TUS01506- Walk on the Wild Side Part 1

Marc Moss: [00:00:00] We are currently looking for storytellers for the next tell us something storytelling event. The theme is a sense of place. If you’d like to pitch your story for consideration, please call 4 0 6 2 0 3 4 6 8 3. You have three minutes to leave your pitch. Our friends from the deaf community are welcome to Pitch by emailing info.

At tell us something.org. The pitch deadline is May 21st. I look forward to hearing from you. Welcome to the Tell Us Something podcast. Tell us something is a nonprofit that helps people share their true personal stories around the theme. Live in Person Without Notes. I’m Mark Moss, your host and executive director of Tell Us Something.

Sometimes adventure is chosen, sometimes it’s thrust upon you. In this episode of the Tell Us Something podcast, we delve into the journeys of four remarkable people. A wildlife biologist is forced to choose between a romantic [00:01:00] proposal and grizzly bear safety after embracing the title of poop ologist.

Rad Watkins: I had a friend actually that year who got bluff charged twice.

Twice. He had a bear come at him like 35 miles an hour or whatever they do, and stopped 10 feet away. That guy went through a lot of underwear.

Marc Moss: Across the globe. A solo traveler in Peru meets a mysterious motorcyclist and must decide if an invitation to ride with him to Canada is a leap of faith or pure risk.

Bridget Feerick: The music dims and fades as the lights and everything just goes to the wayside. He is now walking towards me as a sea of people. Part time slows down.

Marc Moss: Back home, a relaxing winter staycation quickly turns into chaos, involving 11 terrified chickens. A desperate call from Chile and an unfortunate fire,

negative windchill for two weeks and 10 degrees, [00:02:00]

maybe the high of 25. It was cold and the hellgate winds came ripping up the valley and we’re creating snow drifts like this.

Finally two hikers seeking mountain solitude in the Bob Marshall wilderness. Hold their breath for a wildlife encounter that could define their trip.

Brian Christianson: I’m running around like a headless chicken, trying to figure out what the compositions are, and the lights constantly changing. I am. Frantic trying to figure this out.

Marc Moss: Four storytellers shared their true personal story on the theme, walk on the wild side. Our stories today were recorded live in person in front of a packed house on October 7th, 2025 at the George and Jane Denison Theater. Remember this, tell us something. Stories sometimes have adult themes.

Storytellers sometimes use adult language. Please take care of yourselves. The University of Montana where the George and Jane Denison [00:03:00] Theater is located, stands on the Aboriginal Territories of the Salish and Kalispell people. We also recognize the Kni, the Blackfeet, the Shoshone, and the many other indigenous peoples who have called this place home and whose histories called and languages continue to enrich our community.

When we recorded this episode of the podcast, the Aspens were turning gold and the air was crisp. It was a sacred time of transition. For generations. The original stewards of this valley understood autumn as a time for the final harvests for preparing food and medicine for the coming cold, for the last hunts before the snow, and for gathering to share stories that will sustain the community through the winter.

This land is not a relic of the past. It is a living, breathing entity deeply connected to the ongoing lives and traditions of indigenous peoples. Our first storyteller is Rad Watkins, who as a wildlife biologist, embraced the title of [00:04:00] poop biologist and carried a pungent fermented concoction called the Brew into the back Country to entice grizzly bears.

When the love of his life came to visit his remote camp, he had to quickly learn the true rules of bear country before a romantic proposal turned into a terrifying close encounter and a story that he calls wild proposals. Thanks for listening.

Rad Watkins: Thank you. Blood Lure is a combination of decomposed fish and cattle blood. It left in a barrel till it finally ages into what bear colleges call the brew. I learned this working on a bear, DNA project in Glacier National Park. During that project, we used the brew to lure in bears to hair traps, [00:05:00] where we used barbed wire to collect DNA samples on hair follicles.

We also did that by using rub trees on trails and collecting grizzly bear scat or bear scat, which is poop as you walk along the trail and shove it into little test tubes saying what it smelled like and what you thought they ate last. My father-in-law still likes to remind me that I used to be a ologist.

Being a ologist is not everyone’s dream job, but if you’re a wildlife guy like me, working in the crown of the continent with charismatic megafauna, grizzly bears in this case is a dream come true. The only bad part was I had to move even further from the love of my life. Gretchen. Gretchen and I met in graduate school in the [00:06:00] up of Michigan.

She was brilliant. She was an environmental engineering master’s degree student. She’s beautiful, blue eyes, blonde hair. She’s athletic. She liked mountain biking and snowboarding, and most importantly, didn’t care what the weather was like. She liked to be outside as much as I did, so I was so smitten, but being brilliant.

She graduated ahead of me and she moved away to Vermont to go do conservation work there. And I long to be in the Rocky Mountains, so Gretchen supported my dream job pursuit. Um, but you know, she was a little worried. She wasn’t worried that I wouldn’t come back to her, but she was worried that I wouldn’t come back to her because of the blood lure and the bears.

And so she bought me a little book, told me how to behave in the back country. How to watch out for these bears and what to do. [00:07:00] And so as I moved from Vermont to Montana, camping along the way, I spent my nights not reading that book. That’s because I went to the University of Montana and hey Bobcat guys, that doesn’t mean we can’t read.

What it means is that I’ve done a lot of backpacking in bear habitat, and bears always ran away. When I surprised them, they were gone, and if a bear did come at me, I knew what to do. I would curl up in the fetal position and play dead, which I just need to warn you guys, is not what you should do. So that was a misnomer at the time.

