Lindy and Elenna Give us a Glimpse Into Land Ownership With Multiple Partners.

Two of our favourite people, one of Tim's sisters and her wife drop by to tell us about a semi-recent land purchase that happened a couple of hours north east of Toronto. They're part of a collection of folks that got together specifically to do this, with the intent of being good land stewards. Helping others connect or reconnect with nature. Improve mental health, Eat amazing food grown on "The Land" as it's known. And generally find a space where they can get away from the nuttiness of the city & spending all day staring at a computer screen.
Come have a listen.

Transcript

00:00 - 00:01
Hello and good day, eh.

00:01 - 00:04
Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela.

00:04 - 00:08
I'm Tim and we are from supergoodcamping.com we are here because we are on a mission to inspire

00:08 - 00:13
other families to enjoy camping adventures such as we have with our kids today.

00:13 - 00:18
In another of our non youtuber people doing extraordinary things episodes, we have a couple

00:18 - 00:20
of our family members, Lindy and Lena.

00:20 - 00:24
So I'm going to turn it over to them just briefly to give us a little intro of themselves.

00:24 - 00:27
Hi, I'm Lindy. What can I say?

00:27 - 00:36
I am a project manager who's studying to be a psychotherapist who really enjoys spending a lot

00:36 - 00:42
of time on our backcountry land for most of the warm season.

00:43 - 00:52
And I'm Elena. I am a leadership coach and experiential education designer and I have been spending

00:52 - 01:00
time deep in the forest since I was a child and have been finding ways to do so through my whole life as an adult.

01:00 - 01:03
And it keeps changing and shifting the forms.

01:04 - 01:06
Excited to be here with you today.

01:07 - 01:09
Yeah, welcome, welcome.

01:09 - 01:10
Yay. Thank you.

01:11 - 01:15
Well, yes. You have your very own private backcountry. That's just amazing.

01:15 - 01:17
Yes. Jealous, Very jealous.

01:17 - 01:17
Yeah.

01:18 - 01:20
So, so tell us a little bit about it.

01:20 - 01:27
Where roughly, because we don't want to give it away. Where? Here in southern Ontario. Yeah, exactly. Southern Ontario.

01:27 - 01:31
And how many, how many hours away from Toronto?

01:32 - 01:38
It is depending on traffic as everything requires the 401.

01:39 - 01:41
It's about, it's about two and a half hours.

01:41 - 01:45
It's sort of northeast of Peterborough direction kind of thing.

01:45 - 01:55
So we have 350 acres of backcountry land two and a half hours out of Toronto that we purchased

01:55 - 02:03
in 28, 2019 with a group of 10 other people besides ourselves.

02:03 - 02:11
So it's on a river, we have a river camp down there that has a really decrepit old hunting lodge

02:11 - 02:15
in it that we're slowly eventually fixing up.

02:15 - 02:16
But rustic.

02:16 - 02:19
Rustic. Yes, rustic. A beautiful rustic.

02:19 - 02:22
I think the term is horror film set.

02:22 - 02:24
Horror film set was what it did.

02:24 - 02:26
Look like when we got it. Yeah.

02:26 - 02:29
Was it looked like a bunch of men in the 80s had a.

02:29 - 02:31
All night weekend party and just.

02:31 - 02:32
And then just vanished.

02:32 - 02:33
And just vanished.

02:34 - 02:35
Yeah.

02:35 - 02:38
Mid cigar in the ashtrays, tracks on the wall.

02:39 - 02:41
Yeah, it was a bit Blair Witchy, it's true.

02:41 - 02:49
And so we spend, we spend the whole season down there on the river camp as a, as a community.

02:49 - 02:53
We have a little village, everyone has a bell tent.

02:53 - 02:56
So we set up our own little living rooms down there.

02:56 - 03:01
We have a Big shared community kitchen and a central fire pit and a couple of swim spots.

03:01 - 03:03
And we have a sauna.

03:03 - 03:09
We've got a sauna down by the river. Birdhouse sauna. And yeah, we still.

03:09 - 03:12
I'm giving, I just for the record, I'm giving them weird looks.

03:13 - 03:14
You're in the middle of nowhere.

03:14 - 03:17
How do you have a sauna? Like is it.

03:17 - 03:23
It's a wood burning little birdhouse, wood burning sauna that the company who made it brought it down there.

03:23 - 03:28
It was, you know, someone in the group of us sort of had some, I guess, money to burn and they

03:28 - 03:29
were like, we want a sauna.

03:29 - 03:36
So around it, not to make it seem too fancy around it, we just have planks. Right now we don't.

03:36 - 03:37
One day we're gonna build a deck.

03:37 - 03:44
But it's basically like wood sweat in there and then jump in the, in the freezing river and watch the poison.

03:44 - 03:46
Ivy on your way down to the river.

03:47 - 03:48
It's a good game.

03:48 - 03:49
Yeah, yeah, it's a totally a good game.

03:50 - 03:50
Yeah.

03:52 - 03:54
That sounds quite cool. How community.

03:54 - 03:56
So you're, you're talking about buildings.

03:56 - 04:02
And I keep, I keep picturing like just like a building over there, a building over there.

04:02 - 04:04
Like it's a community kitchen.

04:04 - 04:13
Well, aside from the horror show old hunting launch and the sauna's an actual structure, the

04:13 - 04:18
community kitchen is a geodesic dome that's covered in.

04:18 - 04:22
It's not like it's a fabric, but it's not.

04:22 - 04:24
I don't even know what. It's like a plasticky.

04:24 - 04:30
It's got a cover for it and then we wrap it in a bit of bug netting.

04:30 - 04:33
But it's basically a geodesic dome that was donated by a friend of a.

04:33 - 04:36
Friend who was that burning man and.

04:36 - 04:39
Didn'T have a place to put their geodesic dome, so they put it there.

04:39 - 04:43
And then we kind of built a structure to insert two sinks into.

04:43 - 04:51
But it's all like, you know, bottles of water to do dishes from the river and two propane high

04:51 - 04:54
top kind of burners like that.

04:54 - 04:56
And just we've created a system.

04:56 - 05:02
It's very, it's cobbled together, it's rustic and it's being improved year over year. Yeah.

