Preparing and Gear for a 9 day, Fly In Canoe Trip in the Boreal Wilderness.

Description

I go over gear and plans for an upcoming canoe trip into Woodland Caribou Provincial Park.

There is an interview with the owner of Red Lake Outfitters, at the end of the video.

Outfitter https://redlakeoutfitters.com/

Frost River https://www.frostriver.com/

Canadian Outdoor Equipment

https://www.canadianoutdoorequipment.com/

Tilley https://www.tilley.com/ca_en/

Ursack https://www.ursack.com/

Instagram https://instagram.com/joerobinetbushcraft/

Twitter https://twitter.com/Robinet_Joe

Tags: Bushcraft,Backpacking,Canoe,Dog Training,Axe,Ontario,Canada,Bowdrill,HD,Nikon,Gopro,camping

Video Transcription

hey guys how you doing Joe here as some of you know buddy Shawn and I are headed up to woodland caribou Provincial Park which is far north it's about a 30 hour drive from me but a 25 hour drive from Shawn so we're headed up there shortly I wanted to get you guys out the gear video for that trip I can't dedicate time during the trip to do is go over my gear this is a good alternative it's been working out good lately so this trip is not a high mileage title until bedtime kind of trip like you've seen a lot a lot for me this is more of a relaxed trip where we're going to focus on fishing we're still going to paddle around every night and get a different campsite every night but we're not going to be putting in 30 kilometers a day be 10 to 15 kilometers a day which is a much more relaxed much more relaxed pace than I'm used to and they've seen for me before so in preparation for this trip we got some sponsors I'd like to thank frost River first of all sending me this cliff Jacobson pack so this is going to be a 2 pack canoe trip we don't have to worry about single carrying on the Portage's a lot of the Portage's are 100 meters long which is nothing at all in their relatively flat so again we're not trying to kill kill ourselves to get far in a short amount of time or anything like that so two packs anyways frost River cliff Jacobson pack is going to be my pack that I carry with my canoe well we're we're portaging and then my big old next log here is going to be carried by itself I also got a fort bag from Frost River this just hangs on my fort my canoe so that's kind of cool maybe we'll go through this first my fourth bag has a big zipper on the back and inside that I have my fishing tackle now I have too much fishing tackle I realize that but I want to catch you fish you know this guy needs all the help you can get try to catch a fish so here I've got things like spoons about wrap repellers I've got jigs and then just like more fake worms and a chain you know a stringer for my fish when I catch a ton of them stuff like that that's a big hefty hefty fishing

tackle kit but we'll see maybe when I get up there we'll talk to Harlan the Red Lake Outfitters owner the guys sending us out on the plane we'll go through this and see if I need all this stuff other than that I have fish gloves because there's monster fish there and I'll be in my boat by myself trying to grab moat with no net so I got some grippy fish loaves and just a map of the park that's in my big zippered purse and it's also got this buckle front and I have a large more awfully nice a second-stringer for all my fish you know can't be too careful I have a boat repair kit which is like jb weld some gloves some tape and then have an extra roll of 10-pound fishing line mono

