I got up once in the night and trudged to the loo, wearing Frank's nightshirt, my Gore-Tex jacket, Tevas, and clutching a roll of toilet paper in one hand and my bear spray in the other.  Bear spray gives a lot of confidence; it's sort of like having a gun.

After breakfast (Musli and peaches and Belgian Hazelnut instant coffee) we explored the old buildings at Selkirk.

As a cooperative effort between the Yukon Government and the Selkirk First Nations there is an ongoing attempt to preserve and restore the old settlement, which was started in about 1890, originally a NWMP post.  They have an information center (empty of people) with displays and excerpts from diaries of the time.  Very interesting.

It was sunny and warm, and we left at 11:15.  The scenery is beautiful, starting out with basalt cliffs. 

Everything is very green, there are lots of Willow, Aspen, Alder and Spruce.  We went right by several beaver lodges on the bank, and of course saw lots of beaver, mostly as they slapped their tails and disappeared.

We had a floating lunch.  I made sandwiches - lettuce, cheese, pepperoni and tomato, and we munched and watched the Golden and Bald Eagles flying above the cliffs.  We saw one Peregrine Falcon.  They breed along the Yukon River and are quite plentiful, although endangered elsewhere.

We made only one stop, at Selwyn, where there is an abandoned cabin with the roof caved in.  The bugs are so bad on shore that our visit was very swift.

We were paddling along and Trevor hissed 'MOOSE', and sure enough, at the edge of a sandbar very close on our left, was a large moose staring at us and making noises like a locomotive.  I grabbed the binoculars and looked, of course in the lens the beast looked huge, and was moving towards us in a rather determined manner.  I whimpered a bit, but Trevor thought it was looking for something that was not us, then it moved off, led by its huge nose, moving quickly and making its noise.  We think it was a female because it had no antlers.

We paddled almost continuously and were pretty sore by 7:00, when we found a very small island, with only tiny willows about two feet high and some grasses, otherwise just sand (but not bugs!).  Trevor made a nice fire and we set up while our foil-wrapped potatoes cooked in the coals.  I went over to the other side of the island and had a bath in the river - it was cold but absolutely wonderful.  I could have stayed in for hours.

Just before dinner we heard a duck-ruckus, and a bald eagle was attempting to capture a duck, right beside our island, diving at it and veering off, the duck quacking away.  Finally the eagle came to rest on the shore.  Trevor was watching through the binoculars and said the eagle had missed, but I have my doubts.  Later we saw the eagle sitting beside its nest on the next island, and it sat there for the remainder of the evening.

We had roasted potatoes, grilled chicken (which got dropped in the sand a couple of times, but we just rinsed it off in the river) and spinach salad.  Our cooler should last one more day - I bought three large plastic bottles of distilled water and froze them, dual purpose.  Tomorrow will be the steak and then on to dried food.