Solo Canoe Camping in the Spring (on an island)

Okay and we are off and I am like a kid at Christmas. Very very excited. I've been waiting for this day for a while now. Really wasn't going to come out this early but the spring has changed drastically and it is now a beautiful, beautiful, oh gotta go this way, beautiful spring day. We don't have a long way to go today probably uh I don't know over three kilometers or something like that. I'm not going really fast testing out the new boat. This is the first time I'm actually using this for camping. Second time actually using this on the water. I got it in the winter. Got it used. Called it the pickle because well it looks a lot like a pickle and that's not to be negative because I love pickles. So anyways the pickle it is. Hopefully the pickle will take good care of me and vice versa. I will take good care of the pickle. Never been to this spot. This lake is gorgeous. Lots of little islands which I really really like. I actually have an island site so I'm pretty excited to try that. Doesn't seem to be many people out here which is weird because on the weekends this place is probably going to be pretty packed in the uh in the summer but not a lot of people know about this. It's not a provincial park or anything like that so you get out and get the good campsites while you can I guess. I brought the double paddle today as well. If I'm going to be doing a lot of solo canoeing I think I'll probably will use the double paddle at times but to be honest I don't have a lot of experience with the regular canoe paddle so I want to get better at that. My J-stroke kind of sucks but I'm uh I'm trying my best. I'm gonna get it. It's working for now. When I first did it last year it was really bad so we're getting a little bit better so no judgment please. Actually you can judge me all I want I really don't care. I'm gonna get better but uh right now I'm having fun learning. If I need to get the double paddle double blade out I will do that. Probably on some longer trips I'll do that. Pretty comfortable with the double blade coming from uh kayaks. I think I can see my island site from here just around the bend over there. Okay so I made it to the campsite. Not a bad canoe. It was a good paddle. It was probably around three kilometers. I could have taken a shortcut but I wanted to go a little bit longer because it was the first time out on the on the canoe so I wanted to go a little longer and you know what it was good. It was fun. I'm getting used to the canoe. I'm not great on it. Still trying the J-stroke and all that but I'll get it. I just need to practice more. Pretty happy with this site so far. It's got a lot of nice things. It's on an island which is fantastic. There's actually a lot of big rock formations around here so I love that. Not a lot of spots to set up my tent. We're going with the tent today because uh it's bug season and uh I really do love tarp camping and it's something I really want to get more into but for the first time in spring Canada didn't want to take my chances. We've had some nice weather so I think the bugs are just ready to have a good time and come out and party and and feast on me of course. So we're gonna try the I'm gonna try that tent and hopefully that'll keep me safe and it's supposed to be uh pretty cold. We actually have a frost advisor. It's uh 22 in the daytime here high uh celsius and it's going down uh I think around uh two or something like that so that's why there's a frost warning. Springtime in Canada can never predict how it's going to be so hopefully that'll be okay. I brought a lot of warm clothes just in case. I really do want to go for a dip. The water seems beautiful. It's a little chilly but hey I'm Canadian I can handle it. All right let's set up the tent and we got more work to do. Got to collect firewood, get a fire going. I want to do some fishing maybe after dinner. It should be a beautiful night so pretty excited. Oh okay so I just set up the tent. That's all good to go. Supposed to get cold so I have the fly on there to uh keep whatever heat is in there. For tonight I have my sleeping bag which isn't perfect for really cold weather but I have a liner in it which I haven't used before so it'll be interesting to see if that works. Everything else should be good. Uh pretty set. I still got lots of work to do. I'm out of practice. This is my first trip of the spring. I got to collect some firewood. I might have to leave the island to get some although I did see some some downed trees so we'll see about that but I have to go to the the mainland. It's not far. I'll just go over and load up the canoe. Speaking of the canoe it was fantastic using the pickle today. That was my first real test. It wasn't a long paddle out here but it was good enough especially loading the canoe and seeing how it does. It's a tandem canoe of course there's two seats but I only use it as a solo canoe. Right now I actually lowered the seat so that it works a little bit better and my bag was pretty heavy. It was pretty packed too so that canoe uh it's only 13 and a half feet I think yeah I think so 13 13 and a half feet so