We Learned More From Three Dumps Than From Smooth Water

The Spanish River has a way of teaching fast. On days three and four of our canoe trip, we went from “pretty comfortable on lakes” to getting humbled by rockered whitewater boats that love to wander. With about 25 kilometres on day three, we felt every little twitch in the hull, zigzagged more than we’d like to admit, and learned how much energy it takes to find a clean rhythm when the boat is built to turn. The good news: moving water gives back. Once we started trusting the current and making smarter choices, the kilometres stopped feeling impossible.

A big part of the growth came from structured practice. Beth coached us through ferry angles, eddy entries, and the kind of boat control that turns swifts from stressful to satisfying. We also talk candidly about mistakes, including dumping three times over four days and the fully loaded swim that came down to miscommunication, a bad angle, and one classic error: grabbing the gunnels. If you’ve ever wondered what actually happens to your gear in a flip, we get into what stayed put, what popped out, and why packing discipline matters on river trips.

We wrap with the practical stuff that doesn’t make highlight reels but absolutely matters: low water scraping, getting hung up, spacing your group so nobody is out of reach, and the value of a guided trip where the guide can also cook. (Bill’s camp meals deserve their own segment.) If you’re planning a Spanish River canoe trip, levelling up your moving-water skills, or just want an honest triplog with real lessons, hit play, then subscribe, share the episode with a paddling buddy, and leave a review so more Canadian campers can find us.

Transcript

Triplog Setup And Route Recap

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good day, eh? Welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast Triplog Edition. This would be day three and four of our Spanish River trip earlier earlier a couple of weeks back. Let's see. We stayed stayed two nights at our previous at the for day one and two. We stayed stayed both those nights in the same uh campsite. We moved on day three and also well, and then we we left on day four,

Day Three Slog In Rockered Boats

SPEAKER_00 0:30

as it were. Um day three was uh for an old out-of-shape guy, was a bit of a slog, uh especially in the boats. Um they've got the whitewater boats have tons and tons of rocker on them, so there's a very small footprint in the water itself. Uh it's very easy to have them. You just twitch a little bit and suddenly they're you know, they're going to the right, they're going to the left. It's you do uh Thomas and I are great in a big old 17-foot, there's almost no rocker boat. Uh, we're we're a good a good pair there. In the these little things that have tons of rocker, we uh man, we zigzag. It's just it must be hilarious to watch from behind. It's it can be quite frustrating in the boat at the time. Uh it's it takes it takes a lot to sort of get the right rhythm down to it. Such is life. Uh, I believe we had to do we're a little slow getting out out the the door, as it were. Uh, we had something in the realm of 25-ish kilometers to do, and that was it was a haul. I was I was out of juice by about lunch, but we I want to say, you know, probably three o'clock-ish, we made it to our uh to our next site, uh, having done some some uh I I don't think we did any official rapids. I think we just did a bunch of swifts and a lot of moving water. Um, I will say that having that current, because we're not big Thomas and I are not big river trippers, we tend to be flatwater lake kind of guys and portages, having that current behind you helps a lot. Um yeah. It was a swell day, lots of sun, and uh yeah, other than the other than the zigzag frustration, uh it

River Skills Practice And Camp Life

SPEAKER_00 2:18

went well. We practiced, you know, um uh Beth had us uh practicing a bunch of different you know f ferrying and you know how to had to cross into an Eddie and and just you know learning some rock star moves and stuff like that. Uh it was good, it was a good day. It was really good day, good weather. Uh the following day, we set up camp, had we ate killer food again, all of that sort of jazz. Uh Bill Wilkie is a fantastic camp cook. Um, I highly recommend unsponsored uh solicitation. If you want to have a good trip, go go with uh Bill on one of the organic boatshop uh trips. But uh, you'll there's nothing bad to say about it other than bugs, but that's not his fault. So just saying. Uh

Day Four Low Water And Scrapes

SPEAKER_00 3:11

yeah, day four. That was our final day. Uh it was it was paddled down to the elbow. Um and and our takeout. Water levels were I don't know. It could be because I don't read it as well, because I'm not, again, I'm not used to that kind of travel. Uh, we ran into a couple spots where the water levels were low. Um we sort of bottomed out on some rocks and got got hung up a bit. Um lots of scraping.

Three Dumps And The Gear Lessons

SPEAKER_00 3:42

And uh over the course, just just to put it out there, over the course of the four days on the water, Thomas and I dumped three times, twice, uh, doing I'm using air quotes practice um things, uh, once fully loaded. Uh and I was it was a miscommunication. Uh for some reason he seemed to think we were supposed to ferry across, and it was I don't know. I looked at the water and went, uh, it looks a little bit beyond my abilities to ferry across. And we certainly were not in sync for it. We could we went in at the wrong angle. In no time flat, it pointed our nose the wrong way, and I grabbed the gunnels, not supposed to do that, and over we went. Thankfully, because of the amount of crap that we pack, the amount of highly necessary gear that we pack, uh, it was it was jammed heavily under thwarts and stuff like that, and and the yokes. So uh we I don't think we lost anything. I think our camera pelican case kicked out something else. Oh, sunscreen kicked out, and uh, we did we lost our clean water bag for our platypus, but I had a spare at home, so no big deal. Um yeah.

Getting Split Up And River Safety

SPEAKER_00 5:01

We learned from that. Anyhow, uh finish out the uh the fourth day. Another it was another long, a long paddling thing. Uh we got I don't know. I we got ahead of the group by quite a ways, and I am much more cognizant of the need to stay closer together, especially with people that are like us that are learning uh something goes wrong. It's a lot of paddling to do to get to us kind of a deal. Well, and or even know that something went wrong. I was trying to be, I was being lazy. I was trying to just every time we hit a swift, just keep power and just keep power and use, you know, use the moving water as best as I could uh to get us as far along as possible. And then and then we got we got sternly talked to, so and totally, totally valid. There you go. Uh it was great. We did while we did got whammed with some rain a couple of times, and uh yeah, we loaded out fairly quickly. Uh the road out of the from the elbow to head back in towards um the train station where we're where the third

Rough Road Out And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 6:18

car was. Uh that that road is in terrible shape. We had far too many of us in Kale's uh truck and far too much gear, and then a whole trailer of boats behind. So we had to like just crawl our way out, otherwise people would have been bouncing off the ceiling and stuff like that. Um but yeah, we did. We got back, went back to the the organic boat shop's cabin, uh, had another meal. I think we did big, big hot jumbo hot dogs and maybe some more corn, and I don't know what else. But you know, we had a great meal and uh slept, got up early, headed back home because you know that's a decent drive. Uh all in all, we're better paddlers now, which should play out well for our uh hopefully our our um Yukon trip next year. I hope to uh I hope to do that. Um yeah, I highly recommend uh I highly recommend any tripping that involves uh a guide and an instructor, especially a guide that can cook as well as Bill can. Um and Beth was an awesome instructor. We've had her oh fall Palmer Fest last year, uh 2025. She was our instructor for the weekend. And she's uh she's good. She's she's racked up an awful lot of miles on the water, knows her stuff. Uh that's it. Yeah, I don't know what else to say. That's it. Have a good one. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye.