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Trust the Dogs: Blair Braverman on Letting Go and Staying Alive · Mind Over Mountain

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, Welcome to mind Over Mountain with me Cheryl
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Straight Today. My guest is Blair Braverman. She's a dog musher,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: dog sled racer, adventurer and writer. She's written the book
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Goddamn ice Cube and Small Game, and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: she's gone on adventures around the world in the wildest,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: coldest places, of course, not by herself, but with her
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: team of amazing dogs. In our conversation, we talk about
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: those dogs and the profound and funny and deep relationships
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: she has with them, of what it has meant to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: her over at the course of her career to put
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: her life in their hands. We also talk about acceptance
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and letting go and moving on and what happened when
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the two of us got locked in the kitchen together.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Let's listen to our conversation. Blair Braverman, Welcome to mind
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Over Mountain.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you so happy to be here.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm thrilled you're here too. I feel like we're
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: kind of kindred spirits. We are both writers and adventures
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: We love the wilderness and have done lots of fun
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: things out in the wild, and so I feel like
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: this meeting is a long time coming. Of course, We
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: follow each other on social media, and I know you
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: through your writing and your books, and so I just
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: feel like, you know this is gonna be like gathering
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of friends.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Cheryl. You would not know this.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: But one time, right when Wild came out, we were
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: at AWP conference and you and I got trapped in
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: a kitchen together. Oh really yeah, And I was completely
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: starstruck and trying not to be completely weird. I was
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: a grad student at the time. And then I was like,
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: I got trapped in a kitchen with Cheryl straight Oh
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: my gosh, okay my kitchen.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: To me, I'm blank.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I don't remember.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: We're trapped.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Not remember this. You would not you would not remember.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: But I love this. I love this.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: It was so inconsequential, but like somehow we were at
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: this writer's conference and like.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: We were trying to fight something.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: You were trying to fight something, and then I was too,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: and they're going through the same session, and like we
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: went through a door, and then I was like, oh
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: my god, I'm lost in a kitchen with Cheryl strad.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: Yes, now I remember the No, you do not remember, I.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Do, because we were I was trying to get somewhere
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: and we take some wrong, turn right, and there are
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: these big like convention hotels or whatever.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, and we're just yes, now, I remember that.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: I don't believe that you remember this. Maybe you're just
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: saying it. But I was trying so hard to be cool,
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: and I was like, oh my god, she's trapped with
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: like the biggest fangirl this.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: But like then I was like, oh my god, she's
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: a real person. And that's obay, because if a real
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: person can do what she does, then maybe I could too.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Oh that is so sweet. That's really wonderful. And I
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: mean I love that you were silently fangirling. Maybe because
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to just now like fan you out loud.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I want to say, you know, we started our humble beginnings,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you know, being trapped in the kitchen together at AWP
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to now here we are on this podcast talking, and
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I really am.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: I've loved your work.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, Welcome to the goddamn ice Cube is first
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of all, I know you heard this a lot.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: One of the best titles.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Of a book ever, mostly because you've got to have
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a swear word in it.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I don't know how they let
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: me do that. It slipped through the cracks somehow.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe when you write about the incredibly badass things that
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you've done, they're like, okay, she can say whatever she wants.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe they won't go so far as fuck.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: But you know, like goddamn is pretty good.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that goddamn is considered a worst word.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: It is because of the gods part.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it breaks a commandment.
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, it was there.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: There were a number of bookstores that wouldn't you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: place it face out, really things like that.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh that's interesting. That's that's fascinating.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Well, before we go far down the alley of your
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: beautiful writing, I want to first talk about, of course,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the subject of so much of your writing, which is
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: dog sledding, racing dogs and being a musher, which I
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: know this will be the first time you hear this
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: from some like sweet dog lover person like me. Is
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: it like, that's my fantasy? You know, I've always had
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: this fantasy. And of course I grew up in northern Minnesota. Yes,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I really I was surrounded by cold things
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: in snow, and you know, you would think that I
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: would have somehow ended up on a sled, But I
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: still to this day have not even done it at all, Like,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and I can't believe it. I'm at this age I've
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: never been, so you're gonna have to.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: I will take you.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I would love that, Okay, But I want to ask
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: how what about you?
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: You grew up in California.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I know you had a little bit of time in Norway,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: But how does a girl from California end up being
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a dog sled racer?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I it happens quite a bit.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: A lot of dogs letters are just sort of weird
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: people I think who don't.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: Kind of like writers, Yeah, who don't quite fit in.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: And you have to be right because you're going out
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: into wilderness and through hikers. Right, You're going out into
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: wilderness and spending so much time alone that if you're
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: someone who feels like you completely fit in in society,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: you wouldn't be doing that to yourself.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: So I grew up. I grew up in California. I
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: liked it.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: It was fine, but I always thought about the North.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: I always had like.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Books about sled dogs, and I had a book about
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Balto as a kid, and when I was young, my
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: family lived in Norway because my father had a job
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: working for public health there.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And I found out that it was.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: A real thing, and I just loved being outdoors and
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: I love my dog, and I love the idea of cold,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: and once I found out that it was possible to
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: combine those, I was obsessed. And so when I was eighteen,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: I moved up to the Norwegian Arctic. I had never
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: seen sled dogs in person ever, but I moved up
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: there to become a dogs letter and that was sort
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: of That was nineteen years ago, so it's all been
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: downhill from there.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: So really from the beginning you had an adventures spirit,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: because I have to say, at eighteen, you're really still
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a child. And most eighteen year olds, you know, they
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: venture off to college and there's this kind of you know, safety,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: like a sort of cocoon of college, and even that's
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a challenge for a lot of kids. What was it
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: like for you, I mean, did you go to take
