The First Day of My New Life

Left to Right: Cody, Larry & Boyd

If you were to ask me to list my five favorite things to do, one of them would have to be camping in the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area in Northern Minnesota. It is a vast area of land crowded with lakes.

The water is so clean and clear in these lakes that many of us drink the water right out of the lake unfiltered. The lake shores are rimed with rocks and crowned with beautiful majestic pine trees. Because it is a wilderness area, no motorized boats are allowed on any of the lakes. If you visit there, it is in canoes only. It is difficult to describe the feeling that comes over me when lying in my tent at night, and I hear the Loons on the lake calling to each other.

This year, we had a canoe trip planned for the middle of August, but because of work and personal obligations for those that were going to go, the trip was canceled. I was a little disappointed, but the truth was I too had had a busy summer and was having a difficult time justifying the time off. So, in the middle of September, when my good friend Larry Benjamin suggested that we take a trip into the Boundary Waters sometime in the middle of October I jumped at it.

We asked around if anyone else in the Ward was interested in going and got a big yes from Cody Quist, the Son-in-Law of Mark Roth, who is one of my best friends. That made 3 of us going. This was Cody’s first Boundary Water experience. He was greatly encouraged to go by his wife Camie, who had gone camping there many times with the Young Women in her youth.

Cody, Larry and I met and planned our meals and the time we were leaving. We were all very excited to be going. Larry and I were especially excited to be going in October. We had never been there in the fall and were looking forward to the beauty of the leaves and the fall season.

The day of our departure arrived, and we loaded into Larry van with all of our stuff and 2 canoes strapped on the top. We had a prayer and set out for the 5 hour drive to Toffte, MN, and from there to Brule Lake. When we got to the lake and got out of the van, we were greeted by very strong winds (our guess was 25 to 30 MPH). This should have been our first warning!

Because of the wind we were careful taking the canoes down off the top of the van. We took our stuff out of the van and loaded them into the canoes, and finally put our lifejackets on after chasing them around in the wind. With everything settled in, we launched our canoes and left our entry point.

The entry point was in a small bay, the water was calm, and the surrounding area was beautiful. The birch and aspen trees were yellow and contrasted beautifully with the green pine threes. We had gotten there with the leaves at peak color just a Larry and I had hoped. Our spirits and enthusiasm was high and set off to paddled to Larry’s favorite camping spot.

As we rounded a bend in the bay, we looked out over our route and Larry commented, “Oh my gosh, look at those white caps on those waves”. That should have been our second warning! But we went on undaunted. I should explain that you can only comfortably put 2 people in a canoe, so Cody and I were in one canoe and Larry was in a canoe by himself.

On we paddled and as we reached the heavy waves, paddling became more difficult. The direction we were headed in was broadside to the waves, and some of the waves were so large they were coming over the side of the canoes. We kept paddling and tried to stay together, but the wind was so strong Larry couldn’t keep up and was blown down wind of Cody and I about 150 feet.

At one point, it felt like the canoe Cody and I was in was going to go over, but we were able keep it up and started paddling again. Cody asked me if he had done something wrong and I assured him that he was doing great and we kept paddling. We paddled for another 3 or 4 minutes and were hit by a large wave broad side, despite our attempts to keep the canoe upright over it went over spilling us and the contents of our canoe into the very cold water.

After a few very sharp gasps, Cody looked at me with the now what expression. We had 2 choices, stay with the canoe or swim to land. We had life vests on so we didn’t need the support of the canoe, and as cold as the water was we would be victims of hypothermia in no time. So, we decided to swim to land.

Land was a good 200 yards away, which even on a good day would have been a long swim. That day was not a good day; we were fighting 25 to 30 MPH winds and 2 foot waves. But, swimming was still our best option. We had to get out of that cold water before hypothermia set in. We started swimming!

I remember using 2 different strokes. The front crawl and the back float. Swimming was very difficult, like I mentioned we were fighting wind and waves. The waves being the worst, each time a wave would come it would completely cover our heads. We were breathing hard from swimming and would suck in a lung full of water. We had the added weight of being fully clothed.

I can remember swimming as hard as I could, looking up to the shore and seeing Cody clime out on to the rocks. I remember thinking to myself, good Hazen’s dad made it. (Hazen is Cody’s 14 month old Son.). I also remember thinking that I wasn’t making any progress.

Sometimes I would look up and be headed in the wrong direction, blown off course by the wind. At one point, a large wave came up and knocked my hat off and filled my lungs with water. I stopped swimming, leaned my head forward, and thought to myself “This is it, I am not going to make it, I am going to die today!” Strangely enough I felt OK with that thought. I actually felt peace, I was going to die and it was going to be alright. A thought came into my mind, “I wonder what Stephanie is going to do with the other ticket to Australia we just bought?” Funny thought now but I was very serious.

I laid there for awhile and for some reason I started feeling warm, I remember thinking, “I might as well keep swimming”. I flipped over on my back and started swimming. I don’t know how long I swam, but when I flipped over, I had made a lot of progress, and was much closer to shore. I felt my spirit rise and realized that death would have to wait; I was going to make it.

I stayed on my front and continued to swim, all of the sudden my knee hit something and I felt a sharp pain. I reached down and felt a large rock, what a blessing, solid ground. I struggled to the rock and stood up. With about 50 feet to go before I reached the shore, it was shallow enough to walk. I was so excited. I walked about 15 feet and the rocks were gone, I was in deep water again. I finally swam the last 30 feet to shore. Cody had been watching my progress and was at the shore waiting for me.

When I got to shore, I did not have the energy to stand. I dragged myself out of the water and laid there panting. I looked up at Cody and he was really shivering, he had been out of the water and in the wind in wet clothes for at least 20 or 30 minutes. I suggested that we needed to get out of the wind, and conserve as much body heat as we could. We both huddled behind a downed tree not knowing what to do next.

Both of us were wet and well into hypothermia, nether of us had anything to make a fire with. We weren’t sure what happened to Larry, although I did see him climb out on to shore on an island next to the one we were on. We sat there for a few minutes when we heard Larry call Cody’s name. As tired as we were, we both jumped up and ran to where we thought Larry was. What a blessing, there was our good friend Larry, with an empty canoe come to get us.

We climbed into Larry’s canoe and paddled over to the other island. We found that Larry had been busy collecting our things that had spilled out of our canoe. We built a fire and put on dry clothes. The immediate danger was over!

After we warmed up (I was so cold my feet were blue, all the blood had left my extremities to keep my body warm), we discussed our next move. I had lost my (Hans’) tent and Larry’s camp stove. The wind was not slowing down, if anything it was getting stronger, so we decided to go back to the entry point and leave the lake.

I can tell you that it took all the courage Cody and I could muster to climb back into our canoe and paddle back across the waves to the entry point. We put our stuff back into the canoes, we sat on the bottom of the canoes to lower our center of gravity and set off. This time we tacked our way across, going into the waves, then turning and going with the waves. The waves were so large they were coming over the front of the canoe. We paddled hard, but we made it back to the entry point.

At the entry point we loaded our stuff and canoes back on to the van and headed home. We ended up spending the night in Larry’s brother’s condo in Lutzen, MN. We went out for dinner that night, I can remember it feeling very strange, and thinking to myself, “I shouldn’t really be here, I thought I was going to die”!

I said many prayers floating in that lake, I don’t know how I closed the distance to the shore when I started swimming again, but I suspect I had some help.