What I Saw in My Room | Campfire Stories with MrBallen

**MrBallen** (0:20)
Alright, we are here at this amazing campfire in Montana. I've never been to Montana, but I'm excited to be here tonight with my friend, Steve Rinella, who is the founder of MeatEater. He's one of the most well-known people in hunting and outdoorsmanship. I mean, you're sort of like the face of Montana in my mind.

**Steven Rinella** (0:39)
Oh, well.

**MrBallen** (0:40)
When I was coming out here and I began Googling Steve Rinella.

**Steven Rinella** (0:43)
Via Michigan.

**MrBallen** (0:44)
You know, but no, I have the pleasure today of coming out here and joining you on your show this morning, so thank you for that.
And so tonight, what we're going to do is I asked Steve to come out here into sort of the middle of nowhere. We're at the Lone Mountain Ranch in Montana. We're out at Campfire here and we're going to hopefully swap some stories. I got a good one for you tonight. But Steve, thank you for being here tonight.

**Steven Rinella** (1:08)
Thanks. I'm excited to hear the story, especially because I understand it's a local-ish.

**MrBallen** (1:15)
It's sort of local-ish. We originally, we had planned a couple of stories that were sort of geared towards Montana because we're in Montana, of course.
But I was thinking about it and my team is probably going to know this is going to happen. I have a habit of throwing in extra stories at the end. I'll probably get to those, but there's actually another story that I've been waiting to do again, that I thought would be very apropos for a campfire setting. Actually, before we even get into that, and I'll tell you why, I think it's great for tonight. So you are someone in virtue of being the hunter, the outdoorsman, the conservationist, you spent so much time out in the wild. You were what, just in Alaska for the last two weeks. Some of the stories that you just anecdotally throwed out included, he recently had been, what did you call it, with narwhal oil? You were, what were you doing to do?

**Steven Rinella** (2:07)
I had occasion to render some narwhal oil.

**MrBallen** (2:09)
He's rendering narwhal oil as one does. In my life, I do that frequently. But no, in your experience, spending so much time outdoors, and in our podcast this morning, you described it as your peaceful place, being out in the wild.
But considering my domain ends up being more strange, dark, and mysterious, I'm curious in your life, has there ever been a time when you're out in the wilds, out in the forest, whatever, in Alaska, doing your narwhal thing, where something just felt off, something felt creepy, doesn't need to be outright paranormal or even hinting towards it. It's some experience where you're like, got one.

**Steven Rinella** (2:45)
But there's been scary instances, like fractions of second scare. But the most scary, prolonged thing that happened was a group of us were camping in different tents.

**MrBallen** (2:59)
Where was this?

**Steven Rinella** (3:00)
This is in Alaska.

**MrBallen** (3:01)
Of course.

**Steven Rinella** (3:02)
Unbeknownst to me, one of my companions, a woman had went down to get water from the creek, but got very lost in the dark.

**MrBallen** (3:12)
Oh boy.

**Steven Rinella** (3:13)
So to wake up and hear off in the distance, a screaming woman.

**MrBallen** (3:22)
Oh boy.

**Steven Rinella** (3:23)
Then the moments before it was put together, that Jennifer was not in her tent, and in fact, it was her, because we're nine miles from a road.

**MrBallen** (3:32)
That's a skinwalker, obviously.

**Steven Rinella** (3:34)
So to be like, hold on a minute, we're here now. This is the makings of a horror story. There was a woman screaming off in the mountains, but then pretty soon it was like, oh my God, Jennifer's not in her tent.

**MrBallen** (3:50)
Yeah, that's terrifying.

**Steven Rinella** (3:51)
But it was long. It was long scare.

**MrBallen** (3:57)
Did you go out and did you guys try to make sense of what you were hearing? Oh yeah.

**Steven Rinella** (4:01)
But once it made sense, but it was minutes of horror. Oh man. Minutes of horror before someone put together that it assembled. Other things are just fast.

**MrBallen** (4:10)
Like what are some fast ones that have come? Even one example of a fast moment of, oh boy, this is not okay.

**Steven Rinella** (4:16)
Like some of the bear, for instance.

**MrBallen** (4:17)
Oh yeah, of course.

**Steven Rinella** (4:18)
You know? Well, there's like the, you know, right?

**MrBallen** (4:22)
Have you come in close contact with bear? I mean, obviously, yeah, but I'm talking like unwanted close contact.