By Cecilia Nasmith
Survival in the wilderness – not four words anyone would associate with Ted and Cecilia Nasmith of Grafton, Ont.
A simple outing took us into woods that should have been as familiar as our children's faces, and we somehow ended up wandering around helplessly for days with nothing to eat. At aged 76 and 70 respectively. And we lived to tell the tale.
Survival training is fascinating stuff. In my newspaper career, I once interviewed a young man who took an air-cadet survival course and passed. One criterion, young Billy Dicke told me, is to return with the two Oreo cookies they give you at the start of the exercise.
“Why would they give you Oreos?” I asked.
For temptation, Billy said. You have to make your way through the two days living on what you find, not what you take along, and returning the Oreos is required. Many cadets eat them and try to claim that squirrels got them. Billy's solution was simple – he buried them, then retrieved them later.
My son Mark, Billy's air-cadet colleague, took the same course. He would go on to join the air force and take military-level survival training, hard-core stuff during which he would resort to such measures as brewing up ant tea just to get something into his stomach.
But he told me it was nothing like what we had been through. In organized exercises, participants get at least some level of provisions and implements. And at any rate, they are limited-time affairs that are to some degree supervised. If someone goes missing, someone else knows about it.
No one knew we were going out for a picnic lunch in the woods Monday, Aug. 31. And while a trainee on an exercise would know to stay put until someone could find him or her, we were on our own to find the way out or – dare I say – die trying.
DAY ONE
No such dark thoughts troubled us Monday, Aug. 31, as we prepared for a short hike during a visit to the family cabin on the east arm of Oxbow Lake, northeast of Huntsville. Ted's grandfather Mungo built that cabin 70 years ago, and Ted has visited (and hiked) there all that time.
Ted grabbed an old plastic raincoat that morning to serve as a picnic blanket, and I packed the lunch. We'd had a late breakfast, so we wouldn't want much. I searched out what Tupperware was around and snagged three pieces – two round Ziploc containers with threaded blue lids you screw on and a small square Tupperware half-cup-capacity container with a green lid.
One Ziploc container carried a cut-up orange, the other a few cheese crackers and two banana-chocolate-chip mini-muffins – not even full-sized muffins. I tossed in two small diet Pepsis and, in the Tupperware container, put our clean-up wipes: two paper towels, wetted down and wrung out.
Add mosquito repellent, and it didn't quite all fit into the small shoulder bag Ted packed. It was his dad's old hiking bag, with the name D.F. Nasmith across the front in fading Magic Marker and a Canadian-flag patch on the flap. It was about the size of a large purse, and I ended up carrying one Pepsi and the rolled-up raincoat in the kangaroo pouch in front of my hoodie.
It wasn't really cool that morning, but we were concerned about ticks. In addition to the hoodie, I wore sturdy Adidas track pants, good running shoes I bought a few years ago when I actually used to run, and clean socks. Ted (who was always cooler than me) was in long pants, a T-shirt topped by two blue pullovers, heavy socks and his new hiking boots. He discarded his dark-green Tilley hat at the last moment in favour of an eye-popping neon-orange ball cap.
I asked him if he had his phone. To this day, I am sure he said yes. He must have misunderstood the question.
The hike in was very nice, not that I recognized anything. Forest trails evolve almost by the minute, I would learn over the next couple of days. And I already knew that a trail I enjoyed one summer would not be recognizable the next.
Ted, however, can always find his way around. We hike at the cabin and we hike at home in Northumberland County, and I can't count the times I've been sure we were lost. Every time Ted takes the lead, going in directions that in my heart I know are wrong, and we always get out. Needless to say, he leads the way on every hike, and I gladly rein back my own pace to his.
We enjoyed our lunch with clean bottoms, thanks to the raincoat. We drank our pop, then squashed and repacked the cans, but had no qualms about tossing away the orange peels (that – had we kept them – would have provided at least some supper that night). I repacked the papers from the mini-muffins into the small Tupperware container with the one remaining unused wet paper towel.
Ted kind of prides himself on not retracing his steps. He prefers returning from a hike a different way than he set out, so I wasn't upset at first when the return trip seemed to be taking longer than expected. He would later explain that he must have followed the wrong stream to guide us back. As a result, we never neared the big bay behind our cabin, which is the first glimpse of Oxbow that we usually get coming back from a hike.
It must have been mid-afternoon when I got seriously concerned. Ted found a rock where I could perch while he went on ahead to scout.
As I lost sight of his orange hat through the trees, that first touch of anxiety set in, that first conviction that I would be spending the night in the woods. I started to cry, but then I thought of our complete lack of supplies and told myself not to waste the moisture.
Ted came back with nothing hopeful to report, and led me in a direction I can only describe as “left” (even though, for whatever reason, I was sure we should be going “right”). We plodded into the woods throughout the afternoon with no glimpse of a lake until we came to swampy, spongy land at the distant edge of one.
From that point on, we never had dry shoes or socks again, but Ted said we had to go that way. He seemed vindicated when we finally reached a large lake, though it was disappointingly empty of cabins, watercraft and people.
But it was a clear and open spot.
“Now would be a good time to call somebody,” I suggested.
“I don't have a phone,” he replied. It was a punch to the gut.
It was too late in the day to hope to find our way out, and we would indeed be spending the night in the woods.
We stopped to fill our two big Ziploc containers from the lake. I couldn't see myself actually drinking that water, but a plan came to me: I would let the silt and crap settle to the bottom, then take sips off the water's surface.
We retreated back through the woods and somehow happened into a clearing where simple animal traffic of some kind had created a rough path. We followed it to where a fallen tree trunk blocked the way, then ducked into the trees at that point.
