The importance of a good pack and how it relates to great camping

A few weeks ago I knocked the majority of the dust off my gear and exposited that I loved the 100+L pack I was using.  Now I’m looking around for my own pack and the benefits of having one are quickly becoming apparent.  I’ve got my eyes on a completely watertight 115L portagin bag, and it’s beginning to look more and more sexy every day.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of HUGE packs.  Not just tall, but also wide.  When you’re hiking or traveling your pack will be tall and skinny because it’s easier on your lower back, but it becomes pretty self explanatory once you’re in a boat why a fat and stout pack is best.  It’ll fit snuggly into the welcoming gunnels of any canoe, either width or length wise, and sit good and low in the canoe which really stabilizes the hell out of the boat.

115L of watertight awesome

What’s more, you’ll be able to do portages a lot easier with everything in one or two big bags.  Especially if the portage is short, you can hop out, grab a pack, and throw a canoe on your head while the other person carries a pack and whatever else was in the boat (paddles, water, maps, etc.).

Note the handles to move and handle the pack in and out of the canoe.

Seriously, with a properly packed bag (heavy stuff at the top, bulky stuff at the bottom, portaging 1-3 km are easy as pie and not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be!

One Does Not Simply Rock Into Mordor, Unless They’re Korpiklaani

Korpiklaani.

Go and Youtube a few songs of theirs.

Here’s one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIc4VHxU7iM&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AL94UKMTqg-9BkGbwLWDXyp41MUjgGzszX

This music video starts with a man kicking out the door of a shithouse and rocking a violin solo.  It just happened. 

Basically these guys are a Finnish version of the Dropkick Murphies.  Just wanted to share.  If you could find any way to get this into a karaoke bar, you’d clean up and the owner would have you back time and time again because this music gets you drinking.

Now if you’ll excuse me, that rum won’t drink itself…

How to Right A Flipped Canoe Properly (With Illustrations!)

Canoeing is a low-impact and incredibly safe way to cross flat water.  However, as with any watersport, there is an element of danger if things of awry, so here’s a few tips and tricks on what to do concerning a flipped canoe!

Firstly, you should tip a canoe at least once in a controlled environment with warm water and a safety crew standing by.  It’s the only way to be properly prepared for the real thing.  Also, before going out either snap your pack’s waistclip, lumbar strap, or some other clasp to the yoke or a thwart so that if you tip, your gear won’t lie at the bottom of a lake or river.  An even better way to do this is to tie or carabiner a rope through all the packs’ lifting straps (or any strong point) and tie them off to one strong point on the canoe so that you can perform the next steps more easily (read on and you’ll understand).

Let’s say you’re out on the water, just getting from point A to B, when suddenly, you’re partner sees a shiny dabloon in the depths below!  “What luck!” they’ll proclaim, reaching hazardously over the side.  The next thing you know, you’ve got water up your nose and your friend has become a mild annoyance.  What to do?  There are a number of ways:

Screw you, I’m not an artist! What do you think this is, Deviantart?

Hopefully you’re close to shore, like, 20 feet from being able to touch bottom.  You don’t want to haul your canoe upside down and full of water far (not to mention your now-soaked gear), trust me.  But let’s say you can.  Simply have the canoe upside down, lift one end out of the water then the other.  Once you have the upside down and relatively water-less canoe above your head, flip it and carry on like nothing happened.

Of all the things to happen, this one is the most shameful but easiest to remedy.

If you flip in the middle of a larger body of water, or during a crossing or something where you can’t get to shore, but have some friends in another boat or canoe nearby, then you’re in luck.  Getting a boat out of deep water with another boat nearby is one of the easiest things to do with a bit of practice.  Once your asshole friends have stopped laughing at you, basically all you have to do is put your sunken canoe over top of the rescue boat perpendicularly so the water drains out.  Pushing down on the side away from the rescue boat helps getting on the other craft, and then you flip it (once it’s dry) and off you go!  I actually had to do this exact maneuver to help out some young folks who had tipped at dusk on the French river last week, and it just goes to show how handy this kinda crap can be.  Remember, your gear is holding on for dear life under the canoe and you should get it out and into your rescue canoe first!

