
Super Good Camping Podcast
Hi there! We are a blended family of four who are passionate about camping, nature, the great outdoors, physical activity, health, & being all-around good Canadians! We would love to inspire others to get outside & explore all that our beautiful country has to offer. Camping fosters an appreciation of nature, physical fitness, & emotional well-being. Despite being high-tech kids, our kids love camping! We asked them to help inspire your kids. Their creations are in our Kids section. For the adults, we would love to share our enthusiasm for camping, review some of our favourite camping gear, share recipes & menus, tips & how-to's, & anything else you may want to know about camping. Got a question about camping? Email us so we can help you & anyone else who may be wondering the same thing. We are real people, with a brutally honest bent. We don't get paid by anyone to provide a review of their product. We'll be totally frank about what we like or don't like.
Super Good Camping Podcast
Greg Robertson From The Organic Boat Shop Drops By!
Greg talks about canoes - so many types and manufacturers, growing a business from a side-hustle to full time, delivering canoes all over the country and being a paddling instructor.
www.organicboatshop.com
https://www.instagram.com/organicboatshop/
https://www.facebook.com/organicboatshop
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00:00 - 00:04
Hello and good day, eh? Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela.
00:04 - 00:08
I'm Tim and we are from supergoodcamping.com we are here because we are on a mission to inspire
00:08 - 00:13
other families to enjoy camping adventures such as we have with our kids today on the show.
00:13 - 00:19
Located in beautiful Beamsville, Ontario, the Organic Boat Shop has all your canoe and outdoor adventure needs covered.
00:19 - 00:23
Canoes, kayaks, paddles, PFDs, maps, tents, rentals, you name it.
00:23 - 00:26
Our guest today is also a certified ORCA instructor.
00:26 - 00:32
Please welcome Greg Robertson, the hard working owner of the Organic Boat Shop. Welcome to the show.
00:32 - 00:33
Thanks for having me, guys.
00:34 - 00:36
Thanks. Thanks for coming to Yakman.
00:36 - 00:40
Yeah, I, I know we've come, we're coming up and it's got to be close to a year since the first
00:40 - 00:43
time we talked about dragging you on the podcast.
00:43 - 00:45
Yeah, probably most likely.
00:45 - 00:51
Welcome to somebody with a very, very busy life and, and just the, the adventure people in general,
00:51 - 00:54
it just seems to be, it's, it's never, it's like, yeah, okay, we.
00:54 - 00:56
What's Wednesday like for you? No, never plays it.
00:56 - 00:56
Yeah.
00:56 - 00:59
My side gig is that day and my real job is this day.
00:59 - 01:00
Yeah, exactly.
01:00 - 01:01
Going camping.
01:01 - 01:06
Yeah. Yeah. I've been thinking lately in the past, I used to think there was an off season.
01:07 - 01:08
There's no such thing as an off season anymore.
01:09 - 01:10
It doesn't seem to play that way.
01:10 - 01:13
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of frustrated people right now.
01:13 - 01:21
We're recording this in, in early January 2024 and there's a lot of people that are like, where's the snow? Where's the ice?
01:21 - 01:22
Right.
01:22 - 01:24
I don't know. I'm, I'm all set to go ice fishing.
01:24 - 01:29
I'm all set to go and build myself a Quincy and, and whatever. Do. Do some winter camping.
01:29 - 01:30
I can do some slush camping.
01:30 - 01:32
That seems to be what I can do.
01:32 - 01:34
Yeah. Never mind the snowmobilers.
01:34 - 01:37
Yeah. Yeah. That must be crazy for that.
01:37 - 01:39
There may not be an ice in this year alone.
01:40 - 01:43
Right? Yeah, there's no ice. Yeah.
01:44 - 01:45
Yeah. It's sad. Climate change.
01:45 - 01:47
I'm not gonna go for paddling.
01:47 - 01:50
I've been out a little bit here and there in December, late December and that.
01:50 - 01:53
So it's still can get on the water a little bit if you're safe. Right.
01:53 - 01:58
Which is pretty crazy for like late December, even early January. I just saw.
01:59 - 02:04
Oh, Sean from Paddling Outdoor or Paddling Adventure Radio. Right.
02:04 - 02:09
He, he was just in Mew Lake paddling like pictures at the front of his canoe.
02:09 - 02:11
Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy.
02:11 - 02:12
That's crazy, man.
02:12 - 02:13
Yeah, for sure.
02:14 - 02:21
Question for you. When did you start the, the, the organic boat shop and, and what prompted you to go there?
02:21 - 02:27
Yeah, so 2015. I was selling a lot of used products and that including used canoes.
02:27 - 02:32
And in the past I used to sell a lot of used aluminum boats and motors.
02:32 - 02:35
Really was a thing and, and it was just a hobby of mine. It was fun.
02:36 - 02:40
Allowed me to have some extra cash on the side and be able to have my own boats and that.
02:41 - 02:45
And then over time we were selling used stuff for, for quite a quite a while.
02:45 - 02:49
Was an okay market and put us in touch with some great people.
02:49 - 02:54
Was started moving in the direction of a business a little bit, but was just a side hustle.
02:54 - 03:04
And in 2018 I picked up 13 boats off of Jeff at H2O canoes and.15. Sorry, 13 canoes.
03:04 - 03:07
And you know, we had them in our backyard.
03:07 - 03:10
You know, my family was like, you're crazy. What are you doing? Right. The 13 boats.
03:10 - 03:16
Here we live in a small side splits house, four kids, two large dogs, one bathroom. It's quite interesting.
03:16 - 03:18
But we have a decent yard which is nice.
03:18 - 03:22
So you know, in the nicer weather it's good to have the kids outdoors.
03:22 - 03:25
In the cooler weather when they're inside, it's a little crazy.
03:25 - 03:27
But anyway, tripping over canoes.
03:27 - 03:32
Yeah. So as a result of that I was like, oh, it'll be good to get in some, some paddles and
03:32 - 03:33
some yolks to sell with these boats.
03:33 - 03:40
And so I got in touch with Teal paddle at the time and who has since retired and more or less close up shop.
03:40 - 03:46
They do a few things here and there now, but they're very well known brand in, in Ontario and throughout the canoeing community.
03:46 - 03:50
And yeah, so we started selling new products that way a little bit.
03:50 - 03:53
Right then Covid hit and before COVID I started to.
03:53 - 03:58
I registered a business and started moving the direction of wanting to bring in new canoes, new products.
03:58 - 04:02
Started reaching out to almost every manufacturer that there was out there.
04:02 - 04:04
And they're like, okay, like where's your showroom?
04:04 - 04:05
I'm like, I don't have a showroom. Right.
04:05 - 04:09
And that usually ended the conversation pretty quick until I got in touch with Winona Canoes
04:09 - 04:15
who used to be a well populated and popular brand in Ontario and in Canada in general.
04:15 - 04:21
My read on it is since the develop, not just the development but the growth of some really good
04:21 - 04:28
high end canoe products canoe manufacturers in Ontario, there's been less desire for American products sometimes.
04:28 - 04:31
But there's still a Winona community out there. A Winona customer.
04:31 - 04:36
Just like, you know, you have a customer that's into Chevy or Ford, you know, there's still
04:36 - 04:39
people that are into Winona canoes and they make a lot of different models and they're more
04:39 - 04:40
than willing to take us on.
04:41 - 04:42
So super grateful for that.
04:42 - 04:44
We placed an order with them.
04:44 - 04:48
And at that time, around that time, Teal actually decided to retire.
04:48 - 04:51
So I started looking around for a new manufacturer of.
04:51 - 04:53
Of yolks, really deep dish yolks.
04:54 - 05:00
And I came across Raume out of Quebec and we, we bought a lot of their canoe parts.
05:00 - 05:06
Seats, paddle, not paddles at that time, but yolks and, and that sort of stuff thwarts mainly.
05:06 - 05:08
And we had no problem selling Jeff's used boats, obviously. Right.
05:08 - 05:09
So they were, they were all gone.
05:09 - 05:12
And we needed these, some new boats to come in. We were waiting.
05:12 - 05:18
We got a delivery of Winona canoes In late in 2019, in the winter or so.
05:18 - 05:21
It was actually in November.
05:21 - 05:26
After that, we started learning the process of selling new canoes, that sort of thing.
05:26 - 05:29
It was a bit of a risk at the time for us financially.
05:29 - 05:30
It was a new game.
05:30 - 05:32
You know, the first time dropping $70,000 on.
05:32 - 05:37
On something and then being like, okay, we got to move this now. Right? And I enjoy that. Yeah.
05:37 - 05:43
I love the, I love the outdoors, I love paddling, and I love all that part of our business.
05:43 - 05:48
But I also really love entrepreneurship and finding the way to sell things and to connect with
05:48 - 05:51
people, but to sell things that they need. Right.
05:51 - 05:55
So not just like pushing things on people, but really discerning with them what is the proper
05:55 - 05:59
thing that they need to make their experience in the outdoors that much better.
05:59 - 06:01
And there's so many different when it's.
06:01 - 06:04
A product that you, you believe in and you believe in outdoors and.
06:04 - 06:12
Exactly right, yeah. So from there I like, kind of was like, wouldn't it be nice we could sell Raum's canoes. Right.
06:12 - 06:14
Because Raum makes canoes for Langford.
06:14 - 06:17
Langford's a well known brand in Ontario, or had been.
06:17 - 06:21
And I was like, there's no way we're gonna be able to sell these because Langford's in here sort of thing.
06:21 - 06:23
You want to step on toes and whatever.
06:23 - 06:27
I reached out, they're like, yeah, of course we want to actually start building our own brand name canoes.
06:28 - 06:29
Like, it's the same model, right?
06:29 - 06:30
The exact same model there.
06:30 - 06:36
They always have been making canoes for other manufacturers and have primarily been a business to business model.
06:36 - 06:40
And Then over the years they started delving into, you know, developing their own brand and
06:40 - 06:44
selling under their own family brand name of Rayon Canoes.
06:44 - 06:47
And I was ecstatic to be able to get their canoes because they're, they're beautiful, they're
06:47 - 06:51
Canadian made, they're a great company, family owned company.
06:51 - 06:53
And so we have great communication with them.
06:53 - 06:56
And yeah, that's kind of how it got going little by little.
06:56 - 07:01
And we had, you know, our first year, 2019 was still during the COVID years.
07:01 - 07:06
So dealing with Winona and Rayom and trying to get orders when everybody was like, we want to
07:06 - 07:11
boat, we want to boat, like so we never had anything actually in stock. It's just moving constantly. Right.
07:12 - 07:16
And then now going into the transition we actually this year I had been trying for three years
07:16 - 07:20
to get in with a skiff canoes as well, which is a great brand and a different price point, but
07:20 - 07:22
also targets a different type of paddler. Right.
07:22 - 07:29
Some white water stuff and that sort of thing, but also touring, fishing, solo boats, the whole gamut.
07:29 - 07:32
And because of COVID and the demands on their, their manufacturing, they weren't able to take
07:32 - 07:34
on any new retailers at the time.
07:34 - 07:40
But since they were able to and this past fall of 2023, we became a retailer for a dealer for,
07:40 - 07:45
for a skiff and we've been selling lots of their boats already. So it's been great.
07:45 - 07:47
I'm learning a lot every day and enjoying it.
07:47 - 07:53
And that's the motivation I would say came from many things, the desire to have my own business
07:53 - 07:54
and to connect with the outdoors.
07:54 - 07:58
But it was very organic how it just developed over time. Right.
07:58 - 08:01
It wasn't just like, okay, tomorrow I'm going to open up a business and we're going to run with it.
08:01 - 08:06
It was like a kind of a side hustle that I always had a dream of it becoming a full time reality
08:06 - 08:09
and I'm knocking on that door of it becoming full time.
08:09 - 08:15
And there's many factors that play into that, including the fact now that we were an orca instructor
08:15 - 08:18
as well, we offer orca courses and so that's.
08:18 - 08:22
It's been a great connection with the community that way and be able to offer courses and connect with people.
08:22 - 08:26
And that's with Tim and, and your son.
08:26 - 08:29
We had a chance to, to be on a course last fall, so.
08:29 - 08:31
Or late summer, I think it was.
08:31 - 08:33
It was late. Yeah, it was, I think it was in September, so.
08:34 - 08:34
Yeah, yeah.
08:34 - 08:36
However you want to look at that on the break.
08:37 - 08:40
Yeah. So that's kind of the background of it there.
08:40 - 08:43
And my wife Jody, who plays a big part in things as well.
08:43 - 08:46
She's always quiet in the background, but she's huge on the outdoors.
08:46 - 08:52
She actually works at an outdoor school with children and she's grown up in the outdoors as
08:52 - 08:55
well as myself and we've come from different backgrounds.
08:55 - 08:59
One of the funny things around the canoeing factor there.
08:59 - 09:01
I didn't grow up canoeing.
09:01 - 09:02
I grew up mainly in.
09:02 - 09:08
In aluminum boats, fishing and small like 9.9 horsepower motors and trolling and that sort of thing.
09:08 - 09:15
On Georgia Bay we did some canoeing a little bit down the Shawnega river with some friends in that. But not, not extensive.
09:15 - 09:18
But she grew up in a canoeing family, you know, and she.
09:18 - 09:19
In high school she did.
09:19 - 09:25
She went to Lady Evelyn Provincial park and Tomogamy with her outdoor course class in high school
09:25 - 09:27
and that and winter camping and all that sort of stuff.
09:27 - 09:30
And her dad was into outdoors quite a bit and canoeing.
09:30 - 09:31
And so one day we're.
09:31 - 09:36
Anyways we're at my parents cottage which is on Georgian Bay just north of Perry Sound.
09:36 - 09:41
And my buddy's there who also grew up canoeing and he was a guide up in Quetico for a number of summers.
09:41 - 09:46
And the two of them were like, well, we're gonna go down to a river that's a beautiful spot.
09:46 - 09:47
One of my favorite spots in the world really.
09:48 - 09:52
We're gonna leave my parents place and go down to this river and they're like well, we're gonna canoe over.
09:53 - 09:56
And the rest of us, we had some kids and that we're gonna boat over, right.
09:56 - 10:00
I'm like why would you canoe? That would. That would take forever.
10:00 - 10:01
Like why would you do that?
10:01 - 10:06
Like we have the boat. So they did that. Right. And whatever.
10:06 - 10:12
And then later on on that, I think it was that weekend I got out in the canoe with her and I
10:12 - 10:16
was like, this is beautiful. This is awesome. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And it just was.
10:16 - 10:20
It's a different pace, different approach and slows you right down.
10:20 - 10:24
You can't go anywhere fast. Right. And per se. Yeah.
10:24 - 10:26
So anyways, that's kind of open up the door to.
10:26 - 10:28
To the canoe world for me.
10:28 - 10:30
Cool. What do you guys.
10:31 - 10:37
So, so being outdoor types, do you guys actually like pack up four kids and two dogs and go
10:37 - 10:42
away for any period of time, you know, like, like bugger off and go camping?
10:42 - 10:43
Yeah, so we do. We've.
10:44 - 10:46
We did a trip into Killarney as a family like that.
10:46 - 10:52
So we actually brought my mom and my stepdad who are 65 and 70. So we had two. We had two.
10:52 - 10:54
Two canoes at the time. Four kids.
10:55 - 10:58
No, we had three canoes. Four kids, two dogs.
10:58 - 11:00
The one dog, we have two large dogs.
11:00 - 11:03
One's a German shorthaired pointer. One's a Weimaraner. But the Weimar.
11:03 - 11:05
That, the Weimaraner at the time was just a puppy.
11:05 - 11:06
So he's a little guy.
11:06 - 11:12
And we, we ventured off and went out for just a couple days at the time and, and man, the best
11:13 - 11:15
experience of, of our lives with the kids and memories.
11:15 - 11:18
It's a lot of work naturally, obviously, right, to, to get them all out there, but once you're
11:18 - 11:20
out there, it's just a great experience.
11:21 - 11:27
And then we have a, a property of our own that we're building a small cabin on in the French river area in Alban.
11:27 - 11:32
And so we do a lot of day trips out of there, do some paddling on the, on the French.
11:33 - 11:37
There's a couple of backcountry trips and that sort of thing on the French and the five mile
11:37 - 11:38
rapids area and that sort of thing.
11:38 - 11:43
And so we're, we're growing little by little as my kids get older and maybe start to paddle
11:44 - 11:49
a little bit more like in a sense of actually put their paddle in the water, they'll come in the boat, no problem. Right.
11:49 - 11:51
But so we do that. Yeah.
11:51 - 11:54
And I foresee doing that a lot more of that as we go.
11:54 - 11:56
And it's a bit of a juggling act with, with the business.
11:56 - 11:58
And as it's growing, my hope is when I.
11:58 - 12:03
I'm more full time that I'll have more windows of opportunity maybe in the shoulder seasons
12:03 - 12:04
and that sort of thing and scheduling things.
12:05 - 12:08
We definitely will be on the water and some backcountry experiences for sure.
12:08 - 12:13
That's like I'm. I'm still picturing three canoes with that many bodies in it, plus beer. Plus.
12:13 - 12:15
Plus plus It's a lot.
12:15 - 12:21
Yeah. Yeah. We. We rented an island. Like. Sorry. We.
12:21 - 12:24
We booked an island and with the two dogs and all that sort of thing.
12:24 - 12:26
So it was just like we were all contained and you couldn't go anywhere.
12:26 - 12:32
They couldn't run, they couldn't interfere and bug anybody else from even a ways down on a backcountry campsite and whatever.
12:32 - 12:36
But so works out well. Yeah.
12:36 - 12:36
Sounds awesome.
12:36 - 12:37
Yeah. Yeah.
12:37 - 12:45
So just curious with the ORCA training, if you have any stories of like really disastrous students that you had.
12:45 - 12:47
Right. So there's this guy named Tim.
12:47 - 12:52
No, I, I dumped it. I totally.
