I've Spent the last 12 Years Making Videos on YouTube--MY STORY

Hey guys, how you doing? I got a little bit different video for you today. I got some friends, some visitors at the fort. We have Joe and Scott. So these guys are here today to interview me a little bit. We're going to get a fire going, some coffee. It's super wet. Tripper, are you going to be okay, buddy? Hey everyone, Scott here with Swift Canoe and Kayak. We are back filming another episode of Canoe and Spy Campfire having coffee. And we are here with the one and only Joe Robinette and Tripper, who's going to make a cameo with us here today. We are in the Great White North. Joe drove us out here. I honestly don't know where we are. We took a long drive out here, but it's a beautiful day. Winter's here, Tripper's having a good time. So we're going to jump into some questions and learn a little bit more about Joe. My dog didn't bite me. Did he? Yeah, on accident. So, basically Joe, I know a lot of your viewers know a lot about your history. I know a fair bit of it as well, having known you for several years through Swift Canoe and Kayak. What I wanted to get from you is kind of a broad strokes thing just for anyone who is a new viewer who may not know the key points to your story. And one of the things that I always find fascinating that I always want to ask people about when I do things like this is how did it start? How did you get to becoming the quote unquote YouTuber? So I know you had an outdoors upbringing. Where did you start experiencing the outdoors? When did you start camping? When did that become a significant part of your life? I actually, early in life I didn't. I had no experience at all. I had no, nobody to show me really. I grew up without a father. My mom tried her best to be car camping a few times here and there and stuff. I really enjoyed it. But my main exposure to it, my dog's going to knock my camera over. My main exposure to it was watching television like Little House on the Prairie, Grizzly Adams type things like that. I grew up in a city. I grew up in Windsor, which is a very, very urbanite city, a big city next to Detroit in Canada, and there was no wilderness around. There was no, not even like, nothing at all. Not even something that is remotely close to that. So it was always very foreign to me. So seeing it on TV and things, even Fred Penner when he crawled through the log at the beginning, it was very like... And I didn't really get into camping until I was, maybe in high school. Really? So, okay, so that's when you start. So, I mean, obviously you're pretty well known for doing solo camping stuff. What was your first solo trip? Oh, man. What was that all about? You know, how ambitious was the first one? It wasn't very ambitious at all. I was probably with Scout, my previous dog, who a bunch of people know, in a bush, in a farm bush near Windsor with my dog and I would like and I set up like a tarp and that was probably my first solo overnight solo quote-unquote with the dog. It smells very good. It's kind of like a hipster coffee maker, I guess, whatever you want to call it. Oh yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, fill it up more, man. Keep it going. More? Well, that's more, man. You just want to overfill the cup, I guess. What size is that? Cup. Yeah, Doug would be into this. And then put the plunger in the top and just sit it in there and let it sit for about a minute. Then we have to like, park it. Flush your water levels. Yeah, there you go. So that's pretty full then. Little top up. When it's missing the Baileys, huh? You ever stay out here overnight at all? Yeah. That'd be nice. Not since I've got it looking like it does now. It'll be much more comfortable now. I've got my bed in there and I'm going to hang a sheet of plastic and make this into a super shelter. shelter yeah thank you for the coffee by the way my pleasure thank you for having us so yeah so your first trip which you know you said it wasn't that ambitious right i would say doing a tarp instead of a tent for your first time is pretty ambitious most people wouldn't be willing to be exposed to the elements that much so what was the you had uh you had scout with you yes i had scout um yeah we just set up cooked a steak surprise surprise you know what i mean i'm shocked uh had little long fire oh yeah that's i had a long fire in front as well for warmth for the night i had a i had a blanket i believe with me yeah it was good times and i have recreated that same trip over and over and over and those are some of my best videos um they do the best for me i've actually done i gotta start doing it with this guy now i did one did one with them yeah i did really well no i mean it sounds to me though you obviously were you were into it before you went and did it i mean for me and i think for most people who grew up maybe in ontario or canada's part of the world you know the first trip you wouldn't think to you know build the shelter do the tarp you know it sounds like you were already pretty interested in the outdoors and bushcraft by the time you went you had a plan i mean you didn't exactly go park the car you know in the car camping spots right bring a barbecue i had been to when i first started getting into this stuff before camping alone or anything i had camped obviously but i i joined up on a forum called called Bushcraft USA and they're really like-minded people and it was it was just very refreshing to be able to talk to people about the word bushcraft who understood it you know what I mean and we had the same kind of interest so I ended up going for a couple meetups and in classes over there in Iowa in Missouri and in Ohio Indiana all over the Midwest so I had gotten pretty used to camping and setting up tarps and things like that so when it did come time for me to my first solo. You're right, I was pretty prepared. I had camped before in that style. Very cool. So at that point, I want to kind of hear how the YouTube and the content creator thing developed. You start doing these trips. You're already, I think you said, like a late teenager. You're getting into your early 20s here. When did you start filming this stuff? Because I know for years you did it before you were a personality, if you will, or gained traction. So at what point when you started going on these trips, and it sounds like you're doing mostly solo when did you decide to bring it here i originally started making videos so that i could post my responses to challenges and things like that on that bushcraft usa forum so people in my mind in in a lot of people's minds you can fake pictures right you can you can say that you did something when you really didn't do it here's the finished product however i got there i got there but video is a little bit different and i i really wanted to fit in and i really wanted to to be someone that people thought was the real deal uh because i really looked up to a lot of people on that forum and one person in particular Terry Barney Iowa woodsman who was a SERE instructor previously who was putting on these courses bushcraft it was free free bush online bushcraft courses so I really wanted to get in good you know what I mean so I started making videos and posted them on there through that and trying my best at them and it was so rudimentary alright so I've got my fire going my rice in the billy can it's a size 14 billy can, and I'm gonna go cut some wood so that I can make a hanger. At the beginning because like they weren't stories, it wasn't me showing my experience, I was out there doing like a skill, a certain skill, like lighting a fire five different ways type thing. Yeah so talking about these challenges, is that a part of this forum? Well no, just a certain, such a small part of it, in all honesty it's a very consumer driven forum, it's a lot about buying things and but that's not why I was there and that's why not my friends were there like core