Food

Now that I have a handle on all the gear we will use for canoe camping, my focus is turning towards figuring out our meals.  

Just going to make it clear right off the bat that I am not interested in macaroni and cheese (never have been), instant oatmeal or conventional freeze dried meals.  

D has gone with all of the above on his previous bike camping trips as he had firm space and weight restrictions.  But in a canoe, we will have capacity in our food barrel, so no need to go that route on these types of adventures -- One of the biggest selling features for me when deciding on a boat.  

It won't be full on food like a car camping trip, due to the need to be bear aware, but I want to eat semi normally, with variety, not a bunch of stuff I would never consider in everyday life.  

Our approach is to continue to eat foods that have higher nutritional value per serving.  It's the philosophy we already use at home but it was a good excuse to see what is new on the market. 

Examples of new finds include a higher protein pancake mix that just needs water but provides a higher amount of protein, and chickpea and quinoa-rice pasta instead of just a wheat or rice noodles. 

We will attempt to dehydrate a number of base items including tomato based sauce, vegetables like mushrooms, olives etc., baked beans and some meats like chicken, turkey, ham.  Just one ingredient things, no whole meals planned at this point, to keep things simple.  Once we get the hang of the dehydrator, we may continue on.  Don't think we'll bother with fruit as they can be purchased easy enough.

Other meal options include using different types of pre-made curries (chickpea, potatoe, eggplant) on top of pasta, rice, with naan.  D is going to try packaged tuna plus vegetables on top of pasta as well.  I'm looking into incorporating some Thai (tom yum) and Japanese (miso, soba, udon) items to the mix.  This will likely mean buying some leakproof jars for the pastes.  

The testing has just started with the new to us pancake mix (resounding success!), concentrate chicken broth with gluten free ramen (good, but the broth was weak when following instructions, needed to double).  Won't be surprised if I have to do the same with the beef broth concentrate.  

Chickpea pasta was a bit grainy tasting, so next time will undercook.  The quinoa and rice spaghetti is a clear winner.  My stomach can't digest well the 100% quinoa pasta that D eats at home, but this one I could! The Indian curries will be next.  

The aspect of travelling I have missed the most is the food.  This food exercise has been a fun reminder of all the places we have been and hopefully leading us to discover decent alternatives to some of our memorable meals abroad, like the simple street corner thali plate in Delhi.  

Detail Crazy

I'm known for going overboard delving into new details.  

Been gathering unscented toiletry items and cleaning supplies for the backcountry camping trips we are hoping to take this summer.  And currently waiting on our scent blocking bags to arrive so we can begin to work out food portions etc.  

Figured out our water filtering and sterilizing procedures.  When I went to Nepal, I took the filter that came with the steripen with me and found it took forever, so didn't use it after realizing the water in the area didn't have a lot of dirt or gunk at all.  It has since been replaced by a Sawyer mini, a tip from a fellow wilderness first aid classmate.  

An added small pack of water purification tablets will serve as back up.  We aren't going with a gravity system yet but may change our minds once we see how the mini works using the squeeze method.

Also waiting on a larger stainless steel billy can to boil larger amounts of water for dish washing and cooking.  Plus a larger frying pan for all the fish we think we are going to catch!  Think we may finally be coming to the end of all this gear gathering.  Wishful thinking perhaps...

Even bought a 1 person tent in preparation for solo trips, after finding how heavy my canoe dry pack was getting with my 2 man tent.  Thought I leaned towards the ultralight end of things but that 115L pack fills and gets heavy real fast when it alone weighs nearly 5lbs.

So word of warning.  If you decide to go down this canoe camping road, not all your previous gear will transfer over.  And in an open boat (I'd like to get a spray deck -- we are on the wait list), you need to consider floatation and weather proofing everything.  Neither of those elements come cheap with respect to gear.  

It can be overwhelming especially adding in components that come with bear proofing (bear cache arrived yesterday...) your site.  We have decided not to carry bear bangers as we aren't planning to be that out there.  So I returned them.  Our non lethal deterrants will primarily be our responsible behaviour along with an air horn and bear spray.  Should a visit to the far north happen, I'll go pick up some bear bangers again.  

Climate Catch Up

This post is weeks late as we are well into spring thaw.  

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We have lost most of our snow already... so D and I dug up all the snow stakes in order to take down my tent.  Neither of us had used winter specific stakes before and wasn't too sure how they would work.  But work well they did.  

It is just like described -- The snow freezes in the holes which creates a real solid anchor.  And because we stomped out the site in advance, the compacting made things even more frozen.  To the point where we needed to break out the ice axe (another piece of equipment to test) to get down to them. 

To completely stake out my winter tent required 15 stakes.  I only had 12 so used the ones it came with to make up the difference. They didn't work well at all and came undone pretty much right away.  Can't find anymore of the snow stakes to buy now, so will likely have to wait untl next season to top up.

Been reading of how this year will also be a challenge for gear inventory.  Or it could be a continuation of last year's phenomenon.  Or people are onto it and have bought early.  We continue to be guilty of that.  Using snow stakes as an example, I started making my purchase list early summer.  

D and I are getting ourselves back into the water this year and toward paddle in camping.  We had sold our sea kayaks last summer and considered various ideas but nothing came together until recently.  It started with us wanting to get back into fishing, having both grown up with it.  Then the idea moved to getting a fishing boat.  Which progressed to a fishing kayak (didn't know it was thing...).

And after watching some adventure videos, it has brought us to a 2 person canoe and maybe a solo kayak for me.  The huge difference this time around is portability.  I had been looking for a way to transport a boat with a potential camper van or truck camper and stumbled on a thread about pakboats. 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and we now have a 16 ft canoe sitting in our dining room with me busy packing it up with a canoe barrel and multiple duffels.  Add to it fishing rods, hip waders and a wet suit.  Fun times.  I did try out a smaller portable kayak but it didn't fit me well.

There are many moving pieces associated with canoe camping -- New paddles, back up paddles, many dry bags.  We had kept our paddle jackets, shoes, pfds and boat safety equipment but bought a cart again as we sold both of ours.  Also needed heavier duty lines. 

Paddle in camp sites tend to be in the backcountry, so camping this way often means being bear and critter aware and all the stuff that this entails.  It's the price to pay to be further away from others.  We are currently delving into the food dehydration thing and D couldn't be happier.  He has been trying to convince me to go down this route for a while.  

What remains to be seen is whether we'll paddling together well as we've never done tandem...We'll see if the marriage survives...