From Alone To Expedition Leader: Kielyn Marrone On Winter Travel, Homemade Gear, And Remote Living

A rusty mug that cuts your lip. A wood stove without a door. Eighty days on Great Slave Lake will make you grateful for the little things—and will redraw your map of what matters. We sat down with winter guide and Alone Season 7 alum Kielyn Marrone to unpack how survival clarity and traditional craft can turn deep cold into deep comfort.

Kielyn traces the path from competitive athlete to outdoor educator to co‑founder of Lure of the North, guiding everyone from first‑timers at a cozy base camp to hardy travellers on committing northern routes. She breaks down the traditional winter system—canvas anoraks, big snowshoes, hot tents, and freight toboggans—and why breathable, natural materials outperform heavy “cold camping” in real wilderness. We dig into her DIY roots: teaching moccasin, mitten, and anorak workshops; launching gear kits and videos; then intentionally splitting the retail side to protect the expedition focus and avoid burnout.

The conversation travels home to their off‑grid homestead built from a prospector tent and a leaking aluminum boat, now powered by a 12 kW solar array with diesel backup. Kielyn shares the unglamorous but essential systems—rotating compost, a bear‑proof garbage cage, a simple thunderbox—and why modern conveniences can live alongside primal solutions. As camp chef, she reveals how single‑ingredient freeze‑dried staples make lighter, healthier meals at scale, retaining nutrients and rehydrating fast in subzero temps.

Hear about a 73‑day snowshoe traverse from Lake Superior to James Bay, the art of pacing ten‑hour days, and the quiet headspace of walking in winter rhythm. If you care about winter camping, hot tenting, DIY gear, off‑grid living, survival lessons, or planning remote expeditions, this one is packed with field‑tested insight and hard‑earned laughs.

If this story moved you or taught you something new, follow the show, leave a quick review, and share it with a friend who loves wild places. Got a winter question we should tackle next? Send us a note at Hi at Supergoodcamping.com.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Kylyn Moroni
• 1:10 Eighty Days On Alone
• 3:00 Lessons In Simplicity And Gratitude
• 4:15 Guiding Trips: From Intro To Extreme
• 6:50 Managing Risk And Evacs Up North
• 8:25 Group Size, Sellouts, And Logistics
• 9:30 Finding The Outdoors Calling
• 12:40 Discovering Traditional Winter Travel
• 15:00 DIY Gear Workshops And Kits
• 17:20 Burnout And Splitting The Business
• 18:45 Off-Grid Homestead From Scratch
• 21:00 Power, Boats, And Building A Road
• 22:40 Making Toboggans, Anoraks, Snowshoes
• 24:00 Freeze-Dried Foods And Camp Cooking
• 26:00 Summer Work, Skills, And Foraging
• 28:00 Waste, Compost, And The Thunderbox
• 30:10 Crossing Ontario On Snowshoes
• 32:00 Expo Plans And Closing Notes

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello and good day. Hey, welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. My name is Pamela.

SPEAKER_02: 0:04

I'm Tim.

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

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 an outdoor adventurer of the highest level. She leans heavily into winter camping and wilderness travel, but can also be found rock climbing and flat and whitewater canoeing. She and her hubby guide trips in winter and summer and are also quite crafty, meaning they often make their own gear improvements and winter clothing. She's a photographer, camp chef, and was a contestant on the History Channel's series Alone Season 7. Please welcome Kylyn Moroni of Survey the North. Hey, welcome. Thanks for having me. Oh thanks for being here. Celebrity. I feel like you're a celebrity. Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

Minor, minor, minor.

SPEAKER_01: 0:54

How was how was that experience on the on Alone?

SPEAKER_00: 0:57

Oh, how long do you have?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02

Um Yeah, you lasted quite a while on it, if I'm not mistaken. I don't I don't watch the show, but I do keep up with everyone else does.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10

So yeah, I lasted 80 days, and it was on the shore of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. And um, it was at the start of winter. So by the end it got pretty cold. And yeah, I mean, that's ultimately what ended up making me tap out was that I just couldn't stay warm enough anymore with the fat on my body that I had left. And the experience was incredible. It was very difficult. And yeah, it's it's hard to put in words really, but um, it definitely helped shape my the last, it's been now six years since I I was on the show, and it's certainly helped sort of um project me into the future of or propel me into the future of just sort of really focusing on the things that really matter and uh leaving the things that don't behind. So um yeah, it helps prioritize sort of the the simple things in life.

