ANDY'S LOST

When in 1988, our friend's son Andy, was lost at sea in the frigid Bering Strait, we received a frantic phone call from his parents asking us to hold their Andy "in the light." Thus began a two week odyssey that unfolded both on those ice clogged northern waters and in the hearts of many New Jersey Quakers.

Andy is the son of a New Jersey Quaker family. They were good Friends as well as good friends. As a recent college graduate, Andy went off to teach High School to the Siberian Yupik-speaking Eskimo people in Alaska. He chose to live in a village called Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, which is about 100 miles long by 30 miles wide and lies in the Bering Straits of the Bering Sea. Gambell (pop. about 400) is geographically about 200 miles west of the city of Nome, Alaska and about the same distance south of the Arctic Circle.
Whereas, despite what some folks think about Sarah Palin's vacuous remark of her ability to see Russia from her land, in fact, on a clear day Gambell residents can see the Siberian coast which is only 38 miles away.

After living in Gambell for five years, Andy married Holly, an island native, and at the time this story unfolds, they had one daughter, Denise.

While Andy taught there, he also learned of the Yupiks' incredible survival skills, which they needed on their hunting trips at sea.

On this particular spring hunting trip, Andy accompanied his friends, the walrus hunters, on their annual hunt. By law, Andy, (an Anglo, not a Yupik) is not permitted to hunt walrus, so he went along as photographer. Two hunters including his brother-in-law, Mike were Andy's relatives. These spring hunts provided meat to be shared by many families. Eight boats were provisioned for only a one day trip and by the third day, all but two of the skiffs had returned. Andy and six hunters, (including two teenaged boys) in the two boats, had separated in the fog and thus began a 21-day sea saga upon which many long Alaska winter nights' tales would be based.
* * *
One morning, as Andy awoke, he brushed the sea from his eyes and his mind cleared a bit, he remembered that for almost twenty days now they had been adrift in two small, open, aluminum skiffs, and pulling the hood of his parka down over his face, he cried a little, quietly, to himself.

Andy most of the time thought in his heart, that all would survive and return home -"because Eskimos know how"- but there were other times...

He knew:
"They could read the weather... After so many generations of surviving they have a very strong belief in it... They've done it for thousands of years and they can do it this time.

"They shot birds, they knew which parts you could eat raw and which parts had the most water content. We were able to cook walrus and seal meat. It keeps for a really long time. We burned wood that we ripped off one of the boat seats...

"One night we saw a ship. We signaled it with seven flares. The ship seemed to stop so we paddled like crazy. When we were about one mile away the boat left. That broke my spirit."

After their tenth day, Andy, with a nail, scratched into his plastic camera case...

"6/12/88 Dear Holly, Denise, I love you both with all my heart and soul! I pray that I will get to see and hold you in my arms. Love, Andy/Daddy"

Usually, however, Andy's feelings appeared more positive...

"None of us brought sleeping bags and we slept curled up in the bottom of the boats, trying to keep warm and dry. We dreamed a lot to pass the time. I dreamed about fruit juice and Holly and Denise. There were times when it felt like it must be the last day and it would dawned on me that if I lasted that day, I could do another. We were very frightened at night. Everyone was so tired, we took turns staying awake and manning the rudder. We were sailing any way the wind would blow us, and there was someone assigned at all times to bail. we tried to keep the swells behind us so they would not swamp us.

"We survived storms, fog, and ice by eating walrus, seal and ducks and by drinking water from pools on top of icebergs where we would haul up for rest. Once, I stepped on the wrong piece of ice and fell into the frigid water. One minute you were standing at sea level, then the next you'd be looking 15 feet down into the water. When we left our last iceberg we had to drop the boat off the ice ledge, fifteen feet into the water and then jump into it.

