Unknown Speaker  0:00  
The following is a production of wild idea media.

Bill Hodge  0:06  
Welcome to the wild idea podcast, where we are exploring the intersection of human nature and wild nature. Kind of a really special edition. This is our 20th episode, 20th regular episode of the wild idea it's the first time that Anders and I have physically been looking at each other face to face. Somehow, we're still doing it after 10 days in confined space,

Anders Reynolds  0:29  
watching each other deeply, making deep eye contact,

Bill Hodge  0:33  
deep, deep and uncomfortable eye contact. So a little scene setting for you guys. We are on the sailing vessel, the Bob from our great friends with sound sailing Alaska, and we are going to be bringing them to you in our episode in a week. But today we wanted to sort of celebrate 20 in 20 episodes with 20 Questions. We've been asking you all for questions. But again, I want to sort of set the scene. We are floating in what is called icy passage just off of icy strait. We're immediately adjoining pleasant Island, which is part of the pleasant lemassier and Indian Island wilderness just outside the entrance to Glacier Bay National Park, where we just came out of, where we just spent the last six days. So we've kind of been fully immersed in wilderness for like the better part of eight days. Now.

Anders Reynolds  1:34  
It's true, Bill, it's hard to believe. So 20 episodes ago, we introduced ourselves to folks with an icebreaker episode. And two days ago, we were in Glacier Bay National Park amongst icebergs. And it was, it was a wild experience. We're having a really great experience up here.

Bill Hodge  1:53  
It has been great, and not only amongst icebergs, actually harvesting icebergs to chill our cocktails, shall we say? That's right. So nothing like a cocktail made with true glacier ice floating in Glacier Bay National Park. So with that said, we're gonna get started with some questions that we've had from you all over the first little over three and a half months so far that we've been doing the wild idea podcast, and again, the first 20 episodes. So 20 Questions for 20 episodes Anders, you want to get us started with our first question?

Anders Reynolds  2:24  
Yeah, I think the way this is going to work is I'm going to ask the questions. And we got a great range of questions from our listeners. I want to thank everybody who wrote in. And then, you know, we'll take turns answering first, and we'll just see what conversations these lead to. But like, let's you know with no further ado, let's start. Okay, that's the first question is from a listener, Jim. He asks, Who would you most like to have as a guest on the podcast, both living and no longer living, and why I think I should go first, please and yield a lot of my time to you, because I know you've got a full and complete answer. So okay, so first of all, who would almost like to have a guess that's living well, if you listen to last week's episode with Joshua Jackson, I think I've already given away the game on this, the living guest I would most like to see is the author, Robert McFarland. He has written some really wonderful books. He has a new one out that I'm gonna struggle to think the nail. I think it's just called the river. But you know, Mr. McFarland, if you're listening, please, we'd love to have you as for, you know, a guest who's no longer living it's that's really, really hard to pick. I've got a lot of favorites. I mean, I'd say maybe Neil Compton, who's sort of the father of the Buffalo River in Arkansas and is largely responsible for a lot of the wilderness, the origins of the wilderness campaigns that came about in the Ozark and the ouachitas. I would have loved to have met Neil Compton, but maybe it's no surprise. I probably Aldo Leopold. He's just one of the most complete thinkers about this stuff, and I think he'd be a great interview. Yeah, there's lots of really good thinkers about this. I don't know that they'd all be a great interview, but Aldo one, yeah, so Okay, take it away.

Bill Hodge  4:04  
Well, I think my living person, the person is still living that I love to have on the podcast. And we and we're working on this, folks, but if you can help, I'd love to get Terry Tempest Williams on. She's such a powerful writer and thinker about what wildness means today, and since our sort of reason for being here is this intersection of our own human nature and our own wild nature, if you've read any of her work, so she's a living person I'd love to have on, a guest who would not be possible no longer with us. That I would love to have on would be Bob Marshall. I think if you've been listening to this podcast, you know, I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to Mr. Marshall, he was a founder of The Wilderness Society. He was the original benefactor and funder of the Wilderness Society. He wrote early regulations for the Forest Service that were the precursor to language that's literally in the Wilderness Act. And he was just an all around like. Advocate for connecting people to the outdoors, an advocate for the people. Really even wrote a book called The People's forest that I think is important. So I think Bob Marshall is my my my guest I'd love to have that's not physically possible, but one who is still with us that we hope to get on soon is Terry Tempest Williams,

Anders Reynolds  5:19  
all right. Good answer. Our next question is from Sam. Sam asks, Have you ever been so uncomfortable or scared in a wilderness setting that you even for a moment, regretted being there, and if so, what did you take away from that experience after the danger had passed? Boy,

Bill Hodge  5:39  
that's a good question. I I was in a wilderness in Colorado one time where I screwed up and allowed myself to be well above the sort of alpine treeless line in the afternoon, about two. And if you've ever hiked in Colorado in the afternoons, that tends to be about the time the thunderstorms roll in and trying to extract ourselves, and this had been about a six or seven hour climb up to this, this pass that, thankfully, we got down in about 30 minutes, because we basically sat down in snow fields and slid down, because the thunderstorms were closing rapidly, you know. And it made me realize that nothing is guaranteed. I think that's one of the beautiful things about wild places, is your safety and your comfort is not guaranteed. You have to make sure you are mentally and physically prepared for the challenges that you're going to have, including that level of discomfort. And I actually think that's I think my takeaway is the beauty of the idea of these places is it's not for our comfort, for our convenience, or even for our sort of esthetic of being in and among wild places. I mean, yes, that's a important part of it, but it's the fact that it's not there for us at all. It's there because it's function as places that function with man. Don't, don't be wrong. Function with men and women in the landscape for for millennia. But like, it's, it's, we're just a small part of it, and we're not there to just have it for our convenience.

