Lost in the Wild

by Cary Griffith

  By noon he climbs to the top of his next rise—a very high ridge—and looks south. There, at the base of the slope, lies a lake that appears to feed into a longer lake. He smiles, believing the longer lake must be Ottertrack. If he is right, there should be a portage trail from this lake into Ottertrack. That means an open place where he might encounter canoeists. He is exhausted, but pleased. He has made better time than he expected.

  He spends the next hour hiking down the steep slope through the woods. He comes down to the water’s edge, happy to be here, pleased to have hiked under his own power through such difficult terrain, and found his own way out. The bank is open and warm. He drinks heavily of the lake. He sits back, thinking again of food.

  He has avoided crayfish and snails. At times he has thought about them, and all the other possible edible things. Under his shadow the small crustaceans scurry for cover. He has avoided raw meat, particularly something that lives in fresh water, because he is afraid of bacteria, or parasitic giardia. A parasite could slow his process considerably, weaken him with dangerous fits of diarrhea or vomiting. But now hunger drives him to sit on the bank and await the return of the crayfish.

  He looks up. His grazed eye is bleary. It weeps, and he frequently closes it, relying on his other eye to see the trail. Now he looks out over the lake’s placid blue surface and is startled by a silver flash.

  He looks down, starting to feel weak. He waits. He continues looking down for a full minute before rising to squint again across the water. The streak has moved. The goddamn silver object has moved. But it is still there, across the water in plain sight.

  “Hey,” he finally yells. His voice cracks. He has not spoken in almost twenty-four hours, and his larynx squeaks like a rusted hinge. “Hey,” he clears his throat. He calls again. But there is no answer. Dan Stephens sits down, wondering if he is mistaken, if his longing to see a canoe has prompted his imagination to conjure one.

  But the day is beautiful. There is a light breeze across the water. The sky is open, a deep azure. He sits quietly and listens. He believes he sees two people in the canoe. He can barely hear them talk. He doesn’t understand what they’re saying, but he hears words, and the jangling their lures make when they cast.

  “Hey,” he yells again. “I’m lost! I need help! Do you have any food? Where’s your camp?”

  Amazingly, the canoe remains stationary, quiet, as though they haven’t seen or heard him. Except for occasional words and the flinging of their lures, the canoeists remain still. He knows they are near enough to hear him. He calls for several more minutes before one of them finally turns and asks, “How do we know you won’t rob us?” in a thick New Jersey accent.

  Stephens is so happy to hear another voice he is stunned by the question. He starts laughing. “We’re twenty miles from nowhere. What am I going to steal, your hat and fishing pole?”

  “Maybe,” the word comes back, petulant, young, and nervous.

  The canoe glides close enough for Stephens to discern the Sommers Canoe Base insignia. They’re Scouts out of his own camp!

  “I’m a leader out of the Sommers Canoe Base,” he explains. “I’ve been lost three days.” He tells them everything. The brief outline of his odyssey tumbles out of his mouth. When they refuse to come closer, he recites the Boy Scout creed. He explains the different levels of scouting and what it takes to advance.

  “Why don’t you swim out to us?” one of the boys finally asks.

  Until now Dan has been more than patient. In his summer of guiding he has met young Scouts from all over the country. Most of them he has appreciated. A very few have been spoiled, morose, mean-spirited, or obviously forced to come on an adventure they didn’t appreciate. For these young Scouts he has felt empathy, then the need to administer discipline. He has mastered the authority voice—the one to use when dealing with kids who buck the system, or his leadership. From the sounds of it these kids are from Jersey, maybe the inner city. But today he doesn’t have time or patience to coax them. His temper is razor-thin, and that kind of empathy is a luxury of the well-fed.

  In the midday light, Stephens’s eyes narrow. “Get in here and pick me up,” he says, in a voice with unmistakable steel in it, a resolve not to be ignored. “Now,” he adds, in a way that leaves no doubt about his meaning.

  The voice works. There is movement across the water. The two Jersey Scouts turn and call to another canoe Stephens hasn’t seen. The other canoe rounds a point and together they both paddle in for a closer look. When they are close enough to see Stephens’s condition—long hair gnarled and matted, straggly beard growth, torn and filthy shorts and shirt, legs badly abraded—they can see the truth and paddle in to get him.

