Riley Outside Drops By For A Chat. Literally!

Our pal Riley talks about learning whitewater, becoming a guide, organizing amazing weekend get-togethers, their killer garden out back, winter camping, joining the board of directors for Paddler Co-op, how the whole point of living in Toronto is so that you HAVE to drive 4 hours to get to a tripping destination, and so much more.

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Transcript

00:00 - 00:04
Hello, and good day, eh? Welcome to the Super Good Camping podcast. My name is Pamela.

00:04 - 00:04
I'm Tim.

00:04 - 00:05
And we are from supergoodcamping.com.

00:06 - 00:10
We are here because we're on a mission to inspire other families to enjoy camping adventures

00:10 - 00:11
such as we have with our kids.

00:12 - 00:14
Today's guest is a pal that lives in our neighborhood.

00:14 - 00:18
Tim has managed to pop out with Riley for local beers on a couple of occasions.

00:18 - 00:23
They are a fan of all things outdoors but especially anything canoe related including white water.

00:23 - 00:26
Please welcome Riley Murray also known as Riley O'Sied.

00:26 - 00:31
I've heard such amazing things about that spiel before and how you have nothing in front of

00:31 - 00:32
you, you just do it.

00:32 - 00:34
That's just I've done it so many times.

00:35 - 00:36
It's just automatic now.

00:36 - 00:39
Can't be with the Kohl's, Ben and Cheryl.

00:39 - 00:41
They're like, oh no, we totally thought that was prerecorded.

00:41 - 00:44
Yeah. Yep. I've heard this song from a few people.

00:46 - 00:46
Welcome.

00:46 - 00:47
Thank you.

00:47 - 00:50
Welcome. Well, and we should just mention how we met, Riley.

00:50 - 00:51
Okay. Or did we meet?

00:51 - 00:51
You do.

00:51 - 00:52
Can you tell me?

00:52 - 00:54
At the Outdoor Adventure Show. Oh, yeah. Yes.

00:54 - 00:56
We came up to your Piling Co op booth.

00:56 - 00:57
You were manning the booth, I think.

00:57 - 01:01
I was. I was manning the booth and then there was a little bit of an after party where we got

01:01 - 01:02
to do a little bit more chit chatting.

01:02 - 01:04
We did too, which was cool.

01:04 - 01:10
It's, I I'm game to yak with anybody. Anything camping related? Yeah.

01:10 - 01:10
Tim, can you

01:10 - 01:11
You notice that? Yeah.

01:11 - 01:12
Just go.

01:13 - 01:18
So yeah, then, it was just by coincidence, it's like, hey, you're all around the corner from us.

01:19 - 01:20
A 6 minute bike ride. Yeah.

01:20 - 01:23
And I don't I honestly, I don't remember how that sort of came up.

01:23 - 01:27
It must have been in just one of our conversations back and forth. It's like, what?

01:27 - 01:28
You live in Toronto? What?

01:28 - 01:30
Why do you live in Toronto, Riley?

01:30 - 01:36
It's it's stunning how many how many of the community actually live here in Toronto.

01:36 - 01:36
Yeah.

01:36 - 01:39
I'm I'm forever surprised about it. Like, what? Yeah.

01:40 - 01:44
And and well, you're you're the closest I so far as I know.

01:44 - 01:51
But there we've got ones in in Toronto, like, in in the core here, in Scarborough, Richmond Hill.

01:52 - 01:54
Well, somebody else was in Fawn that I talked to.

01:55 - 01:58
Somebody's out in the beaches. Like, wow, wowsers, man.

01:58 - 02:02
Like, it's we'd like to be outside and outdoors and

02:02 - 02:08
get to the point. The secret there, Tim, is that we like the 4 hour commute where we get to decompress, little internal meditation.

02:10 - 02:11
You guys drive way too much room.

02:11 - 02:15
Yeah. You appreciate that doors that much more when you live in the city.

02:15 - 02:16
That's true.

02:16 - 02:23
I suppose so, yeah. Although, honestly here where where we live, there's so much grain around here.

02:23 - 02:28
Like there's Cedar Bay Park, There's all the things, you know.

02:28 - 02:36
I I very often looking out through the window behind your head in the day watch hawks circling around.

02:36 - 02:38
It's like how cool is that, right?

02:38 - 02:42
I went down to the beaches the other day and I forgot how close to the water we really live.

02:42 - 02:45
Like you could throw a stone and we are at Lake Ontario.

