25 Days Camping in Canada's Wild North Wilderness - Solo White Water - Fishing Adventure E.11

[Music] so [Music] yo bear [Music] [Music] this river is just amazing [Music] i think ted seems to be leading the charge here with springing up and getting out of the tent just kidding [Music] [Music] i really hope that the caribou will return to the north in their historic levels reading stories about this area by farley moet and him seeing the uh the migration is just such an absolutely incredible thing to read about let alone to witness and to understand the throngs of life the largest migration route out of any animal on the face of the earth is the baron land caribou the incredible animal that is the emblem of the north that has sustained life of indigenous people here for millennia it's incredibly incredibly special and they're all dying um and there's all kinds of reasons compounding but nobody really knows why a hundred percent and i really really hope that we can uh that we can see caribou again those numbers like that not just piles of antlers and bone and if not in my lifetime in my sons for whatever reason jim has decided not to wear his bug shirt bug jacket whatever you want to call it and he's over there just suffering just swallowing himself screaming yelling crying itching block flies just have an uncanny ability to just find the softest skin balls just got massacred once again and my venus honestly it's it's got its drawbacks uh it's hot in here you can't see as well can't drink and eat through it etc but it provides a nice relief running out of bug spray was really the the kicker for me the black flies are extreme bad this morning i went over there to uh take a number two and the brief period of time where i had my pants down i looked down at my legs and they're crawling hundreds of them on there my uh junk got bit up my taint got bit up to the point of near insanity lunch for today will be the usual cliff bars trail mix fruit to goes peanut butter pita and built bars hooray the bright side doesn't look like we're gonna run out of coffee and creamer bugs like the color black this shirt's not too white anymore but lighter colors definitely do less to attract bugs so if you're gonna buy a rain jacket or outdoor clothing try not to go with uh black some dried blueberries ladies and gentlemen [Applause] and there it is first class breakfast two three we're discussing the fact that we might drown today yeah most intense white water day up to this point we're gonna have more intense ones in the future but it's so hot like that i've literally been like blacking out and extremely uncomfortable with the heat wearing the dry suit but at the same time it's like if you dump and you're in the middle of this rapid the current's so strong you're not the river's so big you're not going to be able to get to shore anytime soon so you might have to deal with a long swift when you're submerged in that water for a long time say you test out the middle there the current's still quite strong and then you have to swim and pull your canoe in how long is that going to be look at the size of this river the current's too strong to like get to shore and run along shore and follow your canoe if you ditch your canoe it's going to be swept miles down river and you might never even find it so there's that it's kind of concerning actually yeah this is uh remington 870 really calm and brought it for bear protection specifically polar bear protection if you have a long barrel you know you're also going to have something that is more of a survival gun let's say if you're stranded for some time and you've no food and you need to shoot a goose or do some hunting or whatever you're gonna have something that uh um you know would be able to get the job done hopefully we see a polar bear but uh not in a dangerous situation we decided to put our dry suits on the water is a bit colder it's gonna get colder as we get towards hudson bay and the river volumes doubled but more so we're gonna potentially of this long swim if we take size of the river would mean that we might have a real challenge getting to shore in a reasonable amount of time while also staying with our canoe and trying to pull it into an eddy thing so it does make sense since we have them but uh it's so hot that um it's a it's kind of a trade-off we feel like we're almost like overheating dry suits have really made paddling those massive lakes that the ice just recently came off of a lot safer it's nice and pretty sweet this is uh by gep absolutely solid comes with this wicked leather sheath as well great great knife pretty sweet i woke up this morning we're like i guess there's a bit of a haze that needs to burn off because it doesn't seem cloudy at all kind of like this ominous orange glow and then i started smelling a bit of smoke and i think maybe what's going on is there's a forest fire uh a ways off that smoke is kind of clouding the sky a bit and making it look like a cloudy sky and creating a haze a windy day is probably fueling it and blowing it over here i'm not surprised because like there's so much evidence of forest fires around here it seems far off wherever it is but hopefully it doesn't uh spread over and give us any trouble ted's been due diligently handling the solar charging operation which has been pretty much a consistent battle but this thing has just been awesome he's got duct tape to hold the plug in really tightly because with rapids and jarring and putting it in the bag tuck it in the bag and i tie the carpenter's bag together i'm not sure how long it would last actually submerged maybe pretty good keep that as tight as i can in there i click the sides around the thwart here so the bags actually clipped in some [ __ ] here clipper clipper down there and we are off when the winds change today they blew some of that smoke here hopefully the wind's not also blowing the fire here fires are a natural thing in the northern boreal forest and actually the biodiversity of the northern boreal forest is largely fire induced some people even call it pyro diversity however with uh warmer temps and drier summers in recent years fires have been a lot more prominent and they're getting kind of scary yeah we're just hoping it doesn't get worse and that you know you can have fire smoke and the fire can be miles and miles away so i'm not concerned but the thought creeps into your head what if the fire gets closer just have to swim swim down the river fire can't get us there be hot and dry today and windy so definitely not good conditions for uh taming a forest fire definitely would be spreading quickly today i would imagine so i made a big error in that i left both my water bottle nalgenes at our campsite oh no i brought them down the river i packed everything but this tall alders they kind of got disappeared in there and i got sidetracked packing everything both of them yeah i have two really nice deliciously cold ones right now what do you want to do nothing i just don't have a water bottle i can't go back and it's like three kilometers