05:02 - 05:06
So bottles of water. I was just thinking jugs.

05:06 - 05:08
It's more like, you know, those big jugs.

05:08 - 05:09
We have 30 of them.

05:09 - 05:12
We have to do water runs to fill them up down at the river.

05:13 - 05:13
Water you don't.

05:13 - 05:13
We use.

05:13 - 05:15
We can't, we can't drink it, but.

05:15 - 05:16
We don't drink dishes with it. Yeah.

05:16 - 05:17
But it's.

05:17 - 05:20
Right. How far away from the river is the geodesic dome?

05:20 - 05:22
The kitchen? You mean the.

05:23 - 05:24
I mean, we take.

05:24 - 05:29
We take a UTV vehicle down with all the bottles and fill it up. So. So.

05:29 - 05:32
So in that three minutes. But it's.

05:32 - 05:35
You don't want to be lugging, like, to lug the water up.

05:35 - 05:42
We're working this year. We're working this year on getting a pump from the river up to the kitchen. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we're.

05:42 - 05:45
That's what we're up to this upcoming season. Figuring that out. Yeah.

05:45 - 05:50
So there's remnants. Like, there is a tower that has one of those big rain bales on it, but.

05:51 - 05:55
And there's maybe some kind of pipe underground.

05:55 - 05:58
But it's been a bit of a scavenger hunt to figure out how things.

05:58 - 06:01
Worked when once upon a time, the.

06:01 - 06:03
Hunters were there before they disappeared.

06:03 - 06:04
Right before they disappeared in the middle.

06:04 - 06:05
In the dark of night.

06:06 - 06:09
Yeah. Left all of their whiskey bottles, of.

06:09 - 06:10
Course, and the shotgun.

06:10 - 06:10
Yeah.

06:10 - 06:11
Nice.

06:11 - 06:13
Is it still. Still there?

06:13 - 06:13
Yeah.

06:13 - 06:15
No, no.

06:15 - 06:17
Probably. We just haven't found it yet.

06:17 - 06:21
But, like, a World War II generator still exists in the. In the cabin. Cool.

06:21 - 06:22
We haven't sparked up, but we could.

06:22 - 06:23
Probably shouldn't.

06:24 - 06:25
I think we should.

06:26 - 06:28
I might get a mechanic or something to look at.

06:28 - 06:33
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe when you come visit, we'll let you.

06:33 - 06:34
We'll let you spark it up.

06:35 - 06:39
Cool. So. So where did the idea come from? Did.

06:39 - 06:41
Did you hear about it and go, yeah, that's a great idea.

06:41 - 06:44
Were you looking for it? Something along those lines? Like, how did.

06:44 - 06:46
How did that come into play?

06:46 - 06:53
So in 2018, a friend of ours called us and said, hey, there's this group of people getting together in the city.

06:53 - 06:55
They're talking about buying some land.

06:55 - 06:57
And I thought maybe you.

06:58 - 06:59
You two might want to be in the conversation.

07:00 - 07:01
Do we want to come to a meeting?

07:02 - 07:04
We were like, sure, why not?

07:04 - 07:11
So we went to a meeting at someone's house, and it was like, a group of people that.

07:12 - 07:14
A very interesting group of people.

07:15 - 07:23
And everyone there had different reasons for wanting to buy land, be part of a community with land. And we kept meeting.

07:23 - 07:31
So we started meeting every couple weeks, and a group of people, like, started to form a core

07:31 - 07:35
group of people who were continuing to vision. Hi, that's my dog.

07:35 - 07:42
And we met for a year before land actually came up or there was an offer on the table.

07:42 - 07:50
And in that year, we spent time visioning, getting to know each other, trying to find how our values were aligned.

07:50 - 07:57
And Then two of the people were in relationship with a friend of theirs, and the property next

07:57 - 08:06
door to their friends came up for sale, and the owner wanted to sell to the right people or

08:06 - 08:12
a group of people who were going to take care of the land, not just try and develop it.

08:12 - 08:14
And we were those people.

08:14 - 08:20
And so in 2019, we purchased the land as a group.

08:20 - 08:26
So in addition to rehabilitating some of the buildings, it sounds like one building taking care of the land.

08:26 - 08:29
What does that mean as far as taking care of the land?

08:29 - 08:40
Well, we're looking at it as we're trying to learn and to step into different terms like stewarding the land and decolonizing.

08:40 - 08:46
So it's not just about destroying everything or cutting down all the trees and doing what we

08:46 - 08:53
want, but trying to spend time in the land and see what makes sense and what feels good.

08:53 - 09:00
And also, like, moving really slowly in terms of making decisions of, like, what we're putting up, where.

09:00 - 09:08
And the idea is never to have basically a whole bunch of structures down by the river, but to

09:08 - 09:12
be very deliberate in terms of what we build and why.

09:12 - 09:18
Even the trails, like, we've built very specific trails to the place we like to swim, trails,

09:18 - 09:25
you know, to get to a certain location so that it's not just everyone stomping through all of

09:25 - 09:29
the forest floor and destroying everything like we're trying to be.

09:29 - 09:34
And we know we're not perfect, but we're trying to be a bit more deliberate as to, like, how we.

09:34 - 09:39
I think what Lindy's saying is we're really paying attention to the ecosystem and our. And our.

09:39 - 09:43
Our hope and our goal is to not interrupt it in a.

09:43 - 09:50
In a way that is detrimental, in the way that most of the rest of the world has been very detrimental to the environmental ecosystem.

09:50 - 09:58
So paying attention to it, learning from it, making decisions based on how it flows and what

09:58 - 10:02
it needs, as opposed to just our own needs first.

10:02 - 10:04
Are you replanting things?

10:05 - 10:08
No, there's no reforesting necessarily.

10:08 - 10:17
We have planted some food gardens and some hugelkultur beds that have, like, sort of like pollinator

10:18 - 10:24
kind of gardens to try and keep the pollinators going as well as we. We had that.

10:24 - 10:28
That caterpillar infestation that was here a bunch of years ago.

10:28 - 10:30
So, like, saving the trees from those. From.

