Grueling 6-Day Solo Camping Trip on a Forgotten River (FULL + Q&A)

[Music] it's gonna be a rough day [Music] it's a little chilly this morning there's an old trapper's cabin here [Music] the snow is getting a little crazy this is why i'm really concerned the thought of aaron calling in search and rescue in a few days is completely freaking me out i don't really care what i have to do i'll swim with the canoe if i don't have to clear anymore [Music] i'm here on a forestry road with erin outfitters just want to give a big shout out to them for dropping me off put their contact info in the description all set to go here at the access point as always don't forget to kiss your guide love you have a great week we were shocked to find this trail here to pass this set of rapids it's a good start for the trips more than i expected it's a good start what do we got oh beautiful brookie out of season i'll get it back real quick wet my hands first before i handle it out of the net call code quickly show it to the camera and goodbye thanks buddy sweet little flasher jig with a small soft plastic paddle tail catches everything another bite pretty good bite in it another brookie wow dang i wish i was here during uh open season on brook road gorgeous thanks buddy all i'm seeing here is follows from brookies so i'm gonna move off beautiful spot though lots to see on this trip though so and potentially lots of work a lot of unknowns i believe this route seldom travel the last documented account of it that i can find is from 1994 with the geraldton high school outers club in no time at all i arrived at the first log jam i think there are at least two that i could see on satellite hopefully that's all and that's manageable these things can just be the bane of river travel i'm gonna find a way around this now either clear a port or try and cut through here but it's a bit deep to be waiting and cutting the logs scrambled up the south bank first looks a little more appealing that's pretty rough so [Music] so that little log jam about 20 meters long took almost two hours to clear and portage and scout that's why i've allotted five to six days for this trip 77 kilometers long but obstacles like that really stretch the distance clear to trail around log jam number two hopefully smooth and clear sailing for a little bit after this [Applause] so i have to lift over this one which i'm probably going to end up in the water for real slippery that log game is just around the corner and i should have started the portage there i could hear rapids and i should have known that based on the volume of them they weren't gonna be runnable it's a crazy little shoot in there i was hoping i could run them but there's no chance beautiful spot no semblance of a trail and real thick bush in here so me another long clear looking at this on the satellite imagery i thought this was just a rapid lasted a trail through here took forever and now i'm at a point where as soon as i get through here i gotta make camp quickly sun's going down oh the site's going to take more clearing than i'd like to spend the time on but i know better than to be overly picky when it's getting dark um chili's hitting the spot i was really hungry it was a hard day i thought this was gonna be my easy day packing up here at first light it's a little chilly this morning not gonna be putting these socks on yet with the difficulty of travel yesterday i only made about six and a half kilometers over about eight hours of travel it was very slow most of it spent clearing i started the route here i know a lot of a lot of people likes uh following along on a map so i'm just gonna show you where i am if you check on satellite you'll see a bridge here over the little pic river there's the log jam that i marked in scouting this on satellite i made this map so i carried on down these are the falls that i saw yesterday which i marked as rapids and there is another set here which based on the fact that i can hear them from several kilometers away i'm guessing are also going to be falls once i get past here i'll show you now the older map which is from 1994 the last documented account of this route kalala creek comes in and meets up with little pig river and then there are some rapids along it which i have some information on from this map so that's the goal today is to get past kalala creek to the first waterfall on that map which will probably be the third waterfall on my trip well it's definitely not runnable i can hear that there's a beautiful little spot here right before the falls but uh clearing around it is going to be a challenge there's another stream flowing in here you might have to go to the other side of the river it's going to take a while i'm hoping if i get around this maybe i can line down that stuff i've started a ways ahead now and it's more unrentable rapid coming into this little canyon and then around that i can't see beyond it so i'm going to continue scouting ahead but it's not looking good very difficult to clear a trail through all this too i'm actually starting to get pretty concerned here i badly wish aaron was here this is too much clearing for one person and i told erin i should be back on the fifth night for dinner and now i'm thinking um i said maybe maybe six but now i'm wondering if that's even realistic this is just the start like i haven't even put finished 15 of the route yet i know i can do this but i just don't want to put aaron in a panic when i don't get home thursday evening there are some open stretches like this but then they just turn into walls uh there we go get out of here trail's clear and now i just got to get through there it's a relief to have the trail established [Music] oh um foreign that took four hours hopefully there's some kind of reward here i'm on a bite i had one uh follow from a small brookie and that was it that's shocking but just as well because i gotta get going [Applause] been making good progress since the falls which feels really good there's a good supply of dry wood here for a fire for lunch which has been rare along