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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 116: Field Lessons For Nature, Work, And Wellness
The forest got quiet, the stove finally drew right, and our maps changed overnight. We’re gearing up for a northern chaga harvest and bringing you into the decisions that make or break a trip: who’s coming, what to pack, and how new logging roads, landings, and skidders can open a backcountry maze if you know how to read them. We walk through the trade-offs between staying unplugged and bringing Starlink to keep the crew connected and safe, and we test a drone as a scouting tool to spot birch stands before burning miles on bad trails.
Gear talk gets real: climbing with spurs and a double-lanyard system, using a specialty hatchet and pinch bar to leave trees healthy, and catching heavy conks in haul bags to protect the harvest. We share a complete curing routine—why canvas beats plastic, why you cut within 24 hours, and how to hand-clean for a smoother cup—to help you turn fieldwork into quality tea or coffee add-ins. A long-time user drops a candid testimonial, and there’s a simple code you can use if you want to try chaga yourself.
Then we pivot from forest floors to foundations. Garrett, working as a rodbuster on a major hospital expansion in Red Deer, breaks down piles, footings, crane bases, and why rebar is the skeletal strength inside concrete. You’ll learn how tension, shear, and compression play together in bridges and slabs, and how those same principles inform a smarter sauna base with reinforced drainage on exposed shield rock. Along the way, we even decode why highway sweepers matter more than you think and how veneer logs become plywood after a steam and spin.
If you love practical backcountry systems, modern field tools, and hard-won building insights, this one’s for you.
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_13:Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.
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SPEAKER_11: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 Oulette, and I was honored 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 this 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. Well, as always, we're thanking our guests, Canada wide, all through North America, the Caribbean, through Europe, Africa as well. Appreciate all that. And as usual, any questions? Any ideas for shows? Let us know. We see what we can do. Well, it's been usual now, and it's it's getting that uh time of the year where well the colors are changing, the leaves are starting to fall, and to be honest, last weekend the leaves were pretty much off everywhere. Up at uh the uh our place up kind of halfway between Halliburton and Bancroft, for those who know the area and see that. Uh all the the events and Lindsay and Halliburton are finished for now until we get into some Christmas events. So I won't be seeing a lot of those people, but uh we got some stuff done at the camp there. I got uh we had a great company command. We had um a company command to put in a um stove pipe for us. Now we got a wood stove, had it at the camp, but for have it forever and a day and the hymns and haws, and I got prices and this and that. Okay, let me see it in writing. And when uh when the quote came in, it was twice as much as they said. But I gotta tell you this uh company that uh we used did a great job and were very cost effective. They came in essentially within eleven dollars of what um what the they they they thought it would be just by guesstimating how much it was going to be. So that was pretty good. And now they um they were all in and and it worked out very, very well. So uh a bit of a a shout out from uh Halliburton Highlands Chimney Services, who did a great job in in uh putting up our chimney that took uh uh what was it, uh 10, 12 hours of of work between uh a couple uh to get it all up. So on the weekend we had our our first fires in the uh wood stove and it cranked it out pretty good. So we gotta wait till the real cold weather comes in to see how it's gonna really be like. But you know, they did a good job, and it just uh good wood stove. We're burning a lot of good, dry hardwood, a lot of maple and beech. We're uh and what else we have some yellow birch that we were burning, which is gives off some pretty good high heat. I gotta tell you, you know, um uh gunner's is uh normal self, sorta kinda. And what I mean by that is, well, we're on dog watch now. We got three dogs at the house. So we got Gunner, of course, our chocolate lab. We've got Josh's dog, because Josh's is down south with uh Casey. So we got Benny there, who's a cockapoo, and it took a while. You know, he's a little territorial, but ball crazy, and so long as he has a ball around, it's no good. But don't let another dog touch his ball. Otherwise, he goes nuts. And then we got Belle, which is Garrett and Brittany's dog, and Belle is a dobe, Doberman, and just a little bit cranky and trying to figure out her place and everything else, but I think after the weekend she kind of fit in pretty good with the dogs. But Gunnar feels right out of sorts because he's allowed one chair, the dog chair in the living room, and now all of a sudden there's all these other dogs in the one chair, and he just looks and he goes and sulks, and he does not like it at all, but he's getting used to it. So, what's happening? So, we're getting ready to go up and do a pick, a harvest up uh northern Ontario. And Garrett's going with me. Welcome to the podcast, Garrett.
