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| Survirors Kevin Gross, 12, Sashia Hart, 13, Diana Horwood, 17 and Anne Abdalla, 11. |
The old time spirit of ruggedness permeated the way parents raised their children well after World War II, and it surely resulted in much good, but occasionally it led to some awful results.
Fifty years ago a group of nine campers from Camp Macaza, based in l'Annonciation - all from well-heeled families - canoed out onto the massive Lake Baskatong north of Montreal.
Camp authorities drove the nine campers to Baie des Sables for a five day canoe trip.
By day three - Wednesday July 31, 1968 - the trio of canoes was about halfway down the lake when winds started blowing. One of the canoes capsized at about noon. Campers paddled the other two canoes over to help but they too ended up capsized far from land.
Only four of the nine managed to cling to the wreckage. They did so for about an hour before swimming 400 yards (.36 km) to an island.
Those four survivors huddled in shock and terror for 25 hours until a passing Canadian International Paper tugboat captained by John Gunette, 62, of Maniwaki, spotted and rescued them.
Survivor Diana Horwood described the terrifying event that claimed the lives of their five friends.
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| 2 of the victims: Ward Bailey, 17 and Elizabeth Richards, 17. |
The waves were high - about three or four feet. We were thinking of pulling into shore when one of the canoes tipped when hit by a large wave. it was as huge wave, followed by a gust of wind.
The Counsellor in the other canoe and I paddled close to the three children in the water.
Our canoe tipped over and about two managed to clamber into the last canoe, still upright. A wave broke over it and capsized it as well. We were all in the water about 500 yards from shore.
The waves were so high that I couldn't see the others. I knew some of them were going to go under. We were all good swimmers, but the waves were so high.
We were on our own. I lost sight of the others but four of us somehow ended up hanging onto the same canoe.
The wind let up a couple of hours after and we swam to an island. We couldn't have hung on much longer anyway.
There was no sign of the other five. They must have gone under.
We got to the island and it got colder and colder. Because of the water we didn't even have any dry matches to start a fire.
We spent the night just trying to keep warm.
I wondered if we were ever going to get rescued.*
The dead were Elizabeth Richards, 17 of 101 Percival Ave. Montreal, Ward Bailey, 17 of 17 Strathearn Ave. Montreal, Catherine Faughanan, 11, of 11582 Poutrincourt St. Montreal, Donald Vien, 12, of Winnipeg and Barbara Joan Doehler, 12 of 241 Strathearn.
The four survivors were Diana Horwood, 17, of 611 Victoria Westmount, Kevin Gross, 12 of 167 Portland Ave. Montreal, Sashia Hart, 13 of 67 Hamilton Ave. Montreal and Annabella Abdalla, 11 of 233 Monsignor Durand, Montreal.
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Another story with a happier ending, sort of.:Dr. Alexander Pagacz and his wife, of St. Lambert, brought their five kids to Rawdon on August 20, 1972 with the aim of enjoying nature.
Panic began, however, when little Freddy got lost alone in the forest.
Freddy was the third of five children and - perhaps rather strangely - fled out of sight whenever he was spotted in the forest.
Possibly even stranger was the fact that the family did not alert police or other authorities for about 35 hours after the boy was lost.
Eventually a 25-man search and rescue team set out to find him and were able to locate him by following the Polish candy wrappers that he had left out in the forest.
In all, he was alone in the forest for 40 hours but was unharmed by the experience.
"How came when we came here I had to sleep in the forest," the boy later asked.
Fred grew up and lived a normal life in the Montreal area until he died suddenly in 2005 at the age of 41.
*2 Aug 1968 Ottawa Citizen pg. 41.
Clinging to an overturned boat or floating debris? Lost in the wilderness during a camping trip? Caught in a rip-tide off the beach? The simple precaution of carrying a WHISTLE on a chain around your neck can save your life, yet how many omit this simple, potential life-saving tool from their gear?
ReplyDeleteConsider all of those stories about children and unthinking adults who wandered off into the bush and losing their sense of direction, perhaps falling and breaking an ankle or leg, and even on occasion accidentally stepping into an illegal animal trap and thereby becoming seriously injured and immobile.
The foresight of carrying a referee-type whistle on a chain around one's neck can make all the difference between life and death when you realize that a search party would eventually be out there looking for you. Tracker dogs might not be available in the early stages of a search--if at all.
