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All Stories

popsample1
Profiles

The Underdog: Exploring the Origins of Popeye

His voice is one that is impossible to forget—sounding like a rusty chainsaw trying to cut through steel, it randomly swerves between high and low notes. An almost incoherent mishmash of words pours forth from his mouth. Simple words are mangled, and a nearly consistent mutter fills the space between his sentences. It’s like his mind is a leaky vessel that can’t quite contain all of the thoughts within.

But when you look at the individual from which that voice emanates, it makes sense. His screwed-tight face and bulging chin immediately draw your eye’s attention. As he talks, his corncob pipe continually bobs up and down, much like a ship on the sea. His sailor’s hat sits jauntily tilts forward, and his massive forearms, each one emblazoned with an anchor, provides a sense of menace, of someone not to be trifled with. He is unforgettable.

He is Popeye the Sailor Man, one of the most unlikely comic heroes ever created.

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5 Min
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Food

Campfire Cajun Rockfish

Like many of the other reef fishes on the Pacific coast, rockfish has a mild, white flesh, which makes it a versatile fish that takes on the flavor of any seasoning added. Rockfish is superb fried, baked, or pan-seared, but my favorite way to enjoy it is grilled whole. Early in my evolution as an underwater hunter, I brought home countless rockfish. On late nights at the fillet table, this was our go-to way to produce a mouth-watering meal with just minutes of prep, without having to fillet the fish first.

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5 Min
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Profiles

The Fabric of the Sea : Artist Cristina Maria Melito

“In your work I can taste the magic of undersea. You are in touch with the beauty of the world’s wildness alive in all things and people, the endless non-linear patterns of existence. You create a tangible sense of intimacy with the vast and mysterious powers of sea and animals.”

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5 Min
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Profiles

Subsea Hunter: Freedive Spearfishing with Lucas Murray

As many land hunters can attest to, part of the reason they choose to hunt is to get in touch with an instinctual, ancestral aspect of themselves. There is something primal about the pursuit of an animal that we find alluring. Breath-hold diving in the pursuit of fish is particularly addicting as it connects us to two innate and perhaps often-forgotten aspects of ourselves: the physiological dive reflex and the pursuit of prey.

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5 Min
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Field Notes

Episode 21: Wild Game Cooking Geek Out

An all cooking episode with Wade Truong of Elevated Wild and Lori McCarthy of Cod Sounds. This is what it sounds like when you have three obsessive wild game chefs bounce ideas off each other.

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60 Min
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Food

Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon

Nearly every Alaskan who harvests salmon has a smoking recipe or two (or a dozen!) Up their sleeves. Including everything from traditional strips to kippers and pressure-canned to frozen, pieces of smoked salmon grace freezers and line pantry shelves in many Alaskan homes. The following is a basic recipe that was passed onto me by my dad and tweaked to suit my own taste. Smoking salmon always involves a learning process no matter how many times it is undertaken, and flavor profiles can easily be adjusted to suit.

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5 Min

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Over the years, Filson's philosophy has never changed: Make sure it's the absolute best. With over 120 years of people wearing Filson, we have quite a few stories to share.

zacksoical
Profiles

Forged from the Salish Sea: Artist Zack Leck

The stunning natural world of the Salish Sea continually influences and inspires Leck’s body of work. He looks for any excuse to venture out on the water, or under the water working as a commercial diver. One of his passions is foraging for the many ocean delicacies present in the sea, such as Dungeness crab, spot prawns, seaweed, oysters, and mussels.

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5 Min
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Signature Materials

Signature Materials: Lightweight Active Rain Shells

Since 1897, Filson has manufactured clothing that’s kept men and women warm and dry in the Pacific Northwest and across the globe–in rain-soaked forests, snowy rangelands and everywhere in between. When pushing through brambles and briars or climbing through barbed-wire fences, you need heavy-duty gear that stands up to punctures, tears and abuse. But for covering miles of rugged terrain in the backcountry, a different type of rain gear is required. Lightweight, waterproof jackets that can be stuffed into tight spaces are a must. Let’s take a minute to clarify some of the terms we use to describe our lightweight active-use rain jackets.

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10 Min
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Food

Northwest Cacciucco

This version of cacciucco uses seafood sourced from the Pacific Northwest instead of from the Mediterranean, as would be typical in Italy. The seafood used in this dish was caught along the coast from Seattle to Alaska. When I think of Filson I think of heartiness, and this dish is definitely hearty and rich and tastes of the sea. On a cold, wet, or snowy day, this stew will hit the spot. This is Filson’s take on an Italian classic.

