The Alone Podcast-Episode 7-Megan Hanacek

This week I had the opportunity to talk with Megan Hanacek, a finalist from season 3 of the Alone show. Megan was incredibly fun to talk to and listen to, sharing stories from her 78 days on Alone, how quickly she went from applying to the show to being a contestant, what it was like for her family while she was away, and much more!

A sincere thank you to Megan for being willing to share her stories with me!

Transcript:

Sam 0:14

Hello and welcome to episode seven of the alone podcast. Before we get started with our guest today, I've got one quick piece of business to attend to again. So I've got another review from Apple podcasts to read off. And this one comes from Lima girl 11. And the review says, I love this podcast, I'm finding myself anxiously awaiting each new episode. All are very unique is Sam introduces us to the show contestants, I highly recommend this podcast series. So thank you, Lima girl 11. And I guess I have to admit, also, thank you to the alum podcast mom, for leaving that so that that review comes from my mom, but it still counts. I'm sure that even though she's my mom, she means every word that she says. So thank you, mom for for that review. Alright, well, we'll move into the show, and tonight's guest is from season three of alone. And we have Megan Hanna check on the line. So Megan, thank you so much for taking time out of your day away from your family to sit down and talk and share some of yourself with us.

Megan Hanacek 1:17

Yes, I'm excited to be here. Great. Well,

Sam 1:21

again, thank you for for coming on. And, you know, I guess we'll we'll just jump right in. So you live in a place that probably not many people that are listening to this show no have called Vancouver Island. Is that? That's right, right.

Megan Hanacek 1:35

That's correct. Yeah. And they may know a little bit more about it now because it was Season One, two and four of the alone show.

Sam 1:44

There you go. Not your season of alone. You were in Patagonia.

Megan Hanacek 1:47

That's correct. Yeah.

Sam 1:49

Did you did you know about the show before? Like, do you introduce to the show? Because it was on Vancouver Island? Or how, how did that play out?

Megan Hanacek 1:59

Yeah. And it's interesting, because I actually worked for the government when the first season came through. And part of the production crew had to get permits from our government, government agency of the Ministry of forests. So that's how I first about and it's funny how fast tracked it happened. And then within two years, I ended up being on the show, but down in Patagonia. But I remember the first time we heard about it, and we thought it was crazy. We thought it was crazy that people were going to go live out in the woods. And we're we live in Vancouver Island. There's black bears and cougars and the occasional grizzly bear that comes across. So yeah, it's that's how I was introduced to the show alone.

Sam 2:42

That's funny. And that's the last time you ever said something was crazy, right? Yes, that's true. Because then you end up right in the middle of it. Yeah. Well, so Megan, she again, so season three of alone. Vancouver Island. So Megan, you are a forester, a biologist? I think Mother is a title that that probably should be probably higher on that list than I put it. What else? What else? Are you in? Who else are you?

Megan Hanacek 3:10

Um, I'm a small business owner in a field where it's predominantly men, and I'm a wife, and I'm an outdoors person. And yeah, just really appreciate nature. And it's, it's interesting that we get to talk about this today, because the lawn show really was the culmination of a whole bunch of things in my life that came about in my life, just to be out in nature and to demonstrate my skills being an outdoors person. But the only thing that really conflicted with that was being a mom and a wife. That was really, that was the most trying thing for me.

Sam 3:45

Yeah, it's, it's, I can imagine. And obviously, you're the first first woman that's been on the show. That's not for lack of effort, I was starting to feel really self conscious, like, oh, man, like, I have to get someone to say yes, because this is gonna start looking bad. But I guess if I've got two or three out of the first 10, and I'm kind of on par with what the percentages and averages are. So I think we'll be good, but I was actually just watching watching some of your, your footage from the show, just to try and brush up and, and I just saw one of those moments where you were reflecting on your children and being away and, and I'm sure we'll talk about that in just a little bit. But there has to be a very interesting nuance on on a show like this or just really in the situation like that being so far away. And, and probably the lack of communication I can imagine it was was probably the worst part of it.

Megan Hanacek 4:32

Oh, yeah, it was like it was it was definitely something I had to really suppress. Like, I didn't even bring a picture of my kids and it's definitely not because I didn't want to bring a picture. I just knew that that would tear me apart. Look at my children. And luckily enough I had enough confidence my husband to walk away from a more normal life, but it was a really heavy burden for him to carry to he works full time as a professional and and some people may be surprised by this, but We didn't tell our children what was happening. My children at the time were six and nine. And we didn't want to put them in that difficult position of number one worrying what was happening to me. And you know, number two just having to hold information that contractually, we weren't allowed to share. And I think I was in a little bit of a more difficult situation, because I was in the position where Season Four was being filmed up in my area. So when I returned back from season three, Season Four was actually being filmed in the week back after season three, I actually ran into some of the production. In one of my hometown, it was very bizarre going from South America and then writing into the season for production crew grabbing a coffee in town. But yeah, very bizarre, very interesting. I'm glad I did it, it was a very, very unique experience to do. And it's, I don't think anything else compares with it, where you, you can look at the map of the earth on Google Earth, and sort of imagine going to a faraway place, but to just get dropped in there by other people. And you don't really understand where you're getting dropped. Because you don't have a map with you, you don't have your cell phone or GPS. You just dropped and you have to make the best bet.

Sam 6:17

That's a man we I've I want to kind of go backwards in history before we get in here. But you just what you just said was kind of interesting to me. I think I've always worked on the assumption that, that you would have had the opportunity to like study a map and like some aerial footage. So you at least have like an orientation of this is where I met. Did that not happen for you?

Megan Hanacek 6:37

Know, so the way it happened for me really quickly to with the show was I'd seen season one. And I'd seen two of two of the first shows of season two. And I had friends and colleagues say you should apply for this can up your alley. And I thought all this is crazy. So I did put my name in. And I got a call right away. And they said, production on a New York said, Hey, we've already picked our potentials for season three. So like they're flying to New York next week. So we don't we you know, it's already too late for that. But would you want to do season four? And at that point, they did? No, it was going to be a couple's and I said absolutely not the only person I can think of that would go as a couple with me would be my husband. And there was no way both of us would leave our children and my husband had no interest in doing. So I told them that flat out. I said, No, I'm sorry, I can't. So I guess I'm kind of out. And they said, okay, just wait a minute. And they called me back that day. And they said, well, we'll fit you in. So you're flying to New York next week. And I was bizarre, I had to find my husband and say, Okay, there's a bit of change. Of course, I like I'm flying to New York. Next

Sam 7:47

thing we kind of talked about.

