(What I carry is nowhere near as nice as this, but the concept is essentially the same. These are from J.a.G Woodworking)

I’d like to talk about one decision I’ve made when it comes to kitchen on a canoe trip. There’s a part of me that wants to go as ultra-light as possible, knife and a flint striker and some rope, and improvise from there, but there’s another, more obsessive side that wants to bring every gadget possible. Somewhere in the middle is the ideal camping kit. That ideal pack obviously is different for each individual, and indeed, changes for me on a constant basis.

One peice of kit that has started coming with me on any canoe trip longer than three days is my version of a wanigan. Bill Casselman’s “Canadian Word of the Day” site describes it better than I could.

A wanigan is essentially a box for food, kitchen kit, and possibly tools that would otherwise be difficult to pack or too fragile to stuff into a roughly-treated pack.

It’s a traditional bit of kit, which, in the spirit of the Duluth-style canoe pack, is as simple as it is refined. Like the Duluth pack, the wanigan is a large, single-area storage solution. It requires that you keep your individual food and tools well-organized.

With a proper utensil roll or bag, you are left with a solid pantry that will protect your fragile foods – eggs, bread, etc.

The fact that it can serve as a table, cutting surface, and utensile-rest appeals to the multiple-use side of me. Sometimes, you make it to a campsite that ends up being wet, and it’s very nice to unpack and organize your meals on a clean, flat, comfortable surface.

The wanigan I have started using is just an old tupperware tub that I had hanging around, and by chance, it fits perfectly into a 68L roll-top drybag from Sea-to-Summit. I can’t say enough about this combo. I’ll eventually try a watertight one, but I like the fact that during use, the wanigan can allow moisture to escape, keeping the inside humidity low.

The bag also is large enough for extras, such as the pot and toiletries, all of which get hauled into the trees at the end of the day.

That’s right, because I’m just using a plastic box, even the wanigan goes up there, along with any pots that were used for more than boiling water. Some may call it overkill, but I’ve yet to confront anything larger than a chipmunk at my sites in the backcountry, and I’d like to keep it that way. This likely wouldn’t be possible to do with a traditional wooden wanigan, but I’d like to see if I can find a good compromise for weight and utility.

If anybody has any experiences of their own with wanigans, I’d love to hear from you, and please feel free to share here on the comments.

This was a good trip for my friend Keith’s first time into Algonquin, in terms of what to expect for canoeing, since the Tim River to Rosebary, and then on from Longbow to Sitting Man Lake (our final destination) is a good mix of winding rivers, grassy marsh, ponds, and nice, open lakes with deeper water — a good distance to cross all of it in one day.

Many thanks to Keith for the wonderful pictures of the trip.

The put in — Tim River

We put in to the water at early afternoon, which, although late, wouldn’t be a problem given the water levels, current, and the lack of wind (yay!) when crossing the larger lakes.

The Tim River was amazingly easy to navigate this time, due to higher water levels than usual, and despite getting used to a new person in the canoe (Keith’s not new to canoes, I just mean that we’d never been in a canoe together), it went fairly smoothly. I wasn’t used to as strong a paddler, I think, so I kept under-correcting and then overdoing my J-stroke, and in the Tim, that sort of thing got us hung up a few times.

We nodded a hello to a few couples and families, passed a pair fishing on Tim Lake, and then headed into the winding Tim River for a few hours to Rosebary.

Along the way, we encountered a few beaver dams, but the water was so high from the previous night’s rain that we were able to scoot right over them, since my canoe has a fairly shallow draft (doesn’t sink too deep in the water).This is a good thing about all canoes, actually, since they allow you to stay in the boat longer than most other water craft, getting you and your gear into remote areas with a lot less effort.

Little Butt Lake and Rosebary

We stopped for a spot of lunch at Little Butt Lake (I’ve stopped for lunch here every time I’ve hit this lake, about half a dozen times, now).

We crossed Rosebary without incident, and spied a couple bathing… we assumed it to be two men at first, since they were both topless, but as we got closer, one went to shore, and returned with a bikini top.

Ah, nature. And no, we didn’t take any pictures.

A customary nod, and we let them keep their privacy by giving them a wide berth, and we were on our way.

Longbow Lake and Bog Pond for the home stretch

Longbow Lake is almost a very wide river, and very nice to paddle down. With the sun behind us and the long waters framed by the lowering sun almost directly behind us, it was quite picturesque.

