The Grey NATO – 194 – Trading Watches and Cars for Arctic Adventure with Hugh Francis Anderson
Published on Thu, 26 May 2022 07:00:10 -0400
Synopsis
This episode features an interview with Hugh Francis Anderson, a writer, adventurer, and environmentalist based in Tromsø, Norway. Hugh shares stories about his expeditions, including sailing to Jan Mayen island to climb the world's northernmost active volcano, and his plans to recreate the first crossing of Greenland next year. The hosts also discuss the upcoming Windup Watch Fair in Chicago, where The Grey NATO will be exhibiting. They cover various topics such as adventure photography, gear choices, and the appeal of being present in the moment during expeditions.
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Transcript
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| James | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 194, and it's proudly brought to you by the ever-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. Jason, how are we doing today? |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, I'm doing really well. Pleasant enough, uh, if a bit chilly, uh, early summer day, I guess I'm being optimistic in that, but, uh, yeah, it's feeling good spending a lot of time outside. The days are long. I mean, what, what, what can be, what can be bad about that? |
| James | Yeah, this is the first one back for me after, I mean, literally the first one back for me after the, the, what, what's generally considered kind of the kickoff of the summer here in Canada, which is a Victoria day weekend. It's kind of similar in some ways to our Memorial or to your Memorial day weekend, which is next weekend. Yeah. Uh, so we, we had some nice summer temperatures, uh, here in the city and then up at the cottage this weekend, but also some pretty insane storms and, uh, we've had warm and cold kind of come, come and go. So, uh, I'm going to go for a nice bike ride after this recording. It's nice and sunny out. I'm looking forward to a little bit of a vitamin D. Yeah, that's great. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I, I got out, um, this past weekend. It wasn't, we've got our long weekend coming up, but, uh, I finally got out on the water. I didn't kayak at all last year. I realized, um, water was kind of low all summer, so I didn't do any Creek paddling, but, Saturday morning, I just, um, threw the kayak on the defender and drove down to this lake near our house and paddled around a bit. It was pretty, pretty incredible. You know, you, you, you think of kind of urban adventures as being pretty tame. And, uh, I was, I was out on the water kind of paddling along the shoreline and out of the corner of my eye, I see a very large bird with that familiar flash of white. That was a, it was a bald eagle. And we get them around here, but, but this was a truly like, uh, you know, discovery channel Nat Geo kind of experience because it's swooped down no more than 30 feet in front of where I was on the water, swooped down right in front of my boat and scooped up a fish right in front of me and then flew back up to the tree just above me and then proceeded to just tear the fish apart and eat it. And I was like, I mean, that's, that's why you get out. You know, that's, to me it was, It was such a magic experience. And I still get goosebumps thinking about it because it's, you know, I mean, it's no better, it's no worse than, than taking a trip to some far flung place and going on safari and watching, you know, an apex predator track down a gazelle or something like that. It was, it was, it was really cool. |
| James | That's awesome. |
| Jason Heaton | So that was fun. And then, then there's a Creek that, that I portage to, I kind of took the kayak on my shoulder and hiked a little ways out of the Lake on the other side and jumped on a Creek that then kind of dumps out right, not too far from our house and walked home with a boat and then jogged back up to get the defender and drive it home. So it was like one of those really kind of fun micro adventure days, um, multi-sport multi-sport day that, that, that I love. And it was really cool. And I'm excited for this episode. I mean, this is nothing like what, what our guest does on a regular basis, but, um, along those, that theme it's, it's definitely the time of, of year to get out of the house and just kind of link up some hiking, biking, paddling, uh, adventures. So absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And then, uh, and then did some gardening on Sunday. We've, we've been getting a lot of plants in, we're trying to get, you know, the season's so short here as I'm, as I'm sure it is where you are. It's like, I mean, it's, it's crazy to think that it's the end of May. We're just putting in, you know, tomato plants and peppers and trying to like get stuff to grow because it's, it's done in four months. I mean, you, yeah, you need to do a lot of growing in a very short period of time. So, so we kind of jumped on that on Sunday, but, uh, |
| James | Yeah. We've got the nursery going just a couple of feet to my left of, uh, you know, one of those growth stations. Oh yeah. And some, some of that stuff will get transplanted outside in the next little while, but yeah, no, it's, it's definitely a nice way to, especially after you have like the busy day, the water, the run, the, the, the rest of it. Yeah. To come back and have something that's a little bit more contemplative. Yeah. Like a, like gardening. So yeah, I appreciate that quite a bit. |
| Jason Heaton | Totally. Yeah. It was, it was kind of the perfect weekend actually. Yeah. And then just briefly, I wanted to kind of throw a thanks out to, everyone that's gotten in touch with me with ideas for, um, our upcoming trip to North Carolina. You know, I mentioned on our last episode that Kashani and I are planning a trip in June to the Asheville area where we're, we're renting a cabin and we're going to try to get out and do some, some hiking and that sort of stuff. And I've, I've just gotten tons of, you know, great ideas and offers and recommendations for everything from breweries to hikes to, um, there's a guy who, uh, oversees the adventure department at, at, uh, at, uh, an outdoor center there who, who offered to, to hook us up with some whitewater rafting if we want to do that. So, you know, it's just been, it's been great. And that's what I love about our TGN community. So I appreciate everybody's feedback on that. So I can't wait to get out there and explore a new part of the country. It'd be really fun. |
| James | Oh, it's going to be so good. I think, I think that's a beautiful area and I think you've got a good time to go there and it sounds like you're, you're not going to be short on recommendations. So that's, that's awesome. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And, and aside from the nasty weather, how was, uh, How was the cottage? What did you get up to there? Did you get in the water at all? |
| James | Yeah, we went for a bit of a swim. It was colder than the previous weekend, just because the temperatures had been a little colder and it's a shallow-ish lake, so it really is responsive to the last few days of kind of average weather temperatures. Yeah. And yeah, so we did a little swimming and just kind of hung around and the fire and that sort of thing. I spent most of my Saturday morning repairing a tractor that I'd broken the weekend previous. I couldn't figure... The battery was dead on the Kubota, which we normally use to cut what is not an insignificant amount of grass up there, hence the need for a proper riding mower. And so I went to... I was actually just gonna ask for a battery tender to my neighbor who lives up there year round, and he just said, I'll just take the John Deere. He's got an old John Deere. And of course, I promptly break it. I shore off several teeth from the sector gear, which essentially controls the steering. It's very rudimentary. If you've ever built like a Lego rack and pinion, like a Lego Technics vehicle, it's even more rudimentary than that. It's about as straightforward as a simple steering linkage, wide angle steering linkage can work. So it needed a new shaft spline and a new sector gear and a couple new little bits of hardware. Yep. I put that on with a said neighbor and, and got it running and turning and all that kind of stuff correctly. So that was kind of a successful, I guess that my version of gardening for the day. I had a really good time. I, you know, I like working on that kind of stuff, especially when it's straightforward enough that I know whether through YouTube videos or some research. And this time it was kind of a mix of those two things knew what was involved. Yeah. And then it turned out we didn't even have to remove the cutting deck. like the actual mowing. Oh, sure. Uh, we, there was enough room with it fully dropped, uh, to, to be able to get at the bolts and such. So yeah, that was kind of the, uh, kind of the weekend in, in, in many ways, we're kind of burying the lead on this one. Cause we have some legitimately big news. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, this, this could have been our top story. This is huge news. So I think we've hinted at it before we have, uh, we have some exciting stuff coming up this summer. foremost is, uh, the gray NATO will be attending and exhibiting at the windup watch fair in Chicago. For those of you, I'm guessing most of our listeners are familiar with the windup watch fair. They've, they've had it for the past couple of years. They've done events in San Francisco and New York. And this year they're introducing an event in Chicago. It is July 15th, 16th, 17th. That's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday at a place called venue West, which is in, um, Chicago, kind of the West loop area. you know, Chicago is a great city. It's kind of midway between you and me. And, uh, we, we couldn't be more thrilled to, to be joining up with, uh, with the folks from worn and wound and the wind up watch fair and exhibiting alongside, uh, a lot of our friends, uh, in the watch industry. So, you know, if, if you're, um, anywhere close or you feel like flying in or driving over to Chicago that weekend in July, we'd love to see as many listeners and supporters as we can. And we'll be, We're still crafting plans here, but we've got some merchandise that we plan to sell. We'll be there all weekend, obviously mainly just to meet people and chat and talk with, with the watch brand reps that'll be there. And then, um, we'll, we'll probably be recording, uh, well, we will be recording at least an episode or two, uh, live from the fair. So, um, really, really, really exciting stuff. And we'll throw a link in the show notes for the details about that. |
