March 19, 2025 • 66 mins
As winter's grip begins to loosen and the snow starts melting away, Willie and I find ourselves eagerly anticipating spring's arrival. There's something magical about these seasonal transitions – that feeling of renewal and the rush of excitement as we prepare for all that the warmer months bring.
This week, we're diving deep into springtime activities that connect us to the land and its rhythms. I share my lifelong experience raising chickens – from hatching eggs to managing flocks of laying hens and meat birds. We explore the fascinating differences between breeds, the satisfaction of collecting fresh eggs daily, and the sustainable cycle of maintaining your own poultry. For anyone considering backyard chickens, you'll find practical wisdom gained from decades of hands-on experience.
Our conversation takes an unexpected turn as we reveal how remote lodges manage waste in creative ways. At Chaudiere Lodge, I employed a remarkably punctual "cleanup crew" consisting of seagulls and turkey vultures that arrived every morning to handle food scraps and fish waste. These natural solutions highlight the ingenious ways lodge owners work within ecological systems rather than against them.
Willie shares his upcoming ice fishing plans while the roads remain solid, targeting walleye, crappie, and potentially trophy-sized lake trout. We reminisce about the recent Toronto Sportsman Show, where Fish and Canada celebrated its impressive 40th season with tremendous turnout from dedicated fans. The strong attendance suggests the outdoor community is thriving post-pandemic, with more people than ever seeking connection to wild places.
Whether you're a lodge owner, an avid angler, or simply someone who feels that springtime pull toward outdoor activities, this episode celebrates the seasonal rhythms that define life in the north. Join us as we turn our faces to the sun and embrace the promise of longer days ahead.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Well, you know what?
The snow has begun to recedefast.
The weekend we had some warmweather and some rain and I'm
hoping that we don't see anymore snow in the next.
You know, two, three days we'regoing to be.
(00:25):
We're almost there, whichbrings me to an exciting time of
the year, which is, you know,getting ready for the garden and
hatching chickens and all kindsof stuff like that.
This week on the Outdoor JournalRadio Podcast Networks, diaries
of a Lodge Owner Stories of theNorth, the days are getting
(00:49):
longer, the snow is melting andWillie and I are thinking spring
.
On this show we talk everythingspring, from the Toronto
Sportsman Show with the Fish andCanada crew to raising chickens
and gardening and so much more.
So folks relax, enjoy thestories, turn your face to the
(01:14):
sun and feel that first bit ofwarmth, because it's springtime,
baby.
Welcome folks to anotherepisode of Diaries of a Lodge
Owner, willie Walleye.
Willie and I are sitting hereand that's Willie's other.
(01:34):
What do you call those names?
A tag, a tag, walleye, willie,or you know that's what the kids
call him, willie the Oil man.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I like that one.
I really love that one.
Steve, that one's tattooed onme.
I love it, you know what?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Wow, hey, when you get it tattooed on you, you love
it right Pretty much.
Yeah, so, willie, how?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
are you doing, unless you're really drunk, and then
you should not get tattoos?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, I can't speak to that.
I have no tattoos, but I'veseen.
I've seen some drunk tattoos onpeople and, uh, I would tend to
agree with that morning folks.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Good morning willie here.
Hey.
Uh.
Yeah, I saw one time I.
That was a great way to openthe show.
That was awesome.
I saw one time and I wascamping and this guy is like you
know, we're kind of doing ourmorning routine and he's down at
the river throwing water on hisface.
(02:37):
I look over at his arm and he'sgot like a.
The tattoo looks like it lookslike a piece of metal and a
tribe hammered it in with awooden rock, or sorry, a rock
and a wooden you know what Imean?
A tip thing down in the jungleand they hammered it into his
skin.
That's how bad it looked.
But I got a good look at it andI'm like what is this thing?
(02:58):
And it was a lawnmower.
It was a stick man pushing alawnmower with the grass flying
out of it and I'm like, whywould you?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
get that on your arm man.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I'm like.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
He must have been a grass man.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Right, A little bit of a grass man on the arm and it
looked wicked, Wicked yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, how's things down?
Your way, Stevie.
I hear it's pretty snowy downthere.
Is it starting to clear?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
up.
Well, you know what?
The snow has begun to recedefast.
The weekend we had some warmweather and some rain, and I'm
hoping that we don't see anymore snow in the next you know,
two, three days.
That we don't see any more snowin the next two, three days
(03:47):
we're going to be we're almostthere, nice.
Which brings me to an excitingtime of the year which is
getting ready for the garden andhatching chickens and all kinds
of stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Are you doing all that again?
Is that a yearly routine foryou, steve?
Do you live and is yourlifestyle like that consistently
?
Or is that just a trendyroutine for you, steve?
Like, do you live and is yourlifestyle like that consistently
, or is that just a trendy thingfor you?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Oh no, I've been doing that kind of stuff since I
was a kid, absolutely.
I've got some laying hens andthen I take those eggs and I
hatch out a bunch of others.
And then the roosters, they,you take the big ones and I, you
(04:31):
know, one, one a year.
You want to keep your, your,your stock fresh, so I keep,
I'll keep one nice big rooster ayear and then the rest of those
roosters they'll go into thepot.
And the hens are really thevaluable ones to me because I
(04:55):
enjoy eating eggs.
So I'll keep all of the hensthat I get.
And then you kind of got to keepthinning the flock and keeping
the flock healthy, because aschickens grow older they will
still lay eggs, but the eggs getbigger and less frequent.
(05:20):
So I've got some hens in therethat are probably four years old
and and, uh, at four and fiveyears old, you know, they, um,
they're, the production is, uh,is quite low.
Um, they might lay one eggevery three, four days, five
(05:42):
days, but it's, it's.
But that's where you get yourdouble yokers you ever heard of
a double yoker.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, so that's where you get your double yokers.
But I got one old girl in there.
She lays eggs the size ofsoftballs for Christ's sake.
I don't even know how she laysthem.
You know, every once in a whileyou hear the squawk, so I think
that's her, oh God.
And then I also do meetroosters, right, but I buy those
(06:14):
guys.
I usually buy them fromBonnie's Hatchery over towards
St Jacobs, but I'll buy them dayold and then whatever is, and
I'm pretty sure they're notgenetically altered, but they
(06:35):
have been bred over the years togrow and to watch them grow.
Side by side with the chicksthat I hatch, which are
different breeds, I've got a mixof giant Brahma and Langshan,
(07:03):
which are two really big birds,and the laying hens that you buy
from Bonnie's as well, thathave been bred to produce eggs.
They're called ISO Reds or ISOReds, and those hens they'll lay
(07:24):
an egg a day for a couple ofyears, if you're nice to them
and and, uh, um, I have a a mixof all of those, depending on
who's breeding who and andwhat's going on, because I like
the frequency of the egg laying,I like the, the size of the
giant Brahmas and the Langshansand um, um, but even at that,
(07:50):
even though those um birds areare big birds, um to to watch
them grow beside a um meat birdthat you buy specifically for
meat, and I think the breed thatI typically get is it's called
white rock.
(08:10):
It's ridiculous how fast themeat birds grow Really, and it's
like, oh, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
So, like, what's the timeframe?
Like this is interestingbecause I know nothing about
this and it's something, oh,it's ridiculous.
So, like, what's a time frame?
Like I, this is interestingbecause I know nothing about
this and it's something me andkrista have talked about for one
, to keep spiders away and tokeep and to get our own eggs in
production at the house here,because we've been, because we
eat a lot of eggs too yeah, soyou've got two different,
different breeds.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You've got your meat birds and your laying laying
laying hens yep and um, uh,first and foremost, if you want
to make sure you don't haveblood spots in your eggs, you
don't?
You like the production?
Um, um, farms will never haveroosters and hens mixed, just
because the blood spots comefrom when the roosters breed the
(09:06):
hens.
And then if an egg gets left alittle long in a nest and it
gets sat on or warmed up, you'llget an egg, a blood spot,
because that's when theincubation starts.
So, for and for me, I justgather the eggs every day.
(09:28):
Sometimes you forget, sometimesyou get a blood spot, but hey,
whatever, it's a farm, you knowwhat it is, what it is.
But so you've got your egglayers and then you got your
meat birds.
And your meat birds they'reagain, they're bred for meat.
And a time frame to answer yourquestion.
(09:50):
To give you an idea for Swisschalet, you know the chickens
that they have there.
They're probably around fourpounds at Swiss chalet.
Those birds are done in sixweeks oh, wow, yeah, that's
(10:10):
incredible, and that's from a,from a chick yeah, oh, yeah,
yeah, even, even, even, yeah,even less than that.
Like I mean, when, uh, when umwe buy um our roosters, I'll get
them beginning of May and we'rebutchering eight to, I'll say
(10:33):
seven to nine pound birds bymiddle of August.
So we're looking at, you know,less than three months.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
And now they're free range at your place, steve.
Are they in a like?
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I have them penned up and I'll let them out during
the day, especially the egglayers.
But those, the meat birds,they're really not interested in
going too far and they grow sofast that they like I mean,
they're not agile at all.
(11:11):
Oh, okay, but yeah, when youhear about free-range meat birds
and this is always somethingthat I've wanted to do, I just
don't have the space right nowYou'll hear farmers and free
(11:32):
range farmers that have birdstalking about schooners and
basically a schooner is just agarage in a box, for lack of a
better term.
They're a little bit betterbuilt, but it's a garage in a
box and it's got the open floor.
(11:55):
You outfit it with wheels, youput like a skirt on the bottom
that's predator proof and youput your 50 to 100 birds,
depending on the size of theschooner, inside that schooner
(12:19):
and you've got like, rather thanhaving like a tarp all the way,
you've got sides that are likea mesh, so the wind blows
through, the sun comes in andyou pull that schooner 20 feet
every day across the field inthe grass so that your chickens,
(12:41):
they live inside the schooner.
You also have to supplement withfood, because chickens don't
just eat grass and bugs, like Imean, they need some substance
which is, yeah, your grain, yourcorn, and a lot of times
(13:02):
companies have made blends ofprotein and they put them in
like a pellet form which a lotof people use.
That I like to use when they'resmall.
There's a chick starter whichis like a brown crushed up
(13:23):
pellet.
I'll use that for, you know, aweek or two, and then I like, as
soon as they get big enough, toget them onto a more natural
food source, like your grainsand your corns, and you crush it
all up.
I like to do that.
But, yeah, like I mean, um,that's uh, that's uh, that's the
(13:47):
the way.
And then we do all of ourbutchering ourselves too, right
I remember that.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
I remember you were butchering this fall, yeah yeah,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
So I usually do about 50 meat birds and and um,
that's, that's enough for myfamily.
We'll, we'll have that'll getus through the winter and and
the summer until, uh, we'reready to put the, uh, put the um
um meat back in the freezer.
Nice, um, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So there's that, and then there's we had, uh, so my
buddy kyle, um, yeah, mcmahon.
So we went to, we flew down toKabul.
Actually, when I was going tobuy the lodge in 2022, we flew
down in uh to Kabul and so,anyways, when we flew down, you
can't get a direct flight out ofWinnipeg anywhere anymore down
(14:39):
there.
So we got to go.
You got to go over to Edmontonor you got to go to.
You know, fly from Winnipeg toToronto.
So we went from Winnipeg overto Edmonton or you got to go to.
You know, fly from Winnipeg toToronto.
So we went from Winnipeg overto Edmonton, stayed at Kyle's
sister's for the night Her andher husband now her husband's
from Puerto Rico.
