The Dutch Explorer

Koen Tholhuijsen drops by for a chat.
Super cool guy.
Does epic backcountry canoe trips.
Takes his furbaby &/or girlfriend along sometimes.
Is, sadly, used to making adjustments for wildfires.,
Has one of the most gorgeous cedar strip/ canvas canoes Tim's ever seen.

Come listen to a really fun conversation with a cool backcountry adventurer.

https://www.instagram.com/koentholhuijsen/

https://www.youtube.com/@The-Dutch-Explorer

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. My name is Pamela.

SPEAKER_02: 0:02

I'm Tim.

SPEAKER_01: 0:03

And we are from supergoodcamping.com. We're here because we're on a mission to inspire other families to enjoy camping adventures such as we have with our kids. Today's guest loves to be out in nature and takes every opportunity to do so, usually in a canoe and solo, although occasionally with other people and often with his dog. Most of his tripping is into more remote areas of Ontario, think Guabaquimi, Woodland Caribou, and Lake Winnipeg. He also loves to get out in hard water season. It gives him some time to make some tasty looking meals. Please welcome Cohen Tolhausen, otherwise known as the Dutch Explorer.

SPEAKER_02: 0:34

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

SPEAKER_01: 0:35

Hey, welcome.

SPEAKER_02: 0:37

Good morning, guys. Good morning, good morning. Well, who knows when people will hear or see this, but it's morning for us.

SPEAKER_01: 0:42

It's morning as we're recording this.

SPEAKER_02: 0:44

It's a lovely sunny morning in the spring.

SPEAKER_01: 0:48

Well, yes, we had like four inches of snow yesterday.

SPEAKER_02: 0:51

Yeah, yeah. I think that's the end of winter because we're up to... Double digits midway through the week and rain. So welcome to spring in Ontario, man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

As you said, Colin, before we started talking, it was like, yeah, it's every season here now.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06

The park still stays out and I've got to dig out shorts later this week.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10

Yeah, exactly. I was going to come on with my big fur hat on. But I left that out of the screen there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17

So are you getting ready for tripping season? You're a little farther northwest, so it's not quite ice out yet?

SPEAKER_00: 1:25

Oh, I'm not far north at all. I'm past London, Ontario.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29

Oh, you're west of us. Okay,

SPEAKER_00: 1:31

cool. Yeah, so I'm looking at open water right now, actually, from sitting in my kitchen. I'm lucky to live right in a small town, Strathroy, but I live in a conservation area, so I can push the canoe right into water from the back. I can't go very far from here, but it's still nice to have that. But yeah, it's open. I can go paddling there. Sweet.

SPEAKER_02: 1:51

Have you been out doing any paddling?

SPEAKER_00: 1:53

I went to the Thames River with Jen just last week. We just went out for a day that's 16 kilometers there. So that was fun. Yeah. Nice. Beautiful day. It was 20 degrees, right, in March. And then two days later, it was snowing like crazy again. So I'm glad we went out when we did.

SPEAKER_02: 2:10

Good for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:12

Yeah, I've been trying to... I'm still contemplating what I'm going to do this spring. I do have a good chunk of time off. I have five weeks off starting, I think the 3rd of June is my first day off. And then five weeks go in and I definitely want to go on a long solo again. But as of right now, I'm still unsure where exactly I'll end up. But yeah, I've got lots to figure out still. Sweet. It'll be somewhere up in the boreal.

SPEAKER_01: 2:40

So how does that work that you get such a long stretch of time off? Tim's envious. He's like, how do I

SPEAKER_00: 2:47

get this? So I'm a tool and die maker. I work at a car parts factory and we do shift work. So the factory runs 24 hours, seven days a week. And because of my shift work, I work three weeks of normal shift where I do 40 hours during the week. And then right after my third week, that's a night shift. Then I work Saturday, Sunday right away. So it's seven days straight that I work. And then I get seven days off after that. So every four weeks, I get seven days straight off. So to get five weeks off, I just have to take that chunk in between off, and then I get a good amount of time there. So yeah, it works out pretty good that way. And that also allows me to, outside of my big trip that I try to do every year, I can go out on lots of week-long trips. So I try to get out as much as I can, right?

SPEAKER_02: 3:34

Sweet. And great that you can work that out. at work, like that you're flexible, he's flexible enough at work to be able to take those blocks and put them into one big chunk.

SPEAKER_00: 3:45

Yeah, absolutely. I think my luck is that I like to take my time in the spring before most other people want it off. So I'm not usually fighting too many other people for that chunk of time. Right. Most people wait for July, August or later, right? So that's my luck, I guess. So I like to be up there in the spring. And yeah, so when most of the wildlife, I like to be the first one out Preferably, that'd be nice.

