Episode 221: Gas Prices Are Killing Road Trips. Is This the Fix?

Thank you to today's sponsors!

- The Invasive Species Centre: Protecting Canada’s land and water from invasive species
- SAIL: The Ultimate Destination for your Outdoor Adventures
- J&B Cycle and Marine: Your Home for all things powersports, boats, and equipment
- Freedom Cruise Canada: Rent the boat, own the memories

- Anglers Leaderboard: Real-time AI angling platform where everyone is welcome, and every catch counts!

Vic Fedeli joins Outdoor Journal Radio to talk about the long-awaited return of the Northlander train, a major transportation project that could change the way anglers, families, tourists, and northern communities travel across Ontario.

After being cancelled in 2012, the Northlander is finally making its comeback with brand-new railcars, modern amenities, and routes connecting Toronto with Northern Ontario. The crew also discusses rising gas prices, road trip concerns, fish finders, invasive grass carp, old Fan 590 favourites, and a massive Garmin giveaway.

For anyone who loves fishing, hunting, tourism, or travelling into the North, this one matters.

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:06

This episode of Outdoor Journal Radio is brought to you in part by the Invasive Species Center, protecting Canada's land and water from invasive species. Freedom Cruise Canada, rent the boat, own the memories. And JMB Cycle a Marine, your home for all things power sports, boats, and equipment.

SPEAKER_07 0:49

More fun than a room full of wombats. Able to reach huge audiences with a single broadcast. Yes, it's the journal radio show. Another exciting episode in the adventures of journal radio.

SPEAKER_06 1:14

It's always the same audience. I don't know. Well, it sounds the same. They sound the same, but I think they're very different.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

You're a coach. I think they're very different.

SPEAKER_06 1:23

Welcome to the program. Thank you very much for joining us. Uh Peter Bowman, Angela Viola, and the rest of the crew. You'll get to meet them, hopefully, uh at some point in the show. And if not, well, maybe you're better off with that. Yeah. We need that.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

We need to separate ourselves from these guys.

SPEAKER_06 1:41

An interesting program today. An interesting program. Gentlemen uh will be joining us uh shortly that I have not I've talked to him at functions, and you'll understand what I mean by that uh here uh when I tell you who he is. But we've not really had a chance to uh spend a bit of quality time together like we used to, some I'm gonna say 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago. Uh former uh mayor of North Bay, uh Vic Fidely. You now know him as uh he's no stranger to um the news scene. He is Ontario's Minister of Economic Development and Job Creation and Trade. He was also Minister of Finance for a while, Minister of Foreign Something for a while. I mean, he's he's been top-level ministry in this government for he's gotta be a busy man right now, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:33

They're talking about all the new trade stuff for sure. Uh initiative going on. Wow, he's gonna be a busy guy.

SPEAKER_06 2:38

But for us, he's always the mayor of North Bay. Uh, and we brought him on the program today because uh he's been directly responsible for a project that I didn't know had been ongoing for the last 14-15 years, but is just now uh hit the rails, as it were. Oh it's called the Northlander, and it's a brand new train uh that uh replaces the previous version, which was about 100 years old. It was canceled back in the um I think 2012. Um, but now it's brand new and shiny and ready to go. It's gonna be opening up later this year. It's gonna open up the Northland for all of us uh folks who love traveling into the north, but sometimes would like an alternative to driving it. Um the news story on this, no coincidence, by the way, on this episode is also gonna be about a uh very bizarre, and I because only bizarre because I didn't even know this association existed. Uh, a study that was done by the Canadian um uh what are they called, Dean? I'm sorry. I don't see it on the uh Tire and Rubber Association of the Canadian Rubber Association of Canada, thank you. And they did an interesting survey um that kind of uh dovetails with today's uh lead story of the Highlander.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

So did they ever did was it a political reason they dropped that in 2012? Like they dropped the Northlander, or do you know why they did it?

SPEAKER_06 4:09

Or there was no at the time, like the northern communities. I remember because we covered the story on the radio show, the northern communities were up in arms because in a lot of cases this was the only source of travel that some of them had, right? From that many years back. The roads used to be shit back then. You know, it was uh they cited uh cost overruns, they cited high maintenance costs, they cited uh having to replace equipment that the budget could not afford.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

It was political in a way, uh obviously, somehow.

SPEAKER_06 4:42

It was it was the uh it was the uh liberal government at the time did not think that, in my opinion, and this is the way I told the story on the radio show, they didn't think that the North was that important at the time. Um that warrant Oh no, this is the way it was that warranted them uh now. By the way, this is a government who was already, I don't know how many billions of dollars in deficit uh and and and cost overruns, uh, but they couldn't see fit to find the money. And then this all happened again, of course, with the bud car. I don't know how many people are aware of that. And the same thing happened with the bud car. Uh, and uh fortunately private citizens picked that one up, and uh now it is private enterprise that owns and runs it and operates it. So yeah, okay, it was a disaster. So this is a great story, and uh Vic is going to tell us all about it when he comes on uh a little bit later on the show. In the meantime, yeah, in the meantime, store manager, how are we doing? Uh still another week of sale going on. Oh, we got sales like a ship, baby.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

We got sales in the wind, we got people coming, we got orders flowing. We are running out of product fast. This has been a long sale, but we are out of fish and can almost out of all fish and can hats as of recording. I think I got seven left. Um so you guys need to get on that. ODJ stuff's going pretty good too. I appreciate you wonderful listeners. If you guys do buy some ODJ gear um and you know want you know to be posted on our page, throw it on, send us a picture. We'd love to throw you up and feature you and talk about you because we love seeing we love seeing the gear out in the wild. Nice perfect.

SPEAKER_06 6:32

Uh not just ODJ stuff, but fishing canada too.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

But you know, this is the outdoor journal radio podcast. So I want to talk about specifically my lovely ODJ buyers.

SPEAKER_06 6:42

And that's all happening at shop.fishingcanada.com, or you can go to fishingcanada.com and enter through the shop page uh button at the top of that page.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

There should be a big graphic that says up to 50% off at the screen.

