Expert Gear Reviews for Canadian Adventurers
Somewhere on a windy stretch of a Canadian Shield lake, a soggy map has ended more than one canoe trip’s sense of humour. You know the moment: the wind gusts, the map slips off your spray deck, and suddenly you’re eyeballing shoreline features instead of reading contour lines. The debate over waterproof map case vs … Read more
There’s a particular flavour of heartbreak reserved for canoe trippers: you portage two kilometres over root-tangled trail, load back into the boat, hit a stretch of chop off a rocky point, and by the time you reach camp your only topo map has dissolved into a soggy grey pulp in the bottom of the barrel. … Read more
Somewhere between the put-in and your first swamped gunwale, you’ll learn the hard way that a canoe is basically a very long, very tippy bathtub. How to protect your camera on a canoe trip comes down to one simple idea: put a dedicated waterproof barrier — a hard case, a dry bag, or a sealed … Read more
Somewhere between the put-in and the first set of riffles, every paddling photographer asks the same nervous question: what happens if I flip? A waterproof camera bag for kayaking is a sealed, submersion-rated carrier — usually a roll-top dry bag, a duffel with a welded zipper, or a hard case — built to keep cameras, … Read more
The first time a canoe tips a pack, it never asks permission. One second your phone is riding shotgun in the map pocket, the next it’s doing a slow-motion cartwheel into eight feet of tannin-stained lake water, and there’s nothing between you and a very expensive lesson except whatever you zipped it into that morning. … Read more
Somewhere at the bottom of a lake in Muskoka, there’s an iPhone that will never see daylight again. Its owner, a friend of a friend, tucked it into a jacket pocket for “just one quick paddle” and leaned a little too far reaching for a dropped water bottle. That’s the thing about a waterproof phone … Read more
Somewhere around your third portage, you will learn a hard truth: a canoe barrel is either your best friend or your worst enemy, and the difference comes down entirely to how you pack it. Learning how to pack a canoe barrel for a portage trip isn’t about cramming things in until the lid barely snaps … Read more
Somewhere around your third portage, soaked to the collarbone and squinting at a map that insists the next lake is “just over there,” you’ll ask yourself the question every canoe tripper eventually asks: bear canister vs food barrel canoe camping — which one is actually going in the boat? It’s not a trivial choice. Bear … Read more
There’s a very specific kind of dread that sets in on night three of a canoe trip, when you hear something rustling near the food pack and you realize you never actually solved the raccoon problem — you just hoped it would solve itself. A food safe canoe barrel is the low-drama answer to that … Read more
If you’ve ever watched a fully loaded 60L canoe barrel bob menacingly in a swamped canoe — and then sighed with relief that your food was bone dry inside — you already understand why the 60L canoe barrel is a non-negotiable piece of kit for Canadian wilderness tripping. From the shield lakes of Quetico to … Read more