Solo Bushcraft Backpacking Camp.

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in, this is Joe again. I'm up at the Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands. It's a non-operating park, which means I don't have to pay here, so that's what I wanted. I walked in for a little bit already, it's been about a half an hour, I'm working up a sweat. The trail's a little bit wet, it's not marked very well, and that's exactly what I wanted. This'll be my first time backpacking with a bushcraft-style backpack. I'm gonna do a one-night solo here, so stick along, it's supposed to be good weather, And good scenery. No written sign on a tree's gonna tell me what to do. I'm not going home. Look at this scenery behind me here. Huge open spots, all rock, all Canadian shield, and there's just scrub all over it. So the kind of plants and trees I'm seeing our white pine, our scrub oak, birch, and then the scrub juniper stuff too. I think I found a geocache behind me in this tree. Let's check it out. Looks like a log book or something. Little mustache guy, little hipster. I knew a man whom no school could teach, patronism. I knew a man whom no school could teach patronism, but who acquired that virtue when he felt in his bones the vastness of the land, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Oh, this is kinda cool. I'm gonna sit here for a minute, I think, and read this. Can you guys hear that? I can't either. I'm finally away from the trains, the planes, the boats, the cars, the trucks. Yeah, I can't hear anything. It's a beauty day. Like I said, I'm gonna sit here and read this for a bit. might write some stuff in there. I'm in no rush today. I'm probably gonna put 10 kilometers under my feet. I have to hike back out the same way. It's not a loop. It's just a track. So probably do about 10k today and it's only like 11 in the morning. Got lots of time. I'm gonna relax and if I find anything worth reading to you guys I will. Beautiful spelled incorrectly. From Germany with lovely Canadians. Hast son in Hønsen and Zebwin in Bach Da hem min gut fursem en stille fut ark. Nice trail. Really liked it. Lovely trail. Treacherous at times. Love it though. My new playground. I will be back again and again and again. Love it here. Hiked in Friday at 9pm. Heard noise when crossing 3rd Dam. Pulled out knife. Slipped. Dropped knife in pond. I feel your pain, buddy. There's my entry. Nothing poetic. Nothing too crazy. drove from windsor just starting my hike beautiful weather first time here 24 pounds on my back doing 10k very much enjoyed reading this thank you joe robinette back on the trail just loving life right now guys just soaking it all in here i've come to my first beaver dam crossing you can see it behind me there and i'm going to attempt to do it without getting my little feetsies wet and uh yeah we'll see how she goes shout out to kevin frazier for letting me know about this ahead of time keep seeing remnants of snow up here it's not gotten too hot up this far yet real hungry it's lunchtime I figured this is a good place to stop as any you got a view of the water and a nice soft pineduff ground so I'm gonna stop here have some lunch and just relax a little bit eating some craved jerky we got the beef chili lime it's very good very flavorful I'm about six or seven hours away from from my house in Windsor. I'm up near Minden, I guess, maybe the closest. I'm up here because yesterday I had to go to Toronto. Toronto is a huge city in Ontario. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of it. I had to go there to meet up with a backpack designer. There's a company called Why Not, W-H-Y-N-O-T, and they're out of Toronto, and they make everything in Toronto. So they have a very popular backpack called the Magnetica, and it's a pretty cool backpack, about 30 liters, 20 to 30 liters depending on how how big you cinch it down and they Tony the the owner contacted me and wanted to go collaborate on a backpack and he gave me the magnetica and I tested it a couple times at home I used in a video or two to see what I wanted to make it changes to it to make it into a bushcraft pack I gave him all my changes he sent me this backpack that I'm using now and I used it for one overnighter and one day trip and then we wanted to meet up in person to put the final tweaks on and do a little bit of filming and stuff so yesterday I went to their factory in Toronto I got to see their factory their storefront all that stuff and they tweaked this backpack even more while I was there waiting very very cool so I will give you a whole bunch more info on this backpack soon I'm going to get to a campsite in the next couple hours and I'll do it as a separate video and i'll link that to this and i'll do do that video about the backpack and what my gear is for this bushcraft backpacking trip i'm calling it a bushcraft backpacking trip because i packed a lot of gear into a bushcraft style backpack heavier gear than i would normally carry on a backpacking trip