10:30 - 10:32
From those things by wrapping them.

10:32 - 10:36
And because we did have a number of trees destroyed, and particularly the birch trees around

10:37 - 10:42
our central camp just got kind of slaughtered and decimated.

10:42 - 10:45
So we've been trying to keep them.

10:46 - 10:49
Keep them well and Healthy and not just so depleted.

10:51 - 10:58
Speaking of trees, do you, do you harvest at all in the sense that, know if you've got a wood burning.

10:58 - 11:03
Sauna, we, we do, we try and harvest dead standing.

11:04 - 11:11
Dead dead standing trees for fire and things like that and not just harvest unnecessary trees.

11:11 - 11:17
And even there is a second geodesic dome that we did build.

11:18 - 11:22
But yeah, so we were very deliberate as to like where things go.

11:23 - 11:26
We're always trying to take down.

11:26 - 11:31
If we're going to take down trees, it's always the least number that need to fall in order to

11:31 - 11:33
do what we're going to do.

11:34 - 11:40
Okay. And obviously already deceased trees. Yes.

11:40 - 11:48
Do you, do you avoid any of them in the sense that, you know, like Ontario parks, you don't

11:48 - 11:55
harvest in certainly in front country Ontario parks because they want it to fall, they'll cut

11:55 - 11:59
it so that if it's blocking a trail and then they'll toss off to the side because then it becomes,

11:59 - 12:06
well, aside from just, you know, breaking down and becoming, you know, plant matter for further

12:06 - 12:11
growth, it's also homes to, you know, insects and animals and stuff like that.

12:11 - 12:13
Do you, Is that part of the.

12:14 - 12:16
Is there, is that part of your thinking?

12:16 - 12:17
Definitely.

12:17 - 12:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, we're never, we're not just constantly cutting down trees. It's sort of like.

12:21 - 12:23
No, no, I wasn't. Sorry, I wasn't.

12:23 - 12:25
No, no, no, I know that. But like there.

12:25 - 12:32
We have had to because there have been major storms that have, where trees have fallen in paths

12:32 - 12:42
and so those have been cut and maybe pieces been harvested and then other pieces have just been set aside to be. To decompose. Yeah.

12:43 - 12:46
So it's never, it's very deliberate.

12:46 - 12:52
We have very deliberate, slower conversations around like what are we cutting and why and how

12:52 - 12:56
and who and when and those sorts of things. Yeah.

12:56 - 12:59
We're doing our best to, to be.

12:59 - 13:05
Better about the woods while simultaneously learning about the woods because most of us are city kids.

13:05 - 13:07
Sure. But that's good. That's.

13:07 - 13:09
I mean, you get thumbs up for me. Yeah.

13:10 - 13:14
Anybody out in nature not trying to wreck it? Yay.

13:14 - 13:14
Yeah.

13:14 - 13:15
Right?

13:15 - 13:15
Yeah.

13:15 - 13:19
Because there's. Most of them are out there trying to wreck it. Doug Ford.

13:19 - 13:24
Yes. Sound effect of the Doug Ford.

13:24 - 13:29
Yes. Bonehead. Okay, cool. So 350 acres.

13:30 - 13:35
Yes. We have not even, we, we have not even covered the entirety of it.

13:35 - 13:40
There's a bunch of spaces that are like wetlands and there are some places that when you walk,

13:40 - 13:45
I don't know if anyone else has had this experience listening, but sometimes you walk through

13:45 - 13:47
a part of the forest and it just feels different.

13:47 - 13:50
Like it feels scary or there's an energy there.

13:50 - 13:52
You're like, ooh, I don't think we're supposed to be here.

13:52 - 13:54
And you sort of don't know why.

13:54 - 13:56
So we pay attention to that stuff a lot.

13:56 - 13:57
We're a bit woo woo for some.

13:57 - 13:59
Yeah, yeah, we're a bit woo woo.

13:59 - 14:06
So there are, there are some parts, you can feel the history of the land and there are some

14:06 - 14:11
parts where you're like, something doesn't want us over there, so we don't have to go over.

14:11 - 14:11
We're not gonna go.

14:11 - 14:18
We're trying to like, you know, sense into that and basically be like some strange energy over there.

14:18 - 14:22
There's a part where we all joke that like, oh, did you get lost in the portal?

14:22 - 14:26
Because there's a part of the land where you honestly go where you're entirely disoriented.

14:26 - 14:28
Even the dog doesn't know what's going, going on.

14:28 - 14:29
Like the Bermuda Triangle.

14:29 - 14:30
Yeah.

14:30 - 14:31
Where all of us have been lost.

14:31 - 14:36
We've taken the wrong fork trying to get to this waterfall section and all of us have come back

14:36 - 14:40
and been like, you guys will never guess what just happened to me.

14:40 - 14:41
I didn't know where I went.

14:41 - 14:43
I don't know if I was on the land still.

14:43 - 14:54
Well, no, that's great. I had a friend who had a 40 acre plot and, and I, we like spent the

14:54 - 14:56
day and I, I still didn't get to check it all out.

14:56 - 14:56
So.

14:56 - 14:59
Yeah, that's through 350 head. That'd be a while.

14:59 - 15:11
Out of curiosity, have, have you done any research investigation into if, if there's any indigenous tie to your land?

15:11 - 15:11
Definitely?

15:11 - 15:13
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:13 - 15:15
Tell me about it there.

15:15 - 15:25
I mean, we've researched who, who was on the land and there's also like people have found petroglyphs.

15:26 - 15:35
Like they've, they found things there like that sort of suggest that we haven't done a very deep set of research.

15:35 - 15:36
Did you want to answer?

15:37 - 15:39
No, I just wanted to see you squirm a little.

15:40 - 15:49
Yeah. We have been investigating and also there's people in our collective with ties to different

15:49 - 15:56
indigenous communities trying to bring people to the land to plant medicine, gardens, hopefully

15:56 - 15:58
in the future and do things like that.

15:58 - 16:04
Yeah, I mean, I think with 350 acres, there's a desire for a portion to actually be land back

16:04 - 16:09
to give autonomy to a local indigenous group.

