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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 88: A Springtime Guide to Rural Living
As winter's grip begins to loosen and the snow starts melting away, Willie and I find ourselves eagerly anticipating spring's arrival. There's something magical about these seasonal transitions – that feeling of renewal and the rush of excitement as we prepare for all that the warmer months bring.
This week, we're diving deep into springtime activities that connect us to the land and its rhythms. I share my lifelong experience raising chickens – from hatching eggs to managing flocks of laying hens and meat birds. We explore the fascinating differences between breeds, the satisfaction of collecting fresh eggs daily, and the sustainable cycle of maintaining your own poultry. For anyone considering backyard chickens, you'll find practical wisdom gained from decades of hands-on experience.
Our conversation takes an unexpected turn as we reveal how remote lodges manage waste in creative ways. At Chaudiere Lodge, I employed a remarkably punctual "cleanup crew" consisting of seagulls and turkey vultures that arrived every morning to handle food scraps and fish waste. These natural solutions highlight the ingenious ways lodge owners work within ecological systems rather than against them.
Willie shares his upcoming ice fishing plans while the roads remain solid, targeting walleye, crappie, and potentially trophy-sized lake trout. We reminisce about the recent Toronto Sportsman Show, where Fish and Canada celebrated its impressive 40th season with tremendous turnout from dedicated fans. The strong attendance suggests the outdoor community is thriving post-pandemic, with more people than ever seeking connection to wild places.
Whether you're a lodge owner, an avid angler, or simply someone who feels that springtime pull toward outdoor activities, this episode celebrates the seasonal rhythms that define life in the north. Join us as we turn our faces to the sun and embrace the promise of longer days ahead.
Well, you know what? The snow has begun to recede fast. The weekend we had some warm weather and some rain and I'm hoping that we don't see any more snow in the next. You know, two, three days we're going to be. We're almost there, which brings me to an exciting time of the year, which is, you know, getting ready for the garden and hatching chickens and all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker 1:This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Networks, diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North, the days are getting longer, the snow is melting and Willie and I are thinking spring. On this show we talk everything spring, from the Toronto Sportsman Show with the Fish and Canada crew to raising chickens and gardening and so much more. So folks relax, enjoy the stories, turn your face to the sun and feel that first bit of warmth, because it's springtime, baby. Welcome folks to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner, willie Walleye. Willie and I are sitting here and that's Willie's other. What do you call those names? A tag, a tag, walleye, willie, or you know that's what the kids call him, willie the Oil man.
Speaker 2:I like that one. I really love that one. Steve, that one's tattooed on me. I love it, you know what?
Speaker 1:Wow, hey, when you get it tattooed on you, you love it right Pretty much. Yeah, so, willie, how?
Speaker 2:are you doing, unless you're really drunk, and then you should not get tattoos?
Speaker 1:Well, I can't speak to that. I have no tattoos, but I've seen. I've seen some drunk tattoos on people and, uh, I would tend to agree with that morning folks.
Speaker 2:Good morning willie here. Hey. Uh. Yeah, I saw one time I. That was a great way to open the show. That was awesome. I saw one time and I was camping and this guy is like you know, we're kind of doing our morning routine and he's down at the river throwing water on his face. I look over at his arm and he's got like a. The tattoo looks like it looks like a piece of metal and a tribe hammered it in with a wooden rock, or sorry, a rock and a wooden you know what I mean? A tip thing down in the jungle and they hammered it into his skin. That's how bad it looked. But I got a good look at it and I'm like what is this thing? And it was a lawnmower. It was a stick man pushing a lawnmower with the grass flying out of it and I'm like, why would you?
Speaker 3:get that on your arm man.
Speaker 2:I'm like.
Speaker 1:He must have been a grass man.
Speaker 2:Right, A little bit of a grass man on the arm and it looked wicked, Wicked yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, how's things down? Your way, Stevie. I hear it's pretty snowy down there. Is it starting to clear?
Speaker 1:up. Well, you know what? The snow has begun to recede fast. The weekend we had some warm weather and some rain, and I'm hoping that we don't see any more snow in the next you know, two, three days. That we don't see any more snow in the next two, three days we're going to be we're almost there, nice. Which brings me to an exciting time of the year which is getting ready for the garden and hatching chickens and all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Are you doing all that again? Is that a yearly routine for you, steve? Do you live and is your lifestyle like that consistently? Or is that just a trendy routine for you, steve? Like, do you live and is your lifestyle like that consistently, or is that just a trendy thing for you?
Speaker 1:Oh no, I've been doing that kind of stuff since I was a kid, absolutely. I've got some laying hens and then I take those eggs and I hatch out a bunch of others. And then the roosters, they, you take the big ones and I, you know, one, one a year. You want to keep your, your, your stock fresh, so I keep, I'll keep one nice big rooster a year and then the rest of those roosters they'll go into the pot. And the hens are really the valuable ones to me because I enjoy eating eggs. So I'll keep all of the hens that I get.
