Nate and Jen from a Couple of Campers 905 drop by for a chat.

They love nature and they're committed to their goal of camping at ALL of Ontario Parks' operating parks!

https://www.instagram.com/coupleofcampers905/

https://www.youtube.com/@coupleofcampers

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and good day. Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela. I'm Tim. 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 guests are a couple of campers from here in southwestern Ontario. They're big fans of nature and apparently each other. They do most of their camping in a canoe, a nice shiny new one, and they're working their way through Ontario's provincial parks. Tim and Thomas have enjoyed hanging out with them and watching presentations at the Toronto Outdoor Adventure shows and spend a day working on their paddling certification, Tim and I had a lovely dinner with them on a backyard patio here in town during a torrential downpour. Please welcome Nate and Jen from Couple of Campers 905 on Instagram.

SPEAKER_04: 0:44

Hey! Hi guys!

SPEAKER_01: 0:49

It's been about less than 24

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

hours. Yeah, so we just hung out with them at the Hamilton Outdoor Adventure Expo.

SPEAKER_02: 0:58

We did too, and then And then we, we actually didn't, we didn't even get to chat with you guys at all last night at the after thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05

You were at the other end of the table. It was full. It was

SPEAKER_03: 1:08

definitely,

SPEAKER_02: 1:09

yeah, it was full. There was a good, there was a good turnout. It's next year. It'll either be in that back room or it'll be somewhere that doesn't have a band.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17

Not to despair to the live band, but it was a little loud for trying to talk. You guys were right out there too by the speaker.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

Yeah. And deaf old guy with background noise like that. I just sat back and smiled. So one of the things I noticed about your Instagram is that you're paddling, you're trying to paddle I don't know all of them because that's a lot of parks, but a whole bunch of the Ontario parks. What's behind that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:48

So we've learned that there are non-operating provincial parks and then also operating provincial parks. So our goal is to overnight camp at all the operating provincial parks. So there's about 115 of those. So I think we've only got about 12 officially.

SPEAKER_04: 2:06

Yeah, 12. Because

SPEAKER_01: 2:07

we've done different ones before we got married or before we met, but those don't count. So they have to be done together. And we have the rest of our lifetime to check off that bucket list of Ontario parks.

SPEAKER_00: 2:19

That's awesome. And so is it just back country of Ontario parks or front country camping as well?

SPEAKER_03: 2:25

Yeah, we're kind of doing it all. We're kind of doing some front country car camping on one side. Then we also get into the back country camping. Jen had a little bit more of a background in back country camping. So she kind of pointed us in the direction of a lot of the nice parks and things we can do.

SPEAKER_00: 2:41

So how did you get into backcountry camping, Jen?

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

My mom. My mom took, I have two brothers. So we did a couple trips with her when we were young, like 12. I was 12. So they would have been younger than me. And she took the three of us through Algonquin, through Acre. And then I did a couple trips with her as I got older. You know, when you're a teen, you're kind of like, I don't want to hang out with my mom. That's not cool. But then when I got older, I went on a number of trips with her, Algonquin, French River. We just like to hang out back there in the quiet and sit in the sun and go canoeing and just enjoy nature together. So that's where I got the backcountry experience from.

SPEAKER_02: 3:21

And you dragged Nate kicking and streaming into that?

UNKNOWN: 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:25

Yeah. He was more of a car camper when I met him and had never been in the backcountry. And our first experience, he can tell you about.

SPEAKER_03: 3:34

Yeah, our first experience was kind of rough. Jen took me into Algonquin for our first trip ever, my first backcountry trip ever. and immediately just downpouring rain. Like, great way to start, right? You start off on the wrong foot. It was actually Ralph Bice Lake in Algonquin. So that was our first kind of big backcountry trip. And we did the paddle, we made it to the site. We got lost along the way, but we figured it out. But yeah, just kind of the whole time there, it didn't stop raining. We just experienced it was, I think it was two days.

SPEAKER_01: 4:07

Yeah, it was just a quick Friday to Sunday, and there was a huge storm that weekend. It was in September, so it was also a little chillier.

UNKNOWN: 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:14

And it was still, you know, my first time without my mom. And she was kind of like the one that always did everything. So it was a learning curve for both of us. But we stayed dry and we survived. We were supposed to do a little loop through Daisy and then just back out. But because of the winds, we got stuck on the little peninsula island site that we were on.

SPEAKER_00: 4:35

Well, that's awesome. And you survived and you stayed together. Yeah. And he wanted to come back.

SPEAKER_03: 4:41

It was a learning experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:43

It can only get better after that, right?

SPEAKER_00: 4:46

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 4:47

That's all that happens. It

SPEAKER_00: 4:49

builds character. It builds resilience. It builds bonds, teamwork. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 4:56

Very cool. So what are some other, so that's the first. You've had some successful trips. Share one of those.

