April 25, 2025 • 71 mins
Legendary explorer and environmental advocate Will Steger shares powerful stories from his groundbreaking expeditions, his eyewitness account of climate change, and his lifelong commitment to purpose-driven leadership. We explore the founding of the historic Antarctic Treaty efforts, the vision behind the Steger Center for leadership and innovation, and his outlook on renewable energy and the future of the human spirit. From crossing frozen continents to inspiring global change, Steger offers insights on resilience, community, and building a better world. Whether you're passionate about adventure, sustainability, or leadership, this conversation is one you won’t want to miss.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
watching your documentary was like, for me, it really powerful.
You being there in 1989 on the Larson ice shelf, and it's just not there anymore.
the major expeditions I did, you can't do them anymore because the routes don't existbasically.
Because when you crawl into a sleeping bag at night at 40 below, that thing is probablyabout 20, 25 below inside.
(00:23):
And your body now has to heat that temperature up.
And you did that for 220 days straight.
I like more than anything just being present in the nature.
so on these expeditions my safety relies on being, as long as I'm in the moment I'm okay.
What is your perspective on climate and renewable energy as we move forward?
(00:44):
you optimistic?
All right, we're back yet another Sounds of Solar podcast and video cast.
How many of you watch us out there?
You should leave a comment somewhere in the general vicinity of the video.
(01:05):
Anyway, Russ, how are you doing today?
Well, first of all, I'm your host, Chris Dapron, along with me, Russell Hamilton.
That was a spoiler.
And today we have a very special guest, Mr.
Will Seeger.
Greetings.
Welcome to the Sounds of Solar podcast.
Well, as is customary on the show, we usually kind of just talk about what happened thislast weekend.
And Russ, did you get the Sprint car yet?
(01:27):
No, no, no.
So spring.
I'll go get it in the spring.
I'm not driving a truck and trailer over the mountains during the wintertime.
Okay.
So still working on the list of things I need to get.
Yeah, it's in progress.
It's gonna take a year.
should take Will and have an expedition out to California and get the Sprint
(01:49):
That's we went up to cut ice up in Ely.
Ice harvest.
Yeah.
So we, I live in the wilderness and uh we've been cutting ice for almost 50 years, since68.
So it's a big event.
we get about maybe 50, 60 people come in town from the town of Ely come out.
(02:09):
have a couple, four horses.
And so what we do is we cut blocks of ice out of the lake and then horse with the horses,we bring it up to the ice house.
put the ice in the ice house with sawdust and that's our refrigeration for the rest of theyear.
So we use the blocks of ice.
The ice stays, the ice will keep in the cellar till the next winter.
We end up throwing out blocks.
(02:30):
I mean, it's an old fashioned way of how people used to do it.
But it's a good exercise and a nice winter event.
So when you're cutting ice out, are you using chainsaws or is it like?
By hand.
hand.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what are the tools like when you're
know, the big saw is about six feet tall, it's about six saws.
(02:51):
So it's a lot of work for.
Yeah.
person on the saw.
Then you flip the blocks out and, uh, you know, it's labor intensive, we have plenty oflabor.
Yeah.
We usually do that this season in February when it's nice and cold, which, you know, belowzero is always up on Neely.
Well, how was the, so this last weekend in Minnesota was, it kind of warmed up fine.
(03:15):
We had a really, really sharp cold snap.
So you might, decent conditions then?
conditions were good.
It's still cold up there, but it's getting above freezing now.
So then I live up, I'm originally from Minneapolis and then my real home, moved out of thecity in 1970 in Ely.
So it's been my winter's down here in the last 20 years, working on nonprofit workconnections.
(03:41):
And then I go north, usually up in March and April.
Nice.
And you said, yeah, you've been wintering or summer, wait, you said May to September,roughly, right?
Yeah.
win her down in the banana belt here in Minneapolis.
And I come down here at the end of September and April.
(04:02):
Sure.
Okay.
Yes.
You kind of alluded to starting off moving up to Ely in 1970 and you bought some landthere and built the cabin and maybe just take us through that time up to uh when you did
the Arctic Exploration.
you always raised down here a family of ten kids and my dad was an entrepreneur fought inthe war came back You know sort of business a whole thing, but he gave us Our parents gave
(04:28):
us a lot of freedom to do pretty much what we wanted to and The rule was you know if youwant to do something you had to pay for it Yeah, I know so we I ran with that freedom
started climbing when I was 16 you know the bottom
hemp rope out of a hardware store, checked a book out of the library.
There was nobody climbed in those days.
(04:49):
So I learned myself and I took actually when I was 15, I took a motorboat down with myolder brother recruited.
Tom was 17 and I took my motorboat, the 16 foot boat down to Mississippi, down to NewOrleans and back.
So I had, I had lot of freedom.
How old are you?
(05:09):
15.
15?
How long did that take ya?
Well, it was easy to get downriver, but it took forever to get back up.
you had a had a motor on this.
What was the motor you had on it?
A five horse Johnson.
40, but you know, I the rules were, know, all our money went into the gas and we reallyhad to hit up the priests and other people along the way to get It was a good trip.
(05:34):
was a huck fin trip.
mean seriously yeah that is that is what that is
So I I came I came from a background of
Freedom and not seeing barriers and that's what really made my life.
Because I had a pretty good vision as a younger kid.
I I knew ever since I can remember, I wanted to live in the wilderness, clear land, builda cabin.
(05:54):
And I bought land when I was 19 up in Ely was three miles from the road.
I I lived 25 miles.
I lived 25 years off road when I first moved up there.
So I lived, you the old fashioned way, 12 years without electricity and.
And I started a winter school using dog sleds and skis to make a living.
(06:15):
And that got me into dogs, eventually into dog sled expeditions.
my life has been consistent with adventure expeditions and also education.
was my...
what you'd call a vocation when you were younger.
What's your vocation?
What are you going to do for your livelihood?
I got, I stayed down in the city long enough to get my degrees, my master's in education,and I taught three years for experience.
(06:41):
I wanted to be a certified teacher so I could do my own program.
I...
And then 1970, I split from the city and, you know, I was good terms with the city.
It was in a reaction.
I had a lot of friends down here.
Really liked the city life, but I really wanted to live in the wilderness.
So I left there and then, you know, made my go up in Ely, Minnesota.
(07:02):
So it was really a great move.
m
How did you-
decide on Ely?
mean of all the you know I went to school in the Arrowhead region I went to UMD and formedmy own love for that area and yeah there's so many beautiful places what was it about Ely
that kind of well
I was a real doer as a young kid, I still am.
I had the intention of looking for land, so I actually went up looking when I was 18, 19.
(07:27):
North shore, I looked all over the North shore in the country.
I wasn't interested in Lake Superior, but I wanted to be in the isolated.
But there wasn't a lot of wilderness land there.
I mean, knocked on doors and restaurants and bars and everything.
So I headed up to Ely this one day, up Highway 1, and I'd never been in Ely before.
stopped at a resort and asked them, where do I find wilderness properties?
(07:48):
And he gave me, he said, talk to this realtor, Bill Trigg, and you know, I ended upfinding what I was looking for.
It was $1,000, which was a lot of money.
mean, tuition at St.
Thomas was $650 a year.
I mean, I had to pay for that.
that was, so it wasn't cheap.
People think, oh, that's cheap.
No.
(08:09):
years and years
Adjusted for inflation Jordan, can you run that number?
No, so it was that whole thing.
I had a really great, you know, all the way through my life was great.
pretty much did.
I created my own life and my own community.
and, uh, but my vocation in education was, was important to me.
(08:29):
I didn't see myself as a classroom educator.
I was still lexic.
I had a hard time with studies because of that, but I still worked hard because I knew Ihad to get that straight education.
It was just, obviously it was important.
to me and so and then I applied that education more when I ran my school.
(08:50):
Then I ended up, know, as you probably know, I developed a number of nonprofits.
I developed lots of curriculum and higher level, you know, type education, national levelstandards and that.
I would say education, real, my real
Career was program developing.
I would develop programs rather than going in a classroom.
(09:12):
And I did a lot of, I always talked to, down here in the city, I used to do 100 talks ayear and that was mostly all free.
made my living.
ah
presentations, writing and photography when those careers you can make a living in.
And then I always designed clothing for the major companies, know, North Face Patagoniaand that.
(09:35):
that was my livelihood.
My money where I'm and then I made money on the school.
I didn't you don't make money on expeditions.
That was when so we watched um the art after I watched this with my girlfriend Carly Yeah,and she was wondering like
How does how do you make money at it?
(09:56):
I was like well don't think that's the money make
Yeah, the expedition doesn't, doesn't mean you're you, I've made very little money on anyexpedition.
always came in and you're facing, you know, I've got debts sometimes two or 300,000 at theend of an expedition.
Yeah.
Got to work off.
It's a lot of risk and, and most people aren't, uh, you know, most people don't takerisks.
(10:17):
They're comfortable in their zone and that's really what they want to be comfortable andsecure and make some money.
human nature.
you ever heard of there's this this this group called Yes Theory?
So it says YouTube group and they their whole idea is to seek discomfort and to not staycomfortable and like what you're doing so kind of similar what you're saying.
(10:41):
Yeah.
I mean, you know, to each his own.
mean, we're in America, there's a lot of money around these days and people are overconsuming the planet's heating up and we, we care about it, but we, you know, we're not
willing to do, you know, put the mental work into it or anything like that.
mean, people are pretty passive.
that's our, that's ours.
(11:03):
And there's a lot of really great people that are doing things.
A lot of young people doing.
incredible things.
it's America, and you've got all these paradoxes and contradictions continually.
But again, you know, looking at, rather than looking at it in a depressive way, the wayout, of course, I see always the economy is very important to all of us.
(11:24):
And if there wasn't for the incredible economy of this new, the new, we can call it thenew era that we are in clean energy and
Anything, you know, we have to do whatever it takes, have to uh reduce our carbon and getrid of our carbon as a source of energy.
(11:45):
And that's not a simple thing because we drive to work and we all use petroleum.
But the solutions lie in the economy, pretty much what you do here.
ah You know, all your engineers here, they have these great jobs because, you know,collectively we're working towards bringing that...
you know, you've you've seen and you know, we'll come back to you know what you're doingthe 80s but since we're here talking about this right now like have you know, as time has
(12:11):
gone on you've seen technology grow and stuff and Doesn't in the last five years all thiskind of seems viable So like you can you can have solar that actually like that's what we
do here We don't we engineer, you know utility scale solar which you can use to chargeyour electric car power your electric heat and the reliance on fossil fuel is
(12:32):
Like, tangibly, it's, you can see the end is near.
We don't have to do that necessarily.
We look at up in Becker.
I remember it was five years ago when I started talking about replacing the coal plant upthere.
And now they have the, I mean, I think the coal plant's going to be decommissioned by2030, I think.
they've already built the utility scale solar farm that's going to replace it.
(12:58):
I I try to pass it off to them.
seems like it's operational at this point.
I mean we have an incredible future ahead of us, people are so much in a funk oneverything else.
ah But I don't see anybody really giving a vision of where we're going to go and what wehave to do to explore this new future we have, which is a lot of opportunity for
(13:19):
everybody.
mean the key is it all revolves around a good economy.
then an economy that's not based on fossil fuels, which are...
Unfortunately, we are right now.
Yeah, we have to right now.
I mean, you look at where we've come in 20 years, it's pretty incredible.
the fossil fuels, the dirty, you know, the climate, the whole thing, the wars, corruptcorruption of all that.
(13:46):
But that is changing visibly.
mean, as we in solar car, mean, just our habits have changed in 20 years.
If you look at biking, walking, I biking, look at Minnesota, Minneapolis and biking.
He braces my
horribly addicted to cycling.
Yeah, yeah, and it's a it's incredible where we've come in 20 years and where we'll be inanother 20 years.
(14:08):
Yeah, there's gonna be some changes.
Yes I mean our climate is gonna change So and but that changes You know one truth of theworld of being a human being is change everything changes all the time
This winter alone so far in Minnesota, it's the warmest winter on record in Minnesota.
(14:29):
Yeah, those cold snaps.
It was all the close-ups.
Warmer than last winter?
Yeah, really.
Last one here they said was the warmest on record in this one.
Yeah, last winter was great.
again, our climate, like we're talking, fluctuates back and forth.
But it's generally climate change, which is.
Yeah, yes, change.
(14:50):
Yeah.
So I wanted to touch on you watching your documentary was like, for me, it was reallypowerful.
You've you seen you being there in 1989 on the Larson ice shelf and it's just not thereanymore.
Right.
Like you've seen in a short span time, realistically a short span of time of like, know,the earth of how climate change is affecting, you know, and that perspective isn't
(15:17):
something that the everyday person is going to have because they weren't there.
They didn't see the Larson ice shelf at its glory.
now it's open water.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, all the major expeditions I did, um, you can't do them anymore because the routesdon't exist basically.
And that's how fast this one, mean, geologically, it's like a quick blink here of what'shappening.
(15:40):
mean, it's going very fast, I've been, I've been on the ice.
oh
you know, it was going the last 25 years.
And that's just part of, you know, the climate change and the changing weather, but I'vebeen the eyewitness to it.
And I was able 20 years ago to take that eyewitness account.
to the public and to schools and conservative audiences, congregations, in order to bringabout attention to, well basically to help jump start the climate movement.
(16:11):
Even all the environmental groups had no idea what climate change was back
this around 1985?
This would be 2002 when it came down.
That's when I started.
