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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 105: The Buck Lake Lodge Story
Nestled in the heart of Northern Ontario's wilderness, Buck Lake Lodge stands as a testament to authentic backcountry experiences. Owner John Moffatt welcomes us with stories that span generations, having been born into a trapping family and nearly delivered in a remote cabin. His journey from childhood in the bush to engineering school and ultimately back to lodge ownership reveals a deep connection to these waters that transcends mere business.
What makes Buck Lake truly special is its location near the geographical center of Ontario – a convergence of watersheds where seemingly insignificant ponds reveal themselves as walleye hotspots once explored. "You can go to a place you think would be a minnow pond," John explains, "put a boat in there, go fishing and it'd be like walleye, walleye, walleye." This abundance exists because of John's unwavering commitment to conservation, implementing catch-and-release practices for trophy fish since the 1980s, when such approaches were still controversial.
Unlike many lodge owners who struggle with isolation, John has created a family legacy at Buck Lake. His wife Shannon and their children are fully integrated into operations, allowing him to expand services while maintaining the personal touch guests cherish. His extensive knowledge of the land – from ancient moose trails to hidden rock formations – adds dimensions to the experience that few lodges can match. As John explores the bush surrounding Buck Lake, he discovers natural wonders that have remained untouched for centuries, sharing these treasures with guests who seek more than just trophy fish.
For those seeking an authentic Northern Ontario adventure where hospitality matches the quality of fishing, Buck Lake Lodge offers a rare combination of family warmth, conservation ethics, and access to waters that continue to surprise even the most veteran anglers. Come discover why John believes this remote corner "is one of the most important places in Ontario."
We have a gem of a place here in Hornpain. There's so many little ponds, so many little lakes. You can go to a place you think would be a minnow pond and you go in there, put a boat in there, go fishing and it'd be like walleye, walleye, walleye. Are you kidding me? Seriously? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like the hub. It's the, in my mind, is one of the most important places of Ontario.
Speaker 2:Welcome folks to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North, and this is a very special episode. I always say that, but I really mean it this time. They're all special, but this is On the Road Again and I have a couple of. Actually, I have four wonderful people, including myself, involved in this podcast. Number one we've got Dino on the board. Come on now. There you go. Thank you, dino. Thanks for having me. Rick Delishny, our new camera operator and really the stud of the crew now, oh, go on. Yes, and most importantly, I have met another person that I saw, the man, I shook his hand and that's all I needed to do to know. This guy is awesome. He is the owner of Buck Lake Lodge. We are on location and I'm sitting here with John Moffitt and John. Thank you, first of all, for having the Fish and Canada crew up here because we're on a shoot and giving me the opportunity to have you on the show because you're awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, thanks for coming out, guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool. And met a whole pile of new guys, new connections. This guy right here, well, thank you, yeah, man. So here we are, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just grab that mic and set it right in front of you. All right, like. I'm a rock star. That's right. Nobody can see us here, so we can do whatever we want with the gear All right, All right.
Speaker 1:Well, we got gear we don't need to share. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Well sure.
Speaker 2:Now, John, tell us about your past, Like I mean. You're not just a lodge owner, you were born at a lodge, with a lodge Lodge in the family, different lodges, trapper Like. When it comes to the north, you're the man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I mean I won't self-proclaim but I'm going to say my experiences. Yeah for sure. I grew up in a family trapping family up in Capscasing. My dad was a millwright but he did real good at trapping at the time. This is back in the 80s, but when I was first born, my folks owned a camp on the neighboring lake here, which is the only two lakes we can connect.
Speaker 2:That's right. Like you saw this week right Granite Lake right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, granite Lake. So they owned that. And then I was born, just about born, there and they had to fly me out, my mom out, to have me, because they were there, cut nice, in the winter. I was born in January. Oh yeah, me too. That's why the 27th I'm second.
Speaker 2:Oh, right on, You're ready. Almost a New Year's baby. Almost almost. Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 1:But I still rock the New Year's pretty good Like I own it. I started there trapping family. My folks own a camp on the neighboring lake and I was basically born there. My older brother, my older sister were little toddlers there. I was a baby and then. So they sold and then there's family that took it over and then probably like 18 years later, I went and got a job there, summer job A little. Put me through school, man, I'm an engineer. No Nice, I hate that stuff. Well, that's why you own a lodge now.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, that's why you own a lodge. Never said I was smart.
Speaker 2:I know People always think, wow, you own a right, that's why you own a lodge. Never said I was smart. I know People always think, wow, you own a lodge. That's amazing, Like when I first and this was when I first got the idea in my mind, and before I owned a lodge I had this vision in my head and I didn't have the pleasure of working at a lodge when I was a kid, like I mean, I worked on a farm, yeah, but I always loved fishing and this idea of owning a lodge.
Speaker 2:I had this vision in my head of the French River because I was looking at Chaudiere and a couple of other lodges in the area and this vision was getting up early in the morning, before all of the guests were up, and making a coffee and paddling my cedar strip canoe with a hula popper, bloop, bloop, splash, and catching big bass and, you know, going back in and breakfast is all ready, and you know. And Then you woke up. I'm still dreaming. I never did wake up, you know. And Then you woke up. I'm still dreaming.
Speaker 2:I never did wake up, you know what? And in a decade that never happened once.
Speaker 1:No, not once, never. No, I've been approached by guys right that were like oh, I would love to do this, you want a partner and all that stuff. And I'm like, no, you know what, if you really like to hunt and fish, don't buy a hunting and fishing line. It's over, it's over, yeah, yeah, it's over.
Speaker 2:You're setting guys up instead, I've said it if not once, a hundred times on this show and the Diaries family they know the only time I got to go fishing was one of two situations. Number one one of my guides didn't show up. Or number two, I overbooked them. It was probably 50 50. You know by me I go for a minnow run Nice.
Speaker 1:Well, you need to go get some minnows.
Speaker 2:You need that time. Yeah, you know, like there were times when I remember I, I just, I just, you know, zone out and Game of Thrones was, was on, it was, it wasn't going live and it already kind of finished. So I, I would just binge Game of Thrones in my room, just hiding from everything, everybody, everything, because it can be such a mental draining job, you know. And then Lifestyle, and then you hear you know that sound, I know that sound. It always happened. I had a staircase at the bottom of my. I lived in the upstairs corridor with, well, my aunt and uncle great aunt and uncle were up there for a little while Aunt Beth and Uncle Barry, and then Cole, my office manager, and we really didn't. We had doors on our rooms but there wasn't a door on the office room, but nobody would ever come upstairs. They'd knock on the paneling on the side of the stairwell Right.