i did that on purpose i've got 24 24 pounds riding in this thing and it's going totally fine so um yeah i'm getting chilly chilly sitting here so we're gonna get back on the trail, yes. Because I've been sitting here having lunch and I had a lot of stuff out, I'm gonna make sure I check my swap before I leave. It's become a practice of mine because I don't wanna lose things. So I always just go around and make sure that I've looked around exactly in my immediate area or anywhere where the wind could have blown my stuff, but I'm good to go right now, so here we go. Just came across this plaque right on the side of the trail here. The Anaraska Hiking Trail, in memory of Bill Pryor, 1936 to 2002. Special treat for Bill was hiking in these forests and canoeing in the lakes and streams. The Oding Club of East York. That is pretty cool. Respect, Bill. We're getting pretty warm. It's getting to be the hotter part of the day. And I'm thankful that I'm wearing these Keb trousers because I can show my pasty white legs off and get a vent at the same time. So two on each leg and I can already feel the cool coming in and cooling me down. so good times keep on at it now i don't know how much farther i'm gonna walk to be honest with you yeah i don't know i don't have a map i don't have a trail guide i don't have a way of counting kilometers so i think i'll probably walk till about three o'clock anyway from 11 till 3 or 10 till 3 i guess five hours should be around 10 clicks i'm not i'm not huffing it that's at all i'm not i'm not trying to run or anything i'm going at my own pace since it's nice i'm able to stop and enjoy these these little ponds and lakes and plaques and all of the natures i'm not 100% sure what to do right now i found this beautiful lake behind me there's a couple really good spots that i could camp right along it but it's a little bit earlier than i wanted to stop it's only one now so i don't know man it's an ideal spot the only thing i don't like about this spot is the wind here pick up just as i say that i think i think when i head down the trail a little bit i don't have a map with me at all this is all new to me i've never been here so I think I'm gonna head down the trail a little bit more maybe for an hour if I don't find a better spot than this I'll hike back the hour back to this spot and and set up camp and then then it'll be 3 o'clock anyways if that's the case so yep that's what's happening so I thought this might happen come here without a map and the trail trails really aren't marked all that well and I'm having to do a lot of double backing because the doubling back was that big just jump in water i think it must have been a turtle anyways happened to do a lot of doubling back because uh i keep going off onto like old ATV trails or side trails and uh yeah anyways so i've dropped my pack and dropped my big camera back on the on the main trail back there that i was just off of i'm not worried about losing it or anything i'm just gonna head straight back down there if i don't find anything this way um yeah i don't uh i don't know a little bit turned around I'm not worried about it or anything. I can follow back my steps and get back to where I need to be, but I'd like to continue on. I just saw whatever it was that jumped in the water. I think it's a turtle. It's right there under that patch of weeds. I can get to it, but I have to walk on this sketchpad. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this, guys? Just for a shot of a turtle that might not even be there? Yes, I am. I'm back on my camera in my camping gear now, and I'm not very happy at all. i freaking pulled a joe gopros are waterproof right wrong gopros are waterproof if they have the waterproof backing on it not the see-through hole backing where you can actually the lcd backing where you can touch the screen so uh my gopro is broken now i can't get it to turn on for the life of me i've sat it out in the sun um it won't turn on so i hope i didn't break it i hope i can soak it in some rice or something when i get home but for this trip unless something happens Unless it dries out or something my GoPro is done, which sucks because that's my time-lapse stuff. I was gonna do a Time-lapse sunset tonight with the GoPro, so I really I'm pretty bummed out about that It's expensive to like 500 bucks, so I hope I didn't ruin it I hope I can fix it. I hope it fixes itself on this trip because Be nice to have a little bit extra battery time. I'm back on the actual trail I found my way back, and I'm walking around the lake now GoPro still won't work. I got it to turn on but just said Correcting error and then it went off again. So I'll give it some time and see how it goes. I don't have high hopes but I'll walk for about another hour. I'm not backtracking back to that other campsite I don't think unless there's gonna be just nothing up here because I really I'm almost done for the day So I'm just looking for a suitable place to set up camp. I do not have to stay on