It was at Bog Pond that we saw our first bit of wildlife. I spotted a moose just off to the right, as we were setting off to paddle to our last portage of the day. Keith had never seen a moose before, and I was glad to be there at this first sighting. We stayed a while to enjoy the sight, and after a while, it moved on, and so did we.

The end of the first day

We had three portages in total, all of which were really easy (well, apart from the fact that they were portages), and those went without incident. There is a bit of a steep bit at the end of this last one, and I’d suggest two people just carrying the canoe right-side-up as they go down it. Climbing with a canoe, like most other things, is much easier with just the one person under the yoke.

We came out of the last portage, a 700m walk that was getting a bit too buggy for my liking, and gazed out at Sitting Man, a very nice lake.

A beaver greeted us just off shore, and then just swam off in a huff, slapping his tail noisily to show his disapproval before diving below, and staying out of sight.

There were two sites here, and we checked out the south one. It seemed small, cramped, and a bit overgrown, although it was nice and high. We settled on the North shore, on a peninsula-style point that faced south, and had a little bit of a bay beside it.

We pitched the tent, got a fire going with some soup and vegetables to add to it, and sat back and relaxed.

Nothing to do — just enjoy being here

The rest of the trip was nice and relaxing, and we found another moose, a cow, this time, at the south marshes of our lake. The loons were out and I think we agreed that there’s no better sound in summer than a loon call over a calm lake at dusk. At night, the frogs were singing to their congregation in full force, and something that sounded like a woodpecker tapping away drifted through the woods.

I have to make a note here about the steak that we brought. I’m going to track down the name of the butcher and pick up some more of his work next time I go. I’ve made Fillet Mignon in a pan while camping, on a grill, various steaks and sausages, but this was good prime rib that we cooked in the coals, along with two potatoes that just came out perfect. The meat was juicy without being too well-done, and the seasoning was just reserved enough to bring out the natural flavour.

The other meals were standards, KD (my at-least-once-a-trip comfort food) and Singapore Curry Noodles Sidekicks, bolstered by smoked cheese-filled sausages and turkey pepperettes.

Another first for Keith, he caught his first brook trout, ever. He’s quite an avid angler, so it wasn’t from lack of skill up to now, he just prefers bass, and had never fished these areas before. We had a good time fishing, and caught quite a few smaller fish (none for dinner – we got a nice perch on the way back that could have made it to the pan, but we gave it back). Others must have been eating well, with the amount of loons, herons, and hawks we saw.

I regret not bringing a camera. I really need to get one that is either so cheap and fast to use that I don’t care if it gets trashed, or one that’s really good and can take a decent amount of dunking and abuse.

Speaking of abuse…

I didn’t get any major breaks or bumps or injuries, except for a curious infection on my left hand’s ring-finger knuckle. I swell up from mosquito and blackfly bites quite a bit, and that’s how it seemed to start, but the swelling started to increase, and I eventually had trouble even bending my finger. It started to get an angry, red look to it on the second day, spreading out along the knuckle, and then darker red lines in the creases of my skin, so I took Keith’s advice, his lighter, and a safety pin, and jabbed a few holes in what seemed to be the worse area of my finger.

Oh, that reminds me, I have to replace antiseptic swabs and bandages in my first-aid kit. You’d think they would have more of those things.

On the way back, we saw this great bull moose. It was early in the season, so we could get fairly close, but I’m always in awe of the power they’ve got. People always ask me about the bears, but for me, the moose is the animal to respect in an encounter.

From Virtual Algonquin:

“Although in summer moose are usually placid, care should always be taken in approaching the animals, particularly bulls. Bulls are extremely dangerous and unpredictable during the fall mating season, and moose should not be approached during this time.”

The way back was the usual into-the-wind paddling that always seems to be gusting and blustering when you’re tired and going in the other direction — I never seem to get tailwinds this strong.

A good bit of a trek, all in all, and I had a lot of fun. It seemed Keith had a good time as well, and hopefully, he’s got an idea of what to expect for his next trip out with his wife.

I live in a small apartment in downtown Toronto, Canada, so I had a few challenges to deal with when deciding which canoe to buy. I needed flexible storage and transportation options.

I ended up with a Pakcanoe, a skin-on-frame canoe that comes apart and stores or travels in a bag about the size of a hockey duffel. It’s sometimes known as a folding canoe or a collapsible canoe.

We were up at a friend’s cottage this past weekend, and he was nice enough to take some shots of us in action, getting most of the assembly process.