Swimming lessons and “eggbeater” water treading really pay off here.

God help you if you flip in the middle of the lake with no other boats in the area and can’t make it to shore.  Flipping the boat can be done, but it’s certainly no picnic.  Basically you do the same operation as when you bring it to shore, but since there’s no ground to push against, you’ve got to support the weight of the canoe by spin-kicking like a mofo.  Remember to do one end at a time, try to utilize your lifejacket as much as possible by snugging it down to as low as it’ll go on yourself, and remember to give it all you’ve got because your life legitimately could depend on it.

I’ve seen entire rescues go back to square one because the people didn’t know how to get in the boat. I laughed.

A quick note on getting into canoes in deep and shallow water.  No matter where you’re launching from, whether it’s a beach, rock, or dock, step into the middle of the canoe first and try to put a paddle across the gunnels so that you’ve got a more solid boat to get into.  Hands down it’s my biggest pet peeve when someone tips a boat because they’re too high up and expect a canoe to work as a floating dock.  In deep water, you can’t leverage yourself against the side to get in, it just won’t work and you’ll get water back in the boat.  Instead, have one person wrap themselves around the bow/stern of the canoe, acting as a stabilizer, and hop over the opposing end by hoisting yourself up and over the point.  Once you’re in the canoe, make sure you make the canoe as stable as possible so your partner can do the same.

Safe paddling!

Fishing the North Channel of the French River

Well folks, I just got back from a long weekend fishing trip to the north side of 18 Mile Island and boy howdy it was exciting.  Being about a 5 hour drive north of Toronto it had better have been.

Weeks of planning in advance made the whole thing much easier to pull off, and as the days got closer and closer it became apparent that everything was going smoothly.  We got there around noon on Friday, left at about 9AM on Monday, and fished the shit out of everything in between.  We even managed to get in some time for swimming (and on May 24!).

But on to the fishing!  As usual, I picked up one lure from Bass Pro and hoped that it’d work for everything, and this time I was right.  I grabbed a medium-sized perch-like sinker.  This little beauty sank and ran about 7-10ft under the water.  With the incredibly deep nature of the French, this worked well.

Out on the water we saw that the shore dropped off quickly from the waterline, so we had to troll incredibly close to shore or down-rig in the middle.  Since we didn’t want to look like morons in the middle of a stream with cannon-balls over the side of our boat, we stayed nice and close to ground.  I was running the One True Lure and managed to catch the first muskie I ever managed to get in a boat (small for a muskie, 6lbs 11oz), a few bass that were out of season and small, as well as a clean and small pike.

The real treat of the weekend was when I managed to grab a five and a half pound walleye (or pickerel if you want to call it that).  It tasted terrific too, but as usual it fought with the pep and vigor of a mud-covered stick.  Still, it’s the biggest walleye I’ve ever got.

According to the locals though, it was a very slow weekend for fishing.  But by using the One True lure it was a great trip for myself.  I caught all of the four big types of fish (bass, pike, walleye, muskie) and damn if it wasn’t great.  Pictures coming soon!

Why Do I Write?

You know, sometimes it can be really disheartening writing in a public forum.  You constantly double check yourself, sedate your language and ideas, and there’s the persistant judgement of other people that many writers fear.  As a blogger here I could care less what people think about my writing style, I do this more for fun and as a stress-valve than anything, but who knows? 

Maybe down the line I’ll pick up the pen to do something more meaningful or lucrative, I mean, I like sharing my ideas, hopes, and dreams with you random lot.  They always say that the best way to get really good at something is to practice too, which is what I view blogging as: practice for the real world.  Here on the internet I have free reign to do what I want and point fingers at who I want, it’s a great system. 

But why do I do it?  As of right now I’ve had just shy of 1300 people set their browsers on my Brain-atorium and most of them are just here for the pictures.  It’s certainly not a large number in internet terms.  No I do this for myself.  I love the mental aerobics one must go through and the immediate validation of the work, as well as the fun it can be.  I find writing to be akin to playing music.  Most people can read books and listen to music, but it’s significantly more rewarding to create the media yourself.

