Travis Bader: I'm Travis Bader, and this is the Silvercore podcast.
Silvercore has been providing its members with the skills and knowledge
necessary to be confident and proficient in the outdoors for over 20 years.
And we make it easier for people to deepen their connection to the natural world.
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ca.
So a while back, I was recording a podcast with Sean Taylor, episode
number 85 out at his house in Roslyn.
And we wrap it all up and he says, have you met my buddy?
Matt Jenkins got to talk with this guy.
And then again, talking with Steve Wilson in episode one 20.
And he's talking about this Matt Jenkins guy.
You got to talk with him.
He loves to hunt.
He's such a great guy.
And I've heard your name before, and I've, I've seen you on different internet
forums, but we never had the opportunity to meet up until, well, a little bit ago.
So why don't I just start off here?
Welcome.
Back to the Silvercore podcast, Matt
Matt Jenkins: Jenkins.
I'm super happy to be back.
Thank you.
Travis Bader: Well, we were, so, uh, Bredow was looking for a place
to run a program during OPEC.
And I guess that's the, the law enforcement, uh, show and tell
big trade show type thing for, uh, the gun industry and security.
Type companies.
And, uh, so Breda Stoker, Shani reaches out and says, Trav,
we're looking for a range.
We want to arrange where we can run.
And X, Y, Z, we got full auto, we got suppressors.
We've got all the cool kitten toys.
And so I said, yeah, the range Langley, that's your ticket.
You got to check out the range Langley.
They're perfectly set up for it.
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
We want an outdoor range.
And they got all these different requirements.
I said, no, no, no, no.
You want the range Langley.
And here's why anyways, they looked at it.
They said, okay.
Fair enough.
You're right.
That's a place to go.
I'm there.
I show up, I say hi to everybody and do a quick post on social media.
And like, literally I post this thing out, I have a picture in.
Ding, there's Matt Jenkins.
He says, okay, I'm in.
Can I come?
What's up?
I said, yeah, you just got to have a badge, which you do.
And, um, and you're in there.
So that was, that was the first time we actually got to meet face to face and
really glad I was able to get to meet you.
That's pretty cool.
And then
Matt Jenkins: what happened?
We, uh, decided to sit down and report a podcast and , as I, as I do, you get
a case of the cold feet and you start thinking about what you said and what
you didn't said and say, and all of a sudden like, Ooh, I'm overthinking this
one and I think we gotta do it again.
Travis Bader: Well, I thought it, honestly, I thought it
was a really good podcast.
I, I really enjoyed it.
There's a lot of information in there, but, uh, when you said pull the plug,
I talked to the, the social team, I'm like, yep, we're pulling the plug.
And then later on, you're like, you know, I really wish I was on this one course.
And it's some great information in there.
And I really wanted to get that information across.
And so I said, great.
You know, the, my job here is to portray the best possible you.
And if you weren't happy with the last one, even though I thought it was pretty
good, you did a pretty damn good job.
Matt Jenkins: I appreciate that it, uh, of course the immediate feeling
goes to guilt because looking at, uh, the production value and I don't
know how much of the studio you can actually see in the YouTube, but it's
a pretty impressive facility and coming in for a couple hours and then having
it scrubbed was, I felt pretty bad.
You know what?
Travis Bader: This is all part of the process.
And I, I was mentioned earlier.
So Anthony Stasek or he XSBS owner of, uh, co founder of, uh, through dark, I
think it'll actually, yeah, there you go.
Shameless plug.
Wearing a through dark shirt.
Honestly, they fit the last 30 or so podcasts.
You'll notice I'm wearing their kit.
Anyways, he's in the UK.
We set the time.
I'm up around two 30 in the morning to record the podcast,
drive out here, getting myself all ready doing jumping jacks.
I got to be on.
I can't be all groggy and the time rolls around to record and he doesn't show up.
I'm like, Oh, I missed it by an hour.
I'm an hour early.
So I wait another hour and no, I'm actually Day early.
So, okay.
Regroup again the next day, get up proper time.
This time, Anthony doesn't show up.
So we regrouped again a couple of days later, but that was a few mornings of
getting up, but this is all, this is all part of doing a podcast, so it's all good.
Um, yeah.
And you know, shamelessly.
So here's another plug, uh, coming up.
Let's see when this, yeah, this will be coming out before, uh, such and Latty.
He has.
He asked if I could give an 11 minute talk and I said, sure,
yeah, I can give an 11 minute talk.
I've got to figure something to talk about here.
And he says, well, what if you talk about, uh, mental health?
And the outdoors and, uh, what all that means to you.
So from my own selfish perspective, this is fantastic because I'm just going to
be pumping you for information too, and looking at your perspective and I'll
be using all of this to help create my talk, which in, Typical ADHD style.
I have yet to begin.
I'll make
Matt Jenkins: sure I trademark everything I say before March 30th, and you'll
be paying me for everything I say.
I love it.
Are you going to be there?
No, I won't.
I'll be back up in God's country and the Kootenai's not down in.
This, uh, I don't know how to call the lower mainland anything positively and,
uh, PG rated, but it's, it's a place.
It's a
Travis Bader: place.
You know what, when you get outside it for a little bit, like I grew up
in Surrey and I've heard all of the Surrey jokes and everyone talks about
Surrey, what are you talking about?
This place is fantastic.
Surrey's the best, right?
When I moved out of Surrey and I saw something a little
different, I'm like, oh, Okay.
I get where they're coming from.
I get where the jokes are coming from.
Not that I'd disparage it in any way, but when you're in it.
What is Surrey?
Yeah.
When you're in it, it's hard to see outside of it, right?
It's,
Matt Jenkins: uh, I grew up in Langley and, um, you know, when, when I went over
to Surrey, I just, you kind of get back to Langley, just feel dirty, you feel dirty
and you've got to go up and take a shower.
I love it.
But, uh, no, it's good.
I'm, I, every time I had the opportunity to come back, uh, Moving out of
the lower mainland was fantastic.
Uh, it was a great opportunity and being able to move for, for the job was, it
made things really easy, but I'd have to admit, uh, I was driving around Fort
Langley the other night, uh, beautiful weather, no traffic and it was There is
part of me that does miss living down here and it's days like those, okay, this
is, this is nice and nice and nostalgic, but I'm not coming back anytime soon.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
There's something to be said for few less people, a little bit
easier access to the outdoors or a lot easier access to the outdoors.
And yeah, uh, you know, my head's clicking in that direction too.
I mean, that would, um, we'll see, we'll see what, uh, what comes in time.
Dude, these are nice this time of year.
Yeah, yes they are.
So your background, you got into.
You, I think you mentioned before, you're more of a gun guy than you are a hunter
and everyone that has introduced you, you to me describes you as a hunter, right?
Matt Jenkins: I suppose that's the power of perceptions.
Um, grew up, uh, in Virginia.
Um, I tell everybody how I ended up in BC.
I just got lost on my way to Alaska.
That's the short, that's me, uh, shortening that story,
but, uh, grew up shooting.
Um.
You know, being that I grew up in the United States, it was shooting things
like handguns and AK 47s and AR 15s.
I actually had never touched a bolt action rifle until I moved to Canada.
Go figures.
Yeah.
Um, don't come from a family of hunters.
Um, about 16 years old, got into hunting through my, my still best friend.
Uh, his dad really took me under his wing and.
I, from our first trip in, I guess that would have been September, September
youth season of 2007, uh, the O'Klean and Sinker, everything around, everything
from that point on really revolved around how do I do this and yeah, the
rest is history, but I still do consider myself, uh, more, more well versed in the
firearms realm than the hunting realm.
But again, perception is an interesting thing.
What kind of a hunt was it?
I was a mule deer hunt, um, up in, I guess it would have been the North end of
region eight off the Okanogan connector.
And I had no idea.
I knew I was going two weeks before.
So I'm buying hunting magazines and I'm like, Oh, you know,
tips to shoot a white tail.
Okay, cool.
Well, geez, a white tail and a mule deer, that's gotta be the same thing.
If it works in the magazine, it's going to work where we're going.
Hey, stupid, you're a different species for a reason.
Sure, sure.
Yeah.
Uh, and then a couple of months later, did another hunt with, um, again with
Dan and his dad and his little brother.
And, and we were lucky.
We got, uh, Back to back success and, and was hooked.
Um, what
Travis Bader: was it that hooked you?
Matt Jenkins: I always had an interest in it, you know, growing up in the
States, the Sportsman's channel, there was 15 versions of wild TV down there
and they all had hunting content.
And I always thought, you know, I love being outdoors.
I love firearms.
This is kind of seems like a good way to put it together.
Although I, I, uh, it was interesting, even from a young age, thinking
about hunting, I was hooked.
When I looked at the guys in the tree stands and the ground bonds, I'm
like, I don't think I can do this.
Like, I'm, I'm too ADD.
I'll be going stir crazy and a deer is going to walk in front of me and
I'm going to have no idea it's there.
Cause I'm going to be too busy, you know, counting leaves on trees or something.
And what did you find?
Uh, I found that, uh, well we, we had it, honestly, we had it pretty cushy.
We were in a camper in the back of the truck.
We were cruising around on quads.
It was a pretty, pretty cushy introduction to it.
Um, but yeah, Yeah, the, the places hunting has taken me, the people it's
introduced me to, it's second to none.
I'm very hobby heavy skiing, mountain biking, hunting, shooting.
But, uh, if I had to strip all of those things away and be reduced
to one passion, hunting would be obviously what reigned supreme.
Getting into skiing and re introducing myself to mountain biking really
was something essentially to pass the time between, you know,
November or December in some cases.
And then, you Uh, September
Travis Bader: again.
So you were out mountain biking today, weren't you?
It was Steve.
Matt Jenkins: Yeah, I am physically abused.
Travis Bader: Well, that's his bread and butter, right?
It is.
Matt Jenkins: And he, uh, he, he was, I was quick to point out to him this morning
as I was cursing and swearing and sweating that he's been riding all winter and I
haven't touched my bike in nine months, so I'll hang on to that little thing.
That I, you know, hopefully I'm not that bad all season,
but it was, uh, it was awesome.
And, uh, coming full circle back to Steve, he actually ran the mountain
bike program when I was in high school.
Uh, he was a teacher of mine.
And the last time I rode the woodlot 19 years ago was with
him and my best friend, Dan.
And then here we are.
19 years later, writing again.
So it's life is funny.
Travis Bader: He mentions you or he alludes to you.
Anyways, I don't think he used your name, but he talked about
you in his Ted talk that he did.
He did.
Yep.
Yeah.
That was, that was a really good Ted talk.