Not far in, we found what Ted considered a perfect spot for the night – a flat area in front of a white rock big enough to rest our backs against (“like a headstone,” I thought glumly), flanked by young trees on both sides strong enough to pull ourselves up on (as well as bracket us protectively from whatever animals might roam at night).
We spent some time gathering leaves and boughs to cushion us, and laid the raincoat over them. Ted pulled the squashed pop cans out of his bag and put a stick in each. We could beat them like noisemakers to scare off wildlife, he explained, but he also made sure to find each of us a big strong whacking stick in case of trouble,
It wasn't quite dark, so Ted walked back out to the path and followed it. Around a bend, in a relatively clear area, he found a white rock outcropping flush with the ground. It gave him an idea. He scuffed away at the margins of the rock to increase its surface area, then laid branches on the white background to spell SOS. I helped him and, when we were done, topped the letters with red maple leaves for extra visibility.
Not that we were all that hopeful, but you have to play every angle.
Just the night before, we had noticed the beautiful full moon. It was still pretty full once the sun set, and the woods never quite went to black. At any time, you could look up and still see treetops against the sky.
Somewhat comforting, of course, but not enough to offset the cold. It was late summer, when nights start to dip below 10 degrees C. Ted was so good about massaging and rubbing my back and arms, which really helped, but he pretty much slept sitting up against the rock – which means he really didn't sleep much.
It was the first night I had what I call Tomorrow Thoughts, ideas that helped me formulate a plan for the next day. For Tuesday morning we agreed that, since we had fruitlessly gone west the day before, we would try going east.
DAY TWO
We took a last look at our SOS, tried to pinpoint east by what we could see of the rising sun through the trees and headed into deep forest.
The plan was to look for streams to follow. If they were substantial enough, I would dump whatever water was in our Ziploc containers and refill them afresh. I also planned that we might chew on our mini-muffin papers later on – the crumbs would be nice, and I'd heard somewhere that paper is edible.
And we always held the hope that one of those streams might lead us to a populated lake.
We realized we were truly backtracking when we saw a footprint in the mud that Ted swore was his from the day before. I found an even more solid sign up on a hill, where two big rocks were stacked, one on top of the other, with a colourful mushroom on the top – I had seen that on a hilltop the day before, and I was pretty sure that particular construction was one-of-a-kind.
It seemed we needed to stop to rest a bit more frequently Tuesday than we had on Monday. And no matter how dampish a rock or fallen trunk may have been, the chance to get off our feet for a few moments was welcome now and then.
I even came up with a plan that I hoped might improve things on the footwear front. Whenever we stopped, I'd choose a foot (alternating feet throughout the day, of course) and prop it on the opposite knee. The shoe and sock would come off for a blessed moment of dryness. The shoe would sit empty (and perhaps dry out a microscopic bit), and I'd flip around the sock in my hand in hopes that it might air-dry somewhat. It seemed a good plan, though it was always unpleasant when the break ended and the footwear went back on.
We followed a stream and found a good place to cross it, when Ted suddenly announced we were close to Oxbow Lake. He was confident enough that he began to talk about things like what we'd have for lunch at the cabin and how nice it would be to sleep under a real blanket again.
Up that hill, he insisted, and he set off.
I was not so sure we were that close to success. But I did know we couldn't heedlessly be climbing any old hill that presented itself for much longer, and I said so.
Ted beat me up this particular hill, and shouted out, “I can see the bay!”
I put on some speed and made it to the top, hungry for just that very sight. But the body of water I saw wasn't clear enough through the trees for me to identify it as such and, from what I could see, it actually looked a little bigger than our bay. But I was eager for a closer look.
“Let's go down,” I urged, edging to the right.
“You can't go down that way – that's a cliff,” he insisted.
With what might be our bay before us, he led me away in a direction I can only call “left” to find a better place to get down the hill.
“Then when we hit bottom, we go right, right?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
It made no sense to me. We did get down to the bottom of the hill, but continued “left” - as far as I could tell, gradually leaving behind what just might have been Oxbow Lake.
Ted had found a stream he was following, continuing to promise the lake was just over the rise. I was quickly losing patience, and asked why we didn't just go over the rise.
“Just one more hill,” he reassured me.
But all we saw after that hill was marsh. No lake. No cabins. No motorboats.
Ted was stymied. I was upset. As I saw it, we had walked away from what might have been our own lake.
I insisted we needed to retrace our steps. He said we needed to continue in the same direction. I followed him through a new patch of woods without much enthusiasm or hope.
We saw our first hallucination in those woods – a bear's head sticking up out of the end of a log watching us alertly. We gave it a wide berth, wary for any sign of movement, but it just kept staring. I concluded it must have been a trick of the light, but we still kept our distance.
When we thought it was safe, we took a rest. We had talked about perhaps eating ferns, since the tasty fiddleheads we pick each spring (if left unpicked) grow into tall ferns. We decided to try a leaf together and found it to be the bitterest thing we had ever tasted.
I looked at our mini-muffin papers and found they had grown moldy. I tossed them aside and saw the wet paper towel under them. I tore it in half, and we each sucked on a piece until every bit of moisture was gone. And then we learned paper really is not edible.
I couldn't shake the feeling that we had overshot our best chance and needed to go back. I even managed to ease my way ahead of Ted and gradually start leading us back that way. I worked my way forward and was so delighted when I could announce, “It's a lake!”
If I understand correctly, I later learned this was Toad Lake and it does have cabins. We could see no sign of them but we didn't care because, for a moment, we were convinced it was Little Hoover Lake.
One of our favourite hikes at Oxbow is the one-km. trek to Little Hoover, a completely undeveloped wilderness lake where we listen to the frogs and the little splashes and, on one occasion, spotted a couple of otters (at least that's what my daughter Leslie identified them as).
Plus, if it was Little Hoover, we pretty well could make our way back to the cabin.
