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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 111: When Things Go Wrong At The Lodge
The wilderness has a way of teaching its toughest lessons at the most inconvenient moments. Steve Niedzwiecki pulls back the curtain on the chaotic realities of running a northern fishing lodge, where Murphy's Law isn't just a saying—it's practically a business partner.
Steve's first year of ownership coincided with historic drought conditions on the French River, creating a perfect storm for boat damage. With water levels so low that even experienced guides were hitting rocks, guests in rental boats faced an obstacle course of underwater hazards. Over 200 propellers were damaged that season alone, leading to uncomfortable conversations about responsibility and payment. From the guest who destroyed two engines in the same trip by hitting the identical rock twice, to another who allegedly "lost" a brand-new engine overboard while doing donuts, these stories highlight the delicate balance between customer service and business survival.
Mother Nature proves to be both the lodge's greatest attraction and its most formidable adversary. Steve recounts a recent forest fire that began as an unattended campfire and rapidly consumed 10-15 acres before being controlled by a community effort. He shares a personal near-miss when he slipped on a dock during a violent storm, narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal fall into the churning water. This experience fundamentally changed his approach to staff safety protocols. Then there was the four-day power outage that created a nightmare scenario with backed-up septic systems, teaching him the hard lesson of preparedness that led to investing in multiple generators.
The wildlife stories add both charm and challenges to lodge life—from "Earl" the bear who became too comfortable entering buildings, to mischievous otters stashing fish carcasses under the dock house, to a helpful little mink that cleaned dead minnows from boats. Each creature interaction required different management approaches, balancing guest experience with safety concerns.
Through these candid stories of disasters dodged and lessons learned, Steve reveals why lodge ownership, despite its many challenges, creates such deep connections and unforgettable experiences.
If I had have hit my head and I had have landed one inch differently, I would have slipped into that water and nobody would have ever known until they found my body. And that is when I realized how dangerous things can be down on the dock.
Speaker 2:This week on the Outdoor Journal, radio, podcast Networks, diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North.
Speaker 1:We're getting real about the moments every lodge owner secretly dreads, the kind that start with you've got to be kidding me and end with either a cold beer or a great story Out here. It's not a matter of if things go wrong, it's how spectacularly and how quickly can you get them fixed. On this show we talk about the behind-the-scenes chaos, from power outages and rocks that jump into the paths of rental boats to storms and wildlife encounters that make you question who's really in charge, and guests whose experience is so bad you've got to pull every trick in the book out to save their trip. So if you've ever wondered what happens when Mother Nature, murphy's Law and a group of hungry guests all meet at the same time, stick around. These are the stories of disasters dodged, lessons learned and why, in the lodge business, the worst days can sometimes make the best memories.
Speaker 1:Welcome, folks, back to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North. This is Steve Niedzwiecki, here with you, and it's a great, great day. I'm just freshly back from the cottage with my daughter, maddie, and her second annual fishing trip, and it was a successful one, to say the least. We didn't do a whole lot of fishing out there. We spent more time in the sauna and on the dock, but that's okay with me, but that's okay with me. So today I decided that we would talk about something that a lot of people ask me a lot about when it comes to the lodge business, and that's the things that go wrong, and some behind the scenes and some not so much behind the scenes, and it was. It was a huge learning curve for me and um I I'm really looking forward to diving into some of these stories with you. Um, because the, the learning curve that comes with adversity is steep, to say the least, and my learning curve over the 10 years that I owned Chaudiere was very steep. Sometimes I barely kept my fingernails dug into the was because it was so steep. But you know, one of the biggest things that I learned very quickly in my very first year, largely due to the fact that it was a drought year in history of the area and the water was so low, so low that the guides were clipping rocks with the guide boats because they were going through areas where every other year they were able to get through with no problem, like this way rock, and they were touching the bottom. So if the guides were having issues, you can imagine what the guests were doing. And this brings me to the rocks that jump out in front of the rental boats. And that year was just a.
