The Right Fit

When I travel, I automatically assume that I'm going to produce a video that documents whatever adventure DW and I set out on.

When packing for the trip, I ensure that I have all of the video and photography equipment before I even give any thought to what clothes I'm going to pack. As it was, I arrived at our first campsite to discover that while I had more cameras than I actually needed (though, I used every one of them), I hadn't packed enough clothes.

I made sure I had all of my rashguard shirts for kayaking but I didn't pack any other shirts other than the t-shirt that I wore when we left the house and the hoodie that I planned to wear to sleep, anticipating cool evenings in the tent.

I wore my black t-shirt to death (thank goodness for laundry facilities and a wash-and-hang t) and ended up buying a t-shirt in Wawa and a long-sleeved shirt in Batchawana Bay.

Another thing that failed me when readying myself for documenting our trip was to think of how each adventure would tie into one another. We would be primarily kayaking but there were also days when we just hiked the many trails in the provincial parks.

As I showed in Part 1 of my Lake Superior video, the story I told covered the two days that it took to reach our destination and the kayaking we did on our first full day. There is hiking, stops in Sault Ste. Marie, and two kayak outings.

We spent two nights at one site in Lake Superior Provincial Park before moving to a better site that we could only secure for five nights when we made our initial booking. So on Day 4 of our adventure, we spent the morning having a leisurely breakfast, discussing where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do on that gorgeous day.

When our Paddlefolk friend was taking our dirty dishwater to pour down the nearby vault toilet, she noticed that the people at our next site were packing up to leave. We immediately tore down our site, and by the time our cars were packed up, the occupants of that site pulled past us.

We spent the rest of the morning setting up the new site, which was right on the beach, looking out to Agawa Bay and Montreal Island.

Of course, I didn't think it worth capturing this move on video. After all, my videos were going to be about kayaking, hiking, and any other adventures we undertook.

As we were setting up our new site, the occupants of the site across from us paid us a welcoming visit, letting us know that the old occupants were terrible for leaving out food and coolers, and a black bear had visited our site on the previous two nights, causing panic amongst their kids.

We assured them that we were bear-savvy, and that we always made sure that any food was properly locked in our vehicles when we weren't on the site or when we were sleeping. DW doesn't even bring lip balm into the tent with her.

While we chatted, we learned that our neighbours visited this park a couple of times every year and they were familiar with the area. They gave us a long list of places worth visiting, including some that were already on our list but a couple of places that not even the park staff mentioned to us.

One of these places was the Towab Trail, which cuts through a wooded area near the Agawa River, eventually leading to the Agawa Falls. Our neighbours told us that the last half of the trail is challenging but there was a place along the trail, called Burnt Rock Pool, which offers spectacular views of the rocky hills and has a place where you can jump into the Agawa River to cool off.

I grabbed my Insta360 One R for the hike but I didn't know what I was going to film, as we didn't know any more about the trail than what our neighbours told us. I only captured the trailhead and ran just a few segments of the trail, I did capture footage at the Burnt Rock Pool, which at the time seemed to be the only thing worth recording.

When I sorted the video footage after we returned home, I looked at the clips I shot and thought they were good but I really didn't know how I would fit them into a story of our trip. When I started work on Part 2 of my videos, I couldn't see how to use the clips.

So, I left them out. For now.

Part 2 of my Lake Superior videos starts in Old Woman Bay, with me getting in a spot of bother. I'll tell you about that adventure, tomorrow, but for now I'm leaving the Towab Trail hike and swim out.

It just isn't the right fit for what I'm currently creating.