But that's all course changed.
Everybody's always talking about climate and everybody's freaked out about it.
(16:32):
But I've seen the changes, I've done my best.
Well, you've been very like I once again, you know, I'm kind of gushing here, but veryvery impressed with who you are I mean, he's a big fan a big fan.
I mean you're a legend you're here You know and and like the Arctic or the Antarcticexpedition that you did getting I believe is what the six countries assign You know the
(16:53):
50-year Is it a pact or treaty of like you're not gonna develop you're not gonna you know?
Go for the resources in Antarctica, you know, and unfortunately that's coming up whatpretty soon
Well, what you're talking about is the Antarctic Treaty, which protects Antarctica, wassigned during the Cold War in 1960.
It was a brilliant treaty.
It set aside that continent for science only.
(17:15):
No nuclear, no military.
And they had a clause that in 1990, it was going to be opened up again in case there'sanything.
So in 1986, four years before 1990, the treaty nations met, 27 of them behind closeddoors, and they all signed a document to open it up for exploration.
In order to change that, we needed to get all 27 treaty nations to reverse theirdecisions.
(17:41):
And what we did is we organized the Trans-Antarctica expedition.
Antarctica had never been crossed.
Shackleton, that was his dream.
And we purposely did the longest possible route, 3,700 miles.
Six people.
Which is incredible.
Yeah, it's a long trip.
And it was six countries from the original Chinese.
(18:03):
from six people from six countries.
And in the long story short, you know, we somehow survived it.
ah This is before internet, but we had, you know, over half the world was involved in thatexpedition.
it did, it did the mojo on that.
It drawed world attention to the world leaders.
And then we, then we met with the world leaders after that expedition over a period oftime.
(18:25):
And we were able to get all, all the treaty nations to reverse their decision.
Cause once we had a couple of key ones, China changed Japan.
France, then everyone else starts signing.
It was a long process, political process.
But the treaty is up for review again in 15 years, but in order to change it, have to haveall majority.
(18:46):
And that's up to 40 some treaty.
you know, when you lay out a policy, this is why policy is so important.
laid out the next generation energy bill in 2008, which was signed in this state.
And the Republicans have been trying to get that rescinded ever since then.
(19:06):
We had 94 % of the vote, Republican and Democrats on that policy.
But in order to change it, you have to have the vast majority.
That's the great thing about that.
And the policy's solid and it doesn't blow away with the political whims of who's around.
have to, I it's a democratic situation.
The countries all have to sign.
(19:29):
And you get like I was watching that you weren't just riding along on this on the sledsand you're running the whole way.
in.
Yeah, there wasn't a place to even write a sled that right.
I the idea of writing a sled is I mean, again, you're wearing the dog sound, but right nowwe're we're working ourselves to but our diet, our diet was still we had everything was
(19:52):
according to weight, we had to store a kilo for our rations.
But we burned through about 6000 calories a day.
That was break even.
Yeah, we had it, we could have done eight or more.
And a lot of that.
Calories are in fat calories because you need the energy to keep your body warm.
Because on an expedition, you're not ducking into a warm room where that warm room warmsyour clothing and dries your clothing.
(20:20):
Your body is always, is the only way that you're going to dry it from your own heat.
We're on fuel rations so we don't have a warm tent.
So your body is in this high demand even when it's sleeping.
Because when you crawl into a sleeping bag,
at night at 40 below, that thing is probably about 20, 25 below inside.
And your body now has to heat that temperature up.
(20:41):
And you did that for 220.
120 degrees and so that there's this demand natural demand of both dogs and people thedogs were a little more adaptive because they were their Fur was sick.
Yeah, and they have a natural Managing their heat through their breathing heart in theirtongue.
That's a normal thing with a dog ah So they were actually in some ways better off than wewere
(21:07):
I did have like, uh you know, I know this isn't just about the documentary, but I've tonof questions.
It was super interesting.
Like ah I as I was watching it when and where and who like left you the caches along yourtrack.
Yeah, we were referring to crossing Antarctica, Sokka, you're going to cross Antarcticawith six people, 30 dogs, 3,700 miles, it ended up being 222 days long.
(21:38):
How are you going to get the food?
So your range on a sled is strictly weight.
mean, if you did the mathematics, you're two pounds per dog.
In other words, 10 dogs, 20 pounds ah for 30 days at 600 pounds plus your food andeverything else.
(21:58):
So the weight is that.
So you had to, what we did the first 2,000 miles to the South Pole, we laid out in thesummer in real fickle weather and people never flown into these areas, we laid out our
food caches.
So you did that.
Yeah, we did that.
I wasn't there doing it, but Jeff Summers, one of my team members, oh was in charge ofthat.
(22:19):
Because we needed someone from the expedition, We flew with Canadian pilots for that, veryexpensive.
so we laid out.
So on paper, it looked like it was going to be an easy trip, that every 200 miles, we'dfill up and then...
you know, that's, know, 200 miles is not 250 miles is you can easily travel that if thetravel is good.
(22:40):
But so what happened is we had 60 days of winter storms.
Yeah.
And as a result of that, we lost three of our food caches.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're over 1500 miles from our base camp, which is on the next continent in Chile, SouthAmerica.
We're communicating through a 10 watt radio.
(23:02):
There was a nice satellite or anything like that.
And so we'd be radio blocked out for a week or so at a time.
So we're on our own.
So if we lost the cash, all of sudden you're expecting a ton of food and it's not there.
Well, you know, like we would normally do is we were still rationing because we had noguarantee.
(23:25):
Then we'd have to super ration.
to try to make it to the next.
Because if we lost the second one, we wouldn't live.
so as a result, we had to travel in this horrendous weather.
There's some of the weather was impossible to be out, know, 120 below wind chills ispretty limit.
(23:45):
But we traveled in horrendous conditions.
And we had to make every moment called, know, even getting sleds.
uh
lost in a storm and wasting three or four hours or a day or so that could cost your life.
So we were in these constant peril and extreme rations, no heat, enough just to meltwater.
(24:10):
And by miracle we survived it.
We were very strong team and we just, you know, we did it.
had some sort of a providence that we had with us.
felt that.
Although, know, province is nice to talk about.
And when you're almost out of food and your dogs are dying and your people are starting togo on you, you know, all your philosophy and that kind of goes out the door.
(24:37):
So it was tough.
but we, we hung together and uh what was important to us is we experienced what the earlyexplorers experienced.
we, we didn't, I never walked in anyone's footsteps.
I always did my own routes.
Every, every expedition ever did was something that was purposely just challenging as Icould find it.
(25:00):
And I had no, no desire recreating anybody's historical stuff.
Sure.
know, a hundred years later, some people do that, which is great.
Yeah.
But, um, yeah, I always travel my own trail.
I always did my own thing.
And, uh, but you know, you're, you know, overall it was.
(25:20):
It was a great experience because we survived it, but we became very tight.
You know, we were talking about international cooperation.
our, you know, we, we, the most important thing to us was that we end this trip in reallygood standings and good friendships.
Because if we fought like a lot of expeditions end up doing, you know, behind the scenes,you know, get the movie version of stuff.
(25:43):
my God.
can imagine the like the constant stress your body is in then
Social stresses, emotional stresses.
But our my partner was John Louis X a Frenchman that I literally ran into on the NorthArctic Ocean That's how we conceived it this idea in 86.
him and I were in charge.
(26:03):
So there's You when you're when you're in charge and leaders you've got all theresponsibility the press everything like that and As a team we go through the same thing
every day, but at night they're sleeping
And you have the response, and they have no idea.
Okay, let's just fly in a plane.
Well, that's $75,000.
(26:27):
if we do that, all this thing, but there wasn't a division of leader or whatever.
were the most remarkable group and our average age was 40.
Our strengths were really in our diversity because we were...
six different cultures that spoke five different languages.
(26:50):
We spoke English to various degrees as our communication language.
so with that diversity, we were 40, we were all set in what we're doing.
There was no competition.
And we had the spirit of commitment and inspiration.
uh
I think that really showed to like when towards the end of your expedition when theRussians are the other Russians were worried about maybe having to rescue you and how you
(27:17):
all just were like We'll let the dogs go on the vehicles.
Yeah, we won't you know that commitment to yeah, we're going to see this
Yeah, we had this incredible commitment to it.
It was our common goal because this was important and it was bigger than ourselves.
I mean it wasn't just a make-believe, people that bigger in my city.
There's so much verbalation of everybody out there, but this was a real commitment.
(27:43):
We represented our countries and so forth.
So we had that type of energy of that commitment which...
I mean, we were the best friends ever.
mean, the six of us are so, close.
Yeah, we get together every about three four years.
I mean, we're connected always on the internet.
(28:04):
so it was a great trip.
And then it had a really wonderful ending when we eventually did get that.
Well, scary too, at the, towards the end when you lost, I can't remember which.
Yeah, Keizo.
Oh, that was Japanese ever.
He was out for 13 hours.
(28:25):
Yeah.
Is that right?
Yeah.
And he was in better condition than you.
hunkered down and just
Yeah.
Well, you know, I was a little worried about anti-climax coming in, you know, on theRussian pace.
But this was 16 miles from the end.
We were literally there.
Yeah.
And we saw the ocean, everything that day before.
(28:46):
was a beautiful day.
And, you know, we didn't, we didn't think we've made it.
We were, we knew better here in Antarctica.
You make it only when you literally cross that finish line.
You don't project ahead.
And sure enough, a huge storm came up on the high plateau about 200 miles from us andsouth where we came from.
(29:09):
It was 78 below already there.
And then we were close to the ocean where the ocean was open.
So you have a warm, moist air, super frigid, and these two systems collided.
And we had this horrendous storm.
Queso went out, routine feed his dogs that evening.
And he never came back.
(29:32):
it was, you know, he, we had put out skis and that.
So when you're walking between tents or whatever, because when you're tenting, your tentsare together close.
You have the tent lines, you have the stakeout dogs that, you know, a stakeout chain'slike 50 feet.
You also have an antenna that goes out 60 feet.
So when you're in the middle of all this camp, you can't see anything, but.
(29:56):
So, Keisel decided, made a huge mistake.
He went from one ski to another, maybe 20 feet apart, which is routine.
But what is always the rule is when you go from one ski to another in a bad storm likethat, you always keep an eye on that back ski, the ski you're leaving from.
And he didn't.
He just went from one ski to another and suddenly, when he was in the middle of thatstorm, intensified, he couldn't see anything.
(30:25):
And they sat for a while and he decided, well, he walked.
And by chance, he somehow walked a window, a very narrow window where he didn't trip overany lines.
He just went out.
I guess the wind.
And he disappeared and we found out later.
It was really shocking.
we did a rescue that night, which was really, it was dangerous just having that rescuegoing.
(30:49):
I canceled that at 10 o'clock when it was too dangerous for anyone to be out there.
But then, fortunately, we found him alive the next morning.
Did he have frostbite or any?
No, he was adverse effects.
He was he hung in there.
He he didn't have proper protection, but he had a knife.
He dug kind of a hole.
(31:10):
He couldn't do the cave and but then his you know, neck would start the snow would come inthere was just you know, but I figured I figured he'd survive the night.
He's young and he was going to get married.
He had a lot of life to him.
Yeah.
And this was not a he wasn't like a winter storm that temperatures weren't
(31:31):
too bad.
If this was a winter storm, for sure would not have, he would have perished in about threeor four hours.
But it was the amount of snow.
ah I mean, it was kind of a wetter snow, but it was so thick.
It literally like a fire hydrant.
If you looked into it, that fraction of a second, would fill your nostrils, your ears,your hood.
mean, it would just literally blow you over.
(31:53):
you were just totally disorientated.
So it was a very dangerous storm that way, visibility.
You know, I organized, we had the Russians there, we had a support team there, we had alot of people that were there, the French, Russian, we had about 20 people on there,
rescue.
ah What we did is we strung our log, with climbing, each tent had a foot climbing rope.
(32:15):
We made a uh 300 foot rope, we anchored it down, and then we would have people about every25 feet or less.
And then we'd anchor it, and then we'd do this sweep.
where we'd make a 360 degree sweep with them, with people.
And then the people, again, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, oh vocabulary was tough.
(32:39):
But so each person would look in a particular direction, like to your right, ah and thenshout very loud, Keisel's name.
And then I ran up and down the line, making sure everyone was looking in the right, in thesame direction and yelling.
because if one person looks in the wrong direction, there's a chance that you're gonnamiss him.
(33:05):
so, we went upwind and ah when we found him, that was down where the rope was anchored,starting to work up the rope again.
there was some sort of a, something was going up in the front.
oh I thought they were stopping.
We still had about 10 degree of a slice to make.
I was kind of, I mean, I don't get upset easy, but I was a little.
(33:27):
heard because, uh, this was a serious situation.
So I raced ahead to see why they were, what's the deal.
And then when I got closer in the storm, I saw some sort of a commotion ahead of me, bunchof people.
And then to my left, I saw, I didn't even know if I saw it for sure.
I, I, I saw a figure with hands up in the storm.
(33:50):
just appeared and I instantly without, because I, if this was a mirage, I would've
got lost too, but I just went for it without any thought.
I saw that figure and went right for it.
And that was Keisel.
He was standing up and it was beyond anything.
And when I came up to him, I was alone and he's laying his arms up and down and he'ssaying, I'm God, I'm God.
(34:17):
And I thought, Oh God, I thought maybe he lost his mind.
And I picked him up for the waste.
His energy was good.