SPEAKER_03: 5:06

Yeah, a bunch. So just this past summer, we just did Massasauga Provincial Park. We did a huge loop through that. I think we did, what was it? Almost 70 kilometers.

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

Yeah, it looks a lot bigger than it is. As you look at the big map of the park and we did, we started at, I think it's three-legged lake entry point. So we started there and just did a big, loop all the way down to the bottom and then back up so we're like oh that's gonna be so far but it only ended up being 60 to 70 kilometer loop and like we took a whole week to do it we weren't rushed we just enjoyed our time there and got to see all the different things like the massasauga park is pretty cool because there's different hiking spots but they're only accessible by boat so if you go to algonquin and there's all those hikings on highway 60 but uh this park you there's specific ones within the water that you had to canoe to, to get to. So that was, those were pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03: 6:02

Not a lot of people around, which was nice. It's really only the boaters that are making their way out there, whether you're in a motor boat or canoe. So you really get that, that feeling that you're on the trail almost by yourself. If, if not just one other person, it was, it was really neat.

SPEAKER_01: 6:14

I think we worked by ourselves cause it was, it was September, first week of September. So everybody had gone back to school, back to work, kind of, Back to the routine. So that's when we typically like to go when it's quieter. And I think we were the only ones that hiked the one trail. There was nobody else out there. So at the time.

SPEAKER_02: 6:30

Cool. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's part of I take that Labor Day weekend and afterwards into account for a lot of our trip planning because I don't I don't want to be out with the throngs of people and stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 6:45

Yeah. Yeah, and the Massasauga is pretty busy during the summer, like all the motorboat action and Georgian Bay. So we didn't really even see too many motorboats throughout the week there. We woke up one morning, there was some guys fishing in the little bay that we were staying at, but otherwise, honestly... Yeah,

SPEAKER_03: 7:03

it was

SPEAKER_01: 7:03

perfect. We picked the right spots too that we weren't around a lot of other people as well.

SPEAKER_02: 7:09

Sweet, and nice sights and stuff?

SPEAKER_01: 7:10

Yeah. The only one that we could have done without would have been... Would have been the channel, which was near a marina. I can't remember which marina. But it was the southern marina there. Heath's Place, maybe? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So there's like a channel there with some sites. And you get a lot of boat action back and forth through there. So that was pretty loud and busy even during the week.

UNKNOWN: 7:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:37

And

SPEAKER_00: 7:38

do you guys do fishing?

SPEAKER_03: 7:39

No, we don't. No. So Jen and I both don't, we both don't eat fish. So it's, it's kind of a hard sell for us. Like we've talked about, I think we're going to get into maybe just a little bit of like sport fishing, like for fun kind of thing. But unfortunately we don't eat it. We wish we did because I can see the value in going out and paddling and catching your own fish and cooking your own dinner. But yeah, It's just not in the cards for us.

SPEAKER_01: 8:04

Not yet. And then, yeah, because you don't have to carry as much food because you just eat fish. Exactly. And by day

SPEAKER_02: 8:09

six, fish is really, really freaking good. I

SPEAKER_03: 8:13

can imagine. I can see

SPEAKER_01: 8:15

it. Maybe we can learn how to scale a fish and suffer through it. So what do you take for food? Well, typically our backcountry trips are just like kind of weekend stuff. So we actually bring a lot of just fresh food that we can cook. This year we did our first dehydration meals on our own. So we got a dehydrator and we did a couple of meals that way. But it's mostly the dehydrated stuff after day two or three. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03: 8:45

you can only get the steak or the chicken kind of first night meal. Steak maybe second night, you know, and then it starts to get a little iffy. So yeah, this past year we did, we bought a dehydrator. We made some, we did butter chickens. We did a nice butter chicken sauce in the dehydrator. And to our surprise, it turned out great. For our first run, we weren't kind of expecting it to all come together. But yeah, we were very successful with our dehydrated meals this year.

SPEAKER_00: 9:12

Awesome. Was that your own invention, the butter chicken? Or was it like, was it a cookbook?

SPEAKER_01: 9:18

we just kind of did the basics so just you know we cooked up some chicken we're like you know how long you have to dehydrate chicken and how long you have to dehydrate sauce so so we see sometimes you can just like dehydrate it all together but like we were new so we kind of just did it all separately and then mashed it together in the back country because we had a bunch of chicken and some chicken went with rice some chicken went with the butter chicken so we did different things we like chicken

SPEAKER_02: 9:44

Chicken's good, and it's actually really easy to do in the dehydrator. You just kind of shred it up, spread it out. It dries easily. There's not lots of oils and stuff like that to worry about.

