Jack spotted a small, obviously-dead spruce tree not far away. I’ll cut that down for firewood, Jack thought. He had had an axe. It had been nestled in the bow of the canoe; it now rested on the bottom of the lake with his fishing gear and camp stove. In the Duluth pack that had held his tent and contained other camping equipment he found a small folding saw. Not a choice tool, but what he had. He uprooted the dead spruce easily with a push. Sometimes cutting with the saw, sometimes simply breaking branches, he assembled a pile of reasonably dry spruce firewood. He found a birch log lying on the ground and stripped off a generous piece of its bark. He knew, although he could not recall how or where he had learned it, that birch bark was good tinder—that it would light from a match, even when wet. A match. Jack remembered that Andy had provided a clump of kitchen matches all waxed together and protected from wet by the wax. Jack found it and recovered one of the matches, struck it on the dry side of a stone, and soon had a fire. In fact, the spruce blazed and burned quickly. If he were to cook and dry his clothes with a fire, he would need better, longer-lasting firewood—birch perhaps.
Although the sun was shining through the trees and promised a sunny day, it was not yet warm. Jack was cold. Sorting through his clothing, he found the driest pair of underwear and a not-too-soaked, long-sleeved shirt. He put them on. The pants he had been wearing were still very wet. He had rung water out of them as tightly as he could the night before. He found a length of rope in the equipment Duluth pack and strung it between two trees. He turned the pants inside out and draped them over the line. A dry inside was more important than a dry outside.
He found an aluminum cook pot with a bail and some liquid soap. At the water’s edge, he rubbed the outside of the pot with soap. He had been told to do so by Andy of the outfitters. I don’t really care much about this pot, he thought—he planned to abandon it with all of the camping gear after he left the water in Minnesota—but he did not want soot coating everything as he traveled and camped along the way. He put what he judged to be two cups of water into the pot. Enough for coffee and instant oatmeal. He propped a stick up over the fire and hung his water on it to heat.
With breakfast under way, Jack pulled his clothes from his pack. Most were wet, some only damp, some saturated with water. He wrung as much water as he could out of the wettest items, and hung as many as he could with his pants on the line he had strung between trees. The rest of his garments he draped on bushes and low tree limbs. Many, he thought, perhaps most of his clothing items would be dry in a few hours. Not the jeans, however, he supposed. He took off his Gore-tex jacket, turned it inside out, pulled out the sleeves, and set it out to dry. He was chilly, but he could tolerate that if it meant getting his jacket dry sooner. It was going to be a sunny day, and the northwest wind continued. A good drying day. If another afternoon shower did not come up.
The water started to boil. Jack made himself coffee and oatmeal. Sitting on a rock, he considered his situation. He was lucky, very lucky, he realized. He was alive. He was in a nice place to camp, and he and his things were drying out. He would stay where he was tomorrow as well as today, he decided. He would probably need that extra day to get everything dry. And when he headed out, he would get up and under way early, before the prevailing northwest wind came up. He finished his breakfast and washed out the cup, spoon, and pot he had used for coffee and oatmeal at the lake shore.
Jack’s money had been in the inside, zippered pockets of his traveling pants, as it had been much of the time since leaving home. He had saved out and not changed $1,800 in American currency, and he had several hundred Canadian dollars in his inner pants pocket as well. His wallet held the rest of his Canadian bills. Also his Ohio driver’s license, which was plastic and survived the dunking well. All of the money was wet. He found a sunny rock surface that was reasonably sheltered from the wind and spread his wallet and his paper money out to dry, putting a small stone from the gravely beach on each bill.
