Canoe Camping: The Complete Playbook

1. The A-B-C packing system

Packing is not stuffing bags until they fit. It is speed, balance, waterproofing and readiness, decided on the bank before you ever push off. If a storm rolls in you need rain gear now, not after you unpack four bags. If somebody gets cut, the first aid kit cannot be at the bottom. If the canoe goes over, the gear that keeps you alive cannot float away.

Weight goes low and centred, between the thwarts, not out at the ends. A canoe loaded heavy in the bow and stern pivots badly and rides hard in wind. Trim it so the boat sits level or a touch bow light, then get in and feel it before you commit to a day of it.

2. Waterproofing that survives a flip

A dry bag is not waterproof. A dry bag that has been rolled three times and clipped is waterproof. That distinction has cost more people a sleeping bag than any hole ever has.

• Roll three times, minimum. One or two rolls will weep under pressure, and a swamped bag under other gear is under a lot of pressure.
• Double bag what ends the trip. Sleeping bag, spare clothes and the fire kit go in a liner bag inside the dry bag. Wet down here in humid country does not dry out again.
• Tie in the C group. Not the whole load, which will hold you under if you go over, but the two or three bags you cannot replace.
• Leave air in. A dry bag with a little air is a flotation device. A dry bag squeezed flat is a rock.

3. Reading the river

Blackwater is not whitewater and it is not still. It moves, and what it does around obstacles tells you where to put the boat.

4. Food with no cooler

A cooler is weight, bulk and a countdown clock. Drop it and the whole menu gets simpler and better. The rule is that day one can be fresh, and everything after that has to be shelf stable.

Tortillas beat bread every time. Bread turns to a crushed lump by the second portage and tortillas do not care. Repack everything out of boxes into bags before you leave home, because cardboard is just wet trash waiting to happen.

5. Making camp on blackwater

Camp choice is a safety decision before it is a comfort one.

1. Camp on durable ground, 200 feet from the water. Sandbars, pine duff and high dry ground take the traffic. Soft vegetated banks do not.
2. Get above the high water mark. Blackwater comes up fast after rain upstream, and it can come up while you sleep. Find the line where debris sits in the brush and camp above it.
3. Look up before you look down. Dead branches and leaning trees kill people in their sleep. Scan the canopy over your whole footprint before a single bag comes out of the boat.
4. Take the hammock over the tent in humid country. Off the wet ground, off the crawling things, and it breathes. Hang from trunks 10 to 15 feet apart with tree friendly straps and rig the tarp above it.
5. Set the fire on mineral soil, small. Clear ten feet, elevate it off damp ground, and hunt dead and dangling wood rather than anything off the floor.
6. Know your way out. Before dark, decide what you would do and where you would go if the water came up two feet in the night.

6. Field repairs

You are not fixing things properly out here. You are getting the boat to the take out.

The repair kit that earns its weight: Gorilla tape wrapped around a water bottle, 30 feet of paracord, a multi tool, a few zip ties and a needle with heavy thread.

7. Planning the days

Most first trips fail on distance, not skill. People plan for the miles they can paddle on flat water with an empty boat, then meet a loaded canoe, a headwind and three portages.

Check the gauge before you leave and know what the number means on your stretch, not in general. Too low and you drag. Too high and the strainers go under where you cannot see them, which is worse. Leave your route and your take out time with somebody at home, and tell them when to start worrying.