not doing braids this time we go mono so that's in my fort bag and again that just stays connected to the inside of my canoe on my fort and that's ready for easy access whenever the cliff Jacobs can pack this is wax canvas all this is wax canvas from the frost River so in here wax canvas is very water resistant almost waterproof but things can happen when your bag is laying in the bottom of a canoe and getting rained on all day you know water switches around so I got a trash compactor bag that's lining it and there I have I'll show you this after this is just like extra food stuff that Sean and I are going to combine this is a bag to keep my camera and my lens in when it's raining the dry bag a bug net it is going to be peak black fly season so I've taken measures to ensure that I don't get sick like last time until Mogami last year I had the black fly fever so I have prednisone and I have like pills and I also have benadryl so we're going to keep on that and keep all wrapped up and try not to get exposed too much because I react horribly above but the black fly bikes mosquito bite different story so black played bikes get me so that's why my head net for them my possible coach in here as well first aid water purification toilet paper headlamp extra batteries extra stuff in here that I can't remember lots of stuff the things that I will want to get to easily and being so it's going to go in Michael I'm a fox river bag in front of me so I can hacked up it all easily and then I also just have a little still nylon parachute nope not parachute some nylon hammock the eyes I'm not this isn't going to be my my sleeping system at all but this is a hammock with a bug net and it's all super lightweight seeing is how we're going to be getting to camp relatively early in the daytime I figured this might be very valuable just to relax in and escape from the bugs and if that wraps up my left Jacobson cross river path I do have in the back this goes in the back of my pack boat for my seat so this this backpack is no frame to it all right and I have actually had my pack boat seat Bend after Pope well I was after a year of use so I just don't I want to make sure that I have it all set in case that bends I can throw this in and this gives my backpack complete structural integrity not as much back support as I need on this thing and then in the pockets I do have some stuff I have my Sawyer my Sawyer squeeze the bag that comes with it and then just an extra platypus one liter bottle soft bottle so I'll be doing I'll be using the Sawyer filter as my water purification but I also do have water drops in case I get lazy so that's what this the one liter thing is for I just got a extra little GoPro Joby pod in there that's that for that my fishing rod like a six and a half foot maybe seven-foot Hellcat it's got uh it's just a fact like a combo rod and reel I bought I'm not going to lose this one I promise you that so I got it full of wine and then I got an extra ten pound line like you saw my life jacket my PFD this is what I'll be wearing it's got it's a stole quest fisherman and then it's got pockets in it where I have things like a small fillet knife a whistle a space blanket my fishing license and then plot big pliers for the fish like needlenose pliers to get the hooks out so I'll be on me my shoes and we wearing my Morel Rapids again we do a shoes I wore my Algonquin trip they're like neoprene and they have instead of normal laces they have these constricting laces they don't soak up a lot of water at all they're a very good shoe I like them a lot this is my second pair of these exact same shoes as far as clothes I'm wearing my Tilley pants again thank you to Tilley for sponsoring with some clothes these are Tilley pants they have they're lightweight a quick dry they're zip off into shorts they don't have a closure around the bottom but I got them hemmed in pretty tight and I'm going to bring some elastics just to keep the bugs from flying up my my pant leg but these are they pants

