Things are not going well for Woody.

The 50-year-old retired cop is thirsty and exhausted, and his attempts to spark a campfire using a ferro rod have failed miserably. Now, Woody can’t boil his drinking water. He stands in his barren campsite and raises a canteen filled with untreated pond water to his lips. “Lord, please don’t let me get sick,” he says into a camera.

The shot cuts to the cozy confines of a television studio. Woody’s son, Blake, and his nephew, Colin watch him gulp down the nasty beverage on a massive television screen. Colin shakes his head and buries his face in his palms.

And, cut!

This scene is the climax of episode 1 of ·ĄłæłÙ°ùČ賊łÙ±đ»ć,Ìęa new outdoor survival show that debuted on Fox this past Monday. I recently watched the opening episode, as well as advanced screeners for episodes two and three, with my mouth agape. As a longtime fan of wilderness survival shows—you know, programs like Alone, Naked and Afraid, and Man vs. Wild—Extracted marks a stark turning point for the genre. Apparently, TV producers are now shipping everyday schmoes with zero wilderness training into the backwoods and filming them as they contract Giardia. And they’re doing this for our entertainment.

This element isn’t even the weirdest part of Extraction—not by a long shot. The show’s central premise is like an psychological experiment.

Twelve “survivalists”—yes I use this term lightly—are plucked from small-town American and shipped off to a forested lake somewhere in British Columbia. They must stay there as long as possible, and the last one to remain wins $250,000. Producers have affixed dozens of surveillance cameras to the trees, rocks, and stumps in the area so we can spy on the 12 as they go about their business of building shelter, procuring food, going to the bathroom, and screaming into the void.

But here’s the real twist. A short distance away, producers have erected a TV studio, and each survivalist’s family members are stationed there, where they watch the action unfold 24 hours a day. At random points throughout the show, the family members are able to pack up survival gear—knives, cans of beans, bear spray—which are then delivered via flying drone to their loved one.

The survivalists themselves cannot tap out. That job can only be done by the family members in the studio. A family member must march to the center of the studio and push a big and ridiculous red button that says EXTRACT.

I won’t spoil the show, other than to say that this single rule creates the tension at the heart ofÌę·ĄłæłÙ°ùČ賊łÙ±đ»ć.ÌęContestants beg to be removed, but their loved ones don’t always comply.

While watchingÌęExtracted I often thought about Blair Braverman’s recent column about our collective affection for survival TV. Braverman, herself a former contestant onÌęNaked and Afraid,Ìęmakes more than a few pointed conclusions about why the TV genre is so beloved: watching people in nature is relaxing; survival connects us to our hunter-gatherer roots; we love cheering for and against characters; watching the battle to survive is inherently relatable to everyday people.

“Negotiating jobs, health insurance, child and elder care, housing? That’s all survival, viscerally so,” Braverman wrote.

Alas, I fear that the survival genre is quickly moving away from the themes Braverman adores. Extracted comes on the heels of Netflix releasing its first two seasons of its own survival game show °żłÜłÙ±ôČčČőłÙ.ÌęBoth shows tap into emotions that are more sinister, and psychological reflexes inside us that are more ominous.

±őČÔÌęOutlast, the survivalists wage psychological war on each other throughout the season by switching teams, stealing gear, and destroying shelters, all for a chance at cash. The cameras focus on this drama, and it triggers some lobe inside our lizard brains.

Extracted isn’t quite as extreme, but the format of the show makes it feel dramatically different from Alone ŽÇ°ùÌęNaked and Afraid. ±őČÔÌę·ĄłæłÙ°ùČ賊łÙ±đ»ć,Ìęthe audience views everyday people as they watch their loved ones suffer in nature. The tension created by these relationship drives our intrigue. We see caring mothers and fathers fail to deliver the survival goods that their cold and hungry son requires. We watch a divorced couple argue and question their parenting decisions as their teenageÌęson acts like a toddler in the woods.

Sure, there are moments of joy and triumph as well. But Extracted is still a voyeuristic look into a person watching a loved one in peril. As I watched it, I felt as though I was the scientist staring through reflective glass at a psychological experiment. It’s no wonder that the frames linger on the black surveillance cameras dotting the forest.

That said,ÌęExtracted has something that Outlast lacks—at least through its first three episodes. By choosing novice (or downright inept) survivalists, the show is legitimately funny, and more relatable than other survival shows. In episode one, we meet the contestants, and quickly learn that all of them will be fish out of water in the Canadian wilderness.

One woman, Davina, 41, is described as a hairdresser and a professional clown. “I think she’s lost her mind,” her sister, Devin, says into the camera.”She’s been given everything her entire life by my parents and now her husband. He probably wipes her ass.” A few scenes later we see Davina sitting by the lake, bemoaning her experience outdoors. By this point, she’s been in the woods for a little more than a day. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she wails.

I’ll admit,Ìę·ĄłæłÙ°ùČ賊łÙ±đ»ćÌęmade me laugh more than a few times, and that’s why I plan to complete the series. I have no clue whether watching it will change my relationship with the outdoors, or with my loved ones.

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Leslie Gaynor, 68, loves survival shows. After she finishes her day’s work as a therapist, she makes herself some tea and puts on an episode of Naked and Afraid. By the time the show’s over, it’s dark out. Her dog has to pee, but she doesn’t like to go outside at night. What if there are wild animals in the yard? One time last year, her dog ran out and saw a possum, and the possum flopped over dead, and when she went out a few minutes later it was gone. So it wasn’t really dead, but the whole thing was traumatic anyway. Not for the possum. But for her.

Leslie’s my aunt, and my husband and I were both on Naked and Afraid; we’re outdoor folk by trade, and when we were invited to apply for the show, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to step into a ready-made adventure. That’s not why my aunt watches it, though. She was a fan first. “I can’t really explain it,” she told me after we watched a scene together of a proud, hungry woman plucking a grouse for stew. “I just think it’s relaxing!”

Leslie’s not the only one who finds survival shows addictive. Ever since Survivor premiered in 2000, and promptly became one of the highest-rated shows on network television, survival-themed reality shows and their spinoffs have reproduced like rabbits. In addition to Naked and Afraid, there’s Alone, Survivor, Dual Survival, Survivorman, Ultimate Survival, Man vs. Wild,, Race to Survive, Outlast, and Celebrity Bear Hunt, not to mention numerous spinoffs and international versions. (My personal favorite title? Naked and Afraid’s Shark Week special, Naked and Afraid of Sharks.) Sure, some of their viewers are outdoorsy, but the shows aren’t just made for survivalists any more than shows about serial killers are made for, well, other serial killers. No: what makes survival shows so popular is that, while they depict extreme situations, the feelings they tap into are damn near universal.

There’s pleasure in seeing someone succeed despite hardship—and there’s also pleasure (maybe more) in watching someone fail spectacularly, particularly if they went in cocky. Whenever a survivalist’s intro includes them sayingany version of the phrase “making nature my bitch,” you know they’re gonna get their ass handed to them. It’s just a matter of when and how.

