This is PT2...I travel north to explore a new area, I hike in for 3 hours, test out a new bushcraft type backpack, make a bowdrill kit, sleep in a hammock, and ride out a thunderstorm under a tarp.
A wilderness survivalist embarks on a low-impact backpacking trip in Ontario, Canada. Amidst a heavy thunderstorm, he demonstrates bushcraft skills, including primitive fire-starting and rainy-weather cooking, while reflecting on a shift toward distance-based exploration over complex shelter building. The journey blends gear testing with atmospheric nature observations and wildlife encounters.
Well I hope you enjoyed part one of that video.
I had a great time. Part two to follow real soon here.
I have a three hour drive to Sean's house and as you guys know I've
been driving a lot lately back and forth from these camping trips.
Sometimes I have to drive seven to ten hours.
Last month I started listening to Audible books
and they reached out and they actually wanted to sponsor a video.
So this video is going to be sponsored by Audible.
Thank you very much Audible. I downloaded the first Lord
of the Rings to listen to on the way up here. It's a long one
so I'm still listening to it on the way to Sean's house.
house but what I have been figuring out
is I don't have to bring full paperback or hardcover
books anymore to the woods I can bring my phone a charger
and an Audible book and listen to it by
the fire or as I'm bored in my hammock
or anything like that you obviously don't have to like Lord
of the Rings you can do any kind of book any genre I actually
also downloaded this this other
one called Life Under Open Skies it's
a bushcrafty style book by Tony Nestor it's not like an
instructional book more as like
his life story he talks about growing up and being restless and
finally settling down and wanting to go
um actually doing these month-long trips where he's only
bringing a knife and a pot and like a bag of rice
and stuff and he takes on students later on and
stuff really cool uh the narrator reads it really well as well
so any of the books that you download
you can keep for free whether you continue with the service
or not phone your tablet um iphone
android all that fun stuff they have a ton
of selections comedy sports everything i'm even
going to get some stuff for emerald when we're doing
our drive so she doesn't get too bored
now audible is actually offering my subscribers a free book
so you have to use the promo code
audible.com/robinetteman you can um sign up get
a free book it's through amazon it's for it's it's
safe there's no worries and i did on my phone in like
a second okay on to part two i hope you enjoy
it this is awesome oh
my goodness there's lightning
and thunder all around me the wind
just kicked up the rain's kicking up
this is awesome oh man my fire's swirling around
so i got this little space here that's dry it's
not getting rained on i gotta get my i gotta
prepare my food my coals are almost ready
these cedar coals are not gonna last long so i want to
on top of it it doesn't take long to cook
my lamb chops i'm sure i've not cooked lamb chops but
they're small so i think it will be fine don't think
that i'll have to cook them for too long
so these pulls will do oh my broccoli can't forget
my broccoli got some broccoli guys
healthy healthy i got i think four
lamb chops in here we saw some
lightning you hear that yeah uh
three three decent
size lamb chops
my grill uh against
this rock
and one rock
in the fire itself
oh man it's raining it's raining boys
and girls okay good amount
of heat there put my grill there
it's getting put out
by the by the rain
we shall see i'm
getting doused here
this rain is pretty
heavy easy almost
done these are
looking good okay
i hear a bird
chirping now and
And the rain may be slowing down.
As I say that, it thunders.
The bird chirping threw me off.
Okay, I think these guys are done.
Okay, let's get this fire going again.
So slow
because
it's dark.
Come on, focus, you son of a gun.
Focus.
There we go.
Okay, let's try these lamb chops.
So last time I was camping, and I showed you guys I ate that lamb.
It was the first time I had lamb that ground up.