group of people that I hung out with the Ohio group for sure everybody likes to buy a knife you know I mean it's a fun thing but we were there for skills too so it was such a small part of that that it had its own little sub forum but lots of lots of traction on there so things like making an improvised cooking implement or cooking with a rock or cooking underground very very solid skills how to improvise a shelter out of like garbage bags and stuff like that. Solid skills, very real world useful things, not fantasy, not like end of the world type stuff. So yeah, that's why I started doing that and I gained a little bit of traction on the forum. People started to recognize me and I really liked that and I liked getting the attaboys. It felt good. And then on YouTube it started to slowly pick up there too. I never did it for YouTube. I never did it for an audience on YouTube or anything like that. My audience was BushcraftUSA. YouTube was just the means of getting it there the platform and this was like you know before youtube and this i mean this was early days this is early days you and i are the same age so you know this is before you know when the a lot of internet usage for topics like this was about using forums as opposed to watching 100 percent video content you know what i mean 100 like this is way before monetization this is like this was me doing this because i wanted to because it was fun like 11 years i want to say 11 years ago? Time flies man. Wow. So you met up with all these guys you said Ohio, Iowa and it just seems like that's where the American contingents of them were based you know so you just kind of befriended them and you decided you know you're going to go down to Ohio and that's where it all started just meeting guys mostly in the U.S.? Exactly like um the main core group of guys that I really enjoyed hanging out with or speaking to or associating with on the forum they're from Missouri Iowa and Ohio and so going to Missouri and Iowa was a little bit farther I flew a couple times but the Ohio guys and the Michigan guys we became the guys I looked up to were over there the guys I became friends with were closer so it was easy to go over for meetups all the time and it would be special when I could go over to the classes in the farther places cool so tell me about like a bushcraft meetup because that's not something I'm super familiar with but you know from what I've always followed you and similar personalities you know what goes on in a bushcraft meetup i mean does everyone go there and like see who builds the best shelter and sleeps for the night like not at all no it's a lot of talking it's a lot of showing off it's a lot of showing off your gear it's not much of doing anything but there are certain people who do like a lot of time there'd be a again a core group of people who would cut the wood who would go on hikes who would who cut the wood for the whole group and But I'm talking winter camping, like telephone poles. We'd play around with making the bow drill fires or setting up tarps differently and stuff. But the majority of the time, it was just there for socializing. And, like, again, that was after the fact. After the fact, I was already used to it and doing these things. But the majority of the people go there and set up a tent and set up a chair and sit down and talk. Very cool. It is cool. It's a lot of fun. It's a very, especially for this type of thing, when it's hard to find like-minded people around, or was actually in the past, to meet up with all these people, it was a good time. Yeah, to have the opportunity is, again, it's not a niche necessarily, but it's a pretty specific skill set, and it's kind of geographically bound in a lot of ways. You mentioned the areas it's from and where it's popular up here as well. So for all of you people to be willing to travel that far and go and discuss and all that stuff, before people were watching videos, where else would you learn those kind of skills from other people in real time you know then to sit around the same campfire and discuss all that what's the state of bushcraft USA now are you still i don't know involved in it no no any of the original people i don't know i don't know i haven't um i haven't been on there in a long time i think i went on maybe a couple months ago for the first time forever just to see but i didn't recognize any of the names or faces or anything like that i really don't have anything to do with them i'm still very uh i still I still talk to Terry, who owns it now, Terry Barney, my mentor, who I think took over one of the ownerships of it, or the store at least, and I talked to a few people from there. I met Doug from it. I was going to ask you, I wonder if that was for Doug Linker, who you guys met originally. Yeah, we got together from that. We found out we lived near each other and the rest is history. Kyle, me and Kyle met each other, my buddy Kyle. I had my job forever for, I worked at the University of Windsor with my buddy Ken. I met him through the forum and I got a job for five years, one of the best jobs, best job other than YouTube that I've ever had. Yeah? What was the job? It was, I worked at the University of Windsor in the biology department. was a tech a field tech and then I was also I would run extractions and stuff in the lab so we would go out and we would take sediment samples of sediment underneath the river or lakes and stuff so we'd send down a big claw and grab it come back and do experiments on it or fish or I've done on snapping turtle eggs bear blood otter scat everything so a lot of the times we go out and set traps for these things fish mainly get them and then come back and do the work on them. Now you went to school for something similar to that didn't you? Um somewhat I went to Sioux College for a natural resources program so I took um field uh park operations um so I learned tree identification which is the best thing I could have got out of it I still remember to this day I had the best teacher um yeah animal tracking or ornithology sorry orientation um yeah. So really I mean, between your education and that time working at the University of Windsor and Bushcraft USA, I mean, you really had a strong foundation of outdoor skills that you were, you know, being taught and learning in the classroom and all that stuff. I mean, it sounds like that gave you a base that allows you to feel more confident doing the stuff you're doing. Tell me a little bit more about your mentor, Terry. So when you say mentorship, I mean, obviously you were relatively young, you were getting into stuff, you were very passionate about it. Terry take you under his wing and show you a lot and give you the skills that you were seeking or did you know how did the dynamic work yeah it was um it wasn't like he took me under his wing by any means it wasn't like a special like relationship we had to with each other or anything like that it's just that everybody likes Terry he's the life of the party very knowledgeable guy uh and then I got the opportunity to camp with him multiple times and he respected me and my skills and that really like my relationship with him has always been weird for me because of not having a father and like someone in that position who's older. So whenever I got like some respect from someone like that, I really admired like it was a big feather in my cap. Like I felt like I could do anything, you know what I mean? Like it really solidified what you were doing and you knew that you were on the right track and doing what you wanted to do. Exactly, man. Yeah, we're rolling. All right. So let's pick up from there, Joe. So we talked about, you know, you're, you're working at the university. You're, you're obviously applying a lot of the skills that you picked up from your, your time in college, Bushcraft USA, you're starting to do your own videos, you know, was that the last job that you had before