Evan Le5 joins us for a really interesting chat!!

He thinks we might be related due to an affection for Tetris.

His Dad  was big on videoing  their outdoor activities when he was a kid. No surprise that he's a content creator. 

He's a fantastic storyteller that loves paddling whitewater.

Please welcome Evan LeLefebvre.

Check him out here:
https://www.instagram.com/evanle5/
https://www.youtube.com/@Evan_Le5

Transcript

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

00:04 - 00:08
I'm Tim and we are from supergoodcamping.com we're here because we are on a mission to inspire

00:08 - 00:11
other families to enjoy camping adventures such as we have with our kids.

00:11 - 00:18
Today's guest made Kevin Callan's list of favorite lesser known paddling YouTubers at the beginning of this year.

00:18 - 00:22
This 28 year old has been getting out in nature since he was just a wee one and keeps doing

00:22 - 00:25
it because he loves it and hopes to inspire others to do the same.

00:25 - 00:26
Which means he's our kind of people.

00:27 - 00:30
Please welcome Evan Lefe, AKA Evan the five.

00:30 - 00:31
Yay.

00:34 - 00:35
Really appreciate.

00:35 - 00:37
Thanks for coming and having a yak, man.

00:38 - 00:39
Sounds like you're a busy dude.

00:40 - 00:45
Yes. So there's probably. That's a perfect question, sweetie.

00:46 - 00:48
How the heck do you find so much time?

00:48 - 00:53
I see how much content you create to put out there, which means you're outdoor doing those things

00:53 - 00:55
in order to film doing those things.

00:55 - 00:58
Are you independently wealthy and you don't need to work.

00:58 - 01:02
How does that, how does that play out one day? One day?

01:02 - 01:03
Yeah.

01:03 - 01:05
I, I buy 649 tickets too.

01:07 - 01:11
Well, I guess pure determination.

01:11 - 01:12
I will give it that.

01:12 - 01:17
Maybe that's my first thing that came into my head here on that one, but I'm, I guess I'll have

01:17 - 01:25
to say just that push to try and make myself feel mentally and physically fit.

01:25 - 01:32
I'm constantly trying to get outdoors, even if it's just like you know, skiing right in my backyard. I'm fortunate.

01:32 - 01:38
I live in Ottawa so we have lots of natural spaces around here which are, you know, I could

01:38 - 01:41
get to all kinds of different rivers within a 30 minute drive.

01:41 - 01:48
And so you know, me and my girlfriend or my father and we will generally try and just, you know,

01:48 - 01:54
get out after work and you know, even just a two hour little paddle after work and stuff could

01:54 - 01:57
turn into a, a bigger adventure than it seems.

01:57 - 02:00
Cool. Well that's, that's great.

02:00 - 02:03
I watch, I watch lots of people.

02:03 - 02:05
Lots of content creators do do the.

02:06 - 02:13
I feel like I'm getting picked on here but same, same sort of deal with Riley.

02:13 - 02:17
Like they're out there all the time, man. And it's.

02:17 - 02:22
And, and, and I, we live blocks away from each other so we've hung out a few times.

02:22 - 02:24
So I know their schedule and stuff.

02:24 - 02:30
It's like, man, that's a push to, to free up your space to do the, you know, you got to stack

02:30 - 02:35
things up so that you're maybe doing your Third side Hustle or whatever it is on Wednesday nights

02:35 - 02:40
until 9:00 at night so that you can go and do this stuff on the weekends. That's I. Kudos.

02:40 - 02:41
That's.

02:41 - 02:42
That's amazing.

02:42 - 02:44
Well, it's great to be so close to everything.

02:44 - 02:47
Like we're not so close to things.

02:47 - 02:49
Yeah, well, yeah, definitely.

02:49 - 02:54
Literally the only thing we have are the Toronto Islands to paddle around here.

02:54 - 02:55
I don't think I'd paddle the Dawn.

02:56 - 02:59
I don't know what it would do to my canoe and I sure as heck wouldn't want to dunk into it.

02:59 - 03:01
It was a while when.

03:01 - 03:06
I think it was just about when I started actually approaching my channel. Seriously.

03:06 - 03:12
I think it was right about when Covid hit and I was.

03:13 - 03:18
I had moved in with Phoebe at the time and we were living Metcalf and Gladstone, which is like

03:18 - 03:25
core of downtown Ottawa and we're both sharing like a single room studio apartment.

03:25 - 03:29
And at this time I was just acquiring all of this gear.

03:29 - 03:34
I just, you know, I got a new job and I had some extra money to spend and I, I was just fascinated

03:34 - 03:40
by this, this outdoors world and so I got all this equipment and I just remember her and I,

03:40 - 03:44
we would go and go out for cross country skis and stuff.