a campsite There's only I don't know. I've only seen a few campsites and they're just made by people So I definitely don't have to stay on that and that's cool But I may who knows if it's a good site. Can you guys tell what's going on here through the camera? This is a baby sapling of a white pine Eastern white pine tree and it's growing of the crook or a crotch in this white birch So what will happen is if this continues to grow this pine this birch tree will fall down and then depending if it leaves it stump or not It will degrade and then the roots from this pine tree will start up here and go to the ground and it'll look like it's Just started up here for some reason if I see another example that I can show you what I mean But it's pretty cool. I've cut off trail now. I've been walking off trail for a couple minutes Towards the water. I found another lake I think I'm gonna camp here depending on what the land looks like right at the uh at the shore of the lake i think that there's some rock i think i'm gonna get some elevation up off the water which is cool i do want to camp near the water because i have to boil my water this being a bushcraft backpacking trip and everything i didn't bring a filter or drops or anything like that so i'm almost there looks like i'm coming up to an old campsite maybe this will be suitable it's got a uh rock fire pit a good view if i can find some flat around this will be my my camp okay i'm calling it i found a spot 20 feet maybe 30 feet up there into the woods away from the away from the water behind me this is home i've got a nice flat ground in front of me and it looks like somebody's camped here before by all the sawed off um white pine limbs but that's cool i'm not too concerned about that at all um yeah this is home as you can see all my stuff's out of my backpack laid here i just shot a second video explaining uh a little bit bit about the backpack explaining the gear that i brought with me on this bushcraft backpacking trip if you guys are interested in that i suggest waiting till this video is done and then clicking on the link that's in the video here itself and it'll send you to that video and give you more of an idea of what i have and why i have it this spot is about perfect it's nice and flat i've got a big old white pine to my side there's it's not dead so i'm not worried about it falling on me or anything like that uh great view of the lake there and uh i brought this is my Big Agnes tent I'm gonna set it up. I brought this screen part as well. It's not needed I can set it up without it, but in the event that there are ticks out here I'm not a hundred percent if they are or not, but I'm not trying to get all limey out here So, you know, I I'd rather take a chance. I'd rather not take the chance. There she is all set up I am contemplating not putting on my fly my rain fly Yesterday or the day before when I looked at the at the weather it was zero percent chance of rain today so it'd be nice to not have to fly on i could just lay there here and look at the stars or whatever get a little bit better ventilation in this thing too so i am going to leave it off for now see how it goes uh with the with the plan to not put it on so like i mentioned before somebody's been here or camped here or something because all these white pine branches have been broken off in my experience white pine isn't the greatest for fatwood but in these low lying limbs if you cut very close to the tree uh with your saw you're gonna get a little bit of fat wood a little bit of resinous wood at least so i'm gonna take my time and cut all these in reach because that'll be a good base for my fire whether i i lay them on the ground to have the fire on top of or make some kindling out of them regardless it's going to be good to burn and it'll look a little bit neater and i won't poke my eye out either no not much resin at all all right i'm off into the woods go get uh three poles for my chair and i need a bunch of firewood for tonight but it should be pretty easy pickings i'm thinking this is a choice piece of wood dead middle of uh i believe it's a maple i'm not 100% on this one anyways hardwood and i want it so i've got my three poles here that's gonna be for my bush chair um basically tying a tripod and this is my silnylon bush chair i'll show you how i set it up in a minute all i want to do is basically i want to tie my my paracord off to one of the pieces of um a wood and i'm just going to do it with double overhand knot nothing fancy nothing crazy now i'm going to start wrapping the paracord around wrap it a couple times wrapping which means i'm going um the other way like in between the logs and cinching the paracord down on itself as well but you don't have to go balls out and try and and get this thing super tight because you do want it to splay a little bit once you stand it up and try and make your tripod out of it so just just a little bit not too crazy okay so just gotta figure out where I want it the wind's