“Some guy’s hungry, or cut himself with his knife, and it’s time to tap,” says my husband, Quince Mountain, who survived 21 days—mostly alone—in the Honduran jungle. (We were on the show at the same time, but were sent to different locations.) “He’s crying because he misses his wife and kids too much, but he says it like, ‘It’s really unfair to them, me being out here
’ Is that his epiphany about how his wife does massive amounts of invisible labor to keep his life comfortable, and now he’s going home a changed man, a grateful, devoted, humble partner—or is it his excuse because he’s hungry and lonely and doesn’t know how to take care of himself? You decide!”

In one of the most popular survival shows, Alone, participants film themselves in complete isolation without knowing how many of the other contestants are still out there. The show premiered in 2015, but viewership soared in 2020 when select seasons became available on Netflix and Hulu. “With COVID, there was a lot of interest because of the isolation aspect,” recalls Juan Pablo Quiñonez, author of the survival book , who won Alone’s season 9 after surviving 78 days in Labrador with a strategy of fasting, drinking unboiled water, and hunkering down to rest. “There aren’t many shows that are really truly unscripted, and where you can see real emotions, like craving for fish, or craving to be with a loved one. How often do we get to see someone catch a fish after five days without food? These moments are super powerful.”

He believes that we’re all hunter-gatherers at heart, and that survival shows—and wilderness survival in general—connect us to an ancestral legacy that feels both vital and familiar. “There might be strong feelings on The Bachelor, but it’s definitely not as real.”

As much as skeptics in online forums might debate the authenticity of their favorite shows (a common theory centers around the idea that when people are getting too weak, production will leave a dead animal in one of their traps), it’s hard for viewers to dismiss the fact that at least something real is happening onscreen. People don’t lose 20 pounds in three weeks without going awfully hungry, and a lot of the effects of survival—sunburn, frostbite, open wounds—are physically undeniable. There are even ways that being on a show can be harder than plain old survival. Camera crews inadvertantly scare away game, and interrupt survivors for interviews, even when they’re beyond exhausted. Plus, the survivors are usually limited by geographic barriers that have little to do with what’s actually practical or effective. You’re ravenous, searching for any darn calories, and finally spot some berries in a clearing that’s off-limits? Too bad, so sad. This isn’t just survival, it’s a show, and you gotta perform for both.

Another factor in their proliferation is that survival shows—and reality shows in general—are economical to produce. “The reason that unscripted TV came out of the gate so strongly is that it’s cheaper,” says Rachel Maguire, who’s been an international showrunner and executive producer for Naked and Afraid and Dual Survival. “You don’t have high-paid actors. There are no writers. The cast is generally not union.” Although, she adds upon reflection, Naked and Afraid does have awfully pricey accidental death and dismemberment insurance.

Her theory as to why the genre’s so popular? People are increasingly aware of instability in the world—including a steep increase in natural disasters due to climate change—and watching survival shows helps them feel prepared.

I agree with Quiñonez and Maguire, but I also think there’s another instinctive appeal. We worry about extraordinary disasters, but we worry about problems in our lives just as much, and usually more. Survival shows are addictive because much of our daily life is also about struggling to meet our basic needs, and we feel that stress even when we can’t name it. Negotiating jobs, health insurance, child and elder care, housing? That’s all survival, viscerally so. And so watching people get shelter by building it from scratch, and food by catching it in a handmade trap, isn’t about watching them go through challenges that are completely disconnected from our own. It’s about watching our everyday adversity reflected back to us, but distilled into a pure form. We empathize when TV survivalists want to tap out; we cheer when they succeed. It’s relatable. It’s therapeutic. We know—deep down—that we’re all just trying to survive.

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Earlier this year, a PR rep from Fox News asked if I’d want to review the conservative network’s upcoming docuseries on the history of Yosemite National Park. Called Yellowstone to Yosemite with Kevin Costner, the three-part series is the brainchild of the Academy Award-winning actor, and the follow up to his 2022 series . As I stared at the email, I wondered: What can Fox News teach me about the importance of the national parks? As it turns out, a lot. But their approach delivered a few surprises.

Yellowstone to Yosemite, which airs Saturday, February 8 on Fox’s streaming service, Fox Nation, tells the often-repeated story of a 1903 camping trip that then-U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt took with naturalist John Muir through Yosemite. Over four days and three nights, theÌętwo men yukked it up around the campfire, admired the soaring monoliths and waterfalls, and became friends. Similarly, Costner, now 70, embarks on his own camping trip within Yosemite as he narrates the story.

In the first episode, Costner quickly establishes the significance of Roosevelt and Muir’s campout. It’s May, 1903, more than 30 years since Yellowstone was established as the first national park. Five other parcels of land have become national parks, but the designation has done little to actually protect their ecosystems. Loggers are plundering giant sequoias in Yosemite and poachers are decimating bison herds in Yellowstone. The federal government, meanwhile, lacks the teeth to stop them. “Congress saw the national parks as a zero-cost initiative. Each park has an unpaid superintendent responsible for enforcing regulations,” Costner says. “It’s not working at all.”

Muir, the famed naturalist, believes the only way to save America’s parklands is by harnessing the power of the president. He invites Roosevelt to Yosemite to show him the wonders of the park up-close, before pitching him on the bold idea of actually protecting the six natural wonders.

And we’re off—over three 45-minute episodes Costner tells the story of the camping trip while weaving in other historic anecdotes and ecological tidbits about Yosemite National Park. Yep, there’s a heroic mini-biography of Teddy Roosevelt. There are Nature Channel-worthy segments about the lifecycle of a Sequoia and the geologic forces that carved the valley. Costner name drops Lynn Hill as the first rock climber to free climb the Nose of El Capitan. There’s even a reenactment of the massacre of Miwok tribespeople that preempted their forced removal from Yosemite in 1851.

But as the docuseries unfolds, Costner also performs some rhetorical jiujitsu that muddies the current political divide around a few topics. He frames the conservation movement as inherently patriotic, and funding the national parks as part of our American heritage. He presents the corporate interests of industry as evil, and the seizing of land from Tribes as cruel. He even tells the viewer that the reintroduction of grey wolves—a wedge issue in many Western states—is something that Roosevelt, a Republican icon, would have supported.

Costner presents these perspectives with a sincere tone that lacks any hint of cynicism or moral superiority. After praising John Muir for advocating on behalf of Yosemite’s trees and rivers, Costner lays down in his sleeping bag as the temperature plummets. “God I love this country,” he says. “Everything about it. Even the cold.”

Costner’s melding of these concepts—patriotism, conservation, American heritage, and honoring Indigenous tribes—helps him sell a contemporary vision to his audience: national parks are worthy of our protection and our tax dollars.

Sure, Costner’s sincerity and mythical retelling of a camping trip may inspire some eye rolls. Still,ÌęI couldn’t help but admire his approach. Perhaps somewhere in Yellowstone to Yosemite is a playbook for bridging the political divide when we debate protecting National Monuments from drilling, or the reintroduction of apex predators, or why we should save endangered species. I don’t watch Fox News, but my parents do, and I firmly believe that they would love Yellowstone to Yosemite, even though it’s essentially a three-hour pitch for the environmental movement.