And I looked at him, he wasn't frozen.
And then the other team members came and then we, it was just very emotional.
got them back to these big track vehicles when we got inside and the six of us were aroundthe table and he was having his warm cup of tea and we were good.
(34:41):
And I asked him, said, what, what were you, you were saying?
I'm God, I'm God.
he said, I meant to say, thank God.
Thank God.
And he was so embarrassed.
Uh, I mean, in his journals and his mind thought set was, it was a big shame.
If he died, he thought, if I died, if I would have, you know, the journal he's reflecting,he said, shame, big shame.
(35:06):
He wasn't worried about his life.
He was worried about the greater mission.
Yeah, yeah, he was something.
And uh that was really wonderful.
That's in that movie.
After Antarctica, actually, you can just go up my name or after Antarctica's name of thefilm.
You can get it on Amazon and iTunes or whatever.
It's out there.
(35:26):
ah It won a lot of awards.
It was very popular in the film festivals.
incredible.
we both have seen it.
It's like exactly the type of cinema that I'm into.
It was really put a link to that somewhere.
Yeah.
Okay, yeah.
That would be good people I think we're really enjoying.
(35:46):
It's kind of an undiscovered documentary although a lot of people Yeah, it came up.
came on I think 21 I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just saw an absence at 20.
That's when, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I did one of the things that I wanted to touch on too is just like your yourExpeditions that you that you take and so when you filmed like your solo expedition I Was
(36:12):
just overly impressed 77 years old and you're and you're going on this expedition soloDragon a canoe full of supplies and two other like sleds behind it and I just
For me, a couple of years ago, was at Ted Gooch State Park in the winter and I went and Idid like a two mile hike into these cabins and I drug a sled and had snow shoes on and it
(36:37):
was one of the hardest things.
And I'm watching you drag twice the weight.
know, I just, was very impressive and incredible.
So you just leave, you just leave Ely and you just go up, you just go up to the arc.
Well, you know, I've done probably the most incredible thing experience in my life isleading international teams of six So I I did the major expeditions for about 30 years
(37:01):
that type of leadership I also prior to that I did some really amazing trips I really notdidn't really talk about much, but I always had a partner but right now ah
I don't have the three years to organize major expeditions.
So I can say I'm officially, you know, I'm not doing that anymore as of about 10 yearsago, because I'm totally committed to the Steger Center and getting this stuff going.
(37:26):
but I did, I do continue with solo expeditions.
I've done solos throughout my career and that stuff.
ah But I take, you know, really, yeah, like two years ago,
I started up in Ely, know, just training in that there, but two years ago I left uh alone.
(37:47):
was, it was 400 miles from the nearest person and dropped off by a friend of mine that's abush pilot and was, dropped me off for 60 days of supplies and know, 280 pounds.
And I was in the winter, I was hauling and then I would travel all the way throughbreakup.
had a small whitewater raft with me for rivers.
And so I was on my own for.
(38:09):
you know, 60 days and 800 miles.
There was no chance of any rescue.
and so I was on, and this is extremely dangerous country if you don't know what you'redoing, because I'm going through the country starting in winter, but I'm on the rivers
when they're frozen and all the way until when they're breaking up and when the icestarts, and when they break up, it's, you know, there's very few people that have seen
(38:34):
this power of these.
You know, the water rises sometimes 20 feet and the amount of ice, uh river ice is hugeand it's just beautiful.
You know, it's beauty and it's dangerous and it's this whole thing.
But I have to be in the moment all the time.
That's the great.
That's why I do solos and I need, I, I'm not doing it this year.
(38:56):
have to stay the singer center is really taking off.
So I'm going to stay with, stay, stay out the helm this year, which is a huge, hugecompromise for me, but I have to do what I have to do this year.
But yeah.
So I continue on these solos and I challenge myself on those.
I don't challenge like being first.
I, I just like.
you know, the challenging route where I have to innovate and I like more than anythingjust being present in the nature.
(39:22):
And so these expeditions, my safety relies on being, long as I'm in the moment, I'm okay.
And also on a solo, I don't have any, my mind's totally free.
I don't have a partner or six other people that I have to really mind, take my mind tofor.
(39:43):
And so in a way it's much safer being alone, although a team of six, which I've done.
The team was dog slaying with uh three teams of ten dogs each with six people.
That's a very strong and quite safe unit because you've got you got a lot of power thereand a of a lot of people Enough and yet you're really lean and you travel fast but on the
(40:08):
solo I don't have that responsibility of people which I don't mind but
And I was traveling with a partner.
didn't know we would just be talking in the evening.
I'm not interested.
I can talk in the evening all the time with many people.
I'm there because I really want this deep experience of just learning.
(40:30):
My whole life has been about learning and learning.
I started as a young kid doing First of Sense.
That was important to me when I was a teenager or young 20.
That, you know, I was humbled and what really drew me was the nature and the truewilderness.
So that's what I kept coming back to learn from.
(40:52):
It's kind of like a mobile Zen monastery.
really...
Yeah, because it's real.
You know, a solo, for example, or any expedition, it's very rhythmic.
It's really quite disciplined.
ah You're doing the same thing every day, but your mind is free.
oh
I mean, on a team of six, oh we have it such that we get in a rhythm where we do the samething every day.
(41:20):
I mean, we rotate on a team of six.
We always rotate, we have three units, three tents, rotate tent partners about every six,seven weeks.
You have to do that or else you get clicks.
And then once you get clicks, then your, your workers just starting to begin.
Then you have all sorts of problems and you have people turning things against you.
(41:42):
mean, it just, can't, you, you know, things, you know, you have to be aware of certainthings, but, but on the team like this.
We do 10 units, but when you have with a partner like Victor from Russia, we would decide,okay, I will do the breakfast chores.
He does this.
So you never have to think about who's doing what.
(42:03):
You know what you're doing, they know what they're doing.
So as a result, the whole day is like...
It's just the same rhythm.
get at eight o'clock sharp, we're out.
Not a minute before, because if someone goes out a minute before, the other people getuptight.
We made these rules because they're just simple.
they're not, they're just a rhythm.
(42:24):
So we're out right at eight.
That's the only thing where we set our life back at eight o'clock in the morning.
And then we have at one o'clock, we stop for lunch and six o'clock, we stop.
And those are the rhythms of a big.
team.
But then the rest of the day then is just, you know, it's just a lot less when you're,when you're doing mathematically and like that, less issues come up with everybody.
(42:51):
And everybody enjoys the freedom of thought too.
Cause we'll be out in the morning.
We had it down that we would, by the time we entered.
exit of the tent, usually it was like 28 minutes later, we were moving.
I mean, we got that system down.
So I would be, I don't watch a clock.
(43:12):
Nobody watches, can't, clocks freeze, freeze on your hand basically, but it's not likewe're watching the clock, but we're starting at eight.
I can look up almost any time and everyone else is doing exactly, it's a, it's know, it'sa,
It's a really simple life.
uh know, where the mind is free.
(43:34):
know, our mind is everything but free down here.
People are just, you know, we're just, we're cracking at the seams as a society.
You know, we're so politically charged and people can't get off their devices and we allknow it.
But, you know, we just gotta like, it's the quiet mind.
(43:55):
You know, we really have to take...
Consciously take a little bit more time for ourselves If it's a minute, you know a 10minute walk or a trip in the bounty waters, but we got to set those rhythms for ourselves
ah To keep our mind and body.
Yeah solid and so
For me about 10 years ago, I grew up in California and then I moved to Minnesota, centralMinnesota in 1999.
(44:22):
And I didn't know anything about the North shore or Duluth.
Cause had never, nobody's ever taken me, never anything about it.
About 10 years ago, I kind of discovered the North shore and hiking.
And it's one of the most therapeutic things that I do.
And I like to go alone.
Like people don't really understand that.
I like to go hike by myself and sometimes I'll take my boys with me and some friends, but
(44:44):
It's always much more rewarding for me to go alone.
It's really important for ourselves, I think, to be alone sometimes.
I do solos.
I never get lonely.
I mean, I'm totally at home with myself.
I never experienced loneliness.
I'm always okay with myself and I love being with people wherever I'm at.
(45:07):
But there's this idea that, you you want to be alone like you're a loner.
It has nothing to do with that at all.
It's a natural thing.
Because you see people that are...
always with people and they're lonely as hell.
everyone is, but loneliness is a big issue with them.
(45:30):
Also purpose is another thing.
always, I made a commitment when I was young.
earlier, 20s.
I came from an entrepreneurial background, which I talked about, and I have, I didn't seebarriers.
So in my mind, I could do whatever.
I knew that, but I knew I could make money in all this.
uh I, but I made a conscious decision that I was, my purpose was around education and soforth that I, I, uh
(46:00):
I didn't see myself as retiring when I was 65.
In fact, I didn't worry about that at all when I was younger.
I think that's sometimes when you're thinking about too much projection ahead is gonnastifle seeing the moment.
I had a life of purpose all the through.
And I knew that through my life of purpose, I would be extremely rich.
(46:21):
So when I got into my sixties and that, which is ironic in the sixties and...
I people that are 65 don't have a purpose.
retire.
They retire to do what?
Nothing?
Yeah, it's difficult.
I it's a real challenge for all of us, I think, because purpose.
But I was fortunate because I had this purpose.
(46:44):
And that also gave me a lot freer mind.
I didn't have to think, OK, I knew that I would meet people and this whole thing wouldhappen.
So tell us.
your...
I thought that's where you were going with that.
(47:05):
That's the thing that's coming up soon to the grand opening and.
Yeah, the Stigler Center.
uh The official title we call it the Stigler Center.
it's my original goal vision in my life on the center was about 40 years ago.
was successful in the school.
did.
I could have done that for the rest of my life and supported myself.
(47:25):
But, you know, after eight years of that, it's kind of done that, been there.
But as a teacher, I was reaching people.
but I have about maybe 80 people a year.
But I just felt that I had, my potential was larger, I had more capacity than, and I metthe 80 people or so.
(47:47):
were real intimate relations, even today whenever we meet on the street or whatever, it'sstill like old friends.
it was a great thing.
I had a bigger vision of that.
And the vision that I had was I felt with my life 40 years ago, I could make my biggestpurpose would be to create this center in the wilderness and bring
(48:11):
you know, the higher level decision makers.
could be state, national, maybe eventually international leaders.
Because if I could affect small groups of, say 12 maximum, if I could affect leadership atthat high level, I could have the biggest effect with my life and everything I've worked
with.
(48:32):
So ah I went about building the Cigar Center.
uh
I never talked much about it, but my first 35 years I funded it all myself.
in 1988, And then when the COVID came along, according to plan, I had planned to give itall away to a nonprofit.
(48:56):
So during the COVID, I had the access from Fagry.
a Faigrey drinker law firm.
I've always worked with Faigrey and our nonprofits and sought access to a couple ofattorneys during the COVID.
And I then was able to make...
able to turn that officially over all my assets of land, everything I owned, I basicallyjust gave it to the nonprofit, which is a public organization run board.
(49:23):
And then starting three years ago, I started raising more money.
still raising money is really tough.
As you expand, I'm building our administration, but as you expand, need more money.
It's almost like, it's almost a never ending.
curse of my life.
it's, but, but it also, um, it's, it's also a, uh, raising money, it's a nonprofit forprofit, it's very humbling, but it's a very important experience because it's the only way
(49:54):
you launch an idea and a project.
Most people fail in their mind and their thinking and they can't, you know, they can't getit funded or organized, but I'm good at logistics and that.
So.
So I'm now starting with my first pilot programs and leadership programs in 2026.
I have one program actually this summer.
(50:15):
ah that is coming, ah that's coming along pretty well.
And then I also run the last 40 years programs in the summer.
because I've been building the center.
I've worked with a lot of craftspeople and I do a lot of that work myself and findwoodworking in that.
whenever I had a craftsperson or whenever I was working on a major project, we wouldalways have apprentice.
(50:42):
you know, people that are learning, particularly people that are interested in the trade.
So over uh the summertime, we work a lot with job ready type skills.
We work with a program called Summit Academy, OIC on the North side.
That's a 20 week program.
We work as 20 week program, mainly inner city, know, tuition's free.
(51:03):
And then they do 10, 10 weeks of a classroom, 10 weeks of.
basically on the job training.
And then, we have the groups up there last couple, three weeks on the job training.
and then they get after the 20 week course, they have a over 90 % placement.
So it's a way for, yeah.
(51:24):
So it's a way to, it's a gateway into middle-class wages because they can enter now in theconstruction world.
23, 24 an hour.
And if they're on fire, can make a living, do their own job.
And it's also equitable.
I it's really great to see people moving up the ranks and being on fire.
(51:49):
And again, it's economics.
And I saw it 20 years ago too.
with the economic boom and the way the economy now, try to get electrician or a plumber orconstruction person.
mean, and that's endless because our new economy, you know, that we're creating, we needelectricians and we're rebuilding, rebuilding the whole structure.
(52:12):
So that provided the economy to bring people out of poverty.
Summit's part of that program.
And that's my motivation.
I do a lot of, uh
job-ready skills for women.
I have some great women, uh crafts people that have worked for me over the years.
And then we in turn have trained some of our younger people, apprentices, mean in their20s, ah 30s, in stonemasonry or whatever that might be.
(52:41):
they, lot of our instructors are our past students that come along and they're now in thetrade and now they teach.
So, summer times are really busy up there.
You know, cause that's all around building out the thing.
But the main, my main goal in my life, my purpose in my life is really to build thatSteger Center for higher level, top level leadership.