predominantly coming this way so I think I'm gonna put it on this side of the fire just a touch so again this is this is the bulk of the chair itself the stuff that I carry around weighs I can't even tell you how much nothing Kyle made it for me buddy Kyle all it is basically is a silk nylon bag with the drawstring at one one end and a big sleeve at the bottom so all I do is I take it I'm tying it up by the paracord that's already on it okay I had I had to tweak it a little bit I tied it too low and it wasn't tall enough so I had to undo everything which I was really happy about and tie it higher tie it all up and then so the final piece that you guys didn't see was I went and got a piece of white pine it smooths out the uh the knobs on it and it's just going to go through it is a plane just like home i'm going to put this in the sleeve and then sometimes you don't need to tie this on but i think i'm going to i like it better if the if it's like ridge pole is tied on but friction kind of holds it too and it's nice it's nice to sit down it's nice to have my knees straight and my back supported by something so i'll be able to sit here in front of the fire i'll probably put my sit pad underneath my butt here because the wind will come and whip it up pretty good nobody likes a cold butt right this is my view i'm gonna come back here i got my GoPro to work very cool we'll see if it stays working i'm just trying to get all my camp chores done uh right now i need to hang my bear bag i want to do it before it gets too dark i want to just have that already scored away so all i did was i took my my uh my paracord bag the bag that i brought my paracord in and I put a piece of wood in it. So the reason I'm doing that is because normally I would tie a piece of paracord to a piece of wood, but sometimes it will get stuck in the tree. This way, if it's in the bag, it slides it down a lot easier. I found a suitable branch right above my head here and I'm gonna toss her up. I'm about, I don't know, 20 yards from my camp. I'm just gonna leave this here for now. I know where it is. I don't need to hang my food up yet. It's just there ready to go for when it starts to get dark. My fire pit's soaking wet and it's got a bunch of wet ashes in it and wet holes, but that's okay. I don't really feel like raking it out. It's pretty big. So I am gonna just, those limbs that I cut off the white pine as a base, and it'll be a good base. I'm gonna boil up some water and eat supper. It's definitely supper time. So I gotta get some energy in me before I start cutting up all my firewood for dinner. So I'm just gonna do my twig stove, like I said, And yeah, I'm looking forward to that. My loon friend has decided to come close. He's, oh, he's fishing, very close. He's been down there for quite a while. Oh, there he is, there he is. Cutting this maple very short. And I'm doing it for a reason, I'm gonna, and I'm doing it for a reason. I'm going to try to do the Swedish torch thing that people have been telling me about in the comments. So we'll see how she goes. So after I posted my last video about My new stove set up, my new cooking set up I've got a lot of comments of how to use the stove more efficiently and that's like the Swedish log torch thing so you're gonna I'm just gonna do that inside the bush buddy and Put a bunch of birch bark and twigs in beneath in there. Sorry in between The pieces of wood you're supposed to get a better burn time and not have to mess with it and all that stuff So, you know, honestly the way I did it was fine. It worked good, but this is a this sounds cool so i want to try it okay well we'll see how she goes i don't know i was able to find a nice flat rock and do it up on top of there i don't think i need to but i'm going to i'm going to take some birch bark and strike with the fire steel and then catch the big curls on fire to light that yeah we'll see what happens well she's burning so i want to go down and get some water hopefully it'll stay burning while i'm gone it won't be going up that way again she's still going good oh this thing is full of water i imagine it's going to take quite some time that's a good test for it anyway that is working beautifully she's going strong I'll thank you to everybody uh who commented and suggested that i do it this way it works really well we got some canoers i wonder if they're looking for a spot so tonight for dinner because this is a bushcraft backpacking trip remember i'll keep reminding you too i'm gonna make some bannock but it's not normal bannock oh we gotta boil we gotta boil and let it sit for a minute or two because it was a little beavery um yeah so it's not a normal bannock i'm going to make rehydrated homemade spaghetti again but this time i'm going to make garlic bread bannock so in here is all the normal stuff for a normal basic bannock plus i've got garlic powder garlic salt and a bunch of parmesan cheese so we're going to see how that goes i'm assuming very good i'm going to try to get this off