Since (re)opening Salter's book I have once again followed his narrator to Autun, where the following day he awakes at the same time I did on the morning of August 11th.

Salter writes:

"I awake before dawn, 0545, the bells striking three times, far off and then a moment later very near. The most devout moments of my life have been spent in bed listening to those bells. They flood over me, drawing me out of myself. I know where I am suddenly: part of this town and happy."

Replace bells with the whoosh of ravens wings and the childlike shrieks of eagles, and his narrator would have heard what I heard the morning I left Haida Gwaii.