SPEAKER_01: 9:55

Let me do front country camping. We purchased a Camp Chef oven, and then it also has a stove on top. We don't rough it when we're in the front country. We're still like minimalized. Like we don't bring a whole bunch of stuff like you see out there because it is kind of overwhelming sometimes and you want to keep it simple. But we do have the nice little ovens. We've done lasagnas, steak subs.

SPEAKER_03: 10:24

Biscuits.

SPEAKER_01: 10:25

Biscuits, cookies. We cook some cookies, brownies. So anything you do in an oven, you can do in that baby. And

SPEAKER_00: 10:32

what does it run on? What kind of fuel does it run

SPEAKER_01: 10:34

on? Just a pound propane tank. Or you can like hook it up to a bigger propane. To the full size. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 10:40

Yeah, we don't skimp when we're front country either. I mean, I carry, I've got a Coleman barbecue that we carry. We do the, we've got no bugs on, but we've had a dining tent, you know, all screened in because somebody's a magnet for mosquitoes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to take... If it fits in, I don't care. I don't have to carry it.

SPEAKER_03: 11:02

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 11:04

There's only so much we can fit in the Prius, though.

SPEAKER_02: 11:07

That's true. That's a slightly smaller payload, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:10

The giant cooler takes up probably half the backseat.

SPEAKER_02: 11:15

Cool. So you said most of your backcountry experiences are shorter, two-day, three-day deals. Do you do any longer ones? And then what about frontcountry? Are you able to expand... to bigger trips, like a week or something like that?

SPEAKER_03: 11:31

Yeah, so we've definitely put on plans to kind of do a week-long backcountry trip this year. We're looking at the Kortha Highlands. So yesterday while we were at the show, we were actually kind of picking a lot of people's brains on routes and ideas and just suggestions. So that's kind of one of our big trips planned for this year where we're actually hoping to spend– I think we're looking probably seven, eight days that we're going to get out there and get the boat out and enjoy some time. Sweet. It's a great park. You'll love it. You'll love

SPEAKER_01: 12:03

it. Yeah. We did six days in the Massasauga. So I think that was... Well, we've done like five on the French River before as well. But typically that's like once a year where we get like that week off to go do something. Otherwise, it's kind of long weekends. But this year we actually have... two one-week trips so we're going to do front country for a week and we're going to split it up between Lake St. Peter and Bonnechere so we're going to do those two over the course of like seven eight days and then the second week vacation we'll do the Kawartha Highlands for the seven ish depends on when we want to come out

SPEAKER_02: 12:44

that's I like I I wouldn't be adverse to doing shorter trips. Pamela and I are doing backcountry trips again. She's doing backcountry trips with me again, and they're shorter ones. We did a three-day at Massasauga last year. We're going to do a four-day. Won't be surprised it's Massasauga again, just because it's pretty easy access for us. It's not a long drive or anything like that, and it's also pretty easy access into the park itself, so we'll probably do that. My My jam is kind of like eight days of sweet spot for me where jump in the canoe with the kid and just bugger off. Take a bunch of really heavy stuff, make him carry it.

UNKNOWN: 13:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 13:25

Excellent. So tell, tell me about your shine. I know it has a couple of scratches on it now. How did you, how did you go from renting canoes? If you were doing backcountry to spanky new one?

SPEAKER_01: 13:37

Well, we've been very blessed with supportive family and saving and just being smart. So, you know, obviously renting a canoe is very expensive when you want to go for a week. It can get pretty pricey. So if you look at, you know, if that's something we want to always do is be back country goers, like renting a canoe all the time is going to be pretty expensive. So just to kind of bite the bullet right now and invest in a great canoe, that's going to last us 30 plus years, you know, if we take care of it and that sort of thing. So that's, we made the decision to invest in a Swift and it's beautiful. Every time we canoe and paddle, we're just like in awe of its capabilities and just how easy it is and Love it.

SPEAKER_03: 14:24

We get a lot of compliments on the trail, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 14:27

It's a Kevlar? Expedition Kevlar. I didn't like the look of the inside of the Kevlar canoes, so I wanted the Expedition Kevlar, which is stronger. It's a little bit heavier, but our canoe still came in 41 pounds at 17 feet, so it's great for us. It's a fantastic canoe.

SPEAKER_02: 14:51

Yeah, we're about the same. It's not expedition, but it's 17 feet and it's 40 point something.

SPEAKER_03: 14:59

It's kind of the perfect weight. You don't feel like you're bogged down carrying the canoe, but you still know it's there. It's not going to fly off your shoulders on a strong wind or you're able to... You're able to really control it still, I find.

