Daily Routine

Sherwood Botsford

If you need to knock off the miles, then set up a routine for the day and stick to it.  There will be exceptions.  If you are ahead of schedule, and pass a gorgeous spot three hours before you normally stop, then by all means, take advantage of the beauty.  Similarly if you've been watching the waves on Lake Athabasca for three days, then paddle all night.

But generally you will get more miles in your wake with a

routine.

This is especially true with larger groups.

On many trips I've done, the routine went something like this:

One person gets up and lights the fire.  Puts the water on to heat.  Calls the rest of the staff.  Makes coffee.  With a cup of coffee in hand one staff calls the kids.

Now because they are kids, there is a certain amount if chivying to get them to move, but generally most are up within 15-20 minutes of the call.  Meanwhile, the cook is turning hot water into hot cereal and tea.  30 minutes after main wakeup call is breakfast.

Initially it takes 2.5 hours to get on the water.  By the end of the first week, it's down to 2.  By the end of the trip down to 1.5.

On the water:  Paddle for 15 minutes, then a quick weigh-up.  Many will have started with too much to wear.  This stop is to adjust clothing.

After that it's roughly 1 hour paddling, 5-10 minute break.  Three cycles.
Stop and eat.  Doesn't have to be fancy, but breakfast cereal doesn't stick well.  One leader carried the leftovers from both breakfast and supper the night before and had 'meals on keels'  It is truly amazing how good cold mac and cheese tastes on the water 3 hours after Cream of What.   Another trip everyone was given a bag of gorp or granola, a lump of cheese, and some jerky or pepperoni.  They used that as they saw fit.  Yet another brigade made a point of having granola and juice after three hours.  Then after 6 it was pilot biscuits, peanut butter, jam and cheese.

If you are doing lake travel, then follow the schedule as precisely as you can.  On  rivers, adjust.  A rapid often gives you a break anyway, so if the next obstacle is only an extra 5-10 minutes away, carry on.  If it's more than that, cut the break a bit short, and continue.

The key is the routine.  When you are doing something physically difficult, knowing that it is only X minutes until you get a break is a huge psychological boost.  And if you don't do this, you find that the breaks get longer and longer, and by two weeks into the trip, you find that even though you went all day, you only covered 20 miles.

I tell you routine is important.

Feeding every 3 hours will get more miles.  This is especially true of small kids.
Meal stops were usually on shore.  Some leaders kept us on the water, if we were going downstream and there was current.  Sometimes we stayed on the water to avoid the bugs.

At the end of the day, it is also important to have a routine.  Ours worked like this:

We hit the shore.
Unloaded the canoes
Secured the canoes for the night.
Gathered firewood.  Cook would start the fire.
Once there was enough wood, people were free to set up their tents.  At this time most would change out of their wet foot gear, and put dry  socks on.  (If my feet are wet more than 16 hours a day they start to fissure, crack and bleed.  Not quite trench foot, but close.)

This was also time for fishing, for swimming.

Supper.  Hot chocolate.  Bed.

The first 2/3 of the day runs by rigid schedule.  The last third has some variety.

Do NOT make the mistake of pushing late, then sleeping in the next day.  You end up with fewer miles, and grumpy people.

Similarly do NOT get up 3 hours early.

Both of these have exceptions.  Usually when the wind has been playing games with you on big lakes.

On Lake Winnipeg with a 18 grade 8's and 3 adults:
We knew from experience that the winds would start blowing around 8-9 a.m. and on a lake that big, it doesn't take much wind to make the lake impossible.

When we hit the lake, we camped early.  The next morning we got up at 4, and had a chunk of cold bannock and peanut butter, and load up and got on the water by 5.  Three hours paddle -- or until the wind came up.  Hit shore.  Oatmeal.  Find a spot in the sun, and out of the wind.  Sleep.
At 4 the wind would start to drop.  Make supper, feed them at 4:30, get on the water again.  Paddle until 8.  Quick stop.  Hot chocolate and granola.  Paddle until it was near dark, 10:30 or so.  Crash on the shore, sleep until 4 and repeat.  This was the routine down the lake from Bloodvein to the first Saint John's school at Selkirk, Manitoba.

The kids adjusted faster than the staff did.

Comments?  What worked for you?  When did you change routines?