Anders Reynolds  7:13  
Yeah, yeah. I think my lesson might be similar. So yours dealt with, like, too much moisture, mine deals with not enough, and before I start, I'll just say my friend and yours. David Dreher always says it's not a wilderness experience unless there's a very slim chance that you could die. And that was always a funny line, but I experienced that maybe a decade ago in the road Canyon wilderness in southeast Utah, which involved, like, a short hike to the rim from a parking lot, and then you go down a wash, and you're in the valley, and, you know, went up and turned around and started walking back, and at some point realized I must have missed the wash that allowed you to get back up to the rim. And panic immediately set in. You could feel, you know, your heart started to race. Well, my heart started to race, and chemicals were flowing all through my body. I could almost feel it, and I really had to, like, be intentional, like ground myself, breathe through my feet almost, and say, Okay, you can get out of this, if you just think. And I did get out of it, but it took a long time. It was pretty scary. I was very low on water and wondering what would happen to me if I had to spend the night overnight. But eventually found a wash that was a little bit more accommodating than the rest. Scrambled out. Kind of had to figure out where the nearest road was, walk all the way back to the car. I think I eventually got water straight out of a spigot. Had like a visitor's center nearby, like, put my mouth on the spigot because I was so desperate for water. But, yeah, I mean, the lesson there was not just about controlling panic, but about the tagline of the show is the intersection of human nature and wild nature. But maybe there's no difference, right? Like, we're a small part of it. We like to think we're separate from it. But in that moment, I was like, Oh, I am. I am fully immersed in this, and I am at its mercy, and it does not care that I might think I'm separate, like it will consume me if I am not smart enough. Yeah, for sure. Great question. Sam, thanks for that. Okay. Next question is from Molly. Molly says, I am currently in a love, hate, mostly hate relationship with Chad GBT. While I do see limited benefits, the potentials for fraud and dangerous, dangerous misinformation are evident after your episode with Tony Bynum, the discussion around revealing the truth through photography got me thinking, What are your thoughts on the potential to help protect versus the ethical risks of utilizing artificial intelligence and conservation efforts. What advice do you have for public lands advocates and balancing this new dynamic between land protection and tech advancement in particular, as we learned that AI data centers require significantly more energy and water than current data centers.

Bill Hodge  9:58  
Yeah, you know, we had conversation. With Dr Anders Ariana about you know, he they were using machine learning to help actually model out things that can tell us what it's going to take for a species to survive and and thrive in an ecosystem to function. But we do know, obviously, we know pretty acutely, what the what the downside is, which is the water consumption and the energy consumption and and honestly, you know, there's something that is lost when I'm going to say when the data, or even the beauty of a place, is artificial in its making, right? I recently heard a thinker struggle to give a solid answer to whether they thought the human race it was relevant whether we survived. I happen to think it is relevant that we survive, right? And it's interesting to think about, does wildness mean anything to an artificial intelligence? And yet, there are things we can increase our knowledge and understanding about how we allow ourselves to live in balance with wild nature. I don't know. I think it's a compelling question. I don't think I have a good answer for it. I don't

Anders Reynolds  11:09  
think I have a good answer either. I don't think I can expand on your answer much, although you know me, I'm going to, I'm going to try and give it the old call a try. I think the bell that is ringing when I read a question like this is to urge people not to think about AI as it exists now, and to ask themselves, is this real or not, or can I trust this or not? What's the quote, unquote legitimate, you know, provenance or not, it's especially in the case of social media, like, why am I seeing this in my feed? Who wants me to see this? And I would encourage everybody to sort of think about that question. But just to go a little further, you know, if we're seeing stuff about if we're seeing great pictures of landscapes that, maybe, to our eyes, clearly don't exist. But we all know, you know, older, older people on the internet who are posting pictures of, like, landscapes, and, you know, saying, like, only God and stuff like that, right? Who is wanting you to believe that? And that's what scares me about AI, that that's the red flag I would throw up. Yeah, about AI,

Bill Hodge  12:20  
yeah, it's a good point. What do they want from you? Because you're, you're the you're the data, right? Your eyeballs are your Yeah,

