Lost in the Wild

by Cary Griffith

  Each pair has a woods pack containing waterproof matches, medical supplies, food, water, and space blankets—durable foil sheets designed by NASA that retain almost 100 percent of the body’s heat and fold up into two-inch squares. If Jason is out there and in trouble, they have plenty of the right resources to assist. And they carry radios that can bring down a swarm of rescuers on the spot—if need be.

  Last night the weather moderated, and now it is hazy and beginning to warm. The heavy, wet snow starts to melt, growing heavier with each hour and making walking more difficult.

  The Rasmussens stop by in late morning. They meet with Steve Van Kekerix, Jim Williams, Rebecca Francis, Brad Johnson, and some of the other search and rescue folks. Van Kekerix makes the introductions, and they all share their initial progress. The officials encourage the parents and reiterate their full expectations of finding Jason alive. But while they review what they’ve already done, Williams hopes no one calls in from the field to report a body has been found.

  Off to the side, a handful of searchers have returned empty handed from their first forays up nearby trails. Quietly, they are beginning to suspect the worst. More than a day of extensive flyovers have yielded nothing—and in nearly perfect conditions. Why didn’t they at least find Jason’s orange tent, or some other sign in the wide blanket of white?

  They know that in ninety percent of search and rescue cases, the hasty searches done nearest the last whereabouts are successful. The odds are not in Jason’s favor. Six days gone without any clue but a cold, dark, metal heap—still empty in the trailhead parking lot. The searchers hang on the periphery, waiting to convey their empty-handedness and get their next assignment, which they suspect will be more remote.

  Until now, Jason was just another lost person. Now the searchers see Linda and Lee’s anguish. It makes their efforts somehow more tribal—as though seeing the family reminds them of their own, makes them recollect their natural, communal connection. It could be anyone out there. Some day it might be one of their sons or daughters, brothers or sisters.

  Perhaps it is these silent doubts the Rasmussens sense. Their presence impedes the free-wheeling discussion of the search efforts, or any talk of recovery of the body, if it should come to that. Lee and Linda again describe their son’s experience, intelligence, and drive. They convey his preparation, and the types of maps he carried with him—details Williams and Francis already know from their discussions with Van Kekerix. In the end, the Rasmussens know their son is better served by their own retreat to somewhere off site, and they decide to drive south to Two Harbors and find a place to spend the night.

  All day the searchers ply the nearby trails. Two pairs reach the juncture of the circular trail, and head in different directions—hoping, by late afternoon, to meet somewhere on the west side of the trail. But it is a long hike, and not easy in this snow. Before their routes are half done they are forced to turn back, exhausted and discouraged.

  By late afternoon the most remote half of the trail hasn’t been touched. Hiking is not easy—either plowing through the accumulation, or recognizing the trail through the trees—especially in blowdown areas. Jim Williams and Rebecca Francis have been at the command center the entire day, tracking the searchers’ progress, getting periodic radio reports from the field.

  Overhead, Pat Loe and Nick Milkovich have been crisscrossing the sky since first light, but there is nothing to report. No tracks, no signs. Nothing.

  Jason Rasmussen shuffles around his hollowed-out home. If he had an aerial view (and if his orange tent fly weren’t smothered in snow), he would see he was less than half a mile from his camp, and less than six miles from the swarm of people now assembled in the trailhead parking lot, spreading into the woods like trailing ants.

  But he would also see the difficult nature of the terrain. As the crow flies, it is a short distance to safety. But for all the bogs, swamps, beaver ponds, and thick forest brush he would have to cross—providing he could maintain a straight line and knew which direction to turn—it would be impossible to hike it in a single day. And he would get wet. Jason remembers his Wilderness Survival book back in the tent. He was reading the section on hypothermia when he finally noticed the rain had stopped. He had folded the corner of that page and set the book down. The natural sequence: exposure, hypothermia, disorientation, and death. But that was a lifetime ago, he thinks.