I was, uh, maybe I should talk with him about my little 11 minute speech.
I got to put together, but he did a damn good job on that.
Matt Jenkins: Phenomenal.
I, um, I, you know, I, I look at the, the Ted talk and I remember talking to him
prior, him asking me if he could use a kind of a very, uh, sort of an anonymized
version of a connection with me.
He did put my picture up there just without the name attached.
And I watching the final production, it's one thing to sit and have a back
and forth conversation, but it's another thing to be standing in a box on a stage
and have a, uh, basically turn your, what's in your head into a product, right.
And have, you know, little to no prompting capture that audience.
So I.
Pretty wild and yeah, it was very humbling to see that final product and
how'd you feel a lot of gratitude, right?
You know, it's um, I've had amazing connections with people my entire life
and it's Phenomenal the impact that we can have on one another without you know
The smallest gesture can mean so much to other folks and the fact that other
people view me as having a phenomenal impact on them enough to use them
on a Uh, Ted talk is beyond anything that I think I'm well could have done.
Travis Bader: Isn't that funny how, how we can interact with
people throughout our life and the little actions that we can make.
And we don't even understand the impact that it's having on those around us, other
through our example or through, uh, just like how I'm learning about you through
Sean and through Steve and through other people or, uh, or directly, you know, I, I
had, uh, uh, one person reach out and, um, he was telling me a little bit about what
he does and, and, uh, I looked over any on his, I think it was on his Instagram feed.
I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool.
He's got some neat mugs he's got, uh, and he puts out there and I'll
pick one of these things up and he comes back and says, you're the first
person to purchase a mug and he has no idea how these little things, uh, can
impact someone is what he said to me.
And I'm like, okay, that's cool.
That's interesting.
You know, just taking the time to, to always be conscious of what we're doing.
And I guess it's sort of a balancing act because you don't want to
always be thinking, well, what are people thinking about me?
Right.
It's exhausting.
Right.
But in the same breath, you want to make sure you're always conducting
yourself and comporting yourself in a way that you're not detracting
from somebody's joy or their life.
Then you're hopefully, you know, Adding to their joy.
Matt Jenkins: Yeah.
And then the way, you know, I look at situations is, is what can I do and
what can I provide in terms of value to the connections I have, right.
Whether it's, um, you know, a venture at work, right.
What can I do to add value to this unit I'm working with, or this, this,
this program that I'm involved in to what can I do to add value to the
relationships I have with people, right.
Um, with friends and family, I don't know.
I, sometimes I miss the mark by a mile, but, um, when, you Thinking in terms of
that of yeah, you certainly want to add something you want to contribute You
don't want to become you don't want to be a cost if you're a cost to something
you're in some cases doing it wrong I mean there are some things where you can
you go into a situation knowing that you are going to be the beneficiary of it
But it certainly feels good to be you know Try to be the the person providing
something to others and if it's a two way street then It just means that
relationship or that, uh, connections beneficial all across the board.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's, it's one of these things that a giver will always find
takers hanging around them, right.
And you don't, and you have to guard yourself against that.
You definitely don't want to find yourself in a position where
you're being viewed as a taker.
And quite often a giver will look at that and they'll try and reciprocate.
And like, you know, just last time when we recorded, I was out with a friend of mine.
Now I went to school with his son.
And I just spend more time with, with the father than I do with the son.
And the son owns a number of restaurants throughout Vancouver.
So we're going around, checking out a bunch of these different places and ask
for Luigi poor house, Carlino's, um, like a bunch of Italian, he's Italian fellow.
And, uh, brings me to one of their places and the guy who's
running the place comes up.
She's like, Oh, this is this thing, rum baba.
I make these myself in house.
I want you to have it and ends up giving me this thing.
And so I find something else to purchase and I basically pay for the
price of the, uh, the, the Marambaba.
And here I'm thinking, you know, I don't want to be on the negative
end of that, that exchange.
And when we left there, um, My friend, he says, why'd you do that?
Don't do that.
Travis.
He's trying to do something nice, right?
And it looks bad on you.
It looks bad on me.
And so that's one of the areas where, where I have a difficult time navigating.
Cause I never want to be on the negative side of that.
Um, I don't know.
You like that.
Is
Matt Jenkins: that, I, there, you know, when you know somebody well enough,
um, there certainly is, you know, a back and forth of, you know, favors or
knowledge and you're, you're, you have that sort of, you're not keeping track.
You just, you want to, you want to help somebody, you know, that they have
something that they can provide to you and knowledge or, you know, I'll let
you, Steve and me, for example, right?
I, the amount of knowledge he's pulled from my brain on the hunting and the
firearm realm, couldn't put a price on it.
Meanwhile, he's been wrenched on my bike all week.
And, you know, it's just one of those things.
You surround yourself with people you can lean on.
Then it It's what friends do for one another.
But if it's a connection that isn't as deep, then, you know, yeah, I feel
compelled to pull my weight per se.
Travis Bader: So, you know, talking with Steve, I definitely get the sense
that there's, um, uh, there's more of a emotional and kind of, even it's kind
of spiritual connection that he's having with the outdoors and the hunting.
Yeah.
That he's either, uh, grown on his own with your help or, but I get
more of the sense it's something that you've assisted with in that process.
Matt Jenkins: I, I think that's, it's given me entirely too much credit.
He, uh, yeah, Steve's a guy who again, uh, was a mentor of mine educationally
and also doing a lot with the outdoor ed programs back when I was in high school.
And, uh, Certainly a fellow that I looked up to because, you know, he had
all of his wilderness first days, he had done trips to the Arctic circle.
He'd been, you know, on the ice roads up North, um, you know, led groups of
kids and, and done a tremendous amount of experience in the back country.
So all I did was kind of say, Hey, you know what you're doing.
Only difference is now is, is, you know, The purpose for you being in
the outdoors is a little different, so here's how we're going to take
the skills you have and apply them to something a little bit different.
Um, and now there was some teaching along the way, I'm not going to
tell you how many years it took him to actually complete it.
You know, shoot a grouse with a 22 from 10 yards away, but
we'll let him sweat over that.
Now that I put it out into the world, but, uh, yeah, for the most part, and you
have somebody who, uh, is, is switched on, uh, knows what they're doing and
the skills are highly transferable.
I didn't do much.
Travis Bader: Just tell me about that process.
Cause so, okay.
A friend of mine recently, he's like talking to me
about a few different things.
He's a, Very intelligent individual.
He's like, do you read much Nietzsche?
He says, I'm like, well, a bit, you know, I've read a bit.
I want Montesquieu, right.
Or Schopenhauer.
I'm like, no, you really should.
You really should.
Right.
And, um, gives me some book recommendations and I said,
well, do they come with pictures?
They don't.
And so, but, uh, Schopenhauer, um, by all accounts so far, what
I'm reading, he seems to be, uh, Pretty critical about hunting.
He makes a statement about hunting and he says, the satisfaction of
hunting lies in the process of the chase and the exercise of skill rather
than in the death of the animal.
In this respect, the true hunter is more interested in the pursuit
itself than in the final result.
Matt Jenkins: Absolutely.
I couldn't have, couldn't have put it any better than that.
Um, the amount of years I tag soup, uh, or the amount of times when
I'm out with somebody and I, I get with more satisfaction over, you
know, helping them or assisting them to me, it doesn't matter.
Right.
At the end of the day, we are successful.
I don't care who pulls the trigger.
That is not, it's not a thing for me.
Right.
Um, So again, to help, uh, to help with that process has been phenomenal.
And you know, when I think back on the trips I've done all over BC, up North,
the Kootenays, proximity to the lower mainland, some of the most, the stories,
the memories and everything came from, you know, the people I'm with, the
places I am rather than, you know, what we're taking physically, taking
home from that trip or taking from that landscape, of course, tremendous bonus.
Uh, and, and the pride you have when you are successful in that
trip, you can't replace it.
Um, And that's where I think we, you know, as hunters who are comfortable
having difficult conversations, it's really important for us.
And if you've, if you don't hunt, it's really hard to understand
because again, the classic adage of, well, how can you admire
something if you're going to kill it?
Well, you know, obviously at face value, that seems like a
very accurate statement, but.
Really, when you get into talking with people who are passionate about it, it's
sort of that's kind of the culmination of the effort you've put in the preparation,
the physical preparation, you know, you can't just go walk up and down the hills.
You know, without prep, preparing your body, otherwise you're going
to be a liability or at the very least you're going to be miserable.
Yeah.
Um, you know, where do you go, uh, access your, your, your kit, your
equipment, um, finding those people who you can intrinsically trust, because
there's a lots of times I've been hunting, I'm like, this is terrible.
This is a terrible experience and I don't want to be where I am.
I want to be sitting on a beach somewhere.
That's it.
That's all.
I don't want to be sitting on a beach.
I hate the beach, but I want to be anywhere.
What I am when I'm cold and I'm wet and I'm tired.
And all I see above me is, is, uh, mountains and false summits.
And, uh, and then when you're successful, it just really puts into
perspective, everything that you've done to get yourself to that point.
And the amount of pride I take.
Um, and the, how seriously I take the act of mentorship is, is colossal, right?
If people are trusting me to give them those experiences or pass on those
skills to them, it's not something that I take for granted because it's 2024.
The resources we have, you know, arguably in certain aspects, you
can't replace a mentor to go out there with you, but let's be honest, right?
Through your podcast, through, um, good, uh, folks instructing hunter
safety courses through guys like Steve Fernella, there's so many
ways you can learn these things.
Refine them on your own.
Mm-Hmm.
But, you know, uh, there's lots of ways you can do it without a lot of help.
So the fact that people are still turning to me, um, is Yeah.
It's something that I don't take for granted.
No.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
That, that mentorship program is something that is one of the most
difficult pieces of the puzzle for Mm-Hmm.
Those people.
Absolutely.
I mean, there's only so many podcasts you can listen to.
Only so many YouTube videos or books you can read.
Mm-Hmm.
. But to actually have somebody to kind of take you in and show you the ropes, to
help you be successful, can it, it can be dejecting, it can be discouraging.
Absolutely.
You go out there over and over again.
For me, I've never made the animal, my prize.
Just like in business, I don't make money.
My prize, if I make money, my prize, I'm always going to be chasing it.
If I make the enjoyment of what I'm doing and the pursuit of trying
to provide excellence best of my ability or quality to the end user.
Money will be a natural by product of that.
Just like in hunting, if I make the deepening of the connection, my connection
with the natural environment, my end goal, the default of all of that will be,
I'll start learning where the animals are and when they are and how they're moving
and, and I will be successful in it.
