Don't drink and fly down this Audubon. | Ep.4
The salient focus of this podcast episode revolves around the captivating exploration of the Wilson's phalarope, a remarkable shorebird that defies conventional avian behavior through its unique feeding and reproductive strategies. We delve into the intriguing narrative surrounding this bird, which has garnered attention for its progressive characteristics, particularly in the realm of parental roles. The discussions encompass not only the biological peculiarities of the Wilson's phalarope, but also its significance within the broader ecological context, as it serves as a symbol of resilience amidst environmental challenges. Furthermore, we illuminate the connection between the bird and a geographical landmark, Wilson Peak, thereby intertwining natural history with cultural narratives. Through this discourse, we aim to foster a deeper appreciation for the complexities of avian life and its interconnectedness with our world.
Takeaways:
- The podcast episode reveals the surprising prevalence of items named Wilson in everyday life, which listeners may be unaware of.
- An exploration of the Wilson's phalarope highlights its unique and progressive behaviors that differentiate it from other shorebirds.
- Discussion about the historical significance of Alexander Wilson, who is often overshadowed by the more famous John James Audubon in ornithology.
- The episode emphasizes the importance of building a community for individuals with the name Wilson, fostering connections through shared experiences and interests.
- A captivating narrative unfolds regarding the naming of Wilson Peak, intertwining history with modern branding and cultural significance.
- The episode concludes with a call to action, encouraging listeners to participate in the community and share their own experiences related to the name Wilson.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Coors
- Autobon Society
- John Audubon
- Alexander Wilson
- Ferdinand Hayden
- Sophie Wilson
- Michael Wilson
Speaker A
If you live in the United States, there's probably a thing that you didn't know was a Wilson, and you've probably seen it a thousand times.
Speaker A
You'll point at it and tell the person next to you, hey, did you know that's a Wilson?
Speaker A
Welcome to another episode of the Cuz Wilson Show.
Speaker A
This is where we talk about people, places, and things named Wilson.
Speaker A
In last week's show, I told you about why I started the Cuz Wilson show, but I left something out kind of important.
Speaker A
And then we met an amazing international destination wedding photographer named Cortland Wilson.
Speaker A
And then we discovered the very first person who took a photo of a snowflake was actually a Wilson, and they called him Snow Snowflake Man.
Speaker A
But at the end of the episode, I previewed what this week's topics were going to be about, and I ran into a technical glitch.
Speaker A
And we're not going to be able to play that interview of the person that I wanted to.
Speaker A
I will reschedule that with him and we'll start over from scratch.
Speaker A
But sometimes things happen, especially when computers are involved.
Speaker A
Also in last week's episode, we talked about the Wilson's phalarope, which is a bird that might be put on the endangered species list.
Speaker A
So instead of the episode of meeting that other Wilson, we're gonna just keep talking about the Wilson's phalarope.
Speaker A
In the place category, we're gonna talk about a place that's so beautiful that Wilson's phalaropes stop over during their migrations to South America.
Speaker A
And in the people's category, we're going to meet the person who the Wilson's fallow rope was named after.
Speaker A
And they're all three related to each other.
Speaker A
And I'm going to try to do that in most of my episodes, but I can't promise every episode will be that way.
Speaker A
What did I leave out at the beginning of my last episode about why I started this podcast?
Speaker A
What I forgot to mention is that I'm building a global community of Wilson's with local chapters to support service providers and businesses named Wilson and have fun meetups and tournaments just for Wilson's.
Speaker A
We also sell what I call Cuz merch or merchandise with Wilson on it, to raise money for non profits named Wilson and also to support this show so we don't have to have commercials.
Speaker A
But let's get started with the show.
Speaker A
Today's show topic is the thing category of people, places and things.
Speaker A
And it's a very progressive bird, you might say, after the Wilson's phalarope was in the news last week.
Speaker A
It sparked some questions.
Speaker A
I had to go find out what's so special about the Wilson's phalarope.
