August 27, 2025 • 75 mins
Ever wondered what happens at your favorite fishing lodge when the boats are stored and the last guest drives away? The magic of those perfect summer days on the water doesn't materialize from thin air—it's crafted through months of behind-the-scenes work during what lodge owners call "the hidden seasons."
The rhythmic cycle of lodge ownership follows a pattern invisible to most guests. As Thanksgiving marks the season's end, an emotional reset begins alongside the monumental task of winterizing an entire island property. Family and returning staff gather for one final celebration before tackling deep cleaning, plumbing shutdown, and protective measures against the harsh northern winter. These closing rituals—washing every Hudson's Bay blanket, disassembling washing machine solenoids, and covering screened porches—create some of the most cherished memories for lodge owners.
The off-season transforms into a race against nature's calendar. Massive infrastructure projects like rebuilding century-old fireplaces or pouring concrete pathways become possible only during these quiet months. One project alone required handling 1,100 bags of concrete multiple times—from mainland store to boat to island to mixer—all by hand. Meanwhile, the business side continues with booking management, equipment maintenance, and strategic planning for the coming year. Unlike traditional lodge marketing that once required traveling to sportsman shows across North America, today's success comes from creating such memorable experiences that guests become natural ambassadors.
Spring brings its own challenges as ice-out timing remains unpredictable, sometimes compressing weeks of opening procedures into mere days. Through it all, the emotional sustainability of this lifestyle hinges on these quieter seasons providing the necessary reset. As one owner reflects, "I don't think I would have lasted as long as I did if you didn't have an off-season." So next time you're enjoying that perfect sunset from the dock, remember the months of northern grit and dedication that made that moment possible.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
My favorite time of the year.
I didn't really have a favoriteseason until I owned the lodge
and, honestly, my favoriteseason of the year was the fall,
closely followed by the spring,because we were going back up,
because we were going back up,but coming home and shutting
(00:29):
your brain off and not being on24-7 was huge, like I mean, I
don't think I would have lastedas long as I did if you didn't
have an off-season.
This week.
On the Outdoor Journal, radioPodcast, networks, diaries of a
Lodge Owner Stories of the North, we're talking about the
(00:51):
seasons you never see in abrochure.
Sure, guests know the goldendays of summer Boats in the
water, fish in the net andsunsets that look painted by
hand.
But what about the months inbetween, the quiet ones, the
cold ones, the ones where themagic is quietly stitched
(01:11):
together behind the scenes?
On this show, I'm taking youdeep into the off-season grind
infrastructure improvement andrepairs, the bookings battles,
the weather guessing game andthe little victories that make
the big season possible.
From chasing the best deals onnew boats in January to pouring
(01:36):
concrete in the fall, these arethe days when the backbone of
the lodge is built.
So if you ever wondered whatreally happens when the guests
go home, the docks come out andthe water freezes over.
Pull up a chair.
We're heading into the hiddenseasons where hard work, quiet,
(01:58):
dedication and a little northerngrit keeps the dream alive
until the ice melts again.
Welcome back to Diaries of aLodge Owner.
Folks, steve, here with youagain, and yes, today we are
talking about running a lodge,but not just the part that you
(02:20):
see.
We're going to be talking aboutthe all year round rhythm for
lack of a better term theplanning, the prepping, the
pivoting.
You know, we are going to pullback the curtain on the
off-season work that makes thebusy season, if you want to call
(02:44):
it the busy season, possible,and we're going to reveal to
everybody the things that guestsmay never see and always
benefit from.
So we're going to talk about afew things, like the true
off-season hustle when it comesto infrastructure improvement
(03:09):
and all of that kind of stuff.
We're going to talk about boatsand gear and big purchases, the
bookings chess game, which is ahuge one, you know, nature's
calendar I like to call itbecause you never knew when you
were going to be able to get inbecause of the ice out, and when
(03:34):
does that happen and how theheck do you plan for it?
And what was big for me?
The emotional reset, and we'lltalk about all of that and more
right now.
So why don't we dive into it?
(03:55):
The true off-season hustle?
We'll call it.
You know, from the point whereguests leave at Thanksgiving to
the point that I get to comehome and that part of the season
(04:16):
, as much work as it is, it wasalways a wonderful feeling for
me, and that kind of goes intothe last point that I pointed
out in the overview, which isthe emotional reset and the
(04:36):
reason that the Thanksgiving wasalways so special for me.
The Thanksgiving was always sospecial for me.
Number one all of my familywould come up and help me close
Family, friends and I lookedforward to that and all of the
staff that makes it through.
(04:58):
Typically, by that time of theyear it's staff that is
returning staff, because any ofthe students that we hire from
university, college, whatever,they're already going back to
school or have already left atthe beginning of September to go
back to school.
So by Thanksgiving, the staffthat was remaining was staff
(05:21):
that was year round.
Well, I shouldn't say yearround, but they would come back
year after year, and uh and myfamily, and it was uh an amazing
.
We would have Thanksgivingdinner.
That was our last meal of theuh of the season and, um, we
would have all of the guests,all of the staff, all of my
(05:44):
family myself in the main in the, in the dining room and it was
a a big buffet and and and ahome style cooked meal.
We had food on the table, wehad food in the chafing, chafing
dishes and it was just a hugeparty.
(06:08):
It was a get together and wherewe were thankful for everything
, thankful for another year, andthat was the magic of that day.
The other thing that I knew wasthe end is near for this year
(06:30):
and the work that we had to doto close the lodge was daunting,
to say the least, in the firstfew years, but once we figured
it out it wasn't bad.
So we would start with deepcleaning the cottages and by
(06:52):
deep cleaning them.
We're taking all of the linensout.
We are washing all of thelinens.
All of the curtains on thewindows come out and get washed.
The girls are steam cleaningall of the carpets.
We're washing down all thewalls.
We're truly cleaning everything.
(07:15):
There's not one part of theinside of those cottages that
don't get wiped down by hand andonce they're done, then at that
point they're clean.
And during this process, theguys and myself so when I say
(07:37):
the guys, it's my dad, it's someof the doc well, really, for
the cottages, Honestly it was mydad, it was Billy Bosher, dad's
buddy, he was our dad's toolmanager.
So you know my dad.
He'd maybe leave the odd toolline around and Bill would
(08:00):
follow around and pick up afterhim, make sure we didn't lose
too many tools, and he wouldmake lists of things that I
would need, which was, you know,a wonderful skill that was not
in my skill set.
I usually just tried toremember all of the shit that we
(08:21):
needed.
But you know, bill, when Billwas on the job, I would get
texts of lists and those listswere key because as they went
and they were working on closingthe plumbing really and I
should have mentioned that offthe top, closing the plumbing,
all of the things that Dad andBill would see that I needed,
(08:45):
they would make note of and Iwould get the list and then I
could just bring them, go totown, get them, uh, bring, find
them on site and bring it out tothem.
Um, but their job was to um,winterize the plumbing system
which is your water and yourseptic, and we got that down to
(09:07):
a science towards the end, thefirst year that we went there
and we didn't do it.
Oh, what a nightmare.
We learned about plumbing onthat island like you wouldn't
believe.
We replaced I stopped countingat over 200 broken pipes, took
us near, oh, it was better partof two weeks to get it open and
(09:32):
fixed so that we could run waterwithout it spraying all over
the place, but anyway, so theywould go and they would shut
down all of the uh the water, um, uh, the septic inside the
cottages.
And then the girls would followand they would deep clean.
And the girls at that time,honestly, were Diane God rest
(09:56):
her soul my housekeeper, server,manager, who was always there
to the end, my mom, my aunt, mygram and maybe one or two of the
girls that were staying behindJen was one that was there a lot
(10:18):
and all of those cottages wouldget shut down and it would take
, you know, 14 cottages to to todeep clean the proper way and
then do all of the linens, likeall of the sheets, and
everything would come out.
We would wash everything and wehad two sets of um, uh, of uh,
(10:42):
king, um uh linens for all ofthe beds and we had two sets of
twin linens.
So there was a shit ton oflinens, all of the blankets and
at the end we would wash thoseand the Hudson's Bay blankets
need to air dry.
And it was a process.
And then, because Diane told meto, we would always take all of
(11:08):
the linens out of the laundryroom and we would store them in
the Kingfisher, which was thecottage right next to the
laundry room, because thatcottage was um, was very uh, um,
it was sealed up very nicelyand, uh, we didn't have to worry
about rodents and and unwantedcritters over the winter getting
into our, our stuff.
(11:29):
So that's, um, that's where wewould, would store that stuff.
And then there's once thelaundry is done, you got to
winterize every washing machine,which means opening up the
machine and pulling out thesolenoid valve, because
inevitably water gets stuckinside that solenoid and when it
(11:53):
freezes it busts the solenoidand it got to the.
Well, jerry told me that and hesaid that he couldn't find
solenoids anymore for them.
So he said, make sure you getthat apart, and you do that
right or you're replacing thelaundry machine, the washing
machine and fortunately, we didthat every year.
(12:15):
It took time.
We did it every year, though,and never had that problem, and
Jerry was the former owner ofthe lodge telling me this One of
the pieces of information thatI got from Jerry that was very
helpful, and that whole processto shut down everything
(12:36):
depending on the season and howfast we wanted to get out was
about a week to 10 days, and, asyou can imagine, having my
family up there, my aunt anduncle, uncle Chuck his job was
to run around on the golf cartand bring tools, and he would
(13:01):
clean stuff up, and the big jobwas putting up the tarps on all
of the cottages, which was a bigjob, man.
You had to climb up on theladders and we had hooks,
because we covered up all of thescreened porches on the
cottages to protect the well, toblock the UV from going into
(13:22):
the cottages over the winter andto save our screens from
freezing rain and wind andeverything else.
So you know, everybody had alittle, had their own job after
a while, and again to be therewith those people, and they're
(13:44):
up there doing this out of thegoodness of their heart.
My family like I, wasn't payingthem, you know and Aunt Beth
and Uncle Barry, in the earlyyears they were we ate well.
I made sure that we always hadgood food and we some, you know,
(14:10):
those memories of family andfriends are really some of the
best memories that I have andsome of and I get the question a
lot Do you miss the lodge?
And that answer is a hard onefor me and it varies depending
(14:35):
on my mood and the day.
But, to be honest with you, theone thing that I truly miss all
the time and I find myselfthinking back fondly on those
days, those days when we'reclosing and those days when
we're opening, and those weremagic times for me and we all
(15:02):
built something that we were allvery proud of and I couldn't
have done it without thosepeople.
And once you get the lodgeclosed and everybody kind of
starts to go home, that you havefor infrastructure improvement
(15:25):
or repair is in that shortwindow in the off-season, and
you have a finite amount of timein the fall and an extremely
finite amount of time in thespring.