the river it's been all bushy stuff and there's some fresh moose tracks here the moose tracks all along the river but these ones look pretty fresh making a batch of high calorie mac and cheese so needed [Music] i just passed the mouth of kalala creek back there and now i actually have a map with information so i have those 25 year old reports from 1994 which tell me something about the rapids and falls and portages which are almost undoubtedly virtually gone at this point but at least i'll know where to start paddling hard making good progress and uh can't set up too late today because a massive storm is moving in supposed to get 30 millimeters of rain in pretty short order so don't want to get caught in that um [Music] approaching the first of three rapids on the 1994 map which suggested that it might be runnable i really hope so a big sweeper going across it so i'll have to take a walk and check it out had all kinds of hair brain schemes here but finally decided i have to line it it's a hell of a lot better than blasting out of trail [Applause] and the bite something on feeling it's a speck yep quick look nice little rookie still nothing that i can eat i was really hoping there'd be walleye and pike in here had a couple specs on follow those from specs i don't think there's anything else here so i'm going to move on i would love this if they were in season this rapid would be runnable in high water but there's a dangerous sweeper here i'm just going to get rid of it so that this rapid could be run if water levels were high enough another log jam but cleared a little path here and i think i can squeeze over these guys if i step out onto the logs it's too deep to get in the water yes fantastic just finished getting camp set up back in there and uh started to spit about a half hour ago so i just called it quits it's getting dark anyway i'm going to have some food by the canoe well up off on the side with all the rain that's expected to come and tied down i can't imagine it'll crawl up that much but it's definitely going to go up overnight another pretty tough day but survived it and a little closer to the goal on the old maps this i'm roughly there is rapid seven falls long portage along here potentially another rapid with a portage falls and another falls and then the maps continue all along here and down to the trans-canada highway where i'll be connecting with my car and then there's a write-up on it too describing campsites rapids and portages but after 25 years they don't hold a lot of relevance [Applause] it's about 9 a.m and i'm kind of trapped here if i go out i need to remove some of these clothes to keep them dry and then i'll be shivering the only thing that is gonna be able to keep me warm today is uh clearing trail around the next waterfall which isn't too far ahead so i'm hoping to at least accomplish that today i'm just waiting for the air temperature to rise a little bit so i don't get absolutely chilled it's 10 45 now and i i really have to get going so i'm eating a few kaiser rolls stuffed with peanut butter and then i'm gonna go get wet it's gonna be a rough day i try to be very conscious of bear attractants out here and bears are often attracted to strange things you wouldn't expect like toothpaste or gasoline things that don't don't aren't food but they have a strong odor deodorant can fall in that category too so i use a natural unscented deodorant anything i can remove or substitute from my pack that has a really strong odor i generally try and do that the natural one feels weird at first it's like it feels like sandpaper when you try and apply it and i only discovered after reading the instructions that you have to hold it against your skin in order to let it warm and become soft kind of like cold butter that i realized it wasn't so bad got my wet pants back on but the worst part is the cold wet socks [Music] this first falls is actually not long at all just a little shoot but i'm guessing it continues around that corner based on the old map yep and presumably they carry on down there too have i mentioned this is gonna be rough just keeps on going and going and i'm still scouting i haven't even started to cut yet wow it's breathtaking along here but it goes on for so long this is freaking me out the thought of aaron calling in search and rescue in a few days is completely freaking me out can't let that happen rocks are really slippery good [Music] run really slowly here these rocks are so slippery well i'm gonna try and wait or run the rest i don't really care what i have to do i'll swim with the canoe if i don't have to clear anymore it's going to make it work i'm going to put on the underwater gopro now to uh in case i dump [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] so hopefully there's some kind of reward here that was one of the worst i've done one of the worst portages and i've had some nasty ones i feel like a fool for taking this on on my own it's too much i feel like i should file a human rights claim against myself this is just brutal i'm soaked and chilled and i better get a fire going tonight there's something on here but it's tiny oh just lost it there's a little speck it's fine oh yeah a lot of emotions there i'm i'm spent some real highs in getting past that but some real lows i'm really stressed about time i'm a time stressor i hate being late and i can't stop thinking about search and rescue coming for me i was able to travel for about three minutes before hitting another unrunnable chute my camera chose a terrible moment to freeze up here my canoe turned while i was trying to line it over the ledge and i got sucked into the recirculating water below i was already stressed and at my limit for the day and i really felt panic there as i watched it happen i could hear rushing water around the blind corner and i had no idea if it was a violent rapid or even a waterfall i pictured my canoe getting pinned and destroyed there in the middle of nowhere mercifully the river let me yank the canoe out with my line before it flipped in the hole i was pretty shaken