They've got a couple of kids andthey kind of got a corner lot,
but it's like right downtownEdmonton.
(15:00):
I would say the lot would belike 50 feet by 30 feet.
You know, for a backcourtcorner lot, it's a pretty good
size in the city, yeah, so, sureenough, I walk out in the
backyard and there's free-rangechickens and there's like 10 of
(15:21):
them and they're running aroundeverywhere and the kids are
playing with them and one kid'splaying dodgeball with his
friend and there's like 10 ofthem and they're running around
everywhere and the kids areplaying with them and one kid's
playing dodgeball with hisfriend and there's a chicken
there.
The other ones are playing.
It was really weird to see.
I didn't expect it.
So, yeah, what they had, steve,is they had like a little barn
chicken coop thing built in theback of their yard and it had a
(15:43):
pine tree around it.
Built in the back of their yardand it had a pine tree around
it and they had.
So the chickens would actuallygo up and roost in the tree,
like you know, six feet up,seven feet up, yep, but that's,
they would never fly, which isso crazy.
They would.
There was like a fenced yard,you know, and it's a corner lot,
so there's like three otherhouses behind this place.
(16:05):
Never would they fly into theiryard.
You know what I mean?
Never, and I asked people thatyou know, would they?
Do they ever leave?
Do they never?
They don't ever.
They'll always want to go backto their, to their coop or
whatever.
Yeah, and I just thought it wasthe wildest thing to see this in
the middle of the city.
I never thought it wassomething that people did and
that's when me and Krista werelike, hmm, maybe we should get
(16:28):
them for the lodge and we couldput, you know, because we keep
that for ourselves and we havelots of land there and then our
house.
We got lots of land.
We thought about it after here,after selling out, and I was
like maybe we should do it here.
So it's something we thoughtabout and I can see us doing it
eventually.
We like to dabble in thingslike that.
That we've never done, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Like you know, having puppies- yeah well, they'll
never leave, It'd be interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
You'd have to educate me someday, if I ever go to do
it.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, that's easy enough.
Like I mean those I've had,like I say I've had since I was
old enough to walk, and once youfeed them in one spot and you
have a secure place for them tolive like I've got a caged-in
(17:15):
run off the back of my wee barn,I call it my wee barn, my wee
barn.
Like a 10 by 10 or whatever,shed out in the back and I've
got it insulated for the winterand I've got it caged in top
bottom.
I've run mesh off of the bottomof the cage and buried it out
(17:41):
afoot.
So when animals come to thecorner of the cage and try and
dig it, dig into the ground toget under it, they're digging
into the, the, the mesh.
Great idea.
But I'll open that door andI'll let them out, like today.
I'll probably go out after this, after this podcast and and
(18:04):
it's it's about the it'll be thefirst time this year that I let
them out of the barn and ontothe lawn and they'll hang around
.
They don't even rarely.
They might go onto myneighbor's lawn a little bit,
but we've got two acre lots outhere.
So you know, and and Jeff isgreat, he, jeff and Judy over
(18:29):
there I'll throw them a dozeneggs every once in a while.
And when we butcher up thechickens some chickens, and you
know what, they don't do anydamage.
They, they'll walk around, theyshit all over the lawn and the
next thing thing you know, yourlawn's nice and green, but
rarely do they leave my property.
They'll run around, they eatbugs they'll.
(18:49):
But the biggest problem is theyget into my garden and I've my
good I call it my good garden Ifence it in and then, um, so
they uh, and, and when I sayfence, it's just like a
three-foot high chicken wirearound the outside of it, and
then they don't bother jumping.
They could fly in there, butyou know if the odd one does hey
(19:13):
.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
They're lazy like that though.
Hey, they don't really want todo anything new that alters
their shit.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Hey, From what I've noticed, Well, like I mean, I
don't know whether it's lazy.
Well, like I mean, I don't knowwhether it's lazy, I think it's
more, they'll go up to thefence and they see the fence,
they don't know how to get overit.
You know it's weird, I'm notsure, but they're pretty good
(19:39):
that way.
But I'll tell you what my othergarden.
I've got raspberry canes andlast year I grew giant Atlantic
pumpkins.
I had one vine in my goodgarden and then I had two vines
in the back garden where thechickens can get to and I had
(20:04):
one out in the back in the inthe accessible garden.
I had two giant Atlantics andthey didn't get all that big,
probably whole about the size.
They were big enough forpumpkins like uh, three, four
times the size of the biggestpumpkin you'd buy for, um, uh,
halloween.
So if you, uh, if you took yourarms out in front of you and
(20:27):
you made a big circle and youleft about a foot between your
hands, that's how big aroundthey were.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
That's good size.
How much do you figure theyweighed?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
They probably would have been somewhere between 50
and 80 pounds each.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, and they ate the shit right out of them.
And at first I was like, oh,you sons of bitches, yeah, and I
was kind of chasing them out ofthere and everything else.
But then I thought you knowwhat?
I got my other garden and thebig pumpkin was in that other
garden.
It was up over 100 pounds,maybe 150 pounds, and in
(21:12):
hindsight I should have tookthat one out and put it back
there, because them chickens,man, those pumpkins probably
saved me about 200 bucks in foodfor them.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
because they were eating pumpkin.
It was probably super healthyfor them, and they must have had
a different taste though too.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
eh, oh, there's no, probably.
It definitely was super healthyfor them and it's the egg
layers Like I didn't eat thoseweren't the meat birds.
But you can tell when they'relocked in the barn for the
winter and they're eating thelay mash, like the food that you
(21:51):
buy.
They mix it up with a certainamount of protein and it's a
good mix for laying birds, butit is nothing compared to when
you get them outside and they'reeating naturally.
Um, the color of the yolkchanges distinctly, like it's a
deep kind of an orangey, almosta red, um tint of uh in the yolk
(22:19):
and um, um, the, the, the eggsare so healthy and tasty and I
just I would never do it anydifferent, right, like, I mean,
I've always been outdoorsy andgarden and this and that, not so
much a garden when I was a kid,but mom and dad always had the
(22:42):
garden.
My grandmother, my grandma,knew nijvetsky.
Um, yeah, she would.
Uh, she had a garden on thefarm.
Um, that was probably aboutfour acres and she used to grow
I don't know hundred and hundredhead of cabbage for sure.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And then everything else in between, you know.
So I've always been involvedwith gardens and animals and on
the farm.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Did you have a garden at the lodge?
Speaker 1 (23:17):
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Did you grow a greenhouse, or did you do that
up there?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
No, I was on an island and once you get up north
it's hard to get good soil andin the bush to find light.
But I always wanted to.
The closest thing I had to agarden was when you walked out
the side of the main lodge andit was actually the chef's
(23:47):
office and kitchen.
When you walked outside of themain lodge, I had a raised
flower bed.
That was there and it was usedas a flower bed, but I quickly
turned that into an herb garden.
Cool, I quickly turned thatinto an herb garden.
So we grew chives and parsleyand sage and all of the
(24:12):
different mint and differentherbs that the chef would use
for the meals right, and inparticular the dinner meal for
the most part and desserts.
Like, I mean, he would use alot of flowers that when certain
(24:38):
things would start to flower,he would pull flowers from the
herb garden and then put that inthe desserts to dress up the
desserts and on the main coursesas well, right?
So the closest I had to agarden up there was the herb
(25:00):
garden and you always thought,oh, it'd be so it's such a great
idea.
Now, the one thing I willpreface that with is I had my
garden back home here inShelburne and, uh, I would uh
supplement our um, our um, freshproduce order with fresh stuff
(25:25):
from my garden Gotcha Lettucetomatoes, although the last few
years we've had a terribletomato blight down in this area
and I haven't been able to growtomatoes for two or three years.
But back when I was up at thelodge I used to supplement with
fresh tomatoes and whatever Ihad on the go at home.
(25:50):
So, and the other thing Ialways wanted to do and I don't
even have it on the go here waswe always talked about having a
pig up at the lodge because ourslop buckets coming out of the
kitchen would have kept, youknow, two or three pigs fed and
(26:12):
fat and they would have ate upall of the slop buckets, which
slop buckets we would callthat's what we called our
buckets that five gallon pailsthat would sit around the
kitchen and as the chefs arepreparing meals you know there's
always all like, say, you'recleaning out a green or a red
(26:37):
pepper, well, you've got all theseeds in the core that comes
out and it goes into the slopbucket, or trimmings from meat
goes into the slop bucket orwhatever, all of the the plates
coming back in from the diningroom would get scraped into the
slop bucket.
Because if you now this issomething that um, that um um
(26:59):
I'm sure most lodge owners andpeople know.
But you do not, especially whenyou're're on an island or in an
area up north where you've got acottage or whatever.
You do not want to put foodinto your garbage.
And at Chaudiere I had agarbage house.
(27:20):
We called it out behind themain lodge and we would only
make a garbage run once a week.
Well, you can imagine how manybags of garbage you know at
times 50 people can produce.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah that's insane, that's crazy we did it every day
, thank God, because we were onland.
Man, that would be a lot ofwork in the background.
You're right.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Oh yeah, like I mean, we had, and after a week it
would fill.
You know, bud had a trailerthat had high sides on the
trailer and it would have beenyou know, the regular width I'm
(28:05):
not sure four and a half fivefeet wide, for for the road it
was um, um, it was 10 feet longand the sides on it were at
least six feet high.
And we'd fill that trailer oncea week.
And the thing was is we neededto be diligent on making sure
(28:27):
that our food waste did not gointo those garbage bags and then
into the garbage house, becauseif it did, all the critters
would get into the garbage houseand tear those bags apart.
And, buddy, it only happened to, it only had to happen once or
(28:50):
twice, and the the doc guys thedoc guys had to clean it up and
(29:16):
they would chat with the girlswould have cleaned up all of
that garbage.
Well, two probably, becausepigs are very social animals and
one pig does not do good, doesnot do well by itself.
You need two, but still theywould be good.
But we had a great way ofdealing with the slop and I'll
(29:42):
tell you what.
I had a crew that looked afterthat slop.
They were the perfect employees.
They were actually like an hourearly every day.
They were actually like an hourearly every day.
They stayed until the job wascompletely finished and never,
(30:05):
ever missed work.
And that crew was a flock ofseagulls that were probably in
the neighborhood of 50.
We're probably in theneighborhood of 50.
And every morning we would dumpthe slop buckets and then we'd
have the gut buckets, and thegut buckets are just the buckets
(30:28):
that were down in the fishcleaning shack, so people would
clean their fish, or the dockhands would clean your fish for
you, if you liked, and all ofthe guts would go into the gut
bucket.
We'd hang that overnightbecause, again, we had otters
that would get into the gutbuckets if you left them on the
(30:53):
floor.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah, not really bears.
Bears don't really like rotten,stinking fish.
Bears don't really like rottenstinking fish.
They don't really come to it.
It's the food right.
It's the otters you run away wehad that at Nordic too.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, the otters.
And the problem that we had atChaudière well problem, the dock
house, or the we called it thedock house, or we called it the
dock house, which was thebuilding on the dock, was built
right at the shoreline.
So the otters would come up,they'd knock the gut bucket over
(31:27):
, they'd grab the fish carcasses, they'd jump off of the dock
into the water and then theywould store them underneath the
building.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And you couldn't get under there, yeah, so then all
of a sudden, our tackle shop,which was in the dock house,
started stinking like rottenfish, which was awful.
So that was another thing welearned.