you transitioned to YouTube full-time? So tell me a little bit about that period. I mean, you've told me before how many years it took you to build that audience and reach a certain level. What was that like? How did it happen? Where was the moment when you were kind of like, you know, I can now do this as a livelihood? Yeah, I was, uh, correct, man. I didn't know if I should do it or not. I was worried. I have a family to support so I was working at the University I went on alone a lot of people thought that alone helped me we really didn't I lost a lot of people subscribers and respect from that anyways my job there after alone I got my job back probably for another let's say like another year or so I was probably gone and then so you come back you've got that to do with you dive right back into the job right back in the job right away i have to do it um but again i was lucky because my guy i knew who was my boss anyway um another year goes by and i start and i and i make a decision in my head that like while i was gone and i and i hadn't shot videos for a long time because i was under contract with those guys and i was getting ready to go out on this show for like at least a half a year yeah i thought there was a big block of time that you'd set aside It kept getting pushed back and stuff, so I wasn't making videos, I was spending as much time as I could with my family and just trying to get ready for this huge life-changing thing, which was supposed to be, I thought I was going to win. Well, you should have been with you guys when you go and do something like that, you've got to be confident. Right, so in this time, now I get back after alone, and I see in this time that I've taken off from YouTube, people who were no one, channels that weren't even around have surpassed me, and I'm like, what's going on? like I've been around for a hot minute here um in that brief break here you're gone for a little while yeah oh yeah big time yeah and I was like so I got like a fire lit under my ass I was like I'm coming back I want to be the man I remember MCQ Bushcraft back in the day was the man I was like I want to be that guy I want to take over his spot and so I just started pouring everything into YouTube and um things started going good I got a one video got shared on Reddit and that blew up and now I'm on so now I start to monetize right I want I monetize one video and I made like 50 bucks a month right and I was 50 bucks that month I don't say oh that's great next month I hit monetize all videos I made like 200 bucks that next month and I was like oh snap something can be this can be something right porn time and I went I also wanted to reclaim my place I wanted to be I wanted to be the man Were you familiar with the potential? No, lucrative nature of YouTube or is this you're like you're literally figuring like oh my gosh now that i'm doing this like you're telling me the money comes back to me for doing this wow so you don't even know the potential of this not even at all no if you're enjoying it and you want to do more yes exactly and our that genre is so small you know i just never thought i never heard of anybody making any money in that doing that but figured it out poured all my time effort money um everything into it you know what i mean and then finally i got to this spot where i was making like i want to say just a little bit more than i would be making if I was working full time maybe double maybe double that and I'm like well if I quit my job I can dedicate all my time to this and then make a really good go of it so it was like it was this weird uh situation too I was about to get laid off I wasn't gonna have that job for a while anymore so it's like it kind of pushed me to go a little bit everything all kind of came together just kind of led you down that road right so I did it and um never looked back everything kept getting better and better and better and better. Once I hit 100, it took me seven years to hit 100,000 subscribers, and once I hit 100,000, the next year I think I hit four or 500,000. So it was like seven years for 100,000, and then in one more year the exponential growth would just, it was crazy, snowballed. But you had to grind for seven years before it had traction. Yeah, definitely. Oh, definitely, seven years. My wife was able to quit her job finally, spent some time at home with the kids. We always had Emerald, we had Scale, We have the second kid now because of this, because we're doing well. And, yeah, we... Well, I want to talk more about your family and the dynamic of doing this because it's a relatively, it's a unique situation, you know, and I would be very curious to know what was that like with the family? I mean, how was Will's with that when you are kind of at that point where you're saying, like, I don't have to go to work anymore and I can do this full time and I can also be around the house more and I can spend more time with the kids. Was there, there had to be fear there. definitely was there how confident were you in the in the success of that you know maintaining you know monetarily you know how much right i i was confident enough that i was willing to bet my family's livelihood on it i didn't know the duration and i still don't know the duration it can it can be taken away from me whenever um and i know that but i always thought trevor stop buddy I always thought if I was able to buy my family a house with with my YouTube earnings then I would be happy then everything would be fine and and I and that would be enough even if it got taken away from me and I had to go work a nine-to-five job for the rest of my life at least I got that house out of it I've bought two houses now, that said my first one was a house that I lived in for eight years beforehand it was in my family my whole life so I got a I just had to pay off the mortgage from my uncle type thing, but now we're in our dream home. That was down in Windsor. That was in Windsor. Yeah, and I remember some stories, I remember some of the videos and stuff, living in the hood, yeah. I remember the black guy. Yeah, yeah, it was not a great place, but again, it was home. When you're in the game, you know, as they say, when you get into that, and to be able to afford that, and know that you have security for the family and all that. So, let's carry on from that. So, seven years, you get to 100k, and then you blow up, and then you move. Out of Windsor, you end up here in what's got to be your utopia. Do you think your youth had something to do with your confidence about diving into that lifestyle? Because, I mean, you and I are similar in age. And I'm not going to say there's not an age window on doing bushcraft, but being young and educated and having some work experience, do you think it made it a little bit easier to say, you know what, I could take a few years off and try this, and I can always come back to that if it doesn't work out? Yeah, I always said that if it didn't work out, I would go back and do whatever. I will always do, no matter what, I will always do what I have to do to provide for my family. I don't care what it is, and that is the God honest truth. And I'm going to just, I knew that I would run, I knew I could run with this for a little while. I felt fairly confident about that. And if it didn't work, I was just ready to go handle applications right away And that said, my wife was working at the time still. So I did have a little bit of a race. A little stability to fall back on. Exactly. And she's been great. like she's been a solid rock my whole life we've been together for like 18 years been married for like i don't know five or six maybe i'm sorry yeah um but like all even before this like she has supported me you know what i mean and there's been times where i've supported her she supported me she never gave me grief about going camping even when i wasn't getting paid for it she always knew like i was trying to