up but i had no choice but to carry on more unrentable rapid got my heart racing across the uh river here i heard some branches cracking and i wasn't sure what it was but i just heard a moose grunting at me i still can't see him there are moose tracks on my little beach here honestly just hope he leaves me alone [Applause] here's where things finish today purple dots start point blue dot me this river that to the transcanada highway is what i have left i've done it most a third of the route and i've used three out of ideally five maximum six days this is why i'm really concerned so last night was pretty awful i was feeling as beaten down as i've ever felt after three days of a trip but uh it's not raining today i'm feeling optimistic that today's gonna be a better day make good progress according to the map and the information i have there shouldn't be as many obstacles today so if that holds true then i'll be okay the forecast for today was kind of variable but i'm loving what i'm seeing my mood is really up from yesterday so uh clay here is ridiculous my boots weigh like 10 pounds [Applause] on the portage around the next falls and there's an old trapper's cabin here still some cut wood back there seen better days i believe on the 25 year old map that it said this cabin was in use at the time it doesn't take long for nature to reclaim it moose skull spine jaw more bones this is by far the best four touch yet a decent stretch of it just like this cleared it a bit but not too much [Applause] last port of the day coming up so you can get past this waterfall and then call it quits this is by far the best trail yet it's the only real trail everything else is required clearing but my fears of aaron calling in search and rescue are rapidly disappearing desean it doesn't feel big if it was a salmon i'm pretty sure it would feel big oh and i lost it splendid so the waterfall is just around the corner and i'm gonna fish it again tomorrow morning but running out of daylight today decided to set up camp not in the dark for once and just getting in a few casts here before before i get to bed oh oh oh i think i just had a bite felt big but this is more like it i was just about to say i'm not time stressed i don't think i'm okay for time to get to where i need to be i'm fishing i'm excited to be fishing and i'm relaxed [Applause] cheers to getting this trip back on the right track [Applause] another good bear practice is to fart up your sleeping area profusely i believe it was thorough who discovered that in his time alone in the wilderness speaking of which i'm reading a really good book right now called stranger in the woods i'm going to continue reading it as i doze off here let's go to hermit spirits are high and spirits are delicious good morning it's a chili one it's uh probably close to zero again tonight it's got some crackers and cheese this morning cheese is very important to me and i wasn't really sure how to express how i felt so i made this actually pretty much happened by accident i just shaped it up a little best part of the day camp is packed up it becomes quite a tedious chore to do that over and over and over again throughout the season uh but it's done it's time for fishing and a full day of adventure a couple of moose here of course i just started to troll there they go good starting to worry me staring it's a cow and calf see you guys i was not ready for that i was just kind of looking back gazing around and then boom two moose gawking at me just glad it was in the bowl bulls are what concern me right now this time of year in the rut awesome [Applause] nice day for hot chocolate can't get the chill off the wind is just uh it's bitterly cold today one of those days where you're wearing your life jacket just to bottle in a little more heat but this is helping and lunch will help too oh man heart is pumping i was just thinking about a bull moose encounter and i just heard something crash through there like a bulldozer okay scared the crap out of me hey back off [Applause] holy cow [Applause] it's like a zoo here hey yeah that's it it's graham did not like the way he was sitting there waiting for me to approach oh my heart's been racing three times today now i'm sorry bear i didn't mean to yell you're just huge and clawed you got big beautiful teeth [Applause] the river paddling gets kind of monotonous and you just kind of zone out and then you turn and boom looking right at you hi so weird the beavers have been like oblivious to me or maybe there was a muskrat i didn't see a big tail i was looking through the camera i'm not sure now um in any case i've startled a few of them coming along the shoreline here i guess it's a solo paddler just keeping quiet and going downstream doesn't make a lot of noise so that was cool the zoo day continues starting what's going to be a very long portage around a bunch of rapids might not finish today and walking through these tall grasses and shrubs it always creeps me out always wondering if a bear is around there are plenty of game trails through it i actually found a few good raspberries on one bush so there might still be some forage here i'm keeping the bear spray in hand right now and uh just trying to find a way through i was gonna bush crash it but i've hit a wall of alder so i don't know i might have to clear so what a beautiful spot i just washed up i'm gonna head up there in the woods to get away from this infernal racket i'm gonna read for a bit like there's nothing more i can do today still have quite a bit of work left to do tomorrow um but it's too late to start anything right now so i'm just gonna have some cheese read a book eat drink some scotch here's the recap for today i went from that red dot there all the way to my current location but that is the amount of distance you can cover when you're not hampered by non-stop obstacles i covered way more today than i covered in the first three days as you can see as i've been recording this trip i feel like someone could say that i've been complaining about my situation a lot and maybe that's true