An extremely finite amount oftime in the spring and the fall
(15:53):
was always a time when if I hadbig infrastructure improvement
plans that I needed to do, Itried to plan them for the fall,
simply because after you'redone closing, you've got
probably about a month, monthand a half to work there before
(16:18):
you're iced out before the.
You can't get there.
Day comes and things like.
I remember one year I was underthe main lodge under the floor
and everything is built on rockon the island.
There's not much soil underthere and I had noticed that
(16:43):
around, like our fireplace inthe main lodge, it backed into
the dish pit and then it facedout into the lounge and there
was a wall coming off of theside of the fireplace and it
went straight up through themain building and in the dish
(17:08):
pit.
I'm pretty sure at some pointthey had a that was the kitchen
and they were running a cookstove out of there.
And because there was a cappedoff hole in the back of the
fireplace where it looked likesomebody run a um, like a stove
pipe and uh, I'm sure it wouldhave come off an old cook stove.
(17:31):
But um, uh, the back of it waspainted but you could tell it
was starting to get.
There was a little bit of wearand nothing in that old building
is flat or square or level.
And I was underneath the lodgelooking for a plumbing issue or
(17:57):
whatever it was, and I noticedthat that fireplace, that the
rocks underneath, had started tofall apart.
And I got over and I waslooking at it and, sure enough,
that building was built in 1909.
(18:22):
And the first structure was thatfireplace.
And, interestingly enough, theway that they built that
fireplace, they took big timbers.
So they just cut down pine logsand they weren't huge, but they
(18:44):
were big, like I'm going to say, you know, 18 inches in
diameter, maybe 20.
They honed the top and thebottom flat, just enough.
So well, not even the bottom,just the top enough so that they
could get floorboards acrossthem.
But they built these logs rightout of the structure of the
(19:09):
fireplace.
So they built a stonefoundation for the fireplace.
Then they put these logs, twocoming off to the east, two
coming off to the west and fourcoming off from the front,
facing the south and the back.
(19:33):
There wasn't anything comingoff the back because that whole
the dish pit area and that wholekitchen off the back of the
lodge that was an afterthought,I don't even know when that went
on the building, but theoriginal building was just out
from that main chimney and wherethose logs were going into that
(19:57):
concrete over the years fromhot and cold.
The sleepers or the logs werestill in decent shape, but the
concrete around them had startedto rot.
The wood rotted a bit.
It would hold moisture, theconcrete went all punky, like it
(20:19):
was turning back to sand.
The rocks were falling out Likethe structure was not in good
shape at all and I thought, ohno, I don't, I'm not 100% sure
what I'm gonna do here.
So because I had no money, Ibasically did everything myself.
(20:41):
I ended up in that off season.
So this was after we closed Um,I tore up the floor all the way
, uh, from the backside of the,uh, of the fireplace.
So I didn't tear it up in thefront, into the, the, into the
(21:01):
um, uh lounge, but the wholedish pit and everywhere around
that, that, that chimney, in thedish pit.
I tore the floors out, I torethe walls out, I tore everything
out.
You walked into the dish pit,you look down and there were.
There were the, the, the joistsfor the floor and then dirt
(21:26):
underneath them and I had aboutmaybe three and a half feet from
the bottom of the joists to theground.
We built a mole like a formaround the well.
First of all I cleaned out allof the loose rock and sand and
(21:46):
debris that I could and exposedas many holes into the center of
this fireplace as I could thatI felt was safe, and then built
a form all the way around thefront of the fireplace, the
sides and the back, and what weended up doing was we poured
(22:13):
concrete and we had to do that.
My good buddy, tim the Tool man,timmy Kendrew he had given me
an old well, not old it was hehad given me a gas-powered
cement mixer in my first yearSaid he didn't need it anymore
(22:34):
and he looked at me, said Ithink you're going to need this
and actually he fixed the insideof the firebox of that
fireplace in that first year andso his fix kept going for about
two, three years.
And now this I'm year four,year five, I don't even remember
and we've got this form builtand we had the cement mixer at
(23:00):
the back door of the kitchen,mixing cement, pouring it into a
wheelbarrow, driving thewheelbarrow through the kitchen
and onto a plank, out into thedish pit and up to that form,
dumping concrete in there, andthen have to get underneath the
(23:23):
floor and move that concretearound the front of the form and
with a stick I was working thatwet concrete into all of the
cracks and crevices and areas inthe center of this fireplace
(23:47):
that I could get the um, the umconcrete to go into.
And you got to remember whenthis thing was built, it was
1909, 1910, and concrete was notum, was not a easy commodity to
get a hold of.
First of all, you were eithercoming across by boat from North
(24:16):
Bay or you were coming by canoefrom Highway 69, because there
was no roads in back then.
There was no roads to get inthere, so there was very little
concrete that they used.
They piled up stones, they didthe best they could, but this
(24:37):
thing drank concrete.
It really did, and that projectalone cost us.
I think it was pretty close andyou know I didn't until you
actually start pouring concreteand looking at the amount of
(25:04):
concrete it actually takes tobuild something you
underestimate so piss poorlythat I figured might take 170
bags, 180 bags, you know,looking at it, yeah, no, that
(25:27):
job alone was about 750 bags ofconcrete and we poured all
around the bottom in that moldand forced it all inside the
chimney and then let that hardenand then on the backside of the
(25:49):
chimney and the sides, I alsobrought that form up and that
was the second pour.
I brought that another fourfeet above the floor and when
the concrete in the first, inthe first pour, um, and it took
us cause, once you start, oncewe started on that pour, um, I
(26:12):
wanted to make sure that we gotit up to the floor level Uh,
that was probably I don't knoweight hours, eight hours of
constant mixing, pouring, moving, jabbing, hitting with the
hammer on the form just to geteverything to settle into
(26:36):
everywhere where you need it togo, and then driving rebar into
the soft concrete in the form sothat on your next pour you've
got that rebar to to lock ittogether.
Anyway, that was my mom, my dadand Mark Plont was on that job,
(27:01):
and that was after everythingwas closed and after everybody
left.
And and those are the littlethings that people don't see Not
only that um, we then, uh, puta new floor in the dish pit, we
put stainless on the walls, we I, I bought a new dishwasher, we
(27:23):
redesigned the wholeconfiguration of the kitchen so
it flowed properly, put a newsink stainless sink and
everything in there Stainless onthe walls.
We redid that whole dish pit andthat project, um, that actually
(27:47):
, and I'm sure by the time weleft that year, mom and dad
stayed for a bit, uh, mark and I, uh, I bet you we were there,
wow, we were there pretty closeto ice out, so it would have
been middle of november, ice in,sorry, um, pretty much the
middle of November and then, andthen we had to call it and and
(28:08):
finish it back up in the springand, um, um, that leads, leads
me into, you know, we'll talkabout infrastructure improvement
in the spring too, because thatwas that that happened.
Uh, a lot as well, because theemotional reset sometimes and
(28:31):
the burnout I just didn't haveit in me to stay in the fall and
with Melissa and the kids athome as much as I should have
been doing in the fall.
There were projects that I,just because of that, pushed off
(28:51):
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Speaker 1 (31:09):
So if we're going in a chronological season, the next
season I'd like to talk aboutis, you know, the winter season
and that was always busy becausewe had the bookings game of
(31:36):
chess and I bought the lodge inan interesting time of change
when it come to the way thatpeople were marketing, the way
that people were selling tripsand getting bookings, and
(32:01):
traditionally lodge owners inthe off-season would take the
next four months and travelNorth America and go to
sportsman shows like the TorontoSportsman Show, the Spring
Fishing Show, the Novi MichiganSportsman Show show.
(32:23):
They traveled the United Statesand some of Canada trying to
sell their trips and experiencesto people and that's where
people would go to find wherethey want to go, because all of
the outfitters are there.
If you want to go hunting to alodge, they're at a sportsman
(32:45):
show are there.
If you want to go hunting to alodge, they're at a sportsman
show.
Well, in the 2000s andparticularly the later 2000s and
I was one, I think I was alittle bit early there weren't a
whole lot of people that weredoing what I was doing.
They were doing it incombination with those sports
shows, but I chose to market thebusiness more out of necessity
(33:14):
remotely from home, because Ihad, you know, melissa and Mikey
and Rayburn and Maddie a littlebit later into my second year,
all at home, I had just spentsix months at the lodge and I
couldn't leave to go tosportsman shows.
(33:37):
I did the Toronto sportsmanshow and I did the spring
fishing show in Toronto becausethey were close to home and I
really used those as a placewhere I could network and meet
people.
You all know that I builtChaudière by television TV shows
(34:02):
, television TV shows and therelationships that I built
through that.
I built it online with thewebsite and that was always such
a stressful thing for me,especially in the beginning.
I didn't know that I was goingto have people coming.
(34:26):
I wasn't and right until youknow, even when I sold and I was
like, if you want to talkoccupancy as far as cottages go,
like 90% full, the books didn'tshow that.
In January, like I always talk,I would talk to a lot of these
(34:50):
old, old lodge owners and andthey had a that were established
and had a, an older demographic, and they were like oh yeah,
we're booked, we're, we're,we're selling in January of, you
know, 2014.
They're, they're already bookedfor 2014 and selling into 2015.
(35:11):
And I'm looking at my books andthey're empty and I'm like holy
shit, I don't know.
Well, there is not enough inbookings here to cover my
opening costs, let alone get methrough the season.
And I found that for me it justwas like that the bookings would
(35:33):
come in steadily, starting inJanuary and they wouldn't stop
coming in until the fall, and80% of all the the occupancy
that I had was I don't want tocall it last minute, but it was
(35:53):
in the calendar year, like therewas very little I had.
I had some guests that I knewthat they were coming back year
after year after year after year.
Other than that, most of thebookings happened in the same
calendar year and I would alwaystalk to Cole and say, hey, cole
(36:18):
, where are we at?
This was after Aunt Beth passedand Cole who's still at the
lodge, by the way, wonderful,wonderful man he would be taking
the bookings over the winter onthe phone and we kept very good
notes on our bookings year overyear over year, um, on our
(36:50):
bookings year over year overyear.
And, um, we had a uh, um, um,cole would keep track of how
many bookings he would take eachmonth.
So I could, in my stress overthe over the winter in February,
um, you know, looking at thebookings book and the online
calendar, thinking, oh my God,we're empty, and I'd phone Cole
(37:10):
and I'd say, cole, where are weat?
Like, where were we last yearand the year before?
And Cole would say, steve,relax, relax, we're actually
ahead of the game compared tolast year and we're really good
compared to the year before.