| James | Absolutely. Yeah, I'm really pumped for this. Like Jason said, if you can make it, if you want to come hang out, we'll be there for the entire run of the show. We'll have a table. You can come say hi if you want to pick up some merch, all the better. But really, this is just kind of our first chance in a couple of years to offer any sort of like a hangout. And I would say watch this space, listen to the episodes. We're going to talk about this pretty much every episode moving forward as plans come together. Jason and I have kind of been working quietly in the background on a variety of merch. So we have some kind of exciting stuff, uh, different price points, really all the way down to free in some scenarios. So there'll be, there'll be stuff to see stuff to do there. And also the list of vendors is, is incredible. So check out the link. It'll be in the show notes. There's a lot of great watch brands there. I think it's going to be a real scene. You know, they've been doing this for years in New York and San Francisco, and now to have one in the Midwest, I think is going to be huge. And we're just pumped. We're just pumped to be part of it. Uh, we, you know, huge, thank you. Like Jason said to, um, to the worn around guys and the wind up folks and the rest of it and just seeing it all kind of come together and the level of professionalism that they've got and how kind of well oiled this machine is. I'm so excited to be part of it. I think it's going to be super fun and finally a chance to say hello and shake some hands and put some names to faces and that kind of stuff. So if you can make it, we'd love to see of course. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So exciting. And if all goes well, uh, there will be a white defender parked out in front of the venue. |
| James | Um, no green Jeep. I'm going to come down in a, in a large metal bird. |
| Jason Heaton | So, you know, fingers crossed on, on mechanical reliability there. I think we should be do just fine. And the venue just looks great. I mean, we've seen floor plans and I've seen some street view images of the space and, um, it looks like they've chosen a good spot for their inaugural Chicago windup. So yeah, we're, we won't, uh, belabor the point here other than to get people excited about it and just keep listening. |
| James | Yep. Yeah. Keep pay attention to this, you know, the kind of early segment in the future episodes as we'll give more information as we have it, as we have more specifics, as the, all the other, the little details start to come together. But like Jason said, July 15th, 16th, 17th in Chicago venue West, put it on your calendar. And if you have any questions specifically for us, the email remains open, of course, the great NATO at gmail.com. If there's something you need or concern, just let us know and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Jason, how about a bit of a wrist check? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, let's do it. We both have interesting pieces on today. We're trying out new watches. Yeah. You know, mine is, it came from our very old friend, possibly our oldest mutual friend, Mike Pearson. He's not an old guy. No, he's not an old guy. No. Um, but he is, uh, arguably the one that introduced us and, and is, I suppose we can, we can thank, uh, in some respect, uh, for getting TGN off the ground, uh, in the early days. Um, anyway, Mike Pearson formerly of a Bremont watches. He spent some time at a Wolf winders. And now he, uh, as of a month or two ago is joined a Zodiac watch company, uh, in kind of a branding marketing, uh, capacity. Mike is based over in the UK. He's British, just a fun guy, super enthusiastic. Anyway, he was really excited to send me one of Zodiac's watches to try out this summer. And it really couldn't be a more summery watch, actually. This is the Zodiac Super Seawolf 53 Skin. You know, Zodiac will not be unfamiliar to most of our listeners. You know, old brand, kind of recently revived in some very special ways by the Fossil Company. Um, they don't make a lot of watches per year. I was chatting with Mike, they make five or 6,000 watches a year, which is a low number for a brand that you'd think was quite big. Um, and, and I've liked them. I've had their, I had that GMT kind of that, that golf racing livery colors from a couple of years ago that didn't last too long with me, um, for a number of reasons. But, um, and then I, I had when they first re-released the Seawolf line back in, gosh, it must've been 2015. I had one of those with a steel bezel on a black dial and I liked that one quite a bit. The one that Mike sent me is a black dial with these white triangular markers and a black ceramic rotating bezel. It's got this big orange arrow on the sweep hand. 39 millimeter case. I measured it. It's about 12 millimeters high and about 46 to 47 lug to lug. So versatile size. It came on one of those kind of porthole rubber. straps, very seventies, which I like quite a bit, but I moved it right onto a gray NATO. And I think it's a, it's going to live there for, for the next little while, because I think it's a, it just looks so good. And it's, it's, it's just a really fun piece. So, you know, I got to thank Mike for, for sending that over and I'll, I'll definitely be posting a few photos of this as I get up to some adventures in it. |
| James | Yeah. And these are, these are, you know, high value kind of pieces, good, good kind of placement in the market. This one's, you know, a little under 1200 bucks. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm, I'm always impressed by their stuff. It was actually one of the first brands I really got into way back in the day. Do you remember they had like a quartz chronograph called, I think the sea dragon. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh yeah. |
| James | Yeah. I had a couple of those actually. And it was just something I, you know, you could, you could kind of buy and sell them for not a ton of money. They were very stable in, in the watch you seek sort of space. And yeah, I had one that had sort of a red, green, black dial design to it. I'll see if I can find a photo of it from way back in the day, but yeah, Yeah. Lovely stuff. Always nice to see a Zodiac in the mix and their ability to kind of hit that like late fifties to late sixties aesthetic, but at a price point, that's like reasonable. And you know, they're obviously backed by STP and you know, just they get it, they get a bunch of stuff, right. And they are a brand that in some ways you can go into a store and see, which I do really like. Sometimes it's tough to take a chance on a low for, you know, this is in the same price range as an SPB. But obviously, you know, I think here what you're getting is, is, you know, arguably a better movement, or at least a more reliable sort of movement from a timekeeping standpoint. Right. And in a very similar sort of take on a vintage, a modern take on a vintage design. So yeah, good stuff. And super happy for Mike. I think that's a great fit. They make a solid product. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. What have you got on? This is a, this is a piece I think you mentioned, but just this, this brand always just never registers on my, on my radar. |
| James | Yeah, so I've got the new Atlas Automatic from Momentum. It's a loaner. They pinged me on Instagram. Momentum is going to be very recognizable for those in the audience that frequent dive shops. That's where I remember actually seeing the brand. They make a pretty wide catalog of dive watches that branch pretty entry level in terms of the specificity and the specs all the way up to higher end stuff. And the, uh, the Atlas is a 38 millimeter titanium sort of field watch kind of crossed with a little bit of a pilot design. It's, um, it's, it's titanium with a titanium bracelet, 100 meters water resistance with a screw down crown, Sapphire crystal uses Miyota 9015, you know, an automatic movement. It's got a date at three, uh, super legible overall design, very in the space of like, uh, like, um, uh, an IWC mark, uh, sort of look, uh, with the squared off minute hand or hour with the squared off our hand. It's got a display case back. Um, you know, they're selling these for, uh, let's see, 535 bucks. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Great price. Wow. |
| James | Which seems like a, a really nice price point. Uh, I think the, the, the, the watch itself looks good and, and kind of recognizable without copying anything too specifically. Uh, it's nicely made. I like the bracelet. I've been wearing it a little bit. It's got great loom, uh, which I'm pretty, you know, obviously a fan of, uh, yeah, so I'll, I'll have a whole story for Hodinkee. Of course, as I do, typically TGN gets the, the sort of secret, you know, down low on, on what's coming up for my hands on with Hodinkee. I've got several watches in for hands on. Of course, we've talked about, uh, the Braymont Bamford and, uh, the, the Aqua lion from vertex. So all, all of those are in the run as well. But when they wrote me and I saw this, I kind of thought like, man, you know, a little over $500, nicely made from a brand that I at least can recognize. I've had very early experiences in my watch time with Momentum's watches, and it's just been a while. So I saw this and I thought, man, very TGN sort of idea behind a watch. You can get it on a number of other straps, including just like for under $500, like a Cordura khaki strap. And I just think this is a nice straightforward sport watch. And so far, I'm pretty impressed. Stay tuned for the full review on that one, but that's what I've got on my wrist today. And a big thanks to, uh, the folks at, uh, momentum for reaching out, making my job easy. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, like you, I remember first encountering the, this brand, um, if not at a dive shop, I remember when I was first getting into watches, maybe even before that seeing ads, or maybe I saw one at a shop somewhere and it was the dive line that was, um, particularly striking. I mean, I think they still make some, some nice looking dive watches and what's always kind of confused me is, is that Um, they used to kind of operate under two names. It was the St. Moritz Watch Corporation. |