Um, but.
But I've never, ever left a hunt and been like, man, I wish I didn't go, right.
I could see if I had picked the wrong group and maybe some,
some teammates to go out with.
And, uh, it was a wrong selection.
Thankfully that's never happened to me.
And Uh, time and effort goes into making sure we're very selective
about those who we will go out.
Cause it'll push you, it'll, it'll push you mentally and physically.
And if you're already kind of seeing some ragged edges before you even
get out there, they'll, they'll show
Matt Jenkins: through.
And not only that to the ethics piece, of course, you know, being law
abiding, but, uh, you know, there's lots of ways where you can be compliant
with, you know, the wildlife act, the firearms act and so forth, but
you're skirting that gray area, making decisions that Are unethical, right?
Mm-Hmm.
. Uh, and I've always taken a, I've always, yeah, I've always
taken that pretty seriously.
Um, realizing what's at stake.
You know, every time it seems like every time the regulations
come out, we're losing a bit.
And not to go down that rabbit hole, 'cause that's a
podcast in itself, , but, um.
Always being mindful of projecting that good professional image of somebody
who knows what they're doing, who's somebody truly appreciates what they're
doing and somebody that can back up what they're doing with good points in a,
in a conversation with people who have a different viewpoint about hunting.
It's important.
And I, uh, there are people that I've hunted with who I've watched make
decisions sometimes in front of me, or just sometimes through hearsay
or, or, uh, stories from clients.
Friends that I trust and I'm there, that is enough for me
to say, Nope, I'm, I'm good.
I'll go with somebody else.
Right.
You're, you're not, my hunting with you is not worth me being
associated with those behaviors.
Travis Bader: You know, it's, you're talking about gray areas
and is there anyone really looking over my shoulder at the moment?
I'm out in the woods, right?
Is it, I don't know.
What are the odds?
Anything would happen, right?
The second, that sort of thinking starts to creep in, um, in
anybody, you've got an issue.
I think the best way to approach it is to mentally role play ahead of time,
what you do in different circumstances.
And so when you're presented with it, you've already got a framework
that you can kind of work with.
Yep.
I mean, I like I'll set an alarm for a water fowl hunting when the alarm
goes off, there's no more shots.
We'll hear shots half an hour to an hour after all of that, but
there's a difference between being a hunter and being a poacher.
Yes.
And I know that if I were to take a shot after that.
I wouldn't be feeling good about myself.
I wouldn't want to tell my friends about, Hey, look at this, look
at this animal I've harvested.
Or well, how could you, right?
There's no story there, right?
He, he just got to, yeah.
And, and what's that worth to you, you got to live with
yourself for the rest of the time.
And at the very least there's that on top of that, then there's your reputation
and criminal charges and seizures and all the other things that go with it.
So it's not worth
Matt Jenkins: it.
Maybe for some folks looking for views on YouTube, but that's certainly not for me.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Wasn't there a couple of those things
Matt Jenkins: recently?
Yes.
So some sort of recent thing in my brain.
I think that it's applicable to, but I can't remember who and where.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
And that's one of the things, you know, there's pressure, people feel pressure
and they'll put it on themselves.
They want, they don't want to be, um, coming back is unsuccessful, but if, and
I think that's where Renella kind of, you know, help hit the nail on the head.
Um, and he tried to show the process, And the pursuit rather than the end result.
Cause prior to this, like I've never been a big watch and
hunting on TV type of person.
Uh, and in fact, when Rinella came out, I'd never even heard
of him for the longest time.
And people kept bringing his name up.
I'm like, who is this Italian person they keep talking about, right?
Meat
Matt Jenkins: eater was the gateway drug for me.
No, it really, Oh yeah.
Now you look at my hunt, my YouTube algorithm and it's,
it's, it's a rabbit hole.
Yeah.
That's my Saturday night.
Not my Saturday and Sunday mornings.
I work shift work, but per se, my, my weekend mornings
off is spent with YouTube.
Just.
If I can't do it, it's always interesting to watch the stories
that other people have and.
Uh, you know, there's a lot of good content on there, but I'm
pretty choosy in what I watch.
It's gotta be authentic.
I don't like a lot of production value.
I don't like, you know, the, you know, if you've got a list of sponsors a mile
long and there's more product shots than hunting, I'm probably not interested,
but, uh, yeah, the, my favorite episode of meat eater, um, Was one where nothing,
you didn't, didn't shoot anything.
I'm fairly nostalgic.
I like to go to the same places.
I, it's really cool to reflect on memories.
I've made hunting in places year after year.
And, uh, that particular episode of Mediator, I think it was back in season
five, you know, he's talking about how he's been in this, hunting the same basin
with friends and family for, for years.
Decades.
And so I, I kind of identified with it.
Right.
And I remember a friend of mine saying, well, that was so it was dumb.
He didn't shoot anything.
I'm like, that's kind of the point.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
No, that's totally the point.
And I think when people start connecting with that, they realize,
you know, maybe there's something a little bit deeper to all of this.
Yep.
Um, no, you know, you were talking about, uh, being mentored.
And the people that you have mentored, what are you looking for
when you're looking at somebody who wants to get mentored?
Because there's a lot of people and they come out and they say,
like, you'll see them on the forums or I'm looking for a mentor.
Can you tell me the best place to hunt?
And, uh, can I just tag along with you in your honey hole?
And, and, and they get ripped to shreds, right?
So if somebody is listening to this and they're thinking about posting
on these forums or introducing themselves to different groups, um,
and Um, you know, like this morning I was, you know, I'll save that one.
You tell me, um, before my ADHD kicks in, what are you looking
for in somebody to mentor?
Matt Jenkins: Uh, I'll, I'm, I'm selfish with my time and my
knowledge to a certain extent.
And, uh, as much as I like to share knowledge on the forums and share
things in controlled environments, if I'm out in a situation where there's
a lot of variables I can't control.
Like hunting, if you're not somebody that I know who has an aptitude to do the right
thing, who has the ability to, um, you know, be safe and be ethical, probably
not going to go out on a limb and mentor you in those field conditions, right?
Uh, you want to go to the range, you want to have a conversation.
Absolutely.
Right.
Um, but if I'm actually going out there to do the thing with you, I, I'm, I'm
very choosy and selective and I having that connection, um, is imperative.
Right.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
You know.
So this morning I was out with my son and we were checking on nesting boxes.
Yep.
So I've never done that before.
There's a Instagram feed.
It was pit water fowlers.
You heard of them?
Matt Jenkins: Uh, I'm familiar with where like the pit river marsh is.
I've never checked the nesting boxes and I'm not too familiar with their,
their organization to be perfectly
Travis Bader: honest.
Well, I'm, you know, I'm just.
I've, I've waterfowl hunted, you know, ducks, geese, all the rest and, and, uh,
but I've never participated in nesting boxes for like wood ducks and stuff.
So I thought, well, I'm seeing this thing on social media.
They're looking for some help.
All right, we'll get up.
We'll try it out.
To pit and met up with a group of people.
Everyone's got the same interests.
They all get the same sort of ideas.
They've all got their, it was a chance for everyone to get together
and talk about how their hunts were.
And, you know, if I was brand new to this, the amount of knowledge that I would just
get in from going out and helping on one of these things without even asking for
help, um, I would learn a heck of a lot.
Absolutely.
And, and I think if somebody is looking for a mentor, I would look at those sorts
of things, you're fishing game clubs.
What can I do to help out at your, your game dinner?
Right.
That's not hunting, but you're going to make some connections.
Um, okay.
I'll get muddy and dirty and pull out poles and slog
through in my waders and the.
You got to work for it.
Matt Jenkins: Right.
That's it.
There you go.
You know, there's a big difference.
And I think that, uh, you know, I look a lot, a lot of the posts on, you know,
uh, I try to stay off the hunting forums.
Now, um, I look at some of the posts I wrote 10 years ago
and I'm like, you opinionated.
23 year old, shut up.
Yeah.
I thought the same thing.
That's what I read about.
Fair, fair and valid, fair and valid.
We'll leave it at that.
But, um, you know, there's a big difference between asking,
asking for advice, right.
Or, um, but again, talking back to that idea of value, um, I think there's
a lot of folks who are getting into hunting who truly don't appreciate
the amount of effort that goes in.
And, you know, through that mentorship equation, there's a big difference
between, um, You know, forming kind of a, a back and forth, you know, Hey,
this I'm now, I'm kind of developing somebody I want to hunt with.
Right.
I'm mentoring you.
It's because I want to be able to phone you and say, Hey, let's wake up at three
o'clock in the morning and drive for three hours and hunt for six hours and then
drive home and sleep for the next 18.
Right.
Um, it's not somebody that I want to be, you know, kind of leading to water per se.
Travis Bader: Right.
So here's some data.
The basic dues, you got to work for it, put yourself out there,
um, have some skin in the game.
Don't always just be hand there with your hand out.
But what would be some of the don'ts that, um, uh, a mentee could do?
What are some things that would immediately turn them off from
being mentored by yourself or
Matt Jenkins: anybody else?
If you start the conversation with, okay, like, where are we going?
Can you send me some eye hunter pins?
Probably not.
Right.
Um, I, uh, I'm fortunate in that, you know, living in the West Kootenays,
there's so much outdoors at my disposal.
I can drive 20 minutes in any direction and, and, you know, not every day,
but have elk bugling back to calls.
Pretty rad, right?
Considering the full days I would put in a day hunts, uh, going up
to region eight, living in Langley.
It's, it's pretty cool.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, if I'm, Because we have so much at our disposal, uh, when I'm taking
new folks out, or my, my wife and I's two good friends in Castlecar, they're
at, we, they, they've gone all in, right.
You know, they're, they're looking at rifles to buy, they've got their core,
they've got their pal, they're, they're really, um, I think trying to seize the
opportunities we have with where we live.
And it's cool that because of how much we do have around us, when I'm taking those
two out, we're kind of learning together.
Right.
A lot of the spots we went to this fall, I had never been or had been,
but hadn't really invested in.
So now I'm like, Hey, let's try spot A or B or C or D as I'm picking up on things.
I can sort of, you know, explain what I'm looking at.
And it's, it's, we're both learning together.
So we're, we're, Sort of helping each other level up per se, right.
I'm gaining knowledge about a different area and they're just gaining
knowledge about something entirely new.
So it's, it's really cool.
Travis Bader: Have you ever had somebody go and burn one of your spots?
Um.
Take them to a place and then the next thing you know, all their
buddies are coming out there too.
Matt Jenkins: Probably, but at the same time, Um, I'm, you know, I'm not going
to share where I go on a podcast, right.
