 Welcome to Moments with Melinda. My name is Melinda Moulton and I'm your host and I just want you to know that I am channeling right now the great Jan Reynolds who happens to be my guest today. Hi Jan, how are you? I am fine. I'm excited to talk with you Melinda. And I'm channeling you with these sunglasses because I'm going to tell my viewers all about you for any of you out there who don't know Jan Reynolds. Jan Reynolds is a seventh generation Vermonter, international explorer, world record-setting climber and skier, and award-winning non-fiction author working in extreme environments. I mean, and a mom, and a mom, and a mom, of course. Probably my most important job. That is, I'm sorry, I forgot that. You're absolutely right. You are the mother to two pretty remarkable sons. Jan, we're going to get right to it right here because I have a lot to cover with you for this show today. I'm going to start my timer. And first off, I want to ask you to share with my viewers and share a seventh generation Vermonter. Share with my viewers about growing up in Vermont. Growing up in Vermont. Well, I think it sets a very strong foundation for life. I think Vermonters in general, at least, you know, come from a big farm family. There's seven kids, came from Middlebury, lived on a dairy farm. My dad and hired men were milking a little over 100 cows. So it wasn't too big of a farm, but my dad owned other farms too. And so we rode around in trucks and in the cornfields and played in the apple trees. And so the basic Vermont at that time, I think Vermonters have a sense of humility, a sense of if it breaks, you can fix it, a sense of being understated, a sense of being very capable yet understated. And I think that sort of Vermont background has stuck with me. And I think when I travel and I work overseas and when I work with indigenous people in my book series, Vanishing Cultures, I think that Vermont background where I grew up living close to the land and the animals, it's probably part of what drives draws me way out there with other people that are living very close to the land and the animals. It feels somewhat like home to me. And these people are very capable. They're very practical. They're very understated. They're generous. They're hearty. If it breaks, they can fix it or they'll figure something out. And I think that's Vermont that I carry with me with all my work. So tell me, tell my viewers a little bit about about your life growing up. You were one of, I believe, seven or eight children and you were the... Number six of seven, yeah. You were number six of seven. So the second youngest. Talk a little bit about your family and growing up on a farm and your seventh generation, which means you go back to the... Well, there's a woman named Ann Story and she's buried in our family graveyard down in Middlebury. And she was the original single mom. And back in history, our ancestors were in Connecticut, they were bound out. And what that means, it's kind of like the closest you could get to slavery. You belong to someone and you had to work their farms, but both the French king and the English king gave away the same land up north, which is now Vermont. So if you were bound out, if you left and went north and you cleared land, then you would own it. And that was how both the French and the English kings expanded their territory. But that's part of why there were problems in the north between the Indians and the French coming down and trying to burn out the settlers, because the French king said it belonged to them and the English king. And those settlers said it belonged to them and blah, blah, blah. But the whole thing of being on the farm and when you were mentioning seventh generation, seventh or eighth generation, that's where that comes from. Just the stories about Ann Story and her being an early settler. Wasn't her family Hannah Reynolds, the Hannah Reynolds family? Yeah. Yeah, but I don't know a whole lot about that. There's a good chance you come from that lineage and it goes back that far to the mid-1700s. Yes. Yes. And so that same land, the farm, life on the farm, it's the same area where she's been and I grew up there. So it's been there for generations. So you are a tall, strong Vermont red oak, my friend. Let's talk about the life that most of us can only dream about. Share with us some of your most exciting moments, as you have said, of getting truly lost on this planet. Oh, it's pretty hard when people ask superlatives, what's exciting for me might not be exciting for someone else. Well, it doesn't matter. I just wanted you to share with my viewers some of the exciting things that you've done in your life from hanging off the side of Mount Everest to going off to exotic places that none of us would ever even know. Living in caves, being without food for five days, trying to find our way to civilization in the Himalaya. I crossed over into Tibet on skis and the Chinese army was there chasing me and they, but they just had their little canvas army boots and pistols. And I was on the biathlon team and I knew the range of a rifle and it's kind of