here I'm gonna try to cook it in the lid for my Snow Peak 900 the titanium one People told me that they're garbage for making anything in I'm gonna test it for myself And if I don't like it, I'm gonna get a new different lid not the frying pan lid So I brought ton of butter because I figure enough butter will keep it from burning might not work We'll see. Yeah that that bush buddy still full of red hot coals. So very good so what I'm gonna do is because I don't want to put too much water in my Spaghetti, I'm gonna pour my hot water, which is now clean sterilized potentially drinking water into my extremely hot titanium Water bottle so that's to the top and I only have a little tiny bit left. Oh Danger Joseph. All right could've been bad. Okay Yeah, so now I can put my dehydrated spaghetti into the pot and then pour my very hot water in nope can't do that again the old stick now this pouring it in this way after it's already when it's hot will be good I can just let it sit there and rehydrate I might have to throw it on the stove for a little bit but that's no big deal but well this is rehydrating I'm going to be cooking my bannock so it might work out perfectly for me other than scalding my fingers and try and do this without getting too full of mess i'm only gonna do about half of it because the the batch i made was enough for two so i got good good amount in there i'm gonna pour a little bit of water at a time and knead it as i go oh i can smell the parmesan and the uh the garlic in there big time there i'm done i'm only making half of it now because if it messes up then later on i'll have still half my batch to make on the fire where i know i can actually make it uh and it won't it won't burn too bad or anything like that so that's done i gotta melt some butter into my frying pan so i will heat up my frying pan a little bit go to a hunk of butter there you go everything was going so good and then it wasn't anymore once again you guys were right this frying pan sucks it's impossible to cook it it's either not enough heat and it's just when before before i added actually before i added extra wood it was burnt it was cooking good just way too slow it wasn't even getting browned at all but now i added some wood and she's burning and sticking and looks like that i'm still gonna eat it i keep putting a ton of butter on these things so they're getting like a crisco-y kind of texture and they smell exactly like the biscuits from red lobster with the garlic in them or whatever so they actually have that kind of texture too looking forward to it man i gotta rehydrate my spaghetti now i mean sorry rewarm up my spaghetti now because this is taking so long so yeah this frying pan thing is not uh it's not very convenient it's taking too long it's not cooking even my other food is getting cold i have to heat it up again so lesson learned wish me luck soothe the burn wake me up extra bonus points what song is that from what band even spaghetti is on point not too saucy at all perfect consistency warmed back up all is well now the only thing that can make this better is some parmesan cheese i'll put a ton of that stuff in there yeah all of it why not why would i bring why would i bring and not put all in that doesn't make any sense so i am looking forward to this these biscuits these biscuits i'm calling them biscuits now this bannock is uh is actually looking all right i'm gonna show you a piece it's not done yet but it's not done yet so i'm going to commence eating this i'll check back in when and if the garlic bannock ever works out all right moment of truth i'm going to try one of these red lobster biscuits it has it has the same texture as a red lobster biscuit i am not joking at all red lobster biscuits in the bush my canoeist neighbors seem to have left so it turns out i am going to get the whole lake to my lonesome probably going to be a good night for stars i don't see too many clouds up at all so I got to get get working on some wood that wood that I said that or that wood that I got earlier that the big dead standing tree I said I thought it was maple has to be oak but I've been sawing it and it's the most dense wood I've ever seen in my life maybe I'm exaggerating but it's very dense. Echo this thing is making is insane. Splits nice. I went for a little walk back up to the trail and then I walked up up the trail for about 15 minutes and on my way I was able to grab a bunch of dead pieces of wood that were leaning up against trees. I got more than enough firewood now. It's all really dry, really dense stuff. So all I have to do now is really cut it up to size and I'm good. This wind keeps shifting on me. I hope she dies down a bit at night. I was really hoping it was going to die down at night. This is a very windy site. I think I like this style of backpacking. It's more of a bushcrafty backpacking. I don't think I walked 10 kilometers today in all honesty. I walked for about five hours i probably i don't know seven kilometers eight kilometers