| James | Yeah. I've had some St. Moritz pieces. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I'm just looking at their website and it says St. Moritz Watch Corp designs, assembles and services sports watches under the Momentum brand. So, um, I've seen both names on, on watches and they're handsome. They're, they've always been super affordable. Um, and they had reached out to me a while back cause I had either written something or posted something on Instagram about, Chronosport, you know, our old favorite, the UDT C quartz. Oh, absolutely. And, uh, and apparently there's somebody high up at St. Moritz or at Momentum, um, who used to own or run the Chronosport brand. So that's definitely a vein to be mined as well. I'd love to see them bring that watch back, but anyway, that's a whole other thread, but, um, very cool piece. I'm excited to read your hands on and see more photos of this one. |
| James | Yeah, it should be good. All right. You want to get into, uh, what I think, you know, we just recorded this, so I'm really excited to, uh, to be able to play this. Uh, it's still very fresh in my memory, but, uh, you want to jump into a main topic, which is a fun interview. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Today we have a really exciting chat with a writer adventurer and just kind of all around interesting guy, Hugh Francis Anderson. Hugh is someone that we both know from, from his past career in kind of the luxury product space. He used to write about watches and cars, and now he's, he's reformed. And he's not only, um, changed careers. He's, he's kind of focusing primarily on adventure and environmentalism and travel and conducting some pretty wild expeditions. Um, but he's also moved from his native, uh, UK. He now lives in the North of Norway. He actually lives in Tromso, which is above the Arctic circle. Um, his love of snow and cold has taken him there. And, uh, he makes for a really fun follow on Instagram. You got to check him out at Hugh Francis Anderson. He was a very articulate guy, very thoughtful. I love his kind of throwback approach to adventure, very philosophical about it all. And you'll hear about that in our chat. Hugh is a contributing editor for some great magazines, including Sidetracked and Oceanographic. And he's recently had a piece come out of National Geographic. He's the adventure correspondent for Intelligent Magazine, and he recently became a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. So without further ado, I mean, I think everybody's going to love this interview. So here he is, Hugh Francis Anderson. All right. Well, we're thrilled to have you with us, Hugh Francis Anderson. You're a reformed erstwhile watch and car journalist. Now you're kind of full-time adventuring, and it's really fun to have you on The Great NATO. So welcome. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, it's a real pleasure to be here with you guys. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, James and I were reminiscing just before we started here on where we knew you from. And I remember, I don't know if we'd met once or twice before, but they were on watch press trips. Gosh, was it St. Bart's for some sort of a sailing dive thing or something? You were with Revolution magazine for a while there, but, uh, and the James knows you from the car world. So we, we, we kind of know you from your, your two, two of your past lives. |
| James | Yeah, it's funny. I'm not sure. I'm Hugh. I'm not sure we could have a more bougie sort of intro, especially for a guy who's devoted so much of the recent time to like some pretty hardcore adventuring. Cause if you met Jason at St. Bart's, you and I met right under the Eagle's nest. in southeastern Germany in Bavaria on a DBS Superleggera launch. At the time, I think that was the first time I had seen a Vertex. You had an M100 on your wrist. We sat and had breakfast quickly together before a day of driving. And I remember seeing that watch and thinking like, wow, these things are really impressive in person. And now I've got an M60 in for review. It's kind of a fun little through line. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, I know. Absolutely. And in fact, that's the watch I'm wearing today. It's the watch I wear most days. It's that M100 now on a British military green NATO strap. Fantastic. Yeah, which I adore. I love this watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Nice. I mean, this is great. Cause I mean, we, we normally start each episode with a, with a risk check. So there, there we go. There's, there's your choice. And, and you, yeah, you've been a long time Vertex guy. You had a Vertex, uh, gosh, before I even ever saw one. That was back in your watch days. Why don't you tell us, uh, You've made some significant changes. I mean, we talked a little bit about your, your kind of career move, but now you're actually living in Arctic Norway. How did that come about? Why don't you give us a little bit of a background? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, sure. I mean, um, yeah, life started very differently for me as a journalist. And, uh, you know, as you both have said, said there in the watches and, and, and, and cars and sort of the more luxury journalism things. And, um, but I suppose what's always been at the core has been, you know, sense of adventure. And I first visited Norway, Gosh, maybe 12, 11, 12 years ago, I restored an old motorbike at university and rode it up here 7,000 kilometers. And it was just, uh, you know, trying to fish for supper and invariably not getting any fish and eating, you know, horrible, uh, gas station, hot dogs, you know, that kind of road trip camping under the stars and, and kind of really experiencing the road and, and just falling, totally falling in love with Norway. And, uh, I guess, you know, life, as we all have it gets in the way and we pursue different things. And at some point I thought, you know what, now's the time of refocusing into focusing on adventures and expeditions. And, you know, why not be in Arctic Norway, like the hub of expeditions, especially Arctic expeditions in Europe. So I just sort of bit the bullet and came out here. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. You've obviously got a taste for cold weather and snow sports, judging by your Instagram, and you've done some really amazing stuff, which we'll get to, but Rewinding a little bit, you're obviously from the UK. What was, what's kind of your background there and how did you get into journalism? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. Yeah. I, well, I, I grew up in Cambridge, um, and sort of because of that, I fell into rowing. I'm six foot six and a 15 stone and became reasonably good at pulling things. Um, and so I wrote, I wrote high performance for a while. I wrote for the great Britain for a year and then, uh, then went to university and studied history. And history, like journalism, is just lots of reading and lots of writing. And also importantly, being able to have an opinion. So I guess as a background for becoming a journalist, it's quite good. And like I said, I did that motorbike trip and that really inspired me. I started writing about that. I actually wrote, unpublished, but I wrote a novel about that journey. And it was really my mum who said Well, look, you just wrote 70,000 words on a motorbike trip. Maybe you should think about writing for a job. And so that's when I moved to London and lived with my brother. And that's how I got actually first into watches. My brother, four years older than me and a big watch fanatic. And he was working in the city. And so I fell into writing, fell into an internship for the City Magazine and started pursuing that as a career. |
| Jason Heaton | It sounds like kind of the typically, uh, convoluted path we all kind of take to, to get where we're going. And I suppose, you know, as we call it sort of product journalism, uh, or, or luxury product journalism in our cases, um, it was kind of a fortuitous place to, to settle, um, at least early on. Right. Because it allows, there's a bit of travel involved and you do get a bit of, um, I'll be at packaged adventures. You get to kind of go to some exotic places and do some fun stuff. I think you had been to the Florida Keys for some diving and then we've met in the Caribbean and that sort of thing. Any particularly memorable trips stand out for you from, from those days? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. So when St. Bart's on the trip with Richard Mill as a young 22 year old, I was wearing the RM 6302, the world timer. And, um, I was in the ocean swimming and this chap sort of this older man sort of approached me with a magnum of Moet champagne and he takes a look at me at this a young 20 year old takes a look at my wrist and I could just see in his eyes this guy going who the hell is this guy like what is he doing here and he said what are you doing here and they said oh I'm here with Richard Mille just very casually as if you know oh well I'm just here having a nice time and they could just see this guy be like What on earth is he doing here with Richard Mille? Who is he? And it was like totally baffling being this, you know, young guy who really, you know, just enjoyed being outdoors, suddenly finding myself in an industry like this and, and totally reveling in it. I mean, as we all have done, um, as you said, Jason, Jason, you know, you kind of, whilst trips are packaged and you do get to explore a lot and that's, and that's a great draw to that industry, you know, but if you compare that to the life you're actually living, you know, when I was, those early days I was living in my brother's shed in the bottom of his garden. You know, I put a bed in there and I hung up some curtains in there. You know, you think it's just so funny. I find it so funny looking back on it now. |