up a blasting current for like eight kilometers yep so basically they're gone i've got this squeeze bottle but this is kind of a little flimsy i'll give you my squeeze bottle bottom and you use your squeeze bottle top how about that oh you whipped it faster than i thought jim's got a heavy duty one but he stopped using it because his filter is too clogged you know right anyway disaster kind of averted but down to just like a flimsy squeeze bottle i also have a life straw but containers containers is one of those things that's so overlooked a container is just really a vital vital thing that uh you know isn't an exciting thing per se so it's like something you overlook when we were on a loan you had to pick 10 items i think absolutely everybody that's ever been on the show either took a good sized pan that they could boil water in or a pot you'd be like no i'd rather bring a knife or an axe or you know a bow but really it's probably the thing you're going to use more than anything is a pot or a water bottle anyway hopefully that's all i forgot well no luck it's not the kind of spot where i want to sit hit up the next spot it's a tributary coming in called the steel the steel meets the seal there might be some fish there it's getting really smoky here smell fire more and more we're experiencing some really strong headwinds but it makes it much more challenging between the wind and the rapid they're fighting and it's hard to get any forward momentum it just almost stops you mid current which makes you very unstable and it also makes the river more irregular and the waves blow up so hopefully that doesn't become a problem pulled over to check out this bald eagles nest and uh there is an eaglet is it called an eaglet a big eaglet staying in it but pretty amazing how they just managed to build these huge nests there's a baby bald eagle in there [Music] hey buddy he's hanging out he's pretty big already [Music] it's uh parents might come back and kick the piss out of us you know that right speak of the devil he's beautiful [Music] it's not just incredible that it's able to make a nest on that dead tree yeah hopefully it doesn't break hope it doesn't blow over [Music] what are you doing up there you're just hanging out just hanging out well we're gonna leave you alone now hopefully you hopefully you have a wonderful day with lots of fish it's quite big already but super cool just on top of that um you know dead spruce tree uh that they built it and like the baby's just sitting out there having a look and mom or dad came back and squawked at us doesn't really like us being here but really awesome to see all these bald eagles around and um you know they're kind of guiding us along the way it feels like and uh just so great to see them in such good numbers because they almost went extinct because of ddt but thanks to lots of efforts and banning the use of ddt and protecting their habitat they've come back and taken them off the endangered species list and now we're just seeing tons and more and more and more in areas where they were extirpated for a long time really so it's just really awesome to see the nest with a baby in it anyway pretty cool just incredible birds got a little [Applause] oh what a beautiful day though dude so nice seal river is amazing eh oh man really liking the seal river fishing hasn't so far been as good as the south sea dude as long as we can catch enough fish to eat whatever exactly and the grayling are a nice change too they are it's getting to be more and more like a barren grounds like tundra like with every kilometer it just happened so quickly dude yeah something just like sort of changed midway shoot through chicane lake yeah this is freaking awesome seals are popping up dude the seal river is the best man this is so cool starting to look a little more polar beary hey ted it's almost getting to tundra look at over there the seal river has really boosted morale amongst jim and ted it's such a sick river it's like the landscape it's just like tundra open beautiful nice shores just better than i imagined yeah seals bursting up out of the water just like smiling at us whoever sees seals in a river like this maybe the seals are hammering all the fish we're gonna have to eat sand if we don't catch any fish indiana [Music] that was gold so morale is up the river's moving at a great clip we're making time the shoreline is just manageable which was one of our bigger concerns uh how it was on the cell seal but luckily you know the landscape has changed for the better on the seal and totally manageable to get out and line or walk or scout seeing seals pop up and catch an arctic grailing beautiful day uh it's just a great great time there's a seal right over there popping it's popping his head up over there so yeah we're having a good day and really loving the seal river so far just gorgeous [Music] this looks like a good spot a shallower eddy current's not too strong there's some still water here but uh no luck so we're just gonna keep trying just picking our way down when we feel like taking a few casts we'll pull over and hopefully by the end of the day we'll have something maybe we won't you never know but um it'd be really nice to uh enjoy a couple of delicious grayling again tonight so we're gonna put some effort in class three 700 750 meters scout first spray skirt required gorge oh uh yeah let's take some cast really nice now too that you can actually get out of the boat without having to like bushwhack through horrific willows and what have you [Applause] yup fish whoa [Applause] grayling baby nice fish [Applause] the water's definitely clearer eh so cool [Music] oh how cool are all these birds hey nothing well i was unable to land anything ted caught one and almost caught two but the second one escaped him good little hole there yeah we'll just you know take a few minutes at spots like this and hopefully catch at least one fish each for dinner so delicious looks from here like there's some other big water we're gonna have to jump out and scout the next one because from our river notes it says it's quite the doozy so like standing here might give you a better view oh oh so you're saying to stan come to the top and actually yeah okay there is the gorge it looks pretty huge on the right though hearing a thunderstorm slowly rolling in we're like where is it coming from well there it is so we might be uh bombing the rapids in a lightning storm just to amp things up in order to scout this we literally have to walk what is that like a kilometer down there and we can kind of see it from here what we've been finding though is that the rapids are way bigger when you actually get to them than when you look from upriver and so we're not sure we feel like we want to just kind of go for it because we don't want to walk all the way there and we don't see any like boulders that could pin us or hurt us but maybe that's foolish i don't know we just put our dry suits on and you know if we dump we dump probably fine you know worse comes to earth we just hit a gigantic wave