Speaker 2:You hear donk, donk, donk, donk, Steve that would be the first set of gates. Yeah, yeah. It didn't matter how many gates were set up, they always found me, but you got to understand.
Speaker 1:Gotta understand, though, is that you have, I know, to cut yourself away from your surroundings and what's going on over here. You have to take that time, and that's what makes you last.
Speaker 2:yeah, well, I made it 10 years and you know, that comment is uh is something that I kind of take to heart, because at the end of that 10 years I really didn't well, I didn't know that I was going to sell, I didn't even have an exit plan, I just it. Just, I was talking to Brian Dykstra. I'm not sure if you've heard of Brian Dykstra. He's a real estate agent and he sells lodges all over the province. He sells the most lodges. He sold the most lodges in Ontario history, brian. He's sold Chaudière three times.
Speaker 1:That's Brian. He's done good off you guys. Oh, how's he ever Really?
Speaker 2:good, really good, but he's great, like he would anything you need. After you sell, he becomes your friend.
Speaker 1:When they know what they're doing, it's a big thing, and they're there to help you out and all that. Oh for sure, me selling is not even an option.
Speaker 4:No, Not even an option.
Speaker 1:I got kids, man, my kids are in on this. My kids were here as babies, yes, and they're starting to love this gig and they're loving the lifestyle, the whole nine yards, right. So they're starting to transform into this, which is cool for me, which just gave me the space to be able to go next level. Yeah, and that's where we're at right now. We're at like okay, man, the basics are handled, the boys have got it, the crew's got it.
Speaker 2:It must be such a great feeling.
Speaker 1:Wow, you seen it already with the new air service. You know, we did our own airbase over there, and then I go there for the weekend and do my thing over on that side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you, fly right out of Hornpain, like three minutes out of Hornpain, and it's a beautiful airbase.
Speaker 2:Lots of parking. You know what it's got, everything you need, and it's got to be a great feeling and something that I've missed out on. And the difference was my wife, melissa, was a teacher, so I was the lodge. They didn't live with me, they didn't. You know, she had summers off with the kids and actually the kids probably saved our marriage because, like I mean, in the first couple of years when I bought the lodge, we had three kids under the age of six or under the age of six. Yeah, we had three kids under the age of six or under the age of six.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I wasn't home for much of six months for those two years, like from May until really sometimes close to November, because we stayed open right through until October. And you know this as a lodge owner, the only time that you really have to do any kind of infrastructure improvement or and I was on an island, much like you're only accessible by air, you're flying, and the only time you don't have guests is before, right after the ice goes out and before guests show up, and for me that was was two, three weeks if I was lucky, and I still and and in that period you're not only looking at maybe infrastructure improvement. You're also looking at getting 14 cottages up and running and and staff in and trained and you know, and then and then after the season's over, before you get iced out, that's when you've got an opportunity to do infrastructure improvement.
Speaker 1:So I was burnt out by then. Oh, you're wore out by then I'm telling you I built. I built this lodge between the hours of 7 and 10 pm because that's when the bite was on. That's when I had nobody in camp it's 7 in the morning I was able to bang nails.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, without anybody coming to ask me why I'm banging nails, I was like, well, I know yeah man, you know.
Speaker 2:After dark is always a good time.
Speaker 1:Once it gets dark and the sun hits the trees and the shadow gets long and everybody's on the bite. It's a good time for me, yeah, as a lodge owner?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. But for me, having my wife having a wonderful job, benefits and everything that we needed, because when I bought the lodge I mortgaged everything. I'm very open with what I did and how I did it. And I'm very open with what I did and how I did it, and everybody knows that I not only mortgaged everything that I had and owned, I had a $100,000 loan on my mom and dad's farm. I had a vendor take back of $140,000 and a mortgage from a mortgage broker we'll call them and I borrowed 450,000 at 10% and they charged me 32 grand to give me the opportunity to borrow that money. So when I borrowed $450,000, I got $450,000 minus 32,000 in the bank, right off the top, you know.
Speaker 2:And then I've got Melissa at home and and thankfully she didn't, she, she didn't care, she never really asked about the money, she didn't see the bank accounts in the business because mentally I couldn't handle her looking at it myself, you know so. But then, once, once I got things going and and I I can honestly say I would still own that lodge, and probably more than that, if I had that family involved. And my kids, to this day, their fondest memories were those 10 years of being at the lodge and I wouldn't have sold the lodge. I bought an island right across from the place. I've got an island with a cottage. You're up north, you call them camps.
Speaker 1:So you're there, you're breathing the place. I've got an island with a, with a cottage. You're up north. You call them camps. So you're there, I'm on the rigor. You're breathing the air.
Speaker 2:I've got 18 acres and I've got a lot for each one of the kids and that really was the, and the guy that bought the lodge wanted that bad. He wanted that included.
Speaker 1:You just got rid of all your headaches.
Speaker 4:That's what you did you still got an island.
Speaker 2:That's what you did. Still got an island. That's what I did. Got a place for your family where you got rid of all the hardships.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that decade, the decade was good to me and it was the right decision. But still, the lodge life and being able to bring your kids into it and see how they enjoy it and set them up for a lifestyle and a life that I believe. When you have a facility like the facility that you've got here or like Chaudière, it's hard for me to say that they're recession proof, but you know you're handing a business over to your kids that's going to sustain them for the rest of their life.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure. So you said another word, too, was recession proof, which was kind of cool, because I bought this place during the recession and I always knew from my past experiences working into lodges and stuff right. So I always knew that during those recessions we always did well. I always tell by my tip money when I was like a dockhand. I always knew, because I've been grown into this right, yeah, and I've always known that this is because when recession hits people have a hard time and you know what They'll keep every last bit. So the golfers still golf, the fishermen still fish. Recession is on but they're still doing that stuff. Guy hunters are going out hunting, yeah. So we always do good on recession, in my mind, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's a great point. It's a great point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but for us, you know. Then mentioning the family stuff too, which is cool because, like my oldest boy, alex, was two months old when we first brought him to the bush and he's still. He's 25 now and he's like in deep. Yeah, yeah, he's in deep. He doesn't understand a different life, he just wants to keep going with what we got going on.
Speaker 2:And you know when you're born into it. Shannon, bullshit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Shannon's, like she's been by my side and just full on full in.
