Willem Barentsz VS. The Polar Bears Fire - Episode 47

Hey all, 

It's a bit late, but Ed and Kara out Episode 47 out on thedaysdumpsterfire.com which involves the crazy stuff that goes on in the waters around the North Pole like lots and lots of tricky to deal with polar bears. In mid to late 1500s Dutch navigator and respected cartographer Willem Barentsz looked at how explorers were trying to get to India by sailing around Africa or sailing west only to hit the Americas, but Barentsz looked to the north of Europe and figured he could close the gap by simply sailing through the North Pole waters. 

While on a paper map it looks like a great idea, but in a very real spherical world that doesn't work out so well. Nothing behaves as it should. Ice has a mind of it's own, polar bears are shockingly hard to deal with, the cold makes everything made of metal super weak, and it's not uncommon for your ship to get stuck for months on end. 

So come join Ed and Kara as they discuss the early days of human exploration of the oceans where Murphy's Law says, "Hold my beer and watch this..." as Barentsz and crew set out to redefine maritime navigation. 

Be sure to check the website thedaysdumpsterfire.com for show notes, Kara's famous drawings and feel free to drop a line to thedaysdumpsterfire@gmail.com!

Hey before you go!

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at thedaysdumpsterfire@gmail.com. They would love to hear from you!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, this is Ed. And this is Kara. And this is your day's dumpster fire.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Where we don't celebrate humanity's successes.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

But it's the most fantastic failures. It's most fantastic failures. You know, one of these days, I gotta sit down and re-record that little intro and get it so that when I click on it, there's not like a 37-second wait for it to start.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Yay, editing.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

But well, it'll be one of those things where like after 10 years of doing the podcast, I finally get around to it.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Yeah, it's like back burner tasks.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, yeah, because the taking the five minutes to just bring up the file, shorten it to start when I click on it, and then re-uploading it, who has that kind of time?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Nobody.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yes. Yeah. Oh, and and and if you just heard, Kara's got art to make. Um she just finished probably one of the most epic drawings of George Custer.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yeah, it came out pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

It yeah, it's it, it's it's pretty sick. And I encourage everybody to go to the daystumster fire.com. Uh, she's going to be uploading a lot of her artwork to the website. Um, because yeah, it's gonna reference a uh an episode of the show. Um, what was it? That was episodes um, let's see here. Yeah, 10, 11, and 12. So yeah, you're gonna see Custer on there. If you want to know what the heck we're talking about, go back to the day of Semster Fire episodes 10, 11, and 12. It's a three-parter. Uh, it's a pretty epic show of just the one of the worst American defeats in American history. And uh, so yeah, we'll uh go go check that out. Uh, we'll we'll follow up with that at the end of the show. But yeah, some of her stuff out there is just spot on to the theme of the show. So I'm kind of I'm kind of curious to see what you're gonna come up with uh the last episode, which was like morning sickness and Nazis.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Yeah, I haven't thought of that yet. I sketched up a Queen Elizabeth today, though.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

So okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

I don't know about the mornings, maybe somebody puking in a toilet. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah, with like all these Nazis like looming over, like that sounds like really bad propaganda. Yeah, no, it sounds it sounds more traumatizing than anything.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

It does.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Uh so I got a question for you, and I probably know the answer because like you just kind of go with the flow, and you're very zen-like, you're very uh what is it, Bruce Lee? You're like water, yeah. My guy. You just kind of just just move around, yeah. I just covered it. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, here's the the question, and and if you in the audience has an idea on what the answer to this is, feel free to send us an email, the day dumpster fire g in the podcast. Like, here we talk a lot about well, historical dumpster fires, but I kind of want to go in the direction too of incorporating the listener, incorporating the audience, and try to make this story of an epic disaster apply to your lives, and so like when you have this happen to you, you have your own trash can fire, you can be like, Hey, at least it's not as bad as this, or I didn't mess up as much as Winston Churchill did, or I'm still alive versus Custer, who is no longer alive, kind of a thing. So we kind of want to, I kind of want to engineer it so that you, as the listener, can get something from it. So the question is, is have you ever tried to like take on a project or achieve a goal, uh, try to accomplish something, and you are like you're gung ho, like you are fully willing to commit whatever resources you have in your life to achieving this task only to find out later on that this task was virtually impossible or it was impractical from the beginning. That's good because you know when we were talking about this before, you're like, no.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

You know, it's funny, I do have something that I just thought about. I'm like, I I can't think of anything. Like, I my mind went blank, but it just popped in my head, and I will I can tell you right now it is minuscule compared to this.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah, yeah, because like we're not gonna talk about a dumpster fire where like there's a cat stuck in a tree, like that one, it'd be very exciting, unless it resulted in like half the town burning down, then then it then it's good content, but or the city of Chicago, yeah, or like Chicago burning down, like yeah, that that's another episode. Uh go check that one out. Um so what I want to go into is Willem Barents. So, yeah, I want to talk about Willem. I think it's supposed to be William, but he's Dutch. So we're just gonna go with Willem, and I'm just gonna just American English butcher it. Perfect. So, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna talk about this guy, and he's kind of a little known figure unless you are really, really, really involved in Arctic Circle 15th, 16th century exploration. It's like that's very niche. Yeah, if that's your thing, then you will have heard of this guy. If you have chosen to like lead a normal life of happiness and fulfillment, you probably passed over this in your history class and moved on.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

But yeah, that's that's a fair statement.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

And and this story, this whole story is actually coming to you from one of our audience members, Nathaniel. He has been he's brought this up to me uh numerous times. Like, hey, you really need to check this out. It's it's a pretty good story. Uh, it's a good story where like everything goes wrong, and this Willem Barents guy is trying to like figure out everything to make this whole Northeast Passage thing work, and it just blows up. We we gotta go back in time to a couple billion years after the Big Bang. So maybe maybe a couple billion years after the formation of the solar system, like 4.7 billion years, and maybe we go back to the 15th century. Cool. So I'm here for it. The 15th century is the age of exploration, right? All caps, um, technology has come to the forefront where now Europeans are able to explore the world, and I'm specifying Europeans because there's a lot of cases in history where there's been other cultures and other parts of the world like navigating, like the Polynesians navigating thousands of miles of ocean on little boats and colonizing the Pacific. Yeah, it's it's pretty insane what humanity has done in the past. So the 15th century and 16th century, technology is getting to the point where now Europeans can start crossing the Atlantic and they can start trading all over the place. So uh the other big thing that came about was keeping time. You may not think about it, but being able to tell accurate or keeping accurate time is the only way you can sail east and west.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

I actually learned that today while I was drawing my Queen Elizabeth drawing.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yes, I know that sounds off, but I know it sounds really weird, but you can go north and south, and you can use the north star, right? The further south you go, the lower the north star will get to the horizon, and then the further north you go, the higher up the north star will go. And you can measure that angle and you can figure out kind of where you're at, north and south, but east and west, it doesn't work so well. And what it is, is you gotta be able to keep track, accurate track of time. So, like, okay, 10 o'clock, we need to take this recording of where this star is in the sky, right? And then tomorrow night we've got to take a recording of where the star is in the sky, and that is like your candlelight, that is where you compare each night where this star is at the same exact time, and you factor in some other things like the time of year and and all that kind of stuff, but then you can figure out where you're going east and west, because that star as you travel around the globe will move ever so slightly depending on the direction that you're going in. So, like keeping track of time was a massive, massive achievement for navigation. The other thing, too, is maps, and maps were becoming more commonplace, the demand for cartographers was exploding. So, let's say you couldn't hack it as an artist somewhere. Well, you could go into cartography, and you could really get your name out there as a map maker and make really good money on this.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

That's what John Well did.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Uh, yeah. Uh Marigo Vespeci. Um, I know he did a lot with maps. Uh, a guy by the name of Diaz, his name is is escaping me right now, but it'll come up. Like, hey, whatever you gotta do to make a living as a sailor, um, yeah, make maps. And I love maps from this time period because they always have like all these sea monsters all over the map.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Oh, yeah, they're so like awesomely decorated.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah, and and it and and I think they did that for artwork, but in the ocean, a lot of weird things happen, like boats sink. And like what sink the boat? We don't know. It's gotta be a kraken. That's fair. As exploration expanded, uh, consumers, mainly uh rich white Europeans, uh, they wanted more and more exotic goods. So as they got richer, they wanted more expensive things. Uh perfect case in point, pepper. Like ground pepper that we use on everything here in America was considered one of the most expensive spices in the world because it only came from the Americas and it could only bring back so much of it.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Cinnamon, too, I think.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Uh, yeah, cinnamon was one of them, and then you know, then there was like you know, turmeric, uh, getting that from India and all that kind of stuff. It's it's just yeah, it's wild. You never think about the stuff that you can go to the grocery store for a few dollars and buy was once relegated only to the ultra rich and and wealthy, and these rich people they would pay people to go out and basically like Uber Eats their ingredients, right? These monarchs they would pay for ships to go across the world to go pick up some like tomatoes and bring them back, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

It's just a really long, expensive Uber Eats order.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

And and you would pay strangers to arrive at your doorstop and bring some fancy animal. So the it and and possibly the biggest market at this time is Asia. And the connection to Asia has been huge because it goes all the way back to like to basically like the fall of the Roman Empire, like in the golden age before, even before, I believe the Romans traded with the Asian people as well. I thought that was more like India, or am I thinking of like Alexander the Great?

