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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 118: A Field Guide To Safe, Smart Foraging
A cold morning, a quiet road, and a plan that starts before the first bootprint—this is how we turn a chaga hunt into a smooth, sustainable system. We map our routes with Starlink-preloaded Google Maps, carry a Garmin as backup, and treat radio specs with skepticism, because terrain always has the last word. When we grid-walk skidder trails, stop for 360 scans, and use binoculars to avoid false marches, we find more chaga with less wandering and far fewer near-misses at dusk.
We dig into the details that make or break a remote harvest: smart footwear that prevents blisters and plantar flare-ups, energy management that favours stepping around obstacles late in the day, and a drying setup that starts the moment we get back to camp. Chaga is heavy after rain, so airflow and racks matter; losing 40 to 55 percent of weight through curing is normal, and preventing mold is nonnegotiable. We cut clean with a hatchet, use climbing spurs when needed, and always leave live tissue on the tree to keep growth going. The result is a steady supply now and a healthier stand next year.
Local knowledge proves priceless. A midweek dump run connects us with neighbours who point out fresh logging cuts, and those roads open up new access to promising birch stands. We trade notes on graders, trenching, snow buntings skimming the hood, and the way cold snaps lock the ground, letting ATVs push deeper with less damage. We also share a listener’s story of switching from coffee to green tea with chaga and seeing blood pressure normalize—a reminder of why people care about this fungus—along with the caveat to consult a physician about personal health choices.
By the time we’re back in the sauna and the generator hums down, the racks are filling, next year’s GPS pins are logged, and we’ve kept our promise to the forest: take only what we need, harvest with care, and return with better eyes each season. If you love foraging, backcountry systems, or the calm confidence that comes from a good plan, hit follow, share this episode with a friend who needs safer field tactics, and leave a quick review so others can find the show.
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, Angela will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm. Now what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
SPEAKER_00:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
SPEAKER_12: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.
SPEAKER_07:All the other guys would go golfing. Me and Garchom Turks, and all the Russians would go fishing.
SPEAKER_00:And now that we're reforesting and it's the perfect transmission environment to alignment.
SPEAKER_06:If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated for you will taste it.
SPEAKER_12:And whoever else would 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.
SPEAKER_07:Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_04: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 is a 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 want to thank all our listeners all around Canada and the States and everywhere else. We really appreciate it. Again, a big shout out to uh the um the bakery in Edmonton for reaching out to us. And as always, if people have questions or comments or anything, needs any details, just let us know, you know. And of course, we're a little bit concerned with our listeners down in uh the Caribbean uh because of the hurricanes going in there. And of course, uh we appreciate all the support in the States and all around the world as always. No updates because uh on um Anson Gunner, our chocolate lab, because he's back at home with Diane and I'm out in the bush and uh chasing uh Chaga. And um we are doing what we can, but we've got Garrett with us, and he's out in the bush, and we've got Josh and Rolly and Ron is uh the main group that we have going, and of course it's always the usual whining and bitching and complaining in the camp about this, that, and the other things and what we need and what we don't need. But I gotta tell you, the prep went well, and the rain has stopped, and we're out picking. Right, Garrett?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, it was uh pretty rainy those first couple of days, but finally cleared up, and you know, uh mud holes are still sticking around. But other than that, it's been pretty nice weather actually.
SPEAKER_04:Well, in and and in the camp, like we said, we changed all the the sauna, which is a key to this whole camp. We go in the sauna, at least I go in the sauna. I know Garrett does the same, and so does uh well, Josh does. Well, Josh is out there now getting cleaned up, so he we don't have a shower or anything, but we just use the sauna and he's taking a sauna bath kind of thing right now. Well, Roley's on the stove, and Ron's supervising, anyways, uh, which is pretty good, but uh he was helping out, but you know, and it was the same. When the rain was coming, hey, Garrett, we loaded up uh Roley's dump truck.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, we loaded up, but uh I don't know how many shovel fulls there was back and forth, but we put a pretty good, at least a ton on his truck.
SPEAKER_04:Well, quite a bit. He's got beefed up uh things there. He's got a dump box on his truck, which is really kind of nice. So we did some repairs in the camp. We cut down trees, we uh we take care of the camp pretty good. I got no we cut uh the spruce tree over here that we cut down, uh which will be used for firewood and for sauna wood. But the uh the the Rolly dump truck worked out pretty good because uh we filled up uh uh his dump with two loads and filled up a bunch on the driveway and patched the driveway, so it's working pretty good. But now when we get out going for uh doing our Chaga picks, um we start planning our walking route. And one of the things that we always need to do, Agar, is let people know where we're going.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, that's a definitely important thing, especially when we're out of the woods and you know, you you take a wrong turn or something like that. At least someone knows exactly where you were to start, at least. So that way, you know, if something has to happen, then they have a good point to, you know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, like my my cousin Michelle says, uh, who's one of the principals in the camp that we're in, uh, is um look, we need to know where do we start looking if you don't come back and we're starting looking like tonight. Who's driving down the road looking for Garrett? Where were you, buddy? So you made a route there and yeah, so I was just taking a detour.
SPEAKER_13:Uh there is a new cut there, and I was like, ah, I'll go check it out. I still have 10 minutes left of sunlight, so I went down and take a look. And uh, I mean, didn't have to tell you, but yeah, I probably should have.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and well, I asked you if you're going back in. Of course, Garrett's riding an ATV, and I'm in a truck. So I'm driving the truck, and and I get back to camp. No, Garrett, where's Garrett? Like, what the heck's going on here? So Garrett's not here, where's Garrett? And I asked everybody else, no, Garrett hasn't showed up. So, where are you going? Well, I'm going to look for Garrett because he said he was heading right back. But there was he went down this this new road that uh they've been logging in to check out and then see uh whether it was still light. And the weather's pretty good now, so we did pretty good. But so you gotta let people know where we are. And the other thing is the one of the things that we use, which sometimes works, sometimes don't work, is walkie-talkies.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I mean when you get like walkie-talkies are good, but when you get down the hills and up on the top, and you know, you can't get a signal out because you're in the bottom of a valley and you gotta, you know, walk up 20, 30 minutes to go on top of the hill so you can get service to the next person over. Yeah, it works then, but when you're down the bottom, it's a bit frustrating because you you get scratches and muffles, and you're like, you know, at least I know you could hear me because you hear the scratch of the radio going off, but at the same time, it's I can't hear you. So saying, hey, I went down here and I can't find you kind of things.