So I was a little scared, hiking and camping with the blood lure, but carrying around spools of barbed wire and blood lure, plus all your regular backpacking stuff off trail in the back country of Glacier National Park. You grew tired. Didn’t matter how scared you were, you slept. I didn’t worry about bears until Gretchen [00:08:00] came to visit.

I had a plan. This was her first time coming to Montana. The land that I love, the place of beautiful peaks and clean water, wild animals. My plan really needed Gretchen to stay alive. I wanted to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her. So I decided to level up and read that first chapter of the book.

And it surprised me. It was like, Hey, bears are basically like humans. We all do things based on how confident we are moving forward, right? Like, do we think we can get away with this? And so bears, if they think they can leave comfortably, they’ll leave. But if they think you’re gonna get ’em, you’re gonna corner ’em, they’ll fight.

It’s a lot like, um, you know, if you’re taking public transportation and some tough looking person gets on the, the. Bus or train or whatever it is. You don’t wanna stare ’em down. You don’t wanna be like, I, I see you. [00:09:00] ’cause they’ll be like, what you looking at? And then you have a problem. But you don’t wanna be like, oh man, where’s my wallet?

Put in my underwear. Hope they don’t get me. ’cause then you invite an attack, right? So with bears you do the same thing. If you surprise a bear, you want it to feel comfortable going about its way. So you, you slump your shoulders and you just kind of keep your periphery on them. And you talk so they know you’re not appraised species and you hopefully give them their space to move out confidently.

If they do feel trapped, they might charge you, but you still don’t just drop and play dead. ’cause if you dropped and play dead and curled up in the fetal position, they might think it’s the DoorDash guy and they might think even though they weren’t going to attack you now they’re like, Hey, maybe that’s a cheap, easy meal.

I’ll do it. And apparently most charges from grizzly bears. Or what they call bluff charges. So they’re gonna stop 10 feet away or veer off. So if you are gonna play dead, you wait till that last [00:10:00] nine feet before you drop down and you don’t curl in the fetal position. You put your hands behind your head, you keep your pack on, you kind of spread your legs so you’re not so easy to tip over.

You keep face down. Maybe you have your bear spray to get off a shot if you can. Alright, so you know. Bluff charges. Oh, okay. I’m ready for that. I had a friend actually that year who got bluff charged twice. Twice. He had a bear come at him like 35 miles an hour or whatever they do, and stopped 10 feet away.

That guy went through a lot of underwear, so Gretchen came out and I have my plan to marry her. We’re below Heaven’s peak. I’m all nervous and sweaty not thinking about bears at all. Just thinking about, oh, is she gonna say yes? And she did. And I was so happy we went off Pinky swinging down the trail, you know, just blissing out, bam, turn the corner first time all year, right into a bear.

And so the bear like jump jumps off the trail and it’s like, you could see it moving around in the bushes. It’s [00:11:00] like 20, 30 feet away and it’s. Huffing it’s, it’s wooing. It’s like, which means it’s nervous. It’s trying to figure out what to do, but we knew what to do. We slumped our shoulders. Didn’t quite look at it, started talking like a human.

In fact, I talked to the bear. I said, Hey bear, thanks for having us in your habitat. You are a magnificent creature. It looks like you’re a vegetarian bear. A lot of huckleberries up there, so maybe you wanna go check ’em out. And lo and behold, bear went off and we, yeah, right. So we got to celebrate the night of our engagement by reading chapter two of that book.

It’s a much different deal. So chapter two said, sometimes these bears know where you are. They smell something in your camp. Something, you’re cooking something in your tent. Don’t bring food in your tent ever. It said, you know, hang your food over [00:12:00] there. Eat over here, camp here. Never bring food in the tent.

Stay in a tent because it’s an optical illusion for bears. They don’t really know what’s in there. Okay? It’s a different deal and scare them away. ’cause you don’t want them getting more confident with every step. You wanna say, Hey, I’m not an easy meal. This is not your territory. Get outta here. Alright.

So we did a couple of hitches, did our hiking all over the place. Then we got sent up to the two Chuck Campground, which is right by the Canadian border for a mission. The next day, on our way up there, we stopped at Pole Bridge, had a trout dinner, had a couple of beers. We weren’t in a government rig by the way, and uh, went on up.

Gretchen passed out. She was tired. She’s been hiking her butt. And I set up the the tent by the lights of the car. ’cause I don’t like to use flashlights. And you just see one little spot. You don’t have that whole night vision, but you need something to set up a tent. So I had my four season tent, I had pillows and everything, love nest.

But she was out so staggered, helped Gretchen stagger [00:13:00] into there. She passed out immediately. I went back to the car, clicked off the lights on the Isuzu Subaru, or not Isuzu Trooper, excuse me. Um, and just gave thanks for a minute to be out there and to about, to start my life with this beautiful woman.

And I lay down in my sleeping bag and I hear right outside the screen, like, yep. Oh, that’s a bear. So I sat up. Hey Bear. Hey, hey. And boom, bear moved off. You could hear it. You could hear it kind of circle and then go away. And I didn’t know what to do. Listen for a while, so decided to go back to sleep. So there we are, falling back asleep just as you’re drifting off right at the edge of this.

