Dinner guests

Last night was the start of a two day rest for the Brigade. We paddled about 50 kilometers yesterday morning to Ione and then moved the canoes an hour over a mountain range -- David Thompson did it by horse -- before arriving here in present day Kettle Falls, Washington.

Last night Marg Bates made a big pot of stew and invited the No Way Corveé crew to join us. Most of that crew have worked together for years at Old Fort William in Thunder Bay where the 2008 Brigade ended. At the Fort they learned a great deal about the fur trade era and they have entertained the entire Brigade daily with bagpipe playing, singing and the reenactment of historical events -- they have shaped the character of this journey almost as much as the nearly daily rain.

Tonight we will once again have supper provided by a community -- the Cattlemen's Association -- and a pig roast tomorrow. That follows a salmon dinner at the Kalispel Indian Reservation on Wednesday. Members of the Kalispel suffered in the poring rain to watch the arrival of the canoes and then welcomed everyone into a dry building for a drumming ceremony before heading over to their beautiful community center where paddlers enjoyed the swimming pool, hot showers and ate salmon while watching the NHL victory of Boston over the Canucks.

The hospitality of small communities has been the other defining characteristic of the journey. We have been welcomed into school gymnasiums on rainy nights, had police boat escourts and sensational meals. And the schedule ahead seems to have more to come as well.
----------
Sent from my BlackBerry