Knives! A chat with Justin from Rainy Day Forge!

Pamela and Tim talk to Justin Lamoureux, owner of Rainy Day Forge about making knives, battering with other Outdoor Adventure Community members, winning a first place prize with a Wheel of Time themed custom knife and taking time off to get out in nature.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and good day. Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela.

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

I'm Tim.

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

And we are from supergoodcamping.com. We're here because we're on a mission to inspire other people to get outside and enjoy camping adventures such as we have as a family. Today's guest is a Canadian knife maker based in Manitoba. He forges camping and hunting knives as well as culinary ones, often with very cool handles. Please welcome the president of the Manitoba Blacksmith Guild and owner of Radiate A Forge, Justin Lamoureux.

SPEAKER_03: 0:29

Hey, welcome. Yes. Wow, that was an awesome intro. It's always like, what are they going to say? And it feels good.

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

It's a surprise.

SPEAKER_03: 0:39

Yeah, yeah. No kidding. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 0:42

Well, thanks. Thanks for coming out. You're our first Manitoban.

SPEAKER_03: 0:45

Yes, yes. And I love canoeing. So this works out well.

SPEAKER_01: 0:48

See, so much better, right?

SPEAKER_03: 0:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 0:51

Right on. So let's work with your origin story. How did you get into canoeing? I would assume you didn't jump right into knives. You probably had to learn how to operate a forge and stuff like that, but how did you get to where you're at?

SPEAKER_03: 1:05

No, I jumped right in. Yeah. The first episode of Forge and Fire came out on television on History Network and I saw their backyard setups and I was like, oh man, if these guys can do it with this equipment, I have half that crap in my yard too. I'm going to head out back and see what I can piece together. And at the time there was a, a really good website called Instructables. I loved it. You'd go on there and it was just like tutorials and guides on how to make different things. And there happened to be a how to make a forge on that on that website. So kind of ran to Home Depot, got the little parts that I needed, plug the propane into it and prayed and didn't blow myself up, which was very good. And lo and behold, I had some hot steel and then the mission came true. continued by going to different auctions because i didn't know where to source some of the more specific material like like an anvil where do you buy an anvil nowadays well with the community that i'm part of it's i can i can call a few people and probably get one in half an hour but at the time i had none of that and uh it was going to auctions and trying to find things that i could piece together to kind of create a setup to make knives so now now now it's a different situation in the shop. I'm not fully kitted out, but there's always equipment I would love to have, but it's super functional now. Right

SPEAKER_01: 2:42

on. How long have you been doing it?

SPEAKER_03: 2:43

Probably going around eight years now. The first few years, you do it when you can, and now I'm pretty much out there every day. So unless I'm, I'm working on my website or spending time at the family in summer, like I left canoeing. If I could, this past summer, it was a situation of like, okay, last summer I worked too much in the shop and it kind of made it for like a a summer that was too too occupied working so let's try to spend as much time in the bush as we can and that's what happened so

SPEAKER_01: 3:17

yeah life work balance man

SPEAKER_03: 3:19

oh yeah more in the bush the better

SPEAKER_01: 3:23

yes yeah i would i my balance would be way too much in the canoe but yes

SPEAKER_03: 3:28

yeah yeah

SPEAKER_00: 3:29

and so where do you go canoeing

SPEAKER_03: 3:30

well in manitoba here there's the north is huge and i haven't ventured out terribly far generally from winnipeg you can go east towards ontario and like from winnipeg to get to ontario you're looking at like an hour and a half drive um so we've gone out to uh experimental lakes it's a it's a small chain of lakes that you can portage from lake to lake and each one is as as beautiful as the next there's huge rock faces um i think like i i like to watch uh sandra butnik in wintertime. I've got all his videos kind of put aside. I don't want to watch them in summer. That's for wintertime. And I see some of the beautiful, beautiful scenery out in Ontario. And like, it's starting to turn and look more like that. So we've got that in Ontario. And then if you go north in Manitoba, like northeast from Winnipeg, you've got Nopeming Park. And it's just rivers and lakes. Like, it's beautiful. Less rock. Well, it's, it's very rocky. It's definitely Canadian shield, but there's less elevation change. So it's, uh, it's a lot of pine, um, kind of darker waters, like kind of murkier than, uh, than the ones that we see in Ontario, but, um, still gorgeous solitude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:55

