Ian's 32^nd birthday.

We enjoyed our peaceful breakfast.  The eagle was still sitting in the tree beside its nest.  We left at 9:15 (early for us) in brilliant sunshine.  We were in a wide part of the river, there was not a sound except for the birds and the water.  What heaven.

Trevor spotted an eagle sitting in a tree beside a creek.  He flew off, but we stopped at the mouth of the creek and Trevor fished (he fishes all the time, he's never caught one) and he caught three Grayling!  One after the other.  They are very pretty, with large colourful dorsal fins.  I took pictures and he let them go, as we already have food for tonight (darn it) and not enough ice left to keep the food cold.  Trevor was quite thrilled, he's been trying to catch a fish all year.  We paddled a bit into the creek, it was wonderfully clear, and saw a few more fish of various sizes.

A few minutes down the river, we heard screaming sounds, which turned out to be a Peregrine Falcon with a kill, right on the beach about 15 metres from us.  Another falcon was quite close, obviously interested in eating too, but apparently they don't share, and the screaming was the first falcon's warning.  They took off and circled when we appeared, but when we moved off a bit they returned to their original positions.  There were a lot of feathers about, so the kill was obviously a bird of some kind.

The silt in the river makes a lovely hissing sound against the canoe.  Our canoe is 17 feet long and flat bottomed, which enables us to go into the fast shallow water we like, although I must confess we do occasionally have to get out and push.

It was very hot today, and we've had enough sun, so tied up to a tree at the edge of an island and read and enjoyed the shade for an hour. 

At lunch time today, another floating affair as per yesterday, but at Britannia Creek, we saw what at first we thought was a loon, but she looked more like a duck with a dark reddish head, and she certainly sounded like a duck, but she was carrying her babies on her back!

We found another little island just before Thistle Creek.  It had moose tracks on it, just like our last island.  We had steak, potatoes (slightly crisp, left them in the fire too long), onions and salad.  Our ice is all melted, but it's still quite cool in there.

We've covered about 112 miles, or 200 km.  The whole trip is 315 km. So we're almost 2/3 already.