she knew what she knew i loved it she knew it was something i always had passion for and she just was it was fine with being home with the kid or by herself for the longest time and then now she's reaping every single benefit ever like and I'm happy to be able to give it to her yeah we met no no we were we went I would have been in grade 12 when we met she would have been grade 13 or if there's a grade 13 she's a grade older than I am but no we met her place was the place. But I mean, you know, you guys, you met young, and getting through those first years, you know, as a young married couple is always the hardest, I think, and if you guys get through that, you know, and then you start to see some success, and there's some rewards to be reaped from all that, you know, it sounds like, I mean, that helps grow the bond, you know, there's stability there. Definitely. You know, you're providing, you know, you guys have a little bit of freedom to live and do things and stuff, and I saw the video you guys going on a canoe trip together you know so she's gotten into a little bit that's i you know i think you should be commended for that in some respect too because like you said i mean you have to take care of the family that's number one and youtube has provided that for you going back a little bit i i have to ask because i'm so curious what did it feel like to hand in the resignation letter when you were literally saying i'm going to youtube now i mean is that a smile and a high-five or is that I'm petrified oh it was like a both it was like this is um this is awesome that that for the time being I don't have to get up at nine o'clock in the morning and answer to someone and I can go camping whenever I want yeah but again on the other hand it was it was very scary I was scared um but again like I said like confident enough where where I felt like I had a good shot and it sounds like I mean you you already had a bit of an audience base growing at that point right yes oh definitely yeah no it's not like i said yeah i would not have started i would not have done it if i wasn't already making money i wouldn't there's no way i would have like i wouldn't even have started youtube for that reason like and i think if i did i would never have got to where i am now it was all organic it was all just natural because i loved it i feel like i put my time in and now i get what i get because of it well and as anyone should you know it time served and you've earned that i'm curious you mentioned that video that got shared on Reddit was it that video was there one particular video or one particular instance that was a noticeable springboard where you're like okay like we just we are now entering the next level yeah it was that it was an overnight bushcraft camp it's a horrible story at the end but it's a overnight bushcraft camp with my dog and it was again a copy of that first camp that I did with him that I probably never even filmed that first one but there's a copy of that one we went out with the same tarp the same spot I can set up like a like a wooden frame for my tarp bacon and eggs in the morning steak at night just the whole normal Joe i think i woke up to snow too it was just a really like awesome really shot well and i was upbeat it was a very very good video people really really from what i understand really enjoyed my banter with Scout my my my relationship with the dog so when that one got shared like normally my highest video ever was a hundred thousand views and that was like a few years before that and it accumulated to that and then this video I put out and it got like a couple hundred thousand views in a couple days and to me like that was just yeah blew me away so I'm trying to find out what happened in like you can do some research and find where it's getting shared and stuff and it got for sure to the front page Reddit and just like just crazy crazy views and then because of that crazy subscribers, yep like all new eyes just came flying and flying and I can just watch the numbers rise like crazy and then that that's That's like when I was on the stretch from 100 to the 500 the next year or whatever YouTube has, since then, restricted that video. That video has been up for I want to say like four years or something like that. And within this last year, they've decided that it's restrictable And that video was always an earner for me I could watch my analytics, the money and the subscribers come in from that. Thousands of subscribers a month just from this one video Always on the up, up, up, up, up Then they restrict it, and now it's just completely shut off uh it's not even my highest viewed video anymore do you know why it has like 6.5 million views and then they restrict it, no i have no idea why they never tell me, yeah i find that that's the way we were talking about this a little bit off camera and you know we won't go too deep into it for obvious reasons but it's very strange that a video that's so old you know what's the point of going back in that content and it's frustrating talked about you know with guys like you and sean and some others about just having to navigate youtube and quote unquote play the game yeah definitely play the game which kind of brings me to this one because you know you talk about that trip with scout that you've repeated and but that always being the highlight trip it's something that's always a good time it's something that you always go back and do would you say that that trip or that the repetition of that trip is your best trip or your favorite trip or is there another favorite do you have a favorite trip that was everything you wanted it to be i have a favorite trip because of the memories it was the last trip that Scout and i did together it was in the the winter time last year and we car camped. I drove my new to me truck to a spot. We got out and I just set up a tent and we just relaxed. It was just very like we were just like hanging out the whole time. It was after we found out he had lymphoma so I kind of knew and it was just very memorable. It was a nice night. I slept very comfortable and Scott was with me. That was my favorite trip because of that reason but I have epic trips that that i enjoy for other reasons like my my eight day trip with canoe trip through Algonquin Northern Algonquin with Kyle oh stripper saw that coming so we can pick right back up his favorite trip keep on going yeah yeah that's all part of the video oh yeah okay that's how it makes it yeah so we did eight days in in a tandem boat in northern Algonquin it was like my mo my first like biggest trip and i felt like very um in tune with nature portaging after after a while became second nature i felt very strong a lot of memorable things on that trip yeah and Kyle is always a fun fun guy yeah he seems like he'd be a lot of fun to to go get through the rigors for sure tripping because i think a lot of a lot of views you know for the the stuff that that Swift has done and i know that you've done is a lot of people in some capacity i almost have to use the term like live vicariously true they don't really they don't trip a lot or it's something that they don't do at all but are fascinated by or live in parts of the world where it's not the same as here and i always find it interesting you know people don't know like the the mental and physical toll of eight days in the bush or you know the the speed trips that you do which i want to talk about in a minute is you know covering those distances and doing those portages you know a guy like Kyle would make that fun yeah you know what is it that after eight days of of struggling i mean really that's Oh, it is. It generally is. You know, and you're tired, you're hungry, you're run down, you're sleeping on the ground, you know, you're eating that same kind of food. What's the joy in that for you? I mean, you mentioned that you're in touch with nature, you know, does that only come