Jack looked at his tent. I need to redo that, he thought. He untied the top from the aluminum frame from which it was suspended. There were four tie-up cords; he had tied only two the previous night. He disassembled the frame and pulled out the corner stakes. Then he took the tent to some rocks by the shore and spread it out with the bottom open to the sun. He was surprised that the tent bottom and the ground upon which the tent had been pitched were essentially dry. “Hey, not everything is soaked,” he said aloud. He decided that the spot he had chosen for his tent the previous night was, indeed, the optimum location for it. He got down on his hands and knees and carefully groomed the area, removing stones, pine cones, sticks—anything that might poke up into the bottom of the tent.
Searching among the gear items that he had removed from one of the Duluth packs, Jack found the sheet of plastic intended to be used under the tent as a ground cloth. Tightly rolled, it had survived without getting wet, at least on one side, which he could place up. He spread it on the site he had had chosen for his tent, orienting it at right angles to the way he had pitched the tent the previous night. There was not much slope, but he wanted to sleep head up and not on an incline that might roll him to one side. With the plastic ground cloth in place, he retrieved the tent. The bottom felt dry after its short sunbath. He put it in place and staked the corners. He assembled the aluminum frame and put it in place. Then he raised the tent and tied it to the frame.
Good, Jack thought, Now I need to trench it. If it rains again, I want to stay dry. He had had a trenching tool, a small folding shovel with a prong. It had been stored in the canoe’s bow with his axe. It was still with the axe, he mused, but now at the bottom of the lake. He found a stone of suitable size and shape and carefully scraped a shallow trench around the tent with an outlet at the slightly lower back of the tent. Then he carefully tucked the edges of the ground cloth under the tent floor. If left exposed, they would collect water running off the tent and pool it beneath the tent floor. The salesman at Appalachian Outfitters who had sold him the tent had told him about ditching it properly.
Jack decided that his next priority was to get all of his gear and clothing as dry as possible. Then he would do what he could to optimize his campsite. His pack was empty; all of his clothes were on one bush or another, set out to dry. He upended the pack and shook out an amount of water that surprised him. Then he turned it inside out and set it on a rock to dry, propped open so that all of the interior sides were exposed to the air. He emptied the two Duluth packs, spreading their contents out to dry, and then turned them inside out and upended them as he had done with his personal pack.
Jack turned back to his campsite. The fire was about to burn to its end. Okay, Jack thought, I don’t want to use what limited firewood I have to keep it going. But I need more wood, and I need to do what I can to keep it dry. He began searching the island. He found a small tree, probably a poplar, he thought, on the ground, apparently dead and dry. It would provide good firewood. Without an axe, he began breaking off branches and then breaking them into manageable lengths. His Swiss Army knife and folding saw, his only remaining cutting implements, would hardly do for cutting sticks of any size. The poplar was dry and long dead. It broke easily; broken lengths would suffice. Searching further, he found some birch branches. He stripped off the bark and set it aside to use in starting fires. Then he broke the branches into lengths. Some were long; he cut them with the saw. He hoped he could feed ends of others into the fire as needed. He stacked the wood near the fire circle, arranging it so that there was space between layers of wood. He wanted it to be as dry as possible after the previous day’s rain.
Once again he surveyed his campsite. He had done what he could at this point, he decided. He would have to wait patiently as his clothes and gear dried. And, he thought again, he must remember that afternoon showers were not infrequent in the north woods in summer. He went down to the lakefront, sat on a rock, and took off his boots, hoping they might dry. He took the Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and began whittling a piec
e of driftwood.
Jack gave some thought as to where he might be. I’m lost, he admitted to himself. I really do not know where I am. I’m lost. What shore he could see in the distance was far enough away so that he could not make out details. But maybe not totally lost. Obviously, he must still be in Northern Lights Lake. His map was gone, but he remembered that the lake comprised two large main bodies of water. When the storm had caught him, he was headed for the portage connecting the two. The portage was in the northwest corner of the southern part of Northern Lights Lake, he was quite sure. The northern part, reached by the portage, connected through a channel of some sort to Saganaga Lake, from which he planned to reach Minnesota. That passage was at the northwest corner of the northern half of the lake, he believed. He would have to portage into the northern part of the lake.