But it made me really desire to have some lamb chops.
whatever i've
been waiting
for that's really good
that's super tender
such a good texture
i've been waiting all day so i have two beers
the other one is a nine percent
and they're king cans right they're tall boys
not not king cans tall boys this one is 4.5
it's called wellington spa special pale ale
from guelph
from guelph ontario well cheers guys
cheers stan very malty very dark
the key to maintaining
a fire in the pouring rain
it's just having something to block it with which
is basically other wood so i'm blocking the
underneath fire that's growing in there
with this wood kind of shielding it and then it'll keep
growing up get stronger i'll keep shielding it
so you can see it come up already it was struggling
for the longest time um and we'll keep shielding it
from the rain coming down with with more wood
the fire will burn up
so on and so on oh we got
some major poolage it's
gonna fall it is sloppy
out here boys and girls i'm nice
and dry under this tarp in my in my elevated bed what i thought
an elevated bed eh
so i wanted to do a little bit different trip
this time it's been cold it's been
winter you know what i mean
so that's the time i do my more bushcrafty type things where i'm
out building a shelter last time we
were with sean building a shelter at his place even though
it's spring it was still cold you know i mean we
still had winter gear but that's getting old not
only from me but from other people on youtube
in the same genre just seen a lot of it um just
building and like the camp kind of stuff it's getting
a little played out i don't want to do
that right now my desire is my goals for right now for videos
and for trips are more um distance kind
of stuff like this i walked for three hours
to get here you know what i mean so it is a little
bit of a distance but i have my backpack i'm not making
a camp really i'm hung a tarp hung a hammock
low impact i did i did build the fire pit you know
a little bit more impact than a traditional
backpacker or hammocker probably
but i do like incorporating all the things into it as well
um yeah so this was like a low impact one backpack just hike out kind
of get out there to experience
um the springtime and i am obviously just loving
it okay this beer is growing on me it's just not
what I'm used to. It's dark.
It's like a darker taste
for sure. Makes sense, right?
Sure, Joel. Sure, bud.
You know, I think I might have been laying in this hammock the wrong
way the whole damn time.
This seems a lot better.
There's not much material
on this side of me and not much
material down by my feet.
I'm much flatter.
I don't know. Maybe it just took that
beer to make me think in a different
make my mind think a little bit differently
but I think that this is the way
that it should be i'm much flatter much more comfortable
this way one with the liquor let
the liquor do the thinking let the liquor
do the thinking randy the rain has slowed down for now
so i want to put my broccoli on a couple crowns
of broccoli i'm just going to throw them inside my
heavy cover canteen which right now is on the fire
um getting warm the water's trying to boil
right now so i did drop the ball
on the butter you know broccoli without butter is kind of weak
salt would be great too but healthier this way it's
a good amount of trees all right we almost
got a boil here you can see
a little bubble starting
and stuff it's a touch smoky here
I think I'm gonna run out to the river
and uh see what the sky looks like it seems like it's
clearing up. Look at this fog. Oh my goodness.
This is a decent fog, man. Look at this. The river's
there. You can't even see the rapids anymore.
I'm getting to freaking go through some awesome
stuff this trip, man. That's awesome. Awesome.
Did I say it was awesome yet? Awesome. Awesome
sauce. Awesome blossom. I don't know, man.
The sky doesn't look so bad. It's not half as dark as it
was it's still raining it's not raining half
as bad as it was either though what
are we doing oh man this is cool okay
I better my camera out of the rain
broccoli is done
strain out the water
because water is
not valuable for me
right now I can I have a filter that I can use
so I'm not it if I was boiling
water to drink water if I had to do that I'd keep
this broccoli water and make a
tea out of it or something with like a tea bag
but i don't need to so i won't i'd rather not
have broccoli water like my potato water
or sausage water it's a theme it's a theme here
if you couldn't tell anyway nice
and done a little warm touch warm stuff oh
those are good
nice and soft nice and soft yeah butter and salt
though all day would be uh highly why can't i talk
Butter and salt. Oh, this is good.
The rain keeps letting up
and then coming back in full force
I think it's gonna be an all-night thing
But it seems as though the thunderstorm part of it's done
Which is unfortunate because I was kind of wanting to lay in bed
I had this whole like romanticized thing laying
in bed listening to thunder and seeing the lightning and stuff
But I'll take what I can get it was pretty cool earlier.
Well, I don't want to jinx it, but I think this rain is done
It's like a new day out here man.
