km 1027, july 20. 38m, N 65˚19 W 127˚9. 7-11pm.

big news, we met up with the rafters from winnipeg today! and turns out emma went to high school with one of them. their names are mike and aubrey and we met them in the northern store, i think mike and i saw each other and were both looking at each other like – you look like a river traveler. emma and i finished our grocery shopping and met up with them at the info center/museum to catch up. as far as i remember it, they went straight from tulita to norman wells, sleeping on the raft and smoking the moose-meat they had been given the whole way. now they were going to take a rest day at the campground, but we were ready to move on. we were happy to have finally met them, and i was now convinced we knew all the members of the river neighbourhood.

after a whole day of calm we had a headwind on departure, sigh. a rain-shower rolled in bringing with it a double rainbow that at points seemed to touch down in the water right beside us. we managed to get about 2okm before heading for the lee of a point where billy creek enters the deh cho. getting closer to it emma picked out the sac dene tents! yeah! we thought they might be long gone since we hadn’t seen them in norman wells. pulling up nat and ben came to greet us, but everyone else was sleeping. they said they were going to try to head out at 2am if the wind calms, and hadn’t been able to make good time so far due to it. well, it was 1am by the time we went to sleep – the wind was calmer, but still there.