but i'll also say that this is the hardest trip i've done this season and that includes my may trip with aaron which was exceedingly difficult this one is more difficult equal difficulty physically similar difficulty mentally with the number of unknowns and being on a tight timeline on both trips but emotionally this one has been much harder aaron hasn't been here i've been thinking about her non-stop and worrying about her worrying about me the thing about youtube is that the video gets put out there people watch it they think they saw the whole experience well what's shown on youtube is maybe four or five percent of the entire duration of the trip a lot else goes on there are lots of other physical difficulties mental difficulties such as this is the third night i've slept beside rushing water where i can't hear if like an animal is approaching i can't really hear that it's one of my biggest pet peeves but i've had no alternative on this trip a bear could walk up here right now and it'd be pretty hard for me to tell until the last second i guess what i'm trying to say is that this once soloist has gone soft on a related note this spoke about a hermit the stranger in the woods has been fantastic by michael finkel there's a great quote here it says one's desire to be alone by that biologists have found is partially genetic and to some degree measurable if you have low levels of the pituitary peptide oxytocin sometimes called the master chemical of sociability and high quantities of the hormone vasopressin which may suppress your need for affection you tend to require fewer interpersonal relationships despite the challenge of this trip this uh this quote by the hermit christopher knight is really good nature night clarified is brutal the weak do not survive and neither do the strong life is a constant merciless fight that everyone loses compared to every other creature out here i have it so easy that's the funny thing got sleet this morning halfway between rain and snow and i'm going to scout the first portage see if i can run it if not back to clear clearing trail a little mink just trotted down here for his morning routine got to there looked at me he's like huh and darted back the first rapid is runnable so that is wonderful news now it's actually snowing which is nice this is beautiful first snow of the season here we go got pushed right into that nothing i could do rough start rough start running rapids in the snow i'm talking about canada baby hmm [Music] yeah yeah almost lost it right off the bat oh boy maybe if i had been kneeling that would help but my crotch should be right in front of the camera if i'm kneeling i guess i should prioritize running the rapid anyway i'm gonna you know what i'm not even gonna fish this i don't feel like it if there's salmon here i'll let them be looks like some tamer stuff ahead there's a big rapid coming up it's the last big challenge that this river is going to throw me all right here the rapids ahead it's time for a scout the snow is getting a little crazy i scouted a ways ahead and it would be a super long portage and clearing job so i'm gonna run it it looks manageable for quite a while might be some bumps and scrapes who am i kidding it's probably gonna be mostly bumps and scrapes wish me luck [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] oh boy this ain't good actually a pretty clean run it was pretty straightforward but the rapid isn't done yet getting pretty cold here [Music] [Music] is that it on my map it was marked that this area had a class two to three rapid i was expecting more around the corner maybe i'm out of the woods you know what i can't stop thinking right now i don't have my winter tires on yet i think there's a little channel on the left side i can take you really can't tell if there's a rock there but it might be okay the rapids you don't scout can be quite a roller coaster quite a surprise oh today's going great what a relief soon i can be home check in with erin at dinner tonight she'd be in panic mode can't wait you know those places you drive by on the highway on the way to work or your cottage wherever and you look on to that lake or down a down a road or something you think i wonder what's down there i've been looking down up the little pick river across the trans-canada highway bridge so many times now i can finally check that off my wonderlust list in spectacular fashion wow i've been waiting a long time to see these views and they've lived up to expectations and i think the snow is adding to it i kind of i was hoping to get here yesterday and when it turned nice and blue but i think this is just as special [Music] soaking this up a little bit this is the reward that i worked for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i can see the bridge oh i just got a glimpse of it through the hills what a relief this trip made me feel like an amateur i've done this hundreds of days and this was one of the most difficult [Applause] i'm glad it's over these hard trips you uh you're kind of happy when they're over but you look back on them the most fondly [Music] well just about there thank you for joining me on this one i needed the companionship believe it or not the camera and the thought of sharing it provides that somehow [Music] [Music] [Applause] all done my takeout is right up there up this slope [Music] the bridge i've been driving over i'm signing off after an amazing trip [Music] [Music] two years have passed since the trip you just saw i originally posted it in 2019 as a two-part series got lots of questions so i'm gonna go over some of the most common themes rapid fire q and a style question one this one was kind of funny and it was so repetitive i couldn't believe the outrage about this issue it was why bring deodorant on a solo trip why not just get stinky i don't really know what to say to that i guess it's a personal choice i don't even use it every day out here more like every three days at the most it's just like a little blast of freshness when you feel disgusting after uh some rugged travel that's