Day 7, August 17th - Dalton Schaller

Today started off as an exciting day because it was the day that we finally got to go out on the river. It was a little hectic to start with because everyone was repacking their bags and loading everything else. However, once that was finished we were in the van and on our way. Along the way, we were blessed to have camp songs sung by Kelly, Jeremy, Ruby, and occasionally Cody. After a short drive we arrived at the location to get the permits. While there, Jeff went inside and the rest of us stayed in the van and admired Kelly’s 3d cat cards. We were also blessed to see many cool things while we were there. The first was a unique witnessing of a bobcat and the second was that it was chasing a rabbit. The chase was unsuccessful for the bobcat but really cool to see. Next, we went to Hawk Junction where we were set to paddle out from there. The first thing we did upon arrival at Hawk Junction was packed the canoes and trailer. Next, we ate lunch and had multiple teachable moments. All of which were about loons except for 1. Finally, after that we got a lesson about packing our canoes and we were ready to head out. Right off the bat we encountered a small section of white water and I recall someone saying it was like a roller coaster. We also ended up paddling through a lot of shallow water and an area with a lot of large boulders near the top of the water. There was another neat animal sighting where Kelly and I saw a couple river otters. They took off before the rest of the group could see them though. Another nice thing today was that we found a campsite much closer than expected. We got out, were taught a lesson on campsite selection, and then were set loose to set up out campsites. After that we were taught many more lessons consisting of using the stoves and cooking, dump school, and water purification. I personally found the dump school lesson helpful considering the fact that I used it later. Then we were shown how to hang our food to keep bears out. That process seemed a lot more stressful but it was accomplished. And like usual we ended the day with a debrief of the day and a brief of the next day. - Dalton Schaller