Ep 605 - Arctic Cannibalism (feat. Buddy Levy)

Summary

Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast

Episode 605 - Arctic Cannibalism (feat. Buddy Levy)

Date: March 25, 2026
Hosts: Matt McCusker & Shane Gillis
Guest: Buddy Levy (author, historian, adventurer)

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Episode Overview

In this adventurous and darkly humorous episode, Matt and Shane are joined by author and historian Buddy Levy, whose gripping books bring historic expeditions—often fraught with cannibalism, hardship, and cultural collision—to life. They dive deep into tales from the conquest of the Americas, river and jungle journeys, Arctic perils, and the real-life research and risks Buddy undertakes. The conversation veers from brutal historical realities (including slavery, ritual sacrifice, and cannibalism) to the stranger-than-fiction moments of exploration, with heavy doses of the show’s signature irreverent banter.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Art of Writing (00:03–07:25)

• Buddy’s Background as a Writer:
  Buddy shares how he began publishing stories at age 14, grew up near Hemingway’s haunts, and was drawn to creative writing and storytelling in history.
• Writing Engaging History:
  Buddy’s books focus on narrative over excessive facts. Matt appreciates how Buddy makes even dark subjects readable and sometimes darkly funny.
• Quote:
  “When I’m writing it, I’m thinking, you know, this isn’t really comedy, but you guys crush it.” — Buddy (01:52)
• Balancing Fact and Story:
  The group discusses how history often requires sifting through conflicting primary sources and being mindful of who’s telling the story (“history is pretty dynamic and malleable”—08:40).

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2. The Brutality of the Conquistadors & Survival (02:08–08:40)

• Human Sacrifice, Cannibalism, and Culture Clash:
  Matt and Shane riff on the jarring differences between Spanish conquistadors and the Aztecs, especially around ritual sacrifice and food culture.
• Slavery in Expeditions:
  The practical (though horrific) role of slaves, including the uncomfortable historical euphemisms used to describe them.
• Food Scarcity on Expeditions:
  Survival often meant raiding, slavery, or near-starvation diets.
• Quote:
  “You’re rolling around with, you know, quote, quote, unquote, three women who make tortillas for 600 guys—they’re obviously sex slaves.” — Shane (06:45)
• Historians’ Challenge:
  Buddy talks about the research process and how immersing himself through both reading and travel helps bring these events to life (07:25).

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3. Real-Life Expeditions: The Amazon (11:15–21:12)

• Following in the Footsteps:
  Buddy recounts his attempt to replicate conquistador journeys, including crossing the Andes and navigating the Amazon by dugout canoe.
• Amazon Hazards:
  Stories of vampire bats, massive insects, pink dolphins (as a spirit animal on ayahuasca), piranhas, swimming with manatees, and anacondas.
• Ayahuasca Journey:
  A humorous account of taking ayahuasca with local guides and hallucinating a pink dolphin rather than a "cool" spirit animal (15:21).
• Quote:
  “I was hoping for this amazing spiritual journey... and I get a pink dolphin for my spirit animal.” — Buddy (15:54)
• Survival Details:
  Encountering caimans and coping with the ever-present threat of poisonous animals.
• Travel Philosophy:
  Buddy always brings primary texts on his journeys, trying to merge firsthand experiences with historical accounts.

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4. Shifting Focus: Arctic Exploration (21:12–33:04)

• From Jungle to the Arctic:
  Buddy discusses the extremes of polar expeditions—writing multiple Arctic books and enduring Svalbard, Greenland, and journeys inspired by early airship attempts to reach the North Pole.
• Polar Bears & Camp Dangers:
  Staying in Svalbard’s only campground, learning about the death of a worker from a polar bear attack (24:07), and the futility of electric fences against apex predators.
• Life Above the Arctic Circle:
  Local resilience, 24-hour daylight or darkness, and how indigenous practices endure.
• Quote:
  “They cruise around on dog sled and snow machines in the winter... It has like, you know, a three day growing season. Really.” — Buddy (25:41)
• Extreme Survival:
  Comparing the desirability of dying from jungle diseases vs. freezing in the Arctic (“I’m going to take the north”—27:08).
• Deadly Waters:
  Life jackets discouraged by local seal hunters to ensure quick death in freezing water (28:14).

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5. Myths of the North & Early Exploration Tales (31:18–37:49)

• Cartographic Mysteries:
  Explorers believed in a temperate oasis inside the icy shell of the Arctic; realities proved far grimmer.
• Role of Indigenous Knowledge:
  Survival often depended on learning from Inuit and other northern peoples, using technologies like seal-skin kayaks (30:24).
• The Fatal Flaws:
  European explorers frequently underestimated conditions, disregarding the clues found in local customs and attire.
• Quote:
  “They should have figured it out by noting what the indigenous people were wearing.” — Buddy (32:59)

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6. Amazonian Myths & Uncontacted Tribes (42:36–46:55)

• Amazon Women Warriors:
  The persistent myth (and possibly real encounters) with tribes of warrior women in the Amazon.
  “There is a kernel of truth to this... if there remain uncontacted tribes, it’s possible.” — Buddy (45:29)
• Expedition Encounters:
  Stories of bizarre tribes, pituitary giants, and the often brutal consequences of first contact, including slavery, abductions, and disturbing violence.

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7. Cannibalism: Arctic vs. Amazon (50:52–56:14)

• Food in Extremis:
  Discussion on the difference between ceremonial and survival cannibalism.
• Notable Quote:
  “Would you eat human flesh? ...I say, would you?” — Buddy (52:11)
• Arctic Cannibalism:
  True tales from Buddy’s books—men sneaking out to feed on corpses, the moral line between scavenging the dead and murder.
• Execution for Betrayal:
  Recounting the true story of an expedition member executed by his starving companions because he was secretly consuming the dead and stealing rations.

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8. Other Noteworthy Expeditions: Borneo & Adventure Races (56:32–62:30)

• Experience in Borneo:
  Following Mark Burnett’s adventure racers, dealing with sea kraits, monitor lizards, bat-filled caves, and headhunter legends.
• “Jurassic Park” Reality:
  The intensity (and absurdity) of real wild encounters, like being spooned by a snake-phobic crewmate and confronting massive lizards by day.
• Connection to TV:
  The roots of “Survivor” in these adventure races.
• Physical Dangers:
  Risks from toxic animal encounters and pathogens in tropical environments.

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9. Ongoing Projects and Historical Fascinations (63:10–69:10)

• Buddy’s Next Book:
  Working on his fourth Arctic volume, this one about the first Franklin expedition—an epic overland search for the Northwest Passage, plagued by disaster.
• The Obsession with Discovery:
  Many Arctic and Amazonian expeditions driven by myths (El Dorado, the Northwest Passage) that cost countless lives.
• Reflections on Hubris:
  Explorers often failed disastrously on second journeys, even after success (compared with Columbus’s unusual repeat luck).
• Irreverent Aside:
  Christopher Columbus’s supposed habit of riding indigenous people piggy-back (66:03).
• Final Thoughts:
  The scale and peril of historic exploration, from honeymooning with a child bride in the Amazon to fighting rivers named "the Mouth of the Dragon."

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On the tension between history and comedy (01:52):
  “I’ve really enjoyed listening to you guys make things like human ritual sacrifice and smallpox funny.” — Buddy
• On historical research (07:25):
  “For me, it’s fun to immerse in that. It’s kind of like doing a mini-master’s or PhD for every book.”
• On ayahuasca in the Amazon (15:54):
  “I get a pink dolphin for my spirit animal.... It wasn’t what I had hoped for.”
• On survival logic in the Arctic (28:14):
  “If we fall in the water, we don’t want it to take that long to die.” — Local Inuit to Buddy
• On historical cannibalism (52:11):
  “Would you eat human flesh? ...I say, would you?” — Buddy
• On hopeless expeditions (54:03):
  “Next person starts lagging, like, we can just eat this guy now and get a better meal out of it.” — Shane
• On endless adventure writing (68:55):
  “I’m going to keep writing these things until I’m weak and infirm and need to feed on a friend.” — Buddy

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Buddy’s approach to historical storytelling – 00:18–01:48
• Conquistador brutality, slavery, and food – 03:26–07:03
• Immersing in research & expeditions – 07:25–09:42
• Amazon journeys & ayahuasca stories – 11:15–16:12
• Survival & animal encounters in the Amazon – 17:05–21:12
• Adapting to the Arctic, polar bears, Svalbard – 21:12–25:19
• Life in Arctic communities, midnight sun – 25:19–27:00
• Do you prefer to freeze or waste away in the jungle? – 27:08
• The realities of indigenous survival in the Arctic – 33:00–35:11
• Discussion on Amazonian warrior women/myths – 42:38–45:29
• Cannibalism, survival ethics & dark histories – 50:52–56:14
• Adventure races and crazy animal encounters in Borneo – 56:32–62:30
• Buddy’s next book: Franklin Expedition, Northwest Passage – 63:10–65:28
• Conclusion & reflections on perpetual adventure – 68:55

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a blend of history, gallows humor, and awe at the wits—and failures—of humanity at the edges of survival. Buddy Levy delivers hair-raising first- and secondhand accounts, while Matt and Shane provide comic relief and probing questions. Listeners are left both entertained and unsettled by tales of edible expedition mates and the indifference of jungles and ice.

