The Grey Range Podcast

If your life was a movie, would it be worth watching? There is a level of work and commitment that most of the couch-bound, screen scrolling masses will never understand. A level of achievement and satisfaction that will never be known by those who cower from the immensity of the task that is given to them by virtue of their dreams and ambitions. An inheritance that is theirs by birth, but they ar...

The whole world is politics. It sucks, but it’s true.  But I think there’s an antidote to the ragemob and the fear and loathing that permeates our brains, courtesy of the littlerage rectangle we so ubiquitously cling to these days. Put it down. Go outside. “Touch grass.” As the kids say. You don’t have to participate. Or, more accurately, you only have to participate as much as it benefits you. On...

How much do you value your principles? How willing are you to lose everything based on the weight of your convictions, or your morals? Easy questions to ask. Harder questions to answer. Over the past few years, we have all been asked to take stock and measure what it is we truly value. It has lead us to an uncertain crossroads within many our own lives, our families, our communities, and our natio...

There is a quote that has always stuck with me. It comes from a conversation between punk rock legend Iggy Pop and one of my favorite humans to ever exist, the late Anthony Bourdain (RIP), from Season 5, Episode 2 of his program on CNN “Parts Unknown”.“Curious is a good thing to be. Y’know. It seems to pay some interesting dividends.”(Check out a clip from the episode on someone’s iPad here: Antho...

Some say that today’s youth are going to be feckless zombies programmed by AI algorithms and government and corporate propaganda. Plugged into the Virtual Reality, or Augmented Reality world, living off UBI and creating nothing of value. I think every generation thinks that the ones that come after them are lost and ineffectual. But is it true? In the case of 20-year-old entrepreneur, Charles Bieg...

Well, 2025 has sure started off with a tailwind! By the time this episode airs, Donald Trump will have been the 47th President of the United States for a couple of weeks, The Canadian Liberal Party will be most of the way to choosing their new leader, and the rest of the world is likely trying to hang on by its fingernails as the big wheel spins faster and faster. I imagine it like an old school p...

What do you do when the world seems to push back at every effort you put forward? How do you reconcile your dreams, your plans, and your goals, when the very fabric of the reality you inhabit seems to resist your every move? How do you overcome the obstacles that seek to thwart your progress? Well, you don’t quit. No one knows the pressure of resistance quite like Mike Davison, owner of Barton’s B...

The world is an uncertain place. These days it seems even more so. We inhabit a strangely dystopian present, where we no longer so easily carry the blind trust in our institutions and our social fabric that we once did. Some of this can be attributed to the downstream effects of the COVID pandemic and the seemingly endless rollout of draconian statutes, crackdowns on free speech, and the knowledge...

"Black death negative..." That's how it starts. Those are the first 3 words in my new collection titled, "Whiskey Painted Holocaust". And what better way to dive into the new book than to line up 3 bottles of fine whiskey and bourbon and get 2 of my homeboys to join me in reading a few pieces while we get half in the bag. This collection of poems, stories, soliloquys and other oddities, is taken f...

What does it mean to live a life full of adventure? What separates those who climb mountains, travel unnamed rivers, and leave the life they know behind to sail unknown seas, from those who seek the calm, secure comfort of hearth and home? Well, if anyone can give us a hint, it’s Ben Brochu of Hinterland Outdoors. Ben was born and raised here in the Peace Country of Northern Alberta, and from a yo...

Do you own a pistol? If you answered, “No”, then I am sad for you. Sad, and a little disappointed. I’m especially sad if you live in Canada, where the sale and transfer of ownership of pistols and numerous types of rifles, shotguns, and other firearms was recently banned. But that’s a topic for another episode. (Actually, we rant about it on every episode. This one, too!) If you answered “Yes”, th...

Well, here goes another one. Lucas Orich and I are back for another fun episode of The Grey Range Podcast, where Lucas debriefs his experience at “The King of 2 Mile” long distance shooting competition. He fills us in on the highs and lows, gear used, lessons learned, and the overall experience of shooting his first ELR (Extreme Long Range) rifle shooting competition. As usual, we veer wildly off...

