Can you see the junco's nest in the Labrador tea?
I was collecting Labrador tea flowers for a salad, when the junco flushed out of the brush right at my feet.
I was in bed in the early evening when I heard padded-foot animals run right beside the tent. I was curious as to what they were, but didn't want to go outside and attract more mosquitoes. My speculation ran the spectrum of larger non-hoofed animals. The next morning when fetching water from the lake, I saw fresh scratches in the ground. They were readily identified when I noticed the fresh wolf scat. The wolf was leaving a visual and scent message for other wolves, perhaps for me too ... "This is MY territory." I still wonder why they travelled so close to my tent. This year I only heard wolves calling once.
I was sitting under my canoe tarp after supper one evening when I heard some sounds from behind in the bush. When I saw the porcupine on the ground, I know I said "Well I'll be damned." She was digging up the ground where I had buried my bathroom. When I got closer she climbed the tree. A bit later the porcupine was gone and I could not find her or a den. This is the first porcupine I have seen in northern Saskatchewan in all the years I have been travelling there.
This was a very nice pike, 39 inches long, which would weigh approximately 7 kg, providing three meals. I was trolling in deeper water. Once I got him close to the canoe, he kept taking line off the reel and pulling the canoe. Many of the northern pike I caught this year were in the larger range, one fish providing two meals.
Other wildlife
I saw a very nice bull moose near one of my campsites. Something "out-of-place" along the lake shore about half mile away caught my eye. As I studied the spot, there was definite movement. The moose with large antlers slowly and gingerly made his way to the water's edge through a maze of boulders to get a drink. I tried my rendition of a cow moose call, but he did not respond, eventually going back from shore and into the bush. In my defense, the wind was strong blowing towards me and perhaps he didn't hear the call. Definitely my seductive voice needs practise.
There were many spruce grouse eating blueberries in the fall in those areas of regrowth after forest fires, which probably encouraged large families in the spring.
A small owl flew silently to land in a tree right beside me, carrying a mouse in his beak. Even though I thought I was being silent, he twisted his head back and forth several times trying to figure out what the sounds were, and just as silently flew away to enjoy his meal in peace.
A merganser duck attempted to land on my tent at one point, not just once but twice. Luckily I was there and scared him away each time. Thank goodness I was not in the tent at the time, as an actual attempted landing would have surprised me at least as much as him. I have seen mergansers nesting in and under abandoned cabins some distance from water. They often land in the yards and on the roof of occupied buildings. Silly birds.
As usual, bears were common, in two separate instances coming very close to my tent. As I was canoeing towards one portage, I noticed a black bear along the shore about half mile upriver from the landing spot. Because I have had problems before with bears at portage spots, I decided to canoe the extra distance out of my way to attempt to scare the bear away from the portage area. When I got nearby, there were two bears of equal fairly large size, probably siblings in their third year that stayed together after being sent on their own way by mother the year before. I repeatedly banged my paddle shaft against the canoe gunwale, until they had run out of sight, hoping they were going further upstream away from the portage. I told them to "Stay away from here until I finish portaging. You can come back later this afternoon."
In the spring, I saw lots of tracks in the snow of otters with their long gliding body imprint as they slide along, sometimes for a long way down slopes. There were quite a few marten tracks in the same areas.