SPEAKER_04:Well, we've got three sets of walkie-talkies at our place. And, you know, look, first of all, don't believe all that crap that's out there that it's good for 36 kilometers. Well, I gotta tell you, it's good for 36 kilometers if you're on Lake Ontario and it's 36 kilometers straight along, and the uh conditions are ideal because you get over one knoll and these things aren't good for half a kilometer. They aren't come close to what they say they are. But we do have some a little bit better success. Now, first generation, second generation, we're in the third generation, and we're actually using uh a uh uh we've got um some with uh look at the wattage that they put out. If you're looking at walkie-talkies to community to communicate with each other. So how many watts was the one you were using?
SPEAKER_13:Uh I don't know what it runs off of, but there's a six-watt boost on the one.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and then the the one you that was the one Josh had and the other one was a seven-watt boost, the one you had, but then the base station was a 25-watt, which helped out quite a bit. But still, I mean you you're still a couple K away, and it's still hard to try and get a good read. So you gotta look around. And and some of the other stuff is um, Garrett, when we're walking now and we're doing um skitter trails, going down looking for Chega, and I'm watching him in front of me, and he's a young guy, okay. He's still in his 20s. Well, I'm not in my 20s. I'm uh quite a bit older than that. Anyways, he's got his head up, I'm looking down, and so he's looking for Chagga while he's walking. Me, I'm looking where I'm stepping now, and then I stop and then I look. But one of the things is always look behind you because when I turn around, guess what? Chagger right there. And I know the other thing is that uh some of the times when we need the climate spurs, which yours truly doesn't use as much anymore, that um I mark the spot so that we can go back with the climbing spurs and be able to go up and and pick some of the taller ones, right, Garrett?
SPEAKER_13:Oh, absolutely. Like you said, about the whole stop and look behind you kind of thing. I I picked that up probably after my first or second year of picking Chaga, but I didn't clue in because usually I'd walk straight in and now I walk out. But we've gotten all the you know more easy access ones. So now it's actually doing doing grid searches and stuff like that. So when we walk in, I'll walk, you know, 100 yards or 100 paces kind of thing, and I'll stop and I'll do like a 360 look and take take a minute or two and I'll look and up and down every single birch tree or every tree I see that has potential to look like a chag a tree kind of thing. Yeah, and you won't realize it, but like I've probably found at least half the chag that we've picked um now just by stopping and turning around.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And and so there's no leaves on the trees out there right now. And if we've had some, it's pretty cold nights, it's below zero where we are. And we're running on propane and a generator around everything else, and as saunas are kind of sour, and a propane stove, propane lights inside, propane heater. Uh so you know, we're in a pretty uh it's enjoyable. But um the uh the amount of time we spend, and and we have a uh a room now uh where we are where we bring the chag in and we start to dry it immediately. Because with all the rain we had, it's pretty pretty high moisture content. And so now we're we're drying the chag to to make sure that it's uh there's no secondary mold growth and things like that.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, absolutely. Like um, you know, and you can definitely tell the chag is a little bit more wet than usual when we picked it due to all that rain, because you know, usually I don't complain so much, but when you get in a good run and you come out and you're like, I'm carrying extra 40 pounds, and my dad's on the radio saying, uh, where are you? It's taking so long. He said, You meet me at say noon or something like that. And I get on the radio and I can get through to a close enough signal for him and says, I'm carrying 40 extra pounds for the bushes. Give me 10 more minutes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Quit complaining. All right, I understand. But some of the stuff as well, I you know, a lot of times when we when we find a patch, okay, here's a tip for those who are out picking Chaga. Leeward side of the hill. Not the windward, but the leeward side. And if there's a high moisture content like a swampy area or a small stream or high concentrations of moisture, seem to be good in there. But I always look and I pick waypoints. So white pines are usually good trees to pick. So I'll pick that white pine that's like a kilometer or two that way, and because you can see it with all the leaves off the trees, and I'm heading that way, and then I line up so I'm coming back the same way. But I also I use a uh satellite GPS um and I make sure there's new batteries in it. And it shows you exactly where you are. Now, the one thing that we've been using here is because uh Josh brought up um Starlink. And so we've been using Starlink uh while we're here, but and I'll tell you this is another tip. And for those people that get in the bush, so long as you have access when you download, we downloaded Google Maps, and so long as you don't close the app in your phone, when you go out in the bush, you just open it, and surprise, it tells you exactly where you are. So there was a lot of drives that I was doing going through certain sections of the bush that I knew I was coming out to a road, and I had Google Maps on there, and it worked spectacular to let me know exactly where I was. But you gotta make sure your phones charge, or I have a GPS, uh I'll tell you it's a Garmin, that uh it gives me uh and I load uh download the area we're in on the GPS and it works great.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, it helped me a lot, actually. Um I went down through a new area that we haven't been before ever, and you know, I uh get off my ATV and you know I do my whole, like I call it little little probes kind of thing of the bush where I'll go down and take a look and come back out and do like uh, you know, 100, 200 yards, and then I'll go back in if I don't see anything. Usually I'll stop when I see good good Jaga. And you know, when you get on, if you find a couple and you start spreading out and you start losing your uh exactly where you entered the bush from, yeah, I put out Google uh maps there and it showed me exactly which way I was or where the trail I got off of or where the cut line was or something like that, where there might have been different mechanics kind of thing that you'll next recognize on Google Maps there. So it helps you definitely like focus on where you need to go back to so you don't get lost when you're in the bush there.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so so long as you open Google Maps while you have internet connection, when you lose your internet connection when you're in the bush, it was still working perfect. And I I was I was totally shocked. I couldn't believe how well it worked. And and Josh showed us that how how to use that. So it works spectacular. But some of the stuff though, as well, is I gotta tell you, I there was one day it was miserable, it was cold, we were out there and it and it was still a frost, and I'm wearing boots, rubber boots, uh, you know, above my knees because I'm pushing a lot of bush, and it's rubbing on the back of my left leg. And guess who's got a big blister there? Now, make sure you got great boots. And I got it the one boots that I really like are these ones that are uh they're uh a high ankle cut boot. They're not uh like a rubber boot, but they're waterproof, they're laced up, lightweight, good support, good um uh like a uh um I put a good uh insole in it as well, and they work spectacular. When I come out of the bush then, and I'm I'm pushing, well, not quite as much as Garrett, although what'd you do today?
SPEAKER_13:Uh here, give me a quick second, I'll just check my stats here today.