train and probably don't even dump you know so far i mean we're probably gonna run it anyway so we might as well just start giving her we're just gonna run it should be awesome hopefully this thunderstorm holds off for a bit looks like we got some rain coming in behind us though here we go oh whew [Applause] yeah definitely uh very manageable easy peasy there's a class two right here and then there's another class three soon oh [Applause] those were huge bro those were some big freaking waves there in a big hole uh with the hole at the top so you'd be pretty swamped if you made it through that and then you have these massive waves to get through but uh it is looking like we can kind of for the most part get out of the way of the big stuff but we'll see marked that as a class two who knows maybe you went to the other side of the island um and uh we'll see how this next 750 meter class 3 is in a gorge with a pinch and a contour crossing it's going to be interesting it doesn't really look like it's going to be as big as it is and then when you get there you're like whoa that's quite the wave or the hole pretty wild that was fun that was pretty fun wow this is so beautiful spin you around look at that wow this river is just amazing this is beautiful i can't believe the seals just swim up all this eh yep this river is perfect for seals there's no waterfalls on it the water's deep they can just swim up all the rapids and catch the eddies get up over 200 kilometers inland i see a seal over here we saw i just realized i know i don't really know any of the words at all what just made all that [ __ ] up the light hits the gloom on the drapes caution three center ledges upstream ferry across for drop so scout from there then ferry upstream and drop down the left that's what it shows let's go scout over here okay um oh [Music] hey [Music] holy don't go that way rock ledge well that was interesting uh couldn't really scout it from the shore because of the higher water and i couldn't see this rock ledge that you could barely see behind me and i came around because i wanted to bomb some of the big waves but it just started pushing me right into that rock ledge which is exposed it would have been a bad thing to uh to hit and you would have got stuck and pinned there so anyway i just executed a pretty strong backberry and then paddled into this eddy but uh i just kind of yelled out to jim like don't go that route if he i mean the notes say not to i mean what i did worked but it's not really a smart plan looked like he had a pretty sweet run but if you saw him back paddling there there's a couple huge rocks that uh he was barely able to avoid and smashing into those or pinning on them could uh you know trash or canoe and pretty much mean the end of the trip so as much as i'd like to go that way it looks like he ran it pretty good though with the double blade um i think i'm gonna go around the far right still looks tricky anyways yeah i'm gonna hop in my boat and go now so [Music] [Music] look at this storm coming this is a line of rain coming directly for us this is a pretty powerful storm coming here um dude we're the tallest things out here what people get hit by lightning all the time it's not really the best spot there's a reason why they have those rules on golf courses whoa crazy lightning getting struck by lightning you know it's just not us not the best dog to get a kid but like you know pretty dead if you do oh it's probably just gonna blow over in two seconds i think it's raining you know it's raining a lot of lightning look at that stupid duck out there the duck don't care well the bugs aren't bad anymore it's raining a lot whoa right [Applause] that's in the end it didn't really come directly over us pretty unlikely to get hit by lightning but still that was pretty bad what a [Applause] scumbag yeah i was like let's go stand in the woods the gym shit's like yo let's hold this lightning rod i know you weren't really that scared but it seemed like you're acting like a scared dog i recently did a video where i had lightning like hit the water just like 30 yards from us you could actually hear the sound of the lightning and in the video it's like two before the thunder so it's kind of like you're just like yes it's getting a little close a few remnant lightning strikes here and there still raiding but all the lightning is that way and we're going that way oh we're going to head out and we think it's safe but uh that was quite the show cooled things off a little having damp clothes on already uh you start you can catch and chill we're gonna hit a few more uh fun rapids nothing like too intense but just like long class one two should be safe enough and hopefully get to a nice campsite tonight and we'll have done probably 40 clicks today making pretty good time 50 sorry 50. [Music] it's 7 24. i don't know if it's like a sick campsite maybe it's worth going for it's like 20 kilometers well we're just heading into two kilometers of rapids straight looks like laughs i feel like there's fish in there jeff for all those briganders are we human or are we merganzers our cause is vital our ends are cold and we're on our knees waiting for the answer [Music] are we human or are we merganza [Music] [Applause] holy [ __ ] it's quite the class too yo bear bear so so that was pretty cool i uh managed to capture uh black bear there we just came down the rapid and i saw some geese moving on the shore and then i saw this bear walking up like bear bear and uh because it looked like it was leaving and i was worried that jim wouldn't see it but i think it hurt me it stood up and then it kind of scurried away so it was like oh did i spook it but not really it just went back in the bushes for a little and then moseyed around and was able to catch it on film for a good little bit there so pretty cool and the banks of the seal because it's not so flooded like the south seal and not so heavily wooded uh i feel like is better opportunity to see wildlife and that's one great example right there that was pretty cool always nice to see some wildlife for sure upside down [Music] looks big buddy it's just running on the right okay pretty big ledge like at like 12 o'clock in front of you yeah i see a line it looks kind of sketchy uh [Applause] i i wouldn't call that a class two that's class three for sure though definitely the water is higher our notes say class two easy five foot waves in there for sure or bigger picked a good line but some irregular stuff like hit me made me a little tippy but yeah fun ass run for sure very big volume look at that sun epic like never-ending sunsets out here right [Applause] sick day this has been [Applause] i'm switching to gold immediately yeah that's two now eh yeah that's great [Applause] arctic grayling is on the menu again tonight we got two so we got one each what do we want like one more right well at least we have one each one more it's not as big as last night but one each is like kind of kind of like the minimum we need to supplement some of the food that we plan for it i mean