Lost in the Wild

by Cary Griffith

  He pulls out the Hiking Minnesota map and studies it. There isn’t a lot of detail. He examines the lakes on the simple depiction. He is looking for something resembling the lake in front of his tent. He stares at the map for a couple of minutes.

  His first night he thinks he camped near Pose Lake. According to the map he should have been close to it. Even though he made more turns than an interstate cloverleaf, he suspects he ended up somewhere in the middle of the circular trail. That is, somewhere inside the twenty-six-mile-long oval that marks the trail’s boundaries.

  He considers the lake in front of him, long and without islands. As he stares at the map he sees an obvious choice, a thin gray strip inside the Pow Wow circumference. Fallen Arch Lake stretches near the eastern end of the oval, its southern end reaching down almost to the bottom of the trail. If he is correct—if the lake in front of him is Fallen Arch—Jason realizes he may be closer than he thinks to getting out of here. If he walks along the western side of the lake and strikes off beyond its southern shores, at some point he will cross the Pow Wow. He examines the map, looks at the key, and uses a brief length of finger to determine the distance from the bottom of the lake to the trail. It looks close, less than a mile from the southern tip.

  He opens the tent flap and looks out over Fallen Arch Lake. Some of its shoreline doesn’t exactly align with what he sees on the map. But the map’s depiction is so simple and without detail, there is no way to be certain. They are both long and narrow, they are both north-south. When he examines the simple map, the only gray swatch that even remotely compares to it is Fallen Arch. It has to be Fallen Arch.

  The rain is still pattering his tent. From inside his pack he extracts the pamphlet he purchased at rei, Suzanne Swedo’s Wilderness Survival: Staying Alive Until Help Arrives. He’s not going anywhere in this rain. He hungers for something to read, and apart from the map and a copy of some of the pages from the Pukite text, this is it.

  He begins at the beginning. The pamphlet is small, and he is a good student. Within an hour he has skimmed the entire booklet.

  It’s a clear, well-reasoned approach to surviving in the wild. The author is emphatic about the three most important requirements of staying alive: shelter, water, and food. She explains their relative importance, given climate and terrain. In the North Woods, Jason realizes, water is abundant. No problem there. But in October in these woods, shelter rises in importance. The human body, he reads, can survive a long time without food, as long as it is well hydrated and reasonably warm. Reading about starvation makes him hungry, and he rummages his pack for another granola bar.

  As Jason reads through the text, he notes he has all three covered. He could live like this for over a week. Longer, truth be told. He reads about some of the forest’s edibles—which don’t really sound that edible. Cattails, conifers, and grasses. The inner bark of some trees. Earthworms and grubs. He is amazed by the forest flora and fauna that can sustain life. The text says very little about flavor, and he doesn’t recall seeing pine bark, cattail roots, or raw larvae on any restaurant menus, but if you need to stay alive there are at least a few wild comestibles offering nourishment.

  When he is finished it is still raining. He reads through the text a second time. Water, shelter, food—in that order. He is well positioned for a long stay in the wilderness, though he knows it will never come to that.

  He peruses the text a third time, absently opening it to chapter six: “Shelter From Cold and Heat.” He reads the first paragraph.

  Should you become involved in a wilderness emergency, you are statistically much more likely to succumb to hypothermia, otherwise known as exposure, than to any other problem. If you can stay warm enough to make it through the first night, you’re probably going to make it to safety or at least survive long enough to be rescued.

  He reads about “the recipe for hypothermia: cold, wetness, and wind.” He considers freezing from a clinical perspective. In the last five years he has learned plenty about the body’s operation. But this discussion of hypothermia from a wilderness-survival perspective is new. When they covered it in medical school, it was brief and cursory. Today, in his tent, the notion has an immediacy difficult to ignore. People in the northern climes, he thinks, are always close to the possibility.

