I'm Travis Bader, and this is The
Silvercore Podcast.
Join me as I discuss matters related to
hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits
with the people in businesses that comprise
of the community.
If you're a new to Silvercore, be sure to
check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where
you can learn more about courses, services, and
products that we offer.
As well as how you can join The Silvercore Club
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covered during your outdoor adventures.
If you really want to get deep into the back
country to explore areas that see little
to no hunting or fishing pressure, a jet
boat can unlock that pristine wilderness.
This podcast was recorded on the side of a river
instead of thunder jet aluminum boat with expert
operator, Robert Bryce.
Robert provides important tips and tricks
and insight that can help you get to your dream
location and back safely.
So I'm sitting down on the side of the
beautiful Skeena River, just outside a historic
19 hundreds ghost town with Robert Bryce on his
thunder jet jet boat.
Robert, welcome to Silvercore Podcast.
Oh, thanks a lot, Travis.
You've got an interesting history,
you teach and help out at the University
of BC don't you?
University of Northern BC, I should say.
Yeah, university of Northern BC with
our campus based out of Prince George.
And yeah, we encompass the whole Northern half
of the province and we're fortunate to have
a campus in Terrace, which I work out of.
You also have your own tourism business?
Yeah, so I have a little touring jet boat business
called Northern BC Jet Boat Tours, which
I actually contract myself in a sense to the
university for a series of adventure tours.
And then also do a bunch of other jet
boat touring on my own.
So when you take people out on these
jet boat tours, what exactly are you doing?
A lot of them are focused on kind of a little
niche based unique tours focused on Northwest BC.
So, you know, one of the highlights that I
think we have is a series of ghost town tour's.
We're fortunate enough to have five or six,
kind of unique and almost exclusive ghost towns
in this area, so that would be one of them.
Grizzly bear viewing, so, you know, we have
lots of coastal rivers here in estuaries and
that with grizzly bears in them and some really
healthy populations.
So we can go out and watch, you know, grizzly
bears from the safety of a boat and makes
everyone feel comfortable and yeah, other stuff
for this area, we have, canneries tours.
We're so we have a long history of a
salmon canneries on the base of the mouth
of the Skeena River.
So we'll go and look at those and talk all
about the history and look at the remnants
that still remain, you know, from that late
1800, early 1900 days.
We also have the Skeena River, which we're
sitting on right now.
And we do a tour, a five day tour down the Skeena
River and looking at all of the history and
scenery and wildlife, you know, staying
at accommodations on the edge each night.
So that's definitely one of the highlights,
especially on a nice day like today, you
know, where it's nice and sunny out.
And yeah, a series of other rivers with
waterfalls and, you know, ecology culture, you
know whale watching even.
You know, kind of just kind of looking at what
we have in Northwest BC, what other people might
want to see and take them out to see these
things and experience.
Can I get a shameless plugin?
Like if people wanted to experience this,
where were they go?
Where would were they?
Yeah, I have a website it's
www.NorthernBCJetBoatTours.ca, or they can just Google
that and my Facebook site will come up as well and
info@northernbcjetboattours.ca and send me a note and
yeah, we can customize any tour for whoever.
Get multiple boats out there and just
depending on what people's interests are,
if they're interested in scenery, wildlife,
culture, history, or a combination, we
can definitely set something up for 'em.
And you teach jet boating out of the
university don't you?
Yeah.
I mean, I dunno if I necessarily teach the
course, we have an instructor that teaches
it, but I definitely help out and assist
with the course.
So yeah we're fortunate enough to have the
flexibility to kind of run almost anything
and everything out of our continuing studies
department that I work for and jet boat
safety is one of them.
And yeah, we do a lot of courses for ministries,
like the department of fisheries, lots
of the first nation communities and their
fishery programs, fishery consultants, biologists.
You know, it's just a program or a course it's
really not out there.
And a lot of people are tasked with sending
their staff out to run a jet boat and, you know,
unless they're doing that training internally,
they have to have some sort of training at
least to cover them off.
And so we have a one day class in one day on the
river jet boat course where people are actually
driving the boats and myself and our main
instructor will be out there with the students
and giving them all the stuff that we know
we can share with them to run a boat safely.
And you know this course is for people who want
to run a boat safely, not for Cowboys or guys who
want to jump gravel bars.
And you know, if that's your thing,
then this course probably isn't for you.
