there have been occasional circumstances where I’ve had to rescue cast-off clothing, hats, gloves, vests, and even lifejackets — all the things necessary and critical in keeping someone warm even though everything may be damp. Paradoxical undressing can happen even at the onset of mild hypothermia: when an objective destination is set, and circumstances arise when it is best to just keep moving until adequate shelter can be secured, clients (and some inexperienced guides) get careless. Even though they know they dropped something, in their faltering mind it makes sense to forget about it, however irrational and dangerous, they plod on with a false sensation of warmth, or the anticipation of getting to a warm place soon. There have been many situations when it was necessary to stop where there was no lee-cover from the wind, set up a makeshift shelter using canoes and brew a pot of tea, simply because one client showed signs of hypothermia. Clients can only be pushed as far as the weakest member; physical and psychological conditioning has a breaking point — going beyond this point compromises the integrity of the trip and the safety of the group. Unguided, inexperienced groups generally rely on the strongest (or most vocal) member of the party if situations arise. Selecting a leader this way is a slipshod method of maintaining stability and duty of care, especially knowing that human nature casts most of us as sheep. One person slipping into a hypothermic state can spell quick disaster for a group if it is not remedied quickly; once a person hits the second and third stage of cold immersion it gets harder to bring them back and easier for the rescuer to cause the victim to succumb to cardiac arrest while trying desperately to warm them up. Tricks and back-pocket remedies found in “survival” manuals are futile when common sense has been abandoned.
Moisture is the bane of the adventurer’s peaceful existence. I hate being wet and I’ll do anything to stay as dry as possible. I have no qualms about pitching a good kitchen tarp over a firepit on a rainy day, cooking, reading, and watching other canoeists or hikers passing through, miserable and wet. There have been many occasions when the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and sweet-buns baked in the reflector oven has attracted the appearance of sodden campers who appreciate getting in out of the rain and drying out, if only for a temporary stopover.
While acting as a guest park warden in New Zealand, tending a forty-eight-bunk hut along the Routeburn Track in Aspiring National Park, I was amazed to see how poorly many of the hikers were dressed. I was there for the month of May, at the onset of the New Zealand winter, and a time when the tail end of the hiking season still attracted enough trampers to warrant keeping the warden’s hut open. People would arrive after the hard climb to the hut, often soaked from sweat, wearing nothing more than tight blue jeans and sneakers and perhaps a light wind-shell. In the Southern Alps of the park, the climate changes from balmy warm in the lush valleys to bitter cold up in the treeless passes. Several people had died along this track, either from venturing off the trail and succumbing to hypothermia, or by slipping off the icy edge of a trail along a mountain pass. I spent most of my time keeping a warming fire going in the bunkhouse, lending trampers adequate clothing (which was returned on the trek back), or moderating the effects of hypothermia on ill-prepared hikers. A young man from Quebec had left his pack, bedroll, and food at the terminus of the trail, fifteen kilometres away, and had made his way to my hut over one of the mountain ridges. By the time he arrived at the Routeburn Falls hut he was hypothermic but insisted on walking the fifteen kilometres back to his gear along the trail. I refused to let him go and he stayed in my cabin for two days drying out and shaking off a deadly chill. He was physically fit and an ardent trekker, but he lacked the ability to pace himself or to judge how far he could travel in unknown territory.
SEVEN
ERRANT MAPS
One should not take every map that comes out, upon trust, or conclude that the newest is still the best, but ought to be at pains to examine them by the observations of the best travelers, that he may know their goodness and defects.
— John Green, The Construction of Maps and Globes, 1717
After looking at the topographic map, the four Ohio paddlers decided to continue along the east side of the rapids approaching Thunderhouse Falls to see if they could locate the portage. At the time, they had no idea that the portage marked on the map did not exist, and by the time they noticed canoeists across the river, unloading their gear at the trailhead upstream, it was too late. Craig Zelenak, 33, and his canoe partner, Pat Sirk, 32, would later describe the power of the rapids as a “roller coaster ride with three-foot waves all around.” In an attempt to cross over to the other side of the river and work their way up to the portage, both canoes capsized. Zelenak and Sirk made it back to shore, but for their friends in the other canoe, Ken Randlett, 39, and David Zenisek, 23, the flow of the current was too much.
The four Cleveland-area companions spent weekends and holidays together, usually canoeing, and to them, a trip down the Missinaibi River was to be a trip of a lifetime. Randlett, who planned to spend his fortieth birthday on the river, spent a year organizing the expedition; Zenisek was to be married shortly after their return. The last Zelenak and Sirk saw of their friends, the two of them were clinging to the canoe and heading for the falls. They were both wearing lifejackets so they figured they would be okay.
The trail is marked by purpose, not by signage.
A group of Canadian canoeists had congregated at the campsite overlooking the gorge, some distance along the sixteen-hundred-metre portage. They were in the process of portaging their gear and were now taking a few restful minutes absorbing the spectacular scene below them — the thunderous applause of a great river squeezed between ancient ramparts of granite. They had no idea of the tragedy unfolding above the falls at that moment. Walking casually along the brim of the canyon, the Canadians came in sight of the first chute, still dazzled by the immensity of the spillway and the gallery of water-worn rocks. They soon saw that something was definitely out of place; the prow of a canoe bobbed up and down in the surging pool between the first two chutes, a lifejacket ripped in half, a pack and a plastic cooler remained partly visible, caught in a boil of aerated water and river foam. Two of the Canadians had already gone back to the head of the portage where they soon met up with the remaining half of the Ohio party who still believed their friends had made it to shore safely, maybe mingling with the Canadians down at the campsite. The utter horror of the situation sank in when they discovered that their friends were unaccounted for, and that the mangled canoe and torn lifejacket had turned up at the bottom of the falls. They were all wearing lifejackets, Zelenak thought aloud.
A frenzied shore search resulted in little hope of finding anyone alive.
On June 21, 1993, the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Trenton, Ontario, responded to an activated Emergency Locating Transmitter (E.L.T.) on the Missinaibi River, almost a thousand kilometres to the north. An Ontario Provincial Police Search and Rescue Team and helicopter were dispatched early the following day and made contact with a group of paddlers camped at Thunderhouse Falls. Four days later, the rescue team located one of the bodies in Bell’s Bay, twenty-four kilometres downstream from Thunderhouse. The second body was found the next day just below Conjuring House Rapids.
Twenty-five days later, provincial police and Natural Resources officials met in Hearst with local coroner, Bertrand Proulx. Proulx had recalled a similar drowning some years earlier at Thunderhouse but did not want to call an inquest because of the expense, according to the records of the meeting. The report adds, “… especially when he knows what the inquest’s recommendations would be, anyways.” There was no mention in any of the records to making any effort to correct the false information on the topographic map that had led the Ohio party astray.
At the time I was writing a canoeing guidebook to the Missinaibi River, initially because it
