1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,960 Hello and good morning. How are you doing, arrows? I'm well, 2 00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:05,839 how are you? Oh? Absolutely, sir, you're up there in Bozeman, 3 00:00:05,919 --> 00:00:09,000 Montana. I grew up in Billings. Oh you did. Oh great? 4 00:00:09,080 --> 00:00:12,439 Great? Where are you right now? I'm in North Carolina? Okay? 5 00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:15,640 Great? Have you ever gone over there to the Bozeman Tunnel and walked 6 00:00:15,679 --> 00:00:18,519 around that area? Because you're a man that likes to get into the wild 7 00:00:18,519 --> 00:00:21,800 areas of the world. And my grandfather helped create that tunnel, and I've 8 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:26,239 always wondered, has anybody ever walked through that tunnel? No, No, 9 00:00:26,359 --> 00:00:29,320 where is it? I don't know about it. It's in between Livingston and 10 00:00:29,399 --> 00:00:32,280 Bozeman, and it's it's right there. You know. In the old days, 11 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:35,039 when it was only a two lane highway, you could see that tunnel 12 00:00:35,039 --> 00:00:38,159 perfectly. But nowadays, with that four lane road, you've got to know 13 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:42,640 that it's there. Oh no, I didn't know about it, and I've 14 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:47,520 lived here a long time. The things that you do, where do you 15 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:51,399 find the confidence to go into areas that are off the path? Because I 16 00:00:51,439 --> 00:00:55,600 always fear of getting lost? How do you find yourself in those places of 17 00:00:55,679 --> 00:01:00,799 being lost? He had the GPS, he had the maps. He had 18 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:06,840 a point man with a machete who was cutting a hole through the forest for 19 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:11,519 us. He would speak to that point man in Lingala, the local language, 20 00:01:11,519 --> 00:01:15,959 and say too kendiboy token da, and that meant this way. He 21 00:01:15,959 --> 00:01:19,599 would point this way, that way, that's what his compass told him, 22 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:25,239 and we would crouch down and hike through that hole that had been cut through 23 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:27,959 the forest. Speaking of tunneling, it was like tunneling through wherever he went. 24 00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:33,799 Do you find yourself being this modern day Ansel Adams? H No, 25 00:01:33,959 --> 00:01:37,760 because I don't take it the photographs. I am strictly a writer for National 26 00:01:37,799 --> 00:01:44,959 Geographic and I have had the world photographers National Geographic Photographers Nick Nichols, who 27 00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:48,599 I work with on my very first assignment, this this epic hike across the 28 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:53,840 Congo with Mike Fay and a number of others. So I'm not the Ansel 29 00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:57,959 Adams. I'm, if anything, maybe the James ag that's working with the 30 00:01:59,439 --> 00:02:04,200 Ansel, the guy that supplies the words. How about the wildness of this 31 00:02:04,319 --> 00:02:07,959 nation. I live in a forest here in Charlotte that we created with seventeen 32 00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:10,840 hundred trees, and it's like, I love the edge of being right there 33 00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:15,000 in that you know that moment of you never know what's expected. It's got 34 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:19,960 to be fascinating to your imagination to be able to capture it and then share 35 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:23,159 it. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean you're walking through the congo forest 36 00:02:23,199 --> 00:02:29,479 and suddenly come across a forest elephant with a calf, and she gets agitated, 37 00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:31,280 and she's deciding whether she's going to charge you or not. What are 38 00:02:31,319 --> 00:02:35,000 you going to do there? Do you run from a forest elephant or do 39 00:02:35,039 --> 00:02:38,960 you stand your ground? You go on a little farther. Next day, 40 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:44,479 there's a gaboon viper curled up right in the spot that you're going to put 41 00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:51,039 your foot. You give that respectful distance and keep hiking. A little farther 42 00:02:51,159 --> 00:02:53,479 there's a column of army ants. I want to tell you one thing, 43 00:02:53,599 --> 00:02:57,199 arrow, One thing you do not want to do when you're walking through the 44 00:02:57,240 --> 00:03:01,000 Congo forest in a pair of river sandals and shorts, is step on a 45 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:05,800 column of army ants. I learned that the hard way. So you stay 46 00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:14,520 alert, and you you enjoy these crazy wild creatures and and try not to 47 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:19,759 impinge on them or let them impinge on you, and and keep going and 48 00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:23,280 scribble it all if you're me, scribble it all in your notebook and tuck 49 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:27,840 your notebook into your ziplock bag. When you when you swim across the rivers 50 00:03:27,879 --> 00:03:31,280 and keep going, get the story and bring it home. When you speak 51 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:34,800 of these army answer, are we talking about the same ones that the that 52 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:38,000 the locals will use as a spiritual journey by putting their hands into the into 53 00:03:38,039 --> 00:03:42,360 the into the holes and and and it really is part of becoming a man. 54 00:03:44,599 --> 00:03:47,479 Well, I'm sure I haven't heard about that particular practice, but in 55 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:52,520 one of the cultures, and one of the indigenous cultures of Central Africa, 56 00:03:52,759 --> 00:03:57,439 I can well imagine that that would be a trial because I'll tell you what 57 00:03:57,599 --> 00:04:00,199 these these ants, some of them I can't remember remember the species name. 58 00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:08,120 But there's a particular kind of ant that is so painful when it stings you 59 00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:11,360 or bites you, some of them staying, some of them bite, and 60 00:04:11,400 --> 00:04:15,560 some of them bite to hang on and sting you repeatedly. And this ant 61 00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:21,879 is so formidable that it would occupy a particular tree, and you would find 62 00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:27,240 this tree in a little clearing, and the ants would be living on the 63 00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:30,720 tree, and if you touch that tree, they would swarm onto you, 64 00:04:30,959 --> 00:04:33,800 and I was told that it was even I don't know, for it was 65 00:04:34,439 --> 00:04:41,839 a spiritual journey or a form of torture that was used in some cultures. 