SPEAKER_02: 15:13

Yeah, Thomas doesn't complain very

SPEAKER_03: 15:15

much. Yeah, I guess I'm talking to the wrong guy.

SPEAKER_02: 15:20

I can tell you it took me, because our previous one was a big 90, probably 90-something pound fiberglass, and two guys carrying it. Sure, you're making a sweat, but it's fairly easy to carry. getting, trying to figure out how to get the balance with the yoke and stuff on the, the new, the Kevlar one was a, was a challenge for me to, to, cause you're changing things. I'm used to it. Like it, it can't, it can't float when it's the fiberglass one, because somebody is at the other end. Well, now it's really easy to, it doesn't take much of anything of an adjustment on you. And it starts going up at the front or heaven forbid, it's coming down. You're like, so that was a, that was an interesting challenge that I, didn't see coming. I hadn't, I hadn't noticed that anybody else was, had run into that because all the other, you know, the YouTubers and that sort of jazz, they're already experienced at doing that. So it's no big deal for them.

SPEAKER_01: 16:16

Yeah. They make it look pretty easy. And I know they got some kind of rigs too, like with the ropes that help, um, pull it up and down. We haven't added any of that stuff yet. I don't mind. Like I carry the canoe. I don't mind having my arms up so far. Maybe it'll get a little annoying after a while, but, um, you know, I put one arm down here, one arm down there. You try to balance it with no hands, see how far you can get till it, till it wobbles.

SPEAKER_02: 16:41

Yeah. I think I got about six steps before it wobbles.

SPEAKER_01: 16:45

and like, Nate, look, take a video and then I'll see you with no hands.

SPEAKER_02: 16:49

So are you specifically going to stick to Ontario Parks? Are you going to do any sort of Crownland camping at any point? Do you have any plans to do other things?

SPEAKER_03: 16:58

I think Ontario Parks is kind of where our heart is. I think that's kind of where we're set. We just, we enjoy, again, some of the amenities are available even in some of the smaller parks. We just like to, I just think having that, that access to a shower sometimes, or even let it even, even so be a drop toilet, at least something still there that you can, you can use. So I think, I think those are some poles for us. And

SPEAKER_01: 17:25

like, we don't have unlimited time and we really do want to get all the parks off the list. So that's, You know, for the next 30 years, I think that's three parks a year. So if you don't plan it strategically, like we might only do one park a year and then the next year we got to hustle our butts and oh, we need to do like five now this year. So I think we have enough on the plate with those because, you know, we're busy with work and our volunteer things. So there's only so many hours in a day and weekends in a year that you can get out. Crownland I hear takes a lot of, you know, research and and work first, and I don't think we really have the time to put into that.

SPEAKER_02: 18:05

Yeah, it certainly does on land. I'm not an expert by a long, long stretch. My understanding is paddling crown lands and finding sites is much easier because as you're paddling, you're scouting, and you'll see that opening. You'll go, oh, yeah. That's a campsite. You know that that's a campsite. So it's a quick pop in. I mean, you're not going to travel as far in a day probably until you become experienced at it because you want to check out the site and go, yeah, no, I don't want to be here. This is not my sort of thing. I don't want to deal with all those grills over there and stuff like that. So you'll move on to the next one or whatever. I'm hoping we're, uh, We were talking to Jerry and Shay last night. I'll edit that part out. And we're talking about trying to get together and do a trip. And we're thinking about going down through Point Grandin. There's a giant island when you come out of Grandin into Georgian Bay. And it's got like 25 sites on it. So it's like... Cool, because that gives us, depending on what time of year and how busy it is, but it gives us a lot of choice on finding the right ones for us.

SPEAKER_01: 19:23

Yeah. Like we noticed when we were looking at the Kawartha Highlands roots, we're trying to figure out this deer bay creek that goes down towards Lower Buckhorn. But when you come out of Lower Buckhorn, I think it's Wolf Island Provincial Park maybe, but there's some crown camping sites there and maybe we'll check one of those out on the way out if that's where our route ends up. But yeah, like we're not against it. Like if we had the time to... to look into something like that. Like we for sure would be a part of it, like no problem. We're actually talking with Nate last night, Muskoka Nate, not sure what his last name

SPEAKER_02: 20:01

is. Nate Smith, but Nate Muskoka.

SPEAKER_01: 20:02

Yeah, so he was chatting with us about Crownland and where we go up in my stepdad's, some property up north. He said there's lots of Crownland around there. So I was like, oh, well, maybe that's something we can look into.

SPEAKER_02: 20:15

Yeah, for a guy that works for Ontario Parks, he does an awful lot of Crownland camping.