12:52 - 12:54
Yeah, my brain just froze.
12:54 - 12:55
I had the paddle in the wrong position.
12:56 - 12:58
Yeah, it happens. It happens.
12:58 - 12:59
It almost happened to me with a buddy.
12:59 - 13:02
We were out on Jordan harbor in December, right.
13:02 - 13:06
And we got into a little bit of current in a certain area and it could happen in a heartbeat. So. Happens to anybody.
13:06 - 13:09
I wouldn't say it we've had any disaster situations.
13:09 - 13:13
But he means one of the great things about ORCA is the really the focus on safety.
13:13 - 13:20
And you know, I've, I was only trained and got my basic canoe instructor certification last April.
13:20 - 13:23
So I'm, I'm new to the ORCA community and new to the game, so.
13:23 - 13:30
And we ran two courses last year, one with the Magneta one First nations community and primarily their lands department.
13:30 - 13:34
They wanted to get some certification to start running some trips and also they, they do a lot
13:34 - 13:38
of turtle collection collecting and hatching of eggs and that sort of thing.
13:38 - 13:39
So they've a really neat program.
13:39 - 13:43
We got a chance to stop in there with our kids and show them and check it all out.
13:43 - 13:47
And then I had a group down in here in Niagara with Tim and several others.
13:47 - 13:50
So I just got my feet wet in running some courses, that sort of thing.
13:50 - 13:54
But I'm sure some stories will come up over the, over the years once we, we get going.
13:54 - 13:56
We have several courses planned for this year.
13:57 - 14:02
Just putting together an instructor course as well to try to get more instructors certified
14:02 - 14:06
in our area and working with different, different instructors as well, which has been, been great.
14:06 - 14:11
So we've had a few different provincial parks reach out to us to, to lead some courses for their
14:11 - 14:14
staff, our local conservation authority as well.
14:14 - 14:16
So yeah, little by little.
14:16 - 14:19
So what's the process of becoming an ORCA instructor?
14:19 - 14:25
Right, so typically you have, you've taken your level one to four, so your level one to three
14:25 - 14:31
is your tandem courses of introduction, basic canoeing, that sort of thing.
14:31 - 14:33
And then level four is an introduction to solo paddling.
14:33 - 14:40
So you've taken that and then after that you can take the basic canoeing instructor course which
14:40 - 14:45
is typically a six day course, 48 hours or so of paddling on the actual paddling on the water.
14:45 - 14:48
So it's, it's a rather intense time.
14:48 - 14:51
Like I've talked to several people and even myself, I thought am I gonna be able to handle,
14:51 - 14:55
you know, five, six hours a day paddling on the water with my knees?
14:55 - 14:59
I bought a really good knee pad before I went. That was helpful. And you find.
14:59 - 15:03
Actually I found I'm, I'm not super fit, but I'm in decent shape.
15:03 - 15:05
I have some lower back challenges in that.
15:05 - 15:10
But you Know, paddling, one of the great things, especially if you're doing it properly, strengthens your core. Right.
15:10 - 15:17
So through that week and if we had a great time, learned a lot from each other, and there's
15:17 - 15:22
some in class learning that you do, there's a lot of on the water training that you do.
15:22 - 15:27
And the goal is to perfect your own skills, but also learn how to impart those skills to others
15:27 - 15:29
as you start to run your own courses.
15:29 - 15:35
And some people will be trained through their employer, like a conservation authority or a provincial
15:35 - 15:39
park or something like that, so that they can then train their own staff.
15:39 - 15:42
They don't have to bring in an ORCAN instructor.
15:42 - 15:46
They can train their own staff if they become an organizational member of orca and other people
15:46 - 15:53
will do it, to work for an organizational member, which is just like a member of ORCA that runs
15:54 - 15:59
courses and they'll work underneath them or they'll establish themselves as a company or a group.
15:59 - 16:05
An organizational member can be like a scouting group or a conservation authority or a business like ourselves.
16:06 - 16:07
And that's, that's what we did.
16:07 - 16:12
We established ourselves as a ORCA organizational member to be able to offer courses through
16:12 - 16:13
our business, the organic boat shop.
16:13 - 16:17
Yeah, so that's, that's kind of the process. Hopefully you pass everything.
16:18 - 16:21
You know, sometimes, like everybody's great in the community. We worked.
16:21 - 16:28
I took my course with a gentleman named Randy Bartlett and he's extremely well seasoned.
16:28 - 16:31
I think he started his training in 2009 or so.
16:32 - 16:34
Tons of experience of Canadian style paddling.
16:34 - 16:41
I was in the guys that he brought in to, to assist, like, fabulous. They knew so much.
16:41 - 16:46
You know, you think if you've never taken a paddling course before, and it is very much like
16:46 - 16:48
a European sort of thing, like we need to certify everybody, right.
16:48 - 16:50
And everything needs to be structured and organized.
16:50 - 16:57
But really the certification program, from my understanding, it came out of the result of tragedy, right?
16:57 - 17:03
So when there, there was tragedy and several people, young people in a school environment situation
17:03 - 17:09
on a backcountry trip passed away as a result of, you know, some poor planning and circumstances
17:10 - 17:10
and that sort of thing.
17:10 - 17:14
And then everybody's radar's up, the school boards and that, that sort of thing.
17:14 - 17:21
And they need, you know, from what I heard at that time, the, the Temiskaming tragedy occurred.
17:21 - 17:27
And more or less people organizations like scouting groups and schools that had fleets of canoes,
17:27 - 17:29
they were locked up and was like, don't touch those.
17:29 - 17:30
We're like, there's too much liability.
17:30 - 17:32
We don't want anything to happen.
17:32 - 17:38
So a group of people kind of took it on themselves to establish an organization that would say, we'll certify people and.
17:38 - 17:44
And put the training in place so that there's legitimacy and there's. There's.
17:44 - 17:48
People are properly trained and safely trained when they go out on that.
17:48 - 17:50
Not just backcountry trips, but on the water in general.
17:51 - 17:55
Yeah. Knowledge and. Knowledge and safety are the. Are the big ones. And.
17:56 - 17:57
Yeah, yeah.