"Once we got off the ice floes there was nothing but water and ice in all directions. We didn't see land for days. After a while it kind of felt like we were really alone out there, but it turns out we really weren't. We never gave up and no one else did either."
* * *
Our local, New Jersey, Quaker Meeting became actively involved when Andy's parents telephoned from Maine to tell us their concern, and to ask the Meeting to hold their Andy "in the light." Holly had phoned them from Gambell, saying that two of her blood relatives, along with Andy, were on the lost boats. Holly said being lost at sea for a few days was not uncommon among her people and they usually show up but this had gone on much too long. She thought that her in-laws ought to know... just in case.

After days of anxious waiting, Andy's folks flew up to Gambell to try to help with the search. They said that we in New Jersey could help if we would continuously telephone the Alaska Coast Guard Search and Rescue Station to encourage them to continue their search. And, as often happens when a few Quakers get concerned, our international and geopolitical network seemed to explode, and things developed rapidly.

We spoke via phone or directly corresponded with family, friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, politicians and legislators on both sides of the aisle, and at the federal, state and local levels. The U.S. State Department bureaucrats, officers, and their counterparts in the Soviet Union, (and remember, in 1988 there still was a Soviet Union) came to know many of us Quakers, quite well. Somehow, someone in our network was even able to contact the Soviet Maritime Service, MOREFLOT, at Vladivostok, USSR. U.S. Coast Guard personnel, the office of the Governor of Alaska and several of his staff often began their answers to our phone questions began with "Oh, It's you again...". The Quaker Mission to the United Nations, the American Friends Service Committee offices in several cities, the local, national and international print and TV news media, were all clearly and persistently made aware of our concern "in the manner of Friends."

In fact so many were made aware, by Quakers as well as non Quakers, that we soon lost count, due to the quick action taken by so many who simply wished to share in this rescue.

The long Alaska days (more than 20 hours of daylight at that time of year) helped the U.S. Coast Guard to search the 83,000 square mile area. They used local Eskimos as spotters because they know how the ice and currents move. The Alaska Air National Guard tried to fly over Siberian coastal waters but Russian interceptor planes quickly intervened to stop them. When the Quaker network was told this, we contacted our State Department to encourage them to convince the Russians to permit Siberian over-flights to aid in this search. After some initial bureaucratic intransigence on both sides, the then Governor of Alaska encountered a surprisingly warm reception from the Russians and obtained that permission.

"Why shouldn't we be allowed to search that area", the Siberian Yupik Mayor of Gambell asked:

"There is no border (between Russia and the U.S.) out there in the ocean, just ice and water."

This was the first time since before WWII that the Soviet government allowed over-flights of foreign aircraft into that highly-restricted Siberian airspace. Now, years later, we understand that it was "Cold War Thinking" that made the restrictions so real. But U.S. Coast Guard reports of July 1988, clearly indicate that Russian ships and planes, also aided in the search.

After the search was over, Andy's dad wrote a beautiful letter to Mikhail Gorbachev, thanking him for his help. Reading a copy of that letter made me re-examine my own priorities. in our potentially hair-trigger world politic today I began to understand why and how our "shared Quaker network" could facilitate the Alaska Governor's obtaining search permission over Siberian territory, while our supposedly all powerful U.S. military could not. I suspect that the answer lies more in Dr. Albert Einstein's idea... that you cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war, neither in world militarism nor politics.

* * *
All this activity took place during only two weeks, and many funny, and curious events occurred during all this activity.

Quakers are also known as Friends, and Friend Asa, spoke first, that First-Day (Sunday) after Andy was found. He spoke about sharing and survival, saying that one recent morning, he had a strange and powerful feeling that Andy would be found. He said that he wrote down the feeling on a scrap of paper, but also felt he needed to share it. He needed to tell someone because he wanted to be certain that someone knew what he'd felt; so that people would not snicker, after Andy was found, and say "Sure, Asa...", in that patronizing way some affect, when confronted with someone who thinks he sees things.