Speaker 1:And then you kind of got to keep thinning the flock and keeping the flock healthy, because as chickens grow older they will still lay eggs, but the eggs get bigger and less frequent. So I've got some hens in there that are probably four years old and and, uh, at four and five years old, you know, they, um, they're, the production is, uh, is quite low. Um, they might lay one egg every three, four days, five days, but it's, it's. But that's where you get your double yokers you ever heard of a double yoker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's where you get your double yokers. But I got one old girl in there. She lays eggs the size of softballs for Christ's sake.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how she lays them. You know, every once in a while you hear the squawk, so I think that's her, oh God. And then I also do meet roosters, right, but I buy those guys. I usually buy them from Bonnie's Hatchery over towards St Jacobs, but I'll buy them day old and then whatever is, and I'm pretty sure they're not genetically altered, but they have been bred over the years to grow and to watch them grow.
Speaker 1:Side by side with the chicks that I hatch, which are different breeds, I've got a mix of giant Brahma and Langshan, which are two really big birds, and the laying hens that you buy from Bonnie's as well, that have been bred to produce eggs. They're called ISO Reds or ISO Reds, and those hens they'll lay an egg a day for a couple of years, if you're nice to them and and, uh, um, I have a a mix of all of those, depending on who's breeding who and and what's going on, because I like the frequency of the egg laying, I like the, the size of the giant Brahmas and the Langshans and um, um, but even at that, even though those um birds are are big birds, um to to watch them grow beside a um meat bird that you buy specifically for meat, and I think the breed that I typically get is it's called white rock. It's ridiculous how fast the meat birds grow Really, and it's like, oh, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:So, like, what's the timeframe? Like this is interesting because I know nothing about this and it's something, oh, it's ridiculous. So, like, what's a time frame? Like I, this is interesting because I know nothing about this and it's something me and krista have talked about for one, to keep spiders away and to keep and to get our own eggs in production at the house here, because we've been, because we eat a lot of eggs too yeah, so you've got two different, different breeds.
Speaker 1:You've got your meat birds and your laying laying laying hens yep and um, uh, first and foremost, if you want to make sure you don't have blood spots in your eggs, you don't? You like the production? Um, um, farms will never have roosters and hens mixed, just because the blood spots come from when the roosters breed the hens. And then if an egg gets left a little long in a nest and it gets sat on or warmed up, you'll get an egg, a blood spot, because that's when the incubation starts. So, for and for me, I just gather the eggs every day. Sometimes you forget, sometimes you get a blood spot, but hey, whatever, it's a farm, you know what it is, what it is. But so you've got your egg layers and then you got your meat birds. And your meat birds they're again, they're bred for meat. And a time frame to answer your question. To give you an idea for Swiss chalet, you know the chickens that they have there. They're probably around four pounds at Swiss chalet.
Speaker 1:Those birds are done in six weeks oh, wow, yeah, that's incredible, and that's from a, from a chick yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, even, even, even, yeah, even less than that. Like I mean, when, uh, when um we buy um our roosters, I'll get them beginning of May and we're butchering eight to, I'll say seven to nine pound birds by middle of August. So we're looking at, you know, less than three months.
Speaker 2:And now they're free range at your place, steve. Are they in a like? How does that work?
Speaker 1:I have them penned up and I'll let them out during the day, especially the egg layers. But those, the meat birds, they're really not interested in going too far and they grow so fast that they like I mean, they're not agile at all. Oh, okay, but yeah, when you hear about free-range meat birds and this is always something that I've wanted to do, I just don't have the space right now You'll hear farmers and free range farmers that have birds talking about schooners and basically a schooner is just a garage in a box, for lack of a better term. They're a little bit better built, but it's a garage in a box and it's got the open floor. You outfit it with wheels, you put like a skirt on the bottom that's predator proof and you put your 50 to 100 birds, depending on the size of the schooner, inside that schooner and you've got like, rather than having like a tarp all the way, you've got sides that are like a mesh, so the wind blows through, the sun comes in and you pull that schooner 20 feet every day across the field in the grass so that your chickens, they live inside the schooner.
Speaker 1:You also have to supplement with food, because chickens don't just eat grass and bugs, like I mean, they need some substance which is, yeah, your grain, your corn, and a lot of times companies have made blends of protein and they put them in like a pellet form which a lot of people use. That I like to use when they're small. There's a chick starter which is like a brown crushed up pellet. I'll use that for, you know, a week or two, and then I like, as soon as they get big enough, to get them onto a more natural food source, like your grains and your corns, and you crush it all up. I like to do that. But, yeah, like I mean, um, that's uh, that's uh, that's the the way. And then we do all of our butchering ourselves too, right I remember that.