17:57 - 18:02
You can't. You can't really build up good experience if you don't know what you're doing in the first place.
18:02 - 18:07
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And often, I think, like, one of the experienced paths, like, I know what I'm doing.
18:07 - 18:09
I've done this my whole life. Right. And.
18:09 - 18:10
And most likely they do.
18:10 - 18:14
I'm not saying they don't, but often you go on a course and like, wow, I never really did that
18:14 - 18:17
or never had the opportunity to do a canoe or canoe rescue before.
18:17 - 18:23
And now just going through it, if that ever happened to me, I may be able to, you know, perform
18:23 - 18:27
it a little bit better, especially if it's cold water and you need to really act fast. Right. So.
18:27 - 18:33
Well, I can give you a nod to all of those things, because all of those happened when I did your course last September. So. Yeah, there you go.
18:33 - 18:38
I think I've been paddling for ages, but I don't know what the stroke names are. I'm not.
18:38 - 18:40
I'm not terribly efficient at some of them.
18:40 - 18:44
Some of them were like, oh, I never thought about that before. What a brilliant idea.
18:44 - 18:45
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Right.
18:45 - 18:47
It just improves your efficiency overall, I think.
18:47 - 18:53
Yeah, well, yeah, And I think one of the things, aside from safety, I think one of the things
18:53 - 18:58
I came away with was I've been. I've been a. A tail gunner forever.
18:58 - 19:00
I have been in the back of the boat.
19:00 - 19:05
Like, I don't know that I've ever been in the front of the boat. And until that. Until the course.
19:06 - 19:06
Yeah.
19:06 - 19:10
And I have a much greater appreciation. Thomas is my. Is my.
19:10 - 19:15
My backcountry partner, but I have a much greater appreciation for anybody in particular.
19:15 - 19:17
I now can probably be.
19:17 - 19:22
We can probably be a more efficient team, because I know I much better understand what.
19:22 - 19:25
What he's doing in the front of the boat, so.
19:25 - 19:27
Yeah, for sure. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
19:27 - 19:28
Yeah, that was.
19:28 - 19:31
And you're more willing to switch with them now every now and then.
19:31 - 19:38
No, there's that whole weight balance thing. He's this big around. He weighs 12 pounds.
19:38 - 19:39
It's a good point.
19:39 - 19:43
I don't matter how much gear I put up there when I have to be in the back.
19:44 - 19:45
Yeah, I hear you.
19:47 - 19:52
Completely off topic. Just because you know you're talking about going there for, to hang with the parents.
19:52 - 19:56
Going there for on the French River.
19:56 - 19:58
I know that you deliver a lot of canoes.
19:58 - 20:05
I love, I love seeing the backgrounds when, when you take the shot when you're delivering them on your Instagram account.
20:05 - 20:06
Yeah, yeah.
20:06 - 20:10
How many miles a year, man like you must put a ridiculous amount on the truck.
20:10 - 20:14
Yeah, so I do do a lot of driving, that's for sure.
20:15 - 20:18
But kind of I try to plan it currently anyways.
20:18 - 20:23
And this coming year will be even more, more driving because we've been advertising in the eastern
20:23 - 20:27
provinces and the western provinces for sales of ram canoes.
20:27 - 20:32
So my hope is to have a trailer loads, a trailer load or several trailer loads full to be able
20:32 - 20:32
to drive out there and deliver.
20:33 - 20:37
So I, because of where I pick up the majority of our boats, the, the Winonas get delivered.
20:37 - 20:41
They come out of Minnesota. Winona, Minnesota. And they get delivered.
20:41 - 20:42
So that's kind of nice.
20:42 - 20:45
And they take care of all, all of the details at the border.
20:46 - 20:51
But then with our ram canoes and the skiff canoes, I go and pick them up.
20:51 - 20:55
I have a truck and then I have a trailer currently that fits about 20, 24 boats.
20:55 - 21:00
And so the nice thing is when I'm going in that direction, which is a long drive, I'm covering
21:00 - 21:02
a good part of the province as well, the eastern part of the province.
21:02 - 21:06
So for any deliveries that I have current stock, I deliver out that direction. Right.
21:07 - 21:10
And then on the way back, if somebody's already pre ordered something, I can drop it off on
21:10 - 21:16
the way back Ottawa all into the, you know, Northern Ontario, whatever it may be.
21:16 - 21:17
So that covers the eastern area.
21:17 - 21:25
And then as I mentioned, I have, have our property in the French river which is kind of a central northern location.
21:25 - 21:27
It's a good five hours from our place down here in Niagara.
21:27 - 21:35
But you know, you cover a lot of Ontario population between Niagara and going up through Toronto,
21:35 - 21:37
up up to, through Barry and all that.
21:37 - 21:42
So for deliveries, you know, it's a good excuse to I have to make a delivery right now and you
21:42 - 21:47
know, then I go and spend a day or two at the, @ our place in Alban, French river or we get
21:47 - 21:51
up to Alban and then I, I go further and deliver up into Sudbury, Timmins or whatever it may be.
21:51 - 21:54
My in laws live in, you know, in Sound area, South Owen Sound, Flesherton.
21:54 - 21:55
So going up Highway 6.
21:55 - 22:01
And covering up Guelph and Cambridge and Waterloo is, you know, up that direction is nuts. Nuts. Never an issue either.
22:01 - 22:04
We don't tend to get tons of business from like Windsor area.
22:04 - 22:05
It seems like it's a.
22:05 - 22:11
I don't know, there's some different things going on down there or not or I haven't marketed much down there, but.
22:11 - 22:15
So we cover a good part of the province that way.
22:15 - 22:19
I don't know how many kilometers. That's a lot. Definitely.
22:19 - 22:27
I had a minivan I was doing this all with for a long time and I was pulling us just a six trailer canoe. Canoe trailer.
22:27 - 22:28
Yeah, yeah.
22:28 - 22:32
And then I'd put two on my roof right of the minivan.
22:32 - 22:34
So I'd only ever be able to pick up eight canoes from Raum.
22:34 - 22:40
And we didn't have a skiff at the time, so it was a lot more smaller scale and our business wasn't as big.