02:45 - 02:45
And there

02:45 - 02:49
was a whole bunch of people doing a cold plunge there, which I greatly admire.

02:49 - 02:52
I almost wanted to join them, but that takes a lot of cuts.

02:53 - 02:54
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

02:54 - 02:57
It's cold enough for me, like, in the summertime to go in Lake Ontario.

02:58 - 02:59
Yeah. Lake Ontario is brutal.

02:59 - 03:06
The the boys, the Driftwood Paddle Boys, we're gonna go up and do a a 3 day with them in February

03:06 - 03:07
just before the outdoor adventure show.

03:07 - 03:08
Mhmm.

03:08 - 03:13
And they're like, hey. So if we chainsaw a hole in the ice, would you jump in?

03:14 - 03:16
Tim, it's probably good for your back, Tim.

03:16 - 03:16
You gotta

03:16 - 03:17
do it.

03:17 - 03:17
For likes and clicks.

03:17 - 03:19
Yeah. Everything tightens up.

03:19 - 03:21
And then releases. They they need to sauna.

03:22 - 03:22
Do it for the legs and hips.

03:22 - 03:24
Oh, they're talking about doing both. Good.

03:24 - 03:26
That's that's potential for both. Cool.

03:27 - 03:27
Yeah. Hot and cool.

03:27 - 03:29
There's room for 2 more. Just saying.

03:29 - 03:31
So give us a bit of your background.

03:31 - 03:34
Like, I know you do you do paddler co op.

03:34 - 03:37
You do guiding as well? Yes? Ish?

03:38 - 03:40
Yeah. Tim, I got into the outdoors really late in life.

03:40 - 03:45
I didn't start adventuring until I was in my late twenties, and it was more by fluke. 1 of my

03:45 - 03:51
friends had arranged for a fly in trip in Tomogamy, and this was a fly in trip that it rained

03:51 - 03:54
solidly for 10 days straight. It was gruesome weather.

03:55 - 04:00
It was just above freezing temperatures, which is super rare for August in tomogamy, and everybody

04:00 - 04:03
got near hypothermia on that entire trip.

04:03 - 04:08
And I think I was the only person on that trip who was so enthusiastic about doing it again.

04:08 - 04:09
I did not want to go home.

04:09 - 04:12
I loved every second of that experience on that trip.

04:12 - 04:16
So at the end of that experience when everyone was craving their beds, I was looking for the next adventure.

04:17 - 04:22
And we had done a little bit of whitewater on that trip, more by accident, in some Kevlar canoes,

04:22 - 04:26
which you should never do without extreme skills.

04:26 - 04:31
And we made the mistake of telling the outfitter up there that we had taken these Kevlar canoes

04:31 - 04:32
down a couple of rapids.

04:33 - 04:38
And so that outfitter said, hey, if you wanna do some rapids, like, I'll show you some rapids.

04:38 - 04:40
And he said, come back next year.

04:40 - 04:43
We'll do the Sturgeon River, and you'll have a great time.

04:43 - 04:47
And that's where I was like, oh, there's more to this, like, outdoor thing?

04:47 - 04:49
You can get white water canoeing in the middle of the backcountry.

04:49 - 04:52
So the next year, I took a course with the Paddler Coop, which is how I got involved with them.

04:52 - 04:56
And then when we went on this backcountry canoe trip, we hired these with them.

04:56 - 05:01
And then when we went on this backcountry canoe trip, we hired these guides from Tomogamy Outfitting.

05:01 - 05:08
And we had so much fun on this trip, and we were already pretty well versed in our skill set,

05:08 - 05:12
but this was only like maybe my 4th or 5th trip total.

05:12 - 05:16
And Eric from Tomagami Outfitting said, you didn't really need to hire us as guides, you know?

05:16 - 05:20
Like, you could have done this on your own, but we wanted them for, like, the whitewater safety

05:20 - 05:23
of it, of having a guide along who really knew what the heck they were doing.

05:24 - 05:29
And, he ended up saying to me at the end of it, you know, if you ever want to come and do some

05:29 - 05:30
guiding, you can give me a call.

05:30 - 05:32
Like, we'll make that happen.

05:32 - 05:33
And so that was it.

05:33 - 05:34
That was the next step for me.

05:34 - 05:38
And by the time I was 29, 30 years old, I said, okay. Yeah.

05:38 - 05:39
I'll take you up on that offer.

05:39 - 05:43
And I I got the chance to guide a couple of trips for him, and I've since done a few trips for

05:43 - 05:47
some other companies including one of your friends, Tripshed, who I hear you're trying to get

05:47 - 05:49
on the podcast at some point.