funny. I mean, on skis, there's no way they're going to catch me. They're trying to run along and the range of a pistol is nothing like a rifle, but it was very sad and scary. There have been people who the Chinese army have captured up there and shot. So, you know, it was very real. You know, things like that, the hot air balloon over Everest, we crashed, we rolled, we caught on fire. I managed to put it out. So we didn't blow with the gas tanks hanging right there. You know, stuff like that. You have done, and you have done extraordinary, you have had a life full of extraordinary experiences. So what do you think, and you said it a little bit in the opening of our discussion, but what do you think gave you this grit and the confidence and also the skill to be what you are known as quite comfortably, I hope, as a world explorer? So I'd go back to background again, you know, that I'm in order to play with the bigger kids on the farm, you know, I had to keep up. I think that had something to do with it. And living with living simply would just hand me downs and all of those kinds of things. I think it set me up for being able to get along, go with the flow. I think when I was younger, we didn't have sports for women until we got into high school, but I was a big Nordic cross country ski racer and made the junior national team. And I think training, when I first became a teen, training hard and working out physically gave me the physical strength and the endurance and maybe the grit to, I mean, the sport of Nordic skiing does a lot for you in terms of endurance. And you never really know how you're doing until you finish. So conditions could be awful and you think you're not doing well, but it's maybe awful for everybody else. And the next thing you know, you won if you just keep hanging in there. So I think Vermont and farm life and being a nationally ranked cross country skier and training for that set me up for the kind of strength and attitude I might need. And then the skills, well, that's what you you develop. And I just happened to be drawn to the outdoors. And I went to school for a year, my second year at the University of Vermont, I went to school in Norway, because I was a big Nordic skier. And I raced over there and I learned the language and I began ice climbing over there. And I joined a winter rescue squad. And we would dig snow holes when we were searching for people and we'd live outside. And, you know, I developed the skills you need for being out but also taking care of someone else on being on a rescue squad. So I think all of those things kind of set me up for being an expedition person. So it's a sort of background and then sort of personal choices. And then I, while I was young as a teen, I had photos exhibited in the Boston Center for the Arts black and whites that I had done and developed. And I had a short story published. So I was already involved in writing and photography. So combining that with my outdoor skills and, you know, strength and endurance made me a pretty good package to go on an expedition and then be able to photograph and write about it so that you could bring something back for sponsors and magazines so that you're funded. So I didn't set it up in my head to have all of those pieces but they sort of came naturally. Felt together. Now, Jan, you are a member of the Explorers Club in New York City and you are being inducted into the United States Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in March. You've received numerous awards and been hailed as one of the most amazing and interesting women in the world. And yet you were one of the most understated and humble people that I know. So how do you balance your fame with your humility and your humanity? Well, I don't have that much fame. So there's not a lot to balance. No, but you do. I mean, what you've accomplished and done. Well, thanks a little bit. I mean, really. You're a member of the Ski of the Explorers Club and also to this year to be inducted into the Ski Hall of Fame, the United States Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and that's a big deal. And you've received numerous awards and recognition over your lifetime. So and you balance that so well. I mean, I know you quite well as a friend and you are an understated and you have a lot of humanity. And I'm just wondering for my viewers, how do you balance that all? Now, how do I balance that all? Well, a couple of things. Maybe because someone else said this to me too, that really, especially outside of Vermont, you know, people don't know who I am or what are what I do or what my work is. Hopefully they appreciate my books, the kids and librarians that pick them up. And they are still in print 30 years. So my work, my work is working. And that's what's important to me. But me personally, I think Melinda, if I had been a man who thinks of change now and women are doing everything and getting lots of attention for it as they should. But I think if I had been a man doing all the different things that I've done, the U.S. by Athalon team, setting world records, award-winning books, you know, it