Speaker 1:There was over 200 props in 20 boats that were damaged. I wasn't set up my way to deal with the damages and charging people for them. I had Jerry's old paperwork from when he run the lodge and we basically just had people sign on the dotted line saying, yes, the boat is in good condition, I'll return it in good condition and I'll pay for anything I break. And it sounds very straightforward until you get into the thick of it. And people don't particularly like paying for damage. People don't particularly like paying for damage.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that I think I told you the Dick story Well, I shouldn't say Dick story, richard story when he smashed the bottom end of one of the boats and refused to pay because he wasn't the first one to hit it. And why should he pay for the straw that broke the camel's back and nobody in front of him paid for anything. But you know, and he had no idea what was going on and you know what, off the top. I had said that you know a lot of these situations. You learn from lessons learned, stories of disasters dodged and lessons learned as much as Dick, you know, owed me for the bottom end because he hit a rock and smashed the whole thing wide open. The one point that he made was that you know there's damage done to it before me and that kind of hit me hard because that's true. And is it a fair statement. Well, in that situation, because he smashed the whole bottom end case wide open no, that didn't. And I give him a break. Well, he wasn't going to pay. And then when I told him that I wasn't going to drive him back to the marina, that he could swim, he got all worked up and stomped around, made a big scene and yelled at me he'd pay half. So I took the deal at half and that was when I started to formulate in my mind how can I do this and not have to deal with this? A big scene, and I hated charging people extra costs. Like it's hard, you know.
Speaker 1:And in that first year I remember there was one poor fella and I'm not sure what he was thinking, or anyway. He ended up taking out one of the cedar strips and hit a rock behind dead man's island and um took the, took the bottom like smash the bottom end. And whenever that happened, I would never, I told the dock hands never make a big deal of it. Just be sure to to um get them set up in another boat. Explain to them it happens to the best of us. They already feel bad enough, like I mean, they feel bad enough about it, um, so just just be kind about it, don't make them feel any worse than they already do.
Speaker 1:So we set this fella up and and I should remember his name, but this is going we're going back 15, 20 years but we got him into another boat and he hit the same rock. He hit the same rock and did another bottom end and this was like on the third day, third or fourth day it was a seven day trip and after he hit the, he did the second bottom end and like I mean he did him good, like I had to charge him and at the time on the sheet it was $900 to replace the bottom end, which didn't even cover my costs. They were $1,200 or $1,300 for the bottom end. I didn't know that because I was so overwhelmed with everything else. I had never had to replace a bottom end but anyway. So I couldn't even charge. I wasn't even getting paid the full amount that it was going to cost me. But I felt so bad and he refused to get into another boat. He was like no, I'm done, I'm going to hang out on the dock, I'm going to fish off the dock and I'm done.
Speaker 1:And um, I remember we um, um he was a musician and um, um, to make him feel better, I said, hey, listen, why don't we play guitar tonight to make them feel better? I said, hey, listen, why don't we play guitar tonight? And there was two or three of us that played guitar and we sat there in the lodge and we played Seven Spanish Angels and I don't know. That was back when my voice was in better shape and I sang the shit right out of that song Seven Spanish Angels, with Ray Charles and Willie Nelson and man, we had a wonderful time and potentially those days and evenings really could have saved. Well, I think it did. It saved his trip, and those are the types of things that you've got to do to try and help people through a hard time, because you know the two bottom ends cost him more than his trip, and that's a lot, like I mean, in today's numbers.
Speaker 1:I was just over at Chaudiere on this last trip up north and one of their rental boats, their higher end rental boats, with their minx, their Stanley minx, so they're like 18 foot aluminum boats but heavy aluminum boats with a 90 horsepower on them and somebody like took the whole bottom end right off like not smashed right off and actually broke the housing on the top end of the engine and to replace that the bill was either $10,000 or $12,000. So you know, whenever you're, whenever you're signing on that dotted line for these rental, rental boats, you really truly have to make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into. And, um and um, you're careful with the equipment because it is some expensive shit these days. And you know as much as I say that those evenings singing and spending time with that fine gentleman saved his trip, which it did, and we had a wonderful time. And when he left he thanked me for those times. But he never come back, like I mean that that that left such a such a a bitter taste in his, his mouth.
