A Boyhood Camping Misadventure
[Published January 2, 2010]
This is a story from my own (Jeff Ducklow) boyhood experience regarding a camping with friends along the Eau Galle River in Spring Valley, Wisconsin. [See footnote 1].
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One warm spring day there was much talk among my friends about the upcoming trout fishing “opener.” While I didn’t know anything about fishing for trout (and still don’t know much) I loved the idea of going camping with a bunch of buddies near the river. So while I should have been paying attention to my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. O’Connell and her lesson about diagramming sentences, I was mentally scheming about getting some friends together for a camping outing that night.
Just a year or so earlier dad had purchased a large canvas tent with a set of twenty-some aluminum poles for our family. It came from the world famous outfitter—Sears Roebuck & Company. When properly assembled the tent created a small room that you could stand up in. It could sleep six, and maybe even eight guys— if you squished together. The canvas tent, poles and stakes all together probably weighed 30 to 35 lbs. State-of-the-art for family camping in those days.
The other critical element of my camping plan—the Eau Galle River—was also was just a few hundred yards from our house. Lying between our house and the river was a large cow pasture offering lots of flat space for setting up a tent. The only down side was that, before pitching the tent, you had to look for a spot that didn’t have any fresh “cow pies.” A ten year-old never minds the details of knowing who owns the prospective camping ground or seeking their permission. It seemed that anyone owning that piece of land knew that it was prime camping territory and thus fair game to anyone with the desire to lug his or her camping supplies over the four strands of barbed wire fence to get to it.
So when that Friday school day ended, I asked a bunch of friends if they wanted to join me in camping next to the river that night. As I recall the group that came together was Jody Hannack, Mitchell Gjovik, Mike Lansing and myself [see footnote 2]. I had asked a few more friends, but they were unable to gain permission from their parents. This was likely, at least in-part, due to the very short-notice given, but in larger part due to forecast of heavy thunderstorms called for later that evening [see footnote 3]. I had not considered that storms would play a role in our camping experience, so news of likely storms dampened my enthusiasm a bit and no doubt planted a seed for a new camp location. While some friends couldn’t come, we had a group of four, a big enough party to make a go of it.
As my friends came together at my house to start the process of lugging gear to the cow pasture near the river, a new camping spot came to mind. Maybe we should set up the tent on top of the hill behind our house instead of hauling all the camping gear all the way to the river. It was a shorter haul, even if it was up an incline of a steep hill. There was a relatively flat spot at the top of the ridge next to our 30 foot high television antenna tower (the antenna allowed our family to get free, but snowy reception at our home in the valley). The ridge location still gave us a good overlook of the river, even though we couldn’t enjoy being right next to it. It also gave us an option of having quicker access to my house if the predicted storms got bad.
The storms got bad.
It rained very hard and heavy. It started late, maybe midnight or one in the morning and went steady all night long. I don’t think Jody, Mitch, Mike and I had been asleep very long before the thunder claps and waves of pelting rain woke us up. After listening to it pour and boom for over an hour, we noticed that our canvas tent began to seep in water. Our beds started getting wet and there was no sign that the rain was going to stop soon. It was then and there that we decided it was time to collect our sleeping bags and walk down the hill in the rain and lightening to get into my dry and warm house. We were soaked by the time we made down the hill dragging pillows and sleeping bags. Mom heard us come in (she was probably expecting us) and got up to make sure we were all right. She got towels to dry us off and made sure everyone had a bed to sleep in for the rest of the night.
By 8:00 a.m. the next morning we were all up and sitting around the kitchen table having breakfast. As we were eating toast and Cheerios, Mitch’s dad had unexpectantly arrived. He was driving his station wagon in a very slow manner up our long driveway. When he got to our door and saw us, we each witnessed the oddest mixture of emotions I think I have ever seen on a man’s face at one time. He was at once mad, over-joyed and then relieved with welling tears in his eyes.
You see the last word he had from Mitch was that we were setting up camp next to the Eau Galle for which he gave his approval. At 3:00 the morning he awoke to the strong storms and became concerned about his son, and all of us sleeping in tent next to what had to be a rising Eau Galle river. He decided to get dressed and go find us. But of course he could not.
Mitch had told his dad where we had planned to camp on the pasture near the river. But when he arrived in the middle of the night there was no tent, no gear, and so sign of us. The Eau Galle had risen up and was running swiftly over some low lying places immediately next to the river. Mr. Gjovik spent the rest of the night and into the early morning looking for us by walking along the banks of the swollen river, all while it continued to pour rain, searching for any sign of us or our belongings. As time went on he became more and more convinced that we had camped right next the river in a low lying spot and river had risen quickly enough to have washed us and our gear all down stream. When he arrived at our house in the morning he was prepared to tell my parents about his search, and his genuine fear that we had all drowned. He was quite reluctant to deliver this devastating news thus explaining his slow drive up our driveway.
So the sight we witnessed on his face as he came in our house was his emotional relief from hours of angst he had while searching up and down the river and not finding us. We of course we felt terrible to have unintentionally caused him such anguish. We only wished he had come to our home much earlier to see if we might be there. Of course my parents knew our location and knew that we were inside for the better part of the storm. Ironically, our camping spot on the ridge 70 feet above the river valley floor was safer from potential floods than nearly all of the homes in Spring Valley. When Mr. Gjovik saw that we were all happy, warm and eating breakfast he quickly forgave us for the terrible ordeal he went through. Our being safe was the best news he could have hoped for after he had convinced himself, just a short time earlier, of our watery demise.
Of course a couple lessons were learned from this boyhood misadventure, including learning to let all parents know the location of all camping outings and to remembering to call parents with any change of plans. Especially Mitch’s dad, Mr. Gjovik.
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Footnote: In the spring of 1969, my classmates and I were ten years old.
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Footnote: It is difficult to believe that my ever careful mother allowed me to plan to go camping next to the river with friends at the tender age of ten. Or approve of the selected alternative of pitching a tent on top of a hill next to a 30 foot metal tower that could act as a lightening rod during electrical storms. But I do not recall her giving any objections at all to these plans. My guess is that my dad moderated her concerns allowing boys to have these experiences.
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Footnote: The Eau Galle River has a long history of being prone to flooding. The most notable occurred in the fall of 1942 that virtually destroyed the village of Spring Valley. Because of the history of floods, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a large earthen dam just upstream of the villiage during the mid-1960s. The dam now captures sudden surges from the water-shed due to heavy rains and melting snow. A side benefit of the dam is that it created a reservoir called Lake George. Even thou the dam prevents serve flooding, residents of Spring Valley that lived through the flood of 1942 have been ever careful about trusting the river.
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