it was uh there's not a lot of room in it but for me as a solo uh canoeist and solo camper it did the job. It was pretty good so I'm pretty happy with that. I'm glad that uh I have that because uh trying kayak camping especially with a small kayak man it was frustrating knowing you couldn't bring much stuff and even when you did you really had to be careful out on the water. I mean you have to be careful on the canoe of course but uh you got a lot more space and a lot more the balance it seems a lot better. This lake itself is beautiful. I absolutely love this lake. The uh the island campsite this is exactly what I want in a campsite. I want to be near water and I'm right on the water obviously. It's an island that was probably a bonehead thing to say but yeah I love being uh around the water when you're camping. I love having open spaces there's not a lot of big open spaces here but that's fine there's enough trees I guess it's uh an island so uh there's not a lot of uh a lot of space on here but there's enough space there's not a lot of good spaces for the tent and uh luckily I was able to find one. Getting the tent uh pegs in the ground are pretty hard because it's mostly rock around here. Speaking of the rocks some fantastic rock formations around here that I really love. I love being able to uh film with all these rocks around here just makes the water and the site itself just looks really really nice when you're uh when you're filming it. So I'm actually pretty happy with this site. I'm hearing lots of wildlife around here. I haven't seen anything really on the island but uh I'm hearing frogs and I swear to you they sound just like uh the predator. I could be wrong but they sound so much like the predator. I don't think the predator would be here. I think they prefer the Amazon but maybe they're changing it up and coming to the Canadian wild. It's a nice spot. Nice spot to visit. Anyways uh the frogs are uh are loud and I think it's just gonna get louder as the night goes on and probably in the morning. Anyways gotta collect firewood, uh get dinner going. We're doing steak and green beans. Forgot the tinfoil for the green beans. That's okay we'll uh we'll figure something out. Then I want to go fishing. Got a new fishing rod. I absolutely suck as a fisherman. I'm sure the rod is going to make me a fantastic fisherman because the uh salesman told me that. Yeah I don't think that's going to work. Anyways I did get a better fishing rod. My other one was uh was a telescopic one and I enjoy for these kind of trips but I decided to uh to get one. I got it on sale. I'm gonna try some fishing out of the canoe and I'm hoping to do a paddle later tonight when the sun's going down because it seems really nice. Wind hasn't picked up yet so hopefully I'll be okay and then I want to do some uh astrophotography tonight. So wish me luck. Here we go. So looks like the beavers are working hard on this one here. Looks kind of fresh. Ah you know what maybe last year uh the beavers ate through it so anyways I'm gonna go with this one. It's dead and it's uh it's actually taking up some of the space over there so it's part of the path so I'll take this. It's a little bit thicker than uh I would want with my little saw. I brought the little saw today not the big one but uh it ain't getting any easier so let's get working. Oh getting pretty hungry though. I'm trying to cook before it gets dark. That's my main goal this year is when on my camping trips to cook before it gets dark because I really like just as the sun gets down the golden hour I like to film a lot so I don't want to be busy doing other stuff so wish me luck. Can't wait for the steaks. Not a bad spot to enjoy a meal. Something awesome about being able to cook on the open fire while you're camping. You know what last year was the first time I really started to cook on the open fire. Most times I would bring a stove or a barbecue or something like that but I really wanted to learn how to uh you know use the campfire. You're gonna have a campfire anyway so why don't you cook with it? So I'm still not great with it. I'm getting better trying some different recipes. I'm cheating today. Steak's pretty easy. The beans are good. I wanted to do it in the tin foil but I forgot but that's okay. Tomatoes don't really work when you fry it as well but add a little bit of seasoning on there. For my steak nothing special. All I put on my steak is just a little bit of salt and that's it. I don't like a lot of spice on it so anyways I'm gonna enjoy my meal. Cheers. There's so many minnows earlier. Thousands and thousands actually by the shore. I'm sure they're trying to stay away from the fish so I was hoping there'd be a lot of fish in here. I think there are from what I heard from some of the locals around here. They said it's pretty good. Maybe the timing isn't right. All right we'll try trolling as we go back. Maybe we'll catch something. Something tells me it's going to be a loud loud night. We have the frogs that sound like predator and then I'm not sure what that is. Is it frogs again? I'm not sure. And woodpeckers. Yeah there's lots and lots of fish jumping. I didn't catch any fish tonight of course but that's okay. This is one of my favorite parts of course of camping is the campfire. It's a pretty good day. The paddle end was nice. I still got to get used to the single paddle and you know practice makes perfect. I plan to do a lot of trips this year with the canoe so hopefully that'll be good. That's I think is my favorite form of camping now. My solo camping is actually that's a lie. My favorite form of camping is camping with the kids. I absolutely love that. That's number one for sure but selfishly when I'm by myself yeah canoe camping is going to be it. I wanted to do a lot of camping this winter and I started off I was doing some winter camping. I did tarp camping. I did tent camping and I had a bunch of other plans but I hurt my knee right in January. I was trying to get back in the shape and sure enough I was on the treadmill building up after every week I would run a little bit more and a little bit more so I was building up to my 40 minute run a couple times a week and the first time I hit the 38 minute mark and something just happened in my knee. I have lots of knee problems and sports problems. I got lots of injuries from sports. I just walk them off and normally fine. As I'm getting older I guess though it doesn't work like that. It took my body a long time to heal my knee. I had a couple you know somewhat serious injuries in the knee and it's slowing me down a little bit but I'm back to playing hockey so how bad can it possibly be? Am I right? But in saying that I probably won't be doing really long hike-ins this year like backpacking. Probably going to be tough. I think I can do bike packing. Around the site here it's actually pretty good. It's really unstable and the ground lots of roots lots of rocks sticking out so you got to be careful but you know what so far it's been it's been pretty good and lifting the canoe all that stuff is not a problem but it's just too bad. I had a lot of plans for the for the winter. Unfortunately I couldn't but you know what that's that's the way it goes. I got to spend more time with the family. I do all that kind of stuff so you know I'll take those wins as well. Anyways I'm having a lot of fun making these videos. For me it's the filming aspect that I absolutely love but I've really really started to love the whole aspect of camping and the outdoors and being able to you know be self-sustained out here you know camp into the site. Very very peaceful. You have as much freedom as you could possibly have on a canoe on a big lake like this. Pull up to a beautiful campsite. I love that freedom so I love filming but I'm actually really starting to love the other aspects of the camp. Everything from collecting firewood to campfires to cooking. I know it sounds like work and it is but man it's a lot of fun. It was intimidating at first and if people at home are intimidated about solo camping and it can be intimidating I guess you really just need to give it a shot. If I can do it honestly anybody can do it. I said it before I'm a city kid. I didn't do many I didn't do much camping as a kid so it's something that I picked up later and I'm absolutely loving this so I mean what's not to love right? I'm out here at a campfire. Nine o'clock. It's spring. Half moon. I have my friends singing me a song. Very lovely of them isn't it? Anyways we're going to enjoy the rest of this campfire and then go to bed. Wake up. Got some breakfast to go. I'm going to do some fishing. I'm going to be much more successful fishing tomorrow. I don't know about that and then then we head out. It's only a day trip. Then I got to get back. Lots of things going on so anyways thanks for joining me for the campfire and we'll see you in the morning. Oh good morning. Wasn't the best sleep last night. Nature was so loud over there. The frogs were having a blast and I was not invited to the party but I still got a couple hours sleep. I was just waking up every now and then. They were probably loud until I want to say like five in the morning and then they really quieted down and then my friends the birds, right guys? Yeah they picked it up a little bit and woke me up and sang me a song in the morning. Isn't that sweet of them? That's so sweet. Okay so we're going to start a fire. Get some breakfast going and we're out of here today. So overall it was a good good night last night. The fire was awesome. I stayed up a little bit later than I wanted to. Come on guys. Thank you and yeah it was good. So let's get to work. There we go. Normally I do scramble eggs but today I'll change it up a bit. Not too bad. I got an AeroPress coffee maker for Christmas and I was going to use it this morning but it was just running out of time. So did the old faithful. I bought those little filters to go on the cup. Actually they work really well for backpack and canoe camping but next time I'll try the AeroPress because it was a gift from the family. So nice guys. Anyways I'm gonna finish up, tear down camp. I want to do a little fishing before I leave if I can and then we got to paddle back. Okay we're all done. Camp's finished. We're about to head out.