But a closer look told us it probably wasn't. We knew what the landscape on the sides of Little Hoover is like, and this wasn't it. Plus this new lake had rock outcroppings where Little Hoover didn't, and it was considerably larger. But it was a good place to rest and get fresh water.
I looked toward the end of the lake we were closest to and saw something astonishing – one of those lily-pad water toys that look like floating mats, with a half-dozen heads bobbing in the water behind it. Young people out enjoying a swim, I thought.
I yelled for help and splashed the water and waved Ted's bright-orange cap. I got total silence. Looking more closely, I realized I was looking at something I had seen in the Oxbow bay – a lily pad with a half-dozen ducks using it as a roost/comfort station. Stupid ducks.
Ted suggested we leave this lake on a similar route to that which we'd use to leave Little Hoover, just in case we were mistaken. We tried that, passing by the unhelpful ducks, and realized we were not mistaken – this was not Little Hoover.
Rounding the end of the lake and proceeding onward, we found what I would always think of as the Alleyway – a very rough path about one km. in length that connected that lake with a distant clearing, with a stream running along its length to our right and a cliff that we could not have scaled on our best day to the left.
Exploring that distant clearing became my Tomorrow Thought just then, because the light was fading and our hearts sank to realize it was time – again – to find a place to rest for the night.
Ted looked at the sky and believed it might rain at some point, so he wanted a piece of land high enough to allow for drainage. We picked a spot and, as we set about gathering vegetation for some padding, the hallucinations began again.
We both saw two heads against the dying light in the distant clearing at the end of the Alleyway. We yelled for help but got no answer, and that's when I realized something important: if you yell for help and the person doesn't respond, he's not rude – he's an hallucination.
Ted had a different interpretation. They were part of a devout religious community, he said, and we had trespassed onto their land. They resented it, so they would not speak to us.
We never saw the same hallucinations after that.
I only saw one more, someone running across the distant clearing, but Ted saw others.
He sent me retracing my way back to the lake with the ducks when he thought he saw someone at that end of the Alleyway. I went gamely but in vain.
He shushed me once when I swore about something, saying, “Can't you see they have kids and a dog?”
Most surprising was the woman he saw at the clearing at the end of the Alleyway who, he insisted, had brought us a basket of food. Ted yelled out his thanks, but pointed out to her that it was too dark at this point to come get it without risking a broken ankle.
The first day, Ted had said that if we made it back to the cabin, nobody ever had to know we had been lost.
By the end of the second day, we were shouting, “Call 911” as part of our calls for help. We realized, if we got out of this, we would need medical attention. Ted was also joking about how embarrassing it would be for our son Mike, a CBC producer, if we did get rescued and it made the news.
We fixed up our sleeping area with branch barriers that would alert us to wandering wildlife and whacking sticks for defence. We still had our squashed pop cans, and I set out one of the Ziploc containers of water for a drink in the night. We spread the plastic raincoat down and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Thunder woke us a few hours later. Ted threw himself over me to protect me from the rain, but I soon realized this was not going to be a light passing shower. I told him to get up and we grabbed the plastic raincoat to huddle under.
It wasn't ideal, as significant portions of each of us could not fit under that piece of plastic. My feet in their wet shoes and socks, for example, were out in the elements. But there was nothing more we could do about being caught in what turned out to be an all-night non-stop rain that varied back and forth between “pitter-patter” and “torrent.”
The ground beneath us began getting soggy. Soon, Ted was insisting that this ground was washing away and we had to get up.
In spite of it being pitch-black, he found some kind of ridge we could sit on with the raincoat over us. I grabbed the Ziploc container, and Ted grabbed the soggy hiking bag that contained every tool of survival to our name, no matter how inadequate.
I was disgusted with my footwear, and pulled off the shoes and socks. I tried to keep these under the plastic, for all the good it would do. Frankly, no cheap plastic raincoat was ever made to stand up to that long (and that heavy) of a rain. In fact, rips were now appearing in the material that, like open windows, let more rain in on us. But it was all we had, and we kept it over us.
It was probably an hour or more we sat like that, no place to rest our backs, until Ted was seized by a new alarm – he was convinced even this higher ground we had found was washing away and we had to get farther uphill. He was so frightened, he shot up and somehow found his way to the cliff that ran along the Alleyway.
“We have to get uphill,” he shouted.
I put my shoes and socks on, tied the sleeves of the raincoat around my neck, grabbed the Ziploc container of water and followed him uphill on all-fours in the blackness.
I dropped my Ziploc container as I scrambled, and Ted yelled at me to leave it with such urgency in his voice that I obeyed.
Somehow in the darkness we found a semi-comfortable roost about halfway up the cliff, where we sat and waited for morning. I even dozed off and got a little more rest over what felt like the last couple of hours of a terrible stormy night.
We didn't even bother untying and using the raincoat.
DAY THREE
I got my first look at where we were at when daylight finally came. The rest of the cliff at our back was too steep to finish scaling, though Ted insisted we must do it. I did manage to talk him back downhill, assuring him that we would definitely climb the cliff at some point.
Back down on the Alleyway, we gazed at a landscape so altered by the rain and wind that I did not recognize it as the place we had settled down for the night. We might as well have woken up in another world.
I did see the little square green-lidded Tupperware container on the ground and grabbed it quickly before I lost sight of it, because we were down to one Ziploc container for water.
Make that zero Ziploc containers, I realized, when I saw Ted had climbed down the cliff without the bag. I pointed out that he'd left it behind.
“I don't care,” he shouted, dismissing its precious contents.
It was a difficult morning on several counts, one of which was the rain that would continue for most of the day. Then there was our fading strength - Ted actually had trouble at times keeping his footing. Also there was the hopelessness we were beginning to feel.
