Mike and Joe's Most Excellent Adventure

Hey guys, Joe here. Thanks for tuning in again. Me and buddy Mike are back in Algonquin doing another canoe trip. Yes, another canoe trip. Stick along, it's gonna be lots of fun. Lots of fun already. So we wanna go for a swim. We're a little warm, a little toasty, a little soupy. So we're gonna do that. It's a nice lake floor, it's super clear. Before we go and do that, we haven't set up anything. We haven't set up our tents or anything, but we are going to hang our food just so that the little rodents and chipmunks and stuff don't get into it. I got my bear bag and I couldn't find a little rock so I put my little bottle of booze in there. Give it some weight. We'll see how she goes. There she goes, boys and girls. Right, Michael? Now everything's all tangly. Second time. Probably done it once or twice. I like to leave a carabiner attached to my food bag. That way I can just easily clip it onto my rope or whatever I've thrown over. Rope would be normally what you throw over. Tie a little bowline on there. Food, Michael? Gonna hoist this bad boy up. Holding right there. Not outside anymore. Refreshing or what? We haven't done too much. since being at this site. There's our tents, we set those up, went swimming like you saw. But it's five o'clock now, I'm getting to be pretty hungry, so I think I'm gonna go try and find some wood. We have one communal silky saw between the two of us. But I've got my bush buddy twig stove, so we're not gonna need a lot of actual fuel, mostly twigs and thumb-sized stuff, so probably do that. Man, I wish somebody would turn this sun down, though. We're here on McIntosh Lake in Algonquin Park, and it took us all day to get in here, canoeing and portaging did like a over two kilometer portage to get in here but this is a well-used lake regardless of all that with well-used sites so this route we're going on is a it's kind of a popular route starting at Canoe Lake right in highway 60 my whole point is on these well-used sites it's up finding wood is sometimes a sketchy thing you don't know if you're gonna be able to find enough wood or a lot of wood or good wood but here somebody's been nice enough to collect this just kind of scrubby stuff and leave it here for us but the good thing is since it's so hot out it's nice and dry usually this stuff laying on the ground is not the greatest but we don't really have to walk around for our wood look to look for our wood today at least for cooking we're both using that bush buddy and this this is enough fuel almost to get a boil so by the end by by by the end of breaking this wood up I'll have tons of wood for that as for our fuel for our fire later on might be a different story might have the hike back in there but i see some nice decent pieces around anyways so not too bad i'm gonna do the uh the old dehydrated rehydrated spaghetti pasta deal for supper and i think mike actually did the same thing get this baby boiling and there's a limited amount of birch bark around on these sites too i don't want to strip the tree either so when i can get away with it i'm just gonna light the twigs on fire and i'll actually just use a bic lighter for that so i'm gonna block the wind a bit i get in frame for you too there you go I like to put the lid on stuff that down there so that I know I can have room for my pot and then right away it's kind of awkward because I'm doing it for the camera but put this twigs in and just keep hauling them in for a minute so it gets a good base and then after you can just stick twigs in all all willy-nilly yeah I just said willy-nilly you can start to hear that water boiling behind me pretty good now the bush buddies rockin on this one the pasta I did was shells and macaroni noodles together because I didn't have enough of either one I didn't want to go to the store but the shells turned out to work fine dehydrating them nice and crunchy and yeah we'll see how they rehydrate but I have high hopes soups on so this is what it looks like done nice and hearty it's all rehydrated really well as heavy to the weight of it it'll burn yeah we've decided it's time we manned up and cut our firewood for the night so we're heading off into the woods we're having a hard time finding wood back here we're literally in the middle middle of the bush working with marginal wood this is birch that is almost dry a lot of the times almost all the time it's hard to find good dead birch that hasn't gone punky even soaking wet on the inside but so this is a little bit a little bit wet so we're gonna make some small pieces like this to get it going I'll throw some bigger pieces on after chipping out man here the majestic loon I mean duck what are you working with there Mike the parmesan cheese is literally the only thing it's gonna save It does look mighty fine that Parmesan Mike's not even hungry Cooled off right when we got to the camp too, which is kind of strange we put in today at About 10:40 in the morning. We put in on Canoe Lake access to new lake actually stopped Algonquin Outfitters at Oxtongue to pick up this Swift Alwaiden 17-foot Kevlar fusion set right at 40 pounds pounds, so