Show Transcript

0:00:01 - (Kevin Lowe): When you think of paying it forward, what do you envision? Maybe you've been lucky enough to be part of an effort of paying it forward. What I think of, well, I think of those amazing stories about the drive through line at the local McDonald's where one person paid for the car behind them and that set out a chain reaction because that car then paid for the next person. That person overcome with joy, disbelief that somebody would do that for them, well, they pay for the car behind them.

0:00:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Today we're talking about paying it forward, but in a whole different sense, because today's guest, Remy Storak, he has dedicated part of his life to paying it forward to kids cancer care of Alberta, Canada. As a child, Remy was there. He got to experience this camp, and it was transformational. Matter of fact, Remy says that having cancer and going through three different heart procedures as a kid was the best thing to happen to him because of kids'cancer care.

0:01:15 - (Kevin Lowe): Today you're going to hear the story about a child who was at a camp with other kids who were sick, too. Now, the reality of the situation is that these kids who were really sick, and year to year, some of the kids, they didn't make it back. Today is about giving back. It's about paying it forward to kids cancer care to those who didn't make it back to camp. But it's equally about setting off on adventure, living life to the very most that it is.

0:01:53 - (Kevin Lowe): Because Remy, well, we're not only talking about kids cancer care, we're also talking about him being a big game horseback guide in the middle of nowhere with his two brothers. The adventure stories you are about to hear are going to leave you in awe, my friend. I'm telling you what if you're up for a sense of adventure, if you're up for also a heartfelt story about a kid, about a man who is now giving back, who is paying it forward, then, my goodness, this is the episode for you, my friend. I welcome you to episode 272.

0:02:38 - (Kevin Lowe): What's up, my friend? And welcome to grit Gracelet Inspiration. I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind. And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself. And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you. Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why or still left searching for that next right path to take, we'll consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

0:03:16 - (Kevin Lowe): Woohoo, baby. How many points did you earn today? Me? I totally crushed yesterday's score. Of course. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the rise and thrive personal development tracker. Something that I created so that I can become the best version of me and so that you can become the best version of you. If you are on a journey to live this life to the fullest, to be sure that you are making the most of every day by becoming a better version of you today than you were yesterday, well, you got to jump on board. With the rise of thrive personal development tracker, I've made it super easy to download. All you have to do is text the word rise rise to the phone number 33 triple seven.

0:04:06 - (Kevin Lowe): Again, simply text the word rise rise to the phone number 3777. I also will leave a link inside of today's show notes if that makes life any easier, because I'm telling you, you got to get in the game with the rise and thrive personal development track.

0:04:28 - (Remmy Stourac): It wasn't until I was 20 years old that my mom was able to give me the full gravity of the situation. But I get to tell people that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me. But at the age of four, I was diagnosed with leukemia. And now I understand it to be that by the time I was diagnosed, my bloodstream was about 90% cancer cells and I had 24 hours to get a blood transfusion or I would have died.

0:04:53 - (Remmy Stourac): And so that translated to every vein in my left knee down and my leg ended up exploding. And lo and behold, I'm still here. But it was three heart procedures and three and a half years of chemotherapy and treatment later. But I get to say I'm extremely lucky to be here. So I have nothing but gratitude for how my life has unfolded ever since.

0:05:16 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Wow. Now, growing up, did you have any brothers or sisters?

0:05:22 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah, I was the youngest of two other brothers and an eldest sister.

0:05:26 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay. During that time and stuff, just out of my own curiosity and stuff, were they a big help to you? Just comforting and being there with you?

0:05:37 - (Remmy Stourac): I mean, I was in the hospital for two months, I believe, and so my mom was 100% my biggest supporter. And when I was so young as a kid, I also get to realize that I'm quite fortunate that my sense of normalcy hadn't really even existed yet.

0:05:52 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:05:53 - (Remmy Stourac): But when I did get to come home, we did have a bit of an outdoorsy life. We had a little bit of an acreage. And so even though my immune system was low. I couldn't go to real school, but I could still be catching frogs in the backyard and bringing out the slingshot with my brother. So absolutely. It was a big support.

0:06:10 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Amazing. Well, talk to me about kids cancer center, because that's a big part of your story, and I'm curious to understand what exactly it is and where it kind of fit into this story of yours.

