Indians in the River

It's hard to say what part of our Saturday trip to William O'Brien State Park was the best. Perhaps the flip-flopped geocache coordinates that led us (and many other hikers) into a sticker-infested area behind the campground. Perhaps the canoe trip we took across the St. Croix to a little, swampy island where Darwin leapt from the canoe--to ground he hoped was solid--only to create a huge splash and further stain his "camping Converse." Or perhaps the mangrove-like forest we discovered where we wove through the trees and pretended we were navigating the Amazon.

But no. I believe the highlight of the entire day happened at the end. Josh and Darwin struggled to paddle upstream; our two rental hours were almost up and the guys were exhausted from paddling. Ahead of us, a motor boat disappeared around the bend. There was a crashing sound. Silence. Screaming. A blue flotation device floated past us.

We finally made it to the scene of peril. People clung to the sides of a motor boat while another man tried to push them free from the island trees. A young Indian woman holding a little girl struggled to pull herself onto shore and keep ahold of her flooded canoe. Further still were three Indian men--still in their canoe--tangled in overhanging branches, and a man who appeared to be their ex-passenger clingng with all his might to a different branch. They called out for help, but there was really nothing we could do. We weren't experienced boaters, we had no equipment (since we had a rental), and we knew that if we tried to pluck people from the water, they'd swamp us and we'd add to the number of people needing to be rescued. Thankfully, a man with a motorboat who appeared to work for the park arrived and began gathering the misfits. 

(A sidenote: The rescue man went straight for the woman with the child, which freaked out the man clinging to the tree branch. The clinging man screamed for help, and the rescue man audibly rolled his eyes and said, "I'm coming. But there are like six of you!" It caught me off guard that a rescue man would be so annoyed and sarcastic in this, his hour of most importance. Which is probably why I thought it was funny.)

As we continued upstream, we came across many other canoes overfilled with Indians and their children, each boat floundering in creative ways, trying to get back upstream to land and their cars. I have to say, it was quite humorous. Especially when we came up to a couple who had sensibly stayed in the calmer waters and told us as we passed by, "We told them not to go out there!"

Oh man. I love people.