Speaker 2:I remember you were butchering this fall, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I usually do about 50 meat birds and and um, that's, that's enough for my family. We'll, we'll have that'll get us through the winter and and the summer until, uh, we're ready to put the, uh, put the um um meat back in the freezer. Nice, um, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's that, and then there's we had, uh, so my buddy kyle, um, yeah, mcmahon. So we went to, we flew down to Kabul. Actually, when I was going to buy the lodge in 2022, we flew down in uh to Kabul and so, anyways, when we flew down, you can't get a direct flight out of Winnipeg anywhere anymore down there. So we got to go. You got to go over to Edmonton or you got to go to. You know, fly from Winnipeg to Toronto. So we went from Winnipeg over to Edmonton or you got to go to. You know, fly from Winnipeg to Toronto. So we went from Winnipeg over to Edmonton, stayed at Kyle's sister's for the night Her and her husband now her husband's from Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2:They've got a couple of kids and they kind of got a corner lot, but it's like right downtown Edmonton. I would say the lot would be like 50 feet by 30 feet. You know, for a backcourt corner lot, it's a pretty good size in the city, yeah, so, sure enough, I walk out in the backyard and there's free-range chickens and there's like 10 of them and they're running around everywhere and the kids are playing with them and one kid's playing dodgeball with his friend and there's like 10 of them and they're running around everywhere and the kids are playing with them and one kid's playing dodgeball with his friend and there's a chicken there. The other ones are playing. It was really weird to see. I didn't expect it. So, yeah, what they had, steve, is they had like a little barn chicken coop thing built in the back of their yard and it had a pine tree around it. Built in the back of their yard and it had a pine tree around it and they had. So the chickens would actually go up and roost in the tree, like you know, six feet up, seven feet up, yep, but that's, they would never fly, which is so crazy. They would. There was like a fenced yard, you know, and it's a corner lot, so there's like three other houses behind this place. Never would they fly into their yard. You know what I mean? Never, and I asked people that you know, would they? Do they ever leave? Do they never? They don't ever. They'll always want to go back to their, to their coop or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just thought it was the wildest thing to see this in the middle of the city. I never thought it was something that people did and that's when me and Krista were like, hmm, maybe we should get them for the lodge and we could put, you know, because we keep that for ourselves and we have lots of land there and then our house. We got lots of land. We thought about it after here, after selling out, and I was like maybe we should do it here. So it's something we thought about and I can see us doing it eventually. We like to dabble in things like that. That we've never done, you know.
Speaker 1:Like you know, having puppies- yeah well, they'll never leave, It'd be interesting.
Speaker 2:You'd have to educate me someday, if I ever go to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's easy enough. Like I mean those I've had, like I say I've had since I was old enough to walk, and once you feed them in one spot and you have a secure place for them to live like I've got a caged-in run off the back of my wee barn, I call it my wee barn, my wee barn.
Speaker 1:Like a 10 by 10 or whatever, shed out in the back and I've got it insulated for the winter and I've got it caged in top bottom. I've run mesh off of the bottom of the cage and buried it out afoot. So when animals come to the corner of the cage and try and dig it, dig into the ground to get under it, they're digging into the, the, the mesh. Great idea. But I'll open that door and I'll let them out, like today. I'll probably go out after this, after this podcast and and it's it's about the it'll be the first time this year that I let them out of the barn and onto the lawn and they'll hang around. They don't even rarely. They might go onto my neighbor's lawn a little bit, but we've got two acre lots out here. So you know, and and Jeff is great, he, jeff and Judy over there I'll throw them a dozen eggs every once in a while.
Speaker 1:And when we butcher up the chickens some chickens, and you know what, they don't do any damage. They, they'll walk around, they shit all over the lawn and the next thing thing you know, your lawn's nice and green, but rarely do they leave my property. They'll run around, they eat bugs they'll. But the biggest problem is they get into my garden and I've my good I call it my good garden I fence it in and then, um, so they uh, and, and when I say fence, it's just like a three-foot high chicken wire around the outside of it, and then they don't bother jumping. They could fly in there, but you know if the odd one does hey.
Speaker 2:They're lazy like that though. Hey, they don't really want to do anything new that alters their shit.
Speaker 1:Hey, From what I've noticed, Well, like I mean, I don't know whether it's lazy. Well, like I mean, I don't know whether it's lazy, I think it's more, they'll go up to the fence and they see the fence, they don't know how to get over it. You know it's weird, I'm not sure, but they're pretty good that way. But I'll tell you what my other garden. I've got raspberry canes and last year I grew giant Atlantic pumpkins. I had one vine in my good garden and then I had two vines in the back garden where the chickens can get to and I had one out in the back in the in the accessible garden. I had two giant Atlantics and they didn't get all that big, probably whole about the size. They were big enough for pumpkins like uh, three, four times the size of the biggest pumpkin you'd buy for, um, uh, halloween. So if you, uh, if you took your arms out in front of you and you made a big circle and you left about a foot between your hands, that's how big around they were.
Speaker 2:That's good size. How much do you figure they weighed?
Speaker 1:They probably would have been somewhere between 50 and 80 pounds each.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they ate the shit right out of them. And at first I was like, oh, you sons of bitches, yeah, and I was kind of chasing them out of there and everything else. But then I thought you know what? I got my other garden and the big pumpkin was in that other garden. It was up over 100 pounds, maybe 150 pounds, and in hindsight I should have took that one out and put it back there, because them chickens, man, those pumpkins probably saved me about 200 bucks in food for them.
