science lesson. And it wasn't. Had nothing to do with the hunt, but it was. It was this kind of stuff all the time. And it was. It was just about being out there and. And he gave me a lot of freedom to explore and can imagine, you know, me being nine years old and walking around with my own shotgun. That's a lot of responsibility and it's a lot of trust, I guess, on his part, that he's done what he needs to so that I'm safe. And so, yeah, I think, I think I really appreciated his approach. I mean, it was the same with salmon fishing and other things, or just. It was always an enjoyable experience. And it was never about the harvest or, you know, maximizing our limit or whatever. And yeah, and like I said, for some reason, it. It took a little bit more deeper with me than it did my brother and sister, who also have done some hunting. Yeah, but whether that's a genetic thing or who knows what is. Joel 00:10:38.130 - 00:10:50.710 What are some of the through lines that you've discovered when it comes to like, I guess, a hunting as a microsm for life or the way that you live life, like, what are some of the lessons that translate universally to how you lead your life? Bruce 00:10:52.230 - 00:12:40.450 Well, my, My wife and I talk a little bit about this at times. The difference between hunting and gathering and, you know, Just as a side note, we can talk about this later. My wife Sarah was a vegetarian for 12 years when we met, which was an interesting story. And she's since has started hunting with me and needing wild meat and, and, but that's another story. But the, the difference between hunting and gathering, I think metaphorically sometimes I think, see, gathering is like gathering information, researching, you know, trying to make a decision and researching all the options and until, until you're confused at everything out there and don't know which, you know, up from down and versus hunting. In my experience of being out there, it's just more of kind of letting go of everything and just having a plan and being prepared, but striking out into the unknown with sort of a, an objective, but not, not a, A, a very strict objective and just feeling my way and letting my intuition guide me and, and my curiosity, you know, I feel like there's something down there in that draw. I'm going to go down there. Even though it doesn't make sense. I'm going to go down there and check it out and what do I have to lose? And, and hunting is such a great testing ground for that, especially if you're out on your own, there's nobody watching you or judging you. And so it's a way to practice just being grounded, present and kind of letting your intuition guide you through life. And it is a practice. Yerasimos 00:12:41.490 - 00:12:55.650 Yeah. When were you first like in the back country alone and wandering? Were you nine men? Like, were you just completely like let off to go on your own with a shotgun in hand and nobody else in sight? Or was it. What did that come later on? Bruce 00:12:57.450 - 00:14:16.880 Well, I think, I don't know back then. I think now there are probably laws about not letting youth hunt on their own. There, There were a few times when I like one in particular when I was nine and we were bird hunting and staying at a friend's place and my dad had forgotten something back at the, where we stayed. I think his shotgun, I had mine. So he dropped me off at a stubble field with our Black Lab Charlie and, and he took off and came back in a couple hours because it was a bit of a drive and I was just out there, you know, I shot a few birds and working with a dog. And so there was, there was some of that. But it wasn't until, you know, I think it wasn't until later that we got into these more in depth backcountry trips that required, you know, a lot more, oh, a lot more horsepower I guess to get in there and, and Survive and, and do well. So there was. To answer your question, there was a lot of hunting together as I was young. It was probably later in teenage years, you know, that I was doing stuff on my own. Yeah. Joel 00:14:18.000 - 00:14:42.960 Do you feel like. How do you feel like having hunting as a shared experience either impacted or enhanced even your relationship with your father? You know, because I think we live in a world now where many sons, you feel kind of lost and didn't have many real visceral shared experiences with dad, so to speak. Like, how do you relate to father as a result of him guiding you through hunting? Bruce 00:14:44.480 - 00:16:25.460 Oh, it kind of goes back to that. You know, what I was saying earlier about his approach to teaching this, and I think because of his approach and, you know, his way of just dealing with the world, it was easy for us to get out there and, and work together. And over the years and hunts, you know, we kind of learned to communicate without having to talk so much. We just, we learned each other's patterns and ways of moving and, you know, we might. And we might have done a dozen one day or weekend bird hunts in a season which is part of October through to the end of the year, you know, a couple, three months. So it's a lot of trips. And it was just, we. We wrap up the week, throw our gear together, get a few hours of sleep Friday night and leave at 3am in the morning to drive over the pass and get first light. And so it's a lot of time together just philosophizing and. But it, you know, just the time together, I think was special. And it wasn't like so structured. It was just being together, being in nature, helping each other, learning from each other, supporting each other. And I think it was a pretty unique opportunity, you know, compared to some of my other friends. Yeah. Yerasimos 00:16:25.780 - 00:16:57.530 How's your daughter? Like, I know she's growing up a little bit and she's still young, but I think it was in a recent, either on Instagram or on one of your newsletters where like, you know, she's there, she's with the animals, you know, that you're either hunting or, or in the, in the, the course that you do, like, what are you noticing is like coming up within her in terms of her curiosity and, and, and maybe some of the questions that she asks. I mean, I don't know how her language is right now, but like, what do you, what are you sensing from that? Bruce 00:17:00.570 - 00:17:05.690 And I'm, I'm also noticing my makeshift studio here. The sun all of a sudden came out. Yerasimos 00:17:12.410 - 00:17:13.050 He broke. Joel 00:17:20.979 - 00:17:21.379 Awesome. Bruce 00:17:22.019 - 00:17:25.059 Yeah. Ah, shoot. Joel 00:17:25.059 - 00:17:25.379 That's. Yerasimos 00:17:25.379 - 00:17:25.659 All right. Joel 00:17:25.659 - 00:17:25.939 Just. Yerasimos 00:17:26.179 - 00:17:27.459 Can I just continue from there? Bruce 00:17:28.499 - 00:17:32.339 I wonder if I should move this mirror. Can we pause for a second? Sure, sure, sure. Yerasimos 00:17:33.619 - 00:18:00.560 Wait. A little bit of a technical. Yeah, good, good. A little technical snafu there. But the question that I'd asked, which you may still remember, but just like your daughter, your young daughter's experience with this. I know you had your experiences with your father, but now your daughter's young and she's obviously around you. You know, you're teaching this class. She's around an. Are, you know, that are being killed. Like, what. What. What's her. Yeah. Experience of that? And how do you approach that with her? Because how old is she now? Bruce 00:18:01.840 - 00:19:26.820 Two, two and a half. Okay, so she had a lot of exposure, primarily due to running these courses. And we, you know, as, you know, we would work with a real animal and dispatch a. A goat, in your case, and worked on field dressing and skinning and butchering it. And she often would wander up and see what was going on and touch the thing and. And we just told her from day one, like, she asked what it is. This is a dead goat, you know, and. And we're going to eat this later. And it was. Was really no big deal. I mean, and she, she, you know, it just came to. It was just normal, I guess, um, as opposed to, say, like, sheltering kids early on and. And well into growing up. Like, death is a bad thing, and we don't want you to see this, and we don't want you to know that this animal is dying so that you can eat it when it turns up in the grocery store wrapped in plastic. And. And then years later, kind of having this realization that's probably why people turn to vegetarianism, because they think it's rule and unusual and it kind of is in the commercial arena, but. But it's been. Yeah, it's been fascinating to see just from day one, you know, like, what's normal. And. And it's probably similar to what happens with kids that grow up on farms and see this all the time, but there's. Yerasimos 00:19:28.180 - 00:19:49.330 Yeah, it was impactful for me, even just witnessing it just being there. And then, like, you know, we dragged the goat to the place where we were going to feel dressed, and then just to see her come there and, like, kind of hold the. Like to grab the goats, like, hoof while the work was happening. Like, was. It, like, made a mark on me because it's not something you normally see, or at least I, I don't Normally, see. Bruce 00:19:51.250 - 00:21:43.300 Yeah, Yeah. I