It's getting bright out again still raining barely
let's go walk down to the river
and see if it's just dripping off the trees or
actually raining
but I'm not complaining I was prepared for a thunderstorm all
night but gotta be honest with you I'm cool
with it not thunderstorming too cool
with having a nice easy night now yeah
no it's not even raining no ripples in
the water it's not even raining it's just dripping off
the trees let's go see
if we can see those flying squirrels
or sugar gliders or whatever the heck they
are this is the tree here trying
to be a little bit quiet coming up to it I'm
sure they went
back in it when
it started
raining
there it
is see see his
tail see his tail see how flat it
is it's got oh yeah look at his sides too
that's gotta be a flying squirrel oh yeah he definitely lives
in that birch
tree in the hollow in the wound
in that birch tree that is too cool man right in
there he lives I'm gonna leave them
be there was two of them in there earlier
they might have babies regardless i have
no reason to disturb them anymore i wanted to get
them on film and i did
which is unbelievable actually to come back they definitely live there
very cool this is an awesome spot man i'm like beside myself
with how cool this area is
never been here before been to areas very similar
and very close never been to this specific spot
it's all about broadening your horizons right i'm
so lucky to live in ontario honestly canada
in general but Ontario even though I have to drive five six seven even
sometimes ten hours to where I want
to go it's still all accessible most of
its free and just I love it
that it's perfect we got we have four seasons yeah
especially for my trips you know what I mean my videos
and stuff like things can
get old you know I mean even
with that that bushcraft style stuff for the for
the winter and fall it gets old now it's
spring I start canoe tripping
summer canoe tripping backpacking
and back into fall it's good i can kind of change with every
season hopefully not to not get too stagnant it's
a new day i've got to make the most of the time i
have left with daylight
and no rain i'm gonna get some more firewood the cedar burns up quick
it's
abundant
very
abundant
use my axe
to get them
i'll have
to use it to
buff them
up though
humid
at all i
decided i
will try
to give
the old bow
drill a
shot even
though
there's
no use i've
got my fire but it's just practice
and fun something to do so i've made up my bow i could
not find one with a y at the top like i normally like
so all i did was notched in a stick did a
jolin and that's going to rest right
in there spindle fits up to my bow it's a little loose
but that's okay because i still have to burn
in it's going to lose tension i'll have to tighten
it again anyway trying to keep excuse me trying
to keep this stuff off the ground i've got a rock
here that i'm going to do my bowing on top
of so i just want to test it out and see where it's
going to be the most useful and comfortable i
almost can't even use this rock it's too short
i don't want to put it directly on the ground right
because it's super wet i'll use my glove
maybe you see that yeah okay
so before i burn in i need to make
a little divot for my spindle to
sit in. You can use your knife.
I like to just push in the spindle very hard because then it's
going to create a perfect seat for it.
The spindle's going in. I'm actually going to try
to use my heavy cover spork for my handhold, just the spoon part of it.
We'll see. It might
slip around too much. I'm not sure.
Yeah, my string is way too loose.
I can feel it. So quick
fix. Okay,
it should be a lot better now.
Okay, this time we should
get some smoke. Oh, can't do
with this fork it's
getting super hot you see
this smoke coming up
that's a good burn in it's
charred super charred it's not glazed at all
this is gonna work okay it's time to cut the notch you
can see here how it's charred you can hear it it's
not glazed at all which is what i'm going for so
my notch is going to be like a
slice of pie i'm just scoring it
so i know where to to notch it
Okay, you see how I'm doing
that just working the knife
and the board back and forth
I'm kind of holding the blade instead of the handle
a lot more power and precision that way
And I want to make
this smooth so that
the powder can slide
down it down the notch
and form a number
I'm not far enough in yet either.
That's got to be widened to touch just a bit though
I don't want to I don't want it too wide
because it won't be good the spindle will pop out
It might even break out you can widen underneath
to give it a little bit more airflow.
Okay, that looks about perfect to me
Okay, so yeah, I'm liking that liking that a lot.
It's like it seems like a good set already
I've got my spindle off the ground. It's on my pad
I'm going to have to tighten my bow string
and I might be able to use this
It was getting mighty hot.