But if you want to be, you know, we treat it
like being a captain of a boat or a ship and
you're responsible for those people, whether
they're staff members or family or whoever,
getting them back safely at the end of the day.
And that for us is the most important thing
is that they're putting their trust in you.
And here's all the tips we know of and, you
know, being cautious.
So that's, you know, the one thing we're
not, you know, running rivers, we've never
run before and if we are we're scouting
them and pre scouting and stuff like that.
So it's a lot of safety stuff.
And like I said, that's the kind of
the foremost thing we focused on in the course.
So I guess jumping up gravel bars would be
level two would it?
Yeah, level two.
And yeah, we call them the Cowboys and you know,
these guys who have the sporty boats and yeah,
it looks fun to me, but, you know, I value my boat
a little bit more maybe.
And some of these other guys are, you know,
they got money to burn and the impellers to
burn, you know, kind of gravel continually, and,
you know, a boat like this might be $3,000
to redo the impellers.
And some of those guys they'll do that,
you know, two or three times a year.
Woah.
You know, they're pumping more gravel out of their
boat than they are water.
And so to each their own if that's their
thing, but you know, our couse and what we do is
more tourism focused on running some, some
nice rivers, but doing it safely and yeah.
So I've always wanted a jet boat.
I've got an aluminum boat that I take out
into the Georgia Strait and do some fishing in,
but I've wanted the jet boat so I can get into
the shallower areas and hunting in the lower
mainland and taken up some of our rivers.
For somebody who's never owned or operated a jet
boat before, what are some considerations that
I should be thinking about maybe in purchasing
and once I have one?
Well, I mean, I always tell people, what do you
think you're going to be doing with this boat?
Cause one boat will not serve all your needs.
You know, we're on a big boat here that can run,
you know, decent sized rivers and go out on
the ocean, but it will not run skinny rivers
where lots of boulders and shallow areas.
So you have to decide where are you going
to be running your boat and pick a boat
for that application.
And also within your budget as well, I
mean, money's always an issue as well.
So I always tell people, where are you
going to be running your boat primarily?
How many people are going to be going in your boat?
That'll decide how much power you
need for that boat.
Is it just you and your wife, or are you a hunter
that's going to get that thousand pounds moose
and want to carry it out to some remote river?
Well you need more horsepower for that
and a bigger pump and so you know, are you
doing fisheries work out of the back of it?
Do you want a motor sitting in the back
or do you want an outboard motor?
If you're doing fisheries work and having a
big platform at the back of your boat?
So it just really depends on what
you're going to be using that boat for.
Then once people have decided that, we help
people kind of narrow it down to the type
and size and length.
And you know, what kind of V on the bottom, is it
flat bottom, does it have a good V for running in
bigger water and oceans and lakes and that.
If you're just running your boat out in the lake
then yeah, you don't need a flat bottom boat that's
going to pound your kidneys all day long.
So there's lots of options out there between
types and sizes of motors and lengths and yeah,
it's almost endless.
Then you have inflatable boats, you know,
so that's one thing that's kind of getting
more popular now is a inflatable jet boat.
So something that's a bit more portable and
you can move them around, deflate them, put them
inside another boat.
So yeah, lots of options.
Oh I like that idea.
Yeah.
So just like an outboard jet?
Yeah, an outboard jet.
You know, I have another small jet boat that
it's a two-stroke motor that you can actually,
one or two guys can actually carry the motor.
So I can put it in a bigger jet boat like
this, I can put the inflatable in a bigger
jet boat like this.
So I basically have two boats in one and then use
the big boat to access areas that you wouldn't
normally get to and push the small one off and
put the small two-stroke jet motor on and access
small creeks out in the ocean that you wouldn't
normally run a small jet boat like that out there.
But having the big one for the transportation.
So yeah, lots of options.
I'm not a hunter but I know guys love to hunt
and putting an ATV on the back of your boat
is something that a lot of hunters would
probably like and I've done that with this boat.
A little platform built on here, some ramps and
load up that ATV, and you can go push that off on
some bar where they've logged out in some ocean
Valley or Creek and run that ATV up there and
be probably one of the only people hunting up
there with your ATV.
Now that's cool.
So yeah, it just depends on what you want to
use that boat for.
And it's almost endless to be honest and just
know the limitations of the boat you're getting.
Now you recently did a trip in this boat I
think it was, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Can you tell me a little bit about it?
You started talking about it, but I
asked you to save it.
Yeah.