SPEAKER_03:Hi, welcome. Uh, thanks for having me. Always appreciate being here on the podcast. And yeah, it's always nice to be home, especially at this time of year when the leaves are changing and it's uh just beautiful scenery outside, and the weather is that nice sweater weather, so you can always be comfy and work hard and not have to worry about sweating and taking layers off because it's just the weather's that perfect temperature for work.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, so uh it's in the planning stages, and that's the hard part, because we got quite a few pickers and and quite a few um harvesters for the check in. We get as many as, oh, when you start factoring everybody in, it looks like a total of about 11. But uh it's imms and ahs, so I called Pierre, who's been on. Oh, is that this weekend? Oh, I forgot uh I got my buddies coming in, so okay, how do I plan a meal for that? And then uh others as well. Well, I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make it in the long list, and like I said, try to plan. So when you're planning these things, I plan meals, but I also normally what I do is I get up to the camp, usually the months before, sometime in September, but wasn't able to this year. It just did not work out with everything going on. And normally I go up and I say, okay, how many paper plates are left over? I gotta tell you, we use paper plates because it got to be whining and bitching and complaining about who did the dishes and who did this and who did that. So guess what? We went with paper plates. No dishes to be washed. We went with the uh the the wooden forks and knives and spoons. Guess what goes into the fire afterwards or into the sauna? And all that stuff gets burned, and it's just that much less work for everybody to to hassle about. Otherwise, I gotta figure out, okay, whose turn is it to do this and why haven't you done the dishes yet? The usual stuff. So but normally I get up there in September and I just didn't get a chance to find out, okay, how much propane do we have? Is there enough propane for the stove and the heater and for the lights? Is there gas for the generator? Is the generator running? How about the sauna? Is I know I got to replace the pipe. Did I left it there last year, but I'm not sure they replaced it or not, so I got some more section of sauna pipe to go in. And all the other things that go around with the paper towels, the toilet paper, the cups, you name it. We try to figure it all out. But those are all things that uh we kind of look forward to. And and and then the other thing is we got some new stuff. And Gary, you were talking about some of the forest companies that are up there and cutting new roads and how you like to see that stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's always exciting every time you go up when the logging companies and the forest companies are in there clearing new trails or cutting new uh new slashes, new areas out, new growth for animals to come in and feed. Mainly uh up where we're going is pretty much moose feed it there, I'd say. But yeah, I always like that because it allows you to explore more of the area that you never knew existed. Gives you a different perspective of how the area looks, you know, before and after sometimes, where they would go back in and clear out old trails or clear in new trails. So I remember um up at the uh plantation road there where they had a big tree growth going on. And I remember it was there's always a rundown trail about half a mile in or so on the right hand side, and you'd always look down there and be like, yeah, it looks like something went down there 30, 40, 50 years ago. And you know, a couple years ago they clear that trail out, and next thing you know, you follow it down and see how far it goes, and you get up to this little hill, which is more or less a they call it a mountain out here, but in in DC or in Calgary, they call it a hill. But uh here you climb the mountain, the next thing you know, you're in the top of the ridge there, and you look out and you see this you're in a giant valley, and you can see for miles and miles, you see the last bit of the color of the trees with the leaves on it still all falling down, and it's just a nice sight to see. So it's I always like exploring those new trails because you never know what kind of was around the corner there.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, Rolly and I were up, but uh last year or two years ago when they cut a new road in, because they were logging a huge a thousand uh acre sector, and and it's select harvesting there. So what they'll do is they'll come in in their contract maybe for say birch or poplar or maple, and then they'll go in and take all the poplars or the maples or the birch and still leave huge sections of of other forested there. But uh when they cut the roads, all of a sudden there were these huge boulders in on the roads. And we we call this uh I can't remember it was seven, I think it was seven or seven and a half, where they would gone in and done huge extension extension on the roads. And so we saw the guys and they said, Well, what did you put the boulders on the on the road for? And they said, Well, we um we do that when we cut a new road to keep the vehicles out of there until it dries up and and hardens up a bit so we can get all our logging equipment down there. So I imagine all those sections there will have all new areas, and quite frankly, the loggers go in first, they cut the new roads and uh to get access into this remote area, and then the prospectors go in and they start prospecting to find out what kind of minerals in there. And one of the big things where we go is it's pretty much gravel. As soon as you take the top off the uh the material on the road and all that, it's all gravel there, so it's it's pretty good. So, and then uh you get uh all the other people coming in afterwards, whether it's people accessing the fishing or access to wildlife there and a lot of different things, or the Chaga pickers coming in. So uh a couple years ago, Rolly and I were down there and we went, uh of course you can get around these boulders by ATV, which we use a lot of. So we get a lot of ATVs and we run a lot of grids. And what I mean by that is that uh we'll take a topographical map, and in the map we'll do this section over here, and then when there's new trails in there, that's where we spur off those trails. Not only that, but when they're logging, you'll get all these logging, these skitter trails, and we work the skitter trails. And it's it's uh just like you said, Garrett, uh on Monday. Was it Monday or Sunday where you said you walk down that trail there up at uh our camp down here, and you said it opens up pretty good. There's a nice spot there, you can see, for miles and miles and miles.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, um I believe it was on the Sunday there because we came back uh Monday afternoon there for for supper and to have supper with the family and everything else. So yeah, they cut it good. Um there's three or four turnaround spots there, so I think they do a turnaround every couple miles, so it's gotta be a good, I don't know, eight mile, ten mile road kind of thing. But yeah, it's definitely you get up on that ridgetop and you can see pretty far out. I didn't know if you noticed or not, but there was a big pond or a glorified pond in a way, a small lake, perhaps. But uh yeah, it was a nice area.