| Jason Heaton | Come to life. The pumpkin turning into the carriage. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. Yeah, exactly. |
| Jason Heaton | I do remember you did an interesting trip or maybe it was kind of a, um, uh, some sponsored content or something with Land Rover, where you took one of the new discoveries somewhere interesting, if I remember, and you partnered with Breitling on that trip, if I'm recalling right? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | No, that was, I did a trip with Land Rover. That was also in partnership with Andreas Beheide, a marine biologist I've worked with a lot. This was actually during the first lockdown and we did a trip up to to Shetland, and Andreas lives in Stavanger in Norway, and he sailed across the North Sea to pick me up with this other chap, Matthew. And so we drove up to the Shetland Islands in a Land Rover and then got picked up by a sailboat and sailed back over to Norway for some slow adventuring, which was quite wonderful. It was an amazing trip, actually. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow. Your work with Andreas is what stands out for me. I mean, how did you meet him and tell us a little bit about about your work with him and maybe about him specifically. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's funny because it's also watches that brought me to meet, um, Andreas. So this is one of the things that I've found most remarkable about the watch world in general. It's just how great it is as a tool for meeting people and people from all walks of life. And, uh, I was, uh, out with Rolex at the Nauta Swan Cup at Porto Cervo in Sardinia. And, um, and, and somebody from Rolex PR there, we were chatting and sort of said, gosh, this isn't really your scene, is it? And I'm like, no, not really. It's great. Sailing's fun and this is lovely, but it's not really my remit. And he said, you know, I know a guy, I know a guy that you need to be in touch with. And that was Andreas, this marine biologist from Stavanger. And so he put us in touch and I happened to spend a lot of time in Norway anyway. And we, yeah, we met up in Stavanger in his hometown. Um, when I was out visiting friends and we just kind of became buddies immediately, we got on really well. And from there we thought, well, what can we do? What can I do as a storyteller, as a writer to, to help you, uh, you know, put, put out the work, the marine research and the projects that you're doing. Uh, how can I help you further put that out there? |
| Jason Heaton | What's interesting to me about what you guys have done is that it's, uh, it's kind of one of my favorite sort of areas is sort of multi-sport adventuring that overlaps with science. And what's cool about it is you've taken a sailboat into Arctic waters and then, if I'm remembering correctly, free diving to kind of research whales and orcas in that region. And I think, you know, we can go into it a little further later, but the trip where you sailed to Yanmayan land and then climbed the volcano, I mean, I think that those sorts of overlapping adventure kinds of trips are so, so, um, appealing to me and, and so fun to watch you, you do those. And, um, you know, when most people think of sailing, they don't think of taking it into kind of ice choked fjords or cold waters. Um, that, that has to present a certain set of challenges on its own, doesn't it? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. Sailing for me, uh, presents lots of challenges. Uh, only ever experienced it in, in the Arctic really. And in the cold and, um, and you're basically freezing cold all the time and you feel sick. But it's, I don't know, it's that sense of adventure, Jason, I'm sure you get that with diving as well. It's like that sense of removal that it gives you. This is one of the things that I love most about sailing. For me, that's the last true frontier of adventure because once you're on a sailboat, there are no borders anymore. You can just go anywhere and you're on your own. You're truly remote. We When we sailed, my first expedition with Andreas was in 2018, and we sailed from the Faroe Islands to Iceland to document some marine plastic pollution on whales. It's a day of 48 hours on one tack, just in 26 knots of wind, feeling very, very sick. But you're remote, and I can't stress what that feels like to sit on this tiny, because it's small. It's only 37 foot. That's 12 meters, that boat. um in the middle of in the middle of the north atlantic and you kind of think to yourself you know if if things go wrong here things go really wrong and i suppose i'm sort of attracted to that feeling i don't know if that's something that resonates with you but there's absolutely yeah there's something about um about i suppose about the danger about being on the edge yeah that is quite addictive and keeps us i mean keeps me searching for it time and time again |
| James | Yeah, Hugh, I'm interested just just on that last point there about that, knowing that you're kind of on the edge of something, whether it's the edge of something no one else has really done or that nobody even tries to do anymore or the edge of what you've kind of done. Do you find that there's a little bit of a control freak isn't the right word, but I always liked the idea that, well, it's up to me now, whether whether it's a pretty casual solo hike or like any even a small mistake could cause an issue to being on a boat out in the middle of nowhere. the self-reliance does kind of speak to a certain level of, of kind of the need for control. Do you think that that mirrors for you or is it kind of a different appeal? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it does. I think what it, what I've understood from it, from my own experience is that it sort of makes you totally present. And so that self-reliance is certainly plays into that, you know, that you're on your own. Um, and I think it's good to have that removal, uh, from normality, removal from safety, but, but, What it does for me is it puts me in a moment where, like I said, you're totally present. And there's this really nice idea, actually, that I heard Jordan Peterson talk about once, about the hemispheres of our brain, and that one hemisphere focuses on order and the other one is on chaos. And the moment that you're totally present is when you're on the border between order and chaos. And it's nice, isn't it? I really like that as a notion. And I think that adventuring, and as you say, whether that's on a sailboat, in the middle of the arctic or whether it's on a solo hike somewhere when you can be totally present in a moment you're kind of in control but you know that danger is just around the corner like things could could go bad pretty quickly um that's i don't know that's where the adrenaline the it's not even adrenaline but that's where the yeah the the lusting for adventure comes from for me your mention of adrenaline is a good point because a lot of people when they ask me specifically about |
| Jason Heaton | um, diving for instance, they say, Oh, you must be an adrenaline junkie. And I actually, that, that would be the furthest from how I would describe myself. And I'm guessing you would too. It's, I think adrenaline maybe appeals to people that, you know, skydive or bungee jump or, or free solo El Capitan or something. But, um, I think, you know, doing the types of things you're doing, it's probably more of a slow burn, right? It's not these, this sort of sugar high, you know, that, that we associate with, with an adrenaline rush. Um, It's, it's just a longer term sort of rewarding experience. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, absolutely. Um, but it's interesting. You mentioned, um, free solo and El Cap because I, I interviewed Alex Honnold after he did that. And, um, I met him in London and he was there for, on a campaign for the North face. And it was one of the questions I was interested to find out, um, you know, is it, what is it, what is the, what is this lusting for adventure? What is it? Is it an adrenaline rush? And he said, no, not at all. It's actually got nothing to do with that. Because if you have an adrenaline rush when you're three solo and you die, you have to be completely calm. Right. And I'm like, yeah, I hadn't thought about it that way. He's like, you have to, if your heart rate is getting up and you're, and you're getting that rush, he's like, you know, it's game over. And I was like, that's a really interesting perspective. Um, and something I hadn't really thought about until, until that moment. |