You got to, those buckets gotto go up, but anyway, at the
(31:58):
Seagulls, as soon as the sun wascoming up, they would all be
waiting out front and when theboys would bring the slot
buckets from the kitchen and youknow there'd be anywhere from
three to five buckets we had agolf cart with a truck box well,
like a box on the back.
It's not the size with a truckbox well, like a box on the back
, it's not the size of a truckbox.
(32:19):
But it had a wee box on theback and they'd throw the
buckets in the back of the boxon the golf cart.
And boy, oh boy, when herounded the corner from the
kitchen, those seagulls, theywere excited, I'm telling you.
They start singing andsquawking.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Squawk Fest 96, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Oh, you know it.
And the other part of mycleanup crew was about 15 turkey
vultures, oh yeah, and youwould see in the morning when,
if you were out on the water,coming in, you'd think that
there was a herd of moose thathad died, because there was all
(33:04):
them turkey vultures justcircling, circling, circling,
right.
So you'd take them down andpeople would watch Like they'd
load up the boat and it was likethe Pied Piper man as he takes
the boat out.
We would dump the slop up ontothe shoreline never in the water
(33:26):
, especially the gut buckets too, because it's actually illegal
to throw fish carcasses in thelake.
Why, I'm not 100% sure, but wewould throw it all up on, uh, on
a stretch of shoreline.
And those birds, man, oh man,like I say, they were an hour
early every day and they didn'tleave until the job was done.
(33:49):
Um, and they ate everything,the only thing, funny enough.
Well, I can understand why theydidn't eat it.
And we stopped putting them inthe slop buckets where lemon
rinds, like when you squeeze alemon.
(34:09):
They wouldn't eat the lemonrinds and at the end of the day
they break down as well.
But it was taking too long andnobody eats lemon rinds, so we
would just throw those in thegarbage.
But yeah, that's um, yeah so wedid.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So we had, we just had a, so we had Dennis would go
every day, which was great,right, we could.
Just we had the luxury of justbeing able to do that.
Yeah, and our slot bucket, ifwe, if we did maintain one
because it could just go in thegarbage if we did maintain one,
we just dumped it out on anisland.
You know, nordic was, it waseasy for that.
The guys were spoon fed when itcame to that.
(34:47):
But I remember at t2 it wasmore, or at maynard, at my buddy
josh's, it was more, like whatyou have because they're on
islands, right.
So we'd have to go daily.
We didn't have a crew thatwould do it, we just had.
You know, whoever was on shorewould go and do it to the 10 or
15 guides who were there.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
So Morris Woodland was the first guy I ever hired
at Nordic.
He was a good friend of mine.
He worked at T2.
He was at T2 for like eightyears, nine years.
Good old, doofy boy, labradorguy actually lives in the middle
of nowhere kind of thing.
You know he's a bush guy.
This guy, you know, like Iwould offer him.
(35:29):
I remember when we firststarted building and I'd be like
come stay in the house with me.
You know it's 20 degrees.
You got a wood fireplace, a hottub a.
TV?
No, he would.
He stayed down in cabin fiveand he would come up to my house
and get running water and hewould take it down there and he
had little heaters in his cabinand that's how he would use the
(35:52):
washroom.
He would never want to come upto the house.
He didn't want.
He wanted to bathe with a youknow a sponge.
He just didn't.
You know, he just wasn't himand he was a clean guy.
He was.
You know, it's just how helived growing up in the Northern
part of the world and he justwas used to it and he liked his
(36:13):
privacy.
So anyway, mo was with me downat T2.
That's how we'd met and thisone particular day, whenever I
didn't really if there was a daywhich wasn't very often that I
didn't guide I was able to gointo town.
Me and Mo were kind of the townguys, right, we had the
responsibility to take thecheckbook in and go do the shit
(36:33):
in town.
We needed, on the way we woulddo a garbage run, responsibility
to take the checkbook in and godo the shit in town we needed
and on the way we would do agarbage run.
So this one particular day, meand Mo were off the water and we
were going into wholesale to doa bunch of you know, I think we
were getting water and just abunch of shit from the chef, and
on the way in there was likeeight or ten garbage bags and we
threw them in the boat and runthem down to the landing.
And we were going up there, runthem down to the landing and
(36:54):
we're going up there.
There was a big steep hill andat the top we had this old 1500
series, you know early 90s Chevy, with a cap on the back.
So we would pitch the garbageinto there, you know, for like
two days at a time, three daysat a time, and then the boys
would run it to the dump.
Whenever it started to get fullthey'd just take the truck and
go yeah, so we sure enough.
(37:18):
So we got these bags and I loadthem out on the dock and Morris
, he throws one around one sideof his shoulder and one around
the other and he goes trekkingup the hill.
Well, he gets to the top andI'm just getting out of the boat
with the last bags and I throwone over my shoulder, throw one
over the other, and I'm lookingup the hill and Morris.
I watch him.
He opens up the gate of the I'msorry, the window part of the
(37:44):
truck cap in the back and heopens it up and a freaking bear
and it was probably like four350.
It was a good size female.
It came ripping right out theleft side.
Morris drops the bags and thecrap fell on his pants and he
(38:04):
goes left, the bear goes right.
And so I'm on the dock and Idrop the bags and I'm on my
knees rolling right Because I'mscared to poop out of them,
right, yeah, yeah, oh man, Steve, it was so classic.
Morris, if you're out there,we'll never forget that story,
that story buddy between me andyou.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
that's one of the ones we'll go to the grave with
oh, good old morris and the bearyeah it was good when you're in
the wilds of northwesternontario, you need gear you can
trust and a team that's got yourback.
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(38:43):
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Speaker 3 (38:55):
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Speaker 2 (40:17):
Gardening good topic, buddy.
I love that.
Yeah, I think we GeneralJarrett, chef Machete last year
he would like he did what youdid a little bit.
He had like a little wheelthing outside full of dirt and
he would do his time andwhatever the sage or whatever he
grew in there.
But he was always bugging me Upat the house.
(40:37):
There we had a raised guard bedand he was bugging me to encase
it like a greenhouse and if Iwould have stayed there I would
have let him for sure, becauseit was a cool thing you know he
had talked into.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Well, a greenhouse is one of those things that I'm
thinking about here for my place, but that's a whole other story
.
Yeah, for my place, but that'sa whole nother story.
I have a little greenhouse forstarting plants.
Like this week I'm probablygoing to start my tomatoes and
peppers and all of the plantsthat I'll put in the garden and
(41:11):
then you start them inside andonce they get to be about two,
three inches tall, then I'llmove those trays right out into
the greenhouse outside, becauseyou like to have them grow when
they're small especiallytomatoes and peppers in a cooler
(41:32):
environment, not cold, becausecold they won't grow, but cooler
, because they'll grow morerobust if they're in a warm and
um and um, humid environment.
Uh, they, uh, they get spindly,they'll, they'll, um, they'll
grow um, um, very quickly, talland without and without strength
(41:57):
.
So you want to grow them in acooler environment and this time
of the year, a small greenhouseoutside.
It provides a perfect spot forit.
But back at Chaudière the otherthing that built up being on an
island, the other thing thatbuilt up being on an island I
(42:35):
had the boathouse, which was abig building where we stored all
of our cedar strips and boats,all of our aluminum boats that
were under 16 feet tall.
But through the summer that wasthe place that all of our
empties went.
Oh yeah, and we didn't take ourempties back until the season
was over, and that was always aperk for the staff because we
would have our year-end staffparty.
(42:55):
Oh yeah, and the empties werewhat funded it.
Yep, and man, oh man, you wantto talk about empties.
The first couple of years Iforgot, and in Noelville we
would take our bottles to thebeer store.
(43:18):
Listen, folks, for those peopleand hey, for the girls and guys
up at the Noelville beer store.
I apologize again, but yeah,they tend to get a little bit
worked up when you show up withfive pickup trucks full of
(43:38):
empties and you don't call inadvance because they're
understaffed to deal with them.
But oh yeah, like I mean, theempties that built up on that
island were ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Well, what a party for the staff at the end of the
year, though They'd be excitedto run all them to town, I bet.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Oh yeah.
Well, that was the easiest wayto motivate people to actually
clean them up.
You know, listen, gather themall up and then they would take
them down to the boathouse andeverybody kind of kept a running
tally on roughly what was downthere.
But there were some years wherewe were taking back $3,000 in
(44:23):
empties.
That's a lot of empties.
Oh yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I mean, I'm guessing we would say I just never even
thought about it right, becausewe just huh.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, awesome, yeah, well, and you were licensed.
I wasn't.
This was just booze that peoplewere, that, that people were
bringing and, and uh, bottlesthat were going into the garbage
or into into the recycle bins.
We always had, uh, well, assoon as, uh, as soon as the uh,
the staff um understood that, uh, all of the empty money was
(44:52):
going to go to benefit them.
Then everybody's mindful ofmaking sure that we collect all
the empties right, which is agood thing.
So, yeah, no, it was good, butwe're kind of getting Just
imagine, flying all that out ona plane.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
So I know Josh, up at Maynard, he, everything besides
his slop buckets goes out onthe plane there, not on the boat
.
Everything's because there's notrail, there's no road anywhere
near, so everything has to goout on the plane from River Air.
It's a headache, wow the cans.
(45:31):
You can't leave nothing likethat there, right.
So everything's got to go likethat.
And it's a headache man, I knowthat.
And it's a headache man, I knowthat.
It's a.
It's a big headache.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
That's crazy.
Well, and and, and like I mean,a lot of the the lodge owners
from from days gone by.
I know it doesn't happen, itdoesn't happen much anymore and
uh, hasn't happened on shoddyair island for probably 40 years
.
But, um, like I mean, as a kid,I, I, I collect jars and old
(46:05):
bottles and and not not so muchbottles anymore.
I still have this weird littlefetish with, uh, with um, turn
of the century-century Canadianceiling jars.
But there's another story too.
But I used to bike around thecountryside back in the 80s and
(46:29):
very early 90s with a buddy ofmine and at that time all of the
farms in East Luther andAmaranth Township and
Melanchthon Township and all ofthese townships around us that
was when there was the recessionin the late 80s and a lot of
(46:49):
derelict farms, you know, oldfarmhouses that, uh, that were
beat up and falling down, andand, uh, we would, uh, we would
jump on our bikes on a saturdaymorning and spend all day biking
around the countryside andthere were, there were three
(47:13):
locations that that we would keyin on, that we learned to go
and find old bottles and oldjars, and the first location, as
you can imagine, was thebasement, because that's where
you find old jars, becausepeople would can and preserve
(47:34):
and the jars go on a shelfsomewhere in the basement.
We checked there but then once,like I mean, after that,
there's really nowhere in ahouse that you would find old
glass like that.
And there were two other placeson a farm where you would look,
and this is where it kind ofties in to what we're talking
(47:59):
about.
You would go to a lot of thefarms.
Obviously they have a barn, abunk barn, and to get into the
upstairs of the bunk barn on thebackside they would build what
we always knew as a kid wascalled the barn dump hill.
(48:22):
Right, and the barn dump hillwas the hill that they would put
on the backside of the barn.
So you could go up this ramp ofdirt into the back of the
backside of the barn, onto thethrash floor, onto the second
floor, so you could get your hayand your straw and your grain
(48:42):
and everything you want to storeon the second floor.
Yeah, yeah, well, they call it abarn dump hill for a reason,
and when they built barn dumphills they threw all of their
garbage in and buried it rightin the barn dump hill.