SPEAKER_11:Right where we saw the dough?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, right where we saw the dough, right at the end of the trail there, where it just, you know, the the classic urge to I need to get over that last ridge to see where I'm going, because I just I want to see what it is on the other side of this hill. And next thing you know, you you keep saying it and then keep saying it, and then you look back and you're like, Well, I just went 20 miles into the bush. Well, I guess it's time to make my way out, even though it's probably pitch black in 30 seconds here.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, that's pretty normal. We always got to know. Well, uh, what was happening was they were logging in an area not too far from our place uh between Bancroft and Halberton. And I know the logger, uh Terry, he's a pretty good guy. And so we went down the logging road, and uh every, I don't know, like probably half a kilometer, maybe a kilometer, they have a a landing site. And what a landing site is, is when they they're cutting the trees, they cut them and then they strip them and they cut them to length. So they're if it's uh uh veneer logs are nine foot four inches long, for number one stick. Now, number one stick is a minimum diameter with no branches or curves in it, and that allows to work for veneer logs. Now, veneer logs, what they do with veneer logs, and say it's a birch log, so it's nine feet four inches long, and they will soak the they will take the logs, and so long as there's no um curves in the log past a certain degree or there's no excess large branches coming off, because that uh wrecks the veneer wood, then what they do is they take these and they will load them, bring them out to a specific site called a a loading area, and then they'll load those on the trailer, the the trucks with a cherry picker, which is kind of a a claw that comes down and grabs the logs and then loads it under the back of the under the truck. And then they'll uh take these logs and then they'll take them to a mill. Now the veneer logs will get soaked in a in kind of like a steam bath kind of thing, until they swell up a bit, and then they kind of use like a like a shaver kind of thing almost, or they clamp the ends, that's why it's nine foot four inches long, and then they spin it and they shave off a very thin layer of veneer that would go on plywood, say. And they use those for veneer logs. But then you have your other logs, which is uh a lot of different lengths, could be eight foot lengths for uh for your two by fours, your uh dimensional wood, your two by fours, two by sixes, two by eights, and that kind of stuff. And so where they have all these landing sites, and then you can go past the landing sites, and and that's where you they open up a lot of new country. But you know, so long as it's high and dry, it's pretty good. But a lot of that one is quite a bit of different soil, eh, Garrett, where we were compared to up north?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, one of the things I was noticing for sure is I was like the road's a lot softer, and it almost just looked like they're just putting sand out in the way. But you know, there wasn't any gravel in it or any really big rocks or anything to see in the area there. Like we are in the Canadian Shield there, but there's not like uh any gravel source. It was just all sand. And you know, sometimes you think there if it was to get rain or whatever, it would wash it out. But it seems to be that sand's pretty much the only thing they can get there at a vast amount or a affordable price where when they do make these rows and trails into there so they can haul the logs out.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, down down where we are, it's it's mostly a sand-based area, so there's a lot of sand there. And up north where you know we go up near Chapleau, uh, where we're uh doing a harvest, ch Chaga harvest. And up there it's it's mostly gravel, which is is as soon as you take the the top off, like I said, well, you got a road right there because it's all gravel. Uh but you know there's a lot of other stuff that uh we're taking. So what do you think about uh the the taking the Starlink say up, Garrett?
SPEAKER_03:I always get mixed feelings about taking Starlink up. Like part of me enjoys the nostalgia of going out and not having self-service and not being able to check things and everything else. But at the same time, it's also a good convenience to have because you never know when something's going on or you never know what emergencies are happening, and you want to be able to keep in contact at a reasonable uh level there. So I think the Starlink's good. I mean, it kind of sucks at dinner time because everyone goes on their phone when they should be cooking meals and sharing old hunting tales and stories and things like that, or teaching you life lessons about who knows what, because uh always seems to be a random topic will come up, and sometimes it's about fishing, sometimes it's about getting in a bar fight, sometimes it's about, you know, standing your ground kind of thing when a bear's charging at you or a polar bear's looking at you and hunting you down. So it's always uh a good time to share those stories. And so it's like, yeah, Starlink's good, especially if you're trying to bring younger people into the camp there because it seems to be the numbers are dwindling and it's harder to get people out, and that's because also the world right now is it's a busy world and people gotta make money to afford things in the world.
SPEAKER_11:Well, yeah, so Starlink is that um So it's it's a remote satellite hookup that we we took up one year. And uh the boys being uh Josh and Garrett uh wanted to watch football as they got their Sunday football and Monday night football.
SPEAKER_03:It's important, you know. You gotta you know keep an eye on that. I can't keep doing these fantasy punishments every year, so it's very important for that stuff.
