Day 83: T 12/4- Dogs in the Fog

    We fought fog throughout the day.  Around 3 pm a dense fog rolled in as we made a crossing around mile 275.  We knew there was a barge headed upriver, but had enough room to get across before it passed us.  We got about half way across when the fog became so dense we could hardly see either side of the river.  It had come in so fast we weren’t sure where the barge was, so we hugged as tightly as possible to the opposite shore once we found it.  Even so, we could hear the giant engines of the barge pass close by, but couldn’t see it; it was an intimidating experience.

    After we got across, we decided it would be wise to stop on a beach, at least until the fog thinned.  It was close enough to dark that we considered camping where we stopped.  As we climbed out, Lilly went off to explore and quickly came running back with two dog friends.  One, a male mutt, had a collar that said his name was Captain Jack.  The other was a male black lab with collar but no tags.  We watched the three play for a while then decided the fog was thin enough to continue. 

    After we pushed off, we realized the two strange dogs were following us along the shore.  We thought we had glimpsed a cabin back from the river and figured they lived there, but as we paddled along, the dogs seemed more interested in coming with us than going home.  Finally, as we passed a cleared area that looked like a cattle watering spot, the dogs took to the water and tried swimming to us.  We paddled to shore and checked Jack’s collar for a number.  We called several times, but only got the voicemail of his owner.  Finally, we shouted for them to leave and chased them off a ways before continuing. 

   There was an island, the St. Maurice Towhead right off of the landing we had stopped.  It was getting dark and threatening to storm, so we made for the far side of the island to make camp.  Just as we were coming along the far side of the towhead, we saw the two dogs running down the beach towards us, they had swum the narrow channel to follow!  We tried calling the number again, with no luck, so settled in to make camp with our new canine friends.  It started raining lightly and it took a long while to get a fire going.  With no word from the dogs’ owner, we gave them some food, had our dinner and went to bed, soggy and worried about what to do.  We felt a little guilty about leaving the dogs outside in the storm, but one large, wet dog in the tent was enough.  We hoped they would decide to head home in the night if we left them alone.