BWCA What would you do? #9 Wind, Waves & Canoe 2 Boundary Waters Listening Point - General Discussion
Chat Rooms (0 Chatting)  |  Search  |   Login/Join
* For the benefit of the community, commercial posting is not allowed.
Boundary Waters Quetico Forum
   Listening Point - General Discussion
      What would you do? #9 Wind, Waves & Canoe 2     
 Forum Sponsor

Author

Text

JWilder
distinguished member (414)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/25/2021 04:19PM  
Wind, waves and canoe, take 2:

You are on a 4-day trip with three other individuals. Four people, two canoes. It is an out and back. On the third day, you are moving back closer to the EP for an “easier” exit day. The rain has been on and off the whole time. Rain, sun, rain, sun.

As you get to within three lakes of the EP, the rain is really coming down now. The wind is picking up and it looks like it is going to stick around. The next campsite you find open, your group takes it. You set up the tarp and stash your gear and persons underneath. The plan is to wait for a break in the rain to fully establish camp.

As you wait a good hour, you find there is no break in the rain and the wind keeps building. You make a go for it and set up your tents, get the sleeping bags out and crawl in. You take advantage of the weather and catch some shut eye.

You are woken up by one of you trip partners with, “Hey, are you awake? We lost a canoe.”

The knot in your stomach begins to form. You crawl out of your tent and stand near the landing. There is only one canoe present. You look out at the lake and scan the horizon. All you see are whitecaps. It is now mid-afternoon. Remember, tomorrow is your scheduled exit day.

Now, I know what you are thinking. And yes, I understand where the mistake was made. “Rookie” mistake, but it happened. You can razz me later. I will reveal the lake and campsite when I give a full explanation of what we did. This one has a slight twist.

“What would you do?”

 
      Print Top Bottom Previous Next
MikeinMpls
distinguished member(1338)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/25/2021 04:40PM  
Drink.

Then go to bed. Get up early the next day and hope the weather has cleared or the wind is down. If the weather hasn't cleared, at least you're no worse off than the day before. Begin the recovery operation.

Load four guys in the one canoe, two on the floor as duffers along with the two padders. If that's not doable due to size, weight, or freeboard, then two guys go out. Tow the canoe back. The other two guys pack up the camp.

The canoe isn't going to sink. It isn't going to go into another lake. Unless you're on a river (and you weren't) it's not going downstream. It might take a heck of a long time, but you'll find the canoe.

Mike
 
03/25/2021 04:45PM  
Assess the conditions, determine the most likely route the canoe would have traveled, and then go get it when conditions are safer. That may be in 10 minutes, it may be the next day. The canoe is probably sitting on a shoreline somewhere so you might as well wait until conditions are more favorable for a retrieval.

Tony
 
03/25/2021 05:16PM  
Say the serenity prayer.
Gather the group and check out the shoreline to be sure the canoe has escaped, not just wandered away.
If no canoe return to camp and set up for the night. Apply that slight twist to any remaining medicinal beverages. Enjoy the serenity, tomorrow is another day with lots to do so get some good sleep. Sometimes canoes wander back home.
 
R1verrunner
distinguished member (111)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/25/2021 05:22PM  
GopherAdventure: "Assess the conditions, determine the most likely route the canoe would have traveled, and then go get it when conditions are safer. That may be in 10 minutes, it may be the next day. The canoe is probably sitting on a shoreline somewhere so you might as well wait until conditions are more favorable for a retrieval.


Tony"


This
 
03/25/2021 05:31PM  
Not panic. Wait for better weather and go find it.
 
JWilder
distinguished member (414)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/25/2021 10:27PM  
Straight up wise advice for someone like myself; a go-getter who needs encouragement to be patient.

bhouse46 is on to something...

JW

 
JWilder
distinguished member (414)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/26/2021 07:01PM  
Here you go.