it number two why not get a kayak or inflatable or a lighter canoe well that would make some aspects of the trip easier but first of all i don't own those i owned the canoe that i had boats tend to be in the thousands of dollars at least hundreds and you can't own the perfect boat for every occasion not to mention there's cargo capacity i've got big packs 60 liter food barrel 115 liter pack main pack fishing rods filming gear i uh it would just be really impractical to have almost anything but a canoe for this trip in the in that sense and for inflatables specifically i don't want to be thinking about accidentally puncturing it either on on rocks in rapids or smashing through the bush i'd way rather have this hard canoe than be worried about puncturing it and i certainly wouldn't want to be deflating and inflating constantly every time i had the portage the canoe has been the vessel of choice for trips in this region for a long time and that's for a good reason next question what kind of canoe did you have it was a 15-foot prospector and expedition kevlar so kevlar boats are tend to be the ultra lights this is expedition kevlar it's a tougher layup and it can take a little bit of a beating it was from a small shop in hamilton ontario called beach marine it has a weight of about 55 pounds i've since sold it i haven't really announced this yet but my first canoe i sold it to a couple of good guys well really one uh ahri in marathon and i think his brother matteo will get some use out of it too i'm thrilled that they have it thrilled to give that special canoe which means a lot to me to someone who's going to use it for many years have you ever heard about lnt leave no trace yeah it's a great philosophy and i'm sure someone who who lives where l t is necessary is looking at me thinking you are a bulldozer like you're ruining this place that's not the case up here there's very limited funding for canoe routes the little pig river believe it or not that's a recognized canoe route by the province many there are many of them so there just isn't the funding to maintain them so doing that trail maintenance establishing campsites and fire pits that's you're helping that's not a hindrance up here it's just a different environment it's very wild very but thick bush in northern ontario why not carry a satcom device similar to the canoe connect question i didn't own one i do now i've got the zolio we've got it right behind me here two years later i got a plb which was originally which is just a a device with an sos button you know if something is horribly wrong you have a link to the outside world now i have this zolio and yeah if you if you were looking at that trip thinking why didn't you have something like this believe me i wish that i had the sos function on the plb was great but sometimes you just need to say i'm running late like that increased the amount of stress on this trip tenfold just the ability not the not having the ability to say i just need another day or two everything's fine it wasn't like i couldn't do this trip it was really just the time stress that that was the most affecting me the most sometimes you don't kneel when running rapids why well i prefer not to kneel unless i need to just for comfort i know i know the merits of kneeling especially in rapids better stability and control maneuverability but i only do when i have to i'm doing these trips for comfort and enjoyment despite how rough this trip was i do do this for enjoyment and i'm not training for the olympics i'm not running a paddling instructor's course i'm just enjoying myself out here so i don't always in fact i almost never demonstrate good good form what camping gear do you bring also what filming gear there's way too much to say about that but i just did a full rundown of my kit this spring so i'm sure you have no trouble finding those videos if you're if you're looking for more on that i broke it up into parts my main pack my filming kit my food so you can check those out separately if you're interested where was this a lot of people asked that it was in the beginning but so easy to miss those little captions it was the little pick river north shore of lake superior in northern ontario canada why didn't you eat any of the fish i get this a lot this this time there is a black and white answer i only caught brook trout and brook trout were out of season meaning it's illegal to keep them other times i don't i don't always keep the fish that i catch because a maybe they're too small not worth keeping they're too big they're a good spawner it's not a nice time i just ate i'm in a rush and probably the one thing that people never consider when they ask this question filming is a massive amount of work even to film a catch and cook it elongates that process so much and sometimes you just don't feel like it you just rather pull something out of the barrel and eat that not to mention if i eat things out of my barrel it's lightening that barrel for for upcoming uh portages so if i just say fish all trip my barrel will be heavy for the whole trip i'll leave it at that because i wanted to make this quick but yeah looking back on this trip two years later still one of the hardest that i've ever done really because of the time stress it was difficult in terms of conditions it was cold it was wet the rough the travel was rough thick bush and limited information unknown rapids or very little information on the rapids and that's tough but yeah just not thinking of aaron calling in search and rescue and her worrying and having to get back to work those things were really stressful so if i had a day or two more on this trip would have been totally different but those challenges like i said in the moment on this trip they make for the most rewarding trips and that was the case for this one you

Channel: Lost Lakes

Views: 157,528

Keywords: lost lakes, camping, fishing, ontario, canada, bushcraft, backcountry angling ontario, winter, wilderness

Id: lIEZzBV__t0

Length: 63min 49sec (3829 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021