Raging Whitewater with @Jim Baird - Adventurer @Explore The Backcountry | Magnetawan River

I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away, I don't know where my home is, those are the lyrics. What's going on guys? It is Alex here with Northern Scavenger. Just on my way for another weekend adventure here in the Ontario backcountry. But this just isn't any other trip this weekend. I'm actually going on a trip with a couple celebrities. Super stoked to be going on a trip with these guys, they're both excellent paddlers. We are going to be running the Magnetawan River, which is a new river for me. I know at least one of these guys has paddled it. Just typical to our classic mantra here at Northern Scavenger, we're just a couple dudes looking for adventure, and that's no different this weekend. The only problem is that you guys are now paddling with the whitewater called Jim Baird. One thing you might learn is that Jim Baird isn't really that good at whitewater out here. Hoping you don't learn that. But yeah, I might dump out there, who knows, we might have a couple spills today. We're going to be running some big stuff. We're not in a super remote area, but remote enough, so you always want to be careful. But we're probably going to push it a little bit. I'm feeling ant-man, this is going to be sick. So looking forward to this. Super stoked. Oh yeah man, stoke level is at extreme. Extreme levels. You have voice crack stoke, like that's how stoked I am. Yeah. Okay Buck, in the boat, come on. You ready for this dude? See you Tori. Let's ride it right down the center. I know. I think we're good. I think it's just a standing wave. Oh, I should have done my deck up. I'm just chilling here with it open. As we get close, just call it, because it's hard for me to stand up in the back right now, just because of the way I'm kneeling. So Alex and Brad are about to run this technical rapid, probably about a class two. It's pretty easy really, but still a few things that could go wrong for sure. Is this good right here? Okay. Ready? Now. Nice. They're just nailing it. Perfect. Nice. Yeah buddy. Dude, that was good. That was awesome. Dude, awesome line. Alright, so we got our first portage of the day. The bugs are thick, and this thing's a beast. Beautiful though. Like, we weren't even in the boat yet. It just rolled off the canoe. Dude, I had like this feeling, I'm like, that paddle's not that secure. That's why I got the paddle pockets. No worries. I hope we can find it. If it's hung up on the shore, we'll grab it. There it is. Oh dude, that's sketched. You're going to have to come back for that. Well that was a lesson in what not to do. So Jim's got to get his line perfectly here. This has got a solid drop and then a big rooster tail, and you have to hit right on the tongue. It's only probably about a foot wide. If Jim doesn't hit it, Jim's going for a swim. Here he goes, man. There's first. Gnarly. Oh, and he's out. He's okay. So after watching Jimmy flip there, we're taking a bit of a portage ski. Weighted tandem would probably be pretty sketch. We'd even sketch pretty solo for Jim there. Whatever, 100 meters. Get her over with. Right on through, dude. Right on through. We've still got to run a little class 1 or class 2 at the bottom of this. Nothing major, but you know. Why risk it? We've still got some more sets to run. I'm not sure which way we want to go down here. And then scout that? You're right. It is pushing that rock. We're good. Yeah. I think you're right. No, right there on the left. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Straight down? It's just a little sketch of that water pushing that rock there. I was like, uh. All right, so we just did another portage. We kind of Eddie hopped on the way down. And then at the very end, there's kind of an unrunnable ledge that would just flip us. So, yeah, Brad and I just carried over. Jim kind of lined his canoe down. All right, ready? Got it. Yep. Yeah! That was fun. Sure, why not? Oh, this looks fun. All right, that's a straight V, dude, and we can ride some of the wave train if you want. Here we go. Oh, baby! Yahoo! Oh, yeah, your deck came open a bit again. Dude, that was sick. This is the first stretch that we've had no rain. No rain. Holy crap, I can maybe take my camera out without it getting soaked. Hey, Bucky. Hey, Buck. Oh, hey, buddy. It's kind of nice just to paddle with no rain for a bit. Dude, this is mint. This is, like, so nice now. It's as good as it gets. I don't like to be a crybaby and complain about the rain, but, like, there's