16 Days in the Wild

It's hard to believe this lake gets this calm. There's not a ripple. Any ripples are coming from my paddle. It is very early. I'm super, super, super happy to be getting through this lake while it's calm like this. I have voiced my disdain for it, but right now it's heaven. There's mist coming off everywhere. There's mirror images in the water. My hat fits now because my hair is not stupid. Well, it's still stupid, but in a different way. Red pine growing here in this area, the side of a rock. Took me two hours to get down to the end of this beast of a lake. I single bladed it all and I'm happy that I did. And I can hear some rapids up here so that means I'm going the right way. I haven't even turned my phone on. I haven't in the past couple of days. Coming up to the longest portage of the trip, potentially. It's over a kilometer long. It's called the Fantasia Portage so it's very pretty. I've done it with my property for it. I'd like to show you guys some of this Fantasia Portage. It's very pretty. I do, I do for being pretty. This might take me a minute to get this down. I got it at home I think I've only done it once here. The fanny pack is great except for the strap slips I think I can fix it with some rubber ties at home. Honestly, it might be the winner of this whole trip This little blue, I'm already culling it. I've got my map, I've got old blue. I've got my two paddles Two pods, two bags. This is gonna go like this. That's all there. A lot of balls to pad. I'm ready to go It's not that bad actually. Much, much lighter than it was. A bit better We will see Mickey Mouse. The sponsor for this week's video is BlueEddy. This is the BlueEddy Elite 100 V2. The feature I like most about this power station over others is that it's 1800 watt and it is literally a small compact size. It's 25 pounds but like it's small and can go anywhere so it's got a lot of power to it for that size. In fact the compact size is only 17 liters and it's 30% lighter than the first one making easy for a one-handed carry it's got blazing fast charging with turbo boost technology it enables an 80% charge in just 45 minutes and a full charge in 70 minutes with a thousand watt solar input it has smarter operation 50% faster for seamless power backup whisper quiet operation at just 30 decibels new smart app with Wi-Fi connectivity and extreme weather alerts it's got a longer lifespan built to last with 4,000 charge cycles 10 years of reliable performance and durability for harsh conditions. Blue Eddie's Cyber Monday deals are here. You can get up to 70% off during the sales and an extra 5% off with my code JOE5OFF. Check it out in the description. Thank you, Blue Eddie. On to the video. I came to this campsite, and it's beautiful. Lots of open space. It's got sun. I set up a tarp for shade. My tent's back there on a nice flat ground, and it looks to be very good fishing out there and good swimming. I'm gonna go take a dip now because I'm real warm. It's like one o'clock or whatever. It's time to stop anyways It's a full day. It's like six hours of travel. It seems to be the least I do. Black flies are not bad here Thank God Catch a fish or something. Walleye preferably. Rest of the day was real productive. I went out fishing in my canoe I caught a walleye, cooked them up for dinner I tried out one of these Norse side dishes garlic parmesan thing was pretty good. Would try it again I got a whole lot of writing done and for a bunch of swims now It's 10 o'clock and ready to go to bed. I'm also ready to get up and get out of here to the walleye kitchen tomorrow I might not even camp there. I don't even know at this point You know what I mean whenever I make a plan it just does not happen at this point on this trip So we're gonna see I'm gonna try and fish there though. I'll tell you that much. We're gonna fish maybe lunch I can't eat my my lunch meat is no more. I tried to make a sandwich today and I ate one piece just to test it and 14 days is too much day 15 I'm excited for today Walleye Kitchen it is an overcast day lots of mosquitoes no black flies yet that's good 6:17 I'm an hour past yesterday I didn't want to leave early today at all I wanted to sleep in I end up getting up at like 4:45 managed to stay in bed now until till now so it's time to get up we're gonna make some pancakes and we're gonna get a move on i'm at the beginning of the portage trail already so the first thing in the morning right off the hop is a portage i have gone through uh so i have two pens left there's four four in here and i brought three extra and i have two left so six seven sorry i went to five pens these are garbage these are absolute garbage i have these two pens left The pens are good. I just mean they're garbage now. Oh, I better do that up. It doesn't matter I'll have a lot of dead mosquitoes on my tent this morning or tomorrow morning Tonight, I know what I'm doing. That's funny one kept flying by and doing that yesterday. I I'm happy for today. Nice way to wake up your day It will be nice and there's no weight on my back and it's a short enough portage I think uh everything's everything's good or else i wouldn't be doing it i'm doing it for for the heck for the fun for the vidya for the waking up and not being able to do this at home for it was with my gear so i don't forget it on the second run have i mentioned how much i absolutely love this Ripple FX paddle because i sure do this swift service what a good boat here we go holy smokers i'm having a good time man i'm in good spirits today i really am Go back and make myself a pancake all's right in the world pretty cool 15 days deep might be starting to find my groove I'm just