So you know, don't worry,they're going to come and they
(37:33):
always did.
But that Bookings game, thatBookings game of chess, I played
that game.
For the most part I would say80% of that game was played
during my busy months whilepeople were at the lodge, and
(37:53):
I'll explain that in a minute.
And then the other was playedin the off season by focusing on
the website and getting thingsset so that in the spring and
through the next season thewebsite was set, we had all of
our, our, our, um, uh pricing inuh, pictures, um, um, it was.
(38:14):
It was done in a way that was,um, extremely professional and
um, and then, uh, sports showsand calling and talking to the
guests that came the year beforeand sending out Christmas stuff
(38:35):
.
I always tried to.
I didn't get it out all thetime for Christmas, which is a
perfect excuse for all you lodgeowners out there to send a
calendar or send a card orsomething to all of the guests
that come to see you.
But I always got something awayby the time we were coming back
(38:58):
and that's all important.
But for me, that bookings gamehappened at the lodge.
It happened at the lodge byensuring that the people that
came had an absolutelyoutstanding experience that I
(39:21):
tailored as close to theirexpectation as possible, and the
only way that you can do thatis to understand your guests and
talk to them, and that is wheremy marketing was done.
And I was doing that marketing,not even realizing it.
(39:42):
I just knew that I needed tomake sure that every person that
came to the Chaudiere Lodgeleft loving it as much as I did,
and whether that person wantedto come for photography, to fish
, to fish for a specific species, wanted a guide, didn't want a
(40:04):
guide, you know I needed tounder number one, I needed to
understand what theirexpectations were, and that
started on the phone with them.
You build an experience forthose people.
For instance, you ask them howdid you find us and is there
(40:25):
anything special?
Is there any special reasonyou're coming?
And if there's an anniversary,a honeymoon, whatever, you start
building an experience aroundthat and that in turn, that word
of mouth, that word of mouth,those people that I was turning
(40:54):
into advocates for me did waymore sales for me than anything
else I did.
You got to remember I'm lookingon an extremely busy season.
I'm looking for 500 people.
I'm looking for 500 people oversix months and for me that
seemed like a huge number.
(41:15):
But really, when you've gotevery person that's leaving the
lodge in a mindset where theycan't wait to tell somebody
about the amazing time that theyhad, it fills up pretty quick
and that is where my marketingwas done and that, coupled with
(41:38):
the television, that made mybusiness a success.
And that, for me, was thatbookings game and you know so
once you, over the winter, youdo that.
And there's also I'm going tocall it infrastructure
(41:59):
improvement.
I touched on it Making sure thewebsite is up to date is
running well.
It making sure the website isup to date is running well.
There was one year that and thiswould have been, oh, I.
It was a year before I sold.
(42:19):
I brought every cedar stripboat home.
I brought every cedar stripboat home.
Now cedar strips for those ofyou out there who know me, I
have no love for cedar strips.
They are absolutely gorgeousboats.
They look good, they're quiet,they handle well, but for a
(42:42):
lodge owner they are a freakingnightmare when it comes to
upkeep.
They need so much attentionlike you've got it.
You've got it in the springtime, okay, I had.
I started with 13 um part ofthe opening now and and and the
(43:06):
the.
This is this is going to be aover the winter kind of thing
and part of the opening becausethose cedar strip boats.
You had to put at least twocoats of varnish on those boats
every year just to stay even,just to keep it looking decent,
(43:31):
because the UV burnt.
Every year burnt two coats ofvarnish off of those boats.
So this one year I brought atthe time I was trying to phase
them out.
Phase them out, get rid of thecedars, replace them with
aluminums, flat floors.
(43:53):
People love the aluminums, butthere was a number of guests who
really loved the cedars as welland, to be fair, those 18 foot
um Cedar strip boats were theonly boat that you could put
three big people in andefficiently power it with it
(44:18):
with a 15 or 20 horsepowerengine.
Because of the shape they're,they're a big flat back canoe
engine.
Because of the shape they're,they're a big flat back canoe.
Basically they're light.
Those were the only boats thatyou could.
You could efficiently powerwith putting three big people in
that boat and you could stillmove along at a decent, decent
(44:41):
clip.
So there are good things aboutthose boats but I was at a point
where I wanted to phase as manyof them out.
My ideal, my ideal fleet in mymind at the time was four to
five seaters and everything elsein aluminum, flat floors,
bigger engines, more, more moneyto rent.
(45:05):
Yes, I get it, but anyway.
So I brought all nine cedarstrips home and mom and dad just
built their shop.
So they had like a 40 by 40 or50 by 50 empty shop and over
that whole season we strippedthose boats down, repaired all
(45:30):
of the structure inside themthat was needing repaired the
dashboards, the gunnels, thetransoms, the bottoms.
We stripped down and we refiberglassed every one of them,
painted them, we varnished them,we did them from top to bottom
(45:58):
and they were beautiful.
But that took me all year, thattook me all off season.
We got them back, which wasn'teasy to start with.
I had a 28-foot covered trailerthat we had to stack them in
(46:22):
and bring them home.
I think we got four in a load,so brought them all home, like I
say, and did all that work.
It was right from November untilthe beginning of May that we
worked on those and so you know,every once in a while you've
(46:43):
got a big infrastructure projectfor the winter, but for the
most part the winter was theslowdown time.
The winter was and now I'mgoing to jump to that emotional
reset and my favorite time ofthe year.
(47:04):
I didn't really have a favoriteseason until I owned the lodge
and honestly, my favorite seasonof the year was the fall,
closely followed by the spring.
But it was the fall, and it wasthe fall because I knew that it
was just about over.
I loved the lodge, I loved, andmy second favorite time of the
(47:32):
year was spring because we weregoing back up.
But it is until you've actuallyexperienced the highs and the
lows of owning a lodge and noteven just the day-to-day stuff,
(47:55):
like when you owe a shit ton ofmoney to a number of different
people and institutions and allof the stress that comes along
with that, and then all of thestress that comes along with the
season, which is dealing withemployees and all of that stuff,
(48:21):
which is a totally differentpodcast altogether.
That Thanksgiving dinner tastedso good, so good.
And coming home and shuttingyour brain off and not being on
(48:44):
24-7, man, was huge.
It was you need it, like.
I mean, I don't think I wouldhave lasted as long as I did if
you didn't have an off season,because it was hugely important.
And then, once you get throughthat season, you start to you
(49:09):
know, come April you're chompingat the bit.
You've got most of the stuffdone.
The other thing that we used todo in that big old trailer of
mine every year we'd bring allof the small engines home.
I had racks in that, uh, inthat cover trailer and um, um,
(49:34):
uh, we'd have anywhere from 20to 25, uh, small engines and, uh
, they would all be in there and, uh, it was always a panic.
I had them in the trailer rightfrom.
You know, no, october, middleof October or beginning of
November, and I'd have to callScotty, my good buddy, scotty
(49:57):
Hemp, and we would always planon and it was never Scotty, it
was always me.
We would always say, you know,we're going to do two, three,
four.
You know, on weekend here andstart and this, and that, well,
(50:19):
I would always be busy orsomething was going on and
Scotty would be planting littleseeds like, hey, you know, I'll
be around this weekend, maybe weshould get into them engines.
And I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe we
should get into them engines.
And I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Next thing, you know, there'shockey tournament for Rayburn or
Michael, or there's this orthere's that, and all of a
(50:40):
sudden it's April and thepotential of the ice going out
again, that's nature's calendar,that's.
You just never know right.
But it could go out as early asthe middle of April and as late
One year it went out on likethe 9th of May and we were
(51:04):
opening on the 15th.
But anyway, it was always a madrush to get all of those
engines serviced because you're,you know, because they're all
four strokes.
So you're changing the engineoil, the filter, spark plugs,
you're changing the gear oil inthe bottom end, you're repairing
(51:26):
shit, like I mean, there'sconstantly bottom ends that have
been mistreated and there's thegear oil's milky and you got to
change out the seals or gearhere or there or, you know, pull
the bottom end off, take it toa buddy who was doing the skags
(51:51):
Skags need repaired, all theprops that are dinged, they need
to go and be repaired.
And again, mad rush.
But we always got her done.
We always got her done.
I love those nights and thosedays with Scotty too.
Like I mean, scotty is awonderful friend of mine.
(52:11):
Like I mean, scotty is awonderful friend of mine and we
spent a lot of great timetogether working at the lodge
and doing things and really, forme, that's what it was all
about.
I just loved the people that Iwas hanging out with and I'm so
(52:38):
thankful for those people whohelped and believed in me and
would do anything to help me outand that was the magic.
But yeah, we'd get those motorsgoing and the spring would be
here at my house and you know,the anticipation would start to
grow, because I know how muchwork we have and I know what it
(53:01):
takes to open and, depending onhow well we closed in the fall
depended on how well things weregoing to go in the spring.
And um, um, there was one year,like I say, it was May the 9th
and that left like very, verylittle time because we open on
(53:25):
the Friday, uh, before the thirdSaturday Fishing season opens
the third Saturday in May on theupper French river, and we
always opened on the Friday sothat, um, um, our guests could
come in.
They couldn't fish that day,but a lot of them are getting in
at you know, uh, two, threeo'clock in the afternoon and
we'd have a nice, uh, we'dalways plan a prime rib dinner
(53:49):
for the first dinner of the yearand people were coming in.
So that third Friday in May,depending on when it fell, that
year we had it was like eightdays to open, which is a.
It typically takes us two weeks, know, two weeks to open and we
(54:13):
always had the time because,you know, the ice would go out
in the last week of April.
If I had to pick an averagedate for the ice out, that's
when it happens that last weekof April, but this year it
didn't at all and we barely gotopen.
(54:36):
But we did.
And the other thing that, ontop of infrastructure
improvement, like I mean, weprobably did more infrastructure
improvement projects in thespringtime when we opened, when
we could when the ice went outuntil we opened than we did in
the fall, and that's justbecause of burnout, that's
(54:57):
because in the fall, like I mean, I was done, I I had a hard
time staying any later than Ihad to as well, melissa and and
the kids back home.
They were ready for me to behome, melissa, especially
because we had small kids, right, and she was doing it and
working by herself at home.
(55:19):
So in the springtime it was sohectic you couldn't believe it.
We did another concrete story.
We did another concrete story.
We poured a six to seven footconcrete path from the dock up
(55:42):
to the main lodge and past themain lodge and poured a concrete
bridge through a gully.
And that project we were.
We got in fairly early, I thinkit, and, and it took us, there
(56:05):
were guests there, um, and wehad just poured the last bit of
concrete and we had to keeppeople off of the um, off of the
bridge, which was the last pourfor them to stay off of it,
because it took us that long.