  Three times he has heard the drone of an overhead plane. He has been careful to scramble to the nearest brush opening. But the opening is small, and the flights are not directly overhead. He waves. At one point he climbs on top of the six-foot stump beside his hollowed-out home. When the Beaver comes into view—this time nearer than any of its previous flyovers—he waves his arms and shouts. He is a full eight feet closer to the plane, and at least from a sideways vantage eminently more visible.

  But if you saw Jason from the air you would see a man in olive drab, the color of trees and brush, standing atop a stump wide enough to conceal his every gesture. He would have been far better off standing on snow. Nick Milkovich and Pat Loe see nothing.

  In the plane’s wake he whistles and whistles. But there is only the gradual ebbing of the plane’s engines. Any hopefulness he was feeling at the start of the day bleeds out with the passing plane. By the time his narrow opening returns to silence, he begins to realize it may be another day before he is rescued. His disappointment threatens to plummet into something much deeper.

  If he is not found this day, he knows he will have to spend another night in his tree. He recalls the adage: idle hands are the devil’s workshop. He busies himself making more repairs, sealing more holes, covering over more cracks. The effort makes him lightheaded, and later in the day he begins to feel weak. He knows he is starving. He hasn’t had enough water or food—for at least the last three days.

  Finally, by late afternoon, he opens his small tin of tuna. Canned tuna has never smelled so good. The salty sea smell wafts into his forest opening like ambrosia. When he digs it out of the can, it flakes off on his fingers. At first he tastes it carefully. He sucks down every particle before returning to the tin for more. Its saltiness makes his stomach weak. Then he takes one large bite. He tries to chew it meditatively, but cannot help himself. Within five minutes he is licking the can, careful not to cut his tongue on the tin’s sharp edge.

  Now he is thirsty. He cannot believe how much his throat burns for one long drink of water. It is in part the effect of the salty tuna, in part the cumulative effect of one cup of melt water per day. Now he eats snow to slake his thirst. He packs his remaining water bottle with snow. He begins shaking. He suspects it has as much to do with the salt intake and his need for water as the cold. And eating snow hasn’t seemed to help his thirst. Well after dark, he lies inside his tree and continues to tremble and sweat, feverish in its wooden heart.

  On Saturday night, BJ Kohlstedt and her husband John return from a week in New Orleans. Kohlstedt is one of Finland’s key search and rescue personnel. Unlike Jim Will-iams, she is not a native northern Minnesotan, but she is one in spirit.

  When she was a senior at Lakeville High School, down in the Cities, her science teacher took a group of students on a one-week course to the Environmental Learning Center (ELC), just outside of Isabella. For an intensive week Kohlstedt traipsed through subzero temperatures and deep snow, observing white-tailed deer. Her fellow students complained, longing for the warmth of their own beds, the restful sanctuary of their homes. BJ Kohlstedt’s eyes opened to the northern starlight. In the transcendent beauty of winter wilderness she found a calling.

  After graduating from the University of Minnesota-Duluth she managed to find work teaching at the same ELC she visited when in high school. Over the years she added an EMT certification to her credentials. And she has been working on the search and rescue squad out of Finland, not far from home, for the last several years.

  BJ is on
e of the few volunteers who has had extensive training in search management systems. Every year, the second weekend in October, the Emergency Response Institute offers a class—Managing Search Operations—at Vermillion Community College in Ely. This year BJ taught the course. It was another opportunity to augment her expertise on the topic. And it is a great place to meet others in the field. On her last trip she met Carla Leehy and Carla’s friend Sherry Wright. Both were dog handlers, part of Central Lakes Search and Rescue, an organization outside of Bertha, Minnesota, that uses dogs to search for people—dead or alive. For the weekend course she also enlisted the assistance of her old friend Wendy Deane, of Northstar Dogs. Wendy and her dog Cassie demonstrated how trailing dogs work in the field.

