The Mightiest Warriors
The Mightiest Warriors is a podcast that shines light on the remarkable stories of humans who have transformed profound adversity in their lives into a force of compassion, leadership and service to others.
"He who has a why to live for can deal with almost any how."
Victor Frankl
The Mightiest Warriors
Warriors Beyond War: Casey Harver's Journey from Navy SEAL to Alaskan Wilderness Guide
When the mountains meet the sea in Kodiak, Alaska, something transformative happens to those who embrace its challenges. Retired Navy SEAL Captain Casey Harver discovered this power during military training and never looked back, eventually establishing Kodiak Big Timber and the Kodiak Survival School to share these life-changing experiences with others.
Casey's story begins with an over-the-beach training exercise that changed everything. Swimming to shore and emerging beneath ancient spruce trees draped with moss, he experienced what he describes as an "enchanted forest dream state." That moment planted a seed that would later blossom into a complete life transformation after 21 years of military service, including intense combat deployments in Afghanistan.
For many veterans, the transition from warfare to civilian life presents enormous challenges. Casey found his solution in Alaska's wilderness, where natural threats replaced human ones. "Being out of your comfort zone is my happy place," he explains. "The challenge of bears, weather, ocean, and mountains is a much better, healthier way" to maintain the edge that special operators develop during service.
What makes Casey's perspective particularly valuable is his observation about modern society's disconnection from ancestral knowledge. While teaching survival skills to SEAL candidates, he discovered that only about a third had prior camping, hunting, or fishing experience. This revelation sparked his mission to reintroduce people to fundamental skills that humanity has relied upon for millennia but that technology has rapidly eroded.
Through Kodiak Survival School, Casey plays dual roles as "one part historian and second part self-reliance coach." His approach transforms visitors through challenge and competency-building. By the end of a program, participants discover a newfound confidence: "I can do this with the right conditions, attitude, and skills."
Beyond practical knowledge, Casey articulates how wilderness creates space for deeper connection. "The mountain is going to take a pound of flesh from you," he says, describing how facing something "so much larger than yourself" creates perfect conditions for reflection and spiritual growth.
Want to experience this transformative environment yourself? Visit Kodiak Big Timber to book a fishing charter, survival course, or wilderness adventure that will challenge you to grow in ways you never expected.
For more information on our Essential Provisions Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) go to www.essentialprovisions.com
Hi, I'm Dr Mark Pettis, the Medical Director of Essential Provisions, and I am very pleased to welcome you to another episode of the Mightiest Warrior.
Speaker 1:This is a podcast that examines the lives of amazing people who have confronted a great challenge and, at times, great adversity in their lives and have found ways to transform that into leadership and service to others. And no one could be more appropriate for this conversation than Captain Casey Harver, who I met at a Sorenx event. Sorenx is a company that makes athletic equipment and they have an annual event called Winter Strong down in South Carolina, where I met many incredible people. And Casey serves as the chief operations officer at Kodiak Big Timber, taking on the roles of primary charter captain, fishing guide, big game transporter, and has an amazing 24-year history of wilderness leadership and we'll get into that during this conversation Experiences that I expect many people on this planet would be humbled by. And Casey has a wealth of knowledge. He's a retired Navy SEAL. We'll spend a little time getting your reflections on that, casey, and you're the founder of the Kodiak Survival School, and great to have you with us, casey.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you inviting me on and getting a chance to talk to you guys and get to know you a bit.
Speaker 1:Casey and I have been working through a few audio glitches, so, while the audio may not be perfect, we ask for your indulgence and I will also make sure that a transcript and captioning is available, so just to help people in the event that our audio drops off periodically. I just want to briefly share, casey, I've got a picture of you that I just love and I want to share that briefly with the group. So there's Captain Casey Harver and that's the biggest fish I've ever seen, casey. Captain Casey Harver, that's the biggest fish I've ever seen, Casey. You're holding it like a. I don't know that I could even lift a fish that big.
Speaker 2:Just tell me a little bit about this photo, the concept Well, this is a picture of what it's really a lingcod they it flutters, and what they do is they're a voracious feeder, hang out on rock tentacles, and so fishing for them gets a little bit technical. Once you get into them, they're great, and this fish in particular is about a 60 pound, which is one of the larger ones, but we catch quite a few. Um, yeah, I, I am not getting an assassin. It's one of my favorite fish to catch.