But I feel that there, if I'm sitting to somebody and you can have
a conversation and you either know where you don't, okay, this, this
person's, you know, they're, they're passionate, they've invested in things.
Having a conversation with somebody like that, who's like
minded and put similar effort in, I'm pretty cavalier with people.
Spots, because let's be honest, right?
If, if I end up talking and I mentioned the name of a drainage
or a road or whatever, and the guy goes, Oh, like, you know, all of a
sudden we're both, again, we're both benefiting from that conversation.
But again, if I can sense somebody is on the taking side of the
conversation, then obviously there's going to be a lot less given up.
Right.
Travis Bader: So you're down here in the lower mainland for another course.
Correct.
What's that course?
You started telling me about it.
I was like, Oh no, no, no, sounds interesting.
Let's save it.
Matt Jenkins: Um, yeah, so I'm, you mentioned already, I do carry a badge.
Uh, I'm with your CMP second generation police officer, um, and through
those family connections and friendly connections with the force, uh, starting
my career, I knew I wanted to have a huge emphasis on wellness, right?
I wanted to, um, Be physically, mentally, mentally and emotionally well
throughout my career, and I wanted to learn the skills to, um, pass on to my
peers to make sure that they were all, you know, not on the same page because
everybody's Perceives things differently, but, um, sort of lead by example, but
then when I did have a peer that was struggling, I was able to, uh, try my
best to, to give them a leg up right now.
I'm not being a clinician, but there's an incredible amount of.
Uh, you can get through just peer support by relatability.
So, uh, down and back in November, I had the, the pleasure of being on a
course, um, which was what the RCMP calls the proactive support response team.
The RCMP loves attack acronyms.
So P CERT, and it is a new peer to peer model.
Um, we're, uh, Available 24 seven to respond to things such as an employee in
crisis, uh, for suicide, uh, self harm intervention, post critical incident
support, um, or dealing with prolonged exposure to any sort of potentially
psychologically traumatic event, right?
PPTE, I think is the other acronym, uh, that, that would, it's been
floated around quite a bit lately.
So when, You are dealing with something, um, you can't just
suck it up and move on, right?
Um, it's, we as police officers are no different from anybody else.
We take things home.
We, we have to look after ourselves.
Um, so by taking that course, the skills I learned, the knowledge I
obtained with how to Be that peer who, you know, I can't fix you, right?
I can't remove the memory of a scene you've attended from your brain, but just
to make those phone calls and make those connections or have those in person, um,
sessions to talk about a traumatic event.
There's a lot of power in that.
And simply knowing that there's peers out there who are looking out for
people when the old ways was to suck it up, find a way to deal with it.
That's probably unhealthy, very beneficial to have that training back in November.
Um, And it's interesting because a lot of the things that I learned and, and
the mandate and how we respond to those post critical incident or, or traumatic
files is something that I was already doing fairly unofficially, right?
If I knew, uh, friends of mine, uh, Um, not even an area that I worked
and had attended something that was unpleasant to say the least for me to
pick up a phone call and say, Hey, I, you had to deal with something that
I wouldn't want to have to deal with.
How are you doing?
Right.
How is it affecting you?
Right.
What's your plan for tomorrow?
Really basic questions.
Um, you know, would never, what was it like?
What'd you see?
What'd you smell?
Those are not questions that are beneficial to somebody after
they've just, you know, Experience something not so nice, but, um, and
then having a conversation, right.
And seeing where it went.
And, um, it's always tough, even with people, you know, at a cold call and try
to have a conversation about an experience that they would probably choose to forget.
Um, but it was always left with a huge sense of like, okay, you know, I've, if I
was in that person's shoes, I would want to know that I had had that experience.
Um, I took some time off a couple years ago for my own mental health and
the, the, the two people that phone me when they found out that I was taking
time off, I will never forget that gesture and all it was was, Hey, I
heard you're taking a bit of time off.
Are you okay?
And is there anything that I can do for you?
Um, what did you say?
I said, uh, I said, whatever Mountie says.
Yeah, I'm fine.
That's right.
Feeling inside, not expressing.
Um, But overwhelmingly grateful for the phone call and there,
these are people that I, you know, have been to all kinds of files
with who I would trust implicitly.
So the fact that they reached out means a lot and I never held it against the
folks who didn't reach out either.
Um, that's not a thing, right there because the stigma still exists
because there are people who maybe are not progressing in their own path
to wellness for them to reach out.
It certainly wouldn't more do more harm than good because it's always
nice to know that people care.
But yeah, I never held it against her.
I never kept score of who called and who didn't.
I just know that it felt really good to know people were looking out for me.
Travis Bader: I got to wonder, um, and, and this probably would form some of
the training you've done and we've gone through the delicate balance between,
uh, asking too much or not asking enough.
Cause if you go to, if you're not reaching out and you're not asking, I
mean, you're, There there's no impetus for an individual to at least say, or
know that they're being cared for there's they've got support, but if you're
reaching out and asking too much, could that not also have the same sort of
effect of having to relive these things over and over again, as I just grew up.
I'm fine.
I'm good.
Right.
Matt Jenkins: Yeah.
And, uh, you know, I, I always tread lightly and, and feel out the
conversation because again, if, if you're having an acute psychological
trauma response to something that is, that you will never forget, you don't
know what your trigger is going to be six months, nine months down the road.
Um, and also vicarious trauma is a thing too, right?
It's something that I was.
I knew it was a thing, but I always felt that I had a pretty high threshold
for, you know, having really frank conversations with friends who had
been to files that I didn't go to and just talking shop essentially.
Um, it's a tough balance because there's a lot of things I don't need to hear, right.
Even hearing about things that are, you know, are not nice to
hear about, but you also don't want to cut that person off because.
If they need to express it because they're, they're hurting, right?
You don't want to stop them, but it's a very tough balance to strike
in a group setting, you know, with that piece or unit, um, one of the
foundational baselines for how that model is moving forward is, is that when
you're doing your check in phone calls or sometimes in person geographically,
uh, when, when appropriate.
And if you're doing an in person session with the team that went to, uh, Um,
some sort of traumatic file, you know, the kind of the, one of the ground
rules is, is that, okay, today we're going to get together, uh, we're going
to talk about, um, you're going to acknowledge the event, you went to a,
You know, an officer involved shooting, for example, at its worst case, right?
We're not going to talk about what you did.
We're not going to get into the details, what you did,
what you saw, what you smelled.
Those are things that are better left to discuss with a, with a clinician.
But what we are going to talk about is what your role was, right?
Were you the first member on scene?
Were you physically involved?
Were you the backup member?
Were you, were you sitting in the office taking a statement and your radio is going
off in your ear and you feel like you let your team down because you weren't there?
That's a thing too, right?
What was your role?
How is it affecting you?
And now, what have you found beneficial to move forward?
And being able to then also reel people in if they start going down
the rabbit hole of, you know, the sights and smells and things like
that, that can trigger somebody else.
Again, if I'm the guy in the office who is just putting my duty belt
on and my friends are in a fight for their lives, I don't need to
know what was happening on scene.
Because that may just exacerbate my feeling of guilt because
I wasn't out the door.
Right.
If I finished my coffee before I started my police car.
Oh my gosh.
Why did I do that?
That there's just certain things you don't need to share.
Hmm.
Interesting.
At some points.
Right.
I don't want to say car wash, but yeah, there's certain things better
left for a different setting.
Travis Bader: So, and you're mentioning, so physical, mental, emotional health.
I would say out of the three, physical would probably be the most important.
Matt Jenkins: I don't think you can put a value on it.
Um, obviously, yeah, physically you have to go home.
You have to be physically alive to go home.
That is important.
But think about the damage, the dimensional and emotional.
Uh, trauma can cause, right?
That can lead to the physical, right?
That can lead to self harm or suicide, right?
Um, and also too, the body doesn't know whether it's,
uh, mental or physical trauma.
If you have that trauma response, the body just knows trauma is trauma, right?
Of course, there's the physical pain.
Your body knows that you're in a situation that invokes that fight or
flight response, and the way your brain perceives it really doesn't differentiate.
So the, the You know, the snowball effect of, um, what that mental and
emotional trauma can do is that can lead to, you know, the physical stress
responses, you know, uh, affecting sleep and weight gain and all those things
can be a by product of that physical.
So, you know, I've sort of contradicted myself cause yeah, you have to go
home physically, but to not deal with the other things would be a
disservice to yourself and your peers.
Well,
Travis Bader: and I, this is without any research, this is just my own
layman's approach at looking at things, trying to mentally Think
myself into a better mind space or, uh, mentally use that to help my emotional
responses to whatever I might think.
Be it's pretty impossible for me.
I don't know, maybe some people can do it, but, uh, for me getting up and going
for a walk, going for a run, taking care of that physical thing, first
and foremost, the other thing seemed to follow from there and allows me to
be able to then deal with the mental and deal with the, uh, the emotional.
But I don't see it the other way around.
I don't see myself trying to work on myself emotionally or mentally, and then,
okay, now let's go out and I don't see the same, um, cost benefit as I do of let's
get out and get that heart rate going.
And all of a sudden things start to click a little bit better and
allows me to do the other one.
So.
I, I don't know if that's a thing or not, or if that's an ADHD or me thing.
It kind
Matt Jenkins: of goes back to the power of perspective.
And, you know, for example, I've had some injuries, uh, and one of
the things that I find is that I have a tremendous amount of, uh,
difficulty trusting my body, right?
You know, even the prospect sometimes, luckily I've worked through a lot
of these, uh, issues that I've sustained from some on duty injuries,
some off duty injuries, and just the fact that I'm not 15 anymore.
Um, and, So at sometimes the prospect of I'm going to go for a run today.
And then I start thinking about what if I get into that run and I start hurting,
what if something creeps back up?
It's a pretty crappy feeling and it really stalemated me a long time with fitness.
I like being active and it's a part of that sort of personal wellbeing.
So to, you know, I'm physically, I'm healed, right?
I've got, I have had great practitioners that have get and trainers and
coaches that have gotten me back to the point where I, yes, I know
I can physically trust my body.
I'm no longer injured, but then having to work through the mental piece
of, Hey, I'm You're not injured.
You need to start trusting your body and you need to start working back up and
increasing that threshold of physical training To again learn to trust your
body So it really feeds back and forth, but the mental piece for me has been
huge over the last couple years But again, right if you've ever been through
that then you can maybe identify it with it and if you haven't then it's a
perspective that is just it's Not maybe not as common as the other way around
Travis Bader: So what do you find as an effective method for
yourself dealing with that mental
Matt Jenkins: piece?
