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Thursday, our last full day in the park, Bruce and Ron set out to find some walleyes and Don and I headed for some pictographs in the East arm of Murdock Lake. I want to stress again that one of the perks of coming to Woodland Caribou is being able to E-mail the park and tell them your route. This way you can be updated on water levels, portage conditions and special interest items like campsites and airplane pickup points. The pictographs are not on the map but were pointed out to me as a point of interest along the route I chose.

The weather was still overcast and breezy. Not too windy to travel but a little rough in the places out in the open or where the lake narrowed and funneled all the wind into a narrow channel. Don and I were about a mile from the pictographs when we pulled over on a small dot of an island in the East arm of Murdock. We sat out of the wind on the south side of the half acre island. There were strange noises coming from behind us and after a while I assumed that it was the waves coming up under some hollow spot in the rocks. We had just started to eat when there was a crashing of brush behind us. Don spun around and could see a bull moose looking at us from about 30 feet away. Before we could even make a break for the canoe the moose headed up onto the island and out of site. The moose breeding season was in full swing so we knew that you had to be extra cautious around this bull. With camera in hand I started sneaking around the West side of the island. After getting almost to the other end of the island I could not see it swimming for shore so figured it must still be on the island. While keeping track of trees to climb and jump behind if necessary I proceeded up onto the wooded island. Once on top of the island the smell of rutting moose hung in the air. A few more steps and I was in a large moose scrape dug into the ground about 8 inches. About that time I could hear the moose walking up on the shore of the mainland 200 yards away. He offered just a glimpse as he disappeared into the trees. It was a medium sized Bull Moose with a fair spread of antlers. The area on top of the island had been really torn up.

Trees smashed and the ground opened up. On my way back to Don I was amazed at the amount tracks and droppings on the island. Very puzzling were the different size of the droppings and the size of the tracks.

The excitement was apparently over and the skies looked like rain so we decided to head back to camp. As we paddled away from the island a cow and a large calf moose could be seen where the Bull Moose had walked up on the mainland. I was able to take one picture before they jumped. Surprisingly they jumped towards us and into the lake. The thoughts of a wolf pack in pursuit crossed our minds as we could catch glimpses of something running back and forth on shore behind the trees. The cow and calf swam along the shore line and soon the Bull Moose came charging out of the trees and into the water. He was in pursuit of the cow moose and we paddled hard to get in range for a decent picture. We stopped about a hundred yards away to photograph them but suddenly the cow spotted us and led the whole parade out of the water and into the trees.

The facts are that the cow moose had probably been using that little island as a refuge for her calf all summer. The moose and the caribou do this to stay away from being exposed to prowling wolves and bears. Once again I had blundered onto an island not thinking of the dire consequences for the animals using it as a sanctuary. I am sure that all three moose had been on the island when we landed. The cow and calf headed off right away but the bull probably had ideas of kicking the butt of whatever drove his ladylove off the Garden of Eden. This island was so small that I would have never thought of it as supporting large mammals such as a moose. Of course she could have swam over to the mainland at night to feed and then returned to her calf without leaving a scent trail for the predators.

The paddling and the excitement had warmed us up but when we approached Bruce and Ron huddled in their canoe out in the blustery wind the sight chilled me. They had caught their limit in the first two hours and were now out for the pure enjoyment of great Walleye fishing. I felt sorry for Ron because I knew that Bruce could stay out there all day and then some. But I had also seen Ron spend half a day out in a canoe in the rain when the fish were not biting. I half joked that I would come out and relieve him later in the day.

Don and I fought the wind and managed to work our way back to camp. The exertion had me warmed up so I started a fire and heated some water for a bath. I put the coffee pot on to boil and made up a pot of Swedish Coffee for the fishermen. They still had not returned so Don and I delivered it out to them. My coffee has never had rave reviews but this delivery sure did. While we were out there Don did a little jigging and caught two walleye and released them. We headed back to camp but the die-hards were just having too much fun catching and releasing all those walleyes. Back at camp the potatoes were put in a foil pouch and put on the fire grate. We had already decided to have a Surf and Turf dining extravaganza. The fishermen finally called it a day and filleted the fish for our meal and the others for a final breakfast of fried fish and hash browns. Bruce did a great job on the huge steaks that went along with the delicious walleye that Ron fried up. Everyone had to take a break before finishing it off with a Chocolate Lovers Delight dessert.

The stars were really fantastic as we enjoyed our first clear skies of the trip. The Milky Way was standing out like we can never observe it at home. Ron decided to join me in sleeping out under the stars. One of our campfire stories was about the man who got a knot in his sleeping bag drawstring while running his trap line in Polar Bear country. He was just going to worry about it in the morning but when a Polar Bear stuck his front leg through the window and starting clawing away at him. He had to burst the bag to save himself. Sometime in the night I was awakened by Ron stating that there was a moose in camp. I had slept through his first attempt but awoke in time to hear it crash back the way it had come. Ron had heard something coming and was scrambling to get his arms out of the cinched up sleeping bag so he could get his flashlight on whatever was coming. Thoughts of the trapper with the knot in his drawstring came flooding over him as it seemed to take forever to get free of the bag. Don had heard it coming too but Bruce snored on. We tried to wake him but gave up. I headed down the trail to keep the moose moving until it left the tip of the island. The moose was making a lot of grunting noises that reminded me that the rut was in full swing and he could be unpredictable. He stopped in the shadows and when wood thrown in his direction couldn’t get him to move I headed for Bruce’s bear spray. Fortunately by the time we had found it the sound of the moose walking in shallow water could be heard. I do not know what pepper spray would do to a moose but I had visions of a campsite being destroyed by a blinded and irate moose. We listened to the moose walk along the shore for a long time as it went around our camp. I think that the animals use the long island we were on to walk most of the way across Murdock Lake. Our camp just happened to be in his way. Bruce, so worried about bears, was back snoring in less than five minutes. The next morning we would see by the tracks that the moose had stepped around Bruce’s tent and that when Ron had finally gotten his "Neon" LED flashlight on him he was a mere 24 feet from him. The sight of a huge Bull Moose looming over him at that distance will be imprinted forever in his mind. As he turned in earlier that evening he was thankful for a very good adventure but had no idea there was more to come.

Our last morning had the best weather of the week and was topped off with the walleye breakfast. The camp was all packed up when we heard the Otter floatplane coming to pick us up. Less than an hour later the plane touched down on Howey Bay and taxied to the Green Airways dock. The cost of the Otter worked out to less than $350. U.S. for each of us. It certainly made for a great trip into the center of Woodland Caribou Provincial Park.

The following are GPS waypoints for the trip with the portages starting at Royd and proceeding to Murdock.