Speaker 2:See, that's a thing that I'm, you know, having met my wife and I wasn't born into it I just got so, so sick of working the job that I had. I was a sheet metal mechanic, uh, I was, uh, I worked for two different companies great companies, uh, non-union and then I started my own business. I was in that business for five years and you know, when I left the last business that, um, I was working at, uh, decoursey Steel down in Brampton um, I thought Pete, who was the owner, was an asshole. I thought Pete, who was the owner, was an asshole.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not this Pete right here. No, not that Pete. I still think he's an asshole. Yeah, yeah, we know he's an asshole. Sorry, peter, I'm just joking, but we love you.
Speaker 2:He's smiling and waving, so we're good. Yeah, we love you over there. But so I went off on my own and started a sheet metal shop.
Speaker 6:I also hated the drive from Shelburne to Brampton. Oh my goodness Like.
Speaker 2:I mean when I first started back in the mid 90s, late 90s, my commute was about 45 minutes. But then they developed.
Speaker 1:You'll never get those minutes back.
Speaker 2:No. And by the time, I left, it was if I didn't leave my house to get to, to, to brampton for seven, if I didn't leave by quarter hour, you know by by 6 45, which was an hour and 15 minutes from 45 minutes. And I had to leave by that because the traffic windows were stupid.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, one minute makes a big difference.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I would be 35 minutes late. It was just the drive was killing me and, like I say, I thought Pete was an asshole and I got into my own business and I started to realize how difficult running a business is. And that was my first toes dipped in the water for running a business and I quickly realized that, well you know, pete wasn't such an asshole you know, there was a method.
Speaker 2:Well, you wonder you begin until you have your own business and you, you do it. You don't understand the shit that goes on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:So I had the opportunity and I was blessed that I was able to manage a place which is our neighbor. So I did all the managing, shannon did all the cooking. We were a team and we rocked that.
Speaker 2:All the hiring, all the firing. So you met Shannon at that place? No, I met her. She's a farm girl. Yeah, you're going to All the hiring, all the firing.
Speaker 1:So you met Shannon at that place? No, I met her. She's a farm girl. Oh, yeah, yeah, good for her, you're going to like this. So an old friend of mine told me a long time ago when I was young and I'm like, you know, I'm looking to just move on in life, and he was like go find yourself a farm girl. So I did.
Speaker 2:Oh, you are the smartest man on earth. I took his advice. Hey, listen, folks out there. For all you young guys out there, I think that's one of those diamonds that you can't overlook. Okay, I grew up on a farm.
Speaker 1:Go find yourself a farm, bro, I know what that's all about right. They know hard work, they know resilience. They know a lot of things that most don't. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Been through it all.
Speaker 1:So we got together, so we seeked her out. Then I brought her up north, told her she was going to have a cooking job at Granite Hill there and I went there and then we had a semi-management job, but she wound up with a dishwashing job and she still hung out man, I'm like I should keep her then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's a keeper man. Yeah, and ever since then it's been great. We're a great team. She handles things that I don't have to. I handle things she don't have to, and we handle things together. Yeah, that's which is cool, and it's just what we have tuned ourselves to. Be together is what we do today. Wow, family, kids, everything.
Speaker 2:I can see how you've done it and you've been there through the product that you're providing here, because the hospitality is very good, and I said it on the other.
Speaker 6:Well, you can't beat that.
Speaker 1:No, you can never beat that.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, First of all, man that's the most important thing, that's what brings people back. Yeah, it's not the fishing Although sometimes if you're on one in a million fisheries, people will put up with bullshit to be on a fishery that is so unbelievable. But even those fisheries, you have bad fishing days and bad fishing weeks. But if the hospitality is not there, you're done, you're cooked. You're done, you're cooked.
Speaker 2:And I was saying on the Outdoor Journal we just recorded an episode of On the Road again with Pete and Rick and Dean and I did that and I said you know, because now I've been a lodge owner for a decade, I know when I come into these places I have the perspective from an ownership side and now I have the perspective of a guest and not only a guest as a co-host of a national fishing television show and I usually will look around at how things are being operated and I'll make notes. And at the end of the trip I always will approach the lodge owner and I'll say, hey, listen, you know I really appreciate what you've done for us this week and I've been there and I managed to be successful doing it. And would you mind if I gave you a few ideas that might help you improve? And typically all of them say, oh, yeah, yeah, no problem, and listen, I've been doing that the whole time I've been here and there really isn't a lot. I usually have a list because I really want to help people.
Speaker 2:I really want, and it's hard when you're a lodge owner, especially when you're one like myself who didn't or actually you know what it's hard when you're a lodge owner, whether you worked at them as a kid or whether you're new to the business. It's hard to put yourself in the perspective of a guest, and whether that be sleeping in every bed in your, in your lodge which, which I tried to do, and and and I didn't get there. I slept in every cottage just to see, because I was getting people saying hey, you know, can you put a hook here or this, there or this? Right, did you try Pete's pillow this week? You should have tried that maybe.
Speaker 2:I think Odette might have it.
Speaker 1:She's going to auction it off. She must have kept Pete's pillow, hey.
Speaker 2:Pete. Maybe we can stop and sign that pillow for Odette, for the fundraiser that's going to come up. Pete wants his pillow back. They're cheap.
Speaker 1:They're cheap. Peter leaders and Peter pillows, yeah, yeah absolutely Absolutely. Sorry, we have to take a chance to banter with Pete when he's sitting across the room over here, but really there's not a whole lot here at all that I can suggest Other than like normal wear and tear, that you would be aware of that happens year and year and stuff like that. The key is Try to keep it up with our equipment when you're on the lake. It's good stuff.
Speaker 2:You're fishing in nice boats, good motors yes, that boat, that we're fishing out of that Alumacraft and, with that Merc on it, that boat, and this is one of the things on my list. The one thing that would make that boat perfect and I know it's a pain in the ass because I dealt with them a lot is a trolling motor, a Baumann trolling motor. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I had one. You can see the indent in the carpet.
Speaker 6:Yeah well, I was looking for it.
Speaker 1:That was my boat for a long time and I was having a hard time because I always pull in the shore somewhere and I go cruise the bush.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, jumping over it.
Speaker 1:I find so much stuff in the bush here that's like really become one of my biggest passions around here is understanding the land works and what's going on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I find so many cool things in the bush and it's just things that somebody may not have ever set eyes on. So that trolling motor was in the way to pulling in the shore and the brush.
Speaker 2:And that's beside the point.
Speaker 1:Except in the rafters of the shop.
Speaker 2:Maybe we'll set you up for tomorrow, oh you know what I should buy you for Christmas? A quick connect. Hey, right, that would help. Yeah, that'd be all right. But listen, this little trolling motor avenue here has it is cool on that boat, man that's a nice setup. Oh, buddy, Like I mean, it'd be perfect.