16:09 - 16:15
Right now our ties are to indigenous folks who are more in the city coming and getting to spend time on the land.

16:15 - 16:16
And we only Know a few people locally.

16:16 - 16:22
There aren't necessarily, like, major bands up there that we've connected with yet.

16:22 - 16:22
Right.

16:22 - 16:24
But are in the process of that.

16:24 - 16:27
Well, as. Oh. So a brief story. Just what.

16:27 - 16:32
What prompted that idea is a gentleman we've had on the.

16:32 - 16:34
On the podcast before, Kevin Callan.

16:35 - 16:42
Very recently I saw him do a presentation and. And he. He's pretty hardcore. Not hardcore. He's.

16:42 - 16:48
He's big on whose land he's actually, you know, traveling on and things like that.

16:48 - 16:54
Yeah, he lives up towards. Towards Peterborough Bridge North. And he came.

16:54 - 16:56
He came home one day and. And there were.

16:57 - 17:01
There was a small party of indigenous people literally standing in his driveway.

17:01 - 17:04
And so he's like, he's cool, but whatever, but he's.

17:04 - 17:08
He gets chatting with them and it turns out his driveway used to be in.

17:08 - 17:12
In previous times, the portage from that lake.

17:12 - 17:12
Oh, wow.

17:12 - 17:14
He's like. And he had no idea.

17:14 - 17:17
And he's one to do that sort of research.

17:17 - 17:17
Yeah.

17:17 - 17:18
Never even occurred to him.

17:19 - 17:20
It's my driveway.

17:20 - 17:20
Yeah.

17:21 - 17:21
Yeah.

17:21 - 17:23
So he did smudge with them and.

17:23 - 17:25
And I was cool, but it was a.

17:25 - 17:29
I thought that was pretty interesting for a guy that's big on that.

17:29 - 17:32
That whole idea to have no idea.

17:33 - 17:39
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I think with a sort of people with an urban mentality

17:39 - 17:45
set and more exposure to indigenous people and people, like, we have relationships with indigenous

17:45 - 17:49
folks in a rural area where we are.

17:49 - 17:54
That is not the ethos of the surrounding humans.

17:54 - 17:59
And so there's also a tension in bringing our relations and our relationships to the land and

17:59 - 18:01
then how that sits in the sort of.

18:01 - 18:04
Of local community where the land is.

18:05 - 18:09
It's very racist up there and tenuous.

18:09 - 18:15
And so we had our indigenous elder come to the land last year with her family, and they went

18:15 - 18:19
into town and had a really, really awful experience.

18:19 - 18:20
That's too bad.

18:20 - 18:28
So it's like, hard to hold that, you know, hard to be with the reality that is in this country about that.

18:28 - 18:30
Yeah. But definitely on our.

18:30 - 18:34
On our land, there's a deep desire to have those. Those right relations

18:37 - 18:41
and those invitations, like, to come to the land and to.

18:41 - 18:42
It's not a desire. We're in them.

18:42 - 18:43
Yeah.

18:43 - 18:45
We've made them. We're practicing them.

18:45 - 18:46
It's not just like a longing.

18:47 - 18:48
Yeah, cool.

18:48 - 18:48
That's good.

18:48 - 18:49
Yeah.

18:51 - 18:54
So have you done any paddling in your river or can you paddle it? Your river.

18:54 - 18:58
Our river. Our river is kind of amazing because it's many different.

18:58 - 19:03
Different speeds, but one of the things we love to do is A river run. So we.

19:03 - 19:09
We have tubes, inner tubes, and we go in up at the top at one swim spot, and then we float all

19:09 - 19:12
the way down to our other swim spot.

19:12 - 19:14
But it's different. It's. It's.

19:14 - 19:20
You can paddle and you can do this river run, but there are sections where you're like, oh, my bum's scraping. Time to stand up.

19:20 - 19:20
So.

19:20 - 19:20
Right.

19:20 - 19:22
And so there are different levels.

19:22 - 19:29
Yeah, there's parts of the river that are really, really, really deep and then really shallow. So it's like. And waterfalls.

19:29 - 19:32
There's rapids, there's waterfalls. It moves out into lakes. It's.

19:32 - 19:39
Yeah, it's an adventure of a river run, but people have paddled it in with hilarious results.

19:39 - 19:42
But it's like, it's not a solid, easy paddle.

19:42 - 19:48
There's parts where you have to walk with your vessel over the rocks and then get in again.

19:49 - 19:50
We do that on. On any trip.

19:50 - 19:53
So I'm good with that. Yeah. All right.

19:53 - 19:55
Maybe I'll bring up my.

19:55 - 19:57
My solo canoe and give that a trial.

19:57 - 19:58
Definitely.

19:58 - 20:03
Yeah. And sometimes it gets super high, so then you probably could paddle all the way down.

20:05 - 20:05
Cool.

20:05 - 20:08
I'm gonna have to know, you're gonna have to show me on Google Maps where.

20:08 - 20:13
Where it is so I can look at the river and plot something outside of the land.

20:13 - 20:19
Tell me some of the things you guys do just out in nature to be out in nature. What?

20:19 - 20:21
Do you have any other activities that you do?

20:21 - 20:24
We know you've done camping because you've borrowed camping equipment before.

20:24 - 20:27
Yeah, definitely done lots of camping.

20:27 - 20:33
I mean, we both have childhoods we spent at overnight camp in the woods a lot.

20:34 - 20:42
I have an ex I used to portage with all the time. Yeah, the pre. Lindy. Pre Lindy partner was. Lots of portage.

20:42 - 20:42
Yeah.

20:42 - 20:43
Portaging.

20:44 - 20:49
But we. Yeah, we've definitely done other camping, sometimes cottaging.

20:49 - 20:53
Like any kind of invite to leave.

20:53 - 20:56
The city and have a fire pit and some trees. We're in.

20:57 - 21:02
Yeah, I mean, we've rented fire pits in Toronto parks because even in the dead of winter, we're

21:02 - 21:05
like those people just out in the snow, their hot chocolate.

21:05 - 21:06
Having a fire.

21:06 - 21:07
Having a fire.

21:08 - 21:11
And you guys have camped in Texas as well, right?