Um, having lots of good conversations with peers who are, are, are fit,
who train, um, my physiotherapist has been phenomenal, right?
Very wise, very smart guy.
Um, does a lot of training on his own, right.
And be able for him to kind of reinforce the fact that like, yeah, I'm, I'm working
you and I'm treating you to keep the maintenance program, to keep me moving.
You're not injured, right?
Go for it.
And that helps the mental side.
Yeah.
It helps the mental side.
If I go him and say, Hey, my knee hurts.
Right.
And he does some diagnostic checks and he does what he needs to do.
And he says, no, man, if it hurts, it hurts.
And we can try to figure out why, but diagnostically go
for a run, see what happens.
And then I go for that run and I'm like, Hey.
Cool.
Yeah.
And next thing you know, the next day I'm out and I'm running again,
or I'm wrecking or, or whatever.
So it, yeah, they really do kind of feed off one another.
And then again, uh, maybe, you know, the knee hurts again or something else tweaks.
And next thing you know, I'm back to that place of, okay, the physical
pain is gone, but I feel like I don't want to test the waters.
Travis Bader: I'm still toying with this, this idea of ignorance is bliss.
Um, I mean, I, It's like for the longest time, I had no idea that
what I put in my body, what I ate had an effect on how I felt afterwards.
I would just eat and maybe I felt a certain way, like the two things
just didn't correlate to me for whatever reason, or like, you know,
some, my wife's a chef and she's got a fantastic palate and I'm eating
stuff like, oh, this is great.
She's like, I don't know, don't you taste?
And she picks up all these little things.
And all of a sudden I'm thinking about, I'm Yeah.
Okay.
I recognize this now and now it doesn't taste so great anymore.
Right.
Same thing with physical on my body.
If I, I don't know, I I've got the ability.
I just turned my head off when I'm hurting in the, in the body, unless it gets
really bad and my body stops working.
And, um, and I, I don't know if that's a good thing, I don't know
if it's a bad thing, but the same thing for mental health, like.
If there's people around you that are like, oh my God, what a
terrible situation you're just in.
And I, I don't know how you're able to go through this and they're
reinforcing all of these, all of their perceptions and negativities about it.
And maybe you're like, I never thought of it that way.
I never tasted those flavors, right?
Um, I'm, I'm still playing around with this, this whole
idea of ignorance is maybe bliss.
Matt Jenkins: And to a certain extent, you're absolutely bang on.
Uh, and again, another one of the things that, uh, is in that, um, piece or
bottle when we're phoning and checking in, you're, you're acknowledging
that event, but you also want to acknowledge that whatever, whatever,
whatever Huge range of feelings or emotions that person may or may not,
very importantly, may not be feeling.
That's okay.
If I'm phoning you to check in and you say, Hey, you know what?
Yeah, it wasn't great, but I feel fine, right?
This isn't the first time I've been through this or I
have my healthy coping habits.
I have my friends, I have my family, whatever that they have, to, to
be okay, then, then they're okay.
Right.
And you almost want to give them a high five because you're like, awesome.
Great.
If things change, of course we, we should revisit this, but I don't want to, we,
we can't be assuming that people should be feeling a certain way, or we shouldn't
be assuming that everybody's going to react the same to something traumatic.
You know, there's, and.
We all kind of have our thing.
There's certain types of files that may affect me more than my peer.
And there's certain things that, you know, vice versa, right?
So we just have to acknowledge the, the range of emotions.
But then the other important thing with that too, is, is that if you get used
to somebody from a peer support unit calling you after everything that may
be psychologically triggering, it's another step in reducing that stigma.
Because if you're like, Oh, I went to X or Y or Z, I know somebody from.
Um, uh, a peer to peer team is going to be reaching out.
You become, you expect those phone calls.
Um, if you don't need any supports, then great.
Right.
Uh, if things change, then you know where to find us.
But then maybe on the 10th file you've been to, and this is going to be the
10th check in you're going to get either in person or over the phone.
Maybe that's the time you do need
Travis Bader: support.
Maybe you're looking forward to it.
Like, when are they going to call?
When are they going to call?
When are they going to
Matt Jenkins: call?
This is bothering me and I don't know what I have available for help.
Right.
So the fact that you don't have to look for those answers, you don't have to
feel guilty for asking for support.
I've been to files where, you know, you get back to the detachment, like,
all right, how's everybody doing?
Is anybody need a debrief?
And you kind of look at it around the room.
Travis Bader: No one else
Matt Jenkins: wants one.
I'm putting my hand back down.
Right.
And so just, if you know that those things are in place, you don't have to be the
one when you are having a, A terrible day, for lack of a better way to put it.
You don't have to be the one to put yourself out there.
Right.
Because even among trusted peers, it is a tough thing to do.
Travis Bader: So if we can recognize, and you said that, you know,
typical Mountie thing, I'm fine.
Right.
I'd say that's typical in a lot
Matt Jenkins: of groups, right?
Not just Mounties.
We didn't, we didn't patent the term.
Travis Bader: Um, if we can recognize.
That very often people are just going to say, I'm fine.
No, things are good.
Right.
All right.
You guys receive training on like nonverbal paraverbal type
cues that you might be able to pick up on that indicators that
maybe the person isn't fine.
Matt Jenkins: Yeah.
I mean, um, Just going back to our training, even at depo, right?
When you're as green as it gets and you're wearing your stupid little blue
cadet epaulettes at Regina, freezing when it's minus 85, body language is huge.
And again, this isn't unique to policing, right?
If you've, if you're, if you're, if you like interacting with people physically
through conversation or even if it watched a movie ever in your life, the things
that can be betrayed silently are huge, but we still can't force people, right?
Like, you know, if I, well, yeah, I'm fine.
Yeah.
I'm good.
Right.
To, to, to proak and to prod, all I'm going to do is probably annoy that person.
Right.
Um, so that's when you have to kind of shift into like,
okay, you know, are they fine?
Well, probably not.
Right.
But all I have to do is trust that.
If I say, okay, hey, you know what?
I'm happy to hear you're fine.
Um, I'm going to send you an email and it's going to have
all your, your benefits, your access to psychological support.
I'm going to pass off our email proxy and our phone number should
you need to reach back out.
Um, and I just want to acknowledge the fact that it's okay to be fine.
You don't have to feel anything after this and just reinforce that.
However, their feelings, okay, even if they're not being honest and also too,
with that stigma still existing, it might take some time and it's entirely possible
that they don't know what they're feeling.
Right.
You're upside down and backwards and you're like, what did I just see?
What did I just do?
I don't know what.
What,
Travis Bader: how am I, yeah, how do you process it?
You know, in line with the whole ignorance is bliss thinking that,
uh, I've been toying around.
I also look at, uh, societal perception.
I think a lot of times, uh, people can have psychological and mental issues
based on how they feel others around them are perceiving it or the societal,
I think you, I mean, you You think of the, uh, the age old Vietnam veterans
coming back and shell shock and PTSD and all the things that were just kind
of new at the time, or at least new terms, um, they weren't being greeted
back with hugs and high fives, right?
They weren't being greeted back as tragic.
Because society is looking at any, all of a sudden, all these things that these
people left to do, that they felt they're doing their best and risking their lives
in order to help and do the good thing.
And they're coming back and everyone's kind of turning their back on them.
I think that may have a far more.
Uh, detrimental psychological, uh, consequence than, than the actual
event itself, because then you start thinking about the event and start
ruminating on it and going back through it, and maybe I should have done
things differently as opposed to people that could have been through the same
situation or were welcome back as heroes.
And thank you so much.
And it was terrible, but it needed to be done.
I think the, the whole societal perspective is, uh, plays a very big role
Matt Jenkins: in this.
You know, I, I had a, I, every time I'm down and I have some free time,
uh, I, I try to always get into my old high school, um, and just, you know,
go to, you know, Steve's classroom where he has kids and say, Hey, I'm
here, ask me some questions, right?
Or don't, I don't really care.
I'm just happy to go be that sort of community presence.
And I did it in at home as well, being the school liaison for high
school for, uh, just about five years.
And I had interaction with a couple, uh, students yesterday
and they had, Great questions.
Right.
Cause you know, they were asking me, you know, how do you deal
with what you see on the job?
And I said, man, I'm just a human.
I'm just a guy just like you.
I'm not putting this uniform on doesn't remove my empathy or my sense to feel.
Right.
Um, and I thought it would give a couple of really mature questions
for coming from some high school kids, essentially of, you know, how
do you deal with what you've seen?
How do you deal with what you're done?
Right.
Have you had certain types of interactions with people and being
able to say like, yeah, I have.
And it was not great, but You know what?
These are my supports.
And more importantly, here's how you can apply these same
things to your life, right?
Just because I'm a police officer doesn't mean that you can't apply the things that
I do to when you have a bad day at school, because a bad day is a bad day, right?
Some are worse than others, but who am I to judge what they're feeling?
So, you know, talking about those, you know, things that I do, staying
hobby heavy, being physically active, having an amazing spouse, who's, who's
my biggest fan and supporter, having friends that I can talk to, um, who
aren't in law enforcement is great.
And if they have, If they can apply those things to any aspect of their
life or future careers, then hopefully that's a nugget that I've given
them that they can carry forward.
Yeah.
Travis Bader: Putting the uniform on doesn't make you superhuman in
the same way we all learned as kids, wearing a cape doesn't mean you can
Matt Jenkins: fly.
Yeah.
Right.
It was probably a shattered roof or two that seen kids
that learned that the hard way.
Um, and, uh, but even too, as, um, you know, You know, peer to peer, right?
I think that we,
when we're, um, interacting with folks after an event, um, You
know, we need to just be completely judgment free again, what they're
feeling, what they're not feeling.
And that it's interesting.
You know, you, you'd asked me, this is where the ADD brain of mine came in.
Cause you asked me what I was just down for now, and I was talking
about something I did in November, but trust me, there's a connection.
Uh, so the course I was just doing last week, um, Was what we call
the national reintegration program.
And I want to preface this by saying, um, proactive support response
team, national reintegration.
I can't take any credit for anything because I was a
candidate in these courses, right?
People way smarter with way more experience than me
have developed these things.
All I've done is be on the winning end of learning from
these people to help my people.
Right.
Which is everybody in policing is one of your people, right?
And every time something tragic happens, you're reminded that just because
you didn't know somebody doesn't mean they're not one of your people.
So, you know, to have that, um, that, that piece or piece to be able to, um, see what
your peers need after a critical incident in that, that, um, imminent stage.