05:49 - 05:52
Hint. Hint. Nudge. Nudge. That's cool. That's cool.

05:52 - 06:00
Especially to to to level up in such a short span that that they're like, yeah. Yeah. Come guide for us.

06:01 - 06:08
The really cool thing about getting into these experiences later in life is that you have the

06:08 - 06:11
maturity and you know where your drive is.

06:11 - 06:14
It's like what they say about adults going back to school at a later age.

06:14 - 06:18
Like, you can get a 100% in all of your courses because you're dedicated.

06:18 - 06:19
You know exactly what you want.

06:19 - 06:25
When you find a passion that you're ready to get into, you're gonna give a 100% of your time to that.

06:25 - 06:32
Cool. Well, so tell tell them tell me tell us some of your some of your cool trips that you've managed to guide.

06:32 - 06:38
Where like where other than being frozen for for 10 days in terrible weather.

06:39 - 06:42
But what else what else have what other cool ones have you gotten into?

06:43 - 06:46
So many. This past summer, I had the chance to go up the Mississinabe.

06:46 - 06:48
That was an awesome trip.

06:48 - 06:52
That was some drama getting to the actual park itself.

06:52 - 06:58
If you ever decide to go up that way, we started in Missnaibi Provincial Park, and the drive

06:58 - 07:01
was supposed to take somewhere around 9 hours for us to get to.

07:01 - 07:07
And we turned this into, like, a 16 hour drive with the car breaking down and with getting lost

07:07 - 07:11
on some logging roads, with not being able to find the Provincial Park signage.

07:12 - 07:14
And by the time we ended up at the park, it was about 2 o'clock in the morning.

07:14 - 07:21
So we'd been driving for about 20 hours total, including some mechanical stuff for the car breaking down.

07:21 - 07:25
But by the time we got on the trip, it ended up being such a magical experience.

07:25 - 07:27
And I trip with my dog.

07:27 - 07:31
So she gets to go on all of these river trips with me, including the Whitewater ones.

07:31 - 07:35
And usually we go with a large ish group of people.

07:35 - 07:37
I'm a big fan of safety in numbers.

07:37 - 07:41
I think my favorite number of people to trip with is probably 4.

07:41 - 07:46
But for safety's sake on a whitewater trip, I like the idea of having 3 canoes.

07:46 - 07:48
So 6 people total usually.

07:48 - 07:52
So that trip turned out to be a really awesome experience.

07:52 - 07:57
It was a good experience and I learned a lot about how my dog handles swimming in white water. Oh,

07:58 - 08:00
gee. How did that come about? I was

08:00 - 08:06
dunking it. Yeah. 2nd rapid of the trip, we ended up dumping, which was just a bad line going down it.

08:06 - 08:10
And it was such a casual, maybe a class 2 rapid that we tipped on that I didn't even have a

08:10 - 08:12
life jacket on my dog.

08:12 - 08:17
And I don't know to this day if that was a benefit or a flaw to have the life jacket off of

08:17 - 08:22
her Because I turned around as I'm swimming down this rapid and I go and I'm worried about my dog, right?

08:22 - 08:27
So I turn around and I see that the canoe is upside down on top of her.

08:27 - 08:32
And so I'm swimming upriver trying to get over to, like, flip the canoe upright so that she

08:32 - 08:36
can get out, and then she just dives under the gunwale of the canoe and comes out the other

08:36 - 08:41
side, which had she had a life jacket on, she would have been totally stuck under that canoe

08:41 - 08:43
and who knows where she would have ended up.

08:43 - 08:48
Interesting. I I don't know that I would have even thought of that scenario because I saw that,

08:50 - 08:53
Salus has a has a has a pet Yeah.

08:53 - 08:55
Out in the front. That's great. Yep.

08:56 - 08:58
What kind of dog is it? She,

08:59 - 09:00
I like to tell people she's a miniature Irish wolfhound because that's what she looks like but she's, just

09:04 - 09:06
labradoodle. Yeah. So water,

09:06 - 09:07
a water type dog.

09:07 - 09:09
Oh, yeah. Yep. She loves a good swim.

09:09 - 09:14
Ours is not. So it'll go up to his, like, his legs but that's it.

09:14 - 09:17
You have a nice small travel travel size dog.

09:17 - 09:20
Farley's Farley's just a he's a princess is what he

09:20 - 09:20
is. Yes.

09:20 - 09:22
It's raining outside, I don't think so.

