Daily Trip Log Reports

August 5: day 25
It's a rather lazy start to the day today. The wind is from the south and there's a strong smell of wood smoke in the air. There must be a lot of forest fires burning near us.

 

Brendan helps out with some of the cooking. Both boys were a great help on the trip. See More Photos!

Brendan and I go out for a little fishing before breakfast and reel in a dozen or so pike before heading back to camp. We've been using barb-less hooks on our rods to make it easier to release the fish and also to make sure we do as little damage to them as possible. When we return to camp, the boys decide to make pancake breakfast for us. The rule around camps is that whoever does the cooking, doesn't have to do the cleanup, so it's Debra and me on dishes today.

During the hottest part of the day, we notice that a large gathering of eagles is soaring along the cliff face behind our tents, taking advantage of the strong thermal updrafts there. We watch their aerobatics in amazement. Often, we'd see pairs of birds come together and lock talons in mid flight, the bottom bird rolling upside down. It was amazing to watch the birds seemingly fall from the sky for several seconds before releasing and going back to do it again.

Mid afternoon, a couple of the wolf cubs come down from their den to one of the sandbar islands near us. Kyle and I paddle a canoe over to watch them. We park the boat on a sandy shoal near where we think they'll swim back. It isn't long before the pups come back and they choose a path very near us. The first pup notices us and isn't sure about crossing the channel with the canoe there. The second pup doesn't notice and swims across. After a moment's hesitation, the first pup joins its sibling in the short swim.

A small storm passes through just before supper. We hear some distant thunder and get a few sprinkles of rain, but we don't even bother to put on our rain gear. A bonus to the storm is a double rainbow that appears over the cliffs behind us. It's too faint to photograph, but it's nice to see.

After supper, we decide to hike into the sand dunes behind our camp. We see lots of wolf prints in the valley where we start our hike, but that's no surprise as the den must be just over the ridge. These dunes are different than the ones to the east. They're smaller and more rolling, similar to other dunes I've visited before, not like the massive walls of sand to the west. There's more plant life in the valley between the rolling dunes and we find evidence of wolf activity all over. Brendan finds a beaver's lower jaw up on the hills. We wonder about the story behind how it got there.

Farther along in a sandy area, we come across something we didn't think we'd find in all this shifting sand. There, in a desolate, blown out area of sand, is a small spear point made from stone. We see no other evidence of any archeological traces in the area, so the presence of the spear point this far back in the dunes is a bit of a mystery. We assume it might have been a lost tool or possibly one that was embedded in an animal that got away from the hunters.

The boys enjoyed speculating about how it got there. The style and construction of the spear point is very similar to ones that we've seen on a previous canoe trip to the Thelon River, a little farther north from where we are now. The spear point would make it seem very likely that the same tribes used both of these areas for hunting over the many years they inhabited the region.

On our hike back to camp, we pause in the valley of the wolves. We set up our cameras and do a howl. It doesn't take long before we get back a response, but it seems fairly distant. The boys think it's best if I do a low howl and see if that gets a different reaction. I do my best to imitate some of the low howls we've heard and we sit back and wait. I'm not rewarded by any return calls and think the wolves have determined I'm an imposter, but suddenly Kyle whispers, "dad, look up there!" Three of the wolf cubs had left the den and trotted to a ridge just 75 feet away from us. They were staring at us intently and seemed to be debating whether or not to come down to investigate the new "wolf pack" just below them.

We watched the cubs with as much fascination as they seemed to have in us. After a few moments of indecision, they left the ridge and disappeared into the forest. We didn't linger for fear that we'd cause them stress. We've been letting the pack get used to our presence over the last few days and they don't seem to mind us getting a little closer each day as long as it's not too suddenly.

August 6: day 26

The main activity today was a hike to the dunes on the other side of the lake we're camped on. It's hot, hazy and humid and the trip isn't the most pleasant we've done. The dunes are very rolling in nature in this area and there's a fair bit of up and down hiking involved. As well, there's a lot of forest mixed in the areas we've been travelling in. We hike up high enough to get a good look at Lake Athabasca in the distance. Unfortunately, it's a little too hazy to see the cliffs of the far shore.

We cut our hike a bit short because we see dark clouds moving our way. Walking quickly back the way we came, we reach the canoes just in time to catch a rising wind barreling down the lake prior to the rain. We get back to our tents just in time to duck inside and avoid getting wet. We divide the tents into parent and child combinations so that the kids can catch up on their journals and reading.

During a break in the rain, we get out of the tents to cook supper. While we're cooking, there's a brief downpour, which is odd because we're bathed in sunshine. Everybody looks straight up and watches the large, brightly lit, loosely spaced drops of rain come down in the sunshine. It's a very interesting experience.

After supper, we clean up quickly and head to the tents. This is our fist day of real rain on the trip. We consider ourselves quite lucky. Considering the number of days we've been out, we've only had to use our raincoats on two occasions. It rains for most of the night.