This little adventure is about two young men from Winnipeg, Manitoba who wanted to go snowmobiling on the Lake of the Woods in Northern Ontario. It took place in early November of the late 1960’s. They drove a 1953 Chevrolet and towed their snow machine behind the car in an old wooden trailer with high sidewalls.
Four brand new winter tires had just been mounted on the vehicle, so it had great traction on ice or snow.
They proceeded south of Kenora to the Long Bow Lake road, and followed it to the east shore of the Lake of the Woods. Conditions on the lake were very unusual because it had not snowed since the lake froze over. Normally, after the lake freezes, enough snow falls to insulate the ice, and then it takes many weeks of cold weather before the ice is strong enough to drive on.
When they reached the lake they discovered bare, slippery ice. Vehicle tracks, leading down to the lake and onto the ice, left by people ice fishing, showed the lake was safe to drive on. With little hesitation, the pair drove their vehicle onto the ice, along with their trailer. They were now able to drive anywhere they wished, and decided it was not necessary to unload their snow machine.
Once out on Bigstone Bay, they headed west into an area of a few dozen small islands called the Hades.
Local maps showed a boat channel led from Bigstone Bay westward, through the island and out into an even more open portion of the lake.
They were quite comfortable in the vehicle and had removed their jackets. Our two adventurers were quite please with the fact that they could drive where they had planned to ride their snowmobile. Not another person was in sight and they had the whole expanse all to themselves. They were normally summer time visitors so they knew a little bit about the area, but this was their first winter excursion.
When they were about five miles from the mainland and in the middle of the Hades Islands boat channel, the front wheels of the car suddenly broke through the ice, and the car started to sink. As the front of the car slowly settled into the water they found that the doors were pinned shut by the ice.
Without wasting any time they rolled down the windows and climbed up onto the roof of the car. The trailer with the snowmobile was heavy enough to slow down the sinking car. The two occupants slid down the trunk of the car, and crossed to the trailer over the tow bar. They jumped into the trailer, which by this time was standing in water and slowly being drawn into the open hole, by the weight of the sinking car.
They quickly dragged the snow machine off the trailer and onto thicker ice, away from the open water. They watched the car disappear, followed by the trailer. At this moment they were at least five miles from the mainland, which lay to the east.
Acting quickly, they got the snow machine running and jumped on. Without any jackets, gloves, or hats, they were thoroughly chilled in no time. Because of the cold, they could not run at full speed and had to throttle back so the cold wind was not so brutal.
By the time they reached an occupied cabin where they could seek warmth, they had frostbite on their faces and hands.
In the aftermath of the experience they sadly learned that they had driven onto thin ice because the current in the channel passed over a large reef and that brought warmer water to the surface. This helped keep the ice from freezing more than a few inches thick
The reef was plainly marked by a buoy which was just ahead of them when the car went through the ice.
Later, the trailer broke free from the car, and floated to the surface, and was salvaged. The value of the car made it uneconomical to hire divers and a recovery crew.
This channel was the regular route of the Argyle, a large tourist ship, that gave daily cruises around the lake in the summer months. The car, where it lay, was now a hazard to boat traffic.
Early in the spring , the local Department of Transport tug, that regularly serviced and maintained all the buoys and markers on the lake, checked the channel. Rather than raise the car, they hooked onto it and dragged it into deeper water, where it now rests.
At various times some individuals talked about diving down and salvaging the four new tires. It was never done because they could never figure out how to unbolt the tires without them surfacing with great force and injuring the diver.
The latter two photos show different views of the channel. These photos were taken some days after the event, when snowfall covered the ice. The darker object is a person on a snowmobile, while the lesser object is the buoy. The ice was thick enough to support the snowmobile and driver. None of the cabins visible in the photo were occupied at the time of the accident.
Andy was going to take his fishing boat and travel down the bay to check on some property that might be for sale. He took his ten year old son with him and a shotgun in case they saw some grouse.
Their home was located on the north side of the bay, high up on a hill that gave them a great view of the lake. They left in the afternoon, November 11th, 1968, and headed southeast, four miles down the bay which is two miles wide. The weather was reasonable for this time of the year and there was little wind. Snow covered the ground, several inches deep, but the lake had not yet started to freeze over.
They left in a small aluminum boat and motor with two life jackets and a single paddle. The father had lived in the area all his life, was an experienced boater, and knew the lake well.
When the pair had not returned and it started to get dark, his wife began to get concerned. Because the house sat up high on the shore, its lights could be seen for some considerable distance down the lake. She made sure the outside lights were on so it would make it easier for the boaters to head for home when crossing the lake in the dark..
When they were a couple of hours overdue she phoned a neighbor who was a commercial fisherman on the bay and who was very familiar with the lake. He agreed to locate them and bring them home. It was thought they could have had motor problems and were stranded somewhere.