I've yet to wear them as far as socks and we wearing longer socks than normal these are darn tough and they're going to go up a lot higher to protect again to protect my ankles from black flies that's where I got it really bad last year it was all any ankles go back and watch that video if you haven't seen it that too two canoes one river a Temagami journey is what it's called I'll link it maybe up here and they ended the description Kyle and I did nine days in Somali Muse it was a great trip but it was brutal for the black boys this is a Columbia shirt Sun resistant long-sleeve shirts keep the bugs out all that and lightweight very thin lightweight shirts a typical canoeing shirt then venting in the back but uh-oh to a research hat that has mesh so all the top is all mesh so I need the Hat for the Sun in for the bugs just smart wool t-shirt to switch out I won't be wearing the t-shirt as well as the long-sleeve shirt at the same time but to switch out and then my Under Armour underwear so that's all the stuff I'm going to be wearing except for again like like that when I switch out the shirt I have as far as a knife but my original adventures foreign explorer super old-school knife it's got a fire still attached to it I've got my GoPro section on a clamp mount this safe to save the video on my old uncle trip so this will be used again it's supposed to rain I don't know maybe four to the eight four to the nine days we're there so yeah we'll use that in the rain and get a bunch of different angles and stuff with that also this is another mount for my fort in my canoe for my GoPro I'm going to be bringing this webbing to attach the front of my canoe for lining or for tying it up I always bring this with a carabiner on it it's invaluable actually super super useful like I remember going one time without it and I really really missed it okay hopefully that's everything in that now we just have to go through the meat of the pack the what I do have in my this extra foodstuffs thing so Sean and I both have earth sacks I'll show you what that is in a minute the Kevlar bag for our food because where we're going it's all boreal forest it's going to be hard to find trees and tie off too because there's not limbs coming out it's all just spruce like Christmas trees so with the Earth's a few tie it to the bottom of a tree it's Kevlar the Bears can't rip it out and yeah it's pretty good but we have three between the two of us I have one Sean has two and the second one that sean has is going to be a communal bag right so what I have to go in the communal bag is my little small grill a pound of lard 450 grams of lard a lemon fish crisp bag of sage again my mommy two pieces of tinfoil these are a lot big piece of tin foil wrapped up square it up in there and then just a couple pepperonis these are Springer's meats pepperoni there Oh to hamilton i got a ton of springer meats i'm going to be bringing in pepperoni wise check those guys out if you're in canvas bring your meats thank you to those guys for sponsoring sit with some pepperonis as well springers meat so rx printers meet in Hamilton so yeah but that's just the extra food and I'm not going to necessarily keep it in this bag it's just so that I can bring it to Sean's place and we can divvy it up into the third Kevlar bag okay I just got this all packed in here so this weighs 35 pounds this one that's pretty heavy but that's okay because I won't be carrying it with my canoe like I said so right on top welcome from the Hidden woodsman thank you buddy send me a poached to keep my stuff in a little little patch on it it opens the man tell me some goodies to some like Clif bars and granola bars and stuff so in here I have batteries charger and SD cards for my DSLR and then I have extra baggies for like lunches and stuff which my lunches will go in my cliff Jacobson frost over backpack so I can access it easy but these are just extra values too small one big you never know like some for garbage some for lunches they're very very valuable okay and then this is kind of an odd mix in here but I have my booze I have a Mickey forty creak like a half a Mickey of the screech that I had from before from Troy and then just a tiny little Jack Daniels airplane shooter I know I don't know why they're in here with the camera batteries it's just how it is right now I'm sure it'll get changed around when I was there that was right on top second I have my heavy cover frying pan that may go in the third Kevlar or sack food bag but I'm not sure yet so this will be used for baking disabused for fish frying this will be used for making a fish frying next up is my Arc'teryx range shell and then my Mountain Hardwear rain pants again saved the trip on the Algonquian video I wore these maybe three quarters of the trip so I have them right at the top of the backpack easy to access ready to go I have my bush buddy and my Snow Peak titanium 900 pot and my Snow Peak stork in here you guys seem to use that lock so this is a twig twig stove and one pot cooking meal things like when I do my dehydrated meals that are super easy we will be eating fictionalist strip there's no doubt in my mind this place is like less than five hundred visitors a year compared to like what the millions that Algonquin gets this is fishing this is this is walleye this is lake trout and let's just plate fishing big-time we will be eating fish we will be eating fish Pacific next up is my first aid more advanced first aid than what's in my kapakos pouch here I've got I fill up the anti diarrhea pills

I've got sewing needle and thread you get gauze tape the whole nine yards this is a full kit is also the blood white pills and benadryl and all that fun stuff in here some paracord is a little bit my sit pad green foam pad this time retired the blue foam pad after left last trip they should go in the extra food thing it's just a little spatula for when we grill our fish you know I mentioned we're catching fish this is a sponte freedom something like that this is a Swedish reflector oven you've seen them in Doug's video before but here we can bake like a cake or we can broil fish so folds up flat opens all out I'll show you guys out on the trip for sure but thank you to Tim from Canadian outdoor equipment for sponsoring us very nice of him okay earth sack this is the earth sack thank you thank you to the guys at earth sack for sponsoring us with a few of these so the idea behind this this is like 15 pounds of food in here man lots of food I'll go I'll go through my food in a little bit but this like I said this Kevlar bag Shawna's actually has it on video of a bear trying to get his without any available also you just tie this Kevlar rope to the bottom of the tree trying to do it in a precarious spot too or the bear can get it maybe over like the the water or something but and then it's got these two holes in the back where you can loop it through again and rodents can't get in or anything like that so pretty cool I've not used one of these but he swears by them and I know other people swear by on showed uses on a show Camry on YouTube that's the food I like I'll go through that in a minute my clothes go through that in a minute - this is all my extra clothes including like warm stuff for the nine days it's a little bit much actually a little bit much