(53:02):
And, and we need, for this higher level leadership, we need quiet spaces for that.
You can't do it in a resort with all the stuff going on.
So that's, that's my, the real niche of the Steger Center is by, by purpose, we areremote.
And it's in that silence of the surrounding wilderness and the group and this whole thingtogether is where, you know, I look at you a team, uh a quiet mind.
(53:35):
A quiet mind doesn't mean a void of silence.
It's basically a void of self.
What you, know, if you could just drop yourself when you're a leader, have to be properleader and we're all leaders and that quiet mind, that space of the wilderness and all
that.
(53:56):
That's that's what unique to the center.
And then I'm doing just, uh, um, I have ideas.
I I've, I've worked in leadership most of my life, but I have to do in order to reallyunderstand where our sweet spots are.
have to do three or four years.
feel the original.
maybe up to three years' original programs and then concentrate all the time as we getmore and more.
(54:21):
So looking forward for the Steger Center, think, you we're very interested in this.
think it sounds extremely cool.
you said you have a program starting already this summer in 2025.
yeah, I'm just doing one one program.
I mean for the center.
I'm doing actually it's a it's for entrepreneurs And it's been it's you know, it'll proveit can be anyone from 20 to 80 So it's open but entrepreneurs that have been successful in
(54:47):
whatever
their project might be.
But they're going on, I call it the next chapter, where they're moving on to anotherproject.
ah So this will be a total of 12 of us.
And everyone will have some experience or big experience in their original field.
And then so we would all present our project, talk about it so everybody knows.
(55:10):
then throughout that four days, then you discuss as a group or whatever.
I it's kind of a...
Leadership is all about relationship building.
Yes, and that's Yeah, yeah, yeah and especially like in this situation you get like-mindedPeople together and boy, it's all about that inspiration, right?
(55:32):
It's creating the best situation for I call lightning to search strike within a groupwhere you you really start having insights and Again, you're you're we're focused around
one You know our commitment is
is defined by the next chapter.
could be some sort of a treaty for Antarctica coming up in there.
(55:53):
But this one was an easy one to organize because there are a lot of people that I knowthat would fit that.
oh
all 12 people that are attending, are they all in a similar space as far as what they'redoing or is it a...
Mix, mix of people.
Yeah, they're around from her.
This one's from around the country.
(56:14):
Yeah, and I've got maybe two or three from Minnesota.
And yeah, they're all people that mean, you know, all very interesting people.
I relate to people, risk takers, the entrepreneurs that have these ideas.
I this is what America is about.
You know, we all can do that.
And we all have that privilege to do that.
(56:37):
so.
You know, I'm in good company in that situation.
And this program was something that uh the people that were that are coming to it, didthey see or the did you select them or did they see an opportunity to?
we can just go.
Yeah, I'm working with a friend, a good friend of mine, Dan Buettner.
(56:58):
Dan runs what's called Blue Zones.
And it's hard to explain his program, but you see a lot of what Dan does.
Dan does, Dan's really active.
He's got a lot of friends and stuff like that.
oh So he has a lot of input and we're kind of putting together our address books and justputting the invite out to see, are you free at this time?
(57:22):
Would you want to come?
So it's real relaxed.
It has nothing to do with huge treaty or something that we have to crack.
We know how we're going to do it.
It's only four days.
I mean, ideally, oh anything could be.
I think a real working program to me is should be something like Saturday to Saturday.
(57:43):
That way you've got six days to work with.
And when you're doing something really heavy, that's a long time, but in that six days,that gives you a lot of freedom to ah do different things.
There might be a day where you don't even go inside.
You might be in the wilderness somewhere walking or whatever it might be.
(58:04):
But you have to have...
ah
in these sessions you have to rely on a lot of flexibility.
Because you have a plan going in, but once it goes, you might go, you never know whereyou're going to go from there.
But you have that flexibility though.
But there, we have the wilderness and trail systems and that.
(58:33):
I did a feasibility study.
2020 at the Carlson School of Management and there were younger people of 23, real smart,brilliant.
But they said, you know, this, this ain't going to work.
You have to have a golf course.
Cause they're, they were researching, but they were totally right.
(58:53):
Because in your, in your resort or you get anyone to go to a conference, know, you needthe golf course and the bar, you know, the wine bar.
Uh, but I said, no, we have the golf course.
It's our trail system.
Cause you have to have a, you have to have a.
area that you play off of.
It's just the wilderness and not the golf course.
(59:14):
And the golf course is something that's relationship building, but it's not higher levelin what we're doing because this is really more of an internet.
space.
And then um so we're here at EVS so you know Dennis Kim and how where where is theconnecting point with you and Dennis Kim?
Dennis was at the very beginning, when I first came down to the city, nothing was going onand anything.
(59:40):
There was just very few people that.
But Dennis had, he was in solar, he was way ahead of his time.
This was just a much smaller organizations.
So I was doing whatever the meetings and people were, I was there, just as you do as anactivist.
And it was through that early days, Dennis Kim was there and I saw him again.
And him and I became good friends.
(01:00:03):
He's my earliest supporter.
You know, he gave me a hundred bucks at the beginning and that was a lot of money.
And then we became very good friends with Dennis' family as Generosity, the company here,I watched this company.
Because this was a model, what Dennis was doing.
Well, that was a model and I knew it was going to be just like this.
(01:00:25):
know, you can say right place at the right time, but if you're an entrepreneur, that's thestart of it.
He was the one that developed.
you know, took the risk and it's amazing.
It's a fine example because EBS, all the engineers, everybody that is part of thisoperation is helping to drive carbon down.
(01:00:46):
You have a good lifestyle.
uh They're generous here.
Engineer wages are good and it's a good model if you want a good job, get an engineeringdegree.
And Dennis is one of the employers in that.
So I have, you know, that last 20 years, he's visited me a number of times.
He's brought up uh Korean students that have stayed with us for a while.
(01:01:11):
And so it's old home week for me m being here.
uh One other question I have for you, is, so you talked, you were involved in a lot ofthings, but you also do solo expeditions where you have time for, to lose the self, as you
said.
How do you balance doing a lot and then kind of in a way, not doing nothing, but likeremoving yourself from this world and going into this world and how do you keep everything
(01:01:42):
contiguous?
that's a very good question.
First of all, I look at my world as the complete world.
This is part of what I do in my world, down here, interviewing in my social world.
And it's a world, too, because I'm raising money on that.
You could call it stress, but I handle that pretty good.
(01:02:08):
And then you have the world of the wilderness, which is a different world, but it's stillmy same world So I have not too much problem going seem almost seamlessly going one for
another Because I I'm still
When I'm here, I'm not in Neely.
When I'm in Neely, I'm not here.
It was that way.
don't take the woods or my incredible solar expedition.
(01:02:31):
I take it with me in terms of everything I've learned from it.
but I'm not, I'm not living.
I don't live, um, you know, someplace where I'm doing one thing in my mind.
I'm somewhere else.
I just, cause I'm in the moment a lot.
And that's, that's what I've learned on expeditions and,
So, you know, I adjust to it that way.
(01:02:55):
And, uh, and, uh, I'm here, I'm here.
So I don't mind it.
I like, I like, uh, Minnesota, uh, my home and, uh, Minneapolis, twin cities, especially Ihave a fondness for this area.
I've seen it grow in the last, my whole life, but, uh, I did a lot of work, internationaland national, and 20 years or 24 years ago when I started, came down here for the climate.
(01:03:21):
That's the first time I reworked locally.
It's where I really like working and that's where I really wanted to keep it that way.
don't have any, I don't like to be on the road as much.
I've done there and it's just a hassle on planes, but whatever.
mean, there's a health issue when you're traveling around too.
I mean, it's just like...
(01:03:42):
I would say I looked at my compromise of spending six months down here.
It is a compromise on my health, but I, but I keep active the errors, you know, it'swhatever, you know, I mean, I mean, it's a better, better city, but I don't, I don't in
the city itself, I don't do anything where, you know, I'll run a little bit maybe orsomething, but I don't like air, you know, breathing in a lot, heavy into the air, but,
(01:04:09):
uh, but I'll do okay.
And I just keep simple and.
I keep in shape by just simple rhythms.
I try to get the proper amount of sleep if I can.
Sometimes you don't, you know, your life's not your own sometimes.
But then, uh, but then you can, you know, on a weekend or whatever you can, but you gotit.
You got to take care of your sleep, your food, your exercise, the basic walking and, uh,eating, trying to eat simpler and, uh you know, not being too hard, break your rules once
(01:04:39):
in a while.
mean,
I mean, I think people need a little more self control.
Oh, yeah.
mean, discipline.
the land of abundance, people take advantage.
But I think so, but I'm not saying over discipline because over being over discipline isthe is the same thing Yeah, you're just become a stiff and yeah, but you've got like I say
(01:05:01):
break your rules sometimes But you do have to have some a little more self-control people,you know We just need need that mean just as the function as human beings you can't be
just doing whatever you want all the time and all the time and I mean people are What'shappening is the?
I think the tail is wagging the dog with people sometimes when you're supposed to be thedog wagging the tail.
(01:05:27):
I'm saying that it means that, you know, we've got to be in charge a little bit more ofour life.
I think, and I, that's where the outdoors comes in.
That's why we're all privileged to be living in Maine.
Cause we have, we have that type of thing, but, but I do straddle, you know, it's likestraddling two icebergs with your.
(01:05:49):
Wanna reach for it some of the next?
Yeah.
Sure.
So looking forward, obviously, you've had a very storied career and been involved in 100million things that we'll get to on the 10 episode docu series that we're doing, right?
ah So looking forward, you know, we're in the utility scale solar space.
I think we feel great about where we're going.
(01:06:10):
But what is your perspective on climate and renewable energy as we move forward?
you optimistic?
Of course, mean this economy with or without the politics is going to grow because it'swhere the money's at, it's where the future's at.
You're not doing it because you're afraid of the bears dying.
(01:06:31):
Some people will, but that isn't what drives the market.
And we have the market on our side and we're making a lot of progress.
We're an unusually uh charged political thing that
you know, we've got, we got to deal with, I we, it's, it's, you know, our, it's painful tosee our country on both ends and maybe the changes we're seeing, maybe people start coming
(01:06:59):
together a little bit better because, you know, the fact was, if we want to lookpolitically, before the election, we were going off the edge on climate.
You know, we were.
We're over the edge, you know, and it was getting, you know, so, and we're in the samesituation now.
I mean, we do have to relook at this thing a little bit more, I think, in terms of apopulation in the United States.
(01:07:25):
And I was saying, the age, the changes here, who knows what's going to happen, you know?
There's going to be probably some pain in certain things, but we need to do somethinghere, and maybe out of all this.
we can unite more as American people.
That's my hope.
I think the two fringes on both left and right, need everybody is hungry to be, you know,just to be with people.
(01:07:55):
And I may I'll conclude that the one thing I have the ultimate faith is just a humanspirit.
You cannot put the human spirit down.
mean, you can put it down for a while.
You could put it down for hundred years or for a moment if you're whatever.
But that the human spirit is just there.
It'll flip back up.
(01:08:15):
ah So that's encouraging me.
That's one thing I've learned.
We have to support each other more.
above all, we have to be tolerant to those that ah we sort of demonize.
both left and right.
We have to accept the rural people uh and the rural people vice versa.
(01:08:39):
This is Minnesota.
Spiritually it's not a sound deal right now.
This all come about I think in the right way.
oh I'm optimistic.
There's a lot of issues now but what we don't have is a projection
(01:09:00):
futuristic projection of what this incredible future is going to look like.
Yeah, yeah, and the and what is this future?
That's what the Stigler Center is about.
Because we can't solve even today's problems, let alone tomorrow's problems with ourpresent thinking.
Our present thinking and our present way is not the future.
(01:09:25):
I mean, we're just digging this hole.
And that's what all we're seeing is that
We don't see the future being projected and how are we going to, you know, we won't solvethe problem, but how do we adapt and flourish?
can still flourish.
Human beings aren't going to disappear unless we get into a nuclear thing.
that's, that's, but we're going to be around for a very long time.
(01:09:47):
And, uh, and so, you know, I, I keep, I just keep working and I mean, having worked in theenvironment all my years, it's a, like pushing a heavy ball up the.
slope and sometimes things go well and sometimes the ball comes back and crushes your feetand it hurts like hell.
But you just got to keep, you've got to keep.
(01:10:08):
Relentless forward.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The relentless without even thinking about it.
You just got to keep your, but above all, we need community and we need friends and weneed to really connect in times of hardships.
Well, well, I'm really happy that you joined our podcast today and you have I'd havesomething for you I wanted to give you a couple goodies
(01:10:28):
Okay.
Oh, okay, good.
And.
And EBS.
is this Dennis's?
Yep.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we have a lot of...
So we just wanted to thank you so much for coming on
Thanks.
Yeah, I'll put this nearly in the shop next to my EVS regular mug.
(01:10:49):
This is a good mug.
There you go.
Yeah.
Thanks you guys.
Good interview by the way.
Yes.
Went by easy.
It wasn't stressful.
Great.
Well, from all of us here at EBS, we'd like to thank Will Steeger for joining us today inthe Sounds of Solar podcast.
I'm your host, Kristoff Brun, with me as always, Russell Hamilton.
What are you doing with your hands?
Nothing?
Great.
Of course, we missed Prahalad.
(01:11:12):
He'll be back soon.