SPEAKER_01: 4:10

Yeah. Is that before the mosquitoes have hit?

SPEAKER_00: 4:13

Hopefully. Yeah, hopefully. It doesn't always turn out that way. Usually in the whole month long, I kind of get the peak of both. But yeah, I've been pretty lucky up there, honestly. I find from Lake Superior, when I'm like, obviously, it's a long drive from here. When I drive up and around Lake Superior, it gets worse and worse and worse. And then as I leave Lake Superior, it tends to be getting a little bit less again. But then last year, I went to the Bloodvain River. As I got closer and closer to Lake Winnipeg, they got a lot worse. They were pretty bad.

SPEAKER_02: 4:53

But

SPEAKER_00: 4:54

still, there's less people.

SPEAKER_02: 4:57

Well, yeah, so look. Oh, look, fresh meat. Let's go. More bugs, less people.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

Yeah, exactly. But I think because there's more... Oh, sorry. Go

SPEAKER_02: 5:08

ahead. Go ahead,

SPEAKER_00: 5:09

man. I think because there's more bugs and it's still colder, lots of the moose are also right in the water and they're hiding, like trying to get their body out of reach from the bugs. So because of that, I also see more moose, less people. Fishing tends to be better. Also, it didn't really turn out that way this year. But yeah, I think there's lots of pros on going early in the season, as long as the water levels work with me as well.

UNKNOWN: 5:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:36

Well,

SPEAKER_01: 5:36

and this year, who knows what the water levels, we just haven't had that much precipitation over the winter.

SPEAKER_02: 5:41

Yeah. No, no snow runoff. No, I don't know. Unless we have an absolute terrible spring where it just pours rain all the time. I think we're going to be into like, we're planning a July, uh, clarity trip. And I'm, I'm a little concerned that the portages are going to be, you know, a couple hundred meters longer than they should be just because everything's going to be so low.

SPEAKER_00: 6:02

Right, yeah, that's a possibility for sure. Plus

SPEAKER_02: 6:05

wildfires, that'll be fun too this year, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00: 6:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they always, yeah, the last couple of years have been pretty intense, I'll say, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:15

Have you had any close encounters because you're up north where, you know, lightning strikes are pretty common and that sort of jazz?

SPEAKER_00: 6:22

My first solo trip in 2021, that was an interesting year for me because it was kind of right at the end of, sort of at the end of COVID, right? So I managed to, like provincial parks were still closed because of the pandemic. And they were closed when I was supposed to start my trip. So I had to postpone my starting date. And then as soon as they opened, I went in right away. And that was the worst year. I was in Woodland Caribou. I planned to go out for 34 days. And it was the worst year for wildfires. And I think... probably about roughly 55% of the park burned that year. So, and because the borders to the States were still closed at the time, um, I managed to get in there in time, like a lot of people that had lodges and stuff up there, the traffic that normally Woodland Caribbean already hardly sees any traffic, right? It's, I think it's probably for, for a big paddling park, the least busy park and get the most solitude because of that. But yeah, so, I got my trip in, and 28 days later, they actually shut down the park completely to the public because of all the wildfires that were going on inside the park. And I kind of managed to squeeze in my route, or not my planned route, honestly. I had to change my route several times, I think three or four times. I had to move away from my campsite because a fire was getting closer. I had ash raining on my tarp and stuff like that. One day, I put in... pretty long day fighting the wind and stuff and and getting to a decent campsite i was really picky so i took a long time finding a nice campsite because i figured i'll probably end up staying there for like two nights or something and then uh i got there i spent extra time set up my camp really nice because i knew it was going to be there for a couple days and then As I'm all set up, I was like, I'm getting pretty hungry. I'm going to do some fishing and get a nice walleye maybe and get some dinner going. And as I'm fishing, I'm looking across the water. This is on Glen Lake. And I'm looking north and I see this little puff of smoke coming up above the tree line. I'm like, hmm, what's going on there? So I pick up, I grab my map and I look with my compass and there's a lodge that was somewhat in that direction, but not exactly where that smoke was coming from. So I was hoping maybe it's just campers there or something. Who knows? But yeah. the smoke got a little bit bigger and bigger, started growing and slowly moving too. I'm like, yeah, that's no campers. That's a fire. So, and I was just starting out and that fire actually ended up creeping over time all the way to like almost uh close enough to red lake for them to get ready to evacuate the city there the town so that was uh it was quite the intense trip and that was my very first solo trip ever so yeah