SPEAKER_06 6:55

I like it. It's hard to miss. Season 40 is nicely progressing.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_06 7:02

It's all up now. It's all up now. It's all up now, isn't it? It's all up now. Everything is on YouTube as well now, right? Do you know what we should do? And I'm just throwing this out. Okay. Do with it what you like. I think we should run a contest at some point. And I think the contest should be uh for we we need to pick the fan favorite episode of the 40th season. And we'll have a prize for it. We'll give away some goodies. And I just want to get a sense of what the majority of the audience thought about what what their view is on which of the episodes.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

I I love that idea. Especially if we get lots of participation, because it would take a lot of participation to get a nice average in there, right? You know what I mean? Answer I like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

We can motivate people, I think. Could we do that? I think we could motivate some people, yeah. And would we would I think would we have a contest upcoming that we'll talk about a bit later?

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Maybe this can be worked into that because I think that prize would motivate some people.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

It's a pretty great prize. Oh, uh it's a very high-ticket item.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

So you have to work it into that contest versus not a separate contest on its own, or is it not would this not be worthy of it?

SPEAKER_06 8:18

I think it would. I'm I mean, guess I mean, what do you think? We're gonna ask you, the audience, to pick the best of the fortieth season, the anniversary season that's up now. Because now it's up, the whole season is up, so you'll be it's gonna be repeating all the rest of the year. So you'll have a chance to put yourself in the position to select the best episode of the year, which really represents the best episode of the 40 years that we've been up. I think it'd be fine. I like it. I think I like it. We have to figure it out somehow. Yeah, I like to keep that as a separate uh episode.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

Maybe they could leave us a comment on this uh when this hits YouTube and say, hey, great idea, guys. I want I'm in, I'm in, I'm in, and it gets some interest here, or say, hey guys, that's stupid. You know, it might be the worst thing ever, but I don't think it is.

SPEAKER_06 9:11

Speaking of uh favorite episodes, listener feedback in response to a clip from our history of fish finding episode, um, Calvin Pennell, our super fan.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

We know he's listening. Super fan.

SPEAKER_06 9:26

Uh Calvin, hope all is well, Cal. Uh he sent it via Facebook and he says, Well done. However, I can honestly say that using any type of fish finder takes the skill out of the experience, uh whether recreationally or for competition. Hmm. I'll let you handle it.

SPEAKER_04 9:50

I disagree with you, Calvin. Uh although I love your brother, I disagree with you on that one. Um, because it is just as much a skill, an added skill, in there. Now, if you're talking about just taking a hook and a worm and a bobber and going up there and making sure you can catch fish, I guess. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 10:07

I just think I like the I guarantee you that fish would not have been caught without those tools.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 10:16

So how do we how do we evaluate that? So that fish would not have been caught. This image would not have been shot. That TV show would not have been show would not have been produced without that. That's correct.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

So there's got to be some kind of a skill level in there, too.

SPEAKER_06 10:36

Well, the skill is in learning how to use that.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

That's in my point, right there. Right? That's the skill. The more you know about it, and they're saying it's it's flukier or what is he, whatever Calvin's saying is what it's saying.

SPEAKER_06 10:48

You can honestly say that using any type of fish finder takes the skill out of the experience. I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

Maybe it should be out of the expertise, maybe? I don't know about the experience.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

I think it just speeds things up. Like you don't have to be out there 200 days a year, like a year to understand where those lake trout are. I think historically you'd have to be on that lake every day for years to know that okay, there's an offshore hump out here.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Slagged on it 13 times, okay, there's something there. Now you go out and you find it controlling.

SPEAKER_06 11:20

I think especially that. Yeah. Because that's a very isolated lake. Like, I don't even know how you could spend more than a day a year on that.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

And it's uh it doesn't uh maybe I'm wrong here, but it's not is the world not pretty much all using a fish finder now when they're fishing? Is it like on when you're in a boat? Is that is there a lot of people that still aren't using fish finders?

SPEAKER_06 11:42

Oh, I don't I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 11:44

I don't know. I mean all these rigs are sold with a fish finder on them, or a lot of them are, and most people want to add one on them.

SPEAKER_06 11:49

But could I just interject because I'd like to throw this in there. Your phone? Yeah. Are we saying that by having this kind of technology that we're taking away from the experience? Communication.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

Making a phone call.

SPEAKER_06 12:08

We could we could be sending smoke signals, which would be right?

SPEAKER_04 12:12

Ha ha ha, Calvin, get the fire going, kid.

SPEAKER_06 12:16

Right? But since we have these, we've kind of taken away from the experience of lighting that fire, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

I don't know. I will say now with GPS in my car, I don't know street names anymore. No. And it changed all that, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:29

I mean, the kids nowadays won't be able to read a roadmap like Angela and I used to be able to read a roadmap, that's for sure. No, you know, that's now they'd get onto it, no problem. But then it would take them a while.

SPEAKER_06 12:39

But then the question begs to be asked do they need to? Of course not. So do they need to learn how to how to use a roadmap if they have this? That's right. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

That's right. It's progression. It's it's technology. It's progression, it's the way things are going. It's the way things have gone for a long time.

SPEAKER_06 12:57

So now have we gone too far? Are there misuse? Uh uh is there evidence of misusing some of this technology? Possibly.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

I haven't heard of it, but like misusing it, I really haven't heard anything anything negative.

SPEAKER_06 13:12

No, I don't even see how you could.

SPEAKER_04 13:14

I know we don't we don't misuse it, and in my opinion, we don't misuse it.

SPEAKER_06 13:18

Well, I don't even know how you could misuse it, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Overusing, maybe over harvest, maybe, for like super vulnerable fish.

SPEAKER_06 13:28

Over harvest for super vulnerable fish. Now, getting back to this fish, this might be close to qualifying for that, right? Because this fish would not normally see a human being, except except for that. Yeah, that's what caused this fish to have this encounter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

Oh Lake Crow City.

SPEAKER_06 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Um, yeah. I don't know. I don't know, Cal. I don't know. I think that that over harvester with a fish finder or without, he's gonna over harvest, though. That person, or you know, I mean, those people that want to keep doing they they just no matter what they do from trolling open water to using a fish finder or whatever, they're gonna they're gonna keep their six every time out, keep their five, keep their limit every time out.

SPEAKER_06 14:10

Yeah, they're gonna take advantage of uh of every situation, right? Uh listen, I think the horse is out of the barn. I don't think we're gonna put the genie back in that bottle. It's out and and people are using this technology and it's here to stay. And does it take away from the experience?

