Spring in Algonquin Park, A Four Day Canoe Camping Trip, Moose Sighting and How to do a Bear Hang

So that's one of our new favorite campsites. Yep. It's a good one. Navigating through here in the spring is a lot easier than later on in the season because it fills in with lily pads and it can be tricky to know which way to go to get to where you need to go. We actually got lost here a couple of years ago, it was filled with lily pads and we just couldn't figure out which way to go but it's a lot easier now before they've come in, they're just sprouting. Pretty cool. She wouldn't do anything funny, she was just letting them know, hey, it's just a few more camps. That's the thing though, you run into them on the portage and they don't care, like they're just like, get out of my way. Yeah, it's kind of scary. Okay, so we saw a portage sign, we thought we were done but we're not done, so we're backing up and we're gonna have to pull over some beaver dams back over that way. Okay, we'll have to pull over this guy. That was some very icy water and we're gonna have to get out for this one too. This one's pretty tall. Stay, stay. It's very cold, it's the coldest we've stepped in so far. Yeah, it's like twice as cold as the bay that we were just in. There's a blanket here with a tiger on it, it's kind of cool. I kind of want it, I kind of want that thing, I kind of want that. It's pretty sweet, what is it? It's got a tiger on it. Anyway, wow. Yeah, we've made it all the way across the path here. It's swim o'clock. Yeah, it's very sweet. Can you stay? Look at this, a little driveway. Na zdrowie? Nice driveway? Hop out. Okay. So cautious. Ooh, this plank is uh... Let me just... You're gonna go further? No. We're gonna have a little snuggle. McIntosh Lake. Looking beautiful. Emma fell off, fell off the canoe because we lost a wrapper and we turned around to get it and she got excited and then she fell out. So now we have to haul her back in. Did you have a good swim, Emma? McIntosh Lake? You had a good swim? That's another downed tree over the portage. We're in Timberwolf. Okay, hop in. There's a lot of fallen trees. I'm gonna have to get through there. It's really bushy where we got out. It's kind of... You what? There's a lot of trees and it's bleak. You think you can get the canoe out of there? Yeah, I can. Should I walk over there? Sure. Huge, huge boulders. Cliffs. It's nice and sunny because none of the leaves are coming yet on the trees. Pretty steep to get down now again. How was that one? A little much? A lot of climbing. Yeah, that was a lot of climbing on that one. Misty? We're in Misty now from Timberwolf. 2.51 I think we got another hour and a half to go. So we're gonna take a break and have our lunch snack here. And we've been snacking, but our pepperoni and cheese snack. You heard cheese? Flat pretzels, baby bells, and pepperoni. Pretzels are a new addition. You like those? You were saying you think it's a good addition? You can't go without them now. Yeah, there's a lot of rocks there. It's really shallow. It's very difficult to pass. Be careful and go slow. Starts off pretty steep. Got a 1k portage here. 5th portage of the day. Got 7 total. Another tree down. Wanna go that way? Or that way? A little bit soupy over here. Oh, it's green. Tired? I think the worst is over. I hope so. It's pretty late in the day for anything worse than that. I think it's like 3. Maybe it's 3.30. I don't know. I don't know how you're doing all these. You must have infinite energy. I do offer to help every time. Just saying. So many fallen trees today. Oh, you need to just go a little lower. Yeah, you're good. Alright, I'm next. Just approaching our last portage. Oh, the sun flare is terrible. 540 meters to Bandit from Winona. Our 7th and final portage of the day. I'm so tired. It's uphill again. We made it. Finally. We didn't die. I hope so. So there's only 2 sites on this lake. That was one of them. We passed it. And it's pretty shady. So we're gonna go back to the first one and check that one out. I mean, we don't really have much choice. So I think we'll take the other one. We've discovered there's a crow's nest on this island. On this small lake that we're staying on. Cool. I think we're gonna call this one home. I bet the lake's pretty warm. Wait. No. Nice. So I threw the first rope over the branch. And I have a bowline on the end of it. So I'll put the first carabiner on. And then I'll put this pulley on. And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take the second rope and put it around the pulley and then put this up in the tree. And we'll use the