THUNDER BAY - Clinging to the side of a half-submerged canoe in the icy waters of Lake Superior, Rich Luskleet and his son AlexGollat-Luskleet, kept reassuring each other someone would find them.
“We just never gave up,” Rich said.“The thought of continuing to fight, to get us home. I knew that as long as we held on that someone was going to find us.”
The longer they spent in the water, the harder it became to hold on, as five-foot waves continued to flip and turn their 14-foot aluminum canoe. The only thing keeping their heads above the water and preventing them from drowning were the lifejackets on their backs.
When they set out on a short fishing trip from their camp at Portage Drive on June 11, the lake was calm. Not long into the trip the winds started to blow from the west and soon they were facing three-foot waves.
Unable to turn back to shore because of the wind and the waves, the canoe was eventually swamped and the duo was thrown into the water.
“One big wave picked us up and dropped us,” 13-year-old Alex said, describing the moment the canoe capsized. “I grabbed the boat right away.”
Everything in the canoe was blown away or lost in the waves, including Rich’s cellphone that was in a plastic bag but fell out of his pocket when he fell into the water. With only the canoe and their life jackets to keep them afloat, Alex sat waist-deep in the half-submerged canoe, while Rich clung to the side. For hours, the wind and waves continued to push them further out into Black Bay.
“I was definitely scared for my son,” Rich said.“I know that it’s Lake Superior and the water gets very cold and it was very cold that day.”
The water temperature that day was between three and four degrees Celsius. In water that cold, hypothermia can set in within minutes. Rich and Alex were in the water for almost six hours.
“The whole time we knew and we talked to each other, saying: Mom is going to see that we’re not there and get some help, and that’s exactly what happened,” Rich said.
Shivering, numb, bruised, and cut, Alex spotted a boat cutting through the five-foot waves.
“That’s probably the happiest I’ve ever been,” Alex recalled.“Once I saw that boat, I just started screaming to come over here and put my hands up in the air.”
The Coast Guard dispatched a C-130 from Kingston and the OPP and volunteers searched the lake for hours. The pair were eventually pulled from the water by an off-duty OPP officer and neighbor, who ventured out into the rough waters to search for the lost boaters. Rich and Alex had drifted so far from shore that it took 30 minutes by boat to bring them back to shore.
“I can’t even express in words how much I appreciate them just going out to look for us,” Rich said of all those who participated in the search.
After they were transported to hospital, Rich and Alex learned that they were lucky to even be alive. Suffering from thermal burns on their legs and severe hypothermia, their kidneys and livers were already starting to shut down and the white blood cell count in their blood was as high as a person with cancer.
“We were shutting down, our bodies were clinically shutting down,” Rich said.“I can only attribute being alive to the will we had to survive. We were not going to give up out there.”
The entire ordeal has brought Rich and his son closer, and Alex said that he couldn’t have survived if his dad wasn’t with him. But Rich added that the incident was traumatic for everyone and strengthened the family bond.
“It wasn’t just myself and my son out there,” he said.“It was my wife and my two older daughters dealing with the fact that they couldn’t see us anymore and that something was wrong.”
Despite the harrowing experience of being adrift in Lake Superior, Rich, who describes himself as an intermediate outdoorsman, has not allowed the incident to deter him or his son from enjoying the outdoors and even venturing back out onto the lake.
“It reinforces the respect that you have to have for the lake,” he said.“It’s amazing how quickly the waves can turn. Not turn on you, but turn.”
Rich said that if anyone finds themselves in a similar situation, they must try to remain calm. He also advises to stay with the boat.
“Boats are designed to float,” he said.“Even if you can’t get in there, hang on to that boat, because it’s also a big object for someone to find you in.”
But the most important thing, and what probably saved both Rich and Alex’s life, was that they were both wearing a lifejacket.
“We had all the required safety equipment in our boat, but unfortunately it all floated away or sank. The one thing that didn’t float away was our lifejackets,” Rich said.“Every time the boat would get turned over, it was our lifejacket that brought us back up.”
“Wear your lifejacket,” Alex added. “If we didn’t have our life jackets, we probably would have drowned.”