Let’s finish this whole rant up with a quote from my favorite scientist, ”A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.”  -Carl Sagan

Extremely Fun and Exceptionally Hard: Super Back to the Future Part II (SNES)

This game is the one that people constantly refer to as “the good Back to the Future game”.  It’s a combination of sweet sound effects, simple gameplay, recognizable sets and scenes, and good sprite animation that put this above the abortions that have been other retro BttF games.  It was only released in Japan on the Super Famicom, but with a bit of simple modifications to your American SNES you can play it yourself!

Seriously, you just need to cut out two tabs on your American SNES to play the games designed for this one…

You control early-90′s cool kid Marty McFly and his iconic hoverboard as you go through the future and the present in an attempt to make things right and win the girl (or something, I can’t read Japanese).  Your only means of attack is a spin-flip which is activated when you jump.  It’s kinda tricky to explain why this is not the best attack ever programmed, but if you fall from a platform you don’t automatically spin and will get hurt, but it’s not a huge problem.  The controls walk a balance between tight and realistic, with Marty taking a few centimeters to stop from a full sprint, but platforming is fun and easy most of the time.

One thing about this game though, is that it’s hard as hell.  It’ll take someone who’s good a platformers a good number of hours to tame this beast, and it could have easily suffered from the “it’s too hard to play” syndrome that plagued games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES.  Mercifully there’s no huge jumps or stupidly complex jumping stage, it’s not as grounded as Mario but not as aggrevaiting as Sonic.

Where we’re going we don’t need *flips glasses* roads.
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Unlimited continues and legitimately fun and colorful action, along with optional upgrades to purchase like temporary invinciblity and shielding, make you want to play this diamond in the rough.

Poker Lake Camping

So the time has come, I officially declare summer camping season…OPEN!  Huzzah!  That’s right, I’ve knocked the dust off my gear and taken it out into the bush.  It was a good time, I was with first-time campers (which was both aggravatingand a good thing for my confidence as a camper), and the sun was shining.

We put in at the Poker Lake put-in on Highway 118 in central Ontario.  It’s a tough put-in to find if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but the “Watch for People Crossing the Road” yellow signs are a dead give-away.  It’s about halfway between the firehouse at the end of Bird Lake road and Carnarvon.  We went south into Big East Lake, and after a 150m portage down a hill steeped with Canadian Shield granite we were on our way.  The paddle was short but scenic, and we had the whole lake to ourselves.  A broken yoke and weaker paddlers meant that I pretty much gunned the 3-4 odd kilometers as fast as I could just to get off the water (which is disappointing, I love the paddle/adventure).  We pulled into a rather steep and rocky take-out on site # 15 and I set to work setting things up.

My tent, a 2-pole 4-person MEC number, went up easy as pie and despite a few hours of solid rain remained bone dry.  I was very pleased with it.  The same goes for my new MSR pot set, which handled chili and mixing bowl duties quite nobly.  I was most impressed, however, with the Trailblazer Take-down Bucksaw I was borrowing from a friend.  That little tub of aluminum, with a flourish and some know-how it turns into a handy-dandy saw to hack up some firewood.  It was incredibly helpful and I was glad to have it.  One last piece of equipment I took out for the first time this year was a huge 110L backpack, which was tremendously awesome on the quick portage down to the put-in.  When you engage Beast Mode, put the pack with all your equipment/tent/sleeping bags/etc. on your back and then the canoe on your head you can move a whole ton of gear easily and quickly.

Like I’ve said, the weather was a mixture between good sunshine, calm wind (which kept the bugs away), and a bit of light to moderate rain.  I didn’t both putting up the tarp to keep the rain off because it would have been too much of a hassle.  The firewood I found was generally rotted rubbish, so we didn’t have a roaring blaze.  The wind DID however blow an ember out of the fire and I had to use my drinking water to stop the forest from burning down.  Fishing was a wash, I didn’t try anywhere outside of the site (as there was much to do), and the water was still quite cold which meant that they were very lazy and not biting.  We saw and heard a loon calling and fishing, which was magestic as ever.

All in all, it was a good trip.  Nowhere near one of my best, but better than working (amirite?).  It was good to get outside for whole days at a time and validating to see my coveted gear in action.  I’ve got only a few things to buy now before heading out in earnest, and I can’t wait to share it all with you.  If you have questions, route info, or any other info you want to share, please leave a comment!