second rope to put the food up and down. This rope, I'll just tie it off and we won't touch it anymore. And that way we're not putting any weight on the branch and having to use friction against the branch to pull the food up and down. It also allows you to pull it away from the tree, which I'll show you in a second. So I can start to pull this up but I need to hold onto this so I don't lose it. And I'll pull it up about 3 or 4 feet. So now on the end of the second rope I have another bowline and I'll put another carabiner on. And then this is what's gonna attach to the food bag. We always put a bell on just to give us a bit of a a warning in case something's trying to get in. I'm gonna hoist it up. You can see there's no friction. It's a bit low. But once I go back here pull it away from the branch. Perfect! And even if the bear was on the tree Just like that? And it climbed the tree and then it was trying to reach the wood. And even if it somehow got onto this branch and was hanging from the branch it wouldn't be able to reach. Because there's distance this way too. So there's no way. The only way it could get the food is if it figured out that there's a rope tied to it. And then started kind of like pulling on the rope and then maybe biting it or something. Or like using its weight to kind of shimmy along here and pull the branch down. It's possible. They could still get it. If they're really smart. Alright. Job well done. Get your dino. Bring your dino. Let's go. Gonna need to use those earplugs tonight I think. It's actually definitely loud. Yeah. It's pretty loud. Alright. Alright. Let's get a fire going. Dinner. Some big leeches. Let's go to bed. Goodnight. Time for breakfast. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. He made me really happy. He came to see us. He could hear every detail in his call. Yeah. In the middle of the night an owl landed on the tree right on top of our tent and was calling. It was so loud and amazing. Emma wait. Good girl. I really like that campsite. It's beautiful. Every campsite in Algonquin is different so it's hard to say what I prefer. But I do like the smaller lakes. They're very quiet except for in the spring when you've got a million spring peepers right next door to you. It's very peaceful on the smaller lakes. There's less wind. There's usually less campsites so there's less chance of you get more solitude. It feels like true wilderness. This one here has another campsite right across so hopefully if we stay here again we'd be the only ones but it was perfect. Yeah this is the other site right there. Right across. I think you can only book one site though. No you can book two. It's kind of surprising that they would let you book two sites on this lake because they're so close together. It's a little awkward. I mean if you're with a bigger group the maximum size per site is nine I believe. So if you had more than that it'd be kind of nice. Yeah but it's not much. Well actually this one here has a lot of room to set up multiple tents. The other one's not so much. 440 Bandit to Moccasin. It's a dip. Nice one. Down. Nice. Oh yeah we should be able to get through now. That's pretty good yeah? Yeah it's fine. Down. Getting over some obstacles here. Just falling in from both sides? Yeah I don't know. You're gonna fall out. Stay. Stay. That's sinky mud. Bog dog. We made it. We got a bog dog though. Uh oh no. Yeah. Now I'm gonna have a bog bum. Over that beaver dam? The water is frigid. We were in the water for a little while and our feet are ice now. Yeah those lakes were warmer. That was cold. The river's freezing. Good girl. Leave it alone. Good girl. There's gotta be something in there. Oh they can kinda see us. Emma. Want water? Not biting. Emma's doing very well while Jamie's fishing right now. She's very tired on day 4 of the trip. Probably should try and plan fishing near the end of the trip. She gets really tired out. She's less excited. She's still very excited right now but very very calm. Good girl. You're getting treats? Stay calm. She is tied to a tree because she will knock me over. I can't hold her when she gets really excited. Right now she's being very good. Stay. Was it fun? I knew something was wrong. The water level did go down since we've been here 3 days ago. Magneto on. Good trip? Great trip. Pretty challenging. Hardest trip we've ever done with Emma for sure. Probably hardest ever. It was good. I would do it again. Me too. I would prefer the first two days not be going straight into the wind like we were. Those were pretty hard. Emma's sleepy. Ready for the long car ride home.