Pack an extra warm sweater because we’re headed to the Arctic Circle with David Scott, a multifaceted artist, writer, and close friend of our host, Scott “Sourdough” Power. In today’s episode, the two pals reminisce about their daring year spent living off-grid in a simple cabin near Churchill, Manitoba. This remarkable experience is detailed in David’s new book, Paradise Creek: A True Story of Adventure and Survival, where he recounts their unforgettable true story of stepping from a bush plane onto a frozen lake and struggling to find their cabin, just three miles away, after being lost for six bitterly cold days. David reflects on how the lessons they learned during this time shaped their diverging creative paths and contributed to their personal growth.

Listeners are treated to a glimpse inside their longstanding friendship, as Scott and David think back to the thrilling days of building their cabin and navigating through the frigid cold, with only the stars as their compass. They share stories of hunting moose for winter meat and the joys and hardships of living in a wilderness log cabin, all while eliciting chuckles about their initial excitement and somewhat naive optimism while gearing up for the expedition. Throughout the conversation, they delve into the various artistic endeavors that emerged from their experiences, from writing poetry to crafting furniture, emphasizing the importance of creative expression and how it intertwines with their survival story.

The episode also touches on the challenges of living in isolation, the beauty of the northern lights, and the thrill of hunting and fishing in the wild. With light-hearted banter and playful humor, the duo shares anecdotes that range from hilarious to harrowing, making for an entertaining listen that highlights the resilience of the human spirit and captures the essence of their year at Paradise Creek. 

Paradise Creek: A True Story of Adventure and Survival is available on Amazon.com. For more information, please visit https://notrealart.com/paradise-creek

Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people.

I am your host.

Faithful, trusty, loyal, tireless, relentless host.

Sourdough coming at you from Crew West Studio in Los Angeles.

Thanks for being here, people.

Man, do we have a great show for you today.

The one and only David Ryan Scott is here.

And David is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, poet, woodworker, leather worker, motion designer, author.

And he's here to talk about his book Paradise Creek, which is available on Amazon.com before we get into this, of course, I want to thank our fiscal sponsor, Arterial.

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Okay?

As I said, we have the one and only David Ryan Scott in the house here today.

This is a special one for me.

David and I met way back in college.

We ended up embarking on a Arctic expedition where we lived in just south of the Arctic Circle for a year, about 120 miles away from the polar bear capital of the world, Churchill, Manitoba.

This is where Sourdough was born.

You know me as Sourdough.

Well, this is.

This is where David Ryan Scott was there when Sourdough was born.

And he and I were living off the grid like Grizzly Adams, with no electricity, plumbing, mail, phones, trails, roads, nothing.

It was completely rustic.

We had to carry guns to protect ourselves because there were polar bears and black bears.

We saw the temperatures go from 68 below zero in January to 98 degrees Fahrenheit in August.

Very extreme environment.

Extreme in so many ways.

The bugs were insane.

The northern lights were insane.

The fishing was amazing.

I mean, I can't.

I could go on and on and David and I were there for a year and we didn't kill each other, obviously.

I mean, we pulled the gun on each other a couple times, you know, because that's going to happen.

But we managed to talk it through and not kill each other.

And he's still my friend after all these years, which is a miracle because you guys know me and you know I'm super annoying.

So the fact that he's still my friend, it's a lovely testament to his patience.

And me and I think we just had an incredible partnership and we had this grand adventure as young men in college.

And he's here today to talk about his book, Paradise Creek.

He's here to talk about Sourdough.

So without further ado, I want to get into this really special conversation I had today with very, very dear friend, partner in crime.

And when I say we almost died together a few times, I'm not lying.

It's absolutely true.

And he even saved my life one time.

And I'll be forever in his debt.

Although sometimes I think he wish he let me die.

But I'm thrilled he's here.

And I can't wait to get into this and I can't wait to share this special episode with you guys.

So without further ado, let's get into this with the one and only David Ryan Scott.

David Ryan Scott, welcome to Not Real Art.

Pleasure to be here.

Is it appropriate that I use your middle name?

Hey, whatever.

Whatever.

Feels good.

You've been called worse, right?

Yes, I have, many times.

Well, David Ryan Scott, I'm so grateful to have you on the show, my friend.

You and I have a.

Have a long history, some might say sordid history, which we will get into.

But I'm thrilled that you took time to sit down today and talk about a lot of really wonderful things that you're involved in.

I mean, you know, one of the things that's been to me, so inspiring over the years having known you is just your natural, raw artistic talent, ability, whether it's playing piano, writing, music, poetry, woodworking, leather craft, outdoor craft.

There's just so many things that you do so well.

And you know the old saying, you know, jack of all trades, master of none.

Well, you're.

You're sort of like jack of all trades, master of most, as far as I'm concerned.

And.

And yet now you have also a new book that you've written or sort of a second edition that's been out, I think, for A while now.

Paradise Creek available on Amazon.com so we have a lot to cover, we have a lot to talk about.

But putting first things first, I mean, when you think about your family and you think about your artistic talent, you know, who do you think that comes from?

Do you think you get your artistic ability from your mom, from your dad?

A little bit of both.

Was it grandma and grandpa, like the Scott, the Scott clan, who I also happen to know pretty well.

They're all pretty damn talented, whether it's music or singing or some other kind of creative expression.

So where does all that talent come from?

Well, first of all, thank you for all of that, Scott.

That was paid me well.

You paid me well.

Yeah, I, I, I appreciate that.

And to, and, and it's a, it's, it's always great to sit down and talk with you.

As far as, as far as where some of that comes from.

You know, I, I would say most of that probably could be attributed to my dad, just given he, his curiosity.

Even at his age, currently at 83.

I mean he's making 3D models on the computer.

He's, you know, he's, he's doing, he and I both just built a, a kayak here.

Not.

He is constantly full of curiosity and loves solving little puzzles and loves to play even at this age.

And a lot of that really, A lot of that with me, definitely.

Yeah.

And you're right, I mean that's one of the things that I, and I've had the privilege and honor of knowing your dad as long as I've known you.

And that's one of the things that's always just blown me away about him.

He just is just a lifelong student.

He's so damn cur and is always into something new and interesting.

It seems like I talked to him or have seen him over the years and you just mentioned having recently built a kayak with him.

But like that's a story that I remember that was always so poignant to me.

You talked about when you were young, a young man, maybe junior high, high school or something, and you came home saying, dad, I want to get a kayak.