21:11 - 21:13
Oh, yeah, we did camp in Texas. Yeah.

21:13 - 21:15
We have some friends down there.

21:15 - 21:19
We've gone for a couple Christmases or Thanksgivings and they.

21:19 - 21:23
They do more like camper camping.

21:23 - 21:25
Like a pop up trailer pop up trailer camping.

21:25 - 21:34
And so that's like desert in the desert kind of camping and also trailer park camping. So.

21:34 - 21:38
So it's a Very different vibe than being in the forest with other people.

21:39 - 21:46
But there's still a communal sort of collective feeling, especially when the place has a fire pit. Fire.

21:46 - 21:47
Fire is really the thing.

21:48 - 21:49
Fire is nature.

21:49 - 21:53
And it's. And I mean, the sky in Texas is surreal at night.

21:53 - 21:56
Oh, yeah, it's so. It's so.

21:56 - 22:01
You know, they say big sky Texas, or like the big sky Sky. It is big.

22:01 - 22:04
It's so wide and flat that you can see so much sky.

22:05 - 22:10
And it's dark sky country, so it's like there's no light pollution, there's no buildings in the way.

22:10 - 22:13
So it just looks like it goes on forever and ever.

22:13 - 22:16
I mean, technically it probably does, but.

22:17 - 22:19
Well, to the edge of the world, then you fall off.

22:21 - 22:27
Yeah. Where else have we camped? I mean, mostly Ontario.

22:27 - 22:29
We haven't really camped in the east Coast.

22:29 - 22:35
We've gone to campgrounds and stayed in a little student housing situation.

22:35 - 22:41
But we've been on campgrounds in Cape Breton. Cape Breton, Just beautiful.

22:41 - 22:42
Nice.

22:43 - 22:50
But yeah, we're big fans of anything that sort of takes us outside of a city into more wilderness.

22:51 - 22:54
So on your land, you hike, you do the river run?

22:55 - 22:56
Yeah, we hike. I mean, to even.

22:56 - 22:58
To get into the land. Like you.

22:58 - 23:01
You can walk in, but you can't drive a car right in.

23:01 - 23:07
So it's like we have these utility vehicles, load them up, drive them in the trail. But then it's.

23:08 - 23:10
Yeah, it's all hiking and swimming and.

23:10 - 23:11
And work.

23:11 - 23:12
Yeah, and lots of work.

23:12 - 23:19
I'm sorry, I like. You know, when you go on a regular camping trip, like you, it's work, but you're working for yourself.

23:19 - 23:25
It's very different when you're stewarding, shepherding, whatever you want to say we're doing on our land.

23:25 - 23:28
I mean, there's always work to do.

23:28 - 23:43
Whether it's chopping wood, getting water, fixing something in the cabin, clearing trails, there's just. There's always a project. And so where.

23:43 - 23:46
I think something we're learning as a group is how to.

23:46 - 23:48
How to create time chunks.

23:49 - 23:51
Where it's like, this is work time and this is playtime.

23:51 - 23:57
Because it feels like you could always just be working and it's hot and it's buggy and people

23:58 - 24:01
get cranky and, like, that's so not the point.

24:01 - 24:05
And so especially because we don't live there, like, it might be different if we live there.

24:05 - 24:10
You know, we work these days, rest these days, but instead, instead there's.

24:10 - 24:16
There's times of the year that are better for working, like April and then getting into August, September.

24:16 - 24:20
Because that time in between is bug season.

24:20 - 24:26
Bug season, like bug season like you wouldn't imagine bug season. So you can't really.

24:27 - 24:30
You're just trying to keep your nervous system at a. At a.

24:31 - 24:34
This level high, like, so that you're not losing your mind.

24:36 - 24:39
Yeah, I'm sure anyone listening knows that. Yeah, we're not.

24:39 - 24:41
We're not saying anything people don't know.

24:41 - 24:48
Yeah, I. I avoid. I avoid camping during. During bug season. It's just not. Yeah, if I.

24:48 - 24:54
Maybe I was more hardcore, but fishing, I'd be more inclined to do it, but. Yeah, for the battle. Yeah.

24:54 - 24:56
No, I mean, we just accept.

24:57 - 24:59
You know, there are times of years that the bugs didn't want you to.

24:59 - 25:02
Be outside or they just want to eat you.

25:02 - 25:03
They just, you know.

25:03 - 25:08
You know, what's another thing we're doing on the land is, like, learning about edible plants

25:08 - 25:15
in the forest, learning how to forage and, like, learning how to identify plants and food.

25:15 - 25:19
We have some really brilliant, like, I guess we'll call them like, food alchemists.

25:20 - 25:27
We have a camp chef, cool, for a lot of the season, and she forages all kinds of things and

25:27 - 25:30
creates ferments out of what she finds.

25:30 - 25:33
Hibiscus. And I don't even know.

25:33 - 25:41
Half the time she's like, I made this kombucha out of that weed I found over there. It's just, like, surreal. It's amazing. And different.

25:41 - 25:46
Different things that, you know, even some people have had.

25:46 - 25:50
They've cut themselves, as you do when you're, you know, deep woods, playing with sharp things

25:51 - 25:56
and different plants that you can use as a.

25:56 - 25:58
Like a poultice instead of needing bandages.

25:58 - 26:00
So we're learning all those wild things.

26:00 - 26:02
Comfrey and.

26:02 - 26:05
And, yeah, plantain leaves. Yeah.

26:05 - 26:06
Cool.

26:06 - 26:08
Yeah, that's cool.

26:08 - 26:09
I know nothing about it.

26:09 - 26:13
I just don't eat any of that stuff because that one could be the one that kills you.

26:13 - 26:16
So we don't want to learn by trial and error.

26:16 - 26:21
Definitely not have people who know.

26:21 - 26:26
And, like, I don't go around just tasting things unless somebody has vouched for it.

26:26 - 26:28
No, don't lick that one. Lindy.

26:28 - 26:31
Yeah, don't eat that mushroom. Maybe that one's okay.

26:32 - 26:40
We. We did do. We did do some wild mushrooms once, but it was only because there was a guy that knew that it was. They were fine. So it's, like, Cool.