So Asa told Louella, and Claire and several others, and this morning he told us all. His message (in what Quakers call our "vocal ministry") was followed by several others who, in that gathered sense that sometimes happens in a Quaker Meeting, also spoke of "sharing" experiences.

A distant Pennsylvania Quaker, during our networking, described our concern to a woman friend who believes she professed some degree of clairvoyance. She told this Friend that "...everyone in the boats were safe...", but when asked why the radio contact had been so infrequent, (each boat was equipped with a CB radio) she said she "saw" a "broken wire" in one radio. In fact, a broken wire was later found in one of the radios.

Another Quaker telephoned a then New Jersey Congressman, requesting help to contact our State Department. This phone call produced the following ludicrous response from a staff member:

"Are you certain this Andy is an American Citizen, and if so, what is his social security number and exactly where and when was he born? Exactly what was he teaching those people up there and who was paying him to do it?"

It took that Quaker a while to calm down, but to hear him tell it: "I immediately understood why only about 40% of Americans vote."

* * *
An interesting irony is that despite all the mountains of transnational power we Quakers moved with our shared concern, the seven survivors were not found in Siberian territory, but virtually in their own back yard.

A sailing ship out of San Diego, the Hawaiian Tropic Cyrano, happened to be in the area. Since the early 1980's, her crew had been engaged in helping reunite separated Siberian Yupik families on both sides of the Bering Strait. The politics of US/Russian separation had divided several of these families for years. (Not unlike our Korean Police Action) Also on board were several anthropological researchers, who had been studying Eskimo survival techniques and as they were in the area, they decided to look for the lost walrus hunters. It was Cyrano's crew that actually picked up the first faint, signal from their radio (some say it was the one with the "broken wire").

The seven men had beached their boats in a deserted land area about 15 miles east of Cape Siknik, on the southeastern shore of St. Lawrence Island, and only about 75 miles from Gambell. Hawaiian Tropic Cyrano relayed their location to the Alaska Air National Guard pick-up helicopter and thus directly facilitated the men's retrieval.

On the day they were found, Gambell weather, was too poor to bring them there, so the helicopter first landed in Savoonga, another small village on St. Lawrence Island. Observers and village neighbors from all over the island swarmed around the hunters offering them a heroes' welcome as they disembarked.

Becky, mother of Holly and Mike said:

"I cried and cried until the tears dried out. People kept on telling me they'll be OK but I was very worried and getting weak. I could hardly eat or sleep. Now everybody's happy. I have a house full of people drinking coffee and tea."

An elder in their community, said this was our old ones way we down-play something as simple to an Eskimo as survival:

"They looked healthy and happy except a little tired."

Another reaction came from Junior, one of the survivors. Despite the fact that he was 39 year's old, Junior, a professional hunter from Gambell, was the acknowledged leader during the 21-day ordeal. Junior had much to say...

"They (the others) always doubted, but I said, `I always make it', no matter what.

" You gotta believe. You don't want to think negative no matter how long it takes. My oldest son had a calendar watch. They were always asking him what day it was. I told him don't tell the days anymore. Don't tell them that. Let the days go by.

"My boys learned a lot from this. Probably the most important things, like cooperation and helping each other at the most difficult times, and keeping their heads cool, and never giving up. Just never giving up. There is always hope."

Even Andy commented on the endurance of Junior's sons, who were 13 and 18 respectively.

"The two [boys] were very courageous, no complaints, or whining. They were so accepting of what they had to do. It is the most admirable quality I've ever seen in younger people."

But despite all the sharing and kindness they were still adrift and lost at sea for 21 days. Press accounts told of what and how they ate and drank and their attempt to stay dry both in and out of their boats. But not how they dealt with the psychological pressures for all that time not knowing if there would be...

"...a five minutes from now?"

How, under long periods of stress, did four men and two boys with the shared Siberian Yupik heritage, interact with Andy (an Anglo) who lacked that heritage? Was blood thicker than water?

