My 10 day 300km trip through the wilderness of northern Saskatchewan

A couple weeks ago I did a solo trip in northern Saskatchewan Canada. I took my delta 15.5 kayak and headed out for 10 days. The trip consisted of 7 lakes 4 streams and 5 portages. I did a big 300km loop to eventually end back where I started.

It was certainly an adventure and I managed to get some great footage. I’ll be putting out some videos of the trip. If you want a sneak peak you can check it out on YouTube. https://youtu.be/CTj7asFg6lo
The channel is brand new so if you could show it some love it would be much appreciated!

Also I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about the gear I used or the trip in general.

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For context, what was your experience and outdoor history prior to this trip?

@Sparky961 said:
For context, what was your experience and outdoor history prior to this trip?

Well my love for the outdoors started when I was a kid. My dad took me on hunting and fishing outings all the time. When I was in my teens I joined the cadet program here in Canada. I learned about survival and eventually thought an aircrew survival course.

From there it was a natural progression into wilderness trips and camping. I have quite a few canoe trips under my belt but this is the first trip in a kayak

Dude. That looked… um… rough.

Been there. I’ve since learned to trip less masochistically. The biggest thing that helped? Sticking to the shorelines of large bodies of water and OUT of the boggy, buggy interior. :wink: I call myself a “reformed canoeist”, as for the past number of years my outdoor experience has primarily been on the shores of Georgian Bay (Lake Huron). Prior to that I spent a fair amount of time in Algonquin and crown land to the northwest thereof.

Your buggy scenes reminded me of standing on top of Ishpatina Ridge nearly being pushed over by swarms of deer flies and wanting to scream “THIS F*ING SUCKS!” Would I do it again? Well, not in that season… but certainly without the bugs.

Not gonna lie. Some of the portages were down right brutal. It sucked when I was in the middle of it and I told myself I wasn’t going to do it again.

With that being said 3 days after I got home I was already planning a similar trip. Maybe I’m just a sucker for punishment but I have no regrets and the enjoyment I got out of it far outweighed the bad.

A decade from now these old bones might not be able to handle it but for now I don’t mind suffering if it’s self imposed lol

Well I agree that the portages were brutal. The in-between portages must be really good. I don’t like the distance from the put-in to the truck.

@Overstreet said:
Well I agree that the portages were brutal. The in-between portages must be really good. I don’t like the distance from the put-in to the truck.

It was very nice to end up back at my vehicle after the trip

Hey guys! Part 1 of my kayak trip is out if you haven’t seen it yet. Part 2 will be out later on this morning

https://youtu.be/I1Z4VPR3_RI

Hope it’s entertaining and if you could show the videos some love it would be much appreciated!

Part 2… enjoy!
https://youtu.be/4WI_Qa_v1kc

Matthew,

Amazing undertaking! A memory that will become a favorite highlight once you are an old man in the rocking chair.

It is really impressive that you managed the mechanics of safety, paddling, navigation, looking out for dangers, fishing, operating the camera and doing all the narration ~ all at the same time!

But, the video is just too long. I have watched Part I and will check out Part II soon. I think you can show everything you have to say, and make a better video that more folks will sit through by making it shorter. The whole thing is two hours long. I would shoot for making the entire thing 30-40 minutes, tops. This is just my $.02 though.

A couple of suggestions:

I think you shot this with one GoPro? Shooting a trip like this with multiple cameras would have been a massive hurdle. But you need B Roll, namely supporting content. You can fix/add that in editing though.

I think your video needs an introduction of the trip mission, scope, planning, and where you are going. This needs to be short. You can also add recorded narration after the fact in your home. Film yourself and introduce your trip in 30 seconds. Splice in footage or still photos (dissolve into this during your on camera intro) of your kayak, all the gear you needed, plus some footage of the packing. Then show a map/chart, zoom in, highlight where you started and the route you took. Think of those Indiana Jones movies that used maps and a moving red arrow to show the route of the journey Indy was taking. It sets up the action very well. Then you could show the progress each day with a fade in chart graphic.

During some phase of the narration tell us about this part of the world. How isolated is it? Did native tribes live there? What about early explorers? Who goes there now? How far were you from help if you needed it? Did you have any communication? How many people did you encounter?

You have a slow speaking voice which got even slower as you exerted yourself. This can be very effective in short segments but not for the whole thing. I think adding recorded narration in your post editing phase will make the sound track run much better, especially those scenes where the camera is picking up a ton of wind noise.

Some of the sequences were too long. You can cut a lot of the firewood cutting, fishing, paddling, and portage scouting. Still show that stuff, but don’t let the camera run too long. Try mixing up the length of some of those sequences. Adding post narration that better highlights the difficulties will sound better. It is aways easier to capture cool footage in the field than it is to capture solid audio. Also, sometimes just having no voice or narration at all in some sequences can be an effective way of showing just how remote and isolated you were out there. Mix it up.

I am pleased you did NOT use cheesy looped music here though!

*** edit:

All of the above is just an example suggestion as to how to approach editing/post production. Usually the main challenge with making a video is you either have too little footage or you have too much…

Part 3
https://youtu.be/CiYiEatGYxM

Wow, you sure would have benefited from a couple few paddling classes! Your forward stroke is tiring to watch. The two scenes I watched of you in waves had you saying, “I just need to get through this’”. If you had a dollop of instruction, those sections wouldn’t have been nearly as tiring and might have been enjoyable. I am a fan of getting out and doing things without huge preparation but, dude, you should have done a bit of You Tubing on proper forward stroke before this trip, just to have something to focus on and improve in the boring stretches. Plus, I guarantee you would have had a ton more fun. Gotta say, though, you are living the dream!

@RussSeese said:
Wow, you sure would have benefited from a couple few paddling classes! Your forward stroke is tiring to watch. The two scenes I watched of you in waves had you saying, “I just need to get through this’”. If you had a dollop of instruction, those sections wouldn’t have been nearly as tiring and might have been enjoyable. I am a fan of getting out and doing things without huge preparation but, dude, you should have done a bit of You Tubing on proper forward stroke before this trip, just to have something to focus on and improve in the boring stretches. Plus, I guarantee you would have had a ton more fun. Gotta say, though, you are living the dream!

Ok pal, do 40km in rough water and show me how good your forward stroke is

Shooting the messenger, here.

Mathew don’t take crap from people that will never accomplish anything like your trip.
When you paddle alone, there is no one to blame, no one to rely on, and no help.
Good job.

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My Dad worked in Saskatchewan as a young man doing waterfowl migration studies. Thanks for the tour.

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