Ted suggested we split up, arguing that this would double our chances of finding help. I could not see leaving behind someone who was weakening so quickly, so there was no chance of that happening.
“That just means that both of us will die alone,” I insisted.
I left him while I proceeded to that clearing I had wanted to look at. I hadn't said anything to Ted, but I had a deep and fervent hope that it would be the west arm of Oxbow Lake. I could imagine its familiar cabins with lights appearing in their windows to greet the day. I don't know if I was so sure of that because I wanted it so badly, but I proceeded as quickly as I could, hungry for a first glimpse of civilization.
All I got was a marsh. I even crossed the stream to my right and went up the hill beyond it to look that way and see if I could find anything - just more marsh.
I returned to Ted with the sad news, but he insisted he heard road work going on at the top of the cliff. He was bristling impatiently to get up there and have a look.
I didn't hear anything, and told him it was an hallucination. He got so angry at being challenged, I remember yelling at him, “I am not your enemy.”
He also said something else that disturbed me. Every time he thought he saw someone, I would yell for help just in case. It gave Ted the idea that I was scaring off people who might otherwise be able to help us.
“Next time you see someone, DON'T yell,” he told me.
“When you yell, they disappear.”
I scouted out what I thought was a spot with a gradual and manageable ascent up the cliff. I pointed it out, helped Ted to the foot of the cliff, and left him to climb while I went to the stream to fill our last remaining container with water. Even though I was strong enough to help Ted, I was noticeably weaker compared to the day before and secretly despaired of covering much distance through difficult forest terrain.
I was not able to climb quickly as I joined him, but I made it to the top. There was no road work, and Ted looked bitterly discouraged.
“I think I just want to be by myself for a while,” he said.
As he went downhill, I spread the raincoat on the ground and, in spite of the light rain, dozed a little. I don't think it was a very long nap, but I pulled myself together afterward and retied the raincoat around my shoulders. Along with the small Tupperware container of water in the little kangaroo pocket of my hoodie, we had nothing else to help us survive.
I couldn't find the way I had climbed up the hill, but I saw another way down that was gradual enough to manage – only at the foot of the hill, absolutely nothing looked familiar. Nothing at all. I might as well have gone up the hill from one world and come down into another.
I called Ted's name, but got no answer. I screamed Ted's name and got nothing.
Frankly I was afraid to go looking for him, too easily imagining myself lost, disoriented and alone in unfamiliar woods.
But I couldn't just stand there. I wandered tentatively and – I don't know how – stumbled onto what I later learned was an ATV trail. This kind of trail consists of two wheel ruts, a hump in the middle, and usually shoulders to each side.
It reminded me of a trail I had explored with Ted six years earlier that led to someone's hunting camp, so I assumed that's what it was.
At that moment, I felt a duty to follow it, as it might offer a solid chance of help for both of us. The camp would probably not have a phone, but it might have food, a dry place to sit and a chance to get out of my wet clothes.
Take one direction on this path, I thought, and it leads to a camp. Take the other direction, and it just may lead to a road. I made an arbitrary decision to go right, but figured I couldn't go wrong either way.
From what I've seen, I doubt if ATV trails are ever totally dry – those ruts collect and hold water like a bucket. And after the Tuesday-night soaking and Wednesday drizzles, even the humps and shoulders were deep, treacherous mud (at least where they weren't flooded out altogether into a little pool across the track).
I stuck to the humps and shoulders wherever possible, but my soaked footwear quickly became muddy footwear. And in the flooded places, I had no choice but to slog right through.
That's the point that three words first came to me that I would repeat to myself at times like this: nothing for it. You have to wade through muddy water because there's nothing for it. You have to sleep on the ground because there's nothing for it. It worked surprisingly well in keeping wistful thinking at bay, and it was invoked a lot!
Once or twice that day I blundered into mud so viscous that it sucked the shoe off my foot. Two or three times that day, the spongy terrain threw me so off-balance that I fell to the muddy ground. At length, I finally realized I needed to grab a good sturdy walking stick.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) I had nothing else to carry, as my small Tupperware container was in my kangaroo pocket and my tattered raincoat was knotted around my shoulders.
It was still drizzling, but I knew that poor raincoat wouldn't be much help. It had been through a lot, and it showed. One sleeve was hanging by a shred, and I was finding its flapping more and more irritating. Finally, I yanked it off and threw it to the ground. If they ever come looking for me, I thought, here's a hint, Sherlock.
Along with Tomorrow Thoughts, Wednesday brought my first Today Thought – what I would have been doing in another life where I skipped the Monday picnic. On Wednesday, I'd had a hair appointment back home that I had cancelled in order to have a little more time at Oxbow Lake. How nice it would have been to sit in a salon chair and be pampered a little!
I recalled the path to the hunting camp we'd been on years earlier. The camp owners had made it deliberately difficult in order to discourage idle hikers, even hauling trunks and other objects into the road. That was consistent with what I was experiencing, but I didn't expect to see the trail end at a creek.
On closer inspection, the creek was very shallow at that point and I could see that the trail resumed on the other side. I took a rest, then sloshed across. Dry feet were no longer even a remote possibility in my universe, and perhaps the running water would wash out some of the mud.
I took up the path again and, if anything, found even more barriers of various kinds to get around. The worst was one big tangled bunch of fallen growth that included two tree trunks and a number of thick vines. I had to sort of weave myself through it, and I couldn't imagine a person even putting that kind of barrier in place.
I couldn't help picturing hunting season, with hunters bringing in their provisions. Even via ATV, it would not be an easy trip.
The many hills along the way wouldn't be as much of a challenge for an ATV as they were for a very tired woman on foot, even one with a walking stick.