Speaker 1:Today. Oh, buddy, like I mean it'd be perfect Today. The best option was the Bibbity Top. Oh, we talked about it in the morning, I yeah. And then I saw you show up back at camp. It was full on and everything. You were dry.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you what it bought us an extra. How long, fellas Dino? How long did it buy us in shooting time?
Speaker 7:Oh, probably four hours. I mean it rained the majority of the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when Rick would have been um having to cover the camera up and we would have been sitting in the rain like Peter.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I didn't even bring my rain pants, I know, but you didn't need them. No, I didn't need them and that's the best part. But anyway, this whole trolling motor thing, I don't even want to talk about the trolling motor anymore. I want to talk about what you said about your favorite thing to do now and find these interesting things in the bush. So we're just outside of Hornpain and, to give people an idea, to drive from Oshawa boys, how long was your drive?
Speaker 7:I think we were 11 hours something by the map, so maybe 13-hour day, 13-hour drive north.
Speaker 1:Depending how quick the Mary Browns was.
Speaker 7:Yeah, probably 12 or 14.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we're up north 14 hours and we're close to the middle of Ontario. Ontario is such a massive province.
Speaker 1:It is the center of.
Speaker 2:Ontario here, and that's another interesting point.
Speaker 1:So 10-minute drive out of town takes you to a place where you can go and walk around the centre of Ontario. It's pretty cool and it's just getting developed now, but it's the geographical GPS point of the centre of Ontario and it's kind of cool because the whole entire place is like the height of land, it's the watershed, all that stuff, and it happens to be right here in the centre of Ontario. We have a gem of a place here in Hornpain so many little ponds, so many little lakes. You can go to a place you think would be a minnow pond and you go in there, put a boat in there, go fishing and it'd be like walleye, walleye, walleye. Are you kidding me? Seriously, yeah, are you kidding me.
Speaker 1:Seriously, it's like the hub. In my mind, it's one of the most important places in.
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Speaker 1:Rugged Reliable Ready.
Speaker 6: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 4:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch. Yeah, knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch, yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
Speaker 6:We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors from athletes.
Speaker 4:All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing.
Speaker 7:To scientists. But now that we're reforesting- and laying things free.
Speaker 4:it's the perfect transmission environment for life To chefs. If any game, it's the perfect transmission environment for line to chefs.
Speaker 3:If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 6: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 2:Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So what are some of the cool geological structures or things that you've found on your adventures out into the bush? And you're a trapper too, so you spend a lot of time in the bush.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so trapping is what helped me see things. So I'd get on a beaver hut and I'd be like, oh, you know what, I'm going to take a walk out into the bush from here because I'm trapping the hut right. So I go have a look and there's like a formation and it would be like if you took a little, not an oak but like a poplar leaf or birch leaf, just a full on leaf, and then you see how you got that line that goes up and it kind of branches out like veins and goes out. See, this whole entire rock formation. It's just like this beautiful thing and it's split like a leaf, like that, and you can walk through these crevices of the rock, all these veins, you can walk through it and it's like a cave almost and all these things. It's just like.
Speaker 2:Just there.
Speaker 1:Right there, just there, but it was like 10 feet in the bush.
Speaker 1:No way you would have never seen it, you would have never seen it unless you walked 10 feet in the bush. Yeah, yeah, we see things. I see things like with the even like the moose traffic here. These trails they've got are thousands of years old. Really, they are man. Well, it's the old growth around here. This has never been cut around here. This, this, this has never been cut around here like nearby has, but like right here, it has never been cut. This is old growth, as it was and as it should be, and we're the height of land and we got so much moose traffic through here and then, like all the wildlife, the links, it's like a hub for all the wildlife so the moose that, like I know with cows being a farmer, they always walk the same path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so the moose, generation after generation.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, we'll keep walking down those paths, really, yeah, so you find those paths and then you'll see moose like that's, that's just where they go, it's just where they've been going for a thousand years. It's where they go. You know what I even got into? I was looking on Google Earth and I was zooming down on some of the areas and all that too. And you look in some of them swamps and all that too. You can see their paths Really From Google Earth. You totally see their paths. No shit, yeah, it'd be like you're in a swamp. You'd be like, oh, they're not on that side of the swamp, they's from Google Earth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is awesome. That's really cool.
Speaker 1:So I constantly try to learn it. I learn about the moose. I'm always I'm a steward here. I'm working with the forestry, which the lumber company in the area really works hard with us to try to make things work right so we can keep our remoteness as long as they and they can get their, you know, stimulate the local economy right. So there's a fine line right. So we always have to work together. It's going real well that way.
Speaker 1:We're discovering things we're promoting, you know, like some of the centre of Ontario stuff. It's not necessarily, you know, you don't have to come to this town to go get into a fly-in, you can. But there's places you can go a brand-new hotel, all that stuff, oh yeah, places you can go if you've got a little 14-foot aluminum boat on a trailer. There's great lakes to come over here and it's just loaded with little ponds and little lakes and every nook and cranny of the bush around here. You know what I challenge everybody Get on Google Earth and go look at Hornpain area and go look around it and you'd be like, oh my God, man, there's so much going on there. Yeah, Pretty cool spot, wow.
Speaker 2:And speaking of Hornpain, we talked about it being Chris King's hometown. Yeah, but I've had the pleasure of traveling a lot of Northern Ontario and a lot of northern towns throughout the country with the Fish and Canada television show and the hospitality that we felt when we came into Hornpain to come here was next level man oh they're excited, they're excited, they're going to do a big push Next level man.
Speaker 2:Oh, they're excited, they're excited, they're going to do a big push. The manager at the Studio 6. Odette, odette, yeah, and yourself, like I mean, I was in horn pain for less than 18 hours and when I jumped on your plane I felt like it was home.
Speaker 1:Right, it is home, like when we grew up. As up, it is kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and the difference is, like you know, shelburne used to be like that, but we've grown so quickly and and but, but we always used to kind of know who was who and everybody waves and and everybody helps each other and and we've kind of lost that feel in the population growth and you haven't lost that here. It's not like that here?
Speaker 1:No, no, we're still old school here, it's so cool and welcoming. It's like that feel small town, feel man Northern small towns.
Speaker 4:It'll be the same. All these small towns, I know All of them up here man.
Speaker 1:You'll find friends.
Speaker 2:Oh, all I want to do is put horn pain back on the map.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. So we hook up. We got to get them there again, man, Get them back on the map because it's such a special place. It's crazy. It's crazy. The fishing around here and the angling and the hunting is just incredible yeah so do you do any hunting out of here? I do moose hunts, bear hunts, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk a little bit about that, like how, if I wanted to come here moose hunting as a guest, how would I do that? Do you provide a tag, do you? I?