Top Ten Cars I’m Ashamed to Admit I Like

Everyone has their own guilty pleasures and I’m no different.  I also enjoy Dairy Queen from time to time.  Screw you, it will not go to my hips!  Anyways.  Cars, there’s millions of them and I hate a good deal of them.  Talk to me about a muscle car and I’ll tear it to shreds right in front of you, and yet you’ll still be say “But Tendy, durrr, muscle cars look cool!”  Whether your wrong or not isn’t up to question (you are), however, there’s some cars that I can identify with and admire, even though I’m in the minority and I know why. 

Surf’s up dude!

 

10. The AMC Gremlin – They knew it was ugly and celebrated the fact by naming the car Gremlin.  It’s a plucky, affordable, and down-right useful car.  The is the type of car you and your friends all cram into to go to the beach or put a couch on top of moving into your first house or something.  It screams “I’m 18 and I like it” better than Alice Cooper and it’s full of heart.

Yup, an SUV…

9. The Old Ford Explorer – The mid-90s to mid 2000s were a great time to own a SUV.  Gas prices were still low, gadgets were a dime a dozen, and CD players were still a consumable product.  These Explorers were rugged enough to tow a boat or put lumber in, but safe and drivable enough for the wifey to drive around in.  People liked being higher up off the ground, and the handling and ride were good enough not to notice that you were teetering on the brink of a roll-over at the slightest curve.  I also learned to drive on one, so it’s got a special place in my heart for teaching me the art of parking a large vehicle.

It’s guaranteed to turn heads!

8. Subaru Baja – It’s from the era where car-makers thought it would be a good idea to combine SUVs with pick-ups.  While the Ford Sport-trac did this exceptionally well, the Baja was an understated and rather ugly addition to the lineup.  With a short run and some pretty ‘out-there’ color schemes, the Baja is a rarity to see on the streets, but they’ve got personality.  They say something about the driver, similar to “I hated my old car, so I got something totally different” or “I like to be unique” or some crap like that.  I’ve heard they’re rather piggy on gas, but meh, it’s a cool little…thing…I guess.

Next stop, socer practice!

7. Honda Odyssey – Ok, I’m not really ashamed to say that I adore this van.  It’s fast, tight in the corners (for a minivan), good on gas, reliable, and seats 7.  It’s the best minivan out there and with regular serice will survive well past ten years.  Throw in a bunch of extras like DVD players, 3 climates, and folding seats and you’ve got yourself a great soccer-mom/highway-dad vehicle.

I’ll never get over that weird door…

6. Nissan Juke – This car is ugly, plain and simple.  It’s also kinda awkward, with three doors in a car clearly designed to only have two.  But for a small car it’s got a lot of interior space, you can put more than two bags of groceries in it, and it’d be good both in the city and in the suburbs.  I also like the lines of it, it seems very ‘futuristic’ and it stands out in a crowd.  The Juke-R on the other hand…

You could drive a forklift through there!

5. Honda Element – Another car that’s ugly as sin, but damn.  You’ve got to ride in one.  It’s a warehouse on the inside, sorta like the TARDIS from Dr. Who.  I would definitely suggest this vehicle to anyone looking to move a lot of stuff without getting a proper truck.  The ride is good, the speakers at the back make for easy tailgating, and the seats all fold right down.  It’s perfect for people going back and forth to the cottage, beach, ski hill, or any distant destination.

Could a girly car do THIS?!?! HMMM!?!?!

4. Ford Fiesta – I didn’t realize I had to be ashamed of this car until I started talking to people that owned them.  Apparently they’re “girls cars” because they have mood lighting and other such frivolous extras.  Sure, Ford has thrown many a stupid thing onto their cars, but when you boil the Fiesta down, it still has a punchy engine, plenty of cargo and passenger room, and a wheelbase short enough to make cornering a joy.  That, and Ken Block has one with 800 horsepower which is limited to something like 600.  That makes it cool enough for me.

If you watch these carefully, often times you’ll see it’s the Griswolds inside.