SPEAKER_01: 9:17

that's an ambitious

SPEAKER_00: 9:18

pretty intense yeah but through the whole thing i had really good communication with albert rogalinski from gold seekers uh canoe outfitting He's in Red Lake, and I have a little spot device, a little satellite messenger, and communication with him back and forward was just outstanding. Without that, I could never have done that, pulled off that trip safely. So I think there was one fire south of me that had started on Eagle Lake, which was, the fire ended up, if I remember it right, about 200,000 acres. That's how big it got. And so just monstrous, right? When it started out, I was thinking, I'm probably about three weeks away from getting even close to that area, but it worked its way up toward me. I think I got within two, three kilometers away from it. Lots of smoke coming from that. That's one of the fires I had to unexpectedly run from, because the wind changed and it came toward me a lot faster. then it would have but yeah so it was good for a solo

SPEAKER_02: 10:24

a little bit of pucker factor but whatever keeps life interesting yeah yeah well that's cool that's i that's that was one of my my my thoughts as soon as you started talking about the fires and then and then 28 days was like how did you know to go out but the spot makes sense and and communicating with albert That's excellent. That's good.

SPEAKER_03: 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 10:45

There's, there's a life hack for any of you that are thinking about doing a solo trip. Make sure that you find a way to stay in touch with your, whatever your communication. We use a, we use a Zolio, but same, same idea.

SPEAKER_00: 10:55

Yeah, 100%. Always leave a trip plan. Always make sure somebody knows where you're going, what roughly you're planning to do. Yeah, and I find up in the boreal, going out without a device like that, knowing the wildfires have been the way they have been over the last couple of years, I find it irresponsible to go out without any sort of communication, right? So for me, it's a must, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:21

Well, how did you get into doing what you do, Cohen? Like, was this something you did as a family when you were younger or you were in scouting? Because a lot of times people seem to be involved in the scouting movement, no?

SPEAKER_00: 11:31

No, not really. No. So I grew up in the Netherlands. So that's where my name came from, too, the YouTube channel, the Dutch Explorer. And I first came to Canada in 2010 to visit some friends. And they took me on a canoe trip in Algonquin. And I was lucky enough to... Well, we had some beautiful cedar strip canoes and we started on Canoe Lake, did a little trip and I just, well, in no time, I just fell in love with it. And then I happened to have the right people with me that actually lived on Canoe Lake at the time and taught me how to paddle the proper strokes and then it was just a blast. It was just an absolute blast. And I was hooked instantly. So ever since then, I just wanted to do something like that every year. And at the time, I didn't even live here yet. I was working on tall ships, big sailboats from the Netherlands. And yeah, I didn't live in Canada at all, right? So I started doing a couple of trips here and there every couple of years. And then when I Eventually, I went to Western University in London here, and I ended up staying ever since then. For me to make the move here to immigrate to Canada was a pretty easy choice. If you compare to Netherlands, you can put the country, the whole country where I grew up in, you can put that in just Ontario 28 times. Wow. I think when I left over 10 years ago, I was 17, probably now 18 million people in that tiny little piece of land, right? So you can imagine, it kind of... We have a little bit of nature here and there, but not a lot of it's wild. A lot of it's man-made. There's some of the forests, the trees are planted in perfectly, equally spaced, straight lines. And the wild that we know up here, there's none of that really, and especially not in the quantity that we have here. So as soon as I got here, I just got hooked to it. And ever since, I just want more and more, and I want to go out there and explore it.

SPEAKER_02: 13:34

Well, that's in our handbook for how to get foreigners to move here. First thing is take them to Algonquin.

SPEAKER_01: 13:43

That's an iconic park. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 13:47

cool. Sweet. So at Cedar Strip Canoe, you have a canoe that I absolutely drool over every time I see it. Tell me the story about how you came upon that canoe and how it's now one of the canoes in your quiver.