Speaker 2:because they were eating pumpkin. It was probably super healthy for them, and they must have had a different taste though too.
Speaker 1:eh, oh, there's no, probably. It definitely was super healthy for them and it's the egg layers Like I didn't eat those weren't the meat birds. But you can tell when they're locked in the barn for the winter and they're eating the lay mash, like the food that you buy. They mix it up with a certain amount of protein and it's a good mix for laying birds, but it is nothing compared to when you get them outside and they're eating naturally.
Speaker 1:Um, the color of the yolk changes distinctly, like it's a deep kind of an orangey, almost a red, um tint of uh in the yolk and um, um, the, the, the eggs are so healthy and tasty and I just I would never do it any different, right, like, I mean, I've always been outdoorsy and garden and this and that, not so much a garden when I was a kid, but mom and dad always had the garden. My grandmother, my grandma, knew nijvetsky. Um, yeah, she would. Uh, she had a garden on the farm. Um, that was probably about four acres and she used to grow I don't know hundred and hundred head of cabbage for sure.
Speaker 5:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:And then everything else in between, you know. So I've always been involved with gardens and animals and on the farm.
Speaker 2:Did you have a garden at the lodge?
Speaker 1:That's a great question.
Speaker 2:Did you grow a greenhouse, or did you do that up there?
Speaker 1:No, I was on an island and once you get up north it's hard to get good soil and in the bush to find light. But I always wanted to. The closest thing I had to a garden was when you walked out the side of the main lodge and it was actually the chef's office and kitchen. When you walked outside of the main lodge, I had a raised flower bed. That was there and it was used as a flower bed, but I quickly turned that into an herb garden. Cool, I quickly turned that into an herb garden. So we grew chives and parsley and sage and all of the different mint and different herbs that the chef would use for the meals right, and in particular the dinner meal for the most part and desserts. Like, I mean, he would use a lot of flowers that when certain things would start to flower, he would pull flowers from the herb garden and then put that in the desserts to dress up the desserts and on the main courses as well, right? So the closest I had to a garden up there was the herb garden and you always thought, oh, it'd be so it's such a great idea.
Speaker 1:Now, the one thing I will preface that with is I had my garden back home here in Shelburne and, uh, I would uh supplement our um, our um, fresh produce order with fresh stuff from my garden Gotcha Lettuce tomatoes, although the last few years we've had a terrible tomato blight down in this area and I haven't been able to grow tomatoes for two or three years. But back when I was up at the lodge I used to supplement with fresh tomatoes and whatever I had on the go at home. So, and the other thing I always wanted to do and I don't even have it on the go here was we always talked about having a pig up at the lodge because our slop buckets coming out of the kitchen would have kept, you know, two or three pigs fed and fat and they would have ate up all of the slop buckets, which slop buckets we would call that's what we called our buckets that five gallon pails that would sit around the kitchen and as the chefs are preparing meals you know there's always all like, say, you're cleaning out a green or a red pepper, well, you've got all the seeds in the core that comes out and it goes into the slop bucket, or trimmings from meat goes into the slop bucket or whatever, all of the the plates coming back in from the dining room would get scraped into the slop bucket. Because if you now this is something that um, that um um I'm sure most lodge owners and people know.
Speaker 1:But you do not, especially when you're're on an island or in an area up north where you've got a cottage or whatever. You do not want to put food into your garbage. And at Chaudiere I had a garbage house. We called it out behind the main lodge and we would only make a garbage run once a week. Well, you can imagine how many bags of garbage you know at times 50 people can produce.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's insane, that's crazy we did it every day, thank God, because we were on land. Man, that would be a lot of work in the background. You're right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, like I mean, we had, and after a week it would fill. You know, bud had a trailer that had high sides on the trailer and it would have been you know, the regular width I'm not sure four and a half five feet wide, for for the road it was um, um, it was 10 feet long and the sides on it were at least six feet high. And we'd fill that trailer once a week. And the thing was is we needed to be diligent on making sure that our food waste did not go into those garbage bags and then into the garbage house, because if it did, all the critters would get into the garbage house and tear those bags apart. And, buddy, it only happened to, it only had to happen once or twice, and the the doc guys the doc guys had to clean it up and they would chat with the girls would have cleaned up all of that garbage. Well, two probably, because pigs are very social animals and one pig does not do good, does not do well by itself. You need two, but still they would be good.