SPEAKER_02: 2:13

Well, yeah, the better part of three months in the middle of nowhere, just trying to stay alive. Yeah, that'd be a bit of a challenge, might might be a bit of a give you some focus on okay, what actually matters to me now? Yeah, I can see how that works.

SPEAKER_00: 2:28

Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of that is like who you want to surround yourself with and the people that you miss from at home and and just the simple pleasures in life, like drinking from a mug that's not rusty and has holes in it, and like you know, having uh electricity to be able to turn on the light, and even just a wood stove with a door on it, so it's not smoky. Like these are very basic things that that uh you know you can take for granted. But I definitely um one of the things that I did after alone was get into pottery, and um, you know, I'm sort of obsessed with making mugs now. And every time I hold one with a nice cup of tea, I just think like how grateful am I to have this vessel um that doesn't leak or cut my lips.

SPEAKER_02: 3:21

Yeah, or give me lock jaw because it's all the rust and stuff, right?

unknown: 3:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:26

Well, and I see uh on your website that some of the expeditions you guys do are like serious expeditions. So it's it's not for the faint of heart.

SPEAKER_00: 3:34

Yeah, they are. Um we have uh all all trips across the gambit and um for intro-level people who have never winter camped before. Um, and then we have trips where people have come back for year after year and they're a little bit more committing and and um challenging. Um but you know, we like to say it is for everybody. It literally is putting one foot in front of the other. Um, it's just walking. But one of the biggest things is having that mindset of, okay, this is a serious expedition. You can't just decide, uh, you know what, this isn't for me, I'm out. Like certain trips, like the one we have coming up this week, is called Winter Wonderland. It's our eight, it's eight days, but it's all based around our base camp. And so if you get into a situation where you've never tried it, you want to try it, but you get out there and you're like, you know what, I um, I just I'm not feeling it. I I want to get out. You we have that capability of having a snow machine come out and and pick them up, or you know, even just a minor injury where you're just like, oh, I twisted my knee, I don't think I can go on. Um, it's a lot easier to to get out. But then when we do go on those more serious expeditions way up north, um, or even just in areas of of tamogamy where, you know, the the road comes in here and then it doesn't come through again for another 100 kilometers, you know, though that's when you have to have those conversations of, well, getting out's not really an option um for you at this point. Like, how can we get you to the next sort of takeout? Um, you know, of course, there's helicopter evacs, but that's sort of your last resort. Um, and uh so yeah, we definitely have the the serious expeditions where um we even have a a link that people have to read and agree to before signing up on the expedition, um, just to make sure people understand that, like, no, this is a travel trip and we're planning on getting up and moving every single day, you know, and life can get pretty tough out there.

SPEAKER_02: 5:50

Cool. Uh so then I I make the assumption that uh is it is it just you and your husband that do the guiding, or do you have other folks involved as well?

SPEAKER_00: 6:01

It's primarily just Dave and I. Um, we do have helpers that come in and out um seasonally, um, and they are in an assistant uh role. So they're mostly helping with gear prep, food prep, and then they'll come on the trips with us as as an assistant. Um when we first started, it was just Dave and I. Um, and we would both be the guides on the trips. And now we've started to piggy or to um leapfrog, where I'll lead one with an assistant, and then Dave will leave lead one with an assistant, just to give us a little bit more time to recuperate between each trip.

SPEAKER_02: 6:41

That's yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, I'm I'm I imagine it must tax the hex out of you to be doing that all the time, especially winter, because that's a little bit more, you know, you can sit down in the middle of a regular portage, not so much when you're, you know, knee deep in snow or what have you.

SPEAKER_00: 6:57

Yeah, there's not a lot of personal space on on these trips, but um, you know, I always joke that uh your morning bowel movements in the uh, you know, each day is sort of like your time. And so you're like walking off with the bag, going off into the bush, and like, you know, you're doing your business. It could be a snowstorm, or you know, you hit a tree and the snow falls on you, but you have that moment just to yourself. Um when you're burning your toilet paper, you know, you have a little fire, warm your hands, take a few deep breaths. Um, but generally the other thing that people don't necessarily uh get is that during the day, like you have a lot of alone time because you're walking in a straight line behind someone or in front of someone. Whereas in a canoe, you know, you're you're often paired up and you're sort of tied tethered to that per one person. Um, and so you do get a lot of time to sort of meditate and and just the the it's like melodic of just like one step and then the other, and it just really almost sends you into a trance when you get into that flow. Um and that can be really beautiful and magical. Um, and you you know, you look up and just this stunning winter wonderland surrounds you and yeah, it can take you to some pretty amazing places.

