Below Zero
Terry sacrificed his puffy for me because I had all the clothes I brought on already and was snug in my sleeping bag yet still shivering. I felt vindicated when I exited the tent in the morning to a frosty world.
We headed into the Moose River. So narrow now it was barely a stream. I’ve been listening to the audiobook, Beaver Land by Leila Philip. I feel more amazement for these animals and their work. Yet I’ve never seen one at work. We saw a number of them swimming with their V wake trailing them. But all of their dams and lodges were abandoned leaving us many opportunities to negotiate rounding and plowing through their work. We were just here seven days ago but didn’t recall all the these obstacles. Sometimes we could rush a small break in the sticks as we pushed off with our paddles.
Other times we needed to evacuate the canoe standing atop the dam or in the knee deep water pulling the canoe as it raked and rasped the gnawed boards of these bridge builders and then caught and released our boat.
We were in and out of the small 25 rod portages and then it was the last 160 rod portage to reach the hole in the forest that dumped us into the parking lot.
Back in the car we don’t need the heat on. Maybe we never did.
We were back on the Echo Trail with wilderness in the rear view mirror.
Mountain Peace 
I had no idea what the rod reference was and had to look it up. Clever. Looking at the beaver dam photos, I’m amazed that you were even able to navigate there. That would have been nearly impossible to portage around those dams. I’m in awe! Woutje
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