Speaker 1:But we had a great way of dealing with the slop and I'll tell you what. I had a crew that looked after that slop. They were the perfect employees. They were actually like an hour early every day. They were actually like an hour early every day. They stayed until the job was completely finished and never, ever missed work. And that crew was a flock of seagulls that were probably in the neighborhood of 50. We're probably in the neighborhood of 50. And every morning we would dump the slop buckets and then we'd have the gut buckets, and the gut buckets are just the buckets that were down in the fish cleaning shack, so people would clean their fish, or the dock hands would clean your fish for you, if you liked, and all of the guts would go into the gut bucket. We'd hang that overnight because, again, we had otters that would get into the gut buckets if you left them on the floor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not really bears. Bears don't really like rotten, stinking fish. Bears don't really like rotten stinking fish. They don't really come to it. It's the food right. It's the otters you run away we had that at Nordic too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the otters. And the problem that we had at Chaudière well problem, the dock house, or the we called it the dock house, or we called it the dock house, which was the building on the dock, was built right at the shoreline. So the otters would come up, they'd knock the gut bucket over, they'd grab the fish carcasses, they'd jump off of the dock into the water and then they would store them underneath the building.
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 1:And you couldn't get under there, yeah, so then all of a sudden, our tackle shop, which was in the dock house, started stinking like rotten fish, which was awful. So that was another thing we learned. You got to, those buckets got to go up, but anyway, at the Seagulls, as soon as the sun was coming up, they would all be waiting out front and when the boys would bring the slot buckets from the kitchen and you know there'd be anywhere from three to five buckets we had a golf cart with a truck box well, like a box on the back. It's not the size with a truck box well, like a box on the back, it's not the size of a truck box. But it had a wee box on the back and they'd throw the buckets in the back of the box on the golf cart. And boy, oh boy, when he rounded the corner from the kitchen, those seagulls, they were excited, I'm telling you. They start singing and squawking.
Speaker 2:Squawk Fest 96, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know it. And the other part of my cleanup crew was about 15 turkey vultures, oh yeah, and you would see in the morning when, if you were out on the water, coming in, you'd think that there was a herd of moose that had died, because there was all them turkey vultures just circling, circling, circling, right. So you'd take them down and people would watch Like they'd load up the boat and it was like the Pied Piper man as he takes the boat out. We would dump the slop up onto the shoreline never in the water, especially the gut buckets too, because it's actually illegal to throw fish carcasses in the lake. Why, I'm not 100% sure, but we would throw it all up on, uh, on a stretch of shoreline.
Speaker 1:And those birds, man, oh man, like I say, they were an hour early every day and they didn't leave until the job was done. Um, and they ate everything, the only thing, funny enough. Well, I can understand why they didn't eat it. And we stopped putting them in the slop buckets where lemon rinds, like when you squeeze a lemon. They wouldn't eat the lemon rinds and at the end of the day they break down as well. But it was taking too long and nobody eats lemon rinds, so we would just throw those in the garbage. But yeah, that's um, yeah so we did.
Speaker 2:So we had, we just had a, so we had Dennis would go every day, which was great, right, we could. Just we had the luxury of just being able to do that. Yeah, and our slot bucket, if we, if we did maintain one because it could just go in the garbage if we did maintain one, we just dumped it out on an island. You know, nordic was, it was easy for that. The guys were spoon fed when it came to that. But I remember at t2 it was more, or at maynard, at my buddy josh's, it was more, like what you have because they're on islands, right. So we'd have to go daily. We didn't have a crew that would do it, we just had. You know, whoever was on shore would go and do it to the 10 or 15 guides who were there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So Morris Woodland was the first guy I ever hired at Nordic. He was a good friend of mine. He worked at T2. He was at T2 for like eight years, nine years. Good old, doofy boy, labrador guy actually lives in the middle of nowhere kind of thing. You know he's a bush guy. This guy, you know, like I would offer him. I remember when we first started building and I'd be like come stay in the house with me. You know it's 20 degrees. You got a wood fireplace, a hot tub a.
Speaker 2:TV? No, he would. He stayed down in cabin five and he would come up to my house and get running water and he would take it down there and he had little heaters in his cabin and that's how he would use the washroom. He would never want to come up to the house. He didn't want. He wanted to bathe with a you know a sponge. He just didn't. You know, he just wasn't him and he was a clean guy. He was. You know, it's just how he lived growing up in the Northern part of the world and he just was used to it and he liked his privacy.
Speaker 2:So anyway, mo was with me down at T2. That's how we'd met and this one particular day, whenever I didn't really if there was a day which wasn't very often that I didn't guide I was able to go into town. Me and Mo were kind of the town guys, right, we had the responsibility to take the checkbook in and go do the shit in town. We needed, on the way we would do a garbage run, responsibility to take the checkbook in and go do the shit in town we needed and on the way we would do a garbage run. So this one particular day, me and Mo were off the water and we were going into wholesale to do a bunch of you know, I think we were getting water and just a bunch of shit from the chef, and on the way in there was like eight or ten garbage bags and we threw them in the boat and run them down to the landing. And we were going up there, run them down to the landing and we're going up there.