Anders Reynolds  12:28  
you're the data exactly. All right? The next question is from Ben, and Ben asks, What lessons can other climate related causes. I'm thinking here primarily about renewable energy. He notes, what lessons can they take from land protection movements about building cross partisan coalitions? I think it's I think it's interesting. He's using the term cross partisan coalitions already. It feels like a way of avoiding the term bipartisan and and to me that that's interesting already, like we, we almost already have to destigmatize the phrase by bipartisan. Bipartisan is already a dirty word, and I can understand why it's a dirty word. And I think our listeners don't see the questions. We've seen the questions. This is a theme that's going to come up a couple of times, and it's very, very tricky, because I think the question Ben's essentially asking, the real question is, how do cross partisan coalitions stay true to their values, something I've seen other groups struggle with, with the successful effort to hold back the land sales that were floated by Senator Mike Lee, is they want to celebrate the fact that the conservation community won. We got that provision removed out of that big, beautiful bill. You know, we convince lawmakers on the Democratic side and the Republican side, this was a bad idea and it needed to come out, and we won. But at the same time, celebrating passage of that bill while, while it contains, you know, language and policies that will be devastating for communities out there is really hard to stomach. And you know, a lot of these groups want to be good allies when it comes to civil rights issues, and I think they're really struggling in this moment. I don't know if I have a good answer, I would quickly note that, like, you know, renewable energy is already pretty cross partisan those Ira tax credits or popular on both the Democratic and Republican side. So I think there's more that advocates can do there. The way I get through my day is by telling myself I'm a land conservation expert. That's what I have to focus on, and I have to trust that the people who are immigration experts and healthcare experts and, you know, senior citizens rights experts are. As focused on those issues as I'm focused on mine, and that we're all pulling

Bill Hodge  15:03  
together, right? And if you come at if you come at any issue, and in our case, it happens to be wild places or public lands, if you come at anything from an honest place, then you can be an honest broker and thinking about meeting other people on issues that are important to them. You know, like you gave the example of the tax credits for renewable energy sources, I mean that there's as many of those or more that have gone out to red states and have gone out to blue states, for example. And it's an economic issue. It's a rebuilding a different economy issue. But I think, I don't think we found the solution yet, because things still seem to get more partisan instead of, you know, in this in this case, the phrase cross partisan. But it's going to be interesting to figure out if this was a watershed moment in the victory that we just had on on pushing back on land sales, because we lost a lot of other things because so much energy went into pushing back on on the public land sale, that a lot of other things for public lands that I don't think any of us would argue are gonna not be bad for public lands. Still went through, but thanks for the question.

Anders Reynolds  16:08  
Okay, the next question is a little bit long, so just hang in there. It's good. Cultural Resource preservation and natural resource preservation have long been siloed. For example, efforts to make permanent the Land and Water Conservation Fund did not include making permanent the Historic Preservation Fund, or HPF. HPF is the sister fund to LWCF, and it provides funding to state and Tribal Historic Preservation offices in the President's FY 26 budget, the line item for state and Tribal Historic Preservation has been deleted rather than zero out these programs, the administration chose not to reference them at all. These state and tribal offices serve a critical role in Public Lands Conservation. This is particularly true for tribes as resource as natural resource conservation is also cultural resource preservation. And it should be noted that tribes do not have access to any LWCF funding, though they do have direct funding through HPF. Here's the question, how can your listeners support restoration of funding for state and tribal preservation offices? Also, what advice you have for Public Land advocates as they think about advocacy strategies for bringing in additional tools like Hbf to protect and preserve our public lands? This is a great question, I guess, like first is a little background. Back in June, the President's budget request for FY 26 virtually eliminated funding for HPF, apart for some level funding for the competitive grant program that went to HBCUs, which is, she notes, is a big blow to state and Tribal Historic Preservation offices on July 1. However, the funds that were delayed in FY 2025 were released by the Office of Management and Budget, and so there was like a long stalled Notice of Funding Opportunity, they call it and and that has now moved forward. And I just want to note, I think that move forward because folks like you made a big difference. One group working on that was the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and I guess, like a practical advice I would have for listeners is to check in with them. They're really, like the leading advocates when it comes to this, and they're going to have sort of the infrastructure and the strategy to know how to tackle this problem on the hill, because it really, this is a really great problem. I mean, this is a really great question that I think flags an important problem, and that is, you know, the conservation community is sort of reluctant. Reluctance to embrace preservation alongside conservation,

Bill Hodge  18:49  
particularly cultural preservation, right, right? And we just, we literally just live this. So on this trip, we stopped in the village of Huna, which is now where the Huna Tlingit people live, even though they used to live in what is now Glacier Bay National Park, there has been a pretty wonderful relationship between the park and the Huna Tlingit, including recently success in building this beautiful tribal house that was built by the craftsmen from The tribe from the Huna and and now the funding for keeping that house open is gone, like it's been removed, like millions of dollars have been removed from the budget. And if you think that doesn't affect the experience of somebody coming to a national park, to a wild landscape, a culturally significant landscape, the funding, from a cultural perspective is as important as the funding from a land preservation perspective or even a land management perspective. We spent a lot of time talking about the agency staff, but this is now going to affect the staff from the Huna Tlingit and their ability to represent their cultural history on the landscape in Glacier Bay National Park. Which is, which is, by the way, the vast majority of which is federally designated Wilderness. So yeah, we have to make sure we bring our heads up and get out of our silos often enough. So thanks for that question.

Anders Reynolds  20:12  
Yeah. And I'll just, I'll just remind people that organizations like the National Trust for Historic Preservation are actively advocating for continued increased funding for HPF, and they're gonna keep doing that, and you should go to their website right now, 100% next. Two questions are both from Andrea. They're a little more lighthearted. I'll let you answer them both first, and I'll just I'll ask them one at a time. The first one is, what is the trait you most admire in trail? Companions?

