051: Tumblehome: Lost Boys Series Part I

Episode Transcript

[0:00:19 – 0:00:21] SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
[0:00:37 – 0:00:48] Adam: Welcome to Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast coming to you live from Studio K on the north shore of Minnesota’s Lake Superior.
[0:00:49 – 0:00:50] Adam: That’s a weird way to say that.
[0:00:50 – 0:00:51] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:00:52 – 0:00:52] Erik: I was fine with it.
[0:00:53 – 0:00:53] Adam: I’m going to go reverse.
[0:00:53 – 0:00:55] Adam: I’m going to say it that way from now on.
[0:00:55 – 0:00:57] Adam: Minnesota’s Lake Superior.
[0:00:57 – 0:00:58] Erik: Yeah, it is.
[0:00:58 – 0:01:00] Erik: We are out north of Minnesota’s section of it.
[0:01:01 – 0:01:05] Adam: I just looked at Cook County and just Googled Cook County map for some reason.
[0:01:06 – 0:01:07] Adam: And, well, there was a reason.
[0:01:07 – 0:01:09] Adam: I’m just not going to tell everybody.
[0:01:09 – 0:01:14] Adam: But I Googled it and, like, there’s these weird little, like, squares that go way out into Lake Superior.
[0:01:14 – 0:01:18] Adam: And then, like, it covers almost all of Minnesota’s area of Lake Superior.
[0:01:18 – 0:01:21] Adam: Also, the water is part of Cook County.
[0:01:21 – 0:01:22] Erik: Oh, yeah, for sure.
[0:01:22 – 0:01:27] Adam: So maybe that makes sense because in the plat bucket, it says Cook County is like 65% water.
[0:01:27 – 0:01:31] Adam: It’s like even with all the inland lakes and rivers, it still seems insanely high.
[0:01:31 – 0:01:34] Adam: So that’s why they’ve doctored the numbers.
[0:01:34 – 0:01:36] Adam: They’ve included a large chunk of Gitche Gumee.
[0:01:37 – 0:01:37] SPEAKER_03: Yes.
[0:01:39 – 0:01:44] Erik: Well, we’re in the doldrums.
[0:01:44 – 0:01:45] Erik: We should say, yes, welcome.
[0:01:45 – 0:01:46] Erik: Thank you for joining us.
[0:01:46 – 0:01:47] Erik: This is Double Home.
[0:01:48 – 0:01:48] Erik: I am Eric.
[0:01:48 – 0:01:50] Erik: And I’m Adam.
[0:01:50 – 0:01:51] Erik: That is Adam.
[0:01:51 – 0:01:54] Erik: I went with a somber intro there.
[0:01:54 – 0:01:56] Erik: Yeah, we’re talking about a lost…
[0:01:56 – 0:02:23] Erik: a lost boy today and before we get to that we should mention funny it’s not funny it’s not funny yeah i won’t give away the ending um but uh we’re sponsored by clearwater historic lodge and canoe outfitters and this week we’ve got a castle danger we’ve been definitely sponsored by them before but this i don’t think they’re a friend of the show for sure has been sponsored this is an ode
[0:02:26 – 0:02:27] Erik: Oh, wow.
[0:02:28 – 0:02:29] Erik: It’s like we’ve been at this for a little while.
[0:02:30 – 0:02:30] Erik: Cheers, my friend.
[0:02:30 – 0:02:33] Adam: Yeah, old IPA.
[0:02:37 – 0:02:40] Adam: The heavy-duty beer in a green can.
[0:02:40 – 0:02:42] Adam: I’m always fond of a green can.
[0:02:43 – 0:02:46] Erik: Very reminiscent of the Sierra Nevada greens.
[0:02:46 – 0:02:53] Adam: Yeah, that was a staple in my lineup for a long time before we got a little more diversity in our selection up here at the Muni.
[0:02:53 – 0:02:57] Adam: We should probably give a shout-out to Joshy Poo on this one.
[0:02:57 – 0:03:00] Adam: I believe these were in the fridge.
[0:03:00 – 0:03:01] Adam: I think he left them here.
[0:03:01 – 0:03:03] Adam: Yes, friend of the show.
[0:03:03 – 0:03:15] Adam: After Game of Thrones on Sunday, we had some people over and watched the show and had some mulled wine, buttered carrots, pigeon pie.
[0:03:15 – 0:03:16] Erik: Pigeon pie, lemon cakes.
[0:03:17 – 0:03:18] Adam: Sansa’s lemon cakes.
[0:03:18 – 0:03:21] Adam: Natalie made some lemon cakes right out of the cookbook.
[0:03:21 – 0:03:22] Adam: So it was a fun time.
[0:03:22 – 0:03:25] Adam: But yeah, some beers were left mysteriously.
[0:03:26 – 0:03:28] Adam: So that’s where they came from, I believe.
[0:03:28 – 0:03:29] Adam: But who knows?
[0:03:29 – 0:03:30] Adam: Fact check us, Josh.
[0:03:31 – 0:03:32] Erik: Call into the answering machine.
[0:03:32 – 0:03:47] Erik: So we kind of said we were going to take a little bit of a break, but it’s that time of year where, man, I always have a hard time with November and April and what’s the worst month.
[0:03:47 – 0:03:55] Erik: I mean, I think it depends on whatever one I’m in at the moment, but it’s really hard not to say that April is the worst month of the year up here.
[0:03:56 – 0:03:57] Adam: I think I’m going to go the opposite.
[0:03:57 – 0:03:58] Adam: I’m going to say November is the worst.
[0:03:58 – 0:04:00] Adam: We should do an episode on this later.
[0:04:00 – 0:04:00] Adam: Yes.
[0:04:01 – 0:04:02] Adam: November versus April.
[0:04:02 – 0:04:03] Adam: Yeah.
[0:04:03 – 0:04:04] Adam: What’s the worst?
[0:04:04 – 0:04:04] Erik: What’s the worst?
[0:04:05 – 0:04:05] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:04:05 – 0:04:13] Erik: I feel like November at least it allows you that like 4 p.m. darkness to just like
[0:04:14 – 0:04:16] Erik: All right, I’ll just start drinking then.
[0:04:16 – 0:04:20] Erik: I don’t feel as bad about not doing anything today because it’s been so terrible.
[0:04:20 – 0:04:23] Erik: But April, it’s like there’s nothing to do.
[0:04:23 – 0:04:32] Erik: There’s like this hard cement-like snow and like rain off and on, snow off and on, kind of freezing at night, sawing a little bit.
[0:04:32 – 0:04:33] Erik: But it stays light until 8, 30.
[0:04:33 – 0:04:36] Adam: Yeah, it’s definitely nastier.
[0:04:36 – 0:04:38] Adam: It’s grosser out, way muddier.
[0:04:38 – 0:04:40] Erik: It’s way muddier and it like shoves it in your face.
[0:04:40 – 0:04:41] Erik: It’s like, look at it.
[0:04:41 – 0:05:04] Adam: yeah but it’s the end you know it’s the excitement of feeling spring in the air is nice whereas in november it’s just this ominous but darkness is encroaching i know but i like that feeling of like all right i’m gonna get yeah at the beginning of winter i’m excited for winter like you get a couple good snows in november usually i mean i was looking at the snow log the other day november was i think our snowiest month november december we got pounded yeah
[0:05:05 – 0:05:11] Adam: Uh, so it’s just like, yeah, the excitement of winter starting versus now the excitement of spring and open water season starting.
[0:05:12 – 0:05:14] Adam: They’re exciting in both ways for bad months.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:16] Adam: They sure do have some anticipation.
[0:05:16 – 0:05:16] Erik: They do.
[0:05:16 – 0:05:24] Erik: They’re not all bad, but I mean, we’ve kind of done a show about like the different months of the year, but we’ve never just like compared to.
[0:05:24 – 0:05:30] Adam: There’s a reason most businesses in this County are closed in November and April because there’s nobody around and there’s really nothing to do.
[0:05:30 – 0:05:38] Erik: There’s a reason every Gunflint Trail Outfitter and Lodge’s Instagram account right now is just posting vacation shots down on the beach.
[0:05:38 – 0:05:41] Adam: I didn’t do that to our dear listeners.
[0:05:42 – 0:05:43] Adam: I kept those private.
[0:05:44 – 0:05:45] Erik: Thanks for that.
[0:05:45 – 0:05:47] Adam: I don’t want to tease people with beautiful beach shots.
[0:05:48 – 0:05:53] Erik: Without getting off on too much of a tangent on how terrible April is, it’s still pretty socked in.
[0:05:53 – 0:05:57] Erik: We won’t go into too much more depth in terms of snow and ice.
[0:05:57 – 0:05:58] Erik: It’s still around.
[0:05:58 – 0:05:59] Erik: It’s slowly going out.
[0:06:00 – 0:06:03] Adam: Josh and I were ice fishing before Game of Thrones on Sunday.
[0:06:03 – 0:06:04] Erik: Just a couple of days ago.
[0:06:05 – 0:06:05] Erik: Yeah.
[0:06:05 – 0:06:06] Adam: Still lots of ice on that lake at least.
[0:06:07 – 0:06:07] Adam: Yep.
[0:06:09 – 0:06:15] Erik: So we are sponsored by Castle Danger Clearwater.
[0:06:16 – 0:06:23] Erik: And we are excited to announce, finally, for the first time, actually vocalizing this by listeners just like you.
[0:06:24 – 0:06:25] Adam: I like the ring of that.
[0:06:25 – 0:06:26] Erik: Yeah.
[0:06:27 – 0:06:28] Erik: We joked about it for a year.
[0:06:28 – 0:06:30] Adam: I made a few jokes on behalf of…
[0:06:31 – 0:06:33] Erik: Yeah, we’re on Patreon.
[0:06:33 – 0:06:34] Erik: Yeah.
[0:06:34 – 0:06:41] Erik: And this is a really cool way to let our listeners support us if they want.
[0:06:42 – 0:06:45] Erik: The podcast will always remain free.
[0:06:45 – 0:06:45] Erik: And…
[0:06:49 – 0:07:16] Erik: devoid of ads like huge sponsors that will disrupt the show that is going to be something that i will always put my foot down on maybe a little bit in the beginning with the beer and the clear water and this patreon talk which is probably going to be the longest discussion we have about it going forward but i’m never going to have anything that pops up in the middle no matter how hard other podcasts try i don’t feel like it really ever works for me
[0:07:17 – 0:07:39] Adam: what do you mean like popping an ad right in the middle popping an ad just right in the middle or trying to like do a good job of like segwaying into it you know speaking of hot seats yeah yeah what about seat geek well you know we’ve done some work on the local radio and our buddy deke is always the one in charge of reading the yeah um what do you call them
[0:07:39 – 0:07:39] Adam: The cards.
[0:07:39 – 0:07:40] Adam: The underwriters?
[0:07:40 – 0:07:41] Adam: The underwriters, yeah.
[0:07:42 – 0:07:44] Adam: No matter what, it’s not smooth going in and out of that.
[0:07:44 – 0:07:46] Adam: Yeah, it’s tough.
[0:07:46 – 0:07:48] Adam: It throws a real wrench in the show.
[0:07:50 – 0:08:03] Erik: But, I mean, it’s still a show that is supported by Clearwater, but not necessarily 100%.
[0:08:03 – 0:08:04] Erik: I’ll just say that.
[0:08:05 – 0:08:09] Erik: And we don’t necessarily need the donations, but…
[0:08:10 – 0:08:24] Erik: If it helps us pick up a permit here or there or buy a little bit of an extra piece of recording, filming, or lighting, we want to put all of the Patreon.
[0:08:24 – 0:08:26] Adam: Can we get an actual boom mic someday?
[0:08:26 – 0:08:28] Adam: We could maybe get a boom mic.
[0:08:28 – 0:08:29] Adam: Not just an imaginary one.
[0:08:29 – 0:08:37] Erik: We could maybe pay a boom mic operator besides just having Tori standing over in the corner holding her arms up over her head for an hour and a half.
[0:08:38 – 0:08:38] Erik: At least we could pay her.
[0:08:39 – 0:09:03] Erik: that would be nice but so we want to take anything that comes through the patreon page and put it directly towards the podcast and improving it and giving us more time to do some of the things that we’ve heard from people that they like the most like in the field recordings some of these little book reports that we’ve been doing lately and then more video which is the other thing that we’re kind of announcing at the same time here
[0:09:03 – 0:09:06] Erik: We are going… Video.
[0:09:06 – 0:09:10] Erik: I think this… Video time.
[0:09:10 – 0:09:11] Erik: Hit it.
[0:09:11 – 0:09:15] Erik: I mean, see, that’s the kind of… We might also get some real musical drops.
[0:09:15 – 0:09:17] Erik: Yeah, we can get some actual music in.
[0:09:18 – 0:09:29] Erik: But if you’re not aware, Patreon is basically like a page that you can support artists in any way, in anything that they create and donate money to them in…
[0:09:33 – 0:09:37] Erik: In advance of getting some things in return, depending on how much you donate.
[0:09:38 – 0:09:38] Erik: Freedom isn’t free.
[0:09:39 – 0:09:46] Erik: And I feel like at this point, people should be pretty comfortable with what we produce and how regularly we do it.
[0:09:48 – 0:09:51] Erik: I listen to a ton of podcasts that I don’t pay for.
[0:09:51 – 0:09:53] Erik: I’m not going to judge you if you don’t.
[0:09:53 – 0:09:56] Erik: But if you do want to, we have a link in the show.
[0:09:56 – 0:10:01] Erik: You can also go to patreon.com backslash tumblehomepodcasts.
[0:10:01 – 0:10:03] Erik: And you can see the different tiers.
[0:10:03 – 0:10:07] Erik: You can donate as little as a dollar a month and as much as $10 a month.
[0:10:07 – 0:10:13] Erik: And if you have any suggestions, this is very early on in the stages of going through this process.
[0:10:13 – 0:10:22] Erik: If you have any suggestions, maybe some other things that you’d maybe like to see as, you know, hey, if I’m going to be throwing down $5 a month, maybe you can do this for us.
[0:10:22 – 0:10:22] Erik: But
[0:10:23 – 0:10:26] Erik: The main purpose of the show is the same.
[0:10:26 – 0:10:45] Erik: We want to illuminate our fans with the experiences that we have in the park and hear from the listeners in terms of what their experiences are and just keep that a little bit more of a 21st century conversation about the Boundary Waters.
[0:10:46 – 0:10:54] Erik: And in everything that we’ve done at this point, nothing is really changing besides if you want to become a patron, you can.
[0:10:54 – 0:10:56] Erik: It’s kind of a cool concept.
[0:10:56 – 0:11:01] Erik: It dates way back to back in the day when you really couldn’t make any money as an artist.
[0:11:02 – 0:11:07] Erik: And so these rich magistrates would become patrons of artists.
[0:11:08 – 0:11:12] Erik: And then they would just pay their wages for them to just focus on art.
[0:11:12 – 0:11:13] Erik: That’s how Shakespeare was able to do
[0:11:14 – 0:11:16] Erik: Here we are comparing ourselves to Shakespeare.
[0:11:16 – 0:11:16] Adam: Absolutely.
[0:11:17 – 0:11:17] Adam: It’s about time.
[0:11:17 – 0:11:18] Erik: Exactly.
[0:11:18 – 0:11:21] Erik: We are the Shakespeare’s of Bon Jovi’s podcast.
[0:11:21 – 0:11:22] Adam: I think that’s undisputed.
