Looking into what gear you need to keep your stuff dry there’s various options – many canoe-hire companies will give you a big blue plastic barrel which seals around the top with a metal clasp and that takes care if it. In a capsize event the barrel will be buoyant and worst case it’ll float off down the river and you can grab it later out of a tree as you go by, but your stuff all stays dry.
classic canoe barrel
But that means traveling with a giant toxic waste barrel in your boat – I’m not a fan of them on that side – they’re big bulky and inflexible, make a lot of noise banging around and if not the noise then I reckon the sight of a chemical barrel coming down the river is enough to “spook wildlife and fish”….
So what choices? The standard canoe/kayak drybags like those from SeaLine or Ortlieb are mostly PVC which is tough and usually shaped in a long tube with a roll-sealing opening at open end.
These are good and can be carried in and out of the boat easily, stow well, and will be waterproof of course, if they’re well made and the seams last. But the downside is you’re forever trying to reach down into the sac to get things out through the narrow hole – you can bet the stuff you really need suddenly is right at the bottom – it always is! Also the narrow shape ‘tube’ doesn’t fit a lot of odd-shaped items, although it’s great for clothes, so you still end up with stuff you can’t put away. I’ve had the same problem with my usual gear choice of a classic ex-army ‘kit bag‘ (with drybag liner) – the shape just isn’t that great for being in an out of all day…
When it rains you have to get your stuff out one by one and put it to the side where it gets wet while you get the one thing you really wanted out, then put it all back in again! In a canoe you don’t want tonnes of stuff sitting in the bottom of the boat
So I’ve been looking for more of a holdall shape, and found the Lugga Cargo 90 on sale at the giant outdoor store GoOutdoors.com.
Made of tough PVC and with plenty of straps and a big opening with a splash cover, I reckon this would be ideal – the barrel shape will squash into the bottom of the canoe easily, and it gives a possible ‘one-bag-for-everything’ approach. GoOutdoors has a sale on which makes this a ‘budget bushcraft’ buy at only £22.99 (with the discount card) down from £39.99.
So I’ll get one of these and do a trip – hopefully this will work out well. But its not totally waterproof of course – for that we found this: the UK-made Lomo 150L Monster Drybag!
What a Monster! 150 Litre dry bag!
As a warning, i recently paddled a couple of hundred kilometers through sweden, i have done a lot of paddling in my time and know what gear is good and what works. I purchased a 150 litre rucksack drybag with a panel window. I think it lasted about half a day, the problem is that the one i had seemed to be made for volume but not in the least bit for carrying a load. I had in it most of my gear and it came in at less that fourteen kilos, this is not (in my opinion) a heavy load for a 150litre bergen drybag. So my advice is spend money on the drybag that you need. After all, wet gear is no good. The problems i encountered were:
The window panel material although “re-enforced” with mesh delaminated, and eventually split in several places.
The base material delaminated.
The shoulder straps came apart where they join the bag wt the wearers hips.
I paid good money for it from a normally reliable brand, but it seemed like the generically made rucksack drybag. I do not abuse my kit and to be honest it caused me more hassle than it saved me, especially on long portages.
Further with regard to portage barrels, i think they still present one of the best options, it is also possible to buy rucksack padded straps etc that attach to them to make them really comfortable for carrying.
I hope these thoughts may be of some use to someone. I also wrote this without wearing my glasses so i hope the ypos are not too heavy!!
Andrew
I’ve been using a large kitbag to carry part of my canoe camping kit for a while now and it’s a very flexible system. I use an ex army bergan lined with a drybag as a portage pack, containing my sleeping kit, clothing and other soft but bulky items.
Everything else goes in the kitbag, in it’s own drybag if it needs to be kept dry. This also includes all of the stuff that you may need during the day, as it’s easily accessible.
They fit together in the canoe nice and snug, and if you have a portage, you shoulder the bergan and swing the kitbag over, resting it on top of it so that the hipbelt takes the weight of both. If your legs still work after doing this, continue to the next bit of usable water…