I would take less elevation change just for the portages. That would be

SPEAKER_03: 4:59

fine. I guess so. I've never, never really thought about, yeah, we'll just, uh, lot of the places that we go some some trails are established we've because i've been doing this since like i was just looking at my photos since like 97 and uh yeah we'd head on some trip some rivers where it was like portage on the left or portage right we don't know so we'd we'd bushwhack some trails and make our way through. So,

SPEAKER_01: 5:29

um, so lots of, lots of stuff that's outside of whatever your provincial parks and that sort of jazz, lots of, uh, what the heck do we call it? That's it. Crown land.

SPEAKER_03: 5:39

Well, They're a provincial park, but they're not necessarily established as canoe routes, so they're not traveled.

SPEAKER_01: 5:47

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 5:48

Yeah. Oh, man. I look at the map every spring, try to figure out where can we go that we haven't been. Oh, there's that little lake there that we can probably make it to and, like, we're getting on the old side now and some of my friends don't really want to like no I want to go to that site that we found five years ago and it's just nice and we can just pull in and and like relax and enjoy ourselves I've got a bit more sense of adventure still and I want to I want to go bushwhacking and whatnot so so we'll we'll try to head out to a few of those lakes of summer

SPEAKER_00: 6:23

and so do you hunt as well as as canoeing and camping

SPEAKER_03: 6:26

I've hunted I'm not I wouldn't call myself a hunter though I I love fishing, but yeah. Not hunting.

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

So you probably have a really good fillet knife then.

SPEAKER_03: 6:37

I do. Yeah, I make one.

SPEAKER_00: 6:40

The knives that you produce are really, they look like a work of art. They're so beautiful. Yeah, thank you. Are the handles, you can custom make each of those or is it something you just purchase handles? No,

SPEAKER_03: 6:54

you're making it to fit the knife itself. So like each one needs to be like epoxied onto the blade, pinned with different types of pins. Some are like a fiberglass pin or a brass pin. And then you're making sure everything is as perfectly square as possible. Otherwise, you start carving away from it and things get a little wonky to be avoided. And then, yeah, you're sculpting that thing from scratch. So as far as time consumption, the blade definitely takes more time than the handle, but the handle is definitely... it's a few hours for sure and then you're you're down to like all your fine grits of sandpaper to get everything nice and and this is like definitely for like a wood handle if you're going to to 800 grit or a thousand grit or some people even say no you should go higher 1200 and it shows the grain of the wood a lot better so when you're using some some some burls some like stabilized burls some are are soaked into like uh an epoxy so that It stays moisture resistant, avoids warping and rot and all that. When you get to high sheen and high grit, it shows so much more. It's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_01: 8:17

Do you wet sand in the wood as well?

SPEAKER_03: 8:21

I've tried it. I've used some oil to... And no, actually, so yes, some grains are porous. I was using a bog oak. I believe it was out of Ukraine. So they'll pull out old oaks that have been like soaking in a bog and that's kept it oxygen free. And it's almost black, a beautiful, beautiful wood. And because of the pores in there, you can... Sand with oil. And as you're sanding, the wood kind of fills in those pores. And as the oil oxidizes, it leaves the wood there and it creates a finer finish. So they'll do that on gunstocks as well. And it gives a beautiful finish, but it depends on the wood that you're using. Oh yeah, people dig things out of the ground and put them in knife handles all the time. There's mammoth ivory that people have been, as some of the permafrost melts away, it's revealing. different animal parts, and usually mammoth molar or mammoth ivories, and people are searching them out. And again, you need to stabilize it so it fills in the pores and keeps it from falling apart, but it gives some really unique components that you can add to handles.

SPEAKER_01: 9:53

That'd be cool. So I guess that's another skill set on top of learning how to forage. Learning how to work with wood. What was the, what was the epoxy learning curve like? Like, does it come, does it, are there kits? Do you, or do you mix your own?

