Paddling Duck Lake in Creston, B.C.

How fast time passes.  Today, Wednesday, July 12, 2017, is our last full day in Canada on this season's trip, and it's our last chance to explore the area around Creston.  Luckily, we heard about Duck Lake as a kayak destination, so we drove our Jeep, with Kayaks, over the dike road to a small spot where we could put into the lake.

Here, David is getting the kayaks ready for their adventure:

It was an easy put-in, and, soon, we were paddling and ready to explore the lake:

The lake is unique because it is shallow and filled with water plants that can sometimes interfere with paddling.  The first unique feature we spotted was that some of these grasses, which can float in the water, have small white flowers that sit atop the grass raft.  They produce a dramatic effect on the water:

We spotted several artificially-created osprey platforms, and one was strategically located at the sluice gate that controls release of lake water across the dike into the wetland below:

Kathy, our eagle-eye spotter, noticed a large number of mud swallow nests under the soffit of the sluice gate control building.  David was able to catch a swallow as it flew to and from its nest to provide bug meals to its small chicks:

We encountered several duck families, and, almost uniformly, the adult ducks flew out aggressively from the wetland grasses to try to lead us away from their nests.  This female was very insistent that we pay attention to her - and not to her nest:

Throughout the day's paddle, we were accompanied by thousands of dragonflies.  They came in at least three colors:  all-black, a brilliant blue, and a very pretty shiny-gold.  All were very curious.  The blue ones loved David's kayak, and the gold ones loved his hat.  The blue and gold dragonflies landed long enough for this photo.

An hour or two into our trip, we came across an empty boat, half-filled with water but floating, trapped in the shoreline reeds.  It had permits from the local wetland protection agency, so we called them to notify them of it and give them location information.  It looked as if the boat's anchor line had torn loose and it floated to its current position.

Because the shoreline was so reedy, it was hard to find places to put out on shore for lunch or a rest.  Luckily, we found this spot, where the water shallowed out enough before the heavy reeds, where we could pull our kayaks in onto the shore through the reeds:

The mosquitoes were too much for us there, though, so we put back out onto the lake to look for a better lunch spot.  As we paddled north along the eastern shore, we encountered one of several Great Blue Herons that we saw on the lake.  Most of them flew away before we could even get within 200 yards of them.  This one, however, stood still until David floated in to about 30 yards, then finally flew off, giving us a good photo:

We eventually found a spot on the lake, near a shoreline with big boulders, where we could eat lunch in peace:

With lunch over, we assessed our progress and decided it was time to paddle back to the Jeep.  We paddled the open waters and spotted our launch spot, and ended the trip with no incident:   8.5 km (a little over 5 miles), not one of our longer paddles, but a very interesting one.

We needed to keep the paddle shorter because Kathy spotted a farm on the way that lets you pick your own Saskatoon Berries.  When we rode our bikes near Slocan the other day, we had finally identified them, and we were eager to pick a bunch.

So we stopped and the farmer showed us where and how to pick.  Kathy caught on the quickest and was rapidly gathering berries right away! 

Before we knew it, we had 4 pounds of tasty, ripe, sweet Saskatoon Berries.  Now we just have to figure out how to pack them and freeze them so that we can enjoy them for the coming months.