SPEAKER_04:So I did about uh 11 kilometers today, and Garrett is about 12, 13 kilometers today. So we we're pretty close. We're pushing a lot of bush. And uh what about your boots? How's those you picked up a new boot on the set of boots on the way out?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I got Irish sellers. I've liked them. They were probably my first food that you bought me as a kid, kind of thing, for hiking boots, and I liked them since that uh you know I went to you know, hiking store out there. Um pick them up because I I went through a couple, so there was like sale as Cells hiking boots, and I I went through their sex selection there and they got rid of their older stuff. They went to all this newer stuff, and I didn't like the way they designed, I didn't like the ankle support, especially just to compare like you know, the whole don't cheap out on boots kind of thing. Because when I wear work boots as well, the guys that cheap out on their work boots, you hear nothing but sore feet complaints, you know, the planner fasciitis right in the bottom, your soul starts flaring up and everything else goes on. And I said, look, go buy the expensive boots, like oh, but like, oh, they're so expensive. Like, yeah, but they're expensive for a reason because they're the quality is there and they're worth this. So the same thing applies to hiking boots. You buy the good quality and stuff. I brought the Irish um Settlers, I think. Settlers. Setters, Irish Satters, and um yeah, lightweight, uh good R support, no issues at all.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the only thing, good strong sole, like the ones I have, short boot. Now yours are quite a bit higher. Yours are like a um uh I think it's eight inch or ten-inch cut. Yeah, my mine are just above the ankle, and they work spectacular. Good strong sole. I put a good insole with them. And uh quite uh to be perfectly honest, I suffer a bit from plantar fasciitis. No plantar fasciitis issues at all, but they they make a huge difference. And when I get back, my feet are not aching and I'm feeling not too bad. But the rest of it is like I get one push a day now at the start. When we first started, we were going like crazy. Now I can do a morning and not in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_13:You know, I'm starting to feel it now, especially like you know, the first couple of days it was over, I think I did 20, 20,000. So that'd be 20K kind of thing. And then 18, 19, 17, and then I had one more 20,000, and then you know, after which when you kind of look it up on Google, is how much does the average person take for steps for say for a half marathon? It's approximately about 20,000 steps. So when you're doing a half marathon every day through the bush, you get tired after, you know, day six or seven.
SPEAKER_04:And I gotta tell you, hey, Garrett, uh uh Uncle Ernie, bless his soul. He used to say, Okay, we're just gonna we're just gonna go over this knob here. And we look at it and we go, knob? What the heck you talking about? Down where we come from. They put chairlifts on them and call them ski heels, and they're just little knobs up where we are now. But that's all part of the fun of getting out in the bush and enjoying the good time we have. But some of the things that we use that would be very helpful is binoculars, because you can check out Chagas with the binoculars and save yourself a lot of walking. Oh, there's one over there, and you walk over there. Nope, that's not one, and then back, so it saves a lot of time.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, and like I would say, because I've got a pretty good keen eye for Chaga nowadays, and usually you can tell from pretty far away. It's like, is it worth it? Is it not worth it? Is it gonna be Chaga? Is it not gonna be Chega? And if you gotta think about it for more than say, you know, 30 seconds to a minute, it's probably not gonna be Chega, unless it is one of those really big ones kind of thing. But most of the time I'll find the Chaga, like I said, you walk in, you find the one, and then you stop, and I'll do like a 360 of the area, and that's where I find the rest because I I miss like two or three on the way in.
SPEAKER_04:And one of the things that I that I really see out there is a lot of LBBs. You know what an LBB is? I don't know what an L B is a little brown bird. A lot of little brown birds out there, and I wish I knew what they were because it's kind of neat to uh to uh to see them. But the other one is is and we just started now. We started now, it's we're into 10 days now, 10 days into the pick. And when we started, there was none here. Today was the first day I'm seeing snow buntings. You know what snowbunding is?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I know somebody's actually got quick question because I didn't tell you yet, but when I was uh you know pushing some bush there, I came across a bird that had like a long beat, like a kiwi. Really? Like a New Zealand kiwi. And I was looking at it, like, I've never seen this one before. What big was it? It was like the size of like a blue jay, a robin, a crow?
SPEAKER_04:Like uh a raven?
SPEAKER_13:Maybe like a crow, or like say like a grouse or something like that, or a pheasant, a good size like a pheasant. Oh, really? And I was looking through it. I'm like, I don't know what it is. I couldn't feel like it was probably a pileated woodpecker.
SPEAKER_04:It was walking on the ground. Oh hard to say. But you know what I saw? I I forgot to mention it. Um bald eagle. Oh, yeah. Yeah, over in a Deer Lake. I heard it. I didn't see it though. You saw it? Yeah, I saw it. Yeah, it was flying right in front of it. It was kind of neat to see. But uh, yeah, uh and it was uh kind of nice to see. But if anybody can tell me why snow buntings, when you're driving a vehicle, why they're always flying in front of the vehicle. They'll fly, and of course, we're driving slow, and they'll fly and they'll stop, and they'll fly and they'll stop, and they'll fly and they'll stop, and I just couldn't figure it out, which is kind of neat. Yeah, but I gotta tell you one thing, Garrett. Uh, I really appreciate all the time that you're spending, all the chagga we pick. We pick it, we get it into drying racks right away on the same day. And I'm looking now, we've got uh quite a few racks of uh filled with chaga that uh we'll take back and then we'll have a curing room where we cure it. We don't use any artificial heat, but uh you've picked a heck of a lot. And you know, it's at the start of the week, it was 10 days, uh 10 days ago it was go, go, go, go, go, and the rain was there. And now I'm looking, okay, all right, am I gonna step over that log or am I gonna walk around it? Well, in the mornings I can step over, but in the afternoon, I'm walking around.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I mean, I still kind of sit there and pick my roots as best I can. And if I was if I was good people's advice too about walking through the bush, it's don't just V-line it or go straw straight line or walk to that thing. Like, take two seconds and you know, hey, like I can walk to my left here for 10 steps and it'd be easier path down because it will make a difference, especially if you're going for not just a short time but going for the long run kind of thing. I would say take two seconds, plan where you're gonna walk, walk where you're gonna go, and then just keep a reference point of where you are because if you don't know the push at all, it's very easy to get turned around.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah. Yeah, we don't get lost anymore. Um, but uh we get turned around a little bit. So we're on the radio with Josh. Josh, where are you? Oh, I'm I'm uh I'm about 4K over here. Where are you coming out? Well, I think I'm coming out near Rolly. Okay, so yeah, it's easy to get turned around. Just make sure you get in lots of time so that's lots of light there. And uh we appreciate uh everything that everybody's able to help out with. And anyways, uh, but you're packing in tomorrow, ain't Garrett?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, uh pack up and get out here. Uh kind of thing. I'm I'm hoping to get out not super early, maybe do one more little thing in the morning. But other than that. Do we need the climbings first for those seven that you saw? I I don't think we need maybe for one of them, but if we you know if we No, we don't get that, that's okay. Yeah, it's not the biggest one, but the other ones they're like they're pretty they're pretty big, so they're they gotta be a good uh they've been there since they uh probably were cut the tree down from the sapplate kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_13:They've been growing for a while.