think, you know, when I think about my upbringing and having grown up in Bellevue, suburb of Seattle, which is not known for its hunters, you know, and going to a school, there might have been a couple of other hunters in the school of, you know, several hundred, maybe close to a thousand students. And a lot of kids would kind of tease me about being Bambi killer because that was their experience of, you know, hunting Disney's Bambi, where the hunter was the antagonist and they didn't know anything else about it. And, and so it's not only that. I mean, the, the whole, the premise of the story was it was not hunting. It was. It was illegal poaching because you can't hunt at the time of year that this story was happening. So it was just totally all thrown out. But. And then, you know, this kind of gets into a bigger picture of where, you know, why are things like this and how did it change? And after, you know, 2 million years of humans and our ancestors hunting and gathering and living on the land, and then in the last five or 10,000 years, you know, agriculture has cropped up and, and then recently the Industrial revolution and just all this extraction of pulling people out of these processes and. And, you know, I've. I've talked to a few archaeologists over the years and they have kind of a similar sentiment. Like the end of the hunter gatherer era was sort of like the beginning of the end of a good life. Getting off kind of on a tangent there, but. Yerasimos 00:21:43.860 - 00:21:46.100 Well, can you talk about that more like, what you mean by that? Bruce 00:21:48.420 - 00:22:54.270 Well, I mean, there's been some studies on how much like free time or leisurely time that hunters and gatherers have. There are still some people that are living more off the land like that, and they're not, you know, they're not spending 48 hours a week or more making money so they can pay a mortgage and buy groceries. They're, you know, they're spending like half that much time to secure what they need for food and shelter, and then they've got the other half to be with their family or, you know, make music or art or whatever. So it's, you know, we've. We've kind of cornered ourselves, I think, a little bit into this new paradigm of having to be inserted there, you know, part of the matrix or whatever a worker be, rather than just experiencing that freedom that we had. Joel 00:22:56.270 - 00:23:24.710 Yeah. How do you think, if you can extrapolate on it, that, like the disconnection from nature that we've experienced since, like, the industrial Revolution, factory farming, et cetera. How do you think that has led to kind of, I guess, the psychological degradation of man? Because, I mean, things seem so complex to be happening in one's head today. You know, it's like a lot more complex. Whereas it seems as though there was a simplicity to how we used to relate to ourselves and our lives previously. Bruce 00:23:27.030 - 00:25:28.600 Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's tough. I mean, it kind of begs the question, like, what do we have to gain from hunting? Or the, the flip side of that coin is what do we have to lose if hunting goes away? And that's not an easy question to answer. You know, Aldo Leopold, who's a, you know, he's a conservationist and ecologist, he talked about this idea of intelligent tinkering. He said, you know, the first sign of intelligent tinkering is that you don't pull out a piece and throw it away just because you feel like you don't understand that piece or you don't like it. Now, if, if the whole is good, the parts that make up the whole must contribute to that wholeness and that goodness. And, and in a way, I think hunting is a piece that's been pulled out and almost thrown away. And we have to ask ourselves, like, what's going on here? You know, what, what is it about the possibility of hunting that might connect us to the land, to our food, to the ecosystem that has been happening for eons? And if we just pull that out suddenly and, and shift gears without really evolving over a long period of time, what does that mean? And I, a lot of people that come to the course are just, they're kind of feeling burnt out. They're, they're talking about, you know, I sit in front of a computer all day and I punch my time and I get money transferred to me digitally, which then gets used to buy groceries and pay for housing and, and I don't feel like I'm providing. I mean, I'm providing money, but I'm not like providing. And I think that's partly what's missing. You know, just this, this feeling, this act of being engaged in the bigger, broader ecosystem and, you know, going out and bringing home the bacon. More or less. Joel 00:25:29.880 - 00:26:04.920 Yeah, yeah, it's, it's almost like in this, you know, this hyper digitized world, even though, you know, obviously we, we provide with our minds, with our labor, with our work, with ideas, et cetera, maybe there's a primal disconnect, you know, in terms of, within us, like in terms of the way that we've provided for, like you're saying, millions of years. Which man is kind of now disconnected from what are some of the other, like, before and after, I guess, experiences of the people that take the courses that, that you've noticed? Bruce 00:26:07.560 - 00:29:29.750 Well, we get, you know, get a lot of messages and notes and follow up messages from folks that have actually gone out and hunted and you know, from really across the board. I mean, so for example, one guy started hunting after the course and showed up at a trail head that he had done a little research on, you know, looked at maps and ended up meeting another hunter there. And they got to talking and kind of hit it off and they planned some more hunts together and became good friends. And then he was living in California and working in apparel of some sort, like, you know, clothing design or something. And, and there was like one job in Montana that fit the bill for what he did. And he, he called the company because he kind of wanted to move to Montana. And he had an interview with someone there and who was also a hunter. And when they realized they were both hunters, they talked for two hours about hunting and never really talked about the job. But in this day, he got the job, moved to Montana, and he said this. None of this would have happened had I not started hunting. You know, I just. It's just these weird little tangents and things that pop up. And you know, other people write in and say that they've just kind of built on the foundation that we provided and, and had some really amazing hunts and wanted to share their successes with us and, you know, experiences with our families. I think some people also come to the course not having an intention to go hunting. And we try to, you know, we try to design it in a way that if that's the case, you know, that's with. There's still value in the experience of these five days, of course, because they get to kind of understand what hunting is all about, where their food comes from, and kind of see things from a different perspective. And like, an example would be this. Also this past year a fellow signed up and you know, he was saying, you know, could my, Would it be okay if my wife came out and just like had meals with us and she would go off and journal during the day or do some nature walks and it's like, yeah, we don't do that very often, but we'll figure it out, you know, and, and anyway, she showed it up, sat with us for the opening introduction and sort of a guided imagery and meditation. And she's like, what are what Are we doing meditating at a hunting school? You know, this doesn't make any sense. And long story short, she ended up attending the entire course with us. And she had had a, you know, a fear of blood and guts. She had a fear of guns and firearms. And she overcame all that stuff and had her hands in the animal and was shooting and, and went home and wrote a 20 page paper about her transformative experience of, you know, just doing this stuff. So it's, that's those sorts of things that we're trying to tap into. You know, it's just like, what, what do we not even know we're missing here? And, and why is it important that we kind of hold on to this way of life? Yerasimos 00:29:30.230 - 00:30:49.300 Yeah, well, I think, you know, people can come into it with preconceived notions, like you said, you know, people think of hunting, they go, oh, you know, some redneck that like, is just getting, killing animals for their trophies to put on, to put on their, on their walls, you know, and yet it is something so much deeper. And, you know, I've shared this when I wrote an article for our blog, you know, this past year. I, I share that, obviously, meeting you, but many years ago, I went to a hunter's education course in Vermont because I was part of this like New York City paleo meetup, like 15 years ago. And then we went to Vermont to like, take a hunting course. And anyways, and that the hunter that I met there was just so deep and so present and so grounded. And I feel that way about you. And so I literally said, like, I feel like two of the most people, two of the, like, most present, grounded humans that I feel like are just right there with you when you're with them