This episode previews a 3-5 day route in Voyageurs National Park, shares tips about purifying water, and gets you Trip Center listeners setup for National Parks Week!
Trip Overview:
3-5 day trip
2 lakes
About 50mi / 80km
1 portage, with opportunity to add in another
Large lakes and bays
Water purification:
Go with UV
Test well in advance
Bring backups
Those canoes look awful peaceful, but something tells me that carrying all my gear is not going to be a breeze for me…
Crucial to consider when planning any canoe trip are the portages you’ll encounter and what your team will be able (and willing) to tackle. Yes, the canoes get a break from carrying all the weight once in awhile. If your route crosses between lakes, over waterfalls, or around rapids, you should expect to hit the shore and hoist your gear onto your shoulders.
Portaging (listen in for a note on pronunciation) can be a welcome challenge for a lot of canoe trippers, as well as break from paddling to stretch stiff legs. Part of the joy of wilderness tripping, especially with a team, is seeing how folks rise to challenges and find emotional and physical strengths to achieve more than previously thought possible. Don’t plan your route to avoid portages–you would be missing out.
To portage well, there are some nuanced tips we encourage you to consider:
Length, measurements vary
Terrain, get a good map and scout
Breaks, plan them in
Loading and unloading boats, efficiently
Clothing, bugs breed on land
Buddy system, be mindful of the order team members set off in
Sweep before setting off again
Take a Look Back with us to learn about the Grand Portage Trail, a National Monument in Minnesota. More history and resources available for you below and at our Resources page:
Exploring the Fur Trade Routes of North America: Discover the Highways that Opened a Continent, by Barbara Huck (Winnipeg: Heartland Publications, Inc., 2000).
We heard you when you requested guidance planning routes in our Twitter poll, so
episode six covers a favorite of mine: French Lake to Beaverhouse lake in Quetico Provincial Park. For more about visiting the Quetico, its history and personality, check out our third episode.
The route in a nutshell:
7 day trip
6 lakes
50 mi or 80 km
3 portages
260 rods – the longest portage, between Pickerel and McAlpine.
Skinny lakes and large lakes, winding narrows and shallow creek, long, low portage and short steep portage, and plenty of beautiful campsites.
Join us for A Look Back, our break segment describing the pictographs that can be found in canoe country and along this route in Quetico Lake. What are pictographs? Pictographs are pictures or symbols that signify a word. In this backcountry, the pictographs have a red ochre hue and depict canoe travelers, moose, bear, birds, fish, and more of the common surroundings.
For more on pictographs and the route, check out these blogs, books, and resources from the canoeing community where writers and trippers have published accounts of their travels:
What do you need to consider when you’re settling on a canoe?
In episode 5 of The Trip Center, we layout all the parts of a canoe so you know what they’re called, where they are, and how to use them.
The canoe you’ll take out on trip will have at least:
Bow
Stern
Hull
Gunwales
Yoke
Seats (2-3)
We recommend adding knee pads for rapids, adjustable shoulder pads for portages, painter lines for leading upstream or downhill, bailers for if you take on water, and tie-ins for insurance’s sake.
To get the canoe out with you and bring it back safely, you may need:
We go into your closet in this week’s episode, looking for the clothes that will make us
most comfortable and safe out on trip.
Please subscribe on iTunes and check out our Episode Notes. Thanks for listening!
Episode Notes
The bare necessities of life in the canoe wilderness:
Long wool socks
Hiking boots, waterproof and broken-in
Synthetic underclothes
Athletic T-shirt
Full-length, quick-dry hiking pants
Cozy sleeping clothes
Extra layers for May or August-September trips (fleece, flannel, wool hat)
We take a brief break for Trip Tips: 11 ways to use a bandana. Of course Pinterest has many more ideas for general crafting, in case you needed more reason to pick up this resourceful item.
Subscribe for future episodes and check out these additional resources!
This second episode is the middle of our 3-episode series, “Knowing Where You’re Going,” which provides an overview of the parks where many canoeists start out.
Please subscribe on iTunes or Anchor FM and check out our Episode Notes. Thanks for listening!
Episode Notes
In this episode, we welcome you to Voyageurs National Park. This the 2nd of our 3-episode series, “Knowing Where You’re Going,” which provides an overview of the parks where many canoeists start out.
VNP by the numbers:
200,000 acres
15,000 year-old landscape
200 designated camping sites
50,000 annual visitors
$10 booking fee
$16 per adult, per night
Tune in for A Look Back at a Day in the Life of a Voyageur.
Too excited to stop there? Subscribe for future episodes on Anchor or iTunes and check out these additional resources!
Paddle Across Canada Tour keeps an updated blog here you can check out if you’d like to learn more about a modern voyage over a fur traders route (http://paddleacrosscanadatour.org/).
In this first episode, we welcome you to 1.1 MILLION acres called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). This kicks off our 3-episode series, “Knowing Where You’re Going,” which will provide an overview of the parks where many canoeists start out.
Please subscribe on iTunes and check out our Episode Notes. Thanks for listening!
Episode Notes
Get to know the BWCA by the numbers:
1.1 million acres
15,000 year-old landscape
1,000 lakes and waterways
2,000 designated camping sites
250,000 annual visitors
$10 booking fee
$16 per adult, per night
The BWCA by the seasons:
The Park opens up for canoe camping May 1st – Labor Day
Expect higher populations of mosquitoes and black flies May-June
Plan ahead for the busiest, warmest month of July
Pack extra layers for August-September trips
Tune in for a reading of part of Sigurd Olson’s “Why Wilderness” (1938). Learn more about this conservationist and his role in creating the BWCA at Living Point and pick up one of his books for your trip! (listeningpointfoundation.org/sig-olson/)
Too excited to stop there? Subscribe for future episodes and check out these additional resources!
Sign the petition at Save the Boundary Waters to reinstate mandatory environmental review for mining contracts (www.savetheboundarywaters.org).
PRI International’s Living on Earth aired a segment (10 mins) with Minnesota Rep. McCollum to discuss the recent federal shift to allow mining outside the BWCA (www.loe.org/shows/segments).
We’re off to Quetico Provincial Park in the final of our first mini-series, “Knowing Where You’re Going.” Listen in for an overview of this Canadian park where many canoeists start out.
Please subscribe on iTunes or Anchor FM and check out our Episode Notes. Thanks for listening!
Episode Notes
Quetico by the numbers:
1.2 million acres
15,000 year-old landscape
2,000 designated camping sites
600+ lakes
20,000 annual visitors
$20-30 per adult, per night
Tune in for Trip Tips: How to Pick a Campsite.
Too excited to stop there? Subscribe for future episodes on Anchor or iTunes and check out these additional resources!
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