Costner’s story concludes on a high note. Roosevelt is inspired by Muir, and after he’s reelected he signs the Antiquities Act of 1906, which grants him the power to protect federal lands. He sends the U.S. military to defend the national parks, and he establishes a series of national monuments to honor the legacies of indigenous tribes.

I recently asked Costner about the balancing act in Yellowstone to Yosemite, and whether it was challenging to blend so many disparate socio-political themes in an hour-and-a-half programÌę He brushed the question aside with a laugh. You can read my interview below.

Why Kevin Costner Wanted to Tell the Story of Yosemite National Park

OUTSIDE: Why did you want to tell this story in 2025?
Costner: I was not waiting for the right year to tell this story. I recently did the film Horizon and I thought of it back in 1988. With Yellowstone: One Fifty, I realized that we just don’t know our history and the intricacies of the routes we drive and the mountains we look at. With Yosemite, we all think we know the park. But I knew there was a story to tell about Roosevelt and Muir. In this 30-year span after the creation of Yellowstone, there was nobody who could actually protect the parks. Nobody took into account that it would would take manpower and a governmental body to actually protect them. I like these parts of history that seem obvious, but aren’t. And this story had plenty of these elements, so I had a sense that I wanted to share it. I wanted to start with the Native Americans—even if we’re going to highlight Roosevelt and Muir, it was important for me to go that distance and to talk about original inhabitants. I wanted to tell viewers just how tragic things were for them. They’re always in our history and we somehow forget them. They are a part of Yosemite as much as any story we tell.

But I also wanted to show how these two men, of like minds, each had a level of poetry in them that helped them understand that saving the parks was the right thing. I wanted to tell this story without beating people on the the head. I wanted to educate them.

Your story navigates more than a few political topics that are still debated today, such as funding the NPS, reintroducing apex predators, and the constant tug-of-war between protecting federal lands and opening them to drilling or logging. How did you navigate these without seeming partisan?
Ha. I don’t care where the chips fall, and I’m honestly not that careful. I’m not looking to present a side here, I’m just looking to tell the story of who was doing what, who was saying what, and what actually happened. This project isn’t catered to any crowd. It had to get above my bar in terms of its intellectual literature. And I felt like we told the version of the story that I set out to tell. I don’t talk down to my audience or around them. I honestly don’t see the world as being dangerous when I’m telling historical truth. You have to tell the story with all of its warts. Other people might be worried about what I’m going to say. But I didn’t ever worry about it. I never had a single thought about this.

This is your second project around the U.S. National Parks. What about the Parks has attracted your interest in storytelling?
I’m really pleased that national parks are an American idea. Today there are like 1400 national parks around the world, but we set the tone. We came up with the idea that the land could have a higher economic use than just exploiting it—that some day, people would come and visit. But when I think of environmentalism, it isn’t just about the fish in the streams, and the trees. It’s also about the connection to the past. That I can walk where other people walked 100 years ago. And also, to know that a place like Yosemite will be the same forever. And to know that these places aren’t just enjoyed by the wealthy, that everyone can enjoy them. Setting aside land for a national park is such a simple idea, but in reality it takes a fierce attitude to move an idea to being practical, especially when money is at stake.

You’ve spent several decades telling stories about the American West, fromÌęDances With Wolves toÌęYellowstone.ÌęWhat is it about the West that continually sparks your imagination?
I stumble on these stories, and I know that I’m only going to be able to tell so many of the in my lifetime. Right now I’m flirting with a very historical project that I’ll probably do, and it’s right in the vein of what you’re talking about, but I can’t discuss it here. As Americans, we think we know our history, but you never really know that much about it until you dig down. We read about the Native Americans somewhere in the fourth grade, like one chapter in one book, and that’s it. All of Yosemite was on the backs of people who were exterminated. This great park came on the heels of shipping them off to a river where they would die in anonymity. And they’re not even on a sign anywhere.

We rarely get down to what is human about them. I think that Yosemite gets down to what is human about John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt. People can be touched by the truth. They can be affected by lies, but they can be truly touched by the truth.

This interview was edited for space and clarity.Ìę

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Some of the biggest names in the outdoor industry will convene in Denver for the 2025 șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Summit, a multi-day networking and thought leadership event that begins in late May and rolls into the , a massive celebration of outdoor culture and community.

Featured speakers at the Summit include a diverse range of celebrated pioneers and rising stars. Among them are Co-Founder of and CEO of Reed Hastings, Global Brand President ofCaroline Brown, National Geographic and TV Host Albert Lin, Founder of Alyssa Ravasio, President and CEO of Carrie Besnette Hauser, President of the Kent Ebersole, Multidisciplinary Designer , Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper, and Founder of Joey Montoya. The full lineup, which will continue to expand in the coming weeks, can be explored at .

The Summit brings together key stakeholders, career veterans, and emerging talents to set a vision for the future of the industry. Programming begins on Thursday, May 29, with a job fair hosted in partnership with , along with networking opportunities, then continues on Friday with a full day of talks, panels, and workshops, followed by evening festivities.

Over the weekend, Summit badge holders will have ticket holder access to the șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Festival presented by and , which takes place in Denver’s Civic Center Park and features musical performances by and among other major national acts, an adventure film series co-curated by Mountainfilm, conversations with iconic athletes, and an eclectic mix of outdoor experiences. Summit badge holders will also be invited to join exclusive Saturday and Sunday activities and gatherings, and gain entry to an șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Summit lounge on the Festival grounds.

Last year’s șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Summit saw 35 speakers, 27 panel discussions, and a sold-out gathering of more than 500 attendees. In 2025, the program will expand to a dedicated campus adjacent to Civic Center Park, with sessions taking place at the Denver Art Museum and newly renovated spaces within the Denver Public Library. The program will focus on entrepreneurship, storytelling, access, and sustainability, and will include a pitch competition for industry startups.

“The Summit is an embodiment of our mission at șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű and serves the larger vision behind the șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Festival,” said Robin Thurston, founder & CEO of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Interactive Inc., who will also be speaking at the Summit. “Last year’s inaugural Summit brought together changemakers from across the outdoor industry to spark important conversations about the future of our businesses. Our 2025 speaker lineup will continue building on last year’s success with an inspiring group of individuals who will empower more people to enjoy, discover, and protect the outdoors. I’m eager to hear their valuable insights.”

The complete schedule will be released early in the spring. Industry professionals interested in attending are encouraged to secure their spot today. A limited number of for students, those who work in education and government, nonprofits, and smaller brands or startups. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű+ members receive a special discount on Summit badges, and group discounts are also available.

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If you grew up on any one of the Great Lakes, like I did, you may have heard of the sea lamprey—a vampiric creature that literally sucks the life out of a lake trout. As a kid, I thought they were a myth, a horror story that parents liked to tell kids on fishing trips. I wasn’t aware of the havoc this parasitic fish wrought on the entire region when it first wiggled its way from the Atlantic Ocean into the largest freshwater ecosystem on earth.

A new documentary, The Fish Thief: A Great Lakes Mystery, unpacks the ecological crisis created by the lamprey, and the extraordinary effort to contain it. “The sea lamprey is what put invasive species on the map in the Great Lakes,” says director Lindsey Haskin. “For many people, it was the first time they become aware of the scale of damage that’s possible.”

