#152 - Kayaks, Kiviak & Ketosis: A 3,200 km Greenland Experiment with Paddling Chef Mike Keen

WEBVTT

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Welcome to Paddling the Blue. With each episode, we talk with guests from the

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Great Lakes and around the globe who are doing cool things related to sea kayaking.

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I'm your host, my name is John Chase, and let's get started paddling the blue.

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Welcome to today's episode of the Paddling the Blue podcast.

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Mike Keen has been working as a chef in Greenland for several years,

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and he decided to take on a culinary experiment to see how he would fare on

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a 3,200-kilometer solo kayak trip solely eating a traditional Greenlandic Inuit diet.

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It's a fascinating experiment comparing the results from a standard Western diet.

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Before we get to today's conversation with Mike, James Stevenson and Simon Osborne

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Enjoy today's fantastic interview with paddling chef Mike Keen.

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Hi, Mike. Thanks for joining me on Paddling the Blue. Hey, John.

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Glad to be here. Yeah. So you've combined an interesting culinary experiment

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with a kayak trip. So tell us how you started this combination.

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Yeah. So I'm 56 years old now, and I've been a chef for probably about 35 of those years.

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No kind of history in kayaking or army, military, special forces, anything like that.

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But I have traveled quite extensively during my career on cruise ships from

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the States to the South China Sea, working in New Zealand and all over.

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And recently, well, fairly recently, from about 10 years ago,

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I started talking and doing workshops on kind of ancestral ways of food preservation

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and how we used to process food and survive.

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Because it quickly became apparent to me that we haven't always had fridges

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or environmental health offices and sell-by dates and all that kind of whatnot.

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So it was kind of a gradual process into looking into fermentation and salting,

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preserving, drying, all the kind of stuff that we used to do.

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And it turned out that the most interesting forms of preservation,

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like fermenting the strangest foods happened in the most harshest environments.

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So I was kind of following the Vikings as they left Norway and kind of migrated

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across the North Atlantic to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and then Greenland,

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all of which are amazing kayaking destinations.

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And it was in Greenland that I kind of had my epiphany,

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in the form of this foodstuff called

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kiviak which is there about four

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to five hundred little seabirds little black and

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white tiny little birds that are packed inside a seal and the seal is sewn up

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and then it's the air is pushed out and it's kept underground under rocks for

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about six months and then the seals dug up and the yeah and the birds totally

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intact when they go in they've got

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there's guts and everything and they've been they've fermented and

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they're safe to eat which for me as a kind

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of professionally trained chef was was a revelation because we're always taught

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that you know everything's got to be within fridge temperature if it's past

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its sell by date you got to throw it away and here was this food stuff that

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was essentially a chicken inside you know a pig.

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That had no salt. The ambient temperature was above a fridge and it was safe to eat.

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And people had been surviving off this kind of food for thousands of years in

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this really hostile environment.

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So that kind of piqued my interest. And I managed to get a book deal just about

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three months before COVID.

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And the publisher sent me out to Greenland to kind of investigate a little bit

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more. And then COVID hit, I got stuck out there and I got dropped from my book deal.

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Yeah, this is obviously 2020 but by

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that time it was too late I'd spent their travel money and I

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was I was stuck in Greenland but Greenland's a

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fantastic place for making connections and yeah

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making friendships and that was yeah

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back in 2020 and since then I've now been out 14

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or 15 times working different places all up

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the coast and this one

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time I was working for about three months

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in this remote camp about one hour

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two hours away from nuke down a massive fuel

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system and i was cooking for these yeah

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luxury glamping lodges and i

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was chatting with one of the inuit chefs there about just

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how incredible it was that humans

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survived for so long and thrived for so long in

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this super hostile environment way before we had things like

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gps or gore-tex or yeah all

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the mod cons and super high-tech stuff

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we have nowadays you know they were making kayaks out of driftwood and and seal

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skin and you know making their clothing out of the same stuff it was it's just

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mind-boggling to our kind of modern perspective that people can actually do

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that so i was i was thinking wouldn't it be interesting if you could.

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Somehow do some kind of expedition that incorporated getting as close to those

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kind of ancient technologies as we could.

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And part of the intrigue about Greenland for me is the language.

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It's totally alien to any kind of European-based language. It's got a lot of cues in it.

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The way they express different vowels and consonants is different.

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And there's a hell of a lot of cues in there.

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And then the town right in the far south is called Kakotok, and the town in

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the furthest north is called Karnak.

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And then, obviously, the Greenlanders invented the kayak, which in the Greenlandic

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way of spelling is Q-A-J-A-Q.

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So, it kind of came into my brain that wouldn't be cool if you could kayak from

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Karkotok to Karnak, and you've got all this gospel Q's going on.

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I think I might have had a beer or two by this point. So, I was just kind of exploring that.

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And that was it, really. from there I'd

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kind of set myself on this trajectory of um

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telling as much many people as I could and I was kind

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of committed to it and I would look pretty stupid if I if I

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kind of backed out of it so I I kind of

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talked myself into this expedition and I'd only been kayaking for two years

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previously and never only once with a group or yeah of more than me I'd been

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also working in the far south of Greenland where this remote hotel had a really

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ancient sea kayak that I used to just go out in and kind of teach myself,

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yeah, how to navigate around the icebergs and the basic skills of kayaking.

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And so I didn't have a real, you know, solid base on which to say that I could

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do this or pull off this, you know, enormous trip, which from Kakhotok to Karnak is 3,200 kilometers,

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So I kind of reckoned that I could do, if I averaged 30 kilometers a day,

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that would take me, yeah, about 100 days, maybe more, depending on storms and

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down days because of weather.

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And, yeah, that was it. So I kind of talked myself into this kayaking from Kokotok to Karnak.

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And because I was a chef and because I was talking about fermentation and all

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these ancient ways and this kiviak and they have fermented seal and fermented

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cod and a lot of incredible food that, you know,

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us as kind of Westerners.

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Just don't regard at all or

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we don't assume that it's going to

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be safe to eat and you know traditionally we've kind of looked down

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on that kind of food but then I thought okay I'm

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kayaking for between five and ten hours a day for a hundred days perhaps I should

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try and find something to kind of occupy my time as well like maybe do some

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scientific experiments but then I thought the Inuit were doing this for thousands

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of years you know kayaking out in all kinds of weather in these,

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yeah, what we'd call makeshift kayaks.

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Wouldn't it be cool if I could, as a Westerner, just go onto an ancestral Inuit

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diet and maybe get a couple of scientific organizations behind to do the testing

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and the medical tests, stool tests and all that.

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And so, yeah, that became the kind of biggest aspect of this upcoming kayak tour.

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So I went out there, as soon as I got back to england i i

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went out on the sponsorship trail trying to get equipment

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and yeah clothing kayaks

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for starters i didn't i didn't own a kayak yeah so

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looking back i probably wasn't the best prepared to do this kind

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of enormous journey but come april

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23 i had secured enough equipment

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to yeah to manage to to undertake it and also the backing of kind of a lot of

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different scientific parties that were super interested in whether or not it

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was possible for a genetic westerner to go on this totally different diet which

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is effectively a keto diet so only sea mammals fish and reindeer.

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There's virtually no fruit or veg in there at all that's pretty impressive now

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i know with a with an as a new kayaker effectively how did you prepare yourself

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and your skills for the trip,

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Yeah. Yeah. Again, with hindsight, I probably should have done a little bit more.

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I spent one day in Anglesey, again, a big hotspot of kayaking here in Great

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Britain, in the top left corner of Wales.

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And I actually went out with an instructor and four or five other people just

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so I had the basic skills.

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You know ideally I would have liked to have

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been a lot more comfortable with my role I did

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a lot of practicing on the role and self-rescue

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and the role and I you know I'm still a little bit rusty on the role but self-rescue

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I'm pretty good at and I managed to do it yeah yeah I'm very comfortable with

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the self-rescue which which is the fail safe so that was that was fine but I had a lot of kind of.

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Kind of not kickback, but a few seasoned kayakers said, yeah,

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you should never go out alone in the kayak.

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And a few in the medical community were saying, yeah, there's no way you're

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going to survive on this diet.

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You're going to have to take a backup, a whole bunch of, you know.

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Ration packs, army packs, that kind of stuff, just in case, because you will get sick.

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But luckily, I kind of disregarded all this, mainly because I'd been looking into the Inuit.

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And if you go to the capital nuke there's a the most amazing

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museum there and they've got all these really old kayaks

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from you know 100 200 300 years ago that

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were just made out of like the thinnest driftwood and

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seal skins and bird skins and and

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you know some of them used to sew themselves into the kayak

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yeah to make it waterproof it's just astonishing to

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our kind of our very much molly coddled

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kind of way of life now where we wouldn't dream of

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taking risks unnecessarily but way

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back then and for thousands of years the inuit have gone out in

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all conditions because without the kayak they

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wouldn't have survived or had the breadth of geographical spread

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that they actually ended up having so it's

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for them it's not just oh it's a nice day i'll go out for

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a nice kayak it's it's if they don't go out and kayak

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and hunt a seal or fish then they're not

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going to eat so that puts puts their their community at

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risk yeah so that was that was kind of where i was coming from with the whole

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thing i thought if if they could do it several hundred years ago then surely

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i can do it you know with you know you know a modern kayak and you were able

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to do it and modern equipment yeah yeah and and i did it i'd never kayaked in camp before um.