But then too, with the reintegration program now, um, Employees who have
been off work, uh, whether it's from a critical incident, whether it's from,
um, any sort of suspension, whether it's from even a matter of pat leave,
if they're having some anxiety about getting into the workplace to have this
really open ended program to be like, what do you need from peers to make you
more comfortable back at the workplace?
Do you want to go to the range?
Do you want to stand outside the range and hear a gun going off?
And then maybe you get a little closer and then maybe you
stand next to me when I shoot.
So you're re acclimated to that sound.
Let's go to the range, right?
Are you having anxiety over body image because you went
off and you've gained weight?
Let me order your new duty belt for you.
Um, if you've lost faith in your team and the organization, let's
do something team building, let's, let's go to an escape room, right?
You mentioned that.
Anything, anything that you need, it, it, it was a phenomenal program and
putting that affected member first when we're surrounded by red tape
in a, in any, Large organization.
It was a really a breath of fresh air.
And again, the more we're learning last week, the more I'm thinking of Friends
and partners and peers that I've had that I'm like what an absolute Tragedy
that people that I know in respect to are now retired Could this have prevented
them from retiring if they're done with policing they're done with policing But
so many people who could benefit from things like this To put them first in the
organization to get them back to work to look at them as a person and not a tool.
To empower them to get back to what they hopefully still like to do.
Travis Bader: And this might be a two part thing, but you mentioned
before, one of the tools that you use is to be hobby heavy.
Oh yeah.
What do you mean by that?
Matt Jenkins: Um, yeah, so, um, My personal identity of Matt is so much more
important to me than Constable Jenkins.
I even just kind of cringe whenever somebody calls me that.
I always introduce myself as Matt, just about 90 percent of the time.
Um, I love what I do.
Uh, and Let's make no mistake.
I love what I do.
I want to do anything else and I've had some amazing opportunities
with some amazing people.
But at some point I'm going to hand that badge and that gun in, and I'm going to
walk out a door and it's going to be done.
Right.
And somebody, hopefully we've got our, uh, resource levels up a little bit.
So hopefully there's somebody taking my place the day I walk out that door at the
end of my career and that organization, the gears are going to keep turning.
Right.
So what I'm doing now to preserve my personal identity through being hobby
heavy and having true passions is a very important investment in myself.
Um, uh, a fella who I worked with early in my career, who I have a tremendous
amount of respect for, he actually took the core examiner course from you.
Um, he told me Was this
Travis Bader: just recently?
A year ago.
Here you go.
Okay.
Yeah.
I ran a class of new examiners through a couple of
Matt Jenkins: months ago.
Oh, it would have been longer than that.
I want to say within the last 18 months, probably within a year and 18 months ago.
Um, he'll remain nameless, but I hope that, you know, that when I'm sharing,
I hope, I hope he hears it and I hope he gets, it puts a smile on his face.
Cause again, the impact he's had on me is huge.
And he says, you know, There's a lot of similarities between you and
I, you like to shoot, you like to train, you are so keen on learning
everything that this job has to give.
He says, but Hey, here's another piece of commonality.
We both love hunting.
I was a guide.
I guided for years.
All I do now, the closest thing I do to hunting anymore, and the closest
I've done to hunting in years is shooting animals on the side of the
road when they've been hit by a car.
Don't be me.
Fight for your hobbies and fight for your friends who are not in this
organization, because when that day comes that you have a terrible day and you
need to take some time away, or you're floundering a little bit, you need to
have that identity and those connections because that will reinforce that there's
more to you than the uniform you wear.
Travis Bader: That makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Yep.
See, when I first looked at that being hobby heavy.
My mind originally went to a hobby that is going to be tied in with some sort of, uh,
social aspect, social aspect outside of perhaps what you're doing, but it doesn't
necessarily have to have that social
Matt Jenkins: aspect.
It certainly helps, you know, going to, uh, Red mountain and riding the
chairlift in the singles line all day.
I'm skiing.
So I'm having fun, but I, uh, anything you do with, with, with close
friends is 10 times what it is by
Travis Bader: yourself.
You see that Harvard study, the 80 year study where they, uh, log people
from different, um, regions, different ethnic backgrounds, different, uh,
nationalities, different genders, right.
And they try and get this, uh, It's the longest study on
happiness that's ever been done.
Matt Jenkins: I haven't, I'd be interested to see it though.
Travis Bader: Okay.
The end result of that was the number one predictor for happiness
in people across the entire spectrum with strong social connections.
Yeah, I could see it.
Yeah.
And it boils down to how integrated are you with other people?
And do they have your back?
Do you have their back or your relationships, just likes and hearts
and thumbs up on, on Instagram, right?
Or are they sitting down face to face and having some real conversations?
That's your number one predictor.
Are you able to have strong social connections?
And I'm reading this study and it's got a comment section and the
huge number of people that say.
I wish I had a connection.
I wish I had somebody else I could reach out to.
So many people.
I don't have a good friend that I can, I can talk
Matt Jenkins: to.
It's, it's sad to hear, right?
I, and I, my friends have made me who I am.
Um, you know, I've got incredible friends.
I don't feel worthy of their friendship most days and I
wouldn't trade them for it.
And it's my best group of friends came from high school.
Um, my, I met my wife in grade nine and now most of her friends are
now married to most of my friends.
So it's, it's unique, but, uh, yeah, the fact that, you know, like I said,
19 years ago was the last time I rode the woodlot in Maple Ridge with
my best friend, Dan and Steve, who I'm staying with Dan this weekend.
We still hunt together and he's still my best friend is, is awesome.
And I wouldn't trade that for anything.
Um, Not to discount the friends I've made through work because I have
incredible peers and there are people that have truly turned into lifelong
friends that started with policing.
Um, but yeah, I just, I cherish the, those old friendships are irreplaceable.
Travis Bader: When you hunt, do you typically solo hunt or
are you hunting with others?
Matt Jenkins: Hunting with others.
Um, size of the group.
Uh, it varies, you know, like when we go on our, our almost annual elk
trip, it could be eight, 10 guys, but we're not all hunting together because.
Right.
I mean, it's something to be said for hounding, sounding like a herd
of elk, but it's not productive.
Right.
Uh, kind of my tagline is when I'm hunting alone, it's for participation points.
It's me looking at a K it's a nice day.
I only have, how many more Septembers do I have in me?
Lots, but not a lot at the same time.
Right.
Um, I just need to go do something, right?
I need to go drive up a road, hopefully not come nose to nose with a grizzly bear.
And if I see or hear critters, great.
But if not, I can watch YouTube for the other 11 months
out of the year this month.
I need to get after it.
Right.
But my, I'm doing it for the sake of doing it.
But again, when you're sharing that experience with your friends, again,
like we've talked about a couple of times already, that's truly what
makes that experience more special.
Right.
And again, my desire to go skiing and mountain biking alone, the same thing.
I'm not going to pass up a nice day when you're hooting and hollering down a trail
with friends like we were this morning.
It's just smile.
My face is authentic, right?
You can't replicate it.
So
Travis Bader: the positive mental health aspects that you get from
being in the outdoors or from hunting, where is that derived from for you?
Matt Jenkins: Just doing something that I have a tremendous amount of passion for.
Right.
Um, Um, and passion at the most basic level of just out
there learning, being present.
Um, I think that's why hunting is one of the reasons, there's a million
reasons, but one of the reasons why I do appreciate it is, is that, uh,
it forces me to be present and it's interesting hunting with folks.
Cause, uh, again, being ADD and having my brain doing 90 things at once, people
have said like, you know, they watch me when I'm walking through the woods.
I slowly, I start hunting and I slowly just end up walking as I
start thinking about Everything else, but actually hunting and next thing
you know, I'm trampling around, not being quiet, not looking around.
And then I just like snap myself back.
Like, Hey, dummy.
We're here for a reason.
It's not to go for a walk, right?
Let's be present.
Let's, let's look and, and have that just be present.
What style
Travis Bader: of hunting do you typically, uh, find yourself defaulting to?
I know some people love to still hunt and some people just love to lay up.
And, uh, what do you find?
Some people just drive the logging roads, right?
And not, not looking down on or up to any of these, but everyone's got their style.
What, what do you find is most effective for you?
And then what do you find is, uh, most meaningful
Matt Jenkins: for you?
Um, The harder you work, the more, the more you feel like you've earned
what you have come home with or not, even if it's just a memory, you're
still coming home for something.
Uh, there's a time and a place for everything.
Um, my in laws have a cabin up in, uh, 330.
So that'd be the Clinton Loon, uh, Loon Lake Kashkuk area.
And a lot of times hunting there is driving because the terrain is.
In my opinion, obviously this isn't fact more productive just
to see a lot of ground, right?
Sure.
Um, it, you had some fires, you've had a lot of hunting pressure.
Um, so for, for, to me, walk through the woods, walking through the woods
and rolling terrain, that's when I get bored and my brain wanders.
Um, as opposed to, again, driving and covering ground.
Mm-hmm.
It can't be more productive.
But I also get terribly bored of that.
Two or three days in, I'm like, I don't want to sit in the driver's seat anymore.
Um, I love mountain hunting, uh, which is really funny because my first couple
of years of hunting, when I was still, uh, let's say building some grit, the
last thing I wanted to do was go uphill.
I'm like, you're not dragging me up that hill, the more
colorful expletives in there.
But there's a story that still hangs over my head that I will never, will never
be forgotten among certain circles about the first time on my first elk hunt.
Okay.
Let's hear it.
All right.
Dragging me up a hill was a difficult task.
Travis Bader: Kicking and screaming
Matt Jenkins: the entire way.
Yeah, not quite.
Not quite.
I was, I was 19 years old.
So I, yeah, no, I, you, no, not quite kicking and screaming,
but I wasn't happy about it.
I didn't know what I was getting into.
Um, and you know, now.
It's not to say that if you're not physically exerting
yourself, it's not worth doing.
That's not the point I'm making at all.
Because there's a lot of people who physically can't hunt that way.
And for me to discredit their experiences would be incredibly selfish and just
But, uh, you know, back in November, um, had, you know, a weekend away.
I was down here for that course.
We left and we went up, uh, drove up in the interior for four or five hours.
We hunted all day on Saturday and Sunday morning and drove home.
And all we did was just find the nastiest animal.
You know, nastiest places to hike into.
And it's what we did and I loved every second of it.
Right.
Um, from a productivity standpoint, going to places that other people aren't
willing to go means you're probably going to see more critters too, but the
places you end up when you're suffering and dying and you're going to pill,
and then you look around and you're like, Oh, Yeah, this view is worth it.
And the story of course is, is something special.