[0:11:22 – 0:11:22] Erik: Yeah.
[0:11:22 – 0:11:24] Adam: So you could… Dareth, I saith.
[0:11:25 – 0:11:25] Erik: Dareth, you saith.
[0:11:26 – 0:11:26] Erik: I dareth.
[0:11:27 – 0:11:29] Erik: And we’ve rambled enough on it.
[0:11:30 – 0:11:32] Erik: If you have any questions…
[0:11:32 – 0:11:33] Adam: It’s like public radio.
[0:11:33 – 0:11:37] Adam: We’re not going to have a Patreon drive every three months.
[0:11:37 – 0:11:37] Adam: No, we’re not.
[0:11:37 – 0:11:47] Erik: We’re going to always have a link in the show and we’ll probably joke about it going forward in one way or another, but this is probably going to be the longest we talk on it.
[0:11:47 – 0:11:51] Erik: You can just go to patreon.com if you want to learn more about how it all works.
[0:11:51 – 0:11:53] Adam: Are you going to go over the different levels?
[0:11:53 – 0:11:54] Erik: And we’ve got, yeah.
[0:11:54 – 0:12:03] Erik: So for a dollar a month, just a buck, uh, you will receive our undying gratitude and a shout out on the show and shout outs, uh, $3.
[0:12:04 – 0:12:07] Erik: We will send you some tumble home decals.
[0:12:07 – 0:12:09] Erik: Maybe that’s going to be like a pop in the wheel sticker.
[0:12:09 – 0:12:11] Erik: There’s only two of those that exist right now.
[0:12:11 – 0:12:12] Erik: Yeah.
[0:12:12 – 0:12:13] Adam: Can they even make more?
[0:12:14 – 0:12:14] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:12:14 – 0:12:16] Adam: You have to get your sticker machine out.
[0:12:16 – 0:12:19] Erik: But yeah, that’s $5.
[0:12:20 – 0:12:26] Erik: Everything going forward, you will get what anybody who donates under that amount will also get.
[0:12:27 – 0:12:30] Erik: You will get a Coghlan’s brand surprise.
[0:12:30 – 0:12:31] Erik: Oh my God.
[0:12:31 – 0:12:31] Erik: Yeah.
[0:12:33 – 0:12:36] Erik: And for $10 a month, these are the poppin’-a-wheelers.
[0:12:36 – 0:12:37] Erik: These are the true supporters of the show.
[0:12:38 – 0:12:43] Erik: They will get everything, including, we are working on a fun artist’s rendering.
[0:12:43 – 0:12:45] Erik: This will be a very unique logo.
[0:12:46 – 0:12:47] Erik: Tumble Home t-shirt.
[0:12:48 – 0:12:54] Erik: And behind the scenes videos, like I said, we’re going to be starting to do a little bit more in the way of video.
[0:12:56 – 0:13:01] Erik: And a bonus episode, which is still very much up in the air in terms of what that content will be.
[0:13:01 – 0:13:06] Erik: Depending on how many patrons we get at that level, we can have a discussion.
[0:13:06 – 0:13:10] Adam: They’ll be delivered to you via Raven on a USB drive.
[0:13:10 – 0:13:10] Adam: Yeah.
[0:13:10 – 0:13:11] Adam: Bonus.
[0:13:11 – 0:13:22] Erik: If it ends up just being a few people, we could do a very specific little podcast directly related to very specific questions that you might have.
[0:13:23 – 0:13:31] Erik: A lot of times I get specific questions that are a little bit harder to have a full episode on or try to do anything more than maybe a question of the week.
[0:13:31 – 0:13:31] Erik: Yeah.
[0:13:32 – 0:13:33] Erik: That’s kind of the idea.
[0:13:33 – 0:13:39] Erik: If you want to learn more, link is in the show notes, patreon.com backslash tumblahome podcast.
[0:13:40 – 0:13:42] Erik: And with that, should we move on?
[0:13:43 – 0:13:43] Erik: Yes.
[0:13:44 – 0:13:45] Erik: I am ready to move on.
[0:13:45 – 0:13:45] Erik: All right.
[0:13:46 – 0:13:55] Erik: We are, again, in the slow-melting phase of April, so we’re going to take the time to do a couple more book reports.
[0:13:56 – 0:14:02] Erik: And this one is much more related to the Bodgewaters story.
[0:14:03 – 0:14:04] Erik: Quetico, specifically.
[0:14:05 – 0:14:08] Erik: And I’ve actually read this book twice now.
[0:14:08 – 0:14:10] Erik: I read it about 10 years ago, just on my own.
[0:14:12 – 0:14:18] Erik: And I read it again just recently to actually get some notes down on
[0:14:19 – 0:14:22] Erik: And I think it’s a fun topic to a certain extent.
[0:14:22 – 0:14:24] Erik: I think everybody can kind of relate.
[0:14:25 – 0:14:35] Erik: It’s one of the biggest fears I think that a lot of people have in their immediate thinking of coming up to the Bunch of Waters Aquatico and that’s getting lost.
[0:14:36 – 0:14:43] Erik: And these two stories, we’re going to focus on one today, probably next week do the other one.
[0:14:44 – 0:14:50] Erik: And one happens in Quetico Provincial Park and the other one happens in the Bonjewaters.
[0:14:50 – 0:15:00] Erik: And in the book itself, our obvious source material is Lost in the Wild by Carrie J. Griffith.
[0:15:01 – 0:15:01] Erik: Griffith.
[0:15:02 – 0:15:02] Erik: It’s a great read.
[0:15:02 – 0:15:14] Erik: I did my best to outline the story, but there is a ton of information, especially he does a really good job of going over the, some people might find this dry.
[0:15:14 – 0:15:31] Erik: I find it very interesting, like the actual logistics of like starting a search and rescue operation, how that gets disseminated down through the levels and how, I mean, it can, you know, get a little bit lost in translation, especially when you’re working on people that are lost, like on the border.
[0:15:32 – 0:15:35] Erik: and where that information comes in, and then who starts looking.
[0:15:36 – 0:15:46] Erik: I’m going to go over kind of the basics of an outline, but if you’re interested in how search and rescue works, Kerry goes into incredible detail on it in the book.
[0:15:46 – 0:15:56] Erik: So this is a great supplement to the book, but I’m not saying that this podcast is replacing reading it at all.
[0:15:56 – 0:16:09] Adam: So it goes into a lot of the search and rescue, the behind the scenes on that more than… See, I was picturing it was just going to be like from the perspective of the people or person lost.
[0:16:10 – 0:16:14] Erik: Yeah, and there’s a little bit of that, but I feel like that is…
[0:16:15 – 0:16:25] Erik: He takes a little bit of artistic liberty with implying how somebody is feeling in a certain situation when they’re lost, but he can interview…
[0:16:25 – 0:16:26] Erik: Because he didn’t…
[0:16:26 – 0:16:34] Erik: I mean, he did a little bit of interview with some of these people that were lost, but he did like… Yeah, I almost want to ask, but I don’t want to also find out the ending.
[0:16:34 – 0:16:35] Erik: Right.
[0:16:35 – 0:16:41] Erik: He has all of the notes and he can interview all of these officials who were involved and get their exact like…
[0:16:41 – 0:16:46] Erik: It’s like very black and white in terms of how it all works when they were in certain places.
[0:16:47 – 0:16:53] Erik: The description of when and where these two guys were lost is…
[0:16:53 – 0:17:08] Adam: pretty well known but it’s not nearly as exact so yeah like i kind of want to ask like did he talk to the people who are lost but did they actually get unlost so i don’t know if i can i withdraw the question for now unless you feel like you can answer it without spoiling anything for the listeners
[0:17:09 – 0:17:23] Erik: I mean, I don’t know if we’re ever going to get to a point where I’m reading or we’re doing book reports or we’re talking about stories of people who died in the wilderness.
[0:17:23 – 0:17:24] Erik: I’ll say that.
[0:17:24 – 0:17:26] Erik: So…
[0:17:27 – 0:17:38] Erik: It’s a very, I mean, it’s a pretty serious story and this one is a little bit more, I don’t necessarily want to say lighthearted, but it doesn’t have as much of an edge to it.
[0:17:38 – 0:17:48] Erik: I’m really looking forward to next week’s because that one is, that one definitely got much more serious in terms of, this is a quick example.
[0:17:49 – 0:17:53] Erik: The first one we’re talking about here is, it occurred in early August and
[0:17:54 – 0:17:56] Erik: The second one happened in late October.
[0:17:57 – 0:17:59] Erik: Yeah, it’s got a different feel to it already.
[0:17:59 – 0:18:00] Erik: There’s a huge weather difference there.
[0:18:00 – 0:18:10] Adam: Well, yeah, what I’m getting is a primary source material from the search and rescue and from the people that were lost, or what’s the ratio on that for the book?
[0:18:11 – 0:18:23] Erik: I think the primary source just he doesn’t carry doesn’t say specifically like this is the percentage of how many interviews ahead with the search and rescuers, the family and the actual lost.
[0:18:24 – 0:18:26] Erik: But based on my feeling and reading it.
[0:18:27 – 0:18:32] Erik: It seems like the most interviews and the most information he got was from search and rescue.
[0:18:32 – 0:18:43] Adam: And then next down, there’s probably official reports he can put in requests for and draw from without even having to sit down and really spend time talking with somebody.
[0:18:43 – 0:18:44] Adam: Although I think that would help.
[0:18:44 – 0:18:49] Adam: Um, so if it’s not clear, I haven’t read the book, not once, not twice.
[0:18:50 – 0:18:54] Adam: And so I’m in the dark once again on, on this episode, which has happened.
[0:18:54 – 0:18:55] Adam: I think it’s fine.
[0:18:55 – 0:18:56] Erik: I think it works.
[0:18:57 – 0:19:03] Adam: But I saw somebody, you posted something about it on Facebook today and then somebody was commenting like, do I need to read it?
[0:19:03 – 0:19:04] Adam: Required reading before listening?
[0:19:04 – 0:19:09] Adam: Like, I know you don’t need to because I haven’t read it and I’m in the studio right now.
[0:19:09 – 0:19:24] Erik: If it interests you in any way though, it’s like I always, there’s other podcasts I listen to that do this kind of same thing and I’ve listened to the podcast and then I’ve read the book and I feel like there is, you can do both at the same time.
[0:19:24 – 0:19:25] Erik: We’re not like…
[0:19:26 – 0:19:30] Erik: Obviously, we’re kind of telling you what happens, but there’s many more details in there.
[0:19:30 – 0:19:34] Adam: Yeah, we did a very long episode on the Vindleys and the Northern Lights.
[0:19:34 – 0:19:35] Adam: Yeah, you can still read the whole book.
[0:19:35 – 0:19:37] Adam: Yeah, I’m still planning to read that book.
[0:19:37 – 0:19:38] Adam: For sure.
[0:19:38 – 0:19:39] Adam: I haven’t gotten to it yet.
[0:19:40 – 0:19:41] Adam: I’m working on something else right now.
[0:19:42 – 0:19:44] Adam: Yeah, and that also involves patrons.
[0:19:44 – 0:19:49] Erik: Yes, I am looking forward to being a book reported by you at some point.
[0:19:49 – 0:19:51] Adam: I got one in the wheelhouse here.
[0:19:51 – 0:19:52] Adam: I got one in the works.
[0:19:53 – 0:19:54] Erik: I’m looking forward to it.
[0:19:54 – 0:19:59] Erik: We’re going to just take a quick break, and we’ll be back in however long.
[0:19:59 – 0:20:01] Adam: Two shakes of a bluegill’s tail.
[0:20:01 – 0:20:04] Erik: However long in our time, instantaneously in yours.
[0:20:06 – 0:20:06] Erik: All right.
[0:20:07 – 0:20:12] Erik: So this story starts on Wednesday, August 5th, 1998.
[0:20:13 – 0:20:14] Erik: And this actually…
[0:20:15 – 0:20:16] Adam: There was actually…
[0:20:16 – 0:20:19] Adam: The person was able to get an entry permit for that day, huh?
[0:20:20 – 0:20:20] Erik: Well, so…
[0:20:21 – 0:20:22] Adam: It’s got to be the busiest…
[0:20:22 – 0:20:23] Adam: Which one is this?
[0:20:23 – 0:20:23] Adam: Quetico or Boundary Waters?
[0:20:23 – 0:20:25] Erik: This is the Quetico story.
[0:20:25 – 0:20:25] Erik: All right.
[0:20:26 – 0:20:30] Erik: Nameless lake between Fran and Bell in Quetico Provincial Park.
[0:20:31 – 0:20:52] Erik: i know where that is which is i have a map here which again we are looking forward to doing a video to share some of these maps with you it’s that uh so it’s that little lake in between before it gets to that little muddy section that we joked about how like horribly shallow it was but like
[0:20:53 – 0:21:11] Adam: bunion to butt to bell so basically uh like yeah we got the big map behind us here right there that lake there so nameless lake between fran and bell pull out your maps off of slate or so it’s south of slate southwest of slate not off of slate
[0:21:11 – 0:21:13] Erik: Heading down the man chain.
[0:21:13 – 0:21:17] Erik: So just to give you an idea of who was involved and where they were coming from.
[0:21:17 – 0:21:20] Erik: Dan Stevens was an Eagle Scout from Georgia.
[0:21:20 – 0:21:21] Erik: He’s 22 years old.
[0:21:22 – 0:21:28] Erik: Leading a group of scouts out of the Northern Tier High Adventure Camp in Ely, Minnesota.
[0:21:29 – 0:21:32] Erik: He was guiding two fathers, six kids.
[0:21:33 – 0:21:34] Erik: They were all related.
[0:21:35 – 0:21:38] Erik: And there was very little wilderness experience in the group.
[0:21:38 – 0:21:39] Erik: He was 22?
[0:21:39 – 0:21:41] Erik: Dan Stevens was 22.
[0:21:41 – 0:21:41] Erik: Yes.
[0:21:42 – 0:21:43] Adam: He’s leading that group.
[0:21:43 – 0:21:44] Adam: He’s leading the group.
[0:21:44 – 0:21:49] Adam: How much wilderness paddling experience does Dan have at this point?
[0:21:50 – 0:21:52] Erik: Dan had a lot of wilderness experience.
[0:21:52 – 0:21:52] Erik: This was August.
[0:21:53 – 0:21:55] Adam: Yeah, 22 is young, but he can get a lot of paddling in.
[0:21:55 – 0:21:55] Erik: Well, yeah.
[0:21:55 – 0:22:02] Erik: No, and he had spent the whole summer working for the Boy Scout camp as a leader.
[0:22:02 – 0:22:06] Erik: The group he was guiding was from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
[0:22:06 – 0:22:07] Erik: Lookout Mountain.
[0:22:07 – 0:22:07] Erik: Shout out.
[0:22:08 – 0:22:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:22:08 – 0:22:17] Erik: So on the day that Dan went missing, it was just a beautiful early August day.
[0:22:17 – 0:22:23] Erik: You know, those blue skies with a little floating popcorn clouds, glass water.
[0:22:24 – 0:22:25] Erik: Almost too hot.
[0:22:25 – 0:22:26] Adam: You could use a little bit of breeze.
[0:22:26 – 0:22:27] Adam: Can I interject?
[0:22:27 – 0:22:30] Adam: Were they coming from Ely at this point or heading back towards Ely?
[0:22:30 – 0:22:33] Adam: I mean, they’re a long way from Ely right now.