So I love to fish and with COVID this year,
one of the things that happened was a couple
of lodges on the lower Dean River, which is
probably the premier steelhead river in the
province were shut down.
And that gave us an opportunity to go down
there and fish a river that basically nobody
is going to be on none of the clients, no
guides, nothing on there.
So something you wouldn't think about is taking
a jet boat nine hours to a river to go fish,
but we decided to do it, mostly inland
ocean water, and ended up being pretty calm.
But nine hours of jet boating to get to a
river that really only has three kilometers
of jet boatable water and then there's a big
Canyon, but primarily, we had that river to
ourselves fishing it for five days and then jet
boated back to Kitimat.
So from Kitimat to the Dean River, six
hours to Shearwater, gassed up at Shearwater
and that's about the extent of the limit
of this boat for gas.
So six hours, seven hours of running time.
We did bring some extra gas cans with us just for
safety purposes and then yeah, gassed up and three
hours into the Dean, three hours back, that
was another full tank and then six hours back.
So yeah, it ended up being about 18, 19 hours
in total of boating that we did there and back.
But beautiful trip, lots of fish and one of
those trips of a lifetime that you won't forget.
No kidding.
Was it the first time you've taken it out on
the ocean like that?
That far, I mean I've done two and three hour,
one way ocean trips.
So, you know, never really more than a
full tank on the boat.
So that was definitely the furthest I've done
it, but I've been out in areas similar, in similar
areas that, coming in from Bella Coola
or out from Kitimat.
So there was only maybe a couple hours I'd never
been on in that stretch.
So I was fairly familiar with the water and
I knew that, fairly protected, there's no
open water that you're going to hit and all
the safety precautions.
We got a radio satellite phone and everything.
If something did happen, we were set up for
pretty much anything that could happen.
Now I saw something on, I think it was Tourism
BC, they did a video and you were in it.
Yeah.
And that was talking about the ghost towns.
Yeah, that's something that's kind of
unique to this area.
And one of my passions definitely is, we're
fortunate here to have five or six different
kind of ghost towns, all resource towns.
So, you know, BC is really a resource town,
we extract resources.
So all these ghost towns once provided a resource.
So there are a lot of them are mining towns.
Kitsault, that was a Molybdenum mine shut
down in 1982 as a full community there
with mall shopping centers, swimming
pools, movie, theaters, apartments, everything.
We kind of have exclusive access to bring tours
and guests in there.
Another one called Alice Arm, silver mining
town, another resource.
Another one, half hour away by boat is Anyox,
probably one of the most interesting ones was a
copper mining town in the early 1900's that
had everything there.
You know, had Canada's largest dam at one time,
which is still standing there, big concrete dam,
which is in the middle of nowhere, so impressive.
And then, Port Essington is a salmon cannery down
in the lower Skeena.
Dorreen, another mining and agricultural
town that we're actually fairly
close to right now.
Yeah then there's some other ones up
in the mountain, some other mining towns.
So all resource based ghost towns that, you
know, it's typical.
We go in, we set up shop, extract a resource
and when the resource is depleted, we move on
and whatever remains, remains in these towns.
A few people remain sometimes and but yeah,
a lot of these now are totally abandoned or
a few people may have taken up a summer home or
cottage in these places.
So yeah, we're lucky enough to have that and
it's really surprising the number of people
I know that have this passion for ghost towns
and history, especially in the province.
So this one that was, I guess, became a ghost
town in the eighties there you said it's
got movie theaters or a movie theater
and apartments and.
Yeah, it was only open for a year and a half.
So the American company came in and built a
whole community there.
There's I think 200, no, 100 houses,
there's seven apartment buildings, a swimming
pool, library, school.
There's just all kinds of stuff there, there's
a curling rink up there, a pub, a couple of
restaurants, post office, a Sears, the Royal Bank.
Yeah, just everything in this town.
And it's basically a time capsule going back
to the eighties that, those of you that are
familiar with that, the old harvest gold
appliances and that, and you know, all the
houses have these big ashtrays in them still.
And you know, it is really going back in time
and brings back a lot of memories from growing up
and seeing these things that, you know, as a kid.
So if somebody came on one of your tours,
they'd be able to see one of these places
or maybe a couple?
Yeah, one, two, three, we've done multiple
trips where we'll go to all five, but over
two or two or three days, you can see three
of them definitely.
I just came back from one here a couple of
days ago and yeah, we take interested people
into these places and they're all mostly
privately owned.