joking. It's been a hell of a trip. Nice. Nice foggy little marshy lake. I Can smell the heat like the humidity it's gonna be a warm one The only thing of color out here other than green and other shades of green and maybe green. I punched myself in the face. I tell ya, thanks San Diego guys. Oh, flipping two at a time. Two at a time. Oh these straight up flapjacks at this point, yo. Like the sound effects and the screech Alright, cheers guys. I can't wait to take my kids camping now that I have pancakes down perfect. I'll bring bacon, pancakes, it'll be a good time. Lots of that this year once I get home. I am missing my family, I'll tell you that. Alright, goodbye, good camp. See you maybe again. I don't know if I told you guys, I do remember this spot with Mike. We didn't camp here, but we passed on by and remarked on how nice of a camp spot it would be. Also, Walleye Kitchen, which is coming up, we did not camp at, but also remarked. So I am hoping I am okay with only traveling a little bit today. By the time I get there, I'm hoping I feel okay to stop. I'm hoping it's as nice as I remember. And I'm hoping the black flies aren't too crazy. And we'll look for a couple of fishies in the kitchen. It's not the walleye friggin empty briefcase Empty cupboard. It's not the walleye empty cupboard. Empty briefcase? It's not old Mother Hubbard's cupboard It's the walleye kitchen. Nailed it. Man, I love the single blade these days. Holy smokes I don't think I'll use my double blade in a while only if needed Don't have to portage anymore and I will be at the walleye kitchen after this next portage but there's a nice set of waterfall a nice waterfall here that I want to fish under I cannot help myself took a few casts I got one on the jig don't know what it is hope it's a walleye yes nice nice nice fish I'm gonna let him go because I have another portage and it's to the kitchen peace out I'm using this green the green plasticky thing you know nice little falls I'm happy with the walleye on to the portage on to the kitchen was that cool well that sun is very orange i don't know if it's because of smoke or if it's just an orange sun either way whatever i don't smell it it's all good uh kitchen here i come i'm coming to the kitchen boy yeah kitchen baby open boy i'm talking to myself so much out loud like more so than normal freaking gone Looney Tunes day 15 oh he's just a little guy we'll let him go and another what we got oh what do we got we got another little walleye geez why are they a little i'll have to start keeping a little one here go on you're good though very next cast i'm getting them left and right here it doesn't feel big again nice and easy on the retrieve he's not he's the same size i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong i will have to start keeping them three of them make a meal for sure it's so small open your mouth you got my line like small small i'm doing something wrong i don't know what it is i gotta get closer to the rapids all right the kitchen's open but the portions are too small i had to get a bigger spoon oh i'm so witty just so witty yeah i got this guy it's been good for me in the past white and blue cleo i'm gonna try that out because jigging ain't working for biggin so the blue uh and white clear was what they want not the jig right now which is fine prefer the spoons this feels sizable unless it's a pike could be a pike no nice nice nice nice the old spoon for the freaking wind bite oh yeah oh yeah thrash around i freaking love it dude we're eating you up blue blue you see it through the fin it's not like he's a tank he's an eatable fish though and i'm to try for one more no i'm not trying for another one right now actually i'm content with this guy caught a bunch of fish it's finally an eater he's a good size for lunch i'm fine with it i'll come back out later on and mess around my campsite will be right here like right right right here at the end of the waterfall so uh let's go check it out when looking at a campsite to see if i want to stay there i look for a bunch of chocolate covered almonds on the ground so that way i don't get hungry i look for a spot where my tent can go that's going to be the flattest spot possible and if i can't find a decent spot that i can set my tent up even if i have to rig it with rocks and stuff uh i usually try to not pick that spot that site rather but there's always there's usually a way to rig it up so you have somewhat of a flat and i'm not saying it has to be perfectly flat like here here's pretty good it's all right it's already all tamped down i would look at it and see it's sloping that way a bit and i'd look up here and see this is pretty flat here i could lay with my feet here and my head up here tent would stretch out here perfect that's actually perfect yeah and i would have to use rocks because it's on top of rock there's only that little bit of ground uh duff on the ground so i'd use rocks to stake it out like i have and other people have many many other nights on this trip actually oh a bench big case all right uh let's go check out the waterfall that's a big old cedar holy smokes cedars are here but they're not that prevalent as prevalent as in algonquin say but that's old for here that's all gnarled up growing right over that rock people even use it for firewood the limbs that's pretty cool it is a nice spot first time i saw something like this was that first trip back with mike and adam after my accident after like in the fall of last year rather and uh this has changed the game use the hand adapter no need for an adapter when you have your hand and this has changed the game i don't mind sitting down and setting up