SPEAKER_04 14:29

I think Calvin's got a thing about this fish finder stuff because he's the guy that gave a shit for using sonar, right? Yeah, for using that sonar it's not sonar. You give us letters upon you give us essays and everything like that. And then when you when we looked into the doing the show that we just did that Calvin's talking about, we kept they kept referring to sonar. Everybody kept referring to, you know, Garmin, everybody does.

SPEAKER_06 14:49

So maybe Calvin does not. Maybe it does change your what we called it, right? We started calling it fish finders again. So, anyways, Cal, we love you, brother. Yeah, all the best. Thank you for uh checking in on us. And um keep it up, send us more, Cal. Yep, for sure. Uh conservation corner. Speaking of technology, this is where technology has paid off because we happen to know for a fact that the grass carp, one of uh four species of invasive carps, uh, that was originally thought to be knocking at the door, uh, has jumped the fence, if you will. We we know for a fact that there are fish in our waters. So the notion of keeping them out is really, although we still should work hard at that, and I'm sure that the authorities are. But us as anglers now, we need to be aware of the fact that it is here. The grass carp is in our waters. We do know that it can cause massive devastation to weed growth and vegetation. Without a doubt. And we also know that that vegetation is super important to most of our game fish, if not all of them. Uh, therefore, as anglers, I I'm gonna say it's our responsibility. It's no longer just a thing that we should do, a feel-good thing. I think it's our responsibility to arm ourselves with all of the information required to identify this creature in the wild, and then make sure that we have the means and uh numbers and whatever we need to uh let the local authority or uh MR know that that fish was in this particular spot. And if you catch one, that's even a bigger bonus, because then you can put that sucker in the boat.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

Yes, sir. Put them in the box, Daddy.

SPEAKER_06 16:36

Put them in the box and dispatch. In fact, they're they're saying to kill it right away, right? Yeah, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

Yes, like even Gobi, stuff like that. All these invasive, they say don't put them back. Do not throw them back.

SPEAKER_06 16:47

Uh, all this information is available to you free of charge. Invasivecarp.ca is the uh place and download all this, uh, the visuals, etc. Keep it on you when you're on the water. We're gonna be we're gonna be on some uh open waterways very shortly, if not already, in some areas. And uh we need to keep uh an eye out. Yeah, man. In the news uh brought to you by JMB, our good friends uh that bring you the outdoors, their outdoor superstore, JMB Cycle and Marine, Ontario's largest Princecraft Mercury boat motor trailer package company since 1970, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

We like JMB.

SPEAKER_06 17:31

Oh we're gonna be Rob and the boys in a few weeks.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

A couple weeks, maybe doing another. They're derby up there. Yeah, yeah, I guarantee you there's gonna be some fish finders in that unit. I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_06 17:43

Oh boy. Uh-huh. Um, the news story is one I I found one morning recently. Uh reading the paper, which I still do, not the actual paper because I can't get that anymore, but I still don't do that delivery thing anymore, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:56

Is there no such a thing? I don't think they print it anymore. Is there a newsstand that even just sells them just as that's a great question? Has anybody seen Should I still have them on the streets, the little boxes, or no? I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 18:05

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 18:06

That's nobody needs it. Everybody's got a phone in their pocket, right?

SPEAKER_06 18:08

I can't read on the phone.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

Well, you can't, but they can't, it's available. How do you read a paper on a phone? A newspaper on the phone. I'm just saying you can. You're not saying you do.

SPEAKER_06 18:18

That'd be impossible. You got can you imagine how much how many like you got to blow up, you gotta zoom in, you gotta blow up.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I got Apple News on my phone, and it and it just like is news articles that you get.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

Same thing. You can read it on your phone, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Oh, that's I only read it on my phone. That's right. That's right. I get little like uh headlines on my little phone. Serenity now!

SPEAKER_06 18:39

Serenity now. Nicostances. Uh the news story was gas prices are uh halting travel plans. Halting everything. They say that roughly 66% of Canadian drivers intend to cancel or limit road trips due to gas prices. Uh uh nearing, of course, now it at the time this is nearing$2 per liter. I'd like to be able to get my gas wherever that person who wrote that. Super is now about$220 a liter in most uh jurisdictions. But, anyways, let's call it two bucks a liter for the sake of arguing. And um this was this was a survey done by the Tire and Rubber Association of Canada. I wonder what they do all the time. When they're not doing this, we haven't heard this is our first time hearing of them right here. So it's funny when we when Cooper Tyre and Roy Arms was was with us all those years, it never came up. The Tire and Rubber Association of Canada.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

You'd think that this is a good uh this is a good uh project for them to get their well get their cleats into.

SPEAKER_06 19:46

They're saying that 60 uh about 67% of Canadians are focused on saving rather than spending, uh, with many citing inflation and the high cost of living uh per uh CIBC poll. Over 70% of respondents in recent surveys are avoiding road trips to the US due to a combination of political tensions, safety concerns, and a weak Canadian dollar. Yep. So there's that uh as well. And while many are reducing long trips, 81% still plan on smaller day trips or overnight stays, benefiting local Ontario tourism. Well, that's good too, but that's why bringing uh the guest on that we'll have here in a minute um made so much sense to us because there may be a very viable alternative to that. Rather than give up those trips, just change the means of transportation for those trips. Look at you might cost you a little bit less. Correct? Because I know when we go, we do a trip to Northern Ontario. Uh she's about a$2,000 hit.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

So hitting like Northwest Ontario at the far the far end of it. Far end, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:56

Yeah, that's exactly what a two thousand dollar return trip. That's just fuel.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Yeah, not your accommodations, which you have to have one night there.

SPEAKER_06 21:03

Yeah. Meals, and of course, I have to stop at Timmy's every five minutes for you guys to well, it's not like you've ever refused to stop, too.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

You know, you do have the choice to stop, but you always say, Oh, okay, I'll have something too. Give me one of them apple fritters.

SPEAKER_06 21:16

Anyways, an interesting story. It's on uh fishingcanada.com as we speak, and uh gets into detail um on what is on the Canadian average Canadian's mind in terms of traveling this summer. So that'd be devastating if if all of this is true, though. You have to admit, if well, I got a feeling it is true.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

Well the hardcore guys think about it.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

I uh I know I have a road trip planned for the Maylong weekend. Yeah, um, that I planned way before the gas hit like this, and it's not enough yet to really determine.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

Yeah, you're gonna go further.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

I'm gonna go on, it's gonna hurt, but I'm gonna go I'm still gonna go.