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Further Information

Buddy Levy’s latest books and Arctic/expedition stories:
[Buddy Levy's Author Page or Website]

Follow Matt and Shane on Spotify for more episodes.

Transcript

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Wes.

[B]

All right.

[A]

We're live.

[B]

We're live, buddy. Levy, thank you for coming. It's Levy or Levy.

[A]

It's Levy. Levy.

[B]

Hell yeah. I got it. Right. Thank you for coming.

[A]

Hey, my pleasure, man.

[B]

I've been. I've been using your books to fuel the Patreon and. Well, thank you for that.

[A]

I appreciate it, man.

[B]

Dude, it's been. I. I mean, I guess we do have a symbiosis going here, but it's really. Dude, they're. They're. First of all, I thought, like, you know, I read the books and I'm like, man, this historian really is a good writer. I would, like, read. And I'm like, this guy can really kind really turn a good sentence. And then I. I learned you. You studied as a creative writer.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. I. I actually published my first story when I was 14 years old, and it was a. It was a bird hunting story about me, you know, killing a chucker partridge, which no one knows about. But, you know, once I saw my byline for the first time, I was. You know, because I grew up in this. In the shadow of Ernest Hemingway in Ketchum, Idaho, and I was like, I just like telling stories, you know, and it was. It. So I. I wasn't ever good at anything else. Ended up being an English major. So I just followed that path, you know, from the time I was.

[B]

That's. Well, that's why I really like the books, because. And I was talking to you before you came in here, I was like, how did I. I don't know how I heard about the book. I was like, maybe it was from someone I follow. It might have just been, like a random search. I genuinely don't remember. I do think it's from the Josh Reads books thing, but I forget that was Conquistador, but that was the thing. I was reading it and I'm like, man, this. This history book is like. It's just focused on the narrative itself rather than just like.

[A]

It's just.

[B]

I get drowned in facts reading history, where I'm like, dude, just tell me the story. Tell me the story. And then. And then what you do is. What's nice is you give the occasional historical zinger where it's like, actually, this thing was that. And it's like, okay, that's kind of cool to know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I gotta say, it was. I gotta. I gotta tip the hat. First and foremost, it was. The books are great.

[A]

Well. And I've really enjoyed listening to you guys make things like human ritual sacrifice and smallpox. Funny, you know, that's. You know, because when I'm writing it, I'm thinking, you know, this isn't really comedy, but you guys crush it.

[B]

There is something very funny about. You know, we're talking, obviously, about the Aztec, the conquistador thing, but there is something just, I thought was funny about never meeting a certain type of people before, because the way they, like, brought them into their temples, like, yo, this is cool. Check this out. And it would just be like a dead dog with his skull crushed in, and, like, a dead kid they're eating. And you'd be like, what the fuck? What is this? And, like, well, you don't think this is cool? Like, we think this is cool. And they're like, no, no, that's the worst thing you can do. Like, no, this is, like, the coolest thing you can do. And then the civilizations clashed, so it is funny to be like, yeah, I want to show you something very important. To me, we were eating teenagers.

[A]

And you're like, no, yeah, yeah. When I write these books, too, it's always like, people are like, you know, why do you focus so much on this darkness, all this stuff, you know? And I'm like, well, I like to see, as you say, you know, different cultures coming together, and also what happens to people when they're on the edge of survival. Like, how are they going to contend with this new world or this new place? And it really intrigues me to see what, you know, to what degree people, especially back then, you know, like, were able to figure it out and just. And move on, you know?

[B]

Yeah, it's pretty. It is pretty wild because it's like. Especially the food thing and all that. Like, in Conquistador and all those books, like, these guys are going these missions, and, like, yeah, you only have so much food, and they run out. Now it's like, we got to drum up food in a place we've never been to.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So that. That I kind of. Yeah, just like, you have to. Every time you want to eat, you have to raid, basically, a village. Or just be like, try to be cool, right?

[A]

Yeah, that's the thing. Or. Or have slaves. It's, you know, very helpful that.

[B]

That also blew my mind in terms of the conquistador. Hey, Nate, don't laugh. We're talking about a different time period, and they were handy. You can't deny having 2,000 slaves would be handy to get food, Nate, we're talking history, all right? I don't agree with it personally, but. Well, I needed food, and I had either 0 or 2000. I'd be like, well, I can get food, whatever. Anyway.

[A]

And by the way, I used to sugarcoat it, you know, when I was writing it, I would be like, they had 2,000 porters and porters and women who were making tortillas. And my friend, this writer friend, she goes, yeah, those are called sex slaves. And I'm like, well, no, they were like bearers and Portuguese. Like, those were slaves.

[B]

They took them. She's right. That was the sheer volume. This is what shocked me, because it would be like, you know, I think Cortez landed with, what, like, 600 guys and, like, 2,000 slaves. Was that true?

[A]

Well, he didn't come with very many slaves. He did bring one that had smallpox, which was useful for that guy. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But for some reason, I thought Cortez had a start out with a lot. Maybe I'm thinking of someone else.

[A]

Yeah. Well, what he ended up doing, Cortez ended up, like, recruiting these ancillary villages like the Totonics and the Tlascans. And he then did deals and said, can I use your guys to go get this major leader who you call Moctez? Right. Or

[B]

I could have sworn Cortez rolled up. They had. They had their porters.

[A]

Yeah. But they got those from the villages that they subsumed as they first arrived.

[B]

So he didn't roll. It was then. I'm thinking of the Pizarros in.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

That guy set out with a party with, like, 2,000.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Slaves.

[A]

Yeah. But, you know, at any rate, like, they couldn't have done it alone. And even then, they were often outnumbered significantly, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But they just figured out ways to manipulate, terrorize.

[B]

Yeah, well, there. There was that story from the. And I'm going to actually talk about this later today, but there was a story from the Gonzalo, His Last Stand. Or when he's like, that Spanish Civil War, he's fighting another Spaniard. And it was actually hit. Gonzalo Slave, who ran out and chopped the guy's head off.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

And just carried it around town like, yo, we got it. And he had to be like, bro, why don't do that to a fellow Spaniard? The hell are you doing?

[A]

He was.

[B]

He was dancing in the end zone on the guy.

[A]

He was.

[B]

But, yeah, it's just very. Yeah, it was like the war was to stop slavery in South America, and the dude slave cut the guy's head off who was trying to stop slavery. Yeah, it was pretty. He was like, nah, that dude Gonzalos anyway. But yeah, it was definitely a complicated time, for sure. Complicated time. But that is. It is so brutal though, because you're trying. You are trying to get the story, but you, like, at every turn it is completely. And like you were saying, you're rolling around with, you know, quote, quote, unquote, three women who make tortillas for 600 guys. They're obviously sex slaves, the guys. Some of the guys were probably sex slaves. You know what I mean? It's got to be somewhat prison rules.

[A]

It gets lonely out on the trail, you know,

[B]

But. But yeah, I just gotta say, the, the books are. They're nice because it is just. It's the story. It's like the thing that happened based on all the historical record, which. How. How, like, is that boring? Researching that? Like, how. How do you get through that? Because I feel like I would kind of go crazy.

[A]

That's a great question. No, you know, when I love the research part of it and it's like two components to it for me. There's the actual sitting there and reading everything that's ever been written or to the extent that I can, everything that's ever been written about the particular subject so that then I know the story and then I start writing. But then I also, you know, I always go to the place that I'm going to write about and do an expedition of my own so I can make it as real and seem like even though I'm casting myself back maybe 500 years to try to be on the ground and in the environment that I'm writing about so that I can feel the sense of the place and see the flora and fauna and we can maybe talk about some of those expeditions that I've done. But, you know, for me, it's fun to immerse in that. It's kind of like doing like a mini. A master's degree or a PhD for every book. And it actually leaves a fricking mark. I mean, I'm on my 10th book and every time it's a huge divot out of my brain because I log in for maybe six or eight months of just reading and then I'll go on my expedition where I'm going to go, and then I sit my ass down and spend maybe six months to a year, depending, just writing the book. But I always find the reading part, the research part, really inspiring because I'm going back to these original texts and they've got journals and diaries, and in the case of the Spaniards, they had these scribes that were there just to record the events. And then so you get these first and letters that they're writing back home. And so you really get transported to these places into the minds of the people who were there. And then of course, you have to balance out to what extent, like they're lying or padding the story for different political reasons. And so you're doing a bunch of sifting and deciding on which you believe. And you know, history to me is pretty dynamic and malleable. It's not like this set thing. It depends on, you know, they say history was written by the victors. Yeah. But I love it. I love that part.