we're only uh oh i'm just getting killed by black fudge i just feel like they're biting me more than normal yeah um we've only got uh nine days left so i'm sure uh you know we survived but uh it gets pretty exhausting a lot of weight yeah we're losing weight so anyway uh my neck one more fish would be nice my personal favorite day of the trip so far i think ran a bunch of rapids and this river is just absolutely spectacular ran a scenic gorge esker campsite like just crazy cool so but anyways we're pushing we stopped early yesterday so we're pushing it quite late into the evening tonight um i don't even know the sun's going down and we got a few clicks and another class two in front of us it looks like there's an esker across from where we're camping so we might uh explore that tomorrow morning and we got dinner so we got fish to fry but yeah it's going to be a late one tonight for sure you being in this river seal the campsite we're going for took a little longer to get there than what we'd anticipated and the sun is down should still have light for a little longer and we're almost there but it seems to be taking a while i think that that might be it over there it's like i have it marked kind of right across from that like mini island in the channel the campsite is looking like it's on the tip on the left here yeah there it is it's right there no it's on the other side yeah let me check 10 30. 10 30. we're just getting to camp and it's 10 21. i see a flat spot up there it's fine pull up here oh yeah it's good drums here what are these like fuel yeah that looks old i don't know what that was it might just be a bucket cool fire pit cool fire pit here sounds like there's a thunderstorm rolling in so i'm going to set up a tarp remember here so so [Applause] yeah i feel like uh i have a good kind of read on the rapids now you know still some curve balls every once in a while but you know i feel like we'll be able to handle the get over in line and all that you know [Applause] mine just takes one and a half um little dab of old bay [Music] [Music] uh mmm this is good 50k today we have 170 kilometers to go looks like nothing yeah polar bears 70 kilometers upriver i heard that they come 70 i don't really know i don't know if that's rare or they're just always becoming 70. it seems quite away from the coast but polar bears are pretty badass so right extremely badass [Music] really terrifying um especially if we're like getting ahead and then we're just taking our time in the last 70 right right now camping and camping i'd like to see a polar bear but i don't want to see like the inside of its stomach one of the best days of not the best day of the trip i did yeah regardless i think it was just in like coolness of our surroundings you know right now physically to feel that we did something pretty badass but not being absolutely beat you know so [Applause] so [Applause] [Applause] uh well i was unable to get a haircut before it came so my hair looks like this so what i do in the morning is when i have my breakfast i have a spork and so i just use the sport part to make sure it's brushed nicely the the fork like this and i just i just comb it all back here get all the black fly guts out did you learn that from the little mermaid yep i get all the black fly guts out and uh it actually works quite good and then just like pick through all the the knots and tangles it's pretty good and then i just use the same spork uh to eat my breakfast the wind is a nice break this morning from uh the bugs but they're still getting me day 18 as we can figure best just seems like a blur i can't believe it's been 18 days it doesn't feel like it's been that long a lot of people will be like why would you do such a hard thing like what's the point maybe it's not for everyone but uh i think nowadays we've like forgotten how much we actually enjoy these kinds of things or you get used to it the more you realize how like healthy and good it is for you and how as people and really animals this is kind of closer to what we're supposed to be doing it's so satisfying living in the moment and catching the fish that you need and being so self-reliant it's actually a really good feeling a place and time for everything don't get me wrong i've done some beach vacations and they're great more of a mental break but it's not that stimulating because really we're craving true adventure it's actually much more satisfying and rewarding than you think even though it's all of this work doing this kind of stuff definitely rings a cord in me and some of the moments on trips like this are definitely among the most enriching in life even though that they're challenging as long as you've kind of explored and gone out of your comfort zone it's more satisfying it was our father's 75th birthday yesterday we're going to call him today this thing's amazing grabbed it from the satellite phone store he'll be surprised i don't even think he knows we have this hi happy birthday oh we miss you guys too happy birthday to today we're gonna have white water rapid after white water rapid as we careen towards hudson bay not today but tomorrow in the following days we're going to be uh right in the heart of polar bear country here in northern manitoba close to the shores of hudson bay where they they gather in large numbers that's a concern but also pretty cool i think there's a pretty good chance that we get to see a polar bear and i'm really excited for that [Applause] it does it is day 18. i can't believe it's day 18. it all seems like a blur like it doesn't seem that long 170 kilometers to go to reach hudson's bay the ocean and uh today we're gonna start off with some rapids uh class two probably pretty big in these water levels i'd imagine then three kilometers of fun class ones and two through scenic gorge really looking forward to that just gonna be ripping along then we're gonna have some bigger stuff we're gonna be getting into a couple of class threes maybe even class four packed full of rapid state judging by the way things have been going it seems pretty good i mean a tip and some of them because they're so long would be would be challenging is the river's so big and fast it would take your canoe but butter has come down since the the south seal i think the seal is just much more capable of handling the volume it's deeper and it's uh almost a month later just a really really beautiful river we're just absolutely loving this river fingers crossed everything goes well with the rapids today we make good time and we just have an enjoyable day all around so we're just approaching our first rapid of the day it says that our notes say c2 left avoid heavy flow well the rapid in this case that we thought was a class two is like literally just completely blowing out like the water's so high there's no rapid left here it's just a strong current so it must have been shallower and rocky and uh the water just got so high it basically flows over the rocks and they're too deep underwater to really even notice water pushing up on this island dad yeah it