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5 Min
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Field Notes

Episode 20: Desert Quail

If you haven’t noticed, Hunt Gather Talk is something of a quail podcast. This episode is all about the desert quail: Mearns and Gambel’s, with a smattering of scaled quail talk. Hank is joined by hunter-biologist Kirby Bristow of the Arizona of Game & Fish Department.

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60 Min
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Field Notes

Forever on the Move: The Isolated Existence of the Arctic’s Caribou

By the time that they have lived out their life cycle, a caribou of the Alaskan herds will have traveled enough distance to have circled the globe. Like so many of their other animal brethren, humans included (though are more sedentary in modern times), movement is what they are designed to do. They live their isolated existence, far from human eyes, forever on the move, forever on the hunt, as they have been forever.

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5 Min
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Field Notes

Rum, Sailors, & Pirates: the dark history of booze on the High Seas

The spoils of captured merchantmen vessels often yielded large cargos of rum, wine, and ale, which pirate crews put to good use. Ironically, these periods of mass intoxication would last days or even weeks, alternating with periods of going without the most basic foodstuffs and water aboard ship, until landfall or the taking of another ship could replenish supplies.

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5 Min
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Field Notes

Taking a Closer Look at Kon-Tiki

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000 km across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands.

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5 Min
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Field Notes

Episode 19: Ruffed Grouse

To many, the king of all game birds is the ruffed grouse. In this episode, Hank talks with hunter-biologists Heather Shaw and Rocky Gutierrez about the biology of the grouse, its habitat, and why it is so tame in the West yet so tricky in the East. Plus a healthy conversation about cooking and eating them.

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60 Min
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Field Notes

Ski Hunting the Alaskan Arctic

For untold millennia humans have been strapping skis to their feet and heading out to hunt prey. In the Altai Mountains of western China, 10,000-year-old rock art depicts paleohunters engaging in the practice, while 4,000-year-old rock carvings in Norway show the same thing. Its DNA is even found in the biathlon of the Olympic Games.

Hunting for game on skis is not easy. It requires commitment. The weather is often harsh, the trails challenging, and the quarry difficult to find. It’s a more organic way of stalking prey. The advantages that the modern hunter has are fewer. It’s more akin to times past when hunting was much more rugged and dangerous. Skiing into the backcountry off the highway can be deadly, especially in the spring. Storms can blow up unexpectedly, the temperatures often top out at twenty below, equipment fails, and there is no lifeline. You are on your own.

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10 Min
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Profiles

Emily Mullen: Uptown’s Merchant of Joy

Emily tried office jobs, but they never sat right with her, so she went back to her roots and worked as a counselor at a YMCA camp that she attended every summer growing up. For a while she chased summer, working in the U.S. before heading to Australia for their summer seasons, and back again. A native New Englander, Emily eventually settled in Montana while working for a few years as a tour guide for a company that focused on the American West. But when the tourism season—like most everything else this last year—was upended, Emily signed up for another job that tapped into her love of the outdoors. From July to September, she joined a crew that traveled between remote fire camps in the Western U.S. to keep frontline wildland firefighters fed. With long days in these tough conditions, the crew would set up as close as they could to the forest fire, cooking the 6,000 or more calories’ worth of food each firefighter burns a day. After a long, hot season, Emily returned home to the Northeast.

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5 Min
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Food

The Smokejumper. Filson Hard Eggnog

In this version, I set out to make an eggnog drink that calls to mind sitting around a campfire out in the forest. I found Westland Peated Single Malt Whiskey to be the perfect match for what I call the Filson Smokejumper. It has a unique taste and a nose of smoldering campfire, with just a hint of pine (resiny) smoke. The smoke is mild and acts as an essential seasoning. The Smokejumper is garnished with finely chopped spruce needles, which not only add brilliant color but also a nice, mellow conifer taste, perfect for the holidays.

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5 Min
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Profiles

The Arctic Wall: The Brooks Range

Above the Arctic Circle, in the far northwest reaches of North America, the Brooks Range lies remote and largely untouched and untrammeled except by herds of ungulates. Stretching from western Canada across Alaska, the range forms a pristine 700-mile, majestic mountain wall below the Arctic Coast.

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5 Min
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Field Notes

Episode 18: Fall Wild Turkey

Hank talks wild turkey hunting with his friend Tony Caggiano of World Slam Adventures. Tony has done the world slam of turkeys and has guided turkey hunters for many years all over North America. He’s also a great game cook and runs a podcast called Wild Game Based.

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60 Min
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Profiles

Hoodoo Brewing co.

The sun has long gone down, although it’s a stretch to say that it really ever comes up on a January day this far north. On the corner of an industrial street in Fairbanks though, a 1970s pipeline-era warehouse is lit warm through the perpetual dark.
Two red, pug-snouted German fire trucks, like mascots of this place, frame the entrance to a courtyard dotted with wooden tables dusted in new snow. A soaring pergola winks with strands of lights. At the center of this scene, clustered around flames burning merrily in concrete fire pits shaped like icebergs, bundled-up figures bring pints of beer to fire-warmed lips, punctuating the 30-degree-below night with laughter.