So, for whenever they built thebarn which could have been the
(49:05):
late 1800s, who the hell knowsyep, there was always garbage
that was thrown into the barndump hill.
So we would excavate with, uh,with um hand tools, little
shovels and, you know, likegardening shit and whatever we
could find to dig into thesebarn dump hills, and you would
(49:26):
start to unearth these pieces ofglass that were over 100 years
old, and once we kind of,because you couldn't get too
terribly far into the barn dumphill and it seemed like that was
rough on glass, right, you werehard pressed to find pieces
(49:51):
that weren't broke, but you did.
And then you would look at thefarmhouse and you would pick the
furthest place away from thehouse on that farm, typically if
there's bush there.
And then we'd head out thereand you would walk through the
(50:11):
bush and every farm back inthose days at the turn of the
century, through the 30s, 40s,50s, even into the 60s, they all
had a dump right, yep, and alot of them, a lot of people
would just cart their shit backinto the corner of the farm and
(50:33):
dump all their garbage in theback corner of the farm, yep, so
you'd be out there and you'dlook and the first thing that
you would see is rusted cans ontop.
And then now all of a sudden,me and Evan and I were we're
excited, right.
We're like, oh my God, we foundanother dump.
(50:53):
It's the mother road, oh yeah.
Well, like I mean, there wassome pretty, some pretty cool
shit that we, that we unearthedout of that stuff and that plays
into what I found.
With these places, especiallyout on islands, where it's next
to impossible to get stuff offthe island again, there's big
(51:21):
old dumps and behind theseplaces and, um, a lot of them
you wouldn't see now becausethey're they haven't been used
for 20 or 30 years.
Um, but the the I can, I, I cantotally understand how the old
timers who had these places thatwere isolated like that and the
(51:43):
effort it takes to get stuff ina lot of that stuff never left.
Yeah, and uh, uh, you knowthere were at at chaudiere, we,
um, there was one year we endedup, um, I, I dropped something,
or somebody dropped somethingoff of our dock and our dock's
(52:04):
about 12 feet deep, the mainpier, and I think it was like a
big adjustable wrench, like a,you know, like a big, big
adjustable wrench.
I wanted it back, somethingworth going for.
So anyway, yeah, we had Budbring his scuba gear up and the
(52:27):
shit that he pulled up fromunderneath our dock.
He pulled up a trolling, one ofthe very first trolling motors
I think were ever built, likefrom 1980.
It was crazy, the stuff thataccumulates off the bottom of
underneath your dock.
(52:47):
I wouldn't do that.
So, yeah, folks, if you havetime and you're interested in
shit like that, when you go upto the lodge now, I'm not
suggesting you do this wheneverybody's driving their boats
into the dock, but if you takeyour snorkeling gear and at a
(53:09):
slow time you go down, andespecially if you've got a lodge
with a deep dock, there aresome treasures under there that
you wouldn't even know.
I bet yeah, I bet yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
So what do you got on the go for today, there, my
buddy, I am, a couple ofmeetings this morning and then I
actually had really goodfriends and guests of mine kind
of like your people that youjust went down to Texas to see.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Oh yeah, yeah, Sonia and Joe and Deb and Fred, fred,
the whole crowd down there yeah,we uh, we got our, our little
group up here.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
They're the Smoods, um, don and Rhonda.
They uh, they actually didshows for me and Krista in our
first year.
We made a couple of them but wecouldn't get to them all with
all the renovating, all thechaos going on.
So they were kind enough to youknow they would go sit in the
booth for us for for a show andwe would just take the calls and
, um, it was great actuallydoing that, because having a
(54:08):
guest represent you after ohyeah spent with them right was
great.
It was great for the otherguests to see, like, oh, this
guy's got a guest in there right, it was good.
So, um, yeah, we've been goodfriends with them for over a
decade and we've had quite a fewpeople reaching out to us.
Actually, to be honest with you, I've probably had my phone
(54:29):
ring and email ring about over100 times since I've shot that,
since I got out of that lodge,and everybody had the same
answer they feel we did anamazing job, they loved it there
, they're happy for the futureand they just wish me my health
and these people I'm like well,I'll come up, let's go for a
little ice fish before the endof the year.
So the ice road here right nowis the road's in good shape.
(54:53):
We got lots of ice, tons of icestill, but like I mean I
wouldn't think this year the icewill go out before May 5th, may
10th It'll be.
You'll be hard pressed to getit out before then.
And Nice, yeah, which is great,right, because we can get, so
we can fish for another coupleweeks here.
So, yeah, side by sides andsleds, you'd be able to go for
(55:17):
another three weeks still, butminimum, but like taking the
truck out.
So we're going to go out todayin the truck.
Sometimes this time of the yearthe landings right will get
washed out or beat up frompeople going in and out.
We had a 10-degree day about aweek ago and it really did
damage.
I thought the road was going toclose but it dropped back to
minus 20 here and everything'sgood.
(55:38):
So we're going to head waysouth on Lake of the Woods, head
down by Rope Island, see if wecan get some walleyes, a couple
crappies, and then tomorrow I'mgoing to go back laking in the
afternoon.
Take these people into a littlelake, trout lake.
I'm going to go back lakinginto there.
I know a spot where we can getsome 40-plus inches.
We've caught two out of them inthere in the last five years,
(55:59):
so we might not catch shitloadstomorrow, but hopefully we catch
a big one.
That's the plan.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Yeah, good luck with that.
Yeah, and I'm just fresh off ofthe Sportsman Show with the
Fish and Canada television showwith our 40th season 40 years
now and the show this year hey40 years.
Our 40th season well, I say our,it's definitely not mine Ang's
(56:30):
40th season of being on nationaltelevision with the Fish and
Canada television show is comingis this season that we're
shooting right now?
Television show is coming is isour.
Is this season that we'reshooting right now?
So that was, uh, that was a bigdeal for for us and and we were
(56:51):
at the sportsman show, um,promoting it, and I got to tell
you it was probably the busiestshow that I can remember.
Now my memory's not all thatgreat, to be honest with you,
and I've done quite a fewsportsman shows, like Toronto
sportsman shows, but I I'm I'mhappy to say I think that the
(57:13):
COVID hangover is has has woreoff.
Oh great, like I mean, therewere, it was busy and it was
awesome.
It was awesome to be out thereand to see all of you folks and
the Diaries family.
There were so many of youstopping in and saying hello,
(57:36):
did we have lots to stop?
Speaker 2 (57:36):
I didn't get there.
This year I wasn't there andI'm so sad I didn't go because I
you guys all know that's been apart of my heart for a long
time, since I was with mygrandfather down there carving
ducks.
But like, yeah, I was crushedthat I couldn't go.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yeah, no there were a ton of people asking about you
and coming in and talking diarystuff and listen.
I just wanted to say, um, hey,nixon, and nixon was the cutest
little fella.
He's probably I don't know six,seven years old and, um, uh, he
(58:15):
listens to diaries of a lodgeowner every night and it puts
him to sleep nice.
So, um, so, nixon, I just wantto say night night, bud, you
have a good sleep.
Okay, that's awesome.
And thank you to all of theDiaries family and Fish and
Canada fans that stopped by thebooth and said hello and told us
(58:40):
your stories and it was areally, really good show.
And you know, shows can bedaunting.
That's one thing I learned.
They're a lot of work and ittakes a lot of effort to get out
and do it, but this was soworth it for me, awesome.
(59:02):
And the Fish and Canada crew Um,uh, I just wanted to thank
everybody that that come by thebooth this year and uh, and said
hello it.
It really meant a lot to, to usand and Ange in particular.
So, um, uh, great job to uh, tothe uh organizers at the at the
(59:23):
Sportsman Show and great job tomy brother from another mother,
ange, who also won a very, veryprestigious conservation award
in which Doug Ford come downwith the Minister of Natural
(59:43):
Resources, garrett Smith, theycome down to present to him.
So that was very exciting too.
Nice, very proud of my brotherfrom another mother.
So that was wonderful.
But I just wanted to make sureI said night-night to Nixon Nice
(01:00:04):
, because he is one of our greatmembers, one of the best little
members of the Diaries family,nice.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Well, Nixon, it's a pleasure to meet you and I hope
you have a wonderful sleep.
And man, that's awesome.
What a great story, Great story.
Yeah, Wonderful sleep.
And man, that's awesome.
What a great story, Great story.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Yeah Well, welly boy, that just about does it for
another week.
So it's that sad time again.
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Where we've got to say goodbye to these beautiful
people.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yes, but before that I just want to thank Andrew from
Lakeside Marine and all oftheir support.
We're going to have Andrew onhere, coming up in the next
couple of weeks to help guide usall when we're getting our
boats out, now that the days aregetting longer and we're
(01:00:58):
starting to think and man, ohman, it's coming quick.
I got to do a bunch of work onmy boat and I'm like, oh my God,
I'm going to run out of timehere.
And then all of a sudden, I gotto get to the cottage and get
up to the Upper French and Idon't got a boat.
And you know, you know, you gotto start thinking about getting
your boat out when your wifementions it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Oh, that's yeah.
Yeah, you're behind the ball,oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yeah, yeah.
So we're going to have Andrewon with and talk about the
things we need to do to getstuff going and ready this
spring.
And again, folks head on overto fishincanadacom.
We've got some amazing new SKUsor merchandise in our
(01:01:46):
repertoire.
Timmy Dawson from Campus Crew.
He does all that work for usand the merchandise flew off the
shelves.
Although it was so well-pricedand such great quality, I wasn't
(01:02:06):
surprised at all.
But you can check all of thatout on fishincanadacom.
Get into those free giveaways,folks.
And again to the family, thankyou so much for listening.
We really, really appreciateeverything you do.
And thus brings us to theconclusion of another episode of
(01:02:30):
Diaries of a Lodge Owner.
Stories of the North.
Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Never meanin' no harm .
I'll be the all you ever saw.
Been reeling in the hog Sincethe day I was born, bending my
rock, stretching my line.
Someday I might own a lodge,and that'd be fine.
(01:02:58):
I'll be making my way the onlyway I know how, working hard and
sharing the north With all ofmy pals.
Well, I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
I bought a lodge and lived my dream, and now I'm here
talking about how life can beas good as it seems.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Hi everybody.
I'm Angelo Viola and I'm PeteBowman.
Now you might know us as thehosts of Canada's Favorite
Fishing Show, but now we'rehosting a podcast.
That's right.
Every Thursday, ange and I willbe right here in your ears
bringing you a brand new episodeof Outdoor Journal Radio.
Now, what are we going to talkabout for two hours every week?
Well, you know, there's goingto be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 5 (01:03:52):
I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and
how to catch them, and they wereeasy to catch.
Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
We're going to be talking topeople from all facets of the
outdoors, from athletes, All theother guys would go golfing Me
and Garton Turk and all theRussians would go fishing.
To scientists.
Speaker 5 (01:04:11):
But now that we're reforesting and letting things
breathe, it's the perfecttransmission environment for
line fishing.
Speaker 6 (01:04:17):
To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated
, you will taste it.
Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you
are.
Outdoor Journal Radio seeks toanswer the questions and tell
the stories of all those whoenjoy being outside.
Find us on Spotify, applePodcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons
of our natural world becomelouder and louder.
The lessons of our naturalworld become harder and harder
to hear, but they are stillavailable to those who know
where to listen.
I'm Jerry Ouellette and I washonoured to serve as Ontario's
Minister of Natural Resources.
However, my journey into thewoods didn't come from politics.