We were three weeks, we werethree weeks on that.
And there was Mark myself, patwas helping us a bit.
(56:32):
Uh, pete, uh, bowles, um, mac,uh, who was a great young
dockhand, and then another oneand I forget this, this fella's
name, but um, when, uh, when Maccome, he was, uh, he worked for
me for three seasons and Ithink this kid was a friend of
Mac's seasons and I think thiskid was a friend of Mac's.
(56:57):
And I said to the boys, I andMark, and like Peter and Pat,
and, and I wasn't worried aboutthem, but I said, listen, mac
and uh, and I'll call him buddy,mac, buddy, if you make it
through the next couple of weeks, the rest of the year is going
to be smooth sailing.
Because the thing that I don'tthink people understand when
(57:19):
you're on an island and you'repouring concrete, okay, you get
the concrete and and I had, Ihired a barge to, and I, I hired
a barge to and I can't rememberwho it was, I think it was
Terry, but anyway, I hired abarge and I had, for that
(57:39):
project, I had Home Hardwaredeliver the concrete to the
Doakese Marina or one of themarinas.
We had to go over to the marinaand we had to hand bomb all of
those bags of concrete.
And this is just this job, thisjob, any other concrete job,
(58:00):
like the one with the fireplaceor the chimney or any of the
other pathways or the concretepad we poured in the water shop
for the purification system.
That's all.
I drive to Home Hardware or oneof the building places in
(58:20):
Newellville and you load everybag, one by one, into the back
of the truck, drive the truck tothe marina, unload every bag
off the truck onto the dock andthen into the Alaskan.
Or I had an old 20 foot steelboat.
You unload it into there, thenyou get it.
(58:44):
You drive it across the water,you get it to the dock, you
unload it onto the dock.
Okay, then you drive the golfcart down, load it into the golf
cart and then you drive thegolf cart to where the concrete
is being poured and you have tounload the golf cart, the
concrete, onto the area besideand then you have to pick every
(59:09):
bag up to dump it into the mixer.
So I don't know how many timeswe're lifting the shit, but the
pouring part you're near done,right.
So we brought all of theconcrete over and lifted all of
the bags, piled all the bags,started mixing all the bags.
(59:32):
Wow, buddy, remember Buddy?
I think he lasted about fourdays and then that was it.
Buddy was done.
We scared him because you knowthey were, they were long days
and they were laborious days.
You know they were long daysand they were laborious days,
(59:53):
because concrete is a shitty wayto work.
It's a very when you're done,it's very rewarding because you
see what you do.
And we poured that path, and notonly did we pour the path, we
built the forms and then it wasa cobblestone path originally
(01:00:18):
and we took all of those flatstones out of the path and then
fitted them into the concrete ontop.
Now, the difference was,originally they laid the rocks
down and then just parged inbetween with concrete, and then
the rocks would constantly breakup and come apart and and from
(01:00:42):
driving the, the golf carts onthem, and you know it was uh,
and then their rocks are looseand people are tripping and it
was just not not a goodsituation at all.
And um, um, we, we placed allof those rocks back into the top
of this pad and the pad itselfis anywhere from about, I'm
(01:01:06):
gonna say, seven inches deep inthe thinnest to about three and
a half four feet deep in some ofthe.
There was one spot that wentover and we dug out.
I was digging down to thebedrock.
We're right on bedrock and thisone spot there was a crevice
(01:01:27):
where two pieces of bedrock cometogether or they come apart.
And I uncovered this freakingcrevice that was like four feet
deep and we started pouringconcrete into it and we threw
every nice big round stone thatwe could find and every piece of
(01:01:50):
scrap metal or anything that wecould find to take up volume
into the hole so we didn't haveto pour so much concrete.
We got it up and level and allthe way done.
And when it was all said anddone, we gave our cement mixer.
(01:02:13):
The boys and I sat down and wedecided, because we were doing
the math and that project alonewas 1100 bags of concrete, 1100
bags and just the, and all byhand, we gave her a name.
(01:02:37):
We decided that because we atthe time I had roughly figured
that we turned over 2,000 bagsmixed at that point and we gave
her a name and called her OldDinah.
That's right, that old concretemixer, old Dinah.
(01:02:59):
And Old Dinah, boy oh boy.
She's mixed another thousandbags, if not more, since on a
number of projects, but thoseprojects like that one, that
that one was, you know what.
It was a shit ton of work, butat the end of the day, we all
(01:03:22):
put our initials in it and thatlegacy is going to out outlast
man itself.
You know, at some point whenman doesn't exist on this planet
, that pathway it's still goingto be there and that's the way
that we like to do things.
(01:03:43):
When we were doing them and itlike I mean the openings, were
always crazy as you can imagine,we had projects like that.
Always crazy as you can imagine, we had projects like that.
The dock, our docking system, agood friend of mine, jason Lilly
.
He come up and we built a newdock house and Cole built
(01:04:07):
floating docks and this was allin my second or third year built
floating docks.
And this was all in my secondor third year.
It would have been my thirdyear because, after the whole
situation with the vendor, takeback, being forgiven and folks
that is a wonderful, wonderfulstory that I'm not going to get
(01:04:29):
into.
Go back in the archives andlisten to the into um, go back
in the archives and and listento listen to the story about the
vendor, take back and theprayer and and uh and uh,
everything, because that was keyfor me to make the
infrastructure improvement thatI needed to make.
Uh, because I got a grant.
I went and I got a grant for Iput up $70,000 and they gave me
(01:04:58):
the NOHFC gave me $70,000.
And I bought, put new steelroofs on all the cottages all
that one spring.
That uh, all uh, that onespring.
(01:05:18):
And, um, we, um, we built thedock house.
Um, over the winter, cole builtthe, uh, the fiberglass
floating docks which, by the way, are still there and still look
beautiful.
They're like.
I mean, those docks are, are,were a ridiculously amazing
investment and they're wide andCole made them all.
(01:05:39):
He hand-laid these docks and,like I say, they look as good
today as they did when we putthem in, as they did when we put
them in.
But that all happened in thethree weeks before we opened in
(01:06:00):
that year and without all of thepeople that I had to help.
You know, bud helped us a tonon that one too.
I paid Bud to come and redo thedocking system right out in the
front.
We got rid of all of the cribdocks and Bud actually started
working on the ice becauseChaudiere had a whole whack.
(01:06:24):
It had a string, a dock thatwas like a string that joined
all of the crib docks where youwould park the boats in front
together.
And it wasn't very wide, thedocks that you park on.
They were all on cribs and wegot rid of the whole thing.
We saved all of the cribs andthen we built off of those cribs
(01:06:48):
and built the dock right backto the shoreline and now it's a
beautiful big, wide dock at thewater off of those cribs and
built the dock right back to theshoreline and now it's a
beautiful, big, wide dock at thewater and then with floaters
coming off of it.
But Bud, that year that we weredoing it went out on the ice
and they let the water down inthe winter and he started to.
(01:07:09):
He burnt the cribs out becausethat's the hardest thing.
The hardest thing is to get ridof these old cribs because
they're all put together underthe water with huge spikes and
they're filled with rocks andit's not easy to work underwater
.
But when the water drops and inthe wintertime you can burn the
(01:07:32):
three feet of the crib that'ssticking out of the water, get
rid of all the rocks and thencut the ice around and pull up
as much as you can.
So Bud did a fabulous jobgetting rid of all of these
docks, and there was probablynine of them.
And then Cole built the floatersman, and what a huge
(01:07:56):
infrastructure.
That really the fact that itstarted with the mortgage being
forgiven, making my numbers lookwell enough that I could go and
borrow $70,000 from economicpartners in Sturgeon Falls to
(01:08:19):
put up against the 50-50 grant.
It was a 50-50 grant so I hadto have skin in the game.
So I got that $70,000.
They gave me $70,000.
And with that money it changedthe direction of my business,
that one.
(01:08:39):
You can almost pinpoint mysuccess to that.
As far as infrastructure, asfar as putting myself on the map
as a high quality place, thatstuff needed to be done and
(01:09:03):
without that grant, without thatmortgage forgiven, without the
prayer and belief, that wouldn'thave happened.
And I'm not sure I would havemade it, because to redo the
dock, to redo the dock house andmake a beautiful place for
people to come to, um and to setthings up so that I was just
(01:09:24):
making minor repairs on mydocking system for a decade, um,
that was huge.
So you know that was key.
The spring was key, getting intothe lodge and, like I said, off
(01:09:50):
the top, nobody really sees howwe were working and what we
were doing to bring anoutstanding product to the
forefront, right to theforefront, right.
(01:10:12):
You know, at the end of the daythe guests see the sunshine,
the fish, the sunsets, but it'squiet months, the dusty work and
the endless planning that makethat magic happen.
While the season's on, that waskey.
(01:10:38):
And the Hidden Seasons, right,they may not fill your photo
album, but they were the realheartbeat of the lodge and they
certainly, they certainly filledmy photo album.
(01:11:00):
And on that note, folks, I wouldlove to thank you all for
getting to this point.
I really, really appreciate it.
And I want to say thank you toLakeside, marine and Red Lake
they are a wonderful sponsor toour producer, anthony Mancini
(01:11:22):
and Dino Taylor these boys,without them I wouldn't be able
to be bringing this to you.
And thank you to Ange Pete, theFish and Canada crew, all of
the people involved and folks.
(01:11:43):
Thus brings us to theconclusion of another episode of
Diaries of a Lodge OwnerStories of the North.
Speaker 4 (01:11:54):
I'll be making my way the only way, I know how
(01:12:26):
working hard and sharing thenorth with all of my pals well,
(01:12:51):
I'm a good old and I had avision to amass the single
largest database of muskieangling education material
anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this
amazing community and share itwith passionate anglers just
like you.
Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
Thus the Ugly Pike podcast was born and quickly
grew to become one of the topfishing podcasts in North
America and quickly grew tobecome one of the top fishing
podcasts in North America.
Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
Step into the world of angling adventures and
embrace the thrill of the catchwith the Ugly Pike Podcast.
Join us on our quest tounderstand what makes us
different as anglers and touncover what it takes to go
after the infamous fish of10,000 casts.
Speaker 4 (01:13:26):
The Ugly Pike Podcast isn't just about fishing.
It's about creating atight-knit community of
passionate anglers who share thesame love for the sport.
Through laughter, throughcamaraderie and an unwavering
spirit of adventure, thispodcast will bring people
together.
Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our
angling adventures.
Tight lines everyone.
Speaker 4 (01:13:46):
Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or
wherever else you get yourpodcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your
podcasts.
Hi everybody, I'm Angelo Violaand I'm Pete Bowman.