22:40 - 22:46
But so as things have been word of mouth been spreading and growing and that's just.
22:46 - 22:51
We've been able to sell more canoes each year. Even in the pandemic.
22:51 - 22:55
Like after the pandemic and the kind of the explosion of sales with.
22:55 - 22:59
With COVID we're still growing, which is a great sign. Yeah.
22:59 - 23:01
So we cover a lot of the province that way.
23:01 - 23:03
Funny enough, I had the.
23:03 - 23:06
The canoe that I've sold the furthest away from our.
23:06 - 23:09
Our house was in Dryden, Ontario.
23:09 - 23:13
So that's up close to the Manitoba border. Really?
23:13 - 23:14
Yeah.
23:14 - 23:15
Right. So it's a hike.
23:15 - 23:22
And my plan was, you know, well, I'll be delivering canoes into Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta in the spring.
23:22 - 23:25
And the guy agreed for that to do that, no problem.
23:25 - 23:30
And then I had a customer come by and he was connected with Tomogamy friends at Tomogamy, like your shirt there.
23:30 - 23:34
And we had a good conversation, some good chats and stuff. And. Yeah.
23:34 - 23:41
And he, he ends up telling me, you know, I'm going to see my mom in, in Dryden. I'm like, really?
23:41 - 23:43
Would you want to strap a canoe on?
23:43 - 23:45
Like, would you be interested if I pay you to deliver this canoe?
23:45 - 23:47
He's like, sure, I'll do that. No problem.
23:47 - 23:48
And he took it up. The guy was happy.
23:48 - 23:54
The guy that got it was happy and, and super grateful that this gentleman Ted was able to help us out that way.
23:54 - 23:59
So like the canoeing community really impresses me in general that way. The.
23:59 - 24:01
It's a community you can trust, I find. Right.
24:01 - 24:02
You don't have any issues.
24:02 - 24:06
I often have customers that will show up to my House because our businesses ran out of our house
24:06 - 24:09
and people often ask, well, when are you going to get a storefront?
24:09 - 24:11
I'm like, I really don't want a storefront.
24:11 - 24:12
Then it'll be chained to it.
24:12 - 24:16
It's like a, you know, and I like the freedom be able to come and go and customers can show
24:16 - 24:19
up here at 9:00 if I'm home and make things work, whatever.
24:19 - 24:23
But often if I'm not here, I just talk them through going to the backyard and here's where you
24:23 - 24:28
find the yolks, grab one, leave the money on the counter, send me an E transfer, whatever, and
24:28 - 24:29
kind of laugh about it.
24:30 - 24:35
Yeah, I don't know how much I should put out there. Right. But it's nice.
24:35 - 24:41
I love being able to trust people and I've always found like, people are great that way. So yeah, it's. You learn.
24:41 - 24:44
I think one of the other things I was thinking about when I was thinking what I might share
24:44 - 24:47
with you today, know those thoughts go through your head.
24:47 - 24:48
What are we going to be talking about? Right.
24:48 - 24:54
But one of the great things is the different types of people you meet, the different types of paddlers. Right.
24:54 - 25:00
When I first got thing into things like, okay, the, the YouTube community, this is the canoeing community. This is it.
25:00 - 25:03
No, it's, it's so beyond that. Right.
25:03 - 25:08
That's a, a really neat factor and a really cool community and it's its own niche in itself.
25:09 - 25:14
But the families like you mentioned, that's really why you, you run this podcast, is to connect
25:14 - 25:18
with families and other families that have been doing this and share your experiences with families.
25:18 - 25:22
So there's families, there's the, the new paddlers that are just getting into it.
25:22 - 25:24
There's paddlers that have been doing this forever.
25:25 - 25:28
There's the white water community, there's the backcountry community.
25:28 - 25:34
One of my favorites is, well, is like a first generation Canadian that's just moved to our country
25:34 - 25:39
and they want to start canoeing because they really believe this is a Canadian experience, which,
25:39 - 25:40
which I really believe it is.
25:40 - 25:44
And to be able to be a small part of their journey of learning that and figuring that out and
25:45 - 25:47
getting the right product or the right boat to, to start.
25:48 - 25:49
It's a really special thing as well.
25:49 - 25:53
So there's, there's so many different facets of the canoeing community.
25:53 - 25:59
We're, we're up here frozen in the north, living out of our igloos and we've developed our own ways of doing things.
25:59 - 26:02
Yeah, most definitely that's true. That's for sure. Yeah.
26:03 - 26:08
Cool. I, I thinking about the Raum and the, what was the, the skiff? No, skip.
26:08 - 26:10
Skiff. Skiff. Skiff.
26:10 - 26:12
Is the, is the skiff.
26:12 - 26:15
Because I think you mentioned something in the realm of whitewater.
26:15 - 26:16
Like, is it more of a.
26:17 - 26:18
I don't know what the right brand. Right.
26:18 - 26:21
Like tough coats, that kind of a deal.
26:21 - 26:25
Like, is it, is it more hardy canoe, Right.
26:25 - 26:34
So a skiff, they've been around a long time and if you go back a little bit to Royal X was a material. Right.
26:34 - 26:39
That's many people in the community know about, but, but ceased to exist when the company that
26:39 - 26:42
owned it stopped producing it.
26:42 - 26:47
And that affected all canoe manufacturers that were producing Royalex boats.
26:47 - 26:50
And there was a lot of them being pumped out onto the market, from my understanding. So a skiff.
26:50 - 26:55
The owner of a skiff tried to figure out a way to replicate that Royal X, and it didn't.
26:55 - 26:58
It's not the exact same, but it's its own material.
26:58 - 27:01
It's called T4MX is the material. Right.
27:02 - 27:04
And so it has a foam core.
27:04 - 27:09
And in the middle of it, I have a piece of it that I got from the factory when I went to be able to show customers. It's kind of neat.
27:09 - 27:13
And then it's sandwiched between two pieces of polyethylene plastic.
27:13 - 27:16
So it makes a boat a lot lighter.
27:16 - 27:20
So it makes a plastic boat a lot lighter, but still extremely durable.