SPEAKER_00: 14:04

I'm still kind of drooling over that canoe, honestly. You know, it is something, right? When you're looking back at your canoe and every time you're like, wow, that's a good looking canoe, right? I still have that every time I see it, honestly. And I still can hardly believe it. And I got so lucky with that canoe. Yeah. It probably sounds pretty familiar to a lot of the listeners and to you guys maybe too, but sometimes I'll just find myself scrolling on Facebook and Marketplace or any of the websites where you can buy used stuff and always looking for canoes. Even though I don't need one, I might have a bunch of canoes or whatever, just scrolling. I'm like, oh, that's nice. So I came upon this canoe and... It was yellow at the time. Right now it's bright red. But it was yellow at the time and it looked like it was just pristine, flawless. And the inside especially, the wood just looked like it was finished building yesterday. And the price tag on it was$400. I'm like, there's got to be a huge gaping hole somewhere or some damage that's hidden. There's got to be something really wrong with it. Or it's like, I don't know, maybe I go look and it's like five foot long or something. You know what I mean? Like there's got to be something hidden here. So I contacted the lady that had it on for sale. And she said there's about... 16 people coming to look before the weekend. She was two hours away. She was in Mississauga for me, two hours away. And I could only come by on the weekend. And I, uh, so she told me 16 people looking at it before Saturday. So I figured it's going to be gone. Right. There's no chance. So I left her my phone number and she actually called me on the Saturday. Like, yeah, most people came and looked and they all left it. So I was like, okay, I'll be right over. I'm leaving right now. So I went to look at it and no holes anywhere no the the wood it was as nice as it as it was it's a 17 foot i'm not sure what the model is called to be honest uh i should look that up but it's got these really beautiful nice round curves on the bow and the stern and it's a beautiful shape and the only thing that was wrong with it it was sitting upside down on saw horses in inside in a shed and the doors of that shed were always open so the sunlight was beating on that canvas and it had caused a little a couple of tears underneath one of the gunnels just on the one side only but she told me i'm looking at it and i'm just admiring this canoe not not really saying anything right i'm admiring this beautiful canoe and the craftsmanship and then the wood and just pristine and she Figures I'm probably going to leave it behind too. So she's like, I'll let it go for$300, she says. I'm like, no, no way. I'm paying you at least what you're asking for it. And I told her, you could probably get way more for this canoe if you wait for the right person. But I drove away with it for$400. And I just still to this day, this is how many years ago? I think probably five or six years ago now. I still can't believe it. so I had it rebuilt and I figured I want to make it my own and at least get that canvas fixed too because if you get water going through that canvas and sitting in between the canvas and the wood it might cause rot and it was in such a good shape I just wanted to maintain it well right so yeah I had it rebuilt and yeah it's now it's mine

SPEAKER_02: 17:36

it's sweet it's sweet I

SPEAKER_00: 17:39

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 17:40

yeah every time I see it's like oh it's such a gorgeous canoe maybe I'll just sneak over to his house

SPEAKER_00: 17:44

yeah I love taking it out I I can't wait for the temperatures to go up a little bit. I don't like taking it out when the weather still goes below zero. I don't want it to soak up water and then freeze. So, but I'm, yeah, I'm anxiously waiting for it to get out again.

SPEAKER_02: 18:00

Cool. Do you have to take, I've never been in a canvas canoe. Do you have to be careful about where you put your weight and how you load things and stuff in it?

SPEAKER_00: 18:09

No, I haven't been. This one, the wood that's used in it is fairly thick as well. I've seen some canoes where it's really thin and I think it all depends on the build and the model, but this one seems to be very solid. It's got a very straight, flat bottom and it's got a little keel, so it's pretty stable. Yeah, you've just got to be a lot more careful paddling down, especially rivers and rocks and stuff. Because the canvas, if you do hit a rock, it tears. It's way different than most other canoes. Cool. What's it weigh? It leaks. It has a couple of scratches and tears in the bottom now. So it's time to get some proper repairs done soon, probably.

SPEAKER_02: 18:58

How much does it weigh?

SPEAKER_00: 19:00

It's 83 pounds when it's dry. And it always soaks up a little bit of water over the first couple of days of a trip. So it gains, I haven't been able to weigh it. I don't take a scale with me on my trips, but I think from the feeling, it probably gains another five to 10 pounds on the trip. So

SPEAKER_02: 19:20

that's a

SPEAKER_00: 19:21

good amount of weight.

SPEAKER_02: 19:22

Yeah. Well, a strapping young lad like you, not such a big deal. Old guy like me.

SPEAKER_00: 19:27

Well, yeah. Yeah. No, actually, after my last trip down to Bloodvane last spring, I brought my whitewater canoe, which is a NovaCraft 16-foot Prospector out of SB3. It's 90 pounds, so it's about the same weight as my wood canoe when it's wet and been in the water for a couple days, roughly the same weight. And after that trip, I needed a little bit of physio for my left knee after that one, so I don't I'm very glad I did the trip, but I don't, don't recommend taking a super heavy canoe like that out there for, for a long time. Unless you don't have to do as much portaging.

SPEAKER_01: 20:08

Especially solo. So you're lifting all that weight by yourself too.

