Hansel and Grettel

July 11, 2010

(I'm actually posting this on July 14th, but it happened on the 11th. It's just taken me a few days to get this online)

When I first arrived in Ketchikan this year, I heard a lot about the local 8th graders "wilderness training" as it was taking place the same weekend I arrived. Here in Southeast Alaska, part of the public school curriculum is to take the kids on a weekend "survival training" session where each child brings one coffee can of supplies and is dumped off a few miles from town in a remote location until they are picked up a day or so later. I remember thinking that I needed to tag along with them, as I could use the pointers. Where else in the world makes survival training a right of passage?

Then again, after the last few days, I'm beginning to think we could all use some pointers. As well as a healthy dose of respect for Mother Nature and the wilds of Alaska.

Yesterday we got a family of guests into the lodge. After arriving, the father, not feeling good, went to bed. The two kids with him, an 18 year old girl and a 14 year old boy, ate dinner and then decided to go exploring. They were last seen heading up the boardwalk toward the Forest Service Trail that leads back to McDonald Lake at 7:45 p.m. (Mom stayed home.) At 11 p.m. the dad wakes up and realizes that he can't find his kids. At that point, he alerts the bartender, who came to get me (since I work in the office, I'm the unofficial firefighter, ambulance, EMT, etc...). I wake up a few more employees and Dewey and we search the lodge and surrounding areas. Keep in mind that it is about 58 degrees, not too cold, but not exactly warm. There is a light rain, and the wind is picking up. It's pitch black outside (yes, it get's dark here - Ketchikan is not anywhere's near north enough for it to stay light out in the summer all night long.) Plus, the kids were reportedly only wearing a sweatshirt and a flannel shirt and their sneakers! After about 10 minutes of checking the area, we had to wake up Kevin, the entire staff, and the entire lodge (to check all of the guest rooms!). Dewey, Art, Johnson, and Guy were sent up several of the trails with flashlights and radios to look for the kids. After an hour and a half, we had found nothing - not even any footprints. By 1:30 Kevin had called the police station in Ketchikan and Search and Rescue. The guys continued looking until they were called back to the lodge around 3 a.m. At 6:30 the following morning Search and Rescue teams began to show up (15 + people) along with a dog team, a helicopter and another float plane. They set up base here and continued the search.

Side note: I'm guessing no one reading this blog has ever done any hiking in SE Alaska or in the rainforest, but here, hiking is an extreme sport. The trails are not marked, narrow, rocky, slick & often with logs covering the path you have to jump. In addition, the remoteness of the area makes it more dangerous, as it is difficult to get an injured individual out. For example, once you get hurt, it takes 40 minutes minimum before you get to the hospital (20 min. for the plane to get here and 20 min. back) and that is once you get back to the lodge. If you are injured on the trail, with temps in the 50's, cold rain, and you are just sitting there, it is entirely possible to go into hypothermia within several hours. Then there are bears and other wildlife I won't even get into.

Finally, at 10:30 - after being lost in the woods for over 15 hours - we got a call that one of the float plane pilots spotted the kids, and we all stopped holding our breath (and watching the river for floating bodies). At that point, the plane was able to land and pick up the two kids and return them to the lodge.

I think everyone was relieved and amazed that they were okay and unhurt.

Kevin pointed out that this was the first time in 17 years something like this has happened and the first he could remember that Search and Rescue was called to the lodge.

Personally, I can't imagine staying out in the woods overnight. Heck, it scares me to walk to the generator shack after dark at the lodge. I would have frozen to death too with just a flannel shirt on. Brave kids. (Stupid! (Really, sleeping under a log is better than a forest service cabin??) but brave).

Guess that is enough excitement for now.

~Sharon