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the actual program that you were training to be a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: musher or what was that like? Did you just show
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: up and find dogs letters.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: I always, you know, I was interested in polar exploration,
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: and actually as a teenager, I would look up like
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: it was mainly like scientific expeditions to Antarctic and stuff
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: and I would like write these cover letters being like,
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: do you want someone to watch dishes for you? Like
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: this is the kind of thing you know, seventeen year
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: old boys could do one hundred years ago, just right
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: wash dishes and come on a polar expedition. And I
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: just sort of wanted that role. Of course, no one
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: ever responded. But I learned about something called folk schools
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: in Norway, which are these year long, non academic, sort
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: of socialist boarding schools. And I learned about one up
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: in the Norwegian Arctic, two hundred miles above the Arctic Circle,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: where students could learn dog sledding, and I spoke Norwegian
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: and I applied to the school, and that was where
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: I first learned. I was there for a year, and
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: from then I moved to Alaska and became a dog
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: sled guide. There's actually a really beautiful film that just
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: came out called folk Tales for anyone who's interested in
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: what this very strange.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: School was like, and they hid youing.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: The filmmaker followed kids at one of these dogs ledding
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: folks schools for a year, so you can look that
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: up and watch it, and it's just absolutely gorgeous.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So you know, a lot of people at eighteen think
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: they want to do something and they venture for it,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and then they're like, ha.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: That's not for me.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: What happened in those years when you were in Doorway
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and then in Alaska working as a dog sled guide.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: What happened that made you think this is my thing, Like,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: this is what I want to do.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I remember.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Maybe the first time, maybe one of the first times,
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: that I was standing on a dog sled, and there's
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: this unbelievable power. That's what people don't anticipate about standing
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: on a dog sled. They imagine that, you know, even
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: a horse, someone who's a very not me, but someone
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: who is really good at riding a horse, can sort
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: of make a horse go in a direction by sort
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: of physically steering them. You cannot do that with sled dogs.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: There is absolutely no way to physically make.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: A dog team do what you want them to do.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: So when you're mushing, it's all trust. You say things
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: and the dogs choose to hotter.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Them or not.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: And they are so much stronger than you are, like
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: a team of dog I mean, they can pull a
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: truck out of a ditch, they can uprogree if you're
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: just a.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Person standing on a dog sled.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: There's no way that you're physically able to stop them
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: or steer them or do anything. You're sort of at
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: their mercy and it's this really intense risk and trust
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: and collaboration and just spectacular beauty. So you're going through
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: wilderness that you would never have been able to reach
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: any other way. And it's silent. It's not like a
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: snowmobile where it's noisy. It's just almost completely silent. You
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: just hear the breath of these dogs who you love. Wow,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: and it's like it is the most addictive feeling in
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: the world. It's so spectacular.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: It sounds to me like, I mean, it's not just
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: one relationship.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: I have a history of horseback riding.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I haven't been doing it lately, but as a kid,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I grew up with horses, and you're right, it is
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the horse obviously can can ultimately do it at once,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: but there is this, you know, this relationship between the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: rider and the horse that can be quite intense and
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: even spiritual.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: You know, a lot of people, I think.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Find that that's what they're drawn to horseback riding for,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is that relationship you have with a horse. But you're
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: having a relationship with of course, you're not just being
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: pulled by one dog. How do you develop that trust
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: with this whole team of dogs. Maybe we should back
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: up and you can tell us it's like twelve to.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: Sixteen dogs on a sled, Is that right?
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: It really depends. So for a very long race, you'll
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: typically have fourteen to sixteen. But you really can mush
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: with three dogs, or you can if you're training a
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: big team, maybe you take out eighteen dogs at a
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: time so that they're all getting their exercise at the
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: same time. So I would say typically anywhere from six
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: to fourteen.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: But that's a lot of people to have trust with,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: or not a lot of people, A lot of okay,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: dog people. It's a lot of dog people. Who's why
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: you don't speak.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: To trust that?
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: To tell me about that, like how is that dynamic
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: with the individual dogs and the team of dogs.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: It's really a unique experience. It feels like you're becoming
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: more of a dog yourself, just in the way you
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: have to communicate, like your body language and your way
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: of thinking and your way of understanding communications from others
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: becomes less verbal. And for me, I care a lot
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: about words and it's it's like an interesting relief to
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: sort of have that completely turned off. The biggest, the
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: biggest kinship is with your lead dog. So so you
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: have no physical control over the team, but there's a
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: dog at the very front of the team or two
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: usually two actually called the lead lead dog or lead dogs,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: and actually where they go, the rest of the team follows.
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: And you also are dragged can you.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: You can't, you can't stop. If they chase a year
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: through a river, you're going to go through that river.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: And so that intensity of a relationship with.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: The lead dog is so vulnerable and so beautiful.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: And.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: You need to earn their trust more than they need
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: to earn yours. And the primary way to do that
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: is to prove that you're anticipating their needs. So when
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: dogs go into the wilderness, they don't know if they're
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: going for two miles or if they're going for two weeks,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Like they there's no way to communicate to them. Maybe
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: they start to get the hang of like, oh it's
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: a really big sled.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: We might be gone longer.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: But you have to regulate their pace because they are
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: not able to do that themselves because they don't have
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: the information about how far you're going.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: They're just giving it.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: They're all all the time, and so what you have
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: to do as a musher is you need to anticipate
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: everything they're going to need. Okay, they've been running for
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: a couple hours, they're going to be thirsty. Just when
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: they're starting to think, oh, maybe i'm thirsty, you already
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: have water that you've lit a cooker and melted snow
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: so that they have fresh, cool water. Or just as
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: they're starting to think, oh I'm hungry, guess what, you're
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: already one step ahead of them, and you have a