SPEAKER_11:So so yeah, so we brought up Starlink, the one year Josh did anyways, and and hooked it up. And uh it it was a bit entertaining because uh we're in the middle of nowhere. We've got no we're not on the grid. There's no hydro there. It's uh strict camp, but it worked great. It ran off a actually the last one we had was uh just about a thousand watt generator, which isn't very much. So all we run basically run is lights off the generator and uh not much else in the radio. And uh then we had Starlink. So Starlink and that uh that uh like Garrett said, it's we need some youth coming into the camp. So we've been trying to get Dean, the producer there, but he's uh right now he's out on the East Coast doing a uh a shoot with Fish and Canada guys, and then we tried Sean, the Sean guy was supposed to come and and Pierre, anyways. So we're we we try to entice guys up, and if that's what it's gonna take to bring them out, bring in Starlink, then we'll have the Starlink there because that's what we use actually between Halliburton and Bancroft is Starlink, and it works pretty it works very well, actually. So Josh was actually doing his work from his laptop with Starlink there and uh doing all his stuff uh right at uh the the cottage, the camp down here. And the same up north. So when he was up north, he had uh the Starlink and it let him do work as well while he was in the camp in the middle of nowhere. And it's it's like a lot of people. I would say to some that uh listen, um, the only way I got service now is I'm crossing the top of a ridge and I got a service here, and well, as soon as I take two steps down, I'll be out of service. So um I'll get back to you as soon as I can. But Starlink's one of the things, and then we got a new toy that we're trying to look for Chagga with. And what do you think about the new toy, Garrett? Or do you remember what it is?
SPEAKER_03:I remember what it is, and it's it's a fun toy. It's interesting. It's definitely uh when you use it and get familiar with it, it's definitely something that's exciting, especially uh, you know, for the soft people out there that want to record what they're doing to spread their knowledge and put it out there on the internet kind of thing, or YouTube and or podcasts to let you know what's going on. And it's uh it's a drone there that you got, and I believe I can't remember the model of it, but it's quite the uh nifty little gadget. And the fact that, like you said, if you're uh a fishing person and you want to do some overhead shots of the lake and explain the body of water and the wind, how the wind will affect the lake and something like that, you know, you can put it on yourself and it'll follow you around the lake for a couple few minutes there so you can guide yourself through things. And it's a handy tool to have, and definitely the picture quality is amazing because when the first time we ever used it, you'd you know, you'd go up a couple miles up in the sky or even more, because uh you almost get too uh too high, you can't even see the thing anymore. But yeah, it's the quality is really nice, the sharpness of it, how effective it is using, and definitely for chag at picking, like you could definitely look for birch trees and then fly it down and go, uh, is there chag in this area? Is it worth while you know doing the 20-mile hike through it and searching for this quadrant kind of thing? So I definitely think it's uh a good tool to have for us.
SPEAKER_11:Aaron Powell Well, it's something new. And in and half of it is learning how to use it. I know the the big problem I have with uh the the drone is I can't see it. Is it gone? Is it gone? Am I gonna lose it? You know, is it uh there goes all the money that we just put into it. Where is it? Where is it? Quick, Garrett, Josh, get over here, get this drone back, I can't see it. And you know, we've been testing it for a while, but it it's a very interesting tool that I'm gonna try and see how we might be able to use uh utilize it for a pick and chagga and see if we can decrease the amount of time that we spend. Like I just finished saying, we spend a lot of time doing grids and uh other areas and skidding trails and stuff like that. So this will help out in hopefully reducing the amount of time that, okay, don't go down this skidder trail because there's no birch down there, so don't waste your time. Or go down this one because there's a lot of birch down there. And yeah, if we can once I learn how to use it, it's it's a bit iffy in the windy days because it doesn't like wind, but it seems to work pretty good for a lot of other things. So we've been testing it and trying it, and it's just like, oh, go take it, go over here, go over there, do that. And and the it comes with three battery packs, and each battery runs about 20 minutes. So and it tells you, okay, returning to home base, returning to uh uh this area here because the battery's low and stuff like that, which is good, because uh I get a little bit of panic. And I know Pierre was uh Pierre was on a couple times on the different podcasts, he picked up one to um to look for logs when he's cutting trees. So he's got a big piece of property, and in order to get through the property, uh do we go over to this area because there's any spruce pine fir in that area or not? And he uses the drone to determine that. But he's like me and concerned that it's gonna fly away or it's not coming back, and then it's a big investment that's just gone on a short notice. So we're gonna try that out. And some of the other stuff that we need uh to take up, Garrett.
SPEAKER_03:Well, there's always the my favorite tools because it allows me to get up into good advantage points and see uh what's around. But there's the spurs, the harvesting equipment, um hatchets. I'm pretty sure I broke a hatchet last year, so I've got to replace one of those, which I don't know if I did or not already. But gotta check over the spurs, check to make sure they're sharp, harnesses, the belts, um all the ropes and stuff like that if we need to use it, limb cutters just in case you need to get around one or two limbs, depending on how the tree grows. There's a quite a list there, and you know, you want to make sure you're doing things safe. At the same time, you want to make sure you're doing things effectively. So uh trusting your equipment, going over it's definitely important to have there. But yeah, I would say hard uh spurs are gonna be one of the biggest things because to get those show pieces or the good quality pieces, and the ones that usually uh are those good quality pieces you want to harvest are probably a good, you know, 20, 30 feet up in the sky.