09:23 - 09:26
I have to pee and that's all we're doing today.

09:26 - 09:31
So, okay, so other things you do with Paddler Co op, I've because I've seen your your I'm not

09:31 - 09:37
sure that I would use the term prolific on social media, but you do post a a decent amount.

09:39 - 09:40
And it's always great content.

09:40 - 09:42
Like I re really enjoy watching your stuff.

09:42 - 09:47
You you and Evan, especially if you're both posting at the same time because you're on the same trip. Yeah.

09:47 - 09:52
It's great to just sort of bounce back and forth and see the see the content that 2 of you are are putting.

09:53 - 09:56
I'm I'm a bit of a junkie anyhow. Just saying.

09:56 - 10:03
But when you're doing so so you do it looks to me like you do instructional whitewater.

10:03 - 10:12
Like, I know there was a weekend where Jane Sherry were out there, Christina, who else was Ben was out there.

10:12 - 10:13
Yeah.

10:13 - 10:16
You you had a whack of people out there.

10:17 - 10:20
Is it Eric, EJ Greybeard? Right.

10:20 - 10:26
There so there's so many people that I I follow and and admire the the stuff that they get out and do.

10:27 - 10:32
Is that just like a a weekend, like a like a workshop type thing that to teach people how to

10:32 - 10:33
do rapids and stuff like that?

10:33 - 10:38
Yeah. Well, I started with the paddler co op when I went on that Tomogamy Sturgeon River trip

10:38 - 10:42
because I wanted some foundation of my experience so I wasn't going in completely blind to a

10:42 - 10:46
backcountry situation where I would have to know how to maneuver a canoe in white water.

10:47 - 10:52
And I got hooked with them because they needed somebody on the board of directors who had some marketing experience.

10:52 - 10:54
And my 9 to 5 is more sitting at a computer desk.

10:54 - 10:57
It's very boring stuff, but it's all revolving around digital marketing.

10:57 - 11:00
So I thought I can help fill this gap.

11:00 - 11:04
This is a really nice opportunity to get to know some people in a great outdoor setting.

11:04 - 11:06
So I got on the board with the Peddler Co op.

11:07 - 11:13
From there, I happen to like people, and so I I got a whole group of outdoor enthusiasts together

11:13 - 11:18
because I wanted to meet these rad people in this community and a lot of folks are interested

11:18 - 11:21
in getting more, experience on that whitewater side.

11:21 - 11:26
So that's how we ended up doing the Peddler co op experience and how I got involved with them.

11:26 - 11:31
But my experience in whitewater has been such a slow build.

11:32 - 11:38
I said earlier that as an adult, it's really nice getting into things because you learn quicker,

11:38 - 11:43
you're passionate about it, you know exactly what you want to get from the experience.

11:43 - 11:52
But I've had such a slow build of my learning in Whitewater that I guess living that slower

11:52 - 11:58
lifestyle has been a really nice opportunity to seek that adrenaline and slowly increase my

11:58 - 12:03
skills at a slower pace because it's nice to be able to experience it, like, every second of

12:03 - 12:12
the way instead of just rushing into something and being able to drop over like waterfalls and seek that adrenaline rush. So it's been Yeah.

12:12 - 12:14
It's been a really slow growth.

12:14 - 12:18
For those in the know, I'm I consider myself like a class 2, maybe a class 3 paddler.

12:19 - 12:24
And that's probably as far as I'll ever go, but I really wanna encourage people who wanna get

12:24 - 12:26
into whitewater to start at that level.

12:26 - 12:32
Like, don't be afraid of being at, like, the lower end of that tier because you see these giant

12:32 - 12:37
kayakers, like Dane Jackson's a popular one, going over these massive waterfalls.

12:37 - 12:39
And that's not the expectation you should have for yourself.

12:39 - 12:43
There can be a tiny ripple in the water and you're going down that in a canoe and it has the

12:43 - 12:47
same little adrenaline for you as it does for Dane going over a waterfall.

12:47 - 12:49
Tim, we're gonna get you out one day. It's gonna

12:51 - 12:55
happen. I I I will need to wear diapers, I'm pretty sure. Alright.

12:55 - 12:58
So so there's guiding, there's the paddler co op.

12:58 - 13:04
What other things do you do you like to do for you or with other people?

13:04 - 13:06
Like like what else do you want?

13:06 - 13:07
Do you What you enjoy?

13:08 - 13:15
I spend the majority of my time getting out in a canoe on water, whether it's white water or flat water.