SPEAKER_01: 8:21

On average, how many people are on a on an expedition with you?

SPEAKER_00: 8:25

We sell out at 10 participants, so 10 plus two guides.

SPEAKER_01: 8:30

Yeah. Several of them are sold out.

SPEAKER_00: 8:33

Yeah, all of our trips uh well, apart from this coming up, Winter Wonderland, we're at eight. And then all of the other trips for the season are sold out. We did add, we actually for our one-week loop around here, one of our travel trips, we actually added a second one because we have our uh friend coming back who's going to guide that one. Um, so we we added a whole second group to that, and we're gonna do it's a loop trip. And so they're both both groups are gonna go out in opposite directions, meet up in the middle, and then finish the loop at the other end. Um, which we've done before in Tamogmi, and that worked really well. When we meet up for a rest day, we have like a big feast with the two groups, and it's a really fun social way to to meet up.

SPEAKER_02: 9:24

Yeah, that sounds like a big riot.

SPEAKER_00: 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:28

Right on. Uh how did you how did you get into being such an outdoorsy person? Like how did that how did that all come to play? Did you have parents that had you out doing stuff all the time, or like what uh what?

SPEAKER_00: 9:44

Yeah, it's a good question because I didn't grow up in sort of the the typical like kid going to camp um thing or like going canoe tripping with my parents. Um, that aspect of my life, I was uh into sports. So I was a competitive gymnast growing up, and then I switched to rowing or sorry, swimming, and then rowing. So, sort of all through my childhood and adolescence, I was in competitive sports. And the outdoor part of me was always there because my dad's side of the family were farmers, so they they were on the Holland Marsh doing carrots, um, lettuce, onions, and I was helping on weekends packing lettuce and that sort of thing. Um, but because of my sports, I didn't really fully get into that aspect of of my family. And then my mom's side of the family grew up in Perry Sound, and um my grandparents lived on a lake, and they built their own house. And my grandma was well into gardening and birding, and my grandfather was an accomplished carpenter. He made all his own furniture and you know, the cabinetry and everything in his house. And that part of me was always one of my favorite things to do was go and visit them. But because of my sports, I like I would always look at my grandparents and sort of idolized them a little bit. And I didn't realize it until later in in life when I was at my first year of university at Western in London, that there was something, something to my career path that wasn't quite right. And I was going to school to be a physiotherapist because my whole life I was, you know, I spent more time with my physio than I did with my with my parents. So I wanted to help people heal from injuries, and I was thinking I would travel around with sports teams and that sort of thing. But as I was struggling, I struggled my first year at Western because I could not, for the life of me, take those multiple choice tests. I just, I knew the material, but I couldn't, I couldn't get those tests. Uh, I was taking every tutorial that I could. But then I started questioning like what's going on here. And and I started writing down and brainstorming sort of career options that I would really love to do. And I realized that every single one of them had to do with the outdoors. And that was sort of like an aha moment for me. And so I immediately started looking for programs that had outdoor programs. And I found Laurentian. They had an outdoor adventure leadership program. And so I immediately switched, I applied. There's only 11 people in my class, and it went from me being just a number with 500 students in a lecture hall to then like, you know, having beers with my professor and like knowing them by their first name, and like they'd come to game nights and like just the whole thing, the whole, my whole mentality switched from being like a competitive athlete to then canoeing, kayaking, rock climbing, sea kayaking, where it's it's much more like a an inclusive sport where you're you know really group dynamics is really important and sort of those people skills and um camaraderie working together. And uh I was just hooked. Yeah. So from then, from there, I got into uh whitewater rafting and kayaking. So I was an instructor for several years there, and then switched to sea kayaking and canoeing, and then I met Dave at university and in school, you know, it's six months of the year is winter, and we still wanted to get outside, but there weren't a lot of jobs for people who wanted to be outside in the wintertime. So we started winter camping and got really into the traditional way of camping, which, you know, we found that out by reading the Conover's book, uh Snowwalker's Companion. And that book just kind of changed our whole vision of what winter camping could look like. You know, instead of having a heavier backpack and a heavier, a little bit more clothing and a heavier sleeping bag, but still a cold tent. You know, it's like get it all off your back, put it on a toboggan, grab a wood stove, get a canvas tent, get bigger snowshoes, everything's breathable. Um, and it all worked as one system, and it was a sustainable system that allowed you to go further and longer and deeper into the wild. And so we knew after in 2010, we did a 40-day trip, self-supported, just the two of us. And after that, we're like, this is it. Like we, if winter hadn't finished early on us, like we would have just kept going. We had enough food for 65 days, but unfortunately, at that time of year, the rivers were starting to open up and we had to get out of there. But um, that was 2010, and so 2011 was our first guided trip that we did, and we knew this was something special and that we had to keep going with it.

