Scoutmaster Podcast 58

And now it's to you, Scoutmaster. So a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine invited me to go cross-country skiing. Never done it before.

I thought, hey, why not Give it a shot? Well, here it is.

Two weeks later I'm, like you know, nearly 50 miles away from home. I am tired.

I think we probably should have tried. You know a smaller country for our first time out, don't you? Hey, this is Podcast Number 58..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Hey, let's take a look at the emails that came in in the past week or two. Frank Vaynard from Novi, Michigan, where he works with Troop 407 and Pack 54, had this to say. He said first: thanks for the shout out on Podcast 57.. That's last week's podcast.

I appreciate the nice thing you said about Bob White's blather. That is Frank's blog and he's a Troop Committee Chairperson.

I believe that the Troop Committee's job is to support the Scoutmaster and the Troop program and I try and write from that perspective. Well, he does a real good job of writing from that perspective and I think you should go over and check out the blog. I'll recommend that to you again. This week There will be a link to the blog on the post that contains this podcast. He goes on to say: I've been catching up on your recent podcasts since I started listening a few weeks ago and it's always nice to hear from a veteran Scouter. I also like the way the podcasts are produced.

They're smooth, sound good And okay, hang on. All right, we try and keep them smooth and sound good as we can. Frank, Having worked in broadcasting for over 35 years, I can tell when someone has a sense for what an audio program should sound like. I was intrigued by the Scouter who is anticipating a tidal wave of Webelos, because that's what our troop went through about four years ago. Any troop facing an influx of membership needs to remember to stick with the patrol method. Prepare the troop's youth leaders, make new Scouts and families welcome and keep an eye on the fundamentals.

Then they'll be on their way to an active, high-functioning troop. When we did this, we made a few mistakes and some folks resisted allowing the boys to actually be in charge, but as we grew it became apparent that the patrol method is really the only way to go. Thanks for the wealth of information delivered in an entertaining and listenable manner. I look forward to your future podcasts and hope to contribute and participate.

Well, thank you so much, Frank. It sure does make it a little bit easier when you get nice, encouraging emails like that. I really appreciate it. Mike Malone wrote in and said this: Keep up the good work.

I've been a journalist and author for 30 years, so I know how hard it is to keep writing year after year. Yeah, tell me about it, Mike. I'm a huge admirer of your work and I hope you stay with it for years to come. It is really having an impact out there. Wow, two really good paychecks in two really good emails. I sure do appreciate it.

Jamie Humphries from PAC 685 in Pflugerville, Texas, wrote in to say this: I've been listening to all the archives as I sit on many a plane flight these past couple of weeks. They're really enlightening. I'm new to Scouting as an adult leader. I wasn't a Scout growing up, but I grew up in the woods of northeast Texas and we just kind of naturally did a lot of the things that Scouts do. When my kids couldn't have those fantastic experiences I had growing up, we joined Scouts. My wife calls it the BSA Mafia, Because once you get in, the deeper you go.

I started out running the cars at a Pinewood Derby. We all know what happens then. Right.

Then I went on to become a Weeblows Den Leader, Yep, And then a Chaplain, And then an Assistant Cubmaster, And now I'm about to become Cubmaster And I'm a Unit Commissioner, all at the same time. Now my daughter is joining a Venture Crew, so my closet is getting full of uniforms, Jason. It sounds like a lot of fun. It sounds like a lot of fun, Man. A lot of us have been there too, And thanks for getting in touch. Larry Geiger had this to say about my review of Les Stroud's Will to Live.

In part of the book, Les says: yet, beneath it all, our hidden desire, our secret guilty pleasure, is to one day put our skills to the test when life hangs in the balance. And Larry says: no, not me, I really really like coming back safe. I agree with you, Larry. Even more, he goes on to say: I like everyone else to come back safe.

I think that while we do spend a good amount of time in the outdoors, our scouts aren't in the kinds of situations that require survival skills like Les describes. However, some of our scouts are heavily at risk in college and young adulthood. They may take on challenges that they are really not prepared for. Scouts have told me stories of some things they did after scouting and how they survived out there in the wilderness.

I think it's good to sit around the campfire and chat about these things from time to time and tell the scouts what can happen. You know, I might even buy this book.

Well, Larry, you know I hadn't really thought of it that way, but you are right. You know, you go out camping with the scouts and everything goes great when you're in high school.

And then you get into college and into young adulthood and you say, hey, what could go wrong? We never had any problem when we were in scouts.