13:15 - 13:20
I'll spend days alone in the backcountry just getting the experience of learning my paddle strokes

13:20 - 13:22
and finessing them a little bit.

13:22 - 13:28
In the off season, I like to skate and ski and do a lot of cross country, and I do a lot of

13:28 - 13:32
anything that you would consider, like, homey or homesteading.

13:32 - 13:36
And somehow, I I always feel that's, like, tied into the outdoors.

13:36 - 13:40
Like, people who like getting into the backcountry and getting into these camping experiences

13:41 - 13:46
are often people who want to like grow their own food or get to know the like more nature y side of living.

13:47 - 13:50
They do pickling and canning and all that stuff?

13:50 - 13:55
You should see my Toronto apartment just full of little, like, canning jars and sourdough fermenting.

13:55 - 14:00
And, I live with 2 roommates who put up with a lot of antics that I have around the house.

14:00 - 14:04
It's all full of crafting and I don't know how I find time for it, honestly.

14:04 - 14:08
That's excellent. Well, I know I've seen seen at least a picture through your back where it

14:08 - 14:12
looks like you've got a pretty happening garden going on.

14:12 - 14:12
Oh, thanks very much.

14:12 - 14:15
Cool cool. No, well, I we don't.

14:15 - 14:21
I plant with my tenants but we do pots and tomato plants that we don't get picked before the

14:21 - 14:24
season ends because we started too late. Cool.

14:24 - 14:32
And then do you do so, like, but but you I thought about this earlier and I blanked on the number.

14:32 - 14:37
I know that there was a conversation we were having and you you a number came out of your mouth

14:37 - 14:45
about the amount of days that you've managed to get out this past year and my brain just went, no. That's not possible.

14:45 - 14:49
I think it's hours. I'm doing this thing called a 1000 hours outside.

14:49 - 14:52
It's great for families to try to get out there.

14:53 - 14:57
And what you do is you put this little piece of paper on your side of your fridge or wherever

14:57 - 15:02
you wanna store it, and you color in every time you go outside, which is amazing for kids.

15:02 - 15:06
But I got really addicted to it as an adult to try to exceed that every single year.

15:06 - 15:09
So last year, I did, I think, about 16:50.

15:09 - 15:15
The year before that was like 15:50. This year, 17:50 hours.

15:15 - 15:16
That's awesome. Yeah.

15:16 - 15:18
And that's just outside, outside, anywhere.

15:18 - 15:24
Outside, anywhere. Like walking the dog, sleeping overnight, anything that's sleeping out under the stars or

15:24 - 15:24
That's a great idea.

15:24 - 15:27
And to get a badge or a crest or a sticker or something for you.

15:27 - 15:28
They should, they should do that.

15:28 - 15:32
I would would pay to say 17:50 hours outside this year. Absolutely.

15:32 - 15:35
Here's here's your gold star. Yeah. Cool.

15:36 - 15:39
So so my brain refuses to let go.

15:39 - 15:41
I know you're outdoors a whole bunch.

15:42 - 15:51
As far as, like, sort of tripping, whether whether it's in a tent overnight or a 3 day or an 8 day or what?

15:51 - 15:56
Like, what what's what's what's a what's a season look like for you?

15:56 - 15:59
I start my season, well, it never really ends.

15:59 - 16:02
I try to go out at least once a month even through the winter months. Sweet.

16:02 - 16:07
And the season really ramps up some time toward the end of April.

16:07 - 16:10
As soon as ice out hits is when I usually get on the water.

16:10 - 16:14
And before then, I'm doing more like drive in car camping situations.

16:15 - 16:18
By the time May rolls around, I'm doing a lot of weekend trips.

16:18 - 16:23
Usually, we'll do our first 10 day toward the end of June because we really like to fight with

16:23 - 16:28
mosquitoes, but it's also the best time for those good water levels for negotiating rapids.

16:28 - 16:32
And then the rest of the summer is filled with either beautiful weekend trips.

16:32 - 16:37
I do a lot of guiding on 3 day weekends because that's usually how the beginner trips work out.

16:37 - 16:43
And then trips for my self are usually 5 to 10 days depending on what what time I can get off

16:43 - 16:47
from my day job and, how much time we get to spend out in the woods.

16:47 - 16:50
And are you in a solo canoe or a tandem or

16:50 - 16:56
I love tandoming. I love being able to spend a lot of time with one other person and because

16:56 - 17:01
I have a lot of canoeing experience now, I usually get to embrace having a beginner paddler

17:01 - 17:05
with me, which is honestly my favorite thing because they get to learn a lot through the experience.