SPEAKER_02 13:33

You might be thinking Alexander the Great. I could also be off by a little bit. I'm trying to remember when the Silk Road was established. I might be off okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah, I thought, yeah, I thought the Silk Road was closer to like the golden age of Islam because they were working a lot with Asia. If you find the correct answer, interrupt me, let me know. Um, but yeah, for the longest time, uh the the connection to Asia, especially like China, was huge. And at this time, there's like four different ways to to get to Asia, and the most commonly used method was on land, just hitch up a bunch of horses, oxen, humans, uh, wagons, load them up, and then start walking out east. And this was probably the most common one, like whatever beast of burden you could find, you slap some stuff on it that you want to sell to the Asians and start walking this six to seven thousand miles.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Yay!

SPEAKER_00 14:43

You know what could possibly go wrong in six to seven thousand miles, right? Especially when you could walk maybe 20 miles a day, yeah, depending. And that means it would take 300 to 350 days just to get to Asia.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So it's like a year to get there, and it would take almost two years to make a round trip. So you're like, hey, I want some of this fancy Chinese silk. All right, cool. It'll be a two-year wait.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah, it'll be a two-year wait. It's also very expensive because livestock is expensive. And then that's also why traders were if you see it, you see it a lot in movies and stuff, but it is it is somewhat accurate where townspeople or villages get super excited when the tradesmen come through. That's why they only see them maybe once a year, a couple times a year, depending on what their rotation is, because it takes so long to get back.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Oh, and I imagine too, like when it first started, you know, you'd maybe see like one traveling salesman a year. I do know as like we get into the 1500, 1600s, there were so many caravans going back and forth. Like they would set up many trading spots along the way so that you didn't have to go all the way into China to get silk. You could go half the way in, meet somebody, buy some silk, and then bring it back. You're gonna pay more for it because half the transit is knocked off of it. But there was like all these trading posts set up, and for the most part, it was relatively safe because of the Mongols. They they were heavily interested in trading with Europeans, but when we start getting into the 15th to 16th centuries, uh the Mongols were kind of losing their grip on things, and as a result, uh it was becoming more and more dangerous because of like the Ottoman Turks, they were coming into power, the Venetians controlled the whole Mediterranean area. Like, either you had to pay a ton of money to get through there, or you had to fight your way through it and hope you didn't get assaulted on the way, or whatever. That was like that was one way. The other way was to hop in a boat and then sail around Africa and then pop out on the other side towards like India and all that kind of stuff. So, Bartolomeo Diaz, that was the guy I was referring to earlier, we forgot the first name, was the first to sail around Africa in 1488, and it took him 15 months just to get down there. Yep, like just yeah, it's it's it's crazy, and a lot of it had to do with these ships back then were so janky.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Wild. Oh, also just to interrupt because you asked me to um Rome did trade with Asia through the Silk Road, through India, and there is some signs of like Roman coins and stuff in China.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Yeah, just fun fact.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Cool. Yeah, so yep, I was wrong.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

That's okay. It's like a weird, obscure thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah, no, it's it's a very weird and obscure thing for me to be wrong about anything. It's exactly um, so yeah, uh, Vasco da Gama in 1498 was the first to sail around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, uh, which is an insanely dangerous place to try to sail through. Uh, many, many dumpster fires could be recorded down there to ironic media.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Ironic.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, I know that I think they did that on purpose.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Like, gotta have good humor about it, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, it's like good hope. Let's hope to God you make it because precipice. Yeah, the further down south you go around there, man, it is wild. By the late 1500s, this was the best means to getting into Asia. So that was like what Europe had to work with. Uh, however, though, that became kind of dangerous because obviously you got the cape, but you're also subject to bad weather. Uh, you were susceptible to disease because if one person has the flu on the ship, everybody's getting the flu on the ship. And like that can lay out, if not kill, like a good portion of your crew. And then there was also like pirates. Pirates are starting to make their presence known around the world. Then there was the idea of heading out west until you hit Asia. And this is probably the most famous one. Like, you know, Columbus did not set out to prove the world was around. That's that's a lie. Most people knew that the world was around, unless you were like the most ignorant of ignorant people. And he didn't set out to find the Americas. His mission was to set out to find a quicker way to get to India. And he thought he landed in India because he landed in it was basically what like South America?

unknown 20:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Was it closer to South America or like the Caribbean?

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Yeah, it was it was around that area.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Yeah, it definitely wasn't like Massachusetts. No. Yeah, it wasn't that far north. That that the the the path out west is probably the most famous one because you know, like Columb uh Columbus landed in like South America slash Central America slash uh the Caribbean. He saw dark-skinned people there, and he's like, Cool, these look like Indians, we've made it to India, and then very quickly discovered this wasn't India, and you know, the rest is history. He made it back, and yes, uh, we we yeah, we know all that stuff. So um it worked out well because like here we are, yay, you know, it's one of those things, it's like cool, like America formed, and that's an interesting uh piece of history. But again, if you're sailing out west trying to find a quicker way to get to India, it it just wasn't gonna work.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

That well, yeah, that wasn't it.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Other way that you could go was to sail north. So you could walk out east, you could sail down south, you could sail out west, or you could head north. And the idea would be to like leave Norway or Finland or you know, Britain, whatever coastline had access to the north, and you basically sail through the Arctic Circle and land in northern parts of Asia or Siberia, and this was most famously called a northeast passage or the transpolar sea route. The idea was instead of going east and west for a really, really long period of time, what would happen if you just went north? Because it would have to be quicker to change hemispheres instead of going east and west, just to go north, because you're technically what you're trying to do is you're trying to get from one point in the northern hemisphere to another point in the northern hemisphere instead of going half the width of the earth to get to the opposite end, why not just go north and see what happens? And a lot of it had to do with the fact that, like, you know, by the time uh Villem Barents came about, like it was commonly known, like, okay, this is how big Earth is. They're starting to develop an idea of the relationship to continents in between other countries and continents. Like, they were starting to get an idea of what Earth looked like, especially when you factor in that whole American South American continent. And I mean, obviously, they were still way off on a lot of things, but they were kind of coming up with some logical ideas. Like, it's quicker if we just sail north rather than sailing, you know, all the way down south. But what's funny is that if you sailed north, you're gonna go by Siberia, you're gonna kind of like hit Mongolia, and then you have to go down south and you know, go past Japan, you have to go around China, you're gonna have to go around Korea, Vietnam, and to get to India and whatnot. And the that trip was closer to 18,000 miles. Finding the northeast passage wasn't gonna do you much good because it's impossibly further away than everything else. The advantage is that when you are sailing up to the north, when you typically have the winds working for you, right? It they they it's the north pole, everything is blowy up there, and these sailing ships could just go forever this way, as opposed to like heading down south through Africa. You had to time it with the year, like where is that Gulf Coast wind, where is that going? Where's the what which way is the Atlantic working at this time? And there would be times where you're just sitting in the middle of the ocean for like two weeks waiting for a puff of wind. Well, that's a silver lighting. Uh, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's super far away. Uh, but they had no idea at that time.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Like they were completely oblivious to it. That brings us to Will and Barentz and his dream. And Will and Barents is gonna be the uh the hero of this story, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Our main character, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Our main character, the the one that gets stuck in the dumpster fire, so to speak. Uh, much like when we did uh Terra Nova, uh we're talking about explorers here. And these explorers were very competitive, but they were also very respectful towards each other. And Barents, even though this was hundreds of years before uh we are dealing with Antarctica and whatnot, uh Will Willem Barents was a pretty respected guy. Uh he was born in modern day Netherlands in 1550, died on June 20th, uh, 1597. So he had a good 47-year run, and he's considered like the first or the earliest Arctic explorer in human history. Funny thing is his birth name was Barent Zoom, which I think that's kind of a funny name. Yeah, that's funny. And and well, yeah, and he knew that. He knew that it was kind of weird, so he just he just changed it to Barents.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

I mean, I I get it.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah, right. If if you had a goofy name, yeah, that's just a long signature.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