Unknown Speaker  20:42  
Silent? Silence. I guess that's

Anders Reynolds  20:44  
too grand.

Bill Hodge  20:46  
I would I would say patience and silence, because I like to enjoy the quiet and the outdoors, which is weird because I've spent, like, the last 20 years involved in the stewardship and a lot of trail work, for example, and that's an environment where you don't walk by yourself, you're dealing with a group of people, and you're having conversations. But I like the silence, but I also like the patience, because I am a slow hiker, bad knee and rather a large fellow, I'll just say I have a pace that I like to walk at, and so I think that's the trait I most look forward to as somebody who can be okay with me falling behind and hiking at my own pace, and the fact that I kind of like to be quiet when I'm out there. Yeah, silence is wondering, what about you for me too?

Anders Reynolds  21:30  
I'm gonna say determination. When I like to go. I like to go to keep moving. But I'll just, I'll just quickly note that, like I didn't discover that my favorite trait was determination because of a trail, because of a terrestrial trail. I discovered it on a on a portage in the Adirondacks around Lake Saranac and the surrounding lakes, with my buddy Josh Lowe at the Yale Center for Climate and he and I got in a pretty sticky situation, and a canoe. And a lot of that day involved him studying the canoes. I leaned out of the front with a with a silky saw, cutting down branches so we can move forward. And I think if either of us hadn't wanted to, hadn't been determined to get through it would have been very easy to quit and and, you know, at the end of the day, I thought, thank God I was with somebody who wanted to move forward. I like perseverance. That's a good one. Thanks, Josh. Okay, and the next one from Andrea, I'll go first. I guess on this one is, what is your idea of misery in the outdoors? And I nice short answer, a wet tent.

Bill Hodge  22:39  
Yeah, I think I would, I would share that one. I would say, for me, it is definitely waking up to a wet camp and having to pack up a wet camp with with a day ahead of you still, whether that's a day coming out or just a day moving camp, I think I'd rather be dry and hot than than wet, for sure.

Anders Reynolds  23:06  
Gotcha. All right. Next question is from Robert. He asked, Can wilderness still be considered the gold standard in the era of climate change?

Bill Hodge  23:17  
I'll take this first, and I'll be interested to hear what you have on this one. I think it is. I think we probably live in an era where there, there are, maybe we shouldn't define things by like gold, silver, bronze. I think there are times when it is absolutely the right standard for a landscape. And yes, I know we are literally with this podcast, and certainly with a lot of work of a lot of people wrestling with what wilderness means in as we move into the, you know, this second quarter of the 21st Century, I think it is, it is a gold standard for places in which we have to check our humility at the door. It doesn't mean that you can't protect even wildlands with something that's not a wilderness designation, but I do think wilderness is a is a gold standard, if we are, if we're actually going to find our way to letting nature figure out how it's going to continue to function, even even an environment where it's changing rapidly, where the climate is physically changing, I still think we need places in which the landscape finds its new equilibrium without our influence. But I think gold standard is just kind of a false just kind of a false standard for me to fall back on, because I think there are a lot of different ways in which we in which we could skin the proverbial cat.

Anders Reynolds  24:38  
It's not a fun podcast when we agree too much. But I I'm not going to disagree on this one. I think the spirit of this question is meant to sort of highlight how climate change is going to push animals into new habitats. Is going to change forests as they move north and look for colder climates. And so maybe the places we're protecting today aren't the places that will need to be protected tomorrow. So. Yeah, and I hope people smarter than me are looking at that. I think people smarter than me are looking at that. I hope we're doing a lot of planning around that, because I totally support looking forward and anticipating those problems. But I would say to go back to Aldo Leopold, I think totally abandoning the process we have now, and totally abandoning the places we have protected now is to lose some of the important parts that we need to tinker with this whole thing, right? We don't know when they're going to come in handy. We don't know what the future is going to hold. And so I think, like you, I don't know that I would say something as a gold standard for me, wilderness, it's the anchor of a spectrum, and we don't have a better anchor yet. We may one day, but until we do, we're going to need that anchor, because we're going to have to define everything we do against it. And unless it's in place, I think we'll lose

Bill Hodge  25:55  
our way a little bit. Yeah, you've, you're, you've used that, that term, like the anchor of a spectrum of protections. And I love that. I love that way to think about

Anders Reynolds  26:05  
it. Okay. Next question is from Allison. She asks, How do you decide which voices to highlight on the podcast?

