Thunder Boxes On Snowmobiles Because Portaging Is Pain

Old growth forest, forgotten portages, and the kind of canoe routes that only exist as long as people keep travelling them. We’re live at the Hamilton Adventure Expo talking with Mike from Friends Of Temagami, a 100% volunteer-driven nonprofit founded in 1995 that works to protect Temagami’s remaining old growth and keep backcountry access from quietly disappearing.

Mike breaks down what stewardship looks like in practice: choosing where trail maintenance matters most, clearing tough routes in places like Solace Wildlands, improving campsites, and installing thunder boxes they build themselves. We also get into the nuts-and-bolts details that make volunteer time count, including winter snowmobile runs to stage heavy gear so it doesn’t have to be portaged later, plus summer maintenance trips to fix hazards like rotted boardwalk and old spikes.

The conversation widens into community and culture too. Mike shares how Friends Of Temagami supports a September changing-of-the-season ceremony connected to Temagami First Nation, and why protecting “ancient trails” is about memory, respect, and keeping routes from being lost to overgrowth. If you love Ontario canoe camping, Temagami travel, portage routes, and real conservation work, you’ll leave with a clearer picture of how the park stays wild and welcoming.

Subscribe, share this with a paddling friend, and leave a review if you want more stories from the people doing the work that keeps Temagami open.

https://www.friendsoftemagami.org/

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Transcript

Live From Hamilton Adventure Expo

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good day, eh, and welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. This is the live stream edition on remote location at the Hamilton Adventure Expo. This is day two in uh Ancaster, and uh today's guest, to this moment's guest, I guess, uh, is uh is Mike from Friends with Tomogamy. How are you doing, man? Good, thank you. Thanks for having me. Oh, thanks for coming over and having a yak with our audience. Uh wow, it's so uh you'll probably do a more succinct version.

What Friends Of Temagami Does

SPEAKER_01 0:34

What exactly is the Friends with Tomogamy?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Friends with Tomogamy is a nonprofit organization. Um we started in 1995. Uh it's to kind of help uh protect a lot of the old growth forests still remaining. Um, a lot of different advocacy work as well, uh, maintaining um protecting portages, um campsites, and canoe routes that the MR don't have on their value system, and we know that are out there, and we hope that they do include them. And then we also do the ecotourism part, which is travel around with our uh friends at Tomogamy Booth and promote um coming up to Tomogamy and having a great time and helping play on the route and choosing the right route for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

That see, that is way more succinct than I would would have done. Um so so having having talked to the Grand Poo Bah, Mike, uh briefly before, uh, you guys are busy like a lot. Yeah just in uh there's there's just there's so much area to cover, there's only so many hands, there's only I suppose there's probably only so much budget for the things that you need to do. Uh how do you how do you how do you just decide where it's like okay, well, this is in the worst shape, so this is we need to fix up, or this is going to be coming into the worst shape if we don't go deal with this now. How do you how do you how do you task those things? How do you make those you know rank

Trail Work And Thunder Boxes

SPEAKER_01 1:59

them?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, we've over the last couple years, um, we've had um started up the trail maintenance program, right? And um so we have uh we're 100% volunteer-driven organization, and um so we had a couple guys start taking it over, and they've been doing a great job now for many years, and they'll go into the areas that aren't used as much, but people still love them, and so like the Soulless Wildlands, places like that, um, kind of in the Pine Torch area and things like that, that need a lot of work, and so they've cleared the whole area around Pine Torch and Yorston Creek and everything like that, and we know we've heard from other canoeists saying that yeah, it is pretty tough, and um, so now we've pretty much completed that whole area with trail maintenance uh campsite and installing thunder boxes that we build ourselves, and um yeah, and then in in so just a quick how long does it take to build a thunder box? Well, a weekend to do about 20 some odd cheapers, yeah. That's banging them off. Okay, cool. Go continue on, yeah. And um, so then uh this past summer we had two maintenance trips in the summer, so usually that's a spring one that happens there with the Yorston area and everything like that. So we started doing summer ones and it was um widely received. People love the warmer weather than spring because it can snow and things like that. So and uh so we went up into a bit of the Muskego Wildlands area, which um had some old rotted out um boardwalk area and that spikes sticking up and all that. So we kind of went in that area and prepped that. We actually went in in March. We had three guys in March snowmobile in from Obavaca Lake over to Camp Ronapate to pick up the thunder boxes and then snowmobile them up there, drop them off so that way there you don't have to portage them, break your backs and stuff like that. That's an excellent idea. Yeah, so they they did that area, they're gonna do some more in that area this summer as well, and then uh this March they're going in to drop off thunder boxes over in Gull Lake, probably about five of them, and then there will be the spring maintenance going down there this year.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Oh, that's seriously, that's brilliant. Well, while you've got like it's almost like a road, right? Yes, as opposed to paddling the stuff. Oh man. Who it's whoever, whoever I know you're volunteers, but whoever came up with that idea gets a raise. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

For sure it's not me though.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Oh, I like that idea. Yeah, so and so you guys are doing, I mean, you're doing so trail maintenance, thunder boxes, probably signage, stuff like that, yeah, through the through the the summer months.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah, there's portage signs that go up on all the trips, um, and then camp signs, and then also for the uh purview signs as well, the thunderboxes. So we we kind of do that back in the day. Tomagmy never had any sort of portage signs or anything like that. Yeah, a lot of people still love that idea, but uh parts once they started building the provincial parks out there in conservation reserves, they started doing a lot of that, so we're just kind of continuing that as well, making it easy for novice all the way up to experienced people as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