03:44 - 03:49
We'd be packing down all of our crap, you know, down the apartment on the, from the ninth floor,

03:49 - 03:52
getting into the, you know, the elevator and everything.

03:52 - 03:58
And we would, we were lucky enough, we had one time when it had snowed just enough that we were

03:58 - 04:05
able to ski right through the streets basically to get along the canal, the Rideau Canal.

04:05 - 04:08
And we were almost able to get to like Parliament and back.

04:08 - 04:10
It turned out to be quite a, quite an adventure.

04:10 - 04:14
We had to become pretty creative when we were living in the urban world there.

04:14 - 04:18
Where do you store all that stuff in a one room studio apartment?

04:18 - 04:19
Oh, we were lucky to have.

04:20 - 04:23
You know, Phoebe always says I have a Tetris brain.

04:23 - 04:29
So I'm always able to kind of rack and stack things together to. Into a tight package.

04:29 - 04:32
But I'm also grateful my, my.

04:32 - 04:38
Well, our parents would kind of keep extra little tidbits and stuff that, that we couldn't really keep with us.

04:39 - 04:41
Tim's the Tetris guy here too.

04:41 - 04:45
Like when you're loading up for camping, everything's Tetris into the trunk.

04:45 - 04:50
Yeah. But not for, not for storage so much though because I'm the super.

04:50 - 04:54
There's a whole bunch of the basement that is a workshop and storage.

04:54 - 04:57
So I just have piles of crap down in there.

04:57 - 04:59
Me too. We might be related.

05:01 - 05:05
It's possible. Speaking of which, it's somewhat off topic, but.

05:05 - 05:08
But when I was looking through, like, your website and, and.

05:08 - 05:12
And I've been following your social medias for a while, but I saw a picture and it.

05:12 - 05:17
And it wasn't until I read the caption underneath that I realized that it wasn't you in the front of the canoe.

05:17 - 05:19
It was your dad in the front of the canoe.

05:20 - 05:24
Man, you are the spitting image of that guy. It's a. That's amazing.

05:24 - 05:32
It's funny, eh? I have so many photos of him as a wee guy that's just now at this point, it's almost indistinguishable.

05:32 - 05:35
Yeah, yeah, well, it was what it ended up with. He.

05:35 - 05:38
He had a bit of gray in his beard.

05:38 - 05:41
And I went, nah, Evan's too young to be that great. There's no way, man.

05:41 - 05:42
And then I read the caption.

05:42 - 05:45
Oh, my God, it's his dad in the front of it.

05:45 - 05:49
Like, you guys just look so much alike. That's. That's. There's jeans for you. Right?

05:49 - 05:52
Lucky to have his looks, his good looks. Cheers, dad.

05:52 - 05:56
See, there you go. Shout out to dad.

05:56 - 06:01
So, all right, so you said at the beginning that the pandemic is sort of when you were getting

06:01 - 06:08
into your content creation, you know, figuring out your. Your online Persona. What.

06:08 - 06:13
What really pushed you in that direction? Was it. Did you know, what.

06:13 - 06:14
What pushed you in that direction?

06:14 - 06:17
What made you go, yeah, this is something I want to do?

06:17 - 06:29
So definitely was already kind of veering around making content just for the hell of it, as I suppose.

06:29 - 06:32
Well, throughout my whole life, I've been talking about it more with Phoebe.

06:32 - 06:39
Recently I've been having these memories, these flashbacks of my dad always having the camcorder around.

06:39 - 06:44
And only now, like, 20 some years later, he's actually digitized them all.

06:44 - 06:50
And it's, you know, become these really, like, you know, great memories that the whole family can.

06:50 - 06:51
Can look and look over.

06:51 - 06:54
And I'm starting to feel the same way about that.

06:55 - 07:00
But he used to film some of our camping trips when we go out, so you guys would love that.

07:00 - 07:03
Like, he was basically the one who got me all into this.

07:03 - 07:09
He would bring out his SLR camera at the time and he would have it in a little waterproof bag. And he was.

07:09 - 07:14
He was doing a lot of videography through his business because he owns a.

07:14 - 07:17
Like a media and web design company.

07:17 - 07:20
He's been doing that for almost 30 years now, I think.

07:20 - 07:27
And so I've been great, you know, I'm very grateful that he's been able to like ever since like

07:27 - 07:31
I was a teenager, he would cherry pick little jobs, like Photoshop jobs and stuff like that for me.

07:31 - 07:36
And so I got to learn the whole Adobe suite as like a young teenager.