66 00:04:41,879 --> 00:04:45,240 I think that there were at least stories that they would tie a person to 67 00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:49,480 that tree if they had captured an enemy and they wanted to torture him. 68 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:54,240 So we were very careful when we came to those particular kinds of tree. 69 00:04:55,079 --> 00:04:58,600 David, do not touch the limb, Do not step any closer than you're 70 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:02,360 standing right now. Give this tree a wide birth and lots of respect, 71 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:06,560 because you do not want to experience the ants that are living on that tree. 72 00:05:06,759 --> 00:05:10,399 Oh my god. The name of the book is the Heartbeat of the 73 00:05:10,399 --> 00:05:14,920 Wild, And in studying this book, it's almost like you are the closest 74 00:05:14,959 --> 00:05:17,680 to the heartbeat and you're taking us there. But it's almost like returning to 75 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:21,800 the womb that you're listening to the origin of that heartbeat of the wild. 76 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,959 Well, and the wild is hard to define. The heartbeat is hard to 77 00:05:28,959 --> 00:05:33,040 define. But when I pulled these pieces together and to make them a coherent 78 00:05:33,199 --> 00:05:40,959 book with updated reporting and connective tissue describing how the stories came about and how 79 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:44,959 one story led to another. During my twenty years with National Geographic I wanted 80 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:47,480 to think, what's the essence of the wild What do we mean when we 81 00:05:47,519 --> 00:05:53,920 talk about preserving the wild or the last wild places? And so in the 82 00:05:53,959 --> 00:05:56,639 forward I try and define it. I say, the wildness is a name 83 00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:00,439 that we give to the living nature on this particular plant at its most robust, 84 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:08,160 it's most complex, it's most diverse, it's most undiminished. And what 85 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:11,600 does that mean? Well, it means more than wild creatures. It means 86 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:15,920 more than wild places. It means also the processes that interconnect creatures in wild 87 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:25,439 places, processes like predation and herbivory and photosynthesis and parasitism and decomposition. All 88 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:30,000 of that is wrapped up into this concept of wildness and you can't have it 89 00:06:30,639 --> 00:06:35,360 in a zoo. Zoo's perform important services. But when you've got a tiger 90 00:06:35,399 --> 00:06:40,199 in a cage in a zoo, is that wildness? Well no, that's 91 00:06:40,839 --> 00:06:45,560 it's a dangerous animal. But to have real wildness, you need that tiger 92 00:06:45,639 --> 00:06:48,480 to be still in its ecosystem, with the cheatle gear that it eats and 93 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:57,439 the creatures that it competes with, the Asian elephants that might occasionally give it 94 00:06:57,480 --> 00:07:01,879 a run for its money. All of the other animal, fungi, bacterial 95 00:07:01,959 --> 00:07:06,000 forms of life in that ecosystem. That's what I mean by wild. Is 96 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:11,000 it because we're from Montana that you and I love these journeys in nature because 97 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:14,680 I know, the seed becomes the tree, becomes the giver to the FoST 98 00:07:14,680 --> 00:07:16,480 floor. It also gives to the writer, so that we have something to 99 00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:20,680 document our paths on. I mean, there's such a continuation in everything, 100 00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:28,000 and I'm fascinated by that. I think that Montana has something to do with 101 00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:30,240 it. I mean, you were born in Montana. I moved here in 102 00:07:30,439 --> 00:07:34,879 nineteen seventy three, right after I finished graduate school. I had always been 103 00:07:34,920 --> 00:07:40,160 interested in the natural world and always interested in writing, and I had some 104 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:46,079 great teachers who developed my interest, helped me become a writer, and I 105 00:07:46,199 --> 00:07:48,279 left the natural world behind, and then in seventy three, I wanted to 106 00:07:48,279 --> 00:07:54,839 get back to wild places, so I came to Montana and I sort of 107 00:07:54,879 --> 00:08:00,240 rediscovered that interest. And I had started my writing career as a novel list 108 00:08:00,319 --> 00:08:03,800 by but I eventually abandoned fiction, writing in terms of nonfiction so that I 109 00:08:03,839 --> 00:08:11,600 could write about biological sciences, ecology, evolutionary biology, the scientists who practice 110 00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:16,639 those sciences, the field biologists like Jane Goodall and Edward O. Wilson, 111 00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:22,040 and a lot of unknown but brilliant people who work in these wild places. 112 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:26,920 So I turned to that. But it was coming to Montana, a place 113 00:08:28,399 --> 00:08:31,159 where when you walk in the forest, you're aware that grizzly bears and moose 114 00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:37,879 and other amazing creatures are out there. It gives you a certain respect and 115 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:43,840 humility. It was being here in Montana that reawakened my interest in the wild 116 00:08:43,879 --> 00:08:48,919 and led to led to this long career of writing about such places, not 117 00:08:48,039 --> 00:08:52,799 just in Montana, Yellowstone places like that, but around the world. Wow, 118 00:08:54,039 --> 00:08:56,000 David, you've got to come back to this show anytime in the future. 119 00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:58,919 The door is always going to be open for you. Thank you very 120 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:01,519 much. Ero, I'd love to do that. Please talk about it. 121 00:09:01,559 --> 00:09:07,720 You'd be brilliant today. Okay, sir, you two arrow have a great day.