Travis Bader: No, I remember years ago, I was probably griping about something,
a friend of mine, who's offered a lot of business advice over the years, he's
run a lot of very successful businesses.
He just looks at me and laughs.
He says, Travis, one thing I've learned in my life is.
Is that nothing that I've received that I can deem as worthwhile has ever come easy.
And I think that just kind of sums it up for me.
It doesn't necessarily mean physically exerting.
But without effort, you don't have that same reward.
Matt Jenkins: No, you don't feel like you've earned it.
Yeah.
I don't anyways.
I agree.
That's not to be said that I'm always, I'm not going to pass up an easy opportunity
if it presents itself sometimes from driving on the road and there's a
legal elk there, then I'm not going to have to sweat and cry about to get to,
um, don't tempt me with a good time.
But at the same time, uh, you know, I'm I, I've said to that experience would
be a little bit lacking too, right?
Gonna take it if it comes up, but, uh, you know, when I look at the effort I put in,
in other areas and come out unsuccessful, I guess it would be kind of ironic of all
of a sudden I see something that I can't pass up standing in the middle of the
road, but, uh, it's never what I count on and it's never what I'm looking for.
Right.
Where'd you get that hat?
So, uh, my, uh, trainer, she ran a gym in the West Kootenays.
Um, her, uh, partner is now starting to make some hunting content.
Uh, I'm a sucker for supporting local and, um, He said, Hey, you want a hat?
I'm like, sure, I'll wear it.
So here we are.
So he's, uh, no official affiliation, uh, wearing it, isn't a plug.
It's just because it was the hat that was in the car and, uh, he's got
horses and he, you know, basically wants to document some hunts and do
it from the lens of between the ears of a horse and also being BC resident
hunter doing a DIY, because I don't know about you, but I don't personally
know many, uh, Resident hunters who are completely self sufficient with horses
without, again, using somebody else.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what he comes up with.
Um, and again, back to kind of the mentorship piece, I was able
to take, um, um, me and, and her partner, Brad to the range.
And, you know, Brad says, I've been hunting forever, but I've never
been really much of a shooter.
Um, man, I just did her core last year.
She's just got her pal.
She got a Tikka for Christmas.
And I said, cool, let's go to the range, right?
Let's kind of get you set up for success.
And when you shoot long enough, you just, You learn a thing or two along the way.
So to be able to go to the range with them, I had a ton of fun and we spent
a couple hours and went from, you know, here's how you set your rifle in sandbags
and here's how you position yourself behind the gun to watching men hit steel
consistently at 300 yards away, which some people are like, well, that's chip shot.
But remember where you started from.
Even a hundred yards is a long way at times.
Right.
So pretty cool.
Right.
So that's Forged in the Wild.
Yeah, Forged in the Wild.
That's Brad's, uh, um, Brad's, I guess you could say side hustle, passion
project, however you want to put it.
Cause
Travis Bader: I've seen that popping around a little bit and I just, uh,
figured I'd get a little backstory.
I figured you were wearing it for a reason.
No,
Matt Jenkins: genuinely, no, it was either that or the faded RCMP hat
that's sitting on my dashboard and we'll leave that one in the car.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like that joke, I had a guy in the class years ago, I remember I was
teaching and I like to start every course off with introductions, right?
I want to see a person's background.
I want to get to know them.
What's their name?
Why are you taking this course?
What kind of experience do you have in this field, right?
And I do that for two reasons.
Number one, it gives me an idea.
If I've got a class full of experts in there, I'm not going to be teaching
a course down here and vice versa.
If everyone's brand new, then it allows me to gauge it, but it also provides an
opportunity for everybody in the class to have the spotlight put on them instead
of being in there with their arms crossed and sitting back in their chair and
looking up and all right, instructor, how are you going to impress me?
Okay.
It, it draws them in and it creates more of a, um, an interactive
environment right off the bat.
Anyways, I asked this guy and first thing he says, well, you know,
my name is so and so, and I'm a firefighter and then something else.
And I say, well, you know how you can tell a firefighter, right?
And.
All of a sudden his face just changes.
Just
Matt Jenkins: like a vegan and a crossfitter.
Travis Bader: And his face changes and the class is like, how?
I'm like, oh, don't worry about it.
Matt Jenkins: Yeah, you missed the
Travis Bader: joke.
But the punchline on the joke, how can you fire, how can you
tell a person is a firefighter?
Don't worry.
They'll tell you.
Yeah.
We're in the RCMP cap in here.
How can you tell your RCMP?
Oh, don't worry.
You got the kit, he'll tell you.
But, um, yeah, probably a good call.
Cool looking cap.
Matt Jenkins: Yeah.
Thank you.
I, again, I'm, if, uh, if it wasn't cool, I wouldn't wear it.
So it's, uh, it was an unintentional plug and I, I I'm, I'm looking forward
to suiting what he comes up with.
Travis Bader: Is there anything else that we should be talking
Matt Jenkins: about?
No, talk about core instruction a little bit, that journey for me.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Okay.
Let's hear that one.
Cause I remember when he became a core instructor, because I saw you
all over, I never met Jeff, but you had your name as your, uh, as your
handle on the different forums.
Yeah.
And, um, you're still up there, not very incognito in your name change, by the way.
That's what it is.
Um, Is what it is.
But I remember, man, I was like, who is this guy and look at the
amount of passion that he has.
I mean, so passionate.
And, uh, I remember that was the one thing that struck me when I saw it over and
over again, going through there really has a lot of heart in this, what he does.
So tell me about your, your journey through.
As a
Matt Jenkins: core instructor, it was fairly organic.
I didn't even seek it out.
To be honest with you.
I, uh, uh, did my courses from a fella named Ken Archibald out of Colorado.
I lived in Langley and took his courses solely as a matter of proximity.
Right.
Um, so.
And, uh, kind of fast forward a little bit after that, I worked at
Wholesale Sports, um, ended up, you know, migrating behind the hunting
counter, running the hunting section.
And I remember Ken had become a customer, he'd be buying,
come and buying stuff for him.
He'd bring students in and, and, you know, sort of, uh, you know, walk them
through purchasing a gun, which is awesome because how intimidating it
can be to be on the other side of that counter and really not knowing much and.
And, you know, wanting to get the best product to, to get you set up.
And, you know, at some point he says, you know, like I've, I've really come
to respect your opinion and bring here.
And I come in to see you and I tell people coming to, to see you, um, the
way you provide knowledge to people across a gun counter, I think you
could do the same in the classroom.
Would you ever thought about being a core examiner?
Well, no, fast forward again, there it was in, uh, April of, 2013, uh, 22
years old, had no business getting my core instructor number, but there I
was and, um, started working with Kent, started teaching the course for him.
And what first started with essentially following his curriculum, right?
Fantastic teacher, tons of passion.
Um, and then.
Agreed to disagree on certain things, but his heart was always in the right place
and the jokes, the laughs, the organic connection we had with the students.
I always really appreciated that.
And as I was teaching and becoming more confident, more comfortable
interjecting my own stories and jokes and things, I really took it to heart
of if you're paying to be here, How can I give you the best product?
Right.
I hated thinking of teaching as a product, but essentially it is, it is a service.
It is a service.
Right.
So that's when looking at the forums, like, you know, if you were sending your.
Your 10 year old son, daughter, and you're again, you're, you're putting your faith
in that person to set them up for success.
How do, how do, how do I ensure you're getting your money's worth?
Right.
And getting a lot of that input and taking notes and really
taking it to heart was great.
Um, I still pass out at the end of the week, you know, your stereotypical,
you know, one to five rating.
How was the course?
This, that, and the other, what can we do better?
What did you like?
Don't teach a lot anymore, but I still, I read every one.
Yeah.
Would
Travis Bader: you pass it out before the test or after
Matt Jenkins: the test?
Uh, I passed it out with the exam and I said, don't put your name on this.
There isn't a spot for your name on this form.
Don't leave it in your test package.
When it comes back to me, I want you to feel confident that this is as
anonymous as you want to make it.
And I'm not going to review these until I get home.
And I've kept every single one, um, mostly good, obviously
some bad, but such as life.
Did
Travis Bader: you find value in those?
Because quite often I would find people, Oh, it was great.
Oh, it was awesome.
But they don't have anything to really compare it
Matt Jenkins: to.
If they didn't put handwritten comments and they just did the, you know, the
one to five, they meant nothing to me because it was usually, you know,
Threes or fives or whatever, right?
It's all very perception based.
But if I read a comment and it said, uh, you know, whatever, right.
I would take it to heart, right?
If I'm noticing a theme, um, if I was, you know, sure, I have my cheat sheet
and I'm ticking boxes as I'm teaching to make sure I hit the relevant points,
but sometimes something gets missed and you're going, oh, this came up on
the test and I really don't think you covered it that well, mental note.
Cover X or Y or Z better.
Cause you're noticing that trend.
So I'd say kind of 50, 50, but enough of a benefit that I continued to do them.
And then, yeah, so that was my journey of teaching core, um,
that a huge passion for it.
Um, the thing I found though, is, is working with Kent, he
had a, had a classroom, all kinds of mounts on the wall.
You know, you could point around the room, this is, this your birds, here's
your, any critter you could want in BC.
It was there.
Yeah.
Moving away, trying to do my own thing, not enough business where
I am to, you know, lease any, anywhere and do it full time.
And honestly with, with the job, probably not something that I really could have
done with the same degree of passion.
Right.
So to go to, um, you know, rent the conference room, having a contracting
out to educational facilities and basically doing it out of a couple
of rubbermaid totes, bringing in some, uh, antlers and some dead heads
that have been acquired and donated.
It wasn't the level, it wasn't.
The quality of product that I was used to.
So really quickly, my passion to do it, it just dropped off, right?
So I, I love doing it.
Um, I, I love providing it to friends, to family, you know, if
you want to challenge the exam.
Um, you know, we'll do it, uh, if I have a group together and I have the right venue,
I've done it at a couple of gun clubs, which, you know, if we've ever been in a
gun club, a clubhouse, they're rustic, but it kind of lends back to, again, you've
got the, you know, the scuzzy old, uh, faded mountain goat on the wall and stuff.
So at least there's stuff to point out, right?
I enjoy classes like that.
Uh, but just, you know, to go to the best Western and say, I need your,
your, your 25 seat banquet room.
Nah, no interest really.
And yeah, I was lucky, uh, Kent and I for years.
For years, we, we got to go for hunt.
We got to go for hunt.
But of course, with us teaching, the fall was the busy time.
Yeah.
Did you ever hunt with him?
Once.
Yeah.
After years of when he was away, I'd be teaching when I
was away, he'd be teaching.
