Solo Canoe Camping - Michigan's Most Remote State Park

Over the next two nights and three days, I'll be alone in Michigan's most remote state park. I'm putting my canoe in at the south end of Craig Lake, setting up base camp, and then I'll be spending the rest of my time exploring, cooking, and attempting to fish in one of the most pristine wilderness areas in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Well, I'm in the same situation I was in last time where it's pretty windy, so I'm parked again on the side of Craig Lake. Because I can't, it's really hard to control my canoe right now. I'm kind of debating going back at this point. Okay, I'm sitting here on Craig Lake on a rack because it's actually not, it's windy but not as bad as what I dealt with last trip. But I just, I think that there's too much weight in the front of my canoe, so I'm going to redistribute the weight in my canoe. Because my canoe paddles fine backwards but not frontwards, and that's where my big pack is, it's in the front of my canoe. So I'm going to go ahead and adjust that, and then I'm going to just try to get to my campsite. It's quite a ways away. I'm just going to paddle as close as I can to shore, and that way, if anything happens, it's pretty shallow and I can probably get out. All right, I'm going to do that now. Because it's so windy and I got a long way to go, I'm probably not going to film very much. There is the campsite. What a gorgeous campsite. I didn't do as much of getting here as I could, but as you can see, it's extremely windy out here. So I really just had to focus on paddling and staying safe. When I was picking up my permit, I found out that the park is actually closed right now, and only people who made reservations well in advance, I made these six months ago, are actually here. So it's just me and two other people actually in the entire park. Jeez, these gusts are crazy. I'm going to go ahead and get set up. So I'm thinking what I might do is I did dehydrate some spaghetti. I might actually sit in my tent and just rehydrate the spaghetti that I made. That was supposed to be for tomorrow night's dinner, but I might just have to flip it and cook what I plan on cooking tonight, tomorrow, and just have rehydrated spaghetti after the kind of day that it's been. I think I just want an easy dinner. What are you doing? Are you chewing on my lunch bag? Yeah, I see you. Okay, you just keep doing what you're doing. I just don't know what you're actually doing. That's the thing. Like, I think you're just licking my lunch bag. It's kind of weird. Sorry to say this, but you are one of the creepiest looking insects I've ever seen. Looks like one just gave birth to another one. So this is what these creepy little guys are. They're actually a beautiful butterfly. Okay, so I decided that I am going to do some exploring with some of these lakes, I think, if I can make it there anyway. First, I'm going to cast a line in this little cove that's right here by my campsite and see if I can catch something. Okay, so I got two bites. And one, I saw that it was a big pike. He swam under my boat. But this fishing rod that I paid $25 for, I don't think it's going to cut it. This is really sad. The line literally, it just doesn't reel in. This is the second ugly stick rod I've gotten that has this problem. So mad because I literally seen two fish jump right here by this log and I can't even do anything about it. The only reason I'm not totally furious at ugly stick right now is because I just looked at the pamphlet that the state park office gave me and it's catch and release only except for walleye. So I wasn't going to be able, unless I caught a walleye, I wasn't going to be able to catch it and cook it anyway. So I'm just reeling in my line. What if I caught a fish like this? I see there's a little waterfall actually right there through the reeds. I'm about to go check that out. Definitely a waterfall for sure. Oh, I didn't even know that this was back here. That's crazy. All right, saying goodbye to the waterfall and all the thousands of bugs. See what else I can find. So this looks like a little trail off the water. I'm going to get out and see if I can find any decent size bend down branches to bring back for firewood because there weren't very many options that weren't wet at the campsite. That looks like a pretty good piece actually. I just have to take a second to appreciate just how pretty Craig Lake State Park is. Even the bugs can't take that away from it. Kind of hit the firewood jackpot over there. I got more in the back of my boat too. After 13 tries, I finally got my fire kind of going. For dinner tonight, I'm making chicken adobo. I don't know if it's completely authentic or not, but it's really, really good. So I'm going to make this with some rice and that will be dinner if I can keep the fire going. So first thing is to brown the chicken. And then I added in the marinade, which was soy sauce, vinegar, mirin, and some bay leaves, salt, pepper, ginger, garlic, and then some water. I'm going to let that simmer for maybe like an hour, hour and a half. Like I dropped a stick it looks like. I also have these wild leeks that I'm going to chop up and add to the adobo. I have seen people find these and forge them in the woods, but these ones came from Whole Foods. Okay, this is the sketchy part. I'm going to heat up this rice. This rice was frozen when I brought it, but I was planning on having this meal night one and it's night two. So it's been sitting unthawed for a while, but we're just going to chance it at this point. It's almost done. I'm just waiting to burn my rice so it doesn't make me sick. Chicken adobo over a campfire. Two things I almost forgot while eating this. One, sometimes I like to add fried onions to have like a crispy texture in there too. And two, the marinade. There is sugar in the marinade. I think I forgot to say that when I said what I put in marinade. Brown sugar works best. It's about 5 30 right now and I'm just having a cup of coffee real quick before I get out paddling because I'm going to go explore. I think it's called the Pashiki, the Pashiki River. Pugs are like, oh, they are swarming this morning. The funny thing about mosquitoes is that I'm one of those people that mosquitoes like literally hate. Like I really don't get bit by mosquitoes, especially if there's other people around. If there's other people around, they don't bite me at all. Like as a last resort, they'll sometimes bite me if there's nothing else to eat. But outside of that, I really don't. I don't get many mosquito bites, to be honest. So I'm on the Pashiki River now and I'm headed towards Teddy Lake, I think. The river comes to like a split and I can either go to Teddy Lake or I can go to Long Lake. Long Lake is super far and I don't know if I'm going to make it there in time for me to be back to check out of my campsite at one o'clock. So if I have time, I'm going to try to make it all the way and at least see Teddy Lake and then I'll head back. So far, the paddle has been gorgeous through here. I just wish I had my fishing pole. Here, rapidly running water and I'm starting to think there's a good chance that I'm not going to be able to get through here. It's like a big old beaver dam. All right, so unfortunately, there's a beaver dam here and it's a pretty big dam. I probably could get over this dam, but there's about, I don't know, thigh high muck that I'd have to step in in order to get over it. So I think this time around, I'm probably going to go ahead and not do that and start paddling, paddling back to camp. So I am approaching my campsite right there ahead. Once I get there, I'll be packing everything up and getting ready to head out to paddle back to the put-in and then drive eight hours back to Metro Detroit. I'm just extremely grateful that I get to come out here and do trips like this. Get a chance to get away from all the regular everyday life stresses and things that I worry about and be reminded of what really matters and what's really important. It's just a nice break from reality. But with that, it is time for me to get back to reality until the next opportunity I get. Get time off work, of course, to get out here for another adventure.