Hello all, but especially anyone who has yet to go on their first backcountry trip:
I've just returned from a four-day trip in Algonquin Provincial Park. I'm a moderately experienced backpacker and a former big water sailboat owner. Most of the navigation on my just-completed trip was as easy and straight forward as you'd expect -- the lakes are small (at least compared to Lake Huron) and the portages are well-trodden and point-to-point.
However, I did encounter two challenges that I believe are worth mentioning. I was never "lost", but I did resort to the GPS in my phone for the most efficient direction to a portage on one occasion. On another occasion, I spent 15 minutes needlessly paddling upwind into a dead-end bay I had no desire to get into.
First lesson learned: navigating on even a medium-sized inland lake (Burnt Island Lake in this case) can be a bit challenging. From a distance, it can be hard to clearly discern the features of the lake from the height of a canoe seat because the points, bays, etc, can blend in to the surrounding background hills. I was using a compass and map but...and here's a key lesson...I had not checked to see if my map was oriented to true north or magnetic north. I did not do the mental gymnastics ahead of time to know how to compensate for deviation. As a consequence, I was always suspicious that my direction of travel could vary by as much as 30 degrees if I got the calculation backwards. It was somewhat late in the day, and the worst that happened was that I wasted time and energy paddling to a distant campsite instead of the portage. If I'd had confidence in my compass/map bearings, I could have saved myself some much needed time and energy by knowing my desired direction of travel was ENE instead of ESE.
Second lesson: when you're paddling (as opposed to sailing or motoring), your "fuel supply" is very limited on any given day and accuracy is essential. I was using a smallish square of a map printout wrapped in plastic wrap stuffed in my hip pocket instead of a see-through plastic bag or even better, a plastic sheet protector that I could just leave out in front of me, tied to the thwart. I found that it was easy to forget small features on my small map when I was focused on, say, finding the best campsite. In this particular instance, I didn't bother retrieving the map from my pocket when I should have and forgot I was supposed to skip past a particular inlet on Littledoe Lake and turn left at the next. As a consequence, I wasted 15 minutes of good energy paddling needlessly into a headwind up a dead-end bay I had no interest in seeing. I'm going to figure out a way to have my map more accessible and convenient.
So navigation was not difficult and I was never close to being lost, but accurate and precise navigation is important when your energy supply is so limited.
FWIW
Jim
I've just returned from a four-day trip in Algonquin Provincial Park. I'm a moderately experienced backpacker and a former big water sailboat owner. Most of the navigation on my just-completed trip was as easy and straight forward as you'd expect -- the lakes are small (at least compared to Lake Huron) and the portages are well-trodden and point-to-point.
However, I did encounter two challenges that I believe are worth mentioning. I was never "lost", but I did resort to the GPS in my phone for the most efficient direction to a portage on one occasion. On another occasion, I spent 15 minutes needlessly paddling upwind into a dead-end bay I had no desire to get into.
First lesson learned: navigating on even a medium-sized inland lake (Burnt Island Lake in this case) can be a bit challenging. From a distance, it can be hard to clearly discern the features of the lake from the height of a canoe seat because the points, bays, etc, can blend in to the surrounding background hills. I was using a compass and map but...and here's a key lesson...I had not checked to see if my map was oriented to true north or magnetic north. I did not do the mental gymnastics ahead of time to know how to compensate for deviation. As a consequence, I was always suspicious that my direction of travel could vary by as much as 30 degrees if I got the calculation backwards. It was somewhat late in the day, and the worst that happened was that I wasted time and energy paddling to a distant campsite instead of the portage. If I'd had confidence in my compass/map bearings, I could have saved myself some much needed time and energy by knowing my desired direction of travel was ENE instead of ESE.
Second lesson: when you're paddling (as opposed to sailing or motoring), your "fuel supply" is very limited on any given day and accuracy is essential. I was using a smallish square of a map printout wrapped in plastic wrap stuffed in my hip pocket instead of a see-through plastic bag or even better, a plastic sheet protector that I could just leave out in front of me, tied to the thwart. I found that it was easy to forget small features on my small map when I was focused on, say, finding the best campsite. In this particular instance, I didn't bother retrieving the map from my pocket when I should have and forgot I was supposed to skip past a particular inlet on Littledoe Lake and turn left at the next. As a consequence, I wasted 15 minutes of good energy paddling needlessly into a headwind up a dead-end bay I had no interest in seeing. I'm going to figure out a way to have my map more accessible and convenient.
So navigation was not difficult and I was never close to being lost, but accurate and precise navigation is important when your energy supply is so limited.
FWIW
Jim