Speaker A
And since there are three different phalaropes, why was it called the Wilsons phalarope?
Speaker A
I gathered just the information about the Wilsons phalarope and had Mary at NotebookLM do a review for us.
Speaker B
Okay, so let's dive into the Wilson's phalarope.
Speaker B
It's a name you're going to want to remember.
Speaker C
It is.
Speaker C
I mean, for a shorebird that basically breaks all the rules, it deserves a memorable name.
Speaker B
It really does.
Speaker B
We're looking at a stack of sources today.
Speaker B
Breeding studies from Saskatchewan, some really interesting foraging ecology from Texas Audubon data.
Speaker B
And our mission, I think, is to figure out how this one little bird survives by being such a rebel.
Speaker C
A rebel is definitely the right word.
Speaker C
You know, most shorebirds, they walk on mud, they poke around for worms.
Speaker C
It's a pretty standard playbook, right?
Speaker C
The phala robe just threw that book out.
Speaker C
It's specialized for a kind of beautiful chaos.
Speaker B
Okay, let's start with the feeding.
Speaker B
One of the papers called it a spin cycle, which sounds dramatic.
Speaker C
It is.
Speaker C
Unlike other sandpipers, these birds are super aquatic.
Speaker C
They'll just sit on the water surface and start spinning in these tight, frantic circles.
Speaker C
And it's not just for fun, it's pure physics.
Speaker C
They're creating a water vortex.
Speaker A
A little whirlpool.
Speaker C
Exactly.
Speaker C
A whirlpool that sucks their prey, brine shrimp, fly larvae, right up from the bottom.
Speaker C
They bring the buffet to them.
Speaker B
Wow.
Speaker B
And I read you'll see huge flocks doing this at the same time.
Speaker C
Hundreds of them.
Speaker C
The notes compared it to an intensely competitive avian dance contest.
Speaker C
And it makes sense.
Speaker C
They're living in these really harsh, super salty lakes where not much else can survive.
Speaker B
So the food is super abundant, but you have to be tough to get it right.
Speaker C
And they need that energy, which is a perfect transition to their very strange domestic life.
Speaker B
This is the part that I just couldn't get over.
Speaker B
In the bird world, it's almost always males competing females choosing.
Speaker C
The phalarope said no thanks to that.
Speaker C
It's what we call reversed sexual dimorphism here.
Speaker C
The females are bigger, they're brighter, they've got the flashy colors to attract the males, to attract and fight for the males.
Speaker C
It's called scramble competition.
Speaker C
The females actively chase down the smaller, duller males and will literally fight each other for One.
Speaker B
That's incredible.
Speaker B
So what happens after she wins a mate?
Speaker C
She lays a clutch of eggs, usually four.
Speaker C
And then she leaves.
Speaker B
Wait, she just abandons the nest?
Speaker C
Yep.
Speaker C
She's out.
Speaker C
The male takes over 100% of the duties.
Speaker C
He incubates the eggs, he raises the chicks.
Speaker C
Total single dad.
Speaker B
So he's doing all the helicopter parenting?
Speaker C
Completely.
Speaker C
And this frees the female up.
Speaker C
If there are other available males around, she can go find a second one and start a new family for him to raise.
Speaker B
It's a system called polyandry.
Speaker A
That's it.
Speaker C
She's maximizing her genetic output by just outsourcing the childcare.
Speaker C
It's ruthlessly efficient.
Speaker B
It seems like everything about this bird is just extreme.
Speaker B
The spinning, the gender swap, and now this obese migration.
Speaker C
This might be the wildest part of all.
Speaker C
It's a molt migration.
Speaker C
So after breeding, they don't just fly south.
Speaker C
They fly to these huge saline lakes like the Great Salt Lake or Mono Lake in California.
Speaker B
The staging ground.
Speaker C
A staging ground where they.
Speaker C
They do everything at once.
Speaker C
They molt all their feathers and they gorge on those flies and brine shrimp we talked about.
