Day 17 - July 20
Sunny, 18C

After the dismal two days we spent at Lookout Point, our new digs are heavenly. There aren't a lot of bugs and the scenery is wonderful. On the hill above us, we can find old chipping stations where stone tools were constructed. The weather is clearing and the future looks promising. We decide that we'll have another layover day here and enjoy the time. With the dry breeze and cool sunshine, it would be a perfect day to do laundry and fire up the stove to make pizza.

As we begin our lunch, another canoe appears on the horizon upstream. This one is a folding Ally canoe paddled by two Norwegians. They chat with us for a bit and accept our offer of hot drinks and a light meal. We have spare cheese and some tortillas which we use to produce grilled cheese sandwiches. They chat for longer than they expected and ask us to show them the chipping stations we found atop our island. They are thankful as they wouldn't have recognized the pattern of stones as a place where stone tools were made without being shown.

The boys try their had at fishing, but nothing seems interested in their offerings. Too bad, the lack of biting fish seems to be the only downside we found in the campsite.

There are a few arctic terns who have nested among the stones in the gravel on the upstream end of our island. We know this because they dive bomb us anytime we walk near there. We don't have any pressing need to walk in this area, so we avoid and leave the terns in peace. Eventually the birds accept our presence and only make life difficult if we go near one of the chicks. Brendan wants to get a closer photo of one of the chicks and come up with a novel idea to avoid the main problem he had at "tern island". He determines that he can make a helmet for his head by putting a tea towel inside one of out cooking pots. His idea worked like a charm and gave us a good chuckle the first time the terns came down to peck at his head. It was very comical.

Brendan with his improvised helmet.

Towards evening the wind finally dies down. Its quieter than its been for many days. Some time during the night, I awake to hear a pack of wolves howling in the distance.