Speaker 1:They're delicious, they taste amazing in Alaska is grand, and certainly this fish is no example, and I just wanted to give folks an idea. Casey, in case they're not familiar with you, know where you're at. Kodiak is in a very remote part of the world and planet, and certainly the United States, and so, yeah, there you are, so you're on an island.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're on where Kodiak Big Timber is, an island off the coast of an island off the coast of Alaska. Yeah, it happened to be on Raspberry Island and in order to, it's actually not as bad as people think Alaska Airlines. But then once you get to Kodiak, then you have to come by boat out to the lodge. We're completely off the grid. We make our own electricity, all of that good stuff. Kodiak, in and of itself, 90 minutes, about a 90-minute flight from Anchorage and you're looking at about a 10-hour ship ride to another four hours into Anchorage. So 14 hours by ship and by flight. So most people fly.
Speaker 1:Now did you go up in Alaska Casey. Is that home for you? Originally Did you go up in Alaska Casey.
Speaker 2:Is that home for you originally? No, I didn't. Southeastern Virginia is where I grew up and I sort of came in a rural environment and a hunting and fishing family. The Navy that actually brought me to Kodiak, so I'm an adopted Alaskan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tell me a little bit about what brought you there. What was it about your service that connected you in that way?
Speaker 2:The SEAL teams for the last 20 years or so have been training, or at least a portion of their. There was one that was the Center for Cold Weather and Basic Military Mountaineering. The SEAL qualification training pipeline have been cutting their deck as a part of that pipeline for cold weather, maritime engineering and also the SEAR, the survival and escape course, an escape course. The first parts of that were taught here when I was a student. I came through the pipeline, went to training here in Kodiak, alaska, in a way that no other place on the planet and I've traveled pretty has ever touched me.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed the way that the mountains and the rugged terrain meet the ocean in a big and spectacular way that not a lot of places have. And I mean we would do some training that was over-the-beach training. We'd swim in to the beach and then go over to the beach and then go over and and we were, we were training on that for the kind of the first times here in Kodiak that I did it. And so you get off the boat, you get into the water, clandestinely, go over the beach and then and there's a series to it but to make it brief I came over the water and got up underneath the spruce and I was seeing green greens with the moss hanging down on it, old growth trees, and I was just amazed at the array of color that I didn't know existed. You know it was cold, but the environment hit me like I was in some sort of enchanted forest dream state that places like that had existed.
Speaker 2:And the more I got to it which was for a very brief period of time I have to come back, I have to be here and find out what makes it tick, and so I kind of my career and I was serving on the and then I got an opportunity to come back and be an instructor at the school, and when I did, it was the opportunity to bring my family to this environment, which was super special. We got to live here for three years and my wife and my children, they all fell in love with this place and it did a lot for me. Um. Being in this remote, rugged um helped me um in a way that I needed.
Speaker 1:Yet yeah, so that, um, I could imagine that for you know, for many kids, many families, that you know that such a such a uh, uh an environment and ecosystem, um, so, unlike what, um, um, so unlike what, what many of us would have been used to, um, uh, you know that it it's. It seems like you had a very deep kind of profound experience as you emerged in that ecosystem and, uh, it's great that your family loved it, as you do, um, but that must have been an amazing uh uh sort of transition from living in the mainland and you know that you know there's such a different ecosystem well you.
Speaker 2:You have to understand that I grew up in a like a um. The reality of it is I was just a dumb redneck kid. That was fields and oak forests. Seeing this recapture that I see and I do sort of I get to show Part of my job now is showing other people this world. I love it. It is. It's an amazing thing to be able to do is to share something that you're the you know.
Speaker 2:When I came back overseas just prior to coming to Kodiak and we were in the height of the war and there were a lot that happened and it was a lot of high pressure and you know it's war, it's not it's. There are fun parts in that, but there it was not an enjoyable experience. And so when I went to Alaska, what I found the light, the space and the difficult environment actually what I needed, because I was so ramped up From that had I been left to my own devices and all of that, I would have been nearly as productive. I think that I needed the challenge to be able to throw myself at. I was a very mean and angry. I spent over a year in Afghanistan in a very, very high threat, very kinetic environment, and so being in this, this place, it gave me an opportunity to sort of relax and now and become nice again yeah, we um, the.
Speaker 2:The challenge of us was the bears, the weather, the ocean, the mountains, and someone trying to harm you that's a physical person is now trying to harm you and that's much your better, healthier way, much your better, healthier way. So it gave me a chance to sort of relax and mentally, as far as you know, and all of those things. But it kept in my mind actively now the challenges of this place I need in order to sort of feel normal. This place can sit out of your comfort zone and so does the SEAL team. Being out of your comfort zone is my happy space. This environment, kodiak, does it for me almost every day.