Now you might know us as thehosts of Canada's favorite
fishing show, but now we'rehosting a podcast that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your
ears bringing you a brand newepisode of Outdoor Journal Radio
.
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
Now, what are we going to talk about for two
hours every week?
Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
Well, you know there's going to be a lot of
fishing.
Speaker 4 (01:14:17):
I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and
how to catch them, and they wereeasy to catch.
Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
We're going to be talking to people from all
facets of the outdoors, fromathletes.
Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garton.
Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To
scientists.
But now that we're reforesting-and laying things free.
Speaker 4 (01:14:38):
It's the perfect transmission environment for
life.
Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
To chefs.
If any game isn't cookedproperly marinated, you will
taste it, and whoever else willpick up the phone.
Wherever you are, OutdoorJournal Radio seeks to answer
the questions and tell thestories of all those who enjoy
being outside.
Find us on.
Speaker 4 (01:14:58):
Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts.
My favorite time of the year.
I didn't really have a favoriteseason until I owned the lodge
and, honestly, my favoriteseason of the year was the fall,
closely followed by the spring,because we were going back up,
because we were going back up,but coming home and shutting
(00:29):
your brain off and not being on24-7 was huge, like I mean, I
don't think I would have lastedas long as I did if you didn't
have an off-season.
This week.
On the Outdoor Journal, radioPodcast, networks, diaries of a
Lodge Owner Stories of the North, we're talking about the
(00:51):
seasons you never see in abrochure.
Sure, guests know the goldendays of summer Boats in the
water, fish in the net andsunsets that look painted by
hand.
But what about the months inbetween, the quiet ones, the
cold ones, the ones where themagic is quietly stitched
(01:11):
together behind the scenes?
On this show, I'm taking youdeep into the off-season grind
infrastructure improvement andrepairs, the bookings battles,
the weather guessing game andthe little victories that make
the big season possible.
From chasing the best deals onnew boats in January to pouring
(01:36):
concrete in the fall, these arethe days when the backbone of
the lodge is built.
So if you ever wondered whatreally happens when the guests
go home, the docks come out andthe water freezes over.
Pull up a chair.
We're heading into the hiddenseasons where hard work, quiet,
(01:58):
dedication and a little northerngrit keeps the dream alive
until the ice melts again.
Welcome back to Diaries of aLodge Owner.
Folks, steve, here with youagain, and yes, today we are
talking about running a lodge,but not just the part that you
(02:20):
see.
We're going to be talking aboutthe all year round rhythm for
lack of a better term theplanning, the prepping, the
pivoting.
You know, we are going to pullback the curtain on the
off-season work that makes thebusy season, if you want to call
(02:44):
it the busy season, possible,and we're going to reveal to
everybody the things that guestsmay never see and always
benefit from.
So we're going to talk about afew things, like the true
off-season hustle when it comesto infrastructure improvement
(03:09):
and all of that kind of stuff.
We're going to talk about boatsand gear and big purchases, the
bookings chess game, which is ahuge one, you know, nature's
calendar I like to call itbecause you never knew when you
were going to be able to get inbecause of the ice out, and when
(03:34):
does that happen and how theheck do you plan for it?
And what was big for me?
The emotional reset, and we'lltalk about all of that and more
right now.
So why don't we dive into it?
(03:55):
The true off-season hustle?
We'll call it.
You know, from the point whereguests leave at Thanksgiving to
the point that I get to comehome and that part of the season
(04:16):
, as much work as it is, it wasalways a wonderful feeling for
me, and that kind of goes intothe last point that I pointed
out in the overview, which isthe emotional reset and the
(04:36):
reason that the Thanksgiving wasalways so special for me.
The Thanksgiving was always sospecial for me.
Number one all of my familywould come up and help me close
Family, friends and I lookedforward to that and all of the
staff that makes it through.
(04:58):
Typically, by that time of theyear it's staff that is
returning staff, because any ofthe students that we hire from
university, college, whatever,they're already going back to
school or have already left atthe beginning of September to go
back to school.
So by Thanksgiving, the staffthat was remaining was staff
(05:21):
that was year round.
Well, I shouldn't say yearround, but they would come back
year after year, and uh and myfamily, and it was uh an amazing
.
We would have Thanksgivingdinner.
That was our last meal of theuh of the season and, um, we
would have all of the guests,all of the staff, all of my
(05:44):
family myself in the main in the, in the dining room and it was
a a big buffet and and and ahome style cooked meal.
We had food on the table, wehad food in the chafing, chafing
dishes and it was just a hugeparty.
(06:08):
It was a get together and wherewe were thankful for everything
, thankful for another year, andthat was the magic of that day.
The other thing that I knew wasthe end is near for this year
(06:30):
and the work that we had to doto close the lodge was daunting,
to say the least, in the firstfew years, but once we figured
it out it wasn't bad.
So we would start with deepcleaning the cottages and by
(06:52):
deep cleaning them.
We're taking all of the linensout.
We are washing all of thelinens.
All of the curtains on thewindows come out and get washed.
The girls are steam cleaningall of the carpets.
We're washing down all thewalls.
We're truly cleaning everything.
(07:15):
There's not one part of theinside of those cottages that
don't get wiped down by hand andonce they're done, then at that
point they're clean.
And during this process, theguys and myself so when I say
(07:37):
the guys, it's my dad, it's someof the doc well, really, for
the cottages, Honestly it was mydad, it was Billy Bosher, dad's
buddy, he was our dad's toolmanager.
So you know my dad.
He'd maybe leave the odd toolline around and Bill would
(08:00):
follow around and pick up afterhim, make sure we didn't lose
too many tools, and he wouldmake lists of things that I
would need, which was, you know,a wonderful skill that was not
in my skill set.
I usually just tried toremember all of the shit that we
(08:21):
needed.
But you know, bill, when Billwas on the job, I would get
texts of lists and those listswere key because as they went
and they were working on closingthe plumbing really and I
should have mentioned that offthe top, closing the plumbing,
all of the things that Dad andBill would see that I needed,
(08:45):
they would make note of and Iwould get the list and then I
could just bring them, go totown, get them, uh, bring, find
them on site and bring it out tothem.
Um, but their job was to um,winterize the plumbing system
which is your water and yourseptic, and we got that down to
(09:07):
a science towards the end, thefirst year that we went there
and we didn't do it.
Oh, what a nightmare.
We learned about plumbing onthat island like you wouldn't
believe.
We replaced I stopped countingat over 200 broken pipes, took
us near, oh, it was better partof two weeks to get it open and
(09:32):
fixed so that we could run waterwithout it spraying all over
the place, but anyway, so theywould go and they would shut
down all of the uh the water, um, uh, the septic inside the
cottages.
And then the girls would followand they would deep clean.
And the girls at that time,honestly, were Diane God rest
(09:56):
her soul my housekeeper, server,manager, who was always there
to the end, my mom, my aunt, mygram and maybe one or two of the
girls that were staying behindJen was one that was there a lot
(10:18):
and all of those cottages wouldget shut down and it would take
, you know, 14 cottages to to todeep clean the proper way and
then do all of the linens, likeall of the sheets, and
everything would come out.
We would wash everything and wehad two sets of um, uh, of uh,
(10:42):
king, um uh linens for all ofthe beds and we had two sets of
twin linens.
So there was a shit ton oflinens, all of the blankets and
at the end we would wash thoseand the Hudson's Bay blankets
need to air dry.
And it was a process.
And then, because Diane told meto, we would always take all of
(11:08):
the linens out of the laundryroom and we would store them in
the Kingfisher, which was thecottage right next to the
laundry room, because thatcottage was um, was very uh, um,
it was sealed up very nicelyand, uh, we didn't have to worry
about rodents and and unwantedcritters over the winter getting
into our, our stuff.
(11:29):
So that's, um, that's where wewould, would store that stuff.
And then there's once thelaundry is done, you got to
winterize every washing machine,which means opening up the
machine and pulling out thesolenoid valve, because
inevitably water gets stuckinside that solenoid and when it
(11:53):
freezes it busts the solenoidand it got to the.
Well, jerry told me that and hesaid that he couldn't find
solenoids anymore for them.
So he said, make sure you getthat apart, and you do that
right or you're replacing thelaundry machine, the washing
machine and fortunately, we didthat every year.
(12:15):
It took time.
We did it every year, though,and never had that problem, and
Jerry was the former owner ofthe lodge telling me this One of
the pieces of information thatI got from Jerry that was very
helpful, and that whole processto shut down everything
(12:36):
depending on the season and howfast we wanted to get out was
about a week to 10 days, and, asyou can imagine, having my
family up there, my aunt anduncle, uncle Chuck his job was
to run around on the golf cartand bring tools, and he would
(13:01):
clean stuff up, and the big jobwas putting up the tarps on all
of the cottages, which was a bigjob, man.
You had to climb up on theladders and we had hooks,
because we covered up all of thescreened porches on the
cottages to protect the well, toblock the UV from going into
(13:22):
the cottages over the winter andto save our screens from
freezing rain and wind andeverything else.
So you know, everybody had alittle, had their own job after
a while, and again to be therewith those people, and they're
(13:44):
up there doing this out of thegoodness of their heart.
My family like I, wasn't payingthem, you know and Aunt Beth
and Uncle Barry, in the earlyyears they were we ate well.
I made sure that we always hadgood food and we some, you know,
(14:10):
those memories of family andfriends are really some of the
best memories that I have andsome of and I get the question a
lot Do you miss the lodge?
And that answer is a hard onefor me and it varies depending
(14:35):
on my mood and the day.
But, to be honest with you, theone thing that I truly miss all
the time and I find myselfthinking back fondly on those
days, those days when we'reclosing and those days when
we're opening, and those weremagic times for me and we all
(15:02):
built something that we were allvery proud of and I couldn't
have done it without thosepeople.
And once you get the lodgeclosed and everybody kind of
starts to go home, that you havefor infrastructure improvement
(15:25):
or repair is in that shortwindow in the off-season, and
you have a finite amount of timein the fall and an extremely
finite amount of time in thespring.
An extremely finite amount oftime in the spring and the fall
(15:53):
was always a time when if I hadbig infrastructure improvement
plans that I needed to do, Itried to plan them for the fall,
simply because after you'redone closing, you've got
probably about a month, monthand a half to work there before
(16:18):
you're iced out before the.
You can't get there.
Day comes and things like.
I remember one year I was underthe main lodge under the floor
and everything is built on rockon the island.
There's not much soil underthere and I had noticed that
(16:43):
around, like our fireplace inthe main lodge, it backed into
the dish pit and then it facedout into the lounge and there
was a wall coming off of theside of the fireplace and it
went straight up through themain building and in the dish
(17:08):
pit.
I'm pretty sure at some pointthey had a that was the kitchen
and they were running a cookstove out of there.