SPEAKER_01: 20:21

when

SPEAKER_00: 20:23

you mentioned non-operating parks would you is that on your radar as well to do some of the non-operating parks

SPEAKER_03: 20:28

we do uh so we do check them out in the sense of like we'll go for hikes and and kind of walk through them um but from my understanding i believe you keep there's you're not able to stay at non-operating parks so it's just uh really it's just a day use for any time that We can, but there's even like some in our area here, like there's Short Hills. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 20:48

there's only Short Hills Provincial Park, which is all we knew of the non-operating. You can't camp overnight there. So we just assumed you couldn't camp in the other ones, but you can camp like the Crown Land in some of the non-operating parks.

SPEAKER_04: 21:02

Oh,

SPEAKER_02: 21:02

you can?

SPEAKER_01: 21:03

Yeah. Well, QE2 is

SPEAKER_00: 21:04

non-operating, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02: 21:06

Yes. But you can camp it. It's just, it's a free for all. You can't. So sorry, Thomas and I, was that last year or year before?

SPEAKER_04: 21:14

Year

SPEAKER_02: 21:15

before. Year before. We did a week in QE2, what is it? QE2 Highlands? I don't know. Wildlands. Wildlands, yeah, maybe. Wildlands. Something. Nice park. Plenty of campsites, but it's a first come, first serve. You can't book them, you can't anything. You set out, you start paddling, you look for a site, you look for another site, you keep paddling. We ended up having to blow off our last day because we were doing an up and then back down deal. So we camped our way up, hung out for a couple of days and came down figuring we would, do a hard paddle through and camp in the sort of last lake before our exit lake. And we got down there and paddled around every single site, including in through the water that's that deep. And we're dragging and we get there and it's taken too. So we ended up having to just keep on going because there was nowhere to camp.

SPEAKER_01: 22:16

Yeah. So that's, I guess maybe, you know, we like the certainty of knowing even like some parks have moved to the site specific booking and Algonquin still lake specific. So it's nice to know at least when you get to where you're going, there's going to be a spot. So that's more like a nice comfort for the back country.

SPEAKER_02: 22:36

Yeah, for sure. And I'm totally in agreement with the amenities. I mean, even, you know, something like, again, back country, because that's my jam. something like a Thunderbox in good repair.

SPEAKER_04: 22:49

That's

SPEAKER_02: 22:49

not going to happen on Crown land. It's whoever chooses to take care of it or doesn't take care of it, right? So real crap. Real crap. No

SPEAKER_00: 23:01

pun intended. No

SPEAKER_02: 23:03

pun intended. Well, there's an interesting one. So you mentioned that Algonquin is still lake. You book by lake. I think that actually changes this year. I think they're changing it to booking sites.

SPEAKER_01: 23:14

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:16

Yeah. I know there's Kevin Callen did a, did a little report recently at one of his blog posts and he, I don't, he didn't say he was disheartened, but he sounded like he was disheartened about just how hardcore they're in French river. It went used to be two weeks. You had up, up to two weeks from when you wanted to go to book and you book by zone. That's just this year goes to five months and books by site as well. That one's a... Well, if you've done the French, right? Again, crapshoot. All you need is a windy day. There's no way you're getting to your site. So what, are you going to stay on the site that you're on? Windbound is a thing that happens when you're anywhere near Georgian Bay. How does that play out with you've got to move to another site and you can't?

SPEAKER_01: 24:09

Maybe everybody is then... staying on their side.

SPEAKER_02: 24:14

I suppose they're told.

SPEAKER_01: 24:15

Nobody's advancing. They're all staying.

SPEAKER_02: 24:20

Well, yeah, but is it like my idea of windbound might be different from your idea of windbound from, you know, Nate's idea of windbound, right?

SPEAKER_01: 24:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 24:30

I don't

SPEAKER_01: 24:31

know. The trip that my mom took us on when we were kids, we actually had to piggyback somebody else's site there in Algonquin because we didn't get as far as she hoped with three rowdy kids. Somebody was gracious enough to let us camp off to the side and just for the night until we could get to the site that we were looking for the next day.

SPEAKER_00: 24:53

That's ambitious to take three kids. Were you all in one canoe?

SPEAKER_01: 25:00

No. So, uh, two younger brothers. So the youngest was with my mom and somehow I was in a canoe with, uh, my other, my other brother. And I don't know how we like got from A to B because like, I don't recall knowing anything about canoeing at that point, but, uh, I was in the stern and somehow we made it from point A to B and here

SPEAKER_00: 25:24

we are. Didn't capsize. No, I remember

SPEAKER_01: 25:27

my brother sitting in the front and like, he was, you know, he was probably like nine, maybe nine or 10. It was like bouncing with the waves. I'm like, I don't think you're supposed to do that. I'm like, sit down. But we were younger and you know, it was all fun. You don't really know the fear of things at that point. So.