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I wasn't even sure if I could do the 30 kilometers, you know,

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for every day for 100 days, which is quite an ask.

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But yeah, I managed to do it. And the diet was, it just exceeded all expectations.

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You know, as a trained chef, we're probably even more kind of indoctrinated

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into that Western way of thinking of you've got to have vegetables.

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You've got to have a wide range of diverse veg, fruit, carbohydrates,

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proteins, fats, et cetera.

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And it turns out, yeah, for the whole four months, I didn't eat a single piece

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of fruit or a single piece of vegetable. I just had meat and fat.

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And about 35% of my diet was sea mammal fat. So this big blubber from seal or whale.

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So it was a total kind of about face on my regular English diet or Western diet,

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and the results were phenomenal within three weeks

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I'd lost two stone 14 kilo which kind

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of worried me because that was yeah after three weeks I'd

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reached a capital nuke and that was the first time I actually stood on a pair

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of scales and I had to ask the guy if they're actually working because I couldn't

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believe I'd gone from 90 kilo down to 70 I think 76 kilo after three weeks without

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some kind of serious injury looming up sooner.

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I had visions of me burning through all my stores of energy,

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which I thought that that's what I've been doing.

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And then being 10 miles out to sea and keeling over and collapsing and drowning.

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But luckily, my kind of blind optimism and ignorance saw me through that brief wobble.

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And I stayed the same weight for the remaining three months.

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So for me, that was a real eye-opener because everything.

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Kind of made me realize as I went along that it's very rare for us humans nowadays

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to be so immersed in our natural environment, you know,

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without cars or planes or phones or artificial light and all that.

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And especially on top of that, to be eating that ancestral evolutionary diet

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that we had for millions of years before the kind of modern world took over,

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where we would have always eaten super seasonal stuff,

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stuff that had been caught or foraged or picked up in the immediate environment.

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So within say 10 kilometers of us.

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And there were periods when I went seven or eight days without seeing another human.

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So no villages, settlements, anything on the way. I was wild camping.

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And yeah, it wasn't until kind of

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sometime after I finished that I realized how

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lucky i was to have experienced that

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kind of a little snapshot of what life

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had been like for us humans for millions of years

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beforehand and it's you know it's very

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rare for us to do that but that's

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i i i really believe now and the more i look into it and look at the medical

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results i really believe that that's how we fitted in with our environment we

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were part of that whole ecosystem and that 76 kilos that I came down to is kind

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of my my perfect evolutionary weight for that environment,

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How did you prepare yourself for that diet? Did you slowly wean yourself away

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from Western food prior to the trip, or did you just make a hard cut once the trip started?

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Yeah, not at all. Part of the deal with the scientific people were that I took

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samples for three or four weeks beforehand, eating my normal English diet.

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And then I went straight, as soon as I got to Greenland, I went straight into

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the keto diet. So there was no buffer period at all.

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I went from eating my standard British kind of European American diet straight

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into immediately onto the keto diet.

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So seals, seal, whale, reindeer, and.

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That was probably, I gave it, I think it was eight days in the end,

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pre-kayaking that I was on that diet.

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Because speaking to the scientists and the doctors, nutritionists,

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there would be a fairly explosive reaction to going straight onto that diet.

00:17:18.232 --> 00:17:24.312
And I didn't want to be caught out 10 miles to sea in my dry suit while I was

00:17:24.312 --> 00:17:28.752
having diarrhea or any kind of adverse reaction to the diet.

00:17:28.752 --> 00:17:32.632
So, yeah, I had that diarrhea for probably three or four days.

00:17:32.812 --> 00:17:38.672
As soon as I went on to it, I felt fine. I didn't feel ill or fluy or anything like that.

00:17:38.732 --> 00:17:44.052
It was just my body trying to come to terms with a complete about face on my diet.

00:17:44.432 --> 00:17:49.692
So, yeah, it was super. Yeah, that was some good planning, really.

00:17:50.232 --> 00:17:55.252
I would advise anyone who's going on to that diet not to be committed to a dry

00:17:55.252 --> 00:17:58.512
suit for long periods at sea while you're going through that transition.

00:17:58.752 --> 00:18:01.532
But yeah yeah within five days i i

00:18:01.532 --> 00:18:04.792
my body had got back totally to normal and

00:18:04.792 --> 00:18:11.512
i was yeah on on this diet so i'm saying i'm picturing you on those seven to

00:18:11.512 --> 00:18:14.772
eight day stretches without seeing another person so i'm pitching i'm picturing

00:18:14.772 --> 00:18:20.672
you with a a seal packed full of birds strapped down to your back deck as your

00:18:20.672 --> 00:18:23.772
food source how did you source food along the way.

00:18:25.202 --> 00:18:31.182
All from the people of Greenland. So, yeah, there's only 57,000 people in the whole of Greenland.

00:18:31.342 --> 00:18:37.662
And, you know, the length of journey that I was undertaking was, yeah, 3,200.

00:18:37.942 --> 00:18:43.922
So most of the population has spread along the West Coast. The capital nuke has got 17,500 people.

00:18:44.122 --> 00:18:46.242
So for a capital city, that's tiny.

00:18:47.162 --> 00:18:53.002
But there are, you know, probably, I don't know, 50 or 60 settlements spread all the way up the coast.

00:18:53.002 --> 00:18:55.702
So the plan was i had a fishing rod with

00:18:55.702 --> 00:18:58.342
me but i'm a terrible fisherman and i

00:18:58.342 --> 00:19:01.922
had a rod set up on on the kayak which i

00:19:01.922 --> 00:19:06.902
thought that's gonna be great i just you know i cast my hook and then put put

00:19:06.902 --> 00:19:10.622
the rod in the rod holder and carry on paddling and hopefully i'll have a fish

00:19:10.622 --> 00:19:15.922
fit to eat at the end of the day but yeah i'm a terrible fisherman but to start

00:19:15.922 --> 00:19:19.402
with and then the second and was, yeah, seaweed,

00:19:19.722 --> 00:19:24.062
just the whole time you spent pulling in the line,

00:19:24.482 --> 00:19:28.782
taking all the snaggled up seaweed off the hook and then recasting it.

00:19:28.882 --> 00:19:36.902
So in the end, I gave up on the fishing as I went kind of idea and fished as

00:19:36.902 --> 00:19:42.362
I, you know, once I'd set up a tent or anything like that, fish from the land.

00:19:42.502 --> 00:19:45.142
So that's a handy tip for anyone who's fishing.

00:19:45.826 --> 00:19:48.586
Possibly going to be relying on catching their own fish as they

00:19:48.586 --> 00:19:51.506
go yeah be aware of seaweed because

00:19:51.506 --> 00:19:54.706
you have to keep stopping put your paddle up pull

00:19:54.706 --> 00:19:57.446
the blooming thing in and yeah it's it that

00:19:57.446 --> 00:20:01.166
it's not great and also because it's just me by myself and the average seal

00:20:01.166 --> 00:20:06.786
was probably 20 kilo i had a rifle because of um polar bear risk it wouldn't

00:20:06.786 --> 00:20:10.446
have made sense for me to shoot a seal because i wouldn't have been able to

00:20:10.446 --> 00:20:15.986
eat it all in one go and i didn't fancy dragging an extra 20 kilo of dead weight behind me.

00:20:16.146 --> 00:20:23.646
So I was relying on either buying seal or fish or reindeer from Greenlanders as I went.

00:20:23.866 --> 00:20:29.326
And if I knew that I had a long period of eight or 10 days without seeing anyone,

00:20:29.526 --> 00:20:32.386
then I would obviously buy enough food.

00:20:32.766 --> 00:20:36.746
And I chopped it up and packaged it into bags.

00:20:37.326 --> 00:20:41.206
So I knew that I had enough. And also the dried food.

00:20:41.326 --> 00:20:47.346
Dried food is a very big part of their diet out there and I guess I hadn't really

00:20:47.346 --> 00:20:51.806
thought about why that would have been but you know dried halibut, cod, seal,

00:20:52.046 --> 00:20:59.386
whale jerky is kind of ubiquitous over there and it's not until you expose yourself

00:20:59.386 --> 00:21:08.526
to those old ways of living like you know no mod cons and no fridges or.

00:21:09.126 --> 00:21:12.866
Ovens or anything like that that you realise you're totally at,

00:21:13.427 --> 00:21:17.827
mercy of the elements. And there was this one time, probably almost halfway

00:21:17.827 --> 00:21:21.467
through the whole trip that I was stuck in the tent for three days and three

00:21:21.467 --> 00:21:24.267
nights with this crazy storm.