If you've ever seen Meet the Parents, you know, change it to from Gaylord to Greg, I understand.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yes, yeah, I I I totally get it too, especially if you have to sign a lot of paperwork.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Oh, yeah, yeah. Though Nathaniel did show me a a signature from a sultan from the Ottoman Empire or whatever, and that that was a signature. We were both staring at it like, how? Anyway, that's off topic.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah, so he shortened it to basically translate it Baron's son. So it's B-A-R-E-N-T-S-Z.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Kind of like how the uh Scandinavians would do something very similar, Sigurd Sun, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yep, and so by trade, he was a cartographer or a map maker, and he was a map maker in the height of the age of exploration, and cartographers were in very high demand. He literally put his name on the map when he sailed to Spain and subsequently the Mediterranean Sea to compile an atlas of the region with another guy by the name of Petrus Plencius. That's a fun name, too. Yes, and Petrus, he's he's had his name in history as well. Like he's a pretty well-known figure in the age of exploration. So, like him and this this plant or Petrus guy, they co-authored an atlas that became really popular because people were exploring the Mediterranean Sea left and right, and Barents was, you know, he was considered a very competent sailor, a gifted explorer uh by his government and many of his peers in Europe. Uh, so once Barents established his reputation or his respectable reputation, he turned his sights to figuring out the Northeast Passage. And from a geopolitical perspective, since his homeland of the Netherlands was pretty much as north as Europe gets, other than like Norway and Finland and stuff like that, but we're talking like main body Europe, he could establish trade. If he could establish trade with the Orient, uh by sailing north, he could help put his country, his country's reputation of being a major economic hub, because everyone would want to sail through Netherlands waters, and they can charge for that. They can, like, hey, if you're passing through your you have to pay a fee and all that kind of stuff, and it would make it easier on them to get to and from. Barents was the perfect guy to explore the Arctic regions because of his map making skills and his ability to lead men through pretty much anything. He was just like a natural leader. He also had a really intelligent theory that I thought, like I can't fault his logic on it. He had an idea of how big Earth was, as most map makers would have had an idea that, hey, you know, we don't know the exact mileage, like down to Google Earth stats, but we know that it's gonna take you know six, seven thousand miles to get to Asia and and and all that kind of stuff. Like they had an idea of that, but he also knew where Europe sat on the globe in relation to Asia. And because of this, he knew that the further north you go, a degree between longitudes, those are your vertical lines, consumes less miles than say a degree of longitude near the equator. So if you look at those longitude lines, those north-south lines, and we'll have pictures in um in the show notes and on the website, but you'll see like how at the equator you looked at the longitude lines, the major ones, and they're pretty far apart, but the further north you go, closer you get to the pole, you see like all those lines kind of converge into like one spot. And if you're going say five degrees longitude up at the north pole, that's gonna go a lot further. You're gonna cover, say, those five degrees or three degrees or whatever, you're gonna cover those degrees quicker up in the north pole than you would if you're sailing on the equator, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. And and that's the reason why we don't really use miles because miles behave differently the further north or south you go in relation to the equator. So they use a thing called nautical miles, which is more like a curved, it's a distance over a curb, which Earth being a sphere, side flat earthers, Earth is a sphere, uh, then you're you're calculating an arc. And then to measure that they would use a speed called knots, and what they would basically do is they have this really long rope, and then they would tie knots in this rope at very specific increments, and then at every so many markers or every so many minutes, they would chime a bell, and then you would drop a part of this rope over, and then you would time how long it would take for you to drop the next one over, and you would do that throughout the course of the day, and by the end of the day, you know how many knots you've you've traveled. You can add that up over, say, like eight hours, and you're like, cool, we are traveling so many knots per hour. That's that's where that term comes from. How to measure distances on a sailing ship is vastly different than how you do it on land, which people don't think about. But for for the sake of argument, we will just use miles. Not I'm not gonna confuse people with nautical miles and knots and and all that kind of stuff. So going through the north in his mind is like when you're on a sailing ship, you're like, okay, we got to go so many degrees this way, and then so many degrees that way, and then we get an angle to go 45 degrees at you know this uh at this specific island, and you you live and breathe degrees. So if you go to a part where the degrees are closer together, it would make sense that you could cover more distance or more degrees where when the lines are super close to each other up in like the north or the south pole. He had that idea, and he also knew that the further north you go, the winters, the the like or parts of the year, the north pole has 24-hour sunlight, which which is true. Like you go up and do like northern parts of Alaska, like the sun never sets.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

Yeah, I think they have like a crazy six months, six-month schedule or something.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Uh, yeah, it works like the same way in our Antarctica. There's six months out of the year where it's dark, yeah. And then there's six months, or yeah, six months out of the year where it is sunlight, like the sun never really sits, it just kind of goes in a weird circle throughout the sky. So he argued in I can I actually I can see his logic here, it makes a lot of sense. He's like, Okay, if we go north and the sun is shining 24-7, because the sun is shining, there should be no ice, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Because in his mind it's gonna melt.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Exactly. Yeah, it's a pretty sound way of thinking. I obviously we know like that's not the case, that's not how it works. Uh, it has more to do with the angle of the sun and how that affects the climate and whatnot, but I can totally see where he's coming from.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Yeah, especially if you're living in the late 1500s, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah, and you're taking these these super ghetto sailing ships, which were very top heavy, and they did not handle storms well. Let's just say, I think at this time there were more ships sunk in the age of exploration, just because these boats were so top heavy, really short squat, like they were just dumb. Like you look at them, they look really comical, they look like something you'd see out of a cartoon.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

Remember, John? Remember how he got stuck in Roanoke and then went back? Yeah, and then went back again, and then his ship crashed when he got home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Yeah, they're they they weren't the most reliable, especially when you compare it to say like 1820s Britain, like those sailing ships, those things were well, I mean, that they were the pinnacle of sailing technology at that time, and yeah, they're still around to this day, and those things are just gorgeous pieces of engineering. Meanwhile, these age of exploration ships, they were like two decks, and you try to pack as much crap in there as possible and hope you didn't hit bad weather, yeah. Which is kind of one of the reasons why Barents wanted to go to go through the north, is because, like, okay, one, nobody's really been there yet. Like, believe it or not, nobody has really traveled to the poles yet. Like, Antarctica wasn't even a thing until the 1820s.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Like, I mean, even still, it was like, oh, I see some weird white landmass off the distance. That's got to be Antarctica. Cool, so we found a new land. Sure, okay, let's go to pl put a flag on it and go back to what we were doing before. And and nobody really cared. The same thing applied to the North Pole. Like, nobody really investigated it until like the 18 and 1900s, which, you know, that that's a whole different story unto itself. We have a two-parter on the Terra Nova expedition in Antarctica about that. We'll link to it in the show notes. Um, isn't it nice that we finally got enough episodes where we can start linking other previous episodes in the current episode that we're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Oh, yeah. It's a joy.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Yeah, like we can actually hey, listen to these four other podcast episodes that we've done that's kind of tied into this. It's it's it's a nice feeling to be big enough where we can actually reference ourselves as a source. Like it's pretty cool. It's true. And we don't, and and we like shamelessly cite ourselves whenever we get to do that. Like, check out our show. We did an episode on this, did an episode on that. But uh, yeah, so like the idea of going through the poles, it's like, you know, the weather can't be that bad, right? It's just cold, maybe a little windy, but hey, there should be no no ice up there. There should be no icebergs, or shouldn't be anything that we would crash into uh or freeze us in place because hey, the sun is always shining, and as long as we time it correctly, we shouldn't have a problem. So, with a little bit of uh government funding, a little bit of fundraising, and some other money collection, uh, Barents was set to hire a few ships and head north by northeast to see what he can find and hopefully find what is needed to get to Asia. So Barents is kind of putting his cartographer days behind him. He's like, Okay, I can do this. I can find the Northeast Passage, and it will revolutionize all of Europe and my hometown, if I can make it work. There were three voyages, and they were like one right after another. So there's like 1594 and then 1595 and then 1596, and then then last one ending in 1597. So, like this guy never took any time off. Um on June 5th, 1594, Brent set out with three ships from the island of Texel, uh, which is um in northern Netherlands, and it's almost like a little mini island that is attached, but yet not attached to the mainland. It's weird because if it's like a low tide, it's attached. If it's a high tide, it's like an island, and it changes weekly.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Um, Ireland has little mini islands that are like that where you you can only access them during low tide, and and then when it's high tide, you're stuck there until it's low tide again. Which I don't know, I feel like that would actually be kind of nice. It's like that sounds fun. Yeah, like I'm stuck on this beautiful island for three weeks until it's low tide again, and nobody can get to me. Like, that's not bad. Yeah, that's not bad. I could dig that for a little bit. It's kind of cool. He had three ships and they would kind of set off in three different directions. I want to say three different directions. They were gonna take like three different approaches to going through the Arctic, and the idea was that the three ships would meet up in you'll like this Kara, the Kara Sea. Yes, they they they I have a place in the world. They knew you were coming in 2025, and they're like, We've gotta we've gotta support this girl.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Oh, that was kind. They didn't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Actually, I don't deserve it. It was 1992, so they knew you were coming in 1992.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

That's when I was born.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

So, what is that about? 400 years prior. Got it. In commemoration for your future birth, they're going to name the sea after you.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Yeah, that sounds right.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

It turns out that the Kara Sea is like the bane of Barentz's life. Like, yay. This was a very elusive body of water that thwarted him and a lot of other people. And it sits, like the Kara Sea sits like it like north of Russia's like Siberia area. And then to the west of it, there's like a weirdly shaped island. It's like a crescent-shaped island. Um, called Novaya Zemlaya. It's I feel like that's like a singer's name. Like, oh, did I butcher it or oh, I could see that.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

I also just want to commend you for trying to pronounce these.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