Speaker 2:There was a big steep hill and at the top we had this old 1500 series, you know early 90s Chevy, with a cap on the back. So we would pitch the garbage into there, you know, for like two days at a time, three days at a time, and then the boys would run it to the dump. Whenever it started to get full they'd just take the truck and go yeah, so we sure enough. So we got these bags and I load them out on the dock and Morris, he throws one around one side of his shoulder and one around the other and he goes trekking up the hill. Well, he gets to the top and I'm just getting out of the boat with the last bags and I throw one over my shoulder, throw one over the other, and I'm looking up the hill and Morris. I watch him. He opens up the gate of the I'm sorry, the window part of the truck cap in the back and he opens it up and a freaking bear and it was probably like four 350. It was a good size female.
Speaker 2:It came ripping right out the left side. Morris drops the bags and the crap fell on his pants and he goes left, the bear goes right. And so I'm on the dock and I drop the bags and I'm on my knees rolling right Because I'm scared to poop out of them, right, yeah, yeah, oh man, Steve, it was so classic. Morris, if you're out there, we'll never forget that story, that story buddy between me and you.
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Speaker 2:Gardening good topic, buddy. I love that. Yeah, I think we General Jarrett, chef Machete last year he would like he did what you did a little bit. He had like a little wheel thing outside full of dirt and he would do his time and whatever the sage or whatever he grew in there. But he was always bugging me Up at the house. There we had a raised guard bed and he was bugging me to encase it like a greenhouse and if I would have stayed there I would have let him for sure, because it was a cool thing you know he had talked into.
Speaker 1:Well, a greenhouse is one of those things that I'm thinking about here for my place, but that's a whole other story. Yeah, for my place, but that's a whole nother story. I have a little greenhouse for starting plants. Like this week I'm probably going to start my tomatoes and peppers and all of the plants that I'll put in the garden and then you start them inside and once they get to be about two, three inches tall, then I'll move those trays right out into the greenhouse outside, because you like to have them grow when they're small especially tomatoes and peppers in a cooler environment, not cold, because cold they won't grow, but cooler, because they'll grow more robust if they're in a warm and um and um, humid environment. Uh, they, uh, they get spindly, they'll, they'll, um, they'll grow um, um, very quickly, tall and without and without strength. So you want to grow them in a cooler environment and this time of the year, a small greenhouse outside. It provides a perfect spot for it.
Speaker 1:But back at Chaudière the other thing that built up being on an island, the other thing that built up being on an island I had the boathouse, which was a big building where we stored all of our cedar strips and boats, all of our aluminum boats that were under 16 feet tall.
Speaker 1:But through the summer that was the place that all of our empties went. Oh yeah, and we didn't take our empties back until the season was over, and that was always a perk for the staff because we would have our year-end staff party. Oh yeah, and the empties were what funded it. Yep, and man, oh man, you want to talk about empties. The first couple of years I forgot, and in Noelville we would take our bottles to the beer store. Listen, folks, for those people and hey, for the girls and guys up at the Noelville beer store. I apologize again, but yeah, they tend to get a little bit worked up when you show up with five pickup trucks full of empties and you don't call in advance because they're understaffed to deal with them. But oh yeah, like I mean, the empties that built up on that island were ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Well, what a party for the staff at the end of the year, though They'd be excited to run all them to town, I bet.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Well, that was the easiest way to motivate people to actually clean them up. You know, listen, gather them all up and then they would take them down to the boathouse and everybody kind of kept a running tally on roughly what was down there. But there were some years where we were taking back $3,000 in empties. That's a lot of empties. Oh yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm guessing we would say I just never even thought about it right, because we just huh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, yeah, well, and you were licensed. I wasn't. This was just booze that people were, that, that people were bringing and, and uh, bottles that were going into the garbage or into into the recycle bins. We always had, uh, well, as soon as, uh, as soon as the uh, the staff um understood that, uh, all of the empty money was going to go to benefit them. Then everybody's mindful of making sure that we collect all the empties right, which is a good thing. So, yeah, no, it was good, but we're kind of getting Just imagine, flying all that out on a plane.
Speaker 2:So I know Josh, up at Maynard, he, everything besides his slop buckets goes out on the plane there, not on the boat. Everything's because there's no trail, there's no road anywhere near, so everything has to go out on the plane from River Air. It's a headache, wow the cans. You can't leave nothing like that there, right. So everything's got to go like that. And it's a headache man, I know that. And it's a headache man, I know that. It's a. It's a big headache.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Well, and and, and like I mean, a lot of the the lodge owners from from days gone by. I know it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen much anymore and uh, hasn't happened on shoddy air island for probably 40 years. But, um, like I mean, as a kid, I, I, I collect jars and old bottles and and not not so much bottles anymore. I still have this weird little fetish with, uh, with um, turn of the century-century Canadian ceiling jars. But there's another story too.
