The Backcountry Manifesto

Outdoor Visions Media
  • 4.9 (27)
  • Wilderness
  • Updated Weekly

Welcome to The Backcountry Manifesto Podcast, the adventure podcast for everyone. Join your buddy out west, Hayden Sammak, as he talks to friends old and new about wild places, exploration, and backcountry adventure. From talking space exploration with astronaut Loral O’Hara, to bullshitting about rock climbing with Rick Accomazzo and John Long, TBM has something for everyone, no matter what you’re into. If it has anything to do with outdoor adventure in wild places, you’ll find us talking about it here. Welcome to the backcountry – welcome to The Backcountry Manifesto!

  1. 6d ago

    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 this week's guest, Dr. Thomas Carr, a tyrannosaur paleontologist and Associate Professor of Biology at Carthage College. Carr designed one of the largest meat-eating-dinosaur exhibits in North America, has named several dinosaur and bird species in his career, and has become one of paleontology's most outspoken critics of the commercial fossil trade. He's the critic who gets called by journalists every time a T. rex goes up for auction. We get into how a dinosaur actually ends up at auction versus in a museum, why the "public trust" system exists, and the case of Stan the T. rex as a cautionary tale for why the public/private discussion matters. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Carthage College Paleontology: https://www.carthage.edu/biology/paleontology/ Society of Vertebrate Paleontology: https://vertpaleo.org/ Avisaurus Darwini: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/about/press/predatory-birds-from-the-same-fossil-formation-as-sue-the-t-rex Thomas Carr's Paper: https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025/5499-t-rex-endangered-species Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025 #podcast #dinosaur #trex #tyrannosaurus #paleontology #fossils

  2. Aug 6

    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 following days, the tiger terrorized the man it believed was responsible, doing so with an eerie sense of focus and cold calculation.  After killing him, the tiger turned his attention to the residents of the nearby village of Sobolonye, many of whom depended upon the wilderness to make their livings, and so were forced to venture into the tiger's domain. But as villagers did their best to avoid the animal -- with varying levels of success -- a heavily armed, special government anti-poaching unit, known as Inspection Tiger, sought the animal out. Led by Yuri Trush, Inspection Tiger began prowling the wilderness bordering Sobolonye, searching for signs of the man-eater, and looking to put an end to its attacks.  John Vaillant is the author of The Tiger, The Golden Spruce, and Fire Weather, a Pulitzer finalist, and a Baillie Gifford winner.   LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The Tiger: https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Vengeance-Survival-Vintage-Departures/dp/0307389049 Conflict Tiger (2006): https://www.sashasnow.com/conflict-tiger Our episode with John on Fire Weather: https://youtu.be/81kwnFFtqP8 John Vaillant's X: https://x.com/JohnVaillant John Vaillant's BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/johnvaillant.bsky.social   Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025 #podcast #animalattack #tiger #siberiantiger #nature

  3. Jul 30

    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 Irwin, Steven Spielberg, and Bear Grylls. But who is he really? This week, Coyote drops by the studio to talk about his life and adventures -- and the occasional misadventure -- as he works to educate his viewers on the wild world that surrounds them. We get the three worst things he's ever felt, a brush with an Australian plant that resulted in six months of nerve damage, a twelve-foot Komodo dragon (that he decided to leave alone), and the Bigfoot episode that got him briefly declared a fraud by the national media.   LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE https://www.bravewilderness.com/ Coyote's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@BraveWilderness⁩   Coyote's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coyotepeterson/ Coyote's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@coyotepetersonofficial That Bear Kid: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36400177/ Komodo Dragon episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkwlxY1iLXo David Blaine Cobra-Kiss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0naO3xh07s8   Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025 #podcast #coyotepeterson #bravewilderness #komododragons #wildlife

  4. Jul 23

    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 of the Fort McMurray fire -- a catastrophe many consider to be the most notorious wildfire in Canadian history.   LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Fire Weather: https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Weather-Front-Lines-Burning/dp/0525434240 The Tiger: https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Vengeance-Survival-Vintage-Departures/dp/0307389049 John's X: https://x.com/JohnVaillant John's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/johnvaillant.bsky.social   Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025 #podcast #wildfire #forestfire #climatechange #firestorm