Speaker B
And when you say gorge, I mean.
Speaker C
They get unbelievably fat.
Speaker C
They can add up to 54% of their body mass in just a few weeks.
Speaker C
They literally double their weight.
Speaker B
54%?
Speaker B
How can they even fly?
Speaker C
Barely.
Speaker C
There are reports they get so heavy, they actually struggle to take off for a bit.
Speaker C
They become these little flying butterballs.
Speaker B
But that fat is fuel.
Speaker C
I assume it's high octane fuel for the next leg of the trip.
Speaker C
A nonstop flight.
Speaker C
Something like three or four thousand miles.
Speaker B
Nonstop from Utah all the way to where?
Speaker C
To the high Andes Mountains in Bolivia and Peru and the lowlands of Argentina.
Speaker C
They burn through all that fat on one epic journey.
Speaker A
It's just.
Speaker B
It's a bird that does nothing by halves.
Speaker B
It swims instead of walks.
Speaker B
The dad raises the kids.
Speaker B
And it gets intentionally obese to survive a trip across continents.
Speaker C
It's a gambler.
Speaker C
It's betting everything on a very specific, very extreme lifestyle.
Speaker B
Which really brings up a fascinating question for you to think about.
Speaker B
If a species like this becomes so hyper specialized on these extreme places, these salty lakes, does that make them the ultimate survivors?
Speaker B
Or are they just the most vulnerable gamblers in the whole game?
Speaker C
That's the million dollar evolutionary question, isn't it?
Speaker A
Thank you, Mary.
Speaker A
But I found out some information about one of the other three phalaropes.
Speaker A
And that one was named after me specifically.
Speaker A
Probably not you, but me.
Speaker A
It's called the Red necked Phalarope.
Speaker A
And no, it's not because it swims around in circles in ice chest to bring a Coors beer up to the top.
Speaker A
It's because the redneck Phalarope has a red stripe down its neck.
Speaker A
And oh, by the way, the reason I chose that brand of beer may become clear after you listen to the places category.
Speaker A
But seriously, who was this Wilson that the Fallow rope was named after?
Speaker A
That will be in our people category.
Speaker A
But before we go there, Do you.
Speaker D
Want to hear an Uncle Willie joke?
Speaker A
Hey, do you know what I've been wondering a long time?
Speaker A
How do birds begin a relationship?
Speaker A
You ever thought about that?
Speaker A
Well, I can tell you I discovered how they meet online.
Speaker A
Well, that joke was cleverly related to our birds topic and it was sent in from Nick.
Speaker A
Thank you, Nick.
Speaker A
But he wasn't from Nicaragua.
Speaker A
Well, let's keep this going.
Speaker A
This is going to be fun.
Speaker A
I want you to go to the home page and at the bottom right there is a microphone, black circle with a microphone in it.
Speaker A
Click on that and record your Uncle Willie joke.
Speaker A
And I want to play yours and make you famous too, just like Nick.
Speaker A
Okay, back to the show, the people category.
Speaker A
Have you heard of the Autobahn Society?
Speaker A
Some of you race car enthusiasts are probably thinking no, but I've always wanted to drive on that real fast road in Germany.
Speaker A
Well, I've driven on it and I was going 200 km an hour at night in the rain and I was passed up like I was sitting still.
Speaker A
And for us yanks, that's about 125 miles an hour.
Speaker A
But that's the Autobahn, not the Autobahn Society.
Speaker A
The Autobahn Society is all about birds.
Speaker A
And it was named after the famous ornithologist named John Audubon.
Speaker A
That has a cool ring to it, doesn't it?
Speaker A
Not the word ornithologist.
Speaker A
I was talking about John Audubon.
Speaker A
That's got the cool name to it.
Speaker A
Anyway, ornithology.
Speaker A
What does that mean?
Speaker A
Well, ornithology.
Speaker A
Ornithology is the scientific study of birds.