SPEAKER_02: 25:44

You mentioned having a cat. Do you, do you ever take the cat with you? No,

SPEAKER_01: 25:48

no, no, no. He, uh, He's a special little boy. He's got diabetes and he's had some serious surgeries. So he's a handful to take care of. So he doesn't really.

SPEAKER_03: 26:01

He's a house cat. He

SPEAKER_01: 26:03

used to run wild, but now he's tamed to the indoors. So you

SPEAKER_00: 26:10

adopted him as a rescue?

SPEAKER_01: 26:13

uh we took him from my brother a long time ago he moved to an apartment couldn't have cats so my mom and i took him and then when nate and i got married nate and i took care of him and he wasn't always diabetic he was uh just the last couple years he was diagnosed with that so

SPEAKER_02: 26:30

last two years three years yeah that's poopy

SPEAKER_01: 26:35

yeah he's on and he's gotta take insulin shots it's you know

SPEAKER_02: 26:40

And he doesn't have that thumb to push the depressor on. Exactly,

SPEAKER_01: 26:44

yeah. Got to do it for him.

SPEAKER_02: 26:46

You mentioned Acre at Algonquin. Have you done other ones in the park?

SPEAKER_03: 26:54

Yeah, so we actually did, what was that? Probably just a year before we got married, we went with Mark in the park. Yeah, yeah. Mark Rubino. So we watched the Rogers special. We loved it. I think it kind of sparked a little bit of a backcountry bug in me on top of kind of what Jen had already ignited. So we actually reached out to Mark and we booked a trip. So Mark kind of put everything together. He put a map together. He gave us three or four different road options. You pick kind of the challenge that you want. And yeah, we took off on that trip. And that was on Kiosk Lake. So that was kind of my first experience of the north end of Algonquin and seeing that side of the park. Beautiful, beautiful trip. Great kind of challenge for me, really getting into the backcountry feel with the portages, with the large paddles through huge lakes. We did a

SPEAKER_01: 27:56

3,000-meter portage on the first day? Yeah. No, second day. It was the first thing, I think it was coming off of, what was, anyways, it was the second day started off with a 3,000 kilometer or 3,000 meter portage. But it was relatively flat. There was a hill, massive hill at the beginning, but then relatively flat the rest of the way. So he really showed us a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_03: 28:27

Yeah, it was challenging for sure. Definitely. It kind of got the blood pumping first thing in the morning, which is, which is good for a full day of paddling. Like when you have a full day of paddling ahead of you, you're kind of, kind of good to get the heart rate up right away and get going.

SPEAKER_00: 28:41

And Tim mentioned in the intro that you guys did some paddling certifications. Are you planning to do any more certifications this year?

SPEAKER_01: 28:48

Not this year. So we did the Orca basic canoeing one to three. It's like, we don't, ever plan to do solo canoeing. And if we do, then we'll do level four at that point. But we talked about doing the, the tripping one, the Orca tripping course, just to, you know, get that official perspective. And obviously we don't know everything. So we would obviously learn some things from that course and just enjoy learning more about it, but not this year. It'll be maybe next year.

SPEAKER_03: 29:22

Yeah, probably next year, I think, with everything we got, the trips we got planned and just kind of some stuff here on the home front that we're taking care of. It's just I think it's probably a next year thing. We're also interested in like backcountry first aid, getting just kind of a background in that in case it's always just Jen and myself or a small group going. So it'd be nice to kind of have that that background. Heaven forbid something happens. You just want to be able to. to have that protection. I'm kind of accident prone, so I can see myself kind of managing to, uh, to hurt myself. So I think it's kind of a, maybe something to help myself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:04

Or coach somebody else through fixing whatever, whatever's messed up on you. I absolutely agree. Um, that if you, if you check out the Oh, what was the name of the company? There was one at the Hamilton show that does wilderness first aid. If you run into any, if you want to try them out, if you want any other, Thomas and I did one last year. I'd be happy to set you up with them. Okay. It's a long course, man. Just so you know, it's 48 hours. It's like two full weekends. We literally went and camped for a weekend, came home for a week, went back out and camped for another weekend. It's fantastic. I know... I know how to not die now. And the scenarios that they work, once they, so they give you, they teach you a lot of, what's the right term? Basic skill stuff. And you do practice it, but when they put it into a scenario where you have to dredge up whatever it is and then actually act on it, that's the win. That's what makes it stick, makes it all sort of gel together. It's a... It's a really good course. It's interesting. It's a lot of work, but it's a really good course.