  As soon as John and BJ walk in the door, she listens to her messages. Before her bags are unpacked she is on the phone, inquiring about the search status. It is 8:00 PM and IC—Incident Command—conveys the troubling message: the day has yielded nothing.

  “What’s being done tonight?” she asks.

  “As far as I know, nothing.” Dispatch explains that Jim Williams is up on the trail, sleeping in the van in case Rasmussen walks out on his own. But they fear the worst. The whole area is quiet as stone.

  BJ is eager to put her learning to work. In some areas searchers will only go into woods during the day, but BJ knows there is plenty that can be done at night. Not only planning the next day’s searches, but also performing other hasty searches in nearby woods. Some searchers prefer the woods at night, when their lights are prominent, they can see a fire a long way off, and the woods are quiet—sound seems to travel farther in the dark. She also remembers, from her friends with the dogs, that the dogs prefer going out at night. They work better in the dark: scent settles in the night.

  But she has just returned from a trip, and she needs to unpack and get ready for the morning. She tells IC she will be at the trailhead parking lot by first light, ready to lend a hand. She volunteers her husband John to go with her. He doesn’t take much persuading. Then she signs off and hurries her chores, knowing she should get some sleep.

  If Jason altered his expected route, or took a wrong turn, he could have ended up near Isabella Lake, or south along one of the other routes out of old Forest Center. Just after dawn BJ and her husband are hiking through the nearby woods and along Isabella’s shoreline, looking for signs. Rebecca Francis and Jim Williams are back at it, assigning pairs to hit other areas that haven’t been crossed.

  Sunday morning dawns clear and warm—at least warm for this time of year. The relative warmth feels good but intensifies the melt. Hiking through wet snow is like slogging through sand. Williams knows they won’t be able to get to the western side of the trail. He is particularly interested in sending a team up Superstition Spur, since Jason mentioned to his mother he might hike up that trail if he had the time.

  Williams enlists the Forest Service plane to fly two pairs of searchers into Lake Three near the northwestern corner of the trail. Brad Johnson gets in, with Richard DeRosier, a Lake County deputy out of the Silver Bay squad, Ron VanBergen from DNR Fisheries, and USFS Forester Terry Olson. Johnson and Olson will hike due east over the trail, as far as they can, given their time constraints. DeRosier and VanBergen will head south toward the Superstition Spur.

  It is almost noon. In the plane, Deputy Milkovich and pilot Dean Lee explain their strategy. While the searchers hike, they will be taking advantage of the good weather, doing more flyovers of the area, hoping for some kind of break.

  “If you don’t want to spend the night in these woods,” Milkovich warns, “make sure you’re back at the pickup point no later than 4:00.”

  The two teams are clear about it. They have no intention of spending a cold winter night in these woods.

  The trail is almost impossible to follow. But both pairs of searchers are experienced, and they manage to pick their way along the east-west and north-south quadrants. Once DeRosier and VanBergen get out of the blowdown, they make good time south. They radio in every half hour, but there is not much to tell. The open parts of the trail are beautiful. Apart from wet, cold feet, they are enjoying a great day hiking in the woods. Their exertions, combined with the day’s moderating temperatures, actually make them sweat. But they don’t find any tracks, tent, or any other sign Jason has stepped through these woods. And they don’t have enough time to make it up the Superstition Spur.

  Another pair of searchers head in the direction Jason said he would take, moving along the trail counterclockwise. But instead of turning to Pose Lake they keep heading north, taking the Lake Insula portage trail. This is the juncture that first lured Jason off the Pow Wow. Midway to Lake Insula the pair of searchers pass Jason’s camp and fire pit. But it is still blanketed with snow and they find nothing. They keep heading north, exploring the old portage all the way to Lake Insula. Then they turn around and start back, radioing in their coordinates, conveying the absence of any signs.

  Throughout this day Jason, too, has enjoyed the sunshine. His fever broke before dawn. He crawled out of his tree feeling tired and weak, but better. Throughout the day he has witnessed several flyovers, summoning the strength to wave and whistle each time they pass. But he knows they don’t seen him.

