Quick Solo Overnight Camping in Algonquin

Hey guys, how's it going? I am just looking for a campsite for tonight. I've been traveling around Ontario. I had some business to attend to in southern Ontario a couple days ago, so I did that, but I knew I was going to be driving around some rugged spots, so I brought my canoe. I brought a backpack full of gear. um i stopped earlier today in eastern ontario where i caught my personal best bass the thing was enormous i was so excited to get i was shaking uh when i was trying to lip it but very cool there now i'm driving i drove all day after that on the north end of algonquin and cedar lake i was about to get a hotel for the night because i didn't think that i was going to be able to access anything by the time I got there but it was still open the the park office was still open so now I'm just paddling around this really big lake they're pretty dramatic sky in front of me here just looking for a campsite it's 705 so I don't have much time left but I see a few orange flags in front of me go check some sites out I got some dehydrated food I got a tarp and a tent to sleep in so i'll be nice and comfy tonight for this kind of uh impromptu camp i have all my gear and i wanted to just didn't think it was gonna happen there's an orange camping sign up here site looks pretty decent size looks like it might be a cool campsite might be able to access over here on this slanted rock like a glove perfect look at that go check it out i'm pretty sure 99% sure i'll be staying here wood already fucked up there with a bunch of birch bark a decent flat spot up here yeah yeah this looks great this is home for the night bonus faithful backpack in forever i didn't know what i was going to be doing when i came so i brought a little bit of everything but i gotta get down to my tent right now set my tent up get some food on because i'm starving hopefully get out and fish a little bit if i have time before it gets too dark we're lovely plain overhead this pizza casserole i've never done one before so i never dehydrated one before we'll see how it goes still smells good it was kind of great on the greasy side but pizza casserole man super good cheesy i want to have parmesan cheese to put on it too bonus that has to cook out quite a bit longer I put too much water once again so the lid is off it's steaming away i checked out this little bit of wood in hopes that i could use it it's all soaking wet the birch bark is obviously good to But that is soaking wet there is however from previous campers it's down pine, and I felt it It feels pretty dry, so I have my silky saw with me as well as my boys axe I'm gonna try and buck up a couple pieces of this It's a decent size around for the silky But I'll only do one or two pieces not to be not gonna be too much work And I can have a little bit of a fire tonight You can see how big it is compared to my hand and saw there's no it's no small piece, but yeah We can get along on it I like to use two hands on the saw. Goodness, it is not the driest thing, as you can imagine. Okay, let's split it open to see how wet it is. It might not even be worth cutting another piece. It might be too wet to burn. Pretty dry. I'm probably going to get another piece off of this, but I don't want to use my saw. I think I'll buck it up with my axe real quick. My pizza casserole is about done, so I don't know if everyone knows what pizza casserole is but basically it's macaroni noodles ground beef some pizza pepperoni spaghetti sauce and cheese all made into a casserole this one's done try her out long day casserole stuff is that just like a poor white person thing pizza casserole pepperonis didn't hydrate that great and they're very greasy it's okay everything's rehydrated except for those pepperonis pretty greasy I probably won't do that one again but it was worth a shot you guys got to check out this footage of me catching that personal best bass today. Check it out. I got something on. I fished this specific lake probably a hundred times. Oh my goodness. I think it's a lake trout or a big bass. It's enormous. I've never caught a fish in here anyway out of all the years I've been coming here. It's a fighter. I don't know what it is. Oh, it's a beast of a bass. Holy bass. That's the biggest bass I've ever caught in my life ever by far oh my goodness oh my goodness what a big fish oh my god holy crap there's no joke the biggest bass I've ever caught in my whole life why is it this big it's a big bass oh man I am stoked I wish I had something to weigh this guy with he's big he's very big oh my god i was so excited about that thing like i fished in that lake so many times i never caught anything i had to drive down to near Barry i'm on the west i drive around the lake down Perry Sound way Clarny past Clarny French River Perry Sound to Barry do my business then i want to boot over and see a buddy who i hadn't seen in a while so i booted east over toward the Kawarthas with him spending the night there like I said hadn't seen him in over a year since before I moved and had the thought of in the morning going back to my old shelter so I went over near there and threw a line in and caught that that bass and it was so early so I said yeah you know what we'll keep going so I started going tonight and traveling tonight today until until tonight which is now 809 I think it was like 630 or something I first talked to you so yeah did some pretty a lot of stuff in a little amount of time got my tent set up I still have to put my sleeping bags and and blow up my sleeping pad and all that and possibly put the rain fly on but anyways I'm eating food nice night a firewood cut just a little bit things right I thought I was gonna have to end up spending the night in the hotel like I said I was supposed to camp last night and I didn't and I thought oh man I gotta gotta get one camp in but make it make the whole trip you know I mean so definitely want to do this more so than spend a night in a hotel I had to drive down a 45-minute logging road to get here and then find a spot but the lady at the at the permit center said I was one of there's only two other groups I was the third person or group boat so there was a lot of sites to choose from I'm coming back here in a couple weeks with buddy Mike this is the entrance we're using cedar cedar lake entrance we're gonna do a six night seven day trip big trip lots of kilometers so it's