So if you need your dose of Prati, he's going to be back soon.
So we'll see you.
Yeah.
I don't know when it comes home.
Probably March.
We'll see.
All right, so from all of us here, thank you.
Like, share, subscribe, do the thing, whatever, and then we'll see you next time on TheSounds of Solar.
guest.
Peace.
watching your documentary was like, for me, it really powerful.
You being there in 1989 on the Larson ice shelf, and it's just not there anymore.
the major expeditions I did, you can't do them anymore because the routes don't existbasically.
Because when you crawl into a sleeping bag at night at 40 below, that thing is probablyabout 20, 25 below inside.
(00:23):
And your body now has to heat that temperature up.
And you did that for 220 days straight.
I like more than anything just being present in the nature.
so on these expeditions my safety relies on being, as long as I'm in the moment I'm okay.
What is your perspective on climate and renewable energy as we move forward?
(00:44):
you optimistic?
All right, we're back yet another Sounds of Solar podcast and video cast.
How many of you watch us out there?
You should leave a comment somewhere in the general vicinity of the video.
(01:05):
Anyway, Russ, how are you doing today?
Well, first of all, I'm your host, Chris Dapron, along with me, Russell Hamilton.
That was a spoiler.
And today we have a very special guest, Mr.
Will Seeger.
Greetings.
Welcome to the Sounds of Solar podcast.
Well, as is customary on the show, we usually kind of just talk about what happened thislast weekend.
And Russ, did you get the Sprint car yet?
(01:27):
No, no, no.
So spring.
I'll go get it in the spring.
I'm not driving a truck and trailer over the mountains during the wintertime.
Okay.
So still working on the list of things I need to get.
Yeah, it's in progress.
It's gonna take a year.
should take Will and have an expedition out to California and get the Sprint
(01:49):
That's we went up to cut ice up in Ely.
Ice harvest.
Yeah.
So we, I live in the wilderness and uh we've been cutting ice for almost 50 years, since68.
So it's a big event.
we get about maybe 50, 60 people come in town from the town of Ely come out.
(02:09):
have a couple, four horses.
And so what we do is we cut blocks of ice out of the lake and then horse with the horses,we bring it up to the ice house.
put the ice in the ice house with sawdust and that's our refrigeration for the rest of theyear.
So we use the blocks of ice.
The ice stays, the ice will keep in the cellar till the next winter.
We end up throwing out blocks.
(02:30):
I mean, it's an old fashioned way of how people used to do it.
But it's a good exercise and a nice winter event.
So when you're cutting ice out, are you using chainsaws or is it like?
By hand.
hand.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what are the tools like when you're
know, the big saw is about six feet tall, it's about six saws.
(02:51):
So it's a lot of work for.
Yeah.
person on the saw.
Then you flip the blocks out and, uh, you know, it's labor intensive, we have plenty oflabor.
Yeah.
We usually do that this season in February when it's nice and cold, which, you know, belowzero is always up on Neely.
Well, how was the, so this last weekend in Minnesota was, it kind of warmed up fine.
(03:15):
We had a really, really sharp cold snap.
So you might, decent conditions then?
conditions were good.
It's still cold up there, but it's getting above freezing now.
So then I live up, I'm originally from Minneapolis and then my real home, moved out of thecity in 1970 in Ely.
So it's been my winter's down here in the last 20 years, working on nonprofit workconnections.
(03:41):
And then I go north, usually up in March and April.
Nice.
And you said, yeah, you've been wintering or summer, wait, you said May to September,roughly, right?
Yeah.
win her down in the banana belt here in Minneapolis.
And I come down here at the end of September and April.
(04:02):
Sure.
Okay.
Yes.
You kind of alluded to starting off moving up to Ely in 1970 and you bought some landthere and built the cabin and maybe just take us through that time up to uh when you did
the Arctic Exploration.
you always raised down here a family of ten kids and my dad was an entrepreneur fought inthe war came back You know sort of business a whole thing, but he gave us Our parents gave
(04:28):
us a lot of freedom to do pretty much what we wanted to and The rule was you know if youwant to do something you had to pay for it Yeah, I know so we I ran with that freedom
started climbing when I was 16 you know the bottom
hemp rope out of a hardware store, checked a book out of the library.
There was nobody climbed in those days.
(04:49):
So I learned myself and I took actually when I was 15, I took a motorboat down with myolder brother recruited.
Tom was 17 and I took my motorboat, the 16 foot boat down to Mississippi, down to NewOrleans and back.
So I had, I had lot of freedom.
How old are you?
(05:09):
15.
15?
How long did that take ya?
Well, it was easy to get downriver, but it took forever to get back up.
you had a had a motor on this.
What was the motor you had on it?
A five horse Johnson.
40, but you know, I the rules were, know, all our money went into the gas and we reallyhad to hit up the priests and other people along the way to get It was a good trip.
(05:34):
was a huck fin trip.
mean seriously yeah that is that is what that is
So I I came I came from a background of
Freedom and not seeing barriers and that's what really made my life.
Because I had a pretty good vision as a younger kid.
I I knew ever since I can remember, I wanted to live in the wilderness, clear land, builda cabin.
(05:54):
And I bought land when I was 19 up in Ely was three miles from the road.
I I lived 25 miles.
I lived 25 years off road when I first moved up there.
So I lived, you the old fashioned way, 12 years without electricity and.
And I started a winter school using dog sleds and skis to make a living.
(06:15):
And that got me into dogs, eventually into dog sled expeditions.
my life has been consistent with adventure expeditions and also education.
was my...
what you'd call a vocation when you were younger.
What's your vocation?
What are you going to do for your livelihood?
I got, I stayed down in the city long enough to get my degrees, my master's in education,and I taught three years for experience.
(06:41):
I wanted to be a certified teacher so I could do my own program.
I...
And then 1970, I split from the city and, you know, I was good terms with the city.
It was in a reaction.
I had a lot of friends down here.
Really liked the city life, but I really wanted to live in the wilderness.
So I left there and then, you know, made my go up in Ely, Minnesota.
(07:02):
So it was really a great move.
m
How did you-
decide on Ely?
mean of all the you know I went to school in the Arrowhead region I went to UMD and formedmy own love for that area and yeah there's so many beautiful places what was it about Ely
that kind of well
I was a real doer as a young kid, I still am.
I had the intention of looking for land, so I actually went up looking when I was 18, 19.
(07:27):
North shore, I looked all over the North shore in the country.
I wasn't interested in Lake Superior, but I wanted to be in the isolated.
But there wasn't a lot of wilderness land there.
I mean, knocked on doors and restaurants and bars and everything.
So I headed up to Ely this one day, up Highway 1, and I'd never been in Ely before.
stopped at a resort and asked them, where do I find wilderness properties?
(07:48):
And he gave me, he said, talk to this realtor, Bill Trigg, and you know, I ended upfinding what I was looking for.
It was $1,000, which was a lot of money.
mean, tuition at St.
Thomas was $650 a year.
I mean, I had to pay for that.
that was, so it wasn't cheap.
People think, oh, that's cheap.
No.
(08:09):
years and years
Adjusted for inflation Jordan, can you run that number?
No, so it was that whole thing.
I had a really great, you know, all the way through my life was great.
pretty much did.
I created my own life and my own community.
and, uh, but my vocation in education was, was important to me.
(08:29):
I didn't see myself as a classroom educator.
I was still lexic.
I had a hard time with studies because of that, but I still worked hard because I knew Ihad to get that straight education.
It was just, obviously it was important.
to me and so and then I applied that education more when I ran my school.
(08:50):
Then I ended up, know, as you probably know, I developed a number of nonprofits.
I developed lots of curriculum and higher level, you know, type education, national levelstandards and that.
I would say education, real, my real
Career was program developing.
I would develop programs rather than going in a classroom.
(09:12):
And I did a lot of, I always talked to, down here in the city, I used to do 100 talks ayear and that was mostly all free.
made my living.
ah
presentations, writing and photography when those careers you can make a living in.
And then I always designed clothing for the major companies, know, North Face Patagoniaand that.
(09:35):
that was my livelihood.
My money where I'm and then I made money on the school.
I didn't you don't make money on expeditions.
That was when so we watched um the art after I watched this with my girlfriend Carly Yeah,and she was wondering like
How does how do you make money at it?
(09:56):
I was like well don't think that's the money make
Yeah, the expedition doesn't, doesn't mean you're you, I've made very little money on anyexpedition.
always came in and you're facing, you know, I've got debts sometimes two or 300,000 at theend of an expedition.
Yeah.
Got to work off.
It's a lot of risk and, and most people aren't, uh, you know, most people don't takerisks.
(10:17):
They're comfortable in their zone and that's really what they want to be comfortable andsecure and make some money.
human nature.
you ever heard of there's this this this group called Yes Theory?
So it says YouTube group and they their whole idea is to seek discomfort and to not staycomfortable and like what you're doing so kind of similar what you're saying.
(10:41):
Yeah.
I mean, you know, to each his own.
mean, we're in America, there's a lot of money around these days and people are overconsuming the planet's heating up and we, we care about it, but we, you know, we're not
willing to do, you know, put the mental work into it or anything like that.
mean, people are pretty passive.
that's our, that's ours.
(11:03):
And there's a lot of really great people that are doing things.
A lot of young people doing.
incredible things.
it's America, and you've got all these paradoxes and contradictions continually.
But again, you know, looking at, rather than looking at it in a depressive way, the wayout, of course, I see always the economy is very important to all of us.
(11:24):
And if there wasn't for the incredible economy of this new, the new, we can call it thenew era that we are in clean energy and
Anything, you know, we have to do whatever it takes, have to uh reduce our carbon and getrid of our carbon as a source of energy.
(11:45):
And that's not a simple thing because we drive to work and we all use petroleum.
But the solutions lie in the economy, pretty much what you do here.
ah You know, all your engineers here, they have these great jobs because, you know,collectively we're working towards bringing that...
you know, you've you've seen and you know, we'll come back to you know what you're doingthe 80s but since we're here talking about this right now like have you know, as time has
(12:11):
gone on you've seen technology grow and stuff and Doesn't in the last five years all thiskind of seems viable So like you can you can have solar that actually like that's what we
do here We don't we engineer, you know utility scale solar which you can use to chargeyour electric car power your electric heat and the reliance on fossil fuel is
(12:32):
Like, tangibly, it's, you can see the end is near.
We don't have to do that necessarily.
We look at up in Becker.
I remember it was five years ago when I started talking about replacing the coal plant upthere.
And now they have the, I mean, I think the coal plant's going to be decommissioned by2030, I think.
they've already built the utility scale solar farm that's going to replace it.
(12:58):
I I try to pass it off to them.
seems like it's operational at this point.
I mean we have an incredible future ahead of us, people are so much in a funk oneverything else.
ah But I don't see anybody really giving a vision of where we're going to go and what wehave to do to explore this new future we have, which is a lot of opportunity for
(13:19):
everybody.
mean the key is it all revolves around a good economy.
then an economy that's not based on fossil fuels, which are...
Unfortunately, we are right now.
Yeah, we have to right now.
I mean, you look at where we've come in 20 years, it's pretty incredible.
the fossil fuels, the dirty, you know, the climate, the whole thing, the wars, corruptcorruption of all that.
(13:46):
But that is changing visibly.
mean, as we in solar car, mean, just our habits have changed in 20 years.
If you look at biking, walking, I biking, look at Minnesota, Minneapolis and biking.
He braces my
horribly addicted to cycling.
Yeah, yeah, and it's a it's incredible where we've come in 20 years and where we'll be inanother 20 years.
(14:08):
Yeah, there's gonna be some changes.
Yes I mean our climate is gonna change So and but that changes You know one truth of theworld of being a human being is change everything changes all the time
This winter alone so far in Minnesota, it's the warmest winter on record in Minnesota.
(14:29):
Yeah, those cold snaps.
It was all the close-ups.
Warmer than last winter?
Yeah, really.
Last one here they said was the warmest on record in this one.
Yeah, last winter was great.
again, our climate, like we're talking, fluctuates back and forth.
But it's generally climate change, which is.
Yeah, yes, change.
(14:50):
Yeah.
So I wanted to touch on you watching your documentary was like, for me, it was reallypowerful.
You've you seen you being there in 1989 on the Larson ice shelf and it's just not thereanymore.
Right.
Like you've seen in a short span time, realistically a short span of time of like, know,the earth of how climate change is affecting, you know, and that perspective isn't
(15:17):
something that the everyday person is going to have because they weren't there.
They didn't see the Larson ice shelf at its glory.
now it's open water.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, all the major expeditions I did, um, you can't do them anymore because the routesdon't exist basically.
And that's how fast this one, mean, geologically, it's like a quick blink here of what'shappening.
(15:40):
mean, it's going very fast, I've been, I've been on the ice.
oh
you know, it was going the last 25 years.
And that's just part of, you know, the climate change and the changing weather, but I'vebeen the eyewitness to it.
And I was able 20 years ago to take that eyewitness account.
to the public and to schools and conservative audiences, congregations, in order to bringabout attention to, well basically to help jump start the climate movement.
(16:11):
Even all the environmental groups had no idea what climate change was back
this around 1985?
This would be 2002 when it came down.
That's when I started.
But that's all course changed.
Everybody's always talking about climate and everybody's freaked out about it.
(16:32):
But I've seen the changes, I've done my best.
Well, you've been very like I once again, you know, I'm kind of gushing here, but veryvery impressed with who you are I mean, he's a big fan a big fan.
