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Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 103: Rebar, Beams, and Building a Sustainable Future
Ever wondered what it takes to build the foundation for our clean energy future? This episode dives deep into the fascinating world of industrial construction with a personal twist as Jerry welcomes his son Garrett home from Alberta for a father-son catchup that reveals surprising insights into tomorrow's energy infrastructure.
Garrett, a red seal ironworker specializing in rebar installation, shares his experiences working on Edmonton's groundbreaking net zero hydrogen production facility—one of only five industrial hydrogen plants globally and the only one in Canada. As we discover, this massive project represents Alberta's strategic pivot toward sustainable energy while leveraging its existing industrial expertise. Through Garrett's detailed explanations, we gain rare perspective on the engineering marvels supporting these structures, from 500-ton concrete foundations to specialized reinforcement techniques designed to withstand Canada's extreme northern climate.
The conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into how traditional energy regions are adapting to climate challenges. Rather than abandoning existing industrial capacity, Alberta is transforming potential waste products from oil refining into clean hydrogen fuel for transportation. With approximately 50 hydrogen vehicles already operating in Edmonton and plans to expand to 500, this project represents a practical bridge between today's energy economy and tomorrow's sustainable solutions.
Beyond the industrial insights, father and son share practical wisdom from their cottage life experiences, including an ingenious solution for off-grid cooling using portable mini air conditioners powered by phone battery packs. These personal touches highlight the podcast's core theme: finding practical, innovative solutions to life's challenges, whether building massive industrial facilities or simply staying comfortable during humid summer nights at the cottage.
Have you considered how hydrogen might fit into our energy future? Or perhaps you're curious about practical solutions for off-grid living? Join the conversation by sharing your thoughts and questions in the comments section below!
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?
Speaker 2:are we going?
Speaker 1:to talk about for two hours every week. Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 3:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors From athletes, All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the. Russians would go fishing.
Speaker 4:To scientists. But now that we're reforesting- and laying things free.
Speaker 3:It's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 5:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 1: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 6: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 applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. 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. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. We can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. All right, well, I hope all is well and, as always, if anybody has any comments or questions or needs to hear a show or wants any suggestions, I know I had an inquiry about our one of the shows.
Speaker 6:I did I think it was with Lexi, I think and we talked about a bug attractant that was killing mosquitoes en masse and it was worked off, ran off propane, but the D-cell battery one went. It worked way better. To be honest, the one that runs solely off propane isn't that great for a mosquito attractant. So we've got to try a couple of others. Of course we've got the PIX going and the little badminton racket sort of things that work fantastic in getting rid of mosquitoes in camp and stuff like that.
Speaker 6:But there's a lot of different things out there and we've tried quite a few. And we got one of those lights now where, when the generator is running, when we're in our camp, what we do is we have this bug light going and it attracts and takes mosquitoes in because they're attracted to this particular light and it blows them in into a little trap and kills them off and it seems to be working pretty good. But you've got to run the generator to run that one and I'm not sure about a battery pack, if there's things that could run that. But we're back with my son, my regular, my guest, my sidekick on the program Garrett's in from Alberta. Welcome back out of the program Garrett.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's good to be back. Thank you for having me. As always, it's always nice to come home and see friends and family. I know I've had a bit of a busy time already, with a lot of errands and catching up and a lot of things on the go right now, so glad to be back here, of course.
Speaker 6:So, garrett, tell us one of the things you lost a bet or you sucked enough in a football pool and now you got to pay for it. What do you got to do as your punishment for being last in your football pool?
Speaker 2:Well, to start, my excuse is all my main guys got injured pretty early in the season so I was down and out with my first five picks being placed on the IAR already. So I'm going to say that as my excuse. But no, I've got to run a half marathon. It's coming up on the 6th here. So just uh, in five days or so.
Speaker 2:But I'm sure people uh won't know about it because this will probably air after. But just letting you guys know, uh, probably anticipating to be in a lot of pain after, because I uh had a grade two hamstring pull about two months ago and I've never ran a marathon in general before. But you know, I played rugby and all these sports as a kid. So I'm hoping to be fine and hoping that the 12-hour work days I've been doing out in Alberta, and the 10-hour days as well, have been making up for the endurance I need for it. But yeah, I got a half marathon coming up. I had a great two hamstring pull so I haven't been able to really run at all for the last two months. But yeah, I'm going to be running a marathon here.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, excuses, excuses, just like always, never got ready. You could have been walking and getting ready, at least to kind of skip and hop and skip and hop and do stuff like that. But it'll be interesting to see what happens with this half marathon. So tell us, garrett, what are you working at in Alberta right now? Because I know you're working on Site C in British Columbia, which was Canada's largest hydro dam, and then you're working on a potash mine in Saskatchewan. And what are you doing now in Alberta?