The fisherman was soon headed down the lake in his big boat that was equipped with a large spotlight. A careful search towards the end of the bay failed to see any sign of the smaller boat. Tracks in the snow at the landing showed where the boy and man had gone ashore and returned to the boat. The search was then continued on the lake but there was no sign of them anywhere between the landing and their home.
The fisherman then widened his search in case the motor had broken down and the light wind had pushed them into some small bay or island. A number of times he returned to the house in case he passed the missing boaters in the dark, and they made it home. It was impossible to see anything in the dark without the spotlight.
About 11 pm that night he discovered a life jacket floating in the water some distance to the south of the boat’s normal track home. The wind was from the northeast so they proceeded up wind looking for the boat or survivors. A short time later their spotlight settled on the nose of a boat bobbing in the water. A quick check in the surrounding waters showed no signs of the man or boy. They turned off the boat engine and called out their names but got no reply. It was deathly quiet on the lake
An aluminum fishing boat is built with floatation tanks under the seats and in the nose so that it will float if filled with water. However a motor on the rear of the boat would cause it to sink further until the boat was vertical under water and only a foot or so of the bow would show.
When it was confirmed there was no sign of the boat occupants, the fisherman used his radio phone to contact the Ontario Provincial Police. He reported the details of the accident and gave his location on the lake. While waiting for the police, other local neighbors were contacted and they headed out onto the lake to hunt for signs of the survivors.
Word quickly spread and in due course a large number of boats, including the police, were searching the lake and miles of shoreline. It was a very dark night and not all the boats had proper lights. When daylight came and more boats arrived to help, the police organized an in-depth search.
In the daylight a second life jacket, cap, and one paddle were found down wind from the original location where the sunken boat was first seen. The thorough daylight search failed to find any other items or the bodies.
By this time the boat had been recovered and carefully examined. It had no damage to the hull or to the outboard motor. What was unusual was the motor bracket that normally held the bottom of the motor out of the water when not in use had been broken. Enquiries established that it had been broken many months ago. It was surmised that the shotgun had been used to wedge the motor up out of the water so the boat would drift ashore faster, or to make the boat easier to paddle.
Eventually police divers were put to work and spent many hours searching the bottom of the lake but failed to find anything. The water depth ranged from 50 to as much as 100 feet. As the days passed it turned windy and the temperature dropped. Ice started to build up on the boats and equipment and the search was called off due to the deteriorating weather conditions. When the last boats came in they were covered in ice from the freezing spray. It was obvious that anyone who may have reached shore would have died from the cold.
At the time the search was called off the entire bay area and shoreline had been thoroughly searched. In the weeks that passed additional searches found not the slighted sign of the man or boy. Soon the lake froze over and deep snow made any hope of finding a trace of them passed.
Many theories were proposed as to what might have happened. The one that made the most sense was the possibility the motor of the boat failed at some point on the way home. The boat had only one paddle so it could not be paddled from the side as it would simply turn in a circle. The only reasonable way was to move up to the nose of the boat and paddle from the front.
If the motor was left in the water it would cause drag and slow the boat down. Since the lock that normally held the motor out of the water was broken, the shotgun was used to wedge it in the up position.
The wind was starting to pick up from the northeast and would help them towards a southerly shore. Paddling an aluminum boat from the nose is very difficult because the narrow bow of the boat leave little room to stand. It is very easy to lose your footing. If a cold wet foot slips, you pitch forward and can easily fall out of the boat and into the water. It is a very awkward and tiring job to paddle in this manner.
It would have been impossible to paddle the many miles needed to reach home in the dark so it was believed they would head down wind for the nearest shore which happens to be Hay Island. No homes or cabins are on the island. Once off the lake they could wait for help that was sure to come when they became overdue. During this difficult period of time it was possible for them to see the lights of their home, a couple of miles across the bay to the north.
It is believed that the father must have slipped from his awkward location in the bow and fallen overboard.
Or it is also possible the son fell overboard in the same manner while taking his turn paddling. The water was almost at the freezing point so neither one would not have lasted long in the water.
There would have been a frantic effort to get back into the boat as quickly as possible. In attempting to climb over the side into the boat it must have filled with water, and then sank. Neither occupant was wearing a life jacket so the cold water would have made it difficult, if not impossible to get one on while swimming in a winter jacket. If they were able to hang onto the nose of the boot, they soon became numb from the water, passed out and drowned Their bodies sank into the cold depths and could have drifted under water for some considerable time and distance before coming to rest..
It is important to consider that even if they had both been wearing life jackets they would not have lasted a half hour in the very cold water. With the life jackets off or on, their chance of survival differed only by a short time. It is an established fact that people who drown in the deeper parts of the Lake of the Woods stay on the bottom The cold water keeps the body from rapidly decomposing so they fail to rise to the surface as usually happens in warmer, shallower water.
For years, people on that part of the lake always kept on the lookout for the slightest signs that might give some clue as to what happened, but nothing more was ever learned (nor were the remains ever found.)