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: frozen chicken thigh for everybody. And just when they're starting
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: to think, oh, maybe they're tired or just a hair
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: before they reach that point, you're setting up beds and
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: you're going to rest and you're all going to sleep
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: beside the trail before you continue on. And so the
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: more they learn that when they're running with you, they
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: don't have to worry about their own needs because you're
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: always going to be one step ahead of them, the
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: more they're going to trust the things you're telling them
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Which is really I mean, I'm just fascinated listening to
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: you describe this because I think it's so contrary to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the ways that we think about like, quote unquote how
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: to lead, you know, how to lead is about so
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: often it's been framed as a kind of dominance, like
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I am the I am the one who you must
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: obey my commands and what you're talking about. What came
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: to mind for me is being a mother. Like you know,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: especially when my kids were little, littler, it was like,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: anticipate their needs.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: I take that back.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: It's still the same way anticipate their needs. You know,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you pack the sippy cup or the like baggy of
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you know, like cheerios, because they're going to be hunger,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: they're gonna be thirsty.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: We need the day, you know.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: And and that that is like love and action, which
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: is nurturing, which is considering, which is anticipating, as you say,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the needs.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: So have you thought about it? I mean, I'm going
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: to imagine you've thought about that. That just seems to.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Me an inherently kind of like collaborative, compassionate kind of leadership,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: which is really different from the way that leadership is
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: so often framed in sport and in life.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and also different from how leadership is framed when
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: it comes to dogs, right, be the alpha, like be dominant,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: that's the biggest thing. Will I give talks sometimes where
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: I talk about teamwork and leadership with sled dogs, and
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: no matter what I say, people will come up to
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: me afterwards, particularly men, and show pictures of their dogs
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: and be like, well, I'm the alpha, and I'll be like,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: I literally just explain to you why that's not relevant.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: But it doesn't.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: So you don't even believe in that the full idea
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of there, that you have to be the alpha.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Not really, no, I think. I mean, for one thing,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: it's a myth. You know, the whole idea of the
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: alpha wolf has been debunked by the same biologists who
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: coined the term. Turns out he was basing those observations
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: on wolves in captivity, so wolves who are taking out
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: their stress on each other, and not wolves who were
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: like having a nice time in a natural environment for them.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: But I don't think so, no. I mean, there's times
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: when you have to be more assertive. There's times when
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: the dogs are more assertive. There's times when I say,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: let's cross this river and they're saying no, the ice
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: is thin, and I have to.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Listen to them. And they're pretty insistent.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: But it's not a pecking order. It's way more the
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: partnership exactly.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's such a great example that you're saying,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: you see the river, here's you know. Here you are
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: with your perceptions of the environment, and you think it
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: looks safe.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: The dogs don't. Has that happened many times in your experience.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: It's a mussure that, like, the.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Dogs have wisdom or intuition or information that's not available
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: to you, and you have to trust them to save
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: your life. Essentially, what's so interesting about being with a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: dog team is that they have information I don't have.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: They know what wild animals are around. They can smell them.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: I can't.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: They know, you know, they can feel the trail with
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: their paws. They can smell if there was another dog
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: team that went a different way than we're going.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know any of that.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: And then I have information they don't have, So I
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: know how much food we have in this led.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: If we're going one thousand miles or fifty miles. I
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: know how far down the trail there's a shelter. I know,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: you know this led is broken and we're going to
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: really end up in trouble if we keep going, because
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: it's going to shatter into a million pieces. So we
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: can't quite explain those things to each other, and that's
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: where we have to sort of build up credibility so
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: that when another member of the team is like, just
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: trust me, this isn't going to work, I defer to them,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: and sometimes they defer to me.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Will you tell me about a time that a dog
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: or a team of dogs have actually saved your life?
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: Has that ever happened?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, It's happened in so many small ways too
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: that I almost can't count them, just sort of small ways.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Every day that our lives are, my lives are in
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: my life is in their pause, so to speak. But
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: an example that comes to mind is in a race
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: called the Percy to Wolf, which is I think it
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: just ended, which is really sad. It was a really
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: wonderful race up in the Yukon and it went two
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: hundred miles up the Yukon River, over the border into
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Alaska and then back again.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: So you actually would have to like carry your passport.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: And your sled and then border agents would come out
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: on snowmobiles and search it.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Wow, and they.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Would always like take a really long time because they
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: wanted to pet all the dogs.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: M of course I would too, I'm sorry, yeah, it
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: was we all loved the dogs, right.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: But but we were going up.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: The whole thing is on the frozen Yukon River, which
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it sort of has high banks, sort
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: of cliffs on either side, and so it's a little
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: bit like being an elabyrinth. You can't see around turns.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: And it had been many hours since I'd seen another
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: dog team. Sometimes it goes days, but in this case,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: it had been hours. And I came around a corner
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: and there were a bunch of dog teams, like three
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: or four just completely stopped, and so immediately I knew
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: something something's going on there.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: And also, these are mushers I really admire.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: There's this you know, we're competitors with each other when
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: we're out there, but it also feels like we're all
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: on the same team. And these rushers are just so cool.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: There are a lot of Canadian mushers. There's guy there
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: who's he's missing a finger because.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: His finger got wrapped wrapped in the cord. The dogs
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: were pulling the room and they they pulled in it his.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Finger popped off, and I'm sorry, but before before he
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: could pick it up, the dogs ate it.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: No, No, okay, I love your little gutour here. I'm like,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: has a dog I ever saved your life?
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah? But they also eat fingers, so there's that.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: That's the downside, right, If you drop your finger, then yeah, yeah,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: it's a trail snack.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: A dog's gonna dog. I mean, what the heck?