And because there was a cappedoff hole in the back of the
fireplace where it looked likesomebody run a um, like a stove
pipe and uh, I'm sure it wouldhave come off an old cook stove.
(17:31):
But um, uh, the back of it waspainted but you could tell it
was starting to get.
There was a little bit of wearand nothing in that old building
is flat or square or level.
And I was underneath the lodgelooking for a plumbing issue or
(17:57):
whatever it was, and I noticedthat that fireplace, that the
rocks underneath, had started tofall apart.
And I got over and I waslooking at it and, sure enough,
that building was built in 1909.
(18:22):
And the first structure was thatfireplace.
And, interestingly enough, theway that they built that
fireplace, they took big timbers.
So they just cut down pine logsand they weren't huge, but they
(18:44):
were big, like I'm going to say, you know, 18 inches in
diameter, maybe 20.
They honed the top and thebottom flat, just enough.
So well, not even the bottom,just the top enough so that they
could get floorboards acrossthem.
But they built these logs rightout of the structure of the
(19:09):
fireplace.
So they built a stonefoundation for the fireplace.
Then they put these logs, twocoming off to the east, two
coming off to the west and fourcoming off from the front,
facing the south and the back.
(19:33):
There wasn't anything comingoff the back because that whole
the dish pit area and that wholekitchen off the back of the
lodge that was an afterthought,I don't even know when that went
on the building, but theoriginal building was just out
from that main chimney and wherethose logs were going into that
(19:57):
concrete over the years fromhot and cold.
The sleepers or the logs werestill in decent shape, but the
concrete around them had startedto rot.
The wood rotted a bit.
It would hold moisture, theconcrete went all punky, like it
(20:19):
was turning back to sand.
The rocks were falling out Likethe structure was not in good
shape at all and I thought, ohno, I don't, I'm not 100% sure
what I'm gonna do here.
So because I had no money, Ibasically did everything myself.
(20:41):
I ended up in that off season.
So this was after we closed Um,I tore up the floor all the way
, uh, from the backside of the,uh, of the fireplace.
So I didn't tear it up in thefront, into the, the, into the
(21:01):
um, uh lounge, but the wholedish pit and everywhere around
that, that, that chimney, in thedish pit.
I tore the floors out, I torethe walls out, I tore everything
out.
You walked into the dish pit,you look down and there were.
There were the, the, the joistsfor the floor and then dirt
(21:26):
underneath them and I had aboutmaybe three and a half feet from
the bottom of the joists to theground.
We built a mole like a formaround the well.
First of all I cleaned out allof the loose rock and sand and
(21:46):
debris that I could and exposedas many holes into the center of
this fireplace as I could thatI felt was safe, and then built
a form all the way around thefront of the fireplace, the
sides and the back, and what weended up doing was we poured
(22:13):
concrete and we had to do that.
My good buddy, tim the Tool man,timmy Kendrew he had given me
an old well, not old it was hehad given me a gas-powered
cement mixer in my first yearSaid he didn't need it anymore
(22:34):
and he looked at me, said Ithink you're going to need this
and actually he fixed the insideof the firebox of that
fireplace in that first year andso his fix kept going for about
two, three years.
And now this I'm year four,year five, I don't even remember
and we've got this form builtand we had the cement mixer at
(23:00):
the back door of the kitchen,mixing cement, pouring it into a
wheelbarrow, driving thewheelbarrow through the kitchen
and onto a plank, out into thedish pit and up to that form,
dumping concrete in there, andthen have to get underneath the
(23:23):
floor and move that concretearound the front of the form and
with a stick I was working thatwet concrete into all of the
cracks and crevices and areas inthe center of this fireplace
(23:47):
that I could get the um, the umconcrete to go into.
And you got to remember whenthis thing was built, it was
1909, 1910, and concrete was notum, was not a easy commodity to
get a hold of.
First of all, you were eithercoming across by boat from North
(24:16):
Bay or you were coming by canoefrom Highway 69, because there
was no roads in back then.
There was no roads to get inthere, so there was very little
concrete that they used.
They piled up stones, they didthe best they could, but this
(24:37):
thing drank concrete.
It really did, and that projectalone cost us.
I think it was pretty close andyou know I didn't until you
actually start pouring concreteand looking at the amount of
(25:04):
concrete it actually takes tobuild something you
underestimate so piss poorlythat I figured might take 170
bags, 180 bags, you know,looking at it, yeah, no, that
(25:27):
job alone was about 750 bags ofconcrete and we poured all
around the bottom in that moldand forced it all inside the
chimney and then let that hardenand then on the backside of the
(25:49):
chimney and the sides, I alsobrought that form up and that
was the second pour.
I brought that another fourfeet above the floor and when
the concrete in the first, inthe first pour, um, and it took
us cause, once you start, oncewe started on that pour, um, I
(26:12):
wanted to make sure that we gotit up to the floor level Uh,
that was probably I don't knoweight hours, eight hours of
constant mixing, pouring, moving, jabbing, hitting with the
hammer on the form just to geteverything to settle into
(26:36):
everywhere where you need it togo, and then driving rebar into
the soft concrete in the form sothat on your next pour you've
got that rebar to to lock ittogether.
Anyway, that was my mom, my dadand Mark Plont was on that job,
(27:01):
and that was after everythingwas closed and after everybody
left.
And and those are the littlethings that people don't see Not
only that um, we then, uh, puta new floor in the dish pit, we
put stainless on the walls, we I, I bought a new dishwasher, we
(27:23):
redesigned the wholeconfiguration of the kitchen so
it flowed properly, put a newsink stainless sink and
everything in there Stainless onthe walls.
We redid that whole dish pit andthat project, um, that actually
(27:47):
, and I'm sure by the time weleft that year, mom and dad
stayed for a bit, uh, mark and I, uh, I bet you we were there,
wow, we were there pretty closeto ice out, so it would have
been middle of november, ice in,sorry, um, pretty much the
middle of November and then, andthen we had to call it and and
(28:08):
finish it back up in the springand, um, um, that leads, leads
me into, you know, we'll talkabout infrastructure improvement
in the spring too, because thatwas that that happened.
Uh, a lot as well, because theemotional reset sometimes and
(28:31):
the burnout I just didn't haveit in me to stay in the fall and
with Melissa and the kids athome as much as I should have
been doing in the fall.
There were projects that I,just because of that, pushed off
(28:51):
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Speaker 1 (31:09):
So if we're going in a chronological season, the next
season I'd like to talk aboutis, you know, the winter season
and that was always busy becausewe had the bookings game of
(31:36):
chess and I bought the lodge inan interesting time of change
when it come to the way thatpeople were marketing, the way
that people were selling tripsand getting bookings, and
(32:01):
traditionally lodge owners inthe off-season would take the
next four months and travelNorth America and go to
sportsman shows like the TorontoSportsman Show, the Spring
Fishing Show, the Novi MichiganSportsman Show show.
(32:23):
They traveled the United Statesand some of Canada trying to
sell their trips and experiencesto people and that's where
people would go to find wherethey want to go, because all of
the outfitters are there.
If you want to go hunting to alodge, they're at a sportsman
(32:45):
show are there.
If you want to go hunting to alodge, they're at a sportsman
show.
Well, in the 2000s andparticularly the later 2000s and
I was one, I think I was alittle bit early there weren't a
whole lot of people that weredoing what I was doing.
They were doing it incombination with those sports
shows, but I chose to market thebusiness more out of necessity
(33:14):
remotely from home, because Ihad, you know, melissa and Mikey
and Rayburn and Maddie a littlebit later into my second year,
all at home, I had just spentsix months at the lodge and I
couldn't leave to go tosportsman shows.
(33:37):
I did the Toronto sportsmanshow and I did the spring
fishing show in Toronto becausethey were close to home and I
really used those as a placewhere I could network and meet
people.
You all know that I builtChaudière by television TV shows
(34:02):
, television TV shows and therelationships that I built
through that.
I built it online with thewebsite and that was always such
a stressful thing for me,especially in the beginning.
I didn't know that I was goingto have people coming.
(34:26):
I wasn't and right until youknow, even when I sold and I was
like, if you want to talkoccupancy as far as cottages go,
like 90% full, the books didn'tshow that.
In January, like I always talk,I would talk to a lot of these
(34:50):
old, old lodge owners and andthey had a that were established
and had a, an older demographic, and they were like oh yeah,
we're booked, we're, we're,we're selling in January of, you
know, 2014.
They're, they're already bookedfor 2014 and selling into 2015.
(35:11):
And I'm looking at my books andthey're empty and I'm like holy
shit, I don't know.
Well, there is not enough inbookings here to cover my
opening costs, let alone get methrough the season.
And I found that for me it justwas like that the bookings would
(35:33):
come in steadily, starting inJanuary and they wouldn't stop
coming in until the fall, and80% of all the the occupancy
that I had was I don't want tocall it last minute, but it was
(35:53):
in the calendar year, like therewas very little I had.
I had some guests that I knewthat they were coming back year
after year after year after year.
Other than that, most of thebookings happened in the same
calendar year and I would alwaystalk to Cole and say, hey, cole
(36:18):
, where are we at?
This was after Aunt Beth passedand Cole who's still at the
lodge, by the way, wonderful,wonderful man he would be taking
the bookings over the winter onthe phone and we kept very good
notes on our bookings year overyear over year, um, on our
(36:50):
bookings year over year overyear.
And, um, we had a uh, um, um,cole would keep track of how
many bookings he would take eachmonth.
So I could, in my stress overthe over the winter in February,
um, you know, looking at thebookings book and the online
calendar, thinking, oh my God,we're empty, and I'd phone Cole
(37:10):
and I'd say, cole, where are weat?
Like, where were we last yearand the year before?
And Cole would say, steve,relax, relax, we're actually
ahead of the game compared tolast year and we're really good
compared to the year before.
So you know, don't worry,they're going to come and they
(37:33):
always did.
But that Bookings game, thatBookings game of chess, I played
that game.
For the most part I would say80% of that game was played
during my busy months whilepeople were at the lodge, and
(37:53):
I'll explain that in a minute.
And then the other was playedin the off season by focusing on
the website and getting thingsset so that in the spring and
through the next season thewebsite was set, we had all of
our, our, our, um, uh pricing inuh, pictures, um, um, it was.
(38:14):
It was done in a way that was,um, extremely professional and
um, and then, uh, sports showsand calling and talking to the
guests that came the year beforeand sending out Christmas stuff
(38:35):
.
I always tried to.
I didn't get it out all thetime for Christmas, which is a
perfect excuse for all you lodgeowners out there to send a
calendar or send a card orsomething to all of the guests
that come to see you.
