The Plunge

"So, this is how it ends for me," I said out loud to myself as I felt my arms and legs become too heavy to lift.

The weird thing is that I never felt cold, except for my hands. I never shivered. I did break a freshly-painted nail trying to claw my way out of the icy river. The lack of pain and cold was my primary thought, dreadful acceptance that this was the end.

It all started innocently enough. Beautiful, sunny day. Twenty degrees out and very little wind. Denali was dying for a run, and I was dying to soak up some sun and fresh air. "Dying to..." has a funny ring to it now, about six hours later.

I bundled up in layers - my black long underwear, jeans, thermal shirt with a red buffalo plaid flannel over the top, wool socks (every day of the year up here), wind pants, black winter boots that are a little too fancy for 4-wheeling, my purple parka with the wolf ruff, black fleece neck warmer instead of my usual grey fleece scarf, winter goggles (with pink trim), super-insulated black snowmachine mitts (my trigger finger - right thumb on the 4-wheeler - always gets cold, though), and my rabbit fur Russian hat that keeps my ears especially warm. I was set and Nali was dancing in circles as she watched me get dressed, knowing what all of those layers meant.

I drove right down the main drag through Unalakleet with Nali running by my side. Her tongue was already hanging out by the time we rode across the bumpy river access point behind the AC Store. Because of the past couple of colder days, the overflow was frozen and we headed up the river.

After a couple of miles, Nali was showing signs of being thirsty, wandering off the main trail to the glare ice that had the look of open water but was frozen a foot deep or more. She was slipping and sliding and didn't like that feeling so she started to stick more to the main path with packed snow.

"Don't worry," I told her, "There's some open water up ahead where you can get a good drink before we head back."

I had heard that the open water along the side of the river at this one certain point was were locals would get water for their dry cabins when they were out here in the winter, so I figured the ice around it must be solid enough. I picked up speed, trying to hurry Nali to the water source.

There it was, on the north side of the river. I parked the 4-wheeler on the side of the trail, turned it off and tried to talk Denali into going over there and getting a drink. She acted like it was just more glare ice, so I got off of the machine and started to walk gingerly that way. The ice seemed solid enough and there were a lot of animal tracks going to one certain area by the edge of the water, so I headed that way, thinking that it must be the thickest. She was still leery to come too close, so I squatted down, took off my right glove, and leaned to splash the water so that she could see that it was good to drink. CRASH!

The ice under me gave way and I was in the water. I immediately reached for the ledge from which I had fallen and it gave way again. My chest hurt. My heart pounded. I tried again to pull myself up but my feet were too heavy, and I could not touch bottom. The open water was about four feet wide and 10 feet long, going the length of the river which was flowing pretty good, and carried me easily to the west end of the opening, trying to pull me under the ice. I turned to the side facing the shore. There was only about five feet of windswept ice between me and the shore, but it was slick. I couldn't grab anything. I couldn't get any traction with my wet gloves. I tossed my right glove aside and dug my nails into the ice, but it was like trying to grab a wet mirror.

The current kept pushing me against the west edge of the opening, so I turned my back to it, laid back, using my wolf ruff hood as bouyancy to keep the back of my head downriver and out of the water, and kicked my feet to the surface, sliding first my right foot and then my left up on the snow covered ice shelf. I was able to scoot my butt, back and head up on the shelf just barely before it collapsed under my weight and I was back in the water.

I thought of my cell phone in my pocket but was unsure that my hands would be able to hold it, much less dial for help. Besides, by the time help arrived (I was at least four miles upriver), I'd be dead. I tried the same thing again, leaning back, but by this time, I had been in the water for a couple of minutes and my limbs felt like concrete. I wondered at the lack of cold, just heaviness. It was becoming difficult to see. Even my head was heavy as I took every last ounce of strength I had to scoot myself up sideways on to the ledge again, on my back.

It held. The ledge held. For the first time, I thought I might actually survive, but I still had at least 10 yards to get back to my 4-wheeler and I couldn't move. I couldn't even roll over. Denali was dancing around me. All I could see were the puffy, white clouds slowly moving across the blue sky. I was soaked to the skin, through all of those layers, but I wasn't cold.