  He dog-ears the page on hypothermia and lays the book down. He leans back to consider the world’s northern climates. He loses himself in contemplation, wondering about it. And then he notices the pattering has stopped. There is only the sound of water forming large drops near his tent’s ridgeline, rolling down its sides.

  Jason returns to his pack and gets into the warm clothes he’ll need to hike through the woods. While he dresses, he decides it will be much easier hiking through dense brush without the encumbrance of his backpack. He recalls yesterday’s struggle through tree branches and fallen boughs.

  His jacket has more than enough pockets, and he has brought along a fanny pack with two water bottle slots. Now he rummages his pack for some of the items he’ll need for his short hike south to find the trail: a couple of small packages of crackers, a can of tuna, two Tootsie Rolls, a package of cocoa, his compass, a Swiss Army knife. He considers the items randomly, trying to figure out the minimum required to hike through the woods for probably less than two miles. All he needs are sufficient supplies to get him south of the lake point and less than a mile into the trees. He should be able to discover the trail’s whereabouts and identify the easiest path to get there. He can focus on finding the southern loop, and on marking the best trail for returning to it when he recovers his supplies.

  He places two water bottles in the slots on either side of his waist pack and picks it up, weighing it. Not bad, he thinks. Much easier getting through these woods without that damn pack, he thinks.

  By noon the skies have been quiet for almost an hour. The world is wet and overcast, cold, but not freezing. Jason laces his boots, puts on his olive drab jacket with the internal hood, fastens his pockets, and zips up the coat. He decides against taking a pair of gloves and a hat. It is above freezing, and he is trying to be careful about packing light. He doesn’t want his jacket bulging and catching on the brush, and he doesn’t want unnecessary weight hampering his progress. Finally, he feels ready. He fastens the fanny pack around his waist and steps out of his tent, bending back to zip up the fly and close the opening.

  He carries his disposable camera out of the tent. He starts down the hillock toward the western edge of the lake. After ten paces he turns and takes another picture of his tent. The rise looks dull, gray, and wet, with a small backdrop of spruce. He knows it would be hard to find by dead reckoning, but he has an entire lake to assist him. When he returns, all he needs to do is find the lake. Find the lake, he reasons, and he can easily recover his tent.

  He turns and in the midday gray descends the granite rise. After being cooped up in the tent through the morning he feels good to be walking. Within five minutes he is in trees so dense—cedar and low-hung black spruce—that he cannot even see his tent or the granite rise behind him. But he is careful to keep the lake on his left.

  Walking this close to water, he finds that parts of the shoreline are heavily bouldered. Fallen branches form an obstacle course. Whenever necessary, Jason climbs over, ducks under, or walks around large toppled trees. His progress is slow, but he is happy to be hiking again, particularly without his pack. Hiking through thick wood with his pack isn’t going to be easy. Periodically he reminds himself to look for the best route. But for the most part he moves down the shoreline toward the end of the lake on automatic pilot, attending to the next ten yards, the part in front of him he can see. He is careful to keep the surface water in sight. As he walks, he ruminates. Wander a tenth of a mile in any direction, and unless you are consciously attending to your thoughts, they can stray far from your immediate trail.

  After half an hour Jason comes to the southern
lake tip. He peers into the woods. The land’s surface makes a gradual rise through the trees. That’s good. He wants to stay on higher elevations, no matter how slight. He does not want to encounter another bog. These woods are thick and shadowy, but as they rise away from the lake they appear to open. It looks easier walking just up ahead, and Jason moves toward the space, plotting his next twenty yards.

  Well into the trees he turns and can no longer see the lakeshore. He pauses long enough to fish his compass out of his waist pack. He takes a reading and notes the direction due south. He looks ahead and finds a landmark—a huge fallen white pine—that is almost exactly due south. Its path lies a few degrees to the west, but not much. Jason makes for the tree, bending, weaving through the brush.

  He was correct about this part of the woods; they are easier to traverse. Here it appears to be old-growth forest with the high tree canopies blocking enough sunlight to minimize the understory growth. He appreciates the change in elevation and more spacious woods. He keeps walking south.