Speaker 1:provide tags. My tag started off. I made a lot of promises back then, but my tags started off. I had six bull tags. Now I'm down to one. Just because of the allocations and how it works in Ontario, I'm down from six to one.
Speaker 2:Well, mel was just saying from Hearst Air, from Hearst Air, yeah, that their tags have dropped by 50%. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm even worse than that. Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm even worse than that, yeah, wow. And she was concerned about the sustainability of their business if it was to drop another 50%. And she said there's no warning. Like, the ministry gave you no warning about that and I just I can't even believe how that could affect people.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it leaves them up with. You know, you try to plan out your trips and try to plan out your trips and get your, your clients to come in and whatever. But I mean like, if you don't know whether you're going to have one or two, they only tell you one year in advance. Yeah, well, when you go from six tags to one tag, well, you're talking, six years are already spoken for more or less right. So you're, how do you go from six tags to one tag? Well, you're talking six years, I've already spoken for more or less right.
Speaker 1:So how do you go about getting a moose tag? I haven't even cleaned up my list yet. I got guys that are on the waiting list, that are ready to go, and as soon as I got an opportunity, I'm like, hey, man, call, come on up. They come up. I promised it. Yeah, I can only go by promise now. And they're like, oh, you know, we got an extra tag this year, so we got jumped up one.
Speaker 1:So if that's the case, then right on, hey, kerry, come on up. Yeah, this is your year, right now. And you'd be like, yeah, I'm coming up and they're all on the waiting list. Yeah, that's all I can do? Yeah, wow, that's, um, that's unfortunate, you know, because you know, for me too, I'm I'm more about the conservation of it all as well, so there's got to be a reason for it, and I have to try to understand that, you know.
Speaker 1:And then, on the same note though, if I had six tags right here on this lake and I fulfilled, and then if I converted them to archery and I could double up on them, right, and if I fulfilled all those tags, I'd obliterate my moose population here, would you? Yeah, so I gotta, I gotta, I have, even though I still, with those numbers, I still have to be the steward of this place. I don't want to take that away, I want to make sure. That's, yeah, you know. So I'll plan out like I got got a couple of honey holes that we go and hunt in, and I've got a couple of them that are closed down for five years. We're not going back in there for another five years, gotcha, and then we'll go do something else, and if I don't have another one, we're going to go find one something elsewhere, so that we can try to balance it a little bit, gotcha. Well, I didn't sign up for that job.
Speaker 2:I just feel like I have to. Well, hey, every lodge owner needs to manage their resource and implement conservation techniques that are going to make sure your resource is strong. I didn't realize that the moose population was vulnerable in that way, right, so maybe there is something to it. I was just thinking, wow, that as a business, on the business side of it, I know moose hunt's not cheap.
Speaker 1:No, it's not cheap, and now, with your tag reductions, the price of it is just going to double up, absolutely, absolutely, because you've got to try and regain or reclaim some of the lost revenue. Yeah, you've got X amount that you're expecting for revenue in the fall. Well, you've got to reclaim that with less tools?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's interesting. So, on that conservation note, what are you doing here as far as your fishery, because it is an amazing fishery. Like Dino and I stopped and Rick, we've been together in the boat for the last really two days of fishing and we've found a couple spots, although it's been a little tough on the bigger fish, but I know they're here and we're in the middle of the mayfly hatch and there's a lot of factors that go on with that we can go out and eat a couple hundred eaters but that's not what we came here for.
Speaker 2:We came here for those big ones, but so many people do come for those eaters, right, yeah, many do. Oh, I know, I know, and even in tough conditions, if I had this fishery on the Upper French, like I mean, to be able to send my guests. Like when we first got here, we were standing on the deck and you were talking about all these spots, you know, this spot over here, this spot over here, that spot over there, we got this spot here and this is doing that, and oh, yeah, that's like you know, I'm thinking French River and Lake Nipissing, like I mean, we drive like a half an hour to fish largemouth. That's one spot. We drive, you know, 35, 40 minutes to fish walleye at some times in the year. I'm thinking in my head, right, because I hadn't really we flew over the lake, but it's kind of hard to know because from the air you can't tell it happens so fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's land masses and islands, and bays, Especially this lake.
Speaker 1:This lake's just littered with fingers and things.
Speaker 2:Not only this lake every lake that you can see, that's closed from the air, right. So I had no real concept of of um, of the spots you were talking about. And I and and I was like okay, okay, I'm trying to take it all in. And then we go out in the boat and I get up on plane and I'm like holy shit, those are those three buoys right there. Like I mean, I didn't even get it on the plane before, I had to bring it down and I'm here.
Speaker 2:And then the next one is on the other side of the peninsula. You're on and we drive over to that one and there's a buoy marker there. And I'm looking at the other side of your island or the point at the lodge. I'm like I can't even believe how close all of this, these, these spots are. And you said something and we've traveled along, we went up into, uh, granite lake and and everything else. And you said something very interesting today at lunch, because we got up early, yeah, and then went out and tried, uh, tried for the, uh, for the hogs, right, we tried for those 30 incheye that I know, we all know they're here, they're there. Peter caught a 28 the first night, just, you know, messing around.
Speaker 1:I think it's that mayfly kind of kicked their asses it did.
Speaker 2:But you said to me you know, I think we've got just about everything right in here that we need, like we've got incoming water from the river, we've got this, oh back here. Yeah, yeah, right, right, and that's the place, that's right in front of the lodge. Like I mean the luxury as a guest to be able to leave the dock confidently, navigate the water close to the lodge and have a shot to catch those trophy fish and like I mean a ton of eaters For the first time in my life. Last night I was telling you and I'm a muskie fisherman, I love fishing muskies and I started figuriding different species of fish and one of the first species that I did that with was with smallmouth bass.
Speaker 2:And I was doing a show with Ange when I was a lodge owner from Chaudiere, because they come up on a number of occasions and we were fishing smallmouth and it was tough, like I mean really tough. Yeah, uh, we the the weather changed every day. It was bluebird skies, one day rain, the next wind. You don't like the weather wait 10 minutes exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah and um, but typically we do get long stable weather patterns that you can work with, or at least I remember those. I choose to forget the other ones. But we were out fishing these smallmouth and I had a smallie follow-up and I go into a figure eight and Ang says what the hell are you doing? Figure eight in the smallmouth. You know, he starts giving me the gears. It was, you know, just buddies bantering back and forth. But it turned out that I did catch one on a figure eight, not on that shoot but on another shoot. But last night out here, right on the other side of the point, here in front of your lodge, there's that marker on the shoal, on that hump, but behind it there's a 10-foot flat that has, I'm imagining it's like short grass weeds because they're only maybe a foot off the bottom. Yeah, that's all. It was like a little cabbage down on the bottom, A little cabbage, little, you know.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is, it's still early in the year, like another month from now, the weeds are going to be much bigger.