0:06:27 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah, absolutely. So kids Cancer Care foundation of Alberta. A nurse ended up approaching my mom three years into my treatment, and she said, hey, there's this kids cancer care camp where survivors and siblings can get away for five days and parents can finally take a breather of the tight grip that every parent rightfully would have when their kids going through such turmoil. But I got to go there, and me and my siblings as well. For kids age seven to 17.

0:07:01 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah. I got to go to this camp for five days and be among other survivors like my, I get to say some of my great friends growing up were double brain tumor survivors, amputees, blind, and they're the happiest people I've ever met. And so to have this camaraderie of people who are kind of, like, celebrating their scars and realizing, like, oh, I have a variety of different gifts that have been given to my life and the resilience that comes with it. And so it allowed a place for us to shift the narrative and for us to go and scrape our knees again after we've had the safety bubble on our life. Right.

0:07:36 - (Remmy Stourac): And I give so much credit to the counselors because it's a nonprofit, of course. And so to have the leadership come from people who are there for the sake of itself and to be the best person of value, you have to be the goofiest, most selfless, lead with humility kind of person around. And so I started to see this totally different set of values that doesn't really exist in the real world. And so to grow up and be that and the best friend you possibly can for all these other kids who are cracking the bubble of what's possible for their life and redefining potential literally daily among these people who said, can't scrape your knees because your blood clots won't work and stuff. Right.

0:08:19 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah. To just redefine our lives little bit by bit, that place just became a home of miracles for us.

0:08:25 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Wow. Now, how old were you when you first went there?

0:08:28 - (Remmy Stourac): So I am still about the most veteran kid because I started as young as I could at age seven, went all the way to 17, and then became a full time counselor, and we'll get to the story later. I only ever missed three summers to be a big game horseback guide, but now I've been going back every single summer as an adult to teach future counselors. So I have, like, 17 years in that place.

0:08:50 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow, dude, that's amazing.

0:08:53 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah, it's incredible.

0:08:55 - (Kevin Lowe): So was it something? Was it the same time every year, like a week during the summer, that you all would go?

0:09:01 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah, that's right. Just five days in the summer. And then as soon as we were growing up, where we could finally have two weeks as 17 year olds and then two months as an adult, I was like, man, I'm so prepared to work ten months a year just so I can volunteer two months. This place has so much magic hiding in it that it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

0:09:19 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, amazing. Talk to me about some of the friends that you made there. If some of those kids continued going as long as you. I was just kind of curious about that.

0:09:30 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah. So I'm definitely the OD one out in that sense. I still have some childhood friends who have now finally come back around to volunteering again. And it's funny because so many people say, oh, I don't have enough money to take a week off to do that. And it's like, dude, spiritually, I don't know if you can afford not to. We got to get our childhood back.

0:09:54 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:09:56 - (Remmy Stourac): But to have some friends that I've known since I was ten to come up and just kind of watch the childhood get back into their bones and see how good they are again, just to be the most rowdy kid in the room and then be like, oh, if the adults. If this is a version of maturity that exists that gives so much hope to the kids on their way up, they're like, oh, we don't have to be hardened adults. As soon as we get into the real world, we can move forward into life with this composure that's playful and that's, like, one of the biggest things that I advocate for.

0:10:28 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I love it. Now, when I talked with you before, you told me about a particular story when you guys came back to camp and one of the friends that you had had wasn't. Yeah, I would love to ask. Yeah. To share that story.

0:10:47 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah. The most pivotal story, for sure, especially as a young kid. So when we're seven, of course, we don't have Facebook or anything. We're frantically giving each other our mom's phone number so we can end up at the same week of camp. The following year, I remember being twelve years old, and there was, I think, seven or eight of us, and we're all coming. It's like, oh, we're here again. We waited a whole year to be back to this place, and we're all looking around, but there was only one friend missing who was Davis.

0:11:17 - (Remmy Stourac): And the younger sister, her name was Jesse. Davis had the same cancer that I had, leukemia. And she had to say, like, yeah, Davis cancer relapsed, and he actually didn't make it this time. And so a whole bunch of twelve year old kids are now having survivors guilt. As soon as we get back to camp, and it's this time of celebration, but it probably didn't take more than, like, half an hour for us to realize that.