Welcome to hoodoo brewing company in the core of Alaska.

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5 Min
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Field Notes

A Wild Idea: The Attempt to Train Wolverines for Avalanche Rescue

Alaska has always seemed to be a magnet for dreamers and schemers, pirates and poets, a place where one could live a life less ordinary and challenge the status quo that most people follow in their lives. So, when four-years-ago word trickled out of the state that a gentleman was trying to train wolverines how to do search and rescue for avalanche victims, something that dogs usually do, it did not seem that far-fetched.

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5 Min
Black and White image of Mountain Quail on Branch
Field Notes

Episode 17: Mountain Quail

This is a very special episode of Hunt Gather Talk, as Hank gets the chance to talk with Rocky Gutierrez, one of the top three experts on mountain quail. They’ll talk a ton about this mysterious bird: how to find it, how it lives, and how to hunt it.

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60 Min
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Featured

Filson Santa

It’s been a challenging year but nothing’s going to stop Santa and the workshop elves from spreading Christmas joy to all the good Filson boys and girls. This year Filson Santa will visit families virtually, calling your home from the North Pole to hear your Christmas wishes before the elves get busy in the workshop and he makes his deliveries all around the world.

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Hunter in high visibility vest with shotgun walking through snowy grassland with river with mountain backdrop
How-To

Winter Upland Hunting Guide + 5 Game Birds

Many game-bird seasons in the Northwest, Midwest, and Northeast extend well into winter— those cold, even icy days can be great times to hunt. Upland birds often fall into fairly predictable cold-weather patterns, and vegetation and other cover have dwindled. Further, cooler temperatures mean ideal conditions for vigorous walking and dog work. That doesn’t mean winter bird hunting is easy, though. Weather conditions can be challenging, and some species of birds have been hunted for weeks or months, leaving the survivors adept at avoiding human predators.

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5 Min
Richard Proenneke in his snow covered cabin in the forest
Profiles

Going It Alone: The Story of Richard Proenneke

In the summer of 1968, a tiny fixed-wing bush plane landed on the glacially carved shore of upper twin lake in southwest Alaska. A middle-aged man stepped down from the plane and pulled a few canvas bags with him, then turned to wave goodbye to his friends still in the cockpit. Richard Proenneke watched as the aircraft shrank in the sky and slipped over the Neacola Mountains of the Aleutian range, its vanishing thrum replaced by a windy quiet, leaving him profoundly alone in the deep of Alaska. The nearest road was little more than a dream at hundreds of miles away, the nearest human probably farther. And that’s exactly the way dick, as he was known, wanted it.

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10 Min
Black and White image of pheasant in profile
Field Notes

Episode 16: Pheasant

Hank is joined by Bob St. Pierre of Pheasants Forever and outdoor writer Chris Niskanen as they talk in-depth about the history of this bird in America, its conservation status, how to hunt them both with and without a dog, which sort of dog works better for pheasants, where to hunt them, and of course how to cook them.

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60 Min
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Field Notes

History & Evolution of Glacier Goggles

Thousands of years ago, the Inuit and Yupik people of Alaska and northern Canada carved narrow slits into ivory, antler, and wood to create the world’s first snow goggles. This diminished exposure to direct and reflected ultraviolet rays—thereby reducing eye strain and preventing snow blindness. These first goggles were curved to match facial contours and fit the nose. They were affixed with a caribou sinew head strap.

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Signature Materials

Recommended Care for Mackinaw Wool

Mackinaw Wool has been our most-trusted cold-weather protection for over a century, and these easy-maintenance tips will ensure yours provides reliable service for years to come.

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Field Notes

The Tall One: The Story of Denali

In a land already renown for a larger than life landscape, the mountain known as Denali inspires awe from those that observe it. Wreathed in an eternal cloak of snow and ice, it looms over the Alaska range’s surrounding peaks like a reserved ruler, the king of the north. Rising over three and a half vertical miles into the sky, it was for most of its life one of the most remote mountains on the planet. Yet, it is visible for hundreds of miles on a clear day.

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5 Min
Silhouette of man with walking pole and backpacking backpack walking along beach with downed logs
Field Notes

The Longest Road: The Expedition of Caroline Van Hemert and Pat Farrell

A journey both audacious and unprecedented. They would travel from the Pacific rain forests near Bellingham, Washington, into the Alaskan Arctic, solely self-powered. 176 days to cover over 4,000 miles of some of the most remote and rugged terrain on the planet

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10 Min
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