[0:22:33 – 0:22:33] Erik: Yes.
[0:22:33 – 0:22:36] Erik: So I was just about to get to that.
[0:22:36 – 0:22:38] Erik: Their trip up to this point, they were three days in.
[0:22:39 – 0:22:45] Erik: They had come up from Moose Lake, which is where the Northern Tier base is, Summers Canoe Base.
[0:22:46 – 0:22:56] Erik: They paddled up through Moose, Sucker, up to Knife, Otter Track, Sag, and then they stopped in at the Ranger Station.
[0:22:57 – 0:22:59] Erik: and did the Silver Falls portage.
[0:22:59 – 0:23:06] Erik: They camped on Saginagons, and they were heading back down in the southwest direction doing the man chain.
[0:23:06 – 0:23:07] Erik: That’s a great loop.
[0:23:08 – 0:23:09] Erik: Yeah, beautiful loop.
[0:23:10 – 0:23:10] Erik: Great.
[0:23:11 – 0:23:13] Erik: So they’d been three days up to that point.
[0:23:14 – 0:23:23] Erik: So they had done the Falls Portage, the Silver Falls Portage, I should say, which is a bit of a doozy.
[0:23:24 – 0:23:40] Erik: And these guys more or less were, on one hand, yeah, inexperienced, but they also kind of seemed like the dads were a little out of shape, kind of not really ready for the physical toll, actually.
[0:23:40 – 0:23:41] Erik: They had dad bods.
[0:23:42 – 0:24:00] Erik: I actually don’t have it in the notes here, but I do remember the author said that a week after they got back, one of the dads ended up going in because he was having some weakness on his left side and ended up having bypass surgery because of a blockage in his heart.
[0:24:01 – 0:24:01] Erik: Yeah.
[0:24:03 – 0:24:05] Erik: So they’re heading across this nameless lake.
[0:24:06 – 0:24:17] Erik: And Dan, the scout leader, part of that job is to kind of transfer some of those skills over to the scouts and let them maybe navigate a little bit.
[0:24:17 – 0:24:18] Erik: So he hands over…
[0:24:20 – 0:24:47] Erik: his his map and his compass to the scout up in front of him in this canoe and kind of tries to help you know him guide the group towards where they think this portage is and they kind of end up in this section where they think there’s a potential portage and he follows a moose trail that just kind of ends kind of ends up walking into the woods again and it just sort of ends and
[0:24:48 – 0:24:59] Erik: And from there, Dan is employing this cloverleaf method that he’s been using to find these porches in Quetico that can be a little hard to find.
[0:25:00 – 0:25:00] Erik: Uh-huh, yeah.
[0:25:00 – 0:25:09] Erik: Which basically means he walks a minute in one direction and then turns 90 degrees to the right and walks another minute in that direction.
[0:25:09 – 0:25:10] Erik: You can go a long way in a minute.
[0:25:10 – 0:25:10] Erik: I know.
[0:25:11 – 0:25:14] Erik: Turns 90 degrees right from there and then back.
[0:25:14 – 0:25:14] Erik: Yeah.
[0:25:15 – 0:25:19] Erik: And so it should end up kind of where you started out.
[0:25:19 – 0:25:20] Erik: Yeah.
[0:25:20 – 0:25:22] Erik: And so during this method…
[0:25:22 – 0:25:24] Adam: I’m like grimacing over here right now.
[0:25:24 – 0:25:24] Adam: Well, that’s kind of…
[0:25:24 – 0:25:27] Adam: If we had video on right now, they’d see my grimace.
[0:25:27 – 0:25:29] Erik: This is going to… Yeah.
[0:25:30 – 0:25:31] Erik: Keep your grimace face at hand.
[0:25:31 – 0:25:33] Erik: It’s going to be pulled out many times here.
[0:25:34 – 0:25:36] Erik: So during this method, basically…
[0:25:38 – 0:25:42] Erik: just looking at it on the map, the portage is essentially on the north side of the lake, northwest corner.
[0:25:42 – 0:25:45] Erik: They’re down in the southwest corner of the lake.
[0:25:45 – 0:25:46] Adam: They went in the wrong bay.
[0:25:46 – 0:25:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:25:46 – 0:25:49] Erik: He let this kid kind of guide him into a place where he shouldn’t have been.
[0:25:49 – 0:25:50] Erik: It can happen pretty quick.
[0:25:50 – 0:25:54] Erik: He just plunged into the woods using this clover leaf method.
[0:25:54 – 0:25:56] Erik: 90 degrees.
[0:25:56 – 0:26:00] Adam: He didn’t check the map first to be like, we are in the bay we think we’re in.
[0:26:01 – 0:26:01] Erik: I mean…
[0:26:01 – 0:26:02] Erik: Guess not.
[0:26:02 – 0:26:08] Erik: Yeah, no, I mean, there’s not too many details on exactly how extensively he was checking the map before he left.
[0:26:08 – 0:26:17] Adam: I remember when we first went on our first Quetico trip, you really had me kind of scared that the portages were going to be real, just real rough.
[0:26:17 – 0:26:18] Erik: They are pretty rough.
[0:26:18 – 0:26:18] Erik: They are.
[0:26:18 – 0:26:20] Erik: They’re more rough than the Bonjouet’s portages.
[0:26:20 – 0:26:22] Adam: They are rougher, but they are there.
[0:26:22 – 0:26:23] Adam: Yes, they are there.
[0:26:24 – 0:26:31] Adam: It’s either the portage you’re going to know in 10 steps or not, if you’re even on a potential portage or an old portage or if it’s just a moose trail or nothing.
[0:26:31 – 0:26:32] Erik: This is also in 1998.
[0:26:32 – 0:26:32] Erik: Okay.
[0:26:32 – 0:26:35] Erik: Got to give them a little bit of the benefit of the doubt.
[0:26:35 – 0:26:40] Erik: This was before the blowdown where they may have done a little bit more clearing.
[0:26:41 – 0:26:41] Erik: Sure.
[0:26:41 – 0:26:43] Erik: That’s 20 years ago still.
[0:26:43 – 0:26:46] Erik: That could have been, who knows what Quetico Portage Trails were like back then.
[0:26:47 – 0:26:49] Adam: If anything, I’d imagine they’d be better.
[0:26:50 – 0:26:51] Adam: Maybe.
[0:26:52 – 0:26:54] Adam: How much are they funding trail clearing these days?
[0:26:55 – 0:26:57] Erik: That’s an entirely different episode.
[0:26:58 – 0:26:59] Erik: That’s a whole other episode, my friend.
[0:27:00 – 0:27:05] Adam: So we don’t know what 98 portages look like, but my point was that you generally know if you’re on one or not.
[0:27:05 – 0:27:06] Erik: You generally do.
[0:27:06 – 0:27:09] Adam: So he’s horseshoeing it for a minute.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:11] Erik: He’s cloverleafing it.
[0:27:11 – 0:27:13] Erik: Cloverleafing, not horseshoeing.
[0:27:13 – 0:27:14] Erik: Not horseshoeing.
[0:27:14 – 0:27:15] Erik: No, that’s a different technique.
[0:27:15 – 0:27:16] Erik: You don’t want to know about that technique.
[0:27:17 – 0:27:18] Adam: You don’t use the horseshoe in Quetico.
[0:27:18 – 0:27:21] Erik: No, that’s only a Bonjewater’s swamplands technique.
[0:27:22 – 0:27:23] Erik: So he’s in the woods.
[0:27:23 – 0:27:29] Erik: I mean, he’s basically pushing through impenetrable brush trying to look for this portage trail.
[0:27:30 – 0:27:41] Erik: And he kind of comes to this like little bit of a boulder field, large boulder, climbs up on top of the highest one just to get a little bit of a perspective of
[0:27:42 – 0:27:50] Erik: and he’s kind of trying to still move in a direction, and he thinks he can jump over and across to the next boulder.
[0:27:51 – 0:27:56] Erik: Yeah, and he slips, falls headfirst into granite, and…
[0:27:58 – 0:28:00] Erik: Kind of loses consciousness.
[0:28:01 – 0:28:02] Adam: Yeah, he’s concussed.
[0:28:02 – 0:28:07] Erik: Yeah, so we’re back at the unnamed lake.
[0:28:08 – 0:28:13] Erik: Jerry Willis and Tim Jones, the two dads of the group.
[0:28:13 – 0:28:15] Adam: Two dads not in good shape whatsoever.
[0:28:15 – 0:28:18] Adam: Unless they’re listening, then I’m sure they’re ripped.
[0:28:19 – 0:28:24] Erik: Well, at the time, I mean, there’s a book that says that, and I’m going off the book.
[0:28:24 – 0:28:25] Adam: We’re going off the book.
[0:28:25 – 0:28:25] Adam: We don’t know these guys.
[0:28:26 – 0:28:27] Adam: No.
[0:28:27 – 0:28:35] Erik: They’re rechecking the map, and they’re just kind of like finally looking a little bit closer, and they’re like, you know, I think it looks like we’re maybe up over here a little bit.
[0:28:35 – 0:28:38] Adam: Did they ever give the name of the kid who navigated them into the wrong bay?
[0:28:38 – 0:28:42] Erik: No, I left out all of the kids’ names because they’re all under 18 when this happened.
[0:28:42 – 0:28:43] Erik: They might be listening.
[0:28:44 – 0:28:45] Erik: Yeah, they might be.
[0:28:45 – 0:28:47] Erik: I’m not giving out any of those kids’ names.
[0:28:47 – 0:28:48] Adam: Good on you.
[0:28:48 – 0:28:49] Adam: That’s smart journalism.
[0:28:49 – 0:28:52] Erik: Yeah, smart journalism.
[0:28:52 – 0:28:57] Erik: So they look at this map a little bit closer, and they kind of do determine that they’re a little bit…
[0:28:58 – 0:29:25] Erik: they’re they’re actually way off they’re about 75 yards to the south of where they should be and it’s only a 20 rod portage between this unnamed lake and bell this was the lake that we were with your uh brother andrew yeah yeah and um natalie have we had lunch on the north side of bell lake yeah that’s that’s that portage very short pretty easy to find very surprised after going back and reading this book again that this is where these these guys got lost that one huh
[0:29:25 – 0:29:31] Adam: I was thinking it was like two over from that where we got into that big swamp in the middle of going up a cliff.
[0:29:31 – 0:29:32] Erik: No, not that.
[0:29:32 – 0:29:33] Erik: That one I could have definitely seen.
[0:29:33 – 0:29:38] Adam: That’s what I was picturing in my mind, but that was closer to the man chain itself.
[0:29:38 – 0:29:41] Erik: So that, yeah, out of Fran, there’s that huge climb.
[0:29:42 – 0:29:46] Erik: And then there’s a few steps on top and then a huge drop down to like a tiny little lake.
[0:29:46 – 0:29:49] Erik: And then it’s just like right around the north shore of the lake.
[0:29:49 – 0:29:50] Erik: And then there’s the portage.
[0:29:51 – 0:29:55] Erik: And then, yeah, we ended up seeing the one tent on that trip.
[0:29:55 – 0:29:56] Erik: That’s right.
[0:29:56 – 0:29:56] Erik: Just around that corner.
[0:29:57 – 0:29:58] Erik: So they find the portage.
[0:29:58 – 0:29:59] Erik: They get over to Bell.
[0:30:00 – 0:30:04] Erik: They kind of head back over to where Dan started bushwhacking.
[0:30:05 – 0:30:07] Erik: And he’s been gone for 30 minutes now.
[0:30:08 – 0:30:09] Erik: They start yelling.
[0:30:09 – 0:30:10] Erik: They’re blowing whistles.
[0:30:10 – 0:30:11] Erik: And they only hear silence.
[0:30:11 – 0:30:12] Erik: Nothing.
[0:30:12 – 0:30:13] Erik: They had coddling whistles?
[0:30:14 – 0:30:14] Erik: Yeah, they had whistles.
[0:30:15 – 0:30:15] Erik: Sweet.
[0:30:15 – 0:30:15] Erik: Sweet.
[0:30:15 – 0:30:16] Erik: Yeah.
[0:30:16 – 0:30:18] Erik: So they wait another half hour.
[0:30:18 – 0:30:18] Erik: It’s been an hour now.
[0:30:21 – 0:30:24] Erik: Jerry decides to head into the woods where he was last seen.
[0:30:25 – 0:30:27] Erik: He always keeps in contact with the group, though.
[0:30:27 – 0:30:29] Erik: He’s kind of like walking a little bit and then yelling back.
[0:30:29 – 0:30:30] Erik: Yeah.
[0:30:30 – 0:30:31] Erik: And they yell back.
[0:30:32 – 0:30:38] Erik: And one of the things that Dan was doing at the time, he actually started by portaging into the woods with a canoe.
[0:30:38 – 0:30:42] Erik: And then he got to a point and dropped it and then started his clover leafing.
[0:30:43 – 0:30:43] Erik: Off the canoe.
[0:30:43 – 0:30:46] Erik: And so Jerry went in, found his canoe.
[0:30:46 – 0:30:48] Erik: What kind of canoe they got?
[0:30:48 – 0:30:49] Erik: They were aluminum’s.
[0:30:49 – 0:30:50] Adam: All right.
[0:30:50 – 0:30:51] Adam: It was 98.
[0:30:51 – 0:30:53] Erik: These are 98 Grumman’s.
[0:30:54 – 0:30:57] Adam: Only the rich had Kevlar back in 98, that’s for sure.
[0:30:57 – 0:31:04] Erik: So Jerry finds his canoe and portages it back out to the unnamed lake.
[0:31:05 – 0:31:07] Erik: And they’re yelling and yelling.
[0:31:07 – 0:31:08] Erik: They retrieve his canoe.
[0:31:08 – 0:31:11] Erik: He had a little pack that he had set down too.
[0:31:12 – 0:31:16] Erik: They bring that back out and they bring it all over to the proper portage.
[0:31:17 – 0:31:20] Erik: And that’s where they’re convinced that he’s just going to turn up.
[0:31:20 – 0:31:21] Erik: Yeah, yeah.
[0:31:21 – 0:31:22] Erik: It’s his guide.
[0:31:23 – 0:31:24] Erik: We’ve only been out here for a few days.
[0:31:25 – 0:31:30] Erik: We’re just a day into Quetico where things have kind of taken a little bit more of an edgy turn.
[0:31:30 – 0:31:31] Adam: Yeah.
[0:31:32 – 0:31:36] Adam: You feel a lot more alone out there once you make that turn out of… Cache Bay, for sure.
[0:31:36 – 0:31:36] Adam: Yeah.
[0:31:36 – 0:31:38] Adam: Yeah.
[0:31:38 – 0:31:41] Adam: Silver Falls, it gets real desolate back there.
[0:31:41 – 0:31:44] Erik: That portage definitely keeps the riffraff out.
[0:31:45 – 0:31:47] Erik: So the day passes with no sign.
[0:31:47 – 0:31:48] Erik: They’re just kind of hanging out.
[0:31:49 – 0:31:50] Adam: Wait, did you say a day and hours passed?
[0:31:51 – 0:31:51] Erik: The day.
[0:31:51 – 0:31:52] Adam: Okay.
[0:31:52 – 0:31:52] Erik: Not a day.
[0:31:52 – 0:31:53] Adam: That day.
[0:31:53 – 0:31:53] Erik: The day.
[0:31:54 – 0:31:55] Erik: It’s getting late in the afternoon.
[0:31:55 – 0:31:56] Erik: It’s 4 p.m.
