July 19th - As I write, I sit at my parents' house in the town of Athabasca. I am now at the halfway point of this journey and already it feels as though Jasper was a memory. I am struck by how the characteristic of this river changes so dramatically almost on a daily basis. I've certainly been fortunate with the weather - although it could be cooler.

I arrived in Fort Assiniboine after going solo for a night. Fort Assiniboine is a tiny community, filled with history and one of the oldest communities in Alberta. The first European in Alberta, Peter Pond, traveled here from Fort McMurrary to trade for pemmican with the First Nations. Fort Assiniboine has a wonderful little museum where we had a reception with some of the locals, who took us on a historical tour of the sites around the community.

From "The Fort," (as the locals call it) I continued on to another small community called Smith. We were warmly greeted by the folks from Smith and the surrounding areas, who were enthusiastically waving from a bridge with balloons in hand. These two events were encouraging: They seemed to dispel the myth that Albertans - especially rural ones - are blindly supportive of industrial development regardless of the environmental and social ramifications. There are a significant number of people, including rural folks, who are concerned about the state of things in this province. I've been fortunate to meet so many wonderful people who share a common concern - that things are going too fast and are on too large a scale.

At Smith the Athabasca River briefly halts its north-easterly path and makes a turn to the south where it flows past the town of Athabasca before resuming its course to Fort McMurray, Fort MacKay, and Fort Chipewyan. Showing up in this community, I never really knew what was up or downstream of what can be seen from the riverfront or bridge in town. I was never connected to this river as I am now paddling its length for the second time. There are places on the river that I know well but wouldn't come close to knowing how to find over land. We are constantly complaining about fixing potholes in our roadways, but think nothing of the things we put in our rivers - the highways of the past.