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Right? But I couldn't figure out why they were stopped,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: and so I get closer and I realized that what's
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: happened is sort of the edge of a glacier has
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: slid down over the river. So you have this slanted
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: glare ice and just picture like a freshly zambonied ice drink.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: But the that's at an angle. So every time these
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: it's not a super steep angle, but it's deep enough,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: especially because there's no friction whatsoever. So every time a
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: dog team tries to cross this portion of the glacier,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: they start sliding uncontrollably downhill. And at the bottom of
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: this there is a massive stretch of open water, so
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: the teams have every time they try to cross, they
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: start sliding uncontrollably toward open water, which is incredibly deep.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: It's just like it's so dark.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're gonna die within minutes if you go into
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: and the.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Current's going to pull you right back into the ice.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: And there's no opening for fifty miles.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: You're done.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: So everyone's stopped. No one knows how to get across,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: and I stop too. I don't know how to do this.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: And my lead.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Dog, Jega, who is this very crabby dock she is
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: she she's so smart.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: She's so smart that I can only run her in
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: lead when there's a challenge, because if I run her
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: lead when things are boring, she will start entertaining herself
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: by like playing pranks on the other dogs, like she'll
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: like steer them into snowbanks, or she'll like dive for
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: mice that don't exist and then look over her shoulder
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: and see if she could get the other dogs to dive.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: But Jenga starts leaning into her harness and barking and
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: trying to lead us onto the glacier. And I'm like,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: this is this is a terrible idea. We can't do this,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: but she's so insistent.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: She's like, trust me, I can do it. I got
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: this bad.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is so clear, she's so insistent, and so
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: finally I take my foot off the break and I'm like, okay,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: like I she's never led me wrong. And she pulls
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: us onto the glacier and immediately, like the sledge starts fishtailing,
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: and all the dog's legs sort of splay out, and
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: we're all sliding down towards this open water, and like
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: my heart's in my throat, I'm like, oh my god,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: can we back off somehow? Can we get backwards? I
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: don't know what to do? And then we stop sliding
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: and I can't figure out why. And then I realized
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: that there's a patch of ice that sort of scratched up,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: It has this texture on it, and she had spotted
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: it and had led us sort of to that island
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: of scratched.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Of ice where she could get some purchase, and the
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: rest where.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: She could get some purchase and we'd be able to
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: get our footing. And then as soon as we've caught
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: our breath, she leads us forward again and we start
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: sliding a little bit farther this time, and then we
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: stop and she's able to she has spotted these sort
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: of islands of scratch of ice that were not visible
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: from my angle. I'm taller than her, so I have
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: a different The light is hitting the ice differently from
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: me and she. Every time we move forward, we slide
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: even closer to the water, and I'm terrified the whole time.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: But she leads us island by island across the entire glacier.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: Amazing.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: When we got to the other side, I looked over
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: my shoulder and ever one of the other.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Teams was following the path.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and she showed you that there was one.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: And not only that, every dog team that crosses scratches
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: up the ice little more so becomes a safer and
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: safer path for the teams behind us.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: So that's an instance where I truly did not see
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: the solution, but but she did.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And it's incredible to trust. I mean, it really is
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: so fascinating, the extent to which it is collaborative. You know,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I think when most people, I mean, I'll just speak
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: for myself when I when I have thought about that
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: before in dog slotting, and it's like, yeah, okay, you know,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: there's some you know, but in the end, it's the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: human who's always finding the way. And it's really fascinating
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: to me and through your books and just you know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: hearing your stories how much it really is like they're,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you know, an deep intelligence in the dog mind that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: is like, here's how we do it. That there wouldn't
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: be a way that the human could find, and the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: dogs found the way. And I'm sure that's just one
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: example of something you've experienced over and over.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, there's a million.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: One of my favorite stories is when I was caught
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: in a blizzard and none of the dogs could sort
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: of pull us through it, and I ended up it
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: was just total white out. It was a ground blizzard,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: so the storm. There was a blue sky above, but
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: a wind had come in so strongly that it was
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: lifting the snow off the ground and it was a
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: white out. And even just to make it up to
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: my lead dogs, I had to sort of go hand
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: over hands so I didn't step away from them and
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: lose them and storm and I thought I was going
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: to have to build a snow shelter and just camp
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: in there for a couple of days, but there was a.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Shelter a couple miles ahead.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I knew that the dogs didn't because we were on
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: a new trail and none of the dogs could lead
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: us through until a dog in the back of the
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: team whose name is Harry. I brought him up to
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: the front as an experiment when none of the other
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: dogs had been able to find the trail and Harry's blind,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: so he always runs in the back of the team.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Wow, so you chose the blind dog to lead you through,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: au Blizard that all the other dogs were like, no,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: let's not do this.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: It was more like I had tried every single other right,
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: just for the sake to try, for the sake of
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: being comprehensive.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, might as well try Harry. I have
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: all the time in the world. I'm just going to
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: be stuck here.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: And he ended up leading us through several miles to
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: the shelter so we didn't have to sleep in the
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: snow for days.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: And do you think, I mean, I'm gonna guess he
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: has to rely on so many other senses if it's
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: not relied on vision, and so he's at his best
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: probably when it's white out conditions. He's like, Okay, I
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: don't use that anyway. We're just gonna go I know
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the way, right.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was very slow. We weren't like a right,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: so you've got there. Yeah, it was you know, Pa
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: by Pas sort of sniffing out the trail and feeling
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: it out in a way that none of the rest
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: of us could find it.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Oh that is so beautiful. And when was Harry like
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: how aware? I mean, obviously the dogs are deeply aware
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of what they're doing. Yet when he got you where
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you wanted to go, was he like was he like stoked?
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Like was he like, look at me, I did this
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: for y'all?
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Not that stoked? I think he was.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: I think he was just like, oh man, we stopped running,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: but then like we got to keep going, which I liked.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: So he was just happy he got to like keep
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: going down the trail for a while.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I guess what I'm asking is like, you know, obviously
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: you have a sense of achievement or victory when you
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: when you reach the end of a race. But do
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the dogs or was it just like they loved They
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: loved to go out every day, whether they're doing it
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: just as like you're out there for yourself or a
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: training run or a race, you know, is it all
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the same to them?
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: They I mean they just love being out there for
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: one thing. They just love being out there. And that's
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: why it's so fun, is because you're with dogs who
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: are having the time of their life. Right, But they
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: do I don't know if they really have a sense
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: of accomplishment for like a finish line, they do. If
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: there's crowds cheering for them, they love it. They're like
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: they can't get enough. They're like, yes, I am the stars,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I am a star.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: They know that like lots of petting and treats are
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: soon to come.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they just love like people will be at
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: the finish line or they'll be sort of lining the
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: street cheering, and the dogs just.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Are like, this is about me. They think so fun.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: But more than that, when you're out in the wilderness
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: and you haven't seen another team for a long time,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: and it can be hours and it can be days
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: since you've seen another team. When you see another team,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: they want to pass that team. They have a sense
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: of who is in front, right and passing.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And they get competitive with other teams.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: And this will actually be I mean, if you're in
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: a multi day race and there's another team that's sort
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: of the same pace.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: As you, you will leapfrog with them. You can do
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: it for days. You can get.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Stuck like this because the team back is so desperate
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: to pass, uh huh, and then they sort of chill
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: out once they're in front, and then the team and
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: back again is desperate to pass. And you just can't
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: get stuck in this like We're gonna leaprog for fifty
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: times over the next two days.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: It's very silly, but that's what the.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Doctors and they have that impulse too, just like we
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: do in cars when you're passing in front.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: And then they pass you back and you're like, no, no, yeah,
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: I'm getting there first.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: So you have raised and you have mushed in many races,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: but of course you completed the most I think is
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the most famous race of all the I did, Rod,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: would you agree that that's the most famous at last
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: in North America.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: It's probably the most famous in the world. Yeah.