"This is where they'll find me," I thought, still wearing my goggles, hat, and neck warmer pulled up over my nose, "frozen solid."

Still, there was no pain, no cold, not a shiver. Just heaviness. My eyelids were too heavy and the world went black.

Then, I heard it. The whine of a snowmachine coming upriver. It was all I could do to reach my water-logged, still-gloved hand to my mouth and pull down the black fleece over it to yell, "Help! HELP!"

I couldn't even raise my arm in the air to signal and the world was still black. Bootsteps came crunching across the snow. I was sliding away from the water hole.

"Ms. Kysar!" my sophomore student, Jaysen, announced to the others, "Are you okay?"

"I am now," I said, slowly. "I wouldn't have been in another minute or two. You almost got a new English teacher," I smiled.


I opened my eyes and asked for help standing up. Two men pulled me to my feet and I removed my goggles so that they could all identify me. That's when the pain hit. I moaned as I walked to the white, extended cab pick-up truck. Jaysen had been on a snowmachine with another teenager and his dad, Norm, had been in the truck with three men who were in town for the weekend basketball tournament. My legs would hardly move as I willed them toward the truck. I couldn't lift my leg so Norm had to help me get into the passenger seat, dripping cold river water everywhere, wind pants starting to freeze.

The ride back to town was warm. I never even shivered. Denali wouldn't lay in my lap because I was so wet. Jaysen drove my 4-wheeler back for me. They made sure I made it into my house before heading back to the school gym.

I cried and cried in the warm shower, water running down my beet red core and thighs. I felt cold to the touch, but still never even shivered. Warm clothes, hot tea and soup, flannel quilt, and episode one of War and Peace brought me back to life.

Word spread quickly through the village and many people have stopped in to see me today or called me on Bonnie's phone. Bonnie, my dear friend and neighbor, left her phone with me so that I could call out if I start feeling bad. My phone is resting comfortably in a jar of rice.

Chris McCandless

Reflecting on the day's events, I did everything wrong. I reminded myself of Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild. When I first read that book, it made me angry. How could someone be so stupid, so unprepared? He did everything wrong! Today, I did everything wrong. I went out alone in an area that is relatively unfamiliar to me, and I didn't tell anyone where I was going. I walked up to open water from the middle of the river. I walked across ice that I thought was stable because it had prints on it, probably fox prints, now that I think back. I didn't have any safety gear with me for a situation like that - not a knife, nothing.

One of the men in the back seat of the truck told me that he's heard of people carrying a screwdriver in each pocket when they head out in the winter, for situations just like that. You can bet that I'll be doing that from now on!

I did everything wrong, but I lived to tell about it. It's truly a miracle that I walked away, unharmed. How do I thank someone who saved my life? If I ever had any doubt before, now I know that my purpose here has not yet been fulfilled. I could easily have been another statistic today. I'm still in shock that I made it out alive, but I'm here in living color. When I was clawing at the ice, trying to pull myself out, I was thinking of how young it would be to die at 48, how fitting for me to go in a situation like that, though, doing what I love. I thought about my daughters' weddings coming up this summer. I thought about my sister. I wondered where my dog was and where she would go. The funny thing is that not once did I think about my dad and about the possibility of seeing him again on the other side. I think it didn't cross my mind because it wasn't my time.


***March 8, 2016 Update***

When I went back to school on Monday, all of my students wanted to hear the story. After telling the story to Jaysen's class, he corrected me. He told me that I never actually made it out of the water that second time. I must have been hallucinating and my body was so numb that I didn't know where I was. He said that the only thing out of the water when they arrived was my head, laying back on the ice shelf. I was submerged from the neck down. My wet, wolf ruff had frozen to the ice, keeping my head above water. The circumstances were even more dire than I knew.

He also told me that, as they approached, they thought Denali was a wolf and one of the men in the truck was loading his gun, getting ready to shoot, when they saw me in the water.

Wow. Just wow.