SPEAKER_03: 10:09

Yeah, there's, well, in Canada, there's Canadian engineering company. a chemical engineering company, something like that, CEC Corp. And they have different lines of epoxies. There's like a C-Tough, which is like a 24-hour. So as it binds, it holds it down like this. nothing compares to nothing uh your 30 minute epoxy so you've got about a seven to eight minute working time and that gives you usually enough time but doesn't give you that that as tough as a hold and then you have your five minute epoxy and that one's like in an emergency you gotta like this needs to come together and i need to use it and then your ca glue so your crazy glue and that stuff is actually really strong as well. And I've started to use a little bit more of it, especially with like the segmented handles where you're trying to piece things together. And it's like, okay, if I let go, things are going to start moving. So you just see, uh, CA glue, give it a little spray of activator or accelerant, and then it just solidifies and you're good to go. And it's tough as heck too.

SPEAKER_00: 11:21

So is this all self-taught, Justin, or did you train with somebody?

SPEAKER_03: 11:26

Yeah, within the community, I'm working with the new steel this week. And it's a steel I've never used before. So I'll be reaching out to a few people that I know have used it so they can give me some pointers. So the community is super willing to share information. Like if you're a new knife maker, there's huge groups on Facebook. There's a lot of notable YouTubers that just share everything. Like they're not gatekeeping information. And because it's such a difficult... craft to like to become good at and it's such a difficult craft to learn it's it's it is honestly a bottomless pit of information and there's you can go so many different routes with it if you're wanting to learn just about metal and metallurgy and and all the heat treatment and it's yeah and then all your woods and all your glues and then if you want to get into leather working to make the sheets or kydex which is like a heat moldable plastic And to actually get good at these things is a huge investment of time. So there's not really any gatekeepers. We point and then we say learn and we'll talk to you in two, three years when you've kind of like when you've like not mastered it, but it's when you're getting a grasp of it.

SPEAKER_01: 12:51

You're getting better at it. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned that you're using a new tool. steel educate me what what's what's the difference what's what components make up make up different types of steel like i know you know a regular steel that's going to rust a stainless steel okay That's pretty much my knowledge.

SPEAKER_03: 13:11

Well, this steel is called MagnaCut. It's actually, it's going to someone in Toronto. So that's, I was talking to him before Christmas and he wanted a bushcrafting knife. And I was happy to use this material because I hadn't done it before, but it's also, okay, now I got to use this material. I'm going to have to reach out to friends and figure it out. But basically it was developed by Dr. Laron Thomas. He wrote a book recently on knife engineering and he goes into like, actually if you want to learn about steel that's the book but it goes into a balance of different chemical components that you can add to your steel so that it keeps a fine grain because if you have a larger grain a coarser grain in your steel it could become more fragile so you want a really fine grain so it keeps it tough and that will also allow you to keep a fine edge and this MagnaCut is like from what we see it's it's almost a perfect peak balance of all the components that you need to create like the one of the hardest steals out there so um Because of that, I'm a little bit worried about using it, but excited about it too. As far as components, there's vanadium, molybdenum, there's nickel, there's obviously carbon. That's what's going to give you the hardness to the steel and iron. In terms of iron, usually we're talking about... ninety percent iron and then that ten percent is different chemical or metallic components to uh to create your steel blend and the way they mix the steels as well um is done differently from certain processes uh cpm is a powdered metallurgy so they'll put the metals together in a powder and then forge that together and then heat through process of heating and cooling to create your your blends of steel you can't just like heat it up in a on your stove and like add recipe ingredients it has to be done in a certain way so that um you get these chemical bonds that that are lasting

SPEAKER_01: 15:33

cool so and do you use so something like like what's let's say so Pamela mentioned a flaying knife versus say something that's bigger, chunkier, like a cleaver style. Two different types of steel?

SPEAKER_03: 15:48

Not necessarily. A lot of the properties of a steel, like performance of flexibility, it comes from either the heat treatment. So you could go a little bit hotter in your tempering. So it creates more of a tougher steel. But then at a certain point, you're going to have steel that's too soft to hold an edge. So there's a balance point there. But a lot of it is from the geometry. So your cleaver is going to be a lot hardier, a lot thicker, made for cutting through bone, chopping down a tree or whatever. And then your fillet is down to a sixteenth of an inch on the spine, really thin, and that's going to allow the knife to flex. And then you can have like... With my fillet knife, I'm starting at 330 seconds by the handle. And then to the tip, it's slowly tapering down so that it's a distal taper. So it's narrow, getting thinner to the tip and in height profile as well. So you get a thinner, more flex at the tip and less near the handle.

SPEAKER_01: 16:57

So flex is determined more about...

SPEAKER_03: 17:00

Geometry.

SPEAKER_01: 17:01

Right,

SPEAKER_03: 17:01

okay. Yeah, geometry... Heat treatment as well. If you're going to flex something that's heat treated to be a little bit too hard, then you have a chance of breaking a blade or cracking a tip or something like that, which happens. I tend to go a little bit harder in my steels. The knives that you purchase from the store, they're made to not break. They're made to... not have any returns. Like that's their goal is to like sell you the knife and never see you again until you want a new one. So they heat treat their knives. So they're significantly softer than, I guess, professionally made or custom made knives. And those are made for peak performance. So they'll hold an edge longer. They'll stay, they'll keep those properties that you want in a knife. Like, for much longer than your commercially available knives.

SPEAKER_01: 18:01

Yeah. I'm, I'm, I have a decent set of kitchen knives, but I have to sharpen the damn things like all the time.

SPEAKER_03: 18:08

Oh yeah. You shouldn't. You should like once a year. I would love that. Dependent on your cutting boards, because some people use like a ceramic or glass cutting board, which is no-no. That'll fill out your knives. You want a nice end grain wood, plastic. But lots of people are coming out with videos now of like cutting stuff on a cutting board and then showing the plastic in their hand from all the little chips of a used cutting board. And it's like, okay, yeah. Yeah, those microplastics. That's wood. All right, let's go wood.

SPEAKER_00: 18:47

I never understood the glass cutting board idea. It seems so ugly. Clack, clack, clack, clack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:53

Or I'm going to snap it. I'm always terrified I'm going to break it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We don't have one.

SPEAKER_03: 19:01

No. No, good, good. We went to a sushi party for a friend of ours a few years ago, and I had made him a nice yanagiba. It's a sushi cutting knife. It's like long, slender, really fine cuts. And I delivered it to him, and he's like, I'll get my cutting board. And he came up with a glass cutting board, and I was like, no, no, no. No, you don't. Bad idea. Let's go find something else.

SPEAKER_01: 19:25

Cool. So you make– Judging by your website and a lot of your social media, you have sort of a line of knives that you make, but you also make custom ones.

SPEAKER_03: 19:38

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so basically, you have to have your standard knives that people can just go on the website and be like, oh, I like that model. Oh, and Justin happens to have a handle that I really like, and it's available now, so... click buy done or you know I've got like some people reach out with a piece of wood that grandfather had and in his on his shelf or part of his shelf and they'll send me a piece of that and that'll become the handle or they can go fully custom they can like oh actually Tyler from Camp Kitsch he had reached out last year and he was like I want something that'll like It'll help me collect harvest wood from the forest, but also cut vegetables nicely. I was like, oh man, that's a task because they don't necessarily translate. So we chatted a little bit. I drew something up that could potentially work. I'd love to go down that road. It'd be an interesting project. But yeah, so people can reach out, do fully custom or just a base model knife that I have. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:49

Well, and speaking of custom knives, I saw that you were the winner of the International Medal My Way with your Wheel of Time inspired knife. That was gorgeous. Like, it's just a stunning piece.