Bill Hodge  26:13  
Oh, that's a good one. I think we created, I'll just a little bit of a peek behind the curtain is we created a list before we got going of people, we thought that would be great, and we started that outreach, and that was some of the early episodes. But one of the beautiful ways we get to do it now is from you all. We've had a number of guests that have come from our community that said, Hey, I would love for you to talk to Martin I and Monty Mills about the intersection of public land and law and try and tribal law. We've, you know, just last week, Josh Jackson was on, and he was recommended by a number of you all. And so we, I think we're trying to get to a range of voices. I will say we, this is my perspective. All curious what you think about this. Andrews, like, I don't think we expected to be so heavy in the public lands. I mean, we knew we would talk a lot about public lands, but like, obviously, this moment in time has driven a lot of conversations around, sort of, what are the risks to our public lands today? And I don't think we'll ever stray that far from that, but we certainly are also wanting to get into the psychology of how the human brain functions when you're in wild places, or, you know, that sort of thing. But right now, it's, it's become more and more and more that people are hearing the podcast and saying, Boy, I'd like to hear a conversation about this intersection of human nature, wild nature, with, you know, this, this person, would you guys, have that conversation? So that's, that's one way it's happening. And then we, you know, we have an editorial meeting between Anders and I and Laura, our executive producer, about who and when and what we have time for. Honestly, we thought we were gonna have a first season of like, 16 episodes and we would take a long break. Well, here we are in Episode 20. Yeah, yeah, coming. Yeah. It's coming sometime.

Anders Reynolds  28:01  
I mean, the answer to this question is basically, like, we don't have other hobbies, I think. I mean, I've been in the production business for over a decade. You've been in the stewardship business for over a decade. We're both nerds that read book after book about this and like attending conferences and watching YouTube videos and meeting new people. And I think it just has come down to who we thought would be the most interesting, but also, like, we've had groups pitch us on experts, and we've said yes, and we've had listeners reach out and say, do you know about these guys? And sometimes we haven't, sometimes we haven't, um, so we've adjusted priorities to sort of make sure those voices are heard. But I do want to emphasize we are trying to honor a diversity of voices. And that doesn't just mean, you know, by age, race, gender, it means both, like the public lands component or city park component, people who have different experiences of wild places. So

Bill Hodge  28:58  
one of the questions that we got that I happen to get over beers with a group of people that I have done work with in Montana was, I think this one touched a raw nerve too. This one was, do you guys just come up with the corny questions at the beginning of the show? Are those actually scripted? And I think when I shared that with Anders, it it maybe came off a little callous.

Anders Reynolds  29:25  
I think that this question reflects an unconscious wish this listener has to be funny on the spot. And as you and I know being funny on the spot is very hard, and if folks think it's hard in everyday life, they should try to do it when they know people are listening on a podcast.

Bill Hodge  29:52  
Is that your way of saying sometimes it's written and sometimes it's not we try to have fun. I mean, we do hope that you guys know that we take. Like this work of talking about wild lands, public lands, and this stuff, we take it seriously, but we also have a lot of fun with our relationship, and we manage to tolerate each other enough that we've now been on this 50 foot sailboat together for eight days so far, with a couple more to go, we haven't thrown each other overboard, so we do like to have some fun,

Anders Reynolds  30:21  
yet it's important. Okay. Next question is from Rob, another one that's a little bit long. He asks, Have you seen any changes in the general political posture of conservation organizations as a result of the groundswell of support for public lands that recently emerged as a result of Senator Lee's efforts to sell large swaths of public lands, conservation organizations have sometimes come to be perceived as aligned with Democrats and have communicated in ways that make them appear anti Republican. But the recent energy around public lands has called some groups to consider taking more bipartisan political posture. Will those efforts by conservation organizations to take a more bipartisan approach be durable and lasting? What are the consequences for conservation organizations, both positive and negative, for pivoting to a more bipartisan political and communications posture? I think we've already touched on this a little bit in the question about cross partisan coalitions. I mean, the risk for growing more bipartisan is that you might seem less like an ally on other important issues. The risks are that, well, to put it bluntly, right now, even if you can wrangle every Democrat, which is ostensibly the party you're associated with, you lose in DC right now you you have, you have to work with Republicans to get any wins right now. It's, it's, it's absolutely vital. It's existential. So those are the risks involved. You know that listeners to the podcast will have heard us talk to Nate Schweber about Bernard devoto. They'll have heard us talk to Chris Wood about the roadless rule fights in the early 2000s some of this, to me, is really, really cyclical. It's a lesson that the community has to learn over and over again. So I actually view this as an opportunity. Sure, there's a lot of questions we got to answer, including some of those questions about like, questions about like, how can you work with someone when they think that your neighbor ought to be shipped out of this country? And by no means am I telling people that they need to go work with every Republican on the hill right, or maybe even every Democrat. I should say there's no reason for you to work with every with people who disagree with like, your right to exist. That said, I think this is a really good opportunity for us to try to solve some of these issues. Do we want to be a movement that's associated with only one party, or do we think it's better to be associated with two

Bill Hodge  32:54  
Yeah, can it? Can our community be a part of bending the arc towards justice as the phrase goes right like it? You know, you have to ask the question like, from, from where we were on public lands in the start of the 20th century to the middle of the 20th century, with passage of things like the Wilderness Act or clean air Clean Water Act? And it seems like we're walking backwards from that, if you believe it exclusively, just because one party has walked away from that, as opposed to we haven't done the work to make sure that the public remains in tune with why those things matter, while also making sure that they're in alignment on things that matter, like basic human rights and people's right to exist and to to be seen as American citizens born in this country. You know, those sort of things we have a role to play in that not just feeding the narrative that there are good Americans and bad Americans, there are just Americans, and we have to figure this out. Of course, are there people with incredibly abhorrent views? Sure, but we we also have a lot of folks that I think we can continue to address on issues that matter to us, whether it's the climate or wild places or public lands in general. So yeah, I like to I like that answer.