[B]

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[A]

Yep.

[B]

Did you climb the hills and everything?

[A]

Well, I hiked over the Andes. That goes, Yeah, I started in, I try to, for, for river of Darkness and Conquistador. I try to follow the route of the Conquistadors as precisely as possible, you know, using maps. Now in modern day context it's a little different because, you know, there's more people there now. But you know, for the Amazon, yeah, I started in Quito, did some, went on partly on horseback, partly on a bus. And then I trekked down to the headwaters of the Coca river and then went for like three weeks in a dugout canoe with two guides and just me and two other people and floated down the river in a dugout canoe. Sleeping in the rainforest in hammocks. It was one of the coolest adventures.

[B]

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. What was it? I do want to go there one time, but what was it like being there?

[A]

And you know, oh my God, it's quite remarkable. I mean, to put it in context, I spent like, I think two to three weeks, including the Andes part and by the time I finished, which was in Iquitos, Peru, that's just where the Maranon meets the Amazon. And so there's 20. I went 400 miles and there's 2,300 miles more to go to the Atlantic,

[B]

you know, and that, you know, to give context, I had to look this up. That is like driving from New York City all the way to basically, I think like Idaho.

[A]

Hey, it's so far.

[B]

So far.

[A]

And you know, but it's cool because once you get out there, it's still, I mean, I floated through this Yasuni national park and there's so, you know, it's like one of the most biodiverse places in the world. And then you're just like, you get into this river rhythm where you know, you float for hours and everything starts to look the same because, you know, you're shrouded on each side by these giant ceiba trees and you know, you have to wear like knee high rubber boots because there's ant colonies. I mean, there's so many critters that can, you know, mess you up. Vampire bats and that.

[B]

Did you see any vampire bats?

[A]

I did. And I thought, you know, the thing is, I don't know if you remember in river of Darkness, the vampire bats are pretty intense. They, they come onto you at night and they have these like canine incisor teeth and they, so they, they pierce the skin and then they have this anticoagulant enzyme in their saliva. So it is lick at the wound all night. Yeah, you just keep bleeding. But I was, I was cheating a little because I had a. I had a hammock that had mosquito netting. So, you know, the other. My guides were just like sleeping in hammocks just out there. But you know, there's so many. There's like spiders the size of your fist.

[B]

And what were some of the craziest things you saw in terms of animals?

[A]

Oh, my God. Well, so I. This is kind of bizarre. You know, I wanted to. When, when you're in the. When in Rome, I guess, when in the Amazon, I decided to, to go on an ayahuasca trip, you know, so I didn't decide.

[B]

You do it. How did you do it? Classically? Did you have it boofed?

[A]

Remember that?

[B]

Remember they say they like siphoned it up their butts back in the day.

[A]

I did not go for the animal style, but that's kind of sick.

[B]

They did that though.

[A]

I know. Well, I mean, it gets there. It's. It's mainlining ayahuasca. Yeah, no, this guy, my guide, Jose Shingongwu. Cool dude, man. He, he was like, I'm gonna go get the bark and do you wanna try ayahuasca? And I was like, sure.

[B]

You know, he was just your river.

[A]

He was my guide. He knew all the birds and, and he was like, you know, when you're here, you, you know, if you guys, whoever wants to try it, you know, and there were only these three people and the two guides. And so I said, yeah, I'll give it a shot. I mean, I grew up dabbling a little in some of these hallucinogens. And so I had read about and I thought, like, I was hoping for this amazing spiritual journey and supposedly if it really takes. Right, you're going to have this vision quest and meet your spirit animal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So as we had been going through the Yasuni National Park, I had seen a pink dolphin, which is a freshwater dolphin. They're like a little 4 foot long, really cute. So the ayahuasca is coming on and I'm having these hallucinations and I keep seeing this pink dolphin and I'm like, wait a minute. So my wife's spirit animal is a dolphin. And I'm like, I was expecting like a sea wolf, you know, these giant wolves with like webbed paws or a fricking kraken or something. And I get a pink dolphin for my spirit animal.

[B]

Yeah, like four foot animal, you know,

[A]

I mean, it was not. It wasn't what I had hoped for.

[B]

You didn't drink enough. You should have drank. You'd be like, give me four more cups, come on.

[A]

And Jose.

[B]

So. So, yeah. How was that? Was it like. Did you have a super strong dose or did you feel like it was like a mild dose?

[A]

I wished I had wished for. I was wishing for more. Yeah. Actually, just to transform that dolphin into something useful, you know, like kill. Yeah. But I have also read. I'm glad, actually, that it didn't take fully because I've. I've seen some stuff and heard that, you know, people come out of that changed.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I. What. From what I've heard, I've never done it, but I've heard, like the full dose is like, you're puking.

[A]

Yeah, I. I felt. I just hurled a little. Okay. Early on. Yeah. But you know the other thing we did, which was kind of insane. I mean, really. Because, you know, I was like, they took us out. We were on this one big lake that was like off. I mean, the whole thing is so massive that it was actually part of the river, but it was slow moving, it seemed like a lake. And he's like, you want to go catch? My guy said, you want to go catch piranhas? And I'm like, sure. I'm an angler.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, grew up fishing. And I go, what do you use? And he's like, hot dogs. And so we go out there, we got a little stick and we're dangling for piranha. Right. And then he said afterwards, he's like, you want to go swimming? And I'm like, well, they're carnivores, man. Like, are we gonna. So we swam with. In the same vicinity of these piranhas, you know, and it was like, you're just sketched a bit because. Yeah, like, alone, they're not. They're like. I mean, their jaws are serious, but they're not big. But you get a couple hundred piranhas and you're bleeding and then, you know, you're. It's just like the movies. Yeah.

[B]

They can munch you pretty quick.

[A]

But they jumped in first and showed me and I was like, okay, I'm not gonna whip out here. You know, I'm gonna.

[B]

Yeah, I. I'd be. So when I. Every time I hear about people swimming in, I'm like, it's terrifying because there's. There's like manatees in there.

[A]

Yeah, well, the manatee, you know, they're chill. True. I. I Mean, I, I could have seen the manatee as my spirit animal too.

[B]

Yeah, something.

[A]

Yeah, just the sea cow is what they're called. They're just like go on the bottom and graze grass. They're just like sluggish. So anyway, that's awesome. Yeah, it was, it was really informative. And you know what I'm usually trying to do when I'm going on these journeys is I bring all the primary texts that I can carry. And so I'm reading about the expedition that I'm writing about and then I'm kind of living my own one and sort of putting it together, like what this place would have been like. And the sat. There are all sorts of things. Like in the Amazon, for instance, the sounds, you know, in the evening there's like thousands of different insects and weird like night insects where the frickin, you know, their head pops up and it goes around like with iridescent blinking lights and it's just wild, you know, and there's, you know, there's, there's panthers and the thing that's got me a little nervous, I'm not scared of snakes. But you know, the Amazon has the largest, the anaconda. Right. So, you know, even if you're in a four feet up in a tree in a hammock, you're Thinking for a 30 foot anaconda is not a really big reach for them to, you know.

[B]

Yeah, they can slither up a tree,

[A]

come constrict you to death. So like what do you do?

[B]

I guess you got to yell and they cut it off or whatever.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, you know, you don't really want to be running into an anaconda. But there's a guy named Paul Rosoli who lives in the rainforest and that dude is badass. And so he, he like intentionally goes out and finds them and catches them and wrestles with them and stuff, you know. So if you know what you're doing, which I didn't, I mean, I was just trusting my guy.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, what do you, how do you, what, what like skill can you have to like wrestle? What do you got to know to do?

[A]

You need like the croc hunter mentality, you know?

[B]

True. I know if it's like quicksand, if you like. I know if you like lay on your belly and quicksand, it's better for you Spread out. The spread out. Yeah, I guess anaconda, I would try to poke its eyes.

[A]

Yeah. And there's all sorts of poisonous animals, creatures, you know. The weirdest Thing is that there are these like, you know. Well, and also caiman, you know, which are not as gnarly as like an Australian saltwater croc. But we, we went out evening spotlighting for caiman. They're like an alligator.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And. Or they are an alligator.

[B]

They're smaller, they're. How big are they?