maybe i really don't have any idea i know i know i'm out here i know i walked a good distance nothing like if i was actually doing a real backpacking trip uh those days 15 kilometers is the minimum but but i'm not getting to camp until late i don't have any camp life really it's basically on the trail until you get to camp and hustle hustle hustle get everything ready to go eat and go to bed um it's still enjoyable because you're spending long time out there and you're you're covering a lot of distance and seeing a lot of different things but you don't get to really relax and enjoy it and that said i am i'm beat uh i'm not relaxed i'm tired uh even though i've been stopped here at this site for a while uh I've been go go go the only time I really stopped was to eat my food so now that I've got everything I think that's time to time to relax a little bit just uh sit back rest my eyes it's gonna be dark soon so it's chilling down quite a bit and uh I'm losing light so I think I'm gonna start my fire now I've got enough firewood I don't have to try to conserve it or anything I'm gonna grab some of this thick birch bark off this downed uh birch and really get my fire going white man's fire over here so after supper i cleaned my uh my dishes and i got that's about half full of water that pot there what i'm going to do is boil the water in there swish it around and that's going to clean my lid which is my frying pan my pot which was my my eating bowl and then my spork everything will be sterilized and clean and then i'll be able to to boil water to get new drinking water because i'm almost out i have a quarter of this left and now I can go hang my food bag because I want to put my pot in with it so I needed my pot I might make some tea I might not later on but if I do if I do decide I want some tea I can boil in my titanium water bottle changed I changed my boxers I changed my undershirt I put on every piece of dry clothing I have and clean clothing I have I'm wearing right now except for my socks my socks the ones i'm wearing right now are the ones i hiked in all day and that's because when i go to bed i want to put on my brand new socks so ready for bed i'm gonna sit by the fire so the whole purpose of this trip like i was saying at the beginning of the video was to come out and test this pack and uh put some miles under my feet with it see what i liked about it see what i didn't like about it even more so than already tweaking it and that's the good thing about it too i can if i wanted anything else changed to this pack which i don't really i could send him an email call him tomorrow when i get home and he'll be doing and he'll send me a new pack in in a couple days it's it's really good that way um i think this i think it was a success this whole trip uh the pack worked out great had a great time this is this is a really cool place so uh yeah i'm glad i feel very grateful right now um i'm gonna wait till the stars come out in full force they're starting to pop out a little bit uh before i head into bed to be honest with you i could head now i'm exhausted i'm beat but i want to get a little bit of shot to that and see it so it's supposed to be a clear night i did not end up putting the fly on my tent i'm not going to we're just going to uh live life on the wild side i guess but i'm sure it'll be fine so yeah this isn't it i'm going to get some star photography or star videography done hopefully all right that's it guys good night I'll see you in the morning. It's morning. It's about 6 in the morning now. Slept really well. No rain last night Which is good because no fly. I laid in bed last night for quite a while. Just watching the stars I had a good view right from my tent here. So good times I have to get up and make a fire in the wood stove or in the twig stove Sorry, boil up some water make some oatmeal and hoof it out of here because I Got if even if I book it maybe three hours can make it in to get back home or sorry to get back to the car and then i have a six or seven hour drive so a big long day ahead of me we'll get up and it's really cold i don't know what it got down to last night but uh i'm chilled big time so i've got to get my food last night while i was sitting by the fire i cut up some pine into nice small pieces and i made a bunch of these shavings so hopefully i'll aid in getting my fire going this morning quickly it's a beauty morning i got the sun right in my face got some ducks frolicking in the lake right in front of me yep frolicking uh this has to be it i have less than a minute left on my on my card i made a rookie mistake i know now to bring two cards regardless of how much i think i'm gonna shoot hope you guys enjoyed this video i had a lot of fun i'm gonna come back to this place please if you have any questions let me know um all i'm gonna do now is hike hike my butt out of here as quick as i can i i hope to be back in three or four hours to the car so thanks for coming along i'll see you guys in the next one bye