Kevin Callan and Paul Kirtley in Conversation

Kevin Callan continues apace with his Whisky Fireside Chat series. It’s a longstanding series on his YouTube channel but he is making use of the time during “coronavirus lockdown” by recording as many of these sessions as he can during his time stuck at home. Recently Ray Goodwin joined him for one of these sessions. This time it was my turn.

Chatting with Kevin is always fun, entertaining, and a little unpredictable. Followers of my podcast will remember Kevin from a number of sessions in the past. I’ve linked these below if you’ve not heard them before.

Readers of the Frontier Bushcraft blog who follow both my work and Kevin’s will know I contributed to Kevin’s Complete Guide To Winter Camping book, including the front cover photograph. Many also remember with a smile the fun trip we had down the River Spey with Ray Goodwin and Justine Curgenven. Kevin made a great set of videos for his YouTube channel, as well as a film which he took on his annual speaking tour.

These days, when I chat with other well-known outdoorspeople online, it’s usually me doing the interviewing. So, it was a refreshing change to be interviewed. Knowing both sides of the fence, I actually find being interviewed much less pressured than interviewing someone else. I think this is because I know what I know and it’s up to the interviewer to ask me the questions they want to ask. I just go with the flow.

By contrast, when I am interviewing someone else, I find there is pressure (possibly entirely self-imposed) to come up with intelligent questions, create a forum where there is a logical arc to the conversation, rather than just a collection of random ramblings, to keep the subject of the interview interested and engaged, and sometimes, particularly with well-known guests or guests who have been on my podcast multiple times, to come up with new areas to explore in the conversation, not already covered in previous sessions. There’s more preparation required and more pressure to keep things on track.

But back to this session with Kevin. One question that seemed to crop up a few times when the video below was premiered on Kevin’s YouTube channel was “what’s with the matching shirts?….”. Well these are Bull Moose Patrol shirts, from Scott Oeth.

Two men with red and black plaid shirts
Paul Kirtley and Kevin Callan with their matching red and black check shirts.

Scott and I have been in contact for years and we finally met at the 2019 Global Bushcraft Symposium, where I was a keynote speaker. Scott very kindly brought me a shirt. I noticed Kevin was wearing one for his chat with Ray Goodwin last week, so I thought it would be fun to wear mine too. Kevin didn’t know in advance I was going to be wearing it. By the way, Scott runs a great site (linked above) and I recommend you check it out. And – shameless plug – you’d do a lot worse than starting with the long-form interview I did with Scott a few years ago, and which is linked below, along with some other interviews I have done over the years.

In the latest interview with Kevin, embedded above, we cover a good amount of ground. Kevin asks me about what spurred me to be an outdoor instructor, who my inspirations have been, and what I like most about being outdoors. I tell a story about when a group of us walked across Scotland, taking in the nine highest mountain peaks. We talk about my canoe adventures like the River Tay in the UK as well as wilderness adventures in Canada such as my solo trip on the Berens River, risks of wilderness travel, how you can transpose bushcraft skills and knowledge from one environment to another, as well as whisky!

Kevin has edited into the interview session clips from his videos of our Spey trip as well as taking some footage from my YouTube channel. He’s also pinched some photos from my Facebook profile and inserted them at random junctures along the way to illustrate the conversation as we go. As always, chatting with Kevin was a blast. He’s a good friend and it’s always nice to catch up with him. I hope you enjoy the conversation too.

Other Interviews With Paul Kirtley

Paul Kirtley Interview on Bushcraft Survival Australia YouTube Channel
Paul Kirtley Interview on the Trial By Fire Podcast
Paul Kirtley Interview on Nature Aventure Survie Podcast
Paul Kirtley Interview on the Sumo Survival Podcast
Paul Kirtley Interview on Bull Moose Patrol

Other Conversations With Kevin Callan You Might Like

Paul Kirtley Podcast 046: Kevin Callan, The Nicest Man On The Meanest Journey
Paul Kirtley Podcast 026: Kevin Callan On The Joys Of Winter Camping
Paul Kirtley Podcast 003: Kevin Callan, The Happy Camper

Books By Kevin Callan

The following two tabs change content below.
Paul Kirtley is Founder and Chief Instructor of Frontier Bushcraft. He has had a lifelong passion for the great outdoors and gains great satisfaction from helping others enjoy it too. Paul writes the UK's leading bushcraft blog. He is the author of Wilderness Axe Skills and Campcraft, as well as having contributed to several other books. Paul has been involved in teaching bushcraft since 2003. He is also a Canoe Leader, British Canoeing Level 3 Canoe Coach and UK Summer Mountain Leader.

Latest posts by Paul Kirtley (see all)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.