26:40 - 26:45
Yeah, we did. Last year, we did a big forage, and we have.

26:45 - 26:51
We have a bunch of books about mushrooms down on the land. And one of. One of.

26:51 - 26:56
One of our Land Sisters was like, frying them up on the thing, and we realized there was one

26:56 - 26:58
in there that was, like, definitely poisonous.

26:58 - 27:01
So we went and pulled them out, and then it was like a dare, like, who's going to eat.

27:01 - 27:03
Who's going to eat the. The fry.

27:04 - 27:06
The fry of the mushrooms? I was like, I'm. I'm in.

27:06 - 27:10
I, Like, I totally just. It was fine. It was definitely fine. But we're doing.

27:10 - 27:11
We're doing some experiments with mushrooms.

27:11 - 27:17
We inoculated a bunch of mushroom logs last year to see if we could intentionally grow shiitakes.

27:17 - 27:20
And so, I mean, those are long experiments.

27:20 - 27:22
They're over a year to see.

27:22 - 27:27
And we're actually going to do another mushroom inoculation set in the middle of April.

27:28 - 27:35
So they've harvested some trees to put plugs in of, I think, oysters and shiitakes. Yeah.

27:35 - 27:36
Awesome.

27:36 - 27:40
And we may be selling mycel logs where people can buy logs.

27:40 - 27:45
I'll take them posted, take them home and see how they grow in different environments.

27:45 - 27:50
So how do you. When you say put plugs in, like, so you drill a hole, you. You drop in.

27:50 - 27:51
Yeah.

27:51 - 27:54
And then as you drop in the spores, and then as it decompose, as the.

27:54 - 28:00
The log decomposes, it nourishes the. Cool. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

28:01 - 28:04
Yeah, yeah. Just interested in, like, food forest.

28:04 - 28:06
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

28:06 - 28:07
Groceries aren't getting any cheaper.

28:08 - 28:09
Yeah, no kidding. I got.

28:09 - 28:11
I have two gigantic children.

28:11 - 28:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last year, yeah, we.

28:14 - 28:18
We planted a few gardens in different places and got quite.

28:19 - 28:21
We had a squash harvest like I've never seen before.

28:21 - 28:26
It was kind of surreal, the amount of squash things we were trying to make.

28:26 - 28:28
And we may try fruit trees.

28:29 - 28:32
There's a few that are maybe on the land we're going to try and revitalize.

28:33 - 28:39
But definitely you, like, harvesting collective knowledge or like different friends of friends

28:39 - 28:42
coming and basically being like, did you know this? Is growing this?

28:42 - 28:50
So we're just, you know, inviting as many people who know things to our project to. To see.

28:50 - 28:51
That's cool.

28:51 - 28:53
It's a giant emergent experiment.

28:54 - 28:57
And so you guys kind of come and go to the land.

28:57 - 28:59
Is there somebody that kind of stays there year round?

28:59 - 29:04
There's nobody who stays in the back country year round.

29:04 - 29:09
There are a couple people who have a property that's really close or, like, adjacent to it,

29:09 - 29:15
and they haven't lived there year round yet, but they're moving there this year.

29:15 - 29:19
And so I think more of us are looking to be up there more of the time.

29:19 - 29:22
Than we have for the last five years. It's a.

29:22 - 29:27
It's like happening in waves, but based on the logistics of different people's lives.

29:27 - 29:32
Children, school, the ability to afford to be up there.

29:32 - 29:36
You know how jobs work if you have digital jobs or not. Digital jobs.

29:37 - 29:39
Yeah, but you can't unless you have a snowmobile.

29:39 - 29:43
You can't actually get down to the river until the beginning of April.

29:43 - 29:46
Like the snow is quite intense.

29:47 - 29:48
Yeah.

29:48 - 29:49
Interesting.

29:49 - 29:52
Yeah. Gets quite deep and packed and do.

29:52 - 29:55
You have digital access when you're there?

29:55 - 29:55
Do you? No, no.

29:55 - 29:57
It's totally. Yeah.

29:57 - 29:59
I don't think we will ever like.

29:59 - 30:00
It's not down by the river.

30:00 - 30:01
Not down by the river.

30:01 - 30:03
It's not our intention to.

30:03 - 30:07
We want to have a space that's completely tech free.

30:07 - 30:12
There are spots where you can get a signal and there is hilarious like little table set up with

30:12 - 30:16
people charging their phones with solar things like in exact.

30:17 - 30:19
Like everybody's phone in one spot and then people standing.

30:19 - 30:21
You, you know the spot. They're like the.

30:21 - 30:22
The standing one.

30:22 - 30:23
Phone booths like this way.

30:23 - 30:24
But there's not a booth there.

30:24 - 30:26
It's just the spot where you get a signal.

30:26 - 30:30
You know, there's a couple rocks you climb up on that's covered in moss.

30:30 - 30:31
You can lie down and make a call.

30:31 - 30:35
You know, otherwise it's pretty off grid.

30:35 - 30:36
That's not a bad thing.

30:36 - 30:38
No, I was actually thinking how so that.

30:38 - 30:42
What are the logistics if you're taking the Kubota in, right?

30:42 - 30:45
Like you drive in so far and then you're. How do you.

30:45 - 30:46
How do you arrange that if you can't.

30:46 - 30:50
Oh gosh, I'll tell you. We have two Kubotas.

30:50 - 30:52
So there's two and it's like a shuttle.

30:52 - 30:58
It's like we need to create actually like a service times because when people are coming from all the different.

30:58 - 31:02
We have people in Montreal, we have people in Ottawa, we have people in Toronto.

31:03 - 31:09
And it's like there's a Kubota going down at 5 and 7 and it's like, but I'm not coming till this time time. And this time.

31:09 - 31:10
And then so much fun.

31:10 - 31:13
You're gonna sit and wait because it's also.

31:13 - 31:17
There are people who haven't been able to get a hold of anyone and they've just sort of walked

31:17 - 31:25
in with bare backpack and then grabbed the Kubota to go up back to the store and get their stuff. So that's happened.