Speaker 1:Um, he never did come back and I and, and I'm not even sure if he ever went to another fishing lodge because, um, it was, it was one of those things, right, and um, um, so, for every story where where somebody pays um for, for the damage, um, you know, there's stories that that are totally opposite.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, and uh, like I, this would have been my second or third year I had just bought um two Lund Alaskan, uh, guide boats 20 foot Lund Alaskans with one 15s on them. Um, I bought two 16 foot lund furies with 50s or 60s on them and I bought five brand new 20 horsepower electric start, um mercury engines for the cedar strips and um, uh, we put, we installed all the, uh, the, um, the, the motors on the cedar strips because the old yamahas that I had were old, like um, um, this would have been back. So we're talking 2013. Um, I was still using two-stroke Yamahas from the early 90s which were getting really tired, and I had a group. We had just broken in all of these engines and I had a group come in and they took out a cedar strip with a 20 horsepower and I remember sitting in the office and seeing somebody towing in a cedar strip. Wow, that was the other there was. They had two cedars in their group, I think there was five of them, and it was a father, two fathers and three sons, and the sons would have been, you know, early teens, and the one guy's towing the other guy back and I walked down to the dock to see what was going on and I looked at the cedar that they were towing and the engine was gone, like there was no engine there and the guy was like irate at me because the engine had come off of the back of the boat and he said the gas can went by him at 100 mile an hour and it almost pulled him right into the lake. And he's like he's irate and I'm without an engine. He signed that if he broke it he pays for it. And the story that I found out that he told me is he was doing donuts in the Cedar Strip to create a bunch of big wake so that he could drive the boat through the wake and try and jump the boat over the wake and in doing this the engine come loose and it come off of the transom and it ended up in the bottom of the lake. And I was like and he's mad at me and he's like. He is telling me that he's going to sue me because it almost hurt him to sue me because it almost hurt him.
Speaker 1:Well, being new and Cole was, cole was very good at uh, all of the, the, the legal baloney and whatever I didn't, I, I didn't know what to do, like there's no, there's no, I had, I had no policy written in on the sheet that Jerry had for well, there was total loss, I guess. But anyway, the bottom line was the guy was was threatening me and yelling at me and you know, I told him. I said, listen, your negligence by doing donuts and everything else caused this. And now I'm out an engine and you should be paying me for the engine. And he lost again. He didn't want to pay, he lost his shit and he said no, no, not a chance. Blah, blah, blah. This is ridiculous. Why did the engine come off? This is, you know, um, it's not safe and everything else. And again, tough lesson learned, right? Um, he's right in a sense. He was, he was, he was wrong to be doing donuts and driving through the wake.
Speaker 1:But having said that, water can get rough, water can get rough out there and those boats need to be able to handle rough water and every engine should be, and I knew this and I had explained it to the guys on the dock. Every engine should be chained to the. On those old cedar strips there was a bracket that went from the transom to the floor and you could get underneath it. It was like a gusset and you run a chain underneath the gusset, bolt that chain together around that gusset and then you, you take the, you chain the engine through the handle, not the steering handle, but there's always a little looped handle or they actually have tabs with holes on the engine where you can bolt the chain so that if that does happen because occasionally if you don't check the clamps on the engine, the screw clamps on the engine, they will back off from vibration, whatever, and in that case then your engine is chained to the boat.
Speaker 1:We didn't do that, that hadn't been done. Do that that hadn't been done and um, anyway, I learned, uh, I learned about a, a $4,000 lesson that day about making sure that all of the um boat engines are chained to the um, to the uh, um boat and um and the and that guy and his uh, his um group, the, the two fathers and three sons. They left that day and they wanted their money back. I said I'm not giving you your money back If you're leaving today. What I'll do is I'll prorate your stay for the time you were here the two days you were here, and then I'll give you the money back for the other three days, which, again in hindsight, I really think what happened was because we went back to look for that engine. It was in 50 feet but with the technology that we had at the time, the downscan would have been clear enough, especially if the story that the gas tank went in with it and stayed on the engine because there was no gas tank floating around, like the gas tank, apparently stayed hooked to the engine because there was no gas tank floating around, like the gas tank apparently stayed hooked to the engine and the engine went to the bottom of the lake. We would have seen that the engine and the floating gas tank that would have been above it tethered to it by the gas line. I'm pretty sure what happened was they may have seen that this was a brand new engine, cooked up a story and took it off and hid it in the bush and then come back in a recon mission later on and got themselves a brand new engine Because, like I say, there was no sign of an engine anywhere in the vicinity where they and they took me back and showed me where this happened.
Speaker 1:They took me back and they, they showed me where this happened. So I don't know, I don't know, maybe not. You know I should give people the benefit of the doubt, but that was a hard lesson. That was a real hard lesson, you know, and it's again. There's so many different things that happened with the rental boats, in particular on the French River. It's a treacherous body of water if you're not paying attention. It's very well mapped, the Navionics app and mapping is excellent. I can honestly say I don't think that there is a place, if you're paying attention to your map, that you can get yourself in trouble these days. But if you're not paying attention, you will eventually hit something and you know there's so many.