SPEAKER_11:So yeah, I had uh Nate, I was talking with Nate, was one of my pickers, and and he doesn't have spurs. I don't know if he does spurring at all, but he was saying that, you know, there's a lot of the ones that uh um they're picking Jagga. He had to go back and get a ladder to get up the ladder to get some of them, but the really high ones he doesn't get. So I was saying, you know, well, we use spurs. And every time, uh, you know, I can remember a couple times there, um, I don't want to put the spurs on us. Okay, I'll put them on. And as soon as Dad uh says that, the boys say, Oh, no, no, Dad, I'll do it, I'll do it, okay. But uh a long time ago I used to do a lot of spurring, which was a lot of fun. And you and you know, it's like anything, you got to make sure you're safe as well. So we're climbing there with the safety belts and the harnesses and stuff like that. And then like Garrett would just finish saying, it's it takes a little bit to try and get around some of the branches. And and how do you do that? Or some of the big ones?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's the big ones there that you know we don't like to remove limbs and stuff like that unless we necessarily have to, which most of the time it's just small ones that would eventually get grown out or overtaken, they would die off anyways. But the big ones there, I use a double belt system. So how that works is or a double lanyard system. So when you go up a tree, you'll get to that limb as close as you can, then you take your your second belt, you put it over top of that limb, and then you re connect that one, disconnect your old one, and then you can keep climbing the tree up. But again, doing that stuff with tools that aren't necessarily up to date, or stuff that I use, for example, in my field of work, which are very quicker and efficient because they design things to be all quick release and everything else, it takes a lot of time. So you when we sit there and say, Oh, maybe that one's not quite worth it, because you know, it would take us half an hour to pick the one and we could go walk the woods for another half an hour and maybe find a bunch more. But it's always a debate, and most of the time we end up getting it because I never feel like leaving one behind. But you know, there's uh it's it's a lot, and it takes some time to trust yourself. And the biggest thing I'd give people advice out there is trust your gear. You know, like do it, do uh get off the ground for two feet and hang off your harness or hang off the belt. Just trust your gear that's gonna hold your weight or hold your, you know, not gonna snap on you or to take the pressure, the tension that you might put on it. So just, you know, do a little test, be able to trust your gear better, because once you trust your gear, you're gonna feel a lot more confident going up 20, 30 feet.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, and uh like you Garrett mentioned, we we take um kind of like hatchets, and I have a specialty hatchet one there with uh it's got like a hatchet on one side of it, and on the back side it's like a flat hammer, and then on the top it's like a pinch bar. So we'll go around the chaga, leaving some on the tree, and then put the pinch bar in and pop it off. And and and then it gets interesting as well. And we we've had to do a couple different uh tries, but when he's 30 feet up and he's got a I don't know even a 10-pound chaga, how do you get it to the ground if you can't carry it down? You gotta throw it down. So we don't want to do that. So what we do is we get uh we have our um our our haul bags. So we'll we'll take a haul bag, we'll stretch it out, and then catch it in that like a kind of a uh like a baseball glove kind of thing. And um so it uh has a soft impact to to maximize uh the the the amount of integrity of the chag and we don't do any damage to it. But yeah, so we'll be out with all our harvesting gear in our packs and and we don't use plastic. Um we use uh we have basically canvas bags to make sure they breathe. Otherwise uh the the moisture content is still high. And this is uh basically the end of October, November when we're doing our harvest for a lot of it. So uh there's no sap in the tree at that time, and we make sure that uh it minimizes the uh uh the uh the amount of moisture in for uh potential for secondary growth, mold growth on it, which we don't want. And then as soon as we get back to camp, we'll put it in curing racks right away to start that process. So they start drying right away. And uh for those people that harvest their own, I always tell people come in and they say, Look, what do I do with this? I said, Look, within 24 hours of harvesting a chaga, cut it up into walnut-sized pieces and then let it cure that way. And what happens is it'll lose 40 to 55 percent of its weight when it's curing because of the moisture content, and once it's cured, you can take those walnut-sized pieces and only one piece and put it in a good quality coffee bean grinder, and you can take it down to the grade of material you want. But you got to get all the impurities off it being the bark or anything like that. And quite frankly, every one of our pieces gets hand polished before it goes through the machinery to make sure that oh, there's there's no uh you could find uh spruce needles, cedar needles, you could find all kind of stuff in there. So we clean all that out and it gets rid of any of the potential bitterness that might be affiliated with it.
SPEAKER_09: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.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Every Thursday, Angela will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio.
SPEAKER_09:Hmm. Now, what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week?
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.
SPEAKER_04:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.
SPEAKER_10:From athletes to all the other guys would go golfing. Me and Garcie and Turk, and all the Russians would go fishing.
SPEAKER_05:But now that we're reforesting away things, it's the perfect transmission environment for line decisions.
SPEAKER_06:Game isn't cooked properly, marinated, or you will taste it.
SPEAKER_09:And whoever else can pick up the phone. Wherever you are, Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy the outside.
