Canadian minivan cooking channel

February 8, 2020 1:07 AM

Foresty Forest is an outdoor enthusiast who worked at a factory to fund long distance bicycle tours. In 2018 he started living out of a 2009 Chevy Uplander minivan due to punishing Toronto apartment rents.

He then spent a month converting the minivan into a tiny apartment. In August 2019 he moved out to western Canada and that winter recorded a youtube video about living in a minivan during freezing temperatures that went viral. A moderate influx of Youtube ad money and a patreon allowed him to start hiking remote north-western Canada while simultaneously running the best minivan cooking channel on Youtube.

Cooking videos:

• Lasagna
• Ribs
• Thai Soup
• Deep Dish Pizza

posted by zymil (11 comments total)

Haha! I've been putting off making Lasagna because it's "too much work," and this guy in his square inch of space and hand-pump gas burner is making me feel bad. I don't even have to worry about bears!
posted by taz at 2:57 AM on February 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

I love that this guy's channel has been blowing up. He makes really good really fun content - especially his fat bike touring videos. Please don't use him for cooking advice though!
posted by backlikeclap at 7:18 AM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Toronto Life recently published at least two profiles of couples who now live in fancy vans because of the housing markets here (and, obviously, no profiles of homeless folks living out of cars.
posted by avocet at 7:57 AM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

(Good old Toronto. We've even managed to gentrify living out of your car.)
posted by giltay at 8:17 AM on February 8, 2020 [13 favorites]

This is not a new idea, sadly; I recall some twenty-five years ago a sort of how-to article in Now Magazine from a guy who had modified a van and was discreetly living in it downtown (with a Y membership for showers). Rents in Toronto at the time were merely "steep" as compared to "eye-watering" now.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:47 AM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

search for "Dawn of van life" and you will find someone in a Toyota Sienna in the SF/Oakland area.
posted by wmo at 10:10 AM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

I dig his fat biking videos for the laid back, not too vloggy style.

If you're into cycle touring videos and not the vanlife stuff, MikeyT Williams is making some similarly fun, low-key videos about his small budget trip cycling through central Asia that are pretty good. They start here Cycling Central Asia - Day 1: I got Stranded in Qatar!.
posted by peeedro at 1:50 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Red Squirrels, man.

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by klanawa at 3:39 PM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

My Toronto neighbourhood is occasionally graced a by living van with a plea written on the reflective sunshade under its windshield not to call jonny law. Could be me if I had to find a new place at market rent. And had a van.
posted by rodlymight at 6:55 PM on February 8, 2020

I've spent the day putting insulation and flooring down in a van. It's London rents I'm avoiding but it's all the same. Maybe I should start a YouTube channel?
posted by Ned G at 11:49 AM on February 9, 2020

There's a big camper van regularly parked on different parts of Bloor near the Bloor-Spadina intersection, which was rumoured to belong to a couple who had moved into it full-time to skip out on the housing costs. Toronto is such a fucking joke. The only people I know who live there and aren't getting laughably unrepresentative good deals live all the way out in Etobicoke (while working/doing most stuff in Toronto) or have some kind of scam going; fraudulently living in public housing through a (in my opinion) shitty relative, or scamming welfare while working min. wage paid in cash.
posted by constantinescharity at 3:54 PM on February 9, 2020