So it's, you know, or you need a permit to get
into to some of them.
So they are challenging to get to.
Ocean stuff, a lot of driving and weather,
stuff like that and then when you get there, we
actually have the option of staying in three of
them as well overnight.
So we provide accommodations in three
of the ghost towns.
You actually get to overnight in these
places you know.
Oh wow.
Sometimes we're the only people there in
these towns and you hear creaking and noises
and other stuff, but yeah, it's quite unique.
So, do you research other ghost towns
throughout BC, or are you primarily interested in
the ones in this area?
Primarily these ones.
I do have an interest, some more of the
coastal ones, down the coast, Butedale,
Ocean Falls, and Namu.
There's actually quite a few ghost towns, even
Alaska, you know, just for personal interest
up in the panhandle, has a ton of canneries up
there that I know and have read a lot about.
It'd be interesting to go up and visit them.
And a lot of them are fairly intact as well.
Yeah, especially when you know a little bit of
the history about all of them in the stories in
that they kind of come to life that way so yeah.
It's but yeah, primarily Northwest BC is what
my passion is now, but that being said, if I
see a ghost town, when I'm traveling somewhere,
I'll definitely try and get in and visit it.
Now I heard about, I think it was a
Difenbaker's Bunkers.
Have you heard anything about this one?
No, I'm not familiar with those.
I heard there was some military and abandoned
military base, and I figured if anyone knew
about this sort of stuff, it would be the guy who
researches ghost towns.
Yeah.
I mean, we have some military stuff here.
The mouth of the Skeena River, Prince Rupert,
you know, during the war we had, there's some
pill boxes and other stuff at the mouth of
the Prince Rupert Harbor that were all armed.
We had nets going across the Harbor, you know,
thinking the Japanese subs were going to come
in and torpedo our, I don't know what we
had there for fishing boats or whatever.
We had a train that went up and down the
Skeena twice a day that was an armourment train
with guns sticking out of it and, you
know, full of armor.
And this thing would make, I think a trip
in the middle of the night and one in the
day looking for Japanese subs, it entered the
mouth of the Skeena or boats coming up.
So yeah, we ran this military train, which
is, a lot of photos and stories about
that one going up and down the Skeena.
So, you know, we do have a little bit of war
history and in that, even in this area as well.
That is so cool.
And then of course fishing.
Yeah.
You take people out fishing?
Yeah, another thing I do.
Do some fish guiding on the side, which I love
to do, take people out and yeah, hopefully get
them into some fish and experience the rivers
that we have in this area which are just endless,
you know, we have the Skeena the second
largest river in the province here and so many
tributaries off that.
And so many access points in Northwest BC here for
accessing the ocean and then small tributaries
and rivers off that, that are all different
in their own way with different species and
timing and yeah, with all the different
fish that we have.
So it really is just a fisherman's paradise
up here for that.
And we can start fishing well, pretty much year
round for steelhead here, but some of the
salmon show up in late April and we'll go into
November and in between that period, it's
just one species after another and different
timing between all the systems that we have.
So, if we go back to jet boarding a little
bit, you can access some pretty remote
areas with a jet boat.
Oh yeah, they are, I mean the places you
can get with a jet boat here, it's just,
it really is endless.
And I'm always looking on Google Earth for
new places that I can get into with my boats.
And especially these new inflatables with
the small jets that you go to places that are
otherwise helicopter accessible only.
And even some of those, there's nowhere
to land on some of these small creeks.
And it's really opened up some of
the systems here and we're fortunate enough
to have a number of tributaries, especially
on the Skeena that have never been logged.
So logging is also a big thing up here and,
but we do have some tributaries where yeah,
there is no logging, no industry, nothing up
these places they are totally pristine and
you can take a jet boat, you know, 30 kilometres
up some of them.
There's even a couple, I think I went up one
this year that was probably in the 80,
90 kilometre range.
I went up 65 with this boat and then probably
another 30 with a small inflatable after that.
It almost from the Skeena Valley over to
the Douglas Channel.
It's hard to, if you don't have a map in front
of you, but yeah, it's just, like I said, the
possibilities are endless here with the number
of tributaries we have.
And just, you know, the technology today with
these jet boats and the tunnels and how flat
they are and plastic and everything that they're
putting into them.
And you wait for a little bump of water on some
of these, you know, a little bit of rain
or pressure, and you can go into spots that
you'd otherwise never be able to get into.
