THE SEARCH CONTINUES chapter 102

WHAT HAPPENED: Sorry, I should have answered this yesterday. On Thursday, July 28 my daughter picked my up in here 4x4. I needed to use the handle above the door inside the car to pull myself into the vehicle. Arthritis necessitates that move. I left pain in my left shoulder, but it dissipated. However, but evening the pain increased to intolerable, After a night of no sleep I went to ER on Monday morning and was told it was most likely a rotator cuff tear. I saw an orthopedist on July 8^th and he said it was a stretched ligament. Mobility has returned quickly, but the pain is leaving slowly.

The night was always short on these “find a campsite” expeditions. We would leave Saskatoon on Friday nights when the men got off work and be back late on Saturday night. That usually meant an attempt to get to sleep as early as possible on Friday night so we could begin our search bright an early on Saturday. That was the hope, but it rarely worked out that way.

Movement in the cabin always began at first light. To me, that felt like the middle of the night. Breakfast was cold — rolls, cheese, fruit sent along by moms. Bertha had coffee and pop to help keep the caffeine addicts going. She also made some money off snacks as the kids loaded up for the day. We would likely visit her again before leaving the area. While a group of us came every year she never seems happy or sad that we were there. It was just part of the routine.

The crew was usually about ten — six or seven boys and three to five men. We usually traveled in a car with one or two pickups. On my first excursion we had one pick up and everyone piled into the cab and truck bed for our forages into the wilderness. While we were in the forest, the land was still pretty flat. We began all searches off the main road as we looked for clearings near stream and lakes. It didn’t seem that we ever wanted to return to the exact same place. Good starting points began by climbing on top of the cab and looking for a thinning of trees – the advantage of flat land and slow growth seasons. Not much was extremely tall.  The spotted spaces were often the site of previous hunter campsites. We would stop periodically and search an area on foot.

I was off walking with three or of the guys along the edge of a lake still covered with ice. You could see that it was beginning to break up and there were large spaces of open water and dozens of floes. The edge seemed solid, but I knew it wasn’t. I had asked the guys to stay off the ice but that was like saying, “Why don’t you walk out there and see if you might fall through.” I was ahead of two of the guys when I heard the crack of ice and turned to find two of them standing on large chunks of ice that was beginning to separate from the larger body. One boy was able to easily and quickly move from block to block and land on shore, but Jake was on the edge of a large floe that began to tip and he fell to his knees grabbing hold of the sky pointed edge to keep from sliding in. His buddy wanted to go in and get him but I stopped him. With a little direction he could save himself and I did not want to have two in danger. Instead we searched for a branch we could stretch out to him. He pulled himself up, got centered and did the same hop of his buddy and landed on shore. He was safe before he began to panic. He had perfect control while in danger but now he was shaking and gasping while sitting on a nearby log. When he got control the guys all laughed. It was just tension release. There was nothing funny about it, but I knew it was going to be a funny story.

We hooked up with the rest of the crew and warmed ourselves at their fire and shared our now hilarious story. The boys told it more exciting and dangerous than it really was, but it got a few eyes to bug out. Another group told us of finding animal tracks in some of the snow. There were sure it was a bear, but it was doubtful there were out of hibernation yet, but you never know.

It took four for five more side trails before we found a workable spot. After clearing underbrush, building a latrine and digging small depressions for the individual campfires that would be near each tent, we headed back to Bertha’s before going home.

While coming to the main road from out newly selected campsite, we camp around a curve and sunk into a 20-foot stretch of mud. We had passed though it without trouble going in but had much more speed and fewer people in the truck bed. This time we were just too slow. We had two trucks this year, but the second was behind us and thus of little help.

Similar setting, but a 1960's truck. We were stuck.

“Everyone out. We’re gonna push this sucker right out of here.” Right! The work of pushing only dropped the truck deeper into the mud. We picked away at that thing for nearly two hours and all that happened was we had buried the thing up to the axels. We had been putting limbs and branches and anything we could in front of the wheels to get a grip. Dusk was fast approaching and we would normally be on our way back by now. Everyone was tired and muddy and it was getting cool.

One of the smaller guys was beginning to whimper, as he got more and more frightened. He did not want to spend the night in the woods. None of us did. I got the group in a circle; gripped filthy and muddy hands and prayed God would loosen the mud and help us walk that truck out of there. Now with a renewed sense of energy and a strength we did not have before, everyone put their shoulders and backs into the job and the suction popped loose and out it came. There was cheering and shouting and one very happy group of extremely muddy and head to toe dirty guys.

We moved the freed up truck quite far ahead and back the second one up for a good run at the narrow road and the driver hit is a little off center and came right through. We went back with shovels to fill in the hole hoping it would dry out before we arrived in three weeks. We wanted a somewhat smooth road to come into the camp. It worked. Three weeks later you would never have even known there had been a muddy road.

We went to Bertha’s and hosed off a little before driving the sleeping boys back. It was late, but we were home.

P.S. This story was a compilation of several years of exploration trips.