  Dan Stephens is stunned by his good fortune. He quickly forgives the boys’ truculence, happy to be talking again, particularly to people. Questions tumble out of him, inane and unabated.

  “How’s the fishing?”

  “How long have you been out?”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “When are you going back?”

  They answer his questions, incredulous at what they’ve found. Stephens climbs into the second canoe. Skinny as a tall pine trunk, with legs that look as though their outer layer has been stripped, the Eagle Scout jabbers on. He is happy to be talking again. He is pleased to be back in a canoe, traveling easy. He doesn’t notice the way they look at him, as though he’s alien. They cannot quite believe his story, but the legs don’t lie. They are as raw as a third-degree burn, and they glisten in the midday light with a moist layer of fresh blood.

  The paddlers dig in and ferry Stephens to their camp, which lies around a far point, nestled below a stand of cathedral pines. To the right of the pines a brook rushes over boulders into the lake.

  Once in camp the others who were sitting around the fire ring, or casting for fish from the shore, crowd around Stephens. He repeats his story, takes his turn to answer questions. Cameras come out, and the kids and adults start snapping photos. Suddenly he’s a rock star. A ravenous rock star.

  One of the adults is a Jersey cop. Shortly after Stephens is out of the canoe, the policeman is on the radio with the Sommers Canoe Base. From the base the call relays up to the OPP. The OPP radios the ERT and within minutes Scott Moore, who is piloting the helicopter on yet another swing south, hears that Stephens has been found.

  The pilot takes down the coordinates, and Scott Moore knows the place. Little Knife Lake, adjoining Ottertrack and Knife Lakes, on the Canadian side not too far northeast of Prairie Portage. The helicopter angles west-southwest in the midday sun. Scott Moore is anxious to see if it is their man.

  Within fifteen minutes Moore is hovering over the campsite. He and the pilot can see canoes on the shore and bits of camp under the trees. There is no clear place to land. The only open place near the camp is at the stream’s mouth, where the water rushes into the lake. Fifty yards to the right of camp a large boulder sits at the edge of the stream. Moore points toward the boulder. The pilot nods and angles the bird in.

  “I think I can touch down one of her legs on that boulder,” he yells, pointing at the rock.

  Moore nods. “Take her in and I’ll go fetch him.”

  They’ve already talked with the group by relayed radio. They know Stephens is ambulatory. He has wolfed down several granola bars and a sandwich, warding off the early stages of starvation, and has painfully sore feet and legs, but they’re pretty certain he can make it into the chopper under his own power.

  Dan Stephens on his way to the OPP helicopter, soon after being found by a group of Scouts from New Jersey, being assisted by unidentified New Jersey policeman (courtesy Constable Scott Moore, OPP-ERT)

  Back in Fayetteville, Jim and Mary Ann Stephens are hanging, awaiting word. It has been a difficult three days. Their old house in Monroe, and the new one in Fayetteville, have operated as centra
l communications centers, keeping their network of family and friends apprised of any new developments—though there have been few.

  Dan’s parents have wondered how people get through an ordeal like this without the fellowship of a church and a powerful faith. The last three days have been absorbed by the move, the closing on the Monroe home (the only time they have been away), a blur of phone calls, and more prayer, more entreaties for divine intervention than either of them can ever remember making. At 3:30 PM the phone rings.

  “We’ve got him,” Doug Hirdler says. “And he’s fine. I guess he’s a little scraped up, but otherwise okay.”

  Jim’s eyes fill with sudden tears. Mary Ann’s throat closes with the rush of emotion. Both of them are mute while Hirdler gives them more details, though there aren’t many. When they are able to speak, they pepper him with questions, especially, “Can we talk to him?” Hirdler explains that he hasn’t actually spoken with their son; Dan is still in the woods. But they should hear from him soon.

  Ten minutes later Sergeant Heather Lacey is on the phone to Jim and Mary Ann, confirming Hirdler’s phone message. “We’ve found him and he’s okay,” she blurts. She explains that none of the searchers has yet seen Dan, but who else would walk out of the woods on the edge of wilderness, scratched up and starving, and claim to be Dan?