Anders Reynolds  34:08  
Okay, the next one is from John. John asks, What's your favorite piece of non federal land to enjoy? Oh, I'd love to hear your answer on that one. Oh, I was thinking about this earlier today when I had a little free time in between. You know, moments of harassment from from you, oh, it's God, it's really tempting. But I think my answer is going to be the piece of non federal land that I miss the most, and that is the state park that was nearest my hometown in Arkansas. It's called Village Creek State Park. For a very long time, it was Arkansas' largest state park, and it was like a little slice of heaven for me growing up, I got to fish in its lakes, and it had a little manufactured beach, and it had all these really wonderful trails, and sort of existed partly in the Arkansas Delta, but also up on Crowley's Ridge, which is sort of the formation that grew up around the New Madrid fault, and so it, you know, offered some some like hiking opportunities that weren't just flat land, and I think about it often, a great set of cabins there. I've got my 25th year class reunion coming out this fall, and the first thing I did was see if the cabin, the cabin was available at Village Creek State Park. And I other people had had that idea. That's how popular it is. So I won't be staying there. So you know, if you're from the class of 2000 when high school, and you're listening and have a guest room, I need it.

Bill Hodge  35:57  
You need a place to stay. I think I'm gonna echo. If you there's a state park that means an awful lot to me, and that is Mount Mitchell State Park in the state of North Carolina, the highest peak in eastern United States. It's a net in that state park, which, of course, is Mount Mitchell itself. It is an amazing ecosystem of fur, and it's just, it's a really cool, unique place, but it happens to be the first place I went hiking when I was 10 years old, and to be in that spruce fir forest, to smell that loam, loamy soil smell, it just means a lot to me. I think it's a place that, thankfully, there have been folks that have stepped forward to help that state park grow. There's also been my frustration that the lands that immediately surround that narrow sliver of state land are now at risk because they weren't sort of protected in the most recent forest plan for the nanahala Pisgah. But Mitchell State Park is a pretty special place for me, right off the Blue Ridge Parkway. And pretty, pretty amazing.

Anders Reynolds  36:56  
I thought you'd say that. All right, the next question is from Mike, do y'all plan to move away from terrestrial protections and toward river or even offshore water protections?

Bill Hodge  37:09  
I mean, I think the short answer is yes, calling you out bill, yeah. I think we gotta do it. Yeah. The short answer is yes. I mean, we, like I said, we've, we've, kind of have been revolving around the headlines of the day by being so focused on public lands, because we went through almost a month long period through reconciliation where public lands were at Vital threat and honestly still are. But we're sitting here, as we mentioned at the offset, we're sitting here in icy passage, just off of icy Strait, amazing waters. We've seen humpback whales. We've seen endless sea otters. We've seen orcas. I think we absolutely both, both offshore and our amazing rivers and lakes in our country. If you all have somebody you think we need to be talking about on these issues, and we have some folks already planned and scheduled in the weeks and months ahead, but yeah, we plan on stepping our foot offshore and enjoying some of our aquatic habitats.

Anders Reynolds  38:06  
Great. Next question is from Gwen, if a wilderness area were going to be named after you, what landscape would it feature? Maybe like, in your case, a dry, spiky desert, or in my case, a lush, steamy rainforest.

Bill Hodge  38:23  
I think you covered it, right? I mean, come on, I'm warm fuzzy too. So, you know, I think it would have to be something, maybe something a little warm and squishy. I don't know what that would mean from an ecosystem perspective, but Yeah, honestly, maybe I'm biased for the moment, but Southeast Alaska landscape like this that is kind of wet and kind of can be chilly sometimes, but, you know, yeah, this is sort of me. They're always kind of wet

Anders Reynolds  38:51  
and kind of chilly. I don't, I don't think I have a good answer. It makes me uncomfortable thinking about something being named after me, you're full of shit. I It does that's, I don't wish to be perceived despite the fact that we're broadcasting this to, let's say, millions of listeners who can talk. Who knows, who knows how many people are listening? I think my answer this would just be, I think I would want it to be a southern landscape. I don't know that Sure, picky about the one, but that's a place that's near and dear to my heart and to your heart.

Speaker 1  39:27  
Sure. Thanks. Thanks for the question. Gwen, yeah, thanks. Okay.