Maybe 40 minutes after crossing the creek, I came to an opening thick with brushy growth. I hesitated, thinking if I proceeded and had to retrace, I might not be able to see the trail, But I looked carefully and decided that, at ground level, the trail was well enough established, so I proceeded with my eyes on the ground. It seemed to go into another forested area up ahead. I felt as if my goal were at hand, and it wouldn't be long until I found that camp.
Near where the forest began again, I saw a single raspberry on the bushes. How could there be just one, I wondered, spending a few minutes looking carefully but in vain for others. I ate that mysterious single berry gratefully. I imagined it might be a reward for my efforts, but couldn't help wishing there were more.
What did I see entering the forest but a really steep hill! I sat on a trunk for a moment to gather myself, and then began a practice I kept up thereafter when climbing a steep hill – making every exhale a loud, whiny noise. It vented my frustration and, God willing, would signal to anyone within earshot that somebody was in distress. Not that there was anyone nearby, but you have to play every angle.
The trail finally just died out at the top of that hill. For real this time. I looked around and decided, if there were a hunting camp, it was somewhere in the woods and I could get hopelessly lost trying to find it.
“All for nothing!” I said aloud in frustration.
There was a small rise to my left that I climbed, but nothing could I see. I found a place to sit and think, then I remembered that the other end of the ATV trail had come from somewhere – probably a road. That really seemed likely. I really felt cautiously hopeful.
Retracing my way was every bit the ordeal that getting to that forest rise had been, but my heart did feel a little lighter. I was even glad to cross that stream again, as it was a landmark proving I was on the right track. Except for that large tangled obstruction and the odd trunk across the trail that I happened to recall from before, the path and the woods around it held nothing distinctive that I could latch onto as a landmark,
Then I came to a stream I had definitely NOT crossed before. I stopped dead still in astonishment, feeling the same thing I had felt that morning coming down the hill – that I had virtually started out in one world and somehow had made my way into another.
I would later hear that ATV trails are extremely informal and they often crisscross. I can only assume now that I came to a crisscross, didn't recognize it for what it was, and blundered on in the wrong direction. There went my hope.
I don't know how long I stood and wondered what had happened, where I had gone wrong, what I should do. But I did see that whatever trail I had found my way onto did continue across the creek, so I crossed it and carried on. What else could I do? Nothing for it.
It may have been a different trail, but it was much the same experience. I plodded on through the afternoon through the drizzle, with nothing particular on my mind. Robbed of my partner and robbed of a plan I'd had some hope for, I did not have the energy to think of anything but the task at hand – and keeping my balance. Even apart from the unpleasantness of the mud, each fall was painful and jarring, and more and more difficult to get up from.
About 40 minutes after crossing that last creek, I came to a fork in the path. I saw that the right-hand fork went downhill into a giant puddle across the trail before it proceeded on, while the left-hand fork went up over a hill. I had no illusions that the left-hand trail would not eventually have its share of downhills and flooding, but that's the one I took.
Not far into this trail, I saw something hopeful: a small yellow square nailed to a tree trunk as if it were a marker for a recreational trail. I wondered if I might have stumbled into the Limberlost Forest and Wildlife Preserve compound, which is just a few kilometres from our cabin. The thought heartened me again as I kept up the pace the best I could.
A half-hour's hike brought me to a clearing I would later hear OPP Constable Lynda Cranney call a hydro cut. The land was clear, with a string of hydro poles and wires from the downhill at my left to the uphill at my right.
My first thought was to find where the trail resumed, so I headed forward and then left to where it seemed to lead. That trail only took me downhill into a marsh. I was beyond caring about wet feet, but I didn't want to go knee-deep or waist-deep (or worse) through swampy water.
I returned to where the trail had entered the opening and just sat in the rain for a moment. Directly ahead of me, a dense forest with no path whatsoever loomed. I couldn't just dismiss it because, if this were Limberlost land, I had a strong feeling that Limberlost Road was beyond it.
It was about that time that the day's rain stopped, and it was not much later that a gloriously warm sun came out. I couldn't resist walking into the clearing just to feel it on me.
I saw a large rock outcropping in that clearing, flush to the ground, much bigger than the one where we wrote SOS Monday night. I saw some muddy tangled branches nearby and shaped them into an SOS. I spotted something muddy-white near the opening where I had entered the clearing. and found it was an old discarded gardening glove. I grabbed it and placed it beside the SOS just to show that a human had been here (as if the SOS were not enough – just playing every angle).
The sun was absolutely delightful, and I wanted more of it. I stripped down to my underwear, spread out my soggy clothing and footwear in hopes they might dry even a little, then lay down to let the sun shine on me. It was the most glorious thing I'd felt in three days, and I dozed off.
When I opened my eyes, the sun was far down in the sky but still shining beautifully. I decided I'd be staying the night here, at the opening where I'd entered the clearing. I could gather my strength a bit, and hope for a warm sunrise and a more successful Thursday. But first, I'd stay in the sun as long as it would shine.
When it began to dip behind the trees, I experimented with my hoodie, wondering if wearing it inside-out would put a dryer surface next to my skin. Unfortunately, it had not dried that much, nor had my footwear. I decided I'd sleep with my feet in my shoes for warmth and protection, but with my disgusting muddy socks off for the night.
I spread the remains of my raincoat at the edge of the clearing where I had walked in, not even bothering with foliage padding, and settled down. I noticed a terrible muscle pull down my left side as I eased myself to the ground.
And the feel of my hands against its surface was so odd that I thought to myself, “When did I get a pair of leather gloves?” I looked at my palms in the dying light and noticed the skin, now scored with a dozen cuts running this way and that, was whitened and thickened. But I found the best position I could manage and fell asleep with my Tomorrow Thought for Thursday – scout every direction from where I was to find the best way to proceed.
DAY FOUR
The sunrise was not terribly sunny, but I was grateful it brought no rain. The walking stick that had served as my whacking stick by night was near. I put my disgusting socks back on and started to scout.