Speaker 2:And whereabouts are you in Alberta. So at first I was working in Calgary there, just a couple of small apartment buildings, things kind of going up as work outside and bigger jobs a little bit slower. But um, there's a new project going on edmonton they got a call for about a month ago now and it's the uh net zero hydrogen product or a production uh facility out in edmonton. So their goal is to industrialize the production of hydrogen so we can use that to fuel vehicles and at the time when they're telling us about the information there on this project, it's looking to be completed in about 2027. They're looking at they have currently have, I think it's 50 hydrogen cars in Edmonton right now and most of them are just kind of like running errands from the airport kind of thing.
Speaker 2:They have a taxi service, very minuscule stuff, but they're starting to get really big, especially because this project we're working on is, I think, one of only five industrial level hydrogen products across the world and it's the only one in Canada right now, to my knowledge, and that's what they also said during the information when they talk about this project there. So I would say they're out of the ground now, like there's a few things left that are going on, but they're really starting to get production going there. They've got a lot of the structural things. They've got a lot of the boiler makers are on site doing all the pressure containers and everything else and the big tanks and stuff. So it's an interesting project, that's for sure. But yeah, it should be pretty steady work there for probably another year or two.
Speaker 6:So now hydrogen. You called it net zero. So a couple of things Is this a provincial project or is it independent companies? And one of the other things that Garrett, I recall I met when I was with Bill Saunderson was the minister of I think it was economic development and trade and he was meeting in Oshawa with the president of General Motors and I asked about that and at that time this would be about 99-2000, that General Motors had I think it was a half a dozen hydrogen vehicles that they were actually testing in the States and I think it cost them a million dollars at that time per vehicle to get them going to try and see if they could develop hydrogen for their vehicles. So in other words, and here we are in 2025, it's a long process to get going. So is it just like a provincial thing and are they using water to develop their hydrogen or do you know?
Speaker 2:So why it's net zero? To answer your first question there is because they're looking at doing zero emissions. So they're taking in all the pollution and toxins that are going to be produced from it and that's what's going to be causing the production of hydrogen. So they're going to be taking in, especially in Edmonton because it's a very oil-based area there. They're going to take all the hydrogen that they extract from the process of oil and crude oil and things like that and things when they go through their steps of refinery. That's what's going to be. The net zero is it's going to be releasing zero pollution out into the environment. So that's why it's net zero.
Speaker 2:So the second part of your question there. So you're asking like how the industrial, like the production of it, how it's supposed to be affecting it's supposed to get bigger or not? So they're looking at getting about 500 cars going after, which is, I say, a healthy number based on the fact that technology isn't quite there yet. I know they had a hydrogen product or productions they're trying to aim for in Newfoundland, but they said that they're about for Newfoundland's area and the production there. They're about 10, 12 years out, give or take, before they can really start making it worthwhile to do it. So here it's just it's a slow production but because everything's already kind of going for Edmonton right now, for all the oil production, like the hydrogen makes sense because it's more or less it's kind of like a byproduct of everything else that's going on there. So they're kind of capture these and use it as fuel.
Speaker 6:Yeah, most of the hydrogen plants that I'm aware of, we're using the water as their basis, so they separate H2O, which is hydrogen, and oxygen, and guess what? You get an overabundance of oxygen. Not that we need that, or do we? And then they use the hydrogen to run their vehicles with and their emissions would be virtually water coming out the tailpipe with no problems at all. So I think, from my perspective, alberta moving forward with that, being an oil-based province where their income is basically generated from the production of oil and the sale of oil, to develop hydrogen is a lot of foresight from them, and I recall the Premier, daniel Smith, making statements about that. They wanted to move not so much to electric vehicles but to hydrogen vehicles, and it's good to see that that province is moving forward with that Because I think in my opinion, that's a good way to go and will be far more beneficial than EVs, with all the things that go on with electric vehicles and the batteries and the production of those batteries, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and it is provincial, but I believe it's also federally funded for this project as well. Obviously, I'm not that you know above my pay grade, above my desk kind of thing to know, like the exact details there, but I know it is a public funded project as well.
Speaker 6:So what exactly is your job, garrett, that you're doing, and give people who haven't heard some of our other podcasts together exactly what you do and what's your function and where you're a journey red seal journeyman um.
Speaker 2:So my profession is we. I fall under the category of iron worker, um, to be more exact, I am a rod buster. So rod busting is rebar. So we think of or think of anything structures you see with concrete and think of like the human body, so the bones of your body is what rebar is to concrete. So we add all the stability, the structure and everything else to give concrete that additional strength so it doesn't break or snap or crumble kind of thing. It helps keep all the pressures, especially with shifting weights.
Speaker 2:And, for example, in Alberta and I guess in just Northern Canada in general, we have to put in a lot of additional heavier grade steel because they have such things as free and thaw conditions. So, for example, what we're doing is we're doing these massive slabs that are probably easily like right around. I would say at least 500 tons per portion of the slab. So we did two portions in one month there. So we did 1,000 tons of steel.
