2-Days Whitewater Canoeing on a FAMOUS Canadian River

What's going on guys? It's Alex here with Northern Scavenger and today we are headed to the Ottawa River for a little whitewater action on the middle channel. So I'm here with Eric. You can't see him right now because he's currently chilling at the launch. You might be wondering, Alex, how are you going to get from the takeout back to the put-in? I'm biking it. It's going to be great. Just past the entrance. We're getting close. I had to start with an uphill. Bumpy road. I told Eric to time me. That might have been a mistake. This is really allowing me to see some of the beautiful landscape we have here between the put-in and takeout. Definitely can see it from a car too, but there's something nice about just biking it. What's going on guys? We are here at the put-in for the Ottawa River. Currently out here with Eric. You guys all recognize him. How we doing folks? That's all I have to say. So we are out here with a brand new canoe. Kind of nerve-wracking. It's its maiden voyage. Fully whitewater equipped. This is the most whitewater equipped boat we've ever had. We got the Mikey Yee outfitting in here. Float bags, knee pads, thigh straps. And the kicker is a spray deck that we're throwing on right now. And then we're going to hit the river. The Ottawa River in general is really low right now. I think it's minus three if you know the rating scale that they've got on that little pole that sits at the side of the river. Very very low water. I've run this once before in a kayak, but it's been a long time. I'm excited to see what it's going to be like in a canoe. I don't know that I'd run it in higher water levels with a nervous excited the whole nine yards and hopefully have a good day. I think if we just punch in we don't need to spin. So we're currently at the top of McCoys and seeing as this is the first rapid we're running in 2021, I don't know that this is what we wanted to start with. As you can see the kayakers there took a little sneak route between I believe it's called Settlers and Phil's Hole on the Phil's Hole on the right. A gentleman pointed out like a little canoe sneak route along the right, but even the bottom set we're not like super stoked on right now. So we're gonna walk this one and start off with a different set today. Right down the middle there I think. Yo one I just want to go slow and controlled up here because I don't know what to expect around that corner. Yo back paddle. Yeah like that looks like pretty big drop there no? I swear there's a waterfall at the end. We just took a sneak route around McCoys and we're gonna run the outflow here skipping the stuff that we really didn't want to hit. I want to be just to the left of that. Yo even do draws get a snug on that yeah. Okay that's good and yo do you see where the eddy starts like draw draw draw draw. Okay that's good and yeah left tilt, paddle forwards. Dude we caught it. See this little trough here? Yeah. That's gonna be like our trough to ferry across. Yeah yo I think the eddy that we're trying to hit you guys right in here right? Yeah all that slack water there is what we're gonna try to eddy into. And then we'll c-turn into the left or right? Well we're gonna ferry first right across into the other eddy. Yeah. Then we'll come back and we'll c-turn. Okay. But on this one we basically want to keep our angle. Okay you ready? Go. Left tilt. Dude that was it. Alright. That was it. Nice maneuver. So now what do we want to do? I think we just turn ourselves here. With a back ferry. Nice. Okay so our line do you see that ledge? Yeah right over here. Yeah we're basically we're gonna hug this right shore back paddling to basically be as slow as possible. Forward paddle. Okay that's good. Yeah. Dude nice move. Okay yo this is gonna be super sporty. See that rock sticking up? Let's catch that eddy. Yo so we got back paddle. Back ferry over a little. Okay and we're gonna have to have some tilt and it's tight. And hit us. And forward paddles. Hard forward paddle. Yeah bro. Yo we're in. Okay we're gonna ferry over to the right and c-turn in. Watch this right here. Yep yep we can hit that though. C-turn. Dude that was so nice. We absolutely picked that apart. First fish of the season? It's the first fish of the season. First bass of the season. First bass of the season. Bass opener. He was hungry. He's been waiting till bass opener to eat. Cheers buddy. Just like that. That's a good fish. Wow that's a beautiful fish. It is a beautiful fish. Look at it. Wow. Is that a PB or anything? It could be. Now this is this is my kind of trip. Yeah this isn't so bad eh? We just arrived at what I believe to be butterfly rapid. I believe. We there's two lines here that we found yesterday so there's a beefier one on on the river left and there is a small ledge on river right. So yesterday we ran the ledge first. So I think the game plan here is to follow this nice easy tongue. Fall in the middle of this. We're gonna try and shoot out into this eddy. This flat water here still facing down river. Get to river left and we're gonna try and hit that rock ledge to river left of this of this ledge here. We're gonna try and just go over it straight. Cross drive all day. Yeah brother. Today we want to do a different maneuver though on this ledge. We want to try to sneak in along the same line on the run-in but there's actually a small eddy up in the very top section and just for fun we want to try today to catch that eddy and then straighten ourselves out and do the run right off the end. So it's going to be a little bit more of a sporty move but that's what we're out here trying to do is just try to get as many maneuvers in as possible just to try to amp up our skills a little bit. Yeah really get the most prep for our upcoming trip. So we're gonna try a new line. Okay and yeah this time we don't really want to be right on the right rocks. We kind of want to be left side of this. You know what actually let's kind of move left a little here. Do some draws. Yeah that's good and we'll peel right around the corner. Nice okay and nice that's good. Yo that was it. Yo nice. Now it's time to run the juicier set on river left. Same set of rapids just river left side. It's a bit of a beefier set with some