Megan Hanacek 7:50

Right. And it happens so quickly, because my husband knew this mission, but we kind of thought nothing was going to happen right away. And then you know, within a day or two, it had changed to get ready, you're flying to New York and bring your knife that you usually use. And so I went to New York, and I there, I'm not sure if the other contestants have explained this, but it's a whole week of testing, you know, even to get an ECG, psychological testing, field testing, where they want to see what you can do in the woods with very limited items. And I came back from that after that week. And I said to my husband, I am not getting packed. Like these people, some of these people that are there out of the 20 were amazing. And Greg Evans was one of them, he blew me away the things that he could make in the bush were like a domino, crazy trigger trap system that will go on forever. Really a genius Bushcrafter but then sure enough, by the end of that we had it was five days later, they called me and said, Hey, do you want to go for season three? Because you're one of the potentials? And if so you're leaving in three weeks. And it just blew my mind because I was already of the mindset that you know, I'm not like I'm not as good of a Bushcrafter and I always try to under estimate my skills. So you know, this is a huge learning experience personally on so many levels about you know, under estimating yourself and then actually being put in that position and just trying to make the best of what you can do. But you know, often people will say to you No, well, if I did that show, I would gain 100 pounds. But when when you have three weeks to get ready and you're trying to get your 10 Best your items I worked until the day before I left and I had a family I had to line up a nanny to help my husband out because it was the summertime up here. It was winter down in South America. So it was that it was very stressful. And I managed to gain seven or eight pounds in three weeks. But it was hard for me my body naturally wasn't used to that. So that was leading up to my season of season three. And then just to walk away Leave your family behind and get on a helicopter and get dropped off in a spot that you haven't. So I knew about three weeks in advance that I'd be flying to bear a little chain in South America. But I had no idea where we landed in Bariloche. And someone picked us up and drove us took our cell phones and drove us for hours. So you can kind of orientate yourself by the sun, but you have no idea where you're going and you don't have a map.

Sam 10:24

And I showed me a production company was legit, because this is getting scary.

Megan Hanacek 10:29

Well, they spoke English when everyone else was speaking Spanish. So I kind of figured my way, odds were pretty good. It was a production company. But yeah, so no, you don't really end where you're stationed, you know, leading up to getting launched for the six days in advance is substantially different, like what reverse station there was rabbits and hares. And, you know, all of us were like, Oh, my gosh, this is gonna

Sam 10:51

be all excited, right?

Megan Hanacek 10:53

We're gonna be eating hair every night. But we actually flown up about 3000 feet into the Alpine and it was way different up there. I had one here. I caught in my traps a couple times and escaped. And that was the only hair I ever saw. And then there was some boars around in the middle of the night. And then they quickly laughed as soon as the snow fell. And then the fish started to really dwindle us as though weather changed as well.

Sam 11:18

I can tell you're a biologist. Oh, yeah. Because you're saying hair? Oh, yeah. Rabbit. Yeah, we're like bunny or? Yeah. Until you're a biologist. Yeah. Well, that's fascinating. Yeah, I just in my mind, I'd always envisioned that because like, for me, whenever I go somewhere, wherever we're going, you know, out for some any sort of adventure. I'm like, spending hours looking at maps and satellite images. And just, you know, I just want to know where I'm going. And I want to know where I'm at. And I want to understand more or less what the grounds gonna look like before I get there. So I can imagine that being dropped off with that level of confusion about where I am, that that would drive me insane. Just not knowing where I was what was around me. And yeah, that would be very difficult.

Megan Hanacek 12:07

There's a lot of uncertainty around just putting your hands or sorry, putting yourself in the hands of people that are just dropping you into an area. And you really, you know, it's like a, it's, it's a bit of an explorer role. And when I was a kid, I love you know, reading those books about people that would sail around the world and just go go out, to try to explore and make the best of their situation. And so that's, I think, in today's modern world, we're really lacking a lot of that. And that's often being met by things like video games, and then that's creating a further divide with nature, and you know, people how we live our regular life. So I do appreciate that we had that experience. It was. And I often wonder, you know, if I was in my mid 20s, it would have been different because I could have just walked away from my life a lot easier. But because I was in my 40s, my early 40s, I had a whole establish, like, I had a company, I had another job, I had a family, a young family husband, who was relying on me being a good wife. And then yeah, it was a different situation.

Sam 13:10

Yeah, that's, that's, that's a lot. You know, I want to take a second and I want to back like way, way up. And just kind of start as well with you. You mentioned some stuff to me before we started recording. And so I kind of want to back up to are you from Vancouver Island? Or is that where you just ended up?

Megan Hanacek 13:32

Um, so I was actually born in Toronto, Ontario, and my family migrated to British Columbia when I was a child like a baby. But stepping even further back from them, both my parents are immigrants. And my dad was actually an immigrant after the Second World War and spent time in a refugee camp for about a year and a half, and then emigrated as a preteen into Canada without speaking the language. And my mom was also an immigrant from Ireland, and she was an orphan her parents, she was a family of nine and her parents died when she was the she was the youngest of nine and her parents died when she was young, a young child. So I think in a way that kind of transferred to kind of my learnings as a child to like, just working through adversity and trying to make the best of situations but Anyways, long story short, yeah, I spend most of my time on Vancouver Island.

Sam 14:27

Gotcha. And so where did your dad immigrate to Canada from?

Megan Hanacek 14:33

I so they immigrated from Czechoslovakia into southern Ontario, and, you know, lived on a farm and worked their way up as immigrants to learn the language and, you know, come in, they left all their culture behind and from what I understand was kind of traumatically they just left they had holdings in Czechoslovakia and just kind of left in the middle of the night. And, you know, like a lot of immigrants after that time after the Second World War We're just looking for a better life, like a bit of stability for their family. And yeah, so that's where my dad immigrated to.

Sam 15:06

Did your grandparents ever go back to? I'm gonna I'm gonna have to be very careful. Czechoslovakia I want to say Slovakia because that's what it means. Yeah. But did your grandparents ever go back to Czechoslovakia? Or did they not have anything left there for them to see once they had made their transition?

Megan Hanacek 15:20

No, they never did go back and I, which is interesting because my grandmother still had her sister over there. So I imagined for her that was a pretty hard thing. Like she was close to her sister too. And she never went back. And I think they they did talk on the phone, but it was kind of like a totally different life for them after they move to a different country. And probably, I'm sure a little bit traumatic, you know, in some ways, they just started a new life in a different country. So probably didn't want to look back too much.

Sam 15:49

Gotcha. And then your mom, so was she orphaned in Ireland? Or did that happened after they had left?

Megan Hanacek 15:57

Yeah, in our in our lives. And she was the youngest. It was like her elder siblings raised her. And she emigrated as a young adult.

Sam 16:06

Okay, that was my next question is how, how did she end up in Canada? So it sounds like she had just had grown up a little bit and decided to move on our own.

Megan Hanacek 16:14

Yeah. Yeah, Canada is definitely a place for a lot of people immigrated to so we have a significant amount of First Nations still in Canada. And yeah, it's a really interesting time of evolution in Canada right now in terms of First Nation reconciliation, in conjunction with people that have immigrated to the country.

Sam 16:35

Is there? It's I guess, it's kind of an interesting interplay, right. I mean, obviously, United States, we're a country of immigrants. But how does that look in Canada, and you've got a lot of people that have immigrated, and then you've got these First Nations peoples? How, how was that reconciliation? Like, what does that looking like right now?

Megan Hanacek 16:54

Yeah, it's a really, it's evolving quickly. And, you know, I think there's a lot of it's a it's definitely an a transition right now, there are some treaties with First Nations. But there's, there's a lot of evolution in terms of how to do that reconciliation on the line, especially around the land base, because first nations have their territories, and a lot of it is intertwined with nature. And as we know that there's been impacts through developments and, and just how we've managed resources that interplay with those values, whether it's salmon, or wild game needs, just even forest cover. So it's definitely a thing. It's definitely evolving quickly. And I'm in British Columbia, where a large majority of British Columbia is unsettled treaty, like there's there's very few treaties compared to the rest of Canada. So it's, it's a really interesting time to be a biologist in the forest or in British Columbia.

Sam 17:55

And maybe you just said it, and I'm not smart enough to understand what you just said. But so for Alone, for example, on Vancouver Island, was that on provincial land, was it on First Nations land? Or since there were no treaties? Is there not like First Nations land?