Speaker 2:And what I'm doing is we are putting the grid system out. So think of like a checkerboard and all the separate between the black and white tiles. There's a little space there. That's where rebar is going to go to add support for each of those tiles and then take that to a much larger scale and much more industrial size scale as well. So the bars we're putting in is 35m bars, which the lengths we're putting is also 18 meters long, so each bar is over 200 pounds give or take. Um, it also depends I don't know if we're using 500 grade or 400 grade steel, which just means just the strength of the steel is much more, uh, stronger at a 500 grade compared to a 400 grade. For people that don't know the density and stuff like that of the metals.
Speaker 6:But I believe, is there not a stainless rebar as well?
Speaker 2:There is stainless rebar as well. Stainless is very expensive but most of the time they only use that in bridge work and other small portions maybe sidewalks as well because they have a higher exposure to water or to say runoff water, so they really want to stop rusting so it deteriorates the bridge a lot slower. So they'll put stainless steel in those situations, whereas the job I'm doing they're not really designed to be exposed to such vast amounts of water constantly. So we're just using what they call is unmarked steel or black steel kind of thing, which is just pretty much just a standardized basic rebar. I just didn't.
Speaker 2:I don't know the density of it or the grade of the steel, so if it's a 400 or 500. I know there's new stuff coming out as well for a much stronger steel so you can reduce the size of it because it's much more dense. But that's stuff that's probably going to be a little bit more out in the future here before that starts getting in mass production as well. But yeah, I'm a red steel iron worker, I'm a rod buster and yeah, I've been at that job for about a month or so now and I've been doing rod like rebar for about eight years or so, and it's a lot of work, like every day you're picking up like 10, 15 tons of steel per person and you know, sometimes the one person's packing up people are tying kind of thing, and by tying I mean they're not actually like tying your shoelaces, they are wrapping the steel up in wire and twisting it together to lock all the interlocking steel, because there's like a bottom layer and a top layer to it to keep it all together.
Speaker 6:Well, I know you're helping your buddy, simon, when he was doing a I think it was a basement pour or a patio pour or something like that, and where they were putting the rebar was in the wrong spot until you showed them, and so stuff like that. How does the rebar actually support? Or where do you put it? Say, when eventually we get to my sauna, where we have to pour the concrete for the sauna at the camp or the cottage, where do you put the rebar and how do you tie it up and how does that work?
Speaker 2:So when I was helping my buddy Simon there, so he was doing like a cantilever slab, and a cantilever slab is something that just overhangs without a post underneath it. So think of like a balcony off a building or some kind of structure that hangs out with nothing supporting it directly underneath. So with that you think of just think of gravity and it's like gravity's pulling it on that farthest point. So think of a door hinge. If you were to push, take one finger and push it from the farthest point of the door, it's much easier to push that door open and close. But if you were to take it and push it right where the hinge is, it takes a vast amount of force compared to the outside to push that door close. Same thing kind of applies within concrete rebar.
Speaker 2:So when he was doing it, it's like you need to really strengthen that outside edge of the door because that's where all the pressure is going to be, like going pulling down, cause it's easier, easier to take the door, flip it horizontal, right, so you're going up and down. Now that's where all the pressure is because it's overhanging. So you have to strengthen as that wants to pull down. The snapping part is going to be on top of the slab so you have to really strengthen the top steel of it as well as the very far edge of it. So I told him, like you know, don't worry so much about the bottom, like, put a little bit in just to kind of keep it stable, but you're going to need more pressure on the top of that that slab there. So I helped him out there and then help them out with.
Speaker 2:He was pouring a patio slab just for his, his house he was building, and that was very basic because it was. It was a suspended slab, so you don't need a lot because it also wasn't going to take a lot of pressure. But yeah, just a standard slab. I put out a grid system for him at 150 there. So 150 mils apart, which is spacing, and we used 15M, which would add more than enough stability for what it needs, because in Canada we design things to be built at 100 times the necessary weight.
Speaker 6:So whenever I say this building is supposed to hold up simple numbers here a thousand pounds. We're going to make sure it can hold withstand 10,000 pounds, just because. Well. So what exactly, then, are you doing for this net zero hydrogen thing? And are you pouring slabs that are on the ground, or how does that play out and what are you doing there?
Speaker 2:So for this, for that project there, it slabs on the ground which is going to just more or less support all the structure and all the weight of the big tanks or all the piping that work. It's quite the fun thing to see when it's completed. There's other oil fields and refineries out there that you see and you're just like all the interlocking piping work and the network of grid, all the structure, the structural steel, the pressures it needs to withstand and take. It's going to be a lot of weight on the ground. So these slabs we're doing they're about roughly a meter thick Probably. I think one of them, I think, was 1,200, so a meter and a bit thick there for a slab.