would have been a bigger deal. But you know, as a female, I think you just kind of fall through the cracks. Well, here, here, because you're not, you're, you're several years, quite a bit, a few years than I am, but you're in your 60s. Yeah, 67. I don't mind giving my name. And I'm 72, but you look like, I mean, you're very youthful looking. Very, very youthful looking. And so anyway, I get that whole thing about being a woman. So thank you for that. But I, I love the fact that you are so understated. You have such humanity and humility. And you have one of, you have such a great sense of humor. I'm going to move right now into your children. But I'm going to jump back in. Melinda, you are the same. You are the same. And I was so excited when that article came out about you that I read, because it's the same thing. You're very competent. You do your work. You get it done. If you had been a man, you probably would have been touted over and over again, or there would have been more money thrown at you for more projects. Same thing for me. I ended up soloing a lot of things, because in my time, the money and response and leadership wasn't going to go to a woman. And the men were not going to go with me. I soloed over the Himalayas. You know, you just do your thing. I soloed National Geographic, funded you to solo across the Himalayas. I mean, that's extraordinary. And I totally agree with you. And that's something we need to talk about over dinner, because it's a comfort for you to do. Well, it's just you are admiring or saying very kindly to me, wow, you handle doing lots and you still seem like a regular person is what I think you were saying. I think that's what women do. Like, well, Melinda, you know that answer. That's you. Well, we'll have to have an off TV discussion about that. I want you to take us right now to your extraordinary Vanishing Cultures book series. And you have published now, I think over 20 books, and talk to us about this project that you've been doing for probably many years and writing your children's book called Vanishing Cultures Book Series. Share that with my viewers. Well, I actually had a problem with my back and I couldn't walk for a couple of months. And that was back in the time of phones that were, you know, attached to the wall. What do you call them? You know, just a regular. Landlines are called landline. So regular landline phone. And the phone would ring. And the only way I could answer it was to roll off the couch and go in my hands and knees and answer the phone. So my back really, it didn't work. It didn't function. And I had done, I'd set a lot of records and all of this, but I had two months to really literally lay on the couch and think about it that if my body got put back together, what would I do? What's important? And during that time, that's how I came up with the Vanishing Cultures series. And for me, I figured, oh, there's always going to be people to set records. And that was that was so invigorating and exciting when I did it. But what meant more to me were these people that I met in the nooks and crannies of planet earth. They were lovely. And they were vanishing. They were disappearing fast, their way of life. And I knew if I was put back together, because I scuba dive, I skydive, I ice climb, I ski, I can bike, I can hike, I can get into about anywhere. So I decided I wanted to do something to give these indigenous people around the world that I had met in the nooks and crannies of voice. And I wanted to photograph their way of life before we couldn't do it anymore. Now, if someone wanted to follow my footsteps and went back to all the places I went to, they would not be able to get the photographs I've gotten. It was changing that fast. And I lived with an indigenous tribe on each continent, photographed them, wrote about them, Tibetans in the Himalaya, the Tuareg in the Sahara, which is the matrilineal society, the men wear veils, not the women. And they ran the salt caravans across the Sahara. The Samis in the far north, the reindeer herders, the aboriginals in Australia, the Inuit for North America that were still building igloos and hunting. And the Anamama in the Amazon territory, which was hundreds of miles out, it took me two months to get permission to even get in there. And Mongolia. So that's how that was born out of having a, I almost wish for everyone not to have something go wrong with their body, but give them time somewhere in their life. A couple of months, like if I could do anything, what would it be? And then go for it. I remember my friend driving me to New York City and I ended up with back surgery and I ended up being okay. And I couldn't even sit down. So I laid flat and I would go into publishing houses and they'd say, oh, have a seat. We'd like to see your photographs. What are you proposing here? And I'd go, no, no, no, no, I've been driving in, I'd rather not sit down. I didn't dare tell them. I said, I'm going to the Himalaya. I'm going to the Sahara. And I couldn't even freaking sit down. Right? So who's going to give me a whole bunch of money in advance, you