Camping Trip - Promo Shots

After graduating from University in the spring, I spent my summer living in my parents cottage. I worked for one of my friends, who runs his own painting business in the summer, and we also had a few other friends working with us.

During our working days, the four of us guys daydreamed about going on a camping/canoe trip (we didn't include the girls on this plan). While wondering about equipment and other logistics, we weren't entirely sure whether or not the trip would happen and during one of the conversations a date was set for the trip. Once the date was set, it was final, there was no changing it and no backing out. We were going to do it even if we had the worst equipment we could find. 

Not to worry though, because we didn't have the worst equipment we could find. Luke's Dad runs an adventure camp and through him, we were able to pick up almost all of the equipment we needed, including some much appreciated advice from experienced trippers. 

Now, jump back to the daydreaming stage of this plan and remember that I am a photographer. As a photographer I knew that there could be lots of opportunities on this trip. As someone trying to find a place in the photographic world and not being overly interested in nature photography, I wanted to come out of the trip with photos that could show my ability to market and promote an adventure/extreme sport equipment company.

Back to the story. It took almost all summer to plan (although we weren't rushing anything) and the final details came together within the last week. We rigged Mike's jeep with some u-bolts and 2x4's, so that two canoes could rest on-top, piled all of the gear inside and headed off. The route that we were taking was suggested to us by a friend, so we only knew our general area (my parents weren't too thrilled with that idea). We finally made it to the provincial park rangers' office that had our route map waiting for us. After talking to one of the rangers about our route, and getting some tips and advice we were finally into the water.

Click "Read More" to read the rest of the story and see more photos.

Needless to say, the trip was a blast! Day 1 was only about a half day of paddling and we did almost half of the route. We spent the night on a calm river, once the camp fire was going, we made chicken and vegetables. Day 2 we headed down the river, went through a couple of rougher areas, paddled over a beaver, stopped for lunch and ate bagels with cheddar cheese, salami and home-made strawberry jam (YES! you read that correctly STRAWBERRY JAM, one of the most delicious sandwiches ever), headed across a pretty rough lake while getting passed by giant yachts and finally came to a campsite. The site was covered in broken glass, so we decided to look around for a better spot, and ended up finding a really great, so we moved all of our gear again, and set up camp.

Taking a break after our first few portages 

to clean some drinking water.

Dinner on night one. Veggies, chicken and cool aid.

Stopping for lunch before heading out to the big lake.

This new spot had a bunch of wood near it, so the fire was easy to get going, and we were just pulling out some food to get dinner going, as Jared came running back from the water yelling incoherent things. He had just come face to face with a bear cub, about ten feet away from him. The bear cub ran through the side of our campsite and everyone else got to see except for me (the only one of the trip with a camera!). The cub ran by some people that were fishing down the shore a ways and they came to check on us to make sure everything was okay. Once of the guys that came to see us, said that he had been to that area many times before, and we had set up camp right in the middle of a pathway that the mother bear uses to travel with her two cubs.

Needless to say, we decided to move our camp site again, so we paddled out to a point of land. It turned out that the point wasn't that far away from our original spot and the man had also mentioned that there were other bears in the area. After some debating, we loaded up the canoes, grabbed as much wood as we could find, and headed for the island just off the point.

At this point in the trip, we had completed almost all of the paddling (only about an hour left in the morning) and all of the portage trips (9 in total) so we were pretty tired. We made dinner (sausages) over the fire, waited for it to get dark and then roasted some marshmallows and had some hot chocolate. There was one picture that I really wanted to try to get on this trip, consisting of everyone at the fire, campfire included in frame, and tent lit up in the background.

I got to work with the set-up and did the best I could, the only problem being that we were on a little tiny island, that didn't leave much room for changes to the "set". I did the best I could with a pounding head and tired body. After the photos were done, it was bed time. I don't think any of us got much sleep because 6 loons that were around the lake calling to each other. When this started (about 2 am) I went out of the tent and laid under the stars and just listened. It was really calming to witness an amazing part of God's creation. Morning came eventually and we made oatmeal and hot chocolate and then packed up and headed home.

I thought I would take some photos
of our equipment.

 

Mike sets up the burner to get water boiling
for our last breakfast of the trip.

The guys are looking at the bear as it runs by our camp.

This is the shot I tried with lighting the tent and everything.
For a first try set-up in not ideal condition, I'm pretty happy with
how it turned out.

It was a great end to the summer, and we will have stories to tell our kids one day because of this trip. I had a great time, and I hope you enjoy the pictures. Love you guys, hope you are having a great time at school!

Here is a video that I also made of this trip. Enjoy!

More to come....