[A]

Yeah, they can get pretty big. But these, the ones we were messing with were just like 4ft. But even then it's dark and you're like, I don't.

[B]

Do you.

[A]

Not my normal course of life to be grabbing alligators and messing with them. Even though I was born in New Orleans. I should be more true burly about gators.

[B]

Can they jump out of the water? Yeah, they kind of leap up and sag you.

[A]

Yeah. So that was. And you know, it's just like the stuff that it's the unknown to me. So you're, you're like sleeping in this hammock and then you hear all this stuff like the howler monkeys who make this really wild lion like husky roar sound. And you know, just being out in that environment is so intoxicating for me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know why.

[B]

So. And you. And you recently went to the Arctic, right?

[A]

I did.

[B]

That was surprising. Like what the hell. I've never, that's one place I've never even thought to go.

[A]

Yeah, I went from the jungle to the great north, the ice, you know. Yeah. And I've actually now I'm on my fourth Arctic book and.

[B]

Do you like the Arctic?

[A]

I really do. I like the. Again, well, you know, there's so, so many elements to it. Like. But I was going to say that on my most recent book I wrote about the first people who tried to fly blimps to the North Pole like back in the early 1900s. And when I first read that, I'm like, huh, we're going to take a 200 foot balloon, inflate it with like 270,000 cubic feet of flammable hydrogen stick a frickin, you know, Johnson 40 outboard motor on it. What could possibly go wrong? You know that's going to blow up.

[B]

How did they make out?

[A]

Well, there's some really great stories of that. And that's just my third Arctic book. You know, there were crashes on the ice and people having to survive for months on end on floating sea ice, big bergs and you know, Matt, incredible. Well, this, that book is called Realm of Ice and sky and it set off the largest Arctic rescue in history. But the funny part about going to those places is. So I went. Went to this place called Svalbard, which is 600 miles north of northern Norway. It's still in Norway, but it's halfway between the northern. The Norwegian north coast and the North Pole. So it's like it's the most northern inhabited place on earth.

[B]

And

[A]

I had previously met this woman in Greenland, which is actually before we owned it and had a golf course there. But, you know, what are you going to do? This was 20 years ago. And she got me really turned onto the Arctic and Arctic explorers and stuff. Right on. And so I ended up meeting up with Ingrid, my friend, and went to Svalbard. Bizarre thing. When I. Before I left to go to Svalbard, I read this story and I was like. Because I wanted to camp and I wanted to get the feeling of what, you know, at least to a degree of what it was like for these people to sleep in the cold and on the ice. And it turns out that there's only one campground that you can stay in Svalbard. And it's like during COVID a guy, this Dutch man, whose job was to put an electric fence around this campground, he was there with all this is like one of the great tragic ironies, man. He was there. All the fencing equipment was lying there at the camp site, camp area. And the day before he was going to install the fence, he got mauled to death by a polar bear.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So in Svalbard, the polar bear is protected. There's signs all over the outskirts of the town that's just have a picture of a polar bear. And then it says, like, beyond this, you know, you're kind of on your own.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so, you know, you can imagine the first few nights sleeping there, electric fence or no, if you've ever watched videos of polar bears, like, they'll just step right over that thing or break through it, you know. They're really savage.

[B]

For some reason, I thought they were. I just. I think I've only ever seen them in, like, Coca Cola commercials. So I, like, didn't even knew they. I didn't know they ate people. I thought they were pretty chill. Lord, they're pretty vicious.

[A]

They are.

[B]

I mean, I, you know, there you go. Learn something every day. I thought they were honestly, like, chill bears. I swear to God. You said they ate them. I was like, that sounds unlike polar bears.

[A]

Yes. So there were some fitful nights in the. In the campsite.

[B]

So they never finished the electric fence after the guy got it.

[A]

But, man, the thing is this high. Like, it Just wasn't going to do it. But you know, after a few nights you're like, I mean, you know, you hear the tent flaps rustling and stuff and you're like all sketched out. Plus, at that far north in the summer, which is when I was there, the, the midnight sun is. There's no darkness. So, you know, you're kind of not sleeping anyway. And then, you know, you hear anything

[B]

and you're like, what are the people like who live there? I always wonder those places where like, it's, it's light 24 hours a day, do they get like the total darkness too?

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

I mean, what are the people like there? Are they like completely weird or like. I feel like you'd be really weird if you like didn't have a natural.

[A]

They're hardy folk, man. Like, because six, you know, you know, half the year it's nearly dark.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so, but there's northern lights, there's the aurora borealis stuff. So, you know, they cruise around on dog sled and with snow machines in the winter and in the summer it has like, you know, a three day growing season. Really? Yeah, they do some quick harvesting, but no, it's just. So it's never really that warm. You know, I was there in June and it snowed and yeah, it's a, it's a harsh. I really. You end up appreciating the kind of people who are carving out a life there. I mean, Svalbard itself is very organized. It has a lot of tourism. You know, big tour ships come in. But also you can go on guided expeditions and go sea kayaking among the icebergs and the glaciers, which I did. And really, it's so, so rad. I love that place.

[B]

Really? Yeah, I've never, that's. I got to, I got to think about that because every time I hear about like North Pole, all that art exploration, I'm like, count me out, man. I don't know why, I just. Is it, isn't it just like snow as far as you can see or like.

[A]

Well, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of mountains too. And having grown up in the mountains, I'm drawn to that. So, you know, huge. And it comes from sea level, so you've got these massive peaks jutting up and fjords. It's kind of like you picture Norway, but farther north and, and stays icy and cold and windswept for more of the year.

[B]

So, so here's the question, because it's like if you're on an expedition. Would you prefer dying the death of someone dying in the Amazon or in the Arctic?

[A]

Yeah, that's a good one. You know, I've read and written about both kinds of death. Right. There's something appealing in a way about, like, the cold. If you were just going to get hypothermia and freeze to death, that would be okay because you just sort of like go to sleep and, you know, lie there and let it happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

As they say. But, you know, if you go the other route, you know, in the jungle, you get like dengue fever or something, which would not be fun. Or, you know, you're bitten by some snake that gives you paralysis first. So, yeah, I'm going to take the north. The north, except I will say that when I was in Greenland, um, we went out on a boat with a. I was actually writing about a blind adventurer named Eric Weinmayer, who was the first blind man to summit Mount Everest and kayak down the entire length of the Grand Canyon.

[B]

How the hell did you do that?

[A]

Well, he had. He had help.

[B]

Got.

[A]

He had a guide, but amazing. I mean, he's a transformative human. Yeah.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

But I was following him in Greenland on this adventure race and where it's just like a week of different really hard sports. And part of it included, like, boating for like a day or two all around this southern Greenland. And we were following them in this boat. And I get in the boat with this seal fisherman dude, or seal hunter, I guess. And, you know, I said, when we got in the boat, I said, like, where are the life jackets? You know? And he. He looked at me and he kind of smiled at Greenlandic Inuit dude. And he's like, we don't have them. And I go, why? Because, I mean, I'm going to get off. And he goes, no, no. If we fall in the water, we don't want it to take that long to die.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And I'm like, that makes a lot of sense.

[B]

So cold, basically.

[A]

Because if you're just like floating along, you know, then it will take 10 minutes. Whereas if you just bob and then.

[B]

How cold is this water?

[A]

Oh, frick, man. Because salt water can keep it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Below free. You know, it's like bergs are floating around the top. I mean, it's literally three minutes. You without a dry suit. You'd die.

[B]

You would die.

[A]

So you're going in this boat hoping, like, everything goes well, you know, Like, I don't really trust the dude, but yeah.

[B]

So he was basically. If you fall in we're dead. Anyway, it seems like what size craft are you guys on?

[A]

This boat was like a 20 foot outboard.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But we were following the people who were actually kayaking in rubber raft, you know, so they, they were more imperiled than we were.

[B]

Yeah. So. But they had the wetsuits, which I guess they would only even preserve you for not that a while.

[A]

The good, really good dry suits you stay alive for till somebody came and if they came and got. Yeah, but you know, of course that made me realize again, I'm thinking, I'm trying to think about the stories that I'm telling and the people I'm writing about. And like, they had none of that, you know, no Gore Tex, no dry suits. And they're out there in like native. I mean, in the north, you know, like the, the Scandinavians and these, some of these northern peoples are the ones who invented like skin seal skin kayaks. Right. So they are expert in paddling these things.

[B]

You know, what is a seal skin kayak?

[A]

Basically, if you see, you know, the plastic kayaks that you see out on the river here, but they build them with like wooden frames and, and sometimes bone because in a lot of these places in the far north, there's no trees.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then they, they put. The outsides are like stretched seal skin or sometimes walrus. And so they are really, they're watertight and you know, they're the ones who invented the whole. The older kayaks actually look pretty much the designs have stayed similar. You know, where there's a little cockpit and you're sitting down, you're so low on the water. You know, it's, it's in any wind and waves and it's just terrifying. Like, I don't want to be crazy.