I got my premaloft always bring trim up jacket going to so Sean's bringing what is he bringing instead Sean's got something for communal use and I've got something for community use I camera what he's bringing but mine my mine for communal use is this tarp is a nine by nine still nylon tarp so we each have our tents then we'll have a communal cooking eating hangout spot under the tarp if we need it if it rains there's paracord stuff all in there too so my sleeping pad which is the therm-a-rest NeoAir you can use it all the time my second egg which is my Mountain Equipment co-op plus three Celsius bag I put it in my other amount of hardware stuff sack but yeah that's my blue my old blue one old blue there's not going to get cold it's gonna be like I don't know they say 13 at night or something Celsius not bad at all in a day time around 25 ish Celsius my tent is my Big Agnes flight crease ul one there's the tent itself with the bug net and at my poles and my pegs I love this town you guys just saw them use this all my backpacking video with Doug if you haven't seen that video check it out is hilarious one of the better ones I think I'll link that in the description as well but yeah great tent use that for years now so it's Johnny's going to bring a boreal 21 egg little Canyon saw folding sauce buck saw so I've got my 19 inch sandwich a little bit bigger than I usually bring on a canoe trip but that's okay so we might even have to clear trails and the Portage's and stuff is not maintained like that so for firewood clearing trail yeah

hidden Shaun when he gets out of hand what else I've got my neoprene socks again which will be Mike my camp shoes kind of thing I might actually bring some camp shoes I'm not sure I haven't decided yet but if not these will be them down pillow luxury and also located a chair REI folding chair so like I said again it's a remote part there's not any benches there's not any man-made seats it's lots of rock and we're going to be at camp relatively early so I have my chair and my hammock this can pull it out of control okay I think that might be it just a real quick oh no my food my food can't forget my food alright so I've got to show you my clothes and like food you're the food first so we will be eating fish to tell you again we will be eating fish but I still have a decent amount of food I told you that there's holes in it so I've got it we got the normal drawstring right and then it's got these holes in the back where you can go through just to make it like super super tight so that little rodents can't get in either can you you want to go over that way home or that way over that with good boy just lay down right there just right there fine all right there yeah it's all good anyways my food this that this is the earth sack again take you earth sack for sending these right on top Terra Rocha you know you can't go on a nine-day extended camping trip with our oceans so this little treat

you know what I'm going to do I'm going to lay this out in days it'll be easier that way I think no I'm not I forgot to put it in bags okay we'll just do like this so in here I've got suppers I've got dehydrated food and I've got rice so basically you've seen the spaghetti before when dehydrated spaghetti but I've also this time done ground beef rice and vegetables dehydrated vegetables so this is like the ground beef was fried with garlic and onions in it and then the rice is cooked the

all the vegetables in our summer cook them all dehydrated together so this is a lot of food in here anyways I've got that I've got spaghetti rice and chili and then also I have just normal rice the rice I said there with the beef I also have just normal rice so I have eight of these meals I'm not going to need eight of these meals I know that but I'd rather be safe than sorry You Know Who I am right like you've seen me try to fish before even though we are going to catch fish you know we are going to cook an eight-pitch I got I got to play it safe so eight meals there three of the meals are just rice so if we do when we do catch fish the rice will go with it and for some other reason if we don't I'll just have a rice meal that day no big deal anyways noodles for eight days breakfast for eight or nine mornings it's OpenAL and then pancake mix and then I've got also some sizzurp in there some syrup that's my breakfast lunch is German salami twelve grain flax whatever seed flatbread and then a bunch of baby bells and mustard

got the mustard this time again springers meat hooked it up with the pepperoni got a kind of pepperonis in there I got the other couple to that I show you my wife was supposed to buy me jerky but she bought me steak instead it's like dried State here you go big guy

yeah dried steak it's okay I'm sure I'll love it out there it's pepper that's good and I've got a crap ton of snacks

