Some things you just keep dwelling on over a long period of time. You must try and make sense of it all.
The morning breeze was light, but building when they began their trip. But the winds changed later in the day, and the students’ heavily laden canoes capsized and floated aimlessly in the high winds. Twelve of the boys and one adult died on Lac Témiscamingue, June 11, 1978.
The event has haunted me for most of my working life, and an experiential solution took time to evolve.
Two therapeutic things helped resolve the circumstances.
One was a recent trip to the new Canadian Canoe Museum (CCM) in Peterborough on National Canoe Day and the touching of the blue boat, one of the canoes that capsized on that ill fated day. That put things in perspective.
And then, a few weeks back, retracing the route of the Timiskaming canoe tragedy. The reenactment was a way to help explain what happened while providing closure.
They did not drown as, is commonly thought. They all died of hypothermia. The impact of this 46-year-old accident sent waves through Outdoor Experiential Education (OEE) circles (summer camps, schools, NGO’s, private sector service providers). There remain ripples.
It opened the discussion of “is the risk worth it?” And years of fear for trip leaders whether or not the next OEE trip would be approved. The tragedy seemed to be the beginning of the litigious society we live in when it comes to taking students outside.
Background
Twenty-seven boys, aged 11 to 13, and four leaders set out from the public dock at Temiscaming, Que. and headed north on a canoe trip. Their destination was to be Moosonee, located on James Bay. They would be gone a few weeks, retracing the 1720 adventures of the early French mercenary, Chevalier Pierre de Troyes. It was to be a tough, physical and mental challenge as this was the creed of the private school, a school for boys who did not fit into the regular school system.
The four blue canoes they paddled were new and untried twenty-two-foot Chestnut Canoe Co. war-canoe models. The extensive cargo consisted of wooden food boxes and canvas packs, forcing the boys to sit unconventionally on the plywood seats. Each canoe had an adult steersman.
By lunchtime on the first day, they had made better time than anticipated. The gentle tailwind helped them move northward into the more open waters of Lake Timiskaming. (They could have camped at Grand Campment Bay, they were tired and had driven through the night)
By late afternoon, all four canoes had swamped and were adrift in the rising wind and waves, with twelve boys and one leader dead from hypothermia. The remaining eighteen were rescued the next day at the base of a cliff.
The newspaper photos were vivid. One showed the soles of running shoes on several small bodies, lined up on a dock, peaking out from under a tarp. A hastily-called inquest, held three weeks later, ruled the deaths accidental and found no evidence to justify criminal responsibility against the school or its leaders. They missed details – primarily that there had been no plan.
What followed was the cancellation of many school and outdoor education programs. For years, the worthiness of field trips were questioned.
For many in the field of outdoor education, disbelief turned to anger and a need to defend the benefits of outdoor adventuring, especially canoe trips. Many wondered why opponents would equate or think what outdoor leaders do with their students is somehow the same as what happened in the Lake Timiskaming canoe tragedy. The stigma remains to this day with those who remember.
Why?
You will want to read James Raffan's book, Deep Waters. The author identifies many variables that contributed to the tragedy. The canoeists had travelled all night in a van and had no rest before departing. The canoe leaders were not all properly trained or qualified and had not considered the effects of hypothermia.
They all wore life jackets, but there was little body fat or waterproof synthetic layers to protect the young boys from the effects of cold water. The new canoes had never been tried and the leaders were not familiar with the route, especially the wind conditions of the lake.
Questions, were asked as to why they had decided to cross the lake in a developing wind and why they had not camped, and rested, when the opportunity had presented itself. The storing and lashing of equipment to the gunnels and seats, and uncomfortable seating arrangements contributed to the imbalance and buoyancy of the canoes. Why were the canoes so far apart and why were some of the boys told to stay with canoes, rather than swim to shore before the numbing cold took hold? Was this stringent school formula the right way to learn about character building while taking risks? Listen to James Raffan on the Back Roads Bill podcast.
It was a series of identified and predictable circumstances, all converging at the wrong time. When you add up the items on the list it became a formula for disaster. It's what I like to call the “anatomy of a mistake.” There was no plan, it is questionable whether the leaders had ever been there before.
Blue Boat at the Museum
I had some trepidation approaching the blue boat at the CCM.
I have taken students in voyageur canoes on the Upper Ottawa River, much like the St. John’s Christian school expedition described in the display.
The Temiskaming canoe tragedy is featured through a 22-foot custom-designed wood and canvas Chestnut Canoe-Selkirk model commissioned by the school in 1978. There’s a backdrop of Lake Temiskaming along with a compelling audio clip from one of the survivors, Mike Mansfield.