The wind had come out of the northwest, presumable driving him southeast. Had he still had a compass, the navigation would be easy. Absent that, he would have to do what he could with the sun. He put down his whittling and looked out. I’m pretty sure I’m looking north, he thought. When I move on, I need to paddle out and a little to the left. I may have to go pretty far, so I should get started early. And before the wind comes up. If I come to the rock cliffs that I was near when the storm hit me, I will know that the portage is further on, more or less in the same direction. When the sun had risen further, he could be more certain of that. For now, however, he had a plan.
I should look around a bit, Jack thought. He put his still wet boots back on, righted the canoe, and pushed it to the edge of the lake. Climbing in over the stern, he pushed off into the water. Hmm, he thought. I once had a life preserver. I wonder where it is now. He had been using it as a kneeling pad when he capsized. Okay, I can kneel on the bottom of the canoe without a pad. My knees are tough enough for that. And I’m not going to fall out of this canoe again. The lake was calm, and Jack picked up the paddle. Traveling slowly, he circled his island. He had obviously come ashore at the best—only reasonable—landing site on the island. Distant lake shores were that—distant.
Back at his campsite, Jack set about making himself lunch. He had no idea of the time, but he thought it must be time to eat. The sun seemed high overhead. After again soaping its bottom, he again put lake water into his pot. He started a small fire and suspended the pot above it. Digging among his food supplies, he found a packet of instant chicken noodle soup. That, with some crackers, would be his lunch. He found a box of crackers. The cardboard box was soggy, but the plastic insert had kept the crackers dry. Also some GORP.
After lunch Jack turned his attention back to his supplies and gear. The two Duluth packs were reasonably, if not absolutely, dry. He repacked them, food in one, gear in the other. He put them upon a large rock, off the ground. His clothes were another matter. He wanted them to be as dry as possible, and for the most part they were still damp. Well, he thought, I’ll have to wait a bit on them. This is a pretty private place; I can run around naked if necessary. He was most concerned about his Gore-tex jacket, which was drying on a rock in the sun. I need that jacket, and I need it to be dry before it gets dark. Jack had no illusions about how cold it might be on a north woods night.
Aside from his not-yet-all-dry clothing—especially his jeans—Jack had survived and now recovered from his storm-engendered dunking and near drowning. He was, in fact, fortunate, and he knew that. His most serious losses were his axe and, he now recognized, his life preserver. He felt he could make do without the former, but he would have to avoid another fall into the water.
Spruce wood burns quickly, and the supply of firewood he had collected before breakfast was close to gone. Jack wandered about the small island, gathering as much downed wood as he could. He found several more birch branches on the ground. Some proved to be rotted—simple bark shells containing only decaying remains of wood. Others promised good firewood. There were also some aspen trees on the island, but none that seemed dead and dry enough to use for firewood. On the far side of the island he found some dry driftwood. In the end, his scavenging yielded a supply of wood probably adequate for the two days he now planned to be on the island.
He was tired. He had done all that he could to secure his clothes and his gear and to bring order to his campsite. He crawled into his tent and stretched out on top of his sleeping bag. He was soon asleep.
— — — —
Following his nap, Jack returned to the beach area and found a rock upon which to sit. Large white cumulus clouds towered overhead in the blue sky. He contemplated his onward travel. He would remain on the island tomorrow to be sure that everything he had was as dry as it could be. Of course, another rainy day would create a problem, but such a day would have to be dealt with if it happened. And there was nothing about the blue sky and northwest breeze that suggested anything but high pressure and lasting good weather. The day after tomorrow he would paddle to the portage separating the southern and northern bodies of Northern Lights Lake. Depending on how he felt and how much time it had taken, he would cross the portage then or the next day. In any case, he would make camp at the portage and spend the night there. If he remembered his now-lost map correctly, it would probably be another day’s travel to cross the northern part of the lake. He would have to find his ongoing route to Saganaga Lake. There would be another portage at some point, he thought, but only one, at least, until he reached Minnesota. He had no idea what he might find when he reached the Minnesota shore of Saganaga Lake or how he would make his way out to a road and back to a town. But I’ll get rid of the canoe at that point, and then figure it out. He decided he would camp again near the start of the waterway westward. Beyond that, he was uncertain. However, he had no timetable, no fixed date upon which he was due in Minnesota. In fact, no fixed location at which to leave canoeing behind, except that he believed he would find a road to Grand Marais along the south shore of Saganaga Lake. He was headed home. It might take more time than he had originally anticipated, but he would make it.