SPEAKER_04:So all right. Well, thanks a lot, Garrett, and we want to make sure you appreciate all that and hope you have a safe trip back. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_08:Back in 2016, Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of musky angling education material anywhere in the world.
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SPEAKER_04:Okay, here we are in Lindsay with Bill, who's actually this gentleman has given blood over 230 times.
SPEAKER_08:233, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:233, and that's amazing. And you've had some success with Chaga. Uh tell us what you're dealing with and what you did and uh how you um what you used.
SPEAKER_09:Well, I had mild uh high blood pressure, mild high blood pressure wasn't very really high, but I was on medication for uh a few years. And then I uh quit drinking coffee and started drinking his tea, uh, the combination tea, the green and the chaga. Right. And uh my medication is gone.
SPEAKER_04:Your medication's gone?
SPEAKER_09:Gone.
SPEAKER_04:And you couldn't give blood during the other times? Yeah, I could.
SPEAKER_09:Oh you could? I could, yeah. Yeah, so but uh a few times uh the machine kicked me out. Oh yeah, so but now it doesn't anymore.
SPEAKER_04:So you think uh the the green tea in the chaga was uh helped uh normalize your blood pressures?
SPEAKER_09:Oh yeah. Oh very good because it wouldn't be just stopping coffee, it would have to be something else.
SPEAKER_04:And that's the only thing you did different.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. Well, we're thank you very much for that. And my blood pressure is probably that of a 40-year-old man, and I'm 71. Oh, very good.
SPEAKER_04: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 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 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. Alright, well, we're with Rolly now. And Rolly is the guy with the dump box that I think I was talking about when I was getting camp ready. Where his Rolly, what size truck is it you got here? Is it a half dump? 1500, yeah. 1500. Well, you gotta boost it up a little bit, eh? Yeah, a couple extra springs in it. Yeah, and that's because you got a dump box on the back, and guess who gets to get the shovels and load the box up so we can fix those potholes in the driveways and at the camp. Yeah but it's always good uh keeping the camp up and shape the way it should be, right? And right now we're doing uh what kind of a run are we doing now, Rolly? We're doing a shagger run. Dump run. We're going to the dump. We're taking the dump because the dump is open once a week from two to four on Wednesdays. So we are doing a dump run, and we picked up Mike, the local guy that uh picks up, he sells chicken eggs, and you're going down the middle of this road, which is in the middle of nowhere, and he sells chicken eggs. There's always uh we checked with him to find out what time the dump was open. And we said, Well, we're gonna go tomorrow. Do you want any stuff? Yeah, yeah, sure. But they're doing a pretty good job and grading the road, eh Rob? Yeah, they are. That's uh they do an excellent job up here. Well, when we first got here though, the roads were like, oh my god.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the rain.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we well it well, it rained for the first five days we were here, right?
SPEAKER_03:For every truck that goes by logging trucks, and whoever goes by, they all uh they all chew up the road.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah, and just beat the heck well, shake the windshield right off. Well, even worse than that, it'll shake the part of the uh front vendor. We're talking about his Ron in camp. He's got a 95 U gun, and he he did a repair job, and half the fender fell off from the road from the shattering on the road. Oh man, I think he was jumping sideways on the road when that happened. So well, yeah, Ron, he puts the pedal to the metal pretty big and it pounds the heck out of that vehicle, but it shattered it right off so that uh put half the fender right off. So he spent about an hour last night checking out new fender prices on the internet when we had Starlink going. So we're out picking Jagger. And you know, first five days it was get out and look and raining again and go back to bed. We're not going and slipping and sliding and trying to go through the bush looking for Jaga and in that kind of weather, but then the skies opened up, and the Lord said, I shall pick Jagger now. It's just like today, the sun's shining, it's a good day. But we're on a dump run. But some of the stuff that we do is and Mike, the guy we just picked up his garbage to take to the dump for him, because it's it's a I don't know, it's quite declined to get to the dump. I mean, it's not like setting it off at the side of the road. You're you're taking a I don't know, just use a figure of 40, 50 kilometers to get to where the dump is here one way. Anyways. Um and he was telling us about this section where they were doing more lager. And so uh that's one of the key ways that we find the the Jagger, right, Ro?
unknown:Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_04:Well always good to have uh a few openings to get through. Yeah, so we um we head down those roads where they uh where they're freshly logging because it opens up new areas. Yep. And you know, when you go along and you can take these routes and especially routes, and especially when it's it's the rain's not chewing the heck out of the road or it's pretty deep. And right now it's probably minus five where we are right now. So everything's pretty solid and frozen up, so we can get down these roads and start picking the Jagga along these uh new routes, and it opens up laneways as well. Because when they're doing the logging, they take their uh harvester, right? Right, and they will take those harvesters and put new put new roots in the um in the bush that allow walking areas. So that's one of the things that we do is we uh look for areas where they've been freshly cut, opening up new roads, and it kind of tells us where we can pick the chart. What do they call that? A forwarder? Well, no, the forwarder is a bit that's a harvester. A forwarder is it it looks kind of like a Tonka toy with uh all it is is kind of a small one-person cab in the front with a cherry picker on the back, and then it's got a like a perfect four-wheel, four-wheeler. Yeah, well, well, that's one of those it goes anywhere. Yeah, and then they take the the cherry picker, picks up the logs, and puts it in the back, and the they hollow it out with now. That's something else that you mentioned as well. Four-wheeler. We use four-wheelers like crazy, eh? Yep, and they work great. Yeah, it gets you uh it gets you a long ways into the into the uh bush.
SPEAKER_03:And uh and helps you uh carry the stuff out as well. So oh yeah. Well I can't imagine the the the uh you know walking ten ten miles through the bush with uh the knapsack full.