looks pretty high here [Applause] look at the height difference eh between here and there crazy [Music] that's like an insane pinch it might be way bigger than uh than what the notes say dude looks easy though oh this looks sick the hot weather we are experiencing is no more we're gonna put our dry suits on get her done and shoot up right now oh just poke myself in the eye bastard stick here we go just approaching a three kilometer long rapid looks like it goes through a bit of a canyon too oh i see some white water some tight fight water it's huge maybe we should scout and by scout i mean [Music] get out of the way that's a guaranteed dump maybe drown hole right that's a keeper yeah [Music] [Music] [Applause] it's the corners eh when you look from up river the corner and when you're around it looks like it's like this tight and then you get here and you're like yeah it's not so tight be a long swim down this canyon yeah [Applause] uh [Applause] whew feeling oh so wild and so free yeah i just want to live my life while living on the edge if you looking for me that is where i'll be oh [Laughter] great fail that looks huge can we get over to the left here where's the portage trail maybe it's in here oh it's just a cliff is that an island there yeah that's the island i don't know if i want to run that dude why don't we just bomb across and pile around the island looks more like a four five yeah it's definitely a four our notes say you know take the right channel it'll be c1 tech take the left channel and you'll be punching through a massive two meter class three four wave but uh with this high water we're looking at it and it's a guaranteed four all the way across from here who knows maybe even maybe even a four plus so what do you think from the middle of nowhere and maybe isn't the best to bomb a four plus well i don't even know if we can it looks like from up here it looks like right for sure yeah yeah i think at these water levels dude this is a no-go here after rounding this corner we can just tell that the rapid because of the high high volume is essentially unrunnable or would be foolish to run looks like a raging four plus we'd have to get out and walk quite a ways to scout it and just likely to find out what we can kind of tell from here that we shouldn't be running it so we're gonna take a different channel that goes around this island but now we're on the wrong side of the river so we have to front ferry across a really fast current to get to the other side before we get pushed down that rapid backwards and we don't have a lot of a lot of time to do that we've got to make it in that calmer water so that's what we're going to do well as you can imagine getting swept into that torrent backwards when i'm trying to front ferry would be pretty low on the list of things that i want to do today it should be all right but it's a very fast current um in this case honestly the double blade is uh pretty freaking good i think this is a wise decision it this section here makes me a little bit nervous about a rapid coming up that's called nine bar rapids that is very long and the river notes also mark it as a three four so is it essentially just a four plus like this one the whole time how is that gonna be in this water where when you know clearly this is uh a little bit uh tougher than then so makes me nervous but um who knows this does seem like maybe a bit more of a pinch and might be more dramatic so we'll probably be able to manage it and we should be able to manage anything we just got to use our heads and not be stupid you know we could just full send this kayak paddle full speed right into it probably be pretty fun probably wouldn't die but you know pretty stupid [Applause] sure you don't want to use your double blade for this jim [Music] wind is not helping me dude come on come on baby come on [Music] [Music] all right oh [Music] kind of nailed it though headwind when we were in the eddy we were blocked current and the headwind the headwind was just gusting blowing me making my down river slip i'm glad i used the double blade are you tired yeah me too i didn't finish that much further down from you this is just sketchy because you have to switch and like did a good job man you did a great job i was just not planning on having to work that hard add some strong current in there dude there's a massive hole over there that curling wave would just push you into the middle if it didn't dump you which is where you're gonna end up is the reality there's just like ten holes in a row it says it's a class one eh not a class one so we're gonna hop out and have a look because uh it's a complete blind corner so you don't wanna run a blind corner even if your river notes say it's easy [Music] [Music] [Music] die so hey zeus channel around the back of the island just spits out to the same rapid so here we are in the end scouting the rapid it looks semi-runnable the enormous definitely uh bigger than the river note set gonna try to come around this corner it's like a 90 degree turn and come in on the right and just sort of miss this massive wave on the right and it boils and sort of just get right and avoid it but it's going to be harder than it looks we're gonna almost have to hit it right next to the big waves and skirt them but there's some serious churning spinning current look ty there's like a whirlpool here it's like a whirlpool that appears and then disappears see how fast the current you know also coming around that corner back here the current pushing you strong into that so looking from above it looks like oh we'll just stay right but just staying right is going to be a challenge to high up [Music] all right you want me to go first uh sure all right i'm gonna eddie out up at the top here i think really yeah i might not if i have a decent line [Music] oh they missed it there for a sec [Music] [Applause] oh oh so look at the seal you see the seal yeah i'm running the wrapping with the seal i saw him that was awesome oh it's crazy dude you think you've skated it and then it spins you you have to do a high and then a low brace like you nailed it i think i want to bail oh yeah okay a little bit of water not too bad there's a seal in the rapids with me that is some serious volume yeah definitely bigger we can see the boils but even zooming in on the camera it's hard to tell how big all the features are until you're right down there in the seat of your canoe oh there's just seals frolicking and jumping in here this powerful rapids creating a bit of a whirlpool effect in here and i saw the seals literally jumping in the rapids like flying out like a dolphin in the surf and then uh come down here around the corner and they're in this like big whirlpool eddy area and they're jumping all around really freaking cool that was exhausting well that was uh quite the freaking rapid even coming down the channel we had essentially had to run a class four and try to just miss it it definitely was not a class one down that side so that's an example of the water level there for sure making a big