pushier water so we managed to hit it yesterday so we'll see how it goes today. What we're going to try to do here is hit come in on the main green tongue but on the right side and we're going to try to ride up on this rooster tail because that's where there's water pushing through. On either side there's kind of some bubbly holes almost some kind of like hole like features but we want to really try to get that canoe right in the section where it's going to push us right through and get us to the moving water on the other side. A little more to the right. Yeah my god that was wobbly through there eh? All right so we just took an opportunity to run a set of rapids a few times try a new line that we didn't know if it was possible or not with an empty canoe and swim a set because Eric's actually never swam in whitewater before. We saw some guides out here earlier that took some people swimming through here so we knew it was safe and it's a good opportunity to just test yourself in moving water see what it's like to swim in white water push through some heavy current and yeah just like a good experience to have if you're going to be paddling whitewater and so this was an awesome little set for us to spend a good amount of time at and a lot of fun. I was under for longer than I expected. Yo how was that? Man that was a lot of fun that was honestly nerve wracking at the top because I've never done anything like that but so glad I did. It's a free wonderland I don't get why people pay go to Vaughan Ontario come to the Ottawa River come on that's a lot of fun. Yo anything you noticed for your first swim through like anything that surprised you was the current stronger you punched through really quick. I would say your head was above very very yeah I would say I was surprised by how powerful it was like obviously during the canoe but like once you're in there like I was super surprised I felt like there's so much it wasn't just going forward it was like it was pressure from everywhere you know so I don't know. And what about where you ended up at the end? I ended up way down there I might have to to spruce up my swimming skills but like that's another good thing to know right like if you were to swim in a set that we weren't like you weren't supposed to hit what's down below yeah it's like how how look how this current doesn't even look that strong and it's like how quickly you need to turn on the jets turn on the jets yeah to get to I think that was the biggest surprise honestly like how how hard you actually have to swim just to get through this like little slack water yeah it seems like slack water yeah adrenaline is pumping right now I'm excited I did that yeah that was awesome man pedal hard pedal hard nice see how quickly that grabbed us yeah good nice bro all right so we just made it to Garvin's which will be a portage for us today and every day probably all right folks so we're at the next set here we're scouting it right now it's a pretty easy set we hit it yesterday uh but we in the name of practice we're looking to to complicate things here and make a little bit more technical we're basically just trying to catch as many eddies as we possibly can on the way down eddy hop we're like frogs and all I know is that we basically needed to hit that the crashing waves yeah nice brother yo that was perfect so now slip us to the left we're trying to end up in in that little eddy back there so we'll slip out a little and just let the current take us back yeah so do some draws draws draws draws forward paddles left tilt let it drop back a little more dude that was perfect draws in there nice man okay so now we're gonna ferry right across so look below because we need to catch it pretty good uh back up a little and we're gonna paddle forwards and basically try to punch right out but keep a good angle no we're we're gonna lose it let's just we'll drop into this one eh yeah pedal hard pedal hard dude that was pretty good good recovery right tilt nope now all right so we made it to another set of rapids I think it's one of our last of the day and I think we're in a portage oh yeah yeah it got caught on the gopro back pedal straight through here all right so we are at one of the final sets of the day one of our favorites just some big pushy waves a little rooster tail at the top that we kind of want to be to the left of yeah we're just gonna have some fun splashing down the middle there's a couple spots we want to avoid on this one which is why we want to hit to the left of that rooster tail just to set us up so we don't hit any of the holes that are on the right side of the river and just some extra big waves on the on the left side of the river so pretty clear down the middle but if we line ourselves up with the left side of the rooster tail up top I think we're I think we got ourselves a good line on the way down how you feeling I'm excited favorite set of the uh this little section of the river so I'm ready to get just splashed around and even though that's English but I'm ready yeah you might need to do like we're gonna try to keep well you know where we're going man we want to be left of the like probably draw like we want to be a little bit more left yeah might even be too far right still like see how it's pushing us yeah you got us yo this is sick you're drawing I'm prying right now yo this is perfect make sure to have an eye on that far ready too eh we're good we're good yo that night and day change on those paddles bro yo also not having to paddle forward at all stuck that another great set out here absolutely stoked to hit that line it was so sick you love that one eh yeah man so I could I could just camp here just run that like 20 times that upcoming video next video stuck it nothing like getting under the oak nothing like getting under the oak all right guys that wraps up another beautiful day on the river awesome weekend out here we're both feeling really good on whitewater and uh honestly I don't think that could have been a better maiden voyage for the new canoe new spray deck and new outfitting so super stoked about that guys leave us a comment let us know what you thought don't forget to give us a like and feel free to hit that subscribe button see you out there happy paddling can't forget the bike