SPEAKER_00: 20:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 20:12

Yeah. Well, it's so, so I, I do the tripping. We front country camp, my, our eldest and I do are the, are the canoe guys, um, We had a 17-foot Scott fiberglass that was somewhere in the 90-pound range. And there's no way, man, like I could never, if I didn't have the strapping young man, there's no way I couldn't do it. We've got a 17-foot Kevlar now. And I can just pull off like carrying that around on my own. So, nope.

SPEAKER_00: 20:51

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 20:53

Nope.

SPEAKER_00: 20:54

Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 20:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:55

I'm lucky with my wood canoe. The yoke on my wood canoe is shaped so well to my shoulders. It was in there already, but somehow it's just meant to be. It's like the perfect shape for my shape, my shoulders. And that thing does not feel anywhere near as heavy as the Nova Craft, even though they're roughly around the same weight. But just because that shape is so, the way it's evenly distributed, I guess, and yeah, it's way more comfortable.

UNKNOWN: 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:25

Sweet. I never really thought about that. I just like immediately bought one of those level six, the foam pad that straps over top of it just to compensate for whatever weird things are digging into my shoulders. Right. Honey, I need to buy a new yoke. Have

SPEAKER_00: 21:47

you ever tried those?

SPEAKER_01: 21:49

New canoe to go with the new yoke? Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 21:51

Yes. All of the above.

SPEAKER_00: 21:52

exactly yeah cool have you ever tried those bigger bigger foam pads the two separate square foam blocks that you can attach to the yoke those are phenomenal too those are really comfortable

SPEAKER_02: 22:03

yeah i've seen them i've never tried one before though

SPEAKER_00: 22:06

what i like a lot about those two they'd be worth the investment although i think they're kind of hard to find but you must be able to find them somewhere though um but because the pads they run like front to back right you can actually move your canoe back or forward a little bit and get that balance that you want which is really nice too whereas just a plain yoke it sits where it sits and that's it right

SPEAKER_02: 22:32

yeah yeah i found that very frustrating when i first started to single like for me to carry it as opposed to the me i'm pointing like the kids still sleeping behind us um Oh yeah. With two people, not a big deal, but, but for me to, to, to carry with the yoke, I ended up having, keeping my lines front and back so that I could adjust because it would, it would start to float away from me, like float up. And then it'd be like, Oh, how do I, you know, you need to shift at that inch and then it's uncomfortable. And yeah, I said lots of bad words that, that first portage with it on my, on my own.

SPEAKER_00: 23:07

Yeah. I didn't believe that. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 23:10

One thing that helps me on a portage is, too, my GoPro. I have one of the big black GoPro clamps that I usually clamp onto the gunwale, and it's a pretty strong clamp. Sometimes on portages, I'll clamp it right to the gunwale just as a handle, something nice to hold onto, and that helps a little bit,

SPEAKER_02: 23:27

too.

SPEAKER_00: 23:29

But you're still holding your arm up that way, so it's still going to get sore, right?

SPEAKER_02: 23:34

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So I also see you trip with your fur baby. How does that... Yeah. Was that just a natural thing? Boom, right out of the gate? Okay, let's go. And it worked? Or how does that work?

SPEAKER_00: 23:51

It's kind of an ongoing process, honestly. The first time, she was really, really good. She'd never been in a canoe. I think the first time I took her on a trip, it was in Killarney, and I put her in a canoe and... Well, she just hopped right in and it was like she was natural, like she'd done it a million times. And that was her first time ever. I didn't even, like some people try to practice, give the dog treats just on a lawn or whatever. They have the canoe and they put like a bone or treats inside the canoe and get them familiar with it, right? And the hopping in and out. But she just hopped right in and away we went. And she was really good that trip. Now, lately, however, she is starting to get more whiny while we're in the canoe. And I don't know what is causing that. I love taking her on trips. And as soon as we're on the shore, she's great. But yeah, like this heater canoe, I thought maybe it's the rips. She's uncomfortable laying down on it. Right. So I've tried all sorts of things like a blanket. I brought her big poofy bed that she can lay on. She'll go lay right beside it. Right. Things like that. But yeah, she's gotten pretty comfortable. whiny lately in the canoe and especially I find when I'm canoeing with other people in their own canoe so I've gone tripping with Alex Merwin we've gone to Queen Elizabeth Wildlands yep for example and I feel like my dog Lex she's a little bit of a she's a part shepherd and she likes to herd everybody keep everybody close together as soon as we split up a little bit she gets this sort of anxiety thing going and she just keeps whining and whining. So it's something I'm working on with her, but I'm definitely going to take her on a lot more trips and try to get her more used to it. And yeah, it's something I have to figure out. But other than that part, she's a great dog for in the outdoors and she just loves being out there. Other than that, when I'm by myself, she's a lot better in the front of the canoe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 25:48

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 25:49

She looks really good in the front of the wood canoe there. Yes,

SPEAKER_02: 25:51

she does. Yes, she does. How was that trip with Alex when you guys went to QE2?