I mean you're a legend you're here You know and and like the Arctic or the Antarcticexpedition that you did getting I believe is what the six countries assign You know the
(16:53):
50-year Is it a pact or treaty of like you're not gonna develop you're not gonna you know?
Go for the resources in Antarctica, you know, and unfortunately that's coming up whatpretty soon
Well, what you're talking about is the Antarctic Treaty, which protects Antarctica, wassigned during the Cold War in 1960.
It was a brilliant treaty.
It set aside that continent for science only.
(17:15):
No nuclear, no military.
And they had a clause that in 1990, it was going to be opened up again in case there'sanything.
So in 1986, four years before 1990, the treaty nations met, 27 of them behind closeddoors, and they all signed a document to open it up for exploration.
In order to change that, we needed to get all 27 treaty nations to reverse theirdecisions.
(17:41):
And what we did is we organized the Trans-Antarctica expedition.
Antarctica had never been crossed.
Shackleton, that was his dream.
And we purposely did the longest possible route, 3,700 miles.
Six people.
Which is incredible.
Yeah, it's a long trip.
And it was six countries from the original Chinese.
(18:03):
from six people from six countries.
And in the long story short, you know, we somehow survived it.
ah This is before internet, but we had, you know, over half the world was involved in thatexpedition.
it did, it did the mojo on that.
It drawed world attention to the world leaders.
And then we, then we met with the world leaders after that expedition over a period oftime.
(18:25):
And we were able to get all, all the treaty nations to reverse their decision.
Cause once we had a couple of key ones, China changed Japan.
France, then everyone else starts signing.
It was a long process, political process.
But the treaty is up for review again in 15 years, but in order to change it, have to haveall majority.
(18:46):
And that's up to 40 some treaty.
you know, when you lay out a policy, this is why policy is so important.
laid out the next generation energy bill in 2008, which was signed in this state.
And the Republicans have been trying to get that rescinded ever since then.
(19:06):
We had 94 % of the vote, Republican and Democrats on that policy.
But in order to change it, you have to have the vast majority.
That's the great thing about that.
And the policy's solid and it doesn't blow away with the political whims of who's around.
have to, I it's a democratic situation.
The countries all have to sign.
(19:29):
And you get like I was watching that you weren't just riding along on this on the sledsand you're running the whole way.
in.
Yeah, there wasn't a place to even write a sled that right.
I the idea of writing a sled is I mean, again, you're wearing the dog sound, but right nowwe're we're working ourselves to but our diet, our diet was still we had everything was
(19:52):
according to weight, we had to store a kilo for our rations.
But we burned through about 6000 calories a day.
That was break even.
Yeah, we had it, we could have done eight or more.
And a lot of that.
Calories are in fat calories because you need the energy to keep your body warm.
Because on an expedition, you're not ducking into a warm room where that warm room warmsyour clothing and dries your clothing.
(20:20):
Your body is always, is the only way that you're going to dry it from your own heat.
We're on fuel rations so we don't have a warm tent.
So your body is in this high demand even when it's sleeping.
Because when you crawl into a sleeping bag,
at night at 40 below, that thing is probably about 20, 25 below inside.
And your body now has to heat that temperature up.
(20:41):
And you did that for 220.
120 degrees and so that there's this demand natural demand of both dogs and people thedogs were a little more adaptive because they were their Fur was sick.
Yeah, and they have a natural Managing their heat through their breathing heart in theirtongue.
That's a normal thing with a dog ah So they were actually in some ways better off than wewere
(21:07):
I did have like, uh you know, I know this isn't just about the documentary, but I've tonof questions.
It was super interesting.
Like ah I as I was watching it when and where and who like left you the caches along yourtrack.
Yeah, we were referring to crossing Antarctica, Sokka, you're going to cross Antarcticawith six people, 30 dogs, 3,700 miles, it ended up being 222 days long.
(21:38):
How are you going to get the food?
So your range on a sled is strictly weight.
mean, if you did the mathematics, you're two pounds per dog.
In other words, 10 dogs, 20 pounds ah for 30 days at 600 pounds plus your food andeverything else.
(21:58):
So the weight is that.
So you had to, what we did the first 2,000 miles to the South Pole, we laid out in thesummer in real fickle weather and people never flown into these areas, we laid out our
food caches.
So you did that.
Yeah, we did that.
I wasn't there doing it, but Jeff Summers, one of my team members, oh was in charge ofthat.
(22:19):
Because we needed someone from the expedition, We flew with Canadian pilots for that, veryexpensive.
so we laid out.
So on paper, it looked like it was going to be an easy trip, that every 200 miles, we'dfill up and then...
you know, that's, know, 200 miles is not 250 miles is you can easily travel that if thetravel is good.
(22:40):
But so what happened is we had 60 days of winter storms.
Yeah.
And as a result of that, we lost three of our food caches.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're over 1500 miles from our base camp, which is on the next continent in Chile, SouthAmerica.
We're communicating through a 10 watt radio.
(23:02):
There was a nice satellite or anything like that.
And so we'd be radio blocked out for a week or so at a time.
So we're on our own.
So if we lost the cash, all of sudden you're expecting a ton of food and it's not there.
Well, you know, like we would normally do is we were still rationing because we had noguarantee.
(23:25):
Then we'd have to super ration.
to try to make it to the next.
Because if we lost the second one, we wouldn't live.
so as a result, we had to travel in this horrendous weather.
There's some of the weather was impossible to be out, know, 120 below wind chills ispretty limit.
(23:45):
But we traveled in horrendous conditions.
And we had to make every moment called, know, even getting sleds.
uh
lost in a storm and wasting three or four hours or a day or so that could cost your life.
So we were in these constant peril and extreme rations, no heat, enough just to meltwater.
(24:10):
And by miracle we survived it.
We were very strong team and we just, you know, we did it.
had some sort of a providence that we had with us.
felt that.
Although, know, province is nice to talk about.
And when you're almost out of food and your dogs are dying and your people are starting togo on you, you know, all your philosophy and that kind of goes out the door.
(24:37):
So it was tough.
but we, we hung together and uh what was important to us is we experienced what the earlyexplorers experienced.
we, we didn't, I never walked in anyone's footsteps.
I always did my own routes.
Every, every expedition ever did was something that was purposely just challenging as Icould find it.
(25:00):
And I had no, no desire recreating anybody's historical stuff.
Sure.
know, a hundred years later, some people do that, which is great.
Yeah.
But, um, yeah, I always travel my own trail.
I always did my own thing.
And, uh, but you know, you're, you know, overall it was.
(25:20):
It was a great experience because we survived it, but we became very tight.
You know, we were talking about international cooperation.
our, you know, we, we, the most important thing to us was that we end this trip in reallygood standings and good friendships.
Because if we fought like a lot of expeditions end up doing, you know, behind the scenes,you know, get the movie version of stuff.
(25:43):
my God.
can imagine the like the constant stress your body is in then
Social stresses, emotional stresses.
But our my partner was John Louis X a Frenchman that I literally ran into on the NorthArctic Ocean That's how we conceived it this idea in 86.
him and I were in charge.
(26:03):
So there's You when you're when you're in charge and leaders you've got all theresponsibility the press everything like that and As a team we go through the same thing
every day, but at night they're sleeping
And you have the response, and they have no idea.
Okay, let's just fly in a plane.
Well, that's $75,000.
(26:27):
if we do that, all this thing, but there wasn't a division of leader or whatever.
were the most remarkable group and our average age was 40.
Our strengths were really in our diversity because we were...
six different cultures that spoke five different languages.
(26:50):
We spoke English to various degrees as our communication language.
so with that diversity, we were 40, we were all set in what we're doing.
There was no competition.
And we had the spirit of commitment and inspiration.
uh
I think that really showed to like when towards the end of your expedition when theRussians are the other Russians were worried about maybe having to rescue you and how you
(27:17):
all just were like We'll let the dogs go on the vehicles.
Yeah, we won't you know that commitment to yeah, we're going to see this
Yeah, we had this incredible commitment to it.
It was our common goal because this was important and it was bigger than ourselves.
I mean it wasn't just a make-believe, people that bigger in my city.
There's so much verbalation of everybody out there, but this was a real commitment.
(27:43):
We represented our countries and so forth.
So we had that type of energy of that commitment which...
I mean, we were the best friends ever.
mean, the six of us are so, close.
Yeah, we get together every about three four years.
I mean, we're connected always on the internet.
(28:04):
so it was a great trip.
And then it had a really wonderful ending when we eventually did get that.
Well, scary too, at the, towards the end when you lost, I can't remember which.
Yeah, Keizo.
Oh, that was Japanese ever.
He was out for 13 hours.
(28:25):
Yeah.
Is that right?
Yeah.
And he was in better condition than you.
hunkered down and just
Yeah.
Well, you know, I was a little worried about anti-climax coming in, you know, on theRussian pace.
But this was 16 miles from the end.
We were literally there.
Yeah.
And we saw the ocean, everything that day before.
(28:46):
was a beautiful day.
And, you know, we didn't, we didn't think we've made it.
We were, we knew better here in Antarctica.
You make it only when you literally cross that finish line.
You don't project ahead.
And sure enough, a huge storm came up on the high plateau about 200 miles from us andsouth where we came from.
(29:09):
It was 78 below already there.
And then we were close to the ocean where the ocean was open.
So you have a warm, moist air, super frigid, and these two systems collided.
And we had this horrendous storm.
Queso went out, routine feed his dogs that evening.
And he never came back.
(29:32):
it was, you know, he, we had put out skis and that.
So when you're walking between tents or whatever, because when you're tenting, your tentsare together close.
You have the tent lines, you have the stakeout dogs that, you know, a stakeout chain'slike 50 feet.
You also have an antenna that goes out 60 feet.
So when you're in the middle of all this camp, you can't see anything, but.
(29:56):
So, Keisel decided, made a huge mistake.
He went from one ski to another, maybe 20 feet apart, which is routine.
But what is always the rule is when you go from one ski to another in a bad storm likethat, you always keep an eye on that back ski, the ski you're leaving from.
And he didn't.
He just went from one ski to another and suddenly, when he was in the middle of thatstorm, intensified, he couldn't see anything.
(30:25):
And they sat for a while and he decided, well, he walked.
And by chance, he somehow walked a window, a very narrow window where he didn't trip overany lines.
He just went out.
I guess the wind.
And he disappeared and we found out later.
It was really shocking.
we did a rescue that night, which was really, it was dangerous just having that rescuegoing.
(30:49):
I canceled that at 10 o'clock when it was too dangerous for anyone to be out there.
But then, fortunately, we found him alive the next morning.
Did he have frostbite or any?
No, he was adverse effects.
He was he hung in there.
He he didn't have proper protection, but he had a knife.
He dug kind of a hole.
(31:10):
He couldn't do the cave and but then his you know, neck would start the snow would come inthere was just you know, but I figured I figured he'd survive the night.
He's young and he was going to get married.
He had a lot of life to him.
Yeah.
And this was not a he wasn't like a winter storm that temperatures weren't
(31:31):
too bad.
If this was a winter storm, for sure would not have, he would have perished in about threeor four hours.
But it was the amount of snow.
ah I mean, it was kind of a wetter snow, but it was so thick.
It literally like a fire hydrant.
If you looked into it, that fraction of a second, would fill your nostrils, your ears,your hood.
mean, it would just literally blow you over.
(31:53):
you were just totally disorientated.
So it was a very dangerous storm that way, visibility.
You know, I organized, we had the Russians there, we had a support team there, we had alot of people that were there, the French, Russian, we had about 20 people on there,
rescue.
ah What we did is we strung our log, with climbing, each tent had a foot climbing rope.
(32:15):
We made a uh 300 foot rope, we anchored it down, and then we would have people about every25 feet or less.
And then we'd anchor it, and then we'd do this sweep.
where we'd make a 360 degree sweep with them, with people.
And then the people, again, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, oh vocabulary was tough.
(32:39):
But so each person would look in a particular direction, like to your right, ah and thenshout very loud, Keisel's name.
And then I ran up and down the line, making sure everyone was looking in the right, in thesame direction and yelling.
because if one person looks in the wrong direction, there's a chance that you're gonnamiss him.
(33:05):
so, we went upwind and ah when we found him, that was down where the rope was anchored,starting to work up the rope again.
there was some sort of a, something was going up in the front.
oh I thought they were stopping.
We still had about 10 degree of a slice to make.
I was kind of, I mean, I don't get upset easy, but I was a little.
(33:27):
heard because, uh, this was a serious situation.
So I raced ahead to see why they were, what's the deal.
And then when I got closer in the storm, I saw some sort of a commotion ahead of me, bunchof people.
And then to my left, I saw, I didn't even know if I saw it for sure.
I, I, I saw a figure with hands up in the storm.
(33:50):
just appeared and I instantly without, because I, if this was a mirage, I would've
got lost too, but I just went for it without any thought.
I saw that figure and went right for it.
And that was Keisel.
He was standing up and it was beyond anything.
And when I came up to him, I was alone and he's laying his arms up and down and he'ssaying, I'm God, I'm God.
(34:17):
And I thought, Oh God, I thought maybe he lost his mind.
And I picked him up for the waste.
His energy was good.
And I looked at him, he wasn't frozen.
And then the other team members came and then we, it was just very emotional.
got them back to these big track vehicles when we got inside and the six of us were aroundthe table and he was having his warm cup of tea and we were good.
(34:41):
And I asked him, said, what, what were you, you were saying?
