Page 204 - "Mississippi in the 1st Person" - Michael James Stone (Demo/Free)

This was the third instance since starting his trip on May 1 that the semi-retired engineer was at se-
rious odds with the river. His rig had proven burdensome in the shallow depths of the snakey,
marshy river channel, capsizing twice and causing long camping delays to dry everything out.

He also found himself walking for miles in the river when it was too low to paddle, and he cut his
hands badly while clearing downed trees and brush from the stream.

The distance that most conventional paddlers cover in two days had taken Stone two weeks. He
was in a river swamp miles north of Bemidji on a shallow flow choked by wild rice and cattails.
Both kayaks were marooned and the surrounding muck would have swallowed him if he had
stepped out.

As a cold front intensified, Stone was getting battered by wind laced with snow and sleet. His hat
and gloves had blown into the river, and he was missing a shoe. His trailing kayak was out of reach
and he was losing dexterity in his hands.

It was after 7 p.m. on Friday the 13th. DNR Conservation officer Brian Holt was looking ahead to
the next day’s fishing patrols on Bemidji area lakes. That’s when a State Patrol dispatcher called on
him to find a “kayaker in distress” somewhere between Pine Point Landing and Rice Lake, also
known as Manomin Lake.

Holt called lake resident Bud Burger, requesting to use his private access to begin the search. With
binoculars, Burger could see two kayaks a mile across the lake.

Holt and a second DNR conservation officer, Paul Parthun, set out in a canoe that was equipped
with paddles and poles to push over low spots. The wind was gusting over 20 miles per hour and
the temperature was dropping, on its way to an overnight low of 25 degrees.

“I don’t think he would have survived,” Parthun said late last week. “He was so cold, he couldn’t
do things. He couldn’t eat a candy bar.”

Parthun and Holt found Stone huddled in his kayak under a sheet of plastic. He was holding an
umbrella, trying to block the wind before a gust turned it inside out and slapped it into the mud.
Stone was aware of his surroundings but paralyzed by the cold. The officers radioed for an ambu-
lance to meet them at Burger’s dock.

Parthun said the rescue was the most physically exhausting work he has ever done as a warden. He
and Holt were paddling and poling against the wind and against an opposing current. They were
both drenched in sweat when they returned to shore. “We were fighting darkness,” Parthun said.
“We wanted to get him in as quickly as possible.”

Stone couldn’t walk without assistance. He was shaking uncontrollably as the officers helped him
to the ambulance. At a hospital in Bemidji, he was treated for frostbite and released at 3 a.m.

Barry Lyons, a DNR employee in the Bemidji area who cared for Stone, said the heavy gear situa-
tion was a “recipe for disaster.” Lyons is affiliated with an informal group of so-called “River An-
gels” who live along the Mississippi and lend assistance to thru-paddlers.

“He told me he has no doubt he would have died that night,” Lyons said.