We stayed two nights on Insula and were headed back towards entry point 30. The campsite we grabbed was on Lake Three, #1488?. This is the site that is on the east side of the “channel” as you enter/exit lake three to lake two. The first, or last site, depending on which direction you are coming from. We were thankful, the wind was howling out of the north, coming right through the “channel” from Lake Two. So, part of this site was protected.

After scanning the horizon and seeing nothing (but whitecaps), we discussed the current situation. We summarized the weather we had been experiencing and thought it best to hold out and wait for a change. It would come. It was mid-afternoon in the third week of June. We had essentially 7-8 hours of daylight left. Plenty of time for change.

We dispersed into our tents again as it continued to rain. I layed there awake, (impatiently). Reading on and off. Thinking. It came to my realization that I had been hearing this, distant, soft clunking sound, periodically. I asked my son, “do you hear that?” I clambered out of the tent to get a better sense of direction the sound was coming from. I followed the sound east, walking the shoreline, stopping, listening. Now I really heard it. As I came around the corner, there it was. If your looking at a map, there is a slight depression, or bay just east of the site. It was nestled right in there, the bow of the canoe butting heads with the rocky shoreline.

We committed a cardinal sin; failing to pull the canoe COMPLETELY out of the water after unloading. As I think back, we were tired and complacent. The weather had us sapped. As I mentioned it had been raining on and off for the last 3 days. Nothing was able to dry out. We, were unable to dry out. And we weren't thinking clearly. We were just happy to be ashore and out of the wind and rain. Simple as that.

It was one of those incidents that I remember every time I land my boat. NEVER, will I make that mistake again.

Hopefully I can use some of the other experiences/mistakes shared in this thread series to use as learning tools for future trips and prevent, as much as possible, a bad scenario.

Thanks all,

JW

 
analyzer
distinguished member(2162)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/28/2021 11:06AM  
If you don't mind, I'm going to expand this one a bit.

So along the lines of the OP, there was a guy a couple years back, that was on a solo in May, in the Quetico, camped on an island, and his canoe blew away. He ended up using his spot or sat phone to call for help. Some critized him for calling for a rescue.

So lets say you have the following scenario:

1. It's early May or October and the water is too cold to safely swim in for any distance.
2. You're in a remote area of the Quetico, or WCPP (maybe some very remote area of the BWCA might qualify in May).
3. You're camped on an island, and you're at least a couple hundred yards from the nearest mainland.
4. You only have one canoe.
5. It blows away.
6. Lets take food out of the equation for now. You have a fishing pole, so you can make do.
7. You are employed, and have to be back in a 2 or 3 days, and have to take ramifications into consideration.

Would you just wait it out, knowing it might be a week or more before you see someone, or would you try to build a raft? If you build a raft, and fail to get to, or locate your canoe, now you may have trouble getting back to the island, food, and shelter.

Your thoughts?



 
colddriver
member (45)member
  
03/28/2021 11:38AM  
analyzer: "If you don't mind, I'm going to expand this one a bit.


So along the lines of the OP, there was a guy a couple years back, that was on a solo in May, in the Quetico, camped on an island, and his canoe blew away. He ended up using his spot or sat phone to call for help. Some critized him for calling for a rescue.


So lets say you have the following scenario:


1. It's early May or October and the water is too cold to safely swim in for any distance.
2. You're in a remote area of the Quetico, or WCPP (maybe some very remote area of the BWCA might qualify in May).
3. You're camped on an island, and you're at least a couple hundred yards from the nearest mainland.
4. You only have one canoe.
5. It blows away.
6. Lets take food out of the equation for now. You have a fishing pole, so you can make do.
7. You are employed, and have to be back in a 2 or 3 days, and have to take ramifications into consideration.


Would you just wait it out, knowing it might be a week or more before you see someone, or would you try to build a raft? If you build a raft, and fail to get to, or locate your canoe, now you may have trouble getting back to the island, food, and shelter.