SPEAKER_06 21:52

Well, hopefully uh most people will think the same way because it would be devastating to the outlying communities that rely on all of Of course. That travel to the north, right? But fan question of the week, Mr. Bominsky.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

Submitted by at Jup Northam 5 and via YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Oh, so this is a contender. This is a contender.

SPEAKER_04 22:17

We have a contender in the room, ladies and games.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

I think it's J's is up north and five. Jeez is up north 5MN.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

Jesus is way up north there.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Way up north. Jesus Up Northman. Yeah, that's what it looks like.

SPEAKER_04 22:30

We will put that on the screen just so we don't screw it up anymore there, please. And thank you. Okay. This person via YouTube asked, I asked this question before. Oh, with no reply. Oh, so directed at me. Hoping this time I hope to get a reply. Okay, well, here we go. I don't know what the reply. We'll give it one already now. Why don't you have some of the old favorites from the Fan590 days? So the Angelos radio show. Guys like uh Gord Pfizer. Okay, Gord Pfizer, Sean Kelly, Bradley Schlorf, etc. They were all a good mix of characters. Yes, they were. Well, they were a good mix of characters. They were wonderful characters. Gordy Pfizer was uh very unique, like that name is. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 23:13

But uh that was the first I I could be wrong. We might have we might have sorry, Gord, by the way, that was written. I read it verbatim, just in case. We might have uh come up with Fish Talk a few episodes before we got Gordy on. I could be wrong. Or we could have introduced Fish Talk with the doc with Gord. But regardless, Gordy was on with us for years. Uh probably one of the longest, I would say one of the longest segment hosts that we had on.

SPEAKER_04 23:44

And a very popular segment, too. People loved it.

SPEAKER_06 23:46

So much so that after we went into podcasting and started this very show, uh, a few years after we started the outdoor journal radio network, podcast network, and Gordy was one of the folks that we asked to um start doing his own show. And he did for for a short period of time, did we not? Or did we never get to so that's the Gordy quite part of that for sure. Uh Sean Kelly, God love him. Uh Shoddy was uh was at the time was uh an entrepreneur living in downtown Toronto and actually had a retail operation in Mississauga and uh was in the meat business, spent most of his time on the road. And uh he was more of a aside from a retailer, he was more of a broker. He would broker containers of meat around the world from this place to that place. It was an interesting occupation, but it kept him on the run an awful lot. And uh he just got so busy that uh we uh we had to give him uh some time off and have never brought him back on. Wow. I would love to. He's now uh is up in the Wasega Beach area. Oh, nice or Collingwood area.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

Doing the same thing as sure.

SPEAKER_06 25:09

He's got a butcher shop, he's not doing the big wholesale distribution thing, he's just got a great little establishment. He's got wild meats as well. Oh cool. So uh yeah, but I love that segment, uh wild thing. Uh we used to be. He was great, John was great. Uh Bradley Schlorf, the uh OPP retired uh OPP staff sergeant Bradley Schlorpe. He was awesome. Uh he was great, and uh he was with us for years as well. Uh but you know, everybody's kind of gone on their merry way because all these folks, for the most part, have retired. And uh the last thing they need to do is have a weekly commitment to uh to come on a show like this. So unfortunately, I'd love to have them all back on. I I are you kidding me? They made my job really. Well, then then then we should have a couple more in here that aren't here. Uh Jonathan Winters, the producer of the show. Johnny has to be. I mean, that found a boss.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 26:09

Um who else was there? Wow. Well, you know what? You know what we'll do? Uh we'll look into this and see if maybe we can do one episode, bring everybody back for that one episode. That'd be a fun one. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

Not together though, because that'll be just mayhem. That's what I think would be the best. Yeah, you and I could just sit back and we'll ramble.

SPEAKER_06 26:32

Uh but yeah, you're absolutely bang on. It was a great mix of characters. At the time, it was there was nothing on radio even remotely close to this group of guys, and uh, we did that for years. So thank you for the uh questions. Is this worthy? Uh no.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

That was a pretty quick no.

SPEAKER_06 26:52

No. No, it was nice. It's nice, it's nice, but it's not a question. It's a uh we're you know, we're looking for like thought-provoking questions. You want to be stumped. I want to be stumped. I want to be able to say, wow, we were$50 for our friends. No, unfortunately, unfortunately, not very close.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Is this our first refusal?

SPEAKER_06 27:13

No. No, no, no, no. We've had refusals.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

We've got refusals we haven't even used yet.

SPEAKER_06 27:19

Exactly. Thank you. Touche.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

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SPEAKER_06 27:49

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SPEAKER_04 27:56

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SPEAKER_06 28:04

Drop into one of 12 stores across Ontario and Quebec and talk to the real fishing specialist or gear up online anytime at stale.ca. Stale, the ultimate destination for your outdoor adventures. All right, let's bring him on the show. We've uh wasted enough time. Uh not wasting time, Angelo.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

Talking when you could go to the Yeah, he just adds, he just embellishes our product that much better. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 28:31

Uh here he is. Former mayor of North Bay. That's when I first met him, uh, MPP for Nipissing, and now Ontario's uh Minister of Economic Development, uh Job Creation and Trade. Hello, Vic. How are you, buddy?

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Great to see you guys. Everything is beautiful. I've got my fake uh picture of Queen's Park. Looking good, buddy. It's actually real wallpaper. I had the wall done with that on it. I'm in my office, back in my office in North Bay.

SPEAKER_06 29:01

Cool. Nice uh Vic. It's been a long time since you and I have had uh an opportunity to share a mic. Last time we did it was on the radio show. I'm gonna go back. Oh my god. You were mayor of North Bay. That's how far back. So how far back is that? 2010.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

I've been a uh in uh provincial office for 15 years. So, you know, what did I do so wrong last time we wanted to get back?

