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Diaries of a Lodge Owner
In 2009, sheet metal mechanic, Steve Niedzwiecki, turned his passions into reality using steadfast belief in himself and his vision by investing everything in a once-obscure run-down Canadian fishing lodge.
After ten years, the now-former lodge owner and co-host of The Fish'n Canada Show is here to share stories of inspiration, relationships and the many struggles that turned his monumental gamble into one of the most legendary lodges in the country.
From anglers to entrepreneurs, athletes to conservationists; you never know who is going to stop by the lodge.
Diaries of a Lodge Owner
Episode 83: From Lodges to Lifestyle: A Journey of Innovation and Mindfulness
Can technology truly revolutionize the lodge industry? Discover how Noah , the innovative developer behind Treqit, is transforming lodge management through his groundbreaking software. With a background rooted in both computer science and a family tradition of lodge ownership, Noah offers unique insights into how Treqit streamlines operations through features like booking management and automated guest communication. Listen as we discuss the importance of building strong client relationships and how this software continues to evolve to meet the demands of modern hospitality.
In an era where efficiency is key, we dive into the nuances of flexible payment and communication systems that enhance guest experiences. Explore the benefits of integrating diverse payment options, from credit cards to checks, to meet customer preferences. Additionally, we'll explore how automated messaging can save time and elevate customer interactions. By leveraging technology, businesses in the hospitality sector can focus on what truly matters: creating memorable experiences for their guests.
Beyond the realm of technology and lodges, embark on a journey of personal growth and wellness through the practices of mindful fasting, yoga, and meditation. We share personal stories and expert tips on embracing healthier lifestyle choices, from overcoming food addictions to achieving mental clarity through extended fasting.
Trekit. Basically, it's an online-based software system and what I'm trying to do with it is to really just make it so that, if you're a lodge owner, you can communicate seamlessly with your customers and basically make it easy for your customers to do business with you.
Speaker 2:This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio podcast Networks Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North. I am so excited to talk about one of the most important skills that I had to learn as a business owner, namely lodge owning, and we get to explore this topic with one of the leading specialists in the field helping everyone with organization. Yes, knowing when your guests are coming to see you, what to charge them, how, what their names and contacts are, do they have a birthday or anniversary when they're here visiting? What did they buy when they were here? How do you get that information tracked, documented and money to the bank, and the list goes on and on, and on, and on and on. And it is my pleasure to now include in our Diaries family Noah Caron, developer of Trekkit software. On this show we explore the lodge tourism industry and how Trekkit is an outstanding tool to help maintain and keep your business organized and you out of trouble.
Speaker 2:I recall some stories of trouble and hard lessons learned when it come to this type of organization. Double bookings suck. And we also talk a bit about my current state. I'm in a fast folks, potentially 40 days of fast. I'll explain what I'm doing, why and how I'm feeling. So, folks, if you love great stories, learning a bit about things you don't think about every day, this one's a great one and listen, sit back and have a heaping helping of something tasty for me. Here's my conversation with Noah Caron. Welcome, folks, to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North and unfortunately today Willie's not with us. But I am really excited to have on the show a fellow that has helped me out with lodges, helped Will out, and we're going to find out why. And I want you all to meet Noah Caron. Noah, welcome to the show, my friend.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a pleasure. So, Noah, I'll crack the nut and let everybody know what you do. But you have a program that I've had the pleasure to get to know fairly well in the last, oh, six months or so, and it is a, in my opinion as a lodge owner, an all-in-one program, and it gets bookings, it takes payments, it processes payments, it helps you keep track of your guides and schedules and all kinds of things, and we're going to talk about that. But before we get there, I'd like to know that. But before we get there, I'd like to know how did you get to this point?
Speaker 1:You know, like even start back as far back as your schooling or as a young kid, or you know what led you to this point. Yeah, so I studied computer science, information systems, in college and when I graduated I went to college in Minnesota. There was a small software company called Munsonware Guest Tracker and they only had like five employees and they were looking for, um, customer support people, basically. Yeah, and there was a my advisor in college was had known, had actually placed another employee with him and so he he gave me that recommendation and through that connection I got an interview and I became a customer support rep and their, their product at the time called Guest Tracker, was used by, I think it was, a couple thousand lodges and resorts, and that was in the early 2000s. So it was kind of past the whole 90s tech boom, yeah, but things were still pretty. You know there was a lot of stuff going on Um, there's companies buying other companies and things like that, and you know anycom company was was just kind of, you know, really cool, cool to work for. And so I got in through that and, uh, I started working there and I wanted to become a software developer and it was a, it was a year, uh, uh, right out of college and just really enjoyed it. I was on the phone with a lot of lodge and resort owners, um, and just grew to really enjoy um working with them. I actually my my family history, if you go way back, like my grandparents and my great-grandparents were lodge owners in northern Wisconsin Very cool, so it was in my family a little bit too. Even though I've never run a resort or anything like that, I grew up knowing that my grandparents did that, so I got into it through that Um. So, yeah, so I got into it through that.
Speaker 1:Uh, eventually the company I was working for, guest tracker, kind of got passed around and got bought and then another company bought them and eventually merged. But, um, I actually stayed with them for a while. I think it was there a couple of years, um, before I moved on to a different company, but I always enjoyed that experience. I moved on to a different company but I always enjoyed that experience. So that eventually led to today where I at some point after leaving Guest Tracker I had kept in contact with some resort owners on Lake Winnie in Minnesota and they had asked me to do some reporting for them and then eventually they had asked me to write an app for them, similar sort of as a replacement for guest tracker. And so I did that, and then they kind of through word of mouth, it kind of other users came on board and yeah, so, and then that led to me.
Speaker 1:In the last couple of years I've focused on building a completely web-based version of that app and then it was initially called LodgeVault and then renamed it to TrekIt about a year ago. Still in the process of renaming it, I've got to switch a bunch of stuff, but yeah, I think everything's going online. I still really enjoy working with people, I enjoy working with resort owners, I enjoy this space outdoors, things like that. So it's been a real joy and I plan to keep on doing it Cool.
Speaker 2:So what was it like and I've never actually worked in an office and on computer and computer programming, right what was it like when you were working for that dot-com company and and like, I mean, what did a day look like?