You know, can we go maybe investigate, you know, where we could buy one or what have you.

And he said, well, I tell you what, let's do one better.

And he takes you to the library, gets up, checks out a book on how to build a kayak.

And then you and your dad proceeded to build this kayak as a father son endeavor.

And that kayak, I believe is still in use today.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's so.

It's so weird.

I mean, you know.

Yeah, we.

We go.

I wanted to buy a fiberglass kayak, which was like two grand.

And I was like, in eighth grade.

Grade, I didn't have that kind of money.

And.

And my dad said, well, you know, let's.

Let's build one.

And we went to the.

The Internet of the day, which is the library, and amazingly found a book on how to build.

How to build these kayaks.

And.

And yeah, I think that that probably was really the start of my.

My kind of love of building things, you know, and just.

And just having that accomplishment afterwards.

And you could look at it and say, hey, man, I.

This is something I did with my hands.

And I never lost the.

The love of that.

That feeling, you know?

Yes, yes.

Well, but.

But that also gets to the importance of having those people in your life, right, that sort of, you know, show you different things.

And obviously the parents on the front lines of teaching their kids, raising their kids and, And.

And showing their kids the world and what have you.

But you also had, as I recall, an incredible teacher in high school.

I think it was your woodworking class.

Of course.

I don't even think they have woodworking classes in high school anymore, do.

Yeah, right.

I remember you talking about your.

Your woodworking teacher and how he was so instrumental in.

In giving you, I don't know, curiosity and interest and.

And skills around building things and working with wood and maybe.

So when you think about your passion for woodworking, does.

Does it go back to high school?

But who taught you your.

Your kind of love for.

For that creative endeavor, working with wood?

I think.

I think the woodworking teacher that I had, he was inspirational in that he was a great teacher.

I don't know if he necessarily really inspired me to.

To do a lot of woodworking, but he definitely was great at teaching some of the fundamentals and also just teaching in general about everything.

So.

So that had a huge impact on me, really.

I think it was our experience at the.

At the cabin that really kind of solidified this love of building.

And in part because we kind of didn't really have a choice.

There were things that we had to have and that we needed and that really, I think, inspired a lot of this drive to build things, you know, moving forward.

Yeah, well, that.

And we'll get into that for sure.

But, you know, but when I met you, as I recall, when we were about 19.

18.

19, about just 10 short years ago.

Yeah, right, right, exactly.

You know, you were already building Forts in the woods and out there exploring and hunting and, you know, and really, you know, understanding, you know, nature in a way as a.

In.

In wilderness, as a place to find resources and survive, and not just survive, but thrive.

I mean, you were also, of course, finding arrowheads and.

And making arrowheads and just doing different things.

If I feel like even before we.

We met, and that was prior to our grand adventure, which we'll get into, but it feels like, you know, for whatever reason, you were that kid.

You were that kid growing up in the woods, you know, just charmed and entranced and.

And curious and creative out there, you know, building things and doing things in the woods.

Yeah, definitely.

You know, it's.

You make a good point that I'm leaving out a pretty important teacher, and that was the outdoors in general.

Just.

It was so inspirational.

You know, when I was much younger, my got rid of our tv and so I had to find other outlets to.

To kind of entertain myself.

And of course, this was back in the day when pretty much all kids that we knew that were.

That are our age, they were all feral wild animals, you know, that would run around until well after dark with no supervision.

I mean, I was out there, you know, learning how to make different fires when I was, you know, 12, 12 years old, you know, so it's like, you know, all of.

I'd come home covered in mud, smelling like wood smoke, and my mom wouldn't even bat an eye.

She'd roll her eyes because I was.

She'd have to help clean up all my hose.

Hose me down.

Yeah, but.

But, yeah, so that was a.

That was another huge inspiration just in terms of, you know, building, exploring, you know, the curiosity of, you know, what can I make from this or do with this?

And, yeah, that definitely had a.

And another major impact on my love of building and making things, certainly.

Yeah.

And just, you know, I've.

I've shared some of your story with people over the years, and, you know, one of the things that I always loved about sort of the way you grew up and you and I didn't grow up too far from each other.

I mean, we grew up, what, 10 miles away from each other, give or take, you know, very different.

Chesterton, Indiana, and Portage, Indiana, you know, in some ways, you know, different.

Close, but different communities in many ways.

You know, one of the cool things about the way you grew up, as I recall, you grew up sort of on the edge of these dense, you know, woods and forests where you could go and explore.

And as.

As you did that you would find arrowheads.

And for me, as I think about the, you know, you as.

As I know you now, but then also as the kid that I kind of imagined you to be, to find these arrowheads, it was like magic.

It must have, like these.

These portals back to a.

To a time connecting you to.

To a tradition, to a culture, to a history that was in time, you know, obviously primitive and ancient.

But to be finding these arrowheads and then collecting these arrowheads, I mean, what an incredible way to grow up as a young boy and for your imagination and your curiosity and just, you know, so damn inspiring.

Talk about that a little bit.

I mean, how did finding those arrowheads in the woods as a kid running around, how did that impact you, do you think?

You know, the.

The very first one of those that I ever found, the first thing that struck me as I picked that up was the last person that touched this most likely was a native person, you know, and it fascinated me.

It kind of.

Kind of took me off guard.

And I just began reading everything I could read about these people, be it, you know, from the area where I grew up or the plains or wherever.

And realizing, trying to learn, you know, how these people survived in really pretty harsh conditions and how they made these tools and.

And then also discovering there was a deeper connection that they had to the.

To the wilderness, to the outdoors, almost a spiritual connection.

And I started to connect with that on my own personal level, I guess, and it really transformed the way I viewed the outdoors and how I interacted with the outdoors, and it made the outdoors a much more.

In part.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think that just says so much about you as a human, because I think a lot of kids would have just sort of missed all of that.

They would have, you know, seen the arrowhead, picked up the arrowhead.

Cool.

I found an arrowhead and sort of, you know, went on about their day.

Yeah, but, you know, you being you, the artist that you are and the thinker that you are, you know, sort of looking for those deeper meanings and those deeper layer, you know, just is.

Is a testament to you.

And then.

And then that just began, it seems like this love for the woods, love for wilderness, love for nature, love for the out of doors.

And of course, you know, while you're doing this, you're presumably playing piano and, you know, building kayaks with your dad and, you know, just all these wonderful creative endeavors.