SPEAKER_02: 15:34

That's cool, that's awesome. I'm I'm so glad you found found your thing, man. Like that's that's very cool. Yeah. That would be a pretty wild change to go from whatever it was, 500 students to to like 10 in the classroom, right?

SPEAKER_00: 15:50

That's uh it was much more my style for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 15:54

Yeah, I was gonna say I being being that sort of invisible, like you I think you said, a number being a number, yeah. Not so much. No thanks.

SPEAKER_00: 16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:05

Very cool backstory. So you guys have been doing it for so what whatever that math is now 15 years. Um I know that there were I did some reading and and saw that you have have made some of your own gear in a I make the assumption because it it needed some tweaking. It didn't quite do what you wanted it to do. Is that what what you were sort of getting into? What what kind of things have you guys messed around with?

SPEAKER_00: 16:33

Yeah, so we started by actually even before we got deeply into the tripping, in the back of the Conover's book, The Snowwalker's Companion, there's some rudimentary patterns on how to make your own moccasins, how to make your own mittens, how to make your own Anorak. And um Dave made his first pair of moccasins from that book. And we lived in Sudbury at the time, and we were living in the basement, which was an unfinished concrete slab, and our feet were always cold. And, you know, we he we had a dog at the time, and he made his moccasins. He took the dog out in winter, and um he he came back and he was just dancing, and he was just like, Oh my god, Kai, you gotta make these. My feet have never been warmer. Like, you know, my feet are always frozen in the house, and when I go outside, it's minus 30, they're super warm. And and uh so we started running workshops in our living room for our friends to make their own moccasins. And then um, their friends' friends wanted to make the moccasins, and then their friends' friends, and then we started going to outdoor ed centers and different um, you know, private places that wanted to have a workshop. And so we started teaching. Uh, we went to schools, lots of high schools and elementary schools. We would do uh moccasin making, mitten making, snowshoe weaving. So we would travel around to the Canadian Canyon Museum and we would do five or six workshops there and First Nations um reserves, we would teach snowshoe weaving there. After teaching for several years, well, we and then simultaneously we got into the trips as well. But then after a couple of years of teaching the workshops, people would get so inspired and hooked on making their own gear because this gear, it's not just to look pretty, it's to actually get out and use it. And that was the thing that we loved so much about it was that these were handcrafting skills that not only couldn't you couldn't find moccasins like you can make yourself that are wide enough to accommodate all of the insulation that you need to actually keep your feet warm. And um, you know, everything is breathable and and it all worked as a system because you know, the size of this the snowshoes would make a nice float for the toboggan that would ride behind you, and the moccasins would fit in the soft bindings, and your feet would be light, and you know, your breathable anorak would allow your sweat to, you know, wick away during the cold winds. And people wanted to do more of it after the workshops. So we started creating these DIY kits and did YouTube instructional videos and um written instruction booklets. And so we ended up creating an online retail store where we would sell all these DIY kits. So we had the trips, we had the DIY kits, we had the finished products, and then we had the workshops, and it just became its own, like it it was like a a a life of its own, really. And eventually. The, you know, we moved off grid at simultaneously as our business was growing. And um, you know, eventually the wheels are spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning, and you start to feel that sort of burnout start to creep in. So what we ended up doing was branching our business into two and selling the retail part of our business. So um Jeff and Laura run Lure of the North Outfitters now in Sudbury, and they have taken over the kits and the finished products while we focus on the expeditions and eventually the workshops, probably again. We we stopped after COVID, we stopped teaching the workshops just because everything, you know, as you know, just kind of went crazy. And then we realized actually we kind of need that break from that. But we get lots of requests for it. And what I would really like to do is offer workshops here at our homestead um as like a a weekend sort of retreat.