SPEAKER_03: 21:02

Yeah, thank you. That was an integration of Damascus steel. which is a layering of different types of steel that'll etch differently when you put it in acid. So parts of the steel will stay nice and shiny like you'd imagine. And then other steels kind of get eaten away. They oxidize and leave a black finish to it. And because of that, you can, you want to go down another rabbit hole. There's a whole other rabbit hole, like huge one. But I kept it pretty simple. But, those Damascus layers I also sandwiched with a solid steel core and then in between that put a layer of copper so I had Damascus copper core copper Damascus to do my my five layers and uh yeah submitted photos to the competition that was that was a custom order someone a hunter who uh was getting married and she wanted something special for her husband and i was like all right during summer i like to take on like one or two projects that that push my limits things that i haven't really done before and that had some really complex grinds on it and uh yeah submitted and won that that was awesome got to go on the news and talk about my craft like i'm doing now except uh 12 seconds.

SPEAKER_00: 22:33

Yeah. Yeah. The husband must have been thrilled with that.

SPEAKER_03: 22:35

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had to get it back so I could bring it on the news. So we had to meet up and yeah. Oh, you know that when I delivered the knife to the bride, she came and picked it up and she saw it and she was like, this, this is amazing. And can I have a hug? Like, this is perfect. And it's like, oh yeah. Like there's a lot of like good moments when someone gets a piece that they envisioned in their head and they just they can't make it themselves so i become the hands of their uh of their imagination and then push it further try to make it as nice as possible

SPEAKER_00: 23:12

Yeah, you just can't go on Amazon and buy something like that.

SPEAKER_03: 23:15

Oh, no. There's a lot of places where you can buy stuff like that. But a lot of it is coming in from Pakistan and India. And then some have been reported with like lead content in it. So you're finding like, oh, a Damascus knife for like$70. It could be lasered, so they'll put it on a laser and just make it look like Damascus, or it's mystery steel sandwiched together and it could be nasty. And not hold a good edge. Well,

SPEAKER_01: 23:51

I kind of don't want lead on anything that's touching my food.

SPEAKER_03: 23:55

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

That's just rude. Out of curiosity, how many ballpark How many knives do you make in a given month, year? I

SPEAKER_03: 24:07

really don't know. I try not to track it because it is such a slow process. Some months, it'll be just three or four. And other months, maybe it's, I don't know, 30 or 40. I make a small hiking knife called the ultralight knife. And it... gets retailed in a shop in Minneapolis called Garage Grown Gear and on my website as well. And with the sheath, it comes in a little kydex sheath and a short lanyard, kind of like just survival rope or whatever. And those I can bang out pretty quickly, but I outsource the water jetting. So there's a gentleman here in Winnipeg that has steel for me. And I could message them and give them some changes to my design, little tweaks or whatnot. And I'll be like, I'll take 40 of them. I'll take 50 of them. And then ship little packages out to Minneapolis so that they can retail them. And yeah, they come in at about an ounce each. So they're great for the ultralight packers who... I don't know, who need a knife on the trail. Nice to trim the heels behind your pants when you're dragging on them or something like that.

SPEAKER_00: 25:33

And is that one of your more popular items or what's your most popular knife?

SPEAKER_03: 25:38

I'd say it's one of my most popular. My Cisco is fairly popular as well. I sold a bunch of them last spring. They're a shorter knife, smaller kind of form, full tang. I did a trade with Will from Bowman Outdoors last year as well. He sent me a couple of his awesome packs and I sent him a knife and enjoyed those in the outdoors. So they're 80 CRV2 steel. So it's like a super tough carbon steel. So not a stainless steel, but a carbon steel. So it you need to be a little bit careful with moisture. Um, but those I, I etch as well. So that gives it, uh, a light resistance to moisture as well. Cause it's pre oxidized on the outside. And, uh, yeah, that's those, that's probably my most popular two knives. And then with the kitchen stuff, it's, it's a little bit all over the map. I'm getting more into like Japanese style knives. Um, And I think I see the influence in the blades that I make just with the, the curvatures and the aesthetics. But, uh, yeah, to, to another road to travel down.