Speaker 1:But I used to bike around the countryside back in the 80s and very early 90s with a buddy of mine and at that time all of the farms in East Luther and Amaranth Township and Melanchthon Township and all of these townships around us that was when there was the recession in the late 80s and a lot of derelict farms, you know, old farmhouses that, uh, that were beat up and falling down, and and, uh, we would, uh, we would jump on our bikes on a saturday morning and spend all day biking around the countryside and there were, there were three locations that that we would key in on, that we learned to go and find old bottles and old jars, and the first location, as you can imagine, was the basement, because that's where you find old jars, because people would can and preserve and the jars go on a shelf somewhere in the basement. We checked there but then once, like I mean, after that, there's really nowhere in a house that you would find old glass like that. And there were two other places on a farm where you would look, and this is where it kind of ties in to what we're talking about. You would go to a lot of the farms. Obviously they have a barn, a bunk barn, and to get into the upstairs of the bunk barn on the backside they would build what we always knew as a kid was called the barn dump hill. Right, and the barn dump hill was the hill that they would put on the backside of the barn. So you could go up this ramp of dirt into the back of the backside of the barn, onto the thrash floor, onto the second floor, so you could get your hay and your straw and your grain and everything you want to store on the second floor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, they call it a barn dump hill for a reason, and when they built barn dump hills they threw all of their garbage in and buried it right in the barn dump hill. So, for whenever they built the barn which could have been the late 1800s, who the hell knows yep, there was always garbage that was thrown into the barn dump hill. So we would excavate with, uh, with um hand tools, little shovels and, you know, like gardening shit and whatever we could find to dig into these barn dump hills, and you would start to unearth these pieces of glass that were over 100 years old, and once we kind of, because you couldn't get too terribly far into the barn dump hill and it seemed like that was rough on glass, right, you were hard pressed to find pieces that weren't broke, but you did. And then you would look at the farmhouse and you would pick the furthest place away from the house on that farm, typically if there's bush there. And then we'd head out there and you would walk through the bush and every farm back in those days at the turn of the century, through the 30s, 40s, 50s, even into the 60s, they all had a dump right, yep, and a lot of them, a lot of people would just cart their shit back into the corner of the farm and dump all their garbage in the back corner of the farm, yep, so you'd be out there and you'd look and the first thing that you would see is rusted cans on top. And then now all of a sudden, me and Evan and I were we're excited, right. We're like, oh my God, we found another dump. It's the mother road, oh yeah. Well, like I mean, there was some pretty, some pretty cool shit that we, that we unearthed out of that stuff and that plays into what I found.
Speaker 1:With these places, especially out on islands, where it's next to impossible to get stuff off the island again, there's big old dumps and behind these places and, um, a lot of them you wouldn't see now because they're they haven't been used for 20 or 30 years. Um, but the the I can, I, I can totally understand how the old timers who had these places that were isolated like that and the effort it takes to get stuff in a lot of that stuff never left. Yeah, and uh, uh, you know there were at at chaudiere, we, um, there was one year we ended up, um, I, I dropped something, or somebody dropped something off of our dock and our dock's about 12 feet deep, the main pier, and I think it was like a big adjustable wrench, like a, you know, like a big, big adjustable wrench. I wanted it back, something worth going for.
Speaker 1:So anyway, yeah, we had Bud bring his scuba gear up and the shit that he pulled up from underneath our dock. He pulled up a trolling, one of the very first trolling motors I think were ever built, like from 1980. It was crazy, the stuff that accumulates off the bottom of underneath your dock. I wouldn't do that. So, yeah, folks, if you have time and you're interested in shit like that, when you go up to the lodge now, I'm not suggesting you do this when everybody's driving their boats into the dock, but if you take your snorkeling gear and at a slow time you go down, and especially if you've got a lodge with a deep dock, there are some treasures under there that you wouldn't even know. I bet yeah, I bet yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:So what do you got on the go for today, there, my buddy, I am, a couple of meetings this morning and then I actually had really good friends and guests of mine kind of like your people that you just went down to Texas to see.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, Sonia and Joe and Deb and Fred, fred, the whole crowd down there yeah, we uh, we got our, our little group up here.
Speaker 2:They're the Smoods, um, don and Rhonda. They uh, they actually did shows for me and Krista in our first year. We made a couple of them but we couldn't get to them all with all the renovating, all the chaos going on. So they were kind enough to you know they would go sit in the booth for us for for a show and we would just take the calls and, um, it was great actually doing that, because having a guest represent you after oh yeah spent with them right was great.
Speaker 2:It was great for the other guests to see, like, oh, this guy's got a guest in there right, it was good. So, um, yeah, we've been good friends with them for over a decade and we've had quite a few people reaching out to us. Actually, to be honest with you, I've probably had my phone ring and email ring about over 100 times since I've shot that, since I got out of that lodge, and everybody had the same answer they feel we did an amazing job, they loved it there, they're happy for the future and they just wish me my health and these people I'm like well, I'll come up, let's go for a little ice fish before the end of the year.
Speaker 2:So the ice road here right now is the road's in good shape. We got lots of ice, tons of ice still, but like I mean I wouldn't think this year the ice will go out before May 5th, may 10th It'll be. You'll be hard pressed to get it out before then. And Nice, yeah, which is great, right, because we can get, so we can fish for another couple weeks here. So, yeah, side by sides and sleds, you'd be able to go for another three weeks still, but minimum, but like taking the truck out.
