Lost in the Wild

by Cary Griffith

  These remote crossings are tough, Stephens thinks. Doug Hirdler from the Sommers Canoe Base had told him the next one—from no-name lake into Bell—was well concealed and might take some time to find. Now Dan squints across the azure sparkle, trying to discern its whereabouts.

  The Scouts blow and wave away the bugs. The pests are thick and persistent, and the paddlers are anxious to get onto the water and be rid of them. Aside from the bugs, it is practically paradise. The lake ripples under a light breeze. Occasional pillows of high cumulus clouds float like gauzy cotton across an azure dome. The wide, diamond-shaped waterway stretches out in front of them, bordered by cedars and pines that grow in thick profusion to the lake’s edge. In a few places there are tiny gaps in the green where giant slabs of igneous rock drop into aquiline. It is typical terrain for this part of the Quetico, haunting and resplendent, where everything but the water has a sharp edge.

  At twenty-two, Dan Stephens is spending his summer up from Athens, Georgia, as a group leader for the Charles L. Sommers Canoe Base/Northern Tier High Adventure Scout Camp near Ely, Minnesota. It is not Stephens’s first time guiding. Six foot two, 165 pounds, he is lean and tall, with a serious, quiet look that conveys intelligence, a core of inner strength, and an abiding love for wild places. His long, unkempt hair hangs over his collar. His chin sports a ragged length of beard that makes him look more Amish than Eagle Scout. He wears a black T-shirt under his blue and black PFD vest. The high-tech personal flotation device is a constant requirement for the group—one of Dan’s few absolute rules. He wears green khaki nylon hiking shorts and lightweight shoes. He doesn’t have the look of an Eagle from Athens, but he is one.

  This group of eight from Chattanooga have appreciated both his expertise and his Georgia drawl. When they arrived in northern Minnesota, none of them expected to find a southern boy in the Canadian woods. Instead of a Yankee, their guide has a disarming southern smile and more skill with a paddle than any of them have ever seen. He can canoe all day, find and set up camp, catch, clean, and cook some of the best-tasting fish they have ever eaten, and he’s a leader. His abilities, appearance, quiet demeanor, and habit of journaling toward the end of the day haven’t gone unnoticed. There is admiration in the young Scouts’ eyes. They appreciate their Georgian guide and depend on him more than they realize.

  But the morning of portaging and paddling has tired his crew and he can tell they’re getting edgy. Before reaching Fran they had crossed a shallow lake that in places was only six inches deep. Dan and his group leaders—Jerry Wills and Tim Jones, the only two fathers—had to get out and slog their canoes through moose muck. The fathers didn’t say it, but Dan could see the pull had wearied them.

  Since leaving Sommers Canoe Base on Sunday he had pushed them. The group’s entry permit into Canada was for Tuesday, August 4. They had to be at the Cache Bay Ranger Station their third day out, so they had paddled seventeen miles the first day, crossing Moose, Sucker, Birch, and Carp lakes, and then camped that first night on Robbins Island in Knife Lake. The next day they paddled fifteen miles along the international border, up the thick length of Knife, entering Ottertrack at the Little Knife portage and leaving it at the Monument Portage, where the group took photos of the marker at the U.S.–Canadian border. That evening they camped on a small peninsula at the southwestern end of Saganaga. The next morning they paddled twelve miles up the southwestern end of Saganaga and into huge Cache Bay, finally making the ranger station in the early afternoon.

  They were thankful for reaching the station with plenty of day still before them. They enjoyed visiting the outpost, where the Scouts could buy souvenirs and where Doug and Janice Matichuk, the husband-and-wife ranger team, were friendly and informative.

  Dan shared their route with the rangers as the two fathers listened in. Janice said it was a beautiful string of lakes. But she warned them about sticking to the portages, some of which were well concealed.

  “A few weeks back a kayaker couldn’t find a trail and decided to bushwhack it,” she said. “Disappeared.”

  She waited for the words to penetrate.

  “The others came back and got us. We went out and found him, but it reminded me how thick these woods can be, particularly this year with so much rain.”