Speaker 2:And we have about I think there was like 30 or 40 slabs that are going on there. They each are right around about 500 tons give or so, um. So it's quite a fair bit and more or less it just adds a base and a foundation to allow those buildings to sit on. And the other thing is the slabs that we're doing have what we call is a hairpin, and a hairpin concept is something that it's a bar that's going to tie from your top mat to your bottom mat, which is a meter and a bit apart, bottom at which is a meter and a bit apart. And we're doing that around the perimeter because of all the freeze, thaw conditions and the way the pressure is going to be out, especially with even like earth pressure and like upwards earth force.
Speaker 2:And if people don't understand that, take like your hand and kind of like put all all four of your fingers on your thumb and try and like extend your hand as much as you can so, as it says it's sitting tall, those fingers are going to act like piles and then all that ground underneath is going to be forcing up. So think of stepping in mud as that. You put your foot in mud, all that mud wants to ooze up. That's all the upward force pressure. Now you take that and magnify it by you know, hundreds of thousands of pounds of pressure. We have to make a slap strong enough to support that, that weight or that force being up there and then all the weight on top of it to keep it all level.
Speaker 6:So that's one of the concepts of rebar is just adding stability, even from like earth pressure and stuff like that so you've mentioned something there which I learned when I was minister of natural resources, garrett was the oak ridges marine, which is basically a small when the glaciers came in, they deposited, they left like a moraine or kind of a row of hills as they retreated, and that actually puts pressure on the ground and I didn't realize that. And that pressure on the ground forces springs up. Um, at the on the outskirts, or as you lead into, uh, go up, like we have the oak ridges marine. So at the north end of oshawa you go up, uh, this, this, this ridge, and that ridge actually puts force on the ground which forces springs up. And so all around the oak ridges, in areas you're going to get springs popping up, where fresh water comes down, falls down through the and seeps in through the moraine, the ridge, and then the pressure of that forces it and causes springs, which was something I had no idea about to deal with.
Speaker 6:So when you're talking about the kettle lakes, which is basically there's nothing feeding them except the springs come in. So it's a series of lakes that are all that are just in one spot, like a lot of lakes. For example, I was looking at Eels Creek, I believe it was that feeds into Stoney Lake or Eels Lake. It's not the same when you get the pressure from these ridges or these moraines, forcing water up and causing small pockets of lakes or ponds and things like that, and that's something that the pressure of the, the ridge putting on the ground, causes, which I had no idea about. So, and how long is it going to take? And how long can you work at this garrison? What about in the winter months? Can you do your pour? And how big? When you say, I understand that you, you're talking about three, or, uh, was it three meters thick or a meter thick? And then, uh, how big would these slabs be?
Speaker 2:um, so these are all like it's they're considering like footing slabs or a raft slab, if people understand that, as a raft slab is just more or less a ton of steel at, say, the bottom of, like an apartment building that help design and take a lot of pressure or a lot of weight shifting things like that. So these slabs are roughly. I think we had about so there's one, two, three, four shots, so about four shots of 15 meters. So these slabs are going to be about 60 meters long and I think it was one, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah, so 60 meters long by roughly 90 meters, as as wide kind of thing is. That's roughly the size of the some of the slabs we're doing there. There's a lot of smaller ones as well, but this one, like the ones that were brought up for, are going to be relatively really big in size.
Speaker 2:Um, as I'm pretty sure the ones we're doing are designed for the tankers to sit on. So this is where all like a lot of the condensed weight is going to be on the slabs we're doing up there for right now and for work-wise for us, for rebar work probably got, I would say, the rest of summer, winter it's always hit or miss because there's certain rules and applications that need to be applied, especially for pouring concrete. They call it heating and hoarding, so you have to keep the concrete at a certain temperature range for it to cure properly. But heating and hoarding costs a lot of money because it's constantly running propane heaters, insulating everything up, all the materials. It takes to get a big tent system over it to to keep the concrete, keep it all warm while you pour it, and all that money costs a lot like costs a huge charge actually on the companies to do that stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, I know certain places they don't necessarily pour bridges because bridges are too hard to keep protected from the elements as they're pouring. Especially when you're up in edmonton or around saskatchew, the temperatures there were reaching like minus 50. Even worse with the wind chill as well. So for them to keep that at a certain temperature range for that concrete to cure it takes a lot of time and effort and materials for it. So because this is probably a public funded project, I would anticipate that they are going to be having work through the winter. I'm just not too sure about concrete work for the rebar stuff, but they are going to probably continue through the work there, as this is kind of like we need to get the job done quicker, sooner than later.
Speaker 3:Back in 2016, Frank and I had a vision To amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.
Speaker 5:Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.
Speaker 3:Thus the Ugly Pike podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.
Speaker 5:Step into the world of angling adventures and embrace the thrill of the catch with the Ugly Pike podcast. Join us on our quest to understand what makes us different as anglers and to uncover what it takes to go after the infamous fish of 10,000 casts.