So talking about the training course and
is that something that's open to only
you and BC students?
Or can somebody just sign up for that one
particular course?
No, it is primarily for people in the community.
So, you know, I would say people that are
new to jet boating that aren't that familiar
with it, want to get some experience on it,
some tips and tricks and that before they get out.
Maybe they're even looking at it, buying
a new jet boat.
And we have usually five or six jet boats there,
different sizes, types.
They get to see all the different brands
and types and sport jets and V8's, and
outboards and all the different pumps and
Hamiltons, and you know, it's American turbine.
There's just so many different options.
So they'll actually get a good feel for
what's out there.
So that's probably one audience and then the
other is the, kind of that working kind of
DFO, BC conservation officers, you know,
fisheries, technicians and biologists, they're
a big audience as well.
So they'll come out and take that to kind of
I guess tick off that Worksafe BC, they need
some sort of training and Worksafe nowadays
is, if there's not a course out there, you
have to do something.
Whether it's, you know, training your staff
internally or taking the next available best
course that's out there.
So this usually ticks off that box, in
combination with more training from someone
in the company, they're not just going to let
them loose on a big 50, 60, 100,000 dollar boat.
But at least it gets them started.
And so that would primarily be our market
for that course and yet very popular.
Like I said, just a wide range of people
that have taken that and lots of good things to
say about it that, they get out there and kind
of get this mindset.
And they're still things today for myself who
am out there almost every day it seems.
Jet boating, I still think of the things
that we learned in that course that, I still
hold true where to run a boat and going out
and checking rivers and levels and walking
them prior to going out there and running
it with your boat.
Like just, especially if I have guests on board
that like, Oh yeah and that in the course, we
do this, we do this, we do this and, it
all comes back to you.
So when I'm out in the ocean, we've got
Navionics and Bathymerty that'll show us a pretty
good idea of what the ocean floor looks like.
Yeah.
But with the river is changing so often.
Do they have any sort of thing like that,
or is all just local knowledge and running the
rivers slowly at first and getting used to it.
Yeah, I think it's more that, there really isn't
anything out there.
One of the best things is going with someone
first who's run the river and making a lot
of mental notes there.
There is Google Earth and Bing Maps, there's
a few on some of these tidal rivers that do
show the gravel bars and that if they're tidal.
That'll give you a good idea, especially if
you're going to run some of these coastal rivers
that are very tidal, you try and go in at low
tide, some of them fan right out and there's
one slot in there to get up in a boat at low
tide, which I get anxious even running a jet boat
at low tide up some of these tributaries that
flow into the ocean so.
But, yeah, there's really not much out there,
just talking to people.
We have some local rivers here that, you talk to
enough people, there's a cascade here, a little
fall here, a slot here, there's some rocks here,
watch out for that.
Talk to them and then try and maybe piggyback
with someone else.
And that's what I try and do is ask a lot
of questions or I go up and very cautious.
I get out and I walk a section, okay, I
can get through there.
I don't just run it and hope for the best.
Right.
You know, I value my boat and everything,
and the people on the boat as well.
So for us, like I said, we don't just run
things without knowing.
We'd rather talk to people or we, common
sense, the rivers very high and almost in flood
stage and there's not a lot of debris, we
know we can get through a lot of this stuff.
But here we're on the Skeena river, it's
actually a little dirty right now.
So you can't see bottom, you're kind of going
visually, you know what a little pillow
looks like behind a rock or a boulder
and what a shallow riffle looks like.
But every once in a while stuff does catch
up on you and I always tell people, we do our
best, but those things do happen eventually.
You will hit a rock eventually in your life
or nudge something or.
You're out in the river enough, it's just, you
know, it's inevitable or you get there close calls
where you're, ooh, I just missed that one or,
oh what about that one.
You know that was a close call and eventually you
hit that stump that is under the water that
doesn't have any, you know, it doesn't send
any message to you that there's something there.
It's dead calm and it's six inches
below the water.
Ooo.
Or four inches and there's really nothing
you can do sometimes.
Unless you want to idle up a river, but that's
not feasible most times.
So yeah, I mean stuff does happen, but you just
kinda try and minimize those as much as you can.
When you're not jet boating and giving tours,
what are you doing?
I'm out fishing lots.
I don't know, I'm trying to think what, that
seems to take up most of my time to be honest.
I like to explore though, and I like to read.