freaking difference to the river notes this next section of river is quite pinched and there's some big rapids and some long rapids so we're going to have to be extra cautious going through not really sure the shorelines are looking a little uh harder for linings too so we will see looks like we can probably get out and scout oh a seal leaping through the water i love seals whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa that was cool that feels like boom boom jumping up like this i just didn't get it i might have got on my gopro i don't know but then he popped up and saw me and got all scared just seeing a seal come porpoising up the river the rapids don't seem to intimidate them we're getting washed down with pretty strong current here and um this class three with spirit looks like it might be a class four side would be portage on does look like left there is a root i'm like flying down river towards this rapid here i like look at the shore probably like 15 kilometers an hour without paddling so that's what makes this this sketchy is because you know if you start coming down and there's nowhere to get out uh you're like oh you just get swept over but it does look like there's an eddie right up above it thankfully from upriver it looks like a doozy so this is gonna cut into our time for sure wow dude what a rapid that was that was fun though dude when we came on the scouting thing there was one doing that through the rapid you missed it yeah so fun man and then the the seal here just right in front of you so cool go up here and uh and scout yeah uh and then just start heading for the left of the hole yeah middle left the whole way uh uh pretty freaking huge a little bit nervous not gonna lie um just massive and we had talked about getting middle right and it looks like he went far left at the bottom so maybe he had to make a decision because he was just getting pushed that way i don't know if he made it through the hole or he got far left of it but being able to see what's there would be uh pretty uh comforting but uh i think i'm gonna go for it [Applause] so i couldn't see around the corner but uh that was the route to take for sure obviously that's what jim did [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] kind of paddling a long stretch of super wide fast current approaching nine bar rapid which is about a four kilometer raging rapid class three which is probably more like four at these levels a ledge requires eddying out ferrying across the river lining the ledge running the the lower part our notes we have some intel saying it's a class 3 4 but we're thinking it might be way more raging like some of the other ones and as we were approaching it ted said he saw a splash and of water fly way up in the air like it looked like it was intense so we don't know we're going to check it out we might have to portage the upper part of it and then figure it out from there but we'll see but the fact that we're seeing horse tails way back here isn't the best sign so the map says scout caution nine bar rapids class three to four two meter ledge not visible from upstream scout work your way to the right line for finish c2 finish anyway it would be really really nice if this was a runnable run really nice not as big as the last that last raging four i think that's what's got us spooked is that last class four that he had as a class three four was just so huge that we're worried all this like three or like a kilometer of that um but maybe we'll get lucky and it won't be doesn't look as bad as the uh the other one i think it's pretty massive though it looks more churny than that last three right tricky boils and currants squirrely stuff doesn't look so bad it doesn't look so bad it looks wide so like maybe we can avoid stuff it's pretty raging but all the black flies the mosquitoes have found us as soon as it gets a little nicer yeah brought a long ways to scout here the long rapid it's getting eaten alive as i'm coming to scout it as soon as the weather gets a little nice the black flies come out eddie out on the left after the island just run it avoid the big try not to dump and swamp you know yeah pretty straightforward man looks pretty good on the left yeah just run it down left the whole way thank god we're really concerned about this one it doesn't look easy but it looks like we'll be able to do it run it down the left the whole way you can't really pick a perfect line because it's so long look at how big it is way down there so you just have to uh make some decisions while you're out there and just avoid the big stuff it always looks way bigger when you're in it but uh we're happy that this is you know gonna be a rapid that we're gonna feel confident about running probably gonna need to bail substantially but after we run this we're gonna have to eddie out cross the river jump out line the ledge run the tail end so this is really long um so yeah we got our work cut out for us but after this we have about 10k to cruise to finish our daily distance and then a campsite so a couple more easier rapids so we're sort of home free after this one so just hoping that goes smoothly but it should be interesting but we're gonna have to remember that we're gonna have to eddie out on the left once we're past that island about 500 meters down because there's a huge ledge if we go over that our goose is cooked so we're gonna have to get over and then find a way to ferry over the other side to line it so you know but i think we should be able to do this but look at it just goes on and on and on yeah starts freaking up way up here like it's quite big we're gonna run it we are gonna run it good luck ted good luck jim that was a bad mistake big mistake there uh [Applause] oh holy smokes hmm [Applause] [Applause] whoa [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] i hit a rock eh me too dude i blew it at the top i was like too complacent going through that v you went through just crashed in the hole and took all this water first way that was epic dude that was sick quite a few ledges and holes eh you don't see them at all from the scum and just churning waves i have like water splashing in my face exhilarating dude yeah it was that was a wild rapid man and that the end was intense oh god i love it so we're supposed to scout from here i gotta bail yeah me too spray doc was pretty key there oh there's the leg way down there frothing thing that goes all the way across the river work your way to shore get out lying that basically like there should be ample space to get out i figured maybe we'll line it you know but yeah see the rocks yeah the car lives that goes all the way from river rut starting at those rocks there well we just took a pretty big stroll after eddying out and bailing and we have like just freaking continuous white water wow look that bald eagle flying over the ledge we see it thank you and we're just like what an impressive piece of water this is so wide and just goes on and on it's just so freaking cool just so beautiful and this second part is not as intense as the