| James | I do think it's interesting because what I learned from watching Free Solo, because he talks about a very similar sort of idea where like this isn't about, this isn't the same as jumping off the cliff, you know, with a wingsuit or a parachute or whatever. It's not about this, this big peak of serotonin and dopamine or whatever. It's more about the idea that you have to, you're forced in a world that's kind of difficult and for a guy with his sort of thinking can be quite difficult to be in the moment kind of in a flow state, rather than constantly thinking about whatever you have to do tomorrow, or a week from now, or what's late, or all these other things in your life. And I think that's what has always really brought me to having, whether even small adventures to big adventures, but the idea of adventuring forces you to just be in the adventure. And there's a clarity that comes to that, especially for the scattered element of the modern mind. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | totally 100% that's exactly what it is and that's kind of what I touched on like the being present it's like everything else is diffused and I think that Generally, we live in a world that's so busy, there's so much chaos all the time going on, and social media and emails and all the work that we have to do, and there's no time to kind of get away from it. And when you put yourself in an adventurous situation, be it a big adventure or a short one, I think that's kind of where you find that clarity. And I think that's, you know, that's immensely helpful and beneficial for our mental health. I mean, and there's I did a story for Oceanographic on this, on the impact of green and blue spaces. There is a lot of data, research, hard data being collected about the importance of blue spaces, oceans, and green spaces, nature, on our mental health and well-being. I find that fascinating. We can go really into the depths of that if we want to, when we look back at our ancestors. hunter-gatherers, travelers, we spent all of our time outside. The concept of being in a city and having a busy world around us is very recent and very new. And I don't know, without trying to draw into it and making it too long-winded, I think that duck-buying it into the sense of being present and where you can find that. Like, what is adventure and where is it found? I find that fascinating, and that's kind of what I'm perpetually searching for. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, I think what, what we consider adventures are things that we are now in the modern world are forced to create for ourselves. Whereas for our ancestors, it was probably everyday life. You know, you were always looking over your shoulder for the grizzly or the, or the Puma or something that was stalking you and having to look for your next meal or get over that mountain pass before the snow came or whatever it was, you know? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, absolutely. There's actually a really wonderful essay written by a French writer called Sylvain Venier called The Fascination with the Impossible. And there's a quote from that I wanted to read actually, because this is totally on that point, which goes, a thirst for removal is at the very heart of adventure. And the definition of the modern mystique of adventure came from a fundamental mutation in the forms of this desire. |
| Jason Heaton | I like that. That's great. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, yeah. And I when I read that, I was like, that's so right. Like, that thirst for removal from being taken out of what's normal to you. So that's what I mean, like an adventure doesn't have to be a grand big polar expedition. An adventure is anything that's a removal from, from your normal life. And once, once I realized that I kind of thought, gosh, that's actually really exciting. And it's also makes it accessible because I'm not sure if you guys agree, but there, there is certainly an element to living an adventurous life that seems to be a for the elite, you know, for those who have time and time is the one thing that's the hardest, that's the hardest thing to find in life is time. And, and so by, by, by taking the idea that you don't have to go on huge, um, multi-day week month expeditions, but you could just go into the hills behind your house for an afternoon and that you, that could be an adventure. You get the same, the same thrill. Um, yeah, I liked that. That changed, started to change my perspective on things as well. |
| Jason Heaton | Tell us a little bit about your, most recent kind of big expedition. I, this is the one that kind of captured my imagination because of what I mentioned earlier, you, you, you sailed to Jan Mayen, which is a, I believe it's the island with the furthest North volcano, right? Or the volcano that's the furthest North on the planet. And then you climbed to the, to the top of it. And I, I like the concept of that anyway, but then to kind of observe from afar, um how you guys did it i read your story about it and um i believe that was in was that in sidetrack or oceanographic this oceanographic and and um and the story for national geographics just come out on that as well which is uh yeah which is which is very nice that's crazy congratulations that's amazing thank you um but kind of walk us through how that came about and and the concept of that trip yeah absolutely well i |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | had just come back from the Arctic. This was a trip with Andreas, also for Nat Geo. And he wanted to, he'd seen sperm whales in the Arctic and wanted to be part of the first team to free dive with them in Arctic Norway in winter, which for divers, it's kind of a nuts concept anyway, to think of being an open ocean in winter in the Arctic and then diving with one of the apex predators of the ocean. It's kind of a nuts thing. Anyway, and we did that and we were on the way back. And it's just remarkable how these things come about. Andrea starts talking about this remote arctic island called Yanman, and I've never heard of this place. So I start doing some research, I then come back home. And it was at a similar time, I was made a fellow at the Royal Geographical Society. So of course, as a history nut, the first thing I did was go into the archives and start looking at all the old old reports in the old geographical journals. And that's when I found, in the Royal Geographical Society, the expedition report from the 1921 British expedition to Yan'an to summit the world's northernmost active volcano, Mount Birenberg, for the first time. And I was like, this is ludicrous. This was February 2020. So I called Andreas and I said, Andreas, next year is the centenary of the first ascent of Mount Birenberg. Can we create a modern interpretation of this historic expedition? And the answer was a resounding yes. So we set about putting this together and it became part of a much bigger project for Andreas called Arctic Sense. But our journey itself was really focused on sailing from Longyearbyen to Yanmine and then on to London to collect marine research. I mean, Yanmine Island itself is fascinating because it was a Dutch whaling station. They hunted pretty much all of the bowhead whales in the North Atlantic to extinction, and a lot of that happened from this island. So we wanted to go back and do some remote sensing to discover what kind of large marine mammals were still in the area. And alongside that, summit Mount Bierenberg using the same route that James Wordy did in 1921. And this was the wonderful thing about being able to have contemporary 3D mapping, I took the expedition report and mapped the observations as closely as I could using 3D mapping so we could recreate the route. And because it crosses a glacier, I thought, for observational climate change, it would be really interesting to pose the simple question, can we still summit this mountain 100 years later? Or has glacier degradation brought it to a stage where that's no longer possible? The answer is that we couldn't, we couldn't summit following the same route, the crevasses were eight to 10 meters wide in places and it wasn't possible any longer to, to summit that way. But we found another route, which was also proposed by Wordy in 1921 up the southwest buttress. So we did manage to summit it in the end. But this all kind of ties together into this, you know, these interesting conversations around climate change. And on the way down, we'd also collected some glaciological sampling for this EU-funded team called Deep Purple who were looking at the effects of ice and glacier, glacier snow and ice algae, and the way that that causes white spaces to melt. And so we collected that and that never, those samples had never been collected before and brought them back. And yeah, and that was, I know that was long-winded, but that's the short version of it. |
| Jason Heaton | That's amazing and we'll definitely link out to any of your stories that might be online right now so people can read more because I think it was a remarkable trip and pushed a lot of buttons for me just in terms of my interests. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | And we had with us a filmmaker so later this year we'll have a documentary out as well which would be great. So to show you the visually because it's a remarkable island, you know, truly remarkable place visually that it's a spectacular place to sail to after five days of crossing the Norwegian and Greenland seas with nothing like truly there is nothing there. And then suddenly you see this sort of this white summit of the world's northernmost volcano just appear on the horizon and To put it into perspective, this island is so hostile. We were there for 10 days. There were only three days we were able to get off the boat because the conditions were so rough. We had one night at 57 knots anchor, which I'm not sure what 57 knots is in miles per hour, but that's storm force. It's almost hurricane force winds. We were there and getting prepared to put on dry suits just in case if this anchor snaps, that's it. there's nothing we can do. So, um, you know, it's, it's incredibly hostile. And then I hope that the, in the documentary also get a sense of, of, of the place as well. |