Speaker 2:So we're going to go out today in the truck. Sometimes this time of the year the landings right will get washed out or beat up from people going in and out. We had a 10-degree day about a week ago and it really did damage. I thought the road was going to close but it dropped back to minus 20 here and everything's good. So we're going to head way south on Lake of the Woods, head down by Rope Island, see if we can get some walleyes, a couple crappies, and then tomorrow I'm going to go back laking in the afternoon. Take these people into a little lake, trout lake. I'm going to go back laking into there. I know a spot where we can get some 40-plus inches. We've caught two out of them in there in the last five years, so we might not catch shitloads tomorrow, but hopefully we catch a big one. That's the plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good luck with that. Yeah, and I'm just fresh off of the Sportsman Show with the Fish and Canada television show with our 40th season 40 years now and the show this year hey 40 years.
Speaker 1:Our 40th season well, I say our, it's definitely not mine Ang's 40th season of being on national television with the Fish and Canada television show is coming is this season that we're shooting right now? Television show is coming is is our. Is this season that we're shooting right now? So that was, uh, that was a big deal for for us and and we were at the sportsman show, um, promoting it, and I got to tell you it was probably the busiest show that I can remember. Now my memory's not all that great, to be honest with you, and I've done quite a few sportsman shows, like Toronto sportsman shows, but I I'm I'm happy to say I think that the COVID hangover is has has wore off. Oh great, like I mean, there were, it was busy and it was awesome. It was awesome to be out there and to see all of you folks and the Diaries family. There were so many of you stopping in and saying hello, did we have lots to stop?
Speaker 2:I didn't get there. This year I wasn't there and I'm so sad I didn't go because I you guys all know that's been a part of my heart for a long time, since I was with my grandfather down there carving ducks. But like, yeah, I was crushed that I couldn't go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no there were a ton of people asking about you and coming in and talking diary stuff and listen. I just wanted to say, um, hey, nixon, and nixon was the cutest little fella. He's probably I don't know six, seven years old and, um, uh, he listens to diaries of a lodge owner every night and it puts him to sleep nice. So, um, so, nixon, I just want to say night night, bud, you have a good sleep. Okay, that's awesome. And thank you to all of the Diaries family and Fish and Canada fans that stopped by the booth and said hello and told us your stories and it was a really, really good show. And you know, shows can be daunting. That's one thing I learned. They're a lot of work and it takes a lot of effort to get out and do it, but this was so worth it for me, awesome.
Speaker 1:And the Fish and Canada crew Um, uh, I just wanted to thank everybody that that come by the booth this year and uh, and said hello it. It really meant a lot to, to us and and Ange in particular. So, um, uh, great job to uh, to the uh organizers at the at the Sportsman Show and great job to my brother from another mother, ange, who also won a very, very prestigious conservation award in which Doug Ford come down with the Minister of Natural Resources, garrett Smith, they come down to present to him. So that was very exciting too. Nice, very proud of my brother from another mother. So that was wonderful. But I just wanted to make sure I said night-night to Nixon Nice, because he is one of our great members, one of the best little members of the Diaries family, nice.
Speaker 2:Well, Nixon, it's a pleasure to meet you and I hope you have a wonderful sleep. And man, that's awesome. What a great story, Great story. Yeah, Wonderful sleep. And man, that's awesome. What a great story, Great story.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, welly boy, that just about does it for another week. So it's that sad time again.
Speaker 2:Where we've got to say goodbye to these beautiful people.
Speaker 1:Yes, but before that I just want to thank Andrew from Lakeside Marine and all of their support. We're going to have Andrew on here, coming up in the next couple of weeks to help guide us all when we're getting our boats out, now that the days are getting longer and we're starting to think and man, oh man, it's coming quick. I got to do a bunch of work on my boat and I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to run out of time here. And then all of a sudden, I got to get to the cottage and get up to the Upper French and I don't got a boat. And you know, you know, you got to start thinking about getting your boat out when your wife mentions it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's yeah. Yeah, you're behind the ball, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So we're going to have Andrew on with and talk about the things we need to do to get stuff going and ready this spring. And again, folks head on over to fishincanadacom. We've got some amazing new SKUs or merchandise in our repertoire. Timmy Dawson from Campus Crew. He does all that work for us and the merchandise flew off the shelves. Although it was so well-priced and such great quality, I wasn't surprised at all. But you can check all of that out on fishincanadacom. Get into those free giveaways, folks. And again to the family, thank you so much for listening. We really, really appreciate everything you do. And thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the North.
Speaker 4:I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 2:Never meanin' no harm. I'll be the 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. Well, I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 1: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: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, ange 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 5:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 3: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 Garton Turk and all the Russians would go fishing. To scientists.
Speaker 5:But now that we're reforesting and letting things breathe, it's the perfect transmission environment for line fishing.
Speaker 6:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 4:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become 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.