[0:31:56 – 0:31:59] Erik: They’re still convinced their guide is just going to show up on this portage.
[0:31:59 – 0:32:02] Adam: They camped on Saginigans the night before, he said.
[0:32:02 – 0:32:03] Adam: So they haven’t gone that far.
[0:32:04 – 0:32:04] Adam: Not really.
[0:32:05 – 0:32:06] Adam: It must have been early in the day then.
[0:32:06 – 0:32:09] Erik: Yeah, it was about noon when they were looking for the first portage.
[0:32:09 – 0:32:10] Erik: They were hitting that around lunchtime.
[0:32:10 – 0:32:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:10 – 0:32:11] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:12 – 0:32:13] Erik: So cut to Dan.
[0:32:13 – 0:32:15] Erik: He wakes with a throbbing head.
[0:32:15 – 0:32:18] Erik: He’s very nauseous, incredibly disoriented.
[0:32:18 – 0:32:20] Erik: He reckons it’s mid-afternoon.
[0:32:22 – 0:32:33] Erik: He’s overwhelmed by this persistent nausea and long lapses in judgment, trying to make sense of where he came from, where he needs to go.
[0:32:33 – 0:32:39] Erik: At one point, he just sits down and admires a black-eyed Susan for over an hour.
[0:32:40 – 0:32:40] Erik: A flower.
[0:32:41 – 0:32:43] Erik: He just sits down and he admires, like he’s, he hit his head hard.
[0:32:43 – 0:32:49] Erik: Like he’s like, I have to imagine it didn’t get spelled out in the book, but I imagine he’s incredibly concussed.
[0:32:49 – 0:32:49] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:50 – 0:32:57] Erik: Sitting down to look at a flower for an hour in the woods after you were just guiding a family of two, two families.
[0:32:57 – 0:32:57] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:58 – 0:32:59] Erik: In Quetico four days in.
[0:33:00 – 0:33:12] Erik: And he kind of just gets up and starts more or less aimlessly moving south in the opposite direction from where him and his group have come from.
[0:33:12 – 0:33:14] Adam: But he didn’t know where he was or what he was even doing, it sounds like.
[0:33:14 – 0:33:14] Adam: Not really.
[0:33:14 – 0:33:15] Erik: No, he didn’t.
[0:33:15 – 0:33:17] Erik: And that becomes more clear later on.
[0:33:18 – 0:33:19] Erik: He’s just going south?
[0:33:19 – 0:33:20] Erik: Kind of south, southwest.
[0:33:21 – 0:33:29] Erik: He comes to a small U-shaped lake and tries yelling, but this brings him to his knees as that yelling and his pain just exacerbates this headache and this nausea.
[0:33:30 – 0:33:35] Erik: And he sits down again for a while, just decides to climb a tree for a better view.
[0:33:35 – 0:33:41] Erik: And he kind of thinks he sees like other man like off in the distance and he heads in that direction.
[0:33:42 – 0:33:43] Erik: You know, he knows it’s a lot.
[0:33:44 – 0:33:46] Erik: He knows enough that it’s along the route.
[0:33:47 – 0:33:59] Erik: and he walks for about an hour in the direction of what he thinks is Otherman Lake, climbs another tree, which at one point the Otherman Lake was in front of him.
[0:33:59 – 0:34:03] Erik: He walks for an hour, climbs a tree, and now it’s behind him.
[0:34:03 – 0:34:06] Erik: And he’s like, on top of everything else, even more confused now.
[0:34:07 – 0:34:15] Erik: And the first time he kind of realizes it’s early evening, late afternoon, that he might be spending a night in the woods.
[0:34:16 – 0:34:23] Erik: And so back at Bell, everybody is portaged over to the other side.
[0:34:24 – 0:34:27] Erik: And nobody’s really had lunch.
[0:34:28 – 0:34:31] Erik: They find a campsite and have an early dinner.
[0:34:33 – 0:34:41] Erik: And then two scouts head back to where they last saw Dan and kind of hang out, yell for a little bit.
[0:34:43 – 0:34:52] Erik: You know, the bugs and the long, dark shadows of evening drive them back to camp where the group finally comes to the full realization that their guide is essentially vanished.
[0:34:52 – 0:34:54] Erik: He’s been gone for six hours now.
[0:34:55 – 0:34:55] Erik: Dan.
[0:34:55 – 0:34:56] Erik: Dan.
[0:34:56 – 0:34:57] Adam: Dan.
[0:34:57 – 0:34:57] Adam: Dan.
[0:35:00 – 0:35:18] Adam: so they’re so they’re from the south they’re damn damn damn they’re from chattanooga damn oh our listeners can you believe this guy there’s in tennessee are not pleased right now then so they’re on this scout group fun fun to say yeah with the southern accent
[0:35:21 – 0:35:23] Erik: They’re involved with this organized trip.
[0:35:24 – 0:35:28] Erik: So they do have an emergency FM radio with to contact Basecamp.
[0:35:29 – 0:35:29] Adam: They do?
[0:35:30 – 0:35:30] Adam: They do.
[0:35:30 – 0:35:32] Adam: Wow, this is new information.
[0:35:32 – 0:35:39] Erik: Yes, it’s powered by six D-cell batteries enclosed in a 12-inch PVC pipe.
[0:35:40 – 0:35:44] Erik: They turn it on and they only hear faint white noise and no response from their calls.
[0:35:45 – 0:35:53] Erik: But little do they know, they’ve never actually set this thing up on their own, that the antenna is broken and no one is receiving their calls.
[0:35:54 – 0:35:54] Erik: So…
[0:35:55 – 0:36:03] Erik: After a long day of trying everything that they could think of, the two fathers kind of take a little reprieve off into the woods, just the two of them.
[0:36:03 – 0:36:04] Erik: Yeah, yeah.
[0:36:04 – 0:36:11] Erik: And kind of try to truly measure the current situation, the circumstances, and what they should do next.
[0:36:11 – 0:36:16] Erik: They’re 35 miles northeast of the canoe camp.
[0:36:16 – 0:36:21] Adam: Yeah, they’re pretty much as far as they’re going to get from the camp on this whole trip right now.
[0:36:21 – 0:36:22] Erik: Pretty much, yeah.
[0:36:22 – 0:36:24] Adam: Couldn’t happen in a worse spot.
[0:36:24 – 0:36:25] Erik: So it’s almost completely dark.
[0:36:27 – 0:36:35] Erik: Jerry suggests that at first light, Tim and the strongest paddler head back to Cache Bay, where there’s a ranger station.
[0:36:35 – 0:36:37] Adam: Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.
[0:36:38 – 0:36:43] Erik: Tim cannot imagine heading back over the brutal portages that they have come.
[0:36:43 – 0:36:45] Erik: There’s some rough portages between Bell and Cache Bay.
[0:36:46 – 0:37:08] Erik: yeah those are the if those are your most recent memories of what portages are yeah the silver falls portage and that one from fran to the unnamed lake those are those are brutal ranger janice is right there you know the closest option for sure for sure with a radio that works yes she definitely has a ravelin she definitely has a radio um
[0:37:10 – 0:37:15] Erik: So that idea is not necessarily taken too well by Tim.
[0:37:16 – 0:37:25] Erik: He’s worried about actually being able to find the portages, the challenge of the expedition back to where they came from.
[0:37:26 – 0:37:29] Erik: And they both kind of can tell that they’re not really in the greatest shape.
[0:37:30 – 0:37:32] Erik: And it actually kind of…
[0:37:33 – 0:37:45] Erik: The book was described as maybe they got right up to the point where things kind of boiled over into something more troubling, like maybe a yelling or shouting match of some sort in the woods.
[0:37:45 – 0:37:47] Erik: I can’t imagine how stressed out these guys were.
[0:37:48 – 0:37:48] Erik: Yeah.
[0:37:48 – 0:37:48] Erik: Yeah.
[0:37:49 – 0:37:52] Erik: They decide that, and that would also split.
[0:37:52 – 0:37:53] Erik: They sound like they were a little zapped.
[0:37:54 – 0:38:02] Erik: Yeah, they were zapped, but they also were, that that option would have meant that they needed to split the group up.
[0:38:03 – 0:38:03] Erik: Yeah.
[0:38:03 – 0:38:10] Erik: So it was have some people stay here, keep an eye out for Dan, and then head back to have another group head back to cash back.
[0:38:10 – 0:38:12] Adam: I got to see, this sounds like a pretty solid plan.
[0:38:12 – 0:38:13] Adam: Yeah.
[0:38:14 – 0:38:15] Adam: That plan?
[0:38:15 – 0:38:20] Adam: Yeah, leave somebody behind in case Dan shows up and get somebody down to the ranger station.
[0:38:20 – 0:38:21] Erik: That would be my plan.
[0:38:21 – 0:38:22] Erik: Honestly, I read the book.
[0:38:22 – 0:38:24] Adam: The only bad part is not the portages.
[0:38:24 – 0:38:26] Adam: It’s trying to get back across Cache Bay.
[0:38:26 – 0:38:27] Adam: Who knows what that thing’s got whipped up.
[0:38:28 – 0:38:28] Erik: Yeah.
[0:38:29 – 0:38:35] Erik: But they were adamant that they did not want to split the group up because they felt like they were responsible for these kids.
[0:38:35 – 0:38:39] Erik: They’re all under 18, which I can’t relate to.
[0:38:39 – 0:38:39] Erik: I can’t.
[0:38:40 – 0:38:42] Erik: But I still don’t know if I would have made the same decision.
[0:38:44 – 0:38:53] Erik: So they decide that splitting the group up is not an option and that in the morning they would check the unnamed lake one more time before heading down as a group to
[0:38:54 – 0:38:58] Erik: Down the man-chain, towards Prairie Portage and the canoe base.
[0:38:59 – 0:39:05] Erik: So, as darkness was closing in on Dan, he finds himself on the edge of an old beaver pond.
[0:39:05 – 0:39:08] Erik: He’s tired, still not thinking entirely clearly.
[0:39:09 – 0:39:14] Erik: He does really realize that he’s about as uncomfortable as he can remember being.
[0:39:15 – 0:39:18] Erik: He’s considering the oncoming cold and the darkness.
[0:39:19 – 0:39:20] Erik: It’s early August.
[0:39:20 – 0:39:22] Erik: A swarm of bugs envelops him.
[0:39:23 – 0:39:32] Erik: And in that moment, the dull anger of the mistakes that he’s made over the day, the realization of his predicament, finally kind of rises in him.
[0:39:33 – 0:39:42] Erik: Uh, and this is one of the craziest parts of this whole story, this inhuman long piercing whale at the top of his lungs.
[0:39:42 – 0:39:46] Erik: And this is the quote from, this is a quote from, uh, Carrie.
[0:39:47 – 0:39:51] Erik: It is a call to obliterate pestilence and malaise.
[0:39:52 – 0:39:56] Erik: It is a plaintive lamentation for solace and
[0:39:56 – 0:40:00] Erik: And it is only answered by an intensified ache in his head.
[0:40:01 – 0:40:04] Erik: So he just kind of finally realizes he’s like, it’s dark.
[0:40:04 – 0:40:06] Erik: He’s down at the edge of this woods.
[0:40:06 – 0:40:13] Erik: He’s in shorts and a t-shirt and a PFD and just screams as loud as he can.
[0:40:13 – 0:40:21] Erik: The craziest part about it is about a mile away at the Bell Lake campsite, the scouts are gathered around their campfire.
[0:40:22 – 0:40:31] Erik: The group is quiet, and then out of nowhere, from the southern darkness, comes Dan Stevens’ insane wail.
[0:40:31 – 0:40:35] Erik: And in Tim Jones’ words, it was a blood-curdling cry.
[0:40:38 – 0:40:39] Erik: This is also very good.
[0:40:39 – 0:40:39] Erik: Yikes.
[0:40:40 – 0:40:46] Erik: Around the campfire, Jerry, he’s convinced it was, in his mind, a bear finishing Dan off.
[0:40:47 – 0:40:47] Erik: What?
[0:40:47 – 0:40:49] Adam: Yeah.
[0:40:49 – 0:40:51] Adam: So they figured it was Dan.
[0:40:51 – 0:40:55] Erik: Well, so in his mind, he’s like, oh, it must have been a bear killing off Dan.
[0:40:57 – 0:40:58] Erik: They attempt to call.
[0:40:59 – 0:41:00] Erik: They kind of whistle again.
[0:41:00 – 0:41:01] Erik: They’re yelling.
[0:41:01 – 0:41:07] Erik: And one of the scouts, finally, after no responses, is like, man, I hope that wasn’t him.
[0:41:07 – 0:41:09] Erik: Jerry’s like, oh, baby, it was a cougar.
[0:41:11 – 0:41:13] Erik: Tim’s like, ah, it’s probably just a wolf.
[0:41:13 – 0:41:16] Erik: And none of the scouts believed them.
[0:41:17 – 0:41:22] Erik: They know even though it may have sounded inhuman, it was filled with misery and anguish.
[0:41:24 – 0:41:30] Erik: I don’t even know if I would be able to sleep that night knowing that you just heard that off in the distance.
[0:41:31 – 0:41:32] Adam: But they did sleep.
[0:41:32 – 0:41:33] Adam: Well, maybe.
[0:41:34 – 0:41:34] Erik: Maybe.
[0:41:34 – 0:41:35] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:41:35 – 0:41:36] Adam: It’d be tough.
[0:41:36 – 0:41:37] Erik: Yeah, it’d be tough.
[0:41:37 – 0:41:42] Erik: So throughout the night, Dan struggles to breathe, let alone sleep, as mosquitoes swarm him.
[0:41:43 – 0:41:48] Erik: He has to alternate breathing between his mouth and nose, still can’t help but inhale them.
[0:41:48 – 0:42:00] Erik: He climbs out and quickly assembled kind of a little bit of a lean-to in hopes of escaping the bugs, but the night air is cold and soon he’s driven back into the warmth of his little shelter.
[0:42:01 – 0:42:21] Erik: um where he kind of rests on the edge of actual sleep um incessantly being probed by thousands of insects um finally his long night turns to day and he strikes off again south southwest still very disoriented honestly um based on the book it sounds like
[0:42:21 – 0:42:25] Adam: Well, it makes it sound like he thought he saw Other Man Lake.
[0:42:26 – 0:42:29] Adam: So that makes me think he knows generally where he is.
[0:42:29 – 0:42:36] Adam: But at one point, it sounded like he wasn’t sure if he was on a canoe trip or if he had always lived in these woods.
[0:42:36 – 0:42:37] Erik: Well, yeah.
[0:42:37 – 0:42:41] Erik: No, I mean, I don’t think that it was quite as far as him thinking, maybe I’ve always lived here.
[0:42:41 – 0:42:44] Erik: But I still think… How did I get in these woods?
[0:42:44 – 0:42:46] Erik: He was very disoriented.
[0:42:47 – 0:42:50] Erik: But yeah, there is the question of like, well, he clearly recognized the lake.
[0:42:51 – 0:42:51] Erik: Or thought he did.
[0:42:52 – 0:42:54] Erik: Or he thought he did, you know, I don’t know.
[0:42:55 – 0:42:59] Erik: But basically, he kind of just curled up on the ground and got eaten by mosquitoes for a night.
[0:43:02 – 0:43:10] Erik: The next morning, Tim and a scout returned one last time to the unnamed lake where they last saw Dan.
[0:43:11 – 0:43:17] Erik: Actually, before they left again, they left a cache of food with matches and a note saying, Stay put.