(01:05:01):
Rather, it came from my time inthe bush and a mushroom.
In 2015, I was introduced tothe birch-hungry fungus known as
chaga, a tree conch withcenturies of medicinal use by
Indigenous peoples all over theglobe.
After nearly a decade of harvestuse, testimonials and research,
(01:05:24):
my skepticism has faded toobsession and I now spend my
life dedicated to improving thelives of others through natural
means.
But that's not what the show isabout.
My pursuit of the strangemushroom and my passion for the
outdoors has brought me to theplaces and around the people
that are shaped by our naturalworld.
On Outdoor Journal Radio'sUnder the Canopy podcast, I'm
(01:05:48):
going to take you along with meto see the places, meet the
people that will help you findyour outdoor passion and help
you live a life close to natureand under the canopy Find Under
the Canopy now on Spotify, applePodcasts or wherever else you
get your podcasts.
Well, you know what?
The snow has begun to recedefast.
The weekend we had some warmweather and some rain and I'm
hoping that we don't see anymore snow in the next.
You know, two, three days we'regoing to be.
(00:25):
We're almost there, whichbrings me to an exciting time of
the year, which is, you know,getting ready for the garden and
hatching chickens and all kindsof stuff like that.
This week on the Outdoor JournalRadio Podcast Networks, diaries
of a Lodge Owner Stories of theNorth, the days are getting
(00:49):
longer, the snow is melting andWillie and I are thinking spring
.
On this show we talk everythingspring, from the Toronto
Sportsman Show with the Fish andCanada crew to raising chickens
and gardening and so much more.
So folks relax, enjoy thestories, turn your face to the
(01:14):
sun and feel that first bit ofwarmth, because it's springtime,
baby.
Welcome folks to anotherepisode of Diaries of a Lodge
Owner, willie Walleye.
Willie and I are sitting hereand that's Willie's other.
(01:34):
What do you call those names?
A tag, a tag, walleye, willie,or you know that's what the kids
call him, willie the Oil man.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I like that one.
I really love that one.
Steve, that one's tattooed onme.
I love it, you know what?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Wow, hey, when you get it tattooed on you, you love
it right Pretty much.
Yeah, so, willie, how?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
are you doing, unless you're really drunk, and then
you should not get tattoos?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, I can't speak to that.
I have no tattoos, but I'veseen.
I've seen some drunk tattoos onpeople and, uh, I would tend to
agree with that morning folks.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Good morning willie here.
Hey.
Uh.
Yeah, I saw one time I.
That was a great way to openthe show.
That was awesome.
I saw one time and I wascamping and this guy is like you
know, we're kind of doing ourmorning routine and he's down at
the river throwing water on hisface.
(02:37):
I look over at his arm and he'sgot like a.
The tattoo looks like it lookslike a piece of metal and a
tribe hammered it in with awooden rock, or sorry, a rock
and a wooden you know what Imean?
A tip thing down in the jungleand they hammered it into his
skin.
That's how bad it looked.
But I got a good look at it andI'm like what is this thing?
(02:58):
And it was a lawnmower.
It was a stick man pushing alawnmower with the grass flying
out of it and I'm like, whywould you?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
get that on your arm man.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I'm like.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
He must have been a grass man.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Right, A little bit of a grass man on the arm and it
looked wicked, Wicked yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, how's things down?
Your way, Stevie.
I hear it's pretty snowy downthere.
Is it starting to clear?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
up.
Well, you know what?
The snow has begun to recedefast.
The weekend we had some warmweather and some rain, and I'm
hoping that we don't see anymore snow in the next you know,
two, three days.
That we don't see any more snowin the next two, three days
(03:47):
we're going to be we're almostthere, nice.
Which brings me to an excitingtime of the year which is
getting ready for the garden andhatching chickens and all kinds
of stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Are you doing all that again?
Is that a yearly routine foryou, steve?
Do you live and is yourlifestyle like that consistently
?
Or is that just a trendyroutine for you, steve?
Like, do you live and is yourlifestyle like that consistently
, or is that just a trendy thingfor you?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Oh no, I've been doing that kind of stuff since I
was a kid, absolutely.
I've got some laying hens andthen I take those eggs and I
hatch out a bunch of others.
And then the roosters, they,you take the big ones and I, you
(04:31):
know, one, one a year.
You want to keep your, your,your stock fresh, so I keep,
I'll keep one nice big rooster ayear and then the rest of those
roosters they'll go into thepot.
And the hens are really thevaluable ones to me because I
(04:55):
enjoy eating eggs.
So I'll keep all of the hensthat I get.
And then you kind of got to keepthinning the flock and keeping
the flock healthy, because aschickens grow older they will
still lay eggs, but the eggs getbigger and less frequent.
(05:20):
So I've got some hens in therethat are probably four years old
and and, uh, at four and fiveyears old, you know, they, um,
they're, the production is, uh,is quite low.
Um, they might lay one eggevery three, four days, five
(05:42):
days, but it's, it's.
But that's where you get yourdouble yokers you ever heard of
a double yoker.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, so that's where you get your double yokers.
But I got one old girl in there.
She lays eggs the size ofsoftballs for Christ's sake.
I don't even know how she laysthem.
You know, every once in a whileyou hear the squawk, so I think
that's her, oh God.
And then I also do meetroosters, right, but I buy those
(06:14):
guys.
I usually buy them fromBonnie's Hatchery over towards
St Jacobs, but I'll buy them dayold and then whatever is, and
I'm pretty sure they're notgenetically altered, but they
(06:35):
have been bred over the years togrow and to watch them grow.
Side by side with the chicksthat I hatch, which are
different breeds, I've got a mixof giant Brahma and Langshan,
(07:03):
which are two really big birds,and the laying hens that you buy
from Bonnie's as well, thathave been bred to produce eggs.
They're called ISO Reds or ISOReds, and those hens they'll lay
(07:24):
an egg a day for a couple ofyears, if you're nice to them
and and, uh, um, I have a a mixof all of those, depending on
who's breeding who and andwhat's going on, because I like
the frequency of the egg laying,I like the, the size of the
giant Brahmas and the Langshansand um, um, but even at that,
(07:50):
even though those um birds areare big birds, um to to watch
them grow beside a um meat birdthat you buy specifically for
meat, and I think the breed thatI typically get is it's called
white rock.
(08:10):
It's ridiculous how fast themeat birds grow Really, and it's
like, oh, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
So, like, what's the timeframe?
Like this is interestingbecause I know nothing about
this and it's something, oh,it's ridiculous.
So, like, what's a time frame?
Like I, this is interestingbecause I know nothing about
this and it's something me andkrista have talked about for one
, to keep spiders away and tokeep and to get our own eggs in
production at the house here,because we've been, because we
eat a lot of eggs too yeah, soyou've got two different,
different breeds.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You've got your meat birds and your laying laying
laying hens yep and um, uh,first and foremost, if you want
to make sure you don't haveblood spots in your eggs, you
don't?
You like the production?
Um, um, farms will never haveroosters and hens mixed, just
because the blood spots comefrom when the roosters breed the
(09:06):
hens.
And then if an egg gets left alittle long in a nest and it
gets sat on or warmed up, you'llget an egg, a blood spot,
because that's when theincubation starts.
So, for and for me, I justgather the eggs every day.
(09:28):
Sometimes you forget, sometimesyou get a blood spot, but hey,
whatever, it's a farm, you knowwhat it is, what it is.
But so you've got your egglayers and then you got your
meat birds.
And your meat birds they'reagain, they're bred for meat.
And a time frame to answer yourquestion.
(09:50):
To give you an idea for Swisschalet, you know the chickens
that they have there.
They're probably around fourpounds at Swiss chalet.
Those birds are done in sixweeks oh, wow, yeah, that's
(10:10):
incredible, and that's from a,from a chick yeah, oh, yeah,
yeah, even, even, even, yeah,even less than that.
Like I mean, when, uh, when umwe buy um our roosters, I'll get
them beginning of May and we'rebutchering eight to, I'll say
(10:33):
seven to nine pound birds bymiddle of August.
So we're looking at, you know,less than three months.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
And now they're free range at your place, steve.
Are they in a like?
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I have them penned up and I'll let them out during
the day, especially the egglayers.
But those, the meat birds,they're really not interested in
going too far and they grow sofast that they like I mean,
they're not agile at all.
(11:11):
Oh, okay, but yeah, when youhear about free-range meat birds
and this is always somethingthat I've wanted to do, I just
don't have the space right nowYou'll hear farmers and free
(11:32):
range farmers that have birdstalking about schooners and
basically a schooner is just agarage in a box, for lack of a
better term.
They're a little bit betterbuilt, but it's a garage in a
box and it's got the open floor.
(11:55):
You outfit it with wheels, youput like a skirt on the bottom
that's predator proof and youput your 50 to 100 birds,
depending on the size of theschooner, inside that schooner
(12:19):
and you've got like, rather thanhaving like a tarp all the way,
you've got sides that are likea mesh, so the wind blows
through, the sun comes in andyou pull that schooner 20 feet
every day across the field inthe grass so that your chickens,
(12:41):
they live inside the schooner.
You also have to supplement withfood, because chickens don't
just eat grass and bugs, like Imean, they need some substance
which is, yeah, your grain, yourcorn, and a lot of times
(13:02):
companies have made blends ofprotein and they put them in
like a pellet form which a lotof people use.
That I like to use when they'resmall.
There's a chick starter whichis like a brown crushed up
(13:23):
pellet.
I'll use that for, you know, aweek or two, and then I like, as
soon as they get big enough, toget them onto a more natural
food source, like your grainsand your corns, and you crush it
all up.
I like to do that.
But, yeah, like I mean, um,that's uh, that's uh, that's the
(13:47):
the way.
And then we do all of ourbutchering ourselves too, right
I remember that.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
I remember you were butchering this fall, yeah yeah,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
So I usually do about 50 meat birds and and um,
that's, that's enough for myfamily.
We'll, we'll have that'll getus through the winter and and
the summer until, uh, we'reready to put the, uh, put the um
um meat back in the freezer.
Nice, um, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So there's that, and then there's we had, uh, so my
buddy kyle, um, yeah, mcmahon.
So we went to, we flew down toKabul.
Actually, when I was going tobuy the lodge in 2022, we flew
down in uh to Kabul and so,anyways, when we flew down, you
can't get a direct flight out ofWinnipeg anywhere anymore down
(14:39):
there.
So we got to go.
You got to go over to Edmontonor you got to go to.
You know, fly from Winnipeg toToronto.
So we went from Winnipeg overto Edmonton or you got to go to.
You know, fly from Winnipeg toToronto.
So we went from Winnipeg overto Edmonton, stayed at Kyle's
sister's for the night Her andher husband now her husband's
from Puerto Rico.
They've got a couple of kids andthey kind of got a corner lot,
but it's like right downtownEdmonton.
(15:00):
I would say the lot would belike 50 feet by 30 feet.
You know, for a backcourtcorner lot, it's a pretty good
size in the city, yeah, so, sureenough, I walk out in the
backyard and there's free-rangechickens and there's like 10 of
(15:21):
them and they're running aroundeverywhere and the kids are
playing with them and one kid'splaying dodgeball with his
friend and there's like 10 ofthem and they're running around
everywhere and the kids areplaying with them and one kid's
playing dodgeball with hisfriend and there's a chicken
there.
The other ones are playing.
It was really weird to see.
I didn't expect it.