Megan Hanacek 18:12

Well, there are some treaties, but not, not in the very specific place where alone Season One, two and four are located. So it was on Crown land, which was considered public land, and unceded territory, Where were those but I, from what I understand production, by by the Time Season Four came around, they had engaged with the local First Nations to talk about how it would work by having a production company in that territory.

Sam 18:43

So there was involvement.

Megan Hanacek 18:46

Yeah, and I wasn't involved in those discussions, but from what I understand, yeah, and they I think, even on season four, I think they showed a little bit of an episode of the show. They talked about the local First Nations. I don't think they did that in season one or two from what I remember. But I think by season four, they had done that.

Sam 19:04

I think on one of them, I remember there was a discussion of like, the the mittens that are in the area that they had to like, avoid, and I do so I do. Remember, there was some level of conversation. For those I mean, and correct me where I'm wrong begin, but since I use the term bid, and I believe that's basically like a trash dump, right? Where refuse and other things would be? Well, it's

Megan Hanacek 19:24

like a shell site. So often, what will distinguish a meeting on it? It's usually located near a beach. So it's a it's like a gathering place and where they would, a lot of the shells would end up accumulating. That's what a million is usually distinguished as. The thing about ARIA and thing about Season One, two, and four. That's interesting, too, is the first nation so we were glaciated in British Columbia except for a little chunk of Vancouver Island. And 14,000 years ago, those glaciers search retreat, and First Nations have been, they've had establishment In British Columbia for 14,000 years, which is one of the longest standing non establishment sites in North America. So it's a really interesting area that we live in and where I live, it's just got such such diversity and a lot of large predators still, which you don't get in North America. So we have black bears and cougars and wolves. And Grizzlies will swim over from mainland British Columbia sometimes. So it's just a very wild part of North America,

Sam 20:29

is there a resident population of Grizzlies that have stayed or is it all just transient they come and then go and then or is there

Megan Hanacek 20:35

a bit of a swim like some of the closer crossings, so between mainland British Columbia, which is about 97% of the land base, and BC, Vancouver Islands, about 3% of the land base, and between mainland BC in Vancouver Island, you'll have a scattering of hundreds of islands, so the Grizzlies will jump from island to island. But then they have to do a big swim in the closest spot is probably about four to five climbers across. And we it's usually the males that do those big swim, so they'll get pushed out of the valleys by the other males, or they'll be in search of a female. So we do have Grizzlies over here, right now. It's just a matter of if they're breeding. So that'll totally change everything if they start breeding and having offspring.

Sam 21:19

If, if they find like, if, when they see or when someone has a study of a grizzly? Do they try and find it and color it so they can capture data on what the heck that thing's doing?

Megan Hanacek 21:29

Is there so many? Yeah, there's, it's such a, you know, in British Columbia, we've got 96 million hectares is a very big land base with a lot of different dynamics with wildlife animals. So you could be studying an inventory and a whole bunch of different dynamics, but unless they start to, you know, get really close to urban areas. And that happened a couple years ago, to Grizzlies, I think there were siblings, female and a male, kind of unusual for the female to do a big swim. But they ended up on a small First Nations Island, where there's residents living over there, and it was a safety concern. So the male and the female were over there together, and they actually did tranquilize them, radio call of them and then they they helicopters over back to the mainland. But that's that those are huge costs to do that. And you know, just to and then to start tracking them. So unless it's a real concern, safety wise, for humans, it often doesn't happen or if it's a really concerted effort to get scientific information on a population.

Sam 22:33

So I guess that might be the difference between North America and Canada, right? I think we'd probably Oh, man, this is some these Grizzlies are doing a thing. Let's go, let's go call them and figure out what they're doing. But up there, like it's, they're just grizzly bears? What's the big deal?

Megan Hanacek 22:46

Yeah, there's different dynamics, I've seen the amount of money that gets spent on wildlife too. And, and also, you got to remember that your population is almost like, tenfold of Canada's right. So and we have a lot of public lands in British Columbia, you know, the majority of 95% of our land is public with quotes, and only 5% private, whereas in the States, it's, you know, there's more more land that's private. So there's different dynamics that play to.

Sam 23:16

Gotcha, that makes sense. So I mean, we're, since we're here, let's talk about you. You've got kind of an interesting bio. So biologist, you're a forester. So can you kind of go through what both of those mean to you? Sure. And, and how you got to where you are?

Megan Hanacek 23:33

Yeah, sure. So. So growing up, my dad was a biologist, and we grew up in a very heavily dependent forestry town, probably very much like, when I grew up in the 70s, and 80s, very much like the Pacific Northwest with a whole bunch of Horseshoe towns. So I kind of got, you know, I was influenced by both those dynamics for a nap. And I spent a lot of time outside, you know, my dad was a photographer, he had a photography business. And I did scuba diving and tons of Light campaign and all that stuff. So I became I actually became a professional biologist first. And there's about 2500 Professional biologists in British Columbia. It's a really dynamic bio diverse area of North America. So there's a lot of different values be managed. And then I actually did a lot of work in the States when I first started for the EPA, and looking at environmental pollution, and that's where I started and and then I ended up deciding that I was working with databases and GIS and I thought, oh, man, I want to spend more time outside. So I became a professional forester. And there's about 5500 Professional foresters in British Columbia. I think it's the largest concentration in North America. There's a lot of forest professionals and BC and those are both regulated professions and very much like doctors and lawyers. We have a code of ethics, education, discipline process, and a whole diversity of What that means in terms of working for environmental groups working for the government, working for industry? Yeah, so it's really interesting. It's a really interesting place to work in that in the world.

Sam 25:13

So as biologists like for me, when I think of biologist, right, I'm, I'm thinking of wildlife biology and someone who is studying some, you know, basically a life's career on a certain species or maybe on a certain type of biome or something, did you have a specialty? Or do you have a specialty as a biologist that you focus on? Or,

Megan Hanacek 25:31

um, well, I, I've kind of worked all over the place, I really, I feel that like, I'll work at places for about five years. And then I feel like I've interviewed as much as I can do. And I've also had my own company for 20 years a consulting company. And the beauty of having a consulting company is you can often take on a whole bunch of different contracts. So things are always interesting to you. So my specialty, when people think of biology, they often think marine biology, but my specialty is not marine biology. My specialty is more terrestrial, forest biology, and mostly centered around British Columbia, we have a lot of different they call them bio geo climatic zones. And within all those different zones, we have everything from a desert to Alpine and British Columbia, there's different species usually associated or transcend different biomes. And since I've done over 20 years in British Columbia, kind of I have different familiarity with different species and species at risk, and different strategies for managing around wildlife or whether it's coarse filter, you know, you set aside big trucks of forests, and you hope you encompass all the habitat and functionality, or all the way down to how do you manage around a nest site? Or about colony? So yeah, and I work sort of in the regulatory world now and the policy world. So how, how are laws mental evolve with new incorporation of science? And yeah, that's basically it's a really dynamic, interesting field always changing always, you know, different stakeholders involved. And in British Columbia, we have some really big policy changes happening this year. So it'll always continue to evolve. And you overlay that with climate change. And it just even makes it more interesting in terms of where projections are showing, for a certain a change in the next decade or two.

Sam 27:27

Yeah, so then. So it sounds like your work as a biologist and a forester. There are pretty intertwined. So what's the difference then, when you put your forest or cap on? I mean, again, for me, I'm, you know, I imagine Megan with a chainsaw when we say forester not Yeah, so tell me, tell me what, what that means.

