| French Bay, named after Nels LaFreniere's logging camp, presented us with a beautiful vista: churning blue water, fleecy clouds, and a sun preparing to set. We did not find the legendary pile of logs that were cut six inches too short sixty years ago and left to rot; perhaps they were to the south. We walked to the next bay to the north instead, past the remains of a deer scavenged by predators, and found drag marks in the sand that we mistakenly thought were made by a coyote and its prey. After we reached the far point and were coming back, an immense beaver bounded from the brush, half ran, half waddled into the surf, and swam out in an arc. Once he'd figured out who we were, he dove down and disappeared, until he surfaced again another fifty feet out. Then we realized that he had been dragging brush over a small ridge to a pond; when we took a look, we found a dozen wild rose bushes.
After watching the sun sink into the lake north of Gull Island, we found the trail back and slowly made it to our car in the dark. |