00:21:24.687 --> 00:21:27.167
And yeah, going outside was a challenge.

00:21:28.007 --> 00:21:32.127
You almost had to crawl, otherwise you'd been blown over.

00:21:32.507 --> 00:21:35.127
And my tent, if anyone wants to go and look at my Instagram,

00:21:35.847 --> 00:21:37.327
there's pictures of my tent,

00:21:37.327 --> 00:21:40.687
yeah almost at 45 degree angle and at

00:21:40.687 --> 00:21:43.547
one point on the on the third night the wind that actually

00:21:43.547 --> 00:21:46.427
picked the kayak up and and slammed it through through the

00:21:46.427 --> 00:21:49.147
tent and snapped the pole in half gashed me

00:21:49.147 --> 00:21:52.127
under the eye and and the kayak had been been blown

00:21:52.127 --> 00:21:54.967
about eight meters up a hill and

00:21:54.967 --> 00:21:58.507
ended up in a in a frozen tarn a tiny

00:21:58.507 --> 00:22:01.907
lake which yeah for almost

00:22:01.907 --> 00:22:04.887
a it's 27 kilo for the kayak and it

00:22:04.887 --> 00:22:07.687
had about 10 kilo worth of gear in it and it was turned upside

00:22:07.687 --> 00:22:10.427
down with rocks on top wow because because the

00:22:10.427 --> 00:22:13.507
wind was picking up and and yeah that

00:22:13.507 --> 00:22:16.487
kind of savagery and that rawness of the

00:22:16.487 --> 00:22:19.667
of the of the you know landscaping environment

00:22:19.667 --> 00:22:22.707
was was incredible and it's only

00:22:22.707 --> 00:22:25.607
it's only then i kind of realized yeah these

00:22:25.607 --> 00:22:28.927
these storms happen quite frequently you know we you obviously didn't

00:22:28.927 --> 00:22:33.947
have weather forecasts and gps systems you know way way back then so people

00:22:33.947 --> 00:22:38.307
would have had to have a big stock of dried food because there's no way you

00:22:38.307 --> 00:22:43.267
could you could fish or get out or yeah pretty much leave your tent so if you

00:22:43.267 --> 00:22:48.587
didn't have a good stock of dried food yeah you're serious serious risk of starvation.

00:22:50.852 --> 00:22:54.292
And it seems obvious talking about it now that, yeah, of course you've got to

00:22:54.292 --> 00:22:57.452
expect that, but it's not until you actually experience and put yourself in

00:22:57.452 --> 00:22:58.592
that situation that you can,

00:22:58.692 --> 00:23:07.492
I think, fully appreciate just how reliant you are on yourself and your skills

00:23:07.492 --> 00:23:09.452
to survive in that landscape.

00:23:09.452 --> 00:23:16.372
Yeah, we're so used to our preparation methods of cooking foods and storing foods and that.

00:23:16.492 --> 00:23:20.472
And so it doesn't sound like you really had to cook as much or prepare it.

00:23:20.492 --> 00:23:23.372
It was dried or fermented or other.

00:23:23.572 --> 00:23:28.512
Yeah, so that's a great question. That was another thing that I hadn't fully appreciated.

00:23:28.712 --> 00:23:33.212
Before I went out, I had kind of had visions of myself, you know.

00:23:33.952 --> 00:23:37.352
Collecting some driftwood, starting a little fire you

00:23:37.352 --> 00:23:40.952
know getting a little pan on the go and cooking some seal maybe chopping

00:23:40.952 --> 00:23:43.752
up some herbs or something that i could find from the

00:23:43.752 --> 00:23:46.632
landscape but the reality after 10 hours of

00:23:46.632 --> 00:23:50.132
kayaking and and yeah just

00:23:50.132 --> 00:23:53.352
how how cold it was out there as well that the

00:23:53.352 --> 00:23:56.772
last thing you want to do is spend any time cooking so a

00:23:56.772 --> 00:23:59.692
lot of the food i had probably at least half after food was was

00:23:59.692 --> 00:24:03.312
raw so raw seal meat or seal fat walrus

00:24:03.312 --> 00:24:06.552
and whale as well and then fermented as

00:24:06.552 --> 00:24:09.392
well so you know just through the actions of

00:24:09.392 --> 00:24:12.432
time the you know that raw meat

00:24:12.432 --> 00:24:15.312
is going to ferment or another word for ferment

00:24:15.312 --> 00:24:18.592
is rot basically so yeah you have

00:24:18.592 --> 00:24:21.792
to have a yeah a fairly strong stomach and a

00:24:21.792 --> 00:24:24.492
really solid microbiome which when

00:24:24.492 --> 00:24:28.552
you're living in that kind of environment you do have to process that and if

00:24:28.552 --> 00:24:34.372
you do cook anything you know energy conservation is is absolutely paramount

00:24:34.372 --> 00:24:39.152
so you're not going to spend three hours slow cooking a joint of seal because

00:24:39.152 --> 00:24:43.752
it tastes nice yeah if you don't need it raw you're just going to sear it yeah.

00:24:44.512 --> 00:24:47.292
Cook it for maximum 10 or 15 minutes and then you're

00:24:47.292 --> 00:24:50.612
eating it so you're eating you know semi raw very

00:24:50.612 --> 00:24:53.552
blue rare rare meat and you're chewing

00:24:53.552 --> 00:24:56.312
the ligaments off the bones you know just to get that

00:24:56.312 --> 00:24:59.832
sustenance and that energy conservation is is

00:24:59.832 --> 00:25:03.332
something again that i hadn't really appreciated beforehand

00:25:03.332 --> 00:25:06.072
because it's you know

00:25:06.072 --> 00:25:08.812
there's to start with there's virtually no

00:25:08.812 --> 00:25:11.672
driftwood you know i had expectations of coming across

00:25:11.672 --> 00:25:14.412
branches and stuff that had come across from newfoundland or

00:25:14.412 --> 00:25:17.232
canada or somewhere but hardly anything the

00:25:17.232 --> 00:25:20.092
most of the wood that i found was kind of

00:25:20.092 --> 00:25:23.812
modern process with like broken pallets not that there was a lot of garbage

00:25:23.812 --> 00:25:28.432
out there at all but you know that that kind of processed man-made style of

00:25:28.432 --> 00:25:33.452
wood was was out there but nowhere near enough to rely on to cook i only only

00:25:33.452 --> 00:25:38.832
only made one fire from from wood the rest of it i had a little tiny camping stove.

00:25:39.432 --> 00:25:42.272
And if i wasn't eating you know

00:25:42.272 --> 00:25:45.592
the the food raw i was i was searing it

00:25:45.592 --> 00:25:49.072
very quickly and using the fat from the seal to kind

00:25:49.072 --> 00:25:54.912
of to kind of act as my as my buffer between the the food and the and then the

00:25:54.912 --> 00:25:59.732
cast iron pan that i had with me so it was yeah yeah that was that was a real

00:25:59.732 --> 00:26:06.532
eye-opener you can see why they're yeah the fermented and raw raw meat out there

00:26:06.532 --> 00:26:08.172
has got such a big part of their diet.

00:26:08.472 --> 00:26:13.472
And there's no tradition of slow cooking or any kind of fanciness with the food

00:26:13.472 --> 00:26:15.592
at all, because it's so cold.

00:26:15.752 --> 00:26:23.792
The last thing you want to do is spend any time doing unnecessary energy sapping tasks.

00:26:24.132 --> 00:26:27.812
The foods, you give us a kind of a glimpse into some of the food types.

00:26:27.992 --> 00:26:32.912
Give us a little more example of some of the different foods that you were eating

00:26:32.912 --> 00:26:34.932
and the ways that they were already prepared.

00:26:35.753 --> 00:26:39.833
Yeah. So if you look at the landscape in Greenland, it's sea,

00:26:40.033 --> 00:26:42.773
ice, and rock. And that's pretty much it.

00:26:43.033 --> 00:26:46.113
There's virtually no trees. There's a few trees in the south.

00:26:46.413 --> 00:26:51.173
There's virtually no greenery, apart from a kind of a shrubby lichen type thing

00:26:51.173 --> 00:26:52.573
that grows over the mountains.

00:26:52.573 --> 00:26:56.333
It's there's no obvious agriculture so

00:26:56.333 --> 00:26:59.413
the ancestral and historic diet

00:26:59.413 --> 00:27:02.873
has always been a keto that carnivore diet so seal

00:27:02.873 --> 00:27:11.493
is probably the most common food out there seal then whale walrus which is probably

00:27:11.493 --> 00:27:19.633
in the top half of the country and then you've got the land mammals such as a reindeer or muscox.

00:27:20.233 --> 00:27:25.493
Muscox is like a bison, North American bison, big shaggy thing, very fearsome looking.

00:27:26.173 --> 00:27:31.733
And fish. And there are non-meaty or non-fishy parts of the diet.

00:27:31.933 --> 00:27:34.473
There are mushrooms grow late summer.