Speaker 1:And there's so much in what you said there, casey. I've long had an interest in the effect, particularly in high stress, high demanding, unrelenting demanding states where you know you find yourself in fight flight almost continuously, which I can only imagine was the state you were in, that um, um, you know, one one adapt so there. So so being in fight flight can be a state that one um finds uh, particularly when those states are more predictable, um, but it, it. It's a place where, uh, that edge, where one can really adapt and grow in profound ways if they're not brought down by it Um, and so I, I, um it, I find it really uh sort of inspiring.
Speaker 1:That that edge, you know, became a way of life for you, and so being in an environment that continues to facilitate those challenges in a way that still poses threats, but not in quite the same way that serving as you did in Afghanistan might have, I can appreciate how there's a need for that. In much the same way, to a professional athlete, this may not be the best comparison, casey, but when I hear people who perform at very high levels as a way of life, it's very hard to transition to what could be a life where there's very little of that dopamine no-transcript, and so, as I was learning just a little bit more about your life, I could imagine this being an ideal sort of fit both for presenting challenge and growth, but also to kind of keep you grounded in a way that's also healing and therapeutic. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:I think that your was quite good. I saw myself very much and a lot in common as special operators with professional, because at its core that's kind of what you become as a professional there to do a specific, concentrated folk, so that those worlds I think are overlapped. This place, it pushes you out of your comfort zone in that it is rugged. It's so very beautiful and I think the connection for me here family got to be a lot greater um things together as a family and we could face the challenge together as a family, facing challenges on my own constantly. I love my family much better in this environment because of the and so we grew together and now I'm still proud to say that I work with my family here at Big Timber. The bond that we formed while we were doing those sorts of activities, you know, is still continuing through to everything that we do today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's beautiful, casey, how long did you serve as a SEAL?
Speaker 2:um years, a little over 21 years, uh, active duty. I retired um a few years ago and one of the things that I decided to start doing was I opened code gags. Um what what I was focused on as I was retiring? I got a position to work back Naval Special Warfare to teach the survival and evasion curriculum, and so I took the contract position for a little while. I taught, you know, junior seals that were coming through the pipe, sort of had a bit of an epiphany that you know the government, that material really, they don't own survival. You know they're, they are a wealth of knowledge for it, but there's no reason that I those type of skills with the general public and with my. So why not take some of these things that I knew that we could do, that I was, you know, young SEALs and share that with others?
Speaker 2:When I talked to young SEALs I would take a poll in the classroom of how much time they had spent, and I was often surprised at the time the guys had actually in the field or in the backcountry, I would ask. I would say, before you guys came into the military, many of you have gone out, spent the night camping Only about a third of the room would raise their hand. How many of you guys have hunted, fished that's about a third of the room would raise their hand. I'm like, wow, these guys even though they are they are the best of the navy right that have gotten themselves all the way into the physician's room. They did not have very much outdoor experience sort of alarming. Hmm I will. But also, you know, when you when the, the television and and you see the guy in the helicopter and he's into like spire rigging or a fast rope and out of the helicopter, it never occurs to you that make a fire, right, but the the fact that they don't. They didn't have to have that information set prior to coming into the military.
Speaker 2:The fact is that, regardless they could come from any background, it could meet the standard that they were going to get brought up to set zero background in outdoor skills. And I got to be the guy for the first time and I got to share that with them and I found that to be extreme and rewarding. See a guy, a young, catch the first fish that he'd ever caught in his life and watch the light bulb come on. For me I was like, oh, this is amazing, this is a great thing. Why can I not do this for other people? I should be able to share this with the general public. Well, I should be able to share this general public and so we started kodiak's revival in an, you know, kind of help people get into the back country in the right ways, get them and give them, even if they had no experience prior to. That's okay.
Speaker 2:I wanted to propagate the knowledge that really comes from the experience of everyone's ancestors. You know, we are very remote. A lot of foot traffic in through the schools. It's just not gonna happen. So we had. So we started running fishing charters and doing some big things. When that started to take off, eventually we got into where we were offered a partnership here and we needed a space to be able to host our Bible school and we needed an environment that could be able to happen in the right way. And it was just a very natural fit to the survival school into all of the big game outdoor things that we do now. So we kind of have the survival school side of things and then we have the outdoors hosted with with big timber, post it with Big Timber and that's developed into the business model that we have now. I couldn't have planned it. It was one of those things where the almighty sort of said okay, here, dummy, go this way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that I think. In my experience, certainly as a physician and people who often come to epiphanies in their lives, whether it's self-care or eating differently or developing resilience skills, mindfulness the epiphanies are, in my experience, rarely. You can't plan them. There's a certain force, life force right, that has the individual in the right places at the right times. And that individual either is, you know, the lights go off and amazing things happen, or maybe not, but it seems that you're in the exact right place at the right time. Come into the program already.
