Kevin Grange - The Secret Lives of Grizzlies
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Release Date: 10/18/2024
Jason Gardner Returns – Fire, Leadership, and What Really Matters
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Jason Gardner is a retired Navy SEAL who now works as a top-level leadership instructor with Echelon Front. Over his thirty-year career in the SEAL teams, he served in combat operations in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, later becoming Command Master Chief of SEAL Team Five and Training Detachment. Since retiring from the Navy, Jason has worked with hundreds of organizations as a leadership instructor and strategic advisor, helping teams apply high-stakes leadership principles to business and life. He now lives in a remote corner of northeastern Washington with his wife, Iris, and their two...
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Todd Ulizio – Farming, Attention, and a Life Well Rooted
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Todd Ulizio is the co-owner of Two Bear Farm, an organic vegetable farm in Whitefish, Montana, that’s quietly become a cornerstone of the Flathead Valley’s local food community. Alongside his wife Rebecca, Todd has spent nearly two decades growing food, building soil, and figuring out how to make a small, values-driven farm work in a world that doesn’t always make it easy. Todd’s path to farming was anything but direct. He grew up in Connecticut and followed a traditional educational and career path, eventually becoming an accountant at a prestigious Big 6 Firm. Experiencing success...
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Sammy Matsaw Jr. – Salmon, Sovereignty, and the Long Work of Healing
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Sammy Matsaw Jr. is the Director of the Columbia Basin Program at The Nature Conservancy, where he works at the intersection of salmon recovery, tribal sovereignty, and large-scale river restoration across one of the most complex watersheds in North America. In this role, Sammy helps guide conservation strategies that span state lines, political boundaries, and cultural histories—while keeping people, relationships, and responsibility at the center of the work. Sammy grew up on the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation, surrounded by salmon stories, land-based learning, and a deep sense of...
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Ed’s Appearance on “My Favorite Things”
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Today’s episode is a bit of a departure from the usual format. I’m re-sharing a recent conversation I had on my friend Brendan Leonard’s new podcast, . I’m sure most of y’all are already familiar with Brendan’s work, but for those of you who aren’t, he’s an author, illustrator, filmmaker, and creator of . Brendan’s new podcast is built around a simple but fascinating premise: conversations about the books, films, art, and creative works that have helped shape a person’s life and career. In this conversation, we spend less time on what I do, and more time on what’s...
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Mike Schaedel - Restoring Balance to Fire-Adapted Landscapes
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Mike Schaedel is the Western Montana Forest Restoration Director for The Nature Conservancy, where he leads some of the most ambitious and collaborative forest restoration work happening anywhere in the West. Based in Missoula, Mike works at the intersection of science, community partnerships, and land stewardship—helping restore fire-adapted forests, reduce wildfire risk, and improve the health and resilience of landscapes across the region. Mike’s career path is super interesting and anything but traditional. He grew up in Portland, fell in love with the mountains through rock climbing,...
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SHED SESH: September & October 2025 Book Recommendations
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
This month marks ten full years of my bimonthly book-recommendations project—a decade of weird little paragraphs about the books that grab my scattered attention. Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or signed up five minutes ago, thank you. I’m still baffled anyone reads these things, but I’m grateful all the same. To mark the occasion, I recorded a late-night solo episode from The Shed, diving deeper into each of my September & October picks: why I chose them, what stayed with me, and the sometimes-unexpected lessons I gleaned from each of them. Or you could just describe...
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Devon O’Neil — On Nature’s Power and the Price of Adventure
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Devon O’Neil is a journalist, author, and longtime friend of mine whose new book "The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies" is one of the best pieces of outdoor nonfiction I’ve read in years. The book tells the harrowing true story of a backcountry ski trip near Leadville, Colorado, that turned tragic—and the years-long process of understanding what really happened, and how a mountain town wrestled with loss, resilience, and the complicated relationship we all have with risk and wild places. It’s gripping, deeply reported, and beautifully written—equal parts...
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Carli Kierstead – Wyoming Forests and the Work of Keeping Water Flowing
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Carli Kierstead is the Forest Program Director for The Nature Conservancy in Wyoming, where she leads efforts to understand and restore some of the West’s most critical—and often overlooked—ecosystems. From beetle kill and wildfire to drought, Wyoming’s forests face a range of challenges that ripple far beyond the state’s borders. These high-country forests are the headwaters of several major river basins, providing water to millions of people across the American West. In this conversation, Carli and I dig into the past, present, and future of Western forests—how management...
