#1395 - Glenn Villeneuve

Joe Rogan (0:02)

Boom, here we go, what's up, Glenn? How are you, man?

Glenn Villeneuve (0:05)

Hey, Joe.

Joe Rogan (0:05)

Nice to meet you, in person.

Glenn Villeneuve (0:07)

Good to come down here, good to meet you.

Joe Rogan (0:09)

Dude, you're one of my favorite characters on that show. It was always weird watching you. For people who don't know, Life Below Zero, it's this crazy show where people live, you know, in this very rugged terrain.

And you, you had the most interesting life, because you, when you would live up at the cabin, you would live by yourself. Just you, in a very small room, just hunting all your food and hiking around. You didn't use any vehicles, and you just kind of had a rifle and a frying pan and a pot and a place to sleep. And you seemed really happy up there.

Glenn Villeneuve (0:48)

Oh yeah, I'm having a good time. I just wanted to strip everything away that I could dispense with, you know.

I got the idea, I wanted to go back to living like a hunter-gatherer. Back in 97, I just got this idea. I was actually living in a tent in the woods down in Vermont, having such a good time. I thought, where could I go with this? What could I do with this kind of lifestyle?

And I decided to move to the Brooks Range of Alaska.

Joe Rogan (1:09)

What was it like, so what made you go live in a tent in the first place?

Glenn Villeneuve (1:15)

I just always liked the outdoors. I just loved nature. And you know, I was doing other things too, but there was this one summer when I was in my 20s, when I found this really cool spot in the woods, and I thought, hey, I'll set up a teepee over there and I'll just hang out there this summer as much as I can. And I just had a great time. So I started thinking more about, you know, instead of just living in the woods kind of as a recreational thing, I started thinking about, hey, how could you actually make a life living like this? You know, get up every morning with the animals around, the sky, the water.

I started thinking about it. I started reading anthropological stuff about hunter-gatherers that summer.

And I started getting ideas.

And it took me seven years to make it to the Brooks Range and to get out to that lake that you've seen on TV and to actually start living that way. It took me a few years just to organize my life enough to move up to Alaska. And then once I got to Alaska, I was kind of in Fairbanks for about four years before I could really spend long periods of time in the wilderness. But once I got it all arranged, I just drove up the Hall Road, which is this industrial road that goes up to the North Slope Oil Fields. It's very, very unimproved in areas, just gravel road for hundreds of miles. I drove about 300 miles north of Fairbanks. I parked my van and I walked 60 miles off of that road by myself out into the wilderness and started figuring out how to live off the land.

Joe Rogan (2:39)

How did you know where to go?

Glenn Villeneuve (2:40)

Oh, I had found the spot a few years before.

I had actually found that lake flying around in a little bush plane. Because part of my plan originally, when I formulated this idea back in Vermont, I thought, I'll become a bush pilot. That'll be a thing I can do in Alaska. So I was thinking about starting an air taxi service. I had been studying flying for a few years. As soon as I got my private license, I jumped in the plane and flew to Alaska. But then when I got up there, I was getting my commercial and all that. And in the meantime, as much as I could, I'd go out and explore, look around. And I discovered this lake one day when I was flying across part of the Brooks Range.

And I set up a little tent camp there that summer, 2000 But it took me another four years before I could actually walk out there and start living.

Joe Rogan (3:26)

60 miles walking. That's a long fucking way.

Glenn Villeneuve (3:31)

Hey, I walked the length of Vermont when I was 13 years old. I walked from Massachusetts to Canada. But the difference is when you're-

Yeah, I actually started when I was 12, gave up, and the next... I was with my uncle. We went for about a week. And then the next summer, I convinced my mom to drive me back down and drop me off alone where we had given up the year before.