Speaker 1:I could imagine being, you know, the upper one-tenth of one percent, ultimately not having had a lot of outdoor sort of survival, basic experience, and that I think the term you used was ancestral sort of knowledge. I'm often really intrigued, in the context of self-care, health, all the things that I think about ancestral knowledge what to eat, how to move, how to see sunlight and nature as the greatest therapeutic partnership you could cultivate. A lot of that ancestral wisdom has been lost and so modern people today are confused about things that our ancestors, you know, would have, you know, almost laughed at, and so it feels like you are reigniting, awakening people to fundamentally what's really been part of the human experience forever, but in modern life very much lost. You know, I sometimes I think we're a species with amnesia, uh, and so I, um, I love that. You, you know, you've sort of committed your life to reawakening what for most of us was probably more instinctive, but today more just a foreign sort of concept. Does that resonate what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I talk about it when I teach them quite extensively. But you know there's that we use every day is an amazing thing, it is a gift. I'm on an off an island off the coast of Alaska, talking to you over Starlink Wonderful thing but what I find is that it increases our basic level. Skills are on an inversely proportion.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't practice the things that they would in previous times, that you would get a very different percentage of end of time and a large quantity of time in the outdoors as you do in 20. The skills that we focus on when we're doing the survival school, school are are really pretty, you know, essential to when, when you know even as little as 50, 60, but as our technology, our focus on those decrease and we see it across the board, specifically American society themselves into horrible situations because they don't necessarily possess the quality baseline skill, and so you can see it in search and rescues and things along those lines that happen in the lower 48. Last year, in 2024, the state of Utah housed search and rescues where individuals were in horrible situations. So you know it codifies it exactly, but it is definitely just in the amount of time people spend on and using technology as opposed to honing baseline skills honing baseline skills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I could imagine, Casey, your children, your kids probably have a very different skill set than what your average inner city metropolitan American kid would have. It has to be gratifying to be in an environment where that sort of ancient wisdom can be integrated with modern life and all of the wonderful aspects of modern life in a way that will really I can't imagine being better served than by learning and growing and thriving in the environment that you're in.
Speaker 2:I believe that I think it's yet to dawn on my kids how different they than than most of the rest. They've seen a good chunk. You know that most don't um, so I, and then they're when they, you know, know remote Alaska, so I don't know if they know how unique their existence has been yet, but I think that both of them have a pretty wide aperture as far as what both sides of the coin look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how old are? Your children, Casey.
Speaker 2:I've got three. My oldest, he's 24. My next one is three and then my daughter is, so we've kind of got them stair-stepped, but they're off my horse at the moment and my middle one is graduating from Liberty Flames and my youngest daughter is at Alaska studying now.
Speaker 1:So I'm very proud of all three of them, beautiful so I have to ask, casey, this is a little off topic, but one of the things that I'm curious about, particularly in rugged, mountainous sort of pristine areas, you know, there's a lot of evidence that there's an electromagnetic, there's an energy that is very powerful in many of these mountainous parts of the world, and pilots, navigators, you know many people find that there are sort of unique challenges. For example, I'm curious about the Alaskan Triangle right, this sort of geographic area where you know many people have, you know, unexplained, gone missing or planes that have gone down. I can only imagine, I'm sure, as a Navy SEAL, but even in your day-to-day work and these wilderness adventures that you know, you've probably encountered some really interesting phenomenon. You know you've probably encountered some really interesting phenomenon and so, yeah, I was just curious what your experiences have been. Maybe, you know, be it, you know, bigfoot, sasquatch sort of a phenomenon, or experiences that would leave one, you know, kind of scratching their head. Is there anything?
Speaker 2:there that you're comfortable sharing. I think that there are around that you can't always explain um, the most part, um, I don't. I don't really see the, the alask, but like a ghost that they refer to, um I, it gets blamed for uh, you know your boat going loose to um. You know something falling off a thump in the woods that you don't expect. You know it. It can be a little bit of broken mirrors. When it comes to that sort of thing, I don't have a. I'm pretty, you know I, I sort of. Uh, I'm pretty random, you know I sort of, but they do.