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Bex Frucht — Story Wrangler! Vibe Steward! One of a Kind!
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Bex Frucht is a force of nature—a storyteller and community builder whose work blends performance, land, and small-town life in the American West. Based in Livingston, Montana, she’s the founder of TMI Live, a storytelling series that celebrates vulnerability, humor, and human connection, and for the past three years, she’s been the “vibe steward” of the Old Salt Festival, where her talent for bringing people together has become legendary. Whether she’s hosting a show, coaching storytellers, or emceeing a fundraiser, Bex radiates generosity, intelligence, and positivity in a way...
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Yvon Chouinard – The Perpetual Pursuit of Simplicity
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Yvon Chouinard needs no introduction. The founder of Patagonia, pioneer of clean climbing, co-founder of 1% for the Planet, and lifelong advocate for simplicity and wildness, he’s one of the world’s most influential environmental leaders. Now in his mid-80s, Yvon continues to live, work, and fish by the same principles that have guided him since his dirtbag climbing days: live simply, take responsibility for your impact, and keep finding meaning through deep, direct engagement with nature. His newest book, “Pheasant Tail Simplicity: Recipes and Techniques for Successful Fly Fishing,”...
info_outlineKevin Grange is a Wyoming-based author, paramedic, and firefighter. His most recent book is titled “Grizzly Confidential: An Astounding Journey Into the Secret Life of North America’s Most Fearsome Predator,” which is a must-read for anyone interested in the evolving relationship between humans and bears. The book follows Kevin’s journey throughout the American West and Alaska as he seeks to better understand grizzly bears, debunk many deeply engrained myths, explore case studies of successful coexistence, and more. The book is part travelogue, part adventure story, and part science– making for a fun and educational read that I highly recommend.
Kevin was born and raised in New Hampshire, where he grew up obsessed with the outdoors and, like many of us, obsessed with kids’ outdoor books such as Old Yeller, Sounder, and Where the Red Fern Grows. He attended paramedic school in California and began his career in downtown LA before landing a job as a National Park paramedic in Yellowstone. As you’ll hear in our conversation, Kevin has managed to successfully merge his love of medicine and adventure with his talent for writing, and with a lot of hard work, he’s enjoyed two successful, simultaneous careers– one in medicine and the other in writing.
Kevin and I connected just a few weeks after the publication of “Grizzly Confidential” and had a fascinating conversation about his career, his writing process, and his journey to better understand the legendary grizzly bear. We discussed his career path that led him to the West and his first experiences working in Yellowstone. We talk about balancing his paramedic work with his writing work, and how having a full-time job allows him to be more selective with his writing projects. We obviously talk a lot about grizzly bears– grizzly research, poaching, backcountry bear safety, his travels to Alaska, success stories of coexistence, false grizzly myths, overcoming his fear of grizzlies, and much more. Kevin is also a voracious reader, so he offers up plenty of excellent book recommendations.
A huge thanks to Kevin for writing such a fun and educational book, and a huge thanks to you for listening. Enjoy!
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- Kevin Grange
- Grizzly Confidential by Kevin Grange
- Full episode notes and links: https://mountainandprairie.com/kevin-grange/
- Live podcast at the REGENERATE CONFERENCE
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TOPICS DISCUSSED:
- 4:00 - Intro and Kevin’s upbringing
- 5:45 - Favorite books as a kid
- 8:15 - First memories of grizzlies
- 9:15 - First encounter with a grizzly
- 11:30 - Becoming a National Park paramedic
- 13:45 - Types of emergencies in National Parks
- 15:00 - Idiotic tourist mistakes
- 16:45 - Balancing paramedic work with writing
- 19:30 - Why Grizzlies?
- 22:15 - How this book’s angle is different from other Grizzly books
- 26:20 - What’s the difference between a “Grizzly bear” and a “Brown bear”?
- 27:45 - Washington State University’s Bear Center
- 32:45 - Grizzly poaching
- 37:15 - Learning bear defense methods, including bear spray
- 41:15 - Basic backcountry safety in bear country
- 44:15 - Examples of good and bad coexistence strategies
- 48:15 - Debunking certain grizzly myths
- 52:45 - Continued learning about grizzlies
- 55:45 - How writing this book compares to the others
- 57:15 0 Favorite writers and books
- 59:30 - How has Kevin changed because of this project?
- 1:05:30 - Learning to switch gears after an intense paramedic experience
- 1:07:30 - Parting words of wisdom
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