  From the looks of the sky northwest of the station there was more rain coming their way. Their next stop was Silver Falls portage, over a mile across open water in Cache Bay. Dan didn’t want to get caught in the open, and it was going to be a rough paddle across the bay.

  They said their goodbyes and started out over the lake. The wind came up ahead of the storm, and their narrow crafts struggled across the whitecaps. If they didn’t paddle, the blow pushed them backwards or whipped their canoes sideways and threatened to capsize them. They dug in hard against the wind, with no alternative but to muscle their way across, their limbs burning from the effort. Thankfully, the heavy rains passed north of them, showering the portage but leaving them dry.

  The Silver Falls portage was a breath-stealing 130 rods from Saganaga Lake to Saganagons. It was never an easy portage, and now it was muddy. At its start they had to scale some large slippery boulders. Then there were plenty of ups and downs, ferrying packs, gear, and the canoes down the muddy trail. The cataract thundered beside them. The trail was difficult and long, all of it picturesque, but none of it a cakewalk. By the time they reached its end they had descended over 500 vertical feet from the trail’s start back on Saganaga.

  The fathers more than carried their load. But at five feet, six inches, and 210 pounds, Jerry Wills was struggling. The barrel-chested Tim Jones, six feet, four inches, was more than equal to the task, though he, too, slipped and slid for much of the descent, balancing a canoe over his head, his heart pumping and his lungs working hard. The kids—seventeen-year-olds Shawn Jones (Tim’s son), Matthew Thomson, and Jake Span, eighteen-year-old Justin White, and the younger Jesse Cates and David Shellabarger—pitched in as if they were born to the task.

  Stephens considers it his best group this summer. But no doubt about it, the Cache Bay crossing and Silver Falls portage had taken a lot out of them. After pushing hard for three days, they were ready for a break.

  At the bottom of the falls, Jerry Wills rested near the entrance to Saganagons Lake, entirely spent. He lay down near the outlook, appreciating the open vista, thankful for the momentary respite. He was glad to have that portage behind him and glad to know they wouldn’t be returning this way. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he could scale back over those rocks—even without equipment.

  Jerry spent the vast majority of his days settled in a desk job at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories. Before the trip, he had mild indications that he might have been in better shape. Now the rigorous paddling and exhausting hauls were taking their toll.

  In a little less than a week he would return home and complain to his wife about chest pains and tiredness. He would finally acquiesce to a doctor’s visit. A week after that he would undergo emergency open-heart surgery. But today, he lay down and rested, thankful for a chance to doze.

  Dan took the kids to the bottom of the waterfall, and they waded into the torrent. They gripped each others’ hands for support while Tim Jones held a rope ready on the nearby shore, should anyone be swept away. The kids loved feeling the power of the white water. The rush and foam was like an ablution, for the moment washing away their fatigue.

  From the side of the falls, Tim Jones worried. He had noted that Dan was pushing them incredibly hard, but this was the first time he had thought Dan was unnecessarily risking the safety of their kids. Watching the boys wade through the foaming spray, he saw plenty of potential pitfalls. The water was riled and unclear. The boys staggered through the torrent across underwater rocks. It didn’t take much imagination to see how one of them might be swept away by the current.

  Tim Jones remembered the collective prayer they had
shared with parents and friends before their Chattanooga departure. They had gathered together and asked the Lord to guide them and watch over them on their long journey north and into the woods. Now the recollected prayer beside the Quetico cataract calmed him, though he still held vigil with his rope.

  Once they were back in the canoes and onto Saga-nagons, everyone eased up and reveled in the amazing scenery. They had found the most beautiful campsite they’d yet encountered, and after they set up camp, Dan let the kids do some fishing. For this part of the trip, they were luckless. But they were fortunate in scenery, location, and their perspective on the western sky. The sunset that evening had been a florid red wonder.