27:20 - 27:26
So when you're whitewater paddling or even just, you know, you want a boat that you can just
27:26 - 27:31
beat up and drag over beaver dams or drag up on shore and you're not having to worry about babying
27:31 - 27:34
that $5,000 beautiful Kevlar canoe. Right.
27:34 - 27:38
Which I really appreciate with my kids and my dogs, for instance, it's a whole different game
27:38 - 27:41
when you go with that nice canoe and you're thinking, okay, I gotta jump out of the boat and
27:41 - 27:43
I don't want to just paddle up onto shore.
27:43 - 27:47
And until you get those first few scratches and then just this is life, right?
27:47 - 27:50
You do your own, your gel coat repairs and all that.
27:50 - 27:56
But it's, yeah, it's a lightweight plastic canoe which they produce in many different molds.
27:56 - 28:05
So you have it in just touring boats, like your 17, 16, 15 foot prospectors, they have like just recreational style canoes.
28:06 - 28:07
The Scout they came out with this year.
28:07 - 28:12
So for cottage boats, that sort of thing, they have some solo options, the Adirondack and the
28:12 - 28:15
Echo that are still made of this material. So it's still lightweight.
28:15 - 28:17
So you can portage it Fairly easy.
28:17 - 28:22
Had a customer here yesterday, a girl in university and she's trying to find something lightweight.
28:22 - 28:28
But the beauty is when you go into a lightweight solo Kevlar boat, you're still talking three
28:28 - 28:30
to five thousand depending on the boat.
28:30 - 28:35
Whereas this, you're into 1500 for, for an Adirondack. So it's extremely popular.
28:35 - 28:42
Price points and boat, because of the price point, it's still lightweight enough and still does the job. Right. So.
28:42 - 28:49
And then you have the whole other white water side of their, their models that are very particular.
28:49 - 28:53
I don't know as well about the white water boats. I'm learning about them.
28:53 - 29:01
The leg lead I think it is and several other models that they, they have that are primarily for white water. I know better.
29:01 - 29:08
The Pocket Canyon and the Canyon they just have a lot more rocker to them but the material still T4M.
29:08 - 29:12
So you can, you're not worried about if you get wrapped around a rock, there's dogs going, somebody
29:13 - 29:14
locked the door on a, on a car.
29:15 - 29:17
If you get going, there's some, a video out there.
29:17 - 29:20
You know, some guys, I can't remember who they are, they're YouTubers.
29:20 - 29:23
They wrapped one of their skiff boats around a rock.
29:24 - 29:27
They able to get it out, punch it out and just keep paddling.
29:27 - 29:29
Keep paddling. I know, I saw that too.
29:29 - 29:32
Yeah. So lot different than some of the options.
29:32 - 29:35
You still have composite options for white water.
29:35 - 29:40
You know there's, there's Nova Craft's tough stuff and Raum actually makes a similar product
29:40 - 29:43
as well, but it's still composite.
29:43 - 29:45
You hit a rock and you smash it.
29:45 - 29:47
It's the, the effect is going to be a little different. Right.
29:47 - 29:52
So and then a skiff has the whole fishing side as well. Right.
29:52 - 29:59
Larger boats for, for fishing and you can put their motors in the back of them on and that sort of thing. So square sterns.
29:59 - 30:00
So they have a lot of different options with that.
30:00 - 30:02
The, the focus there really is the fact that it's T4 mix.
30:02 - 30:08
It's this lightweight, the lightest weight plastic option for a canoe on the market.
30:08 - 30:11
Unless you can find a gem of a royal X somewhere out there.
30:11 - 30:19
Weight comparison. So I don't know that 16 style prospector style in, you know, in, in Kevlar
30:19 - 30:21
versus the, the T4 Max.
30:21 - 30:23
What kind of weight difference are we looking at?
30:24 - 30:31
Yeah, so a T4 mix is going to be a 16 foot prospector T4 mix is going to be 65 pounds without
30:31 - 30:34
any outfitting options on it or skid plates, that sort of thing.
30:34 - 30:42
And then you Know the, the average 16 foot prospector Kevlar is in the 40 pound range. 42 give
30:42 - 30:43
or take, depending on what.
30:43 - 30:48
You're still not crazy. It's not, you're not like, you're not doubling, you're, you're no 50. So.
30:48 - 30:53
Yeah, but the, the, the benefit is like if you get into a polyethylene plastic canoe, right.
30:53 - 30:59
Like a Nova Craft SP3 or an old Town plastic, I'm not too sure what's what their options are,
30:59 - 31:05
but you're talking 70, 80, you know, £90, like that can be.
31:05 - 31:09
I don't, I don't want to say the exact weight of those ones, but they're a lot heavier. Right.
31:09 - 31:10
So it's a big difference.
31:10 - 31:12
Still manageable at that 65 pound range.
31:12 - 31:14
Another canoe.
31:14 - 31:14
Sweet.
31:15 - 31:19
Was it someone that you were following that has how many canoes?
31:19 - 31:26
Oh, so he's using this to justify Dave Canoe Collector on Instagram stuff. Canoe collector, yeah.
31:26 - 31:26
Yeah.
31:26 - 31:28
He's had, he has owned. Don't.
31:28 - 31:32
Don't hold me to it. 28 canoes.
31:32 - 31:34
Yeah, he's got a few. Yeah, yeah.
31:34 - 31:39
And he's talking about, yeah, he's talking about getting in a skiff canoe for next year maybe.
31:39 - 31:42
I think he just posted something with that too. Right. So. Yeah, yeah.
31:43 - 31:44
Kayaks as well. Right?
31:44 - 31:49
We do. We're not primarily a kayak dealer in the sense that's not our main focus.
31:49 - 31:50
Our main focus is canoeing.
31:50 - 31:56
But when we started, we started with Winona as I mentioned, and Winona owns Current Designs
31:56 - 32:00
Kayaks, which is a very popular brand kayak, especially in the sea kayaking community.
32:00 - 32:05
And then they made some really, really nice recreational option kayaks as well.