know, royalties when I can't even sit down. So that was hilarious, you know. Well, now, Jan, you just got back. I saw you right before you left in November. Tell us about your most recent trip that you took in November and the book that you are writing about and that experience. I spent some time with the Bajau and I've always wanted to visit these people. There are a couple of things that I would like to get across in this book. And one is that with the Bajau, they can see underwater in a way we can't and they can stay underwater for almost 15 minutes. And they have lived on boats for many generations and they hunt underwater. So their bodies have literally adapted. So it's a way to show children that this human form we have isn't our final form. If you look at the Bajau, you can see how we genetically adapt. And so and then the other thing, I like the idea of showing again that we're all one human family, you know. Well, how did their bodies adapt? Explain that to us. Well, then if you're a geneticist, you understand it's kind of like any genetics. Let's see, how would I explain? Did their lungs get bigger? Did they, because they lived underwater? I think a lot of it is, one way I can describe it is if you go to Tibet, the Tibetans in the Sherpas can breathe up higher, better than we can. Because genetically, their bodies have been adapting for thousands of years. So that's a better way to explain it. So just with the Bajau, they have been adapting to being underwater. So they're, you know, all the, you need a scientist for that. But yes, genetically, we adapt to our environment like all animals do. So did you, did you go underwater and? Oh, yeah, well, I, which is good to keep learning new things. I was scuba diving. I had to redo my scuba certification and got my underwater camera. And so I was underwater doing some photographs with my scuba gear while they were underwater hunting. Did you, and you lived with them? So, and you can tell us where this, where this was that you went? I was on the Togian Islands and they are, you know, Indonesia is made up of, they say, 17,000 islands. So it took me four days to get all the way out to the Togian Islands. And I found some of the Bajau, they really are living on their boats. But what they will do is make like a, sort of a permanent boat. It's like a house on the, over the water and the boat can go under. And they're pretty cool. You didn't speak their language. So how did you communicate? Oh, well, that's, that's not a problem. Hand gestures, whatever I've been doing that forever. Yeah. And I largely spend a lot of time with the kids. I mean, I, I suppose you don't want to do screen share. And if I had it set up, I could give you, show you a couple pictures of, of them. But, well, we're getting, we're getting towards the end of our thing. But, what I'd like you to do is tell us what the name of the book is, and when it's going to come out. And, and I have a feeling that you're probably going to have, I'm going to tell folks that your website is janrenalds.com. It's quite simple. Yeah. All my books are there. Jan Reynolds.com. But your new book, when is your new book coming out? Well, we don't know. I am putting it together now. And we don't know what the title will finally be. And I will be talking with different publishers in New York. Simon and Schuster's expressed some interest. But I'm also putting up free books on my YouTube channels. Just go to YouTube, go to Jan Reynolds. And I have one book called Loving Kindness about a young tulkoo. He's a reincarnated llama, just like the Dalai Lama. And I have a book about his life, learning about compassion and loving kindness. So I'm working a lot of different ways. So I'll probably have some of my Indonesian work up on my YouTube channel under Jan Reynolds, at Jan Reynolds. And if Simon and Schuster picks it up, then my Indian, my Bajau book. Right now, the working title is Bajau Book. How exciting. How exciting, Jan. So I want to talk to you a little bit about, we talked about the Anne's story from the revolutionary period about this woman who lived in Middlebury and her husband and son were, her husband was killed and she had her home burned and lived in a cave. And then she created, rebuilt her house and then had a tunnel where the Patriots could. The Green Mountain Boys. She worked with the Green Mountain Boys, yeah. Could flee. And that's down in that area where a lot of the Green Mountain Boy, and I don't know if Rick and I are kicking off this film on Ethan Allen. So we're going to want to talk to you more about that. So no wonder, you must know a lot about that. Well, we're just kicking this off, but we have 20 historians and we're going to want to talk to you. But Anne's story, so do you think that, and this Anne's story is quite famous, but her name was Hannah Reynolds. Do you believe that you could be, you probably are a descendant of hers? My dad always said we were, and like I said, she's buried in our family graveyard. There you go. So she's nearby no matter what. She's an inspiration. She ended up, she was a single mom with her kids way up in Vermont. When