[0:43:17 – 0:43:19] Erik: We will be back with help.
[0:43:20 – 0:43:24] Erik: So then they left and went back to the Bell Lake campsite where they packed up.
[0:43:25 – 0:43:37] Erik: Said a prayer and headed towards Otherman in preparation for paddling as fast and as far as possible in hopes that the radio might work better if they got closer to camp.
[0:43:38 – 0:43:39] Adam: But Dan had the antenna.
[0:43:40 – 0:43:41] Adam: I think it was broken.
[0:43:41 – 0:43:43] Adam: No, I know you said it was broken.
[0:43:43 – 0:43:45] Adam: When you first were talking about it.
[0:43:45 – 0:43:48] Adam: Little did they know Dan had the antenna.
[0:43:48 – 0:43:49] Adam: Little did they know.
[0:43:49 – 0:43:50] Erik: Wow!
[0:43:53 – 0:44:20] Adam: yeah i was gonna say do we need to let you i don’t want to i don’t want to break the microphone i don’t want to ruin yeah i was gonna say i think the call that the scream he must have let out would definitely would break one of these microphones i think at the end of the episode we should set the microphones down and go stand on the other side of the room and just let out the craziest scream we can muster all right i want to know like what i could i want to try a blood curdling scream one that can be heard a mile away yeah you gotta freak the dog out and the neighbors
[0:44:21 – 0:44:33] Erik: So Dan, the next morning, he’s pushing his way in what he thinks is south, southwest, stopping for water and wants to try and start a fire with binoculars.
[0:44:34 – 0:44:35] Erik: But that doesn’t really work.
[0:44:35 – 0:44:36] Erik: He had binoculars?
[0:44:36 – 0:44:37] Erik: He had binoculars.
[0:44:37 – 0:44:40] Erik: There’s a list coming up here on what exactly he had for supplies.
[0:44:40 – 0:44:44] Erik: Once he finally kind of comes to and measures, all right, this is what I have.
[0:44:44 – 0:44:45] Erik: This is what I have to get.
[0:44:46 – 0:44:46] Erik: Let’s do it.
[0:44:47 – 0:44:55] Erik: Right now he’s just kind of walking around with a crazy concussion in the woods.
[0:44:55 – 0:45:01] Erik: So the scouts actually make good time through the unnamed lake between Bell and Other Man.
[0:45:01 – 0:45:03] Erik: So basically Bud, Bisk, and Butt or whatever.
[0:45:03 – 0:45:04] Adam: Yeah, and they’re in the butt chain.
[0:45:04 – 0:45:05] Adam: They made it.
[0:45:05 – 0:45:06] Adam: The muck hole lakes.
[0:45:07 – 0:45:08] Adam: Yeah, they had to go through that partage.
[0:45:08 – 0:45:09] Adam: They made it.
[0:45:09 – 0:45:11] Erik: That crazy wall and then swamp.
[0:45:12 – 0:45:15] Erik: Um, they try the radio again on other man, no response.
[0:45:16 – 0:45:21] Erik: Um, after portaging into this man, uh, the group is kind of wearing quickly.
[0:45:21 – 0:45:27] Erik: Um, but Jerry remembers during the video that they watched at camp, um,
[0:45:28 – 0:45:34] Erik: the scout camp of a group lashing canoes together and setting up a sail.
[0:45:34 – 0:45:37] Erik: And the wind is actually blowing well in this scenario.
[0:45:37 – 0:45:39] Erik: Yeah, northeast.
[0:45:39 – 0:45:40] Erik: Yeah, northeast direction.
[0:45:40 – 0:45:41] Erik: Classic August wind.
[0:45:41 – 0:45:49] Erik: So they set up and actually get a little bit of a sailboat flatoon going.
[0:45:49 – 0:45:50] Erik: Sounds dangerous.
[0:45:50 – 0:45:52] Erik: And cruise down the lake.
[0:45:52 – 0:45:55] Adam: It’s Jerry and what’s the other dad’s name?
[0:45:55 – 0:45:55] Erik: Tim.
[0:45:55 – 0:45:56] Adam: Jerry and Tim.
[0:45:56 – 0:45:57] Erik: Jerry and Tim.
[0:45:57 – 0:45:58] Adam: Dead and died.
[0:45:58 – 0:46:04] Erik: Yeah, so while the Chattanooga boys are freewheeling it down the man chain, Dan is struggling through dense brush.
[0:46:05 – 0:46:10] Erik: His legs and arms, which are exposed, he’s got shorts and t-shirt on, are just being constantly scratched.
[0:46:10 – 0:46:14] Erik: His eyes are being regularly impaled and scratched by errant branches.
[0:46:15 – 0:46:18] Erik: His spirits ebb and flow with his movement, though, you know.
[0:46:18 – 0:46:20] Erik: He’s an Eagle Scout, though, right?
[0:46:20 – 0:46:20] Erik: He’s an Eagle Scout, but he’s.
[0:46:20 – 0:46:21] Erik: He’s got faith.
[0:46:21 – 0:46:23] Erik: He’s jacked his head.
[0:46:23 – 0:46:24] Adam: He’s super concussed.
[0:46:24 – 0:46:27] Erik: Yeah, he’s moving through these horrendous lowlands and bogs.
[0:46:28 – 0:46:29] Erik: That’s tough country.
[0:46:29 – 0:46:32] Erik: Yeah, he’s still kind of forging on in the direction that he thinks is correct.
[0:46:34 – 0:46:39] Erik: You know, just that’s basically what Dan does this full day of him being lost.
[0:46:39 – 0:46:41] Adam: It all went south when he gave away his compass.
[0:46:41 – 0:46:43] Erik: Yeah, the gaveaways compass and map.
[0:46:44 – 0:46:50] Erik: So 20 miles outside of Ely on Moose Lake lies Summer’s canoe base.
[0:46:51 – 0:46:56] Erik: And at 2.29 p.m., the FM radio receiver crackles to life.
[0:46:57 – 0:47:00] Erik: This receiver hardly ever is used.
[0:47:00 – 0:47:01] Erik: It’s only for emergencies.
[0:47:02 – 0:47:02] Erik: And it makes a noise.
[0:47:03 – 0:47:05] Erik: And the attendant actually hears a faint voice come through.
[0:47:05 – 0:47:06] Erik: 801C.
[0:47:06 – 0:47:07] Erik: Yeah.
[0:47:09 – 0:47:14] Erik: No man like Portage about to enter that man is what he hears.
[0:47:16 – 0:47:17] Adam: What’s 801C?
[0:47:17 – 0:47:19] Erik: That was the name of their group.
[0:47:20 – 0:47:23] Erik: They assign all of the groups that head out of the camp these numbers.
[0:47:23 – 0:47:23] Adam: Catchy.
[0:47:24 – 0:47:25] Erik: 801C.
[0:47:25 – 0:47:28] Adam: Could have been something cool like Mountain Lion.
[0:47:28 – 0:47:28] Adam: Yeah.
[0:47:29 – 0:47:30] Adam: Tadpole to base.
[0:47:31 – 0:47:32] Adam: 801 Bluegill.
[0:47:33 – 0:47:39] Erik: Knowing that the phone is only used for emergencies, the response from the attendant is, this is Summers Canoe Base.
[0:47:39 – 0:47:41] Erik: Come in 801C.
[0:47:41 – 0:47:43] Erik: The group does not answer.
[0:47:44 – 0:47:46] Erik: And the line just goes dead.
[0:47:46 – 0:47:47] Erik: That’s it.
[0:47:47 – 0:47:49] Erik: So they must have tried it again.
[0:47:50 – 0:47:55] Erik: but then put it away before they heard anything or the antenna was working just well enough to send but not receive.
[0:47:57 – 0:48:09] Erik: But the attendant takes this basically very worrisome message to the camp manager, Doug Hurdler, who directs him to just keep tracking it to see if any other messages are sent.
[0:48:10 – 0:48:19] Erik: And upon checking on who was guiding group 801C, he actually is relieved that it turns out to be one of their best guides, Dan Stevens.
[0:48:20 – 0:48:22] Erik: So the group keeps pushing their way down the mansion.
[0:48:22 – 0:48:24] Adam: Second in command, Jerry.
[0:48:24 – 0:48:26] Adam: They didn’t think about that, though.
[0:48:26 – 0:48:27] Erik: No, yeah.
[0:48:27 – 0:48:29] Erik: Too bad Jerry and Tim are the fathers on that group.
[0:48:30 – 0:48:32] Adam: No, he didn’t look that far down the roster.
[0:48:34 – 0:48:41] Erik: So they get down actually through Sheridan and Carp, and they finally encounter their first canoe party.
[0:48:42 – 0:48:59] Erik: back to where dan is at he finds himself trying to cross a bog which we all know if you don’t or pretty much some of the hardest forms of earth to walk across impossible
[0:48:59 – 0:49:04] Erik: Yeah, it’s just hummocks of earth surrounded by black holes of muck and water.
[0:49:04 – 0:49:05] Erik: Probably 100 feet deep.
[0:49:05 – 0:49:06] Erik: Who knows how deep?
[0:49:06 – 0:49:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:49:08 – 0:49:10] Erik: He actually kind of falls in at one point.
[0:49:10 – 0:49:14] Erik: He strips down naked and he’s sitting there letting his clothes dry.
[0:49:15 – 0:49:24] Erik: And during that moment of maybe when he went in the water or when he was getting naked or he just had a moment to kind of sit down…
[0:49:25 – 0:49:36] Erik: he actually finally has a bit of a clear thought and the clarity of his poor decisions up to this point kind of comes fully realized into him.
[0:49:36 – 0:49:37] Erik: He remembers the map.
[0:49:37 – 0:49:38] Erik: He remembers the compass.
[0:49:38 – 0:49:40] Erik: He remembers handing it off.
[0:49:40 – 0:49:41] Adam: The bog woke him up?
[0:49:41 – 0:49:46] Erik: Yeah, like falling into this bog and stripping down and like, okay, I’m cold now.
[0:49:46 – 0:49:46] Erik: I got to get my clothes on.
[0:49:46 – 0:49:50] Adam: The nudity I get, the bog, I don’t understand what that would have to do with it.
[0:49:50 – 0:49:52] Erik: It could have just been complete coincidence though too.
[0:49:52 – 0:49:53] Adam: The bog made him get nude.
[0:49:54 – 0:50:11] Adam: yeah whenever i can’t figure something out i just get nude and it’s all clear helps you figure it out nudity is clarity so yeah so it’s the episode title and really my whole life philosophy not lost boys no well yeah absolutely it’s lost boys but that’s the subtitle
[0:50:12 – 0:50:28] Erik: So this is kind of when you can start to say that Dan Stevens addresses the situation in a full like human terms and not just like kind of stumbling through and a little bit of acceptance.
[0:50:28 – 0:50:37] Erik: Yeah, some acceptance and then actually like composing himself, realizing what he has, where he has to go, what, you know, where he has come from.
[0:50:37 – 0:50:40] Erik: So, yeah, like I said, he remembers the map and the compass being handed off.
[0:50:41 – 0:50:44] Erik: He strains to recall the, you know, they had Fisher maps.
[0:50:44 – 0:50:56] Erik: So the yellow and blues, those patterns that, you know, you probably you do have kind of like I can close my eyes and see him now, but I can’t necessarily walk through the woods and navigate myself on them on their own.
[0:50:56 – 0:51:23] Erik: um but he’s he’s trying to um he’s cursing himself at this point for stumbling for so long in his stupor uh the twinges of shame for you know putting everybody that he was guiding into the situation that they must he’s imagining be in now uh and then finally for the first time he thinks of his family and his parents and like have there been rescue situate like uh scenarios started and
[0:51:23 – 0:51:24] Erik: And are they looking for me?
[0:51:24 – 0:51:30] Erik: And this is, you know, it’s all like, all right, I’m clear-minded.
[0:51:31 – 0:51:32] Erik: This is where I’m at.
[0:51:33 – 0:51:39] Erik: And he finally takes tabs of what he has.
[0:51:39 – 0:51:41] Erik: So, yeah, like I said, he’s wearing shorts.
[0:51:42 – 0:51:50] Erik: He’s got a polyester shirt, deflated polyurethane, you know, LifeVest, one of those ones that just kind of hangs around your neck in a little tube fashion.
[0:51:51 – 0:51:51] Adam: Yeah.
[0:51:52 – 0:51:53] Adam: AKA the worst lay fest.
[0:51:54 – 0:51:54] Adam: Yeah.
[0:51:54 – 0:51:55] Adam: Possible.
[0:51:55 – 0:51:56] Erik: He’s got light.
[0:51:56 – 0:51:56] Adam: Is it orange?
[0:51:57 – 0:51:58] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:51:58 – 0:52:01] Erik: No, one of those ones that inflates when you pull the thing.
[0:52:01 – 0:52:02] Erik: Oh, so it’s kind of nice.
[0:52:02 – 0:52:03] Erik: It’s a nice one, yeah.
[0:52:03 – 0:52:06] Adam: See, I’ve been picturing the world’s worst life vest.
[0:52:07 – 0:52:09] Erik: The little orange one.
[0:52:09 – 0:52:11] Erik: Yeah, no, it’s deflated.
[0:52:11 – 0:52:16] Erik: So if you go into the water, it actually will inflate itself.
[0:52:16 – 0:52:16] Erik: Sure.
[0:52:16 – 0:52:17] Erik: Yeah.
[0:52:18 – 0:52:20] Erik: He’s got light hiking shoes on.
[0:52:20 – 0:52:22] Erik: He’s got a collapsible canteen.
[0:52:23 – 0:52:34] Erik: A knife, lip balm, some string, some pocket binoculars, some sunscreen, a small roll of duct tape, and a Coghlan’s brand air horn.
[0:52:35 – 0:52:35] Erik: No, he didn’t have that.
[0:52:36 – 0:52:38] Erik: He did not have the Coghlan’s.
[0:52:39 – 0:52:40] Erik: No Coghlan’s brand material.
[0:52:40 – 0:52:42] Adam: It was a Coghlan’s party horn.
[0:52:43 – 0:52:43] Erik: Yeah.
[0:52:43 – 0:52:45] Erik: Coghlan’s brand whiskey.
[0:52:47 – 0:52:50] Adam: He didn’t have any wine, huh?
[0:52:50 – 0:52:50] Erik: No, no wine.
[0:52:52 – 0:52:54] Erik: He’s becoming badly abraded.
[0:52:54 – 0:53:00] Erik: His eyes are blurry and he’s coming down with one of the worst cases of trench foot that he’s ever seen.
[0:53:00 – 0:53:04] Erik: So like super wet feet in an enclosed boot for a long time.
[0:53:04 – 0:53:05] Adam: So I got the dead toe.
[0:53:06 – 0:53:08] Erik: Yeah, we all know about the dead toe.
[0:53:08 – 0:53:10] Erik: You were in the dead toe club with a few other people.
[0:53:10 – 0:53:10] Erik: I was, yeah.
[0:53:10 – 0:53:11] Erik: I do remember.
[0:53:11 – 0:53:13] Adam: Sounds like Dan’s made it in there too.
[0:53:13 – 0:53:14] Adam: Dan Stevens is in the dead toe club.
[0:53:14 – 0:53:17] Adam: Fellow dead cloak, dead toe club member.
[0:53:17 – 0:53:23] Erik: So he pulls his feet out from the boots and kind of lets everything dry off in the sun for the first time.