07:36 - 07:38
That was kind of what I was doing in my spare time.

07:38 - 07:45
And I think we started then incorporating that into our outdoors world. I think around 2015.

07:46 - 07:50
I remember making like a little fishing teaser because that was what we were into at the time.

07:50 - 07:56
So we'd make kind of like exciting like sponsor me type videos, you know.

07:56 - 07:59
And I think now it's.

08:01 - 08:10
Well, 2019 would have been around Pandemic Time watching Northern Scavengers and Justin Barber specifically.

08:12 - 08:17
Those two channels definitely inspired me to get out there in the wilderness more and start

08:17 - 08:19
to do more tripping type style things.

08:19 - 08:23
And just knowing that, hey, I make my own music.

08:23 - 08:26
I know how I went to school for doing a lot of this stuff.

08:26 - 08:32
So it all just became this picture that sort of painted itself, I suppose.

08:32 - 08:35
Nice, nice. And you still.

08:35 - 08:41
So many years later, you still enjoy making it or do you find it is.

08:41 - 08:43
It is exciting doing new things?

08:43 - 08:46
Like, you know, shorts are a fairly recent sort of thing, right.

08:46 - 08:52
And, and reels and you know, all of that is that, does that help drive the.

08:53 - 08:55
I want to do this stuff right?

08:55 - 08:56
I suppose.

08:56 - 08:56
Yeah.

08:56 - 09:06
It. What I recall really starting the pace was my dad showing me like the Vimeo challenges at the, at the time.

09:06 - 09:12
So we would actually make like, we try to make, you know, hey, this weekend you have 30 seconds

09:12 - 09:17
to make whatever just different little video challenges and stuff like that.

09:17 - 09:23
So doing these short form content bits nowadays kind of reminds me of that.

09:23 - 09:30
It's a little bit, a little bit nostalgic for me, but I do think it takes a bit away from my

09:30 - 09:36
main energy to have like a good storyline for like, you know, hey, I'm gonna film a video that

09:36 - 09:42
might be able to go to a film festival or something like that because I put a lot of energy

09:42 - 09:43
into the story of it.

09:43 - 09:51
But it's really nice because what we've been doing now naturally has bits you can pull out to create shorts with.

09:51 - 09:56
So not too concerned with like having stuff that I could post later because I always know, like,

09:56 - 10:01
oh, I filmed it for my long form, I know I could come back and film and pull bits out.

10:01 - 10:04
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, and that's a.

10:04 - 10:13
I don't want to compare you in the, in the sense of your style, but, but the storytelling Chris

10:13 - 10:16
Prowse has, has made some Amazing stuff.

10:16 - 10:21
And I think she actually, she actually entered one in. In a film festival.

10:21 - 10:29
And, And I know that having watched some of her stuff and then watch some of your stuff, you both have that. It's a. It's a good.

10:29 - 10:33
It's a good walk from beginning to end. I don't. I.

10:34 - 10:40
Having worked in film for, I don't know, 15, 20 years, you'd think I'd have a clue, but I don't. I absolutely don't.

10:40 - 10:44
Like, I'll never be a director or anything like that, because I don't know. But I.

10:44 - 10:46
But I can watch something and go, yeah, that's good.

10:46 - 10:50
That was a good storytelling bit of business.

10:50 - 10:55
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like a thing that, you know, everyone can always recognize.

10:55 - 10:57
I think that's what really sets.

10:57 - 11:01
Sets people aside, is they, hey, you have, like, a really good, captivating story.

11:01 - 11:02
You can see it, right?

11:02 - 11:04
And seems to show in the numbers, too.

11:04 - 11:07
That's good. That's good. And, well, and. And there you go. I.

11:07 - 11:09
I haven't actually looked closely at.

11:09 - 11:13
At your numbers and stuff lately. Is it. Does it continue to. To grow?

11:14 - 11:17
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. I, I personally found.

11:18 - 11:23
I've just tried to ignore most of it. I've. You know, it's. And.

11:23 - 11:28
And honestly, the, the point in my life when I was like, truly, like, okay, I'm just.

11:28 - 11:33
I'm not gonna do this for the views because we would end up doing, like, a lot of these videos,

11:33 - 11:38
a lot of this work that everybody's doing here, all these YouTubers, as they say. It's. I, I do.

11:38 - 11:41
I'm a multimedia technician by day job.

11:41 - 11:46
I do video work, and I've been doing that for about five years with the government.

11:46 - 11:51
And I've, you know, I've worked with my dad before, and so getting to see what this is all like,

11:51 - 11:52
it's basically just, hey, you're just.

11:52 - 11:55
You're just a videographer, a freelance videographer.