Hey, hey Bear. Get outta here. Hey, and the bear ran off again. [00:14:00] And I didn’t know was it gone. I didn’t have a flashlight. I wanted to come out of the tent. You know, I felt like my ear was like four feet wide, like listening. And you know that scene in the horror movie where like the guy and the girl are making out on the couch and they hear something outside and the guy’s like, I hear something.

Hold on, I’ll be back to check that out. Meanwhile, the ax murderer is like tiptoeing out there and you’re like, he’s not coming back. So I was like, okay, I watched that movie. I’m not doing that. So we were like, how do we get to the trooper and not get outta this tent? ’cause we’re supposed to stay in this tent.

It’s an optical illusion. Well, Gretchen’s an environmental engineer and the two of us got together and figured something out. So we ripped a hole in the bottom of the tent and we, we, we picked it up like Fred Flintstone’s car, like a giant turtle shell, and we booed over to the trooper. We unzipped that door, we reached in and we jumped into the [00:15:00] backseat and in the fetal position, we spooned all night long and we have been for the last 25 years.

Thank you so much.

Marc Moss: Thanks, rad. Rad Watkins is a lifelong nature lover and conservationalist based in Missoula, Montana. He currently serves as executive director of the Missoula Conservation District, where he helps lead efforts to protect local streams, wildlife, and working lands. His career has taken him from the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, studying endangered seabirds to Glacier National Park, collecting grizzly bear DNA to the north winds of Wisconsin tracking wolves and rehabbing bald eagles.

Rad also loves personal development because as he says, he needs it and he’s a certified life coach who does some [00:16:00] leadership speaking and training at home. He, his wife, Gretchen, and their kids, Lena and Norris, enjoy doing what Montanans do best. Floating rivers, skiing, hiking, and spending time outdoors with their dogs and horses.

In our next story, Bridget Ric flies thousands of miles to Peru and connects with a mysterious motorcycling, solo traveler, with a language barrier, a gut feeling, and a wild invitation to ride with him to Canada. She must decide if taking a leap of faith is worth the risk of a true life adventure.

Bridget calls her story, my gut says what? And it was awesome. Thanks for listening.

Bridget Feerick: I was 27 at a crossroads. I could either keep digging the grave. I had been digging for the last six and a half years. As I stayed stuck in a toxic relationship that never felt right from the start, or I could get on a [00:17:00] plane and fly thousands of miles away to another country to explore who I was beyond all the comforts, the conveniences, the pain, the sadness, and the tears that it consumed too much of my life.

At this point, I chose the plane. So now here my feet are exploring the dance floor, my hips moving to the Latin music and the club at the per hostel in Cusco, Peru. My eyes notice this very attractive man on the other side of the bar. I’m now enraptured in his eyes. Try not to be too creepy, staring Occasionally, his eyes are this deep brown eyes, dark black hair, dark bearded.

He has these glasses that are thick and studious, framing his also luscious eyelashes. He [00:18:00] wasn’t too long before he also noticed me, and now we are stargazing into one another’s souls throughout this evening as I’m moving my body. At one point I noticed he’s going for the wheel of deals. He’s about to spin it, and now it’s starting.

The arm is teetering between that. Buy one, get one, and then the 15% off. And then this little sliver that said, share a shout and have a kiss. So now our eyes are locked in on each other and the music dims and fades as the lights and everything just goes to the wayside. He is now walking towards me as a sea of people.

Part time slows down. I am freaking out because I’m also like, what’s my breath like, or is my, [00:19:00] am I stinky? I don’t know. Should I really just run? At this point, I am like shaking as I am actually right now. I am shaking and I find my feet. I find my gut that’s telling me actually just to root down in this moment.

Let him come towards me, and so now he’s six inches away. He asked me,

I kind of reluctantly say, see and be feeled before I know it, our lips are now locked. Our bodies are touching. The energy is now circulating between my body into his body and his to mine, and we are one Cosmo in this moment. Still nothing else matters. The next morning I wake up in his bed and now we are [00:20:00] taking our deep fluent language, a body and energy into the, into the breakfast in which we’re now entering a whole nother level of language in which it becomes quite apparent now that we have a language barrier.

I speaking little bit of Spanish and hoping at this point that all the swish with Spanish would just flood back. All those hours spent in classes had and it had not unfortunately, and he struggling with his English. We quickly grab our phones and are now using Google Translate. He says, may Shamo at one point and.

And so I’m kind of confused ’cause I’m used to saying mamo, which is my name is, and he explains to me that in Argentina people say, when they say the double L’s in the Y, it makes a sh sound. Which would explain why I was hearing a lot of sh happening. [00:21:00] He wasn’t trying to hush me. We were eager to understand and I quickly learned that he is also a fellow tra solo traveler artist.

And I too, he is moving, making the cha route on motorcycle from Bueno Aires, Argentina, to Canada. He asked me if I like to join him for a ride in the mountains in Cusco there. And so I quickly say yes. He introduces me to his bike. His bike is a very unique bike. It’s a CG Honda, Honda one 50. It’s a small one for those Motorheads, I might know what I mean.

And the, there was a brown sheepskin on the saddle with these plastic, maybe five gallon jugs that he had cut the top off and then drilled on the side as alternative. ER bags. He had a rack in the front and a rack in the back. I jumped on the back and now the wind is in my hair, feeling the cool air of the Andes.