Speaker 1:I remember there was a group from Buffalo and, well, new York area, new York Buffalo area, and there they had a bunch of and they would come big group. They would come and bring their Boston whalers, beautiful boats, and we were back in Marshy Bay and when you're going into Marshy Bay, right at the right, at the mouth of Marshy Bay, you've got to stay to the left. And everybody knew, knew that you had to stay to the left. And, um, on the way out, um, you know, um, the, the, the, the guys and they, and they weren't young Like I mean, and they weren't young Like I mean, they weren't old, you know, like 45-year-old men got playing and one of the guys decided that they wanted to get out in front and lead or race or whatever was going on, and decided to pull out on when they were heading out, pull out on the left side.
Speaker 1:And I'll never forget the sound that that bottom end made when it come into contact with that rock and the boat. It lifted the ass end of the boat three feet up out of the water. Like, I mean, nobody was hurt, but it's lucky that that nobody, nobody was, nobody was hurt or thrown out of the boat, for that matter. You know, and I just happened to be right there and uh and watching it unfold and and I knew, as soon as he pulled out onto the left, I was yelling. But you know, a hundred yards away, with those engines going, he, it's a. You might as well not, but um, yeah, like it's.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's one of those things where rocks jump out in front of boats on the French river and um, and you gotta be mindful of it, um, but uh, you know, and and when things like that happen, you've got to try and and uh and um do your best to make sure that the experience is still good or it's not tainted to the point where they don't. My worry was always they would never come back. You know, and a lot of times I was able to make it so that they would come back. You know, they're just tough lessons learned. And also, you know, I would having said that the experience wasn't always because of collisions on the water or things like that In the dining room I would be very cognizant of how people were feeling and making sure that every person was having an outstanding time.
Speaker 1:And you know there's just sometimes you don't. I hate it when people say you can't please them all, because I think that's bullshit. I truly try to please them all, um, but you know there was another. There was an instance where, uh, a fella brought his um, his um wife, and they were actually local, they were fairly from around, uh, I don't know, Sudbury, north Bay, maybe a little north, but they were from Ontario and they brought their family from Dubai over and everything that could go wrong went wrong. And you know, I think, that they were expecting, their expectations of the place were skewed. And that was tough sometimes because you know, we advertised as a five-star northern resort and a five-star northern resort is not a five-star New York resort, you know what I mean. And right off the bat I think that they just assumed that this was going or Ritz-Carlton and it's not. But anyway, they complained about the cleanliness of the cottages and when I went to look the girls did the bathroom had not been cleaned properly in one of the cottages and there was a little bit of mud in the well. It wasn't even mud, it was like a little bit of dirt in the bathtub and we cleaned that up. And then there was another issue and I felt bad.
Speaker 1:So I took the family from Dubai out on a guide. Actually I took them out twice to try to ease the dissatisfaction of the local fella and he was just the family from Dubai. They were, they were wonderful, they were, they were, they were beautiful people. Um, uh, two young kids, a young couple. We went to the beach. I took them out to um Frank's Bay. We went to the free flowing channel, we went fishing Like I spent a lot of time with them and they were, they were wonderful. We went fishing like I spent a lot of time with them and they were, they were wonderful.
Speaker 1:The um, the older couple from the local couple, there was just no pleasing them. Um, it's, it's a, it's a wonder that, like I mean, he, he did pay, he paid for the for the trip, didn't pay for any of the guides, that was all free. Um, but then, um, when he left, right after he paid, he said that um, um, he was very disappointed with everything that happened and you'll hear from me and, uh, I didn't know what that meant, but what that meant was, he took me to the Better Business Bureau and I had no idea what the Better Business Bureau even was, and we got a letter. This is when Cole was there. We got a letter from the Better Business Bureau and they were saying that we needed to refund this guy for his trip because of all of the stuff that happened and everything else. And Cole and I said to Cole I said, well, I guess we better just get rid of this problem. Like I was of the mindset that you know, just get rid of the problem, pay, give him his money back.
Speaker 1:And that was early in my tenure when every dollar counted and Cole said you got to be kidding me, you're not giving them a cent back. Said you gotta be kidding me, you're not giving them a cent back. Those, this, that guy. There was no possible way that he would ever have been satisfied anywhere. And Cole said in my opinion, he does this all the time and he does it to get free trips and he ain't getting a free trip from us. You leave it with me. Wow, I'm so thankful for Cole Because he had it looked after in I don't know three or four emails it was.