I I'm trying to use what little foreign language skills that I have.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

No, it sounds fine. I just I would butcher it if I tried it.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Yeah, they they I think they would pronounce it Novaya Zemlaya or Zemlia because that Y is following a consonant, whereas the Novaya, the Y is following another um vowel. I I could actually look it up in Google pronunciations. Got it. Let's let's see. Uh yeah, I'm not afraid to try.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

We could.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Alright, let's do it here.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

I just wanted to commend you for trying. Oh, I can even change the slow.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Respect. Um oh, okay. So it is Novaya Zemlia. So I was right the second time. It has to do with the uh uh following a consonant. So uh so yeah, uh you've got the uh Nova Zemlia, it's a vertical-shaped island that kind of is the boundary between the rest of the Arctic Ocean and like Siberia. And the idea was to have these three ships kind of meet up there and then proceed. And the ship that Barents was on was called the Mercury, which I don't know, that seems kind of ominous. Because what what is Mercury the god of war? Yeah, I thought that was Mars. You're probably right, Mercury known for my Roman mythology.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Is not as clear as my Greek mythology.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Messenger. Yep, so messenger of the gods and guiding souls to the underworld.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Also the god of commerce and travel. Okay, that's fitting.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

I well, yeah. Mercury is a Roman god of commerce, eloquence, travelers, communication, messengers, and trickery. Wow, he sounds fun, he sounds busy. That too. He's like the Roman version of uh Loki in a way, but I just like how it's funny. It's like Mercury guides souls to the underworld, yeah, and I'm on a boat, yeah, it's named the Mercury on a boat, but yeah, it was it was considered a very small ship even by then times. Uh, it was 70 meters long or 230 feet. Yeah, it's shorter, significantly shorter than a uh football field, and you see pictures of it. I'm sorry, but these ships just look so comical. They're very squats, they're they're strictly designed to haul goods, they're not designed for any comfort whatsoever. Yeah, they were they they were hilarious, they're too utilitarian. Whereas when we get into the 17th and 1800s, they become very elegant, over-engineered, a lot of technology. Uh, they actually had rooms in them and and all that kind of stuff. But man, back then they were just like, can this thing even float? Let alone it could float to carry goods, but that's that's yeah, yep, they're designed to carry a lot of gold, and even still they were too top-heavy. So a lot of Spanish ships sank coming out of the new world because they were loaded too much with gold. One thing to keep in mind is that this part of the world was not explored. So when you look at that waters above Finland and Norway, you look in Svalbard. Um, this was not really looked into all that much. People just didn't really think anything of it. Um, the Americas technically had more exploration done to it by now than the waters north of Europe and Russia, which I found that was kind of interesting. There was more people doing stuff in America than people trying to see what's north of them.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yeah, it's like uh playing Zelda and it's skipping an entire part of the map, and you're just trying to beat the game by going left and right, but you never go north or like super far south. It's kind of weird. I'm thinking of the very first Zelda, where like you can beat the game in a way, if you play it right, where you don't have to spend time in the northeast part of the map, but I digress. Uh, maybe these people tried. I'm thinking of like maybe the Vikings, right? And I feel like the Vikings did a lot that they don't get credit for. Like, yes, they did actually discovering America and yeah, Greenland. Yep, yep. My guess is they probably went up there and they're like, This place sucks. And probably like, we're out, like, and then nobody followed them. So for the first month of the first expedition, the crew followed the coastline of Norway, uh, and then it wrapped around to the east side, where Russia had carved out a chunk of land next to modern-day Finland. So, like Finland is sandwiched between a Russian province and Norway. Um, along the way, they stopped at some of the one to two billion little islands that seem to dot the coastline of Norway. And if you zoom in on Google Maps and you look at Norway, like if you look at these early maps, it's hilarious because they have like the coastline of Norway, and then like what you think are actually city names, this one right after another listed in the land. No, those are the names of the individual little islands that are like 20 miles here, 10 miles there, a mile. Like, it's just nothing but islands, and I have no idea how they kept track of what's what. I imagine there was like a lot of flags. Like, okay, I see a French flag, I see a British flag, I see a Russian flag, I don't see a Norwegian flag. All right, boom. All right, I know that's one of ours now because that's how the world was conquered back then was the cunning use of flags, if you're an Eddie Izzard fan. Um, so yeah, uh they uh somehow managed to avoid all the scary monsters, all the angry mermaids and krakens that lurked in the waters based on the maps that were drawn back then. Like Barent's crew is doing pretty good, they're not even being killed off by supernatural creatures. Uh hey, we're making progress. Great. And better yet, they didn't even fall off the edge of the earth. Woo! They they stayed on earth. Killing it. That's right, you flat earthers. They stayed on the planet because the planet is round. So at first month, really, nothing nothing much happened. They I know they they found a few animals, they cataloged some stuff, uh you know, they just did explore people things. Yeah. On July 9th, things got a little spicy uh when there was the incident with the polar bear. Oh, good. Yep, and it was the first polar bear ever discovered. Okay, and there was an incident with some men and the polar bear. Okay, so I have no idea where Williams Island is. I tried to find it. Um, I did a Google search for Williams Island, and it comes up as like a bar and restaurant in Florida. Sick. Especially like Bear Creek. So apparently, uh, well, Barons was parked at Williams Island near Bear Creek. I'm assuming it's somewhere around the Netherlands, it's in between uh Novaya and in Finland, right? It's somewhere in between there.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

I they were just chilling there. Somebody forgot to pull the ramp in, because this is back when there was like one ramp, and that's how you got on and off the boat. Um, somebody forgot to pull the ramp in, and they woke up to a polar bear that was trying to board their ship. And looking for food. Uh yes. And they're like, What is this thing? And whenever you come across the new species, the proper European thing to do is kill it. Yes, they grabbed their muskets, which sorry, 1500s, they sucked. They spent a long time trying to shoot this bear. Uh, they tried poking it with things, uh, they tried stabbing it with things. Uh, maybe one or two bullets actually hit it because their guns were so inaccurate. But they're like, crap, we can't kill this thing. It turns out that an eight-foot bear that weighs over a thousand pounds is pretty hard to kill.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 49:57

Especially when you looked at the high carbon metals that they had, like in their guns and in their spears and everything. Like, you would try to hit the bear with one of your iron pokey things, and the blade would just shatter in the cold.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

After a while, they gave up trying to kill the bear, and they're like, Hey, what if we bring it on board, we tie it up, and then we bring it home with us.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

So that is the most manly man idea. Okay, we can't kill it, so we're gonna keep it.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

Yeah, so that's what they did. Uh they proceeded to tie the bear up, and again, eight-foot-tall, one thousand-plus-pound bear broke free of the restraints and went on a rampage while they were at sea. Good for bear. So, and now I'm just visioning this little exploring ship, and you have like dozens of men like screaming and yelling as the boat's like rocking side to side, as like this bear is just like whipping people out into the water or like biting them, like this pure chaos of them trying to control this gigantic polar bear. God, uh that's amazing. And so, yeah, they're after hours of fighting this bear, they managed to push it overboard, and they vowed never to deal with polar bears again because those things suck.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Yeah, man, they're fishes. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Barents and the crew, uh, what was left of them, or most of them, discovered Orange Island because I guess orange is the new island name, and I could not find it anywhere on Google Earth. Like I said, there's literally thousands of islands in this part of the world. And again, I'm not sure how they could tell if this island was new or not, but maybe because Barents was like one of the first ones out there. Okay, we can we can ascertain that this is probably a new island. Uh, kind of like how um, if you look at a map of the moon, you'll notice that the side that faces Earth has like Greek and Roman and European names for like the craters and the mountains and all that stuff. But if you look at the far side of the moon, the side that doesn't face Earth, they're all Russian names. And that's because Russia was the first to get a probe behind the moon to take a picture.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Hey, if you see it first, you get to name it. So that's yeah, one side is all European names, the other side is all Russian names, which I find it kind of funny.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Yeah, it is funny.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

While hanging out on Orange Island, the crew came across about 200 walruses alien species, great, they they're like, wow, okay. These are cool. There was they're also very dangerous, uh, yes, as they find out. So the natural course of action when you come across the new species of animal is you try and kill it. And the idea was to kill as many of these things as possible and then bring home the tusks because you know they can be used for something. So they declared war on these 200 walruses and they got their butts kicked. Uh oh man, they discovered that walruses are very, very hard to kill. Um, bullets didn't work well too much on them. And again, they tried going out there with clubs and spears and pikes and other iron pokey devices, and like they would stab this blob of fat, and like the blade would break off, and the walrus wouldn't even care. Like that's sick. So when it was all said and done, they got a couple of them killed, and they were only able to get like a couple pairs of tusks back on the ship. And once they left Orange Island, they're like, Okay, we're gonna leave this whole ivory trade thing for Europeans when they get into Africa later on in European history. I don't know how they drew that conclusion at that time, but let's just say they did, and they're like, Yeah, leave it for somebody else. This was dumb. Uh and but right before the winter of 1594, Barents made landfall on the west coast of Novaya Zemlia. Uh, which that's that crescent-shaped island situation. Yes, and there'll be maps on the daysdumsifire.com to try to point that out. Um, like what it would look like. It's really the only big island up there, so you can't miss it, other than Svalbard, but we'll get to that a little bit later on. Right before the winter, they may landfall there, and it's a it's a very long crescent-shaped island. So Barons is like, okay, well, let's head north. Let's see how big this thing is. And they finally kind of get to the top of it, and that's when they discover that, oh crap, the the Kara C was starting to ice over. Their ship, they knew they couldn't handle that. If they got their ship stuck in ice, they were done for. Like, yeah, they would be stuck there until it thawed, if it ever thawed. And they're like, Well, let's go home. And that's you can't blame them. Yeah, they they just saw it, they saw these chunks of ice forming, and they're like, We're out.