  At midday he walks to a nearby clearing. He finds an open log to sit on. It is warm enough in the forest opening to doff his boots. He tries to warm his feet in the sun and dry his boots. He pulls out the liners and replaces them with dry grass and small spruce sprigs, hoping they’ll make better insulation. He still cannot feel his toes. Later in the day he returns to the tree.

  The plane has crossed over him so many times he wonders why they haven’t seen him. For perhaps the first time, he wonders if he will ever be found. He thinks about it abstractly at first, as though it couldn’t possibly be this incident’s conclusion, the expiration of his life. He doesn’t want to be found months, maybe years later—withered in this distant spot—stumbled over by a moose hunter or some other bushwhacking hiker. He thinks he understands death, that he is equal to wherever death will take him. But when he considers the possibility of not being found, waves of love and concern for his family—his sister, his mom and dad—crash over him. He doesn’t want to disappear without at least some final communication to them.

  He has a pen. He forages the woods for some adequate birch bark and begins writing a goodbye letter to his folks and his sister. He considers his words carefully. He is still writing by the time night forces him to suspend his effort and return to his tree.

  He was able to melt about one good cup of water in the sunlight. It was sweet and delicious, but barely enough to keep him going. He has packed his water bottle again and brought it into his hovel. The bottle full of snow is cold comfort through the night.

  Back at the communications van, there is plenty of activity that evening. The searchers have all reported in. There is nothing south of the trail from Lake Three. The east-west team made it all the way to South Wilder, but the trail was untouched. Another team heading west on the northern part of the trail got to South Wilder, so the entire northern stretch of the trail has been searched. Nothing.

  The two remote search teams were picked up by 4:00 PM. There was nothing along their distant stretches of trail: no tracks, no signs anyone had hiked that way since the snowstorm.

  The typical post-search process involves debriefing incident commanders on where search pairs have been and what they’ve seen. The pair who passed over Ahmoo Creek report the same results—nothing. They are wet and tired, ready to head home. It is a sentiment everyone shares. In forty-eight hours the ground-pounders have exhausted the trail and found zilch. Back at the parking lot, a pall settles over the remaining searchers.

  The Rasmussens have returned to the Cities. They believe the search is continuing—they just have to return and let their employers and neighbors know what’s happening. To date, Steve Van Kekerix
has done an excellent job keeping the effort out of the press. The last thing any of them wants is reporters on the scene, bird-dogging their efforts.

  The searchers are unsure about where else they should search. They feel as though they have exhausted all the obvious possibilities, and then pursued the most unlikely. Everyone is wet and tired. Finally, not ready to give up, but too tired to continue, they decide to call off the ground search. For now. At least for now.

  That evening, when Steve Van Kekerix phones the Rasmussens to let them know the ground search has been suspended, he is quick to mention the continuation of the air search.

  “The plane will be back up at first light,” Van Kekerix says. “If Jason is moving,” he repeats, in a phrase the Rasmussens have heard before, “we’ll find him. And the Minnesota Department of Transportation has an Air Wing helicopter that can make overhead scans of large tracts of wilderness for thermal signatures,” Van Kekerix explains. He has scheduled the chopper out of Cloquet. It should be reviewing the entire area overnight. “If Jason is out there,” he repeats, “the Air Wing should pick him up.”

  Back home the Rasmussens return the phone to its receiver. This news is devastating. They understand it, and they are thankful for all that has already been done, but while searchers were still combing the area there was hope. More hope, they know, than if the air search continues alone. And what if the Air Wing chopper finds no heat trace of Jason?

  Now the only thing connecting them to Jason is an infrared thermal device and a Beaver plane with two spotters. They cannot properly absorb this recent shift in events. Since Jason’s absence their sleep has been scant and fitful. Now they turn to their bed in silence, unable to speak, knowing it will be another long night.