But I always got something awayby the time we were coming back
(38:58):
and that's all important.
But for me, that bookings gamehappened at the lodge.
It happened at the lodge byensuring that the people that
came had an absolutelyoutstanding experience that I
(39:21):
tailored as close to theirexpectation as possible, and the
only way that you can do thatis to understand your guests and
talk to them, and that is wheremy marketing was done.
And I was doing that marketing,not even realizing it.
(39:42):
I just knew that I needed tomake sure that every person that
came to the Chaudiere Lodgeleft loving it as much as I did,
and whether that person wantedto come for photography, to fish
, to fish for a specific species, wanted a guide, didn't want a
(40:04):
guide, you know I needed tounder number one, I needed to
understand what theirexpectations were, and that
started on the phone with them.
You build an experience forthose people.
For instance, you ask them howdid you find us and is there
(40:25):
anything special?
Is there any special reasonyou're coming?
And if there's an anniversary,a honeymoon, whatever, you start
building an experience aroundthat and that in turn, that word
of mouth, that word of mouth,those people that I was turning
(40:54):
into advocates for me did waymore sales for me than anything
else I did.
You got to remember I'm lookingon an extremely busy season.
I'm looking for 500 people.
I'm looking for 500 people oversix months and for me that
seemed like a huge number.
(41:15):
But really, when you've gotevery person that's leaving the
lodge in a mindset where theycan't wait to tell somebody
about the amazing time that theyhad, it fills up pretty quick
and that is where my marketingwas done and that, coupled with
(41:38):
the television, that made mybusiness a success.
And that, for me, was thatbookings game and you know so
once you, over the winter, youdo that.
And there's also I'm going tocall it infrastructure
(41:59):
improvement.
I touched on it Making sure thewebsite is up to date is
running well.
It making sure the website isup to date is running well.
There was one year that and thiswould have been, oh, I.
It was a year before I sold.
(42:19):
I brought every cedar stripboat home.
I brought every cedar stripboat home.
Now cedar strips for those ofyou out there who know me, I
have no love for cedar strips.
They are absolutely gorgeousboats.
They look good, they're quiet,they handle well, but for a
(42:42):
lodge owner they are a freakingnightmare when it comes to
upkeep.
They need so much attentionlike you've got it.
You've got it in the springtime, okay, I had.
I started with 13 um part ofthe opening now and and and the
(43:06):
the.
This is this is going to be aover the winter kind of thing
and part of the opening becausethose cedar strip boats.
You had to put at least twocoats of varnish on those boats
every year just to stay even,just to keep it looking decent,
(43:31):
because the UV burnt.
Every year burnt two coats ofvarnish off of those boats.
So this one year I brought atthe time I was trying to phase
them out.
Phase them out, get rid of thecedars, replace them with
aluminums, flat floors.
(43:53):
People love the aluminums, butthere was a number of guests who
really loved the cedars as welland, to be fair, those 18 foot
um Cedar strip boats were theonly boat that you could put
three big people in andefficiently power it with it
(44:18):
with a 15 or 20 horsepowerengine.
Because of the shape they're,they're a big flat back canoe
engine.
Because of the shape they're,they're a big flat back canoe.
Basically they're light.
Those were the only boats thatyou could.
You could efficiently powerwith putting three big people in
that boat and you could stillmove along at a decent, decent
(44:41):
clip.
So there are good things aboutthose boats but I was at a point
where I wanted to phase as manyof them out.
My ideal, my ideal fleet in mymind at the time was four to
five seaters and everything elsein aluminum, flat floors,
bigger engines, more, more moneyto rent.
(45:05):
Yes, I get it, but anyway.
So I brought all nine cedarstrips home and mom and dad just
built their shop.
So they had like a 40 by 40 or50 by 50 empty shop and over
that whole season we strippedthose boats down, repaired all
(45:30):
of the structure inside themthat was needing repaired the
dashboards, the gunnels, thetransoms, the bottoms.
We stripped down and we refiberglassed every one of them,
painted them, we varnished them,we did them from top to bottom
(45:58):
and they were beautiful.
But that took me all year, thattook me all off season.
We got them back, which wasn'teasy to start with.
I had a 28-foot covered trailerthat we had to stack them in
(46:22):
and bring them home.
I think we got four in a load,so brought them all home, like I
say, and did all that work.
It was right from November untilthe beginning of May that we
worked on those and so you know,every once in a while you've
(46:43):
got a big infrastructure projectfor the winter, but for the
most part the winter was theslowdown time.
The winter was and now I'mgoing to jump to that emotional
reset and my favorite time ofthe year.
(47:04):
I didn't really have a favoriteseason until I owned the lodge
and honestly, my favorite seasonof the year was the fall,
closely followed by the spring.
But it was the fall, and it wasthe fall because I knew that it
was just about over.
I loved the lodge, I loved, andmy second favorite time of the
(47:32):
year was spring because we weregoing back up.
But it is until you've actuallyexperienced the highs and the
lows of owning a lodge and noteven just the day-to-day stuff,
(47:55):
like when you owe a shit ton ofmoney to a number of different
people and institutions and allof the stress that comes along
with that, and then all of thestress that comes along with the
season, which is dealing withemployees and all of that stuff,
(48:21):
which is a totally differentpodcast altogether.
That Thanksgiving dinner tastedso good, so good.
And coming home and shuttingyour brain off and not being on
(48:44):
24-7, man, was huge.
It was you need it, like.
I mean, I don't think I wouldhave lasted as long as I did if
you didn't have an off season,because it was hugely important.
And then, once you get throughthat season, you start to you
(49:09):
know, come April you're chompingat the bit.
You've got most of the stuffdone.
The other thing that we used todo in that big old trailer of
mine every year we'd bring allof the small engines home.
I had racks in that, uh, inthat cover trailer and um, um,
(49:34):
uh, we'd have anywhere from 20to 25, uh, small engines and, uh
, they would all be in there and, uh, it was always a panic.
I had them in the trailer rightfrom.
You know, no, october, middleof October or beginning of
November, and I'd have to callScotty, my good buddy, scotty
(49:57):
Hemp, and we would always planon and it was never Scotty, it
was always me.
We would always say, you know,we're going to do two, three,
four.
You know, on weekend here andstart and this, and that, well,
(50:19):
I would always be busy orsomething was going on and
Scotty would be planting littleseeds like, hey, you know, I'll
be around this weekend, maybe weshould get into them engines.
And I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe we
should get into them engines.
And I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Next thing, you know, there'shockey tournament for Rayburn or
Michael, or there's this orthere's that, and all of a
(50:40):
sudden it's April and thepotential of the ice going out
again, that's nature's calendar,that's.
You just never know right.
But it could go out as early asthe middle of April and as late
One year it went out on likethe 9th of May and we were
(51:04):
opening on the 15th.
But anyway, it was always a madrush to get all of those
engines serviced because you're,you know, because they're all
four strokes.
So you're changing the engineoil, the filter, spark plugs,
you're changing the gear oil inthe bottom end, you're repairing
(51:26):
shit, like I mean, there'sconstantly bottom ends that have
been mistreated and there's thegear oil's milky and you got to
change out the seals or gearhere or there or, you know, pull
the bottom end off, take it toa buddy who was doing the skags
(51:51):
Skags need repaired, all theprops that are dinged, they need
to go and be repaired.
And again, mad rush.
But we always got her done.
We always got her done.
I love those nights and thosedays with Scotty too.
Like I mean, scotty is awonderful friend of mine.
(52:11):
Like I mean, scotty is awonderful friend of mine and we
spent a lot of great timetogether working at the lodge
and doing things and really, forme, that's what it was all
about.
I just loved the people that Iwas hanging out with and I'm so
(52:38):
thankful for those people whohelped and believed in me and
would do anything to help me outand that was the magic.
But yeah, we'd get those motorsgoing and the spring would be
here at my house and you know,the anticipation would start to
grow, because I know how muchwork we have and I know what it
(53:01):
takes to open and, depending onhow well we closed in the fall
depended on how well things weregoing to go in the spring.
And um, um, there was one year,like I say, it was May the 9th
and that left like very, verylittle time because we open on
(53:25):
the Friday, uh, before the thirdSaturday Fishing season opens
the third Saturday in May on theupper French river, and we
always opened on the Friday sothat, um, um, our guests could
come in.
They couldn't fish that day,but a lot of them are getting in
at you know, uh, two, threeo'clock in the afternoon and
we'd have a nice, uh, we'dalways plan a prime rib dinner
(53:49):
for the first dinner of the yearand people were coming in.
So that third Friday in May,depending on when it fell, that
year we had it was like eightdays to open, which is a.
It typically takes us two weeks, know, two weeks to open and we
(54:13):
always had the time because,you know, the ice would go out
in the last week of April.
If I had to pick an averagedate for the ice out, that's
when it happens that last weekof April, but this year it
didn't at all and we barely gotopen.
(54:36):
But we did.
And the other thing that, ontop of infrastructure
improvement, like I mean, weprobably did more infrastructure
improvement projects in thespringtime when we opened, when
we could when the ice went outuntil we opened than we did in
the fall, and that's justbecause of burnout, that's
(54:57):
because in the fall, like I mean, I was done, I I had a hard
time staying any later than Ihad to as well, melissa and and
the kids back home.
They were ready for me to behome, melissa, especially
because we had small kids, right, and she was doing it and
working by herself at home.
(55:19):
So in the springtime it was sohectic you couldn't believe it.
We did another concrete story.
We did another concrete story.
We poured a six to seven footconcrete path from the dock up
(55:42):
to the main lodge and past themain lodge and poured a concrete
bridge through a gully.
And that project we were.
We got in fairly early, I thinkit, and, and it took us, there
(56:05):
were guests there, um, and wehad just poured the last bit of
concrete and we had to keeppeople off of the um, off of the
bridge, which was the last pourfor them to stay off of it,
because it took us that long.
We were three weeks, we werethree weeks on that.
And there was Mark myself, patwas helping us a bit.
(56:32):
Uh, pete, uh, bowles, um, mac,uh, who was a great young
dockhand, and then another oneand I forget this, this fella's
name, but um, when, uh, when Maccome, he was, uh, he worked for
me for three seasons and Ithink this kid was a friend of
Mac's seasons and I think thiskid was a friend of Mac's.
(56:57):
And I said to the boys, I andMark, and like Peter and Pat,
and, and I wasn't worried aboutthem, but I said, listen, mac
and uh, and I'll call him buddy,mac, buddy, if you make it
through the next couple of weeks, the rest of the year is going
to be smooth sailing.
