The wind favours us now as we paddle the last of the Bowron Lake circuit. We'd rigged kayak sails on both the single and double kayaks and are excited to use them to add an extra knot of oomph to our efforts. 

Reaching the golden land of safety-in-numbers, we leap from our kayaks, happy to see the smiling faces of Mary and Adele, the new friends we'd met before running the river earlier in the trip.  

Making it here is doubly thrilling because it means I’m sleeping indoors tonight and I can tell the bear story with adrenaline still pumping through my veins.
 
Tonight is all about camaraderie and the warmth of a campfire.  Gobbling down Philip’s famous pizza, Leanne impresses everyone further by telling of his adventures in the arctic and surviving a polar bear attack.  This is our first starlit night without rain, a luxury everyone comments on, but quietly, not wanting to jinx it.


We share a good laugh at the expense of the local common loons (both Homeo sapien sapien and Gavia immer).  The marshy areas of the circuit provide a wonderful habitat for the regions many birds including a host of sleek, almost regal black and white common loons.  Their cool demeanour by day is reduced to surprisingly loud, maniacal hoots and yelps with undignified flapping and flailing by night.  It seems hardly possible that these awful noises could be coming from the same birds and that this has been going for nearly 65 million years, since end of the age of dinosaurs, as loons are one of the oldest bird families in the fossil record.

A guitar is pulled out to liven the quiet night while small offerings, sacred and scare this late in our journey, are passed around.  Tonight is a celebration that we have all, both separately and together, made our way around the immense mountain-edged Bowron Lake circuit.