were hunters. You know, it's not someone like, going to Bali on their little bougie, like, meditation retreat, you know, to practice yoga, you know. Again, I don't want to knock that, but like, like what, what kind of person do you become when you are so deeply connected to nature and the elements and silence. Bruce 00:30:50.340 - 00:31:03.100 I'm sorry, my connection paused again. Darn it. I. You know, since we're having a snafu again, let me close a couple of other windows, see if that helps. Okay. Yerasimos 00:31:04.140 - 00:31:06.620 You missed the best part. I was complimenting you the whole time, Bruce. Bruce 00:31:08.700 - 00:31:11.020 Something about Bali, all I heard was Bali. Yerasimos 00:31:11.020 - 00:31:12.700 Well, what I was saying, it was. Joel 00:31:12.700 - 00:31:14.460 Asking how long your boot trip was. Bruce 00:31:15.340 - 00:31:16.060 What did you say? Yerasimos 00:31:16.300 - 00:31:21.620 You're a boot trip? No. Let me know if you can. If you can hear me, hold on, let me Close. Bruce 00:31:21.620 - 00:31:26.820 Let me close. Close these windows here. I had some too many things open. Yerasimos 00:31:26.820 - 00:31:32.220 I guess the pros and cons of intervening. Hunter, you know, sometimes the Internet just might not be as good. Bruce 00:31:36.380 - 00:31:43.940 Yeah, I'm not, I'm not up on all the technology here. I don't want to close the Zoom window. You just need your. Yerasimos 00:31:43.940 - 00:31:45.620 Your portable Starlink and you're good to go. Bruce 00:31:45.620 - 00:32:07.730 Bruce. Yeah, I actually like having conversations while walking through the woods, but I figured I'd spare you guys. That might have been cool. I don't need to. Do I need to keep the. I have zoom window open? I don't need to keep the browser that opened up to open Zoom, do I? Yerasimos 00:32:08.450 - 00:32:09.090 No, I don't. Bruce 00:32:09.170 - 00:32:20.860 See if I can close that. Okay. I think we're down to just zoom now, so maybe that'll. Yerasimos 00:32:21.180 - 00:33:39.040 All right, cool. Let's see. Let's see what happens. So what I was, what I was saying is that obviously meeting you and connecting with you and like, having our late night conversations and, and, and, you know, being around someone who I consider so deep and so present and so grounded, I was sharing how, you know, many years ago, 15 years ago, I was part of the New York City Paleo meetup group. And as one of our excursions, we went up to, like, Vermont to do, like, a hunter's education course. And here is someone who was also probably a second or third or who knows, fourth generation hunter. And I just, like, remember this guy being so deep and so present and so grounded. And something I'd shared in an article that I wrote for a blog was like, you know, two of the most present, grounded. There, like, people that are there with you, that I've met in my life are hunters. You know, they're not the people that are going to like, the Bougie Bali retreat to meditate. Not that I want to knock that, but there's just something that comes from your life being, like, living in the silence and the quiet and nature and connecting with yourself and with the environment in a way that most people don't. And so, like, it can't not affect you, you know, it can't. It can't not make you into someone that is, like, I don't know, like, just deep, you know, I don't know how else to explain it. So if you want to comment on that, feel free. Bruce 00:33:40.160 - 00:37:10.480 Yeah, it's probably not the same for everyone. And that's why hunting, I think, still gets a little bit of a bad name, because there are people out there that are just, you know, they're not going that deep. They're just using it as a way to prove something or, you know, make a statement or whatever. But I think the, the people that are approaching it, you know, truly and genuinely are experiencing exactly what you're saying, you know, and it might take time to really get into that level, but that's, that gets back to the whole point of why I'm doing this, you know, why I stepped out of a somewhat secure, you know, corporate engineering job to start a hunting school to try to help people have these experiences because I felt it was so important and so critical to the well being of our society and existence. You know, if the, if the economy crashes, it's going to suck, but if the ecosystem crashes, it's all over, you know, and, and so I think that connection to nature, to land, you know, has really been stripped away recently. And it's not like, you know, it's just, it's just an, a side effect of hunting that I feel so connected to the land that I want to be a good steward of it. I feel like it's my home and it's, you know, and, and I think, you know, my, like I said my wife was a vegetarian and she's been a long time vipassana meditator. And I would joke with her like, oh, hunting is kind of like a walking meditation. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I, you know, I've sat for 10 days in silence meditating. I know what meditation is. And so she finally geared up and went on a hunt with me and said, I know what you're talking about. Now this is very different and it's very unique. You know, it's, it's, it's not just like looking in, but it's, it's looking out. And like, how, how are we connected to all this that's going on around us? You know, how do we, how are we tapping into these energies and you know, smelling and using all of our senses? You know, and it's, and on top of that, you know, there's, there are things like mountain climbing that require a lot of skill and attention to detail, you know, so you don't screw up and fall off the mountain. And you know, hunting might not be that extreme, but what's different about it is you, you're going into the woods with the intention of killing something to eat it. And that kind of taps into something very different in our primal, you know, spine. And all of a sudden it goes from being a observer of what's going around us to being a direct participant in the ecosystem. And I feel like that, you know, for me that's felt like I'm attached, I'm connected to something much bigger, something that I don't, don't understand and can't expl. But it just feels good to be part of this ecosystem. You know, that came, that kind of came about long before I did and humans did and just kind of being part of that. I kind of forgot what the question was, but I get all the. Yeah, now you answer. Yerasimos 00:37:10.480 - 00:37:39.210 Yeah, you're, you're good. I'm curious. Like, what is your connection to and how is the process for you of the hunt? Like, obviously you're not always guaranteed that you're going to get an animal and yet you go through this process, there's some planning, you're out there in nature and then out pops a deer or an elk. Like, what are those moments? Like, like right before taking the shot and then after, like, can you talk about that? Bruce 00:37:41.700 - 00:41:52.740 Yeah, it's, there's a lot, there's a lot of emotion and adrenaline and who knows what, you know, coursing through the veins at that point. I think there's, you know, it's tied up to our current and modern way of living and tapping into our ancient ancestral primal past, this idea of survival. Got to get food to survive, even though we don't have to in this day and age. But I think that's, it's tapping into that. And for me personally, I mean I, I'll, I'll have opportunities to shoot things or I'll pass for whatever reason. You know, on a two week trip, it just totally varies. But say, you know, on a 2e trip and three or four days into it, I, I have an opportunity to take a shot and, but something doesn't feel quite right, you know, and, and I pause, I, I wait just a second or two and that often times that opportunity passes and you maybe remember me telling you this in the story or at the course of a similar situation where I was hunting with my dad on that land right where we were walking years ago, where we came over a little rise, we, there was a buck standing down there in the bottom and was pretty young. I, he was right behind me. He said, go ahead and take the shot, you know, and, and I put my rifle up and I, I was kneeling, but I was too low in the grass, so I had to kind of get up a little bit and I was unstable and shaking around and the crosshair bouncing around because you get what they call buck fever, you know, just this huge spike of Adrenaline, and, And as you can imagine, and, and my dad said, well, don't rush it if you're not ready. And I just. I kind of took all the pressure off and I, I took a breath, I. I pulled my rifle down and just sat there for a few moments. And then another buck came out and they started sparring a little bit and fighting and. And we just watched them for a few. A little while, and they wandered into the woods, and that was it. And, and it. You know, what it told me, you know, what I learned there is that I, I never have to feel full, forced or pressured into taking a shot, either by a guide or somebody else or. Or myself. It's something that, you know, it's a very. It's a very important choice and decision that we're making, you know, to take a life of another big animal. And, and you don't want to do it poorly, you know, you want to do it