And then you and I meet.

One Saturday morning, as I recall, you walked into a retail store that I was working at.

It was a Camping, sort of camping store, outdoor, you know, outfitter, canoes, backpacks, tents.

A place called Indiana Camp Supply there in Hobart, Indiana.

I was working there on a Saturday afternoon.

And in you walk with your, with, as I recall, your mom, your dad and your future wife, Nicole.

Yep, yep.

And here you come in, you know, looking to buy gear because you're about to embark on a Student Conservation association project where you're going to go to the Grand Tetons and build trails in the backcountry and you're there to buy some gear and, and you and I start chatting.

And I happened to be at that time preparing to leave for a canoe trip in northern Canada down the Churchill river towards Hudson Bay, right near Churchill, Manitoba, the polar bear capital of the world.

And you and I, I remember being so envious of your trip and where you were going, talking to you about that.

And then, and then, and then I, if I recall, you were envious of, of sort of my trip that I was going on.

And so we were both sort of in awe of each other.

And then, you know, you bought your stuff, you went on your trip.

I went on my trip, I don't know, a month or six weeks later, eight weeks later, next thing I know, you're back and you start working at the store.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And I was part time, you were full time, and we became friends and we got to know each other and really just seemed to, I think you respect each other for different reasons.

And, and maybe what you didn't know was that this trip that I went on, this canoe trip, kind of changed my life in so many ways because up until that point, I was really not an outdoors guy.

I had not been on a proper camping trip.

I was much more interested in dancing in downtown Chicago and bar hopping and sneaking into blues bars and doing, you know, all manner of shenanigans.

And then when I traveled to this remote wilderness place in northern Manitoba near the polar bear capital of the world, and I had to carry a gun because there were bears and I had to drench myself in bug dope because of the millions of mosquitoes and I had to fight sleep because of the midnight sun.

And then I had to fly in on a plane and damn near die because the pilot doesn't know how to tie knots and news starts to slip off the plane and then I have to take that canoe and canoe out 120 miles to the church, to Churchill, the polar bear capital of the world.

And it changed my life.

It blew my mind in the Most amazing way.

And of course, a core part of that trip was visiting this log cabin that a gentleman by the name of William Forgy, Md.

Dr. Forgy MD.

Backpacker magazine called him the father of wilderness medicine.

He of course, became a dear, dear, dear friend of ours over the last four decades.

But at that time we didn't know Doc that well.

Doc was on the trip that I was on.

And I'm there as this 19 year old kid hearing these stories, watching what's going on and I just, my brain is exploding, my mind is being blown and, and, and I just think to myself, man, I want to live, I want to live here.

I wonder what it would be like to live here for a whole year.

And of course, you're so far north and winters are brutal or 40, 50, 60 below zero.

The summers can be quite warm and beautiful, but very buggy with mosquitoes.

See nothing of black bears and polar bears and all kinds of other things.

But boy, oh boy, did I want to go there for a year and test my mettle and try to see if I could, you know, love it and what it could teach me.

But I didn't want to go alone.

I didn't want to go alone.

I needed to find somebody as crazy as I was ever to do something like that.

And I was wringing my hands about who this rare individual might be.

And it was Dr. Forgy who said, you know, I think you should maybe call that David Scott guy who started working at the Indiana Camp supply store.

Maybe he, maybe I think he might be interested in going.

And if memory serves, I called you and, you know, gave you a quick elevator pitch and you said you were in and the rest is history.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And you know, that's, that's one of the things, it still never ceases to amaze me that you were so willing to dive into that with, as you mentioned, you know, having, having, you know, that was kind of, that trip was your first real kind of outdoor experience.

And wanting to go from that to a full year there was, Was amazing to me.

And I think that's one of the reasons that, that you and I worked as well as we did, because you always approach things with that level of enthusiasm, that level of excitement, even if it's something as crazy as going and living at the cabin for A year.

The ability to kind of dive into that that way was, was.

Was pretty and, and not, not just that.

To dive into it and to come out of it with still such a passion for it and such a love for it and all of the necessary.

You know, they don't call you sourdough for nothing.

And it's, it's an amazing testament to be able to, to pull something like that off.

It's amazing that both of us were able to come out of it the way that we.

The way that we did.

But yeah, in that circumstance, for sure.

Well, it was.

I mean, we gotta unpack a lot of that.

I mean, one of the reasons why we can look back on that year with such great love and affect and appreciation, gratitude is because we did have each other.

We were a fantastic team.

I think we complimented each other very well.

I feel like after a grand adventure like that where truly your life is on the line and we damn near died a couple of times, you come out of something like that either, you know, probably hating each other or, or loving each other and, you know, you and I are still friends after all these years.

So it's such a testament, I think, who we are as people and, and, and to who, you know, how we are to each other.

And so, so there's just.

It was sort of a, you know, like a marriage in many ways.

I mean, you should.

We.

We got it right.

You know, it was a very complimentary thing.

And.

But let's, let's take a couple steps back and, and paint this picture for people.

Because, by the way, the, the.

We were on national television.

We landed a couple book contracts.

I wrote a sourdough cookbook.

You wrote Paradise Creek, which is an amazing compilation of stories, events, adventures, things that happened while we were there, such as hunting and killing our moose, among other things.

So now Paradise Creek is.

You've rewritten it, you've re.

Released it, new cover, new writing, that kind of thing.

It's available on Amazon.com Paradise Creek by David Ryan Scott.

Please go buy it, people.

But, but, but let's take it back because it's one thing to just say, oh, we lived in northern Canada, but let's really help people understand what we're talking about.

So about 500 miles south of the Arctic Circle is a place called Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay.

And Churchill is known among, for many reasons, but the primary reason it's famous is because it's the polar bear capital of the world.

And the wildlife there is incredible.

Beluga whales, you know, swim throughout the bay and the mouth of the R, where the Churchill river meets the Hudson Bay.

The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, famously, when they opened their beluga whale exhibition, famously went to Churchill and got captured the whales out of Hudson Bay.

I happened to be there that summer.

That was the August of 89 trip.

But this.

So you get to Churchill, which is, as I said, in Manitoba, you know, just south of the Arctic Circle, very far north of Winnipeg.

And so it's a two, two day train trip, two nights on a train, or you can fly up there.

But then when you get to Churchill, to get to this cabin, this log cabin, you have to charter a bush plane.

There's no way to drive in, there's no way to hike in.