Megan Hanacek 27:50

Well, they're both regulated professions and within so biologists I actually just interesting enough, just about a month ago, just for granted, right to practice, which means that they actually have a reserved rights practice in British Columbia, which is the first time anywhere in the world that's been given to biologists. So it means that if someone comes in, and is doing the work in a certain area around conservation, or preservation, and they don't, they're not under that regulatory body, that they they can't do that work. They you have to have the certain education, you have to sign up for that code of ethics standards of practice, have continuing education, to maintain your knowledge. So it's, it's defined what, what it means to be a forester and what it means to be a biologist. And my, my goal, like what I really do now is work with stakeholders and figure out how we are identifying values that need to be managed, and to try to maintain healthy populations. And sometimes that's involving having human influence. So doing some harvesting, or, and some of that harvesting may be for human uses. Or it may be because of climate change or wildfire. How do you go into an area after you know after a wildfire and reclaim that site to get it back to a healthy ecosystem?

Sam 29:12

Yeah, I'm glad you I'm glad you said wildfire. Because I I'm kind of a nerd. I like to I'm fascinated all sorts of things and and wildfire is one of those that I'm I'm very fascinated by. I think it's such an interesting dynamic that we get to live with. And I've got my opinions on on fire at I think, you know, if people pay attention to wildfire and wildfire theory, something that kind of rings true to me, I guess or something that is very interesting to me is the concept that as we do more fire suppression and you know, more suppressing of fires and then we can't keep up with the fuel work and everything else that needs to happen, you know, ahead of that. They were kind of making fires worse by not allowing the landscape to burn as it would without So yeah, we are in what's my like, you know, it's how do you solve the wildfire problem.

Megan Hanacek 30:07

And I'm not a wildfire expert, there are definitely people that dedicate their whole career to this and different segments, whether it's fire ecology, or how to manage for wildfire. So I will, I will give that disclaimer at the start. But I will say in British Columbia, one thing that's happened over the last 25 years is we are seeing a changing climate. So one thing that happened starting in the 90s, and I was involved in this as we started to see our mountain pine beetle population exploding. And usually we would have very cold winters in the interior of British Columbia. And we started to see that we were just having milder winters, we wouldn't have four weeks of a cold snap under, you know, under negative 10 to negative 20 to 30. It would just sort of hover cold, negative temperatures for a week, and then it would warm up. And our Nate it was a native beetle, but it exploded, excuse me exploded around the province, from the mid 90s for about the next 15 years, and it impacted more than 35% of the forest land base, so significantly impacted. And then when it ran out of lodgepole pine, it started going to other species as secondary host species. And so it killed a lot of the timber. And there was a lot of salvage and harvesting associated with trying to get that economic value off that timber to try to reclaim ecosystem function to reduce wildfire risk. And, you know, there's some debate about was that the appropriate level of harvest should maybe not all of that been harvested should more have been harvested. But we do have a lot of clear cuts throughout the interior of British Columbia after that. And we had a lot of dead we had a lot of dead trees and build up a fuel and and then now we're still getting a changing climate. We're getting very weird weather events, including the heat dome that sat off Vancouver Island this year and then traveled through British Columbia. But we've had very big wildfire events in 2008 2009 2017 2018 and 2021. In British Columbia, we have about 55 million hectares of forest land naturally forested land. And just in the last three of the last four summers, we've burnt about a million hectares. And when we

Sam 32:29

can you translate Hector's two acres like alright, yeah, know what that means?

Megan Hanacek 32:33

acres in a hectare? How many? So it's significant. So just over two acres and a hectare. And I forgot you guys deal with acres.

Sam 32:44

I mean, you know, like 90% of the listeners are from the United States. And then Australia. I see you, you're awesome. So Australia's coming in and tight for a second there. But yeah, most of us most of us speak acres.

Megan Hanacek 32:57

acres. Yeah, yeah, you'll have to excuse me on that one. So we've had really big events like millions of acres in these last couple of summers, and the frequency is just totally abnormal. So it's a whole, it's a whole community accumulation of like a whole bunch of different compounding effects, that one's changing climates, higher drought in the summer. And these heat events, and we had one one of those events, producing things like 70,000, uniques, lightning events, but they didn't all hit the ground. But when you get up to those big wildfire events, 70% of them are caused by lightning strikes. So you can imagine if you're not really letting these natural disturbance types, we call them in the interior British Columbia had very frequent fires, then if you're kind of suppressing them from happening for decades, they're gonna they're going to eventually take over because that's part of the natural ecosystem. So we're seeing a whole bunch of different effects happening at once, including the changing climate with these really abnormal events that are coming through and creating more lightning.

Sam 34:11

Yeah, it's so first of all, thank you for saying that because I I've just I've always really, like it's resonated with me that if you don't let fire burn, like something at some point has to consume what is on the landscape. And if you can't get all the fuels out, I mean, it's you know, you're asking to me it seems like you're asking for disaster but you talked about the kind of the weather events and the things that you're seeing up there I've noticed on on your Facebook page so again, at this point, I'm just going to own it doing what I'm doing I kind of have to be a Facebook stalker and I have to be very open and honest about the fact that my Facebook stalker, okay. So I've seen a few different posts on your page by late your your Facebook is the most interesting I think I've ever seen, and I think a lot of it is due to where you live. But you're talking about the weather and the kind of the changing patterns. I think I've seen two or three things where you've posted about it, what you call an incoming storm. I'm pretty sure that the rest of the world calls those hurricanes that at least that's what your Storms look like, when you like, you'll post Hey, there's a storm coming down. And it sure looks a heck of a lot like a hurricane. When you look at the, you know, the little the image of it, what is it? I mean, what is it like living up there? And what is the weather like and and those storms? I'm sure they're amazing when they finally Oh,

Megan Hanacek 35:34

yeah. So we've had and we see this in forestry there was, I may get the year wrong, but I think it was around 1908, we had mass of wind events off of Northern Vancouver Island, and they blew down 10s of 10s of 1000s of acres of land. The forest trees just snapped off because our you know, we we do get, excuse me, these wind events like our forests on the coast, that's sort of the disturbance type we get is more wind related events when you know abnormal winds come from a different direction and hit the trees. And there may be used to a westerly and they get an easterly storm that comes through the interior of BC is more prone to like fire. That's sort of their ecosystem and their and their tree species type. But we don't. So yeah, that kind of hurricane stuff that we're getting is not usual for us. We were not used to the hurricane answer, like those low pressure that was a record low pressure system that just had and apparently we're supposed to get another one this week. And I don't live right at the very tip of Vancouver Island. I was actually out there last weekend. But there are some wicked storms. And there's notoriously there's a lot of boats that have sunk off of the northern tip of Vancouver Island, because it does is just right open ocean right there. That's the Pacific and you know, sort of the next stop is Japan. So we do get some wicked advanced but what we're seeing now is abnormally unusual summer droughts. And we're in a rain forest. So it's very unusual and, and a lot of precipitation in the fall. So you get very dry soils, and then you get these very heavy rains were notorious for rain, but not like record rainfall events in 24 or 48 hours. And then we're getting landslides because the the ground is doesn't have time to our Yes, sort of gets saturated. And it just slides right off the bedrock is what we're seeing. And they're called Follow soil soil. So there's a lot of different cool dynamics that you learn about when you work in forestry and biology up here.