Downhill to the marsh was out. Surprisingly, the spongy ground uphill never got less spongy. That didn't seem possible, but I walked far enough up the hill to see for myself that this was true.
That piece of forest through which I hoped to find Limberlost Road did not really seem promising. The ground was spongy and I thought I saw standing water ahead to deal with – not to mention the dense growth, rocky terrain and barriers like fallen trees. In other words, it was dense woods I would have painful difficulty negotiating, and in which I could so easily get turned around and actually start walking away from any possibility of a road.
There was forest behind me too, which went downhill to a clearing. I decided to scout it, tripped over a tree trunk at its entrance, then hiked in far enough to look closer at the clearing down the hill. I realized it was just a continuation of the marsh at the trail's end and hiked out again, falling over that same tree trunk on my way out.
I yelled in frustration and pain as my muscle pull was aggravated. “I can't do that kind of thing too often today,” I warned myself.
I had looked at all the options and found them all useless. I took another good look at each, including that piece of forest where I fell over that same tree trunk a third time – though I did manage to avoid a fourth fall when I left that patch of forest again.
I had to figure which bad choice to take, so I stood in the clearing to ponder. That's when an inspiration hit, and I remembered that downhill fork in the trail that I had passed up on Wednesday. That was my move, I decided – retracing my way on the trail that had brought me to the clearing, in order to find and take that fork (providing, of course, I didn't somehow get off the trail).
I made my way back along an ATV trail that seemed no less muddy than the day before, in spite of the lack of overnight rain. And my Today Thought this time was that I had previously committed to do a 10 a.m. telephone interview with a woman who was organizing a suicide-prevention event for Sept. 10. She was to call me at that time and, even though she wouldn't reach me, I could hardly hope it would raise alarm bells and inspire her to send out a search party.
I was so grateful when I descended a hill and found that fork. It still went downhill into a flooded place before continuing on, but I was used to mud by now and, frankly, just grateful to be on the right track. I even spotted a tree trunk with a yellow square nailed to it, just like on the other fork, though I didn't see any reason to get excited over it – it hadn't meant a thing yesterday.
I could see I was in for another day of uphills (with loud, whiny exhales) and downhills (usually into flooded patches). But I figured that any trail, no matter how unpleasant, was so much better than wandering helplessly through dense woods where nothing looks familiar and there seems to be no way out.
On my way down one hill to another flooded place, I found one of those flush-to-the-ground rock outcroppings that was temptingly dry. I could see myself stretching out and, once the sun rose above the tree line, even taking in some warmth. Unlike forests, the trail offered so few places to sit for a moment, so this opportunity was irresistible. I lowered myself carefully and savoured getting off my feet.
It was wonderful but, to my right, I could see the sun was not making much progress in clearing the tree line. I figured it would be a couple more hours before that happened, and I didn't think I really had that much time to give over to resting instead of trying to get out of the woods.
I was shocked at how hard it was to get up, even though I knew that to stay would mean to give up on everything. I accepted that, at some point, I might lie down for the last time, fully aware that it was the last time, but not just yet. And once I wrestled myself to a standing position, I told myself, “I can't do that too much today.”
I continued downhill through that latest flooded place and kept going.
Eventually I came to a clearing, and my first thought was to wonder where the trail continued. I saw a gap in the trees across the small clearing and headed that way, passing a burn pit and a doghouse as I went. I wanted to feel hope at these relics of civilization. But I couldn't really believe in such signs just then, so I told myself, “Just keep going.”
About 20 minutes later, I saw another clearing ahead that led to an opening where a black road with a yellow line crossed in front of it.
This was beyond my wildest dream, and I could only hope it was a road that was regularly travelled. As soon as I set foot on it, I saw a person to my left – a jogger headed my way.
“Do you have a phone?” I yelled.
He put a hand to his ear to signal, “I can't hear you,” and I knew he was for real – an hallucination would have ignored me.
I walked toward him and asked where I was. He said it was Limberlost Road. I explained why I wanted a phone, and emphasized that I am 70 years old so he'd take me seriously – as if my appearance were not alarming enough. My hair alone had been unbrushed, unwashed, rained on and mussed up inside a hoodie for four days, and I surely looked like Medusa.
Just as I spilled out my story, a truck approached that we eagerly waved down. It was a Lovegrove Construction and Design truck, its driver Willis Bullen obviously on his way to work, but he stopped to call 911. I asked him to mention my husband who was missing as well.
I spotted a driveway across the road, and asked him to use that address to make it easy for an ambulance to respond. Then he said, “I'm going to turn into that driveway and put down my tailgate for you to sit on.”
I didn't have the strength to use my arms to hoist myself up, so I rolled onto the tailgate and twisted myself up, my pulled muscle protesting painfully. But a dry place to sit was such a treat.
I took the little Tupperware container with its dirty water out of my pocket and set it by my side, then threw my walking stick into the brush at the opposite side of the driveway. It felt like finishing a chapter in a book and turning to a new one.
Mr. Bullen spotted the water, and reminded me that the paramedics had advised against taking anything to eat or drink until they got there. People were beginning to join us and offer me water, and I had to decline these tempting offers with thanks.
A car from the OPP Huntsville detachment beat the ambulance there, Constable Cranney emerging and bringing me a nutbar I put into my pocket for later. I gave her the information she requested on Ted. She walked away and, a moment later, came back to show me a photo of Ted on her cell phone.
“Is this your husband?” she asked.
“How did you do that!” I had to know.
She said it was the photo from his driver's license, and it was being distributed all over. Already we could hear helicopters, and someone said they had just arrived from Orillia.
Constable Cranney also offered to call a family member, and I mentioned Mark. They couldn't find his number listed, but it came to me after a moment. She made the call, and reported back that he was on his way from Kanata.