I've got fruit snacks about granola bars about Romney's Kendal mint cake thanks Malcolm

I got Clif bars M&M peanuts water additives

Justin's peanut butter yeah so good amount of snacks we've got a muffin chocolate chip muffin mix too to make in the in the reflector oven and I've got my toothpaste and toothbrush in there so it doesn't even really look like all that much but I have a ton of it's like 15 pounds of food plus all the pitch I'll hold em fishies all right next up is my clothes last but not least right off the hop I have my wind shirt this is a Patagonia Houdini wind shirt packs down to absolutely nothing super lightweight I'll probably end up even keeping that in my cargo pocket for when we're canoeing if it gets frizzy just throw that on and it actually really warms you up cuz it's black and everything attracts a Sun I've got one extra pair of socks these are smart wolf with holes in the heels a pack towel clean on my tent from sweat or rain and it is not unheard of to go swimming either these lakes are not it's very North to be flakes are not very big so I might take a dip who knows but pacTel under armour underwear extra smart wool or merino wool long-sleeve shirt this is fantastic I'm sure I want to use this to buy my buff a cold cold neck buff or whatever you soak in the water put around your neck keeps you nice and dry nice and cold and helps to keep the mosquitoes in the black flies off your neck I Costco long johns again and just a little merino wool icebreakers being in case for the mornings or whatever I gotta clean all this up now but I'm going to add a clip that was shot me three or four months ago a buddy Shawn so is Harlan the owner of Red Lake Outfitters came in came down and we planned our trip together I got a little bit of an interview from him so he's going to tell you about the park about the kind of plane that we're flying in on and everything so we are getting dropped off in a floatplane guys it's like it's like a 25 hour drive from Shawn toasts and then like a four-hour float plane ride or something I'm not sure I could be wrong on the time of the full plane ride but a couple hours into the middle of the wilderness I'm talking like straight boreal bush and dropped off there and that plane leaves and we're left left our own for nine days until it takes us back up we do have a Sat phone we have a spot satellite thing so all is well anyways keep watching I'm sure you'll find what Harlan has to say interesting I hope you guys enjoyed this video hope it was a little bit informative if you have any questions let me know and I really hope you stick around for the full trip video John and I are just sitting here with Harlan Harlan is the owner of Red Lake Outfitters and we are going over our woodland caribou trip we're going to be going in Jill in June and we're going to be doing a fishing trip a fly-in trip it's gonna be awesome epic so Harlan flew down here just to do this with us trying to plan it all perfectly so maybe if you don't we can get a some stats on the park from you as like sighs how many visitors a year stuff like that yeah well first I want to thank you guys and it's going to be great to have you and Sean in the clerk I mean obviously it's a world-class park and we're happy to have you guys