At one point, we stop and take in [00:22:00] the Cusco view, the city view. It’s serene. We are nestled up with next to each other. He looks into my eyes and says, would you like to join me on my journey? He quickly follows that by, I’ve never asked anybody this before and I feel honored and also a little bit taken back like, I mean, who does that?

Like what Maybe we’ve known each other now less than. 24 hours, we would actually go now on our second or third date to, uh, jump on a motorcycle, be totally codependent and share a 2% 10, share a little motorcycle, uh, navigate the language barrier as we n navigate cultural differences. And on top of that, we’re traveling cohabitating.

Who the fuck does that? I say, here’s my number, let’s keep in touch. I had to finish, uh, two months here at the, at this farm that I’m working [00:23:00] at as an exchange, and, and you finish up your time and let’s just keep in touch. So during those two months, we’re now texting each other and it just kind of fizzles out.

I occasionally get a picture and that’s exciting, but I don’t feel that same electric pole, but that there’s something that I feel deep in my gut. So now I’m on that airplane. I am now moving from Cusco, Peru, the Andes, to Northern Peru, the to airport. I am actually not just taking one plane, but I am taking two planes and on this plane that gives me plenty enough time to go through all the what ifs.

So the what if he’s actually into black magic and he has a whole bunch of black magician friends in which I’m actually part of a setup in which when I get there, I’m gonna be part of a, a seance and I wanna be the sacrifice, and then brutally murdered and cut up to tiny pieces and then grilled, and then [00:24:00] be part of some cannibal ritual ritualistic feast.

I am now panicking. My little puddles of sweat accumulating in my hands are now lakes. I am flooding from sweat from my armpits. Breathing is a far distant thought at this point. I wish I had gotten my pilot license so I could really just hijack this plane and go back to Cusco, Peru, where at least I felt a little bit of comfort and familiarity there.

The plane lands. I find my feet. I find my gut, I find my breath. I get off that pain plane. I go to the baggage claim. I grab my heavy ass backpack, I put it on, I look at my phone and it’s actually, my phone is now dead. And so, and then I’m just trying to remember like, who, where did we even think about a place to meet?

I mean, I haven’t [00:25:00] seen him this far. So now I’m panicking once again and I am, uh, making circles in this small airport, and I’m trying, I’m losing my footing, I’m losing my breath once again. So I’m reaching into my pocket for that. Plan B, I am gripping that plan B, I walk out the doors and lo and behold, who’s standing there in that parking lot with his motorcycle and an extra helmet in his hand waiting there for me.

I’m feeling foolish. A kind of silly, a little bit awkward, and yet this little bit of intuition in me tells me keep walking forward. So now what? We are, six inches from each other, four inches, two inches. We are now embracing one another. Our hearts find one another. I’m reminded. Why I [00:26:00] got on that plane in the first place.

That energy is now circulating through us and we are back in the cosmos. I jump on that motorcycle, that motorcycle takes me three months in on this incredible journey that I could have never imagined. Moving from Northern Peru to Northern Ecuador. We always were committed to holding one another through the ups and downs.

One of our last adventures was the el de condor, the flight of the condor, the tallest swing in Ecuador. I got on that stage for that swing. The floor dropped beneath my feet, down and out 197 feet. I am now over the edge, flying over the [00:27:00] edge of the mountains in which I’m 8,500 feet in the Andes in Bonos, Ecuador.

I first, I, I’m scared and I shit my pants, and then I, I’m now laughing hysterically like a mad woman. And then after this rush passes, I feel this ease of going back and forth on the swing my eyes find the horizon. I take in the cool air and the beautiful view, and I remember how I got here, how I followed my gut, how all these people along on my journey.

Held me up. They supported me, they trusted me. They loved me, they accepted me. They shared everything that they had all these people on this journey. [00:28:00] And now here I am feeling the fullness, the richness of life. I, in that moment, I take a vow to myself. I will never turn my back on my intuition again because it is my intuition that got me here in this moment feeling the most alive.

I had felt so much in my life and I felt. My heart, I felt the love in my heart. I felt all the acceptance and beauty for myself and for the world. La Loca, E as Herso. This life is crazy and beautiful. Thank you.

Marc Moss: Thanks, Bridget. Bridget Furich traveled the world before making her home in Missoula, Montana, and has continued to explore this country and the world beyond. Her passion for the outdoors is matched by a deep commitment to community engagement and social justice. [00:29:00] Bridget holds people in transitions using her intuitive powers as an organizer, cleaner birth, postpartum death doula, yoga instructor, herbalist reiki, and sound healing practitioner coming up after the break,

Brian Christianson: negative windchill for two weeks and 10 degrees, maybe the high of 25.

It was cold. I’m running around like a headless chicken, trying to figure out what the compositions are and the light’s constantly changing.

Marc Moss: Stay with us. Thank you to the Good Food Store and Exit Realty, who as story sponsors helped us pay our storytellers. Learn more about them@goodfoodstore.com and missoula realty.com.

Thanks to our stewardship sponsor, marsh McLennan, who helped us to give away free tickets to underserved populations. Learn more about Marsh mclennan@marshmclennan.com. We are currently looking for storytellers for the next tell us something storytelling event. The theme is. A sense [00:30:00] of place. If you’d like to pitch your story for consideration, please call 4 0 6 2 0 3 4 6 8 3.

You have three minutes to leave your pitch. Our friends from the deaf community are welcome to Pitch by emailing info@tellussomething.org. The pitch deadline is May 21st. I look forward to hearing from you. You are listening to the Tell Us Something podcast where people share their true personal stories around a theme.