Sam 37:35

Yeah, I just was just thinking like, you know, this is a conversation that for me, just like personally, I could go on with with dirt forever, right? Yeah, he's just fascinating. Hopefully, hopefully, someone out there is is excited. As excited as I am about we're talking talking about dirt. And whether

Megan Hanacek 37:54

part of what drew me to say alone show is that, you know, I'm not a I'm not a bushcraft crafter, Greg Evans is a really close friend of mine, but he's a Bushcrafter. And but I am someone who's comfortable being in outdoors. And I love just learning about nature. And there's always something to learn a nature, whether it's about insects, or a different climate, or soils, or how do you use like the cambium of a tree bark? Or what can you do with wood? Or, you know, there's wildlife in this area? What do you learn about when fish feed? Like what time of the day are eating the season? What are they feeding on at different times of the season. So there's always something really cool about nature, you'll always learn something new. And in conjunction with that you always learn something about yourself as well. And I think that's really helped people. I think it's one of the tools to really build self confident confidence in humans or, and even my children, I think that's one of the ways you know, putting people in nature to really challenge themselves is the one of the ways to do that.

Sam 38:53

Cool. I was I was going to make a joke about your Facebook page, you said you're not a book Bushcrafter. So I wanted to mention that your Facebook is definitely lacking in friction fires, you should probably I think you need to, you're an alone participant, you need to have obligatory things. And I wrote an

Megan Hanacek 39:10

interview in New York. My final interview, I was in a room with four executive producers and they said, well, like do you know how to do a fiction fire and I know how to do it. I've done it before I have a boulder all here. But I basically said to them, like, Okay, I know how to do it, but like why the heck would I spend time in a rainforest? Learn how to do friction wire, like honestly, it's not gonna work. Like it's like, it's almost impossible to do it. So just based on the wood density and the amount of, you know, how, like 10 months of the year it's going to be wet wood. So anyway, they kind of laughed at that they also laughed, they said to me, you know, do you kind of wish that because I'd open the contract. I was like what the heck Patagonia? I thought it would be on Vancouver Island. And they asked me that they said, Oh, I bet you wish this you know was season three is on Vancouver Island. And I said actually I don't. Because if I don't win as I would never live that, so it kind of gave me an outlet for not winning.

Sam 40:10

Plus, I'm sure it'd be to me it'd be a lot harder to be, you know, 50 miles or whatever from from home, then it only be 5000 miles. Excuse me started math. Shoot, man, I could I could be home in two days if I really went for it.

Megan Hanacek 40:28

Totally. Yeah, that's true. So

Sam 40:31

you you before I before I sidetracked and went backwards to make fun of friction fires. You were talking about how you always learned something from nature? And how you know, with your children, that that's something you're trying to do with them? Can you talk about that a little bit like what what you've learned from nature, what it's taught, and maybe if you have a philosophy surrounding your children and and how you're exposing them and teaching them about the world we live in? And how healthy it is for us.

Megan Hanacek 41:00

Sure, yeah. So I will say that as a parent, I have the struggles to with kids that are being sucked into electronics, it's a constant struggle for us too. And what I find that I just have to make that extra effort to get my kids to go somewhere with me. And then once they kind of get over that hurdle of like, well, I don't feel like it. It's just easier to be home and be on my phone or iPad. They quickly redirect and you my husband, and I try to get them consumed with nature and some of the events we do. So we'll say and we are lucky, I will say one thing, we are lucky that we live in an area where we can drive 15 minutes and be able to sell service and be able to internet service. So that's kind of one of our saving graces is we can we kind of have a default that oh, sorry, there's no cell service here. So kind of helps us

Sam 41:51

turn the car around, it's ready to sell services at that tree.

Megan Hanacek 41:56

Yeah. But um, you know, I think it's just, I think as soon as the kids realize that we're having a good time, and whether we're out fishing, or like, well, fish from shore, go to the beach and explore, go camping. They quickly adapt to that. And, and then they I think I want those to be their memories as as a you know, as a child, I want it to be just consumed with electronics, which I think we're all struggling with us as parents, it's a really difficult thing. And I it does take some strategy to try to make these events happen to get our kids away from, you know, these really addictive video games. And, and it's, you know, I always before my children I had, sorry, before my husband, I had children, I remember seeing kids on, you know, little screens, and we're like, that idealistic parents will never do.

Sam 42:47

We're never doing that. And then it freaks out at the at the restaurant, he hears the

Megan Hanacek 42:53

two kids like, yeah, yeah. So um, anyways, we just really tried to integrate, especially on the weekends or at night, like we're lucky enough to, we have a forest patch by our house. So we'll walk the dogs through that. And I'll pick mushrooms with the kids, and they love doing that too. Or we had a Ravens nest in that same wooden hatch recently. So we go check that out. And yeah, I just think it's really important, important for my children to have that connection to earth. Whether wherever they end up living in the world, that they have an appreciation for the natural world, even if they end up living in a city that they can, you know, make that connection through parks or the outskirts of that city area.

Sam 43:37

Yeah, see, it's interesting. So we I live like smack dab in the middle of a city, you know, the full metro areas over a million people so I'm sure that your little spot on Vancouver's a little bit a little bit smaller than where I'm at. You know, and yesterday we were in the backyard, I took my bow out and you know, when I was shooting my long bow in the backyard and my daughter, you know, she was so excited that I was getting my bow out so she ran and grabbed her bow her little you know, suction cup bow and, and her little arrows and came up with me was super excited to shoot. And so we shot a couple of rounds. And I was trying to teach her a little bit you know, and, and I went to pick up my arrows and go back to where we could start shooting again and I turn around and she was already over somewhere else on she had commandeered someone's cell phone, you know, so we'd been out shooting in like, instantly we went from shooting and she was so excited to go shooting to then just like instantly she's, you know, on a phone and doing that, like, Man that that changed quickly. Yeah, but we did the same thing. We've got a garden in our backyard and all sorts of stuff. You know, so we've, our girls are always pulling worms out and we're trying to find ways to to keep them connected and to keep them you know, like for example, this last summer. My daughter found some snail shells right and she was So excited wanting to learn about them. And so we downloaded an app and tried to figure out which snails they were. And that didn't work. So we reached out to, you know, the local university that has a great biology department and, you know, built a friendship there. And so we try and do things. But it definitely takes effort. And it definitely takes work to, to teach your children especially if you live not, you know, if it's hard for you where you're at, I mean, yeah, much more challenging when, you know, we can drive 15 minutes and be in the mountains. But you're not away from people. You're not away from service. I mean, you're still basically in the city. You're just on a trail.

Megan Hanacek 45:39

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I you know, but there are ways to use electronics and apps and things on those electronics to like, you know, even like apps identify plants. And so there's, you know, it's, it's one of those things, I think he can't be binary, it's, it can't be, you know, none of that in your world, because our kids are going to have to learn how to deal with it. But it's, yeah, it's a challenge. It's a struggle. And it's something like you our generation never really had to contend with. I think first time I got a cell phone was my 20s. And it was a big clunky thing. You know, we get hot when you're on it for five minutes surfing

Sam 46:16

the page or in school, right? The cool kids? Teacher, yeah,

Megan Hanacek 46:19

I was like, Well, I was sort of the cool kids like the doctor.