Speaker 1:He didn't even I said how's things going? He said don't worry about it, it's been taken care of right from the start. And he took care of it and there was no bad review. They had to remove the review off of Better Business Bureau or whatever it was, and they obviously sided with us. So it was something that I was very appreciative with Cole and he was a very, very important piece and still is by the way, he's still up at Chaudière but he was a very important piece in the business for me because, for lack of a better term, he was the bad cop.
Speaker 1:He looked after all of the um, uh, the, the, the billing people and collecting um, um on invoices at the end of the week and all of that stuff which I, and admittedly so, am not good at. I am not good at taking money from friends and when you come as a guest you left as friends. That was our mantra. Come as guests, leave as family mantra, come as guests, leave as family. And I needed coal to collect the money so that we could be there year after year and that was that's.
Speaker 1:You know, that whole Better Business Bureau thing really, really stressed me out. It was something that I had a hard time thinking, that somebody come and had such a bad time that they wanted to tell the world that we were bad people. And that gave me so much anxiety that I couldn't sleep at night thinking about it. And thanks, cole, I'll never forget how you handled that for me and for us. And it was important. When you're in the wilds of northwestern Ontario you need gear you can trust and a team that's got your back. That's Lakeside Marine in Red Lake, ontario Family owned since 1988. They're your go-to pro camp dealer, built for the north From Yamaha boats and motors to everything in between.
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Speaker 3:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. With centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
Speaker 3:After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1:You know other things that would go wrong. You know you get these, the mother nature, right in a couple of different ways. Mother Nature comes in storms, comes in fires, comes in wildlife getting too close. Speaking of fires, I mentioned off the top I'm just freshly back from the French for the girls' second annual fishing trip and when we were out I forget what day it was, maybe three, four days ago we were coming back from the lake and it was rough and really, really windy. So we took the back channel and we were coming through just past Allison Island and I was, for whatever reason, debating in my mind do I go main channel? And I knew, because of the wind, the main channel was going to be a nightmare. So I took the back channel and as soon as I turned right to go on the inside of Allison Island, I saw smoke and one of the campsites there was a significant amount of smoke that it wasn't a campfire. So the girls and I drove over and, sure enough, somebody had had a fire in the fire pit and left it without completely putting it out and like it was, 40 kilometer an hour, sustained winds with gusts of more than that, and by the time we got there, there was probably by the time we got there there was probably, I'm going to say, a 200-foot radius that was on fire on the shoreline. And I looked in the boat and there was a big cooler, you know, a cooler the size that you got to lift with two hands on each end. And I told the girls I said empty that cooler real quick, because I thought that I could pull up on the shoreline and use the cooler to get it under control. But as we were pulling up to the shoreline, the fire had gotten so hot that one of the 60 to 80 foot pine trees that were right there exploded into flames. Like it was. It was, it was and and as soon as that happened like I mean, you've got a 80 foot torch that's burning from bottom to top and it's the pine needles and the wind I knew right away I said to the girls okay, we're not going to get this one with a cooler.
Speaker 1:So we pulled out and there were two cottages that were in the line of fire and probably about a kilometer, maybe not even half a kilometer, away from the site, and I didn't have cell service to call anybody. I tried to use that texting option now that Apple has where you can point your phone at satellites. But I couldn't figure it out. So we pulled out and saw a boat with a couple of younger people in it, a guy and a girl, and it was over towards the two cottages that were kind of in that line of fire and I asked them. I said hey, is that your cottage? And they said yeah. I said do is that your cottage? And they said yeah. I said do you have a phone? And they said yeah. I said you need to go and you need to call 911 right now and tell them that there's a forest fire and you've got less than an hour before your cottage goes up with it. And they said okay, okay, okay. And they pointed to the cottage on the other side of the point and they said go and talk to them. And I think they were trying to use their cell phone, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So I drove to the other side and talked to the people there. They were out on their dock and I said listen, there is a forest fire right over there. And by that time now the smoke is billowing. You need to call 911, call Riverview Marina and call Bud at Doquese Marina, and I give them the phone numbers, and took off to get our fire pump and run into Corey, one of the guys at Chaudière, and I turned around and we drove over to Corey and Corey's like hey, what's going on? What should we do? I said, corey, go back to Chaudière, get the fire pump now.