part we just ran however at the very end of this before the whole rapid ends there's a freaking two meter ledge that spans the entire river so we have to run this and like work our way to shore and hopefully there's something we can't even get over there because there's a steep bank but it looks like behind that bank there's going to be some sort of eddy or calm part we can get over and then scout the ledge and then probably line down the ledge controlling our boats with long ropes as we run along the shore and that will pretty much put us through nine bar rapids but i'm not going to count my chickens before they're hatched uh anyway so yeah time to jump back in the canoes but first we gotta walk all the way back essentially just what the notes say to do um but they definitely help because that this could be an easy like paddle it down and not recognize it's a ledge until you get close and you panic over the ledge so this wrap is not as intense but of course there's the ledge wolves have been here about to run the second long draw notorious nine bar rapids there is a doozy of a ledge right at the end so we're gonna have to try to get over on the left hopefully we'll be like frantically grabbing onto branches trying to stop [Applause] [Applause] oh it's a family geese in my eddie excuse me guys we need to borrow that parking space yeah i'd say that's a pretty big ledge what an impressive piece of water eh this section here in particular you see all that water flowing and then there's no current after it that's kind of like the effect of a low head dam where it would just hold you right there and drown you real quick so findings when you basically control your canoe at the end of a rope as you run along shore because it's just too bouldery and shallow to actually sit in the canoe and run it so things can go wrong when you're lining too you can pin a boat lose the boats you got to be careful you got to be pretty nimble but i think we should be able to line this one safely it's a good thing we pulled over because the middle of this ledge looks like just like death so this is hopefully not going to be that so so so [Music] beat it down nine bar rapids wild freaking stretch of river here men is it ever beautiful what an adventure just getting down this section of river running the rapids with the most dangerous piece at the very base of it well that should be it for the uh really challenging more dangerous rapids for today we're gonna put a few more kilometers behind us but uh big relief that this um you know i think what it is it's on the far right side it's a class four and on the side we ran it it was a three so three four um you know maybe you rate it as a four because this ledge at the bottom i'm not really sure this ledge looks pretty unrunnable in most places uh but you know obviously some people could run it in the right uh with the right setup but um wow what a freaking beast of a rapid glad it wasn't like that other ridiculous one the whole way that just would have been nuts it would have been a portage so so stoked that we were able to run it uh because that was part of my concern you know you have to portals you miss out on all that fun so freaking wicked there's seals in this river like this is a freaking amazing river just so beautiful spectacular everything seals jimmy's right there we're gonna put some caves behind us and get to camp but another great day on the river so far lost the skid plate running the rapid look at this maybe that's just the skid plate yeah whatever the skid plate looks like well that's everything i wished nine bar rapids would be wicked you know they're little it's almost like you need a zero linebar rapids took a few casts ted got bites i had one on lost it kind of a bummer but super late so you know much more time so maybe we won't have fish tonight but epic day nonetheless wow well it appears nine bar rapids didn't work out so well for somebody that's what happened it's another piece up there piece there smashed thankfully that didn't happen that is uh a glum omen a reminder to be careful man stuff can happen out here that happens to you and can you even get your gear back all your clothes all your food is in it does it just rip out and wash away does it get pinned up on the river like um and then you gotta end up trying to walk out of here especially if you don't have uh a satellite phone or you know uh communication or some sort of plan for someone to come rescue if you don't show up by a certain time you know you dump at the top it bashes your canoe around between rocks pins it on the rock the current's so strong you can rip it in half that's even a heavy duty royal x canoe that's part of why jim jim and i are paddling solo canoes it's safer if that happened to one of our canoes we could make it out of here in the other one as long as we had both so anyway scary stuff it looks like a royal x canoe too the strongest of the strong you can find yourself in a survival situation real quick might have to try to walk out to churchill it's probably over 300 kilometers to the closest you know bit of civilization and you know many rivers and lakes to cross along the way but pretty much nearly impossible that's why i carry a survival taxing device so i can try to walk somewhere maybe to where a plane can land i carry that on my body so even if i lose everything else i'll have something on me to survive for some time and some communication equipment awesome lighting here with the sun setting there's a bald eagle right there behind me that was a really cool experience there's just a massive uh like of just a big bald eagle just sitting there so trusting of me coming right up to it i almost wonder if it's uh injured or something for whatever reason it wasn't too concerned about me maybe it's holding the fish that it doesn't want to have to carry away or something but yeah a really cool experience for sure and i just got some pictures and a bunch of footage of it but the day is late and i didn't have time to do any of it so jim's way down river yelling at me hurry up [Applause] sun is almost down it's got to be like 10 30 at night so it's a late one again don't really mean to get on the schedule here but it has been the last couple of nights i guess it's not the end of the world but uh yeah we we're short of our kilometers uh today just because we put in so many miles yesterday uh late to go to bed late to break camp and then we were just faced with all kinds of uh challenges today that uh took some time overall super cool and uh we did make it past some serious obstructions that you know even one of them even could have been a portage so you have to expect that to take a little bit longer so i'm not too worried uh we have strong current and all that but we do have some serious uh white water coming up too so we're gonna have to uh make a little bit better time in the coming days we might have to just pull over and just like camp which kind of sucks because uh there's so many options for great spots around here but if we can't find one before dark