21 C sunny at 0824
Enjoyed the theater yesterday, then stopped at Royal Oak for dinner at Greekfest. I had bbq'd lamb and M had Souvlaki, very good, and entertained by greek music and dancing as we ate. Going to sit out in the sun and have a second cup of coffee right  after I post todays story section.

Every time he closed his eyes Fred, frogs and mice danced and cavorted through the darkness.

  Finally by sheer will power he forced himself to imagine the map and to trace a route that would end at the very edge of Fort Nelson.  It worked and when next he awoke the sun was again shimmering through the trees.

  That day was much like the one of the day before, more of the poplar and spruce flats, he deliberately slowed his pace and grazed for mushrooms and berries as he walked. Once he came upon a pair of willow grouse but as luck would have it the ground was devoid of any stones at that point.  He pulled off the pack and snatched out the hatchet but the grouse were gone.  He repacked the knapsack but devised a harness with a piece of the rope and fastened the hatchet to his belt.

  Late in the day the flat he had been crossing started to slowly decline and he once again came out on the edge of peat marsh and scattered black spruce.  He found a pool of water much like the one of two days previous and again drank his fill, rested, drank again and moved on.  It appeared that he was getting deeper into the bog area and at times it quaked as the peat floated on the water below.  “Can’t keep doin’ this.” He muttered.  There was no place to sit without soaking his pants so he leaned against a small tree and pondered for a few moments.  Then making a decision, reset the compass for due west and struck out once more.

  By his reckoning it was probably less than an hour when he once again found the edge of the higher ground.  He kept going on his west bearing, the ground rising gently. He didn’t stop until he had counted to a thousand, then turned again to the south.

  The trees were sparser large open patches rocks and gravel started to dominate the ground beneath his feet.  Suddenly he came to a spot where the ground dropped away down a steep incline, rocks and mica schist on the slope and down below a rock strewn draw, a small creek wending through the rocks.  He sat down on the bank thinking that this is where he should stop for the night.  ‘Should he go down the short distance and drink and then climb back or should he look for food and then go for a drink?’  The decision seemed difficult. ‘Why?’  Shaking his head he thought, ‘to hell with it, I’m just a little thirsty but I am hungry.  I can use the water to fill up if I don’t find enough.’  He sat on the edge of the drop-off and looked about.  He spotted a lone clump of thimbleberry bushes a few feet away.  ‘Yes there is new growth.’ He rose and stumbled over to the bushes and broke off the leading tips, then sat and peeled the thin layer of bark away and consumed the green pithy sticks.  As he chewed he looked about, he could feel some vigor returning and in moments he spotted a small circle of small white mushrooms.  He got up and walked to them, there were two kinds, the round puff balls he had been eating and another smaller delicate kind their heads supported by a slender stalk.

  He gathered first the puffballs eating them as he picked them but there were only a half dozen.  He snapped off one of the other kind and examined it, sniffed it.  It smelled like a mushroom.  He broke off a small piece and gingerly tasted it.  It tasted just like the others; he ate the whole thing.  He sat for a few minutes then shrugging gathered up as many as he could find and carried them to a spot that was mostly clear of rocks.  He sat and crammed several in his mouth and chewed them down.  His headed started to nod as the last swallow went down.  ‘I’ll go for water later’ was his last thought as he flopped back and curled into a ball.