Expert Gear Reviews for Canadian Adventurers
A kids PFD for canoe camping is a Transport Canada-recognized personal flotation device sized and shaped for a child’s body weight and proportions, designed to keep a small paddler face-up and afloat during multi-day backcountry trips. That’s the textbook definition. Here’s the version that actually matters to you, standing in a gear shop with a … Read more
Here’s the blunt truth nobody puts on the box: an adult PFD for canoeing only works if you’re actually wearing it, and you’ll only wear it if it fits like it belongs on your body instead of borrowed from a stranger. A personal flotation device is a wearable safety garment designed to keep a conscious … Read more
Somewhere between the parking lot and your first portage, you’ll figure out whether you bought the right pack. A large canoe trip pack 70L is the piece of gear that decides whether day four of your trip feels like an adventure or a shoulder-punishing chore. Unlike a regular hiking backpack, a proper canoe pack is … Read more
A nylon portage pack is a canoe-tripping backpack made from coated or ripstop nylon fabric — typically 420 to 1000 denier — instead of traditional waxed canvas, designed to ride low on your back so you can carry it (and sometimes the canoe) across rocky, root-tangled portage trails. If you’ve ever watched a canoe party … Read more
A canvas duluth pack is a square-shouldered, envelope-style portage bag made from heavyweight cotton canvas and leather, designed to sit low in a canoe and ride comfortably on a paddler’s back across a portage trail. That’s the textbook version, anyway. Ask anyone who’s actually hauled one of these things over a rocky Algonquin portage in … Read more
Somewhere on a windy stretch of a Canadian Shield lake, a soggy map has ended more than one canoe trip’s sense of humour. You know the moment: the wind gusts, the map slips off your spray deck, and suddenly you’re eyeballing shoreline features instead of reading contour lines. The debate over waterproof map case vs … Read more
There’s a particular flavour of heartbreak reserved for canoe trippers: you portage two kilometres over root-tangled trail, load back into the boat, hit a stretch of chop off a rocky point, and by the time you reach camp your only topo map has dissolved into a soggy grey pulp in the bottom of the barrel. … Read more
Somewhere between the put-in and your first swamped gunwale, you’ll learn the hard way that a canoe is basically a very long, very tippy bathtub. How to protect your camera on a canoe trip comes down to one simple idea: put a dedicated waterproof barrier — a hard case, a dry bag, or a sealed … Read more
Somewhere between the put-in and the first set of riffles, every paddling photographer asks the same nervous question: what happens if I flip? A waterproof camera bag for kayaking is a sealed, submersion-rated carrier — usually a roll-top dry bag, a duffel with a welded zipper, or a hard case — built to keep cameras, … Read more
The first time a canoe tips a pack, it never asks permission. One second your phone is riding shotgun in the map pocket, the next it’s doing a slow-motion cartwheel into eight feet of tannin-stained lake water, and there’s nothing between you and a very expensive lesson except whatever you zipped it into that morning. … Read more