I'm God, I'm God.
he said, I meant to say, thank God.
Thank God.
And he was so embarrassed.
Uh, I mean, in his journals and his mind thought set was, it was a big shame.
If he died, he thought, if I died, if I would have, you know, the journal he's reflecting,he said, shame, big shame.
(35:06):
He wasn't worried about his life.
He was worried about the greater mission.
Yeah, yeah, he was something.
And uh that was really wonderful.
That's in that movie.
After Antarctica, actually, you can just go up my name or after Antarctica's name of thefilm.
You can get it on Amazon and iTunes or whatever.
It's out there.
(35:26):
ah It won a lot of awards.
It was very popular in the film festivals.
incredible.
we both have seen it.
It's like exactly the type of cinema that I'm into.
It was really put a link to that somewhere.
Yeah.
Okay, yeah.
That would be good people I think we're really enjoying.
(35:46):
It's kind of an undiscovered documentary although a lot of people Yeah, it came up.
came on I think 21 I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just saw an absence at 20.
That's when, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I did one of the things that I wanted to touch on too is just like your yourExpeditions that you that you take and so when you filmed like your solo expedition I Was
(36:12):
just overly impressed 77 years old and you're and you're going on this expedition soloDragon a canoe full of supplies and two other like sleds behind it and I just
For me, a couple of years ago, was at Ted Gooch State Park in the winter and I went and Idid like a two mile hike into these cabins and I drug a sled and had snow shoes on and it
(36:37):
was one of the hardest things.
And I'm watching you drag twice the weight.
know, I just, was very impressive and incredible.
So you just leave, you just leave Ely and you just go up, you just go up to the arc.
Well, you know, I've done probably the most incredible thing experience in my life isleading international teams of six So I I did the major expeditions for about 30 years
(37:01):
that type of leadership I also prior to that I did some really amazing trips I really notdidn't really talk about much, but I always had a partner but right now ah
I don't have the three years to organize major expeditions.
So I can say I'm officially, you know, I'm not doing that anymore as of about 10 yearsago, because I'm totally committed to the Steger Center and getting this stuff going.
(37:26):
but I did, I do continue with solo expeditions.
I've done solos throughout my career and that stuff.
ah But I take, you know, really, yeah, like two years ago,
I started up in Ely, know, just training in that there, but two years ago I left uh alone.
(37:47):
was, it was 400 miles from the nearest person and dropped off by a friend of mine that's abush pilot and was, dropped me off for 60 days of supplies and know, 280 pounds.
And I was in the winter, I was hauling and then I would travel all the way throughbreakup.
had a small whitewater raft with me for rivers.
And so I was on my own for.
(38:09):
you know, 60 days and 800 miles.
There was no chance of any rescue.
and so I was on, and this is extremely dangerous country if you don't know what you'redoing, because I'm going through the country starting in winter, but I'm on the rivers
when they're frozen and all the way until when they're breaking up and when the icestarts, and when they break up, it's, you know, there's very few people that have seen
(38:34):
this power of these.
You know, the water rises sometimes 20 feet and the amount of ice, uh river ice is hugeand it's just beautiful.
You know, it's beauty and it's dangerous and it's this whole thing.
But I have to be in the moment all the time.
That's the great.
That's why I do solos and I need, I, I'm not doing it this year.
(38:56):
have to stay the singer center is really taking off.
So I'm going to stay with, stay, stay out the helm this year, which is a huge, hugecompromise for me, but I have to do what I have to do this year.
But yeah.
So I continue on these solos and I challenge myself on those.
I don't challenge like being first.
I, I just like.
you know, the challenging route where I have to innovate and I like more than anythingjust being present in the nature.
(39:22):
And so these expeditions, my safety relies on being, long as I'm in the moment, I'm okay.
And also on a solo, I don't have any, my mind's totally free.
I don't have a partner or six other people that I have to really mind, take my mind tofor.
(39:43):
And so in a way it's much safer being alone, although a team of six, which I've done.
The team was dog slaying with uh three teams of ten dogs each with six people.
That's a very strong and quite safe unit because you've got you got a lot of power thereand a of a lot of people Enough and yet you're really lean and you travel fast but on the
(40:08):
solo I don't have that responsibility of people which I don't mind but
And I was traveling with a partner.
didn't know we would just be talking in the evening.
I'm not interested.
I can talk in the evening all the time with many people.
I'm there because I really want this deep experience of just learning.
(40:30):
My whole life has been about learning and learning.
I started as a young kid doing First of Sense.
That was important to me when I was a teenager or young 20.
That, you know, I was humbled and what really drew me was the nature and the truewilderness.
So that's what I kept coming back to learn from.
(40:52):
It's kind of like a mobile Zen monastery.
really...
Yeah, because it's real.
You know, a solo, for example, or any expedition, it's very rhythmic.
It's really quite disciplined.
ah You're doing the same thing every day, but your mind is free.
oh
I mean, on a team of six, oh we have it such that we get in a rhythm where we do the samething every day.
(41:20):
I mean, we rotate on a team of six.
We always rotate, we have three units, three tents, rotate tent partners about every six,seven weeks.
You have to do that or else you get clicks.
And then once you get clicks, then your, your workers just starting to begin.
Then you have all sorts of problems and you have people turning things against you.
(41:42):
mean, it just, can't, you, you know, things, you know, you have to be aware of certainthings, but, but on the team like this.
We do 10 units, but when you have with a partner like Victor from Russia, we would decide,okay, I will do the breakfast chores.
He does this.
So you never have to think about who's doing what.
(42:03):
You know what you're doing, they know what they're doing.
So as a result, the whole day is like...
It's just the same rhythm.
get at eight o'clock sharp, we're out.
Not a minute before, because if someone goes out a minute before, the other people getuptight.
We made these rules because they're just simple.
they're not, they're just a rhythm.
(42:24):
So we're out right at eight.
That's the only thing where we set our life back at eight o'clock in the morning.
And then we have at one o'clock, we stop for lunch and six o'clock, we stop.
And those are the rhythms of a big.
team.
But then the rest of the day then is just, you know, it's just a lot less when you're,when you're doing mathematically and like that, less issues come up with everybody.
(42:51):
And everybody enjoys the freedom of thought too.
Cause we'll be out in the morning.
We had it down that we would, by the time we entered.
exit of the tent, usually it was like 28 minutes later, we were moving.
I mean, we got that system down.
So I would be, I don't watch a clock.
(43:12):
Nobody watches, can't, clocks freeze, freeze on your hand basically, but it's not likewe're watching the clock, but we're starting at eight.
I can look up almost any time and everyone else is doing exactly, it's a, it's know, it'sa,
It's a really simple life.
uh know, where the mind is free.
(43:34):
know, our mind is everything but free down here.
People are just, you know, we're just, we're cracking at the seams as a society.
You know, we're so politically charged and people can't get off their devices and we allknow it.
But, you know, we just gotta like, it's the quiet mind.
(43:55):
You know, we really have to take...
Consciously take a little bit more time for ourselves If it's a minute, you know a 10minute walk or a trip in the bounty waters, but we got to set those rhythms for ourselves
ah To keep our mind and body.
Yeah solid and so
For me about 10 years ago, I grew up in California and then I moved to Minnesota, centralMinnesota in 1999.
(44:22):
And I didn't know anything about the North shore or Duluth.
Cause had never, nobody's ever taken me, never anything about it.
About 10 years ago, I kind of discovered the North shore and hiking.
And it's one of the most therapeutic things that I do.
And I like to go alone.
Like people don't really understand that.
I like to go hike by myself and sometimes I'll take my boys with me and some friends, but
(44:44):
It's always much more rewarding for me to go alone.
It's really important for ourselves, I think, to be alone sometimes.
I do solos.
I never get lonely.
I mean, I'm totally at home with myself.
I never experienced loneliness.
I'm always okay with myself and I love being with people wherever I'm at.
(45:07):
But there's this idea that, you you want to be alone like you're a loner.
It has nothing to do with that at all.
It's a natural thing.
Because you see people that are...
always with people and they're lonely as hell.
everyone is, but loneliness is a big issue with them.
(45:30):
Also purpose is another thing.
always, I made a commitment when I was young.
earlier, 20s.
I came from an entrepreneurial background, which I talked about, and I have, I didn't seebarriers.
So in my mind, I could do whatever.
I knew that, but I knew I could make money in all this.
uh I, but I made a conscious decision that I was, my purpose was around education and soforth that I, I, uh
(46:00):
I didn't see myself as retiring when I was 65.
In fact, I didn't worry about that at all when I was younger.
I think that's sometimes when you're thinking about too much projection ahead is gonnastifle seeing the moment.
I had a life of purpose all the through.
And I knew that through my life of purpose, I would be extremely rich.
(46:21):
So when I got into my sixties and that, which is ironic in the sixties and...
I people that are 65 don't have a purpose.
retire.
They retire to do what?
Nothing?
Yeah, it's difficult.
I it's a real challenge for all of us, I think, because purpose.
But I was fortunate because I had this purpose.
(46:44):
And that also gave me a lot freer mind.
I didn't have to think, OK, I knew that I would meet people and this whole thing wouldhappen.
So tell us.
your...
I thought that's where you were going with that.
(47:05):
That's the thing that's coming up soon to the grand opening and.
Yeah, the Stigler Center.
uh The official title we call it the Stigler Center.
it's my original goal vision in my life on the center was about 40 years ago.
was successful in the school.
did.
I could have done that for the rest of my life and supported myself.
(47:25):
But, you know, after eight years of that, it's kind of done that, been there.
But as a teacher, I was reaching people.
but I have about maybe 80 people a year.
But I just felt that I had, my potential was larger, I had more capacity than, and I metthe 80 people or so.
(47:47):
were real intimate relations, even today whenever we meet on the street or whatever, it'sstill like old friends.
it was a great thing.
I had a bigger vision of that.
And the vision that I had was I felt with my life 40 years ago, I could make my biggestpurpose would be to create this center in the wilderness and bring
(48:11):
you know, the higher level decision makers.
could be state, national, maybe eventually international leaders.
Because if I could affect small groups of, say 12 maximum, if I could affect leadership atthat high level, I could have the biggest effect with my life and everything I've worked
with.
(48:32):
So ah I went about building the Cigar Center.
uh
I never talked much about it, but my first 35 years I funded it all myself.
in 1988, And then when the COVID came along, according to plan, I had planned to give itall away to a nonprofit.
(48:56):
So during the COVID, I had the access from Fagry.
a Faigrey drinker law firm.
I've always worked with Faigrey and our nonprofits and sought access to a couple ofattorneys during the COVID.
And I then was able to make...
able to turn that officially over all my assets of land, everything I owned, I basicallyjust gave it to the nonprofit, which is a public organization run board.
(49:23):
And then starting three years ago, I started raising more money.
still raising money is really tough.
As you expand, I'm building our administration, but as you expand, need more money.
It's almost like, it's almost a never ending.
curse of my life.
it's, but, but it also, um, it's, it's also a, uh, raising money, it's a nonprofit forprofit, it's very humbling, but it's a very important experience because it's the only way
(49:54):
you launch an idea and a project.
Most people fail in their mind and their thinking and they can't, you know, they can't getit funded or organized, but I'm good at logistics and that.
So.
So I'm now starting with my first pilot programs and leadership programs in 2026.
I have one program actually this summer.
(50:15):
ah that is coming, ah that's coming along pretty well.
And then I also run the last 40 years programs in the summer.
because I've been building the center.
I've worked with a lot of craftspeople and I do a lot of that work myself and findwoodworking in that.
whenever I had a craftsperson or whenever I was working on a major project, we wouldalways have apprentice.
(50:42):
you know, people that are learning, particularly people that are interested in the trade.
So over uh the summertime, we work a lot with job ready type skills.
We work with a program called Summit Academy, OIC on the North side.
That's a 20 week program.
We work as 20 week program, mainly inner city, know, tuition's free.
(51:03):
And then they do 10, 10 weeks of a classroom, 10 weeks of.
basically on the job training.
And then, we have the groups up there last couple, three weeks on the job training.
and then they get after the 20 week course, they have a over 90 % placement.
So it's a way for, yeah.
(51:24):
So it's a way to, it's a gateway into middle-class wages because they can enter now in theconstruction world.
23, 24 an hour.
And if they're on fire, can make a living, do their own job.
And it's also equitable.
I it's really great to see people moving up the ranks and being on fire.
(51:49):
And again, it's economics.
And I saw it 20 years ago too.
with the economic boom and the way the economy now, try to get electrician or a plumber orconstruction person.
mean, and that's endless because our new economy, you know, that we're creating, we needelectricians and we're rebuilding, rebuilding the whole structure.
(52:12):
So that provided the economy to bring people out of poverty.
Summit's part of that program.
And that's my motivation.
I do a lot of, uh
job-ready skills for women.
I have some great women, uh crafts people that have worked for me over the years.
And then we in turn have trained some of our younger people, apprentices, mean in their20s, ah 30s, in stonemasonry or whatever that might be.
(52:41):
they, lot of our instructors are our past students that come along and they're now in thetrade and now they teach.
So, summer times are really busy up there.
You know, cause that's all around building out the thing.
But the main, my main goal in my life, my purpose in my life is really to build thatSteger Center for higher level, top level leadership.
(53:02):
And, and we need, for this higher level leadership, we need quiet spaces for that.
You can't do it in a resort with all the stuff going on.
So that's, that's my, the real niche of the Steger Center is by, by purpose, we areremote.