  Lacey has never met Jim or Mary Ann, but over the last forty-eight hours she has grown familiar with the parents’ worry. She is happy to finally have something that offers them solace. Over the wires from Georgia, the tired, ecstatic silence is followed by more weeping and questions.

  At the Sommers Canoe Base the Chattanooga Scouts have been bored and shunned—at least by some of the other scouting troops. The word of their predicament spread the day the Scouts returned. Some of the Sommers groups have been critical of their decision to leave their guide. The boys sense occasional blame by those who have no idea how the incident unfolded.

  Tired of the glances and unspoken accusations, they have come into Ely to kill time and visit outfitters. Ely has a four- or five-block main street where outfitters, stores, and restaurants compete for the tourist trade. Cathy Antle, in to pick up supplies on her day off, runs into the Scouts on Main Street.

  She tells them there is no word of Dan, that the OPP is still searching. Then she watches them turn in to one of the town’s biggest outfitters, where the Chattanooga group loses itself perusing top-of-the-line equipment. Some of the best canoes and gear in the world hang from ceilings and shelves, and these Scouts ogle the assemblage.

  Back at her truck Cathy Antle has to check in with the station. Carrie Frechette gives her the excited word on Dan’s appearance. Cathy rushes back to the store.

  The troop of eight are still mulling over equipment. She sees Tim Jones and blurts, “They’ve found Dan! He’s fine!” The others gather around the ranger, doubting they heard right. “He walked out on his own and was picked up by the OPP less than an hour ago. Dan Stephens is safe!”

  People walking along Main Street hear the scream go up. A block away, heads turn toward the collective yell. Cathy hugs Tim Jones and he holds on. Tears well in Jerry Wills’s eyes. Dan Stephens is alive. He is safe. For the first time in three long days Tim Jones, Jerry Wills and the teenagers feel a full measure of relief.

  With minimal assistance Dan manages the brief hike to the helicopter. Scott Moore helps him through the door. Flying over the wilderness through which he struggled for the last three days—using the sun, stars, and his own dead reckoning—he is stunned at the speed with which they close the distance from the border to Atikokan. At the hospital he has his first opportunity to see a doctor and get cleaned up. Not long after his examination and shower, he gets a dose of penicillin.

  Dan is exhausted, but restless. He needs to call Fayetteville.

  At around 5:30 PM the Stephens’s phone rings. Jim picks it up and hears, “Dad, it’s Dan.” Again, Jim is speechless, struck mute by the familiar sound of his son’s voice.

  Dan spends the next several minutes describing his ordeal. There is too much to tell, but he can sense his parents’ relief. He tells them he is sure he’ll be home soon. Given the condition of his legs, he doesn’t expect to be finishing out his term as a guide. After the call he feels elated, like an athlete who has just given an amazing performance. He is jocular in the hospital room—but still polite and respectful, in the manner in which he was raised. When Constable Jim McGill comes through his door, Dan Stephens is ready to tell his story.

  21

  The Tent

  Northeast of the Pow Wow Trail, BWCAW, Tuesday, October 30, 2001

  By 8:40 am, Nick Milkovich and pilot Dean Lee are focusing their air search on a large triangle of woods marked by Isabella Lake in the north-northeast, Ferne Lake in the east, and Pose Lake in the northwest. Although the previous evening turned cold, freezing some of the water along the shorelines, the weather is again moderating.

  Sometime in the early morning the thermometer rises above freezing. In the last five days of freeze and thaw, the heavy snow blanket covering the area has gradually thinned. The warmth finally has its way with the thick white cover over Jason’s tent. With little fanfare and the sound of a broom brushing nylon, the snow slides to either side of the orange fly. Now the tent sits atop the moss covered hump like a preternatural beacon.

  At 9:20, barely into their customary routine, Milkovich and Lee spot something on a clear rise west of Arrow Lake. They have flown over the spot more than twenty times and seen nothing but a big hill covered in white with a long beaver pond south of it, and a swampy bog to the north. Now they see what appears to be an orange tent! They are dumbfounded.