Well, yeah, I think you've got it right, Larry. I've had some stories come back to me about boys who, you know, graduated from high school, went on to college, decided they would go out, go out hiking and stuff like that. He got themselves in a bit of a pickle.

So that's a real good point, Larry. We might want to sit around the campfire and talk about what can happen.

I think I will begin to do that. So this week we have an interview with author Les Stroud, And I was really excited to be able to talk to him. Les Stroud is probably best known to most of us for his work in the Survivor Man series. We'll talk a little bit about that during the interview.

And then we have a phone call that came in about a favorite camping trip. So that's an awful lot to get done today.

Let's get started, shall we? Let's get started.

Today I'm speaking with Survivor Man Les Stroud about his book Will to Live. Welcome to the Scoutmaster Podcast, Les.

How are you? I'm doing real well.

How are things up there in Huntsville? Very well, Very well. Good, You grew up in Toronto, if I have it right, That's correct. Yeah, just to the west end of Toronto.

Mimico, Did you do any scouting when you were growing up? Just a very little bit when I was younger. Yes, I did. There was an active scout troop in the area.

I think at some point. It might have dissolved at some point, But yes, when I was young I was out for sure. It was great, And my sister also did Girl Guides.

So then you ended up somewhere along the line in Tomogamie in a canoe For many years. I grew up as a big fan of the wilderness and nature and all of that stuff, whatever the TV would offer me, But I would go to my cottage and definitely I would make little shelters and I would get out in the back 40 and sort of just play around and do everything I had to out in the back. I just loved it, adored it. But I also got away from it as I got a little bit older and got into music.

And then I got back into it again when I discovered canoe tripping up in Tomogamie. It's a fantastic area. It's like the jewel of the north. I love Algonquin Park but Tomogamie is kind of like Algonquin Park with no people.

So it's beautiful. We bring a crew of boys up and do a week in Algonquin every summer. Yes, it's beautiful there.

So your trip to Tomogamie, that was kind of a turning point and you ended up becoming a canoe guide. Yes, it was after many years of being a musician and working in film and all of that sort of stuff that I finally got invited at some point on a canoe trip with some friends And I just absolutely loved it.

It was so fantastic and so beautiful in Tomogamie to do it And once I got that taste of that sort of outdoor adventure life for real- I know- bear in mind I was older now- I never looked back. Yes, and that led to you setting up a production company that put together a couple of survivor specials for the Canadian Discovery Channel.

Yes, what it was was I always wanted to do a home DVD series, which actually back then would have been a home VHS and video series on survival, But at one point I realized that the time was right for me to pitch it to the television networks, And so I did that instead of just producing it on my own. And, lo and behold, they loved the idea.

So the very first Survivorman sort of thing that I did was since the two pilot versions- I call them Stranded- was for Discovery Channel Canada at the time, And I just loved doing it and it went over so, so well that I then took it upon myself to pitch it as a full-on series called Survivorman. That's where most of the people who are listening are going to know you from, from that series. It's just a great series, one of my favorites, Thank you.

Yes, Well, it's a, I mean, and it's you know people. I don't think people realize that I did it for for nearly nine years.

And then they moved on to do Beyond Survival, which is the next series and is out playing- it's playing right now constantly- which was like Survivorman all grown up because it was out surviving with the indigenous peoples around the world. So it's been. It's been over 10 years that I've been doing it.

Yeah, The one thing I really love about this show is how honest it is and how, you know, nothing is really romanticized. The thing I think about are the scenes where you're up at night in a shelter somewhere with that kind of night vision, green lighting, and you're talking about, you know, being afraid or being kind of uncertain about what's going to happen next. That just I've actually been in a situation like that and I don't know how you can do a better job of explaining what the whole thing feels like.

Well, I think you know that was the whole deal was to, you know, just to really truly go through stuff. I mean, I obviously did hundreds of survival experiences before I started filming them, and so this was a matter of just going through the way.

I always let the real things happen, let the chips fall as they may, pull no punches, fumble and bumble like anybody else would have some successes, like anybody else would, and then, as I film it, you know, try to capture it in a way that is captivating. But at the same time, just tell the story as it is and don't try to trump up the drama.

Just show it as it is, because I think being lost in the wilderness is drama enough And it's not fun. I mean, it's not, No, it's never fun.