SPEAKER_01: 31:15

I think that is also incorporated into the ORCA tripping program, like the course that they. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 31:23

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 31:24

Yeah, I think when we were looking at it, like it shows you all the topics they cover and it's like an intro, I think, to the wilderness first aid. So cool. But definitely something we want to look into because, again, we're. maybe a little accident prone. So just to take care of, you know, Nate's a bigger dude than I am. So like what happens if I got to carry this guy out of the

SPEAKER_02: 31:46

bush, right? We'll be back for you, honey.

SPEAKER_01: 31:50

Hold that. Stop the bleeding. Don't take it off.

SPEAKER_02: 31:55

Yeah. And if they, if they have to cop to you, cop to you out, it can be pretty expensive if they go didn't need to.

SPEAKER_04: 32:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 32:04

That's excellent. It's yeah. You know what, being able to be, you're away from all the amenities that we live with all the time. So being able to be more self-sufficient in that and be safer in that, I don't see that there's any downside to that at all. yeah

SPEAKER_01: 32:23

yeah because we you know we want to do part of the operating parks are like wabakimi woodland caribou so before we try to go do backcountry there like we want to make sure we're obviously equipped with the knowledge the experience the tools everything yeah before oh yeah like we're fine we can just go do this right now it's like no like we need to realize we need to learn some things before we go in the wilderness like super wilderness yeah yeah

SPEAKER_02: 32:49

bracket more experience too because there's you're going to be you're going to be bushwhacking at some point where it says there's a portage there is not yeah well and on that note have you at least in part because I have been taking a lot of suggesting about it have you thought about taking any whitewater courses like even just to gain a little experience because you get into certainly in woodland caribou but I think I think in spots in Wabakimi too, you're going to run into it, right? Depending on what time of year.

SPEAKER_03: 33:23

We've definitely talked about it. I think it's something that is going to come up on our radar. It's kind of inevitable. I think like you just touched on where you're going to run into a situation where

SPEAKER_04: 33:34

there's

SPEAKER_03: 33:36

rapids, there's swifts, there's... you know, whitewater where you have to actually react and be able to react. So I think it's something that we're going to start looking into ourselves just to, just to, again, equip ourselves with those tools to be able to, to handle the situations.

SPEAKER_01: 33:51

Cause even looking at some of the roots in Algonquin and even the Kawartha Highlands, there's the Mississauga river, I think. So like that's considered a white water river and like, well, there's portages around the crazy parts, but there's still some other parts that aren't like, there's no portages around and you're going to have to paddle through that. So we're like, again, like let's not bite that off before, you know, we're aware of how to, you know, read the water and the rocks and you know, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_02: 34:21

Yeah. And know how to know the strokes, how to, how to, as you, as you're reading, it's like, so this one needs to be back paddling. You got to be able to, whoever's in the, in the stern has to be able to tell whoever's in the bow, what the hell they're doing, all that sort of jazz. Yeah. Yeah. I'm terrified, but I think I'm going to do it. We're doing, we're doing a three day with Greg from organic boat shop in the fall in on Spanish river. And it's going to involve some, some not smooth water. So

SPEAKER_01: 34:52

yeah. Yeah, for sure. Nice. Yeah. We saw that, saw that posted and something, if you continue offering that in the future, it'd be a good, a good little weekend to be a part of.

SPEAKER_02: 35:03

Yeah. Well, I, we, we tend to not, we tend to trip as family members. We, in one way or another, not really do a lot of outside of our, that circle. I keep thinking it would be, it wouldn't be a bad idea. And I probably really enjoyed doing it with guys that have more experience. Folks, it doesn't, I don't, it's not

SPEAKER_04: 35:24

a

SPEAKER_02: 35:24

guys versus girls thing. I mean, people that know how to do stuff like that better than I do. Right. That's I'm going to, because all my stuff is largely other than taking, taking courses, paddling the Orca courses with Greg, you know, most of everything is self-taught. I'm sure that they taught me how to read maps back in scouts, but you know, other than that, I figured it out on my own, which means I don't, I haven't got it all figured out. So if I can watch guys who do that sort of stuff all the time, I, you know, I'm learning more stuff. I'm going to be better at doing whatever. It'll be easier. Thomas will be better at it. He'll be able to carry more gear. He's

SPEAKER_00: 36:04

only

SPEAKER_01: 36:04

going to get

SPEAKER_00: 36:05

stronger as he grows. That's

SPEAKER_02: 36:07

what I'm saying,

SPEAKER_00: 36:08

right? He better be done growing by

SPEAKER_02: 36:10

now.

UNKNOWN: 36:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:12

It's payback for having fed him for 23 years or whatever. Because the Sherpa I'd have to hire would be cheaper than having fed him for that many years. All right. Tell us what parks you've been to.

SPEAKER_01: 36:29

So they've kind of been all over. We don't have a system as to starting here. It's just kind of... You're looking at the map and what feels right, kind of.

