Into this mess came jays and smaller birds, looking for potential scraps, so that there was a constant swirling cloud of birds, large and small, rotating around and above the canoe. The birds seemed to take delight in releasing their scat on the canoe. And on Leif. And he was constantly scooping up seawater to slosh in his hair to get the mess washed out.

At intervals – and there seemed to be no rhyme nor reason for it – all the birds except the ravens would leave. He decided that it was as if the flocks of crows and small birds and even eagles had specific territories, and Leif would move through each of them in the canoe and there would be relative quiet until he moved into the next territory.

He also noted that the ravens did not seem to be bound by territories, or if they were, couldn’t care less what other birds might consider proper. He recognized some of them, who had discoloured wing or back feathers marking them, and saw that they stayed with him no matter how far he moved. Indeed, when he stopped to sleep for a time, tied to a branch onshore, he would doze over the dried salmon to protect it and when he awakened the same birds would be there.

He saw killer whales almost constantly. They were always making their way north out in the main channel so he wasn’t close enough to see if he recognized or knew any of them.

But he saw them most every day, moving past him, and he wondered – something he seemed to be doing all the time, wondering – why they all seemed to be heading north. It could not be for the same reason as Leif was moving, running from The Sick, from sick death, but as he moved, day on day, anytime he saw them they were working their way north. With apparent intent and purpose. And as with Leif, while they didn’t seem to be hurrying – he watched several times when they stopped and bubble-netted (as Leif thought of it) salmon in the ends of inlets and fed – yet they were always moving north. Backs rolling, dorsal fins sliding, spouts of misty exhale in the air, sliding north.

Nor were there other whales. He had seen other whales in the distance off the ships he was kept on and marvelled at the giant size of their flukes when they dived but there were none here, moving even in the main channel.

Only the black-and-white killer whales and the small dolphins that seemed to zip here and there and were coloured much like the orcas.

And birds.

And salmon.