The paramedics arrived soon after, and took me into their ambulance for treatment and a tick check. They gave me a couple of bottles of water, which I happily downed (along with the nutbar).
My feet were a white callused mess. My legs and ankles were cut up from the times I'd rolled up my pant legs to wade through flooded areas and then walked through ground-level brambles and vines. They applied bandages and offered to take me to the hospital in Huntsville – though they said the hospital could not do anything for me that they hadn't already done.
They also offered to take me back to the cabin on Oxbow Lake if I preferred, and that was my choice.
I could see by the route they took me on that I had come out on Limberlost Road just a kilometre or two past Camp Olympia, where we turn off that road to use a narrow dirt road to get to our cabin. The ambulance driver struggled with that very primitive one-lane road and its blind corners and ungraded downhills to get me to the parking lot at its end. This is where members of our family park to get to the three cabins on land that has been in the family since 1939, but today it was full of police vehicles and carriers with heavy-duty ATVs.
The officers were glad to have the opportunity to talk to me about what ground we might have covered, what direction we might have taken, where we had gotten separated – they showed me a map on a notebook and asked me to do my best to trace it all. I gave it my best guess and crossed my fingers.
It was also my opportunity to show them where we had originally gone into the woods, halfway up our steep driveway at the point where it curves to the right. Then I climbed the other half of the driveway to get to the cabin, the paramedics (whose names were Lindsay and Robert) following right behind me urging me to eat.
An orange and a diet Pepsi sounded wonderful, but I took a moment first to change clothes, flaked mud and dirt sifting to the floor from every garment. Constable Cranney snapped a shot of the sole of one of my ruined shoes as a visual aid for the searchers but, as soon as Ted was found, the footwear and raincoat would go into the garbage (joining the steak that had been thawing for four days for Monday dinner).
Constable Cranney, Lindsay and Robert, and two wonderful Muskoka Victims' Services volunteers formed a group of professionals who stayed with me throughout the afternoon. I later learned that Lindsay and Robert kept in touch with their supervisor to ask permission to stay on with me, and to make sure that was okay.
Everyone was so wonderful to talk to, admiring the cabin, keeping an interesting conversation going, encouraging me with news as it came in - especially Constable Cranney, updating me on Mark's ETA and reporting that Camp Olympia had agreed to let their property be used as the command centre.
She said that information had gone out on the Oxbow Lake Facebook page in case Ted was spotted, and they were hearing from numerous volunteers with ATVs who wanted to help. And I later learned of the dog teams and infrared heat-imaging capacity being deployed.
Over the course of the afternoon, Constable Cranney showed me photos the searchers were sending her that I identified – a muddy boot print I agreed could be Ted's, one of our squashed pop cans, the SOS I had put together Wednesday afternoon, my raincoat sleeve, and that lily pad where the ducks had rested on Tuesday.
To see these familiar sights was encouraging, as it meant they were effectively following our trail. As Mark would later explain, it showed them where we had definitely been which, in turn, offered a clue where Ted might have gone from there.
Mark arrived at the same time as his second cousin Heather Stark-Mosgrove, who has a cabin on the west arm of Oxbow Lake. She had heard the helicopters, seen the emergency vehicles, and driven over to ask Ted what was happening. Instead, she found everyone at the cabin helping me through the ordeal.
Having family present was such a comfort, and a friend joined us too. They had asked me, if Ted should make his way out, whom he might call. I told them it would be our friend Ian Goodhand. And as I sat in the cabin with everyone, his wife Susanne arrived to see how I was. She joined the various conversations we were having, ducking out at one point to make everyone tea, then preparing a wonderful bowl of hot broth that brought a lovely measure of warmth to my afternoon – very welcome since, for long periods of time, I could not stop shivering.
Not long after Mark and Heather arrived, those wonderful professionals began drifting away to get back to other duties, each offering me their personal best wishes before departing. Knowing such capable people were so committed to our situation was a blessing.
My friend Pete Fisher was in constant touch from Cobourg, worried personally but also professionally. Pete has his own news site, Today's Northumberland, which I write for as my retirement volunteer gig. Pete also has the most amazing contacts in the emergency-services world. He probably knew as much about what was going on as we did, but (as the editor of a news site) also talked me into my first interview on what was happening.
He phrased it as something he would be happy to do if I wanted him to, and I decided to go for it. It would get the word out that Ted was missing without my ever lifting a telephone receiver and, if the worst happened, would save me so many painful calls.
Heather had to get back to her family, but said she would return with supper for the three of us. A couple of hours later, she came back with an armload of easy-eating groceries (chips, fruit, yogurt and the like) and a beautiful pasta casserole.
Enjoying dinner and cleaning up together was a time for sharing wonderful memories of Mark and Heather growing up each summer at the lake. And the memories inevitably included Ted, who took the time with all these kids to take them on hikes and teach them about making their way in the woods.
Then he was there when these kids started having kids of their own. Heather had been on the phone to her two older kids – away visiting other relatives – to give them the news. Her son Bruce said not to worry.
“Uncle Ted is Survivorman,” he declared.
As supportive and upbeat as everyone was, however, darkness eventually fell. And around 8 p.m., another rainfall began and my heart sank. If they hadn't found him by then, what shape would he be in when and if they did.
That “if” haunted me – what if nothing were ever found?
I thought I would be too upset to sleep, but a nice mattress, soft pillow and warm blanket took me easily and smoothly into slumber.
DAY FIVE
Much of what happened those last few hours Ted was missing I would learn from Pete's coverage in Today's Northumberland, along with the taped interview with a rescuer (Northumberland OPP Constable Rick Boyd) that he posted to the site.