Speaker 3:The Ugly Pike podcast isn't just about fishing. It's about creating a tight-knit community of passionate anglers who share the same love for the sport, Through laughter, through camaraderie and an We'll see you next time.
Speaker 6:And now it's time for another testimonial, for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, here we are in Lindsay with Bill, who's actually? This gentleman has given blood over 230 times. You're right, 233. 233, and that's amazing, and you've had some success with Chaga. Tell us what you're dealing with and what you did and what you used.
Speaker 7:Well, I had mild high blood pressure. It wasn't very really high, but I was on medication for a few years and then I quit drinking coffee and started drinking this tea, the combination tea, the green and the chaga Right, and my medication is gone.
Speaker 6:Your medication's gone, gone and you couldn't give blood during the other times.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I could, oh, you could I could yeah? But a few times the machine kicked me out. Oh yeah, but now it doesn't anymore.
Speaker 6:So you think the green tea and the chaga helped normalize your blood pressures?
Speaker 7:Oh yeah, oh very good, because it wouldn't be just stopping coffee, it would have to be something else.
Speaker 6:And that's the only thing you did different. Yeah Well, thank you very much for that.
Speaker 7:My blood pressure is probably that of a 40-year-old man, and I'm 71.
Speaker 6:Oh, very good. Well, that's good to hear. Thank you very much for that, no problem. Okay, we interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY, c-a-n-o-p-y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode, and this time, great to see when you came out.
Speaker 6:Mind you, your flight was a little bit late getting here, so it was supposed to be a Saturday show up just before 11 am. It ended up. By the time we got out of the airport it was 12.30 the next day, so something along that way. But you brought, which is great to see Brittany's here, garrett's girlfriend, and you brought Belle, which is their dog, which is a little bit cranky with Gunnar and with Benny, my other son's dog, but I think Belle's starting to warm up. They were playing this morning after I took Gunner for his run this morning, and she was out in the backyard, she being Belle, which is a Doberman and it's not a big Doberman, a smaller one, to be honest, a little bit smaller than Gunner, which was great to see. But it was great to have Brittany out. And what's Brittany up to now? What's she doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, yeah. So I guess people are asking why we got delayed on our flight. Well, when I booked the tickets because it's a domestic flight I was told they need 45 minutes to board and prep. So, as we're taking Bell with us this time, so I was like, okay, so we were there an hour early to make sure that we had time to board the dog and everything else, which I think would be more than acceptable because the process only takes five to ten minutes, maybe closer to eight minutes, longer than someone checking their luggage bag at the kiosk there. So we got there and they're like no, we need the full 90 minutes to prep for flights or anything else.
Speaker 2:And I don't want to get into it, but there was just a point of like. It just seemed like you just you were too busy at the airport and you didn't just have the time to do it. But you know, lesson learned. So just letting people out there know if you're ever going to fly the dog and they have to go under the plane, just be there 90 minutes before so you avoid the hassle of missing a flight.
Speaker 6:Yeah. So we ended up guess what? We spent the whole Saturday kind of waiting for the flight to show up, which didn't show up until much, much later, like 11 o'clock, and then by the time they got Belle, the dog and Brittany and everybody off the plane, it wasn't until oh, I don't know 1.30 in the morning by the time we got home the next day. But that's okay, it's great to have them here and it's great having Brittany here. Things are nice to see and she actually has been able to work from home this week, so she's out doing her job from a computer. But we spent some time at the cottage on the weekend after we got you landed and then headed up for for a long weekend here and, uh, we tried something a little new. What'd you think about those, uh, mini air conditioners that I had in each of the rooms?
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, it was uh unexpected about them. I I've seen them pop up and you get speculations about it because you're like, ah, it's not gonna be great, it's not gonna be enough, but like for what it was, for just an individual room, just to help with the, the humidity overnight or the because the thunderstorm came in so it was very moist and humid and I know if Brittany was here she'd be like I always never like getting off the plane and getting out of the airport because the humidity difference from Alberta to here it's like walking into like a steam room, so her hair gets wet, she loses her curls and I know if she was here she'd be laughing at me for saying this. But you know it is what it is. So, but yeah, so the air conditioners I found were a nice little size, pourable enough that it would be perfect for I kept thinking about it If you went camping and you're someone like me who just I don't mind the heat, but when I'm sleeping I want it cold, and it'd be a great little unit to have for like camping or an individual room, just to kind of get that cool air sensation for you.
Speaker 2:Just not enough that's going to free, like you're not going to feel like your whole body getting cool. But you will notice a difference when you're in a nice little smaller area and it will give you enough coolness to kind of keep you out of that place or temperature that you're not going to wake up because you don't overheat during the night.