Andy said:
"Junior was the leader of both boats. Junior was in charge. He accepted that responsibility. He made all the lifesaving decisions. Sometimes he kidded, sometimes he threatened, as tensions among all the men erupted into argument. Junior often told the men to "knock off" their morbid discussions of how long they had left to live. Speaking in Yupik and in English and with sheer force of will, he constantly made it clear he would not accept anyone's dying. Arguments over water rations, what should and should not be kept on board, sometimes erupted into screaming and yelling.

"One day, in anger, Junior cut the two boats apart. I was in that other boat. Casting that boat adrift cooled the heated tempers of us less experienced men who, having to deal with the frighteningly vast and angry sea, soon came to understand Junior's words:

"...I got two sons with me. I'm trying to live. I'm not going to roll over and die, you can adapt to anything..."

Clearly the survival of all the men, not just the Yupik, was sought. So it was, Sharing and Survival, Eskimo and Anglo, as Junior said:

"Some of the petty prejudices you take for granted down in the lower 48, don't make much sense up here in the Arctic."

* * *
After returning to Maine, Andy's father described some the events from his perspective:

"The seven men drifted on ice floes and sailed with makeshift sails for three weeks without seeing land. The last five days they had no water. Andy told me how, when they were in the boats during intense fog, they collected water that condensed onto their sail made from a plastic poncho. Hour after hour, one man held a taut, short string at the edge of the sail for the water to run down into his canteen.

"Andy and two others were hospitalized (Andy for five days) for dehydration and exposure. Andy probably suffered the most, due to genetic differences between Eskimos and Anglos. He lost 38 pounds and the sensation in his feet, but this gradually returned."

Andy's mom, added...

"We have a new appreciation for the power of prayer, and for the survival skills of the people with whom Andy has made his home for the past five years. We were impressed with their faith, how they never stopped assuring us that the hunters were going to return. It was really the most consuming emotional experience I've ever had... I will never forget Holly's aunt coming into the room where I was resting, late on the evening we arrived, and praying with me in Yupik, or the crazy wild joy of the village the night the men were known to be alive. Everyone was running around hugging, kissing, laughing, crying, and praising God all at the same time. The faith and support of the Yupik people were amazing. And then hearing Andy's voice for the first time and neither one of us being able to say much for the tears and joy we both shared."

So perhaps the... blood-thicker-than-water... cliché doesn't stand up very well with the real survivors of this world.

A month after his rescue, Andy wrote a letter to our Quaker Meeting in New Jersey, expressing his thanks for all our efforts. Parts of Andy's letter generated several ideas that I will meditate on in my silent worship.

"There were times on the trip that reminded me of [Quaker] Meeting. At certain points, I felt very peaceful and rested. Even though I was in the middle of nowhere, life seemed OK and I was happy. It was a feeling that I used to get when I sat in Meeting for Worship. I liked the feeling and I drew strength from it then and now.

"The experiences that I went through have had a building effect on my life. I took a good look at my life as the trip wore on. I looked at where my life has come from and what I have done with it. I decided I had no regrets with the past but there were improvements to be made in the future. I am thankful for the experiences I have endured even though they were painful."

Epilogue

So today, sharing and survival issues are very much on my mind. Now perhaps, I need to make a leap of faith and broaden my thinking forward from this long ago powerful Alaska story, to today's laundry-list of pressing sharing and survival issues. Cause that's what they are!

Issues such as the Keystone pipe line; the shale bitumin coming down from Alberta; the all too frequent oil spills; the pervasive fracking throughout the USA, that could destroy our clean drinking water; our dilatory response fixing our out-dated infrastructure; or quite simply... global warming. We undoubtedly will face all and perhaps others in the near future.

Can we, all together, Quakers as well as all the good people of our world, mount such an effective "Sharing and Survival" campaign?

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The direct quotes from Andy and several others in the story were obtained by personal communication and a review of local, national and international press that followed the event.