11:55 - 11:59
And so you have to do all that work that you would be doing if you were, like, filming weddings

11:59 - 12:02
or if you're filming any. Anything else.

12:02 - 12:09
And so it's been really interesting to try and engage that, I guess, but I've been having a

12:09 - 12:11
lot of fun with it. Nonetheless. It's.

12:11 - 12:18
It's been really cool to focus on having fun with it and seeing it as more of, like, a skill

12:18 - 12:24
and a passion that I could just keep learning and continuing to grow with.

12:24 - 12:26
And people seem to enjoy it.

12:26 - 12:28
So that just makes it even better.

12:28 - 12:31
Well, yeah, I shoot all kinds of content. I Never publish it.

12:32 - 12:35
My kids will get to watch it at some point if they choose to.

12:35 - 12:37
And that's, that's the thing that Dennis has mentioned.

12:38 - 12:43
Dennis from Canoe Hound Adventures has mentioned a couple of times is he puts it out as much

12:43 - 12:48
as anything so that his grandkids can watch it, you know, somewhere down the road, you know, go there.

12:48 - 12:50
That's my grandpa doing his thing, which.

12:50 - 12:55
Is great impactful stuff I've had is it's like my own family members and friends.

12:55 - 12:57
I remember going to a friend's house once.

12:57 - 12:58
I hadn't seen them in years.

12:58 - 13:02
Like old high school friends, like, hey bro, I watch your stuff all the time, man.

13:02 - 13:08
And it was like, like that means so much to me and it's really cool to, to be able to share that.

13:08 - 13:12
I know Phoebe just mentioned the other day her brother had said, like, it's so cool that, you

13:12 - 13:17
know, we get to, we don't have to like wait for you to tell us stories of like what you did this weekend.

13:17 - 13:22
It's like we get to watch what you did in 4K and have it like, you know, tune to some good music

13:22 - 13:25
and yeah, it's, it's really cool. It's really inspiring.

13:25 - 13:27
Keeps the, keeps my fire going to keep doing it.

13:28 - 13:34
That's excellent. Well on the note of having fun, you have it seem to have a real knack for

13:34 - 13:38
hooking up with other up and comers or celebrities or, or whatever.

13:38 - 13:43
The, the YouTube, you know, camping community types, adventure community types.

13:45 - 13:48
Tell me some cool stuff that you, you've done. Like you've done you.

13:48 - 13:54
I see you at Paddler Co Op, you know, doing, doing whitewater stuff. I've seen.

13:54 - 13:55
Tell me some cool stuff.

13:56 - 14:02
It's overwhelming really. It just like it was really hard to like create one of those like what

14:02 - 14:03
it was my 20, 23.

14:03 - 14:04
What did I do this year?

14:04 - 14:11
And I, I think my, my biggest, you know, first of all, like my biggest piece of advice if this

14:11 - 14:15
is like, if any of that interests you or anyone else is like just ask.

14:15 - 14:17
Like that was the main thing I could take away of.

14:17 - 14:23
What did I do this year was I just like wrote people who like really inspired me and said hey

14:23 - 14:26
like, like what if, what are you up to this weekend?

14:26 - 14:30
Like, I like, I really love what you're up to and whatever.

14:30 - 14:32
Take it how you ever, however you want.

14:32 - 14:37
And I just, I just think that's how a lot of this really happened.

14:37 - 14:42
Like Kevin Callan, that was probably the coolest thing to become now at this point with Kevin

14:42 - 14:49
where it's like Just being able to talk with him semi casually, it's like, it's, it's really cool.

14:49 - 14:50
Him and Paul Mason as well.

14:51 - 14:53
It's now when I see them, it's like, what's up, buddy?

14:53 - 14:56
Give me a hug, you know? Yeah.

14:56 - 15:03
I think the two biggest things, you know, would have been meeting with Kevin.

15:03 - 15:11
He came to the, he went to go to a meetup to talk about his book with Andy.

15:12 - 15:12
Right.

15:12 - 15:16
Once around Algonquin. So it was the celebration of that.

15:16 - 15:22
And so that was happening around my area here in Wakefield, just like a half hour drive.

15:22 - 15:26
And so I went there and Andy was there.

15:26 - 15:31
And Andy's very inspiring to me and he just. Sorry.

15:31 - 15:36
He's very inspiring because the fact he makes products, I've always had this idea, like I took

15:36 - 15:40
graphic design and in college, so I've got this very.

15:41 - 15:43
I've got a creative mind. I can't turn down.

15:43 - 15:47
I can't turn down to zero for whatever reason sometimes.

