6 Day canoe Trip in Killarney Provincial Park

We're out here in Killarney Provincial Park, Northern Ontario, we've got four of us with us on this trip. We're out for six days, five nights, early May 2014. It's a beautiful day, a little bit overcast, a little chilly, but no rain, no bugs. These hills are really, really big. It's all made of quartzite on that side, and across, it's more of the granite Canadian shield that I'm used to. I've never seen anything like that, and that's specific for Killarney. We're just taking a lunch break here. We're paddling Portage, and the rain really came down quite a bit. And we were able to hike up to this lookout point called The Crack. Huge, huge rocks up there. It didn't take the camera along because it was raining, but Ken's got some footage of it. So the game plan for today is just paddle on again, Portage, find a campsite, fish, and hopefully catch some fish. You're welcome. We're at Campsite 1. We've been going since about 8.30 this morning. now 5:02 so long day a few portages one 900 meter one 1500 meter and it's a really nice sight right now we're just getting prepped up for supper we're gonna fish tonight hopefully we'll get something so I'll take you around and show you the camp we got our fire pit hangout general hangout area there little clothesline things hanging up Ken's tent I'm bunking in there with him and Doug's got his tent over there and the way back in here and see Kyle in his tent Ken's third bass but we're throwing them back because they're not in season right now but they're all really nice size and they're all pretty looking fish too nice Look at this you can see the stripes on them too pretty fish woke up to this beautiful morning sun is shining blue skies so today we don't have any portage and you do we just have lots of canoeing and fishing and whatnot we end up Catching a nice pike last night, ate him up around the campfire, that's pretty cool. We're just packing up now, it's 8 o'clock in the morning and everything's all squared away. We're gonna go fish and go on to the next lake. Now we're in this little narrow lake here, it looks pretty cool, nice and clear water, pretty shallow too. It's a change of scenery. Oh my goodness, what is that? There's more of that quartzite, the La Cloche range, going back up to it. If you didn't know any better you could almost, you could almost think it was snow on there. Arrived at our second camp for the trip, the guys are down there, the big campsite is down there where we're going to have our communal fire and they've got their tents and what not over there. Last night I slept in Ken's tent but I also brought a Solen Island tarp. I figured today I'm going to set it up and sleep over here. I'm on this quartzite oak crop facing the lake, it's a really really nice spot so I'm going to probably do a cloud point tarp configuration and hang out over here today. We're just hanging out here on the rock, drying all our gear. We've got our boots and socks and whatnot. My feet have been wet since yesterday. I put the wet socks back on because my boots are wet, and this morning it was pretty chilly on the feeties, so it feels good to have them off. I brought my camping Crocs, and they're helping out right now while my boots dry. You can see how much room I have in here like this. I lay sideways here. I just didn't have enough room for my head, So that's why I tied out that point there, give myself a little space between the tarp and my face so I don't get all full of condensation when I'm sleeping. I would ideally have the open part facing the lake there, but I don't want to be susceptible to rain and wind, so that's why the plow point this way. It's only one in the afternoon, and while we're hanging out here, me and Kyle were just having some lunch, and chipmunks were literally coming. we could just smack them away if we wanted to so it's it's a concern to leave your food just even on the ground during the day even when you're right there so just rig this up for now it's uh it's not sufficient for bears for at night at all but for now this is going to do for the chipmunks to keep them off their food this is that tie out i was talking about so i had to get the tarp up away from my face and there's a tie out here and i can't really go into the ground because it's all rock here even with my stakes i had to kind of put them on it in a real steep angle so here we I put a stick going on an angle wrap the paracord around the stick brought it down and tied it off to a rock and it's Fine, it's gonna stay like that up to get some firewood We decided to take a hike up from our campsite and ended up on these quartzite hills pretty cool up here It's no trails or nothing. We just kind of hiked up the hill We're up real high up here and there's signs of people everywhere There's a little rock formations built by lots of people. It's pretty nice up here. No wind too for some reason This is a yellow birch tree when they get real big they get They lose all the ribbony bark and they get these big plates on them and those still burn real well as well You see it the size of it compared to Kyle here. It's pretty big about an hour before supper now I'm gonna start rehydrating my my dehydrated meal. It's just that ground beef and rice and Green beans let it sit with some water in it and it'll rehydrate until I want to cook it and when I go to cook it I'm gonna use this three rock twig stove just set it up here like this have my twig fire underneath it boil it up that way in this dead striped maple it's real dry and I'll be able to cook my food with just twigs which is pretty cool no extra work no splitting down wood I'm gonna light the fire with this yellow birch bark you can see how ribbony it is it takes no preparation at all use my fire steel with it just gonna let that burn down a bit and I'm gonna throw my pot on there she's done now took a 10 to 15 minutes not the most convenient not the most efficient but it worked and I didn't have to carry