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…
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.