15:48 - 15:51
And so he needed help with his paddling map case.

15:52 - 15:54
Yeah. Yep.

15:54 - 15:56
And he was at the show.

15:56 - 15:59
I just cold turkey walked up to him.

15:59 - 16:04
I happen to have a business card, and said, hey, like if you ever need a hand with anything,

16:04 - 16:06
I would absolutely love to help you out.

16:06 - 16:07
It's just a really big passion of mine.

16:08 - 16:10
And he said, I have this map case I need help with.

16:10 - 16:12
And next thing you know, I'm working with Andy.

16:13 - 16:18
And then we had finished working together and I said, if, yeah, you know, part of the bill was,

16:18 - 16:20
hey, we'll go for a camp together sometime.

16:20 - 16:23
And that's, that's part of my bill, my invoice.

16:23 - 16:30
And next thing you know, then we ended up, I get, get a, I get a message from, from Kevin and

16:30 - 16:34
them because they were doing the Mississippi trip and I'd also message them on Instagram saying,

16:34 - 16:39
hey, you know, if you ever need a hand with anything, I know the area well.

16:39 - 16:47
I'm, I'm around there and next thing you know, I'm driving Andy Baxter and Kevin Callan up to.

16:48 - 16:49
Back up to their car.

16:49 - 16:50
Sweet.

16:50 - 16:51
Yeah, that was really fun.

16:51 - 16:53
And kind of started the whole.

16:53 - 16:58
Or catalyzed our camping trip then that we later did on Opion's and Yeah.

16:58 - 16:59
Yeah, that was cool.

16:59 - 17:00
Breaking an axe.

17:01 - 17:07
Good, good chefing, by the way, good cooking. I quite like that. I'm the cook.

17:07 - 17:09
So taking, taking notes from you.

17:10 - 17:20
So I see you get into doing not crazy whitewater stuff, but certainly some, some frothy business. You're, you're doing, you're.

17:20 - 17:23
You're doing stuff that's on the edge of seasons because you're.

17:23 - 17:30
You're in a dry suit and a helmet and do you rent the canoe or do you.

17:30 - 17:36
Do you own a, like a something a royal X type. How is. How. How cool is that?

17:36 - 17:41
And how did you start doing that with. Because that's. That's the one. Again, chatting with Riley.

17:41 - 17:45
It's like, that looks really fun. I'm just terrified.

17:45 - 17:49
Oh, you. It. You have to like, I.

17:49 - 17:53
If you guys are, especially if you're around the Toronto area, you should definitely make it

17:53 - 17:58
out to the Tyler Co Op at any point that you're, you know, thinking of going there.

17:58 - 18:04
Like, I know that I, I would 100% love to be there with you guys experiencing it.

18:05 - 18:11
Getting into it, I think as I picture is coming up on my thing of white water in front of me,

18:11 - 18:13
it was distracting squirrel moment.

18:15 - 18:19
So getting into it, I started very small.

18:20 - 18:24
I ended up purchasing my own canoe.

18:24 - 18:30
I purchased like a T4 max, a skiff canoe. It's kind of sad.

18:30 - 18:32
I forget which my first one was.

18:32 - 18:34
I have two canoes that I purchased.

18:34 - 18:42
It was a, like personally purchased, which was Prospector 16 and in a skiff Echo, both made by skiff.

18:42 - 18:45
So they're both T4 max, really durable canoes.

18:45 - 18:49
Rough and tumble, you know, they add an extra 15, 20 pounds.

18:49 - 18:52
But you know, if it falls off your canoe or something like that while you're driving, you're

18:53 - 18:55
good to go and you could always drag it if you need to.

18:56 - 18:58
So I started very small.

18:58 - 19:02
We started on just little creeks and I would go out with, you know, my dad or alone.

19:02 - 19:05
I would go out with Phoebe, just making sure being safe.

19:05 - 19:11
We have all that, you know, common safety precautions everyone always talks about, like spare clothing, whatnot.

19:12 - 19:16
And I would just practice in little outflows, getting used to that type of thing.

19:17 - 19:20
The biggest, the big catalyst for whitewater, I think was Phoebe and I.

19:20 - 19:24
We did like this massive 140 kilometer long.

19:24 - 19:32
It was a bit of, kind of a bit of the Hogan Loop that's in Kevin Callan's book, but it was a much bigger than that.

19:32 - 19:40
Um, so we had done that with a big group of people, six of us, and we had come out from, I think

19:40 - 19:47
it was Phillip Lake into Radiant Lake and we had to do the little Madawaska River.

19:48 - 19:53
And that was the catalyst for her and I of like, oh, wow, this is really fun to toot around,

19:53 - 19:54
you know, just in swift.