thoroughly and correctly. And, and so in my experience, it's just a matter of time. You know, if I keep putting in time and commitment, eventually I'm going to get to a point where I have an opportunity. And it just. Everything is go. You know, it's like, yes, there's no hesitation, just feels right. You know, sight on the animal, shoot or release the arrow, and it's done. So it's. And even after, you know, 40 years of hunting, it's. There's still. It's the same as practically day one, but I've learned how to anticipate it and, and live with it a little bit, but it's still that emotion and that adrenaline spikes beyond belief, and, and then afterwards, you know, a lot of times the animal will. Will run over a hill or into the brush or something, and. And you go up and recover it. And then there's this flood of emotion, like a second flood of like, okay, I'm. I did everything right. There's this sense of relief and, and joy and sadness and all these things combined. So it's very, you know, it's not uncommon for people to cry when they shoot their first or many animals. And it's just a very emotional journey, I guess I'd say, and not something I experience other places quite to that level. Yerasimos 00:41:53.780 - 00:41:54.140 Yeah. Bruce 00:41:54.140 - 00:41:56.820 You shot your first animal at our course, your assimilation. Yerasimos 00:41:56.820 - 00:43:26.000 I, I did. You know, and it was a squirrel. I'll get into that story. But my first experience of even just witnessing an animal to be killed for food was that we wasn't. Weren't hunting per se, but we had a rooster that kind of went insane. And then we had to kind of put it down. And even just being there for that process, it was like this deep journey of, you know, I mean, Sophie is the chicken tender of our family. These were her babies. And, you know, she want. She made the decision that she wanted to, you know, kill the rooster. And so even just leading up to that point, you know, there was a very sacred aspect to it, and then taking the life, and it was definitely emotional, you know, and then you continue with the process, and then, you know, after a few hours, it starts looking like something that you find in the store. And so it's like this journey of. This is a living, breathing thing. You take its life, and then it turns into your food. And it was an interesting thing just to even notice in that moment. But more specifically, in your course, you know, it's not. It's not hunting season, so you. You know, you shoot one of the goats that you have. And even me going through that process, you going out there shooting the go, Seeing it go through its process, us being there as a cohort, you know, putting my hands on this warm animal, like, I got choked up. I got emotional, and tears definitely came out of my eyes because it's just. I mean, I do. I love animals, you know, I do. I love them. I respect them. And so, yeah, it's. Bruce 00:43:26.000 - 00:43:26.200 It's. Yerasimos 00:43:26.200 - 00:45:41.730 I guess it's each person, they have to go through their own journey on how they relate to this. But it seems to be common for a lot of people to have such a deep emotional response to it. I can't say I had the same exact one with the squirrel, probably because I don't love squirrels, especially living in Topanga and having our. Our garden and our fruit trees. The first couple years, those ground squirrels were. We're just taking our harvest. We're just taking out all the stone fruits. So, like, I think I had a part of me that was like this squirrel, you know, but. But being honest, like, even that hunt, like, that last morning, I think it was. It was like the last 10 minutes, and we were gonna go back, and then it was like padding. Have the rifle. And I think it was. I didn't even have a scope on that one. I think it was the iron sight that I did with that, and. And it just popped its head up, and then I pressed the trigger, and it was like. I just saw it kind of flap around, and we walked over it. You sent me a little video this morning of the process, and it was definitely, like, an experience. I Can't say it was the same that like I felt with the, the rooster or the, or the goat, but it was still like wild. Like I picked it up and then what we did is, you know, Marco and I, we went back that night, I think it was, or the next day, I think it was that night we actually like skinned it and then we cooked the squirrel and we ate parts of it. I wouldn't say squirrel's my go to meal, but, but it was still like, I mean, what an experience to even. To go through that, to take an animal's life and then to even just skin it. Mean the process of skinning a squirrel was like. So it's like you're pulling off a sock from your foot. It was very interesting to even just witness that. Anyways, it was, it was a great experience for me, you know, the whole, the whole program. And you, you done a wonderful job with the course. I felt so blessed that my friend Marco was able to come at the last minute. It really added a different element for me. We hadn't seen each other in five years and he has experience hunting. We're still trying to figure out with a schedule when we can go out. It'll happen one day. But yeah, I mean, just, just to be in nature, just especially for myself. I mean, yes, I'm connected more to the land now with our garden and, and it's, it's important for me after being on devices all the time, but to be out there for four or five days with a good group of people and be surrounded by you and your family. And it was, it was a beautiful experience. Bruce 00:45:43.890 - 00:49:44.860 Yeah. This topic, I mean, it's a tricky one. It's life and death, you know, and, and we've been kind of taught in society to death is a bad thing. And we often talk about, rather than taking a life during a hunt, we're giving death, you know, we're giving birth or giving death. And it, it, it's just sort of part of the cycle. And there's also, I think, a, a factor of scale here. You know, you, I, I capture and release spiders and things from the house. But say someone. I don't do that necessarily for a mosquito. So I rush a mosquito trying to bite me, you know, that's killing something. And it's, it's. We don't think too much about it, but say maybe there's a mouse. When we step on the mouse, that's a little more significant. You hear a crunch under your foot or whatever. And then a squirrel, you know, it's a little bit more, it's out there running around. You've got to stalk it and sneak up on it. And then a rooster, you know, it's just bigger animal. You just kind of build that up to. All of a sudden you're, you're face to face with a horse sized animal, you know, an elk in the back country. And it's, you can imagine that there's a lot more dynamics and a lot more going on the robin wall. Kimmerer, we maybe have mentioned her in the course, you know, braiding sweetgrass. Great book. And she talks about this, this idea that, you know, food that you buy wrapped in plastic at the supermarket. Me fill the belly but not. But leave the soul hungry or something like that. And so it kind of taps into this. You know, it's just there's all these different parts. Like there's this, I've got to kill something to eat it or, or I become vegetarian. But then there's this also this debate of like, can we really be alive on this planet without causing some sort of death or displacement. Whether it's the mice in the field where they're growing the soy or the clear cutting the trees to grow crops. You know, it's again, it's got. So there's so many threads into it. There's another author who wrote a book called the Mindful Carnivore and he went to school, you know, progressive school, kind of got into vegetarianism, veganism and then got out of school. And his wife, they were growing a garden. It's like, hey, we're going to grow all of our own food. We're not going to kill anything. We're not going to be meat eaters. And you realize that growing the garden there were all these things, bugs eating their food and then burrowing animals getting underneath and eating the roots. And they're having total crop failure. And they couldn't like kill the bugs because they didn't want to kill anything. And it's like, okay, just threw up their arms. We got to go down to the local organic farm down the street and buy some produce because we're just not going to be able to produce enough. And then they came to find out that they were shooting deer that were coming in and eating their crops as collateral damage. So him just supporting this farm kind of was supporting the idea of killing things to create the crop. So he decided to take matters into his own hands, take responsibility for that death. And he started hunting. And it took him three or four or five years to finally shoot a deer. And it was a whole process. Now he's a very avid hunter. So it's. It's really hard to, like, just compartmentalize parts these lives, you know, our life as a vegetarian or a meat eater, because it's just. There's so much going on, so much overlap and so many threads into all this stuff that it's really about how connected are we to the ecosystem and nature and kind of. That unknown, I think, is important. And hunting, for me is the most direct connection. Joel 