3. Buick Roadmaster – This one I like on sheer reliability.  It’s a great car because it works.  It’s an ark though, hard to park, poor-ish on gas and the ride isn’t the best, but when you’re all geared up for a family holiday I’d rather go across the country in a Roadmaster than a Civic.  It also handles cornering better than most SUVs and you still see them on the road, despite most of them being nearly 20 years old now.

 

Actually pretty brilliant if you ask me.

2. Toyota iQ – While most of the time the adage that it’s not what you drive but how you drive it holds true, the iQ is another breed of micro-car.  The Fiat 500 and other such cars seem like they’re fine little cars, but the iQ is set up in such a way that it car fit 4 people inside (albeit with little else) or some similar cargo, while still being a cheap-as-piss car gas-wise.  If I HAD to have a car in a major metropolitan area, the iQ (or one of it’s other names) would be the one to buy.

If it wasn’t a Beetle, you’d call this gorgeous. Admit it.

1.  Beetle Mk. 3 – I…I…I can’t believe it.  I HATE the new Beetle, I hate the old Beetle.  They’re the bare basics of a car, and function as ugly testimonials to the fact that their owners car so little about their own choice in car.  But this new one…If it didn’t have the stigma of being called a Beetle it’d be selling much better.  It’s boxier than it’s older cousins and packs more ponies under the hood, but the real selling point of these cars is the interior design.  It’s GORGEOUS!  I’d definitely say I’m a fan, simply from a aesthetic perspective.

Why I Love North Korea

Ok, don’t get me wrong, I have a very long laundry list of things to hate regarding North Korea:

• Human suffering
• Brainwashing campaign from the government
• Limited human rights
• Utterly stupid campaigns against foreign developmental aid
• That dumb hotel that was never finished (pictured)
• Continual development of nuclear program despite not knowing the first thing about engineering in general
  

  Behold the Ryugyong Hotel! Unfinished and completely off-code wonder of Pyongyang. Nobody has ever stayed there and it’s cost millions to put up! Yay!

 

The list goes on and on, but there’s two thing going for this terrible nation. 

• Lack of internet
• Hilarious dictator
  

  Thanks internet! You’ve made my day just a bit brighter.

 

I know, I know, it sounds terrible but I get a hoot out of this guy.  He wields tremendous power over millions of human beings and yet, I can make fun of him with absolutely no repercussions.  It’s like making a terrible movie and filling the entire cast with mentally handicapped people just because nobody can say a bad thing.  No matter how much Western media butchers Kim Jong-Un’s credibility as a leader, he’ll probably not get wind of it.

Seriously, every single picture of this dude (I just called a dictator a dude) looks like he’s dressed in poppa’s clothes playing dress-up and nobody tells him because they don’t know any better.  His dad was batshit insane but he idolized him.  There’s nothing inherently bad against him yet aside from running a backwater country within spitting distance of pretty much the exact same country except done properly, and yet here we are.  The guy’s a punchline, and he doesn’t even know it, and that is hilarious.

The Juke-R is a Joker.

Nissan, maker of my favorite car right now, the GT-R, are making the most absurd and hilariously awesome car I’ve seen in a while. They’ve got this small SUV called the Juke, which is a nice little sparkplug with plenty of power and cargo room. What they’re doing to it, is putting the 4-wheel drive drivetrain of the GT-R. That’s right, the Juke’s going into the 500+ horsepower category.

 

Behold the glory!

 

The currently operational vehicles (there’s only two right now, one left-handed one right-handed) are belching out 485 ponies for a 2-ton car, which is nothing to scoff at. They go from 0-60 in well under 4 seconds, and from what I’ve read it handles like a GT-R that’s 5 foot 2. The grip is still there, but because the Juke is almost twice as tall at the sports-car upon which it was based, this thing flops all over the place with body-roll. Think of what it’d be like to drive the CN Tower around an oval. One quip I’ve seen about it is that it drives like the Chrysler building with a Saturn V suppository.

Right lads, just put a 515HP twin turbo V-6 and a 4-wheel drive system and call it a day!

This abhorration unto the car gods (carma?) is an absolute delight to see. This is one of those types of cars which simply isn’t meant to exceed 140kmph, and yet…there it is. I love it.