Speaker 1:And by the time I got back to my place and I got, and I actually I phoned Bud because my fire pump was plumbed into the island. I borrowed Bud's fire pump was probably I'm going to say, 10 or 12 boats from people on the river that brought their firefighting equipment, all fighting this fire. I jumped off and started fighting the fire as well and they were dropping firefighters via helicopter at the site. We got it, we got it under control, but in the 45 minutes that I was gone that fire went from you know a couple hundred feet in diameter. I bet you, by the time we got it under control, which was about four hours later, it had burnt 10 acres, 15 acres. It was a serious fire and that right there is the most dangerous thing that cottagers face and lodge owners face up there is fire. I've seen tornadoes, we had a storm that tore up, I don't know, 150 trees in Doakies Bay. I don't know 150 trees in Doquese Bay, but to watch how quickly that fire spread in that wind was scary, man, it was truly scary.
Speaker 1:And you know storms and that, like I mean storms are a concern as well, like there's been snow in beginning of June and when you're at the lodge and people are coming in and you know it's snowing, and there's been snow in beginning of September too, you know so those are. But again, there's a big difference between a forest fire and a little bit of snow. You know what I mean. But I, uh, I remember, um, I learned a real, um tough lesson. Well, I was lucky and, and I'll tell you the story, um, there was a time, a period for a couple of years, where we experienced some thunderstorms up at the lodge that were magnanimous, like these things were were were really, really violent storms.
Speaker 1:And this one evening there was a storm coming in and everybody had packed in for the night. So it was like 10, 11 o'clock, I don't remember what time of year it was, but it was dark and all of the boats, the docks, face south, southwest, and when the wind is right, sometimes even in our small little part of the river, the waves can get big and the way we park the boats, you just drive the boat straight into the dock with the transom exposed to the, to the, to the water, and when you get a real big storm, if you're not careful, the water will wash over the back of the transom and and the and the boat will sink. So I saw this storm coming in and it was. The waves down on the dock were big enough that they were washing over the backs of the transoms and I didn't want to get anybody like. I mean, the staff worked hard and I didn't want to, at 11 o'clock, go and wake everybody up, to go and turn the boats around, bow into the wind, right, so that you don't have to worry about water coming in, because with the bow into the wind it takes the waves right, right, right, right. So that meant I had to go down to the dock and spin every boat around so that they were facing nose out, and you could do that from the dock, like I didn't have to jump into all of the boats and drive them and back them in. I just, you know, untied the boats pushed the boat out, the ass end would swing around. I'd pull the ass, end in and then put the, put the um, tie the boat up with the bow facing out. No big deal, I figured I'll, I'll just do it myself. So I went down and got them all done on the uh, on the floating docks, and then there were a couple on the main dock and I remember well, I don't know what I was doing I went onto the main dock and then I jumped off of the main dock onto the bow of one of the cedar strips, for whatever reason, and honestly I don't remember why, but I slipped on that um, I slipped on that that bow of that boat and my feet come right out from underneath me and I ended up falling and landing just about mid of my, the middle of my back, not quite far enough onto the end of the dock and with my shoulders and my head hanging in the water and my legs and my ass and the small of my back on the dock.
Speaker 1:So I just hit that spot where I didn't go head over heels into the lake and I'm going to tell you it hurt, it hurt bad. And in that moment, moment, I managed to squirm my way back onto the dock in the lightning and in the thunder and torrential rain. And I thought to myself, and, and you know, when I come down, the gunwale of that boat was right there, like it was right there, and I don't know how close my head come to that gunnel when I was in full flight. And I was in full flight, um, and I thought to myself, you know what, if I had have hit my head and I had have landed one inch differently, I would have slipped into that water and nobody would have ever known until they found my body.
Speaker 1:And that is when I realized how dangerous things can be down on the dock, with not just myself like this is me we're talking about, this is me, and I'm the person that is instructing all of my staff on how to do things. And I nearly knocked myself out and drowned myself in the middle of a storm, and it was at that point that I started. Well, first thing I did was um, uh, I made it mandatory, uh, for all uh dock staff to buy Sperry's, which are like um, um, a, uh, a shoe that um, um people use on yachts, because of the grip that you get, um, because I didn't, you can't slip right and half the time, you know, I, it was always closed toe, but I would, uh, you know, there would be times when people were down there, um, not so much working, but in their crocks, or you know, it's just safety was one of those things that that night become crystal clear how paramount um safety had to be down there, because it um, it, it, it, it, things happen quick, things happen quick. And when you're in the moment and you're trying to to do the things that need to be done, like spin the boats around so they don't sink, you still have to be mindful of safety. And that was a very lucky and and I'm I'm very thankful for the way things turned out and the lesson I learned that night. The other memory I have of that night is, just before I jumped onto the bow of that boat, there was a crack of lightning that, like I mean, the lightning and thunder were simultaneous. And, uh, that lightning bolt, man, it was above the, the main lodge, and it was one of those ones that bounces through the cloud about four times and it it backlit the lodge and the image of, of seeing the lodge and the trees backlit by this massive bolt of lightning, um, it burned into my, my, my eyes and my mind. I wish I had a picture of that Um, because it was that? Because it was a violent storm. It was a violent storm and I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1:And you know the other thing too, with Mother Nature you've got your fires, you've got storms, but you also have nature and animals and wildlife that get too close. And I've told the story about Earl the bear, you know, and he turned into an issue. He turned into an issue. But as far as other problem and nuisance animals, you know, the only animal that were nuisance on the island were the raccoons and they, well, the raccoons for sure, and to a certain extent we had otters.