SPEAKER_04:Well, yesterday it was only uh um 11 clicks that I did. So it's we're now well ten ten eleven days up at camp now. And at the first it's go, go, go, but they're gonna tell you roll. It's getting a little tired walking all the all that in the bush, eh?
SPEAKER_03:We're getting old.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:We're getting old. We're no spring chickens anymore.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. Yeah, and it's it's like I said earlier on, I'm at that stage in life where I'm wondering, do I step over that log or do I walk around it? Well, at the first of the week, I was stepping over and go, go, go. Now I'm thinking twice. So in the morning I'm stepping over in the afternoon, I think I'll walk around.
SPEAKER_03:Or you just lay down on the log and one leg over at a time.
SPEAKER_04:Roll over. Yeah. Yeah. But the ATVs have been a big help as well. I know. Yesterday, Garrett had walked into this spot and he said, um, I didn't have my hatchet with me, so I couldn't get these chagas. But uh he said they're they're spectacular. So I'm like, okay, well, we gotta get them before you go. Because Garrett and uh Josh have left camp now. They headed back uh back to southern Ontario where Rolly Ron and I are still in camp. Anyways, so uh we get there. Garrett says, Oh, um, we'll take the ATV in. There's a couple sections there, of course, that you gotta get off uh because they're they're pretty steep and they're pretty rocky, and you're anyways. So we're going and going and going. It's like 10 kilometers into the bush that we're going. Oh, that's not a logging truck. What is that truck? Well, probably the one excavator. Yeah, for the excavator of the grater. Yeah, the greater. Just so you know, we uh we had a something you rarely see out where we are, is a a transport truck with a flatbed on the back. And we're wondering, like, what's it? Yeah, what's that for? But that's how they move the grater in and up on the road, is they uh drive it up on the back of this flatbed on the 18-wheeler, and they move it to different sections to be greater.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, take forever. The grater had to drive it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, or too much fuel. Well, I I must I imagine they probably uh could have been too much fuel. Or they must have been having problems because they used to leave it right at the side of the road. Yeah. But anyways, so yeah, so Garrett and I are going, and we're going, and it's just like I think to be honest, it was like seven or eight kilometers. The A had walked to find these chagas before. We just keep going. Okay, this is where the ATV ends. Okay, we're just coming up to the grater now, he's on the road, so he's grading a new section of road in front of us.
SPEAKER_03:And oh, look at that. He's got a grater line there, and he's got the tires on the back.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, they kind of yeah, the tires on the back kind of pack it down after he's graded it. Yeah. Anyway, so Garrett takes me in there, and we're we're getting these chagas off. And three Chagas roll weigh like a hundred pounds. Uh huh. The total of the three. They are huge! They are and of course, we always leave a bit of chag on the tree to make sure it continues to grow. Which is which is important because we'll go back and quite a few of the sites that we've seen.
SPEAKER_03:They were definitely monsters.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. Yeah. And when we bring them back, what do we do with them? They go into the into the covered porch.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And dry out a little bit. Yeah. Start the drying process right away. And get a little bit of airflow in there. So you probably didn't notice the window was open. Oh, yeah, I noticed. Oh, did you? Yeah, this morning. Kind of cold. Well, no, since uh the Jag is gone, I closed the window, but I think that was just because it was so cold out.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, maybe.
SPEAKER_04:But but yeah, so we get some airflow going through there, and we start. I have a bunch of racks in there that we fill up and take home.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So yeah, it was uh it was nice to see all that uh in there and uh nice, nice, uh, nice stuff too.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. Some good chagas.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So and that's good. Now, most of the time we use like a hatchet that uh we use to uh um um to to get the uh chagas off, or as in the case for a couple of them, uh climbing spurs. Oh yeah. Yeah, climbing spurs.
SPEAKER_03:So uh is it uh Garrett, yeah. Looks like uh looks like he works for the uh either the hydro or for uh bell telephone.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. So the high up ones, and you know, I I met one uh one guy who was and we've done that a couple of times. We take a lot. Remember we used to take a ladder in with us? Yeah. Oh yeah, broken ladder in order to get a little faller, farther. But you're you're hauling through the bush carrying a ladder around.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it makes it a little tough.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and especially if you're ATVing it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, which you take the first corner, right?
SPEAKER_04:It doesn't make it exactly. But when you got the truck that we're in now, um it uh you throw the little bit of ladder in the back, and when we're driving those new roads, yeah, we go up.
SPEAKER_03:At least you get uh you get pretty far in with your equipment. Yeah, and then you have to go a little bit further to get the machine.
SPEAKER_04:So now, Ro, remember last year we went down mile seven and they they bouldered off the end of the road. Remember, and you talked to the guy because they were cutting a new, they had a big thousand hectare cut that they were doing in there. Oh right, yeah. You remember seven, and you asked the guy, how can you bold it up a boulder off the road so you can't drive down it? And he said that's so we can it dries out. Remember, it dries out the road so it packs it up a bit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we haven't been down that road just yet. So we'll we'll take a drive and then go down there and see if they've removed the boulders in order to get the uh cutting equipment in the harvesters and the cutters and all that, and then take it from there. But and and Roly does something. Rolly is basically the cook in camp as well.
SPEAKER_05:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it it's it's always a big question of certain things, like uh raspberry jam. Does it have seeds or does it not have seeds?
SPEAKER_03:Well, the seeds get stuck in my dentures! Oh, everybody complains. There's always somebody complaining. Right?
SPEAKER_04:You can't uh you can't please everyone, but there's only like six of us or something. Yes, but and the meals are good. Like last night we had uh basically we had ribs and and uh these special carrots that are over here, which are pretty good.
SPEAKER_03:It's actually something my my mom used to make, and uh we have these carrots and you don't know what to do with them. So what do you do? Go ahead, describe it. Well, okay. Um so basically it's pretty simple uh and it's really good. So you just uh you cut your carrots into little uh medallions, right? So maybe a quarter inch thick or less, and you uh throw them in the frying pan. A non-stick frying pan would be best, and uh kind of cut a bit of butter in it, and I mean, you know, you can cut a a little, maybe a little an eighth, eighth of a pound or something like that, just enough to to get the pan good and greasy, and then you put uh salt and pepper and and a couple of cloves of garlic. Now uh Jerry, I guess you got you got this garlic, it's from uh Ontario. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yep, it's absolutely divine stuff. Well, that's uh Master Gardener Bev Delonardo, her garlic uh that uh she gives us. She's been on the quite a few podcasts. Good stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah, you eat that boy, and your nostrils are gonna clear out pretty quick. Yep. But anyways, uh so we cut it, cut um, I last time I put in two great big cloves of garlic in there. So you put a fair amount in, and uh, and then uh maybe like a half a cup of water just to make it uh wet down below, and and uh and you boil it basically in the frying pan until uh and you put a lid on it for the first part until they get a little softened up, and uh and then you put uh you put uh uh you take the lid off and let it uh let it all the water escape, and then you're next thing you know, you're frying in that butter. And uh you fry it to just get a little bit of color on the bottom of these these uh carrots, and of course, uh salt and pepper. You need a little salt and pepper. And um, and it's uh once they've got a few little bits and pieces that are fried, you know, browned a little bit, it's it's done. And uh they are good. Oh, they're good. I couldn't believe last time I cooked so much of it. I thought, oh man, we're gonna have leftovers, and it was all gone.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, it's actually pretty good. Yeah, but this are the Chaga. So basically, don't tell my wife though. Don't tell her what? That I I cook I cook well. Don't worry, we won't tell her. And she just had a birthday, yeah. She did. Yeah, so happy birthday, Lorraine. Yeah, yeah. But anyways, uh so back to Chaga. So what we do is we talk to the locals around, find out new uh login areas that have been in the area, and then we'll take the vehicles to start off with the trucks and uh the truck, and then we'll we'll we'll drive down the login road where you know you you got your your transport trucks that haul the logs out. So the roads are pretty wide. Yeah, they're pretty good. Yeah, and they gotta have a turnaround, and usually they put the logs at a landing point. So it's pretty good to be able to get access to new areas. And as some of the shows they've done in the past, role, the first thing that is happens is uh the uh loggers come in, cut new roads to get into the trees, and this area here they're harvesting SPF, spruce pine fir, which is uh dimensional uh logs that they uh cut for uh house building or whatever. And they also had uh looks like uh birch veneer and maple veneer logs as well. So so anyway, so loggers get in, open up the roads, clear the trees, and then next thing that comes in is prospectors looking for what they can find in the uh in the new ground that's opened up. Yeah, yeah, it's all kinds of rocks exposed and stuff. And where we are here, it's it's it's not much topsoil at all. It's oh no, gravel or sand right underneath. You go down a couple inches and now you're hitting sand or gravel. That would be a builder's dream. Yeah, so so we access and then we um once we've uh driven those roads, and you're going slow and you're walking, and all the the leaves are off the trees, so you can see them all, except for the tamarack. See them all there, the the large? Yep, they're they're all orange now. Yeah, they're all losing their needles. But the leaves are off everything else, and the stop's not flowing. And anyways, but uh with the rain that we had, the chaggis were a little bit heavy still. And then once we're done with the trucks, then we'll take the ATVs in and do the the uh logging, the skidder trails we call them, to be able to find spots to go pick. Yeah, those are a little more challenging. After watch what you're doing. Yeah, it depends. Each one's a little bit different, yeah. So they do quite a bit of maintenance on this road, eh? Yeah, there's more trucks here. This must be the this must be the year for it. Well, I know Mike was telling us, the egg guy, that last year he got snowed in and they couldn't clear the road for three days, so he was stuck in here for three days. Oh, look at this, he's got a cutter head on there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, there you go. I was always wondering what they were using.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's a beauty. Uh so essentially what it is is it looks like a back hoe, kind of a high hoe for those who know what we're talking about. Uh track hoe, yeah. Yeah, swing hoe, whatever. Swing hoe, and then and then they have this huge brush cutter on to the end of it. It that would you couldn't two guys couldn't put their arms around it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I suppose if you if you if you kind of describe it, it's almost like having a lawnmower on the end of the on the end of the uh uh the arm.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, but it's really super heavy duty. Oh my god. And they cut all the the trees back here, and then they come through with the uh trenchers, and they're for the first time I can't remember seeing them uh trench out the sides of the the road here. And I I've been coming up here since the 60s. Of course, you're not looking at that stuff what when I was then, but later on in the 80s, I would have started to notice the uh whether they were trenching it out, but this year they're trenching it out pretty heavy. Yeah. Quite possibly for road maintenance reasons, or because, like Mike said, he got snowed in and they couldn't plow, they couldn't get plows in.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so you need to make room, right? Yeah. I mean the trees, right where we're going right now, the trees are right out to the edge. Like I'm gonna say what 10 footers uh tall. To 12? Yeah, 10 to 12 feet tall.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and they're right in the ditches and and stuff, so that's hard to push snow past those. Now, mind you, the water level was pretty low up here. All the lakes are pretty low, eh, Ro? Yes, yeah. And when the lakes are high, um the uh the the water just flows over the road, and we've had a number of times where what happened, Rohl?
SPEAKER_03:Well, we got uh we got locked in actually. But uh the water flowed over the roads and washed uh washed parts out and uh they what was the cargo?
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah, yeah. Um yeah, well it was right down by where we have the garden there, yeah. And uh and uh it just uh just comes up and washes everything out. We got kind of landlocked for a few days, so well yeah, and remember on on one main road they washed out the entire section of it. Um and they they they had to redo the whole road, so they we were you couldn't get by until they came in with all the equipment and redid the road. So we're pretty remote. But Starlink's working good.
SPEAKER_03:Yep, yeah, it's working weirdly well. I'm I'm I'm impressed. Yeah, it is, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Thanks, Josh, for yeah. Josh, that was uh he bought the Starlink and was paying it because while he was here in camp, he was still working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was working and then he'd pick and come out with us uh when he wasn't working first thing in the morning, uh right at first light. Yep, and then uh then because but you know, I we see a lot, we're starting to see snow buntings now. Yeah, they they like to fly just in front of you. I don't know why. I don't know why.
SPEAKER_03:Why why is that? So strange. Like you you're you're going ahead, you think, okay, you're gonna they're gonna fly out of the way, but no, they'll even pass you and fly in front and land, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And you go, okay, you guys got a death wish or something. I don't know. And then and then yeah, and then they get up, and of course we're creeping along when we're in these back roads, yeah. And then they'll fly in front and they'll stay right in front of you. I can't figure that out. But I haven't seen a lot of of mammals like red squirrels, yeah. Yeah, but you know, in that one area I was doing um um a walk through. There was all kinds of fresh beaver cuts where the beaver had gone in, and no poplar there, they're mostly birch, is what they're gnawing away on.
SPEAKER_03:So I I I did manage to hear, I think it was a lynx. Oh, that's right, yeah. And um, yeah, it's just uh all of a sudden I could hear this I don't know, still sounds like a real scratchy old cat, I'll tell you that. And uh and uh it was bailing away there for a long time, yeah. And uh but I didn't see it, but at least at least I heard it.