SPEAKER_00: 25:59

It was a good time. It was awesome. I'd never been to the park before. At the same time, it was, I forget exactly what time of year it was, but my knee was still bugging me from my blood vein trip. And like I mentioned before, I was going through physio for it as well. So we initially intended to do like a little loop or something. And we ended up kind of doing a base camping on Fish Hawk Lake.

UNKNOWN: 26:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 26:23

And we went from, yeah, we just set up camp there for a couple of days and we did like a day trip and did some fishing and stuff like that. And so we kind of took it easy there, but it was, it was just a blast. We made some nicer meals and yeah, it took Lex with, with us as well. And so it was a good time, very good time. And I believe you were in the park at the same time, right?

SPEAKER_02: 26:42

No, we

SPEAKER_00: 26:43

were in the North.

SPEAKER_02: 26:45

We came out the Saturday before you guys went in.

SPEAKER_00: 26:49

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 26:49

We were, we were coming out. We were supposed to come out on the Sunday and, But we were working our way back down, right? And whatever, yeah, no, it must be Fisod. We came down and I thought, well, great, we'll grab something close to, because it's Headlake that we, whatever our access point, right? We'll just grab a site here, hang out for the night, and then it'll be an easy out tomorrow. Yeah, no, they're full. It was the weekend. It didn't even occur to me. And it was just, it was totally packed. It's like, oh man, this is just going to be a really long day of paddling.

SPEAKER_01: 27:24

I think you were overlapping with somebody else in the park though at the time, weren't you? Somebody else that was going in exactly at the same time as you were coming out? Is it Ben or somebody?

SPEAKER_02: 27:31

No, no, no. I think it was. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it was Conan Alex. But I don't know that I realized that at the time. I don't think it was until I think I saw one of you guys posted something. It's like, what? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 27:44

I think it was after the trip. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01: 27:48

So how do you wrangle food for your trips, especially the long ones? If you're going for a 35-day trip or 34-day trip, what do you do for food? Good question.

SPEAKER_00: 27:58

I eat a lot of just dehydrated meals. And over the past years, I've been just buying them. because I honestly didn't have the time to, well, when I have the time, I'd rather go on a trip than dehydrate, make all the meals and dehydrate them. I'd rather go out there and enjoy being outside. But I got a good deal on a nice dehydrator Uh, the, the big Excalibur nine tray square one, uh, bought that for 200 bucks, I think just last year, honestly. And so that was on Amazon actually. Good deal. So I have been dehydrating meals and, uh, Jen, my girlfriend too, she's been dehydrating some, some meals for me as well from my trips, which will be awesome to have out there. So, but yeah, uh, all my dinners are dehydrated. Uh, some fish, of course, they'll bring, I'll always bring some stuff to substitute with fish and then And for breakfast, my first long solo trip in 2021, the Woodland Caribou there, I brought a bunch of oatmeal for breakfast and coffee and stuff like that. But I kind of learned over time that in the morning when I wake up, I just want to go. I don't want to take the time and wake up and make my coffee. I just want to get on the water right away. So I pack up and I just grab a couple of granola bars, clip bars and whatnot. And I just eat them spread out over the morning. And then I don't even really have a lunch and I just, I'm good. It's kind of snack on little things like dehydrated fruit and bars till dinnertime really.

SPEAKER_02: 29:27

Yeah. And you don't run into any issues with, uh, like I'm just thinking, you know, for sake of argument, 28 days, what do you, what size is your barrel? 30 liter? 60. 60 liter. Well, okay. Maybe, maybe that's different. I'd be like listening to what you just listed versus what we carry for me and the kid who, who, plows through food, like, like just teach an animal. Yeah, I would probably be half the weight. I started out at if that's how I like if I went for that long with a 60 liter with certainly with him, I could that would not be nearly enough calories.