Speaker 1:And if you left the gut bucket from the fish cleaning shack um on the ground and left it overnight, cause a lot of times you'd clean, you'd clean out the um, clean the fish in the evening when people come in and um, I didn't like uh going and dumping the uh, the guts um at night just because you know it would sit on the shoreline overnight and that would attract four-legged fur-bearing animals when, if you put it out in the morning, in the daylight, all of the birds had everything cleaned up, that was. And our slop buckets were the same right and a slop bucket is just all of the birds had everything cleaned up, that was, and our slop buckets were the same right, and a slop bucket is just all of the food that come off of the plates from the dining room after guests had eaten all of the waste. We'd keep that separate from our garbage, because if you put food waste in your garbage bags and we only took the garbage once a week sometimes it could go a little longer than that shit got real quick with the amount of food waste that we had, so we just separated it out, put it into slot buckets and then in the morning we would take the gut bucket and the slot buckets and we would take it around the backside of the island and there was a big flat rock and we'd throw it up on that big flat rock and the turkey vultures, seagulls, all the birds they would have that they would have everything cleaned up within, you know, three, four hours and they were waiting. They were waiting every morning Some of the best employees I ever had, you know, always at work early and never left until the job was done, believe me, um.
Speaker 1:So you know, but in the uh, in the, in the um, uh, situation where you would forget to hang that gut bucket in the cleaning fish cleaning station up four or five, six feet off the ground. We had otters and the otters would come up, they take the, the carcasses in the gut bucket and they would stash them under the dock house, which was a freaking nightmare, because you can't, we could not get in under the dock house, like it was impossible. And well, you could start pulling up floorboards, I guess, but they would stash those carcasses under there and then they would begin to rot and what a stink. You would get inside the dock house and that was where we had our store, like our dock store with tackle, and you'd buy your bait and all of that stuff down there and people would meet in the morning for coffee and you know what a nightmare those little otters could be. Having said that, one of the otters had a nest up under the main lodge and the mother would run back and forth from underneath the corner of the main lodge down to the dock and people loved seeing her. She'd slide right down the rocks and into the water.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, for a couple of years we had a little pet mink who found his way to the dock and that little fella man, he was money cute and he would just run right around. You could never pet him, like he wasn't that tame, but he would run around your feet and his main goal in life was to eat all of the dead minnows in the bottoms of the boats, the cedar strips especially. Because when you'd go out and you'd be fishing with live bait, you know a minnow would fall into the bottom of the boat and they all leak, so there would be just enough water in the bottom there to keep them alive. And this little mink he'd jump in there and he'd catch all them minnows that are either dead or alive in the bottom of the cedar strips. And he'd go every morning, boat to boat to boat to boat to boat, no matter if there was 50 people down there or if there was nobody down there. He was cleaning out my boats for me and, uh, he was another. Is that I, if I could have had a, a wee army of of little minks down there? I, I would have if they were they and a beautiful little little animal.
Speaker 1:But um, you know, you got to kind of manage the wildlife because it can get a little out of hand and, like in the case of Earl the bear you know he was I don't think that he would have ever hurt anybody intentionally. I know that he could have hurt somebody unintentionally, and what I mean by that is he was starting to venture into the laundry room and there was one way in and one way out. And if he had have gone into the laundry room and there was one way in and one way out, and if he had have gone into the laundry room and one of the girls or guests or guys walked in while Earl was in there, earl would have run them down just to get out and, um, you know, we had to deal with, uh, we had to deal with Earl. But you gotta, you gotta manage your, your wildlife.