[B]

Well, it's funny to the guys who explored that place because like, you know, again, going back to the Amazon, it's like, okay, check it out. Like, here's like a, kind of a useful place. But like the thing with the North Pole, it's like you get there and you're like, dad's ton of snow.

[A]

It's like, okay, it's an open polar sea. Like there's nothing there. But what was really intriguing to me,

[B]

I'm trying to regular the North Pole

[A]

was that, you know, they didn't, they, they didn't know, like, so where. The people that I was writing about up until and even including the dirigible airship journeys in like the 1880s, this was just a giant blank white spot on the map.

[B]

I was about to say, what did they think was up there? Was there any, like, tales of what they thought might be there?

[A]

Yeah, and some really confused tales that actually ended up, like, not helping people because they, they. There was this theory that there was a ring of ice around this kind of warm temperate zone. So they thought that it was like open sea there. And so a lot of times when the, the Brits and some of the other, I mean, the, the Nordic, the Norwegians went there or tried to go there, like, the theory was, okay, we're gonna break through this ice barrier and then it's like, warm. I don't know why they believe that exactly.

[B]

Could we ever get into Hollow Earth theory? Could just. There are people who think at the top of the North Pole, like, it hollows out. You kind of go in. Yeah. Jump right through, teleport right to China.

[A]

See at the bottom. Yeah. Where it's also ice and frozen.

[B]

They found out there was not the fabled oasis in the middle of all the others.

[A]

Right. And a lot of times the early expeditions went with not enough gear and warm clothes because they thought they were going to end up in these more temperate places. And they should have figured it out by noting what the indigenous people were wearing.

[B]

Yeah, true.

[A]

You know, they're like totally bundled up. Freaking caribou.

[B]

How, how high up do indigenous people go up to? Are they on the North Pole?

[A]

Well, nobody lives at the North Pole, but they, they, they live. Salvador is the most northern place, but on the northern coast of Greenland, there are still eta native populations, people who are still carving out a life up there and living traditional way with, you know, seal hunting. And I mean, there, there's every. There's like whales and beluga and.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know.

[B]

Yeah, I think they're hardy, I would imagine. I think what you might call it, the igloozer I read about, I was in a, like a kids museum with my kids, and apparently they like, retain heat. Like insane. Like snow retains heat.

[A]

Oh, man.

[B]

Unbelievably so.

[A]

Yeah. One of the things that's in, in writing about these expeditions, you know, I marvel at the endurance of these, you know, the explorers because in many, in some cases, they were smart enough to take along indigenous guides and hunters. And, you know, they would slog for like 12 hours across the snow and ice, get to the end of the day, build an igloo in like 45 minutes. And then you have like a seal blubber lantern at one end and you're tucked into this igloo and there's. And these guys Are, you know, taking. Not only writing down where they've gone, what the coordinates were, writing letters home, you know, and recording in their journals and diaries everything that's happened, including what the weather was like, but, you know, they're doing that after. After just trekking for a day or something. And the other thing that most people don't realize is that the. Especially in the north, it's not. Not the case in the South Pole. But these, they're giant flows of ice that's breaking up and they move tremendously. So you could be in your igloo, and all of a sudden you hear this crashing, crash, you know, heaving sounds and. And shattering. And now the ice is breaking up underneath your igloo. And so they, like, scan. You kind of need to sleep with your boots on or your mucklux.

[B]

Oh, that's what you're saying. It's just a frozen sea, right?

[A]

And then. And so it'll shatter. And then you have to get out of there and, like, regroup somewhere over here. And, you know, you're yelling at each other in the darkness, and she's just gnarly.

[B]

Oh, that sounds awful. That really does sound terrible. That's. It's not. You're not. Pitch me on the North Pole. What's up with the South Pole?

[A]

Yeah, well, the South Pole is different. It's more of a landmass that has frozen sea, too. But what I've always found funny is that, you know, because not a lot of people know about the Arctic and the Antarctic. So I'll tell them I'm writing about the Arctic, and they say the only thing they know is Shackleton, which is one of the. The most famous explorers, right? And they're like, oh, so, like Shackleton, right? And I said, well, yeah, it's like Shackleton, except on his journey, everyone lived. And I only write about stories where half the people died, at least.

[B]

And Shackleton was Antarctic.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's an amazing story.

[B]

Personally, if I was talking Arctic and someone came at me with Antarctic, I probably wouldn't even respond. I'd be like, yeah, okay, dude, dude,

[A]

I know what you mean, but I haven't been there. That's the one on my bucket list of I've been on every continent except Antarctica. And so that's. That's next.

[B]

So in North Pole at, like, the North Pole, is that like a military base or, like, what is there?

[A]

No, it's just. It's just a. A spot on the map.

[B]

What?

[A]

Still? So what the. What they did discover was that there There had been a theory that there was a, another continental landmass there. So you know, maybe we, maybe there's reserves of something oil, maybe we can, you know. And it was contested by a number of countries. So what they did figure out in the book that I wrote, Realm of Ice and sky, they fly over it in a blimp and are able to take pictures and confirm that there's no landmass there. That it's just a giant expanse of moving ice.

[B]

Okay. And then I'm trying to like picture it. So if you fly to the North Pole and then just keep going straight.

[A]

Well, these guys ended up.

[B]

What is it?

[A]

They crash landed in Teller, Alaska. Well, it depends on what direction you go. But like. Well, the cool thing is once you go, once you pass the North Pole, every direction leads south. You know, it's like no matter if you turned around or which. In one case they did, they turned around and then went back to Svalbard. That didn't work. They crashed. But yeah, it's. Yeah. These stories I love because, you know, once they're out there then something usually invariably terrible happens.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really. It is. I do like that when you're reading, all of a sudden it's like they're about to die. They're like literally on the verge of death the entire time.

[A]

Right. How are we not going to die? Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I was, I was bugging out on the poison. It's a different thing. But the poison arrows in River Darkness was like. I couldn't stop thinking about them. Just one little scratch from a poison arrow and it's just like a 24 hour shivering, horrible death.

[A]

And your arm turns black and falls off, right? And it's like, yeah, don't you duck and stay under those manatee shields, you know?

[B]

Dude, that sucks, guys. This episode is brought to you by On It. Ever feel like your brain is on but nobody's home? H spend 10 to 15 seconds sharing a quick relatable and funny story from your own life about a time. How about this, guys? I'll be honest, I. I do dumb stuff all the time. This is for Alpha Brain, by the way. I. They sent it to me, so I've been taking it. I like it. I swear to God. I figured I would like. Let me just try it out. Let me see, you know, let me see what's. What it's all about. I like it, dude. It feels, it's a nice. It's caffeine free, first of all. That's why I never Took it. Cuz I'm like, I don't need any God darn caffeine. But yeah, I don't know, I think it, I looked it up. It, I, I don't know, I don't know if I, if it's like, you can say what it does, but it apparently just like boosts your dopamine or like pushes dopamine into your brain. Give it a try, Give it a try. I, I like it. And yeah, it gets, it gets me charged, man. I take it. It's a very, here's the thing too. I'm very, I'm very prone to just taking stuff and being like, oh, I think it's working. But I gave it to my brother. I, I guinea pig my brother swim. Who's no stranger to chemicals and chemical compounds. Who has a heartier constitution than me? And he even was like, bro, this stuff's got me kind of, it's got me moving and grooving. So hey, look, we did that with that science right there. Did a study on myself and my brother and Spud and we were all like, damn, this rips. So get it yourself. Try it out, Try it out. All right. Alpha Brain is a daily supplement with science backed ingredients like L theanine, designed to support memory and focus so you can lock in, tune out distractions and stay sharp. Visit onit.com and shop Alpha Brain to unlock your next level. That's O n n I t dot com. And yeah, I, I literally take it every day now. I like it. Go ahead, Sean. You have to plug a show. Yeah.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Of course.

[C]

Hello.

[B]

It's what we do it for.

[C]

Hello, everybody, this is Sean. I just want to let you know one last time that I'll be in Salt Lake City this weekend. Friday and Saturday with Nate Marshall, March 27th and 28th. Tickets [e-mail] Please come. There are plenty of tickets available to these shows. So many tickets. And we'll be at the Houston Riot Fest the week after that, April 3 and 4. And then Noctis is after that at the Creek in the Cave. So please come. Tickets at seangarden.com or lamarlee. Fun and, and you get shanemgillis.com too.

[B]

Sell out the link.

[C]

Thank you, guys.

