The Backcountry Manifesto

The Sailing Expedition Lost to the Arctic for Two Years | Hampton Sides, Bestselling Historian | Ep. 042

Is there land at the North Pole, or just ice? Is the water up there frozen solid, or open ocean? In 1879 nobody actually knew, and the best science of the day was hilario

Captain Cook: How the World's Greatest Explorer Went Mad | Hampton Sides | Ep. 041

In February 1779, the most famous explorer alive was hacked to death on a Hawaiian beach while his own men watched helplessly through field glasses from the ships. Weeks

T. Rex, the Commercial Fossil Market, and Science | Dr. Thomas Carr, T. rex Paleontologist | Ep. 040| Dr. Thomas Carr, T. rex Paleontologist | Ep. 040

There are now more scientifically valuable T. rex fossils in private hands than in public museums. This is the finding of a peer-reviewed study published last year by thi

The Tiger Attacks of 1997: A Poacher's Nightmare | John Vaillant, Author of The Tiger| Ep. 039

In 1997, a suspected poacher in the Russian wilderness shot a tiger and failed to kill it, instead wounding the animal -- and making it incredibly dangerous. Over the fol

The Real Coyote Peterson | Coyote Peterson, Brave Wilderness | Ep. 038

Coyote Peterson runs the largest wildlife channel on YouTube: 21.8 million subscribers, five billion views, an Emmy, and a body of work he describes as a mix of Steve Irw

The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Wildfire | John Vaillant, Author of Fire Weather | Ep. 037

With the Canadian fires spreading wildfire smoke across the country, Pulitzer Prize finalist John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather, swings by the studio to tell the story

Real Treasure Hunting: Pirates, Hurricanes & Spanish Gold | Captain Mike Perna | Ep. 036

Captain Mike Perna has spent 25 years doing something most people think only happens in movies: diving for sunken Spanish treasure. Off Florida's Treasure Coast lie the s

His Mother Vanished. 20 Years Later He Found Her in the Amazon. | David Good | Ep. 035

David Good grew up with one foot in suburban Pennsylvania and the other in the Amazon rainforest. His father, anthropologist Ken Good, spent 12 years living with the Yano

The Disappearance of Amelia Earhart | Laurie Shapiro, Journalist & Biographer | Ep. 034

Who was responsible for the disappearance of Amelia Earhart? Was it her oft-drunk but undeniably brilliant navigator, Fred Noonan? Her publicist husband, George Putnam, w

Are Survival Shows Real? | Cody Lundin, Dual Survival's Original Host | Ep. 033

Cody Lundin has spent 34 years keeping people alive. Almost none of it looks like what you've seen on TV. He's the founder of Arizona's Aboriginal Living Skills School, a

The Worst Possible Way to Cross the Atlantic | Steven Callahan, Adrift | Ep. 032

Steven Callahan should have died at sea. In early 1982, roughly a week out of the Canary Islands, something — he's convinced it was a whale — holed his self-built 21-foot

Mutiny, Cannibalism & How America Really Began | Peter Mancall, Historian | Ep. 031

Your social studies teacher gave you Henry Hudson in about two sentences: a guy, a river, New York. Dr. Peter Mancall — USC historian and author of Fatal Journey and the

Free Soloing is Actually Really Easy | Lincoln Knowles ft. Cedar Wright & John Long | Ep. 029

Lincoln Knowles is 21 years old, lives out of his Jeep, and has the climbing internet at war with itself. To half the community he's a reckless idiot free soloing a harde

Deathtraps, Hantavirus, and the Other Joys of Caving | Adam Weaver, Caver | Ep. 029

Adam Weaver holds the world record for the farthest anyone has ever traveled from a cave entrance — miles of crawling and climbing into a place no helicopter or rescue te

Has Everest become too commercialized? | Thom Pollard, Everest Historian | Ep. 028

Is Everest still a climber's ultimate test, or has it become too crowded and controversial? This week on The Backcountry Manifesto, Everest historian, climber, and 1999

Dr. Hoby's Backcountry Adventure | Dr. Hoby Wedler, Guide to Life's Greatest Things | Ep. 027

On this episode of the Backcountry Manifesto, we're taking you on a Montana backcountry adventure guided by the one and only Dr. Hoby Wedler. Dr. Hoby is a wildly popular

JAWS: A Soon-To-Be True Story? | White Shark Expert Dr. Greg Skomal | Ep. 026

On the 50th anniversary of Jaws, are we headed for a real-life Amity Island catastrophe with rising shark encounters off Cape Cod, or is the hype around white sharks gett

When Will Yellowstone Erupt Again? | Dr. Mike Poland, Yellowstone Volcano Observatory | Ep. 025

Is the Yellowstone Supervolcano really going to erupt and end life as we know it, and with the recent and unexpected geothermal events in Biscuit Basin, how worried are t

Cowboys, Lawyers, and a Fossil Worth Millions: The Dueling Dinosaurs Saga | Clayton Phipps | Ep. 024

After years of searching, third generation Montanan rancher Clayton Phipps and his friends Mark Eaton and Chad O'Connor, discover one of the greatest dinosaur fossil spec

T. Rexes, Prison Sentences, and a Dinosaur Named "Sue" | Pete Larson, BHI President | Ep. 023

Peter Larson, President of the Black Hills Institute for Geological Research, is one of the most knowledgable paleontologists working today. His museum, located in the Hi