SPEAKER_02 55:48

I mean, honestly, after the polar bear and the walrus inside me, like, I'm out too. I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 55:56

Well, I'm I'm envisioning like Monty Python, like little skits where they're like little cartoon characters that come out with all their European weapons, and then they get in a tussle with these polar bear or apolar bear, and they're like, retreat, retreat, retreat, and you know, trying to get away from it, and then they see like a whole bunch of walruses, and they got all their spears, and they go marching out, and then a tussle with the walruses, and they're like, retreat, retreat, retreat. Right? Oh, that's great. They got the dude with the coconuts, like so all things considered, that mission was considered uh a success, right? They mapped a lot of stuff, they discovered a lot of stuff, they brought some stuff back, and this really helped the second voyage. And the second voyage was put together by Prince Maurice of Orange. I guess the moral of the story is that hey, if you want to get funding for another trip, name an island after the guy that you're trying to get money from to fund another voyage. Smart. And this Maurice guy, um, he was very business-oriented. Uh, he had like two brothers that were into trading and stuff like that. And he looked at how far uh Barents got on the first journey, and he's like, We had to been close to Asia, like looking how far, and he kind of had an idea of how big Earth was. He's like, Man, we had to be within a week of travel of Asia. Little did he know, or anybody knew, that even if they got past uh Novaya Zemlia, there was still like another 12,000 miles to go.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Hence that that part of like the futility of this goal, like they had no idea, like they were kind of just wasting their time doing this, but you know what they don't know will hurt them. So Maurice of Orange, he's like, Okay, Mr. Barents, I want you to take six ships now. And because Maurice is like, Man, we were so close before. I think this next time Barents can get all the way there, and then what we can do is we get there and we have six ships full of cargo uh that Europeans don't want or need, but Asians could love, take that, uh, sell all that stuff or trade it for really, really, really expensive goods that Europeans do want, right? And then bring all that back to the Netherlands. We sell it, it offsets the cost of this expedition, and we've established a trade route with Asia that nobody else has. You know, that's kind of a son of strategy.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

It it's it's yeah, it makes it good business sense if you don't count the thousands and thousands and thousands of miles of land.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

Yeah, that that you would have to sail around. Yeah, it I I can totally see where this guy is coming from. He sent out Barents to basically do the same exact thing, but this time actually make contact with Asia. And the issue, the well, the thing to think in here is that Barents had only just barely scratched the surface of Nova Zemlia, let alone do much sailing in the Kerasi. I think they're maybe getting a little ahead of themselves, but hey, Barents is like, hey, you want to fund this thing? You want to give me six ships? Let's go. And on June 2nd, 1595, Barents set out with six ships with the main goal of getting to Novaya Zemlaya or Zemlia in a more timely manner. So instead of like stopping and exploring every little quarter mile wide island um off of Of like Norway, they were just gonna make we're just gonna head straight there. Let's get there sooner and beat the weather. So that's what they did. They they this time they just kind of made a beeline for it. And since the expedition was intended to make money, the stakes were higher. So there's a thing in maritime law to think about at this time. Let's say you're a captain of a merchant ship, right? Okay, you find somebody who wants to sell their goods in Asia. So you as the captain, you have one of two options. You can buy all the stuff from the merchant, right? So you'll be like, hey, I will take, I'll pay you for all this stuff, I will go and sell it. And then you, as the captain, you are you have full right to sell to whoever you want for whatever you want. It's it's up to you. Or you can take possession of the cargo and sell it on the seller's terms. So like the captain is kind of like the mediator, sell all that stuff, the captain gets his cut, and he brings back the money or the traded goods for the original seller and like collect a commission off of it. So either way, you're taking responsibility for a lot of money of goods. Yeah. And yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, and and if the ship sinks and you come home, not only you have to pay for the ship, but you also have to pay for the lost cargo. Uh-huh. So there's a lot on the line here for Barents to like make it work. And yeah, that it's it's it's just tricky because suddenly he can't just do all the explory things that he wanted to do. Now this is strictly a business trip. In August, so they made it to Navoya Zimlia in pretty fast time. Like they made it there in August instead of like October. And instead of sailing to the north to scout a path around it, Barents is like, okay, we're gonna go through the south, and hopefully we can find a strait or something that goes through it. And that's what they did. They found uh Vygotch Island. So Novaya comes into a crescent, and then there's like a 30-40 mile-wide gap. I think it's more than that, I think it's like 100 miles, but there's a gap between the southern tip of Novaya and the Vygotch Vygotch Island, and that's like part of Russia, part of modern day Russia. And while they were passing through this, they came across this Samoyed wild men, and it I don't know to what extent these people were wild, but it was no different than Europeans calling Native Americans savages, yeah. And these people were old, like they have been there going all the way back to like the Roman Empire. Like these were Europeans that had like a breakaway civilization, and they made it to this island, and then history forgot about them. Like, if you look at it now, there's like a little town there of like 12 houses.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

Aww.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:29

Yeah, it's very quaint. And the Samoyid people are kind of uh they're almost like a race. Like you can have Africans, you can have Asians, you can have you know Caucasians. The Samoyids are kind of like the Russian form of Native Americans. Okay, and and so yeah, they were considered wild men. And Brent was like, Oh, that's neat. Like, let's go talk to a branch of humanity we've never met before. Yeah, and somehow he had a guy that could actually talk to them, which what that's a trip. Oh, yeah, yeah. Somehow he had to do that can actually talk to the Samoyed people in their native language, huh? That's handy, yeah. No, it's one of those things, like out of the group, you're like, I don't know how to communicate with these people, and then you've got like Phil in the back. He's like, I got you. Okay, okay, where where did you learn how to speak a language from a group of people that we had no idea even existed? Oh, I knew a guy, it's a long story. Oh, oh okay, well, go talk to them. So yeah, how about it? That's what they did. And so they talked to him for a little bit, and really nothing too crazy happened. But while they were talking to the Smyad people, on September 4th, a small party sent out to States Island. No idea where that's at. I'm assuming it's somewhere near Vygotch, but sure. And the reason why they wanted to go there is because they spotted some weird-looking crystals there, and they wanted to bring some back.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

That's I understand that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:19

Yeah, because all men are hillbillies to an extent where they have a thing for shiny things. Like, ooh, shiny rocks.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:27

I was thinking about like when you play Breath of the Wild or like Skyrim or something, you want to collect all the things. Oh, yeah, that you see. That's what I chak it up to, but that works too.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:40

Yeah. Okay, yeah. I can I can see that. They're like pieces of sky that have fallen down. Yeah. Well, either way, uh I'm I'm sure they were preparing a trip to go to Sedona, Arizona, and they needed crystals to represent at the Vortex Convention or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

Their fourth chakra.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

Uh something clear it. They're they're trying to open their third eye or what healing crystals and and whatnot. So yeah, yeah. Um, needless to say, they got there and they're trying to find these crystals, and instead the party got attacked by another polar bear. Oh. And it kicked their asses all over again. This time, two guys died, and the rest of them just ran away. So wow, that's unfortunate. It's like the uh what was it? Was it the second or the third parts of the Caribbean movie where it kind of starts off with Jack Sparrow like running away from like these cannibals? Yeah. That that's what I had in mind here, except for this time it's a polar bear that's chasing him.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:47

That's accurate. So they uh they packed up, they got back on their boat, they said bye to the wild men, and they headed to the kerosene. Upon getting the kerosene, they hit a little snag. This was the path that was going to get them to the Asian mainland. It really wouldn't work, even if they didn't make it through. But they noticed that the entire kerosene was 100% frozen over. Oh good. Like they could walk on the kerosene.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:19

Ah, I'm sure that was disappointing.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

Yeah, so there's like, well, now what? What do we do?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:25

Like yeah, like like the fish at the end of fighting Nemo.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

Yeah, we did it. Now what?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:34

Yeah, yeah, they're like, yeah, they're in the bag, so like, what do we do now?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

Um, go home.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

So I mean, yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:44

You lost two guys due to polar bear. Go home.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

Yep, yep. Uh, and this this mission was considered a failure uh because of the six boats of goods that needed to be sold in order for this to be financially worthwhile.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