The Great Lakes—Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior—straddle the border between Canada and the U.S. Five million people fish them every year, reeling in tasty catches like yellow perch and walleye, and even coho salmon, which was introduced for sport fishing in the late 1960s. Recreational and commercial fishing in the Great Lakes region is a $7 billion industry. Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, on the shore of Lake Erie, my earliest outdoor memory is fishing with my dad from the Neff Road breakwall.

Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons narrates The Fish Thief. Simmons describes how sea lampreys worked their way into the Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Seaway to Lake Ontario. For most of history, Niagara Falls prevented them from spreading any further.

That changed in the early 1900s, with improvements to the Welland Canal, which bypasses Niagara Falls to create a shipping channel between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. The first sea lamprey was found in Lake Erie in 1921. By 1938, sea lampreys had infiltrated the rest of the lakes, all the way to the farthest corners of Lake Superior.

Sea lampreys resemble eels with their long tubular shape. But their mouths are unmistakable: a suction cup lined with concentric circles of fangs, spiraling down to a toothed tongue. They latch onto other fish, create a wound with their razor-sharp teeth and tongue, and suck out blood and other fluids.

In the Atlantic Ocean, where sea lampreys have lived for more than 340 million years, they are mere parasites, attaching themselves most often to sharks and other sea mammals. But in the Great Lakes, very few fish are large enough to escape unscathed from a sea lamprey encounter. By the 1940s, the blood-suckers were killing their hosts—lake trout, lake whitefish, and ciscoes—in droves.

The region’s fishing industry began to collapse in the 1950s, paralyzing towns and Indigenous communities on every shoreline. By 1960, the annual Great Lakes catch, once around 15 million pounds of fish, had plummeted by 98 percent to a mere 300,000 pounds.

The Fish Thief, which has won awards on the environmental film festival circuit in North America and Europe, is the first to tell the story of the lamprey in its entirety, from the initial mystery of droves of dead fish, to the resulting ecological crisis, to the efforts to find a solution. It was eight years in the making.

Haskin, who grew up in the region, near Detroit, says they filmed in a variety of regions, “from the far east extremes of Lake Ontario all the way to Duluth, Minnesota, and down to Chicago.”

What stood out most for Haskin about the project was the tenacity of the people involved devising a solution to the lakes’ ecological collapse. “The original title for the film was Relentless, which applied to the sea lamprey, but also to the people that did battle with it,” Haskin says. “Their original ideas failed, but they just stuck to it and kept going and kept going and kept going and eventually found a solution that has been workable for almost 70 years now.”

Part of the challenge was the cross-border cooperation required to study, test, and, eventually, implement processes to bring the ecosystem back into balance. It required federal government oversight, which most of the fishing industry, and many of the states and provinces bordering the Great Lakes, were hesitant at first to enlist. But eventually, they ran out of options. There was nothing left to do but trust that the government (and science) could find a solution. In 1955, the U.S. and Canada formed the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the first joint agency of its kind.

The commission confirmed that it was impossible to eradicate sea lampreys from the Great Lakes. But scientists could greatly reduce the invasive species’ numbers by attacking them during their larval stage, when they live as filter-feeders in lake tributaries. Some 6,000 compounds were tested to find the best “lampricide,” a pesticide capable of destroying lamprey larvae without significantly impacting other organisms, or causing long-term damage to the ecosystem.

Administering the pesticide to larvae in tributaries, as well as using barriers and traps to prohibit full-grown sea lampreys from making it out of the tributaries into the Great Lakes, cut the “vampire fish” population by 90 percent. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission, in partnership with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has been working to keep sea lampreys at that benign level ever since.

The sea monster of my youth is real. The next time someone from back home brings up sea lampreys, I’m going to have a whole lot more to add to the story.

The Fish Thief: A Great Lakes Mystery is set to release on January 31, 2025 in the U.S. and Canada, where it will be available to stream, download, or rent on platforms including Apple TV/iTunes, Amazon, Google/YouTube, and Tubi.

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Update: January 17, 2025: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled to , which will go into effect on January 19 if the social media’s parent company does not sell the platform.

In 2023, Tatiana O’Hara, a content creator in Atlanta, Georgia, began to document her running journey on TikTok. She , and soon attracted a dedicated following of other beginnerÌęrunners. By the end of 2024, she had . “When people are looking for a run club for slower runners, they find me,”ÌęO’Hara said.

Now, what she has built is in jeopardy as a ban on the app goes into effect on January 19, 2025, unless the Supreme Court intervenes. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get that same searchability on other apps,” O’Hara said.

O’Hara is just one of thousands of creators and small business owners grappling with the impending TikTok ban.

In April, Congress passed a law banning the app beginning on January 19 of this year. The government says that TikTok . Outrage by many lawmakers and users of the app over followed. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, a Chinese technology company, challenged the law, and the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on January 10, to determine its constitutionality.

As of now, TikTok continues to operate in the U.S., pending the Supreme Court’s decision, which will decide whether the ban will proceed. President-elect Donald Trump, who had previously sought to ban the app in 2020, has reversed his position and is now . Last month, he filed a brief with the Supreme Court requesting a delay in the ban to allow his incoming administration to negotiate a resolution.

Social media professionals and creator economy analysts have called the ban an “” for creators, and many users fear that the communities they’ve participated in will disappear overnight with no replacement.

TikTok’s Impact on Outdoor Access

The ban is set to have unanticipated ripple effects in the outdoors community. Though TikTok is seen as a hyper-online platform, built to maximize screen time, the app actually does more than other major social platforms to encourage people to get outside and explore nature, some users said. “TikTok lowers the barrier of entry to outdoorsy activities because the information is so accessible,” O’Hara said.

John Facey, a web and graphic designer in Queens, New York, credits TikTok with helping him discover a love of horticulture and environmentalism. Through his page on TikTok, he said, he met a lot of people who were interested in environmental science, local ecology, and issues affecting the environment. Facey even got tips for identifying plants along his hikes.

Andy Neal, an outdoor content creator who posts under the handle @andyfilmsandhikes, said that, “TikTok has played a significant role in democratizing the outdoors.”

While traditional media often depicts those hiking, biking and engaging in other outdoor sports as young, fit, and conventionally attractive, Neal said that TikTok, more than any other platform, has helped change those perceptions. “TikTok has given visibility to people of all body types, genders, and backgrounds who love spending time outside,” he said. “Compared to other platforms, TikTok has done a better job of making the outdoors feel inclusive
I’ve learned more about outdoor gear and educationÌęon TikTok than anywhere else because the platform encourages real conversations and storytelling, rather than focusing solely on aesthetics.”

Activism at Risk

TikTok’s hyper-curated algorithm and community-first approach have inspired millions to explore the natural world and to develop a deeper appreciation for nature. The app remains a hub for Gen Z climate activism, with creators like Elise Joshi and sound the alarm on climate change.

Jessie Dickson, a TikTok creator with 215,000 followers in Sacramento, California, said that TikTok’s capacity to mobilize people to action is unmatched. “Think of all the campaigns to or that only succeeded because of young people on TikTok,”ÌęDickson said. “Think of all the young people who on hikes is important.”