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the one everyone's heard about.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And you know, I was thinking before I talk to you,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: when did it come to my attention? And you know,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I think it was for me when I was a teenager,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: And I've always been a feminist.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: My ears have always been sort of like I always
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: am paying attention to women in various sports, and nineteen
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: eighty five, Libby Riddles won the idit Rod, the first
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: woman to win the race, and I was like, that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: is cool, and so I mean forever, I forever.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Then became like, you know, tuned into the I Did Rodd.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: It's a really spectacular event, about one thousand miles long
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: through the most remote Arctic cold Alaskan wilderness. And you've
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: run it a couple of times, right, you competed in
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: I've competed it in twenty nineteen. I've run I've only
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: raced it once. I've run portions of the trail quite
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: a few times, uh huh.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: And then I've trained my dogs for it multiple times.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Other than that, what happened in twenty nineteen? How was
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: that experience for you?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: It was I had done other races that were three
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: hundred miles, four hundred and forty miles, and then the
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: I Did Rod is like roughly one thousand.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: The trail changes a little every year.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: It was somehow exponentially longer than anything I'd ever done.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: It did not feel like three three hundred milers or
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: two five hundred milers. It felt like entering a completely
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: different world and then coming out of it some indeterminate
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: amount of time later.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: And how long does it take? Generally about two weeks.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: It took me thirteen days, okay, yeah, which I'm sure
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: when you are that absorbed, you know, and this activity
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: for that long, you're not probably getting a lot of sleep,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of you know, hardly any cozy times, very
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: very difficult circumstances. I bet by the end of that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: thirteen days, it felt like you'd been out there for
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: seven years.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it felt like I barely remembered what it
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: was like to not be on the trail, and you
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: are sleeping like two hours a night or something, so
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: in terms of waking hours, it's like you've been out
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: there for longer.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: But it's I don't know why. I don't know why.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: It felt so much bigger than everything else I've done.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: I think maybe there are just so many different landscapes
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: that you pass through. So you go up and over
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: the Alaska Range and then you going down.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: It is a hell of a ride by dog.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Team, I'll tell you that that I imagine absolutely terrifying,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: because you don't have very good breaks and they want
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: to go really fast and you're just sort of wind terrifying.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: You're going through portions in the center of Alaska, the
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Alaskan interior that are so remote that they are geographic
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: areas that are bigger than many US states without a
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: single human inhabitant.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's really hard for any of us
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to truly wrap our minds around the Yeah, and just
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: to be clear, you know, you're out there on a sled,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: and then when you say things like you know you're
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: trying to apply the break or they're going really fast,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: or you don't. I mean, one of the things that
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: scares me the most when I think about what you've done, Blair,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is like, you can fall off the sled, right or
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: you can like lose your team.
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: Like, they will keep going. They're not if you if
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: you if you.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Do let go or fall off or something happens, They're
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: not going to be necessarily like no, let's all just
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: stop and go back and get Blair.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: They'll keep going. They're like, yeah, the sled got lighter,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: so with.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: This is where the trust ends.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: They're like, we trust you, we love you, we'll do
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: anything for you. But if you stop, you're on your own. Sister,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: they're going to keep going forward. They're pretty much not
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: basically not.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Going to stop if you ask them to stop.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: I've heard of people who have fallen off their dog
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: sled managing and all your survival gears on that sledge.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're everything right, and it's your You have shelter, food,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: everything you need goes with the sled.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: And traditionally you're not allowed to have any two way
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: communication devices in this race. You don't have a satellite phone,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: you don't have a cell phone, you don't have any
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: way to communicate with anyone if you end up in trouble.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: I had no idea, what what the hell is that about?
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: Why would they do with that?
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: They just changed that role recently.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: But it also doesn't matter because there's no cell reception,
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: so you have no right to communicate with anyone.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: Well, don't even try.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: You could be like continually try to make calls, which
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: would give you something to do while you died.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, most of the racing I've done, you're not allowed
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: to have any two way communication, So you're just interesting.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: There's no way to is that because it's this idea
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of like this is really an ancient I want to
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: say sport really ancient activity. You know, these dog slides
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: were used first, I think for like logistical purposes like
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: delivering mail and food to remote communities and so forth.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: So they're just saying we want to keep it as
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: traditional as possible.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: Is that the idea?
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: You know? There there was some debate and I think
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: this is interesting when they finally started allowing two way
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: communication devices, which my understanding is they did that actually
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: after some people were attacked on the trail. Some mushers
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: were attacked, and so they said attack snowmobilers.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: And other people.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Other people people get attacked by like moose. That's happened before,
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: and they didn't change the rule. But a couple of
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: years ago, too much as were attacked by a drunk snowmobiler.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: Wow, okay, And.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: After that is around when they changed the rule.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: So hey, have you ever lost your team? Have you
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: ever been out in the wilderness and they go away
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: and you're in the snow?