Speaker A
Well, in our last episode, I talked about who inspired me to start a podcast.
Speaker A
And now we're going to learn about ornithologist who inspired John Audubon.
Speaker D
Today we're going to talk about a man you've probably never heard of.
Speaker D
But here's the thing.
Speaker D
His work literally created the foundation for an entire field of science here in America.
Speaker D
It's a story about a forgotten pioneer and the much more famous guy who ended up standing in his spotlight.
Speaker D
So let me just ask you, who do you think of as the father of American ornithology?
Speaker D
You know, the scientific study of birds?
Speaker D
When you picture those classic old school bird illustrations, I bet one name just flies right into your head.
Speaker D
But was he really the one who started it all?
Speaker D
Well, the man who truly holds that title is this guy right here, Alexander Wilson.
Speaker D
He was a Scottish immigrant who landed in America with practically nothing to his name.
Speaker D
And he would go on to completely change how we see the natural world around us.
Speaker D
And that gets us to the central mystery of this whole story.
Speaker D
On one side, you've got John James Audubon.
Speaker D
His name is basically synonymous with birds.
Speaker D
Right?
Speaker D
The Audubon Society is one of the biggest conservation groups on the planet.
Speaker D
And on the other side, Alexander Wilson, the guy who did the foundational work, the guy who actually inspired Audubon.
Speaker D
And yet he's pretty much a footnote in history.
Speaker D
So how does that happen?
Speaker D
Why is one guy a household name while the other is all but forgotten?
Speaker D
To figure that out, we've got to go all the way back to the beginning.
Speaker D
Back to a life of poverty and rebellion that ended up pushing Wilson clean across the Atlantic Ocean.
Speaker C
Yeah.
Speaker D
Wilson's story doesn't start in some beautiful forest.
Speaker D
It starts in the gritty, grimy mills of industrial Scotland.
Speaker D
He was a weaver by trade, but at heart, he was a poet, a bit of a troublemaker.
Speaker D
He wrote these really sharp satirical poems about the awful conditions for the mill workers, which, you guessed it, landed him in jail.
Speaker D
With his reputation shot, he did what so many others.
Speaker D
He sailed for America, hoping for a fresh start.
Speaker D
But, you know, the American dream wasn't exactly waiting for him with open arms.
Speaker D
He was broke.
Speaker D
He bounced around from odd job to odd job and eventually landed in the one profession he absolutely hated, being a schoolteacher.
Speaker D
I mean, just listen to the despair in his own words here.
Speaker D
He felt trapped, like a prisoner re entering his dungeon.
Speaker D
His creative soul was just being crushed.
Speaker D
The guy was completely and utterly lost.
Speaker D
And then, right when he basically hit rock bottom, something amazing happened.
Speaker D
A complete accident of geography put him right next door to the one person in all of America who could see his hidden potential.
Speaker D
This is the moment everything pivots.
Speaker D
This is where a frustrated poet starts to transform into America's greatest naturalist.
Speaker D
So who was this new neighbor?
Speaker D
His name was William Bartram.
Speaker D
And Bartram wasn't just some guy with a nice garden.
Speaker D
He was one of the most famous and respected naturalists of his day.
Speaker D
He saw something in Wilson, this intense curiosity, this sharp eye for detail.
Speaker D
And he opened up his entire world to him, giving him free run of his incredible library and gardens.
Speaker D
You know, this friendship was the spark that lit the fuse.
Speaker D
Bartram was the one who encouraged Wilson to put down his pen and pick up a paintbrush.
Speaker D
At first, Wilson's drawings were, well, not great.
Speaker D
But Bartram kept pushing him, telling him to sketch the birds in his garden.
Speaker D
And suddenly everything clicked.
Speaker D
All that passion, that poet's eye for detail, it all found a new home.
Speaker D
The dungeon of his life finally had a window with a spectacular view.
Speaker D
And his ambition just went through the roof.
