How does /out/ handle drinking water for camping, besides bringing the water out in the first place?

I'm going on a canoe trip with some buddies in northern Ontario this July, and although they tend to just bring their drinking water, I like to travel light and have a backup plan.

Being cheap, I was considering how to safely do this without buying an actual portable filtration system. My current plan is to jury-rig a ceramic water filter to a hand-pump, so that I can then get a few liters of filtered water to add Iodine to.

Does this sound like a decent plan? The water is fairly clean up there, but there's always stuff like beaver fever to worry about.