0:11:43 - (Remmy Stourac): I think the best thing moving forward is that we have to be twice as courageous in life because Davis doesn't get the chance to be courageous anymore. And so that was a promise that we made to each other, and that just amplified the way that we've moved forward in life. And there's definitely been times that we check back on some of these friends, and some of them are musicians now and stuff, and entering in these creative careers, and they're like, yeah, man, it scared the crap out of me, but we got to do it. What else is there to it?

0:12:12 - (Remmy Stourac): And so, yeah, just that attitude of this wonderful force that birthed out of a tragedy that you can't point any fingers anywhere for it. Right. But it's like, man, there's magic to be made of that, too.

0:12:24 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, I can't help but think to myself, like, how profound for a bunch of kids who, when you look back at it now, to realize the magnitude of that situation and then to have the resolve to be like, let's go all out because he's not here. Yeah, that's powerful. At some point in time, I'm assuming it's when you had missed a couple of years going to camp. Is that when you took off on some crazy adventure with your brothers?

0:12:58 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah. So I had been this full time counselor. Finally, I wasn't legally allowed to, so I came back as kind of like an undercover volunteer when I was 17, just on the brink of 18, and then full time when I was 18, going into 19. But I made the promise. I was like, man, this place is in my bones. Servitude is just for me. Like, I am such a good servant leader in the sense of knowing what these kids had been through, especially through all the different age demographics of seven to 17.

0:13:31 - (Remmy Stourac): Where I had been the insecure kid who was crying at night because I was homesick, and the 13 year old kids who don't really have their hygiene figured out, but they're falling in love for the first time. I could just appreciate the entire spectrum of it. But I was like, man, I can't imagine anything ever taking me away from this place. Right?

0:13:50 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:13:50 - (Remmy Stourac): But my two older brothers, they'd even experienced camp as well, but they had worked their way up the hunting guiding industry all through Alberta, BC, the Yukon, Northwest Territories with their summers afterwards. And they ended up getting this wonderful reputation. And one of the best hunting outfits in North America ended up reaching out to them and asked if they wanted to bring horses back into the northwest Territories because 40 years ago, four guys tried to do that.

0:14:22 - (Remmy Stourac): And it's 500 km from the middle of the road where the Yukon ends into the Northwest Territories. Like twelve back to back marathon days just to get in where we start and we have a guy come and airdrop us a pickaxe and flagging tape and we would give them coordinates and be like, touching down hunters for the first time in 40 years. Because 40 years ago, those four guys on their way out got stuck in this terrible snowstorm and two guys froze to death and had to leave all their horses out there and they died.

0:14:54 - (Remmy Stourac): And so my brothers are like, let's make it a family thing. I'm like, man, I was like, it broke my heart, but I was like, the call to adventure, man. I made this promise as a little kid. I'm like, it'd be crazy if I didn't.

0:15:12 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely.

0:15:12 - (Remmy Stourac): Lo and behold, the adventure happened.

0:15:15 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That is crazy. It's crazy enough that you guys are even taking on this trip. And so now I'm just excited for you to keep telling this story because what the heck happened?

0:15:27 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah. So there's been many evolutions of how that affected my life afterwards because I initially had a fair amount of resentment, actually, that this wonderful situation was happening and we were literally handed a map and good luck on our way into the wilderness. And so it's not like there was Google maps through the marshes. And so the first couple of days, we were literally just like, our horses were swimming through the bog and I ended up getting this terrible knee injury because my horse fell through the earth and was, like, swimming forward and the three horses that I was trailing behind got spooked. And so I was kind of stretched out between holding my horses and my horses fell sideways and my knee got wrapped around the stump. And basically pulled my kneecap off.

0:16:19 - (Remmy Stourac): And so then I had no choice if we weren't getting medevac out, like, we had to keep going. And so I ended up walking a fair amount of the next while just because sitting stretched out in the saddle was so unbelievably painful that I ended up just, like, building muscle mass around this wounded knee. That was, like, the beginning of this. But I was like, man, I'm just out here getting my butt kicked by horses. And this is an incredibly glamorous journey that so few will ever have the privilege to experience in this untouched land. But I'm like, I want to go be of service, man.