You have to charter a bush plane to fly you.

In the summer, it's on floats and it lands on a lake or river, drops you off.

Or in the winter, you have to fly in a plane on skis and it'll land on that frozen lake or frozen river and drop you off at 40, 50 below zero.

And so we wanted to go live in this cabin for one year.

It was a rustic log cabin, plastic rustic log cabin.

No amenities, no plumbing, no electricity.

All I had was, it had a wood stove, it had an outhouse.

There was no mail, there was no, no connection to civilized world.

Is completely isolated, completely remote.

And because of that isolation, of course it's very dangerous because not just are you, you know, concerned about wild animals like black bears or polar bears or what have you, but you fall down, you break your ankle, you're on your own.

You, you chop in firewood, you put an ax in your leg accidentally, and you're on your own.

So there's like a huge medical kind of component to this.

Very dangerous in that way.

And so you and I, we meet, we decide we want to go on this trip for a year.

But we had to train for two years, a year and a half anyway.

We trained not just outdoor kind of survival and outdoor camping.

And we went on multiple canoe trips in the boundary Waters because, of course, you and I had to figure out if we actually liked each other.

Yeah, right.

But then we had to train, we had to get medical training.

And first very, you know, Very serious.

First aid training, medical training, how to set a bone, how to.

How to suture, stitch up a laceration with stitches, you know, all of these things.

And.

And this.

So.

So we.

We train and we train and we train and we end up leaving.

We land on a frozen lake, 33 degrees below zero.

And just like that, the plane takes off, and we're standing alone, 500 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

The nearest town, 120 miles away.

No radio, no communication, just you, me, a bunch of gear, a couple of guns, and a cabin about two miles away that we're going to try to hike to.

And that was just the beginning.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you know, there's a couple things here.

First off, like that I.

That morning, you know, the pilot called us and said, hey, we've got to wait for it to warm up to 30 below before he's going to fly.

And when we got to the airport, they're thawing out the hydraulics on the skis of the plane with, like, a John Deere heater.

So that gives you an idea of just how cold that is.

And neither one of us had ever experienced temperatures like that, so we just had every bit of winter gear on that you could.

That we had.

Just like, it was almost comical.

And.

Yeah, just an incredibly powerful place.

And the remoteness of it is almost hard to.

To even fathom until you're standing there.

You realize when you get off of that plane and that plane flies away, just how far away you are from anything, it's pretty powerful.

Well, they.

They say, you know, it's powerful for many reasons.

And one of the reasons is you start to realize that, oh, my God, I can scream my head off for help and no one's gonna hear me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Like.

Like we are truly on our own.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And once that plane drops you off, like, you.

You realize as they're flying away, like, if I'd.

For.

If there's any important thing that I'd forgotten, I'm screwed.

I mean, like, I'm just.

That's it.

You know, I mean, certainly we believed that there were some items at the cabin, and we flew over the cabin prior to landing to make sure that it looked structurally sound or as structurally sound as we could see from the air.

But, yeah, I mean, if there's Some critical element that you forgot, then you're in big trouble.

Well, and also, I mean there's yes, yes, yes and yes, you know, because of our training and incredible partners and supporters and patrons like Dr. William Forgy and ICS books, I mean we, and ICS books at the time, for people who don't know, was a publishing company, small press publishing company that specialized in outdoor recreation.

So they published titles about mountaineering, rock climbing, rafting, canoeing, wilderness survival, wilderness medicine, all these things.

And so our trip was this trip, this expedition that we were embarking on, it was obviously a fairly expensive endeavor that was sponsored by this publishing company for the rights to our journals, to our photos.

They, this company underwrote this trip of ours and this expedition.

And because they were this incredible company with all these experts, we were trained by some of the, you know, best people in the world, you know, in terms of some of these things.

So we were so fortunate to be able to be trained by so many of these people.

And so, and because we had been supported by these incredible people, you know, we had, we had lists of gear and we double, double and triple checked these lists of gear so we didn't forget, get anything important.

And, and you know, and largely we brought everything.

But of course, as you and I both know, there were some few things that got left behind, you know, I don't know, like key, key pieces of stove piping or whatever the case might be that, you know, might have proved catastrophic.

But, but, but also, you know, we had, we had spent hours and, well, months and months and months training, going over lists, going over maps, going over all this stuff.

And when the day came to fly into this cabin, we had the option of landing on the frozen river in front of this cabin at 33 degrees below zero.

In fact, that's what the pilot said.

So just want me to land you in front of the cabin.

But here we are, two 19 year old kids, you know, basically full of piss and vinegar who had been, you know, trained by these experts.

We really felt prepared.

We really felt like we had world in our hands.

And we said no, no, no, no, no, that's too easy, let's not land, don't land us on that river in front of the cabin, please.

Land us on that frozen lake two miles away and we're going to hike in across this wilderness for two miles and we're going to discover this cabin because that's, you know, we're going to earn this.

You know, we're going to, we're going to make this count.

And knowing what we know now, Dave Scott would we've done that again?

Well, you know, it's a double edged sword because my, my initial reaction is hell no, there's no way we would, there's no way we would do that because we suffered pretty dramatically for that first week, which we'll get into.

But like, but at the same time, I think that suffering was the ideal way for us to start.

It put things into perspective and it gave us a newfound respect certainly for the power of, for the power of that country for sure.

So yeah, it's, it's a difficult one.

I like there's a part of me that says no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to do that again.

I certainly wouldn't want to go through what we went through again.

But I think for the sake of the trip itself, it was definitely a really good foundation to, for us to A, because I think it made our relationship stronger because we nearly died a couple of times during that first week.

And B, it gave us a newfound respect for the, for the land and for the environment.

So I think it was really kind of a beneficial thing for the sake of the trip.

But yeah, I think overall I'd say no, I wouldn't, wouldn't want to go through that again.

Well, by the way, your book wouldn't be as interesting if.

Right, right, right, exactly.

So, so just so people know what the heck we're talking about.

So, so you know that old saying about, you know, don't assume it makes an ass out of you and me, right?

And, and boy, I think we both assumed that, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna get dropped off at this cabin.

We've been well trained, we've got our snowshoes.

We're just gonna, you know, because again, there's no trails.

We have to use a compass and we're shooting a bearing.

And we've determined the bearing based on our calculations and pouring over our maps back, back at home in a warm room.

And the old saying about the map is not the land, right?