Dickson said that as an environmentalist and scientist, the ban terrifies him. “We are muting millions of young voices
 so many areas of conservation are going to suffer without TikTok.”

TikTok’s short-form video format has also made information about outdoor adventures more accessible and appealing, especially to younger generations. Creators share , , and , lowering the barrier to entry for those looking to spend more time outside.

This content has translated into real-world action. Thousands of users have they discovered through the app. The platform has been credited with motivating people to take up hiking and nature walks, with users and the mental health benefits of spending time outside. Without the platform’s influence, some users will be pushed toward more solitary apps that are less about community and more about consumption. Creators said that people would have a harder time discovering outdoors activities and meetups around them.

The Business Repercussions

The ban will also affect thousands of small businesses, including many sellers of outdoor and sports equipment. “If I was interested in taking up kayaking, it is so easy to go on TikTok, follow ten people posting about kayaking, and see their Amazon storefronts,” O’Hara said. This seamless integration of content and commerce has been a boon for small businesses looking to tap into niche outdoor activity related markets.

Creators face financial peril as a major source of theirÌęincome may dry up with no real alternative. “The money I made on TikTok helped pay for my son’s daycare,” O’Hara said.

The platform has enabled influencers to monetize content through brand deals, live streams, and affiliate marketing. These income streams will disappear if the ban is enacted. “TikTok isn’t just another social media platform, it’s a launchpad for creators,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at eMarketer.

While other platforms feature their own versions of live streaming and business opportunitites, Instagram and YouTube, TikTok’s primary competitors, just don’t offer the same ecommerce integration, monetization options, and discovery systems as TikTok, creators said. “One unique aspect of TikTok that I’ll miss is the live-streaming feature,” Neal said. “I’ve had incredible live streams while out on hikes, showing people beautiful spaces and having meaningful conversations in real-time. Other platforms don’t foster that same kind of live engagement.”

In response to the fast-approaching ban, some TikTok users which translates loosely into “little red book,” named after a propaganda book written by . ÌęThe app is lifestyle-centric and more similar to Instagram than TikTok. However, it shot to the top of Apple’s app store on January 14 as TikTok users desperately searched for alternatives to the platform.

“Do the great people of China like nature?” one new Xiaohongshu alongside a video of the view from a mountain top. “I’m an American TikTok refugee that posts simple nature content that highlights the greatness of the outdoors,” he .

Within hours of posting, he had gotten a reply from another Xiaohongshu user, who posts videos of their hikes. “Deep love of nature,” they replied.

Taylor Lorenz has reported on the content creator industry for 15 years. She has covered TikTok for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She has also amassed over 542,000 followers on the app.

The post What the TikTok Ban Means for Outdoor Communities and Creators appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

From tourists behaving badly in national parks to a camping trip in one of the hottest places in the world, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű published a long list of captivating features this year. My personal favorite, “Death on Shishapangma,” by the talented Gloria Liu, explores the risks of rushing to summit the world’s highest peaks through a terrible tragedy. Liu retells the deaths of four mountaineers with compassion, and her detailed storytelling brings the disaster—and the victims—to life.

I asked my colleagues to send me their top picks for the long reads of the year, too. Of the nearly 40 longform stories we published in 2024, these are our favorites. —Abigail Wise, digital director

“Can Colorado’s I-70 Traffic Problems Ever Be Solved?”

This story was a beautiful union of two great minds thinking alike. Senior editor Alison Osius suggested a profile of Colorado’s I-70, the often-clogged highway that leads to some of the most beautiful mountains in Colorado. Then she approached longtime șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű contributing editor Gloria Liu to write it, and Liu said, “I’ve always wanted to write that story.” Liu brought a lot of creative thinking to the project, seamlessly melding funny and poignant scenes with traffic data. If you think you don’t want to read a story about a highway, think again. You’ll laugh for sure, and maybe even cry. —Mary Turner, senior brand director

Read the Story

“Our Coast to Coast Walk Across Northern England Was an Exercise in Hope and Joy”

In this beautifully worded travelogue, author Steven Potter and his wife, Emma, take a belated honeymoon to northern England and cross it from west to east during a 200-mile walk. There are scenes of misery—blistered feet that have Steven hobbling, nettles that sting Emma’s bare bum on a pee break, and a 40-minute downhill run to make a supper engagement after they’d already knocked out 16 miles. But their delight and good nature override everything. Gorgeous photos by Emli Bendixen round out a happy adventure, with some deep thoughts on how wandering changes us, often for the better. —Tasha Zemke, managing editor

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“How Did This Climber Get Away with So Much for So Long?”

I choose “How Did This Climber Get Away with So Much for So Long?”Ìęfor the way in which the writer, Annette McGivney, assembled a huge and detailed mosaic of the key events, disturbing and sickening though the effect was. She was respectful of the victims and meticulous in reporting. I was proud of the editor, Alex Heard, and șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű for the work and resources that went into this 11,000-word investigative piece. Such stories are difficult, andÌęimportant. —Alison Osius, senior editor

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“In Montana, a Threatened Swath of Old Growth Fuels a Longstanding Debate”

I’m a sucker for a passionate environmentalist. A fly-fisher defending her local waterways? A wildland firefighter committed to educating the world about sustainable fire? Can’t get enough. It’s probably why I love this story from Montana-based writer and producer Laura Yale so much: it’s packed with people who fight with everything they have to protect the forests they—and an endangered population of grizzly bears—call home. First, we meet Rick Bass, a prolific writer and activist who, lately, has been focused on protecting a rare swath of old-growth in northwest Montana from logging. Then we encounter the well-meaning Forest Service representatives, the tribal leaders, and the conservationists. This is a story of devotion, but it’s also a story with wonky, hard-to-parse policy and science. Yale expertly weavesÌęthe two together, walking readers through the thorny overlap between economics, policy, and conservation without losing sight of what motivates her characters in the first place: a deep sense of responsibility for and interconnectedness with the land and all its inhabitants.Ìę —Abbie Barronian, senior editor

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“I Needed to Stop Drinking. So I Hiked 100 Miles in Maine.”

What struck me most about W. Hodding Carter’sÌęstory about his struggles with alcoholism—seen through the lens of a grueling hike through Maine’s rugged 100-Mile Wilderness—is the sheer courage it took to write it. The vulnerability. The honesty. It had to be an agonizing story to tell—and even harder to live through. I mean, shit, it was painful just to read. But it was also incredibly inspiring. Carter’s struggle through an experienceÌęhe can’t control, his battle with himself, his pendulum of self-loathing and fierce determination to get himself right—there’s something really universal and relatable about it. Insert your own demon and you’ll probably see a little of yourself in the author. I know I did. —Kristin Hostetter, head of sustainability and contributing editor

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“I Went to Yellowstone National Park to Learn Why It Turns Tourists into Morons”

Tourists have, in recent years, been gored by bison, boiled alive in hot springs, scalded by eruptions, mauled by grizzlies, and more at America’s first national park. The headline to this story sums up the situation pretty perfectly, and the story itself is a deep dive into the chaos that happens when visitors get too close to wildlife and geothermal features. I rolled my eyes plenty reading this one. —TZ

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“Christina Lustenberger Skis the Impossible”

I didn’t know I needed to read this story until I did. I also didn’t know who professional ski mountaineer Christina Lustenberger was before it. This raw profile made me realize how few longform stories I’ve read about female skiers or alpinists. Though Lusti’s feats are superhuman, her experiences as a woman—down to an anecdote where she’s the supposed leader on an expedition but everyone is instead taking cues from a man—are so relatable. And her willingness to be genuinely vulnerable has the perhaps non-intuitive effect of making her only seem more formidable. This was a motivating and empowering read. —Gloria Liu, contributing editor

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“I Went on a Dark Cave Retreat. Things Got Weird.”