cool to come get reacquainted with this before beforehand i did i drove all the way around man i came down from my house and did a big loop went through Algonquin Park east hung out with my buddy came underneath Algonquin and back up around Algonquin going back west now i did a huge loop i drove for like 16 hours since i got since i left my house a few days ago well get back with you guys in a little bit well it's dark that's for sure no uh no fishing tonight but i'll hit that up in the morning for sure somebody's got a fire going across the lake there got my firewood all prepped out kindling and stuff over there bigger pieces and i got my birch birch bark in the fire pit and the fire pit all cleaned up so let's get this thing going mosquitoes are out surprising it's late in the year for them work out too good that'll make a fire the wood's kind of damp so i really made sure to split some down good get some other dry twigs and pieces and not just try to burn all the damp stuff that should burn pretty good until i get a hot bed of coals and then i can burn the bigger damper bigger damper stuff it's almost nine i'm not going to sit up too late but another hour or so you got lots of bags lots of center zip pouches these are all fox lite fox lite gear pouches this is a old fox titanium pouch food bag lots of handy bags my food's in here we got to get that up on a tree so my camp the tent is over there the water is that way if I put it on that tree over there way back there it's kind of near the water and away from my tent Try to tie it on the side with the most obstructions in the way just heard something behind me it's just a fire I think I should get my rain fly on it was a little damp in the air about that new light I'm real tired. i seriously have been driving all damn day some other things I like to bring in my tent especially in the cooler weather starting now it's getting pretty chilly at night some nice thick extra socks to change into if I feel like it when I change when I take my other ones off some thin long johns that trusty old toque little black toque and a puffy and that way I have it in there I don't have to worry about needing to come out to get something pretty much everything I need is in there my waters here too so when I get out to go to the bathroom at night I normally have to pee a bunch I'll just stick my knee like kneel outside of this and pee right outside of it so that's why I put my my sit pad there then again sometimes if I need to prop myself up I'll use that to somewhere underneath my pad all right and of course need to bring you guys camera comes in as well with the tripod this is all a tight squeeze but it works I really like this little tent around the block okay time to get situated well I got a pretty flat lay here pretty comfortable falling asleep just laying here so I'm gonna head to bed I'll get with you guys in the morning we're not gonna get out of here too early get up make some breakfast paddle around and fish a bit still think i have about a six hour drive home plus the about 45 minutes it took down the logging road to get here but um yeah we're not gonna rush anything in the morning we'll chill out i think i'm going to be in for a very good night's sleep i'm super exhausted it's been an extremely long day like i've been saying so you guys have a good night or whatever time of day you're watching this i'll see you in the morning good night sky this morning purples and reds and oranges up behind me all black this is what i caught my bass beast on yesterday it's a deep diving CC shad and this one looks like a perch if you watch my uh top three fishing lures video you'll know that the other one to this different colored one more neutral color was one of my best lures and with a caravan. Caught tons of walleye, a few lake trout and a bunch of pike on it. Very good lure. Drop this right down. It's a big deep lake and there's a bunch of different fish in here. See if we get anything. If not we'll try and fish some small spinners or spoons at the river. It's the mouth of the Petawawa, if you remember correctly. Doug and I crossed Algonquin Park from west to east maybe two years ago now something along those lines and the Petawawa is the river that was used and we caught a bunch of trout in that river so it's promising this is an access lake so it has boat usage motorboat usage so who knows who knows how fished it is with that lake that I caught that bass in yesterday was motorboat use as well we've been fished out like crazy and I still got them so we shall see full-blown raining now farther of a paddle than i thought it was i gotta put my big camera away underneath my jacket or something i should have brought a bag or my rain gear but i didn't realize it was going to rain and how far this is going to be i'm almost there now it doesn't even look like i can hear moving water at all so it's probably just a trickle especially at this time of year but we're a couple hundred yards out so just go check it out then get back to the camp pretty quick cook up breakfast and get this camera out of the wet out of the uh rain it is now let's get in there there's a carcass there's a carcass yeah i'm gonna fish this fishing here i'm gonna switch off to a lightweight spoon with some spinners we'll fish this a bit then we'll go check out this carcass over here what is this Look at this moose, just to hide some bones, a little bit of fur, all that's left of Mr. Moose. All right, well this water's very shallow in here. I'm gonna just go over to that corner over there, try that, and then dip on back. It's raining for reals. A little loon fresh, yup. La la la la la. La la la la la. I know. Here's my camp, I am drenched, man. My boat's starting to fill up with water and everything. Not gonna stop today. I got my tent out, I'm going to get it all put away and everything, cook up some breakfast stuff. I seem to have broken the viewfinder on the back, my LCD screen. I don't understand how. I'm just not getting any picture through it. I hope it's not from this little bit of rain that it got on it before I covered it up. This is my Nikon. My Canon took way more abuse than that. My Canon went in the Great Slave Lake and still worked. So I'm hoping that that's just not going to work for now, but that's kind of disheartening. I can look through the eyepiece and see that it's still working, but I can't see anything on the back I got to get