  5. Jul 16

    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 scattered remains of the 1715 Plate Fleet — eleven galleons loaded with New World gold and silver that a hurricane drove onto the reefs in a single night, killing over a thousand people and strewing their cargo across miles of ocean floor. This past summer, Mike's crew pulled 1,051 silver coins off the seabed and made national news. He flew from Florida to Montana to tell us how it actually works: the "breadcrumb trails" of coins scattered a mile from the wreck, the magnetometers and metal detectors, the short summer dive season, and the "you never really own the treasure, you just hold onto it for a while" philosophy that comes with a quarter-century of doing it. He brought real pieces of eight to pass across the table, walked us through the legendary Mel Fisher and the $400 million Atocha, and got into the thorny ethics of who really gets to keep history. Whether you're here for shipwrecks, colonial history, or just a great real-life treasure story, this one's got gold, pirates, hurricanes, and a lead box packed with 16,000 pearls.   1715 Fleet Society: https://1715fleetsociety.com

  6. Jul 9

    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 Yanomami — one of the last relatively isolated peoples on Earth — and married David's mother, Yarima, the daughter of a headman. Then, when David was six, Yarima walked back into the jungle and didn't come out. He wouldn't see her again for 20 years. This is the story of what happened next: two decades of trying to bury his own identity, and then a bug-fearing 24-year-old's decision to travel days up the Orinoco River to find the mother he thought had abandoned him. What he found reframed his entire life — a family, a new name, a brother he would later grieve in a Yanomami funeral, and a scientific calling studying the Yanomami gut microbiome, which may hold clues to the diseases of the modern world. David is a microbiome researcher at the University of Guelph, the founder of the Yanomami Foundation, and the subject of the new documentary WAYUMI. This is one of the most singular life stories we've ever had on the show. Venezuelan Earthquake Relief Fund: https://welove.foundation WAYUMI Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3aWDwQNTqk Yanomami Foundation: https://www.yanomamifoundation.org/ David's book, The Way Around: https://www.amazon.com/Way-Around-Finding-Mother-Yanomami/dp/0062382128 David's book, GOOD: https://nbmpub.com/products/good David's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidalexandergood

  7. Jul 2

    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, who pushed his wife toward the PR stunt of the century despite her relative mediocrity as a pilot? Or was it Earhart herself, whose sudden fame had begun to cloud the thing a pilot needs most: her judgment? Journalist Laurie Gwen Shapiro — a contributor to The New York Times and The Atlantic — spent five years going where no Earhart biographer had gone before. What she found isn't the flawless icon, but a real and complicated woman. Today, Laurie gives us a portrait of the person behind the legend and a deep dive into Earhart's final flight and July 1937 disappearance over the Pacific: a stretched budget, a dropped antenna on the Lockheed Electra, an alcoholic navigator hired because he was cheap, and a pilot who was sick, exhausted, and out of fuel as she searched for tiny Howland Island. We get into the enduring mystery and the theories it spawned — and why the real story of what happened to Amelia Earhart may be sadder, and more human, than any of them. Shapiro's book, The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon, was named a New Yorker Best Book of 2025.   Laurie Gwen Shapiro Website Amelia Earhart Project Recordings The Aviator and the Showman   Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025

  8. Jun 25

    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, an EMT since 1993, the author of 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive and When All Hell Breaks Loose, and one of the two original hosts of Discovery's Dual Survival. He built (and nearly broke) his career by refusing to fake it for the camera. We flew Cody up to Bozeman, took him duck hunting at the crack of dawn (his very first time), and then sat down for one of the most no-BS survival conversations we've ever recorded. Hayden throws him a series of escalating worst-case scenarios: a desert breakdown, a broken leg in the Colorado high country, a hiker lost at an alpine lake. Cody refuses every easy answer, demanding context and walking through what staying alive actually requires (hint: it's rarely the sexy stuff). Along the way: the physics of freezing to death, why your survival shelter should be invisible, the truth about what survival television did to his profession, and the on-camera stand that cost him his show. Producer Andrew even gets pulled in to defend his off-grid cabin.   LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The Survival Show Keep Your Ass Alive Podcast Cody's Book 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive (2003) Cody's Book When All Hell Breaks Loose (2007)   Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025

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4.9
out of 5
27 Ratings

About

Welcome to The Backcountry Manifesto Podcast, the adventure podcast for everyone. Join your buddy out west, Hayden Sammak, as he talks to friends old and new about wild places, exploration, and backcountry adventure. From talking space exploration with astronaut Loral O’Hara, to bullshitting about rock climbing with Rick Accomazzo and John Long, TBM has something for everyone, no matter what you’re into. If it has anything to do with outdoor adventure in wild places, you’ll find us talking about it here. Welcome to the backcountry – welcome to The Backcountry Manifesto!

Information

  • Creator
    Outdoor Visions Media
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    40
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Backcountry Manifesto

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