Speaker 1:Well, since I was doing customer support, um, I was pretty much on the phone most of the time and it was things like people would call in resort owners and and they would have issues like you know, maybe the installation didn't work or the printer wasn't working, things like that, and I'd try to really work with them to try to figure out what's going on, you know. And then there was sort of after a while, you sort of get in the habit of, okay, this is this type of call and here's what I did last time to fix it, and you sort of get this knowledge built up about how to resolve the most common issues that you see. Yeah, but yeah, so a lot of phone calling, a lot of talking with the other support people, and it was a really good experience. It eventually led into software development, which you're not talking on the phone quite as much, you're mostly just solving problems with coding and things.
Speaker 2:So now? And coding is like Chinese to me, it's a totally different language, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're basically giving the computer instructions, you're writing them down and it's just a set of instructions, gotcha.
Speaker 2:Because I know one of the things I love about your program, treket, and when I owned Chaudière, I took ownership in 2009. And probably around 2012,. I was in need of a program that I could do my bookings through, keep them straight, organize the guides, keep them straight and we even like. So I started building a program, and I'm no programmer by any means. I'm the guy that gives you the problems. You know what I mean and you're the guy that finds the solutions. And the guy I was working with his name was Sheldon and Sheldon we picked a very rudimentary booking hotel program that was a free base online at the time, and then he started coding all around it. I don't even know if we ended up incorporating that at all, but what it turned into was something that was very similar and to the point where I was managing my equipment inside it as well. The boats and you know the dock hands would be as long as well. I guess I was going to say as long as they enter it correctly. But that goes with any system. You know, shit in, shit out, good in, great out. But it would tell my dock hands when the oil on engine number um, uh, engine number 14 needed changed and different things like that. Um, but uh, it wasn't. It wasn't really user-friendly. It was user-friendly enough that I had to train people to use it all the time. Um, but, um, I can appreciate how, um, how difficult. Well, like I mean, I can appreciate how big a project like this is. Why don't we?
Speaker 2:And, as a lodge owner, there's really a couple of things that I look for Well, former lodge owner, I guess and number one is keeping track of my guests. Number one, first and foremost, and that means financially, that means experience-wise as well. So I would put in, have a place to make notes, much like Trekkit, where I could say Bob and Nancy booked for um this week, uh, and it's their anniversary, so I'd make, I'd make the anniversary notes. So it was experience based as well. And, um, uh, because there is nothing, you know nothing worse than um an overbooking. And before I had a system, I always used to think, when I first bought the lodge and and my occupancy was was fairly poor, um, I used to dream of the day that I would be overbooked until it happened. And you know, I remember this one.
Speaker 2:I don't think it was much more than three days, but I had guests that I booked and I did not have a cottage for them. And I didn't realize that I didn't have a cottage booked for them until they ended up on the island standing in front of the desk looking at me and Noah. There is no worse feeling on the planet than a couple that's extremely excited to be on the French River and at Chaudiere, and I have to tell them that I don't have a place for you at the moment. I'm very sorry, and I ended up having to kick one of my staff out of the staff quarters. Now you need to understand. My staff quarters was like a motel and there were staff in 14, I had 14 bedrooms and I kicked one of my staff out, told them to move upstairs in the main lodge with me, I had the housekeepers go in and and steam clean the goddamn room and, uh, set it up as best as I could to make it look like a cottage and offered this couple that and um, and not only did I offer them that, I gave it to them for free.
Speaker 2:I gave them everything right, because you know how can I make such a egregious error and affect somebody's life and their trip like that? So you know, it ended up working out, but it was a little rocky, I must admit, and, to be honest with you, I don't think they stayed the full stay because it was not ideal conditions. And after disappointing somebody like that, that's when I realized I can't. I did two things. I started that quest to find a better way than pencil and paper and I hired somebody to do it for me, because, as a lodge owner running from, you know the shitters busted in Cardinal Cottage and you know the shitters busted in Cardinal Cottage and you know the people are complaining there's water all over the floor, while you're just on the phone taking a booking and then you know as soon as you get off that phone you're not actually writing the shit down that you need to write down, and then you run out there and deal with that and by the time you get that dealt with, you forget what happened. And, and that's, I'm sure that's what happened, but I had no recollection of this booking and um, and they had uh, they had uh, the confirmation, uh, the and everything. So that was um, that's what started it.
Speaker 2:And and you know, that's what's so important for what you do You're the organizer for the absolute chaos that happens in these resorts and you know there's different levels of chaos in different places. Like I mean, you know you've got guys that have been in the business for you know, decades who have it down and have their system down and have made enough money to put employees in the right positions. But still to have a system like Trekkit and to help keep you organized is paramount. And let's just talk about Trekkit itself. So our Diaries family gets an idea of the intricacies of what can be done and how resorts do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it handles, yeah, the Delvo booking thing. I like that story because that is definitely a nightmare.
Speaker 1:A nightmare, and I've heard that from a lot of lodge owners. It's just the avoid at all costs. Luckily, I've been very fortunate. I've had a couple that have been close calls.
Speaker 1:But yeah, as a software developer, if you're writing this kind of software for lodge owners, it's definitely something you always got to think about. It's definitely something you always got to think about, and so, but yeah, trekit, basically it's an online-based software system and what I'm trying to do with it is to really just make it so that, if you're a lodge owner, you can communicate seamlessly with your customers and basically make it easy for your customers to do business with you. So, whether that's paying, obviously that's a huge one, and so having a good payment system in there integrates with the credit card processor. But you can also do flexible things, like you can complete payments on bills with cash or check, and so you're not just forced to do the credit card thing, but if you do want to do that, you can email them. If they're checking out, you can email them, which is a great idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally agree it. Just they can pay right on their phone, and most people are going to get that email on their phone, on their smartphone, and then they can. If they have their credit card information, they can just click on it and pay it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because one of the things with the checks that I'm not 100% sure of and this probably isn't even a Trekkit thing but when I in Canada receive an American check, when I log that, I would log that in as paid when it goes into the bank. But I don't know how long it takes for that check to clear right, so there could be a lag in there and as far as I'm concerned, the credit card is the best way to keep things with the books straight. But you know as well as I do there are going to be people that pay with cash and they're going to be people that pay with check yeah, absolutely it's.
Speaker 1:it's um, it's becoming more and more credit card as time goes on, for sure, um, but yeah, there there's. You know it's good to be able to have flexibility with how you accept your payments, and another thing that you can do and track it is you can have it. You can have it, um, basically, if they do want to pay with a credit card, you can have them pay the fee instead of you being withheld from your amount, and then people who pay with cash and check, they get a little bit less of an expense because they're deciding to pay with something that doesn't have a 3% charge on it. Sure, a lot of resort owners like that 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then also things just emailing. Sure, a lot of a lot of resort owners like that, a hundred percent, yeah, so. And then also things just just emailing. You know there's a lot of back and forth that that happens between a lodge owner and the customer. You know, cancellation letters, sending confirmation letters, inquiries, or just a hey, what's up, or hey, you know. You know it looks like you're going to be arriving in a few days.
Speaker 1:Here's a bunch of information you need to know about staying here, um, and so there's a. There's a really cool feature that I just added to track it where you can have it do automated messages, yeah, and templates, Yep. So you, you, you can completely customize the template, um, and then you can set it so that a week or three days or however long before their stay, it will automatically send them an email, and so that way you don't have to sit there and remember to send it, It'll just go. That's brilliant, yeah, a lot of people like that, and so that just frees up your time, so you don't have to remember, and once you get it set, it just goes, and that way you know all of your guests are correctly being reminded that they have an upcoming reservation and all the background info.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like I mean for me we were doing that manually, Like I hired, I called Cole, my bookings and office manager, and that's what he did, because those especially the just before you arrive email, that one was extremely important because we had our directions there and like we were a boat access resort and like we were a boat access resort and the road to the parking lot in the Doakese Native Reserve was a long road it was 28 kilometers long and people would get on that road and then you lose cell service along the way and then you lose cell service along the way. So there were constantly people saying, hey, you know, am I going the right way? And you know. So there was that information in there. There was information about the time of year. You know it is May. You might want to think about bringing some bug repellent and warm clothes. It may be warm. Some bug repellent and warm clothes, it may be warm. Just all of the things that people need to know that will help their experience. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't want to have to retype all of that by memory for every cast Even just to send.
Speaker 2:What we would do is in the email, we would have that saved as a on a like, a draft, and then just copy and paste. But if you're doing that 30 times every week because you've got that many guests coming in, and not only then, that's not the only correspondence, right? Um? Then there's the thank you at the end of it and then there's all of the in-between and, and you know like I mean, we found that the better you can make your template and the more information and accurate and understandable information, the less back and forth there is right, and that always helps.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. The back and forth is what eats up people's time, and you know it's not like you don't want to talk to people, but you know if, like you said, if you're having a sewage problem, you'd rather focus on that and then, well, not rather, you have to, you have to, you don't have a choice.
Speaker 2:You got shit on the floor.
Speaker 1:It's got to be cleaned up, like now yeah, exactly, and so so, the more that you can, you can rely on your automated system to kind of work for you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people assume that well, that automation, that's for bigger places. Well, it's surprising, if you just set it up, how it can just run for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so the automated messages are cool. I've had some people set it up where they'll put a link to a YouTube video in their templates. That way they can say, hey, here's an introduction, like if they're renting out equipment of any sort, or if there's anything that's complex or that requires more than just a typed out message, they can just say click on this and this is information on your stay. Here's like, for example here's a you know how to an introduction to how to start and run your snowmobile, if they're renting snowmobiles, or oh, that's fantastic yeah, so things like that um I never even thought of that, what's that?
Speaker 1:I didn't even think of doing something like that yeah, yeah, in fact, they even put like um little seminars. Yeah, they put a seminar in the YouTube video and then they put little QR codes so people could just click on it or scan it with their phone if they wanted. Yeah, so all that can go into the templates. That's very cool.
Speaker 2:I'm like. I mean, I'm thinking. One of the things that I would have done if I had that ability was do a seminar on the water, because you know these are the hazards. This is what you look for.
Speaker 2:You know, the one confusion that, even to this day, is not easy for many people is the buoys. You know the red and the green buoy and you know everybody knows the term red right return. But if you don't know what that means, the right side could be the wrong side. It depends what direction you're coming from, right. So you know. Just to do a simple explanation on the buoys, hey, listen, you have to know the headwaters of where you're at, because that you're always returning to the headwaters. So if you're returning to the headwaters, then you keep the red buoy on your right and the green one on your left, but if you're going the opposite direction, they switch, and I lost so many props over people not knowing where the hazards were, or even local hazards that aren't marked.
Speaker 2:You know you could do a seminar on that. As a matter of fact, my first year, my first full year in 2010, we had a drought and the water was about four feet low and I stopped counting props at 250. Oh, it was, it was. It was craziness, it was really it was, and the upper French can be treacherous, but the problem that year was people that had been there for years were going places that they always used to be able to go, but it wasn't working for them that year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the videos. That was brilliant. A lot of people will put links to waivers as well. It just reminded me of that. Links to waivers as well, it just reminded me of that. A lot of people will you know, and those, those first emails that they send out, are the ones that automatically go out before the stay. They'll send um, you know here, if you haven't filled this out, you're going to need to do this before you get here. Sure, so things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and even a link to your fishing license to the um, uh, to uh, uh, get your fishing license prior to, because that's something that um, at chaudiere we used to issue fishing licenses but it was such a pain in the ass and there was no money in it. It was more of a convenience thing. We always, we, we, we always were able to issue a license, but, um, we always push people to get them prior to because it was just as easy, and then there's nobody waiting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, phishing licenses and some of the temples can get pretty long with all of the information. Once you start like phishing licenses, waivers, video, how-to videos, they get pretty big, but you know what?
Speaker 2:When somebody's decided to drop five grand to come to your resort, or two grand or whatever that number may be that information. They might not digest it all at the same time, but you can be pretty sure that they're going to digest at least the videos and they're going to want to see the place and they're going to want to know what to bring. And the more information that you have there, the better their experience is going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the less questions they're going to ask. Hopefully, oh for sure. You know they're going to read it over and it might have a question here or there, but you know, if they're not, if they're bombarding you with questions, you can just say did you happen to read that email I sent you?
Speaker 2:that's all about some people you have to do that with. Yeah, a lot of people just really like talking to somebody and and that's cool too yeah, um and uh, we would always, we would always direct them to the, to the emails as well, always answer their questions but say, hey, listen, you know, if you need a reference, we sent out an email that has all this information. Yeah, so, if, um, if you, uh, when you, when it gets closer to the time, you can reference that email yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Unless you have a sewage problem going on, then you're just like just scurry the email.
Speaker 2:Unless the shitter's blowing up. You know, and like I mean, I've been there and definitely done that a few times, so it was quite an experience running the lodge. There was one year I had to replace all of the peat moss in the shit tanks and the peat moss is basically the filter that you run your effluent through. And you know, I just put my rubber boots on and jumped in the tank and dug them all out. Right, it wasn't very shitty, but you know, it was a little bit shitty, but not very shitty.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant. I didn't realize sewers could have P-MOS to actually do the rest of the digestion like that. That's pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the system that we had at Chaudière was a very cool system, basically meant for when you don't have much substrate I was basically on rock right so, like a normal septic is in the ground and you put a bunch of sand around it and then the effluent which is just a fancy word for shit water it goes out into the, into the dirt and sand and, uh, as it settles through that that um substrate, it filters it, um, where we had to kind of do that mechanically with uh, with uh, activated peat moss, so, um, there was a 45 gallon drum pump station at each cottage that pumped up into a series of large tanks, like the tanks were all about 1200 gallons a piece and that was basically for settling and for bacterial breakdown. And by the time it went through the grinder pumps it was, you know, it was all it was breaking down and it would pump it up to the echo flows is the name of those tanks, and they would be, you know, four feet wide by eight feet long and all they'd be seven feet deep into the ground. And we had well, I didn't, but the former lodge owner brought in a lot of the um of the dirt and uh needed to make a gravel bed underneath where they would sit, and then they were covered in dirt and um. And then inside those those um, um shit coffins, uh, was the um, was the um, um, peat moss and um. And then there was this R2D2 unit. I called it just because it looked like R2D2.
Speaker 2:And it was basically a diversion valve because I had eight of these EcoFlows for the size of the resort, and as it pumped the effluent up the hill it went into R2D2 and that feller knew that EcoFlow 1 gets two minutes of a dose. Then it switches to EcoFlow 2, it gets two minutes of a dose and it just sprinkles the water or the effluent on top of that peat and as it goes through the peat moss, the bacteria in the peat moss break down that effluent and then it comes out gray water in the bottom. So it was an um, it was uh, an interesting, uh learning experience, because I had no septic experience before I bought the lodge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't. I've never heard of that before. I bet the peat moss is probably the most efficient um like plant or to break down this sewage. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's another system called the Waterloo Biofilter and what they do is, rather than use the peat moss, they use like these foam popcorn deals. They're kind of in a star shape and those foam popcorn things it's a lot like a um uh um a fish tank. You know, you put those wee coral things in your, in your um uh filter and then bacteria will grow inside. All it is is it's a, it's a home for the bacteria to grow, and then they dose the uh, those popcorns with bacteria. You grow a culture and then they put the effluent through that. But it's it's your, it's your bacteria culture. That that really is is doing all of the work for you interesting yeah that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:It's probably a good solution for the canadian shield or the. It's very rocky and things.
Speaker 2:Well, really, it's about the only solution that the MOE will agree to. These days, you know, it's not like the old days at the lodge. I would, you know, be out and around the cottages and find a stack sticking out of the ground. And I realized, when I had an excavator there actually to do, I replaced all of the tanks and everything but around the cottages they just had at some point 45-gallon drums buried in the ground with a weeper tile that come off the top of it, and that was it which, hey, for I don't even know how many decades, 100 years. It worked right, but it's not like that these days.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hmm, interesting, yeah, yeah. So now, the other thing about Trekkit that I really enjoyed was the ease in which I could set up number one, my resort, and what I mean by that is cottages you can put in any number of units. Take pictures of those units. Um, you can put all of the information that you need to put in there. Um, you can also, um, uh. The other thing that's very handy and um, uh, when it comes to accounting is, um, when you set this up, you can set it up in concert with your accounting software, and Trekkit uploads into Excel, correct?
Speaker 1:That's correct, yep.
Speaker 2:And then 90% of all of the accounting software will download in Excel. So I was actually building my accounting codes right into Trekkit and linking those to the rates that I was building so that it was and with Nordic we're working on that and my vision is it's going to be a seamless upload and download when it comes to the numbers that we're collecting in Trekkit, because when you use it to its fullest potential, people are paying for everything through Trekkit, correct?
Speaker 1:people are paying for everything through Trekkit, correct? Yeah, you can have it automatically calculate unit rates packages for when you assign or when you create a booking. And then a typical scenario is throughout the course of their stay I mean, lodge owners will know this they're going to purchase various things gasoline bait, things like that and you can add all of that and track that as well. So you can track the sales tax. You can set the sales tax rate and then assign it to a revenue account and then at the end of any any time period, you can go back and look and see how much revenue your your business made.
Speaker 2:So can you also, when you're talking about bait, that's a great um uh example. Um, when I buy my bait, say, I pay um uh, five dollars a dozen for minnows. Is there a place that I can enter the cost of that bait in there so that it gives me the actual margin on it? Or is it just one of those things where it tracks the revenue and then you've got to take that revenue report and then go find your expense for that and then subtract the two?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just tracks the revenue. It tracks the revenue you've generated and sort of do net income and that kind of stuff you could do in an accounting package but you would track the expenses outside of the app, outside of Trekkit. So it's good at doing revenue, revenue side. Yeah, it's also good at tracking your deposits. So throughout the year you're taking deposits for the following year, so you're going to want to see what those are, how many you've collected for an upcoming time period. So it's good at tracking that. And it's also good at just if you're doing so. That's like accrual accounting. So it's also good if you're doing so. That's like accrual accounting, it's good at that. And also if you just want to see the number of payments that you've accepted over a time period, you can look at that and you can reconcile that with your bank account.
Speaker 1:But just tracking sales tax is also a big thing that a lot of people. They want to see their revenue, how much money they generated, but then they're also going to want to look and see how much tax they have to pay, sure, on a periodic basis. So it does that well as well. Beautiful, so it is not an accounting package. I would say it's more of, like you know, revenue tracking Gotcha.
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Speaker 2:Well, we're back from that. I'll tell you what my back teeth were floating. But I've been on a fast. I decided that oh, I don't know, maybe on the 6th of January or 7th, somewhere in that neighborhood, for whatever reason, I had a calling and I've got my. I'm doing a water fast. So I haven't eaten anything solid since January the 6th. I'm on about day 15 or something like that, with a maximum cap of 40, you know, because Jesus did 40 and I'm not doing any more than that, dude.
Speaker 1:That's impressive. How do you feel?
Speaker 2:I feel great right now. It's really interesting and one of the reasons I kind of did it was because I was just sick of being sick. You know, I'm type 2 diabetic. Hypertension is a little out of control. So you know I did it, I'm doing it and my blood sugar flattened out after two or three days, which is understandable because I'm not taking in any sugar. Blood pressure's been a little bit sticky but it's slowly coming down and my weight is dropping real quick to the point where that could be the determining factor on when this fast ends.