[0:53:24 – 0:53:27] Erik: And during those moments, he actually makes a plan.
[0:53:29 – 0:53:35] Erik: Um, so from his position, which is actually very elevated, very high and dry, uh, it’s late in the afternoon.
[0:53:35 – 0:53:42] Erik: He decides that’s a very nice, uh, what is that upside down dog pose?
[0:53:42 – 0:53:42] Erik: Yeah.
[0:53:44 – 0:54:07] Erik: wow arrow has got one of the cutest dog poses i think i’ve ever seen oh hey all right but so he’s up on this kind of like exposed windy sunny rocky hill uh and he decides you know it’s probably a good place to maybe set up a little bit more of a shelter for the night um
[0:54:08 – 0:54:11] Erik: And then head straight south the next day.
[0:54:12 – 0:54:15] Erik: Because his memory still does…
[0:54:15 – 0:54:17] Erik: He’s got enough…
[0:54:17 – 0:54:19] Erik: He’s seen these maps long enough.
[0:54:19 – 0:54:21] Adam: He knows what kind of loop they’re on at this point, for sure.
[0:54:22 – 0:54:25] Erik: And the thing that comes to his mind is that there is this…
[0:54:27 – 0:54:54] Erik: uninterrupted blue swath representing knife and otter track to the south yes knife and otter track lakes and they’re well-traveled border route lakes and if he can just run into them he should surely find a group so he spends the rest of the afternoon it is august yeah it’s august there’s gonna be people out on the water oh yeah and he sends the he spends the rest of the day getting himself a little bit more well prepared for a little bit of that august chill mostly though the bugs
[0:54:55 – 0:55:00] Erik: But it’s around this time in the late afternoon that the scouts, they, like I said, had ran into that other group.
[0:55:00 – 0:55:05] Erik: It actually happens to be another group from the summer’s canoe base.
[0:55:05 – 0:55:07] Erik: 801D.
[0:55:07 – 0:55:07] Erik: 801D.
[0:55:07 – 0:55:09] Erik: I don’t know what number they had, actually.
[0:55:09 – 0:55:11] Erik: It’s 801D.
[0:55:11 – 0:55:12] Erik: They had a working radio.
[0:55:13 – 0:55:14] Erik: 801D.
[0:55:14 – 0:55:15] Adam: Full antenna and everything.
[0:55:16 – 0:55:23] Erik: Yes, full antenna, like one of those big whips on the back of the buggies with the orange flag on top.
[0:55:23 – 0:55:25] Erik: The message actually gets through loud and clear.
[0:55:25 – 0:55:31] Erik: The scouts are instructed to paddle just a couple more hours, get down to Prairie Portage where they can rest for the night.
[0:55:32 – 0:55:37] Erik: And then the camp director, Doug Herdler, radios Quetico Rangers at the…
[0:55:39 – 0:55:42] Erik: Prairie Portage station to let them know that there’s some scouts coming.
[0:55:42 – 0:55:43] Erik: Distressed scouts inbound.
[0:55:43 – 0:55:45] Erik: They’re going to need a place to stay.
[0:55:46 – 0:55:53] Erik: And at about 7.30 that night, everyone finally got down to Prairie Portage and was settled into the ranger cabin.
[0:55:53 – 0:55:59] Erik: And the full details of the last day, a little bit more over than a day, were finally explained.
[0:56:01 – 0:56:06] Erik: The rangers down at Prairie Portage, they were mostly perplexed by the decision to paddle to Prairie Portage and not Cache Bay.
[0:56:07 – 0:56:14] Erik: Which was less than half the distance if they would have gone to Cache Bay and not Prairie Portage.
[0:56:15 – 0:56:17] Erik: And why nobody likes to backtrack.
[0:56:17 – 0:56:19] Adam: That’s what I think is what’s going on here.
[0:56:19 – 0:56:20] Adam: Nobody wants to go backwards.
[0:56:20 – 0:56:21] Erik: I don’t want to see any of those.
[0:56:21 – 0:56:22] Adam: I always want to go forward.
[0:56:23 – 0:56:23] Adam: You’re doing a loop.
[0:56:25 – 0:56:27] Adam: They really wanted to see the man chain, let’s be honest.
[0:56:28 – 0:56:30] Adam: They’re right at the doorstep of the man chain.
[0:56:30 – 0:56:31] Erik: Hey, boys, we’re about to go back.
[0:56:31 – 0:56:32] Adam: I’m not doing knife again.
[0:56:34 – 0:56:35] Erik: We’re going to see the man chain.
[0:56:37 – 0:56:49] Erik: Basically, they did kind of admit to panicking, but they also kind of admitted that they didn’t want to split up this group, and they were very responsible for these youths that were underage.
[0:56:49 – 0:56:52] Adam: That’s the only part of it that made sense, is we don’t want to split up.
[0:56:52 – 0:56:54] Adam: Yeah, there’s only two Dodds left.
[0:56:54 – 0:57:00] Erik: They were very questionable about their ability to climb back out of Saginagon’s up the Silver Falls portage.
[0:57:01 – 0:57:02] Adam: Yeah, that I think is overblown.
[0:57:03 – 0:57:03] Adam: A little bit.
[0:57:03 – 0:57:04] Adam: Yeah.
[0:57:04 – 0:57:04] Erik: Yeah.
[0:57:04 – 0:57:12] Erik: There was still a sense amongst the rangers that they essentially had stranded their guide in the middle of a wilderness…
[0:57:13 – 0:57:14] Erik: that the Tennesseans couldn’t comprehend.
[0:57:15 – 0:57:24] Erik: They abandoned him without transport, without a map, and with a measly food cache that he may not have even found.
[0:57:24 – 0:57:24] Adam: Never found that.
[0:57:25 – 0:57:25] Adam: Yeah.
[0:57:25 – 0:57:27] Adam: They described him as the Tennesseans.
[0:57:28 – 0:57:29] Erik: The Tennesseans.
[0:57:29 – 0:57:30] Adam: The Tennesseans couldn’t comprehend it.
[0:57:30 – 0:57:35] Erik: So the Prairie Portage Rangers, they radioed park headquarters and relayed the Chattanooga Boys story.
[0:57:36 – 0:57:37] Erik: Chattanooga Boy.
[0:57:37 – 0:57:37] Adam: Yeah.
[0:57:39 – 0:57:49] Erik: And the plight of Dan Stevens, again, the park headquarters exasperatedly wonders why they’re at Prairie Portage and not at Cache Bay.
[0:57:49 – 0:57:51] Erik: But he knows that time is valuable.
[0:57:51 – 0:57:53] Erik: And in these situations, using time.
[0:57:54 – 0:58:13] Erik: This is where you, if you want to read more on any of this, this is where it gets really interesting if you’re interested, but there’s this thing called the Mattson method, quote unquote, and it is a way to determine the probability of area or POA for every possible search area or route choice a person might take while lost.
[0:58:14 – 0:58:20] Erik: So, with each hour someone is lost expands the POA by five kilometers.
[0:58:21 – 0:58:28] Erik: So, more often than not, people who find themselves lost ignore the axiom to stay put and instead wander.
[0:58:29 – 0:58:29] Erik: So, this is why that…
[0:58:30 – 0:58:33] Erik: uh, Mattson method is actually very accurate.
[0:58:34 – 0:58:47] Erik: Um, then they, they determined that since he’s been lost for almost a day now, uh, that they’re going to be starting with a search area from the point where he got lost at a hundred square kilometers.
[0:58:48 – 0:58:48] Erik: Ooh.
[0:58:49 – 0:58:49] Erik: Yes.
[0:58:49 – 0:58:59] Erik: And he then contacts the OPP Ontario provincial police, uh, within an hour constables, James McGill and, um,
[0:59:01 – 0:59:01] Erik: PC.
[0:59:02 – 0:59:04] Erik: Let’s just call him PC for now because my notes are weird there.
[0:59:05 – 0:59:08] Erik: But they’re informed of a lost individual in Quetico.
[0:59:09 – 0:59:11] Erik: Jones… James, sorry.
[0:59:12 – 0:59:14] Erik: And they start the process of filling out… Police chief.
[0:59:14 – 0:59:15] Adam: Yeah, the very…
[0:59:16 – 0:59:16] Adam: Provincial captain.
[0:59:16 – 0:59:17] Adam: Yeah.
[0:59:17 – 0:59:18] Erik: Yeah, there we go.
[0:59:18 – 0:59:19] Erik: I think that’s what it is, actually.
[0:59:20 – 0:59:28] Erik: They start the process of filling out a search urgency chart and lost person questionnaire, which, again, tons of details on that in the book.
[0:59:29 – 0:59:43] Erik: They spend about an hour on the phone with the scouts, the scout dads, the parents, the camp leaders, and they come to the conclusion that nothing was really amiss, and he just walked into the woods and disappeared.
[0:59:44 – 0:59:57] Erik: And using that search urgency chart, which is used to determine how much of a response should be initiated, it comes out at an 11, which equals an emergency response.
[0:59:57 – 0:59:59] Erik: It’s on a scale from 7 to 21.
[0:59:59 – 1:00:02] Erik: And the lower the number, the more urgent it is.
[1:00:04 – 1:00:05] Erik: A seven’s the worst?
[1:00:05 – 1:00:08] Erik: Seven to 11 is emergency response.
[1:00:09 – 1:00:11] Erik: 12 to 16 is a measured response.
[1:00:12 – 1:00:16] Erik: And 17 to 21 is evaluate and investigate.
[1:00:17 – 1:00:26] Erik: So the only reason Dan’s number wasn’t lower was because of his purported outdoor knowledge and alleged character.
[1:00:27 – 1:00:31] Erik: And so based on that information, an immediate emergency response.
[1:00:31 – 1:00:32] Adam: So that’s a real feather in his cap then.
[1:00:32 – 1:00:34] Erik: Was immediately initiated.
[1:00:35 – 1:00:35] Erik: Yeah.
[1:00:35 – 1:00:38] Adam: He gave him the lowest possible emergency rating.
[1:00:38 – 1:00:39] Erik: Yeah.
[1:00:39 – 1:00:41] Erik: He had binoculars and yarn.
[1:00:42 – 1:00:42] Adam: He’s an 11.
[1:00:42 – 1:00:43] Erik: He’s got tons of yarn.
[1:00:45 – 1:00:46] Erik: He had no food, though.
[1:00:47 – 1:00:48] Erik: No, no food, a little bit of string.
[1:00:48 – 1:00:50] Adam: He’s been drinking beaver pond water for three days.
[1:00:51 – 1:00:51] Erik: Yeah.
[1:00:51 – 1:00:53] Erik: Inundated with Giardia.
[1:00:53 – 1:00:56] Adam: Man, his Giardia was a seven.
[1:00:57 – 1:00:58] Erik: What’s a Giardia scale?
[1:01:00 – 1:01:05] Erik: So Dan, he’s settling in for his second night alone in the wilderness.
[1:01:05 – 1:01:06] Erik: He wonders about his group from Tennessee.
[1:01:07 – 1:01:11] Erik: and why he hasn’t heard or seen any rescue planes.
[1:01:12 – 1:01:14] Erik: He’s about a little over a day lost.
[1:01:15 – 1:01:27] Erik: At the same time, Doug Hurdler, the Boy Scout camp manager, he’s hanging up the phone on an endlessly stunned and frustratingly helpless couple from Monroe, Georgia.
[1:01:28 – 1:01:52] Erik: dan’s parents explaining to them that he’s been lost for over a day now search and rescue procedures have commenced um and they’re doing the best that they can um so dan spends the night in somewhat more comfort than the previous night he wraps himself uh almost entirely uh in birch bark all of his limbs from up from the shoulders birch armor
[1:01:53 – 1:02:19] Erik: yeah nice uh and uh actually makes a decently protected little nest for himself and manages to keep most of the mosquitoes off um the problem though is where he ends up finding himself that night that he’s got a little bit of uh some trouble from some ants getting in between the layers um and it it kind of does keep him from full sleep but he actually does get some good rest and sometime right before dawn um
[1:02:21 – 1:02:31] Erik: He dreams, and the dream is of Fisher Map F19, and it’s laid out on a huge table that he can’t see the edges of.
[1:02:32 – 1:02:39] Erik: He notices the lakes and the land laying in the same direction with no geographical numbers or indication of elevation.
[1:02:40 – 1:02:42] Erik: But he can see the general lay of the land.
[1:02:43 – 1:02:52] Erik: And I don’t know if this was a story he told the writer or if this is some Cary Griffith liberties that he’s taking.
[1:02:52 – 1:02:55] Adam: A dream of 119 by Cary Griffith.
[1:02:55 – 1:03:00] Erik: He’s trying to find the little X you are here spot.
[1:03:01 – 1:03:04] Erik: And right as he thinks he’s finding it, he wakes up.
[1:03:04 – 1:03:04] Erik: But
[1:03:05 – 1:03:19] Erik: The general idea of how the land is laid out is enough for him to still feel confident in moving south across the uniform striations of land that reflect the same water direction.
[1:03:20 – 1:03:21] Erik: So…
[1:03:22 – 1:03:35] Erik: At 7 a.m., the OPP chargers two beavers to set up a base camp on the no-named lake where Dan was last seen, along with a helicopter to be used for searching from the air with ground searchers.
[1:03:35 – 1:03:42] Erik: By the time the search and rescue team has amassed their gear on the shores of the unnamed lake, Dan has been missing for 36 hours.
[1:03:43 – 1:03:49] Erik: It should be noted that people tend to walk in circles when lost in the woods with nothing to guide them.
[1:03:50 – 1:03:51] Adam: I can, yes, I agree.
[1:03:51 – 1:03:54] Erik: Which Dan didn’t really have anything to guide him.
[1:03:54 – 1:03:58] Erik: So lefties tend to veer left, righties tend to veer right.
[1:03:59 – 1:04:03] Erik: Eventually, most people end up at or near the place they started.
[1:04:03 – 1:04:05] Adam: I had this happen one time when I was young.
[1:04:05 – 1:04:15] Adam: One of my first years deer hunting and I was walking back to the cabin and I had a hooded sweatshirt around my waist and it like came off in a tree and I didn’t even realize it.
[1:04:15 – 1:04:18] Adam: it was getting really dark and I was like, I’m pretty lost.
[1:04:18 – 1:04:22] Adam: And all of a sudden I’m walking and there’s my hoodie in the tree.
[1:04:23 – 1:04:23] Adam: Weird.
[1:04:23 – 1:04:25] Adam: Isn’t that a terrible feeling?
[1:04:25 – 1:04:25] Adam: Yeah.
[1:04:25 – 1:04:26] Adam: It’s like, Oh yeah.
[1:04:27 – 1:04:29] Adam: Once you realize like, what, what is that?
[1:04:29 – 1:04:31] Adam: And then it’s like, it’s my hoodie.
[1:04:31 – 1:04:34] Adam: Like I’m, and then you realize you’ve walked right into a circle.
[1:04:34 – 1:04:36] Adam: Like it’s a terrifying feeling.
[1:04:36 – 1:04:46] Erik: Yeah, no, the next week’s Lost Boy episode is even more disturbing with ending up… Yeah, and I felt like I was walking in a straight line, but…
[1:04:46 – 1:04:49] Erik: Spent a whole day ending up in the place where you started out.
[1:04:49 – 1:04:50] Erik: Oof.
[1:04:50 – 1:04:50] Erik: Yeah.