Speaker D
He didn't just want to draw a few birds for fun.
Speaker D
No.
Speaker D
He decided, with almost zero money and no formal training, mind you, to do something nobody had ever even tried.
Speaker D
Create a massive multi volume encyclopedia of every single bird in the United States.
Speaker D
It was an absolutely bonkers idea.
Speaker D
Okay, so dreaming up a crazy plan is one thing, but actually doing it.
Speaker D
Well, that turned out to be a monumental task that would take up every last ounce of energy he had for the rest of his short life.
Speaker D
First problem, money.
Speaker D
His publisher was interested, but they said they'd only fund the project if Wilson could find 200 people willing to subscribe upfront.
Speaker D
So on top of everything else, he now had to become a traveling salesman for a book that didn't even exist yet.
Speaker D
And can you imagine that sales pitch?
Speaker D
The price for the full nine volume set was $120.
Speaker D
Now, that might not sound like a crazy number today, but in 1808, that was the price of a small farm.
Speaker D
He was literally asking people to bet the farm on his dream.
Speaker D
And the process itself was just staggering.
Speaker D
For every volume, Wilson had to travel thousands of miles, a lot of it just on foot, to find and collect the birds himself.
Speaker D
Then he'd draw them, and then he had to manage the super complicated engraving process.
Speaker D
Then he had to supervise a team of people who hand colored every single illustration in every single book.
Speaker D
And after all of that, he was still the lead salesman, knocking on doors from Maine to Savannah.
Speaker D
And he knew this whole thing might kill him.
Speaker D
This quote, this isn't him being dramatic.
Speaker D
This is a man looking at the impossible mountain he has to climb and being brutally honest about the fact that he might not make it to the top.
Speaker D
But he was gonna try anyway.
Speaker D
But here's the thing.
Speaker D
What made his American ornithology so incredibly important wasn't just how hard he worked.
Speaker D
It was a complete game changer.
Speaker D
The work itself was revolutionary.
Speaker D
Before Wilson, most books about Birds were kind of amiss.
Speaker D
They are full of folklore and weird drawings based on poorly stuffed museum specimens.
Speaker D
Wilson brought real science to the table.
Speaker D
He was the first person in America to use the Linnaean system, you know, the whole genus and species classification we still use.
Speaker D
He drew birds in their natural habitats, showing how they actually lived and behaved.
Speaker D
And maybe most important of all, he trusted what he saw with his own two eyes out in the field.
Speaker D
And he corrected a ton of mistakes made by famous European scientists who'd never even been to America.
Speaker D
And his work led to real, tangible discoveries.
Speaker D
Through all his travels, he formally described and illustrated 26 species of birds that were completely new to science.
Speaker D
26.
Speaker D
He wasn't just cataloging what people already knew.
Speaker D
He was literally expanding the boundaries of human knowledge.
Speaker D
And all of this brings us full circle, right back to where we started.
Speaker D
It brings us back to his legacy and to that other famous artist who would eventually steal his thunder.
Speaker D
So picture this.
Speaker D
It's 1810.
Speaker D
Wilson is on another one of his grueling sales trips, floating down the Ohio river in a tiny little rowboat he called the Ornithologist.
Speaker A
He.
Speaker D
He's got his precious sample volume with him, and he's stopping in every little town he can find, trying to drum up business.
Speaker D
He gets to Louisville, Kentucky, walks into a small shop and shows his life's work to the young man running the place.
Speaker D
The shopkeeper is really impressed.
Speaker D
But then he politely says, no, he won't subscribe, because he claimed his own drawings of birds were actually better.
Speaker D
That shopkeeper's name was John James Audubon.
Speaker D
At that moment, Audubon was a nobody.
Speaker D
And it was almost certainly this very encounter, seeing what Wilson had managed to create against all odds, that planted the seed for Audubon to create his own even bigger, even more dramatic book of birds.
Speaker D
He saw Wilson's beacon and decided to follow it.
Speaker D
And that's really the heart of it all.