there was no road, you had to walk over a trail. I guess there was a road to Rutland, and after that you had to walk, but she had a horse to put the packs on. She went up with her kids. Her husband was killed, clearing the land, but she went up anyway. Fantastic story. Well, yeah, it is kind of, that'll have to be another interview, but people can Google Anne's story of Vermont. Yeah. And I have no doubt you're a descendant of Anne's stories. So another question I have is what you have done in your life has so often been on the edge of a cliff. You push yourself to do things that would defeat pretty much most any human being, certainly me, but most human beings. So again, I'm going to go back to this because I think it's unique to you and people like you, and there are women in our world who have that, but they don't get heard and you don't hear about them. And I don't know if there's as many as men, but where do you get the resolve to put and take yourself over the edge of what is humanly possible? Oh, I don't know if it's over the edge of what's humanly possible. Well, talk to me about you camping on the side of Everest, that incredible book that you wrote about your exploring that circle. Again, the name of your book is Everest Grand Circle, but it's in the more current book. It's called, it's called The Glass Summit. The Glass Summit. And I just got, I just got a copy and I was reading it and I got to the part where you, you literally are camping out on the side of the mountain and sleeping. You lost me from it. I'm in my office, this one. It's all here. The Glass Summit. It's got that story. It got translated into Italian. That's outstanding. I mean, that's life and death stuff, Jan. And you've done it over and over again. And I'm just, I mean, maybe, maybe there is no answer for this, except it is who you are. But yeah, but I think the answer is, you know, call it bizarre, but for me, it's fun. At the time I was doing it, it was the most fun thing I could think of to do on planet Earth. These guys that I was hanging out with that we would go and climb and it's 30 below zero and that lenticular cloud is over Everest and it's coming your way and you better hunker down and repel off or you're going to get blown off. And it's just that connection with your climbing buddies or mortality and picking a goal and doing it. There was nothing, there was nothing in the world at that point in time that I thought was more fun. Call it strange or bizarre, but to me, and for those that like that kind of thing, there wasn't any other place I'd rather be. Even when we ran out of food, it's still, it's so remarkable because you are so alive. It's not a death wish. You're so alive. Every moment counts. Every thought, every decision, your connection with your teammates, it makes life so big and real and immediate. Your life is big and strong and immediate. I'm just, I'm always in awe with you, but enough of my, I just adore you so much. But I'm older and more mellow, Melinda. Come on. I was just scuba diving with the Bajau. I'm taking it easy. But you're also a lecturer and you are very generous with your time and you speak to students and in communities and share your experiences. So Jan, what do you have to say to children today that are growing up in a world where their climate is heating and they're faced with one of our species greatest that threats? I think I would say that inside every one of you kids, there are skills and ideas that you have that we need. And the most important thing is to dig deep and find out what it is that you have to serve, to give, to offer. Even if you're a poet, you know, how's that going to help? Well, your words are, look at Amanda Gorman, okay? Poet. So, so your, your special gifts, your job is to find what that gift is and then give it, you know? And nobody knows what it is, but you and no one can tell you what you should be doing. Only you know. It's a big job to find that. It's a big job. It is. And I think you found it. And so, so now we're coming to the close and there's, and I want you, Jan, you see the world in a way that most of us can only dream about. And you see the big picture because you're out there in the world in places that none of us even know exist. So what is your vision for the next 20 years? And what are your hopes for humankind? Live simply, consume less, share more. Say that again. Say that again. Live simply, consume less, share more. If we could all do that. I mean, I almost feel teary. I wish we could all do that. You know, I do too. And that's so beautiful. And so you have great hope for the future of our species. Yes, no, I'd rather be positive than negative. You know, well, Jan Reynolds, thank you for your time. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for being a seven generation for monitoring for sticking around for sticking around and for giving us the next generation in your two beautiful sons. And I honor you and thank you for being on my show. And to my viewers, I want to thank you for joining me and Jan Reynolds for this half hour. And I will see you soon. Have a good day. Bye bye.