Boy vs Coyote 0:0 - Boy vs Wilderness 1:0

[elmwood]

Thank goodness there were no coyotes on Franklin Island, the uninhabited and somewhat bleak island where T and his kayaking expedition spent the night on Saturday. I say thank goodness as T became separated from the group and was missing for over four hours in the dark. He had also left his trusty knife in his tent. What he did have was a whistle (

Comments

[periwinklejane]

Wow.

I would be very happy to find out about that incident *after* the boy was found safe!

I'm not sure that I would say T was completely to blame though ... playing any hiding game in the dark in strange woods seems like an iffy idea. That he decided to head back but headed in the wrong direction seems like a natural mistake.

Kids really have adventures these days, don't they? I mean, we're led to think they're so protected, but they have access to all sorts of trouble I never could have gotten into! My brother chaperoned a boy scout diving trip to Florida (!) with his oldest boy (15), and when they were out on a dive, a freak storm came up and overturned their boat. They collected everyone around an inflatable something-or-other and waited less than half an hour for the Coast Guard to appear. Adam phoned his mom when they got to shore and began his message with, "The coast guard has a really cool boat!"

[elmwood]

I think any conversation starting with comments about the coast guard's boat would freak me out.

To be fair they were playing Manhunt when it was still light and all (apart) from T made it back to the camp in daylight. He's just such a stubborn hider. When he was small and playing with the neighbourhood kids, parents had to be called in when the others couldn't find him - he was on top of the log pile under an artfully arranged tarpaulin and had been lying there about half an hour determined not to be found.

I don't think I would have been able to get back to sleep at all if we had actually received that call, even though it was to tell us he had been found.

He says he learned quite a bit from the whole experience.

[quiller77]

Let's hear it for the whistle indeed. I had my second son be a day overdue from a canoe trip. That waiting stuff is murder. Oblivious has its advantages, especially when it all ends well.

[elmwood]

I am glad for being oblivious. I cannot imagine how you must have worried for that length of time, Karen.

[quiller77]

For the first while I didn't know if we should be worried. When the worry hit, I wrote a really bad poem about waiting for the phone to ring (because by then the police helicopter was going up the river searching for them). Under great duress or extreme sadness is the only time I seem to be able to write poetry. Hence, it's always bad, and probably cheesy.
My son was quite disgusted that we were worried. "We weren't lost!" Lost, late: it's all cause for worry whether teens realize it or not.

[elmwood]

My sister in law said that one of the duties of a child, particularly a teenaged one, is to worry their parents.

I'm sure your poem was not as cheesy as you think it was. Writers are often their own harshest critics.

[anonymous]

"Their one and only child"? A slip of the mind, a moment of denial?

[elmwood]

Definitely a slip of the mind.

T is my one and only biological child, but his much older half sister, a treasured part of my life since she was eleven (she is now in her forties) never caused worry in quite the same way when she was an adolescent.

[elmwood]

I think it only started to sink in yesterday for both us and for him how lucky he had been. The terrain on the island is very rough and a fall could have been disastrous.

[anonymous]

Good grief, you must have been a puddle. Thank goodness for whistles and level heads -- oh, and material galore for tales of wandering boys who will get up to the twitchingly unexpected! Rachna Gilmore www.rachnagilmore.ca

[elmwood]

I think it was good that we did not know until he was safe, Rachna. It hit home later in the week when we all, including T, realised how lucky he had been and what could have happened. He is going to write about it this summer, he says.