31:25 - 31:29
But it's definitely like we've been trying to get better of when we know there's A weekend that

31:29 - 31:36
a whole bunch of people are coming up to try and say, can we all have a few clusters where we

31:36 - 31:43
all arrive at the same, same time so that we are at least getting all of our equipment in and then in a wave. Yeah, yeah.

31:43 - 31:45
And then if you have to walk in, it's.

31:45 - 31:47
It's, you know, 40 minutes.

31:47 - 31:52
But it's not terrible if somebody has taken your stuff and you just have a small backpack.

31:52 - 31:54
It's kind of a beautiful walk.

31:54 - 31:58
So here's a thought. Two cans, really long string, right?

31:58 - 31:59
Yeah. Yeah.

31:59 - 32:00
I.

32:00 - 32:05
Well, I've been researching, I've been trying to find this walkie, but there's no walkie talkies that we have found.

32:05 - 32:11
So maybe, you know, that will go the distance through the amount of brush.

32:11 - 32:14
That from the river camp to where.

32:14 - 32:15
We park a car.

32:15 - 32:17
What distance roughly are you talking?

32:17 - 32:19
Oh, boy, it's like three kilometers.

32:19 - 32:22
Okay. There is. I, I know of one.

32:22 - 32:23
I'll, I'll give you the information.

32:24 - 32:26
They're not cheap, but they're supposed to be.

32:26 - 32:27
Yeah, amazing.

32:27 - 32:30
If they work, they work over mountains so that.

32:30 - 32:34
So with, with granite in the way. They still work.

32:34 - 32:35
Well, that's what we need.

32:35 - 32:36
We need that.

32:36 - 32:42
I mean, it's. Yeah, everything's a constant, like conversation, process and trying to do it better.

32:42 - 32:46
And as you can imagine, with 12 people, it's like being married to 12 people.

32:46 - 32:50
So anyone who's married or in a long term relationship, you know how much negotiation there

32:50 - 32:55
is there now add 10 more people. Add 10 more people.

32:55 - 33:00
And so like, there's physical work, but there's also relational work is.

33:00 - 33:04
I would say 90% of the work that we do is relational.

33:04 - 33:05
Yeah.

33:05 - 33:11
And that's very interesting. And we're here for it as coaches and therapists.

33:11 - 33:16
And there's a few of those other people, but not everyone's as skilled as the next.

33:17 - 33:19
And it's a very eclectic group of people.

33:19 - 33:20
Very eclectic.

33:20 - 33:23
Well, that's divvying up just the labor part. Seems like.

33:23 - 33:26
Did you get everybody engaged in doing it?

33:26 - 33:30
Does some people want to just sit back and sit at the fire and everybody else is doing the work like.

33:30 - 33:33
The, like the, the labor body.

33:33 - 33:35
And what is the labor body?

33:35 - 33:38
Is what counts as labor?

33:38 - 33:40
Is it only physical labor?

33:40 - 33:45
There's invisible labor, there's emotional labor, there's organizational labor.

33:45 - 33:51
And calibrating all those things to be seen as equal is very tricky, just like it is in society.

33:51 - 33:54
So we're just a little microcosm.

33:54 - 34:02
And, and there's lots of people who are up for physical labor, but don't have the skills to start a project.

34:02 - 34:11
And so it's always sort of learning who's available, who has the know how, who's willing to teach.

34:11 - 34:17
So everything is kind of a learning a learning curve and a lot of communication.

34:18 - 34:20
Sounds like it keeps it from being boring though.

34:20 - 34:21
It's never boring.

34:22 - 34:28
It's never boring. There's moments it's incredibly frustrating, but it's never boring and it's really rewarding.

34:28 - 34:36
I mean, I don't know, we're, you know, we're looking at the world and it feels like it's falling apart.

34:37 - 34:38
I agree on that.

34:38 - 34:42
And we're not gripping to it.

34:42 - 34:46
We have a space where we don't have to grip to the world that's falling apart.

34:47 - 34:55
We're trying to build one that we believe in and that's not easy and it's not perfect, but we're trying.

34:55 - 34:56
It's good though. It's good.

34:56 - 34:56
Yeah.

34:57 - 35:02
And I think you guys mentioned you have a grant that where you're going to be bringing people to the land.

35:03 - 35:15
Yeah, so we, we wrote a Canada Council for the Arts grant that is about becoming community,

35:16 - 35:22
creating livable futures through artistic means or being informed artistically.

35:22 - 35:27
And the grant is for two, it's for two years.

35:27 - 35:35
It's bringing a series of different stakeholders to the land to do a bunch of different activities

35:35 - 35:41
from things around food sovereignty to legal models about how, you know, how there's a lot of

35:41 - 35:47
legal things in the way to being like a more of a sustainable community in this way.

35:47 - 35:55
So looking at those things, looking at equity and systems change through that lens, we've got

35:55 - 36:00
soil scientists and young food justice people and.

36:04 - 36:06
Yeah, a few artists in there.

36:06 - 36:08
Few are a bunch of artists in there.

36:08 - 36:16
This is about like bringing people to create artistically informed processes around sustainable living and sustainability.

36:17 - 36:22
So it's a lot of work also to manage all of that and.

36:23 - 36:32
But it's given us a bit of a leg up in terms of funding for human labor and some a little bit of infrastructure.

36:34 - 36:42
How does the dynamic work with 12 people to, to approach those sort of things?

36:42 - 36:47
Like is it, is it, is it what everybody, it's 100 even weight committee. Okay.

36:47 - 36:56
No. So I wrote the grant with two other people in the group and we have basically the equivalence of a producing company.

36:57 - 37:06
And so we are executing on the grant and producing this set of activities and enabling people

37:06 - 37:11
to move kind of autonomously with the thing they say they're going to lead and you know, dealing

37:11 - 37:17
with the money and all of the bureaucracy around that stuff, what we have created is like a

37:17 - 37:21
system where those labor bodies you were talking about get paid evenly.

37:21 - 37:25
Like there's nothing that is weighted more. It's just about time.

37:25 - 37:31
So whether you're doing physical labor or organizational labor or whatever, it's. It's the.

37:31 - 37:34
Everyone's getting paid and it's not really pay.

37:34 - 37:36
It's an honorarium, no matter what.

37:36 - 37:36
Right.

37:36 - 37:39
The same amount based on the hours. So we're.

37:40 - 37:44
We're trying to value everyone like in a more even kind of way.

37:44 - 37:46
And does everybody.

37:48 - 37:50
Not everybody is showing up in.

37:50 - 37:52
In that work in the same way?

37:52 - 37:55
Because everybody has different capacities based on their lives.

37:55 - 37:56
And we're trying to honor.

37:56 - 38:02
We're working to honor how each person's capacity shows up on the land and allow that to be

38:02 - 38:04
enough, no matter what it is that.

38:04 - 38:12
I think that's great. You have to get to a certain point in your own growth, I suppose, to.

38:12 - 38:16
To be able to go, but I'm working harder than you. Yes, right. So.

38:16 - 38:19
Well, what you just said is kind of the whole point.

38:19 - 38:24
Like that personal growth piece is a thing that every single person engaged in the project is

38:24 - 38:27
looking at in themselves and is part of why they're there.

38:27 - 38:29
I mean, it is a very.

38:30 - 38:32
It's very challenging, but it's also very healing.

38:32 - 38:37
And the land itself, as anyone who spent time on land knows, you're calmer, you're more connected

38:37 - 38:39
to yourself and to whoever you're with. You.

38:39 - 38:44
You're not tethered to the digital input of everything.

38:44 - 38:49
And so there's an opportunity to be able to be in that growth.

38:49 - 38:51
It's also, I mean, part of.

38:51 - 38:59
And we're still actually learning what this means for us, but we're trying to step into this idea of being decapitalized.

39:00 - 39:05
And part of that, like, I'm worth more than you because I put in more hours than you is part.

39:05 - 39:09
Part of the capitalist system, to be very simple about it.

39:09 - 39:14
But so we're trying to undo that in our own brains as well.

39:14 - 39:18
To say like that part of this project is that we.

39:19 - 39:23
That everyone is going to engage in how they are.

39:23 - 39:29
And there's some times where this person is literally out of the country for a few months.

39:29 - 39:32
And so they're not going to engage in how this person is.

39:32 - 39:36
And we're stepping into everyone being fine with that.

39:37 - 39:43
So that's not just like, oh, you put in that many hours of labor, so you are more worthy of

39:43 - 39:46
being on the land than this person.

39:48 - 39:51
Did. You know, when you first got.

39:51 - 39:56
Were entertaining discussions and Finding that core group.

39:56 - 39:59
Did you know that you were going to be going here with it?

39:59 - 40:00
You know, do you know what I'm saying?

40:01 - 40:03
No, and I don't. I. No, we didn't.

40:03 - 40:10
Like, I don't think we could ever have anticipated where we are interpersonally or even spatially.

40:11 - 40:12
Like on the land itself.

40:12 - 40:12
Yep.

40:12 - 40:18
And I don't think I can totally anticipate where we're going or where we'll be in another five

40:18 - 40:24
years because it's just changing so quickly and so fast based on what's emerging.

40:24 - 40:26
And that's part of the excitement of it.

40:26 - 40:27
I mean, we have visions, we have.

40:27 - 40:30
We have things we want. I'm not saying we're.

40:30 - 40:31
I don't know, la.

40:31 - 40:35
What's today. That's not what I mean. It's.

40:36 - 40:43
But it's like we're responding in real time to what's showing up to.

40:43 - 40:44
To how things are evolving.

40:44 - 40:46
Yeah, yeah.

40:46 - 40:48
Presenting themselves. Opportunities.

40:48 - 40:48
Exactly.

40:48 - 40:53
I mean, listen, when we first met before, we had the land, like, we had all these, like, crayon

40:53 - 40:58
drawings and butcher paper and scopes of pizza ovens everywhere.

40:58 - 41:03
And then we actually got the land and realized how much we had to work on.

41:03 - 41:10
Relationship first and then slow down before we started putting pizza ovens everywhere.

41:10 - 41:21
You know, like, the vision and then the reality were quite different, and we had to, you know, learn to actually be. Be married.

41:21 - 41:23
And then we could start to.

41:23 - 41:29
To figure out closer to what the vision would be. And it's. It's always evolving.

41:30 - 41:32
Okay. But I still think you.

41:32 - 41:35
You should move pizza oven up a little higher.

41:35 - 41:38
Pizza oven and running water are on this year's list.

41:38 - 41:40
Yeah, we definitely want those to.

41:40 - 41:41
To happen regardless of the other.

41:41 - 41:44
Think about. Oh, seriously, though, I'm. It's like. Oh, wood burning. Building.

41:45 - 41:46
I was gonna say. Yeah. Clay fire.

41:47 - 41:47
For sure.

41:47 - 41:50
We could do that. Maybe the. The.

41:50 - 41:55
The treehouse village will have to wait a little bit, but the pizza oven could be a reality this year.

41:55 - 41:56
With the connecting drawbridges.

41:57 - 41:58
Exactly. Yeah.

41:59 - 42:00
I love it. Yeah, I love it.

42:00 - 42:02
But, you know, we have fun visions, like.

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Like to build, like, you know, deep in the woods, meditation huts or, like, vision huts.

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You know, cool little structures with windows right to the moon.

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And, you know, these are just totally possible, just not really priorities at the moment, you know?

42:16 - 42:17
Yeah.

42:17 - 42:23
Yep. All right, cool. Well, for the record, I love you guys. Just saying. Just saying.

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We love you.

42:24 - 42:24
We love you, too.

42:24 - 42:25
That's it for us for today.

42:26 - 42:29
Thank you so much for listening, and thank you so much to our very special guests.

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Lindy and Lena for joining us today.

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And please, please do reach out to us.

42:34 - 42:36
We are on all the social media.

42:36 - 42:39
Please do follow us or subscribe to us on YouTube.

42:39 - 42:41
And my name is Pamela.

42:41 - 42:42
I'm still Tim.

42:42 - 42:46
And we are still from suburgacamping.com please do visit our website.

42:47 - 42:49
That's where you can connect with us on everything. Thank you so much.

42:50 - 42:50
Bye.