00:27:34.853 --> 00:27:40.193
There's a kind of, I guess it would be a citrusy type berry called a crowberry

00:27:40.193 --> 00:27:46.133
that is great and tasty, full of seeds, but it's good and it's a good source of vitamin C.

00:27:46.653 --> 00:27:51.033
And there are herbs and there are some tubers growing right in the south.

00:27:51.253 --> 00:27:56.773
But predominantly, it's going to be seal, fish, reindeer, walrus,

00:27:56.893 --> 00:27:59.773
whale, porpoise as well they eat out there, porpoise.

00:28:00.613 --> 00:28:06.873
And you can find prawns and sea urchins and mussels growing.

00:28:07.173 --> 00:28:14.213
And actually, as I'd left the south in Karkortok, I kind of followed the lumpfish row season.

00:28:14.213 --> 00:28:17.813
It's quite a short season, but pretty much all the hunters and the fishermen,

00:28:18.553 --> 00:28:25.853
start catching lumpfish and take the eggs out the row for the lumpfish caviar industry.

00:28:26.173 --> 00:28:30.093
So as I was going up, I was kind of following that. So whenever I came across

00:28:30.093 --> 00:28:31.173
a hunter in a speedboat...

00:28:31.982 --> 00:28:38.622
They pretty much always give me a bag full of caviar. So I was eating like half

00:28:38.622 --> 00:28:46.202
a kilo of caviar some nights, which was kind of bizarre in this minus 10 degree temperature tent.

00:28:46.662 --> 00:28:50.442
Yeah, just stuffing my face with caviar. It was amazing.

00:28:50.842 --> 00:28:58.082
And another thing that I kind of spring to summer is you're following the seabirds.

00:28:58.082 --> 00:29:04.202
So you've got all that availability of seagull eggs, which I used to stop at

00:29:04.202 --> 00:29:11.062
quite a few different rocky outcrops and knolls and harvest some seagull eggs.

00:29:11.322 --> 00:29:16.122
And obviously either eat that raw or just bang it into a pan and you've got

00:29:16.122 --> 00:29:17.422
scrambled egg pretty much instantly.

00:29:17.582 --> 00:29:21.542
And they're really tasty as well, really good. Did you have a favorite food?

00:29:22.430 --> 00:29:25.910
Yeah, it's always going to be the kiviak, that food that I told you about,

00:29:26.090 --> 00:29:27.930
the little orcs stuffed inside the seal.

00:29:28.150 --> 00:29:33.350
And it's any kind of the fermented meats, like, yeah, any fermented meats,

00:29:33.450 --> 00:29:40.510
walrus, seal, or birds, have got a really strong kind of blue cheese tang to them.

00:29:40.530 --> 00:29:44.910
If you shut your eyes, you'd swear you were eating a strong blue cheese that

00:29:44.910 --> 00:29:46.570
you'd left at the back of the fridge for a year.

00:29:46.830 --> 00:29:50.030
Yeah, it takes the skin off the roof of your mouth off.

00:29:50.030 --> 00:29:53.130
But it's incredible that you can

00:29:53.130 --> 00:29:56.650
eat this stuff and and that's just one

00:29:56.650 --> 00:29:59.290
of the other aspects of out of my

00:29:59.290 --> 00:30:03.870
expedition that has now developed into a into into quite a big research project

00:30:03.870 --> 00:30:10.490
is is looking at where that line is between fermented and rotten and indeed

00:30:10.490 --> 00:30:15.410
if there is actually a line or does it just depend on the person who's eating

00:30:15.410 --> 00:30:18.770
it if they're going to get ill depending on how strong their microbiome.

00:30:18.930 --> 00:30:24.490
So that's an experiment that is ongoing for the next two years now with Nuke

00:30:24.490 --> 00:30:25.590
University in Greenland.

00:30:26.250 --> 00:30:32.830
Just purely from the outcome of my expedition has kind of brought up this really

00:30:32.830 --> 00:30:36.870
interesting question is that does it have to be salted or is it possible.

00:30:37.807 --> 00:30:41.767
That we can actually process and safely digest these rotten meats,

00:30:42.027 --> 00:30:46.847
which would have massive implications for parts of the world where they can't

00:30:46.847 --> 00:30:49.727
get energy and electricity to refrigerate stuff.

00:30:49.907 --> 00:30:54.407
Because if you look at it, we've only had fridges for the last 100 years.

00:30:54.607 --> 00:31:00.547
And we've been evolving for millions of years. So how were we processing and

00:31:00.547 --> 00:31:05.107
preserving our foods for all those millions of years before technology came

00:31:05.107 --> 00:31:06.187
along and gave us the fridge?

00:31:06.187 --> 00:31:08.987
So um yeah it's it's it's

00:31:08.987 --> 00:31:11.907
it's it's a really interesting part of that diet

00:31:11.907 --> 00:31:14.767
so but kiviak was was fantastic and it's

00:31:14.767 --> 00:31:17.767
it's something you learn very quickly to

00:31:17.767 --> 00:31:22.047
to actually like yeah the first taste or two you would have been oh that's kind

00:31:22.047 --> 00:31:27.807
of interesting and and but then you you very quickly get used to it and because

00:31:27.807 --> 00:31:31.847
you're in that environment and people are expecting you to eat it and that you

00:31:31.847 --> 00:31:36.427
haven't got an option of having a pizza or a chicken nugget as an alternative to it.

00:31:37.147 --> 00:31:41.147
You eat it and you go, actually, that's not too bad. And then really,

00:31:41.167 --> 00:31:48.387
really quickly, you get into liking it, which to me was another really interesting part of this trip.

00:31:49.104 --> 00:31:53.264
From your initial description, that does not sound like the one food that you'd

00:31:53.264 --> 00:31:55.424
be looking forward to the most. Yeah.

00:31:56.064 --> 00:32:01.064
I think it's got, like loads of foods, it's got that kind of emotional subconscious

00:32:01.064 --> 00:32:06.164
thing going on as well, where it's not just the nutritional value of the food,

00:32:06.304 --> 00:32:11.404
it's the memories that it invokes, and it's the environment where you're eating it.

00:32:11.704 --> 00:32:20.164
And it's the backstory of that kind of food. And to me, the kiviak has all those things in bags.

00:32:20.344 --> 00:32:26.584
It's got that connection to our evolutionary kind of progress over the last few million years.

00:32:26.744 --> 00:32:32.484
It's got that kind of how the hell did they survive eating this food?

00:32:32.504 --> 00:32:36.184
And how do they come up with this idea that that would be okay to eat?

00:32:36.544 --> 00:32:41.404
And it's something that's developed purely from the harshness of the environment

00:32:41.404 --> 00:32:46.044
and the ingenuity of humans in that kind of situation. where they've eaten it

00:32:46.044 --> 00:32:49.024
and they've not only survived on it, but they've thrived on it.

00:32:50.064 --> 00:32:54.404
That's something that, yet one of the many things I hadn't really thought about

00:32:54.404 --> 00:33:00.724
before I went out, but it soon became a really big aspect of it for me and has done ever since.

00:33:00.964 --> 00:33:03.544
Now you were working with the scientific community along the way,

00:33:03.624 --> 00:33:05.824
as you mentioned, in a university in Nuke.

00:33:06.264 --> 00:33:09.944
How did they collect data along the way and then how is that data being used now?

00:33:10.964 --> 00:33:16.364
They gave me a kind of a fairly big box full of sample tubes so I was collecting

00:33:16.364 --> 00:33:21.044
samples of my poo basically for yeah almost a month before I.

00:33:21.639 --> 00:33:25.539
Three times a week during, and then for the month afterwards as well,

00:33:25.699 --> 00:33:30.679
just to see how my microbiome and the bacteria changed during that time.

00:33:30.879 --> 00:33:35.859
But also I had quite extensive medical tests in London the day before I left.

00:33:35.959 --> 00:33:39.219
So I had like a DEXA scan, which measures your bone density.

00:33:39.799 --> 00:33:45.879
Grip tests, lung tests, weight, blood, genetics, pretty much everything.

00:33:45.879 --> 00:33:49.259
And that there's a very well-known scientist

00:33:49.259 --> 00:33:52.639
professor over here called um professor tim specter who's

00:33:52.639 --> 00:33:55.579
written a few books now but he he was

00:33:55.579 --> 00:33:58.579
part of king's college london team that did

00:33:58.579 --> 00:34:01.799
these tests on me and at the end of it he said

00:34:01.799 --> 00:34:05.239
that i had gone out like an average person you

00:34:05.239 --> 00:34:08.159
know i wasn't particularly unfit i wasn't fit

00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:10.919
i just a normal guy and i'd come back in

00:34:10.919 --> 00:34:13.579
in an athlete's body which to me no one's ever

00:34:13.579 --> 00:34:16.499
accused me of that before so i'll i'll happily

00:34:16.499 --> 00:34:20.139
take that one but yeah that that that was absolutely

00:34:20.139 --> 00:34:23.659
incredible to me and you know the the page of the report

00:34:23.659 --> 00:34:26.559
that i got back which is that 64 page report of

00:34:26.559 --> 00:34:29.339
you know all my blood tests and then to me

00:34:29.339 --> 00:34:32.479
it was it was most of it was over my head and to

00:34:32.479 --> 00:34:35.319
have nutritionists and doctors look through it and say this is

00:34:35.319 --> 00:34:38.079
incredible you know you've gone yeah you've gone

00:34:38.079 --> 00:34:41.299
from this average joe kind of guy to this you know

00:34:41.299 --> 00:34:47.279
this athlete's physiology which which really yeah really really surprised surprised

00:34:47.279 --> 00:34:52.959
me and you know the kind of the more apparent aspects of the diet to me while

00:34:52.959 --> 00:34:59.579
i was actually doing doing it was the energy levels i had were incredible i i'd never i i'd never.

