Catch Me Outside

Catch Me Outside turned one year old on January 14, 2022! One of my favourite things about producing this show is getting to live vicariously through all the brave, curious and adventurous people I interview. In the past year, guests have taken us to the tundra of the Northwest Territories, the peaks of some of the tallest mountains in Canada and the U.S., up and down the Hudson Ri

You probably know by now that Catch Me Outside is hitting the Pacific Crest Trail this spring. What you might not know is what went into getting my long-distance permit for the hike. You may or may not also know about another Canadian outdoor podcast called A Long Walk North. It’s a podcast about PCT hikers hosted by fellow Ontarian Dan Deveau. Dan and his daugher Chantal are pre

Nutrition can make or break a thru-hike. So for today’s episode, I interview Aaron Owens Mayhew, founder of Backcountry Foodie. Backcountry Foodie is a leading source for ultralight backpacking recipes and meal planning resources, and Aaron is a registered dietician and ultralight long-distance backpacker. Aaron founded Backcountry Foodie in 2017 while preparing homemade, lightwe

What would it look like if mermaids took up backcountry camping? It would probably look kind of like swimpacking. Swimpacking is an adventure sport that involves swimming in open water with a drybag that contains everything a backpacker would normally keep in their pack, like food, clothes, shelter and other gear. Swimpacking trips are usually combined with hiking or biking, and al

Everyone who spends time in the outdoors will lose their way at some point. According to the Government of Canada, search and rescue personnel provide assistance to more than 20,000 people in Canada each year. In this episode of Catch Me Outside, a listener tells his story of getting lost in Killarney Provincial Park after dark, and then Tom Girrior of Yellowknife Search and Rescue

Today, not only are we talking about Canada’s longest and oldest continuous hiking trail, which stretches for 900 km from Niagara Falls north to Georgian Bay, but I’m also joined by Zwena Gray, the first modern Black woman to thru-hike the trail. I say modern, because the trail has extensive Black history, and at least partially follows the route Black abolitionists and freedom

This is one for the weekend warriors who want to try long-distance hiking. There are lots of people each year who complete long-distance hikes with zero prior backpacking experience. They start with little to no practical backpacking knowledge, but with a clean slate, so to speak. Then there are people who hone their backpacking skills and test their gear on shorter trips in the ba

What do you know about the potentially endocrine-disrupting “forever chemicals” in your favourite waterproof gear and garments? Or about your favourite outdoor gear manufacturers’ side gigs selling bullets and combat uniforms? We’re joined on this episode by friend of the pod Alex Tran to unpack a couple not-so-rosy aspects of the outdoor industry. Alex is a backpacker, bik

Located on the West Coast of Nootka Island in British Columbia, is a remote backpacking trail called, fittingly enough, the Nootka Trail. It’s 37 kilometres long, but before you sniff at the length, know this: it’s an intense slog through obstacle-filled forests and over many, many stretches of pea-gravel covered beaches. What it lacks in distance it more than makes up for in d

It’s been a goal to record an episode around listener submissions for awhile, and a bunch of you were so gracious as to send in your favourite camping recipes and funny food stories last month. So for this episode, my ride-or-die and occasional co-host Ian is back to help read everything you sent. Buckle up for stories of spite beans, fly bannock, incinerated potatoes, exploding