Love to find new books on history, culture,
environment of this area and any material that's
come out there, I love picking up on that stuff
and reading about it.
And people are always telling me about
someone else's writing a new book about this
area and hearing those stories from the past.
So, which probably wasn't, I wasn't really
interested in that maybe 20 years ago, but these
days, yeah I just can't wait to get myself into a
good book on some history of the local area.
So I would say that yeah, to be honest, I
don't have a lot of, it seems a lot of that, our
hobbies right now, other than being on the boat.
And when they do get a spare day, when I'm not
out doing a tour for someone or, doing some
fish guiding, I'm either out fishing or seeing
wildlife, watching bears or trying to find some
wolves or something.
So, if I get stir crazy after a couple of days
and need to be going out and I have a little
bucket list of rivers on my list that I want
to go up and try out.
And especially with the little inflatable
jet boat and get up there as far as I can
and see what they, you know, what the system
looks like and just tick them off one by one.
And so I would say that's what I do with any of
my free time is just out in the river, on my own.
Have you ever had any issues on the river?
Yeah.
Yeah, I had, well, I've got lots of stories.
When I first started jet boating, you get
out there, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago
and not understanding tides is always
one of the biggest.
Ooo, yeah.
Yeah, going up, one story was a tidal
tributary of the Skeena.
I went up with some friends and we didn't
realize how far the tide went up this tributary.
And we packed up all our gear and went up there
to go camp on this, found a gravel bar up
I don't know, a couple of kilometres up and
got up in the middle of the night to go to the
bathroom and it looked like in the dark than
my boat was up on the gravel bar, which I
thought that's strange.
And then I hop back into bed and we were all in
big tent with air beds.
We woke up in the morning and the thing
was full of three or four inches of water.
The tide had come up right into our tent and
had pushed the boat right up onto the gravel bar.
Oh man.
We had no idea that, now I would laugh by her to
someone else, you know, telling that story, why
didn't they look and see where the tide line was?
Where's the debris pushed up to and there's all
kinds of indicators.
Yeah good point.
Looking at the tables and things that you can
see where the highest tide has actually been.
But I was young and, younger and naive
and really not aware of, I haven't had any
incidence's where we've been hurt or stranded,
but like lots of stories where I've spent five
or six hours out there because of the tides or.
Yeah, my first boat, you probably didn't want
to see what the bottom looked to that it was
pretty beat up with hitting lots of rocks
and boulders and that.
And I was just telling you the story, how pretty
much the first rock I've hit in this and
18 months, even tweaked was out on the ocean, a
little sunken reef there that kind of caught me
off guard while we were watching a bear on shore
so that was yeah now I'm.
Good reminder.
Yeah a lot smarter, but I realized that I still
gotta be on my toes and, I still get even jet
boating, I still get anxious and nervous going
up systems all the time.
I go up from for the first time or low
tide, or I think that's good to be cautious.
And I'm always, I see people, I know that
we call them weekend warriors that get out,
maybe with their jet boat a few times a
year and you see them go up these systems
and I'm always amazed that they go up there.
And then without very little training or
knowledge of the rivers and but then you do hear
the stories, oh, so and so sunk his boat, put a
hole in it, and you hear those stories all the
time that someone had to go rescue someone.
And so I'm just thankful that's not me and that
and all my stuff is, professional development
I call it, if I'm out by myself, I'm learning
rivers, learning about the river and always
staying current.
And yeah, so that's my professional development
for my business.
Well, many years ago I was into the rivers and
I really loved rafting and it would go down
and just cheap, old Canadian Tire rafts.
And then I got a world war II inflatable
from a gun show, and I started running
that down like the Elaho and the Thompson
and the Nahatlatch.
And then finally got a proper commercial
whitewater raft, which I still got sitting
upstairs at the office.
Yeah.
And one thing that I learned kind of coming
into it, at first, you look at some really
gnarly looking water only to find later
on that it's actually pretty safe, you just
kind of bob over top.
And then you can see some water that looks
otherwise, to the untrained eye, pretty
safe to find that it's something that could
be pretty dangerous.
Yeah.
Are there similarities to that in the jet boating?
Like, are there things that when you're starting
out, you'd think, ah it's fine, let's run
it, only with a bit more experience to say, uh uh.
Yeah, I would say there's things like that.
