Follow
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- Portage pack and day bag (the waist or lumbar pack)
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- The canoe never gets lighter, but the packs do.
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- Pack with paddles.
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- Triumph! The end of a five mile portage.
Any high adventure canoe trip requires selecting the right gear and clothing. I am pretty specific about what we carry on our trips because I know one thing for sure; in the case of where we are going:
It’s All About Portaging
In a place like Algonquin you’ll be traveling from lake to lake, and the lakes connect by trails called portages. When the crew arrives at a portage they empty the canoes of all their gear, carry the gear and the canoes over the portage to the next lake, re-pack the canoes, and continue paddling. A portage may be a few yards or a few miles, you may have one portage in a given day of travel or several.
Nobody likes portaging (at least nobody I have ever met!) so it’s important to get through them as efficiently and painlessly as possible. We’ll typically portage our gear a total of five or six miles, sometimes more, during a week-long trip. Every portage take us deeper into the park, farther away from crowded, easily accessible lakes. There’s a feeling of accomplishment in meeting the challenges of every portage, it’s a great team building exercise – but nobody likes portaging.
On my first canoe trip we made a real pig’s breakfast out of packing and portaging. We had too many dangling, loose items, too many trips back and forth on the portage and way too much fuss and bother. Since then we’ve developed a single trip portage method by taking a hard look at the gear we bring and the way we pack it. To make this happen everyone in the crew must have an iron-clad list of personal gear packed in a particular way.
Portaging in some comfort (okay, ‘comfort’ is a stretch) is a big factor for any trip. Our ideas and methods have served us well but I am not expecting anyone would (or should) slavishly replicate our way of doing things.
  Mountainsmith Lumbar Pack My favorite choice for a day bag |
  SealLine Clear Dry Bag A clear dry bag makes it easy to know which is yours. |
Day Bags – Dry Bags
Every crew member packs a day bag and a dry bag. The dry bag holds clothing, toiletries, etc. and goes into the portage pack; the day bag holds what you’ll want to have to hand during the day (rain gear, water bottles, sunglasses, bug dope, sunscreen, camera, binoculars, whistle, compass, maps and an emergency pack of basic first aid and fire starters).
The day bag is a small book bag type backpack or lumbar pack that can easily be carried with the canoe or pack while portaging. The bag itself does not have to be waterproof so long as the contents are packed in Ziploc bags or something similar. Bay bags mean we don’t have any loose stuff kicking around in canoes; everything must fit in a day bag and be carried by the owner.
We set a maximum of eight pounds for each dry bag and having the smallest, lightest one in your crew is a point of pride.
Fishing poles are disassembled and lashed bow to stern to the canoe thwarts well out of the way so they don’t have to be carried separately.
  Keen Men’s Mckenzie Watersport Shoe |
  Merrell Men’s Barefoot Trail Glove |
Water Shoes
Everyone wears water shoes so they can hop out of the canoe into the water and get things moving down the portage trail right away. These aren’t flimsy slipper-like shoes, they are substantial and comfortable enough to walk rocky, wet portage trails. Sandals will work for this but they must have toe protection. I carry a pair of neoprene socks for cold conditions.
  Columbia Long Sleeve Shirt |
  Columbia Convertible Pant |
Clothing
Proper clothing is crucial. If you get soaked and can’t get dry when the temperature begins to drop during a windy, overcast rainy day it’s not only uncomfortable; there’s a real danger of hypothermia. Over the years we have seen temperatures as high as ninety plus degrees during the day down into the high thirties at night, so we need to choose clothing that will keep us comfortable and safe in these extremes.
Originally we just strongly recommended that no one wear cotton clothing because once wet it’s hard to get dry.We learned that if someone is reluctant to get wet and is finicky about getting in and out of canoes we slow everyone down. A few years ago we decided instead of recommending we’d require everyone to wear non-cotton clothing – so a commonly available long-sleeved nylon shirt and pants with zip-off legs is now our standard paddling outfit.
If we get caught out in the rain, if someone slips and falls into the lake or dumps a canoe we can get them dry relatively quickly. We require everyone to pack a set of lightweight polypropylene long underwear and a rain suit (jacket and pants, no ponchos). Layering the polypro long underwear as a base, nylon shirt and pants next with rain gear as the shell I am confident that I can keep everyone safe and reasonably comfortable in the worst conditions we are likely to encounter. These choices are lightweight and compressible – less weight and bulk are big factors in packing and portaging: and it’s all about the portaging.
This article is second in a series discussing our high adventure canoe trips; part one is an overview of the trip, part three describes the details of portaging, part four describes our canoe kitchen.
Reading this post brings back the memories. Everything is spot on.
One thing my troop did a little differently was the dry bag. Instead of dry bags,we used USGI A.L.I.C.E. packs with the quick release straps. Everything in the ALICE was in waterproof bags, and all the bags were in a waterproof liner, i.e. a garbage bags. The quick release straps allowed the pack to be strapped onto a thwart very easily.
And I agree 110% with no cotton and hypothermia being a threat. Been there, done that. Go with the quick dry stuff.
Today’s post will talk about packing portage packs. We never attach portage packs to the canoe, in the event of an upset we want the portage packs to float on their own (the dry bags in the pack provide a lot of flotation) otherwise righting a swamped canoe in the middle of a windy lake would be nearly impossible.
you should look into the Greater Niagara Frontier Council’s Birchbark Expeditions in Algonquin Park, They provide everything you mentioned for a much smaller fee(around $425.00) Check out their website,In addition you get a fully trained guide at no additional cost
Looks like a great program but it does not include everything I mentioned and is not cheaper it is actually more expensive. We are travelling a much greater distance (the one you mention does not include travel to the starting point in the Buffalo Niagara area). We stay in a motel at the beginning and end of the trip and also pay for touring at Niagara Falls. The trip offered by Niagara Frontier features four nights of tripping and we are out for six nights. Our trip is nine days long where there’s is seven. They are also going with two Scouts and one adult per canoe, we have one three person canoe.
I’ve done the math on the various high adventure offerings (Philmont, Sea Base, Northern Tier, and Council based trips) many times. I know that a unit-based trip is always cheaper, most of the time by several hundred dollars.
All that being said the Niagara Frontier program looks great and it would be a good alternative for a troop or crew without the experience or resources to put together their own trip. A guided trip is a great way to learn about the area and the logistics of canoe tripping.