FAQs after completing the Northern Forest Canoe Trail

We’ve had a lot of similar questions from friends and family since we’ve returned from paddling the Northern Forest Canoe Trail (NFCT), so we’ve decided to put them all together for you. If you have any more questions for us that haven’t been answered here, feel free to get in touch and we’ll happily answer all questions NFCT related!

• Was it a long way?

  Yeah. It was 740miles. We probably walked about 100 of those.

• What was your favourite part?

  Our favourite parts were probably the first two weeks and the last two weeks. The views and the paddling were spectacular. The Adirondacks were a beautiful place to start, with amazing lakes and campsites. In the Allagash there weren’t a lot of buildings around, as it is a Wilderness Waterway, but there was some old logging infrastructure, like the trains and equipment that was left though it didn’t detract from the natural beauty of the area. It was almost like a museum we were passing through, and we do like a good museum.

• Was it challenging?

  Undoubtedly. Though maybe not in the ways you might think. We wanted a challenge when we set out to complete the trail, but we also wanted to enjoy the journey, not just endure it.

  The planning of the expedition itself was a challenge, as we had never planned a trip that big before; getting to grips with food shopping in another country was a challenge, especially when we had a few allergies to deal with; and some days were particularly challenging, either because they were long or arduous, or emotionally exciting.

  We very much enjoyed the whole trip though, even the challenging bits, so I think we made it the right amount of a challenge for us.

• Did you hire canoes for the whole trip, or if not, what did you do?

  It was cost prohibitive to hire canoes for such a long period of time, and there isn’t a company that really offer hiring canoes for the whole trail as returning them to the start would be a long two day drive.

  We bought them at the beginning and sold them at the end. We talked with John Nemjo at MountainMan Outdoor Supply Company about 4 months prior to the start of our trip, who was able to source canoes and some other kit for us before we got to the USA. He also helped us sell two of them on consignment afterwards. So we ended up doing that two day drive back to the start ourselves. We sold the other one on Facebook Marketplace, which was relatively easy to set up, though can take some time and a lot of conversations.

• Did you see a bear?

  Maybe briefly, as one was walking away from us on the other side of the river. We were happy that’s as close as we got.

• Did you have a support crew?

  No. We did the whole trip self-supported. Having a support crew wasn’t something we really considered, as we thought it wouldn’t be fair for someone to come all of that way with us and not paddle, as well as the amount of time they would be taking out of their own lives, just to help us.

  However, we did ensure that we had escape routes back to civilisation for the entire trip. We made sure there wasn’t any point along the trail where it would have taken us more than a day to reach either a town or a ranger station to be able to get help if needed.

• What did you eat? Did you carry all of your food?

  So I suppose we did carry all of our food in a 60 L barrel so in some respects yes, but we usually only carried a few days at a time, though the longest period we carried all of our food for was two weeks! We generally resupplied every four or five days when we passed by somewhere that sold food .

  We largely ate shelf stable foods that would survive being in our food barrel for a while, but when we did get into civilisation we made sure to pick up fresh fruit and vegetables, at least for a day or so. As we knew we needed to save weight and space on our food for the final two weeks, we actually purchased some stuff online and got it delivered to a post office that we were going to pass before that section. This meant we could get more freeze-dried stuff than was possible in some of the smaller towns. We generally made sure to get a good amount of calories from a variety of different foods to keep as healthy as we could throughout the trip.

• Did you camp the entire time?

  No. We generally camped most of the time, however when we did get to some of the towns we took the opportunity to stay inside for a night or two. We did this mostly by booking AirBnb’s as it generally worked out cheaper for us being in a group than staying in a hotel or motel, and some were discounted further due to us being out of season and last minute. Another benefit was that quite a few had laundry facilities, so we didn’t then have to find a laundromat in the town. It wasn’t really possible for us to book accommodation further than a day in advance as a lot of things would impact how long it took us to get to places.

• Did the wildfires in Canada cause you any issues?

  Fortunately, very little. It could have been a lot worse. We only lost one day to poor air quality, but it did give some interesting skies, particularly sunrises and sunsets.

• How did you get to and from the trail?

  Plane, taxi, train, then a shuttle to get to the start. U-hauls, Uber and a plane to get home again… though we might need to elaborate on that.

  We decided to fly into and out of Boston from the UK. Then there’s not a great deal of public transport options near the start and the end of the trail, so we organised getting to Utica by train, where John and Monique from MountainMan Outdoor Supply Company shuttled us to Old Forge, NY. After completing the trail, we left Fort Kent, ME using U-Haul moving vans to drive back to Boston, via MountainMan to drop off one canoe for sale. Renting U-Haul vans when not being from the US was an experience in itself, but once we dropped them off on the outskirts of Boston we caught an uber to get to the Airport for the final leg of our journey home.

• Would you do it again?

  We would definitely like to go on an adventure like this again, but with so many other places to go in the world and so many different experiences we could have, we’re not in a rush to go back and redo the NFCT. We are, however, missing the trees. The UK is sadly lacking in forested areas like those we have seen this summer.

• Would you recommend it to others?

  Yes, definitely. If you are looking for a long distance paddling expedition, then we would heartily recommend the NFCT. It is a great experience of being away from civilisation, going through beautiful areas of the country, and it allows you to get out of your comfort zone physically, without being too far away if anything goes wrong. You have touch points with towns every week or so, and then in the wilderness areas towards the end there are Ranger stations if you run into any problems.

• What would you do differently?

  Knowing what we do now there are a few things we would do differently, but this is with the power of hindsight. We’re glad we read up about the trail and other people’s experiences as much as we did before going as this kept the surprises to a minimum

  There are a few bits of kit that we just would not have taken, and some of these we sent back home after the first week. It would have been good to have a few more days aclimatising before starting the trail. We had a big journey to get to the start, and we were excited to get underway as soon as possible, but a few more days could have helped a lot especially with the jet lag and temperature change.. A few more items of bug resistant clothing would not have gone amiss. There was also an unfortunate incident with a DEET-based bug repellent which could have been avoided if we had remembered to take it out of the portage bag and put it in the barrel before it almost melted through it. But there you go, we live and we learn.

The two of us at the Eastern Terminus of the NFCT, our boat is on the left!