SPEAKER_01:Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_11:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, we're here in Lindsay, Ontario, with Rusty, who's up from California and visits us every year. And Rusty has been a faithful Chaga user for a long time. Rusty, maybe you can just tell us about your experience with Chaga.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I feel that it's had a significant impact on my health and well-being. I believe in what I'm doing. I think that Jerry is very knowledgeable on it. If he says something, I take that very seriously. He has spent most of his life in the healthcare field and uh and certainly knows what he's talking about. And I like to be around people like that because that's what keeps me healthy. And uh I'm 80 now, and uh uh I'm gonna try to enjoy what I what I've created with the motorcycle and one thing or another, which will require that I live for at least another 10 years to get back what I've invested in my health and wellness.
SPEAKER_11:So you're seeing a you're seeing a big benefit from it, an overall uh healthy uh environment. And when when you go back to California next month, you actually take it quite a bit with you back to California, don't you?
SPEAKER_02:Oh yes, we're gonna be there for eight months, and we don't want to run out. Uh so we take it back and we take it every day. And uh, you know, I uh you know I like I say it's not a problem for me.
SPEAKER_11:Right. Uh so how do you take it, uh Rusty?
SPEAKER_02:I put a a tablespoon or a teaspoon rather uh in my coffee each morning. Okay. When I brew the coffee, and I put it in as the coffee's brewing, I put that in with it.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, very good.
SPEAKER_02:And uh I put a little bit of cinnamon in with it too.
SPEAKER_11:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And uh then I I sweeten my coffee because take the bitterness, a little bit of bitterness. I use the chaga uh and uh uh maple mix very good uh that you make up for those that want to be well and stay well.
SPEAKER_11:Okay, well, thanks very much. We appreciate you taking the time and sharing your chaga experience with you, and we'll make sure you have a safe trip back to California.
SPEAKER_02:Sure enough. All right, okay, Jerry. Yeah, thanks, Rusty. Thanks, sir. My pleasure.
SPEAKER_11:We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and 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, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, place a few items in the cart, and check out with the code CANAPY. 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. But Garrett, you're back here in Ontario. Um, you're working uh in Red Deer, Alberta. What's going on in Red Deer, Alberta?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, they have a pretty exciting uh project there for the community, especially the town when it's growing in population there, and they're putting up a uh necessarily not necessarily new hospital, but it's a new extension of the hospital they're putting in for I believe it's over a hundred beds they're gonna add for uh clients there or for potential patients. I believe it's eight operating rooms. Um I believe there's a triage area there which is designed to have a 10-person triage. It's relatively going to be a very big unit. Um construction time for us there, for my field, they said probably a prediction of around a year and a half to two years. And then overall project, it I'm not entirely sure how long it takes because it is a hospital wing, so I don't know the ins and outs of uh inspections and qualities and how much how long it takes to set up all the gears, but uh it'll take a while before everything gets clicking there. Um they're still digging the holes out right now.
SPEAKER_11:So, what exactly for those that haven't heard uh you on the podcast before, what is exactly it is it that you do just so people get an understanding of what it is all about?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so for people that don't know, I'm an iron worker. I specialize in rod busting, or a rodbuster is what we call ourselves. Um I'm a registered what?
SPEAKER_11:What's an iron worker?
SPEAKER_03:An iron worker is those that pretty much do the skeleton work of a building. So if you were to go into more commonly, say like a superstore, Walmart, shopping center, things like that, and you'll see the steel erection of the building, that's what a structural iron worker would be doing. If you see concrete work, so say concrete columns or even the floors, concrete walls. I do all the reinforcement work for the concrete. So we're kind of like the skeleton of the building or the bones of a human body in comparison like that. So what I was doing up in Red Deer there is they're still digging it out. So we're what we're doing is called piles and footings. And the pile is pretty much it's a big, long, sometimes 18 meters, sometimes it's 10, sometimes it's nine, depends on the design and density of the soil. They go into the ground, that will help condense the soil. So when all the weight of everything else in the building goes on it, that upward pressure from the soil will keep the building standing. And that's the most design here north, more commonly in North America. And so right now we're doing footings, and footings go on top of those piers where they connect the base of the building as anchor points now. And so we did a big uh a big footing, got a couple small ones going on, and then we did a crane base, which I people don't really know notice when a crane is erected, there's the base of the crane is actually part of the building, or turn, or sometimes turns into part of the building, depends on the limited of space. So sometimes when they take it out where the crane stood or the crane was connected to each floor, all the floors then get filled in with an infill slab and they finish the building off like that. But for us, we're doing a crane base there, so that's about I couldn't tell you how tall it was, but it's probably about five feet thick of concrete, and where the crane will actually sit, they have huge bars that will connect into the base of the concrete and the top of the concrete that will help anchor the building. So it's quite the process there. And the best way to describe some of the anchor bars that go into it, it's kind of like a giant old-fashioned mustache. And this mustache is like a rebar that will loop through the top base of the con of the those anchors that sit from the crane base, and then they'll connect into the slab, spreading out the weight. So it helps really pinpoint where that crane's gonna be sitting because the arch of the mustache will actually create tension in the concrete, which will help pin the building or pin the crane down for downwards pressure to keep it stabilized. As a lot of people don't notice, when the crane's up in the air, though, they sway back a good couple feet and people think, oh, that's a solid thing. It's like, no, they've got good movement in there, so they need a lot of anchorage there to keep them standing, keep them in a still position there.