Tim Neville has been writing for șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű for years now, and somehow each new story is better than the last. For this one, he spent four days in a pitch-black cave dealing with his thoughts, resulting in an intense inward adventure. It was grueling and enlightening and beautiful and, well, very dark. I’ll never forget the video of him as he emerged from the cave to see the light again. His insights will always stick with me. The story also just won a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award. —MT

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“This Is What It’s Like to Camp in One of the Hottest Places on Earth”

Leath Tonino possesses an endlessly compelling voice, and he uses it here to point to spots of beauty and grace amid the desolation of Death Valley in August. We sent him to North America’s lowest point in the heart of a summer heat wave while hikers were dyingÌęfrom heatstroke—perhaps not the most responsible editorial call. But Tonino, as always, found a stillness and peace in what he calls the Capital-H Heat. Nestled deep among climate anxiety, a respect for nature’s fury, and a heat so oppressive it all but robs him of language, Tonino found a way to depict of one of the most extreme places on the planet in a gentle, generous manner. —Jake Stern, digital editor

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“Navigating Orca Alley: One Family’s Journey Among Rudder-Bashing Whales”

I was fascinated by the stories of orcas ramming boats in European waters. Was it a revenge mission by the whales against humans? I kept seeing news story after news story about boats being sunk by the giant whales. Then Caroline van Hemert, a wildlife biologist and writer, reached out to tell me that she and her family planned to sail through the very waters where the attacks were happening in order to complete a voyageÌęto Greenland. There’s no one I trust more when it comes to the relationship between humans and wildlife than Caroline. She lives in Alaska and has grown up around grizzlies, is not a sensationalist writer, and usually sides with the animals. Her riveting account of their journey through Orca Alley is gripping—and finally makes some sense of why this is happening. —MT

Read the Story

Want more of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű’s in-depth longform stories?Ìę.

The post Our Best Longform Stories of 2024 appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

The șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Festival is back.

A year after the inaugural gathering brought some 18,000 people together for a rousing weekend of music and joy in the outdoors, the with presenting sponsors and will return to downtown Denver’s Civic Center Park, May 31-June 1, 2025. The just-announced lineup of musical headliners includes , , , , , , , and .

The two-day event will also feature conversations with iconic athletes, renowned storytellers, and inspiring changemakers, plus an adventure films series and a diverse mix of outdoor experiences.

The șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Summit, a precursor to the Festival and the outdoor industry’s premier networking event, which was attended by over 500 influential leaders in its first year, will return on Thursday, May 29. The Summit includes a full day of programming on Friday, May 30, plus exclusive gatherings during the Festival weekend.

The 2024 șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Festival and Summit was hailed as that created a new model for a national outdoor community gathering. Building off that momentum, organizers have expanded the Festival grounds to include Lincoln Veterans Memorial Park in order to accommodate an anticipated 25,000-plus attendees. Activities include climbing experiences, yoga classes, skills workshops, gear demos, a kids’ zone, exciting food options, and a variety of immersive brand engagements. Films and talks will take place at spaces inside the Denver Art Museum and the newly renovated Denver Public Library.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Festival presenting sponsor Capital One is running an exclusive Capital One cardholder presale, giving eligible cardholders—including Ìęcustomers—48-hour early access to tickets beginning Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 10 a.m. MT, and ending at 10 a.m. MT on Friday, Dec. 13, or until the last ticket is sold. Supplies are limited. Those trying to access the Capital One Cardholder Presale must use an eligible Capital One Visa or Mastercard credit or debit card to purchase presale tickets. Excludes Capital One issued private label cards. Tickets start at $99 for the full weekend.

Immediately following the Capital One cardholder presale, all tickets will be released to the general public at 10 a.m. MT on Friday, December 13. VIP packages will start at $150 for a single day and $275 for the full weekend, with access to a premium VIP viewing area, exclusive food vendors, private bar access, expedited entry, and more.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű+ members have access to early-bird pricing throughout the entire sales window on single-day general admission tickets and all VIP ticket types, plus members have the opportunity to purchase GA+ tier tickets at general admission pricing. Two-day GA+ tickets start at $175 and include perks like express entry, private bathrooms, additional food and beverage options, and access to the șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű+ Lounge. Children ages 12 and under enter free.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the .

The post Khruangbin and Lord Huron to Headline the 2025 șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Festival Presented by Capital One and REI appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Auden Schendler, one of the biggest climate advocates in the outdoor industry,Ìędoesn’t start his new book, Terrible Beauty, with any of the myriad lessons he’s learned over decades of environmental work. Schendler, who is vice president of sustainability at Aspen One (parent company of Aspen Snowmass), doesn’t drop into scare tactics, or data, or the myriad ways global warming is harming recreation, business, and our ability to thrive. Instead, he opens with a camping trip in the Utah desert with a couple of buddies, chasing down dirt devils for the sheer glee of being outside in a storm.

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The book goes on to examine the ways we need to approach environmentalism if we want to experience that joy in the future. In his 25 years heading up sustainability initiatives for one of the ski industry’s biggest corporations, Schendler has been at the forefront of climate action. He converted Aspen’s utility to renewables, convinced its tissue supplier to stop cutting down old-growth trees, and led the outdoor industry in political lobbying. But he says we need to do more. A lot more. Corporate sustainability is failing, he says, and individuals aren’t leveraging enough of our personal and political power because we’ve been cowed into thinking we don’t have any. And now, the clock is ticking. According to Schendler, modern environmentalism is broken—but he has some ideas about how to keep it moving forward.

Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul is a book about citizenship, the pursuit of purpose, and uphill battles you might not win but have to keep fighting anyway. It’s a book about right now.

What do you hope people take away from this book?

I want to suck people into the joy of the universe, then give them that technical payload on climate in a way that motivates them. When you ask people, “What do you care about?” It’s things like community and family and wild places. But when you ask them, “What are you doing to protect those things against this existential threat?” they throw up their hands. I wanted to give people tools to figure it out. So there’s a bunch of stuff about banks and how the financial sector impacts climate change, but this is a book about the human experience. I’m trying to say modern environmentalism is failing, but what can replace it? Can it be exciting?

Let’s talk about that failure. You’ve that skiing is toast, and that we’ve failed on climate as a society. How do we go forward in the face of that?