It’s an interesting thing to assemble, and each time we’ve done it, we’ve been headed into the interior of a provincial park, so we didn’t really pause to capture any of it on film.

Everybody who hears about it always wonders about how it all fits together… so here’s how it all fits together.

Get all the poles organized. There are a series of poles that form the skeletal frame of the canoe, much like a standard tent skin stretches over a domed set of tent poles.

Here you can see us assembling the poles — all of the long poles are shock-corded for ease of organization. They have a colored dot and different lengths to help matching up later in the assembly process.

As each pole is assembled, they’re laid out side-by-side for ease of identification. I usually keep all of them lined up on one end, so you can see the different sizes at a glance.

The canoe skin is a heavy synthetic canvas, coated with PVC, very tough. The underside has a few extra abrasion strips where the bottom of the canoe gets the most wear. It is unrolled on the ground next to the long poles.

The longest rods form the gunwales when threaded through the channels at the top edge of the skin.

You don’t need onlookers with beer, but it helps. Once both gunwales are in place, insert the gunwale terminators on either end. This is a bit of a tricky bit, and usually helps a lot to have an assistant pull the middle apart, shaping the gunwales into their intended shape, as you insert the terminators.

Make sure both ends of the gunwales are nice and locked into the terminators, and the top of the canoe will have that classic shape. Pull the ends of the skin up and over the ends of the terminators — it’s fairly important to make sure this is done properly, because it’s not as easy to try and adjust later.

The shortest of the long rods is the keel, and it fits together with two pieces with a series of forks on them, to make a continuous keel line with stems that clip to the gunwale terminators. The other longitudinal rods attach to the forks, and start to flesh out the side walls of the canoe.

One pair of the longitudinal rods will have clips that need to face upwards, and these are the only ones that need to match direction, as the middle clips both have to open on the same side. You’ll know if you do it wrong. Inflate the sides a little (this isn’t strictly necessary, but it helps to keep the structure as you’re assembling the rest).

Once all the longitudinal rods are in place, the cross ribs go in. These are fairly straightforward, but the first one is the trickiest to do. I try and position the top ends first, and then swing the bottom part into the clips. A bit hard to describe, but it’s something you’ll get with practice.

Each cross-brace goes into the canoe in a very similar fashion, and each subsequent one gets easier, since the rest of them hold the shape more and more.

The clips at the gunwales lock with a quick latch, and there are rubber loops for the bottom of the braces that just get stretched in place over the clips.

You can inflate the float tubes by mouth, but my canoe included a super-light pump that just stays in the bag. It makes short work of finishing the extra flotation tubes.

The chairs are the last bit to go in, and they’re the only real point of contention that I have with design. I find them a bit overly complex. I won’t go into detail, because I understand that Packboats has been working on a different, improved design.

It’s a pedestal seat, so it doesn’t act as a thwart (there are enough proper thwarts, and I don’t mind that it’s a pedestal), but it requires strapping in after it clips on, and this doesn’t secure as nicely, or make enough allowances for shifting of weight when getting in. I’ve had them come loose, and had the ‘claws’ digging into the bottom of the canoe fabric, before. This is definitely a recipe for a hole in the bottom, if you don’t notice this. Once they’re in and you’re settled into paddling, though, they’re fine.

A very nice thing about them is that you can adjust the angle for a kneeling position, but this is the adjustment that could make the seat come loose and poke into the bottom. The next time out, I’m going to try to just use a cable tie in a few key places, and I think it will be fine.

The knee pads that came with it are also a bit disappointing — essentially just closed-cell foam pads with two holes and a strap for securing it.

These are two minor disappointments in an overwhelmingly positive experience so far with this canoe.

The decks are fabric, and close off the ends nicely, making it look quite finished and solid. There are D-rings in the appropriate places on the hull-side of the stems, for painter lines. Of course, there are many places to clip throw bags and water bottles to.

If you’re lucky, yours comes complete with a cute girl to test it.

After it’s all done, you add a regular yoke thwart, and have a canoe ready for some wilderness tripping. The structure is sound and will take just under a thousand pounds. It stays assembled until it’s ready to get back to civilization, and is much easier to cart around while assembled than the big hockey-bag affair used to store it.

I hope this helps in terms of how it all comes together, and please feel free to comment or ask questions.

Many thanks to Andrew for taking the photos, and for supplying the wonderful cottage weekend. Hope you had a great birthday!