SPEAKER_11:So when when they built like because you built some bridges here down here over the 401 and the 407. Not the 407, uh 407? Oh, okay. So um a lot of those bridges all have concrete in them. But I thought concrete was concrete and was solid, and you don't need to add anything else in there. When I first I really didn't think about it, to be honest. So the the the the rebar that you work, um actually what what does what is its function to keep it all together somehow?
SPEAKER_03:Well it's to keep it all together, but concrete may be strong in certain areas, so it might be strong in compression. It also depends on the quality of the concrete as well. You can get concrete that withstand X amount of pounds of pressure, but what they always do is in Canada we build things to be a hundred times its necessary weight or necessary call of duty for what it's supposed to handle. So what we do is rebar adds stability, adds tensile strength, adds a bit of compression strength, adds shear strength. So shear is like when two forces that once wants to separate and pull away from each other. So say you have one side of the bridge, the other side of the bridge. If those were to ever sink or get washed out in a way, instead of just having a complete collapse, that sheer snapping and pulling of separation, rebar helps keep it all together and hold it more stable and pretty much as stabilizes the bridge. So rebar adds a lot of structural integrity strength to a bridge. But there's also different kinds of bridge designs as well. So there's post-tension, pre-tension, which is a whole new concept of running big cables through those kinds, sometimes those steel girders, sometimes they're concrete girders, which looks like the ribs underneath the bridge. And there's big cables that will go through those things, and then they are stretched and pulled in more or less like a wavelength, because when it's pulling and it's on the say the peak of that, that peak wants to, you know, bend down because it wants to straighten out. But if you put concrete on there, it's adding downward force, and usually that you want that downward force over top of the columns that are holding up the bridge. And then when the wave goes down on the low parts of the bridge, or the make the big spans of it where a lot of weight, you know, it wants to keep it up. That bend being at the at the bottom of the bridge there during that span will help add upward force to keep the bridge standing. So there's post-tension and pre-tension. Post-tension is having it done and then filling it with uh grout, keeping the cables where they need to be kept. And then post-tension is doing after the bridge is erected, running all the cables after and doing it after um the bridge was originally erected. So different concepts there, but yeah, it adds a lot of stability into the bridges.
SPEAKER_11:Well, there's a lot of things that uh comes into construction. And when you talk about you're talking about bridges now, when I was when I was uh served with Al Paladini, bless his soul, as uh junior minister for transportation in Ontario, um I didn't realize that certain sections of the highway, and this is 1995 figures. We're talking 2025 now. So 1995, there were sections of the highway in Toronto that had over a hundred thousand vehicles an hour go over it. Now, some of the things that people don't know is that during the hot summer times, when you get heavy trucks, the truck actually puts enough weight on the pavement or the asphalt, not asphalt, asphalt is the correct pronunciation. Believe me, I got corrected by that industry a few times, um, where the uh the pavement actually rolls up in front of the wheels of the truck, just slightly from the weight of the truck. So there's huge amounts of wear. And some of the other stuff that uh people uh don't know, Garrett, is when you see all these these road cleaners going down, i it's the real reason that they put the road cleaners on there to wash all the stuff off the road is because if you have sand or gravel on there, it works like sandpaper and wears it down that much quicker. So you get these road cleaners on there to wash the sand and gravel away to make sure that the road lasts longer so it doesn't wear out, because every time you get a hundred thousand vehicles in 1995 going over one section of highway and it's like a little bit of sandpaper, it starts to wear it down pretty quick. So they wash that all off in order to make it that much smoother. But Garrett, one thing is um uh how much rebar needs to go into a sauna floor.
SPEAKER_03:Depends what's holding it up. But most of the time when it's going right in the ground, you don't necessarily need a lot. Depends on the footprint of the building. You would probably only need a grid, um, a 400 by 400 grid. And when I say 400, I mean like 400 millimeters, as in Canada, we use everything's millimeters because it gives us more exact measurements. Um you'd only need like a 400 by 400 grid, but it doesn't hurt to even put extra in or overdo it because if it's something that you want for a longer time, you can put more into it. I know, for example, I was in an apartment building just outside of Bertha's Children's Hospital there. They're putting up a new uh apartment building there, and I believe it's over 200 or 300 units there going into it, so it there's a quite a bit. And the parking garage, the very bottom of the parking garage, which is a weird concept, on the bottom floor. Sometimes they only just put mesh, and it's just wire mesh, which is like a 10-gauge wire, which is relatively pretty sturdy, pretty thick. You you know, you could probably bend it with your hands, but it would take a good significant amount of force to bend it. But it it depends, and like you said, because underneath all that there's upwards force. So we're we're looking at building the sauna, you're right on pretty much the uh the rock bed or the exposed Canadian shield there, and you wouldn't need much because you're not going to expect to sink too much in the ground. So you wouldn't need too much rebar for that sauna.