00:35:00.619 --> 00:35:03.759
Experience that kind of yeah I almost didn't

00:35:03.759 --> 00:35:06.419
get fatigued while I was while I was

00:35:06.419 --> 00:35:09.279
kayaking and as I said before the plan

00:35:09.279 --> 00:35:14.219
was to do 30 kilometers a day which I which I was managing quite easily from

00:35:14.219 --> 00:35:19.099
the start and then my best day and that that was slowly increasing so on a good

00:35:19.099 --> 00:35:26.339
day my best day was 85 kilometers in one hit which yeah I think it was about

00:35:26.339 --> 00:35:29.179
14 hours which was a pretty long kayak,

00:35:30.499 --> 00:35:35.739
and yeah, it was just astonishing to me that I could have those kind of levels

00:35:35.739 --> 00:35:43.579
of energy without keeling over or passing out and I didn't have any injuries as such.

00:35:43.579 --> 00:35:50.379
I didn't have any kind of repetitive strain type problems and anything like that at all.

00:35:50.599 --> 00:35:53.699
In fact, the only problem I had was

00:35:53.699 --> 00:35:57.079
right towards the last month when

00:35:57.079 --> 00:36:01.499
i had to increase my my daily distance and

00:36:01.499 --> 00:36:04.319
i was using euro paddle you know you know

00:36:04.319 --> 00:36:09.139
you're familiar with the euro paddle sure and yeah i i had to increase my daily

00:36:09.139 --> 00:36:13.379
output and i was doing 60 or 65 kilometers a day just because i had to get back

00:36:13.379 --> 00:36:18.439
to england to you know to do some events and stuff and then my my my elbows

00:36:18.439 --> 00:36:22.219
and shoulders start started to kind of give me a bit of pain.

00:36:23.279 --> 00:36:27.679
And I was strapping off at night and they were starting to really hurt and in

00:36:27.679 --> 00:36:31.259
this one settlement I thought right I'm going to see what it's like going onto

00:36:31.259 --> 00:36:35.379
a Greenland kayak so I looked around to see where the kayaks were outside people's

00:36:35.379 --> 00:36:41.239
houses I just knocked on some guy's house and said look he didn't speak any English,

00:36:41.948 --> 00:36:47.168
And I speak no Greenlandic, but between the two of us in sign language,

00:36:47.348 --> 00:36:50.108
I indicated that it would be great if he could make me a paddle,

00:36:50.128 --> 00:36:51.148
if that was at all possible.

00:36:51.328 --> 00:36:53.788
And he goes, yeah, come back in one hour.

00:36:54.168 --> 00:37:01.148
I came back in an hour and he had his electric saw and plane and taken this

00:37:01.148 --> 00:37:05.528
plank, this rough plank that was outside his house and turned it into a Greenlandic paddle, which,

00:37:05.768 --> 00:37:09.888
yeah, again, most of your listeners will know that it's a lot longer.

00:37:09.888 --> 00:37:13.048
And not longer necessarily but thinner the blade

00:37:13.048 --> 00:37:16.188
is a lot thinner and i thought

00:37:16.188 --> 00:37:20.808
i'd give that a go and yet again that you know the greenland has surprised me

00:37:20.808 --> 00:37:26.848
and from that day i didn't have any problems with my with my joints which again

00:37:26.848 --> 00:37:30.788
that you know the impact when you're dipping the end of the blade into the water

00:37:30.788 --> 00:37:35.828
and pulling the impact isn't as as instant i don't think.

00:37:37.268 --> 00:37:41.068
As it was with the euro paddle but the

00:37:41.068 --> 00:37:43.888
the surface of that long thin blade I

00:37:43.888 --> 00:37:49.028
think is pretty much the same as a euro paddle but I guess the initial impact

00:37:49.028 --> 00:37:54.548
isn't as stressful on the joints as the euro paddle was but I was still doing

00:37:54.548 --> 00:38:00.008
the same distance and the same average yeah average speed per hour which again

00:38:00.008 --> 00:38:01.508
was another thing that surprised me,

00:38:02.228 --> 00:38:05.768
Why would something like that have such a different impact on my joints?

00:38:06.728 --> 00:38:12.248
And again, to me, it was another example of thousands of years of ingenuity

00:38:12.248 --> 00:38:14.708
by the Inuit and by humans up in that environment.

00:38:15.770 --> 00:38:19.210
Kind of, you know, come up trumps again. It was, and it, and it worked.

00:38:19.430 --> 00:38:22.050
Yeah. So that was, um, that, that, that was pretty amazing.

00:38:22.330 --> 00:38:26.210
Yeah. Certainly they did something right for, for hundreds of thousands of years

00:38:26.210 --> 00:38:27.850
that, uh, we need to pay attention to them.

00:38:28.390 --> 00:38:33.370
Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's, it's not just, just a luck that that happened out that way. It's yeah.

00:38:33.550 --> 00:38:37.470
Thousands of years. And that's something I think us humans are really bad at

00:38:37.470 --> 00:38:39.070
doing is looking at the long game.

00:38:39.410 --> 00:38:42.370
We're very short termist and looking, you know,

00:38:42.770 --> 00:38:46.370
looking barely beyond the next month whereas

00:38:46.370 --> 00:38:49.510
yeah in reality if if we could comprehend

00:38:49.510 --> 00:38:53.290
just the vastness of two million years of evolution or

00:38:53.290 --> 00:38:56.670
yeah 20 000 years of kayaking and

00:38:56.670 --> 00:39:03.730
and the development of the tools necessary to to make it efficient yeah we we

00:39:03.730 --> 00:39:09.030
i think we'd be in a lot a much better place if we if we had that kind of depth

00:39:09.030 --> 00:39:13.370
of knowledge and the ability to grasp that but really fascinating stuff.

00:39:13.810 --> 00:39:16.290
Yeah. You mentioned a little bit about your route. So let's talk a little bit

00:39:16.290 --> 00:39:19.910
about that. So you went from south to north, is that right? Yes. Okay.

00:39:20.490 --> 00:39:22.490
So tell us what that route was like.

00:39:23.210 --> 00:39:25.770
Yeah, it's the landscape...

00:39:26.780 --> 00:39:31.020
Ranges pretty much from almost two kilometer high mountains,

00:39:31.020 --> 00:39:34.660
some in the south and then the rest up in the far north.

00:39:35.140 --> 00:39:39.020
And it's very, you're pretty much

00:39:39.020 --> 00:39:42.060
following the coast. It pretty much goes directly from south to north.

00:39:42.260 --> 00:39:45.100
And there are some pretty big fjord systems in there.

00:39:45.260 --> 00:39:49.560
So there's some really massive fjords, which for a kayaker.

00:39:49.860 --> 00:39:53.340
When you're traversing the mouth of a 10

00:39:53.340 --> 00:39:56.580
kilometer wide fjord the tides

00:39:56.580 --> 00:39:59.800
can have an effect and i noticed it a

00:39:59.800 --> 00:40:02.500
couple of times where it's you know because it's such

00:40:02.500 --> 00:40:05.420
there's such a big distance that you can't really

00:40:05.420 --> 00:40:08.520
plan for the tides because you know

00:40:08.520 --> 00:40:11.240
you're just going to take seven hours to cross this particular stretch of

00:40:11.240 --> 00:40:14.300
water so you're going to start you know unless you're you're

00:40:14.300 --> 00:40:17.680
super on it with your tide predictions and stuff then you

00:40:17.680 --> 00:40:21.340
may as well just go for it and there was a couple of times where

00:40:21.340 --> 00:40:25.400
i was cutting through fjords and they're

00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:28.180
quite narrow kind of almost canyons in some

00:40:28.180 --> 00:40:31.460
places and you can really feel the tide either pushing

00:40:31.460 --> 00:40:34.280
against you or with you but apart from that the tides didn't

00:40:34.280 --> 00:40:37.160
have a big impact but there's thousands of

00:40:37.160 --> 00:40:40.980
tiny islands loads of crags and

00:40:40.980 --> 00:40:44.660
headlands to kind of navigate between so you

00:40:44.660 --> 00:40:47.680
cannot you know it's like when you're kayaking you spot the

00:40:47.680 --> 00:40:50.560
next headlands and you think okay the weather looks okay i'm just

00:40:50.560 --> 00:40:53.780
going to go straight across and then you can end up being 10

00:40:53.780 --> 00:40:59.800
or 15 miles away from land at its furthest point or if the weather's a bit a

00:40:59.800 --> 00:41:03.680
bit rougher and the waves are bigger and you think man this could be a bit dodgy

00:41:03.680 --> 00:41:11.920
yeah and and you kind of scooch a little bit closer inland so yeah you yeah you're trying to cut.