it's big enough, more than big enough for Mike and I and all our gear, and it tracks well in the water, and the best part is, at 40 pounds, it's still light enough to be cruising on the portage, so so we just switched over twice when we were carrying, we never stopped, we never really had a break or anything, Mike said he was done, he rested on a tree, I grabbed the canoe, and did the same when I was done, both had our packs on the whole time, it was good, nice, light, light maneuverable, good looking canoe, so yeah looking forward to using that boat looking forward to finishing up our trip we got two more full days tomorrow's a little bit longer than today and then Thursday is the long one. The big with lots of heat lots of kilometers and lots of portage. What a sunset that's gonna when the Sun drops more we might even get this line coming all the way to a nine o'clock we're gonna get this little fire going it's kind of hang out for a bit before bed I don't think I'm gonna be up past 10 pretty tired but so well I'm in bed before 10 o'clock it's about 9:50 I'm exhausted it's a hot day and a long day and I'm ready for bed so everything's squared away I'm pretty comfy in here so tomorrow is gonna be a longer day and a hotter day we'll see how she goes see you guys in the morning it's about 6:50 in the morning it's in the morning some clouds in the sky so that's promising full sun day today today's a big day we've got about 33 kilometers to do or something like that. I had a great sleep. Slept for straight eight and a half hours. well needed. feel great today We're not doing any fishing on this trip. A lot of the lakes that we're spending our nights on and going through only had lake trout and I don't feel like trying to troll for that this trip. no fishing We've seen fish jumping out here all night last night. This is some cool lighting here We're just going over the map figuring out what we have to do today where our portages are and everything so so we're on this second site on the east side of McIntosh. and we have to paddle about half an hour tops, maybe 20 minutes to this portage. you do a 5.10, paddle for like two seconds, you're going to do a 7.45. then we have this huge paddle. So McIntosh Marsh coming out of the creek into the marsh into Grassy Bay. On my solo trip, this is where I got lost coming this way and I couldn't find the McIntosh Marsh. But we'll be fine going this way and plus I've been there already so I know. anyways paddle from that 7.45 through the creek through the marsh up into Grassy Bay up through White Trout up through Big Trout all no portages still all up through Big Trout all the way down to the east end of Big Trout up into Merchant and to get into Merchant we need to do an 840 meter portage and then we're going to camp in Merchant there's a few campsites there but that's a big day that's a full paddle day so boom boom portage right off the hop then nothing until there So lots of Sun today and lots of Sun means lots of water So this trip I'm doing something a little bit different my last trip there with my buddy Sean I saw him using the Sawyer squeeze and I've used this the Sawyer filter before as a gravity filter But never used it with the squeeze bottle and it looks so convenient And efficient and I was doing all day This holds about a half a liter of water Just as I'm canoeing scooping it in drinking it down scoop it in drink it down I get a liter of water in me every time and I'm not having to carry extra liters of water That looks like a campsite, that probably is, doesn't it? My name is Jan Jansen, I come from Wisconsin, I work in the lumberyard there, toot toot. I sit on the steeple and spit on the people and they say hello, and I say hello, and they say, what's your name? And I say, my name is Jan Jansen, I come from, how annoying is that? learned that song on a grade 8 canoe trip in Lake Erie. Yeah, we canoed in Lake Erie on a Voyager canoe with our whole class singing that song over and over because we sang it over and over. It's ingrained in my head. I can't tell you what I did last week or anything much but I can tell you about the Ballad of Yon Yonson exactly. Real talk. Look at him go. It's a little warm and buggy so we've just completed the 510 Mike actually did the whole thing but we're into McIntosh Creek now this is where I saw a bunch of moose on my solo trip so we're hoping to see a bunch on this trip too maybe not even a bunch just a couple a couple will do even one a little dab will do you start with one of many beaver dam leftovers Joe just grabbed a canoe is on his way this one's a 735 not too bad we're heading for McIntosh Creek and we're going into Grassy Bay another leftover gotta love the leftovers come on and there the winds blowing we got a tailwind nice tailwind those clouds will blow in nice day this is pretty with all these lily pads though we're finally making it to a campsite we've been paddling through Grassy Bay which what seems forever and uh all the campsites have been taken lots of people so now we gotta eat lunch here we're gonna pull up to this campsite looks like a nice site, nice and windy, have some lunch, oh man