Live in person without notes. I’m Mark Moss. Storytellers in this episode share their stories in front of a full house on October 7th, 2025 at the George and Jane Denison Theater in Missoula, Montana. Our next storyteller is Mark Moss. Hey, that’s me trying to escape the dark Missoula winter. A staycation house sitting gig promises a hot tub and mountain views.

And instead delivers freezing temperatures in the demanding care of a dog, a cat, and 11 [00:31:00] chickens. What starts as a simple favor quickly turns into a crisis. When a frantic call from Chile reveals an unfortunate fire and a scramble to rehouse the traumatized poultry. I call my story the girls. Thanks for listening.

How many people here are new to Missoula? Yeah. Anybody? Yeah. Okay. Have you been here in the winter?

You hear the laughter because what happens in the winter, it doesn’t always look as good as it does today. Maybe you were here during the fire season and it was super smoky and it sort of just settled into the valley. You remember that? That happens in the winter too, but it’s not smoke, it’s clouds. We call it an inversion ’cause that’s what it’s called.

In the weather language and January, February, it’s like, when can we get [00:32:00] the fuck outta? I said, look, it’s so dark and I’m scrolling social media. And a friend of mine had a post that said, Hey, I’m looking for a house sitter, and he lives in the lower rattlesnake and I don’t spend a lot of time there, but I’m thinking rattlesnake.

Like the Rattlesnake Valley that gets me above their inversion. Right. And it doesn’t to let you know, but that was the first thing I thought of. And I, and I also, he’s gonna be gone for a month and so like that would be nice just to get outta my house for a change, a change of scenery. And Joyce could come with me and it’d be like a staycation.

So he said, I’ll house sit for you. He messaged me back. You sure. Have you ever done this before? You’ve taken care of animals? Like I, I’m an animal, I take care of myself. He says, come on up for the disorientation. [00:33:00] So I go to his house. His name is Ari and yeah, Ari Levo. He is a food writer for what was the Missoula Independent, and I’ve seen him in the pulp recently, I think.

Or maybe it was, um, Montana Free Press. Anyway, he’s a great food writer, great article on a, a recipe on Oui recently. Awesome. So I’m like, he’s gonna have a great kitchen and we’re gonna just hang out with the elk up on Mountain Jumbo. This is what he’s telling me is gonna be great. We’re gonna sit in a hot tub and just watch the elk up on the mountain drinking wine.

We have to take care of the dog and the cat, uh, which who, who go in and outta the house through this open window in the bedroom. And remember, it’s February and he’s like, and so it, it gets a little cold, but there’s plenty of blankets. And also there, you know, don’t use the furnace. That’s like, that’s last resort.

Use this [00:34:00] converted woodburn stove. It, it runs on gas now. And it keeps the house warm and the house was warm. I was like, oh, great. Like this is, this will be good. He goes, but if the pilot light goes out, which it ju I don’t, I can’t remember it ever happening, but if it does, here’s how you relight it. Okay.

Write that down. So he, he says also, he says, I won’t have cell service where we’re going. But I can text and I can receive texts, but I, I don’t think you’re gonna have any problems. You also, we do need to learn, I need to show you about the girls. Okay. So outside we walk and he’s like, there’s an outbuilding over there.

Like, you don’t have to like go in there very much, um, but just make sure the pipes don’t freeze. There’s a, so we walk in there, take our shoes off, and we walk. There’s like a little space heater by the sink. Okay, no problem. And that’s my office. There’s another [00:35:00] little outbuilding. He’s like, there’s no running water in there, so don’t worry about that.

Um, you probably won’t have to go in there much, but the girls like, they need your attention. And the girls are chickens and I can’t remember, I think they’re 11 of them. Um, and he’s like, have you ever taken care of chickens before? I said, no. He said, well, it’s pretty straightforward, you know, just make sure their water doesn’t freeze and there’s like this bowl of water and there’s some um, there’s some feed, you know, come out every morning, feed them and there’s a heat lamp in the chicken coop to make sure that they don’t freeze and that, you know, their body heat.

And plus the heat lamp, they’re gonna be fine for the time that I’m gone. It’ll be great. They generally don’t lay a lot of eggs this time of year, but just check and if there are eggs, harvest the eggs. And eat them. Like of course that’s what I would do. I like eggs, so he is like, you good? I’m like, I’m good.

So off he leaves. He leaves, he goes to Peru and or Chile. [00:36:00] He goes to Chile. Sorry, I was thinking of Bridget story and I move in, I got move all my stuff. I got a journal and some books and like laptop. I’m gonna like sort all those photos that I meant been meaning as sort. And 2018, this is, this is when this was.

And so I don’t know if you, people who have been here for a while, remember the February of 2018, it was like. Negative windchill for two weeks and like 10 degrees, maybe the high of 25. It was cold and the hellgate winds came ripping up the valley and we’re creating snow drifts like this. And I was having to like get a shovel just to get out of the house so I could shovel down like the driveway to get the car out to go to work.

The pilot light happens to go out and we relight that. It’s like a whole mess on texting and I’m like, we got it figured out. [00:37:00] And in the morning you like, dig myself out, take the dog for a walk up the road, there’s this nice little park and it’s like bone chilling, cold, but also like invigorating. Like if that, if I didn’t have a dog to walk, I probably wouldn’t be outside.