so the park itself 1.2 million acres in size I believe it's the third largest park in the entire material park system so it's this massive expansive boreal forest I think about 500 people you're actually accessing the park and what that means for you guys is a high quality adventure you're probably having a better chance of seeing a caribou when it moves and several of them then another human being throw your trip you guys are looking at coming in June which is prime time for fishing later oh well I know they're Pike they're all going to be up she'll that's also moose and caribou calving time of years so hopefully see some wildlife hopefully go on to some epic fishing both for numbers and size and I just kind of get you guys to see the whole boreal forest experience it wouldn't anchor the park and just kind of a different landscape it's going to be cool very cool what's the kind of weather no should we expected that time of year yeah so I mean if you're transitioning to summer in Northern Ontario so anywhere it highs from you know 20 to 22 degrees Celsius to those you know depending on what happens you could get down into the teens or the you don't eights or tens but for the most part you should have early summer weather just if you have anywhere else and hopefully they throw a little thunderstorm with ya as well and we create some epic sky and there's nothing like a born of forest thunderstorm - speaking of the skies so what presented daylight hours or should we are we gonna be experiencing out there are the times are gonna get dark at night but light in the morning yeah so we're we're just over 51 degrees latitude so you're pretty far north as far as I'm Kerry go goes um for a destination you can still drive - all right into the town of Red Lake where were based out of so you're probably gonna have daylight ambient light around 4:00 a.m. ambient light till about 11:00 11:30 at night so a really long day what's really neat too is that you can you can do your trick for eight or ten hours and travel all day and enjoy all that I still have camp Lloyd yeah you can still mess around a camper now and usually cook you dinner for an hour to enable it for two hours fish off your dinner and then cut our light lamp still isn't even on right it just makes for for a more enjoyable time more time or not I'm really very clear yeah we don't easily actually get a lot of camp time on a canoe trip as we're paddling read till dark and about time you make dinner it's getting dark and you you don't just get a chance to actually just sit around a campfire and talk and enjoy that and good pictures oh yeah that's gonna be cool yeah it's a great benefit for traveling I mean you know you invest at that time to get all the way up north about three Ward is is epic daylight condition that allows you to actually enjoy the time together you guys don't know it was over in Minnesota with the park is this yeah we really met a man we border Manitoba ikiki Provincial Park is the Manitoba counterpart so if you look at the western part of the park where the blood bean river flows into Manitoba it borders into a de Provincial Park so carries on all the way to Lake Winnipeg so that's pretty far up there I'm in Windsor Sean's a few hours north of me we're going to be driving for 24 hours to get there still in Ontario still Ontario I'm not even at the top different time zones you're definitely not - right yeah actual times only yeah so this is gonna be a big undertaking a big trip a trip of a lifetime for me yeah super excited we're going to get you up into 1956 - Alan beaver we're going to put the power on that let it build engines rumbling man it's going to be gonna be a wicked time 30 minutes later you're going to be in the middle of this incredible boreal forest it's just YouTube out there nobody else and you're left to your own devices to just catch patient don't care boreal forest and we we're so where we normally go or we can do a trip where we fish it's got some boreal forest components but we're in a deciduous for some transition area typically so this is new for what we've shown or of what I've shown on my channel for sure I've been into the boreal on a canoe trip so for us that alone is a very cool experience so what what's a typical boreal forest look like our late in the Boer for us yeah so we're we're a true fire driven ecosystem so fire creates fire destroys it'll happens together so jack pine and black spruce and of course jack pine need fire to receive and for the chlorosis

a fellow fellow you can come up but yeah it's all jack pine and blacks was predominantly a little bit of birch a little bit of poplar for the most part though of shallow soils and it's a prairie we call the prairie boiled rice it's a drier climate we have that Prairie influence as well in far western part of material so a little drier air in soils shallower soils for sure and just good-good bushcrafting there's dead standing wood everywhere everywhere there's not a place in this part you can go where you're not going to find something that you can combust right and that's I mean that's part of the reason that when lightning strikes is it all goes oh yeah like that's what has created our landscape so you're going to have for the you know for tree species predominantly spruce and jack pine but you're also gonna have that typical king shield hard rock you can have really tithing to make connections in between lakes with little creeks and rivers and for the most part of those the lake size would be a little smaller and you would typically see you tomorrow meandering Algonquin or anywhere else Killarney our lake sizes are a little smaller but also another advantage of the landscape is the average portage is just about a hundred meters so handle at from getting from connection to connection link to lake river to river it's super simple and because of that Prairie influence fairly light uh it's it's really easy to navigate from from spot to spot so it's pretty cool deal when you guys are doing a you know a fairly lengthy trip you're gonna be traveling a large distance you are going to be going through some transitions where you will get some some stands at poplar and converge or and it it all makes for just the whole woodland caribou experience oh yeah pretty epic yeah then forward to a