Sam 46:23

It's got their, their pager so mom can tell him that she's on her way type of thing. That's funny. Well, so we let's kind of move forward a little bit. So we we've already kind of, we'll go back to where we were. So you had talked about your time on Alone, and, and you were talking about your husband and your children? You know, one of the things that that I'm most interested in when it comes to talking to people is hearing those experiences of the family or whoever else that was left, right. And so what was that like for your husband with two young children? And I'm, I'm thinking of myself, like, man, that that's a heck of a lot of work. It's a lot of work with two people. Well, let alone with me. No,

Megan Hanacek 47:04

and there wasn't really a lot of communication with production and those early seasons with families. So they've seen some prove that because it

Sam 47:11

was like checking in and saying, Hey, Megan's Yeah. My husband

Megan Hanacek 47:16

would maybe send an email. Yeah, exactly. It's funny. And he's, you know, is really independent. But you know, every three weeks, we just send an email, and there'd be no response. So, you know, and then so they've improved, I think they do check ins with families once a week now, it's sort of kind of like no news is good news. But like, it was really like, like I said, We'd only seen the first season of alone, we haven't seen all of season two. I think when I was out there, my, my husband saw the rest of season two, but you know, we you kind of don't know what you're getting into, in a lot of ways. Like you're like, Okay, season one, I'm only went 50 days, I can do 50 Something days, I can do it. But our season went so long, like we went, you know, another 50% longer than the season I've seen, like

Sam 47:58

$1 was what like 76, I think

Megan Hanacek 48:00

I went 78 days and taller when 87 days. So it's a long time, like three months. And then plus you're there before the production for about a week. And then they hold you for about five days after. Yeah, I was like, by the time I flew back through Brazil, I was on I was actually my visa was expiring in the air. I almost didn't get on my flight back to the state because I was at day 89. And they pulled me aside and actually held me for a couple hours because they said we don't know if you can fly because your visa actually expires at day 90 And you'll be in the air to Atlanta. So I had to call production and get that sorted. But I almost didn't make that flight to like. So there's all these behind the scenes things that happen. And yeah, I would say we've kind of somewhat joked but if they were to do like a split screen of what I was doing, and then my husband's at home trying to manage the household. So and I'm a pretty like low key person. So I wasn't the most dramatic person on TV. But I would almost say like what was happening for him was probably a lot more interesting. For me. You know, people would stop him because we live in a small town and for me to be gone for months is kind of unusual. And we haven't told anyone and then he doesn't want him back. He's worried about me. And people are stalking you.

Sam 49:26

Are you making him in the grocery store?

Megan Hanacek 49:30

Yeah, like I actually had a couple co workers show up at my house. I found this out later. And they said where is she like one of my close friends like call her? Well, they have they had a meeting like I guess they had a meeting at the workplace and said like, Do you know where she is? Like how well do you know Megan's husband like Tyson? How old you one of them showed up at the house and he kind of made light of it like, she's fine. Like just don't go check the back. And they're like, No, seriously, where is she?

Sam 49:58

How long had Have you have? How long have you been married at that point in time?

Megan Hanacek 50:05

Um, we have been married 10, nine and a half years.

Sam 50:10

Okay. And is he from a see from the islanders? He from somewhere else? Yeah,

Megan Hanacek 50:15

he's from a small town. We didn't grow up together. But we're from the same area we'd met in our 20s. So at least we kind of grew up in the same sort of lifestyle at the north end of the island.

Sam 50:28

And that that probably helps to I'm just imagining, oh, yeah, that in a small town, that's a really like, I'm surprised there wasn't some sort of official investigation into your husband, where there

Megan Hanacek 50:37

was a lot of room rumors, you know, how small towns are some of them? quite bizarre. But

Sam 50:41

can you show can you share the best rumor of what happened to Megan?

Megan Hanacek 50:45

Oh, I think there was one that maybe she's well, there was a couple actually, there was one. You know, maybe she is in the CIA was one of them. The other one was, I think she's working on some, because my husband and I worked in the polar regions in Arctic and Antarctica before. So we've done some kind of neat things. We've been on all seven continents. But there was another rumor I was involved with. I think at some point, they discovered some explorers boat in the Arctic, and someone seemed to think I was on some expedition. I don't even know how that one got started. I was on some expedition as a biologist involved in that.

Sam 51:21

I will say this, it says a lot about your character when when the the juiciest rumors that your town can come up with is that you are on an Arctic exploration looking for a shipwreck that was found? That's cool. Yeah.

Megan Hanacek 51:37

Or something? Yeah, yeah. I know. Or that, you know, and then, of course, people are like, Well, does she just like, What else does she does she just let like, she just leaves her town or hometown. She's been for decades. And she's just had enough like, but I think I think the one that yeah, the most feasible ones was that I was doing some type of research. So

Sam 51:59

yeah, that's funny. Um, so I mean, what was it? Like, I guess, you know, how did your husband handle it? Like, when he when you came home? Did he just like, pass out and take a nap for a month? Or?

Megan Hanacek 52:10

Um, no, he was my husband's great, he was really supportive. And it was such a big recovery process, because we didn't have a refeeding process. Just, you know, it's, in some ways, it's like you do a like, there was a lot of beneficial things, but in some ways, you are doing quite a bit of trauma to your body, right? Whether it's suppressing these emotions, that you miss your family, you can't tell anyone to actually, you know, the turmoil of like, going through a lot of starvation and nutrient deficiencies and mineral deficiencies. So there is some recovery. And it's something you know, they do have psychologists they serve bring a psychologist in after our season, actually, with one of the contestants that were starving quite a bit and but you know, even, like, just even talking to other people, like the best bonding that happened was with the other contestants that went around the same timeframe that you and that was, by far, many of us have really bonded over having gone through such a unique experience, and then making a TV show about it. And then not actually seeing the footage until everyone else in the world is watching it at the same time as you. So our season, I think it was like at that point in time, every episode, it was about 2 million people were watching at a point in time. But by the time it was like spread throughout the world, it's 10s of millions of people. And I think it was like during COVID When they finally did when they declared the world emergency the World Health Organization that Friday, I got 800 friend requests that first night and the second night I had like another 700 friend requests on Facebook. It was like all of a sudden people were like reached out to anyone who had gone through survival situations before. It was so bizarre like it was like what is happening? Have

Sam 54:01

you seen my Facebook? I don't have a single friction fryer. Go to someone else.

Megan Hanacek 54:05

Exactly. Yeah, I have gone through starvation, though. So yeah, yeah, get high fat food. That's what I recommend. Stockpile not toilet paper. Go after high fat fair. Forget the toilet paper. Don't worry about that. That's way down.

Sam 54:22

That's funny. So I mean, your kids, how was it? Like I mean, if you if you bet it's personal, right? So if you want to skip when you when you came back and and you saw your kids again, and when they saw you and then all of a sudden they see mom on TV and what was what was that? Like? What was that whole? I mean, there's just so much there.