  There appears to be a meandering height of land that jogs south-southeast, then south-southwest. If he stays on it, the walking is much more comfortable. Periodically he pulls the compass out of his pocket and takes a reading. The higher jag of land moves in a minimal slant southwards, and it is easy walking in the midday. The forest growth, with towering red firs and occasional white pines, is haunting and beautiful, like walking through a cathedral.

  But in places understory growth is still plentiful enough that his pant legs remain damp. Hiking beside the lake, pushing through the dense weave near water’s edge, Jason can’t help getting wet. But he is dressed for it and comfortable, and the exercise warms him.

  He keeps moving vaguely south, admiring the forest. After an hour he is well south of the lake, pushing through another high patch of trees. He hasn’t seen anything resembling a trail. Not even a deer trail. Jason wonders if these woods—these woods he is now hiking through—have ever seen the print of man. He tries to imagine what it must have been like to live here, to survive like the indigenous Ojibwe. And while it summons pictures out of books and the cinema—Dances With Wolves occurs to him—he knows that their life of hunting and gathering is well beyond his powers of invention.

  Nothing in his life—his childhood, his years in med school—was anything like what indigenous people had experienced here before whites arrived. And it wasn’t that long ago. One hundred years before, on this very spot, he would have worried about wolves, bears, cougars, and staying alive by whatever he could hunt or hack out of the woods. One hundred years, he reflects, would have been 1901.

  He revises his estimate to two hundred years. Two hundred years would have put the date at 1801, a time of traders and voyageurs. At that time, he thinks, trying to recall his early American frontier history, it would have been the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company. He vaguely remembers reading about it as a kid—how the two fur companies fought over this fecund landscape. Fought over beaver to make hats in England, battled over all the fur-bearing animals to make stylish coats and fur-lined gloves. He smiles to remember how the absurd fashions of the time compelled the exploration of a far-off wilderness, and then the death of so many animals thousands of miles away. He has seen enough MTV and cinema—not to mention sitcoms—to know that changing tastes can dictate some bizarre perspectives, if not lives.

  He looks up through the trees and realizes he has been walking for the last fifteen minutes without much of a sense of his own direction. He pulls out the compass, examines the needles, and sees his current course is more east than west. And he still hasn’t discovered the trail. He has tried to hike where the walking is easiest, staying on higher ground, though in places there wasn’t much difference. He has skirted fallen trees and rocky outcrops, but he hasn’t even come across a game path, let alone a hiking trail.

  He pauses in a cathedral of red and white pine. The walking here is beautiful and relatively open. He could keep moving in a southerly direction—at least for the next fifty yards. Beyond that distance it is difficult to see anything. He reasons that if he hasn’t yet discovered the path, maybe he hasn’t moved far enough south. He would have guessed his hiking this long would take him at least a mile, but it is hard to determine in the woods. And truth is, he hadn’t paid that much attention to the exact time of his departure. He looks down at his wristwatch. It’s 1:30.The sky is gray, but there is still plenty of light. He has at least another four or five hours of daylight, and he’s still hoping he will discover the trail.

  Until now Jason has felt confident about his plan. He’d found the lake on the map and could see the trail just beyond it. Hiking down to the trail was the obvious choice, but he wonders where it is. He may have crossed it, but if so, it is virtually invisible. Now he wonders. He recollects the map, but cannot remember any of the other lakes in the area even partially resembling the lake in front of his tent. It has to be Fallen Arch, which would place him very near the bottom section of trail.

  He wonders if he has truly moved in a southerly direction. He takes out the compass and balances it to take another reading. If he continues, he will be moving south-southeast. He wonders if he should try veering west. He looks in that direction, and the forest makes a gentle descent for the next fifty yards. He can’t see anything except tree trunks. But the hiking appears to be as easy as it is here.