to you after the trip and you look back on it or, because, you know, in my experience, you know, day five, day six, you're still having a bit of, boy, why did I do this? Definitely. And I guess using the term in touch with nature probably sounds a little bit more romanticized than what I meant. Like, I got my legs under me now while I'm out here type thing. Like, I feel strong, I feel good, you know what I mean? So to answer your question, it's like the grind, it's like a very rewarding feeling for me. The success of the grind? Yeah, like, that was an ash, buddy. He's just biting ashes over there. Like, a three-kilometer portage is hell, you know what I mean? But after you're done, it's like, man, I just crushed that thing, you know what I mean? And after a while, you start to get very, very, not comfortable with doing it, but, like, you've got your stuff down, you know? You get to the end of the portage slide that pack board or that that yoke on throw it on and go cut type thing I've been so in in in the rhythm that like it takes me two seconds at the end of a portage to hop out of My boat flip the the yoke on take the pack out put on my back flip the boat up and go You know what I mean people have told me like I remember on a on a trip one time I was trying to get out because it was raining the whole time I was done and I saw these people on an island I was like how far to the to the takeout they're like five hours I start paddling away. They yell something like what they're like three hours if you're paddling like that That type of stuff. It sounds like I mean it's adrenaline rush isn't the right word I mean, it's like it's a sense of accomplishment. It's a reward. Yeah Yeah so do you find that it's the the seeking of that reward is what Makes you want to go and do those trips because I think a lot of your viewers and myself included You know I get interested when I see the distance that you're about to do and the timing And you know, I talk to you sometimes, like I'm literally going to go to like a 24 hour, you know, we're going to paddle X amount of clicks in a day and the portages are this long and it's, it is ambitious. Yeah. So is it, what's with the fascination of doing the high speed, high efficiency trips? Is it seeking that sense of accomplishment? Yes. So there's different types of trips I like to do. I did that 10 day solo trip where I, I canoed in and I set up a shelter and I fish for my food and mainly the only time I used the canoe was when I was going out for food or or to try not to be bored but I was I was centrally located there's other trips where I'm more focused on fishing but a lot of the times it's like people I'm going with or maybe I don't have as much time or you just have to cater a trip around the time you have the person you're with and what you want to do right so there's a lot of the time a lot of the people I go with too like I used to go with at least Doug and and Kyle and things like that it's like that's just the nature of it like that's that's that's our personalities and that's what we've done already together so that's what we kind of know yeah but I have done also with Kyle we did woodland caribou this past spring and we didn't move 10 clicks a day you know I mean it wasn't much at all and I've done a two-night stationary camp with Doug before it's it's just all up in the air whatever whatever time of year what you want to do and if I've done a bunch of fishing trips now I feel like going and doing a high high speed trip type thing is there one particular style more than the other that you prefer or find yourself seeking out or do you like that variety because you know like I always it's what catches my eye with you in a lot of cases is like you know it's x amount of days and I see x amount of kilometers and I'm always just like how's you gonna do that you know and I want to see that and and those have their own advantages and disadvantages and trials and and tribulations in doing that and then also sometimes it is nice just really sit out in the woods for a couple of nights and not portage you know thousands of meters and paddle 30 kilometers a day so any preference over one or the other not really all in i like to mix it up i like to again it's always situational dependent man if i know i'm going with so if i'm going with someone that i don't really know their experience i'm definitely not going to go and do a high mileage trip at all just because most people don't do it like that you know it's the not the norm um if i want to hang out with some buddies if i want to go camp with a couple buddies or something i'll i'll mainly just do like a stationary thing but when it's by myself or with certain people it's got to be the height i i just like the mix of it i like to mix it all up and i do so much camping that it's like i need the mix i need to do the mix i would get bored of one well actually that leads me to the next question which i i want to ask everyone when when we do things like this is is how do you you do this a lot and obviously you enjoy it but there's burnout in any job yeah when it becomes a job is that a way to avoid that mundaneness you know because how many times can you repeat the same trip so are there new challenges for next year that you're eyeballing are there ambitious plans to do an even more efficient trip over a greater distance you guys anything on the docket for tripping season next yeah there is there's always something new like there's always at least one big trip I want to get in in canoeing season and then wintertime is totally different to like I got to do it I never did an epic trip last winter I'm gonna do on this winter for sure probably spend well five days out with the dog or something in a hot tent but yes Kyle and I are talking about going to Norway or somewhere around that maybe like a Sweden area to go canoe tripping probably for a week canoe tripping or kayak tripping because over there I mean it's a lot of sea kayaks Are you doing coast? No, no, we would be we would be in in inland inland. Yeah. Oh, that'd be very good Yeah, try to portage and things. I know it's not set up late. It's gotta be somewhat similar to Northern Ontario It's soon. I couldn't tell you but I Would be very curious to see how that goes It's just the the the adventure of going and doing that like flying to another part Oh, that's part of it. I mean that's a thrill in itself exactly like I get there I wouldn't mind if I wouldn't mind meeting people there like locals and stuff like even do another time a little meet and greet or something like that um that's part of the that i like that a lot that part of the adventure for that type of thing like when we did the the canoe camping thing that was a lot of people yeah that was a that was a quite an experience to see that many people just kind of literally come out of the woodwork uh and talk and meet with you and that was a lot of fun we had that weekend we're talking about all the the good trips there's always the bad trips of the bad moments yeah you gotta tell me one yeah you know and i know you've got a few I got it. I mean a few happened this summer even you know with the stranded series, you know Tell me about tell me about one of the bad moments. Tell me though the worst one You know when you're on a trip and nothing's going right. Yeah, the worst one was the like three springs ago I had I had a trip planned in Algonquin for ice out for trout fishing and it was gonna be a solo trip and It was gonna be six days Catching brookies in the Falls going in the Nipissing River and the water was so high that year and it rained every single day I was out there I want to say 80 to 90 percent 80 to 90 percent of the day it rained and this is early spring like like right at ice out it's cold yeah for people who don't know like ice out in Algonquin Park literally means I'm guessing you're probably like what mid April end April it was beginning of May beginning okay well even so depending on the season you know like that literally means ice out literally means that's like the days after the ice has gone off the lake and it's actually open water there's often still snow on the ground oh there was so it's dangerous tripping time a lot of people go out at that time but yeah i mean that comes with its inherent risks yeah it was very cold like if you go in that water it's not going to be good yep um so i'm i'm paddling i'm fishing my first day i come to my first portage and it's raining and i slam brookie monster brookie and i don't get it on film and he gets away from me that was the only good fish i caught the whole trip i caught on like maybe like day three or four the sun came out for like 20 minutes and I caught a couple little brookies like this and I said screw it I'm eating these I had to because it was gonna be a fishing trip okay so um but I had to actually change my plans completely because the water was so high my plans were to paddle out upstream for the last day to get out because that's the loop I had to take um and I met up I met somebody out there who had been out there for like 12 days or something and he said this is this is the most water he's ever seen he does that trip every year for like 20 years most water he's ever seen horrible fishing for him he did catch fish though uh and i told him my route and he said you can't he said you're not making it out that way man yeah because of water level because how fast the water was flowing out the stream up the up the Nepe maybe um i couldn't paddle against he said he was like a full day paddle he said you don't so i had to switch my my route and i had to go do these two big black portages the black portages are unmaintained and the one says like you may have to paddle through it in the spring in the middle because it's so waterlogged or whatever yeah so I switch it all up and um I end up almost I have to paddle upstream a little bit to get to a portage and I end up almost flipping my canoe twice and I was so so shooken up by it like I had to get out and just walk where I was filmed that right yeah yeah it's all in the video yeah yeah I was so scared I was like three that was three days in and if I would have dumped that would have been it I hadn't seen anyone but at that point that would have been it I think like uh but so tell me a little because I wanted to get to that too and i'm glad that it's crazy of a story as that is it kind of leads into something that i think a lot of people are interested in knowing about you is dealing with the fear of outdoor tripping and things like that happening and i would think that you know the more experienced you get the easier it gets but i mean would that be the the scariest moment you've had in the woods that's the scariest moment i've ever had yeah that and then doug and i almost had a couple trees come down on us so in all honesty my fears in the woods are hypothermia and being smushed by a tree in my sleep i'm dead serious really i'm dead serious i don't even think about bears i don't care about animals that means nothing to me at all leave it leave it leave i've camped around bears so often i've never had any a bear do anything other than run away from me except for one alone when it just looked at me but again not a concern being crushed by a tree so doug and i were we're sitting in algonquin last fall around a campfire super super windy we were crack crack crack and like from us that's like I want to say like 10 feet away these trees all start coming down they dominoes themselves and they're they're big we didn't get to see the actual damage until the next morning because it was dark but they were big big trees and they came down I want to say three feet from our tents I ran because I was so scared I fell because it's dark I thought it was coming I saw it coming I swear and I ran I fall off this like little cliff like but it probably felt like a huge cliff oh definitely yeah like you're falling forever forever yeah but i was much happier to do that thing and crush my trees but no that um in the canoe when i almost tipped was my scariest moment ever yeah so that's you said that's day three of six yeah when that happens i got out in five days actually i i booked it out in five days on that but yeah was that i mean how do you recoup from that you know because i remember watching that video it was a few years ago now but i mean do you did you park it for the day no i've had enough adventure or i couldn't that's the thing i had to get out i was done it was raining so I was done man I was cold I had to keep going but no I stopped I pulled over and I stopped and I just talked to the camera for like a good half an hour or whatever and I was like let my my nerves calm because uh yeah I was I was very worked up and then stupidly didn't have a spot with me or any kind of like satellite thing so from then on I started carrying a spot system with me that actually that brings me on to the next one I was just looking at the list of questions I want to ask you today and one thing we always open it up to our viewers to say you know what what types of questions that would you ask and I have a list of those but one of the ones that I wanted to ask myself because it always comes up is key pieces of gear and I know you've mentioned this a little bit but and it depends I know you know whether you're doing winter camping or summer tripping what's what's always in the kit I mean you've mentioned the spot before I mean that's a hard lesson learned what else I mean you and I at Canoe Copia we went over your kit there you know what you're the master of ultra lightweight high efficiency so what's what's your summer tripping kit i gotta have like a super lightweight way to procure water which i like my befree um water filter i just dip it and squeeze it right in my mouth it's like a sawyer but way way more efficient i have to have a lightweight cook uh lightweight way to cook which is normally a titanium um pot leave it buddy i like to also use a twig stove my bush buddy because it's super lightweight and it's it's very efficient and i don't have to carry any fuel for it you can find twigs anywhere um you got i like my big agnes tent it's a super lightweight tent you gotta have shelter like for any time that there's gonna be bugs i'm definitely having a tent i'm not gonna tarp it um i mean you've you've acquired that kit because you and i like i've gone over your kit with you before but we we've gone to shows and stuff like that and those are kind of lessons learned the hard way you know like i've i've certainly been on trips where i brought something that was heavy and i couldn't handle it and then only to realize i really probably didn't have to do that it's it only takes one or two trips to get that yeah any bad experience i think in particular where you're just like okay like i can i can go leaner if i leave that one at home and get by with something else or something more efficient there is but i don't like i've done that like now i'm on the other side of it where i left my chair at home last time and i was like why did i do that that was the dumbest thing i went i did that trip with mike and he had a chair and i just kept looking at it with the most envy ever we just paddled for like 40 40 kilometers one day i'm not joking 40 kilometers and it's like okay now i'll stand by the fire you know you had a hammock but you can't yeah we'll just pull it on up well it's pretty funny i mean before we were filming today he showed me his chair which i mean it's literally i mean is it even half a pound it's about a pound i think even though okay so it's one pound i mean it's about the size of a nalgene bottle yeah it is and you thought that was too heavy no that was too much to bring with you see that so that was the that was why i bought that one because i had one double the weight so uh Two pounds, which is what I thought was too heavy. No, yeah, a big tripod I'll never bring again. I like to bring a tiny tripod now. In all honesty, camera gear is what screws me. I got my kit down, man. I got my kit real lightweight. I can go for a long time and just have to change the amount of food. But my camera gear, because, like, it all goes right on top, too. You need it, right? And that's just the heaviest spot to keep it. I find it very interesting just the psychology of doing this, I think, is something that a lot of people are very interested in but doesn't get talked about a lot. Right, I agree. And not only having the mindset and gaining that experience and becoming comfortable the way you are, it still has to come up where there's got to be a lot of those trips where you're thinking, you know, I've got to make a decision here. And it's important. You know, this is the difference between being wet or dry. This is the difference between sleeping well tonight and not sleeping well. The stranded trip, for example. You know, for anyone who hasn't viewed that, you guys literally were trapped in Woodland Caribou Park by forest fire. I've seen the footage, I've seen some of the talking you did with the camera about that. Walk me through that a little bit. I mean, you're with Kyle, you guys know that this is going on, you're not going to get out for a little while. How did you game plan? I mean, what's the decision making process when you literally realize you're stranded? We didn't know how long we were going to be stranded for. Because, first off, it was the smoke from the forest fire which really sucked and then after that kind of cleared up, a big storm system rolled in. the planes couldn't fly we literally got it came and we saw it and then a big black cloud came and it turned and left us and it was like out of a movie it was so deflating it was I should laugh and I've watched that video and I it blows my mind yeah it literally happens like all in one sequence oh yeah I'm just like the plane is coming and the storm is coming so fast that the plane sees it yeah and turns around I mean it walk me through that like I mean that's got to deflated yeah it was it was it was the worst it was like uh we screamed out loud like not at the plane we understood but just like why what is the meaning of this there had to be some off camera oh 100 100 yeah so we we set up man we we didn't know when we were gonna get out right we had a satellite phone and we were able to talk to the operator but the operator didn't know there were so many people out there and and you can't ahead of us that needed to come out and we we knew that we were okay we didn't have food left but we could catch fish you know i mean and he's not like it was like a group of four ladies or us it's like okay i get it yeah but um also then the weather just kept changing and getting worse and worse so we had these little windows that we were told to be prepared for every day and we would be prepared to have our bags ready and to go and stuff and then okay no it's not going to happen so every single time we thought it was going to happen it got pushed back pushed back pushed back pushed back so we started to just not even have any hope at all and just say okay this is what's going on and we stopped doing everything we stopped like burning any kind of energy we had the option of paddling out it would have been a 50 kilometer paddle out we had no food left and it would have been a lot of portaging too we had no food left i was already on running on empty you had the maps for it like you you guys could we could have got out yeah yeah but then how long do you think that would take probably two and a half days maybe but and so you're already out of food so even longer and through a storm you know i mean so we don't know what's going to happen to her. We end up just posting up and taking it really easily and sharing our food and just kind of sitting. We sat under a tarp for probably, I want to say the whole day, the one day, well, it hailed, like, hailed. And we got delirious, too. Like, we were laughing a lot. Hey, leave it. We were laughing a lot about it and, like, at different points. We had ups and downs, and then we decided to go out and fish because it was the last day and the time had passed. We're like, we're not going to get out of here. was like 4 30 we're like it's done we're not getting out of here it's another day spent so i'm like we don't have any food i'm gonna go try and cast off the back of the island i cast twice i get a pike i come back i'm not even how i got this like he's oh great i'll clean it i was like i'm gonna hop this isn't enough for us i'm gonna hop in the canoe and go get a couple more fish literally go for five minutes get two more walleye come back he cleans them all up we're cooking them i was like watch the planes gonna come now for sure really yeah really yeah did Did you get to enjoy the fish? No. I got to enjoy the plane ride home. After all of that. It was fine. After all of that. I was okay with it. But I guess that's a fair trade off after going through something like that. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it. Was there a time when it was that bad when you guys were legitimately scared? Like we might have to, you know, paddle out to the middle of the lake and let this forest fire go by. Like are we seriously so in a jam here? I don't have experience with it because I'm from here but Kyle lives in California now so he's really well versed in it he's like this can be like 100 miles away and we can still be having the residual effects in the video like it was dark the whole day like it was thick thick smoke we were breathing it in the whole time i felt concerned the first night uh very concerned so much as to where we left and went to a smaller lake which was the dumbest thing we could have done i later find out that when a forest fire rips through somewhere it sucks all the oxygen out so so even if we didn't get burned, we would have lost air. Really? Yeah, so on a bigger lake, it would have been better. We went to a smaller lake. But, again, we had contact with the sat phone, and we were told that the fire was like 50 miles north of us or something like that. So it was okay. So at least you're getting a feedback of information that's definitely reassuring. Oh, definitely. And you have that lifeline out, you know, that you can call and get an update. Yeah, definitely. But, yes, that part of it was great. It was frustrating not being able to know, because Harlan didn't know either. like he couldn't tell us anything but yeah um where the battery is getting low on the sat ellite i mean you're running on extra days now does that start yes big time big time yeah we would just leave we'd leave it off completely and like yeah i have to call him every like because he was getting called like like off the chain by everyone yeah everybody's trying to get so i'm just trying to like let leave it and let him call or whatever but man it was it was uh an adventure it was an adventure and i'm so glad everything everything happened the way it did now i'm so glad it's perfect we didn't get hurt it added to the adventure it was like two different trips that first half of the trip was a walk in the park and then that happened you know I mean it gave me a lot of content and and and a lifetime I'll never forget I'll never forget yeah well I mean in the way you filmed that I mean it was amazing to watch that I've still gone back and looked at that and I was talking to guys at the office you know that morning I think it was after you guys pretty much overdue I mean it doesn't even look like you're in a Provincial Park doesn't look like Woodland Caribou. It looks like you're on a foreign planet. Yeah. Like the sky is gray. Yeah. There's this weird yellowish view. Big time. You can't see anything. Like it looked like dusk all day long. It was real real weird man. One