There have been too many incidents of children found half-alive, huddling from exposure to the elements with no means of signalling their whereabouts other than their crying voices which cannot carry far enough to be heard by rescuers.
Common sense should tell you that your best option is to STAY ON A TRAIL (see the link at the end of this post) and NOT wander away to a stream or cliff where the likelihood of anyone finding you is considerably reduced. Yet stories abound of people who foolishly make wrong choices.
Groups on long camping treks would be well-advised to include walkie-talkies with their gear--namely those ubiquitous and inexpensive GMRS/FRS handheld transceivers--in order to maintain contact with members in the group who may stray off too far ahead or straggle behind.
There have even been incidents of people lost or injured in locations such as, for example, the extensive Appalachian Trail who wisely prepared themselves for any such eventuality by pre-programming relevant frequencies into their licenced amateur radio handhelds, thereby initiating search-and-rescue procedures once contact with local base stations have been made.
Of course, there are those thankfully rare incidents of bear and cougar attacks upon hapless (indeed too often reckless!) joggers and "adventurers", and who hasn't seen those countless movies within the genre of Deliverance (1972) and Death Stalk (1975) (admittedly exaggerated plots) which involve people who didn't think they could potentially be victimized by predators--animal or human? Stumbling across some drug dealer's "weed patch" could get you killed when triggering a trip-wire tied to an explosive charge. Yes, this does happen!
During one random scan of Google Newspaper Gazette Archive search, I came across the tragic story about a couple of young boys who, during a Laurentian trail walk several decades ago, found some discarded hand grenades. Out of foolish curiosity and likely guessing that the grenades were benign, the boys picked up the grenades and caused them to explode, resulting in the boys' death.
I have yet to retrace the exact date and resulting inquiry concerning the aforementioned event, but it does NOT refer to the notorious Valcartier cadets incident of 1974 which can easily be found via a Google Search. That tragedy occurred inside a barracks.
http://www.jeffryanauthor.com/lost-no-more-how-to-stay-on-the-trail-and-what-to-do-if-you-get-off-it/
Great article...
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned Stathearn and Percival streets...Montreal West where I grew up...
I vaguely remember their names in '68...I was 10 years old...sad..
Norman I looked it up on Newspapers.com and the grenade story is in the Gazette 16 April 1952. Near St. Jerome Louis and Guy Bellerose, 16 and 14.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kristian. The initial Gazette article referencing this tragedy was on April 14, page 3. More research would be needed to discover how the grenades ended up where they were and if anyone was punished for at least not cordoning-off the area before the tragedy occurred.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the subsequent investigation did determine? If it was true that the grenades were accidentally or perhaps recklessly discarded by military personnel during a previous winter operation, it stands to reason that a search team would have been hard-pressed to locate the grenades in deep snow at the time. Needles in a haystack.
If the person or persons responsible were never identified, however, they would surely have endured a deep sense of guilt for the rest of their days. :-(
For those who judged the canoe trip(s) hopefully time will make my comment more sociological and cultural rather than person.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many helicopter parents my daughter included (4 grandchildren) who have suppressed everything from sleepovers, to camps, to simply playing on their own, building forts and many other what I called "typical" growing up activities
..each developing different aspects of independence dare I posit even freedom.
My hypothesis is the more we well-meaningly take independence out of children's natural maturing experience; the less our children will recognize the incremental loss of freedoms and independence as they age. Additional potential character losses may be lack of risk taking, boldness, ingenuity...I don't know I've read some research and it seems to be suggesting there is a gradual shift to accepting more controls over our lives.
My oldest grandchildren are twin
13 yr olds
One has Olympic swimming ambitions and parents who can afford the extensive travel to the States and abroad. The other is more stem oriented however is a terror on the basketball courts and soccer fields. Strangly both are highly coveted skills sought out by American High Schools and in general by the American national program.
So far the girl twin is winning, I'm not sure the internal resources are present based on experience. The boy twin has an angry streak,I judge he needs a higher level of competition and coaching to channel his anger into a Kobiesk level of work ethic and clean intensity.
Again he has little tough competition, I don't know. The chances of much less two high levels athletes in a family are very slim so I'm not going to blame any lack of victories on that but it's possible and who knows their success in life in general.
I did my Rover scouting final test in Mont Tremblant from Friday to Sunday afternoon, go in with a tiny packet of fish line, foil, water purifier, fish hooks, matches and a few other small items. No tent, 16 alone in the woods for two nights.To me it was great adventure.