I filter most of my water in WCPP. It is just easier to dip my bucket at the campsite and filter some after it has settled than to paddle out to cleaner water. While traveling across deeper lakes I will fill bottles away from shore and not worry about it. I  would not use any water near a heavily used campsite. The thought off the run-off from the open latrine surrounding such camps is all the reason I need.

I travel with an immune-suppressed individual and have been told that the only way we can go is if we filter our water.  (We always have anyway, or boiled it.)

For the two us we just take the Katydyn pump filter and pump what we need.  We go to the BW, but it would be the same situation if we went to parks in Canada.  For us filtering is not an option.  Perhaps for healthy people with intact immune systems it isn't quite as important.

Puckster wrote on Mar 26^th, 2012 at 2:07am:


Never filtered for many years Mike.  We would just paddle out to deep water a few times per day and spend considerable time hand filling jugs for camp.  This got very tedious and if the wind was up, sometimes dangerous.  Once we purchased the base camper we could quickly fill the bag in deeper water while we were out for the day, paddle back and let it filter into a collapsible water jug all day or all night.    I don't think it is necessary to filter in the Q but since it is so much easier and convenient now we do it anyway.

On Canadian canoe trips, I don't filter.  (I do, however, take a Steripen or filter "straw" for those instances where I might be in need of water when I'm in more confined space, e.g., stream.)  I'll generally take water from a deeper part of the lake on my way into a campsite for the night.  I scoop up a few gallons into a water bladder.  (Think a Base Camp filter, which I also have, but don't use any longer.  What I actually use is a dry bag from Cabela's with an air-bleed valve, which serves as a nice spigot in camp.)

But, for those of you that plan to filter, you should also be aware that you can get Giardia from activities other than DRINKING water.  So, be careful when bathing, washing your hands/face, washing dishes, etc.  While the volume of Giardia (and water) could be less, it stands a better chance of concentration near the shoreline where these activities are more likely.  This also means you need to pay attention to what happens to your clean/filtered water lines.  (Don't wash/dunk them in the water you are about to filter!)  When backpacking (e.g., U.S. Rockies), I keep my water lines in separate baggies, even though they go in the same storage bag.  So, be careful!

dd

We used to filter every drop. But on long travel days with long portages, there would never seem to be nearly enough water. So one particularly long and hot day I weighed the miniscule chance of stomach trouble vs. the 100 percent chance of dehydration, dipped my cup in the middle part of the lake, drank about 10 gallons ... and a new philosophy was born. We still filter (and have found a gravity fed filter to be the easiest), but I drink from the deep as often as not.

-- kypaddler