SPEAKER_06 29:29

Uh we wanted to talk to you today, uh, a lot of things, but uh in particular, uh this tremendous initiative that probably not that many people are aware of yet, because it's for sure, it's just uh hitting uh this the limelight now, and it's called the Northlander, which was a wonderful train, a way of transporting people from southern Ontario to Northern Ontario forever. And then it came to a grinding halt uh in 2012, I believe was when it ended.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

March of 2012, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:00

Yeah, and and and prior to that, it was a great way for folks that are in our industry and and are you know have the passion for the outdoors that we do. It was a great alternative to driving up. And back then, of course, the highways weren't as nice as they are today. So it was a real great alternative uh to driving into northern Ontario, just hop on a train and go. Think about that, eh? That would have been fun. That all came to an end in 2012. Uh, for whatever reasons, we don't need to necessarily get into that unless you want to. But uh you have been instrumental in bringing it back, and it's taking you a couple of years. I want to start the story there. Tell us all about that.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Well, uh I the you know, it was a long time ago when the previous government decided uh to cancel the Northlander. It had been running, the train service had been leaving Union Station for Ontario's North uh for more than a hundred years. Wow. So it's great. Uh in 2012, I promised the community that it'd fight to get it back. And since becoming a cabinet minister, Premier Ford said, Bunny, what do you need up north? And I said, We need the Northlander train back. It's how university kids get home. It's how tourism happens in the summer, it's convenient. It's Union Station right all the way to Cochrane. Wow. And so uh the Premier said, Well, if that's what you need and you can prove it, then let's get it back. And so here we are. The train has uh uh been purchased. Brand new rail cars. Uh so very this is kind of interesting. These are the very first new rail cars that Ontario Northland has ever had. They've only ever had hand-me-downs for more than 120 or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Look at you guys, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

Wow, these are very first brand new cars.

SPEAKER_06 31:48

So this is this is different, totally different than uh what some of us uh refer to as the Bud Car, which has been running for a number of years. Of course, it's a rickety old uh train that I I love it by the way. Yeah, it's an Austria. We've taken it so many times. Uh, so this is brand new technology, brand new equipment uh that's running uh up into the north. How often does it run? Or will it be run? Is it running? Are we up and running?

SPEAKER_03 32:15

So it'll be running this summer. Uh it'll start. Um, it's here now. It's you'll see it up and down the highway. If you watch, you'll see it uh on a daily basis. It's just doing its final testing right now. I think they call it revenue service demonstration, which means they've got people on it now, they've got um uh staff who are you know serving tables, that kind of thing, all going into uh into training. It'll run somewhere between four and seven days a week, depending on on the season. And it's got 16 stops along the way uh from Toronto all the way up to uh Timmins and over to Cocker. Uh so it's just it's just so exciting. When that train pulled in uh to town, it was just uh just a whole sense just flows over you. I talked to some friends who were in uh Tomogamy uh the other day, and they said they're all in the restaurant, which is across the street from the Northlander. And when they saw it come by on one of its test runs, they all got up, ran to the windows, took photos, and when it left town, yeah, it was just a big clap in the whole restaurant. Everybody in the north is just so thrilled to have the uh to have the Northlander.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

How how different is it from the old bud cars, let's say? Like what's a modern train look like, uh, interior or exterior, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

There's no comparison. I mean, I I I I take the UPX, the Union Pearson Express, and I thought it was gonna look like that. No, no, no, no. This thing is it's you know, it's got tables, um, there's table service, it's got business uh areas that you can uh uh work from. Um this is uh you know there's basically a locomotive and three passenger cars. There's almost 170 seats. Uh we've got three train sets like that that are uh uh coming. We've got the first one here in North Bay, the second one is being tested in Toronto, and the third one is on its way. But when you when you sit there, um that they're really wide aisles, it's not like a train car. There's adjustable tray tables, there's overhead reading lights, uh there's Wi-Fi, uh, you know, all of those things to keep you connected through the through the whole journey. The the train sets, they have a variety of seats. There's like a two-seat, it's really cozy two seats. Then there's a single aisle seats for privacy. There's a whole pod style setup um with uh two bench seats that uh face each other, table in the middle, perfect for groups of four people. I mean, that these are these are the most modern rail cars built because they're absolutely brand new.

SPEAKER_04 35:00

That's awesome. Could we go? Can anybody go online and look at that train but before they even get on, just for out of interest?

SPEAKER_03 35:05

Yeah, you can go on to uh the Ontario Northland site. You know, I I don't remember their actual website. I just I just hit the button and I'm there, but it's Ontario Northland. And uh you can see uh you can see the schedule, you can see the fares. Um it's really reasonable as well. It's about 10% more than the cost of a bus. So, you know, to go from uh North Bay to Toronto is just over a hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

That's really, really good. Yeah, you know, you can go from um Timmins to uh Toronto for I think it's about 180 bucks. Uh so this is uh and then there's all kinds of discounts. There's seniors discounts, there's military, there's students, there's people traveling for medical, there's families of two or more. There are all these you know discount packages that are you know virtually you know, for the most part, people uh will will have some sort of a discount from that.

SPEAKER_06 36:05

Nice at the beginning of the program we talked about the the the latest news out uh in the industry, travel industry, that uh folks in Canada are looking uh to cut back because of the price of fuel, cut back some of their travel, uh both uh uh leisure and business travel, and they're trying to figure out how they're going to change their life around that. And this is just the perfect alternative to saying, no, I'm not gonna go to Cochrane this year like I have done for the last 10 years with my buddies.

SPEAKER_05 36:38

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 36:39

This is the perfect solution to it because the costs are negligible. When you especially if you're talking about you know, four or five guys that normally would uh take a vehicle or sometimes even two vehicles to get there. Um, this is gonna be a fraction of the cost that it would be to normally.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

Yeah, it sounds it sounds very economical in this day and age right now.

SPEAKER_06 37:01

I think you're gonna find out, Vic, if you don't already know that there are a lot of folks uh in this part of the world that love to be fishing and in the outdoors a lot all summer long. And our biggest worry as this crisis with the fuel has been dropping on us was what is it gonna do for the operators? How are they gonna get through this? This is gonna be tough. And lo and behold, I don't know whether this was intentional, but uh man, what a great alternative. And you couldn't have you couldn't ask for better timing to get this thing on the rails, no pun intended. That's perfect. Uh for the outdoors community, this is a godsend. And uh I think you're gonna be pleasantly surprised at the uh patronage that uh that the Northlanders gonna get from uh think about for families too on a vacation.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

And then before we go back to fishing, yeah, just think about uh you know, you got a week vacation. You can you know take public transit back to Union Station, get on the Northlander, uh get up to North Bay, uh uh it'll it'll leave about dinner time, and get up to North Bay, check in somewhere, and get up the next day and do Chief Commander tour out on the lake. Chief Commander is a boat. Uh is it still going? Yep, Chief Commander 2 is still going. Uh and it's spectacular. I brought my whole Toronto staff up uh last summer and we had a great time on it. Burgers and fries on the Chief. Go out into the uh mystical manitos, yeah, where the old mining headframe was. Beautiful. So think of that with your family. The Deun Quintuplets Museum. See where the five could explain to your kids and grandkids what Quintuplets were all about back in the 30s, and all the things you can see and do in North Bank. Get on the train and head north. Uh, you can stop along the way or go up to Tomogamy, uh, explore uh the mining sector through Cobalt and New Liskerd, go all the way to Timmins, uh, get off, have a fun day there. Tons and tons of great things to do. Uh go on to Cochrane, spend the night, take the Polar Bear Express, the edge of the plane, and then that takes you to the water's edge in James Bay. And I'll tell you, I remember the very first time I was there. This is a long, long time ago, decades ago. There are grave sites from the 1600s, 1604, like things that kids are never going to see. There's a panic that the First Nations will make, there's uh uh all kinds of things to do. It's a day trip, so you have to take the train up to Mousini, take a canoe across to Moose Factory Island and come back, get back on the Polar Bear Express, and you're back in Cochrane for the second night, uh, and then get back on the train and start your way back. Uh stop at the places you didn't see on the way up, maybe spend another night. Uh great time to get off in uh in Muskokas, in Huntsville, or other areas. There's so many things that you can do in that area as well. You're back at Union Station, you've had a lovely week with the grandkids. Wow, that's true.

SPEAKER_06 40:27

You just hated a wonderful picture. That is a great picture. Well done. Well done. I'm curious, was there much opposition to this initiative?

SPEAKER_03 40:38

Look, everybody knew canceling the Northlander in 2012 was wrong. Um, so there was no opposition. Everybody jumped on the bandwagon to support this. Uh, but it it took 14 years uh to get it back. It's water under the bridge, it's back, it's gonna be exciting, a great opportunity uh for the fishing community to come on up here and fish the lakes and just uh the fish uh this past uh ice fishing season was spectacular. January 1, there was like more than 12 inches of solid ice, uh, way better than last year, where it was kind of slushy on the shore. Not this year. This was a phenomenal year, right to the end of the season. Uh you know, I live in North Bay two weekends ago, two Saturdays ago, we saw snow, a little tiny snow bank left in the driveway.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

We talked to uh an operator of it uh yesterday, Teddy at Hog Lake. His lake is still frozen over except for one little strip at the shoreline. The rest of it is all ice, and then there was somebody else that talked about, I can't remember where they said they're still running snow machines on their lakes for a little farther north than that, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_06 41:49

Which you know, funny because this leads me to mention this other part of the wonderful um initiative is that during the winter time when things get a little bit rough, even though the highways have been so vastly improved over the years, and I mean we've got four lanes each way going up to into your old neck of the woods. But sometimes during the winter, that can be a real adventure. Oh and and more than that, it's it's sometimes you go in and and everything's good and the forecast is looking great, and then you spend a couple of days in the north, and it's time to come back, and all of a sudden it's a disaster.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

You have to encounter that highway 400. You do not want to be on that in any kind of weather conditions driving north.

SPEAKER_06 42:32

This is a great winter uh product as well.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

It's uh absolutely I I gotta tell you, uh, one day, a couple years ago, we brought some of the polar bear express cars down to uh North Bay so we could sort of design the the route to Toronto and think about the stops. And it was dead in the middle of winter. And we got on that train, and as we were going through looking, it was a blizzard. We had the media with us, and what a proof point why you needed a Northlander. By the time we got to Barrie and looked out onto the highway, 400 was closed both ways. The storm was so bad. We got to Toronto on time. Perfect, and you know, we said to the media, like it's just almost we who would have known it was going to be such a horrific day that the highway was closed, and there we were, warm, comfortable, having a coffee, had a snack for lunch, beautiful day on the train. And we said, This this is why we need this train back.

SPEAKER_06 43:38

And that's the other part too. Train travel for those of you who have not done it or very limited uh uh access to train, it's a just a wonderful way to chill. It's just a great way to especially if you're going with family or friends. There they're those are some of those special moments that you have on a train trip, uh, they last forever.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Like if you're driving there, it's great for maybe the rest of the family, but there's always somebody got to drive too, right? And that's the other problem. When you're driving up in a four-hour drive, you're concentrating, you're not really, you know, it's it's fun and all, but this gives everybody the freedom.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

So like what do you do? Pull over for those little breaks that you need. You've got everything. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:18

You don't have to get a pea break in the middle of the winter right there. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

So, you know, I was just gonna add one little thing. We've invested a lot of money in brand new stops all along the way. All these 16 places are relatively new uh stations, small stations that are being built, or larger one in Timmins. But you know, the clackety-clackity-clack of the train, all that's gone because we welded all of the rails together so it's smooth, safer, seamless. You don't hear it. Um the tracks are in bank now to allow these trains to go faster. So we put a tremendous amount of resources, money, and engineering into making that experience way, way better than uh.

SPEAKER_06 45:04

I didn't even interest me, it didn't even dawn on me. I just thought it it's the same track, so it's been there forever. And so you guys actually built it from the ground, literally from the ground up.

SPEAKER_03 45:13

Well, the existing rails uh banked some of them, and we purchased from CN, the rail line from Washago, north of Toronto, to North Bay. That was CN line, and that's where one of the problems used to be when we were kids in university coming back and forth. You'd have to pull over on the one siding and wait. Oh, right, for me to go by. Well, now Ontario Northland owns that track, manages that freight business, so can coordinate so that the passenger line is always going to become perfect, real big. That was a very big part of bringing back the Northland.

SPEAKER_06 45:54

Part of the obviously the 14 years. You know, when you start talking in terms of that, now you understand how why it would take so long uh to get this thing off the ground.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

We're not talking also about the opposite. So the people from the north that want to come down to Toronto, there's a great opportunity there too. I mean, even maybe even better than the opposite way, right? Now they can just take off, come down, you're right in the it's Union Station, right? So you're right in the city, you can do whatever you want, get a place for overnight or whatever. That's uh you gotta remember that's a go to a ball game. A ball game, hockey game, exactly. Well, I don't know about hockey games, but ball game.

SPEAKER_03 46:27

Yeah, you can leave uh you can leave North Bay in the morning, go for a medical appointment, and and go home at night. Right. There you go.

SPEAKER_06 46:36

There you go. That's perfect. There is that too, right? The whole medical thing. Yeah, yeah. I anyways, I just can't believe that uh that here we are. Uh uh a lot of us, unfortunately, and I'm guilty of this, Vic. Unfortunately, when it came to an end in 2012, yeah, you know, I said, Oh, okay, oh well, you know, but I didn't realize till a few years later just that the impact that that had on the community up north. I mean, more so than than the urbanites here in the south. The the real pain was felt by all those outlying communities that that their their lifeline to the south and to to mainstream Ontario was was literally shut down ever night, right? So they must have.

SPEAKER_03 47:24

Oh, for sure, imagine lots of fun. Are you welcome to the north?

SPEAKER_06 47:29

Are you planning any like special events along the way when it first opens? Like, are these little uh uh stations and communities planning on doing something? There's gotta be something that that sh needs to be I don't know, party. We need to have parties along the way, you know.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

I I suspect, by the way, although things are being planned, I suspect a lot of this will just be organic. Once the uh schedule uh actually comes out and the start date comes out, I think you'll see people rushing to get on that first train, planning all kinds of events. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:01

You might not know the answer to this, but I'll I'll ask it anyways. Are there opportunities for people who want to access the north on this rail system? Are there opportunities uh freight cars that they can actually uh ship um whether it's uh ATVs or their canoes or their kayaks or whatever, to to have them on the train as well to go to wherever they're going?

SPEAKER_03 48:31

I don't know. Yeah, I should have known that before, but I truly don't know.

SPEAKER_06 48:37

Just dawned on me because that would be a you know, I'm thinking uh campers, I'm thinking of hikers.

SPEAKER_04 48:43

They always threw their boats right on the bud car, right? But about what about speaking of which then, Vic? You probably know about this, then on the Northlander itself, like extra like long fishing rod tubes and stuff like that, be no problem storing all that stuff going up, like a you know, seven-foot tube and all the gear that you have, like that.

SPEAKER_03 49:02

Oh, sure. Ask me more questions I don't want to be answered to. You know, I next time I go out to the train station, I'm gonna get back on the rail car. I'm home for a short while. I'll see if I can get another one. I'm gonna start looking deeply into all of these things. Perfect for any to see.

SPEAKER_06 49:19

How um I haven't had a chance to talk to you uh about this. Uh, you know, uh the transition that this is totally unrelated to the train and anything else. You know, you're a you're a northern boy. You're you're you're you know, that's the vic that I first met, you know, in North Bay. You're you're we'll call you a country boy for the lack of better term. How has that transitioned into you know being a Torontonian, being a member of Parliament, being an important gog in the uh provinces uh like how how's that that whole thing worked out for you?

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Well, look, I've been here 15 years. I live in Toronto uh four nights a week, so five days a week. I live in Toronto. Um, but I'm gonna show you my this is my cell phone, so you can see all I think about uh as my screensaver is getting home. Nice. That's that's my backyard. Beautiful you can take the boy out of the country. I live in the country. Uh I love it. I can't wait. I'll be uh sawing, uh chainsawing all the limbs that have fallen and the trees that have broken over the winter. You know, I can't wait to get out in the back 40 with the chainsaw on the tractor. Awesome! So we don't lose that. I I still cut the lawn every uh Saturday or Sunday. That's my job. And you know, there's 14 acres of it. Oh you got a good lawn there. Uh me and my electric uh riding uh mower.

SPEAKER_06 50:56

And I remember when you first uh got the itch to get into politics provincially as opposed to just uh municipally, uh your biggest supporter and and aide was Patty, your wife, who without her, I'm sure you wouldn't be sitting in that chair uh that you're in today.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

So Angela, she's the one who got who who convinced me to go into politics mostly because I'd sold my business and was lingering around the house too long, and she said to me, buddy, you need to you need a job you need something to do. Why don't you run for mayor? The city uh you know is in a state that it looks like it needs a business person to run it, go run for mayor. And as you know, in 2003 I ran for mayor one with 75% majority, so the people were thirsty for the kind of change we wanted to bring, and yeah, and uh I hope the city's better off for it.

SPEAKER_06 51:50

He was known as the mayor with the cowboy boots. Yeah, that's right. He still got them on. Still got them on.

SPEAKER_03 51:57

I'm not the I can't lift my leg up onto this table, but I still wear them every day.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

I gotta play.

SPEAKER_06 52:03

Uh Buddy, listen, it's such a breath of fresh air to uh to get you on here talking about this project and just uh sort of catching up um on uh all those wonderful little things, those memories that you just brought up to my mind uh about your mayorship, because we we worked together with Vic, I don't know if you remember or not, on the last call when we did the last call there. So yeah. That was a while ago.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Yeah, that was a while ago.

SPEAKER_06 52:28

Anyways, um, congratulations on on this. I call it a victory, uh, whether you see it that way or not. It was not it was not a it was a long fought uh battle to get it back, but uh it must feel good to get it back back up and operating.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

It sure does. And I, you know, I can't be more grateful to Premier Ford. He's the one who pulled the pin and said, let it go. We're we're bringing the Northlander back. So thanks, boss. I won't be asking you for any other favors.

SPEAKER_06 52:56

You know, and and the reason we wanted to bring you on here, aside from the fact that I think it's gonna be great for our community to be able to access the north without driving, um, but it's also to kind of showcase what you guys are doing down there at Queen's Park. You know, you get you're uh yeah, every day you're under fire, and every day there and you you you take heat, some of it deserves, some of it not, but regardless, and then there's wonderful projects like this. There's no negatives at all that anybody could bestow on this new you know train running up north. Although I shouldn't say that, somebody will probably find a negative.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

Oh god, I'm gonna say there's no realistic negatives.

SPEAKER_06 53:33

But but for us, it's just a great opportunity to tell people hey, there's a lot of really good things going on. We may not hear about them every day, but there's stuff going on, and this is just one of them. This is fantastic. Congratulations, man. Yeah, well done. Thank you, my friend. You too. Appreciate your time. We'll talk to you soon. Uh uh, we'll maybe see you on your tr on the train. Keep fishing, come up and fish. Yeah, exactly. Take care, man. Oh, wonderful. Vic Fidel, uh, just a wonderful. Forget the fact that uh he's a great politician, but and that notwithstanding, uh, he's just a wonderful individual who agree.

SPEAKER_04 54:11

When we first met him uh as mayor of North Bay, he just gets it, doesn't change to me.

