Xander Budnick was already deep in the Temagami wilderness when the mosquitoes found him. It was peak bug season on the Lady Evelyn River in Ontario, blackflies running at full strength, rain in the forecast for nearly every day ahead, and the only food in the barrel was freeze-dried meals he now deeply regretted packing. What drew him out here anyway, in what he freely called ‘a pretty choice time of year to be out here,’ was something simpler than logic: a need to be back on Canadian water after two months away somewhere cold and hard, somewhere that had not felt like home.
The backstory traces to grade four. A snowball fight, a suspension, and a school principal who told a young Budnick to stop participating in low IQ behavior. He decided, right then, to lean into it. Years later, that same spirit brought him to a five-day solo canoe route through the heart of Temagami during bug season with no backup food, a leaking camera case, and a plan that, by his own later admission, would have been better as a seven-day trip.
When the river starts winning
Day two was where things got serious. Moving steadily down the Lady Evelyn, portaging around rapids too bony or too dangerous to run alone, Budnick made a call he immediately regretted. Trying to line the canoe through a sketchy section rather than carry it properly, he nearly pinned the boat against the rocks. His net and paddle went into the current. After forty minutes of searching, he recovered the net. The paddle was gone for good. ‘Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,’ he said quietly afterward, comparing the silence that followed to ‘driving home with the music off after something happens.’ He was down to one paddle for the rest of the trip.
The physical toll kept stacking. A new fishing rod tip snapped mid-portage. The camera case continued leaking, overexposing his footage and threatening his gear. A dead beaver smell got onto his hands during a riverbank stop. Nine portages faced him on day three alone, through rain and heat and bugs pulling at every patch of exposed skin. At one point he stopped, genuinely winded, and said he felt weaker than he had a year ago, still coming back from whatever that cold expedition had taken out of him.
What the river gives back
Still, the river delivered. A mama moose with her calf appeared close enough to startle him into silence. Sandhill cranes appeared without warning on a lake he had not expected them on. Brook trout hit the line on day two, a hard-won ‘brookie’ that recovered slowly before swimming free, the conditions never quite right to cook one on the bank. On day four, while crossing an open lake hunting for walleye and lake trout, the lure pulled up bass after bass instead. ‘Your trout lure,’ he said, addressing the lure directly, ‘where are the trout? You’re supposed to be catching trout. What was that? You want a raise after that? No, you cannot have a raise.’
By the final morning, out of food and still nine portages from the pull-out, Budnick made one genuinely smart call. He spotted a road on the map connecting to a lake near the exit, cutting across what would have been a brutal final push through creeks and portages. He hiked eight kilometers out to his truck in an hour and twenty-five minutes, retrieved the keys he had stashed, and drove back in.
The white quilt he maybe should not have bought in white
His new sleeping quilt, bright white, made its debut on this trip. He admitted, curled up in it on night two with light rain pattering the tent, that the color was ‘probably a bad call considering it’ll just get blood stained.’ He seemed at peace with this.
Back at the truck, five days in, Budnick looked genuinely relieved. Not at escaping the wilderness, but at having gone back to it. The freeze-dried shepherd’s pie. The portage that nearly ended the trip. Daryl, his imaginary co-pilot who received a full portion of the blame for the missing pizzas. All of it tallied up to exactly what he had been daydreaming about while freezing somewhere overseas: bugs, rain, one lost paddle, and the Lady Evelyn River doing what it always does.
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