So. Bonus points for dogs. Like that’s a good reason to have one. Gets you outside, gets you moving around, picked up his poop on, you know, take it back home, put it in the garbage, he’s safe, he’s fed, watered, I gotta go to work. The cat’s good. So I go to work and I’m thinking, you know, the hot tub is not happening.

It’s like so windy. It’s takes so much effort to get in and out of the hot tub. I’m not, I’m just not gonna do it. Like, dude, Joyce, you wanna come over and we’re gonna have popcorn and watch movies? Like let’s do that. So, so I go to work, I’m at work and the phone rings. My phone rings and it’s Ari, and I’m like, hello?[00:38:00]

I thought you didn’t have a cell service. How are you? He’s like, good considering I was like considering, considering the fire department just left the house. Fuck. I’m like, did I leave a burner on? I’m like trying to go through. I’m like, what did I do that morning? He’s like, everybody’s fine. The girls are fine.

The dog, the cat, everybody. The house is fine, but I need you to do something for me. I’m like, what is it? He said, I need you to take the chicken coop burned down.

I need you to take the chickens somewhere else. ’cause right now they’re in my office shitting over everything. Like, okay, I’ve never transported chickens. He’s like, that’s okay. Go to the, go to the grocery store. Good food store. Thanks. Good food store for your sponsorship tonight, by the way, go to the Good Food Store, gets some produce boxes [00:39:00] and each, each lady gets her own box.

And so, you know, it’s, it’s dark now, but go, go get the boxes and in the morning. Each lady gets her own box and you’re gonna take ’em out to Josh Sch Slotnick Farm. Awesome, thanks Josh. What am I gonna do there? Well, he’s got a greenhouse that it’s obviously not being used right now, so he said that we can put the chickens in the greenhouse.

Awesome. Great. So I’m really sorry about the chicken coop. He’s like, mark, it wasn’t your fault, I’m sure like the heat lamp, the fire department said that the heat lamp must have fallen onto the straw. And set it on fire. And I was like, I didn’t knock it over. And he’s like, no, I’m sure you didn’t like one of the chickens.

I’m sure knocked it over. I’m not mad at you. It’s fine. I’m not coming home. You’re going to continue to house. Sit. Josh is gonna take care of the chickens. Like, thanks Josh. Thank you Josh. [00:40:00] ’cause Josh’s farm is way on the edge of town. I don’t wanna have to drive out there every morning and go take care of the chickens.

So we, Joyce and I go. To the good food store, get some produce boxes, load ’em into the back of her truck. In the morning we go, um, back, uh, take the boxes out and stage them outside of Ari’s office. And I’m like, are you ready for this? And she’s like, yeah, I guess so. I don’t know. Like I put gloves on. We’ve got jackets, of course, long sleeves.

I’m concerned about being pecked or scratched by these traumatized girls. Who, right? Like they’re in a space that they’re not used to being in their home just burnt down. Like, I feel so bad for them and I really wanna take care of them. So we open the door, they don’t run out. I’m like, that’s good. So I grab one and like, I’m sort of behind her grabbing her from the side so their wings aren’t flat, but are like keeping her away from me.

So their, [00:41:00] their talons aren’t scraping me and she’s like trying to peck me. And Joyce has the box open, sort of like a mouse trap. She’s like, ready. And so I placed her in the box and Joyce puts the lid on success. Like, okay, we can do that again. We have to do it 10 more times. Okay, we can do that. So we, we load them all into boxes and load ’em into the back of Joyce’s truck and go out to Josh Niks place.

And Josh told me, he’s like, I’m not gonna be home. And my wife is leaving for work, so she, you might not see either one of us. Here’s the greenhouse that you’re gonna use and like knock yourself out. So we get there and sort of get the lay of the land and figure out this is the greenhouse that we’re gonna use.

’cause there’s two of them. And so we just bring all the boxes into the greenhouse one at a time. To stage them and then get their food and get their [00:42:00] water and then open the boxes and they’re like, oh, this is our new home. This is our new home.

And it was,

thanks, mark. Thanks me. I found a tele something in 2011, and I live with my partner Joyce, and our perpetual kitten Ziggy on Missoula’s historic North side. In our next story, while trekking deep into the Bob Marshall wilderness to photograph the monumental Chinese wall, Brian Christensen finally slows down to appreciate the remote mountain solitude with his partner.

When a tiny movement catches their eye, they hold their breath. For what could be the wildlife encounter of a lifetime. Brian calls his story Ridge lessons. Thanks for listening.[00:43:00]

Brian Christianson: A little over a month ago, I found myself hurrying along in Airy Ridge en route to a moment on that ridge where a cliff bifurcated it, cutting it in half, eliminating easy, further passage. I had been to this spot before and I knew that there was a route through this a hundred foot tall cliff band, and I wanted to sort it out before I wanted to preview it again and figure it out before we crossed the cliff band early in the morning, in the dark to gain the other side, uh, to gain a saddle on the other side upon, upon figuring out the route I was, I was happy to do that and I started to re relax a little bit and on my quarter mile walk back.

Towards our camp, I begin to appreciate the lofty perch we had found for ourselves. There was our tent on our little null 4,000 feet above the valley floor [00:44:00] in the middle of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. We were several miles off trails with without a soul in sight. I get back to the tent and I look for Lynn’s, my partner, my wife.