Speaker 2:Well, out there I was casting a Yozuri. What was I casting, dean? Oh, suspending bait. They come out with a new suspending bait last year and this is the first time I've got a chance to use it and we were looking through the crankbait box to make ourselves a box to take in our boat and I grabbed that one because I like the color. It looked like it was a mid-diving bait. You know, I wasn't sure. You know, walleye will eat any kind of minnow bait, right, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:So I was casting that out and got one and had a big one follow right over that grass, that weed bed, and then we moved up onto the sand on the backside of that point I cast out and they were following, the walleye were following like smallmouth, and Dean and I were standing at the side of the boat. I'm like look, look, look, look, look, the first one. I pulled the lure out of the water and instinctively I saw the fish at the side of the boat. I'm like, look, look, look, look, the first one. I pulled the lure out of the water and instinctively I saw the fish at the side of the boat. I jammed my rod in the water and I went one turn and and it looked and followed and it turned off the bait.
Speaker 2:And the next time that I had a walleye follow I went right into the figure eight and that walleye nosed right up just like a muskie nosed in that figure eight and went around four turns before it turned away. I stopped. Come on, and that was as exciting. What it didn't bite. No, I couldn't get it to bite, but that again, like I mean, we've had the weather right, we've had highs, lows, but still A little confused.
Speaker 1:They are right now. This week A little bit I've seen like lots of pike t-boning the walleye. You bring in a walleye, oh yeah, big old northern come in, like 40-incher come in and just.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, dino, on the last shoot that happened to you, I had that with a muskie on a largemouth?
Speaker 7:yeah, on Pipestone Lake Tell that story. I told it on the last Outdoor Journal radio. Actually we have a whole video accompanying it so I'll save it. I'll send those guys there. So the Cedar Island Lodge episode we did you can hear the whole muskie story. We have lots of audio and video there too. You can go watch it.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's great, dino, and do me a favor. The next time you're on Outdoor Journal, send some people over this way.
Speaker 7:Well, we just did that on ODJ. Oh yeah, that's because I was there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you guys treat me very well. You always send all kinds of people, but no, so the walleye fishery here is unique. It's awesome. And back to the original question about it what do you do to protect that resource?
Speaker 1:So we've done this long before. This was kind of a common thing up north was the catch and release for the bigger fish. So we started off for the bigger fish. So we started off with the walleye. We were 21 inches and over. This is back in the 80s with the guys I used to work for. So they put it in and it was serious. It was a serious rule. It was the only rule we had. Let those big fish go back.
Speaker 2:What happened when I imagine you got a lot of 80s and 90s.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, we lost customers. We lost guests but we built them back up. Yeah, and nowadays it's a little different. People are more conservation For sure than they were in the past. Right, so now it's an easy the.
Speaker 2:Fish and Canada television show over the years has had a lot to do with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they may not admit it, but they're, they always talk about it, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Every episode they talk about, you know, letting those ones back out and everything. Yeah, so for those years we had this catch-release program. We lost guys, whatever, and I was just an employee back then, right, but it was a serious rule and we stuck to it throughout the 90s, into the 2000s, and then 2008 I bought and I implemented just as serious here on this lake as well. So all our guests, all our customers, love it. They go and let off a nice big walleye or pike or something, or even a big perch for that matter, cut them loose and they're like you know. They know they're going to come back to them. They know that we support that system so strongly that they leave it in our hands. So everyone practices their own conservation, but they leave it in our hands to make sure we keep that spirit alive here and we do, wow.
Speaker 1:So you know you come back to it.
Speaker 2:And that was one thing that I always envied because I was on a really big body of water, which was a great advantage in some ways. But in other ways I had some control of what I did as the owner of the Chaudière Lodge. But Lake Nipissing is tied for the second largest lake inside Ontario, borders with Lake Simcoe. There was a commercial fishery on there. We had the natives where they had their own fishery there. There was not any conservation taken by any of the previous lodge owners other than what the ministry had said.
Speaker 2:And for a long time in the 90s like I mean it was you were allowed to take six walleye per person and every person that was at Chaudière in maximum capacity back then, which through the late 70s, 80s and 90s Tony and Betsy Stinson the owners. They did an excellent job and they were full and everybody took their six each. Maximum capacities 40 people a week. Start doing the math right. And that's just one lodge there's at that time how many more At that time? There's? That's just one lodge there's at that time. How many more At that time there's? Well, never mind how many more then. Today there's probably 50% less lodges and just on the Upper French River alone there's three. There used to be four On Lake Nipissing. There's got to be. You know, I'm going to say a dozen more operations. And then you add the commercial fishery on top of that pressure, and the marinas. You add the marinas.
Speaker 1:Marinas red boats. They don't have to go to the lodge, just rent a boat. That's right, they're efficient.
Speaker 2:Well, and it was one of the most popular places to fish and it goes back into the 20s where there was white sturgeon there and that was one of the at one time they were one of the largest exporters of caviar come out of Lake Nipissing to the point where there are sturgeons still left, but they're what. Was that not expropriated? But they're protected and I have never seen one. I've heard stories about them.
Speaker 1:It's like the caribou around here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you add the ice fishery, which now all of a sudden you're giving access to people that don't even need boats, and the tourism industry is a great thing, but the immense pressure that was on that fishery was crazy. And then in the early 2000s, through the 80s and 90s, they had a whole the ministry had a whole team dedicated to looking after the watershed. They had like 10 or 12 people full-time on staff watching. That's a big lake Absolutely, and you need that, yes, and not just game wardens. This is scientists and biologists.
Speaker 2:And then in the early 2000s they cut the budget. The government cut the budget down to one person part-time, and it just happened that there was a. They didn't know this was going to happen how could anybody? But there was an invasive species that we still have called the spiny water flea, and when the biologists left in the late 90s or were told they didn't have a job, they had set out quotas for the fisheries and they said you know, you're good to harvest 98,000 tons a year of walleye from now until the end of time, and and what happened was and and I bought chaudiere at the tail end of of the, the devastation, I'm going to call it?
Speaker 2:Um, there wasn't enough biologists. Well, there was one person, part-time, and you can't blame that person. But what happened was the spiny water flea got into Lake Nipissing, and they thrive in shallower water lakes because they hunt by sight and what they do is they attack the ecosystem at its base and they eat the zooplankton right. So now you've got your, your whole, your whole fishery is being undermined by the water fleas because by July some years, they had the zooplankton cleaned up, which meant that that didn't leave any forage for your forage base.