thing I'm curious about and that story and that trip is a good example and in my own experience I find the passage of time very difficult to deal with when things turn south and it goes so catastrophically slow. Yes. Yeah I mean I got to think that those last couple of days I mean that two days it has to feel like a week it was the worst it was like it sounds so bad saying that because like when you just sat on your camping everybody like that's the mentality like that I could imagine that some people would have but if you're not oh if you don't the thing is we were done we were done we had been done for days you know we wanted to leave a day early we were done we did what we wanted to do we were done yeah so once you get that in your head you want to leave already but then to be denied your actual leaving time too. Yes time dragged on dude. It was like um it was torture. Yeah I mean it felt twice as long as twice as long hundred percent Yeah, I got that seems so relatable and anyone who's been on a trip I'm sure can probably vouch for doing I think so it's one thing too I mean if you're at the end of your trip And you just want to go home, and you're you know you're waiting for the train or to load the car Whatever to be stranded and uncertainty and then yeah, and then not know like we don't know where we're going Yeah, we're low on food. We're running low on stuff You have all those additional fears and pressures mounting as well. And there's a fire behind us. Not to mention a forest fire bearing down on you too. I can only imagine dealing with the psychology of that trip. I was lucky that I had Kyle with me or someone with me. I'm glad it was Kyle but I'm really glad I had someone with me. You know what I mean? Like it would have really, really, really been a time of reflection if it wasn't. Yeah. I mean you mentioned it and I know Kyle's a funny guy and he's outgoing and you guys keep it so light. I mean, was that a key element? I mean, you mentioned you guys were literally almost borderline delirious and laughing. You know, was that a huge helper? Yeah. Just to have someone to bounce off and joke off? Yeah, 100%. And, like, there have been times where I was down and he was up and he was down and I was up, and it really helped. Like, when I went to get the fish, he was like, oh, I'm going to get a fish, man. Like, that would be something better. Oh, I'll get a fish to clean it up, type of thing. Something to do. And that too, something to do is always like, okay, and I'll stretch this little chore out for three hours if I can, because I have nothing else to do. You know how many sticks I picked up and went like this with? Yeah, whittle the- 100%, one million, one million. Well, and people always say to you, I mean, you mentioned literally sitting under a tarp and just sitting there. And I think for anyone who's ever done that on a trip, like even when it's a leisurely trip, if you're like killing time in a rainstorm, You know, an hour-long tent, sitting in a rainstorm in a tent, you know, an hour to me always felt like four. And I'm always shocked at how little time has gone by. Right. Did you find your friendship with Kyle was strengthened, having gone through something like that together? I mean, do you guys joke about that now, reminisce about that now, or is it still a touchy subject in light of having to go through all that? No, it's not a touchy subject anymore. As soon as we got into the plane, we were both fine. There was a point where we were both like, I'm done. Like, this sucks. I am done Like next year Let's go to Hawaii Let's go No let's go to a resort I'm not joking Sit on the beach Yeah Like let's take it Let's have some fun This isn't fun You know what I mean It was fun I just didn't know it at the time It's type Big type 2 fun Huge type 2 fun Maybe type 5 fun But Yeah Kyle and I have been through some And we We always Like he's let me stick my foot In his armpit before So I didn't get frostbite On my toes You know what I mean Like yeah That's a friend He's a good guy Yeah I know he is a friend For sure Let go Let go We get into it a lot when we're out there, actually, like, scream at each other just because we're both so, like, why are you doing this, man? Like, you know what I mean? But, like, we always get over it. We're always really good. I find it's better when you can do that with someone as opposed to avoiding things, as opposed to, like, not being your real self. If you get into an argument with someone and you get by it, like, I think that in itself strengthens the friendship. Yeah, and I would agree for sure. it's it's such a the whole there's so much involved in all of a trip like that and you mentioned almost kind of like the burnout or the feeling of being done I mean considering that you do so much of this have you ever literally taken a break or been like you know what I just in light of the you know the last couple of difficult camping trips I'm just I'm not gonna do that for a couple of weeks or you know do you need to kind of do a mental reset on that I uh yeah I've been burnt out definitely before and like i think it was when i was chasing like it was after my peak and i was trying to chase what i thought that people wanted to see as opposed to doing what i wanted to do and i think that's the problem because i in doing what i want to do people are already all about it people want to see it i'm enjoying it i'm having fun it's exciting for me and it comes through in the video for me trying to like search out something that maybe i i don't necessarily really want to do or care about too much i think it really shows yeah yeah so i i don't really take breaks i have gone on hiatuses a little bit here and there mostly mostly because of health reasons or or whatever the case may be but never never i never took an extended break from youtube and i you can't really yeah which and i've heard that too and i know from knowing you personally a little bit too is that this is something like you said even if you weren't doing youtube you would still camp oh 100 and do all this stuff so kind of bringing it full circle and looking at tripping with tripper in the future and all that that's going to entail we talked a little bit about some of your future plans and stuff and I know you do a lot of winter bushcraft stuff you know what's what's what's the next year with Joe Robinette gonna involve well this winter I'm gonna be out as much as I can probably by myself and with the dog I'm gonna build a portable super shelter I want to do a hot tent trip I have a brand new hot tent coming in the mail still nylon one so i can do a little bit of a winter backpacking type thing then comes spring um i want to definitely do a a spring fishing trip but i probably will go somewhere crazy in the summer maybe the yukon uh and norway or one of one or the other i want to do a yukon river trip um yeah and i also want to do a big backpacking trip with him in the fall I want to do the La Croix silhouette trail in the fall. I wanted to do it this year, but it got too late, and it started to snow already, and it's kind of sketchy. It's high up there. Yeah, it is. So I really want to do a lot with him and wear him out. I want to burn. That's it. I want to burn. For this year, I'm burning Tripper's energy out. That is what my plan is. I wish you luck doing that, Joe. Thank you. Having spent the afternoon with him, I think you have your hands full doing that. I don't have any more questions for you, man. I really want to just say thank you for spending the time and doing this and bringing out to this bringing us out to the Spot yeah, I know we're all gonna see it on film But I really can't tell anyone watching this enough Just how cool of a place this is to experience and enjoy so thanks for having a cup of coffee with us I really appreciate the time yeah, and I look forward to everyone checking out and giving us some feedback. Thanks guys