SPEAKER_06 54:15

He understands, he understands what what uh what the job of being a politician is, and uh from all accounts, I didn't want to get too in-depth as to what he's doing today as uh the position that he's in. But I'm sure there's a it'd be a long story of that. Lots going on. All that, anyways. That train sounds great, man. We're gonna have to do uh a crew trip.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

Hey, maybe when it opens up, we'll I'd like to do the the Moussanye one. Oh, I know you would. Yeah, uh wood's fun. Yeah, that I've I've never done that one.

SPEAKER_06 54:48

I don't know. Have you ever done one time? Did you that was uh from Cochrane to what was it right to Moussany? We didn't James Bay, right? Yeah, we did the Sutton River.

unknown 54:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:58

Yeah, yeah. Oh, used the train to get there? Wow, no kidding.

SPEAKER_06 55:02

Oh it was cool until we lost all of our provisions. I think taking the train anywhere up into the north country would just be a really cool experience.

SPEAKER_04 55:11

Honestly, taking the train anywhere. Taking it anywhere. Like going from uh here to Montreal, it's probably a good deal to do.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

I'm gonna be doing that next week here, or maybe the week this podcast even comes out. But Grandpa, if you remember, like we used to take the train to go see like the Leafs games and the Days games. Oh, yeah. And actually, last time we did the sportsman show, there was a guy my age, I was like, I want to say nine when this happened. He met us on that train, and I met him again at the show, and he remembered it, and he's been a fan of the show ever since. His name's Hayden. Hayden, if you're listening, hello. That's cool. Yeah, just there's a lot of cool memories that come out of taking the train.

SPEAKER_06 55:47

Great memories. Uh the only thing I'm a little concerned about on this now, and I don't want to sound negative because there's nothing negative about this. Okay, okay, but the schedule I'm not crazy about. I'd love to see it during the day, like that route. That's gotta be a day thing. I'd like to leave at six in the morning from Union Station and travel all day long. Yes. Right? To let's say if if depending on where you're going, obviously. Uh but yeah, I'd like to do that if it's if it's gonna be an eight-hour trip or ten-hour trip or six hour wherever you're getting off. I'd like to do it under daylight.

SPEAKER_04 56:23

Well, maybe they'll adjust it when the you know, the schedule you see right now might not be the absolute in-stone Bible, who knows, right?

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Yeah, I think all train schedules run on demand, right? Like I know Sundays, Sunday mornings for via, there's almost no trains because people don't want to get up on a Sunday morning. Right. Uh but Saturday mornings there's 6 a.m. or right. So I think it's it's all just demand. So if people, if we start taking the Northlander and then it gets busier and then they keep selling out, they'll probably add more time.

SPEAKER_06 56:50

Yeah, I guess it depends on which way you're going too coming south and it's you've got some daylight if you're heading north or vice versa. Which, anyways, regardless, uh, it's an absolutely outstanding initiative, and uh, I'm sure a lot of folks listening to this program are going to be using it over the course of the next 12 to 24 months. I I know we will be, for sure. And uh looking forward to it. Yeah, even even going to just the North Bay. Yeah. Right? Just to be fantastic. Yes, sir. All right, that are it.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

Dino, did we miss anything? Um I so we have a contest. This will be this podcast will be out just as our new contest is going up. Okay, right. What date is this? That's the 15th.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

The 15th this comes out? Uh that's when the contest starts. That's when the contest starts. Because if so, then we need a bonus code for these funds.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

We need a bonus code because we have the 16-inch echo map.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

Oh come on, baby. Uh I believe it's about$6,400. Getting out of hand here, okay. Oh,$66,719.99 MSRP.

SPEAKER_06 57:56

Okay, when all right, let's let's with transducer.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

Uh transducer.

SPEAKER_02 58:01

Yeah, with transducer? With transducer.

SPEAKER_04 58:03

With transducer.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

SV with the GT56 UHD TM transducer, baby.

SPEAKER_06 58:18

And that is when when did Maybe May 15th we're launching that contest? So we're launching May 15th, and then I'll have what, like a month to enter? Uh that's a month and a month. A month and a half. A month and a half and a half.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

I call it two just for sake of argument. That's huge, boy. This is might be short of the boat motor trailer. This might be our highest ticket. Huge item we've ever given.

SPEAKER_04 58:38

Yeah, ice jack setup worth. That was pretty expensive, too, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 58:42

45, I wonder. No, it'd be up in your yeah, because they were a GPS map.

SPEAKER_04 58:47

You know, it was a GPS map, but still.

SPEAKER_00 58:49

Either which way that's for you, Garmin. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 58:51

That's awesome. And Fish in Canada.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

That's exciting. That's very exciting.

SPEAKER_06 58:54

That's exciting. So um, code. Code. I think we do Northlander. Oh, oh, I say we do Northlander. I like that one word.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

No spaces, all capitals. Northlander.

SPEAKER_06 59:06

Northlander is your code. And uh, what do they get for that, Nick? Uh 10 entries. Is it? 10 entries.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

I believe it's 10 entries. Remember, we're we're in we're in USD these days, so uh no no rubles. It's just 10.

SPEAKER_06 59:19

USB. What are you talking about? Never mind. USD. All right. Uh that was it then, uh, Dean. You did and by the way, that contest is brought to you by JMB Cycle, correct? That contest is brought to you by Garmin. Yeah. Garmin.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

Garmin presents the Echo Map Ultra giveaway.

SPEAKER_06 59:35

So it should not say brought to you by JMB Cycle. The good folks have an US have an out-of-date uh the good folks uh that uh uh bring you all those wonderful boat motor trailer packages from Princecraft and uh Mercury. They sell Garmin's too. There's nothing sell Garmin's, they're good people. So not to be confused with JB Cycle. This contest is brought to you by the good people at Garmin. That's right. All right. All right, did we fix all that up? I think we're good. Yeah, I uh I got nothing else. You're good? Bye-bye. On behalf of the entire crew, uh Nikki V, store manager, uh Dean Taylor, producer, uh Mr. Peter Bowman of the Fish in Canada Show. I am your humble servant, Angela Bayola. Thank you very much for talking about. This episode of Outdoor Journal Radio has been brought to you in part by the Invasive Species Center, protecting Canada's land and water from invasive species. Freedom Cruise Canada, rent the boat, own the memories, and JMB Cycle a Marine, your home for all things power sports, boats, and equipment.