"

So only options that I see are, stay, Bushwack or try and build a raft.
I guess the question is how BIG of a lake are we talking and how close is the portage to next lake(out)?
Is bushwacking back to pick up point an option also?
Worst case Lets say it's a big lake, bushwacking not an option,just a gut feeling you won't see anybody as you are remote.only option is make a raft you have two days to find the canoe and a day to get out, I would like to assume my employer would not do anything under the circumstances. If I made it out that's crazy to say............
But first thing would be to start a BIG smokey fire to see direction of wind that visual for me would be good. Might change direction half way across lake?
Wind could circle around island and canoe could be right there?
Make a raft, prepair to loose all your equipment,set sail, pray...



 
03/28/2021 11:50AM  
If I built a raft, I'd bring my pack. It's extra flotation if you have a liner. You don't take a possibly one way trip like that without the gear you need to survive. I would build a raft though. What else are you going to do? Send smoke signals? I'd do that too but there is plenty of time in the day for both.

You can't say food is not a concern though. This is a survival situation. Maybe you get lucky and your canoe drifts back or someone comes to help and this remains a "fun" situation. But if not, you could end up running out of food, or have some other emergency endanger you.

In reality, it would probably take a day or so for the gravity of the situation to sink in and to realize that waiting for help is a gamble. At that point you are going to start thinking that building a raft or sending smoke signals isn't such a bad idea.
 
03/28/2021 12:18PM  
I remember that one analyzer. My number one thought has been to try to avoid that. I'm pretty sure it was only a one-way communication device. Two-way texting or sat phone would allow communicating the predicament without triggering a SAR response.
 
analyzer
distinguished member(2162)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/28/2021 12:30PM  
boonie: "I remember that one analyzer. My number one thought has been to try to avoid that. I'm pretty sure it was only a one-way communication device. Two-way texting or sat phone would allow communicating the predicament without triggering a SAR response. "


Yeah, that makes sense.

My wife often plays the what if game, when it's just the two of us. I'm 56, but had a heart attack last year. Now she worries that we might get to some remote location, I have another heart attack, and she's stuck in a bad predicament. She's not strong enough to carry the canoe. Although, it's less than 50 lbs, so she might be surprised at what she can carry in a situation like that.

Our loop for this year, doesn't concern her as much, as there will be plenty of people around. But we're considering a WCPP trip, that could easily put us in position where we don't see another party for a week.

I usually have enough rope along that I could probably lash a raft pretty well. I don't think I would want to just sit and wait. Like A1t20 said, food could become a problem, then what. Better to act before you run out of energy. Especially if it's October, and you really don't know for sure if you'll ever see someone before winter sets in. Part of the problem is that raft is going to have to support two of us, and we'll probably have to stay dry. Gonna have to build a pretty good size raft.

Think I'll be careful to tie my canoe properly, every time I bring it in. But you could have a storm where a tree crushes your canoe, and be in a similar situation. Worse really, because you wouldn't have a canoe you can go retrieve.
 
JWilder
distinguished member (414)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/28/2021 12:35PM  
I'm staying put.

I've got food, shelter, a fishing pole to supplement my supply, AND a possible vacation extension:)

My employer would understand.
 
03/28/2021 07:27PM  
I think a 2-way text device would be valuable for WCPP as it would allow arranging (or rearranging) shuttle/flight schedules/locations. It also would enable communication regarding fires which are prevalent there.
 
analyzer
distinguished member(2162)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
03/28/2021 08:20PM  
May not have to worried about WCPP if they don't open the border again.
 
03/28/2021 09:08PM  
Yeah, I had a trip planned last year and it looks like it probably won't happen this year. I'm getting too old to wait.
 
03/29/2021 11:29AM  
being on an island & cold water there isnt a lot of options , get the largest white material you have and make a flag out of it to try and wave down any passing canoeist. otherwise fish for food and hope there's still alcohol left ;)
 
      Print Top Bottom Previous Next
Listening Point - General Discussion Sponsor:
True North Map Company