So, yeah, what they had, steve,is they had like a little barn
chicken coop thing built in theback of their yard and it had a
(15:43):
pine tree around it.
Built in the back of their yardand it had a pine tree around
it and they had.
So the chickens would actuallygo up and roost in the tree,
like you know, six feet up,seven feet up, yep, but that's,
they would never fly, which isso crazy.
They would.
There was like a fenced yard,you know, and it's a corner lot,
so there's like three otherhouses behind this place.
(16:05):
Never would they fly into theiryard.
You know what I mean?
Never, and I asked people thatyou know, would they?
Do they ever leave?
Do they never?
They don't ever.
They'll always want to go backto their, to their coop or
whatever.
Yeah, and I just thought it wasthe wildest thing to see this in
the middle of the city.
I never thought it wassomething that people did and
that's when me and Krista werelike, hmm, maybe we should get
(16:28):
them for the lodge and we couldput, you know, because we keep
that for ourselves and we havelots of land there and then our
house.
We got lots of land.
We thought about it after here,after selling out, and I was
like maybe we should do it here.
So it's something we thoughtabout and I can see us doing it
eventually.
We like to dabble in thingslike that.
That we've never done, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Like you know, having puppies- yeah well, they'll
never leave, It'd be interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
You'd have to educate me someday, if I ever go to do
it.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, that's easy enough.
Like I mean those I've had,like I say I've had since I was
old enough to walk, and once youfeed them in one spot and you
have a secure place for them tolive like I've got a caged-in
(17:15):
run off the back of my wee barn,I call it my wee barn, my wee
barn.
Like a 10 by 10 or whatever,shed out in the back and I've
got it insulated for the winterand I've got it caged in top
bottom.
I've run mesh off of the bottomof the cage and buried it out
(17:41):
afoot.
So when animals come to thecorner of the cage and try and
dig it, dig into the ground toget under it, they're digging
into the, the, the mesh.
Great idea.
But I'll open that door andI'll let them out, like today.
I'll probably go out after this, after this podcast and and
(18:04):
it's it's about the it'll be thefirst time this year that I let
them out of the barn and ontothe lawn and they'll hang around
.
They don't even rarely.
They might go onto myneighbor's lawn a little bit,
but we've got two acre lots outhere.
So you know, and and Jeff isgreat, he, jeff and Judy over
(18:29):
there I'll throw them a dozeneggs every once in a while.
And when we butcher up thechickens some chickens, and you
know what, they don't do anydamage.
They, they'll walk around, theyshit all over the lawn and the
next thing thing you know, yourlawn's nice and green, but
rarely do they leave my property.
They'll run around, they eatbugs they'll.
(18:49):
But the biggest problem is theyget into my garden and I've my
good I call it my good garden Ifence it in and then, um, so
they uh, and, and when I sayfence, it's just like a
three-foot high chicken wirearound the outside of it, and
then they don't bother jumping.
They could fly in there, butyou know if the odd one does hey
(19:13):
.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
They're lazy like that though.
Hey, they don't really want todo anything new that alters
their shit.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Hey, From what I've noticed, Well, like I mean, I
don't know whether it's lazy.
Well, like I mean, I don't knowwhether it's lazy, I think it's
more, they'll go up to thefence and they see the fence,
they don't know how to get overit.
You know it's weird, I'm notsure, but they're pretty good
(19:39):
that way.
But I'll tell you what my othergarden.
I've got raspberry canes andlast year I grew giant Atlantic
pumpkins.
I had one vine in my goodgarden and then I had two vines
in the back garden where thechickens can get to and I had
(20:04):
one out in the back in the inthe accessible garden.
I had two giant Atlantics andthey didn't get all that big,
probably whole about the size.
They were big enough forpumpkins like uh, three, four
times the size of the biggestpumpkin you'd buy for, um, uh,
halloween.
So if you, uh, if you took yourarms out in front of you and
(20:27):
you made a big circle and youleft about a foot between your
hands, that's how big aroundthey were.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
That's good size.
How much do you figure theyweighed?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
They probably would have been somewhere between 50
and 80 pounds each.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, and they ate the shit right out of them.
And at first I was like, oh,you sons of bitches, yeah, and I
was kind of chasing them out ofthere and everything else.
But then I thought you knowwhat?
I got my other garden and thebig pumpkin was in that other
garden.
It was up over 100 pounds,maybe 150 pounds, and in
(21:12):
hindsight I should have tookthat one out and put it back
there, because them chickens,man, those pumpkins probably
saved me about 200 bucks in foodfor them.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
because they were eating pumpkin.
It was probably super healthyfor them, and they must have had
a different taste though too.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
eh, oh, there's no, probably.
It definitely was super healthyfor them and it's the egg
layers Like I didn't eat thoseweren't the meat birds.
But you can tell when they'relocked in the barn for the
winter and they're eating thelay mash, like the food that you
(21:51):
buy.
They mix it up with a certainamount of protein and it's a
good mix for laying birds, butit is nothing compared to when
you get them outside and they'reeating naturally.
Um, the color of the yolkchanges distinctly, like it's a
deep kind of an orangey, almosta red, um tint of uh in the yolk
(22:19):
and um, um, the, the, the eggsare so healthy and tasty and I
just I would never do it anydifferent, right, like, I mean,
I've always been outdoorsy andgarden and this and that, not so
much a garden when I was a kid,but mom and dad always had the
(22:42):
garden.
My grandmother, my grandma,knew nijvetsky.
Um, yeah, she would.
Uh, she had a garden on thefarm.
Um, that was probably aboutfour acres and she used to grow
I don't know hundred and hundredhead of cabbage for sure.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And then everything else in between, you know.
So I've always been involvedwith gardens and animals and on
the farm.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Did you have a garden at the lodge?
Speaker 1 (23:17):
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Did you grow a greenhouse, or did you do that
up there?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
No, I was on an island and once you get up north
it's hard to get good soil andin the bush to find light.
But I always wanted to.
The closest thing I had to agarden was when you walked out
the side of the main lodge andit was actually the chef's
(23:47):
office and kitchen.
When you walked outside of themain lodge, I had a raised
flower bed.
That was there and it was usedas a flower bed, but I quickly
turned that into an herb garden.
Cool, I quickly turned thatinto an herb garden.
So we grew chives and parsleyand sage and all of the
(24:12):
different mint and differentherbs that the chef would use
for the meals right, and inparticular the dinner meal for
the most part and desserts.
Like, I mean, he would use alot of flowers that when certain
(24:38):
things would start to flower,he would pull flowers from the
herb garden and then put that inthe desserts to dress up the
desserts and on the main coursesas well, right?
So the closest I had to agarden up there was the herb
(25:00):
garden and you always thought,oh, it'd be so it's such a great
idea.
Now, the one thing I willpreface that with is I had my
garden back home here inShelburne and, uh, I would uh
supplement our um, our um, freshproduce order with fresh stuff
(25:25):
from my garden Gotcha Lettucetomatoes, although the last few
years we've had a terribletomato blight down in this area
and I haven't been able to growtomatoes for two or three years.
But back when I was up at thelodge I used to supplement with
fresh tomatoes and whatever Ihad on the go at home.
(25:50):
So, and the other thing Ialways wanted to do and I don't
even have it on the go here waswe always talked about having a
pig up at the lodge because ourslop buckets coming out of the
kitchen would have kept, youknow, two or three pigs fed and
(26:12):
fat and they would have ate upall of the slop buckets, which
slop buckets we would callthat's what we called our
buckets that five gallon pailsthat would sit around the
kitchen and as the chefs arepreparing meals you know there's
always all like, say, you'recleaning out a green or a red
(26:37):
pepper, well, you've got all theseeds in the core that comes
out and it goes into the slopbucket, or trimmings from meat
goes into the slop bucket orwhatever, all of the the plates
coming back in from the diningroom would get scraped into the
slop bucket.
Because if you now this issomething that um, that um um
(26:59):
I'm sure most lodge owners andpeople know.
But you do not, especially whenyou're're on an island or in an
area up north where you've got acottage or whatever.
You do not want to put foodinto your garbage.
And at Chaudiere I had agarbage house.
(27:20):
We called it out behind themain lodge and we would only
make a garbage run once a week.
Well, you can imagine how manybags of garbage you know at
times 50 people can produce.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah that's insane, that's crazy we did it every day
, thank God, because we were onland.
Man, that would be a lot ofwork in the background.
You're right.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Oh yeah, like I mean, we had, and after a week it
would fill.
You know, bud had a trailerthat had high sides on the
trailer and it would have beenyou know, the regular width I'm
(28:05):
not sure four and a half fivefeet wide, for for the road it
was um, um, it was 10 feet longand the sides on it were at
least six feet high.
And we'd fill that trailer oncea week.
And the thing was is we neededto be diligent on making sure
(28:27):
that our food waste did not gointo those garbage bags and then
into the garbage house, becauseif it did, all the critters
would get into the garbage houseand tear those bags apart.
And, buddy, it only happened to, it only had to happen once or
(28:50):
twice, and the the doc guys thedoc guys had to clean it up and
(29:16):
they would chat with the girlswould have cleaned up all of
that garbage.
Well, two probably, becausepigs are very social animals and
one pig does not do good, doesnot do well by itself.
You need two, but still theywould be good.
But we had a great way ofdealing with the slop and I'll
(29:42):
tell you what.
I had a crew that looked afterthat slop.
They were the perfect employees.
They were actually like an hourearly every day.
They were actually like an hourearly every day.
They stayed until the job wascompletely finished and never,
(30:05):
ever missed work.
And that crew was a flock ofseagulls that were probably in
the neighborhood of 50.
We're probably in theneighborhood of 50.
And every morning we would dumpthe slop buckets and then we'd
have the gut buckets, and thegut buckets are just the buckets
(30:28):
that were down in the fishcleaning shack, so people would
clean their fish, or the dockhands would clean your fish for
you, if you liked, and all ofthe guts would go into the gut
bucket.
We'd hang that overnightbecause, again, we had otters
that would get into the gutbuckets if you left them on the
(30:53):
floor.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah, not really bears.
Bears don't really like rotten,stinking fish.
Bears don't really like rottenstinking fish.
They don't really come to it.
It's the food right.
It's the otters you run away wehad that at Nordic too.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, the otters.
And the problem that we had atChaudière well problem, the dock
house, or the we called it thedock house, or we called it the
dock house, which was thebuilding on the dock, was built
right at the shoreline.
So the otters would come up,they'd knock the gut bucket over
(31:27):
, they'd grab the fish carcasses, they'd jump off of the dock
into the water and then theywould store them underneath the
building.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And you couldn't get under there, yeah, so then all
of a sudden, our tackle shop,which was in the dock house,
started stinking like rottenfish, which was awful.
So that was another thing welearned.
You got to, those buckets gotto go up, but anyway, at the
(31:58):
Seagulls, as soon as the sun wascoming up, they would all be
waiting out front and when theboys would bring the slot
buckets from the kitchen and youknow there'd be anywhere from
three to five buckets we had agolf cart with a truck box well,
like a box on the back.
It's not the size with a truckbox well, like a box on the back
, it's not the size of a truckbox.
(32:19):
But it had a wee box on theback and they'd throw the
buckets in the back of the boxon the golf cart.
And boy, oh boy, when herounded the corner from the
kitchen, those seagulls, theywere excited, I'm telling you.
They start singing andsquawking.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Squawk Fest 96, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Oh, you know it.