17:05 - 17:11
And seeing a beginner paddler at the beginning of a Friday compared to how they are at paddling

17:11 - 17:14
at the end of a Sunday is so joyous.

17:14 - 17:20
Like, being able to teach and see that real skill develop over just 3 days, it's awesome.

17:20 - 17:21
So gratifying, I'm guessing.

17:21 - 17:25
Yes. Normally, if I go out on beginner trips, I love when there's an uneven number of people

17:25 - 17:30
because then I get to spend the time soloing with my dog and they get to do some circles on

17:30 - 17:33
the lake and learn how to progress in the right direction.

17:33 - 17:34
So that's one my favorites.

17:34 - 17:40
And one of the funniest things that I've experienced with a beginner on a trip is one time in

17:40 - 17:46
the Kawartha Highlands, we had a pretty novice camper come out with us who was about to do a portage.

17:46 - 17:50
And so we sent him down the portage trail and said, it's about 500 meters.

17:50 - 17:53
You know what 500 meters feels like. Right?

17:53 - 17:59
But 500 meters, he was wearing, like, a 30 pound Kevlar in his pack, and he just went for it.

17:59 - 18:03
But the portaj trail ended up connecting into an ATV trail.

18:03 - 18:09
And if you're new, you don't know what 500 meters feels like. So we lost him. Totally lost him.

18:09 - 18:13
We very much freaked out because we got to the end of the portage, he's nowhere to be seen.

18:13 - 18:16
And we ended up having to walk another couple of kilometers, kilometers.

18:17 - 18:19
And then, we didn't end up finding him.

18:19 - 18:24
We went back to the beginning of the portage and sat there until he finally realized nobody

18:24 - 18:25
was coming and came back.

18:25 - 18:31
He carried a canoe in his pack, probably a kilometer and a half to 2 kilometers before he decided,

18:31 - 18:33
okay, I guess this is the end.

18:33 - 18:34
And then had to turn around.

18:34 - 18:35
And then had to turn

18:35 - 18:37
around. That's brutal. Wow.

18:38 - 18:45
We have so many, yeah, so many beginner stories or stories of people who are, like, mildly experienced

18:45 - 18:50
and get themselves into trouble because they haven't taken the courses or done the research

18:50 - 18:55
or gone out with people who are more experienced as their first time out there?

18:55 - 19:01
Yeah. I think the only time I've ever veered off the portage was an ATV trail in Kawartha Highlands

19:01 - 19:09
because it's the only place that we run into, that we have gone camping, that we've run into ATV trails.

19:09 - 19:17
And they look I mean, to see the tire tracks over here and over there, I don't know. Yep.

19:17 - 19:18
I don't know.

19:18 - 19:22
So yeah. But, thankfully, I only went and went, oh, this is feeling just stupid.

19:22 - 19:26
Like, it doesn't this doesn't feel like a portage anymore.

19:26 - 19:30
So we got we we lucked out better than a couple of kilometers.

19:31 - 19:37
We had a similar experience in Tomogamy last year where a group of friends came out and we said

19:37 - 19:40
to them at the beginning of the trip, okay, there's no rapids on this trip.

19:40 - 19:44
We were going across the Wawyaugama River and then we were connecting to the Obabeka.

19:44 - 19:46
And Obabaka connects to the sturgeon.

19:46 - 19:51
That was a lot of big words, but people from Tomogamy will be like, oh, that's where that is. Okay.

19:51 - 19:57
And where the Obabaka connects to the sturgeon is a giant waterfall called, I think Obabaka Falls.

19:57 - 20:03
It's beautiful and there is a portage to get around it that's unmarked, like most of the portages in Tomogamy.

20:03 - 20:07
Unfortunately, I got held up with a couple of the more experienced people because one of the

20:07 - 20:13
canoes had tipped over, and the newer people in the group ended up going first down this river.

20:13 - 20:15
And they got to the area of rapids.

20:15 - 20:23
They took a look at these, and one of them had been on that Sturgeon River trip, and she thought, okay. Yeah. We've done rapids before. This makes sense. Let's just go.

20:23 - 20:28
Let's just go are not the words you wanna hear when somebody is about to navigate rapids.

20:28 - 20:31
So they ended up going down the first set of rapids.

20:31 - 20:36
We got to the portage around the same time and thought, did they start the portage?

20:36 - 20:40
But there was no canoes there, no packs, no signs of footprints. So we kept going.