And I see her just on the other side of the hill and I see her sitting there staring off over seven or eight layers of mountain doing what Lynn’s does best. She’s a master of finding the moment. Whatever it is. So often I move around the world with this veneer of worry and anxiety that clouds things being what they really are and makes them instead go through this filter that makes them some version of what they are, but not quite clearly.

Lens, on the other hand, can sit in one place and stare literally. I’ve seen her do this for hours and hours and hours. Analyzing a space. Whether it’s in a thrift store or, or in the Bob Marshall Wilderness where we found [00:45:00] ourselves, this is a gift that she has. And so I find myself calming into this space after an kind of a, an expunging of frenetic energy.

Going to try to figure out our route and think ahead. Always thinking ahead. And I go and I grab my camp chair and I go and sit next to her. And we sit and we look out over the landscape together. We enter into conversation, but then we wander out as we pick out different features in the landscape and talk about it.

And then just long periods of silence. After about a half hour, she announces switch. I was like, what? Switch? What? She’s like, oh, we’re gonna go and now absorb this other view of the landscape. It’s like, uh, okay. So we move our chairs and now we move to the point where we have an unobstructed view of the reason why we, why our tent was here.

And that was to view the magnificent masterpiece that is the Chinese wall. [00:46:00] We had perched our tent just with an eyesight of it. And what the wall is is a space where 60 plus million years ago, when our mountains, the Rocky mountains were formed, some of the oldest rock on earth by a fluke of geology, got pushed up over younger rocks, creating a continuous unbroken.

13 mile cliff that ranges from 600 to a thousand feet tall and our tent was within half a mile of the start of the wall, and we could see a four mile section of it swoop out in front of us before it did a dog lay left around the corner. And so we sat there conversing looking, and I occasionally picked up my camera to just take a.

Capture just a quick capture to get a little rock detail just to document the place. And I remember how grateful I am to have this camera in my hands. Because it is for, it is because of Lynn’s who I’m sitting next to that I have it. ’cause she loaned a camera to [00:47:00] me years ago when I was going to climb Mount Rainier.

Yeah, and she gave me this camera and she’s like, you gotta take pictures. I’d gone to photography school and I’d sold all my equipment, so I didn’t even have any equipment, and she gave me her camera and I took these photos and that has led now 10, 12, 15 years later into a full-blown career in landscape photography.

And I’m sitting there with her, with this camera knowing that she’s the reason. Why I have this and why I have this career, which has helped slow me down because I’m the opposite of lens. I have frenetic energy that needs to be channeled and in specifically into creative acts. And that has led me to photography.

And so we sit there, we take in the view, we converse, we look. And then she announces switch. And so we switch and we go to the next view. And this time, this view now completes the 360 degree panorama from our lofty knoll that gives us this uninterrupted view of almost the entirety of the Bob Marshall wilderness.

At this point, [00:48:00] the sky is getting inky dark blue, just past blue hour. The first stars are starting to show. And Lynn announces switch. And I’m like, what? What? It’s, there’s nothing else to look at. And she unclips her camp chair and she lays on her back and takes in the Milky Way, the late summer milky Way, which stretched directly overhead.

And I do the same. And we lay there, entertained by shooting stars and satellites for another hour until finally our eyes grow heavy and we turn in for the night. I’m startled awake at 6:00 AM where I had set my alarm for hoping to capture the sunrise. And I’m even more startled to see that there’s already a blush of red in the sky, which for photography, that means it’s already too late.

I would love to be at a location well before there’s any color or interest in the sky. Calming myself getting ready to figure out compositions to make [00:49:00] images. And so I wake up harried, I need to go and I grab my photography equipment. I rush the quarter mile to that cleft in the ridge where we have to climb the thousand foot band of, of, uh, the thousand or, or sorry, a hundred foot cliff band.

It was not a thousand feet. And I do a perfunctory scan of the basin below just to see if there’s any early morning wildlife moving around. And there’s not. And so I take a few pictures until Linz catches up to me. We navigate the cliff band together, and then we move on to the saddle where I wanna photograph the Chinese wall.

Now at the saddle, we are there and we see the rise of the wall go three, 400 feet up to our left and then unfold like a ribbon for four miles. It is spectacular and I set about, as the color starts to change in the sky, frantically going about at this point, ’cause I woke up frantic. It continued. And the color came through the sky, red oranges into the middle clouds, and the, that orange [00:50:00] started moving down until it started to give the first kiss of light up at the top of the wall.

And that kiss of light started coming down. And I’m running around like a headless chicken, sorry, marks chickens, trying to figure out what the compositions are, and the light’s constantly changing. I have no compositions in mind. I am. Frantic trying to figure this out, and I move around the light shifting and changing, and I’m shooting for about 45 minutes until the light finally turns into a nice, clear white, and the shadow shorten and the landscape loses its shape, and I lose my photographic interest, certainly not my, my interest as a human and visual one to look at this spectacular piece, and I’m frantic breathing heavy, and I look over at Lynns who’s sitting there.

With her eyes closed and the morning sun on her face, just breathing and I breathe. I go join her and I, we eat breakfast, and I drink some [00:51:00] coffee and we’re sitting there just enjoying this amazing summer morning. At this am at this masterpiece of geology and all of a sudden Lynn’s announces switch. I’m like, what?

Why would we switch? We are looking, we are here. This is why we came for the Chinese wall. It is in front of us and we are as close as you can get to it. It would be, I guess, like going to the Eiffel Tower and turning your back and saying, let’s look the other way and see what that looks like. And I, so I indulged Sure.