SPEAKER_00: 30:08

Right? Yeah, I, I never really calculated how much calories I eat on a trip. But I'm constantly eating. I have lots of dehydrated fruit. I like to bring dehydrated mango, kiwi, strawberries, all that kind of stuff. The bars are quite a bit of calories too. And then I will eat fish for like a shore lunch or whatever in between here and there. But that first trip over the 28 days, I did lose over 50 pounds that trip. Okay. But I never felt like I didn't have enough food. I came home and I had a ton of food left. I always bring, so my long trips especially, I always try to bring for every six days, I try to bring one extra meal. one extra day of food. For the 28 days, I got four or five extra meals on top of that. You never know. Up in that area there, if you've got to be picked up with a float plane or whatever and there's a bunch of smoke, you might not be picked up on the day that you planned. You might have to stay there longer or whatever other emergency could happen. I tried to plan for that. I actually got almost a week extra food with me and Yeah, I never finish all my food. There's no way. But I felt really good. Even though I lost 50 pounds, a lot of people think it's like really unhealthy and it might sound that way. I did start that trip with quite a bit of extra weight too. I think I was about 225 pounds when I left. A little bit of a belly on me and a little bit of extra. and uh yeah it was gone in no time so

SPEAKER_02: 31:46

winter insulation that's that's what that is

SPEAKER_01: 31:48

yeah our new like weight loss program

SPEAKER_02: 31:52

we'll just get me into the woods yeah nice canoe boot camp yeah that's an excellent idea yeah i like that and

SPEAKER_00: 32:03

then then the year after i kind of figured so i was going to go to wabakimi next that was 2022 And I remembered my weight gain and loss, and I figured, like, that worked out pretty good last time. I felt amazing at the end of that trip. I felt really strong physically and mentally as well. Everything was perfect. And so when I was getting ready for Wabakimi, I remembered that, and I figured, like, oh, I'm going to gain that extra weight just for that trip. And then I went into the park, and in, like, a week, I realized, like, the water levels are way too high for me to– finished this trip and like I felt uncomfortable because all the white water that was on the way as well. And I never even got into the tougher parts of that route that I had set out for myself. So I had all that extra weight and I cut my trip short just after a week I left. And I was like, no, I got to hold his weight still. Right? Yeah. So I have to get some other trips planned and then do a bunch of canoeing everywhere and then working out to try and get it off again.

SPEAKER_02: 33:04

Start portaging around the block just to lose the weight.

SPEAKER_00: 33:08

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:10

Well, that's late plans. I'm pretty anal retentive, so I plan the crap out of our stuff. And just the last, you know, maybe the last, probably since around when COVID hit, I just started going, okay, this is what I'm hoping to do. I'm going to book these sites because I tend to do Ontario Parks backcountry. I'm going to book these lakes and then we'll just see how it goes because forcing it is kind of pointless. You lose the the whole peace of mind thing that you're going into the backcountry for in the first place, right?

SPEAKER_00: 33:47

Exactly. I agree.

SPEAKER_02: 33:49

I don't intentionally put on weight. It just happens naturally. It's like a special skill that I have.

SPEAKER_00: 34:00

yeah this year i i gotta agree i uh i've been gaining a little bit of weight too but my trip's coming up again like 10 weeks away now but i gotta figure out where i'm going though

SPEAKER_02: 34:13

yeah do you all right how you can do one of those google you know random generators you can throw a bunch of things in there and it'll pick it for you do you have a do you have like a list of places that you want to go like a bucket list thing and it's like oh maybe we'll try this

SPEAKER_00: 34:27

that same wabakimi trip that i couldn't finish two years ago i want to go back and do that exact route with normal water levels and this year seems to be a good year for that so that's definitely a very viable option but at the same time i don't have a lighter canoe available right now so the two canoes i have are 90 and 83 pounds so that's kind of something i'm thinking about too um Then another thing I really like to take my wood canoe out for a long trip as well and do like the more traditional style look and bring the canvas packs and go that route. But that would be flat water trip only. There's many things I've been thinking about. I've never been to Quetico before. That could be an option. um i've been looking this kind of this ongoing topic online on some forums like where do we go do we go to woodland caribou or do we go to wabakimi i've been toying with the idea and scrolling over the maps like why not both in one trip go from one to the other that's something i've been been looking at it's quite a bit of distance but i don't i think it can be done uh yeah there's many, many ideas. I just got 10 weeks to figure it out. So I can't do them all. I get this one chunk of time off every year and that's, I got to use that. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:52

Cool. Out of curiosity, do you prefer whitewater out of the equation, but do you prefer like river paddling or do you prefer lakes and portages?