| Jason Heaton | Incredible. There's that famous saying, I think Yvon Chouinard said it, that, you know, the adventure begins when, when things start to go wrong or something along those lines. And, you know, as we discussed earlier, that, that is kind of when we're, when you're on that edge, that, that it's appealing, but, um, What's life on board like on a trip like that? Like, do you, do you have any moments of rest and solitude where you can sort of maybe bring a memento from home or you read a book or what's that like? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, absolutely. It's a life on board is cramped and everything, everything happens within such a small space. You know, you go to the bathroom a meter from where you cook your dinner, a meter from where someone's sitting, you know, there's no, there's no, personal space. You share a bed almost with somebody else. There's a small piece of plywood put between you and it's effectively, you know, your face is never more than four inches away from somebody else's face when you're asleep. So no, there's absolutely no space for having time on your own. I suppose life on board, it's different for different people. When the conditions aren't rough, it's quite pleasurable and you can all sit out on deck and have a nice time. But when it's rough, that's truly survival. And we had that when we left Yanma and I mean, we've come off this off the climb and I'll tell you more about the climb later if you want, but you know, that was a 37 hours. It took us to climb it 70 kilometers nonstop. So we were dead, you know, we were really dead, lost toenails, almost dragging ourselves back onto the boat after that. And we had four or five hours to rest before we had to leave because of the weather front coming in. And so then we had the seven days beating into a headwind. And for those who have sailed and know what beating into a headwind is like, it's truly a miserable head. The winds are coming straight at you. And so that causes the bow of the boat to just slam so hard back down over each wave. And you make no progress. So what should have been a two and a half, three day trip ended up taking seven days to the point when we were asking questions like, when do you think we're going to go in? You know, the answer from Andreas is like, let's just not Let's not think about even in days yet, because I have no idea when we're going to reach land, you know, those kind of things are, you know, all you can do is survive. And that's it. But you know, those are also the moments that you hate the most. And those are the moments that you look back on now with, you know, with great fond memories, somehow, sort of, we're twisted, aren't we? We've got this kind of sick, torturous minds where what's miserable is also what we end up remembering as something enjoyable. So true. Don't know why that happens. |
| Jason Heaton | I'm curious any, if you have any, um, you know, when you're living on a boat or backpacking or doing these expeditions, it's all about. Um, choosing your gear very carefully, um, so that you can maximize use out of every piece and it doesn't weigh too much and take up too much space, especially on a boat, any gear hacks you can, you can think of or recommend any, any particularly versatile or, or bomb-proof pieces of gear that you, you like that you go to over and over again. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. I mean, fundamentally as well. I don't take anything synthetic with me, no cottons, no synthetic materials, it's only wool. One, because it keeps you warm also when it's wet, but two, it doesn't smell. You can't change, there's no showering on the boat. That's the main thing. I mean, I think generally in expeditions anyway, being able to clean yourself is not something that's a luxury. So wearing wool is always the number one thing I would recommend. And then other than that, the pieces that I would take with me It certainly changes from, from, from trip to trip, but I have, uh, you know, it's sort of more of the more, more, more homely things. Like I have my, my father's old scouts hunting knife, and that's the knife that I'll take with me on all of my trips. I mean, it's not particularly useful, but I like the fact that it's my dad's, you know, knife that he had from when he was a kid. And, um, so I think things like that are really important to take with you. Um, yeah. |
| James | And then I'm curious, just because I remember back when we met in Germany, you were carrying, I believe it was a Leica TL, and obviously I remain a huge camera nerd. At the time, I hadn't really ingratiated myself into the world of Leica. I kind of thought they were secondary or kind of a weird niche, rich guy sort of camera. Are you still shooting Leica? The stuff on the Instagram is all beautiful, and I'm always keen to see what people are using and kind of getting the best out of. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. No, I actually borrowed that Leica for a little while to do a project. I think it was right after we met on that DBS trip, I went and did a kayak trip here in Norway. It was 400 miles sea kayak through the fjords here, which was an amazing trip. And then I borrowed the Leica primarily for that trip to shoot it. No, but now I shoot on film, 35mm, that's it really. I think that I've had a love-hate relationship with photography and writing and trying to do both and I try and always just do the writing and by using now film cameras I find that you can capture moments. I look for a moment and then I'll try and take the photo of that because I know that the shots are limited and that way it doesn't detract from the work as a journalist. I mean, James, I'm not sure if you find that as well with photographing your stories as But sometimes it's difficult to be present enough to write, to collect the data to write a story, but then also take the beautiful photos. Those are really two jobs. And I kind of think as journalists, we should sort of maybe even more often than not pick one and say, you know, okay, if I'm going to do a story, I'm like, if I do a story now, I'd much rather say, OK, can we find the budget and can we take a photographer so that that's, you know, because then you work together. And I think that people see things in different ways and stories develop in different ways. |
| James | Yeah. And I also think like like in with your style of work, right, which is a lot about what you're experiencing doing one of these things. People like to see you in the photo and it ends up being super helpful to have somebody So it's not just selfies, which selfies can be fine. Like a selfie in a tent is still a very exciting thing or at the top of a mountain or whatever. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. |
| James | But yeah, no, I totally agree. I've had lots of projects where I realized I got in way over my head, um, needing to be part of the scenery while also capturing it, if that makes any sense. Of course. Yeah. You know, especially like the, when we're recording this, it's a couple of days after the 2022 running for Villa Dest, the car show in Lake Como. And I remember went there a couple of years ago with Longa and had like, basically Car Blanc should produce whatever I wanted. And I way oversold what I couldn't turn in. We got it all done, but I barely remember that show. I don't think, you know, I didn't have time to sit and really pour over the details of the cars or meet a lot of the collectors or that kind of stuff because, you know, we were shooting one of the fashion shoots. So it's like a watch spotting fashion. We're doing interviews. We were doing like, it was, it was just, um, it is, that's a good point that sometimes it makes sense to, pick the piece of gear that's the most out of the way, whether it's a phone or in your case, the going film, which gives you kind of a very specific point in time when you're going to use the camera rather than just always having it in your hands and always thinking about the shot. Yeah, I think that's probably wise, maybe a level of wisdom I have yet to achieve on my own. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | No, I mean, you know, I think it's a difficult one to answer, really, because you want to be able to do it all. But I just realized that the writing, my writing falls short if I have to do the photography as well. Because as you've just said so nicely, like if you go to a show like that or you're in an environment where you need to kind of get a story or you're interviewing somebody and it's not, there isn't the time to sit down and have a nice interview and then do photos. It kind of has to happen at one time. Well, how do you record and be present and ask questions and do the journalism whilst also kind of standing back and getting the photos of something in action? That's where I find it a difficult one to try and do both. And I've tried. Maybe you're the wiser man because you've managed to be able to figure out how to do it. But it gives me anxiety. So I try and pick one. And invariably, it's always writing. |
| James | For sure. Yeah. I think I just end up relying on the idea of a photo essay as a way to get me out of Yeah. Some of the details that I didn't personally experience when, uh, when I was holding a camera up between me and someone else or an item or whatever, uh, you know, to finish the, to finish the loop, what, uh, what is your film camera of choice these days? Cause I'm sure people will be curious. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've always been a fan of Pentax. I think Pentax make, made some of the best, um, professional cameras, um, back in the day. And I think Pentax lenses are phenomenal. Um, and it comes without the, without sort of the, um, I don't know the slightly bougie name that people pay a lot of money for. I think as a for workhorse, Pentax is brilliant. Anyway, so I shoot on a Pentax LX, which was their staple professional 35 mil camera. And I poured over it for a long time. The one I've got now I found in in Japan, which is where most of the good quality Pentax cameras are found. Yeah. And I got that now a couple of years ago. And I just love it. I love shooting on it. And then I have a Pentax P30N as a backup camera, because that's always useful for them. But that's it. I only have two cameras. Pentax LX is the one that I shoot on most. |
| James | And do you have a film stock of choice? You know, the market changes every day. I wonder if it's a little bit more difficult up in the Arctic to get your hands on film. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. I predominantly shoot black and white and I predominantly shoot Kodak Tri-X 400. I think that's the best film that there is for a broad range of things. So, for example, on the Yan Mayan expedition, I kind of wanted to document it on film and I took 10 rolls. And that's, if you're lucky, you're going to get 100 images that are worthwhile from that. And I was really happy with that. And I think, you know, to have a film that has a broad enough range that you can shoot on a boat, but also on a glacier where there's a heck of a lot of sun. And, you know, I think that film cameras in themselves are so simple. You know, you get that. You just have that simple triangle of ISO, of shutter speed and of aperture. And then you kind of have to make do with it. So then it makes for interesting photos because you get what you get. And I think maybe you must experience this a lot. In fact, with the photography, the amount of work and the amount of time that comes post when you're working in digital. For sure. And the nice thing with, I find a film is I try and leave it as much as possible. You know, you can tweak it here and there. And especially if you have film developed, you know, by hand, um, into, into the, the photos on silver gelatin paper, for example, there's a slight, there's some, some slight editing that could be done there, but otherwise you get what you get. And I like that. I find that there's the rawness of that. I dunno adds atmosphere. It adds atmosphere that I think sometimes digital lacks. |