00:41:12.574 --> 00:41:15.394
Cut corners but cut time sometimes so you think

00:41:15.394 --> 00:41:18.594
yeah i'm just gonna go straight across to that headland the wildlife

00:41:18.594 --> 00:41:21.934
is incredible along the way the whales yeah

00:41:21.934 --> 00:41:24.994
as soon as you hit disco island or disco bay which is

00:41:24.994 --> 00:41:28.594
pretty much halfway up the west coast of greenland every

00:41:28.594 --> 00:41:31.694
day numerous whales would would surface

00:41:31.694 --> 00:41:34.514
you know the closest came with about five or six

00:41:34.514 --> 00:41:37.254
meters of the kayak and the first thing you hear about it

00:41:37.254 --> 00:41:40.094
is this great big of of the

00:41:40.094 --> 00:41:42.774
spray as they surface and yeah half the

00:41:42.774 --> 00:41:46.914
time you get covered in this really fishy mist but

00:41:46.914 --> 00:41:50.394
you don't really think about that because you're so terrified because this massive

00:41:50.394 --> 00:41:53.394
yeah animal has just breached the water right yeah

00:41:53.394 --> 00:41:56.054
it's so close feels like you could almost touch it with your

00:41:56.054 --> 00:41:59.014
paddle incredible pretty much every day you see seals

00:41:59.014 --> 00:42:02.434
so seals are bobbing up the whole time just just

00:42:02.434 --> 00:42:05.114
you know see seeing what's out there and then

00:42:05.114 --> 00:42:08.294
when you're landing quite a few times i i i

00:42:08.294 --> 00:42:11.174
startled you know small herds of reindeer or

00:42:11.174 --> 00:42:14.354
muskox as i beached and then the biggest

00:42:14.354 --> 00:42:18.494
geological or or geographical feature

00:42:18.494 --> 00:42:21.494
that impacts you as you're kayaking there which i

00:42:21.494 --> 00:42:24.914
was doing from you know spring into summer was was

00:42:24.914 --> 00:42:30.614
the ice yeah obviously there's icebergs everywhere and they're they're they're.

00:42:30.614 --> 00:42:36.914
Terrifying they yeah in the two years before my my expedition i was kind of

00:42:36.914 --> 00:42:42.514
practicing in in the far south lots of icebergs and you kind of very quickly learn.

00:42:43.218 --> 00:42:46.778
To get a healthy respect and keep your distance from the icebergs.

00:42:46.858 --> 00:42:48.878
Because they're not just static things.

00:42:49.018 --> 00:42:51.698
They're changing, they're moving and rotating the whole time.

00:42:52.418 --> 00:42:58.218
And then when one carves, so a big chunk of ice falls off, it alters the whole

00:42:58.218 --> 00:42:59.998
center of gravity for it.

00:43:00.118 --> 00:43:02.698
And sometimes these icebergs can spin 360.

00:43:03.118 --> 00:43:09.598
And you're talking 100,000 tons of ice. And sometimes when they carve, they almost explode.

00:43:09.858 --> 00:43:13.178
So you get showers of icebergs.

00:43:13.218 --> 00:43:16.958
Ice lumps you know baseball size lumps everywhere

00:43:16.958 --> 00:43:19.778
and you're often kayaking for this kind

00:43:19.778 --> 00:43:25.738
of brash ice where you know you're just getting hit by chunk chunks of ice as

00:43:25.738 --> 00:43:29.938
you're paddling through so definitely keep your distance from the icebergs and

00:43:29.938 --> 00:43:34.118
and the icebergs are endlessly fascinating that everyone's different and you

00:43:34.118 --> 00:43:39.158
get seeing incredible sculptured icebergs of with arches and towers,

00:43:40.038 --> 00:43:44.678
some look like Disney palaces or castles with turrets and everything,

00:43:44.798 --> 00:43:46.878
and you find yourself looking...

00:43:47.720 --> 00:43:51.040
Looking for faces and recognisable features

00:43:51.040 --> 00:43:54.020
within the iceberg and several times you swear you

00:43:54.020 --> 00:43:57.780
can see i know there's one time there's that there was that absolute spin

00:43:57.780 --> 00:44:00.760
image of batman batman face and mask

00:44:00.760 --> 00:44:03.900
was was in this iceberg it was yeah just just amazing

00:44:03.900 --> 00:44:07.880
the whole time but the ice also features heavily when you're landing as well

00:44:07.880 --> 00:44:12.080
so when you're looking for a place to camp that there's this ice shelf at high

00:44:12.080 --> 00:44:16.400
high tide because the you know i think the average temperature it's changed

00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:21.680
a lot because of the changing climate and the seasons aren't as easy to predict anymore.

00:44:21.900 --> 00:44:26.440
So I was leaving late April when the weather should have been turning quite

00:44:26.440 --> 00:44:31.340
quickly into not warm, but not too cold conditions.

00:44:31.400 --> 00:44:34.600
But several times it hit minus 12 overnight.

00:44:34.940 --> 00:44:38.280
When I say overnight, it's pretty much 24 hour daylight as well.

00:44:38.380 --> 00:44:41.700
So you don't have any dark, which is another thing

00:44:41.700 --> 00:44:44.740
that affects your sleep and and and to your kayaking

00:44:44.740 --> 00:44:48.560
so yeah if you feel like kayaking from midnight you

00:44:48.560 --> 00:44:51.340
can go out there because it's it's perfectly light it's

00:44:51.340 --> 00:44:54.220
indistinguishable from from midday which is another

00:44:54.220 --> 00:44:58.560
kind of bizarre thing to get around but i managed to keep pretty much to my

00:44:58.560 --> 00:45:03.560
diet day and night kind of routine so i used to try and stop around you know

00:45:03.560 --> 00:45:07.920
somewhere between five and seven o'clock and the first thing you do is is look

00:45:07.920 --> 00:45:11.800
to see if it's possible to get over the ice if it's high tide,

00:45:11.980 --> 00:45:16.520
you can sometimes scooch up onto the ice and then you just drag the kayak to the.

00:45:17.265 --> 00:45:20.225
Couple of meters above the high water line but other times

00:45:20.225 --> 00:45:23.025
sometimes you just got to land on the beach and then try

00:45:23.025 --> 00:45:26.345
and drag your 60 60 kilo kayak with

00:45:26.345 --> 00:45:29.625
all the gear in up and over this ice shelf which yeah

00:45:29.625 --> 00:45:32.285
several times if i'd had a camera following me it would have been

00:45:32.285 --> 00:45:35.125
hilarious because it was just stumbling and falling through

00:45:35.125 --> 00:45:38.285
the ice and yeah yeah the

00:45:38.285 --> 00:45:41.025
kayak just slowly dragging you back into the sea because

00:45:41.025 --> 00:45:44.105
it's so heavy so that was a big issue so but

00:45:44.105 --> 00:45:47.365
as soon as you've done that you start you start trembling from

00:45:47.365 --> 00:45:51.525
the cold yeah yeah the the potential

00:45:51.525 --> 00:45:57.225
to get hypothermic is is incredible and it happens so quickly that the big probably

00:45:57.225 --> 00:46:03.185
the biggest change that i made to my packing of the kayak was to move my my

00:46:03.185 --> 00:46:07.365
kind of my go bag my grab bag of dry clothes and shoes.

00:46:08.185 --> 00:46:11.565
Into the first hatch that yeah the easiest and

00:46:11.565 --> 00:46:14.945
first hatch that i could open so as soon as i got the kayak safe i

00:46:14.945 --> 00:46:18.025
used to strip pretty much naked and get get

00:46:18.025 --> 00:46:20.865
my dry gear out as soon as you got your dry gear then

00:46:20.865 --> 00:46:23.545
you can start worrying about where you're going to camp pulling the

00:46:23.545 --> 00:46:26.745
kayak up slightly higher and getting some

00:46:26.745 --> 00:46:31.585
food in you as well but it was it yeah because i guess where you are sweating

00:46:31.585 --> 00:46:37.045
slightly inside the dry suit so you've got that moisture that is instantly turning

00:46:37.045 --> 00:46:41.405
really really cold yeah so that that that's that that's a big take home from

00:46:41.405 --> 00:46:45.965
this expedition was make sure you've got a really good dry bag and you,

00:46:46.559 --> 00:46:52.259
and never rely on it actually being dry. So yeah, I had my clothes within a

00:46:52.259 --> 00:46:56.079
dry bag, within a dry bag, just to make sure that it wasn't going to get wet

00:46:56.079 --> 00:46:57.999
because that's not much fun at all.