SPEAKER_00: 36:04

I honestly love both. Probably equally. Last year, the Bloodvain River was my first ever river that I paddled. Especially like the entire length of a river. Never really done much whitewater before that and I I love the whitewater. I love the, the, the riot and the rush you get going down to rapids and stuff. And I can't really say I prefer one over the other. I think they're both very different trips. Like normally on the flat water trips, I focus a lot more on fishing and like exploring a little bit more, like especially bigger lakes, like going around all the islands and stuff and looking for wildlife. Whereas you going down a river, like it's, you're just going down. There's no going out of your way all that much. Right. yeah they're very different but yeah i love doing both honestly i don't prefer one or the other

SPEAKER_02: 36:56

cool yeah we've only done we did the french river like from from hartley bay south down into into georgian bay and then and then worked our way back up so we avoided all the white water and it was a totally different experience than than you know whatever in the off kashi lake or whatever in algonquin it was so much more paddling for starters and just you know not not marked uh portages you're looking around going i don't know look for look for something slightly worn maybe maybe somebody's put a piece of tape somewhere uh it was a yeah it was a pretty cool experience i i liked it i'm i'm We're not going to do it this year, but I think I'm going to start planning for next year to maybe do another French or find something else. I'm not hardcore like you guys and do the Bloodbane and that sort of jazz, or the Steel River. Yeah, Steel River is the most recent one I've been watching. It's like, oh, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 38:00

Yeah, that looks like a pretty sweet trip as well.

SPEAKER_02: 38:05

Yeah, pretty nasty portages though. No, thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 38:08

That first one, the Diablo portage, yeah, it looks like a good one. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Now, I did hear, though, that there's actually an alternative route that you can take past that. If you paddle further north, there's another small series of lakes. I don't know 100% sure, but I think you can skip that. Nasty portage. Though a lot of people do like to go over it, just to say it's kind of a milestone, right? Because some people, arguably, it is one of the hardest portages in all of Ontario, right? So it's kind of cool to say you've done that.

SPEAKER_01: 38:49

It's a badge of honor.

SPEAKER_00: 38:50

I know Jay and Sherry from Beauty of the Backcountry. Jay has done the portage with their canoe, and yeah, it's... Pretty impressive. It's a tough, tough

SPEAKER_02: 39:02

one. I was giving him a hard time. Oh, I don't even remember what we were talking about, but, but it's like, yeah, no, there's, there's a couple going in and out of, uh, Lake Kaka Keys in Killarney. And it's like, it's up and then it's down and, you know, whatever. And then I'm thinking about it later going, yeah, he's done Diablo. I don't think, I think I'd walk in the park now compared to that. Probably. Yeah, that's just crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 39:31

Are you talking to one that goes into Norway Lake?

SPEAKER_02: 39:34

No. So if you come out of like Carlisle, There's one, there's, there's a, it's not long. It's like maybe 800 and something meters that goes into, into Kaka Keys. The next one beyond that is the one that goes into Norway. It's whatever, 1200 meters or something. Then there's, then there's one that goes out the other end of Kaka Keys into, into the bit of river that heads towards George Lake or. Oh, right, right. And that one's, that one's insane. Like that's 1400 meters. Oh yeah. Of, I'm pointing at the kid again. When, when we went in just that 800 or 900 meter one, he puked at the end of it. Like we, we single carried it. What I, I'm very, I pay way more attention to, to the topographical lines now when I'm looking at my box after that. Cause it was like, Oh, I had no idea it was this insane.

SPEAKER_00: 40:28

Yeah. That's a nice thing on the new Jeff's maps, right? You can see that elevation over the whole portage. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 40:36

Yeah. Yeah. I just, bought the, I'm looking at my map stash, I just bought the Algonquin ones this year. And it is, that's a great little, that profile makes it so much, oh, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00: 40:47

Good feature.

SPEAKER_01: 40:50

That's it for us for today. Thank you so much for our special guest, the Dutch Explorer, aka Cohen Tolhausen. And please do find him. He is on Instagram and YouTube. Especially on YouTube, just search for the Dutch Explorer and you'll find his channel. And you can find our channel there as well under Super Good Camping. And we would love it if you subscribe to us and we will talk to you again soon. I'm Pamela.

SPEAKER_02: 41:13

I'm still Tim.

SPEAKER_01: 41:14

And we are still from supergoodcamping.com. You can email us anytime at hi at supergoodcamping.com. That's hi at supergoodcamping.com. And if you would like to pick up some sweet merch, you can go to our website and at supergoodcamping.com and you will find hats and t-shirts and stuff to support the show. If you'd like to support us, otherwise you can always buy us a coffee too.

SPEAKER_02: 41:34

We like coffee.

SPEAKER_01: 41:34

We'll talk to you again soon. Bye.

SPEAKER_02: 41:36

Bye.