[B]

Thank you, Matt. Of course, guys. Oh man. This leg of the tour is winding down on April 10th. I'll be in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Fitzgerald Theater. Huh. It's all good. What you guys need?

[C]

I just. My red light was on when you were reading it.

[B]

Oh, you're fine. Ain't no big thing. Just getting the audio out to the people. Sorry. Also 4:11 the next day after I leave Minnesota, I'm going to Des Moines, Iowa, Hoyt, Sherman place, whatever. I'll be there at 4:11. So Iowa, Minnesota, I have shows there. Let's go. Let's finish this out strong guys. What do you say? And then also Phoenix, man, celebrity theater. Guys, come on, it's in the round. It's a cool place. Don't embarrass me. Oh yeah, Garden will be there. It's going to be a blast. By the way, I come alive in the round, if I'm being honest. I've done the round with Shane. I love it. So please guys, please, please, please. Otherwise I'll literally, I'll just pay to get feet seat fillers and I'll. I don't care. I'm gonna have a good show in the round one way or the other guy. And I'll pay them to laugh at me too. That's 417 guys. 418. I'll be in Tucson, Arizona. And yeah, let's, let's get it going. Also. I'll be in Toronto. We have two shows in Toronto. Both of them are. One of them's definitely sold out. The second one's dang near sold out. So might add a third. I don't know. Riviera Theater, Chicago. Let's go get that. I think that's going to sell out. Guys, that's in April. There's been a rumor about adding a possible. If that sells out, an 11 o' clock show at Zany's secret show. We'll see. I don't know.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

We'll see. We'll see.

[C]

Going to see the.

[B]

Oh, nice shout out. Yeah. But yeah, guys, go to Matt McCusker.com that. That took way too long. Just six shows left before I chill for the summer.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

Oh, that's a good question. Oh yeah, the.

[B]

Okay, bringing up the fabled Amazon Wars.

[A]

Oh, the women. Oh, I thought because everybody who lives there is considered an Amazonian now, but true, there's different tribes. So yeah, the Amazon women. That's an interesting and perplexing myth and story. I didn't meet any. I was looking for them.

[B]

The warriors. You're talking about the Warriors.

[A]

Amazon women warriors.

[B]

Yeah, but they had their breasts in the jungle. Whereas the Greek. The Greek, that's where the term comes from. Right, The Greek women who would, would they like strap their breasts down or whatever? Yeah, tie them down. So they could shoot the arrow.

[A]

But what I loved about that story in the Black Sea is that they. And this persists too, in the Amazon basin is that they would take men, mate with them.

[B]

Yeah, I know.

[A]

And then, like, tell them to off. And then they just have the women on the island that. We're like, we're using you as, you know, you're just procreators, man.

[B]

Fantasy. It's a collective male fantasy. Get out of here.

[A]

We're done with. You're done with you.

[B]

Go do the jungle with your friends. I have no use for you right now. Go hunt. Well, that was the question. That was kind of what I was thinking about just yesterday. I was. I was reading it. And so you have the, you know, because the conquistadors had the fabled myth of El Dorado, the, You know, the. The kingdom. Kingdom of gold and all this stuff. And that was kind of the. The myth that was like a myth that was driving them. But, like, why would. I think you might have just answered the question, but why would these Amazonian people all make up a myth of, like, powerful female warriors?

[A]

Right?

[B]

Obviously, I mean, there's the sexual thing of them, like abducting you from your village and taking you to have sex with you, whatever, and drop you back off. But it's like, it is just a weird collective myth to have all these people in the jungle form of, like, powerful women warriors. Yes, Especially back then. Now I'd be like, yeah, I get it. Why people would do that. But like, back then in the fucking 1500s, like, why. Why would they all do that? And, like, all agree that was a thing.

[A]

Well, and also it, you know, since it has persisted for hundreds of years, I mean, I love the fact that this is where mythology becomes. You kind of wonder, like, is there a kernel of truth to this? Because, you know, with modern technology, wouldn't we have found them? But I have to say, in the Amazon, I mean, when I came. When I did my journey and came out and landed in Iquitos, Peru, there. There was an article in the paper or, you know, online, and it had images of. You may have seen them. Like, they're uncontacted tribes still, and they're like painted orange and, you know, helicopters or whatever, small planes are flying over to check them out, and they're just standing there with spears going, you know, land, please do you know, see how that goes? Navy seal. But. But, you know, they.

[B]

I mean, I think they would do all right with their guns. Yeah, they probably would.

[A]

But for me, the point was like, well, okay, if there are. If there remain uncontacted tribes. Yeah. Even in, you know, I was down there 2008, they're still. Today are uncontacted tribes. And so it's so vast and of course, you know, it's being imperiled by logging and farming and all this stuff, but there's still, it's so vast that there's. If there are pockets of people that have lived the same way for thousands of years and. And then there's myths about these particular female tribes that are warriors and don't want to be messed with. To me, there's a. I have to believe that it's possible.

[B]

Yeah. Well, the guy in the book saw them, he fought them. So it was like they were, they were paler. They were like lighter skinned, tall women that had a bunch of like short guys they were bossing around.

[A]

I love that. And if you don't, and if you, if you puss out, you're dead. We're killing you. Yeah.

[B]

That holds. That still holds this day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How do I tell you about. You better keep fighting them. Yep. I might have an Amazonian in my house. The last Amazonian. Why don't you pick up your shirt off the floor?

[A]

Don't back down.

[B]

No, that. Yeah, yeah, it was. And it's just such a funny thing because you hear, you know, they're like, while they're floating around the river, it's like there's these tales of Amazon women warriors and you're like, you know, you're like, okay, it's just like a fable. Then they actually battle them and you're like, what the was that all about?

[A]

And killed a couple.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, they killed almost all of them. That was shocking. You didn't take one of them prisoner.

[A]

I know, it was silly, you know, because if you look back at what Cortez did and you know there's also, there's albinos that come into camp one time.

[B]

Yeah, that was a weird one too. Tall albino.

[A]

These tall albino dudes, you know, they may have been pituitary giants or something. Which.

[B]

What is a pituitary. What is that?

[A]

Well, like, you grow really fast and, and you're usually they're marked by having a really big head. Actually, I played rugby for seven years and one of our, one of our best players in the scrum was a pat. A pituitary giant. So he was like huge, like Andre the giant. Yes.

[B]

Your glands just produce.

[A]

Good to have on your rugby team, I would imagine.

[B]

Yeah. Giant. I mean, that was yeah, like, medieval battle and everything. It's awesome.

[A]

And he had you, like, oh, he talked like that.

[B]

I'd be pissed at. He didn't. Honestly, if I had a giant with a soft voice, I'd be like, it's howdy.

[A]

But Cortez had the wherewithal to, like, snag some of these, you know, specimens and take them home to England or, pardon me, to Spain. And he would be like, I want to show the king what is here. And so there were, like, dwarfs and albinos, and some of them he, you know, absconded with, put them on a ship and sent him with the. You know, with the royal fifth of gold that they were required to send back and was like, crazy. Check them out. Like, this place is rad.

[B]

You know, it's crazy to send just a bunch of treasure. Then, like, essentially, like an old freak show. Just hit him with, like. He's like. You open a chest and like, dudes, midgets pop out. You're like, whoa. The hell is this?

[A]

But in fairness to Orianna, he didn't have, like, you know, he was just trying not to die and get down the river. So he didn't have the capacity to for sure put them in the boat. He was trying to feed his own men.

[B]

Yeah, true.

[A]

Cortez was like, okay, we're gonna put these guys on ships and send them back and show what I'm taking over.

[B]

The worst story of all, I think, from river of Darkness is when they landed in that village, and it was just women there, and they took over the village and just. All Just slept with these ladies, raped him, obviously. Let's be. Let's not. Let's be frank about it. And. But then the guys, then they're. All their husbands came home from a trip to just see these, like, people they've never seen before, all with their wives and their huts, and it was just like, dude, that's the most insane thing you could possibly imagine. Everyone goes out to work. You come home, and everyone's wife is now being detained by, like, a strange being.

[A]

You never spend my whole day at the turtle farm and come home to this, you know? I know.

[B]

Really been farming turtles all day.

[A]

And I was.

[B]

It's so funny.

[A]

I was. Chuck. I was chuckling, too. You guys were talking about how they named everything, you know, and the one place that you call, you know, you read it in the part three or whatever, and it's like. It was, like, place of the. Of the burn people. And I was thinking, you should have been Called the place where we burned people. You know, like, they didn't want to name it, what it really was.

[B]

Yeah. I also love when he. They called it, when he had, like, that. Gonzalo Bizarro had a bad march, and it was named the worst march ever through the jungle. Literally. That was a literal term. Yeah, this was the worst march ever through the jungle.