But we show up at the spot and we're like, oh yeah, we know this.

We got this.

We've been planning this.

It's fine.

We're just going to shoot the bearing.

We're going to hike across this swamp.

It's 33 degrees below zero and we'll be there in just a couple of hours.

You know, little did we realize, of course, that it was so damn cold and there was so much snow that our snowshoes would not keep us on top of the snow like snowshoes are meant to do.

We would be sinking down into the snow and ultimately having to wade through the snow with our gear and for two miles.

And what we thought would take us a couple of hours ended up taking us almost eight hours to go two miles.

And of course, over those eight hours, it's getting colder and colder and darker and darker.

And by the time we finally got to where we were going, wanted to go, which was a river called the Little Beaver river, we were exhausted, we were spent.

And it's so damn cold.

And we get to the river and we think the cabin is going to be right there when we arrive, because we're shooting the right bearing and we get there and the cabin is nowhere to be found.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's not there.

And by the way, we know it's.

We just flew over it a few hours ago.

We saw it from the plane.

We saw it with our.

With our four good eyes.

And here we are now, and we can't find it.

We're freezing our asses off.

It's probably 50 below at this time.

And we are just befuddled, bewildered, confused.

Where the hell is this thing?

Yeah.

And, you know, keep in mind, too, like, you know, earlier that morning when we sat down for breakfast, you're not eating breakfast.

The nerves and the excitement and the adrenaline, you're not eating a very full meal.

Throughout the course of this hike, of course, we brought water along with us.

The food that we brought all required cooking, which we didn't think was a big concern because we were going to be at the cabin that night.

And despite trying to keep that water insulated, halfway through that hike, that water was frozen solid.

So now we've.

We've barely eaten, we're not hydrating very much, and we've just put out, like, an incredible amount of energy trying to make this hike.

And as you said, it's getting colder and colder, and we're searching up and down the bank of this river, trying to find this place.

And we looked.

So we've hiked for eight hours, and now we've searched for another two.

And suddenly we come to the realization that, like, we've gotta.

Something's gotta give.

We gotta do something, because clearly we're not meant to be finding this cabin this night.

It was one of the most maddening, if not the most maddening night of my life because it was such a mystery.

It was such a mystery.

We knew it was right there.

And where and why weren't we finding it?

We were so cold, we were so exhausted, we were so confused.

And yet at the same time, we also thankfully had the presence of mind, to your point, which is like, okay, you know what?

We got to sleep.

We've got to figure out a way to sleep and rest up so that maybe tomorrow when the sun comes up, you know, it'll be right here in front of us and.

And you know, we'll just find it easily because we were exhausted.

I mean, it was.

We were just kind of punch drunk as.

As someone might say, among other things.

And.

But of course.

But of course, assuming does make an ass out of you and me because we assumed, because we assumed we would be at the cabin that night, we decided to only bring our sleeping bags and some food.

We did not pack a tent with us on that particular trek.

And so now we are here in a situation where we have to figure out a way to bivouac.

We have to build some kind of snow shelter, some kind of emergency kind of shelter at.

We would later find out that that night got down to 68 below zero.

So it's 68 below zero.

And you and I are, you know, in the middle of.

Literally in the middle of nowhere, exhausted after hours and hours and hours of hiking and frigid temperatures.

And now here we are in a situation where we have to bivouac and I was completely useless.

And thank God you were there because you saved our lives that night, man.

You built a Quincy, a frame shelter for us, and you did it so efficiently, so effectively, and we essentially threw our bags in that thing and we, as our training taught us to do, we climbed in those bags together, we hugged and shared body heat for a.

What is the longest night of my life?

Because, of course, literally, you're up so far north, it's basically dark for, you know, what, 18 hours, 20 hours a day.

And here we are just trying to survive this bitter cold night, waiting for the sun to come back up so that we either find the cabin or have to hike back to the gear to get our stuff, whatever it's going to be.

Of course we ended up not seeing the cabin, so we did hike back to the gear that.

That next morning.

But thank you for saving our lives, David Ryan Scott.

I appreciate the.

I appreciate that, but I think it was a combined effort.

I mean, you know, for example, that, that, that shelter was comically bad.

It wouldn't have Saved really anyone.

But I think it was the mental.

Mental activity of taking some action to try to do something that was really important.

And I do remember just to give people an idea of how cold it is.

I do recall, you know, there were two things that you could hear.

The silence up there is just deafening.

It's.

It's.

It's almost annoying to ears that are used to sound, but there were two sounds that you could hear.

You could hear trees popping throughout the forest because it, you know, the, the SAP expands and the trees.

Some of the trees will.

Will pop and break.

And then you could also hear the sound of your breath as you exhaled.

It sounded like.

Like, like when you spray a Windex bottle, you know, it would hiss.

So your breath is just crystallizing like the second it hits the.

Hits the air.

So, yeah, to say that was the longest night that.

I think that's a pretty.

I think that's a pretty good.

I think that hits the mark for sure.

Yeah, it's definitely ranks up there.

You know, what, 40 years later, I, I can't imagine a night that was more torturous even than that night because, my God, we were.

We were scared.

I mean, you know, I was.

Anyway, I'll speak to him, you know, like, I know I was scared.

It was like, you know, but it's interesting because when I look, when I think back on that night, I.

It's the confusion that I remember.

Like, so, like the confusion of.

Of where is this cabin?

We know that it's here, and why aren't we finding it?

We did everything right.

We shot the right bearing, we landed on the right lake, and, and we were just continuing conf.

Was so confusing, you know, what, what, you know, why.

What happened?

And we would later find out, of course, that if you're shooting bearing using a compass from.

And you've figured that bearing based on point A and point B, you know, you better be in point A to get to point B, right?

And when you're.

When we were looking at those maps, you know, plotting and planning our trip, you know, that lake on that map is like a half an inch big, you know, on the map, right?

And so the lake becomes point A, and so you're just shooting the bearing right on the map.

But then when you actually land on that lake, that lake is, oh, I don't know, a mile long or longer and a half a mile wide or whatever it is.

And so we landed on that lake, wherever the heck we could land on that lake.

I mean it.

In those conditions and Those temperatures, the pilot just lands wherever the pilot can land.

And so we started shooting our bearing from where the pilot landed and which was more the kind of center of the lake, the middle of the lake.

And turns out we needed to really kind of be at that north end of the lake to start shooting our bearing from, from, from point A.