  “I think we found a tent,” Nick stammers across the radio to IC. “But I know it wasn’t there yesterday.”

  Back at IC they ask for a repeat, wanting to be sure they’ve heard him correctly.

  “A tent,” Milkovich repeats. “We are pretty sure we found a tent. Only thing is, I know it wasn’t there yesterday.”

  At IC, BJ and Pete Smerud talk it over with Rebecca Francis, Ken Anderson, and Sherry Wright. Did they send any searchers into that area to spend the night? Would any of them set up camp on their own? Could any winter campers have slipped down the trail without their knowing?

  Not a chance, they reason. For the last five days there has been perpetual occupation of the parking lot. There is no way seasonal backpackers could have gotten around them unnoticed. And there is virtually no other way into that region. It doesn’t make sense.

  “It’s an orange tent?” BJ radios for clarification.

  “An orange tent!” Milkovich repeats. He’s excited by the find. The plane is turning circles over the spot. Others on the radio frequency, out in the field, have picked up on the discovery. The airwave chatter is starting to increase. Questions start flying.

  “Only thing is,” Milkovich manages to get out through the din, “there is no way to get there from the trail!” He sounds incredulous.

  It doesn’t make sense. BJ radios back for more clarification. “There is an orange tent,” she repeats. “It is on a rise west of Arrow Lake, but there is no way in or out?”

  “Affirmative,” Nick rockets back. “Not that I can see. Bogs and swamp between it and the trail—which appears to be a good two miles to the west.”

  The plane circles over the spot to determine the GPS coordinates and looks for more signs.

  Before Milkovich and Lee started their triangular air search, Conservation Officers Kipp Duncan and Marty Stage decided to take the ATVs up the trail, just to have another look around. IC gave them the okay, and by 8:30 am they were throttling north, sliding and splashing through the muddy terrain. They’ve come up to the circular juncture and turned counterclockwise. At the point where the new Pow Wow Trail makes a ninety-degree turn to the left, they keep heading straight on the Old Pow Wow Tr
ail.

  They hear the plane making tight circles in the sky, and they know something’s up. By the time their radio picks up Milkovich’s chatter, they are much closer to the plane than to IC. They hear Milkovich clarify the tent’s position. Then they check it on their own GPS devices, which is when they realize they are within a mile of the location.

  From this particular point, radio transmission back to IC is static-ridden and garbled. They can hear Milkovich, but he cannot hear them.

  “We are heading in to take a look,” Marty Stage finally says, hoping IC will pick it up. He explains their location and estimates that they should be able to reach the tent within the hour.

  “I’m not sure you can get there from where you’re at,” they manage to pick up from IC. They’re not sure they’ve heard Milkovich correctly.

  “We’ve got good enough coordinates,” Stage repeats. “We’ll get there.”

  Stage and Duncan have traversed their share of rough country. It is wet and cold, but not impassable. The day is moderating nicely. The sky is overcast, but it is bright and the clouds are high enough so they can follow the plane’s tight circular flying pattern through the brush and trees. They park their ATVs beside the old Pow Wow Trail and start bushwhacking.

  Far to the southwest, Deputy DeRosier, Ron VanBergen, Dan Spina, and Terry Olson are somewhere along the southwestern end of the trail, heading toward the Superstition Spur. As soon as they lock in on the tent’s coordinates, they turn around and start back toward the area where the two COs dropped off their ATVs.

  IC dispatches two dog crews with support to the area. Carla and Dale Leehy are also approaching the drop-off point with their dogs. Jeff Hasse and a couple of others are with the group. Even with ATVs it is a slow migration. Now everyone in the field struggles to converge on the tent.

  As soon as the tent is spotted, Steve Van Kekerix is notified. For the first time in days he has something positive to tell the Rasmussens, who are back in the Cities, updating family, neighbors, and friends. The news raises a dizzying swirl of emotions. On the one hand, they are elated to know the searchers have found his tent. On the other, it sounds like there is no movement, no tracks. They are damned anxious—and would hardly have believed it was possible that the anxiety and dread they had endured for the past five days could deepen even further.