Speaker 1:Your, your, well, that's even your minnows, your little fry, your fry, your, you know and that's the big thing, because then the fry, that's what teaches them to, you know, on their own right.
Speaker 2:Zooplankton first yes, yeah and um and and by 2009. When I bought, the old owner didn't even want me to go fishing. Like when I come to look at the place, I brought my own boat. He was an alcoholic. He's like hey, you like your prop? I said, well, as a matter of fact, I do Well, leave it on the boat, you're going to leave it on the trailer. You're going to smash your prop. So I left it on there. But after I bought it and realized the state of the fishery, I was like, oh yeah, I get it now. And it scared the shit out of me because I was new. I'm selling a fishery. At that time. There were still some big ones, but the numbers were down. I didn't have. I had two guides at the time Billy Commando we talked about him on the last podcast and Purple God rest his soul passed in the middle of my first season and then Billy two weeks later said hey, purple, yeah, bob Violette yeah, from uh san suzy no sturgeon falls sturgeon falls
Speaker 2:okay, yeah I guess there's a couple purples there.
Speaker 1:Probably is there, probably is but summer, I guess violets their last name and some isn't.
Speaker 7:Yes we don't know why they call purple nice but I lost purple.
Speaker 2:Uh billy three weeks later said hey, I got a job up north, I'm leaving. I had no guides, I didn't know. I had been on Lake Nipissing once with the last call with Peter and Ange when they did a reality TV show. And then I had been on the water once when I was looking at the lodge and I didn't have any time to be on the water when I was running the lodge, especially in my first year, and the fishery sucked it was hard.
Speaker 2:It was hard, and at that point they come down on the limits hard, like. I mean it had started a couple of years prior to me buying it. It went from six down to four the year after I mean it, it started a couple of years prior to me buying it it went from six down to four. As the year after I bought it it went down from four to two. And then it was uh, there was a slot. It wasn't actually a slot, there was a dead zone. You couldn't keep the fish between yeah, between oh my goodness, that was awful 18, and then they went to you could well to this day. Well, after that slot, they realized that it wasn't working so well. Well, it wasn't the fact that it wasn't working so well. They realized that, for whatever reason, they had three huge year classes. The weather and conditions must have been very good for spawning for three years. It was like 2009, 10, and 11. And then they changed the slot to you could keep anything over 18 inches and for those four or five years Under and over.
Speaker 2:There was no under. You weren't allowed to keep under. You could only keep over.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right. That's right. I remember that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I didn't think that made much sense at all to me.
Speaker 2:Well, it didn't, until you looked into it a little bit, and I think what their methodology was was they were doing creel surveys all the time, like you would be out in the boat, I'd be out guiding or whatever. And they, hey, we're from the ministry how many fish did you catch? How big were they? This and that, how long did you fish? And I think that and this isn't fact, but I've heard it from a couple of different sources and it makes sense they realized that the number of big fish that were left they were going to for the good of the fishery, um, and they believed that if they had to do it, they were going to sacrifice those big fish to protect those three years of year. Class Right, get them going, that's right. So they figured there's some sense to that, though, yeah, yeah, well, and you know what I can honestly say, and it hurt me as a lodge owner, it hurt me to try and do shore lunches, and if you're a guide and you go out and the first, like I mean over 18, if you can catch, you got your four guests in the boat. If you can catch at least four or five walleye that were 19 inches, 18 inches, 19, 20 inches. You're golden. You're golden, but it didn't happen a lot. We were catching like 30 of these of these year class that were, like you know, 12, 13, 14 inches. All the all the time you could you could go out and have a 100 fish day, but to catch a keeper was difficult and what happened was you go out on the water, you got the pressure of getting a shore lunch and the first fish that you know you stick. And it happened. I'm not going to say it was every day, but it happened a lot where you catch a 25-incher or a 28-incher or a 30-incher, and how do you look at the guests that are paying you to take them out for an experience, to have a shore lunch?
Speaker 2:And everybody talks about walleye, walleye, walleye. I want to eat walleye. And you say, well, you know, I don't know if we're going to catch enough keepers to eat, but we should throw this one back. Yeah, I couldn't do it. And so what I could do in that place to try and help my fishery was promote eating smallmouth northern and we would try and do that. But you know, you couldn't get away from it. And having said that, after being I've been there for 15 years now. The fishery is better now. It's much better now.
Speaker 1:You see it out in Georgian Bay, like where we're at Simcoe and everything too, Like even these little lakes that you know we're a fly-in, so we've been able to kind of have a thumb on our fishery and such, and so we're. But there's places that we're like you couldn't fish. Driving you couldn't catch any fish. No, you can, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:I think what they've done. I think what they've done. I just feel like what they've done the over and under yeah, you can keep under one over is what they got around here. But it's not like I don't know, ontario's all different right, yeah, but what they've done is and has improved the fishing for, like drive-in places, quad-in places, all that stuff. It's just amazing. So anybody can really go out now Nowadays can go out and find a little pond and go catch fish in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is great. I think it worked well. You know, on Nipissing, now we have a slot and it sounds ridiculous but you can keep two between 40 and 45 centimeters, which leaves you a keeper slot of like two and a half inches. It's it's tight. But having said that, having said that, I was up uh at uh, the island, uh, last week, before I actually come straight there from the island to meet these guys in North Bay to come here Twice, we went out and we caught. We only had my son and his buddy, who are underage to get a license, so they were fishing on Dean, my buddy and my license, so we could keep four keepers, which was lots to take back and eat.
Speaker 1:To get a taste or just something.
Speaker 2:Well, we could keep four, and they're like 18 inches, well between 40 and 45 centimeters, and we limited out both times Right. So as much as it sounds like it's tight, it's way easier now to catch a shore lunch than it was 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:So it's working, yes, but that's the thing, though, like we can implement something and it may take years to figure out that it's actually working. So that's proof in the pudding right there. And if it's working and I know the over and under that we've done here on these lakes has totally paid off that's just. That's awesome nowadays. And he had covid. It was like, oh yeah, nobody fishing at covid and it was just like a real, real lull of a time. But I mean it was just better for the lake, yeah so the one, the one good thing you could take from COVID.
Speaker 1:Not so much at the accessible lakes, though Accessible lakes because every Tom, dick and Harry bought a boat during COVID and went out fishing, because that's the only thing you can do without fishing. Yeah, might not have been good on the accessible lakes so much, but it'll come back. It was already, but it'll come back. It was already. The fishing has already gotten better. Yeah so then COVID hit, guys were out fishing and then it made a whole bunch of new anglers out there. Yeah so, which is great, that's it right.