SPEAKER_02: 21:00

Cool. Um, you mentioned off-grid. So the is where you live now, are you you're off off-grid? What are all the things? Do you guys have what solar panels and do you do wind turbines? Do you how does that how does that all work?

SPEAKER_00: 21:17

Yeah, so we moved in 2013 off-grid um to a property that was uh boat access, and there wasn't a single thing on the trail uh or on the property, not even a trail. And so we lived in a prospector tent for three years and uh while simultaneously running and growing our business, you know, and at that point we just had a we didn't have anything. We had after we so we had our house in Sudbury that we had just built up enough equity in the house to remortgage it. And after the purchase of the property and all the lawyers' fees and everything, we had$3,000 to our name to start our off-grid life. We didn't have a chainsaw, we didn't have a generator, we didn't have a boat, we didn't even have a tent, we didn't have nothing. We had like a hammer and some handsaws, and that's basically it, and a couple shovels. Yeah, so really since 2013, we've just been constantly putting, you know, every dollar that we earn into the property, and we're getting to the point now where we're starting to feel like we can breathe a little bit. Um, so we we built after three years of living in a tent, um, we built our home, which is three uh two and a half stories because we have our workshop on the the first floor where Dave has all his woodworking tools and everything, and then our main floor of the house, the kitchen and and living space, and then our bedrooms in the loft. And we built a garage which houses all of our you know expedition stuff, and um, we also have a fitness center uh that we use to stay healthy um in our off time. And we're yeah, we've got 12 kilowatts uh solar uh array and a diesel generator as a backup. And yeah, we did all this without a road. So it was, you know, we moved in all the materials with a 16-foot aluminum boat that leaked eventually. Uh only a couple years ago, we bought uh a friend of ours uh barge off of us uh or off of him, which made things a lot easier, but still uh boat access. And then um just recently we started putting an actual road into our place. But to give you some context, it's still 11 kilometers away from the nearest highway. Um so it's still quite remote and rugged.

SPEAKER_02: 23:58

That's a lot of chopping down of trees.

SPEAKER_00: 24:01

Yeah, I mean it wasn't all it was actually an old logging road, but we like it had just been completely destroyed over the years and like closed in. So just sort of reopening it and and yeah, a lot of grading, a lot of you know, a lot of work on house building skills. Yes, yeah. So our qualifications for building our house involved, well, we've built two sheds now. What's what's a house? Just a bigger shed. So yeah, we're like, well, that's just a bigger rectangle. Yeah, there was not there's not much can't in our household.

SPEAKER_02: 24:46

That's that's a good thing to have. That's that's awesome. That's awesome. So winter clothing. Okay, cool. Do you do you do like do you mess around with uh you know toboggans or pulks or whatever? Like uh um do you make your own snowshoes? What uh anything else outside of like clothing?

SPEAKER_00: 25:10

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we um we make the classic 10, 12 foot uh freight toboggan and uh the top bags, the tanks, the stove bags, um ice chisels. We weave the snowshoes. We don't we don't make the frames, um, but uh definitely weave them. And yeah, what else? I mean, pretty much anything that we needed at the time, we would either source it and make it, or you know, jerry rig something that already existed to make it work. Yeah. Yeah, we're pretty crafty people.

SPEAKER_02: 25:52

Yeah, no, I I got that impression.

SPEAKER_01: 25:56

Well, as as camp chef, so how do you do you dehydrate food? Do you do a mix of because you've got rip natural refrigeration in the wintertime? Right.