some point where I'm just like, come on, man, you know? Well, it's like on a weekend trip, too. Like, on a week-long trip, you're like, okay, it's going to rain. You start your trip, and it's pissing rain, and you're, like, in the morning, 9 a.m., it's dark. You're like, man, I'm so stoked for doing this, but at the same time, yeah, man, I don't feel this. I'm feeling it right now. Oh, well. That's why it's good, right? It's like you take the highs and the lows, right? Like the more of a low that you go through on a canoe trip, somehow you're always rewarded with something amazing. You know what I mean? Yeah, or we'll always be talking about that time that it didn't stop raining the entire trip. Like, I can just, oh, I got it. You can get up? Yeah. Oh, she's going. Okay. Oh, my God. Nice. Okay, so it's doable. I'm good. I love how you're pulling on my throw rope, and I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm stuck on a log right now. Yep. Which way? Yeah. Oh, she's tight. Here I go. Bug season, baby. We're just waiting for Jim to run here so I can get a shot of him, but they are everywhere. So brutal. We took on a little water there, eh? Wave train. The wave train filled us up. Dude, that was so worth it, though. Definitely. Oh, you guys just hit all the big stuff, right? Oh, we just went right through it. I saw you, like, with Buck kind of sneak away on the side, but I'm like, no, let's. You guys just directly for the big part. Why not? Like, we submerged the deck there. I went right under. Yeah. Bugs are so thick right now. All right, so we portaged the first half of this chute, and then we're putting in halfway, and we're going to run the bottom half of it. Looks pretty fun. Pretty straightforward line. A couple features that we might want to avoid, but, like, it's pretty much a straight shot all the way down. The better news, the sun's come out. I feel like we've earned it at this point, because, holy smokes, it was raining all day today. So, nice to have the warmth of the sun, and, holy smokes, it's beautiful in here. Boys, did we find our home? Uh, I don't know. Look, it's kind of a cool spot because of that little rapid there and the waterfall and the fishing might be good, but there's also an ATV trail in here. It doesn't look used too much, but it just, there's not too many flat spots for a tent, but it looks all right, though. The nice part about this, you get a point here where, like, a breeze will whip through. You guys want to stay here? I'm down to stay here. No. How good are these jackets, dude? Man, I am in, like, a small heaven right now. It's like a mini oasis, like, oh. Seriously, I was starting to go mentally insane by how bad these bugs were, and just because, like, it was raining, I didn't want to take my bug jacket out, like. Yeah, man. I just didn't want to get it wet. This is just, this is prime now. The sun's out. Yeah. Protected. Now it's just my hands, which is, like, whatever. I don't even really care about my hands. Yo, have you seen those little, like, finger mesh gloves you can get, too? No. They look so silly. Like, I wonder if they would actually do anything. Yeah. Interesting. Crazy. Oh, this is sweet. I know I can relax. All right, so we've made it to our home for the night. We've got a nice little set of rapids right next to us that we'll be able to fall asleep to, and hopefully catch some fish at, right through here. And then we also have the view of these beautiful waterfalls. Sissy stick. If you're too scared to hold your hand there. Yeah. It's called the sissy stick technique. Someone told me. I've got about three inches I can drop it, but I just need a bit of tension. We can always reposition, so just kind of get it down. I find this, you, like, kind of get the basic lay first. Yeah. And then you have to kind of just, like, finesse so that you can get the bug netting down. I kind of do that with my cart setups. Same, man. Like, sometimes I'll just, like, quickly just throw a tarp up when it's, like, pissing rain. I don't really care. Other times I'm like, no, we've got to make this right. You don't need much, man. You can put that up anywhere, basically. Yo, nice setup. I got the hookups and the setups. Buck's just loving it in there now. Oh, yeah, he's not done. He's done, man. Buck is down for the count. No bugs anymore. What a trooper. Looks comfortable. Yo, what's going on, guys? We are reporting live from the safety of the bug tent. And it is just, like, I can't even describe in words right now how nice this is. It's a war zone