out of here. I'm drenched man. It's freaking raining. I left my Vestibule open and everything I obviously didn't expect it to rain just yet Alright, you can see where my tent was where the dry patch is I was gonna make oatmeal and hang out for a bit, but with my camera messed up like that I can still film, but it's like impossible, and I can't ever tell if I'm in frame or what's going on so I want to get out of here I want to grab a granola bar out of the bag and eat it up before this paddle across I'll teach you with me I get to the car I got a long drive today anyway so yeah this won't be the end I'll just I just got to get out of here real quick I'm soaked so I'm just paddling out here thinking it's actually not too bad paddling in the rain I don't mind it I'm soaked to the bone but I got this extra layer on now and I'm creating this like micro climate of warmth underneath but I'm just thinking that because my car is like a 20 minute paddle up that way you know what I mean as soon as I get out of the lake my car is right there I've got this down to a science packing this thing up so I'll be out of the rain in a matter of a half an hour 40 minutes I'll have dry clothes on and be driving home but think of the times but what if this wasn't that what if this is your first day and you were just starting the first day of a five-day travel all day type things not like you just get to a camp in a half an hour and set up in the morning and sit there and do nothing i don't want to do that you know what i mean and if you plan a trip here in Algonquin you need to stick to your game plan and travel to where you say you're going to and i've done that there's videos multitude of videos of it raining maybe not necessarily on the first day a couple of those on the first day but of it raining second day halfway through the trip whatever like this and you know it's gonna rain all day this isn't warm weather anymore as you can see it's in the 50s um fahrenheit and what is it like 15 15 degrees celsius something like that anyways it's not warm so you have to be prepared i should have brought i should have been wearing my rain gear even even just the way it looked this morning should have at least had it with me but again i was just paddling across the lake but um yeah you gotta be prepared a tarp rain gear actually i like to wear when it's this type of weather and raining all day and i know i'm paddling in it i like to wear rain pants pants and then long johns underneath because your rain pants are going to soak through when you're sitting when you're paddling all day so they all get wet but then the long johns keep you warm while i'm wet and then when i get to camp i'll have a second pair of long johns and lately a thin type a thin like nylon pair of pants as well then you have your tarp set it up preferably over top of the fire get some firewood if you can split some split some stuff down try to get to the inner stuff the inner dry wood and then start a fire slowly and get it going so you can dry out your stuff and maybe sleep with some of your wet gear on the in the bottom of your sleeping bag don't wear it but keep it in the bottom of your sleeping bag so it stays warm and starts to dry out a little bit gets a bit humid in there but next morning it's it's always a plus and then usually within a couple days the sun comes back out and it's glorious but i have a video of a five day trip i did high high distance every day and they didn't stop raining for more than maybe a couple hours throughout those whole five days and i was alone trying to catch fish oh it was um endearing look back on it with an endearing type of feeling but at the time it was hard work anyway still got a ways to paddle before i get to the takeout came back in the truck changed out all my wet stuff off it's always good to bring a change of clothes in the car especially if you have a long drive to go there's no way i would have wanted to do that drive soaking wet yeah look i'll show you camera's on so thank god it just wasn't coming on at all before anyway oh man my mic got soaked too that's okay everything will dry out i got a big old long 45 minute drive down some logging roads before i get out to backcountry highway so we'll do that maybe find a Tim Hortons i ate a couple granola bars excuse me let's go oh i'm freezing kiddo's back in school now i never even got her out camping once this summer when the bugs were a big deterrent for her and there was lots of stuff going on but we're gonna take some time to get out for a couple nights this fall it's crazy this is the first this is like maybe september 7th 6th something like that and it's cold and very fall like already the colors are starting to change up home and down here so i'm sure that the fall will come and go too quick just like always but even if I have to take her out of school for a couple days to get some camping and that's totally fine too. Let's get out of here. The baby's probably old enough now to start taking out. Maybe I'll do a whole family camp with my big canoe. That'd be kind of fun and exciting with Tripper in the canoe. Oh no air conditioning today. People all camped all in here. There's some ranger cabins you can rent here apparently instead of camping which is suitable for some people I like to do that too when I have the family I'm being honest this isn't the way out I just thought I'd come down here there's a store maybe there's some bathrooms it'd be nice if there's a little privy this is the access Kyle and I used when we did our big big Algonquin trip in the fall like three or four years ago I go in the wrong way there no store anymore I'm turning around there's the store the old store well that was quite funny i went into the store and talked to uh jake and a couple of other guys and they came out and were oogling over my pack boat lots of questions and seemed to be very interested in it the funny part about that is when kyle and i did that trip maybe three years ago to the brent store we talked to jake the old timer jake about it and he was trying to sell us on not getting them and that that was the trip that kyle bought one on the way home he's trying to talk us out of them so somehow the tables have turned in about three years anyways good trip I'm gonna drive home now I got about six hours to go so I'm gonna end it here had a rainy day but it's not so bad I'll see you guys soon with new videos take care