19:54 - 19:57
It wasn't like any kind of crazy rapids.

19:57 - 20:00
It was just the act of moving water. It's just Exhilarating.

20:00 - 20:05
And that got us watching northern scavengers.

20:05 - 20:09
And next thing you know, we're taking a course at Paddler Co Op.

20:09 - 20:13
Phoebe, my dad and I, we took a solo canoe course at Paddler Co Op.

20:13 - 20:19
And Alex, Alex Trainor is there filming.

20:19 - 20:23
And so it's like my first time getting to meet then one of the northern scavengers.

20:23 - 20:25
And I'm taking like a white water course.

20:25 - 20:27
So energy was pretty high.

20:27 - 20:34
And in the springtime, Palmerfest is known as to be a bit bigger.

20:34 - 20:39
So it's a little bit more intimidating and it's kind of colder versus there's the September

20:39 - 20:44
fall Palmerfest, which is actually a little bit more tame and the water is warmer.

20:44 - 20:52
So it's a lot more comfortable to go there if you are not comfortable in colder water. But, but taking courses.

20:52 - 20:57
I basically started going at it alone.

20:57 - 21:04
I didn't really have anybody to do anything with when I first started out and I just tried to

21:04 - 21:06
keep the fire going, keep moving.

21:06 - 21:12
I started going out on my own as much as possible and I tried to reach out to other people and

21:12 - 21:19
I ended up coming into contact with my good buddy now Derek Lawless, who owns Paddle Cat.

21:19 - 21:23
And so we ended up going out paddling together.

21:23 - 21:28
He continues to be like a great mentor on the water and off the water for me.

21:28 - 21:34
And he's a small retailer basically for skiff paddlers or skiff canoes.

21:35 - 21:39
And so we've been able to paddle demo boats.

21:39 - 21:44
We've been able to take boats out to take people who want to try whatever ones out.

21:44 - 21:48
Because we're a small retailer, we're able to get more of the custom, unique boats.

21:48 - 21:55
So I've been able to paddle things from the tiniest super ledge light to the, you know, the bigger like 7.

21:55 - 22:00
We have like 20 foot Miramichi canoes that you can get.

22:00 - 22:06
So there's just this whole plethora of canoes then that opened up for me and we started then

22:06 - 22:12
being able to give Paul Mason canoe courses via then paddle Ca.

22:12 - 22:17
And that's how I ended up coming into contact with him then and starting to hear about where

22:17 - 22:22
he's paddling and kind of exploring that a little bit.

22:22 - 22:30
20, 20 foot canoe. That's a, that's a big piece. Yeah, right on.

22:30 - 22:32
It's been a busy year.

22:34 - 22:38
So did you say you're now leading canoe. Canoeing courses?

22:38 - 22:40
No, it's something I would really.

22:40 - 22:45
I've approached Power Co Op so I'm going to work on getting my certifications and stuff.

22:45 - 22:51
But yeah, after like having done A waterfall this year, you know, and whatever that was November

22:51 - 22:54
with Paul Mason, we sent it off. A waterfall. It was kind of. That was.

22:54 - 22:57
The moment was like, you know what? I think it's time.

22:57 - 23:00
Like, I've always believed a lot in the.

23:01 - 23:04
I think it's called the protege. The protege effect.

23:04 - 23:08
When you teach other people, you start to learn more about whatever it is you're doing.

23:08 - 23:10
And I've always found that to be true.

23:11 - 23:13
And it seems to be the moments when I learn. Learn the most, too.

23:13 - 23:16
So I think it would be really fun to teach.

23:16 - 23:17
Teach people who are beginning.

23:17 - 23:21
So, yeah, if you guys are, you know, just for fun, too, if you ever want to get out in the water, just let me know.

23:21 - 23:22
I'd love to get out there.

23:22 - 23:25
Because a lot of us, these communities, you know, I.

23:26 - 23:29
My life has been so changed by this paddling community.

23:30 - 23:32
Like getting to go out with Riley outside.

23:32 - 23:36
And Brook Smith, especially Brooks Smith, has been on fire this winter.

23:36 - 23:44
Like, we went to Valley Field, Quebec, and paddled just on New Year's, like a couple days before New Year's. And.

23:44 - 23:49
Yeah, just getting to be around people like that is very inspiring and keeps you feeling comfortable,

23:49 - 23:53
you know, and no one's ever there to put you out of your comfort zone.

23:53 - 23:57
Like, it's, you know, it's nice even to just be there to film sometimes.