  When they got up this morning, Dan knew he was going to drive them hard across Saganogons, Slate, Fran, and an unnamed lake. Then they would ease up at Bell Lake, set up camp, and relax for the rest of the day. He could tell they were ready for some serious R&R. It was going to be another perfect day in the Quetico woods.

  Somewhere near the southeastern end of this lake lies their next portage, a twenty-one-rod distance into Bell. They have crossed enough portages to know by sweat and effort the length of a rod—16.5 feet, or about one canoe length. From what Doug Hirdler told them, the portage is flat. That would make this a reasonable, short carry, once they find it.

  This is Stephens’s first time paddling the Man Chain of lakes. Over ten miles north of the border, deep into the heart of the Quetico, it is not a well-traveled place. He has been warned about this particular portage.

  “It’s near the southeast side of the lake,” Hirdler told him. “There’s some downed trees and a dead one with a big fork. Look for those. And then you have to take a very middle waterway kind of route,” Hirdler explained, in language only a guide could follow. “If you go right through the middle you can find it. It’s the kind of portage we’ve waded through, tying a rope on and bringing the canoes across shallow connecting water.” Stephens knows some of these trails are often little more than overgrown foot paths, but he’s developed a method for locating concealed portages, and he has a knack for orienteering in woods.

  It is their fourth day out. From the start it seemed as though they were old friends—close enough, at least, to allow young David in the middle of Stephens’s canoe to lead them across no-name lake to the portage into Bell.

  Dan calls to the young Scout. “Hey, David, want to guide us?”

  “Sure,” Dave agrees, excited by the prospect.

  Dan tosses up his compass and the yellow-and-blue Fisher map. He likes to give his Scouts a chance to guide. It builds orienteering skills. And all summer his groups have been constant in their requests to have Stephens show them their map coordinates, where they’ve been and where they are going. It is a persistence that wearies him.

  All of his groups have a maniacal hunger for map reading, as though the small outline of lakes, swamps, rivers, portages, and topographic lines with numbers might somehow explain wilderness, or articulate their experience of wild places. If he can teach David to identify their coordinates, maybe the young man can answer the questions about where they are and where they’re headed. Besides, Dan is hungry and wants to get down to the end of the lake. Giving up the map and compass frees his hands for paddling. Once they cross over the portage into Bell it will be time for lunch.

  Dan looks around. The other two canoes are twenty yards behind but gliding up fast. He turns to his own canoe and sees Tim Jones in the bow, ready with his paddle. David sits in the middle, perusing the map. He leans toward them and whispers, “Get your bearings and we’ll race ’em.”

  “Yeah,” they respond, eager for the contest.

  “Just a second,” David adds, returning to the map. The young Scout hesitates, then points the way to where the end of the lake narrows in the distance. “See that point down there?” David says, squinting across the blue water, looking down to take another reading from the map. The others have paddled up beside them. “That’s where we’re headed.”

  Dan turns and considers the other canoes. In one, he watches Shawn Jones, Matt Thompson, and Jake Span paddling up beside them. In the other, he sees Justin White, Jerry Wills, and Jess Cates coming up behind. The struggling Jerry is not a strong paddler. The canoe full of seventeen-year-olds will be the competition. But with Tim’s whitewater experience and his own strong paddle they should be more than equal to the task.

  “Okay,” Dan says, grinning. He waits until his point man has paddle in hand. Then he lunges with his own flat blade, surges forward, and declares, “Last one there has to fix lunch!”

  Suddenly all three canoes are leaping toward the distant shore.

  It’s not much of a contest. The leader’s canoe prevails. The three seventeen-year-olds aren’t far behind. Jerry Wills rests in the middle of the third canoe, making slow progress across the water. They lag more than a football field behind.

  As the far side comes into view Dan is sure he sees the portage opening, a path of rocks so clear and level they look like cobblestones. He doesn’t see the dead tree fork Hirdler described, but woods change. It could have toppled.

  This far into the Quetico, finding an infrequently traveled portage on your first try is more luck than skill. They’re often marked by nothing more than foot-wide openings in brush or trees or a few extra rocks running into water. On occasion, apparent openings turn into moose trails that dissipate into wilderness after twenty yards. And this year, with the plentiful rain, the lakes, ponds, and rivers have all risen, further obscuring the portages.