Speaker 1:And then the last thing that I want to talk about when things go wrong at the lodge and this happened a couple of times the first was by far the worst and that's power outages. It is a nightmare when you're at the lodge and the first time that I ever that it happened, I was totally unprepared, never thought about it. I didn't have a generator, it was just, it was. It was not good. Now, that power outage lasted for four days, four or five days, it was, it was. It was one of the longest. Well, I think to this day it's it's been the longest power outage at the lodge that I was involved with and we managed to feed all of the guests because that was all on propane.
Speaker 1:Now, let me think I did have one generator. I had one generator and I think that I ended up mom and dad may have brought it up, but I had one generator going because we had lights in the main lodge. We had the fridge was on, the freezer was not the freezer, we had to just keep the door closed. It was toward the end of the year, so there wasn't a whole lot of food left in the main freezer. But the worst, and so all of the kitchen other than the convection oven runs on propane. So we were good that way. We were good with propane in the kitchen. So we had our stove, we had the ability to still cook and we had lights in the main lodge.
Speaker 1:Our biggest problem was our water system. I didn't have, I didn't have any water, so we we were. We had a big, a large stockpile of bottled water, which was which was fine as far as cooking and drinking went, but things got awful shitty awful quick because there was no power to run the septic system and, um, the way that that septic system worked is there were like 40 gallon drums outside the cottage and, um, and once those fill to a certain point, then hydro turns a pump on and that pump pumps all of that waste up into the, the main septic tanks. For, you know, without getting too deep in the weeds there, we had no ability to deal with that. And after a couple of days, when those tanks fill, shit starts backing up into the cottage and overflowing out onto the ground and, um and um stink and there was no way to to deal with with that. And it ended up that after three days, um, most people left, most people went home because, um, um, it was just, uh, it was. It was not a very pleasant situation. There were people that stayed because they didn't like I mean, hardcore outdoor enthusiasts that are used to camping know how to deal with situations like that but most people just decided that yeah, no, this is not what I signed up for and I ended up having to refund all of those people or give them a rain check to come back the following year. There wasn't enough time that season to get them back that year and that's what happened. I either refunded people or gave them a rain check and I lost on all of that late season revenue, which was a kick in the nuts really. But it is what it is right. I learned a valuable lesson there.
Speaker 1:After that I went out and I bought two 7,500 watt generators and Uncle Barry, myself and Andy, my brother, or Dave, my other brother they both are electricians. Anyway, we had one generator dedicated to the water system and septic system so that I could plug the generator in and run the water and septic, which was perfect. It didn't run any of the lights or anything in the cottages, but the water system and septic system was good Lights. You know what we can deal with lights out in the cottages. I had another generator that run the fridge, freezer and main lodge and that did a good job for quite a few years. Well, that did a good job for any power outages that we had since. But again, another tough lesson to learn. Yeah, I would never want to do that again. That was. That was one of the worst. One of the worst and most ill-prepared situations that I was in as a lodge owner and trying to explain to guests who were there and had expectations and paid good money to come, even though it was, I'll call it, an act of nature or out of my control. Not really, I could have had generators there before. It was just a part of the learning curve that uh, that I uh, that I went through.
Speaker 1:But, um, on that shitty note, we have come to the conclusion of uh of today's episode and, as usual, I'd like to thank all of you for getting to this point. I really appreciate it and it's you that makes this possible. If you like what we're talking about here and love diaries, reach out, let us know, leave comments on whatever app you're listening to us at. If you have any questions, you know how to get me steven at fishincanadacom. And thank you to Lakeside Marine in Red Lake Wonderful, wonderful people up there. If you're ever in the area, give them a call. They've got what you need and they'll look after you, to you. And thank you to the producers, anthony mancini and uh, dino taylor. Um, we uh, I really appreciate everything you guys do and uh, and also head on over to the fish and canadacom and get your name in and watch for these giveaways.
Speaker 1:I have been told that there is some big stuff coming along. I've mentioned it in the past Could be boat, could be motor, you know some big stuff. So get on over there have a look, and not only that, look at all of the new SKUs that we've got going on at fishincanadacom. There's a bunch of really cool things that you can, that you can dress your family in for sure. Anyway, thank you folks. And thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the North.
Speaker 3:I'll be making my way. Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine. I'll be making my way, the only way I know how.
Speaker 2:Working hard and sharing the north with all of my pals.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 2:I'll buy the lodge and live my dream. Oh boy, I bought a lodge and lived my dream, and now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems.
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Speaker 2:Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 4:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.
Speaker 4:From athletes. All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garton Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists Now that we're reforesting and letting things freeze. It's the perfect transmission environment for limestone.
Speaker 5:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 2: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.