23:58 - 24:05
Yeah, it does. We're. We're fairly new to the community in the grand scheme of things, but it

24:05 - 24:14
feels like we've never felt anything but support from everybody. Like, there. Literally nobody. That's. Wasn't it a competition? No, it's. It's not.

24:14 - 24:18
It's kind of the opposite, where everybody comes together and they raise everybody up by doing that.

24:18 - 24:19
So I love it.

24:19 - 24:22
It's very, very cool. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

24:22 - 24:23
Who are we talking with?

24:23 - 24:26
I was talking with somebody recently and. And Lit.

24:26 - 24:28
It hadn't really occurred to me. One of the.

24:28 - 24:35
One of the best presentations last year that I thought was Sean Rowley. He did.

24:35 - 24:41
He did one on the connections you make, whether it's with nature, with other people, with whatever.

24:41 - 24:44
Like the connections you make by being out in nature.

24:44 - 24:47
And I thought it was brilliant. Like, great.

24:47 - 24:49
I feel bad, you know, Presentations.

24:49 - 24:51
I know. Well, that's the. The two.

24:51 - 24:53
You're running back and forth between these two.

24:53 - 25:01
The two stages at the same time as you're waving at Tunis, when you know that. That sort of deal. Right. So there's. There's a one. So you.

25:01 - 25:04
Specific to the Ottawa region.

25:04 - 25:05
You got a whack of people out there.

25:05 - 25:07
That are all part of the paddling community.

25:07 - 25:15
How cool is that to have somebody that an hour from you and go, hey, want to go do a paddle for the day? Or whatever. That must be awesome.

25:15 - 25:18
Yeah, it's. It's awesome. I'm so grateful for.

25:19 - 25:21
Felt like it did take a while.

25:21 - 25:29
It does feel like a lot of the people around here are like Ottawa specific, are more kayak based.

25:29 - 25:32
Like there's like the Ottawa Pump House and you know, we have like.

25:34 - 25:37
Like some of the biggest whitewater in the world is just, you know, not.

25:38 - 25:39
Not far on the Ottawa River.

25:40 - 25:43
And so a lot of the people did seem like to be kayakers.

25:43 - 25:53
And a lot of the people who actually were trying to get me going, I think in the beginning were like one lavang. It's a friend of.

25:53 - 26:01
Well, I knew him from high school and he's the guy who's sending off waterfalls, like any waterfall I've ever driven by.

26:01 - 26:04
You know, you take a picture and send it to that guy, he's like, oh yeah, here's me sending it.

26:05 - 26:07
You know, look at me sending it down. You know, he's great.

26:08 - 26:11
And that kind of stuff was really intimidating to me at the time.

26:11 - 26:14
And so I, Yeah, it took me a bit to find people.

26:14 - 26:22
I actually ended up joining Club Pierre Radisson, which is like a canoe. A canoeing specific club.

26:23 - 26:30
Mostly French based, but they would always be on the Riviere de la Petite national, which is

26:30 - 26:33
a river that's yeah, like half an hour drive from my house.

26:33 - 26:38
And that's kind of where Phoebe and I got our, like our.

26:38 - 26:42
Our sea legs when we were paddling with Derek for the first time. And there's.

26:42 - 26:44
That's actually the river that's in.

26:45 - 26:47
I believe it's Path of the paddle with Bill Mason.

26:48 - 26:49
That's where he was filming too.

26:50 - 26:54
So turns out like Bill Mason's sowed his oats all throughout here.

26:54 - 26:59
And so it was funny that Phoebe and I were actually paddling this red prospector in all these spots.

26:59 - 27:04
And then we later would find out like, geez, that's, you know, Bill live used to live like right there.

27:04 - 27:08
Like so it just felt really weird.

27:08 - 27:17
But amazing history cool to find lots of paddlers have definitely come out as I've learned more from the community.

27:17 - 27:19
Like, it's like, oh, wow, that guy lives down the street.

27:19 - 27:26
So almost a personal question just because I've never. I've never done kayaking. What's.

27:26 - 27:28
What's the big difference between the two?

27:28 - 27:33
So canoeists are always known to be the people who have to be saved.

27:33 - 27:41
I suppose that's, that's like the root of it all. I think I. From, you know, the.

27:42 - 27:47
What I've always experienced and even, yeah, like having been there, it's being in an open boat.

27:47 - 27:55
Like they would call it like OC1, like an open canoe, you're usually likely to fall a bit more.

27:55 - 28:02
It's definitely a lot more difficult to paddle a single blade than it is to be kayaking.

28:03 - 28:09
But a kayak will allow you to get into like class five type rapid situations versus, like if

28:09 - 28:14
you're doing that in a canoe, you're probably gonna have a really hard time because.