And it's in that silence of the surrounding wilderness and the group and this whole thingtogether is where, you know, I look at you a team, uh a quiet mind.
(53:35):
A quiet mind doesn't mean a void of silence.
It's basically a void of self.
What you, know, if you could just drop yourself when you're a leader, have to be properleader and we're all leaders and that quiet mind, that space of the wilderness and all
that.
(53:56):
That's that's what unique to the center.
And then I'm doing just, uh, um, I have ideas.
I I've, I've worked in leadership most of my life, but I have to do in order to reallyunderstand where our sweet spots are.
have to do three or four years.
feel the original.
maybe up to three years' original programs and then concentrate all the time as we getmore and more.
(54:21):
So looking forward for the Steger Center, think, you we're very interested in this.
think it sounds extremely cool.
you said you have a program starting already this summer in 2025.
yeah, I'm just doing one one program.
I mean for the center.
I'm doing actually it's a it's for entrepreneurs And it's been it's you know, it'll proveit can be anyone from 20 to 80 So it's open but entrepreneurs that have been successful in
(54:47):
whatever
their project might be.
But they're going on, I call it the next chapter, where they're moving on to anotherproject.
ah So this will be a total of 12 of us.
And everyone will have some experience or big experience in their original field.
And then so we would all present our project, talk about it so everybody knows.
(55:10):
then throughout that four days, then you discuss as a group or whatever.
I it's kind of a...
Leadership is all about relationship building.
Yes, and that's Yeah, yeah, yeah and especially like in this situation you get like-mindedPeople together and boy, it's all about that inspiration, right?
(55:32):
It's creating the best situation for I call lightning to search strike within a groupwhere you you really start having insights and Again, you're you're we're focused around
one You know our commitment is
is defined by the next chapter.
could be some sort of a treaty for Antarctica coming up in there.
(55:53):
But this one was an easy one to organize because there are a lot of people that I knowthat would fit that.
oh
all 12 people that are attending, are they all in a similar space as far as what they'redoing or is it a...
Mix, mix of people.
Yeah, they're around from her.
This one's from around the country.
(56:14):
Yeah, and I've got maybe two or three from Minnesota.
And yeah, they're all people that mean, you know, all very interesting people.
I relate to people, risk takers, the entrepreneurs that have these ideas.
I this is what America is about.
You know, we all can do that.
And we all have that privilege to do that.
(56:37):
so.
You know, I'm in good company in that situation.
And this program was something that uh the people that were that are coming to it, didthey see or the did you select them or did they see an opportunity to?
we can just go.
Yeah, I'm working with a friend, a good friend of mine, Dan Buettner.
(56:58):
Dan runs what's called Blue Zones.
And it's hard to explain his program, but you see a lot of what Dan does.
Dan does, Dan's really active.
He's got a lot of friends and stuff like that.
oh So he has a lot of input and we're kind of putting together our address books and justputting the invite out to see, are you free at this time?
(57:22):
Would you want to come?
So it's real relaxed.
It has nothing to do with huge treaty or something that we have to crack.
We know how we're going to do it.
It's only four days.
I mean, ideally, oh anything could be.
I think a real working program to me is should be something like Saturday to Saturday.
(57:43):
That way you've got six days to work with.
And when you're doing something really heavy, that's a long time, but in that six days,that gives you a lot of freedom to ah do different things.
There might be a day where you don't even go inside.
You might be in the wilderness somewhere walking or whatever it might be.
(58:04):
But you have to have...
ah
in these sessions you have to rely on a lot of flexibility.
Because you have a plan going in, but once it goes, you might go, you never know whereyou're going to go from there.
But you have that flexibility though.
But there, we have the wilderness and trail systems and that.
(58:33):
I did a feasibility study.
2020 at the Carlson School of Management and there were younger people of 23, real smart,brilliant.
But they said, you know, this, this ain't going to work.
You have to have a golf course.
Cause they're, they were researching, but they were totally right.
(58:53):
Because in your, in your resort or you get anyone to go to a conference, know, you needthe golf course and the bar, you know, the wine bar.
Uh, but I said, no, we have the golf course.
It's our trail system.
Cause you have to have a, you have to have a.
area that you play off of.
It's just the wilderness and not the golf course.
(59:14):
And the golf course is something that's relationship building, but it's not higher levelin what we're doing because this is really more of an internet.
space.
And then um so we're here at EVS so you know Dennis Kim and how where where is theconnecting point with you and Dennis Kim?
Dennis was at the very beginning, when I first came down to the city, nothing was going onand anything.
(59:40):
There was just very few people that.
But Dennis had, he was in solar, he was way ahead of his time.
This was just a much smaller organizations.
So I was doing whatever the meetings and people were, I was there, just as you do as anactivist.
And it was through that early days, Dennis Kim was there and I saw him again.
And him and I became good friends.
(01:00:03):
He's my earliest supporter.
You know, he gave me a hundred bucks at the beginning and that was a lot of money.
And then we became very good friends with Dennis' family as Generosity, the company here,I watched this company.
Because this was a model, what Dennis was doing.
Well, that was a model and I knew it was going to be just like this.
(01:00:25):
know, you can say right place at the right time, but if you're an entrepreneur, that's thestart of it.
He was the one that developed.
you know, took the risk and it's amazing.
It's a fine example because EBS, all the engineers, everybody that is part of thisoperation is helping to drive carbon down.
(01:00:46):
You have a good lifestyle.
uh They're generous here.
Engineer wages are good and it's a good model if you want a good job, get an engineeringdegree.
And Dennis is one of the employers in that.
So I have, you know, that last 20 years, he's visited me a number of times.
He's brought up uh Korean students that have stayed with us for a while.
(01:01:11):
And so it's old home week for me m being here.
uh One other question I have for you, is, so you talked, you were involved in a lot ofthings, but you also do solo expeditions where you have time for, to lose the self, as you
said.
How do you balance doing a lot and then kind of in a way, not doing nothing, but likeremoving yourself from this world and going into this world and how do you keep everything
(01:01:42):
contiguous?
that's a very good question.
First of all, I look at my world as the complete world.
This is part of what I do in my world, down here, interviewing in my social world.
And it's a world, too, because I'm raising money on that.
You could call it stress, but I handle that pretty good.
(01:02:08):
And then you have the world of the wilderness, which is a different world, but it's stillmy same world So I have not too much problem going seem almost seamlessly going one for
another Because I I'm still
When I'm here, I'm not in Neely.
When I'm in Neely, I'm not here.
It was that way.
don't take the woods or my incredible solar expedition.
(01:02:31):
I take it with me in terms of everything I've learned from it.
but I'm not, I'm not living.
I don't live, um, you know, someplace where I'm doing one thing in my mind.
I'm somewhere else.
I just, cause I'm in the moment a lot.
And that's, that's what I've learned on expeditions and,
So, you know, I adjust to it that way.
(01:02:55):
And, uh, and, uh, I'm here, I'm here.
So I don't mind it.
I like, I like, uh, Minnesota, uh, my home and, uh, Minneapolis, twin cities, especially Ihave a fondness for this area.
I've seen it grow in the last, my whole life, but, uh, I did a lot of work, internationaland national, and 20 years or 24 years ago when I started, came down here for the climate.
(01:03:21):
That's the first time I reworked locally.
It's where I really like working and that's where I really wanted to keep it that way.
don't have any, I don't like to be on the road as much.
I've done there and it's just a hassle on planes, but whatever.
mean, there's a health issue when you're traveling around too.
I mean, it's just like...
(01:03:42):
I would say I looked at my compromise of spending six months down here.
It is a compromise on my health, but I, but I keep active the errors, you know, it'swhatever, you know, I mean, I mean, it's a better, better city, but I don't, I don't in
the city itself, I don't do anything where, you know, I'll run a little bit maybe orsomething, but I don't like air, you know, breathing in a lot, heavy into the air, but,
(01:04:09):
uh, but I'll do okay.
And I just keep simple and.
I keep in shape by just simple rhythms.
I try to get the proper amount of sleep if I can.
Sometimes you don't, you know, your life's not your own sometimes.
But then, uh, but then you can, you know, on a weekend or whatever you can, but you gotit.
You got to take care of your sleep, your food, your exercise, the basic walking and, uh,eating, trying to eat simpler and, uh you know, not being too hard, break your rules once
(01:04:39):
in a while.
mean,
I mean, I think people need a little more self control.
Oh, yeah.
mean, discipline.
the land of abundance, people take advantage.
But I think so, but I'm not saying over discipline because over being over discipline isthe is the same thing Yeah, you're just become a stiff and yeah, but you've got like I say
(01:05:01):
break your rules sometimes But you do have to have some a little more self-control people,you know We just need need that mean just as the function as human beings you can't be
just doing whatever you want all the time and all the time and I mean people are What'shappening is the?
I think the tail is wagging the dog with people sometimes when you're supposed to be thedog wagging the tail.
(01:05:27):
I'm saying that it means that, you know, we've got to be in charge a little bit more ofour life.
I think, and I, that's where the outdoors comes in.
That's why we're all privileged to be living in Maine.
Cause we have, we have that type of thing, but, but I do straddle, you know, it's likestraddling two icebergs with your.
(01:05:49):
Wanna reach for it some of the next?
Yeah.
Sure.
So looking forward, obviously, you've had a very storied career and been involved in 100million things that we'll get to on the 10 episode docu series that we're doing, right?
ah So looking forward, you know, we're in the utility scale solar space.
I think we feel great about where we're going.
(01:06:10):
But what is your perspective on climate and renewable energy as we move forward?
you optimistic?
Of course, mean this economy with or without the politics is going to grow because it'swhere the money's at, it's where the future's at.
You're not doing it because you're afraid of the bears dying.
(01:06:31):
Some people will, but that isn't what drives the market.
And we have the market on our side and we're making a lot of progress.
We're an unusually uh charged political thing that
you know, we've got, we got to deal with, I we, it's, it's, you know, our, it's painful tosee our country on both ends and maybe the changes we're seeing, maybe people start coming
(01:06:59):
together a little bit better because, you know, the fact was, if we want to lookpolitically, before the election, we were going off the edge on climate.
You know, we were.
We're over the edge, you know, and it was getting, you know, so, and we're in the samesituation now.
I mean, we do have to relook at this thing a little bit more, I think, in terms of apopulation in the United States.
(01:07:25):
And I was saying, the age, the changes here, who knows what's going to happen, you know?
There's going to be probably some pain in certain things, but we need to do somethinghere, and maybe out of all this.
we can unite more as American people.
That's my hope.
I think the two fringes on both left and right, need everybody is hungry to be, you know,just to be with people.
(01:07:55):
And I may I'll conclude that the one thing I have the ultimate faith is just a humanspirit.
You cannot put the human spirit down.
mean, you can put it down for a while.
You could put it down for hundred years or for a moment if you're whatever.
But that the human spirit is just there.
It'll flip back up.
(01:08:15):
ah So that's encouraging me.
That's one thing I've learned.
We have to support each other more.
above all, we have to be tolerant to those that ah we sort of demonize.
both left and right.
We have to accept the rural people uh and the rural people vice versa.
(01:08:39):
This is Minnesota.
Spiritually it's not a sound deal right now.
This all come about I think in the right way.
oh I'm optimistic.
There's a lot of issues now but what we don't have is a projection
(01:09:00):
futuristic projection of what this incredible future is going to look like.
Yeah, yeah, and the and what is this future?
That's what the Stigler Center is about.
Because we can't solve even today's problems, let alone tomorrow's problems with ourpresent thinking.
Our present thinking and our present way is not the future.
(01:09:25):
I mean, we're just digging this hole.
And that's what all we're seeing is that
We don't see the future being projected and how are we going to, you know, we won't solvethe problem, but how do we adapt and flourish?
can still flourish.
Human beings aren't going to disappear unless we get into a nuclear thing.
that's, that's, but we're going to be around for a very long time.
(01:09:47):
And, uh, and so, you know, I, I keep, I just keep working and I mean, having worked in theenvironment all my years, it's a, like pushing a heavy ball up the.
slope and sometimes things go well and sometimes the ball comes back and crushes your feetand it hurts like hell.
But you just got to keep, you've got to keep.
(01:10:08):
Relentless forward.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The relentless without even thinking about it.
You just got to keep your, but above all, we need community and we need friends and weneed to really connect in times of hardships.
Well, well, I'm really happy that you joined our podcast today and you have I'd havesomething for you I wanted to give you a couple goodies
(01:10:28):
Okay.
Oh, okay, good.
And.
And EBS.
is this Dennis's?
Yep.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we have a lot of...
So we just wanted to thank you so much for coming on
Thanks.
Yeah, I'll put this nearly in the shop next to my EVS regular mug.
(01:10:49):
This is a good mug.
There you go.
Yeah.
Thanks you guys.
Good interview by the way.
Yes.
Went by easy.
It wasn't stressful.
Great.
Well, from all of us here at EBS, we'd like to thank Will Steeger for joining us today inthe Sounds of Solar podcast.
I'm your host, Kristoff Brun, with me as always, Russell Hamilton.
What are you doing with your hands?
Nothing?
Great.
Of course, we missed Prahalad.
(01:11:12):
He'll be back soon.
So if you need your dose of Prati, he's going to be back soon.
So we'll see you.
Yeah.
I don't know when it comes home.
Probably March.
We'll see.
All right, so from all of us here, thank you.
Like, share, subscribe, do the thing, whatever, and then we'll see you next time on TheSounds of Solar.
guest.
Peace.
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