SPEAKER_00: 26:06

Yeah, yeah, that's really nice with winter. Um, of course, now we've we're getting a thaw, so you do have to think about that sometimes. Um, but I used to dehydrate all my own food, but now with you know, a thousand people food days a year that I have to prep for, that's just way too much to dehydrate on our solar system. So I get uh freeze-dried food from uh Bryden Solutions in in uh Manitoba, and they they sell the the number 10 cans of just the plain ingredient. So I'll get you know, can of onions, tomatoes, broccoli, beef, chicken, you know, you name it, they have it, and it's all in single ingredient tins. So then I from there make all of the meals up with that. Um, and it's really nice because you know exactly the ingredients that are going in. There's not all these additives and preservatives and salt, and you know, so you really can make a really healthy meal with it, and it's super light. And the freeze drying actually retains a lot of the nutrients in the food uh versus using heat to dehydrate it, um, kind of denatures some of the proteins and and vitamins and minerals.

SPEAKER_02: 27:21

Yeah, we uh who was can't catch oh Tyler, right? Tyler, yeah. Yeah, he yeah, and that was a surprising. I had no idea when we were talking to him about it. He said, Yeah, there's like it's like you know, 30% or 40% more of the nutrients and stuff is in the freeze-dried foods as opposed to the uh dehydrated food. I was like, I had no idea. I didn't know I was losing all that stuff dehydrated.

SPEAKER_00: 27:43

It also retains its shape better, too, because it's like you picture a flora of broccoli rather than it shrinking in size, it's actually like the the vapors expand. And so that also means that it rehydrates really quickly, too. Um, because you're just replacing that water versus it having to kind of swell back up. Um, yeah, so it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02: 28:09

Interesting. Yeah, I feel like I need to look into the freeze-drying thing. I'm pretty sure I can't afford it.

SPEAKER_00: 28:16

The cans, the cans are actually quite affordable. Um well, if I took you for a tour in my pantry, it would not look affordable. But um, but uh, you know, if you were doing a two-week canoe trip and you, you know, got a can of onions, a can of mushrooms, a can, you know, but by the time you went to all the trouble to dehydrate it all yourself, it wouldn't cost you more um to to buy the cans. But I think it's actually a really affordable way to to do it. And then also you as long as you have the storage space, what you don't use it, you know, after the can is open, it's still good for five years. So um, you know, if you're if you're into to tripping and you know you're gonna do an annual trip for you know at least 10 days a year kind of thing, then I think it's worth it for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 29:07

All right. When when I edit this episode, I will write down the name of that company in Manitoba.

SPEAKER_00: 29:13

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02: 29:15

Cool. Um, so you guys you do you do do other things like like canoe tripping, you know, flat white water. Um do you do that as part of lure of the north, or is that just you guys taking a taking a break from from business stuff?

SPEAKER_00: 29:33

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we we don't run a lot of summer programs um because we moved off grid, and for the last 15 years, we've been, you know, the summer months are all about build building, getting roofs over our heads, you know, getting our water system installed, getting our furnace installed, you know, all these things that require time. Um so before we we moved out here, we did a lot of guiding, um, canoe, kayaking, hiking. Um, but since moving out here, we've done, we have done several, but uh it's not our main stay. I do a survival course kind of every other year out here. And we now that we're getting more set up, I would love to start offering programs from here where it would be more like wilderness living, wilderness cooking, foraging, um, sort of life skills uh for wilderness living. Dave does a lot of uh milling, so chainsaw milling, um, and like other types of uh homesteading stuff, like learning about solar and sort of water solutions and and all that uh forest management. And yeah, so that's sort of our summer. We we actually started a business um doing solar design and installs for other people and also um arborist work. So we do um tree removal for remote properties, and so that actually keeps us quite busy in the in the summer months now, but I am hoping to continue developing programs um where people can come out here and and you know learn about mushroom foraging and and other um types of wild foods and um wilderness living.

SPEAKER_02: 31:25

Yeah, that's I heard somebody say once that uh all mushrooms are edible once.

SPEAKER_00: 31:32

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 31:35

Cool. Just to flip back, because I I'm fascinated by the whole off-grid homesteading thing. How do you deal with waste, I suppose? So like do you have composting toilets? Do you have I don't know, do you do a big big compost thing out, you know, to try to minimize your your sort of garbage impact, I guess?