20:40 - 20:45
We got to the top of the same set of rapids and realized the only thing that they could have

20:45 - 20:47
done is gone down them.

20:47 - 20:55
So we very cautiously scout them, go down the set of rapids, and thank dog they were all sitting

20:55 - 20:57
at the bottom of the set of rapids.

20:57 - 21:01
Because the next set was a waterfall. Jesus. Yeah.

21:02 - 21:07
I heard stories later about how they almost went down that next set of rapids but decided that

21:07 - 21:10
one of them had remembered there's no rapids on this trip, we should wait.

21:10 - 21:17
And, thankfully we ended up bushwhacking into the Portage Trail that was running parallel to

21:17 - 21:19
the river and we found our campsite from there.

21:19 - 21:27
Okay. That would crap. That would be a bad thing. Oh my goodness. Social media. What

21:30 - 21:32
what do you what do you like about content creating?

21:32 - 21:34
What do you not like about content creating?

21:34 - 21:37
What are you what are you hoping to do with it?

21:37 - 21:38
That's a great question, Tim.

21:38 - 21:45
I got into doing social media more for myself at the beginning because I wanted to just have

21:45 - 21:47
somewhere to post about my outdoor experiences.

21:48 - 21:52
And when I started to gain a little bit of a following, I realized that this was my chance to

21:52 - 21:56
get people who identify differently involved in the outdoors.

21:57 - 22:01
So as a queer person, a non binary person, as a plus size person, these are representations

22:01 - 22:05
that aren't usually seen on social media, especially in the outdoor industry.

22:05 - 22:10
So being able to help be the face of that was my original motivation.

22:11 - 22:16
Fortunately and unfortunately for me, I've had some sponsors come in along the way or some brand

22:16 - 22:24
deals that have been fun to work with, but have also made social media feel more like work.

22:24 - 22:30
So I found myself this season, and it's winter at the time of this recording, and we're I I'm

22:30 - 22:35
not posting as frequently because of frequently because of a recent brand deal and suddenly

22:35 - 22:37
that switch went off where it felt like work.

22:37 - 22:42
And I'm hoping that I'll be able to re kindle my own enthusiasm for it when I start getting

22:42 - 22:45
out and doing more adventures through the winter and the spring.

22:45 - 22:47
Any plans for winter and spring?

22:47 - 22:51
I got some great New Year's plans coming up. Heck, yeah. Cool. Yeah.

22:51 - 22:58
Christina, camper Christina, along with a couple of her friends, and Evan Lefebvre and his partner,

22:58 - 22:59
Phoebe, are gonna come out.

22:59 - 23:06
We're gonna do a New Year's, at Silent Lake Provincial Park, and I'll be there until New Year's Day, I think.

23:06 - 23:13
And then through February, we're probably gonna go up to Algonquin, and do a Miu Lake experience there.

23:14 - 23:21
And then come April is probably sometime we'll be start planning for either the Cunanange or

23:21 - 23:24
the Du but we'll start planning for those trips in in April.

23:24 - 23:26
Watch the, so so at the time of this recording,

23:26 - 23:26
short

23:30 - 23:34
shortly before, before the end of December in 2023.

23:35 - 23:46
Flashback just shy of a year ago, I distinctly remember, both Sean Rowley and David Bain putting

23:46 - 23:52
posts out in I wanna say it was in early January, where they were both at New Lake winter camping,

23:53 - 23:56
and and I believe the quote was a river runs through it.

23:56 - 24:04
Because everything melted it rained on top of the snow and it caused it was just it was everybody's tents were just flooding.

24:04 - 24:04
Noted.

24:05 - 24:08
So much water. So watch out for that January thaw.

24:08 - 24:10
Alright. Go in in February then.

24:11 - 24:17
But not not the 20, is it 24th, 25th, 26th I think?

24:17 - 24:17
That's the

24:17 - 24:19
Outdoor Adventure Show just Alright, see there.

24:19 - 24:22
Because that's an important date. You bet. Oh my goodness, yes.

24:22 - 24:30
Because I'm planning like who is, oh, we're talk we we're talking to Christina and and she said,

24:30 - 24:39
yeah, I got people bugging me already about, are we gonna get have a get together? It's it's November, man. I don't know.

24:39 - 24:43
I'm I'm planning stuff for it, so I'm a bit like that.

24:43 - 24:45
Those are my people. Big planners.

24:45 - 24:50
Half of the excitement and the experience of getting into the backcountry is doing the planning.

24:50 - 24:53
Yes. The anticipation. So many people have said the same thing.