And the other part of mycleanup crew was about 15 turkey
vultures, oh yeah, and youwould see in the morning when,
if you were out on the water,coming in, you'd think that
there was a herd of moose thathad died, because there was all
(33:04):
them turkey vultures justcircling, circling, circling,
right.
So you'd take them down andpeople would watch Like they'd
load up the boat and it was likethe Pied Piper man as he takes
the boat out.
We would dump the slop up ontothe shoreline never in the water
(33:26):
, especially the gut buckets too, because it's actually illegal
to throw fish carcasses in thelake.
Why, I'm not 100% sure, but wewould throw it all up on, uh, on
a stretch of shoreline.
And those birds, man, oh man,like I say, they were an hour
early every day and they didn'tleave until the job was done.
(33:49):
Um, and they ate everything,the only thing, funny enough.
Well, I can understand why theydidn't eat it.
And we stopped putting them inthe slop buckets where lemon
rinds, like when you squeeze alemon.
(34:09):
They wouldn't eat the lemonrinds and at the end of the day
they break down as well.
But it was taking too long andnobody eats lemon rinds, so we
would just throw those in thegarbage.
But yeah, that's um, yeah so wedid.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So we had, we just had a, so we had Dennis would go
every day, which was great,right, we could.
Just we had the luxury of justbeing able to do that.
Yeah, and our slot bucket, ifwe, if we did maintain one
because it could just go in thegarbage if we did maintain one,
we just dumped it out on anisland.
You know, nordic was, it waseasy for that.
The guys were spoon fed when itcame to that.
(34:47):
But I remember at t2 it wasmore, or at maynard, at my buddy
josh's, it was more, like whatyou have because they're on
islands, right.
So we'd have to go daily.
We didn't have a crew thatwould do it, we just had.
You know, whoever was on shorewould go and do it to the 10 or
15 guides who were there.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
So Morris Woodland was the first guy I ever hired
at Nordic.
He was a good friend of mine.
He worked at T2.
He was at T2 for like eightyears, nine years.
Good old, doofy boy, labradorguy actually lives in the middle
of nowhere kind of thing.
You know he's a bush guy.
This guy, you know, like Iwould offer him.
(35:29):
I remember when we firststarted building and I'd be like
come stay in the house with me.
You know it's 20 degrees.
You got a wood fireplace, a hottub a.
TV?
No, he would.
He stayed down in cabin fiveand he would come up to my house
and get running water and hewould take it down there and he
had little heaters in his cabinand that's how he would use the
(35:52):
washroom.
He would never want to come upto the house.
He didn't want.
He wanted to bathe with a youknow a sponge.
He just didn't.
You know, he just wasn't himand he was a clean guy.
He was.
You know, it's just how helived growing up in the Northern
part of the world and he justwas used to it and he liked his
(36:13):
privacy.
So anyway, mo was with me downat T2.
That's how we'd met and thisone particular day, whenever I
didn't really if there was a daywhich wasn't very often that I
didn't guide I was able to gointo town.
Me and Mo were kind of the townguys, right, we had the
responsibility to take thecheckbook in and go do the shit
(36:33):
in town.
We needed, on the way we woulddo a garbage run, responsibility
to take the checkbook in and godo the shit in town we needed
and on the way we would do agarbage run.
So this one particular day, meand Mo were off the water and we
were going into wholesale to doa bunch of you know, I think we
were getting water and just abunch of shit from the chef, and
on the way in there was likeeight or ten garbage bags and we
threw them in the boat and runthem down to the landing.
And we were going up there, runthem down to the landing and
(36:54):
we're going up there.
There was a big steep hill andat the top we had this old 1500
series, you know early 90s Chevy, with a cap on the back.
So we would pitch the garbageinto there, you know, for like
two days at a time, three daysat a time, and then the boys
would run it to the dump.
Whenever it started to get fullthey'd just take the truck and
go yeah, so we sure enough.
(37:18):
So we got these bags and I loadthem out on the dock and Morris
, he throws one around one sideof his shoulder and one around
the other and he goes trekkingup the hill.
Well, he gets to the top andI'm just getting out of the boat
with the last bags and I throwone over my shoulder, throw one
over the other, and I'm lookingup the hill and Morris.
I watch him.
He opens up the gate of the I'msorry, the window part of the
(37:44):
truck cap in the back and heopens it up and a freaking bear
and it was probably like four350.
It was a good size female.
It came ripping right out theleft side.
Morris drops the bags and thecrap fell on his pants and he
(38:04):
goes left, the bear goes right.
And so I'm on the dock and Idrop the bags and I'm on my
knees rolling right Because I'mscared to poop out of them,
right, yeah, yeah, oh man, Steve, it was so classic.
Morris, if you're out there,we'll never forget that story,
that story buddy between me andyou.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
that's one of the ones we'll go to the grave with
oh, good old morris and the bearyeah it was good when you're in
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Speaker 2 (40:17):
Gardening good topic, buddy.
I love that.
Yeah, I think we GeneralJarrett, chef Machete last year
he would like he did what youdid a little bit.
He had like a little wheelthing outside full of dirt and
he would do his time andwhatever the sage or whatever he
grew in there.
But he was always bugging me Upat the house.
(40:37):
There we had a raised guard bedand he was bugging me to encase
it like a greenhouse and if Iwould have stayed there I would
have let him for sure, becauseit was a cool thing you know he
had talked into.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Well, a greenhouse is one of those things that I'm
thinking about here for my place, but that's a whole other story
.
Yeah, for my place, but that'sa whole nother story.
I have a little greenhouse forstarting plants.
Like this week I'm probablygoing to start my tomatoes and
peppers and all of the plantsthat I'll put in the garden and
(41:11):
then you start them inside andonce they get to be about two,
three inches tall, then I'llmove those trays right out into
the greenhouse outside, becauseyou like to have them grow when
they're small especiallytomatoes and peppers in a cooler
(41:32):
environment, not cold, becausecold they won't grow, but cooler
, because they'll grow morerobust if they're in a warm and
um and um, humid environment.
Uh, they, uh, they get spindly,they'll, they'll, um, they'll
grow um, um, very quickly, talland without and without strength
(41:57):
.
So you want to grow them in acooler environment and this time
of the year, a small greenhouseoutside.
It provides a perfect spot forit.
But back at Chaudière the otherthing that built up being on an
island, the other thing thatbuilt up being on an island I
(42:35):
had the boathouse, which was abig building where we stored all
of our cedar strips and boats,all of our aluminum boats that
were under 16 feet tall.
But through the summer that wasthe place that all of our
empties went.
Oh yeah, and we didn't take ourempties back until the season
was over, and that was always aperk for the staff because we
would have our year-end staffparty.
(42:55):
Oh yeah, and the empties werewhat funded it.
Yep, and man, oh man, you wantto talk about empties.
The first couple of years Iforgot, and in Noelville we
would take our bottles to thebeer store.
(43:18):
Listen, folks, for those peopleand hey, for the girls and guys
up at the Noelville beer store.
I apologize again, but yeah,they tend to get a little bit
worked up when you show up withfive pickup trucks full of
(43:38):
empties and you don't call inadvance because they're
understaffed to deal with them.
But oh yeah, like I mean, theempties that built up on that
island were ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Well, what a party for the staff at the end of the
year, though They'd be excitedto run all them to town, I bet.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Oh yeah.
Well, that was the easiest wayto motivate people to actually
clean them up.
You know, listen, gather themall up and then they would take
them down to the boathouse andeverybody kind of kept a running
tally on roughly what was downthere.
But there were some years wherewe were taking back $3,000 in
(44:23):
empties.
That's a lot of empties.
Oh yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I mean, I'm guessing we would say I just never even
thought about it right, becausewe just huh.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, awesome, yeah, well, and you were licensed.
I wasn't.
This was just booze that peoplewere, that, that people were
bringing and, and uh, bottlesthat were going into the garbage
or into into the recycle bins.
We always had, uh, well, assoon as, uh, as soon as the uh,
the staff um understood that, uh, all of the empty money was
(44:52):
going to go to benefit them.
Then everybody's mindful ofmaking sure that we collect all
the empties right, which is agood thing.
So, yeah, no, it was good, butwe're kind of getting Just
imagine, flying all that out ona plane.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
So I know Josh, up at Maynard, he, everything besides
his slop buckets goes out onthe plane there, not on the boat
.
Everything's because there's notrail, there's no road anywhere
near, so everything has to goout on the plane from River Air.
It's a headache, wow the cans.
(45:31):
You can't leave nothing likethat there, right.
So everything's got to go likethat.
And it's a headache man, I knowthat.
And it's a headache man, I knowthat.
It's a.
It's a big headache.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
That's crazy.
Well, and and, and like I mean,a lot of the the lodge owners
from from days gone by.
I know it doesn't happen, itdoesn't happen much anymore and
uh, hasn't happened on shoddyair island for probably 40 years
.
But, um, like I mean, as a kid,I, I, I collect jars and old
(46:05):
bottles and and not not so muchbottles anymore.
I still have this weird littlefetish with, uh, with um, turn
of the century-century Canadianceiling jars.
But there's another story too.
But I used to bike around thecountryside back in the 80s and
(46:29):
very early 90s with a buddy ofmine and at that time all of the
farms in East Luther andAmaranth Township and
Melanchthon Township and all ofthese townships around us that
was when there was the recessionin the late 80s and a lot of
(46:49):
derelict farms, you know, oldfarmhouses that, uh, that were
beat up and falling down, andand, uh, we would, uh, we would
jump on our bikes on a saturdaymorning and spend all day biking
around the countryside andthere were, there were three
(47:13):
locations that that we would keyin on, that we learned to go
and find old bottles and oldjars, and the first location, as
you can imagine, was thebasement, because that's where
you find old jars, becausepeople would can and preserve
(47:34):
and the jars go on a shelfsomewhere in the basement.
We checked there but then once,like I mean, after that,
there's really nowhere in ahouse that you would find old
glass like that.
And there were two other placeson a farm where you would look,
and this is where it kind ofties in to what we're talking
(47:59):
about.
You would go to a lot of thefarms.
Obviously they have a barn, abunk barn, and to get into the
upstairs of the bunk barn on thebackside they would build what
we always knew as a kid wascalled the barn dump hill.
(48:22):
Right, and the barn dump hillwas the hill that they would put
on the backside of the barn.
So you could go up this ramp ofdirt into the back of the
backside of the barn, onto thethrash floor, onto the second
floor, so you could get your hayand your straw and your grain
(48:42):
and everything you want to storeon the second floor.
Yeah, yeah, well, they call it abarn dump hill for a reason,
and when they built barn dumphills they threw all of their
garbage in and buried it rightin the barn dump hill.
So, for whenever they built thebarn which could have been the
(49:05):
late 1800s, who the hell knowsyep, there was always garbage
that was thrown into the barndump hill.
So we would excavate with, uh,with um hand tools, little
shovels and, you know, likegardening shit and whatever we
could find to dig into thesebarn dump hills, and you would
(49:26):
start to unearth these pieces ofglass that were over 100 years
old, and once we kind of,because you couldn't get too
terribly far into the barn dumphill and it seemed like that was
rough on glass, right, you werehard pressed to find pieces
(49:51):
that weren't broke, but you did.
And then you would look at thefarmhouse and you would pick the
furthest place away from thehouse on that farm, typically if
there's bush there.