Speaker 6:Yeah, what it is is. I tried these little things. I saw something on Facebook that came up and then I sourced them out and I found one at a local store that carried them and they're at the time I think they're like 40 bucks each and basically what you do is you have these little kind of sponges that you soak in water and they absorb it and then you freeze them and once they're frozen, you put it in the unit and then you pour. There's a little dish that sits on the top and this thing isn't very big. It's how big? What do you say? Size-wise, this thing would compare to?
Speaker 2:Think of like a hat, maybe like a little bit more of a like, if you were to take two hats and stack them on each other and just like not crush them, but like have them space between them, kind of something like that. Like baseball, yeah, like a baseball hat size, you take two and stack them together, kind of thing. That's probably the rough dimension, to give people a rough idea. Or if you think of like, uh, say, like a soccer ball just slightly, oh, maybe a bowling ball. A bowling ball might be a good, but just kind of square it off a bit and that might be the size of this unit.
Speaker 6:So and what it is is. It's so. You've got this, this, these frozen sponges filled with water, and you place it in the unit, you put the water on top and then for a battery. What I used was I plug in one of my portable battery chargers for my phone. You know those 10,000 or those. We actually picked up 40,000 units for the phone so that when we're off grid we can use this to charge our phone. And that's what runs this little unit.
Speaker 6:Now it's got three fan levels on it and actually it worked very well in keeping the bedrooms, because I had one in each of the bedrooms, because we're off grid and we don't run the generator at night and it was fairly hot and muggy, but this cooled it enough that you could bring the temperature down, so it was bearable.
Speaker 6:And for those people who were like the individual who reached out to me for looking for the bug killer, the mosquito killer, for their camp, this would be ideal.
Speaker 6:Just think of the Chaga camp up north past Sault Ste Marie Garrett. These would work great in those rooms in there for cooling those rooms as well, because they're small enough and basically what I could use is take up a cooler with ice in it, and I don't use ice, we use frozen water bottles. So I take two liter pop bottles, I fill them full of water, put them in the freezer and put them in the coolers and then that keeps everything cold and keeps it cold in the fridge as well. But these little things work great in cooling the room and keeping the temperature down, so it was bearable. Not only that, but you got a good fan blowing on three settings low, medium and high and it has a light on it, and we got two nights out of each of one of these little battery pack things that you plug your phone into to run one of these things, and it worked pretty good. What did you think about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was good, like good concept too, like it doesn't take much power, like I said, like a little portable phone charger thing. You know if on a low setting too, especially like lasted all night. I remember I woke up, um, because I'm kind of hardwired to wake up at like 4 am most times, even though if I'm like in a different time zone, I still manage to wake up at 4 am and go. Well, I guess I can go back to sleep because I don't work today.
Speaker 2:But, um, no good, uh, good temperature, because I am like I'm a person that needs to be studied, I'd say, because even the guys at work they're like how are you wearing a sweater? It's scorching hot. I'm like, well, when it reaches 25, that's when I'll take my sweater off, because that way I can still keep working when it reaches 30, 35 over the summer. So we've had the days where the steel gets so hot it touches your skin and burns yourself, kind of thing. So I try and climatize my body so I can tolerate the heat a bit more. But, yeah, for when I'm sleeping, though, I want it cold. I like sleeping in the cold, I have the best sleeps and for what it was, it definitely did the trick.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I found it to work pretty good. I saw it on Facebook and then I sourced it out. I bought one to try. I tried it in one. I thought it worked pretty good. So I got one for each of the boys' rooms to try when we were in camp, so when the generator was off and there was no fan circulating in the air, this actually worked pretty good in keeping the rooms cool. So it was a good thing. And coming up, we got a little bit of a job to do at the camp. Hey, garrett, what are we doing there with Bert?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back to replace some beans that have a bit of uh, I guess it was a mold or a bit of a rod that happened to him. We're not too sure exactly what happened, but we just got a a place and replace them there. So there's a beam and a post, a bit of rot there that happened, which is that's normal it's. It's a log home, right, so you gotta maintain and upkeep it. Um, but yeah, looking forward to actually getting this done, because something learned, something new to learn and see how things are done and replacing. So every one day when, if I get my own camp or something happens, I know how to do these things and I'm kind of excited for it.
Speaker 6:Yeah, what happens is we got a deck out at the front of the camp and the deck isn't covered where the beams are. So when the snow load comes it sits on these eight by eights. And they're what? Are they? 11 feet long, I think it is. So they're 11 foot eight by eights that hold the deck up, and some rot got in there. Now we got to build a pony wall to hold it up and then take the beams out and replace them.
Speaker 6:But this time I did something a little bit different. I got did you notice? The caps that I have to put on? So I've got caps to go on top of the beam so that the snow won't sit on there, or the rain won't sit on there or rot won't get. Well, it won't get wet because there's not a lot of sun to dry these out underneath the deck there. So the water sits in there and they start to rot. And guess what? I got to replace it.
Speaker 6:So we got eight by eights. I got eight by eights and I tried to get hemlock. But nobody's cutting eight by eight hemlocks in the area, and although I could have got fresh cut ones, but I wasn't sure I wanted fresh cut ones, because if you've carried a hemlock you know it's pretty heavy. But eight by eights we went with red pine and so we'll have 8x8 red pines that Bert will come in, put up a pony wall, jack up the deck above it and then take the beam out, put the new beams in Well, one post we have to put in and then put the beam on and then the caps on top and then put the deck back down on top of it. So it'll be a little bit of a learning experience, but we've got some expertise. Bert's a carpenter by trade and he's used to jerry-rigging a lot of stuff. So we'll see how that goes. Hopefully yourself, myself, bert, and your brother will be able to take that on, but it'll be a learning experience, like you said. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know I have a rough idea how to do it, because when I see these buildings being erected there it's like, yeah, they use tons of support. So I have an idea what to expect. But it's just something I've never done physically myself. I've seen it. But you know something definitely worthwhile to learn, because you never know even your own house. If your own house one day, you know, I gotta replace a post or a beam, some accidents happen, storm came down, tree landed on the house or something like that. Just something good to learn how to do things properly.
Speaker 6:And so the one thing at this camp cottage is, ever since we got the property in 1999, the only thing that I said that I wanted there was a sauna, and I still don't have a sauna going, although we've got rebar now that we can put in the sauna for a poured floor and a drain on it, and I've got logs to cut and hopefully someday we're going to be able to maybe even in the summer Okay, where are we going to put it? Let's put it over here. So guess what? So they started digging to dig it out and then I ended up digging a hole to put where the concrete's going to go, and then it's like, no, let's not put it there, I don't want it there now. So now I have to redo another spot to try and find, and hopefully we'll be able to get my famed sauna.
Speaker 6:For 26 years now, that's all I've wanted up there, but it seems to fall on the back burners when all of a sudden, okay, we got to replace the deck beams, and guess what? We got to replace the cribbing on the decks on the lake because they've gone bad. Now, did you notice what was lying on the decks waiting to go down to the lake? Did you notice what?
Speaker 2:was lying on the decks waiting to go down to the lake. No, I didn't notice that. But you know I got the willing need to shovel some stuff. If I want to pick the spot and I got time, I can shovel it out this weekend or coming up here.
Speaker 6:Well, no, what was on the deck was the 4x4s for the cribbing.
Speaker 6:So we'll build some cribbing so we can start building it and we don't have ice movement at the lake that destroys cribs.
Speaker 6:So the cribs that we had just kind of aged out, we put those in, we brought the property, so they're like pretty close to 20-25 years old and they need replacing.
Speaker 6:So we got hemlock 4x4's, we'll drill it and then we'll connect it all and then we'll put two small and then we'll put, uh, we'll put two small cribs one will be like, uh, probably, oh, four feet by five feet and two of those out and then put the dock on top of that so it doesn't have a strong impact and we don't have ice movement that takes these things out and we'll be able to. And then on top of that I've bought enough of floats to build a floating dock. So the first section and the next section will be basically sitting on cribbing and then after that we'll have a floating dock out there, which I've got the wood and I've got the floats now. But priority is we got to get the beams done for the deck before we move to next phase, which will take the summer as well well, that's good to hear, because I've got a nice fancy boat that I've had for a few years.
Speaker 2:Now that I've, uh, probably invested too much money I shouldn't say online, because people go well, I mean, hobbies are important but you know how can you spend ten thousand dollars on this unit and setup and you haven't even gone fishing in a year. So I always feel bad about that. But it'd be nice to have a nice spot to put the boat there so I can go fishing a little bit more yeah, so.
Speaker 6:So what are you doing afterwards then? Gary, you're working on your boat, because you had dad pick it up. Uh, from from. Uh. Well, we had the maple syrup guy, one of the guys we had on, jeff Wagner. He did a podcast with her and I was able to get Jeff to store your boat there, but Dad had to go pick it up and bring it back. So it's back now, and now you're going to get it ready. Are you going to get any fishing time in while you're here?
Speaker 2:Well, the whole thing when I came back is I want at least one day to go fishing. So I'm probably going to spend the rest of the day after this podcast cleaning the boat up, running some new cables and wires, because, um, I took the system apart before just. Uh, well, I don't want to leave it outside in the winter in the elements there. And the other thing is I want to do a bit of ice fishing because I bought the, the live scope system there and our good friend angela voile was telling me all about it and you know, even though it's a game-changing unit, it still takes some time to figure it out and I just haven't had the time to spend to really learn it all yet. So it's something I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'll be cleaning the boat out, running wires, reinstalling the fish finers and reinstalling the trolling motor. I got with the iPilot and everything else. That way I can spot lock and things like that. As I hear like stuff like that and huge advancements in fishing is really making it more enjoyable, especially for people like me, that I only get maybe a weekend or two every month or so to go out and go do a bit of fishing. So it's nice to not spend my entire day trying to read a lake and study a lake and learn all the stuff where I can go. Hey, I can see the fish.