0:16:53 - (Remmy Stourac): And it was just really, like, tearing at my heart for a while. And it kind of just came to the point where I was praying, where I had nothing but God to talk to, to resonate. Because even though my brothers had experienced kids cancer care, this was their passion. And so they're kind of like, it's time to grow up, right? I was like, man, it's not that they didn't quite understand how special that place was for me. So I was praying one night, and I'm like, God, how can I break my arm or my leg in the least painful way so I can go be of service again? Because I just feel like this is absolutely not for me.

0:17:30 - (Remmy Stourac): And this is a wonderful detail just because I think we have time. But I had a friend whose mom reached out to me, and I had only known her a couple of times, but she had taken an interest. And just with the kids cancer care story and stuff, she's like, I just know you're going to do great things. And she's like, God told me to give you this book. And she's like, I've never read it. And she invited me over for a coffee before I left, and she literally didn't even look at the bookshelf. She put her finger on this book and pulled it out, and the title of the book was called, God, thank you for my opportunities, but please send somebody else.

0:18:09 - (Remmy Stourac): And so I'm like, okay, I think it's time to read this book.

0:18:12 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes.

0:18:14 - (Remmy Stourac): I can't remember exactly what it was in the book, but it just, like, the accumulation of things that had brought me to that moment, I just realized, okay, God, I didn't come here to die. I didn't come here to look for opportunities to hurt myself, to leave. I'm like, if you're going to bring me to it, you're going to bring me through it. And so I came to all these situations, the wrangles that I did every morning, I would just take up my shotgun and I would walk through rivers and bump into grizzly bears and have these standoffs. And luckily, I never had to kill one in self defense, but I was surrounded by wolves in the middle of the night, which I'll get to another time, swept down glacier rivers. And it's just like, if it wasn't for that total shift of mentality that if God's going to bring me through it, he'll get me through it. And it was just a total shift of gratitude.

0:18:59 - (Remmy Stourac): To be like I am in this present moment and nothing else matters. And to think that I should be wishing myself somewhere else is a disservice to the craziness that is my life.

0:19:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, you know what? That's a really powerful mindset. And I think that's something, honestly, that all of us need to be reminded of, is sometimes it's like we work so hard to get where we are, and then things maybe don't go quite the way we want, and we hope and we pray to be out of it and to be somewhere else. And there's something to be said for just embracing the moment, whether it's good or bad.

0:19:41 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah. Especially the bad man. I was chatting with friends now, and the spirit of people who be like, I can profit off of pain, not like monetarily, but spiritually. Be like, my diligence could be somebody else's deliverance. If I can struggle with class and pay it forth, then somebody else can breathe easier. And I'm like, man, that's a noble way to go.

0:20:02 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Well, before we continue on learning more about this crazy adventure journey, I was kind of curious. Your faith, was that something that was always part of you or developed later on?

0:20:16 - (Remmy Stourac): Honestly, it was kind of present in my youth, I would say. But there was definitely some experiences where I had witnessed people trying to say, hey, this is the right way to be. But then it was also hypocritical. And so I'm like, man, people who are walking in faith, they kind of come with a peace and a confidence of like, no, this is good for me. And it comes with a thriving sense of actualization. But the people who were kind of sharing their story were kind of using God's excuse to be like, oh, this is what God chose for me. And it's like, I don't know if I can agree with that because you're very fearful of your own life and you're staying in bad relationships, and so I'm like, I don't know if I can agree. I don't want to agree with a relationship that I see to not be exciting you or leaving you fearful about your own life. And so, honestly, I think it was majorly going up into the wilderness and kind of having my own spiritual experience and then coming home and realizing that I had lost my gratitude because I needed God in every minute when I was walking through the rivers, I'd be like, God, keep my feet firm, keep me steady, keep me dry, and keep me at peace with everything out here. But when I got home and everything was so easy, which was a very shameful problem for me, that I would start to pray and be like, hey, God, I haven't talked to you in a while.

0:21:47 - (Remmy Stourac): I would be complaining about something, right? I'm like, man, this is a bad friendship, let alone a relationship with my creator. Right?

0:21:54 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:21:56 - (Remmy Stourac): That's actually the perfect question because specifically because I felt guilty that I had ruined and gotten complacent with the best relationship that I had ever grown, as far as I'm concerned. I'm like, that's why I wanted to go back into the wilderness for around two to renew my relationship with my spirituality, because I just started walking as if I had earned the goodness in my life, and it started to build an ego that was really improper. And so I'm like, I got to go humble myself again and get God back, in a sense.

0:22:29 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Wow. So powerful. So back on your adventure, we're going to fill in some gaps here and go back. But I have to ask the biggest question. Did you all make it? Did you succeed or were you helicoptered out?

0:22:46 - (Remmy Stourac): Oh, yeah. No, man. We were there off grid for 110 days at a time, nearly four months.

0:22:53 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, my gosh. Dude, that's forever.

0:22:58 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah, it is. And to go in when the sun is, like, we were so far close to the arctic circle that the sun did not set for the first month and a half up there. And so we would get a tiny bit of shade at 03:00 a.m. When the sun dipped behind a mountain, if we were lucky, if we were positioned properly. But it would be 30 degrees or 85 degrees at 330 in the morning. Like, we couldn't sleep. We would get roasted out of our tents in the last month. It would be below freezing every morning. We'd be slapping snow off of our tent in the middle of the night so it didn't cave in on us. Like, we just had little two man tents because everything had to be carried on our horse's backs. Right. We couldn't have anything luxurious.

0:23:41 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow, dude, that's insane. Now, how many horses did you guys have with you?

0:23:47 - (Remmy Stourac): Between us three brothers, we had 14.

0:23:50 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay. Did all 14 make it?

0:23:53 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah. So that was actually a really wonderful thing because this is kind of a gnarly detail. But there was neighboring outfits in the Yukon that weren't nearly as far into the wilderness, maybe 300 km instead of 500. So still a crazy jaund in. But there is a reputation that the way through the marsh into the wilderness was so bad that we had to kind of account for the possibility of casualties along the way. Right. And there was like, of course, nobody wants that.

0:24:23 - (Remmy Stourac): But we hadn't lost any horses in the three years that we all did that together. And that was a really big deal because the neighboring outfits would lose, like, one to three horses every season. And it's devastating. Right. Like, it's family as far as you're concerned. When it's all you have and it's precious cargo, precious weight, all your adventures are on the backs of these crazy beasts. And so. Yeah, no, we were extremely fortunate and had wonderful friendships and talked to our horses like buddies.

0:24:51 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. So on this adventure, we've realized now it's not just like you're out there for a weekend. We're talking extended amount of time. Talk to me through some of your most memorable moments. Whether because they were scary, because they were amazing. I'm just kind of curious to learn some more details.

0:25:15 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah, man. Okay, I'll give you a funny one before I give you the scary one. Okay. I had this horse, boots, that I was wrangling on. And the most loving way to put it is that this horse was so unbelievably strong, but he was so unbelievably dumb. And because they're herd animals, they are so in tune with each other and the direction that they go. And so every night we have the horses tied up all day because it takes a whole day, at least, for all the food to go through their stomach. It takes about 4 hours for a horse to graze and fill their stomach.

0:25:57 - (Remmy Stourac): And so overnight we would let them go. We have bells on their neck, but I would have to track them by their footprints in the ground and by the poop that they leave behind. And I would just walk into the wilderness and find out where they were.

0:26:09 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, wow.

0:26:10 - (Remmy Stourac): But if we had few enough hunters, then we could keep two horses in. So they'd always need a buddy, otherwise they would get afraid. So I had boots and blue who would stay in and I would hop on boots in the morning, and we would ride off into the wilderness. And I was trusting boots before I understood that he wasn't as smart as I realized. And he ended up trailing me through willows, and he was galloping, man. I was pulling back as hard as I could, but his head was down. He was so sure that he was finding his buddies, but he was following caribou tracks for 20 minutes and we ended up in the middle of the valley.

0:26:50 - (Remmy Stourac): This horse looked down, like, side to side and realized he had no idea what he was doing. And I literally had blood on my cheeks from branches whipping me in the face. And this horse just turned rounds and gives up. I'm like, no, absolutely not. And on the way back, I realized that the horses had actually done a circle around our camp and went out the opposite direction. And so the horse went back to camp and basically wanted to give up, and so I had to drag him out of camp.