  Maybe if he moves in a westerly direction he will encounter the trail. Maybe he just hasn’t gone far enough. And so he decides. He moves in a south-southwest direction. He picks his way carefully through the woods. He wanders as he walks, skirting fallen trees and wet brush. Occasionally he takes a compass reading, but not often. Barring yesterday’s anomaly, Jason believes he has a pretty good sense of direction, of dead reckoning, even in woods as dense as these.

  He hikes for another half hour, but does not find the path. He decides to try something radical, and hikes due east. Perhaps part of the trail moves in a north-south direction. He tries to remember and thinks the southern end of the trail had plenty of wobble. He guesses it would likely traverse high ground, rather than wet low patches. He stays on the high ground, moving for another fifteen minutes before finally stopping.

  When he finally realizes he is not going to find the trail, it is another difficult moment. He cannot believe it. He remembers the map, the way Fallen Arch was so close to the trail. Can the DNR have been that obtuse about marking the Pow Wow Trail? He recalls reading something about signs being prohibited in the BWCAW, something about pure wilderness. But Christ, he thinks, what if the trail’s not marked at all? He thought it would have been traveled enough to at the very least be a visible path. Much of the trail he started on was clear, and wide enough for an ATV. Where is the blasted trail now?

  He looks at his watch: 2:30. He guesses he has been walking for at least two hours. Although he has been walking back and forth, he figures if he hikes due north he can make camp in less than an hour. His journey south, east, and west has been so halting and hacked up, he knows if he is determined he can make it back to the lake and then his camp in less than an hour. And he is starting to get hungry. He reaches down and pulls one of his water bottles out of his waist pack. A long draught quenches his thirst. He feels for one of the Tootsie Rolls, unwraps it, pops it into his mouth, savors it. He chews slowly, takes another drink, swishing the water to fill his mouth with the dark, chocolaty flavor.

  That was good, he thinks. He reaches in for the other roll, eats it with the same relish, knowing he can replenish his supply when he returns to camp.

  The water and the Tootsie Rolls temporarily sate his appetite, at least enough to hold him until he gets back to his tent. He hasn’t decided what he’s going to prepare for supper, but he still has enough hunger to spend a few moments contemplating the possibilities. Another stroganoff? This time maybe his turkey teriyaki? Whoa, he thinks. I’ve got to get back.

  He fishes
out his compass, takes another reading, and strikes off through the trees.

  After hiking north for more than an hour Jason looks at his watch, looks at the woods in front of him, at the climb of bush and trees spreading away from him. It all appears new, as though it is totally virgin territory.

  He fishes out the compass, takes another reading. Yes, he is hiking north. He scours the landscape for a familiar tree, outcropping of rocks, tracks through the leaves. There is nothing.

  He keeps walking, and after what he presumes is at least another half-hour he feels something stronger than worry. A first clear wave of panic flows over him. He had been worried when he stopped and took another bearing. Now, not only is he not finding his camp, but the lake itself seems to have disappeared. How could he have lost a lake?

  There is still plenty of light, he reasons, trying to calm himself. There is still time. He doesn’t want to contemplate alternatives. He puts aside other possibilities and keeps walking.

  After another hour he can no longer deny he is lost. He can no longer keep walking and expect to encounter the lake, or his gear. But it has to be around here! He hasn’t wandered that far. By Jason’s recollection it has been a brief two hours, maybe two and a half. And for more than half that time he was heading north, closer to his camp. At least he was supposed to be returning.

  But where is the lake? Where is Fallen Arch and the beautiful escarpment with the orange tent perched atop it? Where is he? He doesn’t want to think about consequences, but as the light continues bleeding from the afternoon sky—already an opaque gray—another wave of panic washes over him. This one threatens to engulf him.

  He keeps walking. He pushes through brush and trees for another half-hour. Another wave of panic threatens him, rises inside and crashes along some inner shore, leaving him desolate and mute. And then he sees the opening ahead in the trees.