Speaker 2:And that's a positive spin. Yeah, well, that's what people need. After being locked up against their will for this COVID thing, they need to get out now.
Speaker 1:We were locked up here. There was six of us here for the whole summer.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that would have been a great place to be locked up, wouldn't it?
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know, I'm not going to brag, yeah, but you know what made us realize? Because we've been so many years up here doing this for tourism. And then, when it was just us up here, it gave me a new love for it. I was just like no, this place is meant to be shared. Yes, it's not just for us, this doesn't belong to us. This place is meant to be shared, and that's what we're here for is to share this place.
Speaker 2:And that takes us full circle to why this place is this place and the facility's great and everything else, and you can have great facilities on great bodies of water, but if you don't have that, if you don't have that as an owner, you're not going to make it, and that's so key. But listen, think back. You've been in the business for so long. Tell us one of your most memorable stories, like, tell us the one that you tell a lot of people, or just something that comes into your head.
Speaker 1:All right, all right, I think about this for a second. This is so many, I'm just trying to put my thumb on one. So what are you looking for? Are you looking for, like, hunting, fishing, something funny, something sad?
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter, it doesn't even have to be fishing. It can be with planes, like I mean, you're in planes. It can be with trapping, it can be with buddies, it can be with anything that's happened up here, like it can be with anything that's happened up here, like I mean, there are so many things that I look at what you're dealing with and how you built it, and memorable moments with guests.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, it just feels like those stories just come out when they happen. Yeah, they roll. Now I'm on the spot. I got to think of one. You gave me writer's block here.
Speaker 2:Oh, buddy, I'll tell you when I was at Chaudière there was yes.
Speaker 1:that'll give you a chance to think one up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it'll trigger something. There were so many guests that I met and got along with and everything else. And there was this one fella, dave, and he had started this business and this was in 2010, 2011. And it was like an AI business or not AI, it was like an ISO business, where he would go. He built software that made manufacturing companies more efficient.
Speaker 2:And he was just going on the stock exchange and I said, oh, no shit, I'm going to. You know what? Maybe I'll buy some of that. And he said, well, yeah, you know, we've got a great this and that, but he wasn't selling me by any means, not at all. And so, at the same time, at the dinner table in the dining room where Dave and I are having this conversation, there was another fellow there and he said, well, yeah, that you know. And I said, you know, maybe I'll kick five grand into that, make some money, right. And this fellow, this other fellow, he says, yeah, that you know. And I said, you know, maybe I'll kick five grand into that, make some money, right. And this fellow, this other fellow, he says, yeah, you could do that, or you could buy Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. I didn't even know, what Bitcoin was. I don't even want to learn what that is.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you, I got too old for that. This story. So Bitcoin in 2011, 2011, and I did the math, I went on and it's all historical. I invested in Dave Right, your Dave From. Camp From Shortier. He's my guest and I've done okay, I haven't even doubled my money. But I've done okay, I haven't even doubled my money, but I've done, okay, yeah, I haven't lost it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good, but in 2011, if I had bought Bitcoin, that $5,000 would have been worth like $128 million.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, there's something stupid.
Speaker 2:folks Go do the math. When I saw the number, I didn't even know how to say it.
Speaker 1:I don't even understand the concept of Bitcoin. I'm going to just carry on my life. I'm not even going to worry about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, you don't have to worry about it out here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my kids can figure out Bitcoin.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Whatever, but I'm not in, I'm out. So you know, I'm going to go figure out where moose shit is Speaking of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so cool, the stuff that you see here and everything else. But you know, I really appreciate this time with you and I'll tell you what we're going to. We're going to use this as a hook. All right, we're going to this. This is a hook for our next episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sounds good, man, I'm good with that. So you, you, you you. I'll drum it up, I'll drum it up.
Speaker 2:You know, what I'm not even going to with you is a story. Yeah, I know, so listen. Thank you so much. No, we'll do that.
Speaker 1:We'll do that for sure, yeah, yeah, check in with me once in a while too, and I can give you a little bit. Absolutely yeah, for sure. A hundred percent We'll get into we'll get into.
Speaker 2:You know, another great podcast would be talking about operations and organization and how you actually make a lodge work from our perspective. You wing it, fake it till you make it baby. That's what I, that's what I did.
Speaker 1:I tell my guests I'm like I don't even know what my day is ahead of me. Yeah, I wake up in the morning, I have my coffee and my day presents itself yeah, and this is what I'm doing today, and it may change. Like I can't plan my day.
Speaker 1:Like today I had to fly out to an outpost. Yeah, to go work on a lower unit. Yeah, yeah, right. So it was just like that Boom Got it. My day's changed Right on. Well, that's the cool thing, but that's the cool thing, but I think it makes it interesting too. Well, a hundred percent you never know what you're going to get into right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But again, thank you very much and thank you folks out there. If you've got to this point I really appreciate it. And you know what I'm going to. I'm going to say night night to Nixon out there again. All you folks know that he's the little fellow that that I met at the Sportsman Show this year and he listens to diaries of a lodge owner and that's what puts him to sleep.
Speaker 1:Oh well, night-night Nixon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he sent me this wonderful little clip, a voice clip on Messenger or something like that, and he wished me goodnight. He said you wish me goodnight, so I want to wish you goodnight. That's cool. It was one of the best moments.
Speaker 1:A little outfitter in the making.
Speaker 2:Oh he very well might be, he very well might be. So anyway, folks, thank you for getting to this point. I really appreciate it. And if you like what we're doing here, like subscribe, tell a friend. It builds our family out and it really helps us out. And thank you to Dino for running the board. You got any magic buttons you can press there.
Speaker 7:I have one to walk you out with. Oh nice.
Speaker 2:And I also want to thank our producer, anthony Mancini, and our sponsors. We really appreciate Lakeside Marina up in Kenora. You guys do a wonderful job. Look them up, and again, all of you. And thus brings us to the conclusion All right, another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the North yes, woo.
Speaker 1:That's good. That is good, I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 5:Never meanin' no harm.
Speaker 2:I'll be all you ever saw, been railin' in the hog since the day I was born.
Speaker 5:Bending my rock, stretching my line.
Speaker 1:Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine.
Speaker 6:I'll be making my way.
Speaker 5:The only way I know how.
Speaker 2:Working hard and sharing the North with all of my pals.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 2:I bought a lodge and lived my dream, and now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 5: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 5: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.
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