Anders Reynolds  39:31  
The next question is about the public land sell off effort, and it's a little long, but I'll do my best. The question is from Chris. Chris writes, I believe there's been a significant misrepresent representation in this debate. While we all agree on protecting environmentally sensitive lands for clean watersheds, wildlife and recreation, the recent amendments weren't about selling prime recreational areas to private interests for debt reduction, the proposed sell in Utah initially. A transfer of federal lands to state and local governments, they would remain public lands just managed locally. Many of those parcels are non environmentally sensitive urban or border areas that would better serve housing and infrastructure needs without compromising conservation goals. Most were literally existing roadways. As someone living in the affected area, I can detest this distinction. I can attest oops, slip of the tongue, I can attest to this distinction. Sorry, Chris, Senator Lee may have failed to communicate this clearly and including it in the omnibus bill. Was poor strategy. However, I hope we can move beyond reflexive opposition to enter a federal land changes towards thoughtful discussion about which lands truly belong in the never transfer category versus those that might better be managed by state and local public entities. Is it possible that you misread Mike Lee's intentions with the public land sell off effort? So I my answer is gonna be pretty short. I don't think so, Chris, I appreciate you giving Senator Lee the benefit of the doubt that including in the omnibus bill, was poor strategy. I actually think it was part of the strategy. There's a a tried and true way to dispose of public lands. It could have been done by an act of Congress. It can even be done through the agencies, I think. And if that had been Mike Lee's intention for Utah, I think he would have introduced a bill outside of omnibus bill for Utah, and not for the rest of the United States. As for the point that this is about housing, I just, I just disagree the maps that were created. And here I'll give a shout out to the Wilderness Society, which created some amazing maps that showed exactly which parcels that this bill would sell off. They were in, you know, washes of canyons. They were in places that no one was ever going to build housing. The name of the game for this was oil and gas leasing from the beginning. But I do want to say, you know, to Chris or to others who may think this, that I agree there is a way to do this, a proper way to do this. And you know, if you have suggestions on someone that might want to come on the podcast and talk about the public lands disposal process, please send them our way. We'd love to have that conversation about the proper way to do this, because I agree with the listener that there is a way to move forward here. Yeah, i i 100%

Bill Hodge  42:21  
agree with that, and I, and I, and Chris, I do respect, a respect that we have to be careful and guard against being reflexive, like just responding viscerally instead of with forethought and but I also happen to agree with Anders that there was an intention behind this. I think Andrews, I've heard you use the expression that this was gonna be the elephant getting its trunk under the tent this. This was like, even though, even when it's the point where it shrunk down to a million acres or less, it was still opening the door that, frankly, was already open. I've seen land transfers happen. You know, a church that needed 12 acres for a parking lot. I've seen that happen in Tennessee. There are, there are mechanisms in place for those sort of things. I do think this was more than that, Chris, so I I disagree that it wasn't just poor strategy on, on Senator Lee's part. I think it was intentionally to, okay, let's test the waters. And I think they found out resoundingly that there's bipartisan pushback on, on just opening the floodgates.

Anders Reynolds  43:19  
Yeah, I guess I guess I just want to reiterate. I absolutely agree that we don't need to be reflexive on this stuff, but in this case, opposed by Democrats, Republicans, hikers, bikers, paddlers, fishers, sports, men and women, by local communities out West, who knew that these places weren't going to be used for housing. To me, that's not a reflexive response. That's a thoughtful and comprehensive one agreed 100% Okay. Next question is from Heather, have you considered interviewing someone who can speak to better pathways towards getting youth away from screens and into the wild, or breaking the trend of instant dopamine hits in favor of a slower gratification.

Bill Hodge  44:03  
Yes, we have, and if you have again, we're going to keep boomerang some of these questions back out to our audience. If there's somebody you think we ought to be talking to, just, you know, let us know we certainly have thought about, you know, Richard Louv and his, you know, his book, Richard Louv, The Last Child in the Woods, for example. I mean, we, we, we have things that we think about these issues ourselves, but bringing on folks who have done the research, who have the psychology behind how we, I don't know, break, break that dopamine fix, but yes, I think we absolutely want to do that. That's when I say, like, maybe we may want to move away from just conversations about public lands. We want to talk about that, how do we it's not just kids, right? Like the whole society is getting wrapped around looking at a monitor or looking at a phone and not looking at the landscape around them.

Anders Reynolds  44:51  
Screens are the big threat. And you know, you answered the question in terms of, are we considering interviewing someone? I just want to mention conversation we had. On this very boat, down in the galley about an hour ago, about a family that brought its kid out here to see the wildlife and the landscape and how well that person responded to that, right? It is a slower gratification, but I still think it can be appreciated that it can break through. Because we heard that, you know, two or three years later, the family came back, and the kid was, you know, grown and six feet tall and still wanted to get out there to paddle and fish and see whales and sea otters and one Yeah, 100% okay, we're entering the final sprint here. The next question is from Veronica, I love the wild line. Why did you decide to start recording it every week.

Bill Hodge  45:41  
Well, this is a huge shout out to our executive producer and my lovely bride, Laura Hodge, who felt like there wasn't consistent information out there about how fast stuff was coming over the transom when it came to what you know, what was at risk in our public lands. And I think it became a why not us? And I reached out to Anders, and I said, we're already asking a lot of you, and you, 100% said, I'm in mistake, but, but, no, it came up while we were in the middle of a trip across the South for a series we have coming up called Southern current. And we pulled it off with about two weeks of planning. And now, I mean, we just took a week off because we've been up here, but there's, there's news every week, and we think it's important to bring it to folks that they stay informed. I know a lot of you have have shared that you're listening to the wild line every week and going back and listening to the longer conversations as you have time. And if that's how you how you follow us, that's that's great, because I think it was a great idea.