anything will do really so i guess that's the plan really cool day tons of seals didn't catch any fish but had a couple on that we lost about some action but easy crazy rapids nine bar rapids was just like absolutely epic what an impressive piece of water that is so cool day for sure curious little guy nothing really looks all that great we found a point here that's like a bit of an asker but it's just like such a climb it's loose gravel and sand up to the top but maybe it'll have to do it's in the wind maybe there'll be no bugs maybe uh i think that's what we're gonna do is just camp on this oscar here there's a nice little landing here and an eagle was soaring over it we're tired and we need food i don't particularly feel like hauling up of a slippery sand cliff but it looks like that's what we're gonna do at least there's a good place to land here right ted so we're having to clamber up this massive rock pile esker here to a pretty exposed windy spot but hopefully there's a flat spot for the tent whoa a bit of a mission to get our gear up here [Music] everything is such a mission nice view no bugs up here though it's pretty good doesn't look like too much flat space for a tent yet i think this will do it's flat there's firewood sure it has one hell of a view oh the mission [Music] looks like there's a lot tense fall yes oh geez what a view somehow the black clothes are still finding my face but beautiful freaking view beautiful campsite the size of this river river narrowed in the sections we were running today because it essentially branched around a massive island and this is where the river meets back up way over there we paddled from there so now they're meeting and uh this is kind of a lakey air section but lots of current and uh now the river's getting massive again pretty cool [Music] there's about that kind of [ __ ] i think so well we're at our campsite look look at this um we couldn't reach one of the marked campsites but you know you make do when you have to and we you know just kind of pulled over and like how about up there like we had to scramble up this freaking huge [ __ ] like loose rock esker cliff haul all our gear up here but honestly it is absolutely spectacular look at this view there's a good breeze coming which uh is helping keep the bugs down but by some absolute stroke of the devil's wand they're still here killing us um i don't know how they could possibly like there's just millions of them i'm hitting like thousands with my hands right now despite the wind and being up here but it is helping so when you face the wind they're not directly in your face but there's a lot here if you face the other way they're all over your face anyway what a freaking beautiful beautiful spot what a beautiful view i think it was worth hiking up here i you know like a lot of the time like i don't want to drag my gear up but the the times we've done it this trip have honestly arguably have been maybe the three best sites of the whole trip we had to haul stuff up but like just looking out the expanse and like you feel free and it's just like amazing so i'm loving it up here there's a flat tent spot and what a river what a day just like huge rapids and like that nine bar rapid was just freaking wild and even the raging class 4 we were hoping to be able to run but we just we couldn't we had to duck down the side it was still i'd still call what we did like we ran a class four and snuck past it but even what we did was like a technical class three i would say for sure the river notes say a class one but in this water level that was a technical three we even like went in a whirlpool that like spun us around like a top so anyway it was a fun run uh nine bar rapids was a freaking blast there's seals just jumping out of the river everywhere there's seals in the river it's a river it's fresh water where are these seals coming from like unbelievable like no wonder it's a canadian heritage river it is gorgeous and the landscape is gorgeous bald eagles up the wazoo more bald eagles and you can shake a stick at around here we don't have um a fish for dinner tonight but we literally only got like 10 minutes to try lost a couple got a bunch of bites but that's okay you know you can't catch them all left a few for the eagles left a few more for the seals right and um you know we're just visiting their habitat so that's okay what a day feels really good to get that dry suit off um you just get soaked under and it gets so clammy or sweat and you get these like pins and needles because like your body's trying to sweat but it can't really sweat so like the sweat stays under your skin and it builds up and it like literally feels like someone's acupuncturing you all over the place when you start and like that combined with the bugs biting you you start just going like [Music] for a bit you know so when you get to camp and you pull all that crap off and you're in the breeze and you dry out you're like yes you know this is great this is great again i remember what it feels like to have a dry ass crack it feels good anyway uh still million things to do obviously jim's got the tent set up we got some water up here it's obviously like quite a mission to go down to the river to get water um so we brought as much as we could up uh we're gonna cook up one of those thanksgiving dinners tonight that jim's wife tori made for us because they're really hardy and we're freaking starving and we've noticed that we're starting to get like like a little snarlier with each other here and there over nothing and it's because we're losing weight and we're not eating as much and so we're gonna eat one of those because they're you know a hearty meal and uh and then we're gonna ko you know might uh jump on the phone and call her wives or something here if it's not five in the morning there which it probably is but um whatever hell of a day hell of a river and uh you know there's plenty more to come still we're at what kilometer we're like kilometer 147 say so we still got 147 kilometers non-stop action beauty and scenery um loving this river loving it the wind is burning our fire kind of quickly but it's also boiling our water for hot chocolate and delicious dehydrated thanksgiving dinner and i think it's safe to say that this spot turns out to be ridiculously cool and freaking beautiful it's epic dude epic look at this spot wow nice fire cool yeah thank you so cool oh chocolate you

Channel: Ted Baird

Views: 192,284

Keywords: ted baird, jim baird, ted baird outdoors, ted baird pure wilderness, wilderness, solo, solo camping, wilderness survival, wild camping, camping, canada, manitoba, fishing, kayak fishing, forest, tundra, camping in forest, bushcraft survival, survival, bushcraft, seal, river, baird brothers alone, tent camping, tent, white water rafting, fly in fishing, northern manitoba fishing, black bear, wild north, off grid, canoe, bear, brown bear, grayling fishing, survival challenge, fire pit cook

Id: fZxSFrvn6gU

Length: 123min 35sec (7415 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 30 2022