Speaker 2:There's definitely something I'd be exactly you know, as far as what I find personally in the, in the, the wild places, who you specifically. In the mountains, you have an opportunity to quiet down and to sit. The mountain is going to take a pound of flesh from you. You feel it. You're a very inner being. You can't cheat the mountain own way, to quote Jeremiah J Johnson, but it is a very. I believe that there is something to how raw and insignificant you are to something that is so much larger than yourself. I think that helps with um connection to the almighty If you're more willing to listen and open yourself up when you recognize that you are not the world, and I think that you know for many different. For me in particular, I find that it is much to listen for the still small voice when I am hard in a wild place. I am hard in a wild place.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, it absolutely makes sense and I think it's so challenging for many people today, in the modern hubbub of life, to find those moments of stillness which, you know, I believe are moments where those deeper instincts, that right, that deeper sort of connection, that awe to be, awe inspired, um, really takes us out of what might otherwise be this mundane.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm a material person, you have this material body, I'm surrounded by material, uh, you know, everything is sort of mechanistic, very little awe, which you know, what you describe is just a very different experience, a different set of conditions that I think can bring people much more deeply into that place. I've had friends that have have climbed. You have a friend that climbed Everest many years ago and he's done many other climbs and he, he, you know, I know these have been, you know, spiritual. It's, it's brutally and hard and you can just get flogged physically and emotionally and yet there is an awakening that occurs that is real and and very inspiring and, for many, kind of an elusive feeling. So, yeah, I can. I really appreciate your sharing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this place to me is very special.
Speaker 2:And I go on and on about how difficult some of the things are here, which is very true. It's fun, it really is so much fun. You know, the ability to come out and to to face even some of the mind and then be successful over top of it. It is. It is so, um, there's very few places like this, where, and what I said, you know, where the mountains meet the sea and you have wonderful wild creatures that you pull up great big halibut, king salmon, um, our bears are not to be left off the list. Yeah, they're, they're awesome, um, um, and it depends on on what camp you're coming from.
Speaker 1:Some people like to come out to enjoy the bears and to see them and to photograph them, others are, and, uh, I think there's room for both of those things and I can imagine, casey, that everyone that you're engaging on a wilderness, the transformation of people having these experiences, and they're probably not the same when they leave as when they arrived.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think they are. But on the survival school part of it, you learn. I see myself as survival skills, as two things. I'm one part historian and second part self-reliance coach. I'm going to give you the skills that's the historian part. And then I'm going to give you the skill that's the self-reliance part. And so when you start so good and a week to 10 days later you're like, yeah, I can do this and I realize what I need and what I don't need, um, that's a really cool thing. But yeah, you're people go being like, yeah, you know, I think I can do, do this with the right conditions and the right attitude and the right skills. I told them what I thought I was in the beginning Morning to see that.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to be mindful of the time, casey. I know it's midday in Kodiak and I'm sure you have a full afternoon awaiting you. Again, just on behalf of Essential Provisions and just personally, casey, I want to thank you for just taking time out of your busy life to share with us and but before we sign off, is there anything that we didn't touch on, casey, that you think would be important to share? I will include in the notes the contact information for Kodiak Big Timber, and if people want to learn more about that, I'll provide some links for them. Anything that you want to touch on as we wind down you're doing pretty good um.
Speaker 2:Now I will say that I've I have. You guys have been so generous to me and have sent, set me up with some of the mres, and I will. I am leaving very shortly for uh, so we're going to be doing some bear hunting for the next 10 days and are helping to supply um some of those meals that. I really sincerely appreciate it. Thank you for making something delicious Um. Then I'll let you know how it goes. I'll be sharing some of the notes from that with you guys on the return.
Speaker 1:Well, that's wonderful and I didn't push product too hard. But Casey's referring to our Me meals ready to eat, and these are essential provision products that are incredibly nutritious, very tasty, heat and eat open and ready to go. So you're the ideal ready to go. So you're the ideal person to be field testing. These MREs, casey, and all of us at Essential Provisions are really honored to partner with you in that field testing and getting that feedback, and we hope we can nourish the warriors in the way that warriors like yourself need to be nourished, and it's an honor to be part of a company that has that mission.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate you so very, very much. Um, thank you for making something awesome. We will enjoy it and, mark, it's such a pleasure to be with you the pleasure is mine, casey and I.
Speaker 1:I cannot wait for our paths to cross again. Are you going to be at the summer strong event, casey, again?
Speaker 2:Are you going to be at the Summer Strong event, casey? Unfortunately that is our very, very, very, very busy time, but hopefully potentially at Winter Strong maybe next year, definitely.
Speaker 1:I know our paths will cross again and I look forward to that. Yeah, it's just a tremendous example of courage and patriotism, and you're obviously taking that legacy and translating it in everything that you do. So Godspeed to you and until our paths cross again.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Mark. If you need anything at all, please don't hesitate. Wonderful.