Make it home. And, he thought, home to a much better home. Home to a new mother, or at least a recovered, no-longer-alcoholic mother. That was his hope. Yet he knew that addictions such as his mother’s alcoholism were not easily shed, not easily conquered. He, her son, would have to help her with that. He would have to convince his father that he too would have to join in the effort to keep his wife sober. And spend whatever was needed to get good care for her arthritis.
Jack got up from his reverie and turned his attention back to his campsite and to his clothes. They were now almost all dry, so he folded them and put them back into his pack. He gathered up his paper money and returned it to the pockets of his now-dry pants. His jeans were still damp, however; they would need more drying time. His cooking utensils and such other camp gear as he still had were also dry. He returned them to their place in a Duluth pack. The rubber pad that served as a mattress under his sleeping bag was also dry, and he put it into place in his tent. Perhaps he could move on tomorrow, he thought. But he was in no hurry, and this island was a pleasant resting place. He would enjoy a second day on the island.
Much of the afternoon had passed, Jack realized, looking at the sun in the western sky. Looking out from his perch on a rock beside the island’s beach, he realized that the clouds were now darker than they had been and the northwest wind had strengthened. Another rain shower might be in the offing. However, he was mostly ready to deal with rain. Except for the firewood. In the equipment Duluth pack he found two plastic tarps. He wrapped one around the firewood and the other around the second Duluth pack, which contained his food. And now, looking out across the lake, Jack could see that there was, indeed, another rain storm coming toward him. The fact that he could see this storm coming—as he had seen the one that swamped him the previous day—seemed remarkable to him. Good visibility across a long open stretch, he thought. More to the point, he thought, rain would soon be with him.
Jack hurriedly collected his pack and his not-quite-dry jeans. He toss
ed them into his tent and crawled in after them. He carefully positioned them so that they did not touch the tent walls. Then he stretched out on top of his sleeping bag, reached out to close the tent fly, and waited. He did not wait long. Rain hit, hard. With it, thunder and lightning announced the storm’s arrival. Just like yesterday, Jack thought. However, this afternoon he was sheltered and secure. He was not going to be dumped into the lake. And, just as it had yesterday, the storm passed.
Jack crawled out of his tent and pulled out his pack. Once again, he hung up his jeans. They should be pretty dry by tomorrow, he thought. He had no idea of what time it was, although he supposed it was late afternoon. It was still light; the summer sun stays up well into the evening in the north. He decided to make dinner. Searching in the supplies he had purchased at the outfitter’s store, he found a package of dry chicken noodle casserole. The label said it served two. Jack was confident that he could eat all of it. Once again he built a fire and set a pot of water over it to boil. He poured the dry casserole into the hot water, stirred it, and decided it would suffice for dinner—with a couple of cookies for dessert.
Following his meal and with his eating utensils washed and stowed, Jack returned to his rocky perch by the beach. The sun was now close to the western horizon, and a dramatic sunset was developing. Sitting by the water’s edge on what he had come to think of as his own, his personal island, Jack thought about the past day and a half. He could not have been luckier, he knew. He was not religious; his parents did not attend church, and he had never been to Sunday school. Yet in this setting on this early evening, dry and secure, he felt that his survival must have been more than simple luck.
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