00:49:45.500 - 00:50:06.990 How, how would you recommend people go about that that, like, aren't hunters? You know, the majority of the population, I guess, aren't hunters and they do eat meat. So how would you advise someone to, like, maintain connection to the ecosystem and to nature and to the cycle of life and death in, I guess, you know, urban areas? Bruce 00:50:09.390 - 00:54:24.480 It's tricky. I mean, we've come a long ways in a short period of time from where we were not that long ago. So it's not like we can flip a switch and just all become hunters all of a sudden. Now there's a, there's, there's, there's a sentiment, I think, with other hunters that they're a little bit protective, that they don't want other people to come into hunting because it's more competition for a dwindling resource, which is kind of true on the surface level. But if we dig deeper, a lot of wildlife conservation over the decades has been from hunters who, you know, often love animals but are out there killing them, too, which is hard for some people to wrap their heads around. But the kind of. The Conservation of Wildlife management movement and funding, a lot of it comes from hunting. And another way to look at it is like, okay, you know, if we have more people, it just means that and we want clean water, they're going to drink more water, and what are we going to do? Privatize it? Or it's going to be more strain on our clean air. We can't have more people breathing. But if we. It kind of comes down to what we value, I think. And if we're valuing clean resources, you know, clean water, clean air, we're going to figure out a way to maintain that. And, and it's the same with wildlife. And kind of getting back to your question is like, how do we tap into that and how. What do we do if we're living in the city and a million miles away from hunting and have no family and friends? It's. It's not an easy process, which is why there are very Few, you know, programs doing what we're doing most. The vast majority of money and hunting is around guided and outfitted trips. And a lot of times that's, you know, the guide is doing the hunting, the client is there paying five to ten, fifty grand to shoot something, you know, and, and, and they're, you know, that's, that's an experience, but it's a very, very small part of the whole experience. You know, they're, they're taking a shot, but they're not really doing the hunting ahead of time or a lot of times. They're not even doing the, the work that needs to be done to process the animal afterwards. So I don't think I would recommend just going out and hiring a guide unless you found someone that would walk you through the process. Obviously, you know, taking five days to go through a course like ours is a big investment in time, and it's not something everyone can do. But we are working on some online resources for, for to address that. But, you know, I think just starting to read some, some literature about these ideas about people's experience, experiences helps. We've got a list of books on our website. You know, gardening or, or farming or getting to know some farms. I mean, the go. I was at the farmers, the Ballard Farmers Market yesterday, put up an information table just to talk to people about what we're doing. And it's amazing how many people come out of the woodwork and like, what. What's going on here? I want to know. I've wanted to know how to hunt for years. I just don't know where to start and don't know what to do. And, you know, inevitably we always get someone saying, how is this received in a place like Seattle, which is very progressive and, and surprisingly, we've had little to no pushback at all. It's, it's just all been positive, genuine curiosity. Like what? You know, I want to learn more about hunting. So it's, that's the tough part. It's not an easy journey, but it's. I think it's, it's something that when people are ready for, you know, it's. It's kind of embarking on a lifelong learning process, which it has been for me. And even after 40 years, I'm. I'm learning something every time I go out there. So it's not a very good answer to your question. Yerasimos 00:54:27.580 - 00:56:16.630 Well, I mean, it comes down to the values. Like you said, a person's values. I mean, like, if someone wants to learn and connect more in that way, Great. And if not, I mean, you know, there's a lot of different ways to live. And, but, but for me, as someone who was, who eats meat and chooses to eat me, I keep asking myself this question, like, how can I get a little closer to it? How can I know more? You know, like, even having evening eggs, okay, we have chickens. We make our own eggs. I mean, we, we don't make our own eggs. The hens lay their eggs. Hens lay their eggs. Like, oh, fruits, vegetables, like, there's just level. Different levels of connecting more to the land. And, you know, you said something when we were talking, I think that really landed. It hit me hard where you said, you know, most people hire hitman for their food, for their meat. And it just like, it just landed. And I get it. I'm not sitting here saying, oh, how dare you go to the store and buy meat? You know, but just the reality of that, that we're just like, oh, I don't want to see death. I don't want to be around death. I just want the neatly packaged thing I'm going to throw in my grill and then eat. It's just interesting to think about. You know, I'm not sitting here saying one's more right than the other. It's just we have come a long way from how our ancestors lived and connected to the land, and it's just a matter of recognizing that and sitting with that. It's not about, oh, everyone that lives in New York City, you need to sell your, your apartment and go move to Montana. It's not that. It's just having the awareness, you know, and the knowledge. And then ultimately you're going to choose based on your life and your values, on how you want to move forward and how you want to live your life. But I just think having the knowledge and the understanding, like, hey, I am taking a life. Someone is taking this animal's life. Where does this food come from? How is it nourishing me? Like, even just to, like, have ask yourself those questions to contemplate. I think also, I think brings the person in deeper connection with themselves and nature. Bruce 00:56:19.270 - 01:00:53.380 I, I agree. You know, it's, it's fascinating to hear so much pushback, you know, from various channels about how cruel hunting is when, you know, the people saying it are often meat eaters. You know, why don't you just go to the store and get your meat? It's so much cleaner. But it's, it's, it's also pretty impressive at the, you know, the what? The commercial meat industry did to make this change so quickly and so deeply. I mean, they've, they've, they've made it easier on the people at the expense of the animals lives to eat meat. And you know, that the commercial meat industry is a whole another topic and story as well. But I see it as kind of a, you know, a journey through something very difficult. Like, okay, I'm, I'm eating meat. Where is it coming from? Okay, now I know where it's coming from. This is not the best news. And it's like getting through these steps and like starting to take responsibility for our actions and learning more and like, okay, if I'm really going to do this, you know, am I going to start raising animals and butchering them or going and volunteering at a farm or getting to know the farmer, or am I going to start hunting? And that's kind of the, I think the end of the line is hunting natural food. I mean, if we, I wish that we could just say, okay, we value healthy ecosystems and wild food, you know, and convert all the developed farm grounds and, well, not all of them, but a lot of them into healthy wintering grounds for animals and boost the wild populations and rather than fighting the system so much, just promote a healthy ecosystem and be able to go out shopping by going hunting whenever you need food, which is, I think, what humans did for the vast majority of our existence. And you can imagine the feeling of just self confidence that can come by saying, by looking out at the land, saying, I have the ability and skills to go out there, find food and bring it back and feed my family. I can turn that deer, that antelope into steaks and start a fire and cook that and feed my family. Where I don't think people get that same satisfaction by, you know, earning money to purchase a steak wrapped in plastic to bring home. Which gets back to that, you know, what those participants were sharing earlier on. So it's, again, I think I'm rambling a little bit on a tangent, but it's, it's a, it's a, it's a journey, you know, and I'm, I'm a little bit, I don't know, concerned about the future of hunting, I guess, the future of mankind, human society in general. But, you know, it's hard because less than 5% of the US public hunts anymore. And so it's sort of a dying art. And there has been a little bit of resurgence. You know, there's been a food movement, food awareness movement, which has helped, I think, come back to the Shine the light on where our food's coming from. But there's just so much momentum, you know, going in towards. I think, I think one of our