24:53 - 24:57
Anticipation and also the planning of the food, making sure that they're getting everything

24:57 - 25:02
on point and just having exactly what they need and tweaking from last year what they did.

25:02 - 25:06
And if you're a person who gets those winter blues or winter sad, then having those experiences

25:06 - 25:10
to look forward to on the horizon, it it really gets you through those darker months.

25:11 - 25:15
Yeah. For sure. And, well, and and, like, you're you're doing the research, which at least part

25:15 - 25:21
of the the world the way it is today is watching canoeing videos on YouTube.

25:21 - 25:23
That's not a bad way to spend a summer time.

25:23 - 25:26
You're saying as you get into YouTube, Tim? Okay. We'll try it.

25:26 - 25:29
So somebody's trying to justify their Saturday afternoon.

25:30 - 25:32
They're gonna edit that part out.

25:34 - 25:39
Yeah. Normally, he will be also planning where we're gonna be camping next summer right now,

25:39 - 25:42
only because February you have to get on. Yeah. Yeah.

25:42 - 25:45
Well, you you know, Ontario Parks. Yep. 5 months, man.

25:45 - 25:48
You gotta book it, especially especially car camping.

25:48 - 25:55
But the last, well, since the beginning of the pandemic, it it became like you couldn't even

25:55 - 25:58
slough off on doing backcountry booking within within a couple of months.

25:58 - 26:03
I remember that first year was like, what the holy mackerel, I don't have to book that one.

26:03 - 26:07
I mean, I tend to book the max that I can anyhow ahead of time.

26:07 - 26:07
Yeah.

26:07 - 26:17
But I was stunned at just how much the volume of, like like, passing people on portages. What's that all about?

26:17 - 26:18
In Algonquin, I know.

26:18 - 26:19
Oh my god.

26:19 - 26:24
We did, an Algonquin trip this year that was supposed to be from the very west end of Algonquin

26:24 - 26:26
all the way into the northeast side of Algonquin.

26:27 - 26:30
And we were excited because we would get to visit the real interior.

26:31 - 26:33
And not a lot of people make it to the real interior.

26:33 - 26:35
You might pass 1 or 2 people a day.

26:35 - 26:38
It's not like the edges of Algonquin, and they're so populated.

26:39 - 26:44
Unfortunately for us, one of our members of the group ended up feeling a little twinge in his

26:44 - 26:50
back, thankfully, on day 1, which meant that we got as far as we could into our day 1 trip.

26:50 - 26:51
And this was gonna be an epic trip.

26:51 - 26:59
This is like a 130 kilometers across the park, and 36 of them were supposed to be just portages. Epic, physically brutal trip.

26:59 - 27:02
So I'm glad he felt this twinge on day 1.

27:02 - 27:05
He made the executive decision to call it on day 1.

27:05 - 27:09
We could not make it across this, which was excellent because we had an out outfitter who was

27:09 - 27:13
shuttling our vehicle from the west side all the way to the east side the next day.

27:13 - 27:15
So we got to say, okay, Outfitter.

27:15 - 27:17
Don't pick up our car. We're gonna go back.

27:18 - 27:20
It took us 4 days to get out.

27:20 - 27:23
What took us one day to go in? Oh, my.

27:23 - 27:26
Injuries on the back in the backcountry are they are a real thing.

27:26 - 27:30
Well, the so the was it wilderness first aid? Mhmm.

27:30 - 27:33
It's it's high on my I like, I'm going to try to do it.

27:33 - 27:33
Go for it. Yeah.

27:33 - 27:38
The only thing is that I am not able to find it inside the GTA.

27:38 - 27:40
Barrie was the closest I could find it.

27:40 - 27:42
There's a company in Oshawa we can talk about later Okay. Cool.

27:42 - 27:43
That does them as well.

27:43 - 27:44
Okay.

27:44 - 27:45
That's it for us for today.

27:45 - 27:50
Thank you so much to our special guest, Riley outside from Instagram and TikTok.

27:50 - 27:53
And please do check them out and please do check us out.

27:53 - 27:54
We are on all the things.

27:54 - 27:56
We are on Instagram, YouTube.

27:56 - 27:58
We are actually on TikTok, but we don't post much.

27:58 - 28:01
And we are we are on all the things.

28:01 - 28:04
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28:04 - 28:08
We would love if you left us a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever it is you listen to your podcasts.

28:09 - 28:10
And we will talk to you again soon. Bye.

28:11 - 28:12
Bye. Bye.