I should have mentioned the boreal forest in a earlier entry a that is what we have been traveling through the last few day. Short skinny black spruce tree, birch and aspen now turning vivid yellow and the occasional stands of larch (tamarack) that look like pine tree that are turning with the fall. Around Fort McMurray the forest was obviously burned from the wildfire earlier in the year but even in these blacked tracks there were patches of yellow and green where some trees survived and in many places under the blacked spruce new grass could be seen.

Highway 881 the road south from FMcD to Lac La Biche was a surprisingly good quality two lane black top. Traffic was sparse but still mostly trucks and pickups. Though now the trucks are normal semis with no heavy haulers. Lots of work camps and junctions with roads accessing energy projects. We even saw one land fill that looked like it was a dump for the spoil from an oil sands mining operation.

We chose to camp for the night at Sir Winston Churchill Provisional Park. The campground is on an island in the middle of a large lake and is accessed by a long causeway. A loverly spot and only a few other campers.

Once settled in we went for a walk on one of the islands walking trails and found lots of evidence of active beavers, they had even brought down trees across the walking trail, some of them surprisingly large. The walk also revealed many patches of mushrooms some of which we could not resist. (photographing)