[1:04:51 – 1:04:52] Erik: So…
[1:04:55 – 1:05:06] Erik: But based on Dan’s options and where he could have walked, the group is not really feeling good about the search.
[1:05:06 – 1:05:22] Erik: You know, for whatever reason, they kind of thought that maybe he could have gone north somehow, which I didn’t really get in the book because if he would have gone north, he would have ended up crossing the portage or running into Bell or even the unnamed lake.
[1:05:22 – 1:05:24] Erik: So he only could have gone south.
[1:05:24 – 1:05:25] Adam: At this point, right?
[1:05:25 – 1:05:25] Adam: Yeah.
[1:05:26 – 1:05:27] Erik: Right, at this point.
[1:05:27 – 1:05:28] Adam: He had 36 hours out.
[1:05:28 – 1:05:31] Adam: He had to have gone south.
[1:05:31 – 1:05:31] Erik: Yeah.
[1:05:31 – 1:05:39] Erik: But by early afternoon on August the 7th, there was 16 search and rescuers plus four dogs.
[1:05:40 – 1:05:43] Erik: And they were all set up on that unnamed lake.
[1:05:43 – 1:05:49] Erik: They even built a little floating landing pad out of logs for the helicopter to land and take off safely.
[1:05:49 – 1:05:50] Erik: There’s a picture of it in there.
[1:05:50 – 1:05:50] Erik: Sheesh.
[1:05:51 – 1:05:53] Erik: which is crazy because it’s a pretty small lake.
[1:05:53 – 1:05:56] Erik: I wasn’t even surprised to hear that they were able to land the beavers.
[1:05:56 – 1:05:57] Erik: Land the beavers, yeah.
[1:05:57 – 1:05:58] Erik: And then take off.
[1:05:59 – 1:06:01] Erik: I couldn’t believe it, but there’s pictures of them.
[1:06:03 – 1:06:09] Erik: And for the rest of the day, they immediately scour the area on land and in the air where he immediately had gone missing.
[1:06:10 – 1:06:13] Erik: But it seems as if the trees have swallowed Dan Stevens whole.
[1:06:14 – 1:06:16] Erik: Even the dogs don’t find a trace of him.
[1:06:17 – 1:06:34] Erik: Um, but Dan, uh, nevertheless is continuing to head South and he’s using the two stick method, which I kind of learned about for the first time, uh, from this book, which basically means that we’ve got sundial.
[1:06:34 – 1:06:52] Erik: Yeah, it’s essentially a sundial, and so you take a stick and you jam it into the earth, point it directly at the sun, and then you wait 90 minutes, and then you draw a perpendicular line to that…
[1:06:53 – 1:07:00] Erik: shadow that has grown and that will give you basically a compass in terms of east, west, south, north.
[1:07:00 – 1:07:00] Erik: Sure.
[1:07:01 – 1:07:05] Erik: And he does this every 90 minutes to make sure that he is continuing directly south.
[1:07:06 – 1:07:11] Erik: And as night approaches on the night of the 7th, he settles into his third night.
[1:07:12 – 1:07:17] Erik: The scouts have now made it back to Summers and are enjoying the comforts of a bunkhouse.
[1:07:18 – 1:07:19] Erik: The search and rescue crew…
[1:07:21 – 1:07:32] Erik: While that’s kind of, there’s a part of that coming up here that’s kind of sad about the dad crew and how they were treated at this summer’s canoe base.
[1:07:32 – 1:07:40] Erik: But anyway, the search and rescue crew, they’re sitting back on the unnamed lake with a big blazing campfire trying to keep the bugs at bay.
[1:07:43 – 1:07:46] Erik: First light on the morning of the 8th, Dan rises and
[1:07:48 – 1:08:10] Erik: basically in all over pain and you know walking through the woods without protection over your legs and arms just constantly scraping away the skin continues heading south eating grasshoppers along the way and at noon he crests a ridge and to the south he sees at the base of the slope ahead of him a lake that feeds into a larger one and
[1:08:11 – 1:08:15] Erik: and assumes it is out of track and makes his way to the water’s edge.
[1:08:16 – 1:08:22] Erik: And actually, within minutes, he does find himself upon the lake’s edge.
[1:08:22 – 1:08:31] Erik: And even within just a couple more minutes, he notices off in the distance the flash of canoe paddles and struggles to yell for help.
[1:08:32 – 1:08:36] Erik: The canoe paddles closer, and then they sit silently for minutes.
[1:08:37 – 1:08:40] Adam: What is this curious creature?
[1:08:40 – 1:08:44] Erik: As Dan continues to yell, hey, I’m lost.
[1:08:44 – 1:08:45] Erik: I need help.
[1:08:45 – 1:08:46] Erik: Do you have any food?
[1:08:47 – 1:08:48] Erik: Where is your camp?
[1:08:49 – 1:08:53] Erik: This canoe still just sits there about 100 yards silent, stationary.
[1:08:53 – 1:08:59] Erik: He can kind of see that the occupants are talking, but they’re still also just flinging lures into the lake fishing.
[1:09:02 – 1:09:03] Erik: He knows they’re close enough to hear him.
[1:09:05 – 1:09:11] Erik: And finally, after several more minutes, one of them responds in a thick New Jersey accent.
[1:09:11 – 1:09:13] Erik: How do you know you won’t rob us?
[1:09:14 – 1:09:14] Erik: What?
[1:09:15 – 1:09:17] Erik: How do we know you won’t rob us?
[1:09:17 – 1:09:20] Adam: Sounds like a real city slicker thing to say.
[1:09:20 – 1:09:23] Erik: Dan laughs in response.
[1:09:23 – 1:09:25] Adam: They probably locked their canoe up in camp at night.
[1:09:25 – 1:09:25] Erik: Yeah.
[1:09:26 – 1:09:27] Erik: Big, big padlock.
[1:09:28 – 1:09:28] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[1:09:29 – 1:09:31] Erik: 20 miles from nowhere.
[1:09:31 – 1:09:33] Erik: What, am I going to steal your hat and fishing pole?
[1:09:36 – 1:09:36] Erik: Maybe.
[1:09:38 – 1:09:46] Erik: As their canoes move closer, Dan notices the summer’s camp insignia on the canoe and explains he is a leader that has been lost for three days.
[1:09:46 – 1:09:52] Erik: Still, they refuse to move closer, and Dan recites to them the Boy Scout creed.
[1:09:52 – 1:09:53] Erik: Wow.
[1:09:53 – 1:09:54] Erik: And their response?
[1:09:55 – 1:09:56] Erik: Why don’t you swim out to us?
[1:09:57 – 1:09:57] SPEAKER_02: What?
[1:09:57 – 1:09:57] SPEAKER_02: !
[1:09:58 – 1:10:00] Erik: Yeah.
[1:10:00 – 1:10:10] Erik: Finally, he just gets sick and tired and he uses his trip leader voice and authoritatively demands them to get in here and pick me up now.
[1:10:11 – 1:10:13] Erik: Finally, they move close enough to pick him up.
[1:10:15 – 1:10:19] Erik: And they paddle him right over to a campsite between Little Knife and Knife.
[1:10:21 – 1:10:29] Erik: And as he climbs into their canoe, the incredulousness washes away as they notice his arms and legs.
[1:10:29 – 1:10:31] Erik: They’re finally like, oh, yeah, this guy’s obviously lost horribly.
[1:10:32 – 1:10:35] Erik: The outer layer has been stripped away.
[1:10:36 – 1:10:46] Erik: And the doctors in Atacocan reported that basically his skin was as raw as third-degree burns, which were glistening in the sun.
[1:10:46 – 1:10:48] Erik: He was rubbed so raw from branches.
[1:10:49 – 1:10:49] Erik: Yeah.
[1:10:50 – 1:10:51] Erik: So they paddled back to their campsite.
[1:10:52 – 1:10:54] Erik: One of the adults, again, another summer’s canoe.
[1:10:54 – 1:10:59] Erik: Every group that everybody ran into was associated with this canoe base out of Neely.
[1:10:59 – 1:11:02] Adam: Are they still running that many groups out of there these days?
[1:11:02 – 1:11:03] Erik: I’m sure they are, yeah.
[1:11:05 – 1:11:08] Adam: Have they retired 801C, though?
[1:11:08 – 1:11:14] Erik: Yeah, 801C is just in the rafters of the dining hall.
[1:11:14 – 1:11:15] Erik: 801C.
[1:11:16 – 1:11:18] Erik: It’s up there like a sad face.
[1:11:19 – 1:11:19] Erik: Sad?
[1:11:19 – 1:11:19] Erik: No, no.
[1:11:20 – 1:11:21] Erik: Sad mosquito.
[1:11:21 – 1:11:23] Erik: Just a glistening red arm.
[1:11:24 – 1:11:25] Adam: Gee whiz.
[1:11:25 – 1:11:32] Erik: Yeah, so they paddle them back to their camp, and they radio to the canoe base, and within 15 minutes, a helicopter arrives and picks Dan up.
[1:11:34 – 1:11:38] Erik: Uh, so he gets picked up by a helicopter.
[1:11:38 – 1:11:46] Erik: And since the, the rest certain rescue was based out of Ontario and quite a call in the OPP, he got shuttled back to a, at a cocaine.
[1:11:47 – 1:11:53] Erik: Um, meanwhile, the scouts from Chattanooga who have been somewhat shunned by the other groups at camp, uh,
[1:11:54 – 1:12:00] Erik: Um, they kind of got sick of people like giving them the stink eye at camp for abandoning their guide.
[1:12:00 – 1:12:04] Erik: And so they just were innately kind of wandering the streets.
[1:12:05 – 1:12:10] Erik: Um, and they ended up finally getting contacted by somebody from the camp, uh,
[1:12:10 – 1:12:12] Erik: that Dan was in fact rescued.
[1:12:12 – 1:12:18] Erik: He walked out on his own and was in Atikokan, um, where he’s being cleaned up at the hospital.
[1:12:19 – 1:12:24] Erik: And besides being given a dose of penicillin was basically just left to heal on his own.
[1:12:26 – 1:12:33] Erik: And about 1,300 miles to the south in Monroe, Georgia, the Stevens family phone finally rang.
[1:12:34 – 1:12:37] Erik: And the first thing that they heard was, Dad, it’s Dan.
[1:12:37 – 1:12:39] Erik: Dad, it’s Dan.
[1:12:39 – 1:12:46] Erik: And Dan was in Atikokan surviving the whole ordeal three nights, four days in the Quetico bush.
[1:12:50 – 1:12:52] Adam: Do you know there’s an actor named Dan Stevens now?
[1:12:53 – 1:12:55] Erik: Did I know that there was an actor named Dan Stevens?
[1:12:55 – 1:12:56] Adam: Is that him?
[1:12:56 – 1:12:57] Adam: Did he become an actor?
[1:12:57 – 1:12:58] Erik: That looks like PewDiePie.
[1:12:58 – 1:13:01] Adam: Doesn’t it?
[1:13:01 – 1:13:01] Adam: Yeah, yeah.
[1:13:01 – 1:13:03] Adam: Dan Stevens became PewDiePie.
[1:13:03 – 1:13:04] Erik: Oh, okay.
[1:13:04 – 1:13:05] Erik: That totally makes sense.
[1:13:06 – 1:13:07] Erik: So there you go.
[1:13:07 – 1:13:08] Adam: That’s the story.
[1:13:09 – 1:13:11] Erik: That is the story of one of two lost boys.
[1:13:12 – 1:13:15] Adam: Why did the whole scout camp turn against 801C?
[1:13:15 – 1:13:15] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:13:16 – 1:13:16] Erik: I mean…
[1:13:16 – 1:13:19] Adam: I mean, it was questionable, but they did the best they could.
[1:13:19 – 1:13:20] Adam: They did the best they could.
[1:13:20 – 1:13:20] Adam: Right?
[1:13:21 – 1:13:21] Erik: Yeah.
[1:13:22 – 1:13:22] Adam: I mean…
[1:13:24 – 1:13:26] Adam: So he was 22 in 98.
[1:13:27 – 1:13:28] Adam: So he’s 40-something now?
[1:13:29 – 1:13:32] Erik: Yeah, I can page through here and get to the back.
[1:13:32 – 1:13:35] Adam: I’m just paging through Dan Stevens’ on Facebook right now.
[1:13:36 – 1:13:37] Adam: There is a lot.
[1:13:40 – 1:13:42] Erik: Dan Stevens is a very common name.
[1:13:42 – 1:13:43] Adam: Yeah, that’s…
[1:13:46 – 1:13:49] Adam: So, yeah, I mean, is there any contact information?
[1:13:50 – 1:13:51] Adam: Can we get a hold of Dan Stevens?
[1:13:52 – 1:14:04] Erik: Well, this book was published in 2007, and it said that today Dan Stevens is a hydrologic technician with the USGS survey, or the USGS, I should say, in Atlanta, Georgia.
[1:14:06 – 1:14:07] Erik: And besides that…
[1:14:07 – 1:14:08] Adam: He moved back to Georgia, huh?
[1:14:09 – 1:14:09] Erik: Yep.
[1:14:11 – 1:14:14] Erik: Yeah, he cut the rest of his guiding season short that season.
[1:14:14 – 1:14:22] Erik: They basically completely healed all of his legs.
[1:14:22 – 1:14:28] Erik: And the one quote that he had about the whole time lost in the woods.
[1:14:29 – 1:14:37] Erik: was that it had a phenomenally heightened awareness and a deep internal focus that was, quote, the highest degree of concentration in my life.
[1:14:37 – 1:14:41] Erik: I was in this zone that I don’t think I’ll ever be in again.
[1:14:41 – 1:14:44] Erik: I had a lot more capacity than I ever expected.
[1:14:45 – 1:14:48] Erik: And then afterwards, he also said, quote, I wasn’t the same person.
[1:14:49 – 1:14:51] Erik: That’s when I felt the pain.
[1:14:51 – 1:14:54] Erik: The experience also made him reevaluate his perspective on life.
[1:14:54 – 1:14:56] Erik: Quote, all of this is temporary.
[1:14:57 – 1:15:02] Erik: We really should take advantage of it, which is pretty nice ending for his story.
[1:15:02 – 1:15:03] Adam: Yeah.
[1:15:03 – 1:15:05] Erik: I can’t imagine that level of like.
[1:15:06 – 1:15:13] Erik: heightened awareness after a day and a half of kind of a stumbling, concussed mess.
[1:15:13 – 1:15:18] Erik: And then all of a sudden just being like, oh, I’ve got to figure something out here.
[1:15:18 – 1:15:23] Adam: I like the dream, if that is a real story that he had of Fisher 119.
[1:15:23 – 1:15:23] Adam: Yeah.
[1:15:25 – 1:15:28] Erik: That was mentioned multiple times, the Fisher dream.
[1:15:29 – 1:15:29] Adam: Yeah.
[1:15:30 – 1:15:37] Erik: And I don’t know if he didn’t say if it was, you know, there was a little bit of ambiguity with how much liberty he was taking.
[1:15:38 – 1:15:39] Erik: He didn’t come out.
[1:15:40 – 1:15:45] Erik: It didn’t come across as I interviewed this guy and this is what he told me.
[1:15:45 – 1:15:48] Erik: But he also didn’t necessarily say that that’s not what happened.
[1:15:48 – 1:15:49] Erik: So, I don’t know.
[1:15:51 – 1:15:52] Erik: It seemed like it was…
[1:15:54 – 1:16:02] Erik: like I said at the beginning, mostly public record and interviews with officials with a little bit of like post-interview after the fact.