[A]

There have been a lot of bad ones. This one worst.

[B]

Worst ever, you know.

[A]

Well, it is pretty bad when he gets back and he's, like, literally in, you know, skins and barefoot. You know, the fact that any of those.

[B]

The word. The worst is them. I didn't know you could do this with a horse. You cut it open, drink the blood as needed, and then you pack it full of mud, and it's just like a walking. It's just like a food truck. You just kind of want. You would cut slivers, cook a sliver of it, eat it, and just let it keep walking as you're eating.

[A]

It was like, oh, yeah, that was grim. I was listening to it a little bit on the plane, and I'm like, God, I forgot about that. You know, it's just what people will do. And, you know, I have to say, there wasn't much cannibalism in the conquistador tales, but in. If you really. If you like cannibalism, as you get to the. As you get to the. The Arctic stuff, a lot of cannibalism. Cannibalism, yeah, that was the.

[B]

Because that's the. That's the funny thing, too, because I, you know, whenever I'm like, I'll, like, organize notes for things, and I'll use, like, you know, Grok or Claude. And they're always like. By the way, they didn't sustain themselves on cannibalism. It was for ceremonies. It's like, okay, dude, they're still eating. Like, don't, like, nice it up. Like it was church. It's like, okay. But so that Arctic was like. They needed to munch, guys. That was, like, sustained. That was, like, sustaining.

[A]

Yeah. And, you know, you're talking about a different. Like, the idea was that the explorers coming from. From Europe and North America were like, you know, it was taboo in different cultures. It's less. Less. So, you know, and it does beg the question. I've been asked that at book readings. Like, would you eat human flesh?

[B]

It's always one guy at a book reading.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Would you ever read a person, Mr. Levy? Would you eat a person? And then if I died, you're.

[A]

I'm going to.

[B]

I mean, what do you say to that when someone asks you that?

[A]

I say, would you.

[B]

Touche.

[A]

I mean, it depends on how. If it was your homie, you know, like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How well do you know him?

[B]

True. You know, Is it a guy or a girl? I would. I would need a guy. Personally. Yeah.

[A]

I would.

[B]

Personally.

[A]

Oh, man.

[B]

Unless it was a powerful war, I would eat a powerful warrior.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I think at a certain point I would, you know.

[B]

Yeah. Obviously, if you get hungry enough. Yeah, for sure.

[A]

You know, you're delirious with hunger and it's like, it's meat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If I were a vegan, I would say, no, I. I have a cupboard

[B]

full of, like, cereal and all this stuff, and I'll be not hungry and I don't want to eat the cereal, and I'll eat the cereal. If I was starving to death, I would totally eat a person.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, no. Not even. Not a question. Yeah, sorry, sorry. So then I literally would eat every person. Everyone here. I think you guys are great, but if I got hungry, but.

[A]

So it gets kind of grim.

[B]

I'll try.

[A]

It gets kind of grim because then it becomes a question of. Okay, if they're already dead.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, let's say they starve to death and then they. And they're. Which happens in a couple of my books where, you know, they're. They're dead already. They starved. So bad eating. You're looking around. Okay. Not a lot. You know, we've already gone out hunting and we haven't found anything. And there's a guy. Yeah.

[B]

Starving skin.

[A]

Are we going to. Are we going to do it? And. Versus. You're going to, you know, kill someone to eat them, which is a different. Yeah. Thing for me. Well, this went dark.

[B]

No, that's. No, I. I hear what you're saying. Because if someone starves to death and you got to split up your friend with all your other friends to eat them, but it's like, there isn't a lot of meat on them.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Next person starts lagging. Like, we can just eat this guy now and get a better meal out of it.

[A]

Yeah. And then in some cases, what happens is, like, they start looking around. This happens in. In that book, actually. Or in Labyrinth of Ice. So one guy, you know, everybody else is like emaciated sort of walking dead situation on the ice. And. And then you've got like, one guy who's like 200 pounds. It looks like he's just come from CrossFit, you know, and they're like, what the fuck is up with him? Like, why is he so, you know, burly? And they realize, well, he's been going off to the, the title crack where they've been throwing the dead people and like feeding at night, you know, feeding at the title. He's just jacked and ripped that guy. It doesn't go well for him.

[B]

So it was. He kind of gave himself away by being like, man, I'm just different. I'm just built different.

[A]

It's crazy.

[B]

It was crazy.

[A]

It's genetics.

[B]

So he was just sneaking off at night time and just frying up the guys and.

[A]

Yes, and then, but, but the commander, this was an army expedition. And the commander figures it out. Adolphus Greeley. And he's like, I don't, I don't. I hate getting stuff away, but whatever. Yeah, but he ends up going, okay, he catches him stealing food and then he says, okay, we're going to take three guys out there and Henry, that's his name, Henry's got to go because he's eating what little food we have left. And so they do a thing where,

[B]

oh, he was munching the food reserves

[A]

after and, and dead and the people. And so then he's like, we, you know, we'll all die if Henry keeps eating everything. So they have an execution and they just like go out there and you

[B]

know, I gotta say that's not very fat positive of that. He was hungry.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And Henry was body shaming people too,

[B]

you know, that's fair. Damn. So he was.

[A]

So they executed him. But you know, they wanted to not know who, who did it. So they really put like blanks in two of the guns and then a live round in the other one and all fired, they all fired on him. And then, then they had to report it to the. If they, you know, they met, some survived. So then they had to like write a report of like. Yeah, we.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Took out Henry, made it kill him. Sorry.

[B]

That's what you get, man. You can't be doing that on the expedition.

[A]

No, it's bad form. Bad team player.

[B]

It's a terrible, that's a terrible team player. Yeah, I think he's all about himself.

[A]

There's no I in team Henry, you know.

[B]

Dang. That's awesome. So what is like, so out of all the expeditions you've done, what are they you've done the Amazon Arctic?

[A]

Well also I went to Borneo. This was, I think I mentioned to you I had followed these crazy multi sport adventure racers around the world for about seven Years. And this was run by Mark Burnett, the guy who created Survivor the Apprentice. And so I was doing some research, and I was. I was a journalist then, writing about these sports. And the one of the ones I went to was in Borneo, which is, you know, northern Malaysia Islands. And that was super intense because. And it was actually during this race where Mark Burnett found the island that was the first Survivor island where the first competition happened, however many, like, 112 seasons of Survivor ago or whatever it's been. And so this was really incredible. We were following these racers around, and we were in boats, motorboats, but we would sleep on islands, right? And I had heard my friend is trying to freak me out. He's like, yeah, Borneo, that's where the headhunters are, right?

[B]

So I thought, yeah, really?

[A]

And he's like, well, they're south. They're south of where you're going to be, you know? And I'm like, oh, good. And he said, but, you know, Borneo has, like, some of the most toxic snakes in the world. And also, so at one point, I'm on this island, and we were, like, waiting to go to the next island, and we camped out there, right? This is. Couldn't have a hammock there because no trees. And so I had heard about this sea crate, K R A I T, which is, like, one of the most toxic snakes in the world, right? And I mean, if. If it bites you, I think you have, like, hours to live, really. So we're like, get to this island. It was beautiful. We're all setting up camp in this one guy. We had this MacGyver dude named Britto. He's British and his nickname was Britto, which isn't that clever, but that's just what we called him. But Britto, it turns out, was really scared of snakes, right? So we had seen a couple. They're water snakes. So it's freaky because we had to anchor out. Like, it's shallow. We anchored, like, 200, 300 yards from the island. And then you couldn't get into shore because it would break, you know. Yeah, yeah, up the boat. So we're, like, carrying all our crap through the water, seeing occasional slithers going, God damn. And. And so when we got to shore, Britto was like, buddy, I'm so scared of snakes. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, just stay away from them. But we. We ended up, like, so in the middle of the night. So I set up my tent, and in the middle of the night, I feel some, like, next to me and the dude is spooning me, you know. And listen, I'm okay with spooning, you know. But the guy, I'm like, brilliant. What the fuck are you doing? He's like, I can't take it. I can't be out there. And then I showed him. I go, well, it's not going to help you that much in here. My tent had like a little hole in the corner and I'm like, the sea crate's going to come, right. Because they look for warmth too, you know.

[B]

And I'm like, but they're water snakes.

[A]

Yeah, they're water snake but they can come on laying. They're amphibious. It's not a good.

[B]

It's also like don't be me being next to me. We're going to, you know, right. She be like, I'm afraid of snakes too, bro. Back up, man. Get off like your butt, dude.

[A]

Get your snake away from me. But, but, and then I, I went the next day, I go, I go

[B]

like, I think he made it all up to get close to you.