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: Everyone's nightmare. I've had that happen twice to me in
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: nineteen years. One time I was using a very old
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: dog sled and it was dry rotted, and actually the
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: handlebar just came off in my hands. So I was
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: left there holding on to the handlebar, and the team
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Goodness Grace went away. And then another time was in
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: your old neck of the Woods, northern Minnesota, Woo, and
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: I just there was an icy road and I went
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: over a huge snow bank and the sled went side
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: sideways and I got dragged for like half a mile
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: and then my arms gave it. And in that case,
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: I ended up walking for several more hours, and I
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: ended up finding my team. They had stopped up ahead,
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: and I was very worried about them, because a dog
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: team without a person attached to them could end up
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: in trouble, right they could chase an animal, or they
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: could run into a road, even though there weren't roads
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: there really, and I was running. I didn't have any
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: of my gear. I just had a headlamp.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: I was running for hours, yeah, in the Sawtooth Mountains.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: And finally I saw like a Christmas light up ahead,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: a Christmas tree. And this was very bizarre. We were
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: very deep in the wilderness, but there were lights all
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: over it. And I was like, someone must have put
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Christmas lights on this tree just because they knew there
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: was going to be a race. And I got closer
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: and closer, and because I saw this from quite some
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: distance away, and then when I finally got there, I
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: realized that what I had thought were Christmas lights twinkle
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: were actually the eyes of my dogs and they were
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: all sleeping in a pile just watching me.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: And my head lamp was.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Only reflecting their eyes, so I was just they were
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: just watching me run toward them from very very far away,
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: sort of entertained by the whole thing.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I bet that was a huge relief.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: That was such a relief. It was such a relief.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: So and you are out there, let us, I mean,
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: we had even talked.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: There's so many aspects honestly of this sport that you
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: do that I'm like, and I don't think I'm alone
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: and thinking like, okay, like how do you even survive
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: this sport? Because you are out there and it's always cold.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: I grew up in northern Minnesota. I grew up in
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a house without running water or electricity, and I know cold,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Like I really know what it feels like to be cold,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: which is why I left Minnesota and live in Portland, Oregon.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, it's a lot, it's really
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: hard to persist in that kind of environment. Tell me
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: about your relationship and ship too cold, and survival and
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: toughing it out in those environments.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: It's interesting because you're just talking about the two way
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: communication devices, and I think there's a way in which
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: there's an argument that they can make mushing more dangerous
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: that I do sort of subscribe to. Because when you're
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: out there in the wilderness, even if you call for help,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: it is going to take days for someone to get
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: to you, and so you need to go out there
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: presuming that no matter what, no one is going to
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: come rescue you. They may come retrieve your body, but
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: they're not going to come help you in a pinch.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: And so having a two way communication device can make
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: you think, if I'm in trouble, I'll just call someone
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: for help. I'm not going to need to be completely
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: self reliant and completely responsible for me and my dogs.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: But if you don't have that, it's a different mindset
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: that every single thing is on you, and so you know,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: I often don't. I think it's a false sense of
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: security that could be dangerous to think that you're going
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: to be able to call for help, because it will
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: take days before anyone gets out there, and if you're
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: hypothermic and forty below, you do not have days.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I think every long distance hiker or dogmasher experiences this
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: is that, like both the kind of scary scariness of that,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: like nobody everything is on me, Like every decision I make,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be the one to either suffer the
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: consequences of my mistakes or and the upside is also
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: feel like claim the victory of the things that I
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: did right, even if I made mistakes along the way.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: In the end, I saved myself or I survived that,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: or I was able to do what I thought I
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: couldn't do, which is the beautiful, of course power of
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: a sport like any of these wilderness adventure sports, dog
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: slotting and longus't hiking where you do have to rely
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: on yourself.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Did you did you have any sort of communication device
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: with you? No?
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: It was nineteen ninety five. There weren't communication devices. I mean,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: that's what's so interesting to me. I didn't, you know,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: because I did the hike in ninety five and then
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I wrote Wild Wild was published in twenty twelve, and
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: by then, you know, everyone had cell phones and like
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: you know, iPods and you know all these things, and
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like, listen, not only did I not, I mean
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't even I learned what a cell phone was
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: on the PCT, Like somebody told me there are these things,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: and I remember thinking that is that thing is not
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: going to catch on because like nobody is going to
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I know this is a true story. It's those those
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: cell phone things.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: Are going to be They're.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Going to bomb on the marketplace because nobody in their
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: right mind would agree to like walk around all the
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: time carrying a telephone.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: It just seemed absurd to me, like that you would,
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: you would?
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I loved the nineties, you know, I loved
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: the world before cell phones because you there, you were unreachable.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And I'm really aware that, like the experience of being
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: alone in the wilderness is a different one for me
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: now when I go hiking, Yes, I have my cell
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: phone in my back pocket, and in wild I didn't
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: even have you know, I didn't even bring a walkman.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: The only music devices then were you know, you would
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: have to bring cassettes to play on a walkman. And
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: of course I'm not going to carry a bunch of cassettes.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sort of famous for having the heavy pack,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: but I didn't put any cassettes in there. So, you know,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I was really alone in my own mind and the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: absolute only way to communicate with somebody is if they
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: walked up to me, or if I reached a payphone,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: which would be you know, hundreds of miles apart and
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: called someone, yeah, or you know, saw them in real
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: life essentially. Yeah, and I know you experienced that too. Yeah,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: how do you think your.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Trip would be different if you had a phone?
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: I think I wouldn't have been alone.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: And this isn't to undercut anyone who's out there hiking
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: now and every night, like you know, posting on Instagram
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: from the trail, or making phone calls or sending videos
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: or you know, all having feedback. Like I, there was
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: no portal to the rest of the world except my
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: own mind.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and in cell phones, we get that.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Right now, you and I are in different places and
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: we're looking at each other and we're talking, and we're together.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: There's a way that we're not together, but mostly we're together.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: You know, we can have a conversation if I needed
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: some emotional support or you needed emotional support. We could
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: give it to each other. We could give each other
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: that sense of not being alone. And I think that
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: what that takes away, of course, is the beautiful power
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: of reckoning, truly reckoning with the self, and the magnificent,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: profound stuff that comes up in truth, solitude and silence.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: What do you think, Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I can't really listen to music when I'm mushing until
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I'm like.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Five hundred miles in. Before that it's too overstimulating. But
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: then after like five hundred miles, I get tired enough
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: that I start listening to usually like musicals because it's
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: sort of like has a beat but also a little
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: bit of a narrative to keep.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Me awake, just if you listen straight through. Yeah, I'm
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: curious though.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: As a writer, I've often felt that, Okay, I do
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of things that are completely solitary, and there
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: have been times when I've been very lonely. But if
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: I can write about that in a powerful enough way,
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: it is a way of sort of giving myself company
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: retroactively during a time when I was alone.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean, I kept a journal, I do. I
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: kept a journal on the PCT and that was that
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: was my company. You know, it was essentially a conversation
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: with myself, which writing is very much And I know,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: do you keep pajournal when you're I mean, obviously, I
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: know there's so much to do when you like, you know,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: are like, Okay, I got to make camp for the
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: night and I got to feed the dogs at the
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: end of the at the end of the day or
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of the day. Are you Are you
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: writing in your journal along those along the way?
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Too cold?
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Your your fingers would fall off and then the dogs
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: would eat them.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like literally it just sort of physically
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: doesn't doesn't work.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: You wouldn't be able to have legible handwriting.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I bet you're kind of writing in your mind like yeah,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: oh always that that's that that you're right, like that
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: way of telling a story. And I think too that
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: that that is why you know, we so many of
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: us love social media. You know, I took to social
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: media very naturally because I was like, oh, this is
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: like an extension of myself as a writer. You know,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: to tell even the smallest little story of your day
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: in a line or two, you know, it's sort of irresistible.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: Yea, and but it goes out to the world.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Where we're as if we're alone in our heads or
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: in our journals, it stays with us at least until
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: we publish it.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Did you always know?