[1:16:04 – 1:16:16] Erik: Now the story that we’re going to talk about next week seems like there’s maybe a little bit more interviews with the lost person because of kind of what he did afterwards.
[1:16:17 – 1:16:19] Erik: I think he actually ended up on like Oprah and –
[1:16:21 – 1:16:24] Adam: If you got Dan Stevens, would you…
[1:16:25 – 1:16:51] Erik: talk to somebody about it if like hey i’m writing a book about this would you talk to me i don’t know if i would um i guess it depends it totally depends on how it was how i was uh approached i would be more than happy to talk about it yes but if it was somebody who came at me who was clearly looking to just like cash in on some like tales of amazement in the north woods like a
[1:16:51 – 1:16:55] Erik: One of those goofy books that you see for like $7.95 at a truck stop.
[1:16:56 – 1:16:56] Erik: Yeah.
[1:16:57 – 1:16:57] Erik: Well, yeah, right.
[1:16:58 – 1:16:58] Erik: Fine.
[1:16:58 – 1:17:03] Erik: I’m not necessarily saying that I would want to like make money off of it, but I would want it to be done well at least.
[1:17:04 – 1:17:04] Erik: Yeah.
[1:17:04 – 1:17:10] Erik: Like, hey, take this information and do something more productive than just make some cash.
[1:17:10 – 1:17:37] Adam: yeah i’ve been lost a few times and but not to this degree not even close not for days not for days yeah i’ve never been lost for more than a day which we should save our lost stories for the end i’ll be happy to talk about them after at the end of next episode yeah because yeah they didn’t to me they weren’t that bad right but like to me there would be the sense of like it that happened to me like then whoa you really messed up it’s really i don’t know if i want to talk about that
[1:17:37 – 1:17:47] Erik: It’s hard to comprehend and judge Dan as much as I do the next guy because of the head injury.
[1:17:48 – 1:17:54] Adam: Yeah, but that’s still, what are you trying to do, hop rock to rock out in the middle of the woods by yourself?
[1:17:55 – 1:18:15] Erik: Yeah, I mean, there’s so many, like the time that I got lost though, like I can, you could point if I was somebody who ended up getting written about where I was like lost for multiple days, you could look at the course of events that took place that were, you don’t think about those decisions when you’re making them.
[1:18:15 – 1:18:19] Adam: Yeah, like I’m sure I’ve done things just as stupid and gotten away with it.
[1:18:19 – 1:18:20] Erik: Yeah.
[1:18:20 – 1:18:21] Adam: I’ve hopped rock to rock.
[1:18:21 – 1:18:21] Erik: Right.
[1:18:22 – 1:18:29] Erik: Yeah, we were hauling huge boulders across Blueberry Island to set up a nicer fire pit in like toeless sandals.
[1:18:30 – 1:18:30] Erik: Yeah.
[1:18:30 – 1:18:31] Erik: We were in the middle of Quetico.
[1:18:31 – 1:18:33] Erik: A rock could have like crushed a toe.
[1:18:35 – 1:18:36] Erik: I’m not saying we’re perfect at all.
[1:18:36 – 1:18:37] Erik: No.
[1:18:37 – 1:18:44] Erik: But the next person that we talk about next week, I take much more issue with in terms of decisions that were made.
[1:18:44 – 1:18:50] Erik: One in very particular that just does not…
[1:18:51 – 1:18:52] Erik: I can’t comprehend with at all.
[1:18:52 – 1:18:59] Erik: He had a bunch of things going wrong in terms of the weather, but there were some things that he did that just didn’t make sense at all.
[1:18:59 – 1:19:00] Erik: This one…
[1:19:01 – 1:19:05] Erik: You really can’t say if somebody cracks their head what they’re going to do.
[1:19:06 – 1:19:16] Erik: Throw in Quetico Wilderness and I don’t necessarily blame the Boy Scout group that much and I wouldn’t necessarily…
[1:19:17 – 1:19:34] Erik: i don’t necessarily judge the other scouts at that camp for being like you guys are just hanging out here while your guide is out lost in the woods like yeah that’s that would be hard not to talk kind of sure but at the same time what i mean they get the whole stick together thing like you don’t want to split up i get it
[1:19:34 – 1:19:38] Erik: And they were four days into the first time ever being in the area.
[1:19:38 – 1:19:41] Erik: They didn’t really fully get the remoteness.
[1:19:41 – 1:19:47] Adam: Yeah, that’s a situation few people listening to this podcast, I’m sure, can even remotely relate to.
[1:19:47 – 1:19:50] Erik: Yeah, there’s no first time, like, well, there’s very few.
[1:19:50 – 1:19:57] Erik: I actually did get an email, a message the other day from somebody from Winnipeg who’s never been to the Bon Jovi, who really wants to get down.
[1:19:58 – 1:20:14] Erik: But for the most part, yeah, I think there’s not a level of listener that can’t comprehend, like, the vastness and how clear-cut the edge between, like, surviving and not is, especially in Quetico, where there’s…
[1:20:15 – 1:20:17] Erik: I mean, not that many people paddling around.
[1:20:18 – 1:20:21] Erik: You’re not going to be able to just wave somebody down.
[1:20:22 – 1:20:26] Adam: Even a blood-curdling scream might not be heard.
[1:20:26 – 1:20:26] Erik: Yeah, that’s…
[1:20:28 – 1:20:31] Erik: I thought there was some fun little tidbits in that story.
[1:20:32 – 1:20:36] Erik: That is part one of the Lost Boys series.
[1:20:38 – 1:20:38] Adam: I like that.
[1:20:38 – 1:20:41] Adam: Yeah, that really has a nice ring to it.
[1:20:41 – 1:20:51] Erik: I’m going to share… We’ll share the second story next week with hopefully at that point, at the very least, we will be able to share some fresh images from the new studio.
[1:20:51 – 1:20:53] Erik: Well, the upgraded studio.
[1:20:54 – 1:20:58] Erik: And maybe even have it be hooked up to a video potential.
[1:20:59 – 1:21:05] Erik: We’re hoping to be completely videoed for the most part for the upcoming second season.
[1:21:06 – 1:21:12] Adam: Yeah, I mean, we’ve always kind of joked about being in Studio K or Studio B or wherever we’re at.
[1:21:13 – 1:21:17] Adam: But we actually are kind of building a studio.
[1:21:17 – 1:21:19] Erik: A little bit, yeah.
[1:21:19 – 1:21:20] Adam: We’re building it around this map.
[1:21:21 – 1:21:23] Adam: It’s a lovely map that you gifted me.
[1:21:24 – 1:21:25] Adam: So…
[1:21:25 – 1:21:29] Erik: I still do look forward to having some random like in the field.
[1:21:29 – 1:21:32] Erik: Well, for sure in the field, but like the random in front of a library.
[1:21:32 – 1:21:42] Erik: Those busy August weeks where the only time we can get together is just like as we’re passing each other on the street and we just stop in front of a place where there’s internet or something.
[1:21:43 – 1:21:46] Erik: But for the most part, I think we’d like to do at least…
[1:21:47 – 1:21:49] Erik: every other week in the studio.
[1:21:50 – 1:21:53] Erik: And then maybe some video and then video in the field.
[1:21:53 – 1:22:00] Erik: And if we really get adventurous, maybe even a live stream here or there to ask us questions or something.
[1:22:00 – 1:22:01] Erik: Right on.
[1:22:01 – 1:22:06] Erik: Or just harass us with comments on the side.
[1:22:07 – 1:22:07] Adam: That’s cool too.
[1:22:07 – 1:22:08] Erik: Yeah.
[1:22:09 – 1:22:10] Adam: Yeah, I’m excited for season two.
[1:22:11 – 1:22:12] Adam: I’m excited for spring.
[1:22:13 – 1:22:15] Adam: I can hear the Cadence River starting to flow.
[1:22:16 – 1:22:17] Adam: It’s moving.
[1:22:17 – 1:22:21] Adam: At night especially, if you step out on the deck, you can really hear it roaring.
[1:22:21 – 1:22:23] Adam: Just south of here, it starts to drop in elevation.
[1:22:23 – 1:22:26] Adam: It’s a pretty neat thing every spring.
[1:22:27 – 1:22:29] Adam: Snow is slowly melting.
[1:22:29 – 1:22:33] Adam: Yeah, season two is right around the corner.
[1:22:33 – 1:22:35] Adam: We’re excited to have you with us.
[1:22:35 – 1:22:36] Adam: I think we’ve got a
[1:22:38 – 1:22:41] Adam: What do you call that, like your portfolio?
[1:22:41 – 1:22:46] Adam: I think we put together a pretty nice portfolio in season one and the off season here.
[1:22:46 – 1:22:50] Adam: I think everybody listening now kind of has a good idea what we’re about.
[1:22:50 – 1:22:51] Erik: Yeah.
[1:22:51 – 1:22:54] Adam: But I think we’re ready to do more with this.
[1:22:54 – 1:22:58] Erik: Yeah, I think portfolio is a really good word for it.
[1:22:58 – 1:23:15] Erik: It’s also like I feel like it’s kind of like we have built up a very solid like framework and now we’re going to like paint in between those frames and really build like a solid like house of Boundary Waters content.
[1:23:15 – 1:23:22] Adam: And a vast majority of that is stories and questions and interactions we have with the people listening.
[1:23:22 – 1:23:25] Adam: And it always blows my mind how many people are listening.
[1:23:25 – 1:23:37] Erik: Yeah, half of the little fun stories and inside jokes that we have at this point, they’ve all, like a lot of them have come from the questions of the week on Facebook and on Reddit.
[1:23:37 – 1:23:40] Erik: And I can’t wait to probably next week I’ll throw it out.
[1:23:40 – 1:23:42] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[1:23:42 – 1:23:46] Erik: The season two, where are you heading?
[1:23:46 – 1:23:48] Erik: What’s your plans for this next season?
[1:23:49 – 1:23:51] Erik: That’s going to be kind of an annual one, I think.
[1:23:51 – 1:23:52] Adam: Yeah, it definitely will be.
[1:23:52 – 1:24:04] Erik: That’s a good one to blow off the lid of Season 2, get the Loon Call intro back in, and go from there and see what else we can do.
[1:24:04 – 1:24:16] Erik: We want to do the In the Bag episode, and I think we’re toying early tees of a potential Pigeon River Grand Portage run.
[1:24:17 – 1:24:18] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[1:24:18 – 1:24:19] Erik: That’s just the slightest tease.
[1:24:19 – 1:24:23] Adam: I think that’s the first time that’s been even uttered out loud.
[1:24:23 – 1:24:23] Adam: Right.
[1:24:24 – 1:24:25] Adam: On the live mic, at least.
[1:24:25 – 1:24:27] Adam: We’ve been kind of toying with this one for a while.
[1:24:27 – 1:24:32] Adam: So, we’ve got a couple other things in store for the springtime, especially, but…
[1:24:34 – 1:24:35] Adam: Yeah, it’s always an exciting time of year.
[1:24:35 – 1:24:38] Adam: I think that’s why I like April is lots of planning.
[1:24:39 – 1:24:41] Erik: You’ve maybe convinced me to not be as hard on April now.
[1:24:41 – 1:24:47] Adam: Although I am trying to get into deer hunting, which more again, which is, that’ll be a nice thing to do in November.
[1:24:48 – 1:24:50] Adam: There’s always something to do.
[1:24:50 – 1:24:53] Adam: You know, sometimes you just got to work a little bit harder to find it.
[1:24:53 – 1:24:58] Erik: There is always something to do, but April is very challenging to do much with.
[1:24:58 – 1:24:59] Erik: Truly.
[1:24:59 – 1:25:02] Erik: Unless you’re inside recording podcasts.
[1:25:02 – 1:25:04] Adam: It’s a good time to sit by the wood stove and read.
[1:25:05 – 1:25:05] Adam: Yes.
[1:25:05 – 1:25:05] Adam: That’s for sure.
[1:25:06 – 1:25:06] Erik: Yeah.
[1:25:06 – 1:25:09] Adam: So thanks for sharing your knowledge in this book.
[1:25:10 – 1:25:11] Adam: It was a pretty good story.
[1:25:11 – 1:25:12] Erik: Yeah.
[1:25:12 – 1:25:14] Adam: And I can’t wait to hear about part two next week.
[1:25:15 – 1:25:16] Erik: Got one more next week.
[1:25:16 – 1:25:23] Erik: And then after that, I think it’s going to be delving back into weekly episodes.
[1:25:23 – 1:25:24] Adam: After the Midwest Mountaineering.
[1:25:25 – 1:25:25] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[1:25:25 – 1:25:29] Erik: Next week’s, well, this will be coming out on Easter.
[1:25:30 – 1:25:37] Erik: And then the week after that, we’ll probably just put it out on, yeah, Midwest Mountaineering weekend.
[1:25:37 – 1:25:38] Erik: So it sounds like we’re already two weeks.
[1:25:39 – 1:25:58] Erik: every week now at this point we took two weeks off I feel well rested two weeks off that was it very tranquil just can’t help but hearing the sound of my own voice no I just can’t I want to hear your voice oh is that what it is yeah I missed you oh
[1:25:59 – 1:26:00] Adam: You want to hold hands?
[1:26:00 – 1:26:02] Adam: Let’s hold hands as we go out.
[1:26:02 – 1:26:03] Adam: All right, bud.
[1:26:04 – 1:26:09] Adam: This has been Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast, and I’ve been Adam.
[1:26:09 – 1:26:11] Adam: With me here in Studio K is Eric.
[1:26:12 – 1:26:13] Erik: We are definitely holding hands next week.
[1:26:13 – 1:26:16] Erik: We will hopefully have a video so you can see this.
[1:26:16 – 1:26:19] Erik: So it’s not as weird.
[1:26:19 – 1:26:21] Adam: Thanks for joining us.
[1:26:21 – 1:26:22] Adam: And happy paddling.
[1:26:22 – 1:26:23] SPEAKER_03: That’s fine.
[1:26:23 – 1:26:24] SPEAKER_03: We can share that.
[1:26:35 – 1:26:56] SPEAKER_02: With your guns and drums and drums and guns, haroo, haroo With your guns and drums and drums and guns, the enemy nearly slew you Oh, my darling dear, you look so queer Oh, Johnny, I hardly knew
[1:27:06 – 1:27:11] SPEAKER_02: Where are your legs that used to run, Haru, Haru?
[1:27:12 – 1:27:18] SPEAKER_02: Where are your legs that used to run, Haru, Haru?
[1:27:18 – 1:27:25] SPEAKER_02: Where are your legs that used to run when first you went to carry a gun?
[1:27:26 – 1:27:30] SPEAKER_02: I fear your dancing days are done.
[1:27:32 – 1:27:34] SPEAKER_02: Johnny, I hallelujah.
[1:27:47 – 1:27:49] SPEAKER_03: They’re rolling out the guns again.
[1:27:50 – 1:27:57] SPEAKER_03: But they’ll never take our sons again.
[1:27:57 – 1:28:00] SPEAKER_03: No, they’ll never take our sons again.
[1:28:00 – 1:28:05] SPEAKER_03: Oh, Johnny, I’m swearing to you.
[1:28:05 – 1:28:07] SPEAKER_03: Johnny, I’m swearing to you.
[1:28:08 – 1:28:09] SPEAKER_02: Johnny, I’m swearing to you.
[1:28:10 – 1:28:12] SPEAKER_03: Johnny, I’m swearing to you.