00:46:58.159 --> 00:47:02.319
Not at all. So you mentioned camping earlier and that you had not camped before.

00:47:02.479 --> 00:47:05.199
So how did you adjust to that camping life?

00:47:06.399 --> 00:47:09.759
Yeah, I loved it. And I've done,

00:47:10.099 --> 00:47:14.479
you know, I haven't got a lot of experience kayaking, but YouTube is a great

00:47:14.479 --> 00:47:19.759
teacher And that's how I learned of what to pack and where within my kayak,

00:47:19.999 --> 00:47:21.779
because I hadn't gone out in a group before.

00:47:21.959 --> 00:47:26.199
And I didn't make many other changes, really, to my initial kind of packing

00:47:26.199 --> 00:47:32.899
routine, apart from a big one was any electrical gear, stick it in a plastic bag,

00:47:33.319 --> 00:47:36.799
within a plastic bag, and then within a really good dry bag,

00:47:36.919 --> 00:47:39.039
because everything in the kayak gets wet.

00:47:39.039 --> 00:47:41.939
You know all my hatches were leaking at

00:47:41.939 --> 00:47:44.919
some point and on on the particularly

00:47:44.919 --> 00:47:47.799
kind of wavy days yeah the you know

00:47:47.799 --> 00:47:52.039
the bottom of the of every hatch or every compartment in the kayak had a good

00:47:52.039 --> 00:47:57.019
inch or two of watering so you just got to make sure that anything yeah that

00:47:57.019 --> 00:48:01.399
you don't really you really don't want to get wet is is is in that kind of double

00:48:01.399 --> 00:48:05.059
bagged kind of dry bag thing going on But the camping was,

00:48:05.179 --> 00:48:07.459
yeah,

00:48:07.739 --> 00:48:10.119
I've done a lot of camping before, just not with a kayak.

00:48:10.379 --> 00:48:14.219
So I had a really good expedition tent and...

00:48:15.996 --> 00:48:21.116
Trying to find a place to pitch it was probably the most problematic.

00:48:21.236 --> 00:48:25.876
A couple of times I had to pitch it on snow or ice and then a lot of time you

00:48:25.876 --> 00:48:34.636
get this kind of mossy lichen kind of ground cover which is great as a mattress which is brilliant.

00:48:35.956 --> 00:48:40.396
Yes, the camping was surprisingly easy. Like I said, I got a great expedition

00:48:40.396 --> 00:48:45.216
tent that was quick to put up apart from the time that The wind blew the kayak

00:48:45.216 --> 00:48:46.876
through and smashed it to bits.

00:48:47.356 --> 00:48:54.376
And then I kind of limped along for a week or so before I got to a town that

00:48:54.376 --> 00:48:57.536
was big enough to have a shop that's actually sold tents.

00:48:58.076 --> 00:49:00.776
So I had to buy a new tent halfway through.

00:49:01.496 --> 00:49:07.056
But yeah, the camping was all right. And a lot of the time, when you see a place

00:49:07.056 --> 00:49:08.976
that might be suitable to land a kayak,

00:49:09.436 --> 00:49:14.496
a lot of the time, you'll find evidence that the Inuit or the ancient Inuit

00:49:14.496 --> 00:49:22.596
also had the same idea because you'd find a big ring of stones or burial sites of the ancient Inuit.

00:49:22.596 --> 00:49:27.736
So it was kind of reassuring that sometimes when you pitch your tent,

00:49:28.476 --> 00:49:34.296
you can almost feel the history of thousands of years of Inuit kayakers who

00:49:34.296 --> 00:49:37.836
have also had the same idea and camped in that very same spot.

00:49:38.016 --> 00:49:41.836
So that was kind of reassuring as well a lot of the time. Yeah,

00:49:41.916 --> 00:49:42.756
it must have been quite a moment.

00:49:43.416 --> 00:49:47.876
Yeah. What did you enjoy most about the trip? A lot of the stuff I didn't realize

00:49:47.876 --> 00:49:49.216
I enjoyed until afterwards.

00:49:50.336 --> 00:49:55.676
You know it's the the actual physical satisfaction of completing it and.

00:49:57.119 --> 00:50:03.359
I think the biggest one overall would be kind of the self-education and that

00:50:03.359 --> 00:50:09.979
reliance on yourself, which again, in modern society, we just don't experience that.

00:50:09.979 --> 00:50:17.979
We've got this whole hierarchy and we've surrounded ourselves with so much insurance

00:50:17.979 --> 00:50:24.979
like emergency services and we've got electricity and all those mod cons that

00:50:24.979 --> 00:50:29.659
kind of support us and lift us up in our modern civilization.

00:50:29.659 --> 00:50:36.519
Whereas out there, you're totally living on your wits or as close to how ancient

00:50:36.519 --> 00:50:40.639
humans used to live as it's possible to get nowadays.

00:50:40.939 --> 00:50:44.659
And if you make the wrong decision and leave when the weather's not good,

00:50:44.839 --> 00:50:47.259
that could have disastrous consequences.

00:50:47.259 --> 00:50:56.219
So to have got through the entire trip without any serious mishap felt great.

00:50:56.479 --> 00:51:02.199
It felt really good. And that moment of coming into the final harbour in Karnak

00:51:02.199 --> 00:51:04.839
was an absolutely incredible feeling.

00:51:04.839 --> 00:51:09.079
So I think that self-reassurance that

00:51:09.079 --> 00:51:18.299
you can do stuff like this and you don't have to be a special forces or ex-military

00:51:18.299 --> 00:51:27.579
or have been in the adventure trade for decades before you actually do it was a big one for me.

00:51:27.579 --> 00:51:34.119
That the normal kind of average Joe can do something like this and do it successfully

00:51:34.119 --> 00:51:35.979
in the end. That was really good.

00:51:36.810 --> 00:51:43.370
Other stuff that I enjoyed, the landscape and that feeling of not having another

00:51:43.370 --> 00:51:47.750
human within several hundred miles of you was incredible.

00:51:47.950 --> 00:51:51.790
And that's something that kind of built up as I went along and got closer to the end.

00:51:51.890 --> 00:51:57.230
I was very aware that very soon I'd be back in England or wherever I was going

00:51:57.230 --> 00:52:01.690
and I'd be 100% surrounded by other people the whole time.

00:52:01.970 --> 00:52:05.250
At the very start, I didn't appreciate it one shot.

00:52:05.250 --> 00:52:10.290
I had no kind of idea that that's how I'd feel, but it became an increasingly

00:52:10.290 --> 00:52:18.530
bigger part of my psyche as I went along that I'm doing this and I haven't seen anyone for six days.

00:52:18.730 --> 00:52:23.150
And when was the last time that had ever happened? And it never happened.

00:52:23.430 --> 00:52:26.830
Every day you see people, you see evidence of civilization.

00:52:27.210 --> 00:52:33.950
The only thing I saw sometimes was the airplane trails 30,000 feet up in the sky.

00:52:34.510 --> 00:52:39.230
So that was a massive part of it for me.

00:52:39.570 --> 00:52:44.570
So yeah, I guess a big part would be more spiritual than the actual physical

00:52:44.570 --> 00:52:46.830
results of the expedition.

00:52:47.070 --> 00:52:49.350
Well, thank you for sharing it with us. We appreciate that.

00:52:49.910 --> 00:52:56.530
Is there someplace that any of the data, like a summary is available or anything like that?

00:52:57.230 --> 00:53:02.410
Yeah, if you get on my website, a big part of this is my kind of kickback to

00:53:02.410 --> 00:53:07.890
what you experience on social media and out in general media land.

00:53:08.890 --> 00:53:14.810
Everyone's got a book to sell or a supplement to sell or they're giving you this advice and the...

00:53:16.915 --> 00:53:19.975
People who get passionate about it are shouting about

00:53:19.975 --> 00:53:23.015
it really hard whereas for for me

00:53:23.015 --> 00:53:25.815
i'm not out there to tell people how how they

00:53:25.815 --> 00:53:28.995
should be eating or what they should be doing but i am

00:53:28.995 --> 00:53:31.695
more than happy to put all that evidence out on my website which is

00:53:31.695 --> 00:53:34.975
up there for free you can look at it and look at the results and

00:53:34.975 --> 00:53:37.955
and take your own yeah conclusions from it yeah i'm

00:53:37.955 --> 00:53:40.755
not going to say everyone should be on a carnivore diet and

00:53:40.755 --> 00:53:44.535
go out and eat seal and whale because clearly that would be ridiculous but

00:53:44.535 --> 00:53:47.315
if you want to live kind of as we

00:53:47.315 --> 00:53:50.875
evolved yeah dietary wise and you're

00:53:50.875 --> 00:53:53.815
in Greenland then that's what I believe we should be eating you

00:53:53.815 --> 00:53:56.835
know likewise in England or if you're in Bangladesh or

00:53:56.835 --> 00:53:59.715
South America or Australia we've got to be looking

00:53:59.715 --> 00:54:06.255
at how we have evolved so that has become a real big big point of this for me

00:54:06.255 --> 00:54:12.255
is to seriously look at our diet our modern diet and how we got in this position

00:54:12.255 --> 00:54:17.895
with heart disease and diabetes and et cetera being such a big issue nowadays.

