The Gros Mecatina Archipelago is full of small islands, home to hundreds of terns and seagulls. The water here is reddish and not as salty as it was yesterday, an indication of the volume of water flowing from the Gros Mecatina River a few miles away.  As each island drifts by, as we pass one point after another, new vistas open up. Cliffs, beaches, colourful rocks : the Lower North Shore never stops to seduce us.

The fog closes in again just before our final crossing to the Gros Mecatina Peninsula. There is about 2 miles of water to cross with no visual clue. We stop so that I can calculate an exact bearing from the chart. I double check the declination, recheck my calculation and we get going. Marie talks to me about the birds and the wave pattern. I keep my eyes focused on the deck compass. I have to continuously force myself to ignore all the sensory messages trying to convince me that we are drifting, turning in circle or losing our bearing... There is practically no wind, the tide is high and there should be no current. Twenty five minutes later, a shadow is more felt than seen on the right. The map shows a small island. A few minutes later, the shore slowly appears : we are right in the middle of the bay I was aiming for... All right!!

As we near the bottom of the bay, white boat silhouettes appear on the water and on the shore. Straight ahead, a strange shape comes out of the fog. It looks like two parallel lines starting at the water's edge and disappearing over a small hill. All of a sudden, we remember hearing about this "wooden railway". This is it : two rows of planks, each a foot wide, about 6 ft apart, with thick round poles placed like railroad ties every 2 feet.

A well marked foot path follows to one side. Just over the hill, they both stop at the edge of a small lake (a salt pond, apparently, although I did not taste it).  On the right, a wooden walkway circles around the lake. Parked nearby, we find a makeshift cart obviously designed to carry packs and gear to the other side... Now that's a well designed portage!

We take out just enough stuff from the kayak so that they can be pulled with no damage over the wooden ties. The packs go in the cart while I pull Marie's kayak to the pond. My kayak is a bit heavier so we both pull and it quickly joins the other.  Then, as Marie pushes the cart to the other side, I paddle the two kayaks across the pond, drag them onto another "woodway" overgrown with vegetation and meet Marie at the edge of Portage Bay.

We've almost finished repacking the kayaks when a boat appears in the fog and anchors a few yards away. A man and a woman come to meet us. They just came in from Mutton Bay, they say, about a mile and a half away. We tell them about where we've been and where we're going. They're crossing the portage on foot and getting into another boat on the other side to return to their fishing camp. I mention an encounter I had about a month ago, on a plane back from Europe, with a man I thought they might know. Norman Bobbitt who now lives in ottawa, had told me he was born in Mutton Bay and we had spent a few hours talking about this area. Their was no reaction from the man. Then a huge smile : "that's my brother you're talking about. He was here last week-end and he told me about two kayakers who might come by...". Eldon and his wife Gloria are on their way to the camp they manage on the Gros Mecatina River. All of a sudden we're not strangers anymore. We take some pictures and they hurry off.  It feels like the world just got a little bit smaller...

Following the advice of another fisherman that we meet a few minutes later, we take a small detour to fill our water containers at the foot of a magnificent waterfall on the other side of the bay : "You can go to the village" he answered as we enquired about water "there's one of them buttons you push to get water - just up the hill. They say it's good and they test it every year... But nobody here use it. We all go to the falls!"

It's late in the afternoon and the sun just peeks under the clouds and fog. Its rays come in almost horizontally and it bathes the village in a brillant light that makes every thing look clean and newly painted. We let ourselves drift out of the bay with the outgoing tide, under the bridge that links the two sides of the village. A pick-up truck goes by slowly and two youngsters on a 4-wheeler cross the bridge over our heads.  Somebody's piling up some firewood. Just the quiet life of a small fishing village at supper time.

We paddle on to Mitchell Island, just across from the village and set up camp on a rock looking at the houses lighting up as darkness falls.