camp a million times blowing up the sleeping pad sucks and everybody knows it look how fast it goes just with the hand adapter and after and it's a lantern as well days are passing quickly writing I've half done another book halfway done this book one book left after this but I don't think I'll need it ten and a half left basically hopefully I can get to the end by the time I'm done well I still have pens I'm hungry gonna get pretty hungry every day I had like a flatbread by itself today and after that fish had some snacks but I'm looking to supper so I'm making it up a bit early today shepherd's pie looking forward to that I might go to Bruce's outpost cabin it's not far from here maybe 10k table inside that I can write at I've been hunched this whole two 15 days like Smeagol writing this thing or laying out down in the in the tent and it's starting to get a bit much on my back I already have a hunchy back anyways but uh yeah if I could sit down right at a picnic table maybe inside where there's no bugs I'll do that for the day he said I could spend the night there too I'm not sure if I want to do that I might do that we shall see potatoey, corny, ground beefy, mushroom soupy goodness sure there's other things a little bit of love little bit of sticks and leaves in my cup anything with potatoes you want to over water a little bit but not at once they keep saying a little bit of time you put more you can't take away oh boy that smells so good i'm going to start bringing ketchup packets the destined ketchup packets for a while for me i'll get ketchup packets mustard packets are attained obtained already and excuse me soy sauce for the chicken stir-fry nights it'll be an early night for me i've caught two fish off the shore here. You've seen me catch fish now. I ate supper. I've been writing. Bugs are coming out and I'm pretty tired. It's only six o'clock but I got a really early start today. I woke up at like 4 30. So I'm gonna lay in there and write some more until I go to sleep. Okay so update. I have been working on the book. It's still only like 7 30 or 8 o'clock at night. I've been writing all day like crazy. I'm actually at the documentary now. The documentary that I completed last month and I'm almost done this book. I'm almost done the book, which is crazy to think of. I've been writing a lot and I'm journaling too. And it's not even just the book. It's a journal as well. I'm journaling my time out here. I'm way more book. The journal is a tiny little bit of it, but I wanted to keep that because I'm writing at the same time. I'm out here writing a book. You know what I mean? It's not just me doing it on my own time at home. That is the mission for this trip. It was the whole time. So going into this, I thought go for an extended amount of time, bring about 20 days worth of food be prepared to stay anywhere from like three weeks sounded a good like a good time to a month early on i realized i don't want to be out here for a month i don't have enough to write about for a month i cut off a couple extra loops that i could have done to extend the time and i'm near the end now i'm near the end of my book and i'm near the end of the trip so i had been thinking about maybe just sticking it out and maybe making it a 21 day trip period that way it rolls off the tongue three weeks in the wild but for who and who do i have to impress who do i have to impress other than my own ego saying i did three weeks in the wilderness there's plenty of trips i've done plenty of trips and i have plenty of trips to come i got a text on my inreach today from will says the girls wanted me to text you and tell you they miss you and they love you and it's just like ah my babies you know they're off school they're at home all the time right now and I just picture them playing and I wasn't able to play with them last last summer because my hand I was all laid up you know what I mean and then all everything after that now I'm fully aware I'm fully focused I'm raring to go I'm I want to be a present dad like I've always wanted to be and the past couple years I haven't been I've been there but not there you know I'm saying and almost um so i don't really care about the 21 days i don't really have any need or desire to actually stick it out for three weeks so just so i can say three weeks i've got 15 days now and i'm happy i'm three days past what i've already done i'm still it'll still take me a few days to get out of here so it's another couple days on top of it i'm not going to leave until my book is done that is the mission that is the job that's why i'm here but i'm that far i just like i realized that today and after getting that text just now it's like you know what i mean i'm done half that one too already a full one i'm gonna head to his cabin tomorrow see what the deal is there and uh probably make my way out in the next couple days because that's about how much time i have left in the book and how much time i have left in the trip unless i want to sit around for more days and not do any paddling and not do any traveling the past few days i've done that only like two about an hour or two hours of travel each day and that's not a joke you know but it's good for this and it's good for this and it has been good but now it's getting to be a bit old for me so recollection time caught you up i'm gonna catch up even more i promise and i'm gonna be at the Hamilton Outdoor Adventure Show this year or sorry in january or february whichever one and the Toronto Outdoor Adventure Show in january or february whichever whichever vice versa vice versus one I will be there giving talks at both I will be there probably with signed copies of my