I mean, one of the things that I always find is
when the water is shallow and I come up in this
boat, which is a big boat and I look at the gravel
size, it's relatively small, your intuition
is maybe to slow down a bit, but it's not, you
have to put that throttle down and speed up.
And you can just feel it as you put that throttle
down, you think what, you're getting into
shallow water, you're going to go even faster,
you know, with rocks and stuff, but that's
what you have to do.
You can feel the back-end rise up a few inches
and you'll put it up to maybe 50 kilometres an
hour, even more, just to get over those shallow
ripples and then pull it right back again.
And so I've learned that, that that's one
of the things that maybe not intuitive,
but that and then speed.
The guy who taught me how to jet boat
was, especially going down rivers is,
speeds your enemy.
And I still remember that you get in this
false sense of security.
You're cruising down 50 kilometres an hour, when
you can be going down just barely on step at 35
kilometres an hour, stuff comes at you so fast.
So fast down the river and if you're not
familiar with that river, I keep catching myself.
Oh, look on I'm going 50K an hour, slower down
a bit stuff comes at you really fast and you
can't react fast enough.
And the guy who bought my first jet boat, a friend
of mine, he probably, if he heard this podcast
he'd probably hate me for saying this.
But yeah, we went up a river that was fairly
high and relatively easy to run and I think he
put us in the rhubarb and gravel bar three or
four times on the way down and beaten and put
in a few more dents in the bottom of that boat.
And I was basically yelling at him, slow
down, sacrifice an inch or two of flotation
in the water for some control and.
Yes.
Yeah, he would come around these corners at
mach one, and basically trying to pull the
throttle back on him so he had some control
and he just couldn't make the corners up
on the gravel bar.
Into the brush, into the tree, every one of
them was cause speed.
And I think that's something that new
people, you know, they get that 50K an hour,
the throttles down and up river it's not as
bad, but going down river on technical
rivers, you have to go down and under control.
And with an inflatable, it barely drafts
anything, I'll go down idling down these things,
which is barely enough control because you can't
make some of the corners.
Right.
Nuggets that'll pinch your inflatable, will
pop it, sticks, logs, you don't draft almost
nothing, less in an inflatable so come
down with control and get down there.
Maybe you'll bounce into something, even
your boat, if you're down under control,
maybe you'll bounce into something, but
more than likely you'll have control
to make those corners.
So I always say, yeah speed is your enemy, is
kind of ingrained into me when I'm going down
river on a new system.
Maybe not on the Skeena here where it's fairly
forgiving and that, we don't have the big tight
turns and logs and big nuggets everywhere.
But you know, any of our smaller systems,
there's some, like I said, so many things
I remember from the guy who taught me.
And the first thing he ever taught me was
look at your bow line, and he took my bow line
which was really long.
I thought, well yeah I want to have the second
tie off on trees, on shore and whatever.
And he took that thing and he ran it down the
bottom of my boat and it went right to the
very end of my boat.
Oooo.
And I go, what's the big deal with that?
And he says, this will inevitably flop out
the front of your boat, you're going to hit a
wave or something, and it's going to go right
down the middle, right into your impeller,
you're going to suck it up and you're
going to be stranded.
Not having a good day.
Yeah.
So we cut that off and shortened it.
So it was a few feet shorter than the intake
on my boat and just stuff like that for new
people that maybe not.
But that was the first thing.
Totally.
He did was take my rope, my bow rope
and shorten it up.
And whoever owned the boat before me, he
obviously had this big long bow rope
cause it was still on there and I just
thought nothing off it.
That, oh yeah, it's nice having a big
long rope that I can tie off and whatever.
But yeah, lots of, most people would know stuff
like that, but maybe not if they're brand new.
Yeah, totally.
Well, is there anything else we should
be talking about?
I don't know, this is, it's just like I said,
it's nice to meet you and be out here with
you on the river and learn a lot about you.
And I know you were talking about maybe, you
know, being out here.
A jet boat might be in your future and you'd
probably be a good candidate for one.
You're into safety, which is always a good thing.
And it sounds like you've rafted a lot
of rivers, you know rivers and that's
probably one of the main things jet boating
is reading the river.
You know where the current is, where the
pillows, the rapids and that kind of stuff, where
the deeper water is, the V's and everything else.
So that's sometimes half the battle with
jet boating is being able to read the
water and the river.
And if you can figure that out then, yeah, you
got 'er made and yeah.
Well, Rob, thank you very much for taking the time.
I really enjoyed speaking with you.
Thanks for having me.