Megan Hanacek 54:43

Well, I think they're pretty young. And they've done a couple of events with me too. And it's not like I'm just Mom Right? I think maybe when they're later in life, they might look back at that and be like holy that was really really different. Um, but you know, My son's a preteen now my daughter's just just coming into the teen years. So it's kind of like, it's I think maybe later in life, they might look at that and be like, oh, yeah, that's really unusual. Like, it's kind of neat to like a lot of moms don't do that. But we haven't like we have a we have a really busy life, like my husband's professional, I'm a professional. We have a whole bunch of other things going on in life. And I have been asked to be on the show again. But it just, you know, for me, that was a huge chunk of my children's life. Like maybe when they're older, I might do something like that again. But for me, I just have a different party set of what's going on in real life right now. So it comes up all the time. Like, I think I mentioned to you before we started talking, it comes up a lot, like I've been recognized before in pool stone Island, and I've had to get all the pool and get my picture taken with someone in my suit, which is super bizarre. And my kids are just kind of like, oh, man, but to them. I'm just mom. Right? So it's not really there are some inside jokes that we make fun of like things sometimes, like when I was on, I didn't make it to the final show on season three. And you know, there was polls like and because of the editing, they try to keep everyone guessing who's going to win. I think at one point I was in the lead because I caught quite a bit of fish in that last week I was there. I'd kept some role and caught the male fish after that rainstorm. But um, after I left, I had a bit of a troll who called me a tapper outer. She's just the top router. So in our family, that's a bit of a joke, like, Oh, you're just a tapper. So there's little things there. It's intertwined in our life still. Yeah, it's, it's yeah, it was very unique experience. And they were even on TV when they showed the family before I left. So that's kind of neat. You people have mentioned it to them, or you're on TV. But yeah,

Sam 56:54

it's funny. So we're talking over we had, so for everyone else will will kind of reveal. We'll go past the fourth wall here. We went back and forth on how we were going to record this phone call in this conversation. And so we ended up being on Zoom. And so we can see each other but and I just want to comment that as you're talking about these experiences, and you just were reminiscing over that time, you and correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have a look of fondness on your face, as you're thinking back to the fish cod. And as you're thinking back to that experience, yeah, am I am I wrong, or

Megan Hanacek 57:30

I, this experience is such a like, like I it's kind of a weird thing to call it, but like a complicated thing. And there's so many layers to it. Like it's not only that, it's a very unique experience, if you were to pay for an experience where someone says I'm going to take you around the world, just show up at a place you don't know exactly we're going to go in, you're going to have a crazy experience, we have to demonstrate all your skills in an environment you've never been in, just based on your knowledge and your ability to adapt and self soothe yourself through different events and, and leave your whole life behind. So there's that but then there's also the experience of like, you're going to be starving, you're going to you're going to go further and further into decline. I don't know Well, yeah, a couple of guys in the later seasons have done really well in terms of gaining gaining big game. But most people have like you start depleting your body resources. And the weather always gets worse. That's how they time the seasons. But then you have to film everything and you're by yourself and you have to do multiple camera shots all the time in the daylight and even some at night. You have to record everything. So you know and then you have to come home and and you don't get to see how it's edited. And I you know, they were pretty truthful with the editing, but you're watching it when everyone else is watching. Like when they showed me shaving my legs. I was like, yeah, like they had 800 hours of footage of me and they showed me for an hour. And you know, you just forget about something like I had forgotten like that was like months. That was six. It was about three months after that they showed it and a

Sam 59:05

long time showing you shaving your legs with that knife. You had that bowie knife. Yeah, it just

Megan Hanacek 59:11

you're like, did that because I did like 200 other traps on land and but no one you know, and people always say we want to focus on the skills but in all honesty, they want to see like the other parts too. Like no one wants to just see a strictly bushcraft show. Yeah, so it's a really it's a very complicated something that i is really deep within my psyche, like and I noticed for the other contestants have gone a long time. It's just and it is life changing. Like it did change parts of me when I came back to my regular life in terms of how in the context of you know, be maybe in a contestant with other contestants in a very similar situation around a lake and you start to view yourself in the context of Oh, that's weird. I approach it that way but Kelly He was right beside me down the lake approached it differently. So you search even question how you approach things in life? And if there's different angles of approaching things. And I think you start to question just your priorities in life and where you want to spend your time and what is important in your life. Like, for me, it's about my relationships by family, and just really spending my time on things that I want to spend my time on. And, and that I know, deep down that no matter what happens, if I'm going to make a decision, we all are bound by monetary restraints and you know, getting a shelter over us for our family and getting food and dealing with stresses of life. But I just know, after going through something like that, like, like, nothing can be as hard as doing something like that. We're locked into a situation and you need to just come up with a plan and make it work. And I've gone through that. So I know that no matter what happens, I have a bit of that confidence that I can make things work that yeah, it might be hard and stressful, but I'll get through it.

Sam 1:01:04

And, and obviously, you you would have had some physical ramifications right from from the show that I'm sure of have. Yeah, lasted from persisted for a long time. Did you have any, like, emotional challenges? I guess, when you came back? Was it was it a struggle for you to kind of reintegrate back into society and family life and I can't imagine, you know, being out for that long. And in such a primal state, they are coming home, and especially coming home to, you know, the, the rat race that is young children and all of that. What was that? Like?

Megan Hanacek 1:01:42

Yeah, it was because you actually do use different parts, you know, the cortex, like when you're in a survival state, it's a different type of like how your brain operates, even, it's more of a permanent way of thinking. And then just trying to get back into the regular routine of, you know, just that sort of structure that's outside of that permanent way. Yeah, did take some time. And luckily, I do have support around me and like, including my family and husband and my kids were great. But it did take a while to integrate. And I know many of the other contestants from our season three, it took like a good year, like even a couple of years to kind of wrap your head around going through such a big thing. Such a really unique experience and being on TV, all of it and none of us had preparation for like how people were going to troll us on social media. And the interesting thing about the long contestants just talking to the psychologist who was involved with our group after is because she was involved at the front end to is they do tests and the majority of the people that had been on a long enough to last season and I would say on on the seasons after that are introverts like heavily introverted, I'd say I'm sort of an you know, an ambivert, but kind of skewed towards introverts, and then all of a sudden, you're just filming everything about your life, in this little world of your own, we're out there in the middle of the woods, where it's like very introverted, and then it's blasted around the world for everyone to critique and it's edited to just show a small portion of what you've done out there or your fumbles, or the drama or me crying and you know, so all of a sudden, you're into that world of social media. So it was a really big learning experience about how to handle that too. Because we had no there was no guidelines. And there was a lot of troll like that I had someone that thought I was getting my hair colored out there because I was 41 and I didn't have great I thought matter if I like that's the least of the things I bought brought me I want hamburgers brought to me not some hair. So just weird things, you know, and it just makes you realize like, like in all honesty, what a bit of a mass social medias and how it's really influenced by society. There's good things about social media, but it just really makes you realize like there is an I've been very cognizant with my teenagers, just around social media use because there's a lot of unfettered, negative stuff happening on social media as well.

Sam 1:04:11

Yeah, I can't remember if I had shared this on one of the earlier episodes of the show, or if I just I don't I don't remember if I talked about this or not. But for me, I hadn't used social media for like five years, right? And then I had this crazy idea to start and I'm a pretty happy go lucky. Like, it's pretty hard to get me down type of an individual. And so I can use social media in years, and then I have this crazy idea. I'm going to start a podcast, right? It just that's not that's not what I do. And, you know, if I want people to listen to the work that I'm producing and hear your stories, and you know, social media kind of becomes a requirement there. And you know, I I'd been back on social media for like two days. Just you know, promoting the podcast and trying to get, you know, get in touch with people from the show. And I started find myself getting super depressed. And like, man, if you know if it's doing this to me after two days, I can't imagine like, it makes sense why there's so many struggles for a lot of people's because, I mean, it's just a cesspool of sadness and depression and anger and echo chamber. And, you know, I can't imagine having that then pointed in your direction, because of whatever, you know, you walk past something on a show or, you know, it took you three strikes to light a fire as opposed to one or whatever, you know.