And we were a couple hundred yards kind of off our mark in terms of starting our trek.

But that 200 yards ends up making quite a difference when you're.

You're trekking over a couple of miles.

So we punched out on that river a mile and a half or so off our mark.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

It's a small detail, but kind of important.

But all that planning.

Yeah, the gods and the devils are in the details and, you know, and that's it.

But it's.

It's just one of those things that you putting your life in jeopardy can be such an innocent mistake.

I mean, you know, you just sort of are doing your best and there's just some little detail that, that you overlook that could make some kind of catastrophic difference.

And thankfully for us, we managed to survive that close call and on and on.

I mean, there your book is filled with all kinds of stories.

And we could talk for an hour just about this first night and everything we did and then how the next three days unfolded because, of course, we discovered I had third degree frostbite.

We're trying to find where the heck this cabin was.

The first three days were harrowing, but we were there for a whole year after.

Yeah, I mean, this was.

It was so funny that, that first you mentioned the frustration.

And it's like, for me, it was the frustration and confusion with a good amount of anger, obviously, in there.

But then on top of that, thinking to myself, we've planned for this for two years.

I've kind of been planning for this without knowing it for my whole life.

And here it is, like the first day we're gonna die up here.

I'm like, what the hell's going on?

Like, this is.

Well, this can't be right.

You know, it just.

This can't be happening.

But again, I think, as I mentioned earlier, I think it was that, that first week was a.

It was a real good.

It was a.

It was a good way to start because it humbled both of us.

You could still see remnants of it, but anytime we pass by that, it was Almost like we would get quiet or we would whisper because you realize like, that that should have been a grave.

Like, it.

It really was that close.

And we had the added benefit, too, of being 19.

You know, you're.

You're invincible when you're 19.

You know, if I.

If that would have happened nowadays, I'd be like, well, it.

I guess I'm dead.

Yeah, I'm just gonna sit here and freeze to death.

Just don't have it in me.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm too tired.

Let's go to sleep.

But, you know, but had we, you know, and that's the other fascinating thing, too.

Had we.

Had we been so unlucky to die that night, we kind of just would have vanished because we likely would have frozen to death in the bivouac.

Our bodies would have likely been devoured by some kind of wildlife, whether it be a wolf or a bear or whatever the case might be.

The.

Of course, the winter would have eventually thawed into spring and summer, and all of the gear and all the stuff that we had stored at Landing Lake would have likely sank to the bottom of Landing Lake.

Basically, there'd be no trace left of us.

And so people would have come to the cabin to maybe pick us up or to visit, and one would have ever been there.

And.

And they just would have wondered what the hell happened to Dave and Scott, because, you know, it was just vanished off the planet.

Which, by the way, would have been a cool way to go.

But.

But so there's just so many stories.

This is just one story.

I mean, we could talk for another hour about hunting the moose, and we knew we needed meat for the winter, and getting a moose would solve that problem.

You know, up until that point, we were hunting small game.

Rabbits or grouse or ptarmigan or certainly fishing.

And we got some.

Some geese and, you know, what have you.

But that was like one meal at a time, you know, kind of a thing.

But getting a moose would have set us up for all winter and just tracking, hunting the moose, skinning, preparing the meat, butchering the meat, smoking the meat.

You know, all of that.

I mean, that's a whole podcast unto itself.

Say nothing of our decision to build another cabin two miles away as a contingency plan.

And.

And that building that cabin, of course, would be probably three hours of conversation.

But all of these stories are in your book, Paradise Creek, and all anybody needs to do is read your book, buy your book, and they're gonna love it because all these stories are in there.

And by the way, Your poetry's in there.

You wrote so many incredible poems while we were there.

And, you know, one of the things that I so appreciated about our relationship and our friendship, and I know that we've really talked about it in these terms before, I don't think we have.

But, you know, this is an arts podcast, right?

So, like, let's put it in context for a minute, right?

I think one of the reasons why you and I got along so well was that at our core, in our heart of heart, so to speak, we're artists and we're truth seekers, and we are trying to, you know, do things with our life and our time and our energy that are meaningful, that hopefully put some beauty in the world and maybe give people, other people joy or give ourselves joy or what have you.

And, you know, we didn't think about this adventure or this expedition within the context of art making or, or an artistic expression.

But one of the things that I've come to sort of think about over the years is sort of like, you know, what did I.

Did I do this because I'm an artist at my heart?

In my heart.

I mean, was this about some kind of creative expression, some kind of artistic expression?

I mean, if I had known then what I know now, I think I would have absolutely have said, this is an artwork, this is performance art.

We're gonna go.

We're gonna time travel back a hundred years, which is basically what it was.

We time traveled back to a simpler time in a remote, primitive area, and we not just survived, we thrived, but we were creative the whole time.

We were making things, doing things, creating things, whether it' building a cabin or writing poems or making sourdough bread or what have you.

And in recent, in recent years, I've.

And, and, and was this an artwork?

Was this a cre.

An artistic expression?

Well, it's interesting that you.

That you mentioned that, because one of the things that I recall quite vividly, one of the things that I learned from you was you always.

You always had this fascination with product design, like, how can I make this thing better?

What can we do to make this thing better?

And when we first got to the cabin, you know, everything that was in there was essentially came from previous trips.

Anybody who goes and spends any length of time there, they kind of make their own modifications and do what they want.

And so, for example, we built new shelves, and the previous shelves, they had posts that ran to the ground.

And the inside of this cabin is 12 by 12.

So real estate is valuable.

And we got.

We tore all those out and we had these beautiful hanging shelves.

We built this great table for writing upstairs that, you know, pivoted on hinges and could be stored away.

We just took these clever approaches.

Same thing with the cabin itself.

When we built the cabin, we decided to put a diagonal floor in there for no reason other than the fact that it just looked really cool.

I mean, and no one would ever think of really doing that.

I don't.

You know, most of them are just.

The floor as a design feature is kind of an afterthought in cabins.

It's just a thing, you know, but we saw it as like, oh, let's make this look cool.

Let's.

What can we do to make this better?

And.

And it was a lesson that.

That sticks with me, that I. I still think about, you know, and it was something that you.

You talked about it with everything that you interacted with.

You're like, what could I.

You know, how could this thing be better?

How could it.

You know, how could it be.

It work better?

And I think it's a. I think that that in of itself is a very artistic expression.

Well, thanks for that.

And.

And.

But I mean, you and I are very similar in that.

In that way.

