Nature felt rather ill-tempered yesterday and treated us to a high of 6C with blustery winds and heavily overcast skies threatening rain the entire day. Which might have diminished our pleasure in our leisurely stroll through the forest yesterday, but did not, in fact. Since we were dressed for the occasion, reverting back to warm clothing for us and our two little dogs, to weather the inclement atmosphere. The good thing about all of this is that there is now very little snow and ice left in the forest, merely patches here and there of innocuous, soft ice on parts of the trail, easily avoided.

In contrast to our comparatively slight re-acquaintance with nature, our son drove two-and-a-half miles out of Vancouver for one of his springtime paddles down the Skajit River for a two-day relaxing time-off in the wilderness, renewing his inner resources. There, camping on a gravel bar and the sun full out, the temperature soared to 26C during the day, falling back at night-time to below freezing, leaving hoar frost on the landscape, first thing the following morning.

He encountered a black bear not far from his campsite, busy noodling about in the newly-come-to-life willow shrubs across the river, which hadn't seen him at first as he was canoeing past, but when it did a pandemonium of 'escape' at break-neck speed ensued as the bear thrashed its way through the forest beyond the river.

And for the first time he came across a pair of beautiful little Harlequin ducks swimming about close to the shoreline. A permanent logjam he's encountered many times before necessitated a portage of about 40 metres which took close to an hour to achieve, emptying and carrying everything out of the canoe and then the canoe itself around to a take-in spot back on the river. There were shorter portages required where single trees lay across the river at narrowed areas, all of them familiar to him from past such escapades.

Snow from the mountain tops had not yet begun their seasonal melt, bringing up the level of the river, but the initiation was imminent.