  Dan feels lucky today. The path looks clear, and he can already taste the gorp (a trail mix of nuts, chocolate chips, and dried fruit), Kool-Aid, bannock bread with peanut butter, and granola bar. He tells his two canoe mates to unload their gear and get ready to portage.

  As soon as they land, the bugs start in. Near the water, out in the open, the slight breeze makes it tolerable, but once on the trail it will be difficult to breathe without inhaling the dark pests. The Scouts have already smeared on Deet. Dan Stephens doesn’t use bug goop. In his summer of guiding he’s learned about the sweet smell of new groups. It takes a while for shampoo and soap to wear off hair and skin, and until it does his new recruits are beacons for the bugs. If he stays upwind, he won’t be bothered.

  He hikes twenty yards up the path and it disappears. “Damn,” he mutters. “Another moose trail.”

  He returns and with a group sigh they reload their canoe. Dan glances up the shoreline and sees what appears to be the portage opening at the edge of a cedar swamp. They cross the distance, beach their canoe, and again unload.

  The seventeen-year-olds have beached their canoe near Dan’s and are unloading. Jerry Wills is approaching. Dan hoists his canoe over his head and starts in. Tim Jones gathers their packs and falls in behind Stephens. David carries the paddles, poles, map, and compass.

  This time they get a little farther, but thirty yards in, the trail starts to fade.

  “I can’t believe it,” Stephens says, incredulous. He looks around and sees a nearby cedar with low-hung boughs. In one swift move he slides the aluminum craft up onto eight-foot-high branches. He is happy to be out from under the load. The canoe hangs there, held up by graceful green arms.

  Tim looks ahead and sees Dan parking his canoe, realizes it is another dead end, and turns to tell the others not to unload or follow them up the trail. He retraces the thirty yards to shore. Jerry Wills and his companions are still in their canoe.

  “Looks like another moose trail,” Jones explains.

  The others shrug, knowing the real portage must be nearby. Jerry Wills unfolds his map and takes a closer look.

  Back in the woods Dan turns to David and asks, “What’s the map say?” In part it is a rhetorical question. Dan Stephens has stared at Fisher Map F-19 for the last two days. He can close his eyes and read its title—Saganaga, Seagull Lakes—and
its accompanying key and assorted lake locations with enough clarity to trace it in sand.

  One thing he has always found disappointing is the way the map’s landscape relief ends at the Canadian border. North of that line there are no indications of swampland, topography, lake depths, or elevations. Just yellow and blue swatches depicting land, lakes, and rivers. Enough, he has long realized, to easily guide him in a canoe, but insufficient to give him an idea of the country they’re about to enter until they cross into it.

  “The map shows it’s right around here,” David finally answers.

  “I’m gonna do a cloverleaf,” Dan says. “See if I can find it.”

  The young Scout nods. “Okay,” he says. David turns and starts back to the shoreline. They are familiar with their guide’s method for finding obscure portage routes, though none of them have ever followed him into the woods.

  Still sitting in the canoe, Jerry Wills reviews his map. But when he sees the young Scout walk out and tell them Dan is searching for the trail, he rebukes their young guide, at least to himself. Bushwhacking, he thinks, displeased with Dan’s decision to strike off and look for their trail through woods as dense as these. He has watched Stephens disappear before, and never worried about it until Janice Matichuk’s comments back at the Cache Bay station.

  “It’s easy to get disoriented in this bush,” he remembers hearing the ranger say. “Make sure you stick to the trails.”

  Well inside the woods, Stephens peers at his watch. He has practically perfected the cloverleaf method for finding wayward portages. He walks straight into the woods for one minute. He glances at his watch several times, shifting through the shadowy trees. Overhead branches block the sky. The heavy network of thick tree roots forms an obstacle course. A half-minute into his hike he squints down at his watch and trips, wrenching an ankle. “Damn.”