| James | Oh, I would agree entirely. I also think that there's something almost to the same thing we were talking about earlier about focus and being present and the rest of it, where like the photo is what it is. You might have 5% to push or pull or something like that in development. But other than that, the photo is what it is and you get to kind of divorce yourself from the concept that this is going to be a multi-stage process to get this perfect photo. And instead it becomes a little bit more of the moment, which I absolutely agree. It's what I still appreciate about film. Um, even though I'm, I'm much better at shooting roles than I am ever getting them developed. If you, if you ever saw inside my fridge, there's a lot just to kind of sitting in there for, for some, for, I don't know, a rainy day or something. But, um, the other side of it is like in many cases, and we say this a lot and it even has started to include things like, like the kind of niche world of watch photography. You can just do a ton with a phone. as your second camera and it gets out of the way. And that way you always have the image and that kind of stuff. So yeah, I absolutely think that if you can find a way to have a camera on you, that's going to be the best camera you can possibly have in the moment. And if that Pentax is surviving things like that boat, then man, yeah. I mean, it's kind of a legendary camera in the 35 millimeter space, but certainly it's earning its chops even in a modern sense. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, absolutely. And, I totally agree with that. And I definitely agree with, you know, the camera that you have in your pocket is the camera that's, that's going to be best. And I think that the phone is an invaluable tool that we have now. I found that here up in the Arctic, you know, I'm often go out in the afternoon now to ski to a mountain or go climbing a bit. And the only thing you have on you is your phone. And what do you have on you? You have, you have a compass on your phone, you have all the mapping software you need, you have, you know, a 12 megapixel camera, which is pretty decent, if you think about it, you know, and so you can, if you want to shoot on film as well, you can shoot in 4k at 60 frames a second, you think Blimey actually as a single, single tool, it's pretty amazing thing to have when you're when you're going out, you know, going out into the, into the mountains here. So that's pretty much what I take with me most, most of the time, because The downside of film, of course, is the cost of it. And so then you are, it forces you to be more selective. |
| Jason Heaton | For sure. So Hugh, before we, uh, before we let you go, I'm sure you've got probably another 10 hours of daylight ahead of you there. It must be really light late into the evening now. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, it doesn't. Last night was the first night that the sun no longer drops below the horizon. So it's 24 hours sunlight now. |
| Jason Heaton | Are you having trouble getting used to that or is it, uh, I suppose you've spent enough time up there that it's, uh, put some eye mask on or something. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, the issue is trying to trying to get sleep because you just want to be out doing things all the time. Yeah, that's that. That's the hazard. Yeah, that's the big hazard. Most when I moved it, most people say that that the summer is harder than the winter because in the summer when the weather's good, you just want to be outside all the time. And so, yeah, exactly. Your sleep, your sleep goes along the wayside. |
| Jason Heaton | So speaking of doing things, I mean, what's coming up for you? Do you have a big expedition plan for this year? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Not for this year. My plans next are to kind of take the concept with Jan Mein, which was to look at historical expedition through the modern lens. I think that that's a really fascinating way of engaging and of storytelling. You know, we're all storytellers here, and I think that's the oldest form of communication we have. History is such an interesting way to get people in. There's a reason why Scott and Shackleton and Amundsen interest people sort of universally, because it's of a different time. So I wanted to take that as a concept. And so moving forwards, my plans for next year now is to recreate the first crossing of Greenland by the Norwegian polo explorer Fridtjof Nansen. And hopefully if we can make it work, I'd like to sail from Norway to the East coast, then it's 600 mile or 600 kilometer, uh, ski across Greenland, then a bit of a pack raft to the very end and then sail back from the West coast of Greenland back to Norway. That's the plan. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow. That sounds amazing. Yeah. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | We'll be following that with, uh, with great interest. That's great. And, and, um, your Instagram is simply at Hugh Francis Anderson. So if people want to kind of follow your exploits and some of the great photos of you, Still skiing at the end of May here. Definitely worth a follow. And where can people find your writing work? We mentioned Oceanographic, Sidetracked, and now Nat Geo. Anywhere else or are those kind of your three main outlets? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah. Those are the, those are the three main outlets right now. I'm also writing for Empora, which is an outdoor, uh, outdoor magazine and in the UK and a little bit for the Red Bulletin, but really focusing on, on titles, uh, where you can explore, explore the outdoors and adventure and the environment, you know, which, which is what fascinates me and what I'm really glad to be focusing on right now. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Well, I subscribed to Oceanographic and Sidetracked and I always look forward to, uh, to getting those magazines and it's, it's especially fun to see your name in them. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, that's kind of the end. But before I go, um, I alluded to it earlier, the, uh, the climb of, of Mount Bierenberg itself. And while it's not, it's not a technical climb, it's 2,200 meters about that. Okay. And across the glacier, what we had. Well, the issues we faced this time, but the fact that, uh, due to bureaucratical reasons, we weren't allowed to disembark the sailboat in the same spot where they did in 1921, which added 40 kilometers to our trip. So we had to start 20 kilometers south, trek across the island with our 25 kilo backpacks. But of course, on top of that, the island is now nature reserve, so there's categorically no camping. So we couldn't make camp, we couldn't rest. We sort of just had to huddle a little bit on the side of the mountain, wait until daybreak came before we could do the ascent. We had some issues with a whiteout. I mean, we summited in a whiteout, so I couldn't tell you what the view is from the top of the world. It's not the most active volcano other than it's cloud. And, um, and we came down, but yeah, in total that was 70 kilometers in. It took us 37 hours nonstop. And, uh, yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | How much weight did you lose on that trip? You must've been, yeah, I know. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | I, I ate a lot of biscuits when we got back on the boat. |
| Jason Heaton | Was that, was the volcano when you got to the top, even though you couldn't see much, could you tell that it was still active? Is there the smell of sulfur? Was it kind of bubbling below you or no? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | No, no, no, no, no. It's, it's way in the depth. So it's technically active, but it's not visibly active. If that makes sense. The last six, there was the last eruption was out of a side fissure in the 1970s, I think, but you know, the actual crater itself, you just have this sort of one kilometer wide crater rim. Um, which you have to traverse a bit. Uh, and then you look inside and it's just good glacier all inside. |
| Jason Heaton | What a, what a memory. I just, I can't, I mean, like you said, you know, a lot of misery on that trip, but, but as you're sitting in the comfort of your home, talking to us on a zoom call, like I'm sure it all just comes back to you. And that's the beauty of, of doing adventures like this, right? |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Absolutely. It's about the experience. And I think that's what anybody will say that the experience is, it's far better than, uh, Yeah, than remaining home, I think. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Well, we really appreciate your taking the time to chat with us. This has been a long time in the making, and it's good to connect with you again. And I know our listeners are just going to love to hear all about your adventures and follow you further. So thanks for coming on TGN. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks a bunch. This is great. Yeah, really lovely to chat to you guys. Thank you. |
| Jason Heaton | All right. Good luck and stay safe. So long. |
| Hugh Francis Anderson | Take care. |