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: So here you are, you know, I want to ask
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: about your writing career too, because you know, you've had
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: this really like deep and solid and varied career as
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: a musher and a guide and a racer and all
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of these things you know solidly in this kind of
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: sport of dog sledting, and you also have a solid
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: career as a writer. I mean, you don't just by
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: accident end up locked in the kitchen with me at AWP.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: The biggest writer's coperist in the nation.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: It's because you're a serious writer, and of course you've
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: gone on to publish books. How has it been for
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: you to have these twin careers alongside each other.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: They work really well in tandem. And I mean Gary
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Paulson is a massive hero of mine. He wrote Hatchet,
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: which sort of famously a lot of millennials read in school,
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: and he also wrote a really spectacular book about the
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Iditarod called Winter Dance, And so he was very much
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: a musher and a writer at once.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: And that's what got me into the sport, was reading
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: his work.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: A lot as a kid. And so I think mushing
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: is a sport that lives through stories because it's so solitary,
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: and so I see, you know, even telling stories on
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: social media and writing. I see it as part of
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: that mushing tradition.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: But I also have always known that whatever I did,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: I would be a writer. And I think of it
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: almost as I think I.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: Couldn't not be a writer because I'm constantly describing things
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: and words in my mind.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I could turn it off.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: So even if I weren't mushing, I would be writing
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: at like writers who I am, and mushing is what
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Is one way I've thought about it.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: But I've also you know, I think writing is a
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: craft very seriously, and I knew that I wanted that
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: to be a career.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: And I love books. I love stories so much.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: So that's I I am more ambitious in my writing
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: than in my mushing rushing. I just want to have
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: a good time writing. I want to excel as much
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: as I can.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: Right, You're like one of the dogs. You just want
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: to be out there.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just want to be out there, like, I
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: don't really care if I'm winning races.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: I don't like, I just want to go out there
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: and have fun.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: But with writing, I'm constantly trying to sort of push
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: myself to be capable of more than what I was capable, right, obviously.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to guess I'm just going to clarify
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: because it's for me too. As a writer. The ambition
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I have is not you know, oh, I'm going to
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: win the National Book Award, though I'd love to, so
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: if they want to call me up, you know, I'm
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: sure I'm willing to receive that call. But really my
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: ambition is about being the greatest writer that I can be. Like, yeah,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: and I think that that's I mean, that's in some
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: ways a corollary to Mushing, like you go out there,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: you want to you want to do the best you
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: can do, and it's not it's not really about the prize.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: I realized you you're actually like.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: You're not just like some kind of green advice calmness,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: you actually have some experience.
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: It's an advice called I thank you for that.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Also, because it was when Dear Sugar was popular and
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: Outside magazine was like, we're going to jump on this
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: train exactly assigned me an advice column that I had
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: for like eight years, and I I, so, I cannot
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: express the degree to which I'm unqualified to write an
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: advice column.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: Me too, but it worked out well for both of us.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then oh gosh, and then, like some letters
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: I would get, I received letters that were like, your
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: advice is correct, but how dare you, as a musher
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: try to give advice?
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: And yeah, well, I.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: Think advice friend, And she'd say, do you think advice
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: columnists go to advice columnist school?
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Like, right, they go to life school. Yeah, We're welcome
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: to life school.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: You set the standard there. It's thank you. My therapist
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: keeps sending me your columns and I'm like, I've already
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: read them.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: That's my favorite thing.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, therapists all over the land, all over
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the world right to me almost daily and say like,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: I give tiny, beautiful things to all of my clients,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'm so honored by that. And I think,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: of course, therapists are utterly qualified in a very different
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: kind of way. But yeah, on the subject of advice,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: I always feel like, especially us as writers, like our
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: job is to contemplate the human condition. Yeah, and you know, so,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I do think we have a lot to offer as
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: advice givers. But I also think that, like there's this
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: kind of misunderstanding about advice, that like that somehow we
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: only get advice from this, you know, this place, this
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: wise you know stage from way high up and and
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: who knows everything. And I just reject that, Like, of course,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: there are some people who are incredibly wise, and we
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: look to them for consolation or answers. But I think
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: good advice comes from every I've received good advice from
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: strangers in the grocery store line. And sometimes it's your
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: sister who gives you the good advice, or your neighbor,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: or your husband or fill in the blank.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: You know. Anyway, we're going.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: To give some good advice. So I'm going to read
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: for the letter. Are you ready for this, Blair? I'm ready,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Dear Sugar and Blair. Is it too late for me?
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: That's the question I keep asking myself, and it's the
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: question I have for you.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: Let me explain.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I love my job as a personal trainer and fitness
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: class leader at a local gym. I know I make
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of the people I
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: work with.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: I don't have any.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Desire to quit my job, but for a long time now,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I've felt like something was missing. It is that ever
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: since I was a teenager, my dream has been to
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: be a writer. I turned thirty last month, and I've
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: been thinking about where I am in my life, and
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the missing piece is that I've never made my writing
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: dream come true. I've written some short essays, and I
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: write in my journal regularly, but I've never taken it
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: as seriously as I long to. I love to read,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: and I have ideas for my own first book, but
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: seldom do I get many words on the page. I
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: often tell my clients that building strength and fitness takes
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: consistency over time, and I imagine that writing is the
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: same way. I want to learn how to be a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: writer who shows up and writes. I fully own that
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I've not invested in this dream, but I'm serious about
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: investing in it now.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: The fear I have is that it's too late.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Is it realistic to be a writer when I also
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: have a nearly full time job that's entirely different from writing.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: What advice do you have for someone who feels the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: strong desire to write, but hasn't yet followed through and
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: put the time in. I'm not ready to give up
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: on this dream. Signed want to be writer? What do
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: you think, Blair?