And I was like, okay. I get, yeah, okay, we’ll look the other way. Of course, there were mountains behind us. There was plenty to look at. And so we moved 20 feet away from our packs and my camera, I leave it there, we moved 20 feet to the other side of the ridge, and we, we start, we have our conversation. We’re talking like we have done this cycle’s repeated itself now many times until all of a sudden lens gets really quiet.[00:52:00]

And I see that she’s looking past me, up the hill, up the ridge, and I follow her gaze and I see something about 300 feet away, the size of a small to medium sized dog, an animal moving in our direction. And I’m like, oh my gosh, what, what is that? And I, I kind of know, I have a sense of what it is, but I’m not, but I don’t want to say, I’m not sure.

I’m not positive. And Lynn’s asked some with somewhat trepidation in her voice. She says, what do we do? And I thinking, projecting onto her, what she’s asking is like, well, my camera’s behind me so I can’t, and I know if I get up, I’m gonna spook the animal. So, uh, what I say to her, which sounds a lot more courageous than it is, I say.

Just watch. And so now the animal’s 150 feet away from us closing in on us. And now I I, I know I see the unmistakable lo of a weasel. We had owned ferrets at one point in the [00:53:00] past, and they have this bounce that they bounce along and I’m like, oh, that’s a weasel. I knew for certain. And so the weasels moving closer to us and I, I, I’m still not quite sure exactly what it is, but now I’m starting to realize.

What it could be. And I ask Lynn still, but I don’t think it’s this. I say a a, a pine Martin. And she and she emphatically says no. And now it’s 75 feet away from us closing in on us that seemingly unaware of our presence on this ridge. We’re quiet and the wind is in our favor. It can’t smell us. And so it’s moving closer to us and.

I now notice a bushy tail, a white V on its chest, big hanging canines, ferocious mouth just open and it’s moving in our direction. I had been on studies in which we had game cameras and, and tried to document these critters, and I put some of my own up in a basin in the northern remote, northern, uh, Bitterroot this summer in hopes of maybe one day catching sight of this [00:54:00] animal.

And so I turned to Linson and I asked Wolverine. And she says yes, and the wolverine comes within 40 feet, 30 feet, 20 feet, 15 feet, and whoosh. It’s past us and it scurries along the ridge well past, right over the next ridge in about 30 seconds. It was moving so quickly, and Lynn’s and I so giddy with excitement that this.

One of the rarest mammals in North America, for which there’s only thought to be a hundred in Montana, and we got to see one run right past us. We stand up and we start like hugging each other and like kind of jumping and shaking hands. Maybe like stranger contestants on a game show might when somebody wi And we didn’t know what to do.

We didn’t know what to do. We, this was an experience for which we had no basis and experience to know how to react except for jubilation. [00:55:00] And I am so grateful to Lynn for providing the space and presence of Moment to Sink into a space to have experiences like that. Thank you.

Marc Moss: Thanks, Brian. Brian Christensen’s, love for Mountains began on the pages of books while growing up in southern Minnesota. A family trip to Colorado at age 10. Confirmed the future mountains or bust. Brian proceeded to study photography and geography at the University of Colorado before moving to Montana in 2008.

Brian works as a nature photographer with a curiosity for wilderness. In Western Montana, he shares a life with his wife, Lynn And Ka Roo. Thanks to our media sponsors, Missoula events.net. Mike’s print and copy Missoula Broadcasting Company, including the family of ESPN Radio, the Trail 1 [00:56:00] 0 3 3, Jack FM Missoula, source for modern hits, U 1 0 4 0.5.

And thanks to our in kind sponsors, float Missoula and Joyce of Tile. When you patronize these businesses in Missoula, thank them for their support of live storytelling in Missoula. Remember that The next tell us something event is June 16th. The theme is a sense of place you can learn about how to pitch your story and get tickets at Tell us something.

Dot org. A father on a wilderness backpacking trip must trust his nine-year-old daughter to decide if they push through a grueling trail or turn back.

Land Tawney: You got these black burned trees. You got the fireweed. It’s about yay high. That pink, bright fireweed, the just juxtaposition with that and the trees.

It’s just gorgeous.

Marc Moss: A young woman chasing a childhood dream unexpectedly lands a job at an Alaskan salmon hatchery, finding her true calling far from the world of fashion

Hailey Glassock: when you’re 19, details like where [00:57:00] the job is and the fact that you should be within an hour of a hospital a lot of times really don’t matter.

Marc Moss: Meanwhile, a mountain guides attempt at romance is derailed by a giant stake and a dramatic breakup. He must fight to fix.

Bryan Dalpes: I noticed a little green sheen on the surface of that meat,

but I just flipped it over and thought, I’ll, I’ll cook it real well.

Marc Moss: Finally, a teacher overwhelmed by her daughter’s cancer fight accepts a risky Peace Corps invitation to Africa, fundamentally changing how she views her life’s responsibilities.

Betsy Funk: My favorite trick was the guy who spun plates. He’d have this stick and he’d get the plate going up there and he’d get it spinning, and then he’d put it in this matrix.

And as that matrix held the plate, he’d keep it going and he’d get 10 or 12 plates going at one time.

Marc Moss: Tune in to the Tell Us Something podcast to hear what happens with our four intrepid [00:58:00] adventurers as they share their walk on the wild side stories. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or stream at, tell us something.org.