today It's not panning out to be how I thought it was gonna be, supposed to be full sun Maybe a little bit of clouds, no wind, quite a bit of wind It feels like it might rain too, which I'm not complaining about if it rains. I'll be pleasantly happy pleasantly surprised So here's that water filter system I was talking about, nothing new a lot of people know about it already, works really well Sitting at this, it's actually a really nice place quite a large island, one site on it, all red pine, some underbrush obviously too this beauty here, we actually found a an old wood stove door a cast-iron wood stove door from 1860 says on it, used to be an old camp or there is a ranger cabin down the lake a little bit so we don't know where it's from, maybe somebody watching will have an idea, it's got everything here, it's got nice big rock, great view and be it'd be good swimming I have not found the shed or no thanks for asking, he's got Mike red pine, why were you asking, it's for safety's sake, yeah then you got a whole island to yourself man, I'm loving it here, might make another trip just to uh just to stay here we are finally coming up to our portage it's uh five o'clock now been going all day man we we went a long time without a portage we probably did five straight hours in the canoe paddling so we're happy we're happy to see this portage sign we're happy to portage almost two two kilometers now and uh after we do this monster of a portage we're gonna be into Merchant Lake and that's our lake for the night so everything's coming up millhouse well that was a brutal portage we uh we completed it in 30 minutes it was 1840 meters and it seems like it was worse than the 2800 meter one we did yesterday but today we've been going for 10 hours we've been paddling portaging and stuff for 10 hours straight so yeah it took a little bit out of us uh dripping sweat getting eaten by bugs loving it so now we're uh now we're on the search for a campsite we should get to one really soon There's three or four right along the right-hand side of this lake. So that's what we're doing. We're not gonna be picky tonight It's uh, unless it's a garbage site. We're taking it. Then I'm going swimming 730 now we didn't do much when we got here we set up our tents We did a lot when we got here we set up our tents set up a clothes rack hung up everything went swimming I'm doing supper tonight. I'm doing supper tonight as opposed to yesterday and tomorrow where I won't do supper I'm doing rice for supper tonight. Mike's doing So, not much going on, really. I think we're just going to hang out, drink some rum, watch the cormorants and the seagulls poop on rocks across the lake. Today was a trying day. Today was, we're both just saying, we wouldn't want it any other way. We don't want to sit around at a campsite. This is not the style of camping that I like to do. I think Mike was saying the same thing. It's like, you're going to stay stationary at a campsite, you're going to go swimming, you're going to go do whatever you do for even half the day. The sun is out for 11 hours today. So even us getting here at 6.30, 6.00, whatever time we got here, we still have three good hours of sunlight. It'd be nice to have maybe five hours of sunlight once we get to camp, but I honestly don't want to sit around and not do anything. I don't want to get to camp at 2.00. I don't want to get to camp at 12.00. At least not every day. Anyways, this trip is lots of miles. Definitely my longest day so far. Ten hours. My longest day has been 11. Are you happy with your decision to do pasta? for three nights in a row. It didn't work out really well this time. There's lots of cheese. Fromage will fix you up. My goodness, there's a pylon. Oh, it's just my shoes. I thought it was a glow-in-the-dark pylon there for a minute. I want to light the fire, Mike. Not like you know what you're doing anyways. Uh-uh. Find a ---- or two. Yeah, that'd be a... We're trying to get out to the clearing to see the sunset, but there doesn't seem to be a clearing on this side. And the only access we have to the water is the opposite of the sunset, the opposite side of the sunset. But there is some nice, you can see pinks and oranges in the clouds right now. Beauty day, beauty night. We thought it was gonna be super hot today, and it was, but we were able to get some cloud cover, some wind, and for like .2 of a second, a couple drops of rain, which I was hoping would have lasted longer, but no rain in the forecast, didn't bring any rain gear at all. I didn't even bring a tarp, rain jacket or nothing. So, if this was a different time of year and there was no rain in the forecast, I still would have brought a rain jacket, but it's 100 degrees in the daytime. Not too concerned about it. That was a failed adventure. Mike and I were sitting here at the fire. I happened to look over. I saw this lightning in the sky. And it's really weird because there's no clouds above us at all. Well, I think we're both ready for bed. What do you think? About 10 o'clock. Time to hit the hay. We got a huge day tomorrow. Biggest day so far. So yeah, I'll probably get up and Adam early