Megan Hanacek 1:05:41

Yeah. And, and I will say, our season like the three women did very well, we came in the top five. And it's interesting, you start to, you know, because I've been a male dominated profession for decades, and like, you know, it's in terms of force professionals, about 15% are female, but we actually start looking at the whole industry, like the logging truck drivers, the followers, the people in count, it's about 95% male, so kind of, I kind of have always just, like, disregarded it, but we start to realize systemically to just how constructs are made. And like just even though the females doing so well, on season three, you know, all of a sudden, people are disregarding that and saying, Oh, they must have had help, or, you know, they had the easier sides, or just anything to disregard how difficult it was for us to, and it was difficult, like I like I lost, you know, I was down to 101 pounds. And when I got out, because I was given just regular food, I went down to 94 pounds, like I, my body went through a lot. And you know, just to and then obviously, you're up against that, but just because you're female, and I've proven myself for decades already in a male dominated field field, but then you're thrown into the world of social media. And it's like, oh, man, now now I'm faced with this, like, all of a sudden, I'm kind of thrown to the wolves and people and then and then you start to be like, Why do I even care, I don't even know this person. But it does start to, you know, it hurts to grind on you, because the men weren't getting that same type of critique. And, you know, some of the other women would jump in from our season, we try to support each other and jump on posts, and then it's just becomes this all consuming thing where you're just trying to fight something that shouldn't really exist. Like it just, yeah, that was a difference for us as females and doing so well, in our season. And, you know, I think all of us just wait for the day for females when it'll happen, too. And I think that day is coming very quickly. So I don't know if that'll make a difference. But I think, yeah, and just even the debates, like recent debates have been like, we'd like to see a season of alone, just with all females. And, you know, and then the whole debate about that, the merits of having that or like, not having that. And I actually think it should be more about debates about having people have the same body, like same body mass index, or not having same percentage of body fat, because I think that is the really big determinant. It was in the early seasons. Anyways, it was, you know, we look at actually what was caught in terms of game, and who ended up placing very well, that had extra body fat, it was a huge benefit to have that. Anyways, I didn't grasp.

Sam 1:08:22

No, I was just thinking if if Alone goes to a weight class system, like professional fighting will know that yeah, Megan gets the credit.

Megan Hanacek 1:08:30

Well, I don't think I was the only one that ever said that.

Sam 1:08:35

There's a heavyweight champion every year there's a lightweight champion every year. So I guess have you Does that kind of I don't even know how to describe it. Does that disrespect? Does that still get to you? Or have you found a way and found a place where you're able to kind of look over it and see small minded people for small minded people and live

Megan Hanacek 1:09:00

I think it doesn't bother me and I think it would it did make me realize so in my career is it made me realize some things about my profession that I had just sort of chosen to ignore that I'll just tolerate that sort of thing but it made me starting to realize that there are some systemic things that why should I have to tolerate this as a female? If I was male, I wouldn't have to tolerate what's happening in the situation so it did make me reflect on that that you know, that disregard for females and that type of situation and undermining of of humans just because there are certain sacks it made me reflect on my regular life and actually just have a low tolerance for that BS and start to question things and actually call things out when they happen.

Sam 1:09:51

That's cool. So them so people online trying to tear you down, if actually made you stronger, and they

Megan Hanacek 1:09:59

just made me actually be like, You know what? No, this is not great. And I'm not going to get into it on social media, because I think that's just a bit of a, you know, you're just gonna end up down a rabbit hole. But in my real life, I will address these things because they are really important on social media. It's one thing, I don't care what that person thinks about me that lives down in, you know, Tampa, Florida that was sitting in there

Sam 1:10:21

that says they live in Tampa, Florida,

Megan Hanacek 1:10:25

or wherever it is, but um, yeah, but in my real life is like, you know, what I've, and I think that comes with confidence, just having gone through something so hard, and proven myself that you, you do have that foundation of like, no, just wait a minute. I'm not going to tolerate that. And I'll question that. And I'll challenge that, because I agree in equality and fairness. And if people work hard, they should be compensated for that.

Sam 1:10:55

And that's great. No, that's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. And, and I'm glad that I even had to describe it as I'm glad that that was able to turn into something positive for you, and that you've been able to take that and, and not find your voice because I You seem like someone who's kind of always had that voice. But maybe realize that there were places that that that voice needed to be exerted right, for yourself. But I think something I've seen you talk about, and I think that we talked about a little bit offline is that now you're trying to use that voice to, for example, to bring more women into forestry and to kind of level that playing field. And so it's, it's cool that that's working for good.

Megan Hanacek 1:11:36

Yeah, I would agree. So

Sam 1:11:38

well, Megan, thank you so much. This has been so fun. It was funny. I was talking to someone earlier, and, and they were mentioning how excited they were for a conversation that I was having. And I was like, you know, this guy told us like basically, I'm doing this selfishly, right. Like for me, I love talking to people and I love getting to know people and hearing their stories and, and you know, I guess fulfilling my nerdy thoughts on fires and all sorts of just weird stuff. So for me, this is just totally, it's just fun. Right? This is just straight fun. So thank you so much for taking time. And before we wrap up, I just want to first of all, do you want people to find you anywhere? And if you do want people to find you anywhere? Where can they find you? Or if you prefer people don't find you? We can skip that too.

Megan Hanacek 1:12:27

Yeah, maybe don't come to my hometown and try to find me. But, um, yeah, on Facebook, and I have I'm on other social media, I've had a couple get hacked. And I know a couple other along contestants have had the same thing. So Facebook is where I'm most active in terms of posts and what I'm up to and, and I have done courses in the past. I'm pretty busy with other professional work right now. But Carly and Greg and I did a course that I organized in my hometown. And we may do a few of those in the future coming up as well. So that was that's where I would advertise it.

Sam 1:13:00

Okay, so Facebook, Megan Hannah check.

Megan Hanacek 1:13:04

Yeah, that's right. Well,

Sam 1:13:06

we'll link that and and is there anything else I guess, before we wrap up that you want to share or anything that that you need to set me straight on? Or just any now or close?

Megan Hanacek 1:13:19

Yeah, I listened to the for the first couple of podcasts from you. And I think it's great. I look forward to listening to all of them. Because it's also a learning experience for me too. And, you know, in relationship to my own experience. So I think it's a great idea for a podcast, and I think, yeah, it'll, it'll be interesting to listen to. I hope you get all the contestants one day, because it'll be very interesting.

Sam 1:13:40

Hey, if you guys are out there, I, you know, especially those of you who are hard to find and who have gone back to nature. Yeah, look me up. But no, I appreciate you saying that. And I know we're trying to wrap up. But, you know, this, for me kind of started on is just kind of a random thing. I shared this with one of their contestants, I think it was with Jose or someone just you know how I had watched the end of one of the seasons, the last season, I was like, You know what I should do? But it's really kind of turned into something much more than kind of a harebrained idea for me, because as I've spoken and hearing you say how how much you appreciate it, you know, realizing that there is something here, right, and to hear that it's meaningful to you who've experienced this is really meaningful to me. And it makes me realize that this is turning into more of something for me than I really thought it would. So thank you for your kind words. I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming on the show. I look forward to just seeing what you do in the future. For those of you that do track Megan, down on Facebook, you can look forward to seeing such things as hurricanes that apparently aren't hurricanes. ships that are on fire. And like

Megan Hanacek 1:14:54

wild, wild animals. I have a lot of I've had 13 run ins with cougars and yeah, there's lots of cool staffing was part of where Season One, two and four were filmed. And I just I'm just lucky enough to be able to live it every day of my life up here.

Sam 1:15:09

Yeah. So if you're if you're looking for something positive in well, it's not all positive but something interesting, at least that isn't people fighting. Megan's a great place for that. So Megan, again, thank you so much for your time. I will let you get back to your family and look forward to seeing what happens in the future. So take care and have a good night. Thanks, Sam.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:27

Bye