Before Captain Manicorn was a the Battling Monsters mission, before it was a documentary series with 1.6 million views, before it was a nonprofit program - it was a phone call from Voss, Norway.
Jamie Leibert appeared on the Ekstremsportveko Podcast in January 2021, early in the mission, to tell the story of how it started. Ekstremsportveko is one of the biggest extreme sports events in the world, held annually in Voss, Norway - a festival town where BASE jumpers, paragliders, kayakers, and climbers converge every year.
While at Ekstremsportveko, surrounded by athletes in Voss, Jamie realized he was deeply unhappy in his job and his current life. He called Sandra and told her he wasn't coming home. After a long phone call, they made a decision together: sell everything, buy a van, and travel the world looking for adventure - and the mission to fly a parachute across 80+ countries on earth was born.
Why This Episode Matters
This was one of the first times Jamie told the origin story publicly - before the documentary series took off, before the viral videos, before the millions of views. It's the raw version: the moment of decision, the uncertainty, and what it actually felt like to walk away from a stable life with no plan beyond "let's go."
The Ekstremsportveko audience is niche - extreme athletes who understand the pull of the sport and what it means to organize your entire life around it. Jamie was speaking directly to people who already knew why the mission made sense. What he explained was the how and the why-now.
This episode is also available as video on YouTube, which makes it one of the most shareable pieces of early Captain Manicorn content still available.
Ekstremsportveko is Norway's (and one of the world's) largest extreme sports festivals, held annually in Voss. The festival hosts international athletes across BASE jumping, paragliding, kayaking, climbing, and more.
Episode Published: January 29, 2021
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