Friday Aug 27 Wabakimi

Early morning breakfast time. Actually, it really isn't that early, judging by how high the sun is up. But we are up and ready for another day!

Jennifer throwing sticks in the water while we pack up.

As we leave our campsite a crow flies off with a warning "caw caw!". This crow. Follows us. All trip. I'm sure he is warning all the caribou in Wabakimi of where we are. So we won't see them.

For now we innocently watch the crow fly off and wonder what he is doing. After all, it is nice to see wildlife. Even if it's just a crow.

Today all we have to do is paddle. No portages anywhere. We paddle past some place on the map that is labeled by our outfitter as a "world class" fishing hole. Maybe we should have brought fishing gear.

In the absence of fishing gear, we paddle on through Caribou Bay. With all these caribou names, we are sure there must be some actual caribou somewhere near. We'd sure love to see one! We paddle across a lot of big open water, tackling the waves with relative ease (compared to our first day with the muscle power unbalanced).

When we are tired of paddling we start to investigate campsite locations. "Is this a good site Nathan?" "Well, it's okay, but I don't know if we can find three tent spots."

We decide the site is good enough and out we go.

Empty the canoes. Empty the packs.

Tie up the canoes. Bring up the little items (water bottles, hats, etc.)

Set up the tents. This one needs some rocks and ropes to stake down. It really isn't the best spot for three tents. But it will suffice.

Fill up the tents with the pillow cases (all of your spare clothes in a pillow case is your pillow) and sleeping bags.

The food packs are left of the beach again. Not quite so far apart from each other now as we are getting more comfortable with this arrangement.

Jennifer got delegated to do extra work. (filtering water)

The fire is blazing, so now we can get dinner going.

I try to take a casual shot of the kids all lined up in a "row". At least you can't hear them in the photo. They look like they are getting along. But really, they are complaining and squabbling. Unfortunately.

Caribou Bay continues in the distance...I'm not sure why they use names like lakes and bays where all the water seems connected with no creeks or rivers in between. I don't mean to complain about fewer portages, but well, it actually is nice to break up your day. If it's not too long of a portage, I mean.

Matthew chills by the lakeside, trying to skip some very big flat rocks. It's harder than small ones!

When it was getting pretty dark some guy paddled by all by himself, saying he was hoping to get across Smoothrock Lake in the calm of evening, while the waves were gone. Hopefully he knows where he's going--I wouldn't want to be trying to find my way in the dark!