I think that's the big thing too is people. You know it's become a recreational activity. Survival has It's become that, and partially through shows like my own. But survival in its true essence is nothing recreational about it. It's miserable, It's uncomfortable, It's cold And in reality you don't want to build a shelter, You don't want to build traps, You don't want to make this or that, You don't want to be.

You know MacGyvering items into other items. What you want is to go home. That's the key to survival is getting out and going home. That is the whole point of survival, is going home. Once it becomes a sort of recreational side of things.

Well, that's fun because the skills are really enjoyable and that's how you hone your survival abilities, But in truth you really just want to go home And that kind of puts us right into the book Will to Live. I've read a number of books about survival and things like that.

But I think this is really unique because it's kind of like three books in one: You have the narrative and then you have the analysis of what goes on and then you have a lot of practical advice kind of woven in. Yeah well, I mean, I wanted to keep the book very alive and flowing And I also know that there have been a number of books out there that have discussed different survival stories, but they always come from the angle of the psychology.

It's like, oh, the psychology, the psychology, the will to live, the mental, And I'm like saying, well, yeah, okay, I get it, But what about if survival is 90% in the mind? What about that last 10%?

Because that last 10% is the stuff that you know is how do you get from A to B and what are the right decisions to make and what do you eat and don't eat, and all, And those things can be ridiculously fascinating. And it was my chance to take a look at some of these stories and then, after my years of experience of doing it, also inject my opinion and say, well, you know, that was a dumb move, You know, this person should never have done that, no matter what way you slice it. I get it And I wasn't there, but, generally speaking, that was a dumb move.

Or you know what? I wasn't there, None of us were there.

This would not seem like a good move, but it's pretty hard to judge because we were not there- And then, conversely, finally would be, that was a brilliant move. You know, I have no idea how he had the gumption to get up and do that, but you know, thinking to do that certain thing saved his life, And the stories run the gamut of that and many other things.

That's what I think is really the strength of the book. You get a really good picture of what you call a survivor's mindset.

What is that mindset? Well, the bottom line is remembering that survival is, for all intents and purposes, it's a verb.

You know, it's proactive. There is nothing passive about survival, and that's something that I always try to get across. You cannot be passive. You cannot be mild and meek and gentle and flow with the energy of the force. No, you're starving and you have to go home and you have to scale a wall to do it. Survival is a practical, sometimes aggressive activity and you want to be active in your own survival, Because if you're going to be passive and let things come what may, then guess what you're going to get.

You're going to get things come what may and they could be bad things. So that mindset is the mindset of being strong in your mind to know.

You know it's the same mindset as the person who gets up off the couch. You know those who sit on the couch and don't get up, and there are those of us who get up off the couch And that's what life is about.

Life is about getting up off the couch and doing, And survival is perhaps an extreme example of that, where if you don't get up and do something, you very well may die. So the mindset is one for survival that is very proactive and self-preservative. You talk about additive factors in survival and you kind of analyze those factors, like the will to live, like luck and things like that.

Well, I think I was really glad in Will to Live to take the end of each chapter And it's a bit of a device, it's a bit of a literary device for me to say, okay, I'm going to actually grade these guys And it's a bit of a guess. But looking at their stories, you can look at something like the Robertsons in their life raft floating in the ocean.

Well, for goodness sakes, they had turtles bump into their raft nearly every single day, providing them with ample food, and rainstorms every time they needed it, providing them with ample water. And that's that additive force that we call luck. I was like, wow, that's pretty lucky.

And then Yossi Ginsburg: in terms of Will to Live, I mean everything happened to this guy in the jungle, I mean just when you couldn't think it could get worse. It would, And yet he kept on surviving and his will was absolute.

So his luck was terrible, but his will to keep going was supreme. So there are so many variables in the additive forces of what it takes to survive, Like: what kind of kit do you have with you And what kind of knowledge base do you have? The guys up on the top of the mountain in the Andes, the Uruguayan rugby team that had to resort to cannibalism, had no survival skills. Some of these kids had never even been out of the city.

So zero survival skills. Whereas Douglas Lawson, in his trek across the Antarctic, was the most supreme Arctic survivor ever.

So his skills were supreme. Yet both of them found themselves in near-death experiences.

So it's really interesting to see how different individuals play out, given their circumstances and depending on what additive force they're strong in. Do they have a lot of luck?

Do they have a great survival kit? Do they have an incredible amount of knowledge, Or do they have a supreme will to live? Those are the four top ones. After that there's another 20 variables, And I guess the way of guaranteeing or preparing yourself is to try and make sure that all those additive factors are on your side As much as you can, and that's preparation. Preparation is the key. There You can get the knowledge ahead of time.

You can have a well-stocked survival kit. You can bolster your will to live even by having this knowledge, having the knowledge of where you're going, where this escape is.

So what's the escape route? You're going out with a group and you've got a guide.

Well, ask the guide if you can see the map, Get him to show you where is the closest roads, where is the escape route? So if you get halfway down the river and the guide himself has an appendicitis attack, you might be the only one who knows that there's a highway two miles to the east. And when you prepare yourself and bolster your will to live by getting that knowledge from the guides themselves.

You become an asset, not a liability, And then you don't have to worry about the bad luck so much, because these other three angles you can build up, And that again is being proactive about the situation, not just letting things happen to you but making things happen. Yeah, absolutely.

What do you think is the most important way for people who are going to take a group of young people into the wilderness to prepare themselves for those eventualities? I think the most important thing is the sharing of the knowledge.

We should all know what we all know. You don't want just the leader to know what the escape routes are, where the first aid kit is, what's in the first aid kit, how to use it, where the survival kit is. That's the way it happens, especially with younger people too, because younger people get out and they don't want to ask.

Well, they should ask. You're going out into the wilderness, You're going out with 12 people, You're going to go down a neat river And even if it's Algonquin Park, anything can happen. In the middle of the Petawawa River in Algonquin Park, You could find that you're with a group of six and you're the only one that survives a terrible fall down a waterfall And it happens to be an off time of year or for whatever reason, nobody's coming down that river for another 12 days. You don't know that, but maybe that's the case.

What do you do next? Right, And so I think, to answer your question more succinctly, what's the best thing? It's to share the knowledge with everybody. If you're going on an adventure, you should know as much as your guide does.

Is there a particular piece of gear or anything like that that you think is really key to carry into a situation when you're out in the wilderness? Well, if you're asking for one item, it's tricky.

On a level of rescue, I think the new GPS satellite messaging units are pretty great. If it's a matter of personal survival, I think the ability to get a fire going anywhere anytime is a big deal.

So for me, I would like to have three different methods of fire starting, And I'm not talking about the cool, funky, flint and striker things. I'm talking about a butane lighter. Everybody wants to be cool about it and talk about strikers and fire bows and fire pistons and this and that. I love those things. They're the cool part of the skill set.

But what do I carry with me? A butane lighter, a pack of matches and a flint striker.

I have all three, Because the last thing I want to be out there is cold and wet. And so how do you combat that big fire? That's how you do it. And one thing, and especially since I know in terms of scouting and that- and it's very and not I know it all depends, right, But when you get the proper training, when you really learn how to handle and manage a fire in the wilderness, then you are better off at that point with a good, solid, robust fire to keep you warm, to dry your clothes, to keep going, than a tiny little fire, Because a tiny little fire you have to hover over and maintain and pouring rain will put it out. Now. But remember what my first words were: Once you properly get the skill set on how to maintain and manage a fire in the wilderness- which is a skill set all in itself- It's something really to be learned, that's for sure.

Yeah, Whoever said wherever there's smoke, there's fire was never a Scoutmaster. That's right. Yeah, it doesn't always. One doesn't always follow the other. No, you can't dry your clothes with smoke.

And you know, you do a dump in a set of rapids and you come out soaking wet. You want to dry your clothes and do that, you know.

So for me- and I don't care if I'm in the desert or the jungle or the Arctic, I want to be able to get a fire going, And the Arctic is probably the trickiest place because there's not that much wood up there. But hey, even if it's just a moss fire, I want to be able to get warm and dry.

So that's my personal item. But again, as I said before, on a larger level, in the rescue level, I think the new GPS satellite messages are pretty good, Yeah, and the sat phones and things like that. Exactly, They have kind of changed the game in a lot of ways. They have definitely.

Do you have like a favorite camping story you'd like to share with us? Well, I mean, I have been.

I mean I think you can Google it too. If you Google the best story ever, which was, you know, for me at the peak of my game, so to speak, when I was instructing a lot and I was feeling very overconfident as a survival instructor and doing the group and doing lots of scout groups, and because I've trained and taught the scouts lots and different groups and tourism groups and people, I went off to find a spot and to teach some survival. And I came back and I ended up messing around too much with a beautiful cow moose I saw in the swamp and I called out to her. And I called out again and I am getting chased through the forest by a 1,500 pound bull moose in the rutting season and I got treed by that bull moose while he broke branches and trees down beneath me and I ended up getting out of the tree and running again and he chased me again and I ended up in the lake swimming to get away from a 1,500 pound bull moose in the rutting season. That is, that was, and that the lesson, the moral of that story. You cannot just like Aaron.