Speaker D
Wilson died in 1813.
Speaker D
He was only 47.
Speaker D
He died from exhaustion and disease before he could even finish the final volume of his masterpiece.
Speaker D
He died poor.
Speaker D
A man driven by a quest for scientific truth, not by a desire for fame or money.
Speaker D
And while Audubon would later find both of those things, with his incredible art and his genius for self promotion, his entire career was built on the foundation that Wilson laid.
Speaker D
So the next time you see a field guide or look at a beautiful painting of a bird, just remember the forgotten Father Alexander Wilson, the man on whose shoulders they are all standing.
Speaker A
Thanks again for that review.
Speaker A
And I even did more research about the 26 species Wilson identified.
Speaker A
Four more birds were named after him, like the Wilson's warbler, the Wilson storm petrel, the Wilson's plover, and the fifth one was the Wilson's snipe.
Speaker A
Yes, there really is a bird called the snipe.
Speaker A
When I heard it and used it, I thought it was just a made up term.
Speaker A
I didn't know there was really such a thing as a snipe bird.
Speaker A
Some of you might remember there's a term called let's go snipe hunting.
Speaker A
What we would do is we would tell the girls, let's go through the woods and go snipe hunting.
Speaker A
And then that would give us the opportunity to sneak in a kiss.
Speaker A
Oh, the olden days.
Speaker A
But it turns out there really is a snipe.
Speaker A
So if you were lured into the woods for a kiss and you thought the guy was just making it up and there was no such thing as snipe hunting, you need to call him up and apologize and say, you know what, I found out that you weren't lying.
Speaker A
There really is a bird named snipe.
Speaker A
Okay, now it's the Cuz Quiz of the week segment.
Speaker A
Last week's question, how many people in the US have Wilson as their first name?
Speaker A
And I gave you a bunch of hints and those hints are very interesting in their own right.
Speaker A
But the answer is 44,451 people have Wilson as their first name or their forename.
Speaker A
Now on a side note, their surname or their last name.
Speaker A
Now on a.
Speaker A
Now on a side note, how many people in America have their last name as Wilson?
Speaker A
And that is 973,757.
Speaker A
Or basically just shy of a million people or basically just shy of a million people have Wilson have Wilson in their last name.
Speaker A
Now that's.
Speaker A
That doesn't include other spellings of Wilson like with two l's or A E on the end of it or anything that's just with the spelling W, I, L, S, O, N. So if you combine all the different spellings and variations of Wilson, there's more than a million in America.
Speaker A
There's more than a million in America and we're the 14th most common name in the United States.
Speaker A
Now this week's Cuz quiz is what vice president was named Wilson.
Speaker A
Don't go look it up.
Speaker A
Go ask a bunch of old people and see if you can catch them.
Speaker A
And then next week I'll tell you the answer to that one.
Speaker A
And now it's time for the places category.
Speaker A
This week's places category also relates to the Wilson's Phala rope, because this place is in Colorado, where a lot of Wilson's fallow ropes stop over on their migration all the way down to South America.
Speaker A
Not just Utah, but Colorado also has some salty lakes in their state, and there's some even in the Denver metro area where I live.
Speaker A
Now it's time to hear about a beautiful place in Colorado called Wilson.
Speaker D
Alright, let's talk about something you've probably seen a hundred times and never really thought about.
Speaker D
A Coors Light can.
Speaker D
Turns out there's a pretty incredible piece of American history hiding in plain sight right there on the label.
Speaker D
I mean, have you ever really truly looked at it and wondered, you see those snowy peaks and it's easy to just think, yeah, mountains, cool.
Speaker D
But is it a real place or just some generic marketing graphic?
Speaker D
Oh, it is absolutely real.
Speaker D
And its story is so much bigger than just beer.
Speaker D
It connects us to this wild era of American exploration, of mapping the west, of science, adventure and ambition.
Speaker D
All of it kind of distilled right there onto that can.
