Unfamiliar water

kept her awake for a couple hours. A 225 g canister of Primus propane/butane mix does three generous cooked meals. I used up the first canister while frying blueberry pancakes this morning. We haven't really needed the hammer I brought: all the campsites have offered soft enough ground. But some kind of doormat would be useful; a place to wipe feet and remove shoes at the door of the tent. Also, a brush and pan for dusting out the tent when we pack up. With an early start (car packed the day before so we could launch the canoe by 11 a.m.), we could easily have portaged and camped on Pen Lake the first night. We met some campers who did that; they were portaging back at the same time as us after four days on Pen Lake, with a  baby less than one-year-old. 

This morning I got up about 6:15, wakened by sunlight on the tent. I wandered back to that same rock on the south side of the island. A merganser with her four ducklings sat on the little beach on the far side of the bay. I watched her for a minute, then decided to go back to bed. I had barely turned when she gave a soft, perfunctory quack. Turning, I saw she had entered the water. A short distance along the shore, two red wolves were standing staring at me, their ears cocked forward. It lasted only a few moments, then they vanished into the woods, stepping gingerly through marsh plants.

The campsite on Pen Lake was excellent for wildlife. Marian saw a bear across the marsh yesterday. I believe the falcons I saw were merlins or pigeon hawks. I saw one feeding its noisy, screeching fledgling this morning. We had reached this day's new site back on Rock Lake, set up camp and had a cup of soup by 3:15. We paddled across to the mainland and tried to explore a trail. We walked as far as the old Barclay Estate, but couldn't find any old buildings, just a spooky pathway blown out of the granite with tall trees rising on either side and the dense lichen, moss and ferns underneath. We were too tired to go further. This site has plenty of wildlife of a gentler kind. I have heard a Northern parula around, but haven't seen it. A chipmunk came right up to us at dinner, looking for scraps, also exploring the space under our tent. Even more surprising: a female mallard plodded up the bank and looked around, but quickly erupted

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