SPEAKER_01: 26:56

Cool. Well, that keeps it interesting though. Like, like making, you know, having things change as time progresses. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 27:04

Right. Right. Well, I'm learning things as I go. Like this Christmas I had, I think five sheaths, leather sheaths to make because they were, Oh, there's a special knife. I want to add a sheath to it. It was like, okay, sure. No problem. And then next customer, next customer, next customer. I was like, OK, this is the most sheaths I've made like all year, like in one sitting. Great. And like, oh, it works a little bit better if the leather's a little bit wetter because it'll take it's just easier to stitch when she's a little bit moisture. It's easier to pass the needle through and to stamp and everything. So as I gain more experience i'm making nicer knives so it's uh yeah the more you make the better you get at it so

SPEAKER_00: 27:52

you're remember you're the president of the manitoba blacksmith guild are there a lot of members of the blacksmith guild

SPEAKER_03: 27:58

yes there's quite a few members in manitoba um we I think we peaked out probably around the 65 mark in one year of blacksmiths. And a lot of the guys that come out there, like your backyard blacksmith who like, oh, it's nice out. It's not too hot. It's not too cold. And I'm going to go make something. So they'll come out to our events and get feedback. just the camaraderie of meeting other blacksmiths, sharing of knowledge. We often do a demonstration in the morning. So we'll have one of our, either from the executive or someone in the community that we can reach out to that is specialized in something. And they'll come out, do a demonstration. It might take an hour. It might take two hours for that to happen. And then... it's it's open forge time and it's generally like directed to making that project from the morning so it's uh it's a good time like we'll often do overnight camping in camping in uh in derek's yard out in brandon and uh have a campfire at night and just sharing stories yeah drinking pop around the fire and uh special pop yeah yeah bubblies and uh yeah it's it's just a great time and it's like we have a few women as well that have joined the guild we've got um our youngest member last year was 15 and he would he came out to all of the events as well and uh yeah so we're super inclusive we're not excluding anyone to come out and uh Yeah, usually good food, hot steel and good times.

SPEAKER_01: 29:52

That sounds

SPEAKER_03: 29:53

fun. And this year, August 2025, the national conference is in Manitoba as well. So we're getting demonstrators from California, Pennsylvania, Vancouver, Montreal. and uh locally obviously and they're coming to to manitoba to really show off their or not show off but to to educate us so we can learn over a three-day period

SPEAKER_01: 30:23

right on

SPEAKER_03: 30:24

yeah yeah

SPEAKER_01: 30:25

that's that's very cool um oh yeah you were talking about leather work and sorry because you We know Tyler. So you've had yaks with him. We've had Will on the show. You've done some bartering with him. Have you had any conversation with Brittany and Tunis from Freak of Nature? No, no. You should look them up. Yeah. Britt's getting really, really good with her leather work. They've been doing it for... want to say a couple of years now it's been years since we talked and it's yeah she's she's pretty awesome she does some custom stuff they do some some regular stuff but yeah you if you want to do any of that sort of back and forth leather stuff they're the leathers

SPEAKER_03: 31:10

amazing how you can like you use all the dyes and the paints that you can use and then like the endless types of rivets and bedazzling that you can add. But the malleability, you can shape it and create texture and form with it and like wrap it around items. It's an incredible medium. So yeah, I'll check them out. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 31:36

Yeah. And you hand stitch the sheets that you

SPEAKER_03: 31:39

make? Yes. My hands are sore today.

SPEAKER_01: 31:43

So the evolution of Freak of Nature, they started out it the same way and oh yeah the when when when brit announced that they got a stitcher the excitement in her voice oh yeah and her poor fingers just like

SPEAKER_03: 31:58

yeah oh definitely yeah it's one of those things that like it's it takes time which is fine but the the grip strength and like you're constantly snagging onto that needle and pulling through oh yeah A stitcher would be fantastic.

SPEAKER_01: 32:16

There you go. So, so, so why don't you tell us a bit more like, like you're part of this, this community that, that uses knives for specific things. Part of that deal is camping. What's, what do you, what, what do you do? You jump in a canoe and obviously do, do some, some, some lakes and stuff in Manitoba. I mean, I, we, I know what Ontario is like. I have no idea what Manitoba is like.