32:05 - 32:10
So we brought in the recreational kayaks originally and we did pretty well with those during
32:10 - 32:13
COVID that sort of thing recently.
32:13 - 32:20
Last year we didn't have any kayaks in stock, but this past year Winona decided to sell their,
32:20 - 32:25
their current designs branch of their business and just get back focused to their canoes.
32:25 - 32:31
And they, they have had a pretty good deal on their recreational polyethylene plastic kayak.
32:31 - 32:33
So we brought a bunch of those in.
32:33 - 32:35
I think I have 17 or 18 of them.
32:35 - 32:38
So we'll have a few for this year and then we'll see where that goes.
32:38 - 32:42
There's a local guy in our area here, he goes by Kayak Ontario.
32:42 - 32:49
He has a pretty big Kayak Ontario Facebook page that's kind of morphed into its own thing, but it's his own business.
32:50 - 32:53
Aaron and his wife got a chance to meet them the other day if you're interested.
32:53 - 32:56
I don't know if you do kayaking much stuff on your podcast, but you should reach out to them
32:56 - 33:04
if you are and they, they focus on, on a lot of that courses through Paddle Canada and sea kayaking trips and all that. So.
33:04 - 33:06
Sorry. Writing down kayak, Ontario.
33:06 - 33:08
Yeah, no, honestly, I'll put you in touch with him.
33:08 - 33:11
It's a great guy and for me it's a, it's a, it's a different game.
33:11 - 33:16
I like kayaking, but I don't know enough about it and I wouldn't want to, you know, get it if
33:16 - 33:22
you bring a five, six thousand dollar kayak and they're very particular like a kayaker size
33:22 - 33:24
of boats and all that sort of stuff.
33:24 - 33:28
It's a little different than the, the canoeing game where you know, a 16th prospector is going
33:28 - 33:29
to fit a lot of people.
33:29 - 33:34
But there's still also obviously a lot of different options in canoes as well when you get into
33:34 - 33:37
solo paddling and, or chirping boats, that sort of thing.
33:37 - 33:41
Yeah, well, we talked to paddle heads and they're big, big.
33:41 - 33:44
I mean they do both, but they love fishing from kayaks.
33:44 - 33:44
Yes.
33:44 - 33:50
That's an interesting concept. You know, just a wider platform for you, so less tippy and stuff.
33:50 - 33:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Different game.
33:53 - 33:59
I like the portage. I don't, I don't like the portage, but I like to carry my, my canoe, my Kevlar canoe.
33:59 - 34:03
When I get into kayak, it would be.
34:03 - 34:03
Yeah.
34:03 - 34:05
Old, crippled, bad.
34:05 - 34:11
Yeah, we get a lot of, A lot of people that are transitioning from kayaking, sea kayaking and
34:11 - 34:17
they, they want a canoe, but so they get into a solo canoe like a Ram Rebel or some of our Winona
34:17 - 34:18
options, the wilderness and that sort of thing.
34:18 - 34:22
And they can then put their dog in it and, and pack some stuff.
34:22 - 34:24
And so it still has a little bit of.
34:24 - 34:27
They can use their double blade and get going pretty good.
34:27 - 34:32
There's quite a bit of tumble home on the Rebel and so they, it's a good transition too.
34:32 - 34:35
So different people, they do different things at different points in their lives. Right, cool.
34:35 - 34:40
Well, and yeah, and you can use, so you can use a double blade in, in something that's got like
34:40 - 34:45
a nice tumble home on it or, or you can get into doing single blading, which is a. Yeah. Different game. So.
34:45 - 34:46
Yeah, exactly.
34:46 - 34:49
Cool. All right. January. Come on, man.
34:50 - 34:53
Yeah, we'll get there. Hey, it goes fast. Yeah.
34:53 - 34:56
What do you guys do anything in the winter to pass your time or.
34:57 - 35:02
We've been Trying. The last couple years we've been looking at different things and we actually I almost.
35:03 - 35:08
Pamela and our youngest are. He. They're heading to Mexico. Nice.
35:08 - 35:10
Third week in February I think.
35:10 - 35:12
Second and third week in February for his reading.
35:12 - 35:13
Right? Yeah.
35:13 - 35:21
So Thomas and I were actually trying to do a winter camping thing with some other fellows and I can't.
35:21 - 35:23
I can't dig up enough bodies.
35:23 - 35:26
Thomas got a contract for work. It's like.
35:26 - 35:29
Yeah. So it's a different game, eh? Yeah.
35:30 - 35:30
We'll keep trying.
35:30 - 35:34
Not as much if it's not your like your go to like canoeing is. Right.
35:34 - 35:37
It's hard to get all that like super motivated to.
35:37 - 35:39
Or cancel your work to go. To go. Right.
35:39 - 35:43
Or I'm a little top one and I have a canoe trip. Right.
35:43 - 35:47
Yeah, exactly. Which I'm. I mean for me, for me it's easy. I just go okay.
35:47 - 35:48
I'm taking these days off.
35:48 - 35:49
Good for you.
35:49 - 35:51
Yeah. Yeah. For him it's.
35:51 - 35:53
It's a little bit different because it's contract based.
35:53 - 35:56
So if he's got a window where he's. Which is.
35:56 - 36:01
I think it's a 16 day contract or something, it's pretty, pretty tough to do it.
36:02 - 36:04
Take a couple of those days off. It's not. He's.
36:04 - 36:06
They just won't get the contract. So.
36:07 - 36:08
Yeah, that makes sense for sure.
36:08 - 36:11
And I don't want a broke kid eating all my food and stuff.
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Right. Yeah. And living with you the rest of your life.
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Exactly.
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Or maybe you do.
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That's it for us for today.
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Thank you so much to our special guest Greg Robertson from the Organic Boat Shop.
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Please do check him out on all the social media things and on his website and if you're looking
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to either purchase a canoe, he seems like a good guy to set you up with exactly the right thing that you need.
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Please do reach out to us if you'd like to talk to us.
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We are on all the social media as well and we would love it if you subscribed on YouTube.
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Otherwise you can email us anytime@hiupergoodcamping.com that's hiupergcamping.com we will talk to you again soon. Bye.