When you’re in a movement that’s losing it’s not glamorous, but this is where I think there’s a connection to the outdoor world. The purpose has to come in the doing of the thing. It’s like type 2 fun. It’s not about winning or losing—I think in any human endeavor it’s very rare to be able to say,Ìę“yes, we won.” Instead, we have to think about it like a practice. We’re improving the world. As much as a day in my life as a climate fighter is depressing, it’s also fascinating and weird and filled with these odd twists and turns and micro wins and crippling losses. There’s a lot of glee in getting into mischief.

You argue that the ways we’ve largely been doing environmental work, particularly corporate sustainability, isn’t actually addressing the root causes of global warming. How do we change?

When we discovered that CO2 was going to be a problem in the fifties, we should have started getting off [fossil fuels], but we didn’t because we were misinformed, or because politicians were bribed, and since then we’ve been working toward targets that are in line with what the fossil fuel industry would want. For instance, in my world, the outdoor world, you could say, “let’s talk about recycled skis,” but that doesn’t really move the needle. Instead, we need to be publicly lobbying our peers and elected officials on climate.

What can someone like me, who isn’t part of a big business or advocacy group, do to move the needle?

My prescription is this: You get a six pack and you get a few smart friends, and you ask each other “Where do we have power?” You come up with an answer, then dismiss it if it’s not to scale.

Think about environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who said “I’m going to sit in this one spot for a year.” That helped. You have to just try some stuff. The question is really: Do we want to be citizens or not? Can you go to a town council meeting and talk about the planning and zoning board? You can’t just sign an online letter and call it good. You have to do real stuff and move your body and get out into society, instead of giving into the inclination to stay in or avoid confrontation.

That requires bandwidth, and there are people who don’t have that, and that’s OK too. Revolutions don’t come from 100 percent of the population mobilizing, it’s typically 4 to 9 percent, and that can make a difference.

Bandwidth, and who has the ability to act on climate, seems like a really big part of the conversation.

When climate is forcing you into survival mode, you don’t have the leisure that humans need to thrive. You can’t just be recovering from the last fire or flood all the time. This is environmentalism writ large right now. You think I have the luxury to care about climate? I can’t feed my family or pay my health care bills. This gets to the broader question of whether we’re actually taking care of each other, and we’re not.

The tension in the book is that the thing that could destroy us is also a fundamental opportunity for change as a society. How do you walk that line?

The cover of the book meant to express that. Like, “Damn, this thing is kind of fucked up, but it’s still beautiful.” I think about Tolkien’s idea of the long defeat, and how we’re in this long battle of good versus evil. We’re slogging through Mordor. I think this is humanity’s biggest project but we’re still making things better. It’s going to be uncomfortable and hard, but it can still be full of purpose and joy.

The post In “Terrible Beauty,” Auden Schendler Explains Why We’re Losing the Climate Fight—and Why We Have to Keep Trying Anyway appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

This story update is part of theÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűÌęClassics, a series highlighting the best writing we’ve ever published, along with author interviews and other exclusive bonus materials. Read “The Same River Twice,” by David Quammen,Ìęhere.

In the grainy Zoom window, I see Quammen’s walls of shelves, heaving with books, and also a large, empty glass tank.

“I’m in here with Boots the python,” he says, as if it’s totally banal to share office space with a large snake. “That’s his tank.”

Ah, the tank is not empty. That’s cool. And a little terrifying.

“Oh, he’s a sweetheart,” Quammen says. “My wife, Betsy, came downstairs one day about five years ago and said, ‘Don’t get mad at me, but—’ You know how those conversations begin. Betsy says, ‘Don’t get mad at me, but I’ve adopted a python.’ Betsy and I are snake people. I said, ‘What species?’ That’s kind of what passes for our collaborative decision-making.”

Boots is a “very gentle” ball python, Quammen says. “He, like most of our dogs and like the cat, is a rescue.” When Quammen lets Boots crawl around the office, the snake will sometimes slither up and into hidden spaces in the shelves.

“Their favorite habitat is rocky walls. A ball python can go into a niche in a cliff or a mud bank and wedge itself in there like a ball, and it makes it hard for a leopard or a baboon to pull it out and eat it. Boots wedges himself in my bookshelf, and I have to delicately figure out: Which book do I take out next in a way that does not hurt him, bend any of his scales in the wrong direction, to loosen him up a little bit? Eventually, he just sort of falls into my hands.

“He’s only bitten me once, and it was by accident. He was very embarrassed.”

We digress, perhaps. But a conversation with Quammen always contains multitudes: Darwinism, connubial negotiation and bliss, dedication to the literary and the true, and a fierce and gregarious curiosity, with Montana often in the wings. Let’s digress a bit more: had he not bought a used Volkswagen bus in England, and had George McGovern won the U.S. presidency in 1972, it’s very possible Quammen might never have ended up in Montana at all.

He grew up in Cincinnati and got into Yale, where he studied literature and wrote a novel, . He then won a Rhodes Scholarship and headed off to Oxford to earn a graduate degree, writing his thesis on the works of William Faulkner. He obtained the VW bus with money earned from the novel. But in May 1972, Quammen recalls, Richard Nixon ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor in Vietnam, and “within about 24 hours I left the Rhodes without permission and came back to the U.S. to work for McGovern’s [anti-war] campaign. After McGovern was squashed in November, I promptly went back to England and found that the head of the Rhodes Scholarships hadn’t written me off.”

Quammen got his Oxford degree and then convinced his friend Dennis to ship the VW to a dockyard in New York. Following an unsatisfying stint in Berkeley, California, Quammen decided to drive the bus “to Montana, filled with Penguin Classics and a portable electric typewriter. And a very cheap fly rod, which I soon ran over and replaced with a better cheap fly rod. I arrived in Missoula on September 12, 1973. A significant day in my life.”

OUTSIDE: I came to work at the magazine the year after you wrote “The Same River Twice.” I don’t know if you remember, I was your fact-checker back in those days. I read this essay, and from that moment on I loved your writing. The bones of the story have everything to do with how you came to șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű.
QUAMMEN: In 1981, Steve Byers, E. Jean Carroll, and I were all trying to break into magazine writing from Ennis, Montana, the little town we were living in. I was 33; they were a few years older. We heard that the editor of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine was coming to Montana to schmooze with writers, and we thought it’d be great if we could get a shot at meeting that guy and pitch stories to him.

From a phone booth in Bozeman, with a handful of quarters, I cold-called șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű in Chicago and asked for John Rasmus, editor in chief. My heart was racing. I was nervous. My mission was to say, “If you come to Ennis, Steve and I will take you fly-fishing on the Madison River.”

This young, casual voice comes on the line: “Hi, this is John.” I say, “Hi, John Rasmus. You don’t know me.” I do my little spiel, and he says, “Oh, OK. Cool.”

Steve and I taught him to cast a fly line in my side yard. Then we took him fishing, and we made sure that he caught some fish. By about sunset on this stretch of the Madison, he was landing a 16-inch rainbow trout.

We took him back to the farmhouse where Steve and Jean lived, and we cooked steaks and drank whiskey. By the end of the evening, we were all best friends. At some point I said: I got a story idea for you. I want to write a piece about what’s good about mosquitoes. John said, “Is anything good?” But in the sober light of day he said, “I’m assigning this to you, right?” I mailed the essay off in a manila envelope and thought, What’s going to happen?