Speaker D
So first things first, let's get properly introduced to the star of the show here, the mountain itself and of course the guy it was named after.
Speaker D
This is Wilson peak.
Speaker D
It's a 14er, which means it's over 14,000ft tall and it's located in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.
Speaker D
And get this.
Speaker D
Long before it was called Wilson Peak, the native Ute tribe knew it as Shandoka.
Speaker D
That translates to storm maker, which is just an awesome name.
Speaker D
They knew that when clouds started gatherin around that specific summit, a storm was probably brewing.
Speaker D
So where does the modern name come from?
Speaker D
A guy named A.D. wilson.
Speaker D
He was a topographer, basically a super specialized map maker who was part of something called the Hayden Survey way back in the 1870s.
Speaker D
And that survey, well, that's where the story really gets interesting.
Speaker D
To really get what A.D. wilson was doing out there, you kind of have to zoom out and understand the massive, almost impossible project he was a part of.
Speaker D
We're talking about a time when huge chunks of America were still just blank spaces on the map.
Speaker D
So after the Civil War, the US government launched these four great surveys to finally go out and map the West.
Speaker D
It was a huge deal.
Speaker D
And the Hayden Survey, the one Wilson was on, was assigned to figure out the crazy geography of Colorado.
Speaker D
This was more than just drawing maps.
Speaker D
It was about truly understanding the country.
Speaker D
And the men who led these expeditions were absolute characters.
Speaker D
Take Wilson's boss, Ferdinand Hayden.
Speaker D
The local tribes had a nickname for him, he who picks up stones while running, I mean, that just perfectly captures the intense non stop energy of these guys pushing into the wilderness.
Speaker D
And let's be clear, their job was brutal.
Speaker D
These weren't cushy office gigs.
Speaker D
They were basically the first real mountaineers in the Rockies.
Speaker D
But they weren't climbing for fun.
Speaker D
They were hauling all this heavy, fragile scientific gear up unmapped, treacherous mountainsides, facing down insane weather, and pretty much inventing climbing techniques on the fly.
Speaker D
All just to get the data they needed to make the first accurate maps.
Speaker D
But here's the kicker.
Speaker D
These maps they were making weren't just for science class.
Speaker D
They had immediate explosive consequences that would completely change the future of the entire region.
Speaker D
See, while they were mapping the terrain, the surveyors were also taking notes on the geology.
Speaker D
And the reports mentioned finding rich mineral depositsgold, silver, you name it.
Speaker D
The second those reports were published, it was like a starting gun went off.
Speaker D
A massive wave of prospectors flooded into the San Juan Mountains, all hoping to strike it rich.
Speaker D
And the population boom was just staggering.
Speaker D
Tiny camps turned into bustling towns almost overnight.
Speaker D
A place like Silverton, for example, swelled to about 5,000 people in the late 1870s.
Speaker D
For a little while there, it was the third largest city in all of Colorado.
Speaker D
The surveyors didn't just draw the maps, they basically created the destinations.
Speaker D
So you have these really distinct waves of people coming to the very same mountains.
Speaker D
You've got the surveyors who were driven by science and discovery.
Speaker D
Then came the prospectors, driven by the dream of finding wealth.
Speaker D
And now today, you have modern climbers who are driven by recreation and personal challenge.
Speaker D
In a way, they're all carrying on that original spirit of adventure, just for different reasons.
Speaker D
And all of that, that whole rugged history, brings us right back around to the beer can in your fridge.
Speaker D
It's the story of how this one mountain became a powerful modern day symbol.
Speaker D
So in the mid-2000s, Coors chose Wilson Peak for its Coors Light branding.
Speaker D
Now, why this one?
Speaker D
They've never officially said, but you just have to look at it.
Speaker D
It's got that perfect, sharp, iconic shape that just screams wild and tough.
Speaker D
It perfectly captures that Rocky Mountain image they're going for.
Speaker D
And it's not just Kors.