Yeah, I could see that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

So they turn back, like ah crap. So they get back, and the Dutch government in 1596 is like, okay, we are no longer gonna fund these expeditions because like they're going nowhere, and they're getting very costly, and they keep ending in failure. So the recent failure was troachously expensive because all the goods in those six ships had to be returned uh with not much of a market to sell them in, yeah. So nobody wanted to buy this crap, so it was kind of like a wash. Uh, as a result, the Dutch government was like, okay, we're not gonna pay for these types of expeditions anymore, but instead we'll put forward a reward system. Anyone who can find a way to the Northeast Passage or get through that to connect with Asia will receive a huge reward. This puts the cost of exploration on privateers and donors slash investors. So other people in society will absorb the cost with the hope that if they make it, then they're gonna get a huge bonus from their government. Yeah, right? Or tax break or something. And shockingly, Barents' reputation did not take too much of a beating. Uh that's good. Yeah, like while the last voyage was a failure, it wasn't his fault that God decided to freeze the Kara Sea in the beginning of winter. Fair. It's not like he could have predicted it. So the town council of Amsterdam purchased and outfitted two small ships to be captained by I think it's Jan Reap. Okay, because I think the J is like it's like a Y sound, it's Reap. And Jacob Van Heemskirk. Nice. Yep. Anybody by the name of Jacob, or it'd be Jakob van Heemskirk. Um, and both of these two guys would be under the command of Barents. So this guy just has a knack for like getting out of trouble. Like you had a failure. Yeah, yeah, no. It's just like, yeah, I know you failed here, but here is more money. Go for it. So on May 10th or 15th, history's a little vague on this. Uh, the two ships sailed out, and instead of heading northeast by east, uh, instead of following like the coastline along like Russia and Siberia and all that kind of stuff, they went due north. And the idea was that we're just gonna cut straight through the Arctic Circle and pop out at in Asia, which okay, yeah. Instead of like following the coastline all the way around, they're just like mm-mm, we're gonna just make a beeline straight north until we start heading south. So now they'd be in the other side of Earth heading south, and they're just just cut out all the crap to the east. So got it. Um, so that's that's what they did. They they they went north. And on June 9th, so a little less than a month later, they discover Bear Island. Which nice you could probably guess why it was named Bear Island. Uh so oh okay, the names get better, trust me. They yeah, they they they are this so literal about the naming conventions, it's it's hilarious. I love it. I don't think they spent much time there, Gibbon Barents' proclivity to get crew members involved with polar bears, but they like charted it, made a note of it, and moved on. This island sits midway in between Norway and Svalbard, so okay, it's like yeah, the halfway. I found it. Okay, yeah, that one actually shows up on Google Maps. Yeah, yeah, this one comes up about a week later, on June 17th, they discovered Spitzbergen, which is like the western part of Svalbard. Found that one too. Cool, and then they're like, Well, this is cool, like let's explore the place. And so they basically go on a cruise around the island, and that's kind of like how cartography works is you follow the coastline all the way around, and then you're dropping not knots in the water, measuring how fast you're going. So you figure out your distance, and it's a kind of a really complicated process to make these maps, but that's what they did is they went all the way around this island, and um, and so yeah, on the 20th, they found a large natural bay, uh, which would later be called Roudjordan. Okay, which I think translates into natural bay. Nice, like it, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:00

Uh there's a lot of those in the world, but oh, I know, yeah, it's very original.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:04

They found the only one, apparently. On the 25th, they sailed into uh Magdalena Fjordan, which they called Tusk Bay because of the walls tusks that they found there, right? Right, right. So they stopped and picked up a bunch of those because they sold very well when the first set came back. Nice on the 26th, they sailed into for land sudden or soon sound detour land soundet for land sudent. Uh, but had to turn back because of the nasty waters there, like there's all these shoals and everything, and that literally they they they named it like place of nasty waters, don't go. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:52

So might as well make the name useful, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:56

As opposed to like Cape of Good Hope. Yeah, that's misleading. Yeah, that's very misleading. This is not misleading at all. Um, on the 28th, they were under the northern point of Swellbird called Prinz Carl's Foreland.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:14

Uh when I first saw it, I thought it was Prince or Prince Carl's foreskin. Which oh no, that would have been that would have been an epic name.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:25

That would have been epic but unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:28

Yes, especially if you have a house there, like you're a lighthouse on the foreskin of Svalbard. So uh, and they they basically called it uh the place of many birds because okay, they got there and many birds, thousands of birds everywhere. All right, so I told you the names are just very original.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

Um, yeah, but you know, I can get behind it, they're very straightforward, honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

Well, and they kind of give future explorers an idea of what's going on there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, as opposed to like Bob's Island. Okay, cool. It's an island full of dyslexic people, and they're all named Bob because you can't misspell Bob backwards. Oh no. So, and then they they proceeded to sail down the east side, making their way down south. They took more pit stops, continue mapping the island as we know it today, which is the reason why like everything is named uh Barents everywhere. It's just because they they really this is like the only time when Nathaniel's talking about Swalbard, just like the only time in the story that Swalbard comes up. And on July 1st, they made the way back to Bear Island. Okay, and they're like, Okay, what are we gonna do now? A fight broke out on one side, Captain Reep, Reeves, uh, R-I-J-P. He's like, I want to keep going north, and I just want to cut through the Arctic Circle and just get to the other side of the world that way. Let's stop screwing around, let's just go for it. Meanwhile, Barents and Van Heenskirk, uh, they wanted to head east and try their luck going around Novaya Zemlia. Okay. Their plan was taking into consideration that if they hurry, they'll get there by like mid-July, which should be months ahead of the weather, right? So instead of even getting in August, we're gonna get there even earlier, and there's no way that this could possibly go wrong. Okay, famous last words, yeah. So ultimately, no concessions could be made between the two groups. So uh Reep went north and Barents Heemskirk would go east. None of these leaders would ever see each other ever again.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:00

That's kind of sad.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:01

Yes, but they did cross paths later on in a weird way, and and and I'll get there. By July 17th, uh Barents had reached Novaya Zemlia, uh, which was good because they had beaten that winter freeze that seemed to happen much earlier here than other parts of the world. Remember, uh Barents was marketing finding a northeast passage because there's 24-7 sun and it never freezes. And it shouldn't be frozen. Yeah, twice now. They've gotten there and it's frozen.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:37

Yeah, you would think that he dropped the maybe he just feels like he needs to keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

Well, I think what it was is like if we can get there in summer, yeah, where there is all that sunlight, it would still work.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:52

As opposed to getting there when it's starting to like turn into fall. Got it. Um, but keep in mind when you're that far north, every day of summer is fall, like it's just cold. Like there, the the ground up there is permanently frozen, as as we will discover here. Barents decided to try his hand at going through the gap between Novaya Zemlia and Vygotch or the Vygotch Strait. Okay, however, they never made it to the strait because the ship got stuck in ice flow, which was compressing their ship because of icebergs that all came about during an unexpected freeze.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:34

At this point, I really just want them to succeed, and I know that they're not going to.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:41

Well, and the story here gets really interesting because this is now becomes a story of perseverance, and what these guys go through is a mixture of like pure genius and just a crap ton of fortitude. Like, I I I really have to give these guys credit for what happened next. So the 16-man crew was unable to uh break the ice. They tried lighting fires to melt the ice, but this ice had probably been frozen for hundreds of years, and there's no way that was gonna melt anytime soon.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:19

So they quickly got they were getting pinched in. So what they did is they got to the coast of Nova Zemlia, like as as close as they could, and then before the ice completely locked them in, this way they could actually get to land. Okay, they got to land, but there was no like usable land, everything was frozen over, and that's that permafrost. Like parts of Alaska has never defrosted. Yeah, it's just the ground will always be frozen until the planet heats up and then it melts, which there's extra mix. A lot of discoveries like because of global warming, they're finding places in like northern Europe where they're they're the bog bodies. Oh, yeah, the water has thawed out, and then like these bodies have been unearthed because of this. So the silver lining to the planet turning into a toaster oven, I suppose. They made their way to land, and the only thing they found was like this icy barren shelf, and they had to set up camp there, and it was just rock hard ice. So, what they did is they took wood from the ship as well as whatever driftwood they could find, and they built a cabin. This thing was 25 feet long and 18 feet wide. That's not bad considering they didn't have much to build it with. Yeah, like that's the size of a of a good sized house. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's pretty impressive. And they named the uh they named the cabin uh or like a little mini fort. Um, and it had a roof, had fireplaces, like they did a bang up job on this. Uh they named the uh cabin Het Behoden. What does that mean? Oh, it's Het Behoden Highs or the saved house. Sick.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:19

At this point, I just appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:22

Uh yeah, that's great. And and not and now we got 16 dudes trying to survive. Yeah. Um, life in the lodge wasn't like a resort, but it was survivable during the height of the winter months. So they've been there, they got stuck in like July, August, and they stayed there all the way through the winter. So when it was like January time, the height of the winter, and it was just consistently like 40 degrees below zero all the time. Yeah, like yeah, it was a death sentence to the point where like they could their socks would catch on fire before any warmth from the fire would make their way to their feet.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:05

Just because that's they were had their feet in the fire trying to get warm. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:10