[A]

Honestly, he probably did.

[B]

Help me, buddy.

[A]

Yeah. So the next day I went out and did take a leak and I'm like, I see the movement in the scrub, you know, And I'm like, what the is that? And it was like, it was a. It turns out to it was a, a monitor lizard which are next to the Komodo dragon, the monitor, the second largest reptile in the world. I mean there's like from me to these guys, you know.

[B]

Damn.

[A]

And it's like a Shetland pony, elongated size lizard, you know. And you're like. And they're kind of gnarly too. I mean, you know, if you don't spook them or something, you're good. But like it all just makes you nervous, you know.

[B]

We went technically a dinosaur. These are the size of a Shetland pony. That's a dino.

[A]

Yeah. And you're out there in its Jurassic park situation and you know you're trying to make a living.

[B]

That's fucking terrible. And then how so you just on that island for a day.

[A]

Yeah. And then we were like went off to the next. I mean it was like a 10 or 12 day long race and we also had to crawl through. They had this really cool section of the race where they had to. There are these bat caves that are really famous and they're huge. You go through these like you crawl through these tunnels to get inside the big cavern and they're massive. And then there's these bat caves that actually are the local population. They Harvest these birds that are kind of like a swallow. They're called swifts. They go up on these vine ladders to harvest the eggs from these swift birds. It's like a medicinal aphrodisiac situation.

[B]

What?

[A]

Yeah, every.

[B]

Every single place has their, like, I swear, like, give you. This is like the tree bark liquor or whatever. Yeah, every single civilization has their own, like, boner.

[A]

You gotta have it.

[B]

Hey, I turned 40 this year. You got. I'm in the thick of it, bro. I'm like, it's finally come for me.

[A]

But. So, yeah, then you're crawling. It was kind of nasty. I'm. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not against bats or anything, but, like, when you're. And you guys. I know, Congressman. Yeah, you got bats, but you had to crawl through, like, tunnels of bat guano, like, you know, centuries of bats shitting there to get into the cavern place. And then as part of the race, the racers had to go through there and then climb up this huge, like, escarpment and then, like, rappel down the other side. Right. So, you know, you're just coming out of there going, God, did I pick the wrong gig. Like, I'm covered in bat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, which.

[B]

Oh, it's not good.

[A]

No.

[B]

Can you get. It's like. It's like bird. I know bird. You can get really sick.

[A]

Yeah. You back on a. You don't want to eat it.

[B]

True. Fair enough.

[A]

But no, it has. You can get sick.

[B]

Well, because the bird. The bird, what happens is it dries and then you hit something and it goes up in the air. And then as soon as you breathe it in, it become that. Like, when it gets wet, that's when it kind of messes you up. Like, it, like, whatever. I think moisture activates.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This could have been. I was working with my dad. We're doing the thing with pigeon. He might have been making this all up. He was just like, moisture activates the germs and bird.

[A]

It's like the hunt tube virus. Don't be snorting that.

[B]

That's pretty cool, though. So what do you. What do you have. What do you have, like, cooking up? What's your. What's your next.

[A]

Well, I'm doing it. I'm doing a fourth Arctic book because I am the master of the Arctic.

[B]

You are the master of the Arctic,

[A]

as it turns out. Antarctic.

[B]

I'm claiming Antarctic. I'm going to go to the Antarctic.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Beat you to it.

[A]

Well, my editor. I'm actually. This is avoidance behavior, right? Here, because I am working on a new book, and it's, it's about. So you may have heard of John Franklin.

[B]

Who?

[A]

This Franklin expedition that went off in the two boats, ships got stuck in the ice, and then he never came home. He had 120. Well, did you. Have you guys heard about the Terror? It's an AMC show called the Terror. That was a huge deal. But anyway, these two ships got stuck in the ice and then nobody came home. And so his wife, Lady Jane Franklin, sent for like 20 years, sent expeditions to go try to find them. And then half of those people died. But those two ships were recently found in like 2017 and 2014 because of Inuit oral history. They said, we saw, you know, their ancestors said, we saw these boats where they went down, and they, they ended up using submersibles to go find both those ships. And it helped solve the problem or the questions about what happened. And in fact, cannibalism occurred. Of course, 129 men perished. But that's not what my book's about.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, true.

[A]

My book's about the first Franklin expedition.

[B]

You're giving it away. What the hell. Yeah.

[A]

Is about the first Franklin expedition in Northern Canada, which is an overland journey in like 5,000 miles on foot in canoes with Dine Yellowknife indigenous people. It was during the time of the Hudson Bay Company in the northwest fur traders.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so it's 1819. And it's just this incredible ordeal where they're trying to figure out where the Northwest Passage is. In fact, almost all this stuff was related to finding the Northwest Passage. Many of the Arctic tales. And it's just an incredible ordeal.

[B]

Then what's the Northwest Passage?

[A]

They were trying to find a sea route. Instead of having to go all the way around to Asia, you could, you could go quicker from Europe through, Through. Through the circuitous. All these islands north of Canada. Yeah. But it's really hard to navigate. And half the time it's frozen and not navigable. And so it took centuries to figure out that it's not practical and you

[B]

just can't do it.

[A]

Many people, I mean, with, with global warming, it's becoming open longer. I mean, if you believe in global warming, but, you know, it, It's. It's still not. It's too circuitous to get through quickly, and it doesn't really solve the problem. But took them a long time and many lives to come to this realization.

[B]

Sucks a lot of those guys, too. I've noticed when they. Whenever, whenever someone has like a successful Voyage, and they try to do the second one. It never works out. Besides, I feel like Christopher Columbus is the only guy who kind of like, I don't even know what happened to him. Ultimately.

[A]

He gets. Yeah, like, where the journeys improve.

[B]

Yeah, he just kind of just. I, I don't know if this is true. I, I was talking to somebody months ago about Christopher Columbus, who was a history teacher, and he was saying that Christopher Columbus, when he first got to, what was it like, Hispaniola or whatever, there were the people there, I forget the name of them. They were like, you know, he famously was like the super docile, blah, blah, blah. Apparently he would just like, hop on their back and make them piggyback him around the aisle, which is so disrespectful. He'd be like, I'm tired, and just piggyback. They would just carry him around.

[A]

You look fit.

[B]

That's disrespectful. I thought that was crazy. I mean, there's obviously all of them did a lot of terrible things, but that would just. The grown man was like, all right, come on, let me hop up. Let me hop on you real quick. I'd be like, it's. Yeah, but he, he made it. He was the only guy. I feel like he did. I mean, I'm sure there are others, but he had, like, multiple successful expeditions, right?

[A]

Yes. Yeah.

[B]

He was all over the place.

[A]

Yeah, but you're right, they, they tend to end poorly. I mean, even in the case of Orianna and River of Darkness, like, you, he thought, like, what he learned going down the river would have helped. And then the return voyage was disastrous, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Well, plus, you can't figure out where you're going, you know, like, because of the mouth is so wide. One of the staggering facts that I, I wrote it, I, I'm gonna have to confirm this after we are done here. If it's actually true that there's an island at the mouth that's the size of Switzerland.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's insane.

[A]

You look that up.

[B]

I think, I think, I think that is.

[A]

It'll probably quote me.

[B]

No, I, I, I swear to God. I think that's the case.

[A]

Yeah. And it's, it's so imagine Oriana arriving back there with his child bride, you know, and he did bring a child

[B]

bride on the return voyage, which is crazy.

[A]

And they're like, we're going back up and we're gonna mostly visit the places that were nice to us. Yeah. Maraho Island. Yeah.

[B]

That's insane. And it I forgot about that. And he survives it and then brings a child bride. Honeymoons the child bride.

[A]

Great honeymoon. You'll love it.

[B]

Crazy. Dies in front of her.

[A]

Brazil's nice this time of year, you know?

[B]

Yeah. I. I do like learning about those little, like, those weird, like, waterways, like the Boca de Serpiente and the Boca de Dragon, where they gotta, like, navigate these weird rocky channels with, like, wetlands through. Where was that? Like the Trinidadian coast.

[A]

Mangrove swamps and everything.

[C]

Sucks.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that would suck. So. Especially just to learn where you're at, like, oh, the place we're in is called the Mouth of the Dragon. I'd be like,

[A]

I wonder why they call it that.

[B]

Well, buddy, this was great. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you have or anything you'd like people to know or any of that stuff? Talking business?

[A]

No, man. Just. I really appreciate being here. It's been a blast. And I'm going to keep writing these things until I'm weak and infirm and need to feed on a friend.

[B]

There you go. Well, thank you so much.

[A]

My pleasure, man.

[B]

See you, buddy.

[A]

Take care.

[B]

Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's Secret podcast on Spotify. Do.