I can actually probably put my glove on and use my that's what I'll do
I'll put my glove on use my other glove
for that and then I can still do it won't be too hot
I'm always thinking Joe sometimes it takes me a while
Okay, just got to make sure I actually
do need to tighten my bowstring.
I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna try it even better
We're gonna use the titanium
Heavy cover lid it's gonna be dry
and then that'll catch my my ember on there as well
if I can get an ember easily,
maybe I'll go and collect a tinder bundle and
and blow this into flames, like do it again.
I'll make another ember
and do it again.
I
gotta
move
this
tripod,
I
think.
Might've smothered it there.
Well,
that's a good coal,
petered out, I think.
Okay, I think I'm gonna be able to get,
put my spindle on the ground,
I think I'm gonna be able
to get a coal here.
So I'm gonna go try and scrounge up a tinder bundle,
which may be hard because of obviously
the downpour we just had.
So it's amazing, after that big rain we had,
This is still dry.
This cedar bark is still dry.
I've already been able to get this much.
I just gotta gather some more.
So I'm taking my knife at a 90 degree with the blade.
I'm sure you can use the spine too.
Yeah, you
can use the
spine too.
Can
you
see
this?
I hope that that's a coal.
Sure looks like it
from here.
See it smoking?
Yeah, yeah boy.
Okay, so I've got my tinder bundle
that I made out of cedar bark and cedar shavings.
wait a second so i can catch my breath probably gonna move
the uh the camera as well so i'm not
in really
any kind of
rush right
now bam son i
think those
shavings
are almost
important
with the
uh with the cedar bark
because it doesn't really
like to stay lit it goes
out pretty easy but the
shavings will catch fire now and stay lit where you
then you have your two seconds to get your
kindling on there but that's why you're prepared
in the first place before that but bam on-site
bow drill not too shabby pretty happy about that one okay guys
so what kind of tree did i do this
all out of i told you this twice a scientific name turned out
to be a really good set doesn't always
happen that easily i really only had to drill maybe three
or four times with the same hole
same notch didn't have to fix my spindle sometimes you have
to adjust all the time everything
sometimes you have
to get different
spindle different hole
but this is really cool first
frog of the
year leopard
frog i believe
peace bro good
little system
ah i didn't use
the um
the Sawyer filter all winter
because i didn't want to freeze at night lots of times i couldn't
access water either melting
snow or boiling river water
but canoe season
is upon us shortly oh i'm
losing light sun's going down no it doesn't really look like it
in the in the video almost time to
drink that other beer i think have some
snack i found a pretty cool stream
or runoff over here
maybe we can go
check it out before
we lose too much
light almost eight
o'clock
because my lens
might be foggy this is totally different terrain
than where i'm camped this is all hardwood and
hilly
it's
really
nice
actually
just
different
wow
this is
pretty
temperatures
dropping
a bit
merino wool beanie it's ice breakers i've had
this for since before i went on alone brought
this there oh it feels good feels good to rest
my back this mist is all coming up into the forest
now you guys ever see the movie
the mist stephen king's mist
awesome movie i really like it well
i guess it's time for that beer it's staying
relatively light it's very surprising i'm sure
that i'm sure it'll get dark really soon really glad i realized
that i'm supposed to lay the other
way in the hammock it's gonna make for a lot more
of a comfortable sleep tonight finally losing
light as you can see got a good fire going
in front spring peepers off spring peepers off in the
distance waterfalls and rapids all around me
the wind has died down the rain stopped everything's
good everything's good in life all right we got uh second beer
our last beer up gotta get a shed
a little light on the situation right i don't need
that much light there's like mist in the air i can see
it now that my headlamp is on literally like tons
of dew it's super wet okay
this beer is called immodest Imperial
India pale ale what does she say to be a
modest to be a modest one must lack humility
and decency with our modest
Imperial pale ale we achieved just
that an obscene amount of citra and Simcoe
hops will attack your senses
with bright citrus fruit balanced citrus fruit