And I mean, you.

You.

I mean, you are, you know, in many ways even a better example because you were constantly building things, creating things that improve the quality of our life.

I'll never forget and.

And always appreciate the day you built the swing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The swing we built was your idea.

It was your idea.

And.

And you said, you know, we just.

We should build a swing here.

And.

And we.

And we did.

And we built a swing on the edge of the tree line overlooking the river.

And we could sit on that swing and talk or play your guitar or just hang out on the swing overlooking this pristine river, eagles flying by, whatever the case might be.

And.

But that was.

That was an example of a.

Of us being a good team together.

But I mean, it was also having those.

That vision, that idea of, like, oh, this.

This little innovation, this little design, this little product, this little build is going to really improve the quality of our lives.

And they're just, again, so many examples of that.

And I am so grateful that.

That I was so committed.

Is it as annoying as it was for you in so many contexts?

Yeah.

One of the things that I'm so grateful I was committed to was carrying my camera and taking photos.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

And.

And Documenting that year.

And, and, and you know, we have so many incredible photos.

Yes, we have videos and what have you too, but really the, the mainstay was the 35 millimeter slide film that we have.

And of course, you know, we have thousands of slides now from that trip.

And, and, and I just was dogged in my, in my commitment to carrying that camera.

I, I am grateful to this day because not only did you take, not only did you very accurately record this entire thing, but the photos themselves are phenomenal.

And like you said, we've got a couple thousand of them and I could always tell when looking through them who was holding the camera.

And it's clear, like all of my shots, for some reason I, I felt like I wanted to do vertical shots.

And it's really annoying to me.

Drives me crazy when I'm trying to edit or do anything with them.

Of course now with all the AI stuff, you could just expand it, but it's not real, so.

Right.

So, yeah, all of.

I'm so grateful that not only did you take those, but you took incredible, incredible photos.

You could see some of those I actually put together.

I don't even know if I mentioned this to you.

I put together a site called Paradise.

Creek Cabin Breaking on the Not Relar podcast.

Yeah.

So if you, if you check that out, you can click through just kind of some, you know, eat the.

I.

There's like four sections in there.

They kind of COVID the four sections of the book and you can kind of click through visual representations of each one of those sections.

And pretty much all of those.

All of those photos, I think were.

Were taken by you.

And of course I need to.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I need to go back in there and actually give appropriate credit where credit is due.

I just threw them up there, so.

No, no, no, no, don't come at me.

Well, because I mean, the truth of the matter is, I mean, you, you, you off.

You also took so many great photos, you know, was.

You know, it doesn't even matter.

Attribution doesn't matter.

That.

What matters is that we had the camera and we were committed to taking those photos.

And that is the archive, you know, that is the evidence and the proof.

Because of course, you know, a.

And we'd be relying on our memory.

And even with them, our memory fails.

And it's interesting how you tend to remember things and, and maybe not always accurately, but then of course now, you know, 40 years on or whatever it is, 35 years plus, you know, nature has had its Way.

Because, of course, that's the way of nature.

You know, lightning strikes and fires start, and nature reclaims itself.

And I think that was one of the things that maybe we.

Burned.

And so we were.

We were in this very lush time of beauty, and it was just this full, you know, wild place.

It was a barren wasteland.

Then after the fire.

Yeah, I mean, it looked like.

In some places, it looked like.

Like an atomic bomb had gone off.

I mean, just areas, like high bluffs where you normally couldn't see anything because it's so dense with trees.

Just the trees are just gone, you know, and, you know, even around the cabin, I mean, luckily, I guess, for better or worse, a lot of the.

A lot of the trees are still standing, but they're just.

They're just.

They're just sticks, basically.

They're just.

They're cooked.

Well, and remember, speaking of cooked, I mean, remember the trees, like.

Like.

Like the side of the tree that face the cabin burned off, but then the other side was fine.

Like, there were trees that were half burned.

Right.

Because the.

Facing.

The cabin.

Facing side of the tree just burned off.

And then the other.

The back half just seemed to be fine.

Yeah, yeah.

But then there are all the trees riddled with bullet holes.

Yeah, I was gonna say all the.

Bullets, all the ammo just was, like, firing, you know, everywhere.

Yeah, it must have been.

I'm sure the outhouse burned like an oil well.

And all of the ammunition and fuel, we had gallons of kerosene and white gas.

And I mean, it must have been a.

Must have been a pretty impressive site.

It was so hot, in fact, that we found the stove door.

This is a solid cast iron stove door, and there was a huge dent in that stove door, which means that it clearly, it heated up enough to become malleable, and something fell on it and it dented it.

I mean, that's how hot that fire was.

It must have been just, like, getting crazy A crazy inferno.

Crazy inferno.

And just that whole part of that land, of course, Canada, as we speak, is burning right now crazily.

I mean, wildfires in the.

Certainly in the day and age of a kind of a global drought, climate change situation, these wildfires are more pronounced than ever.

But wildfires have been happening forever.

And that part of Manitoba burned quite significantly.

070809 and we lost everything.

You know, we have these photos.

Yeah.

And it's sort of this amazing kind of series of photographs of this, like, cycle of life of this wild place.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, aside from the emotional challenges of it, just, you know, seeing these places that, you know, are so important to your makeup, seeing those things gone, it's gutting.

But.

But obviously, you know, going back up there when you're much older, you know, creeping up on 50 at that point in time, you realize you're not 19 anymore.

It was.

It was a.

It was a tough one.

That was, if I remember right.

I mean, it was brutal.

It was the brutal.

It was a brutal.

It was brutal on so many levels, and it might have even been as brutal.

It was certainly a different kind of brutality, but.

But.

But it was certainly as brutal in.

Obviously it was summertime.

It was much.

But the.

The terrain, the waterfall, record rainfall, the river was raging.

We couldn't canoe the river.

We had to portage way more, 10, maybe 20 times more than we might have imagined.

As I recall, we lost, collectively, we lost over 20 pounds in the first five days because we were portaging hundreds of pounds of gear and a big canoe over miles and miles and miles.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we made that.

Actually, this was my.

One of my grand ideas.

I'm like, yeah, this is.

This is what we should do.

It's going to be great.

You know, it's going to be amazing.

And.

And we did.

And yeah, it was.

It was painful, for sure.

Although I do miss being able to.

To essentially e. You want to eat as much as you want to eat, and you're going to burn it off in, you know, you're a matter of.