weaknesses as humans is that we're attracted to bright, shiny objects. And a lot of times those don't really fulfill us, you know, so much as much as just doing the hard work and tapping into something bigger that's, you know, been here and been around for a long time. And so I'm, I'm, I'm worried, but I'm hopeful, you know, that people will start to want to re. Engage and into the bigger picture, the ecosystem and want to be part, you know, be a participant in what's going on around them and like, hands on life and death situations. There's going to be a slow road, slow, long road, a hoe. They say. Yeah. Yerasimos 01:00:54.100 - 01:01:09.620 Can you, can you let us know like what your first hunt meaning, like the first time you actually killed a deer, Was it a deer or, or do most people progress, like from deer to elk or is it. It just depends on where you are? Bruce 01:01:09.700 - 01:01:19.710 Like, yeah, probably depends. I mean, there's more, way more access to deer around the country than there are elk. So it's easier to find deer and they're smaller. Yerasimos 01:01:20.430 - 01:01:25.230 Because you said you were hunting like pheasant and other animals, but like the first time you actually hunted a deer, when was that? Bruce 01:01:26.750 - 01:04:44.010 Oh, those were early teens. I'm trying to remember if it was. I'm trying to remember if it was a deer or an elk that I first shot. I remember my first elk I shot, I was 15, and my dad and I were hunting in some open country and going over ridges and, and I, I spotted a couple animals over one ridge. And I was pretty young and trying to, you know, make sure everything, I was doing everything right. And I called him over and saying, better make sure these are elk, will you? And so we, we crept up over the ridge and looked down the bottom, you know, 100 yards down there, and there were these two elk bedded down. And they saw us and they jumped up and started running up the other side of the ridge. And, and, and he had a, he had a rifle with a set trigger. And he thought to himself, all these animals get up to the top of the ridge right before they go over. I'm gonna try to get a shot. But he wasn't going to shoot without letting me shoot first. So he set his set trigger, which makes a hair trigger on the front. And this is not a very common thing, but because of that hair trigger, he was so excited, he just kind of put the rifle up and barely touched that trigger, and it went off and shot into the hillside. And then they started running up. And. Anyway, long story short, he shot one, and it got to the top. And I looked at him, I said, do we want two? And he said, shoot. And. And I. I shot. And this thing took a few steps and tipped over, and I'd end up shooting him right through the heart. And we walked up there and started going to work. And this is kind of the first really big animal I'd worked on. And. And he was watching me, and I was, you know, cutting open the. The gut like we did at the course, you know, the gutting process. And the difference. When you shoot an animal through the pump house, you know, the ribs and the lungs, they bleed out internally. So there's a. On an elk, there's a gallon or more of blood in the chest cavity. And so you cut that open, all this blood comes rushing out over you. And I just kept working away. And he was wondering if I was going to, you know, have some sort of a fainting reaction. But it was just, you know, it was. I felt like I had a job to do. This is very natural. I was not thinking about, you know, this poor animal or work deadlines or anything. I was just focused on being part of this process and doing a good job. And, you know, just. It was just sort of a natural thing. And it. It's. That's also hard to, I think, understand is that I can sit back and out of context, talk about, you know, think about shooting an animal, killing an animal, giving death to an animal. And it. And it might not feel quite right. You know, it might. Might feel a little bit barbaric or uneasy. But when I'm out there in the hunt, it's very. It's a very natural process. You know, if I'm engaging in it fully, I think that's. That's one of the hard things to understand is, you know, and most people never have a chance to actually get to that point of being in the hunt. So it's. There's a lot going on, but it. There's a great. A big feeling of how it's a natural feeling and just kind of drawn into it. Joel 01:04:45.210 - 01:04:45.690 Yeah. Bruce 01:04:45.849 - 01:04:46.170 Would. Joel 01:04:46.170 - 01:05:21.180 Would you say that, like, because there's so many conversations these days about, you know, a lack of initiation for man, a lack of right, of, you know, rites of passage from boyhood to manhood. Would you say that hunting made that transition easier for you and served as a kind of, you know, rite of passage. And also, you know, I don't know if this is the right phrasing, but it feels like many of us, particularly men, are disconnected from like, that killer within, you know, like that primal aspect that is capable of, like, taking life. Bruce 01:05:23.430 - 01:07:18.080 Right. Yeah. I mean, I sometimes refer to it as like, what does it feel like? Or what does it mean to be a natural predator? And that's not a great term in this day and age, I think, in society. But it. It gets to the heart of the matter and definitely feels different than being a consumer. And yeah, for me, it's. It's really, you know, I've had the opportunity to kind of grow up with this, so I felt like I was always engaged in it. And I think, you know, for whatever it's worth, you know, I, you know, I was in relationships growing up and often got a comment like the women thought I was very masculine. And I wasn't really evoking that question or topic, but I think it was just my way of life, having grown up hunting, you know, and approaching most of life through that lens. And I do think there's a pretty big rite of passage in all of this process too. It's, you know, it's what we did for many, many generations forces you to kind of look into the shadows and address things that are uncomfortable and, you know, it, when done thoroughly and to completion it, it provides something that you can survive on and that your can. Family can survive on. Yeah, I do think that's what a lot of people are looking for when they, you know, they come to these courses and they're wanting to get into hunting, you know, is. Joel 01:07:18.320 - 01:07:18.800 Yeah. Bruce 01:07:18.800 - 01:07:20.080 Missing that component. Joel 01:07:20.320 - 01:07:42.920 I was just thinking, like, it's so crazy that, like, we need psychotherapy today to tell us what masculinity is, and we need courses and all the rest of it to tell us about masculinity and how to integrate masculinity as if it's this big psychological process, you know. But all of that is only an emanation of this primal disconnection, you know, it seems. Bruce 01:07:45.000 - 01:07:49.960 Yeah. What was that book? Ecotopia. Did you ever read that? Yerasimos 01:07:50.200 - 01:07:51.040 No, I haven't. Bruce 01:07:51.040 - 01:09:29.399 No, I think it was. It was written probably back around when we were born, you know, about today's modern era. And it was this idea that Cascadia broke off and seceded and became its own country, you know, Washington, Oregon, Northern California, something like that. And there was this barrier, and I won't get into it too much, but they got back to the Basically the roots of living on the land. But they also realized that if life was too calm and simple, they were lacking certain things. And so they made these war games where they'd have two sides of, you know, men coming at each other with spears and, and as soon as someone was jabbed with a spear, they'd end the game and like, patch the person up and like, go have beers together. But there was something about this act of like, this is a life or death kind of situation I'm engaging in, and it evokes different things and I mean, it's just a story, but it kind of gets to the point of, you know, and it also begs the question, like, does the past dictate the future? You know, it doesn't necessarily do that. And maybe we're moving into a different time of history, but I, I do think there's a lot to our past that we're forgetting or covering up. And I think it's worth looking at that a little closer and seeing like, what, what is there that is still valuable in this day and age to being a human being and, and being a man. Yerasimos 01:09:30.199 - 01:09:33.879 Yeah, you get a lot of father sons that take your course together. Bruce 01:09:35.159 - 01:10:14.350 Yeah, fair number, actually. This, this coming next year, we've got a. Three generations signed up for the first time. A father, son and grandfather. So that's going to be real fun. But we do encourage father son, you know, we do. We, we try not to have a big group of kids because we keep it pretty serious and you know, sort of the adult energy. So we, we kind of demand the kids step up to the adult level doing this for obvious reasons. But I do think it's, it's a great opportunity for kids to experience this with their dads or. And moms. You know, we've had moms and sons and daughters join us as well. Yeah. Yerasimos 01:10:14.990 - 01:10:22.910 