April 2009
Creature from Snoop Lagoon
You don't know how much a tool means to you until you've lost it. I was out on a canoe trip; a three week romp through an area in Northern Ontario called the Dead Lakes. I was the guide of the trip, being run out of Keewaydin Camp on Lake Temagami and we were about half way through our trip. But this was no vacation, although we are a camp for boys ages 11 through 18, this is the most rigorous tripping you can imagine. Since it's founding in 1897 not much has changed. Our style is a mixture of French fur trader and Ojibwa. That means we travel in wood canvas canoes and tump strap instead of backpacks. Loads usually range from 80 to 120 lbs and trips can be as long as 60 days without seeing another soul through areas that has never been traveled before.
So I bring my Leatherman Wave. Although the whole experience hasn't changed much (we traded in our canvas tents and started using nylon tents about 30 years after the rest of the outdoor world), a Leatherman is the perfect tool for the job. I can blaze a trail and fix my boot all in one. So on our Dead Lakes trip, I brought my Wave as my only tool. We were just entering the area know as the Dead Lakes, called that for the water high acidity level that makes the lakes clear and blue like the Caribbean, when we stopped on a portage to swim in a lagoon off the trail. The lagoon was barely visible until you walked up to its edge, then you peered down into a pit to a sparkling blue lagoon, written in our 30 year old trip notes as "Snoop Lagoon". It had a cascading waterfall and plenty of cliff jump.
From early mud and muskeg encounters, my pants were in need of a good wash. I plunged into the cool water, pants on. We were having a great afternoon. I was climbing an overhanging birch tree and doing flips into the water when something terrible happened. I was climbing up the trunk, around some branches, when a branch unlatched my Leatherman case and my Leatherman Wave fell into Snoop Lagoon. I saw it sink fast, through the clear water and down into a rock crevasse. Everyone immediately realized the severity of the situation and stopped horse play. Everyone aided in the effort, taking turns diving down the 15 feet to the crevasse and reaching our arms into it searching for it. I would swim down and peer down into the crack, seeing a glimpse of silver, reaching but coming up empty. Finally after many attempts, the staff man of the trip swam to the surface, after an especially long dive that made us think he'd gotten his arm lodged in the rocks, holding my Leatherman. I had thought it was hopeless and was pleasantly surprised to be reunited with the only thing I'll bring out on trip with me, a Leatherman Wave. I’ve got that same tool sitting on my dresser right now, waiting for the next adventure.
Dan A.
Baltimore, MD
OK, you voyeur, you. Enough of reading other people's stories. It's time you told your own tale of gripping heroism or even just neat DIY'ism. We know there's a Shakespeare in you somewhere. Don't make us use the Steens to find it.