balanced with earthy pine notes the
indecency doesn't stop there as it packs a wallop at nine percent,
but you won't notice because it drinks so remarkably smooth
Don't worry your modesty isn't needed here. Oh, it's perfect for me
look at that says
malt, Carafoam, flaked wheat, that was a big spark and
two-row hops, German Magnum, Simcoe, Citra yeast
California extra-strong beer, all right
here we go, I haven't had that I think
I've had
this once
with Mike
Oh, pass a little head ya
little heady
well heady
Wow, that's a
beer, that's a good beer, well let's take one last walk
of the night over to the
clearing where the water is, see just how dark it
is over there, that's the moon, we might
have
a full
moon
tonight,
head back out to the clearing
in a little while when the moon gets up higher
so I can see just how full it is, if it is full indeed
avoided getting
my sleeping bag out
this whole
time normally
I'm preaching
to keep it out for
hours beforehand so that it lofts up
but in this case I'm not really concerned about the warmth
oh I almost knocked the rest
of my beer over, I'm not worried about
the warmth, I just wanted to keep
it dry, so taking it out now, this is the first night I'll be using this, but this
sleeping bag, it's
a Marmot 850 down, it's got down on top
and then synthetic on
the bottom where the sleeping pad goes
or where the sleeping pad would touch
against because it compresses there anyway, it's got, it's like
a quarter zip
or I get not quarter not I guess not as much
as a quarter zip but a little bit of
zip on the other side just for extra ventilation
and then this side obviously
goes down it's a mummy bag I'm gonna
to use it like a quilt top quilt I'm actually
going to tuck my sleeping pad foot
into the box end of this just to keep it kind
of like stationary on there I've got
my quilt easier to get out of when I have
to pee because I know I will at least three times tonight
and I don't again I
I don't need the warmth.
Nice.
Looking forward to that, man.
I'm tired.
Let's go check out the moon situation.
Maybe I can get some of these spring peepers
on camera, too.
The sound, at least.
I'll never be able to catch one.
It is dark and misty.
There is so much fog in the air.
It's so wet.
I hope that moon is visible and full.
Here we are in the clearing.
See, oh, you can see it.
You can see the mist in my light.
Look at that mist.
non-stop oh my goodness the moon
is completely shrouded in mist
too i can see it okay with my
eyes it's not picking it up really well
in the camera it's all behind clouds and mist and stuff
so no worries i'm gonna
head back to camp i'm
not coming back out here
tonight good night sweet
dreams and i'll see you
in the morning oh good morning guys
i slept decent it's uh it's not even
seven in the morning yet 6:39, we're getting light out, it picked the rain
picked back up, it rained all night long
so it was nice to hear the pitter-patter
on the tarp, no more thunderstorms
or lightning or anything like that, just
just rain all night steady
so I was able to get the fire going because it kept
some wood underneath my tarp last night I ended up
this is my spindle I made
some feather sticks off
my spindle creating fire for me twice, so all we
have to do now is cook up some food I left
my hidden woodsman tinder pouch the
one I keep my food in hanging up outside my tarp
and it got soaking wet I did not
do that on purpose
but it's a good test to see how waterproof the bag is, looks
too bad, yeah everything stayed completely dry, you see the top's soaking
wet there but nice
and dry, cool, well that's a very good to know, I'm gonna
make one pack of oatmeal
and I'm gonna make four pieces of bacon and that would
be a good breakfast for Joey
Oh my stomach's grumbling and I'm
tumbling tumbling the bumbly
Rumble in the Bronx.
This is gonna go good in, I'm gonna put it inside
You know, this spork
is just coming
in handy time after
time on this trip
Look at that.
Look at that, how much control, ba-bam ba-bam
Cheers guys. Oh, buddy.
Oh, man. That's good bacon
Oh, man, the maple flavor
of the oatmeal just like sinks up with the bacon.
So good maple bacon, buddy
I feel rejuvenated
energized,
and out of focus.
That's good because I've got to pack up and hike out of here
It probably won't take me three hours to get out
because I was going around and finding different spots and stuff.
I'm guessing it'll take an hour and a half to two hours
to get out of here after I've packed up and started walking.
But that's not so bad.