SPEAKER_03: 36:41

It fits into a timeframe too, you know. We can't always travel the four hours to go to the Muskokas.

SPEAKER_01: 36:48

Our first thought was to get all the Northwestern parks done while we're young and can drive out there and like not worry about it. But it's a haul. It took about probably 23 hours. We went to Rushing River, which is like, It's by Kenora, so super northwest Ontario. So we've done Rushing River. We did Sue Narrows while we were up in that corner. We wanted to do Caliper Lake, which is all those three were kind of together, but it was closed while we were up there, so that was a bummer. Because, again, you drive... a day's worth, and then the park was closed. But there was a supercell that went through, and a bunch of tall pines were down. And thankfully, nobody was hurt, but, like,

SPEAKER_03: 37:35

everything

SPEAKER_01: 37:36

was crushed. Like, it was nuts.

SPEAKER_03: 37:37

Fences were knocked down, everything. Yeah, it was crazy. What

SPEAKER_01: 37:40

we've done around, like, Lake Huron, we've done McGregor Point, more on the east side, Murphy's Point, Turkey Point down here by us in Niagara, Algonquin.

SPEAKER_03: 37:52

Restool. We

SPEAKER_01: 37:54

did a rest

SPEAKER_03: 37:55

stool. How did you like a rest stool? Loved it. Yeah. Great. Yeah. We, we hit it at a, I think we were there for a week. Yeah. We were there for a week and we hit perfect week of weather. It was a sunny, hot, couldn't beat it. It was, I think it was like one of the hottest weekends of this, of the summer. So it

SPEAKER_02: 38:13

was kind of. Sweet. No, I just, I keep thinking we should do a front country up there.

SPEAKER_01: 38:18

And they have backcountry sites at Restool as well. So we did a lot of, they have a bunch of paddling routes. So we did as well, a 22 kilometer route. day trip, like, out and about. And, yeah, they have some little backcountry sites you can, you know, have your lunch on or stay for the night. Who else has...

SPEAKER_03: 38:39

Well, there's another one.

SPEAKER_01: 38:40

Oh, where else? Oh, Mikisu. We went to Mikisu in the fall, and that was beautiful. They have an 18-hole frisbee golf. Cool. Yeah, a couple hiking trails, and it was beautiful. It was beautiful in the fall time. And there was a lot of... Empty sites for tents. Obviously all the trailer sites, electric sites fill up, but there wasn't too many tenters. So that's a pretty nice park in the fall time. French River, Algonquin, Massasauga.

SPEAKER_02: 39:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:11

So slowly chipping away at the block.

SPEAKER_02: 39:16

That's great. That's a nice rounded group of places to go. All kinds of, you know, varied flora and fauna.

SPEAKER_01: 39:25

Mm-hmm.

UNKNOWN: 39:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:26

Yeah, and every park is different. You know, what's your favorite park? It's like we have a great time at all of them. I mean, I don't know how you can not have a good time camping. You know, like Kevin, happy camper. Like it is what you make it. So we love every park that we've been to so far. Maybe there'll be one that we're like, eh, we don't need to go back to that one. But so far, we would go back to all the ones that we visited. For Tim,

SPEAKER_00: 39:50

that would be Sybil Point.

SPEAKER_01: 39:53

We haven't, I've, I've been there as a kid, but we haven't been there together.

SPEAKER_02: 39:57

Don't, don't go in the summer. It's just, it's, it's insane. It was, it was not, was not, it was not a Tim experience for sure. Lots of people. I'm glad that people are getting out and taking their kids and stuff, but like the day use, it was a zoo. It was a beach that was absolutely jammed with people, cars filling the parking lot, cars all the way down the road, nobody driving, the actual speed limit in the park. Everything was just so worn that when it rained, everything just turned to mud because there's so many people cutting through sites and stuff like that. Great. So our kids were shorter. So great

SPEAKER_00: 40:41

kids

SPEAKER_02: 40:41

programming and like tie-dyeing shirts and doing historical things and stuff like that. That was fabulous. But it's too busy. It's not like I can stay home and have that much traffic cutting through my yard or whatever, right? Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 40:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 40:57

Well, good tip. We'll hit that park up in September when the kids are going

SPEAKER_02: 41:01

back to school. Yeah, that's the one for you.

SPEAKER_00: 41:05

That's it for us for today. Thank you so much to our guests, Nate and Jen from Couple of Campers 905 on Instagram. Please do check them out and check us out on Instagram while you're there. You can also find us on all the other social media. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. We're on YouTube and Blue Sky. And if you want to talk to us, you can email us anytime at hi at supergoodcamping.com. That's H-I at supergoodcamping.com and we'll talk to you again soon bye bye