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: I think, and I say this with the greatest respect possible,
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: knowing how scary it can be to jump into writing.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: But asking if you are too old to write at
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: age thirty is like asking if you're too old to
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: play soccer at age eight.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does, that's true. That's true.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: It doesn't make sense like you are so young. This
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: doesn't of course, you're like a perfect age. You're young
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: to do this. So it feels to me less like
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: the insecurity is about age. And maybe it's just that
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: this person is afraid to write because it's scary to
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: commit to something that you care about so much and
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: that you have a chance of not achieving everything you
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: want to achieve in and age is just the thing
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: that that insecurity has sort of blombed onto as as
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: an excuse or as a reason to discourage.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: One, a reason not to And I think, yeah, I'd
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: love that reframe. I mean, I think, for want to
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: be writer, this is about reframing the story you're telling yourself.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: And I totally agree with you, Blair, that it's like
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: part of the power of saying, oh it's too late.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: I always had the dream and I failed. I didn't
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: make it true by thirty is a way of letting
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: yourself off the hook. And I actually think something really
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: different has happened for want to be writer, and that
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: is like that the moment has arisen, or that it's time.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: You know that you got through your twenties and you
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: did you know, you develop yourself in this other career
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: that you love, and you know you don't have to
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: leave it, and you know something's missing. I mean she
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: said it to us herself, like I know something's missing,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and now I want that piece to come into my life.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: And so now it's time. It's not that it's too late,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: it's only just begun. And there are a million ways
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: that you can take steps in the direction want to
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: be writer toward that dream. And they all begin with
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: exactly the advice you give your clients, you know, wind
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: step at a time. Like when she wrote, Blair, I'm
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: sure you were also not in your head. It's like,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: you know, how do you become a writer? Well, you know,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: you just write and write and write and write and
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: right over time, consistently, not necessarily every day, not perfectly,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: not not all the things, but you do it, and
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: there you have it. You build yourself as a writer,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: and you develop your craft, and you apprentice yourself to
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: that craft, and someday you'll have something that you're proud
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: of and you'll be a writer.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: And on days when you're not writing on paper, you
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: can be sitting at the bus stop and describing the
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: scene in your head, just sort of practicing in that way.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: Not all writing needs to be on paper in order
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: for it to be a practice.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I think that that's absolutely it. And it also sounds
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: to me too like she's somebody who has to get
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: the words on the page. And so it's both of
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: those things, and it's about diving in. And I think
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: this applies to anyone at any age. If there's a
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: listener out there, and I know there are many of
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: them who are like, but I'm fifty, and is it
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: too late for me?
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: But I'm seventy, and is it too late for you?
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: What Larry and I are saying to all of you
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: is it's never too late. You know that we always
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: begin each day, you know, set your intentions and follow
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: through and I promise, Like that is like to me,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: the path to happiness is to do what you say
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: you want to do. Trust, trust, trust the way that
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: like Blair's dogs trust the path right, Like, let's just
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: trust this and let's do it. And I think there's real, true,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: genuine power in there.
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: So you can do it. Want to be writer, you
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: can do it.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: And the fact that you're afraid doesn't indicate that there's
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: something scary in this. It indicates that you care, which
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: you need to do in order to have any sort
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: of success. Look, in order to push yourself, you need
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: to care. So yeah, it's perfect. You should be nervous.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: That's not bad. I'm terrified every time I get on
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: a dog sled.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: I know, I in the starting line of races, because
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: it's scary to be doing something that you care about
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: so much and that's out of control.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: But that's good. You should care that much.
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: I think that's beautiful.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: And I love Blair that that you shared that you're scared,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: because I do think that that that has been talked about,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: you know stories, the bad stories we tell ourselves that
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: somehow courage is about not having fear. You you do
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: have fear. When you're doing the scary things you're doing.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I also read that you that you aren't an adrenaline seeker,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: you know, and which I think is really interesting because
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: you've like described to me, you know, all these like
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: actually quite adrenaline filling kind of experiences, and yet that's
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: not what you're there seeking.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: What what are you? What kind of seeker are you?
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: I when it comes to adrenaline, I sort of differentiate
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: between high speed problems and slow motion problems.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: So, like a high speed problem is like you're you
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: have to get a dog sled down a mountain and
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: you're dodging trees and there's no way to slow down, and.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Like I hate that, I really really hate that.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: I have done it, and I can get through it usually,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: but it to me, that's like.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: A nightmare.
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: Whereas a slow motion problem is you get to the
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: edge of a river and there's some law in the river,
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: and it's a certain depth and the currents a certain way,
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: and you need to get yourself and the dogs to
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: the other side, and you have to keep the sled dry,
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: but the water is deeper than the sled, and so
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: you sort of stop and have to puzzle through it
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: and look at your resources and look at your teammates
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: and figure it out.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: And that's the kind of thing I love getting there.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: And you know, when you're out in the wilderness and
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: no one's coming to save you, there isn't an option
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: to give up. So you have to sort of come
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: at those problems from the assumption that you are going
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: to solve them somehow, and it's just a matter of
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: figuring out what that solution is going to look like,
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: figuring out a solution that already exists in the ether,
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: you just.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: Haven't pinpointed it yet.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: And that to me, looking at my resources, looking at
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: my teammates and solving a problem that seems unsolvable at
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: first is one of my very favorite things about being
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: out in the wilderness.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: And it's really in a way that maybe is beyond
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: adrenaline because it's it's yeah, it's like it's almost the
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: opposite of adrenaline because when you can do that, well,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: you can dial that in.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: It's deeply calming, isn't it exactly?
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like this intense presence. It's not things that
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: are happening so fast you can't control them.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: Finding a way through something impossible in a controlled way
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: and so that I love, but I don't love dodging
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: tree trunks as I'm coming down a mountain range that
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: that I tolerate, but I'm still there for the challenges.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: It's been just sheer delight to talk to you, and
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: I want to get locked in a kitchen with you
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: again someday, and I want you just to tell me
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: dog stories. I just want to hear one story after
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: another about these amazing dogs who you've spent your all
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: of your machine life with and continue to do.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: And thank you for being on mind over Mountain.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: It's a it's an incredible honor, truly it is, and
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: you're amazing.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: So thanks for this conversation.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thanks for listening. If you'd like
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: to submit a letter seeking advice, send it to me
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: at Dear Deearsugar at gmail dot com, and don't forget
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Happy trails, and I'll see you next week. Mine Over
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: Mountain with Cheryl Strade is an iHeart women's sports production
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: produced by Britney Brown and Rodney Brown of Barbara Gan Productions,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: supervising producer is Kaylin West at REALM. Associate producer Amaya Brathwaite.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Molly Barton, Jerry Carita Grace Views
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: and Jesse Katz. Our theme song is composed by Gramoscope Music.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: your podcasts, Happy Trails, and I'll see you next week.