Useful Sources of Information for the Northern Forest Canoe Trail

If you are looking to paddle the Northern Forest Canoe Trail (NFCT) then you may be asking yourself where can I find out more about it? Worry no more dear reader, as we can point you in the direction of many a good place to find information. This article will point you at a number of fantastic resources that covered all aspects of our trip, and hopefully help you plan yours!

Back in the deep dark days of lockdown, Robert found a national geographic article “See New England’s vibrant fall foliage on an epic canoe trail”. Little did we know, this was the article for us that started it all. It sparked our interest, and over the next two years we went on to devour all the information we could find on the trail. So, what sources did we find? And how useful were they?

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For getting an overall understanding of the trail, then the NFCT website is a good place to start. We would recommend the trip planner page in particular, which is an interactive map that we spent many an hour pouring over to familiarise ourselves and fill out our route cards. There is also a contact us page. We made contact with the organisation regarding a couple of points we were struggling with. They were more than happy to offer any information that they had at their disposal to give us.

The book “The Northern Forest Canoe Trail: The Official Guidebook” is a good place to start looking for what each section of the river is going to entail. One thing to look out for on this one is that it assumes that you are paddling all of the sections downstream. This means that from the perspective of a through paddler there are some backwards sections.

For a dedicated book if you’re looking to through-paddle, we would recommend the “Through-Paddler’s Companion” by Katina Daanen. We decided that this book was helpful enough to justify carrying it with us on the trip. The descriptions are helpful, especially where the maps can be a little sketchy at times. There is also a wealth of information regarding expedition information and what ammenities you can find in the communities along the way.

The trail is fully mapped by the NFCT organisation, and they have produced a set of 13 maps that cover all the recommended rivers and portages, and have a wealth of natural history, as well as other potentially useful information printed on the back. These maps themselves are water resistant and printed on a plastic material (not laminated paper). To fit the trail best on a rectangular sheet of paper, we did find that not all of the maps are set up to be magnetic or true north, which may be a little confusing at points. Across the bottom of the maps there is the disclaimer “This map is not intended as a sole source of information for navigation” and we would agree. One thing that surprised us was that the maps are different styles and some are way more suitable than others. We were thankful that we set up a digital map and loaded it onto our GPS units. In saying this, we did use these maps every day during the expedition. You can purchase these 13 maps directly from the NFCT online.

These are probably the sources of information that you will have easily found when looking to paddle the NFCT. From this point on there may be some less obvious places that we found useful, so we thought you might like to know them too.

We put together our own interactive map of the route (using Google My Maps), and used it as a location to store information we found along the way. Once we had the trail route captured we worked through our other sources and added in information. This included, but not limited to; rivers, lakes, portages, stretches of water it was not recommend to drink, rapids (including grade), camping locations, post offices, useful shops, launderettes, NFCT sign-in boxes, border crossings and customs offices, libraries, U- Haul dealers, medical facilities, ranger stations, and likely low water sections. We then used this map to help us write our route cards.

There is a fantastic set of short videos put together by the Canoe & Kayak Magazine that give you a taste of the trail. We actually pointed our family at these videos, and they apparently watched each when we gave them updates as to where we were along the trail. While on the topic of YouTube, there are an increasing number of NFCT sections and adventures that are being posted. These can give a real insight into the terrain and rivers that you will be paddling.

Zoë and Olivier together are WeLeaf. They have been travelling around the world on human power since September 2016. They are full time adventurers and in 2019 they completed their NFCT adventure. On completion they have helpfully provided a wealth of information for others that are looking to do the trail. Their website has a whole page on the NFCT, which is accompanied by a beautifully shot YouTube video. They also have an absolutely beautiful book “Leaving the Comfort Zone, The Adventure of a Lifetime” which is full of amazing photographs and other adventure ideas.

For general advice on canoeing expeditions, and being away from civilization we found the book “Canoeing Wild Rivers” by Cliff Jacobson incredibly useful. Many useful tips and tricks from people who have actually gone and done the activity, with their real world experiences shining through in the content.

For canoeing skills, we would recommend “Canoeing” by Ray Goodwin. It has many techniques and methods for controlling your craft, as well as pointers for considerations on and off the water. We also had the pleasure of being coached by Ray for two days in Wales as part of our training before going on the NFCT. Ray is a wealth of information on canoeing, and if he doesn’t know it, it’s probably not worth knowing. He also has a fantastic YouTube channel, if you’d like to check it out.

We think that about covers it for the resources we used for planning our NFCT Through-paddle. Hope you have found this post helpful, and that you can use the resources here for planning your own trip!