Anders Reynolds  46:42  
There's no wrong way to follow us. It's so true. All right. The next question is, from Carrie, have any of the episodes you've released been received differently than you expected? I'll go first on this one, yeah. The answer is, yeah. I don't want to speak for you, but I think there have been probably four or five episodes that we have known immediately at the end, this is gold, like this is a great conversation. We covered a lot of ground, but still concise and pithy, and people are really going to respond to it. And I do think in all those situations, people have responded positively. So when we feel good about something, it usually is good. I did have one episode that I think when it ended, I was sort of like shaking my head and calling you and being like, Oh my God. I don't know. I don't know if this one's gonna work. I'm not sure people are gonna accept it. And I have to say it also went well. So even when we think it goes bad, there are listeners out there. I don't know if those are always the same listeners, but it appears that every episode is finding an audience, and that data is good enough for me to maybe push my worries down for a little while. Yeah, and

Bill Hodge  47:46  
when you say bad, it's that we maybe thought we got too wonky or we got too far into the weeds, right? And like, but, but, but, folks seem to have responded to that in ways that we we didn't know that they would, and that's been fantastic.

Anders Reynolds  47:57  
Okay, this next question was sent to us in some form or fashion by multiple listeners, and it is, have you built the community you were hoping to build?

Bill Hodge  48:06  
I mean, I think we've been blown away by the response and the following we've built. We recently had you and I and Laura had a conversation with somebody who's helping us think about our community as we go forward, and it is how we think about it, not our audience, but our community. And it's like there are people out there who don't know that this is a community they want to be a part of yet, because they haven't had a chance to find us. And so we love the community we've built. The fact that we have these, you know, 20 questions to answer, 20 episodes in is fantastic, but we, I think we have to rely on you all, frankly, to let other people know that, hey, you ought to, you ought to come be a part of this doesn't matter. Doesn't mean you have to listen to something every week, or you have to respond to our request for things like questions or whatever. But I think we, we've been impressed with the wide geographic and demographic range of people, but we do know that there's a lot of other people out there. We want to get beyond, maybe those of us that live in this nerdy world of wild lands or wild land protections or stewardship. But for sure,

Anders Reynolds  49:12  
I just a rare moment of sincerity for me. I have really enjoyed the feedback we're getting about this, and it feels really good that so many of you are listening. So just first of all, thank you so much. But that last question really leads us to our 20th question, which is, for you, our community, you know, tell us what you like. Tell us what you don't. Do you like the corny jokes? Or have you lost your inner child? You know, who should we interview? What experts out there? Haven't we thought of, what topics Haven't we thought of? Give us a suggestion, and please, please, please share the show you don't, as Bill said, you know, the entirety of the podcast may not be for everybody, but if you hear a really good episode and you know others that are gonna like it, please share it. I mean, we, we have really had a good time building this. Yeah, but it's an iterative process. It sure only get better and better with your help. So that the final question is for you, and I guess just to put it bluntly, how can you help?

Bill Hodge  50:10  
Yeah, we need your help. However you think you want to do it, you can. You can go to the website, which is the wild idea.com, and fill out our Contact Us form. You can share our posts on social media. You can share our website. We've noticed lately a lot of people are listening to the Embed player that's on our website. Yes, of course, people are listening on Apple podcasts and they're listening on Spotify. But

Anders Reynolds  50:32  
some of you real freaks love that embed you love that

Bill Hodge  50:35  
embed player, but we, you know, we certainly could use your help in sharing those sort of things and getting the news about the podcast out there, because we think we'll get better as we have a bigger community that can continue to share with us people we need to talk to and topics we need to cover, right? So, I mean, I think that's important. So yeah, definitely visit the website, share our social media posts, share an episode that you thought was pretty impactful with somebody you thought would

Anders Reynolds  51:00  
enjoy it. That's right. And I, you know, I guess that's it. That's all 20 Questions. Bill, we've still got a day and a half out here in southeast Alaska, and, you know, the the very close listener will have noticed a marine toilet coming off. So I think we owe it to our fellow guests on the boat to wrap this up and let

Bill Hodge  51:19  
them come back to enjoying the all the full facilities something, but we have, I mean, we just loved our trip with the sound sailing Alaska here on the sailboat. Bob and again, next week, we're going to bring you an episode with Blaine and Monique, our captain and his mate, who have made this such an incredible trip, cannot recommend this enough. With Laura and I have been traveling with with Blaine and Monique for years experience in southeast Alaska, which is the way I think you should, which is from the water and not necessarily from a cruise ship and and so thanks for joining us for this 20th episode, the 20 Questions. We really appreciate you all joining us. We look forward to continuing to bring you the wild line every Friday, so that'll be coming up next again. Next Tuesday. We'll bring you a conversation with Blaine and Monique here on the sailboat, and we're gonna keep doing our thing, right? I mean, I keep doing our thing, even though you keep waiting for a break that doesn't ever seem to come. Bill, it's good to be here with you in person. Yeah. Well, thank you all for joining us, and we will see you all on down the trail. This has been our report live from icy passage here in southeast Alaska.

Speaker 2  52:25  
The wild idea is a production of wild idea media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Bren Russell at pod lab. Digital support by Holly wilkoszewski at daypack digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skeehan. Our executive producer and ringleader is Laura Hodge. You can find the wild idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating, and if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai