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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 85: What's Up With Willy?
Step into the icy realms of Northern Ontario as we share tales of adventure, survival, and reflection in our latest podcast episode. Our journey begins with a heart-pounding story of getting trapped on an ice-covered island, accompanied by children and dogs. As we manoeuvre through thick ice and treacherous conditions, we reveal the lessons learned about ice safety and the thrill of exploration. With extended discussions that weave through personal anecdotes and insights garnered from years of experience, this episode paints a vivid image of life amidst the severe cold.
Throughout the conversation, you'll hear lighthearted and serious tales that dive into the community's incredible resilience when facing extreme conditions. We bridge stories about winter’s grip on daily routines with the unforgettable moments created when embracing adventure in nature's beauty. Homeowners, adventurers, and anyone who has felt winter's wrath will connect deeply with the stories of mishaps, laughter, and solidarity shared throughout our discussion.
As we reflect on the physical and emotional challenges of winter living, we point towards the essence of survival spirit nourished during the cold, urging listeners to cherish every memory made amid the frozen beauty of winter. Embrace the adventure and share a laugh or two with us amidst the tales told—don’t forget to tune in for jack-of-all-trades, wisdom from lodge ownership to daring icy escapades, and wonderful lessons along the way. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, share it with friends, and let us know your thoughts!
We got stuck in the backside of the island because there was nowhere where the honeycomb With the girls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with Timmy Boy and Maddie and Violet, and I couldn't back up. We were, because there wasn't enough room to get spun around. We couldn't get out of the boat because the ice wasn't safe. And I'm like, oh my God, scotty, we could't get out of the boat because the ice wasn't safe. And I'm like, oh my God, scotty, and at one point, oh, we had the dogs, we had my dogs with us too. And at one point I'm like oh yeah, I'm like gee Scotty.
Speaker 1:I don't know, we might end up out here for the night in the boat.
Speaker 3:This week on the Outdoor Journal, radio Podcast Networks, diaries of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the North.
Speaker 1:It's just Willie and I today On this show. We talk about the winter we are in and tell some great, really cold winter stories and sprinkle in a spring story or two just to remind us.
Speaker 3:yes, spring is coming, we find out what's up with Willie and so much more.
Speaker 1:So grab those parkas mitts and boots, baby Curl up and try to stay warm because there are some awesome frozen stories of the North in this one.
Speaker 3:Here's our conversation.
Speaker 1:Good morning folks, and welcome to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner, and afternoon and evening as well, because you just never know when you're listening to us. Dandy, fine fellas, and again welcome to the show. My co-host, willie, is sitting right here with me.
Speaker 2:Hello folks, Hello.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Willie, it's been a small minute since we've talked, so I'm really excited about sitting down and finding out what is going on in the Great White North.
Speaker 2:Yeah, buddy, yeah, it's good to see your face on here, man, it's been a bit. You've been busy with your life and there's been a lot going on up here. And there's been lots going on up here For one. It was like when I got back from Dominican it was like minus four. When you guys were having all that snow down in Toronto and Southern Ontario, it was minus 30 to minus 38 here for like 12 days. So, like you know, everyone's experienced that. Where it gets that cold here in Canada, you know once or twice, but like when it gets that cold for that long, you're on lockdown. You know what I mean. Like my buddy Tristan that does all the plumbing, like it's constantly. He has three or four freezing pipe calls a day.
Speaker 2:You know, the town, the city of Kenora, has been fighting shit left, right and center, so we pretty much go into like hibernation my shoulder's toast, I'm waiting for surgery. I had to go this week and I regot my surgery date to go into Dryden there, so I'm going to have that rebuilt here right away.
Speaker 1:Well, at least it's the winter, right, you're in hibernation like a big old bear.
Speaker 2:Well, at least I can do that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I mean minus 38. I living in Shelburne, like there have been years, especially when I was a kid, where it would always, you know, go back 25 years before that we would hit minus 30, I'm not going to say on a regular basis, but at least for one period over the winter Could be a couple of days, could be three days, could be a week, and like I mean minus 30, I remember being a kid and walking outside the house and as soon as you walk outside and take that first breath, it near, takes the breath away. Like I mean the snot freezes right in your nose.
Speaker 2:Well, it's different down your way too, bud, like remember I grew up down your way down by Oshawa-Colberg, right? So like when the air up here is a lot drier because we're not right on the Great Lakes like you, like you're humid. Up here is a lot drier because we're not right on the great lakes like you, like you're humid. So like minus 30 here it's okay. So like minus 20 here is like really normal and you can just like you can, walk around in a hoodie. You know it really, once you climatize to it, it's not bad. Minus 30 here, that's. You know that's when it starts getting cold. Past that right, but I mean it's minus 30 there I find is a lot colder because of the dampness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the humidity in your air. You know like minus 30 on the coast out in New Brunswick and shit. I couldn't even imagine that. That would be fucking cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, really cold For sure, like I mean, but still like you get into that minus 35 and well, like I mean, let's talk a little bit about the cold from your drilling days, like at what point I know out in Fort Mac my buddy, mark Fleer he worked there for years and once they hit minus 40, they'd stop because they'd start breaking equipment Like steel would start to break, because they'd start breaking equipment Like steel would start to break the blades and the cutters and the rippers on the bulldozers and shit would start to snap because of the cold.
Speaker 1:Did you run into that?
Speaker 2:Tons. So, yeah, so we had like. So every company has different policies, right. But, like, I'll give you one, one story and one example. This is this is the coldest I've ever seen and the biggest incident I've ever seen. In the cold um, we were drilling for crescent point energy down on the border of north dakota, uh, and southern saskatchewan, um place called Colgate. It was called Colgate the toothpaste and we had a stretch come in where it was minus 45, the temperature and the wind chill hit 62 one night. So it was like 58 for two nights and then it hit 62. So our policies, like I say, every company has different policies. Our policy at that time with Crescent Point was minus 40,. Just like you're saying, you know we pick up off bottom and we'd circulate because you can't pull the. I mean, you can't really pull the string, right, because if at that point you're putting every mechanical piece of equipment on the rig in at risk because right at risk, right, because you're like you're saying so.
Speaker 2:We usually just sit there and circulate, you know, uh, pump mud products, we'll just make sure mud's in really good shape. The boys will clean some inside of the buildings and then everyone will just kind of hang out at steam heater. The boiler is the big one, right, because you down at minus 40, minus 50 on a drilling rig, with all that blood in your lifeline of your rig, right, like it's minutes until it freezes in some areas, right, and then it's going to be a nightmare to unthaw a whole drilling rig. Like I've seen it happen before, man, where like a boiler will go down and then a backup unit will go down and you know, by the time it all freezes up, like you're like two weeks to thaw it out, man, like you got to get into every crevice, like just imagine the town, the city of Shelburne, when they have a pipe that freezes underground. They go in with a little half inch tube spray, get it going through with a nozzle, a high-pressure nozzle, and then it just works its way out, you know that right, and it just opens up with the water just like a creek. So you have to do that times like 4,000 lines that are running all over the drilling rig, right. So there's like it's a different thing right, and there's hydraulic everything's fucking splitting. And so this one time we're down Colgate drilling, like I say it hit 62. And I'm so.
Speaker 2:We prepared for it. I was on day shift, I was the senior guy at the time, so we kind of had a couple of meetings with Calgary. We prepared for it. The boys were, because it had already been so cold. We were already up circulating up top. We were actually in our build section, we call it so like we were only drilling at like meter and a half, two meters an hour.
Speaker 2:So we during the day we would slide and do do some slow drilling. You know we might make like one pipe in a whole shift and the nighttime we would circulate in the whole shift. In the nighttime we would circulate. But the only reason we did that is because it's still time, is money, right.
Speaker 2:So like, still, if I can show Calgary that I'm making at least a pipe, you know, and it's more time in the bank for them, you know that makes my operation look better to the boys and if I go down in the middle of the day there's a good chance I have the part to fix it, there's a good chance that somebody can hot shot me one from Estevan or Regina or Moose Jaw, right? So anyways. So we were circulating away. I go to bed at like I crew change it. So we worked like seven to seven, so it was like eight o'clock, I was watching the hockey game with the boys and bullshit about my day, and I go back over to my shack, so my sleeper shack is right behind my work office, so I go over there and have a shower and hop into bed and you know it was fucking cold in the shack that night. I remember like these are like steel sea cans, like I say right, but they're like condos built into construction cabins.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But they're fucking cold when it's fucking minus 62 at the wind chill right. So I'm sleeping in full clothes. I have my coveralls on actually my thermal underwear, my coveralls over top and then in my blankets just to be safe and at any point I could hop out. Usually, you know, if something goes bad at minus 60, like if somebody falls and breaks a leg or gets hurt, yeah, you goes bad at minus 60, like if somebody falls and breaks a leg or gets hurt, you know, or or even falls.
Speaker 2:Just imagine somebody up the Derrick and you have to do a high angle rescue at minus 60. No, that would be pretty intense, right. Like when you can't even breathe but you got to save the guy's life. That's 40 feet above, right? Yeah, so, anyway, so I'm sleeping away and I think I can't remember exactly, but I think it was like two in the morning, something like that and I fucking shook out of my bed.
Speaker 2:Like I felt this like I'm a big dude, right, and I fucking rumbled, I probably hopped up off my bed probably a half an inch is how high I fucking went. Like I moved, fucking, whacked my head on the side of the bed frame and I fucking come back and I'm like what the fuck? And I'm like I look and all the lights all of a sudden go out and I'm like, fuck, something happened, right. So I immediately dip my fucking boots on, grab my hard hat and I run outside and there's chaos everywhere, like there's like 25 people running around in the dark, right. So we run over to, I immediately run over to the backup generator, get it fucking fired up.
Speaker 2:The motor hand was over there already, my crew guy, so he was on on the job already. So we got it fired up, got lights back on within like 25, 30 seconds it that quick. And then all of a sudden you look over at the drilling rig, now that we have lights and there's okay. So on this drilling rig there's two styles. I mean there's a ton of styles, but there's two normal styles. There's a conventional drilling rig where it's a Kelly right. So it's like it's old school technology right, it's just a conventional technology.
Speaker 1:And then there's like and a kelly is what.
Speaker 2:Like a spinning. Yeah, it's the part that spins up top and then Clamps onto your pipe. That's great, and so that's right. So there's like you control everything by giant wrenches, basically, and giant arms, and it's all mechanical. Conventionally, if you have an ADR rig, that's an automatic drilling rig, an ADR rig. So it's like basically the guy sits in a chair or he has a joystick console, it's like video gaming. He'll sit in a console and he'll just work like this and maneuver, so he's doing everything.
Speaker 2:With two joints, you know there's only one person on the floor and everything is mechanical. That comes down and breaks the joints apart and the wrenches are all automatic and blah, blah, blah, right so. But this one was one of those ADR rigs. This was when they first started to come out, like I would say, 2005, 2006. Yeah and yeah, it was Enzyme. So Enzyme was the drilling company and I remember Enzyme is one of the biggest drilling companies in North America. They're right up there with, like P precision drilling. And so this was Enzyme 651 was the rig.
Speaker 2:And so we're looking at this thing and we're like, holy fuck. So the pipe arm on this big giant automatic drilling rig, it basically comes from underneath and it grabs the pipe right, clamps onto it and then it brings it up and then it sits it there and then it unspins from the kelly. You spin into it with the tool joint up top, pick it up and go down right. So just basically, you're, instead of the joint being broke at the bottom on the kelly rig, you break it at the top on a top drive on an automatic rig. That's the only difference. So the guys had actually they weren't drilling, they were circulating, but they just went to do like a rig service to function. This giant pipe, this giant pipe arm, so it's like 40 feet long and it has three giant grabbers on it. That grab, you know, like, like you see, like people like grabbing the cars and crushing them. They're like. It's like something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if like you see, like people like grabbing the cars and crushing them.
Speaker 2:They're like, it's like something like that. Yeah, if you want to imagine it. So they were just functioning it to be able to, like you know, service it, grease it, work the fucking hydraulics, check the pressure on it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, check the bearings out. So when they went up to vertically it was so cold the hydraulic Ram is like. So when the hydraulic ram was probably, I would say, 20 to 24 inches wide around and it fucking sheared in half Wow, in half. Yeah, man, you can. Yeah, it was insane. I have pictures of it Like it was sheared like on a 40, 45 degree angle, just like this, and it so it free fell from, like, like I say, these things are like 40, 45 feet long and it free fell and it crashed through the catwalk, the manifold shaft.
Speaker 2:So like the manifold is the Through the catwalk, the manifold shack. So like the manifold is the station where we control the blowout preventer. So like if you took a kick, if the gas was coming back up the hole and we had to divert it to the flare stack to burn it off. We had no ability to do that now. Now we were like fucking four kilometers in the earth, at minus 60, with no, we had no way to back our rig up. Right, so it was a nightmare, right so we're on that.
Speaker 2:Thank God no one got hurt. I couldn't believe that nobody got hurt, so that was. The giant rattle that rattled me out of bed was this was this 35 ton pipe arm free falling from almost 50 feet in the air vertically?
Speaker 2:the whole arm sheared right off yeah, because it just they just functioned. It brought it up and as soon as it hit the max point it was at its weakest, when the piston's at its max point, right. So as soon as it got vertical, it just it was like the cleanest cut you'd ever seen in your life and it was all it just shattered it ended up we had a metal metal, metal, metallurgy is that how you say that word? Metalurgy, metal. Okay, you would know you're a metal guy.
Speaker 2:So the metal I learned that on oak island we had that pipe tested and and or the tubular on the um piston and it was good and they, they enzyme and the cssd uh, who's like the safety commission for the drilling rigs? They basically cut it down to man. It was so fucking cold that the product couldn't take it and it just sheared in half, like it, just like it couldn't. It was just like freezing it with what's it called and smashing something with a hammer. You see that shit on movies, on TV.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, unfortunately it's real Right.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but that was the craziest one, man. It was like no one got hurt, but it was wild like to feel that thump, it was like a fucking earthquake in in la, and then to see everyone running around in the dark and then, when the lights came on and to look over and be like because it was a mess, like it was. We were 12 days. We had cranes there picking shit up. You know like wow, because you can only pick up so much and you got to be careful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not to do any more damage. Correct, right, because, like every time you pick something up and it bends and breaks and the fucking holes, it's just more money and more time and more. You know you got to wait. Well, you're still sitting down the whole drilling or circulating, right, calgary's on the other end with a bunch of people going what the fuck is going on out there? You're costing us money, yeah, so, and they don't care that it's minus 60. Right, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That was my. That was the coldest I've ever seen it, man. And it's those days suck out there. Those days suck Like it's even minus 40, man, like everything is steam right, everything you got to keep going with steam and and.
Speaker 2:Steve. You know, steve, you worked with steam lots. Steam is the worst Cause you're. If you breathe it in, it sucks. It's like a fire extinguisher. You can't you lose your breath if you breathe in too much steam, if you, uh, if you get too close to it, it fucking burns you. If you get too far away from it, you fucking freeze. Yeah, it's still one of the worst and it's damp, so you're, as soon as you get away from it, you're froze anyway. Right, yeah, it's one of those things yeah, that's uh.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a crazy story yeah yeah 651.
Speaker 2:I actually have the drill and rig, the the tag from that drill and rig. They actually gave it to me when I left that rig. That was the rig we set the records on. So the tool push on the rig at the time peeled off the fucking rig sticker and he gave it to me. I have it mounted on my toolbox right here Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, right on.
Speaker 2:What do you got Tell me? You must have some crazy stories, from some bush stories. You got to have some frozen stories.
Speaker 1:Frozen stories. Wow, I mean, for me, I don't want to say I am a fair weather fisherman, but being the owner of uh of Chaudière, we shut her down. Uh, we shut her down fairly, um, fairly quickly, um, in the in the fall, like, uh, it was Thanksgiving and and then, uh, after Thanksgiving, depending on the weather, um, that was the time to try and get some infrastructure improvement done and poured a lot of concrete there.
Speaker 2:Uh, in the fall, um, but you musky fish right up until like freeze up though, right like we were gonna go on that trip this year with you, like that's crazy you must wear survival suits or the guys must have them up there, right? Or like yeah like there's extra safety that goes into that for you, eh?
Speaker 1:yeah, oh for sure. Like I mean um, um, but that's all personal stuff, which is fine. There's. There's one um, uh, one year. This goes back to um, when my, um, my buddy, omer, um, uh, he was an israeli soldier and he would come and he stayed with me at the lodge the first time I met Omer Kaddash. And Omer, I love you buddy. He's over fighting with the Israelis.
Speaker 2:No way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, patrolling the Gaza Strip, so he's right in the heart of it.
Speaker 2:That's crazy man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've tried to organize to get him on the show a few times but, as you guys can imagine, the comms and the organization and trying to keep him like he's busy, he's either sleeping or patrolling. Um, he's either sleeping or patrolling, but, um, um, in Israel, all of the all of the men, uh, when they turn 18, they would have to do a three year mandatory conscription into the army, and the women had to do two years. So when Mario, or Mario, when Omer finished his mandatory conscription, he had an uncle that lived in Toronto and all he wanted for his present we'll call it for finishing the mandatory conscription was to come to Canada and go to a fishing lodge. So his uncle reached out to me and set this whole trip up for Omer and I really didn't have any idea about the backstory or anything like that and I had this young fella come by himself and he stayed in one of the cabins for a week and he'd never run a boat, never run a motor, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:The boys got him into one of the cedar strips and he went out fishing every day. Didn't catch anything. Cedar strips and he went out fishing every day, didn't catch anything, like I mean, he tried but he had an absolutely great time and at the end of his stay he took it for what we take it for granted for. Yeah, well, yeah.
Speaker 1:At the end of his stay he come up and he said Steve, you know, sometimes people come on holiday and they stay. Maybe help a little bit, stay. And I said, omer, are you saying that you want to stay here for free? But you'll help? Yeah, I'll sleep in the tent. And I said, no man, like I mean you help out. He was a great guy right and and I said, no man, you help out and you can stay out in the staff quarters. I had an empty staff room and he stayed for the rest of that year and then come back the following year and helped out a little bit when we were repairing the dock, stayed for half the year and then hooked up with my buddy, jason Lilly, and he ended up just traveling around with Little Dog and living at his house for a bit.
Speaker 2:But anyway, that nomadic, true nomadic lifestyle right there, brother. Oh yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, he was young. He was like 18, so that's 19, 20. He was like 21, 21, 22. Good, and he ended up. We folks I don't know if you guys know, but really good friends of mine are from the Slobland Muskie YouTube channel, kyle Garon and Matt O'Brien and Matt he was one of the guides up there for me and Andrew Raichu and those guys, and this year Kyle wanted to come up for ice or for the last week of the muskie season and this was one of the first times that I had ever fished muskies that late, because on the upper French River, in Lake Nipissing, muskies close on the last day of November, so really it's midnight on December 1st is the close of the muskie season, and this was one cold, cold year, like up there.
Speaker 1:We were in Kyle's boat and we fished right till the last day and the water temperature was actually below zero. It was like 30 degrees for four days but it didn't freeze because it was like 30 kilometer an hour, 50, 60 kilometer an hour winds and it kept the water churning to the point where it hadn't froze. And we fished from the back of the French River and there were some spots. The second last night we were there where the river had frozen over but where it had necked down in the back in Five Mile Bay and Kyle wanted to get behind it, where it opened up and we busted through like an inch and a half of ice where he'd pull the bow of the boat up onto the ice and the three of us would go to the front of the boat and jump on the bow and bust through and he'd drive another you know however far, and we'd do the same, but we drove forever, trolling obviously, cause you can't do like. I mean minus 30, minus 35, that's that's where we were, and and the water had hit um, uh, 30 degrees, like 30, 29 degrees, like it was cold. And the last day that I was there I left on the night of the night of the close.
Speaker 1:They stayed at Chaudiere, but I'll never forget it. We come around the corner, and it was probably six or seven o'clock Well, actually before that, about two hours before that, we had not caught a fish in the whole week. And then, all of a sudden, we come around the corner of Chaudière Island island and, um, the only time that I've been in the boat where we hit a double header, um ended up hooking up with one and, as matt was reeling the, uh, the one rod in omer had a rod and I was clearing a rod and matt was reeling a rod and he got one on the retrieve as he was reeling in, and and, uh, we had a double header. They weren't huge, they were like 45 inches, but at that time they're fat, right, yeah, so those are good fish.
Speaker 1:That time you're still I mean like 45 especially when you go three or four days and you don't catch nothing and you're fucking freezing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like yeah oh, it was, it was, it was awesome, but anyway. So we continued on at that point and it was windy the whole time it was windy. Well, we're just kind of deciding that it's about time that I'm, I'm gonna leave like they're gonna, they're, I'm, we're gonna grab my, my gear once we come around the corner at chaudiere and I'm heading out, yeah, and, and the wind died, like I mean, it was like mother nature took a big lung full of air and blew as hard as she could, right to the end of her lung capacity and when it was done, it was done like I the water turned flat as piss on a plate and um, and, and it was in a matter of like my, if my memory serves me correctly, it was like 15 minutes. It went from howling to there wasn't a breath of wind, like it was, and, and what happened was, as it calmed down, we were coming around the corner and I could hear, you know, like ice on the hull, and I looked over the side of the boat.
Speaker 1:Minutes, we were, we were in, we were in soft water, and then, from the point where I heard, I could see across, cause it was dark, and then there were the, the moon had come out, like all of this wind had blown everything through and it was clear and it was kind of like I don't know how many people out there have experienced a severe thunderstorm like a tornado like I've. I've had the misfortune or fortune of experiencing tornadoes twice in my life and and after the storm blows through. Both times times the sky was baby blue. Oh yeah, and you just, you know what I mean. Yeah, and that's basically what happened here, and as I looked across the water in the moonlight, I could see you know how a snowflake looks. You know all those little ridges and everything.
Speaker 2:Like the crystallization of it too. The crystals were forming right in front of my eyes. Fuck, that's cool, those little ridges and everything.
Speaker 1:It was like the crystallization of it too, and, yeah, the crystals were forming right in front of my eyes and that that's what. That's what um, what um was happening and rubbing up against the boat and I'm like, holy shit, guys, look at the. The ice is coming like, like fast and, as I'm saying it, it froze up to the point where all of our baits popped right out of the water. No way, yeah, dude, the baits run right up. That's fucking crazy. They popped right up out of the water and they were skipping across the top of this ice and it happened in a matter of like five minutes. But in that five minutes I really only noticed the ice, like I heard it first, and then I looked out and I saw the ice just crystallizing in front of our eyes. And then, as we're all in awe, we look behind the boat and the baits that we had running on planer boards. They popped up first, and then the baits behind us popped up and we're like, well, I guess this is it, we're done right. So we reeled in, got my stuff, they took me across to Wajak Cottages, which is where I had parked at that time. It's the closest place to the lodge and I jumped in my truck and off I went. They went back to Chaudiere and they parked on the dock and went to sleep.
Speaker 1:Well, the next morning I get a call from Omer. He's like Steve, I almost died. I'm like Omer, what's going on? We got frozen in. We got frozen right in. I thought I was never going to leave the island. I'm like Omer, we would have figured it out.
Speaker 1:But what happened was they parked on the dock and in the morning there was two and a half inches of ice in like 12 hours nine hours, however many. Like when they went to bed at nine o'clock or parked it at nine o'clock to when they got up at seven o'clock the next morning to leave, there was two and a half inches of ice that locked Kyle's boat in place at the end of the dock and again it took them about. I don't know, I'd have to ask him, but I'm pretty sure it was over two, two and a half hours of blasting the engine to get enough room broke out behind them at the back and beating it with sledgehammers and whatever, and then getting enough room to again drive the boat up on top of the ice and then jump and jump and jump and jump and pound on the front of the boat, using the weight of the boat to finally cave in that ice. But they almost the cows like I mean they could walk on the ice, it was that thick.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was overnight and they got out. Nomar was fine and everything else, but it was something that I'll never forget to to watch ice freeze like that and and have your baits pop right up out of the water when you're trolling. Yeah, um, you know, I've seen. I've seen ice freeze in front of me and um and picton, when we used to fish um off the docks for the walleye Walleyes yeah. Back in the day, right, we'd go to Picton on Bay of Quinny and stand out on the typically our On the rocks.
Speaker 1:Well, we would stand. Our go-to spot was the Prince Edward Yacht Club docks. And there were dirty nights and those seemed to be the best nights when you'd catch them. You can't. The fish don't come in there anymore, which is such a shame because I used to go down there when I was a kid too.
Speaker 2:When I was my grandfather I probably was down there at the same time you were buddy. Yeah, at least once.
Speaker 1:It was such a great, I've got great memories there. But we would have the same problem with our small baits is you just get that skim of ice going across the water and you couldn't fish because your baits would break. And we would be like, hey, guys in the boat, come here or break it all up in front so that we could fish, or we'd, you know, tie a rock to a rope and throw it out and pull it back. But it never worked, you know, we just ended up.
Speaker 2:That's fucking hardcore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when it froze we'd just go back and play poker. But yeah, that was an experience of a lifetime.
Speaker 2:That's crazy man. That's a crazy one.
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Speaker 4: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 4: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. Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1:I've got another story on the other end of things and this one was a bit of a dum-dum story when it come to judgment, but this would have been probably in the neighborhood of 2014, 2013. And this is an ice out situation and the ice in that year on the Upper French River was in so late. Like I always opened on the Friday before May 2-4, the Friday before the third Saturday in May, because that was our opening day. Our opening day was the third Saturday in May because that's when our fishing season opened at midnight. But I would always open the Friday before because it's an extra day that I could get out of my season and people loved coming up and having a very leisurely, you know, get there whenever they want to get there, whether it's 7, 8, 9, 10, 1 o'clock in the afternoon, whenever 5 o'clock.
Speaker 1:So I would be open on that first day and it turned into a bit of a tradition because all the guys and girls would come in and it would be like a party, right, nobody could go fishing, but, um, everybody had come in. We'd have a big uh, a big special dinner and uh, and it was uh, and the season's open, right. So this one year in particular. That's right, this one year in particular and our and our ice typically goes out any time between about the third week of april. There was one year when it went out in march break, but this year it didn't go out until may 9th and I and and I was, and it was one of those years where the third saturday fell early, so it was like the 15th or 14th that the third Saturday opened. So it only left me.
Speaker 4:That was this year for me, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it only left me like five days to open and get ready and get staff in and it was a nightmare, but anyway. So, my good buddy Scotty Hamp, we're like we got to get up there and and ahead of the staff and just get, get, get shit open and get you know all the preliminary stuff.
Speaker 2:The water, warm it up, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, warm, warm it up, get, get the essentials running. And we talked to bud Derekrick at the marina, uh, doquese marina, where, where we park and I still park to this day and Shodier uses that marina and uh, bud said, yeah, yeah, like, I mean the, the ice, um, it's out in the in Doquese Bay, which typically means that it's out everywhere else. But he hadn't been out on the water and and nobody in in in Doquese that he knew of anyway knew whether the ice was in or out. So Scotty and I are like, okay, let's, let's go. And, and Scotty, he had his, his one son, timmy boy, in tow and uh, I had my, um, I think I had my two girls, maddie and Violet, with me and they're little, like I mean they were, uh, you know, five, six years old. So we get them in the boat, we get them in their their um life jackets and little floater suits and and everything, and and off we go.
Speaker 1:Well, we get out around the corner and the way to the lodge, a big plate of ice had floated and blocked the, the way, the typical way that you would go to get to the lodge, and it was like hard ice, Like I mean it was. It was hard, yeah. So we couldn't go that way and I'm like, well, we didn't really have any other options because there's nowhere to freaking stay there. I guess we could have went back and shacked up with Bud on his couch, but we had, you know, three kids and so I was like, well, we could try going behind the island, right? And Scotty's like yeah, yeah, so we start and we're heading in behind the island and it's fairly shallow back there and like I mean, you kind of really got to work your way through, you can get there, but in the spring the water's low and anyway we start working back in there. And we got ourselves in a position where you could see the ice was honeycombing, and what I mean by that is like you could be driving through six, eight inches of ice, but it was melting straight down through the ice and you know, like the cereal, like honeycombs or like a honeycomb in a hive, the ice actually gets holes where soft spots melt faster and there's like holes and when it breaks apart, it comes apart in these like long, like, uh, pencil shaped cylinders kind of, and it's extremely soft. So we could kind of see where you know it looked different, like you could see black ice, which is hard, but then you could see this, this honeycombing ice, and the boat went through no problem.
Speaker 1:Well, we got stuck. We got stuck in the backside of the island because there was nowhere where the honeycombed. Yeah, with Timmy Boy and Maddie and Violet and I couldn't back up. We were, because there wasn't enough room to get spun around. We couldn't get out of the boat because the ice wasn't safe. And and I'm like, oh my God, scotty, we could. And at one point, oh, we had the dogs. We had my dogs with us too.
Speaker 1:And at one point I'm like yeah yeah, I'm like geez, scotty, I don't know, we might, we might end up out here for the night in the boat, right, and I had, like there was no, it was fairly warm, like I mean, it was seven or eight degrees, right, and the kids were warm and I had the survival kit in the boat and everything else. Like there was no, I was never really feeling like we were in any danger. It would have sucked bad, but still, anyway, it took what in soft water would take about 25 minutes to drive. It took us about three and a half four hours to pick our way through this honeycombed ice and work our way around and break through and do the same thing like drive up on the hard ice and jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. I'd have to leave the wheel of the boat because the kids have no weight. Fucking light, yeah, and Scotty's light is a feather too. Like I mean the guy's about 165 pounds soaking wet, but it was a good thing.
Speaker 1:Back in those days I was about 260. So you know, I had a little bit of, I had a bit of a hammer, the battering ram body, right. So we were busted through the ice and fine, and it was starting to get dark and I'll never forget, we come around that same corner where it froze on Kyle and Andrew and Matt and Omer and I and I'm like, oh, I didn't see the ice and the river widened in that spot. So I'm like, oh shit. I'm like I'm saying to Scotty, it could be solid, like I mean, but we kind of got close enough so that worst come to worst. I think we could have probably just broke ice to get to the side of the island at the shoreline and it would have been a bit of a hike to to get to the lodge, but it was on our island so you know, it would have been maybe, uh, three quarters of a kilometer kilometer hike how big is chaudier island?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry to interrupt you, but how? I don't know. I've never seen.
Speaker 1:No, no, that's okay.
Speaker 1:It's about uh 85 to 90 acres the island oh fuck, it's pretty good size then, okay, okay yeah, it's a it's size island, um, but we come around that corner and, um, the sun was just starting to go down and it was still warm, because it's one of those spring days, like it was May 9th, right, so it was warm and the whole um way to showaudiere was all this honeycomb ice and we just glided through this foot of ice that was breaking up and it was Scotty's got a video of it, like it was. The sound was awesome, like it was like crystals breaking.
Speaker 2:Like it was and the video was awesome.
Speaker 1:Like it was like crystals breaking, like it was, and and the video was so cool. But I'll tell you what it it it was. The video was so cool, but it certainly wasn't worth the, the, the, the anxiety, having the kids and the dogs those kids are.
Speaker 2:That won't overnight, you're done.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, wow, we would have never told our wives.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I would have never told the story.
Speaker 1:The only problem is kids like that. They squeal Mom. Guess what?
Speaker 2:We had the sleeping boat.
Speaker 1:Oh my.
Speaker 2:God, you got one that's jumping dirt bikes and breaking arms. Fuck, she would have been all over that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, well, she was in there. Oh yeah, we still got shit, you know. But anyway we made it. We made it and I was never so happy to see the lodge, and it's a good thing it was. We had planned on it was like a Tuesday or something.
Speaker 1:So we were there for three or four days opening and because that big plate that blocked us from getting to the lodge from the south side, we parked the boat, got in the dock, got the cottage the Oriel Cottage is one that is winterized and it's got electric heat and everything. So that was always our go-to cottage, had a full kitchen and everything. So we got the cottage fired up and we got the water fired up. And we got the water fired up, um, to that side of the lodge. That, uh, one day it was a it and it went great, like I mean, we had the winterizing system, uh, down pretty good. So we really on that side we didn't have that was the our record year we had one broken pipe in the whole place, which was outstanding, especially when when I needed it the most. But the next morning we woke up and that that plate of ice had shifted to right in front of the lodge so we could go anywhere, like we were kind of locked in there, right, but it mounted.
Speaker 2:You're lucky, you got in there at least, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I mean, if it had shifted when we were trying to get to it, like I mean we would have had to just park half a kilometer down the shoreline and hike and leave the Alaskan there and hopefully it doesn't get drug away, right. But that was a cold experience that I'll never forget nice.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a couple good cold stories. See, I knew you had a couple in them.
Speaker 1:Old bones, years yeah well, you know, I just you, you just got a you had a little nervous there. Yeah, I uh. I got all kinds of stories, it's just that I forget them. I need need somebody to hit me with a stick to get them going.
Speaker 2:I know this. Going back to you, were saying that you only had like five days to open up. That was us this past year at Nordic. So we had, like we painted 18 structures, 19, because we had to stay in the front of the lodge and this. So usually it's like I would say, first week of May when the ice is out. So my lake is the last to freeze and the last to go out. Like going like April, not a chance, Like I had, there was three feet, three and a half feet of snow there. So like this year, with the cold that we've had, end of April will be just the snow coming off the road up our way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we took the time to paint, so we painted all these structures and the ice still wasn't off. So what I did was I was like, okay, fuck it. So it was like you know where my main dock system was, Like down by the bait house on the inside of that little bay. So the water was out, the ice was out there, but not in the rest of the bay, around the point and that's where it dips out in the current around down the waterfall. So I had Johnny out there with fireworks M80s and he would light the M80, throw it out on the ice and boom, it would blow like a five-yard patch and it would bust a hole, and then this giant sheet would like break off and go around the fucking point a couple hours later, right, so?
Speaker 2:But it was enough that at least we could put some docs in or have some kind of progression, Right? So, yeah, we ended up getting I think it was, I think it was the 12th of May this year, and I had I had people coming up, I think Dave and them showed up on the 16th, so I had four days, five days, same as you had. Like, it was just a fucking a retarded stretch to get going, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's, that's tough.
Speaker 2:Speaking of, I want to, while we're on that topic, I want to, I want to break out to the listeners here what some information that's gone on up here in the last little while that myself and Krista and our family have.
Speaker 2:It's been a long couple years span for us at Nordic building to where we got and we've had some.
Speaker 2:You know I've had a couple of physical ailments here and my family's been had some. You know I've had a couple of physical ailments here and my family's been busy and and, uh, you know a couple of just things have changed in life and I think that we've decided that, uh, that it was our turn to step back from where we were at Nordic and, uh, I think we just wanted to tell everybody that we were just kind of, yeah, our Nordic story is coming to an end here and we had a great ride, but I think it's just, this next season is going to be turned back over to, so my partner is still going to have it and they're going to bring somebody else in with them, and I just think it was a time, that time for us to to, to, to get back to our family and do our own thing. You know it took you about a decade to get to that point. It only took me two and a half years, yeah, but so you sold your interest and a half years, yeah, so you sold your interest.
Speaker 2:That's basically it. So we sold our interest in the lodge and we're going to step away and it's been in the works for about a month here now, but we've been wanting to make sure everything goes smoothly and it's been a good transition so far. And as we go over the next week here so far, and as we go over the next week here we'll, we will be officially ex partners of Nordic Point Lodge which will which will be great, put a great ending to our initial lodge story.
Speaker 2:And for the next year we're going to run Sunset Limousine up here in Kenora and we're going to yeah, spend some time with my family. We have my shoulder rebuilt. I'm going to try and fish a bunch, stevie.
Speaker 1:Look after yourself.
Speaker 2:Exactly and you know what? And it's get my shoulder fixed, get my. I love fishing man, you guys know that. And I haven't got to fish when I had the launch. You never got to fish with the launch man Never, no. I haven't got to fish when I had the lodge. You never got to fish with the lodge man Never, no. You know, I live on Black Sturgeon Lake up here, you know, and it's one of the only lakes with largemouth in it. Like I got largemouth, just like you guys do. Down there I can go off my dock and catch a large. I don't get to do that shit anymore.
Speaker 2:And Iic gig was amazing and we love it there and love that place and what we created. It's a stamp that I actually got a call the other day from a gentleman who's good friends with Jamie Bruce and he just bought a lodge called Ash Rapids and one of the most prestigious lodges on Lake of the Woods Been around forever, great place. And this guy he's been a staple on the lake for many years here. And I got a call from this gentleman and first of all I congratulated him and his wife. They're a young couple like us and they got into buying this lodge and he basically was telling me, you know, things were that we basically put a stamp up there, you know you guys went in and did something and that was important to me, right To leave.
Speaker 2:Whenever we were done up there, no matter if it was two years, five years, 10 years, 20 years, or my kids took it over to make sure that we left something to go forward for in the future, right, and we left our stamp. And it was pretty cool to see a guy, a local guy, in the area that had been here a lot longer than I have been, you know, and Sean McGaugh, he's his name and you know he's been on that lake for 30 years. And for hear him say that you know he's been on that lake for 30 years, and to hear him say that you know we put the stamp on the area again was kind of cool to hear that.
Speaker 3:you know it was impressive.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so congratulations to Sean and them for Ash Rapids. And yeah, if anyone wants to reach out to Willie from here on out, reach out to info at sunsetlimoca or my personal email is walleyedrilling at gmailcom. And yeah, we'll talk some stories, some Nordic stories, here in the future, but from here out she's going to be a nice, relaxing summer for Willie. I'm actually going to enjoy it, Stephen.
Speaker 1:Hey well, that's wonderful, buddy, we're going to enjoy it. Steven, hey well, that's that's wonderful, buddy. Um, and and the one thing that, um, that uh, is so important, um, especially when you're in the, in the, the trenches of of lodge ownership, is your health and, um, that's a, that's a huge, a huge step for you, like I mean, it is getting healthy and getting that shoulder rebuilt and you know, like I mean just getting yourself back in the swing of things, and I'm so happy for you for that and to have time with your family and because I know what it's like. Yeah, you did it for a decade man.
Speaker 2:I honestly it would have been tough for me to go any further without the girls there and without my family, like with me and Holton just living on our own in the middle of the woods fucking. For you know like I respect you a lot for what you did for a decade bud. That would have been tough, you know, and you guys are close like you're a close fucking family, right? So?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, it was. It was not easy, that's that's for sure. But your, your health is, is paramount, because without your health you have nothing Right. Oh, that you have nothing right, oh, yeah, for sure. So that's wonderful. And speaking of health, I'm going to do a behind the rod here next week and, for those of you who don't know, I've alluded to it and talked a little bit about it in the past few episodes, but my 40 day fast is complete and there's a ton of people interested in what I did and I would never recommend that to anybody. But I'm going to do a behind the rod on that whole experience, that's great man.
Speaker 2:I'll be a fan of that one for sure. That's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, you know what? I've found a new hobby meantime you know what I've, I've, I've.
Speaker 2:I've found a new hobby, one that I had forgotten I'd loved. Okay, what is this shooting? Oh my god, is this what the the post was about? Yeah, so Krista so we're having dinner last night.
Speaker 2:She goes, she shows me your Facebook and she goes what does Nitswanky want with the guns? I'm like I don't know. Maybe heitswanky want with the guns. I'm like I don't know, maybe he's got a, maybe he rebuilds guns, and I'm not sure. And sure I figured it was something like you were getting into shooting or getting into rebuilding guns or getting into something, yeah, rebuilding. Well, that's great.
Speaker 1:I used to do it when I was young. I mean, my dad gave me. Well, he didn't give me, he just let me use his old Cooey 22. He had a Cooey Model 64, semi-automatic 22. And it was everything I could do to keep the gun shooting. And that was my first real gun. And when I was maybe 8, 10 years old we lived on an acre lot, on my grandparents' 100 acres. So I had the run of 100 acres. And the very first big purchase that I made was a telescope because I was interested in the stars and one of my great uncles that lived in Ottawa and sent these star charts every month and I loved looking at the sky. That's cool. And then my second big purchase, which took me almost, you know, two years of special events, birthdays and Christmas and, you know, first Communion and everything that you know yeah yeah, and squirreling that money away.
Speaker 1:And I bought myself a 177 pellet gun from Home Hardware in Grand Valley and I had that for a long time and I shot the shit right out of that gun, like I shot everything from cans to blackbirds, and I was only allowed to shoot blackbirds because the songbirds like I mean I shot one songbird and my mom saw me shoot. Wow, the problem was being a stupid kid. My mom had a bird feeder set up right out the back window at the kitchen window and she was in doing dishes or some shit and stupid steve come around the corner and shot a robin. Oh buddy, I lost that gun for like near a month so I never did that again. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I get a good bird feeder story when this is when you're done, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I never did get a what do they call an FAC? Yeah, to buy guns I went and got my hunting license right off the bat back in the early 90s and back then you didn't need an FAC. So they grandfathered me in when they went to the PAL, which is the possession and acquisition. But I got a POL but I let that lapse when, when I had the lodge, because I was just so busy, because I was just so busy. So I finally took my PAL and RPAL and I got it in the mail about a month ago and I've since bought a few 22s and a nice 22 mag and it's just ignited and you know some of them. Yeah, I bought dad an old Winchester Model 77, which is just a semi-automatic, and got it home and it jams every time Like it's a pain in the nuts. So I've had it apart and bought a gun screwdriver kit because you got to have the right tools and you know it takes me back to my day.
Speaker 2:So yeah, like you need another hobby If I can make a buck.
Speaker 1:Well, I figure, if I get enough hobbies I might be able to make enough money to keep them all going. I might be able to make enough money to keep them all going. Co-hosting on the Fish and Canada television show and Diaries of a Lodge owner and I'm getting into the micro greens business and growing micro greens, A little here, a little there eh.
Speaker 1:Oh, buddy. Well, it's what I. My problem is I don't have one big thing that I love. I've got a lot of little things and hey, I figure, if I can make a little bit of money fixing guns and flipping them, why not?
Speaker 1:But, Kijiji and Facebook. They don't like guns. I put an ad on Kijiji saying, hey, I'll buy your guns, just like on the Facebook post, and they kicked it right off. They said they don't they, they, they're, they're. They don't like guns, anything to do with guns, even though everything is legal. We aren't letting you put the post up, we're taking it. They took it right down. Same with Facebook marketplace. You can't have those. Like I mean it's ridiculous. No, like I mean it's ridiculous, it doesn't make sense. No, like I mean anyway. So if you got a few rifles out there kicking around in your closet, or grandpa you know his estate is coming to you and you don't know what to do with them, give me a call.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice Way to go. That's awesome, hey.
Speaker 1:You had a bird feeder story.
Speaker 2:I got one. It's a super funny one. So you had a bird feeder story. I got one. It's a super funny one, one of my oldest memories, when I was a kid. My dad wasn't a very nice dude, he was a fucking asshole. He was not a nice person at all and I told you, my grandfather and my mom pretty much raised me. But I do remember this one time my dad was, we were fuck.
Speaker 2:I was probably like five, maybe four, like I was young, and I remember my dad had this bird feeder and it was like this big, giant red one. It was huge and it was gaudy and it would sit on the deck and I'd have to go fill it all the time. And even though I was that little, I'd have to go fill this bird feeder all the time and I remember the I'd feed it and then the squirrels would come up not the fucking birds and they'd empty it and I'd get mad because I was just a little kid and I'm because I'm thinking now I got to go fill this thing again, right? So then I'm watching the squirrels empty it and blah, blah, blah. And then I watched my dad get pissed off at the squirrels getting in, you know, because the birds aren't there. So he's on the phone with his neighbor and our neighbor at the time was named, was Dave Hempstead, and he was a buddy of my dad's and he was a big gun guy. My dad, we were never really gun people, right, he had a couple shotguns, but whatever, we weren't huge into it. So he's like hey, dave, I want you to shoot them fucking squirrels when you see them out there. So Dave's like, yeah, okay, I'll get them. So he's like I'm going to try and do the same. So I remember.
Speaker 2:So my dad, he had this little fucking bullshit, fucking like 177 that you're talking about, right, and he's fucking standing there and he pulls it up and he's got it at the bird feeder right at the side of it, and he's just about to squeeze and he fucking and boom, the fucking bird feeder blows up and he fucking fuck. He looks at the end of the gun, what the fuck? And then the neighbor the neighbor is standing there laughing on his deck because he had his 12 gauge. So he saw my dad going to line up and he just watched his head. As soon as he went to squeeze, he fucking pulled and the bird feeder blew up. It was the funniest shit ever. It was one of my oldest memories. I'll never forget that right. My dad looking at that fucking .22 barrel going or that .188 going holy shit, this is horrible. And his buddy over there laughing yeah, yeah, I mean, you made a good one this year. Yeah, nice, oh, too funny.
Speaker 1:Too funny. Oh, that's a on that note, brother, that's uh, that's uh, that's perfect. I think, uh, I think that's a great place to, to, to kind of sign off till the next one.
Speaker 2:Yes, until the next one.
Speaker 1:We got some good ones coming up here.
Speaker 2:We got some good ones coming up here, we got some good ones coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much for listening to this point and I really appreciate everything you guys are doing and the support that you're giving us. It's outstanding and I certainly and I know Willie too we don't take for granted all of your support, so we appreciate that wholeheartedly. And for anybody out there looking to partner up, we've got a great deck and, as usual, get over to fishingcanadacom and get in your votes and your ballots for a bunch of awesome free stuff. It's a great opportunity to get some high-end equipment and Garmin is always there. Get out there and get them votes in. And folks, if you want to reach out with ideas and and comments, please do. Uh, you know where to get me steven at fishandcanadacom. And uh, uh, willie, you're uh, you're uh at uh info at sunset, limocom. And uh, dot c or dot ca. And then uh, dot C or dot CA. And then, uh, tell us your other one.
Speaker 2:You're really, you're walleye drilling at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Yeah there you go, Willie the oil man, and on that note, folks. Thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of diaries of a lodge owner stories of the North.
Speaker 3:I of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the North. I'm a good old boy, never meaning no harm. I'll be all you ever saw, been reeling in the hog since the day I was born, bending my rock, stretching my line. 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. Boy, 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, 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.
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Speaker 3:Radio. Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week?
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