Hours starvation at that point, because.

Yeah, right, right, exactly.

Can't eat enough calories.

Yeah.

From what you're burning.

And yes.

I mean, we have scratched the surface today because there are so many stor.

Within the stories with the layers and dimensions and facets to, you know, this epic trip that shaped both of our lives forever.

You know, emotionally, spiritually, physically, you know, the scars are real.

Both physical scars and emotional scars.

Yep.

But I'll tell you, speaking for myself, you know, it taught me lessons.

And whether it's a global pandemic or whether my city that I live in Los Angeles is burning to the ground as it did last January, you know, whatever life throws at me, I feel better prepared because of the lessons that we learn.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

I think coming out of that, it definitely, from a.

From my perspective, it gave me a lot of.

A lot of confidence and a lot of just.

Yeah, confidence in.

In what I was able to do or how I was able to handle certain situations.

Like whenever things get really bad, you know, sometimes I will reflect on that first night and think, well, yeah, this is.

This is doable.

I'm not too worried about this because I made it through that.

I made it through that first night in that first week, and.

And of course, circumstances are always different, but it's definitely a big confidence builder, you know, to be able to handle some of that stuff.

Just the mosquitoes alone.

Yeah.

Just the mosquitoes alone will teach you patience in a way that nothing else can.

And then, you know, years later, we were honored by being accepted into the Explorers Club.

How cool is that?

Yeah, it's amazing.

I mean, you know, especially when you think of some of the names that are associated with that club.

You know, all of the great, the firsts, the fastest, the farthest, the highest, all of those records, those people are all in the Explorers Club.

You know, it's a pretty.

Pretty amazing group of people, for sure.

Yes.

We're in.

People like to talk about fraternities or sororities that they were in in college.

I mean, I didn't do any of that shit, and you didn't either.

But the fraternity we're in is the Explorer Club, and.

And we're there with folks like Ernest Shackleton and Neil Armstrong and Teddy Roosevelt and.

And those guys get to claim that they're part of a group with David Ryan Scott and Scott Sourdough Power, so.

That's right.

We're classing up the joint over there.

Exactly.

That's how we do it.

That's how we do it.

Well, partner, I'll tell you what.

You and I, as we know, we could do this for hours and hours.

Before we wrap up, though, I want to.

I want to just.

Just congratulate you on all of the amazing work you've been doing recently.

You know, you really are a Renaissance man, sort of a Swiss army knife of creativity, whether it's writing your book or working with your clients doing, you know, motion graphics and animation, you know, whether it's playing music or writing poetry or whether you're in the shop building furniture or making leather good goods.

And what I love about you, you're such an artist because you don't.

You don't care about making money on any of these things.

Yeah, yeah.

You just love the doing and the making.

And you.

And like so many artists, you're such a perfectionist.

You know, your OCD type A nature can't help but force you to.

To make at such a level of precision.

But when I see the things you're doing, whether it's a wood piece or a leather piece or whatever, just the level of craftsmanship and precision and excellence, whether it's the materials you choose or the hand stitching or the.

Whatever it is, the love you put into it is just so obvious.

And the care and the attention and the, the level of excellence and perfection, it just is so obvious to me.

And all these various works.

So kudos to you.

What, what are you working on right now?

Is anything.

You got a project in the shop right now?

You know, I'm doing some.

I'm doing a little bit.

Bit of woodworking.

I've been trying to kind of video some of the woodworking stuff that I've been doing.

And it.

I have mixed feelings about it only because I've come to realize that I'm no longer making a thing.

I'm making a Video.

And it's frustrating to me because it's like I just want to build, but at the same time, there's things that I'm doing that I feel like, you know, I, it's not, I don't mistake this for me trying to be a content creator.

It's just I.

There's certain things that I want to put out there.

Yes.

That I think would benefit other people that are doing the same thing.

It's I.

Most of the kind of more in depth woodworking or leather working things that I picked up.

I've learned almost all from watching videos like that.

So.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm doing right now, trying to build this lamp and video it.

It's very painful and frustrating because you're really making a video, you know, you're focusing on the shots, trying to get, get things right.

Right.

And I'm, I'm not even trying to get like, too nerdy or too.

Yeah.

Overly involved in it, but even just trying to get the basics down.

It's, it's a lot of, A lot of work.

It's a different.

Yeah, I mean, I, I totally get that.

I mean, because, you know, it's sort of, you know, I guess two parts of the brain or two different kinds of creative exercises.

It's like, you know, you're trying to make art, I. E. Your leather piece or the furniture or lamp or whatever it.

Which is.

Obviously requires very, you know, a high level of focus and attention.

And then all of a sudden you're now then having to pause that and think about your angles or what have you.

It's hard to find your flow and your rhythm.

Right.

When you're exactly between those two.

Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's that flow that is so much.

That's the thing that you strive for.

Like when you forget to eat.

Yeah.

Right.

Then you know, you're, then you know you've hit the sweet spot.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and so having to break that constantly and change where the camera is or it's, it's, it's annoying as hell, but that.

I don't know, maybe.

Maybe I'll, maybe I'll crack it.

You'll crack it.

I mean, you always do.

We did figure that.

You never did.

No, I, I gave it, I gave it the old college try.

Definitely.

It's tricky without, like, things like an axle and bearings.

It's a little difficult to make something smoothly spin around, but, yeah, it was.

But why did you want to do that?

Because you found the most amazing decomposing feldspar on the riverbank.

You had this incredible clay.

Oh, my God, I want to shape this clay.

I need a potter's wheel.

But of course, you ended up making a few vases anyway, even without it.

So that's just the kind of artist you are.

Yeah.

I appreciate that, Scott David Ryan Scott.

You are a man among men.

You are a gentleman and a scholar, and you make me a better person.

Thank you so much for being my friend.

Thank you.

After all these years, you.

If anybody had reason to kick me to the curb, it would be you.

And yet somehow you managed to.

To still be my friend.

I'm so grateful to call you my partner.

You stood up at my wedding.

I stood up in yours.

And let's.

Let's.

Let's stand up in each other's second weddings.

Okay?

Yeah, sounds good.

Just don't tell.

Just don't tell Nicole.

Tell our wives.

All right, partner.

Well, you have a beautiful day, and thank you for coming on and playing.

Podcast with me was absolutely my pleasure.

I love nothing more than talking to you and especially talking to you about our shared experience up in up in Canada.

Foreign.

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