book too so I will uh have lots of info for you that coming up soon for that I do feel like I'm done I do feel like I'm done the trip I don't even really care about catching fish too much I caught a few walleye off the shore I didn't even show you just because you've seen me do it you know what I mean I want to get home to my family that's what I feel like is important And the longer I stay out here I feel more and more selfish And that's something, again, that I'm writing about And realizing even more as it goes I have been a very selfish person in life And I don't want to do that anymore I want to make a lot of changes And I'm really trying I swear to God, I am We'll see what tomorrow brings I'm going to get up and get out of here early Get over to the cabin See what it's like there Write a bunch And if I finish tomorrow I'll just bust my ass to get out the next couple days If not, I'll just take the book with me take the book with me anyway just take it with me and continue on my way and get out the next couple days anyways it's six i've been writing i feel pretty good i'm gonna get up there's lots of mosquitoes in my tent i started today with the portage again like yesterday not a big deal though i'm already here i don't have to lift all my stuff over the canoe here we go well i was right starting to rain i was able to get my stuff all put away pretty quickly but uh it is starting rain and see the wetness the wetness i'm gonna eat my oatmeal looking up at the sun on my bench and then the walleye kitchen shall be closed for another year at least nice and easy trail nobody wants a hard portage right in the morning there's a lot of big rocks flipped over on the trail here a lot hey bear like that that's a big rock to be just flipped over for no reason i don't know that a portager walking by with a canoe or a load would stop to flip that rock in the middle of a portage i do think a bear who wants some termites would uh just love that but regardless hey bear you guys won't believe well you guys will believe it because it's me the funniest thing just happened now put put the context into place right you're in the middle of nowhere you expect to see no one and then you got this guy paddling in a canoe by himself off of a portage they don't know but i've been out here for 16 days and uh of course at that moment i decide to uh rap an old game song you ain't 50 cent you went out like a gangster you went out with vivica three months after wankster and they said it like that even louder and i'm doing stuff looking at my map but i just look over them right next to a campsite with a couple there with the two dogs and they just wave i waved back now that's funny enough right but then i'm thinking about it and And I'm like, it's pretty humorous that a dude, a 41-year-old dude, out here, again, 16 days deep, by himself, Canadian at that, white as they come, white as rice. And I'm rapping an old gangsta rap song about 50 Cent being a bleep. And, like, just that alone. I haven't been listening to that type of music for years. like Steven Wilson Jr. like I'm saying Charles Wesley Godwin the Drop Tines all stuff like that is like all I'm into right now ye 50 Cent he went out like a gangsta he went out with Vivica three months after wanksta like what if I was seeing Bob Dylan or something that would be fine passing campsite you know and I would laugh a couple of camp there kind of feels like I'm on the way out here now I've seen people except for like at a fishing hole and a tin boat from a lodge and one dude canoeing, two people canoeing in 16 days now and now I've seen two sets of people just camped right near where I was, I didn't even know, thank God for the noise of the waterfalls, but I tend to get vocal out here with myself quite a bit when i'm happy when i'm angry when i'm sad i'm excited i'm talking out loud to myself to god to isaac to kyle to mike i've laughed out loud with a couple of things i've said because if they were here i know they would just be dying but anyways i feel like the trip is uh culminating now well i just happened to turn around and look behind me i hadn't done that in a minute so i switched to the old double blade look at that as black as they come right there that might might could turn into something i'd like to be off the water before that if that's lightning coming this looks like a storm to uh for the ages so a cabin sounds even better right now i would have roughed it out in a tent i just don't think i should be on the water and there's the thunder if it's going to be lightning and stuff so uh double weight it up and pick up the pace enough enjoying nature get the frick inside it's a beautiful morning here's the two things that are gonna happen it's either gonna come down when i get to about the train tracks and have like two clicks left or whatever and i'm gonna show up like like a stranger on a stormy night it's a stormy morning or it's going to come down right after I get there and it'll be perfect timing for that. Either way, I'm prepared. You know what? There's three. They could storm right this second. I'm prepared. Train tracks are right in front of me and the raindrops are just starting. Train, rain, rain, train. Rain to train on Maine. Granted, most of them are boarded up. It's just so striking, so visually striking to see something red or burgundy, whatever color that is, brown even against all the green I've seen for the past so very long. It's a little weird. I don't hate it though. This is cool. This way I just scraped my canoe the whole way. Do you see this? Do you see this? There's minnows in here. Pretty cool. I think I can paddle for some of this. I'm gonna try to at least.