Joe Rogan may have said it best: If there was one human being I had to pick to help me survive a life-or-death emergency situation in the wilderness, without a shadow of a doubt, my choice would be John Barklow.

That's the blurb on the cover of John Barklow's forthcoming survival book "Knowledge From Storms." John spent 20 years as a Navy diver, most of it around special operations -- after 9/11, he was one of twelve instructors sent to Kodiak Island to teach SEALs how to survive winter in the mountains, and he helped build the clothing system special ops still uses today. On this episode of the Backcountry Manifesto, John is swinging by the studio to talk backcountry survival and building the kit that will keep you safe, capable, and comfortable wherever your outdoor adventures take you.

This is not a Sitka ad. It's a top-to-bottom walk through a brand-agnostic backcountry kit from the dude who actually wrote the manual. What's the one piece of gear a survival instructor won't leave the truck without? Why is your 30-degree sleeping bag not actually a 30-degree bag? What the hell is a "possibles pouch?" Barklow's got answers.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE John's website: https://knowledgefromstorms.com/ John's IG: https://www.instagram.com/jbarklow/ PRE-ORDER Knowledge from Storms: https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Storms-Surviving-Toughest-Environments/dp/1250461707 John's survival class: https://outdoorclass.com/instructors/john-barklow/

Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025 #podcast #survival #survivalgear #wilderness #gear #backpacking

Is there land at the North Pole, or just ice? Is the water up there frozen solid, or open ocean? In 1879 nobody actually knew, and the best science of the day was hilariously wrong: punch through the ice rim, it said, and you'd find a warm, open sea at the top of the world.

The USS Jeannette sailed north to prove it. Her crew deliberately let the Arctic pack freeze in around the ship, drifted for two years, and watched the ice crush her.

This week on The Backcountry Manifesto, bestselling historian and Outside editor-at-large Hampton Sides is back for part two, this time on In the Kingdom of Ice. We talk about:

• The newspaper baron who bankrolled the whole expedition because Arctic disasters sold papers
• August Petermann, the armchair German mapmaker whose "open polar sea" theory sent them north, and who hanged himself before anyone could prove him wrong
• Emma De Long's "letters to nowhere," and the trunk Hampton found in a stranger's attic
• The canned tomatoes quietly poisoning the crew with lead
• The gale that scattered the boats and decided who lived

If you're into polar survival, forgotten American history, or watching very confident experts get people killed, this episode is for you.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Hampton's Website
• In the Kingdom of Ice
• The Wide Wide Sea
• Orson Welles' radio dramatization
• The Fram Museum

Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025 #podcast #polarexpedition #explorer #history #sailing

In February 1779, the most famous explorer alive was hacked to death on a Hawaiian beach while his own men watched helplessly through field glasses from the ships. Weeks earlier, thousands of Hawaiians had greeted him as the god Lono — his arrival matched their prophecy down to the shape of his sails. So what happened? And why had the most rational, even-keeled commander in the Royal Navy spent his final voyage burning villages over a stolen goat? Hampton Sides — one of America's great narrative historians and author of The Wide Wide Sea — joins us to unravel Captain Cook's final voyage: the secret hunt for the Northwest Passage, a cannibalism cold case in New Zealand, and the leading medical theory for what actually went wrong inside Cook's head. This is Part 1 of two with Hampton — next week: In the Kingdom of Ice. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The Wide Wide Sea: https://www.amazon.com/Wide-Sea-Imperial-Ambition-Contact/dp/0385544766 Hampton's Website: https://hamptonsides.com The Captain Cook Society: https://www.captaincooksociety.com Copyright Outdoor Visions Media LLC, 2025 #podcast #captaincook #explorer #history #sailing