SPEAKER_04:Well in the camp too, my cousin was telling me that uh they saw a bear all the time, but we haven't seen any bear sign or I've saw a lot of uh fox scat because they will like marker scat where they they will leave their droppings to let other foxes know this is my territory. I saw a lot of that, but I haven't seen any fox. I haven't seen anything. No fox, right? Me neither, right?
SPEAKER_05:No.
SPEAKER_04:So so we're we're we're picking Chaga and we're driving along now. And of course, we're looking out the sides as we're driving, but uh on the dump run, and then we'll be heading back and heading into the bush. Yeah, yeah. So but the generator's working good, the sauna's working good, the propane's working good, but yeah, I gotta thank you very much for that.
SPEAKER_03:That sauna works really well. Uh Jerry Jerry's in charge of that. He uh he makes sure it's stoked up, and uh it's really nice to have uh something like that when you're after you come out of the bush and and uh you know relax a little bit and get cleaned off and warmed up and warmed up and dried up.
SPEAKER_04:Hell yeah. Uh and then the uh because I know um Hugh and Garrett were stuffed up quite a bit, but you'd go into the sauna and get the steam going, come out, and you wouldn't be stuffed up near as much. That's right. But uh that helps. Well that helps. But yeah, it is. It's it's it's nice to be in the bush.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, all in all. It's really nice to be out here in the in the wilderness, and uh see Mother Nature and God at work, and and uh it's just beautiful, it's just outstanding.
SPEAKER_04:So essentially, so we'll we'll see a chaga, uh, determine the height of it. Do we need the ladder when we're going in along? We'll take the hatchet, we'll go around the uh the the edge of the uh chagas, and then you'll get it to a point where you can put the hatchet in far enough, it kind of pops it off, and you leave enough of the mycelium or the roots of the the chagga on the tree, and it'll continue to grow it. And there was quite a few rolls that I know I picked quite a few years ago and looking at them, and they've come back quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. I saw a couple of them myself, yeah. And uh yeah, they they grew back uh pretty good. I'm I'm uh I'm glad to see that. Yep. Yeah, and then we'll pop it off, put it in a canvas bag, take it with us, um, and then put it in the curing room where it starts to dry right away. So we don't use any artificial heat or anything. Uh if the sun's out, that room gets fairly warm. Leave the door open a little bit, let some air flow through. Because uh they're pretty high in moisture content, and they lose anywhere from 40 to 55 percent of its weight. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of surprising, but they work good. And the other thing was uh there was a couple roots there that uh guess what? Uh Garrett was out, and uh and Josh was out, and uh they took pictures of a number of chagas that we're gonna pick next year. There you go. So we already know where next year's harvest, because you know we could take them now, but if we don't need that much, why bother?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So okay, we're at the dump. They the gates are open, the Ministry of Natural Resources and all the notice signs and video surveillance. Video surveillance. Yeah, and uh oh, they got an outhouse here now for the guy who looks after to it. You just pull and go to the left. What Mike said, brush goes over there. Old trailers. Yeah, I'll go right over to the far side over there. We're gonna stop for this fella? Oh, we'll stop on the way out.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, there's a big rave in there. Oh wow, look at this nice man.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:This is pretty cleaned up over here, like I'm kinda surprised. Oh, they got a pit there. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. A little bit of a pit, this dump.
SPEAKER_04:Should do uh, to me, it's a little more recycling would be good.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_02:It's uh always the same.
SPEAKER_04:But I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Should separate it.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. Okay, we're gonna unload the dump and unload the truck and then we'll be back. Okay, we've unloaded uh Mike's five bags and our couple of bags, and it's a pretty deep hole they dug, April. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. It's a pretty deep hole that they dug. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's pretty deep, and they um we were uh quite surprised because I don't remember last year when we were when I was here that it was that deep, but look at all the gravel.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:The one thing though, as well, uh last year when I was talking to them, yeah, this guy here. And uh we can just stop and say hi. There's a guy that opens it and he sits here for four hours. Everything's all good.
SPEAKER_02:It's uh it'll be Trudeau camp. It's a Trudeau camp.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, okay. Oh no, we had Mike stuff. We had Mike stuff too. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is, yeah.
unknown:Hopefully.
SPEAKER_04:Hopefully, eh? Yeah, that's right. If there's any left, all right.
unknown:Okay, take care.
SPEAKER_04:Have a great day. Have a good day. Yeah. So there's a guy, and and uh he he checks how many bags, so he counts the amount of bags that we unloaded, and he sits here for the four hours the dump is open. It's it's kind of remote in the middle of nowhere. And uh they burned it off there, I guess, because people were trying to get in, maybe. I don't know. Oh yeah, look at that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, anyways, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So I don't think they get in there.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I guess not. I don't know why they did that then.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, but uh maybe it was uh something that uh maybe somebody tried to drive down there before. Yeah, well, I think Mike was saying at the end of this month what they do is they will actually um um give him a key to the dump. Um because there's a lodge up here that uh um has a uh that keeps it open and plows it so he can use the dump all winter long. But yeah, when it was in last year, they had all these test marking things that were going on in there. And he was saying the ministry comes in and checks to make sure that there's no contamination of anything getting in the soil, so they go all around the dump to check it out, and it all come out clean and clear because there was quite a few other dumps around that they've closed them all, the other two on this road, and we had to drive up to this one to be able to get into it, but that was pretty good. That was kind of weird. Well, and you saw that hundred-pound tank in the back of the guy's truck? Yep. Um, the uh there's one of the dumps that we go to at uh my camp between Halliburton and Bancroft, that those hundred-pound tanks people just get rid of them like that after they're aged out. But you can recertify those, eh? Because those new hundred-pound propane tanks that we're talking about, 100-pound tank, 100-pound propane tank. Yeah, that uh I can get them re-certified and reuse them for for 10 years. And now when we got here, there wasn't a lot cheap either. Well, yeah, the price has almost doubled since I bought that one that we have in camp here. Yeah, you know, because they had this huge one there, it was like I don't know how big. Remember that great big tank? Yeah, and it was costing them a fortune. So that they got rid of that six or eight hundred liters or something. Six or eight hundred liters? Yeah, it was huge.
SPEAKER_03:I think whatever.