It was so cold that their socks, the outsiders of their socks, would catch fire before the warmth would get through the ice of the socks and get to their skin. Yikes, yeah, that's that's bloody cold. And yeah, that's very cold. They cut down the sails of the ship uh to make more clothing as well as blankets and and whatnot. And so that was one of the ways they were able to survive. Um, the other thing they would do too is they would take rocks and cannonballs, throw them into the fire, so they got cranking hot, and then when it was time to go to bed, they would pull the cannonballs out, and then they would kind of like wrap themselves around the cannonball as like a radiator, like radiating heat. So they would sleep with cannonballs and rocks pulled out of a fire, which that's a pretty clever idea because I imagine those cannonballs could hold heat for quite some time.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:08

Yeah, it's pretty smart.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:10

Um, at first, they had access to salted beef, butter, cheese, bread, barley, peas, beans, groats. I don't know what that is, but um flour, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, beer, wine, brandy, hardtack, smoked bacon, ham, and fish. So they were pretty well stocked. And they did a very good job rationing things out. Like, it's not like they had like a week of feasts and then they were just out of food. Yeah. No, they actually rationed it out very intelligently, and uh they had issues with the casks of beer. Uh it would freeze and then explode. So, for those of us who know trucking and beer uh customers, we know that beer does not like to freeze.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:00

No, it does not. It's like uh the same thing if you put a soda can in the freezer to cool it down and you forget about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:08

Yeah, like yeah, it just ruptures. But the thing with beer is that it actually has a much lower freezing temperature because of the alcohol. So when it does freeze, watch out.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:16

Oh, yeah. Uh that's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:18

It's it's it's worse. So uh the ship's carpenter, Garrett DeVere. This is the only thing that only reason why we know what happened on the third uh expedition here is because of this guy's journal. He reported by November 8th that beer and bread were running out and wine was being rationed. Believe it or not, you know, beer and bread when you're in Arctic-like conditions, those are lifesavers because beer contains a ton of sugar and the carbohydrates and everything that makes you fat from drinking beer keeps you alive in a situation like this. Not to mention, you never have to complain about the beer being warm. It's that's always cold. True. Silver linings. Yep, the silver bullet never ends there, or the silver train or whatever that beer phrase is. I don't know. And then like bread, same thing, full of carbs, full of sugars. Those are things that your body needs to keep itself warm. So they were starting to run low, but they were still able to keep going for the most part. And on January 1597, the crew became the first to witness what is known as the Novaya uh Zemlia effect. And it's a really rare effect that happens usually on the oceans, and where you see the sun set uh right before the top part of that sun goes below the horizon, you'll see like a green flash of light. And it's very rare. It's considered to be a good luck thing to like maritime folks. Like it can only happen in very, very, very specific settings. Like some people have reported of seeing it off of uh the you know the coast of uh California, uh watching the sunset, and they'll see like a green, it almost looks like a little laser beam above the sun. And it's just how the light is refracting through Earth's atmosphere, and there's not a lot of green light that comes from the sun, but the way that it interacts with the atmosphere, it makes like this little green bar above it for like a couple of seconds and then it goes away. That's neat. Yeah, so yeah, they got to see something like that. That's cool. Uh, for more food, the crew got pretty good at hunting Arctic foxes, so they came up with like very primitive traps. And it turns out that the raw meat from Arctic foxes, as well as a lot of other Arctic animals, has high levels of vitamin C, and which is good because that prevents scurvy. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, that's a plus. Yep. Uh look at a scope. Yeah, I know. They're like, they're like making all sorts of discoveries and and all sorts of stuff for uh they yeah, I don't think they knew what caused scurvy back then, and they certainly didn't know what vitamin C was, but they probably noticed, and at that time, like every sailor had a bout of scurvy, like every and and you could always tell that they're very bow-legged, and that's because the Tibi amphibia behave more like rubber and then they warp and cause knee problems and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, like who knew? Yeah, uh, yes, their crew were continuously harassed by polar bears, they they just couldn't get away from these things, man. They're just like everywhere up there. This is where the story gets a little funny. When the weather started to warm up again, so they went all through the winter and then they're getting into the spring, and they're like, hey, it's starting to warm up. Like we're seeing the sun more. There may be a chance that we can get to our ship and get the heck out of here. However, when they got back to their ship after being away for months, um, it turns out that all the polar bears in the area watched House Hunters International and they found that there was this wooden cabin that was shaped like a giant boat that was empty and free for the taking. So when they returned to their ship, they discovered that it was filled with dozens of polar bears just lounging about. How mad would you be? Oh, they're uh I would have lost it. Right? Like you saw the kind of damage that one did, let alone like 48 of them. They're they're like in the cabin, they were in like the eating area, they were in the captain's cabin, like they were laying on the deck, like there was yeah, just all these polar bears, and they're just kind of looking at the crew like, what are you gonna do? So man. Yep, they had they had to battle all these polar bears, and that's exactly what happened. Uh, for a little bit, there was a little war that started, but again, bullets weren't working, weapons were just shattering, and they had to give up. They're like, okay, screw this, fine, just just take the boat, you stupid bears, just whatever. They did manage to take the two dinghies. Okay. So they they were able to steal those back, and that's what they did. They loaded these dinghies up with as much food as they possibly could. Uh, these were meant to be like uh boats that could hold like 10 people that they would send off to an island, like a scouting thing. So they were bigger, but they were uncovered. So yeah, they took both of those boats, they loaded it up with what they could, and then they set out to sea as they watched their beloved ship with all these polar bears on it, just kind of giving them the middle the middle finger bear wave goodbye. Just oh man. Yeah, just yeah, it did that it's infuriating. That's why it's funny, it's so funny. I know, and and I named this uh the revenge of the polar bears. It's like they were pissed off because of the one that died by their hand by being thrown overboard. By June 20th, 1597, it was evident that Novae's and Lea and the polar bears were not going to release their ship uh as it was still stuck on the ice and loaded with bears. So they hopped into these uh dinghies and uh yep, they rode out to sea. And then sadly, on June 20th, I actually had here by June 20th, 1597, that was actually, I think it was like June 13th that they just headed out, and then like a week later, uh Villem Barents died at sea. Yep, there was no information on how he died. Uh they don't know if he was buried at sea or on land. Like maybe they brought him back to Nobaya's Emlia to bury him. Like they just they couldn't ascertain that. Um uh maybe, maybe he died because he knew that when he would get back home, the amount of debt that he was gonna have from these failed attempts was gonna be like like he's gonna spend the rest of his life in debtor's prison trying to pay this off. I I don't think that's what would have happened, but it's just he just up and died. So that left polar bears got him. Right, yeah. In fact, if it were if it was me, I would if if I was gonna be the one that was gonna die, I'd be like, okay, use my body, drag it out to the polar bears on that boat, and use my body to lure them off, and then sneak aboard, pull the ramp in, and and get the heck out of there. But yeah, the problem is that I don't even think that boat could have even sailed anywhere because they cut the sails down to make clothes. That's right. So like there. Yeah, it's like you took away for the current to pull you out. So the the remaining crew, and I believe there was 12 of them at this point out of the 16. So I was thinking like there were hundreds of people, and I was thinking that like 90 out of the hundred died, uh, because they've been on this thing since we're going on almost a year now, because they got there in July of 96, and they didn't leave until like June of 97, and they were at sea, and you know, all like there were 16 of them total plus for rents, and there was 12 of them left, so four of them died in total during this whole year, year and a half long escapade. That's impressive, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:01

I think, yeah, considering the conditions, how long they were out there, how they were living, rationing food, and living off of fox meat.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:11

Yeah, it's not bad. Yeah, no, they in terms of demsifiers, yeah, they yeah, they did pretty good. So, yeah, you're right, it's unfortunate, but they they made it work. And this is the crappy part, too, is like they were at sea for seven weeks until they landed on the kola peninsula. So if you look at that Norway, Finland, Russia sandwich, uh that the Kola Peninsula is on the Russian side of it, and it kind of juts out. And you know, to the to the west, you have Norway in the middle, you have Finland, and then you've got this Russian province, and that is where they were discovered by the Dutch. Only 12 men survived, with four dying at sea or in Novaya Zemlia, um, or thereabouts like they don't know exactly when the four people died. They do know that the cabin boy, uh, he died on the island, like he got sick and died, and so they knew about him, but the other ones they weren't too sure. The guy who found them was none other than Captain and former explorer Don Reap.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:25

So he's back, he's back, and he's ready to rip.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:30

Reap. Well, and like I said, like the these leaders would never see each other again. That's kind of true. Yeah, the leaders never would see each other again, but that Yan guy met like his old crew, and what it was is he had already made the trip and came back, and he was heading out on his second trip when he discovered that Barnes's men were on this peninsula. Okay, and so yeah, by November 1st, uh the remaining crew were returned to Amsterdam, and there the journal from that that carpenter was later published along the accounts of Huygens or Huyghen van Linsoten, who is a famous archivist, explorer, even spy. Uh, he did a lot of work in like India and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:28

