Kayaking Lake Superior - A 5-Day Solo Kayak Camping Adventure - Ep1

I did not wake up this morning expecting to deal with this. It is a unique feeling, I'll tell you that, to be out in water like this. Wow, look at that coast! Ah, man! Well, here we go. We're on our way. Five days along the shoreline of one of the most spectacular coastlines in the world. This is Lake Superior and Lake Superior Provincial Park in Algoma country. Algoma is a region within northern Ontario and it's so well known for its outdoors, its wilderness, its outdoor adventure or activities. Everything from hunting and fishing to hiking and of course paddling. This is one of the crown jewels, not just of Algoma country, but of Canada, of the world. This is arguably one of the best, well, not arguably, it is one of the best freshwater sea kayaking trips that you'll find anywhere. Not just freshwater. I mean, look at this place. Oh my gosh, I've been wanting to do this for so long. Here we go. Here we go. It is really starting to get warm out and that's not a complaint. Gosh, this almost feels tropical. One of the cool things about this section of coast is that there is a hiking trail, a coastal hiking trail. I think it's almost 60 kilometers. It looks on the map, it looks pretty spectacular. So if you're into hiking, that is a great way to see this area. I've got about 90 kilometers, you know, just under 60 miles to cover over the five days. So just under 20 kilometers a day. It's not a lot of ground or water to cover if the conditions are good, but that's the thing about Lake Superior. Lake Superior has the potential of turning vicious. This is the biggest freshwater lake in the world. It's massive. I mean, it acts very much like the ocean in that when you get wind, when you get weather coming through, it can turn ferocious. It does turn ferocious. And so you have to plan when you're doing multi-day trips. A, you have to keep your eye on the weather. And B, you have to expect and plan around having down days where you can't move. You're stuck in camp because moving would be just too dangerous or dangerous and unproductive because you're just not going to make it anywhere for the amount of effort it would take. Well, just stretching the legs a little or giving the butt a break is more accurate. And it's funny, you can sit in a kayak and then get out of the kayak and sit somewhere else on a chair or the rocks and it can feel so good. Just a different sitting position, putting weight in different places. So I needed that. It's been about three hours so far sitting in that boat and I needed to get out. I'm about to, well, just past the third of the way there. Started here in Sinclair Cove. And I just passed, well, past Sand River and I'm right before Catherine Cove. And tonight I am heading all the way up here to Beady Cove. It's supposed to be a nice cove to camp in. I don't think there's a bad campsite anywhere around here though. The few campsites I've seen along the way have looked gorgeous, sweet. this is where the Bald Head River comes out, which means this is where the hike begins. Extremely shallow. If I could get up to that gravel bar that would be perfect. There's a trail right there. Huh, two creeks come converge here. That's what's going on. So this trail just kind of goes up to Orphan Lake. Oh, we'll just see what's up there. So this is the coastal trail that I'm now on, the backpacking trail. There's also a hiking trail that comes in here from the road. It's a bit of a hike from the road. I think it's around a three hour hike and so probably won't see more than a few people here from the road. Maybe some Well, that was really cool. I love the little side adventures that take you to cool little places that you're not expecting. But the next adventure is finding camp because it's that time. My stomach is grumbling. Home sweet home. Pretty much a perfect day. Topped off with a dehydrated... no, I'm not doing a dehydrated meal. Wow, I just surprised myself. I'm really looking forward to dinner now. I don't need this. That's right. Okay. Well, I fooled myself. I was going to have... well, I am going to have something besides a dehydrated meal. I was going to make a pizza. But I also decided that on this trip I was going to try... I tried this Jetboil on a really quick trip. I wanted to give it a more thorough test and so I didn't really think much about it. I didn't think it through. Jetboil is really not designed for... it's designed for boiling water quick. I mean, that's the system it has. It's not designed for having a frying pan on top. It doesn't even sit. But I am not giving up. I am committed to a pizza. I got so excited about it. There's no way I'm not going to do it now, even though this might get a little absurd. I have to hold the pot, probably pan over this thing. But, oh, it's going to be worth it. and cooked over the fire and it would have been probably easier, but not nearly as fast. I'm feeling very hungry, very impatient. I was really close to not cooking it at all, because, I mean, cold pizza is pretty darn good too. But, nope. Don't have the patience to make a fire and cook this. Oh, yeah. We got some action going on here. Oh, I don't know if this is a good tonight. The sun's down, but it's not quite dark yet, but that's okay. It's bedtime. I got a big day tomorrow, another 20 kilometers. Weather says the wind's supposed to pick up, so we'll see if that happens. That'll make it a bit more challenging, but tomorrow should be really cool. It's got one of the highlights of the day, or, sorry, it has one of the highlights of the trip. That's my cue. We'll see in the morning. Well, I hope you guys are enjoying this adventure. It's been pretty chill so far, but that's about to change. It's about to get pretty sporty, but before I get to that, I just want to take a quick moment to thank the partners that have helped make this video possible, but helped