tomorrow. See you guys in the morning. Okay on the road again That was a decent sight oh, it's so hot already so hot 7:45 in the morning. No that is heavy dude Okay, bye Mike like Mike's Lake we're gonna paddle through Mike Lake Mike's Lake today and then we're gonna end up camping on a little Joe Lake tonight so namesake day for sure we'll see okay so I'm quite upset right now annoyed and pissed off been using this Sawyer Squeeze on this trip this is the third day now and I've been raving about how good it is how efficient convenient all that ---- why I used it 20 minutes ago at the other end of the portage I get here dying of thirst because I just friggin walked a kilometer in the woods with a canoe on my head go to get some water and when I try to squeeze it into my mouth it's all leaking from the threads and I read before don't don't thread it on tight and I never did and I didn't leave it too loose I put it on just gingerly the way I've been doing it the whole time the way it's been working the whole time and there's no obstruction in the threads on here There's no obstruction on the threads on here okay so then fine it's not working i'll crank it on okay still does it what the heck and i switched over to my platypus bottle i don't know where it is now anyways it's the platypus soft-sided thing has the same threads that you're supposed to be able to use with the sawyer and it's doing the same damn thing so it's not the it's not the bag which would have been the good problem to have the bag break fine the filter the threads on the inside of the filter are screwed somehow i just used this thing 20 minutes ago nothing happened nothing happened at all like my Mike's tried it I've tried it 20 minutes here like if I didn't bring a backup I have drops for a backup uh water filtration if I didn't bring that and if I was alone what do you do you drink the water you boil I can't boil I'm traveling for 10 hours today we're traveling 10 hours today I can't boil water very very very disappointed in this Sawyer Mini and I'm going to write them a letter We're into Mike Lake now, which is called Mike Lake on the map, but then when we got to the portage, the sign just calls it Pond. So Mike was ripped off of his namesake. But yeah, we completed that 1850 portage in about a half an hour. Saw a ton of people on that portage, like a ridiculous amount of people. Backpacks thrown all around the portage and everything. but that's to be expected on a popular route in the middle of the summer in Algonquin not too big a deal i'm wiped out how tired are you mike right now oh man we just paddled up um halfway up burnt island lake into the wind the whole time i'm crashing hard right now and i eat some food still got about two hours to go until camp that's four time i can't hold the camera straight doing the portage into baby joe and then from baby joe we got one or two more portages to little joe and little joe the east arm little joe will be our campsite for tonight six o'clock now i hope to be there in a half an hour an hour at the most our first moves for the trip we were starting to think we weren't going to see any 12 hours on the dot today we got to little joe i no no brain dead We're in Little Joe Lake, on the last site available. This site is, this lake is, yeah, the site's bad. The lake is booked up, everybody's everywhere, the site is garbage, I'm exhausted. You're pretty, you're pretty. Ready for dinner, dead. Crappy macaroni. We can't, like, I don't understand how to even talk right now. That's how fried my brain is. Uh, just gonna sleep in the canoe. I'm gonna make food. Yep, food time. He's gonna go for some time. You good? And then he goes under. La la la la la. Finally on Little Joe Lake. See you guys found my lake. Finally found Little Joe Lake. And this is my lake, Little Joe Lake. This is our last site of the trip. We're just taking it easy. It's nine o'clock now. We're not gonna make a, burn the bush buddy. We're a little ambient light and there's no need for anything else. So we did about six clicks of portage today and 30 kilometer travel total. So it's the biggest day I've ever done. I think you too, you should. Oh, for sure. Yesterday's 11 hour, 10 hour day by two hours, so pretty tired. So I guess tomorrow morning we're going to get up probably around 5 if we can wake up at that time and get our butts moving because we've got about two to three hours of paddle I think two hours we decided to paddle to the car tomorrow So yeah, I don't think I'm going to film anything else tonight because I'm about ready to crash, get at you guys in the morning Mike Lake was like not even named Mike Lake really. It's just like a puddle with some like lily pads And maybe a tamarack or two, but Joe Lake's got its own island It's got a it's got a little Joe East arm It's got a baby Joe. Oh, there's a lost Joe We got turned around yesterday through the stream and we ended up in lost Joe Lake And the irony was just too much to take Thick with irony. I'm just joking Mike your lake was okay Well Michael that was the last portage, what do you think? Glad to be done. Mm-hmm. Me too. Let's do it Breakfast sandwich, please