The last day at camp 35 is cold with a very strong wind all day but clear and sunny, so I am hopeful that I can move on tomorrow, hoping the wind either lessens or switches to a tailwind. Arising by 4:30 on September 6 to candlelight, once I get organized and tent door open so I can open the stove damper wide, I extinguish the candle, seeing by the light of the open damper. Away by 7:30 am, it is already a gorgeous day, staying sunny with a light tailwind all day. Awesome! It is quite cool, but I am warm enough wearing the usual two shirts, short- and long-sleeved, provided I keep paddling. Stopping when I see a spot with berries, I pick two servings of lingonberries and some bunchberries. I get chilled because it is out of the sun and I am no longer active. As I get closer to where I must leave the Churchill River, I am looking for a campsite as I do not want to make the long portage because I would really be late and weary before I could stop. The site where I camped on the route in is not suitable for the canvas tent. Checking multiple spots on an island, there is nothing suitable - steep shores, thick brush and down trees. Canoeing farther I stop at a small peninsula and it is a "keeper" - sites for canvas tent, tarp shelter, fireplace, access to water, soil for stove, stovewood, firewood, moss for "fridge", even some lingonberries, bunchberries and many ripe rose hips. It faces east which is even better, although a bit too exposed but cannot have everything. I have travelled 14 km.
Beavers have felled several small trees here, and I utilize a poplar to anchor the canvas tent ridge rope at one end. I sure hope they do not cut this one while I am here.
September 7 at 5:50 am.
6:04 am.
6:04 am.
6:18 am.
6:18 am.
6:27 am.
6:27 am.
The next day, September 7, dawns very cloudy with a strong cold inbound wind. A light rain fell throughout last night.
Cloudy cool wet weather continues for the rest of my time here, September 7 - 11, the temperature staying below 10℃ most of the time. There are advantages to this weather - no bugs, less sweating. Thank goodness for the canvas tent and wood stove, without which it would be absolutely miserable. I pack to leave on two of the days but it pours rain again and I unpack. The tent would be very wet, but even worse the portage underbrush would be sopping wet.
Jeanette's weekly text: "OK here. No fires in SK. Hot here. Leaves turning. Nice 4u next week." It is a rare occurrence to have no forest fires in all of Saskatchewan. I am hopeful about the weather forecast, but as it turns out, the rainy cool weather continues for the remainder of my trip. From my journal: "Boy, I wouldn't want to be on a tight deadline canoeing this weather the past few weeks!"
Every day across the lake somewhere in the burned area I hear several wolves howling, usually early morning but after daylight. It sounds like there are young as well as mature wolves. I wonder if they have killed a moose? But I also wonder why they are howling in the same area each day?
The bush here is very mature and difficult to walk through with so many fallen trees and thick undergrowth. I fell and limb dead dry spruce trees for stovewood.
Hanging in a spruce tree near camp about 50 metres inland in the bush is a set of bones, possibly from a moose. I think it is a Cree tribute to a harvested animal, quite a few years old.
A stack of stovewood poles ready to be sawed.
I erect the tarp shelter with its back to the wind and rain, where I saw stovewood using a big stump as a sawhorse.
A whitefish (top), two pike, a walleye (bottom). The whitefish is donated by a mink, one of the five days I am fishing when I walk along shore at camp. We scare each other and he leaves the fish on shore. It is too bad that he loses his meal, but I do not think he will be back to reclaim it. I feel bad for him, but he is probably much better at fishing than me so will catch another.
Interestingly, a (the?) mink comes right into camp another day soon after I land the canoe after fishing. He is sniffing at the cutting board which I have not yet hung up. Thank goodness I had already placed the Ziploc® bag of fish in the cooler in the "fridge", although I suppose it would be fair if he took the bag in exchange for the whitefish.
It was raining so much that I cleaned this day's catch under the tarp shelter.
Alder and birch leaves turning their autumn colours.
The lake water is full of small green algae, so I get a bit of extra protein with my meals.
One day when I get the canoe ready to go out in the bay to fish after exhausting efforts from shore, there is a vole underneath sheltering from all the rain. Fortunately she was not there long enough to damage anything but she did leave droppings on some gear. I check closely to make sure there are no young. She had made a resting place within the gear stored under the canoe, and when I turn the canoe over she is trapped inside and frantically trying to escape. Putting my mitts on to gently lift her out, she bites with sharp teeth into the leather.
Lots of snow geese flying south while I am at this camp, with their distinctive quieter more frantic slightly squeaky "almost" honk, compared to the loud honk of Canada geese. Note the crow calling and then flying across just overhead.
Also many sandhill cranes, with their higher pitched more strident rolling rattling sound. Note there are a few larger tundra or trumpeter swans with the cranes.