SPEAKER_11:That's a bit of a shot, folks, just so you understand. Uh I got this property in 1999, and the only thing I said I wanted was a sauna. Um guess what hasn't been built. Everything else is built. We built a log chalet, I guess we'll call it a cottage, whatever, where we cut the logs by hand with chainsaws, hauled them out uh with uh by hand out of the bush, loaded them up, peeled them all with draw knives, took them up there and put it all together, but the sauna still hasn't been done. So, okay, so i it gets to be analysis paralysis, if you know what that means. Well, what are we gonna do? Where are we gonna put it? So, okay, so we had a spot picked out. So the boys, being Garrett and Josh, started to dig the hole, but they weren't up there as much as dad, so dad finished digging the hole. Guess what? Oh, we don't want to put the sauna there now. That's not a good spot for it. So now we've got to redig the hole. And here it is 2025, 26 years later, and I'm still without a sauna, and that's the only thing I want. Mind you, I got all my sauna logs, they're all dried and cured now. A good batch of cedar that I've had for out for a while, and it's ready to go, but I just need the spot to do it to do it. That's why I put in the shot about how much uh rebar goes into a sauna floor. Well, of course, you know, we've got to put drains in it and stuff like that. So you'll be able to put the drain in too?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I can put the drain in. I, you know, when I worked at Lowe's, I learned a lot about plumbing there to run a simple drain. Mind you, water flows down, so just keep it downhill and you'll be fine. But yeah, I can put the drain in there. It's a little bit more uh rebar goes into it because that drain with the water and the vibrations of the water alone will even affect the soil around us. So you have to put enough rebar in there to keep the drain from more or less sinking and cracking your concrete where you don't want it to crack, because again, you're if your water's gonna be draining out there, you don't want cracks, and then the cracks get bigger over time, and next thing you know, you know, ten years later you gotta redo your base because everything flooded out. So it takes a bit more work, definitely something you don't just you know slap together, but you gotta think it through a bit more. But yeah, and you know, I just the shot back is that one spot. I didn't necessarily love it because when you think about later on, who's gonna put the firewood down the hill a bit to keep it by the sauna there? So if we put it closer to the top and you can just back the truck up, especially when we you know use up all the trees we want to clear the property, you know, it's easier to unload the truck right into the sauna or right into the woodshed that needs to be used. So that's why I didn't love the spot in my defense.
SPEAKER_11:Analysis, paralysis. Yeah, yeah. This is the spot. Anyway, so uh end result is I got logs, had them sitting there for a long time, they're dried and cured, ready to go, to be all put together on I just need the the base port once with the decision's made. Not only that, but I got I gotta mention one other thing. Um it was another piece of useless trivia that people might be interested in is when in Ontario, when you go down the road and you see uh a road sign, and if it has a number on it sort of thing, or what road it is, if there's a crown on the top, that means the province owns that particular road and responsible for all the activities or maintenance of it. But if there's no crown on it, then the local municipality owns it. Just another useless piece of trivia that people may find interesting or not thereabout. But, Garrett, you mentioned and talked about stretched and pulled and all the concrete. You gotta get going because you gotta get in and go get stretched and pulled by Dr. O and get all back to normal again, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've been looking for it for uh ever since I got back last time because I don't think I got in last time as well. But yeah, it's always nice to get readjusted, especially when he gives you that little test about how flexible are you, uh, what's your percentage at? You still got eight inches movement in your pelvis, or you only got three, or you only got two, or it's completely locked up. And you know, I tell a lot of the guys at work, I'm just like, you know, do this little test and just you know, try and bend and uh flex, and you'll you know, people are like, oh, I can bend, look how far I bend. And then he looked, and I point out to them, it's like, well, you do know your pelvis is completely locked up because you're just moving your shoulders there, you're not moving the rest of your body. And yeah, people don't realize how valuable it is to find a good chiropractor that can explain these tests to you to let you know and let you better understand your own body about, hey, what's going on with my system? Why do I feel some pain here? Well, it's because your left side's locked up, but your right side's not. And usually what that means is one foot's longer than the other. So if you're having plantar fasciitis issues or anything like that, it could be because you're putting more stress and force on one foot compared to the other because your one foot's a little bit longer or your one leg's a little bit longer than the other.
SPEAKER_11:So you can't find you've you've checked around, can't find one in Alberta just yet that comes to the standard that you're used to here, and you're heading out to see Dr. O, right?
SPEAKER_03:That's exactly it.
SPEAKER_11:And for those, the next one, I'm hoping to try something different. I'm gonna try recording at Chagga Camp. And so the week after this one goes to air, hopefully it'll all work out and you'll hear how things are going right in Chagga Camp. Anyways, it's always great to have you around, Garrett. We look forward to getting into camp and enjoying great things happening out there under the canopy. Thanks again.
SPEAKER_07: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_08: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_10:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that might be more fishing than it was punchy. You so confidently you said, Hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drink?
SPEAKER_07:Find diaries of a lodge owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.