What happened was he accepted it and offered you a job as columnist for a slot already known as Natural Acts.
That was the only time, I think, that I ever actually pitched șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű an idea. After that I’d just send him a piece, usually on time, but at the last minute: “Here’s an essay on sea cucumbers.” “Here’s an essay on giant Pacific octopus.” “Here’s an essay on why crows get bored.” Which is because they’re too intelligent for their station in life.

When I was doing the column, I tended always to look for some kind of synergy between elements that were unexpectedly combined, but when you put them together
 well, son of a gun. I had taken some courses in zoology at the University of Montana when I lived in Missoula. I had taken a course in entomology, another one in aquatic entomology, and another one in ichthyology. I was interested in how spring creeks worked, the fact that they maintain a constant temperature and therefore have a 12-months-of-the-year growing season and can be very productive. This creek behind Steve and Jean’s house was a spring creek.

And then Steve and Jean came to an end. I had so revered their union that, when they split, it gutted me. Then, several years later, I was noodling up a column.

I had that spring creek idea, but it was only half of a column. I needed another half. I needed the yang to that yin. That creek that I fished on with Steve, and the end of their marriage and the end of our special moment, the three of us in that town, became the yang of this piece. I always thought of that time as—there’s a wonderful sentence at the very end of , Ernest Hemingway’s memoir of Paris. He says, “This is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.”

One thing I enjoy about the essay is that there are no identifiers—I don’t know where it is except that it’s in Montana. As I reread it recently, I thought about how we are now so information saturated. This piece is almost allegorical—the opposite of online culture.
It’s a very particular, very personal story, but I wanted it to have some sort of universal dimension. I wanted it to have legs. I want to give myself credit for an instinct that not naming the town, not naming the people, not naming the specifics would give it a little bit of permanence. I was describing science with great care and, I hope, precision, but also connecting it with things that were very unscientific—either artistic or simply emotional.

I love that șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű was a place where you could do that, and everybody had the good sense to keep letting you do it.
I did between 152 and 155 columns, something like that. All those wonderful people at șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű just letting me do any damn crazy thing, as long as I could make it work and get it in on time. It was a fool’s paradise.

But you started out wanting to write fiction, right?
I wanted to be a novelist. I had taken one science course in college, a biology course, and it was not a good biology course. Didn’t even mention Charles Darwin.

I discovered Faulkner when I was a sophomore at Yale, and I became obsessed with his work. I studied him with a great teacher and a great friend to me, Robert Penn Warren, who knew Faulkner, and who was himself a southerner and a towering American man of letters. When I was a senior, I was rewriting what became my first published novel, To Walk the Line.

But I was a middle-class white male from a happy childhood in Ohio. The world didn’t need that guy to be a novelist. When I got to Montana I started reading nonfiction. Voraciously.ÌęFor the first time.

What prompted you to do that?
I had always been interested in the natural world, but I had been in New Haven and then Oxford—not places where the natural world is very strongly present. I got to Montana, and I got back to the natural world. I was interested in feeling the cold and the snow and feeling the flow of the rivers. But also, I was interested in thinking about it. I was interested in ecology and evolutionary biology. I started reading Darwin. I started reading Heraclitus. I started reading Herodotus. I started reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I started reading every which way: Loren Eiseley and J.B.S. Haldane and Mary Kingsley and Annie Dillard and others. And I saw people doing things with nonfiction that were every bit as creative and imaginative as fiction, and much more creative and imaginative than 97 percent of novels.

I want to ask about your books on pandemics, which are both highly literary and diligently reported. You were prescient on this topic, having published , your 2012 book about the rise in zoonotic diseases that transmit dangerously from animals to humans. A decade later came Breathless, in which you argue persuasively for the zoonotic theory of COVID-19 and against the theory that the virus escaped from a virology lab in Wuhan, China.ÌęÌęÌę
One story is the imagined story of a lab leak, and the other is the inferential story of a zoonotic spillover. There is a lot of empirical evidence to support but not finally prove the idea that COVID originated with a zoonotic spillover. There’s a whole historical and scientific context for that. There are pieces of immediate evidence that support that idea.

There’s no empirical evidence to support the lab story. But it is a very, very powerful, enticing story. And that is why it has legs, in my opinion. One of the things that they argue on that side is, “Well, if this came from a zoonotic spillover from a bat, why haven’t we found the original virus in the bat? It’s been four years now. That’s very suspicious.”

Well, no. The problem is they don’t know anything about the history of zoonotic diseases. With the Marburg virus, for example, it took 41 years to find the bat. With Ebola it’s been 48 years, and we still don’t have the answer. It is not mysterious that the last section of evidence in the structure of empirical support for zoonotic spillover of COVID hasn’t been found.

Are you working on a book now?
Yeah. My desk is covered with files, files, files, books, books, and files. I’m working on a book on cancer as an evolutionary phenomenon. I’ve been incubating this book for 17 years.

How is cancer evolutionary?
There is a school of thought that I stumbled across in 2006 or 2007 that says to understand cancer, you have to understand it from a Darwinian perspective. Every tumor is a population of cells. As a tumor begins, the cells start mutating more and more. As a tumor grows, it’s a population of cells that vary from one another with genetic variation. And they’re competing. They’re competing for space. They’re competing for blood. They’re competing for oxygen, for other resources that allow them to grow. And when you have a population of variant individuals competing for resources in order to survive and replicate themselves—does that sound familiar? You turn the crank and you have evolution by natural selection.

So why does chemo so often not work? An oncologist prescribes a drug, and I don’t know how much cancer you’ve experienced in your family or your life—

I had breast cancer, and my husband died of lymphoma.
All right. Ouch. Yes. So an oncologist says, “We’re going to treat this with chemo. This is a good drug.” And the chemo knocks down the cancer for six months or so. You get some improvement. And then the cancer becomes resistant to that drug, so you’re forced to use a different drug. Why does it become resistant? For the same reason that a field of grasshoppers becomes resistant to the insecticide DDT. You hit the grasshoppers with DDT one year. You kill off 99 percent of the grasshoppers, and 1 percent of the grasshoppers happen to have genetic resistance to DDT. Two years later, your field is filled with grasshoppers again. This is cancer as an evolutionary phenomenon.

If we live long enough and are lucky enough, we’ll all die of cancer. Lucky enough because it is a result of, among other things, but importantly, the cumulative number of cell divisions that you have. But here’s a question: Why do whales not get cancer?

Whales?
It’s a mystery. It’s called . Whales live a long time, and they have lots and lots of cells. Their cells are not larger than ours, they just have more of them. If you trace a linear curve, whales should be dying of cancer in early middle age, all of them, and they’re not.

Are there any tiny animals that don’t get cancer?
Yes. The naked mole rat, which lives in burrows in the Middle East. It has hardly any fur. It’s blind. It lives underground. A naked mole rat lives to be 20 or 30. A mouse lives to be two. There are cancer biologists who have whole colonies of naked mole rats and have been studying them for 40 years.

This conversation makes me want to be huge. Or very small.
Lisa, just remember: șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű in the 1980s, that’s what it was like, when we were very young and very happy.

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