The Day After

Friday, August 15, 2025 Day 12

I woke up happy to be alive. I was in a warm bed. And, more importantly, I remembered it was a bunk bed. I didn’t forget that the top bed was precariously close to my body, so I would need to roll out of bed. Twelve consecutive nights of different campsites and I woke up each morning remembering where I was. The night I got home and was in bed with my husband, I was confused about him and the whole situation.

The room was quiet all night. Maybe because I was dead to the world. At this point, we had nothing to fear. There were eight of us and maybe eight more workers in the next bunk house. Several workers had shot guns. Garrett had a shot gun. We were inside an electrified fence. We hadn’t seen a polar bear or signs of one. Nevertheless, we were told to stick together with someone carrying a gun.

I had read a steady stream of polar bear vs man stories in preparation for this trip. I should have been comforted that none of the stories were polar bear vs woman.

I should have read woman vs nature stories. Or woman surviving drowning stories. When I think of drowning, I remind myself that this is the most common cause of death in the wilderness.

Seriously, how do you prepare for this? My first concern was how long can I hold my breath? It’s less than 30 seconds. So I practiced holding my breath. My mind and lungs were convinced I was suffering from anoxia after 45 seconds, so I had to breathe. They say drowning is a peaceful way to die, but the panicking is horrible.

Lying peacefully in the warm down sleeping bag Josh had given me, I recalled yesterday. What happened? High seas. Big waves. Cold wet conditions. Forty to fifty MPH winds. We paddled furiously for one hour. Relentless exertion.

Once safe on land, the group never talked about it. I had no nightmares. Yet I knew it wouldn’t have taken much to overturn our boats. Any one of those waves could have landed the wrong way. But all of us knew the risks.

The employees who were so good to us came by in the morning. I asked about the howling. They said it was a dog who had showed up. They sent the dog’s picture to the girlfriend of the Norwegian trekker thinking that was the only possibility. Where would another dog come from? She corroborated that he was Togo one of the two dogs he was traveling with since he left Severn, Ontario.

The trekker must be near. It seemed so unbelievable that he could make it, when he was hiking this impassable beach route. All of us were so excited to meet him. We wanted to see the reunion of man and dog.

The famous boat captain, Clint and his sidekick, Griz as expected were unable to get into York Factory until tomorrow. He was facing 60 mph winds. One perk for us was that it gave the trekker another day to get into York Factory.

This day turned out nice. Sunny and pretty. We had the tour of the grave yard that was being restored, making sure the bodies were correctly labeled and buried. Then we had the grand tour of factory. A large building with many iterations over the years. And now they are trying to restore it keeping historic significance at the forefront. With the tide out, we were able to beach comb. We could take our findings home.

We had an opportunity to have our paddles branded, with the historic York Factory brand. I thought that was nice.

As we were loving the super nice weather and keeping an eye on the beach in hopes the Norwegian and his dog arrive, a helicopter started to fly overhead.

They were called to start a search for the missing hiker and his dog. We were all saddened but hopeful.