The OPP Emergency Rescue Team included 23 members of the OPP Central East Response Team, two members of the OPP canine team, an OPP helicopter and drone, as well as members of the OPP Huntsville Detachment Marine Unit and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests.
Two of the OPP officers participating were from our own home-town Northumberland detachment, Constable Boyd and Constable Jeff Nicholas (who was designated the Search Manager in charge of deployment).
Constable Boyd described the terrain to Pete as a place of very thick brush, steep inclines, lakes and rivers, with rocks and cliffs and multiple confusing ATV trails.
When they found Ted at about 1:20 a.m., Constable Boyd described him as struggling with the last stages of hypothermia, cold and wet, but friendly and chatty.
They wasted no time warming him up, building a fire and using emergency blankets. Ted's memory of the rescue was hazy, but he did recall wondering why they were wasting time building a campfire instead of getting him out of there.
Word would get around the Huntsville District Memorial Hospital later that Ted was found by accident, when an officer on an ATV stopped to take a leak. That wasn't true, Constable Boyd later told me. One member of the five-person group he was with simply spotted his bald head while shining a flashlight around.
In his experience, he told Pete, it's very rare a person of that age lost in the woods for that long comes out alive.
“Everything was against him, but he had the will to push on,” he said.
Ted would later be so proud that he had actually made his way back to within 980 metres of the cabin, as the crow flies. But the terrain was so difficult that it took a team of a half-dozen carrying him out by stretcher a hike of more than two km. to reach the ambulance.
Meanwhile, for me, morning dawned and brought back the worries. Before I even got out of bed, I was getting calls of condolence and support from friends back home.
During my second call, Mark came into the room and sat beside me, looking serious.
“They found him,” he said.
“He's in the Huntsville hospital, and they are optimistic.”
I told my friend he was the first to hear the news from me, and I hung up much more jubilant than I had been a minute before.
Mark had been sleeping on the couch beside the cabin's front door when an OPP officer knocked at about 4 a.m. with the news. Hospital visiting hours didn't start until 10, he said, and cooked us a big, wonderful breakfast to celebrate.
At the hospital, we were joined by my niece Karen, who had traveled up from Guelph just to be there. We had imagined each of us would be able to visit Ted in turn but, of course, each patient got one name on his or her visiting list due to COVID-19. They went off to have lunch, while I made my visit.
Ted was weak and distraught, and his speech was slurry. He felt as guilty for losing me as I had for losing him, only “lose” wasn't quite the right verb. He said he had ditched me on purpose in order to pursue those hallucinations – I was fighting him on that point, and he was thinking they offered the best chance of getting help. So he deliberately did not answer when he heard me calling.
Then, once I was gone, he did feel guilty. He began to think that maybe he had, in effect, sentenced me to death in cutting me loose.
AFTER
Ted would be hospitalized for a week, receiving wonderful care and becoming more like himself every day. The recovery process only accelerated after he was discharged to home, where he could control both the thermostat and the noise level.
I had a couple of unpleasant flashback moments while he was hospitalized, one of which happened on a rainy Sunday. I sat in his room, watching and listening to the rain fall, and was taken back to that endless Wednesday alone when the rain kept up so ceaselessly I almost didn't notice it anymore.
The other was during Ted's lunch time one day, when Mark took me out to eat just for a break. I ordered a salad and, spearing up the dark-green mixed greens onto my fork, brought them up to my mouth and paused. Their smell reminded me so much of the leaves on trees I had pushed through, so often brushing across me at face level that their smell must have been imprinted on my mind. I'll stick to iceberg lettuce for my salads from now on.
The family members who gathered around me were a great comfort. Heather would cook dinner for us Friday and Saturday nights as well, which we ate at her cabin, enjoying the company of her husband and the antics of her young twin boys.
We also got a wonderful surprise Friday night when Mark's second cousin Jeff Sturgis appeared at dinner. Jeff had heard Ted was missing, driven up from Kingston immediately, and toured a number of remote roads in the vicinity just to toot his horn on the off-chance Ted could be somewhere nearby and show up.
The cuts on my hands healed very quickly. I couldn't help wondering if it was because we were in a COVID world, where I was constantly washing and sanitizing those hands.
I ended up seeing my family doctor after I got home from the cabin. I noticed a pus discharge from my feet, so I got them looked at. A prescription of antibiotics and some foot soaks made a lot of difference, as did quality time with a heating pad for my muscle pull.
The complete lack of encounters with any wildlife puzzles me still, especially at a time when they must be preparing for hibernation. I suppose they smelled the humans and decided to steer clear. I can think of no other reason we'd have not a single incident in so many days, other than spotting the odd squirrel and bird (and a few stupid ducks).
I find myself wondering what the Guinness World Records book has for the oldest person surviving in the wilderness for the longest time with the fewest resources (if there is such a record). We started out poorly prepared for anything more than a brief outing in the woods and, one by one, we lost even those poor resources except for the small Tupperware container and the shredded plastic raincoat.
Ted lost even more – he was found without his hat, glasses, one of his pullovers, his pants and his new hiking boots. The paramedics said it was because of the hypothermia.
But he had said so often he was going to come out of this all right. He was so stubborn about it, and I guess that's how he lasted.
I am not sure how many more days I could have walked, but I would have kept on as long as I could. I prayed, of course, and my mind took me to a new place once I was alone. With no Ted to lead the way and adjust my pace to, no Ted with whom to debate which direction to take, I was in charge, and the task at hand filled my mind and being. Whenever I was walking, that's all I was thinking of – nothing for it.
As for hunger – well, nothing for it other than that single berry.
I woke up each morning with plans for the day that I'd formulated the night before. Pursuing them was my only hope.
I could see myself at some point finding a sun-warmed dry rock to lie down on for the last time. But that Thursday morning, I hoisted myself up from just such a rock to take up my task again. And in the end, that made all the difference.