out there. Like, it's a literal war zone. It is insane. Like, just to be in here without my bug helmet on. So nice. And we're getting dive bombs, like, out there. Look at them all. Yeah, like, above you. Yeah, it's insane. Man, you brought corn on the cob, too? I brought corn on the cob, too. Brad does not mess around when it comes to food. And we were eating like kings on this trip. Because he also brought poutine. Crazy. You ever had poutine on a bad country trip? I have not. This is going to be my first time. I think. I don't think I've had poutine. It's usually, like, a post-trip thing. But I'm like, man, it's a weekend. Like, we can bring it. Today was, like, a nice day of paddling. Wouldn't have been overly difficult. Minus the fact that it just rained on us all day. And, yeah, the rain and the bugs combined just made it tough. But it wasn't too bad of a day. And the boys deserve some good eats tonight. And that's what we're going to do. We're having some burgers. We have some corn wrapped up in here. Brad is currently making us some poutine, which is unreal. Yo, what do we have here? We got, like, a little poutine special? Oh, we got the poutine shop. Poutine shop. You're messing up my language skills here. Got some fresh cheese curds going on there. I'm going to come in for a cheeky fry. Oh, yeah. Some curds. Oh, yeah. Those are nice and toasty. We got some gravy. Got the gravy train going on here. Oh, baby. Give me a little extra. Nice. Melt those squeaky cheese curds a bit. It's going straight to the arteries. So good, though. If I was just swimming in gravy, I'd probably overpour the gravy, but... Oh, my God. It's so good. Oh. Good eats. Oh, cheese curds are, like, the perfect sweetness, too. Say something in French, bro. Bon appétit. Je t'aime de poutine. Je m'appelle poutine. My name is poutine. Brad, what happened? I don't know. I kind of slipped on the wet rocks and stumbled and smoked my toe into one of the rocks, and now I'm pretty sure I fractured it. Oh, man. So she's not feeling good. You're hobbling around pretty good this morning. Yeah, it's swollen about, like, twice the size at least now, so... Jim's been basically not wearing a shirt the whole time. The bugs aren't bothering him. Oh, they still suck, though. Let's be honest. They're terrible. Remember my back last night? Dude. I felt like it was, like, a thousand little pinpricks happening all at once. So gross. Just slapped Jim's back, and there was, like, 50 mosquitoes just dying right there. It's like a smear of red, basically. All right, what's going on, guys? So it is Sunday, technically day two of the trip. And we're just packing up, finishing up packing up all of our stuff. We're going to hit the river. We've got a short little paddle here, then a quick portage that apparently isn't a super fun portage, but it shouldn't be too difficult. And then after that, we've got just flat water paddling back to Wabakesh, where Brad and I are going to take out. And Jim is carrying on. His brother is meeting him, and they're going to continue on and do the lower meg for the next couple days. So it's been a lot of fun so far, and I think we've got a little bit more fun ahead of us today. I might keep my fishing rod set up just in case we see some, like, tasty pools that we want to, like, provoke a little strike in or something. Yeah. You made a better choice. So our morning portage today ended up being a bit of a grind. Lots of ups and downs. I got lost multiple times, and the bugs are just so thick right now. Epically thick. But it's over. We're moving on. It's miserable. It's killing, like, multiple just with random claps in the air. Look, it's right around this area. Oh, one, two, three, five. Let's see how many we can get this time. One, two, three, four, five, six. That time. Let's see this time. Wait until they get really bad here. One, two, three, four, five is your average. Between five and six. So we made it to Wawelkesh. And we are paddling the final stretches of the trip. So this is where we have to say goodbye to Jim. We're going to miss him. I don't know, man. We don't have the adventure to guide us anymore. Actually, we don't have any maps, so... We actually might get in a bit of a sticky situation here. Sarcasm aside, we don't have... We may end up getting ourselves into a sticky situation, but... Thanks for tuning in, guys, and we'll catch you on the next one. See ya. Bye, Jim. See you later, guys. My quest must continue. Don't go. Bye, guys. I'm going to miss you. We'll never forget you. I'm going to miss you so much.