28:14 - 28:22
And I say that because getting to become into what they call a C1, which is a closed kayak, like a closed canoe.

28:22 - 28:25
So it looks basically like a kayak, but you're sitting on your.

28:25 - 28:30
You're like kneeling on your knees and you're using a single blade. That's called like C1ing.

28:30 - 28:34
And it's known to be like the ninja of the paddle, the paddle world.

28:34 - 28:36
And so, you know, you have.

28:36 - 28:37
You're going to have to get there somehow.

28:40 - 28:45
All right. Yeah. So like it's got a skirt that comes over the front. Right. Okay.

28:45 - 28:47
I've seen, I've seen pictures.

28:47 - 28:48
I don't know.

28:48 - 28:50
I keep thinking about it. But I like.

28:50 - 28:57
I suppose one of the things I like is doing, doing trips, which I don't think I've ever had

28:57 - 29:00
one that didn't involve portages and kayaks are heavy, man.

29:00 - 29:02
Like, I don't want to know about lugging. We.

29:02 - 29:07
We've moved from a fiberglass to a Kevlar because I'm, I'm old and out of shape.

29:07 - 29:10
I don't, I don't feel I need to lug a kayak around.

29:11 - 29:13
That's when the pack rafts come into play.

29:13 - 29:18
I think that's what I started paddling just recently.

29:18 - 29:22
Steve Evans from Silic 46.

29:22 - 29:31
We had, we had gone paddling together and we're hoping to do a trip to the Torngap Mountains in July.

29:32 - 29:34
So that, that's going to be quite exciting.

29:35 - 29:42
We're going to be going up to do the Korok river and then hiking back up to basically eastern

29:42 - 29:45
Canada's highest point or around there.

29:45 - 29:47
I'm not sure if we're going to be hitting the summit or not.

29:47 - 29:52
And then paddle Palmer river and then come back Korok and all the way down.

29:52 - 29:56
So cool. How long have a trip that will that be?

29:56 - 30:01
It's looking, I think to be about 12 days. Yeah.

30:01 - 30:07
Yeah, it's that's cool. And, and so those, those boats are the, the inflatable ones, right?

30:07 - 30:12
Yeah, that they're like, they're like sort of like a heavy, rubbery sort of deal.

30:12 - 30:17
Yep. Yeah. They're shockingly light, though, after having paddled with all these different canoes.

30:17 - 30:20
Like, the lightest canoe I've been paddling with is about 40 pounds.

30:20 - 30:27
And picking up this seven pound pack raft was just an absolute joy. Like.

30:27 - 30:29
Yeah, it was just too much fun.

30:29 - 30:32
Yeah, I can imagine. Fairly bomb proof.

30:32 - 30:36
It felt like it, I would say, like if.

30:36 - 30:39
I would say having to know your territory would be really important.

30:39 - 30:43
Like, you know, knowing that somewhat like the geology of where you're paddling.

30:43 - 30:46
Because if you're paddling, like, I think, you know, I.

30:46 - 30:47
Not to say I'm a.

30:47 - 30:53
An expert or anything, but like, I think like shale, which is, I'm pretty sure very sharp type of rock.

30:53 - 30:54
Sharp, rippy. Yeah.

30:54 - 30:59
Like, I'd be pretty scared about doing that, but yeah.

30:59 - 31:02
We were paddling at Palmer Rapids and it seemed.

31:03 - 31:06
It seemed more durable than I thought it would be.

31:06 - 31:11
And to know that I was paddling the boat that Steve had paddled in Baffin Islands and all around

31:11 - 31:15
here, to me it was just like, it felt like I was in a brand new boat for all. For all I know.

31:16 - 31:20
Yeah, that dude's done some cool stuff. Yeah. Not.

31:20 - 31:21
Not that I'm jealous or anything.

31:22 - 31:23
That's it for us for today.

31:23 - 31:26
Thank you so much for our special guest, Evan Lefebvre for joining us.

31:26 - 31:28
And please do check him out.

31:28 - 31:30
He's on YouTube as Evan Le.

31:30 - 31:33
So Evan E V A N L E n.

31:33 - 31:36
The number five on YouTube and Instagram.

31:36 - 31:39
So please do check him out. Reach out to him. Check out his stuff.

31:39 - 31:41
And please do reach out to us.

31:41 - 31:42
We would love to hear from you.

31:42 - 31:49
We are at hiupergoodcamping.com that's h iupergoodcamping.com and we are on Twitter and Instagram

31:49 - 31:53
and Facebook and we have a YouTube channel and we would love it if you followed us there.

31:53 - 31:55
We will talk to you again soon. Bye.