SPEAKER_03: 32:42

Yeah. Uh, We have the two, I guess, three lakes in Manitoba. If you look at the map, you'll have Lake Winnipeg, Lake Manitoba, and Winnipegosis. So we're basically a basin where all the rivers from... I guess, Western Northern Ontario is feeding into Manitoba, going towards these lakes from Saskatchewan, Alberta, same situation. We've got water coming in from everywhere. So the river network here is awesome. Like we have the heritage of the Métis, the Courard des Bois, the fur traders coming in from Montreal. So like the idea of canoeing is really part of the classroom curriculum. I remember from grade three on talking about the French coming into Manitoba, trading furs and traveling back by canoe and that sense of adventure for myself has always been there. For myself, I used to camp at Lake Winnipeg, which is about three hours northeast of Winnipeg. And there was this little lake called Saxton Lake, where it was like the mythical lake. When I was a kid, the fish there are huge. All the fish are big. You're going to catch so many. So for me, it was like a combination of that Métis culture of canoeing and fishing. Saxton Lake trying to get there and we had gone on adventures trying to find this lake and eventually I went with my cousin we paddled up Beaver Creek and up the little he lost his glasses we dropped our beer we turned around it took a few expeditions to actually make it to Saxton Lake we did get there eventually just Jack and all little ones so it was a little disappointing but an awesome trip Recently, the summer... I usually do a couple guys trips. So it's early, well, May long weekend. We extend our weekend on the front end, back end. So we get a few more days out in the woods and we'll pick a point on the map. We've got a few favorite spots that we'd like to go to and just load everything into the canoes and head out. We're usually four or five canoes at that point. So a fairly large group, but it makes for Awesome meals. We'll share the task. Who's got Saturday breakfast? Who's got Saturday dinner? And so on and so forth. We haul cast iron pans. And yeah. Oh, yeah. You got to have your cast iron.

SPEAKER_01: 35:37

I'm not lugging it.

SPEAKER_03: 35:38

No way. Well, we don't have that elevation change. There you go. Maybe that's our benefit here. And then I'll do trips with my wife. She loves canoeing. My daughter loves canoeing. I used to take my son as well. He's kind of like, it's not really for me. So he's old enough now. You can just stay home. That's fine. And those we usually take, usually take simpler trips. But this last year I went with my wife and did the ELA, Experimental Lakes Area There's a loop through there. And you have to climb Devil's Staircase there. And that's an arduous little climb. But yeah, so my trips kind of look from guys' adventure to just serene moments in the woods with my wife out in solitude. So a bit of blend of

SPEAKER_01: 36:36

both. That's a good mix. It's a very similar deal here. Yeah. I'm out with my eldest most of the time when we're in a canoe and backcountry. Yeah, usually like seven, eight day things, but we do a less backcountry-ish, you know, three day kind of a thing and just chill, just hang, just watch ducks swim around.

SPEAKER_03: 37:00

Yeah, totally. Yeah, there's nothing like getting up. starting your campfire and then like getting the coffee going and hearing the loons out on the lake and kind of the mist going by. And it's like, I live for that. Peaceful.

SPEAKER_01: 37:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 37:18

Yeah. It's

SPEAKER_01: 37:19

hard to make knives out there, but it's a good time.

SPEAKER_03: 37:22

You make them at home and then bring them out there.

SPEAKER_01: 37:25

Yeah. There you go. All right. So tell me where can, where can people find you? Where do they website, Instagram, all that sort of jazz?

SPEAKER_03: 37:31

Yeah. Everything is rainy day forge. So rainy day forge.com.ca and on socials as well. Just rainy day forge.

UNKNOWN: 37:43

Awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 37:43

Very cool.

SPEAKER_01: 37:44

Well, thanks for coming and yakking with us, man.

SPEAKER_03: 37:46

Yeah, no. I've been listening for about a year now, and when it pops up in my ears, I'm like, oh, camping. Nice. My happy place. I'm happy to be here. Same here.

SPEAKER_00: 38:00

That's it for us for today. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much also to Justin from Rainy Day Forge for joining us. And please do check him out at Rainy Day Forge wherever you want to look. And look for us as Super Good Camping on social media. And we're on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Blue Sky. And you can follow us on TikTok and on YouTube. And we will talk to you again soon. Bye. Bye.