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:28

Yeah, he was on the first two. Okay. So he kind of like just hopped aboard as part of the crew for the first two. That's why we know about them is because of this Van. I don't know how to pronounce it. Lynn Lynn Shoten. Uh he too has a lot of stories. Uh, it's kind of interesting to read his works, but but yeah, he uh he wrote about the first two, and then we have the carpenter that wrote about the third one. That's the only reason why we know anything about it. And yeah, they published their books in 1593. The Mermaid Sea was now changed to the Barents Sea, and a number of whaling vessels were also rebuilt and christened with the name of Willem Barents. So there was even in the 60s, I think there was another like explorer ship, like a diesel-powered steel uh ship that they rechristened as the Willem Barents, and by 1873, a university was built for maritime investigation, named like the Willem Barents School of Marine whatever. So, like everything in that that whole Svalbard area, everything was being named after Barents. And if you do look around there, like you look up any towns and stuff like that. There's like Barents Road, there's Barents City Hall. It's like, yeah, this is the most famous guy that Svalbard can lay claim to, I guess. And I actually wouldn't mind seeing this in 1931. A play was written about the third voyage, but it was never performed.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:09

That would be a good topic for a play, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:13

Yeah, it would have been up there with like um what is it? Uh Morgenstrund Gildenstein. Uh, it's like a uh a take on Hamlet, where it's like the two main guards in Hamlet, they have their play where they don't realize that they're dead, but they're in Hamlet, and like they they're like they play parts in and out of the play, and all that kind of fun stuff. It's a more modern play, but it's just all it is, it's just these two guys, and that's all it is. And I think this play about the uh third expedition, I would actually watch or read a play, I would too like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:55

That'd be interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:57

And so, yeah, that is the story of trying to get to Asia using that northeastern passage and Willem Barents, yeah. And so now now I gotta ask the question again like, have you ever tried so hard to achieve something where you're willing to sacrifice so much only to later find out that the original task was virtually impossible or impractical?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:24

Yeah, like so in art school, I had the and I was like 18, so don't judge me. But I had a brilliant idea. I was um charged with making a dress or like a piece of clothing or something. Um, and for those of you who know me, I really hate sewing. So I had the brilliant idea of trying to make some sort of piece of clothing with duct tape, and then I tried to sew it together. I I got so frustrated and upset, I just went a different direction. So, yes, not on the scale of uh this, but I I could feel it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:10

Yeah, and that's a pretty good example. And and and I've done this too in past forward. When I was like a manager working in retail, like I would take on these projects and I would invest myself so much into like reworking this wall or setting up an end cap or trying to finish this this product move, and I would pour myself into it. One, not realizing I didn't have the foresight to see, like, this is stupid. Like, you're just wasting your time, Ed. Right? And it and I've done it in education where uh I think a lot of teachers do this where they spend all this time planning up this mega unit, only to find out that the standards change at the last minute and the whole thing is scrapped. Like, and and and then when you go back and look at it, you're like, there was no way this plan was gonna work to begin with. And it and it's one of those things like in your personal lives, like even if you're listening to this and you're 12 years old, you can look back at your life, like say when you were like seven, and you're like, there was no way that was gonna work. But when you're seven, you have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:22

You're like, I'm gonna make this Hot Wheels track go to the other side of the world, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:29

Yep. And then when you find out they only have like six feet of track, yeah. You're like, oh, okay. Well, I uh know my place in the world. On to the next thing. Well, and and and I and I think it's a very important dumpster fire to have in your life because I think that's the thing that gives you hindsight. Like, we see this with our students, right? We'll see a student want to try this project, like this art thing. You and I both know, like, there is no way this is gonna end up well. Like uh your art project's gonna fall apart, it's gonna collapse under its own weight, uh, you're gonna get clay everywhere, or wet clay everywhere. Uh, you're gonna get covered in paint, and the final product is gonna look like crap. You and I know that, but yet we also kind of let them do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:24

Because yes, it's gonna turn into a dumpster fire and they're gonna feel bad about it, but at least you're not stranding your men on an island for a year surrounded by polar bears.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:39

Yeah, the um the difficulty level is different.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:45

Well, and and the cost is is very different for us. It's you know, like$20-30 in paint and supplies, and we know like at the end of the day, the thing that the kids are gonna create is not gonna end up in the Louvre, it's not gonna be this masterpiece, it's gonna look like a mixture of a mug, a plate, a bowl, or an ashtray, like and what they were trying to make is a bird. You know, that's like we know that this isn't gonna end well, but then when they discover that little dumpster fire on their own, that's where you start building that hindsight that that you only get by going through stuff like this. Like, for example, could you imagine if Barent survived this and he made his way back and then he kind of put it together like there was no way this was gonna work? Or better yet, if he lived long enough to find out that even if he did get through the kerosene, there was still like another eight to ten thousand miles to go. Yeah, he is now in a position to go to other upcoming explorers and be like, guys, don't waste your time, try this instead. Right, and then what what you don't realize is that's how you actually move humanity along, is by understanding to have the wherewithal to know, like, I've been here, it's not gonna work. Try this rather than people trying the same dumb thing over and over and over again. All of Europe would have sunk themselves trying to get through that kerosene in in the 16th century, and nothing would have come about other than well, now we have these explorers that went out there and they're like, Yeah, don't do it. Yeah, but then it also causes a dilemma too, where you've got people that are like, Well, I like I want to prove the naysayers wrong, right? And and that's a tough one, right? Especially if you're young, you want to prove the adults wrong that you can do this, and uh and who knows, maybe you pull it off, maybe the technology, maybe the time is right, maybe you do make it succeed because now there's ships that go all over up there, uh, but those are like nuclear powered, they can be out for years at a time, they can break uh sheets of ice, so it's gonna happen, but hey, if it doesn't happen to you, it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:25

Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, you need to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:27

That's where hindsight comes from. So that that's kind of the message that I got from it. It like kind of like now you know that you cannot use duct tape to make an article of clothing. So, yeah, that's that's that's our story. I'm sticking to it, Nathaniel. That was a really good suggestion. So if you have an idea out there of future topics, send us your ideas to thedaysdumpier at gmail.com. Visit our website, uh thedaysdumpstafier.com. You can see our show notes, you can see Kara's artwork there. Uh, you can hit us up on Instagram. Uh, we have a presence on there now. We are working on. I know recently you put a uh poll on there for our listeners to figure out if they could guess what your upcoming episode is gonna be. If you're hearing this, by now you already know it's on Roanoke. Yeah, so you put like a really weird, vague picture on there like this drawing of a sailing ship. I'm like, like I even knew what the episode was gonna be about, and I couldn't even guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:44

It was a Spanish sailing ship. But I thought Roanuk was a British, yes, but the Spanish hermana's in the story.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:55

Oh, oh, got it, got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:57

I was planning on posting more as we went, but I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on it yet, so I was just gonna wait.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:04

But yeah, no, like uh please feel free to give us feedback. We love any and all feedback. Uh, the nice thing about not being like the Joe Rogan experience big is that we're actually capable of responding to most people. So yeah, if you want to hear from us, if you want to give us ideas that you know, especially constructive ones, don't say crazy things like, I like everything about the show except for the hosts. Cool. Why are you listening? But but no, if you have ideas out there, uh please don't hesitate to hit us up. Uh, do me a favor, tell your friends and family about this. I've been studying up on podcast marketing. It turns out that the fastest way to grow a podcast is through word of mouth. So if you are getting something from this, if you're getting educated, if you're laughing, if you're entertained, if you're crying, I hope we there's not too much of that going on. But if you are getting something from the show, spread the word on it. Uh, chances are if you're benefiting from it, somebody else will. And we want to build a community of dumpster firemen.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:16

We'll workshop that.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dumpster dumpster divers. That's better. Yeah, we're getting there. I want to come up with like a dumpster army type of thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:29

Okay. Yeah, we'll we'll figure that out. We'll workshop it. We'll come back.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:32

Yeah. It may be a poll on Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:36

We'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:37

So, yeah, go ahead, tell people about us, reach out to everybody, grab their phones, grab their computers, get them onto our website, and uh, you know, get them signed up. This is a great episode if you are a student studying history, whether in college or in high school or junior high or elementary school, and you want further ideas, or if you if we cover an idea that could play a part in whatever research you're doing, you know, perfect, perfect show for it. So if you know people that are equally interested in history and how things can go horribly wrong and how we can benefit from all that, whether at a global level or a personal level, yeah, put it out there. Get us signed up. So uh that's all I got. Did you have anything you wanted to add on?

SPEAKER_02 1:48:26

Uh just a tag along on that. Uh, don't forget to rate or review the podcasts on wherever you're listening to it, because that does help too.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:35

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and any and all reviews. I do know iTunes said that reviews don't help the algorithm at all to get spotted, but that's just iTunes. Uh, leaving a review just it it helps us at the bare minimum. Yeah, it just helps some stars. Yeah, yeah, it helps us to figure out what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong. Um, on a podcast that's all about doing things wrong, we do try to get it right. Leave a review, and um yeah, I guess in the uh until next time, keep it hot, mess. Bye.