The displayed canoe, one remaining of four in the original brigade, was only paddled a few hours before disaster struck. From the display it says this model had too high seats and sides, making it “tippy” and vulnerable. The often-cited incident continues to impact outdoor education.
Deep Waters takes a deep dive into the tragedy.
Author James Raffan comments: “I’ve been reworking the story of a big blue Chestnut canoe I think changed the world of canoeing forever. This canvas-covered canoe was one of the four vessels involved in the tragedy."
“Suffice it to say a welter of canoeing instructors and certifying organizations all over the world took the lessons of the Temiskaming tragedy to heart and wrote them into standards of practice, certifying expectations and the general lore of how things should be done with youth — with any client group, really — in big canoes. The reason the Père Lallemant canoe is the capstone experience in the exhibit zone of the new Canadian Canoe Museum called Pushing the Limits is that this vessel uniquely represents a sea change in thinking about big canoe practices and about canoe safety in general.”
He said, “For better and for worse — we can never forget those lives that were so unnecessarily lost — his big blue canoe changed forever the world of canoeing.” (One family kept it in a garage for 27 years before donating it to the CCM.)
Walking away from the 'Père Lallemant’ (named after an important French Jesuit priest), the reflection was of the young boys with the vintage orange horse collar life jackets, with the white ties in a front bow, paddling off into expansive water, far away from safety, in the cedar stripped, canvas blue canoe unaware that the risk had not been accounted for. Is the risk worth it?
Reenactment
In early July, the route from Temiscamingue, Que. to the mouth of the Kipawa River was retraced by boat. What happened?
I made contact with the first person on the scene of the tragedy, not a witness but an experienced analyst of the unfortunate context.
Scott Sorensen, owner of the Kipawa River Lodge, is from Utah and has been on Lake Temiskaming for almost 50 years.
The family log cabins are hewn from timbers cut down by Scott himself. The location at the mouth of the river is idyllic. He was the first person to help in the rescue and recover bodies. In his book the Kipawa Chronicles he states: “The twenty-mile section of Lake Temiskaming between Ville Marie and the Kipawa River is particularly treacherous in a north wind. I have seen it form three-foot whitecaps in front of our camp . . . hardly a season passes without some unsuspecting fisherman or canoeist having a close call.”
Scott recalls that the morning of the tragedy was sunny and warm with a gently breeze rising out of the south. (This was not a well known fact and it was actually south-west winds and waves that eventually hit the canoes from behind and broadside.)
“The young men had all made at least one extended canoe trip before and, with the wind to their backs, they had travelled almost 20 miles by noon," he said.
“When they stopped for lunch, the group had already passed Ottertail Creek, where they had initially planned to camp their first night.”
If you want to paddle this section of the river you will discover there are few places to stop for a break or camp. The cliffs are mostly steep, plus the boys had travelled all night in a car, so there was a fatigue factor.
Sorensen says the group decided to make another ten miles and camp at the mouth of the Kipawa River, adjacent to Sorensen's own camp and the campsite where the monument is located.
The leaders decided it was best to cross to the Ontario side of the lake, a mile across, which appeared to offer more protection from the increasing wind and waves. It was at this point when the trouble began.
“When the boat overturned and dumped its crew into the choppy water, the young men realized for the first time how cold the lake actually was. The water temperature was a bone-chilling 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Just six weeks prior to the trip, Lake Temiskaming had still been covered with two feet of ice," said Sorensen.
This was another important factor, as the victims did not drown, they perished from hypothermia.
"It is easy to look back on the accident and speculate about what might have happened to the group if it had made some different decisions. It is simple enough to blame the instructors, the equipment, the weather, or even God himself, but that does not alter the final outcome."
By the end of the “retracing” day, the wind and the fetch was building, it was time to get off the water.
Finally
We learn from the past to help the future. So many trips with countless students at all levels of matriculation, and the evolution of the Canadian Ecology Centre – an environmental education centre.
The lake that day was 4C and at that temperature the average person would not survive one hour.
If you look at a map of the area, you will see you can walk very easily, in a short time, to the monument. I left 13 very round, egg shaped, Lake Superior rocks from Alona Bay as an understanding.
Some events forever change the way we do or think about things. September 11, 2001 is such a date. For many outdoor leaders this calendar date remains as more than just a safety reminder. You will visit this location and wonder about a good many things. The effort to see and feel what was and is links us spiritually to nature.
In 2025 there will be an undergraduate OEE textbook published by Canadian Scholars. It will feature a practical chapter on School Trip Preparedness by Bill Steer. It is how to create a visual, detailed digital safety plan for so many audiences. We learn from life that it is the journey, not the event.
