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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Teenage boy found after he wanders away from campsite

Aloysia Power
Posted 7/2/14

ELY—A teenage boy was found cold and wet, but otherwise unharmed on Alworth Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness after he went missing on the morning of June 25.

The young man had …

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Teenage boy found after he wanders away from campsite

Posted

ELY—A teenage boy was found cold and wet, but otherwise unharmed on Alworth Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness after he went missing on the morning of June 25.

The young man had been camping with a group on Disappointment Lake in the BWCAW when he went for a walk alone on a lightly-used portion of the Disappointment Lake trail and lost his way. His group searched the area for seven hours before contacting law enforcement.

The Lake County and St. Louis County Rescue Squads responded by early evening, and a team of three rescuers canoed to Disappointment Lake to make contact with the boy’s group. Meanwhile, U.S. Forest Service pilots began a search from the air.

Shortly after the team set out in the canoe, the Lake County Sheriff got a call from a group camping on Alworth Lake – over three miles from Disappointment as the crow flies – reporting a boy had “stumbled” into their site, saying he was “lost, wet and cold.”

“I would hate to guess how many miles he actually walked to get around all the swamp and other obstacles,” stated Kurt Erickson, St. Louis County Rescue Squad coordinator in an email update he distributed to members and media.

“He is lucky he stumbled into Alworth and found the campsite occupied,” he said.

The search ended at 9 p.m. that night, and the boy’s group paddled to pick him up on Alworth the next morning.

While the cost of wilderness rescues has become an issue with some local taxpayers, Erickson said the only extra cost of the search and rescue was for the airplane gas.

“The plane is there to use anyway, and the deputies were on duty. The rescue squad is volunteer. It is not an expensive process,” he said.

The number of similar rescue incidents has been steadily increasing with the expanding range of cell phone coverage into the BWCAW, Erickson said. But, he said, that trend has been beneficial to his crew. “The more we respond, the better we get at what we do,” he said.

Plus, the rescues are not limited to people with little wilderness travel experience, according to Erickson. “There are very competent woods people that have run into problems because of mistakes,” he said. “We shouldn’t be criticizing people because they make a mistake and need to get help.”

Erickson advised that if people get lost, they should stay in place and build a shelter. This will make search and rescue quicker by shortening the search range.