Speaker 2:But you know, in the first three you go through different phases, right? The first three to four days were definitely the most difficult. You know, I just stopped cold turkey and that's everything. That's nicotine, caffeine, food, everything other than water. I put grey Celtic salt, a pinch of that in about. I try and get about a teaspoon to teaspoon and a half of grey Celtic salt into me a day. I'm drinking, oh, seven and a half to nine liters of water a day. So that's a that there's. There's four liters in a gallon, um, so there's, uh, it's a ton of water, um, hence the the piss break.
Speaker 2:But in those first four days you feel withdrawal from everything. You're hangry I had headaches but once you break and obviously cravings, like that's when your body lies to you. In that first phase your body's saying you're hungry. Well, after three days you're really not hungry. Like I mean, your body's telling you you're hungry but you're not. Then your mind starts lying to you, right, it's like oh well, you know, you got to eat, because if you don't eat you're going to die. Well, yeah, that's right to a certain extent, but it's been three days, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be OK. So, you know, you get through those initial thoughts and feelings About day five, six, the cravings kind of melt away and you start to feel better.
Speaker 2:But I'll tell you, actually I feel really good. But I found that if I don't stay on top of and I'm also supplementing with potassium and magnesium, it's basically keeping my electrolytes up. If I get behind on that, my energy levels go way down. Right, I got to keep drinking and now I've started to put fresh squeezed lemon juice and cayenne pepper in my, in my water, because cayenne is is one of the one of the the most amazing natural anti-inflammatories, and I mean any joint pain or anything like that. It's long gone.
Speaker 2:So, but again you get through those first two stages. Now you're into the third stage where you kind of feel like you can do this forever. But that at this point, that's when your body doesn't lie to you and you got to kind of be mindful and really watch, because you know from everything that I've read and researched now that I'm doing it, you know it's important to do it right and I wouldn't recommend it to people unless they're ready for it, because starting it is no problem. The real key to understanding what you're doing is to know how to end it, and if you don't end it right, you can do damage to your body.
Speaker 1:What do you mean by that? Well, what do you mean by ending it and the damage?
Speaker 2:So I've now been 15 days without food. I had a bowel movement on the first day and then nothing for 10 days. And then on the 10th day or around that neighborhood, I passed some shit that had been in me for a long time and then nothing for another eight days or however long, but twice I've got rid of bad shit. So there's nothing in my well. There's probably still some stuff stuck in there that may or may not come out, I don't know. But if you go out of a fast like this and you're're like, okay, uh, fast is over, it's time to to eat, and you sit down and you eat like five steaks and, uh, a whole whack of of, uh, chips and shit and everything else, um, because your body is, is has been at rest for so long, you can actually plug your digestive tract. You've also got to, along the way, slowly start to supplement again with some sort of a good bacteria in your gut, so probiotic, so that when you do start to go back, your body is ready for it. And, like I mean, the meals to start are avoid animal everything and oils. It's all plant based. So, like I mean, I found a good after a seven day fast. There's a girl that had written a menu out for four or five days after coming out and it's like you know, shaved carrot and beets, sauteed but with no oil or butter, just kind of cooked in a frying pan, and then you use orange, fresh, squeezed orange juice and things like that to slowly get your body back processing food again.
Speaker 2:But but and that's where the danger is is the blockages and the shock to your, to your system, if you just pound it. And you know, like I mean at this point, um, I don't think if, well, you never, you never know. I feel like, uh, I've been cooking for my family this whole time. So the one thing that I noticed is the smells of food are very savory to me, like I mean, and my interest, how does it taste? And tell me how it is? All of my other senses are, when it comes to food, are becoming heightened, but I haven't had any cravings Now, that's not to say the first time I put a food in my mouth. It's not going to all come rushing back, I don't know, but you've got to be mindful of that.
Speaker 1:I've noticed. Yeah, I've fasted in my life at different periods Um it, it's, um. For me it's been really good. Um, like you said, everything tastes like if you're, if you fasted for a while. When you start eating again, everything just tastes so rich, like you taste every molecule. Another thing I've noticed is my mind clears up. Yes, you know, like it's.
Speaker 1:You know you get, like, I think, when you're starting a fast, you sort of you, just you kind of go, like you said, you're shaky, you're kind of going through withdrawal, you're. You know it's like it's like an addiction. You're breaking an addiction. You've been eating every day forever and You've been eating every day forever and all of a sudden you're just doing something completely different. Your body's just like whoa. But yeah, the mind thing. I've really noticed where it's like once you, after a couple initial days, all of a sudden, just everything seems clearer. It's almost like the fountain of youth for me. Like you know, then, and you, you, you can really feel that you're giving your, your liver and all of your digestive tract this rest. Yeah, you know much needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For everybody.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's like a yeah, it's a. Really probably not for everybody, but for me. I noticed really good things from fasting.
Speaker 2:I've done liver cleanses for 10 days is the longest that I'd ever done any kind of fast. And basically what I used to do was it was called the master cleanse and it was water, fresh squeezed lemon, cayenne pepper and maple syrup for energy. And I've kind of adopted that drink minus the maple syrup, because you know, one of the things that I want, one of the reasons I'm doing this and there's a multitude of reasons, but it's to get my blood sugar under control and it certainly has come in line Like I've never seen my blood sugar as good as it is now. And I do have the benefit of having some diagnostic tools to watch what's going on. So I have the Freestyle Libre button, so I'm tracking my blood sugar and I've made a spreadsheet in Excel and I enter daily my blood pressure, while in the morning I enter my blood sugar at three times a day I enter my weight loss and then the daily difference in weight loss and then notes on how I'm feeling, because it's easy to kind of look back and see things. And, for instance, I was telling you I didn't shit till day 10. Well, I didn't notice anything in particular about that until I did the daily weight loss and the two didn't correlate because I was doing it, I was actually entering the information like three days later and I saw that my weight had dropped like 2.9 pounds in one day and the average was about my average has been somewhere close to 1.8 pounds a day and then there was this anomaly. And then there was this anomaly and I was like, oh my God, that's pretty severe a drop, Like I'm gonna have to kind of watch it. And then, as I was putting in the notes, I realized that that was the day I had my shit and it was a pound difference. And then everything made sense. So it made me feel better about what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:And, um, the the other thing that that, um, again, I'm not suggesting that anybody should do this, but, um, if you do, and for me, a lot of it um, um, has I don't know whether it's turned into a spiritual kind of thing or what, but I've been coupling it with 20 minutes of yoga in the morning and I use a program called it's actually a laugh, it's the Beachbody franchise and it's a three-week yoga retreat and I've been doing that for for years and prior to that I, I, uh, a buddy of mine who played in the NHL. He used to have a gym and we would do yoga on Wednesday mornings and weight train Mondays and Fridays. But so I'm I've I'm no stranger to it, but doing the yoga. And then I'm not sure if you're familiar with a guy by the name of Wim Hoff, but Wim is, they call him the ice man, and the man is, is a freak of nature. He's brilliant and he does this breathing technique that oxygenates, sorry folks, your blood and oxygen, oxygenates, sorry folks, your blood and alkalizes it and um, basically it's a series of deep breaths followed by a breath hold and during the breath hold, um, um and, and, to give you an idea, on 50 deep breaths, uh, and then on the breath hold, I can hold my breath for anywhere from about two and a half to just under four minutes and inside that breath hold he kind of talks you into a meditative place. It's a meditation, and inside that meditation is where, and between that and the yoga is where I've been able to be in tune with my body and feel what's going on, Because it's a real balancing act once you start going long into one of these fasts, because, yes, you lose weight, but that doesn't mean you lose just fat.
Speaker 2:You're losing everything. You're losing muscle, you're losing fat, you're losing brown fat, you're losing the fat in your organs, which is one of the areas that, through that prayer and meditation, I kind of try and focus some energy on. You know, losing liver fat in particular. But without the prayer and meditation part of this deal, I would be like a rudder in the middle of the ocean, and I can. I can see where people can get hurt because your ego takes over and you say I said I'm going to do it for 40 days and, by God, I can do it for 40 days. Well, that's great to have that kind of steadfast conviction, but that can kind of also get you in trouble where.
Speaker 2:You know, with that prayer meditation, it's more about feeling like really connecting with how you feel. And, um, there was a couple of days where my yoga um uh, subscription run out and without it I really it threw me off. It threw me off, I felt not good. And then your self-doubt starts coming in and then call it what you want the devil, bad thoughts, negativity from source. But that starts to enter and it's like okay, well, you know what you feel. Like this, this is not good, Like I mean, now's the time to quit, you know, and I realized that I need it. I need that kind of mindfulness to make sure that it is still right to continue, and it's like I say it's something that you really got to know you want to do and then try and do it right and don't start with 40 days.
Speaker 5:I've done probably.
Speaker 2:I've played with fasting for at least 15 years plus 20 years. I've done probably three 10-day fasts and then I typically intermittent fast during the day. So I've been there a little bit and done that and I'm not saying I'm going to make it all the way to 40, but I'm going to make it as far as my body says I'm good to go Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I respect your grit.
Speaker 2:It's not easy to Make dinner for your kids and smell mac and cheese and wonderful smoked ham and all of that stuff and sit down at the kitchen table with the family for dinner and drink tea that very much, because I know it's not easy and yeah, I've never had the experience of having to make dinner while you're fasting.
Speaker 1:That sounds even more difficult. But what do you think it is about fasting? Is it just because breaking down food and the process of digestion just requires so much energy from our bodies?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a combination of that and not only that, it's a lot of it is the food that we're eating and the toxins that are in our food.
Speaker 1:It's not clean.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. So you know, whenever you're shopping on the inside aisles of the grocery store unless you're buying olive oil you know the cereals have all of these dyes and our flour is different than it used to be. It's empty of a lot of minerals and and um, the gluten is now um, uh it's. It's all been genetically modified and and um, uh. The preservatives and all of those nitrates in in cured meats and all of the, all of the chemicals that go into our food system, um, affect our bodies. Msg, like I mean MSG is one of the worst. It's a model monosodium glutamate. You know, when you're driving by the, the Chinese restaurants, um, you know it was a big thing probably 10, 15 years ago, where you would see the big red circle with the with the line through it saying no MSG, right, because it's a neurotoxin.
Speaker 2:They use the, the, the, the companies use MSG to to. You know, pick up all the, the chunks of chicken that have fallen on the ground in the in the chicken factory. They clump it all up, cover it in bread, add a little bit of a MSG in them and call them chicken nuggets. And when you put that chicken nugget in your mouth, that MSG is blocking a signal or changing your mind to say, wow, this shit is fantastic, these are the best nuggets I've ever had. Wow, it's like crack At the same best nuggets I've ever had.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's like crap At the same time, it's killing your brain cells. But you know, so I think, yes, 100%. Your body works hard to digest and process all of this stuff and everything goes through your liver, like I mean everything through your liver, like I mean everything you know, and, and so it's the combination of the actual mechanics of breaking it down and that, but it's also the fact that you're not getting any of the shit right. You're not, you're not taking in all of the, the processed food stuff, and that helps with your clarity in your mind and that helps with all of this stuff right. So you know the, the, and I don't know if this is fact or not.
Speaker 2:I can tell you after my fast is over, but I, I was severely addicted to food. I would, I would eat at the lodge through. You know, it's a stressful. It was a stressful position to to keep, you know, 30 to 40 people a week happy and make sure that every one of them has a um, an outstanding experience, even though every person was a different experience, like some were coming for the fishing, some were coming because it's the french river and they wanted to canoe, some were coming because they wanted to photograph wildlife, you know, know, and to manage that. On top of that, all of the finances and making sure that you're making enough money that you can pay your staff and this and that I had a full kitchen American plan, a walk-in fridge that was like I don't know 12 by 12 square and eight feet tall and full of the most delicious shit you could imagine, because the chefs would be, they would always make extra desserts and they would always have an extra plate of food. You know, because you gotta, just in case the you know we get guests from the river or somebody drops a plate or something gets messed up. So at the end of a dinner meal, inevitably there's always some delicious shit in there and I would find myself at midnight sneaking down into that walk-in fridge and it was like a fat kid's dream, man. And between that and you know all of the shit that give me type 2 diabetes and type 2 diabetes and type 2 diabetes is really insulin resistance and type 2 is all you, baby, you do it to yourself.
Speaker 2:So I've tried to break certain habits. But they say 30 days. If you can manage to not smoke for 30 days or or take in nicotine at 30 days, that's typically when you know you kind of got it Right and um, um, I'm, I'm hoping and I and again, I don't know, but when I go back to eating I'm going to be searching for delicious, healthy, natural, whole, real food meals. And, like you said earlier, shit just tastes so much better when you come off of it. Like I've had cravings I've had, you know, it's funny. The one craving that I've had is I'm, I think, my, the first meat that I'm going to eat when I, when, when I start eating again, is going to be liver and onions, like I love it's that's and the vegetables and stuff. And I'm hoping, if I can go back and that stuff is just absolutely delicious, which I know it's going to be.
Speaker 2:I got to make a lifestyle change now and that is the hardest part. The easy part is going through however many days of fast it is. The hard part is now that, like I mean, so far I've went from 233 and a half. This morning I weighed myself at 208.
Speaker 1:Wow, good for you, that's great.
Speaker 2:That's, like I say, about 15 days, which is a substantial loss which, again, if it doesn't slow down, I may not make 40 days, because I can't really afford to lose 80 pounds. I don't think. But again, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. And um, um, the time that I'm spending on this fast, in that, um, in the, in the prayer and the meditation, and and, uh, free time, um, I'm planning on, I'm planning out how am I going to try and change my lifestyle so that I can maintain a healthy way of living, Because that's really the key.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you? Do you um work out in addition to fasting and meditating?
Speaker 2:Um, the only uh, because it's such a drastic fast. The only working out that I'm doing is that 20 minutes to half an hour of yoga. And it's funny, you say, because I've been doing this program over and over and over again for a long time and that's part of the reason why I think for me, it keeps me in tune with my body, because there are a lot of things that I'm doing so much better at right now, Like um, balance for one, um, uh, flexibility is coming back, cause I don't have a gut in my, in my way. You know what I mean, and and. But there's other things like um with the planks, and um and um, like there's, there's certain poses where it's it's really uh, physically straining, like you're, you're working to, to, to hold some of these poses like um. I'm sure most of you out there know how difficult it is to properly hold a plank for you know, a minute or two, Um.
Speaker 2:I've noticed that my, my, um, um, uh, my, my energy and my muscular strength has gone down. Um, like uh. There was one uh, one one of the days. Like there's, there's um, three weeks, so 21 different workouts through all of this, and uh, one of the the, the ones that, um, they focus on a lot of core work and, you know, sit-ups and and uh, um, uh planks and that kind of stuff. I felt it, I struggled through it when normally I wouldn't. And that's one of those signs where you realize, okay, yes, I'm losing fat. I know I'm losing fat because I don't have a gut anymore and my love handles are starting to shrink, but I'm also losing muscle and it's one of those things where you got to be okay with it. But now, because I'm aware of it, I'm making a plan to, when I come back, when I come back, go very heavy on protein once. I introduce protein back into my diet and then start a workout regimen and kind of start from the beginning, right, so yeah, that was a great question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Well, you're inspiring me.
Speaker 2:I would like to do a fast, so thank you something research it. I started with the Master Cleanse, my head chef. There's a story on one of the old diaries that I talk about that Master Cleanse in particular because I put myself in a real shitty situation on a saltwater flush day, and that's when you drink saltwater and it comes out. But it didn't come out until the wrong moment, shall we say. But yeah, no, it is a great. I believe for me it's a necessary part of being healthy.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, I agree. Part of being healthy, right, yeah, yeah, I agree. It's like your body sort of like changes a bit because it starts recycling cells in an accelerated way. Absolutely, the old ones start eating or getting eaten. Metophagy.
Speaker 2:They get rid of the old cells and and new and start, uh, start, uh, producing new and and um, uh. There's some thought that um, um, it, uh. It helps to extend your telomeres, which, um, which are, are, um, are, uh, uh. They give you the longevity, uh, and keep you young. There's thought that with that it gives your body the opportunity to go and detoxify. And I can tell you for sure that I've been detoxifying. You know, there's some days I wake up and my sweat smells different. But it is a very good experience for me.
Speaker 2:It's not easy, it's not for the faint of heart, but the outcome is, is good and and um. On a lot of the other ones, you know, I would come out of it, lose, you know, 25, 30 pounds and then, slowly but surely, after a year I'd be back to where I was before. But you know what I thought to myself 10 days bought me a year and I kind of tried to manage it that way. But I've come to realize that if you truly want to be healthy and feel good all the time, you really have to make that lifestyle change, and I'm ready for that now I'm. I'm sick of being sick, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good for you.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. What is there? There's a. Isn't there some kind of a chemical that gets released? I don't know if it's from your pancreas or your liver liver when you, your body switches from burning your immediate sugar in your bloodstream to burning fat.
Speaker 2:So like converting the fat to sugar.
Speaker 1:What is that called?
Speaker 2:That's called ketosis.
Speaker 1:Ketosis yeah.
Speaker 2:That's right, you know.
Speaker 2:Having the like, I mean having the blessing of, of having the, the, the freestyle, which basically is a button that goes straight to my phone and it tells me exactly what my blood sugar is.
Speaker 2:So even before this fast, I would keep track of my blood sugar, and if I ate a handful of gummies, like just gummy bears or candy or whatever, a chocolate bar with caramel or anything like that, anything with a heavily processed sugar in it, my blood sugar would spike. I was barely done chewing the shit and my blood sugar would spike right, and a lot of it is that. So once you get rid of that sugar that's not so accessible, your body then needs to burn something and it and it turns to ketones, which is more um, fat based, right, um, and and burns ketones as its main uh source of, of energy and um. That is really what a lot of the people, a lot of people, are searching to do when they're intermittent fasting. They're looking to get into ketosis, which, instead of burning the available sugar, they're burning that stubborn fat and yeah, so and when you go on a fast, you're essentially in ketosis for a long period of time right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, yeah, which is probably why you you feel, initially you feel kind of tired, but then, like you said, if you get over those four days, you almost feel like somebody hit you with you know, like energy like you haven't taken any energy, but you feel just like energetic, you feel good, you like, but you feel just like energetic.
Speaker 2:You feel good, you like, I mean I. Every time I do this, I have a moment where it's like, wow, I feel good. I feel good, you know, and I, I feel I have energy, although this time, like, I mean, like I say, I got away from the yoga and and that stuff that threw me off and, um, um, I, um, I, I, I didn't keep up with making sure I got the magnesium and potassium into me and all of that water with the Celtic salt. If I don't get that water into me, it's like I run out of gas, and I know it and I feel it coming on right.
Speaker 2:I was just at the sportsman show, or sorry, the Toronto boat show. We were with the Fish and Canada television show. We were in the Prince Craft booth doing a meet and greet and I didn't bring my jars of of juice and water and lemon with me and all I had was one bottle of water and that was about five hours through the middle of the day and I'm telling you, three hours into it I was, I was feeling it, you know. So you gotta, you gotta be mindful of making sure that, um, that you're keeping your hydration up and and for a multitude of reasons. Energy is just is just one of them that you feel. The other is that in this, in this fasted state, you are digging into that liver and and for people out there that do have a fatty liver, which is a precursor to cirrhosis, um, and, and your liver is an absolutely brilliant, wonderful piece of equipment like that. It does shit that that nobody else wants to do, Like that. It does shit that that nobody else wants to do. And I was a welder for many years, um, sheet metal mechanics. So you know I've welded stainless and aluminum and I've breathed in the, the cadmium and all the shit that comes out of stainless and whatever the hell else I've I've gotten into, whether it be bad food or whatever.
Speaker 2:And when you get that shit into your body and it's not good for you and the liver doesn't know what to do with it, what it does is it buries it inside itself and encapsulates it in fat. So when people say they have a fatty liver, what that means is their filter is plugged because your beautiful liver has taken all of this shit that should not be in your body and it didn't know what to do with it. So it buried itself. Buried that that inside itself encapsulated in fat. But when we go in there and we actually start to burn that fat out and it starts to cleanse, that shit is released back into your bloodstream and you really have to either shit it out, pee it out, you know, you gotta breathe it out Like there's there's a number of different sweat it out, um, but you've got to that. Water is your life line to detoxification. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for some reason I thought of foie gras when you said that. Oh, said that they force feed a goose to get a big, fatty liver. That's just literally what you're saying. You give it a lot of extra stuff that it doesn't need and it just stores it as fat in the liver yeah so, but yeah so.
Speaker 2:No, that's a tangent that I didn't expect to go on, but a wonderful one, yeah, and so just a quick recap on Trekkit for all of those lodge owners and people out there and I think you're solely focusing on lodges, but your system is definitely transferable over to bed and breakfast in different places like that small hotels, I would assume.
Speaker 1:Yes, it can handle pretty much any accommodations or any time-based. Yes, it can handle pretty much any accommodations or any time-based item that you're renting out or selling for a period of time it handles. Another one that I've been getting into lately is equipment rentals. So people who have snowmobiles or snowmobiles have been popular this winter, but in the summer, things like bicycles or paddleboards, kayaks, canoes yeah, a lot of these items maybe they're renting out for people who maybe aren't staying at the lodge or are just coming in to rent it out and hang out on the lake for the day.
Speaker 1:Sure, and a lot of them are shorter periods of time, they're not a whole day and so it has the ability to set up time slots so you can do time slots and it'll show that on the grid or occupancy map or occupancy grid, and it'll show the times that it's available and not. And it avoids the double bookings, like you were mentioning earlier. Um, so that's another thing I'm getting into and, um, yeah, trek, it is also going to have. I'm working on putting together like a marketplace where a person could go and search in a geographic area for anything that they would, they would want to book, so that, yeah, so it's the back end and then the front end, both sides.
Speaker 2:So and and the best part of what you're doing, in my opinion, is you are a hands-on owner, that that cares about your product and cares about the people that you work for, and I don't know how many times you've told me that. Listen, if there's a report that you need or if there's something that will make the system better or something that we can change to help, we'll do everything in our power to do that and you do help. We'll do everything in our power to do that and you do. And just to have that interaction with the owner of the company, the writer of the code, the guy that really has a good understanding of how a lot of these places work, and somebody who can bring knowledge that you've learned from other people to different places, where you can say, hey, you know this, uh, this is something that I did here.
Speaker 2:It might very well be good for you and then, all of a sudden, be able to help another, um, uh, another client, lodge owner, uh, rental, uh property with the lights on moment and like, oh my God, yes, I didn't even know that was a thing, right? So the fact that you're so hands-on and available speaks volumes, and your customer service is outstanding. So I'm one who has worked with you and I'll stand on the soapbox for you, brother, and tell every lodge owner out there, across the continent, across the world you know this is a great, great system that can be hand-tailored to you and basically everything that you'd ever need is already there, and anything that needs to be tweaked you do it, and you do it for the benefit of everybody.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, that's awesome. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much, that's awesome. I really appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, the mindset that I approach it with is when I first started doing the customer support on the phone, which is to support the business.
Speaker 1:Owner is the one, the lodge owner is the one who they are the ones. That I keep is the most important thing you know and like, and I always come to it with the mindset that the app track itcom is flawed inherently and my goal is every day to make it a little bit better, make it suck a little bit less. Each day. I'm never going to come, I'm never going to go. You know what this is. This doesn't suck, cause once you get to that point, then you're going to stop working on it and improving it.
Speaker 1:So just a little incremental iteration every day and try to improve it, and then I really enjoy talking to people you know, and the one thing I really like about lodge owners is they'll bluntly tell you, you know, if, if something is off, if they, if there's something broken, you know, I feel like a lot of my customers will just, oh yeah, they're not going to shy away from telling me. You know this really sucks. This is causing me a lot of pain. Please fix this. And and I respond to that well, because if they say it like that, I know that they, they really mean it, and if it, and if they're saying it, there's other people that are probably encountering the same issue.
Speaker 2:Well, noah, thank you so much for a wonderful time. I really appreciate having you on and talking to you about a number of different things and certainly hope we can hook up again sometime in the future, and I'm sure we'll talk in between, because I'm going to make sure that I mention you to all of my lodge buddies and I know you can help them out. But thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure. No problem. Help me out again. If you need me, I'd be happy to come back Beautiful, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:And folks, just so you know, noah, tell them where they can find your product.
Speaker 1:So trekitcom is the website. Um. If you send an email to support at trek itcom, the, the spelling of it is t-r-e-q-i-tcom um. Send me an email um, and I'd be, or give me a call. I'd be happy to give you a demo um show you what it's all about.
Speaker 2:Beautiful and folks. That brings us to the uh the this time again. Uh, thank you all for listening and getting to this point. Um, we really appreciate it. And uh, head on over to fishingcanadacom and get into those giveaways. Uh, there's always wonderful stuff. Garmin tops the list. I don't even know what's there right now. You should get on there and win something for me. But get in there, get your ballots in the box, the more the better. And also, if you're interested in partnering up, willie and I have a wonderful card. We would love to partner with anybody out there that's looking to create a wonderful relationship. And folks. Thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner.
Speaker 5:Stories of the North.
Speaker 3:I'm bending my rock, stretching my line.
Speaker 5:Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine, I'll be making my way the only way I know how, working hard and sharing the north with all of my pals. Well, I'm a good old boy. I bought a lodge and lived my dream, and now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems. Yeah.
Speaker 3:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
Speaker 3:After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. You live a life close to nature and under the canopy. Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify.
Speaker 5:Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts. Hi everybody, I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right every Thursday, ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know, there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 4:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes, All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing.
Speaker 1:To scientists, but now that we're reforesting and letting things breathe, it's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 6:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, or you will taste it.
Speaker 5:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.