a twig stove or an alcohol stove I didn't bring any stoves this trip those guys have so I didn't feel like mooching off them tonight I normally would use the fire but we're waiting till later on to build the fire so we don't so you can conserve wood I brought some Frank's Red Hot sauce a bunch up in there and the the foods a little bit bland but that that Frank's really spices it up or I'll bring some seasoning salt and that really helps too so I'm just gonna hang out here by myself eat my food then I'll go down join those guys for the campfire and some rum later on well not much fish action for Ken and I tonight Ken caught one bass and released them Doug caught a few bass and Kyle had a pike on yeah the rain started to rain and it's getting dark so we just headed in now we're gonna just chill it by the fire and have a few drinks smoke a cigar call it good now here we are morning of day three it's been raining since about 4 in the morning let's see water pooling there and it's not too bad right now it's kind of calmed down but I had a little poolage under my running underneath under my pad and go over there and some of my stuff got wet my pad got wet but my sleeping bag stayed dry and that's the main thing so the barometric pressure staying the same right now i don't believe it's going to stop raining anytime soon so we'll see how much video i get today but uh we got about another 12 or 13 kilometers to go uh today portaging and canoeing just hanging out in the tent for a little while it's been raining since four this morning and it's six now we paddled for like 12 kilometers got drenched everything we almost soaked it's raining again so it's eating my supper in here uh we got a group shelter up out there waiting to get the fire going so once that starts i'm gonna head out there Here we are morning day four. It's a little bit of a gear bomb going on here We're getting up had coffees breakfast getting ready to go and the sky Looks a little bit better than yesterday, but we don't know what to think. It rained for 14 hours yesterday and It's pretty dark up there. So see how it goes We're off again for today got about Five clicks going in the canoe and then we're hiking up a mountain. Look at this We're just surrounded by this La Cloche mountain chain Those guys up there We're gonna be hiking up to that one. So we got to our campsite This is our fourth campsite of the trip and it looks to be a good one. There's a couple flat spots we're gonna set up back in here and Kyle's got sweet bo staff skills and Eat some lunch and go for that hike. It's not raining yet. So that's an awesome thing Looks to be like there might be some good fishing over in there too. We just came across this crazy waterfall It's really really tall. It's out of nowhere coming off the rock. It's really awesome sight the sun's shining now We're nice and warm. My feet are still soaking wet, but they're actually warm for once So it's a quite a hike to get up here. These guys can't handle it. It's gonna be windy Way way back in the background. This is the highest peak in Killarney we're all tired. Oh, it's like a two and a half hour hike up here the lookout is amazing big day it has a three kilometer portage and a little bit of a paddle and a 900 meter portage and a 900 meter portage after that so i ate two oatmeal packs this morning trying to gain my strength with a few raisins uh should be a good day uh it was supposed to be nice out it's chilly got down to probably plus three Celsius last night and uh what are you doing doug this is what i have to deal with we just completed our three kilometer portage uh It's definitely the longest ever portage, it's kicked all our butts We're done it now, and we got a little paddle to go and a couple more portages. We're just eating lunch here I pinched, I pinched, I pinched Now we're on Little Mountain Lake and this is really pretty in here the water's got this really bluish color to it Super clear, it's just beautiful. Yucky. We're in the middle of a portage of our last portage of the day these are all our bags you got left to right Kyle's dry bag Doug's dry bag Ken's backpack my backpack and some paddles fishing poles camera gear life jacket all that fun stuff so we tuned it in pretty good gear wise this trip we don't have lots of extra stuff it's working out all right for us we're in this nice little river here we just hit a set of rapids this awesome change of scenery the small river as opposed to the big lakes and we're going with the current which is cooler tons of tamarack this is a really pretty spot get out your get out your wildlife hatchet and chop it up use your muscles Kyle okay that was super dangerous rewarding as well we started off at 8:30 in the morning got here at the campsite about 6 by the time we got wood ready set up our tents and everything at 7 o'clock we didn't eat until about 7:30 it's a long day but we got to see a ton of really really cool stuff and it was a really good end to a good trip the weather cooperated really well except for on the third day it was rained for 14 hours I almost got hypothermic these guys really helped me out I just wasn't wearing the right gear underneath my rain gear so lots of stuff learned this trip lots of memorable things we we're gonna probably just stay up for a little bit drink the rest of the booze have a tiny fire and crash because we're all really tired phane loons and fire good combination This is what I get to eat. Just sun's coming up over there It's gonna be a beautiful day just on our way out now to the first portage Mountain in the background real nice morning here. Here's our last lake and our last look at the White Mountains It's been a really good trip. We had a blast really good weather except for the one day. It's been challenging and both rewarding So we've got about two kilometers to go and I reached the car and got about a 10-hour drive home So be a long day. Thanks for watching guys, and I hope you enjoyed it come along for the next one