00:54:18.235 --> 00:54:21.855
And I firmly believe it's because of our diet.

00:54:22.532 --> 00:54:26.972
Have you changed your diet since then? Yeah, 100%. Absolutely, yeah.

00:54:27.632 --> 00:54:33.812
I'm trying to look now into what we would have eaten over the last 30,000 to

00:54:33.812 --> 00:54:37.132
50,000 years ago in England and Great Britain.

00:54:37.292 --> 00:54:43.372
So I don't eat any carbs anymore unless it's like a really long fermented sourdough.

00:54:43.612 --> 00:54:48.332
But any of the carbs that we have were only really introduced 10,000 years ago

00:54:48.332 --> 00:54:51.592
with the advent of farming. Before that, carbs were minimal.

00:54:51.912 --> 00:54:57.172
And part of my research has shown that it takes us between that 20 and 50,000

00:54:57.172 --> 00:54:59.572
years to adapt to any big shift in our diet.

00:54:59.912 --> 00:55:06.832
So for us to be eating so much carbs and so much highly processed carbs as well

00:55:06.832 --> 00:55:10.052
is something that we're not adapted to,

00:55:10.192 --> 00:55:15.392
which is manifesting itself now in all the problems that we have in our general health.

00:55:16.092 --> 00:55:19.472
So carbs cut down has been the biggest shift in my diet.

00:55:19.712 --> 00:55:24.592
And now I'm kind of launching onto this secondary career for me,

00:55:24.792 --> 00:55:29.312
apart from chefing really, which is looking into indigenous diets and how they

00:55:29.312 --> 00:55:34.652
affect us and other experiments like looking into where that line is between fermented and rotten.

00:55:35.092 --> 00:55:37.952
Is that a thing or is that just something that we

00:55:37.952 --> 00:55:41.012
have segregated now because we've

00:55:41.012 --> 00:55:43.912
got such a weak microbiome and we're not

00:55:43.912 --> 00:55:46.612
eating as evolution intended us to

00:55:46.612 --> 00:55:49.312
eat so yeah there's there's been loads of

00:55:49.312 --> 00:55:54.812
questions yeah come up from this and and it yeah i find myself going down multiple

00:55:54.812 --> 00:55:59.892
rabbit holes all the time because it is such a vast subject certainly an interesting

00:55:59.892 --> 00:56:04.712
experiment and uh it certainly has like you mentioned changed your uh your career

00:56:04.712 --> 00:56:07.032
and uh and what you're doing from now on,

00:56:07.706 --> 00:56:12.226
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of chefing in restaurants and stuff

00:56:12.226 --> 00:56:16.886
now, I find myself going all over the place, giving talks, workshops,

00:56:17.386 --> 00:56:21.006
working with incredible people who are at the top of the field,

00:56:21.166 --> 00:56:24.686
science-wise, with diets and evolution and nutrition.

00:56:26.406 --> 00:56:32.986
And giving, hopefully, a more kind of human, layman aspect to what they're talking about.

00:56:33.126 --> 00:56:35.426
So I'm loving it. It's great. Very cool.

00:56:35.626 --> 00:56:39.846
What is that website that people go to and connect with you as well as connect with the information?

00:56:40.586 --> 00:56:45.746
Yeah, thanks. Pretty much everything that I've got online and website wise is Eat Your Environment.

00:56:46.126 --> 00:56:52.866
So the website is eatyourenvironment.com and my handles on Instagram and TikTok

00:56:52.866 --> 00:56:54.826
are at eatyourenvironment.

00:56:55.166 --> 00:56:58.566
That's pretty much it. All right. Well, we'll put those links in the show notes

00:56:58.566 --> 00:57:02.506
so folks can connect with you and learn more about the research that you've

00:57:02.506 --> 00:57:05.206
done and we'll be continuing to do.

00:57:05.686 --> 00:57:08.146
And I'll also connect with you if they've got additional questions.

00:57:08.726 --> 00:57:11.366
That's amazing. Thanks so much for having me, John. It's been a pleasure.

00:57:11.566 --> 00:57:13.806
You're welcome. Mike, I've got one final question for you.

00:57:14.146 --> 00:57:17.266
Who else would you like to hear as a future guest on Paddling the Blue?

00:57:17.266 --> 00:57:19.426
Oh, that's a good question.

00:57:19.766 --> 00:57:24.426
There's probably two, actually. And I know you've done a lot of episodes.

00:57:24.586 --> 00:57:29.046
So there's one guy who works up in Scotland, a few hundred miles away from me,

00:57:29.146 --> 00:57:33.686
called Will Copestake, which I think you might have had him on already as a guest.

00:57:34.226 --> 00:57:40.166
But failing that, there's an amazing guy in Nuke in Greenland called John Peterson. And he...

00:57:40.942 --> 00:57:44.322
He took me in for a day and, and was giving me advice when I,

00:57:44.442 --> 00:57:49.322
when I ended up in Nuke and he actually gave me his, his pair of lucky sheepskin

00:57:49.322 --> 00:57:54.002
underpants to wear on the kayak, which were my, my lucky talisman.

00:57:54.182 --> 00:58:00.162
But he, he's an incredible guy. He has been a skateboard champion, a windsurf champion.

00:58:00.382 --> 00:58:04.842
And I think he won the Greenland's kayak championship five,

00:58:04.862 --> 00:58:09.862
five years on the trot, which to do that in Greenland you've got to be a pretty

00:58:09.862 --> 00:58:14.982
amazing kayaker so yeah John Peterson in Nook is fantastic he'd be a great guy

00:58:14.982 --> 00:58:18.762
you might have to brush up in your Danish or Greenlandic though to communicate

00:58:18.762 --> 00:58:23.542
although his English might get through all right well uh Will's been a great

00:58:23.982 --> 00:58:27.942
friend of the show as well and he's uh you know given us a couple of guests

00:58:27.942 --> 00:58:32.202
and he's had some great stories himself so definitely I appreciate that referral

00:58:32.202 --> 00:58:34.462
and also appreciate John Peterson.

00:58:34.722 --> 00:58:37.682
So we'll connect with John. I'll connect with you offline and we'll connect

00:58:37.682 --> 00:58:39.322
with John and go from there.

00:58:39.502 --> 00:58:42.102
So again, Mike, thank you very much for the opportunity to chat with you,

00:58:42.262 --> 00:58:46.882
learn about your trip to Greenland and the food experiment that you completed

00:58:47.262 --> 00:58:50.282
and how that went. So thank you very much. Thank you, John.

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00:59:37.810 --> 00:59:41.350
Thanks to Mike for joining me for today's episode and sharing his trip and the

00:59:41.350 --> 00:59:42.690
food he ate along the way.

00:59:42.850 --> 00:59:46.470
Pretty cool that his trip could have positive implications for feeding people

00:59:46.470 --> 00:59:47.590
in other areas of the world.

00:59:47.950 --> 00:59:51.930
Now picture a group of hunters sitting around a campfire a couple thousand years

00:59:51.930 --> 00:59:55.950
ago and one person says, hey, let's take that seal, open it up,

00:59:56.330 --> 01:00:00.150
stuff it with birds, bury it and leave it there for six months, and then eat it.

01:00:00.510 --> 01:00:03.370
Doesn't sound like a great idea, but it certainly seems to work.

01:00:03.550 --> 01:00:07.850
His next trip is going to involve skiing across Melville Bay on sea ice with

01:00:07.850 --> 01:00:12.330
one seal and seeing how that seal rots over the four weeks and how it provides

01:00:12.330 --> 01:00:13.970
vitamin C from the fermented fat.

01:00:13.970 --> 01:00:17.610
In the show notes for this episode at paddlingtheblue.com slash

01:00:17.610 --> 01:00:20.750
152 you'll find links to mike's website where

01:00:20.750 --> 01:00:24.050
he describes the project and its results and if

01:00:24.050 --> 01:00:28.270
you're not already a subscriber to online sea kayaking.com or online whitewater.com

01:00:28.270 --> 01:00:32.950
remember you can visit both websites use the coupon code ptb podcast to check

01:00:32.950 --> 01:00:36.350
out and you'll get 10% off just for being a member of the paddling the community

01:00:36.350 --> 01:00:41.910
thanks as always for listening and i look forward to bringing you the next episode of paddling the blue.

01:00:44.076 --> 01:00:47.336
Thank you for listening to Paddling the Blue. You can subscribe to Paddling

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01:00:52.856 --> 01:00:55.776
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01:00:57.836 --> 01:01:01.076
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01:01:01.296 --> 01:01:06.836
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01:01:07.056 --> 01:01:10.136
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01:01:14.076 --> 01:01:14.256
Thank you.