Speaker D
Wilson Peak is kind of a celebrity in its own right.
Speaker D
You've probably seen it in a ton of Jeep commercials.
Speaker D
It also had a big time role in Quentin Tarantino's movie the Hateful Eight.
Speaker D
And hey, if you ever find yourself skiing in Telluride, you can actually see that perfect Cannes view.
Speaker D
For yourself from the resort gondola, of course, we have to talk about the Blue Mountains.
Speaker D
How does that actually work?
Speaker D
Well, it's not magic.
Speaker D
It's just some really neat chemistry.
Speaker D
The label is printed with something called thermochromatic ink.
Speaker D
Basically, it's a mix of three things.
Speaker D
When the can gets cold enough, one of those ingredients, the solvent, hardens up.
Speaker D
That allows the other two parts to mix together, and poof, the mountains turn blue.
Speaker D
It starts happening at 48 degrees and is fully blue by 40.
Speaker D
So when you really think about it, that entire incredible legacy, the grit of A.D. wilson and the surveyors, the relentless drive of the prospectors, all of that real tough history has been perfectly distilled into one simple marketing slogan.
Speaker D
As cold as the Rockies, the story of Wilson Peak is just a great reminder that history isn't just locked away in books.
Speaker D
It's all around us.
Speaker D
Sometimes on the most ordinary things.
Speaker D
It really makes you wonder, right?
Speaker D
What other amazing stories are just sitting there hiding in plain sight on our grocery store shelves?
Speaker A
Thank you, NotebookLM, for that fun story.
Speaker A
Well, even though Coors beer is made in Golden, Colorado, most people from Colorado don't know that the name of the mountain on the side of the Coors, like in, is a Wilson.
Speaker A
Yep.
Speaker A
And you can say you were named after that mountain.
Speaker A
That's because that mountain was named before you.
Speaker A
So you were named after the beer can.
Speaker A
In our last episode, I asked you for the More segment to email photos of places named Wilson for our Places page under the More menu link at the top of the page.
Speaker A
But would really be cool if you had a picture of you standing in front of Wilson Peak.
Speaker A
Or maybe you could have a picture of you standing on the top of the Telluride ski area in front of the ski lift with Wilson Peak in the background.
Speaker A
That'd be awesome.
Speaker A
So this week in the Moore segment, I have a page called Cuz Pets.
Speaker A
So if your pet is named Wilson, I want you to take a picture of it and email that to us so we can put it on that page.
Speaker B
And now it's time for Wilson's in the News.
Speaker A
In the 1970s, there was a sitcom called Sanford and Son.
Speaker A
The actor who played the son of Sanford and Son is Demond Wilson, and he passed away just last week on January 30th.
Speaker A
On a more exciting note, North Carolina's Caleb Wilson set a new Tar Heels freshman record in basketball for the U.S. women's national team.
Speaker A
Soccer star Sophie Wilson should be ready for the next tournament coming up in March.
Speaker A
And that's called the she Believes Cup.
Speaker A
You see, she just had a child a few months ago and she's frantically trying to get back in shape to play in this tournament.
Speaker A
Her husband should be able to help help out a little bit because he's the wide receiver Michael Wilson for the Arizona Cardinals and they didn't make it to the super bowl, so he has a little more time on his hands to watch after the baby while Sophie gets ready for the season.
Speaker A
Now there's more in our Cuz Buzz newsletter for sports and other people in the news.
Speaker A
And since there's so many more articles about Wilson's in the news of sports and other articles, we put those in the Cuz Buzz newsletter that you get.
Speaker A
It's free when you sign up.
Speaker A
When you join our Cuzcom community, you just go to the homepage and scroll down to the bottom and look for cuzcom.
Speaker A
Thank you for listening.
Speaker A
And before you hit, follow and like leave a review if you want.
Speaker A
But the main important thing is share the Cuz Wilson show with all the Wilsons in your area.
Speaker A
See you Cuz.