SPEAKER_00: 32:00

Yeah, so uh for our food waste, we yeah, we have a giant compost that I have two in rotation, so I rotate them every other year, and that's well away from our house so that we're not attracting um animals too close. And then our our actual weight, like our garbage garbage, we have what we call the bear cage. Um, and we we burn all our burnables, um, so all of our paper products, because we just accumulate so much of it. We'll burn that in our our fire pit and then our recyclables and our garbage, we just store um what we in what we call the bear cage until we have enough, and then we do like a regular dump uh dump run um at the municipality in town. And then human waste. So our our gray water, we have uh a proper French drain uh for our our gray water. Um and then for our human waste, we we still just use a thunderbox. Um we don't have indoor plumbing, we just go outside and we just have a hole. And when the hole gets filled, we just move, pick up the box and dig a new hole. And it's pretty funny how sort of uh what's the word? Um civilized this place is. Like we have uh running water, we have electricity, we have a dishwasher, we have a laundry machine, we have a dryer, you know, we've got a standing freezer, a regular size fridge, but we still don't have a toilet. So we still have to go outside and I just pee in a bucket and I just throw it overboard, like it's very primal. But I don't, you know, like human waste is is uh is more complicated to deal with, you know, than just regular gray water. And so uh maybe if our road ever gets good enough that we can actually have a proper field bed, then that's something that we could look into. But I know there's like pretty good advancements in the composting toilets, but they actually either burn a ton of propane or take a lot of electricity. And you know, in neither one of those we have lots of, or we I mean we could burn propane, but uh that would be a lot. Um so yeah, we're happy with just a hole right now.

SPEAKER_02: 34:28

That's good for you. That that works just fine.

SPEAKER_00: 34:31

Yeah. I guess what I'm gonna talk about at the outdoor show.

SPEAKER_02: 34:36

I mean um oh, by the way, it's our two, it'll be you will be our 200th episode.

SPEAKER_00: 34:43

Yay. No, yeah, I'm gonna be speaking on Saturday afternoon, and we're gonna be or I'm gonna be talking about our 73-day expedition crossing Ontario um by snowshoe. So we went from Lake Superior all the way to James Bay, and there were 13 of us. And yes, it was a fully guided, self-supported trip. Um, or sorry, not self-supported in the sense that uh we actually had three food drops. Um uh, but we walked every mile, is what I meant.

SPEAKER_02: 35:18

That's a that's a hike, man. I can see why you would have the the workout space at home to make sure that you're in shape to do stuff 73 days.

SPEAKER_00: 35:28

Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. Although it is one of those types of activities where like you can train, of course, just by being generally fit and you know, get your leg muscles going, but really it's like it's a very specific thing to lift a s a heavy snowshoe for you know 10 hours a day. And um so really you get your your snow legs, you know, within the first week, and then as the trip progresses, you just feel stronger and stronger.

SPEAKER_01: 36:00

73 days of 10-hour days.

SPEAKER_02: 36:04

I don't think so. Happy to listen to other people's.

SPEAKER_00: 36:09

We will love to hear about yours. Certainly not for everybody.

SPEAKER_02: 36:15

Yeah, well, cool. Uh so that's uh uh uh Kylan will be at the Hamilton Adventure Expo on the Saturday, which I want to say is January 24th, I think. Um sounds right. Yeah, I don't know what I don't know that they've even uh published what who's at what time yet, so we won't, I'm not gonna put that out there and be wrong about it because I'm wrong about stuff all the time. Yeah, I think that's I think that's good for me, and I'm really looking forward to we've got we so we've talked to to to uh Jason and Bretton and uh we're gonna do some social media stuff at the like do some live streaming, do some podcast stuff, and it's like, but I you have invited all the presenters I want to go see. So how am I supposed to be in the booth and seeing the presenters? I don't know how this is gonna work. Cloning.

SPEAKER_00: 37:08

Yeah, yeah. You just have to get a stand-in.

SPEAKER_02: 37:12

That's exactly I would put a cardboard cut out there and just tape my voice.

SPEAKER_01: 37:17

Yeah. All right. All right, that's it for us for today. Thank you so much to Kylan Moroni of Lure of the North. And please do check them out. They are lure of the north.com, they're on Instagram and all the social media as at lure of the north. And please do check us out while you're there. We'd love it if you liked, subscribe, share, and do all the things. We will talk to you again soon and email us anytime. We are at Hi at Supergoodcamping.com. That's H I at Supergoodcamping.com.

unknown: 37:44

Bye.

SPEAKER_01: 37:45

Bye. Bye.