So finally the stars aligned back, uh, right before I went to depo.
So really when our paths in life were diverging, ultimately permanently, I was
able to get away for a weekend with him.
We, we got a four point and at all the hunts I've been on and the amazing
memories I've made that full circle piece was, A memory I'll cherish forever.
Right.
That's pretty cool.
Travis Bader: I remember one year, uh, Kent put out an advertisement and it
was like full page advertising either.
I know the one.
I know where this is going.
You know where this is going?
I think it said like voted number one in, in BC and I remember calling him up.
I've talked with him like, Where the hell were you voted number one?
Like, what, what was this whole thing about?
He's like, well, I don't know.
My mom said I was pretty good or something along those lines,
Matt Jenkins: right?
It was probably me and Kent BSing after a class.
Well, we think we're pretty good at this.
Let's say we're number one.
Who's going to say no?
Well, hi Travis.
Travis Bader: That was so funny.
I'm like, what is this voting thing?
Like, I don't, I don't get this, right?
That was, I thought that was funny.
Um, um, um, yeah.
Interesting.
Interesting to community and the industry.
It's, um, it's different than I see in the States.
In the States, you go to Marty Hayes's school, firearms Academy in Seattle.
And he says, here's what I do.
Here's why I do it.
Here's why I think it's great.
But you know what?
There's other people in town.
Why don't you go down the road and talk to, go to a
Thunder Ranch and go over here.
And you know what?
If you find something that works better, come back to me and then let me know.
And we'll see if we can integrate it.
There's this sort of brotherhood or camaraderie that, that we seem to see
that's, uh, uh, really prevalent here.
What I've seen in Canada is there's a, sort of this prestige
that people think they have.
Like I, I took a two day course.
I got a firearms license, right?
I got my hunting license and look out if you're an instructor.
Now you're really special, right?
Yeah.
And oftentimes, not always, but a lot of times there's sort of a dog eat
dog, maybe it's a lower barrier to entry industry, but the competition,
I think gets ahead of some people.
And in order to be competitive, they want to tear down those around it.
Cause there's two ways you can have the tallest building, right?
Build the tallest building.
Knock everybody down.
Or knock all the other ones down and that knock them down attitude that
I've seen time and time again, I don't see the same in other industries.
And maybe that's just business.
Maybe that's how everyone operates.
But, um, I I've, I've looked at it and I look at it as an industry that, uh,
hunting everyone's like, oh, they're trying to take our hunting rights away.
Firearms.
Oh, they're trying to take our guns.
And they're feeling attacked on all these different angles.
And I don't know if it's sort of, this is how we even the playing field is this, the
mountain hunters will look down on the, on the truck hunters, the, uh, black rifle
shooters will look down on the, um, the muzzle loaders or whatever it might be,
but that sort of, um, mentality I've seen.
A lot.
Nobody wins.
No, they don't.
And I've seen it a lot.
And that was part of the reason why I started the Silvercore podcast,
because I reached a point within, uh, my business where I just saw
negativity over and over and over again.
And I thought, should I look at getting into a different industry?
Or is there a way that I can bring some positivity into a realm
of what I know and what I love?
And so that, that whole aspect of trying to bring positivity and growth to others,
and I've just broadened it out into all of my different ADHD kind of interests.
Um, I don't know, it is, is from an instructor, from your perspective,
is that what you've seen as well?
Matt Jenkins: I, I think, I remember when I was teaching a lot, um, my sense
of competitiveness wasn't coming from the place of I want to be the, the
guy, because that's silly, but I took a huge amount of pride in, um, just
being, I guess, grounded in my approach to instructing, and I say it, Anybody
who's been around me for a while, and I've imparted some knowledge on,
I say, don't trust any one person's opinion, including my own, right?
If I tell you something about maybe a piece of glass or a gun or a particular
hunting thing, go and test it and validate it and pressure test that
against other people's opinions, right?
So if you notice a trend, am I fighting against the, you know, and same goes
for again, any instructor, any, you know, Any person again, but there's
some obvious exceptions to this.
People who are true savants and artisans of their craft.
Yeah, there are, you know, validate people's opinions and, um, Yeah.
Pressure test what you're hearing.
Right?
And again, but this goes back to me again, me trying to be grounded in my approach.
If somebody comes to my class and says, what gun should I buy?
And I said, well, you got to get yourself a 264 windbag because
that's my preferred rifle.
Anybody knows anything about the 264 windbags like you.
No, don't go buy one of those.
I will never buy another one again, but I love the gun I have, but because I
love it, it's just not the right tool for the job for most folks, right?
So being able to separate your bias or your preferences to what needs to be done.
The needs of the individual is something that I took very seriously and I guess it
started from working, uh, in a business selling those things to say, well, this
is what I shoot and here's kind of my preference and here's what I'm doing.
But let's look at things that may fit the bill for you a bit better.
Right.
Um, so kind of that's, I, I sort of took ownership over giving that high
quality product and not displaying a lot of bias or being grounded enough to
look at other people's experiences or what they needed, which may not be what
I needed and be able to say, okay, this is what I shoot, but this isn't for you.
This is maybe what you should be doing or buying or trying.
Um, but at the end of the day, no, like nobody wins by knocking anybody else down.
Right.
And just sit and have a conversation with you of what I've
learned and what you've learned.
Um, there's tremendous value in that for everybody.
Travis Bader: You know, it brings to mind.
I remember when I was kind of getting into mountaineering, just like,
like hiking and I'd rock climb and I would be out in the mountains.
I'd do stuff, but not from a serious sort of mountaineering standpoint.
And a friend of mine just got out of the British army.
He was, um, working with special forces to do the SAS selection a couple of times.
And so I'm like, I better get myself kind of sorted out before going out
and doing some hikes and getting into the mountains with them.
He's now a full fledged ACMG guide and doing well with that.
And, um, I started asking around what, What, what are the best boots?
Like I need a good pair of boots, right?
The ones that fit you.
Right.
And they say, Oh, get some Danners.
Danners are the best, right?
You know, okay.
So I go buy some Danners and remember the first hike we went
out and I learned two things.
Number one, boot recommendations, like a lot of things are very, very personal
and what might be best for that person definitely wasn't the best for me.
And my, my feet took weeks.
I was in flip flops for weeks afterwards because they were just.
My, when I was pouring out the rain, it was all red and blood coming out.
It was, it was so bad.
But the other thing that I learned on that one, which I thought was kind of
interesting, which ties in with this mental health thing as well, that, um,
is kind of the theme of what we wanted to talk about was, okay, this guy, special
force working with them, um, tough guy, who's, I can't complain on this hike.
And I'm like, my feet are bleeding and I know this short way into it.
And this was a long, long go and cold.
And anyways, uh, there was me, him and one other fellow and this other fellow,
I remember at one point he was like, oh, I'm kind of hungry or I'm kind of cold.
And he's piping up and I'm like, whoo, I sure as hell wouldn't be saying anything.
Right.
I don't want to look like that.
And this guy turns around and says, okay, stop, administrate yourself.
And I thought, okay, that's kind of interesting.
Right.
He's like, just brew, brew up some tea.
Right.
Fix your socks, fix your boots.
Right.
Um, get, get a jacket on if you're cold.
Right.
And so I'm quickly, and I was a little chilly as well, and
it was freezing weather out.
So I'm putting my jacket on, but it's cause this other guy put his hand up.
Right.
And, and, uh, all of a sudden the dark place that my head was in as I'm hiking
up and cold and hurt and, and in pain, um, I'm feeling It's not, it's not so dark.
I can, I'm in pain.
My feet hurt and everything else, but I'm not going into hypothermia anymore.
And this whole approach of not trying to be the tough guy, stop,
administrate yourself because we're in it for the long haul.
Right.
And that little piece of information, Which other people may have picked up
in their youth and I didn't pick up until I was in my twenties or whenever
that was, um, I've tied over into my physical health, into my mental health.
Okay.
I recognize something.
I'm going to stop.
I know where I want to go.
Quick admin back on the road.
Here I go.
Two things I brought up out of that one.
So I agree.
Don't trust just cause one caliber works for you and you loved it.
It's
Matt Jenkins: not going to work for everyone.
Yeah.
I mean, and, and, and gun specifically, you're one of those funny ones where if,
if you're asking me questions long enough about, you know, gun a versus or caliber
a versus, you'll contradict yourself, you end up contradicting yourself and
not accidentally and not because you're flip flopping just because if there
was one that reigns supreme, then why would we have a new one every week?
That's right.
Ron Spomer would be out of work.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Travis Bader: This is it.
It's the one, one
Matt Jenkins: cartridge.
This is the one to rule them all.
But that's what we hear every week.
Travis Bader: Right.
I love it.
I saw you writing something
Matt Jenkins: down there.
Just to, just to close in comment, uh, just on the topic of mental health,
but we'll leave that be till we're, if we're, when we're wrapping up.
Travis Bader: Well, is there anything else we should be talking about?
Matt Jenkins: I don't think so.
Um, Yeah, like it, uh, I've, I've got tremendous friends.
Hunting's been tremendous.
My, my career's been fantastic.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
Uh, um, I'm feeling very fortunate that I've had the opportunity to put myself
in a position with developing instructor profiles and all these courses to, to,
to, uh, To really do the work to increase, you know, the odds of physical, mental,
and emotional survivability of my peers and putting myself in a position where
that is becoming a huge passion of mine to see people be successful, right?
From, you know, the firearms instructor realm to having the post critical
incident to getting them back to work, there is a lot of that full circle.
Ideally, I would never have to, you know, use a lot of those skills, but being able
to hopefully impart knowledge on people in different realms is, is amazing.
And I'm thankful I've had the opportunity to, and yeah, that's just it.
And again, on the topic of mental health, the resources
out there, um, wellnesstogether.
ca is one that comes to, comes to mind for everybody.
Um, If you're in the RCMP and the Canadian forces, there's a lot of
specific ones that I won't go into because we have a very diverse audience,
but I'm really hoping that something I've said identifies with folks and.
And whether it's mentorship or mental health or anything, it's just, yeah,
I hope people find value in this.
Cause that's the game.
Travis Bader: I'm going to put links to all these things that you've
talked about in here, in the podcast description, uh, I'll put a link
to your, uh, your social media.
If people want to reach out.
And I'm pretty
Matt Jenkins: boring on social
Travis Bader: media, but Matt, I know this is our first
aired, second recorded podcast.
I'm looking forward to our third recorded when we do that after this one airs.
Thanks.
Thank you so much for being on this summer
Matt Jenkins: football podcast.
I, I'm humbled to be here.
Thank you.