Hey, everybody. What is the point of struggle? Does God test us with pointless, horrible events in our lives, or is there truly a plan for us? In my life, I have learned that I wrestle with my own purpose and finding meaning in my life, not as a symptom of some illness that afflicts me, but because I think that struggle is built into our DNA. I think we are creatures designed for conflict with a u...

Hello World. This planet is a savage and wonderful place. Somewhere, right now, someone is fighting for their survival against another human being, or group of human beings who wish to do them harm. The planet itself is against us. The Earth has been trying to eradicate humanity for a few hundred thousand years, but we persevere. What is the value of training and preparation? Does it pay the divid...

Hey everyone! Lucas and I are back in the studio for Episode 18 of The Grey Range Podcast, talking shit and drinking a couple cold Coors Banquets. In this episode we talk about a few things that are coming down the pike for the podcast, as well as catching up on our summer adventures. We touch on a few of the summer’s hot button issues, like the fire in Jasper, Alberta (my hometown), the Summer Ol...

You don’t have to look too hard to see that there’s something wrong with the world. Tent cities and hopeless addicts have become part of the urban landscape in every North American city, but I think we all share the uncomfortable knowledge that it goes deeper than that. Few people these days need to look very far from themselves to encounter addiction, or mental health issues. None of us need stra...

How important is it that we are connected digitally? Do the fiber optic cables that run into our homes, the cellular tower networks, and the fields of energy that carry our data entwine with our lives in ways we haven’t yet started to understand? Have these technological connections woven their way into our social, cultural, and commercial lives so intrinsically now that we might not recognize the...

Self-made people intrigue us. Individuals who aren’t hemmed in by the gates and fences of the world, who indulge their seemingly insatiable curiosity to whatever ends may come, inspire us. The type of people who see possibilities and potential where others see barriers and obstacles are the kind of people whom we tend to want to imitate and follow. They’re generally positive people. Quick to laugh...

There have been a few unexpected takeaways since I started doing “The Grey Range Podcast.” Maybe it’s the hours of editing footage and watching cuts over and over, but it has occurred to me that one of the biggest things that I have gained out of this whole exercise is an appreciation for the trust that our guests put in me to take care of their story. When someone comes in and sits down in the st...

Everyone has a path, and not all paths are clear and evident when one first starts down it. Such is the life of our most recent guest, Dustin Goodheart. Dustin has been a friend of mine since high school, and as it is with most folks, you drift apart and lose touch over time. But when we reconnected a few years ago, the place Dustin ended up intrigued me, so I wanted to have him on to tell his sto...

Guess who’s back? Stand up comedian and friend of the podcast, Ben Bauce, becomes our first ever 2-time guest on the podcast. The first time around we were running on limited time, so when Ben came back through town for another headlining spot at the Great Northern Casino, we got up early and recorded an 08:00am podcast to make sure we had enough time to get a good conversation in. And we did! Ben...

There are some who would say that human beings have become lesser of a species over time. That we have become weaker, dumber, less articulate. Those people have never met Laine Ingalls. In this episode, Lucas Orich and I are joined by Laine Ingalls, owner of Heiho Dojo here in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Initially, Laine cuts an imposing figure. In another time, I’m sure he would be at home on some a...

Who drops their "Year in Review" episode in mid-February? Well, people who work in the Alberta energy industry for one. Okay, that's a cheap cop out. Time is precious and time management is something I'm going to be working on in 2024, as my co-host and most awesome homeboy, Lucas Orich and I discuss in this wrap up to 2023 episode. We are so very grateful for all our guests, all...

In this world, there are all kinds of people. Most live in pursuit of some form of relative safety and comfort, slowly building on past successes and trying not to mess things up too bad. Then there are the outliers, those who look at their lives and see their place in the world and think, “Why?” Rare individuals who see problems as opportunities, who never rest on their personal achievements, and...

Sometimes in life, you meet a truly unique individual. They are someone who sees the world a little clearer than most. Their mind seems to grasp ideas in their fullness, and their curiosity and drive to understand knows no bounds. Steve “Stevo” Fitchie is such an individual, and we are happy to have had him in the studio for a conversation about competitive shooting, guns, politics in Canada, his...