Because the thing that I don'tthink people understand when
(57:19):
you're on an island and you'repouring concrete, okay, you get
the concrete and and I had, Ihired a barge to, and I, I hired
a barge to and I can't rememberwho it was, I think it was
Terry, but anyway, I hired abarge and I had, for that
(57:39):
project, I had Home Hardwaredeliver the concrete to the
Doakese Marina or one of themarinas.
We had to go over to the marinaand we had to hand bomb all of
those bags of concrete.
And this is just this job, thisjob, any other concrete job,
(58:00):
like the one with the fireplaceor the chimney or any of the
other pathways or the concretepad we poured in the water shop
for the purification system.
That's all.
I drive to Home Hardware or oneof the building places in
(58:20):
Newellville and you load everybag, one by one, into the back
of the truck, drive the truck tothe marina, unload every bag
off the truck onto the dock andthen into the Alaskan.
Or I had an old 20 foot steelboat.
You unload it into there, thenyou get it.
(58:44):
You drive it across the water,you get it to the dock, you
unload it onto the dock.
Okay, then you drive the golfcart down, load it into the golf
cart and then you drive thegolf cart to where the concrete
is being poured and you have tounload the golf cart, the
concrete, onto the area besideand then you have to pick every
(59:09):
bag up to dump it into the mixer.
So I don't know how many timeswe're lifting the shit, but the
pouring part you're near done,right.
So we brought all of theconcrete over and lifted all of
the bags, piled all the bags,started mixing all the bags.
(59:32):
Wow, buddy, remember Buddy?
I think he lasted about fourdays and then that was it.
Buddy was done.
We scared him because you knowthey were, they were long days
and they were laborious days.
You know they were long daysand they were laborious days,
(59:53):
because concrete is a shitty wayto work.
It's a very when you're done,it's very rewarding because you
see what you do.
And we poured that path, and notonly did we pour the path, we
built the forms and then it wasa cobblestone path originally
(01:00:18):
and we took all of those flatstones out of the path and then
fitted them into the concrete ontop.
Now, the difference was,originally they laid the rocks
down and then just parged inbetween with concrete, and then
the rocks would constantly breakup and come apart and and from
(01:00:42):
driving the, the golf carts onthem, and you know it was uh,
and then their rocks are looseand people are tripping and it
was just not not a goodsituation at all.
And um, um, we, we placed allof those rocks back into the top
of this pad and the pad itselfis anywhere from about, I'm
(01:01:06):
gonna say, seven inches deep inthe thinnest to about three and
a half four feet deep in some ofthe.
There was one spot that wentover and we dug out.
I was digging down to thebedrock.
We're right on bedrock and thisone spot there was a crevice
(01:01:27):
where two pieces of bedrock cometogether or they come apart.
And I uncovered this freakingcrevice that was like four feet
deep and we started pouringconcrete into it and we threw
every nice big round stone thatwe could find and every piece of
(01:01:50):
scrap metal or anything that wecould find to take up volume
into the hole so we didn't haveto pour so much concrete.
We got it up and level and allthe way done.
And when it was all said anddone, we gave our cement mixer.
(01:02:13):
The boys and I sat down and wedecided, because we were doing
the math and that project alonewas 1100 bags of concrete, 1100
bags and just the, and all byhand, we gave her a name.
(01:02:37):
We decided that because we atthe time I had roughly figured
that we turned over 2,000 bagsmixed at that point and we gave
her a name and called her OldDinah.
That's right, that old concretemixer, old Dinah.
(01:02:59):
And Old Dinah, boy oh boy.
She's mixed another thousandbags, if not more, since on a
number of projects, but thoseprojects like that one, that
that one was, you know what.
It was a shit ton of work, butat the end of the day, we all
(01:03:22):
put our initials in it and thatlegacy is going to out outlast
man itself.
You know, at some point whenman doesn't exist on this planet
, that pathway it's still goingto be there and that's the way
that we like to do things.
(01:03:43):
When we were doing them and itlike I mean the openings, were
always crazy as you can imagine,we had projects like that.
Always crazy as you can imagine, we had projects like that.
The dock, our docking system, agood friend of mine, jason Lilly
.
He come up and we built a newdock house and Cole built
(01:04:07):
floating docks and this was allin my second or third year built
floating docks.
And this was all in my secondor third year.
It would have been my thirdyear because, after the whole
situation with the vendor, takeback, being forgiven and folks
that is a wonderful, wonderfulstory that I'm not going to get
(01:04:29):
into.
Go back in the archives andlisten to the into um, go back
in the archives and and listento listen to the story about the
vendor, take back and theprayer and and uh and uh,
everything, because that was keyfor me to make the
infrastructure improvement thatI needed to make.
Uh, because I got a grant.
I went and I got a grant for Iput up $70,000 and they gave me
(01:04:58):
the NOHFC gave me $70,000.
And I bought, put new steelroofs on all the cottages all
that one spring.
That uh, all uh, that onespring.
(01:05:18):
And, um, we, um, we built thedock house.
Um, over the winter, cole builtthe, uh, the fiberglass
floating docks which, by the way, are still there and still look
beautiful.
They're like.
I mean, those docks are, are,were a ridiculously amazing
investment and they're wide andCole made them all.
(01:05:39):
He hand-laid these docks and,like I say, they look as good
today as they did when we putthem in, as they did when we put
them in.
But that all happened in thethree weeks before we opened in
(01:06:00):
that year and without all of thepeople that I had to help.
You know, bud helped us a tonon that one too.
I paid Bud to come and redo thedocking system right out in the
front.
We got rid of all of the cribdocks and Bud actually started
working on the ice becauseChaudiere had a whole whack.
(01:06:24):
It had a string, a dock thatwas like a string that joined
all of the crib docks where youwould park the boats in front
together.
And it wasn't very wide, thedocks that you park on.
They were all on cribs and wegot rid of the whole thing.
We saved all of the cribs andthen we built off of those cribs
(01:06:48):
and built the dock right backto the shoreline and now it's a
beautiful big, wide dock at thewater off of those cribs and
built the dock right back to theshoreline and now it's a
beautiful, big, wide dock at thewater and then with floaters
coming off of it.
But Bud, that year that we weredoing it went out on the ice
and they let the water down inthe winter and he started to.
(01:07:09):
He burnt the cribs out becausethat's the hardest thing.
The hardest thing is to get ridof these old cribs because
they're all put together underthe water with huge spikes and
they're filled with rocks andit's not easy to work underwater
.
But when the water drops and inthe wintertime you can burn the
(01:07:32):
three feet of the crib that'ssticking out of the water, get
rid of all the rocks and thencut the ice around and pull up
as much as you can.
So Bud did a fabulous jobgetting rid of all of these
docks, and there was probablynine of them.
And then Cole built the floatersman, and what a huge
(01:07:56):
infrastructure.
That really the fact that itstarted with the mortgage being
forgiven, making my numbers lookwell enough that I could go and
borrow $70,000 from economicpartners in Sturgeon Falls to
(01:08:19):
put up against the 50-50 grant.
It was a 50-50 grant so I hadto have skin in the game.
So I got that $70,000.
They gave me $70,000.
And with that money it changedthe direction of my business,
that one.
(01:08:39):
You can almost pinpoint mysuccess to that.
As far as infrastructure, asfar as putting myself on the map
as a high quality place, thatstuff needed to be done and
(01:09:03):
without that grant, without thatmortgage forgiven, without the
prayer and belief, that wouldn'thave happened.
And I'm not sure I would havemade it, because to redo the
dock, to redo the dock house andmake a beautiful place for
people to come to, um and to setthings up so that I was just
(01:09:24):
making minor repairs on mydocking system for a decade, um,
that was huge.
So you know that was key.
The spring was key, getting intothe lodge and, like I said, off
(01:09:50):
the top, nobody really sees howwe were working and what we
were doing to bring anoutstanding product to the
forefront, right to theforefront, right.
(01:10:12):
You know, at the end of the daythe guests see the sunshine,
the fish, the sunsets, but it'squiet months, the dusty work and
the endless planning that makethat magic happen.
While the season's on, that waskey.
(01:10:38):
And the Hidden Seasons, right,they may not fill your photo
album, but they were the realheartbeat of the lodge and they
certainly, they certainly filledmy photo album.
(01:11:00):
And on that note, folks, I wouldlove to thank you all for
getting to this point.
I really, really appreciate it.
And I want to say thank you toLakeside, marine and Red Lake
they are a wonderful sponsor toour producer, anthony Mancini
(01:11:22):
and Dino Taylor these boys,without them I wouldn't be able
to be bringing this to you.
And thank you to Ange Pete, theFish and Canada crew, all of
the people involved and folks.
(01:11:43):
Thus brings us to theconclusion of another episode of
Diaries of a Lodge OwnerStories of the North.
Speaker 4 (01:11:54):
I'll be making my way the only way, I know how
(01:12:26):
working hard and sharing thenorth with all of my pals well,
(01:12:51):
I'm a good old and I had avision to amass the single
largest database of muskieangling education material
anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this
amazing community and share itwith passionate anglers just
like you.
Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
Thus the Ugly Pike podcast was born and quickly
grew to become one of the topfishing podcasts in North
America and quickly grew tobecome one of the top fishing
podcasts in North America.
Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
Step into the world of angling adventures and
embrace the thrill of the catchwith the Ugly Pike Podcast.
Join us on our quest tounderstand what makes us
different as anglers and touncover what it takes to go
after the infamous fish of10,000 casts.
Speaker 4 (01:13:26):
The Ugly Pike Podcast isn't just about fishing.
It's about creating atight-knit community of
passionate anglers who share thesame love for the sport.
Through laughter, throughcamaraderie and an unwavering
spirit of adventure, thispodcast will bring people
together.
Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our
angling adventures.
Tight lines everyone.
Speaker 4 (01:13:46):
Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or
wherever else you get yourpodcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your
podcasts.
Hi everybody, I'm Angelo Violaand I'm Pete Bowman.
Now you might know us as thehosts of Canada's favorite
fishing show, but now we'rehosting a podcast that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your
ears bringing you a brand newepisode of Outdoor Journal Radio
.
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
Now, what are we going to talk about for two
hours every week?
Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
Well, you know there's going to be a lot of
fishing.
Speaker 4 (01:14:17):
I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and
how to catch them, and they wereeasy to catch.
Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
We're going to be talking to people from all
facets of the outdoors, fromathletes.
Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garton.
Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To
scientists.
But now that we're reforesting-and laying things free.
Speaker 4 (01:14:38):
It's the perfect transmission environment for
life.
Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
To chefs.
If any game isn't cookedproperly marinated, you will
taste it, and whoever else willpick up the phone.
Wherever you are, OutdoorJournal Radio seeks to answer
the questions and tell thestories of all those who enjoy
being outside.
Find us on.
Speaker 4 (01:14:58):
Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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