Alone In Algonquin. Day 1 - MOOSE

I'm spending three nights solo camping, I'm traveling a distance of about 16 to 18 kilometers a day, three campsites, lots of portages, I need this, I need the solitude, I need the challenge, come along with me, I think you're going to enjoy this one. So I did my first big portage, my first portage of the trip, and it was a big one, it was 1,200 or 1,300 kilometers, did a single carry, no problem, so now I'm at the second portage of my trip which is going from Casey's Lake into Daisy Lake and from Daisy this is a twelve twelve hundred meter portage again and from Daisy I'll be cutting up into the Petawawa River and once I'm in the river there's only a couple little portages I'm about maybe a third of the way done for the day and I've been going for three hours so that's about right I have a big day today I put like 18 clicks down something around those lines so I'm just fueling up before I head on this portage drinking my water eating some sausage eating some fruit stuff so i'm gonna take it easy i'm gonna make sure that i do it every time before each portage before a big portage drink a bunch of water eat a bunch of food rest for a minute and get my way to boatman this is my first time solo canoe camping in Algonquin Park so far so good so far real good drove all night to get here i slept in my car i had about four hours sleep old station wagon gotta love all the water down the back of your neck. So I'm about to start a short 130 meter portage from Daisy to the Petawawa River. I'm excited to get on the river. I've not been on this particular river before so I have no idea what it's like. If it's rocky, if it's marshy, if it's low. Hope the water is not too low but I can get through some low water in this thing a few inches and I'm good so I'm sure everything will be good and if not I'll have to line it and that's okay too certainly not disappointed with this so I'm gonna stop here and have a snack break watch these butterflies chase each other there's a moose over there just like that he's gone it's a young one I got pretty close the shores I don't know 30 feet that way yeah he was pretty skittish but he let me get a little bit close that's pretty cool Moose, day one. I just completed a 935 meter portage. Single carry, no problem. Blah, blah, blah. You're great, Joe. But now, there is a second moose at the end of the portage over in the marsh. Let me see if I can get him. There's a bigger one right there. There's a huge bull there. And that other guy over there. Oh my goodness. Moose territory. Holy crap, man. He took off as I was getting into the boat But I did notice another little piece of wildlife A little leech got into my boat There you go This is Misty Lake It's a considerable sized lake And this will be my home for tonight Oh wow, bald eagle Man, there's some animals out here Holy I haven't looked at this lake yet So we'll have to go see where some good sites are I got one picked out on the map We'll go see if anybody's there I'm here at this third a second island site and I wanted to get to that point site This I this island site is nice, but it's really windy. I think I'm gonna try to paddle over It's only for like I was saying I got a few hours before dark I got a few hours before I have to stop like I can keep going for a little bit I just I won't be able to film here because of the wind and it's just a touch windy wind wind wind wind wind So I'm gonna go down into into the cove behind that point that i was telling you or showing you on the map there i think that'll help for the wind uh might be worse bugs and no sunset but we'll see if i go over there and it's bad bad bad three times as bad i'll come back here i am at my first site of the trip it's windy man i got kind of winded um the front of my boat has no weight in it at all and when the wind really kicks up then i gotta really give her and uh i kind of got pushed here so it's an okay site it's the ass end of the lake not where i need to be but it's okay i was tired i'm done i went for eight and a half hours today um so i've been here for a while actually i've set up my tent i've ate food so i had a dehydrated shepherd's pie it was pretty good i added too much water so it was like a dehydrated shepherd's pie soup but other than that it tasted good so the wind's dying down a bit there's gusts every now and then i'm gonna go cut some firewood i think maybe i'll be able to have a fire if the wind dies down a bit i just i if it keeps up like this i can't because it'll be all into the woods but it's a good day i went all day hard i went all day hard non-stop i stopped a couple times maybe the longest time was a half an hour i saw oh i saw another moose uh from my campsite there's um a marshy bay over over there maybe i don't know man a couple football fields away not even and there was one for sure so that's four moose and there was something else in the background it could have been but i'm not sure at all but this guy was walking around i saw four moose misty lake in algonquin park if you want to see moose it's very very bright uh this trip i didn't want to bring a knife i in past trips backpacking and canoeing trips i haven't brought a belt knife and i i've never needed it the last trip i did i did bring belt knife and i put it on my belt about one time in one day so i just thought instead of doing that again i want to switch back to what i have already known i'm going to bring from now on for things like this in this trip i have a SAK bushcrafter swiss army knife uh swiss bianco bushcrafter it's got the saw the blade and the awl that's it the saw is very useful actually i've used it for a lot of things the awl is really good for striking a fire steel putting holes in wood whatever and the knife is very good to go as well but that's not going to process my firewood for me at all and for this trip i didn't bring a saw i just brought the saw on my sack farmer or bushcrafter like i just showed you i have a Gransfors outdoor axe this is the one designed by Lars Fault i've used kyle's car has one i've used it a few times uh on different backpacking and canoe trips and in all honesty it's the way to go uh it's super lightweight short but has a long enough handle where you can actually get some oomph but the good part about it is the head is thick it has a wedgie kind of head on it and normally i don't like that but for how small the head is for how small the whole axe is in total this thing packs some power so i got this from canadian outdoor equipment uh from tim the owner i've camped with him with him once he's a really cool guy we got along awesome um yeah so canadian outdoor equipment for you guys in canada this is a good place to get this i think he's the only guy that has them you guys in the states i'm sure he ships to you too check him out i'll put a link at the bottom but so far this has been a good axe man this is doing everything i'm bucking up wood um i'm splitting wood i'm making shavings this is everything ah damn it damn it that sucks just got an ember burned right through my pants I'm not even near the fire If you can see it, it's in the shadow there Right there, nice size hole anyway Burned my skin too, pretty good I had to move, it was smoking me out over there But the wind's died down So that's a good thing