Day 23 - July 26 Sunny, 27C This is the first time its been hot even when we get up in the morning. Thankfully, there's no humidity, but the heat drains our energy. On our last trip, we discovered a lot of interesting artifacts on the hills behind our tent side and we decide to explore them again this time.

There are still lots of chipping stations and we find a few projectile points, though there doesn't seem to be as many as we saw last trip. Someone has constructed and "inukshuk" on a large rock. They've replicated the style of the inukshuks along the northern coasts. This disturbs us because it clouds the value of the real artifacts that can be found here. The modern inukshuk wasn't there on our last trip and we decide that it would be best if it weren't there for future travelers. We dismantle it and try to return the rocks back to their original locations. Farther up the hill, there are genuine inukshuks that have been located there for centuries based on the way the lichens have grown. Its an eerie experience walking in some of the valleys here because you get the feeling you're being watched. When you look up on the ridge, you see human looking outlines on the ridges. Based on what we read at the Prince of Wales museum in Yellowknife, nobody knows with certainty what the purpose the inukshuks served. Our guess for these particular specimens was that they were important in the caribou hunt. There's lots of evidence that the caribou have used this area for eons to cross the river. We speculate the inukshuks would have aided in funneling the caribou to a location where the hunters would have greater success.

We come back to the tents to prepare breakfast and pack up camp. We see the odd caribou walking on the ridge of the bluffs, but you'd never know that such a huge herd was there the day before.

The rapids at the bluff proved to be very easy to negotiate with the loaded canoes at this water level. A little farther down, we find a peregrine falcon nest at the same location we'd seen on the previous trip 7 years ago. The nest is located on the side of the bluff and very easy to get to. Its an excellent site to observe young chicks. These birds were probably the offspring of the ones nesting here at that time.

The rapids downstream from the bluffs were more challenging at this water level than when the water is lower. There's a very easy and obvious channel on river left, but paddlers could get into trouble if they tried any of the possibilities on the right. We're in no hurry so the canoes raft together and drift downstream. We stop occasionally at some of the other bluffs to climb them for a look around. The scenery is nice, but we don't see any hints of wildlife. On the top of one bluff, we find a chipping station that has a nearly complete arrowhead lying in the middle of the flakes of quartz. The hunter must have been interrupted during construction and never came back to finish it. We're very pleased to find the piece undisturbed. Its so amazing to see it there that we don't even pick it up for a closer look.

There's a slight tailwind, so we hoist a sail to take advantage. As we drift downstream, we see lots of nice camp sites. Farther down, the river widens and gravel bars start to appear. These are very course and wouldn't be pleasant to use for tenting. The shoreline is also not that attractive because its composed of coarse gravel and dense tangles of willows cover the green areas on top of the banks. There are good campsites before and after this stretch, but I wouldn't recommend planning to stop here. As we near the last major curve before the river empties into Beverly lake, there's a river system that comes in from the right. At the junction, there are some campsite on river right, but we pressed on a bit. The river forms bluffs again and we stopped across from some large rocks that protrude above the water. It wasn't a great site, but it was acceptable. There's lots of evidence that the area has been used from ancient to modern times.

The sky has clouded a little towards sundown, but there's a very pretty scene as the moon sets in the west.