Thursday, April 3, 2014

Rescue At Hula - Part 1 - We Don't Know

Way back in 1989, Northwind lodge was a busy place with lots of fisherman and fisherwomen staying and doing what comes natural: fishing.


Wood Lake was our lodge guests’ fishing hotspot.  Wood Lake is where I learned how to guide after fishing there a zillion times with my dad and brother, winter and summer.  It’s a shallow, weedy lake with dark water. Most people are used to fishing in deeper water lakes with lots of reefs and drop offs.  Not too much of that in Wood Lake, but the walleyes still like it along with a lot of other fish species.
In renting out the Wood lake boats, our lodge guests drove us nuts from time to time.  For some people it was hard to impress upon then the need for coming out of the woods when they say they are doing so.  As their hosts, we are concerned for their safety.  To get to Wood Lake, you have to drive back towards Ely about 2.5 miles from Northwind Lodge. From there you need to cross a half mile long, rugged portage, and then row one of the boats or paddle one of our canoes three quarters of a mile down a lily-pad-laden water trail to the main body of the lake.  For some folks, this is a more difficult task but the fishing and adventure of the day is rewarding.  Nonetheless, we want to know that all of our guests come back safely.  If they don’t, we feel compelled to take action.
It was not unusual for many of our more casual guests to make that hot, sweaty walk out from Wood Lake and disappear to Ely to hit a bar or restaurant even after they said they’d return back to the lodge at 6 PM.  Come 8 PM, we’d be loading up the truck and running down to the Wood Lake portage to see if their vehicle is still there.  If, so, we’d have to cross the portage thinking the worst, only to find them sitting in the boat or just arriving to the dock in the dark.  Many of them were clearly shocked that we were concerned about their well-being.  That always confused me because I couldn’t imagine not being concerned.  After a while, however, this checking on some “inconsiderate buffoon at Wood lake” thing got a little old because there appeared to be a never-ending line  of inconsiderate buffons out there.  So, my dad made a sign:


Wood Lake Fisherman:  If you go to Wood Lake and do not return at the time you stated, we will come to look for you.  If it turns out that you just decided to stay past your return time without letting us know and if we find you alive and well, we will add $100 to your cabin bill.

That seemed to get everyone’s attention and the tardiness pretty much ended.   People returned at least reasonably close to their time and turned in their boat keys and oars.  Order was restored.


On May 17, 1989, I was in the resort office waiting.   We had quite a few fishermen in and they were shopping for tackle for tomorrow’s trip and stopping by to see if the keys came in for the Wood Lake boats.  Back then we were open from 7AM to 10PM, seven days a week and by 10 PM, my day was beginning to wear on me.  Finally, it was closing time and the people from Cabin 6  had not returned the keys from Wood Lake.  I wanted to close and go to bed.

The women of the party stayed behind that day.  There were three of them and the entire party of three couples were from Chicago's Polish district.  They barely spoke English and when they arrived initially, only one guy “Ted” spoke for the group.  Everyone else just sort of watched us interact.
I was now a bit ornery, because these people probably didn’t know the Wood Lake return rules because of their language restrictions.  Plus, the entire day had been brutal weather-wise.  It developed into high winds with  intermittent rain, snow and sleet.   Maybe there was a problem but why would anyone wait so long to notify us of an issue?  Most likely these bozos probably went to town, I thought.

So, I went over to the Cabin and knocked on their door.  Someone weakly said to "come in" and I did.  I saw three women sitting on various pieces of furniture, all holding their faces in their hands and quietly sobbing.  On the table was a big, grey walkie-talkie with about a five foot chrome, telescopic  antenna fully extended. It was a bit surreal.

Alarm began to set in and I asked “What’s going on, ladies?  Where are the men?”   No answer – just sobbing and light wailing. Apparently, they were content with a guy standing in the middle of the living room and they more or less ignored me - which was really odd.  I said much louder now “Hey! Somebody talk to me!  Where are the guys?  I need those keys!  Other people are going out to Wood tomorrow!  Where are the guys!!!!?”

From inside her hands, one woman responded weakly with a thick accent, Ve don’t know….somting iss wrong…”

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Comment if you'd like. I'd also like to hear your stories of staying at Northwind Lodge.