Where, where's your favorite place to hunt? And where, where is there a place that you haven't hunted that is a dream for you? Bruce 01:10:25.630 - 01:12:04.730 Oh, I mean, the Rocky Mountains are the coin and a phrase in Jeremiah Johnson. Something like the marrow of the earth or something like that. They're, they're pretty spectacular place, rugged, you know, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana. We've just, we've hunted Montana a lot because my dad's roots there. And so we've, we've been going back the same spot for 20 years. And even then, I mean, this is a, I don't know, 30 square mile basin maybe and hike up into. And it seems like every time there's something new to explore and something new to learn. So it's not like I'm dying to go someplace else. I don't really have a checklist like I gotta shoot a zebra and a buffalo and this and that. It's again, back more to the hunt. Like, what's the experience of the hunt? And I think it would be interesting to, you know, hunt with some of the. The people in Africa that are still living a very simple life and, and learn some of those cultures and things. But I'm. It's not like I'm dying to check those things off the list. I do think Alaska has a lot of undiscovered, you know, undeveloped country in Alaska. Kind of the final frontier in our neck of the woods. We've done a little bit of hunting up there. I was actually up there for the 911 event, hunting caribou, which is a crazy story, but I think you. Yerasimos 01:12:04.730 - 01:12:08.250 I think you told some of that story. Can you, can you, can you share that? Bruce 01:12:08.890 - 01:16:41.670 Yeah, I'll give you the quick version here. You know, we. We flew up to. Out of Seattle to Anchorage or someplace in a commercial jet and had our rifles locked in these hard cases and locked and checked and checked twice. And then we got into a smaller commercial airline, flew out to Iliamna, Little berg there in Alaska. And then from there we got into a Cessna and flew out to the tundra. And then from there we got into a Super Cub or just one pilot and one passenger right behind each other. Just a little frame, big balloon tires, and we got a rifle across our chest so that the scope doesn't get knocked around. And the last thing they're worried about is terrorism there. It's more problem with a bear attacking you when you land. And so we fly out to the middle of the tundra and they land in a really short strip and I mean, just on the grass and drop us off in our gear and left us for a week and we hunted and. And there's four of us. And I think that all three, my dad and brother and our friend had shot caribou. I had missed one earlier in the week due to something I did wrong. And Tuesday rolls around and, and everything's quiet. Normally we're seeing bush planes fly over every hour or two. It's just the, the. It's just quiet, eerily quiet. And Wednesday same thing. And I think we saw like a couple fighter jets fly over fast. We're starting to wonder, like, what's going on here. I mean, is the weather really that bad or you're starting to count our matches and figure out how much. We're 80 miles from the nearest town with some major rivers to cross, which is not a good thing to do. And finally, I think Thursday rolled around. They opened up air traffic and the folks that dropped us off flew over the camp and revved the engine, threw a note out the window with a rock and a plastic bag explaining the situation. Deer hunters of terrorists have hijacked poor airlines and destroyed the World Trade center and part of the Pentagon. You know, the FAA has closed down all air traffic and we're scrambling to get caught up. Just be ready when we come by. And so I was like trying to take all this in and understand it and. But I. There was part of me that just wanted to get back out into the tundra and hunt because that felt like a very natural place to be. And what was ironic was that I was at the time working for the structural engineering firm that did this structural design on the World Trade Towers. Even though it was way before my time, I was pretty closely connected to all this. So I went out and hunted and, you know, snuck out and got into close enough to a string caribou, the caribou that were migrating through and was able to get into position and get a shot and connected. And I went and field dressed this thing and then hightailed it back to camp a couple miles before it got dark to get help packing it back and get my pack frame. And I got down in this little creek draw where my dad and brother and our friend were in their. One of the tents kind of discussing the current events in the world. And they hadn't heard my shot. My dad said something like. And I opened the door on the tent, he said, oh, don't worry, Bruce. You know, trips come to an end, we got plenty of meat. We can always come back again next year. And I said, we got work to do, boys. And strap on your type, you know, throw on your boots, strap on your packs, and let's get going. And so I haul them back out there in the dark across the tundra and the hummocks and we pack this animal back. And, and, and I think it was a good metaphor, you know, for we, we have work to do, you know, in a lot of ways to kind of maintain our balance and symbiosis with, with our home. It's, it's a balancing act. And, and hunting is. Just provides a very unique opportunity to, to do that. And it, it's, it is kind of ironic because people say, how can you, how can you love animals? And love wildlife and the land and go out and kill something. But it's. When you dig into it, you realize that, you know, it's just. It's. It's exactly that. And there's. There's something about it that just makes me feel like I'm part of all that, other than a. A bystander consumer. Yeah. Joel 01:16:42.950 - 01:17:02.240 No, I mean, just. I mean, just in listening to this, there's part of me that deeply craves these experiences and wants that, you know, and feels kind of, I don't know, a little bit like, hopeless in having. Having that experience as like a, you know, properly integrated part of one's life. Bruce 01:17:04.800 - 01:26:02.350 Yeah, it feels like a big step, you know, especially in these stories I tell you. And another. Maybe. Maybe another quick story here while we're on the topic. It was two or three years ago. We were packing into our typical Montana hunting location, but there was so much snow that we couldn't get to the end of the trail. And everybody bailed. There was nobody back there. Even part of our hunting party decided, we can't get back and do what we normally do. So we're gonna go hunt deer for a while and go home early. And my wife Sarah, and I decided to stick it out. And we drove as far as we could, and then we packed and sledded in to the end of the road where we normally start, and we set up camp there. And there was a lot of snow. We were the only ones back there. There was a. We were in the sort of a river draw. And the next day, we. We hiked. We saw some elk way up high and on. On the way in. And so we were hiking up, climbing a thousand feet or more up around this. Onto this ridge, hoping we'd get up to where they were, maybe shoot one and could drag it down that slope back to camp. And we get up there and up and over into a high base, and we see some elk, which is a long way from anywhere. And my first thought is, these are too far to deal with. You know, we'll be back here all winter trying to get this stuff out of here. And I sort of jokingly turned to Sarah and said, what do you think? Should we go for it? And she, yeah, let's. Let's do it. You know, bird in the hand, you know? And we only had a couple days left in the season, and she didn't realize how. What we were getting into. I was like, all right, let's do this. And. And so we. We dropped over the edge through the timber, trying to close about a 600 yard gap between us and a herd of cows. We could. And where we hunt, we could shoot cows or mature bulls, but no spikes, young bulls, just the regulations there. And we get about halfway through and this, you know, the shady north side of the timber, going wading through waist deep snow and over down trees. And we look over across this deep ravine, we see a Bolst up out of the broken timber about 200 yards away, which is a reasonable shot. And I hunkered down and got a good rest on side of a tree and squeezed. And the elk just kind of stood there for a second and turned a little bit. And I felt pretty good about the shot. And then after about five seconds, it just started running straight downhill and almost like a free fall. And this was a really steep, you know, double diamond kind of a ski slope. And it ran and lost conscious that had been shot right through the lungs. It was draining, you know, bleeding out and losing consciousness. And it, it ran into a tree and broke its antlers and broke its skull. Later found out as it lost consciousness and started sliding down and bounced off another tree and slid down and, and hit a tree right before it went into the crevasse of the, this draw. And we, Sarah looked at me and she said, you know, the other part of the story is that we had just, you know, a few days earlier learned that she was pregnant with our first. So, you know, Maya was in utero