| James | Okay, so that was our chat with the wonderful Hugh Francis Anderson. Hugh, a huge thank you for coming on and being so gracious with your time and telling us some of the stories. Man, that expedition into Greenland sounds just amazing, doesn't it? |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, it sure does. Yeah, I can't wait to follow that and if we can play any small role in supporting him. Absolutely. I'd love to make that happen. |
| James | Yeah, it's so nice that, you know, I feel like I've really entered, especially with COVID, I feel like I've really entered a phase in my life where I don't have anywhere near enough adventure. And to talk to a guy who used to hold a very similar job to me, right. And to see how he's, he kind of saw what he wanted and has gone for it. Yeah. It's, it's, I love it. I think it's, it's super cool. Definitely follow Hugh on, um, on Instagram, uh, at Hugh Francis Anderson and, uh, and check out his webpage and, and just kind of keep up with what he's up to. Cause it's all beautiful kind of hard, hard worn stories. Uh, and, uh, and certainly he's writing for some of our favorite outlets as well. So. Jason, you feeling some final notes? Yeah, definitely. |
| Jason Heaton | Um, I had a different one picked until just this morning, um, before we recorded, I got a chance to read, um, this, uh, big long piece on, uh, Hodinkee. And I realized that putting something from Hodinkee in final notes is in some respects, uh, preaching to the choir. I think, you know, most of our listeners are also Hodinkee readers. This is a special story though. It's a, it's an amazing story. It's, it's, uh, particularly, um, Interesting to me, I'm a longtime space buff and a big fan of this watch. It's the the discovery of Scott Carpenter's Breitling Cosmonaut. So the story is actually called Found Scott Carpenter's Breitling Cosmonaut, the first Swiss wristwatch worn in space. And it was kind of written by a guest contributor and longtime Hodinkee pal and all around good guy, Jeff Stein, who runs On The Dash. He's more of a kind of a Hoyer expert, but he's, he's clearly as this article points out, he's, uh, he's more versatile than that. And he's, uh, he's done this exhaustive piece about this incredibly historic watch that, that the astronaut and later Aquanaut Scott Carpenter wore on his, uh, Mercury flight in 1962. Um, there's so much good about this story. It goes into, you know, the history of the cosmonaut, which is interesting in its own right. And Scott Carpenter's, you know, Probably my favorite kind of astronaut slash adventure from the sixties. He was first a test pilot. Then he was a cosmonaut or sorry, you know, astronaut as part of the part of the Mercury program. And then later was a sea lab diver. So just fascinating guy who, who actually approached Breitling to develop this 24 hour readout on, on their Navitimer, which they made for him. And then he wore on his flight. And when you see the photos of, of the watch as it's, as it was found and as it is today, I mean, it's, it's mind blowing. It's, uh, it was completely ruined by, um, extended exposure to seawater while he was waiting to be picked up after his, uh, his historic flight. And, um, it was in private hands for a long time and now Breitling has revealed it and it's, uh, it's just tremendous. And, and it coincides, I guess, with, with Breitling's release of kind of a new version of the cosmonaut, which, is great. I love the cosmonaut in any form. Um, but that's, it, it's just that story, uh, pales in comparison to the discovery of this watch. And this is like one of those grail long lost watches that everybody's been wondering about and lo and behold, here it is. So, um, just a wonderful long read. |
| James | Yeah. Great, great work by Jeff on this. Yeah. Yeah. Really good stuff. Great pick. Yeah. I was actually really interested in the other story you posted, so maybe we'll hang on to it for next week. Yeah. I think it kind of raises a lot of interesting questions, and I'm a huge fan of that outlet. So I'm going to leave that as a teaser maybe for next week. Yeah, sure. Final notes. Mine this week is actually just a push to something I've talked about before, which is a podcast I love called The Rewatchables. Yeah. It's done by The Ringer. It's a hugely popular podcast, way more so than TGN. But even if you're not a movie person necessarily, like deep into film or cinema or the background, they recently, just this week, published an episode about E.T. And I learned so much about this movie that I don't think I had thought about a ton since I was a kid. I'm going to have to go back and listen to this again. And it's just three or four people talking about E.T. But there's so much here, the context that I didn't have when I was a child and I saw the movie. It had been out for a little while by the time I saw it. But I learned so much about Spielberg and about what this movie represents and kind of what it was at the time. It's an interesting thing because it's a movie I remember from my childhood very carefully, um, loving it. And, and I just started rewatching it with my kids this weekend and kind of pouring over details and context that I didn't understand because I was too young, or I really, really recommend this. If you, if you're a Spielberg fan, if you're, if you remember ET from when you were younger, uh, there's a lot in here to kind of appreciate. And they go into a lot of depth about the, the culture context of the film and the fact that like they made it for $11 million or just shy of $12 million. And then it made almost 800. uh, and that was before they ever put it on VHS. If you could imagine, I mean, like most movies now have their big week, the weekend they come out and then they die off slowly. And this one, some, you know, it was several months in by the time it had its biggest month or its biggest weekend, just, you know, it's the dark side of the moon of, of movies. It also established like it was the highest grossing film of all time until Spielberg did it again with Jurassic park. Oh my gosh, Jason, this will blow your mind. I had no, I'd never really considered the numbers because you never, you don't always see them next to each other, I guess, unless you're on Spielberg's IMDB page specifically. But in the span of two years, he released Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. Wow. Wow. Talk, talk about, talk about changing the whole game. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. Movies that, that like people haven't seen some of these movies, but they know, they know scenes from them. You know, you know, E.T. and the bike going past the moon. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, you know, the, the, the scene of, of, uh, of Indiana, you know, trying to gauge the weight of the ball that he's about to steal or being chased by the giant, the giant, you know, runaway ball or whatever. Right. Yeah. The snake, exactly. The snakes, the, the, you know, the sequence with the guy in the bazaar with the swords and yeah, there's just so much in these. And, and it, I think this is a, this is a base unit of like film appreciation that anyone could attach to. Uh, this is not an erudite film where you're talking a lot about the cinematography, although it's, it's incredible. Uh, this movie is an absolute treat, um, in terms of the specificity of how it was made and its cultural impact and kind of where it brought Spielberg and, and the idea of like kids performances in movies, right? Like these are, it's great. I highly recommend this. I enjoyed it so much. It immediately jumped to the top of the list. I had a chance to listen to it while doing some driving around the cottage property this weekend and just just loved it. So the only reason I would say there's any push for timing is I believe I believe rewatchables only exist on the public feed for 90 days and then they go to the archive, which is a paid thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James | So if you want to check it out, I think you've got like three months, give or take a week at this point. But I highly recommend it. It was super entertaining. I learned a ton. The guests are incredible. It's Chris Ryan and Sean Fennessey and Mallory Rubin. uh, several of my faves. And of course, Bill Simmons is the, is the guy that hosts these ones. Yep. Rewatchables for ET. It's, it's awesome. |
| Jason Heaton | Amazing. And, and you know, the thing about this is this isn't just like our film club where we're kind of giving our impressions. I mean, these guys, they clearly go into do a lot of research. |
| James | Yeah. It's super fun, really entertaining. And there's a bit of, if you've never listened to a rewatchables, there's an internalized format where they, they try and rate the movie on several different, often exceedingly esoteric scales. Once you get your head wrapped around those, it's really fun. It becomes super fun to try and decide, you know, what, what the scope of a movie is, why it's rewatchable, why it's one that doesn't, hasn't really left over time. Right. Yeah. And ET really does stand up to that in a way where like, if they'd said, Oh, next week we're doing ET, I maybe wouldn't even have remembered. Wow. And then I wanted to listen to it cause I, I had missed a couple of them. And so I got to it and I was just, I loved every minute of it. Highly recommend. |
| Jason Heaton | Nice. |
| James | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | All right. Well, that puts the button on, uh, what I think is a pretty tremendous episode. We had some great news early on about, um, TGN being at the windup Chicago fair in July and then get ready. Such a great chat with Hugh Francis Anderson, who we thank so much for coming on the show. So it was great. And as always, uh, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode. And by the way, we got a ton of them on our, uh, summer gear episode, I think over 70 at last count. So that's awesome. Or if you want to consider supporting the show directly, and maybe you want to grab a new TGN signed NATO, do visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive. |
| James | And we leave you with this quote from Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who said, When one man, for whatever reason, has the chance to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself. |