make so many of my videos possible, starting with, for this one, Destination Ontario and Algoma Country. Thank you for supporting me on this adventure, and Ontario Creates. Thank you for supporting my Wild Discovery series. You're going to see a lot more of these backcountry adventures from me, in part, thanks to Ontario Creates support. Thanks to P&H Sea Kayaks. I'm using the P&H Sea Kayak Scorpio in this episode, and the reason I chose that boat is because, for one, it's plastic, and I wanted a plastic boat instead of a composite boat, because I didn't want to have to worry about landing in rough water and rocky areas. I just didn't know what I was going to deal with, but also the Scorpio is a great all-round boat that can handle any type of conditions, and you're about to see why that's important. NRS and Aquabound, a big thanks to those partners. They've been long-time partners of mine. If you've watched my stuff, you know I love their products. In particular, in this video, I'm using the NRS Silkweight Shirt. I use it on a lot of my backcountry trips. It keeps the sun off, but helps keep you cool, and I'm also testing their new Swig Hydration Pack and their new Odyssey PFD, which are welcomed new pieces of gear. Aquabound, I'm using a paddle you've never seen before because it's not even available yet. It's the Tetra Ultralight Paddle. I'm not going to go deep into it. All I can tell you is it's a beautiful, full-carbon, ultralight paddle that I'm loving. More to come on that. Also, these aren't sponsors, but what I'm doing is I'm using these backcountry adventures to test other products, so that I can review them for you, and give the best ones PaddleTV awards. On this adventure, I'm testing Big Agnes' Copper Spur Two-Person Tent. I'm testing the Jetboil Minimo Stove, and I'm testing the Pinnacle Foods Dehydrated Meals. Stay tuned for more information on those. Actually, stay tuned for another video. I'm going to be doing a full walkthrough of the gear that I chose for this trip, why I chose it, how I packed, and what I liked, what I didn't like. You know, the works, because I always have lots of questions about that. That'll be coming soon on the PaddleTV channel, which is my other channel. If you didn't know, that's where all my instructional content and my gear review content goes. This channel, Ken Whiting Adventures, is where all my adventures go. It's an absolutely new channel. This is the first video on it. If you haven't subscribed already, please subscribe and hit the notification bell. You know what? Give the video a thumbs up, too, and leave a comment down below. All these things help YouTube identify that, hey, people actually appreciate, enjoy, or enjoy this content. Maybe we'll get behind it a bit more. It's always hard to launch a new channel, so anything you can do there to help is much appreciated. Well, that's it. That's all. Back to part one of my Lake Superior adventure. There is a second part to this adventure, and I'm going to leave a link in the description box to that video, so if you like this video, then you can watch that one as well, and I can tell you that things only get more adventuresome. So, thanks for watching. That was a good sleep. Waves are definitely sounding a little louder. Well, there's no doubt it's a little rougher than yesterday, but not that rough at all. The biggest question is, do I launch here, where there are just dumping waves? I'm going to get wet. There is the possibility of just a little havoc. Or do I drag my gear, I don't know, what is that, 50 yards behind the protection of, there's a little rock island there, and it's dead water almost behind it. I think that's going to be much more relaxing, even though it's going to take a little bit more work. I don't have to make up my mind right now, because I still got breakfast to make, camp to break down, and a coffee to enjoy. Once again, not exactly the way the Jetboil was designed to be used. Man, it made boil the water for the coffee fast though. But this is one of the challenges with testing different gear on camp trips. When you use the same gear, you get into, you don't have to think about the little things, you just, things are routine. All right, see you later, Beady Cove. Oh, did I mention I love Lake Superior? Look at that, it like swells from the ocean. It definitely has, feels like an ocean, you know, it doesn't feel like a lake. Even on shore, watching the break, the waves coming in, they're coming in little sets, bigger sets and smaller sets. And so if I was launching off the, in the wavy part, if I didn't move to a chiller spot, then I would have been timing it between the bigger sets. All right, my skeg is caught. I didn't check my skeg after dragging my kayak through sand and rocks, so surprise, surprise. Oh well, next time I hit the beach, I'll pull the skeg down. Until then, I'll fight the wind. Chaos right here. These bouncing waves off the shore. What a wild shore. That's exactly what this is. This is a wild, wild shore. Wow. Based on the forecast, I'm going to be seeing a significant wind like this pretty much for the next three days. I had my calm. That was the calm. Not before the storm, but before the wind, for sure. It's going to be shifting. Well, it's already really shifted directly, coming in directly from the south. The waves are a little bit confused right now. Wow. It swells. A southern wind is going to be a tailwind once I get around Gargantua, which means I'm going to be traveling quick, but it could be some big following seas. We'll see. If there was ever a time to be loose in the hips, this is it. The boat just has to rock below you while your head stays centered. You're stiff in these types of conditions. I mean, definitely getting some funky waves going on. Hopefully, it doesn't get too much bigger, because if it gets much bigger than this, man, that will get out of my comfort zone. And that's when you