during this hunt and she said excitedly, said, we're going to feed our baby elk this year. And, and so we dropped down and got, climbed through the, this snowy draw and up the other side and got to this elk. And it's like 3:30 in the afternoon and okay, we got to get to work on this thing. And it's freezing and snowy. And we just started working getting this, you know, got it opened up, gutted, pulled the skin off, started pulling legs off, cut all the meat off the carcass, set it in the snow, eventually got it in game bags, got the legs up in the trees as much as we could and got the loose meat, which was £100 or more, the base of the trees with branches over them and put some, you know, put a handkerchief or some human scent there to kind of keep the predators at bay. And we thought, well, it's, you know, this is well after dark at this point. And we said, let's each take a front leg, you know, a shoulder, drag it down the creek. The drainage tonight still three or four miles back to camp. We'll Try this. And we went about a quarter mile and realized it was just impossible. The trees and the snow were up to our bellies and snow. And so we hung those up, climbed back up the ridge and dropped back a thousand feet to camp. Well after midnight, had a meal and got the fire going and relaxed a little bit and then know pull their mummy bags over faces. And I woke up the next morning after daylight and sort of trying to figure out if I'd had a dream or if this was reality and kind of waking up to reality and like, oh, my gosh, is this the first time I'm going to have to leave some of the animal in the back country because it's so far back there and we're. We're at the end of the road, it's snowing and blowing, and more of that road between us and getting out is getting drifted. And so we might get stuck, you know, without some major shoveling or equipment to come in and open the road. So I'm thinking this the whole time we strapped on our gear and got back up there, a couple of sleds started ferrying loads of meat up out of the basin onto the ridge into the sled. You know, we're about three quarters of the way done and we heard a pack of wolves howling down and around where the elk was and. And luckily they were not coming in close enough. But for a minute there, I think Sarah thought we might be having to deal with a pack of voles, but that's another story. Typically they're not going to harm humans. We just kept at it and, you know, she was helping out. She packing meat up. And then we got him up on top and then getting down over the other side got steep. And we're holding these sleds of, you know, weighing a couple hundred pounds of heavy meat and bone and try not to let him get away from us. And eventually get them down to the. Down to the creek, you know, the river bottom, and have to ferry them over these rocky cliffs and back into the sleds and then back across a little bridge and a couple miles out to the rig. Whether it was after dark again, we got it all loaded up. Say it's snowing and it's blowing. We better move this rig out another few miles to. So we don't get stuck in here tonight. So we do that, you know, we're dead tired. We're melting snow to drink. We're. We're thawing out cans of sardines to eat on crackers, whatever we can. We're thinking, should we just sleep in the car tonight? Should we try to go to town, which is two or three hours away, and still maybe we get stuck in a drift and then really screwed. It's like, no, we got to get back into camp. So, you know, it's dark and snowing. Our tracks are covered. We work our way back up three or four miles to where we're camped. And the storm broke that night, and we got up, broke camp, put everything in the sleds, started back out another time, and with all four chains on and everything loaded up, we hit a few drifted parts of the road with a lot of momentum and just barely plowed our way through and got out to the main road and had a sigh of relief. But it was, you know, it was. It was harrowing. And when we got out another hour or so to the nearest town, we stopped and went to gas station rest stop. And I walked in and someone at the front counter asked if I need anything or said hello. And I. I said hello back. And I almost didn't recognize my voice. It was just. It was like a wild animal speaking. It was really interesting, and it was. But it's the feeling I get every time I come out of the back country like that. It's just. I feel like a real human being, you know, really grounded and really firing on all cylinders. And. And that's part of the magic of what I'm hoping people experience on whatever level it is. And it. Granted, some of that fades after a while, especially if I'm going back to work in an office, but it doesn't fade completely. And it's just sort of every time, it kind of builds a little bit more and builds it more and builds up a base and something you can kind of tap into whenever you need to or ever you want to. And I think some of that is just being out hiking around the mountains all day, doing what we were designed to do with legs and upright eyes and. But I would never put myself through that much strain. You know, I. Exercising all day just to exercise. But it was the. It was the hunt that was drawing me into it and working my mind and my. My. My senses and all the things combined together is sort of like the perfect. Perfect human activity. Joel 01:26:03.070 - 01:26:12.280 Yeah. Wow, man, what an incredible story. Your wife sounds superhuman as well. I'm curious. What does an experience like that do for the relationship? Bruce 01:26:14.600 - 01:27:33.130 We. We joke that, you know, rather than going to premarital marital counseling, you should just go hunting together, because it. I guess it would either make you or break you because it's, you know, it can be stressful, but with a little bit of teamwork, pretty soon you realize that you're relying on each other and you can rely on each other and you can trust each other. And when times get hard, you know, you just dig down and get through it and, you know, getting out of there in the dark and hiking back in in the dark, and I knew that, you know, we both had the grit that needed to get through really hard situations. And so we'll often refer back to these trips and we say, remember the, you know, the area where we go. I'm not going to say it because it's a, it's a secret spot, but, you know, remember the Montana hunt sort of is what we say. And, and it kind of, you know, everything else kind of fades away. It's like, yeah, we can, we can get through some pretty hard things. This, what we're dealing with right now is not anywhere near as hard as what we've been through in the past. And I, so I think it's, I think it's a good, good premarital activity and postmarital activity, too. Yerasimos 01:27:34.170 - 01:27:42.730 I love it. Bruce. Bruce, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for sharing your stories. Can you let our audience know how they can learn more about you and what you do? Bruce 01:27:45.050 - 01:29:23.190 Yeah. Well, our, I mean, our website is pretty detailed. Like I said, I'm an engineer by trade, so it's probably too detailed, but. HumanNature hunting.com we are on Instagram under the same name, I believe, But I think our website is going to have be the most descriptive. And like I said, we're working on a, on an online course that might interest people who don't have as much time or flexibility to, to, you know, to take time off to, to invest in something like this, but still trying to tap into these fundamentals and help people kind of get closer, you know, to that end goal. So we'll have a, we'll have a page on there for to learn more about that as well. And, you know, if you're in the, if you're in the Seattle area where you occasionally show up at the Ballard Farmers Market and talk with folks, we're most of the time over in Kettle Falls, which is northeast Washington and is far from a lot of where a lot of people are and also just happy to chat with people about, you know, this thing, there's a, there's an opportunity on our website to book a short call with me and we can explore what people are looking for and, you know, whether our course is the right thing or if there's some other, you know, approach they can take to get to where they want to go. It's really the. The end goal here is to help people reconnect to nature and strengthen that bond, that human nature connection. So I think, you know, it's going to be beneficial for all of us. Yerasimos 01:29:23.830 - 01:29:33.910 Amazing. I do want to add one thing, too. Bruce built. You built your log cabin on your own with a little bit of help. The one that the course was held at, correct? Bruce 01:29:34.070 - 01:29:46.280 I did, yeah. Yeah. That's also a great experience. We've been wondering if we should add in, you know, cabin building and timber framing courses at our place. Maybe someday. That's cool. Joel 01:29:46.840 - 01:29:58.680 Amazing, man. Bruce, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. It's humannaturehunting.com and @humannaturehunting on Instagram. Love both those links in the brief for those listening. And we'll see you next time. Take care. Bruce 01:29:58.760 - 01:29:59.960 All right, thanks, guys.