Friday 13th June 2008

Well we've made Athabasca in time to get to the post office. We've now packed some gear that we can do without and have sent it off the Canoe North in Hay River. We really needed to lessen the load in the canoe as we're coming up to the Grand Rapids in around three days time. The canoe needs to be lighter so it's easier to control. At the moment the canoe is hard to control because of the weight and given that we're coming up to rapids in the next few days its important to reduce the weight. We're carrying around 50L fresh water, 50kg of food (food for a month) plus our camping gear and clothing.

Tony and I must have looked pretty rough when we called into the post office as they lady there wasn't particularly helpful until we told her what we were doing. Once she knew, she was much more friendly, though she did make some comment about Tony smelling........she did add though that she actually liked the smell of smoke!! The people in Athabasca generally seem to be very nice.

When we arrived here there was thunderstorm with rain but it had cleared when we came out of the post office. Tony and I went and had an enjoyable steak meal.

We've seen a great number of moose with their calves, we even saw a mother and her calf crossing the river. The calf only got about a third of the way across and was really struggling, fortunately the mother and calf turned back to the river bank. They tried to get up the steep bank but the calf was too weak, it lay down for a rest,hopefully it got its strength back.