Speaker 6:I'm gonna stay here and stay on the fish because you know I only got four hours today, so it'd be nice to catch a fish if that's all the time I got so, with all those lures that show up at the house boxes of, I don't know where they're coming from, but, uh, you're ordering all these and what kind of fishing you're gonna get out to do, garrett, while you're here.
Speaker 2:Well, all those boxes and stuff, they're all custom lures that are meant for muskie fishing. Because I got hooked on muskie fishing pretty bad, because the first ever muskie I remember catching was a 46 or 48. No, it was 46. A 46-inch muskie. That was just absolutely a beast of a fish and the excitement and the rush I got was like going deep sea fishing and hooking a marlin, because it was just, it ran, it was fighting, you see, a jump out of the lake. Oh, it was just an exciting time. And I remember yelling at the guy I was fishing with get it in the boat, get in the net, and we're. And we're not thinking we're going to catch a muskie that big, because we're not. We're in a spot that's not known for catching muskie this big. So the net I brought was only good for maybe a 40 inch muskie at most, but no, it barely fit in the net and we got it on and it was exciting.
Speaker 2:So now I discovered all this new industries of muskie fishing now and people make a lot of custom baits. So there's a lot of baits out there that people do raffles for, because each some of these baits are, like you know, five hundred dollars kind of thing. So what they'll people will do is they'll go 50 spots at ten dollars or they'll go let's go 90 spots at thirteen dollars, depending on what the bundles they are in packages. So some of these baits I win, some of these baits I get. I've ordered a custom, uh, two custom baits now, um, because I heard that they were like the hot colors to get, and it's, people don't really sell those ones, so you can order it and and I've gotten shipped to the house now.
Speaker 2:So I don't think I'll be going musky fishing, though I don't think I have the time to really get out there, and especially when I'm just trying to get all my boats set up, because I think I just want to catch some fish. So I'm probably going to go bass fishing, probably going to do a little bit of trout fishing, um, see if I can catch a rainbow trout or two. And probably, uh, I would like to have, like, if I can get a walleye or a pickerel I might say walleye, but a walleye would be nice, uh, especially get a good eating one, because I haven't had a nice walleye shore lunch in a while now.
Speaker 6:So well, I gotta tell you when, when my son, our sons, were young they were just small we would go out on a lake and I'd take a cooler filled with water and hooks and bobbers and we would go to a little rock shore to catch panfish, sunfish, rock bass and things like that, and then we would catch them live, release them inside the cooler and this is when they're like three years old and all that did was inspire them to go fishing and it's a great way to get kids involved in the outdoors and at the end of the day we would let those, all those panfish, back in that spot and the next day or the day after we'd be back there again catching the same fish and, lo and behold, they'd be playing with them in the cooler and having a great time.
Speaker 6:But it's a way to get them involved in the outdoors and a way to get them going. And guess what? It's now late 20s and he's still fishing and still involved. But $500 a lure are you crazy? Holy, mackerel Must be nice. You must be doing okay in Edmonton working the rebar to be able to even contemplate that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, when you work the hours I do, you got to sit back and appreciate some things. So it's nice, I don't mind working hard, but I just want to go and do my little thing, my little fishing trip, every once in a while. So I appreciate that stuff and I work hard to make sure I can afford those things. But God knows if I get one of those baits snagged or something, especially if a friend goes in and is like how much are you going to go jump in the lake for that bait or are you going to pay me out, kind of thing, because those ones you jump in after four and you spend all day getting back.
Speaker 6:Anyways, that's great to hear, as always, garrett, it's great to have you back. It's great to get the updates. I, it's great to have you back. It's great to get the updates. I hope our listeners appreciate that. It was interesting with those mini air conditioner kind of things and all it was was a good fan blowing over some iced sponges and a little bit of cold water on top. So it worked great in keeping the rooms down and it's great to be back up at the camp and hopefully you'll be able to get your boat cleaned out and get it in the water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, always excited to be home here, always excited to be able to see friends and family and, yeah, like I said, spend the rest of the day cleaning the boat up. I got to run a couple lines, reattach the live scope to the boat there and more or less just give it a good cleaning because it's sat there for a bit now.
Speaker 6:So I'm just going to clean it out and make sure it's all good to go Awesome. Well, just an update from what's happening with my podcast partner, garrett. Great to hear from him, and it's just a little something different out there that we're learning under the canopy. Thanks, garrett.
Speaker 4:How did a small-town sheet metal mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges? I'm your host, steve Nitzwicky, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Journal Radio Network's newest podcast, diaries of a Lodge Owner. But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people, share their stories of our trials, tribulations and inspirations, learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.
Speaker 2:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be for more fishing than it was punching.
Speaker 6:You so confidently? You said hey.
Speaker 4:Pat, have you ever eaten a drum? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.