I'd love to meet Aaron Ralston, the man who had to cut his own arm off because his arrogance had him in that position where nobody knew where he was. My arrogance had me in that position with the bull moose and nobody knew I was there. I had not told anybody where I was going. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He just always let people know.

So for me, for me, it's funny because I was at the peak of my game and it was when I made the most stupidest blunder, which just goes, you know, you go figure. So you say that people who study survival don't really get a chance to practice the one thing they know best, That's getting caught in a real survival situation like something that's unexpected.

Are you telling me you haven't been close enough to that? Is that something that you really want to do? I suppose actually that moose story is pretty close to that, because that was a bit of I. When I was running in the bush I almost got completely turned around and lost.

I've been turned around once or twice, But I guess my point in that is that it's kind of funny that those of us- and boys, guys included, and any of us who have that love of the wilderness and love of adventure, if we also develop a love for survival skills and techniques, there comes a point where you just kind of think you know it'd be kind of cool if I really got lost, because then I really put the skills to the test. It's like this little guilty secret, hidden pleasure. But the reality is that as you get better, the chances that you're really going to get lost just keep getting less and less and less. And unless you're in a situation like me where, as I said, my own arrogance had me treated by a moose.

Unless you get overly cocky- and that happens- the reality is you're probably not going to get lost because now you just know too much. And you know that's a good thing, because nobody wants to.

We might want to test ourselves, but until it actually happens and then we'd be going: oh, I'm so stupid, I do not want to test, but I just want to go home. And that's again the moral of the story And survival. The reality is we just really want to go home.

Well, you know, I really appreciate you taking the time with me today And I was very excited to get the book and to read it. I recommend it highly.

I think it's one of the best ones out there. Well, thank you very much.

And you may or may not be aware that I've got my Survivor Man Scout badge out now in Canada. Oh, really, And yeah, so that's just a thrill.

I've got the Survivor Man Scout badge out now, which incorporates the sort of advanced survival techniques that the boys can do, And when they do certain ones, they get the Survivor Man Scout badge, which was an absolute thrill for me. We're still working on, I guess, on the official launch of it, but it's out and in operation And I'm going to keep doing stuff.

I've got more things on the go: Will to Live is out now And my original book, Survive Essential Skills and Tactics- the manual- And I'm not going to stop. I'm going to keep out and keep adventuring and I hope all the Scouts certainly do that as well. I can't tell you how many Eagle Scout letters I've signed for a lot of the boys in the States these days. I've signed hundreds of them, which I'm thrilled to do.

So yeah, we're going to keep at it. Thank you so much, Les. Thanks for taking the time again.

Not a problem, All right, thanks, Okay, bye-bye, Bye. MUSIC. Tingle-ling, tingle-ling goes the telephone. Tingle-ling, tingle-ling goes my heart.

And now here's one of your phone calls. You too can pick up the phone and give us a call. Tingle-ling goes my heart again. Hi, Clark, Bill McFarland and I'm with Troop 8, Fitzfield Mass. My favorite camping trip probably was back when I was around 14, went off to summer camp.

It rained every day we were there And our campsite wasn't set up. I was made a patrol leader. We had to set up the campsite in the rain.

We were wet and muddy. Just about every day we were there And that definitely felt like a lot of fun. But it was JLITC training And I had more fun with people that I didn't know but by the end of the week just became brothers, and that I wouldn't trade that experience for anything in the world. Love the podcast. Keep up the good work.

Well, Bill, thanks for calling in with that. Memory Goes to show, doesn't it? I mean, there's a couple of immutable laws of camping. First one is that the rainiest, muddiest, most miserable camping trip is the one that you are always going to remember the most fondly. I don't know why that is, but that's the way it is. The other law: it doesn't really matter where you go, It's important who you go with.

I've had that proven again and again.

You can go to some pretty exciting places anywhere on the globe- exciting, challenging, wonderful, beautiful, world-class places- And it's more important about who you go with. It really is. That's what really makes the memories, And that was a great memory. Bill Really appreciate it. You can call in with your favorite camping trip or your question for the Scoutmaster podcast And you can actually be on the podcast.

How about that? And you're going to learn how to do that in just a minute.