0:27:19 - (Remmy Stourac): And so I was basically doing extra work just to pull the horse out. And so there's literally the opposite of every point of having this wrangle horse. But as soon as I found a track, I pulled the horse's face down into the ground to make him look at it, and he got all excited and I hopped into the saddle and I got my shotgun, like, slapping across my back as he's, like, trotting away. And I'm kind of, like, getting used to it because I know I'm going to be trotting for a while.

0:27:44 - (Remmy Stourac): And then, like, five minutes into it, the horse just goes to a dead halt and plants its back legs into the ground. So, surprisingly, I literally front flip over boots head and I'm holding onto the reins in my left hand, and as it pulls up, I literally punch myself in the chin on the way down, holding onto the reins, and my back lands on a rock and I'm just like. And I'm like, what? And I turn over and I see this steaming pile of bear crap right beside my head. I'm like, okay.

0:28:15 - (Remmy Stourac): And so boots is trying to yank me and I'm, like, just gasping for air. And I'm just holding onto the reins with my left hand as this horse is, like, dragging me on the ground. I'm like, oh, my God, this is still before seven in the morning and all this crap is happening. I'm like, this is an unbelievable day. But lo and behold, I ended up finding horses, like, ten minutes after. But that was like a day in the life, man.

0:28:38 - (Remmy Stourac): As much glamorous as there was, it was a rodeo.

0:28:42 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. And we all thought being a cowboy was sexy.

0:28:49 - (Remmy Stourac): But the stories after, like, that, it's the best part to be able to laugh at yourself because you can get an ego. Like, yeah, I'm like, modern day cowboy. But it's like, yeah, dude, I punched myself on the way down from flipping off the horse. I am not special.

0:29:04 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That is hysterical. So that's a funny story. What about a scary story?

0:29:12 - (Remmy Stourac): So my signature life changing story.

0:29:15 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, okay, now we're getting deep.

0:29:17 - (Remmy Stourac): Yeah, we're getting to it. This was season two, day 67. I remember journaling. We ended up in the same camp that we found the first year around. It was our favorite area. We called it Coons Camp. And this was, like, old, like, just native names that they had left on the map. So it wasn't our choosing. But the previous year, our first year, winter had came a month early in August. And so we were hunting for a caribou. And the caribou migration ended up walking down our valley.

0:29:51 - (Remmy Stourac): And so we were looking for one and we ended up climbing a hill. And we watched hundreds walk by and we're like, wow, what do we do with that? And so we're like, oh, my God. Same time next year. Let's go. And so we did that. And as it should have been, winter did not come in August. And so me and my eldest brother, it was just the two of us because we only had one hunter. And so our middle brother, Lauren, actually got to go off in the bush plane and he got to go backpack elsewhere and he got to change of scenery, which was really cool. So it was just me and the one brother for this situation.

0:30:27 - (Remmy Stourac): So we hunted in every direction that we possibly could for the four days. And because the sun doesn't set and my brother is a maniac, we would hunt for like, 20 hours a day because he's like, I want results. I want a story for our hunter. And so we were exhausted, but we did not see anything. And so we came back on the fourth day and he's like, okay, I think the best thing I can do is take eight of the horses. I'll take the hunter. I'm going to go down the valley about 7 hours to what was called Death Valley because a glacier had basically wiped out this entire train. So it went from this extremely densely forested area to what was, like, literally a sheer wall of just, like, nothing but a couple of willows. And if anything exists out there, you can see it. It can see you and it's just wide open. And so I was like, yeah, man, I haven't had a break in two months. Like, go ahead, like, bye bye.

0:31:23 - (Remmy Stourac): And so I was like, absolutely, I'll take three days off. He said, yeah, I'll be back in three days, I promise. And so I'm like just taking it in, sleeping in a little bit until seven in the morning because I still got to get my horses. But it was day two of this break and I was sitting around the fire for dinner. I was just like, I cooked caribou steaks over the fire and I'm just enjoying life. Reading Game of Thrones. I carried this book 500 km just to have something to relax to.

0:31:53 - (Remmy Stourac): And I have my six horses in a semicircle behind me and there's this s shaped river beside me by my fire. And I see this grizzly walk out from 100 yards and it just casually walks right across the river. So he's about ten yards from me and it stands up on its back legs. And I always got my shotgun right there. But bears are like 95% good. They're just curious. But at the same time I'm like, okay, well, it smells m