So all right. Uh so other than logging thunder boxes in the winter, is there other activities that happen, or do you guys like take a

Seasonal Ceremony And Community Events

SPEAKER_01 5:37

break?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Um we uh we started taking over recently uh this ceremony that happens in September. That one of our board directors is uh 77 years old, native elder from Tamogamy First Nation. His name is Alex Matthias. He lives on his ancestral trap and lands up on Obavaca with his daughter and son-in-law, and he has a uh I think it's going on close to 30 years now that he has a changing the season ceremony in September. So it kind of commemorates changing from the summer equinox into the fall, and it's open to everybody. And now Friends of Tomogmy is kind of invested in that as well, and so we provide a fish fry for that. So that little event is open to anybody and everybody. Uh, it's a $20 donation to Alex and all that. Um, we have a ceremony site that's two kilometers from Alex's place. People can camp at Alex's or on a designated site. We have uh he has a native elder from Fair Island that comes over and talks about whatever he wants to talk about, and then uh we have a feather ceremony, we have a tobacco ceremony and uh smudge ceremony, and then um we have a big potlock lunch, there's a big table that sits there all year, and we have a great lunch, and then you can do a guided hike up in the Oak Road Forest or a self-guided hike, and then you go back to Alex's uh for the um for entertainment around the campfire and people playing guitars and stuff like that. So friends of Mog is part of that. Uh yeah, just a few little gatherings or 8 GM every October. Um, it's Willie Relie Seat and things like that, um and making everybody else aware of what's going on. We started the newsletter uh this past year, and that's been more engaging with our with our members as well, so that they're informed of what's going on, otherwise they had no idea what was going on. So yeah, everything's looking up. So that's excellent.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

I'm glad.

Why Temagami Feels World Class

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Um, being that you're in into Mogamy, I assume you do some tripping of your own.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Tripping. Tripping. I'm I'm from Hamilton, so it's our backyard playgrounds.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

All right, yeah. Cool. Uh do you have any favorite places in the park that's or do you just do everything?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

I do a bit of everything. Um, yeah, I've I've the last couple years I've kind of gotten out of um canoeing just temporarily, just working on my health kind of thing, and uh dealing with a few issues. And but that's why we're we're here is to point them people in the right direction. So um, but yeah, it's it's it's it's labor love. Um and it's always exciting to go up and try a new route. That's one of my favorite things is trying a new route that I haven't been on that I'm pointing to people to go do. So go do that. Yeah, I'm gonna try it too. Yeah, come back, tell me, and I'll see whether it's worth it. Give us some feedback.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

That's excellent. Oh, well, I'm glad. And uh how do you just uh curiosity, how do you feel? I mean, you keep volunteering, so you must feel you're doing a good job. Is it how fulfilling is it to be part of it?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

It's it's very uh fulfilling. Um, you know, we're we're the area is just gorgeous. There's so many great features in that area, and to help promote that, like the highest peak in Ontario is there. The peaks on either side of them are in the top five as well. Um, we've got some white quartz, we got lots of different mining, old mining things that are there, relics in the woods from the logging days. Um, I know it sounds kind of weird that we're not fighting with the logging people, we're trying to work with them, but seeing the old relics is amazing. Yes. And uh what they used to do back then compared to nowadays uh type of work in that. And um, but yeah, it's fulfilling that we're we're bringing it back to what it used to be. Uh there was a fella, Craig McDonald, who did the Ojibwe map. He spent about 28 years with the Twagwi First Nation elders back in quite a many years ago to kind of learn the oral just in for it was lost. And so they the big complaint was is that once they kind of came off their ancestral lands and had to go to Bear Island Reserve, um, everything like all them roots were were intact. And then Craig said, My god, they're they're getting lost now, you know, they're getting overgrown, not used, and that. So that's that's why we're here as well to try and keep that nostalgia, the ancient trails going. And um, so yeah, it's very fulfilling and to have people go up there and it's a world-class park.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

I I tripped it last year for the first time with some a couple of some other gentlemen, and honestly, as far as a group trip, best one I've ever had. It was it was awesome. Spectacular.

How To Volunteer And Join

SPEAKER_01 10:37

With the amount of work that you guys have to do, uh at the risk of sounding like a complete moron, is it is it open to like people signing up to do uh uh volunteering with you guys? Can you can you take on more folks?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yes, definitely. Um, we have our newsletter out right here that we hand out to people and it talks about a bunch of our different events. Uh, so they can join us on maintenance trips. You've just got to be um a member in good standing. You come out on the maintenance trips. Uh the Thunderbox build, anybody wants to do that, they they can come down and do that. We're gonna be doing that in April up in Bob Cajun. And um yeah, we're we're always looking for people to help out on the board with not only board issues, but just to kind of keep the organization functioning, like you know, some IT work and social media work and stuff. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Okay, cool. That's great. Where can they do you know what the web page address is?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yep, friends of tomogamy.org. And you go there and it goes to our president, and then he delegates it from there where it needs to. Anybody wants to reach out, please feel free. And um, yeah, we'd we'd love to have you aboard and help out.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Very cool, and like a great cause, it's a beautiful park. Again, my one experience so far in person uh was this past October, and it was uh it was amazing. It just totally blew me away. So glad we did it, and I see more in my future. All right, Mike, thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Very much appreciate it, too.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Thanks for having a great chat, dude.