spend a day on shore. It's really that simple. Oh, man. Wow. Nice to get out pretty soon, scratch. I've got a ways to go before that. What's that? Two kilometers till I get to Warehouse Island. If you're not sure why I'm struggling so much, simple answer. Kayaks, they weather cock. That's what it's called. When you have a side wind like I have right now, the bow as it's going through the water is kind of pinned in place because it's cutting through the water. The stern, on the other hand, is free to move. And so the wind is blowing the stern faster than it's blowing the bow. That means the boat is always wanting to turn into the wind. And that's why you have a rudder to steer, to help steer, keep you going straight, or a skag drops down in the stern in the back of the boat to stop the stern from being pushed as much. If you don't have it, then you just end up paddling really hard on one side. To keep going the straight line. My problem is that the skag that I can drop with this thing right here is jammed up in the skag box where it where it retracts into because I dragged my boat across a rocky sandy beach and some grit obviously got jammed in there. And I'm paying the price right now, or for the past hour and a half, crossing this massive bay. But it's almost over. I'm about to find a spot out of the wind where I can land and fix the problem. Oh, not to mention, I need to get out of this boat. My butt is asleep. That's Warehouse Island. Cool. Am I going to find any shelter here? Enough. There's enough. Heck yeah. Oh, bingo. Well, that was way too easy. My gosh, that would have saved me a lot of grief. I'm going to go a bit further down where it's sunny and looks warmer. It's actually cool with that wind. It's a real wind. That wind really picked up just the last kilometer of my crossing. The seas are definitely going to be building right now, but now I'm in the shelter of all these islands, so I should be good. These islands should provide enough shelter for me to keep going because that's a real wind. It's going to start getting big offshore. I had seven kilometers left to travel. Most of that distance would take me around Cape Gargantua and through the relatively newly established Gargantua Islands Preserve. The area is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful places on the entire Lake Superior Coast, and it was easy to see why. It's also a place of great spiritual significance to the Botchewana First Nation, whose cultural heritage is rooted here. Even though I was tired from fighting with the wind all day, and I was in no rush to get through such a gorgeous section of coastline, I was making surprisingly quick progress thanks to a strong tailwind. Within the hour, I'd made it around the cape and found myself paddling into the calm and beautiful waters of Chalfont Bay, the place that I'd be calling home for the night. Nice, nice, nice, nice. A day like that deserves a good old fist bump. Well, I feel a little bit guilty sitting in here when it's such a gorgeous evening, but I am sun baked. I've had enough sun for today, but it's a gorgeous evening out there, and that's such a such a nice beach. Tomorrow morning I'll be able to enjoy it. Food. This is one of those moments when a dehydrated meal is awesome. I just need food in here with minimal energy involved, although that pizza was something else last night. I love that. I wish I could do that again. I could over the fire, but that would require a lot more motivation than I have at this moment. Creamy Tuscan chicken with penne pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and fresh basil. This is pinnacle foods. I had a meal from these guys on my trip on the Noir River. What was it? It was like an Italian sausage and pasta. Oh my gosh, it was really, really good, and so I have high hopes for this one. Don't let me down. That's a full day. Beady Cove. As soon as I came out, it was on, and then the whole coast here it was just exposed and rough, and then Gargantua Bay here, this crossing. What was that? Five kilometers across there, four or five kilometers, and then it was the Gargantua Islands, and this area up here was amazing. That was a day, but I'm far from done with my trip. Tomorrow, basically starting here and then coming around pretty wide open to Cape Chelan, and once I get around that one, then I'm basically going to be taking one of two campsites, but that is going to be interesting, I'm sure. That is really good. Another really good one. I wouldn't even know that this was actually dehydrated. Well, maybe at home in a normal setting, but this is really good. Hmm. Well, 9 30, and I'm done yet again. In fact, I might even be more tired than yesterday. I think I am. I don't know if it's a cumulative effect of two days. Probably is to a certain degree, but I think it's more today was same distance, but I wouldn't say that there was adrenaline coursing through the veins. It wasn't that. It was just that I was on edge. I was on high alert or on alert, maybe not high alert, on alert all day because of the conditions. Those are conditions where you can't get surprised. You can't make an error. It's just, especially when you're alone, but even when you're not alone, it would be really tough to deal with out there. All that wind and all that rough water. So, um, I think that's it. I just, it's maybe a little bit emotionally exhausting paddling through that kind of stuff for, I don't even know how, six hours. It goes on the water. Anyway, see what the wind does tomorrow. Something tells me I'm going to be, uh, paddling in some rough conditions again. Oh, Zolio's talking to me. Something tells me I'm going to be paddling in some rough conditions tomorrow too, but, uh, the wind is supposed to stay pretty much behind me. And so that's good news. It's not, I'm not going to be fighting a headwind because that would be tough. That's all I got. We'll see you in the morning.