I actually don't have to go home today.
Normally, I would have to do this seven-hour drive home in the morning.
But today, I'm going over to Sean's house, and we are finalizing plans.
For our big woodland caribou trip, so we've got a meet.
We've got to shoot a little bit of video
Preparation and gear. Oh my god. What is that?
It's a freaking beaver. Oh, that was pretty cool
I was talking to you guys in the middle of the bush
and I saw an enormous beaver running through so
Chased him out here, but he's gone. He must have went in the water already
Okay back into the woods time to clean up like I
was saying before I got distracted by beaver
got to go to Sean's house
and finalize the trip shoot a little bit of a gear
video preparation video
and meet with the owner of Red Lake Outfitters the guy
who's the guys who are flying us
into our trip deep in the into the woods of
Woodland Caribou so yeah I got about
a three hour drive as opposed to a seven
hour drive so it's not so bad I'm gonna take
my time pack up and hike out of
here all this gear you see here came
in this backpack and is leaving this
backpack actually more gear was here
on the way in this food bag was completely
expanded the biggest it can go okay i do have
a little garbage bag as well because i had some cans
but that's relatively flat it's not going
to take up much room extra i should actually put that
inside my my uh food bag okay
so the way i did it on the way in was that i had my sleeping bag
attached to the bottom
but because i've made some room with this being gone i'm going to see i
smushed my sleeping bag down as far
as it can go i compressed it i'm going to see if i can actually
fit it inside the sleeping inside the backpack
and strap my tarp to the bottom instead because
my tarp is soaking wet and i don't want to put it inside
my backpack really my uh bag that goes to
my grill is in one of these other stuff sacks somewhere
and i'm not opening it to get it out
so it's just going in my sit pad for now i'll get i'll fix it
when i get home i can that's going to
go right in the back sleeve
then after that i'm going to do my sleeping pad no i'm going to stuff
my paracord down in the little gaps next
to my sleeping bag okay then my sleeping pad then my
hammock
then my possibles pouch my food bag my lens
then just odds and ends can go on the top
my hat my tripod okay
so that's that get that
in there too i guess
again this is back to the nine all right
that's all good i want to get the tarp attached to the
bottom
okay
perfect
that's
where
I put
my tripod
I could
see it
sticking
out
really
digging
this
canteen carrier too I never knew before somebody tell me I'm
not a big surplus guy or canteen or
military guy did they make it this kidney shape
so that it hugs the side of a pack better you
know I mean this contour is that the reasoning
for it I really don't know somebody tell me
somebody let me know you know
spork rides right inside and then
I can cinch up the cord right
around it
no worries
of it going
anywhere
oh got
my lid can't
forget
my lid
my lid okay
guys you
saw it this pack swallowed up that gear no problem it's
not its intended purpose but it did it just
fine i'm really happy with the way
the bag turned out extremely happy with how it performed i want
to thank malcolm at the hidden woodsman
for collaborating on this with me i think i'm going
to get out of here um yeah i'll probably shoot
a little bit of film on the way out it's pretty
cool this whole area right here where i'm sitting
is just like a night like a rectangular dry area
and everything else is just drenched i'm happy
with this camp super happy with the whole the
whole trip actually seeing that flying squirrel
was a big part of it uh saw him twice figured out
he lived there experiencing that thunderstorm
as short-lived as it was yeah man good time spring
trip a proper spring trip too something over
here making noise oh it's a beaver there he is
Oh, it's
a porcupine
see him.
He's climbing
the tree
abundance
of animals
I could hear him grunting or maybe he was chewing and still see him.
Maybe he's chewing on the bark
I thought it was a beaver from the noise like this like noise.
That's cool. So I saw a beaver this morning
Porcupine now I don't even want to leave
the perfect day perfect spring day.
I got to move up here
It's crazy the temperature fluctuation yesterday. It was so hot.
I was wearing a ridiculous looking tank top today
I got a Primaloft hat
and a sweater on and I'm hiking in it big difference
I like today's temperature much better than yesterday's
do not do well with the heat fall and spring time
Absolute favorite times of the year whoo feeling the burn