And then we'd head out thereand you would walk through the
(50:11):
bush and every farm back inthose days at the turn of the
century, through the 30s, 40s,50s, even into the 60s, they all
had a dump right, yep, and alot of them, a lot of people
would just cart their shit backinto the corner of the farm and
(50:33):
dump all their garbage in theback corner of the farm, yep, so
you'd be out there and you'dlook and the first thing that
you would see is rusted cans ontop.
And then now all of a sudden,me and Evan and I were we're
excited, right.
We're like, oh my God, we foundanother dump.
(50:53):
It's the mother road, oh yeah.
Well, like I mean, there wassome pretty, some pretty cool
shit that we, that we unearthedout of that stuff and that plays
into what I found.
With these places, especiallyout on islands, where it's next
to impossible to get stuff offthe island again, there's big
(51:21):
old dumps and behind theseplaces and, um, a lot of them
you wouldn't see now becausethey're they haven't been used
for 20 or 30 years.
Um, but the the I can, I, I cantotally understand how the old
timers who had these places thatwere isolated like that and the
(51:43):
effort it takes to get stuff ina lot of that stuff never left.
Yeah, and uh, uh, you knowthere were at at chaudiere, we,
um, there was one year we endedup, um, I, I dropped something,
or somebody dropped somethingoff of our dock and our dock's
(52:04):
about 12 feet deep, the mainpier, and I think it was like a
big adjustable wrench, like a,you know, like a big, big
adjustable wrench.
I wanted it back, somethingworth going for.
So anyway, yeah, we had Budbring his scuba gear up and the
(52:27):
shit that he pulled up fromunderneath our dock.
He pulled up a trolling, one ofthe very first trolling motors
I think were ever built, likefrom 1980.
It was crazy, the stuff thataccumulates off the bottom of
underneath your dock.
(52:47):
I wouldn't do that.
So, yeah, folks, if you havetime and you're interested in
shit like that, when you go upto the lodge now, I'm not
suggesting you do this wheneverybody's driving their boats
into the dock, but if you takeyour snorkeling gear and at a
(53:09):
slow time you go down, andespecially if you've got a lodge
with a deep dock, there aresome treasures under there that
you wouldn't even know.
I bet yeah, I bet yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
So what do you got on the go for today, there, my
buddy, I am, a couple ofmeetings this morning and then I
actually had really goodfriends and guests of mine kind
of like your people that youjust went down to Texas to see.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Oh yeah, yeah, Sonia and Joe and Deb and Fred, fred,
the whole crowd down there yeah,we uh, we got our, our little
group up here.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
They're the Smoods, um, don and Rhonda.
They uh, they actually didshows for me and Krista in our
first year.
We made a couple of them but wecouldn't get to them all with
all the renovating, all thechaos going on.
So they were kind enough to youknow they would go sit in the
booth for us for for a show andwe would just take the calls and
, um, it was great actuallydoing that, because having a
(54:08):
guest represent you after ohyeah spent with them right was
great.
It was great for the otherguests to see, like, oh, this
guy's got a guest in there right, it was good.
So, um, yeah, we've been goodfriends with them for over a
decade and we've had quite a fewpeople reaching out to us.
Actually, to be honest with you, I've probably had my phone
(54:29):
ring and email ring about over100 times since I've shot that,
since I got out of that lodge,and everybody had the same
answer they feel we did anamazing job, they loved it there
, they're happy for the futureand they just wish me my health
and these people I'm like well,I'll come up, let's go for a
little ice fish before the endof the year.
So the ice road here right nowis the road's in good shape.
(54:53):
We got lots of ice, tons of icestill, but like I mean I
wouldn't think this year the icewill go out before May 5th, may
10th It'll be.
You'll be hard pressed to getit out before then.
And Nice, yeah, which is great,right, because we can get, so
we can fish for another coupleweeks here.
So, yeah, side by sides andsleds, you'd be able to go for
(55:17):
another three weeks still, butminimum, but like taking the
truck out.
So we're going to go out todayin the truck.
Sometimes this time of the yearthe landings right will get
washed out or beat up frompeople going in and out.
We had a 10-degree day about aweek ago and it really did
damage.
I thought the road was going toclose but it dropped back to
minus 20 here and everything'sgood.
(55:38):
So we're going to head waysouth on Lake of the Woods, head
down by Rope Island, see if wecan get some walleyes, a couple
crappies, and then tomorrow I'mgoing to go back laking in the
afternoon.
Take these people into a littlelake, trout lake.
I'm going to go back lakinginto there.
I know a spot where we can getsome 40-plus inches.
We've caught two out of them inthere in the last five years,
(55:59):
so we might not catch shitloadstomorrow, but hopefully we catch
a big one.
That's the plan.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Yeah, good luck with that.
Yeah, and I'm just fresh off ofthe Sportsman Show with the
Fish and Canada television showwith our 40th season 40 years
now and the show this year hey40 years.
Our 40th season well, I say our,it's definitely not mine Ang's
(56:30):
40th season of being on nationaltelevision with the Fish and
Canada television show is comingis this season that we're
shooting right now?
Television show is coming is isour.
Is this season that we'reshooting right now?
So that was, uh, that was a bigdeal for for us and and we were
(56:51):
at the sportsman show, um,promoting it, and I got to tell
you it was probably the busiestshow that I can remember.
Now my memory's not all thatgreat, to be honest with you,
and I've done quite a fewsportsman shows, like Toronto
sportsman shows, but I I'm I'mhappy to say I think that the
(57:13):
COVID hangover is has has woreoff.
Oh great, like I mean, therewere, it was busy and it was
awesome.
It was awesome to be out thereand to see all of you folks and
the Diaries family.
There were so many of youstopping in and saying hello,
(57:36):
did we have lots to stop?
Speaker 2 (57:36):
I didn't get there.
This year I wasn't there andI'm so sad I didn't go because I
you guys all know that's been apart of my heart for a long
time, since I was with mygrandfather down there carving
ducks.
But like, yeah, I was crushedthat I couldn't go.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yeah, no there were a ton of people asking about you
and coming in and talking diarystuff and listen.
I just wanted to say, um, hey,nixon, and nixon was the cutest
little fella.
He's probably I don't know six,seven years old and, um, uh, he
(58:15):
listens to diaries of a lodgeowner every night and it puts
him to sleep nice.
So, um, so, nixon, I just wantto say night night, bud, you
have a good sleep.
Okay, that's awesome.
And thank you to all of theDiaries family and Fish and
Canada fans that stopped by thebooth and said hello and told us
(58:40):
your stories and it was areally, really good show.
And you know, shows can bedaunting.
That's one thing I learned.
They're a lot of work and ittakes a lot of effort to get out
and do it, but this was soworth it for me, awesome.
(59:02):
And the Fish and Canada crew Um,uh, I just wanted to thank
everybody that that come by thebooth this year and uh, and said
hello it.
It really meant a lot to, to usand and Ange in particular.
So, um, uh, great job to uh, tothe uh organizers at the at the
(59:23):
Sportsman Show and great job tomy brother from another mother,
ange, who also won a very, veryprestigious conservation award
in which Doug Ford come downwith the Minister of Natural
(59:43):
Resources, garrett Smith, theycome down to present to him.
So that was very exciting too.
Nice, very proud of my brotherfrom another mother.
So that was wonderful.
But I just wanted to make sureI said night-night to Nixon Nice
(01:00:04):
, because he is one of our greatmembers, one of the best little
members of the Diaries family,nice.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Well, Nixon, it's a pleasure to meet you and I hope
you have a wonderful sleep.
And man, that's awesome.
What a great story, Great story.
Yeah, Wonderful sleep.
And man, that's awesome.
What a great story, Great story.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Yeah Well, welly boy, that just about does it for
another week.
So it's that sad time again.
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Where we've got to say goodbye to these beautiful
people.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yes, but before that I just want to thank Andrew from
Lakeside Marine and all oftheir support.
We're going to have Andrew onhere, coming up in the next
couple of weeks to help guide usall when we're getting our
boats out, now that the days aregetting longer and we're
(01:00:58):
starting to think and man, ohman, it's coming quick.
I got to do a bunch of work onmy boat and I'm like, oh my God,
I'm going to run out of timehere.
And then all of a sudden, I gotto get to the cottage and get
up to the Upper French and Idon't got a boat.
And you know, you know, you gotto start thinking about getting
your boat out when your wifementions it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Oh, that's yeah.
Yeah, you're behind the ball,oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yeah, yeah.
So we're going to have Andrewon with and talk about the
things we need to do to getstuff going and ready this
spring.
And again, folks head on overto fishincanadacom.
We've got some amazing new SKUsor merchandise in our
(01:01:46):
repertoire.
Timmy Dawson from Campus Crew.
He does all that work for usand the merchandise flew off the
shelves.
Although it was so well-pricedand such great quality, I wasn't
(01:02:06):
surprised at all.
But you can check all of thatout on fishincanadacom.
Get into those free giveaways,folks.
And again to the family, thankyou so much for listening.
We really, really appreciateeverything you do.
And thus brings us to theconclusion of another episode of
(01:02:30):
Diaries of a Lodge Owner.
Stories of the North.
Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Never meanin' no harm .
I'll be the all you ever saw.
Been reeling in the hog Sincethe day I was born, bending my
rock, stretching my line.
Someday I might own a lodge,and that'd be fine.
(01:02:58):
I'll be making my way the onlyway I know how, working hard and
sharing the north With all ofmy pals.
Well, I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
I bought a lodge and lived my dream, and now I'm here
talking about how life can beas good as it seems.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Hi everybody.
I'm Angelo Viola and I'm PeteBowman.
Now you might know us as thehosts of Canada's Favorite
Fishing Show, but now we'rehosting a podcast.
That's right.
Every Thursday, ange and I willbe right here in your ears
bringing you a brand new episodeof Outdoor Journal Radio.
Now, what are we going to talkabout for two hours every week?
Well, you know, there's goingto be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 5 (01:03:52):
I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and
how to catch them, and they wereeasy to catch.
Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
We're going to be talking topeople from all facets of the
outdoors, from athletes, All theother guys would go golfing Me
and Garton Turk and all theRussians would go fishing.
To scientists.
Speaker 5 (01:04:11):
But now that we're reforesting and letting things
breathe, it's the perfecttransmission environment for
line fishing.
Speaker 6 (01:04:17):
To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated
, you will taste it.
Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you
are.
Outdoor Journal Radio seeks toanswer the questions and tell
the stories of all those whoenjoy being outside.
Find us on Spotify, applePodcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons
of our natural world becomelouder and louder.
The lessons of our naturalworld become harder and harder
to hear, but they are stillavailable to those who know
where to listen.
I'm Jerry Ouellette and I washonoured to serve as Ontario's
Minister of Natural Resources.
However, my journey into thewoods didn't come from politics.
(01:05:01):
Rather, it came from my time inthe bush and a mushroom.
In 2015, I was introduced tothe birch-hungry fungus known as
chaga, a tree conch withcenturies of medicinal use by
Indigenous peoples all over theglobe.
After nearly a decade of harvestuse, testimonials and research,
(01:05:24):
my skepticism has faded toobsession and I now spend my
life dedicated to improving thelives of others through natural
means.
But that's not what the show isabout.
My pursuit of the strangemushroom and my passion for the
outdoors has brought me to theplaces and around the people
that are shaped by our naturalworld.
On Outdoor Journal Radio'sUnder the Canopy podcast, I'm
(01:05:48):
going to take you along with meto see the places, meet the
people that will help you findyour outdoor passion and help
you live a life close to natureand under the canopy Find Under
the Canopy now on Spotify, applePodcasts or wherever else you
get your podcasts.
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