A Porcupine is Eating our Canoe!

It's two-thirty in the morning and Tess, our dog, is walking anxiously around inside the tent. She can hear a rustling outside. Half awake, Jon and I try to calm her down, but to no avail. We try to fall back to sleep when we hear something trampling on the deck of our canoe. With his headlamp on, Jon climbs out of the tent to see what's outside. To his surprise, a big fat porcupine is sitting on the stern of our canoe gnawing at our wooden gunwales and deck plate. From inside the tent, Tess and I could hear a loud clap and Jon shouting, "Stop eating our canoe!" The porcupine abandoned his project and scurried up a tree. We examined our canoe and found there was minimal damage - a few chew marks in the gunwales and spray deck. The rest of the night we dozed in and out of sleep waiting for the return of the porcupine. Luckily he didn't return. We expect he found something better to chew.