Episode 6: A Physicist in the Forest with Fred Blackstein

Happy to be with you, Lacey.

So let me start with the obvious question after that intro.

How does a physicist end up in the woods? Were you an outdoors kid?

I was.

Unfortunately, spent my youth in Toronto, sadly, but ended up going to a charity camp.

Our family was a very modest means.

and ended up going to a YMCA-type cherry summer camp, unlike the rich kids on the other side of the tracks who went horseback riding, tennis, archery.

And all we had was 100 old chestnut canoes and a bunch of old woods tents.

So every Sunday after church service, off we went for a six-day canoe trip into Algonquin Park or surroundings.

And after five or six years of that and then becoming a counselor and canoe instructor, off to university, and of all places, ended up doing my work terms up here at Shock River Labs.

So that was the connection from downtown Toronto to Renfrew County.

And my very first work term was about 1961, ancient times, but never left the area.

Just loved it.

Amazing.

Well, I bet those canoes were not very easy to carry around.

85 pounds each, and there's no such thing as a short portage.

No kidding.

Do you remember your first camping trip?

Oh, very much so, yes.

Myself and nine other kids, it was always three canoes, three per canoe, bow, stern, and middle.

So nine of us trekking off into the wilderness of Halliburton County.

And how'd it go?

Wet, rainy, and this whole line about there's no such thing as a short portage comes from the tripper.

That's the word we use for the instructor, the adult who is in charge of the trip.

And they were called trippers, but that has a totally different connotation today.

Happy to be with you, Lacey.

So let me start with the obvious question after that intro.

How does a physicist end up in the woods? Were you an outdoors kid?

I was.

Unfortunately, spent my youth in Toronto, sadly, but ended up going to a charity camp.

Our family was a very modest means.

and ended up going to a YMCA-type cherry summer camp, unlike the rich kids on the other side of the tracks who went horseback riding, tennis, archery.

And all we had was 100 old chestnut canoes and a bunch of old woods tents.

So every Sunday after church service, off we went for a six-day canoe trip into Algonquin Park or surroundings.

And after five or six years of that and then becoming a counselor and canoe instructor, off to university, and of all places, ended up doing my work terms up here at Shock River Labs.

So that was the connection from downtown Toronto to Renfrew County.

And my very first work term was about 1961, ancient times, but never left the area.

Just loved it.

Amazing.

Well, I bet those canoes were not very easy to carry around.

85 pounds each, and there's no such thing as a short portage.

No kidding.

Do you remember your first camping trip?

Oh, very much so, yes.

Myself and nine other kids, it was always three canoes, three per canoe, bow, stern, and middle.

So nine of us trekking off into the wilderness of Halliburton County.

And how'd it go?

Wet, rainy, and this whole line about there's no such thing as a short portage comes from the tripper.

That's the word we use for the instructor, the adult who is in charge of the trip.

And they were called trippers, but that has a totally different connotation today.