Monday started with a thick morning overcast that burned away by noon. The clouds disappeared and the wind shut off. It was so calm that the ropes to our anchors were completely slack and the boat did not move. It was a slicker.
The morning bite was not as good as I thought it would be with the early overcast and it only got worse as the day progressed. By 2:30 the skies grew dark and the clouds converged into a wicked storm cell. The giant black cloud above our heads was literally churning in a clockwise formation. It was like we were looking up at a tornado forming above us. I know, what were we still doing on the lake?
In the distance a dark blue electric show exploded and we decided it was time to scoot. We motored towards the Saganaga boat landing with the erupting storm on our heels and watched the sky turn greenish black. Last time we saw a green cloud up here a lot of trees blew down. We rounded the corner from James Bay and could see some canoeists heading out towards Clark Island.
Risky, I thought as we got closer and realized they were a large group of young girls. I stopped and told them to paddle back to the narrows and grab a campsite. They were very spread out from each other in four different canoes. The first three canoes agreed to head for shore and turned around while the fourth canoe was further away. Within seconds the wind cranked up to gale force strength and the three girls in the fourth canoe capsized. The other three canoes were still a long way from shore and I was expecting them to be capsized as well. The waves turned into fast moving three-footers and the lightning was directly overhead as we approached the three girls who were clinging onto their submerged canoe.
They were surprisingly calm considering the circumstances and we managed to pull each of them into our boat. I got on the marine radio and called Voyageur Canoe Outfitters for assistance and they sent out two more boats. We collectively gathered up the paddlers and gear and got everyone up to a campsite. The storm passed over just as quickly as it formed and nobody was injured—just scared. They were lucky.
The girls made a bad decision to paddle into the storm, but they were all wearing life vests and had most of their gear tied to the canoe. Lifting a person into a boat is not an easy task, especially in big waves. Our boat was lifting up so high in the waves that I was afraid it would come down on top of them. We decided to push our boat away from their canoe and grab them up—one at a time—as they swam away from their capsized vessel.
The green cloud was not as big or intense as the July 1999 blow-down storm, but it did take some trees down on the Canadian side of Saganaga. Lucky for us, the storm was brief. The emergency forecast called for golf ball-sized hail, which we thankfully did not see. I would imagine some more “storm stories” might surface and I can only hope they were as fortunate as us.
Cory Christianson has worked as a fishing guide on the Gunflint Trail since 2000. If you have any fishing or wildlife reports or stories to share, send an email to: christiansoncory@hotmail.com or call 218- 388-0315. You can also visit Cory’s website at Gunflintfishingguide.com.
Leave a Reply