SPEAKER_04:Well, it was bigger than that because uh those bubbas are that, aren't they? The bubba tanks, uh, propane tanks. But anyways, yeah, okay, right. Yeah, it was a thousand or a fifteen hundred liter tank, it was huge. Anyways, it looks like a mini submarine. Yeah, it looks like a mini submarine, right? Yeah. Ah, shoot, I was thinking about the other ones. Anyways, so I bought that hundred-pounder that we have a tank, but when we got here, we couldn't get a reading on it because it doesn't have a gauge on it. So, what we do is we we poured when it was cold out, we poured warm water over the tank to see if we would get a frost line. And all we did, it wasn't boiling water or anything like that, just warm water. Just warm water, and it kind of gave us an indication. So we ran that tank for another four days and five days, and then took it to town, which is a bit of drive, in order to fill up on the propane, and we filled her up um and then brought her back out. But now we're into uh because the temperature's so cold and we're using propane heater, uh furnace, yeah, propane well light when it was going, but I turned it off in order to save propane, and then um and then all my gourmet cooking and all the cooking, yeah. And the you know, washing the dishes, but yeah, the dishes aren't as bad now that we're using the paper plates and stuff, eh?
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:Except we got complaints about that, right? Of course. Because people don't like the wooden the wooden forks and spoons and knives.
SPEAKER_03:Well the the forks weren't keeping their shape after the second mouthful, the the thing is about as straight as a board, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so that's it's like okay. But and then we have a burn box where we put all the paper and the burnables in, so we use we'll use that to light the sauna with them. Yeah, and I used a lot of those wooden uh forks and spoons and knives as kindling in the uh sauna to get her going. They'd be good, yeah. But so when we did a run, we tried to find some uh, but nobody had any plastic to keep Ron happy. Can we get some plastic for us, please? But we do. That because it's less less washing. Well, yeah. You know, so we're in we find that uh the less amount of of work that's involved, the more people are likely to jump in and do it. So anyway, so like they keep the pots and pans down too, you know. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You don't uh you don't use every pot and pan that's in the bloody kitchen.
SPEAKER_04:Well that and turn the darn things over. Yes. Like otherwise we have to wash and rinse and deconduction. And I gotta tell you what, the first time I came to this camp with a crew was 44 years ago and uh a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And Ernie, uh my uncle, that's who can't it is we're staying at, and in the rinse water in there, he always put a cap full of jab acts in it. Right. Always and everybody else was like, do it! You put that in there! He's a crusty old bastard. That was dearly loved. It would be like one of the He would be like one of the muffins, one of those muffins up in Muffets up in the balcony, those two gold guys there.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, the two gold guys.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah. He'd be like one of those guys up there. But so Yeah, I used to make us put that uh Javix Javex in there. And of course, because that's when we're doing plates and forks, real forks and all the rest of it. But when you get the guys, and I bought a 180 pack, and we're pretty close to the end of that 180 pack, right? Yeah, because you know when you're putting you're making you're making toast, like I mentioned uh earlier on about the homemade toaster that he has that we put on the burner, it works good, doesn't it? Save it from a coffee can. Yeah, yeah, coffee can and an old coat hanger. Yeah, with a little handle.
SPEAKER_03:Wouldn't wooden handle on it, and uh and uh you drill a bunch of holes in the bottom of the can, right? Yep, and uh so basically it's uh that's part of the heater part. Oh, there's a bump here.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my goodness.
unknown:Here we go.
SPEAKER_04:That's not a bump, that's a hole. They'll lose a Volkswagen in that one we just drove by. That's when is that what was sticking out of it? Yeah, so the the coffee can.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the coffee can, uh it so basically the bottom of the coffee can you punch it full of holes, and that's what goes on the burner. And about, I don't know, is this three inches high? Yeah, it's put that out. Three inches high, and then there's a little like uh basically a cross made up from the co hanger, yeah, so that the toast, you put the toast on top of that. Yeah, and so that those holes in the bottom make it an even heat. So and it makes pretty good toast, huh? You know, I I uh I when I was making it uh the other morning here, the uh the uh I was counting, you know, you to make the best toast is you gotta count it. So it took an 18 18 second, you know, you just count 18, and then you can flip it over and it's perfect.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:So if you do that, but my goodness, if you lose count, the smoke starts to fly.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah. Just catches you, man. Yeah. But it works pretty good.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, it does.
SPEAKER_04:You know, so you're using plates for that. You're using plates to cut up because we we get back. I I get a lot of the Mennonite sausage and things like that, or or some of the suprasadas, and we'll cut that up and have have that cheese uh while we're working. Excellent. Yep. Oh, nice piece of machinery. Well, that's that uh cutter where we're coming back now and clearing the sides of it before we get it. We got to see the uh the the business end of it. Yes, this time uh the uh the the the machine with the claw that has like a a uh um a cutter, uh a big saw yeah, like a mower, like a saw blade on it that cuts down all this stuff at the side of the road. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah, so so we'll do uh we're heading into the bush now. We'll do the uh another login trail. Yeah. We'll take a drive down that and see what we can find, see if there's any more jaggers. But we're pretty much packed up now. I got enough for the year with all the the plants and uh with the other pickers I got. Should be good. And if we don't need it, uh we leave it back out there, we just make marker where it is and check it out, and it's uh set that we know where to start for next year. That's right. Oh, it's good to have a plan. Yeah, and with uh that those uh drives or the walks through the bush that that Josh and Garrett did, they certainly noticed a lot of chaggers that we'll be able to pick up starting next year because we know right where they are. Yep. Did they uh they mark them on their GPS? Is that yeah, yeah, they'll uh they they've got that uh um GPS that uh they can they mark, they put a note where it is on it, and that tells us where to start next year when we come out. So we already got a good head start on next year's pick, which is a year away. Yep, yeah, that'd be great. And you know, in uh the morning in the we have uh Chag and the morning coffee every day. Yes, it's pretty good, yeah. It kind of adds it mellows it out just nicely, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yep.
SPEAKER_03:I started off with a bit of a uh I'm gonna say a sore throat, and uh I was coughing uh coughing and and uh you know it's pretty well gone now.
SPEAKER_04:Yep, and uh I swear that shake helps it. Yep. Alright, well we appreciate uh roll you picking and Josh and Garrett and Ron and Camp and everybody else, and now we're we're heading back into the bush for uh another pick, but it's just a another fun time out there under the canopy.
SPEAKER_10: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_11: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 job.
SPEAKER_07:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be more efficient than it was punching.
SPEAKER_10:You so confidently you said, Hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drink? Find diaries of a lodge owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.